Hong Kong: HK-Mainland boost tech ties Chief Executive Carrie Lam My Government believes in the promise of innovation and technology (I&T). Last year, at this forum, I outlined our major innovation and technology policies and programmes. This is an opportune time for me to update you on some of our initiatives. Over the past year, we have introduced a super tax deduction of up to 300% for R&D (research and development) expenditure incurred by private enterprises starting from the 2018-19 fiscal year. We have also set up an Innovation & Technology Venture Fund to co-invest in local startups. We have committed $10 billion to establish two research clusters that focus respectively on healthcare technologies and artificial intelligence and robotics technologies. We have also injected $20 billion into the Research Endowment Fund of the Research Grants Council to provide sufficient funding for R&D at universities. Taken together, these initiatives would considerably strengthen our innovation and technology ecosystem and provide a big boost towards our goal to double Hong Kong's R&D expenditure as a ratio to GDP to 1.5% by the year 2022. For the two research clusters on health technologies and AI (artificial intelligence) and robotics that I mentioned last year, we have been sounding out notable international companies, universities and research institutions. The response, I am pleased to say, has been cheering. To date, we have received some 50 proposals, many of which are supported by an MOU signed with Hong Kong universities for undertaking joint R&D projects. We expect that the first research institutions will be setting up their laboratories at the Hong Kong Science Park before the end of this year. Dynamic startup scene Our startup scene, I am pleased to say, is also flourishing. The number of startups in major public and private co-work spaces and incubators here in Hong Kong has grown 18% to more than 2,600 at the end of 2018. Of the founders, some 35% were from outside Hong Kong, showing that Hong Kong is an attractive place for talent and entrepreneurs from around the world. With the number of startups increasing, we are also sighting more unicorns here, with several of those begun at our flagship innovation and technology institutions - Hong Kong Science Park and Cyberport. Speaking of which, Cyberport is now home to more than 1,200 companies and startups, but we want more. That is why we have announced in this year's Budget an allocation of $5.5 billion for the development of Cyberport 5. The expansion, expected to open in 2024, will add about 66,000 sq m of floor space to Cyberport. Our ability to attract institutions, startups, talent and investment from other countries is in no small part due to Hong Kong's "one country, two systems" framework. That gives us a clear and compelling advantage in the region. This is underlined in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area development. The far-reaching development emphasises co-operative development, focusing on the distinct strengths of each of the Greater Bay Area's 11 cities, that is Hong Kong, Macau and nine prosperous Guangdong municipalities. One of our distinct strengths will definitely be our international network, established over the years under "one country, two systems". Beyond our international connectivity, Hong Kong offers top universities and scientists, a pro-business environment, the rule of law underpinned by an independent judiciary, and reassuring intellectual property protection. It helps, too, that our logistics and communications infrastructure is world-class. Add it up, and you know why the world looks to Hong Kong to connect and excel. An Outline Development Plan for the Greater Bay Area development was promulgated by the Central Government in February this year. It identifies Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou and Shenzhen as the four core cities, as well as the key engines for driving the regional development. Among others, the plan expects Hong Kong to play a key role in the Greater Bay Area's emergence as an international innovation and technology centre. This is in line with the steer and support given by President Xi Jinping who, noting our solid science and technology foundation and a large pool of technological talent, considers Hong Kong an important force in implementing the nation's innovation-driven development strategy. Considerable advances Hong Kong is already at work in building an impressive foundation for our strategic role in the Greater Bay Area. The Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation & Technology Park, some four times the size of the current Science Park, is now under construction in Hong Kong, strategically close to Shenzhen. We are also enhancing R&D collaboration with other cities and research institutes in the Mainland, thanks to the relaxation of cross-boundary remittance for science and technology project funding. Financial technology is another important area, a growth sector we are committed to running with, for the Greater Bay Area and the Asian region as a whole. I know the Financial Secretary will be speaking tomorrow at the summit's FinTech Forum, so I will leave it to him to detail the considerable advances we are making, from our Faster Payment System to virtual banking, insurtech and a good deal more. But let me just say that, with innovation and technology being the focus of the Greater Bay Area development, and given Hong Kong's status as a global financial centre, the Greater Bay Area has all the potential to be both the Silicon Valley and the Wall Street of the East. Ladies and gentlemen, the theme of this year's Internet Economy Summit is Digital Economy - Redefines our Future. With the encouraging developments that I have outlined just now, I would say that Hong Kong's innovation and technology is developing in the best of times. In particular, with a population of over 70 million and a combined GDP of some US$1.6 trillion, the Greater Bay Area opens up new development horizon for the region and provides Hong Kong with a huge opportunity to grow our economy and uplift the well-being of our people. It is up to us all to seize this opportunity. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Today's summit is the first of the many events Hong Kong is organising to honour this significant milestone. There will be more to come, and I look forward to having you in our celebration events. Chief Executive Carrie Lam gave these remarks at the Internet Economy Summit 2019 on April 15. This story has been published on: 2019-04-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. pabradyphoto/iStock(LONDON) -- After nearly seven years essentially trapped inside Ecuador's embassy in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had become an expensive bother to his hosts they wanted him out. "They were over him, he was a big nuisance," one senior U.S. official told ABC News. "They were saying This is too much. How do we get him out?" But revoking his diplomatic asylum at a time when he was wanted by the United States for his alleged role in hacking and publicizing some of the nations most sensitive government secrets would come only after covert, back-channel negotiations, ABC News has learned. The process of moving Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy started a year ago, on March 7, 2018, when the Ecuadorians made their first request to the U.K.: a letter asking for written assurances that the U.K. would not extradite Assange to a country where he could face the death penalty, according to the Ecuadorian Interior Minister Maria Paula Romo. Ecuador's direct outreach to the U.S. came six months later, through the countrys ambassador to Germany, Manuel Mejia Dalmau, according to U.S. and Ecuadorian officials. Dalmau sought a private "emergency meeting" in Berlin with the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, viewed as one of President Donald Trumps closest envoys in Europe, the officials said. At the time, Dalmau said Ecuador was spending between $30,000 and $35,000 per month to house Assange because of his need for extra security and his demands for extra space within the embassy, according to a senior U.S. official, who was not authorized to discuss the issue on the record. The Latin American country said it has spent $10 million on Assange, including medical expenses, legal counsel, food and laundry since 2012 when Assange first sought asylum from Sweden where he was the subject of a rape investigation an inquiry he has claimed was politically motivated. Prosecutors in Sweden on Thursday announced they intended to re-open the investigation. Assanges presence was also creating a squeeze on the Ecuadors London facilities, forcing officials there to rent additional offices for an expanding diplomatic staff because Assange took up so much space. The challenge the Ecuadorans faced in turning him over to British officials, though, was the prospect of Assange facing the death penalty, which Ecuador strongly opposes. Dalmau was blunt in his request, according to U.S. and Ecuadorian officials. During one meeting, Dalmau asked whether the U.S. would commit to not putting Assange to death, according to a senior US. official. Grenell then contacted the U.S Justice Department to see if he could provide assurances that the U.S. government would not seek the death penalty. According to the senior U.S. official, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein consented. That enabled Grenell to make the pledge. The agreement between the U.S. and Ecuador was a verbal one, according to a source in the Ecuadoran government. The State Department declined to comment on this story. U.S. Justice Department officials would not confirm that the U.S. agreed to take any sentence off the table. But they pointedly noted that the charge the U.S unsealed against Assange does not represent a capital offense and carries a maximum of five years in prison. The Justice Department has 60 days from the time of the request for extradition to add any charges and would not comment on future charges. There are only 41 U.S. federal offenses punishable by the death penalty. Nearly all of them have to do with murder or death resulting from some other crime or action. Two notable exceptions are treason and espionage. It is unclear if the U.S. ever contemplated an espionage charge, or if one would have been applicable for the conduct described in the indictment filed under seal in March 2018 in the Eastern District of Virginia. The indictment alleges that Assange in 2010 agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on United States Department of Defense computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network, a United States government network used for classified documents and communications. These government materials included diplomatic cables and disturbing videos of U.S. military forces in Iraq. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism. BEIJING, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Honor plaques had been issued to more than 20 million families with active military personnel or veterans as of early April, according to the Ministry of Veterans Affairs. To further promote the work, the ministry required local authorities to deliver the plaques to those qualified families and leave them the decision whether to install them or not. It also asked for digital archives of the issuance of the plaques and the information of the families. More efforts should be done to create a strong atmosphere of respect for veterans and those in active service throughout society, said the ministry. When it comes designing for her namesake denim label based in Amsterdam, Sophie Hardeman is all about defying convention. For her fall 2019 collection, the designer's deconstructed, gender-fluid clothes applied "a Harde-core approach to modern love" to its brand ethos. Because, like love, good jeans are hard to find, the designer hosted a speed-dating event at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles to streamline the process. Showcasing their seventh collection aptly titled, "Hard Love," the looks made up of "swirly denim dreams and knotty knots set the tone for a contemporary approach to love." With tie-dye tops and pinstripe jeans as the new date-night staples, the interactive presentation set models up as the cast of contenders to choose from for a shot at love. Related | Practice Safe Sex With Hardeman The seductive invitation read, "Are you ready to turn a new leaf? Happiness is right around the corner!" Like the feverish feeling of adolescent love, Hardeman promises its clothes are surely "embracing you with fluffy fabrics and Knitty knits." The world's first armed amphibious drone boat Marine Lizard is successfully delivered on April 8, 2019, China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) announced on Friday. Photo: screenshot of CSIC's Sina Weibo account China has built the world's first armed amphibious drone boat which military analysts said could be used in land assault operations and is capable of forming a combat triad with aerial drones and other drone ships. Built by Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group under China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC), the drone ship, named Marine Lizard, successfully passed delivery checks and left factory on April 8 in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei Province, CSIC revealed on Friday via Sina Weibo. In ship form, the 12-meter-long Marine Lizard is a trimaran propelled by a diesel-powered hydrojet and can reach a maximum speed of 50 knots while maintaining stealth. When approaching land, the amphibious drone ship can release four continuous track units hidden under its belly, and travel at 20 kilometers an hour on land, the Hubei Daily reported on Sunday, citing an unnamed company manager. The manager also noted the maximum land speed can be increased if larger track units are installed. The Marine Lizard's payloads include an electro-optical system and a radar system. In the weapon department, it is equipped with two machine guns and a vertical launching system for anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles, the manager said, noting it can autonomously sail, avoid obstacles and plan routes. This amphibious drone boat is suitable for island assault operations as a swarm of such drone ships could lead an attack following a first wave of artillery and air strikes, an anonymous military expert told the Global Times on Sunday. Approaching land from the sea is a dangerous task, and the Marine Lizard can take advantage of its unmanned nature to discover enemy positions and provide suppressive fire as troops follow, the expert said. The drone boat is also a great choice for coastal defense. The company manager said it can remain dormant on an uninhabited island for up to eight months before engaging in combat once it receives orders, according to the Hubei Daily report. Provided with world-class navigation by China's independently developed BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, the Marine Lizard can cooperate with other battle units in an integrated command system, the manager said. The anonymous expert also pointed out the amphibious Marine Lizard can possibly form an unmanned sea-land-air integrated combat system with aerial armed reconnaissance drones and other drone ships, which can engage in combat with great efficiency and low risk of casualties. Having a maximum operation range of 1,200 kilometers, the Marine Lizard can be remotely controlled via satellites, the company manager said. The drone is available for export, as it is developed with the needs of international clients in mind, according to a statement released by Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group. University of Tehran's 6th Startup Weekend: Sustainable Tourism 04/15/19 Source: Tehran Times TEHRAN - The 6th Startup Weekend, which has adopted "Sustainable Tourism" as its focal theme, is to be hosted by the Faculty of Entrepreneurship of the University of Tehran. startup-weekend.ir Organizers of the event aim to put into practice and develop ideas evolved by participants while [they are set to] teach basic concepts of entrepreneurship together with running practical workshops and promoting the spirit of team working, IRNA reported. Running from May 1 to 3, the event will be held in collaboration with the Iranian National Commission for UNESCO and the Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization. Based on CHHTO statistics, the Islamic Republic hosted over seven million foreign nationals during the first eleven months of the past Iranian calendar year (started March 21, 2018), which is seen as a remarkable rise from the same period last year. Iranian FM's reminder to E3: No prohibition on enrichment under JCPOA 04/15/19 Source: Press TV Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has reminded the Europeans that a 2015 nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, does not prohibit the country from enriching uranium. Zarif's reprimand in a Monday tweet came after French Ambassador to the US Gerard Araud said Tehran should not need to be "massively enriching uranium after the JCPOA." "Reminder to our E3 partners in #JCPOA: There is NO prohibition on the enrichment of uranium by Iran under #NPT, JCPOA or UNSCR 2231," Zarif tweeted, addressing France, Germany and Britain. The three European countries opted to remain in the nuclear deal after US President Donald Trump abandoned it last May and reimposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Araud tweeted Saturday that "sanctions could be reimposed" on Iran once the nuclear deal expires after 10 years, prompting the Islamic Republic to summon France's ambassador to Tehran. "Neither now, nor in 2025 or beyond. Might be useful for European partners to actually read the document they signed on to, and pledged to defend," Zarif retorted on Monday. Reminder to our E3 partners in #JCPOA: There is NO prohibition on the enrichment of uranium by Iran under #NPT, JCPOA or UNSCR 2231. Neither now, nor in 2025 or beyond. Might be useful for European partners to actually read the document they signed on to, and pledged to defend. Javad Zarif (@JZarif) April 15, 2019 In January, France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian threatened Iran with sanctions if it did not address what he alleged as international concerns over Tehran's ballistic missile program. "We are ready, if the talks don't yield results, to apply sanctions firmly, and they know it," Le Drian said. Earlier this month, Britain, France and Germany accused Iran of "developing missile technology in violation of UN resolution," and called for a full UN report in a letter delivered to UN chief Antonio Guterres. The EU trio also claimed that Iran's launch of a space vehicle and unveiling of two new ballistic missiles in February were inconsistent with UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which was adopted just after the signing of the 2015 nuclear agreement. Resolution 2231 calls on Iran "not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons." Iran denies having any such program and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly confirmed the peaceful nature of Tehran's nuclear activities. In his Saturday tweet, deleted later, Araud said, "As we said in 2002 that enriching uranium without a credible civilian program was illegal under the NPT, we'll be able to react likewise in 2025 if necessary. Sanctions were imposed. Sanctions could be reimposed." Iran's Foreign Ministry called Araud's remarks "unacceptable" and in "open violation" of the nuclear deal. The ministry's Hossein Sadat Meidani called for an explanation from Paris, saying that if the case is not addressed, Tehran will pursue it based on the mechanisms envisaged in the JCPOA. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi also warned France of adverse effects of Araud's remarks, saying such statements amount to blatant violation of the nuclear accord. Under the JCPOA, Iran undertook to put limits on its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of nuclear-related sanctions imposed against the country. Last month, IAEA head Yukiya Amano once again reaffirmed Iran's compliance with its commitments under the deal. After cleaning up the banking sector, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) is now set to raise GH7 billion from the government to support distressed savings and loans companies and other finance houses. In an exclusive interview with the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Ernest Addison, at the ongoing Spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank Group in Washington, DC, United States (US), he said liabilities of the savings and loans and other finance houses were estimated at GH7 billion. Although he did not say when the clean-up exercise of the savings and loans companies would begin, it is expected that the process will begin before the end of the year. It is, however, unclear which module the central bank will adopt: either a purchase and assumption agreement, by which strong savings and loans companies will take up selected assets and liabilities of the insolvent ones, or consolidation of all the insolvent ones into a new savings and loans entity. The module to adopt, according to Dr Addison, was part of the ongoing discussions between the central bank and the Ministry of Finance to iron out the best module to save the sector that was almost in distress. The government spent almost GH12 billion last year to liquidate seven distressed banks and the cost of cleaning up the savings and loans companies and other finance houses were becoming a burden to the government. We see the cost of the clean-up of the micro-finance sector as not that much, compared to what we are seeing in the savings and loans and the other finance houses, which is about GH7 billion. We have done our analysis and the estimate of the clean-up of the sector is about GH7 billion, which we have to find to complete the process. The engagement will ensure that the necessary funds can be raised on the part of the government to cushion depositors of these institutions, Dr Addison said. That could be one of the toughest measures the BoG is taking in recent times to sanitise the savings and loans and other finance houses sector. He said the government would have to bear the initial cost of the clean-up exercise and later recover its liabilities from the assets of the companies. Imminent shake-up There are currently about 37 savings and loans companies and 22 finance houses, with almost a quarter of them in distress, a situation which analysts say requires a shake-up. We just have to ensure that no depositor loses his or her savings, so will do all we can to protect depositors, he said. Only eight out of the 37 companies operating in the savings and loans sector have paid-up capital above the minimum amount of GH15 million. It is expected that the central bank will seek to enforce the existing minimum threshold of GH15 million as part of the reforms of the sector to ensure that those that are not able to meet their capital requirements lose their licences. This is because the quality of assets in the sub-sector has been troubled by the record high non-performing loans (NPLs). The savings and loans and finance house sub-sector dominate the specialised deposit taking institutions sector in Ghana, accounting for 42 per cent of the total asset size of the sub-sector. Classification of financial sector Ghanas financial services sector is classified into three main categories banking, non-banking and micro-finance institutions. Savings and loans companies fall under the non-banking financial institutions category, while micro-finance companies fall under the micro-finance category. According to BoG regulations, a savings and loans company is supposed to have an initial capital requirement of GH15 million, while that for a micro-finance company is GHc2 million. Whereas savings and loans companies require licences before they can operate, micro-finance companies can operate with provisional licences before they obtain their final licences. Perhaps the most distinctive difference between the two sectors is the amount they can take from depositors. While clients of savings and loans companies can deposit any amount in their accounts, the client of a micro-finance company cannot deposit more than five per cent of the companys capital at a go. Source: Graphic.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Our sages of old were right when they taught us that an elder who sits at home and allows children to eat python will not be left out when the roll call of python eaters is conducted. The elder is supposed to know better, command authority, exude wisdom and call the young ones to order when they go wayward. For this reason, the elder should not escape blame if he or she looks on or deliberately looks away while those under him or her are engaged in wrongdoing. When that elder pretends not to be looking, allows the mess to be caused and then comes back to speak empty words against the act, then he ought to be reminded that any man who cultivates his farm with only words will definitely harvest weeds. President Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo has always been condemning acts of violence perpetuated by known thugs of his party since he won the December 2016 election. Before he took office, the nation witnessed violent seizures of public toilets, tollbooths, markets and the locking up of offices among other barbaric acts of lawlessness. The culprits are known. The president condemned the acts. But no one has been jailed for these criminal acts. Two months after the president took office, twenty (20) people were killed at the Kintampo Waterfalls in the Bono (I hope we will agree to stop writing Brong) Ahafo Region. Seventeen of them were students of Wenchi Senior High School. It had rained heavily that day, and some trees fell into the waterfalls, crushing them to death. This was an accident, but when questions were asked why authorities of the waterfall did not evacuate the children when it started to rain, it emerged that thugs from the Presidents New Patriotic Party (NPP) had seized the waterfall and were running it. Professional tour operators would have acted differently and saved lives. A deputy general secretary of the NPP, Nana Obiri Boahen, defended the take over of the waterfall. He said the National Democratic Congress (NDC) had done same in the past. Unfortunately, but predictably, nobody was punished or held responsible for the loss of the 20 lives. In the months that followed, the Invisible Forces, Delta Forces and other thugs from the presidents party took turns to dominate the headlines across the country for the wrong reasons. A weekly slideshow of violent takeovers became a national ritual and assumed a disturbing rhythm to which the nation danced dangerously along, hoping against an escalation but knowing that an explosion of violence is inevitable and imminent should things remain this way. The president missed no opportunity to condemn the acts, but nothing has come out of it. This went on until the Delta Forces attacked the Ashanti Regional Security Coordinator and destroyed state property at the office. The President appointed the man, but the thugs thought he was not the one they liked. When some of them were arrested and taken to court, the thugs stormed the court and set them free. They were re-arrested and fined with peanuts. But those who stormed the court and set them free in broad daylight have not been touched. To put weight on the Presidents condemnation of the Ayawaso violence will be like putting premium on the words of Akpeteshie Kwaku or Kofi Kagyingyi, the two notorious drunkards who used to roam the streets of Kete-Krachi whenever the intoxicating liquid from the palm trees seized control of their nervous system and anointed their tongues with vulgarities. It will be like trying to convince an adult with his or her sanity intact to trust the promises a man makes to a woman at the peak of his sexual ecstasy. The armed men, we are told, were deployed by the National Security. The Minister of State in charge of National Security, Bryan Acheampong, has confirmed that. When they later removed their masks and their pictures got onto the Internet, people identified them as party boys of the NPP. It is no wonder, then, that they went into action with their faces, masked. I personally confirmed the identity of one young man who was linked to the NPPs National Organiser. It is unfortunate to say this, but that is the stark reality: the presidents words are empty and meaningless as usual. Nobody will be punished. The Inspector General of Police is as impotent as a castrated pig in these matters. He has been reduced to a puppet of the politicians and he knows it. Nothing will happen to anybody. No investigation will take place. Those who have been shot and maimed have be wounded for free. Nobody will be held responsible. The police officer who was attacked will not get justice. This will further sink the morale of the police service. The NDC pulled out of the by-election and former President John Dramani Mahama did not mince words when he warned that the NDC would match the NPP boot for boot in the 2020 election if the NPP decided to continue with the violence. He went on to remind the NPP that the NDC comes from a revolutionary background and could not be outdone when it comes to violence. The Chairman of the National Peace Council, Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante condemned President Mahamas utterances: I would want to say that President Mahama, with all humility, I will plead with him to apologise to the nation. In making that statement, he has really created fear in the hearts of people President Mahamas words are unfortunate, but President Akufo-Addos empty condemnation for the past two years of growing violence is worse. And if the Chairman of the Peace Council knows what creating fear really means, he should have first condemned the masked and armed men as well as those who deployed them. It is shameful for the Peace Council to see President Mahamas speech as really creating fear when it failed to see the danger in deploying armed men outside the constitutionally mandated security forces to conduct operations during elections. What will happen to the party guys being used by the politicized National Security when NPP leaves power? These men have been trained and armed. In the name of secrecy of the National Security, the arms and ammunition procured for them did not go through any transparent system. Apart from those who recruited and deployed them, nobody knows the number AK47 assault rifles, pistols and other weapons that are in the possession of these men. When the NPP leaves office and they are jobless, and the proverbial devil decides to find work for idle hands that are adept in the use of rifles, it will not place them in restaurants. President Mahamas words are condemnable, but in the current circumstances, he could not have said otherwise. The NDC had to withdraw from the Ayawaso by-election. Should the party withdraw from the 2020 election should these same forces go rampage and attack voters and police officers? Former President Mahama, like those who complain about the growing insecurity in Ghana, is a powerless man. He has a role to play in ensuring peace in Ghana, but the man who has sworn an oath to keep this nation safe and has been given the power to do so is President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. He is the President and Commander-In-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces. Mr. President, in March 2016, I wrote an article saying that the NDC was persecuting your party members using the police and state security agencies. I said your party did not deserve our sympathy because if you won the 2016 election, you would do the same thing. You have escalated it to an absurd level. There will always be a thousand and one reasons to justify the madness if you want to pay back the NDC. However, Ghana is not only about the NDC and NPP. If you continue this way, Ghana will burn, and there will not be any nation to house the NDC and NPP. Remember that the lion and the antelope and the lion are sworn enemies, but neither of them would set the forest that houses them ablaze. Please, be different, Mr. President! Source: Mannaseh Azure Awuni Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Self acclaimed spiritual hacker who is globally known for his mysterious spiritual calculations says he had already predicted a Coup detat in Sudan two years ago. According to Mallam Shamuna Uztaz Jibril, he foresaw the danger and told host of Good Evening Ghana, Paul Adom Otchere in an exclusive interview. I was discussing Nana Addos government on Pauls show but was forced to divert the issue to Sudan President, Umar al-Bashir. I said he will face challenges in his political future. I said he will be chased out, he said. The three-decade rule of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has ended. In a television address, Defense Minister Ahmed Awad Ibn Awf said the 75-year-old leader has been arrested and put in a "safe place". The Army General also announced the dissolution of the government, the suspension of the 2005 constitution, along with a three-month state of emergency. He also said Sudans airspace will be closed for 24 hours. The armed forces will take power with representation of the people to pave the way for Sudanese people to live in dignity, Ibn Awf said. Sudan's ousted President Omar al-Bashir's career has been defined by war. However, Mallam Shamuna has named some Presidents who he claimed are sitting on time bomb. The following Presidents are on a serious time bomb, Togo, Kenya, King of Saudi Arabia and Cameroon. Besides, Donald Trump should save his money and respect himself for not going to the 2020 presidential USA elections, he predicted. Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/ Twitter: @Washman5/ Instagram: Ambrose_wash Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Ghana is showing the way in using technological innovation to solve local problems in governance on the continent, Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has said. Dr. Bawumia said over the past two years the Akufo-Addo administration has rolled out a vast number of digitization initiatives to facilitate access to and enhance the delivery of government services. Technological innovation is helping us finding better ways of solving local problems in governance, Dr. Bawumia disclosed this at the Emerging Markets Summit on the theme "Digital Governance in Emerging Markets" at the University of Chicago Booth Business School in the United States of America on Saturday, 13th April, 2019. He said, in order to realise the Ghana Beyond Aid Agenda a conscious effort is being made by the ruling New Patriotic Party government to formalize the economy by leveraging technology innovation and digitization. With digitization, we are introducing new and more efficient ways of doing things. We are changing the way things are done in the affected institutions for the benefit of ordinary Ghanaians, Dr. Bawumia said. Outlining some of the reforms which have been undertaken in the digitization and formalization process in the last two years, Dr. Bawumia stated: The introduction of National ID Cards (with fingerprints, Iris and photo) is a game changer and the process should be completed in another year. Everyone will have a unique ID (like the Social Security Number) from birth to death. It will form the basis for an integrated national database system (drivers licence, passport, health, police, voting. We have leveraged on technology to introduce a Digital Address System. Every 5x5 square meter of land or water in Ghana has a unique digital address. The mobile application (GhanaPostGPS) is available on the google playstore or iTunes. Can find any location in Ghana. The UK, for example, took 15 years to roll out the postcode system. Thanks to technology, we did it in one year with more precision." To address the challenge of financial inclusion, Vice President Bawumia indicated that Mobile money payments interoperability has been implemented. 34.5 million mobile money accounts but only 30% of the bankable population is banked. We have solved the problem of financial inclusion be making mobile money accounts interoperable with bank accounts (the first country in Africa to do this. This is a major step to financial inclusion and movement towards cashless payments for government services. With this, Ghana is set to abolish cash payments for government services as all payments would be possible electronically whether you have a bank account or not. In addition, Dr. Bawumia mentioned the innovative online National Health Insurance registration, online tax-filing system, e-registration of businesses, automation of the application for Business Operating Permit, automation of the construction permit system, implementation of an electronic justice system to track court documents, the paperless port system and the yet-to-be rolled out Zipline medical drone system. Leapfrogging to an innovative knowledge-based economy is necessary if we are to stimulate a sustainable path of development anchored to the wealth of our natural resources. To this end, we are investing in free senior high school education to make sure children from poor homes are not denied senior high school education, a graduate internship and learning programme covering a 100,000 young Ghanaians for starters, and support for young entrepreneurs through a National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme, the vice president stated. Dr. Bawumia said the government will continue to play its role of making the environment conducive for the private sector to develop solutions to our local problems. As government, we need to play a role not only in planning the application of technology in addressing our development challenges, but also in the facilitation and promotion of enterprise level technological efforts. We believe that some supportive role of government is necessary for the development of technological capabilities in our quest for industrial pathways, he concluded. Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Chief Executive Officer of the National Youth Authority, Mr. Emmanuel Sin-yet Asigri has advised the youth of Ghana to be moderate, well-behaved and prudent during this years Easter celebrations. In a goodwill statement to extend his profound greetings to the youth, Mr. Asigri went on to advise the youth to focus on the real essence of Easter which essentially is to recount the sacrifice made by Christ for the atonement of sins and to refrain from all manner of excesses and unproductive behavior. As we celebrate Easter, I wish to send my heartfelt greetings to all stakeholders of the NYA especially to the youth. I also want to use this occasion to express my appreciation to the entire staff of the Authority for their dedication and service to the Authority and to the country. It is their dedication and commitment that has enabled the NYA to continually deliver on its mandate as the lead government agency responsible for the development and empowerment of the youth. He said consultations towards a review of the National Youth Policy has ended and that a nationwide survey to elicit inputs is currently underway and tasked the youth to actively participate in the process leading to a final, comprehensive and workable document that is relevant and one that adequately addresses the needs and concerns of our nations youth. He noted that the campaign against drugs and substance abuse notably tramadol, which the Authority launched in August 2018, remains in earnest and called on the media to join hands with the Authority in the effort to address the danger. I wish to commend the EIB network for their partnership in the campaign and would like to appeal to other media outlets to also join the NYA in this well intentioned pursuit to end the scourge of tramadol abuse and to help equip our youth to become responsible citizens armed to contribute their quota to the nations building and development exercise the CEO reiterated. The C.E.O reechoed the NYAs preparedness and resolve to collaborate with all stakeholders to uphold and consolidate the core objects of the Authority which is to Promote in the youth a sense of self-reliance, leadership, discipline and civic responsibility and to ensure the total development and empowerment of the Ghanaian youth for their meaningful participation in the development of the country. I remain upbeat about the youth development project. My tenure as CEO of the NYA has offered me a rare opportunity to meet and interact with Ghanaian youth across the spectrum especially during the recently organized youth volunteer work camps held across the nation and the stakeholder engagements towards the review of the 2010 National Youth Policy which has come to an end and I can say without equivocation, that I am placed in a unique position to appreciate the uniqueness of our youth and we shall continue to work hard to ensure their needs is catered for. Mr. Asigri concluded and thanked the Authoritys partners notably Star Ghana, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the UN system, Actionaid, Youth Bridge Foundation and the media for their continuous support of the programmes and activities of the Authority. Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Linda Asante-Agyei, Vice-President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), has asked female media practitioners to upgrade and equip themselves with skills that would push them into higher positions of challenging tasks, in their respective organizations. They must be assertive and brace themselves up to confront the difficulties associated with the profession, while proving to be outstanding in their practice as well as protecting their rights, as women in the profession. Mrs. Asante-Agyei was addressing female Journalists and Photographers at a two-day workshop, on Gender Safety and Equality Workshop, organized by the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), in Collaboration with the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). The two-day gender specific capacity building event, which took place in Kumasi, received sponsorship from the Norwegian Union of Journalists. The Journalists were taken through topics such as Accepting Differences and Dealing with Discrimination, Journalists Rights and Gender Agreement at the Work Places, Combating Sexual Harassment at the workplace and Dealing with Safety on the Field of Work. Mrs. Asante-Agyei said the GJA acknowledges the important role female journalists played in executing the core functions of the journalism profession, which was mainly dominated by men. She noted that GJA has put together a legal team to defend journalists when their rights are abused. The GJA vice Chair, advised female journalists to take up precautionary measures in their line of duty and make sure that they were always alive to tell their story. Mrs. Alice Tettey, an IFJ trainer and the Central Region Chairperson of the GJA, urged female Journalists to make sure they were safe both inside and outside the newsroom. Also the Central Regional Manager of the Ghana News Agency, Mrs Tettey insisted that victims of sexual harassment must report to the higher authorities, males who harassed them sexually and not to succumb to their advances while ensuring that their rights and privacy were respected. Madam Georgina Ama Ankumah, the Ashanti Regional GJA Secretary, also an IFJ trainer, who took the participants through Dealing with Discrimination, said Journalists must not be subjected to unnecessary arrest, detention and torture. She said female journalists, in particular, must not be discriminated against on the grounds of gender. They must be assigned important roles and given equal opportunities just as their male counterparts. 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. Featured Video Women who have fled into the bushes from the conflict in English-speaking regions of Cameroon are using moss squashed into balls as tampons, risking infection. One 16-year-old explained to BBC Focus on Africa the challenges she is facing since she left her home: Quote Message: There is no way we can get sanitary towels in the bushes. The nearest town is too far away and its not safe to go there. We use rags during our periods and its not easy finding pieces of cloth to use. I know its dangerous and one can easily get infected."There is no way we can get sanitary towels in the bushes. The nearest town is too far away and its not safe to go there. We use rags during our periods and its not easy finding pieces of cloth to use. I know its dangerous and one can easily get infected." Another woman explained to me what she had been using for the last six months: Quote Message: Moss plant it grows on cocoa trees. Our mothers used it in those days when sanitary towels did not exist. You crush it and shape it into a small ball or tampon. Then you insert it deep into your body. This is what Ive been using for the six months Ive been in the bush.Moss plant it grows on cocoa trees. Our mothers used it in those days when sanitary towels did not exist. You crush it and shape it into a small ball or tampon. Then you insert it deep into your body. This is what Ive been using for the six months Ive been in the bush. Health workers strongly warn against this because of the risk of infection. More than 300,000 people have been forced to flee their homes, according to the International Crisis Group. Militias began to emerge in 2017 after a security force crackdown on mass protests, led by lawyers in wigs and teachers in suits, over the government's alleged failure to give enough recognition to the English legal and education systems in the North-West and South-West. The government was accused of relying heavily on people trained in the French legal and educational tradition to work in key posts and generally marginalising Cameroon's English-speaking minority, who make up about 20% of the population. Source: BBC Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video http://vv.chinamil.com.cn/asset/category3/2019/04/15/asset_355888.mp4 China on Thursday asserted its sovereignty over the Nansha Islands in the South China Sea citing historical evidence of thousands of years and stressing that any disagreements over the issue should be handled through negotiations. The Chinese assertion came in response to last week's remarks by Philippine officials claiming a section of the islands as belonging to the Southeast Asian country, and on a day when U.S. warship USS Wasp carrying at least hi-tech stealth fighter jets took part in key war games with the Philippines in the South China Sea. "We have taken note of these remarks made by the Philippine officials. The Nansha Islands are China's territory, which is backed by sufficient historical and jurisprudential evidence," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang told reporters in Beijing. "For thousands of years, Chinese fishermen have been fishing in these waters in the South China Sea. Their rights should not be challenged." Last Friday, the Philippines protested against the "illegal" presence of Chinese ships near Zhongye Island, one of the Nansha Islands. The Department of Foreign Affairs said the action was a "clear violation of Philippine sovereignty" and President Rodrigo Duterte even warned of a military escalation. However, China downplayed the Philippine reaction that came on a day when officials from both sides were engaged in talks on South China Sea issues and maritime activities under the Fourth Meeting of the Bilateral Consultation Mechanism. The Chinese foreign ministry hailed the meeting as successful saying both sides exchanged views on all the "issues of respective concerns in a candid, friendly and constructive manner and reached fruitful outcomes." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang speaks at a press conference in Beijing, April 11, 2019. /Photo via China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Reiterating China's consistent belief that the relevant disputes surrounding the South China Sea should be resolved through negotiations between China and countries directly concerned, including the Philippines, Lu on Thursday said Beijing is "committed to upholding peace and stability in the South China Sea in concert with other regional countries." Lu also cited the "personal efforts" of Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Filipino counterpart Rodrigo Duterte that he said has put the two countries on "the right track of properly handling and resolving the relevant disputes through negotiation and consultation." Sounding upbeat about the current level of bilateral relations, Lu said the neighboring nations need to approach the matter in a peaceful manner. "The current situation in the South China Sea is generally stable, and steady progress has been made in the consultations on the Code of Conduct (COC). The China-Philippine relations have been turned around, consolidated and elevated to the comprehensive strategic cooperative relationship. This positive momentum is hard-won and shall be all the more cherished," he said. Last month, the two countries vowed to complete South China Sea COC negotiations by 2021 during Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin's visit to Beijing, where he held talks with Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. "We hope that the Philippine side could work with us to properly deal with the South China Sea issue, uphold peace and tranquility on the sea, and bring more benefits to the two peoples," Lu said. The spokesman expressed Beijing's willingness to cooperate with the Philippines in maintaining peace and stability. "We hope that the Philippine side will join us in strictly implementing the important consensus reached by the two leaders on properly resolving the South China Sea issue and safeguarding peace and stability in the South China Sea," he concluded. The USS-Wasp is pictured with another amphibious assault vehicle during the amphibious landing exercises of the U.S.-Philippines war games promoting bilateral 1ties at a military camp in Zambales province, the Philippines, April 11, 2019./Reuters Photo China, in March, had promptly warned the U.S. against stirring up "uncalled-for trouble" in the South China Sea or being "deliberately provocative." A taskforce formed by the Kenyan government has recommended recognition of intersex people as a "third sex". The taskforce suggested the introduction of an Intersex (I) marker on official documentation and that intersex people are counted in the census. Intersex people are born with both male and female sex characteristics, which can appear at birth or later in life. The UN estimates that intersex people make up 0.05-1.7% of global births. Based on Kenya's population of about 48 million, this means between 24,000 and 800,000 people would be intersex in the country. Campaigners in Kenya have long complained about discrimination, lack of recognition and a need for medical care for intersex people. This report, which was released on Monday morning, comes after almost two years of consultations. The task-force also recommends a review of laws to ensure equal treatment, respect and protection of the human dignity of intersex people. The report says that South Africa, Zimbabwe and Uganda are the only other African countries that have made attempts to explicitly recognise the existence of intersex people. If the taskforce's recommendations are passed into law, it could be the first African country to legally recognise intersex people. Germany, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, Malta, India and Canada have all passed measures to redress issues facing intersex citizens. Source: BBC Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video An Accra High Court on Monday ordered the Accra Psychiatric Hospital to conduct a psychiatric examination on Daniel Asiedu one of the suspects being held for the murder of J. B. Danquah Adu, former Member of Parliament for Abuakwa North. The court tasked the hospital to conduct the examination with dispatch without conditioning the execution, performance and discharge upon payment. The court presided over by Mr Justice George Boadi further ordered the hospital to conduct the examination within one month and submit the report by May 27. This would enable the court to ascertain whether or not Asiedu aka "Sexy Don don" is fit to stand trial. It further directed the Ghana Prisons Service to make Asiedu available so that the medical examination could be conducted smoothly. According to the court, its Registrar should also do well to ensure that the orders of the court were carried out by April 16. The court order came after Defence counsel for both accused persons Mr Augustine Obuor prayed the court to subject the 1st accused to psychiatric examination due to his behaviour and some statements he had made in relation to his choice of lawyers from the International Criminal Court. According to Mr Obuor, he had earlier made an application at the District Court but it was overruled. He said before the High Court could take his plea, it would be better than the soundness of Asiedus mind is ascertained stressing that under the law, a defence of insanity renders a trial a nullity. Defence counsel said he was minded to repeat the application before the trial court because his client at a point called him on phone only to inform him that he (Asiedu) was going to be installed as a chief in Akwapim and he wanted him take care of the food to be served during his installation. This, according to counsel indicated that all was not well when it comes to the capacity of Asiedus mental status adding in advanced countries, the medical examination would have been conducted without any hesitation. On the age of Sexy Don don, defence counsel noted that there had been instances where Asiedus age had been pegged at 18 years, 22years and 24 years. Mrs. Sefakor Batse, Senior State Attorney informed the court that Asiedu has not demonstrated in court that he was mentally incapable of answering to his plea. Mrs. Batse said as far as the state was concerned, we are not aware of any mental issues regarding Asiedu and opposed defences counsels application. Meanwhile, Chief Officer David Tsuishitoo of the Ghana Prison Service drew the courts attention to the fact that there was the need for someone to bear the cost of the examination. Chief Officer Tsuishitoo said there are about five of such cases that the service had to pay for since monies are often demanded by the hospital authorities before an examination could be carried out. He explained that the Service was compelled to pay for consultation and drugs because the National Health Insurance Scheme did not cover them. The court, therefore, ruled that its orders be served on the Ghana Prison Service as well. Asiedu is standing trial with Vincent Bossu aka Junior Agogo following the killing of the J.B Danquah Adu. Asiedu and Bossu are being held over the charges of conspiracy to commit crime to wit robbery. Asiedu is facing an additional charge of murder. The two are accused of their involvement in the death of the Member of Parliament at his residence at East Legon of which the two were arrested following Police investigations. The two suspects who have been remanded into Prison custody are expected to reappear on June 3 for the adoption of the medical report on Asiedu. 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. Featured Video The Chairman of the Ghana Education Service (GES) Council, Mr Michael Nsowah, has defended the need for the current reforms in Ghanas education sector beginning from the 2019/2020 academic year, which seeks to, among other things, introduce a new curriculum from Kindergarten to Primary Six. He said ample time will be given to junior high school students to get acclimatised to the new reforms, which include the use of a newly-introduced school uniform. You dont need to buy the new uniform that was displayed in September. Continue to use your very good uniform until it is so bad that you need to sew a new one, he added. According to Mr Nsowah, even though all the seven subjects currently being taught at the KG level were important, they were not in-depth enough, therefore, necessitating the decision to reduce the subjects to just four and integrate others into themes. We want to put emphasis on literacy and numeracy. It has proven that if children can communicate and can use numbers, it serves as a very good foundation upon which you can build future knowledge areas, he said on the Executive Breakfast Show (EBS) with Benjamin Akakpo on Monday, 15 April 2019. Mr Nsowah denied claims that the GES had failed to extensively engage stakeholders on the matter, insisting that primary stakeholders such as parents had been part of the consultative process from the initial stages. Source: classfmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry, Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah says former President John Dramani Mahama's comment on the Komenda sugar factory is unfortunate and wants him to 'shut up'. Mahama over the weekend advised government against disposing off the Komenda Sugar Factory in the Central Region. He said selling off the factory as suggested by government would not be in the interest of the people of Ghana. I heard recently that the government wants to sell the factory and it is unacceptable since this is an investment put together by the government of Ghana, he said. But, Carlos Ahenkorah, in an interview with NEAT FMs morning show Ghana Montie. explained that the factory lacks so many things. According to him, the factory can only process brown sugar and cannot turn sugar-cane into sugar as Ghanaians have been made to believe. You cant build a factory with no raw materials available. Its a shame. He should shut up, he said. Listen to interview Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/ Twitter: @Washman5/ Instagram: Washman007 Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The National Democratic Party [NDC] says the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is currently "gasping for liquidity breath" and on the verge of collapse under the Nana Addo-led government. The party alleged that the collapse is due to debts government owes service providers across the country. Speaking at the third edition of the partys Moment of Truth Series, the National Communication Officer, Sammy Gyamfi said Even the president knows this. According to the opposition party, the NHIS currently owes service providers in all sixteen regions claims covering a period of twelve months, a situation which has landed most health care facilities in distress. Akufo-Addo peddled blatant untruth when he claimed that the NHIS is buoyant and has come back to life the truth of the matter is that, then NHIS, very known to the president, is in deplorable state and gasping for liquidity breath. Currently, the NHIS owes service providers in all the sixteen regions of Ghana claims covering a period of almost twelve months. This has landed most health care facilities in distress Our health facilities are being crippled as result of the huge indebtedness of the NHIS to service providers The NDC also accused government of illegally transferring over GHC17 million of the scheme's funds into a private fund management company, All Time Capital Investment; a transaction that was done without due diligence and risk assessment. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have already demonstrated to you enough evidence of the wanton misapplication of NHI Funds by the Akufo-Addo government, which is fast precipitating the demise of the scheme. But, perhaps even more egregious are certain scandals we have uncovered, which have conspired with the above to cripple the scheme. "Our painstaking investigations have revealed that upon President Akufo-Addo assuming office, the National Health Insurance Authority without any due diligence and with indecent haste, transferred a whopping Seventeen Million, Five Hundred and Forty-Eight Thousand, Three-hundred and Seventy-seven Ghana Cedis, and twenty pesewas (GH17,548,377.20) in three tranches to a private financial house, All-Time Capital Limited, supposedly as investment.... ".....it is this same financial company, All Time-Capital Limited which was involved in the round-tripping of liquidity support provided by the Bank of Ghana to Capital Bank that eventually culminated in the establishment of the collapsed Sovereign Bank. From the foregoing, there is no gainsaying the fact that, there is more to this transaction than meets the eye," the NDC alleged. Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/ Twitter: @Washman5/ Instagram: Washman007 Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video A MOMENT OF TRUTH SERIES PRESS CONFERENCE ADDRESSED BY THE NATIONAL COMMUNICATION OFFICER OF THE NDC ON MONDAY, 15TH APRIL, 2019. THE NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE SCHEME IS FAST COLLAPSING UNDER THE AKUFO-ADDO GOVERNMENT. INTRODUCTION Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen of the press. On behalf of the National Democratic Congress, I thank you for your presence with us here today. This is our third edition of the Moment of Truth Series. These regular engagements afford us an opportunity to undertake a critical assessment of the Akufo-Addo administration in all facets of governance. The imperative to do this assessment is to enable us separate hard facts from fiction and euphonious rhetoric from practical solutions to help Ghanaians appreciate the naked truth relative to how the Akufo-Addo government is mismanaging the affairs of the country. Ladies and gentlemen, todays engagement focuses on the state of the National Health Insurance Scheme under the watch of President Akufo-Addo. Contrary to the flowery and rosy picture that President Akufo-Addo continues to paint at every given opportunity about the health of the NHIS, the fact is that, the NHIS is on the verge of collapse. INDEBTEDNESS OF THE SCHEME Ladies and gentlemen, recently in his State of the Nation Address and while on a tour of the United States of America, President Akufo-Addo peddled blatant untruth when he claimed that the NHIS is buoyant and has come back to life. The truth of the matter is that, the NHIS, very known to the President, is in a deplorable state and gasping for liquidity breath. Currently, the NHIS owes service providers in all the sixteen regions of Ghana claims covering a period of almost twelve (12) months. This has landed most health care facilities in distress. For instance, the Daily Graphic reported on Thursday, 28th March, 2019 that the Central Regional Hospital is on its knees begging to be paid an amount of GH6.1 million owed to it by the Scheme, in order to settle its indebtedness to suppliers of critical drugs and medical consumables. This is just one example of how our health facilities are being crippled as a result of the huge indebtedness of the NHIS to service providers. Ladies and gentlemen, we have also taken note of persistent claims by President Akufo-Addo that his government has cleared a total of GH1.2 Billion NHI arrears it inherited from the erstwhile Mahama government. We wish to state without any equivocation that, this claim is mischievous and not borne out by the facts. After the Association of Private Clinics and the leadership of Government Hospitals disputed this claim, one would have thought that the President will desist from peddling this obvious deception. However, it appears President Akufo-Addo is determined to deceive the nation as far as this matter is concerned. Indisputable evidence contained in the 2017 NHIS Fund Allocation Formula presented to the august house of Parliament by the Minister of Health shows that, total arrears of NHI claims stood at GH425.79 million as at December 2016. This completely belies the claims of President Akufo-Addo and exposes him as a very dishonest. LOSS OF CONFIDENCE IN THE SCHEME Ladies and gentlemen, the nose-diving fortunes of the NHIS manifests itself in the continuous decline in active membership of the scheme in the last two (2) years. This fact is supported by the following statistics: DECLINE IN ACTIVE MEMBERSHIP Table 1 YEAR ACTIVE MEMBERSHIP % OF NATIONAL COVERAGE 2016 10.786 million people 39 2017 10.422 million people 37 2018 10.410 million people 35 Ladies and gentlemen, the above statistics depict the declining confidence of Ghanaians in the National Health Insurance Scheme and expose the dire straits that the scheme has been plunged into by the Akufo-Addo government. INCREASING EXPENDITURE ON COMPENSATION Ironically, while there is a clear decreasing trend in active membership in the scheme, compensation to staff of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) is increasing astronomically as shown in the table below: Table 2 YEAR COMPENSATION PAID (IN GH) 2016 115 million 2017 132 million 2018 168 million 2019 211.78 million Ladies and gentlemen, the above sharp increases in compensation are symptomatic of the general attitude of the Akufo-Addo government when it comes to consumption expenditure. This administration wastes no time in expending our scarce resources on themselves in the form of jobs for the boys, at the expense of the suffering Ghanaians who voted for them. DECLINING RELEASES TO THE NHI FUND Ladies and gentlemen, another worrying trend we have observed is the fact that actual government releases to the National Health Insurance Fund (NHI Fund) have declined considerably, whilst at the same time, government continues to collect more revenue in the name of the NHIS. These facts are illustrated below: Table 3 YEAR ACTUAL AMOUNT RELEASED TO NHI FUND (GH) 2016 742.11 million 2017 660.40 million 2018 506.80 million MISAPPLICATION OF NHI FUNDS Ladies and gentlemen, it worthy of note, that even though best practice dictates the use of 75% to 80% of accrued funds to finance the scheme, the Akufo-Addo government is currently utilizing only 60.64% of NHI accrued funds for their intended purpose. This points to the misapplication of NHI funds by the Akufo-Addo government, and we can speak of several of such instances. For example, in 2018, about GH163 million of NHI funds were used to pay nursing trainee allowance. While the scheme continues to struggle, more than GH300 million has been projected to be spent on ICT, and another GH5 million is being devoted to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in 2019. This is a complete aberration from the core objective of the fund. The wanton misapplication of NHI funds stems largely from the capping policy introduced by the Akufo-Addo government through which over the last two years, more than One billion Ghana Cedis of NHI funds have been diverted for projects which are unrelated to the core objects of the scheme. Also, our checks have also revealed that, while the scheme remains cash strapped, Government is in the process of outsourcing claims management to a private firm with implications of more cost to the already burdened scheme. Friends from the media, these stark realities have resulted in the dwindling fortunes of the NHIS, hence its inability to address the crucial health needs of Ghanaians. We think that these acts of mismanagement of the NHIS must be immediately reversed to save the scheme from total collapse. Let me state that all the above statistics are contained in the 2019 Annual Allocation formula and other documents presented by the NHIA to the Health Committee of Parliament. SCANDALOUS REVELATIONS Ladies and gentlemen, we have already demonstrated to you enough evidence of the wanton misapplication of NHI Funds by the Akufo-Addo government, which is fast precipitating the demise of the scheme. But, perhaps even more egregious are certain scandals we have uncovered, which have conspired with the above to cripple the scheme. Our painstaking investigations have revealed that upon President Akufo-Addo assuming office, the National Health Insurance Authority without any due diligence and with indecent haste, transferred a whopping Seventeen Million, Five Hundred and Forty-Eight Thousand, Three-hundred and Seventy-seven Ghana Cedis, and twenty pesewas (GH17,548,377.20) in three tranches to a private financial house, All-Time Capital Limited, supposedly as investment. Incontrovertible evidence available to us indicates that, despite repeated efforts by the scheme since November 2018 to retrieve the invested funds and accrued interest, all time-Capital Limited has failed to pay back. In a recent twist which has angered some workers at the NHIA, All Time-Capital Limited informed the NHIA Chief Executive that it could only attempt some payments if the invested funds were allowed to run for an additional year. This situation is contributing to the worsening financial fortunes of the scheme. Ladies and gentlemen, it is this same financial company, All Time-Capital Limited which was involved in the round-tripping of liquidity support provided by the Bank of Ghana to Capital Bank that eventually culminated in the establishment of the collapsed Sovereign Bank. From the foregoing, there is no gainsaying the fact that, there is more to this transaction than meets the eye. CONCLUSION Members of the media, the above damning revelations must be a matter of concern for every Ghanaian. The National Health Insurance scheme, which was meant to be a safety net to cushion our people in terms of their healthcare needs is on the verge of collapse due to the mismanagement and recklessness of the Akufo-Addo government. The situation has gotten so bad that currently Service Providers are being chased away from their hospitals by unpaid suppliers and poor NHIS cardholders are being turned away from hospitals including government facilities. We must therefore unite in condemning this flagrant abuse of the scheme. The NDC will not renege on our responsibility of holding this government accountable for their mismanagement of the NHIS and the health sector as a whole. We thank you for coming and may God bless our homeland Ghana. Signed: SAMMY GYAMFI NATIONAL COMMUNICATION OFFICER, NDC Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Pete Buttigieg has officially launched his bid to become the Democratic Party nominee for the 2020 presidential election and challenge Donald Trump for the White House. He held his launch event in South Bend, the Indiana town where he has served as mayor since 2012. Setting out his vision to re-imagine our future, he promised a totally different politics from Mr Trump. Should he win, Mr Buttigieg would be the first openly gay US president. At 37, he is the youngest entrant in a crowded field of Democratic candidates that features Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, 77, and 69-year-old Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. Despite his relative inexperience, the former Rhodes Scholar has surged in the polls in recent weeks, propelling him from the margins to the front of the pack. In a veiled attack on the Trump administration, he railed against the myth being sold by those who sought to stop the clock and turn it back. It is time to walk away from the politics of the past and toward something totally different, he told supporters at his launch event. His campaign has so far focused on gun control, climate change and LGBT rights and other progressive issues he hopes will appeal to millennial voters. Mr Buttigiegs track record as mayor of South Bend, which has seen a struggling economy improve during his tenure, has also earned him plaudits. Audacious bid Since announcing his presidential run in January, Mr Buttigieg has garnered a wave of attention from the media and voters, raising more than $7m (5.3m) in funds in the first quarter of 2019. Analysts believe he could appeal to both moderates and progressives in the Democratic Party. Opinion polls in Iowa and New Hampshire last week put Mr Buttigieg third in both states, behind Bernie Sanders and former Vice-President Joe Biden. Mr Sanders launched his run last month, while Mr Biden, who has faced allegations of inappropriate touching by several women, is yet to announce his candidacy. At the rally, Mr Buttigieg sought to differentiate himself from rivals as a candidate taking the long view, especially on issues such as climate change. I recognise the audacity of doing this as a Midwestern millennial mayor, he said. More than a little bold But we live in a moment that compels us each to act. The forces changing our country today are tectonic. More than a dozen rivals are running to be the Democratic Party candidate for the presidential election in November 2020. The process of selecting a nominee will begin early next year. Who is Pete Buttigieg? Born in South Bend in 1982, Mr Buttigieg studied at Harvard and Oxford, graduating from the latter in 2007 with first-class honours in philosophy, politics and economics. He went on to work as a consultant at McKinsey & Company between 2007 and 2010 and served for seven months in Afghanistan as a Navy reservist in 2014. At 29, he was elected mayor of South Bend, taking office in January 2012. Despite an unsuccessful run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 2017, former President Barack Obama name-checked him as a rising star. The video announcing he will run for president focuses on his role in the Rust Belt citys redevelopment and also takes aim at corruption and infighting in Washington. He came out as gay in 2015 and married Chasten Glezman, a middle school teacher, last year. What does he stand for? In his rally speech, Mr Buttigieg positioned himself as the voice of millennials. Critics say his campaign has so far emphasised values and his personal story rather than a distinctive policy agenda. He has, however, expressed support for: *Tougher action on climate change, including the so-called Green New Deal proposals *Gun control reform, namely universal background checks *A wealth tax to fund government spending *The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan *Passing the Federal Equality Act, legislation that would give federal non-discrimination protections to LGBT people Source: BBC Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Communication Directorate of the Ashanti regional branch of the National Democratic Congress(NDC) have threatened to deal 'boot for boot' with the Ashanti regional Chairman of the NPP, Bernard Antwi Boasiako if he continues to spread lies about former President John Dramani Mahama. According to him it has been his strategy to run down and soil the enviable reputation of the former President. In a statement signed by the Ashanti regional Communication Director, Mr. Abass Nurudeen, their attention has been drawn to a story published by Ghanaweb.com and circulating on social media with the caption "YOU ARE A CORRUPT THIEF JUST LIKE YOUR FATHER - WONTUMI PUNCHES MAHAMA". In the said publication, the Ashanti regional Chairman of the NPP, Bernard Antwi-Bosiako, also known as ''Wontumi'', speaking on ASH FM, said "President John Mahama is a corrupt thief just like his father, Mr. E.A Mahama,who was an Agric Minister in Nkrumah's administration". But describing the Ashanti regional NPP Chairman as a doltish and unintelligent dimwitted fellow, he clarified that father of the former President, Mr. E.A Mahama, was never an Agriculture Minister in the Nkrumah regime. For the records, these are the four key personalities who served as Ministers of Agriculture under the Nkrumah regime: 1.Mr. Boahene Yeboah Afari (1956 to 1960) 2. Kojo Botsio (1960 to 1962) 3.Krobo Edusei (1963 to 1965) 4. F. A Juantuah (1966 till Nkrumah's overthrow) "At no point did Mr. Emmanuel Adama Mahama, father of the former President, serve as Agric Minister of the Republic of Ghana as being alleged by Wontumi. "So for this basic historical fact to be lost on a whole Regional Chairman of the NPP speaks volumes of the misinformed character we are talking about here," the statement added. Read Below Is A Copy Of The Statement OFFICE OF THE ASHANTI REGIONAL COMMUNICATION OFFICER, NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS (NDC) *RE:YOU ARE A CORRUPT THIEF JUST LIKE YOUR FATHER-WONTUMI PUNCHES MAHAMA* 15/04/19 Our attention has been drawn to a story published by Ghanaweb.com and circulating on social media with the above caption. In the said publication, the Ashanti regional Chairman of the NPP, Bernard Antwi-Bosiako, also known as "Wuntumi", speaking on ASH FM, said "President John Mahama is a corrupt thief just like his father, Mr. E.A Mahama,who was an Agric Minister in Nkrumah's administration". Ordinarily, this should be discounted as one of the many doltish and unintelligent effusions of a dimwitted fellow who is reputed for reckless talk. However, for some time now, it has been the strategy of the failing Akufo-Addo government to hide behind shady characters like Wuntomi to run down and soil the enviable reputation of former President John Dramani Mahama, a reputation, we must jealously guard. One of the many pedestrian lies peddled by Wontumi on that platform was his claim that the late father of the Former President, Mr. Emmanuel Adama Mahama was a Minister of Agric in the Nkrumah regime. For the records, these are the four key personalities who served as Ministers of Agriculture under the Nkrumah regime: 1.Mr. Boahene Yeboah Afari (1956 to 1960) 2. Kojo Botsio (1960 to 1962) 3.Krobo Edusei (1963 to 1965) 4. F. A Juantuah (1966 till Nkrumah's overthrow) At no point did Mr. Emmanuel Adama Mahama, father of the Former President, serve as Agric Minister of the Republic of Ghana as is being alleged by Wuntomi. So for this basic historical fact to be lost on a whole Regional Chairman of the Npp speaks volumes of the misinformed character we are talking about here. In fact, Mr Emmanuel Adama Mahama was the first person to be appointed Minister of Northern Ghana under Nkrumah and also served as an advisor to Dr. Hilla Limann, President of the 3rd Republic. At no point in his public life was he even investigated for the slightest form of corruption. So in the eyes of right-thinking Ghanaians, he was a very selfless and incorruptible man who served his nation with distinction and dignity. And the illustrious feat his children(mainly John and Ibrahim Mahama have achieved in life) is testament of his sterling qualities as a father. If we may ask; who is the father of Wontumi? We dare say that if Wontumi had a father as disciplined as E.A Mahama to guide his upbringing, he would never have turned out as clueless and ill-informed as he is. Again, we find his allegations of corruption against President Mahama as one of the usual baseless claims often made by operatives of this failing Akufo-Addo government against the impregnable reputation of President Mahama. As a matter of fact, Article 57(6) of the 1992 Constitution gives every succeeding gov't a grace period of 3 years to prosecute a Former Presidents who has engaged in one corrupt act or the other. Therefore, by 7th December 2020, President Mahama will be legally immuned from prosecution for so-called "acts of corruption " that the likes of Wontumi and others incessantly allege. We dare the NPP government to either follow through with the provisions in Article 57(6) or forever remain shut. Indeed, President Mahama will go down in history as one of the few Presidents in the fourth Republic to have shown genuine commitment to the fight against corruption whilst in office. 1.The National Anti-corruption Action Plan (NACAP), which still remains Ghana's key blueprint in the fight Against corruption, was introduced. 2. For the first time in the history of Ghana, we had a President who was bold enough to prosecute key members of his own government suspected to have engaged in corruption. On the contrary, today we have a true defender of corruption as President, one who will go to great lengths to clear his errant appointees of corruption even in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary. Sadly, under the watch of Wontumi's mentor, President Akufo Addo, the Flagstaff House, which is supposed to be a fount of national honour, has been reduced to a citadel of corruption. This we believe should be a source of worry to Wontumi, if he could properly discern good governance. Again, Wontumi's claim that President Mahama did nothing to alleviate the suffering of the masses during his Presidency is not borne out by the facts. President Mahama's achievements in the Ashanti region alone exposes the fallacy of this claim. For the information of Wontumi: 1. 10 out of 13 secondary schools established by John Mahama in the Ashanti region alone (at Adugyama, Adobewora, Parkoso, Agric Nzema,Offinso Asuoso, Drobonso, Asante Akyem Banka, Oyoko, Adansi Fumso, Adansi Apedwa, Obuasi) etc have admitted more than 15,000 Asante students. 2. The Kejetia Central Market, the Atonsu, Tafo and Asawase markets constructed by John Mahama provide livelihood and sustenance to over 30,000 Ashanti women. 3. The Mampong and K3 (Konongo, Kumawu, Kwahu) water projects initiated under the Mills/Mahama administration have provided safe and potable drinking water for about 300,000 people in the Sekyere and Asante Akyem enclave of the Ashanti region. Having won power through lies and deception, the Akufo Addo government is intimidated by the soaring popularity of Former President, and are prepared to employ devious and crude methods of character assassination. We therefore urge the public to treat such tantrums as those of Wontumi with the contempt they deserves. It is a sad narrative that today, the politics of Ghana, which has been the envy of other countries, has been cheapened to accommodate charlatans like Wuntomi. However, we wish to assure him that he will no longer have a field day to churn out his trademark reckless lies. Signed, ABASS NURUDEEN (Regional Communication Officer, NDC) Source: Isaac Kwame Owusu/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected] Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused the Akufo-Addo government of illegally transferring GHS17,548,377.20 of National Health Insurance Scheme funds into a private fund management company, All Time Capital Investment, which has failed to pay back the money. At a press conference in Accra on Monday, 15 April 2019, the partys National Communication Officer, Mr Sammy Gyamfi, said: Recently in his state of the nation address, and while on a tour of the United States of America, President Akufo-Addo peddled blatant untruth when he claimed that the NHIS is buoyant and has come back to life. The truth of the matter is that the NHIS, very known to the President, is in a deplorable state and gasping for liquidity breath. Currently, the NHIS owes service providers in all the sixteen regions of Ghana claims covering a period of almost twelve (12) months. This has landed most healthcare facilities in distress. For instance, the Daily Graphic reported on Thursday, 28th March 2019 that the Central Regional Hospital is on its knees begging to be paid an amount of GHS6.1 million owed to it by the Scheme, in order to settle its indebtedness to suppliers of critical drugs and medical consumables. This is just one example of how our health facilities are being crippled as a result of the huge indebtedness of the NHIS to service providers. Ladies and gentlemen, we have also taken note of persistent claims by President Akufo-Addo that his government has cleared a total of GHS1.2 Billion NHI arrears it inherited from the erstwhile Mahama government. We wish to state without any equivocation that, this claim is mischievous and not borne out by the facts. "After the Association of Private Clinics and the leadership of Government Hospitals disputed this claim, one would have thought that the President will desist from peddling this obvious deception. However, it appears President Akufo-Addo is determined to deceive the nation as far as this matter is concerned. Indisputable evidence contained in the 2017 NHIS Fund Allocation Formula presented to the august house of Parliament by the Minister of Health shows that, total arrears of NHI claims stood at GHS425.79 million as at December 2016. This completely belies the claims of President Akufo-Addo and exposes him as a very dishonest, Mr. Gyamfi said. Mr Gyamfi said such problems have made the NHIS unattractive, explaining that currently, the scheme has 10.410 million people as against 10.786 million people in 2016. The above statistics depict the declining confidence of Ghanaians in the National Health Insurance Scheme and expose the dire straits that the scheme has been plunged into by the Akufo-Addo government, Mr Gyamfi stated. The party continued: It is worthy of note, that even though best practice dictates the use of 75% to 80% of accrued funds to finance the scheme, the Akufo-Addo government is currently utilising only 60.64% of NHI accrued funds for their intended purpose. This points to the misapplication of NHI funds by the Akufo-Addo government, and we can speak of several of such instances. For example, in 2018, about GHS163 million of NHI funds were used to pay nursing trainee allowance. While the scheme continues to struggle, more than GHS300 million has been projected to be spent on ICT, and another GH5 million is being devoted to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in 2019. This is a complete aberration from the core objective of the fund. The wanton misapplication of NHI funds stems largely from the capping policy introduced by the Akufo-Addo government through which over the last two years, more than One billion Ghana Cedis of NHI funds have been diverted for projects which are unrelated to the core objects of the scheme. Also, our checks have also revealed that, while the scheme remains cash strapped, Government is in the process of outsourcing claims management to a private firm with implications of more cost to the already burdened scheme. Friends from the media, these stark realities have resulted in the dwindling fortunes of the NHIS, hence its inability to address the crucial health needs of Ghanaians. We think that these acts of mismanagement of the NHIS must be immediately reversed to save the scheme from total collapse. Let me state that all the above statistics are contained in the 2019 Annual Allocation formula and other documents presented by the NHIA to the Health Committee of Parliament. Ladies and gentlemen, we have already demonstrated to you enough evidence of the wanton misapplication of NHI Funds by the Akufo-Addo government, which is fast precipitating the demise of the scheme. But, perhaps even more egregious are certain scandals we have uncovered, which have conspired with the above to cripple the scheme. Our painstaking investigations have revealed that upon President Akufo-Addo assuming office, the National Health Insurance Authority without any due diligence and with indecent haste, transferred a whopping Seventeen Million, Five Hundred and Forty-Eight Thousand, Three-hundred and Seventy-seven Ghana Cedis, and twenty pesewas (GHS17,548,377.20) in three tranches to a private financial house, All-Time Capital Limited, supposedly as investment. Incontrovertible evidence available to us indicates that, despite repeated efforts by the scheme since November 2018 to retrieve the invested funds and accrued interest, all time-Capital Limited has failed to pay back. In a recent twist which has angered some workers at the NHIA, All Time-Capital Limited informed the NHIA Chief Executive that it could only attempt some payments if the invested funds were allowed to run for an additional year. This situation is contributing to the worsening financial fortunes of the scheme. Ladies and gentlemen, it is this same financial company, All Time-Capital Limited which was involved in the round-tripping of liquidity support provided by the Bank of Ghana to Capital Bank that eventually culminated in the establishment of the collapsed Sovereign Bank. From the foregoing, there is no gainsaying the fact that, there is more to this transaction than meets the eye. Members of the media, the above damning revelations must be a matter of concern for every Ghanaian. The National Health Insurance scheme, which was meant to be a safety net to cushion our people in terms of their healthcare needs is on the verge of collapse due to the mismanagement and recklessness of the Akufo-Addo government. The situation has gotten so bad that currently Service Providers are being chased away from their hospitals by unpaid suppliers and poor NHIS cardholders are being turned away from hospitals including government facilities. We must therefore unite in condemning this flagrant abuse of the scheme. The NDC will not renege on our responsibility of holding this government accountable for their mismanagement of the NHIS and the health sector as a whole. Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video In a few days, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy will celebrate its 70th anniversary in Qingdao in China's eastern Shandong province. Naval delegations from more than 60 countries will take part in the grand celebration ceremony, at which the PLA Navy will display its latest achievements. Chinese President Xi Jinping, also chairman of the Central Military Commission, said in his address at last year's military parade in the South China Sea that the PLA Navy has made great achievements by bravely venturing into the open sea and keeping up with the trend of the times. Indeed, the PLA Navy today is taking on a new look. In 2018 alone, it has maintained the momentum of rapid development and made a number of pioneering achievements. Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the CMC, takes a group photo with PLA Navy officers and soldier during an inspection in South China Sea, April 12, 2018./CCTV Photo On May 13, 2018, one month after the South China Sea maritime parade, the first made-in-China aircraft carrier set out for its first sea trial. The aircraft carrier underwent five sea trials in the ten months since then. This high frequency indicated that it would not take long for the first homegrown aircraft carrier to begin its official service. On August 24, 2018, China's first domestically built 10,000-ton missile destroyer also embarked on its first sea trial. The frequency of its sea trials is comparable to that of the new aircraft carrier, which means that the destroyer as an escort vessel to the aircraft carrier was likely to be delivered to the PLA Navy together with the aircraft carrier. What is more exciting is that the PLA Navy has commissioned a batch of, instead of one or two, such destroyers. It is reported that in 2018 alone, three other destroyers of the same model were launched. This is a clear sign that the PLA Navy is speeding up its endeavor towards the open sea. The new aircraft and the destroyer are only two examples taken from a wide array of vessels the PLA Navy is building. The year 2018 witnessed the launch and the beginning of the service of a large number of vessels, including the Type 071 amphibious transport dock, the Type 052D guided missile destroyer, the Type 054A guided missile frigate, and the Type 056A corvette. Such a pace has been hailed by the general Chinese public as such, For each fleet embarking on service, another is ready for its sea trial, and still another is just commissioned. The new vessels have greatly boosted the combat capabilities of the PLA Navy and become its backbone. Navies from China and Russia parade ahead of the Joint Sea-2014 drill in Shanghai, China, May 19, 2014. /VCG Photo Philippe Huot, whose land was expropriated, gets a kiss from his nieces, Marieanne, left, and Lucie Huot, after a news conference announcing the return of land expropriated fifty years ago for Mirabel airport Monday, April 15, 2019 in Mirabel, Que.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form This undated photo provided by the Bloomington, Minn., Police Department, shows Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda, who was arrested in connection with an incident at the Mall of America where a 5-year-old boy plummeted three floors Friday, April 12, 2019, after being pushed or thrown from a balcony. (Bloomington Police Department via AP) If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here As space industry leaders gathered at the 35th Space Symposium from April 8-11 in Colorado, the acting U.S. Defense Secretary issued a stern warning. "Weapons are currently deployed by our competitors that can attack our assets in space," Patrick Shanahan told a large audience in Colorado Springs. "Both China and Russia have weaponized space with the intent to hold U.S. space capabilities at risk." U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan speaks at the 35th Space Symposium April 8-11 in Colorado, the U.S. /CGTN Photo While China and Russia both deny any militarization of space, Shanahan said a new organization is needed to defend American space interests. "Today we need to establish a space force to protect our future," he said. President Donald Trump unveiled the idea last year. For more than 70 years, the U.S. military has consisted of five branches. The U.S. Space Force, whose goal would be to establish American space dominance and counter foreign space threats, would represent the sixth service. It would train and equip 15,000 to 20,000 officers drawn from other military services at a cost, Shanahan said, of about half a billion U.S. dollars a year. U.S. Air Force Space Command Photo "We are not going to sit back and watch," he promised. "We are going to act." "The threat is real and it's there and we need to react to it as a nation," said Jim Light, senior director for space strategy at SAIC, an information technology and engineering company. He referred to the ability of some countries to target satellites and use other measures to degrade or destroy U.S. space capabilities. A recent anti-satellite missile test conducted by India was yet another reminder, Light said, of how space is becoming more contested and weaponized. "The whole concept of battle management in space is fairly new," he said. "And so that's what the industry is gearing up for is how to help the nation to take up that new mission." The stakes from the U.S. perspective couldn't be higher. Satellites are critical to the economy, to things like Earth-bound navigation and communication right down to self-driving cars of the future. "Space is fundamental to our modern way of life," Shanahan said, adding, "Space is fundamental to our modern way of war. "It could be cyber, it could be laser weapons, it could be jamming the communications capability," said retired Brigadier General Scott Bethel, now CEO of Integrity ISR. He argued the U.S. has been naive when it comes to the space threat. And he and some in the U.S. Congress wonder whether a new military branch, built from scratch, is really the answer. U.S. Air Force Space Command Photo. Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Sorry for inconvenience! You have been redirected to this page due to the following reasons:-- Your session has expired. You have closed the browser, without logging out. If the problem persists, kindly remove all the temporary files and cookies from your browser. For IE - 1. Click on tools from the task bar of browser. 2. Click on Internet Options. 3. Click on "Delete temporary files." For Mozilla Firefox - 1. Click on tools from the task bar of browser. 2. Click on "Clear recent history." For the Chinese public, the Marine Corps has a glamorous image, as seen in the hit Chinese film "Operation Red Sea" (). But the training is anything but glamorous. We saw that for ourselves during our stay in Sanya, the base of the Jiaolong Commandos, an elite special operations force of the People's Liberation Army Navy. The name Jiaolong means "Sea Dragon". We were allowed to film three key training sessions: Backwater infiltration, jungle search, and urban counter-terrorism. Being the toughest unit "The biggest transformation in me should be the shaping of my own values. No matter what problems we encounter, we should learn to be like a soldier, like a man," says Luo Ping, a member of Jiaolong Commando. 22-year-old Luo has been a member of the commando unit for two years. He is a graduate of the prestigious Tsinghua University. The government has instituted preferential policies to attract university talents into the military. Luo Ping sees becoming a commando as becoming a real man. The training is ruthless and tiring, on both land and sea. The satisfaction is immense. And they know the enemy they have to face is real. Jiaolong Commandos training on backwater infiltration. /CGTN Photo Point of the sword "Our special operations force is the vanguard in joint operations. We should be the point of the sword in joint operations, to strike terror into the enemy," says Gong Kaifeng, squadron officer of the Jiaolong Commandos. 26-year-old Gong has been a commando for seven years. He's participated in the 25th escort mission in the Gulf of Aden and joint international operations. For him, the biggest transformation is the Marine Corps is now combat-oriented and more international. The corps was formed in the 1950s for amphibious assaults. Today, the goal is an expeditionary force for missions far beyond territorial waters. The Jiaolong Commandos training on urban counter-terrorism. /CGTN Photo Opening new frontiers According to a Defense Ministry statement, the Marine Corps was established to strengthen the structure of the Navy but later became its own branch. With more amphibious capabilities planned, expansion and reorganization are on the table, with equipment and training upgrades. Jiaolong Commandos of Chinese PLA Navy Marine Corps in training. /CGTN Photo In contrast to its U.S. counterpart, the Chinese army does not have a unified Special Operations Force Command and the numbers of the PLA Marine Corps have never been officially disclosed. As the Navy's emphasis on amphibious capabilities grows, the Jialong Commandos will be further integrated with other divisions in joint combat operations. The Navy will continue to prioritize the Marine Corps to make it one of the strongest in the world. Albuquerque, NM -- (ReleaseWire) -- 04/15/2019 --Reporting of Inmate Deaths to Family The New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD) provides policies regarding what is to happen when an inmate dies, is injured or becomes seriously ill while in custody. Those policies may be referenced on the NMCD web-site under the health services policy section, CD-172100 Notification of Serious Illness, Injury or Death of an Inmate and Procedure in the Event of an Inmate Death. One of the first steps involves providing notification to next of kin or designated contact of the inmate's condition or that he or she has died. Inmates, upon admission to a correctional facility, are required to list an emergency point of contact. NMCD Policy regarding notification of the next of kin reads as follows; "Whenever possible, NMCD shall immediately notify the next of kin or other person regarding the serious illness, injury or death of an inmate. In notifying these person(s), the warden/ designee is responsible for informing the relative in a manner that is respectful, courteous, compassionate and objective." It further stipulates that the staff member charged with providing the family with the news shall first consult with appropriate medical staff at the facility before disclosing what has happened. In the event of death, the warden or designee shall inform the family that the inmate has died and that funeral arrangements will be made. The specific form that is to be completed is the Next of Kin Notification CD-172101.1. Despite clear policy direction regarding immediate notification of the next of kin in the event of the death of an inmate, long delays or complete failures in the notification of the designated parties seems to be a frequent occurrence. Standards, Policies and Procedures The aforementioned departmental policy on notification and procedure in the event of an inmate death is further shaped by standards set forth by the American Corrections Association (ACA) and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC). The current contractual agreement between the New Mexico Corrections Department and its current private healthcare contractor took effect on June 1, 2016. The contract clearly states the obligations of the private health care services contractor in relation to ACA and NCCHC standards; "The goal and requirement of this Agreement is to provide comprehensive health care services, within a secure environment, within available funds, and in accordance with the standards of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC), the American Correctional Association (ACA), current community standards of care, and NMCD procedures contained herein." As we noted in a previous article at least one prison, the Central New Mexico Correctional Facility (CNMCF) was not accredited by the ACA from 2015 forward and did not obtain accreditation until the beginning of 2019. Thus, for nearly four years this facility lacked ACA accreditation. As for accreditation from the NCCHC, Collins & Collins, P.C. has submitted dozens of records requests under the parameters of the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) and as of March 1, 2019 not a single state correctional institution, public or private, has been accredited by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC) since the date of the new contract in June 2016. NMCD Standards and Policies Derive from ACA In the aforementioned NMCD policy section on the procedures relating to the death of an inmate, the applicable ACA Standards are drawn from the ACA Standards for Adult Correctional Institutions, 4th Edition; 4-4395, 4- 4410 and 4-4425. The first of these specifies that a process for the notification of designated individuals must be in place, paralleling NMCD policy. ACA Mandatory Standard 4-4410 "Internal Review and Quality Assurance" provides a number of very specific elements that should be in place at facilities and notes that, "A system of well-documented internal review will be developed and implemented by the health authority". Policy and Procedure in the Event of an Inmate Suicide In the event of an inmate suicide, there are a couple of levels of review. The first is the Suicide Review Committee. The second is the Joint Mortality Review Committee (JMRC). The requirements of both are set forth below. NMCD Suicide Review Committee (SRC) In the event of a suicide, NMCD policy stipulates that a Suicide Review Committee (SRC) shall be convened within 30 days of the inmate's death and the committee will be comprised of the following members; "NMCD Psychologist, Contract Facility Health Administrator, Warden or designee and other selected staff as needed." The Suicide Review Committee (SRC), according to policy, is to complete the following steps in its review: Review the medical records and the mental health section of the medical record, including autopsy and toxicology reports, if available. (1) Review any reports, including information reports, investigation reports, and any NMCD documents relevant to the incident. (2) Make recommendation concerning disciplinary actions, policy and procedural changes, as necessary. (3) The regional director of psychiatry of the medical vendor will consolidate the above information and provide a psychology autopsy final report within 14 days of an inmate suicide Joint Mortality Review Committee (JMRC). In addition to the review and subsequent report to be completed by the Suicide Review Committee, all inmate deaths are also to be reviewed by the Joint Mortality Review Committee (JMRC). The issues to be reviewed by the JMRC include; (1) Review the appropriateness of health care provided; (2) Make recommendations concerning staff or discipline and policy or procedures changes, if any; (3) Review the autopsy and toxicology report; (4) Publish a final JMRC report on the inmate death utilizing the mortality review committee final report form. Investigate the Death Yourself, Do Not Rely on the Word of NMCD The designated contact that the inmate lists during the intake process should receive a copy of the report completed by the Office of the Medical Investigator (OMI), but this may be after a considerable period of time has elapsed. The delays in notification and waiting for additional information or reports can hazard any potential claim you might have. Due to short deadlines on claims against NMCD, it is important to keep track of the investigation and autopsy. Surviving loved ones should not place any reliance at all on what is conveyed to them by NMCD. To do so is to risk any possible legal claims in the event of wrongdoing. Unfortunately, it is not easy to get the information you need from NMCD. NMCD will do all that it can to avoid legal claims. NMCD will not freely release damaging information. The bottom line is that surviving loved ones will likely need to seek legal assistance if they are to get any answers to what happened to their loved one. Check concentrate feeder accuracy WITH the cost of dairy cow concentrates rising farmers have been urged to check the accuracy of their feeders to ensure they are not overfeeding, or indeed underfeeding, their livestock. Students of the Mandarin class at Lycee Francais International Elite de Tyr sing a Chinese nursery song together with students of No.7 Primary School from Chinas Huizhou City via online video on April 10, local time. (mod.gov.cn/Photo by Meng Zhuolin) By Sang Yangyang and Meng Zhuolin BEIRUT, April 15 (ChinaMil) Organized by the engineering construction contingent of the 17th Chinese peacekeeping force to Lebanon, two schools in China and Lebanon carried out online cultural exchange activities for the first time on April 10, local time. Since last November, Chinese peacekeepers have begun to teach Chinese Mandarin courses at the invitation of the Lebanese school. At present, the school has a total of five Chinese Mandarin classes with more than 100 students. This time, students from the two schools introduced themselves and performed their specialties during the exchange activities. At Lycee Francais International Elite de Tyr, Lebanese students sang their folk songs and performed traditional dances. While at Huizhou No. 7 Primary School, Chinese students also prepared calligraphy shows, martial arts, folk songs and other programs for their Lebanese counterparts. In a lively atmosphere, students from both sides showed great enthusiasm and interacted frequently. The Secretary-General of the French Association for Education and Culture in Lebanon said: With the help of the Chinese peacekeepers, our school has the opportunity to conduct online exchanges with Chinese schools, overcoming the obstacles of long distance and different languages. It helps us feel more connected to each other and opens the door for our students to know China better and learn from China. Zheng Limin, principal of Huizhou No.7 Primary School in China, said: The Chinese peacekeeping forces provide a great platform for us to actively explore a new way of cultural exchanges, which allows our students to meet new friends, broaden horizons and experience different cultures. It is reported that since November last year, the Chinese peacekeeping engineering construction contingent had sent more than 10 teachers for various subjects to the school every week. At the same time, they organized activities on a monthly basis to introduce Chinese culture traditions, including martial arts, Chinese cuisine and so on. The deputy captain of the engineering construction contingent of the 17th Chinese peacekeeping force to Lebanon said: As UN peacekeepers, we shoulder the important mission of maintaining peace. At the same time, we also try to take this opportunity to be a good messenger of Chinese culture. We go to local schools to teach Chinese Mandarin, spread Chinese culture and explore the establishment of a students exchange platform, hoping that the two countries friendship and cultural exchanges can be extended and carried forward among children of both countries. Accusing the Narendra Modi government of waiving off loans worth Rs 5.56 lakh crore to corporates, CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury on Sunday said it is conducting a "mega-loot" of national resources while imposing "mega-misery" on the common people. Alleging that the people are getting greater evidence of its corruption and cronyism everyday, he claimed they will vote on the basis of their day to experience under the current government and not basis of some "emotive appeals" made by Modi and his party. "The Modi government is getting drawn deeper into corruption and cronyism.... Out of the total NPAs that leaked out, government figures show Rs 5.56 lakh crore loans to corporates have been waived off. The government have kept the names of the corporates a secret so we do not who they are. "People of the country is getting the evidence of the mega-loot that is being done by this government while imposing a mega-misery on common people's economic livelihood. This is the balance sheet of the current government. This will determine the election," Yechury told reporters here. He hinted that corporate firms which might have paid hefty amounts to the ruling BJP, might have been given the benefit of loan waivers by the government. "This connects to the electoral bonds.. Now the Supreme Court has asked the banks to furnish details about who paid how much electoral bonds to which party. So it will know which are the companies involved in buying electoral bonds. Soon the public will also know about it," Yechury said. Asked whether the Left parties will extend post electoral support to the Congress in forming a government at the Centre, he said they will decide that as per the election results. "CPI-M is committed for the creation of an alternative secular government at the centre. We cannot speculate what form would that government take. All depends how the result emerge and based on that we will take a decision after the elections," he said. Referring to the first phase of general elections on April 11, he said his party is "very unhappy" with the way things have gone in different states and warned that people will lose their faith in the Election Commission if such "malpractices" are repeated in the next phases. "There have been so many glitches in the EVM machines. In Bengal, there was not enough protection for the voters even in the places where the central force were deployed. Many people were not allowed to reach the polling booths while in Tripura, most of the opposition parties' polling agents were beaten up and driven away from the polling premises. We will tell the EC that if such things happen for another phase, people will lose faith on them," he added. Chinese soldiers guard Yongxing Island in the South China Sea. Photo: Guo Yuandan/GT After seven years of development, the southern city of Sansha in Hainan Province has witnessed remarkable progress in urban construction and social governance. Officially established in 2012, the southernmost city in China has around 2,500 permanent residents, and its administrative base is on Yongxing, one of the Xisha Islands. Banks, barbecue restaurants, supermarkets, airports, cinema, library, hospitals and schools have been gradually established in Sansha. Services such as express delivery are also available, a huge contrast to the time when the city was established in 2012. Short wave radio communication for marine weather forecasts now covers all the waters administered by the city in the South China Sea and fishermen will receive warnings if severe or disastrous weather is predicted, the Beijing-based Farmers' Daily reported on April 9. In the latest progress, the first 5G base station in Sansha was launched by China Mobile on Thursday. A robot conducted an ultrasonic test under the remote supervision of a doctor in Sanya, a city more than 300 kilometers away on the main island of Hainan. Social governance in the city is also improving. Sansha is exploring measures to establish village committees on the Nansha and Xisha islands if there are more residents on the islands, Chen Xiangmiao, a research fellow at the Hainan-based National Institute for the South China Sea, told the Global Times on Monday. As the youngest Chinese city, Sansha witnessed remarkable progress in urban construction, although it is still in the initial stage of urban development, due to the difficulty of building facilities on the island, which has high temperatures and faces tidal erosion, Chen said. Analysts also noted that efforts to promote balanced development of other islands in Sansha, as well as measures to provide more facilities to enrich people's cultural life and to build research institutions to gain more knowledge about the region are the next focus. Taking action to provide basic living facilities is the current priority for Sansha, said Liu Feng, director of a research center on the Philippines under Hainan Normal University. Measures to facilitate economic activities, such as expanding port and dock facilities, as well as efforts to follow Hainan's position as a free trade zone, will be the next focus, Liu said. Public services such as lighthouses and marine information sharing and rescue services are already open to foreign countries, and the city could also step up the process to open to international visitors in the future, Liu told the Global Times on Monday. Making waves Sansha administers the Xisha Isalnds, Zhongsha Islands and Nansha Islands and their surrounding waters in the South China Sea. As it administers some of the disputed islands in the region, it is regarded as a "bridgehead" for China's marine rights and interests in the South China Sea. It is notable that unstable factors in the region have been making waves recently and it is highly likely that the waters could face escalated tensions in 2019, analysts said. Commentaries, like one published by Reuters on Friday, claim that China goes "unconventional in escalating South China Sea face-off." Reports speculating escalating China-US tensions in the region have been frequently published since early April. Politicians in the Philippines also urged the Duterte administration to implement a 2016 Hague ruling "once and for all," Philippine-based GMA News Online reported. As midterm elections in the Philippines approach, the opposition is likely to promote a tougher stance on China as a campaign strategy, inciting nationalism to woo voters and coerce the Duterte administration to make tougher moves, Chen said. Despite all the uncertainties, bilateral and multilateral efforts to maintain peace in the region have not been shelved, which analysts said provided more confidence that the disputes and conflicts can be "managed." China and the Philippines convened the Fourth Meeting of the Bilateral Consultation Mechanism (BCM) on the South China Sea on April 3 in Manila. A statement released after the meeting stressed the bilateral consent to maintain the positive momentum of negotiations toward the early conclusion of a Code of Conduct (COC). The two countries also discussed how to enhance maritime cooperation and exchanged views on oil and gas development at the meeting. There is a positive momentum for diplomatic interactions and maritime exchanges between China, Malaysia and Vietnam. Governmental, military and think tank exchanges are held between China and the US to reduce misjudgments, Chen said. Under the framework of a COC, unilateral actions that could escalate tensions are restricted and crisis management systems will effectively prevent conflicts among the countries in the region, Chen told the Global Times. The South China Sea is a peaceful place, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said at a daily routine press conference on Friday, urging countries outside the region to refrain from "stirring up trouble in the calm waters" of the South China Sea. As the Opposition parties on Sunday raised doubts over the reliability of electronic voting machines and demanded the Election Commission (EC) for Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) of 50 per cent of the EVMs, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) described it as their confession of defeat. "The so-called all-party meet is nothing but a confession of defeat. They do not have any governance agenda or leadership to inspire the people. The only thing they have in common is negativity and an attempt to somehow pull India back from the development it has witnessed in the past five years," BJP spokesperson G.V.L. Narasimha Rao said here. He called the Opposition's Grand Alliance a non-alliance "because most constituents are fighting separately and are trying to find excuses for their impending massive defeat in the Lok Sabha polls". "They have not only failed as an Opposition, but also failed to mount a challenge to the BJP in the elections," said Rao. The BJP attack has come after Opposition leaders expressed their dissatisfaction over a recent Supreme Court order directing the EC to increase the number of randomly verified EVMs to five from one per Assembly constituency. Addressing the media, leaders from 21 political parties asked the EC to increase the number of randomly verified EVMs, failing which they would file a fresh plea in the matter or will move a review plea. The parties said the EC had "failed" the country and its people by not taking these issues seriously. Heavy firing on LoC in Jammu and Kashmir (File photo) Heavy firing exchanges took place between Indian and Pakistani troopers on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district on Monday, a defence official said. "At 8.15 a.m., the Pakistani troops resorted to mortar shelling and firing of small arms in the Nowshera sector. Our troops retaliated effectively," Defence Ministry spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Devender Anand told the media. Reports said that intermittent firing were still continuing in the area. New Zealand Prime Minister Responds to William Gomes 50 people were killed at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand on March 15. Map: Google (YORK, UK) - Human Rights defender William Gomes received a letter of thanks from the Office of the Prime Minister for his support in this difficult time: 5 April 2019 William Gomes York, UK Dear William Gomes, Thank you for your kind words. The Prime Minister has been deeply moved by the support and compassion in the wake of the attack in Christchurch, and by the thousands of people from around the world who have taken the time to share their condolences. Kind Regards, Dinah Okeby Office of the Prime Minister _________________________________________ _________________________________________ comunicati - Harvard University Professor Michael E. Porter, co-founder and board chairman of ICHOM, will be a keynote speaker at the event. Regarding the conference, he shares, "I am pleased to be joined by over 70 speakers this year, all presenting thought-provoking sessions to encourage debate. These discussions are critical to drive further implementation and innovation in value-based health care." The 2019 ICHOM conference, which brings together leaders in healthcare from around the world, is the leading conference on value-based health care. Participants can expect opportunities to engage with thought leaders in healthcare strategy, outcome management and innovation, and to network with individuals actively engaged in value-based health care.As in previous years, ICHOM has several patient representatives on their agenda, including Hart4Onderzoek Co-founder Dayenne Zwaagman. Zwaagman is featured in the preliminary panel: Leading the way in value-based healthcare in the Netherlands. Her charity, Hart4Onderzoek, is the first platform of patient representatives in the Netherlands that aims to bridge the gap between patients with rare heart diseases and researchers. This preliminary panel also includes the Deputy Director General of the Dutch Ministry of Health, Ernst van Koesveld; Jan Hazelzet, Professor of Healthcare Quality and Outcomes, ErasmusMC; Pieter de Bey, Director, Santeon; and Joris van Eijck, Director in Healthcare, Menzis. The session is moderated by Stefan Larsson, Senior Partner and Managing Director of the Boston Consulting Group.The 2019 ICHOM Conference will feature panels and sessions with other high-profile individuals including: Jan Kimpen (Chief Medical Officer, Philips); Roy Beveridge (Chief Medical Officer, Humana); Nathalie Moll (Director General, European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations); Stan Huff (MD, Intermountain Healthcare); Nicola Bedlington (European Patients Forum) and Caroline Terwee (PhD, Amsterdam UMC, PROMIS). Keynote presentations will be provided by Harvard Business School Professor Michael E. Porter, Uppsala University Hospital Professor Stefan James and Royal Institute of Technology and Karolinska Institute Professor Mathias Uhlen.For more information, visit www.ichom.org. More Information on ICHOM: ICHOM's mission is to unlock the potential of value-based health care by defining global standard sets of outcome measures that matter most to patients and driving adoption and reporting of these measures worldwide to create better value for all stakeholders.ICHOM's approach is built on the framework developed at Harvard Business School by Professors Michael E. Porter and Elizabeth O. Teisberg. In 2006, Porter and Teisberg wrote the well-known book, Redefining Health Care, which outlines the argument for using health outcomes data to redefine the nature of competition in health care. Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/15/2019 -- The Latest business intelligence report released by HTF MI with title "Global Artificial Intelligence Market Insights, Forecast to 2025". The study provides information on market trends and development, drivers, capacities, technologies, and on the changing capital structure of the Global Artificial Intelligence Market. The research is derived through primary and secondary statistics sources and it involves both qualitative and quantitative specifying. Some of the key players profiled in the study are ABB, Alphabet, Amazon, Asustek Computer, Blue Frog Robotics, Bsh Hausgerate, Fanuc, Hanson Robotics, Harman International Industries, IBM, Intel, Jibo, Kuka, LG, Mayfield Robotics, Microsoft, Neurala, Nvidia, Promobot, Softbank & Xilinx If you are involved in the Artificial Intelligence industry or intend to be, then this study will provide you comprehensive outlook. It's vital you keep your market knowledge up to date segmented by Public Relations & Stock Management, , by Robot Type, Service, Industria, by Offering, GPU, MPU, by Technology, Machine Learning & Computer Vision 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. Request Sample of Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) Robots Market Research Report 2019 @: https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/1754312-global-artificial-intelligence-77 This report studies the market size of Global Artificial Intelligence in key regions like North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Central & South America and Middle East & Africa, focuses on the consumption of Artificial Intelligence in these regions. This research report categorizes the Global Artificial Intelligence market by top players/brands, region, type and end user. This report also studies the Global Artificial Intelligence market status, competition landscape, market share, growth rate, future trends, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, sales channels and distributors. The global Artificial Intelligence (AI) Robots 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 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Robots volume and value at global level, regional level and company level. From a global perspective, this report represents overall Artificial Intelligence (AI) Robots 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 Global Artificial Intelligence (Thousands Units) and Revenue (Million USD) Market Split by Product Type such as , by Robot Type, Service, Industria, by Offering, GPU, MPU, by Technology, Machine Learning & Computer Vision **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. Artificial Intelligence Market Based on Geography - North America (U.S. & Canada) {Market Size (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis} - Latin America ( Brazil , Mexico & Rest of Latin America) {Market Size (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis} - Europe (The U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Sweden & RoE) {Market Size (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis} - Asia-Pacific (China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Rest of Asia) {Market Size (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis} - Middle East & Africa (GCC, South Africa, North Africa, RoMEA) {Market Size (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis} - Rest of World {Market Size (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis} Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/1754312-global-artificial-intelligence-77 Each player highlighted in the research study contains companies Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors, in-depth business overview, geographic footprint and contact information. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to SWOT Analysis. Furthermore, the years considered for the study are as follows: Historical year 2014-2019 Base year 2019 Forecast period** 2019 to 2025 [** unless otherwise stated] Additionally the export and import policies that can make an immediate impact on the Global Artificial Intelligence market. This study contains a EXIM* related chapter on the Artificial Intelligence market and all its associated companies with their profiles, which gives valuable data pertaining to their outlook in terms of finances, product portfolios, investment plans, and marketing and business strategies. This study is the collection of primary and secondary data including valuable information from major vendors in the market and the projections are derived on data from 2012 to current date and projected forecasts till 2022 which makes the research study a valuable resource for industry personnel, and other people looking for key industry related data in readily accessible documents with easy to analyze graphs and tables. The report is a perfect answer to future development road-map of Artificial Intelligence based on ongoing outlook to assist industry player understand the development journey of Artificial Intelligence Market. Buy this research report @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=1754312 There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Artificial Intelligence market. Chapter 1, to describe Definition, Disclaimers and Organization of Global Artificial Intelligence, Applications of ,Market Segment by Regions; Chapter 2, to display the Procedural Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of , Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, Export & Import, R&D Status and Technology Source, Raw Materials Sources Analysis; Chapter 3, to examine the Raw Material Manufacturing Cost Structure and Suppliers, Manufacturing Process, Manufacturing Chain Structure; Chapter 4, to show the Complete Market Analysis, Capacity Analysis (Business Segment), Sales Analysis (Business Segment), Sales Price Analysis (Business Segment); Chapter 5 and 6, to analyze the Market Analysis (by Application [Public Relations & Stock Management] Major Manufacturers Analysis; Chapter 7 and 8, to show the County Market Analysis that includes North America, United States, Canada, Mexico, Asia-Pacific, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Europe, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Russia, Central & South America, Brazil, Rest of Central & South America, Middle East & Africa, GCC Countries, Turkey, Egypt & South Africa, Segment Market Analysis (by Type) [, by Robot Type, Service, Industria, by Offering, GPU, MPU, by Technology, Machine Learning & Computer Vision]; Chapter 9, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, Global Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis; Chapter 10, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type; Chapter 11, to analyze the Users Analysis of Global Artificial Intelligence by region, type, application; Chapter 12, to describe Artificial Intelligence Research Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data source; Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Artificial Intelligence sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source. Have Any Questions? Ask Here @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/1754312-global-artificial-intelligence-77 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]. Sarasota, FL -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/15/2019 -- Global Bioenergy Market: Overview The global bioenergy market is witnessing a huge development thus offering its users the most reliable, superior, and advanced solutions. Bioenergy is a renewable source of energy which is made up of materials that are derived from natural/biological sources. For example, biomass is a kind of bioenergy that may comprise wood, manure, waste, sugarcane, straw, and many such products. On a global level, energy crisis is being experienced; hence, efforts are being made to utilize various kinds of bioenergy solutions to protect the current situation. Request Free Sample Report of Bioenergy Market Report @ https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/sample/bioenergy-market Global Bioenergy Market: Growth Factors The increasing demand for energy in the world to keep up with the manufacturing spurt and the uncontrolled urbanization has created a massive loss, coaxing numerous countries to go for different energy generating options. The rising pressure on the world leaders to decrease the carbon footprint and the poisonous quantity of greenhouse gasses is also forcing the countries across the world, particularly in developing and developed countries to take up the alternative of bioenergy seriously. With these social, environmental, and political pressures, the global bioenergy market is expected to grow at a significant rate. Another important growth factor for the global bioenergy market is the alarming crisis of energy safety measures. The transportation business is the backbone of every financial system, which majorly depends on oil, which makes it extremely vulnerable to any kind of changes in the oil prices. Current economic conditions are completely depended on renewable sources of power to achieve long-term energy protection by reducing their dependence on any other nations to develop their financial growth. Therefore, the sustainable green projects initiated by some governments are expected to encourage the practice of bioenergy across numerous sectors. Global Bioenergy Market: Segmentation The global bioenergy market is classified into product type and application type. Based on product type, the bioenergy market is alienated into bioethanol, biogas, biodiesel, and others. It is expected that bioethanol and biodiesel will grow at a major market share. Based on application, the market is classified into cooking, off-grid electricity supply, transportation, and others. Download Free PDF Report Brochure @ https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/requestbrochure/bioenergy-market Global Bioenergy Market: Regional Analysis Bioenergy market in North America is anticipated to increase due to the stringent emission norms in the region. The U.S. in North America is anticipated to lead the production of bioethanol in the coming years, whereas Germany in Europe is expected to lead the biogas production in the coming future. Thus, it is anticipated that Germany will lead the global bioenergy market in the European bioenergy market. The bioenergy market in Europe is expected to develop due to positive subsidization schemes. Rise in demand for electricity owing to growing population has resulted in more resourceful and clean energy solutions in Asia Pacific, hence it is anticipated that this region will grow at a significant rate in the future which will be closely followed by the Middle East. Global Bioenergy Market: Competitive Players Some of the major market players in the global bioenergy market are Amyris, Inc., BP Biofuels, Abengoa Bioenergy, Ceres Inc., Butamax Advanced Biofuels, Enerkem, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, Joule Unlimited, Gevo, Inc., LanzaTech, POET LLC, Novozymes, Solazyme Inc., Sapphire Energy, and Zeachem Inc., among others. To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/toc/bioenergy-market Global Bioenergy Market: Regional Segment Analysis North America The U.S. Europe The UK France Germany The Asia Pacific China Japan India Latin America Brazil The Middle East and Africa Inquire more about this report @ https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/inquiry/bioenergy-market What Reports Provides Full in-depth analysis of the parent market Important changes in market dynamics Segmentation details of the market Former, on-going, and projected market analysis in terms of volume and value Assessment of niche industry developments Market share analysis Key strategies of major players Emerging segments and regional markets Testimonials to companies in order to fortify their foothold in the market. San Francisco, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/15/2019 -- Bioinformatics Services Market Introduction Bioinformatics is the field mainly involving molecular biology, genetics, mathematics, statistics, and computer science. The bioinformatics services include analysis of the data that can range from processing sequencing reads from instrument to data aggregation and mining data samples. Bioinformatics services can help biologists to understand the biological process with a computational intensive technique for machine learning algorithms, pattern recognition, data mining and visualization. Request Sample Copy of the Report @ https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=B&rep_id=4836 Bioinformatics tools can help to compare genomic and genetic data and understand evolutionary aspects of molecular biology. Bioinformatics services are finding wide application in chemoinformatics, genomics, metabolomics, RNA-seq analysis, and drug design. The database is an important part for bioinformatics research and application to cover various information types including molecular structure, protein and DNA sequences, and phenotypes in bioinformatics services. Bioinformatics Services Market: Notable Highlights Thermo Fisher Scientific has decided to stop selling its genetic sequencing equipment in Xinjiang, China as it may be used to create DNA database of Uighur minority in the Country. Meanwhile, Thermo Fisher Scientific recently signed an agreement to sell its Anatomical Pathology business to PHC Holdings. In 2018, CD Genomics launched premier RNA-seq services for accurate and cost-efficient gene profiling. It will also enable the discovery of new gene structures. NRGene along with Macrogen Corp. launched ArrayMAGIC, a sequencing based genotype service. It provides ultra-high density SNP genotyping, while offering cost-effective and convenient genotyping. Macrogen's NGS labs in Korea has officially received Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) accreditation. The company is the first one to receive CLIA accreditation in Korea. QIAGEN has entered into a partnership with Ares Genetics to develop new bioinformatics and assay solutions in order to support research targeting various global health challenges by antibiotic resistant pathogens. MedGenome has taken over the Center for Genetic Health Care (CGHC) in Mumbai, India. It will be called as MedGenome-CGHC and will have team of experienced scientists, medical geneticists and bioinformatics. Some of the leading players operating in the bioinformatics services market are CD Genomics, Illumina, NeoGenomics, Thermo Fisher Scientific, PerkinElmer, BGI, Microsynth, QIAGEN, BaseClear, Fios Genomics, MedGenome, GENEWIZ, and Macrogen. Bioinformatics Services Market Dynamics Bioinformatics Services Finding Wide Application in Personalized Medicine Discovery With the increasing prevalence of various diseases, new treatments and drugs are being discovered and developed. Extensive molecular biological data on patients is being included on a large scale in diagnosis and treatment. Bioinformatics services is fundamental to precision medicine as developing personalized medicine depends on accessing genetic and molecular data. In recent years, the majority of the molecularly targeted drugs have been developed based on the detected gene mutation. Next-gen sequencing in bioinformatics services is emerging as an important tool in genomic analysis and developing personalized medicine. Next-gen sequencing along with microarrays in bioinformatics services have also paved the way for precision medicine in oncology. Meanwhile, increasing availability and decreasing the cost of next-gen sequencing is allowing worldwide cancer centers to offer next-gen sequencing based personalized oncology for clinical practice while suggesting specific medicine and treatment. Increasing Initiatives by Governments and Private Organizations in Bioinformatics Services With increasing application of new technologies in life science, governments and organizations across various countries are investing in the new technologies and in research and development activities in bioinformatics services. According to the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH), around 60 million genomes are likely to be sequenced by 2025. Moreover, with the presence of national clinical genomic initiatives worldwide, the generation of genomic data in healthcare is expected to outpace that in research in the coming years. Governments across countries are increasingly investing in the biotechnology and bioinformatics services to effectively implement new technologies and support genomic and epidemiological research. Request TOC of the Report @ https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=T&rep_id=4836 Countries such as the US, UK, Australia, France, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Denmark are developing new strategies for projects focusing on cancer and rare diseases, along with the use of sequencing services and genomic data. New research activities are also being conducted for application of bioinformatics services in biodefense. The Mid-Atlantic Microbiome Meet-up (M3) is focusing on the use of next-generation sequencing technologies and recent advances in biodefense, especially related to infectious diseases, and also using metagenomic methods for detection. Shortage of Skilled Workforce and High Cost Hampering the Bioinformatics Services Market Growth Although bioinformatics services is emerging as an important part of research in life science, lack of skills and knowledge in bioinformatics is hindering its growth. With the technological and process advancements in biotechnology, it has become imperative that bioinformatics techniques are performed by skilled personnel. However, the need for heavy investment in tool upgradation and installation training is impeding the growth of bioinformatics services. Owing to this there is a lack of skilled manpower in bioinformatics services who can adapt to the high-end bioinformatics techniques and processes. Moreover, the lack of skilled professionals in bioinformatics services is also hampering the growth of clinical laboratories as they are focusing to automate processes. However, in recent years, governments along with healthcare institutions are focusing on strategies to provide new courses in bioinformatics as it holds a big promise in solving many health related and environmental issues. Read Comprehensive Overview of Report @ https://www.tmrresearch.com/bioinformatics-services-market Highlights of the report: A detailed analysis of key segments of the market Recent developments in the market's competitive landscape Detailed analysis of market segments up to second or third level of segmentation Historical, current, and projected future valuation of the market in terms of revenue and/or volume Key business strategies adopted by influential market vendors Outline of the regulatory framework surrounding and governing numerous aspects of the market Growth opportunities in emerging and established markets Recommendations to market players to stay ahead of the competition The White House denies President Donald Trump is inciting violence and Islamophobia for a tweet critical of Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and her seemingly dismissive comment about the Sept. 11 attacks. "Certainly the president is wishing no ill will and certainly not violence towards anyone," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told Fox News Sunday. "But the president should be calling out the congresswoman for not only one time but a history of anti-Semitic comments," she added, accusing Omar's fellow Democrats of "looking the other way." But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the memories of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on New York and Washington are "sacred ground and any discussion of it must be done with reverence." Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler said on CNN Sunday he had no problem with Omar's comments. "I have had some problems with some of her other remarks, but not with that one," he said. In an emotional speech last month to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Omar spoke out against discrimination against and suspicions of Muslims. "CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something, that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties... for far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I'm tired of it and every single Muslim in the country should be tired of it," she said. Northbrook, IL -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/15/2019 -- The global E-Bike Market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 9.01% during the forecast period, to reach USD 38.6 billion by 2025 from an estimated USD 21.1 billion in 2018. The major factors driving the growth of the e-bike market are increasing concerns about traffic congestion, rapid urbanization, government initiatives to reduce emission levels, and growth of the bicycle tourism industry. An electric bike, often known as an e-bike, has an electric motor aligned to the pedal for propulsion. These bicycles use chargeable batteries of different capacities. E-bikes are equipped with a mid or hub motor and can be classified on the basis of the power of the electric motor. Pedal assist and throttle-on-demand are the two different modes of electric bikes. Download PDF Brochure @ https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=110827400 Recent Developments: - In July 2018, Yamaha introduced 600Wh multi-location in tube battery for Electrically Power Assisted Bicycles (EPACs), which offer a 20% capacity increase. - In June 2018, Yamaha Motor Corporation introduced the PW series TE system (Quadra sensor System). This provides an automatic support mode in which the motor delivers appropriate power for every particular mode of driving. - In June 2016, Accell Group N.V. introduced a new product Sparta M8i and the Haibike eConnect in 2016. It was the first addition of connected bicycle models to the portfolio. Sparta (Accell Brand) and Conneqtech partnered to develop the software to allow the Track&Trace system to communicate using the Internet. Haibike eConnect is developed by Haibike for certain Duro 8.0 models, which links eBike to the digital world with the help of a GPS control module inside the bike. - In October 2015, Yadea Group Holdings Ltd partnered with Gi FlyBike to produce an innovative smart bike in China and make the complex design of the FlyBike a reality. - In December 2015, AIMA Technology Group Co. Ltd. launched the AIMA flagship store in Switzerland as it continued to promote the reputation, popularity, and loyalty of its brand, and finally increase its brand influence worldwide. The Asia Pacific is expected to account for the largest market size during the forecast period The Asia Pacific region is estimated to be the largest e-bike market by 2025. The region comprises some of the fastest developing economies of the world such as China and India. The governments of these developing economies have recognized the growth potential of electric two-wheelers and, hence, have taken several initiatives to attract major OEMs to manufacture electric two-wheelers in their domestic markets. For instance, the Government of India announced financial support and a scheme called Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (FAME). Under the scheme, there is a subsidy of up to INR 22,000 for electric scooters/electric bikes. Government promotions and schemes have led to an increase in sales of electric two-wheelers over the years. Class-I is the largest segment of the e-bike market Class-I e-bikes are the most widely used e-bikes across the globe. These e-bikes are equipped with a motor that provides assistance only when the rider is pedaling and stops providing assistance when the bicycle reaches 20 mph. These e-bikes can operate on any paved surface. The class-I segment is expected to hold the largest share of the e-bike market as this e-bike category meets the e-bike laws and regulations of most of the countries. Class-III is the fastest growing segment during the forecast period The class III e-bike segment is expected to be the fastest growing market during the forecast period. This class is popular among the youngsters as it offers higher speed than the other two classes i.e class-I and class-II. Also, this e-bike segment is expected to help replace cars with bikes across the globe. Class-III e-bikes, which are also called speed pedal-assisted e-bikes, are equipped with a motor that provides assistance only when the rider is pedaling and stops providing assistance when the bicycle reaches 28 mph. Operators of Class-III e-bikes must be 16 years or older and wear a helmet. Class-III e-bikes are prohibited from entering Class-I multi-use bike paths unless specifically authorized by a local ordinance. Request for Sample Pages @ https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=110827400 Key Players: The major market players include Yamaha Motor Corporation (Japan), Giant Manufacturing Co., Ltd (Taiwan), Accell Group N.V (Netherlands), Aima Technology Group Co., Ltd (China), and Yadea Group Holdings Ltd (China). These companies have strong distribution networks at a global level. The key strategies adopted by these companies to sustain their market position are new product developments, collaborations, and contracts & agreements. For instance, in October 2016, Giant Bicycle partnered with financial services player Affirm. Through the tie-up, Giant's shoppers can pay for their bicycle purchases over time with Affirm. The company added this payment flexibility to its website for online buyers. Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/15/2019 -- ResearchMoz include new market research report "Global Automotive Geospatial Analytics Market Size, Status and Forecast 2019-2025" to its huge collection of research reports. Geospatial analysis is the gathering, display, and manipulation of imagery, GPS, satellite photography and historical data, described explicitly in terms of geographic coordinates or implicitly, in terms of a street address, postal code, or forest stand identifier as they are applied to geographic models. Based on component, the geospatial analytics market has been segmented into software & solutions and services. The software & solutions segment is expected to hold a larger market share in 2018. The adoption of geospatial software & solutions by enterprises is primarily to acquire location-based business intelligence for informed decision-making. Order a copy of Sample Report @ https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=2081255 North America is estimated to be the largest market for geospatial analytics in 2017. The growth of the geospatial analytics market in North America is primarily driven by the high adoption of latest technologies such as cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and business intelligence tools. This report focuses on the global Automotive Geospatial Analytics status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. The study objectives are to present the Automotive Geospatial Analytics development in United States, Europe and China. The key players covered in this study IBM ESRI Google Pitney Bowes SAP Oracle Alteryx Bentley Systems Harris DigitalGlobe Hexagon AB Teradata Trimble Maplarge Market segment by Type, the product can be split into Software & Solutions Services Market segment by Application, split into Safety and Navigation Insurance Logistics Others Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report covers United States Europe China Japan Southeast Asia India Central & South America For Enquiry Visit @ https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=E&repid=2081255 The study objectives of this report are: To analyze global Automotive Geospatial Analytics status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. To present the Automotive Geospatial Analytics 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. 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. About ResearchMoz ResearchMoz 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. For More Information Kindly Contact: ResearchMoz Mr. Nachiket Ghumare, Tel: +1-518-621-2074 USA-Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948 Email: sales@researchmoz.us Follow us on LinkedIn @ http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG Blog: https://newmarketsize.blogspot.com Los Angeles, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/15/2019 -- Global Gas Incubator Market: Segmentation The chapters of segmentation allow the readers to understand the aspects of the market such as its products, available technologies, and applications of the same. These chapters are written in a manner to describe their development over the years and the course they are likely to take in the coming years. The research report also provides insightful information about the emerging trends that are likely to define progress of these segments in the coming years. Request a Sample of this report at: https://www.qyresearch.com/sample-form/form/1095285/global-gas-incubator-market Global Gas Incubator Market: Regional Segmentation For a deeper understanding, the research report includes geographical segmentation of the global Gas Incubator market. It provides an evaluation of the volatility of the political scenarios and amends likely to be made to the regulatory structures. This assessment gives an accurate analysis of the regional-wise growth of the global Gas Incubator market. The Middle East and Africa (GCC Countries and Egypt) North America (the United States, Mexico, and Canada) South America (Brazil etc.) Europe (Turkey, Germany, Russia UK, Italy, France, etc.) Asia-Pacific (Vietnam, China, Malaysia, Japan, Philippines, Korea, Thailand, India, Indonesia, and Australia) Global Gas Incubator Market: Research Methodology The research methodologies used by the analysts play an integral role in the way the publication has been collated. Analysts have used primary and secondary research methodologies to create a comprehensive analysis. For an accurate and precise analysis of the global Gas Incubator market, analysts have bottom-up and top-down approaches. Global Gas Incubator Market: Competitive Rivalry The research report includes an analysis of the competitive landscape present in the global Gas Incubator market. It includes an assessment of the existing and upcoming trends that players can invest in. Furthermore, it also includes an evaluation of the financial outlooks of the players and explains the nature of the competition. Key Players Mentioned in the Global Gas Incubator Market Research Report: Thermo Scientific Eppendorf Panasonic Binder NuAire LEEC ESCO Memmert Caron Sheldon Manufacturing Boxun Noki Ask our Expert if You Have a Query at: enquiry@qyresearch.com Strategic Points Covered in TOC: Chapter 1: Introduction, market driving force product scope, market risk, market overview, and market opportunities of the global Gas Incubator market Chapter 2: Evaluating the leading manufacturers of the global Gas Incubator market which consists of its revenue, sales, and price of the products Chapter 3: Displaying the competitive nature among key manufacturers, with market share, revenue, and sales Chapter 4: Presenting global Gas Incubator market by regions, market share and with revenue and sales for the projected period Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9: To evaluate the market by segments, by countries and by manufacturers with revenue share and sales by key countries in these various regions Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/15/2019 -- Global Hair Loss & Growth Treatments and Products Market Report 2019 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 Hair Loss & Growth Treatments and Products Market. Some of the key players profiled in the study are L'Oreal, Unilever, Taisho, Henkel, Merck, Shiseido, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc., Rohto, Lifes2Good, Gerolymatos International, Toppik, Nanogen, Oxford BioLabs Ltd., Ultrax Labs, Avalon Natural Products, Bayer, Pharma Medico, Kirkland Signature, Phyto Ales Group, Amplixin, Kerafiber, Phyto, Keranique, DS Healthcare Group, Kaminomoto, Softto, Bawang & Zhang Guang 101. Hair Loss & Growth Treatments and Products Market Overview: If you are involved in the Hair Loss & Growth Treatments and Products industry or intend to be, then this study will provide you comprehensive outlook. It's vital you keep your market knowledge up to date segmented by, Hair Loss and Growth Devices, Shampoos and Conditioners, Medicine Product, Industry Segmentation, Men, Women, Channel (Direct Sales, Distributor) Segmentation, Section 8: 400 USD??Trend (2018-2023), Section 9: 300 USD??Product Type Detail, Section 10: 700 USD??Downstream Consumer, Section 11: 200 USD??Cost Structure & Section 12: 500 USD??Conclusion 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 @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/1750978-global-hair-loss-growth-treatments-and-products-market-27 Hair Loss & Growth Treatments and Products Market: Demand Analysis & Opportunity Outlook 2023 Research 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 2013-2017 Base year 2018 Forecast 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: , Hair Loss and Growth Devices, Shampoos and Conditioners, Medicine Product, Industry Segmentation, Men, Women, Channel (Direct Sales, Distributor) Segmentation, Section 8: 400 USD??Trend (2018-2023), Section 9: 300 USD??Product Type Detail, Section 10: 700 USD??Downstream Consumer, Section 11: 200 USD??Cost Structure & Section 12: 500 USD??Conclusion Some of the key Manufacturers Involved in the Market are L?Oreal, Unilever, Taisho, Henkel, Merck, Shiseido, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc., Rohto, Lifes2Good, Gerolymatos International, Toppik, Nanogen, Oxford BioLabs Ltd., Ultrax Labs, Avalon Natural Products, Bayer, Pharma Medico, Kirkland Signature, Phyto Ales Group, Amplixin, Kerafiber, Phyto, Keranique, DS Healthcare Group, Kaminomoto, Softto, Bawang & Zhang Guang 101 You can get free access to samples from the report here: https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/1750978-global-hair-loss-growth-treatments-and-products-market-27 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 Hair Loss & Growth Treatments and Products 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 @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=1750978 Key Answers Captured in Study are Which 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 Hair Loss & Growth Treatments and Products 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 Hair Loss & Growth Treatments and Products market growth? What are the recent trends in the regional market and how successful they are? Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/1750978-global-hair-loss-growth-treatments-and-products-market-27 There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Hair Loss & Growth Treatments and Products market. Chapter 1, About Executive Summary to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Global Hair Loss & Growth Treatments and Products market, Applications, Market Segment by Regions North America Country (United States, Canada), South America, Asia Country (China, Japan, India, Korea), Europe Country (Germany, UK, France, Italy), Other Country (Middle East, Africa, GCC) & Section (5 6 7): 500 USD??; 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 Country (United States, Canada), South America, Asia Country (China, Japan, India, Korea), Europe Country (Germany, UK, France, Italy), Other Country (Middle East, Africa, GCC) & Section (5 6 7): 500 USD?? ], comparison, leading countries and opportunities; Regional Marketing Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis Chapter 10, focus on identifying the key industry influencer's, 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 Hair Loss & Growth Treatments and Products 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]. Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/15/2019 -- A fresh report has been added to the wide database of Market Research Report Search Engine (MRRSE). The research study is titled "Insulation Monitoring Devices Market Analysis Showcases Growth Trends and Opportunity until 2027" which encloses important data about the production, consumption, revenue and market share, merged with information related to the market scope and product overview. The research study of the global insulation monitoring devices market provides detailed analysis of different segments of the market including feature, measurement method, device type, and application segments. Based on feature, the market has been bifurcated into with device and without device. Based on measurement method, the market has been divided into DC voltage, AMP (patented by Bender), and low-frequency AC voltage. In terms of device type, the market has been segmented into with coupling device and without coupling device. Moreover, in terms of application, the insulation monitoring devices market has been segregated into healthcare, railways, mechanical & plant engineering, mining, oil & gas, ships & ports, renewable energy, eMobility, mobile power generation, public power supply networks, and data centers. To Get Sample Copy of Report, Click here @ https://www.mrrse.com/sample/19004 The global insulation monitoring devices market is expected to reach 5,652.31 thousand units, in terms of volume, by 2027. The market is projected to expand at a CAGR of 5.42% from 2019 to 2027. According to the report, the global market is expected to continue to be influenced by rising demand from the global renewable energy sector, increasing implementation of IT power supply networks worldwide, and availability of industry standards pertaining to insulation monitoring devices in the near future. Asia Pacific is estimated to continue to lead the global market, with the market in the region expanding at a CAGR of above 6% during the forecast period. Prominent economies in Asia Pacific such as China, Japan, India, and Australia, are adopting insulation monitoring devices increasingly. Secondary research sources that are typically referred to include, but are not limited to: company websites, annual reports, financial reports, broker reports, investor presentations, SEC filings, internal and external proprietary databases, relevant patent and regulatory databases, national government documents, statistical databases, news articles, press releases, webcasts specific to companies operating in the global insulation monitoring devices market, national government documents, statistical databases, market reports, and Factiva. Primary research involved e-mail interactions, telephonic interviews, and face-to-face interviews conducted for each segment and sub-segment of the insulation monitoring devices market across different geographies. TMR conducts primary interviews on an ongoing basis with market participants and commentators in order to validate the data and analysis. Primary interviews provide firsthand information on market size, market trends, growth trends, competition landscape, and market outlook. These help in validation and strengthening of secondary research findings. They also help develop market expertise and understanding of the team of analysts. The report includes profiles of well-established players operating in the global insulation monitoring devices market. These are Bender GmbH & Co. KG, ABB, Viper Innovations Ltd, Schneider Electric, Littelfuse, Inc., and HAKEL LTD. These players are focused on providing technologically advanced products to their customers and meeting the rising demand. For instance, in 2018, Viper Innovations Ltd, a manufacturer of insulation monitoring devices for rail and subsea applications, upgraded its insulation monitoring device called V-LIM (Line Integrity Monitor) in order to resolve the issue of cross-disturbance between two insulation monitoring devices. With this product upgrade, the company resolved the issue by offering a long-term solution. Browse Complete Report with TOC @ https://www.mrrse.com/insulation-monitoring-devices-market The global insulation monitoring devices market has been segmented as follows: Global Insulation Monitoring Devices Market, by Feature With Display Without Display Global Insulation Monitoring Devices Market, by Measurement Method DC Voltage AMP (Patented by Bender) Low-frequency AC Voltage Global Insulation Monitoring Devices Market, by Device Type With Coupling Device Without Coupling Device Global Insulation Monitoring Devices Market, by Application Healthcare Railways Mechanical & Plant Engineering Mining Oil & Gas Ships &Ports Renewable Energy eMobility Mobile Power Generation Public Power Supply Networks Data Centers Global Insulation Monitoring Devices Market, by Region North America U.S. Canada Rest of North America Europe Germany France U.K. Rest of Europe Asia Pacific (APAC) China Japan India Australia Rest of APAC Middle East & Africa (MEA) GCC South Africa Rest of MEA South America Brazil Rest of South America Enquire about this Report @ https://www.mrrse.com/enquiry/19004 About Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of Market Research Reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords. MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSE's repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting. Contact Us State Tower 90, State Street Suite 700 Albany, NY - 12207 United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559 Email: sales@mrrse.com Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/15/2019 -- Global Library Automation Systems and Services Market Size, Status and Forecast 2018-2025 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 Library Automation Systems and Services Market. Some of the key players profiled in the study are ExLibris, Innovative Interfaces, Library Automation Technologies, Libsys, PrimaSoft, SirsiDynix, Ample Trails, Auto Graphics, Axiell Group, Book Systems, CR2 Technologies, Capita, Cybrosys Techno Solutions, Mandarin Library Automation, Jaywil Software Development, Insignia Software, Quantum, Softlink, SRB Education Solutions & Technowin Solution. Library automation is a technological approach that helps in disseminating information easily and reducing the budget allocated for educational IT spending on libraries. Automation in libraries is an emerging trend and is getting acceptance in the education sector. Automation allows libraries to improve in cataloging and hence the quality of materials available in the collection. It can help make clearing out outdated, old, and irrelevant materials from the collection. It aslo helps libraries in providing easy access to members by maintaining less number of staff. Increasing advancement in information technology (IT) systems has changed the way libraries can acquire, sort and deliver information. Library automation is a technological approach to automate different library operations and services. Library automation includes the automation of different library functions such as information acquisition, public access, cataloging, indexing and abstracting, serials management, circulation and reference. Library automation system, also called as integrated library system, includes a common bibliographic database which is shared by all the functional modules. In library automation system, every book has only one bibliographic record and has all the transactions involved with the book are linked to its bibliographic record. Library automation systems operate on Windows, Linux, open source operating systems (OS) and other proprietary OS. These systems usually utilize database management systems (DBMS) offered by software vendors to interact among two or more databases. Library automation systems use transmission control protocol and the internet protocol (TCP/IP) suite for establishing communication across the local area networks (LAN) and run on client server architecture. In 2017, the global Library Automation Systems and 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 2018-2025. Library Automation Systems and Services Market Overview: If you are involved in the Library Automation Systems and Services industry or intend to be, then this study will provide you comprehensive outlook. It's vital you keep your market knowledge up to date segmented by Public Libraries, Academic and School Library & Special Library, , Off-The-Shelf Library Automation Package & Customized Solutions 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 @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/1322278-global-library-automation-systems-and-services-market-1 Library Automation Systems and Services Market: Demand Analysis & Opportunity Outlook 2023 Research 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 2013-2017 Base year 2018 Forecast 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: , Off-The-Shelf Library Automation Package & Customized Solutions Major applications/end-users industry are as follows: Public Libraries, Academic and School Library & Special Library Some of the key Manufacturers Involved in the Market are ExLibris, Innovative Interfaces, Library Automation Technologies, Libsys, PrimaSoft, SirsiDynix, Ample Trails, Auto Graphics, Axiell Group, Book Systems, CR2 Technologies, Capita, Cybrosys Techno Solutions, Mandarin Library Automation, Jaywil Software Development, Insignia Software, Quantum, Softlink, SRB Education Solutions & Technowin Solution You can get free access to samples from the report here: https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/1322278-global-library-automation-systems-and-services-market-1 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 Library Automation Systems and Services 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 @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=1322278 Key Answers Captured in Study are Which 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 Library Automation Systems and Services 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 Library Automation Systems and Services market growth? What are the recent trends in the regional market and how successful they are? Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/1322278-global-library-automation-systems-and-services-market-1 There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Library Automation Systems and Services market. Chapter 1, About Executive Summary to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Global Library Automation Systems and Services market, Applications [Public Libraries, Academic and School Library & Special Library], Market Segment by Regions United States, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India & Central & South America; 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[United States, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India & Central & South America ], comparison, leading countries and opportunities; Regional Marketing Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis Chapter 10, focus on identifying the key industry influencer's, 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 Library Automation Systems and Services 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]. Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/15/2019 -- The Latest business intelligence report released by HTF MI with title "Global Outdoor Speaker Market Insights, Forecast to 2025". The study provides information on market trends and development, drivers, capacities, technologies, and on the changing capital structure of the Global Outdoor Speaker Market. The research is derived through primary and secondary statistics sources and it involves both qualitative and quantitative specifying. Some of the key players profiled in the study are Yamaha, Bose, Boston Acoustics, Atlas Sound, Definitive Technology, Electro-Voice, JBL, Klipsch, Niles, Polk Audio, Pyle, RCF, Theater Solutions & AR Speakers If you are involved in the Outdoor Speaker industry or intend to be, then this study will provide you comprehensive outlook. It's vital you keep your market knowledge up to date segmented by Home & Commercial, , Wireless & Wired 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. Request Sample of Global Outdoor Speaker Market Research Report 2019 @: https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/1544163-global-outdoor-speaker-market-4 This report studies the market size of Global Outdoor Speaker in key regions like North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Central & South America and Middle East & Africa, focuses on the consumption of Outdoor Speaker in these regions. This research report categorizes the Global Outdoor Speaker market by top players/brands, region, type and end user. This report also studies the Global Outdoor Speaker market status, competition landscape, market share, growth rate, future trends, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, sales channels and distributors. The global Outdoor Speaker 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 Outdoor Speaker volume and value at global level, regional level and company level. From a global perspective, this report represents overall Outdoor Speaker 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 Global Outdoor Speaker (Thousands Units) and Revenue (Million USD) Market Split by Product Type such as , Wireless & Wired **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. Outdoor Speaker Market Based on Geography - North America (U.S. & Canada) {Market Size (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis} - Latin America ( Brazil , Mexico & Rest of Latin America) {Market Size (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis} - Europe (The U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Sweden & RoE) {Market Size (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis} - Asia-Pacific (China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Rest of Asia) {Market Size (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis} - Middle East & Africa (GCC, South Africa, North Africa, RoMEA) {Market Size (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis} - Rest of World {Market Size (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis} Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/1544163-global-outdoor-speaker-market-4 Each player highlighted in the research study contains companies Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors, in-depth business overview, geographic footprint and contact information. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to SWOT Analysis. Furthermore, the years considered for the study are as follows: Historical year 2014-2019 Base year 2019 Forecast period** 2019 to 2025 [** unless otherwise stated] Additionally the export and import policies that can make an immediate impact on the Global Outdoor Speaker market. This study contains a EXIM* related chapter on the Outdoor Speaker market and all its associated companies with their profiles, which gives valuable data pertaining to their outlook in terms of finances, product portfolios, investment plans, and marketing and business strategies. This study is the collection of primary and secondary data including valuable information from major vendors in the market and the projections are derived on data from 2012 to current date and projected forecasts till 2022 which makes the research study a valuable resource for industry personnel, and other people looking for key industry related data in readily accessible documents with easy to analyze graphs and tables. The report is a perfect answer to future development road-map of Outdoor Speaker based on ongoing outlook to assist industry player understand the development journey of Outdoor Speaker Market. Buy this research report @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=1544163 There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Outdoor Speaker market. Chapter 1, to describe Definition, Disclaimers and Organization of Global Outdoor Speaker, Applications of ,Market Segment by Regions; Chapter 2, to display the Procedural Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of , Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, Export & Import, R&D Status and Technology Source, Raw Materials Sources Analysis; Chapter 3, to examine the Raw Material Manufacturing Cost Structure and Suppliers, Manufacturing Process, Manufacturing Chain Structure; Chapter 4, to show the Complete Market Analysis, Capacity Analysis (Business Segment), Sales Analysis (Business Segment), Sales Price Analysis (Business Segment); Chapter 5 and 6, to analyze the Market Analysis (by Application [Home & Commercial] Major Manufacturers Analysis; Chapter 7 and 8, to show the County Market Analysis that includes North America, United States, Canada, Mexico, Asia-Pacific, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Europe, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Russia, Central & South America, Brazil, Rest of Central & South America, Middle East & Africa, GCC Countries, Turkey, Egypt & South Africa, Segment Market Analysis (by Type) [, Wireless & Wired]; Chapter 9, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, Global Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis; Chapter 10, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type; Chapter 11, to analyze the Users Analysis of Global Outdoor Speaker by region, type, application; Chapter 12, to describe Outdoor Speaker Research Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data source; Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Outdoor Speaker sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source. Have Any Questions? Ask Here @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/1544163-global-outdoor-speaker-market-4 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]. Pune, Maharashtra -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/15/2019 -- Reciprocating pumps market is projected to witness a significant growth, according to a latest report by Fact.MR. The reciprocating pumps market growth is being influenced by rising demand for oil and gas worldwide, especially in the petrochemical industry. The growing oil and gas demand is creating substantial opportunities for a range of industrial goods, including reciprocating pumps. Reciprocating pumps are also being deployed for pumping fluid in wells at high pressure for fracking process and to transfer extracted oil and gas to the processing facility. Reciprocating pump sales are also influenced by prevailing trends, including steadily growing adoption of smart pumping systems. Sensing the evolving trends, reciprocating pump manufacturers are focusing on integrating sensors in the pumps to capture various parameters including liquid levels, temperature, and pressure. Request Sample Report @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=2396 Asia Pacific Largest Market for Reciprocating Pumps Market, followed by North America The demand for reciprocating pumps is likely to grow significantly in the APEJ region, with total sales expected to surpass US$ 1,000 million by the end of 2018. China and India are among the most attractive markets for reciprocating pumps in APEJ. Reciprocating pump sales in APEJ are likely to benefit from macroeconomic trends, notably growing investment in energy generation. The Government of India is adopting several policies to meet the increasing demand for oil and gas in the country. The gas pipeline infrastructure is also growing with the rise in manufacturing units and facilities in India. With the government allowing 100% FDI in natural gas, refineries, and petroleum products, foreign investors have started investing in refineries and petrochemicals projects in India. Browse Full Report @ https://www.factmr.com/report/2396/reciprocating-pumps-market Macroeconomic trends are also impacting market growth in the Americas. The growing demand from offshore and onshore fields in the Gulf of Mexico is creating opportunities for reciprocating pump industry. Moreover, growing emphasis on developing unconventional resources in the US and Canada is driving the demand for oil and gas pumps including reciprocating pumps in North America. The demand for plunger pumps is increasing in oilfield applications, especially, in petroleum transfer operations, in secondary and tertiary injection wells, and at refineries. You can Buy This Report from Here @ https://www.factmr.com/checkout/2396/S Growth in Chemicals Industry Accelerating Demand for Diaphragm Pumps According to Fact.MR's analysis, demand for diaphragm pumps are likely to remain the preferred choice among end-users owing to their enhanced features, such as flexibility and isolation of the fluid chamber. Fact.MR estimates global sales of diaphragm pumps to surpass 2,000,000 units by the end of 2018. Increasing production of aggressive chemicals is resulting in the surging demand for Air Operated Double Diaphragm (AODD) pumps. Electric double diaphragm pump combining energy-saving benefits of electric device with the diaphragm pump technology has also been introduced for chemical pumping application. Large adoption of this technology is expected in the chemical sector in the near future as it helps in reducing operating cost and energy consumption. The reciprocating pumps across industries are used and run at a very low speed as compared to the centrifugal pumps. The biggest reason is to protect and increase packing and sealing life of the machine. Manufacturers in various industries use reciprocating pumps with the flow rate of up to 100 m/h thereby improving reliability and increasing plunger life. The overall outlook of the reciprocating pumps market is anticipated to be positive. The demand for reciprocating pumps is expected to expand at a 5.6% CAGR in terms of value throughout the forecast period, 2018-2027. About Fact.MR Fact.MR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports. Contact Us Rohit Bhisey Fact.MR 11140 Rockville Pike Suite 400 Rockville, MD 20852 United States Email: sales@factmr.com Web: https://www.factmr.com/ Read Industry News at - https://theswisstimes.com Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/15/2019 -- Latest research study from HTF MI with title Global Single Coffee by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2023. The Research report presents a complete assessment of the market and contains Future trend, Current Growth Factors, attentive opinions, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry validated market data. The study is segmented by products type, application/end-users. The research study provides estimates for Global Single Coffee Forecast till 2023. If you are involved in the Single Coffee industry or intend to be, then this study will provide you comprehensive outlook. It's vital you keep your market knowledge up to date segmented by Applications Drink To Go, Takeaway, Restaurant Service, Coffeehouse Service, Personal Use, Office Use, Supermarkets Service, Convenience Stores Service & Vending Machines Service, Product Types such as [, Light Single Coffee & Origin Single Coffee] and some major players in the industry. If you have a different set of players/manufacturers according to geography or needs regional or country segmented reports we can provide customization according to your requirement. Request Sample of Global Single Coffee Market Insights, Forecast to 2025 @: https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/1326892-global-single-coffee-market-2 This report studies the global market size of Single Coffee in key regions like North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Central & South America and Middle East & Africa, focuses on the consumption of Single Coffee in these regions. This research report categorizes the global Single Coffee market by top players/brands, region, type and end user. This report also studies the global Single Coffee market status, competition landscape, market share, growth rate, future trends, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, sales channels and distributors. Key Companies/players: Fresh Roasted Coffee LLC. (US), Jo Coffee(US) & Koffeekult(US). Application: Drink To Go, Takeaway, Restaurant Service, Coffeehouse Service, Personal Use, Office Use, Supermarkets Service, Convenience Stores Service & Vending Machines Service, Product Type: , Light Single Coffee & Origin Single Coffee. The research covers the current & Future market size of the Global Single Coffee market and its growth rates based on 5 year history data. It also covers various types of segmentation such as by geography [North America, United States, Canada, Mexico, Asia-Pacific, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Europe, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Russia, Central & South America, Brazil, Rest of Central & South America, Middle East & Africa, GCC Countries, Turkey, Egypt & South Africa]. The market competition is constantly growing higher with the rise in technological innovation and M&A activities in the industry. Moreover, many local and regional vendors are offering specific application products for varied end-users. On the basis of attributes such as company overview, recent developments, strategies adopted by the market leaders to ensure growth, sustainability, financial overview and recent developments. Stay up-to-date with Single Coffee market research offered by HTF MI. Check how key trends and emerging drivers are shaping this industry growth as the study avails you with market characteristics, size and growth, segmentation, regional breakdowns, competitive landscape, shares, trend and strategies for this market. In the Global Single Coffee Market Analysis & Forecast 2018-2023, the revenue is valued at USD XX million in 2017 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2023, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2018 and 2023. The production is estimated at XX million in 2017 and is forecasted to reach XX million by the end of 2023, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2018 and 2023. Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/1326892-global-single-coffee-market-2 Key questions answered in this report - Global Single Coffee Market Insights, Forecast to 2025 What will the market size be in 2023 and what will the growth rate be What are the key market trends What is driving Global Single Coffee Market? What are the challenges to market growth? Who are the key vendors in Single Coffee Market space? What are the key market trends impacting the growth of the Global Single Coffee Market ? What are the key outcomes of the five forces analysis of the Global Single Coffee Market? What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the vendors in the Global Single Coffee market? Get in-depth details about factors influencing the market shares of the Americas, APAC, and EMEA? Enquire for customization in Report @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/1326892-global-single-coffee-market-2 There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Single Coffee market. Chapter 1, to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Global Single Coffee, Applications of Single Coffee, Market Segment by Regions; Chapter 2, to analyze the Manufacturing Cost Structure, Raw Material and Suppliers, Manufacturing Process, Industry Chain Structure; Chapter 3, to display the Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of , Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, Export & Import, R&D Status and Technology Source, Raw Materials Sources Analysis; Chapter 4, to show the Overall Market Analysis, Capacity Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment); Chapter 5 and 6, to show the Regional Market Analysis that includes North America, United States, Canada, Mexico, Asia-Pacific, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Europe, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Russia, Central & South America, Brazil, Rest of Central & South America, Middle East & Africa, GCC Countries, Turkey, Egypt & South Africa, Single Coffee Segment Market Analysis (by Type); Chapter 7 and 8, to analyze the Single Coffee Segment Market Analysis (by Application [Drink To Go, Takeaway, Restaurant Service, Coffeehouse Service, Personal Use, Office Use, Supermarkets Service, Convenience Stores Service & Vending Machines Service]) Major Manufacturers Analysis; Chapter 9, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type [, Light Single Coffee & Origin Single Coffee], Market Trend by Application [Drink To Go, Takeaway, Restaurant Service, Coffeehouse Service, Personal Use, Office Use, Supermarkets Service, Convenience Stores Service & Vending Machines Service]; Chapter 10, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, International Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis; Chapter 11, to analyze the Consumers Analysis of Global Single Coffee by region, type and application ; Chapter 12, to describe Single Coffee Research Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data source; Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Single Coffee sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source. Buy this research report @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=1326892 Reasons for Buying this Report This report provides pin-point analysis for changing competitive dynamics It provides a forward looking perspective on different factors driving or restraining market growth It provides a 5-year forecast assessed on the basis of how the market is predicted to grow It helps in understanding the key product segments and their future It provides pin point analysis of changing competition dynamics and keeps you ahead of competitors It helps in making informed business decisions by having complete insights of market and by making in-depth analysis of market segments 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) -- 04/15/2019 -- Global Training Shoes Market Professional Survey Report 2018 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 Training Shoes Market. Some of the key players profiled in the study are Nike(US), Adidas(US), Under Armour(US), Puma(Germany), Asics(Japan), Li Ning(China), Air Jordan(US), Peak(China), FILA(Italy), Reebok(US) & New Balance(US). Training Shoes Market Overview: If you are involved in the Training Shoes industry or intend to be, then this study will provide you comprehensive outlook. It's vital you keep your market knowledge up to date segmented by Body Building Protection & Sporting Protection, , For Men, For Women & For Kids 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 @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/1191696-global-training-shoes-market-1 Training Shoes Market: Demand Analysis & Opportunity Outlook 2023 Research 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 2013-2017 Base year 2018 Forecast 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: , For Men, For Women & For Kids Major applications/end-users industry are as follows: Body Building Protection & Sporting Protection Some of the key Manufacturers Involved in the Market are Nike(US), Adidas(US), Under Armour(US), Puma(Germany), Asics(Japan), Li Ning(China), Air Jordan(US), Peak(China), FILA(Italy), Reebok(US) & New Balance(US) You can get free access to samples from the report here: https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/1191696-global-training-shoes-market-1 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 Training Shoes 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 @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=1191696 Key Answers Captured in Study are Which 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 Training Shoes 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 Training Shoes market growth? What are the recent trends in the regional market and how successful they are? Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/1191696-global-training-shoes-market-1 There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Training Shoes market. Chapter 1, About Executive Summary to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Global Training Shoes market, Applications [Body Building Protection & Sporting Protection], Market Segment by Regions North America, China, Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan & India; 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, China, Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan & India ], comparison, leading countries and opportunities; Regional Marketing Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis Chapter 10, focus on identifying the key industry influencer's, 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 Training Shoes 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]. President Moon Jae-in will pay an eight-day state visit to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan from Tuesday, a Cheong Wa Dae spokesman said Sunday. He will meet regional despots like ex-Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev over dinner to discuss the "Kazakh model" of denuclearization, which allowed the country to get rich in return for abandoning its nuclear weapons. Nazarbayev abruptly resigned last month after 30 years of iron rule but still exerts enormous influence. After gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan voluntarily gave up its nuclear weapons with Washington's support. In return, Kazakhstan received technologies and money from the U.S. U.S. President Donald Trump apparently modeled his proposals to North Korea on the Kazakh model. The Bank of Korea Saturday signed a new US$5.4 billion currency swap deal with the Central Bank of the UAE. The two countries first concluded a currency swap deal in 2013, but renewal negotiations dragged due to differences in the two countries' legal systems past its expiry in 2016, a BOK spokesman said. They finally signed the new deal at this year's International Monetary Fund meeting in Washington over the weekends. A currency swap is an off-balance sheet transaction where the central banks of two countries pledge to exchange money at a fixed rate in a crisis. The total worth of currency swaps Seoul has signed with foreign countries now surpasses $132.8 billion. The deal with the UAE will expire on April 12, 2022 but can be extended by mutual agreement. Over 10,000 people pre-ordered the Galaxy Fold, which is due to be released in the U.S. on April 26. Samsung had to stop U.S. pre-orders for its breakthrough foldable smartphone in just one day due to high demand, the company said Sunday. Samsung began accepting pre-orders through its website on April 12. Although the phone runs on the 4G LTE network, it is priced at an eye-watering US$1,980. But the following day the company had to announce that pre-orders are closed. It did not specify how many handsets it had prepared for pre-orders, but guesses are in the region of only 10,000. The screen measures 4.6 inches folded and 7.3 inches unfolded. A small Chinese firm also launched a foldable phone last year, but sales were minimal, while Samsung aims to sell 1 million Galaxy Folds this year. The gadget will be released in 15 European countries on May 3, and a 5G model will be launched in mid-May in Korea. The price is expected to be around W2.3 to 2.4 million (US$1=W1,138). North Korea is still building a submarine at a shipyard in Sinpo, South Hamgyong Province, the website 38 North at Johns Hopkins University said Friday based on commercial satellite imagery taken between March 23 and April 11. The North has been building the sub thought to be capable of launching ballistic missiles there for the last three years. Images from March 23 show what appear to be submarine hull sections as well as equipment and supplies near the yard, but they can no longer been seen on April 5, suggesting "that building of a submarine... is continuing," it said. During this period, a vertical test stand for ejection testing of submarine-launched missiles was separated from its support structure and then reunited with it. U.S. Under Secretary of Defense John Rood warned in a recent Senate hearing that the submarine technology "changes the defense equation in terms of where the origin could be, and what are other anti-submarine capabilities in a potential conflicts, how they could be utilized." The leaders of South Korea and the U.S. are so many miles apart on almost every area of their approach to North Korean denuclearization that it remains a mystery why they even bothered meeting last week. Asked if he can accept President Moon Jae-in's proposals for phased denuclearization, Trump said, "I'd have to see what the deal is. You could work out step-by-step pieces, but at this moment, we're talking about the big deal. The big deal is we have to get rid of nuclear weapons." Asked about the sanctions against North Korea, Trump reiterated that he feels the ones in place now are adequate, whereas Moon wants them lifted as soon as possible. And when it comes to another U.S.-North Korea summit, which Moon is pushing for, Trump was lukewarm. "A third summit could happen. And it's step by step. It's not a fast process; I've never said it would be. It's step by step," he said. Summits are usually held only once officials have ironed out the key differences so that the leaders can present a facade of sunshine and roses to the world, or else the leaders are called in to break a deadlock. But neither of those things happened when the two presidents met. It became clear that very little, if any, preparation had taken place, but there was no in-depth discussion between Trump and Moon either. As usual, Trump really only wanted to talk to the press, and ran so far over time that the ensuing summit lasted less than five minutes. Then what was the point? Cheong Wa Dae officials patted themselves on the shoulder and said the summit "eliminated various uncertainties and rekindled momentum for dialogue" with North Korea. But the one thing that was made clearer by it was how far apart the two leaders are. Of course that can be helpful too. Now everyone can see how unrealistic the Moon administration's hopes are to resume cross-border economic projects and get sanctions against North Korea lifted. Moon must now focus his time and energy on convincing Kim Jong-un that he needs to wake up and give up his pipe dreams of making North Korea a prosperous nuclear power. First newbuild under RCL umbrella Due out in summer 2020, Silver Origin is the first ship design undertaken since Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. acquired a 66.7% equity stake in the luxury line, Silversea CEO Roberto Martinoli said. Its more yacht-like than a ship, he said. Its really beautiful and very much in line with the rest of our fleet. Martinoli and other executives shared Silver Origin details in a news conference at Seatrade Cruise Global. The vessel is under construction at Dutch Shipyard De Hoop, which is also building Galapagos ship Celebrity Flora for sister brand Celebrity Cruises. Abundant guides, Zodiacs and butlers Silver Origin will boast a high crew-to-guest ratio of 1:1.16, with one expedition guide per 10 passengers. In addition, the ship will have one Zodiac for every 12.5 passengers. All suites will have butler service. The expedition teamcertified by the National Park of the Galapagoswill present daily briefings, lectures, videos, and scientific information. The destination immersion continues in authentic local cuisine, prepared by Ecuadorian chefs, and the understated Italian decor will be influenced by the natural environment with bright, colorful motifs and regional materials. Silver Origins public spaces were designed by HBA Miami, while GEM Design for Cruise Ships, the team behind the interior design of Silver Muse, oversaw the suite interiors. Basecamp Public areas will include Basecamp, an elegant lounge that connects with the ships Zodiac embarkation area. It will have a large, interactive digital wallthrough which travelers can access destination-related pictures, videos, excursion previews and scientific presentations. The Explorer Lounge will host daily briefings and lectures from the ships expedition team. It will have floor-to-ceiling windows, a large video wall, wide HD screens and a bar and piano. Bathrooms with a view Silver Origin will have eight suite categories, all with private balcony. Certain suite categories will feature a Horizon Balcony, which can convert to enclose the balcony with a floor-to-ceiling window for added space and shelter from the elements. Plus, a first for Silversea, select suite categories will have windows in some bathtubs and showers for views while bathing. All suites will also have a mineral water station to reduce the use of single-use plastic bottles. The two dining venues, The Restaurant and The Grill, will both be capable of accommodating all guests at full capacity. The menu will feature fresh, local ingredients and regional wines. The Grill is an open-air venue that can be partially enclosed; it will also host Silverseas Hot Rocks concept that lets guests cook their steak or seafood on hot lava rocks. Silver Origin will have a dynamic positioning system that will let the ship automatically maintain position to protect the sea floor. It also will have an advanced wastewater treatment system to meet or exceed the strictest regulations in the market. Replaces Silver Galapagos Silver Origin will replace Silver Galapagos, which has operated in the Galapagos Islands for five years. Each of the 13 start-ups will receive SGD50,000 in seed funding from MPA. The SPC is part of the Port Innovation Ecosystem Reimagined @ BLOCK71 (PIER71) launched in June 2018, a collaboration between MPA and NUS Enterprise, the entrepreneurial arm of the National University of Singapore (NUS). PIER71 comprises of three components, namely SPC, an eight-week acceleration phase and ecosystem building. MPA and NUS Enterprise jointly launched PIER71 last year to spur digital adoption in the maritime industry, said Professor Wong Poh Kam, senior director, NUS Entrepreneurship Centre, NUS Enterprise. These technology start-ups have expertise in various technology areas, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, Internet-of-Things and augmented reality. This encourages the adoption of latest technologies and emerging innovations for a more productive and competitive maritime sector in Singapore, Wong said. One of the recipients of the seed funding was Claritecs. The Singapore homegrown firm developed BunkerMaestro, an algorithm-based software to assist bunker operators in bunker tankers scheduling so as to achieve higher work efficiencies. Read more: Claritecs signs four MOUs for bunker tanker scheduling platform BunkerMaestro To adopt a more targeted approach, PIER71 has grouped these start-up solutions into three clusters, namely enabling platforms, port and cargo operations, and crossed industry/border innovation. This approach addresses the need for higher network speed and encourages cross-sharing of services. Kenneth Lim, cto of MPA, commented: Although increased digitalisation and innovative technologies have resulted in unprecedented change in the maritime sector, it has also brought about cost- and time-savings, growth and new capabilities. Through initiatives under the Sea Transport Industry Transformation Map and continued collaboration across the maritime ecosystem, Maritime Singapore will be able to ride the next wave of innovation-driven growth and move up the value chain, to maintain our standing as a global maritime hub, Lim said. The drone, provided by the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), is fitted with a so-called sniffer capable of measuring sulphur emissions. Entering the ships exhaust gas plume, the drone can register the amount of sulphur in the fuel. The data can be immediately available to the Danish authorities who can then follow up if a ship does not comply with the regulatory requirements. The drone will operate in an area north of The Great Belt, where many large tankers pass when plying the Baltic Sea. Last Thursday, the drone had performed its first sulphur measuring mission in the area. The project will contribute to a more efficient enforcement of the sulphur rules, thereby ensuring fair competition for shipping companies and less pollution from ships. In Denmark, the Danish Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for enforcing the sulphur rules, and the Danish Maritime Authority supports this work through ship inspections in Danish ports and now also with drone monitoring, Danish Maritime Authority stated. From 1 January 2020, it will be mandatory for ocean-going ships to burn bunker fuel with a maximum sulphur content of 0.5%, down from the current limit of 3.5%. Read more: Non-compliant bunker fuel demand estimated at 860,000 bpd in 2020: Rystad Energy Press Release April 12, 2019 Dispatch from Crame No. 504: Sen. Leila M. de Lima on Justice Sec. Guevarra's remark that the US Senators were "misinformed" in their call to drop the politically-motivated charges against the Senator and Maria Ressa Much has been said by the Palace and my own colleagues in the Senate about the filing of a resolution by US Senators calling on the Duterte Administration to stop the legal persecution of dissenters, including myself and Maria Ressa. But none of these is more absurd than Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra's statement that the US Senators were misinformed and that Maria Ressa and I were properly treated and legally charged by the DOJ for alleged criminal wrongdoings. Sec. Guevarra might have been hiding under a rock for a good part in the early months of this administration to be unaware of the daily character assassination, slut-shaming, and trial by publicity that Duterte and his officials subjected me to, but definitely the US Senators were not. These Senators know, while Guevarra apparently did not, that the whole government machinery, first and foremost the House of Representatives and the DOJ, was mobilized by his boss to malign my reputation and fabricate criminal charges against me on the basis of the statements of convicted criminals and other perjured witnesses. I am sure that the US Senators are better informed than him about my cases, if he has at all even bothered to familiarize himself with the cases his department has filed against me. As DOJ Secretary, he has continued the legal persecution started by his infamous predecessor by maintaining the criminal convicts as state witnesses against me, even if they are disqualified by law. No self-respecting DOJ Secretary would allow criminal convicts to be under the DOJ's Witness Protection Program as state witnesses. The fact that Guevarra did means that he either has not familiarized himself with my cases, or that he himself has chosen to take part in my persecution by continuing the trial of my cases despite the clear violation of the WPP Law on the use of disqualified criminal convicts as state witnesses. That the DOJ has railroaded the cases against me from day one of the preliminary investigation up to the trial with the utilization of disqualified criminal convicts as state witnesses, instead of filing cases against them as the admitted drug lords in the Bilibid drug trade, and the filing of a patently defective Information (both the original and the amended), are palpable proofs of the targeted legal persecution of dissenters under the Duterte Administration. These are the facts that the US Senators are aware of, and thus prompted them to file the US Senate Resolution, facts that Guevarra refuses to acknowledge. To say that these US lawmakers were "fed with wrong information" is an insult to them who, like many other foreign dignitaries and international organizations and institutions who similarly called out the Philippine government for its human rights abuses and its political persecution against me, have certainly the wherewithal and the network to be able to verify any information that come their way. They are neither pushovers nor lacking in intelligence or discernment. Quite the contrary. It is high time Guevarra comes out of the rock he is hiding under, lest he becomes just another one of the maggots of a rotting administration, a legacy he certainly would not wish upon himself. FAST-TRACK HANJIN TAKE-OVER, GORDON URGES Senator Richard J. Gordon has called on the government to fast-track taking over the Hanjin Heavy Industries Corporations-Philippines facility in Subic to ensure the protection of the country's territory and sovereignty and to provide jobs. "Mas maganda kung magawa na natin ang Hanjin para makapasok dito ng trabaho. Dapat gamitin natin iyan para sa seguridad ng bayan, lagyan natin ng Philippine Navy base diyan. Hindi lang Philippine Navy, dapat lagyan natin ng ship repair o ship building para magkaroon na tayo ng pagkakataong makagawa ng sarili nating barko. Yung iba pwede nating gawing industrial park. Ganon ang gagawin natin diyan para maayos, kumpleto na 'yan kaya madaling ayusin," he said. Gordon also proposed to put up a naval engineering school or naval architecture school in the vast facility to step up Filipinos' ship-building capacity. "We should develop the country's potential in the shipbuilding industry. We must involve ourselves in designing vessels. Step up our capabilities in naval architectural design. We are an archipelagic country, we must be able to build ships," he pointed out. President Rodrigo Duterte has earlier said he is receptive to a government take-over of the Subic shipyard of cash-strapped South Korean shipbuilder Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Philippines. HHIC-Phil. earlier revealed that it has a total of USD1.3 billion outstanding loans -- USD400 million from Philippine banks and USD900 million from South Korean lenders. It has asked the Philippine government for rehabilitation, because it was having cash flow problems. The shipbuilder also sought help from the government in finding investors that can take over the operation of its shipyard well as to help its employees, who have taken the brunt of the company's financial woes. Press Release April 12, 2019 On the Possible Veto of the 2019 Budget More at: https://pinglacson.net/2019/04/12/on-the-possible-veto-of-the-2019-budget/ Undoubtedly, and as I have always pointed out, the 2019 national budget measure had been subjected to abuse and indiscretions by some legislators from both houses of Congress, with the House of Representatives' leadership even going beyond the mandate of the law and time-honored legislative practice. At the end of the day, it is greed and insatiability of those who cannot control their appetite for more and more 'pork' and all the perks and commissions that go with it. Having said that, the President is well within his legal authority to veto in whole or in parts the Enrolled Bill already before him if he and his economic team see it wise to do so. As for me, I am prepared to fight the next battle when the National Expenditure Program for the 2020 national budget is submitted by the President at the opening of the First Regular Session of the 18th Congress. It is tiring and frustrating, but I am always ready and able to fight another day for my career-long advocacy as an elected Senator of the Republic - that of fighting corruption, particularly in the authorization phase of the budgeting process. Statement of Liberal Party president Sen. Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan On proposed Senate resolution rebuking US legislators who called for release of Senator De Lima With due respect, we disagree that there is interference on the part of the US Senate in its resolution calling for the release of Senator De Lima. The Philippine Senate has in the past adopted similar resolutions on the situation of and concern for human rights in other countries and expressed gratitude for another country's enactment of a law benefitting our countrymen. In 2005, the Philippine Senate adopted PSRN 191, which expressed the sense of the Senate that Myanmar should not assume chairmanship of the ASEAN in light of Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest and political persecution and the continued violation of civil and political rights in that country. In 2009, the Philippine Senate approved a resolution thanking US Congress for passing a bill granting recognition and benefits to Filipino World War II veterans. In 2012, we approved PSRN 130, which expressed our support for Cambodia in its efforts to promote parliamentary and inclusive democracy by having fair and credible elections free from violence and electoral fraud. These, as are the US legislators' proposed resolutions on Sen. De Lima, are expressions of solidarity, which like humanity, knows no boundary. Press Release April 13, 2019 Gatchalian calls for probe on unexpected Luzon power outage Senator Win Gatchalian is calling for an investigation into the unexpected brownouts that hit several towns and cities in Luzon, especially after the Department of Energy (DOE) has given its assurance that there is ample supply of electricity reserve throughout the dry season. Gatchalian, chair of the Senate Committee on Energy, made the call amid the series of yellow and red alert warnings issued by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) for the Luzon grid this past week. "The brownouts felt by our constituents in Luzon these past few days is totally unacceptable. The Department of Energy assured us even before the start of summer that there will be enough power supply in the country. If there's enough power supply, then how come that there are towns and provinces in Luzon that are experiencing rotational brownouts," the lawmaker pointed out. "Definitely, heads must roll this time. We owe it to the power consumers to give them accurate information on the power situation in the country. Mukhang na-overestimate ng DOE ang available capacity ng kuryente natin," he added. Citing a report from the NGCP, Gatchalian said at least seven provinces along with 40 cities and towns have so far been affected by the rotating brownouts due to the forced and unplanned outages of five generators in Luzon. Gatchalian said part of the investigation to be conducted by the Senate Committee on Energy will center on DOE's inaccurate electricity forecast throughout the summer season, as well as the department's contingency measures in case of unexpected power interruptions. The lawmaker pointed out that the DOE's forecast does not include unplanned outages. He added that the forecast also includes the committed capacities in their available capacity, thus making the projection less realistic. Comparing DOE forecast with the NGCP projections, Gatchalian said the projected available capacity of DOE is way above the level of the projected capacity of the NGCP. To illustrate his point, Gatchalian pointed out that on April 11, 2019, the DOE forecasted that there were at least 1,085 megawatts (MW) gross reserve, indicating that there was enough supply of electricity for Luzon. He said this was in contrast with the forecast of the NGCP, which showed that the gross reserve for April 11 was only 236 MW, which, according to the lawmaker, was thin and below the required regulating reserve. Moreover, on April 12, 2019, Gatchalian said DOE made another inaccurate forecast stating that there was still 1,006 MW gross reserve that was enough to power the Luzon grid. However, the NGCP sounded alarm bells and issued a red alert status after it forecasted a gross reserve of only 21 MW for the same day, lower and way below the sum of the required regulating reserve. The NGCP further reported that at least five generators - SCPC, Sual, SLPGC, Pagbilao, and SLTEC - remain in either forced or unplanned outages, resulting in the loss of 1,502 MW of electricity. "Our power consumers deserve nothing but accurate information. Ang DOE ang pangunahing ahensya na dapat nagbibigay ng wasto at sapat na inpormasyon upang makapaghanda an gating mga kababayan. Kaso mukhang na fake news tayo ng DOE sa pagkakataon na ito," he said. Meanwhile, Gatchalian reiterated his call to DOE to remain vigilant for possible collusion due to thin electricity reserves in the midst of high demand. Press Release April 14, 2019 De Lima calls three activist priests 'most courageous' among clergy Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has commended the exemplary courage and steadfast commitment of three Filipino priests in fighting tyranny and in advancing the cause of human rights and democracy in the country amid threats to their lives. In a statement issued in time for the observance of the Day of Valor (April 9) and Palm Sunday (April 14), De Lima said the courage and sacrifices of these three priests and known drug war critics should be remembered on these two important occasions. "Both events remind us that we are here today because there are those who willingly sacrificed themselves, and who knowingly walked towards certain danger, pain and death, not for any self-serving motives, [b]ut simply because mankind needed them to do the right thing: to save humanity from both earthly danger and spiritual damnation," she said in her recent Dispatch from Crame No. 502. "I am blessed to know of three brave souls who are fighting to deliver Filipinos from both earthly dangers and spiritual damnation, namely, Fr. Robert Reyes, Fr. Albert Alejo a.k.a. "Paring Bert", and Fr. Flavie Villanueva, all of whom I count as my foremost spiritual advisers and personal friends," she added. While the Day of Valor celebrates the heroism of the Filipino soldiers who fought in the Philippines in World War II, the observance of Palm Sunday on April 14 marks the beginning of the culmination of Jesus Christ's great suffering to save humanity. Frs. Alejo, Villanueva and Reyes, who recently received death threats from unknown people, made their mark for fearlessly and tirelessly speaking out against the present administration's sick policies, including extrajudicial killings, and standing up for drug war victims. De Lima, also a critic of the administration's murderous policies who has been unjustly detained for more than two years now, said the three priests represent the "most courageous among the clergy" and "most faithful to the actions of Jesus Christ." "They speak the truth, defend the defenseless and bring messages of love and hope to ailing souls, even when doing so earns them the ire of powerful men; even if they and, in one abhorrent incident, even their mother are threatened," she said. "They continue to impart their own personal brand of courage even in the face of explicit threats to their lives. Just like the great Filipino soldiers and Jesus Christ, they know what needs to be done in order to fight the rise of evil," she added. De Lima said Fr. Reyes represents visible and unabashed "courage that feeds the spirit" while Fr. Alejo represents the wise and intellectual aspect of courage for his talent to transform painful experiences into simple teaching, "the courage that feeds the mind." Meanwhile, De Lima said Fr. Villanueva represents compassionate and empathetic courage for his ability to use his personal experiences to deeply connect with EJK victims on a deeply personal level of commitment, "the courage that feeds the heart." In February 2018, De Lima filed Senate Bill No. 1699, also known as Human Rights Defenders Bill, which seeks to institutionalize and enforce state obligations for the protection of human rights defenders. Last month, De Lima call for renewed determination and concerted efforts from the Filipino people to defend the priests and their causes and rally behind their fight against human rights abuses and extrajudicial killings under the government. Three former Reserve Bank governors dont think consumer protection should be added to the central banks objectives. That's despite Australias banking regulator having an explicit role in protecting consumers interests, something the government is considering in its review of the central bank's legislation. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authoritys website explains that its legislation means it is "tasked with protecting the interests of depositors, policyholders and superannuation fund members. Former RBNZ governor Graeme Wheeler makes short work of his answer to the question: Should consumer protection be added to the Reserve Banks objectives? Never, Wheeler says in his submission to phase two of the review of the Reserve Bank Act, and leaves it at that. Grant Spencer, who was acting governor for about six months between Wheeler leaving and current governor Adrian Orr, provides some explanation for his view that consumer protection should not be included as an objective of policy, neither primary or secondary. Spencer says in his submission that a shift of emphasis from systemic stability to the safety of individual institutions and investors could be interpreted as justification for a non-failure regulatory regime. It is important to avoid any such ambiguity in financial policy which could undermine financial incentives and reduce the long-term safety and efficiency of the system, he says. Adoption of a consumer protection objective would be inconsistent with New Zealands twin peaks model and generate coordination issues with the Financial Markets Authority. That twin peaks model has it that the Reserve Bank is the prudential supervisor while the FMA supervises securities and market conduct. But Australia has other, very similar regulators whose ambit covers financial services. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission's role is to enforce and regulate company and financial services laws to protect Australian consumers, investors and creditors and is the equivalent of the FMA. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is the equivalent of our Commerce Commission and administers competition law and the equivalent of New Zealands Fair Trading Act. Clearly, both the RBNZ and the FMA have joined forces in reaction to Australias royal commission into financial services in trying to ensure New Zealand doesnt suffer from the problems the commission unearthed across the Tasman. Don Brash, the first RBNZ governor under the current Act didnt mention consumer protection in his submission but he takes a similar view. I dont think it is the Reserve Banks role to protect consumers. It is a highly competitive banking market and, to the extent that consumers need protecting, that is mainly the FMAs role, Brash told BusinessDesk. ConsumerNZ chief executive Sue Chetwin disagrees with the central bankers, pointing to the joint FMA and RBNZ banking review which she says has helped to highlight the risks to consumers from existing gaps in the regulatory oversight of the banking industry. We consider changes are needed to address these gaps and improve consumer protection, Chetwin says. Providing the Reserve Bank with a specific consumer protection objective, as proposed in the consultation paper, should be explored further. The Institute of Finance Professionals New Zealand concurs with Chetwin and says that if some form of depositor protection is introduced as looks likely this would require the Reserve Bank to increase its focus on the consumers of financial products and services. INFINZ says that arguably consumer protection is already an implicit central bank objective. Chetwin also gets some backup for her viewpoint from Chapman Tripp, the only law firm to make a submission. We note that there is an element of consumer protection already built into the existing key financial policy objectives of the Reserve Bank, Chapman Tripp says. Maintaining a sound and efficient financial system naturally results in a level of consumer protection, it says, but then parts company with Chetwin. However, we do not think it is appropriate that consumer protection is specifically added to the Reserve Banks high-level financial policy objectives as a standalone objective. Consumer protection is achieved through a number of regulatory channels and we believe this should remain the case. That doesnt rule out regulators cooperating and consumer protection could be added as one of the Reserve Banks lower-level objectives, the law firm says. It will be important to avoid adversely impacting on the current twin peaks model, so careful thought will need to be given to the appropriate objective definition, Chapman Tripp says. Just about all the key business groups agree with the former governors that consumer protection shouldnt be a Reserve Bank objective. Business NZ says consumer protection and other objectives, such as promoting competition, are better dealt with through specific legislative mechanisms such as the Commerce Commission, Fair Trading Act etc. Federated Farmers says the Reserve Bank should not be trying to promote competition or consumer protection or to grow particular sectors of the economy. These other objectives can be politically sensitive and are better addressed through existing legislation. The New Zealand Bankers' Association agrees that such matters are the responsibility of other agencies and regulatory mechanisms. Giving the RBNZ additional policy objectives which are similar to those of other agencies may complicate the regulatory landscape and result in overlap with the objectives of other regulators, it says. Westpac goes even further and says that giving the Reserve Bank a consumer protection function would have the potential to distract from, or even conflict with, the central objective of financial stability. For example, a focus on consumer protection may require a shorter-term outlook compared to financial stability. For this reason, consumer protection is best left to other regulators. The New Zealand Initiative agrees, saying that a consumer protection objective would muddy the waters with the FMAs regulatory responsibilities for conduct by financial markets participants. Public confidence is an outcome of good financial regulation, not an objective. It is very important to be specific about what aspect of public confidence is sought, it says. Public confidence that risk investments are not risky is not a good thing. Regulators need to endlessly exhort investors to understand that higher returns mean higher risks. Caveat emptor is critical for economic efficiency. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Stride Property Ltd & Stride Investment Management Ltd (NZX: SPG) $600m Bank Refinancing Completed Vital Healthcare Property Trust (NZX: VHP) Vital expects ~$140m property revaluation gain for 1H FY22 16th December 2021 Morning Report Sky Network Television Limited (NZX: SKT) Confirms Sale of Mt Wellington Properties for $56m Gentrack Group Limited (NZX: GTK) Facility Loan Agreement Goodman Property Trust (NZX: GMT) Prices $200 million Wholesale Bond Issue 15th December 2021 Morning Report Stride Property Ltd & Stride Investment Management Ltd (NZX: SPG) Retail Offer Closes Over-Subscribed Steel & Tube Holdings Limited (NZX: STU) Upgrades Earnings Guidance for 1H FY22 The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) Share Purchase Plan Closes Oversubscribed From:Shine | 2019-04-15 01:29 The Chunyangli neighborhood in Hongkou District is a classic lane-style shikumen compound. A downtown shikumen complex will be home to both white-collar workers and the original residents as a result of a major renovation. The Chunyangli neighborhood, built around 1921 in Hongkou District, is the site of the citys first trial project aimed at modernizing the unique stone-gated buildings while preserving their historic appearance. Work has been completed on the initial two phases of the project. Over 220 households were temporarily relocated. Most residents have now moved back into their refurbished homes. Those wanting to rent them out can do so through a government-backed leasing company. This is an initiative of the district government to prevent the neighborhood deteriorating again because of low-end tenants or a single household being rented to a group. It will also solve a housing shortage for white-collar workers in the North Bund riverside business hub, which is only 10 minutes walk away. As a key site for Hongkous development, the North Bund area along the Huangpu River has attracted more than 4,500 shipping companies and 1,200 financial companies and institutions. Young office workers are welcome to be our neighbors, said Hong Guozhen, a senior resident who is about to move back to her renovated apartment with her husband. I will ask them to dinner if they are too busy to cook themselves, she said. The historical neighborhood has 23 shikumen townhouses with 1,181 households. Some 60 percent of the owners had long rented out their apartments and lived elsewhere. Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE The Chunyangli neighborhood was listed as a protective heritage zone by the city government in 2016. The district government launched the innovative renovation in 2017. The Beiwaitan, or North Bund Subdistrict, has invited a third-party leasing company, the Chunyangli Property Development Co, to take control of the leasing services. The leasing butler service takes charge of the decoration, renting, maintenance and other daily services to the tenants for the house owner without charging an agency fee. Residents can hand over the apartments to the company for a decade. A reasonable rental has been promised. We used to be bothered by various subtle issues from the tenants, Zhu said. Now I only need to sit at home and receive the rentals every quarter. She handed over the keys to her property right after receiving it following the second phase of renovation. The apartments for rent will be mainly targeted at white-collar workers between 25 and 40 years old, said Yang Jun, general manager of the company. The tenants can report any problems to the company around the clock, such as repair requests or utility fee payments, he said. The inhabitants will bring new life to the old neighborhoods, Yang said. The surrounding businesses are also expected to be upgraded thanks to the young residents, he added. The Chunyangli neighborhood at 211 Dongyuhang Road is a classic lane-style shikumen compound, listed as a protective heritage zone by the city government in 2016. The district government launched the innovative renovation in 2017. A shikumen-style building is a combination of Western architecture and Chinas traditional courtyard structures. They were first built in the 1850s by Europeans living in foreign concessions and are unique to Shanghai. Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE Each household in the Chunyangli neighborhood gains an extra 3.5 square meters thanks to clever redesign. The citys major preservation strategies for the shikumen neighborhoods are represented by four projects Xintiandi, Tianzifang, Jianyeli and Cite Bourgogne. These projects either converted the residential community into commercial hubs like Xintiandi or Tianzifang, or kept the original residents in decaying houses, mostly without private kitchens or toilets. The ongoing Chunyangli project presents another solution, keeping the traditional lifestyle but improving the structure. Katya Knyazeva, a Russian historian and writer who specializes in the vanishing old towns of Shanghai, said the renovation of Chunyangli could be a good example of how to save a historic building while preserving its original vitality. The fully government-subsidized project replaces the former wooden and brick inner structures that are rotten, pose a fire risk, and have mice and cockroach infestation with steel beams and other fire-resistance materials. The stone gate, the most iconic part of the shikumen building, and the exterior walls are preserved. Original construction materials such as the red bricks and wooden doors are being reused as much as possible, said Xing Zhuhua, chief designer of Zhang Ming Architectural Design Firm, which is in charge of the renovation project. Each household can gain an additional 3.5 square meters of space on average and the layout has become more practical, according to Xing, whose plans were tailor-made for each household. Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE The inner structure of the Chunyangli townhouses has been fully renovated. Chen Minxin, 67, was among the first of the residents to move back to the renovated apartments in early 2018. Thanks to well-thought-out designs, her 50-square-meter apartment now has three bedrooms and a sitting room, with private bathroom and kitchen. By walking 10 minutes in the morning, I can go to the waterfront to do exercises, Chen said. Within five minutes, we can reach the Shanghai General Hospital for any illness. A rat cage was once indispensable to each Chunyangli household, but we no longer need to worry about that. Furthermore, the old neighbors who have been living together for decades can still visit each other, Chen added. The trial project is expected to be expanded to other local shikumen neighborhoods, which enjoy protection status but are beset by poor conditions, according to the urban restructuring department of the citys housing authority. Shanghai has more than 8 million square meters of lane-style houses built half a century ago within the Inner Ring Road. Of this, about 7 million square meters are earmarked for protection due to their historic value. The city government plans to renovate 2.4 million square meters of old residential buildings like Chunyangli by 2020. Most lane-style buildings will be preserved, while the remainder, deemed to have no heritage value, will be demolished. Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE The Chunyangli neighborhood The New Zealand dollar was steady against the US dollar and slightly higher against other major currencies on the back of rising equities and commodity markets. As well, investors are growing more optimistic that China and the United States will soon reach an agreement to end their nine-month trade war. The kiwi was trading at 67.72 US cents at 5pm in Wellington, unchanged from at 8am. The the trade-weighted index was at 73.29 points from 73.19. Its risk-on across the board. Stocks are going higher the US stock market had a great night on Friday commodities are going higher, and both the kiwi and the Aussie have been dragged higher, says Mitchell McIntyre, senior foreign exchange dealer at XE. Positive data out of China, including a 14.2 percent rise in exports in March from a year earlier and strong lending figures, probably werent enough on their own to explain the more positive tone, McIntyre says. Trade negotiations coming along between the US and China have helped to support markets, he says. The latest news is that US negotiators have tempered demands that China curb industrial subsidies, marking a retreat on a core US objective for the trade talks, according to Reuters. Its generally improved risk sentiment across the board and the kiwi and Aussie are benefitting, McIntyre says. But broadly speaking, the kiwi remains in a downtrend sparked by the Reserve Bank changing its stance in late March from neutral to expecting the next move in the official cash rate will probably be down, he says. The outcome of the next Global Dairy Trade auction and the March quarter consumers price index, both due on Wednesday, could provide more evidence to either confirm or discount that scenario. The market is expecting the CPI will have risen 0.3 percent in the quarter and 1.7 percent in the year ended March. The New Zealand dollar was at 94.45 Australian cents from 94.18 and at 51.71 British pence from 51.68 It was at 59.87 euro cents from 59.84, at 75.79 Japanese yen from 75.70 and at 4.5429 Chinese yuan from 4.5332. The New Zealand two-year swap rate rose to 1.7 percent from 1.6662 on Friday while the 10-year swap rate edged up to 2.930 percent from 2.2450. The two-year rate has lifted off its record low at 1.5475 on March 28, the day after the Reserve Bank changed its stance from neutral. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. 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Related News: Stride Property Ltd & Stride Investment Management Ltd (NZX: SPG) $600m Bank Refinancing Completed Vital Healthcare Property Trust (NZX: VHP) Vital expects ~$140m property revaluation gain for 1H FY22 16th December 2021 Morning Report Sky Network Television Limited (NZX: SKT) Confirms Sale of Mt Wellington Properties for $56m Gentrack Group Limited (NZX: GTK) Facility Loan Agreement Goodman Property Trust (NZX: GMT) Prices $200 million Wholesale Bond Issue 15th December 2021 Morning Report Stride Property Ltd & Stride Investment Management Ltd (NZX: SPG) Retail Offer Closes Over-Subscribed Steel & Tube Holdings Limited (NZX: STU) Upgrades Earnings Guidance for 1H FY22 The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) Share Purchase Plan Closes Oversubscribed The steep decline in Chinese visitors in February weighed on the accommodation sector, with fewer international guest nights booked for the third straight month. The earlier Lunar New Year was cited as a reason for a 26 percent drop in Chinese tourists in February from the record 69,000 in the same month a year earlier, despite this year being touted as the official China-New Zealand Year of Tourism. That decline in arrivals has seen a similar fall in demand for accommodation. Stats NZ data published today show international tourists spent 2.03 million nights in accommodation in February, 3.2 percent less than a year earlier. That more than offset a 2.6 percent increase in guest nights for domestic visitors at 1.99 million. "The timing of the Chinese New Year can affect the travel patterns of people coming to New Zealand to celebrate," Stats NZ said. "The holiday fell in early February this year, compared with mid-February in 2018. Some visitors who were here for the festivities may have arrived in January." Travel data released last week showed the median length of stay for short-term visitors in February was 10 days, in line with the past five years. New Zealand has been experiencing strong growth in its tourism sector for several years, although those numbers have stretched existing infrastructure. Accommodation capacity expanded to 143,000 available daily stays in February from 141,000 a year earlier. The slowdown from international visitors was more marked on North Island accommodation, which was down 4.2 percent in February from a year earlier at 920,000. South Island international guest nights fell 2.3 percent to 1.11 million. Hotels were largely unaffected, reporting a 1.3 percent increase in international guest nights to 733,000. Motels were the hardest hit, reporting a 7.8 percent drop in international guest nights to 505,000. Backpackers reported fewer foreign visitors at 389,000, down 4.4 percent, and holiday parks posted a 3.5 percent decline to 399,000. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Stride Property Ltd & Stride Investment Management Ltd (NZX: SPG) $600m Bank Refinancing Completed Vital Healthcare Property Trust (NZX: VHP) Vital expects ~$140m property revaluation gain for 1H FY22 16th December 2021 Morning Report Sky Network Television Limited (NZX: SKT) Confirms Sale of Mt Wellington Properties for $56m Gentrack Group Limited (NZX: GTK) Facility Loan Agreement Goodman Property Trust (NZX: GMT) Prices $200 million Wholesale Bond Issue 15th December 2021 Morning Report Stride Property Ltd & Stride Investment Management Ltd (NZX: SPG) Retail Offer Closes Over-Subscribed Steel & Tube Holdings Limited (NZX: STU) Upgrades Earnings Guidance for 1H FY22 The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) Share Purchase Plan Closes Oversubscribed PGG Wrightson's board will go through a major reshuffle at the end of the month with David Cushing among the incoming directors. Deputy chair Trevor Burt and independent directors Bruce Irvine and John Nichol will retire on April 30 and be replaced by Cushing, Rodger Finlay and Sarah Brown. The three appointees are deemed to be independent directors. Finlay, who is deputy chair of the Cushing-controlled farm manager Rural Equities, will assume Wrightson's chair. He replaces Agria representative Joo Hai Lee, who will be Finlay's deputy. H&G, the Cushing family's investment vehicle, bought a 2.2 percent stake from Agria last week, adding 17 million shares to its existing stake of 3.1 million shares. That equates to about 2.7 percent of Wrightson's shares on issue. The Cushing family has a long track-record with Wrightson. In 2005, H&G sold into a Wrightson takeover of Hawkes Bay-based stock and station agency Williams & Kettle. Selwyn Cushing subsequently joined Wrightson's board and stayed on as a director until 2012, overseeing the merger with Pyne Gould Guinness, the aborted Silver Fern Farms deal, and the introduction of Agria as a cornerstone in the business in 2009 when it bailed out the company. David Cushing acted as an alternative Wrightson director for Agria executive chair Alan Lai in 2010. Finlay's other board roles include a directorship of Ngai Tahu Holdings, the investment arm of the major South Island iwi, which also holds a 3.6 percent interest in Wrightson. Ngai Tahu had been a co-investor with Chinese agribusiness New Hope International when Agria took control of Wrightson in a 2011 partial takeover. Incoming director Brown is a Southland-based lawyer, who sits on the boards of Electricity Invercargill and PowerNet. She and Finlay also sit on the independent advisory panel of the Provincial Growth Fund. Wrightson is currently awaiting Overseas Investment Office approval to sell its seeds business to Danish cooperative DLF Seeds for $434 million. The transaction has already cleared the Commerce Commission and other regulatory hurdles in South America and Australia. If that's completed, the slimmed down business will consist of stock agency, retail and water rural services based entirely in New Zealand. Its shares last traded at 49.5 cents. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. 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Related News: Stride Property Ltd & Stride Investment Management Ltd (NZX: SPG) $600m Bank Refinancing Completed Vital Healthcare Property Trust (NZX: VHP) Vital expects ~$140m property revaluation gain for 1H FY22 16th December 2021 Morning Report Sky Network Television Limited (NZX: SKT) Confirms Sale of Mt Wellington Properties for $56m Gentrack Group Limited (NZX: GTK) Facility Loan Agreement Goodman Property Trust (NZX: GMT) Prices $200 million Wholesale Bond Issue 15th December 2021 Morning Report Stride Property Ltd & Stride Investment Management Ltd (NZX: SPG) Retail Offer Closes Over-Subscribed Steel & Tube Holdings Limited (NZX: STU) Upgrades Earnings Guidance for 1H FY22 The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) Share Purchase Plan Closes Oversubscribed New Zealands services sector activity grew at its slowest pace in more than six years in March, potentially signalling a slowdown in the domestic economy. The BNZ-BusinessNZ performance of services index fell 0.7 of a point to a seasonally adjusted 52.9 compared to February and was 6.5 points lower than in March 2018. That's the lowest reading since December 2012. The index remains below the long-term average of 54.5. A reading above 50 indicates expansion. Services account for about two-thirds of the national economy. BusinessNZ chief executive Kirk Hope said there were several concerning elements that contributed to the easing of activity for March. New orders/business, which is a key component to overall activity, dropped to its lowest point since September 2012. Activity/sales also slipped further, so all eyes will be on these key results in the months ahead to ascertain whether expansion continues its downward trend," he said. The new orders/business measure fell 4.3 points to 54.9 versus February and was down 9.6 points from March last year. Activity/sales fell 0.9 of a point to 52.5 and were down 12.3 points from March 2018. Bank of New Zealand senior economist Doug Steel said the PSI trends remain "OK, but a slower March reading heightens focus on the next few months to see if the slower pace is transitory or not". The PSI's employment sub-index was at 50.9, down 0.9 of a point from February but up 0.2 of a point compared to March last year. Supplier deliveries were up 0.8 of a point at 50.8 versus February but down 4.2 points compared with March. The stocks/inventories measure was at 49.8, up 0.6 of a point from February but down 4.6 points on the year. The PSI's sister survey, the performance of manufacturing index, was released on Friday. It showed manufacturing activity continues to expand but at the slowest pace since July last year as production and new orders eased. Combining the two surveys, the composite index fell 1.7 points from February to 52 on a GDP-weighted basis. That was also lower than the 57.9 reading a year earlier. On a free-weighted basis, the measure fell 2.3 points to 51.9. It had been 56.3 a year earlier. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Stride Property Ltd & Stride Investment Management Ltd (NZX: SPG) $600m Bank Refinancing Completed Vital Healthcare Property Trust (NZX: VHP) Vital expects ~$140m property revaluation gain for 1H FY22 16th December 2021 Morning Report Sky Network Television Limited (NZX: SKT) Confirms Sale of Mt Wellington Properties for $56m Gentrack Group Limited (NZX: GTK) Facility Loan Agreement Goodman Property Trust (NZX: GMT) Prices $200 million Wholesale Bond Issue 15th December 2021 Morning Report Stride Property Ltd & Stride Investment Management Ltd (NZX: SPG) Retail Offer Closes Over-Subscribed Steel & Tube Holdings Limited (NZX: STU) Upgrades Earnings Guidance for 1H FY22 The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) Share Purchase Plan Closes Oversubscribed Restaurant Brands New Zealand won't pay a final dividend after lifting annual earnings 3.3 percent, saying it wants to retain cash for a record capital spending programme that includes the roll-out of 60 Taco Bell stores across Australasia. The fast-food operator reported an underlying profit of $42.2 million in the 52 weeks ended Feb. 25, up from $40.8 million a year earlier. That's just shy of the $43-45 million guidance at last year's annual meeting. Net profit increased 0.8 percent to $35.7 million, which included $9 million of non-trading costs, including a $3.5 million impairment charge on its Carl's Jr chain, a $3.5 million charge for underpayment of holiday pay, and $1.6 million of worker compensation in Hawaii. A gain on the sale of the Starbucks Coffee chain offset those costs. The board decided against paying a final dividend, saying the company faces substantial capital demands with a new store build programme including the Taco Bell launch in New Zealand and Australia over the next five years and a faster rollout of KFC store builds in both of those markets. On top of that, there are significant potential acquisitions in the US and Australia, it said. "While some of this store development and acquisition growth can be funded from increased borrowings, directors believe that it is in the best interests of the group to retain cash in order to provide funding flexibility," it said. "Directors have therefore resolved not to pay a final dividend for the FY19 year." Over the next five years, Restaurant Brands plans to open 30 new KFC stores, 60 Taco Bell stores and refurbish 50-60 KFC stores across Australasia, build and rebuild 10-12 Taco Bells in Hawaii, buy 10-40 KFC stores in Australia, and pursue 2-3 KFC or Taco Bell acquisitions on the US mainland. While the bulk of Restaurant Brands shareholders will have pocketed $9.45 a share in the scaled takeover bid, today's decision by the board means investors won't receive any dividends this year after directors put off paying an interim dividend due to Finaccess Capital's offer. It paid 28 cents per share for the 2018 financial year and, while chair Ted van Arkel told shareholders at last year's annual meeting that the board will lift dividends in line with higher earnings, those returns will always be subject to capital spending plans. The Mexican firm would prefer to use equity funding as a last resort for that capital programme. Restaurant Brands spent $36.9 million buying intangibles, property, plant and equipment in the year, and raised $10.2 million from the sale of assets. The company's KFC New Zealand unit lifted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation 5.9 percent to $70.4 million, maintaining strong margins despite cost pressures, while its Pizza Hut earnings dropped 38 percent to $2 million as rising ingredients and labour costs squeezed margins, and it owned fewer stores - it now owns 30, down from 36 a year ago. Carl's Jr earnings slumped 53 percent to $900,000 on falling sales, and rising labour and ingredients costs, and Restaurant Brands booked a $3.5 million impairment charge on the value of the burger chain. Its Australian KFC stores lifted earnings 34 percent to A$27 million, while its Hawaiian Taco Bell unit lifted earnings 2.9 percent to US$14.3 million and its Hawaiian Pizza Hut ebitda shrank 44 percent to US$1.9 million, reflecting marketing costs and higher ingredients and wages costs. lt has 44 Pizza Hut stores in Hawaii (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Stride Property Ltd & Stride Investment Management Ltd (NZX: SPG) $600m Bank Refinancing Completed Vital Healthcare Property Trust (NZX: VHP) Vital expects ~$140m property revaluation gain for 1H FY22 16th December 2021 Morning Report Sky Network Television Limited (NZX: SKT) Confirms Sale of Mt Wellington Properties for $56m Gentrack Group Limited (NZX: GTK) Facility Loan Agreement Goodman Property Trust (NZX: GMT) Prices $200 million Wholesale Bond Issue 15th December 2021 Morning Report Stride Property Ltd & Stride Investment Management Ltd (NZX: SPG) Retail Offer Closes Over-Subscribed Steel & Tube Holdings Limited (NZX: STU) Upgrades Earnings Guidance for 1H FY22 The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) Share Purchase Plan Closes Oversubscribed Kathmandu, April 15 The Indian government has said that Nepal is now the biggest overseas market for Indian steel. Between April 1, 2018 and March 31, 2019, 13.2 per cent of the total steel exports from India was to Nepal, according to the Indian Ministry of Steel as reported in Indian media. Italy, which was on the top of the list till the previous year, turned second with a 13.1 per cent market share, followed by Vietnam with 11.1 per cent, UAE with 10.9 per cent and Belgium with 9.7 per cent. Indias steel exports are fragmented, with 42.2 per cent of total shipments going to other unidentified countries, the report informs. Meanwhile, a recent overview published by the Ministry informs that India has turned a net importer, importing more steel than the amount it exported. It was a net exporter of total finished steel in 2016-17 and 2017-18. India became the second largest producer of crude steel in 2018, from its third largest status in 2017. The country is also the largest producer of sponge iron or DRI in the world and the third largest finished steel consumer in the world after China and USA. In addition to the fact that limousine travel is very glamorous, it is also the most comfortable trip you can... Kathmandu, April 15 In its bid to let foreign employment returnees get better job opportunities in the country and abroad, the government of Nepal is beginning a new programme to test skills of the migrant workers once they return home. Following the test, the government will provide them with certificates for their skills. The Foreign Employment Board informs that those who have submitted applications for the test earlier can take the examination free of cost. When the government called the workers to apply for the free test in December last year, around 500 people submitted the application. The Board has finalised a list of 20 professions for the test including scaffolder, building assistant, waiter, electrician, building painter, housekeeping cleaner, refrigerator and air condition mechanic, aluminium fabricator, shuttering carpenter, tailor, furniture maker, beautician, structural fabricator, security guard, industrial electrician, caregiver, arc welder, excavator operator, plumber, and stone layer mason. System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28: 29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fee5e8c78)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fede05f00)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fee5e8c78)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fede05f00)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3feb63f2b8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fede05f00)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fede05f00)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fed913c20)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fecd24f10)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fecd24f10)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28:
29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fea480820)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fea47aa18)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fea480820)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fea47aa18)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fe9875438)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fea47aa18)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fea47aa18)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe98751b0)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fea480270)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fea480270)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28:
29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fe9859da8)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe98a85b8)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fe9859da8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe98a85b8)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fe985bcc0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe98a85b8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe98a85b8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe96f03e0)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fe975a078)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fe975a078)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 US, France, Britain hold mine drill off Bahrain Manama, April 15 (AFP) Apr 15, 2019 The US, French and British navies have launched anti-mine exercises off Bahrain in support of the free movement of trade in Gulf waters, a military spokeswoman said Monday. "As mines threaten maritime traffic indiscriminately, the US, France and United Kingdom are dedicated to conducting tactical training to counter the risk of mines in order to support the continued free flow of commerce and freedom of navigation in this critical region," said the US Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain. The exercise is "purely defensive", Lieutenant Chloe Morgan, a spokesperson for the US Navy, told AFP. The small kingdom of Bahrain, allied with Gulf powerhouse Saudi Arabia, is located in the waters between the ingdom and its arch-nemesis Iran. The archipelago is also home to a permanent British military base. US confirms killing No.2 Islamic State leader in Somalia Mogadishu, April 15 (AFP) Apr 15, 2019 The US military confirmed Monday that it had killed the second-ranking Islamic State leader in Somalia in an air strike. US Africa Command said that Abdulhakim Dhuqub was killed Sunday in the strike vicinity of Xiriiro in the Bari region. In the current assessment, the US military said the strike killed only Dhuqub and destroyed one vehicle. "Dhuqub was responsible for the daily operations of the extremist group, attack planning and resource procurement," AFRICOM said in a statement. The Islamic State group has a relatively small presence in Somalia, where Al-Shabaab fighters are more powerful and aligned with Al-Qaeda. "We continue to work with our Somali partners to keep pressure on the Al-Shabaab and ISIS-Somalia terror networks," said AFRICOM director of operations Marine Corps Major General Gregg Olson. "When it supports the strategy, we use precision air strikes to target those who plan and carry out the violent extremist activities that put Somalis at risk." In late 2018, the US military estimated that there were between 75 and 250 Islamic State fighters in Somalia, compared to 3,000 to 7,000 Shabaab fighters. 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Moscow, April 14, 2019 (SPS) - Sahrawi Coordinator with the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) Mhamed Kheddad said that a complaint against the EU-Morocco Fisheries Agreement will soon be filed before the European Court of Justice (CJEU), noting that a "very solid" case was prepared to reject the agreement in question. Speaking to Russian agency Sputnik, in Moscow, Mhamed Kheddad said that the Polisario Front intends to file a complaint before the European Court of Justice, against the fishing agreement concluded illegally between EU and Morocco in disregard of CJEU judgments dating from 2016 and 2018. We are convinced that we have a very solid case and the Court will utterly reject its agreements because they are illegal," said the Sahrawi Coordinator with the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). Kheddad recalled, on this occasion, that CJEU had already ruled on "the inapplicability of EU-Morocco agreements to occupied Western Sahara which is considered as a separate territory that doesn't fall under the Moroccan Sovereignty, in addition to "the prior consent of the Saharawi people to any agreement on the exploitation of its natural resources. The Polisario Front's complaint before the Court of Justice of the European Union comes in response to the adoption, by the European Parliament last February, of the EU-Morocco fisheries agreement and its implementation protocol involving illegally the Sahrawi territorial waters. The Polisario Front strongly opposed this illegal agreement which violates the Saharawi people's fundamental right to self-determination and which only feeds the pursuit of the conflict in Western Sahara. (SPS) 062/SPS/APS Shaheed Alhafed, April 15, 2019 (SPS) - The Permanent Bureau of the National Secretariat of the POLISARIO Front has called on the United Nations Security Council to take "urgent" measures to put an end to Moroccan violations of the ceasefire, and open the occupied territories of Western Sahara to international observers. The Permanent Bureau Met on Sunday, under the chairmanship of President of the Republic, Secretary General of the POLISARIO Front, Brahim Ghali, and reviewed the recent report of the UN Secretary-General on Western Sahara, highlighting the gross violations committed by Morocco concerning the cease-fire agreement and the human rights situation in the Sahrawi occupied territories. It also addressed threats to peace and stability in the region, including drug trafficking from Morocco, which supports and encourages organized crime and terrorist groups. The Permanent Bureau appealed to the Sahrawi people to thwart all the enemy's plots, through their attachment to their national unity and their sole and legitimate representative, the POLISARIO Front, in order to achieve their aspirations for freedom and independence. Finally, the Permanent Bureau condemned the obstacles set by Morocco against any fair and lasting solution to the conflict in Western Sahara to allow the Sahrawi people to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and independence. (SPS) 062/SPS/TRA Algiers, April 15, 2019 (SPS) - The Ambassador of the Republic of Namibia to Algeria, Mrs. Panduleni-Kaino Shingenge, reiterated on Monday the support of her country for the just struggle of the Sahrawi people for self-determination and independence, during a visit to the SADR Embassy in Algiers. In a meeting with Ambassador to Algeria, Abdelkader Taleb Omar, the Namibian Ambassador indicated that her visit to the Sahrawi Embassy was to promote and consolidate the solid relations existing in all fields between the two peoples and countries. For his part, Ambassador Abdelkader Taleb Omar expressed his profound gratitude to the Ambassador of Namibia, and through her to the Government and people of Namibia for their support and defense of the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination and independence in international forums. (SPS) 062/SPS/TRA Bir Lahlou (Liberated Territories), April 15, 2019 (SPS) - The Sahrawi National Committee for Human Rights (CONASADH) condemned Sunday the arbitrary detention of Sahrawi political activist Ali Salem Buyemaa Saaduni by the Moroccan forces, calling for his immediate and unconditional release. In a communique published Sunday, CONASADH demanded the cessation of reprisals and suppression against the Sahrawi citizens in the occupied areas of Western Sahara. In this respect, it also demanded the immediate and unconditional release of all the Sahrawi political prisoners and activists, to quash all the trials, unveil the fate of all the missing Sahrawi people and to open the occupied territory of the Sahrawi Republic to media and international observers so that they can check the human rights situation in these occupied territories, constantly violated by the Moroccan occupier. CONASADH said to be deeply concerned about the worrying health condition of several Sahrawi political prisoners of Gdeim Izik group, because of the repercussion of hunger strikes to protest against ill-treatments and abominable practices contrary to the law and international conventions. The Sahrawi non-governmental organization expressed its support and solidarity with all the Sahrawi political prisoners in hunger strike and their families. (SPS) 062/SPS/APS A more recent publication of this set of statistics is available. Latest publication: Index of turnover in industry 2021, October Published: 15 April 2019 Turnover in manufacturing grew by 5.3 per cent in February According to Statistics Finland, working day adjusted turnover in manufacturing (TOL BCD) increased in February by 5.3 per cent from the corresponding period of the previous year. Among the main manufacturing industries, the growth in working day adjusted turnover was strongest in the electrical and electronics industry, 14.4 per cent, in the forest industry, 8.0 per cent, and in the metal industry, 5.8 per cent. Seasonally adjusted turnover in manufacturing (TOL BCD) was unchanged in February compared with the previous month. Annual change in working day adjusted turnover in manufacturing (BCD), %, (TOL 2008) Among the main industries, turnover grew slowest in the food industry, by 0.9 per cent, and in mining and quarrying, by 1.8 per cent from the previous year. Only in the textile, clothing and leather industry turnover decreased from the previous year, by 4.5 per cent. Annual change in working day adjusted turnover in manufacturing by industry, February 2019, %, (TOL 2008) Export turnover and domestic turnover growing in January Export turnover grew in January most in mining and quarrying, by 18.4 per cent, in the electrical and electronics industry, by 18.0 per cent, and in the food industry, by 13.4 per cent. In turn, export turnover decreased in the chemical industry, by 4.1 per cent from the year before. Annual change in working day adjusted export turnover and domestic turnover in manufacturing by industry, January 2019, %, (TOL 2008) In January, domestic turnover grew most in the chemical industry, by 10.7 per cent. Respectively, domestic turnover fell in the electrical and electronics industry, by 7.6 per cent from the corresponding period of the year before. Trend series of turnover, export turnover and domestic turnover in manufacturing (BC), 01/2007 to 02/2019, %, (TOL 2008) The index of turnover in industry describes enterprises whose main industry is manufacturing. The calculation of the indices is based on the Tax Administrations self-assessed tax data which are supplemented with data obtained with Statistics Finlands sales inquiry. The monthly turnovers of manufacturing enterprises can vary considerably, especially in the metal industries. The variation is mainly due to invoicing practices. The final invoice for major machinery deliveries and projects may be recorded in the sales of one month, even if the delivery had required the work of several months or years. The factors caused by the variation in the number of weekdays are taken into account in adjustment for working days. This means taking into consideration the lengths of months, different weekdays and holidays. In addition, seasonal variation is eliminated from seasonally adjusted series, on account of which it makes sense to compare observations of two successive months as well. The data for the latest month are preliminary and they may become significantly revised particularly on more detailed industry levels in coming months. Source: Index of turnover in industry 2019, February, Statistics Finland Inquiries: Maija Sappinen 029 551 3348, Kirsi-Maaria Manninen 029 551 2681, myynti.teollisuus@stat.fi Director in charge: Mari Yla-Jarkko Publication in pdf-format (322.2 kB) Updated 15.4.2019 Referencing instructions: Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Index of turnover in industry [e-publication]. ISSN=1798-596X. February 2019. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 16.12.2021]. Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/tlv/2019/02/tlv_2019_02_2019-04-15_tie_001_en.html Shares is the leading weekly publication for retail investors. It is packed with investment ideas, news and educational material to help build and run portfolios and get more from your money. Shares puts on free Investor Events throughout the year across the country. They provide an opportunity for investors to learn more about companies on the stock market and hear from a range of investment experts including fund managers and Shares journalists. Detail of Isidro Fernandez Fuentes Gamonals 1914 portrait of Queen Ena (Grand Ladies Site) Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of one of the royal matriarchs of the twentieth-century: Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, who is better known to history as Queen Ena of Spain. Today, weve got a bejeweled look back on her fascinating royal life. Baby Ena, photographed holding a toy in 1888 (Royal Collection/Wikimedia Commons) Princess Victoria Eugenie Julia Ena of Battenberg, the daughter of Prince Henry of Battenberg and Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom, was born at Balmoral Castle in Scotland in October 1887. Her first three names honored her maternal grandmother, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom; her godmother, the exiled Empress Eugenie of France; and her paternal grandmother, Princess Julia of Battenberg. She was generally known, however, by her fourth name, Ena. Princess Beatrice with her children, Alexander, Ena, Leopold, and Maurice, ca. 1900 (Wikimedia Commons) Ena, Princess Beatrices only daughter, had four brothers. Prince Alexander, the eldest, served in the British Army, Navy, and Air Force. When the family gave up their German titles during World War I, he took on the new title of Marquess of Carisbrooke. The second brother, Prince Leopold, also served in the British Army, but he sadly inherited hemophilia, the genetic disorder that wreaked havoc in Queen Victorias family tree. The youngest, Prince Maurice, was killed in the First Battle of Ypres while serving with the Kings Royal Rifle Corps in October 1914. All four of the children grew up close to their grandmother, Queen Victoria, especially after the death of their father, Prince Henry, in 1896. Sixteen-year-old Ena, photographed by George Charles Beresford in 1904 (Grand Ladies Site) Ena was only seventeen when she caught the eye of the man who would become her husband. King Alfonso XIII, the young monarch of Spain, made a state visit to the United Kingdom in June 1905. At a dinner party given by King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, Alfonso who was openly searching for a royal bride was introduced to several young British princesses, including Ena. (Princesses Patricia and Margaret of Connaught and Princesses Helena Victoria and Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein were also invited.) Legend has it that his initial target was Enas cousin, Princess Patricia, but he was captivated by Ena. The pair were soon courting, even over the protests of his mother, Queen Maria Cristina, who wasnt particularly impressed by the Battenberg princesss paternal pedigree. The bridal party of Princess Margaret of Connaught and Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden, June 1905 (Royal Collection/Wikimedia Commons) In the midst of the budding royal relationship, Ena was also present for another royal wedding. In June 1905, a few days after meeting Alfonso, she served as one of the bridesmaids for her cousin, Princess Margaret of Connaught, who married the future King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden at Windsor Castle. Ena is the bridesmaid standing on the left-hand side of this official portrait of the wedding party, taken by W.D. Downey. Alfonso and Ena pose for a photograph at the studio of Gustav Mullins, one of Queen Victorias favorite photographers, on the Isle of Wight, April 1906 (Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Regardless of Maria Cristinas objections, the courtship continued swiftly. Neither Enas religion (she was an Anglican, while the Spanish royals were and are Roman Catholic) nor the risks of joining the Spanish royal family (Alfonso had survived his fourth assassination attempt when his carriage was bombed in Paris just a few days before he and Ena met) slowed down the marriage negotiations. Ena turned eighteen in October, and by the end of the year, the papers were heavily speculating that she would soon become Queen of Spain. Alfonso and Ena pose for an official engagement portrait, 1906 (Grand Ladies Site) In January, Queen Maria Cristina finally relented and gave her approval to the match. Ena and her mother traveled to the south of France, where they spent time with Alfonso before heading to Spain to meet with his mother. By February, the engagement was officially announced. Ena converted to Catholicism, and a treaty was signed between Spain and the United Kingdom to make things official. Ahead of the wedding, King Edward VII even granted his niece the style of Royal Highness, upgrading her from the status of Highness. An image of Ena wearing her wedding gown and jewels, 1906 (Grand Ladies Site) As you might have expected, the wedding gifts offered to a future Queen of Spain were impressive indeed. Her wedding dress was a gift from her new husband; so was the grand diamond tiara she wore on her wedding day. (The diadem, made by Ansorena, is still known by the appropriate nickname La Buena, which simply means the good one.) Her lace veil was a gift from her mother-in-law; it was the same one Queen Maria Cristina had worn on her own wedding day. She was also presented with a treasure trove of tiaras, necklaces, brooches, and other jewels. Portrait of Alfonso and Ena from the time of their wedding, 1906 (Grand Ladies Site) The royal wedding, held in Madrid at the Church of San Jeronimo on May 31, 1906, went off without a hitch until the royal carriage procession headed back to the palace afterward. The newlyweds were seated in a carriage at the end of the procession, which also included numerous royals from throughout Europe. (Those riding in the carriages included, notably, the future King George V and Queen Mary of the United Kingdom, the future King Albert I of Belgium, Grand Duke Vladimir of Russia, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, and Prince Luis Filipe of Portugal.) As Alfonso and Enas carriage traveled along the Calle Mayor, an anarchist threw a bouquet at the carriage. The flowers concealed an explosive device, which detonated, killing more than twenty people and wounding 100 more. Alfonso and Enas escape from injury was so narrow that her wedding gown was splattered with blood. Grand Ladies Site But Ena summoned up all of her royal bearing and soldiered on, even after her horrific introduction to her new life. Portraits from this period show her in all her regal glory, jewels and all. In this portrait photograph, taken early in her tenure at Queen of Spain, Ena wears a diamond and pearl tiara given to her by Alfonso, as well as a diamond bow brooch. The brooch, which featured a pair of negligee pendants, was a wedding gift from a group of British citizens living abroad in Spain. The tiara was later remodeled, becoming her grand aquamarine tiara. (More over here!) Ena, ca. 1910 (Grand Ladies Site) Here, Queen Ena pairs La Buena with layered necklaces, several bracelets, and a fantastic gown from the House of Worth. Grand Ladies Site In this 1911 profile portrait by Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida, Ena sparkles in diamonds, including her grand diamond riviere, her large diamond earrings, and (I believe) the Ansorena tiara given to her as a wedding present by her mother-in-law. That tiara was later dismantled and remade by Cartier. (More on that Pearl and Diamond Tiara over here!) Ena with her two eldest sons, Alfonso and Jaime, 1908 (Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Alfonso and Enas young family grew quickly. Their first child, Alfonso, was born in May 1907, less than a year after their wedding. Their happiness over the birth of an heir was dampened, however, when they discovered that he had inherited hemophilia, just like his uncle Maurice and several of his cousins. Although he had inherited the bleeding disorder, Alfonso lived into adulthood. He ultimately renounced his rights to the throne in 1933 so that he could marry a Cuban commoner, Edelmira Sampedro-Ocejo y Robato. (He died in a car accident five years later.) Enas second child, Infante Jaime, was born a year after his elder brother. He was not a hemophiliac, but he became deaf after an operation during his early childhood, and he too decided to renounce his rights to the throne when he turned 25. (In 1949, he retracted his renunciation, eventually becoming the head of the Carlists. In 1969, however, he renounced his rights once again, this time in favor of his nephew, Juan Carlos.) Ena with Infanta Beatriz, 1909 (Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) In 1909, Ena gave birth to her third child in three years: a daughter, Infanta Beatriz. She eventually married an Italian aristocrat, Alessandro Torlonia, Prince di Civitella-Cesi. Their descendants include Princess Sibilla of Luxembourg. Ena and her children, Alfonso, Jaime, Beatriz, Maria Cristina, Juan, and Gonzalo, ca. 1918 (Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Four more children followed. Infante Fernando was stillborn in May 1910. A year and a half later, Infanta Maria Cristina, who named for her grandmother, was born. After renouncing her succession rights, she married an Italian aristocrat, Enrico Marone-Cinzano, 1st Count Marone, in 1940. Infante Juan, who later became Count of Barcelona, followed in June 1913. He married a cousin, Princess Maria Mercedes of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, in 1935, and had four children, including the future King Juan Carlos. Juans grandson, King Felipe VI, now sits on the Spanish throne. The youngest member of Enas family, Infante Gonzalo, was born in October 1914. Like his eldest brother, he was also a hemophiliac, and he died following a car accident in Austria at the age of nineteen. Ena wears her diamond and turquoise set, a gift from her British royal relatives, in this portrait, taken ca. 1915 (Library of Congress Bain Collection/Grand Ladies Site) Although they produced a large family, Alfonso and Enas marriage ultimately was troubled, in large part because he was not a faithful husband. He acknowledged a number of illegitimate children, the eldest of whom, Roger de Vilmorin, was born in September 1905. At least five more sons and daughters were born during his marriage to Ena. Ena wears pearls and a diamond meander bandeau in this portrait, painted by Philip de Lazslo ca. 1920 (Wikimedia Commons) Despite her marital issues, Ena gained a measure of popularity in Spain. She devoted herself to charitable work, especially nursing and hospital work. In the late 1920s, she became deeply involved with the Spanish Red Cross. Wikimedia Commons Images from this period also reinforce the majestic nature of her position. Here, in an iconic portrait, she pairs La Buena with diamonds, as well as the diamond and emerald necklace that featured stones inherited from her godmother, Empress Eugenie. Wikimedia Commons She wears the diamond and emerald necklace as a bandeau in this portrait, painted in 1924 by Bernhard Osterman. The emeralds were eventually sold. (More about them over here.) Ena wears her grandmothers diamond and ruby strawberry leaf tiara, ca. 1920s She was also photographed in several other important tiaras, including Queen Victorias Strawberry Leaf Tiara (more here!), which was loaned to her by her mother, and the magnificent Mellerio Shell Tiara (more here!). AFP/Getty Images In 1931, the Spanish royal family was sent into exile following a referendum on the monarchy. Ena and Alfonso unofficially separated as well. He died in 1941. She eventually settled in Switzerland, though she remained a vital part of the royal family. Shes pictured here at the airport in Lisbon in 1935 with her son, the Count of Barcelona (on the right) and his bride, Maria Mercedes. Ena lands in London, October 1959 (Douglas Miller/Keystone/Getty Images) Ena also spent time with family in her native Britain. In October 1959, she flew from Geneva to London, where she visited her brother, the Marquess of Carisbrooke. He passed away a few months later. Queen Ena and the Countess of Barcelona, resplendent in pearls in Portugal, May 1967 (Album/Alamy) Enas life in exile lasted for almost four decades, and she was an active member of her family right up until the end. In May 1967, she traveled to Lisbon to attend the wedding of her granddaughter, Infanta Pilar, to Luis Gomez-Acebo y Duque de Estrada. And, in a significant tie to the present Spanish monarchy, Ena returned briefly to Spain in 1968. She was there for a very important reason: her great-grandson, Infante Felipe, was being baptized. She served as godmother at the baptism, holding the baby over the font. Felipe is now King of Spain. (She was also godmother of the late Queen Fabiola of Belgium and of Prince Albert II of Monaco.) Queen Ena, ca. 1915 (Grand Ladies Site) Queen Ena died in Lausanne, Switzerland, on April 15, 1969. She was initially buried there as well, but in 1982, she was re-interred in the Royal Vault at the Escorial in Madrid. In her will, she left the world an important sparkling legacy, creating the joyas de pasar, a collection of jewels designated for the use of the Queen of Spain. (The jewels, which you can learn more about here, are now worn by Queen Letizia.) With a life that took her from Balmoral to the throne of Spain and, ultimately, to royal exile, Ena remains one of the most fascinating royal women of the last century. Judi Dench and Sophie Cookson bring this incredible true story, centring on one womans impossible choice during the Second World War, to life. Image Credit: Lionsgate UK The age-old saying "behind every strong man is an even stronger woman has never been truer than in this film, which tells the true story of the KGB's longest-serving British spy - who just so happens to be a woman. Red Joan brings us the story of Joan Stanley in the year 2000. Joan is now an elderly woman (played by Judi Dench) living a quiet and simple life, quite happy in her retirement. Her peaceful life is suddenly disrupted when M15 arrives with a knock on the door, bringing with them arrest warrants and charges dating back to the 1930s. We find out, as she is being taken into custody, that she is being charged with providing information to Communist Russia. As M15 and Joans own adult son do their best, via interrogations and questions, to find out exactly what happened, we as the audience are transported into the past to get Joans side of the story. In 1938, we are introduced to the young Joan (played by Sophie Cookson), a bright young physics student at Cambridge. It is there that we see Joan spark up a friendship with Russian student Sonya (Tereza Srbova) and her cousin Leo (Tom Hughes). As she begins to grow closer to the two cousins and eventually fall for Leo, Joan begins to see the world in a new way as they introduce her to a new way of thinking as well as some of the ideas and teachings behind the communist mindset. Sophie Cookson does a brilliant job in her role as young Joan, bringing a youthful innocence and naivety to a role that, if put in the wrong hands, could be annoying and irritating - yet she succeeds in making Joan an endearing hero to the audience. While Leo and Joans love story unfolds, it seems as if the film is attempting to have us believe that the two are fated to be star-crossed lovers as Leos radical communist beliefs alienate him from Joan, despite her supposed faith in this system as well. Yet despite every single attempt to have the audience love Leo as Joan does, it falls flat every time. Leo is nothing more than manipulative and emotionally abusive, guilting her into siding with his beliefs, goading her into breaking laws, statues of security and secrets. He then seems to flip once she has given him what he wants, and is suddenly filled with sweet nothings, whispering what is perhaps supposed to be the endearing term little comrade into her ear. Whilst Joan swoons, the audience holds back their gags. One of the chords that strikes deep whilst watching this film is the idea of the hidden figures of history - as Sonya says multiple times to Joan, n o one suspects us because we're women." The film does well to highlight sexism throughout history. Joan is disregarded, and largely ignored by the men that deem themselves the important scientists in the room. Maybe history should start paying a little more attention to the women in the background, however, unfortunately, despite Judi Dench and Sophie Cooksons' admirable performances, this story of one woman's bravery and ingenuity falls unfortunately flat. MBABANE Good food, beverages and music sums up what a perfect day looks like. On Saturday, the Rotary Club Swaziland hosted about 20 different restaurants for the Taste of Swaziland food and drink Festival which was held at House on Fire. The 20 restaurants cooked meals that were sampled by guests at discounted prices compared to the regular prices that they get to pay when they decide to eat out at these eateries. Plates of food were sold from as little as E10. event was an ideal family affair where food lovers came with their beloved to enjoy sampling dishes that were sold on the day. Food that was served was not only limited to just traditional meals as there were different stalls featuring much loved and old favourite food meals from famous eateries in the kingdom. There were different kinds of food stalls scattered around House on Fire presenting their mouthwatering signature dishes that people got to sample. At some stalls, the chefs would now and again demonstrate a few exotic cooking techniques right in front of food lovers. Automatically Food coupons were available upon entry, where food lovers paid E60 and automatically got themselves coupons to use on purchase on any item that they found interesting. This day was a celebration of food in the kingdom comprised in a full day event that saw over 300 food lovers enjoy exquisite food, good fun and each others company. The event was entirely organised by the Rotary Club of Malkerns with other major sponsors. Through this day, the Rotary Club aims to raise funds to finance their successful mentorship programme Hawane Project for disadvantaged adolescents and children with HIV. Rotary Club employees were going around fun lovers tables selling raffle draw tickets that will take place sometime this week where revellers will get a chance to win themselves prices of spending a night or two with their loved ones in one of Eswatini leading exquisite hotels. The show ended with a bang as fun lovers kept commanding the DJ not to stop playing some music which they danced to. MBABANE The speculation and finger-pointing in the circumstances leading to the murder of an Asian at Park View Heights in Mbabane is over. This follows the arrest of his countryman Delowar Gazi Bangladesh who now stands accused of having a hand in his countrymans murder. He is not only facing a murder charge, but is further accused of having robbed the deceased. Delowar Gazi Bangladesh, a 28-year-old Bangladeshi national, made his first court appearance before Mbane Senior Magistrate Nonhlanhla Dlamini. The first count according to the charge sheet stated: In that upon (or about) the 28th March 2019 at (or near) Mbabane Park View Heights in the Hhohho Region, the said accused person did wrongfully, unlawfully and intentionally hit one Sarwar Hossain with a dumb-bell once on the head inflicting a fatal wound from which the said Sarwar Hossain died of and thus commit the said offence. Robbery In the second count, the accused person was charged with robbery. The charge sheet stated: In that upon (or about) the 28th March 2019 at (or near) Mbabane Park View Heights in the Hhohho Region, the said accused person did unlawfully and with intent to induce submission to Sarwar Hossain by threatening him and did take and steal from him the following items valued at E19 000, his property or in his lawful possession and did thereby rob him (sic). The stolen items were a black Samsung J7 valued at E3 500 and a black Samsung S+8 valued at 15 500. Dressed in blue denim jeans, brown sandals and a black leather jacket, Bangladesh arrived in court at around 10am. The accused was handcuffed and surrounded by a number of police officers in plain clothes. Also present was a fellow countryman who had been brought to court to interpret for the accused as it was disclosed that he had difficulty understanding English. The accused was told to return to magistrates court on Thursday, April 18, 2019 and his trial is set to take place at the Mbabane High Court. Privacy Sarwar Hossain, who was 38 years old at the time of his passing, was a businessman who was known to love his privacy and liked being alone in his apartment, according to Gazi Mohhamed Forhad, who said the deceased had been his friend. One of the deceaseds friends, Forhad, in an earlier interview said, I tried to ask him on numerous occasions to come and live with my family since we have a huge house but he refused. Forhad said he suspected Hossain had been murdered due to the head injury he assumed was inflicted using a blunt object. He also had said he suspected that the killers were trying to rob him, since he used to operate three shops. He always carried money with him so I suspect that the killers wanted cash, that is why they killed him, he narrated. MBABANE - Has government extended the contract of Eswatini Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (EPTC) for the distribution of elderly grants? This is the question that begs an answer following that the parastatals contract is expected to end this month. Information gathered was that the Deputy Prime Ministers Office, which is responsible for the distribution of the grants, has considered extending the contract while going about its exercise of verifying qualifying recipients. According to an impeccable source, the DPMs Office has allegedly given the parastatal up until November to continue distributing the grants. The contract has been extended for six months as the DPMs office is hoping to explore other options, said the source. The DPM is on record stating that his office was working to review the distribution of elderly grants in the country. It should be noted that Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg stated during his budget speech on February 27 that government would undertake an exercise to verify qualifying recipients and reducing the cost of distributing the grants. He said this would result in increased grants for each qualifying recipient. Protection As it stands, government has allocated an amount of E702 million for the Deputy Prime Ministers Office in order to continue with the social protection improvements for emaSwati. The finance minister highlighted that the exercise would assist to address growing inequalities between the rich and the poor. He said as of April 1, 2019, over 70 000 elderly people were to be catered for with a total allocation of E417 million. Called for comment, DPM Themba Masuku confirmed that the contract of EPTC was coming to an end this month. However, he said he was not aware that his office had considered extending the contract of the parastatal. I have heard that the contract is coming to an end but I have not yet said that it has been extended. For now I am looking at a better way to distribute the grants, Masuku said. In vernacular, Masuku said, Ngisengakakusho loko. Mine nje ngisafuna indlela lencono yekutfumela imali. As he spoke, Principal Secretary in the DPMs office, Khangeziwe Mabuza, was standing next to him and he asked her to shed light on the matter. At first, Mabuza was not welcoming as she advised the reporter to write what she wanted. It is fine, she can go ahead and write what she wants. We have actually written to them informing them that we are terminating the contract, she said without giving further details. Efforts to get a comment from EPTC Corporate Communications Manager Nqobile Magagula were not successful as her cellphone rang unanswered when she was contacted on Friday. EPTC, through its SwaziPost division, began the distribution of the grants as a pilot project way back in October 2015. On the first payout, which was on October 6, it became obvious that the pilot project was a success as a majority of the elderly gave it a thumbs up, saying it was easy and fast. At the time, the grant stood at E240 and many of the elderly were complaining that it was too little. MBABANE The levels of corruption in the civil service have gone up a notch. It has been discovered that two civil servants, who were owing government E100 000 and E50 000, respectively under the Community Poverty Reduction Fund, tried to cancel off their debts by manipulating the system. The office of the Auditor General has since reported to the Public Accounts Committee that some debts to government were cancelled without proper justification. An example of the irregular cancellations related to two beneficiaries names where in one instance, a repayment of E1 000 was recorded as E100 000 in the books thereby unlawfully cancelling the whole debt, resulting in a loss of E99 000 of public funds. The AG further reported that a repayment of E500 as E50 000 resulting in the cancellation of the debt and a loss of public funds amounting to E49 500. This was allegedly attributed to a system error or log error. However, I am not convinced that the act was due to a system error, but I consider it to be a human error or a deliberate fraudulent act. The matter should be investigated by the police and or the Anti-Corruption Commission. Action In response, the accountant general stated that the Fraud Section had been assigned to investigate and consider appropriate action on the matter. In 2017, about 60 former and present civil servants committed to repaying money they had benefited from the Community Poverty Reduction Fund. In 2016, the auditor general, in his report, noted a number of irregularities regarding the disbursement of the fund. The fund, which was established in the year 2009, was allocated a sum of E20 million, but out of the E19 950 000 which had been disbursed, E16 174 108.52, had still not been paid back as of March 31, 2016. It was discovered that about E3 million of the money was allocated to civil servants, some of whom were administrators of the Fund at the Ministry of Tinkhundla Administration and Development and the money had still not been paid back for over five years. In response the controlling officers concurred with the anomalies noted by the auditor general and stated that new regulations had been drafted and they are awaiting Cabinet approval. She also stated that ministry had already made the debtors to sign affidavits stating when and how they planned to pay back the money. Failed Over 60 present and former civil servants also appeared before the PAC Committee in June 2017 to give account on why they had failed to pay back the money and subsequently signed acknowledgement of debt forms as well as affidavits detailing a payment schedule. The PAC urged the controlling officer to liaise with all the relevant ministries where the owing civil servants are stationed and ensure that the owed balances are deducted from their salaries. MBABANE The going is getting tougher for SNAT President Mbongwa Dlamini, as 11 more charges of misconduct have been preferred against him. SNAT is an acronym for the Swaziland National Association of Teachers. Dlamini, who is a Mathematics and Science teacher at Mhubhe High School, had initially been charged with four counts which included absenteeism, neglecting to submit official school records for inspection, disobedience and bringing the teaching service into disrepute. This means that Dlamini now faces a total of 14 charges of misconduct. The fresh charges have been preferred by Schools Manager Macanjana Motsa in a letter dated April 3, 2019. Dlamini has been called to give reasons in writing why disciplinary action should not be taken against him in respect of the alleged misconduct charges. After you have submitted your responses through a letter dated February 11, 2019, it has come to my attention that certain dates and/or complaints were not covered in the complainants that were forwarded to you. Therefore you are kindly requested to answer on the added complaints, reads part of the letter by the schools manager. The first complaint against Dlamini was that he had failed to indicate target and completion dates in the scheme book for four classes namely; Form 1B, Form 2B, Form 4B and Form 5 in various classes. Motsa stated that on March 18, 2019 upon inspection by the Manzini Regional Education Officer (REO) or inspectors, Dlamini allegedly submitted an incomplete scheme book in the Biology, Science and Mathematics classes in terms of target and completion. Motsa submitted that the School Guide and Regulation Procedures stated that scheme for the first term must be entered by the end of the first fortnight of term one, and scheme for the whole year must be entered by the end of the first term. In the second complaint, Motsa further stated that during inspection Dlamini also failed to submit the content to be taught in the scheme book in the aforementioned classes. The content is actually the topics of the syllabus to be taught for that year, per class and per subject, wrote Motsa. She indicated that Instruction No.2 (e) of the scheme book read that each scheme should have elements of aims, target dates, dates when tests and examinations would be administered, reference materials for pupils and teacher. In the third complaint Dlamini was accused of failing to provide preliminary information in his Scheme Book which included the index page which is supposed to contain official information showing where to find the schemes for different subjects. Motsa stated that each page in the book should be numbered, but in Dlaminis case, the index page was not completed. Failed It was further alleged that Dlamini failed to provide the record of teacher which was official information about the teacher, which helped identify who the teacher was, including their teaching experience. Upon inspection the inspectors would know who they were helping in terms of teaching experience and identify areas where the teacher needed assistance and support. MBABANE Soldiers who were dismissed during the tenure of Sobantu Dlamini as army commander are harbouring resentment against him. So serious is the situation that the about 15 soldiers have resolved to attack the former army commander at his place of abode at Nkhaba. The former soldiers were dismissed from the army for different transgressions which mostly include misconduct. The livid former combatants are accusing Dlamini of having dismissed them from work despite that there were court orders directing him to reinstate them. Attack According to one of the ex-soldiers Madoda Dlamini, who is the brains behind the attack, all they wanted from Sobantu was for him to explain why he allegedly failed to respect court orders. He disclosed that they were prepared to be arrested for their actions and that they would leave no stone unturned in ensuring that Dlamini felt the pain they also felt. According to the laws of the country, it is a criminal offence to issue threats against any person or his property. The interview was conducted before the redeployment of the army commander to being a member of Ludzidzini Council. When informed on the latest development, the former combatants said they were not deterred as the redeployment did not change the fact that he (Sobantu) was the one who took the decision to dismiss them from work. Being redeployed does not exonerate him. He must be arrested for having defied a litany of court orders directing him to reinstate us, said the livid Madoda. Madoda is the soldier who once hogged headlines in 2012, when he took the army to court after alleging that he was being threatened in the army. He was branded a rebel by army authorities for his controversies and his ability to challenge his authorities. He challenged the UEDF that he was constructively dismissed from the army and sought an order directing the UEDF to pay him E326 253 as his terminal benefits. He alleged that the army constructively and unfairly terminated his services as a soldier. During the interview, Madoda continued to state that they were giving the former army boss a chance to clear their names and reinstate them or they would be left with no alternative but to take the law into their own hands. He said; We will stage a civil war at his home. He further mentioned that as citizens of Eswatini, they were not satisfied with the countrys justice system. Law The former soldier alleged that the former UEDF commander had portrayed himself to be above the law by the mere fact that he allegedly did not comply with the law by reinstating them. For this reason, the former soldier said they were going to take the law into their own hands by staging an attack at the former commanders home. This piece of crystal methamphetamine seized by Titusville Police represents a new form of meth that has been prevalent in the Titusville area for the last year, according to Police Chief Dustin LeGoullon. He said this form of meth, which is clearer and less granular than what the department is used to, cannot be made in this area. Arcapita, a global leader in Shariah-compliant alternative investments, has entered a strategic partnership with YPO Mena, one of 14 regions within YPO, a global leadership organization. YPO is the premier leadership organization for more than 27,000 chief executives in over 130 countries and the global platform for them to engage, learn and grow. YPO members harness the knowledge, influence and trust of the worlds most important and innovative business leaders to inspire business, personal, family and community impact. Today, YPO member-run companies, diversified among industries and types of businesses, employ more than 22 million people globally and generate USD9 trillion in annual revenues. Hisham Al Raee, chief operating officer at Arcapita Group, said: Arcapita is pleased to join the YPO Mena community as an official Regional Partner and we look forward to a long and fruitful partnership. We are delighted to be part of the worlds most influential and innovative network of business leaders and we are excited about the opportunity to forge new networks. Furthermore, the region will host its first joint regional board meeting between YPO Mena and South Asia at the Arcapita building, to discuss development and initiatives taking place in the region, followed by a networking event for YPO members. Qutub Dadabai, YPO Mena regional chair, said: We expect around 200 people from 50 different chapters to join the YPO Mena and South Asia Joint Regional Board Meeting and Networking event. Participants are travelling to Bahrain, which is a great opportunity to introduce Bahrain to the YPO world and open doors to foreign investment in the country. YPO is delighted to have Arcapita, a global leader in Shariah-compliant alternative investments, as a YPO Mena Strategic Partner, and we thank them for their full support and look forward to a strong and long-lasting partnership, he added. TradeArabia News Service International construction and real estate consultancy Drees & Sommer has announced the launch of a Dubai-based innovation hub, as it looks to expand its research and development (R&D) efforts across the Middle East. The new regional innovation hub provides a collaboration platform to support the companys 3,200 employees and external start-ups by identifying market gaps and devise tangible solutions to everyday challenges faced by the industry in verticals including planning, construction and operations. The idea behind the hub is to bring simplification to processes, cost-effectiveness, process streamlining and solution provision to different challenges. The Dubai launch follows the successful implementation of regional hubs around the world. In Aachen, Germanys Silicon Valley, there is a focus on customised smart buildings; in Stuttgart on start-ups and processes; and in Berlin, the innovation hub specialises in smart cities and smart quarters. In the Netherlands, an innovation hub focuses on wellbeing and sustainable innovation. All hubs link Drees & Sommer to external research institutions and start-up organisations and drive specific initiatives, the company said. Steffen Szeidl, executive board member at Drees & Sommer, said: It has always been part of our corporate culture to promote our own ideas and initiatives. Increasingly, digital transformation and our clients are calling for completely new and disruptive business models. The Innovation Centre is one of our responses to these challenges. All 3,200 staff members can upload their ideas virtually. Promising concepts will be developed, funded and localised for any market which sees the potential. Adding the Dubai innovation hub emphasises our status as a global innovation company by being one of the few companies doing R&D in this region. Abdulmajid Karanouh, head of interdisciplinary design & innovation at Drees & Sommer Middle East, leads the Dubai innovation hub. He explained: There is a huge demand in this market for contextual solutions as most models and systems are imported from abroad with little to no adaptation to the local culture, economy, and environment. As a consequence of this approach, we are facing major challenges related to user-comfort, efficiency, manageability, durability, and overall sustainability and feasibility of the built environment in the region. The innovation hub brings together specialists of various disciplines from across the industry as a single interdisciplinary team that advises clients from early feasibility studies all the way to operation and revitalisation of buildings to maximise comfort, efficiency, sustainability, return of investment and overall value. The platform allows for brainstorming ideas, identifying market gaps and needs, adapting existing solutions or/and developing new solutions tailored to the local market and environment. The innovation hubs address everything from designing a fully digitalised building with a central Artificial Intelligence brain comprising of thousands of sensors, to optimising performance through data collection, statistical analysis, and operation automation. Products like meeting room technologies that meet the demands on analytical data, for example, is something we are currently working on in Aachen, which is our innovation hub focused primarily on IoT product testing and cyber-security. We are undertaking a piece of research that is looking at tech products with different protocols, designed to do the same thing or complement one another to achieve the same goal, across different stages of the build process, added Szeidl. TradeArabia News Service UAE-based Gulftainer, a leading privately-owned independent terminal operating and logistics company, said the Iraq Container Terminal (ICT) being operated by the company at Umm Qasr Port in southern Iraq, has registered container volumes of 2 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), since it started operations in the region less than nine years ago. Gulftainer was the first foreign investor to launch a joint venture with the General Company for Ports of Iraq (GCPI) in Umm Qasr Port, starting operations at the Iraq Project Terminal on Berth 8 in the South Port in August 2010, followed by ICT on Berth 11 in the North Port in 2012. The company has invested heavily in ICT to develop a 376-m berth and container storage area within the 342,000 sq m terminal that currently has the capacity to handle in excess of 400,000 TEUs per year, allowing for future volume increase. The berth is equipped with two Mitsubishi ship-to-shore gantry cranes, supported by two Gottwald mobile harbour cranes with a 100-tonne lifting capacity, in addition to container-handling equipment including 18 reach stackers, two empty handlers and 28 terminal tractors, said the UAE group in its statement. ICT currently employs 250 locals and a support team of 50 expatriates. Since November 2018, Gulftainer also operates the Iraq South Terminal IST, on Berth 4 in the South Port that features 230 m of quay and a yard handling capacity of 100,000 TEUs per annum. Nic Gray, General Manager of Gulftainers operations in Iraq, said: "The latest developments at ICT and Iraq South Terminal in 2018 mark impressive milestones for Gulftainer in Iraq. The company offers reliable services, fast vessel turnarounds, competitive rates, 48-hour customs clearance, dedicated in and out gates, and an on-terminal customs scanner." "With its extensive experience in terminal management that dates back to 1976, Gulftainers efforts have helped enhance the capacity of these terminals to meet future growth." he stated. This year the company plans to expand its storage space by introducing two new yards and increasing ICTs annual handling capacity to 650,000 TEUs. In addition, the company will launch a new customer web portal, allowing for container and vessel tracking, generating online proforma invoices and sharing up-to-date terminal information." Gulftainer celebrated the latest achievements at an event held in Iraq that drew the participation of Dr Safaa AJ Alfayyadh, Director-General of the Iraqi Port Authority (IPA) port directors, senior officials from customs and borders authorities, and other distinguished guests. Speaking at the event, Ibrahim Serhan, Middle East Regional Manager at Gulftainer, said, "The success of ICT reflects Gulftainers commitment to implementing the latest best practices in port management." For his part, Dr Alfayyadh said: "On behalf of Abdullah Luaibi, Minister of Transport of Iraq, and IPA, we congratulate Gulftainer on this latest achievement that is attributed to the efficient management and excellent operational capabilities of the company." "Gulftainer is a strong partner to IPA, owing to its professionalism and credibility," he added.-TradeArabia News Service Representatives from the Ajman Free Zone showcased the benefits of establishing a business in Ajman to a Russian delegation at the recent Bosco Conference, which was held in Moscow, Russia. Bosco Conference events are well known for their annual international VIP-class conferences, InvestPro and WealthPro, which the company holds in the countries of the European Union, the Middle East, the Baltic States and Eastern Europe. Ajman Free Zone has attended previous events held in the UAE, Russia and Azerbaijan, said a statement. The conferences speakers and partners are the world's leading experts in providing corporate and banking services, asset protection and confidentiality, private capital management, International legal structures, business immigration and citizenship. The conference audience in Moscow consisted of business owners, executives and financial directors, lawyers, private investors, high-net-worth individuals, asset managers, private client advocates, bankers and consultants. Sales director Majid Al Mulla and sales executive Leyla Sakhabiev of Ajman Free Zone attended the event and met with several parties interested in developing their companies in the UAE. Attendees were impressed by the range of benefits offered by Ajman Free. Sakhabieva also made an address as part of the conference speaker itinerary where she shared the numerous advantages of Ajman Free Zone to potential investors. Fatma Salem, director general of Ajman Free Zone, said: The free zone has welcomed a number of Russian companies in the past, and we are keen to attract more. Russia continues to expand its economy, and its progressive businesses seek opportunities further afield to realise new trading opportunities and aid growth. We are superbly positioned to take advantage of that ambition, due to the numerous benefits we offer both emerging and long-established businesses, from both a financial and practical perspective, Salem said. Platforms such as Bosco are a great enabler for us, and we were very pleased with the positive enquires we received from prospective investors which we will now focus on converting into business creation for our region, Salem added. TradeArabia News Service Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) and Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings today announced that they have reached an agreement for Saudi Aramcos subsidiary, Aramco Overseas Company (AOC), to purchase a 17 per cent stake in South Korea's Hyundai Oilbank, a subsidiary of Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings. The investment is valued at approximately $1.25 billion. AOCss investment in Hyundai Oilbank will support Saudi Aramcos crude oil placement strategy by providing a dedicated outlet for Arabian crude oil to South Korea. Abdulaziz Al-Judaimi, Saudi Aramcos senior vice president of Downstream, said: Saudi Aramco continues to strengthen its position in the downstream sector. This acquisition demonstrates our investment in the highly complex refining sector in Asia, and continuous commitment to the regions energy security and development. Judaimi added : The investment supports Saudi Aramcos broader downstream growth strategy, as well as providing long term crude oil options and offtakes as part of our trading business. Hyundai Oilbank is a private oil refining company established in 1964. The Daesan Complex, where Hyundai Oilbanks major facilities are located, is a fully integrated refining plant with a processing capacity of 650,000 barrels per day. The business portfolio of Hyundai Oilbank and its 5 subsidiaries includes oil refining, base oil, petrochemicals, and a network of gas stations. AOC is a subsidiary of Saudi Aramco. It provides support services to Saudi Aramco and, through its investments and joint ventures, forms an integral part of the global Saudi Aramco oil, gas, and chemicals enterprise. - TradeArabia News Service Over 100 resorts and 200+ local and international travel producers are expected to exhibit and participate in the upcoming Travel Trade Maldives (TTM), the largest travel trade show in the Maldives. TTM will be held from June 11 to 13. A major component of the show is the TTM Travel Summit, which will be held on June 11. Other main components are: TTM Pre-scheduled Meetings, Maldives Supplier Expo and TTM Awards & Gala Night. The theme of this years summit is Travel Tech & Analytics which will help the travel industry to unleash analytics, dynamic pricing, digital and AI potential to deliver unstoppable customer loyalty and profit. This summit will feature the latest innovations, products, and suppliers, which can help generate new business and visitors can hear from a range of industry experts from some leading travel businesses across the globe. Over 150 key travel professionals are expected to participate in this platform. TTM Travel Summit will discuss topics such as marketing & travel insights, digital media marketing, market movements, payment transactions, and revenue management. Some highlighted speakers of the summit are from well-established organizations such as TTG Asia, Make My Trip, Axis Rooms, PADI, Red Dot, Booking.com, Phocuswright, Air Asia X and more. -TradeArabia News Service A survey of Texas voters by the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs found strong support for increasing the states share of funding for public schools, along with support for increasing several targeted taxes to pay for it. That included 62% who said they favor legalizing and taxing marijuana for recreational use. But more than two-thirds of respondents also said they consider property taxes in Texas to be high almost one-third said they are very high and more than 75% support limiting how much money local governments can collect through property taxes. The survey also suggests voters may not support a plan announced by state leaders to raise the state sales tax by 1% in order to reduce property taxes; 56% opposed raising the tax by a half-cent per dollar spent. Moreover, Texas voters expressed strong opposition to extending the sales tax to grocery sales and non-prescription medicines. Voters are really thinking hard about what type of Texas we want in the future, said Jim Granato, executive director of the Hobby School. People want to invest in a higher quality public education system, but their thoughts and responses suggest a pragmatic approach on how to pay for it. They are looking at things that cause the least disruption for all. The states top elected officials have labeled school finance a priority, and the House approved a bill earlier this month that would increase base funding for each student, provide across-the-board raises for most full-time school employees and lower school tax rates. Deliberations on property tax proposals are continuing. Among the survey findings: More than four out of five Texans say the state should pay a substantially higher percentage of operating costs for public schools. It currently funds 36% of those costs; 40% of voters say the state should cover more than half of operating costs, while 41% said it should provide at least 50% Only 7.5% say state funding should remain at or below current levels Voters support expanding early childhood education More than three-fourths support capping the revenue cities, counties, school districts and other entities can collect Voters support raising salaries for classroom teachers and librarians but rate Texas public schools as only average. They rated their local school districts somewhat higher, with almost half saying their local school does a good or very good job Voters strongly support the state spending more money on public schools, even though they are clearly concerned about property taxes, said Mark Jones, a research associate at the Hobby School and a political science professor at Rice University. Despite that concern, we did find fairly strong support for a number of revenue-enhancing proposals, especially for raising so-called sin taxes. Respondents support closing loopholes that allow corporations to avoid paying taxes on the fair market value of their property, returning oil and gas severance taxes to their higher pre-1995 values and increasing taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products, along with those on wine, beer and other alcohol products. There also was support for creating new taxes on legalized casino gambling and the legalized sale of marijuana for recreational use. Three-fourths of voters oppose a state income tax, and a majority also oppose increasing the state sales tax and imposing a 1% tax on groceries and non-prescription drugs, which are currently exempt. Pablo M. Pinto, associate professor at the Hobby School and director of the Center for Public Policy, noted strong support for early childhood education, increasing funding in districts which serve more low-income students, and granting teachers a $5,000 raise. Almost two-thirds of Texas voters said increased spending for early childhood education should be a high or very high priority, and an even higher percentage said the state should send more money to school districts with more low-income students, Pinto said. On the other hand, bilingual education is a lower priority. The full survey is available at the Hobby School website. It was conducted online March 21-April 1, 2019, with 1,000 respondents, matched on demographics and characteristics to the population of registered voters of Texas. The margin of sampling error is +/-3.7%. Huge consignment of foreign liquor seized in 'dry' Bihar Hajipur, Apr 15 (UNI) Police today seized huge consignment of foreign liquor from a truck and arrested a peddler at Mahua Bazar under Mahua police station area in Vaishali district. Police said here that 480 cartons of foreign liquor were seized from the truck on the basis of specific intelligence input. Sources said the seized liquor was manufactured in Haryana. Police said the value of seized liquor was around Rs 20 lakh, adding that a jeep was also seized from the spot. A peddler was arrested from the struck. Bryan Shader Receives UWs Ellbogen Lifetime Achievement Award Bryan Shader, a UW professor of mathematics, has been named the recipient of the 2019 John P. Ellbogen Lifetime Teaching Award. The Ellbogen award recognizes the long, distinguished and exemplary career of one senior faculty member who has excelled as a teacher at UW. Shader is pictured here with Aaron Meyerson, a Research Experiences for Undergraduates program student, in this 2011 photo. (Bryan Shader Photo) James Munkres, a famous mathematician from MIT, once said, Some people teach to cover the mathematics; others teach to uncover the mathematics. Bryan Shader says he tries to be the latter type of instructor at the University of Wyoming. I want my students to see the hows and whys of mathematics, and to see it as a powerful tool for understanding the world around them; and to enable them to be innovators, he says. Shader, a professor in UWs Department of Mathematics and Statistics, is the recipient of the 2019 John P. Ellbogen Lifetime Teaching Award. The Ellbogen award recognizes the long, distinguished and exemplary career of one senior faculty member who has excelled as a teacher at UW. Shader credits the UW students hes had the fortune to teach, and his colleagues throughout campus, for the prestigious teaching award. Their curiosity, desire to learn and strong work ethic provide the motivation to work my tail off to give them the educational experience they deserve, Shader says. It has certainly taken the UW village to raise this child. Ive learned so much from my colleagues at UW. Shaders colleagues laud his teaching prowess. Professor Shader excels in teaching at all levels of the mathematics curriculum, from entry-level calculus classes to advanced graduate courses and seminars, says Myron Allen, a fellow UW professor of mathematics who nominated Shader for the award. He is one of UWs most sought-after mathematics teachers. He works hard to create a sense of ease by simplifying hard concepts into small(er) bite-size pieces, says Farhad Jafari, a fellow professor of mathematics who has known Shader since 1984, when both were graduate students and friends at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His ingenious use of beautiful examples and connections with simpler concepts makes it all look simple and natural. Shader came to UW in 1990 as an assistant professor in mathematics and became a full professor in 2000. He headed the Department of Mathematics from 2006-09. Shader has received four Mortar Board Top Prof Awards; the Ellbogen Award for Meritorious Classroom Teaching in 1999; the College of Arts and Sciences Top 10 Faculty Award three times; the Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award in 2009; and the George Duke Humphrey Distinguished Faculty Award in 2009. Shaders achievements outside the classroom are many as well. He was the interim director of the Advanced Research Computing Center from 2013-14 and served as a special assistant in research computing from 2010-17. From 2011-17, he was special assistant to the vice president for research and development. Since 2011, he has served as co-chair of the Wyoming-National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Alliance Resource Allocations Panel (WRAP), a group that evaluates and makes recommendations for which UW-led research projects are granted use of the computational resources at the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center (NWSC). He says access to the NWSC has tremendously helped UW faculty members and students conduct advanced research in mathematics and other fields. Because of the NWSC, our faculty are able to perform computational studies at higher resolution, broader scope, and which include multiple scales and multiple physical phenomena, Shader says. In several UW classes, students are able to use the Cheyenne supercomputer in their studies. Not many universities are able to provide these types of opportunities to their students. The dividends are being seen in the job placement of our graduates; the papers published in the best journals; and the ability to attract new faculty to UW. Shader received his Ph.D. and masters degree in mathematics, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his bachelors degree in mathematics from UW. Gov. Gordon to Attend UW Entrepreneurship Summit April 18 Gov. Mark Gordon Gov. Mark Gordon will participate in the third annual University of Wyoming Entrepreneurship Summit Thursday, April 18, at the Marian H. Rochelle Gateway Center. The UW Entrepreneurship Summit session that day will be open for the public with purchase of an event ticket. Ticket prices are $79 and can be purchased online at uw.uwyo.edu/UWsummit2019. UW faculty, staff and students will be admitted free with a prior RSVP. To register, email Steve Russell at srusse18@uwyo.edu. The UW College of Business hosts the summit. The Wednesday, April 17 Entrepreneurship Summit session will be open to high school faculty, staff and administration as a free professional development program, focusing on high school business, economics and entrepreneurship. Among topics to be discussed are lean startup methodologies; entrepreneurship in the classroom; a business school perspective on economics; and assurance of learning outcomes. Summit participants are encouraged to attend the John P. Ellbogen $50K Entrepreneurship Competition finalists business pitches on the second day of the summit, which awards cash prizes to outstanding teams of student entrepreneurs who submit their business plans for new ventures that show significant business potential. Gordon recognizes that Wyoming is ready to be a leader in retaining and fostering Wyomings youth and talent while attracting the best and brightest to advance current industries in the state and grow new ones. The UW Entrepreneurship Summit has become an important platform for the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Wyoming, says Russell, the director of the College of Business new Student Success Center. And, I am delighted that Gov. Gordon will bring his deep experience and insights into Wyomings entrepreneurial landscape as we look to the future. Additional summit guest speakers include UW President Laurie Nichols, College of Business Dean David Sprott, Wyoming Business Council CEO Shawn Reese and keynote speaker Christopher Gray, founder and CEO of Scholly Inc. For more information about the event, visit www.uwyo.edu/business/entrepreneurship/. UWs Pickett Receives Hollon Family Award Brent Pickett, a professor in UWs School of Politics, Public Affairs and International Studies, is the winner of the 2019 Hollon Family Award for Teaching Excellence in Off-campus Programs. A Casper-based pillar of the University of Wyoming School of Politics, Public Affairs and International Studies (SPPAIS) who helped pioneer the use of the web-conference tool Zoom to deliver courses has been recognized for his contributions to UW. Professor Brent Pickett, a longtime UW-Casper and SPPAIS faculty member, is the recipient of the 2019 Hollon Family Award for Teaching Excellence in Off-campus Programs. In 1986, C.E. Jerry Hollon, former UW trustee, established the award to recognize contributions to the general extension outreach programs of the university. Professor Pickett has been a crucial faculty member for our distance education program, teaching both purely online classes and via Zoom. Over the past two years, he has often demonstrated his versatility by teaching an online course, a Zoom-based course and a face-to-face course all at the same time, wrote Professor Stephanie Anderson, SPPAIS head. Moreover, he always adapts his instruction to the technology, which includes reshaping the syllabus and other fundamentals of course design. Working at UW-Casper, he has managed to close the gap between Laramie and the state to offer a first-class education to UW students everywhere. Pickett, who began his UW career in 2005 as an associate professor of political science at UW-Casper, is SPPAIS primary teacher of political philosophy for all UW students. He teaches five classes every year, ranging from American and Wyoming Government (POLS 1000) online to 3000-level and graduate-level courses. Anderson says his courses are almost always full, and he regularly receives high scores in student evaluations. I cant say enough about how positive my experience was with this exceptional professor, wrote Jill Bogart Barker, who last fall took POLS 1000, her first college course in 30 years. His support and well-organized class syllabus helped me seamlessly enter back into the role of student and helped me to realize the opportunity to return to school to finish my degree. I cant thank him enough. Pickett was one of the first UW faculty members to use Zoom, teaching seven classes with the technology since spring 2016. I believe Dr. Pickett does an excellent job connecting with students, fostering intellectually stimulating conversation, being available to students and does it all amazingly well through Zoom software, wrote Lucas Hansen, a former student and now graduate assistant for Pickett. The off-campus aspect is not a hindrance to students wanting to connect and learn from him. Instead, its a benefit because he makes himself so available, wherever he is. Additionally, Pickett developed and taught a graduate-level course, in the summer of 2018, titled Topics in Comparative Education Policy: U.S. Versus Finland. It involved study abroad in Helsinki and Tampere, Finland; interactive Zoom sessions; and follow-up course projects. The course will run again this summer. This combination of activities supported high levels of authentic learning for all students, wrote UW College of Education Professor Allen Trent, one of the students in the first course. Brents classes assist teachers (and other students) as they acquire new strategies and understand the underlying knowledge bases and theories that support various educational systems and practices. Brent has the ability to engage students around these topics in ways that excite them and help them to retain and use the knowledge and skills acquired in his classes. Pickett, whose current research focuses on paternalistic interventions by state entities, received a bachelors degree in political science from Wichita State University in 1989 and earned his masters (1991) and doctoral (1995) degrees in political science from the University of Colorado-Boulder. A group of Amazon employees, who have submitted a shareholder proposal urging the company to disclose its climate-change plans, stand in front of the Amazon spheres at the companys headquarters in Seattle. The 10th Session of the WCO Capacity Building Committee (CBC) was held in Brussels from 8 to 10 April 2019, under the theme Reflecting on the Past, Embracing the Future. This Session was particularly important as it commemorated the decade mark since the first CBC was held back in 2010. The WCO Secretary General, Dr. Kunio Mikuriya welcomed delegates to the Session and stressed the importance of the Committees work in supporting the WCOs theme for 2019 : SMART Borders for seamless Trade, Travel and Transport. Dr. Mikuriya highlighted the need to reflect on the progress made over the past decade in terms of capacity building. He recalled the evolution of the Columbus Programme into todays Mercator Programme with its numerous supporting standards, tools and instruments. In this connection, he encouraged delegates to give further thought to the impact, effectiveness and relevance of the tools and initiatives implemented. Dr. Mikuriya underscored the critical interplay between technology and human resources to address Customs emerging challenges, noting developments such as data science, artificial intelligence and blockchain, and taking into account questions of training, expert mobilization, partnerships, diversity and working methodologies. The Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Euro and Social Dialogue, Mr. Valdis Dombrovskis, delivered a keynote address focusing on The Future of Customs: Embracing Technology to foster an Environment of Efficiency, Effectiveness and Excellence during which he reflected on Brussels centuries-long position as a centre of trade and Customs. He noted the rapid pace of change in Customs, considering a three-fold increase in the volume of traded goods in the European Union between 2007 and 2017, along with growing complexities brought about by developments such as e-commerce and the use of disruptive technologies. Mr. Dombrovskis highlighted the European Unions investments in technology, standardization and data analytics, noting that 99% of declarations were being filed electronically. On the other hand, Mr. Dombrovskis also stressed the need for increased investments in human capital, given the human and institutional foundations in technology-based reforms, such as the Single Window. Building on the key messages emanating from the opening session, a panel comprising WCO Members, the private sector, academia and development partners discussed the progression of capacity building in the Customs context. The panel provided recommendations on optimal approaches that could contribute towards achieving a balance between skills in modern Customs techniques (such as data analysis, risk management, technology-driven controls, and other enabling tools) and the resources that are required to implement them. Members then shared experiences and debated the important interaction of trust between and among stakeholders, and the equally important roles that human relationship building, technology and automation play in an efficient Customs administration. The CBC also actively discussed and provided guidance on other topics, including: The Capacity Building Delivery Report The WCO Capacity Building Strategy Progress under the Mercator Programme Tailor-made Track The Report of the 11th Meeting of the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) Working Group Emerging areas of capacity building delivery : Business Process Management to Meet the Demands of the 21st Century; Connecting Small Island States to Global Economies through Capacity Building; Framework of Standards on Cross-Border E-Commerce; and Performance Measurement. Customs professionalism, focusing on : The Report of the ROCB-RTC-VC Global Meeting; The Picard Professional Standards; Leadership and Management Development; E-learning; Management and Deployment of Experts; and Gender Equality and Diversity in Customs. The 10th Session of the CBC was chaired by Mrs. Velma Ricketts-Walker, Director General of Jamaica Customs, who was re-elected as Chair. Mr. Daniel Perrier from the Canada Border Services Agency was re-elected as Vice-Chair. The next Session of the CBC will take place in Brussels in February 2020 and it will include a joint Session with the WCO TFA Working Group. Fort Polk, LA (71446) Today Cloudy skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 78F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Partly to mostly cloudy. Low near 65F. Winds light and variable. By WestKyStar Staff Apr. 14, 2019 | 10:42 PM | MURRAY On Thursday, April 25th at 3 pm, a Grand Opening of the Advanced Imaging area will be held in the South Tower Radiology Department. Community members are invited to attend and tour the new area. Guests will also have the opportunity to tour the Radiology Dept. and learn about the latest in imaging advancements. An official ribbon cutting hosted by the Chamber of Commerce will take place at 3:30 pm. Light refreshments will be served. Low Dose Genius 3D Mammography exams are an advanced type of digital mammogram that offer better cancer detection, fewer call backs, minimal compression time and greater peace of mind at a dose comparable to a conventional digital mammogram. Large clinical studies have demonstrated the positive benefits of Low Dose 3D Mammography exams including: Earlier detection of small breast cancers that may be hidden in a conventional mammogram Greater accuracy in pinpointing size, shape and location of abnormalities Fewer unnecessary biopsies or additional tests Greater likelihood of detecting multiple breast tumors Clearer images of dense breast tissue Maintained 3D Mammography exam performance, at a 2D-like dose Low Dose Genius 3D Mammography exams are recommended for women of all ages and breast densities. For more information about the Grand Opening, contact the Marketing Department at 270.762.1381 or visit www.murrayhospital.org. Murray-Calloway County Hospital is a 152-licensed bed medical center located at 803 Poplar St. in Murray. The hospital has been serving the medical and health care needs of the Western Kentucky area for over 100 years. Murray Hospital specializes in such major areas as womens services, surgery, cancer, orthopedics, neurology, psychiatric services, emergency services and more. Murray-Calloway County Hospital is accredited by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the nations oldest and largest hospital accreditation agency. Beginning in March, Murray-Calloway County Hospital began offering Low Dose Genius 3D Mammography exams from Hologic, a global leader in breast cancer detection. Worker said she risked discipline if she left job amid storm Email To : Multiple e-mail addresses must be separated with a comma character(maximum 200 characters) Email To is required. Your Full Name: (optional) Your Email Address: Your Email Address is required. By West Kentucky Star Staff Apr. 15, 2019 | 06:26 AM | GRAVES COUNTY The board of directors for Kentucky Employers' Mutual Insurance, the Kentucky Department of Insurance, and Franklin Circuit Court approved a plan to return some $4.77 million to the Kentucky School Boards Insurance Trust Workers' Compensation Fund. The refund is a result of effective management by KEMI to control claims costs. The Graves County School District's refund exceeds $60,000. "I am pleased that KEMI is in the position to provide this refund to KSBIT and I'm proud of the work by KEMI employees who made it possible," said Brandon Voelker, who serves as chairman of KEMI's board of directors. "KEMI provided improved service and savings to school districts throughout Kentucky at a time when no other insurance company was willing to offer a competitive solution, and I believe KEMI's success with KSBIT demonstrates why the company was created in the first place." In 2014, KEMI accepted $37 million in claims liabilities for KSBIT, which the Kentucky Department of Insurance lauded as the "softest possible landing for Kentucky school districts and injured workers." KEMI offered schools interest-free loans and planned to handle the claims at cost. Five years later, KEMI announced plans to return $4.77 million and now is working with the Kentucky Department of Insurance to distribute the funds to former KSBIT members. KEMI is now the workers' compensation provider of choice for more than 130 school districts across the commonwealth and has provided extensive loss education services to improve significantly workplace safety for tens of thousands of school employees. Several school districts also benefited from decreased workers' compensation insurance premiums, due to their improved performance and commitment to safety. KEMI made a promise to sustain financial stability, maintain strong claims reserves, and deliver both outstanding service and competitive pricing to our policyholders," said Jon Stewart, KEMI president and CEO. "I believe we're fulfilling that promise not only to Kentucky's school districts, but also to all our policyholders." "The Graves County School District was issued an assessment from KSBIT a few years ago," said Todd Benson, KEMI business development manager. "KEMI managed that loss portfolio and promised to give some money back, if possible, and here we are giving money back today, some $60,154.17." "Back in the 1990s and early 2000's, the Kentucky School Boards Association had an insurance program trust," said Keith Riley, senior vice-president of property and casualty for Peel and Holland Insurance. "That trust managed workman's compensation for school districts across the state and, unfortunately, faced a financial challenge, requiring the state to take it over. KEMI stepped up, in cooperation with state government, to manage the operations to complete all the claims. In 2012, we made significant assessments. Fortunately, KEMI has done a wonderful job of managing those claims and the fiduciary responsibility of the money assessed. Now, we're returning a significant amount of those dollars." "We managed those claims at cost," Benson added, "and we made a promise when we accepted this responsibility that if we managed them efficiently and were able to complete the claims under the $35 million we expected it to cost, we would give money back to the schools." "We greatly appreciate the intentionality both Peel and Holland and KEMI have maintained with this project. They are keeping their word and the efficient way they've handled this responsibility is remarkable," said Graves County Schools Superintendent Kim Dublin. "I started as superintendent at that time and I know it was a challenge for these organizations as well as the school districts. Together, we worked through it. These funds are coming at a great time for us. We can use them to meet many needs in our district." Advertisement By State Representative Richard Heath Apr. 15, 2019 | MAYFIELD By State Representative Richard Heath Apr. 15, 2019 | 08:57 AM | MAYFIELD In the final hours of the last day to veto legislation, the Governor rejected an agreement that provided financial relief for quasi-governmental agencies including local health departments, mental health agencies, and rape crisis centers and our regional universities participating in the Kentucky Retirement Systems. The bill, HB 358, was the product of weeks of work and discussions with the stakeholders and employee representatives in an effort to strike a balance between providing relief to the employers and keeping the states commitment to employees. I joined my colleagues in the House and Senate in supporting it because I felt it best represented the best interest of everyone involved. While the first step in what will be a very difficult path, the bill provided a solution to one significant part of our states overall pension crisis. In his veto message, the Governor shared that he intends to call us back into session before July 1 and he is the only one who can call us into special session. I do not like the idea of a special session, but I think it is critical that he sit down with us prior to calling one so that we can once again reach an agreement that he will not veto. We absolutely should not incur the costs associated with a special session without a bill that can become law. Why is this issue so critical? As a result of the Governors veto, these agencies and organizations will see the contribution they make towards their employee retirement plans escalate from 49 percent to 83 percent on July 1. That translates into 83 cents for every dollar in wages, almost doubling the cost of each employee. There are 118 agencies directly impacted by this, employing 9,000 people and providing services to hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians. Regional universities have told us that the increased cost would lead to tuition increases and staff cuts. According to the Cabinet for Health and Family services, health departments that serve 64 counties more than half the state - would close in two years or less. The final version of the legislation allowed employers to choose to remain in the current plan. But if they left the plan, Tier 1 and Tier 2 employees could make their own choice to remain in the current plan or move into a new, defined-contribution plan. Meanwhile, Tier 3 employees those who have been hired since 2014 would be moved to a new plan. In the House, we felt that it was very important for employees who have put many years into the retirement system to have their contract honored, and be allowed to remain in the same plan. While not perfect, this issue came with no perfect solution that kept our commitment to employees and relieved employers. This is a complicated issue with a lot of moving parts, but I would like to keep you as updated as possible as we work to solve it. Please reach out to me with any questions you may have about HB 358, or any other issue on your mind. I can be reached by email at richard.heath@lrc.ky.gov, or through the toll-free message line in Frankfort at 1-800-372-7181. I appreciate any and all feedback from constituents. If you would like more information, please visit the legislature's website at www.legislature.ky.gov. Cyclone Idai is over but its health effects will be felt for a long time People in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe have started trying to rebuild their lives after the devastation wrought by Cyclone Idai. Southern Malawi and Mozambique were already reeling when the cyclone hit: these areas were flooded in the days before Idai made landfall. Nearly a month on, the flood waters have receded. But in some ways, these countries problems are just beginning. Thats because floods always increase the risk of major health problems in affected populations during the weeks and months that follow the actual event. Infection is just one concern. Others include waterborne diseases like cholera cases have already been reported in the areas hit by Idai and non-communicable diseases such as mental health issues triggered by trauma. Mosquito populations also explode, and with them the risk of malaria: receding flood waters provide more breeding spaces for the insects. The countries governments and international aid agencies are coordinating relief efforts. Its important that these dont just focus on the short-term effects of Idai and the floods its crucial to look ahead and try to guard against major health crises. Tremendous risks The immediate consequences of any flooding event include drowning, physical injuries, hypothermia and electrocution. By the second week of April, more than 600 people were reported dead in Mozambique alone. By the first week of April 344 deaths were reported in Zimbabwe and nearly 60 in Malawi. Many others were also still unaccounted for. In the first ten days after an event like Idai, there are several health issues to look out for. These include skin infections and respiratory infections like pneumonia. There isnt enough safe drinking water; sewerage systems overflow and contaminate drinking supply; and peoples hygiene and sanitation suffer in the aftermath of any natural disaster. This increases the risk of diseases that target the intestines, like gastroenteritis and cholera. Cholera had already been reported in central Mozambique before Idai. It will only get worse: by 8 April, more than 3500 cases and three deaths had been reported. Many people have sought shelter in overcrowded spaces. They have no choice, as their homes were destroyed by Idai. But overcrowding brings its own issues, such as an increased risk of infections like hepatitis A and typhoid being spread. Mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and dengue are always present in Beira and surrounds. But more cases are likely to occur after flooding because of increased numbers of mosquitoes. And theyre tough to control in these circumstances. Spraying homes isnt possible homes have been badly damaged or almost entirely destroyed. It will be important to hand out bed nets that have been treated with insecticide; people can carry these with them as they go, and at least protect themselves from mosquitoes while they sleep. This is already happening in Mozambique as part of relief efforts. Not all the health risks that follow a natural disaster are physical. Mental health disorders especially post traumatic stress disorder are common in the aftermath of flooding and massive displacement. Many people have lost loved ones or suffered injuries in traumatic circumstances Another problem that these countries will have to tackle is the interruption of health services for communicable and non-communicable diseases tuberculosis, HIV, diabetes and hypertension, and obstetric conditions. Mozambique has a high HIV prevalence: about 2.1 million people are living with HIV infection, and about 54% of them are estimated to be receiving antiretroviral therapy. Given the damage to clinics and the fact that roads have washed away, it will be difficult or even impossible for these people to receive their ARVs. This can have health consequences long after the flood damage is cleaned up. Coordinating responses There are huge relief efforts underway. The Mozambican Ministry of Health is coordinating flood relief efforts with the support of the World Health Organisation and many partners, agencies and non-governmental organisations. Emergency coordination centres have been established in Maputo and Beira. These are focused on peoples immediate needs: rescue operations, the provision of safe drinking water, emergency shelters, food, restoration of communication channels and transport networks. The United Nations water, sanitation and hygiene programme is providing safe water, installing latrines, coordinating waste management and educating people about the necessity of hygiene despite the tough circumstances. A key focus has been the establishment of a cholera response plan. Cholera treatment centres equipped with rehydration fluids have been set up. Health care workers are being trained to manage cholera. A vaccination campaign has been initiated, using oral cholera vaccine. The vaccine has been successfully used to prevent and control cholera outbreaks in other post-disaster settings. Approximately 900 000 doses of the oral cholera vaccine were flown into Beira from the World Health Organisations global strategic supply. Teams have started vaccinating vulnerable people in Beira, and are planning outreach to other areas. More than 800 000 people in four districts affected by the cyclone have received the cholera vaccine. A measles and polio vaccination campaign is also being planned. Specialised diagnostic testing is being provided by the Public Health Institute of Mozambique to identify and confirm cases of epidemic-prone diseases such as cholera and measles. All these efforts are necessary and welcome. But it will also be crucial to look beyond the initial disaster response to ensure the countries that have been shattered by Cyclone Idai rebuild their infrastructure, and develop response plans to deal with future cyclone damage. Kerrigan McCarthy, Head of the Outbreak Response Unit, National Institute for Communicable Diseases and Lucille Blumberg, Deputy Director of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases and a member of the joint staff, University of the Witwatersrand This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The women's home in a community in Zhengzhou, Henan Province [Women of China/Ye Shan] Three foreign women diplomats working in China tried their hands at traditional Chinese cultural activities in a community women's home in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, on April 7. Tania Romualdo, Ambassador of the Republic of Cape Verde to China, said the women's federations improved their service for women through hosting various activities with the support of communities. In the community, the diplomats learned that Li Shuxia, a local resident, made soup for elderly widows and senior residents with serious diseases. Many of the members of the women's home use recyclable materials to make handicrafts. The community also organizes parent-child reading salons and knitting skills training to draw family members closer. Romualdo said the joint efforts of all parties would improve the development of communities. Patty Chen, Ambassador of the Republic of Suriname to China, said she would bring the practice of the women's home to her country, adding that Suriname had women's organizations and cultural and art centers and attached much importance to the development of high-level women. She said the visit enabled her to realize the importance of grassroots women's organizations. Litia Salavuki Tagicakibau, spouse of ambassador of the Republic of Fiji to China, noticed that the women's home had centered their work on family, saying she planned to promote the parent-child activities in Fiji and improve the awareness of the need for close-knit families. Tania Romualdo makes handicrafts with children at the women's home. [Women of China/Ye Shan] Patty Chen writes a Chinese character in pinyin, which means "family" with a Chinese brush. [Photo provided to Women of China] Litia Salavuki Tagicakibau communicates with a child. [Photo provided to Women of China] The diplomats are briefed on the programs launched by the women's home. [Women of China/Ye Shan] The diplomats listen to the guide's explanation on the development of the women' home. [Women of China/Ye Shan] Litia Salavuki Tagicakibau poses for a selfie with a performer. [Women of China/Ye Shan] A staff member of the women's home explains how to use recyclable materials to make the handicraft to Litia Salavuki Tagicakibau (C) and Tania Romualdo (R). [Photo provided to Women of China] (Source: Women of China) Job seekers queue to consult information at a job fair during the 17th Conference on International Exchange of Professionals (CIEP) in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province on April 14, 2019. The conference kicked off in Shenzhen on Sunday, attracting about 4,000 agencies and organizations from more than 50 countries and regions, as well as 40,000 government representatives, experts and high talented people from home and abroad. [Xinhua/Mao Siqian] Gao Guangshi, a judge at Shizhong district court, Zaozhuang city, Shandong province, shows primary school students how he uses his gavel. Students are regularly invited to visit the court to learn about proceedings and take part in mock trials. [Ji Zhe/for China Daily] China has made headway in improving judicial protection for juveniles while dealing with juvenile delinquency, according to authorities on Thursday. Since 2016, China has seen 1,869 juvenile criminal suspects enroll in universities after being educated and helped by procuratorial agencies, Shi Weizhong, chief of a department for juvenile prosecution under the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), said at a press conference co-hosted by the SPP and the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League (CYL). Shi said last year, a total of 6,959 juvenile criminal suspects were granted conditional non-prosecution throughout the country, doubling that in 2013 when the conditional non-prosecution system took effect in China. He said more than 5,000 juveniles with criminal involvement in Shanghai have received help and education from various aspects of society since 2010, of whom 99.4 percent avoided repeated crimes. Chinese procuratorial agencies have worked with other authorities and entities to educate and help minors involved in criminal cases reintegrate into society. According to a cooperation framework deal signed in February 2018 between the SPP and the CYL Central Committee, both sides are advancing the building of a system of seeking support from various aspects of society for juveniles involved in criminal cases. Wang Songmiao, a spokesperson for the SPP, called for efforts from government, all sectors of society and non-governmental organizations, among others, to jointly build up a protective environment for the minors. (Source: China Daily) Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-14 23:43:11|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close People carry large symbolic figures of birds and animals during a procession celebrating the Bengali New Year of 1426 in Dhaka, Bangladesh on April 14, 2019. (Xinhua/Salim Reza) DHAKA, April 14 (Xinhua) -- With a combination of traditional and modern ritual practices, people in Bangladesh Sunday celebrated the Bengali New Year 1426. Like in previous years, people in Dhaka raising masks and wearing traditional costumes joined the colorful procession - the Mangal Shobha Jatra - to welcome the New Year with good spirits on Sunday morning. This year's procession was the 30th that students of Dhaka University have coordinated to welcome the Bengali New Year. The students carried large symbolic figures of birds and animals during the procession. In Bangladesh, Pohela Boishakh, or the first day of the New Year, is a national holiday. Bengalis usually start the day with the traditional simple breakfast of panta-bhat (leftover rice soaked in water) and fried hilsa fish. Boishakhi Fairs are organized in many parts of Dhaka and elsewhere in the country. The lifestyle of rural Bengal is showcased in these fairs which also stage traditional folk songs and plays. Mughal Emperor Akbar introduced the Bengali calendar year and the celebration of Pohela Boishakh, marking the advent of Bengali New Year, which is now considered an integral part of Bengali's cultural heritage and tradition. The Mughal Dynasty ruled most of the Indian subcontinent for about three centuries starting 1526. The Bengali New Year coincides with the mid-April New Year in Cambodia and a number of countries in the Indian subcontinent. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 00:48:56|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close RAMALLAH, April 14 (Xinhua) -- The Palestinians rejected on Sunday statements by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories, official WAFA news agency reported. "All types of settlements on Palestinian soil occupied by Israel in 1967 are illegal in accordance with the international legitimacy," Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for the Palestinian presidency, was quoted by WAFA as saying. On Friday, Pompeo said the statements by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on annexing some Israeli settlements in the West Bank "don't harm the United States' peace plan," which is better known as the Deal of the Century. "These statements are rejected. They were irresponsible and represent a violation of the international law and a provocation of the Palestinian people who will be sticking to their legitimate rights, mainly Jerusalem and its holy sites," said Abu Rudeineh. The Palestinians clearly reject the Deal of the Century because of the U.S. stances toward Jerusalem, settlements and refugees as well as other Palestinian legitimate rights, he added. "Those who believe the Deal of the Century will pass are mistaken. The Palestinian people will never let a deal that violates their rights pass," the Palestinian spokesman stressed. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 01:34:15|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close Ashraf el-Shihy (L, Front), Egyptian Chinese University in Cairo (ECU) president and former higher education minister, shakes hands with Bao Yong, dean of health management and service innovation center of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, at the signing ceremony during the International Conference of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Functional Medicine in Cairo, Egypt, on April 14, 2019. The Egyptian Chinese University in Cairo (ECU) started a two-day conference on Sunday to promote the traditional Chinese medicine in Egypt and integrate it into the Egyptian medical system. (Xinhua/Wu Huiwo) CAIRO, April 14 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian Chinese University in Cairo (ECU) started a two-day conference on Sunday to promote the traditional Chinese medicine in Egypt and integrate it into the Egyptian medical system. Dubbed "the International Conference of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Functional Medicine," the opening day of the conference was attended by representatives of the ECU, China's Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Chinese Embassy in Egypt, as well as Egyptian and Chinese professors. During the conference, Ashraf el-Shihy, ECU president and former higher education minister, and Bao Yong, dean of health management and service innovation center of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, signed an agreement to establish Egypt Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. "The conference marks a new beginning for the continuous cooperation between the ECU, the only Chinese university in the Middle East and Africa, and Chinese scientific universities and institutions," the ECU president told Xinhua on the sidelines of the conference. "China has surely made a tremendous progress in the field of medicine and it has its unique philosophy and style in the field. So learning from the Chinese medicine and integrate it into the Egyptian medical system is certainly a win-win situation," Shihy said. He described cooperation between Egypt and China as "unprecedented," noting that 50 ECU students are currently in a scholarship in China for field training and learning about the Chinese culture. The conference will include 25 lectures and three research papers on traditional Chinese medicine delivered by professors and experts from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the Egyptian universities of Cairo, Ain Shams, Alexandria, Sohag and Assiut, in addition to Egypt's Military Medical Academy. For his part, Bao of Shanghai Jiao Tong University said the two sides will offer master's and doctoral programs in the traditional Chinese medicine. "The programs include sending Chinese experts to Egypt to train Egyptian professionals on traditional Chinese medicine and contribute to building a healthy community," Bao told Xinhua during the conference. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 01:49:18|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close WASHINGTON, April 14 (Xinhua) -- White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders on Sunday said President Donald Trump's prospective plan to send undocumented immigrants to sanctuary cities is undergoing a "complete and thorough review." Sanders told "Fox News Sunday" that they "have to look at all options," including releasing undocumented immigrants to sanctuary cities, to deal with the situation at the nation's southern border with Mexico. "Whether or not it moves forward -- that's yet to be determined. This was raised at a staff level, initially, and pushed back on," she said. "The president wants us to explore it again, and that's being done, and they're doing a complete and thorough review." Trump threatened "placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only" earlier this week, while blaming the country's immigration laws on Democrats. The president claimed on Twitter on Saturday that the United States "has the absolute legal right to have apprehended illegal immigrants transferred to Sanctuary Cities." "We hereby demand that they be taken care of at the highest level, especially by the State of California," he added. The proposal has drawn sharp criticism from Democrats. Sanctuary cities in the United States are known as local jurisdictions that refrain from cooperating with federal authorities and detain undocumented immigrants for possible deportation. Trump has been reshuffling the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration and border security, in the push for a tougher direction in immigration enforcement. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 02:04:26|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close Soldiers of the Jordan Armed Forces (JAF) perform an anti-terror drill on the opening ceremony of the 11th annual Warrior Competition at the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center (KASOTC) in Amman, Jordan, April 14, 2019. (Xinhua/Lin Xiaowei) AMMAN, April 14 (Xinhua) -- The international Annual Warrior Competition, created and hosted by Jordan, started on Sunday at the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Centre (KASOTC) , state-run Petra news agency reported. The competition, which features 39 teams from 27 countries, played a key role in bringing the best teams from across the world to compete and learn from each other and exchange expertise, said KASOTC Director General Omar Shugeirat. The competition provides an opportunity to build partnerships and friendships, he added. Shugeirat also underlined the need to combat terrorism and coordinate efforts. The warrior competition is an international event held annually to promote joint work and team spirit as well as measure ability and endurance factors under psychological and physical pressures, according to Petra. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 08:46:29|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close KUALA LUMPUR, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Malaysias foreign ministry has said that it strongly protests a new travel advisory over security concerns on its eastern Sabah state. The Foreign Affairs Ministry strongly protests the decision of the U.S. government to subject Malaysia to the newly-introduced K indicator, the foreign ministry said in a statement late on Sunday. Malaysia's inclusion was announced by the U.S. State Department on April 9, reflecting the U.S. government's concerns about potential kidnapping or hostage-taking situations in certain areas of eastern Sabah, which borders restive southern Philippines, the statement noted. However, it said the new travel advisory lacked objectivity and did not reflect the reality on the ground, particularly the security situation in eastern Sabah, which remained safe and protected for tourists. This is borne by the fact that the number of tourist arrivals in Sabah has grown by 5.5 percent, reaching 3.87 million last year. Further more, said the statement, the number of kidnapping incidents has dropped significantly to almost nil, thanks to proactive measures taken by the Malaysian government, such as increasing the number of patrols, closer security cooperation with neighbor countries and the strategic positioning of security assets to secure the areas, it added. Given these facts, Malaysia urges the U.S. to be more objective in its assessment. We urge the U.S. to immediately remove Malaysia from the K list. "The U.S. ambassador to Malaysia will be summoned to provide clarification on the new travel advisory, the ministry said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 08:46:31|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close WASHINGTON, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old openly gay mayor of South Bend, U.S. state of Indiana, officially announced his presidential bid on Sunday. "I am a proud son of South Bend, Indiana. And I am running for President of the United States," Buttigieg told supporters at a rally in South Bend. "I recognize the audacity of doing this as Midwestern millennial mayor. More than a little bold -- at age 37 -- to seek the highest office in the land," he added. Buttigieg is joining a crowded, diverse field of more than a dozen Democratic candidates, with progressive appeal featuring his Christian faith and sexual identity. A veteran of war in Afghanistan, Buttigieg is the first openly gay candidate to pursue a major party presidential nomination. He has garnered media attention for his feud with Christian-conservative Vice President Mike Pence for the former Indiana governor's opposition to gay rights. Buttigieg's campaign has raised over 7 million U.S. dollars in the first quarter of this year. Latest polls of voters of Iowa and New Hampshire, the earliest states to vote in next year's primary elections, have put Buttigieg in the third place among Democratic contenders. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 10:17:24|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close CANBERRA, April 15 (Xinhua) -- The Australian opposition remains on track for a possible victory in May's general election, a poll has revealed. The latest Newspoll, published by The Australian on Monday, found that the Australian Labor Party (ALP) leads the incumbent Liberal-National party coalition (LNP) 52-48 on a two-party-preferred basis. If that result is translated in the election on May 18, the ALP would win up to 82 out of 151 seats in the House of Representatives, the lower house of the Australian parliament, leaving the LNP with as few as 63 seats and minor parties or independents with six. According to Newspoll, both major parties can expect to receive 39 percent of first preference votes on May 18 but the ALP will benefit from preference flows. By comparison, in the 2016 election, in which the LNP won 76 out of 150 seats to form government with the slimmest possible margin of victory, the ALP received only 34.7 percent of first preferences compared to 42 percent for the LNP. The poll was released as Prime Minister Scott Morrison and ALP leader Bill Shorten took the election campaign to Victoria. Morrison on Monday committed 154 million Australian dollars (110.4 million U.S. dollars) for "congestion busting" road projects in Melbourne's southeastern suburbs, an area of the city that has traditionally been LNP heartland. "Busting congestion is especially important for residents in Melbourne's east and these projects will help people get home sooner and safer and fix local traffic headaches," he told reporters on the campaign trail. He said the investment would be on top of 6.2 billion Australian dollars (4.4 billion U.S. dollars) for road and rail upgrades in Victoria included in the government's Federal Budget for financial year 2019-20. Speaking to Macquarie Media radio earlier on Monday, Morrison warned that Shorten can not be trusted to manage the Australian economy. "What it is about, at the end of the day, is who can Australians trust to manage money," he said. "Because if you can't manage money, which I think Australians think Labor can't and that is their record, if you can't manage money you can't run the country; you can't run a health system. "People matter. And that is why managing money matters. That is why we are so focused on achieving that and that's what we have done by bringing the budget back to surplus." Shorten visited Casey Hospital in the LNP-held electorate of La Trobe in Melbourne's northeast to announce 250 million Australian dollars (179.2 million U.S. dollars) to cut the waiting lists for elective surgeries. The average waiting time for surgery in Australia's public hospitals has grown from 36 to 40 days since 2015, a figure the ALP said would continue to grow if the LNP wins a third term in government. "Labor's 250-million-Australian dollar investment could pay for more than 62,000 cataract procedures or 9,800 knee replacements or 9,400 hip replacements," opposition health spokeswoman Catherine King said, according to The Australian. "The average wait time for elective surgery has increased by more than 10 percent since the Liberals were elected in 2013." Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 10:37:31|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close HAVANA, April 14 (Xinhua) -- The Cuban government is working to rescue two doctors abducted in Kenya by suspected Al-Shabaab militants, said President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Sunday. "Cuba is working tirelessly for the safe return of Assel and Landy, our doctors kidnapped in Kenya," Diaz-Canel tweeted. "With them and their loved ones, we share the certainty that their humanitarian mission will be respected and recognized. We believe in the power of solidarity," he added. The two doctors, who were treating patients in Mandera, a community on Kenya's border with Somalia, were ambushed on Friday by armed men. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez tweeted he had spoken by phone to his Kenyan counterpart Monica Juma about the measures Kenya's government was taking. More than 100 Cuban doctors working in Kenya are safe, he said, adding that "Cuba's embassy in Nairobi is in permanent contact with them." Kenya's national police force said it was searching for the abductees, and Kenyan media reported Saturday that at least 10 elders, or highly regarded Somali leaders, from Mandera left for Somalia in an attempt to negotiate the release of the doctors. Al-Shabaab is trying to pressure Kenyan government to pull its troops out of Somalia. In January, the rebel group attacked a hotel in Nairobi, killing more than 20 people. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 10:47:38|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close SEOUL, April 15 (Xinhua) -- South Korea posted trade surplus for 86 straight months through March as export stayed in a high level, customs office data showed Monday. The revised figure for trade surplus amounted to 5.2 billion U.S. dollars in March, staying in the black for 86 months since February 2012, according to the Korea Customs Service. Export declined 8.2 percent in March from a year earlier, but it hovered around a relatively high level at 47.1 billion dollars. Import reduced 6.7 percent to 41.9 billion dollars in the same period. The export fall came on lower price for semiconductors, of which export slipped 16.2 percent in March from a year ago. Shipments for automobile, oil product and auto parts declined, but those for telecommunication devices, ship and home appliances gained ground. Export to China, South Korea's biggest trading partner, tumbled 15.6 percent last month, with those to the European Union and Vietnam skidding 10.9 percent and 2.5 percent each. Shipments to the United States and Singapore advanced 4 percent and 9.8 percent respectively. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 11:38:16|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese customs seized 7.48 tonnes of smuggled ivory tusks during an operation on March 30 this year, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said in a press release Monday. It is the largest confiscation of smuggled elephant tusks by Chinese customs in recent years, the GAC said. An international ivory smuggling criminal gang was destroyed during the operation. So far this year, China has seized 8.48 tonnes of ivory and ivory products and 500.5 tonnes of endangered species in 182 smuggling cases involving 171 suspects, according to the press release. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 11:43:19|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close by Zhou Shengping, Shristi Kafle SURKHET, Nepal, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Forty-six-year-old Lila Ram Acharya, a resident of a small village at Babai valley, around one hour drive from Nepal's western city Nepalgunj, still remembers how hopeless he was as the good man of the house about three years ago. Born in a poor family, he was a grade-three dropout without a skill, which made him always at an idle end. His wife Laxmi Jaisi is illiterate and their two sons are studying at schools. Slender earnings from both the land and in and out work at his homeland were far from being enough to cover all the household expenses. The pressure to prepare the sons' tuition and support the family forced Acharya to travel to India where he worked for a few months but earned a little. When one door shuts, another opens. Their fate changed after the Bheri Babai Diversion Multipurpose Project (BBDMP), one of Nepal's national pride projects was inaugurated in June, 2015, with an aim to enhance agricultural production by providing year-round irrigation and generating reliable electricity. For this one of the strategic projects of this Himalayan nation, the contractor, Chinese constructor China Overseas Engineering Group Co. Ltd. has been using tunnel boring machine (TBM) for the first time in Nepal to dig a 12.2-km tunnel which allows surplus water in Bheri river flow into Babai river. This unprecedented inter-basin water transfer project conceptualized to provide round-the-year irrigation facility to 51,000 hectares of agricultural land of Banke and Bardiya districts. "I am working here as a labor since last two years. The job is good, so as the income. As compared to the past, life is far better now," Acharya told Xinhua at the construction site. Among the over 2,100 local people recruited for the project of national significance, Acharya is one of the 600 workers working in the site currently. Every evening, he boards a company train with 40 minutes ride to reach inside the 12.2 km long tunnel, where he is stationed. The father of two sons works for 12 hours every day inside the tunnel and earns up to Rs. 35,000 (around 350 U.S. dollars) every month including over-time works, which is nearly three times more than the minimum labor wage fixed by the Nepali government that stands at Rs. 13,450 per month. While Acharya is busy with the project job, his wife 36-years-old Laxmi Jaisi operates a hotel, serving local workers with typical Nepali food rice and curry. Under help from his husband, Laxmi arranges two meals a day for those constant customers. "It is a good income for us to educate our sons," Laxmi told Xinhua while preparing lunch box at the hotel, adding that life is better than before. The couple, who got married some 22 years ago, now can afford the living and education costs of their two sons in the nearby cities. The Chinese contractor also helped them to construct a new concrete house with four rooms in Chepang village, just across the Babai River. Wisely enough, they rented out two rooms. The rent business is a by-product of this big project that has infused a new life into the village, turning a once almost-deserted nook full of traditional mud houses into a small modern town with concrete buildings, like Acharya's at present. Saligram Adhikari, Mayor of Basgadhi municipality of Bardiya district, told Xinhua, "The project is linked with villages where people are mostly poor. They have received employment opportunities with good income." At a time when most of the people in nearby villages were either unemployed or engaged in agriculture in small scale or had moved to the Gulf and Middle East in search of employment opportunities, the Chinese constructed project has provided jobs to over 2,100 locals. According to the project manager Hu Tianran, the main part of the project is at the final phase. Acharya, however, doesn't worry about losing his job anymore. He said confidently that he would find another similar job without difficulty in other projects since now he has the skills that he learnt from his Chinese colleagues on the construction site during the past two years. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 13:08:48|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close SYDNEY, April 15 (Xinhua) -- A rare Komodo dragon celebrated her eighth birthday at the Australian Reptile Park on Monday, coinciding with the final season premiere of the popular television show Game of Thrones. Named after one of the main characters, Daenerys is also referred to on the hit television program as the Mother of Dragons. To make the most of the amusing coincidence zookeepers threw Daenery a special lizard party, complete with decorations, presents and tasty snacks. "Despite her draconic appearance, Daenerys is a total sweetheart!" Daniel Rumsey, head of Reptiles at the Australian Reptile Park, said. "We walk her every single day and she loves the attention she gets from our visitors. It was great to see her get into her presents to find the tasty meat treats inside." "As part of her birthday surprise, we also presented our very own Queen Daenerys with a crown." While the event was a light-hearted affair, Rumsey hopes the added attention will help shine a spotlight on the plight of the world's largest lizard, who's numbers are drastically declining. Found on the Indonesian island of Komodo, it's estimated there are only 3,000 to 5,000 of the creatures left in the wild. Considered a "vulnerable" species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, Rumsey said "human encroachment, poaching, natural disasters and a shortage of egg laying females" are to blame for the Komodo dragon's dwindling population. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 13:08:49|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close WASHINGTON, April 14 (Xinhua) -- The re-election campaign of U.S. President Donald Trump raised more than 30 million U.S. dollars in the first quarter of 2019, CNN reported on Sunday. Trump's re-election effort now has a substantial 40.8 million dollars remaining in the bank, Tim Murtaugh, the campaign's director of communications, was quoted by CNN as saying. Murtaugh tweeted Sunday evening that nearly 99 percent of donations were 200 dollars or less, with an average contribution of 34.26 dollars. The amount that the Trump re-election raised in the first quarter rivaled the combined fundraising haul of the two leading Democrats. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who has made his second bid for the U.S. presidency, led Democratic fundraising with 18.2 million dollars in a window of 41 days, as he officially launched his campaign in February. California Senator Kamala Harris, the state's former attorney general, followed with 12 million dollars. Trump filed his paperwork for re-election on the day he took the oath of office in early 2017. The first-quarter haul this year was an uptick from the 21 million dollars that the president raised during the final quarter of 2018. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 13:18:54|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close SEOUL, April 15 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's unification ministry said Monday that it will consult with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on sending equipment for video reunions of Korean families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. Lee Eugene, deputy spokesperson of South Korea's unification ministry, told a press briefing that South Korea has recently completed the purchase of supporting equipment for video reunions. The deputy spokesperson said the ministry had planned to consult with the DPRK side on how and when to deliver the equipment, such as camcorders and other display devices, to Pyongyang. South Korea recently started renovation works for 13 video reunion centers across the country, planning to end the works by the end of this month and test-operate the centers for the next two weeks. The country has secured sanctions waivers from the UN Security council to send the video reunion equipment to the DPRK's reunion center in Pyongyang. South Korean President Moon Jae-in and top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un agreed in their third summit in Pyongyang in September last year to hold video reunions and exchange video letters for the separated families. People from the two Koreas have been banned from meeting and contacting each other since the three-year Korean War ended with armistice, not peace treaty. Since the first-ever inter-Korean summit was held in 2000, South Korea and the DPRK have held 21 rounds of face-to-face family reunions, including the latest one in August last year. The video reunions were held seven times from 2005 to 2007. The deputy spokesperson told reporters that South Korea is making efforts to hold Red Cross talks with the DPRK for another round of face-to-face reunion of the divided families who were severely of old age. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 14:34:29|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close GUANGZHOU, April 15 (Xinhua) -- The 125th China Import and Export Fair, also known as the Canton Fair, opened Monday in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, with over half of companies attending its import fair hailing from Belt and Road countries and regions. The spring session of the biannual fair holds import exhibitions in its first and third phases, with 1,000 booths booked by 650 enterprises from 38 countries and regions. These include 383 companies from 21 countries and regions along the Belt and Road, including Russia, Poland, the Philippines and Israel, said Xu Bing, spokesperson for the fair. Large buyers such as Vip, a Chinese online discount retailer, and global retail giants Carrefour and Wal-Mart will attend the import exhibition. The fair, which will be held from April 15 to May 5, is widely seen as a barometer of China's foreign trade. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 14:59:41|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Troops of India and Pakistan on Monday exchanged heavy fire and targeted each other's positions on the Line of Control (LoC) dividing Kashmir, officials said. The two sides exchanged fire in frontier Rajouri district, about 222 km southwest of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir. "Today at around 8:15 a.m. (local time) Pakistan initiated unprovoked cease-fire violation by using mortars and firing small arms along the LoC in Nowshera sector of Rajouri," an Indian army official said. "Our side also gave a befitting reply to the other side." The exchange of fire was going on until last reports poured in. According to officials so far no loss of life was reported in the skirmishes on the Indian or Pakistani side. The Pakistani side has not commented yet. Earlier this month a border guard belonging to India's Border Security Force (BSF) and a 6-year old girl were killed, while 14 people including nine civilians wounded in skirmishes. On Pakistani side, the firing left a 70-year-old man and three troopers dead. There has been no respite in the cross LoC firing ever since the two countries came face-to-face with each other on Feb. 26. Both sides of the divide have suffered civilian as well as troop casualties during the skirmishes. The two countries are currently at loggerheads with each other for the past several years. There has been no considerable improvement in relations of the two countries or resumption of bilateral talks ever since Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India in 2014. Both New Delhi and Islamabad accuse each other of resorting to unprovoked firings and violating cease-fire agreements. And both sides maintain that their troops gave befitting reply. LoC is a de facto border that divides Kashmir into India and Pakistan controlled parts. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 15:14:48|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close KUNMING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Police in southwest China's Yunnan Province have apprehended six suspects and seized over 15 kg of heroin in a cross-provincial raid, local police said Monday. Police officers captured four people suspected of selling drugs in Dai-Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture of Dehong on April 7. Forty pieces of heroin weighing a total of 15.52 kg were found in the suspects' vehicle. With the support of police in northwest China's Gansu Province, two more suspects were detained in Hui Autonomous Prefecture of Linxia two days later. Yunnan police said that further investigation was underway. Yunnan is a major front in China's battle against drug crime as it borders the Golden Triangle, an area notorious for rampant drug production and trafficking. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 15:30:00|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close SEOUL, April 15 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Monday that he will actively push for another summit meeting with Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), to help resume dialogue between the DPRK and the United States. "Now, it's time to actively prepare and push for South-North summit," Moon told a regular meeting with his senior secretaries, referring to the fourth summit between South Korea and the DPRK. The leaders of the two Koreas held summit talks three times last year. Moon said he hoped to make concrete and effective discussions with Kim "in any place and formality at the DPRK's convenience" about ways to bear advanced fruits going beyond the past two DPRK-U.S. summits. The comment came after Moon visited Washington last week for summit talks with U.S. President Donald Trump. Moon said his Washington meeting with Trump was aimed to remove uncertainties, raised after the second summit between Kim and Trump, and restore the momentum of dialogue between the DPRK and the United States for the unwavering push for the peace process on the Korean Peninsula. The second Kim-Trump summit ended with no agreement in late February in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. After the Hanoi summit, Moon vowed to help resume dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington. After the meeting with Moon, Trump said in Washington that "smaller deals" could happen "step by step" between the DPRK and the United States, though his country and South Korea were focusing on "the big deal." "The big deal is we have to get rid of the nuclear weapons," Trump explained. The DPRK leader said in his policy speech marking the First Session of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) on Friday that he was willing to hold one more summit with Trump "if the United States adopts a correct posture and comes to the third DPRK-U.S. summit with a certain methodology that can be shared." Kim noted that he would wait for a "bold decision" from Trump with patience by the end of this year, saying both Pyongyang and Washington should try to find out a "constructive solution to meet each other's interests." In response, Trump tweeted Saturday that a third summit with Kim "would be good in that we fully understand where we each stand." Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 15:45:07|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close NEW DELHI, April 15 (Xinhua) -- India's Supreme Court Monday ordered the country's election commission to watch biopic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then decide whether the movie should be blocked, officials said. The top court asked the poll panel to give its view to the court by April 22 in a sealed cover. "The Supreme Court today asked Election Commission of India (ECI) to watch 'PM Narendra Modi' a biopic and then take a call on whether it should be banned," an official said. Last week ECI stopped release of the biopic for the duration of general elections, following which makers of the film approached the Supreme Court. The election body in its statement blocking release of film said that any material disturbing the level playing field in favor of any political party or individual should not be displayed. "That any poster or publicity material concerning any such certified content, which either depicts a candidate (including prospective) for the furtherance (or purported to further) of electoral prospect, directly or indirectly, shall not be put to display in electronic media in the area where MCC (Model Code of Conduct) is in operation," reads the ECI order. First phase of the India's general elections was held last week and remaining six phases would be completed until May 20. Counting of votes is scheduled on May 23. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 15:55:13|Editor: ZX Video Player Close WASHINGTON, April 14 (Xinhua) -- China will continue to significantly relax market access, and create a more attractive investment and business environment, Chinese Finance Minister Liu Kun has said here. Liu made the remarks when attending a ministerial-level luncheon during the 99th Development Committee meeting held by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on Friday and Saturday in Washington D.C., according to China's Ministry of Finance. Vice Finance Minister Zou Jiayi attended a ministerial-level meeting and gave a speech. The Chinese finance minister said that with international development and cooperation facing severe challenges, the World Bank as the world's most important multilateral development institution should adhere to the principle of multilateralism, support all parties in jointly supporting the rules-based multilateral trade system, firmly follow the purpose of serving all member countries, and adopt differentiated, targeted aid strategies based on their respective national conditions. Speaking of the Chinese economy, Liu said, China is accelerating its transition from high-speed growth to high-quality development, as its economic structure continues to upgrade, and new momentum sustains remarkable growth. China has adopted a proactive fiscal policy this year with greater intensity and enhanced efficiency, rolling out substantial tax cuts and fee reductions, and its economic growth in the first quarter has gotten off to a good start, Liu said. The minister said his country will continue to significantly relax market access, enhance the protection of intellectual property rights, and carry out larger-scale tax cuts and fee reductions, so as to create a more attractive investment and business environment. On the sidelines of the Development Committee meeting, Liu met with David Malpass, the new World Bank president, as scheduled. Noting that there is great potential for China to cooperate with the international lender, Liu said China is willing to continue deepening its cooperation with the World Bank on loan programs and knowledge-sharing. China looks forward to cooperating with the multilateral development institution in such areas as improving the business environment, sharing China's experience in poverty alleviation, and jointly establishing a high-standard multilateral development and financing cooperation center, Liu said. Meanwhile, China hopes the World Bank continues loan cooperation with China in accordance with established rules, making it more innovative and a better model for such projects, and increasing its added value, Liu said. For his part, Malpass praised China's great achievement in alleviating poverty, noting that its experience is worth sharing. The World Bank, Malpass said, is willing to work constructively with China on areas including pollution prevention and control, green development, and coping with climate change. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 16:10:22|Editor: ZX Video Player Close HOHHOT, April 15 (Xinhua) -- North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Monday launched its first direct flight to Tibet Autonomous Region in southwest China. The first flight on the route took off from Hohhot Baita International Airport at 7:45 a.m. and will have a stop-over in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi Province, before arriving at Lhasa Gonggar Airport at 2:40 p.m. The return flight will depart from Lhasa at 3:30 p.m. and arrive at Hohhot at 10:15 p.m. The flights will be operated daily by China Eastern Airlines. The Baita airport said the new air route would greatly slash travel time between the two autonomous regions, whose flights used to transfer via cities in other provinces. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 16:30:59|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close SEOUL, April 15 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Monday that he will actively push for another summit meeting with Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), to help resume dialogue between the DPRK and the United States. "Now, it's time to actively prepare and push for South-North summit," Moon told a regular meeting with his senior secretaries, referring to the fourth summit between South Korea and the DPRK. The leaders of the two Koreas held summit talks three times last year. Moon said he hoped to make concrete and effective discussions with Kim "in any place and formality at the North Korea (DPRK)'s convenience" about ways to bear advanced fruits going beyond the past two DPRK-U.S. summits. The comment came after Moon visited Washington last week for summit talks with U.S. President Donald Trump. Moon said his Washington meeting with Trump was aimed to remove uncertainties, raised after the second summit between Kim and Trump, and restore the momentum of dialogue between the DPRK and the United States for the unwavering push for the peace process on the Korean Peninsula. The second Kim-Trump summit ended with no agreement in late February in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. After the Hanoi summit, Moon vowed to help resume dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington. After the meeting with Moon, Trump said in Washington that "smaller deals" could happen "step by step" between the DPRK and the United States, though his country and South Korea were focusing on "the big deal." "The big deal is we have to get rid of the nuclear weapons," Trump explained. The DPRK leader said in his policy speech marking the First Session of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) on Friday that he was willing to hold one more summit with Trump "if the United States adopts a correct posture and comes to the third DPRK-U.S. summit with a certain methodology that can be shared." Kim noted that he would wait for a "bold decision" from Trump "with patience" by the end of this year, saying both Pyongyang and Washington should try to find out a "constructive solution to meet each other's interests." In response, Trump tweeted Saturday that a third summit with Kim "would be good in that we fully understand where we each stand." Moon said South Korea and the United States reaffirmed the common goals of achieving complete denuclearization and building permanent peace on the peninsula through a diplomatic solution and also agreed to work together to resume the dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington in the near future. The South Korean leader noted that Trump recognized the need for an inter-Korean summit and the possibility for a trilateral summit among the three leaders of South Korea, the DPRK and the United States though it was subject to the DPRK leader's determination. Regarding the DPRK leader, Moon said Kim was re-elected as chairman of the State Affairs Commission at the SPA and declared his firm commitment towards achieving denuclearization and building peace on the Korean Peninsula. Moon welcomed and expressed high regard for Kim's policy speech in which the DPRK leader showed his willingness to resume the DPRK-U.S. dialogue and hold a third DPRK-U.S. summit. Conditions were met for Moon and Kim to hold another summit as the DPRK leader showed his willingness to keep the dialogue momentum, the South Korean president noted. Moon said he would spare no effort to ensure that the upcoming inter-Korean summit would be a stepping stone for an even bigger opportunity and a more significant outcome in the peninsula's peace process. He added that his country would fully carry out the duty of building peace on the peninsula, which includes creating a virtuous cycle between inter-Korean and DPRK-U.S. relations and strengthening the international society's support and cooperation. Earlier on Wednesday, Wu Haitao, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, said for dialogue to continue and make headway, the key is to address the legitimate concerns of the parties concerned in a balanced manner, and advance denuclearization and the establishment of a peace mechanism for the peninsula by following a phased approach with synchronized steps as a package solution. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 16:31:04|Editor: ZX Video Player Close LANZHOU, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese commercial conglomerate Wanda Group plans to invest about 45 billion yuan (about 6.7 billion U.S. dollars) in northwest China's Gansu Province in the next three years, as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) boosts local consumption. The new investment will mainly flow to cultural tourism and modern services in the form of a mega cultural tourism project, five Wanda Plazas and three five-star hotels, according to Wanda board chairman Wang Jianlin. The Wanda Cultural Tourism City in the province's capital city Lanzhou, with an estimated investment of 30 billion yuan, is the company's first super project on the Silk Road Economic Belt. The commercial property and services giant has invested about 18 billion yuan in Gansu since it inked a strategic cooperation agreement with the province in 2017, creating about 30,000 local jobs. Wang attributed Wanda's heavy investment in Gansu to the province's unique and rich history and culture as well as its advantageous geographical position on the Silk Road Economic Belt. "Investing in Gansu is a move to seize the BRI's historical opportunities, which will expand enterprise growth space," Wang said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 16:41:14|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close YAOUNDE, April 15 (Xinhua) -- At least three armed separatists and four members of the government forces died Sunday night in violent clashes in Bali, a locality in the Northwest, one of the two war-torn English-speaking regions of Cameroon, local sources said. "Civilians have fled the area and fighting is intensifying. I saw three corpses when I was escaping. Many people are injured," a local resident who asked not to be named told Xinhua. Government forces interviewed by Xinhua confirmed the confrontation and stressed that a mission to restore peace and security in the locality was in progress. Separatist Communication Secretary Chris Anu warned of "dangerous times" for the locality. "Mayhem has been unleashed on the people of Bali. We are urging everyone in Bali to look for a safer location to move to," Anu said last Sunday in a widely circulated WhatsApp voice. Clashes are escalating between government forces and armed separatists in Cameroon's two Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest, where separatists want to create an independent nation they call "Ambazonia." Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 16:51:31|Editor: ZX Video Player Close Vice Minister of the General Administration of Customs of China (GAC) Hu Wei (2nd L) speaks at a press conference in Beijing, capital of China, April 15, 2019. Chinese customs seized 7.48 tonnes of smuggled ivory during an operation on March 30, the GAC said in a press release Monday. It is the largest seizure of smuggled elephant tusks by Chinese customs in recent years. (Xinhua/Pan Xu) BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese customs seized 7.48 tonnes of smuggled ivory during an operation on March 30, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said in a press release Monday. It is the largest seizure of smuggled elephant tusks by Chinese customs in recent years, the GAC said. An international ivory smuggling criminal gang was destroyed during the operation. So far this year, Chinese customs has seized 8.48 tonnes of ivory and ivory products and 500.5 tonnes of endangered species in 182 smuggling cases involving 171 suspects, according to the press release. Meanwhile, police have strengthened efforts to crack down on the smuggling of endangered species. More than 200 items of smuggled ivory products and over 830 kilograms of other endangered species have been seized through border controls since 2018, said the Ministry of Public Security . Police have also intensified the hunt for fugitive smugglers overseas. So far this year, two fugitives involved in an high-profile ivory smuggling case, were arrested and repatriated from Nigeria and another in a separate case from Vietnam after fleeing overseas for eight years. In the past three years, police have assisted customs authorities in capturing 18 fugitives suspected of smuggling elephant tusks and other endangered species, the ministry said. China has imposed a complete ban on ivory trade for commercial purposes starting Jan. 1, 2018, as part of its commitment to protecting wild animals. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 17:06:45|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Thirty-one years after her birth via external fertilization and embryo transplantation, Zheng Mengzhu, who was China's first test-tube baby, gave birth on Monday in a Beijing hospital. At 8:34 a.m., Zheng gave birth to a boy through Caesarean section, said Zhao Yangyu, head of obstetrics at Peking University Third Hospital, who performed the surgery. The boy weighs 3.85 kg, which is similar to his mother's birth-weight. The baby was in a horizontal position when he was in the womb, a situation that demanded a C-section, Zhao explained. "The surgery went rather well. Both the mother and the baby are in stable condition," she said. Zheng was born on March 10, 1988, in the same hospital, as the first-ever test tube baby on the Chinese mainland, 10 years after the first such baby was born in Britain. Qiao Jie, director of the hospital, said the successful birth of Zheng's child marked another milestone in the history of assisted reproductive technology in China. "China's test-tube baby technology has reached leading levels in the world," she said. Qiao said people were worried about whether a person born via test-tube technology could naturally reproduce. Though many test-tube babies became adults and had their own children, the figure is not large. "The birth today is further proof of the safety of assisted reproductive technology." Zheng Mengzhu's mother was a primary school teacher in northwest China's Gansu Province. Unable to conceive a baby for 20 years after her marriage, the mother, then 39 years old, received external fertilization and embryo transplantation in the Beijing hospital. Zheng grew up in Gansu. After graduation from university, she became a medical archivist in the hospital's Reproductive Medicine Center. "To work here is like a homecoming for me. So many people helped my parents and worked for my birth. I am very happy that I can help more families like my parents," she said. When Chinese researchers started experimenting test-tube technologies, they mainly used to help women with blocked fallopian tubes, doctors said. Now, about one to two babies in every 100 newborns are born with assisted reproductive technology, according to Qiao, also an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering. The Peking University Third Hospital's Reproductive Medicine Center is one of the country's largest such centers, receiving about 600,000 outpatients every year. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 17:11:47|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Six movies featuring Chinese scientists will hit the screens of science and technology museums nationwide, People's Daily reported Monday. The tour started at the China Science and Technology Museum Sunday to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. As part of the Beijing International Film Festival, the six movies available for public screening are "Roaring Across the Horizon," "I Am a Doctor," "Yuan Longping," "Hsue-shen Tsien," "Endless Love," and "Love Pascal." The films illustrate achievement of the scientists in terms of aiding national independence, prosperity and people's well-being. During the tour, scientists and film executive producers will be invited to meet the audience, telling their stories to inspire young Chinese, according to the newspaper. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 17:52:07|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ABUJA, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Twenty-seven Boko Haram militants have been killed in the latest clearance operation aimed at routing remnants of the terror group along Nigeria-Cameroon borders, Nigerian army said on Monday. Many arms and ammunition belonging to the terror group were recovered and their gun trucks destroyed by troops of Nigeria and Cameroon who jointly carried out the operation on Sunday. In a statement, Nigerian army spokesman Sagir Musa said the troops' encounter with the terrorists took place in the northern part of Wulgo, Tumbuma, Chikun Gudu, and Bukar Maryam villages -- all on the Nigerian side. There was no casualty on the part of the Nigerian and Cameroonian forces, Musa said. According to him, a number of coordinated military operations are ongoing, especially in the fringes of Gombaru-Ngala and surrounding areas to deal with terrorists fleeing from the onslaught of the Multinational Joint Task Force of Nigeria, Benin, Chad, Cameroon, and Niger. In March, more than 100 Boko Haram militants were killed in multilateral operations along the Nigerian borders. Last December, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and his colleagues of the Lake Chad Basin Commission renewed their commitment to ending the Boko Haram insurgency, declaring "a fight to finish." Boko Haram has been trying since 2009 to establish an Islamist state in northeastern Nigeria, extending its attacks to countries in the Lake Chad basin. The group posed enormous security, humanitarian and governance challenges in the basin, according to the United Nations. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 17:52:09|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close NEW DELHI, April 15 (Xinhua) -- India on Monday successfully test fired 1,000 km strike range sub-sonic cruise missile "Nirbhay" off the coast of its eastern sate of Odisha, local media reported. The missile was developed by Bengaluru-based Aeronautical Development Establishment, a lab under India's Defence Research and Development Organization. "Nirbhay missile is a long range, all-weather missile that can be launched from multiple platforms," an official said. "This sub-sonic cruise missile is capable of carrying conventional and nuclear warheads." Reports said the cruise missile test was likely to provide a boost to India's military power. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 18:12:25|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close FARAH, Afghanistan, April 15 (Xinhua) -- A provincial police spokesman in western Afghanistan said on Monday that militants attacked a girls' school, causing damages of the building. "The attackers blew up Benafsha School by bombs in Tosaak locality on outskirts of Farah city, capital of western Farah province last night. No one was injured as the school was closed during the overnight attack," spokesman Muhibullah Muhib told Xinhua. Local TV channels' footage showed damages to the main part of the one-story building. The attack deprived more than 500 students to attend classes, reports said. It was unclear as to who were behind the attack and officials in the province said they have started investigation of the incident. Officials said police on Monday launched search operation to apprehend the culprits. More than 9.5 million Afghan children with around 40 percent of them girls attend 15,000 schools across the country while over 3.7 million school age children have no access to education due to poverty, conflicts and insurgency, according to education officials. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 18:27:42|Editor: ZX Video Player Close Wang Yang (R), chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee, meets with Deputy Chairman of the Pakistani Senate Saleem Mandviwala in Beijing, capital of China, April 15, 2019. (Xinhua/Ding Lin) BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- China's top political advisor Wang Yang on Monday met with Deputy Chairman of the Pakistani Senate Saleem Mandviwala, calling for strengthened cooperation and a closer China-Pakistan community of shared future. Hailing the time-tested friendship between the two countries, Wang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee, said that bilateral ties has maintained sound development momentum and constant progress in friendly cooperation. "China stands ready to work with the Pakistani side to implement the consensus reached by leaders of the two countries, maintain high-level exchanges, deepen people-to-people and cultural exchanges, advance the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and promote cooperation in economy, trade and investment, so as to build a closer China-Pakistan community of shared future," Wang said. Mandviwala said that Pakistan pays high attention to participation in the Belt and Road construction and would like to work with China to advance building of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and continue to strengthen pragmatic cooperation in various fields and advance bilateral ties. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 18:42:50|Editor: ZX Video Player Close A man passes by a money exchange shop near the Bank of England in London, March 6, 2019. (Xinhua/Stephen Chung) WASHINGTON, April 14 (Xinhua) -- At a time when the global economy enters "a delicate moment" featuring "broad-based slowdown," key international financial institutions call for strengthening multilateral cooperation. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) wrapped up their spring meetings on Sunday, stressing the urgency to better address unfair trade practices. DELICATE MOMENT The IMF released its new World Economic Outlook report on Tuesday, in which the institution lowered its global growth forecast for 2019 to 3.3 percent, down 0.2 percentage point from its estimation in January. For 2020, it expected global growth to return to 3.6 percent. IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath wrote in a blog post that the projected slowdown in 2019 is "broad-based." "We contend that we are at a delicate moment," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said at the opening press conference of the spring meetings on Thursday. The IMF chief said her institution "would recommend two key principles. One is, do no harm. Second, do the right thing," adding that the key is to avoid the wrong policies, especially on the trade front. "We need to better address dislocations caused by trade and by technological innovation, however intertwined they are. And we need to do more for those who are left behind," Lagarde said. The IMF chief said countries should better address unfair trade practices, including through a World Trade Organization system reform. "And we need to avoid self-inflicted wounds, including tariffs and other barriers," she said. As for "do the right thing," Lagarde said many outstanding reforms should be the focus of policy makers, because they "would help boost potential output to prevent disappointing long-term growth in advanced economies, and would help developing countries catch up with their wealthier peers." Meanwhile, the managing director also called on countries to create more fiscal space in order to "resist the next crisis" when downturn comes up, and suggested policy makers enhance international cooperation on issues such as corporate taxation and corruption. In a statement issued Saturday after the World Bank Development Committee concluded its 99th meeting, World Bank President David Malpass said that the multilateral development institution's mission is "more urgent than ever." "It is critically important that we work tirelessly to foster broad-based growth, raise median incomes, create jobs, and fully incorporate women and young people in economies, to support a stronger, more stable global economy for everyone," said Malpass, who is recently elected to lead the World Bank. Despite the IMF's gloomy economic forecast, finance officials of the world's major economies, according to media reports, were relatively upbeat about managing risks. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday that he was hopeful Washington and Beijing are "close to the final round" of trade talks. Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond said the government and main opposition party could strike a Brexit deal within weeks. While admitting that risks had not disappeared, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi touted the eurozone's "remarkable resilience," citing an increase in job creation, a strong service sector and rising incomes and wages. MULTILATERALISM UPHELD The International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), IMF's policy-setting body, said in a communique issued Saturday that members of the committee will "continue to take joint action to strengthen international cooperation and frameworks." The IMFC said its members will work together to reduce excessive global imbalances, strive for a globally fair and modern international tax system, and enhance debt transparency and sustainable financing practices. On trade, the IMFC said free, fair, and mutually beneficial goods and services trade and investment are key engines for growth and job creation. "To this end, we recognize the need to resolve trade tensions and support the necessary reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to improve its functioning." Commenting on the current situation of global trade, WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo told an event at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics on Thursday that "clearly tensions remain high." The director-general said he recognizes "the frustration that many have felt" about trade, as well as the need to speed up reforms. "Multilateralism should not be synonymous with paralysis," he added. In the "Global Policy Agenda 2019" issued by Lagarde, the managing director expressed her concern about the "rising disengagement" in the global economy that has led to many countries not benefiting adequately from international cooperation, economic and financial integration, and technological progress. The challenges facing the world, Lagarde said, "can only be met in a new multilateralism that instills confidence that the costs and rewards of lasting solutions will be shared by all." In an exclusive interview with Xinhua on Tuesday, Gopinath said "the retreat from globalization, the rise in protectionism is clearly one of the major trends of our time, which is a reversal from the past," adding that the trend is "a matter of great concern" for this year's spring meetings. Gopinath underscored the need for countries to continue engaging with each other in the pursuit for cooperative solutions "to make this a better multilateralism." "I don't see an alternative to a multilateral work," she said, adding that issues like trade, climate change, cyber security and international taxation all require that countries cooperate and come up with joint solutions. CHINA'S CONSTRUCTIVE ROLE As one of the major shareholders of both the IMF and the World Bank, China has been a major focus throughout the spring meetings. In his statement to the IMFC meeting, Chen Yulu, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China -- China's central bank -- stressed the IMF's "central role" in global finance, urging that the IMF continue to support "an open, inclusive, and rules-based multilateral trade system." "With a membership of 189 countries, the IMF enjoys special advantages and trust in strengthening international coordination and cooperation and can play a greater role," Chen said. The deputy central bank chief stressed, in particular, the need to reform the IMF's quota arrangement and governance so that emerging market economies and developing countries can be better represented at the multilateral institution. "China supports a strong, quota-based, and adequately-resourced IMF to preserve its central role in the global financial safety net," Chen said. "The gap between the actual and calculated quotas should be narrowed in a constructive manner and the structural distortion of quotas should be reduced." IMF Deputy Managing Director Zhang Tao said in an interview with Xinhua that the IMF remains "committed to the realignment of quota shares to more accurately reflect members' representation." When meeting with Malpass on the sidelines of the spring meetings, Chinese Finance Minister Liu Kun said China is willing to deepen its cooperation with the World Bank on lending programs and knowledge sharing. In addition, China also looks forward to cooperating with the World Bank in such areas as improving the business environment and establishing a high-standard multilateral financing cooperation center, the minister said. Malpass, said the two sides share a great responsibility in combating poverty and spurring global development, and that the World Bank is also willing to work with China on pollution prevention and control, green development, as well as coping with climate change. At Thursday's press conference, Malpass said in response to a question from Xinhua that he looks forward to a constructive relationship between the international lender and China. Over the past three decades, China's relationship with the World Bank has been evolving, in that the country has shifted from being a "major borrower" from the World Bank to "becoming more of a donor" to the institution and its shareholders, said Malpass. "We value that constructive relationship," he said. (Video reporters: Jin Yuelei, Xiong Maoling, Gao Pan; Video editor: Yin Le) Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 18:53:04|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close WASHINGTON, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Gita Gopinath, chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has called for a "better multilateralism" to strengthen international cooperation, as the global economy is experiencing a broad-based slowdown with a prospect of a "precarious" rebound. "I think this is true for all international institutions with the concerns about what's happening with world cooperation with multilateralism," Gopinath told Xinhua in a recent interview on the sidelines of the spring meetings of the World Bank and the IMF in Washington. "The retreat from globalization, the rise in protectionism is clearly one of the major trends of our times, which is a reversal from the past," Gopinath said, adding that "this is a matter of great concern" for this year's spring meetings. The IMF chief economist underscored the need for countries to continue engaging with each other in the pursuit for cooperative solutions "to make this a better multilateralism." "I don't see an alternative to a multilateral work," she said, noting that many important issues, such as trade, climate change, cyber security and international taxation, all require that countries cooperate and come up with joint solutions. The IMF on Tuesday lowered its global growth forecast for 2019 to 3.3 percent in its latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) report, down 0.2 percentage point from its estimation in January, signaling a broad-based slowdown. "The second half of 2018 was particularly weak for many parts of the world economy and that weakness carries over into the first half of 2019," Gopinath said, expecting some recovery of the global economy in the second half of 2019 and a further rebound in 2020. "The recovery (of the global economy) will come from recovery in emerging and developing economies" such as Argentina and Turkey, she said, adding such recovery remains "somewhat precarious" with serious downside risks. While there has been an improvement in U.S.-China trade talks over the last few months, trade tensions remain the biggest downside risk to the global economic expansion, said Gopinath. "We might see tensions in other sectors, the auto sector, and that would then start affecting many more countries in the world and a bigger part of the global supply chain," she said. "That is a very important risk for us going forward." In February, the U.S. Commerce Department submitted a report to the White House on whether to impose tariffs on imported cars and auto parts on national security grounds, drawing backlash from auto makers, suppliers and industry groups. U.S. President Donald Trump has 90 days to decide whether to adopt the Commerce Department's recommendations and introduce tariffs on imported vehicles and auto parts. Speaking of China, Gopinath praised what the Chinese government has been doing to pivot away from high-speed growth to high-quality growth, noting that such a shift would require moving away from credit-driven, investment-driven growth toward more consumption-driven growth. The IMF chief economist suggested China continue well-contained deleveraging in the process so that the economy slows down at a proper pace. China has used a combination of monetary policy tools and fiscal stimulus in the wake of the economic slowdown, and there have been signs of recovery, Gopinath said. She cited the rise of the Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) in March as an example. The IMF revised up the 2019 growth projection for China to 6.3 percent, up 0.1 percentage point from its previous estimation in January, according to the WEO. In Gopinath's view, the international use of the Chinese currency renminbi (RMB) or yuan will rise over time as the Chinese economy becomes larger. "As countries get larger and become more prominent in the world economy, they start seeing more of a global currency role," she said. However, there is still a long way to go before the RMB becomes a dominant global reserve currency, she said, adding that this would require very sound financial institutions, a predictable policy on the monetary side, as well as RMB-denominated assets that the world views as safe assets. "The solutions for that are the same as what's required to try to continue to grow and become an even larger economy," said the IMF chief economist, suggesting China focus more on pivoting toward markets and improving macro policy frameworks. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 19:23:23|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ANTANANARIVO, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Madagascan authorities have been urging the public to be vaccinated against measles, which has been plaguing the country since September 2018, local media reported. The third phase of the national measles vaccination campaign ended on April 5, and local media reported an effective outcome. Boanamary town of the district of Mahajanga II, one of the most affected areas of the ongoing epidemic, has seen a vaccination rate of 89.7 percent, according to media reports. The vaccination campaign mainly targeted children aged six months to nine years in all 22 regions of Madagascar. A report of Madagascan health authorities published on Tuesday recorded 121,521 measles cases in the country from Sept. 3, 2018 to March 27, 2019. The outbreak was largely due to a low vaccination rate, as some parents refused to immunize their children because of certain local religious customs, the Madagascar Express reported. Media also cited malnutrition as one of the factors that could have worsened the situation. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 19:28:31|Editor: ZX Video Player Close BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- China's yuan funds outstanding for foreign exchange dropped for an eighth straight month in March, according to central bank data. The funds stood at 21.3 trillion yuan (about 3.17 trillion U.S. dollars) at the end of last month, falling 459 million yuan from February, according to the People's Bank of China. As the Chinese yuan is not freely convertible under the capital account, the central bank has to purchase foreign currency generated by trade surplus and foreign investment in the country, adding funds to the money market. Such funds are an important indicator of cross-border foreign capital flows and domestic yuan liquidity. A similar measure of capital flow, the country's foreign exchange reserves edged up 0.3 percent from February to 3.0988 trillion U.S. dollars by the end of March. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 19:43:49|Editor: ZX Video Player Close SHENZHEN, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Three Chinese companies have been picked as the finalists in Pitch@Place China to attend the global final in London, according to the event organizers. Founded by British Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, in 2014, Pitch@Palace is a platform that supports entrepreneurs in accelerating and amplifying their ideas. Pitch@Palace China began in 2017, with the purpose of providing support to outstanding entrepreneurs by consolidating quality resources from both China and Britain. This year, audio technology company Incus Co. Ltd., e-signature company Tsign and Zhuhai Resproly Bio Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd were selected as the top three finalists in the event held in Shenzhen, a boomtown in south China's Guangdong Province. Prince Andrew, who was present at Pitch@Palace China event, said it would improve collaboration, and promote technology transfer and exchanges of personnel and businesses. He also noted that in the future a laboratory would be set up in Shenzhen to incubate and accelerate the growth of startups. More than 30,000 startups participated in the China event this year, of which 42 were selected to compete in fields including biotechnology and diagnosis, network security, data management and analysis, education and consumer technology. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 19:48:52|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close CAIRO, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Naval forces from Egypt, Greece and Cyprus started joint exercises on Monday, at a military base of Alexandria in the Mediterranean, Egypt's armed forces said in a statement. The joint drills, named Medusa-8, will last for several days, aiming to "boost military cooperation among the three countries," said Tamer al-Refai, spokesperson of the armed forces. Main units from the Egyptian Navy helicopter carrier ENS Anwar El Sadat, a Type 209 submarine and a number of F-16 jets took part in the drill. In 2015, Egypt and Greece held their first joint exercise Medusa 5. Egypt regularly holds joint military exercises with Arab, African and Western states to boost military collaboration and exchange. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 19:58:58|Editor: ZX Video Player Close BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- It is helpful to begin a discussion of whether China makes good on its promise of ivory trade ban with a brief look at a stunning case. The General Administration of Customs announced on Monday that on March 30, China cracked a cross-border smuggling ring with a seizure of 2,748 elephant tusks, or 7.48 tonnes, the biggest volume busted by Chinese authorities in recent years. Those ivory were hidden inside the dilapidated factory mill before they were falsely reported as lumbers when entering into China, according to the customs. In 2018, Chinese customs seized 25,671 items of endangered species and their products, including ivory items weighing 800 kg in total. This all provides compelling evidence that China is serious about making the country ivory trade-free. And the commercial processing and trade of ivory is losing appeal in China, once the world's largest ivory market. As ivory is often used a decoration for the wealthy Chinese in pursuit of high living standards, the appreciation and consumption of ivory by a handful of people should give way to the conservation of wildlife, such as elephants, as it is important to recognize that trade in wildlife affects the Earth's biodiversity and has done so for centuries. The protection of wildlife is on the global agenda and no country should escape its obligations as international collaboration is essential in fulfilling this task. China has always been a responsible stakeholder in global affairs, and preserving African elephants is no exeception. China is currently embarking on a long journey of creating an "ecological civilization," a strategic undertaking adopted by the Chinese leadership. The crackdown on smuggling of endangered species and their products including ivory is seen as a mission of major political significance that must be completed with all-out efforts and zero-tolerance. While critics are skeptical whether China will keep its promise on the ban, China has been resolute. In February 2019, China expressed support for the fair trial of Yang Fenglan, a Chinese businesswoman by the Tanzanian court for alleged ivory smuggling. She was sentenced to 15 years behind bars. As Chinese Foreign Affairs spokesperson Geng Shuang has commented, China will continue working with the international community and contribute to the protection of endangered wildlife and the suppression of illegal trade. Visibly, China is serious about curbing ivory trafficking. If China does not seek to protect endangered wildlife, the global mission will be less meaningful. China will continue to honor its commitment, while joint efforts with other countries also makes sense. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 20:09:05|Editor: ZX Video Player Close SAN FRANCISCO, April 14 (Xinhua) -- San Francisco Mayor London Breed, wearing a bright-red classical Chinese Qipao dress, joined the Chinese community here on Sunday to kick off the annual Fourth San Francisco Qipao Culture Month. Breed said the traditional Chinese Qipao dress, or cheongsam, which was once part of many Chinese women's daily wardrobes, highlights the beauty, elegance and empowerment of women in the city of San Francisco that stands for equality and diversity. "Tonight is about feeling beautiful ... about celebrating not only fashion but the history of fashion, because we know that Qipao originally started as men's attire and transformed into what we see today," she told hundreds of people, including women who were wearing various styles of Qipao, a fashionable and elegant traditional Chinese form-fitting dress. "Women took over. We took over the power of fashion, and we elevated and created something absolutely beautiful," Breed said about the evolution of the Qipao. The San Francisco Qipao Culture Month, which was established by Sunny Shen, founder of Qifengtang, a San Francisco-based organization advocating Chinese Qipao culture in the United States, has been held for the fourth year in a row since 2016. The late San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee proclaimed April 14 the San Francisco Chinese Qipao Day in 2017. Shen said Breed is the first African-American female mayor of San Francisco who wore a Qipao to showcase the elegant beauty of the traditional Chinese dress, as well as the inclusiveness of San Francisco as an international metropolitan city advocating harmony among communities of diversified cultures. "We as Chinese Americans want to share the soft power of the Chinese heritage with the unique Chinese dress as a language of communication," she said. Chinese Deputy Consul General in San Francisco Ren Faqiang said the centuries-long history of the Qipao demonstrated the openness, inclusiveness and mutual respect among various ethnic groups in the "big family" of the Chinese nation. "We hope all other countries in the world, including the United States, would show their respect for the Chinese nation and the diversified forms of their culture such as dress and cuisine, as well as China's political system and its path of development," Ren said. This year's Qipao culture month aligned its celebration with the theme of promoting Chinese state banquet-style food and cuisine culture among the American public. David Smith, mayor emeritus of Newark City in Alameda County, Northern California, said he has been involved with Chinese restaurant undertakings for many years. He said the combination of celebrating the Qipao Culture Month with Chinese food works. "It can be a theme of many banquets and gatherings in the future ... I think that would be a very healthy link, and a very good positive link actually going forward," Smith said. The Qipao Culture Month will also launch a week-long campaign to shoot the Global Chinese Cheongsam Images Scroll (Long Scroll) for 2019, a long banner featuring stylized calligraphy-like images of women around the world wearing the elegant Qipao dress. In 2019, over 48,000 women from the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Thailand participated in the Long Scroll program and the scroll's length has now grown to more than 20,000 meters, said Liu Bing, founder and chief producer of the Long Scroll program. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 20:14:07|Editor: ZX Video Player Close by Abdul Haleem KABUL, April 15 (Xinhua) -- The exhibitions of Afghan artifacts and relics in China clearly demonstrated the good neighborhood and friendship between the two countries, Chief Curator of Afghan National Museum Ainuddin Sedaqat has said. "Since March 2017, 231 pieces of our artifacts reflecting a range of civilizations including Greek-Bactrian (250 BC-125 BC) and Kushan dynasty (30 AD-375 AD) are in display in different cities of the People's Republic of China and we the Afghans are thankful to the Chinese government and its people for the cooperation," Sedaqat told Xinhua in an interview recently. The official described the ongoing exhibitions in Chinese cities as a sign of "Sino-Afghan friendship," noting that the Afghan artifacts after arriving in China were put on display in the historic Palace Museum in mid March. Sedaqat, who accompanied the artifacts to Beijing, told Xinhua that more than 8,000 tourists including Chinese and foreigners visited the Afghan relics in Palace Museum each day to get knowledge on Afghan history and its civilization. "Afghan land was peaceful in the past centuries. It was cradle of civilizations and our artifacts are the proof to the fact," said Sedaqat. He said the war and chaotic situation in Afghanistan today has been imposed on Afghans who are peace-loving and diligent people. The curator said there are many objects among Afghan relics that mirror the Sino-Afghan good neighborhood and cordial relations in ancient times including the Silk Road era. The artifacts named Bakhtar treasure, which represent civilizations ranging from Bronze Age to Kushan dynasty and Hellenistic period (323 BC-31 BC), had earlier been put on display in over a dozen countries and regions including Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Canada, the United States, Japan, South Korea and Britain, according to the official. Since March 2017, the treasures have been displayed in several Chinese cities including Beijing and Dunhuang and soon will be displayed in Nanjing, said Sedaqat. Sedaqat also expressed his satisfaction with the current condition of the Afghan National Museum, saying the entity has been repaired and renovated as many of the smuggled items have been returned from some countries. On average more than 200 people tour the museum daily, which is home to more than 60,000 relics, Sedaqat said. According to the official, the museum was badly damaged and looted during the bloody factional conflicts in the 1990s in Kabul and adjoining provinces. The Taliban outfit also vandalized the artifacts in Kabul and other provinces including the giant Buddha in Bamiyan during its reign that collapsed in 2001. However, the chief curator is hopeful that the museum will soon retain its prestigious position in the region. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 20:19:13|Editor: ZX Video Player Close Li Zhanshu, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, meets with Jose Serafin Orantes, the first vice president of the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, April 15, 2019. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin) BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- China is willing to enhance cooperation with El Salvador to promote the healthy and stable development of bilateral ties, Li Zhanshu, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, said here Monday. During his meeting with Jose Serafin Orantes, the first vice president of the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador, Li said the government and the people of El Salvador last August chose to recognize and abide by the one-China policy and became the 178th country to forge diplomatic ties with China. Li said such a choice was a historic one. History will prove that China is a trustworthy friend of El Salvador and the establishment of diplomatic ties accords with long-term interests of the nation and the people of El Salvador, said Li. As the largest developing country in the world, China has a will to help the vast majority of developing countries speed up development, said Li. He called on El Salvador to grasp opportunities to enhance cooperation with China in the principle of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit. The NPC is ready to intensify exchanges with the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador to contribute to ties between the two countries. Orantes said the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador will use the visit as an opportunity to further strengthen ties with China's NPC and help promote bilateral ties. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 20:19:17|Editor: ZX Video Player Close XINING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- China plans to invest 900 million yuan (134 million U.S. dollars) this year to protect Sanjiangyuan, the cradle of the three rivers of Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang in northwestern Qinghai Province. The fund is to be used for wildlife protection and ecological restoration of grassland, lakes and glaciers in the Sanjiangyuan area on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, said the provincial development and reform commission Monday. Between 2005 and 2018, China already invested more than 18 billion yuan on ecological protection in the region, one of the largest ecological investment projects over the past seven decades. The project covers 395,000 square km. Li Xiaonan, deputy director of the commission and director of the administration bureau of Sanjiangyuan National Park, said the effort aimed to curb the deteriorating ecology and restore damaged ecological functions. The ecological protection program began in 2005 with 7.65 billion yuan invested during the first phase to 2013. The second phase started in 2014. The program has helped increase vegetation and expand water areas, sending more clean water downstream. With ecological improvements, herders can also spot more rare wild animals, like snow leopards. Sanjiangyuan had suffered environmental deterioration since the 1970s, due to climate change and human activities. The Sanjiangyuan Nature Reserve was established in 2000, and the Sanjiangyuan national park is scheduled to open in 2020. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 20:24:22|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close N'DJAMENA, April 15 (Xinhua) -- The Chadian army killed 63 members of the Boko Haram terror group on Sunday night in the Lac region, local media reported on Monday, quoting a military statement. Seven Chadian soldiers were killed and a dozen others wounded fighting back a Boko Haram attack around midnight on an army position in Mbohama, in the sub-prefecture of Kaiga Kindjiri, according to the statement. This has been the second Boko Haram attack in recent weeks. In mid-March, also in the Lac region, at least 23 Chadian soldiers were killed in a Boko Haram ambush. Last week, Tahir Erda, Chad's newly appointed chief of defense staff, traveled to Lac to "urgently" implement a new approach to thwart the terrorist group, according to local press. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 20:29:24|Editor: ZX Video Player Close CHENGDU, April 15 (Xinhua) -- A giant panda will leave for Austria for a four-year collaborative research project, a panda research base in southwest China's Sichuan Province said Monday. Yuanyuan, a 20-year-old male, will leave Chengdu at 4:45 a.m. Tuesday for its new home at the Schonbrunn Zoo in Vienna, according to the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda (CCRCGP) based in the Wolong National Nature Reserve. A farewell party for the panda was held at the base Monday afternoon. The research on Yuanyuan in Austria will enhance China's cooperation with Austria in areas such as breeding, disease control and prevention as well as the reproduction of the giant panda, said Zhang Zhizhong, an official with the CCRCGP. The base has launched giant panda research programs in cooperation with 15 zoos in 13 countries and regions so far, according to Zhang. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 20:34:28|Editor: ZX Video Player Close MACAO, April 15 (Xinhua) -- An exhibition on national security education, co-organized by the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) government and the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Macao SAR, kicked off here on Monday. Chief executive of the Macao SAR Chui Sai On said at the opening ceremony that safeguarding national security is the constitutional responsibility that the Macao SAR must assume. He stressed that as it set up a national security committee in accordance with law in September last year, the Macao SAR government has been dedicated to strengthening the building of institutions, mechanisms and legal system, further improving the principal framework for maintaining national security, and establishing and improving the coordination mechanism for safeguarding national security. Fu Ziying, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Macao SAR, said that the Macao compatriots have a profound fine tradition of loving their country and developing with the motherland. He hoped that the compatriots in Macao would continue to uphold the spirit of loving the motherland and loving Macao, and to fully and accurately implement the principle of "one country, two systems", so as to actively integrate themselves into the overall development of the country. The exhibition, which runs until May 15, features about 300 pictures in different historical times. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 20:34:32|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ADEN, Yemen, April 15 (Xinhua) -- A total of eight fighters of the Houthi group were killed during an attack launched against Yemeni government forces in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah on Monday, a military official told Xinhua. In a fresh military escalation, the Houthi fighters launched an attack against a number of government-controlled military sites in Durayhmi district south of Hodeidah province, the local military source said on condition of anonymity. He said that the government forces managed to repulse the Houthi attack in Durayhmi, leaving eight rebels killed following fierce armed confrontations sparked in the area. Meanwhile, the official military spokesman said in a statement that shelling carried out by Houthi fighters killed one soldier of the joint pro-government forces and injured five others in the same district of Durayhmi. Mamun Mahjami, the spokesman of the pro-government Giants Brigades, confirmed that the "Houthis carried out the most violent armed attack against sites of the government forces in Hodeidah." On the other side, the Houthi rebels blamed the Yemeni government forces of using artillery shelling and targeting their sites near the Faculty of Engineering. The Iran-allied Houthi rebels control the Hodeidah city while the Saudi-backed government troops have advanced to the southeastern outskirts. Hodeidah is the key lifeline entry point for the country's most food imports and humanitarian aid. The ongoing internal military conflict grinding into its fifth year has pushed over 20 million people to the verge of starvation. Yemeni warring parties reached a peace deal on Hodeidah in December last year as a first step toward brokering a comprehensive political solution. Sporadic breaches are daily recorded in Hodeidah as the two belligerent sides failed to withdraw their forces in accordance with an agreement reached in the Swedish capital Stockholm. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 20:39:36|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BUCHAREST, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Romania and Vietnam decided on Monday to accelerate the national procedures for exports of Romanian agricultural and livestock products to the Vietnamese market. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry of Romania and the National Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Authority of Vietnam, in the presence of Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila and her visiting Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc. Phuc's visit is the first of a Vietnamese prime minister to the eastern European country in over 40 years. "We agreed to speed up the national procedures establishing the necessary conditions to carry out exports of Romanian products of animal origin, honey and beekeeping products on the Vietnamese market," Dancila said within a joint statements with the Vietnamese prime minister. According to her, Romania and Vietnam have achieved solid economic growth in the past few years, and bilateral trade volume has also shown an upward trend, providing a very broad potential for further economic cooperation between the two sides. Romania hopes Vietnam will become an important partner of Romania in Southeast Asia, she stressed, adding that there are multiple economic cooperation opportunities in areas such as energy, oil and gas, automotive industry, information technology and agriculture. The Vietnamese prime minister, for his part, told the media that he discussed with his Romanian counterpart about concrete efficient measures to promote bilateral relations, and also about international and regional topics of a common interest. "Our discussions focused on cooperation in the education field and workforce," he said, stressing that his country hopes the bilateral cooperation relation to develop even more and the two countries become efficient and trustful partners. According to Phuc, his delegation includes a number of Vietnamese businessmen, who will meet with their local partners in the bilateral economic forum on the same day, to exchange information, to connect, to find cooperation opportunities in fields such as oil and gas, petrochemistry, agriculture, food processing, workforce and tourism. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 20:39:38|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close NEW DELHI, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Three Naxals and a paramilitary trooper belonging to the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were killed on Monday in a gunfight in India's eastern state of Jharkhand, police said. The gunfight broke out in the forest of Belbha Ghat in Giridih district, about 185 km northeast of Ranchi, the capital city of Jharkhand. "Today a gunfight broke out between Naxals and government forces here inside the Belbha Ghat forests," a police official posted in Giridih district said. "Three Naxals were killed in the anti-Naxal operation, while a CRPF personnel was also killed fighting these Naxals." Police have recovered bodies of Naxals from the gunfight site. The Naxalite insurgency has its genesis in the violent left-wing rebellion that began in 1967 at village Naxalbari in the Indian state of West Bengal. The rebels are active in more than a third of India's 600 odd districts across central and eastern regions. India's former prime minister Manmohan Singh once termed the Naxalite movement as India's "greatest internal security challenge." New Delhi has deployed several companies of its paramilitary forces to take on Naxals in their strongholds. The insurgency reportedly has claimed more than 6,000 lives and rendered thousands of poor inhabitants homeless. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 20:44:43|Editor: ZX Video Player Close BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- A specialized work team has recently stressed the urgency of relocating and upgrading dangerous chemical plants in densely populated areas after a deadly blast in a chemical factory in east China last month. Authorities should enhance coordination, improve efficiency, push law enforcement and step up policy moves to steadily move plants out of the populated regions, said Wang Jiangping, vice minister of industry and information technology, who heads the work team for the relocation project. Wang also called for special attention to safety and environment management during the relocation. At the meeting on Friday, officials from the provinces of Jiangsu, Hubei, Shandong and Liaoning reported their relocation progress in 2018 and work plans for 2019. A deadly blast at Xiangshui Chemical Industrial Park in Jiangsu killed 78 people and wounded hundreds last month. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 20:49:49|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close NAIROBI, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) plans to establish a derivatives exchange by the end of 2019, an official said on Monday. NSE CEO Geoffrey Odundo told Xinhua in Nairobi that only one more link in the overall structure of the market is yet to be developed but the trading platform for the derivatives market has already been finalized. "We are keen to have the derivatives market functional by the end of 2019 so that Kenya can expand the array of capital market products available in the country," Odundo said when the NSE entered into an agreement with the Institute of Certified Financial Analysts. The derivatives exchange, a financial market for instruments such as futures and options, will help attract new investors into Kenya, Odundo said. The exchange will initially focus on equity products and then cover other capital market products, he said. The NSE has already conducted a successful pilot of derivatives trading, Odundo said. Kenya is keen to tap into the large pool of global investors who prefer trading in derivatives products, he said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 20:54:53|Editor: ZX Video Player Close BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- An article by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, on strengthening cultural confidence will be published Tuesday in the eighth issue of the Qiushi Journal this year. The article was titled "A Country, or A Nation, Cannot Be Devoid of Soul." Xi, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, stressed in the article that writers, artists and theorists should consolidate cultural confidence, stay in step with the times, take a people-centered approach, serve the people with fine works and guide the public with high moral standards. "All practitioners in culture, literature, art, philosophy and social sciences shoulder the important tasks of enlightening thoughts, nurturing sentiments and warming hearts," the article wrote. As this year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the article called on them to reflect the struggle of the Party and the people over the past 70 years. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 21:10:05|Editor: ZX Video Player Close Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) holds talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono in Beijing, capital of China, April 15, 2019. (Xinhua/Yan Yan) BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono in Beijing Monday. While noting the improvement process of China-Japan relations is still in its initial stage, Wang said that under the guidance of the principles affirmed in the four China-Japan political documents and important consensus reached by leaders of the two countries, it's necessary for both sides to strengthen exchanges at all levels and continuously enhance political mutual trust to ensure bilateral ties will always run on the right track. China welcomes the Japanese side to send a high-level delegation to attend the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to be held in Beijing in late April, Wang said. For his part, Taro Kono said the Japanese side will adhere to and abide by the four China-Japan political documents and take concrete actions to implement the political consensus of being cooperative partners rather than make threats to each other. They also agreed to resume the travel study program for Japanese students to China. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 21:15:09|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close SOFIA, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Bulgarian law enforcement authorities have detained 12 illegal immigrants crammed in a Mercedes SUV, the Interior Ministry said in a press release on Monday. The immigrants were discovered on Sunday evening, after a traffic police patrol tried to stop a Mercedes ML 320 on Maritsa motorway, which connects Kapitan Andreevo checkpoint at the border with Turkey with Trakia motorway. The driver, a 31-year-old Bulgarian, did not obey the order, continued his way and shortly afterwards left the vehicle, trying to escape, but was finally arrested with the help of a tracker dog, the ministry said. The foreigners, all under the age of 30, were crammed on the rear seats and in the trunk, it said. Without any identity documents, they claimed that they are citizens of Afghanistan, and admitted that they crossed the border illegally, the ministry said. In 2018, the Interior Ministry arrested 689 illegal immigrants trying to enter Bulgaria. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 21:45:25|Editor: ZX Video Player Close HANGZHOU, April 15 (Xinhua) -- China's e-commerce giant Alibaba will launch an undergraduate program this September to enroll students from Rwanda to facilitate the central African country's pursuit of a knowledge-based economy. The Alibaba Business School said its "International Business Cross-border eCommerce" class will enroll 30 students this year, who will spend four years in Hangzhou, where Alibaba is based, studying subjects including the Internet, international trade and cross-border e-commerce. The project is a key part of the agreement signed last year between the Rwandan government and Alibaba to build the Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP). The eWTP initiative was proposed by Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba, in 2016. It aims to promote public-private dialogue to improve the policy and business environment to enable small and medium-sized enterprises to participate in cross-border electronic trade. Rwanda, which is aiming to become a regional hub of information communication technology, was the first African country to launch the eWTP. Valens Nzayikunda, a Rwandan applicant, told Xinhua after an interview with examiners in Kigali, capital of Rwanda, that the program was helpful for Rwanda and Rwandan students in e-commerce. "I want to help my community and other startups with technology and to use e-commerce to make people's life easier, and China is among countries which have developed technology (in this area)," Nzayikunda said. Emmanuel Muvunyi, executive director of the Higher Education Council of Rwanda, told Xinhua that training youth in using e-commerce was one of the intended objectives for Rwanda whose development agenda is based on ICT. "The Alibaba program is a strong foundation for developing and enhancing e-commerce skills among Rwandan youth, and will progressively develop an eco-system in Rwanda of doing e-commerce," he said. (Xinhua correspondent Lyu Tianran contributed reporting from Kigali.) Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 21:50:28|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BEIRUT, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Lebanon's Health Minister Jamil Jabak received on Monday a donation of pharmaceutical drugs from the Brazilian embassy in Lebanon, local media reported. "This donation reflects the efforts exerted by Brazil to boost its ties with Arab countries including Lebanon," Brazilian Ambassador to Lebanon Paulo Cordeiro de Andrade Pinto was quoted as saying by the National News Agency. The ambassador said that this donation is a small contribution to the efforts made by Lebanon in cooperation with the United Nations' agencies to support Syrian refugees and Lebanon's host communities. Brazil will continue to support Lebanon, he added. Meanwhile, Jabak said that he is keen to cooperate with Brazil and to build good ties with international organizations and the international community in a bid to improve the level of the health sector in Lebanon. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 21:50:29|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close KAMPALA, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Uganda on Monday launched virtual courts that will see inmates attended to by judicial officers through video conferencing. The court will be linked to the prison from where the inmates will hear preliminary stages of their cases before they are called to court physically for trial. "Primarily, we are going to use the system at the mentioning of the case stage and later we shall expand it to cover other stages," Solomon Muyita, senior communications officer at Uganda Judiciary, told Xinhua by telephone. The new system will also enable judicial officers to handle more cases, which will quicken access to justice, Muyita said. Frank Baine, Uganda Prisons' spokesperson, said in a statement that the move will also save on the transport costs and security of taking prisoners to court. He also noted that the inmates would be free in prison instead of being chained every time they go to court. The video conferencing will first work at Buganda Road Chief Magistrates Court and Luzira Prisons in the capital Kampala before being rolled out to the rest of the country. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 22:30:47|Editor: Yamei Video Player Close PARIS, April 15 (Xinhua) -- French President Emmanuel Macron is set to unveil new measures in response to the "Yellow Vest" crisis Monday evening, as the social movement continues to test his leadership. "We decided to transform anger to solutions. Thank you for joining the Grand Debate. For several months, you have expressed your views and we listened to you. Tomorrow night, I'll answer you," Macron tweeted on Sunday evening. According to his office, the president will address the nation on Monday evening to unveil measures to ease social tension and respond to "Yellow Vest" complaints, including "concrete measures" and "a new act and changes in depth." In a rare move, the 41-year-old head of state will also open the Elysee doors to journalists on April 17 to justify his policy during a press conference, a meeting that he has avoided since he was elected in May 2017. Speaking to RTL radio, Franck Louvrier, ex-communication advisor of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, said Macron TV appearance "will be a complicated exercise because it will have to be short and must be as clear as possible because it is highly anticipated." Macron's last televised address was on Dec. 10, when he unveiled 10-billion-euro (11.31 billion-U.S. dollar) "economic and social emergency plan," which involved an increase in minimum wages and tax cut to defuse anger. But the protests have morphed into a broader social rebellion despite the plan. His fresh initiative came after 22 weeks of protests staged by the "Yellow Vest", a spontaneous movement coordinated via social media which erupted on Nov. 17, 2018 and had put President Macron on the hot seat. "This big debate is only a communication operation that has cost a lot. We are at the same point as in November," said Maxime Nicolle, one of the movement's main representatives, during a rally in the southeastern city of Toulouse. "We stay mobilized because we are not heard and (protests) will continue the following Saturdays," he was quoted as saying by local media. In a letter to French president she posted in her Facebook account, Ingrid Levavasseur, another "Yellow Vest" protestor, expected the due decisions to fall short of people's expectations. "We will of course wait for your own statement to judge your decisions, but the information published by the media is worrying," she wrote. "If you have to stick to that, the count will not be there and those who are like us 'Yellow Vests' or not, will say loudly that you play the illusionist," she added, calling for better public services and more investment in rural regions. Macron has given little public indication of what his decisions may be, but according to local reports, they could include a cut in tax on revenue and pension's re- indexation, while a review of wealth tax, as requested by the movement may not be in the list. "It will be a difficult situation (for Macron) because the three main demands of the 'Yellow Vests' which are partly supported by the opinion, are three really difficult demands for the government: the return of the wealth tax, the referendum of citizen initiative and that concerning the speed limit...," Philippe Moreau Chevrolet, communication professor at Sciences Po, told local broadcaster Europe1. "It's a real gamble to the extent that one must not disappoint... If the made announcements are not up to the stakes, Macron will give the impression that he is not a sincere president or that he does not understand exactly the French's expectations. And that will likely accelerate his unpopularity and bring him a little more into the crisis instead of getting him out of it," he added. (1 euro = 1.131 U.S. dollar) Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 22:35:54|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- China has issued a newly-revised regulation on crime prevention work in the People's Liberation Army. Xi Jinping, chairman of the Central Military Commission, signed an order to promulgate the regulation, which will enter into force on May 1. The document underlines the characteristics of relevant work and the basic tasks, assignments of responsibilities and duties, major measures, working system and priorities in such work. The regulation, with eight sections and 94 articles, stipulates measures in preventing crimes such as serious violent crimes, those related to firearms and ammunition, as well as military personnel's duty-related violations. It also defines the responsibilities of various military organs in preventing crimes, urging to form a work pattern where the Party committees assume the primary responsibility, the political and legal affairs authorities take the major charge, all military organs perform their respective duties and all officers and soldiers have broad participation. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 22:41:03|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BAKU, April 15 (Xinhua) -- The 36th International Drug Enforcement Conference kicked off here on Monday, bringing together law enforcement officials from around the world to discuss counter-drug strategies, according to the state-run news agency AZERTAC. Co-organized by the Azerbaijani government and the Drug Enforcement Administration of the United States, the three-day conference, whose theme is "Leveraging global partnerships," will search for new ways to combat drug traffickers. In his opening remarks, Azerbaijani Prime Minister Novruz Mammadov said the fight against drug addiction and illicit drug trafficking are major targets of the country. "To that end, Azerbaijan has introduced appropriate state programs, streamlined the legal framework, carried out institutional reforms and joined relevant international initiatives," he said. Ali Hasanov, deputy prime minister and chairman of the State Commission on Combating Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking of the country, said that Azerbaijan's geographic location as a key transit country between Asia and Europe makes it more attractive for drug traffickers. He stressed the importance of capitalizing on global partnerships to combat the illegal drug trade. U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Lee Litzenberger said the country has been a key partner of the United States in combating transnational terrorism, which is so often closely linked with illegal drug trafficking. He commended the Azerbaijani government for its efforts to strengthen border control, customs procedures and maritime security to combat drug trafficking. The International Drug Enforcement Conference is a critical platform for law enforcement agencies from around the world to develop operational strategies that can be used against international drug traffickers. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 22:46:05|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close DAR ES SALAAM, April 15 (Xinhua) -- A German expert on Monday advised African countries, including Tanzania, to reject signing of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU) saying the deal has no economic benefits. Helmut Asche, an economist and sociologist from the University of Leipzig in Germany, said Tanzania and other African countries do not need to sign the EPA agreement because it is not beneficial to them. The German economic professor made the remarks at a news conference in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam. Asche said most African countries were in talks with European countries on the signing of the agreement, adding that if some countries preferred to sign the deal, nothing will happen to countries that will reject the deal. In February 2017, Tanzanian President John Magufuli described the EPA as a "form of colonialism", dampening Tanzania's possibility of signing the deal with the EU. "It is bad for our country," Magufuli told a joint press conference with visiting Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni at the State House in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam. Magufuli disfavored EPAs, which were aimed at creating a free trade area between EU and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States. Magufuli noted that after studying EPA, he had realized that African countries would not benefit from it economically as its architects touted. He noted that terms included in the agreement were not intended to help African countries to grow economically. Ugandan President Museveni warned African countries that EPA might break up their unity. "It's better if the signing of the deal is shelved until further consultations are made." Museveni noted that the fact that many African countries had not signed EPA showed that the proposal was meant to create disunity among African countries. There has been criticism in other quarters that the non-reciprocal and discriminating preferential trade agreements offered by EU are incompatible with World Trade Organization rules. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 22:56:15|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close MOSCOW, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Tajik President Emomali Rahmon will pay an official visit to Russia on Tuesday and Wednesday at the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said in a statement Monday. On Wednesday, Putin and Rahmon will discuss "key issues of bilateral relations and measures to further develop mutually beneficial cooperation in political, trade, economic, cultural, humanitarian and other fields," it said. The parties will also exchange opinions on current regional issues, the statement said, adding that a series of joint documents will be signed during the visit. Russia and Tajikistan are close allies, with the Central Asian republic hosting a Russian military base. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 23:06:21|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ZAGREB, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Croatian Minister of Tourism Gari Cappelli announced on Monday various joint activities to be carried out in both Croatia and China to promote tourism and establish stronger cultural and transport links as part of the celebration of the Year of Culture and Tourism between the two countries. The activities include study trips for Chinese media and tour operators in Croatia, workshops and cultural-tourist events, as well as many presentations at tourist fairs. Some of these activities have been agreed last week during the visit of the Chinese delegation to Croatia when Cappelli and his Chinese counterpart signed a Memorandum of Cooperation in the field of special forms of tourism. The signing of the Memorandum is a sign that both China and Croatia recognize the potential for cooperation, which is the basis for future concrete activities, the Croatian minister said. "The Chinese market is extremely important to us because their tourists are not motivated by a holiday rest, rather with a cultural offer, gastronomy and other special forms of tourism," said Cappelli. According to the minister, a total of 234,100 visitors from China visited Croatia in 2018, with 344,000 overnight stays, an increase of 46 percent compared to 2017. "Positive trends from that market are expected this year too," Cappelli said in his announcement. In January 2019, 33 Chinese citizens got tour guide licenses in Zagreb, in February Chinese artists performed in the city of Varazdin in northern Croatia, while in March there was a conference "The Role of China in Southeast Europe" in Zagreb. Croatian tourist board also organized two workshops in China for around 200 Chinese tour operators in Beijing and Shanghai earlier this year, while the Zagreb tourist board presented its offers in Beijing last month. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 23:11:29|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close DHAKA, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Bhutanese Prime Minister Lotay Tshering on Monday wrapped up a four-day official visit to Bangladesh. Lotay Tshering arrived in Dhaka on Friday to hold talks with the Bangladesh leadership to boost ties between the two countries. Bangladeshi Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen and State Minister for Disaster Management and Relief Md Enamur Rahman, among other dignitaries, saw him off at the airport. A host of bilateral deals between the two nations were signed. The deals, which were enacted during a signing ceremony in presence of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Bhutani counterpart Lotay Tshering in Bangladesh capital Dhaka, revolved around cooperation on inland waterways, health, agriculture, tourism and Public Administration Training Centers. According to a joint statement that was issued on Sunday night, both sides agreed in principle to work on allowing duty-free and quota-free access of a number of products to each other's market for mutual interests. The two prime ministers welcomed the ongoing discussions among Bangladesh, Bhutan and India on the proposed trilateral cooperation in hydroelectric power. The two sides also exchanged views on cooperation in other regional and international fora namely SAARC, BIMSTEC and the UN, and noted the commonality of their views and positions on all major issues and agreed to continue to work together for mutual benefit. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 23:21:37|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close WINDHOEK, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Namibia's economy is expected to grow by 0.3 percent this year, according to the country's central bank's April 2019 Economic Outlook Update released Monday. The real Gross Domestic Product growth is projected to recover slightly to 0.3 percent, before improving to 1.9 percent in 2020, the central bank's director of strategic communication and financial sector development, Emma Halyambo said. "The expected recovery will be supported mainly by anticipated improvements in the construction, hotels and restaurant sectors," she said. According to Halyambo, the latest overall growth projection of 0.3 percent for 2019 represents a downward revision from 1.5 percent published during December 2018. "More information about economic activities for 2019 is now available and it is clear that growth estimates for diamonds, uranium and metal ores are lower than what was anticipated in December 2018 update," she added. According to Halyambo, risks to domestic growth are mainly in the form of persistently low uranium price and unpredictable rainfall, she noted. "The low uranium price increases uncertainty about expected production from uranium mines, while the erratic rainfall may continue to negatively affect the performance of the agriculture sector beyond 2019," she added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 23:31:40|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close Aerial photo taken on April 15, 2019 shows a house submerged by flood in Khuzestan province, southwestern Iran. Recent flood damages in Iran are estimated to be 2.5 billion U.S. dollars, Financial Tribune daily reported on Monday. (Xinhua/Ahmad Halabisaz) TEHRAN, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Recent flood damages in Iran are estimated to be 2.5 billion U.S. dollars, Financial Tribune daily reported on Monday. The announcement was made by the Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli in Iran's parliament. "Unprecedented" heavy rainfall and subsequent floods have inundated 25 of Iran's 31 provinces since March 19, Rahmani Fazli was quoted as saying. Agriculture Minister Mahmoud Hojjati said that the subsectors of agriculture incurred losses of up to 948.9 million U.S. dollars due to the floods. "Farms, orchards, livestock, poultry and bee farms were the hardest-hit," Hojjati told the parliament. Besides, Roads and Urban Development Minister Mohammad Eslami put the damages to roads, railroads, bridges and related facilities and infrastructure at 237.22 million dollars. "More than 14,000 kilometers of roads have suffered damages. About 725 bridges have been totally destroyed," Eslami was quoted as saying by Eghtesadonline news website on Monday. According to the Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian, water and electricity facilities across the flood-stricken provinces suffered 153.3 million dollars in loss. "Some 2,352 rural areas suffered electricity outages," said the minister. "We have managed to reconnect all villages, except 35, to the electricity network until now," Ardakanian said, adding that "water supply to 3,788 rural areas was cut off during the floods. Right now, the problem persists in only 1.5 percent of these villages." Other sectors like industry, mining, business outlets and communication infrastructures of Iran have suffered a total loss of 255 million dollars in the Iranian floods, according to Eghtesadonline. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has ordered to withdraw two billion euros (2.26 billion dollars) from the National Development Fund to be allocated for alleviating the plight of flood-hit residents and helping rebuild destroyed infrastructures. The recent floodings in most parts of Iran have claimed the lives of at least 76 people. In the heavy downpours in north, west and southwest of the country, hundreds were injured. Iranian officials are warning that even though floodwaters have been receding in most parts of the country, several provinces remain under the flood alerts due to renewed heavy precipitation. Ahad Vazifeh, an official with Iran's Meteorological Organization, said Sunday that there is a possibility that flash floods could still affect the southern provinces of Fars and Hormozgan, Sistan and Baluchestan in the southeast as well as South Khorasan and Khorasan Razavi provinces in the northeast of the country which are in a state of emergency. Rainfall is also expected to intensify in the southwestern Province of Khuzestan, he said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 23:51:53|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close JUBA, April 15 (Xinhua) -- A South Sudanese diplomat on Monday hailed China's poverty eradication model that has made the country become the world's second largest economy, saying it could be replicated locally to unleash prosperity. John Andruga Duku, South Sudan's Ambassador to China said that Beijing's unique economic development model offers viable lessons to his country as it heals from five years of civil strife. He said the world's youngest nation needs to benefit from China's anti-poverty drive that has delivered success. He also noted that what helped China to eradicate poverty so rapidly in the past 40 years is infrastructure development. The official made the remarks in an interview with Xinhua Monday. He came to Juba for official consultation with the government. Duku said the oil-rich country's engagement with China is a win-win deal and South Sudan has embarked on infrastructure development through Chinese construction firms. "We want to reduce poverty through infrastructure development and we are now doing it with a Chinese firm, Shandong Hi-Speed Group Company Limited to construct our major highways linking Juba to the remote hinterland," said Duku. The diplomat said that South Sudan considers China a dependable friend in its bid to hasten reconstruction. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-15 23:51:55|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close TALLINN, April 15 (Xinhua) -- The Estonian parliament Monday voted not to grant Estonian Reform Party chairwoman Kaja Kallas the authority to form a coalition government. Among the total of 100 parliament members present in the sitting with another one absent, 45 voted in favor of granting Kallas the authority, while 53 voted against, with two abstentions. Kallas needed the support of at least 51 lawmakers. Chosen by Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid as the first prime minister candidate on April 5, Kallas proposed a coalition of the Reform Party and the Social Democratic Party, and published their own proposed coalition principles on Saturday. After Kallas, Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas, chairman of the Center Party, is expected to be the next prime minister candidate to form a new coalition government. The Estonian Center Party, the Conservative People's Party of Estonia and Isamaa, signed the coalition agreement on April 8, after the announcement on April 6 of the lineup of the 15 ministerial posts (including the prime minister) with five ministerial appointments for each party. In the parliamentary elections held on March 3, five political parties won seats in the 14th Riigikogu for a four-year term. Out of the 101 seats in total, the Reform Party has 34 seats, the Center Party 26, the Conservative People's Party 19, the Isamaa Party 12 and the Social Democratic Party 10. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-16 00:12:23|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- China on Monday urged U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to stop stirring up troubles between China and Latin America. Pompeo has reportedly made unfriendly remarks on China and China-Latin America relations during a visit to Chile and other Latin American countries. "It's utterly irresponsible and unreasonable for U.S. Secretary of State (Mike) Pompeo to recklessly slander China and wilfully stir up troubles over China-Latin America relations. We are strongly opposed to this," Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang told a press briefing. Cooperation between China and Latin American countries, guided by principles of mutual respect, equality, mutual benefit and win-win outcomes, focuses on common development and has made significant contributions to the economic growth and improvement of people's well-being in Latin American countries, Lu said. For a long time, the United States has regarded Latin America as its own "backyard" and has frequently pressured, threatened and even overthrown other regimes, he added. "We believe Latin American countries will make the correct judgment about who is a real friend and who is a fake one, and about who disregards rules and spreads disorder." The spokesperson also pointed out that for a long time, a number of U.S. politicians had maligned China, fanning up flames worldwide and driving a wedge between China and other countries. Calling such actions "disgraceful," Lu stressed that lies will always be lies and that "Mr. Pompeo should stop making them." Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-16 00:22:33|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close Chinese Premier Li Keqiang meets with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono and some other cabinet ministers who are here to attend the fifth high-level economic dialogue between China and Japan in Beijing, capital of China, April 15, 2019. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin) BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang Monday met with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono and some other cabinet ministers who were here to attend the fifth high-level economic dialogue between China and Japan. Li said China and Japan are important neighbors. Since last year, through joint efforts, bilateral relations have returned to the right track and achieved new development. On the basis of the principles enshrined in the four China-Japan political documents, the two sides should promote the long-term, healthy and stable development of bilateral relations in the spirit of taking history as a mirror and looking into the future. He said since China and Japan are two of the world's major economies, strengthening cooperation is not only in the interests of the two countries but also conducive to peace, stability and prosperity in the region and world. As both sides support free trade and abide by the rules of the World Trade Organization, they should work together to create a fair, equitable and non-discriminatory business environment for each other's companies, said Li. The Chinese side will unswervingly deepen reforms and expand opening up, and welcome Japanese companies to expand investment in China, Li added. China and Japan successfully held the first meeting of the China-Japan Innovative Cooperation Mechanism this April, said Li, expressing the hope that the two countries further enhance cooperation in the area of innovation and expand cooperation in the areas of finance, third-party market and tourism. The premier said China stands ready to work with Japan and other relevant parties to promote the negotiation of the China-Japan-Republic of Korea free trade agreement and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) to create more opportunities for regional countries. China supports Japan in hosting the G20 Okasa Summit this year, Li said, adding that China is willing to jointly promote the reform of global economic governance to inject new impetus into the world economy. Hailing that Japan-China ties returned to normal last year and the high-level economic dialogue yielded fruitful results, Taro Kono said Japan-China relations in the new era were greatly intensified. Japan is willing to enhance cooperation with China in areas such as innovation, finance, environmental protection, hydrogen-energy, tourism, youth, smart city and the third-party market, deepen coordination in multi-lateral areas and promote the RCEP negotiation to achieve new progress this year. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-16 00:27:39|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close NANCHANG, April 15 (Xinhua) -- American venture capital firm GreyBird Ventures signed an agreement with Chinese med-tech company JF Healthcare on Monday, pledging an investment of 5 million U.S. dollars to help the company develop intelligent technologies for better diagnosis at the community level. It is GreyBird Ventures's first investment project in the Asia-Pacific region, said Tom Miller, the firm's founder, at the signing ceremony held in Nanchang, capital of east China's Jiangxi Province. "GreyBird Ventures decided to invest in our company after four years of evaluation," said Wu Wenhui, founder of JF Healthcare. Wu added that the investment project shows JF Healthcare has gained recognition in the industry and the two companies will join hands to bring intelligent healthcare technologies to the world. Founded in 2015 and based in Nanchang, JF Healthcare has been dedicated to helping China's community-level hospitals improve medical services, particularly in medical image-based diagnosis, with its advanced technologies including AI and telemedicine. So far, it has cooperated with more than 1,000 community-level hospitals across China. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-16 00:42:56|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close CHENGDU, April 15 (Xinhua) -- A total of 246 cases involving ivory smuggling have been investigated and more than 20 kg of ivory and ivory products have been seized in the first quarter of the year, said customs authorities in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province. Over the period, Chengdu Customs has investigated 417 smuggling cases involving endangered animal and plant species amid its intensified anti-smuggling efforts, according to a press conference held by customs authorities on Monday. On March 26, customs officers at Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport found 18 ivory items smuggled by a passenger with the help of a CT scanner. The items weighed over 1.7 kg in total. China banned all domestic ivory trade at the end of 2017 as part of its commitment to protecting wild animals. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-16 00:48:01|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close SHANGHAI, April 15 (Xinhua) -- China's biggest online travel agency Ctrip is seeking wider inroads into the Japanese tourism market by inking a partnership with a local railway operator. Ctrip and East Japan Railway (JR-East) have a comprehensive strategic partnership to tap tourism resources in northeast Japan and woo more tourists to visit the island country. As part of the cooperation, the digital transport pass JR East Pass will be promoted on Ctrip platforms to enable tourists to prepare travel in advance. JR East's railway tickets can also be bought in advance on Ctrip online platforms. The services will be available from May, according to Ctrip. Japan is one of the most popular overseas travel destinations for Chinese tourists. Data from the Japan tourism authority shows that Chinese made 8.38 million trips to Japan in 2018, up 13.9 percent year on year. Ctrip has been stepping up its presence in Japan in recent years. The company established a Japanese branch to better serve travelers to Japan in 2015. It last year launched Trip.com, an independent brand primarily serving clients in Asia Pacific markets, in Tokyo to offer timely travel-related services. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-16 01:08:14|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close STOCKHOLM, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Nearly three weeks after U.S.-backed forces declared victory over the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria, the Swedish Security Service (SAPO) is preparing Sweden to receive up to 80 children caught in the conflict. Swedish News SVT reported on Monday that SAPO has notified several Swedish municipalities to prepare to receive children believed to be in camps in Syria. SAPO has not commented on the number of children affected, but last week Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported from Syria that around 60 children with Swedish parents who joined the IS were now in camps. The list includes children born in Sweden as well as those born in areas controlled by the IS. If and when the children could return to Sweden is unclear. "We are talking about children who were in the conflict area a few weeks ago. Given how (the situation) it is there, it is not certain that these children are still (in the camps) or still alive," Christina Kiernan, Stockholm's coordinator against violent extremism, told Dagens Nyheter. According to SAPO press secretary Sofia Hellqvist, SAPO has an obligation to notify local social services when it suspects children under the jurisdiction of that location could be in need of assistance. "What we are doing now is notifying (municipalities) about children who are in the conflict area in Syria. It is a way for the municipalities to be able to prepare for if and when these children come back," Hellqvist told SVT. The cities of Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmo and Orebro are among the municipalities requested to prepare for children returning from Syria. The children may be in need of emergency medical treatment, vaccinations, mental health support and, if the parents are deemed unfit, broader social services. According to SAPO, since 2012 around 300 people have traveled from Sweden to Syria and Iraq in order to join the conflict, primarily the IS. In 2019, about half of them have returned to Sweden, including children. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-16 01:28:26|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close SANAA, April 15 (Xinhua) -- At least 60 Ethiopian illegal migrants, including 37 women, were stranded in war-torn Yemen, detained and they are seeking help to be repatriated, local news website Almasdaronline reported on Monday. "We want to go to Saudi Arabia looking for a living not for problems," Abdo Yassin Idris was quoted by the pro-government Almasdaronline as saying in an interview at a police mandatory detention in Shmaytin district in the Yemeni southwestern province of Taiz. Shmaytin is under the Yemeni government control. Idris said they reached Yemen in March through a smuggling boat from Djibouti to the Yemeni southwestern province of Lahj on the Red Sea. They then traveled on foot and were arrested upon their arrival in Shmaytin, about 20 km away from the front line where battles are raging between the government troops and Houthi rebels. Idris said he and his group are seeking help to return safely to their homeland. The UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) office in Yemen could not immediately be reached for comment. In January, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it airlifted 322 Ethiopians from Yemen in cooperation with the IOM. In November 2018, The Ethiopian authorities said they repatriated more than 400 illegal migrants from Yemen in cooperation with IOM. African illegal migrants looking for better income chances were using Yemen as a transit point to their final destination, Saudi Arabia. The illegal migrants reportedly face abuses by smugglers and other criminals, including arbitrary detention. Yemen has been plagued in a civil war since late 2014. The war has killed tens of thousands of Yemenis, mostly civilians, and pushed the Arab nation into the brink of starvation. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea top leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin MOSCOW, April 15 (Xinhua) -- The Kremlin said Monday that a first-ever summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) top leader Kim Jong Un is being prepared. "I can confirm that the meeting is being prepared. We have been talking about this for a long time," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "As soon as there is complete clarity on the time and venue of this meeting, we will inform you. So far we cannot tell you anything concrete," he said. Earlier on Monday, the South Korean Yonhap News Agency quoted unnamed sources as saying that Kim may meet with Putin at the end of April on the eve of or right after Putin's visit to Beijing. During his trip to the DPRK on May 31 last year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov extended Putin's invitation to Kim to visit Russia. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-16 02:29:01|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close WASHINGTON, April 15 (Xinhua) -- A redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on the Russia investigation is expected to be released Thursday morning, the U.S. Justice Department said Monday. Attorney General William Barr intends to release the document to both Congress and the public, according to Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec. The release would come weeks after Mueller concluded his nearly two-year investigation into the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election by submitting a nearly 400 pages long confidential report to Barr. Barr later sent to Congress and made public a four-page summary of the report's "principal conclusions," stating that there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. The special counsel, meanwhile, did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump had obstructed justice, according to Barr's synopsis. The attorney general concluded Mueller's findings are "not sufficient" to support a charge. Democrats have demanded the full, unredacted report be made public to get a clearer picture of the special counsel's investigation. Barr has promised to be as transparent as possible but told lawmakers that parts of Mueller's report will be redacted to protect grand jury material, sensitive intelligence, matters that could affect ongoing investigations and damage to the privacy rights of third parties. President Donald Trump, who has touted Barr's summary as a "complete exoneration," renewed his attacks against the Mueller-led investigation on Monday. "Since there was no Collusion, why was there an Investigation in the first place!" Trump wrote in a tweet. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-16 03:24:33|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close JUBA, April 15 (Xinhua) -- The political transition in South Sudan's northern neighbor Sudan will not affect the ongoing peace implementation process in Juba, despite the recent military ouster of former President Omar al-Bashir following street protests in Khartoum, experts said on Monday. Bashir played central role in reviving the fragile peace process, under the auspices of the regional bloc Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) which eventually made him one of the key guarantors alongside Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni of the revitalized peace deal signed in September 2018 in Ethiopia. The peace deal this time looks to be largely holding amid doubts by the international community and lack of enough financial support due to the fact that past agreements backed by regional and international powers collapsed. Mawien Makol Ariik, South Sudan foreign ministry spokesman, told Xinhua that the peace process will remain on steady course despite political changes in Khartoum. "It will not affect the peace agreement. Sudan and South Sudan are two countries with cordial relations because they were one country before. The military council is capable of establishing a government and stability," he said in Juba. Makol's view was collaborated by Zachariah Diing Akol from the Juba-based Suddi Institute think tank, who observed that Bashir's departure won't change the course of the peace process since the members of the military council led by Lt. Gen Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan will maintain the same focus on South Sudan. "The departure of Bashir from power shouldn't create worries or fear from Juba, the people who have taken over like Gen. Fattah is someone who was in the army and should know the national interest of Sudan," Akol said. He disclosed that the relations between Sudan and South Sudan were not based on personalities but on mutual interests of the two countries, and that oil was key resource which benefits both countries. Akol said that Bashir's ouster will not create a power vacuum because the ruling military council is well conversant with South Sudan's political elites. "Bashir fought against us during the second Sudanese civil war and some of these generals that are in charge now were fighting. So you cannot say there is a (power) vacuum because Bashir has gone," added Akol. Jacob Dut Chol, professor of politics at University of Juba told Xinhua that Bashir's political exit will somehow impact the peace process because none of the members of the military council have the same political clout and leverage over the warring parties in South Sudan. "We are yet to see we are not yet certain of the change in leadership. Surely there will be some impact on the South Sudan peace agreement given that Bashir was having a personal commitment. So the Military Council will for now concentrate much on maintaining stability in Sudan than South Sudan's peace deal," he said. "Bashir is somebody experienced in politics and he knows South Sudan better than the generals in the military council," added Chol. He disclosed that the focus will now turn to Museveni, Ahmed Abiy the Ethiopian prime minister, and Eritrean leader Isaias Afewerki to push the peace process. "These same leaders can still call the shots. We hope that Museveni will take up the leadership in order to guarantee success of the peace process," said Chol. He also criticized the recent remarks by Riek Machar, leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army-In Opposition (SPLA-IO), that there was need for additional six months to implement the peace agreement since the parties are far behind schedule on key issues to meet the May 12 deadline for formation of transitional unity government (TGoNU). "If you wait for the reunification of the army before forming the unity government it may never take place. You cannot unify now the army when there is no unity government in place," said Chol. He revealed that the revitalized peace agreement was not something that Sudan came up with on its own as it is part of the (IGAD) region's agenda. James Okuk, political analyst, also hinted that nothing will change as the ruling generals in Khartoum are cadres of the system left behind by Bashir. "What is happening now is an internal Sudanese political row that has no effect on the relations between the two countries," said Okuk. "The regime is intact only the face of the leadership has changed. It is still the Bashir cadres in charge they will continue with whatever they have been doing on foreign relations and top of this list is South Sudan because of oil resource," he added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-16 03:59:48|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close Eleana Vrozidi, 28, who has been on the waiting list for a transplant operation for three years and two months, attends the Hellenic Transplant Organization's social awareness event in Athens, Greece, on April 15, 2019. Greece aims to double the rate of human organ donations for transplants within the next two years, the President of the Hellenic Transplant Organization (EOM), Andreas Karabinis, told Xinhua on Monday. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos) ATHENS, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Greece aims to double the rate of human organ donations for transplants within the next two years, the President of the Hellenic Transplant Organization (EOM), Andreas Karabinis, told Xinhua on Monday. Greece currently holds the last place across Europe as far as transplants are concerned, according to official statistics, with the rate of organ donations standing at about 5-6 per one million people, while the European average is 12-16, Karabinis said during a social awareness event hosted in Athens. "The reasons are mainly organizational. People do not trust the healthcare system. There is lack of knowledge regarding brain death and there is lack of knowledge and trust concerning Intensive Care Units. We have a lot of work to do. We take one step at a time and we hope that in the next two years we will be around 11-12," said the expert of the EOM, which coordinates and controls human organs, tissues and cells donation and transplantation in Greece. The EOM organized the social awareness event on Monday at the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center in Athens in coordination with the Onassis Foundation and the EUDONORGAN project which is supported by the European Commission and the European parliament. The EUDONORGAN project aims to promote organ donation and transplants in the European Union and neighboring countries. Donation in contrast to any financial transaction concerning transplants is the key word, Karabinis stressed. Karabinis expressed confidence that the creation of a national transplant center in Athens in the next two years will boost efforts to increase the rates in Greece. The "Onassis National Transplant Center" will be dedicated to solid organ transplants, with a total budget of 100 million euros (113 million U.S. dollars) provided by the Onassis Foundation, which was created by the late Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis to honor the memory of his son Alexander who died in an airplane crash in 1973. The center, to be built next to the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, is expected to be ready in two years and will also include the first transplant unit exclusively for children in Greece. According to the Onassis Foundation, the new center will be a public hospital, like the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, where all citizens can have access. Patients who have underwent transplantation or are still on the waiting list for an organ were among those participating at Monday's event. Katerina Tsantou, 34, received a heart transplant at Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center seven years ago. "It was extremely difficult just hearing about transplantation, because until then I had no idea about it. I hadn't even heard the word... It was very difficult for me to accept the idea and I delayed the process for a year," she told Xinhua. She was on the waiting list for 8 months. She was lucky in her ordeal because due to her rare blood type and other factors she was the only compatible candidate when the family of a 16-year-old boy who died in a nearby hospital of aneurysm donated all his organs. "I am grateful to them every day. I wish other people will follow their example and say Yes to organs donation... I am certain that after receiving full information one can only say Yes to this," Tsantou said. Eleana Vrozidi 28, has been on the waiting list for three years and two months. "I have no anxiety about undergoing the transplant operation. I am anxious about when it will happen, because the time of dependence on the device is too long and I have started to feel tired," she told Xinhua referring to the medical device which keeps her alive. "It is difficult, because there is always anxiety about something happening. I have come to terms with this. My relatives are more anxious than me," she explained. She believed the low rates of organ donors in Greece was due to lack of information about the procedures. "I understand that someone may be afraid, but really there is no reason to be. Only when a patient is clinically dead, organs are removed. Clinically dead means there is no possibility of returning to life. It is different from being in a coma. People have not understood the difference yet," she stressed. File Photo: Syrian army soldiers fire an artillery on the Islamic State (IS) positions near the city of al-Bukamal in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zour province, Syria, on Nov. 10, 2017. (Xinhua/Ammar Safarjalani) WASHINGTON, April 15 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Department of the Treasury said on Monday that it has slapped sanctions on seven individuals and one entity for their financial support for the Islamic State (IS). Among the designated targets, six individuals and the money services business entity are part of the Rawi Network, a key ISIS financial facilitation group based out of Iraq. The seventh designated individual is a Kenya-based female financial facilitator who has played an important role in an IS facilitation network in East Africa, according to a statement issued by the Treasury. As the result of sanctions, all property and interests in property of those sanctioned targets that were subject to U.S. jurisdiction would be blocked, and U.S. persons were generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them. "Our sanctions underscore how the ISIS threat has morphed, with financial cells on multiple continents, and with female operatives such as Halima Adan Ali, a Kenya-based financial facilitator," said Sigal Mandelker, under secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence. She also said the Treasury was dedicated to ensuring the enduring defeat of IS by cutting off all remaining sources of their terror funding around the globe. U.S. President Donald Trump claimed last month that the IS-held territory in Syria and Iraq had been fully liberated. While General Joseph Votel, head of the U.S. Central Command, said earlier the same month that the IS would be "a serious generational problem" and "the fight against IS is far from over." Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-16 04:50:30|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close Ma Zhaoxu, Chinese permanent representative to the United Nations, addresses a meeting of UN Security Council on the situation in Yemen at the UN headquarters in New York, April 15, 2019. Ma Zhaoxu called on the Yemeni parties to earnestly implement the Stockholm Agreement that offers the best hope in years of moving toward an end to the country's war. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) UNITED NATIONS, April 15 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Monday told the United Nations Security Council that the Yemeni parties must earnestly implement the Stockholm Agreement that offers the best hope in years of moving toward an end to the country's war. Parties concerned should "continue pushing for the implementation of the Stockholm Agreement... The Yemeni parties must implement the agreement in earnest," Ma Zhaoxu, China's permanent representative to the UN, said at the Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East. Noting that ceasefire is holding "on the whole" in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah and its surrounding areas, Ma noted that "the security situation is fragile with limited progress in the implementation of the agreement." "The security landscape gives us no cause for optimism. The situation is dire on the humanitarian front, and the country is confronted with multiple economic and social challenges," said the Chinese envoy. However, Ma noted that "the desire remains among the Yemeni parties to promote the implementation of the agreement in search for a political solution." The Chinese ambassador said that the international community should "encourage the Yemeni parties to keep up effective political dialogue and negotiation," noting that various parties in Yemen are "sharply divided." "The basis for mutual trust is far from robust. There is a long road ahead towards a political settlement," he said. "The Security Council should remain united, fully consider and respect the views of the countries concerned, and other countries in the region," the Chinese envoy added. Ma called on the international community to continue to provide political support for the dialogue and negotiation between the Yemeni parties and urged regional countries to keep up their constructive assistance to this end. Speaking of the humanitarian situation in the country, the Chinese envoy said that "the international community should increase humanitarian assistance to Yemen... and provide targeted support, both financial and in kind, including food and medicines, to help the country respond to famine, the cholera outbreak, displacement and other challenges." "The humanitarian needs of women, children and the vulnerable groups should feature prominently on the agenda and support be provided to Yemen in improving its economy to meet the basic needs of his people," he added. Talking about the final way out for the issue of Yemen, the ambassador said that "there is no alternative to a political solution. The parties concerned should uphold Yemeni sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity, and support a broadly inclusive political solution to be achieved through dialogue and negotiation." According to the deal reached in Stockholm in December 2018, the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels should withdraw troops from the city of Hodeidah and ports of Hodeidah, Salif and Ras Issa. Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014 when the Houthi rebels overtook the capital Sana'a and ousted the internationally-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. A Saudi-led coalition has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-16 06:06:20|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close HELSINKI, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Antti Rinne, chairman of the Finnish Social Democratic Party, said on Monday he hoped to be able to form a new government by the end of May. The Social Democratic Party emerged as the largest party in parliament following the general election on Sunday, with 40 seats out of the 200 in total. It was followed narrowly by the populist Finns Party, with 39 seats, and the conservative National Coalition Party, with 38 seats. The Center Party led by the current prime minister Juha Sipila suffered a major defeat and would have 31 seats, which is the smallest parliamentary group for over 100 years. The check-up counting of ballots on Monday brought no changes. In Lapland, a candidate of the Green Party was only a few votes behind a centrist and in Pori a centrist just behind a social democrat, but Monday's check-up countings confirmed Sunday's results, local media reported. The final results will be officially confirmed on Wednesday. POLARIZED HELSINKI Helsinki, the capital of Finland, became a prime example of the polarization of the country. Observers on Monday said the polarization of Helsinki should be in no one's interest. The populist Finns Party narrowly became the second biggest party in parliament, but only got some 12 percent of the votes in Helsinki. Its backing roots mainly in a few suburbs where the impact of segregation and a large immigrant population has been tangible. While the populist leader Jussi Halla-aho won 30,527 votes in the city and exceeded the personal record attained by President Sauli Niinisto when he was a conservative MP candidate earlier, the value-liberal character of the capital increased at the same time. The Green Party replaced the conservatives as the largest here, and got 23.5 percent of the votes. Their backing in the national level was much smaller. As part of the trend, Left Alliance grew in Helsinki, and also most of the conservative and social democratic candidates elected in Helsinki were value-liberals. COALITION NEGOTIATION Likely to be the next prime minister, Rinne told Finnish media on Monday that unofficial contacts between the parties began already prior to the election. Rinne is considered an experienced trade union negotiator and he said he has a "hunch" that there could be political will for an easy way forward. Rinne said earlier on Monday he saw the inclusion of the populist Finns Party in the government as "unlikely". The chairman of the anti-immigration Finns Party, Jussi Halla-aho said on Monday his party would be willing to make compromises on the immigration issue. Local commentators have noted the social democrats are likely to try to form a cabinet that includes the Green Party, either the conservatives or the centrists, and a smaller non-socialist party, probably the Swedish people's party. The inclusion of the also-winning Left Alliance is not that certain. The smaller than expected winning margin of the social democrats has improved the bargaining position of both the centrists and the conservatives. Despite their bad result, the Center did not announce an outright option to stay in opposition. Talking to international media, Markku Jokisipila, director of the Center for Parliamentary Studies of Turku University, noted the traditional social policy line of the Center Party has favored cooperation with the political left. The Center's defeat was attributed to a public reaction against its right wing economic and social policies that Sipila started pushing for in 2015. Rinne said on Monday he wanted to improve the mood of the labor market to counter the impact of Sipila's governmental policies. He pledged to offer a framework for labor market talks that would create a joint vista for employers and wage earners. The social democrats would have difficulty in accommodating the conservative party's economic policies to their agenda. Leading conservatives repeated on Monday that they would not join a government that increases taxes. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-16 06:21:39|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BERLIN, April 15 (Xinhua) -- A total of 304.7 million tons of seaborne goods was handled in German sea ports in 2018, marking an increase of 1.7 percent compared to the previous year, the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced on Monday. The volume of goods which German seaports received from other ports increased by 2.0 percent. The shipping of goods from German seaports over the world's oceans increased slightly less strong but still grew by 1.8 percent. According to Destatis, the number of containers handled at German seaports remained unchanged at around 15.1 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEU) in 2018. China remained the most important trade partner for maritime freight transport with 3.0 million standard units, followed by the United States with 1.4 million TEUs and Russia with 0.7 million TEUs. "Trade with China contributed the most, with an increase of 5.3 percent to a total of 22.9 million tons," Daniel Hosseus, managing director of the central association of German seaport companies (ZDS), told Xinhua on Monday. These "positive numbers" would underline the importance of trade between China and Germany, added Hosseus. "The increase in imports and exports via German seaports is an encouraging sign and shows how important shipping is for the economy," Ralf Nagel, chief executive officer (CEO) of the German Shipowners' Association (VDR), told Xinhua on Monday. Especially in "times of protectionism and isolation", shipping would need to be a "particularly strong advocate of globalization", emphasized VDR CEO Nagel. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-16 06:36:42|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close A patient suffers from the cholera epidemic and receives medical treatment at a health center in Sanaa, Yemen, on April 15, 2019. So far this year, 200,000 suspected cases of deadly cholera had been reported in Yemen, almost three times the same period last year, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock said on Monday. (Xinhua/Mohammed Mohammed) UNITED NATIONS, April 15 (Xinhua) -- The humanitarian situation in Yemen is dire and the end is nigh for the Yemenis without more international support, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock told the Security Council on Monday. "The relief operation is running out of money. Barring changes, the end is nigh," Lowcock briefed the Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Yemen via video-link from London, picking up the passionate plea of UN Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths for the international community to act now, to save countless Yemeni lives. Lowcock reiterated his earlier call for a nationwide ceasefire, adding that "all the men with guns and bombs need to stop the violence. We again remind the parties that international humanitarian law binds them in all locations and at all times." But "bullets are not the only risk to life and limb," he warned, citing that so far this year, 200,000 suspected cases of deadly cholera had been reported, almost three times the same period last year. "We see the consequences of the destruction of the health system elsewhere too. More than 3,300 cases of diphtheria have been reported since 2018 - the first outbreak in Yemen since 1982. Earlier this year, new measles cases surged to nearly twice the levels reported at the same time in 2018." "Looming over everything, the risk of famine continues," he warned, saying that the World Food Programme was upping the reach of support for the world's largest aid operation. Access to the vulnerable remains a key challenge, he said, making clear that grain that could feed 3.7 million hungry Yemenis in Hodeidah's Red Sea Mills, remained trapped due to conflict. Money was running out to save lives, he said, with only 267 million U.S. dollars received so far, out of 2.6 billion pledged. The World Health Organization, he said, "projects that 60 percent of diarrhea treatment centers could close in the coming weeks, and services at 50 percent of secondary care facilities, could be disrupted." "We remain keenly aware that a sustainable peace would be the most effective remedy for the humanitarian crisis in Yemen," Lowcock concluded. "Without peace, we will simply go on treating the symptoms of this crisis, instead addressing the cause." Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-16 06:36:44|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, April 15 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations said on Monday that it wants to do more to help the people of Rukban in southeast Syria -- those who fled and those are still there -- if granted full access. Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, expressed the world organization's willingness to engage more directly if granted full access. The United Nations is providing limited support to the evacuees through the Red Crescent, including food, nutrition, water, hygiene kits, and medical services. The United Nations has not been granted access to the shelters, he told a regular briefing. On Sunday, 1,433 people left Rukban, Dujarric said, adding that more than half of them were children. "This is the fifth group of people who've left Rukban in the past three weeks," he said. "To date, more than 3,600 people have exited Rukban camp for shelters in and around Homs city. Nearly 1,200 have left shelters to stay with relatives." Aiding in the exodus from Rukban is in line with the results of a survey carried out by the UN and Syrian Arab Red Crescent in February, in which 95 percent of the people surveyed expressed a desire to leave, he said. At the same time, those polled expressed significant protection concerns. "Our humanitarian colleagues add that over the past four days, 10 people have been killed and 20 people have been injured, in hostilities and explosions in Aleppo, Idleb and Hama Governorates in the northwest part of the country," the spokesman said. "We call again on all parties to the conflict to cease all violence and remind them of their obligations under international humanitarian law and human rights law," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-16 06:36:45|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ROME, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Italian leaders late on Monday expressed solidarity with France after a massive fire tore through the roof of the Notre Dame de Paris (Our Lady of Paris) cathedral, a Gothic structure whose flying buttresses, enormous rose windows and sculptural decorations were a symbol of the French nation, much like the Eiffel Tower. The cathedral, which drew millions of visitors from around the world every year, was built beginning in the 12th century and was partially destroyed during the French Revolution in the 1790s. In a televised speech to the nation shortly before midnight on Monday, a visibly moved President Emmanuel Macron said that "the worst has been averted" thanks to the bravery and skill of the hundreds of firefighters who fought the blaze that started in the early evening, and promised the French people that Notre Dame will be rebuilt. In a message to Macron, Italian President Sergio Mattarella wrote that "the whole of Italy stands in sincere friendship with the people of France". Mattarella described the Cathedral of Notre Dame as "a historic treasure that has housed an exceptional artistic heritage of immense significance for France, for Europe, and for world culture" in his message, which was published by Italian news agency ANSA late on Monday. Speaking to RAI public broadcaster, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said he will contact the French government "to express the extreme and moved participation on the part of the Italian government and the Italian people in this bereavement, because I consider this a true bereavement". The prime minister added that Notre Dame was "a monument of the French identity and of all those who loved the values of Western civilization". Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio tweeted that "I stand with the people of France over this terrible fire that has struck the Cathedral of Notre Dame, a heritage of humanity as a whole. For Paris and for France, the support of the entire Italian government!" Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-16 06:46:50|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LISBON, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Portuguese President Rebelo de Sousa and Prime Minister Antonio Costa on Monday respectively sent their heartfelt condolences to French President Emmanuel Macron after a fire ravaged the world-famous Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The fire engulfed the Notre Dame, hurt the heart and soul of the people, because the cathedral was a major symbol of the human imagination, said the president in a message, published in the portal of the Presidency of the Republic on the Internet. "It is a tragedy for the French people, for the Europeans and even for all the world," he added. Prime Minister Antonio Costa also conveyed messages of solidarity for the "terrible fire" to the French president. "I have just expressed my solidarity with French President Emmanuel Macron and the mayor of the city, Anne Hidalgo, for the terrible fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. A part of our European history disappears under the flames," wrote Antonio Costa on the social network Twitter. The fire at the Notre Dame on Monday afternoon destroyed the spire of the 850-year-old historical cathedral. Scandalul Diana Sosoaca bubuie in Parlament: ar putea fi arsa la buzunar Scandalul provocat de senatorul Diana Sosoaca cu jurnalistii de la RAI Uno are reverberatii in Parlament, asta pentru ca cei de la USR vor propune, in Biroul Permanent al Senatului sanctiuni pentru Sosoaca. Intr-o sedinta care va avea loc, luni, [citeste mai departe] If the molehill won't come to Terrence, then Terrence will come to the molehill. The situation with the debates between Ukraines presidential aspirants Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky remains tensed and uncompromising the candidates failed to agree on the date of the debates. But both of them have found a much more interesting platform for debating the Elysee Palace of the French President. Emmanuel Macron had a meeting with Zelensky and after that, he met with Poroshenko. Before landing in Paris, Poroshenko has visited Germany; Chancellor Angela Merkel called his opponent a non-system politician, and explained his success with a pan-European trend. Hyped Interestingly, on the eve of the visit, the French Le Monde gave slightly different characteristics to Zelensky. Newspapers called him young and inexperienced. Petro Poroshenko was hinted at his secondary positions, the outlet also called him the one who is resigning. Ukraines presidential candidates have both submitted to drug tests as the countrys elections increasingly resemble a political circus in the final weeks of the campaign, writes the British The Guardian in an article Ukraine president takes up comedians drug test challenge. There are some foreign outlets that analyze the situation in more depth: Poroshenko also has been repeatedly accused of turning a blind eye to corruption. In addition, the exposure of a military embezzlement scheme that allegedly involved top Poroshenko associates as well as a factory controlled by the president has badly dented his popularity. Poroshenko has denied any links to the scheme. In an apparent bid to deflect criticism, Poroshenko on Thursday signed a decree to appoint members of the High Anti-Corruption Court a longtime demand of both the United States and the European Union, The Washington Post explains. And we go back to France, the already quoted Le Monde convinces: the meeting on the Elysee Palace was considered necessary in order to convey to both candidates about Europes continued support of Ukraine. April in Paris Meanwhile, the Ukrainian side is convinced that Macron needed a meeting with the candidates not only to swear allegiance to the chosen course. It was a kind of a bride show for Zelensky. The meeting of Macron and Poroshenko was held behind the closed doors, and its public part was a kind of a joint press conference. No doubt, Macron knows how to behave before the journalists, no matter how strong are the emotions are inside. As for the conversation between Macron and Zelensky, it was quite an informal meeting. Only half an hour was allotted to Zelensky and his team, but the meeting lasted 1 hour and 15 minutes. The press service of the candidate reported that they have discussed some nuances of the second round. Zelensky himself later said to Radio Liberty: Very cool, warm atmosphere; our meeting was very productive. I have met with the real leader of a united Europe. And I liked it, Zelensky stated. What did we talk about? About life, about crucial things. We talked about ending the war in Donbas, he added, answering questions from media representatives. It is noteworthy that both guests of the Elysee Palace interpret their stay there in their own favor. Petro Poroshenko needs to demonstrate that he is still a president, and Volodymyr Zelensky shows that he is already the president. The president of one of the advanced countries wants to personally meet Zelensky. Who is Zelensky? This is a surprise for the Ukrainian elections. He wants to personally shake hands with the winner in the first round. But this is just a friendly meeting, and Macron will not speak in support of Zelensky, political experts Taras Semenyuk suggests Sincere friendship and political tactlessness In general, the experts emphasize: a double rendezvous with candidates who are at the forefront of the struggle for the presidency is something unusual for Western diplomacy. As a rule, Western politicians meet with the winner in order to define the relationship strategy. In such a format, a somewhat dismissive attitude towards Ukraine could be seen; being a third world state, it is unable to cope with its own elections on its own. Ukrainian experts are outraged by the order of meetings at the Elysee Palace. The fact that Poroshenko was hosted after Zelensky was the verge of political tactlessness, Viktor Nebozhenko, the director of the Ukrainian Barometer sociological service, is convinced. The protocol filming on the porch of the Elysee Palace prompted the Ukrainian president to share a photo on Twitter with his French colleague: I am pleased to meet with Ukraines sincere friend Emmanuel Macron. About an hour later, Poroshenkos meeting with Macron came to an end. Took adieu, Alla Lazareva, a journalist who lives and works in France, commented on Facebook. In her photo, you can see how two sincere friends hug before Poroshenkos departure. At a joint briefing with Petro Poroshenko, which took place a few hours before the events in Paris, Angela Merkel has openly stated: Regardless of the election result, I want to say that we will work for the positive development of Ukraine. Did Macron think the same? Read the original text at 112.ua. Kolomoyskys bare-bones agenda is to terminate the courts both in Ukraine and abroad, his ultimate goal is to receive compensation or bargain for some business preferences Open source We have already talked about a chance of Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky to return his expropriated PrivatBank. After the first round of elections, these encroachments acquired clearer forms: the oligarch said that he did not claim the bank to be returned back, but was seeking compensation in the amount of 2 billion USD. However, we have three news and all of them are good. First: the re-nationalization of Privatbank is still impossible, so this option should not be even considered. Second, compensation is possible, but unlikely, because it carries too many risks. Third: rumors about puppet are somewhat exaggerated. Presidential hopeful Volodymyr Zelensky, often associated with his business partner Kolomoysky, comes to the conclusion that he needs to win parliamentary elections. So, Zelenskys Servant of the People party should not cause a sharp idiosyncrasy in the society, whose leader puts his hands into the pockets of the ordinary taxpayers to satisfy oligarch. The presidential candidates are preparing for the political debates, the most important debates of spring 2019 would be held in the court. The district administrative court of Kyiv, having heard the parties to the conflict, on April 18 will put an end to the consideration of the claim on recognition of the nationalization of PrivatBank as illegal. Back in 2016, PrivatBank, one of the largest banks in Ukraine was recognized as insolvent. The state bought its shares for 1 hryvnia, and the owner went to such a deal voluntarily. Subsequently, the National Bank of Ukraine has spent about 4,17 billion USD to stabilize the situation in a financial institution. Later on, the ex-owner of PrivatBank declared that the procedure was unlawful, it was violated, therefore, the value of the assets should be compensated. At the same time, Kolomoysky established the amount of compensation: 2 billion USD, motivating the figure by the fact that this amount of money was in the bank at the moment of its nationalization. Kateryna Rozhkova, National Bank deputy chairman, refutes it. The decision to nationalize PrivatBank should have been made much earlier. At the time of making this decision, a bank had negative capital and virtually had no liquidity. Economist Oleksandr Okhrimenko notes that Ukraine does not have any legal framework for conducting renationalization. For example, in December 2017, the High Court of London first accepted a lawsuit against Kolomoysky, his partner oligarch Hennadiy Bogolyubov and companies affiliated with them, and even issued an order to arrest the assets of oligarchs in the amount of more than 2,5 billion USD, but then decided that it did not have enough jurisdiction to handle this claim. However, the matter did not leave the limits of the kingdom. Now the case to be considered by the Court of Appeal. As for Switzerland, local Themis is studying an episode related to debts on refinancing loans for 273 million USD. And in Ukraine, as already mentioned, the main intrigue revolves around the recognition or non-recognition of the nationalization of PrivatBank as illegal. However, in general, the Ukrainian courts are considering 150 lawsuits relating to the PrivatBank issue. So, for example, in March 2019, the Pechersk court of Kyiv seized the assets of companies associated with Kolomoyskys and Bogolyubovs Privat group. Political suicide On the one hand, oligarch Kolomoysky is fighting for his interests, and on the other, the state of Ukraine is fronting for its own. However, after a couple of weeks, the state might change its official head, but will Kolomoysky benefit from it? The rumors that Kolomoysky is controlling Zelensky are a bit exaggerated. I dont care what would happen to Kolomoysky... PrivatBank is now a state organization, why should it go back to Kolomoysky? the presidential aspirant said. Perhaps Zelenskys voice is still not very confident and not very convincing, however, the hypothetical leader of Ukraine will not use the so-called telephone justice. Actually, the payment of 2 billion USD would be a heavy burden on Ukraines budget. Kolomoyskys real aspirations In short, the final resolution of the dispute is postponed. However, does Igor Kolomoysky really want to take 2 billion USD from Ukraine's budget? The current year will be particularly tense for the state treasury, given the need to return 14.2 billion USD to Ukraines external creditors. We cannot cope with this task without the participation of the IMF. And in the Fund might negatively react to the squandering of the seventh part of our debt obligations. However, we should not appeal to Kolomoyskys patriotism here. Such an experienced player could start a scheme with a lawsuit not to punish Ukraine, or to get revenge on Poroshenko. Experts say that the real goal of Kolomoysky is connected with some other business interests. Here, the ask more, and youll get exactly what you need principle works. Kolomoyskys bare-bones agenda is to terminate the courts both in Ukraine and abroad. For Kolomoisky, international courts are a constant danger that his assets can be arrested again. That is, the bare-bones agenda is to neutralize such risks. And the ultimate goal is to receive compensation or bargain for a business preference, Oleksiy Kushch, financial analyst, states. In addition, Kolomoyskys perseverance might mean a trump card in the sleeve for a more advantageous negotiating position on his Ukrnafta, Ukraines largest producer of oil and gas (controlled by Kolomoysky, - ed.), says Kushch. However, the desire to obtain moral satisfaction also cannot be completely discounted. Vadym Karasiov, director of the Institute of Global Strategies, says that PrivatBank is a special pearl in Kolomoyskys empire. And this is not only about the financial side of the issue. He created this bank and implemented the plan, drawing modern management to the development of the idea. Perhaps he is right, and perhaps those who believe that the administrative justice is just a platform for further bidding. Big business is incompatible with big passions, and therefore, if Kolomoysky seeks to get out of the situation with the least losses and the greatest profit, he probably should forget about his special pearl. At least for the sake of preserving the other values. Read the original text at 112.ua. April 14, the Russian-backed militants fired at Ukraine defenders positions in Donbas conflict zone four times and did not use weapons of forbidden calibers. This is reported by the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) headquarters. The occupants fired at positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Avdiivka using machine-guns, anti-tank grenade launchers; and they fired from large-caliber machine guns and small arms in the area of Vodiane. The occupiers twice-fired at the Ukrainian positions in Donetsk sector. Militants attacked our strongholds near Novotoshkivske from automatic grenade launchers, large-caliber machine guns, and small arms; and near Novoluhanske - from automatic machine guns and grenade launchers. Earlier, The International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) has sent 14 trucks with humanitarian aid to the uncontrolled territory of Donbas. 14 trucks from ICRC were sent through Novotroitske checkpoint to the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine. The residents of Donbas will receive 231,4 tons of humanitarian aid, in particular, food, agricultural materials, building materials, medicine, and medical supplies, the message reads. Donbas militants opened fire with anti-tank missile complex, grenade launchers of various systems, heavy machine guns, and small arms April 13, pro-Kremlin militants have shelled 14 times the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Donbas combat zone. The Joint Forces Operation (JFO) HQ reported this on Facebook. The enemy shelled our defenders with anti-tank missile complex, grenade launchers of various systems, heavy machine guns, and small arms, besides they used the Minsk-banned military four times (120 mm mortar, twice with 82 mm mortar), the report said. The occupant opened fire 11 times in Donetsk region: Avdiivka, Verkhniotoretske, Pavlopil, Pisky, and Lebedynske settlement. The Russia-backed militants shelled the position of the Joint Forces operation in Luhansk region three times (near Novooleksandrivka and Pivdenne settlements). No casualties among Ukrainian soldiers have been spotted. Ukraine's side stopped the fire by opening fire as well. On April 13, the pro-Russian militants violated the ceasefire in Donbas conflict zone six times and used weapons of prohibited calibers. 82-mm caliber mortars were used to attack the Ukrainian positions in the Novotroitske area. The enemy fired Ukraine's positions near Avdiivka, using anti-tank missile systems; shelled with grenade launchers of various systems Ukraine's soldiers near Pavlopil; with hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers in Pisky area; with automatic grenade launchers and small arms - near Avdiivka. The document will come into force in six days after its official publication The President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko Presidential Administration press office President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko stated he signed the law on bankruptcies during his speech on April 15 broadcasted by 112 Ukraine. Some good news. Today I have signed a law on bankruptcies. Despite the fact that we had some questions concerning the organization, I think that we will come up with an option at the level of regulations. We have the position of the Verkhovna Rada, the committee, and I am very thankful to the Government for its principled position. We keep our promises, Poroshenko said. The Code consists of four books, the latter regulates the order of bankruptcy of the physical entities. The borrower who is in a difficult material situation can initiate its bankruptcy. The creditor can not afford that. - the following reasons for opening a case on insolvency are provided: - expired commitments in the amount of over 30 minimum salaries; - the debtor does not pay at least half of his debts within two months; - there is a decision in the enforcement proceeding which says that a person does not possess property which might be collected; Other circumstances which confirm that the debtor will not be able to perform his commitments in the nearest future. In this case, the debtor will receive a plan of restructuring the loan, if the compromise with the bank is not reached, the property of the obligor will be sold to cover the commitments. One can not recognize himself a bankrupt within five years since such decision was made. A person can not have perfect reputation within three years after he was recognized a bankrupt. Earlier, Ukraines Parliament adopted a Code on bankruptcy procedure in October last year by 237 votes of the MPs. According to the document, the physical entity can recognize himself a bankrupt. The fundamental rights of Assange will be observed and he will not be sent to the place, where he may the face death penalty Founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange violated the conditions of his shelter and tried to use the Ecuadorian Embassy in London as espionage center as The Guardian reported citing President of Ecuador Lenin Moreno. Moreno also reported that he got the written commitments from the UK that the fundamental rights of Assange will be observed and he will not be sent to the place, where he may face the death penalty. We can not allow our house, the house that opened its doors, to become a centre for spying, Ecuadorian President said. He added that any attempt to destabilize situation is unacceptable for Ecuador because we are a sovereign nation and respectful of the politics of each country. Earlier the government of Australia reported that Assange as its citizen can count on the consular assistance; however, he will not get any special treatment. Julian Assange was detained by the British police officers after seven years of hiding at the Embassy of Ecuador in the UK. He was arrested at the central police unit of London. The next session is appointed for May 2. Julian Assange lived in Ecuadors Embassy since 2012. He could not leave its territory as he would be immediately arrested for refusal to be present in the court in 2012. Besides, Washington is trying to get him. The U.S. opened a probe against him on disclosure of secret data of the Setae Department. In March, Assange was deprived of all the communication means due to the violation of a written commitment as of 2017 not to spread statements which would suppose the involvement in the relations with other states. He spread information about Russias guiltlessness in Skripals case. If the adversaries know each other's capabilities and intentions, the chances to start a conflict is considerably lower, U.S. Army Commander in Europe says EUCOM wants 2 more navy destroyers, extra ground troops for Europe to deter Russia Stars and Stripes The Cold War-time communication process between NATO and Moscow was better than it is now. Curtis Scaparotti, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) of NATO Allied Command Operations said that as quoted by Associated Press. He admitted that since he took office in 2016, he twice met with Valeriy Gerasimov, Chief of General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, and called him on the phone several times. 'During the Cold War, we understood signals that we sent each other. We talked. I'm not sure we understand them today just as good', the four-star General said. Scaparotti believes that if the adversaries know each other's capabilities and intentions, the chances to start a conflict is considerably lower. NATO should contact with the Russian side more, he said, in order 'to understand each other and explain what we do and why we are doing this'. The exercise was conducted in response to Russia's airforce drills that had been held close to the Ukrainian border Joint Forces of the Ukrainian military held anti-aircraft defense exercise. This is mentioned in the message of the press center of the HQ of Joint Forces Operation. According to the information that the Joint Forces' intelligence received, last week, the Russian assault aircraft performed drills on April 13; the Russian pilots trained to hit the ground targets. The exercise took place not far from the Ukrainian border, 20 kilometers away from it. Serhiy Nayev, the Joint Forces Operation Commander ordered the anti-aircraft drills to take place in Ukraine - as a response to the Russia-held drills. The Joint Forces' troops were represented by jet fighters, anti-aircraft defense systems S-300, Buk M-1, Osa-AKM, Strela-10, 2S6 Tunguska and ZU-23-2. In January 2019, flight training of combat aviation of the Ukrainian Navy took place, in support of the patrol activity of the vessels of the Navy and the State Border Guard. 'I never concealed I would be joining the parliamentary campaign; I guess a lot needs to be done, and that requires a smart majority, a smart coalition in the Ukrainian Parliament', he said Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman told the press that he gets prepared to the presidential election in Ukraine. The Premier said this during his commentary for one of Ukrainian TV channels. 'I'm ready for elections. I understand they will take place in 2019; that could happen a month earlier or a month later, but it doesn't really matter', he said. Responding to the question if he gathers his own political force for these elections, Groysman said the following: 'I never concealed I would be joining the parliamentary campaign; I guess a lot needs to be done, and that requires a smart majority, a smart coalition in the Ukrainian Parliament'. The parliamentary election in Ukraine is slated for autumn 2019. Politicians will use social tariffs, retirement wages, and environmental issues as the most popular topics for manipulations during the parliamentary election in Ukraine in autumn 2019. Correspondents and experts of Ukraine's Channel 5, which belong to president Poroshenko, assumed that in their recent commentaries. According to Oleksandr Solontai from the Institute for Political Education, environment protection will be one of the major ones during this race. 'In my opinion, in 2019, the environmental topics have every chance to make it one of the main topics of the election!', he said. Fyodor Dobronravov, Russian actor Open source Russian actor Fyodor Dobronravov, whose entry ban to Ukraine was canceled by the Kyiv District Administrative Court, was on tour in annexed Crimea. Krym.Realii reports this referring to Korabel, the Kerch palace of culture. On April 8, the play Trap For A Man with Dobronravov was demonstrated at the Kerch palace of culture. Two days later, on April 10, Dobronravov was starring in this play at the Music Theatre of Crimea in Sevastopol, the report said. The agent of the Russian actor Irina Soykina stated she did not know whether Fyodor Dobronravov played in Crimea, so she advised clarifying the information by the Crimean Tatars. Earlier, the court found illegal the order of Ukraines Security Service (SBU) to ban entry to Ukraine for Russian actor Fyodor Dobronravov and canceled it. Therefore, the ban on screening the movies with his participation is also repealed. Earlier, in November 2017 Ukraines Security Service banned Fyodor Donbronravov from entering Ukraine for three years for his anti-Ukrainian statements and support of Crimeas annexation. He also visited the peninsula after occupation multiple times. Later, the Culture of Ministry included the actor in the blacklist. He became the 114th person in the list of the people who threaten the national security of the state. Therefore, Ukraines State Film Agency banned screening of Svaty series (co-parents-in-law in English, - ed.) with his participation. Studio 1+1 filed a lawsuit in this regard. The channel asked the court to find the order illegal. The workers of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine will enhance the security measures during the second tour of the presidential elections. About 6,000 border guards will keep the order as the service reported. Over 1,300 people will be involved daily for security additionally. The trained dogs will work at the checkpoints and outside of them. Besides, the reserves of the heads of the security bodies of the state border and heads of the regional departments, fighters of the operative respond reaction and members of the volunteer public formations will be involved. The special attention will be paid to the observers and accredited mass media representatives. The border guards will allow to pass people, whose name present on the list filed by the Central Election Commission. The first tour of the presidential elections finished in Ukraine. After the processing of 100% of the protocols it was announced that Zelensky got 30,24% of the votes, Poroshenko has 15,95% and Tymoshenko gained 13,40%. The second tour of the elections is appointed for April 21. The candidates for the presidency cannot agree on the date and place of the holding of the debates. On April 3, Zelensky replied to Poroshenko's invitation to participate in debates and put forward his conditions. He wanted to hold debates at Olympic Stadium. Poroshenkos team said, the President does not perform at stadiums. A few hours later Poroshenko changed his mind and agreed to participate in the debates. On April 7, Poroshenko stated that he waits for Volodymyr Zelensky on April 14 at Olympic Stadium. In his turn, Zelensky reported that he wants to hold the debates with Poroshenko on April 19 at Olympic Stadium. Petro Poroshenko came to the Olympic Stadium on April 14; however, Zelensky did not show up. The current president answered all questions of the journalists alone. The consideration of the appeal of the National Bank of Ukraine will be held after the second round of the presidential elections Open source The Administrative Court of Appeal postponed the case of the basis for the nationalization of PrivatBank will April 22. The court ruled that on Monday, April 15, Interfax-Ukraine reports referring to the representative of one of the disputing parties. The sixth Administrative Court of Appeal postponed the consideration of the appeal of the National Bank of Ukraine against the decision of Kyiv District Court to cancel the decision of NBU to inspect PrivatBank in October 2016, the message reads. Earlier, Kolomoysky, the Ukrainian oligarch and former owner of Privatbank, demanded to give him back two billion U.S. dollars of the bank's assets. He might, in turn, give up this financial institution. The decision to nationalize Privatbank was made in December 2017. 100 percent of its shares were handed over to the state. The IMF supported that decision, stating that it's an important step to secure Ukraine's financial stability. Most likely, the debates will be Poroshenko's monologue, as the candidates have not reached an agreement concerning the date of the debates Ukraine's presidential candidates Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky 112 Agency April 14, Ukraine's President and presidential aspirant Petro Poroshenko will arrive at NSC Olympiysky. His visit is connected with the pre-election debates with presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelensky. However, most likely, the debates will be the monologue of the president, as the candidates have not reached an agreement concerning the date of the debates. The headquarters of candidates for presidency Volodymyr Zelensky and Petro Poroshenko did not come up with a compromise on the holding of the debates at Olympic Stadium. On April 3, Zelensky replied to Poroshenko's invitation to Olympiysky in debates and put forward his conditions. He wanted to hold debates at Olympiysky Stadium. Poroshenkos team said, the President does not perform at stadiums. A few hours later Poroshenko changed his mind and agreed to participate in the debates. On April 7, Poroshenko stated that he waits for Volodymyr Zelensky on April 14 at Olympiysky Stadium. In his turn, Zelensky reported that he wants to hold the debates with Poroshenko on April 19 at Olympiysky Stadium. LNR militant arrested on border with annexed Crimea on April 15, 2019 State Border Guard Service of Ukraine Law enforcers detained LNR (Luhansk Peoples Republic, - ed.) on the border with the occupied Crimea. He escaped from the members of the illegal armed formations, as Oleg Slobodyan, the Advisor of the Head of Ukraines State Border Guard Service, reported on Facebook. In 2014, the man born in 1972 was working as a driver of one of the zone commanders for two months. Over this period, he was never paid, thats why he resigned, then he started working in the military commissariat. State Border Guard Service of Ukraine LNR militant arrested on border with annexed Crimea on April 15, 2019 State Border Guard Service of Ukraine LNR militant arrested on border with annexed Crimea on April 15, 2019 Therefore, one of his friends offered to join an assault battalion Somali led by Givi, who was alive then. After the man got disappointed in the ideas of the republics, he quit and decided to work security in Alchevsk. He resigned due to low salary, moved to Moscow. Yet, he was not satisfied with the working conditions, so he tried to come to Kyiv. He was arrested for participation in the illegal armed formations. The investigation began on March 29, as Kyiv Solomensky District Court ruled Roman Truba, Head of State Bureau of Investigation Liga.net National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) launched a probe on alleged state treason and other crimes committed by the Head of State Bureau of Investigation Roman Truba. Ukraines Security Service (SBU) is dealing with the investigation, as Ukrainian News reported. NABU investigation included the information about alleged crimes provided by the articles of the Ukrainian Criminal Code in the Unified Registry of Pre-trial Investigation. The investigation began on March 29, as Kyiv Solomensky District Court ruled. April 1, NABU sent the criminal proceedings to the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutors Office (SAP) as these crimes are beyond the competence of NABU. SAP reported that SBU will deal with the pre-trial investigation. As it was reported, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed a decree which appointed Roman Truba as a Director of State Bureau of Investigation on April 22. The President is ready to hold the second debates on NSC Olympiyskyi if its time will no coincide with the time of the official debates on the National Television Company of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, the President of Ukraine 112 Agency President Petro Poroshenko is ready to come to NSC Olympiysky to debate with presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelensky on April 19 but under several conditions. The spokesperson of Poroshenkos HQ Oleg Medviediev states this, as 5 TV Channel reports. According to Medvedev, the President is ready to hold the second debates on NSC Olympiysky, if its time does not coincide with the time of the official debates on the National Television Company of Ukraine. If the debates take place, and the time of the debates do not violate the law, it is possible to come. However, the debates are scheduled for the time, when Poroshenko plans to be on the National Television Company, according to the legislature. Thus, as the law-abiding citizen, Poroshenko will go to the debates on the National Television, and according to the legislature, debates should take place on National Television on April 19, so no presidential candidate should ignore the rule, the spokesperson outlined. On April 3, Zelensky replied to Poroshenko's invitation to participate in debates and put forward his conditions. He wanted to hold debates at Olympiysky Stadium. Poroshenkos team said, the President does not perform at stadiums. A few hours later Poroshenko changed his mind and agreed to participate in the debates. On April 7, Poroshenko stated that he waits for Volodymyr Zelensky on April 14 at Olympiysky Stadium. In his turn, Zelensky reported that he wants to hold the debates with Poroshenko on April 19 at Olympiysky Stadium. On April 10, Olympiysky Stadium reported that it got two applications for holding debates from two presidential candidates Volodymyr Zelensky and Petro Poroshenko. According to the President of Ukraine, the IMF will respond to any attempts to undermine the independence of the NBU in a hard way The President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko Presidential Administration press office The attempt of the privatization of the Privat Bank, which was earlier nationalized, can lead to new economic crises and default as 112 Ukraine reported citing President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko. The reverse (in the nationalization of PrivatBank, - 112.international) will cause the deep crisis in the relations with the IMF with the relevant risks for the macroeconomic stability, for a course and possibly can lead to the new crisis. We cannot allow the return of the threat of the default; however, the ex-owner of Privat is fond of this idea, according to the interview. He says that the development in our country is impossible without default. But I emphasize, I do not like it and I have not been liked it for five years, Poroshenko stated. Besides, the president noted that the millions of the Ukrainians also do not like the idea of the default. It is obvious that the IMF will respond to any attempts to undermine the independence of the NBU in a hard way. Some people already try to rule the NBU, to force chairman to leave his post and change the Board of Directors, the president said. The Finance Ministry stated that the privatization of the state banks should take place after the fulfillment of some conditions, particularly, the imposing of the new corporate governance and settlement of the problems. Earlier, Kolomoysky, the Ukrainian oligarch and former owner of Privatbank, demanded to give him back two billion U.S. dollars of the bank's assets. He might, in turn, give up this financial institution. The decision to nationalize Privatbank was made in December 2017. 100 percent of its shares were handed over to the state. The IMF supported that decision, stating that it's an important step to secure Ukraine's financial stability. ZeTeam does not consider lifting the economic blockade from the temporarily occupied territories Ukraine's presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelensky, April 2019 etcetera.media Crimea belongs to Ukraine, it is unacceptable to sacrifice the peninsula for peace in Donbas, as ZeTeam stated answering the question of Mustafa Dzhemilev, the Presidential Ombudsman on Crimean Tatars issues, Ukraines MP. Crimea was, is and will be the part of Ukraine, which has to get it back with compensation from Russia for the damage done by the occupation including the compensation to the suffered families and families of those who died in Russias repressions, the statement of Zelenskys team says. Exchanging Crimea for peace in Donbas is out of question. As is the separation of particular districts or regions of Ukraine, the representatives of the presidential candidate stated. They also replied to the questions concerning talks on Crimea. Our official representatives will have to talk to Russias authorities. Yet, this has to be done along with our western partners, and not on the occupied territories of our country. ZeTeam does not consider lifting the economic blockade from the temporarily occupied territories. Yet, they did not answer the question about Crimeas autonomy. ZeTeam hinted though that such step might be implemented. We are convinced that the Crimean Tatars will have a precise prospect of free life along with an independent Ukraine, Zelenskys team informed. 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It is also an intergovernmental association of African member countries. For more information visit: www.AfricaRice.org A propos dAfricaRice AfricaRice est un Centre de recherche du CGIAR un partenariat mondial de la recherche agricole pour un futur sans faim. AfricaRice est aussi une association intergouvernementale composee de pays membres africains. Pour plus dinformations, visiter : www.AfricaRice.org On the twentieth anniversary of its West End Run which I used to regularly walk past while working in London and heading back towards Leicester Square and my hotel near Trafalgar Square Theatre Royal Bath and Rose Theatre Kingston have revived Marie Jones play Stones In His Pockets and have taken it on a 14-week UK tour.Ostensibly about the experience of two local extras employed to fill out the crowd scenes of a US blockbuster being filmed in County Kerry, the play homes in on the perennial exploitation of the little people by the rich and powerful blow-ins who fill our heads with supposedly unreachable dreams.Yet the play is running in the Grand Opera House in the week that the last season of Belfast-filmedbegins and opens on the very day (and I borrow phrase from one of many press releases issued on the subject) that the first of six beautifully-crafted, freestanding stained-glass windows that are being installed across Belfast, each depicting some of the most exciting and talked-about moments from the saga.We have adapted. We have learned to collude with the magic picture-makers. We have learned to ever-so-slightly exploit the filmmaking overlords and play them at their own publicity game. While the tables havent completely turned, the cards are no longer stacked against us with the house being able to automatically take advantage.So while a mention of virtual reality indicates that Marie Jones has tweaked the script though Im glad saving for a Commodore 64 survives! the words of Charlie and Jake have a certain dissonance reflecting how far weve come, rather than a relevance to our current situation.The step and twirl choreographed transitions between characters the pair of actors play a total of 15 people between them are among the most stylish in a recent run of multi-roled productions. Thesequence deserves the laughter and applause it garners.Kevin Trainor plays Charlie who has turned his back on a failed relationship as well as an Xtravision video rental franchise in Ballycastle to travel south-west and try something new. While the accent is more Glens than Fair Head, its consistent and likeable. Owen Sharpe plays the wiry Jake, a local Kerry-man who is a second cousin to nearly everyone in the town that has gone mad for Hollywood. His dalliance with the films lead actress Caroline Giovanni turns out to be as phony as her accent. The two actors bounce off each other like a seasoned double act, never dropping a beat. Trainors Jock Campbell, Scottish personal security to the films lead is a favourite from the minor roles, along with Sharpes overly eager to impress, mincing assistant director Aisling.Peter McKintoshs lush and verdant set epitomises rural Ireland, though the wispy clouds in the backcloth betray the normal changeable weather. Howard Harrisons lighting design employs a huge array of different temperatured spotlights to recreate warm sunrises, the midday sun, and sunsets. With a general lack of props and moving scenery, rapid shifts in light signal scene changes.Lindsay Posner directed last years production of Dear Arabella as part of Belfast International Arts Festival and is familiar with the quality and fluency of Jones writing. However in, the rapid pace of delivery leaves very little space for the wordy script to breathe, and the emotions of the tragic moment before the interval and Charlies own revelation in the second half are senselessly lost. Stones In His Pockets continues at the Grand Opera House until Saturday 20 April . While some of the scripts observations have dated, having walked past the London run all those years ago, last night was a great opportunity to be reminded how far good writing and a simple set can take a play. And while we may no longer be so vulnerable to being taken in by the charms of the Yanks, with an election or two (or more) around the corner, its a chance to evaluate where else in society we allow ourselves to become victims of other peoples dreams and ambitions. Runs through 05/18/2019. Named after the wounded Fisher King of Arthurian Legend, A Prairie Fisher King espouses the notion of home as both a site of idealization and a locus for wounding. Drawing from memory, a narrative is woven in the form of photographs and text of the rural Iowa countryside where my family has lived for generations. A Prairie Fisher King is an ongoing body of work reflecting on the nature of familial hardship and generational connection through the lens of place. An undertone of violence embodies the emotional distress accumulated with age as well as a looming threat posed upon the landscape. Initially conceived as a bittersweet love letter to home, A Prairie Fisher King considers the various myths we construct in order to survive in the face of inevitable change. Through the accumulation of intimately described detail a search for reconciliation becomes palpable. I assume the role of reluctant hero and return to seek the damaged king, to seal old wounds and to salve the land. __________________________________________ Chelsea Darter received her MFA at Columbia College Chicago in 2018 and her BFA from The University of Iowa in 2013. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and featured online by Light Leaked, Aint-Bad, and Fraction Magazine. Her personal work explores themes of place attachment, class, familial connection and local mythologies. She lives and works in Albuquerque, New Mexico. According to the Prosecutor's Office, during his tenure as Minister part of former President Alejandro Toledo's administration (2001-2006), he had approved regulations to favor the Brazilian corporation Likewise, Kuczynski is accused of money laundering offenses , acting within the framework of a criminal organization, due to the events that took place when he was Economy-Finance Minister and Prime Minister between 2002 and 2006. El Peru expresa su profunda solidaridad y pesar al pueblo y gobierno frances por la tragedia ocurrida en Notre Dame, patrimonio de la humanidad. A group of diverse but like-minded individuals, the members of ARC have come together in their common desire to fight hatred, bigotry, intolerance and violence because of the harm these antisocial behaviors cause to our society. In that effort, we will not use or sanction the use of illegal actions (such as violence or intimidation) in pursuit of our desired aims and if we learn of anyone who does use these unethical methods we will report those individuals to the authorities. Instead, we will use the guarantees found in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that ensure freedom of legal speech and expression. Our struggle is to bring social, political, and economic justice to our nation. This is an effort of the Chicano/Mexican American Digital History Project. https://sites.google.com/site/chicanodigital/ YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. Finlands opposition Social Democratic Party has won the parliamentary elections in the country after 100% of the ballots had been counted, the Finnish Ministry of Justice said, TASS reports. The Social Democrats garnered 17.7% of the vote followed by the Finns Party (17.5%) and the National Coalition Party (17.0%). The ruling Center Party secured 13.8% of the vote and the opposition Green League party - 11.5%. The rest of the parties have garnered less than 10% of the vote each. The final confirmed election results will be announced on April 17. After the elections, the composition of the 200-seat unicameral parliament will be determined, a new government will be formed and a prime minister will be appointed. In all, Finnish voters chose from almost 2,500 candidates from 19 parties. YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic, the leader of the Socialist Party of Serbia, has offered condolences to the Milosevic family over the passing of Mirjana Markovic, the widow of the late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, the Socialist Party of Serbia, a party with whom Milosevic was affiliated, said in a news release. Serbian state television said Mirjana Markovic died in a hospital in Moscow aged 76. According to reports Markovic died from pneumonia. Markovic, who had been a sociology professor at Belgrade University, served as leader of a neo-Communist party during her husband's presidency in the 1990s, a coalition partner with a major influence on Milosevic. She fled Serbia in 2003 after Milosevic's ouster from power in a popular revolt. He was handed over to a U.N. court in The Hague, Netherlands, where he faced a genocide trial for his role in the Balkan wars of the 1990s. He died in 2006 while jailed there before a verdict. Markovic was sought for questioning in the killings of the couple's political opponents during Milosevics power. In 2005, Serbian authorities asked for her extradition, but Moscow refused, saying she had been granted political asylum. According to a report before her death she expressed desire to be buried next to her husband in a cemetery outside Belgrade. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. Workers of a cement factory in Armenias Ararat Province are staging a protest outside the plant after being notified that they are being laid off. Employees of Ararat Cement CJSC in the town of Ararat of the eponymous province have blocked the road leading to the factory. They are demanding a meeting with opposition lawmaker Gagik Tsarukyan from the Prosperous Armenia Party. Tsarukyan is the owner of the plant. The factorys administration has explained that production spending is high. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian Youth Federation (AYF) has held its annual White House vigil in Washington D.C. calling for a permanent U.S. policy on commemorating the Armenian Genocide and reminding President Donald Trump on their demand to officially recognize it, Voice of America reported. The representatives of the Armenian-American community emphasized during the event that the recognition of the Armenian Genocide is necessary for restoring historical justice and preventing such tragedies in the future. Participant of the vigil expressed special gratitude to those US states that had special contribution in helping the Armenian people one century ago. Alabama, California, Mississippi and Virginia, we will be eternally grateful for all the sacrifices that youve made for saving these people, Nanar Kerkumian from the AYF said. They reminded that US citizens had provided nearly 2,6 billion dollars worth aid to survivors of the Armenian Genocide in 1916-1930 as part of the American aid organization in the Middle East. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Ambassador to Egypt Karen Grigoryan met with Minister of Antiquities Khaked Al Anani, the Armenian foreign ministry told Armenpress. At the meeting the Egyptian minister congratulated the Armenian Ambassador on assuming office, wishing him success. Khaked Al Anani said he chaired the Egyptian delegation during the Summit of the International Organization of La Francophonie which was held in Armenia in October 2018 and added that he remembers Armenia with warmth. In his turn Ambassador Grigoryan thanked for reception and wishes and stated that Armenia and Egypt, being as ancient civilizations, have a great potential for cooperation in the field of archaeology. As a prospective direction for cooperation the Armenian Ambassador highlighted the field of restoration of ancient manuscripts and documents, and in this context introduced the activity and opportunities of the Matenadaran, the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts. During the meeting the two officials also discussed the possibilities to display the museum exhibits of Ancient Egypt era in Armenia. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. The Investigative Committee of Armenia has revealed details of the incident involving a firearm in the village of Zartonk that took place Saturday, sparking a minor protest that was eventually settled after a government official intervened to defuse the situation. The Investigative Committee said in a news release that two local villagers are under arrest amid the investigation. According to preliminary information, the incident started out after an altercation between three villagers drew in the rest of the locals. Upon hearing the loud altercation, both supporters and opponents of the local mayor took to the streets and began brawling. Authorities said the sides began attacking one another with metal pipes and other items. The 29-year-old grandson of the mayor fired three rounds from a 12-gauge hunting shotgun in the direction of the villagers who were approaching his home. Several people sustained injuries during the incident. Material damages were also reported in the village. The initial altercation, in turn, was sparked after villagers demanding the mayors resignation were blocked from entering a local school, which ended in a minor fight. Two people, including the grandson of the mayor, are arrested on charges of misdemeanor. The incident eventually lead to the village mayors resignation. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Mher Mkrtumyan visited the Sorbonne University in Abu Dhabi where he met with the Universitys Executive Director, Professor Eric Fouache, the Armenian foreign ministry told Armenpress. Given the high level of the Armenia-UAE relations, Ambassador Mkrtumyan attached importance to the establishment of cooperation in education field, including with the Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi. In his turn Eric Fouache welcomed this idea and stated that he also visited Armenia during the 2018 La Francophonie Summit. An agreement was reached to continue the joint works aimed at establishing cooperation. During the meeting Eric Fouache thoroughly introduced the Universitys opportunities and academic programs. Sorbonne Abu Dhabi is a higher education institution that attracts the best students from the UAE and around the world. The University has been established in 2006 as a result of an agreement between the Sorbonne University in Paris and the Government of Abu Dhabi. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Ambassador to Iraq Hrachya Poladyan met with Iraqi minister of health, Dr. Ala'a Al Alwan, the foreign ministry of Armenia told Armenpress. During the meeting the officials discussed a number of issues of bilateral interest in the healthcare sector. Ambassador Poladyan touched upon the necessity to revise the Memorandum of Understanding signed between Armenia and Iraq in 2012 in the healthcare field, organize trainings in the field of medicine, develop medical tourism, provide professional support to the Armenian doctors in Iraq and etc. They reached an agreement to hold mutual visits of professional delegations in order to discuss these issues. The Iraqi minister welcomed the Ambassadors proposals and expressed the readiness of the Iraqi side to deepen the future cooperation. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian parliament will have an Armenia-Costa Rica friendship group as the foreign relations committee approved the initiative at a April 15 session. Armenia hasnt been especially active in Central America. And here Azerbaijan has demonstrated rather big activeness, which resulted in certain anti-Armenian initiatives occurring in certain neighboring countries. Armenias Ambassador to Mexico has held meetings in Costa Rica. And since last year a friendship group with Armenia is functioning at the Costa Rican parliament. We recommend creating a similar group in the Armenian National Assembly also, chair of the foreign relations committee Ruben Rubinyan from the ruling My Step faction said at the session. The committee unanimously approved the initiative. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. The foreign relations committee of the Armenian Parliament has approved the signing of an inter-parliamentary cooperation agreement between Armenia and Guatemala. The Guatemalan Parliament had adopted an anti-Armenian resolution that was a result of Azerbaijans active work. During discussions on the ambassadorial and foreign ministerial levels the Vice President of the Guatemalan Parliament said that this anti-Armenian resolution was adopted during the previous parliament with few votes. And they vowed to be neutral and maximally restrained in matters related to Nagorno Karabakh from now on. And, there was a proposal from the Guatemalan side on signing an inter-parliamentary cooperation agreement which will further contribute to establishing deeper inter-parliamentary ties, foreign relations committee Chair Ruben Rubinyan from the ruling My Step faction said at the committees session on April 15. He said the agreement will contribute to the creation of parliamentary friendship groups and cooperation in the legislative framework. The committee gave a unanimous approval to signing of the agreement. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. The official opening ceremony of the 11th International Forum ATOMEXPO was held in the Russian city of Sochi on April 15, reports Armenpress. This year the Forum is attended by over 3600 participants from 74 countries. Among the new countries presented in the Forum are Qatar, Bahrain and Nicaragua. Armenias delegation led by deputy minister of energy infrastructures and natural resources Hakob Vardanyan is actively taking part in the Forum works. During the Forum the Armenian delegation members will participate in sessions and round-tables, will hold bilateral talks with the representatives of other states and business circles. This year the Forum is being held under the title of Nuclear for Better Life. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. Armenias ministry of agriculture has initiated to create an information analytical center and introduce an administrative register institute within the frames of the institutional reforms, acting minister of agriculture Gegham Gevorgyan told reporters. We have initiated to create an information analytical center which aims at analyzing the markets and data. And we will provide this analysis to farmers. We often see that people are unaware of what needs to be produced and where the product must be sold, he said. The acting minister informed that there is also another important institutional reform, which is the introduction of administration register institute, including the numbering of animals, creation of registries of farmers, subsidies. This in its turn will enable to see online what is happening. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan today visited the Armenian National Agrarian University. During the tour the University Rector Vardan Urutyan introduced the PM on the recent and expected reforms in the educational facility. The University plans to launch 4-year Bachelors and 2-year Masters educational programs. The new center for knowledge testing will be created soon. We already have nearly 36 million AMD donation by a Boston-Armenian family for the creation of the Center, he said. PM Pashinyan stated that the Agrarian University is important in a sense that most of the countrys labor force is engaged in agriculture, but people work hard without any result. Our task is to turn this hard work into a job. The difference is that there is a great component of fun and satisfaction in the second, and that will be effective. It is also necessary to reduce the use of physical force and increase the use of intellectual resource as much as possible, Pashinyan said. The PM was also introduced on the programs and projects which have already been implemented thanks to the co-financing of the philanthropists and the university. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. President Armen Sarkissian has bestowed medals to a group of distinguished police officers of various departments across Armenia, Sarkissians Office said. Sarkissian signed the order on awarding the officers based on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyans recommendation on the occasion of Police Day April 16. The officers were awarded for strengthening the rule of law, contribution in maintaining public order and dedication during service. 15 officers were awarded. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. Amid an ongoing criminal investigation into the May 31, 2018 murder of a man in Gegharkunik Province, investigators have revealed that the suspected perpetrators have also committed another, unrelated murder. Earlier the Investigative Committee had said it had charged two suspects for the murder of a 26 year old man. The body of the man was found in a parked vehicle near Lake Sevan. Investigators said the victim was a taxi driver for three foreign nationals a Georgian couple and their friend. Authorities said the passengers were intoxicated and began an altercation with the driver while en route to their destination, and during the fight they killed their victim by inflicting serious trauma to his head using stones. All three suspects, Georgian nationals, were identified during the probe. After killing the driver, the suspects had taken his mobile phone and a golden ring from his finger and sold it at a trading center in Yerevan. The investigation revealed that the Georgian couple entered Armenia illegally on September 12, 2017. During the probe, detectives uncovered another murder committed by the Georgian married couple. On January 15, 2018 an elderly woman was found dead in her apartment. Authorities suspected foul play and launched an investigation. Now, the investigators say this very same Georgian couple is behind this murder also. According to the Investigative Committee, the suspects got acquainted with the woman through their friend in Armenia, and upon learning that the elderly woman lives alone and has cash savings and jewelry, they planned to steal it. On January 13, the victim invited the Georgian couple to her apartment for dinner. The suspects strangled the 71-year-old woman to death shortly afterwards and then wanted to make her appear as if she died of natural causes while sleeping. They undressed the victim and placed her body in the bed and used gloves not to leave fingerprints. According to preliminary information the murderers then stole around 2,000,000 drams worth of jewelry and other items from the womans apartment. The suspects have been charged with two counts of murder and illegal trespassing of the state border. Both are arrested. The third person is charged with concealing a crime and is also under arrest. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian continues series of meeting with the factions of the Parliament. Today the President met with Vice Speaker of Parliament, Prosperous Armenia faction MP and partys deputy chair, Vahe Enfiajyan, the Presidential Office told Armenpress. During the meeting the sides exchanged views on the works of the Parliament and its activities in international platforms. It was stated that in the parliamentary system of governance the National Assembly is provided with quite an active and through work both in the legislative field and in the parliamentary diplomacy. Vahe Enfiajyan introduced the priority directions of the activity of the Prosperous Armenia faction. President Sarkissian expressed readiness to cooperate with the Parliament and support its activities within the powers granted to him by the Constitution. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan MOSCOW, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. At the initiative of Russia, a working meeting between Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, Azerbaijani Minister of Foreign Affairs Elmar Mammadyarov and Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov took place on April 15th in Moscow, which was also attended by OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, Stephane Visconti of France, and Andrew Schofer of the United States of America, as well as Andrzej Kasprzyk, the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office. During the meeting the sides continued observing the prospects of advancing the peaceful settlement process of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict taking into account the March 29 Vienna meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders. An exchange of ideas took place on actions aimed at further reduction of tension in the conflict zone, as well as possible partnership in the humanitarian sector. A joint statement was adopted with the results of the meeting, the Armenian foreign ministry said. As a development to the agreements reached during the March 29 summit between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Vienna, the participants of the meeting discussed the situation at the border and the Line of Contact, as well as prospects of establishing partnership in the humanitarian area. A comprehensive exchange of ideas over fundamental issues of resolution took place. The Armenian and Azerbaijani FMs reiterated the intention of the parties to continue efforts in the direction of the NK conflict settlement through political-diplomatic means. The interest in the direction of further stabilization of the situation in the conflict zone was emphasized, particularly during the period of agricultural works. They also agreed to take action based on reciprocity to allow visits of families to persons detained in the territory of the parties. The ministers expressed readiness to take practical actions in the direction of establishing contacts between the populations, including through mutual visits of mass media representatives. The Russian Federation FM and the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs reiterated their commitment to the mediation mission aimed at the establishment of sustainable peace in the region. Participants of the meeting agreed to continue contacts in the near future, reads the joint statement, according to the foreign ministry. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan says he expects from Armenia-Azerbaijan foreign ministerial meeting that the two parties will attempt to bring closer their stances regarding the NK conflict settlement. I expect from the meeting that the task that with the Azerbaijani president we have given to the foreign ministers will be fulfilled. And this task is to have discussions over our agendas and attempt to bring the stances closer, Pashinyan told reporters today. Commenting on Russian FM Sergei Lavrovs participation in the meeting, Pashinyan noted that there is nothing unusual in it. A similar practice has and will take place, he said, noting that Russia is one of the three Co-Chairing countries of the OSCE Minsk Group. They can meet under the auspices of both the Russian, French or US foreign ministers. The Armenian and Azerbaijani FMs met April 15 in Moscow. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan expects that the instructions given to the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan by the leaders of the countries will be implemented, while the instructions are about having discussions over the issues and agenda discussed in Vienna by Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev in March and trying to bring the positions close to each other, ARMENPRESS reports Pashinyan told the reporters following his visit to the Agrarian University of Armenia. Question Today is the meeting of the Foreign Ministers. Last time you said that you have launched the negotiations from a new point. What are your expectations from this meeting in this context? PM Pashinyan I expect from the meeting that the instructions I and the Azerbaijani president have given to the foreign ministers will be implemented, while the instructions are about having discussions over the issues and agenda discussed in and trying to bring the positions close to each other. Question The Russian FM also participates in the meeting? How can it be explained? PM Pashinyan There is nothing strange, since Russia is an OSCE Minsk Group Co-chair country, and I think such a practice has been in the past and will be in the future. The meeting can take place under the auspices of the Russian foreign minister, as well as the French foreign minister or the U.S. Secretary of State. So I think no extraordinary thing here. Question In your speech in Strasburg you emphasized the position of the Armenian side over Artsakh issue solution, but Baku again reacted in the old manner, the so-called occupied territories and withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces. Under such conditions how does the Armenian side see the continuation of the negotiations? PM Pashinyan I said in my speech at the Congress of the Yerkrapah Volunteers Union (YVU) that one of the greatest problems is that the announcements prior and following the meetings sometimes do not correspond to the nature of the negotiations. In Vienna, before it and after it, my call will be about that, that lets not to say much about the talks if it is necessary, but we should say something so that people can understand that they cope with serious people, because can you imagine what an unserious situation it is, when the leaders of two countries speak to each other in a room for 2 hours, and later the public can in no way understand from their announcements what they have discussed. This is the greatest problem for the negotiations, because there is a tradition coming from the past. I do not bear that tradition and therefore I have nothing to do about that. But there is tradition coming from the past that after each meeting one tries to prove that he is the winner, and the other tries to prove that he is the winner. This is a wrong approach. Question Many analysts say that when Armenia is endlessly preaching peace. PM Pashinyan I am sorry but we are not endlessly preaching peace. The words are very important. We do not endlessly preach peace. We preach peace in some definite limits. They are very different. Question In that case, what should be the position of the Armenian side, given permanent aggressive rhetoric from the other side? PM Pashinyan We continue the negotiations, and again we go back to the previous question. The sides should be on the same level of approaches. We try to do that and if necessary we change our approach to bring our colleagues to the same approach, because the general idea of our conversations in Vienna, Davos, St. Petersburg and Dushanbe is that we should make efforts for the solution of this problem, for the peaceful settlement. And I hope that we are all sincere in our aspirations, because if one of the sides tries to deceive the other, it will lead to somewhere else. We do not endlessly preach something, we do not preach anything at all, we make proposals over creating some platforms for the settlement of the issue. There is the option of war, and there is the option of peace. We have told that no one can threaten us by war, no one should try to do so, and we do not threaten anyone. Lets decide, do we want to solve the issue peacefully or no? But I think that any rational individual should solve the problem, try to solve it peacefully. Otherwise, whats the negotiation process for? Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. Spokesperson of the President of Artsakh David Babayan assesses the meeting between the foreign minister of Armenia and Azerbaijan as satisfactory. He noted that the sides discussed and reached agreements over issues that years ago had been proposed by Artsakh, Babayan told ARMENPRESS. I assess the meeting satisfactory. We have always said that we highlight such meetings in terms of ensuring peace and stability in the region and continuation of the negotiation process. The agreements of this meeting were very interesting. Some of the ideas official Stepanakert raised for years. Nearly 11 years ago official Stepanakert presented a package to the Co-chairs as key acts for the preservation of stability. They were highly assessed by the Co-chairs, but Azerbaijan took no steps. And its very interesting and very good that now, this concrete idea has been included in the proposals of the Co-chairs, Babayan said. He noted that the package is about withdrawing the snipers, avoiding ceasefire violations on holidays, also some humanitarian acts. Particularly, it was proposed to refrain from ceasefire violations during the period of harvesting. Referring to the agreement of allowing the relatives of detained persons from both sides to visit them, Babayan noted that Artsakh is ready, but only if Azerbaijan does the same. There are only 2 Azerbaijanis kept in detention in the territory of Artsakh. Both are terrorists and criminals. They are the members of the criminal group that penetrated into the territory of Artsakh years ago and killed people. But those people have the opportunity to contact with their relatives periodically via Skype or other means. And if Azerbaijan does not ban our compatriots to go and see their relatives, Artsakh is ready to allow. If its reciprocal, Artsakh is ready. We have nothing to be afraid of or hiding, Babayan said. The meeting of foreign ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, Elmar Mammadyarov and Sergey Lavrov took place in Moscow on April 15. The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, Stephane Visconti of France, and Andrew Schofer of the United States of America, as well as Andrzej Kasprzyk, the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office have joined the ongoing meeting later. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan It seems clear the PNG government put pressure on the Australian government and department of home affairs to appoint Paladin as the garrison services and security contractor for Manus, Sir Mekere said. Sir Mekere said anecdotal evidence suggests Australian taxpayers money may have been secretly used as slush funds to prop up the prime ministership of Peter ONeill. The inquiry, being conducted by Australias auditor-general Grant Hehir will cover all aspects of government contracts for Manus and Nauru and will report next year. PORT MORESBY Former prime minister and MP for Moresby North-West, Sir Mekere Morauta, says an Australian government inquiry into the granting of contracts relating to the Manus detention centre should consider the possibility of official corruption involving senior Papua New Guinean politicians and bureaucrats. Grant Hehir - leading the inquiry delving deep into possible corruption in PNG and Australia in the Paladin Manus detention centre contract This raises very serious questions why Paladin, which was a tin-shed company with almost no paid-up capital? And who from PNG was applying the pressure? Since the contract was awarded it has been revealed that companies associated with Mr ONeills Peoples National Congress party are beneficiaries. Mr Hehir should investigate whether Mr ONeill, or staff from the PMs office and public service cronies, were involved in putting pressure on Australia and whether they benefitted in any way from the contracts. Sir Mekere asked whether chief secretary Isaac Lupari or the PMs media spokesman Christopher Hawkins involved in any way. He said it had been reported that Lupari asked Paladin for a donation of K20 million soon after it won the contract and that, when the company did not comply, it found that staff and executive visas were refused and that other action was taken against it. Sir Mekere said it was also notable that there were similarities in background between the principals and executives of Paladin and Hawkins: extensive experience in the Australian Defence Force and Reserves and periods of employment in Singapore and Timor. Paladin is based in Singapore and has operations in Timor, and its executive and staff include Australian and foreign ex-military personnel, including director Craig Thrupp and CEO David Saul. Mr ONeill should come clean on any dealing with Paladin by himself, Mr Lupari and Mr Hawkins, Sir Mekere said. It should be of interest to the Australian auditor-general if the tender process was perverted in PNG to the detriment of Australian taxpayers. Sir Mekere said that another coincidence that needs e investigation is Paladins recent purchase of the Black Swan security company, which has many government security contracts and has long been publicly associated with ONeill. The details of the purchase and the associated financial transactions might prove fruitful avenues of inquiry, he said. The purchase may have been a convenient way of transferring money to other parties. There is also the question of timing. Why the rush did it have anything to do with the fact that Mr ONeill had just been re-elected prime minister? And why Paladin, which, by the time the contract was awarded, had developed very close ties to PNC and the government? We know that claims by Australias home affairs minister Peter Dutton and his department that no-one was interested in bidding for the contract are not true. This was the reason Mr Dutton gave for using special measures to ensure Paladin was the only possible candidate. But we know that Toll, Serco and a local company Loda Security, all of which had Manus experience, were preparing to bid. But suddenly Paladin was hand-picked by Mr Dutton and his department. Sir Mekere also drew attention to the K1 billion value of the contract in light of Australian Financial Review estimates that Paladins monthly costs were K7 million from total monthly contract payments of K34 million. He said auditor-general Hehir should follow the money trails to ensure every cent of Australian taxpayers funds was spent and acquitted appropriately, especially in PNG, which under ONeill is one of the most corrupt regimes in the world according to Transparency International. Specifically, the inquiry must establish whether any PNG laws have been broken under these Australian contracts, not just Australian laws, Sir Mekere said. Unexpected twosome Lauren Huntriss and Billy Vincent were spotted sharing a kiss during a night out in Sydney. Photo: Matrix Media Married at First Sight star Billy Vincents new girlfriend has broken her silence after photos emerged of him kissing former castmate Lauren Huntriss. The co-stars were seen sharing a peck on the lips after Cyrell Paules 30th birthday party on Saturday just one day after 28-year-old Billy went public with his new relationship with model Lily Buhl. Now 20-year-old Lily, who met Billy at the Byron Bay bar she works at last month, wants to set the record straight. Billy contacted me as soon as it happened, she tells Yahoo Lifestyle, adding, from what Ive been told it was a fun kiss. Hell still be sleeping on the couch for a few days, but I know there was nothing behind it. However her forgiveness doesnt come without conditions, and Lily has joked that shell kiss 44-year-old Mike Gunner if her beau is spotted getting close with a co-star again. Billy and Lauren have history Billy had previously revealed that he and Lauren had a thing back in February but couldnt make the relationship work due to distance. The pairs affectionate embrace comes after Billy revealed he and Lauren had a thing back in February. Photo: Matrix Media It couldve happened It couldve happened. Shes a sweetheart, he told Daily Mail. Were not together [now] or anything like that, Ive got to decompress from the whole show. That need to decompress was likely triggered by his tumultuous relationship with onscreen wife Susie which saw the pair engage in tiffs which Billy was often at the receiving end of. Meanwhile, Lauren was paired with Matt who ultimately ended the relationship after losing his virginity and claiming the couple had no spark. Maybe the reason I am not able to show her affection, and attention she wants is that Im just not attracted to her and feeling those urges, he said to a group of MAFS male contestants. Billys new girlfriend Story continues Billy struck up a relationship with Lily after he saw her working at a local Byron Bay bar. He had already been following her on Instagram and recognised her. I was really shy and ran away after I got my drink, he told Daily Mail, But then after going to the bar a few more times, we started chatting and went on a date to a local swimming hole. Loved-up pictures of the pair are now all over their Instagrams, and Lily says she never watched Billys season of Married of First Sight. I did not watch the show due to me working night shift and not [being] up to date [with] anything on reality TV or normal TV, Lily responded to fans on Instagram. Billy and I both agreed for our relationships sake I wished he never went on the show. But despite any retroactive regret, Billy did appear on the program, a decision which saw him memorably marry Susie who has since found love with ex-NRL star Todd Carney. Got a story tip? Send it to lifestyle.tips@verizonmedia.com Want more lifestyle and celebrity news? Follow Yahoo Lifestyle on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Or sign up to our daily newsletter here. An Adelaide aged care worker who bashed an elderly resident at a nursing home has been jailed for a year. Michael Mullen, 52, was found guilty of the aggravated assault of 72-year-old Elizabeth Hannaford in November 2015. In victim impact statements read to the court before the sentencing, Ms Hannafords daughter, Joanna Warde, said her mother deteriorated after the assault. Michael Mullen was on Wednesday found guilty of the aggravated assault of Elizabeth Hannaford at the Lourdes Valley residential care centre. Source: AAP Joanna Warde, daughter of Elizabeth Hannaford, and David Binns, ex-husband and carer, of Hannaford. Source: AAP Mum would never hurt anybody and definitely did not deserve the pain she went through due to your actions, she said. She was helpless and she was fragile. You were supposed to care for her; you did the opposite. Magistrate Paul Foley on Monday sentenced Mullen to 12 months behind bars with a non-parole period of nine months. Michael Mullen, pictured outside the Magistrates court in Adelaide, was on Wednesday found guilty of the aggravated assault of Elizabeth Hannaford at the Lourdes Valley residential care centre in 2015. Source: AAP Heath Barklay SC, for Mullen, immediately asked that his client be released on bail because he has appealed the verdict. Mr Foley ordered a home detention report and remanded Mullen in custody to reappear before the court on Thursday. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter and stay up to date with the latest news with Yahoo7s daily newsletter. Sign up here. Playing the role of a riot cop dispersing a peaceful but illegal sit-in on the steps of France's National Assembly, Axel struggled to dislodge a woman whose arms and legs were enmeshed in a Gordian knot of activists. It was like trying to pull a limpet off a rock -- he couldn't get a grip. Welcome to Non-Violent Civil Disobedience 101, a one-day basic training for people who have decided they may need to break the law to further a good cause. For most of the 55 people attending a course in Paris on Saturday, the driving concern was climate change and the gathering pace at which Earth's species are disappearing. Since October, the world has seen a crescendo of grassroots protests around these issues, especially in western Europe and North America. High school students in a dozen countries have poured into the streets every Friday to raise the alarm about their climate-blighted futures, a movement inspired by 16-year-old Swedish wunderkind Greta Thunberg. On Monday, a loosely knit but well-organised group called Extinction Rebellion, born in Britain, launched a week-long campaign in major cities worldwide, vowing to "bring London to a standstill" by blocking traffic at Waterloo Bridge, Parliament Square and other iconic locations. XR, as the group is known, looked to historic examples of civil disobedience -- the US civil rights movement, the push for Indian independence -- for inspiration. What triggered the sudden uptick in climate activism is unclear, but several participants in the course mentioned a landmark UN science report last fall warning that only a deep change in the way humanity produces and consumes energy can minimise global warming devastation. - No tickling allowed - "I've been teaching several sessions a month for the last six or seven months," said Remi Filliau, the instructor in Paris and founding member of a small NGO called Les Desobeissants (The Disobedient Ones). "Before, it was a lot less." Back in class, Filliau gave Axel a tip on how to pry loose his quarry. Reaching from behind, Axel placed an index finger under the young woman's nose and pulled up sharply. Her arms instantly flew open and he yanked her free within seconds, dragging her across the floor into mock detention. "Police are allowed to use that technique," Filliau told the class. "But they are not allowed to tickle -- that is considered sexual harassment," he added. Seated in a large circle, the class began with an exercise designed to force participants to think about how far they are willing to go, and the risks they are willing to take. Filliau presented a scenario: friends propose slipping into a farmer's field at night while wearing masks to destroy a experimental crop of genetically modified corn. Commercial production of genetically modified crops has been effectively banned in France, and most people in the room were clearly anti-GMO. That was not the issue. What they didn't agree on was tactics. Everyone situated themselves in relation to four signs he had posted at compass points in the room, depending on how they answered two questions: Are you willing to do this? Do you consider this to be a violent act? Two thirds of the group clustered in the two "non-violent" quadrants, but were evenly divided on whether to carry out the raid. - Ready to face the music - As for those who considered it to be an act of violence, some balked at ransacking the crops while a few said they would do it anyhow. In the ensuing discussion, people moved around the room as their positions changed. Some said damaging property did not rise to the level of a violent act. Others countered that a struggling farmer might not see it that way. Still others pointed out that farmers have insurance. The group was at loggerheads. In a second scenario, the same action was to be done in broad daylight without masks. The media was to be alerted beforehand and the activists stayed to face the music, including arrest. This, it became clear, was the "correct" approach, and Filliau explained why. "We have to legitimise our actions in the eyes of the public," he told the group. "And we have to take responsibility for what we do." Successful campaigns in France over the last decade -- pressuring a bank into divesting from fossil fuel projects, getting the state ban a particular GMO crop -- were all done openly and non-violently, he said. "But if you're not ready to be arrested by the police, then you probably shouldn't come," he added, referring to a climate change action planned for the end of the week. Julie, a university student, said she was deeply worried about the threat of climate change. "Just marching in the streets is not enough anymore," she said. "But I'm not sure if I'm ready to go to jail." Students attend the YouthStrike4Climate demonstration against climate change in Parliament Square, central London on April 12, 2019 Students take part in a "Youth For Climate" demonstration, urging pupils to skip classes to protest against a lack of climate awareness, on April 12, 2019, in Lyon France As well as direct action, British environmental activists Extinction Rebellion bring a sense of theatre to their street protests Environmental activists are trained to consider carefully the consequences of their actions and accept responsibility for them -- such as this campaigner in London who glued her hand to the surface of Shell's offices British rock icon Elton John famously wept as his beloved Watford lost in the 1984 FA Cup final but spectators are likely to be robbed of a repeat this year due to another engagement. The 72-year-old -- who is honorary life president of the Premier League club -- has many hits to his name including 'Rocketman' but not even those powers would be able to transport him from Wembley to Copenhagen in time for his concert there on May 18. Watford will play Manchester City, in what is their first FA Cup final since losing to Everton in the 1984 showpiece, with the match kicking off at 1600GMT. Former Watford owner John was apparently reduced to tears again after Watford's stunning comeback from 2-0 down to beat Wolves 3-2 in the semi-finals. It prompted John -- who has a stand named in his honour at their Vicarage Road ground -- to send Watford's talismanic striker Troy Deeney an email. "I had a nice email, not many people give him credit for being a proper fan," Deeney told the BBC last week. "He watches our matches regularly as do his boys," sons Elijah and Zachary -- the latter having signed for the Watford Academy team last year aged just seven. British rock icon Elton John will miss his beloved Watford's FA Cup final clash with Manchester City due to a concert in Denmark European Union countries on Monday adopted copyright reforms championed by news publishers and the media business, but opposed by US tech giants and internet freedom activists who worry it could chill the sharing of information. The overhaul had triggered unpredented lobbying from supporters, and opponents like Google which makes huge profits from the advertising generated alongside the content it hosts. Romania, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said the "balanced text" adopted by ministers meeting in Luxembourg was a "milestone" toward building the bloc's digital single market. EU sources said Italy, Finland, Sweden, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Poland voted against the controversial legislation. Belgium, Estonia and Slovenia abstained. But the opposition was not enough to block the overhaul. "I am very glad that we have achieved a balanced text," said Valer Daniel Breaz, Romanian Minister for Culture and National Identity. He said the text creates "multiple opportunities for Europe's creative sectors, which will thrive and better reflect our cultural diversity and other European common values." Breaz added it also offers the same "for the users, whose freedom of expression on internet will be consolidated." "This is a milestone for the development of a robust and well-functioning digital single market. An EU statement said "the new rules ensure adequate protection for authors and artists, while opening up new possibilities for accessing and sharing copyright-protected content online throughout the European Union." The culmination of a process that began in 2016, the revamp to European copyright legislation was seen urgent as it the rules had not been updated since 2001, before the birth of YouTube or Facebook. The reform was strongly backed artists and media companies, including Agence France-Presse, who want to secure revenue from web platforms that allow users to distribute their content. But it was strongly opposed by internet freedom activists and by Silicon Valley, especially Google which makes huge profits from the advertising generated alongside the content it hosts. Proponents of the law said they expected a backlash. "The entertainment lobby will not stop here, over the next two years, they will push for national implementations that ignore users' fundamental rights," tweeted Julia Reda, a German member of the European Parliament. "It will be more important than ever for civil society to keep up the pressure in the Member States! #SaveYourInternet," she wrote. The European Parliament backed copyright reform, but tech giants don't like it Formula One boss Chase Carey said next year's inaugural race in Hanoi will be "uniquely exciting" thanks to a street track he hopes will help make the event a global spectacle. Carey was speaking Monday after inspecting initial work on the 5.6 kilometre (3.5 mile) track that will combine existing roads with newly-built routes in the Vietnamese capital, which is hosting its first F1 race from April 2020. "We think this track can really be a special race that provides some uniquely exciting racing and competition," he told reporters. "It's the combination of a city race -- we're in the city centre -- a street race which always has some special elements to it, and a track that I think we've really had the opportunity to work (on) from day one," said Carey. The course has been designed "in a way that we think can deliver some special racing for fans," he added. The track is around Hanoi's My Dinh stadium, about 13 kilometres from the city centre after it was deemed too expensive to hold the race in the city's famed Old Quarter. Carey compared plans for the Hanoi track to Britain's Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, which he called "historic" sites. Carey said he was happy with Hanoi's pre-race progress so far but warned organisers to keep at it. "There's a lot to get done, so the right thing is to continue to worry, not to take things for granted." Formula One announced last year it would host its first ever race in Vietnam as it seeks to gain a foothold in Asia, where the franchise has a patchy track record. The Marina Bay Sands street track night race in Singapore remains F1's crown jewel in Asia, with the city state's Grand Prix drawing 263,000 fans last year. But Malaysia, South Korea and India have all pulled the plug on hosting races in recent years after hemorrhaging money. Vietnam -- where racing is a marginal sport -- is hoping to avoid those pitfalls. It has not said how much it will cost to host the event, but has vowed not to dip into government coffers to fund it. Instead the country's largest privately-owned conglomerate VinGroup is the main financial backer. Carey hopes Vietnam will adopt a winning formula to ensure it doesn't go the way of past flops. "It's got to have all the elements that creates the race at the centre, creates that excitement, and that energy and that breadth of activities that really enables it to be the spectacle we want it to be," he said. F1 chief executive officer Chase Carey compared the Hanoi track to Britain's Silverstone The track is around Hanoi's My Dinh stadium, about 13 kilometres from the city centre Finland's Antti Rinne, the Social Democrat leader who will now try to form a government after a slim election victory, is a former trade union boss once known as the "labour market gangster" for his fiery negotiating skills. Aged 56, the silver-haired and serious-looking Rinne is no stranger to the top of government, having become finance minister in 2014 when he deposed the then leader of his party, Jutta Urpilainen, in a bitterly fought leadership contest. Rinne had strongly opposed Urpilainen's decision to support the spending cuts put forward by the then government coalition's largest partner, the centre-right National Coalition Party. After scraping victory in the 2019 election by the narrowest of margins, Rinne now faces the prospect of having to share a platform with the National Coalition once again, although this time as the senior partner. Ideological clashes over the need for more austerity -- to which Rinne is vehemently opposed -- may well surface again. Having won the leadership of his party in 2014, Rinne continued to block any government attempts at austerity, although he led the Social Democrats to a disappointing defeat in the 2015 general elections when the party was relegated to fourth place behind the populist, then-eurosceptic Finns Party. In opposition, Rinne's party remained a strong critic of the spending cuts regime imposed by Centre Party Prime Minister Juha Sipila. Easing off on austerity was a central plank of the Social Democrats' election campaign this time around. If successful at forming a majority government, Rinne will now have to embark on the difficult balancing act of making good on his promises to ease the financial burden on groups such as pensioners, the unemployed and students, while weathering a predicted economic squeeze. Finland's GDP growth is widely expected to slow down in the coming years. - Heart scare - In February, just two months before Sunday's election, Rinne was placed on a month's sick leave after falling ill on holiday and suffering serious heart trouble. In his absence the party was led by its deputy, the 33-year-old Sanna Marin, who, as a young and dynamic woman, is in many ways Rinne's opposite. But he defied questions about his health to return to the election trail. Prior to joining politics, Rinne was the president of a white-collar union called Pro, where he was known for his stubborn and aggressive tactics around the negotiating table. His readiness to threaten strikes saw him branded a "labour market gangster" by his opponents. Yet the former union hard man also has a softer side, and enjoys playing the piano and clarinet in his spare time, according to Finnish media. A lawyer by background, Rinne was reported by the Finnish national broadcaster Yle to have successfully finished his law degree, in Helsinki during the 1980s, in less than half the usual time. Ideological clashes in Finland over the need for more austerity -- to which Social Democrat leader Antti Rinne is vehemently opposed -- may well surface again "Refugees are bringing crime into our town," an election leaflet declares -- an example of how Germany's far-right feeds its narrative of a country threatened by more than a million new arrivals. Alternative for Germany (AfD) hopes the strategy that made it the biggest opposition party in 2017's general election will pay off once again next month, when voters elect a new European Parliament. Its 12.6-percent score almost two years ago was a shock to the political system, bringing 94 far-right MPs into a legislature with a history of moderation going back to 1949. Hammering the message that led to its success, AfD lead candidate Joerg Meuthen said: "Germany can no longer take in migrants." "Knife attacks, rapes and violent acts against women are proportionally more likely to be committed by people from a Muslim cultural background than by 'people from here'," he asserted. Police statistics show that 38.6 percent of violent crimes were committed by foreigners in 2018, but crime in Germany is also at its lowest since the country's reunification in 1990. "Every single news story in which foreigners are implicated, especially migrants, is blown out of proportion and generalised" to the whole non-German population, argued Miro Dittrich of the anti-racist Amadeu Antonio Foundation. - 'Fake news' - Already-existing fears of the migrant threat were turbocharged on December 31, 2015. Germans were horrified as dozens of women reported falling victim to sexual violence at New Year's Eve street celebrations around Cologne's main train station. The acts blamed mostly on young asylum seekers formed the foundation for the far-right's narrative of dangerous foreigners. Since then, the names of towns and cities where individual crimes have been committed by migrants or asylum seekers have resonated through the media and social networks. Among them is a case in Kandel, near the French border, where a 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death by her Afghan ex-boyfriend. Armed with her photo and slogans about her death, the local AfD branch organised demonstrations against Chancellor Angela Merkel's asylum policy for months afterwards. And in Chemnitz, AfD supporters marched against migrants on several occasions after the knife killing of a German man. A Syrian man is standing trial for the stabbing. Invented episodes of violence by migrants also frequently make the rounds online, building on the climate of fear generated by true events. The aim is often to depict any and all Muslim asylum seekers as potential killers or rapists. One far-right blog chronicles women's lives "since the invasion" as apparently marked only by sexual violence and murder. One post that was retweeted thousands of times described how a woman's body was thrown into a ditch after she was assaulted by a migrant. But the suspect later turned out to be someone close to the victim. Police in Saxony subsequently accused a local chapter of the AfD of spreading "incendiary, repugnant and oversimplified fake news". - Taken out of context - "This is an old way of communicating: whatever the message is, in the end something will stick in people's heads," anti-racist activist Dittrich said. "One former AfD member described how the party handles information. If it turns out not to be true, they don't mind cutting corners, taking things out of context or just lying openly," he added. In Chemnitz and Cottbus, AfD demonstrators brandished photos supposedly showing 16 women "attacked" in Europe by "migrants" or "Muslims". But it turned out, several cases did not take place in Europe, and, with the exception of one case, there is no evidence supporting the claim that the perpetrators were migrants or Muslims. "As far as I'm concerned, these were the images of women who fell victim to attacks," insisted Christoph Berndt of anti-migrant group Zukunft Heimat (Homeland Future). The group organises monthly demonstrations in Cottbus, near the Polish frontier, urging the government to "close the borders". The far-right activist is a believer in the "great replacement" theory espoused by the man who shot 50 people to death and wounded dozens more at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand last month. Originating in Europe and echoed by AfD leaders, the conspiracy belief alleges Middle Eastern and African newcomers are set to crowd out white populations. But while the AfD has long capitalised from its message about criminal migrants, the effect appears to be losing its power. Latest polls predict the party scoring between 10 and 11 percent in the European Parliament elections, well below the 15 percent support it enjoyed last autumn. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, co-led by Joerg Meuthen, is stirring a narrative of a country at threat from immigrants As Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar's forces fight for control of Tripoli, his success depends more on his ability to win over local militias than on the prowess of his troops, analysts say. Less than two weeks after Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) launched an offensive to seize the Libyan capital -- home to the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) -- a rising death toll and slowed advance indicate his troops are facing resistance by loyalists of the GNA, headed by Haftar's arch-nemesis Fayez al-Sarraj. Libya has been gripped by political chaos for years, since the 2011 NATO-backed overthrow of dictator Moamer Kadhafi. And the North African country has also felt the ripple effect of the Gulf diplomatic crisis, and tensions between the UAE and Qatar, Karim Bitar, director of research at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs, told AFP. With regional dynamics increasingly at play in Libya, Haftar will have no choice but to woo local militias as he pushes westward, to take Tripoli. - Muslim Brotherhood - Haftar's ties to Saudi Arabia and the UAE are critical to his campaign to drive Sarraj from Tripoli and emerge as Libya's uncontested leader, analysts say. "Haftar's hatred for the Muslim Brotherhood, which maintains some influence in Tripoli and within pockets of the official government, has made him popular with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)," says a report by the Soufan Group published Monday. "Both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi view the Muslim Brotherhood as a considerable threat to their respective rule and both strongly support strongmen like Egypt's al-Sisi and Libya's Haftar precisely for their anti-Brotherhood stance." At the start of the offensive launched earlier this month, Haftar's press agency published images of long lines of brand new armoured vehicles in a show of force. The images came days after Haftar was in Saudi Arabia, where authorities are said to have pledged tens of millions of dollars to his troops, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Friday. Haftar was also in Cairo on Sunday, shortly after UAE Crown Prince Mohammed ben Zayed held talks with the Egyptian president. - 'Gangs, jihadists' - The offensive is likely also a result of the dispute between Saudi Arabia and its allies on the one hand, and Qatar and Turkey on the other. Doha and Ankara are strong supporters of Islamists in western Libya. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are not, and Haftar's LNA regularly accuses Doha and Ankara of supplying weapons to its Islamist rivals. And in the labyrinth of Libyan politics, the LNA may not be able to singlehandedly seize western Libya -- a complicated region home to not only Islamists, but militias and armed groups antagonistic to the Government of National Unity. The opacity of the Libyan political scene is rooted in the incontrovertible influence of "gangs, criminals, and jihadists switching sides in a complex patchwork of fleeting alliances," according to the Soufan Center. "Haftar can only succeed in his offensive if he succeeds in turning alliances around and winning the support of certain tribes in the west, where territory is dominated by local forces," said Mathieu Guidere, a professor at the University of Paris and specialist in Arab politics. "He must draw inspiration from the system set up by Kadhafi in his day to control territory in the long term," Guidere told AFP. "Otherwise he does not stand a chance of rebuilding the country's territorial unity under one government." - 'No Libyan Sisi' - At least 147 people have been killed and more than 600 wounded in 10 days of fighting, according to the World Health Organization. And some analysts fear the worst is yet to come. "I think Haftar has major difficulties on the ground in western Libya," said Andreas Krieg, a professor at King's College London. "He is now bogged down in an atrocious war between his loose band of militias, the Libyan National Army, and those militias that try to defend the Government of National Accord," Krieg told AFP. "They feel that they didn't make the sacrifices in 2011 to have another military rule by Haftar." And even should Haftar take Tripoli, his position may remain difficult. "Haftar's bet is risky, but he has benefited from the empathy, open or tacit, of many Arab and western countries," Bitar said. "It will be difficult for him to become the 'Libyan Sisi' as Libya lacks an army and central institutions as deeply rooted as those of Egypt," he added. "His power will thus remain shaky." Fighters loyal to Libya's UN-backed unity government hold a position outside Tripoli as they fend off an offensive by strongman Khalifa Haftar Close-up map of Tripoli locating zones hit by air strikes, clash areas and movements of displaced people Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar met at the weekend with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo Fierce fighting on the outskirts of the Libyan capital Tripoli has left almost 150 people dead since early April Tripoli residents demonstrate against Libyan strongman Haftar in the capital's Martyrs Square Boko Haram militants raided a village near the northeastern Nigerian town of Chibok just as locals marked the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls five years earlier, vigilantes and residents said Monday. The militants late Sunday stormed into Kwarangulum village, 16 kilometres (10 miles) from Chibok Town, looting food and destroying property. The gunmen, who arrived aboard four trucks, were "shooting indiscriminately and setting homes on fire," local vigilante David Bitrus told AFP. The militants, believed to be from a Boko Haram faction loyal to longtime leader Abubakar Shekau, "burned the whole village after taking what the trucks could carry" in terms of food, he said. A Chibok community leader, Ayuba Alamson, said village residents had fled hours before the jihadists' arrival after receiving tip-offs from local people who had seen the gunmen heading in their direction. The attack came just hours after hundreds of Chibok residents rallied at the girls boarding school in the nearby town to commemorate the April 14, 2014 abduction of 276 schoolgirls. Their disappearance sparked outrage and calls for their release from around the world. Fifty-seven girls escaped shortly after the kidnap, 107 were released after negotiations and 112 remain in captivity. Recently re-elected President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday promised to rescue the remaining girls. "We will not rest until all the remaining girls are back and reunited with their families", he said in a statement released on his Twitter account. He also promised to secure the rescue of Leah Sharibu, the last remaining captive of the schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Dapchi Town, Yobe State, last February. Boko Haram's decade-long conflict has killed 27,000 people and displaced around two million from their homes in northeast Nigeria. The violence has spread to nearby Niger, Chad and Cameroon, with the affected counties forming a regional military coalition to fight the group. The attack happened at a village close to Chibok, where parents of abducted girls commemorated the fifth anniversary of the kidnapping Saudi Arabia is looking to find a way out of its devastating war in Yemen and the United States, the kingdom's stalwart ally, can play a critical role, the International Crisis Group said Sunday. The group, which researches ways to end conflicts, said the United States should appoint a special envoy and suspend most arms shipments to the Saudis with a promise to resume them once the kingdom ends its four-year offensive against Huthi rebels who control much of their southern neighbor. The Saudi-led coalition "needs to stop thinking about how to eke out some notional victory and instead commit itself wholly to finding a political exit, regardless of whether that means empowering the Huthis more than it is comfortable with in the short term," the group said in a study based on interviews with current and former officials in the United States and elsewhere. "The US should lead the way by finding its own exit," it said. The report comes after Congress -- alarmed by persistent civilian casualties and widespread hunger in Yemen, as well as Saudi Arabia's killing of US-based writer Jamal Khashoggi -- voted to cut off US support to the war effort. President Donald Trump, who has closely allied himself with Saudi Arabia, has threatened to veto the bill but has not yet done so. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, a leading critic of the Yemen war, said that even if Trump goes ahead with his veto, Congress can serve as a "bad cop" to pressure Saudi Arabia to change course. "This is not a question of whether or not the coalition is going to defeat the Huthis; that question has been answered," Murphy told a briefing on the report. "The Huthis are going to play a substantial and significant role in the future governance of Yemen, so it is a matter of deciding how the Saudis will live with that in a way that doesn't threaten their long-term security interests." Trump has sided with the Saudis in part because they say they are trying to prevent a victory by rival Iran, which has supported the rebels who share religious kinship with the Shiite clerical regime in Tehran. But the International Crisis Group said the calculation was reversed, with Iran in fact benefiting the longer the conflict persists, with the Saudis sapped of resources and reputation at a minimal investment by Tehran. "I think they see that they need to end it (but) they don't know how to end it," Robert Malley, the group's president, said of the Saudis. The Saudis keep thinking "a little more military power and the Huthis will crack and then we'll be able to end the war and Iran will be on its backfoot," he said. "But we have four years of evidence to disprove that." Yemenis gather for a funeral of schoolchildren killed in an explosion in the capital Sanaa When authorities responded to reports of a 180 kilogram pig running loose in St Paul, Minnesota they discovered more than 100 animals in appalling conditions. The grisly discovery included 64 dead cats, as well as living animals including five dogs, a guinea pig and 43 cats, some of which had to be euthanised. Reports from the Animal Humane Society have reportedly described the property as having an overpowering smell of urine and faeces with bodies of dead animals allegedly found scattered in shallow graves, freezers and inside a garage of the rural home. A criminal complaint filed in May 2018 reported that the floors, walls and windows were covered in animal excitement. Caycee Bregel, 25 pled guilty to 13 counts of animal cruelty. Source: Dakota County Jail Caycee Bregel, who resides at the rented property of the shocking discovery has pled guilty to 13 charges of animal cruelty. The 25-year-old was running a nonprofit animal shelter with at least 40 complaints made to local authorities about the conditions of the animals that were residing in the home, including one from the concerned owner of the home. More than 100 animals were removed from the property, with the living animals assessed by the Animal Humane Society as having major health problems. She was sentenced to 200 hours of community service, two years of probation and 90 days of electronic home monitoring and will undergo a psychological examination. Bregel will no longer be allowed to own or care for animals and the local health department has reportedly condemned the home. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and stay up to date with the latest news with Yahoos daily newsletter. Sign up here. A womans routine eye test took a shocking turn after she discovered she was suffering from a condition that causes blindness. About three months ago Elaine Blumgart, from Randwick in Sydneys east, visited her optometrist for a check-up to see if she needed a stronger prescription on her glasses. But she soon discovered she had glaucoma in her right eye, a debilitating disease that slowly causes blindness and is usually too far gone before any symptoms surface. I didnt know anything was wrong with my eyes, Ms Blumgart told Yahoo News. I had no symptoms and it could have eventually developed in the left eye. Elaine Blumgart was diagnosed with glaucoma about three months ago. Source: Supplied/ Ms Blumgart was one of the lucky ones, and it was caught early enough before her eyesight started deteriorating. She underwent laser eye surgery to regulate pressure on the eye caused by glaucoma. Im trying not to think about what could have happened. Its an ugly prospect of horrible things happening. It can develop into something awful, she said. Im very lucky. Thats what makes it scary people would never even dream they would have something like this as was the case with me not having any symptoms. It gradually creeps in on you Optometry director at Specsavers Mount Druitt, Janet McDonald, told Yahoo News glaucoma was a disease of the optic nerve that increased pressure on the eyeball and it sneaks up on you if you dont notice it. We routinely check for the signs of somebody having glaucoma through a normal eye test, she said. Ms McDonald said there were 300,000 people in Australia with glaucoma who did not know they had it. According to Glaucoma Australia, approximately 10 per cent of those who receive proper treatment for the disease will still experience significant loss of vision. An angiofluorography of a patient showing a risk of glaucoma. Source: Getty/file It gradually creeps in on you until you end up with tunnel vision, Ms McDonald said. People can get the quite severe disease without realising it. They think if they are stumbling a bit more they might be getting old, or discount it to other things rather than think they need their eyes tested. Story continues Ms McDonald said everybody should be having their eyes tested at least every two years, as once glaucoma begins to deteriorate eyesight theres no way of getting it back. Research conducted by Specsavers found 10 million people in Australia and New Zealand were not getting regular eye checks. People who have relatives with glaucoma have a one in four chance of getting it too and it is most common in people over the age of 50. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and stay up to date with the latest news with Yahoos daily newsletter. Sign up here. A young father-of-two found shot dead on the side of a road north of Hobart has been remembered as a doting parent. The body of Jarrod Turner, 22, was discovered on Sunday morning at Colebrook Road near Richmond, about 25 kilometres north of Hobart. Tasmania Police are treating his death as suspicious and confirmed on Monday he suffered a gunshot wound. Police are treating Mr Turner's death as suspicious. Source: Facebook/ Jarrod Turner A post mortem will be undertaken, with results to help police in their ongoing investigations. Colebrook Road between Francis Street and Fingerpost Road remained closed until 1pm on Monday as the scene was thoroughly examined. Investigators are working to establish the circumstances around how he died and how he came to be in that location. Police are calling with any information into Mr Turners death to come forward. Tributes flood in As news of Mr Turners death began to filter through to friends and family, his Facebook page was inundated with dozens of tributes. Someone who had a beautiful soul and a kind heart. A man who'd always put a smile on anyone's face, one person said. Friends and family have remembered his a loving father. Source: Facebook/ Jarrod Turner Youll be dearly missed not only by your little boys but family and friends, another wrote, referring to his two young sons. Ashley Turner wrote that he was lost without his brother. I can't do it without my twin brother, I need you Jarrod, he said. Youre my role model, the one I looked up to... youre everything a brother could ever want. Do you have a story tip? Email yahoonewsau@yahoonews.com.au You can also follow us on Facebook and stay up to date with the latest news with Yahoo's daily newsletter. Sign up here. Francis Conole, an Iraq War veteran and Syracuse-area native, is the second Democrat to launch a campaign to unseat U.S. Rep. John Katko in the 24th Congressional District race. Conole, 40, said Monday that if he is elected to Congress he will work to rebuild central New York's middle class. He thinks Katko, R-Camillus, has failed his constituents. "It's time for new leaders in Washington who will put forward serious solutions and deliver real results to the biggest challenges like making health care more affordable, preparing central New Yorkers for the economy of the 21st century, supporting tax breaks for the middle class, not special interests, and ensuring families aren't crippled by student debt that's why I'm running for Congress," he said. Conole, D-Syracuse, is a Westhill High School graduate. After high school, he attended the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. He graduated in 2001 three months before the Sept. 11 attacks. He served on the USS Wasp, an amphibious assault ship, and aboard the USS Carney, a guided missile destroyer. Following his tours at sea, he had a stint in the Office of Naval Intelligence and volunteered on President Barack Obama's Armed Forces inaugural committee in 2008. Conole deployed to Iraq in 2010 to plan the withdrawal of U.S. special forces from the country. When he returned from Iraq, he earned a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Maryland and a master's degree in national security studies from the Naval War College. He recently served as a policy adviser to Defense Secretary James Mattis, who resigned from President Donald Trump's administration in 2018. At the Pentagon, he advised on defense policy with a specific focus on the Middle East. While advising Mattis, he received the Defense Meritorious Achievement Medal. Conole left active duty and serves as a commander in the Navy Reserve. He has a large family in central New York. His grandfather, Patrick Corbett, is the only Democrat ever elected Onondaga County sheriff. The Onondaga County Justice Center is named in honor of Corbett. Conole's grandmother was a teacher in the Syracuse City School District. His mother was a writer for the Post-Standard in Syracuse. His father was a health care administrator who served in the U.S. Army Reserve. Conole joins Roger Misso, a Navy veteran who launched his campaign nearly two weeks ago, in the 24th district race. Dana Balter, who challenged Katko in 2018, will announce Tuesday whether she will run again in 2020. The 24th district race is a top Democratic target. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added Katko to its list of GOP incumbents the group will attempt to unseat next year. Democrats believe Katko is vulnerable after a close election last year. He defeated Balter by five points. It was Katko's lowest margin of victory in three elections. While Democrats added Katko to a "retirement watch list," he plans to run again in 2020. Last week, his campaign submitted a statement of candidacy to the Federal Election Commission. The 24th district covers the western towns of Oswego County and all of Cayuga, Onondaga and Wayne counties. There are 10,000 more active Democratic voters than Republicans in the district, according to the state Board of Elections. Online producer Robert Harding can be reached at (315) 282-2220 or robert.harding@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @robertharding. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 2 Taste NY, the state's marketing campaign to promote New York-made beverages and food products, set a new sales mark in 2018. Total gross sales were $17.8 million, up $1.7 million over the record set in 2017. The increase came as the state opened six new Taste NY markets at regional welcome centers. The Equal Rights Heritage Center in Auburn, which opened in November, has a Taste NY market. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who created the Taste NY initiative in 2013, believes it has provided considerable support to businesses and farms across the state. "New York is proud to connect consumers across the globe with fresh, locally grown products and we will continue to empower our farmers, growers and producers to expand their businesses while promoting tourism in every corner of this great state," Cuomo said. Taste NY has a physical presence at other facilities. There are locations that opened last year at renovated transportation hubs, including Syracuse Hancock International Airport. The Department of Agriculture and Markets, which oversees the Taste NY initiative, held networking events featuring farms, beverage and food producers, bars, restaurants and retail outlets. More than 550 buyers and vendors participated in the events, according to a news release. Taste NY promoted New York-made products at events throughout the year, including the New York State Fair. Taste NY has a marketplace at the fair and sponsors the annual food truck competition. Taste NY has grown in the six years since its creation. In 2014, its first full year, the initiative reported $1.5 million in gross sales. By 2017, total sales rose to $16.1 million. "The economic impact of Taste NY on our local farms, producers and businesses has a multiplier effect that yields more land use, job creation and a strong vibrant economy," said Dr. Chris Watkins, executive director of Cornell Cooperative Extension. Online producer Robert Harding can be reached at (315) 282-2220 or robert.harding@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @robertharding. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 One of my favorite things to do as the editor of The Citizen is to announce great news about our staff's accomplishments, and in the past week, I've had the treat of sending out congratulatory emails three times. Now I get to keep the fun going by sharing the news with all of our readers. Let me start with a huge honor for Kevin Rivoli, our photojournalist. You may recall reading about Kevin recently after he was named the National Press Photographers Association Photographer of the Year in the New York/International Region for 2018. This marked the second straight year Kevin earned this award. Not long after learning the news of his repeat in that competition, we heard that Kevin was chosen as one of five winners in an international contest run via Instagram by Lens Magazine. Kevin's portrait of local triplets who are star athletes in Weedsport was selected in the contest's Unity & Division category. He will be featured in the magazine's April edition, and his work will be exhibited at the FirstAmendmentVoice Annual Symposium at the U.S. Constitutional Center in Philadelphia in September. The Citizen's Kevin Rivoli wins second straight NPPA Region Photographer of the Year award The Citizens staff photographer Kevin Rivoli has again been named the National Press Photographers Association Photographer of the Year in th A day or two after hearing Kevin's news, we found out about a huge honor for Robert Harding, our online producer and New York politics reporter. Many readers of The Citizen probably followed the career of Auburn native Bill Carey, the longtime central New York broadcast journalist who covered the region with excellence for decades before passing away in 2015. Bill was working for what was then called Time Warner Cable News when he died from lung cancer, but his illustrious career started in 1971 when he joined radio station WMBO in Auburn. Shortly after his passing, the Syracuse Press Club established a Bill Carey Journalist of the Year award. And for the first time, the winner of that award is a member of The Citizen's newsroom. Robert Harding received the news about this honor last week. This award is given to one journalist in a 21-county region and includes all news media platforms. It's a prestigious honor, and it's one that's especially meaningful to Robert. Shortly after he joined us about a decade ago and began covering political events in the region, one of the first people in regional media who made a big impact on Robert was Bill Carey. Both men shared a passion for journalism and they loved following politics, and I'm sure the Auburn connection helped them form a bond, as well. When Bill passed away, Robert wrote a moving tribute. "There will never be another Bill Carey. He was a kid from Auburn who grew up to become the best journalist in central New York. He won numerous awards and would travel the world if it meant getting a story that mattered to this region. He had four decades of experience, but treated this young reporter with nothing but respect. ... Thank you, Bill. You were a great role model for me and many others." It's so inspiring to see Robert receive this recognition in honor of Bill. Eye on NY: Remembering Bill Carey, a great reporter and role model It was three or four years ago and a group of reporters, including myself, were waiting to interview Gov. Andrew Cuomo in Syracuse. The govern In addition to those honors, both Kevin and Robert were among the finalists in specific categories in the Syracuse Press Club's yearly contest. Robert's work as the leader of our online efforts, along with the rest of the newsroom staff, is being recognized in the best news website category. Kevin is an honoree for spot news photo and scenic photo. Joining them as a finalist is staff reporter Megan Ehrhart for investigative reporting. We'll learn about who won first, second and third in these categories at an SPC banquet later this month. Executive editor Jeremy Boyers column appears Thursdays in The Citizen and he can be reached at (315) 282-2231 or jeremy.boyer@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @CitizenBoyer Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Catch the latest in Opinion Get opinion pieces, letters and editorials sent directly to your inbox weekly! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. HONG KONG, ChinaLovense, a worldwide leader in sex tech products, and Besharam, Indias top adult store chain, have come to an agreement to bring the entire range of Lovense ToysThe Lush, Lush 2, Nora, Max, Hush, Ambi, Edge, Domi and Oscito India, showcased on IMbesharam.com. According to the Economic Times of India, the India sex toy market was an unexplored and unexploited was worth a full $360 million in 2015, and is expected to double by 2020. India has over 400 million Internet users and approximately 65% of the population is under 35 years of age. In the last few years, talking about sex and using a sex toy has become more and more acceptable, and began being shown in mainstream movies like Lust Stories and Veerey DI Wedding, which led to a 300% increase in sales for vibrators , most notably by women customers on the IMbesharam website. The laws in India have been vague and not clearly defined, but according to experts, the sale and distribution of toys is not restricted as long as they don not resemble male or female genitalia or obscene-looking. Imports to India require complying with several local rules and regulations, which is why only brands and companies that are well ingrained and have the information, resources and the legal support are able to thrive in the Indian market as a adult retailer or distributor. Besharam which was founded in 2011 and went live in India in 2013 has been a pioneer and has been instrumental in opening up the adult products category in India. With partnerships and alliances with several major brands like Fleshlight, Rocks Off, Bijoux Indiscrets, Screaming O, Hustler, Tenga, Rene Rofe, Baci, and many more, it has established itself as the market leader for adult and sexual wellness products in India. Lovense's third most popular market is India, with several bloggers and social media influencers who have talked about the popularity of its products. The rising Indian middle class with enhanced spending power and brand affinity is a good match for the high quality and advanced tech-laden Lovense products. Their choices in fashion, lifestyle and travel make it a very desirable market for the Lovense brand and its attractive range of sex tech toys for men, women and couples who like to indulge in long distance romance and foreplay. Joris Guisado, the COO at Lovense, said, "I believe it is just a matter of time before sex toys get normalized in India, though. With the second largest population on the planet and a GDP growth rate of over 7%, India will become an extremely profitable market as soon as the laws and general mindset really opens up to sex toys." He added, "Everything we do, we do for our customers and weve been getting a lot of request in the past from Indian customers that we couldnt serve. More than the company growth, it is really important to be able to provide pleasure to people anywhere in the world and we are really happy to now be able to offer our products to the Indian people through our partnership with IMBesharam. I have known Besharam since I joined Lovense in 2016. The first time I met Raj personally was in January, 2019 in Los Angeles and it was really easy to reach an agreement and start working together. Even if the market and conditions to create an adult-related business in India are really tough, the team behind Besharam have worked extremely hard to position themselves as the current and I believe future leader of pleasure products retailer. Its an honor to have them offering Lovense line to the India audience." Raj Armani, COO at IMbesharam said, "In 2016, we started getting plenty of inquiries about Lovense wireless vibrators, so when I met the Lovense team at Erofame in Berlin, it was love at first sight. Their attention to details, their focus on customer satisfaction and their willingness to go all in to produce the best wireless bluetooth vibrator was an instant hit with our team and our vision. We immediately started to showcase the range of smartphone app-controlled Lush Vibrator and the Nora which was the original Bluetooth Rabbit Vibrator. They both were instant hits. "For the next few years, we worked with the Lovense team to arrive at a positioning and pricing that will cater to the Indian climate," he added. "Just recently, we were able to find the formula and the strategy, so over an industry veterans dinner meeting, we struck the chord and decided to join hands and launch Lovense in India. We have started with showcasing the Top 4 sellers and plan to add more as we ramp up inventory in India. Very soon we will be able to engage influencers and marketing partners to reach out to the young and enterprising Indians and present to them a world class product, in a world class webstore at Indian prices. I am looking at a win-win for all of us." WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif.Flirt4Free has released the details of their upcoming Easter Celebration. For the first major contest of the spring, the innovative cam network will continue the trend of larger-than-ever payouts by putting $20,000 in total prizes on the line. The popular Easter Egg Hunt returns to headline the four-day event. Beginning at midnight (12 a.m. EST) on Thursday, April 18th, Flirt fans can play Easter Bunny for their favorite cam models. Colorful Easter Eggs inscribed with sexy and suggestive messages can be gifted to models through the in-chatroom tipping tool. The performers who collect the most by midnight on Sunday, April 21st can win some big cash prizes. With 1st place now awarding $1,500, members should expect Flirt4Frees hottest stars to be online in force, offering wild holiday themed shows and all-out performances as they battle over the biggest basket of Eggs. Back by popular demand, customers will again be able to purchase these virtual gifts in custom amounts. A clutch of eight or more Eggs will light up a models stream in gorgeous spring colors while a special chat panel graphic celebrates the viewers Easter spirit. The Egg Hunt is one of our most exciting annual contests. It really brings out the creativity in our models, said Jamie Rodriguez, Flirt4Frees director of product. Customers find it so thrilling to visit a model decked out in Easter colors, or take part in the spur-of-the-moment in-chatroom games they come up with to help them nab those Eggs. Its a lot of fun! Fans that follow Flirt4Free on Twitter can get in on the festivities as well. The company will post a special tweet after the Easter Celebration goes live with instructions on how to win some fabulous schwag as part of their Easter Twitter Giveaway. For more information on the 2019 Easter Celebration and the Egg Hunt, visit Flirt4Free.com. Affiliates interested in promoting the Flirt4Free network should click here. Models looking to join their roster and take part in future contests can click here. Adult subscription site MissaX has announced that it is working with new director/writer/producer Whitney Wright. Fans are used to seeing Whitney in front of the camera, but will now be introduced to her skills behind the camera. She's hiring her own crew, is selecting her own cast of actors to fill roles, and while she may be brand new at directing, she's ambitious and excited to show MissaX and AllHerLuv members her unique perspective. Whitney's first release is a two-scene featurette, "Endless," is being released today, April 15, on AllHerLuv. It stars Avi Love, Lacy Lennon, Ana Foxxx and Will Pounder. A trailer for the featurette may be found here. "Avi, Ana, Lacy, and Will did amazing jobs and really helped bring this to life. I'm extremely proud of what we made," Whitney told AVN. According to a plot synopsis provided, the featurette asks the question, "What if God is giving you the opportunity to live the same day over and over again as an opportunity to make it right?" "Those words from Rhea echoed in my mind as I went over the last week. Time is standing still as I try to leave my husband for my lover, Jen, and Jen doesn't want me anymore. I roll over in bed as I look at Rhea sleeping. God, please let me have her; she's perfect. I've only known her for a day, but I'm in love with her! I have never felt so happy in this moment, in the past 24 hours, but yet, my heart is heavy, mourning for loss of her because tomorrow I will wake up and live the same day all over again." (Shades of Russian Doll!) "I've worked with Whitney in some of my favorite scenes, and I know she has a creative mind. I feel as if our scenes we've made together at MissaX.com are more like collaborations. I wanted to see what she could do on her own, with her own crew. Her featurette, 'Endless,' surpassed our expectations. I can't wait to see what else Whitney has to show us; she's an amazing storyteller," Missa told AVN. The future of porn is in the hands of the actors. MissaX's hope is to continue to give this opportunity to Whitney and actors with these abilities. Whitney has, at this writing, written an additional scene for MissaX, and she is currently writing other scenes. Said Missa, "We're grateful to add her to our team." The American Museum of Natural History will no longer host a gala honoring Brazil's far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, following several days of widespread public outrage and threats of resignation from scientists within the museum. In a statement, the AMNH said they had "jointly agreed" with the Brazilian American Chamber of Commerce the multinational business group organizing the "Person of the Year" gala that the event should be held elsewhere. "This traditional event will go forward at another location on the original date & time," the museum tweeted. With mutual respect for the work & goals of our individual organizations, we jointly agreed that the Museum is not the optimal location for the Brazilian-Am. Chamber of Commerce gala dinner. This traditional event will go forward at another location on the original date & time. American Museum of Natural History (@AMNH) April 15, 2019 The announcement was quickly celebrated by museum employees. "Im extremely relieved that both parties realized that the AMNH is not the space to honor this individual," Dr. Susan Perkins, a curator and professor of microbiology at the museum, told Gothamist. The decision comes four days after Gothamist first reported on the existence of the gala, which was set to take place on May 14th in the Great Hall of Ocean Life. The choice to honor Bolsonaro prompted a flurry of condemnations from the scientific community, many of whom noted that Bolsonaro's short time as president has been defined by an all-out assault on the Amazon rainforest. Since taking office in January, the number of attacks on indigenous reservations and deforestation rose by nearly 50 percent, according to one estimate. Over the weekend, scientists, graduate students, and others affiliated with AMNH have mounted a sustained protest campaign, threatening to boycott and disrupt the event if it were allowed to take place. Multiple open letters were distributed from departments inside the building, with some critics accusing the museum of taking "the money of people who would see the whole world burn to line their pockets." (The most expensive seats for the gala were $30,000, and quickly sold out.) It was particularly frustrating, the advocates said, that a space dedicated to the celebration of the natural world would welcome a far-right leader intent on the destruction of one of the world's most vital natural resources. "I hope this will spur some discussion on how these types of events are vetted moving forward," Perkins added. Neither the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce nor the American Museum of Natural History immediately responded to Gothamist's inquiries. This is breaking story and we'll update as more information becomes available. Have Sheriff Offices in North Carolina, possibly even Beaufort County's Sheriff Office, become too political in the discharging of their sworn constitutional duties? No, the sheriff is a constitutional officer. Yes, the Sheriff Office, on strong occasion, often reverts back to political patronage in the dispensation of their sworn constitutional duties. Like a cannonball, President Trump has leaped into the turbulent waters of higher education free speech policy and action. Carrying through on a promise he made during a freewheeling speech he delivered at CPAC a few weeks ago, the president has issued an executive order that throws the power of the federal government into the protection of free speech in higher education.Entitledthe order mandates that the heads of several federal agencies work with the Office of Management and Budget to taketo safeguardon campus. Schools that violate whatever regulations emerge from the order would be subject to losing their federal funding.The first question one asks regarding a major new federal regulation is whether it is even. Is it an attempt to solve or ameliorate a problem, or a solution in search of a problem? The second question is thechosen to deal with the problem. I address each question in order.Debate rages over the nature and extent of the campus free speech problem-after all, higher education is a vast and complex enterprise. Regardless, Trump'sis highly defensible. Who except censors and narrow-minded political activists think free speech is not vital to higher education and the country? And reasonable observers agree that free speech is at least embattled in many institutions, and in worse shape at too many.Witness, for example, the recent shenanigans at Sarah Lawrence College, one of America's most expensive schools. Student activists issued a set of extremely problematic demands (discussed in detail here) as the latest installment of their jihad against tenured conservative professor Samuel Abrams. From whence came their wrath?Late last fall Abrams had the temerity to write an op-ed incriticizing what he considered the lack of intellectual diversity on campus and the ideological tilt of administrators nationwide that has abetted this lack. Administrators at Sarah Lawrence were busy sponsoring public events that emphasized the claims of such movements as Black Lives Matter, while not providing space for competing views.In response to Abrams' classic exercise of free speech, students claimed they wereby his op-ed and defaced his office door with what Abrams considered "messages of intimidation." At first, the administration accused Abrams of emotionally harming the students-an all-too-common claim on campuses these days-but, however tardily, it eventually gave verbal support to his academic freedom.Alas, recently a student coalition (the) has upped the ante, occupying space in the administration building for two days while issuing nine pages of new demands. The demands include special funding for minority student advocacy groups; preventingfrom teaching history courses; and establishing mandatory first-year orientation sessions that addressThe Coalition also demanded the president's public denunciation of Abrams forand the formation of a special panel consisting of Diaspora Coalition members andto reconsider Abrams' tenure.If tenure is to mean anything, its fate should never fall into the hands of politicized students and their allies. The situation at Sarah Lawrence and many other schools calls out for strong, unequivocal defenses of free speech.But the means chosen for this and other cases require strategic wisdom. This point brings us back to Trump. The potential problems of implementation are both general and specific to the case at hand.On a more general level, We the People have let too many of our problems be resolved by the federal government and its bureaucracy, thereby weakening democratic consensus and self-government. Many observers found fault with President Obama when he issued an executive order mandating transgender access to every public school bathroom for being too dictatorial. The critics thought it better that each school or state fashion its own policy in this delicate area. How different is Trump's order?On a more specific level, federal intervention in this domain could actually further harm the cause of free speech itself.Key terms of the order, such asandare vague and potentially very broad, opening the door to abuse coming from different directions. Echoing the activists at Sarah Lawrence, many student censors today claim that public speech they deem inconsistent withmakes them feelthereby causing them to be fearful of expressing their own ideas. In a recent essay, Heather Mac Donald pointed out that a future federal administration could apply this new type thinking to require expanded censorship in the name of furthering freedom of inquiry. In Orwellian fashion, bureaucrats could deem less speech a means to foster more speech.So-calledrecently enacted by state legislatures have mainly targeted a specific area of concern that is amenable to remedial action: the disruption and shouting down of speakers. Trump's order, however, could be applicable in other domains where the issues are gray, not black and white.As the First Amendment watchdog organization PEN America pointed out in a recent critique, Trump's order could apply to a professor's not emphasizing a certain point of view in class, or a department not sponsoring a speaker whose views it rightly considers a form of junk science.PEN America's release states,Robert Zimmer, president of the University of Chicago-perhaps the nation's leading pro-free speech institution-concurs with PEN. Trump's intervention, he writes,First Amendment jurisprudence and principles of academic freedom have always allowed for limited, principled restrictions to free speech-e.g., intellectual competence and relevance to the subject at hand can limit what is said in class, and members of the university community must be allowed to decide whom to invite as speakers. But heavy-handed government intervention could intrude upon such judgments, especially if overly zealous students deploy federal power to back their claims.Another difficulty with Trump's order is that it could undermine free speech activists who have worked hard over the years to restore free speech and liberty on campus. I say that because the defense of free speech must be non-partisan in both substance and appearance, and Trump provokes partisanship.In Wisconsin, for example, state campuses construed as partisan the state legislature's 2017 campus free speech bill that mandated penalties for students who disrupt speakers. This perspective was reinforced when the Republican-controlled legislature adopted other measures or made statements that intruded upon university autonomy and challenged the academic freedom of some instructors.A pro-free speech activism of sorts even existed at Sarah Lawrence, to a degree. After students vandalized Abrams' door last year, a group of 27 faculty members signed a petition that called forAccording to Abrams, however, that faculty have retreated as of this writing in the face of the recent revival of attacks against him and academic freedom.The retreat of Sarah Lawrence's faculty provides justification for Trump's executive order. But such justification must also reckon with the downsides under discussion. Fortunately, there is a way that the federal government could assist free speech on campus in a less heavy-handed manner.In 2003, assistant secretary Gerald A. Reynolds in the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights wrote aletter to colleges and universities, reminding the institutions of their obligation to apply harassment law in a manner that does not violate the First Amendment.Reynolds stated.Rather than calling for a sweeping policy dictating how higher education institutions should deal with harassment and speech, the letter simply reaffirmed a position that has existed in law since the formation of the United States: that statutory rights (in this case the right not to be harassed in professional activities) must not be applied in a way that violates constitutional rights, such as the First Amendment.If education secretary Betsy DeVos or one of her subordinates were to reaffirm that position, it could empower free speech activists and practitioners, as well as provide the basis for legal action on their behalf, with or without a presidential order.A lesson lurks in this situation. If higher education wants to avoid potentially heavy-handed and deleterious outside intervention regarding free speech, it needs to get its own house in order. Lyla turned four years old on Thursday. On Friday, Tres picked me up after school and we were on the way to Elizabeth City to celebrate. Brant and Sydney joined us on Saturday. Lyla had gotten her first bike, from Will and Jenny, and so it rained, as it often does, when children get a bike. We were set to attend a festival too, which seems to evoke rain, as well. Not to be outdone, Jenny concocted a last minute plan to go to an indoor facility with all sorts of games and activities -and so, Lyla soon forgot all about the band and the petting zoo, she was looking forward to.Afterwards, we all came back to the house for cake and ice cream amongst Lylas' beloved decorations. Lyla is such a domestic soul, after all. She loves her dolls, cooking and just like her grandmother, Miss Claudia loved to decorate for occasions. Miss Claudia had a wreath hung for every holiday-including sporting seasons. Lyla, I expect will follow suit.The cake was presented with great ceremony, which thrilled Lyla. Since the rain had let up, Will took Lyla with a doll, in her basket, out to practice riding her bike. The little boys found a mud hole to play in. The littlest boy, eventually took most of his soiled clothing off, which really tickled me. He was but a few months older than Lyla, after all, and childhood affords such liberty. When the guests left, Tres and i cooked supper . He did the grilling and I worked in the kitchen, while Jenny gave the girls a bath, for Lyla had chocolate, from head to toe. When at long last, the children and the kitchen were clean, a peace settled in . Lttle Brynn, has a cold and she went fast to sleep. I looked in on Sydney and Lyla snuggled in a bed watching old cartoons and the young men were watching a ballgame, quietly, against all odds. Dear Diary, My heart was so happy.I can scarce take in that Lyla is four! I watched her riding her little bicycle and marveled at the slyness of time. It is startling to consider. I know first hand, that children grow up in "a flash" , and as it turns out, so do grandchildren. Oh, I shouldn't waste a single hour of this beautiful life!I got up early on Sunday. First there was the breakfast and I planned on making a Mexican soup for folks to carry home with them. Brant and Sydney had to leave early and Tres couldn't tarry, either. While the coffee brewed, I went out and was greeted by the tanager. It was good to see he had stayed. Oh how I wished to see his mate, but the yellow bird does not venture far from her nest.True to their word, all did rise pretty early. There was a scurry of showers - and suitcases and bags were being brought out. Car keys were laying in plain sight, and oh, how it all dampened my spirit. Jenny and I packed a box with cake and soup for Brant and Sydney. We hugged several times, as if we lived on different continents (which makes me shudder, to think about) and Lyla cried. By the time, Brant and Sydney had driven a mile, Tres said we would need to leave shortly.Tres had a long drive ahead of him. He works a full time job and goes to school full time. Tres writes papers, that I can not made heads nor tails of-He certainly does not write about such things as violets and young rabbits. I knew right from the start , that Tres was the intellectual sort, for he "wondered" about everything, from a young age. Still, he will waltz with Lyla and coo back to little Brynn. He also loves to cook and travel.Lyla and I made a dash to visit with Miss Thelma, before I had to leave. I had given Lyla a lesson on visiting etiquette. I prefaced it with "since you are four . . " and Lyla took it very seriously. She followed every rule, which took great restraint. Miss Thelma was pleased to see a well mannered young child -and so was I. In the "old days", when I was a child, manners were taught with great diligence. I can remember my grandmama saying " Even if you didn't have good sense, you ought to know how to act." Adults would stop in mid conservation, to correct a careless child, for it was that important. When we came back home, and Lyla was in "earshot" I told everybody of her success. Only God knows what will happen next time, but today was a victory!Tres and were back at the rabbitpatch, by one. We had listened to a lecture on the way there, but on the way back, we talked. I listened to my sons' dreams of living out west for a while, and then California, maybe go back to Europe . . .for he has already done quite a bit of wandering. My heart lurched at the prospect of all this traveling, but I encouraged him anyway. My son was speaking his truth and above all, I want my children to live their truth. He softened every new dialogue, with "but I will always come back home, a lot, Mom."It was a beautiful day. Dogwoods dotted the countryside. Wisteria and jasmine adorned the edges of the woodlands. Great clouds of pollen gusted through the air. It was spring and the little wildflowers blooming all along the roadside were proof of of it.The rabbitpatch was mighty quiet after all of the commotion of the last few days. My azaleas and dogwoods were not yet blooming. The sycamore was covered in new tender green leaves. The spirea had faded a bit. The hydrangeas were starting to leaf out and some of the running periwinkle was blooming. Birds were singing and chattering. You would have thought the rabbitpatch community was all in cahoots to cheer me up . . but it didn't work.It never fails, after a gathering with my children. I am downtrodden and melancholy, when we part. I am not a foolish young mother . . .I am an OLD foolish mother. Why I have not 'grown out of this" is beyond me. I miss them every one thoroughly -and I wish I had made more soup. I wish I had tucked little love notes in their bags and on and on I go working myself into a sad state. I didn't make the pancakes for Lyla and I left laundry for Jenny and poor little Brynn has a cold! Oh, if only they all came in for supper every night, I could manage.Being an old hand at mourning, after a holiday, I knew the remedy. I reminded myself how blessed I was to have my children. They are loving and devoted children to me . . . and very importantly, to one another. We do not quarrel, but instead lift one another up. We are as likely to boast on each other, as anything. . . and as Tres says . . ."They all come home . . .and often. Citi Bike has indefinitely pulled its beloved pedal-assist e-bikes bikes from service, following reports that a "stronger than expected braking force on the front wheel" had launched some riders over the bikes' handlebars. The recall was announced by the company on Sunday, and within hours the entire fleet of e-bikesapproximately 1,000 of themhad been taken off city streets. A spokesperson for Lyft, which bought Citi Bike last summer, said that a third-party engineering firm was undertaking a root cause analysis of the defect. Similar service suspensions were announced for Lyft's bike-share companies in Washington D.C. and the Bay Area. "After a small number of reports and out of an abundance of caution, we are proactively pausing our electric bikes from service," spokesperson Julie Wood said in a statement. "Safety always comes first." WHAT? CitiBike pulling ALL its pedal-assist bikes out of service?! This sounds... like an overreaction? And it's q huge downgrade in the service for tens of thousands of us who have come to love them. pic.twitter.com/B401COa2bB Rich Mintz (@richmintz) April 14, 2019 The reaction among e-bike enthusiasts was a mix of confusion and disappointmenteven from some riders who'd experienced the brake issue firsthand. William Turton, a Brooklyn-based journalist, told Gothamist that he was slowly approaching an intersection at Bedford Avenue a few days ago when he hit the brake on the e-bike and did a "180 onto the pavement." "I thought it was my fault until this morning when I read the email," he said. He suffered a few scrapes in the incident, but continued riding the pedal-assist bikes, which he said cut his commute time in half: "After being injured on an electric Citi bike, my usage increased." Yeah...was a little surprised that I flipped over so hard when I was slowly approaching an intersection....but its the price Im happy to pay to cut my commute in half William Turton (@WilliamTurton) April 14, 2019 The service stoppage comes just as Citi Bike's pedal-assist rollout was beginning in earnest. After introducing a few hundred of the e-bikes last summer, the company initially announced that a "vast majority" of its fleet would be electric. They later revised that figure down, with about 4,000 of the 13,000 total bikes expected to be pedal-assist by this summer. A $2 surcharge on the e-rides was set to take effect on April 27ththough it seems the company may now be reconsidering the controversial pricing structure. The company says service levels will be largely uninterrupted as they replace the vanished e-bikes with the classic non-electric model. As of this morning, there were just 8,895 bikes available less than 75 percent of Citi Bike's stated fleet. It remains unclear when the new e-bikes will return. A spokesperson for Lyft said the company is planning on deploying a new pedal-assist model soon, but would not share an exact date. "I'm actually depressed today because they're gone," Turton lamented. "They literally changed my life." Loading... Poland spoke about wanting to join the EU since the early 1990s. It took ten years to do it Poland got its long-awaited membership in 2004. There was a price to pay for economic growth and open borders: millions of Polish professionals emigrated to richer countries in Europe. Currently, Poland has a strained relationship with the EU. In 2018, the president of the country, Andrzej Duda, signed a law which prohibits accusing Poland of collaborating with the Nazis during WWII, and European politicians started talking about a freedom of speech violation. The country risks losing its European subsidies. British photographer Mark Power traveled to Poland immediately after it entered the EU. In his photographs there are provincial cities and landscapes of a country that just became a part of Europe. Attorneys for parents of five unvaccinated children in Brooklyn have filed a lawsuit against the citys Health Department, calling for a restraining order to stop a mandatory vaccination rule that went into effect last Tuesday. Papers filed by attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a frequent critic of vaccines through his group Childrens Health Defense, and two other attorneys argue that the current measles outbreak isnt an emergency, and the city has overstepped its executive powers by mandating vaccination. There is insufficient evidence of a measles epidemic or dangerous outbreak to justify the respondents extraordinary measures, including forced vaccination, the papers filed Monday said. The Orders are, therefore, arbitrary, capricious, contrary to law and in violation of petitioners rights under the United States Constitution and New York State law. Since October there have been 329 confirmed measles cases, mostly in Williamsburg Brooklyn. 25 people were hospitalized with six needing intensive care, the Health Department announced on Monday. One of the plaintiffs, identified in an affidavit as A.L., described seeing a mother getting shouted off the playground for bringing measles around. What is happening right now in Brooklyn neighborhoods is an absolute witch hunt. Members of the Jewish community are being publicly castigated and talked about in the most anti-Semitic ways I could possibly imagine, A.L. wrote. I refuse to go against my sincerely held religious belief to comply, no matter how much I am bullied or coerced. City health officials have said they will not vaccinate people against their will. As of Friday officials said no fines had been issued for refusing to get the measles vaccine. Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesman for the Citys Law Department, said he was confident the courts would side with city. We are in the midst of an epidemic that was preventable. Our attempts at education and persuasion have failed to stop the spread of measles, he said. We had to take this additional action to fulfill our obligation to ensure that individuals do not continue to put the health of others at risk. We are confident that the citys order is within the Health Commissioners authority to address the very serious danger presented by this measles outbreak. This story is a developing story; refresh for updates. Gwynne Hogan is an associate producer at WNYC. You can follow her on Twitter at @GwynneFitz. The decision to detain Vu, announced Friday, is part of an ongoing investigation into violations in managing and using state investment capital involving Vietnams third largest telecom firm MobiFone and certain divisions of the Ministry of Public Security, which has made headlines since 2016. The nexus came to light after the state-run MobiFone broke into the pay TV market with the acquisition of a 95 percent stake in AVG in January 2016. But government inspectors concluded that the deal had violated public investment laws and caused an estimated loss of about VND7 trillion ($307 million) to the state budget. Vu used to live and work in Eastern Europe before coming back to Vietnam in the 2000s. He started with real estate investment, and then switched to building a pay TV business in 2004. The VND1.8 trillion ($77-million) AVG was established in 2008 and officially broadcasted in 2011. Also on Friday, police opened investigation against Nguyen Bac Son and Truong Minh Tuan, former ministers of Information and Communications, for signs of receiving bribes in the AVG acquisition. In February, Son and Tuan were arrested for violations related to management and use of public capital in the same case. Son, then serving as information minister, directly approved the acquisition of AVG by MobiFone against regulations and asked subordinates to sign documents in contravention of regulations, investigation found. Tuan, as a deputy information minister, had signed a decision to approve the illegal acquisition without the Prime Ministers approval. He became information minister in 2016 but was dismissed from his position in a secret ballot by the legislative National Assembly last October. Several other people involved in the AVG case were also arrested and are facing criminal charges, including Cao Duy Hai, former general director of MobiFone; Pham Thi Phuong Anh, the firm's former deputy general director; Le Nam Tra, 57, its former chairman and general director; and Pham Dinh Trong, 48, former head of the Department of Enterprise Management under the Ministry of Information and Communications. An ongoing corruption crackdown spearheaded by Party General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong has seen scores of officials and top businesspeople arrested and sent to jail in recent years. Trong has said that there will be no let up in the anti-corruption drive. Today is Tax Day, the day when individual income tax returns are due to the federal government. Here are five facts you should know about income taxes and Tax Day: 1. The first national income tax in the United States was in 1861 soon after the outbreak of the Civil War. Congress approved a national income tax, signed into law by President Lincoln on August 5, 1861, which provided for a flat tax of three percent on annual income above the personal exemption of $800.50 (equivalent to $22,183.98 in 2017 dollars). Because so little money was collected that first year, Congress passed the Internal Revenue Act of 1862, which created the Internal Revenue Service. The tax expired soon after the war ended. 2. In 1894, the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act revived the income tax once again, imposing a two percent tax on incomes over $4,000 ($115,011.25 in 2017 dollars). The next year the Supreme Court ruled in Pollock v. Farmers Loan and Trust Company that the income tax provision of the Act was a direct tax, and thus violated Article I of the Constitution, which stated taxes had to be levied in proportion to a states population. 3. In the 1890s the federal government depended primarily on tariff duties and excise taxes as its chief sources of revenue. These types of taxes are regressive (i.e., take a larger percentage of a poor persons income) so many Americans were in favor of replacing them with a progressive income tax, which would put more of the tax burden on the wealthy. Because of the ruling in Pollock, a constitutional amendment was needed to reinstitute a national income tax. The proposed 16th Amendment was approved by the Senate (77-0) and the House (318-14) and ratified by 42 states by 1913. 4. In 1913 Tax Day was set for March 1. It was moved to March 15 in 1918 and to April 15 in 1955. If April 15th falls on weekend, the deadline is moved to Monday. Tax Day sometimes conflicts with two local holidays: Emancipation Day, a holiday in Washington, D.C. commemorating the emancipation in April 1862 of African slaves, and Patriots Day, a holiday in Maine and Massachusetts that celebrates the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1776, that initiated the American Revolutionary War. In such cases where there is a conflict with those local holidays, the deadline is moved for the entire nation. 5. Based on research by the American Action Forum (AAF), the IRS currently imposes 8.1 billion hours of paperwork and generates more than 1,000 different types of tax forms. AAF calculates that this amounts to 25 hours per person in the U.S. or 54 hours per taxpayer. In other words, the average working American spends more than the equivalent of one work-week sifting through paperwork and preparing to file income taxes. 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... Last September, the French Directorate of Military Intelligence prepared a "highly classified" report on the Saudi war in Yemen to brief the "restricted council" of cabinet-level officials; the report has been obtained by the French media organization Disclose, which has published it jointly with The Intercept and four other French media organizations. The report paints a damning picture of western complicity in the Saudi war. It lays out how the Saudis are completely dependent on US arms sales to continue their campaign against the Yemenis, and how if the US were to pull out, replacing US arms with Russian or Chinese systems would involve years of retrofitting and incredible expense. It also implicates the US in "targeting" operations that have resulted in massive civilian casualties, and describes the key role that French tanks and other armaments are playing in the fighting. Finally, it paints a picture of the Saudi forces as bungling incompetents whose strikes do little of military value despite the terrible toll they are taking on the country's civilian population (by contrast, the report is very complimentary to the UAE forces operating on the Saudi's behalf in the theater of war). The French intelligence report also describes a massive operation by the Saudis to secure their border with Yemen, and says that five brigades of the Saudi army and two brigades of the Saudi National Guard about 25,000 men are deployed along the border. The troops are reinforced by 300 tanks and a battalion of 48 French-made Caesar self-propelled Howitzer guns capable of firing dozens of miles into Yemeni territory. The "unspoken goal" of this border operation is to penetrate Houthi-controlled areas and eventually advance on Houthi strongholds in the Yemeni governorate of Saada, the report says. But it says the Saudis' lack of mobility leaves them highly vulnerable to guerrilla attacks and that their strikes are too imprecise be effective against the nimbler Houthi forces. "Despite the defensive means deployed, the rebels maintain their nuisance capability: artillery salvos, missile shots, improvised explosive devices, ambushes and infiltrations into Saudi territory," the report says. "The addition of infantry combat vehicles in empty spaces between the tanks, in the summer of 2016, did not allow for an improvement in the efficiency of Saudi tactics." Secret Report Reveals Saudi Incompetence and Widespread Use of U.S. Weapons in Yemen [Alex Emmons/The Intercept] The Robert Allen Duralee Group bankruptcy saga has turned the page on a new chapterthe beleaguered fabric giant has a potential buyer. In an email to employees sent on Friday, CEO Lee Silberman announced that his company has entered into an asset purchase agreement with RADG Holdings LLC with respect to its proposed purchase of The Robert Allen Duralee Group needless to say, we are all very pleased. The bid is for $19 million. If another entity wishes to outbid the stalking horse (the first mover in a bankruptcy purchasing agreement), it will have to pony up $19.7 million or more. If no new bid emerges by the end of the month, RADG Holdings will own Robert Allen Duralee. Who or what is RADG Holdings? Heres what we know so far. The name RADG Holdings is a little confusing, seeming to imply that Robert Allen Duralee is buying itself. Not so. On legal documents filed with the announcement, its indicated that Brant Enderle is the manager of RADG Holdings, and that the companys offices are headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee. At this early date, its not clear if Enderle owns RADG Holdings outright, or whether its a shell company set up to represent an investment group. The LLC was incorporated only 10 days ago in Delaware. Enderle appears to have no prior connection to the fabric or home furnishings industry. Recent news articles paint him as a Knoxville real estate developer; his projects include a local brewery that closed in 2017, the site of an abandoned mill slated for commercial redevelopment, and 900 acres formerly owned by the state power company. Enderle does have a background in buying distressed assets. In 2016, WBIR, a local news station, reported that one of his companies, Knoxville Partners LLC, purchased a mall in Knoxville for $10.1 million, roughly a third of the appraisal price. Since then, the mall has struggled to retain tenants, and, for a time, owed over $600,000 in back taxes (the taxes have since been repaid). how did we get here After multiple rounds of pay cuts and layoffs, padlocks on the doors of its Houston showroom, and rampant rumors of vendors and licensees not getting paid, RADG filed for Chapter 11 in mid-February, a move that executives hoped would clear the way for a takeover. In a letter to employees, Silberman wrote, We believe this court-supervised process is the best way to solidify and enhance our financial position. The company had been bogged down by debt, much of which was inherited at the companys start. Following the March 2017 merger of Robert Allen and Duralee, the company cut costs by $10 million to $12 million in less than a year, but it wasnt enough. The biggest dirty little secret that [company CFO] Bill Fuchs and I have been keeping from the team is an acknowledgement that when we merged, we were undercapitalized, Silberman told the companys leadership team in a September 2018 meeting. He also revealed that at the time of the merger, he was aware that private equity firm Altamont Capital Partners would not put up additional capital to fund the new entity. Both companies were undercapitalized before the merger, and the merged entity remained undercapitalized, he said. Unable to break its long-term leases, the company was also stuck paying double the staff and rent at multiple design centers; its also widely-known that the computer systems of the two companies could never be fully integrated, costing additional time and money. Then, sales declined in 2017 and 2018 by 14 percent. In an April 2018 meeting with Altamont, the firm informed Silberman that they wanted to sell their majority stake in the companyand they tasked him with finding a new buyer. Since April 26, I have been working two full-time jobs, he said in that September meeting, finally divulging the news to his team. He compared the benign neglect of Altamonts management with what he was looking for in a new partner: Ive been making it very clear that when the deal is done, we will have the capital we need to pay off our vendors, take care of our mill delays, and fix all of our technology problems. And the companies Im talking to are well aware of that situation and are still interested. According to documents filed in accordance with the bankruptcy proceedings, The Robert Allen Duralee Group has about $64 million in debt spread out among its various creditors. If the stalking horse bid goes through, the proceeds from the sale will mean that some of them are reimbursed, though to what degree (and in what order) is not yet clear. As of press time, Enderle had not responded to requests for comment. In our monthly showroom roundup, all the expansions and openings to have on your radar. EAST COAST Online framing retailer Framebridge opened its first physical store this month. Founder and CEO Susan Tynan raised $67 million in VC funding from Revolution Ventures and T. Rowe Price; the 1,200-square-foot shop is part of its omnichannel strategy. (1919 14th Street NW, Washington, D.C.) Framebridge's first physical store, in Washington, D.C. Courtesy of Framebridge As part of a renewed focus on big-city markets, Christopher Guy is relocating its showroom to the ground floor (the former McGuire space) in the New York Design Center in May. (200 Lexington Avenue, Suite 101, New York) Richmond, Virginiabased furniture manufacturer McKinnon & Harris closed its street-level space and reopened in the Decoration & Design Building. The new showroom has two entrances, one from within the D&D building and another streetside entrance on 59th street across from the old showroom. (222 East 59th Street, Suite 111, New York) Gibson Interior Products moved from the NYDC on 200 Lexington Avenue to Broadway, nearly tripling its square footage in the process. The new 11,500-square-foot space allows the brands vendors to have more product on display. (1239 Broadway, 2nd Floor, New York) Luxury appliance brand JennAir will open a physical space in New Yorks Architects & Designers Building, the third in a series of the brands showroom transformations. The 2,500-square-foot space shows off the Rise and Noir collections in what JennAir calls an immersive environment. (150 East 58th Street, New York) Ikea's planning studio Courtesy of Ikea Ikea opens its new concept store in the New York design district today. Focusing on city living and smaller spaces, the shop welcomes walk-ins and has specialists available by appointment. Notably, theres also no buy-and-carry (and definitely not a warehouse full of inventory); instead, customers have each purchase delivered. (999 Third Avenue, New York) Room & Board opened a pop-up in East Hampton, New York, which will remain open until September. This idea has been on our minds for a while as a unique way for us to connect to a specific geography, regional retail market manager Lee Testa told Business of Home in early April. (51 Newtown Lane, East Hampton, New York) Furniture brand MacKenzie-Childs opened a new spot in New Yorks SoHo. At 26,500 square feet, the space is a slight downsize from its former location on the Upper East Side, but the brand said the SoHo spot has a better layout. (169 Spring Street, New York) MIDWEST Magnolia Home is moving from High Point, North Carolina, to Waco, Texas, which is the hometown of Magnolia founders Chip and Joanna Gaines. The original showroom opened in 2015 and was 15,000 square feet; the new square footage is not yet known. Parent company Standard Furniture has confirmed that its other brand, Loloi Rugs, will remain in High Point. Luxury home appliance brand Dacor has opened its second-ever showroom, in Chicago; the first opened in New York earlier this year, and the brands Southern California flagship will open this fall. (222 W. Merchandise Mart Plaza, #142, Chicago) WEST COAST Cosentino City Los Angeles Center Courtesy of Cosentino City Los Angeles Center Sonoma, Californiabased Fletcher Rhodes Interior Design moved to a new studio recently, reported Sonoma Index-Tribune. Clients can currently make appointments, but the firms founder and creative director, Emily Mughannam, hopes that eventually it can open its doors to the public. (1620 Carneros Meadows Lane, Suite 2, Sonoma, California) In Los Angeles, Cosentino opened its latest city center, and Cindy Crawford was there to celebrate. The 4,208-square-foot showroom has a kitchen, lounge and plenty of outlets. The main scope is to get youthe designer, architect, consumerinside our showroom because once youre there, you really see the beauty of our product but also its application, marketing director Massimo Ballucchi told BOH earlier this month. (8764 Beverly Boulevard, West Hollywood, California) INTERNATIONAL Tai Ping opened a new showroom in Milan just in time for Salone del Mobile. The space debuted with a special exhibition for Tai Ping's collaboration with Noe Duchaufour-Lawrance, titled Raw, for Salone. (Piazza San Simpliciano, Milan) Tai Ping's Milan showroom Courtesy of Tai Ping Also debuting in Milan is a temporary store for Gucci Decor, a 2,600-square-foot two-floor space on the Via Santo Spirito. It will be open until June. (19 Via Santo Spirito, Milan) - T. S. Eliot Thoughts After Lambeth "The World is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the World from suicide." AskMen Style Defined: Cool Style for the Warm Weather Warm-Weather Style Defined The AskMen editorial team thoroughly researches & reviews the best gear, services and staples for life. AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service. Here at AskMen, we strive to bring you new and interesting content to help answer any questions you may have from sex and dating to health and fitness and food and booze. And this latest installment of our new weekly series AskMen Style Defined is all about taking the tropics or at least tropical style with you wherever you go. RELATED: AskMen Style Defined Last Week: Tech Fabrics Make for a More Comfortable Spring Born and raised in Brooklyn, Eric Wertz now resides in upstate New York, about an hour north of the city he once called home. As an electrician, avid traveler, and mens lifestyle blogger, there is no shortage of inspiration for his site Blue Collar Prep. Focusing on fashion, food, and family, Wertz has a distinct style and bold visual presence on his blog as well as his Instagram page by the same name. Behind the fashionable IG posts, Im a true family man who loves exploring and enduring any new adventure with my family, Wertz says of his life we see in his photoshoots. We are all avid skiers and love the Caribbean. From local road trips to aspirations of seeing as much of this world as we can together, any new experience I have I honestly always want it to me with my wife and son. To see Wertzs stylish feed is to see someone who has a clear vision about who he is: Im a blue collar guy who happens to love fashion. Its this passion that triggered my wife [Sarina] and I to start our own brand, BLUE #NotTheColorBlue. He and Sarina, a photographer in her own right started the brand with a simple, staple accessory of his the beanie. We started out with the one accessory I use in a lot of my looks and are currently working on some shirt designs, he explains. With such a full schedule its hard to devote 100 percent to anything right now, but I honestly love the balance of my life from being a homeowner, a dad, a devoted hubby, a lifestyle blogger, a brand owner, Im definitely never bored and love the versatility of everything we have going on right now. His wife isnt just his partner in life and business, she, along with his late father, serve as constant inspiration every day. My wife has just an effortlessly cool style and my father was able to pull off just about anything in terms of outfit selections, he tells us. I feel like a lot of the pieces I choose today, I could easily have seen him rocking back in the day! But like many of the creatives we speak with for our weekly series, Wertz doesnt just draw inspiration from a single source. My inspiration also comes from just about anywhere from the many stylish guys on the gram, to pieces my wife rocks, to someone on the street, to even the casually cool pieces my son [Nate] wears. I get my inspo from everything around me! For this look featured I was actually on my way to a derby party for J. Peterman and chose these specific pieces from them to rock at the event, he says about sophisticatedly styled spring ensemble. I love this outfit and cant wait to take that blue cargo jacket and re-work it into an entirely different look. Its fitting that Wertz is a fan of travel to island destinations such as the Caribbean, since this outfit from the Panama hat to the cropped summer-weight trousers evokes feelings of tropical life even in an urban setting of New York City. He continues on explaining that he likes blending different styles. Im definitely not just married to one. I like versatile pieces that can be used in any look, whether its street style, grunge, or more dapper vibes. Judging from the variety of outfits in his feed, we can guess he will be bringing a lot more stylish ideas as the weather continues to warm up. Items to shop inspired by Wertzs look: Budget: Jack & Jones Premium Field Jacket, $116 at Asos.com Topman Stripe T-Shirt, $20 at Topman.com Alex Mill Standard Pleated Chino, $115 at AlexMill.com Ultrafino Barrington Panama Hat, from $47.99 at Amazon.com Vans OG Classic LX Brushed-Nubuck Slip-On Sneakers, $60 at MrPorter.com Baller: Tods Suede Safari Jacket, $5,625 at Tods.com Sunspel Classic Cotton Breton Stripe T-Shirt, $90 at Sunspel.com The Workers Club Tapered Pleated Cotton-Twill Chinos, $250 at MrPorter.com Frescobol Carioca Grosgrain-Trimmed Straw Panama Hat, $260 at MrPorter.com Brunello Cucinelli Slip-On Sneakers, $695 at BrunelloCucinelli.com Were big fans of this cool style as the weather warms up, but what do you think? What do you want to see? Do you have a look you like? Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and friend us on Facebook to share your best looks or tell us about someone we should check out. Tag us and use the hashtag #AskMenStyleDefined to get our attention. Or email us directly at [email protected] with AskMen Style Defined in the subject line. Maybe next week, well pick you! You Might Also Dig: AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service. To find out more, please read our complete terms of use. New York City has long had a fraught relationship with raccoons, particularly those foaming at the mouth. Instead of euthanizing hundreds of the garbage can-dwelling denizens and then testing them for rabiesas the city allegedly did from 2014 to 2016the powers that be are now opting to vaccinate and release raccoons hanging out in several northern Manhattan parks. The decision comes after four rabid Trash Pandas have been spotted around Inwood Hill Park just this year, the first time rabid raccoons have been spotted in the city since 2011, as officials announced earlier this year. Still, the vaccination is mostly a "preventative measure to ensure that our residents remain safe, said Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot in a press release from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Starting today through the next two weeks, officials will "humanely trap" raccoons in remote parts of several Manhattan parks, among them Isham Park, Fort Washington, Fort Tryon, Riverbank, and the northern part of Central Park. They'll then vaccinate and tag the raccoons, and release them so that they can once again dig through garbage to their hearts' content. Wait, what about raccoons who have settled in areas where traps aren't possible? The DOH is coming for them too, doling out an oral rabies vaccine (ORV) in these cases. As the agency notes, it's pretty rare for an encounter with a rabid raccoon to happen (two other rabid raccoons have been reported thus far this year, one in the Bronx and one in Staten Island, as NY1 notes), but it's still probably a good idea to steer clear of them. And don't even think about trying to Instagram your encounter. Profit dial turned up to maximum Financial independence is a worthwhile goal this analyst thinks everyone should strive for. Theres nothing more satisfying than waking up in the morning knowing you dont have to go to work that day. Total freedom is an intoxicating drug. Its little wonder why most financially independent folks end up giving up their 9-5 jobs; the whole world is your oyster when not encumbered by a typical career. What people struggle with is how to get there. This article will help. Let me share with you the best piece of advice Ive gotten something almost universally shared by the financially independent folks Ive encountered over the years. Buy quality investments The refrain is always the same. These folks advocate building a diverse portfolio filled with the finest Canadian companies, blue-chip investments that pay generous dividends. I once had the pleasure of meeting a millionaire plumber from Calgary, a man who had built up a $2 million portfolio by his 50th birthday. Henrys method was as simple as it was powerful he lived frugally, saved a big chunk of his income, and put his money to work in tried-and-true investments like Canadas banks, telecoms, and pipelines. As soon as his passive income surpassed his active income, he negotiated part-time work. Hes now retired making six figures annually in passive income from a portfolio approaching $3 million not bad for a guy who hasnt reached 60 yet. Theres no rule saying you cant get rich owning more active investments. We all know a landlord or two that quietly accumulated a nice real estate portfolio. But there are issues owning those kinds of investments. They take work to maintain and can only be easily converted to cash if the underlying market is feeling cooperative. This is why Im a big fan of owning a diverse REIT portfolio instead. Which stocks should you own? Investing doesnt have to be complicated. Heres what I do: I load up on Canadas finest companies when shares are on sale. And then I sit back, relax, and let compounding do its magic. Story continues One stock Ive been buying recently is Bank of Nova Scotia (TSX:BNS)(NYSE:BNS), Canadas most international bank. Most folks know about the companys operations here at home. Its hard to miss them with a branch seemingly on every corner. But few are aware of the companys massive expansion effort into Latin America. Its assets in nations such as Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru contribute about a third of the total bottom line with much better growth than the Canadian operations. International earnings grew by 16% in 2018 versus 8% growth in the Canadian operations. We know banking is a wonderful business, and Im confident Scotiabank can repeat its Canadian success in Latin America. The other important factor is shares are on sale today, trading at less than 10 times forward earnings expectations. And investors are paid a 4.7% dividend to wait a payout that should grow by 7-10% annually going forward. Another great stock to buy over the long term is Brookfield Renewable Partners (TSX:BEP.UN)(NYSE:BEP), one of the largest owners of renewable energy assets in the world. Top holdings include hydroelectric plants in places like Canada, the United States, Brazil, and Colombia, wind farms off the coast of Europe, and various other eco-friendly assets. At first glance, shares dont appear particularly cheap. The companys P/E ratio is an eye-popping 239. But its much more reasonable on a price-to-funds from operations perspective, which checked in at US$2.16 per unit in 2018. Shares trade hands at a little over US$31 on the NYSE, giving us a price-to-funds from operations ratio of around 15. The company pays a generous 6.3% dividend a payout that is well covered by earnings. Management has stated they wish to increase the payout by 6-9% a year, which has happened over the last decade. Im confident the company can continue to deliver solid results for decades to come. More reading Fool contributor Nelson Smith owns shares of BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA. and BROOKFIELD RENEWABLE PARTNERS LP. Bank of Nova Scotia is a recommendation of Stock Advisor Canada. Brookfield Renewable Partners is a recommendation of Dividend Investor Canada. 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 Reuters The state of Arizona on Tuesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow a Republican-backed law that bans abortions performed due to fetal genetic abnormalities such as Down syndrome to go into effect. The emergency request to the justices, made by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, seeks to block part of a September ruling by a federal judge in the state that put the newly enacted measure on hold. The Arizona Medical Association physicians' group and abortion rights advocates were among those filing suit after Arizona Governor Doug Ducey in April signed into law the measure banning abortions performed strictly on the basis of genetic disorders detected in the fetus, such as Down syndrome or cystic fibrosis, unless the condition is considered lethal. It is one of a series of Republican-backed abortion restrictions pursued at the state level in recent years. World No. 1 womens shuttler Tai Tzu-ying of Taiwan (PHOTO: EFE/EPA/Ahmad Yusni) SINGAPORE Tai Tzu-ying draws frequent gasps of admiration from those watching her play. The Taiwanese world No. 1 shuttler makes up for her slight, 1.62m frame with some of the smartest and most unexpected shot selections seen among the current top players, confounding her opponents and sending them scampering all over the court in vain. On Saturday (13 April) at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, fans witnessed another admirable trait from the 24-year-old an icy focus even in dire circumstances. Saving five match points against an inspired world No. 4 Akane Yamaguchi, Tai turned the tables to reach the womens singles final of the Singapore Badminton Open with a stirring 15-21, 24-22, 21-19 win. Yet, when asked about how she felt to be able to save all those match points, she smiled sheepishly and said, I forgot. But overall, I thought I adopted a really relaxed approach. Weve played each other many times, so there was a lot of familiarity. In the end, it boils down to our improvised shots. Down and nearly out against inspired opponent And how Tai improvised when she had seemed a lost cause at 16-20 down in the second game. Yamaguchi, speedy and aggressive, seemed to have figured out Tais strategy and was frequently at the right spots to deliver smashing winners. And when Tai tried to alter her shot placements to throw the Japanese off-guard, she was too error-prone to be of consistent threat. Fans were ready to applaud an upset victory, but Tai had other plans. She abandoned experimenting with tough shots, and instead turned up the intensity with faster returns. It worked wonders, as Yamaguchi was sent sprawling flat on the court on at least two occasions, as she chased Tais returns to no avail. As the crowd sensed a comeback and roared her on, Tai capitalised on her upturn in fortunes and got herself out of trouble. A deflated Yamaguchi still summoned plenty of fight in the third game, but Tai had too much momentum and confidence to falter. Story continues Despite her loss, the 21-year-old was full of praise for her opponent, saying, At the end of the second game, Tai had a nothing to lose mentality and she started to come forward. She is very good with everything her speed, her mentality, her skills. It was a difficult match, and I made a few mistakes at some key points. Another Japanese awaits in final Tai will face another formidable Japanese, world No. 3 Nozomi Okuhara, in Sundays final. Okuhara was in scintillating form, thrashing an out-of-sorts P.V. Sindhu of India 21-7, 21-11 in the other semi-final. In the mens singles, Indonesias Anthony Sinisuka Ginting lived up to his Giant Killer nickname again, following his victory over reigning Olympic gold medallist Chen Long in the quarter-finals with a 21-17, 18-21, 21-14 win over defending Singapore Open champion, Taiwans Chou Tien-chen. He will need to be at his giant-killing best again in the final, as he faces world No. 1 Kento Momota, who took 46 minutes to see off Denmarks Viktor Axelsen 21-15, 21-18. Related stories: Giant Killer Ginting takes another major scalp in stunning Olympic champ Chen Long Top seeds find form to advance at Singapore Badminton Open Lin Dan angers crowd at Singapore Badminton Open after walking off opening tie One man is dead, another person is in hospital and a suspect is in police custody after a shooting at a small church in Salmon Arm, B.C., on Sunday. Gary Moore Family members have confirmed that the deceased is Gordon Parmenter, an elder at the Salmon Arm Church of Christ. Police say the shooting was not religiously motivated. Police and B.C. Emergency Health Services said they received calls around 10:30 a.m. PT about two people who had been injured at the church. One of the injured was airlifted to hospital, and is in stable condition, said Salmon Arm RCMP. The local church was hosting an event when a male allegedly entered the church and shot two parishioners, according to police. Mounties said a 25-year-old man was taken into custody after being wrestled to the ground by a number of parishioners. A rifle was seized. 1 victim known to suspect Police said there is no active or ongoing threat to the public. "Police have determined that at least one of the victims was known to the suspect, and it is not believed at this time the event was religiously motivated," said Staff Sgt. Scott West, the Salmon Arm RCMP detachment commander. Mark Parmenter, the grandson of Gordon Parmenter, said the family knows the person who allegedly shot the elder Parmenter. He also told CBC News that his grandparent's home was burned in a suspicious fire in March. Police have not said if the two incidents are related. The Parmenters have been described by people who know them as a large and religious family. Gordon Parmenter and his wife Peggy were also foster parents. Cole Wintringham said the Parmenters were his foster parents from 2013 to 2017 and he credits Gordon for helping him graduate high school, develop confidence to participate in theatre, pursue music and go onto college. "He would never give up on any one of us, he often told me to the effect there were no 'bad kids' just kids who fell through society's cracks," wrote Wintringham in a statement sent to media. Story continues "It is for those kids, myself included, that he dedicated his home and life to helping." 'Our hearts are broken' Marie Taylor, 79, a member of the church, also released a statement to CBC News regarding the violence at the church on Sunday. "Our hearts are broken, we feel so blessed to have the faith that we have," it said. "It gives us the strength to love and forgive in any situation. We are praying for all the families affected." Taylor said elders at the church are usually older volunteers who share their time and experience to help other people, both from the church and in the broader community. Salmon Arm Church of Christ Her daughter who spoke to CBC News said the congregation is made up of 50 members or less and is a nondenominational Christian church. According to documents filed with Revenue Canada, the church has been a registered charitable organization since 1967. As of 2018, it had $187,384 in assets, including land and buildings. It issued tax receipts for gifts totaling $45,595 in the 2018 tax year. Irish tourist Elaine Murray was visiting the Perito Moreno glacier in Argentinas Los Glaciares National Park in mid-March when she witnessed large sections of the glacier calve and crash into Lake Argentino below. Perito Merono is an advancing glacier, so calving is not uncommon. According to National Geographic, the glacier sheds major ice chunks every few years before reforming. A famous ice bridge at the glacier collapses every two to four years, most recently in March, 2018. Credit: Elaine Murray via Storyful Wild turkeys are wreaking havoc on western Quebec's farms, leading to calls for better control of the hungry birds' population. The Union of Agricultural Producers (UAP) says wild turkeys have been causing more and more trouble as their population grows. "We want to find a solution, find a way to control them without exterminating them," said Stephane Alary, UAP vice-president for the Outaouais-Laurentian region. A farmer himself, Alary said he lost two tons of wheat a few years ago when turkeys ate their way through 10 per cent of his 20-acre field. Some farmers are abandoning grain production in favour of other crops, he said, rather than lose profits to the turkeys' appetites. One solution to the problem, Alary said, could be expanding hunting allowances or even pairing hunters with grain producers and allowing a second hunting season in the fall at harvest time. Richard Brule, who lives in Bowman, Que., is calling for an increase in hunting quotas. Currently, a hunter can kill two male turkeys during the hunting season, which runs from April 26 to May 17 this year. Brule said between 20 and 25 wild turkeys frequently visit his yard, attracted by the food he leaves out for the deer. "It's beautiful to see, but it's a nuisance," he said in a French-language interview. The birds venture all the way to his front door, he said, leaving a trail of feces behind them. Good breeding season, tough winter Quebec's Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks has gotten more reports of wild turkeys this year than in past years, said biologist Andre Dumont, who manages large wildlife for the department. While there isn't an exact count of wild turkeys in the Outaouais, he said the population is considered to be increasing, with between 10,000 and 15,000 making their home in the area. "We had a very good breeding season last year, but this year, the winter has been difficult for turkeys," Dumont said. Story continues Heavy snowfall has driven wild turkeys closer to highways and homes, Dumont said, where there are bird feeders and other sources of food. Jim Martin 'The turkeys have to go somewhere' It's not just Outaouais residents who've had run-ins with the birds. From terrorizing a Barrhaven retirement home to running around the downtown core, wild turkeys are a frequent sight in Ottawa as well. Anouk Hoedeman, founder of Safe Wings Ottawa, said this year's snowfall and freezing rain may have prevented turkeys from finding seeds and other food on the ground. "If there's a lot of snow or really hard snow that's covering up their food source, they're going to have a harder time with that," she said. Hoedeman said wild turkeys are active now because it's their breeding season but there are other reasons people are seeing more and more of their feathered neighbours. "We're taking over a lot of their habitat," she said. "As a lot of rural areas and forested areas are being turned into housing developments, the turkeys have to go somewhere." Submitted by Jean-Philippe Larocque 'We cannot control the population' Since the introduction of a regular hunting season in Quebec, the number of permits issued yearly has increased steadily, from just over 2,000 licences for the first hunt in 2008 to almost 18,000 in 2018. According to Jean-Philippe Larocque, owner of Pourvoirie de la Lievre, a hunting camp in Bowman, Que., the hunt has become more and more popular since 2008, nearly eight years after the bird was introduced to the area. The number of birds killed by hunting has increased as well, from 976 to 1,398 between 2014 and 2018. Allowing archery in some rural areas, including in Ontario, could help keep turkey populations under control where the bird doesn't have predators, Larocque said but relying on nature would be his preferred method. Dumont said the provincial ministry may consider more intensive hunting by allowing females to be hunted or increasing quotas. But the effects of such measures, he said, would be minimal. "Hunting would never succeed in reducing turkey populations," said Dumont. "The turkey population regulates itself, depending on harsh winters or spring nesting conditions. We cannot control the population of wild turkeys." The mayor of Oakland called the plan an outrageous abuse of powerusing human beings to settle political scores; San Franciscos mayor said it is just another in a long line of scare tactics and half-baked ideas. These and other officials, quoted in The Washington Post Friday, were reacting to President Trumps latest crackpot scheme: His administration is considering releasing migrants into sanctuary cities, because this would somehow punish Trumps progressive foes. This twisted sister is not just implausible, it may be illegal (and also impossible to enforce, as cities have open bordersyou just hop on a Greyhound bus and go anywhere you like.) The week began with the forced resignation last Sunday of Kirstjen Nielsen, now ex-secretary of homeland security, an official reviled for her hard-line support of policies that resulted in children in cages. (Apparently even her steadfast defense was not draconian enough for the president.) On Monday, a federal judge blocked a policy that would require some asylum seekers to languish in Mexico while their cases proceeded through U.S. courts. On Wednesday, Trump told reporters that he wants more troops at the border then lamented, Our military, dont forget, cant act like a military would act. Because if they got a little rough, everybody would go crazy. On Friday, The New York Times reported that the president privately urged border enforcement official Kevin McAleenan, soon-to-be-named acting secretary of homeland security, to close the southwestern border to migrants despite having just said publicly that he was delaying a decision on the step for a year . . . It was not clear what Mr. Trump meant by his request or his additional comment to Mr. McAleenan that he would pardon him if he encountered any legal problems as a result of taking the action. As if that wasnt enough, the president trotted out yet another canard in his unrelenting campaign to dissuade asylum seekersdont come because we have no more room! Our country is full, he told incredulous journalists at a briefing on Friday. Story continues And speaking of fullthe week was full of other bad news: On Wednesday, Attorney General William Barr stunned members of the Senate Appropriations Committee by confirming that he was looking into the origins of the Russia investigation, suggesting the Trump campaign might have been spied upon, a baseless contention that the president has been pushing for some time. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi responded furiously to this allegation, saying, It is very dismaying and disappointing that the chief law enforcement officer in our country is going off the rails yesterday and today. He is the attorney general of the United States of America, not of Donald Trump. On Thursday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was dragged out of the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he had been given sanctuary for the last seven years. (The U.S. wants to extradite him to face charges here, and Sweden may want him back as well.) In true 1984ish fashion, Trump immediately told reporters, I know nothing about WikiLeaks. Its not my thing, and I know there is something having to do with Julian Assange. . . . Thats not my deal in life. Apparently, the president is counting on some kind of collective national amnesia, afflicting millions of Americans, so that we might forget his previous deal in lifehe is the same guy who throughout his presidential campaign continually crowed, WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks! But let us a leave you with a bit of moral clarity, a ray of sunshine in the dismal dungeon where we now fester: Last Sunday, South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg, who is expected to announce his run for the presidency sometime today, gave a very moving speech at the LGBTQ Victory Funds National Champagne Brunch. Saying that his marriage to another man had made him feel closer to God, he added, Thats the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand: that if you have a problem with who I am, your quarrel is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator. Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. His book, A Fathers Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror, has just been published. Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh. blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. . ..Israel National News..15 April '19..Have you ever seen so many oxymorons in a single paragraph? The statement issued by four Jewish members of Congress challenging Israels prime minister may have set a new record.The statement was issued by Representatives Eliot Engel and Nita Lowey of New York, Ted Deutch of Florida, and Brad Schneider of Illinois, all Democrats. They were responding to a remark made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a recent interview, in which he indicated he might propose extending Israeli law to Jewish communities in Judea-Samaria.Anyone who is familiar with the actual situation on the ground in those territories knows that way back in 1995, the Palestinian Authority extended its laws to the cities in which 98% of the Palestinian Arabs live. So why the double standard? Why cant Israeli law be implemented in the Jewish towns? Why do the Jews still have to be governed by the arbitrary and cumbersome system of the old Israeli military administration, while the Arabs get to live under their own laws?The four congress members didnt offer an answer to that question. You know why? Because nobody ever asked them. Journalists never pose such questions, because they might not get the answers they like. Even more riskysuch questions might stimulate the members of Congress to give some genuine serious thought to these issues, instead of just regurgitating the talking points that their advisers pick up from the opinion pages of theand the, and the talking heads on the Sunday interview shows.The first oxymoron in the statement by the congressional gang of four was this doozy: Israels ability to guard itself from threats is non-negotiable. We hope that any security measures are implemented within the context of preserving the eventual possibility of a two-state solution.The definition of an oxymoron is an expression that has within it two terms that contradict each other. The creation of a Palestinian state in Judea-Samaria, which these members of Congress are advocating, would make it impossible for Israel to guard itself from threats, as they put it.One glance at a map of the region shows you why. The western-most cities under Palestinian Authority control are Tulkarm and Qalqilya. They are about nine miles from the Mediterranean. That is, there is nine miles of Israel between the Mediterranean and those PA cities. Since Tulkarm is the third largest PA city and, Qalqilya is the fifth largest, they obviously would be included in a Palestinian state. Meaning that in a two-state solution, Israel would be reduced to nine miles wide at its mid-section. Thats not even as wide as the Bronx, where parts of Congressman Engels district are located.I think it would be very interesting if a reporter would interview some random people on streets in Engels district, and ask them if they think it would be reasonable to force Israel back to borders that would be even narrower than the width of the Bronx. Somehow, I doubt that the congressman bothered to ask his constituents what they thought of that prospect, before he added his name to the letter. But who cares what the voters think?Here comes oxymoron number two. The letter calls for Two states for two peoples. Sounds reasonable, doesnt it? Sounds fair, sounds even. The problem is that there already are three states for two peoples. Theres a Palestinian Arab state in 78% of historic Palestine. They used to call it Trans-Jordan, then they arbitrarily changed that to Jordan. But no matter what they call it, the people who live there are ethnically Palestinian Arabs. Theres also a de-facto Palestinian Arab state in Gaza. They have all the significant attributes of statehood except the right to import tanks and planes.So, what the four members of Congress are proposing is to create a third Palestinian Arab state in historic Palestine. Hmm, when you put it that waymeaning when you acknowledge realitysomehow their solution doesnt seem so fair or reasonable.Ready for oxymoron #3? The congress members letter calls for mutually agreed upon land swaps. Thats a fiction dreamed up years ago by State Department Arabists. PA spokesmen have said time and again that they are not willing to swap even one inch of land. Thus, the terms mutually agreed upon and land swaps are inherently contradictory.And finally, oxymoron number four. Actually, this is a two-fer. The members of Congress say they support a democratic, de-militarized Palestinian state.Democratic? The Palestinians have controlled a large part of Judea-Samaria since 1995, and all of Gaza since 2006, and the result has been two Palestinian dictatorships.De-militarized? The PA has rejected that concept time and again; in any event, Israel could never enforce it without starting a war, and the international community would prove mute and dumb if Palestine started importing tanks and planes.My advice to the four members of Congress is simple: if you stop taking advice on Israel from people who pretend to be experts, your statements on Israel wont be riddled with so many oxymorons. T. Campbell was walking home on the Upper West Side earlier this year when she encountered two reporters for the New York Post. They wanted to know what her living conditions were like. Campbell, along with her wife, had recently moved into a new homeless shelter at a building called The Alexander, a Single Room Occupancy [SRO] building on West 94th Street between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive. (Out of privacy concerns, she asked to use her first initial rather than her full first name.) A 34-year-old Queens native, she had been struggling to get back on her feet since moving back to the city from Maryland more than two years ago. The shelter system wasnt where she ever planned to be. She had several technical degrees. But life in New York had been an uphill battle. Her first apartment in Queens was infested with rats so she had to move. After she left a job at Paul J. Cooper Center for Human Services, a nonprofit that helps the disabled, she had trouble finding another one. She eventually got a job working at a barber shop in Harlem, which later turned into a home barbering business. Im pretty much trying to get my stuff together, she told Gothamist in a recent interview arranged by the citys Department of Social Services. "We're just trying to live." From the beginning, Campbell was well-aware that many of her new neighbors on the Upper West Side were opposed to the new shelter, which had replaced a notoriously troubled shelter called Freedom House on West 95th Street. She and her wife had watched a video of a public hearing of Community Board 7, which in December passed a formal resolution opposing the citys decision to relocate the homeless shelter to The Alexander. Still, when the Post story came out, she was angry. The piece focused on SRO tenants complaining about shelter residents making their lives a living hell with alleged activities like smoking marijuana, playing music on their cellphones and speaking too loudly. Campbell said she does not smoke marijuana and has never smelled it in the building. Smoking inside the rooms is prohibited at the shelter, and the rules are strictly enforced, she said. In the story, a spokesman for the Department of Social Services responded by saying that there were only two infractions of program policies that month, both resulting in the homeless clients being transferred. For Campbell, the complaints felt deeply personal, insinuations about what kind of people live in homeless shelters. They tried to paint us out to be monsters, she said, adding that the shelter opponents should "be more mindfulanything can happen. The economy can crash and you can be in my shoes." As the de Blasio administration deals with an ongoing homelessness crisis, efforts to reform the shelter system by closing poorly run ones and replacing them with new sites have faced intense resistance from some local residents. To date, the city has 468 shelters. Under the mayor's Turning the Tide initiative, the total number of shelters have shrunk by one-third since 2017, an effort to close 360 cluster sites and commercial hotel units and replace them with 90 new shelters and 30 expanded existing sites. Currently, forty-two new shelters have been planned, of which 23 have opened, according to a DSS spokesperson. DSS has also maintained it has made broader progress on the homeless crisis, driving down the number of homeless individuals residing in shelters on any given night, with that number falling to 44,722 in 2018 from 47,423 in 2014. In recent months, nowhere has the battle over shelters been more pitched than on the Upper West Side, a bastion of progressive ideals, but also upper middle-class homeowners who are still haunted by "Wild West" memories of the West 90s as a low-income and gritty stretch scattered with alcoholic homeless vets who lived in the area's many SROs. Its the knee jerk reaction, said Marc Greenberg, the executive director of the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing. We have these preconceived ideas of who homeless people are. The vast majority are good decent people who want to help themselves. Greenberg said that smaller shelters are usually better received by communities, but as the city moves to shut down substandard shelters, it faces pressure to replace them with bigger facilities. But he said that the proposed number at The Alexander seemed completely within reason. People certainly are justified in saying hey, you didnt tell us," he said. "But if the city asks, the community will say no. The fight over homeless shelters in the Upper West Side dates back to the early 1990s. During that time, out of public safety concerns, some members of the community began paying for private security at a rough cost of $100,000 a year, according to Aaron Biller, the president of Neighborhood in the Nineties, a local community group. Prompted by the new shelter, the service was revived in 2018. We are a very compassionate neighborhood, said Biller. The city has chosen to keep coming back to us for more. A 64-year-old public relations executive who has lived in the Upper West Side for 34 years, Biller contended that the homeless population consists of individuals with drug and alcohol problems and violent histories. They are letting people right out of jail and into the homeless system, he said. Of the shelter tenants at The Alexander, he said, They are creating a living hell for the existing SRO tenants. He added: They dont know how to use bathrooms, they have problems with drugs and alcohol, they dont know how to respect peoples privacy. Neighborhood in the Nineties, along with four tenants at The Alexander, have sued the city to stop the shelter from opening. Among their complaints is that the new shelter, which would house 110 adult households or units, violates New Yorks fair share provision, which prohibits the city from concentrating public facilities in one area. Adult families can range from two to three people, all over the age of 18. According to DSS, they can take the form of young or elderly couples, or an adult child living with one or two parents. The suit cites three facilities: an emergency shelter run by the citys Department of Housing Preservation and Development next to The Alexander, an affordable housing SRO for homeless veterans run by the city's Human Resources Administration on 330 West 95th Street, and another facility on West 94th Street known as Rustin House, which provides permanent supportive housing. In a partial victory for the opponents, a state Supreme Court judge in December placed a cap on the number of shelter residents at The Alexander to 100, or a maximum of 50 units. The city, however, is now seeking to lift the cap to accommodate more residents in need of housing. The two parties are set to meet in court on Wednesday. City officials and others have repeatedly tried to stem the panic by pointing out the facts. We have not changed the number of homeless individuals on the Upper West Side, we simply moved them from one location to another, said City Councilmember Helen Rosenthal. Rosenthal noted that Freedom House suffered in part from a lack of common spaces, which forced many shelter residents to socialize in front of the building. In contrast, the Alexander has an interior common space as well as an open courtyard. The new location is far better from the old location. Thats why Ive not been concerned about the change, she said. She added that Praxis, the nonprofit hired to run the shelter, is a vast improvement over the prior one at Freedom House. Ultimately, I believe we satisfied the remaining concerns of residents and my remaining concerns that the location be a good location for the residents themselves and that the neighbors could feel safe, she said. Department of Social Services Commissioner Steven Banks issued the following statement to Gothamist: Families like Ms. Campbells are working hard to make ends meet and restabilize their lives. New Yorkers experiencing homelessness deserve a helping hand, not the back of the hand. Despite some of the vitriol, Greenberg said that, as part of his work partnering with religious institutions, he has witnessed remarkable changes in the way communities consider and treat homelessness after starting a dialogue with shelter residents. Towards that end, Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing, Council member Roshenthal and Bnai Jeshurun, a nearby synagogue, have planned a town hall on homelessness. The event will take place on June 12th at 6 p.m. inside Bnai Jeshurun at 257 West 88th Street. You have a lot of folks who really want to help, he said. The people who are opposed are just more vocal. He said of the shelter residents, These are our neighbors after all, theyre members of our human family. UPDATE: An earlier version described two facilities near The Alexander as homeless shelters. One is an emergency shelter run by the citys Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the other is an affordable housing SRO for homeless veterans run by the city's Human Resources Administration. At the 2018 Inter-Tabac Trade Show, La Aurora Cigars debuted a line to commemorate 115 years in operation. The cigars are appropriately called the La Aurora 115th Anniversary. Now the two limited edition installments of the series are heading to distribution the Belicoso and the Gran Toro. Both 115th Anniversary Limited Edition Cigars consist of an Ecuadorian Corojo wrapper, a Dominican binder from the Cibao Valley, and a combination of fillers from the Cibao Valley and Brazil. The Belicoso measures 6 1/4 x 52 and is available in 15-count boxes. A total of 500 boxes have been made available for the U.S. market. Pricing is $18.67 MSRP. The Gran Toro measures.6 x 58. It has been made available in a commemorative jar. There are 30 cigars per jar with a total of 250 jars available for the U.S. market. Pricing is also set at $18.67 per cigar. The banding of the Belicoso and Gran Toro differs slightly. The Belicoso has a holographic element on the band, while the Gran Toro has a gold element. Meanwhile, there are also plans for a regular production line of the 115th Anniversary that use a different blend. La Aurora Cigars are distributed in the U.S. by Miami Cigar & Company. At a glance, here is a look at the La Aurora 115h Anniversary Limited Edition releases: Blend and Origin Wrapper: Ecuadorian Corojo Binder: Dominican (Cibao Valley) Filler: Dominican (Cibao Valley), Brazilian Country of Origin: Dominican Republic Factory: La Aurora S.A. Vitolas Offered Belicoso: 6 1/4 x 52 Gran Toro: 6 x 58 Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Email Telegram On April 13, 2019, Albanian police fired tear gas into a crowd during a demonstration in the capital, Tirana, affecting several journalists, according to news reports and video footage of the protest. Eliza Gjediku, a reporter for local TV station Tema TV, was incapacitated by the tear gas and was sent to a local hospital for treatment, according to her employer. The Associated Press reported that a few journalists were affected by tear gas. Arben Dajci, a freelance photographer, was hit on the head by a metal baton that he alleged was swung by a police officer, according to local English-language news website Exit. On the night of the protest, Exit published a photo of Dajci with a head injury allegedly caused by police. CPJs emailed questions to the director of communications of the Albanian government did not immediately receive a response. Protests have been ongoing in Albania since mid-February, with the opposition demanding that the current government resign and hold early parliamentary elections, according to the AP. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Email Telegram New York, April 15, 2019The Committee to Protect Journalists called on authorities in Nepal to not pursue charges under the countrys cybercrime act against Arjun Giri, the editor of the weekly Tandav News, who was briefly detained today. Police detained Giri in Pokhara and escorted him to Kathmandu so the Central Investigation Bureau could investigate, after a businessman whom Giri reported on filed a complaint under the cybercrime act, according to news reports. The complaint relates to an April 5 article written and published by Giri that alleged financial fraud, according to the reports. The article was about Bipendra Raj Batas, who is part of a Nepalese auto company, Batas, according to the reports. The complaint alleged that the report was written in an unregistered paper, according to the Nepalese news website Setopati. Giri told Setopati that his paper and website are correctly registered. CPJ sent an email late today to the Batas company requesting comment, but did not immediately receive a response. Nepalese authorities should not allow the cybercrime act to be used as a tool to silence critical journalists, said CPJ Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney. Authorities should drop the investigation against Arjun Giri and allow him to continue reporting freely. Giri was released overnight on condition that he present himself to authorities tomorrow morning, a spokesperson for the Federation of Nepalese Journalists told CPJ. If convicted, Giri could face a fine of 100,000 rupees (US$900) and up to five years in prison, under clause 47 of the Electronic Transaction Act for publication of illegal materials in electronic format. Nepals Central Investigation Bureau did not immediately respond to CPJs email requesting comment. Bodega owners across the city have dropped the NY Post from newsstands over an inflammatory cover it ran last week, one that the Yemeni American Merchants Association fears could incite actual violence against Muslims. On Thursday, the tabloid targeted Congresswoman Ilhan Omara Somali-American Muslim womanquoting a few words taken out of context from Omar's March speech to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. On the subject of Islamophobia and "the discomfort of being a second-class citizen," Omar explained that "CAIR was founded after 9/11, because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties." Which is to say, Muslim Americans en masse shouldered the blameand, according to the FBI, the escalating incidence of violent bigotryfor actions perpetrated by a fringe terrorist group, simply by virtue of their faith. This is ugly pic.twitter.com/R2XVyS4dq8 Harry Siegel (@harrysiegel) April 11, 2019 The Post, however, took a small snippet of that quote and ran with it, splashing "Rep. Ilhan Omar: 9/11 was 'some people did something'" across a photo of the planes hitting the twin towers, along with a boldface a rejoinder from the paper: "Here's Your Something." Then, on Friday, an apparently inspired President Donald Trump decided to pile on, tweeting a video of news footage from the 9/11 attacks spliced together with Omar's truncated quote. Trump's critics were quick to resurface his previous statement on (literally) 9/11: Since the president is tweeting out 9/11 footage, heres a clip of him *ON* 9/11 talking about how now he owned the tallest building in the area since the towers fell. pic.twitter.com/BM403PspDi Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) April 12, 2019 After the President regurgitated the Post's message, Omar said she saw a marked uptick in death threats, prompting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to heighten security for the freshman Congresswoman. "The President's words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger," Pelosi pointed out, and YAMA agrees. YAMA formed in early 2017, when many of New York's Yemeni bodega owners shuttered their shops in protest of Trump's travel ban, and since then, have coordinated similar closures in response to the president's immigration policies. At a press conference convened outside News Corp's Avenue of the America headquarters on Sunday, YAMA outlined its demands: That the Post make a public apology to Omar, Muslim-Americans, and minorities whose culture the Post has similarly sensationalized; that the publication abandon its overblown tabloid tactics in its effort to sell papers; that the Post fire its Editor-in-Chief, Stephen Lynch; and that elected officials "stop giving the New York Post any platforms to spread hate and racism," as YAMA Board Secretary Dr. Debbie Almontaser put it. As of Saturday, a "few hundred" of NYC's 4,000 to 5,000 Yemeni-American-owned bodegas and delis had dropped the Post from their newsstands, Almontaser told WNYC. The boycott is currently scheduled to last until May 13th, although it could continue for as long as it takes for the Post to meet the group's demands, if in fact it ever does. Mohammed Alsabri has been shuttling between Yemeni-owned bodegas and delis, distributing flyers and explaining the boycott's aims to owners who haven't heard about it yet. Alsabri doesn't own a bodegahe drives an Uber, and is the president of a local group for Yemeni-American ride share driversbut he is a co-organizer of the boycott nonetheless. When he saw the Post's cover, he told Gothamist, "I was shocked." Not by the idea that the tabloid would peddle a panicky, biased narrative (Alsabri is familiar with their editorial perspective), but by their apparent attempt to incite "bigotry and racism among New Yorkers." Muslims, Alsabri said, "struggled not for a couple of months, but a couple of years after 9/11. They were treated like ... others: Like they're not American, or they're not American enough." "Me personally, and I think a lot of Yemeni people, we support the first amendment and we support a free press, even if your opinion is different than the facts or what the reality is," Alsabri said. But the Omar cover was a bridge too far, he explained, because "a lot of people, they have this ignorance and they just believe what they read on Twitter from this crazy president, or in this paper... . And they can act on it." They can harass, discriminate against, and violently attack Muslims on the basis of what they see at the newsstand, or on the president's newsfeed. Those fears are not misplaced: A group of researchers, for example, aligned the FBI's data on hate crimes between 1990 and 2016 with Trump's anti-Islam tweets, and noticed an unsettling pattern. Trump's tweet disparaging Islam correlated with higher rates of crimes against Muslims, and while correlation does not equal causation, it also bears noting that Trump has presided over more Islamophobic hate crimes than any other president, even George W. Bush during 9/11's immediate aftermath. It's not unreasonable to worry that a fiery cover intended to spark anger against a specific person and her faith would create equally impassioned fallout. As civil rights activist Linda Sarsour put it to WNYC, it's "irresponsible, and it's negligent and it is what incites hate against our community." The Delhi High Court has sought the response from the Cabinet Committee on Security on a plea seeking directions to remove the dual control of Assam Rifles and bring it under the Ministry of Defence. Issue of Dual Control Assam Rifles which is also referred to as the Sentinels of North East is the oldest paramilitary force of India. The administrative control of Assam Rifles lies with the Home Ministry, while the operational control is with the Defence Ministry. The plea filed by the All India Assam Rifles Ex-Servicemen Welfare Association alleges the dual control as the violation of the rights of the troopers of Assam Rifles. The plea challenges the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961 saying that it places Assam Rifles under the head Police, which is arbitrary, unreasonable and violates the rights of Assam Rifles ex-servicemen guaranteed under Article 14 of the Constitution of The petition argues since the objective and functions of Assam Rifles were that of military and paramilitary force and its categorisation as a police force was arbitrary, unreasonable and in violation of the rights of its personnel. The petition seeks a grant of pay, allowances, pension (including arrears) and ex-servicemen facilities to Assam Rifles personnel at par with the Indian Army. Acting on the earlier order which had asked the Home and Defence Ministries to hold a meeting to resolve the matter and place before it the decision taken in an affidavit, the Home Ministry had stated that a note had been sent to the Cabinet Committee on Security on the issue. Therefore the Delhi High Court has issued a notice to the Cabinet Committee on Security to explain what decision it has taken on the note forwarded to it by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Mohammed Ishtaye was sworn in as the new Palestinian Prime Minister. He along with 24 ministers took the oath of office before President Mahmoud Abbas. New Government of Palestine It is the 18th Palestinian government since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1995. Ishtaye and the ministers separately took the oath vowing to respect the law and the Palestinian constitutional system. The new government consisting of 24 ministers has representation from Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Abbas Fatah Party, the Palestinian Peoples Party, the FIDA party, the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front, in addition to independent figures. Islamic Hamas movement and Islamic Jihad are excluded from the new government since Hamas has been ruling the Gaza Strip since it violently seized control of the coastal enclave from Abbas security forces in 2007. The Islamic Hamas movement has slammed the formation of a new Palestinian government is deepening the internal division. Hamas has said that the new government is far from any Palestinian national accord or any legal measure. Criticising the government as further deepening the internal Palestinian division, Hamas has stated that it expects to get representation in the government to strengthen the national unity. Question: Regarding my posts about the terrible perversion of Torah and halacha that Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky has engineered with his prod... https://outorah.org/p/6293/ Just as we may not legitimize an idolatrous prophet by asking for more information, we may not encourage a ... Hebrew original The following translation was sent to me by a reader of this blog - he acknowledges that it is not a precise transl... Question: Regarding my posts about the terrible perversion of Torah and halacha that Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky has engineered with his prod... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kIxzek0bLQ Rebbetzin Kamenetsky: Did you ever hear of Amalek? Hashem told to get rid of them because they... Important!! email - yadmoshe@gmail.com The Australian Energy Market Operator is to include modelling for a rapid transition to renewables, a quicker exit from coal generation, and even a zero emissions grid as part of its next Integrated System Plan.The commitment to a step change scenario as it has been tentatively named has been made by AEMO in a series of workshops and consultations with industry members over the past few weeks to discuss what inputs should be included in its next ISP, which is designed to be the 20-year blueprint for the electricity grid.Importantly, this call for scenario planning to a more rapid shift to a renewables-dominated grid comes not from climate activists, green groups or renewables advocates, but from the incumbent fossil fuel generators and utilities themselves who admit that the current planning blueprint does not take into account climate change and the realities of Australia's ageing coal fleet.AEMO should contemplate a national CO2 emissions budget for all economic sectors, and include a scenario where the electricity sector delivers deeper cuts than currently contemplated, the Australian Energy Council, long the principal lobby group for the incumbent coal-dominated generation companies, says in its submission.The AEC, along with other generators, say that the current modelling assumes that all coal generators survive to the end of their nominated 50-year life. Everyone knows this won't happen, because of the emissions challenge and because of the cost of maintenance and the competition from cheaper wind and solar and storage.Transgrid, which runs the major transmission link from Queensland to Victoria, says it is clear that wind and solar are the cheapest option to replace retiring coal plants, and that the level of storage required is lower than most people think.Large scale wind and solar can supply energy with a lower levelised cost than new coal and gas fired power stations, in the timeframe required by the anticipated retirement of existing coal fired generation, Transgrid's submission states.CSIRO analysis finds that neither system costs nor firming requirements rise significantly until renewables are providing over 60% of power generated in the NEM, suggesting that even a majority renewable-based system will deliver lower costs in future than a system powered by new thermal generation.Nearly all the submissionscalled on AEMO's ISP to reflect the real target of the Paris climate pact, which seeks to cap average global warming to a maximum 2C and hopefully as low as 1.5C, and which infers a zero carbon grid by 2050 at the latest.This contrasts to what the Australian government describes as its Paris commitment a 26 to 28 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030 which as Professor Ross Garnaut and other climate and energy experts have pointed out is just a downpayment in the form of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which will have to increase rapidly in coming years.Dylan McConnell, from the Climate and Energy College, said in his submission that Australia's electricity grid would emit twice its Paris climate budget allocation under the two emissions scenarios previously considered.Expressed differently, the emissions budget for the NEM would be exhausted by 2028 or 2031 in the two scenarios respectively, he wrote.This approach amounts to planning for failure to meet our Paris Commitments.McConnell was one of many to urge the zero emissions scenario planning, which effectively calls for a 100 per cent renewable energy grid well before 2050. AEMO has been urged to update is 2013 study of 100 per cent renewables, and to put in an action plan.The pressure on AEMO to consider this modelling comes as UK's National Grid commits to significant changes in its electricity management system to reflect the fact that its grid could be 100 per cent renewable for significant periods by 2025.The International Energy Agency is also under pressure to downplay its core modelling scenarios, which ignore any ongoing climate action and which are often used by fossil fuel proponents, and conservative politicians, to justify their faith in coal and oil.But the international market is changing rapidly, and new analysis such as the latest from Finnish-based LUT University and germany's Energy Watch Group point to a cheaper, cleaner and more efficient grid was powered by renewables, and transport, heat and manufacturing was electrified.AEMO currently plans to announce which scenarios it will model on May 16 just two days before the election. But this may be moved given the sensitivity of the subject and the Coalition's refusal to believe that even a 50 per cent renewable energy share would be anything other than economy-wrecking.Or perhaps it would shed important light on the debate. The added complexity of the task now means that the draft ISP will not be released until around December, with the final report due early next year.A presentation made by AEMO to the first of two workshopsheld in the past two weeks points to the majority concerns about taking a realistic approach on emissions, and on the retirement of coal generators.That wasn't their only beef. Most of the companies making submissions pointed to the need improve the modelling to distributed energy resources such as rooftop solar, battery storage and demand management which is expected to be a key component of the future grid, accounting for up to 50 per cent of supply.Interestingly, not everyone agreed on this point reflecting the fact that while most consider the end of coal is inevitable and imminent, many are divided about the uptake of DER and how it should be managed, because so many utilities have yet to figure out how their business models will work.This was a major focus of Tesla, which urged AEMO to consider modelling that combines a high rate of DER, high uptake of utility-scale storage, strong emissions policy scenarios, and rapid decreases in renewables and storage costs.The modelling to date, it said, had been inflexible because when it assumed a fast-change it did not necessarily dial in cost reductions.Tesla also recommends modelling that reflects longer duration for battery storage such as four hours, reflecting the falling costs of storage and the interest in longer storage times and factoring in great demand response mechanisms.As recognised by AEMO, and supported by Tesla's experience to date, more rapid uptake of behind-the-meter battery storage will help drive faster reductions in utility-scale battery costs and as such are highly correlated.Other points of contention included the assumption that the $5 billion (and counting) Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro project is a done deal and committed project, despite the fact that it has yet to receive final approvals. This project will have a significant bearing on the future of rival installations.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. A fertility doctor in the Netherlands allegedly tricked his patients by using his own sperm to impregnate them without their knowledge.Jan Karbaat misled his patients into thinking that the sperm he had been using to inseminate them were from donors, but in fact, they were his own. He ultimately fathered 49 children with his clients.Karbaat's years-long scam was confirmed after a court allowed the release of DNA resultsIllegally Impregnating PatientsKarbaat, who died two years ago, had carried out his scheme at his clinic in Bijdorp, just outside the Dutch city of Rotterdam.The doctor's supposed offspring took him to court in 2017, following suspicions that they may be related. One of the donor children even physically resembled Karbaat, according to court proceedings.Judges overseeing the suit at the time allowed for DNA tests to be carried out, provided that the results will remain sealed until all other court cases have been resolved.Earlier this year, the Rotterdam District Court ruled in favor of releasing the test results. Findings showed that Karbaat was indeed related to the plaintiffs.Joey, one of the children Karbaat had illegally sired, said he is now finally able to "close the chapter" of his life, knowing that the doctor was his father. He tolda local news team that he could continue with his life after 11 years of searching. He said he is happy to finally have some clarity.Meanwhile, Martijn van Halen, another one of the doctor's offspring, saidthat it was nice to know for sure who his father was and that it has given him peace.Tim Bueters, who served as legal counsel to all 49 donor children, welcomed the results of the DNA tests after years of not knowing what the outcome would be."It means that there is finally clarity for the children who are matched," Bueters saidKarbaat had considered himself as a pioneer in the area of fertilization.In 2009, he was forced to shut down his Bijdorp clinic after he had been accused of falsifying his data and analyses. He was also said to have exceeded the maximum number of children allowed for every donor.In April 2017, Karbaat died at the age of 89. Several items were seized from his home following his death.Fertility Doctors Taking Advantage Of PatientsKarbaat was not the only so-called fertility expert who had scammed patients regarding their impregnation.In 2018, an Indianapolis doctor by the name of Donald Cline had been accused of inseminating as many as 50 clients using his own sperm without their consent.However, since Indiana did not have laws pertaining to such offense, Cline was only charged with obstruction of justice. He also faced allegations of immoral conduct and false advertising in carrying out his profession.Cline's medical license was revoked, and he was slapped with a year's probation and a $500 fine.Jacoba Ballard, one of the children born out of Cline's transgression, said the sentencewas not enough to send a message. Ballard said Cline had violated her mother, and that he exploited one of the most vulnerable moments of her life.Ballard and other donor children are now calling for better safeguards regarding assisted reproduction. They are also demanding harsher penalties for doctors who violate the rights of their patients. A New Zealand nurse was abducted by the Islamic State group five years ago and is now missing, the Red Cross has revealed in a plea for help in finding her.But New Zealand's government says she should not have been publicly named.Louisa Akavi, now 62, was kidnapped in October 2013 by armed men in Syria while doing humanitarian work for the Red Cross and is thought to have been held by ISIS since.With victory declared over ISIS in Syria weeks ago, her whereabouts is still unknown.The International Committee of the Red Cross on Monday broke a long-standing silence to make an appeal for information that could help find her and two others - Syrian drivers Alaa Rajab and Nabil Bakdounes.The trio were travelling in a convoy delivering medical supplies in northern Syria when they were stopped by armed men. Four others who were abducted were released the following day.The last credible sighting of Akavi was in December, and she was described as working in a clinic in the village of Sousa, one of the final remaining areas that had been held by ISIS.'What we actually know is that Louisa has been working as a nurse during her abduction which shows her dedication and commitment,' ICRC director of operations, Dominik Stillhart, said.The organisation says there's now fear of losing track of her following the fall of ISIS.'Though, we remain hopeful this period will instead open new opportunities for us to learn more about her whereabouts and wellbeing,' ICRC said.Since 2014, New Zealand media outlets and some international news organisations have had an agreement with the New Zealand government and the Red Cross to not make Akavi's abduction public, with fears it could put her life in jeopardy.The charity on Monday said that with the fall of ISIS, they felt they were 'extremely close' to finding Akavi and the time was right to speak out.But Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday lamented that Akavi had been publicly identified, because of the risk.'It remains the government's view that it would be preferable if this case were not in the public domain,' she said, declining to answer a lengthy series of questions on the matter.Stillhart later told reporters he was 'slightly surprised' by Ardern's comments and that the Red Cross had been given government backing.'Every decision, ever since October 2013, was to maximise the chance of winning Louisa's freedom and every decision was coordinated with the New Zealand government,' he said.A spokesman for the prime minister said officials had never endorsed the plan.Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the government was still operating on the basis Akavi was alive, and had during the five-year period continuously worked to find her, including by deploying a non-combat Defence Force team to Iraq to search in Syria.'The New Zealand government continues to work tirelessly to locate her and bring her to safety,' he said.The missing trio have been held longer than anyone in Red Cross history.The organisation said a series of ransom offers had been made by ISIS for Akavi's release, including one of 20 million euros ($A32 million).New Zealand's government and the Red Cross both say they have policies of not paying ransoms.Akavi has spent more than three decades with the organisation and taken part in 17 missions, including in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya, where she survived a deadly attack on a Red Cross hospital in 1996.A spokesman for Akavi's family, Tuaine Robati, said they were incredibly proud of her work and simply wanted her home.'We think about her every day and hope she feels that and finds strength in that.' US President Donald Trump has escalated his feud with Muslim congresswoman Ilhan Omar, accusing her on Twitter of making 'anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful US HATE statements'.The comments come a day after the Minnesota Democrat said she's faced increased death threats since Trump spread a video that purports to show her being dismissive of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.She's accused Trump of fomenting right-wing extremism and urged him to stop.Trump also went after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday. He accused her of having 'lost all control of Congress' and 'getting nothing done', and said, before she decides to 'defend her leader, Rep. Omar', she should look at her past comments.He asserted, without evidence, that Omar was 'out of control, except for her control of Nancy!'Earlier, Omar called for Trump to stop.'This is endangering lives,' she said. 'It has to stop.'Her statement late Sunday followed an announcement by Pelosi that she has taken steps to ensure the safety of the Minnesota Democrat and the speaker's call for Trump to take down the video.Soon after Pelosi's statement, the video disappeared as a pinned tweet at the top of Trump's Twitter feed, but it was not deleted.Pelosi was among Democrats who had criticised Trump over the tweet, with some accusing him of trying to incite violence against the Muslim lawmaker. An upstate New York man recently was charged with making death threats against her.White House press secretary Sarah Sanders defended Trump earlier Sunday, saying the president has a duty to highlight Omar's history of making comments that others deem anti-Semitic or otherwise offensive and that he wished no 'ill will' upon the first-term lawmaker.But Omar said that since Trump retweeted the video Friday night, she's received many threats on her life that referred or replied to the posted video.'Violent crimes and other acts of hate by right-wing extremists and white nationalists are on the rise in this country and around the world,' she said. 'We can no longer ignore that they are being encouraged by the occupant of the highest office in the land.' She said: 'We are all Americans.'Earlier, Pelosi issued a statement while travelling in London saying she had spoken with congressional authorities 'to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff.'Pelosi said officials will continue to monitor and assess threats against Omar and called on Trump to discourage such behaviour.'The President's words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger,' Pelosi said. 'President Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video.'The video in Trump's tweet included a snippet from a recent speech Omar gave to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in which she described the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center as 'some people did something,' along with news footage of the hijacked airplanes hitting the Twin Towers. Trump captioned his tweet with: 'WE WILL NEVER FORGET!'Critics accuse Omar of being flippant in describing the perpetrators of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. She later sought to defend herself by tweeting a quote from President George W. Bush, in which the Republican president referred to the attackers as 'people' just days after 9/11.Neither Trump's tweet nor the video included Omar's full quote or the context of her comments, which were about Muslims feeling that their civil liberties had eroded after the attacks. The tweet was posted atop Trump's Twitter feed for much of Sunday, with more than 9 million views. It remained lower in the feed after Pelosi requested that the video be pulled.Sanders questioned why Democrats weren't following Trump's example and calling out Omar, too. Democrats who criticised the president over the tweet defended Omar, with some noting their past disagreements with her.'Certainly the president is wishing no ill will and certainly not violence towards anyone, but the president is absolutely and should be calling out the congresswoman for her not only one time but history of anti-Semitic comments,' Sanders said. 'The bigger question is why aren't Democrats doing the same thing? It's absolutely abhorrent the comments that she continues to make and has made and they look the other way.'Omar repeatedly has pushed fellow Democrats into uncomfortable territory with comments about Israel and the strength of the Jewish state's influence in Washington. She apologised for suggesting that lawmakers support Israel for pay and said she isn't criticising Jews. But she refused to take back a tweet in which she suggested American supporters of Israel 'pledge allegiance' to a foreign country.Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat who represents Manhattan's financial district, which was targeted on 9/11, said he had no issues with Omar's characterisation of the attack.'I have had some problems with some of her other remarks, but not but not with that one,' he said.Sanders commented on 'Fox News Sunday' and ABC's 'This Week.' Nadler appeared on CNN's 'State of the Union. A lawyer representing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange alleged today that Ecuador's government has spread lies about his behavior inside its embassy in London, where Assange sought asylum in 2012.The Latin American country has claimed Assange actions deteriorated before his arrest Thursday and included putting excrement on walls, leaving soiled laundry in the bathroom, and not properly looking after his cat.Lawyer Jennifer Robinson told British TV network Sky News the Ecuadorian government is spreading alleged falsehoods to divert attention from its decision to revoke his asylum and allow his arrest at its British embassy.'I think the first thing to say is Ecuador has been making some pretty outrageous allegations over the past few days to justify what was an unlawful and extraordinary act in allowing British police to come inside an embassy,' Ms Robinson said.Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno ended Assange's protected status after more than six-and-a-half years and opened the way for his arrest there Thursday.Mr Moreno said Assange abused Ecuador's goodwill, mistreated embassy staff and used his perch to try to interfere in other country's political affairs.Assange has had 'a very difficult time' since Mr Moreno took office in Ecuador in 2017, Ms Robinson said.Assange, who appeared much older when he emerged from the embassy than when before he sought refuge there in August 2012, is in custody at Belmarsh Prison in southeast London awaiting sentencing in Britain for skipping bail to avoid being sent to Sweden as part of an investigation of a rape allegation. Sweden is considering reviving the investigation.The United States also is seeking his extradition after charging him with conspiring to break into a Pentagon computer system, which could lead to competing extradition demands.UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid would be expected to have the final say in which claim takes priority. More than 70 British legislators have urged Javid to give priority to a case involving rape allegations ahead of the US request.He would not be expected to enter a plea to the Department of Justice case unless he loses his extradition case and is brought to a courtroom in the United States.Assange has denied the rape allegation, asserting the sex was consensual. He also has not formally responded to the US conspiracy charge.His indictment was made public hours after his Thursday arrest, but Assange's lawyers say he is a legitimate journalist whose prosecution would have a chilling effect.The extradition court in Britain will not be judging the evidence against him, but will evaluate whether the crime he is accused of would be a crime in Britain.Assange's next court appearance is scheduled for May 2. In the meantime, he is expected to seek prison medical care for severe shoulder pain and dental problems, WikiLeaks has said. Yemeni-Americans are criticising the New York Post over its front page last week that featured a photograph of the burning World Trade Center and a quote from Democratic Muslim Rep.Ilhan Omar that some say was dismissive of the September 11 terrorist attacks.On Sunday, The New York Times reportsthe Yemeni American Merchant Association announced a formal boycott of the tabloid after Yemini bodega owners in New York had earlier agreed stop selling the newspaper.Last week's front page featured a quote that came from a recent speech the Minnesota Democrat gave to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in which she described the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center as 'some people did something.''We support free speech, but we will not accept the incitement of violence against Muslims,' said Debbi Almontaser, the secretary of the board of directors for the merchants.'What the New York Post is doing is endangering the lives of American Muslims and people of colour,' Almontaser said.The merchants are demanding that the newspaper apologise to Omar and to the Muslim-American community in New York.A spokeswoman for News Corporation, the parent company of the New York Post, declined to comment.Also on Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she has taken steps to ensure the safety of Omar after President Donald Trump's retweet of a video that purports to show the congresswoman making the remark along with news footing of the hijacked airplanes hitting the Twin Towers. Trump captioned his tweet with: 'WE WILL NEVER FORGET!'Neither Trump's tweet nor the video included Omar's full quote or the context of her comments, which were about Muslims feeling that their civil liberties had eroded after the attacks.Pelosi was among Democrats who had criticised Trump over the tweet, with some accusing him of trying to incite violence against the Muslim lawmaker. An upstate New York man recently was charged with making death threats against her. A New Zealand nurse kidnapped by the Islamic State in Syria is still missing weeks after the terror cell's stronghold in the region crumbled.Louisa Akavi was captured alongside aid workers Alaa Rajab and Nabil Bakdounes and held hostage by IS in Syria back five years ago, the International Committee of the Red Cross, revealed today.The 62-year-old nurse, who has carried out 17 field missions with ICRC, was delivering medical supplies with drivers Rajab and Bakdounes in north-western Syria when armed men stopped their vehicles on October 13, 2013. The gunman snatched seven people. Four were released the next day.In the years since her capture, the ICRC has made repeated efforts to win her freedom. Based on 'credible information' the ICRC believes Akavi was alive in late 2018.The fate of Rajab and Bakdounes is unknown, the ICRC said.Stuff NZ reportsAkavi was held in the same cell block as other Western hostage, some who were beheaded by IS soldiers. Her nursing skills reportedly saved her from a brutal execution.In a video statement, ICRC director of operations Dominik Stillhart called on anyone with information about the three abducted workers to come forward.'If our colleagues are still being held, we call for their immediate and unconditional release,' ICRC director of operations Dominik Stillhart said.'I can't even start imagining the suffering and hardship Louisa has gone through. What we actually know is that Louisa has been working as a nurse during her abduction which shows her dedication and commitment to the mission and mandate of the Red Cross - caring for people affected by conflict.'We are speaking out today to publicly honour and acknowledge Louisa's, Alaa's, and Nabil's hardship and suffering. We also want our three colleagues to know that we've always continued to search for them and we are still trying our hardest to find them. We are looking forward to the day we can see them again.'The ICRC attempted to negotiate Akavi's release with IS through emails, phone calls and text messages, Stuff NZ reports.IS asked for a ransom that ranged from $1.6 million to as much as $31 million.As proof-of-life the terror group provided personal information about Akavi including the number of her insurance policy, which the New York Times quotes her family as saying she kept with her on a card.The ICRC said following the fall of the last territory held by Islamic State group, it fears there is an extra risk of losing track of Akavi.'Though we remain hopeful this period will instead open new opportunities for us to learn more about her whereabouts and wellbeing,' ICRC said in a statement.'We remind everyone that she is a victim of a kidnapping, and a hostage who has been held for many years.'According to Stuff NZ, a group of senior government and military officials attempted a secret mission to rescue Akavi in late 2016. It would be the second attempt to free her after a failed attempt in 2014 by US Navy SEALs.However, after reports appeared in the British media that badged New Zealand SAS troops had been seen in mid-2016 on the frontline in Iraq, the mission cooled.The New Zealand government, led by John Key at the time, had publicly statedthat its troops would only operate 'behind the wire' in Iraq with no plan for soldiers to engage in combat missions. Son Heung-min has donated 100,000 to the victims of South Korea's worst ever forest fire.The Tottenhamstar was moved to act after news broke of a blaze in his homeland that killed two people and forced thousands to leave their homes.There is a massive relief effort underway in South Korea and 17,700 emergency service personnel have mobilised to get the inferno under control.Son is regarded as a national hero in South Korea and was one of a number of high profile figures to donate.'It's nothing compared to what the victims have sacrificed,' he told Goal'Although I'm living abroad, I know what's happening in my home country. I think it's something I should do when there's a big disaster in my home country.'I believe money does not matter. The most important thing is a mind to do something for the victims.'Firefighters have managed to subdue the worst of the fire, ignited by a transformer spark near a resort in Goseong, and the true extent of the damage is becoming clear. Cars and homes have been burned out with 525 hectares of forest estimated to have been destroyed.Despite his donation to the cause, Son has been criticised by some for what they see as an insufficient amount given that his contribution is less than the weekly wage of 140,000 he earns.Despite a few voices of dissent, Son is a legend in South Korea for his prowess in the national shirt and for Spurs. The 26-year-old has been one of the Premier League's best players this season with 18 goals and 10 assists in all competitions.He came off the bench late on in the 4-0 win over Huddersfield on Saturday as Mauricio Pochettino's side strengthened their grip on third place. Political prisoner, activist, journalist, hymn-writer, emerging think tanker, aspiring novelist, hanger on of academia, parliamentary candidate for North West Durham, Shadow Leader of the Opposition, Speedboat, proudly banned from Twitter so officially more dangerous than the Taliban, eagerly awaiting the second (or possibly third) attempt to murder me. Gujarat: Coast Guard rescues 8 fishermen stranded in flooded boats by Sarfaraz Shaikh April 15,2019 | Source: The Times of India The Indian Coast Guard rescued eight fishermen off Porbandar cost in Gujarat after a distress call as their boat was flooded. The coast guard braved rough sea to save the lives of fishermen some 27 nautical miles off the coast at around 1am on Sunday. Coast guard ship C-445 received the distress call from IFB Prabhu Sagar on MMB channel 16. The fishing boat with eight crew onboard intimated flooding onboard and requested for help. Following the call, ship C-445 swung into action and immediately proceeded towards the location of the boat. The ship reached IFB Prabhu Sagar at about 3am and started the rescue operation. All the eight crew members were saved and were taken onboard ICG C-445 safely and brought to Porbandar harbour at 7am. India: Pakistan releases 100 more Indian fishermen, handover at Wagah border today April 15,2019 | Source: Khaleej Times Pakistan has released another 100 Indian fishermen as a goodwill gesture amidst tensions between the two countries after the Pulwama terror attack. The fishermen released on Saturday were part the second batch of 360 Indian prisoners Pakistan has announced to set free in four phases this month. Pakistan had released first batch of 100 Indian fishermen on April 7. "Another 100 Indian fishermen were released from Malir Jail in Karachi as a goodwill gesture," officials said. They were being taken to Lahore through train where they would be handed over to the Indian authorities at Wagah border on Monday. The fishermen were arrested for fishing illegally in Pakistani waters during various operations. Pakistan had released first batch of 100 Indian fishermen on April 7. Another 100 will be freed on April 22 and the process will be completed on April 29 when 55 fishermen and 5 prisoners shall be released. Pakistan and India frequently arrest fishermen as there is no clear demarcation of the maritime border in the Arabian Sea and these fishermen do not have boats equipped with the technology to know their precise location. Owing to the lengthy and slow bureaucratic and legal procedures, the fishermen usually remain in jail for several months and sometimes years. Pakistan's announcement to release the fishermen came amidst escalating tensions between India and Pakistan after a suicide bomber of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror group killed 40 CRPF personnel in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district on February 14. India launched a counter-terror operation against a JeM training camp in Balakot in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. West Bengal: Demand-supply gap leaves dear fish dearer by Krishnendu Bandyopadhyay April 15,2019 | Source: The Times of India A sudden demand-supply mismatch has resulted in fish prices going through the roof, with even the daily staple of rohu and katla selling at double their usual cost and festive-season favourites like hilsa at four-digit prices. Fish delicacies such as Ilish Bhapa, Paturi and Sorshe Chingri, which are some of the inseparable elements of the Poila Baishakh platter, will no doubt have to quietly make way for the more prosaic Doi-Rui, Katla Kalia or Tel Koi to strike a subtle balance between taste and purse. The market in Kolkata has a daily demand of around 550 tonnes. But, over the last few weeks, the supply from the Andhra Pradesh-Telangana-Odisha route has dipped from 150 tonnes to 100 tonnes. Adding to the problem is the dip in local supply, which has come down from a daily average of 400 tonnes to 150 tonnes. Prices usually head north around Poila Baishakh, but this year has been very different, say market insiders. Forget Hilsa and King Prawn (Galda chingri), which may have become dearer because of the Poila Baishakh dem-and, said Syed Anwar Maqsoo, secretary, Howrah Wholesale Fish Market Association. Even daily staples like rohu, katla and soal have now become unaffordable. Despite being the second-largest fish producer after Andhra Pradesh, Bengal (17.4 lakh tonnes, annually) has a deficit of 60,000 tonnes of fish in the Kolkata market, which is being met by Andhra Pradesh, along with Telangana and Odisha. In Bengal, rohu and katla that weigh less than 2kg are sourced from within the state, but larger ones come from Andhra Pradesh, said a fisheries department official. While hilsa weighing a kilo and more was selling at Rs 1,200, king prawn at Rs 1,000-Rs 1,200 and topse at Rs 1,000- Rs 1,400 on the eve of Poila Baishakh, common varieties like rohu, katla, betki and pabda rose above the Rs 400 range, pinching pockets. I am paying through my nose to buy fish, as no meal in our family is complete without it, said Behala resident Gourav Sandhukhan. The slump in supply has not been overnight. Supply both domestic and imports have been showing signs of slowing down since February. There are multiple factors behind the slump, notably vagaries of weather, which are playing havoc with fish. The sharp and drastic change in weather causes mortality, and young lifeless fish start floating up to the surface of water bodies, said Shankar Basak, who runs a medium-size aquaculture in Hooghly. Since 53% of the total fish production comes from aquaculture, the mortality is measurable nowadays. Captured fish comprises 43% of the market. Secondly, Bengals export of fish has increased, shrinking the production line to the domestic market, Basak added. One of the biggest reasons of a shortage in supply and resultant fish price hike is the high transportation cost. Traders often end up losing heavily because of the transport costs. Thus, Andhra Pradesh traders often get afraid to export fish to Bengal, said Sandip Agarwal, a fish importer. There is hardly any hope of a better supply before monsoon, when domestic production also improves, said Satinath Patra, secretary of the Fishermens Association of Bengal. Pakistan: Rawal Dam water quality is satisfactory, says EPA April 15,2019 | Source: Pakistan Today The water quality standards of Rawal Dam have been reported to be satisfactory as contamination levels are recorded as less harmful and hazardous. PAK-EPA teams have been collecting samples from Rawal Dam to ascertain pollutant levels in the water, however, based on recent observations there is no serious threat posed to the water quality, a PAK-EPA official told the media. Water quality management and observation was the mandate of Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) which also shared its report regularly with PAK-EPA, she added. Moreover, the water was chlorinated through water treatment plant set up at the reservoir which used to treat all of the water coming through the dam. There was no possible room left for unhygienic water supply under these circumstances, she added. It may be mentioned that extreme levels of water contamination had caused large number of fish to die last year which raised concerns among the masses. Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Fisheries Department Director Ghoufran Shehzad told the media that the housings established in the catchment areas of Rawal Dam including Banni Gala and other areas were dumping their household untreated waste into the dam which was explicitly damaging marine life. Soaking pits could help reduce the risk which has not been built by the locals residing in the vicinity where few of them have implemented it despite notices by the authorities, he added. A WASA official informed that water chlorination was carried out in the treatment plant at Rawal Dam in line with the World Health Organisation prescribed standards. The water sampling has been carried out at the outer and inner inlets of the treatment plant to assess the water quality, he added. Regarding the damage to marine life in Rawal Dam reported last year, he stated that the damage occurred due to reduced levels of dissolved oxygen in the reservoirs water. He added that it happened due to the stagnation of water in the dam and less rainfall during that season. He said this issue was sub-judice in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Whereas Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), WASA, PAK-EPA, Environment Protection Department (EPD) Punjab and Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) jointly formed a report over the issue and submitted it to the court. Sri Lanka: Fishing industry rogues blowing up marine habitat by Asiri Fernando April 15,2019 | Source: The Sunday Times Blast fishing, commonly referred to as dynamite fishing, an illegal and destructive form of fishing, is on the rise in Sri Lanka and is a serious cause for concern, experts warn. So far this year, the Sri Lanka Navy and the Police Special Task Force have seized 700 sticks of gelignite and similar explosives from suspects engaging in fishing, or in transporting the explosives. The Navy has also taken into custody 63 kilograms of water gel explosives in the first three months of this year, a significant rise considering that in 2017, the overall haul was 52 kilos. Last week, the Navy arrested two individuals who are suspected to have used dynamite to harvest nearly 250 kilos of fish off the popular tourist destination Marble Beach in China Bay, Trincomalee. Also last week, a joint raid by wildlife conservation officers and the Navy saw the arrest of eight suspects who were cutting mangroves in Udeiadi lagoon, Wankalai. The Navy suspects that the mangrove branches are used to create small breeding grounds in shallow waters offshore. Once the the new habitat attracts a shoal of fish, dynamite is used to harvest the fish. Dr. Sisira Haputhantri, the head of the marine biological resources division at the National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA), said dynamite fishing is increasing in some areas. He claimed that measures are being taken to address the issue and pointed out that such fishing practices are not only destructive to the marine eco-environment but also hazardous to those who practise it. Sometimes the fishermen target a school of tuna and end up killing dolphins that feed on the tuna and also damage the reefs, he said. A task force made up of key stakeholders, including the Fisheries Ministry, NARA, the Police Department, the Navy, state intelligence agencies, and the controller of explosives, has been established to share information and coordinate on maritime crime, Illegal Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing, and dynamite fishing, Mr. Ginige Kumara, the director general, Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources told the Sunday Times. Mannar, Kalpitiya, Puttalam, Kinniya, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampara are hotspots for dynamite fishing. The Fisheries Department warns that fish caught with dynamite fishing is not fit for human consumption. The department, with the assistance of NARA and the police, routinely check fish markets. Several programmes to educate fishing communities are also underway. The Navy has stepped up coastal and sea patrols to identify and apprehend those involved in dynamite fishing, said Lt. Cmdr Isuru Suriyabandara, the Navy spokesman. He said explosives on board fishing vessels and their unregulated proliferation, posed a security concern. The Navy is working closely with government agencies to identify possible sources of the explosives, he added. Dynamite is mostly used in shallow waters by fishermen to gain a large catch in a short time. But the explosive blast shock wave kills and destroys all marine life within its radius. Usually, gelignite, or since recently water gel (a form of explosives introduced to Sri Lanka in 2011 as a substitute for dynamite) explosives are packed in a waterproof container, or packaged and set off with a length of safety fuse cord (a slow-burning fuse) before being thrown into the water near a pool of fish. Occasionally, high explosives such as TNT and C4 are also used by perpetrators. However, statistics show that water gel type explosives are used widely. Police sources suspect that gelignite and water gel explosives may come from leakages in explosives issued to quarries. The matter is under investigation. Quarries are a big business with all the construction and development work. There are significant stocks of explosives issued to them, a source said. Explosives and detonators are also smuggled across the Palk Strait frequently, a police officer claimed. However, registered stocks of explosives, especially ones at quarries are closely monitored, claimed Mr K.P.R. Pathirana, deputy controller, explosives. According to Mr Pathirana, officials in each district visit quarry sites and audit the stock of explosives and report to the Ministry of Defence Regularly. He said there are those who erase or cut out the serial numbers on the water gel sticks to steal them. The explosives have a unique serial number which can be traced to each box that was delivered. We take leakage of explosives, no matter how small the quantity, seriously and have advised changes to be made to the serial numbering process and changes will be made in the near future, which will make it hard to remove the serial numbers, he said. Marine biologist Nishan Perera, said there is physical damage of coral reefs, including the destruction of coral structures, and a loss of fish biomass and biodiversity. Some of the physical damage is irreversible and once the habitat is destroyed, biodiversity and fish stocks do not easily recover, he said. There is a high amount of by-catch, or non target species killed, including juveniles of many species. Habitat degradation also destroys breeding grounds. The damage to coral reefs and breeding grounds can be long lasting. Sri Lanka benefits from seafood exports, especially to the United States and the European Union. In 2018, Sri Lanka exported a record US$268 million worth of seafood, according to the Sri Lanka Export Development Board. n several instances, fishermen who use dynamite have themselves become victims when the explosives detonate prematurely or fall into the boat when being thrown out. They can suffer severe injuries and may require amputation of limbs. In spite of risks and the marine damage, some fishermen are bent on making a quick profit. Dynamite fishing has been illegal for a long time and there are adequate laws to deal with it, Mr Perera pointed out. Dynamite fishing is one of five methods of sea fishing proscribed under the Fishery and Aquatic Resources Act of 1996 and its amendments. The laws are adequate; possession or use of dynamite to harvest fish is illegal, arrests are made regularly and when evidence supports the arrests, prosecutions and conviction follow, said Dr Steve Creech, a fisheries expert. Laws have been revised to increase fines and punishments. However, punishments imposed by the courts are at times lenient and are not a deterrent, a senior police officer said. Mr Perera said most fishermen are aware of the damage to fish stocks and the marine ecology from dynamite use. WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) A North Carolina man has been found guilty of first-degree murder and felony child abuse in the death of a 2-year-old boy. The Winston-Salem Journal reports a Forsyth County jury deliberated several hours before returning its verdict on Friday in the trial of 33-year-old Charles Thomas Stacks. The same jury will determine Stacks' sentence. Forsyth County paramedics and Winston-Salem police found Jaxson on Aug. 16, 2015, at the house Stacks and his wife, Megin, rented. Prosecutors say Charles Stacks was friends with the boy's mother, who stayed at the house periodically in August with the boy and his sister. Prosecutors said evidence showed Charles Stacks tortured Jaxson through abuse that culminated in slamming the boy repeatedly on the ground, causing a brain injury from which he died three days later. Death penalty sought Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for a North Carolina man convicted of killing a 2-year-boy and who they say was the drug dealer and pimp for the child's mother. The Winston-Salem Journal reports the sentencing hearing is scheduled to begin Monday for 33-year-old Charles Thomas Stacks of Winston-Salem. Stacks was convicted last week of first-degree murder in the death of Jaxson Sonny Swain in August 2015. Evidence showed Stacks repeatedly slammed the child on the ground. Prosecutors said Stacks was angry that Jaxson's mother owed him for drugs and that she left him alone with Jaxson and without any heroin. They say Stacks whipped, kicked and hit Jaxson because he wasn't potty-trained and didn't call him "sir." Prosecutors said Stacks was the pimp and drug dealer for Jaxson's mother. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde Juan Melendez spent 17 years, eight months and one day on Floridas death row for a murder he didnt commit. It took years and several defense attorneys before evidence was discovered to exonerate him, so Melendez sat alone in his prison cell waiting for the state to kill him. Death never came, but the constant dread it could arrive any moment can change a man. For Melendez, those years transformed him into an activist seeking to end capital punishment nationwide. My dream, what I pray to God everyday about, is that we can abolish the death penalty, he said. I am angry about what happened to me. But Im using my anger in a positive way. Standing in front of social work students at UNLV Wednesday, Melendez paced back and forth throughout the classroom. Each word of his story was accompanied by large hand gestures and animated body language. He didnt just want students to hear what he had to say, he wanted them to feel it. Melendez is flying from city to city sharing his story, hoping to inspire efforts to end the use of capital punishment 20 states have abolished the practice, but Nevada isnt one of them. The death penalty is flawed policy that just creates collateral damage, Melendez says. It is a law made by, and carried out by, humans. Humans make mistakes. Even as he was speaking, Nevadas own effort to repeal capital punishment was inching toward death. Earlier this week Assemblyman Ozzie Fumo told Nevada Current he was informed his legislation to abolish the death penalty, Assembly Bill 149, wouldnt even get a committee hearing before the April 12 deadline. Assembly Judiciary Committee Chair Steve Yeager declined to comment on why the legislation wouldnt get a hearing a similar bill at least got a hearing in 2017 despite then Gov. Brian Sandoval being opposed to abolishing capital punishment. Gov. Steve Sisolak, who previously told The Nevada Independent that he opposes the death penalty, declined to comment on the legislative process. Sisolaks office declined to respond when asked by the Current if he would consider imposing gubernatorial moratoria, which has been implemented by governors in three states to bar the practice of the death penalty. State Sen. James Ohrenschall, who cosponsored AB 149 with Fumo, had a similarly proposed Senate Bill 246. It is also not scheduled to get a hearing. Attempts to contact Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizarro, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, were unsuccessful. Im sure (lawmakers) would be happier if this went away quietly, said Scott Coffee, the deputy Clark County public defender. But the death penalty is the elephant in the room. We cant ignore it. Of the 30 states that have capital punishment, Nevada is one of 11 to not use it for more than a decade. There have been 1,493 executions during that time 346 in Texas alone. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 165 people have been exonerated from death row over the same period. It seems like a small number, but that number should be zero when youre dealing with life and death, Melendez says. The organization confirms one person in Nevada has been exonerated from death row. Growing doubts about the integrity of murder convictions, combined with more awareness of racial bias that goes into imposing the death penalty, have led to steadily declining public support for the practice over the years the exception being a slight uptick from 49 % in 2016 to 54 % in 2018. Though Melendez would love to appeal to the better angels of politicians hoping their moral compass will point them toward abolition, he said its the associated financial burdens that are more likely to win them over. Such data has failed to move Nevada lawmakers. A 2017 legislative audit found it costs $500,000 more per case when the death penalty is sought, regardless of outcome. Asked by the Current if Sisolak was worried about the costs to taxpayers, his office didnt respond. Clark County is handing out (the death penalty) like its candy, Coffee said. Nevada is a hotbed for capital punishment. Clark County has more capital cases pending than any place in the country. There are 3,000 plus counties in the United State and we are No. 1 per capita in pending capital cases. As we speak, there are 60 people facing the death penalty. Coffee reiterated that each of these 60 cases comes with a half-million dollar additional price tag. He estimates many of the cases will be reversed for all the people Nevada sentences to death, the state has only executed 12 people and the last time was in 2006. Essentially, he argued, taxpayers are paying for a practice that isnt even used. Trying to execute someone on death row is just as costly. Attempts to hear the bill come months after Scott Dozier, an inmate requesting to be put to death, died by suicide. Dozier was scheduled to be executed in 2017, but it was stalled due to legal challenges surrounding the type of lethal injection drugs being. Holly Welborn, the policy director with the ACLU of Nevada, said until the death penalty is repealed, the state could be open to more costly lawsuits. If another person were to volunteer, they could be opened to future litigation, she added. Beyond costs, Melendezs case highlights some of the worst practices in death penalty cases. His conviction was secured through the testimony of a jailhouse informant. It was also later discovered the attorney prosecuting him hid evidence a confession from the real killer that would have exonerated him. Every state is always at risk of executing an innocent person, he said. We can release innocent people. We can never, I repeat, we can never release an innocent person who weve killed. Lawmakers are fine giving compensation for those who are wrongfully imprisoned, as legislation to provide reparations for the exonerated, Assembly Bill 267, passed out of committee. Legislators tearfully listened to DeMarlo Berry, who sat in a Nevada prison 22 years for a crime he didnt commit, and insisted on justice. But those prosecuting Berry initially wanted death they settled for his liberty. Berry could have easily been No. 166 in those exonerated from death row. Laura Martin, the executive director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, added there are multiple pieces of legislation dealing with exonerations and the guidelines of bringing new evidence the same day lawmakers heard Berrys story, they were presented Assembly Bill 356, which updates the process of how a person convicted of a crime can introduced new evidence. If you have to pass a law, then there might be people currently on death row who have never seen the benefit of this law, Martin said. Along with arguments that capital punishment is cruel and unusual and doesnt deter crime, Martin said it simply doesnt belong in any civil society. I dont think any other Western nation does this, she said. Of all people able to abolish the death penalty, Martin thought it would have been democratic lawmakers who claim to be progressive, control both houses and serve with a Democratic governor. We have a governor who is open about being deeply religious, but the legislature cant come through, Martin said. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde Nevada Current, Staff, April 14, 2019 Supreme Court rejects appeal alleging anti-gay bias tainted a death sentence A gay South Dakota prisoners claim that his death sentence was unconstitutionally tainted by homophobia was denied U.S. Supreme Court review. In rejecting Charles Rhines appeals on April 15, the justices declined to take up what would have been a hot-button case on multiple levels. It pits two evolving areas of the law against one anothergay rights and the sanctity of the jury roomat a time when capital cases have sparked sharp divides among the justices. But though heated dissents have been common of late, there wasnt a peep of protest from any of the justices as the high court cleared the way for Rhines execution for a brutal 1992 murder. Lawyers supporting Rhines, however, spoke up after the denial. Allowing Charles Rhines death sentence to stand defies Constitutional protections and breaks with Supreme Court precedent, said Daniel Harawa, assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., which filed an amicus brief supporting Rhines. The Supreme Court is uniquely empowered to eradicate discrimination from the jury system, and this disappointing decision undermines public confidence in the administration of justice and the rule of law, Harawa said. Noting that recent high court precedent outlawed racial prejudice in the jury room, Rhines lawyer, Shawn Nolan, said anti-gay prejudice likewise undermines public confidence in the fairness of the system, particularly when jurors must decide between life imprisonment and death. Such bias deprived Mr. Rhines of his right to a fair sentencing process, said Nolan, chief of the Capital Habeas Unit at the Federal Community Defender for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. In his unsuccessful attempt to get his appeal heard by the justices, Rhines pointed to that racial prejudice precedent, 2017s Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado. There the court pierced the otherwise sacrosanct veil of jury deliberations to undo convictions marred by racist remarks. Supported by the ACLU and law professors in addition to LDF, Rhines argued that the reasoning from Pena-Rodriguez should apply to his sexual orientation bias claim, particularly because hes facing the ultimate punishment. He pointed to jurors alleged statements during deliberations at his 1993 murder trial, where one said he knew Rhines was a homosexual and thought that he shouldnt be able to spend his life with men in prison. Another said locking Rhines up with other men for life would be sending him where he wants to go. Rhines also pointed to a jury note from the deliberations, where they asked the judge if he would be allowed to mix with the general inmate population, brag about his crime to young men, or have a cellmate. The state said Rhines was procedurally blocked from making his claim. It also disputed the claim itself. His juror affidavits are inherently unreliable and were procured by harassment and ambush, South Dakota officials argued. Jurors were instead motivated by calloused and gruesome nature of the murder, officials said. They didnt immediately respond to a request for comment about the denial. The jury sentenced Rhines to death for the murder of Donnivan Schaeffer, who caught Rhines robbing the doughnut shop where Schaeffer worked. Rhines pounded a hunting knife into the base of Schaeffers skull, partially severing his brain stem, the state recounted in court papers. Officials said he gave a bloodcurdling confession, cackling as he compared the young mans death spasms to a beheaded chicken running around a barnyard. The case is Rhines v. Young, U.S., 18-8029, 18-8030, review denied 4/15/19. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde Shes produced no list of witnesses she plans to call at trial. She has yet to look over the boxes of discovery turned over to her by the state. She brings no documents, not even a legal pad, with her into the courtroom. Yet on Monday, Tiffany Moss will represent herself as Gwinnett County prosecutors seek the death penalty against her. Moss faces murder and child cruelty charges for allegedly starving her 10-year-old stepdaughter to death and then burning her body in 2013. As described by law enforcement, the brutal death of 10-year-old Emani Moss is one of the most notorious cases of child abuse in Georgia history. The young girl weighed only 32 pounds when her charred body was found in a dumpster outside the apartment where she lived. Moss has said she is leaving her fate in Gods hands, rather than the two experienced public defenders who were initially assigned to represent her. They work for the states capital defender office, which is credited as a primary reason no one has received a death sentence in Georgia in more than five years. Death Penalty Drought The last time a death sentence was handed down by a Georgia jury was March 2014 in Augusta against Adrian Hargrove, who committed a triple murder. When asked why death sentences have become so rare, prosecutors and defense attorneys agree with Mauldins assessment: the availability of a life-without-parole sentence is seen by many as more acceptable. Without a skillful and cohesive defense, Moss could break the drought and receive Georgias first death sentence in years. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Bill Rankin, April 15, 2019 The attorney for accused murderer Aubrey Trail wants to discover whether Gov. Pete Ricketts, a staunch supporter of capital punishment, had any influence on the decision to seek the death penalty for Trail and his girlfriend. Attorney Ben Murray, Trails court-appointed defense attorney, filed a motion on Friday to discover all communications between the governors office and attorneys with the Nebraska Attorney Generals Office, who are prosecuting Trail and who decided to seek the death penalty. Murray said that he is not alleging wrongdoing by the governor and only has suspicion of his offices involvement, but that any decision to seek the death penalty must not be based on improper influence or bias. Seeking death on the basis of political or personal gain would constitute an improper reason to seek the execution stated the motion. I feel like we have a right to know, Murray said in a telephone interview. Its too important not to find out if everything is on the up and up. The governors office spokesman, Taylor Gage, said that they do not comment on pending litigation. The discovery motion is another bizarre twist in an already bizarre case. Trail, 52, and his girlfriend, Bailey Boswell, 25, are accused in the slaying and dismemberment of Lincoln store clerk Sydney Loofe. Loofe, 24, disappeared after arranging a date with Boswell via an Internet dating app, Tinder, on Nov. 15, 2017. Trail and Boswell went on Facebook as a massive search was underway to find Loofe to say they were not responsible. Weeks later, after they were arrested, Trail called reporters to say he accidentally strangled Loofe to death during a sexual fantasy. Boswell, according to Trail, was not there during the slaying, but assisted in disposing of the body. Last summer, the Attorney Generals Office announced that the death penalty would be sought for both Trail and Boswell. That was about 1 years after Nebraskans voted to restore capital punishment in Nebraska via a referendum that was backed by Ricketts financially and via his public statements. The governor gave $300,000 toward the petition drive to put the matter on the ballot; his father, TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, gave $100,000. The initiative was launched after the Nebraska Legislature, in the spring of 2015, voted to abolish the death penalty over a veto from the Republican governor. Fridays motion by Trails attorney stated that the potential for improper influence from Ricketts was illustrated by his spending substantial personal sums to support the effort to restore the death penalty, and because state attorneys rather than prosecutors from Saline County chose to take over the prosecution of Trail. Trail, who shared an apartment in Wilber, Nebraska, with Boswell, is scheduled to stand trial on June 17 at the Saline County Courthouse. Boswells trial is scheduled to begin on Oct. 15. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde Omaha World-Herald, Staff, April 14, 2019 A delivery driver, who failed to convince a high court judge that he did not know he was delivering drugs instead of contraband cigarettes, has been handed the death penalty after being convicted of drug trafficking. Mohamed Shalleh Abdul Latiff's defence during a 7-day trial that concluded on Jan 28 hinged on the claim that he thought the 3 bundles he was tasked to deliver contained contraband cigarettes. But the bundles were found to have contained 54.04g of diamorphine, also known as heroin. The Misuse of Drugs Act provides for the death penalty if the amount trafficked exceeds 15g. In her grounds of decision released on Wednesday (Apr 10), High Court Judge Hoo Sheau Peng said the accused failed to successfully rebut the statutory presumption of knowledge of the drugs he was carrying. At the end of the trial, Justice Hoo passed the mandatory death sentence on Mohamed Shalleh. There were no details on the accused's age and nationality. On Aug 11, 2016, Mohamed Shalleh received from Malaysian Khairul Nizam Ramthan an orange-coloured plastic bag and 3 bundles wrapped in brown paper that were packed in separate zip-lock bags. Each bundle was round, irregularly-shaped and about the size of one's palm. He passed the Malaysian man $7,000, which was given to Mohamed Shalleh by a friend who had arranged the delivery, and the men parted ways in separate cars. Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) officers tailed both men and arrested Mohamed Shalleh at Mei Ling Street where he was due to deliver the goods to a third party. The Malaysian man was arrested at Woodlands Checkpoint. Mohamed Shalleh maintained in his statements that he was only delivering contraband cigarettes for a friend known to him as "Bai", who said the delivery would offset some of the debt that Mohamed Shalleh owed him. This was the 2nd time he had agreed to help Bai deliver contraband cigarettes, and Bai said it would involve 2 1/2 cartons of cigarettes. However Justice Hoo picked at the defence that Mohamed Shalleh trusted and believed Bai's word that the delivery only concerned cigarettes. The accused met Bai in prison in 2008, but they lost contact. They became re-acquainted in 2014 at the Singapore Turf Club in Kranji, where Mohamed Shalleh would place bets with Bai who was a "bookie", and as a result he owed Bai at least $7,000. They met again at a friend's wedding in 2016, where Bai gave the accused more time to repayment his debt. Among various reasons cited for his trust in Bai, Mohamed Shalleh said he believed the former's claim that he dealt in the business of contraband cigarettes. He said he also trusted Bai because he did not insist he repay his debt and that they had mutual friends who said Bai could be trusted. As a result, the accused claimed he was not suspicious and did not verify the contents of the goods he was delivering as he believed they contained contraband cigarettes. However, Justice Hoo said these points were "weak support" for the strong claim of trust placed in Bai, and noted that during cross-examination the accused said he did not know basic details about Bai including his actual name or home address. The accused also claimed the 3 bundles had been placed inside the orange-coloured plastic bag when he received them and thus never saw them until CNB officers searched his car. However, Justice Hoo noted this ran contrary to the evidence given by CNB's senior staff sergeant Tay Keng Chye, who testified that the bundles were found beside the orange plastic bag on the floorboard of the car. "As the 3 bundles were left exposed on the floorboard, the accused would have caught sight of their appearance," said Justice Hoo, adding that their round and irregular shape should have aroused suspicion to the nature of their contents. When questioned, Mohamed Shalleh insisted he would still believe they contained cigarettes, as it was possible they could have been repacked into smaller packets. However, Justice Hoo found this claim untenable. She said the accused had been given specific instructions to receive 2 1/2 cartons of cigarettes, and she did not believe Mohamed Shalleh would have "blindly" gone through with the transaction if he could not visually verify the contents of the bundles. In her concluding remarks, Justice Hoo said the covert and complex nature of the delivery should have triggered suspicion as to the value and nature of the goods. For this to be overlooked, a high degree of trust in Bai would have to be found, however this was not borne out by the evidence of the case. "Having reviewed the evidence in totality, I found that the accused failed to show any unique circumstances justifying the high level of trust in Bai, and I was unpersuaded that he relied on the information allegedly given by Bai," said Justice Hoo. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde straitstimes.com, Staff, April 14, 2019 Death row inmates who challenged their method of death lost their case in Tennessee, but that's not the end of it. The case is now headed to the United States Supreme Court and could bring planned executions to a grinding halt. Death row inmates challenged the state's lethal injection protocol in 2018, arguing the three drug cocktail is inhumane. The Tennessee Supreme Court threw out their objections, leading to the inmates to the U.S. Supreme Court and an advocate, who might surprise you. "This is our 1st such brief and we are excited to be a part of it," said Hannah Cox. Cox is with Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. Yes, conservatives -- who Cox admits traditionally support capital punishment. "That's absolutely been the stereotype and it's been true for many years," said Cox. But she said that's changing. The group is siding with Donnie Johnson, who killed his wife, and 22 other Tennessee death row inmates -- for the first time taking their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. "This is a great way to highlight how ridiculous the system has gotten," said Cox. "This is a fundamental fairness issue," added attorney Amy Rao Mohan. She said it was wrong when late last year the state upheld the use of the 3-drug execution cocktail, which critics say can cause great pain. Rao Mohan said key documents on other drugs and their manufacturers which the state works with were redacted. As a result, inmates were not given the opportunity to show there are more humane drug alternatives. "When someone is fighting for their life they at least deserve a fair chance," said Rao Mohan. The petitions were filed with the highest court, and if the case moves forward, it could put executions in Tennessee back on hold for months if not years. The U.S. Supreme Court will issue a ruling before Tennessee's next execution. Donnie Johnson is scheduled to be executed next in Tennessee on May 16. The state attorney general issued a response to the filings urging the high court not to take the case and to affirm the actions of the Tennessee Supreme Court. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde WTVF news, Staff, April 14, 2019 But I dont want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you cant help that," said the Cat: "were all mad here. Im mad. Youre mad." "How do you know Im mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldnt have come here. Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland With freedom comes responsibility. Eleanor Roosevelt And, so far... a waste of a House seat. Better than Kevin Yoder, though Kansas' 3rd district (Wyandotte and Johnson counties and some of more rural Miami County) flipped red to blue in 2018. Basically, the district is Kansas City and it's suburbs, a swing district that Obama lost narrowly twice but that Hillary won, also narrowly (one point), in 2016. The district is 72.8% white, 11.6% Latino, 8.6% African-American and 4.2% Asian. The area is prosperous-- and it has the 83rd highest medium income of the 435 congressional districts. The PVI is R+4. Blue Dog Democrat Dennis Moore had served as congressman from 1999 until 2011. Moore, suffering with Alzheimer's disease, retired in 2010 and the Democrats ran his wife. She lost to a Democrat-turned-Republican, Kevin Yoder in the 2010 Republican wave election. The DCCC then insisted on trying to replicate Moore by running Blue Dogs and losing each time. Democrats sensed Yoder was weak in 2018 and there was a fierce 6-person winner-take-all primary. Davids ran as a moderate identity politics candidate and her closest rival was Brent Welder, a progressive Berniecrat. She eked out a narrow 23,379 (27.3%) to 21,190 (33.8%) win. Welder and the rest of the Democrats rallied around Davids for the general and she kicked Yoder's ass: Sharice Davids is a native American, a lesbian, a mixed martial arts fighter and an attorney. When she got to Washington she joined the right-of-center, Wall Street owned-and-operated New Dems and quickly ran up a solid "F" voting record, tied with 5 other Democrats as the 212th "most progressive" in the House, according to ProgressivePunch. Not a promising start. Over the weekend, theran a piece on her first 100 days by Bryan Lowry about how the establishment loves her for being a nice quiet backbencher who doesn't make any waves the way AOC, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib do. "[W]hile her personal biography is barrier-breaking," wrote Lowry, "Davids approach to her first 100 days in office has been exceedingly traditional, marked by deference to leadership and studious attention to the details of legislating. As other members of her freshman class, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have made big headlines with proposals like the Green New Deal, Davids has quietly been laying the groundwork for a longer game." And, predictably, all the worst assholes in Congress just love her. I would put her toward the top of the freshman class in terms of doing things the right way, said Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-IL), the chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Shes not a showoff, Bustos said. Shes an athlete and if youve known any high-level athletes, theyre disciplined, theyre methodical nailing all the fundamentals. You have to build relationships and learn what are the things that are of interest to other members of Congress, what are the things that folks have been taking a lead on for a really long time, Davids said. And what are things [where] theres space for me to contribute to the conversation thats been going on or to ask questions to spark a new conversation. This approach has helped her build clout with party leaders, who see her as rising star. Davids will be one of two freshman Democrats speaking at the Center for American Progress ideas conference in Washington next month, a sign of her growing status. I like people who are team players. Sharice is a team player. I like people who are first going to listen before they speak up at the microphone, Bustos said. Bustos has been engaged in a public dispute with Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives, about the DCCCs efforts to protect incumbent Democrats against primary challenges. [Emanuel] Cleaver noted that Ocasio-Cortez, who he referred to has the congresswoman from New York, came to Kansas last year to campaign on behalf of Davids primary opponent Brent Welder. Cleaver complained that Davids, a centrist from the Midwest, hasnt gotten as much attention as some of her more progressive, coastal peers. Congresswoman Davids may be the most brilliant and thoughtful member of the freshman class who nobody has noticed. And a lot of that is if youre from the East Coast or the West Coast the media just automatically fawns over you, Cleaver said. If youre in flyover territory people tend to overlook, but I can guarantee you-- because I hear it at home-- the people at home arent overlooking her. ...Cleaver said Davids takes the same meticulous approach when deciding how to vote on legislation, regardless of the bills importance. Sharice Davids may be the only person that reads every sentence of every bill, of every amendment I mean, everything, said Cleaver, who joked that he sometimes tells her that she doesnt have to do that because Democrats are in the majority. After her careful parsing of bills, Davids has still aligned closely with Democratic leadership in her votes, a fact that has been noticed by her supporters and critics alike. She for the first 100 days here has been incredibly loyal to Nancy Pelosi and her leadership, voting in lockstep. Shes not creating headaches. Shes shown no independence, said Bob Salera, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is targeting Davids district in 2020. Davids also faces pressure from a vocal minority on the left that want to see her back progressive policy goals, such as the Green New Deal and Medicare for All. During the campaign, Davids was open to supporting a single-payer health care system as a long-term objective, but emphasized more incremental legislation as realistic policy. At her recent town hall in Olathe, a few attendees booed when Davids said she wasnt ready to commit to supporting Medicare for All, because she had not finished vetting it. This week, she told The Star that she will not support the Medicare for All bill in its current form because it would phase out employer-based insurance. Thats a pretty big sticking issue. Ive talked to a lot of people who are not only satisfied with their employer plan, but are actually very pleased with it, Davids said. And those folks arent saying Im opposed to us figuring out a way to get universal access to affordable, quality health care for folks, but they are saying I dont want to lose the insurance I have now. So thats a sticking point on there. Matt Erickson, a 32-year-old Prairie Village resident, was among those who booed Davids answer in Olathe. Learning that Davids has officially come out against Medicare for all was even more disappointing, he said. Arguments like people are tied to employee sponsored health insurance, I dont find convincing, said Erickson, who volunteered for Welder during the 2018 primary. People like their employer provided insurance because the alternative is they dont have insurance at all, he said. In Medicare for all, the alternative is never having to change insurance plans again, no premiums, no deductibles, and no financial barriers to healthcare. You dont lose your insurance if you leave your job or you get laid off. But Davids centrist approach may serve well in her suburban district, where Republicans outnumber Democrats. Shes instead focused on more incremental steps, such as advocating for her home state to expand Medicaid. A house in southern Vietnam gets natural light and green space thanks to a design based on the worlds largest cave, Son Doong. Seeing the uncontrolled urbanization in the neighborhood, the owner of a house in Tra On District, Vinh Long Province, wanted to make it as environmentally friendly as possible, and the design team at Ho Chi Minh City-based 23o5 Studio led by architect Ngo Viet Khanh Duy decided to model it on Son Doong, the worlds largest cave in Quang Binh Province in central Vietnam. Named Long Cave, the house is 40 meters long and five meters wide. The caves rivers, sinkholes and vegetation are recreated in the house. It only has one floor. The various areas of the house are not separated by concrete walls and open spaces allow natural light in. Just like in the cave, the ceiling is not at a single level but changes according to the space below. Son Doong was discovered by a local man named Ho Khanh in 1991 and was officially put on the map in 2009. It opened to visitors in 2013, four years after members of the British Cave Research Association explored it and declared it the worlds largest. The kitchen of the house. The restroom at the back of house. The house is said to be built of materials that are environmentally friendly. With this project, the design team made it to the top five of the Spec Go Green International Awards in 2017, an annual awards for Vietnamese young architects. As one takes a walk into the house, the feeling would be like going into a cave, with two bedrooms at the end. "The different sectional shape for the same equivalent area creates different feelings for each space. The boundary between inside and outside is blurred away," ArchDaily, the world's most visited architecture website, described the house. Photos by KingKien Five arrested for smuggling 19 kilos of meth from Cambodia Du Quoc Cuong (L) and Trinh Cong Nghia were arrested in An Giang Province for drug smuggling. Photo courtesy of police The police have arrested five people for allegedly trafficking meth and ecstasy from Cambodia to the southern province of An Giang. The police and border guards stopped a car and arrested Trinh Cong Nghia, 41, and Du Quoc Cuong, 29, at the border in the provinces An Phu District on Saturday and seized 25,000 ecstasy pills weighing around eight kilograms and 18.2 kilograms of methamphetamine from the vehicle. This is the largest drug haul ever in the province. Cuong told the police he was hired by a Vietnamese named Phuong in Cambodia to carry the drugs to Ho Chi Minh City, more than five hours away. A day later the police arrest three more suspects, Nguyen Thanh Hai, 41, Nguyen Thanh Phuong, 52, and Tuyen Khoa, 33, in HCMC. (From L) Nguyen Thanh Phuong, Nguyen Thanh Hai and Tuyen Khoa are arrested in Saigon. Photo courtesy of police This time they found 6,850 ecstasy pills and one kilogram of meth. Hai, Cuong and Khoa also tested positive for drugs. The police have concluded that the gang transported drugs from Cambodia across the Mekong Delta to customers in Saigon. A police photo shows some of the drugs are hidden in tea packages. On March 27 the HCMC police arrested two Taiwanese men and a Vietnamese driver who were allegedly transporting more than 300 kilos of heroin produced in Myanmar in a truck in Hoc Mon District on the outskirts. On March 20 a bust by hundreds of officers and border guards ended with the seizure of a truck with around 300 kilograms (661 pounds) of meth in HCMC. The drugs were on their way to Taiwan. The cases have prompted top police officers to warn that HCMC is growing into a transit point for drugs thanks to its logistics infrastructure. Vietnam has some of the worlds toughest drug laws. Those convicted of possessing or smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or cocaine or more than 2.5 kg of methamphetamine could face the death penalty. The production or sale of 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal narcotics is also punishable by death. Indian stealth guided-missile destroyer INS Kolkata docks in Cam Ranh Port in central Vietnam. Photo by VnExpress/Xuan Ngoc An Indian destroyer and a logistics vessel began a four-day visit to Vietnam Saturday en route to China. Stealth guided-missile destroyer INS Kolkata and fuel and logistics tanker INS Shakti docked at the Cam Ranh Port in the central province of Khanh Hoa. Led by Colonel Hara Aditya, the vessels have 730 officers and sailors on board. The visit aims to strengthen the friendly relations between the militaries and navies of both countries, promoting comprehensive bilateral cooperation, Aditya said. INS Kolkata, 163 meters long and 17.7 meters wide, is equipped with modern weapons and radar systems. INS Shakti, 175 meters long and 25 meters wide, has a loading capacity of 27,500 tons. During their stay, the Indian naval crew will play a few friendly games and exchange naval skills with their Vietnamese counterparts. They will also visit the resort town of Nha Trang. After their Vietnam visit, the two ships will sail to China to join an international fleet review held to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Peoples Liberation Army Navy on April 23. Two Vietnamese frigates will also participate in the event. Colonel Nguyen Dinh Hung (R), Commander of the Naval Region 4, leads a delegation of Vietnam's Navy to join a naval parade in China on April 14, 2019. Photo by Bao Hai Quan (Navy's newspaper) Two Vietnamese frigates are on their way to China to attend an international naval parade on April 23. The 011 Dinh Tien Hoang and 015 Tran Hung Dao vessels left Cam Ranh Bay in the central province of Khanh Hoa Sunday for a voyage of 3,600 sea miles to attend the event in the Yellow Sea off Qingdao City in eastern China. Launched in 2011 and 2018, 011 Dinh Tien Hoang and 015 Tran Hung Dao are Gepard-class frigates built by Russia. The Vietnamese delegation to China includes representatives from the Ministry of National Defense and Vietnam Peoples Navy. They are led by Colonel Nguyen Dinh Hung, Commander of Naval Region 4, which is in charge of waters off Vietnam's south-central coast, including the Spratly Islands. In addition to exchange activities, the trip is expected to help improve the capacity and skills, especially in mastering weapons and advanced equipment, of Vietnams navy and add valuable experience for Vietnam in organizing international events. More than 60 countries are sending delegations to the international maritime parade held to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy. Japan, the Philippines, India, South Korea, France and Russia will also send their ships to the parade, international media reports say, citing China's Ministry of National Defense. It is expected that Russia will send guided missile frigate Admiral Gorshkov, India, her stealth guided-missile destroyer INS Kolkata and fuel and logistics tanker INS Shakti, and Japan, a light frigate. The U.S. has said it will not have any ships participate, with just one attache attending the event. The spread of fake news is increasing. Misinformation about elections at national levels as well as European level is leading to division and bitterness. Julian Assange was arrested this week in London, essentially sending a chilling message to any journalist who is not touting the line. Now, more than ever, we must stand for freedom of expression and a free and independent press. On this last week of the current parliamentary term in Strasbourg we want to take a moment and discuss what freedom of speech looks like in Turkey these days. In a country which wants to be part of the EU, members of the media are still jailed regularly. Our guest, Abdullah Bozkurt, is the founder of the Muhabir News Agency which was shut down by the Turkish government in July 2016 and will share with us what journalists go through in Turkey. Come join us for this special event organized by The European Post and ECPM MEP Peter van Dalen in Strasbourg on April 18th! 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. Today (4/11), a grantee of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, Electricity Vietnam (EVN) signed a contract with U.S. firm, GE International, as part of a grant USTDA awarded EVN for a feasibility study in September 2018. The study, examining the feasibility of deploying advanced energy storage technologies, will help EVN reduce power shortages and losses and better prepare for increased renewable energy generation throughout the country. The contract was signed by Mr. Dinh Quang Tri (VP, EVN) and Mr. John Rice (Chairman, GE Power) at the opening of the 2nd U.S.-Vietnam Energy Security Dialogue, hosted by the U.S. State Department. "We are pleased to support Vietnam's efforts to deliver cleaner and more consistent power to its citizens," said Thomas R. Hardy, USTDA's Director, (Acting). "This project aims to provide EVN with cutting-edge GE energy storage technologies, while at the same time, supporting jobs in the U.S. and Vietnam." "The Government of Vietnam encourages the development of renewable energy to meet the continuously increasing electricity demand in Vietnam," added EVN Vice President Dinh Quang Tri. "The technical assistance of USTDA to help study energy storage in Vietnam is significant for EVN in the context of the massive integration of renewable energy sources to the power system. EVN highly appreciates the valuable cooperation and assistance extended by USTDA to enable the signing of the contract between GE and EVN for this work." "We're excited for the opportunity to support our customer Vietnam Electricity (EVN) on this feasibility study for battery energy storage and other technologies that can help strengthen the country's grid, and achieve its goals related to renewable energy integration," said Beth LaRose, GE Energy Consulting's General Manager. "EVN continues to be one of the leaders in Southeast Asia when it comes to preparing for the integration of large amounts of renewable generation into the grid. Our team of industry leading power systems experts looks forward to continuing GE's strong relationship with EVN and the USTDA." About USTDA The U.S. Trade and Development Agency helps companies create U.S. jobs through the export of U.S. goods and services for priority development projects in emerging economies. USTDA links U.S. businesses to export opportunities by funding project preparation and partnership building activities that develop sustainable infrastructure and foster economic growth in partner countries. Electric vehicle drivers and enthusiasts who travel across Kentucky have more reasons to celebrate with more charging infrastructure installed in the state. Three new, publicly-accessible EV charging stations are now in operation as part of Louisville Gas and Electric Company and Kentucky Utilities Company's EV Charging Station Program. The new charging stations are located on the campus of Morehead State University in Morehead, in the City Hall parking lot in downtown Richmond and at LG&E Center on Main Street in downtown Louisville. Not only are the facilities significant because of the enhanced accessibility they're providing for EV drivers, they're also powering LG&E and KU's program to its goal, approved by the Kentucky Public Service Commission in 2016, of installing a total of 20 publicly-accessible charging stations across its service territories, with 10 in each. "When we started this program, we had a vision of working to support customers' interest in EVs by broadening charging infrastructure across the state, so they could have greater confidence should they choose to invest in one," said Beth McFarland, LG&E and KU vice president of Customer Services. "Thanks to the partnership of numerous agencies, cities and organizations, the EV charging stations we've been able to install now represent about 20 percent of public charging stations available in Kentucky. As a company, we're really proud of that, but we're even more proud of what that means for current and prospective EV drivers traveling through the state." Read the full press release. Green Mountain Power announced an ambitious energy vision to have a 100% carbon free energy supply by 2025 and 100% renewable energy by 2030. The move, meant to meet and then quickly exceed customer expectations, was announced during the GMP Earth Day Every Day Fair in South Burlington, Vermont, and is among the most aggressive carbon targets for a utility of GMP's size in the country. "There is so much we can accomplish together in Vermont to cut carbon, and at the same time increase reliability for customers in the face of increasingly frequent and severe storms. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report makes clear, we have to act now, and take bold steps to cut carbon," said Mary Powell, President and CEO of GMP. "The report issued in October of 2018 shows we have just 12 years to bend back the curve on carbon. Green Mountain Power is determined that through innovation, collaboration and grit, we can make remarkable strides and be the example of the change we want to see and deliver this energy future to benefit the customers we serve." This announcement builds on the energy vision GMP launched and delivered on in 2008 to innovate and move quickly to increase renewable energy resources. GMP's current energy supply is 90% carbon free and more than 60% renewable. Its goal to achieve 100% carbon free energy by 2025 and 100% renewable by 2030 is focused on ramping up local distributed resources for generating and storing energy, ramping up purchases of carbon free wind and hydro energy, all while making sure customers receive reliable, cost-effective service. GMP serves over 75% of the state of Vermont. More than 15,000 GMP customers are now being served by independent solar companies and over 3,000 commercial and industrial customers doing the same. GMP is also pioneering the use of stored energy to cut carbon and costs for all customers, including two solar storage installations, and three more being built this year. These projects are saving Vermonters money, by lowering peak energy costs, when power is the most expensive and dirty. "GMP going 100% renewable by 2030 is wonderful news and a bold move," said William Dodge, Chair of the Energy Committee in Essex, where one of GMP's new solar storage installations is being built. "Vermont's 90% renewable by 2050 goal is difficult to achieve without residents in Essex and elsewhere really putting our shoulder to the wheel when it comes to how we drive, heat our homes, and use electricity. But with GMP's total commitment to carbon-neutral, clean electricity, Vermont is in a substantially better position to achieve its 90 by 2050 goal." Transportation and heating are the two biggest sources of carbon emissions in Vermont. With emissions still rising despite action by many across the state to bend the curve, and with the need for major transformation of Vermont's transportation and home heating sectors, Green Mountain Power will be hosting a series of events to provide customers with more information about all of the existing technologies available to them to transition to a cleaner, affordable and resilient future. "As a customer-obsessed energy company, we've delivered on our promise to help customers transition to a community-, home-, and business-based energy system that is greener and more resilient through energy storage options like home batteries, and options for charging electric vehicles," Powell said. "Our partnerships with Efficiency Vermont and the Vermont renewable energy community have been, and will continue to be critical to making this happen for Vermonters. Our new vision is the next step." About Green Mountain Power Green Mountain Power (GMP) serves approximately 265,000 residential and business customers in Vermont and is partnering with them to improve lives and transform communities. GMP is focused on a new way of doing business to meet the needs of customers with integrated energy services that help people use less energy and save money, while continuing to generate clean, cost-effective and reliable power in Vermont. GMP earned a spot on Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies in the World list three years in a row (2017, 2018, 2019). GMP is the first utility in the world to get a B Corp certification, meeting rigorous social, environmental, accountability and transparency standards and committing to use business as a force for good. J.D. Power's 2018 rankings put GMP among top utilities for customer satisfaction. An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team of experts said Germany is committed to strengthening its regulatory framework for nuclear and radiation safety. The team also noted areas for further enhancement. The Integrated Regulatory Review Service (IRRS) team on 12 April concluded a two-week mission to review the regulatory safety framework in Germany. The mission was conducted at the request of the Government of Germany and hosted by the Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU). The team of senior nuclear and radiation safety experts also met with representatives of the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management, Federal Office for Radiation Protection and authorities from seven state governments. Using IAEA safety standards and international good practices, IRRS missions are designed to strengthen the effectiveness of the national regulatory infrastructure, while recognizing the responsibility of each country to ensure nuclear and radiation safety. Germany, which currently operates seven nuclear power reactors, aims to end commercial nuclear power operations by the end of 2022. The country has another 29 power reactors in permanent shutdown that will require dismantling and decommissioning and has begun a process to select a site for disposal of high level radioactive waste. Germany also operates seven research reactors for research and medical isotope production. "Germany has demonstrated a strong commitment to nuclear and radiation safety during a period of significant transition," said team leader Dan Dorman, Deputy Executive Director of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of the United States. "This team has identified a number of opportunities to clarify guidance within the regulatory framework to promote efficiency and consistency while maintaining a high level of safety." The IRRS team said Germany has strong practices and processes in place that ensure comprehensive regulatory oversight. "I am very pleased that the most recent IRRS mission confirms that our nuclear supervision meets international requirements. Even though Germany has decided to phase out nuclear energy, the safety of our nuclear facilities remains a top priority for us," said Svenja Schulze, Minister for BMU. "Moreover, we want to be able to support our neighbouring countries as a competent partner even after the phase-out. This is very important since nuclear hazards cannot be contained by national borders." The review covered the following areas: responsibilities and functions of the government; the global nuclear safety regime; responsibilities and functions of the regulatory body; BMU's management system and activities including authorization, review and assessment, inspection, enforcement and the development of regulations and guides; emergency preparedness and response; occupational radiation protection; fuel cycle and radioactive waste management facilities and decommissioning. The 21-member team comprised 17 senior regulatory experts from 16 countries as well as four IAEA staff members. "This mission raises awareness about Germany's ongoing work to enhance regulatory effectiveness and its commitment to implement the IAEA safety standards, which serve as the basis for IRRS reviews," said Juan Carlos Lentijo, IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Nuclear Safety and Security. The team identified a good practice in Germany's emergency preparedness arrangements, which allow all levels of Government to access necessary information at any time. The team provided recommendations and suggestions to the regulatory authorities, including: They should assess leadership for safety and safety culture on a regular basis. They should establish requirements for the periodic review and update of safety assessments during immediate dismantling. They should include requirements for addressing public inputs during the process of termination of the decommissioning license. In addition, the IRRS team identified several other areas where further regulatory guidance would be helpful as the country transitions out of nuclear power. They include managing necessary changes to sustain the relevance of the regulatory framework and to support its efficient and consistent application across regulatory authorities. The final mission report will be provided to the Government in about three months. The Government plans to make the report public. API Ohio Executive Director Chris Zeigler strongly criticized new legislation filed today (4/12) in the Ohio House (House Bill 6) that would subsidize failing nuclear power companies at the expense of the state's economic prosperity and working families in Ohio. "House Bill 6 is nothing short of a taxpayer-funded bailout of failing nuclear power plants. Ohio lawmakers should be mindful of the long-term consequences of supporting a policy that will subsidize bankrupt corporations and deliberately manipulate the market to the disadvantage of all Ohioans. The United States is a global leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions because of the increased production and use of clean-burning natural gas," said Zeigler. "Ohio's abundant, clean-burning and cost-effective reserves of natural gas have improved Ohio's economy and reduced emissions, while saving consumers money. Wholesale electricity prices have decreased almost 50 percent since 2008 thanks to natural gas power generation, and this bill would deliberately distort the market and reverse these benefits to the detriment of Ohio consumers. Disguising direct payments to nuclear plant owners via legislation that claims to support all types of zero emission generation, which the legislation actually negatively impacts, reveals what this is really all about - supporting uneconomic nuclear power plants at the disadvantage to consumers." API Ohio is a division of API, which represents all segments of America's oil and natural gas industry. Its more than 600 members produce, process, and distribute most of the nation's energy. The industry supports 10.3 million U.S. jobs and is backed by a growing grassroots movement of more than 47 million Americans. API was formed in 1919 as a standards-setting organization. In its first 100 years, API has developed more than 700 standards to enhance operational and environmental safety, efficiency and sustainability. Contact 202.682.8114 | press@api.org " " Scientists suggest an individual's brainwaves may be unique enough to act as identification. TOM BARRICK, CHRIS CLARK, SGHMS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images It can seem like not a week goes by without another story of hacking, identity theft or other cybersecurity malfeasance. Last year a team of researchers at Binghamton University published an article describing a breakthrough in electronic identification that might eventually replace passwords, PIN numbers and perhaps even fingerprint scans. They recorded the brain activity of 50 people as they looked at 500 images, ranging from a slice of pizza to actress Anne Hathaway. They found that individual subjects' brains reacted so differently to each of the images, that computer software was able to analyze the response patterns and use them to identify a person's "brainprint" with 100-percent accuracy. As Sarah Laszlo, assistant professor of psychology at Binghamton University, explained in an interview at the time, brainprints have advantages over digital fingerprint scans. If a fingerprint scan is stolen, the person whose finger it recorded is permanently compromised, but a stolen brainprint is a digital object, not a physical, visual one, and simply could be erased and reset. Advertisement While we're waiting for someone to develop and market a brainprint identification system, another scientist may have developed an intriguing variation of brainwave ID. According to a press release issued by journal publisher Inderscience, researcher Violeta Tulceanu at the University of Iasi in Romania is developing a system that analyzes a user's brainwaves not just to verify identity, but to evaluate his or her mental state as well. The idea is to develop a sort of emotional fingerprint for each person that is, the brainwave patterns that he or she experiences when experiencing happiness, fear or other emotions. Such a system might deny access if it spots that a person is acting under duress say, if a robber is forcing him or her to use an automated teller machine or open an electronic lock on a door. It also might detect that a user can't act responsibly because of being drunk or high on drugs. Tulceanu's article in the International Journal of Advanced Intelligence Paradigms notes that an emotion-based brainwave identification system could become more sophisticated over time, as it gathered more and more data about a person's emotions. As Tulceanu writes in the abstract: "This type of authentication has applications in fields such as the military, e-learning, health, etc., where it is necessary to be able to establish whether the user was acting responsibly and of his own accord." Now That's Interesting In 2015, University of Rochester researchers developed a computer program that people could use to monitor their own mental health, by analyzing selfie videos that they shot on their smartphones. " " Not all the robots got fired. This one is serving dishes in a restaurant in Shenyang, China, on March 15, 2016. Integrated with sensors, navigation hardware and user interface technology, this 140-centimeter (4.6 foot) tall robot is able to hold and se... Zhang Wenkui/Xinhua Press/Corbis As a Westerner who doesn't speak Mandarin or Cantonese, I've encountered more than a few communication challenges in mainland Chinese restaurants. There was the time I accidentally ordered a soup-cauldron-for-one in Guangzhou, or the time a server at a grill in Nanning took away my wailing son to show him the fish tanks in the kitchen. I wasn't sure I'd actually get him back, but hey, we worked it out. Because, despite the language differences, we were all intuitive human beings. But what if the servers had been robots? What sort of soup excess and child-snatching drama might have ensued? Advertisement It's not an unrealistic question given that Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and mainland China are all actively experimenting with robot waiters an experiment that most recently made headlines when three Guangzhou eateries terminated their entire robotic waitstaffs. That's not an insignificant number, considering that one of the restaurants had as many as 10 robots working for it, reports Nate Smith in the Digital Journal. The problems didn't achieve a "destroy all humans" level of worry, but the bots constantly failed at such basic waiting tasks as order-taking and beverage-pouring. The novelty factor succeeded in attracting customers, but beyond that it was all soggy laps and unwanted servings of beef chow fun. Robots manage quite well within the framework of closed systems and repetitive tasks. An assembly line robot installs the same parts in the same place all day and maybe all night. Your Roomba maps the room and navigates around obstacles, but it's still dealing with a very controlled environment. However, the restaurant environment offers far more variables, and that's not even factoring in the value of a charming human server who can upsell the customer on drink specials. NPR reported on the rising pan-Asian trend of robot servers back in 2011, highlighting some of the challenges and advantages fostered by the robot waiter revolution. On one hand, robotic workers are cheaper (after the initial hefty purchase cost that is) and more dependable, provided the human masters properly define their role. In that same NPR story, roboticist Henrik Scharfe even stated that, given the standard communicative script of ordering in a restaurant, a robot actually has a mechanized leg up on the task. We follow a script each time we sit down for a meal, so why can't a robot learn to follow that script as well? Roboticist Illah Nourbakhsh, however, predicted that effective robotic servers were still a good 40 years off and that "the idea will come and fail." So is that where we are? The fail point in the robot restaurant revolution? Only time will tell. Kitchen-based robots continue to amaze attendees at Tokyo's annual International Food Machinery and Technology Exhibition, and a lot of us still WANT to live in a world where an enlightened machine shows us to our table. In a pre-singularity world, however, we may have to leave the more complicated tasks, especially fish-based child calming, to the humanoids. " " In theory, were only a few decades away from digital versions of ourselves. e-crow/iStockphoto Dmitry Itskov predicts that in the year 2045, humans will be able to back themselves up to the cloud. Yep, he believes you'll be able to create a digital version of your human consciousness, stored in a synthetic brain and an artificial host. Itskov, a Russian entrepreneur, media mogul and billionaire, plans to live forever and he plans to take all of us along for the ages, as holograms. His project, called the 2045 Initiative, is named for the year he predicts he'll complete the final milestone in digitizing human consciousness. While substrate-independent minds (mind-uploading) may be a new reality to the next generation, the human desire for immortality certainly isn't. Advertisement Look as far back as the third century B.C.E., when the ancient Chinese credited mercury as the secret to immortality. It's believed that the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, ingested high levels of mercury in pursuit of everlasting life. He died of mercury poisoning at age 39. Travel forward to the current day and meet Martine Rothblatt, a telecommunications lawyer, executive and the founder of both Sirius XM satellite radio and the biotech firm United Therapeutics, who believes that death is not certain; it's optional. Rothblatt is a transhumanist who founded the Terasem Movement. And she worries about the rights of your not-yet-created cyber-you, your immortal avatar that knows everything you know. Think of it not like a simulation but rather an emulation of you; your cyber-consciousness. Let's go back to Dimitry Itskov. Before personal (and affordable) lifelike avatars can be developed, the structure of the human brain needs to be mapped, and neural structures, connections and their functions need to be deciphered. Electrical signals need to be translated into code, and hardware developed to run, well, the everlasting you. Itskov's overall project to do just that is outlined in four phases. He's spent millions on the plan, called the Avatar Project, which operates under the umbrella of the 2045 Initiative. Developing a robot that's controlled by a human brain is Avatar A, the first of the four phases. Avatar B involves transplanting a human brain into a synthetic body. The contents of a biological brain will be uploaded into a synthetic one in Avatar C. The final piece of the Avatar Project, Avatar D, relies on emulation: replacing the biological body and brain with a hologram, or other avatar, that hosts a digital version of our human consciousness. Istkov hasn't invested only in his own project. He's also given funding to Carboncopies.org, founded by neuroscientist Randal Koene in 2012. Even back in 2007, before the nonprofit was officially formed, a small group of similarly minded, Koene-led transhumanism advocates began to actively pursue the idea of digital immortality. The group began to frame the idea of whole-brain emulation, as well as outline the major tasks that would need solutions before emulating a human brain could become a reality. This includes mapping the structure of the brain, deciphering neural connections and their functions, and developing both the software and hardware to host you, immortal, in the silicon of a computer chip. Also in 2012, Google launched the Google Brain project, an in-house research project focused on machine learning. (Machines will need to learn to effectively be you, after all.) Francesc Romeu was ordained as a priest 34 years ago and is currently in charge of the parish of Santa Maria de Taulat in the Barcelona neighborhood of Poblenou. This Sunday is Palm Sunday, he says. I have already asked the florist who sells the palms and she tells me I will have a full house. The square will be bursting at the seams. But on Maundy Thursday it will be back to reality and I will preaching to just a few. It is not surprising Romeu feels his flock has diminished. According to the report Secularism in Figures, 2018 from the Ferrer i Guardia Foundation, 27% of Spaniards are either atheists, agnostics or non-believers. The foundations director, Silvia Luque, believes this is a historic figure. THE EVOLUTION OF NON-BELIEVERS Percentage of the population Source: The Ferrer i Guardia Foundation with reference to the National Statistics Institute and the Center for Sociological Researchs barometer. El Pais EL PAIS The data, compiled predominantly from the National Statistics Institute (INE) and the barometer from the Center for Sociological Research, does not spell good news for the future of the Church. As many as 48.9% of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 have turned their back on religion, while just 48.5% confess to having a belief system. These figures contrast dramatically with data for the 65-plus age bracket where 88.6% still believe in God, who was an obligatory element in their childhood lives under the Francisco Franco dictatorship, which lasted from the end of the Civil War (1936-1939) until his death in 1975. BELIEVERS ACCORDING TO AGE Total percentage of the population Source: The Ferrer i Guardia Foundation with reference to the National Statistics Institute and the Center for Sociological Researchs barometer. El Pais EL PAIS With such a notable lack of faith among the young, the Church has every reason to feel uneasy. According to the vice-president of the Ferrer i Guardia Foundation, Vicenc Molina, youngsters have exchanged metaphysical formulas for technology. The percentage of believers in Spain stands at 69.5% with only 26.6% declaring themselves to be practicing believers, which is, according to the reports author Josep Mane, an all-time low. As the figures suggest, the numbers abandoning religion since 1980 when just 8.5% of the population did not believe, have risen relentlessly, a scenario which has led to a corresponding drop in Church weddings. RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT Total percentage of the population Source: The Ferrer i Guardia Foundation with reference to the National Statistics Institute and the Center for Sociological Researchs barometer. El Pais EL PAIS The Ferrer i Guardia Foundations report reveals that, in Spain last year, 80.2% of marriages were civil compared to 19.8%, which were religious. This contrasts sharply with 1992 when 20.6% of couples chose to have civil ceremony and 79.4% to be married in a church. The figures were on par in 2008, after which religious ceremonies have been increasingly outnumbered. Civil marriages are most popular in Catalonia and Basque Country, while couples from Extremadura and Ceuta are keenest on the religious route. Comparing the decline of religion in Spain with other European countries, Luque says, The European Social Survey found that Poland has the biggest percentage of believers with 91%, due to anti-communist sentiment and the subsequent role of Pope John Paul II. The survey finds that Lithuania comes next with 88%, Italy 74%, Ireland 74%, Portugal 73% Austria 73% and Spain 69%. In France, only 53% of the population are believers, a figure that can be put down to the division of the state and religion at the start of the 20th century, according to Luque. She believes Spain is becoming more secular because the younger generations are less influenced by the national Catholicism of the Franco era. Luque does not believe the recent wave of pedophile scandals in the Church has made an impact yet on the figures. MARRIAGES Total percentage of the population Source: The Ferrer i Guardia Foundation with reference to the National Statistics Institute and the Center for Sociological Researchs barometer. El Pais EL PAIS According to Enrique Gil Calvo, a sociologist and professor at the Complutense University in Madrid, young peoples growing lack of faith is due to modernization, education and the emancipation of women. Youngsters today are less religious than those who came before, but more religious than those yet to come, he says. Religion and rational science are incompatible. As upcoming generations are increasingly better educated, there is a general rise in rational science and consequently less trace of pre-modern religious superstition. Historian and anthropologist Maria Lara, points out that throughout history, fear and uncertainty have been the main pillars of religion. If, between the ages of 14 and 24, you are studying and your parents are paying your bills, you dont have any worries, she says. With this lack of uncertainty, there is less need to resort to religion. But Romeu holds out hope that it is generational and when the younger members of his parish age, they may turn to the Church for solace. The old people I had when I started out as a priest have died and now I have others who are retiring, he says Their grandchildren are now older and there comes a day when they walk into the church and stay." English version by Heather Galloway. A Red Cross nurse attends to an immigrant in Algeciras. A. Carrasco Ragel (EFE) On April 28, Spaniards will go to the polls in a snap national election triggered by a deadlock over the 2019 budget. Whichever government emerges from the vote will have to deal with this and other longstanding economic issues such as persistently high unemployment, ballooning debt and how to finance the pensions system with an ageing population. And on the political front, immigration and the Catalan crisis will continue to shape the national agenda. Spain in a snapshot Spain has a population of 47 million, 19 million workers, and 3.6 million people out of a job two million less than five years ago. There are 10 million people living under the poverty threshold. It also has the worlds third-highest life expectancy after Japan and Switzerland. The state pays 9.7 million pensions a year, and collects less than what it takes to cover that expense. In fact, the state has been collecting less than what it spends for years, and the debt has ballooned to over a trillion euros, leading to financial costs that keep eroding the budget. Tax collection, in the meantime, has returned to 2009 levels. Last year, 60,000 irregular immigrants reached Spanish shores, more than twice the 2017 figure. There are five million foreign nationals registered on local rolls, 700,000 fewer than a decade ago. Two models There are two main political models in Spain. And in a scenario of fragmentation where no one party is expected to win a large enough majority to govern on its own, the five main parties representing these models Socialist Party (PSOE), Popular Party (PP), Podemos, Ciudadanos (Citizens) and Vox will have to forge alliances to form a government. These are their proposals for some of the countrys main problems: Catalonia. The future of the northeastern region hinges on the outcome of April 28. Three right-of-center parties PP, Ciudadanos and Vox are promising to reintroduce direct rule by Madrid, which was in force for seven months after separatist leaders made a unilateral independence declaration in October 2017. Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right Vox, wants to recentralize Spain again, eliminating the system of devolved powers to the regions Although it is highly doubtful that Article 155 of the Constitution could be legally invoked once more, all three parties are promising changes in Catalonia, with some nuances. The main conservative PP is promising to apply as many measures as necessary for as long as is unavoidable on subjects ranging from education to the regional media outlets. Albert Rivera, head of the center-right Ciudadanos, says he will ask the Catalan premier Quim Torra whether he respects the Spanish Constitution, and if the answer is negative, he will seek temporary direct rule. And Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right Vox, wants to go a step further and simply recentralize Spain again, eliminating the system of devolved powers to the regions. On the center-left, the PSOE did not mention Catalonia at the presentation of its 120 commitments for Spain, but Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said his party defends territorial integrity and compliance with the Constitution, while rejecting a referendum on self-determination for the region. Instead, the Socialists support improved self-rule for Catalonia. The leftist coalition Unidas Podemos has stated that it supports a negotiated referendum in which Podemos will defend a new fit for Catalonia within Spain. Gender issues. Despite calls by Vox to repeal gender violence legislation, this is not likely to happen. Both of its probable allies, PP and Ciudadanos, defend the law and even want to take it further by addressing the persisting issue of the salary gap between men and women. The PSOE and Podemos will seek additional legislation to defend the rights of LGTBI groups The PSOE and Podemos will seek additional legislation to defend the rights of LGTBI groups, and the latter has established a four-year goal to achieve gender parity in public institutions such as the Cabinet or the Supreme Court. The PSOE and Podemos also want to reform criminal legislation following a high-profile sexual assault case known as La Manada. Taxes. The highest earners, large companies and banks will pay more taxes if there is a leftist government. The PSOE has yet to detail its tax reform proposals, but it has announced new taxes on financial transactions and digital services, as well as a higher income tax rate for the wealthy. The PP, on the other hand, has pledged to lower the highest tax rate from 45% to 40%, bring corporate tax below 20%, and eliminate inheritance tax, estate tax and a levy on home purchases known as AJD. The PP, on the other hand, has pledged to lower the highest tax rate from 45% to 40% Ciudadanos would slightly reduce the highest tax rate (from 45% to 44%), act against corporate tax deductions and eliminate inheritance tax. Vox has pledged similar moves. These parties claim that the loss in tax revenues would be offset by an increase in economic activity, leading to greater collection on existing taxes. Pensions. Last year Spain spent over 144 billion on 9.7 million pension checks. In 2010, a legal reform raised the retirement age to 67, and in 2014, a new calculation method was introduced that no longer ensured purchasing power for pensioners. The measures aimed to help reduce the systems deficit, but they failed. Despite a considerable increase in jobs over the last four years, contributions to social security have not made up for a gap that grows by around 18 billion each year. And a surplus of 60 billion has been used up. Parties are aware of this problem but dont have any clear solutions. For now, all they are offering are vague pledges that include the words reform and sustainability. Unidas Podemos does suggest one specific measure: making the highest earners pay more into the system. Employment. There are two fundamentally opposed views. The right supports measures that reduce workers rights and make firing cheaper (the PP proposes going further with the progress on market flexibility achieved in 2012). The left wants to repeal parts of that reform to reinforce workers rights. Nearly all parties are offering better conditions for self-employed workers through tax breaks and subsidies for business creation. And they agree on the need for more open-ended contracts. Additionally, most political leaders agree on the need to equate the maternity and paternity leave. Immigration. There was a 130% rise in irregular migrant arrivals last year, representing nearly 60,000 people. There are five million foreign nationals registered on the local rolls (the padron), a 700,000 drop from a decade ago. The economic crisis reduced the migratory pressure on Spain, but the recovery has seen a new spike in arrivals. The PP supports fighting smugglers, reinforcing security measures at the southern borders, and expanding international treaties for repatriation of irregular migrants. Venezuelans are the exception, as they will be granted residency permits. The PP supports fighting smugglers and reinforcing security measures at the southern borders The PSOE defends facilitating orderly migration flows while showing maximum respect for human rights, while Podemos wants to shut down migrant holding centers (CIE), issue humanitarian visas and to relax family reunification procedures. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Vox wants to deport illegal immigrants as well as legal immigrants who have committed a serious crime or reoffended on minor crimes. This party also wants to build an insurmountable wall in the Spanish exclave cities of Ceuta and Melilla, on the northern coast of Africa. Depopulation. The political fragmentation means that the nearly 100 seats being contested in 19 highly depopulated provinces will be key to forming governing majorities. This is why parties are embracing rural Spain like never before, promising more and better services in health care, tax incentives, high-speed internet access, police, tourism plans and more. Clean energy. All parties, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, support a transition to cleaner energy systems and a reduction of CO 2 emissions. The PSOE wants 74% of electricity consumption in 2030 to come from renewable sources, and a shutdown of nuclear power plants between 2025 and 2035. Podemos wants 100% renewable energy by 2040, and to eliminate nuclear power by 2024. Vox is promising a plan to make Spain self-sufficient through cheap, sustainable, efficient and clean energy. The PP defends an energy mix that will guarantee supply and reasonable energy prices. English version by Susana Urra. Lines to pass through security controls at Madrid-Barajas airport. Paco Campos (EFE) More information Relief for Easter travelers in Spain: Air Nostrum pilot strike is called off Strikes called by labor unions at some of Spains main transportation companies have complicated travel plans for the start of the Easter holidays. On Monday, Air Nostrum pilots began their first day of a six-day, 24-hour strike, which will continue on April 16, 17, 22, 23 and 24. As a result of the stoppage, Air Nostrum has canceled 148 flights a move that will affect 10,000 passengers in the first three days. The airline has said that it will evaluate the result of the first round of strikes before deciding to cancel more flights in the last three days of the planned work stoppage. Spains Public Works Ministry has set minimum services that will allow Air Nostrum to operate 76.4% of the 627 flights scheduled for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The minimum services also outline that all flights to and from the Balearic Islands, Canary Islands and Melilla, a Spanish exclave city in north Africa, must go ahead as planned, as well as all public service obligation (PSO) flights in the Spanish peninsula (Almeria-Sevilla, Badajoz-Madrid and Badajoz-Barcelona). According to the minimum services, the airline must provide between 29% and 31% of flights between Spanish cities where alternative travel would take less than five hours, and between 45% and 47% of flights where the alternative is more than five hours, and for those which connect to international destinations. Air Nostrum has said that passengers affected by the cancellations can ask for a refund, or choose to fly on a different flight and date before May 10, according to availability. The pilot union Sepla called the strike of Air Nostrum pilots to protest a growing transfer of flights to other airlines within the Iberia group. Sepla said that this trend jeopardizes the future of the company and the working conditions of the company pilots. Long lines in Madrid-Barajas airport Strikes called by workers at Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas airport have also affected travelers. Private security workers from the company Ilunion, which is a subsidiary of the ONCE foundation, began an open-ended strike on Friday to demand better salaries. This is the current situation at Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas airport. Strike in the security checkpoint at T2 and T3 of Madrid airport. Endless lines. Anyone flying should come ahead of time. According to airport staff, the work stoppage caused chaos on Sunday, when passengers were forced to wait in line for up to an hour and a half to pass through security controls at the airports four terminals. The ATES workers union, which called the strike, has asked travelers to be patient in the face of possible chaotic situations. Meanwhile, airport ground handling staff have planned a strike for April 21 and 24, when many travelers are expected to return from Easter holidays. The work stoppage has been called by the unions UGT and USO, which represent 60,000 workers from different companies. The call comes after failed talks with the employers association. Rail worker strikes The CCOO trade union has called on workers from Adif, which manages Spanish railway infrastructure; High-Speed Adif, the state port authority and the maritime rescue service to strike on April 17 to demand the government approve the preliminary agreements on collective agreements that were made between March and December 2018. Security guards who work with the Spanish state-owned railway service Renfe in Madrid will also strike for two hours every day between April 18 and 28. Meanwhile, Semaf, the largest train driver union at Renfe, has called a 24-hour strike for April 23, coinciding with the return date for many Easter travelers. The union says the company has failed to honor professional development agreements for driving personnel. English version by Melissa Kitson. The rescue operation in Totalan, in southern Spain, in January. Luis Sevillano A Spanish toddler who slipped into a borehole in southern Spain in January died from the fall and not from an accidental blow to the head by a rescuers pickaxe, a definitive autopsy has confirmed. Julen Rosello fell into a deep, narrow opening on a relatives property in Totalan (Malaga) on January 13, triggering an unprecedented 13-day rescue operation by 300 people, including firefighters, engineers, explosives experts and an elite mining unit. The childs head was injured in two places: at the base of the skull, and on the left side Rescuers worked round the clock, using heavy machinery to dig a parallel shaft beside the borehole, which was only 25cm wide, and then tunneling across through hard rock. The search ended on January 26 when rescuers located the body at a depth of around 71 meters. The fundamental cause of death was the fall, says a report drafted after the final autopsy was conducted. Judicial sources said that the little boy died at around 1.50pm on the same day that he fell into the borehole, which had been dug illegally in search of water. According to the report, his survival time was short. Pickaxe theory David Serrano, the owner of the property where Julen died. EFE The report debunks the theory upheld by the defense lawyers for the only individual under investigation for involuntary manslaughter: David Serrano, the owner of the property where the accident took place. Serranos defense had claimed that Julen could have been killed by an accidental blow from a pickaxe used by firefighters in the early stages of the rescue operation, when they were still trying to extract a plug of earth from inside the borehole in a bid to pull out the child. The four doctors who signed the 25-page report said that the boys head was injured in two places: at the base of the skull, and on the left side, from the effects of a blow from a projecting element along the inner walls of the shaft, which had not been lined. The medical report underscores that no fractures were found at the top of the skull, and that the injury on the side of the head could not have been made by a pickaxe thrown down from a height of 70 meters. The uneven surface and friction from the childs clothes slowed down the fall. This, and the natural elasticity of the young childs body, explains why the post-mortem examination did not show not more fractured bones. At a press conference in early February, David Serrano said that he had covered the hole with two concrete blocks at 1pm on January 13 just before the toddler fell down the shaft. Serrano also maintained that he had warned people in the area about the opening. I thought someones foot could slip in and break, but I never thought a child would fit inside, he said. English version by Susana Urra. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said that he signed the Bankruptcy Code. "I have one more piece of good news. Today, I have signed the law on bankruptcy," Poroshenko said at a meeting with business representatives in Kyiv on Monday. As reported, Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada on October 18, 2018 passed the Bankruptcy Code of Ukraine (bill No. 8060). This book provides an opportunity for individuals - bona fide borrowers in the event of a difficult economic situation to initiate a bankruptcy procedure and get rid of this debt obligation, while the lender is deprived of this right. The adopted document provides for the sale of bankrupt property at transparent electronic auctions of the ProZorro.Sales platform. PrJSC Volodymyr-Volynsky Poultry Farm (Volyn region) will invest EUR 38 million in the construction of a new poultry processing facility, which will allow doubling production, director general of the company Alina Sych has said. According to her, the capacity of the new workshop will be 13,500 broilers per hour. Construction is to be completed in a year or two. The company will produce goods under the Epikur brand at this facility: poultry grown without antibiotics and growth stimulation. "The monthly increase in the sales of Epikur poultry is about 43%. We grow 4.6 million birds. As the demand for our products is growing, we start building new facilities to raise production. Within the total production by the factory, the share of Epikur is more than 30%, the rest is grown according to the standard technology," Sych told Interfax-Ukraine. In addition, Volodymyr-Volynsky Poultry Farm actively implements alternative energy projects. PrJSC Volodymyr-Volynsky Poultry Farm is a Ukrainian-Dutch enterprise, part of the Openmind group of companies. The factory's infrastructure includes 100 poultry farms, a processing workshop and a feed mill with a capacity of 10,000 tonnes per month. The Sixth Administrative Court of Appeals has postponed until April 22, the day after the second round of the presidential elections, the consideration of the appeal of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) against the decision of Kyiv's District Administrative Court to annul the NBU order on conducting an audit of PrivatBank in October 2016, the results of which formed the basis of the nationalization of the financial institution. The court handed down the verdict on postponing the hearings on April 15, a representative of one of the parties to the dispute told Interfax-Ukraine. As reported, the Cypriot company Triantal Investments Ltd, which was one of the largest shareholders of PrivatBank, contested in court the illegality of the actions of the National Bank and the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine. In particular, the company in March 2017 filed a lawsuit demanding that the NBU order dated October 2016, by which the regulator initiated an unscheduled inspection, be canceled. The Kyiv District Court on March 2, 2018 satisfied the claim. It is so far impossible to carry out a democratic electoral process in the Donbas regions outside Kyiv's control, Dmytro Razumkov, the speaker of Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelensky's campaign headquarters, said. "As regards the war in the [Ukraine's] east and the Minsk Agreements, 'Minsk' [peace process] is really not ideal, there are a lot of questions related to it, this matter has been stalled for many months, but no one unfortunately can suggest another option. All of these sanctions, which today are in effect against Russia, are linked to the Minsk process, and it will be very difficult to change this whole process," Razumkov said at the third forum of the Ukrainian Liberals in Kyiv on Saturday. The Minsk peace process is quite acceptable with all its imperfection, he said. "The other point is that Russia is trying to turn everything upside down, as usual, and proceeds in reverse order by holding elections in the first place. This can be called whatever you like, but it is just impossible to carry out the democratic process on the occupied territory today," the speaker of Zelensky's campaign headquarters said. Therefore, the only way to settle the Donbas crisis is undertaking joint actions by Ukraine and international partners, primarily by using diplomatic methods, he said. The return of the "occupied territories" of Donbas and Crimea should take place only on Ukraine's terms, Razumkov added. "Our country made its civilized choice long ago," the speaker of Zelensky's campaign headquarters said, commenting on Ukraine's course towards European and Euro-Atlantic integration. "This [the choice] was confirmed in 2014 by the deaths of people on the Maidan during the Revolution of Dignity, this is confirmed by the fact that the Ukrainian army protects our sovereignty in the country's east. But it is still a hard way we will have to go," Razumkov said. "As we are speaking about the integration into the North Atlantic Alliance, it is certainly really important, and unfortunately or fortunately there is no alternative to Ukraine's advancement in this direction," he added. At the same time, Razumkov urged politicians not to speculate on this matter. Russia-led forces have mounted 10 attacks on Ukrainian troops in Donbas in the past 24 hours, the press centre of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) has reported. "The enemy fired on our defenders from anti-tank missile systems, grenade launchers of various systems, large-caliber machine guns and small arms ... There are no casualties among the personnel of the Joint Forces," the JFO staff said on Facebook. In the action zone of the operational-tactical grouping Vostok (East) and Sever (North), Russian occupation forces opened fire from 82mm mortars, anti-tank missile systems, grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine guns, and small arms to attack the Ukrainian positions near Vodiane, Nevelske, Shyrokyne, Avdiyivka, Zolote-4, Krymske, Novotoshkivske, and Novoluhanske. According to Ukrainian intelligence, on April 14, four militants were killed, another three were injured. "Since Monday midnight, Russian-led forces haven't attacked Ukrainian positions yet," the report said. Poroshenko says in public wants to dismiss Foreign Intelligence Service first deputy head, who is charged in illegal enrichment case Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that he wants to dismiss Serhiy Semochko as first deputy head of the Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service on Friday, April 19. "First deputy head of the Foreign Intelligence Service Gen. Semochko will be dismissed on Friday," Poroshenko told reporters at central Kyiv's Olympiyskiy Stadium on Sunday, where he arrived with hopes to have a debate with presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelensky. The Nashi Hroshi with Denys Bihus anti-corruption investigation show has earlier aired a TV report, which said that the family of the first deputy head of the Foreign Intelligence Service and the former economic counterintelligence chief of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), Semochko, has mansions worth millions of dollars outside Kyiv, and his relatives have Russian citizenship, along with the Ukrainian one. The Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) has launched a criminal inquiry into illegal enrichment, in which Semochko is a defendant. The SBU said that as part of the criminal case opened on the basis of journalist Bihus' lawsuit on the charge of high treason described in Part 1 Article 111 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code it is investigating a number of media reports with respect to Semochko. On October 17, Foreign Intelligence Service chief Yehor Bozhok said that there are no legal grounds for dismissing his first deputy Semochko. Kyiv's Shevchenkivsky District Court later said in its ruling that the SBU counterintelligence had confirmed that Semochko's wife and daughter have Russian citizenship. Investigators sought the court to provide access to the phone conversations of Semochko and his family over about five years. The court granted the investigator's motion. Ex-NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow has said he hopes NATO will continue to seek unimpeded navigation of Ukrainian ships and entry of ships into Ukrainian ports. Vershbow made the remarks during the Kyiv Security Forum in Kyiv on Friday. Ukraine has resisted Russian aggression. Multinational battalions were created under the leadership of various European countries... NATO can change along with reality. The alliance is not only a military alliance, but also a political one in which all members have common values. We are a community with joint future, he said. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko wants to hear from Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelensky why he is supported by a number of Russian and Ukrainian politicians who fled to Russia, including State Duma Deputy Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, former Prime Minister and former President of Ukraine, Mykola Azarov and Viktor Yanukovych. "I don't like it when everyone from Zhirinovsky to Azarov, from Yanukovych to Zyuganov supports the president [presidential candidate] of my country. I don't like it. But I don't blame anyone - I think the candidate himself could explain this situation. But for some reason he doesn't do that. I don't think that it is very good. This is disrespect not for Poroshenko ... This is disrespect for the people, for the voters," said Poroshenko at the NSC Olympiyskiy in the center of Kyiv on Sunday, where he arrived for a debate with a presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelensky, answering journalists' questions. The president considers it dangerous for the country when a virtual candidate participates in the election campaign. "I don't like it when we have a virtual candidate instead of participating in the debates ... Because when the candidate sprinkles on the screens, but doesn't say anything, for the majority it's just a plot from the movie "Servant of the People." But we are not electing Holoborodko [the main character of the film acted by Zelensky] - we are electing the president of Ukraine," said Poroshenko. Poroshenko said he wants to know Zelensky's position on the most important areas of the implementation of the powers of the president of Ukraine, as Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and as a guarantor of constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens, and as a defender of Ukraine. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko considers illegal the intention to announce early elections to the Verkhovna Rada. "Hints of an early and absolutely illegal attempt to dissolve the Verkhovna Rada in case of a change of president do not say about stability. Such appeals have already been made," said Poroshenko at a meeting with business representatives in Kyiv on Monday. Presidential candidate of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky calls on President Petro Poroshenko to carry out his duties and promises, rather than running after them on TV channels, giving medical samples and performing at the stadium. "I want to appeal to a man who occupies a very serious post - the post of president of Ukraine. Mr. Poroshenko, I really want you to move beyond slogans to meaningful action. Namely, imprison the murderers of Kateryna Handziuk, the Svynarchuks and remember that you have forgotten about our captured sailors, who are behind bars now and waiting for you while you rush through the [TV] channels looking Zelensky, giving medical samples and shouting at the stadium," Zelensky said in a video message that he posted on his Facebook page on Monday. "Please do it. This is your concern, since a showman can become president, and the president who became a showman is a shame. Debates are on April 19, duties are every day," Zelensky said. Former Member of Ukraine's Parliament Dmytro Kriuchkov, who is suspected of embezzling state funds from energy generating companies, will be provided a security detail, notified of suspicion and a motion will be filed in court recommending pretrial preventive measures, chief of the Specialized Anti-corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) Nazar Kholodnytsky has said. Kholodnytsky did not say when exactly Kriuchkov is expected to arrive in Ukraine, but said that SAPO and the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) will take all necessary procedural measures involving the former deputy. "He is not currently in Ukraine. All measures for bringing the suspect to court are being taken," Kholodnytsky said, adding that, "in light of the latest statements made, everything will be done so he can give testimony, which he intends to do." He said Kriuchkov will be notified of suspicion of committing crimes under a number of articles of Ukraine's Criminal Code, including Article 191 (misappropriation, embezzlement of property or taking possession of it through abuse of official position). "A petition will also be filed with the court to elect a preventive measure in the form of detention with an alternative to bail," he said, adding the amount of bail proposed would be the amount of damage for the crimes committed. MP (Bloc of Petro Poroshenko faction - BPP) Serhiy Leshchenko wrote earlier on Facebook that on Monday evening "the main person involved in the investigation of billions of dollars in theft of tariffs from state power companies, Dmytro Kriuchkov," would be extradited from Munich to Ukraine. As reported, investigative journalists from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's TV program Schemes: Corruption in Detail said Kriuchkov in 2015, through the company Energomerezha, which he managed, organized schemes for withdrawing funds from state energy supplying companies (regional energy companies) for Ukrainian businessmen Ihor Surkis and Hryhoriy Surkis, as well as a MP Ihor Kononenko, a BPP member. Kriuchkov is suspected of committing crimes under Part 5 of Article 191 and Part 3 of Article 27, Part 2 of Article 364 of Ukraine's Criminal Code. He was detained in Germany on July 14, 2018, but was soon released on bail. Kriuchkov later agreed to the extradition procedure and was again imprisoned. NABU reported on the preparation of a package of documents necessary for the extradition of a suspect to Ukraine. On March 29, 2019, Ukraine's Deputy Prosecutor General Yevhen Yenin told Interfax-Ukraine that the Prosecutor Generals Office (PGO) had sent a request to Germany for his extradition. Last week SAPO said Kriuchkov would be extradited to Ukraine on April 15. Russia-led forces mounted seven attacks on Ukrainian positions in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, from 00:00 to 18:00 on Monday, April 15, using banned 120mm mortars in three instances, the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO) has said. "Russia-led armed formations also opened fire on our units' positions, using grenade launchers of various systems, large-caliber machine guns and small arms," the JFO's press center said in an evening update on Facebook on Monday. "No Ukrainian army casualties have been reported. The Joint Forces fired back. Information about enemy losses is being verified." All attacks were recorded in the Skhid (East) sector. Enemy used 82mm and 120mm mortars to attack Ukrainian troops near the town of Avdiyivka, 120mm mortars were used near the village of Novoselivka Druha in two attacks. Terrorists opened fire from anti-tank grenade launchers and small arms near Avdiyivka, grenade launchers were used near the village of Opytne, and large-caliber machine guns near the villages of Nevelske and Lebedynske. U.S. President Donald Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton says he is going to discuss Iran in a meeting with his Israeli counterpart soon. Bolton wrote on his Twitter on Sunday that he was "Looking forward to meeting with Israeli National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat tomorrow. We have much to discuss, including our shared commitment to countering Iranian malign activity and other destabilizing actors in the Middle East and around the world." The Trump administration has started an extensive campaign against Tehran almost one year after the U.S. pulled out of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, which was concluded under President Obama. On April 8, the U.S. State Department designated Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps as a "Foreign Terrorist Organization". Washington says the objective of the campaign is to change Tehran's behavior and make the Islamic Republic of Iran a "normal" state. Tehran says the U.S. pull-out from the nuclear agreement (JCPOA) is illegal and rules out Washington's accusations about Tehran destabilizing the Middle East. In the meantime, Israel has repeatedly attacked Iranian targets in Syria, stressing that it will not allow the Islamic Republic to expand its influence on Israel's borders. Contrary to expectations, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has deferred allocating funds from reserves to deal with unprecedented flood damage in Iran. The head of Iran's Central Bank had said April 8 that it will be impossible to deal with the disaster relying on the current budget and money must be withdrawn from the National Development Fund (NDF). Khamenei who was said to have initially agreed, issued a letter on Monday April 15 saying that funds from the current budget should be spent first and only in case of last resort NDF funds can be used. It is not clear what sort of delay this decision will cause, specially for cash compensation to flood victims. The current budget was drafted with a lot of difficulty due to Iran's financial crisis as U.S. sanctions have reduced its oil exports. Recent floods caused by unprecedented heavy rains across Iran have generated an estimated 300-350 trillion rials damage in 25 provinces of the country, the Islamic Republic Minister of Interior said on Sunday, April 4. The amount of damage in USD can reach $7 billion based on the countrys official exchange rate or $2.5 billion based on free market rates in Tehran. Since in many cases the government has to allocate dollars for reconstruction, the official exchange rate is more applicable to calculating flood damages. Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli also announced that more than 4,400 towns villages across Iran were hit and damaged by floods. According to the Minister, hundreds of thousands of hectares of farms and agricultural lands are currently submerged under mud and water. However, Rahmani Fazli has stopped short of giving more details on the damages in different sectors. Meanwhile, the government's official daily, Iran, reported on Sunday that the recent floods caused two trillion rials damage to industrial units and four trillion rials to roads across the country. Daily Iran's report also says that 89,000 homes have been demolished or severely damaged by the floods. While earlier on April 8, the Minister of Agricultural Jihad, Mahmoud Hojjati, had talked about 6.7 trillion dollars damage to farms and agricultural lands, the chief of staff at Crisis Management office of the ministry, Mohammad Mousavi declared that the loss amounts to fifteen trillion rials. This equals $300 million based on the official exchange rate. Based on Mousavi's report, 30% of farms and agricultural lands have been totally destroyed, 159 hectares of greenhouses, 1,400 rural livestock farms, 52,000 apiary, 1,300 fisheries, 2,000 water pumps have been damaged, and 27,000 livestock died during the floods. "The flood-hit people should receive the due compensation without holding back, and according to reasonable and swift assessment," Rahmani Fazli said. The Islamic Republic President Hassan Rouhani has also promised swift action by his administration to pay compensation. However, the Islamic Republic has often failed to pay compensation or rebuild damages in past natural disasters, such as the earthquake in western Iran in 2017. Based on the governments plans, households in villages will get about $2,000 in grants and $8,000 in loans. City residents will receive $2,100 in donations and $10,000 in loans. These dollar amounts are calculated based on the official exchange rate. Moreover, the Rouhani's Administration has approved loans and credit-lines for the damaged industrial units. According to the Minister of Industry, Mines, and Trade, Reza Rahmani, the industrial sector across the country has suffered damages up to $400 million. The Deputy Minister of Roads and Urban Development (RUD), Kheirollah Khademi, has also announced that the damage to roads amounts to $800 million. RUD minister, Mohammad Eslami has declared that 12,000 kilometers (approximately 7,500 miles) of roads have been damaged, and more than 700 bridges destroyed by landslides and flood water. Earlier, the Minister of Energy, Reza Ardakanian, had estimated the flood damage to power facilities up to $420 million. The unprecedented floods, which began on March 19, have killed at least 76 people, forced more than 220,000 people into emergency shelters, and left relief agencies struggling to cope. An outspoken Tehran lawmaker, Mahmoud Sadeghi has lambasted the Islamic Republic's powerful Expediency Discernment Council (EDC) for its boundless expansion. Speaking to pro-reform daily E'temad, Sadeghi said, "EDC was supposed to just hold meetings, but it has turned into a highly expansive entity, and it is currently building a residential complex of 370 units for its staff in Tehran's posh Kan area." "Regardless of violating environmental regulations, the complex shows that EDC is practically going toward the wrong direction", the lawmaker said and added, "How many people are employed by the EDC that it needs such a large complex to house them?" Iran is in the grips of an economic crisis and shortfall in revenues, as U.S. sanctions have chocked off its oil exports. Sadeghi has argued that the EDC was supposed to employ the same people who are actually serving in other state institutions, including the government, judiciary, and parliament, but we are witnessing that it has taken another route, he said. The Expediency Discernment Council is an assembly appointed by the Islamic Republic Supreme Leader and packed by conservatives. It was created upon the revision of the constitution in 1988 to resolve disagreements between parliament and the Guardian Council, and to advise the Supreme Leader. Members of the council are chosen by the Supreme Leader every five years. EDC has recently been criticized for trying to legislate, while its constitutional duty is limited to resolving disputes between parliament and the Council of Guardians. Baku, Azerbaijan, April 15 Trend: Azerbaijans national air carrier held a presentation in Riyadh entitled Azerbaijan through the eyes of a falcon, at which new routes of Azerbaijan Airlines to a number of cities in Saudi Arabia were presented. The event was attended by a delegation of AZAL, headed by Vice-President Eldar Hajiyev, representatives of the two countries governments, the diplomatic corps, mass media, and others. Modern tourism opportunities for organizing recreation and leisure in Azerbaijan, including beach, ski, medical and historical tourism were presented to the wide audience. The presentation video Azerbaijan through the eyes of a falcon was shown at the event. The video is available via the following link https://youtu.be/sSbPtfSrC58 The event participants were provided with information about Azerbaijans civil aviation infrastructure. The guests were also able to taste the culinary masterpieces of our country. Speaking at the event, AZAL Vice President Eldar Hajiyev noted that thanks to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyevs constant attention and support, civil aviation of our country achieved great successes. Last year, Azerbaijan Airlines was confirmed the prestigious 4-Star airline status and according to the British Skytrax Agency, the Airline was named the best regional airline in Central Asia and India. According to him, Heydar Aliyev International Airport received high international recognition, being awarded the maximum 5-star status by Skytrax and becoming the ninth airport in the world with such an assessment. Heydar Aliyev International Airport is the undisputed leader of the region in the field of passenger and cargo transportation. Our peoples have a common religious and cultural heritage, common spiritual values. The opening of new destinations, as well as the simplified visa regime will significantly increase the tourist flow and business relations between the two countries, Eldar Hajiyev said. It should be noted that AZAL opens many new regular and charter flights to the Arab countries, six of which to the Saudi Arabian cities of Riyadh, Dammam, Jeddah, Madinah, Buraydah (Al-Qassim) and Al-Hofuf. The flights to Saudi Arabia will be carried out with modern Airbus A319/320 and E190 aircraft according to the following schedule: Baku-Jeddah-Baku - on Mondays (starting from April 8); Baku-Madinah-Baku - on Wednesdays (starting from June 5); Baku-Dammam-Baku - on Fridays (starting from June 7); Baku-Riyadh-Baku - on Mondays (starting from June 10); Baku-Al-Hofuf-Baku - on Sundays (starting from June 9); Baku-Buraydah (Al-Qassim)-Baku - flight schedule to be announced later. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is also known as the land of two shrines - the legendary Madinah and Mecca, where Muslims come from all over the world during the pilgrimage. Saudi Arabia also attracts lovers of sightseeing holidays with the opportunity to appreciate unprecedented luxury, admire original architectural ensembles and immerse themselves in the amazing atmosphere of the East. To purchase air tickets for regular flights, visit the Airlines official website www.azal.az, while for charter flights - the sales offices of the general agent of AZAL, Silk Way Travel company. 24-hour Call Center: (+994 12) 598 88 80, e-mail: [email protected]. Messages can also be sent via WhatsApp: (+994 70) 437 40 82. Baku, Azerbaijan, April 15 Trend: Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops 24 times, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said April 15, Trend reports. 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, April 15 By Elchin Mehdiyev - Trend: Azerbaijan actively participates in all global platforms to contribute to the strengthening of international peace, Azerbaijani Prime Minister Novruz Mammadov said. Mammadov made the remarks at the 36th International Drug Enforcement Conference, being held in Baku, Trend reports on April 15. The prime minister stressed that the Azerbaijani foreign policy is based on mutual effective and fruitful cooperation with all countries. "Azerbaijan has become a reliable partner on the international arena, Mammadov said. The country was one of the countries which first joined the US counter-terrorism operation. Azerbaijan and the US cooperate fruitfully." He stressed that Azerbaijans such big energy projects as Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum, TANAP changed the world map. "Azerbaijan plays an important role in ensuring Europes energy security," Mammadov said. He stressed that drug addiction and illicit drug trafficking are among the most serious problems. "Illicit drug trafficking also poses big threats to international security as a source of terrorism financing, Mammadov said. Azerbaijan demonstrates a firm stance against the spread of these phenomena in the country, named the fight against illicit drug trafficking as a priority and joined the corresponding international conventions in this sphere. Big tasks have been set before the law enforcement agencies in this sphere, he said. Over the past five years, 8 tons 354 kilograms of drugs have been withdrawn from circulation in Azerbaijan." Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven adjacent regions are under the Armenian occupation more than 25 years and this creates favourable conditions for international terrorism and illicit drug trafficking in this territory," Mammadov said. Baku, Azerbaijan, April 15 By Elchin Mehdiyev Trend: Azerbaijan is a reliable partner of the US in the fight against international terrorism, US ambassador to Azerbaijan Earle Litzenberger said. Litzenberger made the remarks at the 36th International Drug Enforcement Conference being held in Baku, Trend reports on April 15. The ambassador said that by sending peacekeeping forces to Afghanistan, Azerbaijan makes an important contribution to ensuring international peace. By conducting such activities, the country makes a significant contribution to the fight against illicit drug trafficking, Litzenberger added. He also stressed that Azerbaijan is located in an important geostrategic area. The 36th International Drug Enforcement Conference, organized by the Azerbaijani State Commission on Combating Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking together with the Drug Enforcement Administration of the US Department of Justice kicked off in Baku on April 15. The conference, organized with the active participation of the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee and dedicated to the topic "Mobilization of global partners", aims at bringing together high-ranking officials involved in the global fight against illicit drug trafficking, discussing the ways to solve this problem, exchanging views and best practices. The international conference, which brought together about 500 representatives from over 150 countries, will create conditions for the use of modern methods of combating illicit drug trafficking. The proposal about holding the international conference in Azerbaijan was obtained from the Drug Enforcement Administration of the US Department of Justice. The Organizing Committee for holding the 36th International Drug Enforcement Conference in Baku was created upon Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyevs decree dated November 15, 2018. Baku, Azerbaijan, April 15 By Elchin Mehdiyev Trend: The 36th International Drug Enforcement Conference is being held in Baku, Trend reports on April 15. The conference, organized with the active participation of the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee and dedicated to the topic "Mobilization of global partners", aims at bringing together high-ranking officials involved in the global fight against illicit drug trafficking, discussing the ways to solve this problem, exchanging views and best practices. While addressing the conference, Azerbaijani Prime Minister Novruz Mammadov said that the Azerbaijani foreign policy is based on mutual effective and fruitful cooperation with all countries. Azerbaijan actively participates in all global platforms to contribute to the strengthening of international peace, Mammadov said. He stressed that drug addiction and illicit drug trafficking are among the most serious problems. "Illicit drug trafficking also poses big threats to international security as a source of terrorism financing, Mammadov said. In turn, Chairman of Azerbaijans State Commission on Combating Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking Ali Hasanov said that three state programs have been successfully implemented in Azerbaijan in the fight against drug abuse and illicit drug trafficking. Hasanov noted that there is a serious struggle in Azerbaijan against illicit drug trafficking using modern technologies, and big cargoes of drugs have been recently withdrawn from circulation. In turn, Chairman of the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee Safar Mehdiyev emphasized that 16 drug trafficking gangs were revealed over three months of 2019 and 520 kilograms of drugs were withdrawn from circulation thanks to the taken measures. While delivering speech at the event, US ambassador to Azerbaijan Earle Litzenberger said that Azerbaijan is a reliable partner of the US in the fight against international terrorism and makes an important contribution to ensuring international peace. By conducting such activities, the country makes a significant contribution to the fight against illicit drug trafficking, Litzenberger added. The 36th International Drug Enforcement Conference, organized by the Azerbaijani State Commission on Combating Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking together with the Drug Enforcement Administration of the US Department of Justice kicked off in Baku on April 15. The proposal about holding the international conference in Azerbaijan was obtained from the Drug Enforcement Administration of the US Department of Justice. The international conference, which brought together about 500 representatives from over 150 countries, will create conditions for the use of modern methods of combating illicit drug trafficking. The foundation of this unique platform was laid in 1983 in Panama. Then the conference has become a global forum in which representatives from more than 130 countries participate. During the conference, which will last until April 17, new messages on the fight against illicit drug trafficking will be sent from Baku to the world. Details added (first version posted on 13:55) Baku, Azerbaijan, April 15 By Elchin Mehdiyev - Trend: Illegal economic activity in the occupied Azerbaijani territories creates conditions for illicit drug trafficking and other crimes, Azerbaijani Prime Minister Novruz Mammadov said. Mammadov made the remarks at the 36th International Drug Enforcement Conference, being held in Baku, Trend reports on April 15. The prime minister stressed that the world community is concerned that the military conflict zones are being used for drug trafficking. Azerbaijan also faced this problem, he added. For more than 25 years, Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven adjacent districts have been occupied by the Armenian armed forces. Mammadov stressed that the use of the Azerbaijani territories which are under occupation for the production and transit of drugs creates favorable conditions for the expansion of drug trafficking and international terrorism. "The illegal economic activity of the companies attracted by Armenia to the occupied Azerbaijani territories creates conditions for the continuation of the occupation, as well as for drug trafficking and other crimes," he said. The financial and economic activity, money transfer and investment in the occupied territories should be eliminated. "The Azerbaijani side has drawn up the corresponding blacklists to control this situation, Mammadov said. In this regard, Azerbaijan calls on the countries individuals and legal entities of which are involved in illegal activity in the occupied territories to take the corresponding measures." 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, April 15 Trend: A meeting was held between the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan on April 15, Trend reports referring to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry. The meeting was held on the initiative of the Russian side and with the participation of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The meeting was also attended by the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group and the personal representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office. During the meeting, a detailed exchange of views took place on the main issues of resolving the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In this context, prospects for advancing the negotiation process on the conflict were considered, taking into account the outcome of the meeting between the President of Azerbaijan and the Prime Minister of Armenia, held on March 29 in Vienna. Also, the meeting participants exchanged views on measures to reduce tension in the conflict zone, as well as on possible joint activities in the humanitarian sphere. The ministers agreed to take practical steps to improve relations between the peoples of the two countries, including reciprocal visits by media representatives. The meeting participants agreed to continue contacts in the near future. At the end of the meeting, a joint declaration was adopted by the Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia and the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs. 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, April 15 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: On 15 April, Foreign Ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia Sergey Lavrov, Elmar Mammadyarov, and Zohrab Mnatsakanyan held a working meeting in Moscow at the initiative of the Russian side, Trend reports citing OSCE. "The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, Andrew Schofer of the United States of America, and Stephane Visconti of France), as well as Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk, joined the meeting. "As a follow-up to the agreements reached by President Aliyev and Prime Minister Pashinyan at their summit in Vienna on 29 March of this year, the participants in the meeting discussed the situation at the border and the line of contact, as well as the prospects for establishing humanitarian co-operation. They also exchanged detailed views on key aspects of the settlement process. "The Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia reaffirmed the intention of the parties to continue their efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through political and diplomatic means. The Ministers emphasized their interest in further stabilization of the situation in the conflict zone, in particular during agricultural activities. They also agreed to take measures, on a mutual basis, to allow families to have access to their relatives held in custody in the respective detention centers of the parties. The Ministers expressed their willingness to start concrete work on establishing contacts between people, including through mutual visits of media representatives. "The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group reiterated their commitment to the mediation mission aimed at achieving a sustainable peace in the region. The participants of the meeting agreed to continue their contacts in the near future," reads the statement. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, April 15 By Sara Israfilbayova - Trend: The UN and the EU are launching EU4Climate, a regional project to combat climate change in Azerbaijan, Simona Gatti, minister-counselor of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan, said at the presentation of the project in Baku, Trend reports. The project will be financed by the UN and the EU. Gatti noted that the EU is cooperating with Azerbaijan to combat climate change. This project will help implement in Azerbaijan the measures reflected in the Paris Agreement, as well as support the improvement of legislation in this direction, she said. The project is planned to be implemented in the Eastern Partnership countries - Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and Armenia. The EU4Climate project is being implemented to help the Eastern Partnership countries to combat climate change, prepare a strategy for the development of preventive measures in this area, as well as to help integrate climate change issues into the main policy of states. The project will be implemented until 2022 in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and Armenia. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @IsrafilbekovaS Details added (first version posted on 15:20) Baku, Azerbaijan, April 15 By Sara Israfilbayova - Trend: The UN and the EU are launching EU4Climate, a regional project to combat climate change in Azerbaijan, Simona Gatti, minister-counselor of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan, said at the presentation of the project in Baku, Trend reports. The project will be financed by the UN and the EU. Gatti noted that the EU is cooperating with Azerbaijan to combat climate change. This project will help implement in Azerbaijan the measures reflected in the Paris Agreement, as well as support the improvement of legislation in this direction, she said. The project is planned to be implemented in the Eastern Partnership countries - Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and Armenia. The EU4Climate project is being implemented to help the Eastern Partnership countries to combat climate change, prepare a strategy for the development of preventive measures in this area, as well as to help integrate climate change issues into the main policy of states. The project will be implemented until 2022 in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and Armenia. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @IsrafilbekovaS Baku, Azerbaijan, April 15 By Fakhri Vakilov Trend: Uzbekistan and China are planning to create a joint investment fund within the framework of the global initiative "One Zone, One Way", Trend reports via Uzbek media. The parties agreed on the implementation of that project during the international investment forum in the Khorezm region of Uzbekistan. Speaking to the participants, the secretary general of the China Cultural Investment Fund Jiancheng Zhu proposed to create a fund for investment in bilateral cooperation between China and Uzbekistan, to strengthen the strategic partnership between the two countries. This initiative was also discussed later during negotiations with the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Uzbekistan Adham Ikramov. The parties studied the possibility of implementing joint projects in Uzbekistan, which are capable of taking the cooperation of the two countries to a new level. The head of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry positively accepted the idea of creating a joint investment fund and expressed a desire to discuss this project in detail during further negotiations. Chinese side proposed that the creation of the fund should be initiated by the governments of the two countries. Moreover, its funds will be formed at the expense of not only the state capital of Uzbekistan and China, but also international financial institutions, various third-party organizations, including from other countries. The fund may take the form of a limited liability company and will be registered in China. In its turn, Uzbekistan plans to establish a special company for managing its funds. By creating a set of market mechanisms for managing investments and financing, such as the board of directors, the supervisory board and fund managers, this company will carry out its activities and support the initiatives of businessmen of the two countries. A commercial bank will also be chosen as the custodian of the fund in the country. The Fund will invest in projects of bilateral cooperation in Uzbekistan in the field of industry, energy, transport, culture, tourism and other areas. Particular attention will be paid to enterprises with listing conditions and the possibility of entering the stock markets, conducting production modernization, carrying out scientific and technical developments. --- Follow author on Twitter:@vakilovfaxris Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, April 15 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: The growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) of Turkmenistan in the first quarter of 2019 made up 6.2 percent, Trend reports referring to the Turkmen government. According to the data, the plan for oil and gas condensate production was fulfilled by 100.1 percent, for natural gas and associated gas by 103 percent, for oil refining by 108.1 percent, gasoline production by 101.5 percent, diesel fuel by 102.6 percent, polypropylene by 100 percent, lubricating oils by 101.6 percent, and liquefied gas by 117.1 percent. The growth rate of utilized investments was 105.7 percent. In comparison to the same period last year, exports of domestic goods increased by 20.7 percent, while imports decreased by almost 27 percent. An increase in indicators in the transport and communications sector was observed during the reporting period. Compared to the same period of 2018, cargo turnover for all types of transport increased by 6.4 percent in January-March, and passenger turnover by 4 percent. This was followed by a 2.7-percent increase in the sphere of communications. The growth rate for the production of agricultural products is provided at the level of 28.2 percent. Growth was also achieved in the non-state sector of the economy in the first quarter, whose share in the total volume of output was 63.3 percent. According to a report by British Petroleum (BP), Turkmenistan ranks fourth in the world in terms of natural gas reserves and currently exports it to China and Iran. The country set a course for diversifying the local economy. The oil, gas, chemical, and building material industries are actively developing. Baku, Azerbaijan, April 15 By Fakhri Vakilov - Trend: Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance of Uzbekistan Jamshid Kuchkarov held talks with World Bank Vice President for Europe and Central Asia Cyril Muller, Trend reports via Uzbek media. The meeting was held as part of the visit of the Uzbek delegation to Washington during the Spring Meetings of the Board of Governors of the World Bank and the IMF. The parties discussed the prospects for the development of further cooperation between the World Bank and Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan and the World Bank signed loan agreements totaling $300 million to finance projects in Uzbekistan aimed at improving municipal services and urban infrastructure and developing entrepreneurship in the Fergana Valley. Uzbekistan became a member of the World Bank in 1995. Since 1995, the bank has provided Uzbekistan with loans and loans totaling about $4 billion for the implementation of 36 projects in the field of privatization, development of the financial sector, modernization of agriculture, electric power, improvement of social infrastructure, health care and education. --- Follow author on Twitter:@vakilovfaxri Baku, Azerbaijan, April 15 By Fakhri Vakilov - Trend: Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have agreed on joint projects in the fields of transport, logistics, tourism and industrial cooperation, Trend reports via Uzbek media. The meeting between the presidents of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev was held in the Kuksaroy residence in Tashkent. Tokayev arrived in the capital of Uzbekistan on his first state visit at the invitation of Mirziyoyev. "We highly appreciate the fact that your first state visit as president of Kazakhstan was a visit to Uzbekistan. We see a clear manifestation of commitment to further deepen the strategic partnership between our countries by that. For us, Kazakhstan is a close neighbor and strategic partner. We are pleased with the positive dynamics all areas of cooperation", Mirziyoyev said. Tokayev, in response, thanked for the invitation and welcome and expressed confidence that the negotiations would be fruitful. Tokayev, in response, thanked for the invitation and welcome and expressed confidence that the negotiations would be fruitful. "I fully agree with your assessment of the quality and practical content of cooperation between our countries. You, and the first President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, have brought interstate relations to a completely new level. I consider it my task to maintain these rates. In Kazakhstan, there is a very high need for cooperation with fraternal Uzbekistan," Tokayev stressed. During the meeting, the heads of state discussed the prospects for further strengthening bilateral relations of friendship and good neighborliness, cooperation in the field of trade, transport, industrial cooperation, tourism and other areas. An exchange of views took place on regional and international issues of mutual interest. The parties confirmed their mutual desire to reach the level of $5 billion of trade in the coming years. The Intergovernmental Commission on Bilateral Cooperation between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan was tasked with expanding the range of trade relations, finding and developing new long-term forms of economic cooperation. This will contribute to strengthening and building up mutually beneficial economic cooperation, implementing new promising projects in the field of trade, investment, logistics, creating integrated industrial technology parks, research and innovation clusters and free economic zones (FEZ). The sides also considered the issues of strengthening peace and security in the region, helping to resolve the situation in Afghanistan. The meeting reaffirmed the unity and proximity of the two countries' positions on regional and international agendas. --- Twitter:@vakilovfaxri Baku, Azerbaijan, April 15 By Fakhri Vakilov Trend: About 1,000 head of cattle was brought to the North Kazakhstan region this year, Trend reports via Kazakh media. Kazakh internal policy department states that beef and dairy cattle are purchased under state animal husbandry development programs. Cows from Austria, Czech Republic and neighboring Russia come to the region. Recently, 490 heads of Simmental cattle from Austria were brought to Dayndyk LLP of Akkayynsky district. There were purchased them under the program "Sybaga". The cost of each cow is about 1 million tenge. During the month, the cattle will be in quarantine. Cows will be tested for leukemia, brucellosis and a number of other diseases. Peterfeld Agro LLP, Kyzylzhar District, is planning to bring 512 heads of cattle from the Czech Republic this year. There are 160 heads that have already arrived in the region. Moreover, 90, 50 and 60 cattle heads were also brought from the Czech Republic. The Pan and Akbot farms brought 113 heads of Hereford cattle from Russia. The region has set a goal to increase meat production and export potential. Furthermore, it worth noting that, the volume of country's agricultural production in January-March 2019 amounted to 439.711.8 billion tenge, which is 3.6 percent more than in the same period of 2018. The Statistics Committee of the Ministry of National Economy of Kazakhstan provided that information. In particular, in the reporting period, the volume of livestock production amounted to 41310.9 billion tenge (increase in production compared to January-March last year by 3.8 percent), crop production - 17, 778.8 billion tenge (0 percent). In turn, the volume of services in the field of agriculture amounted to 121, 7 million tenge, the volume of products (services) in the hunting sector to 246, 7 million tenge, in forestry to 3. 308,6 billion tenge and in fisheries and aquaculture to 1.945,1 billion tenge. ($1- 379.79 tenge on April 15) --- Twitter:@vakilovfaxri Baku, Azerbaijan, April 15 By Matanat Nasibova - Trend: Zagatala Broiler, an Azerbaijani poultry enterprise in the country's Zagatala district, currently is not capable of increasing production volumes, the director of the small enterprise Mahammad Mammadov told Trend. The director noted that the broiler products of the enterprise are produced in small quantities and only for domestic demand. "Every day we produce up to 35-40 tons of broiler products, but on some days this figure drops to 25 or even 10 tons. Of course, we are interested in exporting products outside the country, but so far our capabilities are limited, and to a lesser extent they depend on the quality of imported chicks from Georgia. In cases, when delivery is satisfying, we face problems that hinder the entire production process," Mammadov said. The director noted that the enterprise breeds broiler chickens and produces chicken meat and other poultry products. The company uses equipment of Turkish production. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @MatanatNasibova Baku, Azerbaijan, April 15 By Matanat Nasibova - Trend: Hajigabul Gushchulug, a poultry factory in Azerbaijan's Hajigabul district, has started exporting eggs to Qatar, a source at the company told Trend. The source noted the volume of deliveries amounted to 1,000 packages or 36,000 eggs. "We expect to increase the number of eggs exported to Qatar to 40,000-45,000. The factory produces about 30-35 million eggs per year," the source said. The source added that the factorys eggs are shipped to Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. Previously, the factory also produced chicken meat, broiler chickens. Manufactured products have a certificate of conformity issued by the State Committee for Standardization, Metrology and Patents of Azerbaijan. The factory uses equipment from Russia, Ukraine and Turkey. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @MatanatNasibova Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, April 15 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: Turkmen ambassador to France Shokhrat Jumayev has presented credentials to French President Emmanuel Macron, Trend reports referring to the Turkmen Foreign Ministry. Earlier it was reported that during the political consultations in Ashgabat the two countries stressed the importance of intensifying bilateral visits at the level of the presidents, as well as strengthening intergovernmental and interparliamentary ties. The sides stressed the importance of developing financial and banking cooperation, promoting the activity of French companies in Turkmenistan. The French businessmen operate in the Turkmen market in such areas as construction, transport, tourism and energy. Two countries are interested in the implementation of the project of transporting Turkmen gas to Europe. The option of laying a gas pipeline across the Caspian Sea and Azerbaijan and connecting it to the transnational projects in the European direction is being considered. Total and Gaz de France are interested in developing the hydrocarbon resources of the Turkmen part of the Caspian Sea and exploring the possibilities of transporting gas to Europe. The French Schneider Electric and the Turkmen government signed an agreement within the consortium with the Belgian ENEX Group SA to provide Ashgabat with energy. Moreover, Franco-Italian aerospace manufacturer Thales Alenia Space implemented the project to build the Turkmen first national artificial satellite. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, April 15 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: The concept of developing an area around an artificial lake Altyn Asyr in 2019-2025 has been approved in Turkmenistan, Trend reports with reference to the order by Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov. The document prescribes the relevant ministries, sectoral departments and regional administrations to ensure the implementation of this concept. It was earlier reported that Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov at a working meeting noted the importance of the artificial lake Altyn Asyr being established in the center of the Karakum desert. This important environmental project includes creation of a unified system of collectors for the purposeful collection of drainage water from irrigated lands in all regions of the country and diverting them to the giant hollow cave Garashor located in north-west Turkmenistan, the report said. This cave is located in the territory of the Balkan region, and it holds about 580 million cubic meters of accumulated water there. The Turkmen president instructed the relevant officials, together with scientists, to study in detail the state of the lake, to determine the volume of water accumulated in the artificial reservoir, its quality with a view to using it for agricultural needs, especially for the needs of the crops grown in this area. The water can also be used on lands that are resistant to salinization, and the work can be intensified to develop fisheries, animal breeding, in particular, camel breeding in areas adjacent to the lake. This project is estimated at several billion US dollars. The collector-drainage discharges formed within the Mary, Akhal and Balkan regions previously accumulated in the lowlands of Karakum sands, flooding and, among other things, reducing the desert pastures. Turkmen scientists believe that the creation of a large artificial reservoir in Karakum will improve the reclamation state of irrigated areas of Turkmenistan, increase the productivity of agriculture and prevent soil salinization. Tehran, Iran, April 15 Trend: The Central Bank of Iran denied reports on asking for a loan from the International Monetary Fund. The central bank has not filed an application for a loan to the International Monetary Fund, CBI said in a statement published on its official website, Trend reports. The Public Relations Department of the CBI announced that it did not file any requests the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Central Bank's public relations dalso stressed that this year, the governor of the central bank did not attend the IMF Spring Summit and canceled its visit to Washington on Monday. Baku, Azerbaijan, April 15 By Elnur Baghishov Trend: The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) welcomes the interest shown by companies in the signing of the IPC (Iran Petroleum Contract), Karim Zobeidi, Director of Integrated Planning and Director at NIOC, told ISNA, Trend reports. According to Zobeidi, currently several Iranian companies are interested in discussing several oilfields. Zobeidi stated that discussions are being held on the development of the North Yaran oilfield (jointly operated with Iraq) by the Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order (EIKO) together with the Persia Oil and Gas Industry Development Co., and of the Sohrab oilfield (jointly operated with Iraq) together with Dana Energy. Proposals have also been made for the development of the Sumar oilfield (located in Irans western Kermanshah Province)," he said. Zobeidi went on to say that these companies have evaluated the data from North Yaran and Sohrab fields. As to negotiations being held with foreign companies, Zobeidi said that foreign companies are currently not involved. With the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2016, the Iranian Oil Ministry announced new oil contracts for the development of oil and gas fields. The first deal was the contract for the development of the 11th phase of Irans South Pars Gas Field, which was signed between France's Total S.A. (50.1 percent), China's China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC)(30 percent) and Iran's Petropars (19.9 percent) in July 2017. However, with the US pulling out from the JCPOA in May 2018, Total announced its withdrawal from the contract. The Iranian side then entrusted Totals share to the CNPC. However, it has been reported that the Chinese company has undertaken no action since then. The 2nd IPC contract for increasing the production of Aban and Paydare Gharb oil fields was signed between NIOC, Russias Zarubezhneft and Iran's Dana Energy in March 2018. In the same month, NIOC and the Pasargad Energy Development Company (PEDC) signed the 3rd IPC contract for the development of Sepehr and Jofeir oilfields. Baku, Azerbaijan, April 15 By Elnur Baghishov Trend: Iran is holding talks with well-known foreign port operators for attracting foreign investment to container terminals in its ports, as well as handing over the operation of the terminals to the companies, said Mohammad Rastad, Deputy Minister of Roads and Urban Development and Managing Director of Ports and Maritime Organization, Trend reports referring to ILNA. He said that consultations are being held with foreign operators on this matter. According to Rastad, increasing investments in the field of information and communication technologies, as well as increasing revenue and creating competition in port services are among the goals set out in the current Iranian year (started March 21, 2019). Rastad added that other important programs include improving the equipment of the 1st phase of the Shahid Beheshti port development project in Chabahar and the development of the 3rd phase of Shahid Rajaee port. "Improving the oil platform at the Shahid Rajaee port, handing over small ports to the private sector, increasing production and industrial activities in areas close to the ports, increasing the share of rail transport in ports are on the agenda of the Ports and Maritime Organization," he said. Baku, Azerbaijan, April 15 By Elnur Baghishov - Trend: Iran has very good relations with neighboring countries, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters, Trend reports via Khabar TV. He said that after the withdrawal of the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the European signatories of the deal undertook many commitments. He also added that the European parties had to launch INSTEX (Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges), a special-purpose vehicle established in January 2019 by France, Germany and the UK to facilitate non-dollar trade with Iran, in order to start the implementation of their commitments. The European side must fulfill its obligations, he said. I dont know how much time the European countries will need to start this mechanism, he noted. The JCPOA was signed on July 14, 2015, between Iran and P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the UK, the US plus Germany). The US left the JCPOA on May 8, 2018. Israels president began post-election consultations on Monday with political parties that will lead to his appointment of a candidate to form a government, reports Trend citing to Reuters Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus nomination seemed virtually ensured after his right-wing Likud won the largest number of parliamentary seats in Tuesdays ballot, and his closest rival, Benny Gantz of the centrist Blue and White party, conceded defeat. The president, Reuven Rivlin, said he would announce his choice on Wednesday after meeting with all of the parties that captured seats in the 120-member Knesset. Under Israeli law, after consultations with the parties the president taps a legislator whom he believes has the best chance of forming a government, delegating 28 days, with a two-week extension if necessary, to complete the task. Netanyahu said he intends to build a coalition with five far-right, right-wing and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties that would give a Likud-led government 65 seats, four more than the outgoing administration he heads. Four of those parties have already said they would back Netanyahu, bringing his tally of seats to 60. Former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, which won five seats and meets Rivlin on Tuesday, has not formally declared he would join a Likud-led coalition. But political commentators, noting Liebermans sharp differences with left-wing and Arab parties whose support Gantz would need to govern, predicted he would sign up with Netanyahu after pressing for concessions in coalition negotiations. Gantz, a former military chief whose party won 35 parliamentary seats, would likely be next in line to try to put together a government if Netanyahu fails. For the first time, Rivlins consultations with the parties were being broadcast live as part of what he described as a display of transparency in what has historically been a closed-door process in Israel. At the meeting with Likud representatives, Culture Minister Miri Regev noted Netanyahu had won re-election despite Attorney General Avichai Mandelblits announcement in February that he plans to charge the prime minister in three graft cases. Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing. He can still argue, at a pre-trial hearing with Mandelblit whose date has not been set, against the filing of bribery and fraud charges against him. The Israeli leader is under no legal obligation to resign if indicted. Chinese bombers and warships conducted drills around Taiwan on Monday, the latest military maneuvers near the self-ruled island that a senior U.S. official denounced as coercion and a threat to stability in the region, reports Trend citing to Reuters The United States has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help provide the island with the means to defend itself and is its main source of arms. China has stepped up pressure on Taiwan, whose President Tsai Ing-wen Beijing suspects of pushing for the islands formal independence, a red line for China which has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. Any attempt to influence Taiwan through threats or coercion, we believe, destabilizes the region and threatens stability in the Taiwan Strait, James Moriarty, chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, said at a ceremony to mark the last four decades of U.S.-Taiwan relations. Chinas Peoples Liberation Army said its warships, bombers and reconnaissance aircraft had conducted necessary drills around Taiwan on Monday, though it described them as routine. China has repeatedly carried out what it calls island encirclement patrols in the past few years. Taiwan scrambled jets and ships to monitor the Chinese forces, its defense ministry said, accusing Beijing of trying to change the status quo of the Taiwan Strait. Moriarty said flying fighter jets and bombers around the island, presumably in connection with what we are doing this afternoon, certainly does not help at all. It hurts stability. It damages the cross strait relationship. It damages any attempt by China to win the hearts and minds of Taiwan people, he told reporters at the institutes new $256 million facility, the de facto U.S. embassy in Taiwan. A delegation led by former U.S. speaker of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, was in Taipei to mark 40 years since the signing of the Taiwan Relations Act, which governs U.S.-Taiwan relations, and to reaffirm Washingtons commitment. We couldnt ask for a better friend than Taiwan. Taiwan is a democratic success story, a reliable partner, and a force for good in the world, Ryan said. We want the rest of the world to be more like Taiwan. Tsai, who says she wants to maintain the status quo with China but will defend Taiwans security and democracy, said at the ceremony that China has been ramping up military threats against Taiwan. The visit by U.S. officials comes just weeks after Tsai said the United States was responding positively to Taipeis requests for new arms sales to bolster its defenses in the face of growing pressure from China. Last month, Washington sent Navy and Coast Guard ships through the narrow strait separating the island from the mainland, part of an increase in the frequency of U.S. movement through the strategic waterway to show support for Taipei. Saudi Arabia will host the Dakar Rally next year as a new destination for the popular sport, Trend reported citing Xinhua. Dakar Rally organisers said that the next year's race will be held in Saudi Arabia which they described as "deep and mysterious deserts of the Middle East." Created in 1977 by the Amaury Sport Organisation, the Dakar Rally was raced across Africa until the terror threats in Mauritania led the organizers to cancel the 2008 edition. The rally was then held in South America. Details of the 2020 race will be announced later this week in Saudi Arabia. The death toll in Sunday's aircraft collision in Nepal's Lukla airport climbed to three, according to Nepal Police Headquarters, Trend reports citing Xinhua. A co-pilot and a policeman were killed on the spot when an aircraft of Summit Air with call sign 9N-AMH skidded off the runway and collided with a parked helicopter of Manang Air. The death toll climbed to three after another policeman, who had been seriously injured and airlifted to the capital city Kathmandu, passed away at the Grande Hospital, the Nepal Police Headquarters said. The accident took place while the Summit Air plane was preparing to take off in a mountainous area near the world's highest peak Mount Qomolangma, according to officials. Senior government official Narendra Rana, who was involved in the rescue operations, told Xinhua that the four passengers and a flight attendant on the plane were safe. Another two injured people were also airlifted to Kathmandu and are undergoing treatment at the Grande Hospital. "They are out of danger," an official at the hospital told Xinhua. The Lukla airport is the nearest airport to Mount Qomolangma, while April-May is the peak climbing season in the Himalayan country. In the springtime, domestic airlines conduct over 50 flights every day to Lukla airport, known as Tenzing Hillary airport, featuring vibrant terrains and harsh weather patterns. Due to the extreme wind pressure, round-trip flights are usually operated in the morning. Authorities suspended flights to the airport following Sunday's aircraft collision. In February this year, a chopper carrying seven people including the country's Tourism Minister Rabindra Adhikari crashed in bad weather in Taplejung district of eastern Nepal, killing all seven on board. In late March, South Korean media reported that Kim Chang Son, the de facto chief of staff for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, visited Moscow to discuss a visit to Russia by the latter, Trend reports citing Sputnik. According to the Yonhap news agency, citing sources familiar with the matter, a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un could take place in the Russia's Far East on 24 April. However, the South Korean media outlet did not offer details of the precise time and venue. Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov, speaking about a meeting between the Russian and North Korean leaders said earlier in April that the Russian side had made specific proposals on dates, and added that the issue was being discussed. Putin congratulated Kim on Friday on his re-election as head of the North Korean State Affairs Commission and confirmed his readiness to cooperate on pressing regional matters. "Dear Mister Kim Jong Un, please accept my sincere congratulations on your re-election as the chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea]. I am sure that your activities at the highest state position will continue to contribute to development of friendly, good-neighborly relations between our countries and our peoples and to strengthening of peace on the Korean Peninsula", Putin said in his congratulatory message, posted on the Kremlin's website. The Russian president also confirmed his commitment to "cooperation on pressing issues of bilateral and regional agendas". North Korean charge d'affaires in Moscow, Jin Jong Hyuk, said Thursday that Pyongyang expects a number of mutual visits by high-level Russian and North Korean delegations in the future. "Only from March to the present day of this year the ninth round of the intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation, consultations of the deputy foreign ministers of the two countries, visits of delegations of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of Russia and the Interior Ministry were successfully held. A number of mutual visits of high-level delegations of different areas and a variety of joint activities are expected this year", the charge d'affaires said at a reception marking the 107th anniversary of the birth of former North Korean leader Kim Il Sung. Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said earlier in April at a meeting with North Korean Peoples Security Minister Choe Pu Il that Russia intends to promote cooperation with North Korea in various areas not affected by international sanctions. The situation on the Korean Peninsula, which since 1953 has long divided the two countries with differing political systems, improved last year with Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in having held several meetings. Kim also held two summits with US President Donald Trump, with the parties reaching a non-binding verbal agreement in June stipulating that Pyongyang would make efforts to promote complete denuclearization of the peninsula in exchange for a freeze of US-South Korean military drills and the potential removal of US sanctions. Pakistani Finance Minister Asad Umar revealed on Monday that Pakistan would sign a bailout agreement with International Monetary Fund (IMF) that would be worth $6-8 billion, Trend reported citing Geo TV. Briefing the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs chaired by Faizullah Kamoka, the finance minister said the IMF finalised a bailout package for Pakistan during talks between the two sides at a recent visit by the Pakistani delegation to the United States. Pakistan would receive funds from the World Bank and Asian Development Bank immediately following the IMF bailout, he said. Umar said the IMF package would ease off pressure from the country's foreign reserves. External account pressure reduced Pakistan's international reserves to $6.6 billion by mid-January 2019, but with short-term financing from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and China, foreign reserves increased to $10.5 billion at the end of March. The finance minister further assured that the capital market would also improve following the IMF programme. Umar told the committee that an IMF mission will visit Islamabad during the last week of April, which is when the bailout package amount will be finalised. Speaking to media later, he said the public will not be impacted by the IMF agreement, and the government has no plans to raise electricity prices, the minister said. Umar said he met with Financial Action Task Force (FATF) President Marshall Billingslea during the US visit, who assured him that any decision would be taken on technical grounds. Pakistan will send a draft detailing its implementation on FATF's recommendations by today, he said. A delegation of FATF will visit Pakistan in the third week of May to review the implementation efforts. IMF did not object to an asset declaration scheme proposed by Pakistan, sources said earlier, pointing out that Pakistan had already shared a draft of the proposed scheme with the IMF and the FATF. Asad Umar is also set to meet Prime Minister Imran Khan and take him into confidence regarding the IMF talks. Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry, speaking to media earlier today, said the finance minister will inform the nation regarding the IMF agreement in the coming days. Chaudhry said the country can expect some major news about the economy within the next two days. Pakistans economy is moving towards strength, he said, adding that there had been positive progress with the Paris-based anti-terror laundering watchdog FATF as well. Meanwhile, Minister of State for Revenue Hamad Azhar said an agreement in principle had been reached on all outstanding issues with IMF during the finance minister's recent successful visit to the US. He said technical details and formalities would now be finalised during the IMF's staff-level visit to Pakistan later this month. Furthermore, the office of the IMF resident representative said in a statement that Pakistani authorities and global lender's staff held constructive discussions during the IMF/World Bank spring meetings in Washington DC towards an IMF-supported programme. "At the request of the [Pakistani] authorities, an IMF mission will be going to Pakistan before the end of April to continue the discussions," it said. Fourteen people were killed in clashes in a displacement camp in Sudans Darfur on Saturday, Trend reported citing Reuters. Conflict in Darfur erupted in 2003 when mainly non-Arab tribes took up arms against Sudans Arab-led government. Civil and military cooperation between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has stopped, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said, Trend reported citing Xinhua. Russia maintains contacts with individual NATO countries, but not with the entire alliance, Grushko said. "NATO itself has abandoned a positive agenda in relations with Russia. So far there are no signs that NATO knows how to get out of this impasse," he said, adding that the bloc has "gone too far" in forging confrontation with Russia and it is not yet clear when and where sanity will prevail. According to him, the military security in Europe largely depends on the state of Russia-NATO relations. "NATO refused practical cooperation with us in the interests of strengthening security. But there is an objective need to work together to reduce the risks of unintended escalation and prevent incidents," he said. American Airlines is extending cancellations for the Boeing 737 Max aircraft through August 19, a key summer travel period, as the jets remain grounded, Trend reports referring to CNBC. The cancellations amount to about 115 flights per day, roughly 1.5% of Americans total flying per day in the summer, the airline said. They come after the Maxs anti-stall software was implicated in an Ethiopian crash in March that killed 157 people. Its unclear when the Max, which has been grounded since mid-March, will return. Boeing has slowed production and stopped deliveries as it works on a software fix. On Friday, Southwest Airlines removed the Max jet from its schedule through Aug. 5. United has canceled Max flights through June 5. We remain confident that the impending software updates, along with the new training elements Boeing is developing for the MAX, will lead to recertification of the aircraft soon, American CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom wrote in a letter to employees Sunday. Parker also said canceling the flights now will help the airline plan for its busiest travel season of the year. As major airlines continue to extend cancellations, Boeing said Thursday that its completed 96 flights with the new Max software fix. The planemaker will likely submit the fix to Federal Aviation Administration regulators within the next couple weeks. The campaign for the re-election of US President Donald Trump in 2020 has raised more than $30 million in the first three months of 2019, media reported on Monday citing his campaign, Trend reports citing Sputnik. Thus, Trumps campaign has managed to amass as much funds as his rivals from the Democratic Party Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris raised combined over the same period, the New York Times newspaper reported. The campaign has launched fund-raising earlier than Trumps predecessors and has already set up headquarters in Northern Virginia, according to the newspaper. The average contribution stood at some $34, while the campaign aims to raise a total of $1 billion. Over 10 Democratic politicians have already announced intention to run in the 2020 presidential election, including senators Sanders, Harris, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren. A newly published poll revealed Tuesday that US Democratic voters are confident that either former Vice President Joe Biden or Senator Bernie Sanders could defeat Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Seventy-five percent of Democratic respondents said that Biden has "strong" or "some" chance of defeating Trump, while 64 percent said the same of Sanders, according to the Hill-HarrisX poll. The survey found that none of the other potential or declared Democratic candidates were rated by more than 50 percent of respondents as having at least some chance of beating Trump in the upcoming election. The presidential election is slated for 3 November 2020. Trump will be also seeking re-election for a second term. KYODO NEWS - Apr 15, 2019 - 14:20 | All, Japan A government bureau in western Japan began trials Monday for their multilingual smartphone-based service to provide overseas tourists with disaster information after a number of natural disasters hit the area last summer. The service by the Kinki Bureau of Telecommunications in Osaka will ultimately provide weather news and evacuation orders in several languages, and will allow foreign embassies to issue messages to their nationals in emergency situations. Sightseeing information will be offered through the service when there is no disaster. Osaka is aiming to launch the service by June when the city will host the Group of 20 summit. With the upcoming Osaka 2025 World Expo and the increasing number of foreign workers in the country, the government hopes to be better prepared to avoid a situation seen last year in disaster-hit areas when many foreign visitors struggled to gain access to information about extensive traffic disruptions. On Monday, personnel from the Vietnamese, Peruvian and Filipino consulates gathered at the bureau in central Osaka to confirm trial messages sent to smartphones using the existing news app for tourists, "Portable News." Consul General of the Filipino consulate Patrick Hilado said the system was easy to use, praising its ability to narrow down its intended audience. As fake posts and rumors often spread through Twitter and other social network media in times of disaster, the bureau plans to limit the sources of information to public institutions and disaster-relief organizations. Osaka and other parts of western Japan were hit by earthquakes, torrential rains and typhoons last year. The city is also a major gateway to key tourist sites such as Kyoto and Nara. While addressing a rally in Kishanganj (Bihar), the AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi said Modi wont get another term Addressing a rally Muslim-dominated Kishanganj constituency where Owaisis party has put up its own lone candidate, Akhtarul Iman, who is in the fray from Kishanganj, the only Lok Sabha constituency in the state where Muslims are in majority, constituting over 56% of the electorate. also read: Chandrababu Naidu accused EC of avoiding the real issue Mr. Owaisi attacked both NDA and UPA for showing abysmal apathy towards the development of Seemanchal, he said These alliances have done nothing for the development of the region and its people and alleged, They have only cheated in the name of politics. The Seemanchal region (north-eastern Bihar, bordering West Bengal and Bangladesh) has been neglected by all those who have represented this region in elected bodies. Give your votes to our candidate Akhtar-ul-Imam. He will ensure the region's well-being single-handedly on the lines of the solitary battle I am waging on the triple talaq issue, Owaisi added. AIMIM chief while canvassing for votes for his only nominee in Bihar Akhtarul Iman addressed three elections meetings-at Pothia, Thakurganj and Bahadurganj on Saturday. For the last five years, Mr. Owaisi has been a regular visitor of Seemanchal in general and Kishanganj. Kishanganj has about 56% of Muslims divided into two factions-Surjapuri and Kulhaiya. Surjapuri. also read: Regional parties cannot form the government without congress help: HD Gowda Arjun Kapoor and Malaika Arora's relationship has been the talk of the town. The two have snapped togher spending quality times but they never officially confirmed about them dating each other, but their back to back public appearances together and social media PDA proves the couple is going quite strong. Recently, Malaika had taken off for a vacation to the Maldives with her girl gang Arjun Kapoor joined her. Soon, speculations started doing rounds that Malaika is on her bachelorette trip ahead of their rumoured wedding this April. Shah Rukh Khan's daughter Suhana Khan enjoys Sunday with her friend,see pic Speculations suggest that Arjun and Malaika will exchange wedding vows between April 18 and 22, and the wedding will take place in Goa. However, there is no truth to this. Malaika Arora refuted all the rumours. Bharat first look out, Salman Khan for the first time goes grey Recently, when Bombay Times asked Malika id she is getting married according to Hindu and Christian rituals in Goa this April, to this she replied, There is no truth to these silly speculations. Earlier, During Koffee With Karan season 6, both Malaika and Arjun hinted about dating each other. Not just them, even their friends from the film industry have spoken about their much talked about the relationship. The teaser of this film attached to Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan's Kalank On the film front, Arjun Kapoor will next be seen in Raj Kumar Gupta's India's Most Wanted. The actor will also be seen in another upcoming movie titled as Panipat which is period drama. The film also stars Sanjay Dutt and Kriti Sanon. On Monday, Former J&K CM and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chief Mehbooba Mufti was attacked near Khiram in South Kashmir, with a few miscreants pelting stones at it. A driver of one of the escort vehicle was injured in the incident. Meanwhile, the PDP chief targeted PM Modi and accused him of planning an attack on Pakistan to boost his vote bank. also read: PM Narendra Modi and Amit Shah 'biggest enemies of India': Farooq Abdullah Earlier, the Supreme Court sent a notice to Congress chief Rahul Gandhi seeking his explanation in a contempt plea regarding the Rafale case. The apex court said that the Congress chief had "wrongly attributed" the SC order on Rafale case to attack PM Modi with a "chowkidar chor hai" jibe at a rally in Amethi. Gandhi has been asked to respond in 7 days. In the meantime, the word wars between Samajwadi Party's Azam Khan and BJP's Jaya Prada escalated after the former made a crass jibe at the BJP candidate from Rampur by referring to her khaki underwear while addressing a rally on Sunday. However, Khan chose to defend his statement saying that his comment had been "distorted" by the media. Although Sushma Swaraj urged SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav to speak up against Khan, the BJP filed an FIR against him. A furious Jaya Prada also lashed out at Khan for "crossing all limits" and vowed to defeat him in the Lok Sabha Election 2019. also read: Congress Priyanka Gandhi did same mistake as alike Rahul Gandhi in her recent speechread inside Antibiotic resistance is an emerging global public health threat spurred by the overuse and misuse of antibiotics. While "overuse" of antibiotics is widely accepted as a major health challenge, it is less well known that many people in low- and middle-income countries continue to die because they lack access to antibiotics. The majority of the world's annual 5.7 million antibiotic-treatable deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries where the mortality burden from treatable bacterial infections far exceeds the estimated annual 700,000 deaths from antibiotic-resistant infections. In a new report, titled "Access Barriers to Antibiotics," (available online here) researchers at the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP) conducted stakeholder interviews in Uganda, India, and Germany, and literature reviews to identify key access barriers to antibiotics in low-, middle-, and high-income countries. The report makes several recommendations proposing action on antibiotic and diagnostics research and development, strengthening regulatory capacities, encouraging the development and diversification of quality local manufacturing, exploring innovative funding to reduce out-of-pockets payments, raising awareness, and improving clinical treatment guidelines. "Lack of access to antibiotics kills more people currently than does antibiotic resistance, but we have not had a good handle on why these barriers are created." said Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan, CDDEP director and a co-author of the report. The findings of the report show that even after the discovery of a new antibiotic, regulatory hurdles and substandard health facilities delay or altogether prevent widespread market entry and drug availability," explains Dr. Laxminarayan. "Our research shows that of 21 new antibiotics entering markets between 1999 and 2014, less than five were registered in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Just the mere existence of an effective antibiotic does not mean that they are available in countries where they are most needed." Health facilities in many low- and middle-income countries are substandard and lack staff who are properly trained in administering antibiotics. In Uganda, 10 to 54 percent of health staff posts are unfilled because of poor pay, high stress, lack of resources, and poor management. Staffing on wards is inadequate to administer medicines, patients miss antibiotic doses, and public nurses sometimes request compensation for administering medicines. In India, there is one government doctor for every 10,189 people (the World Health Organization [WHO] recommends a ratio of 1:1,000), or a deficit of 600,000 doctors, and the nurse:patient ratio is 1:483, implying a shortage of 2 million nurses. In low- and middle-income countries, weak drug supply chains fail to make antibiotics consistently available. In Uganda, researchers found that many products were stored and transported long distances without cold-chain temperature control, and only 47 percent of medicines on the WHO's Essential Medicines List were procured through the centralized authority, resulting in chronic shortages. Moreover, public-private supply chain delivery systems were not leveraged to improve drug availability outside specific programs. Lack of oversight and regulation in the drug manufacturing and supply chain leads to poor drug quality and falsified medicines; 17 percent of the substandard or falsified medicines reported to the WHO are antibiotics, and each year, more than 169,000 childhood pneumonia deaths are caused by falsified antibiotics, researchers reported. Even when antibiotics are available, patients are often unable to afford them. High out-of-pocket medical costs to the patient are compounded by limited government spending for health services. In Uganda, where just 8.9 percent of the national budget goes to health services, 41 percent of health expenditure is out-of-pocket, and 23 percent of households spend more than 10 percent of their income on healthcare. Moreover, limited government spending results in drug shortages in public health facilities which forces patients to go to private pharmacies or drugstores to buy medicines that should be provided free. In India, 65 percent of health expenditure is out-of-pocket, versus 13 percent in Germany, and such expenditures push some 57 million people into poverty each year in India alone. Worldwide, the irrational use of antibiotics and poor antimicrobial stewardship lead to treatment failure and propagate the spread of drug resistance which, in turn, further narrows the available array of effective antibiotics. Finally, research and development for new antimicrobials, vaccines, and diagnostic tests has slowed since the 1960s as profitable investment in this area is limited by low sales volumes, short duration of treatment, competition with established products and less expensive generics, and the possibility that resistance will rapidly emerge. National governments, policymakers, pharmaceutical companies, public and private healthcare institutions, and international public health bodies all have a role to play in improving access to antibiotics worldwide. While interventions to improve access must take into account differences among countries, the researchers provided the following recommendations to address key barriers and improve access to antibiotics: Encourage research and development of new or improved antibiotics, diagnostic tests, vaccines, and alternatives to antibiotics for bacterial infections, Support the registration of antibiotics in more countries according to clinical need, Develop and implement national treatment guidelines for the use of antimicrobials, Explore innovative funding for essential antibiotics, Ensure the quality of antibiotics and strengthen pharmaceutical regulatory capacity, and Encourage local manufacturing for cost-effective antibiotics. ### About the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy The Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP) produces independent, multidisciplinary research to advance the health and wellbeing of human populations around the world. CDDEP projects are global in scope, spanning Africa, Asia, and North America and include scientific studies and policy engagement. The CDDEP team is experienced in addressing country-specific and regional issues, as well as the local and global aspects of global challenges, such as antibiotic resistance and pandemic influenza. CDDEP research is notable for innovative approaches to design and analysis, which are shared widely through publications, presentations and web-based programs. CDDEP has offices in Washington, D.C. and New Delhi and relies on a distinguished team of scientists, public health experts and economists. BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The Indiana University Philanthropic Venture Fund, which invests in IU-related ventures, has invested $200,000 in Confluence Pharmaceuticals LLC. Confluence Pharmaceuticals is a Carmel, Indiana-based company that develops novel, clinically discovered, therapeutic treatments for core social and communication impairments related to fragile X syndrome and autism spectrum disorder. Confluence Pharmaceuticals CEO Steve Johns said the company is targeting its lead asset, a product for the treatment of fragile X syndrome to improve important functionality including communication, social interaction and self-care. "Today, no medication exists to treat these core impairments," Johns said. "Early pilot studies have demonstrated the potential of our product to improve focus, communication, social withdrawal and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder." Confluence Pharmaceuticals will use the investment to accelerate clinical development and regulatory activities. What they're saying Confluence Pharmaceuticals licenses intellectual property developed at Indiana University through the IU Innovation and Commercialization Office. "We are delighted to have Indiana University broaden its relationship with us and become an investor as we enter the next stage of our development," Johns said. "We look forward to continuing our collaborative relationship and utilizing the supportive resources IU brings to the development of this much-needed therapy." The IU Philanthropic Venture Fund was launched in February 2018. Teri Willey is the fund manager and executive director of the IU Research and Technology Corp. "We, too, are delighted to be supporting the team at Confluence in their efforts to bring this critical therapy to patients, and to have Confluence as our 10th investment since launching the fund a few months ago," Willey said. About Indiana University Research and Technology Corp. IURTC catalyzes entrepreneurial activities at Indiana University and provides support for IU innovation-based startup companies. It advises and connects IU startups to capital and commercialization partners, industry mentors, and leadership talent. It also develops appropriate programming and startup space to accelerate company growth. About Indiana University Philanthropic Venture Fund The IU Philanthropic Venture Fund is an Indiana University-affiliated venture fund launched in 2018 through the vision and generosity of IU alumni and friends supporting IU discoveries best developed through a new venture. The fund is managed by IURTC staff who work with the IU Innovation and Commercialization Office, alumni, faculty, and staff, as well as the venture and economic development communities, to identify and develop IU-related opportunities for investment. ### Fairhills Mall 1919 W. Monroe St., Springfield Springfield Area Children's Corner, Bulletin Board, Holiday Happenings, Fundraisers Through Dec. 19. Thu. and Fri. 4-7pm, Sat. 9am-6pm, Sun. 12-6pm.The Mini OBeirne Crisis Nursery Childrens Holiday Store is back. The goal is to raise $75,000 so the crisis nursery can continue to provide free emergency crisis care to children in our community who are at risk of being neglected or abused and to families who are experiencing a crisis. At the store, children have the opportunity to find just the right gift (ranging from $1 to $15) for those special people on their list. Volunteers help the children shop for and wrap their gifts before they leave. For 217-525-6800 11 Obscure Companies That Own Nearly Every Famous Brand Did you know that the Dove Body Wash you keep in your shower comes from the same corporation as that jar of Hellmann's mayo in your refrigerator? Or that a German company owns virtually every coffee-and-pastries chain you can think of that isn't Starbucks? Many products you buy and restaurants you visit are owned by a small number of giant but relatively obscure companies. Here are 11 that are behind an incredible number of famous brands. 1. Unilever: From soap to soup monticello / Shutterstock Unilever's more than 400 brands include Dove. Unilever is a massive corporation responsible for more than 400 brands. It says its products are used by 2.5 billion people every day. It may not make everything from soup to nuts, but it's pretty close. A chunk of your family bank account could be going to Unilever every time you shop. The company has a more than 150-year history, and for decades its home base was split between England and the Netherlands. But Unilever recently decided to make the Dutch city of Rotterdam its one and only headquarters. Unilever's brands designs by Jack / Shutterstock Unilever is a giant in the ice cream business. Unilever sells personal care and beauty products including: Q-Tips; Vaseline; Axe body spray; Dove soaps and shampoos; Suave shampoos and lotions; and Noxzema and Pond's skin creams. It also produces several iconic foods in the U.S.: Hellmann's mayonnaise, Lipton tea and Knorr soups. And Unilever is a giant in the ice cream and frozen dessert business. It's the company behind the Breyers, Ben & Jerry's, Good Humor, Klondike, Magnum and Popsicle brands. 2. Mondelez: Want a snack? Roman Tiraspolsky / Shutterstock Mondelez makes snack foods, such as Oreo cookies. Though the name looks Latin American or French, Mondelez International is a U.S.-based snack foods powerhouse that has been around just since 2012. It used to be part of Kraft Foods. The name is pronounced mawn-duh-LEEZ and is a made-up word intended to mean "delicious world." Mondelez's brands LunaseeStudios / Shutterstock Mondelez's cracker brands include Wheat Thins and Triscuit. Need something to nibble on? Mondelez has something for that. Its cookie brands include Oreo, Fig Newtons, Chips Ahoy, Nilla, Tate's Bake Shop and Nutter Butter. Story continues The company also owns these cracker brands: Wheat Thins, Ritz, Triscuit and Nabisco Premium saltines. Additionally, Mondelez makes Sour Patch Kids candy, Dentyne gum and Halls cough drops. 3. Berkshire Hathaway: Handpicked by Buffett George Sheldon / Shutterstock Dairy Queen is a Berkshire Hathaway brand. Even if you haven't heard of Berkshire Hathaway, you ought to know its billionaire leader. The chairman and CEO is the legendary investor Warren Buffett. It's a conglomerate made up of companies Buffett has liked enough to say, "I'll take it!" Berkshire has bought them and added them to its portfolio. Berkshire's brands Roberto Galan / Shutterstock Berkshire Hathaway's brands include Geico insurance, known for its gecko mascot. The major brands fully owned by Berkshire include Dairy Queen, Fruit of the Loom, Geico insurance, Helzberg Diamonds, Pampered Chef kitchen tools and Benjamin Moore paints. Plus, Duracell batteries, Oriental Trading party supplies, Garanimals kids clothing and See's Candies. Would you like a chunk of all of that? Buffett has famously never split his company's Class A stock, so it has been trading at more than $300,000 per share. But there's also a Class B that's considerably cheaper. 4. RBI: Fast-food royalty Savvapanf Photo / Shutterstock Restaurant Brands International is the parent company of a few fast-food chains, including Burger King. Restaurant Brands International, or RBI, is a relatively young fast-food business. The company was created in a 2014 merger. It currently has three big brands under its umbrella. RBI's brands Ken Wolter / Shutterstock RBI acquired Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen in 2017. RBI, which is based in suburban Toronto, was formed when Burger King merged with the coffee and doughnuts chain Tim Hortons. Three years later, the company added fried chicken to its growing corporate menu when it bought Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen. Analysts expect more deals will give RBI an even bigger fast-food empire. 5. JAB Holding Co.: Brekkie big shot Soundaholic studio / Shutterstock JAB Holding Co. owns Krispy Kreme. JAB Holding Co. is a secretive German investment conglomerate. It used to focus on luxury products, such as Bally and Jimmy Choo designer shoes. But it has been selling off those brands and cornering the market on breakfast. JAB's brands Jonathan Weiss / Shutterstock Panera Bread is one of the many coffee-and-pastries chains owned by JAB. JAB now owns nearly every coffee and bakery brand other than Starbucks. Your town is probably filled with these chains, which are all part of JAB: Krispy Kreme; Einstein Bros. Bagels; Krispy Kreme; Panera Bread; Caribou Coffee; Bruegger's Bagels; Peet's Coffee; and Au Bon Pain. The company also has stable of popular consumer products. They include Keurig coffee makers and Green Mountain coffee, plus Dr Pepper and Snapple soft drinks. 6. Reckitt Benckister: Health and home Nicole S Glass / Shutterstock Lysol cleaners and disinfectants are made by Reckitt Benckiser. Next time you're in that cabinet under the sink in either your kitchen or your bathroom take a close look at product packaging. You'll likely find that a ton of stuff is made by the British consumer products company Reckitt Benckiser, or RB. It says its products are available in nearly 200 countries all around the world. Reckitt Benckiser's brands Steve Heap / Shutterstock Mucinex is one of RB's health brands. Reckitt Benckiser divides its brands into two categories, "health" and "home hygiene." Some of RB's health products are: Mucinex cold and flu medicine; Gaviscon antacid; Clearasil acne cream; Durex condoms; and Veet hair remover. The company's well-known home hygiene brands include: Air Wick air fresheners; Lysol cleaners; Calgon water softener; Finish dishwashing products; and Woolite laundry detergent. 7. Conagra: Brands by the bushel Warren Price Photography / Shutterstock Manwich is one of the many, many brands owned by Conagra Brands. A head-spinning number of iconic brand names are part of the family at Conagra Brands. It's a Chicago company that got its start 100 years ago as a collection of four Midwestern flour mills. Next time you're shopping at the supermarket with your cash-back credit card, you'll encounter Conagra products down virtually every food aisle. Conagra is probably already well represented in your fridge and pantry. Conagra's brands Sheila Fitzgerald / Shutterstock Reddi-wip dessert toppings are made by Conagra Brands. Here are some highlights from Conagra's colossal lineup of brands, broken into several categories: Bread spreads and oils: Blue Bonnet, Earth Balance, Fleischmann's, Gulden's mustard, Pam, Parkay, Peter Pan peanut butter, Smart Balance, Wesson Canned foods: Chef Boyardee, Hunt's tomato products, La Choy, Libby's canned meats, Manwich, Rosarita, Ro-Tel, Van Camp's Pork and Beans, Wolf Brand Chili Frozen foods: Alexia, Banquet, Bertolli, Birds Eye, Celeste Pizza for One, Evol, Healthy Choice, Hungry-Man, Marie Callender's, Mrs. Paul's, P.F. Chang's Home Menu, Van de Kamp's Popcorn: Act II, Angie's Boomchickapop, Crunch 'n Munch, Fiddle Faddle, Jiffy Pop, Orville Redenbacher's, Poppycock Other snack foods: Andy Capp's Hot Fries, David Seeds, Duncan Hines cake mixes, Frontera chips, salsas and sauces, Reddi-wip, Slim Jim, Snack Pack pudding, Snyder of Berlin chips and pretzels, Swiss Miss Salad dressings, sauces and syrups: Aunt Jemima, Log Cabin, Mrs. Butterworth's, Open Pit, Wish-Bone Miscellaneous: Egg Beaters, Gardein, Hebrew National franks, Lender's bagels, Udi's Gluten Free, Vlasic pickles. 8. Diageo: House of spirits monticello / Shutterstock Captain Morgan rum is part of the Diageo family. Diageo is a company that makes happy hour possible. The London-based distiller is the world's largest producer of spirits, and it's also responsible for one of the world's top beers. The company says its more than 200 brands are enjoyed in over 180 countries. Diageo was founded in 1997 but its roots go way back to the 1600s, and its history includes the real-life people named John(nie) Walker, Tanqueray and Smirnoff. Diageo's brands Waraporn Chokchaiworarat / Shutterstock Diageo owns a few beer brands, including Guinness. If you like the hard stuff, you've likely tossed back a Diageo product. Its huge roster of brands includes: Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal and J&B whisky; Smirnoff and Ketel One vodka; Gordon's, Tanqueray and Gilbey's gin; Captain Morgan rum; Don Julio tequila; and Baileys liqueur. If you prefer beer, Diageo keeps the Guinness stout flowing at bars worldwide, and it has a few other more local brews, such as the Kenyan beer Senator Keg. 9. Roark Capital: Fast food, pet food and more Helen89 / Shutterstock Arby's is one of many chains owned by Roark Capital Group. Atlanta-based Roark Capital Group takes its name from the lead character in the Ayn Rand novel The Fountainhead. The company says Howard Roark exemplifies independence and integrity qualities that inspire the firm's investment style. Roark Capital is a leading owner of familiar franchises that you encounter every day. It says the brands in its hefty portfolio have 36,000 locations and operate in all 50 states and 81 countries. Roark's brands Arne Beruldsen / Shutterstock Roark and its affiliates are the majority owners of no fewer than 25 food and restaurant brands something for every taste. They include Arby's, Auntie Anne's Pretzels, Buffalo Wild Wings, Carl's Jr, Carvel Ice Cream, Cinnabon, Corner Bakery, Hardee's, Il Fornaio, Jamba Juice, Jimmy John's, Miller's Ale House, Moe's Southwest Grill, Naf Naf Middle Eastern Grill, Rusty Taco, Sonic and Schlotzskys. Roark also is the parent company of the Pet Supermarket and Pet Valu stores, plus these other chains: Batteries Plus Bulbs; MAACO and Meineke auto repair shops; Anytime Fitness and Orangetheory Fitness; Great Expressions Dental Centers; and Massage Envy. 10. Mars: Candy and much more Ekaterina_Minaeva / Shutterstock Mars may be best known for its candy, including M&M's. Chances are, your favorite treats are made by Mars and maybe your pet's favorites, too. The company is based in Washington, D.C.'s Virginia suburbs and made its name in candy and gum, so when you think of Mars you might first think of Mars chocolate bars. Ironically, those are no longer widely available in the U.S. But you do find many, many other Mars sweets, pet products and food brands. Mars' brands monticello / Shutterstock Mars also owns a number of pet food brands, including Whiskas. You see many of Mars most popular brands at the checkout: Life Savers; M&M's; Altoids; Skittles; Wrigley's Spearmint, Juicy Fruit, Eclipse and Big Red gum; Snickers, Milky Way, Twix and 3 Musketeers candy bars. Elsewhere in the grocery store, Mars is the company behind Uncle Ben's rices; and Seeds of Change and Tasty Bite rices and sauces. As for pet food, Mars says three of its brands are among the top sellers worldwide: Pedigree, Whiskas and Royal Canin. It also makes Nutro, Greenies, Sheba, Cesar, Iams and Eukanuba pet products. 11. Darden Restaurants: Dinner is served Eric Glenn / Shutterstock Olive Garden is owned by Darden Restaurants. What's for dinner? If you're going out tonight, you could very well be dining with Darden Restaurants. Darden headquartered in Orlando, Florida is considered the world's largest full-service restaurant company. It boasts more than 1,700 places to eat that serve nearly 390 million guests every year. Darden's brands Dan Kosmayer / Shutterstock Capital Grill is one of Darden's upscale brands. Darden operates both fine dining establishments and more casual sit-down restaurants. The company's upscale chains include Eddie V's Prime Seafood and The Capital Grille. Then there's Seasons 52, which is called "polished casual" not too fancy, but not too casual either. Don't feel like dressing up? Darden has these more everyday restaurant brands: Olive Garden, Longhorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze, Yard House and Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen. Airplane repair. Aviation claims include incidents like hard landings, bird strikes, runway incidents and crashes. (Photo: Shutterstock) Despite the recent Boeing 737 crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, the global airline industry has had a solid safety record in recent years, particularly considering there are more than one million people in the air at any one time. The number of aviation-related insurance claims, however, shows no sign of abating. Human error, rising repair costs from composite materials and higher value engines, an increase in ground incidents at more congested airports, and a growing reliance on automation are just some of the main factors influencing loss activity. Aviation claims by the numbers AGCS analyzed more than 470,000 insurance industry claims over the past five years and found aviation collision and crash incidents are the second top cause of insured losses globally overall behind fire and explosion incidents. Aviation claims from this data set show collision/crash incidents account over half the value of all claims (59%) and more than a quarter by number (27%). Such incidents do not just include major crashes; they also incorporate events like hard landings, bird strikes and runway incidents such as incursions and excursions (the average claim for which is now almost $1.6 million). Here are six trends we identified for the global aviation industry from the claims analysis: 1.Safety milestones and losses continue. With more reliable engines and technology and following significant improvements in airline risk management, there are far fewer serious accidents. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), there was just one major accident for every 8.7 million flights in 2017 over four billion travelers flew safely on 41.8 million flights. We have already seen a fatal crash in 2019, and 2018 had a total of 15 fatal airliner accidents, resulting in 556 fatalities. Even with these incidents, 2018 was the third safest year on record by the number of fatal accidents and the ninth safest in terms of fatalities, according to the Aviation Safety Network. 2. Human error is a major loss factor. Technological advancements and improved quality control of aviation manufacturing and maintenance have significantly reduced the number of accidents caused by mechanical or structural failure. Consequently, human error has become a more significant cause of loss. Pilot error is a major factor behind many aviation accidents. It has been estimated that as many as 95% of airline accidents involve human error in some capacity. Aircraft are now very safe but most accidents involve errors of judgment, such as taking off in bad weather or the way in which a pilot reacts in adverse conditions. 3. Increasing claims frequency and aircraft values. While catastrophic air crashes are now far less frequent, the overall frequency of aviation claims is slightly up, due to factors such as higher repair costs, increased values at risk and the relatively low deductibles maintained by airlines in what has become a highly competitive aviation insurance market. The average deductible at $1 million today is around the same as it was in 1982, yet aircraft values have increased three-fold. Despite few major losses and no fatalities in 2017, the aviation insurance market barely broke even a reflection of market conditions and attritional losses, while 2018 represented the sixth consecutive year where airlines claims exceeded premiums according to broker JLT. Claims frequency is up, but this is not the only factor. The size of loss has increased and deductibles have not kept pace with technology and values. A $5 million loss today would probably have cost just $1 million five years ago and been within the deductible. 4. Costly composite materials & engine repairs. The use of composite materials in aircraft manufacturing really took off around a decade ago, and today the majority of the worlds commercial airline fleet now relies on such materials. Composites such as carbon fiber layers bonded with resin are strong, but also light, therefore reducing weight and increasing fuel efficiency. Such materials are now used extensively in modern aircraft some 50% of Boeings 787 Dreamliner is made of composite materials by weight. The claims experience has revealed a higher repair cost associated with composite materials which are generally more expensive to manufacture than traditional metal alloys, more labor intensive to repair and often require a larger repair area. For example, a claim involving a fire under the front landing gear of a 787 cost $13 million to repair. The same incident for an older generation metal alloy aircraft would have cost somewhere between $3-4 million. While safer and more reliable, aircraft engines are also now much more expensive to repair or replace. Top-of-the-range engines used on the Airbus A350 can easily cost more than $40 million each just under the value of a whole 737 a decade ago. The drive for fuel efficiency has resulted in lighter engines that fly longer distances. However, technical advances such as the use of new materials and thinner, lighter turbine blades have reduced the tolerances at which engine components operate while the cost of spare parts has also increased. 5. Congested airports bring more ground incidents. In addition to increased repair costs, insurers are seeing more attritional claims. The rapid growth in air travel the number of air passengers is expected to double to 7.8 billion by 2036 has resulted in more congested skies and airports. In many cases, airport infrastructure has not kept pace with the rapid growth in passenger and aircraft numbers. With more aircraft on the ground, servicing areas and aprons have become more congested and this is resulting in an increase in the number of collisions with other aircraft or ground handlers. Analysis of 523 loss events at 14 German airports last year by AGCS shows that damage to vehicles on the tarmac is the leading cause of insured losses. More than half of these events are due to collisions with pushback tractors, baggage trolleys, aerial work platforms or washing systems. For example, the introduction of a new form of tow-truck (that wraps-around an aircrafts front landing gear) has resulted in several large claims. A number of tow-trucks have caught fire while in operation, damaging aircraft one resulted in the total loss of a Boeing 777. 6. New loss drivers: Cyber and reliance on technology. Aircraft and airlines are increasingly reliant on technology from aircraft to ticketing. An A350 aircraft today sends some 400,000 computer messages to ground controllers during a six-hour flight, 60% more than the older A380. The technology for crew-less commercial passenger aircraft already exists, but the reality is many decades away. However, aircraft are likely to become increasingly automated, driven by the desire to reduce costs and because of the predicted shortage of pilots Boeing has said over 600,000 pilots will need to enter the industry over the next 20 years. Flights with just one crew member on the flight deck, with ground support, would have implications for crew skills and training, as well as how they deal with adverse conditions. Then there is the threat to the sector posed by technology or cyber-related losses, such as physical damage to aircraft or business interruption from issues like an IT system outage. Cyber risk ranks as the number one concern for the aviation sector for 2019, according to the eighth annual Allianz Risk Barometer, which surveys industry risk experts. To date, there have not been any major aviation claims triggered by a cyber incident, although insurers have paid out on some indirect cyber claims. While crewless passenger aircraft are some way off, autonomous flight is an emerging area for aviation insurance claims. And, as drone use broadens into different areas, claims will become more relevant. Kevin Smith, Global Head of Aviation Claims at Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS). Contact him at kevin.smith@allianz.com. Related: Story continues South Africa: SAQA welcomes NQF Amendment Bill The South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) has commended the role players who have worked to get the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) Amendment Bill through Parliamentary processes. SAQA on Monday thanked Higher Education and Training Minister Naledi Pandor and the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training for being at the forefront of the amendment bill, which is now awaiting the Presidents signature. The NQF Amendment Bill aims to protect the integrity of the South African education and training system by giving SAQA the legal responsibility to verify qualifications and part-qualifications (an assessed unit of learning that is registered as part of a qualification). The bill makes provision for the registration by the Higher Education and Training Department of all private education institutions and skills development providers, as well as for the accreditation of these providers by the Quality Councils. It further makes provision for organs of State, employers, education institutions, skills development providers and Quality Councils to refer qualifications and part-qualifications to SAQA for verification and evaluation. The bill also provides for the formulation of criteria for evaluating foreign qualifications. This means that in the case of national qualifications and part-qualifications, SAQA must verify that they are authentic. In the case of foreign qualifications, SAQA must first verify that they are authentic and then compare them with South African qualifications for placement within the South African NQF. By so doing, the quality of both national and foreign qualifications would be protected. The bill clearly defines authentic qualifications and part-qualifications. It also defines misrepresented as well as fraudulent qualifications. In the event that a qualification or part-qualification is found to be misrepresented or fraudulent, it will appear in the register of misrepresented qualifications and part-qualifications or fraudulent qualifications and part-qualifications. This will deter would-be qualification fraudsters from misrepresenting qualifications, SAQA CEO Joe Samuels explained. Another form of deterrent is the imposition of penalties to not only the qualification fraudsters but also to education institutions and skills development providers that falsely claim that they are registered and accredited to offer qualifications and part-qualifications, Samuels said. Hence, it is a criminal offence for an education institution or education skills provider to falsely claim to be registered and accredited, let alone offer qualifications that are not registered on the NQF. The penalties range from five to 10 years imprisonment or a fine or both. This means that learners will not be taken for a ride by unscrupulous providers, Samuels said. The penalties are not limited to qualification holders and providers but, also extend to anyone who makes or causes a false entry into the National Learners Records Database or the misrepresented or fraudulent database. Samuels welcomed the changes brought about by the bill as they seek to protect the public against unscrupulous education and training providers, and also protect government and businesses from hiring people who do not have authentic qualifications. SAQA will continue to work together with all stakeholders to ensure that the quality of our education system is maintained and enhanced. SAQA will also ensure that once the bill is signed into law, it will be implemented for the benefit of all living in South Africa, Samuels said. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2019-04-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. In the moment of triumph and in that of the Passion, Jesus rejects the temptation of the Evil One. For today's Youth Day the invitation "to young people and to all" to pray the Rosary for peace, "especially for peace in the Holy Land and the Middle East". Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Following the example of Jesus, who did not succumb to triumphalism in the face of the cheers of the crowd as he entered Jerusalem and faced with the Cross he maintained peace in his heart "a peace that is not detachment, it is not impassivity or superomism, but it is trustful abandonment to the Father . Palm Sunday, when the last moments of the life of Jesus were traced to the Gospel, gave Pope Francis the opportunity to invite the Messiah to follow "on the path of humility and obedience". A road indicated in particular to the many young people present in St. Peter's Square among the 50 thousand people who came for the celebration that Francis began in the center of the square, near the obelisk, where the He blessed palm trees and olive trees. Today is the 34th World Youth Day, on the theme: "I am the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me according to Your word (Lk 1: 38). A day that is celebrated at the diocesan level and in fact in the square there were young people from Rome and other dioceses. For the occasion, Francis had a special "Rosary crown" distributed to those who gathered in St. Peter's Square. "These olive wood crowns - he explained before the recital of the Angelus - were made in the Holy Land expressly for the World Youth Meeting in Panama last January and for today. I therefore renew to the young people and to all my appeal to pray the Rosary for peace, especially for peace in the Holy Land and in the Middle East ". Referring to today's Gospel, during his homily Francis spoke of the "Joyful acclamations at Jesus entrance into Jerusalem, followed by his humiliation. Festive cries followed by brutal torture. This twofold mystery accompanies our entrance into Holy Week each year, as reflected in the two characteristic moments of todays celebration: the initial procession with palm branches and the solemn reading of the Passion. Let us enter into this movement, guided by the Holy Spirit, and thus obtain the grace we sought in our opening prayer: to follow in faith our Saviours example of humility, to heed his lesson of patient suffering, and thus to merit a share in his victory over the spirit of evil." "Jesus shows us how to face moments of difficulty and the most insidious of temptations by preserving in our hearts a peace that is neither detachment nor superhuman impassivity, but confident abandonment to the Father and to his saving will, which bestows life and mercy. He shows us this kind of abandonment by spurning, at every point in his earthly ministry, the temptation to do things his way and not in complete obedience to the Father. From the experience of his forty days in the desert to the culmination of his Passion, Jesus rejects this temptation by his obedient trust in the Father." "Today, too, by his entrance into Jerusalem, he shows us the way. For in that event, the evil one, the prince of this world, had a card up his sleeve: the card of triumphalism. Yet the Lord responded by holding fast to his own way, the way of humility. Triumphalism tries to make it to the goal by shortcuts and false compromises. It wants to jump onto the carriage of the winner. It lives off gestures and words that are not forged in the crucible of the cross; it grows by looking askance at others and constantly judging them inferior, wanting, failures... One subtle form of triumphalism is spiritual worldliness, which represents the greatest danger, the most treacherous temptation threatening the Church (De Lubac). Jesus destroyed triumphalism by his Passion." "The Lord truly rejoiced with the people, with those young people who shouted out his name and acclaimed him as King and Messiah. His heart was gladdened to see the enthusiasm and excitement of the poor of Israel. So much so, that, to those Pharisees who asked him to rebuke his disciples for their scandalous acclamations, he replied: If these were silent, the very stones would cry out (Lk 19:40). Humility does not mean denying reality: Jesus really is the Messiah, the King." "Yet at the same time the heart of Jesus was moving on another track, on the sacred path known to him and the Father alone: the path that leads from the form of God to the form of a servant, the path of self-abasement born of obedience unto death, even death on a cross (Phil 2:6-8). He knows that true triumph involves making room for God and that the only way to do that is by stripping oneself, by self-emptying. To remain silent, to pray, to accept humiliation. There is no negotiating with the cross: one either embraces it or rejects it. By his self-abasement, Jesus wanted to open up to us the path of faith and to precede us on that path." "The first to follow him on that path was his mother, Mary, the first disciple. The Blessed Virgin and the saints had to suffer in walking the path of faith and obedience to Gods will. Responding with faith to the harsh and painful events of life entails a particular heaviness of heart (cf. Redemptoris Mater, 17). The night of faith. Yet only from that night do we see the dawn of the resurrection break forth. At the foot of the cross, Mary thought once more of the words that the angel had spoken about her Son: He will be great The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end (Lk 1:32-33). On Golgotha, Mary faced the complete denial of that promise: her Son was dying on a cross like a criminal. In this way, triumphalism, destroyed by the abasement of Jesus, was likewise destroyed in the heart of his Mother. Both kept silent." "In the footsteps of Mary, countless holy men and women have followed Jesus on the path of humility and obedience. Today, World Youth Day, I would like to mention all those young saints, especially the saints next door to us, known only to God; sometimes he likes to surprise us with them. Dear young people, do not be ashamed to show your enthusiasm for Jesus, to shout out that he is alive and that he is your life. Yet at the same time, do not be afraid to follow him on the way of the cross. When you hear that he is asking you to renounce yourselves, to let yourselves be stripped of every security, and to entrust yourselves completely to our Father in heaven, then rejoice and exult! You are on the path of the kingdom of God." "Festive acclamations and brutal torture; the silence of Jesus throughout his Passion is profoundly impressive. He also overcomes the temptation to answer back, to act like a superstar. In moments of darkness and great tribulation, we need to keep silent, to find the courage not to speak, as long as our silence is meek and not full of anger. The meekness of silence will make us appear even weaker, more humble. Then the devil will take courage and come out into the open. We need to resist him in silence, holding our position, but with the same attitude as Jesus. He knows that the battle is between God and the prince of this world, and that what is important is not putting our hand to the sword but remaining firm in faith. It is Gods hour. At the hour that God comes forth to fight, we have to let him take over. Our place of safety will be beneath the mantle of the holy Mother of God. As we wait for the Lord to come and calm the storm (cf. Mt 4:37-41), by our silent witness in prayer we give ourselves and others an accounting for the hope that is within [us] (1 Pet 3:15). This will help us to live in the sacred tension between the memory of the promises made, the suffering present in the cross, and the hope of the resurrection. How Airlines Decide What Youll Eat and Drink On Board For almost a decade, the Germany-based company SkyTender has promised airlines they can revolutionize how they serve drinks by dropping canned sodas and watery coffee and adding special trolleys that dispense fountain-style sodas and specialty coffees, such as cappuccinos and espressos. Each year, in April, SkyTender brings its contraptions to the World Travel Catering & Onboard Services Expo in Hamburg, where food and drink companies set up elaborate booths in two gigantic halls, hoping to sway airlines. Some, like SkyTender, seek to persuade airlines to invest in new technology. Others hawk speciality jams, artisan cookies, champagne, craft beer, and cider that airlines can sell or give away on board. Some vendors view it as a make-or-break event. They are typically firms like SkyTender selling technology without an obvious market beyond transportation. Food producers may see it differently they can sell to retailers but they still may hope an airline contract will raise their profile, or boost profits. Conventional wisdom suggests airlines are cutting back, and catering is less important than a couple of decades ago, but thats not true. Full-service airlines still spend freely on food and drinks for premium customers, and some, like Delta Air Lines, are increasing budgets for economy class passengers, even on shorter flights. Meanwhile, low-cost carriers want to sell better food and drink, hoping that by chasing the artisan, small-batch trends seen on the ground, they can spur onboard sales. Catering worldwide will be a $28 billion global industry by 2026, growing about 5 percent per year, according to a report from Transparency Market Research. But vendors can struggle to break in. Airlines and their caterers are risk averse, and it can take them months, or even years, to make a decision. When evaluating technology, like SkyTenders carts, they want to know the platform can hold up to the rigors of worldwide service. For food and drink producers, they want to know a supplier can deliver not just in London or New York, but in almost every city where they fly. Story continues The average vendor spends hours in Hamburg meeting with airlines over three days. This year, that group included Thistly Cross, a Scottish cider company led by Peter Stuart. He met with half a dozen airlines, but by the last day, he hadnt gotten close to a deal. I wouldnt say its frustrating I mean, were enjoying the journey but Id like to achieve something, he said. We just want to be there and meet the right person, at the right time. Art of the Sale Earlier this month, SkyTenders booth on the far edge of one of the halls was buzzing. Airline employees kept visiting, either because they wanted a free coffee, or because they wanted a demonstration. When a new person would arrive, Isha Maker, head of sales and marketing, would spring into action, walking them to one of the trolleys. She might first offer a Coke, showing how the cart dispenses fountain soda like machines at McDonalds or another fast food restaurant. Then shed take them for a coffee, offering flat whites, cappuccinos to single and double espressos. The machine delivers both in seconds. She and her predecessors have been doing this dance since 2011, when SkyTender first brought its technology to Hamburg. Maker admits it may not have been ready then, but more recently, SkyTender has refined it, improving the technology, getting closer to certification and adding partners like Starbucks and Nescafe. But finding airline customers remains tough. People talk about innovation, and they pay it lip service, Maker said. Nobody dares to take the first jump. SkyTender may be close. A European low-cost carrier recently tested its equipment, selling espressos, flat-whites and and cappuccinos to passengers, who, perhaps excited that they had more options than mediocre drip coffee, bought three times as many drinks as usual. A firm order or two may come soon, perhaps from European or Asian airlines. Nobodys going to see you with the door wide open, or open it for you, Maker said. You depend on word-of-mouth. Everybody is so worried about, what if it doesnt make it? I understand that risk. I understand that people do not want to stick their necks out. Sometimes I want to shake airlines and say, What is taking you so long? Challenges for Small Producers Since 1956, the Vandererfven family has produced jams in small batches in Belgium, first selling them at the local market. When Thierry Vandererfven took over from his father in 1990, he expanded, adding vinegar and ketchup and exporting beyond Western Europe. You can now find Belberry Preserves in many independent hotels. But the company has never had an airline. Belberry, a Belgian jam-maker, wants an airline to serve its product in first or business class. With some airlines investing in the premium cabin experience, Vandererfven figures now is the time. Airlines follow overall food trends, and Vandererfvens product hits most of the buzzwords local, small-batch, artisan. But in Hamburg, where had one of the tiniest booths, he admitted he found it tougher to persuade airlines than grocery stores or hotels. One problem was cost. In the United States, a 30 milligram jar of preserves the size used by hotels and airlines retails for about $7. If you sell to premium supermarkets or department stores, its more about the look and feel of the product, and people decide when they are in front of the shelves which ones they will buy, Vandererfven said. When customers are on an airplane, they cannot choose their product, so its buyers in the office who choose the products, and it is always based on budget. Nearby, Stuart, the Scottish cider maker, had a similar dilemma. His company produces seven flavors of hard cider, including strawberry, and ginger. It sells it on trains and ferries in the UK, and Stuart is eager for an airline. The inflight booze business is significant. American Airlines said recently it sold and gave away almost 6 million beers last year, and while the majority were made by giant companies, like Heineken and Bud Light, American also has been highlighting craft labels, such as Angry Orchard, a cider owned by Boston Beer Company. Stuart said Thistly Cross can tap into the consumer preference for local, craft booze. I think theres good business to be done, he said. Weve seen the UK theres a strong movement for companies who win national contracts to feature an independent, reasonably local, UK brand as part of their portfolio. The more that culture continues to grow, and consumers respond and begin to demand that across all categories, then the more actual business opportunities there are for small companies like ourselves. Best Case Scenario Three years ago, United Airlines wanted to make a splash with new free onboard snacks. Rather than pretzels or peanuts, executives sought something passengers would remember. It went with the stroopwafel, a confectionary treat made in the Netherlands two layers of dough with caramel syrup in the middle. Europeans have eaten them for years, and one of the companies that makes them Dutch firm Daelmans already had sold its products to European airlines. But Daelmans wanted to expand to the United States, and it bet a partnership with United would help. Passengers have enjoyed stroopwafles so much many customers complained last year when the airline said it would stop carrying them. After the uproar, they returned in January, and a United spokeswoman said the airline gave out almost 6 million stroopwafels on domestic flights in the first three months of this year. While thats not a huge number for Daelmans, which makes 1.2 million per day, it has helped the company with U.S. sales, an executive said. People recognize it from the plane, and then they saw it at the big retailer and they paid, said Hein Pessers, a key account manager, who came to this years show to try to add more airlines. A few booths over, Alex Simpson, sales coordinator at Farmhouse Biscuits, a UK cookie company, was hoping for similar magic. It sells in retail shops across the the UK, but business dips after Christmas, and Simpson said an airline contract could keep the factory humming in the first quarter. Farmhouse Biscuits showed off several cookie flavors on the show floor at the World Travel Catering and Onboard Services Expo in early April. By day three of the show, it did not appear the Farmhouse Biscuit would match the Daelmans Stroopwafel. Airline executives would come, sample a cookie choices included orange and cranberry, triple chocolate fudge and red velvet and disappear. Its quite brief, Simpson said. Theyre not here for long. Its not an easy business, but Bonnie Knutson, a professor of hospitality business at the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University, said brands should fight for airline contracts. She said companies like Daelmans and Biscoff, the European cookie-maker served on Delta and American, prove deals can boost sales at on-the-ground retailers. If your brand is associated with or offered on Delta, which is a respected brand, it automatically elevates your reputation, she said. Its a different calculation for a buy-on board product, Knutson said, but even smaller brands like Thistly Cross can win if theyre sold on planes. If you can get on the airplane, you may get only three people to try it, he said, but its three more than you had before. Subscribe to Skift newsletters covering the business of travel, restaurants, and wellness. WASHINGTON Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who was an organizer for Bernie Sanderss 2016 campaign, said she will back whoever the Democrats nominate for president in 2020 but she would clearly prefer someone other than former Vice President Joe Biden. The freshman congresswoman, who became a rising star in the party after scoring a shocking victory against a high-ranking Democrat last year, said she hasnt picked a 2020 candidate to support. I truly do not have one yet. I truly do not, Ocasio-Cortez said on the Yahoo News podcast Skullduggery. But the prospect of a Biden run doesnt animate her, she said. At least 18 Democrats have entered the presidential race, and others are considering joining their ranks. Ocasio-Cortez demurred when asked if she will back Sanders again, and threw out the name of another presidential candidate who has caught her eye, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. Im very supportive of Bernies run. ... I havent endorsed anybody, but Im very supportive of Bernie, Ocasio-Cortez said, adding, I also think what Elizabeth Warren has been bringing to the table is truly remarkable, truly remarkable and transformational. Download or subscribe on iTunes: Skullduggery from Yahoo News While Biden hasnt officially entered the race, he is leading many polls of the primary field. Yahoo News asked Ocasio-Cortez if she would support him. I dont know. I mean I will support whoever the Democratic nominee is, she said. Yet she seemed decidedly unenthusiastic about the prospect of a Biden candidacy. That does not particularly animate me right now, Ocasio-Cortez said. The congresswoman said she has a lot of issues with a potential Biden White House bid. I can understand why people would be excited by that, this idea that we can go back to the good old days with Obama, with Obamas vice president, said Ocasio-Cortez. Theres an emotional element to that, but I dont want to go back. I want to go forward. Story continues Former Vice President Joe Biden n Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Might she run for higher office one day herself? I really dont know, she said. I think about it every once in a while, but this is pretty hard already. She was asked to explain what she thinks about when considering the possibility of running for another position. I just want to be most useful, and Im not trying to kind of impose some personal ambition, Ocasio-Cortez said. I think that, if a window opens and I feel like I can do well, and do better, and offer more to people, then I would consider it. But I dont have like a 10-year plan or a five-year plan or anything. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: Amazon has made a number of moves in recent months to show it understands the criticism coming from regulators. The company has raised its minimum wage, changed a pricing policy for merchants and scaled back some of its most aggressive promotional tactics. CEO Jeff Bezos spent a good part of his latest shareholder letter focusing on how much the company helps other businesses. Amazon's AMZN relentless pursuit of growth in retail, cloud computing, advertising and consumer devices has put the company squarely in the sights of Washington lawmakers who are concerned about Big Tech's growing influence over consumers. But rather than fiercely fighting every battle, Amazon looks like its ready to play nice. In March, Amazon dropped a policy that prevented merchants from offering lower prices on other websites following an investigation request by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). Last month, the company scaled back some of its most aggressive promotion tactics after Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called out abusive business practices. And late last year Amazon raised its minimum wage to $15 following criticism of the company's working conditions by Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT). Amazon also confirmed to CNBC that it would soon start accepting cash at the Amazon Go cashierless stores as a growing number of cities and states push for laws that require all stores to serve the unbanked. It's all part of a strategy to be more likable at a time when tech companies are drawing heat for behavior that looks increasingly anti-competitive. "I believe Amazon has made the connection between likability and immunity from regulation," said NYU business professor Scott Galloway, author of "The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google." This is a different company from the vigorously defensive, win-at-all-cost Amazon we're used to seeing. Last year, for example, Amazon successfully fought a proposed law in Seattle that would have taxed the city's largest businesses to address homeless issues. In 2011, Amazon was slapped with a $269 million tax bill in Texas and then threatened to shut down a warehouse there before reaching a settlement . And TechCrunch reported in August about a small army of apparent employees on Twitter TWTR who do nothing but promote how great it is to work in the company's warehouses. Story continues Galloway, an outspoken critic of Amazon, said the company's effort to soften its image is its way of telling regulators, "Don't break us up." Galloway has argued that, for the sake of competition, Amazon needs to be split up. Politicians from both sides of the aisle have been making the same case not only for Amazon, but Google and Facebook FB as well, while regulators in Europe have also stepped up their scrutiny over the industry. President Trump, who's been going after Amazon and CEO Jeff Bezos since his campaign, told Axios that his administration is looking into antitrust violations by the company. 'Poster child' of the industry's problems Aware of what's coming, Amazon is taking "preemptive action," said Kartik Hosanagar, a business professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. Even if presidential candidates like Warren and Sanders don't get elected, their campaigns could have a huge impact on public sentiment and influence future regulation. "This is a good strategy by Amazon to address these comments early before one of the candidates makes Amazon the poster child of what they refer to as the problems with Big Tech," Hosanagar said. An Amazon representative declined to comment. Bezos's annual shareholder letter this week may have reflected some of the company's concerns. Unlike past letters that mostly focused on management principles and long-term thinking, Bezos chose to highlight how much Amazon is investing in helping other businesses grow, while reminding investors that the company accounts for only a small piece of the total retail market. He's well aware of the perils of being too closely allied with his peers in Silicon Valley, and stressed in an internal all-hands meeting last year the importance of telling a distinguished story so that Amazon doesn't get "bundled together" with them. "Facebook is not the same as Google GOOGL , and Apple is not the same as Amazon," Bezos said at the meeting. "I don't want to fight this kind of big tech impression I want to just talk about Amazon." Erik Gordon, a business professor at the University of Michigan, said Amazon's softer image could help, not just with regulators, but also for recruiting, retention and even keeping a certain group of investors happy. The negative response among many New Yorkers to the company's HQ2 plans, which were ultimately scuttled, shows that the brand isn't as beloved as it once was. "Amazon has pretty much been in victory lap mode for a long time," Gordon said. "But there seems to be a big shift in the mood and, as a whole, it's in a more defensive mode." More From CNBC (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. have spent two years fighting around the globe over how much the chipmaker can charge for iPhones that use its patented technology, with neither landing a decisive blow. That could change with a trial starting Monday in San Diego. For the first time, a federal jury will decide if Qualcomms business model is legal and whether Apple had the right to stop paying royalties for the technology. An out-and-out victory for either side could force the loser into concessions to settle the conflict that has spawned dozens of lawsuits on three continents. The outcome of the trial is so important that Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook is expected to be called to defend the companys business strategy and explain its relationship with Qualcomm, in what would be his first public appearance in a courtroom to discuss the issues underlying the fight. Apple, with roughly $245 billion in cash, will be able to shrug off any damages awarded. On the other hand, if Qualcomms hometown jury finds that the chipmaker has abused its market dominance to demand excessive royalties from phone makers, it may be forced to abandon a licensing model that has allowed it to grab as much as 5 percent of the net selling price of every smartphone sold. From an investor perspective, theres going to be a bigger focus on the Qualcomm side because a big part of their business is royalties, said Shannon Cross of Cross Research LLC. From an Apple perspective, investors just want to know Apple has access to the latest technologies. Why 5G Phones Are Arriving With Subplot of Espionage: QuickTake Looming beyond the trial is the global race to develop smartphones and other devices that can connect to up-and-coming 5G networks -- the successor to the current top-of-the-line mobile network that promises to usher in a world of innovation. Over the next year, 5G will expand across the U.S.s major carriers into more areas, enabling faster internet speeds. The problem for Apple is that Qualcomm is currently the market leader in 5G modem technology, and Intel Corp., its current supplier for 4G chips, wont have 5G modems on the market until next year. Story continues Sorting out the issues with Qualcomm could help Apple bring 5G devices to the market more quickly than it would be able to otherwise. Longer term, it would also allow Apple to source the key component from more than one supplier, a practice Apple has said it prefers to single-sourcing parts. If Apple and Qualcomm come to some sort of resolution, Apple would be able to get a second source for modems and have 5G technology along with everyone else, said Cross. Apple typically is somewhat a follower in technology because they dont want to launch something first that doesnt work properly. Overview of Global Qualcomm-Apple Litigation Jury selection starts Monday in San Diego for a trial thats scheduled to last about five weeks. Qualcomm had already lost about $7 billion in revenue as of October last year because Apples Asian manufacturers, including Foxconn Technology Group, stopped making royalty payments in 2017 for iPhones and iPads they assemble. Apple doesnt have a direct licensing agreement with Qualcomm -- it hasnt paid Qualcomm directly -- and instead reimburses its manufacturers who pay Qualcomm through separate contracts. The group of manufacturers also includes Compal Electronics Inc., Pegatron Corp. and Wistron Corp. The chipmaker will try to convince the jury that the Asian manufacturers are liable for breach of contract and that Apple is liable for maliciously interfering with their contracts. That could entitle Qualcomm to punitive damages on top of billions of dollars in compensation for unpaid royalties. Apple and Qualcomms Billion-Dollar War Over an $18 Part Apple and its suppliers will argue that the contracts are unenforceable because they violate antitrust law as well as Qualcomms obligation to provide licenses on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms. Such FRAND terms apply to standard essential patents for technology that is widely adopted to ensure compatibility among, for example, wireless devices and networks. Qualcomm enters trial needing to win on both the antitrust issue, and on the issue of whether it complies with its commitment to license standard-essential patents on FRAND terms, said Tamlin Bason, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. A loss on either could dent its licensing model, while a win on both would likely bring Apple to the negotiating table. In addition, Qualcomm faces as much as $9 billion in possible damages from the Asian manufacturers, who claim they were forced for years to overpay for their licenses. Those damages can be tripled by the judge under antitrust law. Apples arguments echo those of the Federal Trade Commission and other antitrust regulators in Asia and Europe that Qualcomm uses its dominant market position as a supplier of baseband chips, which enable mobile phones to connect to telecom networks, to demand excessive payments for the use of the patented technology. Qualcomm is awaiting a ruling on the FTCs antitrust allegations after a bench trial in San Jose, California, in January before U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh. Apple and its manufacturers have said that if Koh issues a ruling against Qualcomm in the FTC case, they will try to use that in the San Diego trial. As part of a series of agreements that made Qualcomm the exclusive supplier of baseband chips for the iPhone, Apple negotiated a $7.50 royalty rate per phone. The manufacturers paid Qualcomm a much higher rate under their contracts. Qualcomm then made quarterly payments to Apple to make up the difference. Qualcomm has disputed Apples description of those payments as rebates. Qualcomm cut off the quarterly payments to Apple in 2016. The chipmaker alleged Apple had breached their agreements by instigating government antitrust investigations of Qualcomm, including in Korea where it was hit with a fine of $853 million that year. Apple meanwhile has switched over to Intel as its supplier of baseband chips. Among the anti-competitive claims Apple and its manufacturers have made against Qualcomm are that the chipmaker refuses to sell its chips without a license to use its technology. This, they allege, means that the manufacturers have no choice but to pay top dollar for a broad portfolio of patented technology, whether or not that technology is used in the phones they make. Since Qualcomm is the biggest maker of CDMA and premium LTE modem chips, the manufacturers have had to acquiesce to its licensing demands, they say. Qualcomm argues that its contracts with phone makers are negotiated in good faith and that it has signed more than 300 such licensing agreements. Many of the agreements include tens of thousands of patents covering video and audio playback technology that isnt subject to FRAND terms. Competitors such as Intel arent required to take licenses, meaning that theres no double fee if they choose to get their chips elsewhere, it said. The case is In re: Qualcomm litigation, 17-cv-00108, U.S. District Court, Southern District of California (San Diego). --With assistance from Ian King and Jeremy Lin. To contact the reporters on this story: Edvard Pettersson in Los Angeles at epettersson@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;Alistair Barr at abarr18@bloomberg.net For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. Investing.com - Asian stocks rose in morning trade on Monday as stronger-than-expected China trade and credit data released on Friday boosted investor sentiment. Chinas Shanghai Composite and the Shenzhen Component both rose 1.8% by 10:30 PM ET (02:30 GMT). Hong Kongs Hang Seng Index was up 1.2%. Japans Nikkei 225 gained 1.3%, while South Koreas KOSPI edged up 0.7%. Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump had threatened to impose levies of as much as 25% on all imported cars, including those made in Japan. Japan is now negotiating, Trump told reporters. They havent wanted to negotiate for many years, but now theyre negotiating. Its called tariffs. Down under, Australias ASX 200 edged down 0.1%. The release of Chinas trade and credit data on Friday, which was better than expected, eased concerns about a global economic growth slowdown and provided some support to Asian equities. The data came a couple of days after the International Monetary Fund slashed its global economic growth forecast for 2019. Meanwhile, positive developments in the Sino-U.S. trade talks also lifted investor sentiment. It was reported last week that the two sides have agreed on an enforcement mechanism to police any trade deal they agree on in the future. There are certain commitments that the United States is making in this agreement, and there are certain commitments that China is making, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters Saturday at the IMF meetings in Washington. I would expect that the enforcement mechanism works in both directions, that we expect to honor our commitments, and if we dont, there should be certain repercussions, and the same way in the other direction, he said, adding that the two countries are considering to hold more in-person meetings. Related Articles Amazon says will not operate China marketplace site from July 18 Asian shares off nine-month peak, European PMIs in focus Jet Airways lenders 'reasonably hopeful' of successful bids for grounded airline Bill Gates: These 5 books are so good, 'they kept me up reading long past' bedtime We all know that the world's most successful millionaires , from Jeff Bezos to Tim Cook , prioritize their sleep . Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates tries to get in seven hours of sleep a night. It helps him stay creative, he once told The Seattle Times . Gates' bedtime routine involves one hour of reading before going to sleep. "Like anyone who loves books, if you get into a good book , it's hard to go to sleep," he said in the interview. So if you're looking for book recommendations , Gates is your guy. In fact, the billionaire shared a few of his favorites back in 2016. "These five books kept me up long past when I should have gone to sleep," he said in a tweet, which included a video of the books. Twitter Here's the full list: 1. "The Vital Question" By Nick Lane "The Vital Question" explores the relationships between energy and genes. Despite its broad scope, the book's fundamental interest also happens to be one of science's greatest mysteries: How did life on Earth begin? Lane, a biochemist, does an excellent job of illuminating and breaking down the complexities of biology. "He's so intriguing," Gates says in the video. "He seems to be the first guy who has looked into certain weird things about the mitochondria and has all sorts of ideas about diseases that really bear looking into." 2. "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" By Yuval Noah Harari Gates isn't the only person who enjoyed "Sapiens." The book received a rating of 4.5 out of five stars (based on more than 500 reviews ) on Google Play Books . Harari, a historian and philosopher, takes a look at the many possible reasons why Homo sapiens are so successful. While Gates found things to disagree with "especially Harari's claims that humans were better off before we started farming," he admits that the book gives us a better "understanding of what it means to be human." ( Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg also included "Sapiens" in their lists of favorites.) Story continues 3. "How to Not Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking" By Jordan Ellenberg Ultimately, Gates says , this book is "a series of stories about how a lot of the apparently non-mathematical systems that underpin our daily lives are actually deeply mathematical, and people couldn't develop them until they started asking the right questions." You don't have to love math to enjoy "How to Not Be Wrong." For what sounds like a potentially boring read, Gates praises Ellenberg's ability to write about a complicated subject in a way that's "funny, smooth and accessible." 4. "The Power to Compete: An Economist and an Entrepreneur on Revitalizing Japan in the Global Economy" by Ryoichi and Hiroshi Mikitani This book is centrally about Japanese economic prosperity from the perspectives of an economist and an entrepreneur. The authors, a father-son duo, examine the country's core issues (i.e., its economy, education system, public infrastructure) and explore different solutions that could lead to revitalization. It makes sense to see "The Power to Compete" on Gates' list of must-reads: "I've had a soft spot for Japan that dates back three decades or so, when I first traveled there for Microsoft," he says. 5. "Seveneves" By Neal Stephenson "Seveneves" begins with a catastrophic event: The moon just exploded what happens next? In a race against time, global leaders work together to save humanity by launching spacecrafts beyond our atmosphere. This one is quite a gem, considering that you won't find a ton of hard sci-fi novels on any of Gates' book lists. Unfortunately, neither Jeff Bezos nor Elon Musk makes an appearance, but Gates still calls it a "magnificent" and "visionary" read. Read now, sleep later Whether or not your book topic interests align with Gates', he says there's no science or math to his selection process. They're "all simply ones that I loved and made me think in new ways," he says . (And anyway, if you're going to let something keep you up at night, a book sounds a lot better than stress or anxiety.) Tom Popomaronis is a commerce expert and proud Baltimore native. Currently, he is the Senior Director of Product Innovation at the Hawkins Group. His work has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company and The Washington Post. In 2014, he was named one of the "40 Under 40" by the Baltimore Business Journal. Like this story? Subscribe to CNBC Make It on YouTube! Don't miss: Bill Gates paid $30.8 million for this book 25 years agohere's why it still inspires him today 'Shark Tank' judge Barbara Corcoran once hired someone 'within the first 5 or 6 seconds' of a job interviewhere's why More From CNBC California Gov. Gavin Newsom releases a wildfire report that slams PG&E for its role in major blazes and suggests the state could push to break up the utility. He also says wildfire costs should be spread more "broadly," beyond utilities and even to include government. Shares of PG&E shoot up 20% in trading Friday after the report is released. LOS ANGELES California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday released a wildfire report that slams PG&E PCG for its role in major blazes and suggests the state could push to break up the utility. The report also suggests wildfire costs should be spread "broadly," and not just to utilities and investors but to insurers and even government. "After years of mismanagement and safety failures, no options can be taken off the table to reform PG&E, including municipalization of all or a portion of PG&E's operations," said the report prepared by the governor's "strike force" on wildfire and climate change. Shares of PG&E shot up 20% in trading Friday after the report was released. PG&E, the state's largest electric utility, filed for bankruptcy protection in late January after getting hit with a flood of lawsuits from devastating wildfires in Northern California in 2017 and 2018, including the catastrophic Camp Fire in Butte County that killed 86 people and destroyed more than 10,000 homes. Also, PG&E was fined $1.6 billion four years ago after the 2010 deadly gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, a suburb of San Francisco. "PG&E hasn't been a good actor," Newsom told reporters after release of the report. "If they get in the way of doing the right thing, all options are on the table." The governor's strike force report also said the state should "demand that a reorganized PG&E serve the public interest," including if it means "refocusing PG&E's operations on transmission and distribution." The San Francisco-based company currently has natural gas and electric operations, serving about 16 million people throughout northern and central California. Story continues "We share the concerns of the governor and lawmakers for those impacted by the wildfires of 2017 and 2018," said PG&E spokesperson Lynsey Paulo in a statement. "They are our customers, our neighbors and our friends, and we remain focused on supporting them through the recovery and rebuilding process." She added, "We've heard and are embracing the calls for change. Wildfire risk is a complex issue and we look forward to continuing to work with our regulators, policymakers and the Commission on Catastrophic Wildfire Cost and Recovery to examine a range of solutions that will help make the energy system safer and safeguard California's clean energy future." In February, PG&E said in a regulatory filing that it believes it's "probable" that the company's equipment will be found to be the source of the deadly Camp Fire . Problems with PG&E equipment near where the Camp Fire is believed to have started were also reported by the utility in November . Cal Fire previously found PG&E at fault for 17 wine country fires in 2017, including the Redwood Fire, which resulted in nine fatalities. The state agency also found PG&E responsible for the Cascade Fire that killed four in Yuba County in October 2017. "It is imperative that utilities not put profits ahead of safety and service," said the report. "That is why the state has and will continue to advocate in PG&E's bankruptcy proceeding for fair treatment of fire victims, for California consumers, and for California policies and values." The report, entitled "Wildfires and Climate Change: California's Energy Future," also suggests the state overhaul legal and regulatory policies because of the risk of more destructive wildfires and the potential impacts to fire victims, communities and the utility industry. One of the changes it proposes is spreading financial risk of wildfires. "Any real plan must allocate costs resulting from wildfires in a manner that shares the burden broadly among stakeholders, including utilities (ratepayers and investors), insurance companies, local governments, and attorneys," said the report. For example, the report suggested the state look at creating "a catastrophic wildfire fund coupled with a revised cost recovery standard to spread the cost of catastrophic wildfires more broadly among stakeholders." It also said the state should consider "a liquidity-only fund that would provide liquidity for utilities to pay wildfire damage claims." In California, utilities face liability under what's known as inverse condemnation as well as for negligence claims for wildfire and other damaging incidents caused by such things as power lines or other utility equipment. However, the report said California should consider modifying the current strict liability standard under inverse condemnation to one that is "based on fault to balance the need for public improvements with private harm to individuals." Besides PG&E, the change in liability laws could have far reaching financial and legal implications down the road for other major investor-owned utilities in California, including Edison International EIX and Sempra Energy SRE . Edison stock jumped 7% on Friday and Sempra rose more than 1%. According to the governor's report, more than 25 million acres of California are considered wildlands and "very high or extreme fire threat." It also said one out of every four Californians about 11 million people live in areas classified as "high-risk areas." At the same time, communities in fire-risk areas should be made "more resilient by considering updating codes that govern defensible space, encouraging cost-effective hardening of homes, strengthening evacuation, encouraging other emergency planning, and improving land use practices to reduce the damage to life and property from wildfires," the report stated. The report points out that the Golden State has experienced 10 of the most destructive wildfires in its history since 2015. It adds that 2019 "has all the conditions for devastating fires, with a very wet season leading to high vegetation density." The federal government also should "better manage federal forestland," says the report. It follows President Donald Trump previously threatening to pull federal funds from California, claiming the state's "forest management is so poor." "As the owner of 57% of California's forestland, the federal government must also do its fair share to reduce fire risk," the report said. It added that the governors of California, Washington and Oregon all have called on the U.S. government to double its investment in managing federal forest lands due to the high risk of fires. Newsom, a Democrat, already has proposed the state spend more for wildfire prevention and even waived environmental rules to clear dead trees and remove other vegetation in fire-prone areas. He also recently called in California National Guard troops to start helping out in some of the wildfire prevention efforts. Still, the report said California should do more in fire prevention as well as investing in new technologies to model and monitor fire risk. The report also calls for "strengthening utility oversight so that they invest more in safety." More From CNBC 71st Cannes Film Festival - Screening of the film "Ash Is Purest White" (Jiang hu er nv) in competition - Red Carpet Arrivals - Cannes, France, May 11, 2018. CEO of Renault Carlos Ghosn with his wife Caroline Ghosn pose. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau TOKYO/PARIS (Reuters) - The wife of former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn has left Japan and flown to Paris to appeal to the French government to do more to help him. Japanese prosecutors arrested Ghosn for a fourth time on Thursday on suspicion he had tried to enrich himself at the automaker's expense, in another dramatic twist that his lawyers said was an attempt to muzzle him. "I think the French government should do more for him. I don't think he's had enough support and he's calling for assistance. As a French citizen, it should be a right," Carole Ghosn told the Financial Times in an interview before boarding a flight out of Japan late on Friday. Carlos Ghosn, who holds French, Lebanese and Brazilian citizenship, has denied charges against him and also called on the French government for help. France, which holds a 15 percent stake in Nissan's alliance partner Renault, said it was monitoring the situation. "We fully exercise consular protection. The French ambassador is in regular contact," an official from French President Emmanuel Macron's office said on Sunday. "The wife of Carlos Ghosn has been received by the (Elysee) Secretary General during his (Ghosn) previous incarceration," the official added. "A DIFFERENT PERSON" Carole Ghosn said her husband's previous 108-day imprisonment had left him "a different person" and that normal life under bail conditions had been impossible. Tokyo prosecutors, Ghosn's lawyer and his spokesperson were not immediately available for comment. Public broadcaster NHK said on Sunday that prosecutors suspected Ghosn siphoned off payments through a company where his wife is an executive to purchase a yacht and a boat. The prosecutors asked her to meet them for voluntary questioning as an unsworn witness, but the request was turned down, which prompted them to ask judges to question her on their behalf, the broadcaster said. Such a request gives judges the power to question on a mandatory basis witnesses who refuse to testify, according to NHK. Ghosn's lead lawyer, Junichiro Hironaka, said on Thursday prosecutors confiscated Ghosn's mobile phone, documents, notebooks and diaries, along with his wife's passport and mobile phone. Story continues The FT said prosecutors had confiscated his wife's Lebanese passport in a dawn raid on their apartment in central Tokyo on Thursday morning, but did not discover her U.S. passport. "I'm all alone here. It's traumatising what happened, she was quoted as saying while awaiting her flight. Under Japanese law, prosecutors will be able to hold Ghosn for up to 22 days without charging him. The fresh arrest opens up the possibility that he will be interrogated again without his lawyer present, as is the norm in Japan. The additional charge would likely prolong Ghosn's trial, which is expected to begin later this year, his lawyer has said, adding that loss of access to Ghosn's trial-related documents could put his client at a disadvantage in fighting his case. Ghosn faces charges of financial misconduct and aggravated breach of trust over allegedly failing to report around $82 million in salary and temporarily transferring personal financial losses on to Nissan's books during the financial crisis. Released on $9 million bail on March 6, the executive says he is the victim of a boardroom coup. The scandal has rocked the global auto industry and shone a harsh light on Japan's judicial system. (Reporting by Yuka Obayashi; Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Marine Pennetier, Dominique Vidalon in Paris; Editing by Kim Coghill/Keith Weir) (Bloomberg) -- A swathe of the world is adopting Chinas vision for a tightly controlled internet over the unfettered American approach, a stunning ideological coup for Beijing that would have been unthinkable less than a decade ago. Vietnam and Thailand are among the Southeast Asian nations warming to a governance model that twins sweeping content curbs with uncompromising data controls -- because it helps preserve the regime in power. A growing number of the regions increasingly autocratic governments watched enviously the emergence of Chinese corporate titans from Tencent Holdings Ltd. to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. -- in spite of draconian online curbs. And now they want the same. The more free-wheeling Silicon Valley model once seemed unquestionably the best approach, with stars from Google to Facebook to vouch for its superiority. Now, a re-molding of the internet into a tightly controlled and scrubbed sphere in Chinas image is taking place from Russia to India. Yet its Southeast Asia thats the economic and geopolitical linchpin to Chinese ambitions and where U.S.-Chinese tensions will come to a head: a region home to more than half a billion people whose internet economy is expected to triple to $240 billion by 2025. For authoritarian countries in general, the idea of the state being able to wall off to some extent its internet is deeply appealing, said Howard French, author of Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape Chinas Push for Global Power. This is about the regimes survival in an authoritarian situation. So thats why they like to do this. They want to be able to insulate themselves against shocks. The Chinese model is gaining traction just as the American one comes under fire. Facebook and Twitter were used to manipulate the 2016 U.S. election, YouTube was criticized for failing to detect child porn, and American social media allowed a gunman to live-stream the worst mass shooting in New Zealands history for 10 minutes or more before severing it. Against the backdrop of wider fears about U.S. social media failings, Beijings approach now seems a reasonable alternative, or reasonable enough that self-serving governments can justify its adoption. Story continues Vietnams controversial version went into effect Jan. 1 -- a law BSA/The Software Alliance, which counts Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. among its members -- called chilling and ineffectual. Indonesia, the regions largest economy, already requires data be stored locally. The Philippines has stepped up what critics call a media crackdown, arrested the head of media outlet Rappler Inc. after it grew critical of President Rodrigo Duterte. And last year, the government of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak introduced a fake news law used to probe his chief opponent, though the current government may yet repeal it. One of the latest to buy into the rationale is Thailand, which on Feb. 28 passed a cyber security bill modeled on Chinas that grants the government the right to seize data and electronic equipment without a court order in the interests of national security. Introduced just weeks ahead of Thailands first democratic election since a 2014 military coup, it stoked concerns it could be used to stifle dissent, though the government says it shouldnt affect companies with good conduct. The Asia Internet Coalition, an organization that groups the likes of Alphabet Inc.s Google, Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc., condemned a bill Amnesty International warns could be used to cage the internet. The crux of a Chinese internet model is data sovereignty: information of citizens must be stored in-country and accessible on demand to the authorities, a concept enshrined in Chinese law since 2017. Thats raising hackles in Washington, which aims to counter Beijings sway -- a longer-term struggle that may be the single most important episode in world affairs since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Escalating tensions between the two richest economies will impact just about every country across the planet -- economically and socially. The U.S., for its part, worries that the spread of Chinese technology and ideology in Southeast Asia means Beijing will increasingly push a strategically vital region toward authoritarianism, even as individual countries grow wary of becoming beholden to China. The spread of a Chinese-style internet is a problem for U.S. internet giants from Facebook to Google wrestling with increasingly draconian regulations over what they carry on their platforms, and how they store and handle the information pivotal to their dominance. Fragmented laws governing data are anathema to giant corporations used to harnessing the cloud for everything from search to video. If authorities in the region can convince Silicon Valley to play by their repressive rules, were going to see a drop in standards of privacy, surveillance, and freedom of expression on those platforms, said Tanya OCarroll, head of technology and human rights at Amnesty International. How Silicon Valley chooses to engage with the likes of Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia could set major precedents. They must not treat those countries as testbeds to tinker with peoples rights online. For now, U.S. social media is popular enough that in countries like Thailand theyre able to publicly resist attempts to rein in content. But in the longer term, theres a real risk American companies could get supplanted by the likes of WeChat, TikTok and Alipay -- Chinese powerhouses that are venturing aggressively abroad, into music and social media or e-commerce. Tencent, Alibaba and Bytedance Ltd. are also seeding the regions startups, courting a younger mobile-savvy consumer -- a generation that politicians need to maintain their grip on power. This issue was not on my radar and not on other peoples radar a year ago, said Brian Harding, deputy director with the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Washington for now is more focused on the political impact of Chinese investments in infrastructure from ports to refineries, he added. But in terms of the Digital Silk Road, interest is rising very quickly, he said. Data localization is a real challenge for U.S. companies -- localization policies make it difficult to have economies of scale in doing business across the region. Chinese cadres have long proselytized the concept of a rigidly policed web that can still be a wellspring of innovation. Tencents billionaire-founder, Pony Ma, joined government officials in declaring in December its their countrys destiny to become an internet power. Southeast Asia has thus become a testbed for Beijings political objectives, a jumping-off point in a long-term campaign to extend its influence around the globe. The U.S. fears the Communist Partys vision of a web where governments pull the strings could wind up the model for the next billion users. Thats what prompted ex-Google honcho Eric Schmidt to declare the internet will split down the middle within a decade. The most likely scenario now is not a splintering, but rather a bifurcation into a Chinese-led internet and a non-Chinese internet led by America, the former Google chief executive reportedly told a private venture capital gathering in September. Globalization means that they get to play too. --With assistance from Adrian Leung and Hannah Dormido. To contact the reporters on this story: Lulu Yilun Chen in Hong Kong at ychen447@bloomberg.net;Yoolim Lee in Singapore at yoolim@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Robert Fenner at rfenner@bloomberg.net, Edwin Chan For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. EGIDE STRENGTHENS CUSTOMER SUPPORT UNDER NEW SALES REPRESENTATIVE AGREEMENTS IN EUROPE AND CHINA Bollene, April 15, 2019 - 07:00 am (CET) - Egide (Euronext Paris - FR0000072373), a leading group with an international dimension, specialized in the manufacture of hermetic packages and heat dissipation solutions for sensitive electronic components, announces new Representative Agreements. In the frame of its worldwide sales strategy to develop its export business, new agreements have been signed in Central Europe with MSA Components GmbH (headquartered in Germany), and Spectraline (headquartered in China). MSA Components GmbH (Attendorn-Germany) will now cover Central Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Lichtenstein) and Benelux for the EGIDE Group. MSA Components, headed by Mr Michael Schulte, has decades of technical sales experience in this key region of Europe within the targeted markets of Egide : Hermetic solutions for Defence, Space, Avionics, Oil drilling, Power industry and Medical applications. Egide`s package and thermal management solutions will complement perfectly the product portfolio of MSA Components, for the full benefit of the same customer base Mr Schulte comments on this new Agreement with Egide : I learned during factory visits that Egide, as a manufacturer of advanced hermetic package solutions for high reliability markets, brings huge technical expertises and solutions to my customer base. We are proud to have Egide added in our interconnection components and solutions portfolio handled by Felix Pape and myself as Egide product managers . We will support Egide`s overall business growth within our territory and customer base Spectraline (Wuhan - China) will now cover China for EGIDE with a specific focus on Optronics, Sensors, and RF & Microwave applications. This new Company has been founded by Mr Kevin Luo, who has vast experience of photonics applications for Defence, Aerospace and Telecom markets. Egide will bring additional technologies and hermetic package solutions for Spectraline customers. Mr Kevin Luo comments on this new Agreement with Egide : I am excited to become a partner with Egide. Egide provides innovative hermetic packages based on unique technology and leading processing for advanced applications. Today, in photonics and microwave fields, more and more Chinese companies have engaged in assembling core components. Our cooperation shall bring these customers advanced hermetic packaging solutions to facilitate their development and manufacturing on High-end products. Egide and Spectraline will together anticipat e and realiz e superior business performance in China. Vincent Courty, VP Worldwide Sales of Egide group says : I am very pleased to have MSA Components and Spectraline representing the Egide Group in these major economical regions of the world. I found in these two Companies, reliable and very knowledgeable organizations and people with a strong understanding and experience of key Account relationships in the high technology markets that Egide is focusing on. I am convinced that these new partners will bring significant contribution in the business growth of Egide for the years to come. Story continues To find out more about Egide: www.egide-group.com About Egide Egide is a group with an international dimension, specialized in the manufacture of hermetic packages and heat dissipation solutions for sensitive electronic components. It operates in cutting edge markets with strong technology barriers to entry in all critical industry segments (Thermal Imaging, Optronics, High-Frequency, Power Units.). Egide is the only pure player in this market niche with manufacturing bases in France and the United States. Egide is listed on Euronext Paris(TM)- Segment C - ISIN code: FR0000072373 - Reuters: EGID.PA - Bloomberg : GID CONTACTS EGIDE - Finance Department - Philippe Lussiez - +33 1 30 68 81 00 - plussiez@fr.egide-group.com INBOUND CAPITAL - Investor Relations - Frederic Portier - +44 7802 533333 - fportier@inbound.capital FIN`EXTENSO - Press Relations - Isabelle Aprile - +33 1 39 97 61 22 - i.aprile@finextenso.fr EGIDE : NEW SALES REPRESENTATIVE AGREEMENTS IN EUROPE AND CHINA This announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West Corporation clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: EGIDE via GlobeNewswire HUG#2241645 Journalist charged under electronic transaction act for reporting about financial fraud An editor of a weekly was detained in Pokhara on Monday for publishing a story online about a local businessman, under laws intended to authenticate electronic transactions and discourage cybercrime and not related to journalists or media. By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Google will have to pay publishers for news snippets and Facebook filter out protected content under new copyright rules aimed at ensuring fair compensation for the European Union's $1 trillion (762.6 billion) creative industries. EU governments on Monday backed the move launched by the European Commission two years ago to protect Europe's creative industries, which employ 11.7 million people in the bloc. "When it comes to completing Europe's digital single market, the copyright reform is the missing piece of the puzzle," the Commission's president Jean-Claude Juncker said in a statement. Under the new rules, Google and other online platforms will have to sign licensing agreements with musicians, performers, authors, news publishers and journalists to use their work. The European Parliament gave a green light last month to a proposal that has pitted Europe's creative industry against tech companies, internet activists and consumer groups. Wikipedia blacked out several European sites in protest last month, while the change was opposed by Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden. But 19 countries, including France and Germany, endorsed the revamp, while Belgium, Estonia and Slovenia abstained. Under the new regime Google-owned YouTube, Facebook's Instagram and other sharing platforms will have to install filters to prevent users from uploading copyrighted materials. Google said the new rules would hurt Europe's creative and digital economies, while critics said it would hit cash-strapped smaller companies rather than the tech giants. Poland said the overhaul was a step backwards as the filter requirement may lay the foundation for censorship. EU lawmaker for the European Pirate Party Julia Reda, who had campaigned against the reforms, said critics could take their case to court but it would be slow and difficult and that the best thing would be to monitor fair implementation. Story continues The European Magazine Media Association, the European Newspaper Publishers Association, the European Publishers Council, News Media Europe and independent music labels lobbying group Impala welcomed the move. EU countries have two years to transpose the copyright directive into national laws. (Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; editing by Philip Blenkinsop and Alexander Smith) * EU ready to discuss cars, U.S. wants farm products in talks * France opposes start of talks, Belgium abstained * U.S. senator: Congress "unlikely" to pass a no-agriculture deal (Adds USTR response, comment from U.S. senator on agriculture) By Philip Blenkinsop BRUSSELS, April 15 (Reuters) - The European Union is ready to start talks on a trade agreement with the United States and aims to conclude a deal before year-end, European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said on Monday. The EU approved two areas for negotiation, opposed by France with an abstention from Belgium. But agriculture was not included, leaving the 28-country bloc at odds with Washington, which has insisted on including farm products in the talks. The EU vote allows the Commission to start two sets of negotiations - one to cut tariffs on industrial goods, the other to make it easier for companies to show products meet EU or U.S. standards. Malmstrom said she would now reach out to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to see when talks could begin. "We are ready as soon as they are," Malmstrom told a news conference. A spokeswoman for Lighthizer declined to comment. But U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the tax and trade-focused Senate Finance Committee, said a U.S.-EU trade deal that excluded agriculture would be "unlikely" to win approval in the U.S. Congress because so many lawmakers want farm access to Europe. "Elimination of industrial tariffs and non-tariff barriers only get us part of the way there, especially when we face major barriers to agricultural trade in the EU," Grassley, himself an Iowa farmer, said in a statement. "Agriculture is a significant piece of the global economy and it simply doesn't make sense to leave it out." The European Commission has said it is willing to discuss cars as part of the industrial goods talks, but not agriculture. "Agriculture will certainly not be part of these negotiations. This is a red line for Europe," Malmstrom said. Story continues She added Brussels would strive to agree what amounted to a limited deal before the Commission's term ends on Oct. 31. "If we agree to start, I think it can go quite quickly." Malmstrom stressed that the potential tariffs deal was far less ambitious than the previous "TTIP" negotiations, which stalled after three years and have now been rendered obsolete. The two sides are each other's largest trading partners. Flows between the two represent 30 percent of global trade. A Commission survey estimates an agreement on industrial tariffs would increase EU exports to the United States by 8 percent and U.S. products bound for Europe by 9 percent. AUTO TARIFF THREAT Hanging over the talks is U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to impose tariffs on cars and auto parts of around 25 percent on national security grounds. Trump last July agreed with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker not to impose tariffs on EU-produced cars and parts as long as the two sides negotiated on trade, including removal of tariffs on "non-auto industrial goods." But Lighthizer has voiced frustration with a "complete stalemate" with Europe on agriculture, telling a congressional committee in March there would be no U.S.-EU free trade agreement without agricultural access. EU governments agreed the bloc would not conclude negotiations until Washington removed tariffs it has applied to EU steel and aluminium and would suspend negotiations if the Trump administration imposed new tariffs, such as on cars. Germany, whose exports of cars and parts to the United States are more than half the EU total, has been among those most keen to press ahead with talks. France, with very few U.S. car exports, wants climate change provisions in any deal - a difficult demand given Trump's withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. (Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Additional reporting by David Lawder in Washington Editing by Alison Williams and Rosalba O'Brien) FILE PHOTO: Unicredit bank logo is seen in the old city centre of Siena, Italy June 29, 2017. REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini/File Photo By Karen Freifeld (Reuters) - Italy's top bank UniCredit SpA and two subsidiaries have agreed to pay $1.3 billion to U.S. authorities to settle probes of violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran and other countries, U.S. authorities said on Monday. In addition, UniCredit Bank AG, the bank's German unit, agreed to plead guilty to federal and New York state criminal charges for illegally moving hundreds of millions of dollars through the U.S. financial system on behalf of sanctioned entities, the U.S. Department of Justice and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said. The resolution ends a six-year investigation that has hung over the bank and follows last week's $1.1 billion settlement by London-based Standard Chartered Plc with U.S. and British authorities over similar conduct. The German unit's guilty pleas are connected to violations of U.S. sanctions programs, including those related to IRISL, the state-owned Iranian shipping company sanctioned over weapons of mass destruction, authorities said. UniCredit's German unit went to "great lengths" to help the Iranian shipping company evade sanctions and access the U.S. financial system, said U.S. Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski. Another unit, UniCredit Bank Austria AG , entered into non-prosecution agreements with federal and state authorities. UniCredit Bank AG, Bank Austria and their parent entity, UniCredit SpA, also agreed to resolve parallel investigations with the U.S. Department of Treasury, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, and the New York Department of Financial Services. UniCredit said in a statement the penalties owed by each of the units were fully covered by provisions already made. The bank had booked provisions beyond the settlement and, as a result, will have 300 million euros ($339 million) after tax in additional profits in the first quarter. Its Core Tier 1 ratio - an indication of financial strength - will rise by around 8.5 basis points, it said. The bank will report first quarter results on May 9. UniCredit said it agreed to retain an independent consultant to assess its improvements and compliance program, as part of its settlements with the Federal Reserve and the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS). Story continues UniCredit engaged in "billions of dollars of transactions with clients from sanctioned nations, including Iran, Libya and Cuba, and then work(ed) to cover their tracks to avoid detection," acting New York Financial Services Superintendent Linda Lacewell said. The German bank disguised transactions between 2002 and 2011 in part by stripping words like Sudan and Tehran from payment messages to New York financial institutions, the regulator said. The settlements relate to apparent violations of sanctions targeting proliferators of weapons of mass destruction, global terrorism and Iran, Myanmar, Cuba, Libya, Sudan and Syria, the Treasury Department said. Ten banks other than UniCredit have been penalized by U.S. and Manhattan authorities over the past decade for sanctions-related violations. France's BNP Paribas SA pleaded guilty in 2014 and paid a record $8.9 billion penalty. Other banks settled with much lower penalties and deferred prosecution agreements, including Amsterdam-based ING Bank, which paid $619 million in 2012 and Zurich-based Credit Suisse Group AG, which paid $536 million in 2009. The latest Standard Chartered settlement was on top of $667 million the bank paid U.S. authorities in 2012 and another $300 million penalty in 2014 related to surveillance shortcomings. (Reporting by Karen Freifeld; additional reporting by Stephen Jewkes in Milan; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Lisa Shumaker) Steven Madden, Ltd. SHOO is likely to register marginal improvement in the bottom line when it reports first-quarter 2019 numbers. Notably, this New York-based designer, marketer and seller of footwear and fashion accessories had reported solid earnings in the preceding four quarters and also comfortably surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate. In the trailing four quarters, the company outperformed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by average of 7.1%. In the last reported quarter, the company delivered positive earnings surprise of 10.5%. Drawing focus back on the to-be-reported quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings is currently pegged at 37 cents, a penny higher than the year-ago quarters figure. We note that the Zacks Consensus Estimate has remained stable in the past 30 days. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues is pegged at $404.9 million, up about 4.1% from the year-ago quarter. We note that the top and the bottom lines had increased 12.6% and 31.3%, respectively in the last reported quarter. Factors Crucial to Steven Maddens Performance Steven Madden is leaving no stone unturned to boost the top and the bottom lines. Notably, the company is focusing on enhancing product portfolio. It is also taking several initiatives to expand globally. The company witnessed revenue growth of 24% internationally in 2018. The companys directly-owned subsidiaries in Canada and Mexico, SM Europe JV, and the distributor business reported strong results. Further, Steven Madden expects its international business to sustain momentum on strategic investments. The company is optimistic about growth in the Middle East, Italy and India. The company anticipates Asia to be a major contributor to net sales. The company has been witnessing robust growth in the Wholesale Footwear and Accessories segments. However, cost of goods sold and operating expenses have increased that may weigh on margins. Additionally, the imposition of tariffs on additional consumer goods such as shoes, handbags and others imported from China, owing to US-China trade war may hurt business to an extent. Nonetheless, to lower its dependency on China, the company is gradually shifting its handbag production to Cambodia. The company, on its fourth-quarter 2018 conference call, highlighted that the bankruptcy of Payless ShoeSource, its key private label customer, is a near-term headwind. Management also hinted that Payless ShoeSource bankruptcy and a higher tax rate (forecast to be 22% versus 18.9% in 2018) may hurt 2019 adjusted earnings by approximately 16 cents and 5 cents, respectively. Story continues Steven Madden, Ltd. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise Steven Madden, Ltd. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise | Steven Madden, Ltd. Quote What the Zacks Model Unveils? Our proven model does not conclusively show that Steven Madden is likely to beat estimates this quarter. A stock needs to have both a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) and a positive Earnings ESP for this to happen. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter. Steven Madden has a Zacks Rank #4 and an Earnings ESP of 0.00%, which makes surprise prediction difficult. 3 Stocks With a Favorable Combination Here are three other companies you may want to consider as our model shows that these have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat: Best Buy BBY has an Earnings ESP of +2.06% and a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Five Below FIVE has an Earnings ESP of +0.31% and a Zacks Rank #3. Tiffany TIF has an Earnings ESP of +0.60% and a Zacks Rank #3. Biggest Tech Breakthrough in a Generation Be among the early investors in the new type of device that experts say could impact society as much as the discovery of electricity. Current technology will soon be outdated and replaced by these new devices. In the process, its expected to create 22 million jobs and generate $12.3 trillion in activity. A select few stocks could skyrocket the most as rollout accelerates for this new tech. Early investors could see gains similar to buying Microsoft in the 1990s. Zacks just-released special report reveals 7 stocks to watch. The report is only available for a limited time. See 7 breakthrough stocks now>> 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 Best Buy Co., Inc. (BBY) : Free Stock Analysis Report Tiffany & Co. (TIF) : Free Stock Analysis Report Five Below, Inc. (FIVE) : Free Stock Analysis Report Steven Madden, Ltd. (SHOO) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research By Yimou Lee TAIPEI (Reuters) - The chairman of Taiwan's Foxconn, an assembler of Apple Inc's iPhones, said on Monday he plans to step down in the coming months to pave the way for younger talent to move up the company's ranks. A change in leadership would come at a delicate time for the world's largest contract manufacturer, which is trying to reinvent itself to cut its reliance on Apple as smartphone sales plateau and as the iPhone maker diversifies its supplier base. It would mark another top-level change at a tech firm in Greater China. Jack Ma, co-founder of China's Alibaba Group, said in September he will step down as chairman in a year to allow for younger management. And Morris Chang, founder and chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), another Apple supplier, retired last year. Terry Gou, speaking on the sidelines of an event in Taipei, said that while he planned to resign as Foxconn chairman, he hoped to remain involved in strategic decisions regarding the company's business. When asked by Reuters if he would quit as chairman, Gou said he was moving in that direction, although any decision needed to be discussed with the company's board. "I don't know where you got the information from. But I have to say, basically, I'm working toward that direction - to walk back to the second line, or retire," Gou said. "I will be involved in the major direction of the company, but not involved in daily operations. "I'm already 69 years old. I can pass down my 45 years of experience. That's the goal I set up - to let young people learn sooner and take over sooner and to replace my position sooner." Gou said his plans would be discussed with the board of Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, in the coming months and shareholders would be told at the AGM in June. A source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that Lu Sung-Ching, the chairman of Foxconn Interconnect Technology Ltd, the electronic and optoelectronic connectors unit of Foxconn, was among the possible candidates to take over from Gou. "It doesn't mean he will just be gone. He will remove himself to the second line and he would not be involved in the daily operations," the source said. SHARES CLIMB Shares of Foxconn, which has a market value of $40 billion, rose after the news and closed 3.2 percent higher on Monday. The news comes as tech companies are seeking to diversify their customer base and move into emerging industries such as artificial intelligence and autonomous driving. Foxconn, which celebrated 30 years of doing business in China last year, has far-flung businesses that include autonomous car startups and investments in cancer research. In January, the Nikkei reported that Foxconn had let go around 50,000 contract workers in China since October. Foxconn acquired control of Japans Sharp Corp in 2016 to try to boost the Taiwanese companys advanced screen technology. Founded in 1974, the Foxconn group has grown to become the world's biggest contract manufacturer with T$5.2 trillion ($168.52 billion) in annual revenue, assembling goods for Apple, SoftBank Group Corp and other global tech firms. It relies on Apple for more than half of annual revenue, according to analysts. Gou, who owns 9.4 percent of Foxconn as its top shareholder, is Taiwan's richest person with a net worth of $7.6 billion, according to Forbes. Last month, Foxconn reported a smaller than expected fall in quarterly profit, despite warning signs from key customers including Apple that demand for tech electronics was softening. The news comes three months after Reuters reported Foxconn was reconsidering plans to make advanced liquid crystal display panels at a $10 billion Wisconsin campus. Foxconn later reiterated it would still build a factory in Wisconsin after Gou spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump. (Reporting By Yimou Lee; Writing by Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman) (Bloomberg) -- Foxconn Technology Group Chairman Terry Gou said the iPhone will go into mass production in India this year, a shift for the largest assembler of Apple Inc.s handsets that has long concentrated production in China. Gou said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invited him to India as his Taiwanese company plans its expansion in the country. Apple has had older phones produced at a plant in Bangalore for several years, but now will expand manufacturing to more recent models. Bloomberg News reported this month that Foxconn is ready to start trial production of the latest iPhones in the country before it starts full-scale assembly at its factory outside the southern city of Chennai. In the future we will play a very important role in Indias smartphone industry, Gou said at an event in Taiwan. We have moved our production lines there. India has become the fastest-growing smartphone market in the world, while China stagnates and Apple loses share to local competitors such as Huawei Technologies Co. and Xiaomi Corp. Apple has been a minor player in India, in part because of its high prices, but local manufacturing would help the Cupertino, California-based company avoid import duties of 20 percent. For Foxconn, the China market for iPhones is saturated, and labor costs are three times higher compared with India, said Karn Chauhan, a Gurgaon-based analyst at Counterpoint Research. India is still an emerging smartphone market, it has a lot of potential domestically and could serve as an export hub for the region. Gou also said on Monday that he plans to step back from daily operations to focus on broader strategy. The founder isnt stepping down or relinquishing his chairmanship, said Louis Woo, special assistant to Gou. Its not yet clear how Apples steps into India will affect its China operations. China has been the companys most important manufacturing base for years, home to Foxconns biggest facilities and hundreds of other partners. Story continues Foxconn already has two assembly sites in the southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, where it makes devices for Xiaomi and Nokia. Locating more production in India would help diversify Apple and Foxconns manufacturing footprint away from China amid ongoing trade tensions with the U.S. The Indian assembly line of Foxconns Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. would serve local and export markets by the time Apple announces its next iPhone models in September, people familiar with the matter have said. The Taiwanese contract manufacturer, the biggest maker of iPhones, will initially invest about $300 million to set up for Apple with investments to ramp up as capacity expands, they said. Gou said that his company is talking with the government about investment terms. He has a dozen software people in India and he plans to increase that to 600, he said. We are the primary assembler after all, Gou said on Monday. If our customer wants to boost its scale, it will need to depend on us to grow the comprehensive supply chain. Producing phones locally would also help Apples retail push in India. The company needs to meet a 30 percent local sourcing rule to be able to open its own stores in the country. Indians bought more than 140 million smartphones last year, with just 1.7 million sold by Apple, as consumers favored cheaper models from China. On Xiaomis Indian website, the Redmi Note 7 has a price of 9,999 rupees ($143), which is about a 10th the price of Apples iPhone Xs in the country. (Updates with analysts comment in the fifth paragraph.) To contact the reporters on this story: Debby Wu in Taipei at dwu278@bloomberg.net;Saritha Rai in Bangalore at srai33@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Peter Elstrom at pelstrom@bloomberg.net, Edwin Chan For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. Georgia Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Building. Photo: John Disney/ALM Georgia Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Building. Photo: John Disney/ALM The Supreme Court of Georgia issued the following attorney discipline on Monday: In the Supreme Court of Georgia Decided: April 15, 2019 S19Y0671. IN THE MATTER OF MELODY YVONNE CHERRY. PER CURIAM. Respondent Melody Yvonne Cherry (State Bar No. 123395) has filed a renewed petition for voluntary discipline pursuant to Bar Rule 4-227 (b) (2) to resolve two pending disciplinary matters after this Court rejected her initial petition seeking a public reprimand. See In the Matter of Cherry, 304 Ga. 836 (822 SE2d 823) (2019) (Cherry I). In rejecting Cherrys earlier petition, we noted that because there was no information about whether a doctor who had filed a grievance had been made whole, we are unable to determine whether the proposed resolution of these two matters is reasonable. Id. at 840. The renewed petition says that Cherry has paid the doctors bill in full, and she again seeks a public reprimand for her admitted violations of Rules 1.15 (I) (b), 4.1, and 8.4 (a) (4) of the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct found in Bar Rule 4-102 (d). The State Bar supports the petition. As set forth in Cherry I: State Disciplinary Board Docket No. 7135 With regard to State Disciplinary Board (SDB) Docket No. 7135, Cherry, who joined the State Bar in 1992, admits that in 2015 she was retained by a client to represent him in a personal injury claim arising from an incident occurring on May 24, 2015. Because several people were injured in the accident, the limits of insurance coverage under the policy were insufficient to settle all of the claims, and the client was not able to receive what he believed was full compensation for his injuries and special damages. Cherry filed suit on the clients behalf, and after some discovery the claim was settled in September 2016 for a gross amount of $16,300. Cherry knew at that time that a lien had been asserted against the claim by a hospital and therefore made only a limited disbursement to her client. In February 2017, however, after the hospital notified Cherry that its lien had been released, Cherry prepared a settlement statement reflecting the clients wishes that the remaining funds, after reduction for attorney fees, costs, and repayment of a litigation loan, be paid directly to him to the exclusion of certain healthcare providers, including a doctor who Cherry knew had provided chiropractic care to her client. By signing the settlement statement, the client agreed that he would be responsible for all outstanding medical expenses and that he would pay the same. Thereafter, Cherry paid the balance of the net proceeds of the settlement to her client. Story continues Cherry admits, however, that in June 2015, she had sent a letter to the doctor who provided chiropractic care to the client advising him that any medical expenses incurred on behalf of her client shall be protected at the time of settlement of this case and that said funds shall be forwarded to your office upon conclusion of this matter. The recitation of facts by the Bar indicates that the doctor provided medical treatment to the client in reliance on Cherrys written assurance that medical expenses incurred by the client would be protected at the time of the settlement of the case and that funds would be forwarded to the doctor upon conclusion of the case. The Bars response indicates the doctor submitted a bill in the amount of $2,444 for services to the client. The Bars response also refers to a grievance filed by the doctor, but the record does not contain a copy of that grievance. Cherry admits that by following her clients directive at the time of the disbursement in disregard of the interests of the doctor and his practice, she violated Rule 1.15 (I) (b)1 of the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct. State Disciplinary Board Docket 7136 With regard to SDB Docket No. 7136, Cherry admits that on April 19, 2017, a woman contacted her by phone concerning an April 18, 2017 automobile accident, providing the womans address, the name of the at-fault driver, the at-fault drivers insurance company, and the assigned claim number. That same day, Cherry sent a letter of representation to the insurance company, referring to the woman who had called her as my client and requesting information about potentially applicable liability insurance coverage. The letter purported to include the womans signature, notarized by Cherrys employee, but the woman did not actually sign the letter and Cherrys employee notarized the signature at Cherrys direction. Cherry admits she is responsible for the false signature and that she intended for the insurance company to rely on the notarized signature in providing the requested information, which Cherry intended to use to help the woman promptly resolve any personal injury claim. An early email from the woman may have given Cherry a basis for believing that the woman would soon be officially hiring her, but Cherry heard nothing more until mid-May when an attorney called, on the womans behalf, advising Cherry that the woman had never hired Cherry or authorized her to communicate with the liability insurer. Cherry immediately notified the insurance company that she no longer represented the woman, but she admits that by preparing and sending the April 19 letter, she violated Rules 4.12 and 8.4 (a) (4)3 of the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct Cherry I, 302 Ga. at 836-838. As noted in Cherry I, the factors in mitigation of discipline that are supported by the record include a lack of a prior disciplinary history; a lack of a selfish or dishonest motive; a timely good faith effort to rectify the consequence of her misconduct; a cooperative attitude toward the disciplinary proceedings; and otherwise good character and positive reputation in the community. See ABA Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions 9.32. We note as factors in aggravation that Cherry has substantial experience in the practice of law and that this matter involves multiple offenses. See id. at 9.22. Each of the three Rules that Cherry admits to violating has a maximum penalty of disbarment, but in light of her payment in full of her clients doctors bill and the mitigating circumstances noted, we agree that a public reprimand would be consistent with prior decisions of this Court. See, e.g., In the Matter of Davis, 291 Ga. 169 (728 SE2d 548) (2012) (Review Panel reprimand for two Rule 8.4 (a) (4) violations where attorney twice signed clients name and had signature notarized on documents filed in clients civil case); In the Matter of Swain, 290 Ga. 678 (725 SE2d 244) (2012) (public reprimand for violation of Rules 1.2 (d) and 8.4 (a) (4) where clients signatures on court documents were notarized outside of clients presence). See also In the Matter of Mathis, 286 Ga. 728 (691 SE2d 202) (2010) (Review Panel reprimand for admitted violations of Rules 1.3, 1.4, and 8.4 (a) (4), for failing to communicate with client or promptly file her petition to change custody, and then ultimately filing the petition with a signed client verification attached even though client signed the verification without ever reading or seeing the petition). Accordingly, we accept Cherrys renewed petition for voluntary discipline and order that she be administered a public reprimand in open court pursuant to Bar Rules 4-102 (b) (3) and 4-220 (c) and (d) for her admitted violations of Rules 1.15 (I) (b), 4.1, and 8.4 (a) (4). Petition for voluntary discipline accepted. Public reprimand. All the Justices concur. 1 Rule 1.15 (I) relates to the safekeeping of property, and subsection (b) states in pertinent part: For the purposes of this Rule, a lawyer may not disregard a third persons interest in funds or other property in the lawyers possession if: 1. the interest is known to the lawyer, and 2. the interest is based upon one of the following: i. A statutory lien; ii. A final judgment addressing disposition of those funds or property; or iii. A written agreement by the client or the lawyer on behalf of the client guaranteeing payment out of those funds or property. 2 Rule 4.1 states in pertinent part: In the course of representing a client a lawyer shall not knowingly: a. make a false statement of material fact or law to a third person; or b. fail to disclose a material fact to a third person when disclosure is necessary to avoid assisting a criminal or fraudulent act by a client, unless disclosure is necessary to avoid assisting a criminal or fraudulent act by a client . 3 Rule 8.4 (a) (4) states it is a violation of the Rules for a lawyer to engage in professional conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation . Germany has no plans to stop Chinese telecom giant Huawei from participating in the build up of ultra-high speed internet, known as 5G, in the country if it complies with security requirements. Jochen Homann, president of the country's telecommunications regulator, told the FT newspaper that no equipment suppliers, including Huawei, "should, or may, be specifically excluded." Homann told the FT that his agency has yet to see evidence that Huawei poses a security risk. Germany has no plans to stop Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from participating in build up of ultra-high speed internet, known as 5G, in the country if it complies with all the security requirements, the Financial Times reported on Sunday . The president of the Bundesnetzagentur, the country's telecommunications regulator, told the FT that no equipment suppliers, including Huawei, "should, or may, be specifically excluded." Jochen Homann told the newspaper that his agency has yet to see evidence that Huawei poses a security risk. He added that if Huawei meets the security requirements imposed by the regulator, it can take part in the 5G network roll-out. Huawei is up against mounting worries that its technology will enable Chinese espionage through those high-speed mobile networks. The United States banned Huawei from selling 5G networking equipment to U.S. firms. Other countries have followed suit, including Australia, Japan and New Zealand . Huawei claims the security concerns are unfounded. The European Union so far has shunned U.S. calls to ban Huawei. The United Kingdom, a close ally of Washington, acknowledged 'significant' security risks posed by Huawei but has, so far, not moved to ban the firm outright. In an interview with CNBC's Arjun Kharpal on Saturday, Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei said his company will comply with European cybersecurity standards and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws that govern the European Union. Story continues "Germany proposed the establishment of a unified global convention that would bar all equipment vendors from installing backdoors, and require them to sign a no-spy agreement," he said, referring to a potential "no spy" deal between Berlin and Beijing . In 5G networks, the emphasis is more on software instead of hardware. That means an equipment maker may be able to install lines of code, called "backdoors," that let it access what's going on inside the network such as monitoring data transfers, tracking locations of cell phone users, or eavesdropping on conversations. "We endorse unified global standards that make installing backdoors a crime ... we want to sign such an agreement because we think it's the right thing to do," Ren said. Ren added that Huawei will invest more than $100 billion in research and development over the next five years: "We will build the simplest networks, ensure cyber security, and protect user privacy." The Trump administration, meanwhile, warned the German government it would limit intelligence-sharing if Berlin allows Huawei to build its 5G infrastructure, the Wall Street Journal reported last month . Read more about the German regulator's stance on Huawei from the Financial Times here . CNBC's Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report. More From CNBC FILE PHOTO: A sign is displayed in the reception of Goldman Sachs in Sydney, Australia, May 18, 2016. REUTERS/David Gray/File Photo By Elizabeth Dilts and Aparajita Saxena (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc offered new tidbits about its sweeping operational overhaul when reporting first-quarter results on Monday, but investors focused on revenue declines across nearly all its main businesses, sending shares lower. The fifth-largest bank by assets said it plans to grow retail deposits by $10 billion (7.6 billion) a year and shift more business into its banking units to lower its funding cost by one percentage point. Top executives also explained in more detail how they plan to make Goldman Sachs more efficient by flattening internal org charts, getting rid of old technology and shifting more staff to low-cost operational hubs. They expect these steps to save another dollar of expenses for every $100 in revenue Goldman produces, and improve returns on shareholder equity by four-tenths of a percentage point. The bank also revealed that it has been actively slashing risk-weighted assets in its fixed-income trading business since 2013, by some 40 percent so far. Goldman does not disclose the total sum of that wind-down portfolio, which is largely comprised of capital-intensive, long-dated derivatives, a person familiar with the matter said. But those disclosures did little to ease concerns about the struggles Goldman Sachs faces as it works through its business model revamp. On a call to discuss quarterly results, analysts peppered Chief Executive Officer David Solomon and his finance chief, Stephen Scherr, with questions about ongoing revenue weakness and requests for more information. They asked what the bank's total technology spending budget is, when its results will look more like universal banking rivals and why it is taking so long. "You all want more quicker, and we understand that," Solomon said. "But we are going to make sure we do it in the highest quality where we can." The bank's shares were down 3.1 percent to $201.28. Goldman Sachs was once considered a black box of profits, disclosing little about management's goals or how core units functioned. Investors and analysts generally accepted that secrecy, since Goldman routinely generated higher returns than peers. But regulations imposed after the 2007-2009 financial crisis, combined with changing market trends, put some of its core businesses in peril. Story continues The bank embarked on a plan in 2017 to generate $5 billion in additional annual revenue, partly by diving into consumer banking, where it had never previously operated. It also promised to disclose more about its progress. The bank has doubled down on that strategy under Solomon, who started a "front-to-back" operational review after taking the helm in October. Management is now putting in place the conclusions of that review, and plans to offer bank-wide performance targets early next year, Goldman said in a presentation on Monday. Investors had been expected a full report this spring. "There's a lot of work that needs to be done at this company to reposition it for growth over the next decade," said David Hendler, an analyst at Viola Risk Advisors. "Not completing the strategic review until 2020 is ridiculous. It should be done by the next quarter." Analysts also noted it was hard to find evidence that the overhaul was bearing fruit in the first quarter. Declines in trading, underwriting, investment management and investing and lending all contributed to a 13 percent slump in first-quarter revenue, which missed Wall Street expectations. One bright spot was Goldman's financial advisory business, where revenue soared 51 percent on higher deal volumes. However, the bank's backlog of deals declined, indicating revenue may be subdued in future quarters. Total revenue of $8.81 billion missed Wall Street's $8.99 billion estimate. The biggest drop came from trading, which was hurt by lower market volatility and the impact of the U.S. government shutdown. Rivals JPMorgan Chase & Co and Citigroup Inc reported declines in trading revenue of 10 percent and 6 percent, respectively. Despite sour revenue, Goldman's profit beat Wall Street's view, which analysts attributed to a sharp drop in compensation expenses. Earnings attributable to common shareholders fell 20 percent to $2.2 billion, or $5.71 per share, from $2.7 billion, or $6.95 per share, in the year-ago period. Analysts had expected a profit of $4.89 per share, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. Asked whether his review would result in Goldman looking more like JPMorgan, Citigroup or Bank of America Corp in the next three to five years, Solomon said that was unlikely. Capital markets businesses make up 61 percent of Goldman's revenue, more than double the portion of rivals with bigger consumer and corporate banking arms. "I don't think you can have any expectation ... we're heading anywhere close to that direction quickly," he said. (Reporting by Aparajita Saxena in Bengaluru and Elizabeth Dilts in New York; Additional reporting by Matt Scuffham in New York; Writing by Lauren Tara LaCapra; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Meredith Mazzilli) (Bloomberg) -- Huawei Technologies Co.s ability to make inroads into Europes future telecom infrastructure may be more about regulatory hurdles than outright bans. The U.S. has been engaged in a vocal campaign to keep Chinese tech companies out of advanced 5G networks that promise faster connections, enabling uses such as autonomous vehicles and remote surgery. U.S. President Donald Trumps administration has claimed that the companies could be tools for state espionage. While no European agency has targeted Huawei by name, U.S. warnings havent exactly fallen on deaf ears: the regions regulators have been tightening standards that may hit Huawei harder than Nokia Oyj and Ericsson AB, its main European rivals. In Germany, authorities have proposed tighter security rules for data networks rather than outlawing Huawei. The U.K. is currently considering the results of a review into the resilience of the telecom supply chain. The French parliament started to debate this month on a bill that would subject equipment to tests tantamount to suppliers handing over industrial secrets to be eligible to bid for contracts. Nokia and Ericsson have said theyll comply. The battle for Huaweis future in Europes infrastructure is entering a key moment. Europes telecom operators hurtling toward their 5G rollouts are updating contracts to build out networks. Prior to the fallout between China and the U.S. and the ongoing trade battle Huawei was set to be in prime position to win lucrative business. No Bans Weve seen progress in Europe. Risk-based frameworks are being put in place. This isnt just about banning technology, Rob Strayer, the U.S. State Departments deputy assistant for cyber policy, said in a recent call with reporters. European politicians have gone to significant lengths not to point fingers at Chinese companies. During Chinese President Xi Jinpings state visit to France late last month, Emmanuel Macron and his advisers avoided any public discussion of Huawei or cybersecurity. Instead, Macron said Europe is trying to build a coherent strategy with China. Story continues There are two things I dont believe in, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a conference in March in Berlin. First, to discuss these very sensitive security questions publicly, and second, to exclude a company simply because its from a certain country. Over the weekend, the president of the Bundesnetzagentur, Germanys federal network agency, told the Financial Times that no telecom equipment supplier should be specifically excluded. Not Fair For its part, Huawei has been crying foul, calling the U.S. allegations baseless. This kind of groundless allegation that put the hat over our head as a Chinese spy or these kind of things is not fair, Huawei representative to the EU institutions, Abraham Liu, in an interview with Bloomberg TV Monday. The truth has to be based on the facts and the facts have to be verifiable." Huawei has also sought to praise Europes measured approach. "We all agree that this is an important part -- that digitization has to be based on a safe network, Liu said. But how to solve this problem? How to address this kind of concept from different stakeholders? I think Germany has set a benchmark, a kind of example, and we are part of a solution for that." Europes Outliers Despite the lack of an outright ban, the U.S. has offered both praise and warnings to its European allies for its approach. Strayer recently praised Germany for making progress toward adopting strict 5G standards. Ellen Lord, U.S. undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, called European reluctance to ban the Chinese equipment maker a huge concern, while also praising the region for leaning forward to work with us. There remain European outliers. During a visit in March President Xi recruited Italys populist government into his global Belt and Road development project. In Eastern Europe, Croatia signed an agreement on cooperation with Huawei, and this month Hungary, where Huawei employs more than 2,000 people, said it wants to deepen the relationship across a range of areas from education to the environment. Hopefully we can talk to Italy and other countries about not putting insecure gear into their networks. It could affect our ability to share intelligence, said Strayer. --With assistance from Maria Tadeo. To contact the reporter on this story: Giles Turner in London at gturner35@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Vidya Root at vroot@bloomberg.net For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. MUMBAI, April 15 (Reuters) - India's palm oil imports in March rose 5.5 percent from a year earlier to 802,443 tonnes as changes in the duty structure made imports of refined palm oil attractive for Indian buyers, a leading trade body said on Monday. The world's biggest edible oil importer reduced duty difference between crude and refined palm oil imported from Malaysia to 5 percent from earlier 10 percent effective from January 1, 2019. The country's refined palm oil imports in March jumped to 312,673 tonnes from 163,222 tonnes a year ago, the Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) said in a statement https://bit.ly/2ZcV4M4. Soyoil imports surged 154 percent to 292,925 tonnes in March, while sunflower oil imports jumped 42 percent to 297,887 tonnes, the trade body said. India buys palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia, with its soyoil mainly imported from Argentina and Brazil, and purchases sunflower oil from Ukraine. In the first five months of the 2018/19 marketing year ending October, India has imported 6 million tonnes of edible oils, up 3.8 percent from a year ago, it said. (Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips) ManpowerGroup Inc. MAN is scheduled to report first-quarter 2019 results on Apr 18, before the bell. Shares of the company have gained 32.2% year to date, significantly outperforming the 21.3% rally of the industry it belongs to. What Happened Last Quarter? Adjusted earnings per share came in at $2.44, which beat the consensus mark by 24 cents and rose 15.1% on a year-over-year basis. Revenues of $5.4 billion lagged the consensus mark by $152 million and declined 4.3% year over year, mainly due to weakness across the companys European businesses. What to Expect This Time? The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues in the to-be-reported quarter is pegged at $4.9 billion, indicating year-over-year decrease of 10.9%. A challenging market environment in Europe, especially in France, Italy and Germany, is expected to continue weighing on the companys top line. ManpowerGroup Inc. Revenue (TTM) ManpowerGroup Inc. Revenue (TTM) | ManpowerGroup Inc. Quote The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings stand at $1.35 per share, indicating year-over-year decrease of 21.5%. The company is likely to continue to experience staffing margin pressure, resulting from loss of competitiveness and employment (CICE) subsidy in France. The consensus estimate for earnings lies within the company guided range of $1.30-$1.38. The guidance includes a negative impact of 13 cents from foreign currency. What Our Model Says According to the Zacks model, a company with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) has a good chance of beating estimates if it also has a positive Earnings ESP. The Sell-rated stocks (Zacks Rank #4 or 5) are best avoided, especially if they have a negative Earnings ESP. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter. ManpowerGroup has an Earnings ESP of 0.00% and a Zacks Rank #3, a combination that makes surprise prediction difficult. Story continues Stocks That Warrant a Look Here are some stocks that you may want to consider, as our model shows that these have the right combination of elements to deliver a positive earnings surprise: Automatic Data Processing ADP, with an Earnings ESP of +1.42% and a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Delphi Technologies DLPH, with an Earnings ESP of +1.38% and a Zacks Rank #3. S&P Global SPGI, with an Earnings ESP of +0.79% and a Zacks Rank #3. Biggest Tech Breakthrough in a Generation Be among the early investors in the new type of device that experts say could impact society as much as the discovery of electricity. Current technology will soon be outdated and replaced by these new devices. In the process, its expected to create 22 million jobs and generate $12.3 trillion in activity. A select few stocks could skyrocket the most as rollout accelerates for this new tech. Early investors could see gains similar to buying Microsoft in the 1990s. Zacks just-released special report reveals 7 stocks to watch. The report is only available for a limited time. See 7 breakthrough stocks now>> 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 S&P Global Inc. (SPGI) : Free Stock Analysis Report Delphi Technologies PLC (DLPH) : Free Stock Analysis Report ManpowerGroup Inc. (MAN) : Free Stock Analysis Report Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Meritage Homes Corporation MTH announced the opening of CitySquare, a first-of-its-kind condominium community in Irvine, CA. The homes at CitySquare will certainly be desirable as the same will offer energy-efficient capabilities. Per Californias latest solar mandate, all new homes are required to include solar energy by 2020. CitySquare will feature all-electric, zero-net energy community. The community will present spacious, open four-bedroom floorplans in three different floors and ample amenities. Also, the community will be fascinating to homebuyers since it will be convenient for commuters to travel the 55, 405 and 73 freeways, along with the John Wayne Airport. This seventh-largest public homebuilding company is a leader in building energy-efficient homes. The company has been receiving ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year for Sustained Excellence Award every year since 2013 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for innovative and industry leading energy-saving solutions. Focus on Innovation Bodes Well Earlier to this project, the company had partnered with the Environmental Protection Agency, California Energy Commission, Southern California Edison and Electric Power Research Institute to develop such communities. Meritage Homes, which focuses on cutting-edge innovation and organizational agility, sets the standard for energy-efficient community. In 2018, the companys total home closing revenues grew 9% year over year. Also, home deliveries improved 11% from the year-ago level to 8,531 homes. Total orders also increased 2% during the year. Price Performance Shares of Meritage Homes have gained 8.4% in the past year against its industrys 7.8% decline. The outperformance can be attributed to an impressive earnings surprise trend. The companys earnings surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in six of the trailing seven quarters, with the average positive surprise being 19.3%. Notably, its fourth-quarter adjusted earnings increased an impressive 120% year over year. A strong brand presence, and innovation and strategies relating to entry-level and first-move-up communities should drive the stocks performance in the upcoming quarters as well. Story continues Zacks Rank & Key Picks Currently, Meritage Homes carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the Zacks Construction sector include Apergy Corporation APY, Quanta Services, Inc. PWR and AECOM ACM. While Apergy and Quanta Services sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), AECOM carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Apergy, Quanta Services and AECOMs earnings for the current year are expected to increase 2.8%, 25.3% and 2.6%, respectively. Biggest Tech Breakthrough in a Generation Be among the early investors in the new type of device that experts say could impact society as much as the discovery of electricity. Current technology will soon be outdated and replaced by these new devices. In the process, its expected to create 22 million jobs and generate $12.3 trillion in activity. A select few stocks could skyrocket the most as rollout accelerates for this new tech. Early investors could see gains similar to buying Microsoft in the 1990s. Zacks just-released special report reveals 7 stocks to watch. The report is only available for a limited time. See 7 breakthrough stocks now>> 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 Quanta Services, Inc. (PWR) : Free Stock Analysis Report Meritage Corporation (MTH) : Free Stock Analysis Report AECOM (ACM) : Free Stock Analysis Report Apergy Corporation (APY) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. * Saudi's Bank Albilad gains on higher Q1 profit * Qatar Electricity And Water slides on lower Q1 profit * Egypt blue-chip index falls for 3rd session By Shakeel Ahmad April 15 (Reuters) - Abu Dhabi's stock market rose to a near five-year high on Monday, lifted by First Abu Dhabi Bank, while petrochemical stocks led gains on Saudi Arabia's main index. The Abu Dhabi index was up 0.9 percent after hitting its highest since May 2014. First Abu Dhabi Bank, the United Arab Emirates' largest lender, climbed 2.4 percent to 16 dirhams, touching an all-time high. Last week, the bank obtained regulatory approval to increase its foreign ownership limit to 40 percent from a previous limit of 25 percent. The Saudi index was up 0.4 percent with its top petrochemical maker Saudi Basic Industries gaining 1.1 percent and Riyad Bank advancing 2.1 percent. Bank Albilad rose 1.5 percent after its first-quarter net profit grew more than 23 percent. The bourse has gained 16 percent so far this year as foreign buyers rushed in ahead of and after its entry into the FTSE Russell's emerging market index on March 18. Foreign investors have been net buyers of Saudi stocks every week this year and bought 1.21 billion riyals ($322.64 million) of shares on a net basis in the last week, according to stock exchange data released late on Sunday. In Dubai, the index rose 0.6 percent, supported by a 5.3 percent gain in Dubai Investments and a 1.4 percent rise in Dubai Islamic Bank. The lender said that it regularly looks at expansion opportunities, including buying other financial institutions. The United Arab Emirates' largest sharia-compliant bank is in talks with shareholders of unlisted Noor Bank over a possible acquisition of the Dubai-based lender, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters last week. "We see the likelihood of a deal going through as high, driving the consolidation theme in UAE," Arqaam Capital said in a note. It said Noor was now the only unlisted bank in the UAE, following the merger of Abu Dhabi counterparts Al Hilal and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank. Qatar's index edged 0.1 percent lower, as Qatar Electricity And Water shed 2.4 percent after its first-quarter net profit fell nearly 22 percent. Story continues The company further said it aims to generate 40 percent of its profit from foreign investment arm Nebras Power over the next 10 years. Egypt's blue-chip index inched down 0.1 percent, slipping for the third straight session, with investment firm Egypt Kuwait Holding falling 1 percent. ($1 = 3.7503 riyals) SAUDI The index was up 0.4 pct to 9,088 points ARABIA ABU DHABI The index added 0.9 pct to 5,222 points DUBAI The index rose 0.6 pct to 2,805 points QATAR The index was down 0.1 pct at 10,222 points EGYPT The index was down 0.1 pct to 15,055 points BAHRAIN The index fell 0.3 pct to 1,441 points OMAN The index rose 0.5 pct to 4,012 points KUWAIT The index wa up 0.2 pct to 6,136 points (Reporting by Shakeel Ahmad in Bengaluru Editing by Mark Heinrich) (Bloomberg) -- Elon Musk, already in hot water over his Twitter use, posted another Tesla Inc. production forecast reminiscent of the one that landed him before a federal judge earlier this month. Musk wrote Sunday that Tesla will make more than 500,000 cars in the next 12 months. A similar tweet sent almost two months ago in which Musk said the company would build half a million vehicles in 2019 led the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to argue he was in contempt of a settlement reached with the regulator last year. The latest forecast, given as a seemingly innocuous aside in a discussion about the future value of Tesla vehicles, nonetheless came as Musks lawyers are negotiating with the SEC over an agreement that put controls on the billionaires tweeting. A U.S. judge gave the two sides until April 18 to meet for at least an hour and resolve their differences. If they cant, shell rule whether Musk is in contempt. The legal tussle for Musk, 47, served as a distraction amid a record decline in deliveries for Tesla during the first quarter. Concerns about demand for Teslas vehicles escalated last week after the Nikkei reported the company and its partner Panasonic Corp. were freezing plans to expand capacity at the battery factory they share in Nevada. Musk on Saturday disputed reports that Panasonic had boosted annualized battery cell production capacity at the plant to 35 gigawatt hours, saying the companys lines were only at 24 gigawatt hours and have been constraining output of Teslas Model 3 sedan. Tesla shares fell as much as 1.7 percent to $263.03 as of 9:38 a.m. Monday in New York trading. The stock is down 21 percent this year. Both the Panasonic and the next-12-months production tweets are noteworthy in light of the settlement that sprang from Musk tweeting in August of last year about trying to take Tesla private. The SEC accused the chief executive officer of securities fraud, and Musk settled. He agreed to pay $20 million, step down as chairman and seek pre-approval from an in-house securities lawyer before tweeting information material to the electric-car maker. Story continues Musks legal team has argued that he retained discretion to determine whether he was sending out material information or not, and that his Feb. 19 post about Teslas 2019 production was consistent with comments he made weeks earlier on an earnings call. Judy Burns, an SEC spokeswoman, and a Tesla spokesman declined to comment on Musks latest tweet about the carmakers production. In an April 4 hearing where Musk appeared, U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan questioned the specifics of the CEOs settlement with the SEC and told the two sides to rework the language of their agreement. Take a deep breath, put your reasonableness pants on and work this out, Nathan said. She wrote in an order the next day that if Musk is held in contempt, the court will allow further briefings on sanctions. The SEC said at the hearing that the remedies it was seeking included a series of escalating fines for future violations, and monthly reporting on Musks communications. (Updates with shares trading in the sixth paragraph.) --With assistance from Kevin Miller and Matt Robinson. To contact the reporters on this story: Craig Trudell in New York at ctrudell1@bloomberg.net;Molly Kissler in New York at mkissler@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lauren Berry at lberry4@bloomberg.net, ;Craig Trudell at ctrudell1@bloomberg.net, David Welch For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. National Oilwell Varco, Inc.s NOV shares dipped more than 8% to close at $26.87 on Apr 12, after the companys Chairman Clay Williams stated that the energy equipment suppliers first-quarter 2019 results are likely to be impacted by certain headwinds. The firm expects revenues to come in below prior expectation of $2.08-$2.1 billion. National Oilwell now anticipates first-quarter 2019 sales to come in at $1.94 billion, reflecting a sequential fall of 26%. Further, it expects to post a GAAP operating loss of around $48 million. Adjusted EBITDA is likely to total $140 million, down from $160 million and $279 million recorded in first-quarter 2018 and the last reported quarter, respectively. Notably, during National Oilwells fourth-quarter call, management had already notified investors that the oil crash during the final months of 2018 would likely take a toll on the firms near-term results. In fact, the company did predict a sequential fall in revenues from all the three segmentsRig Technologies, Wellbore Technologies and Completion & Production in first-quarter 2019. However, the impact of weak oil prices has been much greater than expected. Whats the Crux of the Matter? The oil crash toward the end of 2018 caught the energy companies off guard, especially the oilfield services players. After touching multi-year highs of $76.40 a barrel in early October 2018, prices slid below $45 in late December amid oversupply concerns and weakening demand. Weaker demand for oilfield equipment due to low prices persisted in the first quarter of 2019 as well. Amid the growing crisis, many exploration and production companies slashed capital spending for 2019, further hurting the performance of oilfield equipment providers like National Oilwell. Contraction of orders, fewer deliveries of drill pipes and other equipment, and slowdown of activities in both the offshore and North American markets will impact the companys first-quarter results. As such, the firm will likely come up with lower-than-expected results from each of its three segments amid tough operating environment. Story continues What Lies Ahead? Indeed, the year 2019 witnessed a rebound in oil prices, with crude popping up to $60.55 a barrel in March-end, posting the biggest first-quarter gain in a decade. WTI has been currently trading over $63 a barrel, underpinned mainly by OPEC+ supply cuts, and U.S. sanctions against Venezuela and Iran. The improving energy landscape is gradually leading to ramped-up activities in the United States along with steady increase in new order bookings. Nonetheless, pipeline concerns and curtailed capex for 2019 by energy producers will definitely keep a tab on upstream activities. With infrastructural log jams likely to take another year to get in place, short-term prospects for National Oilwell seem a little challenging. Further, while things have gradually started looking up for international and offshore market, recovery is still not around the corner. While National Oilwell believes that improving commodity prices will aid the firms results and backlogs as it progresses through 2019, it still maintains a bleak outlook for the current year. The company is presently focusing on adapting to the current market scenario. Initiatives like expansion or addition of new market offerings, adoption of superior technologies, innovation of business processes, and integration of value chain offerings, acquisitions and profitable collaborations, among other strategic strides, will enable the firm to perform well in the current market scenario. Zacks Rank and Key Picks National Oilwell currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Investors interested in the same industry can consider Dril-Quip, Inc. DRQ, Superior Energy Services, Inc. SPN and USA Compression Partners, LP USAC, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Biggest Tech Breakthrough in a Generation Be among the early investors in the new type of device that experts say could impact society as much as the discovery of electricity. Current technology will soon be outdated and replaced by these new devices. In the process, its expected to create 22 million jobs and generate $12.3 trillion in activity. A select few stocks could skyrocket the most as rollout accelerates for this new tech. Early investors could see gains similar to buying Microsoft in the 1990s. Zacks just-released special report reveals 7 stocks to watch. The report is only available for a limited time. See 7 breakthrough stocks now>> 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 National Oilwell Varco, Inc. (NOV) : Free Stock Analysis Report Dril-Quip, Inc. (DRQ) : Free Stock Analysis Report Superior Energy Services, Inc. (SPN) : Free Stock Analysis Report USA Compression Partners, LP (USAC) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Investing.com - Oil prices edged lower on Monday but losses were held in check amid ongoing concerns over the global supply outlook. U.S. Crude Oil WTI Futures were down 0.4% to $63.62 by 12:10 AM ET (04:10 GMT), while international Brent Oil Futures slipped 0.2% to $71.42. Year-to-date, U.S. crude is up 41% while the U.K. benchmark shows a 32% rise, supported by production cuts led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). OPEC, Russia and other non-member producers have been reducing output by 1.2 million bpd since the beginning of 2019. The producers are due to meet in June to decide whether to extend the pact. In an earlier report, Reuters cited an OPEC source that said oil producers might decide to end their output cuts during the meeting if he Libya, Venezuelan and Iranian supply crises werent resolved by then. In other news, the U.S. oil rig count, published by industry firm Baker Hughes, rose by two units this week after last week's 15-rig climb. Last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported in its weekly supply-demand report that production had reached a new high of 12.2 million barrels per day. Meanwhile, the Libyan conflict remained in focus as reports on Friday suggested that renegade Libyan general Khalifa Haftar had vowed to wipe out the North African country's oil production if he gained control of the capital, Tripoli. The North African country, which produces about 1.1 million barrels per day of oil, has been vulnerable since the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gadaffi. Haftars forces control more than 40% of Libyas oilfields and the key ports that export its crude. Related Articles Oil Prices Near Flat Amid Fall in U.S. Inventory Oil rises on tightening supplies; ample U.S. output caps gains Gold Falls as Improved Economic Growth Output Boosts Risk Appetite Patricia White, Dean of the University of Miami Law School Patricia White, Dean of the University of Miami Law School Patricia White thinks that 10 years is enough. Her tenure as the first woman law dean at Arizona State University spanned a decade. And now, she's winding down her 10th year as dean at the University of Miami School of Law. She will step down in June. More than 10 years, she said, and the draw of institutionalism grows too strong. Each year it becomes harder to be a "change agent," a title that has always made her proud. "I think that places benefit when they have new energy, the challenge of new energy," she said. "The founding fathers were right there should be term limits on presidents, I think. It's very easy to get complacent in a way. It's very easy to get tied into the problems in your institution because they're big jobs. It's easier to be more removed from what's going on in the world than you ideally should be." Change when she came to ASU and UM meant building a bridge between academia and the professional world. Before landing her first teaching job at Georgetown Law in 1978, White worked at Steptoe & Johnson, then Caplin & Drysdale. It was important for her to keep a foot in both realms. In 1988, she began teaching at the University of Michigan while also working as of counsel at the Detroit firm Bodman Longley & Dahling. When she moved to the University of Utah in 1994, she was of counsel at Parsons Behle & Latimer. For White, the job isn't so much about job placement rates as it is about providing a broad education and producing a well-balanced attorney. She believes a strong legal education means possessing intellectual breadth and the means to become an ideal member of a democratic society. "It's the best civics education you could ever find. It makes you understand power structures, government structures, rights, liberties," she said. "It ought to teach you the essential virtues of our democratic society: liberty, justice, due process, fundamental rights." When White took the job at UM in 2009, she was quick to assert this philosophy. Despite the fact that the country was reeling in financial turmoil, UM law was faced with a potentially back-breaking incoming class of 800 students more than double the enrollment of a typical year. In response, White wrote a letter imploring 1L students to re-consider why they applied to law school, recommending that they take a year off to work in public service in exchange for a $5,000 scholarship. "Perhaps many of you are looking to law school as a safe harbor in which you can wait out the current economic storm," she wrote. "If this describes your motivation for going to law school I urge you to think hard about your plans and to consider deferring enrollment." Despite those efforts, UM still saw a large 500-student class that year. White took the extra funds generated by the large class to set up a program called Legal Corps matching UM law graduates who passed the Bar with nonprofit and public sector jobs. Under the program, the university agreed to pay for the graduate's salary for six months, meaning the organization would have a free, licensed attorney during a recession normally characterized by layoffs and hiring freezes. White said the placement rate after the fellowship was 90 percent and is one of her proudest achievements. Her emphasis on a well-rounded legal education also can be seen in her push for interdisciplinary hybrids between the law and medicine, law and communications, and even law and music; international offerings through LawsWithoutWalls and UM's international arbitration program; and expansion of hands-on clinics and externships. And while she is proud of her tenure, her "biggest regret" is that she couldn't solve the problem of education funding. "It's the greatest problem facing higher education. Period," she said. "People graduate with far too much debt. ...The model of how to pay for education in this country is broken." According to a report from AccessLex Institute, the average tuition for a private law school was $46,240 in 2017, and $26,420 for residents at public law schools. On top of that, close to half of all law students still carry debt from their undergraduate degrees. Tuition at the University of Miami School of Law comes out to $54,134 per year, according to the school's website. Experts say that this high debt funnels students into high-paying jobs at big law firms, contributing to a "brain drain" in the public sector. High tuition also acts as a barrier to students who would otherwise perform well in law school but don't have the means. But White is not bowing out of the legal education arena completely. After a short sabbatical, she plans to return to UM to teach. She is already slated to teach two classes in the spring: one on trusts and estates, and one on torts. She also is the chair of the American Bar Association Commission on the Future of Legal Education, whose mandate is "anticipating, articulating and influencing what will be dramatic changes in the legal profession in the next decade and beyond." Patricia White Born: 1949 Spouse: James W. Nickel Children: Olivia, Alex, Jennifer, Jonathan, Philip Education: University of Michigan, J.D., M.A., 1974, B.A., 1971 Experience: Dean, University of Miami School of Law, 2009present; Visiting Professor, Georgetown Law, 2009; Of counsel, Steptoe & Johnson, 2009; Dean, Arizona State University, 1999-2009; Professor, University of Utah SJ Quinney College of Law, 1994-1999; Of counsel, Parsons Behle & Latimer, 1994-1999; Professor, University of Michigan Law School, 1988-1994; Professor, Georgetown Law, 1978-1988. Anyone up for some Texas Chicken'? Maybe not anymore as pilots request one-way traffic on busiest shipping hub in North America. Port Houston's move to limit traffic for larger container ships to once a week may put a damper on growing volumes trade out of the Gulf Coast. The shipping restriction adds to another recent changes in rail service that hit outbound logistics from the nation's busiest port for foreign trade. Last week, Port Houston's commissioners approved a rule that vessels imposing "one-way traffic" restrictions when transiting the port will be limited to one terminal call per week. The Houston Pilots, which guide deep-water ships in and out of the Houston Ship Channel, had asked for the rule that all ship traffic go in only one direction when they are maneuvering ships of 1,100 feet. A spokesman for the Houston Pilots said the request was due to the depth and width restrictions on the winding, 52-mile long Channel. Two ships passing in opposite directions creates what pilots call the "Texas Chicken" where the wakes push the ships apart, then rapidly pushes them closer together again. But oil and gas companies also support the move since one-way traffic restrictions limited the number of vessel calls at the plants and terminals that line the Houston Ship Channel. In fact a group of oil and gas companies banded together as the Coalition for a Fair and Open Port to argue in favor of the one-way vessel restriction. The largest tanker that can call at a terminal at the Port Houston is typically 950-foot long. In contrast, the largest container ships that are now calling on Port Houston terminals are 1,100 feet or more in length. The Bayport Terminal said that four of the 11 container ships on the Indus Service run by Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) are subject to one-way traffic. MSC was unavailable to comment on the restriction. Todd Stewart, President of Houston-based third-party logistics firm Gulf Winds International, said the bulk of container ships coming into Houston are below that size, so he does not expect a major volume impact from the restriction. Story continues But the restriction does point out the need for a bigger channel to meet the needs of the energy industry and the growing container trade. Port Houston, which handled just over 1 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) last year, has capital spending projects to bring annual capacity up to 3 million TEUs. "The bigger goal is that we need a deeper and wider channel," Stewart said. "The volumes coming into the port are not going to take a massive hit from this." Port Houston "is trying to find something that works for both sides and is good for the Houston region." There is more demand for outbound ocean shipping from the Gulf Coast due to the opening of new plastics manufacturing plants in Houston. Resins and plastics exports at 308,270 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) saw the highest absolute growth of any export out of Houston last year. ( Source: Port Houston ) (Source: Port Houston) Due to the availability of low-cost feedstocks from nearby Houston petrochemical plants, companies such as Ravago Chemicals and Vinmar have set up large distribution sites in Houston to package resins and plastics for export markets. Resins and plastics exports make the Gulf Coast one of the few "balanced" markets in terms of containers coming in and going out loaded, said Howard Finkel, vice president for Cosco Shipping Holdings (HKEX: 1919). Speaking about the Gulf Coast market at a recent conference, Finkel said exporters will be looking at higher rates if they want more vessel capacity out of the Gulf Coast. "If you have this explosion of resin coming from the Gulf Coast, the exports are going to overtake the imports. For us to make decisions on bigger vessels and more containers coming into the Gulf Coast, you are going to have to pay headhaul rates," Finkel said. Resin and plastics manufacturers are also looking at moving products inland through Dallas and to the East Coast. But the ability to do so took a hit as Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP) ended a rail service linking Houston to Dallas at the beginning of April. The end of that service pushed more shippers to look for truckload capacity, Stewart said. The switch pushed the Outbound Tender Volume Index for Houston (SONAR: OTVI.HOU) to reach a six-month high at the start of this month. Screen Shot 2019-04-12 at 6.39.01 PM.png Union Pacific did not say why it ended the service, but insufficient volume was likely the culprit, Stewart said. Not that he's complaining as Gulf Winds is "seeing a major uptick" in trucking and trans-loading demand from the switch, Stewart said. The uptick includes resin and plastics shippers, who may yet produce enough volumes that rail service will return. "It's an opportunity for us, but in the long-term there should be some rail opportunity as well," Stewart said. Sulfur-sniffing drone to enforce IMO 2020 European Maritime Safety Agency to use drone in Danish waters. (Maritime Executive) U.S. sanctions alleged Venezuelan oil shippers Nine tankers belonging to Liberian and Italian firms tied to sanctioned shipping. (Reuters) Car carrier company opts not for scrubbers Hoegh Autoliners does not see scrubbers as working for particular ship type. (Marine Insight) U.S. LNG shipments hit six-month low Supply glut and seasonal slowdown allow LNG plants to shut for maintenance. (Marine Link) Image sourced from Pixabay Want more content like this? Click here to Subscribe Permalink See more from Benzinga 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. (Bloomberg) -- Samsung Electronics Co.s Galaxy Fold is a pricey, but promising device that kicks off a new phase of the smartphone industry. On Monday, the company held an event in New York City to let reporters and other members of media try out the gadget for the first time. Samsung announced the phone in February and it goes on sale April 26 at the wallet-stretching price of $1,980. Samsung forecasts it will produce at least 1 million foldable phones this year. Thats a fraction of all the phones that the company shipped last year. Still, research firm Gartner Inc. expects the market will grow to 30 million units by 2023. Huawei Technologies Co., Xiaomi Corp., and Lenovo Group Ltd.s Motorola unit are working on foldable phones. Theres no indication yet that Apple is working on a folding iPhone. The Galaxy Fold has a 4.6-inch screen on the front, which makes it smaller than most modern smartphone screens. But it opens up to become a 7.3-inch tablet, letting users run three apps at once. It has half a terabyte of storage and 12 gigabytes of RAM, rivaling high-end laptops. It also has six cameras and a pair of batteries. The device feels like a tablet when opened up. Theres a satisfying click sound for the hinge. A crease is noticeable, but it doesnt get in the way of using it. Theres spacing between two sides of the touchscreen keyboard so that typing with thumbs is comfortable. When folded shut, the front-facing screen is small, and there is a noticeable gap above and below the display. The phone is also fairly thick when closed. It comes in silver, black, green and blue and pre-orders begin on Monday. The device will be available in the U.S. on the wireless networks of AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile US Inc. Samsung is also developing a clamshell-like foldable phone and another one that folds outward, Bloomberg News reported last month. The company also envisions smartphones with rollable and stretchable displays, Samsung Executive Vice President Chung Eui-suk said in February. Story continues Samsung spent eight years developing the Galaxy Fold. Still, there are questions about durability. Samsung is trying to remove a crease that appears on the protective film above the screen after its been folded about 10,000 times, Bloomberg News reported last month. The company has since released footage of machines repeatedly opening and closing the phone in what it dubbed an extremity test to assert its durability. --With assistance from Sam Kim. 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. Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - April 15, 2019) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Sara Cortes and David P. Bartels have been named Deputy Chief Counsels of the Division of Investment Management. As Deputy Chief Counsels, Ms. Cortes and Mr. Bartels will join a leadership team and staff that are responsible for responding to requests for legal and policy guidance, evaluating applications for exemptive relief, coordinating international and legislative technical assistance, and running the divisions enforcement liaison program. Ms. Cortes will oversee the exemptive applications program and Mr. Bartels will oversee the enforcement liaison program. They will share responsibility for staff legal guidance by the Chief Counsels Office. Ms. Cortes has been a member of the divisions Rulemaking Office since 2013, serving most recently as Assistant Director and head of the Investment Adviser Regulation Office. In that capacity, she has led the development of recommendations for rulemaking and other policy initiatives under the Advisers Act of 1940. Mr. Bartels has served in a number of capacities in the Division of Investment Management, most recently as Senior Policy Advisor to Director Dalia Blass. His work has encompassed rulemaking, applications for exemptive relief, and requests for legal and policy guidance across diverse subjects under the Investment Company Act and the Advisers Act of 1940. "I am excited for Sara and David to take on these new leadership roles. I have worked with both of them for many years and I am delighted that the Chief Counsels Office will benefit from their extensive experience, deep knowledge of the 1940 Acts and thoughtful leadership skills. They are highly respected by their peers and will be a fantastic addition to the divisions senior leadership team, said Dalia Blass, Director of the Division of Investment Management. Story continues I have had the opportunity to work closely with both Sara and David since my return to the Commission. Each is an excellent lawyer with a breadth of experience and demonstrated good judgment. They will be tremendous assets to the important work of the Chief Counsels Office on behalf of investors, said Paul G. Cellupica, Deputy Director and Chief Counsel of the Division of Investment Management. "The staff of the Chief Counsels Office is remarkably talented, and its an honor to be part of such a dedicated team, said Ms. Cortes and Mr. Bartels. Were excited about this opportunity to continue serving Main Street investors while working on the kinds of innovative requests that have helped make the U.S. asset management markets vibrant. Before joining the Division of Investment Management, Ms. Cortes was Counsel and Senior Adviser to Chairman Elisse Walter. She first joined the agency in the Legal Policy Group of the Office of General Counsel in 2009, advising the Commission on enforcement matters. In 2017, Ms. Cortes received the Commissions Exceptional Service Award for her leadership on the Commissions Investment Company Reporting Modernization initiative. Prior to joining the SEC, Ms. Cortes was Counsel in the Legal Division of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System as an enforcement and litigation attorney. Ms. Cortes began her legal career in private practice at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. Ms. Cortes earned her J.D. and Master of Science of Foreign Service, magna cum laude, from Georgetown University and her bachelors degree in international studies and French from Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. Mr. Bartels joined the division in 2010, starting in the Investment Adviser Regulation Office, where he received the Commissions Law and Policy Award for work on private fund adviser reporting. Mr. Bartels was Branch Chief in the Exemptive Applications and Chief Counsels Offices from 2011-2016, focusing on exchange-traded funds, business development companies, funds of funds, and affiliated transactions. Mr. Bartels also served as counsel to Commissioner Kara M. Stein, advising on a wide range of matters under the federal securities laws and supporting the Commissions Diversity Council. Prior to joining the Division, Mr. Bartels worked in the corporate practice at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, where he advised clients on securities offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and other corporate transactions. Mr. Bartels received his law degree from Yale Law School and his bachelors degree from SUNY Buffalo. In this article: * Philippines posts third consecutive loss * Singapore snaps four sessions of gains * Thai, Vietnam markets closed By Shreya Mariam Job April 15 (Reuters) - Philippine stocks closed at their lowest level in more than a month on Monday, as investors locked in profits ahead of the four-day weekend, while Indonesian stocks moved higher buoyed by a surprise trade surplus in March. The Philippine benchmark fell 1.2 percent to its lowest close since March 14, with a steep sell-off in the last half hour of trade. Industrials were the biggest drag on the index, with shares of conglomerate Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc dropping 5.1 percent to close at their lowest level since Jan. 2. "For this week, Philippine market is closed for Thursday and Friday. What we are seeing now is a bit of profit taking because some investors are looking to protect their capital," said Rachelle C Cruz, an analyst with AP Securities. Shares of Universal Robina Corp were also a major drag, extending losses into a third straight session losing 3.6 percent. The company posted a 15 percent fall in full year net income. The sentiment toward the stock was also weaker in light of rising competition in the coffee industry, after Mayora Indah Tbk PT, producer of the coffee brand Kopiko, announced https://business.mb.com.ph/2019/04/11/indonesias-pt-mayora-to-invest-80-million-for-coffee-factory-in-ph investments in Philippines for local manufacturing and processing operations "In the long run, there might be more competition and that may affect the growth prospects of URC," Rachelle added. Singapore index edged lower, hurt by industrial and financial stocks. Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Ltd slid 0.2 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, Indonesian shares gained 0.5 percent, snapping three sessions of losses with a surprise trade surplus in March buoying sentiment while political uncertainty ahead of the presidential elections on Wednesday capped gains. Story continues Indonesia posted a surprise trade surplus for a second straight month in March, supporting the central bank's outlook of a narrowing current account deficit, but economists warn a trade deficit could return after Wednesday's presidential elections. Consumer stocks boosted the index with Charoen Pokphand Indonesia Tbk Pt rising 3 percent and Astra International Tbk Pt firming 1.7 percent. Thailand and Vietnam markets were closed for a holiday. For Asian Companies click; SOUTHEAST ASIAN STOCK MARKETS Change on the day Market Current Previous close Pct Move Singapore 3325.86 3331.98 -0.18 Manila 7787.98 7880.82 -1.18 Jakarta 6435.151 6405.866 0.46 Kuala Lumpur 1631.33 1630.17 0.07 Change so far in 2019 Market Current End 2018 Pct Move Singapore 3325.86 3068.76 8.38 Manila 7787.98 7,466.02 4.31 Jakarta 6435.151 6,194.50 3.88 Kuala Lumpur 1631.33 1690.58 -3.50 (Reporting by Shreya Mariam Job; Editing by Rashmi Aich) This free preview of The Block Genesis is offered to our loyal readers as a representation of the highly valuable journalism our Genesis members receive daily. If youd like to receive all Genesis content on our site and via daily newsletter, join here. There are always two sides to every story. And last week's news of the New York Department of Financial Services denying Bittrex's request for a BitLicense is only the latest example. As part of its rejection, the NYDFS put out a letter outlining the Washington-based exchange's shortcomings chapter and verse. At first glance it's brutal, noting that the exchange let North Koreans and Iranians onto the platform and cleared accounts with fake names like Elvis and Donald Duck. But there's more than what meets the NYDFS' eye, according to John Roth, the chief compliance and ethics officer at Bittrex. "The frustration you hear in my voice is from the fact that we have no idea where this is coming from," the former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security told The Block in an interview last week. In a lengthy conversation, Roth outlined the firm's defense. Most striking was Roth's assertion that the NYDFS agreed to grant Bittrex's BitLicense three months ago. Roth contends the NYDFS then outlined terms that would have required Bittrex to clear all future token listings through the agency, even in jurisdictions outside of New York. Bittrex thought those terms were unfair and declined to sign the deal, according to Roth. "I actually think it is fine for New York to decide what residents in New York can or cannot trade, but restricting what we could list outside of New York is pretty troubling and surrenders strategic business control of Bittrex," he said. That raises an interesting question: What changed between three months ago and last week? Roth said that's for NYDFS to answer. One source said that the NYDFS was pissed Bittrex didn't respond to their terms and retaliated in a heated letter. Story continues Even bitcoin skeptic David Silver agreed that such a deal could have existed. "From a 10,000 foot perspective, I believe NYDFS offered them that deal," he said in a phone interview. Still, what about those fake names? And the traders from North Korea and Iran two sanctioned countries? Roth clarified that those fake name accounts were never allowed to trade or conduct any sort of financial transactions. "What you can do, and I invite you to do this, is put some dumb shit name on Bittrex ... that's going to create a record in Bittrex but you can't do anything with it," Roth said. Another source, a former chief compliance officer at a major broker-dealer, said it was significant that Bittrex was still in the process of automating its transaction monitoring process. "They had a long time to do this," the person said. "They're manually monitoring the deposits that come in to review the source to make sure the bitcoin didn't come from child trafficking," the source said. "Chainalysis does this type of analysis and it costs a lot, but you have to do it." Following the publication of this report, a Bittrex spokesperson noted the firm leveraged Chainalysis for its transaction monitoring. Still, aspects of it are done manually. As for those North Korean traders, Roth denied such traders ever existed. In a response letter to NYDFS, the firm outlined how it noticed the Iran-based traders on the site, closed their accounts, and reported it. Still, as Silver noted, both parties could be right here, based on their own interpretation of the data. "I've dealt with multiple exchanges in litigation who unfortunately have been unable to read their own data," Silver said. "So it would not surprise if both parties are right and wrong on this." Roth was hit personally in the NYDFS letter. There's even an entire section devoted to his incompetence, dubbed "Lack of Qualification of Effectiveness of the Compliance Officer." Roth wasn't afraid to hit back at the NYDFS during our phone call. "They sent four people who didn't know anything about blockchain," he said referring to NYDFS team. "They took people who didn't know what an out bound crypto address was, had the impression it was maybe an email address." This post first appeared in Frank Chaparros weekly column Mad Crypto, which is sent to Genesis subscribers inbox every Monday morning. CAIRO, April 14 (Reuters) - Sudan's main protest group on Sunday called for the immediate handover of power to a civilian transitional government and said it would maintain street demonstrations to push for its aims. Such a transitional council should be protected by the Sudanese armed forces, the Sudanese Professionals Association said in a statement. "The Sudanese Professionals Association affirms the continuation of the sit-in and the exercise of all forms of peaceful pressure to achieve the objectives of the revolution," it said. (Reporting by Omar Fahmy; Writing by Nadine Awadalla; Editing by Angus MacSwan) (Adds military council decisions) By Khalid Abdelaziz KHARTOUM, April 14 (Reuters) - Sudan's main protest group on Sunday demanded the immediate handover of power to a civilian transitional government, saying it would keep up the street demonstrations which ousted former President Omar al-Bashir last week to achieve its aims. The Sudanese Professionals' Association (SPA) called for the establishment of a transitional council which would be protected by the armed forces, adding it would exert "all forms of peaceful pressure to achieve the objectives of the revolution". The military council that replaced Bashir, who was ousted on Thursday by the military after three decades in power, announced a raft of new decisions late on Sunday including the retirement of Defence Minister Awad Ibn Auf. Ibn Auf, and his deputy, resigned as head of the transition council after they assumed the positions following Bashir's ouster. The council also appointed Lieutenant General Abu Bakr Mustafa as intelligence chief, succeeding Salah Abdallah Mohamed Saleh, commonly known as Salah Gosh, who resigned on Friday. It did not name a successor to Ibn Auf. The transitional council spokesman told a news conference in Khartoum on Sunday the military was ready to work with opposition groups to establish a new civilian government. "The ball is now in the political forces' court when it comes to the prime minister or a government," Shams El Din Kabbashi said. "If they are ready today to approve anything, we are ready to implement it," he added. Lieutenant General Omar Zain al-Abideen, another member of the council, said the opposition would have one week to submit their suggestions. The head of the military council, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, had earlier said the council had invited the main opposition parties and protest organisers for a meeting. But the SPA and other main opposition parties, which together make up a group known as the Forces for Freedom and Change, said they did not attend the meeting. "We were not invited to this meeting ... we will submit our suggestions for the government to the military council," a spokesman for SPA told Reuters. Story continues A Reuters witness said the meeting was largely attended by unknown politicians and parliamentarians who are known to be loyal to Bashir's party. A sit-in in the Sudanese capital, which began on April 6, was the culmination of a protest movement that began nearly four months ago, triggered by a worsening economic crisis. Kabbashi said there had been orders by the former regime to disperse the sit-in "at whatever cost," but the military had refused to do so and will continue to protect protesters. "DEFEND THE REVOLUTION" Several thousand protesters continued a sit-in outside the Defence Ministry and for the first time state television showed footage of people marching and chanting in the streets, while a TV presenter congratulated their "revolution". SPA, which had demanded civilians be included on the transitional military council and for Bashir's close associates to leave, called for the arrest of prominent National Intelligence and Security Service generals, including its former head Salah Gosh, and for the removal of the prosecutor general. It also called for the arrest of Bashir, whom the army has said it has already detained. Kabbashi said a committee would be formed to take over the former ruling party's assets and that Sudan's ambassadors to Washington, a former intelligence chief, and to Geneva, a former foreign minister, had been sacked. He also said the military council would release all the army and police officers who participated in demonstrations. Up to four thousand people were still camped out on Sunday, a Reuters witness said, slightly fewer than on previous days, with some people returning to work for the first time in days. After deadly clashes at the sit-in last week, the atmosphere was relaxed, with soldiers drinking tea and chatting with protesters. "We are at our sit-in until we hear the response from the army to the ... demands. We will defend the revolution from hijacking," Mouawiya Mubarak, a 21-year-old student, said. "Our demands are clear and have not yet been achieved, why would we go home? Our sit-in is the most powerful weapon in our hands," the SPA said in a tweet. (Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy in Cairo; Writing by Aidan Lewis, Hesham Hajali and Nadine Awadalla; Editing by Janet Lawrence, Alexander Smith and Chris Reese) Sysco Corporation SYY has recently acquired two food distributors J & M Wholesale Meats and Imperio Foods in a deal, financial terms of which were undisclosed. Per the deal, both the companies will continue to be operated by their existing executives and owners. This move is in sync with the companys plans to grow its distribution network and customer base along with boosting long-term growth. J&M and Imperio, also known as sister companies, generate approximately $44 million in combined annual sales. While J&M specializes in center of the plate products, catering to foodservice customers and small retail locations in the Hispanic segment, Imperio supplies dry Hispanic retail-pack canned goods. The move reinforces Syscos focus on accelerating growth via acquisitions. Prior to this, the company had inked a deal to acquire Illinois-based distributor, Waugh Foods, which generates roughly $40 million in annual sales, per media reports. The companys other notable buyouts include HFM in Hawaii, Doerle Food Service in Louisiana and Kent Frozen Foods in the U.K. Also, the company inked a deal to buy the remaining 50% stake in Mayca Distribuidores of Costa Rica. We believe these acquisitions have benefitted the companys top line to some extent. Notably, Sysco posted sales of $58.73 billion in fiscal 2018, followed by $55.37 billion in fiscal 2017. Well, this deal will enable the company to expand customer base to Hispanic regions. Apart from this, it will also strengthen Syscos existing business in the California region, as the sister companies operate across northern California and Oregon. This, in turn, is likely to strengthen the companys U.S. Foodservice unit, which has been performing well for quite some time now. Evidently, sales in this division advanced 4.2% to $10.1 billion during second-quarter fiscal 2019, wherein local case volumes within U.S. Broadline operations increased 3.3% (including organic sales growth of 2.4%) and total case volumes ascended 2.9% (wherein organic sales increased 2%). Notably, local case volumes in this segment have been rising year over year for 19 consecutive quarters now. Additionally, rising restaurant sales have been benefiting the companys U.S. operations for a while. We expect such upsides to continue driving this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock that has gained 12.6% in a years time against the industrys decline of 5%. Story continues Interested in Consumer Staples Stocks? Check These Medifast MED, with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), has long-term EPS growth rate of 20%. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. General Mills, Inc. GIS, with a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), has long-term EPS growth rate of 7.5%. Lamb Weston Holdings LW, with a Zacks Rank #2, has long-term EPS growth rate of 12.4%. Biggest Tech Breakthrough in a Generation Be among the early investors in the new type of device that experts say could impact society as much as the discovery of electricity. Current technology will soon be outdated and replaced by these new devices. In the process, its expected to create 22 million jobs and generate $12.3 trillion in activity. A select few stocks could skyrocket the most as rollout accelerates for this new tech. Early investors could see gains similar to buying Microsoft in the 1990s. Zacks just-released special report reveals 7 stocks to watch. The report is only available for a limited time. See 7 breakthrough stocks now>> 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 Sysco Corporation (SYY) : Free Stock Analysis Report General Mills, Inc. (GIS) : Free Stock Analysis Report MEDIFAST INC (MED) : Free Stock Analysis Report Lamb Weston Holdings Inc. (LW) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Investing.com - The U.S. dollar edged down on Monday in Asia as a recovery in risk appetite weighed on the greenback and bolstered demand for riskier assets. The U.S. Dollar Index that tracks the greenback against a basket of other currencies was down 0.1% to 96.477. On Friday, China released stronger-than-expected trade and credit data that showed exports rebounded last month, easing concerns of a global economic growth slowdown. Data on fixed asset investment, industrial production and first quarter growth are set to be released on Wednesday. The Chinese yuan was trading slightly lower against the U.S. dollar. The AUD/USD pair traded near flat at 0.7172. The Reserve Bank of Australia is due to publish the minutes of its latest policy meeting on Tuesday and employment figures are due later in the week. The GBP/USD pair inched up 0.1% to 1.3095. The EU granted a delay to Brexit until October 31 to allow more time for U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May to come up with a deal that lawmakers are willing to support. The USD/JPY pair slipped 0.1% to 111.92. This is a holiday-shortened week, with most major financial markets closed on Friday for the start of the Easter holidays. Related Articles Forex - Aussie Dollar Rises on Strong Jobs Data; Euro Inches Up Ahead of PMI Data Indonesian 'quick counts' underline Widodo poll win, markets rally Euro buoyant on improved economic views, awaits euro zone PMI FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen in front of a displayed Huawei and 5G network logo in this illustration picture, March 30, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo By Christopher Bing and Jack Stubbs WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) - The United States will push its allies at a meeting in Prague next month to adopt shared security and policy measures that will make it more difficult for China's Huawei to dominate 5G telecommunications networks, according to people familiar with the matter and documents seen by Reuters. The event and broader U.S. campaign to limit the role of Chinese telecommunications firms in the build out of 5G networks comes as Western governments grapple with the national security implications of moving to 5G, which promises to be at least 100 times faster than the current 4G networks. The issue is crucial because of 5G's leading role in internet-connected products ranging from self-driving cars and smart cities to augmented reality and artificial intelligence. If the underlying technology for 5G connectivity is vulnerable then it could allow hackers to exploit such products to spy or disrupt them. The United States has been meeting with allies in recent months to warn them Washington believes Huawei's equipment could be used by the Chinese state to spy. Huawei Technologies Co Ltd has repeatedly denied the allegations. Officials from more than 30 countries will meet May 2-3 to agree on security principles for next-generation telecoms networks, said Robert Kahofer, chief of cabinet at Czech cybersecurity agency NUKIB. A U.S. official familiar with the plan said the Prague meeting marks a strategic shift in how the U.S. government plans to urge allies to drop Huawei and other 5G vendors in the future, which Washington believes pose a risk to national security. The official described the approach as "softer." A Huawei spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. U.S. proposals for the Prague meeting urge governments and operators to consider the legal environment in a vendor's country, how much state support a company receives, transparency of corporate structure, and trustworthiness of equipment. It also calls on partners to prioritize security and work together on investigations into cyberattacks aimed at 5G architecture. Story continues The documents do not mention Huawei, the world's largest telecoms equipment maker, by name, but U.S. officials said they hoped it would provide the "intellectual framework" needed for other countries to effectively bar Chinese vendors. In August, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a bill that barred the U.S. government itself from using Huawei and ZTE Corp equipment. "The goal is to agree upon a set of shared principles that would ensure the security of next-generation telecommunications networks," said one of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. The Prague conference has been organized by the Czech foreign ministry with support from NUKIB, said Kahofer. The foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment. Delegations from all of the European Union's 28 member states, as well as the European Commission, NATO and around eight other countries including the United States and Australia are expected to attend, Kahofer said. China and Russia have not been invited, he added, but stressed that the event was not "an anti-Huawei or anti-China conference." Europe has emerged as a key battleground for the future of 5G, with the United States pushing allies and partners to bar Chinese vendors but European governments wary of the trade and economic consequences of angering Beijing. Internet service providers have also warned that banning Huawei would incur huge costs and delay the rollout of 5G by years. A senior U.S. cybersecurity official said last week Washington wanted European governments to adopt "risk-based security frameworks", citing recent moves in Germany to implement stricter security standards for all 5G vendors, and that doing so would effectively rule out using Huawei and ZTE. The United States welcomes engagement from partners and allies to discuss ways that we can work together ensuring that our 5G networks are reliable and secure," said White House National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis. Officials in Britain, which last month exposed new security flaws in Huawei equipment but says it has found no evidence of Chinese state interference, have also spoken of "raising security across the board" for 5G. The European Commission said in March that EU nations would be required to share data on 5G cybersecurity risks and produce measures to tackle them by the end of the year. (Reporting by Christopher Bing in WASHINGTON and Jack Stubbs in LONDON) PHOENIX, AZ / ACCESSWIRE / April 15, 2019 / Uptick Newswire Stock Day Podcast welcomed Medicine Man Technologies (MDCL) ("the Company"), which offers full-service solutions, services, and products to clients interested in exploring, entering, or operating in the legal cannabis industry. CEO and Co-Founder, Andy Williams, joined Stock Day host Everett Jolly. Jolly began the interview by noting that the Company has experienced exponential growth in a short period of time. Jolly even added that the Company was his number one pick out of five stocks chosen for its potential this year. Jolly then asked about a pending state bill, Colorado HB19-1090, and the effect it will have on the Company. Williams explained that under current law it is difficult for cannabis companies to receive funding in Colorado and prohibits them from being owned by publicly traded companies, however, the pending bill will work to open up out of state investment and will allow for public company ownership. "Medicine Man Technologies is uniquely situated to roll-up the best and the brightest of this industry in Colorado, and then expand nationally and globally from there", stated Williams when discussing how the bill will improve the growth of the Company. Jolly then noted that the financial aspect of the cannabis industry is extremely limited and asked Williams what the future of this industry looks like in this respect. Williams explained that a tremendous amount of tax dollars has been generated by the cannabis industry, but meanwhile, employees of marijuana companies have difficulty purchasing homes and cars due to its restrictions. However, solving this issue has to take place on the federal level as opposed to the state level. Williams explained that bills to solve these issues have been in discussion including the STATES Act which will federalize cannabis laws, giving more power to the states when it comes to cannabis-related issues. Jolly then asked about the acquisition of MedPharm and where the Company is at in that process. Williams explained that the Company is currently undergoing the necessary audits and then will be able to finalize the acquisition. Williams stated that this process will likely be completed by June. He also explained that MedPharm already has its own steady revenue stream and is now profitable and growing"They have a lot of room left to grow and are growing fast, but they also have a lot of intellectual property that is very valuable", stated Williams. Story continues To close the interview Williams explained that the Company is just starting to grow and will only continue to do so. "There's a lot of green sky here for us and I would encourage your listeners, to take a position in our stock, and if not, to put us on their watch list" closed Williams. To hear Andy Williams' entire interview, follow the link to the podcast here: https://upticknewswire.com/featured-interview-ceo-andy-williams-of-medicine-man-technologies-inc-otcqx-mdcl-2/ Investors Hangout is a proud sponsor of "Stock Day", and Uptick Newswire encourages listeners to visit the company's message board at https://investorshangout.com/ About Medicine Man Technologies Medicine Man Technologies ( MDCL ), offers full-service solutions and a la carte products and services to Clients interested in exploring, entering, or operating in the legal cannabis industry. Our team is composed of cannabis experts with a variety of experience representing cultivation, processing and dispensary operations, finance, compliance, training, design, and other professional skills. Our comprehensive Menu of Services presents your team with the products and solutions to best conduct your cannabis business. For more information: http://www.medicinemantechnologies.com http://www.medicinemanportal.com Contact: Andy Williams Phone: 303-371-0387 Fax: 303-371-0598 4880 Havana Street, Suite 201 Denver, CO 80239 This press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ from expectations and, consequently, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Words such as "expect," "estimate," "project," "budget," "forecast," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "may," "will," "could," "should," "believes," "predicts," "potential," "continue," and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the expected results. Additional information concerning these and other risk factors are contained in the Company's most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. The Company does not undertake or accept any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect any change in their expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based, except as required by law. About Uptick Newswire and the "Stock Day" Podcast Founded in 2013, Uptick Newswire is the fastest growing media outlet for Nano-Cap and Micro-Cap companies. It educates investors while simultaneously working with penny stock and OTC companies, providing transparency and clarification of under-valued, under-sold Micro-Cap stocks of the market. Uptick provides companies with customized solutions to their news distribution in both national and international media outlets. Uptick is the sole producer of its "Stock Day" Podcast, which is the number one radio show of its kind in America. The Uptick Network "Stock Day" Podcast is an extension of Uptick Newswire, which recently launched its Video Interview Studio located in Phoenix, Arizona. 602-441-3474 https://upticknewswire.com/ SOURCE: Uptick Newswire View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/541965/Uptick-Newswire-Hosts-Medicine-Man-Technologies-on-The-Stock-Day-Podcast-to-Discuss-Exponential-Revenue-Growth If US wants to be leader in 5G, it should approve Sprint, T-Mobile merger: Analyst A Sprint, T-Mobile merger is the path to the best 5G network we're likely to see in the U.S., says New Street Research's Jonathan Chaplin Sprint is sitting on a "phenomenal band of spectrum" that can run the technology, he says. The merger will in turn drive AT&T and Verizon to invest, he says. If President Donald Trump wants to be the leader in 5G technology, the administration should approve the merger between Sprint S-GB and T-Mobile TMUS , analyst Jonathan Chaplin told CNBC on Friday. The two wireless companies agreed to a deal last year, but they are still awaiting federal approval of the $26.5 billion transaction . "If it is really important to the administration to be first in 5G and have a more robust set of infrastructure in the U.S. than China, Japan and Korea do, then they should let the deal go through," Chaplin said on " The Exchange ." "That's the path to the best 5G network we're likely to see in the U.S. and it will drive AT&T T and Verizon VZ to invest." That's because Sprint is sitting on a "phenomenal band of spectrum" that can run the technology, he said. Spectrum is the airwaves networks use to provide the internet to devices. The 5G technology will enable faster data speeds. "What Sprint has is mid-band spectrum, which can work almost everywhere. It might not be great in the most rural parts of Montana but pretty much everywhere else it's going to work great," said Chaplin, who leads the U.S. communications services research team at New Street Research. Verizon and AT&T, on the other hand, have high-frequency spectrums, which work great in the big cities but not very well outside of dense markets, he noted. The problem is, Sprint doesn't have the money to deploy its spectrum band, he added. "If the deal with T-Mobile goes through, that's going to put those companies in a phenomenal position. If the deal doesn't go through, that spectrum just sits on the sidelines for the next five years." Story continues Trump held an event on 5G at the White House on Friday with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, announcing a $20 billion fund to build out high-speed broadband networks in rural America. The FCC also intends to start the agency's third 5G spectrum auction on Dec. 10. "The race to 5G is on and America must win," Trump said, noting that 92 5G markets will be ready by the end of the year, outpacing South Korea, which is on pace to have 48 markets live by the end of 2019. "To accelerate and incentivize these investments, my administration is freeing up as much wireless spectrum as needed," Trump said. "[We're] removing regularity barriers to the buildout of networks.The FCC is taking very bold action, bolder than they've ever taken before, to make wireless spectrum available." It's an issue the president has been pushing for. In February he called on U.S. companies to step up their efforts on the technology. TWEET 1 TWEET 2 The White House had no comment on Chaplin's remarks. CNBC's Todd Haselton and Reuters contributed to this report. More From CNBC In this article: * Market seen trading sideways on lack of bullish news - trader * Malaysia March stocks down 4.6 pct from Feb to 2.92 mln T - MPOB * April 1-15 exports up 1.5-5.1 pct on-month - Amspec Agri Malaysia, ITS cargo surveyors By Emily Chow KUALA LUMPUR, April 15 (Reuters) - Malaysian palm oil futures traded mostly range bound in the first half on Monday due to lack of bullish news, but edged lower at midday break as stockspiles remained high. The benchmark palm oil contract for June delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange was down 0.1 percent at 2,159 ringgit ($525.30) a tonne at the midday break. The market had declined 2.8 percent on a weekly basis last week, but is up 2.5 percent so far for the month. "Stocks still look high," said a Kuala Lumpur-based trader, adding that inventory levels could still rise in April if exports slow down. Recent data from the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) showed March end-stocks dropped 4.6 percent to 2.92 million tonnes from February. Another futures trader in Kuala Lumpur added that the market was likely to remain range trading on a lack of bullish news. Malaysian palm oil shipments for the first half of April rose 1.5 percent from the corresponding period last month, according to independent inspection company AmSpec Agri Malaysia on Monday. Another cargo surveyor, Intertek Testing Services, reported on Monday a 5.1 percent rise for the same time period. Palm oil looks neutral in a narrow range of 2,155-2,177 ringgit per tonne, said Wang Tao, a Reuters market analyst for commodities and energy technicals. In other related oils, Chicago May soybean oil contract was last trading flat at 0520 GMT, and the May soyoil contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange was slightly up 0.04 percent. The Dalian May palm oil contract was also trading flat. Palm oil prices are affected by movements in soyoil, as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oil market. Palm, soy and crude oil prices at 0520 GMT Contract Month Last Change Low High Volume MY PALM OIL APR9 2100 +62.00 2100 2100 40 Story continues MY PALM OIL MAY9 2102 -7.00 2091 2111 951 MY PALM OIL JUN9 2159 -3.00 2156 2172 8203 CHINA PALM OLEIN MAY9 4462 +0.00 4456 4486 31474 CHINA SOYOIL MAY9 5430 +2.00 5426 5458 51996 CBOT SOY OIL MAY9 28.95 +0.00 28.92 28.98 1448 INDIA PALM OIL APR9 534.80 +0.50 533.80 536.4 57 INDIA SOYOIL APR9 739.25 +0.20 739.25 740.1 60 NYMEX CRUDE MAY9 63.57 -0.32 63.41 63.84 32614 Palm oil prices in Malaysian ringgit per tonne CBOT soy oil in U.S. cents per pound Dalian soy oil and RBD palm olein in Chinese yuan per tonne India soy oil in Indian rupee per 10 kg Crude in U.S. dollars per barrel ($1 = 4.1100 ringgit) ($1 = 6.7089 Chinese yuan) ($1 = 69.2910 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Emily Chow; Editing by Rashmi Aich) Welcome to Money Diaries , where we're tackling what might be the last taboo facing modern working women: money. We're asking millennials how they spend their hard-earned money during a seven-day period and we're tracking every last dollar. Calling all entrepreneurs: We want to hear from you! If youre a freelancer or self-employed, wed love to feature your Money Diary. Submit here. Travel Diaries: We're looking to get the inside scoop on when, where, and how our peers are using their vacation days. Open to tracking your travel expenses during an upcoming trip? Email us at traveldiary@refinery29.com. Today: an attorney working at a university who makes $160,000 a year and spends some of her money this week on La Croix seltzer. Occupation: Attorney Industry: Public University Age: 34 Location: San Diego, CA Combined Income: $160,000 My Paycheck Amount (1x/month): $6,375 My Partner's Paycheck Amount (1x/month): $4,612 Gender Identity: Femme Monthly Expenses Monthly Housing Costs: $665 (My wealthy in-laws lent us $170,000 at the bottom of the housing crash to scoop up a tiny, foreclosed-upon condo. We paid them back $800/month for a couple of years. Our current monthly payment is a combination of our HOA fee, property taxes, utilities, and homeowners' insurance.) Loans: $780 (Law school student loans) Health Insurance: $175 Pension Contribution: $1,047 Partner's 403(b) Contribution: $264 My 403(b) Contribution: $400 Parking Permit: $93 Daycare: $2,067 (we have two young kids) Cell Phones: $95 Netflix/Audible/Spotify: $25 Family Zoo Membership: $25 Savings: $1,900 ($700 for my partner's grad school, $500 for a new home downpayment, and $700 miscellaneous savings) Day One 6 a.m. Rise and shine! Any other parent of small children knows young kids wake up freaking early. It takes us a full hour to wake up, eat breakfast, and get dressed. Me, my partner, and both our kiddos need to be out the door by 7 in order to have enough time for us to drop off the kids at daycare and then drive to work. Luckily, my partner and I work for the same large public university and try to carpool as much as possible. Story continues 7:15 a.m. We arrive at the kiddos' daycare to drop them off, and I see that the classroom moms are requesting extra money to buy costumes for the daycare's spring recital (or should I say, "recital"). I quickly Venmo the classroom moms $25 for each kid. $50 7:30 a.m. Crap. I forgot to eat anything before rushing out the door with the kids. I make sure to stop at the drive-thru fast food restaurant on my way to work for my favorite breakfast sandwich and iced coffee ($7.68). Truth be told, I love fast food breakfasts and would stop every single day, but I've been trying to reduce my spending on eating out because my partner and I have aggressive savings goals. $7.68 9 a.m. Woohoo, I get an email stating my health FSA reimbursement went through! The reimbursement is for a $25 doctor visit from last week. As I check my bank account to confirm the reimbursement was deposited, I see that my partner spent $50 on a 10-day parking permit at our work. We won't be able to carpool much over the next couple of weeks due to some upcoming doctor appointments, so we will need the second parking permit. $50 12 p.m. I heat up my lunch that I brought from home. We usually batch cook 2-3 recipes a week and eat the leftovers for lunch. Today, I'm eating some leftover chicken and dumplings from a tried and true Martha Stewart recipe. Yummm. 2 p.m. The afternoon sun comes right into my office window and onto my desk, instantly making me sleepy. I head downstairs to the a frozen yogurt shop in my building and buy a cold, sugary little pick me up. $4.45 5 p.m. The evening commute is always longer than the morning commute. It takes a full 75 minutes to collect my partner, pick up our kids from daycare, and get home. It's also been raining so the commute is extra slow. 7 p.m. THE KIDS ARE IN BED, TIME TO CELEBRATE. And by celebrate, I mean get ready for the next day. I assemble lunches for me, my partner, and my kids for the next day. Then, I put out everybody's clothes for the following day, do the dishes, and pop an edible (Woohoo for a legal state!) before catching up on Game of Thrones. Daily Total: $112.13 Day Two 6 a.m. Did I mention my kids like to wake up early? Because they do. Always. We do the same routine of making the kids' breakfast, getting them dressed, and heading out to the car. At least this time I remember to make myself a cup of coffee and eat a couple of scrambled eggs, so I don't end up buying breakfast again. 8:30 a.m. While doing my daily check of our bank statements and updating my budgeting app, I realize, OOF, it's Tuesday a.k.a. our weekly daycare payment day. Goodbye $477. Thank goodness we LOVE love love our daycare providers and would pay even more for our kids to stay in their care. But shhhh, don't tell them that. 9 a.m. My morning client cancelled on me, so I go to the coffee shop on campus and re-caffeinate! I splurge on a fancy mocha. $4.45 12:30 p.m. Today is another exciting re-heated chicken and dumplings for lunch. I'm glad I'll be cooking a new batch of lunches tonight. I'm a little bit sick of this recipe. 4 p.m. My partner heads off to their part-time evening Ed.D. program, which means two predictable expenses: a full tank of gas for the long commute ($39) and paying for parking at the other university ($6.35) $45.35 4:30 p.m. It's time to leave work to go get the kiddos from daycare. My partner has class all evening, so I enjoy the solo ride in my car. I listen to my favorite podcast ( Pod Save America) and mentally prep for a chaotic night of solo parenting. 7 p.m. THE KIDS ARE IN BED (this never stops being amazing). I spend a couple hours making my favorite homemade pasta sauce (shout out to Budget Bytes!), garlic bread, pasta, and some steak for my partner to eat when they get home later. I get sucked into the latest Armchair Expert podcast episode while I cook and end up buying the guest speaker's Kindle book because I find the interview so fascinating. $10.99 9:30 p.m. This old lady hits the hay after reading a few pages of my new Kindle book. The book is as interesting as I had hoped, but it's still a heavy duty non-fiction book. I can only take a few pages before I feel my eyes getting heavy. Daily Total: $60.79 Day Three 6 a.m. Did I mention I have kids that pop up wide awake every single dang morning at 6 a.m.? However, because I'm working late tonight, I don't have to head into my office until 11. Our pace this morning is leisurely as I make sure all four of us get some breakfast. 8 a.m. Do any other parents use their PTO to catch up on general parenting/house stuff? I'm using this weekday morning to avoid big crowds and get the grocery shopping out of the way so I don't have to shop this weekend when I'd rather be adventuring with my kids. First stop is Trader Joe's for some non-bulk groceries. I can't help but grab a bag (or two) of frozen orange chicken. My other expensive grocery splurge is the prepared tuna salad. I know, I know, I could make it myself, but sometimes you pay for convenience, am I right? My Trader Joe's trip costs $73.42, which is pretty typical for our weekly trips. $73.42 9 a.m. Next up, Costco! We tend to buy the same specific items in bulk every week. This includes 2 dozen eggs, organic whole milk for the kiddos, La Croix by the case, frozen seafood, frozen dino chicken nuggets, and yogurt tubes. Why my kids won't eat yogurt from a cup but will slurp it out of a plastic tube is beyond me, but I guess as long as they're eating something! I decide to splurge on a bouquet of roses. When my partner is with me they usually talk me out of buying flowers (why spend money on things that end up dying?), but they're not here and I feel like buying myself flowers. $142.32 11 a.m. I finally get to the office and heat up one of the frozen Trader Joe's bambino pizzas. If I didn't have a partner or kids, I could very happily live alone on just frozen Trader Joe's food. Alas, my freezer is only so big and these little frozen meals are not exactly economical for four people. 3 p.m. I get a fraud notice text from my bank and immediately panic. Upon signing into my bank account while on the phone with a customer rep from my bank, I realize it was all an innocent mistake. My partner bought reserved parking online in downtown LA for a conference they are attending next week and the bank mistook the charges as suspicious. Multiple days of parking ended up totaling $80. $80 8:30 p.m. I finally leave work after a late evening workshop. I have been craving my favorite ice cream from a local shop and end up grabbing a pint on my way home ($11.60 with tax and tip). By the time I get home, my partner has already put the kids to bed and they are plugging away at their homework. I heat up some of the kids' dino chicken nuggets for myself (they're delicious). We get through half an episode of Game of Thrones before I start nodding off. $11.60 Daily Total: $307.34 Day Four 6 a.m. Spoiler Alert: The kids get up at 6, raring to go. One of them has a runny nose, and I pray to the daycare gods she doesn't spike a fever and get sent home early. I have some important doctor's appointments later today that will go much more smoothly without a two-year-old in tow! Continuing on last night's theme of eating the kids' food, I sit down with my coffee to have a big ol' bowl of Froot Loops before doing the daycare run and morning commute. 7:45 a.m. I have a little Friday tradition before heading into the office I stop at the local Starbucks for a nice big mocha. I like to take my time and savor my mocha, so I sit down at a table and leisurely scroll Instagram. I know that the second I step foot in my office at least one person will be needing something from me, so I take a few moments to recharge my batteries. $5.65 12:30 p.m. It's been a packed morning with back-to-back client meetings. I'm now inhaling the second Trader Joe's bambino pizza I had in the office freezer. I only have an hour to write up my notes and answer emails before I have to leave for the doctor. 2 p.m. I'll be having surgery next month and this afternoon was ear-marked for me to visit with three different medical professionals to clear me for surgery. (Don't worry, I'm okay! It's not an emergency situation!) We have wonderful health insurance so the entire afternoon of appointments only costs $20. I celebrated my medical clearance with a trip to the artisanal burger shop in the neighborhood. I'm feeling guilty about how much money I've spent on eating out this week, so I decide to skip the pricey side of fries and soda. The total comes out to $13.59 including tax and tip. $33.59 6 p.m. It's the start of the weekend! I get home 30 minutes before my partner and kids, so I whip up some scrambled eggs, jasmine rice, and soy sauce (one of the kids' favorite meals) while snacking on a low-dose edible. I used to be a major wine consumer but even cheap wine can add up! I was easily spending ~$150-$200/month on wine for a couple of years. Plus, even one glass of wine messes with my sleep and leaves me with a headache in the morning. Remember those tiny 6 a.m. risers I live with? Having a headache makes caring for them a lot harder! 7:30 p.m. The edible kicks in, as does my massive crush on Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard. I read on social media that they've started a new eco-friendly baby product line called Hello Bello and decide I want to splurge on some adorable printed disposable diapers for my daughter. I use a promo code I see on social media, so the whole month's box of diapers and wipes comes to $52.28. We currently spend about $35/month on Up&Up (Target) brand diapers, but I've been curious about the various diaper subscription services out there. I would love to never do another midnight diaper run ever again! $52.28 10:30 p.m. Things are getting crazy over here, my partner and I are staying up past 9:30! We couldn't help it, we're trying to catch up on all seven seasons of Game of Thrones before the next season premieres. It's a hard job, but someone's gotta do it! Daily Total: $91.52 Day Five 6 a.m. Don't toddlers know that weekends are for sleeping in? Hahaha NOPE. At least on the weekend we don't have to hustle. Instead, we all lounge on the couch as a family for a couple hours watching Blippi, Transformers, Frozen, and other various forms of parental torture. It's such a luxury to have multiple, hot cups of coffee in one morning. On weekends, I like to make buttermilk pancakes for the kids with surprise cups of chocolate milk. I take the time to make my favorite breakfast for myself (scrambled eggs with cubed ham and a sprinkling of cheddar cheese, with a buttermilk biscuit on the side) and get ready for a whole weekend together as a family. 10 a.m. All four of us are finally dressed and headed outside. Finding cheap or free things to do with kids can sometimes be difficult thank goodness my kids love good ol' fashioned trips to the park. We have five or six favorite parks around San Diego. This morning we head to a lakeside playground with lots of ducks and lizards. It's been raining a lot in southern California so we're all wearing our boots and are ready to stomp in some puddles and mud! 12:30 p.m. The kids are down for their naps, and I heat up some of that Trader Joe's frozen orange chicken for my partner and I to eat for lunch. My two-year-old has just figured out how to climb out of her crib (F%*@#) so last week we ordered a set of "big kid beds" (i.e. twin size beds) for each kid. Today, my partner and I sat down to price out bed linen and comforters for the beds. We end up finding things we like and impulsively place a large Amazon order of two comforters, four sheet sets, and some waterproof linings. We have money left over on a gift card we received from my in-laws for Lunar New Year, so we only end up paying $103.08. $103.08 2:30 p.m. It's laundry time! One of the downsides to our current living situation is we don't have our own washer and dryer. On the weekends, we average between four and seven loads of laundry. I know we only have two kids but who knew such small humans could generate so much laundry?? Our community laundry facility uses pre-paid laundry cards, and it's time to refill it ($41). $41 4:30 p.m. While trying to survive my kiddos watching another round of Frozen, I end up online shopping on my phone. I've gotten better over the years, but I still spend more than I would like on stickers. This afternoon I get lost down an Etsy rabbit hole and find some planner stickers I simply cannot live without ($43.10). Planning my weeks with stickers in my Erin Condren planner is one of the few hobbies that survived both my kids' toddlerhoods, so I'm okay with the sticker expenses for now. Hopefully, when my kids are older and less dependent on me, I can pursue hobbies outside the home, but for now the stickers are silly and fun. $43.10 6 p.m. Because weekends are for partying, my partner and I heat up a frozen pizza to eat with the kids. We wrap up the evening with some dancing to some of my son's favorite songs (Queen's "We Will Rock You" and ABBA's "Dancing Queen"). My secret plan works as the kids fall asleep quickly after all that pizza and dancing. Now my partner and I can get straight into Game of Thrones! We love to gossip about the show and throw out possible ridiculous endings to the franchise. Daily Total: $187.18 Day Six 6 a.m. For once my kids aren't wide awake at 6 a.m. BUT that's because it's a Daylight Savings Time day and their little bodies believe it is still 5. Uuugggh. As painful as it is, I wake up both kids to try to get them to adjust to the time change. I needed every single ounce of coffee this morning. 9 a.m. Time for the zoo! Our local zoo is amazing; most local folks I know with kids pay for annual family passes and visit the zoo frequently. Even this morning as we head straight to the Children's Zoo area, we run into a few of my son's preschool buddies. The kids hug like they haven't seen each other in YEARS while us parents chat and caffeinate. I grabbed a mocha in the Starbucks drive-thru on our way to the zoo ($5.65), and I'm grateful for a chance to sit and drink it while my kids tire themselves out on some playground equipment. $5.65 1 p.m. Now that the four of us are nice and tired from our zoo excursion, it's nap time! My partner and I had plans to watch some more Game of Thrones and meal prep while the kids napped, but we both ended up napping when the kids did. Oops. #noregrets 3 p.m. As much as we wanted to go out and play after nap time, it's started raining again. We're southern Californians and don't do well in the rain, so we decide to stay in, build a pillow fort, and watch Frozen. Again. While my partner is keeping everyone happy in the pillow fort, I am able to meal prep like I meant to do earlier before my surprise nap. This week the kids will be having dino nuggets and meatballs for lunch, with sides of honeydew, edamame, pretzels, and yogurt tubes. For my partner and I, I grill up some hamburger patties and salmon steaks for the next few days of dinners and lunches. Sundays bring out the goal setter in me and I'm determined to spend less money eating out! At this point, my partner hits their limit with Frozen and impulse buys Finding Nemo through our Amazon Fire Stick. ($12.99). Love ya, Elsa, but I love Dory even more! (OMG, who have I turned into....) $12.99 5 p.m. Crap. We ran out of fruit snacks, a favorite splurge that I like to put in the kids' lunches. Since I'm planning to head to the Ralphs down the street for the fruit snacks, I brainstorm a couple of other meals we might eat this week. I've been craving pulled pork sandwiches, so I add buns, pork shoulder, and barbecue sauce to my grocery list. I keep the shopping trip focused and only buy the items on my list. $38.19 7 p.m. Like most Sunday nights after the kids go to bed we make sure lunches are assembled, clothes are set out, and laundry is put away. Sunday nights are always so melancholic around here, no one wants to believe the fun weekend is coming to an end. Daily Total: $56.83 Day Seven 6 a.m. I had to wake up the kids again, thanks to the cruelty of Daylight Savings Time. Their bodies still think it's 5 a.m., and my older one especially hates being woken up. However, it's a weekday and we've got places to go and people to see! I get their breakfasts prepared, the kiddos clothed, and everyone is out the door on time. 7:30 a.m. Eff. Remember my goal last night to spend less money? Well I forgot to eat breakfast again in the hubbub of the Monday morning chaos. So, it's another trip to the drive-thru for a cheap sandwich and iced coffee ($7.68). I think the employee is starting to recognize me now because of how frequently I am here. $7.68 7:50 a.m. Gas refill! Luckily I don't have to refill our minivan that often (oh yes, I drive a mom-mobile), since it can be expensive ($45.) This tank should last us the week. $45 12 p.m. For lunch I'm reheating a couple of the burger patties I cooked last night, along with some grilled asparagus. I prefer to ditch the bun all together and just use a fork and knife to eat the burger patties with a slice of American cheese. It's delicious and cheap. 3 p.m. I'm leaving the office a smidge early for my semi-weekly therapy appointment. The only crappy part about my health insurance is that it has terrible mental health coverage. I end up paying out of pocket for my therapist who I adore. It adds up quickly, so I only see her once every other week, unless I'm having an emotionally difficult month. Seeing a therapist regularly is my ultimate form of self care, it keeps me sane and allows me to process the frustrations I have being an employee, partner, and mom. $120 5 p.m. Since my partner is doing the daycare pick up today, I take advantage of my being alone and head over to Target for a pair of shoes for my son. I don't know if all four-year-olds go through shoes as quickly as mine does, but I swear he rips holes into his sneakers within months of getting them. Despite getting a new pair around Christmas time, he already needs to replace them and the Target phone app has a 20% off coupon for shoes. I just hope I remembered what size he wears, he's growing so quickly! While at Target, I pick up a new lipstick my sister recommended and a new box of Biz (my secret weapon for stains). $36.14 6:30 p.m. Home for the evening. I help my partner wrap up the kiddos' bedtime routines and kiss them goodnight. My partner needs to order a new textbook on Audible (with all the solo driving we've been doing lately, audio versions of their required reading has been a godsend!). This book cost $14.99. Like most evenings, while my partner studies I prep the next day's lunches and outfits, and then sneak in one more episode of Game of Thrones. I also use this time to text with my sister and get updates/photos of my adorable nephew. Being a working parent of young kids can be isolating, and I've learned to be really intentional in keeping up the friendships that matter most to me, even if it's just evening texts and sending each other parenting memes through Instagram. $14.99 Daily Total: $223.81 The Breakdown Money Diaries are meant to reflect individual women's experiences and do not necessarily reflect Refinery29's point of view. Refinery29 in no way encourages illegal activity or harmful behavior. The first step to getting your financial life in order is tracking what you spend to try on your own, check out our guide to managing your money every day. For more money diaries, click here. Have questions about how to submit or our publishing process? Read our Money Diaries FAQ doc here: r29.co/mdfaqs Were working on a story that takes a look at what real people spend on weed and marijuana-derived products. 4/20 is right around the corner, and we want to know what real people think is a reasonable amount to spend each month. To be considered for an upcoming article please fill out this form! All answers are anonymous. Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here? How To Watch Game of Thrones Season 8 LiveEven If You Don't Have HBO A Week In New York City On A Joint $400,000 Income A Week In San Francisco, CA, On A $330,000 Income WASHINGTON (AP) Rep. Ilhan Omar says she's faced increased death threats since President Donald Trump spread around a video that purports to show her being dismissive of the 2001 terrorist attacks. "This is endangering lives," she said, accusing Trump of fomenting right-wing extremism. "It has to stop." Her statement late Sunday followed an announcement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that she has taken steps to ensure the safety of the Minnesota Democrat and the speaker's call for Trump to take down the video. Soon after Pelosi's statement, the video disappeared as a pinned tweet at the top of Trump's Twitter feed, but it was not deleted. Pelosi was among Democrats who had criticized Trump over the tweet, with some accusing him of trying to incite violence against the Muslim lawmaker. An upstate New York man recently was charged with making death threats against her. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders defended Trump earlier Sunday, saying the president has a duty to highlight Omar's history of making comments that others deem anti-Semitic or otherwise offensive and that he wished no "ill will" upon the first-term lawmaker. But Omar said that since Trump retweeted the video Friday night, she's received many threats on her life that referred or replied to the posted video. "Violent crimes and other acts of hate by right-wing extremists and white nationalists are on the rise in this country and around the world," she said. "We can no longer ignore that they are being encouraged by the occupant of the highest office in the land." She said: "We are all Americans." Earlier, Pelosi issued a statement while traveling in London saying she had spoken with congressional authorities "to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff." Pelosi said officials will continue to monitor and assess threats against Omar, and called on Trump to discourage such behavior. Story continues "The President's words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger," Pelosi said. "President Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video." The video in Trump's tweet included a snippet from a recent speech Omar gave to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in which she described the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center as "some people did something," along with news footage of the hijacked airplanes hitting the Twin Towers. Trump captioned his tweet with: "WE WILL NEVER FORGET!" Critics accuse Omar of being flippant in describing the perpetrators of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. She later sought to defend herself by tweeting a quote from President George W. Bush, in which the Republican president referred to the attackers as "people" just days after 9/11. Neither Trump's tweet nor the video included Omar's full quote or the context of her comments, which were about Muslims feeling that their civil liberties had eroded after the attacks. The tweet was posted atop Trump's Twitter feed for much of Sunday, with more than 9 million views. It remained lower in the feed after Pelosi requested that the video be pulled. Sanders questioned why Democrats weren't following Trump's example and calling out Omar, too. Democrats who criticized the president over the tweet defended Omar, with some noting their past disagreements with her. "Certainly the president is wishing no ill will and certainly not violence towards anyone, but the president is absolutely and should be calling out the congresswoman for her not only one time but history of anti-Semitic comments," Sanders said. "The bigger question is why aren't Democrats doing the same thing? It's absolutely abhorrent the comments that she continues to make and has made and they look the other way." Omar repeatedly has pushed fellow Democrats into uncomfortable territory with comments about Israel and the strength of the Jewish state's influence in Washington. She apologized for suggesting that lawmakers support Israel for pay and said she isn't criticizing Jews. But she refused to take back a tweet in which she suggested American supporters of Israel "pledge allegiance" to a foreign country. Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat who represents Manhattan's financial district, which was targeted on 9/11, said he had no issues with Omar's characterization of the attack. "I have had some problems with some of her other remarks, but not but not with that one," he said. Sanders commented on "Fox News Sunday" and ABC's "This Week." 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Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe Did Uber (UBER) make the right move when it exited the worlds most populous markets? Financially, the answer seems to be yes for Uber, which makes its public debut on Friday, May 10. The deals have spared Uber from losing billions of dollars and so far they have been sound investments, according to the ride-hailing companys IPO filing. Uber has already seen some gains from its exit deals with local players, including Chinas Didi Chuxing and Russias Yandex. Those minority stakes, including 15% in Didi Chuxing, 23% of Singapore-based Grab and 38% of Yandex taxi, collectively contributed $12.5 billion to Ubers valuation. But the unusual arrangements also leave Uber competing with its own investments as regional leaders in the industry expand and look for new opportunities to grow. While Lyft (LYFT) which reported first-quarter revenue that topped expectations on May 7 operates only in the U.S. and Canada, Uber is a global transportation empire operating in over 63 countries. The international market is crucial to the companys growth markets outside the U.S. account for approximately 74% of all trips booked on its platform in the last quarter of 2018. As Uber is getting a bigger share of the global ride-hailing business, which Grand View Research projects to be worth $11.94 billion by 2025, it will inevitably be battling for market share with companies that it owns minority stakes in. The San Francisco-based startup expanded abroad in 2011 at a stunning growth rate. Uber launched in a new city each day by the end of 2014. The expansion sent Ubers valuation ballooning, but not all of its overseas endeavors have panned out very well. Ride-share wars and Softbanks role Uber competes against Didi around the world, and we have it mapped out. After years of cash burn in China, Russia and Southeast Asia, Uber exited those markets in exchange for minority stakes in local players there. The deals prohibited Uber from running its own service in those markets for a few years, but the battle continues elsewhere as Didi and Yandex grow in markets where Uber is present. However, Ubers deal with Didi is still pending the approval from the Chinese government after more than two years. Now, Uber and Didi are in a face-off in Mexico, Brazil, and Australia. And in some European countries Uber is taking on Yandex. Story continues These companies have expanded their offerings, and we expect them to continue to expand their offerings in the future, to compete with us in various markets throughout the world, Ubers IPO prospectus said. Didi, for example, is competing with Uber not just by itself, but also through a proxy war. Didi has backed Ubers rivals in major markets, from Indias Ola, Europes Taxify, Brazils 99, and a $100 million investment in Lyft on Ubers home turf. In 2017, Didi also invested in Careem, the Dubai-based ride-hailing service that was acquired by Uber at $3.1 billion in March. The structure also highlights the vital role of Softbank, the investor that has spun a ride-hailing web across the world. Softbank is behind Didi, Uber, and Grab, and is believed to have helped Uber negotiate its exit deals. SoftBank has a lot of say in what they do as a strategic investor in all of them, and I don't think it's good for Softbank, for them to compete with each other, Zeke Hernandez, an assistant professor in management at the Wharton School of Business, told Yahoo Finance. Whats good for Softbank is what's happening now, each one is dominant in a certain region of the world. This article was originally published on April 15. Krystal Hu covers technology and China for Yahoo Finance. Write to her viakrystalh@yahoofinance.com Note: the Read more: China builds the worlds longest high-speed rail as a rail stalls in the U.S. Apple cuts iPhone XR price for partner sellers in China Amazon eyes closed Sears stores for Whole Foods expansion ZURICH, SWITZERLAND / ACCESSWIRE / April 15, 2019 / Golden Dawn Minerals Inc. (TSX.V: GOM; OTCPK: GDMRF; Frankfurt: 3G8B) announced that Christopher Anderson has agreed to accept an appointment as the company's Interim CEO and Director. Mr. Anderson also serves as President and CEO of Ximen Mining Corp. (TSX.V: XIM; OTCQB: XXMMF; Frankfurt: 1XMA) Mr. Anderson intends to switch Golden Dawn's lights back on, which may also greatly benefit Ximen as the company owns 3 precious/base metals projects in southern British Columbia, with the Gold Drop Project being in proximity to Golden Dawn's Greenwood Mill. Today, Ximen and its option partner reported that the spring 2019 drilling program on the Gold Drop Property has begun. This could turn out as one of North America's highest grade gold-silver-tellurium projects, potentially advancing towards bulk sampling faster than many would have thought (until today). Same applies to Ximen's 100% owned Brett Gold Project (2h drive to the Greenwood Mill), where underground workings already exist. Furthermore, Ximen last week reported its focus to acquire the past producing Kenville Gold Mine located in trucking distance to the Greenwood Mill. With today's news adding the highly experienced mine manager Lloyd Penner to the Ximen team, the company obviously aims to aggressively advance towards developing its mining activities on its various assetsa. He oversaw a large drill program in 2010-2012, discovering several new high-grade veins at Kenville. Overall, the road(s) to success may begin today. Enjoy the ride! Although this report mayseem a bit long, I can only urge you to read it all carefully as today's newsmay also have broad implications for Ximen Mining Corp. going forward. The full report can be accessed with the following links: English (PDF): http://www.rockstone-research.com/images/PDF/Ximen10en.pdf German (PDF): http://www.rockstone-research.com/images/PDF/Ximen10de.pdf Contact: Rockstone Research Stephan Bogner (Dipl. Kfm., FH) 8260 Stein am Rhein, Switzerland Phone: +41-44-5862323 Email: info@rockstone-research.com www.rockstone-research.com Story continues Disclaimer: This report contains forward-looking information or forward-looking statements (collectively "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information is typically identified by words such as: "believe", "expect", "anticipate", "intend", "estimate", "potentially" and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. Rockstone Research, Ximen Mining Corp. and Zimtu Capital Corp. caution investors that any forward-looking information provided herein is not a guarantee of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking information as a result of various factors. The reader is referred to the Ximen Mining Corp.s and Zimtu Capital Corp.s public filings for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effects which may be accessed through the Ximen Mining Corp.s and Zimtu Capital Corp.s profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Please read the full disclaimer within the full research report as a PDF as fundamental risks and conflicts of interest exist. The author, Stephan Bogner, holds a long position in Ximen Mining Corp., Golden Dawn Minerals Inc. and Zimtu Capital Corp. and is being paid by Zimtu Capital Corp. for the preparation, publication and distribution of this report, whereas Zimtu Capital also holds a long position in Ximen Mining Corp. and Golden Dawn Minerals Inc. The author currently does not hold any equity positions or other kind of interest in GGX Gold Corp. or any other mentioned company. Ximen Mining Corp. has paid Zimtu Capital Corp. to provide this report and other investor awareness services. SOURCE: RockstoneResearch View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/541972/Ximen-Mining-Paving-the-Roads-to-Success Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of Afghanistans most notorious former warlords, said there is "no doubt" neighboring Pakistan supports the Afghan Taliban. In an interview with RFE/RL in the Afghan capital on April 14, Hekmatyar also expressed hope that talks scheduled this week between the Western-backed Kabul government and the Taliban could prove a significant step towards ending the war. U.S. and Afghan officials have long accused Pakistan of providing safe havens for the militants, a claim rejected by Islamabad. Hekmatyar forged close ties with Pakistan's shadowy military establishment and its notorious spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), a relationship that was built during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, when the mujahideen commander was one of the main beneficiaries of Pakistani and CIA money and weapons. "Pakistan has an interest in Afghanistans political affairs," said Hekmatyar, whose Hezb-e Islami militant group signed a controversial peace accord with the Kabul government in 2016. "Pakistan is supporting the Taliban. There is no doubt about it." Hekmatyar said Pakistan now sees the war in Afghanistan as more harmful than beneficial to its interests, especially because of a crippling financial crisis and growing international pressure on Islamabad to clamp down on the Taliban. Washington has said Pakistan is playing a positive role in the ongoing U.S.-Taliban peace talks in Qatar that are aimed at ending the nearly 18-year war. U.S. and Taliban negotiators have held several rounds of talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, culminating in the basic framework of a potential peace deal in which the militants would prevent international terrorist groups from basing themselves in Afghanistan in exchange of a withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. That framework deal is dependent on a political settlement among Afghans, including the Kabul government, the Taliban, and opposition figures. The Taliban long refused to talk with Kabul, calling it a U.S. "puppet," although Kabul has said a government delegation will meet the Taliban for introductory talks in Doha on April 19. Hekmatyar is a member of the Reconciliation Leadership Council, a new council led by President Ashraf Ghani, that will appoint negotiators for the April 19-21 talks with the Taliban, create their mandate for talks, and oversee their work. The council is composed of both current and former senior government officials and leaders of political parties and opposition groups. The 69-year-old said he hopes the council will bridge chronic divisions among the political elite over peace talks with the Taliban, but warned that Kabul should not sideline powerful opposition figures from the process. Peace should not be monopolized, said Hekmatyar, a candidate in the presidential elections scheduled for September. Peace is a national issue. An agreement requires us all to engage honestly and unconditionally. Pakistans leading rights watchdog says it has documented the unprecedented level to which the freedom of expression and press freedom has shrunk in the country. In its annual report documenting rights abuses in the predominantly Muslim country of 207 million people, the nongovernmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) revealed a startling decrease in individual and collective freedom of expression in 2018. Media coverage was severely inhibited amid a climate of intimidation and fear, most specifically in reporting on abuses by government security and intelligence agencies as well as militants, the report noted. According to the HRCP, Pakistani media companies were pressured by officials to avoid covering certain issues while journalists were intimidated into self-censorship as authorities punished violators of such bans by blocking television networks and the distribution of newspapers. Overt repression was attributed to national security concerns, the report said. In most cases, however, the incidences of interference and intimidation by state and non-state actors received no official acknowledgment and there was a complete absence of efforts to hold anyone accountable. The report documented an alarming trend of threats to freedom of expression. These include the naming of journalist Cyril Almeida in a treason case along with former Pakistani Prime Ministers Nawaz Sharif and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi for interviewing them. Almeida faced an arrest warrant and a ban on traveling abroad, which were later revoked. The media were reportedly also pressured into firing certain employees who were deemed too critical of the Pakistani [security] establishment, the report said. Prime-time news [television] show hosts Talat Hussain, Murtaza Solangi, Matiullah Jan, and Nusrat Javed either quit or lost their jobs. HRCP says protests and movements demanding security, rights, or accountably of officials faced censorship of their coverage. The most commonly tabooed subjects cited were: missing persons, the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), Baloch separatists, and rights activists, the report said, citing a survey the HRCP conducted to gauge how officials control and influence the coverage of Pakistani news media. The report says journalists in the countrys print and broadcast media routinely receive advice from Pakistani civilian and military bureaucrats responsible for public relations. In some cases, state or intelligence agencies approached channel or newspaper owners directly, threatening their channel/publication or parent business with NAB or FIA cases or suspension of advertisements unless they agreed to abide by certain conditions, report said citing the National Accountability Bureau and the Federal Investigation Agency by their acronyms. But last year Asif Ghafoor, a spokesman for the military, rejected imposing curbs on the media. We have never told any journalist or media owner what to say and what not to, he told journalists in June. We have always told them that Pakistan needs to unite, and we need to bring forward its strengths and success. I thank the media for their willing cooperation. Pakistan is considered one of the most dangerous countries for journalists. According to the global media watchdog the Committee to Protect Journalists, 68 journalists have been killed in Pakistan since 1992. Pakistani journalists face censorship, beatings, threats, disappearances, and illegal confinements. In an ominous sign of the threats faced by journalists, the HRCP says that even the editor of its annual State of Human Rights in 2017 report faced an armed raid thinly disguised as a burglary. In the hour-long visitation, her phones, laptop, and hard drives were removed, and documents inspected, the report said. She was questioned on her personal and professional status, including her religion, caste, and who was paying her. HRCP says that while some jewelry and cash were taken, the police admitted it was no ordinary burglary and she was advised against filing a complaint. An investigation never materialized and formal letters written to the authorities went unacknowledged, the report noted. Yes, I found a better job Yes, but I'm still looking for a new job Yes, I retired Yes, I started my own business No, I like my current job No, but I'm currently looking for a new job Vote View Results 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. The sole finalist who was to be sworn in Thursday as the next superintendent of Academy School District 20 has withdrawn her application, the Pikes Peak regions second-largest public school district announced Monday. Kimberly Hough, an assistant superintendent in the Loudoun County School District in Ashburn, Va., near Washington, D.C., informed the five-member board Sunday that she respectfully removed herself as the recommended candidate, according to a statement the district released. No reason was given for Houghs decision. While this is a surprising turn of events, we remain confident we will find an outstanding educator to successfully lead our organization as superintendent, Tracey Johnson, D-20s board president, said in the statement. Theres no hard feelings, said D-20 spokeswoman Allison Cortez. Were not discouraged, she said. Nobody feels defeated right now. Board members and Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates the firm D-20 hired to assist with conducting the search will meet Thursday in a closed executive session to discuss next steps, Cortez said. The search firm didnt know how frequently this happens, Cortez said. However, an HYA representative told the board, Superintendent candidates do certainly withdraw during the time of public notice, which varies by state, from searches for a variety of reasons. Hough was one of 26 viable candidates the board interviewed. As part of the selection process, D-20 board members visited the district where Hough works and spoke with more than 30 of her colleagues, including superintendents, school board members, principals and the district leadership team. The D-20 board was to have officially voted Thursday to approve Hough as the replacement for the retiring Superintendent Mark Hatchell, following a state-mandated two-week waiting period between the time of naming a sole finalist and offering the person the job. Hough was scheduled to meet the community on Friday. Hough stood out because shes collaborative, dedicated, a relationship-builder and forward-thinking, D-20 board members said at the April 4 meeting, when Hough became the sole finalist. Last spring, Hough had been one of four finalists for superintendent of Thompson School District R2-J in Loveland. She did not get the job. Contact the writer: 719-476-1656. 1. Yes. Patrol cars in the lot and armed officers inside would deter would-be criminals. 2. Yes. Police should announce their plans and be highly visible during store hours. 3. No. The citys police officers have other obligations. More private security is the answer. 4. No. Perhaps, but installing more surveillance cameras would be a better deterrent. 5. Unsure. More police might help, but it could also stretch KPDs resources too thin. Vote View Results You have permission to edit this article. 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Onfokus/Getty Images It's one of those things you kind of know you're not supposed to do, but you might be tempted to in a pinch. After all, those prescription labels are probably just suggestions, right? Yeah, no. Taking someone else's medications is pretty much always a terrible idea, but new research indicates parents may be perpetuating the problem more than experts realized. Presented at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference & Exhibition in November 2018, the abstract, titled "Diversion of Prescription Antibiotics: Should You Take from Peter to Treat Paul?" suggests an "alarming" percentage of parents have reported sharing or borrowing antibiotics that were originally prescribed for their children. The practice, called "antibiotic diversion" can lead to serious issues since taking unnecessary or improper doses of antibiotics contributes to the rising rates of antibiotic-resistant infections. Advertisement "Our study was prompted by several patient visits observed in our office where parents mentioned that their children had experienced illnesses or infections in recent months that they had resolved by taking leftover antibiotics they had on hand in their homes or receiving leftover antibiotics from individuals outside the family," lead author Tamara Kahan, a research assistant in developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Northwell Health, says via email. "These parents did not consult a medical professional before taking the leftover antibiotics. We wanted to conduct a more systematic analysis to determine the prevalence of this practice antibiotic diversion among parents and children in the United States." Antibiotics are intended to fight infections caused by disease-causing bacteria (single-celled organisms found inside and outside the body).The drugs either kill the bacteria or make it harder for them to multiply. The problem is, bacteria are unfortunately adaptive; when antibiotics are overused and/or misused, bacteria may become resistant, meaning the drugs no longer effectively fight them or keep them from multiplying. For the study, researchers distributed an anonymous online questionnaire to a national sample of 496 parents. It turned out a whole lot of them were in the habit of doing some inadvisable behavior. "We found that antibiotic diversion was highly prevalent," Kahan says. "48.2 percent of parents who had leftover antibiotics after the antibiotics were taken by their children reported saving them instead of disposing of them. 72.6 percent of those who had leftover antibiotics later shared them with other members of the family or unrelated adults." According to Kahan, questionnaire respondents indicated that they had not been told by their pediatricians to dispose of the antibiotics, even if there were leftovers, at the end of the course. " " This chart shows the percentage of parents who saved leftover antibiotics prescribed for their children and later shared them. Ruth Milanaik There were some other key findings from the study too: Liquids and drops were found to be the most commonly diverted form of antibiotics (80.4 percent of parents whose children were prescribed them and 73.8 percent, respectively). Creams came in third (69.7 percent) and tablets fourth (55.6 percent). The diverted antibiotics were typically administered in the prescribed dosage ... which might sound like a good thing, but actually means the dosage usually wasn't properly adjusted for the recipient. Otherwise, parents were also prone to estimating dosage based on the age of the child also not a great strategy, considering the amount of guesswork involved. Overall, 16 percent of parents surveyed said that they'd given their child adult medications. Yikes. The researchers behind the study see a silver lining to the unsettling findings. "Overuse of antibiotics has consequences not only to the individual but to the population as a whole as it contributes to the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria," Kahan says. "It is hoped that health care professionals will emphasize to patients the risks of taking antibiotics when they are not prescribed and the importance of disposing of leftover medication." Bottom line: Sharing is caring, but definitely not when it comes to prescription drugs. Now That's Scary The sexually transmitted infection gonorrhea is considered one of the most urgent antibiotic-resistant threats in America, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The most recent research indicates that there are 246,000 infections per year. We have been taught there are steps to follow when milking a cow. Books have been written about protocols in the parlor . . . but do they always get followed? Michigan State University Extensions Phil Durst and Stan Moore looked at research, primarily in Michigan, to answer that question. Keep in mind, that Michigan is a top state for milk production per cow and for high-quality milk (low somatic cell counts.) Durst and Moore believe evaluating the milking procedures can provide valuable feedback for management and employees. In the April Hoards Dairyman webinar, Milking evaluation reveals costly problems they revealed two common problems: biphasic milking and overmilking. The simplified solution to these milking concerns was The first stimulation needs to be sufficient and high quality. Their research used a lightweight, battery-operated VaDia (Vacuum Diagnostic) recorder attached to the milking unit to record milk flow and vacuum levels. It enabled them to analyze all cows during the entire milking process. Well start with their recommendations: Ten to 15 seconds of physical stimulation of teats early in the preparation process. Lag time of 60 to 120 seconds until machine is attached. Milking units come off when approximately to 1 cup of milk is still in the udder. These are important steps, but they may not always be followed in their entirety or consistently and that can lead protocol drift. Biphasic milking Biphasic-milking results when the oxytocin has not reached the mammary cells at the time the unit is attached. Milk flow starts but stops for a period until the cells release their milk. That period may be 30 to 120 seconds in length. It is also called delayed milk ejection (DME). What are the impacts of biphasic milking? Uncomfortable cows Congestion in the teat during vacuum and no milk flow Reduced milk Changes in the teats including increased teat end roughness Reduced production as much as 10 pounds per day Even with the same protocols in the same herd, some cows may be impacted by biphasic milking and others not. Therefore, drying the teat and attaching the unit in the same pass does not provide adequate lag time shared the team. They suggested that dairies with milking protocols take another look at them and think about the opportunities when biphasic milking could occur. Then think about sharing any changes with employees and training them again on proper procedures. Overmilking Overmilking is the second issue they uncovered. Their definition: Overmilking is when the unit stays on the cow for more than 30 seconds after milking is complete. Cows that are overmilked will milk out slower in the future. Again, they referred to research. In two different studies 44 percent and 84 percent of herds had overmilking in at least 30 percent of their cows. Overmilking concerns High vacuum on the teat ends Uncomforatble cows Teat congestion and teat-end damage Longer milking time (cow concerns) Longer milking shifts (labor concerns) Longer time in the holding pen (less time eating, drinking) Longer standing time All of these will reduce milk production and increase costs Moore encouraged producers to do a baseline check for a starting point. Remember, a typical cow should take 4 to 5 minutes to milk out. But, before you get too excited about making changes, first do a thorough equipment check, adjust the delay setting if needed, and then adjust the milking rate setting if needed. Once adjustments have been made, regular monitoring is recommended. Just because dairy producers may say that they have not experienced these problems, that does not mean that their cows have not experienced these problems, concluded the extension team. To watch the webinar and listen to live attendee questions, visit this recorded presentation or our archives. Join us next month Mike Hutjens, University of Illinois, will present Focusing on fresh cow strategies on Monday, May 13, at noon (Central time). The webinar will feature nutrient transitioning between close-up, fresh cow, and high-producing cow rations. Considerations include fresh cow pen duration, small herd strategies, and fresh cow comfort. Amino acid supplementation, fatty acid additions, and metabolic disorders will be covered. The presentation is sponsored by Zinpro Performance Minerals. Register here The author is the online media manager and is responsible for the website, webinars, and social media. A graduate of Modesto Junior College and Fresno State, she was raised on a California dairy and frequently blogs on youth programs and consumer issues. The Hope College choirs and orchestra will perform in a combined concert Wednesday, April 24, at 7:30 p.m. in the Concert Hall of the Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts. The public is invited. Admission is free. The combined choirs and orchestra will perform Cantique de Jean Racine, op. 11 and Messe de Requiem, op. 48, by Gabriel Faure. Directed by Christopher Fashun, the Hope College Symphony Orchestra is one of the premier ensembles at Hope College. While seeking the highest professional standards, the orchestra performs a diverse repertoire of music from the Western classical tradition, jazz and global music, and contemporary works. The Symphony Orchestra regularly presents concerts during the academic year and features faculty and guest artists. Directed by Chris Dekker, the Chapel Choir is Hopes premier choral ensemble and consists of 40 auditioned choristers. The choir, founded in 1938, has toured extensively throughout the United States and Canada, performing in venues including The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and numerous choral conferences, and has traveled abroad on nine occasions. The choir is also featured in events at Hope, including the colleges long-standing Christmas Vespers, the award-winning television broadcast of which is seen around the country at Christmastime on PBS. Hopes largest choral ensemble, College Chorus, is composed of music majors and non-majors with varying degrees of choral music experience. College Chorus participates in Christmas Vespers, and, in tandem with Chapel Choir, performs a large choral-orchestral work each spring. The Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts is located at 221 Columbia Ave., between Ninth and 10th streets. The Kruizenga Art Museum at Hope College will host a reception on Thursday, April 25, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. in conjunction with its two ongoing spring exhibitions. The museum is currently featuring the exhibition Once Were Nomads: Baluch Textiles and Culture and the focus exhibition Rembrandt Etchings. The reception is an after-hours event to celebrate the museums spring exhibitions. Visitors are welcome to enjoy refreshments and view the works of art on display in the galleries. The public is invited to both the reception and the exhibitions. Admission is free. Once Were Nomads features 45 examples of textiles from the nomadic peoples of Baluchistan, a territory that straddles the borders of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Included are rugs, clothing, animal trappings and other such items dating from the mid-19th to the late 20th centuries. The exhibition uses the textiles to examine the traditional life and cultures of the peoples of Baluchistan, and demonstrates the idea that art can be something both beautiful and practical. To show how some of these textiles are used in daily life, the exhibition includes a reproduction of a traditional tent, and a life-sized camel sculpture (affectionately dubbed the KAMel) models customary animal trappings. The exhibition opened on January 15 and will continue through May 11. 2019 is the 350th anniversary of the 17th-century Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn. The focus exhibition, Rembrandt Etchings, includes 13 etchings by the artist that were recently donated to the permanent collection of the Kruizenga Art Museum. The etchings on display were created by Rembrandt between 1632 and 1655, and include some of his most famous works in that medium. The exhibition opened on April 9 and will continue through June 1. Admission to the Kruizenga Art Museum is always free. Public visiting hours are Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Please check the museums website or social media for additional information about special programs and events. The museum functions as an educational resource for Hope College and the greater West Michigan community. The museum features two public galleries as well as a classroom and climate-controlled storage space for its 4,500-object permanent collection. It is named in honor of a leadership gift from Dr. Richard and the late Margaret Kruizenga of Holland, both of whom graduated from Hope in 1952. The Kruizenga Art Museum is located at 271 Columbia Ave., between 10th and 13th streets. By Moses Kyeyune. It is only eight days left for the first CRJ900 Bombardier air plane to touch ground at the Entebbe International airport as a landmark revival of the National Airline, after over two decades. A delegation of government officials led by the minister of works transport Monica AzubaNtege is already in Quebec Canada to officially receive two air crafts from Bombadier. The first of the Uganda Airlines Bombardier CRJ900 will touch down at 3:00pm on April 23, 2019. Amidst hope and criticism, the revival of the national airline is seen as a landmark achievement of the sitting government which grounded the countrys first national career to gross corruption and abuse. The national career is also projected to boost the countrys trade and tourism. KFM Will keep you posted with timely updates about the airline. Related Stories.. Byandala cautions on national airline The key is to let nature lead the way, says Jean-Eric Paquet, the European Commission's Director General for Research and Innovation IceViking strongly condemns physical attacks and harassment directed towards them. They are also often victims of the Islamic idea. This is true when it comes to the cruel and tragic treatment of Muslim women and children when it is in accord with the Koran, the example of Mohammed and Islamic law, Sharia, which may be applied regardless of where a Muslim male may find himself in the world, whether in a Muslim or non-Muslim country. However, in no way, shape or form should one judge all Muslim men because of what is in Islamic scripture and what constitutes the Islamic law, Sharia. "Race", ethnicity or basically anything that you are "merely" born with should never be a basis for bigotry and discrimination. Apostates from Islam have been executed for 1400 years in accord with the Koran and the words and actions of the Islamic prophet Mohammed and Islamic law, Sharia. They should be lovingly helped. Furthermore, approximately as many as 11,000,000 Muslims may have been killed by other Muslims since 1948. To quote the website The Religion of Peace (TROP), edited by Glen Roberts: While it may be safe to say that a true Muslim would not intentionally kill another true Muslim ( 4:92-93 ), the Quran places no such value on the life of a Muslim who is not true. Consider verse 9:73 : Strive hard against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be harsh against them, their abode is Hell. The Arabic for strive hard uses the same root as Jihad - and the context in this sura is holy war (see v. 86 and 91). Thus, there are two distinct classes of people that a true Muslim is to target with harshness: disbelievers and hypocrites. A disbeliever obviously refers to a non-Muslim, so a "hypocrite" must be a Muslim of some sort. In fact, hypocrites are those who say they believe, but do not act as they should. In other words, they are "Muslims", but not true Muslims. They will go to hell just as unbelievers do, and so, according to the verse, their lives matter for naught. The same sura says that a hypocrite can be recognized not just by lack of piety (reluctance to follow Sharia), but by fear of death ( 9:56 ), reluctance to fight ( 9:44-45 ) and even friendliness toward non-believers ( 9:67 ). A true Muslim would thus be a pious person who relishes martyrdom, is eager to fight, and shuns non-believers. Even the Quranic passage that warns against killing "believers" ( 4:88-94 ) is more complicated than it first appears. It never says that a true Muslim is incapable of killing another Muslim, just that it should not be done. In fact, it makes exceptions for the unintentional killing of "believers" in war and mandates the killing of "hypocrites." Verse 17:33 says, "Do not kill anyone which Allah has forbidden, except for a just cause" . The greatest cause of all is that Islam be superior ( 9:33 ), which is exactly what Islamic terrorists say is their goal. Thus believing Muslims are allowed to be collateral damage in the war on unbelievers. There is sadly a phenomena that I`ve noticed in Sweden and elsewhere of people using true facts about Islamic doctrine and history as a cover for all sorts of irrational targeting of Muslims, ranging from xenophobia and racism to verbal abuse and physical attacks. This is strongly condemned by this website and does not in any way serve serious criticism of orthodox Islam and other important work. It`s also important that one tries to express oneself in a civilized way. Words matter. In this bloggers humble opinion the root cause of the problem is the ancient doctrine of orthodox Islam. In simple terms a non-Muslim is a Kafir. " The Koran defines the kafir and kafir is not a neutral word. A kafir is not merely someone who does not agree with Islam, but a kafir is evil, disgusting, the lowest form of life." An exact quote, as stated in the writings of Dr. Bill Warner in the article "Kafir" at http://www.politicalislam.com/kafir . In the perfect Koran (Allah`s direct and literal word as revealed to Mohammed through the angel Jibril), Muslims are told 89 times to emulate Mohammed in all ways (see Koran 33:21 for instance). Mohammed`s example, the Sunna, is found in the Hadith (stories of what Mohammed said and did) and the Sira (biographies of Mohammed). Islamic law, Sharia , is directly derived from these unchanging scriptures. It is based on the Koran`s numerous commands to obey Allah and obey the Messenger, that is Mohammed (see Koran 4:59 for instance). Islam is Sharia. Sharia is Islam. It is a capital crime for Muslims to deny Sharia in any way. A Muslim is someone who submits to Islam and submitting to Islam means obeying the Sharia of Allah. Sharia law includes pronouncements for both Muslims and non-Muslims (Kafirs). Islam is a "complete way of life", a "complete code of life", a "complete system of life". Islam is not just a religion but also a comprehensive ideology. Islam is a supremacist ideology. Islam is a totalitarian and imperialistic ideology akin to Communism and Nazism. Islam is a civilization. Islamic law, Sharia, is a manual for a civilization. Islamic law, Sharia, governs every aspect of life. It has a say about every conceivable human act . Non-Muslims are morally and legally inferior in Islam. Women are morally and legally inferior in Islam. The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS by Robert Spencer is the first one-volume history of jihad in the English language and a great book on the topic. Allah guarantees Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for him (Koran 9:111). A hadith depicts a Muslim asking Muhammad: "Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward)." Muhammad replied, "I do not find such a deed." (Bukhari 4.52.44) Muhammad himself said: I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah, and he who professed it was guaranteed the protection of his property and life on my behalf except for the right affairs rest with Allah. (Sahih Muslim 30) Freedom of speech, human rights, democracy, science and human lives are all at stake in the fight against the Islamic Jihad. As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQ By Damali Mukhaye. The president of the opposition forum for democratic change Patrick Amuriat has vowed to continue with their nationwide consultation meetings despite arrests by police. Yesterday, Amuriat and former party president Dr Kiiza Besigye were bundled out of local radio station in Jinja where they were about to be hosted on a talk show. Earlier on Wednesday, Amuriat and other party leaders were arrested and blocked from holding a rally in Tororo district with police saying they had not sought clearance for the meeting. Speaking to kfm, Amuriat says the struggle continues and no amount of intimidation by police will stop them from consulting Ugandans ahead of the 2021 elections. In Khorasan, Hormozgan, Kerman, and other Iranian provinces, the mullahs have dispatched the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to prevent popular protests that may lead to the uprising the overthrows the Regime. They brought in Iran-backed militias from across the Middle East to quell protests using weapons and armoured vehicles, like: the Hashd al-Shabi (PMF) who are trying to increase Iranian influence in Iraq the Nojaba, who are Qods Force Iraqi mercenaries, who arrived with all their managers of representative offices and the Head of the Executive Council of the MovementHaj Nasr al-Shemri the Zeinbaiyoun Brigade, which fights for Iran in Syria to prop up the Bashar Assad dictatorship the Fatemiyoun Division, a US-designated terror group fighting for Iran in Syria In fact, some 50 vehicles carrying hundreds of Iraqi militants entered Irans flood-hit western provinces over the weekend. Iraj Masjedi, Irans ambassador in Baghdad told state-run media that the IRGC and their militias are there to rescue victims and distribute aid, but there has been no evidence seen of that. Many Iranians have questioned on social media why a country with two armies the IRGC and the Iranian army need help from foreign militias for flood relief efforts. While Jamal Shakarami, the IRGC commander in Ilam province, said that the militias were allies of the Islamic Republic. To be clear, theyre allies of the Regime, not the people. The militias were invited by IRGCs Qods Force Commander Qassem Soleimani. The Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), wrote on April 14: IRGC General Qasem Soleimani, the criminal leader of the Qods Force, has gone to the flood-affected areas to monitor these repressive measures. Iranians on social media are comparing Irans Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to former Libyan strongman Qaddafi in his last days, while others are noting that the Regime must be terrified of the uprising of its people. Some have even posted videos of IRGC units confronting the people in flood-stricken areas, with reports that Khuzestan farmer Aboud Jalizi was shot dead by IRGC forces for protesting. The Regime has even arrested 24 people in Khuzestan province for posting about the flood damage online, according to IRGC Colonel Shahin Hasanwand. It was caused by decades of incompetence, mismanagement, and corruption by the mullahs, who stripped money from construction projects, disaster relief, and environmental protections in order to fund their suppressive forces. This not only made a disaster more likely to happen but ensure it would be more deadly when it did. The Regime has failed to reckon with their responsibility or help the affected people, which prompted Maryam Rajavi, leader of the Iranian Resistance, to make two separate statements at the tail end of last week to call on the people of Iran to help each other when the Regime wouldnt. On Thursday, April 11, Maryam Rajavi urged the people of Ahvaz and Khuzestan Province as a whole to form popular councils to tackle the flood danger. Maryam Rajavi also said that the facilities of government bodies (i.e. the army and the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC)) should be given to the people to help in the rescue and relief efforts. Maryam Rajavi said: The facilities of the army, the IRGC and government agencies, engineering machinery, naval boats, supply depots, shelters and barracks must be provided to the people to be used to prevent floods, protect peoples lives, save the flood victims, and to temporarily resettle them. Maryam Rajavi explained that the Regime was using these facilities to suppress the people, wage war in the Middle East, and line the pockets of the Regime leaders. Maryam Rajavi said: These belong to the people and are for the people of Iran and should be used to prevent flooding, the rescue of flood victims, resettlement and reconstruction of flood-hit areas. Maryam Rajavi supports the peoples protests in Ahvaz On Friday, April 12, a group of people in Malashiyeh, Ahvaz began to protest against IRGC commander Mohammad Reza Naghdi, who is the IRGCs social and cultural deputy and the former head of the Basij, who had shown up but failed to help. The people chanted Get lost, Ahvaz will remain free and Khuzestan has submerged in water, the authorities are sleeping! In the afternoon, people in Ein Do (Seyed-Karim), Ahvaz, protested against the Regimes decision not to direct water to marshes and failure to build flood barriers. The people chanted This land has brave men nobody dares to get close to them, and [They] wanted us to be humiliated but we didnt. That evening, in Shelang Abad, Ahvaz, people began demonstrating against the Regimes failure to help flood victims and the decision to divert floods towards agricultural land and residential houses. Yet more protests continued well into the night across Ahvaz and Maryam Rajavi has given her full support to the protesters. Maryam Rajavi also called on the Regime to immediately address the demands of the Ahvaz people. About Me William Kelly I am a freelance writer, journalist and historian whose major interests are music and history, with a special emphasis on the assassination of President Kennedy. View my complete profile Blog Archive 1. Comments must not be racist, misogynistic, homophobic, or otherwise bigoted. 2. Comments must not involve little more than name-calling and insulting remarks. 3. Comments must not be made by "anonymous" or "unknown". 4. Comments must not try to sneak in some free advertising for themselves (like spam). I invite anyone who wishes to comment on this blog to do so. I enjoy the comments, whether you agree with what I have said or not. But some people want to abuse the right to comment, and since this is my blog, I have decided to lay down the following rules. If your comment violates these rules, it will not be published. Monday, April 15, 2019 Owning It: State Dems Euphoria Interrupted By Crime Crisis, Plus: Heinrich Taking Heat On Interior Nominee Vote; Sights On Bigger Things? They seemed caught off guard by by the Gone were the sunny Dem declarations heard in the aftermath of the recent legislative session that everything was coming up roses and lollipops--or soon would be. They found themselves on the defensive and dealing with the stark reality that remains New Mexico today. CYFD Secretary Brian Blalock did the heavy lifting for the administration making sure to note that the new Santa Fe leadership is We grieve the recent deaths. We as a new leadership team are constantly looking to learn from the mistakes of the past. The safety and welfare of the children and other victims is and will always be our first priority. For now time is the friend of the administration but if the killings and mayhem continue, time will become the enemy. For ABQ Mayor Tim Keller who has been in office well over a year this wasn't the first occasion his administration had to put out a statement denouncing yet another outbreak of shocking violence. APD Chief Mike Geier, saying: We are hiring more officers and making progress toward fighting crime, but this weeks violence points to the larger issues of gun violence, child abuse and domestic violence that we are taking on as our top priorities. I want people to know that we are working hard, and developing multi-pronged approaches to each of these challenges. The chief forgot something--drugs. That would be D-R-U-G-S, Chief, but your boss did cover it a bit below. The two child abuse deaths came in the middle of Child Abuse Awareness Month, making a weekend March marking its observance all the more poignant: Mayo Keller joined (CYFD) Secretary Blalock and hundreds of Albuquerque residents for a March Against Child Abuse. . . (It) leaves us heartbroken and angry, it robs us of hope. . . But it must also leave us determined to act. . .That means each of us playing a role and joining partners in government, law enforcement, and the community. If even one childs life can have a different outcome, its worth every ounce of effort. Keller says the city is "expanding the number of places for kids in Early Childhood programs that break the cycle of poverty and violence and give professionals a chance to catch signs of abuse and also addressing the behavioral health and addiction challenges that are underlying contributing factors to child abuse." So MLG, Blalock and Keller want to get the hobbled behavioral health system restored and hopefully start chipping away at the drug epidemic. But a boost in old fashioned policing and jailing of the drug pushers probably needs to be part of the equation. That may be easier for Republicans to say, but it's the Democrats who are in charge now. A RARE SIGHT Heinrich It's a rare sight indeed to see one of New Mexico s environmentally oriented US Senators being attacked in statewide TV ads by one of the leading environmental groups. But Dem Senator Martin Heinrich's Bernhardt is an attorney who worked as a lobbyist for mining and oil companies. The group's news release attacking Heinrich's vote and the TV ad are Meanwhile, Dem Senator Tom Udall vigorously opposed Bernhardt, who worked at Interior in the Bush administration, and voted against his nomination. Still, he While we do not and will not agree on many issues or policy decisions, I have found that acting Secretary Bernhardt has always kept his word. Heinrich adds that Bernhardt has supported protections for White Sands Missile Range. Bernhardt DC insiders and Alligators here are gaming the politics of Heinrich's unusual vote. They say Heinrich has long had his eye on someday becoming Secretary of Interior, They speculate that his vote for Bernhardt could win him goodwill from Republicans who control the Senate and are expected to still control it after the 2020 presidential election. The thinking goes that if a Democrat takes the White House Heinrich would have a shot at being nominated to Interior and would face a confirmation vote in the Senate--a vote that would now be easier for GOP Senators to take. But maybe not so easy for some of his fellow Democrats. This is the home of New Mexico politics. Interested in reaching New Mexico's most informed audience? Advertise here. ( c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2019 The state's Democratic leadership--specifically the Democratic Governor and Democratic Mayor in ABQ--are finding out what it's like to take ownership of the crime crisis that continues to engulf the ABQ metro and makes itself known with regularity in other locales.They seemed caught off guard by by the recent outbreak of violence in a short time span involving the deaths of children and murders in ABQ and Farmington. The spree included the shooting death of an eight year old girl, the child abuse deaths of an 11 month old infant and a 5 year old as well as assorted other killings that made for blaring headlines.Gone were the sunny Dem declarations heard in the aftermath of the recent legislative session that everything was coming up roses and lollipops--or soon would be. They found themselves on the defensive and dealing with the stark reality that remains New Mexico today.CYFD Secretary Brian Blalock did the heavy lifting for the administration making sure to note that the new Santa Fe leadership is inheriting the trouble For now time is the friend of the administration but if the killings and mayhem continue, time will become the enemy.For ABQ Mayor Tim Keller who has been in office well over a year this wasn't the first occasion his administration had to put out a statement denouncing yet another outbreak of shocking violence. APD Chief Mike Geier, saying:The chief forgot something--drugs. That would be D-R-U-G-S, Chief, but your boss did cover it a bit below.The two child abuse deaths came in the middle of Child Abuse Awareness Month, making a weekend March marking its observance all the more poignant:Keller says the city is "expanding the number of places for kids in Early Childhood programs that break the cycle of poverty and violence and give professionals a chance to catch signs of abuse and also addressing the behavioral health and addiction challenges that are underlying contributing factors to child abuse."So MLG, Blalock and Keller want to get the hobbled behavioral health system restored and hopefully start chipping away at the drug epidemic. But a boost in old fashioned policing and jailing of the drug pushers probably needs to be part of the equation. That may be easier for Republicans to say, but it's the Democrats who are in charge now.It's a rare sight indeed to see one of New Mexico s environmentally oriented US Senators being attacked in statewide TV ads by one of the leading environmental groups. But Dem Senator Martin Heinrich's vote to confirm David Bernhardt as Secretary of Interior enraged the Western Values Project and they have put up what they say is a "six figure" TV buy attacking Heinrich for the vote.Bernhardt is an attorney who worked as a lobbyist for mining and oil companies.The group's news release attacking Heinrich's vote and the TV ad are here but the ads came right after the full Senate vote so they were for naught if meant to influence Heinrich's vote. They may be inflicting some political damage but Heinrich was safely re-elected last year and doesn't face re-election until 2024.Meanwhile, Dem Senator Tom Udall vigorously opposed Bernhardt, who worked at Interior in the Bush administration, and voted against his nomination. Still, he was confirmed on a 56-41 Senate vote. Heinrich says:Heinrich adds that Bernhardt has supported protections for White Sands Missile Range.DC insiders and Alligators here are gaming the politics of Heinrich's unusual vote. They say Heinrich has long had his eye on someday becoming Secretary of Interior, They speculate that his vote for Bernhardt could win him goodwill from Republicans who control the Senate and are expected to still control it after the 2020 presidential election.The thinking goes that if a Democrat takes the White House Heinrich would have a shot at being nominated to Interior and would face a confirmation vote in the Senate--a vote that would now be easier for GOP Senators to take. But maybe not so easy for some of his fellow Democrats.This is the home of New Mexico politics. E-mail your news and comments. (jmonahan@ix.netcom.com) Links HOME E-MAIL ME About Joe Google News Real Clear Politics Huffington Post Drudge Report The Politico NM TV stations Gov. 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President Yoweri Museveni has offered part of his vast Kisozi farm in Maddu Sub-County, Gomba District to an Iranian investor to promote the growing and production of silk in the country. The silk production project speared headed by Iran Agro Industrial Group is worth Shs.18.5 billion and will sit on 1,000 hectares of land. The chairman of the Group Seyed Mohammad Ali says with the industry set up, Uganda will be able to produce over 10,000 metric tons of silk that will be exported to Iran because of its ready market. Speaking at the official commissioning of the project the Minister of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries Vicent Ssempija said government has embarked on giving out and more land for foreign investors who are interested in prioritising silk production in the country. - President Rodrigo Duterte claimed that rich people control the water supply in Metro Manila - The President noted that the recent water crisis happened because of them - He also accused the wealthy people of financing agencies like Rappler PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed President Rodrigo Duterte accused the wealthy people in the Philippines for allegedly having control over the water supply in Metro Manila. KAMI learned that the President also accused the rich people for financing the news site Rappler. They didnt plan on opening it because they were waiting for an increase. Only then will they release the water. Thats true. These rich people, these sons of b**** are milking us dry, the President said in Visayan, as reported by the GMA News (author Virgil Lopez). The President also criticized the rich people for allegedly supporting and financing Rappler. They are the ones who finance agencies like Rappler, President Duterte said. Look at their vehicles, their houses. They have been asking money from clients for a long time, especially those big-time writers there. But there are others who refuse to give in. But most of them do, he added. PAY ATTENTION: Using free basics app to access internet for free? Now you can read KAMI news there too. Use the search option to find us. Read KAMI news while saving your data! As previously reported by KAMI, President Duterte threatened to fire the officials of Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) and terminate the contracts of Manila Water and Maynilad due to the water crisis that affected the consumers in Metro Manila. POPULAR: Read more news about President Rodrigo Duterte! Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news! Now imagine: you are a young aspiring actress and you are going to appear on a great show and then you tell all of your friends and relatives about it. They gather in the specified time in front of the TV but then... The Incredible Bea Alonzo shares embarrassing moments she experienced throughout her career. on KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel! Source: Kami.com.ph - Baby Talitha Sotto, the daughter of Vic Sotto and Pauleen Luna, was recently spotted on a vacation in the US with her parents - On one of their trips in a museum, the trio spotted a portrait of a child wearing the same outfit as Baby Tali - Pauleen was amused with what they saw and decided to share a cute photo of her baby beside the artwork PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed Bossing Vic Sotto, his wife Pauleen Luna, and their daughter Talitha Sotto recently went to the United States for a vacation. The family went to different tourist spots, but what really made their vacation worth remembering was their trip to the museum. During their visit there, they saw a portrait of a group of children by the beach. The family was amused with what they saw since one of the kids in the artwork wore the same outfit as Baby Tali. In the portrait, one of the children wore a sunny yellow top and a pair of denim shorts, similar to what Baby Talitha was wearing at that time. Baby Tali had a cute reaction once she saw the child in the painting and decided to pose and take photos beside it. PAY ATTENTION: Using free basics app to access internet for free? Now you can read KAMI news there too. Use the search option to find us. Read KAMI news while saving your data! KAMI posted a few of the photos from the Sotto family's US trip in a previous article. Vic Sotto and Pauleen Luna are both hosts of Eat Bulaga, the longest noontime variety program in the Philippines. Their daughter Tali Sotto is now one of the most popular celebrity babies in the country today, thanks to her viral social media photos and videos. POPULAR: Read more news about Tali Sotto! Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news! Which Food Delivery App Is The Best? We tested three famous food delivery apps: Food Panda, GrabFood and Honestbee - to check which of them is the best. What is your experience with ordering food using these apps? Check out all of our exciting videos on KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel! Source: Kami.com.ph Election Day is coming near, and vote-buying could be rampant in some places. While it is illegal, many candidates still manage to buy the votes of the Filipinos to ace the polls. PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed KAMI learned that there are different ways of buying votes. For one, there is this process called gapangan. A local leader alias Juan, shared to CNN Philippines that there were times that they would pay registered voters about P1,000 each just not to vote on election day. There was also a watcher in the area to ensure that the residents would not leave their house during that day. According to the article (author Joyce Ilas), the other scheme would require residents to show their ballots before dropping it in the PCOS machine. Juan noted that some poll watchers and teachers are aware of this and they get P300 each. "Kahit nga minsan mga teachers alam dahil nabibigyan din 'yun. Rapos pag nakaboto ka na, mag indelible ka na, pupunta ka na uli doon sa lugar na ano, saka ka babayaran, he said. Photo from Manila Bulletin Source: Facebook However, Juan said that they did that because their opponent already started doing it first. Some residents who admitted that they accepted money in exchange for their votes said that they did it because of poverty. However, some believed that there was nothing wrong in vote-buying since the money came from the taxpayers money. "Pera din po 'yun ng bayan e. 'Di po ba? Pera 'yun ng bayan e. 'Di naman galing sa bulsa nila 'yun e," a resident said. PAY ATTENTION: Using free basics app to access internet for free? Now you can read KAMI news there too. Use the search option to find us. Read KAMI news while saving your data! Buying the votes of the Filipinos could determine the winner in the polls. In a report by the ABS-CBN News (author Angelica Yang), Maribel Buenaobra, executive director of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPRCV) said that vote-buying is a form of cheating. The officials also urged the Filipinos to refrain from falling over fake news, especially now that it is the election season and propaganda can be seen almost everywhere. KAMI reported earlier the important things to remember this coming Halalan 2019. Vote wisely! Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news! Now imagine: you are a young aspiring actress and you are going to appear on a great show and then you tell all of your friends and relatives about it. They gather in the specified time in front of the TV but then... The Incredible Bea Alonzo shares embarrassing moments she experienced throughout her career. on KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel! Source: Kami.com.ph - A netizen threw strong words to Sofia Andres for accusing her of stealing her phone - She even made a Twitter account just to reply to the actress - The social media user also threatened to sue Sofia over her accusations PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed A social media user bravely lambasted Sofia Andres after she got accused of stealing the actress iPhone during the Manila Sundance Bazaar 2019. KAMI learned that the said netizen created an Instagram account just to defend herself and respond to the celebritys allegations against her. The accused person, whose name is Pearl Bedorie Morado, called out Sofia for not finding enough evidences first to prove that she really stole her phone. She also revealed that she received a lot of negative comments from other netizens because of the actress accusations. Hi miss Sofia! Be sure po muna sa accusation nyo sakin. Sana think before u post po. Its a public shame on me, my baby and my whole family, she wrote. Wala po akong Twitter peru gumawa po ako para lang mareplyan yung tweet nyo. Masyado na po [kaming] nai-iskandalo dahil sa post nyo. Dami nagme-message sakin, ibalik ko daw iphone mo, she added. PAY ATTENTION: Using free basics app to access internet for free? Now you can read KAMI news there too. Use the search option to find us. Read KAMI news while saving your data! To know the truth, Pearl even told Sofia that she is willing to be subjected to an investigation so that she can clear her name. She threatened to file a legal complaint against the celebrity once the investigators found her allegations as untrue and baseless. In a previous article by , Sofia willingly opened up about her non-showbiz boyfriend named Daniel Miranda. Sofia Andres is a Filipina actress and commercial endorser who is currently handled by Star Magic. She gained more popularity because of her roles in Forevermore, Pusong Ligaw, and Bagani. POPULAR: Read more news about Sofia Andres! Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news! Which food delivery app is the best? We tested three famous food delivery apps: Panda, GrabFood and Honestbee - to check which of them is the coolest. What is your experience with ordering food using these apps? on HumanMeter! Source: Kami.com.ph In every generation they rise up to destroy us . . . (Passover Haggadah) How true these words. Every year, we read them in the Haggadah at the Seder. Often, they remind us of our past. This year, they are as likely to remind us of our present. The old hatreds that we imagined had ended with the Holocaust have now resurfaced. The anti-Semitic rhetoric and the anti-Semitic violence are back, both in the U.S and abroad. The United States, we hoped, and still hope, is different from Europe, where the primitive hatred against the Jewish people never quite disappeared. The Lubavitcher Rebbe often described the U.S. as a haven of kindness. But he had no illusions as to the dangers of anti-Semitism lurking in the shadows. No doubt that is why, notwithstanding the relative safety that Jews have found in the U.S., the Rebbe believed that complacency was a luxury in which we simply could not afford to indulge. The Rebbe also advocated against the idea that Jews should keep a low profile, or assimilate to be like everyone else. Anti-Semitism, we know, doesnt discriminate between one Jew and another. Indeed, according to the Midrash, the Jewish people were finally liberated from Egyptian bondage not because they assimilated into the larger culture, but because they held onto their Jewish identity. For all the theories attempting to explain the scourge of anti-Semitism, perhaps the only definitive thing that can be said about it is that ignorance breeds hatred. And so we Jews have a responsibility to address that ignorance. Our greatest mission is to educate. But unless we ourselves are educated, unless we raise our children to be comfortable in their own skin as Jews, how can we expect them to educate others? Jewish education has always been the primary concern of Chabad Rebbes. In 1942, soon after Chabad-Lubavitch relocated from war-torn Europe to the U.S, Rabbi Joseph I. Schneersohn, the sixth Chabad Rebbe, established the Central Organization for Jewish Education (Merkos LInyonei Chinuch). He placed the seventh Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, at the helm of this new organization. Back then, there were few Jewish day schools. In those post-Holocaust years, Jews in America were not terribly keen on giving their children a Jewish education, and the large majority of them were enrolled in public schools. The Rebbe recognized the immediate risk to our people if Jewish children were to grow up ignorant of their heritage. So the first order of the day was to open Jewish day schools, Hebrew Schools, kindergartens, and summer camps. Through this bevy of educational services, the Rebbe hoped to give every Jewish child the benefit of an authentic Jewish experience. Today, seventy-seven years later, Chabads educational services are comprehensive. Preschools, day schools, Hebrew schools, after-schools, day camps, overnight camps, college programs, and adult-educational programs are providing real educational opportunities for every Jewish demographic. And now, Chabad is training young professionals to become Jewish ambassadors to their communities. The domino effect at play here is powerful. The more we educate young Jews have, the more their confidence in their Jewish identity, and the better able they will be to pass on that education to others. We must do everything in our power to weed out anti-Semitism and ensure that Jewish people everywhere are safe. We must work with government officials on municipal and state levels to identify and deter incitement against our people. And we must educate those whose ignorance feeds hatred. But to do that effectively, our children must own their identity. This is only possible if they have the benefit of a solid Jewish education. The Rebbes shluchim across the U.S. and around the world are a strategic asset to this cause. We need them more than ever, on the college campuses and in the town squares where they illuminate the darkness of ignorance with the light of Judaism. Their work empowers all of us to participate in the making of a better reality and to work toward the fulfillment of the vision with which we end the Passover seder: Next year in Jerusalem! Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky is the chairman of the Chabad-Lubavitch educational and social-services arms. His editorial is published in the Pesach 2019 issue of Lubavitch International. To order Lubavitch International as a holiday gift: lubavitch.com/subscribe Former President Barack Obama Sends Heartfelt Message Regarding the Burning of Notre Dame ADVERTISEMENT The world is reacting with shock, horror and prayers to the massive fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. As the flames tore through the 12th-century cathedral, Spains prime minister offered France the help of his country in the recovery. The fire is a catastrophe for France, for Spain and for Europe, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez tweeted, adding that the flames are destroying 850 years of history, architecture, painting and sculpture. U.S. President Donald Trump said the cathedral might be greater than almost any museum in the world and its burning, very badly. He said the fire, which dominated news coverage, was a terrible sight to behold. It Has to Stop: Rep. Ilhan Omar Says She Faces Increased Death Threats Because of Donald Trump Rep. Ilhan Omar WASHINGTON (AP) Rep. Ilhan Omar says shes faced increased death threats since President Donald Trump spread around a video that purports to show her being dismissive of the 2001 terrorist attacks. This is endangering lives, she said, accusing Trump of fomenting right-wing extremism. It has to stop. ADVERTISEMENT Her statement late Sunday followed an announcement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that she has taken steps to ensure the safety of the Minnesota Democrat and the speakers call for Trump to take down the video. Soon after Pelosis statement, the video disappeared as a pinned tweet at the top of Trumps Twitter feed, but it was not deleted. And Trump further escalated the standoff Monday morning, tweeting that, Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy! Trump added. Pelosi was among Democrats who had criticized Trump over the tweet , with some accusing him of trying to incite violence against the Muslim lawmaker. An upstate New York man recently was charged with making death threats against her. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders defended Trump earlier Sunday, saying the president has a duty to highlight Omars history of making comments that others deem anti-Semitic or otherwise offensive and that he wished no ill will upon the first-term lawmaker. ADVERTISEMENT But Omar said that since Trump retweeted the video Friday night, shes received many threats on her life that referred or replied to the posted video. Violent crimes and other acts of hate by right-wing extremists and white nationalists are on the rise in this country and around the world, she said. We can no longer ignore that they are being encouraged by the occupant of the highest office in the land. She said: We are all Americans. Earlier, Pelosi issued a statement while traveling in London saying she had spoken with congressional authorities to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff. Pelosi said officials will continue to monitor and assess threats against Omar and called on Trump to discourage such behavior. The Presidents words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger, Pelosi said. President Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video. The video in Trumps tweet included a snippet from a recent speech Omar gave to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in which she described the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center as some people did something, along with news footage of the hijacked airplanes hitting the Twin Towers. Trump captioned his tweet with: WE WILL NEVER FORGET! Critics accuse Omar of being flippant in describing the perpetrators of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. She later sought to defend herself by tweeting a quote from President George W. Bush, in which the Republican president referred to the attackers as people just days after 9/11. Neither Trumps tweet nor the video included Omars full quote or the context of her comments, which were about Muslims feeling that their civil liberties had eroded after the attacks. The tweet was posted atop Trumps Twitter feed for much of Sunday, with more than 9 million views. It remained lower in the feed after Pelosi requested that the video be pulled. Sanders questioned why Democrats werent following Trumps example and calling out Omar, too. Democrats who criticized the president over the tweet defended Omar, with some noting their past disagreements with her. Certainly the president is wishing no ill will and certainly not violence towards anyone, but the president is absolutely and should be calling out the congresswoman for her not only one time but history of anti-Semitic comments, Sanders said. The bigger question is why arent Democrats doing the same thing? Its absolutely abhorrent the comments that she continues to make and has made and they look the other way. Omar repeatedly has pushed fellow Democrats into uncomfortable territory with comments about Israel and the strength of the Jewish states influence in Washington. She apologized for suggesting that lawmakers support Israel for pay and said she isnt criticizing Jews. But she refused to take back a tweet in which she suggested American supporters of Israel pledge allegiance to a foreign country. Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat who represents Manhattans financial district, which was targeted on 9/11, said he had no issues with Omars characterization of the attack. I have had some problems with some of her other remarks, but not but not with that one, he said. Sanders commented on Fox News Sunday and ABCs This Week. Nadler appeared on CNNs State of the Union. British hospitals are in serious need of more nurses like Filipino Jobie Escalona. But she has twice failed a required English language test. In the test, she was asked to write about the value of immigration and computer education in school. The 23-year-old Escalona paid nearly $600 to take the tests. She was ready to leave Britain and find work in Canada, one of several other countries short of nurses. But her father persuaded her to take the test a third time. Finally, in January of last year, she passed the International English Language Test System, or IELTS. She felt at ease writing about the subject given in the test: comparing team and individual sports. Escalona told Reuters, I was able to relate to it because I am a swimmer. A British government report says Filipinos make up the largest number of foreign nationals employed in Britain at 10,719. As of June last year, foreigners held 16 percent of nursing jobs in hospitals and community health services there. Nearly 25 percent of those foreigners were Filipinos. Britain is already facing a shortage of 40,000 nurses. Experts predict that number could increase to 50,000 if Britain leaves the EU. The lack of nurses is increasing Britains dependence on low-pay workers from countries like India and the Philippines. English is widely spoken in those countries, but the language test has proved to be a major difficulty. Philippine recruitment business Louis International Manpower Services has received 1,000 job orders for nurses since 2015. It has only filled about 250 of them. Lilibeth Villas is a documentation officer at the business. She said the English test is the problem. She said, the company has job seekers who were interviewed in 2015, but they have not passed the test yet. The IELTS is a product of the organizations The British Council and Cambridge Assessment, along with the international company IDP Education. The IELTS measures test takers abilities to speak, listen, read and write in English. Employers around the world use the test to help them make hiring decisions. The writing part of the IELTS requires test-takers to write short pieces on different subjects. One such subject might be the benefits and weaknesses of nuclear technology or of laws about car ownership. Late last year, the requirements for passing the writing section were decreased. But Andrea Sutcliffe says there are no immediate plans to make further changes to the test. Sutcliffe is head of Britains Nursing and Midwifery Council. She said, This change is part of a wider review of our overseas registration processes aimed at making it more straightforward and user-friendly for people with the right skills and knowledge to join our register in a timely way. Foreign nurses can take an Occupational English Test (OET). If they pass that test, they would still have to take the IELTS, but the marks needed to pass would be lowered. The OET is more costly, however. Reydeluz Conferido is a recent former diplomat with the Philippines Embassy in London. While there, Conferido called on British officials to review the requirements placed on overseas nurses to see whether they were serving the correct purpose. He said, If you really want these nurses, you would do something about your standard. Im Jonathan Evans. Karen Lema reported this story for the Reuters news service. Jonathan Evans adapted it for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story interview v. to question or talk with someone in order to get information or learn about that person persuade v. to cause someone to do something by asking, arguing, or giving reasons recruitment n. the act of finding suitable people and getting them to join a company, an organization, the armed forces, etc. Jamaica, a tiny 4,000 sq. mi. island in the Caribbean, declared April 16, 2019 as Education and Sharing Day. This is incredibly historic, says Rabbi Yaakov Raskin, Chabad rabbi and emissary to the island, of this first. Education and Sharing Day has been in existence since it was introduced and signed as a U.S. congressional resolution in 1978. The then-President Jimmy Carter dedicated the 11th of Nisan as a day devoted to the importance of education to the lives of its citizens. While originally a one-day initiative marked to honor the 75th birthday of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, it has since become tradition, celebrated annually in hundreds of cities and states across the United States. (Hawaii announced the holiday in 2018 using the shaka, or aloha symbol, common on its four main islands.) But Jamaica may be the first country outside of the U.S., sans the larger Australia and Israel, to make this gesture. It is most definitely a first for the Carribean. A crowd of one thousand people, mostly locals, gathered at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel to mark the occasion during a ceremony celebrating Chabads fifth year on the island. Its so important for our country and for the world to have a day to focus on sharing and educationas the Rebbe encouraged us all his life, expressed Rabbi Raskin. The proclamation was signed by Honorable Governor-General Sir Patrick Allen. And one thousand copies of it were distributed to the one thousand people in attendance. It took a year and a half of hard-earned effort to create this event, shared Rabbi Raskin, we thank the governor-general and the Jamaican government for making it happen. The event was initially held in honor of Chabad of Jamaicas fifth anniversary and included speaker Eva Schloss. The signed proclamation was a surprise to the guests in attendance. Chabad of Jamaica plans to use this day as one of kindness; theyll be hosting an annual charity event as a direct result. One-thousand people were in attendance Proclaming April 16 as Education and Sharing Day Rabbi Yaakov Raskin at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel Governor-General Sir Patrick Allen Researchers say they have found fossil bones and teeth of a previously unknown human species in the northern Philippines. Scientists named the species Homo luzonensis after the island of Luzon, where the discovery was made. Researchers recently reported the finding in a study published in Nature. A team from the Philippines, France and Australia found the first fossil bones in 2007 in Callao Cave, in Cagayan province. Filipino archeologist Armand Salvador Mijares led the unearthing effort. He showed off the discovery at a news conference at the University of the Philippines, outside Manila. There were six pieces of bone - from the feet, hands and leg belonging to at least three individuals. Seven teeth were also found. Another Filipino archaeologist, Eusebio Dizon, said the human remains were the oldest ever found in the Philippines. The species is not believed to be a direct ancestor of modern-day humans, but rather a distant ancient relative. Researchers said tests showed that two of the fossil pieces were between 50,000 and 67,000 years old. An examination of the bones led the researchers to decide they belonged to a previously unknown member of the Homo sapiens species. They reported that one of the toe bones and the shapes of the teeth differed from what has been seen in Homo sapiens before. The scientists said the fossils suggest the bodies of the species were likely smaller than modern-day humans. Florent Detroit is with Frances National Museum of Natural History in Paris. He co-led the study. He told the French press agency AFP, "From the beginning, we realized the unusual characteristics of these fossils. After much examination, Detroit said, the scientific team was able to confirm "that this was something special, unlike any previously described species Matthew Tocheri is with Lakehead Universitys Department of Anthropology in Thunder Bay, Canada. He was not part of the study. He told Nature that the bones and teeth create a strong argument that this is something new. The discovery marked the second time in the 21st century that a new human species has been identified in Southeast Asia. In 2004, fossils of another group, called Homo floresiensis were found on the Indonesian island of Flores. That species sometimes described as hobbits was found about 3,000 kilometers from the Luzon discovery. Detroit said it is not yet clear how Homo luzonensis is related to other species within the Homo family. He said it may have descended from an earlier human relative, Homo erectus. Homo erectus is generally considered the first Homo species to have expanded outside Africa. Some scientists have suggested the hobbits found in Indonesia may have evolved from Homo erectus. Tocheri told the Associated Press he thinks that is possible. But he also said the Philippines discovery may provide evidence of another theory. It is possible, he said, that some unknown creature other than Homo erectus also moved out of Africa and reached Europe and Asia, and that both created new island species. Im Bryan Lynn. Bryan Lynn wrote this story for VOA Learning English based on reports from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse and the journal Nature. Ashley Thompson was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page. ________________________________________________________________ Quiz - Research Find Evidence of New Human Species Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story fossil n. part of an animal or plant from thousands of years ago, preserved in rock previously adv. before the present time province n. division of a country that has its own government characteristic n. quality that makes something different from other things descend v. develop from an ancestral heritage evolve v.develop from other forms of life over many of years The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) went into action when a 17th century Dutch painting turned up for sale in New York City. The painting was last seen during World War II, when it was seized by pro-German forces. FBI officials learned of the sale in late 2017. A short time later, the FBIs Art Crime Team recovered the painting and, with the help of a court order, worked to return the piece to its rightful owners. It was the latest of many major theft cases for the 22-person FBI office that works to solve art-related crimes. The office is part of a federal agency best known for chasing bank robbers, spies and other criminals. Solomon Konincks 17th-century painting A Scholar Sharpening His Quill, was one of many treasures belonging to the family of art collector Adolphe Schloss. The artworks were stolen by the Vichy government in France 75 years ago. The painting was once in the Munich office of German leader Adolph Hitler, but it disappeared at the end of World War II. The piece showed up at Christies auction house in New York. Christies told the FBI last year that a Chilean art seller was trying to sell it. The evidence was really overwhelming, FBI Special Agent Chris McKeogh told the Reuters news agency. McKeogh worked to return the painting to the Schloss family in early April. There was really no question that this was the painting in question, he added. Robert Wittman is the Art Crime Teams founding chief. In its early days, he recalls that working to recover missing artwork was not exactly a path to directorship. Fourteen years later, the team is getting more respect from other members of the agency. They have had several notable recoveries in the United States of art works and other cultural property, said Supervisory Special Agent Tim Carpenter. People just think what were doing is cool, said Carpenter. He now directs the office from the FBIs headquarters in Washington. So now my phone ringsweekly for folks wanting to be on the team, he said. Since it was founded in 2005, the team has recovered nearly 15,000 objects worth nearly $800 million. Chagall, Renoir and Ruby Slippers In the past year, the agents recovered a painting by Marc Chagall. It had been taken from a New York home nearly 30 years earlier. Agents also found a painting by Auguste Renoir. Like the Dutch painting, it too was seized during World War II. But it was the recovery of the ruby slippers that made the Art Crime Team famous. Actress Judy Garland wore them when she played Dorothy in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz. Today those shoes are worth millions of dollars. Carpenter explained that it is not the money, but the intrinsic value of stolen art and cultural property that helps the FBI decide if it will open a case. The ruby slippers were a good example. They were stolen 13 years ago from the Judy Garland Museum in Minnesota. People said this is really important; this is a piece of Americana, he said. Agents who work on the team must understand why art and culture are important to humanity, Carpenter said. Unsolved case The United States was spending far less than European countries in art crime-fighting when Wittman helped launch the team in 2005. The team began partly to find ancient treasures that were stolen from the Baghdad Museum after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Wittman explains that art thieves take their biggest risk when they try to sell stolen artworks. The real art in art (theft) is not the stealing, its the selling, said Wittman. He had recovered more than $300 million in stolen art when he retired from the FBI in 2008. Carpenter said he thinks technology is making it difficult to catch art thieves because stolen works and reproductions can be sold through online marketplaces. The Art Crime Teams most difficult and unsolved - case is the 1990 raid of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Thieves stole 13 pieces of art by Vermeer, Rembrandt and other artists worth half a billion dollars. There is a $10 million reward for their return, but not a single piece has been found. Theres not a single person on the Art Crime Team that doesnt dream of the day that we can recover those pieces, Carpenter said. Im Susan Shand. The Reuters News Agency reported this story. Susan Shand adapted this story for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story scholar n. a person who has studied a subject for a long time and knows a lot about it quill n. a large, stiff feather from the wing or tail of a bird auction n. a public sale in which things are sold to the people who offer to pay the most folks n. people overwhelming adj. very great in amount; major slipper n. a light, slip-on shoe intrinsic adj. belonging to the essential nature of a thin online adj. connected to a computer or other computers reward n. payment for something that has been done or that is offered for something that might be done One morning last autumn, four-year-old Joey Wilcox did not feel right when he woke up. The boy had lost feeling on the left side of his face. It was the first sign of a much more serious condition. Three days later, Joey was in a hospital, unable to move his arms or legs or sit up. Tests failed to identify a cause. Doctors feared he might lose the ability to breathe. Its devastating, his father, Jeremy Wilcox of Virginia, told the Associated Press. Your healthy child can catch a cold and then become paralyzed. Joey survived, but still suffers some of the effects. He was one of 228 confirmed victims of acute flaccid myelitis, known as AFM, in the United States last year. AFM is a rare, mysterious and sometimes deadly paralyzing disorder. The number of cases seems to rise and then fall every other year. The condition is beginning to worry public health officials because it is striking more and more children. Anthony Fauci is head of the U.S. governments National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He said AFM appears similar to polio, another paralyzing disease. Polio affected only small numbers of people for centuries before it infected larger populations in the 19th and 20th centuries. Fauci prepared a report about AFM that appeared earlier this month in the medical publication mBio. Fauci said it is unlikely the disease will become as bad as polio, which struck tens of thousands of U.S. children every year before a vaccine became available in the 1950s. Yet he warned: Dont assume that its going to stay at a couple of hundred cases every other year. AFM cases have been reported in other countries, including Canada, France, Britain and Norway. But the size and shape of the U.S. outbreaks seem very different. More than 550 Americans have been struck over the past 10 years. The oldest was 32 years old. More than 90 percent of the patients were children, most around four, five or six years of age. Many had a higher than normal body temperature and what seemed like a common viral infection. They seemed to recover, but then developed paralysis. In some cases, it started in small ways for example, a finger that suddenly would not move. Some went on to lose the ability to eat or breathe. Many families say their children have regained at least some movement in affected body parts, but stories of complete recovery are unusual. Health officials cannot say how many recovered completely, partly or not at all, or how many have died. Yet the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, says deaths are rare. Scientists suspect the disorder is being caused mainly by a virus that experts identified more than 55 years ago. They believe the virus may have changed to become more dangerous, but have yet to prove that. Doctors have been using a number of treatments, such as antiviral medications and antibiotics. But CDC officials say there is no clear evidence they work. A growing number of experts agree that physical therapy does make a difference. A leading expert on the condition is Benjamin Greenberg of University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. These kids can continue to recover very slowly, year over year. ... Its driven by how much therapy they do, he noted. Joey Wilcoxs father said his son made huge improvements that way. Joey can run and use his arms. Still, the muscles in his right leg and shoulder are weak, and he still has left-side facial paralysis. Other stories are tragic. Katie Bustamantes son Alex developed AFM in 2016. The California woman realized something was wrong when she asked her son, then five years old, why he was not eating. Alex said that his thumb had stopped working. That morning was the start of 17 months of hospital stays, operations, therapy, and struggles with healthcare providers to find a way to restore his breathing. It ended one morning last May, when Alex died of problems related to the disorder. Government officials need to step up, Bustamante said. I want them to research it and find the cause, and I want them to find a way to prevent it, she said. This is growing. This shouldnt be happening. More and more experts feel strongly that the main cause is an enterovirus called EV-D68. Enteroviruses are a large family of viruses, some of which, such as polio, can damage the central nervous system. Many others cause mild problems or none at all. Researchers have found a link between cases of AFM and a rise in breathing disorders caused by EV-D68. In the United States, doctors began reporting breathing conditions tied to EV-D68 in 1987. But that was usually no more than about 12 cases in any given year. Then, in what may have been one of the first signs of an AFM outbreak, a 5-year-old boy in New Hampshire died in 2008. First, he developed sensitivity around his neck and a high body temperature, then weakened arms and deadened legs. The boy had EV-D68, and researchers linked his death to the virus. The first real outbreak of AFM cases hit in 2014, when 120 were confirmed, with the largest numbers in California and Colorado. Cases dropped to 22 in 2015, jumped to 149 in 2016, and fell again, to 35 in 2017. Last year, they reached 228, a number that may grow because many are still being investigated. Just four cases have been confirmed in 2019 so far. CDC officials consider a health problem to be AFM based on exams and other evidence showing a special kind of damage to the spinal cord. Proof of an enterovirus infection is not required for a case to be counted, mainly because such evidence has been hard to come by. To date, CDC investigators have been able to find evidence of enteroviruses in the spinal fluid of only four of 558 confirmed cases. Scientists are using more powerful spinal-fluid tests in hopes of better establishing the connection between AFM and EV-D68. That, in turn, could lead to more organized efforts on treatments and maybe even a vaccine. Im Susan Shand. And Im Pete Musto. Mike Stobbe reported this story for the Associated Press. Pete Musto adapted it for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor. How soon do you think scientist might be able to find a treatment for AFM? We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story devastating adj. causing extreme emotional pain cold n. a common illness that affects the nose, throat, and eyes and that usually causes coughing and sneezing paralyzed adj. a person or animal that is unable to move or feel all or part of the body assume v. to think that something is true or probably true without knowing that it is true outbreak(s) n. a sudden start or increase of fighting or disease physical therapy n. the treatment of a disease or an injury of the muscles or joints with massage, exercises and heat sensitivity n. the quality of being easily affected by something in a bad or unpleasant way neck n. the part of the body between the head and the upper chest spinal cord n. the large group of nerves which runs through the center of the spine and carries messages between the brain and the rest of the body Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. Hi Meredith, I was recently listening to your podcast, S1 Ep 8. My ex is my best friend, and I know that you have experienced something similar. In August of last year, my ex decided he wanted to move to New Zealand. Of course I couldn't go with him. We met in high school and are now 21. Because of the impending move, I decided to break up with him. We didn't talk for about a month, and I did the whole one-night stand thing to try and get over it. It didn't work. I attempted to get back together after that month, but he politely declined. I took another month away from him, and that was when we began to talk it out again. From that day forward, we have spoken all day, every day, like nothing had changed. Once he officially moved in January, the last of our romance faded and we began to speak as just friends pretty quickly. At the end, there was a kiss here and there, but those faded, too. Now, only eight months later, I can confidently say that he is my best friend, and I can't imagine my life without him. Even though he is so far away. But this is the difficult part. I sometimes find myself wondering what could have been crying about it, to be more honest. I know that we would still be together if it wasn't for his move, and that's the hardest part. I know that now is not an option, but I don't want to be wishful for a later. I guess the advice I am trying to ask for is how do I get over our unfortunate situation without removing him from my life completely? I love him, and I truly believe everything happens for a reason. But how can I be completely happy with someone else if I still feel hopeful about my ex? Please help Eleven people were killed in floods triggered by a sudden rainstorm in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, local authorities confirmed Saturday. The last missing person was found dead Saturday afternoon, said a source with the citys emergency management bureau. At around 9 p.m. Thursday, the rainstorm began to pound Shenzhen, leading to floods that flushed away dredging workers at different river sections in the districts of Luohu and Futian. Provincial authorities of Guangdong Province in charge of workplace safety and emergency management on Friday issued a circular on strengthening safety and preventing deadly risks during flood season, demanding all projects be halted and workers be evacuated to safe grounds during heavy rainfall to prevent loss of life. Shenzhen falls under jurisdiction of Guangdong. All water projects in the two districts of Luohu and Futian were ordered to stop operation for investigation and measures of rectification. Xinhua Artistic Director Mike Goodridge of the International Film Festival and Awards (IFFAM) is to head the festival for the third time in a row, it has been reported by Portuguese newspaper Hoje Macau. He was appointed hastily in 2017 after his predecessor Marco Muller resigned from the post. His repeated appointments may be in part because his vision is seen to align with that of the Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO), the organizing body behind the festival. The MGTO wanted to make Macau shine in international filmmaking. Goodridge commented that there should be [dozens] of Asian and Western films shooting here in Macau every year in his interview with The Times near the end of last year. During his time directing the festival, stars of global fame were brought in as ambassadors. They have included Nicolas Cage and Jeremy Renner, as well as Hong Kongs Donnie Yen and Aaron Kwok. He has picked quite a number of blockbuster films for the festival, such as Sink or Swim and The Truman Show, not to mention the 2017 festivals opening with the world premiere of Paddington 2. But Goodridge has also made space for not-so-accessible films, for example Manta Ray and Loro. Goodridge previously served as the chief executive officer of Protagonist Pictures, a film finance, production and sales company. Prior to that, he worked as a journalist for almost 20 years, including being the overall brand editor of Screen International from 2009 to 2012. Staff reporter China and Japan have the opportunity to take charge of the economic field during a time of worldwide uncertainty, Japans foreign minister said Sunday, as trade pressures from the United States have prompted both countries to seek alternative markets. Foreign Minister Taro Kono met with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Beijing to discuss youth exchanges and economic relations between the two countries, whose ties completely recovered last year, according to Kono. The relationship was turbulent in previous years due to an unresolved dispute over islands in the East China Sea. High-level exchanges were frozen in 2012 after Japan nationalized the small group of remote islands claimed by Beijing. The act set off violent protests in China and sent Japanese investment and tourism into a nose dive. Trade and investment have since rebounded, and companies from the two nations are considering joint projects in third countries such as Thailand. While the current economic situation is complicated and profoundly changing, Wang said, Sino-Japanese economic cooperation is constantly advancing at a solid pace. China and the U.S. said a week earlier that they achieved new progress in talks aimed at ending a tariff standoff over Beijings industrial and technology policies. A conclusion to the dispute, which has shaken financial markets, remains uncertain. Meanwhile, Japans exports have suffered as a result of slowing Chinese growth. China is Japans largest trading partner, and Japanese companies from carmakers to department stores play a major role in the Chinese economy. President Donald Trump has also imposed tariffs on imported steel and aluminum from Japan, and threatened automobile tariffs that would leave Japan among the hardest-hit. Kono said yesterday that Chinese President Xi Jinping will likely visit Japan this year. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abes visit to China last fall was the first formal visit to Beijing by a Japanese leader in nearly seven years. Yanan Wang, Beijing, AP Hong Kong police are hunting for a man who shot and hurt another man with a suspected gun in the Sham Shui Po district in Kowloon, the head of the Hong Kong Police Force said Saturday. The police, highly concerned about such violent crimes, are hunting for the suspected gunman in full force, said Lo Wai-chung, commissioner of police of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government. The two men were brawling near an underground railway station at around 10:30 p.m. on Friday, when one of them pulled out a suspected gun and shot the other in his right arm, according to Hong Kong police Sham Shui Po Divisional Commander Chow Ngai-kong. Members of the Police Tactical Unit, Emergency Unit, Counter Terrorism Response Unit and Railway Response Team have been dispatched to search for the suspected gunman. The injured man was admitted to a hospital later for treatment, and was in a stable condition, Chow said. The West Kowloon regional crime unit is investigating the case, Lo said, adding that the preliminary investigation showed the incident was due to a dispute over money. Lo stressed that Hong Kong has very strict laws and rules for gun control, and its number of cases involving guns in each of the last five years was five or less. In some of the previous cases, guns were mailed from overseas, he said, adding the Hong Kong police have been working closely with Hong Kong customs and overseas law enforcement bodies in preventing arms from arriving in Hong Kong. Xinhua Language barriers between Burmese non- residents living in Macau and their mostly Cantonese-speaking employers is one of the most pressing difficulties that workers from Myanmar experience in the SAR. On the sidelines of a Burmese community event yesterday, the Chairman of Myanmars Social Club of Macau, Ricky Myint, said that among other issues faced by migrants in the region, including long working hours and being underpaid, a number of his compatriots still find it challenging to communicate with their employers. It is also interesting that we found out that a communication problem between the employee and employer still exists because they only know a bit of Cantonese, so they have difficulties in dealing with their employers or with customers, said Myint. To help solve the issue, the chairman said that the association provides lessons in Cantonese to these migrant workers. Meanwhile, Myint noted that the association had co-organized, with the Myanmar Consulate General in Hong Kong, events for the community with a view to fulfilling their consular needs. The Burmese community gathered yesterday at the Kam Pek Community Center to celebrate Thingyan, Myanmars New Year Festival that is celebrated over a period of four to five days. The association is commemorating the Buddhist festival for the fourth consecutive year. This year it involved a series of performances, including traditional dance and live music performances, along with food sharing amongst the community. One of the traditions includes splashing water on one another, as they believe that water cleanses a person of sins committed during the past year. We are expecting around 400 to 500 people to come. Everybody celebrates it in a traditional way. Today is exactly the right date to celebrate in Myanmar also. The aim of the event is to gather the Myanmar people who work and live in Macau and just be united and celebrate our tradition together, the event organizer said. The association also wants to help them [] through disseminating [information on] local laws including labor laws or assistance if there are conflicts between employee and employers, said Myint. We are like a bridge between the community and the Myanmar Consulate in Hong Kong, the chairperson added. The consulate makes it convenient for the people working here to process any passport-related concerts. The consulate currently opens its service in the region once a month. The association also holds a series of events including World Migrants Day and participates in local activities such as the Walk for a Million and blood donation activities. LV Mack's Mets Blogspot - Mets News and Links, #Mets Twitter Feed, Mets Minor Leagues, and comments. Mobile Uses click down arrows for more pages Username: Password: or Register Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Thread Rating: 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average 1 2 3 4 5 Page: 1 2 3 The Invasion is Starting at Chiapas Border National Hero of Britain Registered User User ID: 441604 04-12-2019 06:22 AM Posts: 1,861 Post: #1 The Invasion is Starting at Chiapas Border Advertisement This is just the start. Over a million are coming. These people said that they flew to C. America. They said they gave all their money to the smugglers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p8qt51BORk I am a Texan who greatly admires Boudicca's courage! "People have to understand that they have more to gain by being patriotic together than by fighting each other for scraps." Dr. Bret S. Weinstein May 22, 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRIKJCKWla4 testimony to the House of Representatives on college free speechMay 22, 2018 "Chaos in Chiapas, Mexico: African & Haitian Migrants Are Stopped At Mexican Border In Chiapas- Entry DENIED. Central Americans are not the only migrants entering Mexico at the southern border: more than 500 Africans, Asians and Haitians have also arrived recently in Chiapas. Migrants from the Congo, Cameroon, Angola, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Haiti crossed into Mexico from Guatemala in the final days of February and the first week of March, according to a report in the newspaper El Universal. The migrants voluntarily reported their entry to immigration authorities and requested transit visas that will allow them to legally continue their journey to the United States southern border, where they plan to seek asylum. More than 1,600 migrants demand safe-conduct in the station of the National Institute of Migration (INM) of the city of Tapachula, Chiapas."This is just the start. Over a million are coming. These people said that they flew to C. America. They said they gave all their money to the smugglers."People have to understand that they have more to gain by being patriotic together than by fighting each other for scraps."Dr. Bret S. Weinstein LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 433431 04-12-2019 06:43 AM Post: #2 RE: The Invasion is Starting at Chiapas Border Mexico is being culturally enriched and they should embrace the diversity. National Hero of Britain Registered User User ID: 441604 04-14-2019 10:37 PM Posts: 1,861 Post: #3 RE: The Invasion is Starting at Chiapas Border Mexican citizens are pissed. These people are taking over people's houses when they are away at work, eating their food, sleeping in their beds, and in trashing the place. Neighborhoods are starting to take things into their own hands to keep these people out. Oh, and there is now some kind of African fever that has spread among many of the "migrants," and this fever is now spreading among the Mexican people who live in Chiapas. Alex Backman is investigating this and will let us know what he finds out. Trump threatening to send the migrants to U.S. sanctuary cities has backfired, because the migrants are now saying that Trump has surrendered to the U.N. policies and is going to protect them by sending them to cites where they can not be deported and they will be fed, housed, and get jobs. This is a photo from March 28th at the southern border. It is from an AP reporter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIZlGLYwcsU Well, they have broken through the border of Southern Mexico.Mexican citizens are pissed. These people are taking over people's houses when they are away at work, eating their food, sleeping in their beds, and in trashing the place. Neighborhoods are starting to take things into their own hands to keep these people out.Oh, and there is now some kind of African fever that has spread among many of the "migrants," and this fever is now spreading among the Mexican people who live in Chiapas. Alex Backman is investigating this and will let us know what he finds out.Trump threatening to send the migrants to U.S. sanctuary cities has backfired, because the migrants are now saying that Trump has surrendered to the U.N. policies and is going to protect them by sending them to cites where they can not be deported and they will be fed, housed, and get jobs.This is a photo from March 28th at the southern border. It is from an AP reporter. I am a Texan who greatly admires Boudicca's courage! "People have to understand that they have more to gain by being patriotic together than by fighting each other for scraps." Dr. Bret S. Weinstein May 22, 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRIKJCKWla4 testimony to the House of Representatives on college free speechMay 22, 2018 National Hero of Britain Registered User User ID: 441604 04-14-2019 10:59 PM Posts: 1,861 Post: #4 RE: The Invasion is Starting at Chiapas Border https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/english/a...-us-border https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/english/h...ded-mexico https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/english/u...tary-bases I am a Texan who greatly admires Boudicca's courage! "People have to understand that they have more to gain by being patriotic together than by fighting each other for scraps." Dr. Bret S. Weinstein May 22, 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRIKJCKWla4 testimony to the House of Representatives on college free speechMay 22, 2018 LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 433431 04-15-2019 01:20 AM Post: #5 RE: The Invasion is Starting at Chiapas Border National Hero of Britain Wrote: (04-14-2019 10:59 PM) https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/english/a...-us-border https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/english/h...ded-mexico https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/english/u...tary-bases Mexicans are racist? No way! Mexicans are racist? No way! LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 497426 04-15-2019 01:39 AM Post: #6 RE: The Invasion is Starting at Chiapas Border I'm blaming this on Trump. There is no excuse for allowing these people to INVADE our country. What kind of deal did he make with Mexico? Nothing of any consequence to them, for sure. Expect 1 million more to be supported at year's end. It's a war, takeover of our country without a shot being fired. They will be living better than our homeless, and on our tax dollars, which means less money for our own people. Social Security will take a hit as well as healthcare for the vets, handicapped, the homeless. It will mean less money available for our children, too. We all should be damned good and mad. Uppity Me Registered User User ID: 497474 04-15-2019 01:44 AM Posts: 39,083 Post: #7 RE: The Invasion is Starting at Chiapas Border I have to wonder - why is the worlds leading democracy so weak that it can't make things better for the people of South America? are things so dire for them that they have to walk thousands of miles to come up here to escape? wtf? I really don't understand this. Also, if things are so bad why aren't they seeking refuge in Argentina and Brazil also? Who knows, maybe they are Quote: Les pauvres n'ont-ils des Euros ? Alors laissez les pauvres 'sh*t' dans les rues LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 433431 04-15-2019 02:06 AM Post: #8 RE: The Invasion is Starting at Chiapas Border Uppity Me Wrote: (04-15-2019 01:44 AM) I have to wonder - why is the worlds leading democracy so weak that it can't make things better for the people of South America? are things so dire for them that they have to walk thousands of miles to come up here to escape? wtf? I really don't understand this. Also, if things are so bad why aren't they seeking refuge in Argentina and Brazil also? Who knows, maybe they are Economies in the Americas are poised to expand but plenty of uncertainties could still slow growth Read more here: The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) predicts that Latin American economies will grow 2.2 percent this year and inch up to 2.6 percent growth in the 2018-2020 period. Venezuela, where the economy is on life support, is a notable exception. While economic growth in the region is welcome after a sluggish year in 2017 and two straight years of economic contraction in 2016 and 2015, "growth is too slow to satisfy the desires of the region's middle class," said Jose Juan Ruiz, the IDB's chief economist. It isn't the poorest of the poor coming in. It's the lower middle class and the hardened criminals that pay an average of 7 thousand dollars apiece to smugglers. They come for the freebees and then they send the money back home where they will return once they've accumulated enough to live like kings there. Remember the "pig food lady" who was recently arrested for assault? She had an Instagram account showing she lived high on the hog in Honduras. Economies in the Americas are poised to expand but plenty of uncertainties could still slow growthRead more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/busines...rylink=cpy It isn't the poorest of the poor coming in. It's the lower middle class and the hardened criminals that pay an average of 7 thousand dollars apiece to smugglers. They come for the freebees and then they send the money back home where they will return once they've accumulated enough to live like kings there. Remember the "pig food lady" who was recently arrested for assault? She had an Instagram account showing she lived high on the hog in Honduras. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 441604 04-15-2019 03:03 AM Post: #9 RE: The Invasion is Starting at Chiapas Border LoP Guest Wrote: (04-15-2019 01:39 AM) I'm blaming this on Trump. There is no excuse for allowing these people to INVADE our country. What kind of deal did he make with Mexico? Nothing of any consequence to them, for sure. Expect 1 million more to be supported at year's end. It's a war, takeover of our country without a shot being fired. They will be living better than our homeless, and on our tax dollars, which means less money for our own people. Social Security will take a hit as well as healthcare for the vets, handicapped, the homeless. It will mean less money available for our children, too. We all should be damned good and mad. I am blaming this on Trump AND especially CONGRESS. ALL OF CONGRESS. they could have fixed this years ago by changing the asylum laws, chain migration, and catch and release. we would not even need a border wall except maybe in a few high traffic cities. tossing the CIA/DEA drug network would also help a lot. just decriminalize mary jane and legalize the hard drugs with strict limits on how often you can buy, how much, and control the quality so it is not contaminated. recreational user can buy once a week just enough for a good time for the evening. period. anyone caught buying for someone else is going to pay a fine. do it again, you go to prison for 6 months. etc. use the drug war money for treatment and education. if you are a certified by a doctor addict, you can get legal drugs more often, but just enough to support your level of addiction and you need to be in treatment to also get the more frequent buyer program. the program will reduce your levels slowly and give you supplements to support your body coming off of drugs (vitamins, stuff that eases withdrawals, etc.). I am blaming this on Trump AND especially CONGRESS. ALL OF CONGRESS.they could have fixed this years ago by changing the asylum laws, chain migration, and catch and release. we would not even need a border wall except maybe in a few high traffic cities. tossing the CIA/DEA drug network would also help a lot. just decriminalize mary jane and legalize the hard drugs with strict limits on how often you can buy, how much, and control the quality so it is not contaminated.recreational user can buy once a week just enough for a good time for the evening. period. anyone caught buying for someone else is going to pay a fine. do it again, you go to prison for 6 months. etc.use the drug war money for treatment and education. if you are a certified by a doctor addict, you can get legal drugs more often, but just enough to support your level of addiction and you need to be in treatment to also get the more frequent buyer program. the program will reduce your levels slowly and give you supplements to support your body coming off of drugs (vitamins, stuff that eases withdrawals, etc.). LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 441604 04-15-2019 03:18 AM Post: #10 RE: The Invasion is Starting at Chiapas Border I used to coke once a week. did that for a few years. then I decided I like crystal better. switched to that for a few years. just one night; once a week. that is not addicting. they can sit down with people who used to do drugs and drug treatment folks and find out how much is a person can do and not get addicted. millions of us did drugs once a week for many years. we held jobs and kept relationships. then we said, ok, that was fun; time to stop, get married, have kids, get a better job. just don't keep doing it. that is when it gets a claw on you. but once a week or couple of times a month is not addicting. there are those unfortunate few who just have some kind of genetic predisposition or something in their mind or heart that is not right. those are people who if you take their drugs away they will just become alcoholics or addicted to food or something. i don't know why they are that way. mostly I think it they are trying to physical kill some kind of emotional pain, physical pain, or soothe themselves. they were probably abused in some way or not nurtured. there may be some who have a genetic problem like they can't detox it or something. maybe 2X a month. that might be safer and people can still have their d*mn drugs. because drugs will never be stopped. it is like prostitution, gambling, smoking and drinking -- it will never be stopped. at least this way we can empty the prisons for the most part, unclog the courts, stop the asset forfeiture seizure, clean up the cops, clean up the feds, tax the purchases, set up lots of treatment, stop the overdoses, deal a huge financial blow to the cartels, clean up the political money, etc. JohnPrewett Registered User User ID: 497514 04-15-2019 03:23 AM Posts: 2,279 Post: #11 RE: The Invasion is Starting at Chiapas Border National Hero of Britain Wrote: (04-14-2019 10:37 PM) Well, they have broken through the border of Southern Mexico. Mexican citizens are pissed. These people are taking over people's houses when they are away at work, eating their food, sleeping in their beds, and in trashing the place. Neighborhoods are starting to take things into their own hands to keep these people out. Oh, and there is now some kind of African fever that has spread among many of the "migrants," and this fever is now spreading among the Mexican people who live in Chiapas. Alex Backman is investigating this and will let us know what he finds out. Trump threatening to send the migrants to U.S. sanctuary cities has backfired, because the migrants are now saying that Trump has surrendered to the U.N. policies and is going to protect them by sending them to cites where they can not be deported and they will be fed, housed, and get jobs. This is a photo from March 28th at the southern border. It is from an AP reporter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIZlGLYwcsU Trump threatening to send the migrants to U.S. sanctuary cities has backfired, because the migrants are now saying that Trump has surrendered to the U.N. policies and is going to protect them by sending them to cites where they can not be deported and they will be fed, housed, and get jobs. The migrants see the reality of what Trump is doing. Trump threatening to send the migrants to U.S. sanctuary cities has backfired, because the migrants are now saying that Trump has surrendered to the U.N. policies and is going to protect them by sending them to cites where they can not be deported and they will be fed, housed, and get jobs.The migrants see the reality of what Trump is doing. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 441604 04-15-2019 03:25 AM Post: #12 RE: The Invasion is Starting at Chiapas Border LoP Guest Wrote: (04-15-2019 02:06 AM) Uppity Me Wrote: (04-15-2019 01:44 AM) I have to wonder - why is the worlds leading democracy so weak that it can't make things better for the people of South America? are things so dire for them that they have to walk thousands of miles to come up here to escape? wtf? I really don't understand this. Also, if things are so bad why aren't they seeking refuge in Argentina and Brazil also? Who knows, maybe they are Economies in the Americas are poised to expand but plenty of uncertainties could still slow growth Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/busines...rylink=cpy The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) predicts that Latin American economies will grow 2.2 percent this year and inch up to 2.6 percent growth in the 2018-2020 period. Venezuela, where the economy is on life support, is a notable exception. While economic growth in the region is welcome after a sluggish year in 2017 and two straight years of economic contraction in 2016 and 2015, "growth is too slow to satisfy the desires of the region's middle class," said Jose Juan Ruiz, the IDB's chief economist. It isn't the poorest of the poor coming in. It's the lower middle class and the hardened criminals that pay an average of 7 thousand dollars apiece to smugglers. They come for the freebees and then they send the money back home where they will return once they've accumulated enough to live like kings there. Remember the "pig food lady" who was recently arrested for assault? She had an Instagram account showing she lived high on the hog in Honduras. I think you are mostly right. it is not the poorest of the poor, mostly that is. they are the ones that care enough to stay and do what they can to take care of grandma who can't walk all that way. maybe some of the young poor are making the trek, but most poor people have extended families that they would never leave. they might send one son, but I doubt he would feel like it was acceptable to leave. I think you are mostly right. it is not the poorest of the poor, mostly that is. they are the ones that care enough to stay and do what they can to take care of grandma who can't walk all that way. maybe some of the young poor are making the trek, but most poor people have extended families that they would never leave. they might send one son, but I doubt he would feel like it was acceptable to leave. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 497497 04-15-2019 03:27 AM Post: #13 RE: The Invasion is Starting at Chiapas Border you mean the invasion is ending, the invasion started decades ago...this is just the cherry on top...to rub salt in the wound and rub sh*t in the face of the worthless false americans that let it happen ...a final mockery before escorting them to shallow paupers graves JohnPrewett Registered User User ID: 497514 04-15-2019 03:29 AM Posts: 2,279 Post: #14 RE: The Invasion is Starting at Chiapas Border LoP Guest Wrote: (04-15-2019 01:39 AM) I'm blaming this on Trump. There is no excuse for allowing these people to INVADE our country. What kind of deal did he make with Mexico? Nothing of any consequence to them, for sure. Expect 1 million more to be supported at year's end. It's a war, takeover of our country without a shot being fired. They will be living better than our homeless, and on our tax dollars, which means less money for our own people. Social Security will take a hit as well as healthcare for the vets, handicapped, the homeless. It will mean less money available for our children, too. We all should be damned good and mad. yea, now ya getting it yea, now ya getting it LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 497446 04-15-2019 03:34 AM Post: #15 RE: The Invasion is Starting at Chiapas Border There SEEMS to Be a SHITTON of AFRICANS in That Invading Army! 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Period. Credit: CC0 Public Domain Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have together with American colleagues studied deceased patients who were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or frontotemporal dementia. They observed a correlation between certain proteins and dementia sufferers' tendency to commit criminal acts. "This study is unique in that we studied deceased patients, something that means we are 100 per cent sure of the dementia diagnosis, which is not always established while the patients are alive. In addition, we observed that the likelihood of committing criminal acts was nine times higher among patients with frontotemporal dementia who had accumulations in the brain of certain abnormal proteins, above all TDP-43, compared with those who had accumulations of tau protein. The TDP-43 proteins seem therefore to be particularly associated with developing criminal behaviour among people with frontotemporal dementia", says Madeleine Liljegren, researcher at Lund University and resident physician at Psychiatry Northwest in Stockholm. When a person who previously has been perceived by those around them as well-behaved starts committing criminal acts such as theft, shoplifting, sexual harassment or other aggressive behaviour, there may be a dementia disease behind these unexpected actions. This has been shown in previous studies including some from Lund University (see Liljegren M et al, JAMA Neurology 2015, among others). Researchers in the Neuropathology team in Lund studied 220 deceased patients with Alzheimer's disease or frontotemporal dementia (FTD), who had been monitored at the Memory Clinic in Lund between 1967 and 2017. Of these, 30 per cent had committed a criminal offence 15 per cent of the total number of patients who had Alzheimer's and 42 per cent among those who had FTD. The latter group committed repeated criminal offences to a greater extent than the Alzheimer's group. When examining behaviour such as excessively loud laughing or unexpected shouting, the FTD group is also overrepresented (75 per cent), compared with the Alzheimer's group (56 per cent). "It confirms what we have seen in previous studies. With these patients, the damage is in the frontal part of the brain, where our personality, including impulse control and empathy, resides", says Madeleine Liljegren, emphasising that dementia diseases do not exclusively affect the elderly. "Frontotemporal dementia can also occur in younger people and it can often take a long while before there is a correct diagnosis. That is why it's important that relatives, healthcare services, the police and the entire legal system respond to altered social and criminal behaviour and provide assistance to enable these people to get medical care", she concludes. Explore further Differences in aggression among people with dementia More information: Madeleine Liljegren et al. Association of Neuropathologically Confirmed Frontotemporal Dementia and Alzheimer Disease With Criminal and Socially Inappropriate Behavior in a Swedish Cohort, JAMA Network Open (2019). Journal information: JAMA Network Open Madeleine Liljegren et al. Association of Neuropathologically Confirmed Frontotemporal Dementia and Alzheimer Disease With Criminal and Socially Inappropriate Behavior in a Swedish Cohort,(2019). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.0261 Credit: CC0 Public Domain Sucralose is a sweetener authorized in the European Union as E 955. The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) has assessed the current data situation on the stability of sucralose and the formation of possibly harmful chlorinated compounds at high temperatures. The available data show that harmful compounds, some with carcinogenic potential, might occur when Sucralose and especially Sucralose-containing foods such as canned vegetables or baked goods are heated. When Sucralose (E 955) is heated to temperatures higher than 120 degrees C a gradualand with further continuously increasing temperaturedecomposition and dechlorination of the sweetener occurs. Temperatures of between 120 degrees C and 150 degrees C are possible during industrial manufacturing and processing of foods, and are also reached in private households during cooking and baking of foods containing Sucralose. This may lead to the formation of chlorinated organic compounds with a health-damaging potential, such as polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDD), dibenzofurans (PCDF) and chloropropanols. However, there are currently insufficient data to draw final conclusions. It is unclear on the one hand which toxic reaction products are generated in detail and in which quantities they are formed when Sucralose-containing foods are heated to temperatures above 120 degrees C on the other. Moreover, representative data on the levels in thus manufactured foods are required for exposure estimation within the scope of a risk assessment. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is also currently dealing with Sucralose in the context of the re-assessment of authorised food additives in line with Regulation (EC) No. 1333/2008 and Regulation (EU) No. 257/2010. The result of the assessment is still pending. Until a conclusive risk assessment is available, the BfR recommends not to heat foods containing Sucralose to temperatures that occur during baking, deep-frying and roasting, or to add Sucralose only after heating. This applies to consumers as well as to commercial food manufacturers. Explore further Study finds sucralose produces previously unidentified metabolites Provided by BfR Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (HealthDay)In many U.S. states, teenagers who send "sext" messages to each other can be prosecuted as child pornographersand that should end, researchers argue. Many states have recently passed laws that specifically address teen sextingexempting it, to varying degrees, from longstanding child pornography statutes. But in 23 states, those outdated laws still apply to teenagers who willingly send sexual messages to each other. The penalty is up to 20 years in prison and a lifetime as a registered sex offender, according to Dr. Victor Strasburger, of the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque. Writing in the May issue of the journal Pediatrics, he and his colleagues contend that it's time for all states to revisit their child pornography laws. Consensual teen-to-teen sexting should be addressed by parents, schools and health providersnot the criminal justice system, they said. "I absolutely agree," said Elizabeth Englander, a professor of psychology at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts. "This needs to be treated as a developmental and educational issue." Englander, who also directs the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center at Bridgewater, studies kids' technology useincluding issues like sexting and cyberbullying. It's no secret that teenagers today are attached to their devices. In the United States, 95% of teens own or have access to a smartphone, according to Strasburger's team. So, it's also no surprise that sexting has become common. Based on international surveys, more than one-quarter of teenagers have received a sext, while 15% have admitted to sending them, the researchers noted. And a recent study of Pennsylvania high school students found that 29% were "engaged in consensual sexting." A few years back, Englander said, when the media started highlighting the issue, there was speculation that kids would only sext if they were "depressed or disturbed in some way." But it isn't playing out that way. Instead, Englander said, teenagers' sexting typically seems to reflect the nature of adolescence: They're curious, impulsive and not always exercising good judgment. "Parents do get very emotional about sexting," Englander said. But as a society, she added, "we need to get a grip." Strasburger's team pointed to a Minnesota case where a teenage girl was charged with felony distribution of child pornography after she sent a revealing "selfie" to a boy at her school. The judge dismissed the case, ruling that punishing the girl would produce "an absurd, unreasonable and unjust result that utterly confounds the stated purpose of the statute." None of that means teen sexting is fine. Just like with real sex, kids might feel pressured to do itwhich is "never OK," Englander said. And once an image is out there, it's out there. Even if it was intended only for a significant other, it could easily be passed on to others. According to Englander, the media often play up that threat, focusing on tales of so-called revenge porn. But research suggests that while "unauthorized distribution" does happen, it doesn't happen often, she said. Of course, it's a different story when an adult sexts with a teenagera scenario that should fall under child pornography laws, Strasburger's team said. (An exception, they argue, could be "Romeo and Juliet" cases where the two people are close in agean 18-year-old and 16-year-old, for example.) The researchers suggest that more states follow New Mexico's example. There, child porn laws do not apply when a teenager younger than 18 possesses an explicit image of another teen who is between the ages of 14 and 18, and the two voluntarily shared the image. As for parents, Englander advised being proactive: Talk to your kids about sexting, just as you would about other aspects of sexuality. And start early. "With younger kids," Englander said, "parents can address the problems that come up with posting photos online. Talk about what's appropriate, or maybe not appropriate, to share. At that age, you don't even have to talk about sex, specifically." With older kids, the conversation can be more direct, she said. That includes talking to teens about what to do if they ever feel pressured to share sexual imagesand teaching them it is never OK to pressure others. "There's really no choice but to talk about these things," Englander said. "It's the new reality. Parents need to deal with it, schools need to deal with, and teenagers need to be able to deal with it." Explore further 15 percent of teens say they've sexted More information: Elizabeth Englander, Ph.D., professor, psychology, and director, Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center, Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Mass.; April 15, 2019, Pediatrics, online Elizabeth Englander, Ph.D., professor, psychology, and director, Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center, Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Mass.; April 15, 2019,, online The American Academy of Pediatrics has advice on talking to kids about sexting. Journal information: Pediatrics Copyright 2019 HealthDay. All rights reserved. A proposed ban of menthol combustible tobacco products by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will likely be upheld in court, albeit a lengthy legal process, a Rutgers paper found. The paper appears in Public Health Reports. The 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act provided the FDA with broad authority to regulate the manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of tobacco products, including banning flavored cigarettes, to protect public health. However, the Act did not ban menthol cigarettes, which are used disproportionately by adolescents, women, LGBT populations and racial/ethnic minority groups, particularly African Americans. The research, conducted by the Rutgers School of Public Health Center for Tobacco Studies, anticipates arguments the tobacco industry is likely to use in a lawsuit challenging the FDA's authority to ban menthol cigarettes. It then weighs the strength of the scientific evidence justifying a menthol ban. Finally, it considers the potential for illicit trade to undermine the effectiveness of a menthol ban. Considering those factors, this paper concludes that an FDA rule banning menthol cigarettes is likely to survive a lawsuit. The FDA has sought public comments on menthol two previous times this decade without following through. In late 2018, then FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb showed commitment to a menthol ban late in 2018 that had not been displayed by the FDA before. There is no indication that his surprise resignation in March 2019 will alter the FDA's course or priorities. "All cigarettes are deadly. Menthol cigarettes are particularly nefarious because the tobacco industry designed them as 'starter products' that mask the harshness of smoking, leading to more smokers overall. Additionally, menthol cigarettes are even harder to quit than nonmenthol cigarettes," said lead author Kevin Schroth, member of the Rutgers Center for Tobacco Studies. "This paper shows that right now the FDA has the scientific evidence and legal power to pull these deadly products from the market, saving thousands of lives, especially in communities that have been targeted historically by menthol marketing," continued Schroth, who is also a faculty member at the Rutgers School of Public Health. Even if the FDA proceeds expeditiously, the rulemaking process may take at least two years without including potential litigation delays. In the meanwhile, local jurisdictions like San Francisco have banned the sale of menthol and other flavored tobacco products. "New Jersey should not wait for FDA action and move forward with proposed legislation which was approved by the state Assembly's Health and Senior Services Committee," said co-author Cristine Delnevo, and Director of Rutgers Center for Tobacco Studies. "New Jersey has led nationally on sound tobacco control policies to protect vulnerable populations and should continue to lead and become the first state to ban menthol cigarettes." A New Jersey law would be justified by the same scientific evidence that supports an FDA rule. Even though the legal analysis differs for a state law, similar laws in other jurisdictions have been upheld consistently. Explore further Increase in other flavored tobacco use after menthol ban More information: Kevin R. J. Schroth et al, Why an FDA Ban on Menthol Is Likely to Survive a Tobacco Industry Lawsuit, Public Health Reports (2019). Kevin R. J. Schroth et al, Why an FDA Ban on Menthol Is Likely to Survive a Tobacco Industry Lawsuit,(2019). DOI: 10.1177/0033354919841011 The World Health Organization has sounded the alarm over declining vaccination rates for measles Measles cases rose 300 percent worldwide through the first three months of 2019 compared to the same period last year, the UN said Monday, as concern grows over the impact of anti-vaccination stigma. Measles, which is highly contagious, can be entirely prevented through a two-dose vaccine, but the World Health Organization (WHO) has in recent months sounded the alarm over slipping vaccination rates. "Preliminary global data shows that reported cases rose by 300 percent in the first three months of 2019, compared to the same period in 2018. This follows consecutive increases over the past two years," it said in a statement. "While this data is provisional and not yet complete, it indicates a clear trend. Many countries are in the midst of sizeable measles outbreaks, with all regions of the world experiencing sustained rises in cases," it added. The agency noted that only about one in 10 actual measles cases are reported, meaning the early trends for 2019 likely underestimate the severity of the outbreaks. So far this year, 170 countries have reported 112,163 measles cases to WHO. At this time last year, 163 countries had reported 28,124 cases. Unvaccinated 'clusters' Measlesan airborne infection causing fever, coughing and rashes that can be deadly in rare caseshad been officially eliminated in many countries with advanced healthcare systems. Measles is an airborne infection causing fever, coughing and rashes, that can be deadly in rare cases But the so-called anti-vax movementdriven by fraudulent claims linking the MMR vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella, and a risk of autism in childrenhas gained traction. Repeated studiesthe most recent involving more than 650,000 children monitored for more than a decadehave shown that there is no such link. But according to WHO, global coverage for the first vaccine dose has been "stalled" at 85 percent, while 67 percent of people have received the second dose. The provisional 2019 data shows that cases have spiked "in countries with high overall vaccination coverage, including the United States," WHO warned. "The disease has spread fast among clusters of unvaccinated people," it added. Vaccination programmes had led to measles being officially eliminated in many countries with advanced healthcare systems New York's mayor declared a public health emergency in parts of Brooklyn last week, after a measles outbreak emerged in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, where some had resisted vaccination on religious grounds. Calls have mounted in several countries to make measles vaccinations mandatory, including in Germany. Australia earlier this month launched a major education campaign to encourage residents to get vaccinated. Medics in Madagascar have vaccinated children against measles after hundreds died from the illness during a recent outbreak Turning the tide against measles will require "effective public-facing communication and engagement on the critical importance of vaccination, and the dangers of the diseases they prevent," WHO said. 700-percent increase While WHO has identified the junk science behind anti-vax propaganda as a public health threat, the data highlighted that measles still hits hardest in unstable countries with weak health systems. New York declared a public health emergency in parts of Brooklyn after a measles outbreak in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community The most dramatic rise in cases through the early part of the year was reported in Africa, which has weaker vaccination coverage than other regions. Africa saw a 700-percent increase compared to last year. At least 800 children have died from measles since September in Madagascar, where rampant malnutrition and a historically poor vaccine rate are driving the world's worse current outbreak. In conflict-scarred Yemen cases shot up more than 300 percent in 2018 compared to 2017. Venezuela, where the disease was once contained, has also seen tens of thousands of cases as the country's economic and political crises continue to push the healthcare system to the brink of collapse. Explore further Measles count in US this year already more than all of 2018 2019 AFP Credit: CC0 Public Domain Half of patients prescribed statins in primary care fail to reach 'healthy' cholesterol levels after two years of treatment with these drugs, reveals research published online in the journal Heart. The findings back up those of previous studies, and highlight the need for personalised medicine to tackle high cholesterol and lower the significantly increased risks of future heart disease and strokethe leading causes of death worldwidesay the researchers. National US and UK guidelines designed to curb cardiovascular disease deaths specify statin treatment targets: in the UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) stipulates a reduction of 40 per cent or more in LDL ('bad') cholesterol. The researchers therefore wanted to find out how well patients respond to statins, based on the NICE target, and how this might affect their future risk of cardiovascular disease. They drew on diagnostic and prescribing data submitted anonymously by 681 family doctor practices to the nationally representative UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink, and linked them to episodes of hospital treatment (HES data) and statistics on cause of death (ONS data). Complete information was available for 165,411 patients, who had not been treated for heart disease or stroke, and who had had their cholesterol measured at least once in the year before statin treatment and at least once within two years of starting it. The average age at which patients started on statins was 62; nearly half (48.5%) of them were women. All had started treatment between 1990 and 2016. Any reduction in cholesterol below 40 per cent after two years of statin treatment was deemed to be a 'suboptimal' response. This applied to half (51%; 84,609) the patients. During an average monitoring period of six years, new cases of cardiovascular disease were reported in 22,798 (just under 14%) patients. Some 12,142 arose in those who failed to reach a healthy cholesterol; 10,656 arose in those whose cholesterol did drop by 40 per cent. After taking account of potentially influential factors, including age, cholesterol level, and any underlying conditions before treatment, patients who failed to reach a 40 per cent reduction after two years were 22 per cent more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than those who did respond well. Every 1 mmol/l fall in low density cholesterol was associated with a 6 per cent lower risk of stroke and mini stroke in those who failed to reach the 40 per cent target. But among those who responded well, this was associated with a 13 per cent lower risk of cardiovascular disease, in general, reinforcing the health benefits of reaching the 40 per cent target, say the researchers. Several factors may be behind the difference in response, but genetic make-up and an inability to stick to treatment may explain some of the observed variation, they suggest. "Currently, there is no management strategy in clinical practice which takes into account patient variations in [low density cholesterol] response, and no guidelines for predictive screening before commencement of statin therapy," they highlight. This is an observational study, and as such, can't establish cause. But the findings reflect the real-world experiences and outcomes of a large number of people over time, the researchers point out, and should be applicable to patients elsewhere. "These findings contribute to the debate on the effectiveness of statin therapy and highlight the need for personalised medicine in lipid management for patients," they conclude. In a linked editorial, Dr. Marcio Bittencourt, of University Hospital Sao Paolo, Brazil, describes the high rate of poor responders as "clearly alarming." He suggests that the reasons may lie as much with doctors as with patients. Doctors might prescribe lower doses of less powerful drugs, because they aren't aware of official guidance, or because they remain unconvinced that more powerful statins will be more effective or won't produce unwanted side effects, he says. But he adds: "Effective implementation of guidelines among healthcare practitioners and the general population has been a challenge for a long time. Both physicians and patients should be targets for approaches aiming at improving adherence to guidelines." And he emphasises: "Patients and society should be educated on the scientific evidence documenting the benefits of lipid lowering therapy, and antistatin propaganda based on pseudoscience should be strongly disavowed and demystified by health authorities." Explore further Patients say lack of physician guidance and fear of side effects are why they don't take statins as prescribed More information: Sub-optimal cholesterol response to initiation of statins and future risk of cardiovascular disease, Heart (2019). Journal information: Heart Sub-optimal cholesterol response to initiation of statins and future risk of cardiovascular disease,(2019). DOI: 10.1136/heartjnl-2018-314253 Doctors should ditch the requirement for a mental health assessment of transgender teens and adults before prescribing them hormone treatment, argues an activist and bioethicist, drawing on their own personal experience in the Journal of Medical Ethics. The practice is dehumanising, unjustified, and turns the process of transformation into the treatment of a mental illness, says Florence Ashley of McGill University, Montreal, Canada. It should instead be replaced with informed consent, which respects a patient's lived experience and autonomy, they insist. The informed consent approach is becoming more common, they acknowledge. But many doctors still require an assessment and referral letter from a mental health professional in compliance with the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care. The author says that their decision to take hormones was not made in haste, and they had 'socially transitioned' months before opting for hormone treatment. Their university health clinic had adopted informed consent for transgender care, which allowed them to get a prescription for hormones without a referral letter. But "many others are not so lucky," they point out, adding that their own luck ran out when they had to get two referral letters for genital surgery. The assessment of gender dysphoriadiscomfort or distress caused by the mismatch between a person's gender identity and his/her sex assigned at birthleft them "feeling exposed, naked and dehumanised," because it was viewed as a mental flaw that needed fixing. "Referral requirements for [hormone treatment] treat self-reports of gender dysphoria not as one would treat reports of normal mental experiences, but as one would treat reports of mental illnesses," they write. By requiring a mental health assessment instead of taking the transgender person's word, doctors "deny the authority trans people have over their own mental health experiences," they say. "As being transgender is not a mental illness, treating gender dysphoria in this way is pathologising and, because it pathologises normal human variance, dehumanising." What's more, the desire to transition may not be a result of gender dysphoria, they suggest. And so these assessments "devalue" the diverse experiences of those who wish to change their bodies for other reasons, they say. There is no scientific evidence to back up referral letter requirements, they point out, arguing that hormone therapy poses no more risk to health than several other medical procedures for which no psychological assessment is requiredabortion, for example. "I invite physicians to answer this question for themselves and inquire into how double standards in clinical practices may reflect unconscious hostility towards trans lives and experiences," they write. "The referral requirements may reflect a failure of clinical guidelines to keep up with our evolving understanding of transitudethe fact of being transas part of normal human diversity," they suggest. But while there does seem to be some progress towards adopting informed consent rather than a mental health assessment before providing hormone treatment, it is not happening fast enough, they say. "More than just unjustified, these requirements are dehumanising and pathologising for trans people and should be abandoned," they conclude. Explore further Transgender youth avoid health care due to discomfort with doctors More information: Gatekeeping hormone replacement therapy for transgender patients is dehumanising, Journal of Medical Ethics (2019). Journal information: Journal of Medical Ethics Gatekeeping hormone replacement therapy for transgender patients is dehumanising,(2019). DOI: 10.1136/medethics-2018-105293 A paper published by Narvaez and her colleagues at the Notre Dame Family Life Project in Sage Open highlights how taking a snapshot of a young child's experience over a week, as reported by a parent, is predictive of child outcomes. Credit: University of Notre Dame/iStock For decades in the U.S., there have been competing theories of how best to raise children, from the early 1900s belief that mothers should not be clingy to parents' embrace of Dr. Spock. Parents want to optimize their "nests," knowing physical elements like shelter and psychological elements like emotional support affect child development. University of Notre Dame Professor of Psychology Darcia Narvaez specializes in this kind of research, studying the evolved nest (or evolved developmental niche; EDN). Components of EDN include breastfeeding for two to five years, nearly constant touch, responsiveness to a baby's needs, multiple responsive adult caregivers, free play with multiple-aged playmates and positive social support for mom and baby. EDN can also entail soothing perinatal experience (before, during and after birth) and a positive, welcoming social climate. "All these are characteristic of the type of environment in which the human genus lived for 99 percent of its existence," Narvaez noted. A paper published by Narvaez and her colleagues at the Notre Dame Family Life Project in Sage Open highlights how taking a snapshot of a young child's experience over a week, as reported by a parent, is predictive of child outcomes. The measurethe EDNwas tested in three countries: the U.S., Switzerland and China. Parents of 3-to-5-year-old children indicated how much self-directed play, family togetherness, affection and (lack of) corporal punishment the child received in a week. They also completed validated measures of child social and moral development and mental health. "Today, U.S. culture does not provide much of the evolved nest, and so we should not be surprised that we have a lot of ill health, self-centeredness and oppositionalism," Narvaez said. "A person's neurobiology and social capacities are founded in early months and years of life. We have to remember that babies are like fetuses until 18 months of age and so need an external womb experience to grow properly. It's important to optimize human potential and capacities so that humanity can solve the crises we face. The poor development of human capacities has contributed to those crises. We forgot what we are capable of in a positive sense." Three sets of outcomes were examined in the recent study: child socialization (e.g., self-control, empathy), child maladaptation (e.g., distrust, misbehavior) and social thriving (e.g., joy in interpersonal relations). Other factors such as parental age, income, education and responsiveness were controlled while examining whether the snapshot report influenced children's outcomes beyond the other factors. In all three countries, social thriving was predicted by the evolved nest snapshot. In the U.S. all sets of outcomes were significantly predicted by how much self-directed play, family activities, affection and lack of punishment the child was reported to experience in the past week. The study shows that a quick snapshot, a short six-item measure, can be used to assess how much children are experiencing the nest, and it worked for assessing well-being in three countries. With proof of its effectiveness, the measure can be used by health care workers and parents themselves. The next step for Narvaez and her colleagues is to use it longitudinally with the same families to see how it affects the patterns of well-being of children over the long term. Narvaez is also developing self-assessments of nestedness for children, teens and adults. "Our work emphasizes the optimization of developmentwhat helps people flourish and thrive, not just survive," Narvaez said. "Child well-being is often discussed by others as a minimal set of provisions like nutrition or an absence of trauma. Those foci are just not enough and they reflect the downward shift of baselines for acceptable child raising, child health, adult health and cultural practices." More information: Darcia Narvaez et al, Evolved Developmental Niche Provision Report: Moral Socialization, Social Thriving, and Social Maladaptation in Three Countries, SAGE Open (2019). Journal information: SAGE Open Darcia Narvaez et al, Evolved Developmental Niche Provision Report: Moral Socialization, Social Thriving, and Social Maladaptation in Three Countries,(2019). DOI: 10.1177/2158244019840123 Karen Joynt Maddox, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, led a study showing that new Medicare reimbursement rules reduce financial penalties for safety-net hospitals. The change shifts some of the financial burden away from hospitals that care for the most vulnerable patients. Credit: Matt Miller New Medicare reimbursement rules provide some relief to safety-net hospitals, shifting the burden of financial penalties toward hospitals serving wealthier patient populations, according to a new study led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The new rules also reduce the burden of such penalties on hospitals in states that have more generous Medicaid programs. The study, conducted by researchers at Washington University, the Missouri Hospital Association and the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, is published April 15 in JAMA Internal Medicine. In an effort to reduce health-care costs, Medicare issues financial penalties via the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) to hospitals with higher than expected readmission rates. The programwhich can cut a hospital's Medicare reimbursements by up to 3 percenthas been criticized for unfairly penalizing so-called safety-net hospitals that serve the poorest patients, who are more likely to be readmitted for reasons beyond the hospital's control. Rather than comparing all hospitals directly, the new rules divide hospitals into five groups according to the proportion of their Medicare patients who are also enrolled in Medicaid, a program intended to help the poorest patients. Hospitals are then only compared to their peers that treat similar proportions of disadvantaged patients. Across the five groups of hospitals, the average proportion of patients dually enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid ranged from a low of 9.5 percent to a high of almost 45 percent. "The new rules recognize the reality that it is harder to prevent readmissions when people don't have stable housing or social support," said Washington University cardiologist Karen Joynt Maddox, MD, the study's first author and an assistant professor of medicine. "If you have patients who struggle to put food on the table, it's going to be tougher for them to manage their end-stage heart failure. The old system took money away from hospitals that serve the most vulnerable patients. It created a significant disincentive to provide health care to poor people, and that's the last thing we want." Looking at the most recent data published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the researchers calculated and compared the penalties under the old and new reimbursement rules for just over 3,000 hospitals nationwide. Using the published data, the researchers projected how the penalties will shift by comparing projected penalties under the new rules to what they would have been under the old rules. Under the new rules, penalties for the hospitals serving the fewest poor patients are projected to increase more than $12 million in total. Meanwhile, penalties for the hospitals serving the highest proportion of poor patients are projected to decrease by more than $22 million in total. On an individual hospital level, the changes are projected to range from an increase in penalties of $225,000, to a decrease of $436,000. Large hospitals and teaching hospitals are the most likely to see reduced penalties. The researchers also found reduced penalties among hospitals serving patients from the most disadvantaged neighborhoods and those serving the most patients with disabilities. Hospitals in states with more generous Medicaid enrollment also fare better than those in states with fewer poor patients enrolled in the Medicaid program. "States differ widely in the percentage of people living in poverty who are able to enroll in Medicaid," Joynt Maddox said. "Since the new rules, as written by Congress, only give credit to hospitals for treating patients on Medicaid and not poor patients in general, the states with more people enrolled in Medicaid are going to benefit more from the new system." According to Joynt Maddox, the researchers were surprised at the magnitude of the state and regional differences in the shift in penalties, with more penalties for hospitals in the South and Midwest and fewer penalties for hospitals in the West and Northeast. California, which has generous Medicaid enrollment, had the most reduced penalties. Meanwhile, South Dakota and Florida, two states with fewer poor patients enrolled in Medicaid, had the greatest increases. Overall, much of the shift in penalties between states could be explained by differences in state Medicaid enrollment. "This was a positive change for the HRRP," Joynt Maddox said. "Making the program more fair doesn't take away from its goal, which is to use financial incentives to make hospitals think differently about care beyond their walls. Hospitals are increasingly working to provide a soft landing, including discharge planning and communication with outpatient-care providers." Still, Joynt Maddox said there is work to be done, even if the new rules more fairly consider the socioeconomic reality of hospitals' patient populations. "There are still marked disparities in readmissions related to social determinants of health," she said. "We need to find innovative solutions to improve outcomes for our most vulnerable patients after they leave the hospital." Explore further Social risk factors and readmission penalties More information: Joynt Maddox KE, Reidhead M, Qi AC, Nerenz DR. Association of stratification by dual enrollment status with financial penalties in the hospital readmission reduction program. JAMA Internal Medicine. April 15, 2019. Journal information: JAMA Internal Medicine Joynt Maddox KE, Reidhead M, Qi AC, Nerenz DR. Association of stratification by dual enrollment status with financial penalties in the hospital readmission reduction program.. April 15, 2019. Credit: CC0 Public Domain Heart disease remains the world's leading cause of death, and today top European scientists outlined their battle plans for the coming years, calling for more investment in research. This call-to-action was produced by the EU-funded ERACVD, a coalition of 24 partners including the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 "In spite of Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) remaining the main cause of death globally, researchand new medicines available to patientshave declined over the last ten years. Innovative methods and more clinical trials in cardiology are required to ensure that we can address the vast unmet needs we see today," said Professor Tomasz Guzik, Chair of the ESC Research and Grants Committee. "We need to detect CVD earlier and avoid acute events that lead to irreversible damage and chronic illness. A strategic research agenda for CVD at the European level will help ensure that research efforts and investment are directed at the most pressing questions." CVDs cause more death and disability than cancer 4 million compared to 2.1 million deaths in 2016 yet funding for CVD research lags behind. Oncology has the largest share of health and biomedical papers at 23%, compared to just 10% for CVD, suggesting less research activity. "There is false optimism that cardiovascular disease (CVD) is no longer a public health problem," states the report. In Europe, more than 10,000 patients die of CVD every day. CVD is expected to remain the top reason for death, premature death and disease burden in Europe over the next 20 years. The document proposes 15 topics for CVD research in three categories: prevention strategies; treatment and management; and living with chronic cardiovascular diseases. Among the topics are: Can wearables help people improve and maintain a healthy lifestyle? How to anticipate and prevent heart attack, cardiac arrest, and stroke. Using data on genetics, physical and mental health, and socioeconomic status to tailor risk assessment, lifestyle advice, and preventive treatment. How CVD interacts with cancer and diabetes and the potential for combined treatments. Clarifying the biological, behavioural, and social mechanisms of CVD in women versus men. Understanding the crosstalk between cognitive decline and CVD to jointly tackle both conditions. Ways to support CVD patients with depression, anxiety, and extreme tiredness. What CVD patients and caregivers need and expect from healthcare providers at the end of life. Research on new advanced cell-derived therapies to detain the progression of acute heart disease to heart failure ERACVD is set to launch an online survey for patients, the public, healthcare providers, and research scientists to rank the 15 topics. It will be available here: enquetes.agencerecherche.fr/in x/sid/478641/lang/en Implementation of the proposed research agenda will require action at EU and national level from ministries, funding agencies, healthcare administrators, and the private sector. "The burden of CVD is immense and greater than any other condition, yet it receives less research funding," said Professor Lina Badimon, Chair of the ESC Advocacy Committee. "As the next EU framework programme for research 'Horizon Europe' is developed, we call on EU decision-makers to act on this discrepancy by prioritising CVD research. The ERACVD Strategic Research Agenda provides a blueprint on how to combat CVDs through basic and translational research." Explore further Repeat heart attack and death linked to hospitals with low care scores Undocumented immigrants protest outside of Senator Marco Rubio's office in Doral on Nov. 20, 2015 C.M. GUERRERO After bills aimed at banning so-called "sanctuary cities" were fast-tracked through the Legislature this year, progress grinded to a halt and they weren't heard for a week. But the contentious bills will be heard in the House Judiciary and Senate Rules committees Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon respectively. These meetings are the last stops the bills need before heading to the chamber floor. The bills create rules relating to federal immigration enforcement by prohibiting sanctuary policies and requiring state and local law enforcement to comply with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The bill also would give whistleblower status to officers who report citizenship violations by undocumented immigrants detained in local jails on unrelated charges. Under the bills, local law enforcement would be required to honor federal law enforcements request for an immigration detainer, meaning a request that another law enforcement agency detains a person based on probable cause to believe that the person is a removable alien under federal immigration law. The bill would essentially make the request a requirement. Since they were filed, the proposals sparked a heated debate on who should be making immigration policy. Groups opposing the bills have held protests and rallies both at the Capitol and at district offices across the state, and say the bill is a "family separation policy." They rejoiced when the bills weren't put on any agendas last week. The House and Senate have not yet worked out a technical disagreement related to whether policy bills should be allowed to be tied to the budget, which has slowed some policy bills, including a contentious school safety bill that would allow classroom teachers to be armed on campus. In the House, Speaker Jose Oliva said there's still time to hear the bill, nodding to what he said would be a hectic schedule in the last three weeks. "There's a lot of things that I think will still come through here that might appear stalled," Oliva told reporters last Thursday, in response to a question about the sanctuary cities proposal. "There are a lot of bills, next week's going to be a busy week, and then two weeks after that we're going to be in this chamber almost all day. There's still a lot of things to get done." "There's time for that," he said of sanctuary cities, though he said he doubted the House would advance that proposal by this week. The topic of sanctuary cities became national news Thursday night, when the Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump is giving "strong considerations" to releasing immigrant detainees in "sanctuary cities." Gov. Ron DeSantis, an ally of the president, campaigned aggressively against sanctuary cities in his state of the state address. He told the crowd that Florida will not be a sanctuary state" and that he wont tolerate sanctuary cities that actively frustrate law enforcement. "I thought Democrats were really concerned about voter suppression? I guess you cant suppress peoples votes if you dont give them the choice in the first place. Important stuff you won't get from the liberal media! We do the surfing so you can be informed AND have a life! Andre Fourie is not your average entrepreneur he is a professor with a PhD in engineering, a tech inventor with over 50 patents, and a very successful businessman as the founder of Poynting. To really understand Fourie and Poyntings motto Making Wireless Happen you have to go back twenty years when he was a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand. At the time he was doing a lot of antenna design as consultant, but he had a burning desire to see his designs turn into real-world products solving real-world problems. Although Fourie did not have much money at the time, he had to fulfil this desire to build products and started Poynting Antennas in 2001. Funding Poynting Antennas Fourie funded Poynting Antennas through three finance sources: An IDC loan of R1 million. An Armscor Defence R&D Council (DRDC) grant for development of commercial products using defence expertise. An IDC Special Programme for Industrial Innovation (SPII) grant for some novel product idea they had. He recalled how tight finances were initially. The IDC SPII grant is a 50/50 grant where we had to pay half of the R&D costs we paid our half using the IDC loan, he said. What is quite noteworthy is that we really maximally leveraged government support. As difficult as it was, I acknowledge that without such support the company could not have been launched. Growing Poynting Fourie told MyBroadband that they made their first R1 million in revenue in the second year, but that the company was struggling for many years before turning a profit. It took almost 8 years to get to first profit. We were investing all we made back into research and development and lived on the brink for quite some time, said Fourie. The biggest challenge when he started Poynting was coming to grips with the two most important business aspects sales and finances. As engineers these are considered trivial and uninteresting, but we later realised that the engineering (for us) is easy, Fourie said. Sales and finances are, however, monsters which will have you for breakfast if you do not get them under control. Fourie did get their sales and finances under control and build Poynting Antennas to over 150 employees and listed the company on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in June 2008. This was only the start, and as Poynting Holdings CEO he built the company from a R20 million market capitalisation in 2010 to R450 million in 2014. Ditching the suit While Fourie was a successful businessman and CEO, he decided to ditch his suit and analysts meetings to focus on his passion building cool products. In 2014 he exited Poynting Holdings by buying out Poynting Antennas in his personal capacity which continued as private company under his guidance. This split allowed Poynting Antennas to design, manufacture and sell innovative antenna and wireless consumer products unhindered by the constraints of a listed company. Fourie also started to lecture at the University of the Witwatersrand again, where he passes his knowledge to engineering students. Poynting continues to make waves in the global antenna market and the companys products regularly outperform their international competitors. Andre Fouries tech and business choices It is easy to see from Fouries tech and business choices that is a techie at heart, where the desire to build great products comes first. Why do you think Poynting succeeded where many other tech startups failed? People like to attribute success on planning and failure on bad luck, but I think 60% of the reason for Poyntings success was luck. It did, however, require effort, passion, dedication and persistence far beyond what the entrepreneurial team imagined at the outset to overcome the remaining 40%. What would you say are the top skills that are needed to be a successful tech entrepreneur in South Africa? I think you mainly need vision, fearlessness, belief, and persistence to start a business and stay motivated. This is necessary but entirely insufficient, so realise and admit that 90% of the skills you need to come from partners and employees. So rapidly appoint people who know more than you in their areas and learn from them and support them. Remember that despite your inflated ego these people know more than you, so try refrain from telling them how to do their jobs. What was your first ever business? At age 15 I inherited a small amount I think around R2000 and used this to buy discarded Hi-Fi units and components at a weekly auction in Krugersdorp. I fixed these mainly by fiddling, since I had no actual electrical knowledge. I then advertised these in Star Classifieds and sold them. What was your first job and what was your salary? My first job as a WITS junior research officer and was paid around R1,500 per month. It would be equivalent to around R6000 per month now, which means it was little but livable. How did you get into the tech field? My passion was languages and science, and a clever career advisor pointed out that engineers end up earning more than writers or journalists. What laptop do you use? Samsung Core i7. What smartphone do you use? Samsung Galaxy S8. What is the best gadget you have ever bought? A radio-controlled helicopter it is massive fun! What is the worst gadget you have ever bought? A radio-controlled helicopter. It breaks spectacularly when crashing, requires tons of time and effort fixing and to add injury to insult, the blades inflicted cuts requiring 29 stitches to repair. What was your best-ever investment? Raising, educating and providing interesting and stimulating experiences to 3 beautiful daughters aged 22, 20 and 19. Two of them are studying engineering and the middle one is a commercial pilot and trainer at a flight school. What was your worst-ever investment? A guesthouse in Houghton which failed, was rented out and turned into the first female brothel in Johannesburg by a bunch of thugs who didnt pay rent and were difficult to evict. What is the best business advice you have ever received? Billionaire Jack Ma again encouraged tech workers to embrace the industrys extreme-overtime culture, defying a growing social media backlash. The Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. co-founder once more endorsed the sectors infamous 12-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week routine as de rigueur for passionate young workers. In a lengthy Sunday blog post, Chinas richest man expanded on comments from last week, in which he dismissed people who expect a typical eight-hour office lifestyle. As I expected, my comments internally a few days ago about the 996 schedule caused a debate and non-stop criticism, Ma wrote. I understand these people, and I could have said something that was correct. But we dont lack people saying correct things in the world today, what we lack is truthful words that make people think. Mas earlier comments stoked a fierce ongoing debate over tales of programmers and founders dying from unrelenting stress. Chinese tech workers protested labor conditions on the online code-sharing community GitHub in March under the banner 996.ICU, which quickly became the sites most popular topic. Those who can stick to a 996 schedule are those who have found their passion beyond monetary gains, he wrote Sunday. Oracle has officially launched its new office building, which is situated in Woodmead, Johannesburg. The new facility is equipped withfuture-proof technology which the company claims will deliver an exceptional experience and better support the digital transformation journeys of South African public and private sector entities. It is also a 4 Green Star-rated building, which means it enables the active monitoring of energy, water, and waste consumption to drive efficient use. Our new workplace is an investment in the future of our customers, employees and the next generation workforce of South Africa, said Oracle South Africa MD Niral Patel. We have created an inclusive space that will encourage innovation, foster learning and inspire organisations to achieve more. This follows the November 2018 opening of Oracles first South African Innovation Hub in Johannesburg. Pictures of the new building are posted below. The governments incompetence related to digital migration and mobile spectrum allocation is causing tremendous damage to the local telecommunications market and the economy as a whole. Access to additional spectrum will make it more affordable for operators to roll out mobile broadband networks and reduce the price of data. Affordable Internet access, in turn, will help to grow the economy and make sure the country is not left behind in the 4th Industrial Revolution. President Cyril Ramaphosa seems to understand this and promised swift action to crafting the path towards mobile spectrum allocation. Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams acted on Ramaphosas instructions and promised that the final policy directive on spectrum allocation will be issued by end of April 2019. A decade of incompetence The digital migration and spectrum allocation processes started fifteen years ago with a deadline of November 2011 for the migration to digital terrestrial TV. The November 2011 deadline passed without any real progress, and so did the international digital migration deadline of 17 June 2015. In 2015, South Africa became part of a small list of countries that failed to even get out of the starting blocks towards digital migration. Since then it has been one missed deadline after another while the telecoms industry is begging for additional spectrum to serve the growing demand for mobile data. This delay means that mobile operators have to engage in practices like re-farming spectrum and rolling out denser networks than necessary to cope with increasing data demands. This significantly increases the cost to deliver data to consumers, which in turn increases the price of mobile data. Mobile operators begging for spectrum Vodacom and MTN have been begging for more spectrum, which they said will help them to drive down data prices and improve service levels to subscribers. In addition to digital dividend spectrum which is linked to completing the digital migration process, there are also calls for 5G licensing to happen urgently. Vodacom called on the government to license 5G spectrum in South Africa as soon as possible, as this spectrum is not subject to any digital migration processes. There is a large amount of spectrum, particularly in the 2.6GHz and 3.5GHz bands, which is currently not being used nor is subject to any migration processes and which can be licensed to enable a 5G network rollout, Vodacom said. MTN said its ability to roll out 5G across its network is limited because it does not have dedicated 5G spectrum. The mobile technologies being deployed in the network have been planned to make sure we have the capacity to enable 5G as soon spectrum becomes available, MTN said. South Africa versus other countries Speaking at the 2019 MyBroadband Mobile Networks Conference, MTNs general manager of engineering Zoltan Miklos illustrated the spectrum crunch in South Africa. He highlighted that when compared to the other countries where it operates MTNs spectrum allocation is only higher than Afghanistan, South Sudan and Yemen. Spectrum allocation in South Africa, which is related to the governments performance in the ICT space, is therefore in line with three war-torn countries. The charts below illustrate how spectrum allocation in South Africa compares to benchmarked countries. Now read: Final policy directive on spectrum allocation coming this month Small-scale solar plans around South Africa can save farmers thousands in electricity costs and even help to prevent load-shedding, but the government and NERSA are having none of it. Carte Blanche reported that farmers have the land and the incentive to install small-scale solar farms, which can cover most of their electricity needs. Excess electricity can also be fed into the South African grid which can help to alleviate load-shedding during times of Eskom shortages. Dr. Requier Wait, Agri SA Head of Economics and Trade, said farmers have the capacity to generate up to 1,400MW of electricity. This is enough to power a small-sized city and can even prevent stage 1 load-shedding at times of electricity shortages. Generating solar power is also good for the farming industry as it lowers the operational cost and prevents problems during load-shedding. It therefore makes perfect sense for farmers to use solar energy, but there is an obstacle the government and the National Energy Regulator (NERSA). Preventing farmers from making the most of solar energy Farmer Chris Botha invested in a solar plant in 2016 which will give him reliable energy and cut down on his monthly electricity bill of R100,000. Botha may, however, not link his solar plant to the grid to power his farm and potentially give electricity back to the grid. It is now standing idle. This is because NERSA has to grant permission to farmers, and this is not happening despite the farmers having submitted their applications months or even years ago. Energy expert Chris Yelland said NERSA has taken since November 2017 to complete a very simple task preparing a registration process and publishing it on its website. NERSAs HOD for electricity, licensing and dispute resolution, Dennis Seemela responded, saying registration can only happen when all the processes are in place in accordance to the law. He said NERSA cannot come up with rules without any regulation or notice from the department of energy. Red tape hurting farmers The incompetence and red tape from the government and NERSA are hurting farmers, especially those who have invested in solar farms. They now have to pay off the solar farms without any benefits, because they are prevented from connecting this valuable power source to the grid. Farmer Cecilia Mendile said they have been waiting for a year for their registration to go through. This means their R8.1 million investment in the solar plant on their farm remains unused, and load-shedding continues to affect their business. Unused solar farms The photos below show two solar farms which are ready to provide electricity to farmers and the South African grid, but which are prevented from doing so because of red tape. Despite Eskoms plan to improve its operational efficiency and shore up electricity production before winter, load-shedding is still a real risk to South Africa. Energy expert Ted Blom has prophesized that it is only a matter of time before load-shedding returns in earnest due to mismanagement, a lack of long-term coal contracts, and many other factors. There are ways to maintain some amenities during load-shedding, especially if you have a generator to power your essential appliances during power outages. You can also keep your fixed-line Internet connection active with just a UPS, and this can be a great solution for heavy data users with fibre Internet connections. Load-shedding can also affect fibre network operators, however, as their network infrastructure remains powered by backup solutions during power outages. These secondary power solutions can be expensive to manage and run, however, and issues such as battery theft can also be a threat to operations. MyBroadband spoke to Vumatel about the effect of load-shedding on its network and the costs of providing fibre infrastructure. Facing challenges Vumatel said that power cuts are damaging to any communication network despite unpredictable electricity supply being catered for during the designing of the network. As we have seen in the most recent round of load-shedding, interrupted power supply is not ideal for any communications network with even the mobile network operators facing a number of challenges during this period, Vumatel said. Every POP (point of presence) on Vumatels national network has backup power with sufficient capacity to remain powered throughout load-shedding, the company said. However, the unpredictable nature and impact of inconsistent electricity supply will always remain a challenge. Vumatel added that most of the major networks are focusing on additional measures to minimise the impact of potential future load-shedding. The biggest impact is on the end user, for as much power redundancy is implemented at the core network level, unless the end user has an alternate or backup power source at home, they will remain without connectivity. Increased costs Vumatel acknowledged that the cost of running any communication network on backup power is relatively expensive. The cost of equipping networks with backup power and the cost of running and maintaining backup power during load shedding is significant, the company said. With the additional operating costs of managing generator fuel levels, solar power and so on, as well as unexpected costs such as the replacement of stolen batteries. Battery backup units are major targets for criminals, especially considering the proliferation of load-shedding and increased demand for backup power throughout the country. Vumatel said that it could not predict how the cost of running its network regularly on backup power would affect the price of wholesale fibre, but added that it aims to keep its offering stable in terms of reliability and price. It is difficult to predict potential increases in operational costs based on an unpredictable environment, the company explained. However, Vumatel endeavours to keep its wholesale model to the ISP stable, as network and power redundancy is part of our existing business model and service offering. Now read: Competition Tribunal examining CIVH purchase of Vumatel Altron Bytes Document Solutions (BDS), the largest Xerox distributor in the world, has won the Xerox Middle East & Africa (MEA) Partner of the Year Award, the Xerox Managed Print Excellence Award, and a shared award for Xerox Production Excellence for 2018. These awards were presented at the Xerox MEA Partner Conference that was held in Madrid, Spain in April 2019. This is the second time in four years that Altron BDS has won the coveted Xerox MEA Partner of the Year Award, having also won the Xerox Office System Group Award in 2017, the Xerox Managed Print Services and Xerox Partner Print Services (XPPS) X-Factor Award in 2016, and four major awards in 2015 including the Overall Xerox Middle East and Africa Partner Award. The Xerox MEA Partner of the Year Award is contested across 80 countries and given to the partner who best exemplify among other criteria: revenue growth, account management, balanced operational performance, robust business plans and strong brand representation and stewardship. Market coverage, service modernisation, business model evaluation and value proposition are also evaluated. Altron BDS has once again demonstrated exceptional performance in the Xerox MEA region which was achieved against a backdrop of tough global and regional economic developments said Johan Basson, MD of Altron BDS. These results demonstrate the critical importance of a strong, dedicated, loyal and professional team, and I am honoured to lead such a committed and skilled group of people. I would like to thank my employees and all our business partners for contributing to this success. This is the highest honour bestowed upon a partner in Xerox MEA and highlight the fact that Altron BDS is among the top Xerox partners in the world and certainly the best in the MEA region. We remain aligned with, and committed to Xerox and I am pleased that Xerox has recognised the superior job that our teams do. The recognition for our hard work is highly rewarding and appreciated, and we will continue to deliver exceptional value to our customers. While businesses remain cautious for 2019, results like these make me optimistic for the future, and I am confident that we will continue to excel. It is a privilege to celebrate the successes and growth of our partners and to reward excellence for 2018, said Kevin Gould, Regional Manager South & Central Africa for Xerox MEA. Altron BDS has played an important role in continuing our leadership in the document technology sector across the 26 sub-Sahara countries it services, and their results in a very challenging economy is commendable. The technology industry is constantly evolving, and we are pleased that our partners continue to strengthen our value proposition to our customers. The Altron Bytes Document Solutions (BDS) and Xerox Middle East & Africa (MEA) team EOH, in partnership with Micro Focus, recently held an event outlining how it has successfully launched Micro Focus Service Management Automation X (SMAX) and Operations Bridge software as a solution for a major African broadcasting company. EOH Application Managements ITOM product manager, Chris Visagie, said that EOH chose to partner with Micro Focus and offer SMAX to its customers from February 2017, after witnessing the softwares capabilities. Benefits of SMAX SMAX is a powerful service management platform that utilises automation to optimise three key application areas into a single solution: IT Service Management (ITSM), IT Asset Management (ITAM), and Enterprise Service Management (ESM). Both ITSM and ITAM are delivered out-of-the-box in SMAX and allow for codeless customisation using the SMAX Studio tool. ESM, meanwhile, is based on this out-of-the-box content and also includes features like HR workflow management, ideation and proposal management, and portfolio optimisation. ESM can also be customised using SMAX Studio. Features of particular interest included within the SMAX platform include dynamic catalogue offerings, natural language search functionality, and a smart search tool which allows staff members to like and follow the tickets submitted by other users rather than creating duplicates. One of the most beneficial elements of SMAX, particularly when hosted on the cloud, is the fact that it is regularly updated. On average, in the past, customers were about 2 years behind what we were delivering out of the factory. This was the same for all the traditional software vendors said Kevin Leslie, global sales leader for ITOM at Micro Focus. Agile DevOps and continuous delivery are going to be the new norm, and SMAX has it now. SMAX allows for the implementation of quarterly updates and the ability to apply them seamlessly, ensuring that customers always have access to the latest version and capabilities of the platform. First South African customer A major African broadcasting company is the first SMAX customer in South Africa, joining the international customer community. It sought to implement SMAX and Operations Bridge as a replacement for its older HP Service Manager system and five other tools including Jira after asking EOH to show them something new. This company had specific requirements they wanted fulfilled by EOH and Micro Focuss SMAX platform. We are flexible from a user requirement perspective, said Visagie. He said that an example of this was evident in the fact that it assisted the company to implement a segmented approach for certain information, since certain information is confidential and should not be accessible to most employees. As part of this implementation, EOH helped to shift its platform from an on-premise platform to one that is situated completely in the cloud. However, SMAX can be hosted anywhere be it on-premise, private clouds, or public clouds depending an enterprises needs. Brilliant results Following an exhaustive competitive evaluation, the implementation of SMAX has been a monumental success for this organisation. The transition to SMAX has nearly doubled the capabilities available, and has also allowed them to automate a large number of processes. As a result of this automation in SMAX and Operations Bridge, savings of around $220,000 in just 31 days thanks to cost avoidance has been realized. Mean time to repair (MTTR) has also been reduced significantly as a result of this implementation of SMAX. An example to follow Visagie hopes that the good results achieved in the implementation of SMAX will encourage more businesses to considering implementing SMAX. We hope from a customer perspective that one customer doing it disrupting the market will help us to get more logos and bring this new enterprise service management platform to more customers in South Africa, said Visagie. Leslie echoes this sentiment, highlighting how this success with SMAX is a path that South African enterprises can follow. Customers want to hear from customers. So, getting them live, and moving from IT Service Management for South Africa to Enterprise Service Management for all of Africa is a pretty big change, said Leslie. The business benefits that this organisation is showing are key. Thats what excites customers not only is it transforming what theyre doing from a technology perspective, but its delivering a return on investment. For more information, download this white paper on Fast-Track Enterprise Service Management Applications with Codeless Configuration and this white paper on Operations Bridge. Join us at Experience Micro Focus Universe 2019, 29 August at the Inanda Club. Seats are limited, so RSVP today and find out everything you need to know about our DevOps, hybrid cloud, mainframe, security, risk and governance solutions directly from our customers. EOH are proud Gold Sponsor and will be available to discuss their Service Management Automation X (SMAX) and Operations Bridge to the Cloud solution with you at the event. Visit their booth to find out more. A swathe of the world is adopting Chinas vision for a tightly controlled internet over the unfettered American approach, a stunning ideological coup for Beijing that would have been unthinkable less than a decade ago. Vietnam and Thailand are among the Southeast Asian nations warming to a governance model that twins sweeping content curbs with uncompromising data controls because it helps preserve the regime in power. A growing number of the regions increasingly autocratic governments watched enviously the emergence of Chinese corporate titans from Tencent Holdings Ltd. to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. in spite of draconian online curbs. And now they want the same. The more free-wheeling Silicon Valley model once seemed unquestionably the best approach, with stars from Google to Facebook to vouch for its superiority. Now, a re-molding of the internet into a tightly controlled and scrubbed sphere in Chinas image is taking place from Russia to India. Yet its Southeast Asia thats the economic and geopolitical linchpin to Chinese ambitions and where U.S.-Chinese tensions will come to a head: a region home to more than half a billion people whose internet economy is expected to triple to $240 billion by 2025. For authoritarian countries in general, the idea of the state being able to wall off to some extent its internet is deeply appealing, said Howard French, author of Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape Chinas Push for Global Power. This is about the regimes survival in an authoritarian situation. So thats why they like to do this. They want to be able to insulate themselves against shocks. The Chinese model is gaining traction just as the American one comes under fire. Facebook and Twitter were used to manipulate the 2016 U.S. election, YouTube was criticized for failing to detect child porn, and American social media allowed a gunman to live-stream the worst mass shooting in New Zealands history for 10 minutes or more before severing it. Against the backdrop of wider fears about U.S. social media failings, Beijings approach now seems a reasonable alternative, or reasonable enough that self-serving governments can justify its adoption. Vietnams controversial version went into effect Jan. 1 a law BSA/The Software Alliance, which counts Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. among its members called chilling and ineffectual. Indonesia, the regions largest economy, already requires data be stored locally. The Philippines has stepped up what critics call a media crackdown, arrested the head of media outlet Rappler Inc. after it grew critical of President Rodrigo Duterte. And last year, the government of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak introduced a fake news law used to probe his chief opponent, though the current government may yet repeal it. One of the latest to buy into the rationale is Thailand, which on Feb. 28 passed a cyber security bill modeled on Chinas that grants the government the right to seize data and electronic equipment without a court order in the interests of national security. Introduced just weeks ahead of Thailands first democratic election since a 2014 military coup, it stoked concerns it could be used to stifle dissent, though the government says it shouldnt affect companies with good conduct. The Asia Internet Coalition, an organization that groups the likes of Alphabet Inc.s Google, Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc., condemned a bill Amnesty International warns could be used to cage the internet. The crux of a Chinese internet model is data sovereignty: information of citizens must be stored in-country and accessible on demand to the authorities, a concept enshrined in Chinese law since 2017. Thats raising hackles in Washington, which aims to counter Beijings sway a longer-term struggle that may be the single most important episode in world affairs since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Escalating tensions between the two richest economies will impact just about every country across the planet economically and socially. The U.S., for its part, worries that the spread of Chinese technology and ideology in Southeast Asia means Beijing will increasingly push a strategically vital region toward authoritarianism, even as individual countries grow wary of becoming beholden to China. The spread of a Chinese-style internet is a problem for U.S. internet giants from Facebook to Google wrestling with increasingly draconian regulations over what they carry on their platforms, and how they store and handle the information pivotal to their dominance. Fragmented laws governing data are anathema to giant corporations used to harnessing the cloud for everything from search to video. If authorities in the region can convince Silicon Valley to play by their repressive rules, were going to see a drop in standards of privacy, surveillance, and freedom of expression on those platforms, said Tanya OCarroll, head of technology and human rights at Amnesty International. How Silicon Valley chooses to engage with the likes of Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia could set major precedents. They must not treat those countries as testbeds to tinker with peoples rights online. For now, U.S. social media is popular enough that in countries like Thailand theyre able to publicly resist attempts to rein in content. But in the longer term, theres a real risk American companies could get supplanted by the likes of WeChat, TikTok and Alipay Chinese powerhouses thatre venturing aggressively abroad, into music and social media or e-commerce. Tencent, Alibaba and Bytedance Ltd. are also seeding the regions startups, courting a younger mobile-savvy consumer a generation that politicians need to maintain their grip on power. This issue was not on my radar and not on other peoples radar a year ago, said Brian Harding, deputy director with the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Washington for now is more focused on the political impact of Chinese investments in infrastructure from ports to refineries, he added. But in terms of the Digital Silk Road, interest is rising very quickly, he said. Data localization is a real challenge for U.S. companies localization policies make it difficult to have economies of scale in doing business across the region. Chinese cadres have long proselytized the concept of a rigidly policed web that can still be a wellspring of innovation. Tencents billionaire-founder, Pony Ma, joined government officials in declaring in December its their countrys destiny to become an internet power. Southeast Asia has thus become a testbed for Beijings political objectives, a jumping-off point in a long-term campaign to extend its influence around the globe. The U.S. fears the Communist Partys vision of a web where governments pull the strings could wind up the model for the next billion users. Thats what prompted ex-Google honcho Eric Schmidt to declare the internet will split down the middle within a decade. The most likely scenario now is not a splintering, but rather a bifurcation into a Chinese-led internet and a non-Chinese internet led by America, the former Google chief executive reportedly told a private venture capital gathering in September. Globalization means that they get to play too. Covid-19: This is not the right ... This *Retro Ad & Recipe for Snowballs* (Most-praised Cupcakes) is great for *National Cupcake Day*, *Christmas*, and any *Snow Dy*! The *Swift'ning Ad* call... 20 hours ago Gov. Gavin Newsom wants California to work with communities to identify state-owned properties that could be used for affordable housing. Napa County is willing, with the Veterans Home of California at Yountville among the possibilities. Housing is a basic human right, and in California, we simply dont have enough of it, Newsom said in a Thursday press release. The cost of housing and rising rents are squeezing family budgets. Newsom in January signed an executive order to develop housing on excess state land. He ordered the Department of General Services by April 30 to create a list of state-owned lands in each county that might be used for housing. The state on Thursday released county-by-county maps of state properties. The Department of Housing and Community Development and Department of General Services will work with local governments in coming weeks to determine which properties are best suited for housing, the Newsom press release said. Yountville Mayor John Dunbar said he thinks he has the perfect local candidate, a state-owned site where he says affordable housing can quickly come to fruitionthe Veterans Home. Hes worked with CalVet and the Department of General Services to try to bring affordable housing to the Veterans Home for Veterans Home employees, Dunbar said. Hes talked with officials in the governors office and the office of state Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa. Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar Curry, D-Winters, is receptive. Theres quite a bit of support for the idea, Dunbar said on Friday. The Veterans Home has more than 900 employees, he said. It plans to build a $300 million nursing facility. When you have the high cost of housing as we do in Napa County, its difficult to compete with other industries to bring the workforce to the Yountville Veterans Home, Dunbar said. He sees an opportunity beyond housing for Veterans Home workers. Transitional housing might be built for homeless veterans who can receive vocational training, Dunbar said. Yountville can provide such needed services as wastewater treatment for affordable housing at the Veterans Home. A project could happen quickly if all parties are willing. Newsoms executive order on housing adds momentum to the effort, Dunbar said. Napa County officials for several years have talked about bringing some type of affordable housing to Californias Napa State Hospital and Veterans Home properties, either for employees there or for families in general. Board of Supervisors Chair Ryan Gregory said the county is ready to work with the state. Absolutely, Gregory said on Friday. Its a logical partnership, because were often faced with mandates from the state. This is the state saying, Were going to be part of the solution and help you (with) your housing goals. Its a good deal. Deputy County Executive Officer Molly Rattigan said the county has communicated its interest to the state. So far, the state has acknowledged the interest but not moved on to having specific conversations. Napa State Hospital and the Veterans Home are far from the only sites on the states recently released map of state-owned properties in Napa County. The map is covered with so many blue dots that they merge into a blur in areas such as the city of Napa. Many state properties dont seem to be excess or suitable for housing. For example, theres the far-flung Gordon Valley fire station, the wetland preserves in the south county and the Imola and Trancas park-and-ride lots and Caltrans maintenance yard in the city of Napa. The state Department of Housing and Community Development and state Department of General Services have developed screening criteria for the properties. These criteria include proximity to jobs center, education, utilities and mass transit and being at least a quarter-acre. Newsom said he wants his administration to partner with cities to release at least three requests for proposals to potential developers within a year for housing on state properties. The first parcel is to be identified and the first request for proposal to be released by Sept. 30. He announced his administration is working with Chico, Fresno, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco to identify state-owned properties that could be used for housing in those cities. In his press release, he invited other cities to be partners. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. After whimsically describing John Muir as, St. John of the Mountains, I have come to suspect the designation may have been more Jungian and less whimsy. If so, his elevation to sainthood may not be an unrealistic overreach. In many ways, he lived like an ascetic monk, welcoming hardships that few people would (or could) endure. He survived extended periods in the wilderness with a single wool blanket; tin cup, some tea and a pillowcase containing dried bread-balls. Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter. As a highly literate man, Muir was likely aware that his philosophy was closely related to St. Francis of Assisi and St. Ignatius of Loyola. Both men were devout Nature lovers and described all matters natural as the handiwork of God. Denis Williams wrote in his book, Gods Wilds: John Muirs Vision of Nature (College Station: Texas A&M Univ. Press): Muir saw nature as a great teacher, revealing the mind of God, and this belief became the central theme of his later journeys and the subtext of his nature writing. Muir joined Henry Thoreau and R.W. Emerson in a brotherhood of naturalists who believed that a quintessential component of becoming fully human involved transcending the confining bonds of logic, reason and egoism in order to be spiritually born: Ergo, Mystery remains Supreme. Perhaps it is also not a reach to deduce that if Muir had been a member of the Roman Catholic Church, he would have been canonized long ago. However, the reality is that he regarded the universe as his church and being the free spirit that he was, chose not to identify with any particular branch of religion: Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water tanks the peoples cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man. As a child, he had memorized much of the Holy Bible and his writing often reflected Holy Scripture, as in the case of Psalm 8: When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, The moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; What is man, that Thou dost take thought of him? KJV He also frequently sowed spiritual seeds with writings: From the dust of the earth, from the common elementary fund, the Creator has made Homo sapiens. In Gods wildness lies the hope of the worldthe great fresh, unblighted, unredeemed wilderness. The galling harness of civilization drops off and the wounds heal ere we are aware. Sometimes his words and deeds can be considered boldly evangelical: I care to live only to entice people to look at Natures loveliness. Heaven knows that John the Baptist was not more eager to get all of his fellow sinners into the Jordan than I to baptize all of mine in the beauty of Gods mountains. One of the prerequisites of achieving sainthood is an act of performing a miracle. Because Muir was such a spiritual giant, few would argue that his life, works and legacy have provided inspiration, comfort, even healing for countless millions of people, many of who have experienced Nature-induced born-again experiences. His lofty vision of the importance of eco-spirituality has spread globally. Through his inspiration and guidance countless thousands of national, state and regional parks have been established worldwide. After Muirs famous camp-out with Teddy Roosevelt, on top of Yosemites Glacier Point, Roosevelt signed into existence five national parks, 18 national monuments, 55 national bird sanctuaries and wildlife refuges, and 150 national forests. Millions of acres have been set-aside for the primary purpose of encouraging people to reconnect with Mother Nature. Everybody needs beauty...places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul alike. JM Muir wrote about poets, philosophers and prophets coming down from the mountains to improve humanity, but was too humble to realize that he belonged to that pantheon of sages. Countless millions of followers have joined his Sierra Club, which has had a huge national and international impact, encouraging people to go to the mountains and seek a spiritual rebirth. The final line in his marvelous story about his little wonder-dog Stickeen was: To me Stickeen is immortal! In what has become a quintessential irony, it is truly John Muir who has become immortal in the hearts and minds of countless millions of Nature lovers around the world. St. John of the Mountains has a nice ring to it. Lowell H. Young St. Helena Editors note: Muirs 181st birthday is April 21. In a goodwill gesture, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has announced five additional seats for Bhutanese students in government medical colleges in Bangladesh, according to reports. This increase will take the total number of seats reserved for students from the country to 15 per year. She made the announcement during official talks with her visiting counterpart Lotay Tshering in Dhaka on Saturday.. Tshering, himself a medical doctor who studied at Mymensingh Medical College, thanked his Bangladesh counterpart for providing opportunities for Bhutanese students in higher educational institutions in Bangladesh, particularly in the medical colleges. The two countries also signed MoUs on cooperation in the fields of agriculture and tourism and on mutual collaboration in the field of public administration training. To enhance cooperation in the health sector, an MoU was signed to facilitate the recruitment of Bangladeshi specialist doctors by Bhutan under attractive remuneration packages. Both leaders discussed the potential for enhancing bilateral trade, including the use of inland waterways for transportation of bilateral trade. They also discussed transmission of electricity, investment in hydro-power in Bhutan, multi-modal connectivity, particularly through the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal (BBIN) initiative. He will leave Dhaka on Monday, ending his four-day maiden visit to Bangladesh as the Prime Minister. Making a strong attack on All Indian United Democratic Front (AIUDF) chief Badruddin Ajmal, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday termed him as the leader of infiltrators. Everyone knows that Ajmals politics runs only on the fact that he shelters Bangladeshi infiltrators, protects them and speaks for them. His party is known as an organisation for Bangladeshi infiltrators, said BJP national spokesperson Shahnawaj Hussain in New Delhi. Hussain termed AIUDF as the B team of the Congress. Also read: Assam: Ajmal joins hands with UG Brahma for Lok Sabha polls Ajmal said that after the election, he will send our Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah out of the countryBadruddin Ajmal is the leader of infiltrators, said Hussain. According to media reports, AIUDF chief Ajmal launched a personal attack on Prime Minister Modi on Friday by vowing to throw him out of the country after the Lok Sabha polls. Also read: Assam: AIUDF not playing footsie with Congress, says Ajmal Media reports quoted Ajmal as saying that he along with other members of the Gathbandhan (mega alliance) would come together to throw Modi out of the country. He also reportedly said after that Modi can set up a tea stall somewhere and also sell pakodas. The sitting MP from Dhubri Lok Sabha constituency, Ajmal is no stranger to controversies who had earlier threatened to smash a journalists head when he was asked whether he would he would be allying with the BJP or the Congress for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. While addressing a press conference, Hussain also criticized National Conference (NC) leader Farooqu Abdullah and Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Azam Khan for making derogatory remarks against Prime Minister Modi. The National Socialist Council of Nagalands Khaplang (NSCN-K) faction has demanded release of their leaders by the Myanmar government to be able to carry out peace talks. We will struggle to keep up peace talks with the Myanmar military if it does not release our leaders and fighters, some of whom are in our negotiating team, said the groups liasion officer Juvlengthong. He said the Myanmar military arrested 10 leaders and six fighters including captains leading squads in March after taking over the K groups headquarters at Taga in Sagaing province in February in a bloodless operation. Later five of the leaders were released but five others remain in Burmese custody. Those released include the groups health kilonser (minister) Eno Ngaitum, education kilonser Eno Manglwan, legal affairs kilonser Eno Athrom, agriculture kilonser Eno Longsa and a central committee member Eno Tomthong. But Juvlengthong said the chairman of the groups peace team U An Kam and its vice chairman U Kyaw Wan Sein are still behind bars, charged under Unlawful Associations Act, along with two other leaders and six fighters. Also read: Myanmar army takes NSCN-K leaders in custody; death knell for NE rebel groups These leaders, still in custody, are likely to be produced in a Burmese court on Apr 19. Juvlengthong said the group has written to the National Peace and Reconciliation Centre headed by state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and Burmese army chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing to intervene for release of the K group leaders . But we have got no feedback so far, he said. Presidents spokesman U Zaw Htay has said the charges against the K group leaders were being reviewed. The Burmese military Tatmadaw accused them of providing shelter to insurgents from Northeast India who were involved in violence against the neighbouring country. The Tatmadaw arrested 36 people, mostly local Nagas known to be close to the K group or other Indian rebel groups, and also imposed severe restrictions on movement in the Naga self administered area of Sagaing. The Burmese military also attacked an ULFA base and killed a Major Jyotirmoy Asom and three fighters. Since then there has been a spate of surrenders from the ranks of the ULFA. Carolyn Kousky, Katherine Greig, and Brett Lingle February 2019 (Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, University of Pennsylvania) Executive Summary Wildfire risk is escalating in the western United States, devastating and disrupting communities and creating billions of dollars in property damage. Under a unique legal regime in the state of California (inverse condemnation), electric utilities are held strictly liable for property damage associated with any wildfire where utility infrastructure is found to have been a significant cause of ignition, even if the utility was not negligent in their risk management actions. Wildfires in 2017 and 2018 have shown that these liabilities can reach into the billions, threatening the financial health and solvency of utilities, with consequences for ratepayers, shareholders, and the states ability to meet its climate and energy goals. This liability poses challenges for traditional approaches to risk financing as it is concentrated and potentially catastrophic. When utilities act negligently, they should bear costs proportional to their negligence. Absent reform to eliminate or modify the application of the doctrine of inverse condemnation to utilities, however, utilities need financing mechanisms that enable them to cover this growing liability. There are a range of mechanisms that could facilitate a utilitys ability to access capital to cover this risk, including funded self-insurance, commercial insurance, catastrophe bonds, industry captives, an industry risk pool, and recovery bonds. These financing options are not mutually exclusive, and several should be layered together to ensure funding for third-party liability from wildfires of various magnitudes. Each of these strategies would require an annual contribution and/or initial capitalization. How those costs are distributed has implications for who ultimately bears the costs of wildfires. To align with the regulatory compact, ratepayers would shoulder cost-effective pre-wildfire financing and shareholders would pay post-loss costs in proportion to utility imprudence. With the significant increase in wildfire risk due to climate change and continued development in the wildland urban interface, risk mitigation by all stakeholders will be needed to complement financing efforts. This includes land use planning modifications, adoption and enforcement of strong building codes, broad education campaigns for those living in high-risk areas, and costeffective mitigations by land owners and business owners. Overview In California and across the west, the frequency and severity of catastrophic wildfires are increasing, as are the damages. Eight of the twenty most destructive wildfires in California history occurred in 2017 and 2018, destroying more than 31,000 structuresdouble the number consumed by the other twelve.2 In the 1980s, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) spent an average of $61 million (2018 USD) per year on fire suppression. Since then, costs have escalated steadily and significantly, reaching an average of $121 million in the 1990s, an average of $304 million from 2000- 2009, and averaging roughly $450 million annually since 2010 (all in 2018 dollars). 3 Beyond the direct property damage and suppression costs, these fires have substantial indirect damages, as well, such as lost tax revenue to local governments, health impacts from the smoke, increased carbon emissions, and lost environmental values. In most places outside California, the direct property damages from wildfiresthe focus of this paper are borne by property owners, insurers, and taxpayers (via state or federal disaster assistance programs). In California, however, electric utilities can be required to pay all property damages for wildfires where utility infrastructure was a significant cause of wildfire ignition. The California state constitution says that private property may be taken or damaged for public use only when just compensation is provided.4 Several courts in California have held this doctrine applies to electric utilities, since they have a state-granted monopoly and provide a public service. As such, in California, electric utilities are strictly liable for property damages arising from wildfires traced to their equipment; that is, they must pay for the damages even if they are without fault.5 Note, the reasoning for inverse condemnation, as explained by the courts, is that costs associated with activities that generate broad public benefits should be distribute[d] throughout the community...to socialize the burden...that should be assumed by society.6 The courts have held that utilities are able to socialize costs through rates and thus spread wildfire related costs on all those who benefit from electricity. In contrast to a classic taking where a government entity can raise taxes to cover the costs, whether or not these costs can be passed to ratepayers is under the control of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and is not guaranteed. In making decisions, the CPUC adheres to a standard of evaluating whether the utility acted reasonably and prudently in operating and managing its system.7 This is a distinct standard from legal negligence. A party can be found negligent for a single act, whereas a reasonable and prudent operator is one who operates its system consistent with the standards in place at the time even if an adverse event nonetheless occurs. The potential costs arising from this strict liability regime in California have recently been substantial. For fires in 2007, San Diego Gas and Electric had to pay $2.4 billion in wildfire costs.8 PG&E estimated it could face up to $15 billion in liability and hundreds of lawsuits if their infrastructure was involved in the ignition of 2018s Camp Fire.9 The companys financial viability in the face of these liabilities has been so tested that it filed for bankruptcy at the end of January 2019. All three major rating agencies have downgraded the investor owned utilities in response to Californias application of strict liability for wildfire damages. 10 Lower ratings may discourage investors from purchasing utility-issued bonds and from buying equity in the company. This makes it more difficult and expensive for utilities to refinance debt maturities and raise debt and equity capital for critical projects. All stakeholders agree that when utilities have acted negligently, they should bear costs proportional to their negligence. However, when they have not acted negligently, this strict liability legal regime will subject Californias utilities to financial hardship with risks now recognized as potentially so large, it could threaten their viability, impacting ratepayers, shareholders (who tend to be older and middle income11), and undermining the states ability to meet climate and energy goals that require investments by the utility. While PG&Es bankruptcy has raised myriad questions, this paper does not address PG&Es past or future management, decision-making, or actions. The paper looks at the broader issue for all utilities of how to finance a catastrophic risk, for which traditional risk financing approaches are stressed, absent reform of the application of inverse condemnation. Recognizing concerns about the unsustainability of the status quo, the California Legislature created a Commission on Catastrophic Wildfire Cost and Recovery to examine issues related to catastrophic wildfires associated with utility infrastructure.12 The Commission, seated in January 2019, is tasked with recommending policy options for action by the governor and legislature that would socialize the costs associated with catastrophic wildfires in an equitable manner, as well as options for establishing a fund to assist in the payment of costs associated with catastrophic wildfires. 13 Legislation has also recently been introduced to create a risk pooling mechanism for Californias utilities. To inform the ongoing policy dialogue, this paper discusses potential financing options for third-party wildfire damages for Californias electric utilities, assuming that the current liability regime remains in place. We focus on the states investor-owned utilities (IOUs) since they have had the largest liabilities to date, they cover a significantly larger service area, and have commensurately greater exposure to wildfire risk. The three largest IOUs in the statePacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE)are responsible for providing roughly threequarters of all electricity used in California (see Figure 1 for service areas). That said, publicly-owned utilities (POUs), of which there are over 40 in the state, could also face these concerns and we discuss POUs explicitly where relevant. Indeed, the CEO of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) noted in a hearing to the California state legislature on August 9, 2018 that if a POU were ever found to have had equipment igniting a wildfire, that could lead to massive rate increases for customers or bankruptcy for a smaller POU. Section 2 begins with an overview of the current arrangements for utilities to cover wildfire damage. Section 3 presents a range of risk financing strategies that could help facilitate access to capital to cover property damage from wildfires for which utility equipment is deemed to be a cause of ignition. This includes discussion of funded self-insurance, commercial insurance, catastrophe bonds, industry captives, an industry risk pool, and recovery bonds. The financing options are not mutually exclusive, and several could be utilized simultaneously to ensure funding for various magnitude wildfires. We discuss this in Section 4. Each of these financing strategies would require an annual contribution and/or initial capitalization to be viable. In Section 5, we present potential funding sources and mechanisms, and their distributional implications. Section 6 concludes with high-level policy recommendations Conclusion The effects of climate change, along with development in the wildland urban interface are continuing to drive up the risk of wildfire damages in California. The state needs to adopt a sound financing strategy for its electric utilities to protect all parties and to ensure continued progress on broader climate and energy goals. The most straightforward way to achieve this may be to eliminate strict liability for thirdparty wildfire damages coupled with a cost recovery standard at the CPUC that is tied to universally agreed upon risk reduction activities (such as could be articulated in the utilities SB 901 wildfire management plans). The current regime has created a risk that is difficult to finance due to its concentrated and catastrophic potential. Eliminating strict liability for third-party damages for wildfire, while simultaneously adopting new regulations on wildfire mitigation activities for electric utilities, could preserve incentives for proper risk reduction yet not threaten the ability of utilities to provide electrical service in high-risk areas by forcing them to cover escalating costs even when they are not negligent. Absent reform, addressing third-party wildfire liability for Californias electric utilities will require layering together multiple risk financing options. Utilities likely need a dedicated rate component for some level of funded self-insurance as the initial financing layer. Commercial insurance and catastrophe bonds may be able to play a small role, but currently, the private market has seen rising prices and decreasing interest in assuming this risk. As such, utilities likely need to pursue, in consultation with the CPUC, some type of risk pool or industry captive. If utilities could be guaranteed pre-disaster state backing or CPUC approval of rate recovery, recovery bonds are another viable financing option. Without more certainty, *however, they may not provide needed financial assurances. Ex-ante financing and guidelines are necessary to have in place, because without them, post-wildfire there are protracted negotiations between the utility, CPUC, the state legislature, and other stakeholders on how to divide costs between ratepayers and shareholders. Reducing this post-disaster confusion is in the interest of all stakeholders. Only about 5% of wildfire ignitions are from power lines (this is just over 10% of acres burned).56 For the state as a whole, then, property damage from wildfire is a much broader issue than electric utilities. As concerns mount about the affordability and availability of property insurance in highly wildfire-prone regions,57 the state must have a larger policy discussion with utilities, insurers, and all other stakeholders, about how to equitably fund this growing risk and provide greater incentives for risk reduction to all parties, including local governments and households. Tweet Macron: Armenia, Azerbaijan, together Russia official: Observer status in Eurasian Economic Union will be beneficial for Azerbaijan Wings of Tatev named winner of World Travel Awards in World's Leading Cable Car Ride 2021 category Haberturk: There will be new Armenian-Turkish roadmap, corridor will be key issue Armenia premier receives Artsakh President Azerbaijans Aliyev pleased with absence of criticism from Armenia at Eastern Partnership Summit Armenia PM to meet with members of ruling faction of Yerevan's Council of Elders soon Armenia economy minister: Ruling power has no consensus yet on opening borders with Turkey Armenia official: $1.2bn will be spent on construction of 2 sections of railway with Azerbaijan Overchuk: Active work being done to unblock transport communications in South Caucasus 25 new cases of coronavirus reported in Karabakh Armenia President, China diplomat discuss regional security, stability Russia peacekeepers help deliver 10 tons of humanitarian aid to Artsakh children Armenias Pashinyan: We agreed with Azerbaijans Aliyev to continue contacts Armenia PM: Yeraskh-Julfa-Ordubad-Meghri-Horadis railway will be built 180 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Macron: We will never abandon Armenians Yerevan mayor signs petitions for purchase of 100 more new public transport buses, 100 elevators Turkey considering airlines bids for Istanbul-Yerevan flights US National Security Adviser expresses concern over tensions between Armenia, Azerbaijan Armen Grigoryan, Jake Sullivan discuss security environment around Armenia Newspaper: Western-funded public sector of Armenia becomes active with new topics Azerbaijans Aliyev calls talks with Armenias Pashinyan in Brussels productive and pragmatic EU to provide 2.3bn to Eastern Partnership countries, including Armenia EU welcomes recent signature of common aviation area agreement with Armenia US embassy in Armenia issues travel update EU remains committed in its support to territorial integrity within their internationally recognised borders EU, Eastern Partnership countries leaders call Pashinyan-Aliyev meeting in Brussels very positive step Armenia PM, Cyprus President exchange views on developments in South Caucasus Pashinyan-Macron-Aliyev trilateral meeting held in Brussels Irakanum.am: Armenia PM to meet with members of ruling faction of Yerevan's Council of Elders tomorrow French Senate to set up group for Nagorno-Karabakh Armenia PM attends 6th Eastern Partnership Summit Turkey's ex-Ambassador to US to be appointed special envoy for normalization of relations with Armenia Aliyev on Armenian POWs: We returned them to Armenia, and they were detained there Aliyev claims that Baku has managed to convince Yerevan about 'inevitability of opening of road to Nakhchivan' Zelensky offers to host summit of leaders of Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Turkey in Kyiv Armenia Security Council Secretary to meet with National Security Advisor to US President Jake Sullivan Democratic Party of Artsakh members meet with representatives of Republican Party of Armenia Armenian army generals submit recommendation letter for release of detachment commander Ashot Minasyan Mitsotakis: Turkey's financial crisis presents danger for stability in the whole region Germany declares two officials of Russian Embassy persona non grata Armenia justice minister discusses sector-specific meetings with Croatian, Irish, Greek counterparts Ruling faction of Yerevan's Council of Elders launches procedure to express lack of confidence in mayor Moldova's special services arrest and conduct search against founder of Wargonzo Semyon Pegov Zakharova: Moscow welcomes direct contacts between Yerevan and Baku Russian MFA: Normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations would contribute to recovery of general situation in region NEWS.am daily digest: 15.12.21 Georgia justice minister accepts Armenian counterpart's invitation to visit Armenia during meeting in Venice Candidate for Mayor of Armenia's Vanadzor is detained, charged under 3 articles Armenia Migration Service: Russia has adopted and has yet to adopt new rules for migrants Armenian, Slovenian premiers confer on Armenia-EU relations Candidate for Vanadzor mayor taken to Investigative Committee in Yerevan Armenia's Ambassador Viktor Yengibaryan presents credentials to Germany President Artsakh President chairs Security Council meeting Armenia deputy PM in Brussels, meets with EU Commissioner Court rules to arrest opposition 'Armenia' Alliance member Narek Mantashyan for two months EU heralds Schengen Area reforms Turkish opposition parties have decided to put an end to 'monstrous' presidential system 5.0-magnitude earthquake hits Iran Dollar still falls noticeably in Armenia Turkish opposition member insists that Erdogan has decided to go to snap elections Legislature vice-speaker from opposition: Secret agreements can lead to new capitulation of Armenia Brother of North Korea's founder Kim dies at 101 Artsakh ombudsman: Azerbaijan does not allow Taghavard village residents to visit their community cemetery Armenia opposition MP: People have collective will to not let Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem implement idea of corridor Armenia National Assembly fails to ensure quorum in 4 hours Armenia parliament to convene special session tomorrow Armenia opposition 'With Honor' Faction head summoned to National Security Service, interviewed as witness Opposition 'Armenia' Faction head: No need to be afraid of Turkey and Azerbaijan, but there are risks and dangers Armenia justice minister tells CoE Secretary General about violations of international law against Armenian POWs Paylan to Turkeys Cavusoglu: An Armenian minister was sitting on your chair 110 years ago Armenia ex-defense minister shows up at Prosecutor General's Office within scope of civil forfeiture of illegal assets Macron, Putin discuss avenues to resolve Karabakh conflict Kopirkin: Russia, Armenia have very major cooperation within EEU Armenia, Moldova leaders underscore developing of bilateral economic ties Armenia ruling majority obstructs parliament special session initiated by opposition faction Blinken: We welcome statements on appointing special envoys by Armenia, Turkey Armenia, Azerbaijan leaders hold private talk as well in Brussels Azerbaijan president refuses to discuss Artsakh status issue Macron: Armenia, Azerbaijan, together Russia official: Observer status in Eurasian Economic Union will be beneficial for Azerbaijan Wings of Tatev named winner of World Travel Awards in World's Leading Cable Car Ride 2021 category Haberturk: There will be new Armenian-Turkish roadmap, corridor will be key issue Armenia premier receives Artsakh President Azerbaijans Aliyev pleased with absence of criticism from Armenia at Eastern Partnership Summit Armenia PM to meet with members of ruling faction of Yerevan's Council of Elders soon Armenia economy minister: Ruling power has no consensus yet on opening borders with Turkey Armenia official: $1.2bn will be spent on construction of 2 sections of railway with Azerbaijan Overchuk: Active work being done to unblock transport communications in South Caucasus 25 new cases of coronavirus reported in Karabakh Armenia President, China diplomat discuss regional security, stability Russia peacekeepers help deliver 10 tons of humanitarian aid to Artsakh children Armenias Pashinyan: We agreed with Azerbaijans Aliyev to continue contacts Armenia PM: Yeraskh-Julfa-Ordubad-Meghri-Horadis railway will be built 180 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Macron: We will never abandon Armenians Yerevan mayor signs petitions for purchase of 100 more new public transport buses, 100 elevators Turkey considering airlines bids for Istanbul-Yerevan flights US National Security Adviser expresses concern over tensions between Armenia, Azerbaijan Armen Grigoryan, Jake Sullivan discuss security environment around Armenia Newspaper: Western-funded public sector of Armenia becomes active with new topics Azerbaijans Aliyev calls talks with Armenias Pashinyan in Brussels productive and pragmatic EU to provide 2.3bn to Eastern Partnership countries, including Armenia EU welcomes recent signature of common aviation area agreement with Armenia US embassy in Armenia issues travel update EU remains committed in its support to territorial integrity within their internationally recognised borders EU, Eastern Partnership countries leaders call Pashinyan-Aliyev meeting in Brussels very positive step Armenia PM, Cyprus President exchange views on developments in South Caucasus Pashinyan-Macron-Aliyev trilateral meeting held in Brussels Irakanum.am: Armenia PM to meet with members of ruling faction of Yerevan's Council of Elders tomorrow French Senate to set up group for Nagorno-Karabakh Armenia PM attends 6th Eastern Partnership Summit Turkey's ex-Ambassador to US to be appointed special envoy for normalization of relations with Armenia Aliyev on Armenian POWs: We returned them to Armenia, and they were detained there Aliyev claims that Baku has managed to convince Yerevan about 'inevitability of opening of road to Nakhchivan' Zelensky offers to host summit of leaders of Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Turkey in Kyiv Armenia Security Council Secretary to meet with National Security Advisor to US President Jake Sullivan Democratic Party of Artsakh members meet with representatives of Republican Party of Armenia Armenian army generals submit recommendation letter for release of detachment commander Ashot Minasyan Mitsotakis: Turkey's financial crisis presents danger for stability in the whole region Germany declares two officials of Russian Embassy persona non grata Armenia justice minister discusses sector-specific meetings with Croatian, Irish, Greek counterparts Ruling faction of Yerevan's Council of Elders launches procedure to express lack of confidence in mayor Moldova's special services arrest and conduct search against founder of Wargonzo Semyon Pegov Zakharova: Moscow welcomes direct contacts between Yerevan and Baku Russian MFA: Normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations would contribute to recovery of general situation in region NEWS.am daily digest: 15.12.21 Georgia justice minister accepts Armenian counterpart's invitation to visit Armenia during meeting in Venice Candidate for Mayor of Armenia's Vanadzor is detained, charged under 3 articles Armenia Migration Service: Russia has adopted and has yet to adopt new rules for migrants Armenian, Slovenian premiers confer on Armenia-EU relations Candidate for Vanadzor mayor taken to Investigative Committee in Yerevan Armenia's Ambassador Viktor Yengibaryan presents credentials to Germany President Artsakh President chairs Security Council meeting Armenia deputy PM in Brussels, meets with EU Commissioner Court rules to arrest opposition 'Armenia' Alliance member Narek Mantashyan for two months EU heralds Schengen Area reforms Turkish opposition parties have decided to put an end to 'monstrous' presidential system 5.0-magnitude earthquake hits Iran Dollar still falls noticeably in Armenia Turkish opposition member insists that Erdogan has decided to go to snap elections Legislature vice-speaker from opposition: Secret agreements can lead to new capitulation of Armenia Brother of North Korea's founder Kim dies at 101 Artsakh ombudsman: Azerbaijan does not allow Taghavard village residents to visit their community cemetery Armenia opposition MP: People have collective will to not let Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem implement idea of corridor Armenia National Assembly fails to ensure quorum in 4 hours Armenia parliament to convene special session tomorrow Armenia opposition 'With Honor' Faction head summoned to National Security Service, interviewed as witness Opposition 'Armenia' Faction head: No need to be afraid of Turkey and Azerbaijan, but there are risks and dangers Armenia justice minister tells CoE Secretary General about violations of international law against Armenian POWs Paylan to Turkeys Cavusoglu: An Armenian minister was sitting on your chair 110 years ago Armenia ex-defense minister shows up at Prosecutor General's Office within scope of civil forfeiture of illegal assets Macron, Putin discuss avenues to resolve Karabakh conflict Kopirkin: Russia, Armenia have very major cooperation within EEU Armenia, Moldova leaders underscore developing of bilateral economic ties Armenia ruling majority obstructs parliament special session initiated by opposition faction Blinken: We welcome statements on appointing special envoys by Armenia, Turkey Armenia, Azerbaijan leaders hold private talk as well in Brussels Azerbaijan president refuses to discuss Artsakh status issue USCIRF: Armenian church demolished in Turkey, Armenian cemetery in Van destroyed this year Yerevan hosting 7th annual session of Eurasian Expert Club 212 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Russia peacekeepers ensure safe conduct of agricultural work in Karabakh Artsakh FM: Azerbaijan's corridor for corridor approach is fraught with serious challenges for Russia, Europe Newspaper: Crimes increase in Armenia Newspaper: Armenia government underperforms grants European Council chief: EU will provide expert mission/consultative group to help border delimitation, demarcation Charles Michel: It was agreed to proceed with restoration of railway lines Armenias Pashinyan: We reaffirmed with Azerbaijan president agreement on restoration of railway Armenia delegation thwarts Azerbaijan anti-Armenian event at session of UN Convention against Corruption Armenia Parliament Deputy Speaker receives Matthias Luttenberg Newspaper: 3 sections of highway to Armenia's Voskepar will be on Azerbaijani border, alternative roads to be built Yerevan court examining National Security Service's motion to arrest opposition 'Armenia' Alliance member Karabakh State Minister: Lachin corridor can't be under any kind of control of Azerbaijan Armenia President sends congratulatory message to Iran's Ebrahim Raisi on occasion of his birthday Pashinyan-Michel-Aliyev meeting kicks off in Brussels Armenia Ombudsman: We visited Armenian soldiers arrested after returning from Azerbaijani captivity Israel, Azerbaijan hold security forces drill Armenia justice minister discusses subjecting judges to disciplinary liability with Venice Commission President Universities often anchor longstanding research partnerships, but academics rarely get the same credit or institutional respect for working with school districts as they do for publishing in journals. Two heavy-hitter education research philanthropies, the William T. Grant Foundation and the Spencer Foundation, announced they have awarded a $650,000 grant to establish a professorship in education research-practitioner partnerships at the University of Colorado-Boulder. U.C.-Boulder education researcher and evaluation professor Mimi Engel, assistant professor Allison Atteberry, also from U.C.Boulder, and Sarah Almy, the executive director of talent management for the Denver public schools, have three years to establish the position and an initial line of research focusing on improving the Denver teacher workforce by creating a longitudinal data archive, studying teacher retention patterns, and evaluating the districts existing policies for recruiting and retaining teachers in schools with a high percentage of historically underserved students. The professorship was one of two awards under the newly created Institutional Challenge Grant program launched last year. The other award went to the University of Toronto to work with Puerto Ricos school district to evaluate the effects of school closures after Hurricane Maria. Both the Denver and Puerto Rico projects will have the option to apply for two additional years of support when the grants end. Atteberry spoke with Education Week about how relationships between researchers and district leaders are evolving. Most researchers and district leaders dont have training before they start a research partnership. Whats wrong with the way they develop now? The incentive structures of both the [district] partner and researchers in higher education are really set against building strong relationships and creating partnerships. Districts are strapped for time and resources and they have to make decisions on the fly as fast as they can in a real-world context. And, on the flip side, researchers in universities are really focused on a slower pace of research. Its very important that the questions that you ask are at the cutting edge of the field and publishable, as opposed to actionable. That can lead researchers to be less concerned about how that affects the partner. They dont have a lot of incentives to be responsive. And products that often comes out are journal publications, which are not speaking to the audience from which the data was collected. I think that people realize that if we keep doing this over and over and over again, it really does damage to the relationship between us and the professionals were trying to support, and this group of kids that were trying to support. So I think people caught on, they saw this pattern and said, look, weve got to do something different. How do you differentiate between the skills that are needed to build an ongoing research-practitioner partnership and those needed to have just a traditional one-off study in a district? As opposed to a one-shot kind of relationship where you identify your research questions and come together, but dont imagine that youre going to work together long term, we think there has to be much more of a focus on infrastructure and relationship-building. You have to have the skills of communication and understanding and the ability to develop a shared research agenda to make sure that what were doing is really useful and high quality. Were still very much in conversation about exactly how [the program] is going to get rolled out, but I think [one part of the] research agenda is really to take up the idea of how to do partnered research effectively. The other one is to think about codifying knowledge of how to do actionable research right, bringing to bear the realities of policies on the ground. Why do you think a professorship is needed? Being a good partner is a skill and an area of expertise that people develop over time and if the university is really interested in producing high-quality research, this is a voice that should be at the table. A lot of people think that working with a district or working with any community partner is easy or doesnt require any thought. And I think thats where lots of universities and institutions of higher education have gone wrong and not done right by their community partners. And were really trying to change that by acknowledging that this is a genuine form of expertise. We shouldnt expect that one researcher here and there can be kind of heroic and work against all of the incentives that are in place against doing this work well and likewise, that the districts should just make time for this kind of partnership even though there are no incentives to do so. And I think people get that now. Image Source: Getty Username: Password: or Register Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Thread Rating: 1 Vote(s) - 5 Average 1 2 3 4 5 Trump: Israelis should be immune from Int'l Criminal Court prosecution Tomorrows News Today lop guest User ID: 497478 04-15-2019 03:42 PM Post: #1 Trump: Israelis should be immune from Int'l Criminal Court prosecution Advertisement Trump: Israelis should be immune from Int'l Criminal Court prosecution The Trump administration again named Israelis along with Americans as deserving immunity from International Criminal Court prosecution. Its the second time that the Trump administration has extended its vow to protect allies from the court explicitly to Israelis. Trump. Any attempt to target American, Israeli, or allied personnel for prosecution will be met with a swift and vigorous response. The ICC is known to be considering whether to act on a request by the Palestinian Authority to investigate Israeli officials for war crimes. Like the United States, Israel is not a member of the court and thus its citizens are susceptible to court action only if they are in countries that belong to the ICC. Minister Ayelet Shaked addressed the proposed nation-state law, contending that Israel as a Jewish state must administer equal civil but not national rights. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said Monday that if not for the fence erected some years ago on the Egyptian border, We would be seeing here a kind of creeping conquest from Africa. The fence effectively stopped asylum-seekers from Sudan and Eritrea from entering the country. The justice minister made the remarks in a wide-ranging speech on the controversy over the Jewish nation-state bill. She further said, There is place to maintain a Jewish majority even at the price of violation of rights. She added, however, that maintaining a Jewish majority in Israel and acting democratically must be parallel and one must not outweigh the other. Regarding the nation-state bill, Shaked said, I was disturbed at both the position of the state and the reasoning of the justices. The state did not defend the law for national demographic reasons, it claimed only security reasons. Shaked told the conference that the state should say that there is place to maintain the Jewish majority even if it violates rights. Shaked said the nation-state bill did not deal with the issue of who is a Jew. Everyone has his own Judaism. In the nation-state bill, when it talks about a Jew, it means the nationality. Shaked then referred to the Kaadan ruling and said that if such a case were to come up again or the argument over whether its all right for a Jewish community to, by definition, be only Jewish, I want the answer to be yes, its all right. In Shakeds speeches, she often quotes the words of the late Justice Mishael Chesin, who was in the majority opinion that approved the law, in which he said Israel needed to awaken from the dream that it was a utopian state. The Trump administration again named Israelis along with Americans as deserving immunity from International Criminal Court prosecution.Its the second time that the Trump administration has extended its vow to protect allies from the court explicitly to Israelis.Trump. Any attempt to target American, Israeli, or allied personnel for prosecution will be met with a swift and vigorous response.The ICC is known to be considering whether to act on a request by the Palestinian Authority to investigate Israeli officials for war crimes. Like the United States, Israel is not a member of the court and thus its citizens are susceptible to court action only if they are in countries that belong to the ICC.Minister Ayelet Shaked addressed the proposed nation-state law, contending that Israel as a Jewish state must administer equal civil but not national rights.Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said Monday that if not for the fence erected some years ago on the Egyptian border, We would be seeing here a kind of creeping conquest from Africa. The fence effectively stopped asylum-seekers from Sudan and Eritrea from entering the country.The justice minister made the remarks in a wide-ranging speech on the controversy over the Jewish nation-state bill.She further said, There is place to maintain a Jewish majority even at the price of violation of rights. She added, however, that maintaining a Jewish majority in Israel and acting democratically must be parallel and one must not outweigh the other.Regarding the nation-state bill, Shaked said, I was disturbed at both the position of the state and the reasoning of the justices. The state did not defend the law for national demographic reasons, it claimed only security reasons. Shaked told the conference that the state should say that there is place to maintain the Jewish majority even if it violates rights.Shaked said the nation-state bill did not deal with the issue of who is a Jew. Everyone has his own Judaism. In the nation-state bill, when it talks about a Jew, it means the nationality. Shaked then referred to the Kaadan ruling and said that if such a case were to come up again or the argument over whether its all right for a Jewish community to, by definition, be only Jewish, I want the answer to be yes, its all right.In Shakeds speeches, she often quotes the words of the late Justice Mishael Chesin, who was in the majority opinion that approved the law, in which he said Israel needed to awaken from the dream that it was a utopian state. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 442059 04-15-2019 03:43 PM Post: #2 RE: Trump: Israelis should be immune from Int'l Criminal Court prosecution US and Israel. Cos they are Siamese twins. And prosecuting them would require centuries of paperwork for all their crimes... LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 476910 04-15-2019 04:07 PM Post: #3 RE: Trump: Israelis should be immune from Int'l Criminal Court prosecution Trump is laying a trap. Watch them take the bait. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 494158 04-15-2019 05:12 PM Post: #4 RE: Trump: Israelis should be immune from Int'l Criminal Court prosecution He is showing his support of Bibi, not Israelis. If he cared about the Israeli people he would dump him. This is trump's newest bromance since Putin snubbed him. Fu King Registered User User ID: 430765 04-15-2019 05:44 PM Posts: 3,346 Post: #5 RE: Trump: Israelis should be immune from Int'l Criminal Court prosecution TRUMP ISRAEL & U.S. Immune.TRUMP Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Former Chief Compulsory Enforcement Officer of Judicial Acts of the Republic of Armenia, former Deputy of the Republican Party of Armenia Mihran Poghosyan has been included in the offshore scandal case as an accused-on-trial. The Special Investigation Service told Armenian News-NEWS.am that Mihran Poghosyan has been included in the case as an accused-on-trial for committing publicly dangerous acts (confiscated property in particularly large amounts by using his position, through squander and misused his official powers) under point 1 of part 3 of Article 179 and part 2 of Article 308 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia. Under the charge, holding the position of Chief Compulsory Enforcement Officer of Judicial Acts of the Republic of Armenia since 11 June 2008, Mihran Poghosyan appointed the person ensuring his personal security and his personal driver to high positions. They didnt show up to work, performed Mihran Poghosyans assignments and received salaries and payments equaled to those salaries. As a result, Mihran Poghosyan confiscated a sum in particularly large amounts from the funds of the state budget by using his position and through squander. Mihran Poghosyan also concluded contracts for acquisition of goods and provision of services with organizations managed by him through proxies and implementing entrepreneurial activities with mercenary motives and by violations of the requirements provided for by law and government decisions. Between 2011 and 2016, MIhran Poghosyan obtained 32 Bid cars worth AMD 211,158,000 from his Katrin Group LLC during the procurement process envisaged for the needs of the Compulsory Enforcement Service and caused particularly large amounts of damage to property. In 2011, through foreign citizens, Mihran Poghosyan established Hopkinton Trading Incorporated and Sigtem Real Estate Incorporated in the Republic of Panama, and in October 2011, with his direct participation, Mihran Poghosyans close ones were appointed to the relevant positions instead of the foreign directors of the companies. Later, Mihran Poghosyan took part in management of the companies registered in the Panama offshore zone through proxies, and as a result, the organizations established other companies in Armenia, including Best Realty LLC. On 17 April 2014, Mihran Poghosyan and his Best Realty LLC concluded a contract on evaluation of movable and immovable property, on the basis of which the company provided services for evaluating movable and immovable property to the Compulsory Enforcement Service of the Republic of Armenia between 2014 and 2016, performing the majority of the evaluations under the sponsorship of Mihran Poghosyan. On 13 April 2019, the investigator of the Special Investigation Service of Armenia filed a motion to the Court of General Jurisdiction of Yerevan to choose remand as a preventive measure against Mihran Poghosyan. The Special Investigation Service has declared a search. The preliminary investigation continues. Financial-economic inspections and expert examinations have been designated in order to reveal other possible misuses. A group of NGOs have issued a statement. STATEMENT On 5 April 2019, at the initiative of the Standing Committee on Human Rights Protection and Public Affairs of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia and with the support of the UN House in Armenia and the Staff of the Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia, the National Assembly held parliamentary hearings devoted to the National Agenda of Human Rights. The speeches and commentaries showed the public once again the serious systemic problems with respect for and protection of fundamental human rights. The attitude that Chair of the Standing Committee on Human Rights Protection and Public Affairs of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, Deputy of the National Assembly Naira Zohrabyan and a group of other deputies showed towards a representative of the LGBT community was a crude violation of human rights protection that fully breached the mission of the Committee. We the undersigned representatives of the organizations and individuals join all citizens, local and international organizations who expressed their concerns about the violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms that were committed in the National Assembly of New Armenia. We express our deep concern over the response of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, which supposedly represents the official position of the Government of the Republic of Armenia. The released position subordinates fundamental human rights, particularly being free from discrimination and legal equality, that is, the principle of social morality, which is completely refutable and is atypical of a state that has adopted democratic principles. We call on the Government of the Republic of Armenia to review its official position and assert that it is unquestionably loyal to the principles of human rights protection and to its commitments to show high respect to the dignity of all humans assumed under the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia and international treaties, without exclusions, partiality and ambiguities. We call on the Government of the Republic of Armenia: To take immediate and active measures to bring those who provoke and commit crude human rights violations, discriminate and provoke hatred and violence and continue the unlawful working style that was common in the atmosphere of impunity during the term of the former government (hiding it under the veil of social morality) to justice; To enshrine the supremacy of human rights and democratic values at the level of the State and all the institutions connected to the State; To organize large-scale educational and awareness-raising events to eliminate the propaganda of discrimination and hate speech that has been dangerously growing over the past few years and restore the violated rights of citizens. Anyone can join this statement. Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center Helsinki Citizens Assembly Vanadzor Office Open Society Foundations - Armenia Asparez Journalists Club Pink human rights defender NGO Sose Women Issues NGO Public Journalism Club Armavir Development Center Womens Support Center NGO New Generation Humanitarian NGO Spitak Helsinki Group NGO Journalists for Human Rights NGO Analytical Center of Globalization and Regional Cooperation Human Rights Research Center Womens Resource Center NGO For Equal Rights Educational Center NGO Civic Youth Center NGO Non-Discrimination and Equality Coalition Right Side NGO Peace Dialogue NGO Women in Black, Armenia peace-building initiative Society Without Violence NGO Gyumri Civil Youth Center Womens Rights House Bekum NGO Colorful House Social-cultural and Human Rights Defender NGO Real World, Real People NGO Coalition to Stop Violence against Women Helsinki Association NGO Human Rights House Yerevan Armenian Helsinki Committee LogoS NGO Womens Rights Center Democracy and Electoral Processes international center NGO Tatevik NGO Institute of Public Policy Free Citizen Civic Initiatives Support Center NGO Ani Aghagulyan, lawyer Gohar Alexanyan Karen Tumanyan Im preparing to introduce a bill on the Western Armenian language. This is what Deputy of the My Step faction of the National Assembly of Armenia Narine Tokhikyan (Khachaturyan) told Armenian News-NEWS.am. The UNESCO has declared Western Armenian as an endangered language. I believe Armenia is the guarantor of the preservation and dissemination of Western Armenian, not the Diaspora. We have a state, the duty of which is to protect cultural treasures, and language is the greatest and most precious treasure. Now we use Eastern Armenian and preserve it, but Western Armenian is used by Armenians abroad. Of course, many Armenians came to Armenia after the wars in Iraq and Syria, but they speak Eastern Armenian more than Western Armenian, she said. The MP stressed the fact that clear-cut legislative regulations can serve as a mechanism for state protection of Western Armenian. One of the mechanisms is teaching. Western Armenian must be taught in Armenias schools as a subject, and every Armenian needs to know Western Armenian. She added that there is wonderful literature in Western Armenian that Armenians must not lose. Lets not forget that there are wonderful books in Western Armenian. If we Armenians lose those books, we will also lose the opportunity of enjoying that literature. The MP concluded by mentioning that she doesnt know if she will introduce a bill or make a recommendation to make amendments to the existing law. The left bell tower of the iconic Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris has gone up in flames, RIA Novosti reported. The Gothic cathedral's roof and spire have already collapsed. The flames are spreading rapidly through the building, No casualties Deputy Interior Minister Laurent Nunez noted that nobody was injured as a result of the fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral, Reuters reported. Why not use aviation Many people, and in particular, US President Donald Trump, offered to extinguish the fire at the cathedral with the help of aviation. French civil defense agency explains why this was not possible: fire planes are not adapted for this type of fire and could damage the walls of the cathedral. The newspaper Le Monde explains why it was impossible to use airplanes for extinguishing. It was noted that they dump 6 tons of water from the air - and the risk is too great to destroy the cathedral and everything around it. In addition, people who are nearby may suffer. Nothing will remain from the cathedral A spokesman for the cathedral, Andre Fino told French media that the entire wooden interior of Notre-Dame de Paris is on fire and is likely to be destroyed, RBC reported. According to him, treasure of iconic Notre-Dame cathedral are unlikely affected by the Monday fire that swept the building, as its holy relics are kept in a sacristy. Paris deputy mayor Emmanuel Gregoire noted that that the fire caused "enormous damage to the building." According to him, the local authorities have formed a special mission, which will be engaged in attempts to preserve works of art inside the cathedral. Emergency services gave priority to protecting tourists and city residents from the risk of building collapse, he added. Trump predicts the Cathedral will burn to the ground US President Donald Trump held telephone talks with representatives of the French authorities in connection with the fire at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. President Trump commented on the fire this afternoon as he attended a roundtable conference in Minnesota. "It's one of the great treasures of the world," he said. "It's part of our culture, it's part of our lives. That is a truly great cathedral and I've been there, I've seen it, and there is... no cathedral in the world like it. It is a terrible scene." The president added, "It looks like it's burning to the ground." Macron: Part of us is on fire "Notre-Dame is aflame. Great emotion for the whole nation. Our thoughts go out to all Catholics and to the French people. Like all of my fellow citizens, I am sad to see this part of us burn tonight," Macron tweeted. 23:15 Former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's son Utpal on Monday described as 'insensitive' and a 'new low in Indian politics' Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar's remark that the late Bharatiya Janata Party leader quit his post at the Centre and returned to Goa because he did not agree with the Rafale deal. In a strongly-worded letter addressed to Pawar, Utpal Parrikar termed Pawar's remark as another attempt to invoke his father's name to push 'blatant falsehood for political gains'. He said the Parrikar family was saddened to read the remarks of Pawar, himself a former defence minister. 'This is yet another unfortunate and insensitive attempt to invoke my father's name to push blatant falsehood for political gains,' Utpal Parrikar said. Addressing reporters in Kolhapur on Saturday, Pawar had said, "The Rafale deal was not acceptable to Parrikar. He therefore quit as Defence minister and returned to Goa." Parrikar, who took over as defence minister in November 2014, was sworn in as Goa chief minister on March 14, 2017. He died on March 17 this year after a long battle with a pancreatic cancer. Parrikar was the defence minister when the Rafale fighter jet deal was signed with France. In an apparent reference to Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Utpal said even when his father was alive and courageously fighting his illness, certain political leaders dragged his name in controversy for petty politics. 'That time, my father had given a fitting reply to such insinuations and innuendos. Today he is not amongst us, which is why perhaps you are taking the liberty to use his name and speak lies. This is a new low in the Indian political discourse,' Utpal wrote in the letter. A controversy had erupted after Gandhi met ailing Parrikar in Panaji in January this year. After the meeting, the Congress chief said in Delhi that Parrikar had said he had nothing to do with the new Rafale deal. Parrikar had rebutted Gandhi's claim about the purported conversation between them. Utpal further stated that being a senior and respected politician, the people of India did not expect such a statement from Pawar. 'But, now that you have made this statement, let me once again state the basic facts. My father was an honest, upright individual who worked in the best interest of the country, be it in Delhi or in Goa,' Utpal said. -- PTI (Adds quotes from Weld, comment from Republican National Committee) By Letitia Stein WASHINGTON, April 15 (Reuters) - Former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld announced his candidacy on Monday to challenge President Donald Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination. Weld, 73, who served two terms as governor, from 1991-1997, enters as a long-shot candidate against an incumbent president who has remained popular within his party. Weld in February had said that he planned to challenge Trump. "I really think if we have six more years of the same stuff weve had out of the White House the last two years that would be a political tragedy," he said on CNN. "So I would be ashamed of myself if I didnt raise my hand and run. Weld's challenge marks the first against Trump by a member of his own party. Other Republicans have publicly flirted with their own challenges, including former Ohio Governor John Kasich, one of the many Republican candidates whom Trump defeated for the party's presidential nomination in 2016. But Republican leaders have signaled little tolerance for intra-party fights as Trump gears up for a potentially challenging bid for a second term. "Any effort to challenge the presidents nomination is bound to go absolutely nowhere," the Republican National Committee said in statement responding to Weld's announcement, noting that its operation and the Republican Party are firmly behind Trump. Weld, a former prosecutor and the vice presidential candidate in 2016 on the Libertarian ticket, has been a consistent critic of Trump. He told CNN that he does not plan to mount an independent bid if unsuccessful. Weld planned to kick off his campaign in New Hampshire, which holds an influential early nominating contest. He said the state's voters would be receptive to his message and familiar with his record in neighboring Massachusetts. "Right now, all there really is coming out of Washington is divisiveness," he said on CNN, calling both parties responsible but pointedly adding, "the grand master of that is the president himself." Trump's campaign raised more than $30 million in the first quarter of 2019, it said on Sunday, far outpacing the sums raised by individual Democratic candidates during that period. The fundraising underscores the willingness of Republican donors to invest in Trump's re-election bid. (Additional reporting by Eric Beech, James Oliphant, Steve Holland and Doina Chiacu; editing by Leslie Adler and Cynthia Osterman) (Recasts with rally in support of congresswoman, fresh Pelosi comment) By Joey Peters BURNSVILLE, Minn., April 15 (Reuters) - Supporters of U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar rallied outside a Minnesota business visited by U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday, after he launched a fresh attack on the Muslim-American lawmaker by calling her an "out of control" purveyor of "hate" speech. Trump was in Minnesota, which Omar represents in Congress, for a tax reform roundtable. Some of the Omar supporters who gathered outside Nuss Truck and Equipment in Burnsville, about 15 miles (24 km) south of Minneapolis, called on Democratic leaders in Washington to take a stand for Omar. "Some of Ilhans words were taken out of context. I know that she abides by the Constitution. She is a proud American. She might have some opinions, but that shouldnt put her in a position that we attack her," said Abdullahi Farah, a Somali-American who attended the rally. Omar, an immigrant from Somalia, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November. She represents the state's fifth congressional district, which is partially adjacent to the district Trump visited on Monday. Writing on Twitter earlier in the day, Trump blasted both Omar and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for defending her, after he tweeted a video on Friday suggesting Omar had been dismissive of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The video spliced news footage from 9/11 with a clip from a speech Omar gave last month in which she said "some people did something" in reference to the attacks. "Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made," Trump wrote. "She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy!" The Minnesota branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, responded to Trump's attacks by organizing the rally, where people carried signs and chanted in support of Omar. Story continues Democrats "could have done more to help out, but in the end I think they care more about their image," said Abdirahman Abdullahi, an area resident. About 200 people rallied in support of Omar while another 200 supporters of Trump gathered across the street and waved American flags. Inside at the tax event, Trump railed against the U.S. immigration system and what he called its "horrible and foolish loopholes." Lawmakers from Trump's Republican Party have accused Omar of minimizing the Sept. 11 attacks, while critics of the president say he took Omar's words out of context in order to stoke anti-Muslim sentiment. Omar was speaking at a CAIR banquet in California in March when she made her controversial remarks about 9/11. Omar also said Muslims had "lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I'm tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it." Pelosi, in Europe leading a delegation, on Monday said the president should not use 9/11 as a political tool. "I think that is wrong, I think its beneath the dignity of the office, and I dont think that it plays that well, I hope that it doesnt, she said. Omar said on Sunday that she had experienced an increase in threats on her life, many directly referencing or replying to the president's video. Pelosi said Sunday she had spoken with the House Sergeant-at-Arms to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Omar, her family and staff. The White House said Sunday that Trump did not wish any harm in last week's Twitter post about Omar. The House of Representatives approved a broad resolution condemning bigotry last month after remarks by Omar that some members of both parties viewed as anti-Semitic. (Writing by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; additional reporting by Susan Cornwell and David Alexander; editing by Colleen Jenkins and Tom Brown) (Adds statement from House Speaker Pelosi) By Humeyra Pamuk WASHINGTON, April 14 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump did not wish any harm in his Twitter post criticizing Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar's comments on the 9/11 attacks, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said on Sunday. "Certainly the president is wishing no ill will, certainly not violence towards anyone," Sanders told ABC News' "This Week" show. "But the president is absolutely and should be calling out the congresswoman for her, not only one-time, but history of anti-Semitic comments," she said. Lawmakers from Trump's Republican Party have accused Omar of minimizing the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks by al Qaeda on the United States that killed almost 3,000 people, while critics of the president say he took Omar's words out of context in order to stoke anti-Muslim sentiment. On Saturday, Trump tweeted a video suggesting that Omar, a U.S. representative from Minnesota, had been dismissive of the 9/11 attacks that destroyed New York's World Trade Center and struck the Pentagon outside Washington. The video spliced news footage of 9/11 with a clip from a speech Omar gave last month in which she described the attack as "some people did something." Several prominent Democrats, including presidential candidates Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, condemned Trump's tweet, saying he was inciting racism and violence toward Omar with the video. Omar has said she has been the target of islamophobic death threats. U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement on Sunday she had spoken with the sergeant-at-arms, who is responsible for safety in Congress, to ensure that Capitol Hill Police were conducting a security assessment to safeguard Omar, her family and her staff. "The President's words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger. President Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video," Pelosi said. Story continues The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Pelosi's statement. In her speech before a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, Omar said Muslims had "lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I'm tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it." Sarah Sanders called Omar's comments "disgraceful and unbefitting," and questioned what she saw as lack of action from Democrats on the issue. "I think it's a good thing that the president is calling her out for those comments and the big question is why aren't the Democrats doing it," she said. Omar's comments began circulating in media outlets last week, leading critics to question her loyalty to the United States. Responding in a tweet, Omar said the commentary amounted to "dangerous incitement," adding: "My love and commitment to our country and that of my colleagues should never be in question." (Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Michelle Price, Nick Zieminski and Peter Cooney) Aphria (NYSE: APHA) became the first big Canadian marijuana producer to report sales from 2019 on Monday morning. It also became the first to disappoint investors. The company's share price sank by a double-digit percentage Monday after Aphria missed analysts' estimates on both the top and bottom lines. For the quarter ending Feb. 28, 2019, Aphria reported net revenue of 73.6 million Canadian dollars (US$55.3 million). Although this amount reflected a 240% jump over the previous quarter and was 617% higher than the prior-year period, it fell below the average analysts' revenue estimate of CA$85.2 million (US$64 million). Aphria also posted a big net loss of CA$108.2 million (US$81.3 million), or CA$0.43 per share (US$0.32). Analysts expected earnings per share of CA$0.03 (US$0.02). Why did Aphria fail to deliver in its fiscal Q3 results? Here are five key reasons. Shadow of a dollar sign on top of a pile of marijuana leaves Image source: Getty Images. 1. Supply shortages The biggest reason Aphria didn't meet revenue expectations was its production capacity. Aphria said it "transitioned growing methods during the late fall and early winter," a move that's good for the long term but caused supply shortages over the short run. However, the company received very good news on this front after its fiscal third quarter ended. In March, Aphria obtained a license for its Aphria One facility expansion. This license boosts the company's annualized production rate to 115,000 kilograms. 2. Packaging and distribution challenges Another reason for Aphria's revenue shortfall was what the company called "temporary packaging and distribution challenges." The problem stemmed from the Canadian government's packaging requirements for adult-use recreational marijuana products. Aphria had primarily manual processes in place during the last quarter and couldn't get nearly as much product packaged and shipped as it would have liked. Aphria's interim CEO Irwin Simon said in the company's Q3 conference call that Aphria is implementing automation over the next couple of quarters. This should help reduce bottlenecks in the future. Story continues 3. Big non-cash impairment Lower-than-expected revenue was one factor behind Aphria posting a big net loss. However, the company also reported a significant non-cash impairment of CA$50 million ($US37.6 million) related to its LATAM Holdings acquisition last year. This impairment stemmed from lower gross margins and EBITDA margins identified by financial advisors to the board of directors' special committee reviewing the LATAM Holdings acquisition as well as higher-than-expected expenses for the operations. However, Aphria CFO Carl Merton was quick to point out that the impairment didn't in any way affect the special committee's determination that Aphria didn't overpay for LATAM Holdings, as short-sellers alleged last year. 4. Higher expenses related to capacity expansion Even adjusting for the non-cash impairment, Aphria still recorded negative EBITDA in the third quarter. One key reason for that was that the company's general and administrative expenses increased dramatically due to its planned capacity expansion efforts. Aphria's G&A costs skyrocketed more than 700% year over year to CA$22.4 million (US$16.8 million). Of course, this spending increase should pay off as the company's added capacity comes online. 5. Higher packaging and distribution costs New packaging requirements for the adult-use recreational marijuana market in Canada delt Aphria a double-whammy. These requirements negatively affected its supply, and they also resulted in higher costs. Carl Merton said the company's packaging costs per gram more than doubled. The good news, though, is that Aphria has already changed its packaging and obtained new lower-cost suppliers. This should reduce the company's packaging costs in future quarters, although Merton stated that there is still some inventory of the older, higher-cost packaging to be worked down. What to expect in Q4 Will Aphria's fourth-quarter results reflect a significant improvement from the third quarter? Don't count on it. Although the company received licensing for its Aphria One expansion, the added supply won't hit until Aphria's fiscal Q1. It's also going to take a couple of quarters for the company's packaging automation solutions to make an impact. Both Irwin Simon and Carl Merton said investors should expect Q4 sales to be similar to those in Q3. Aphria's long-term prospects appear bright, though. The company doesn't provide guidance but thinks that CA$500 million (US$375.5 million) in revenue is achievable in calendar year 2019. More From The Motley Fool Keith Speights has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. While some investors are already well versed in financial metrics (hat tip), this article is for those who would like to learn about Return On Equity (ROE) and why it is important. To keep the lesson grounded in practicality, we'll use ROE to better understand Boral Limited (ASX:BLD). Over the last twelve months Boral has recorded a ROE of 7.6%. One way to conceptualize this, is that for each A$1 of shareholders' equity it has, the company made A$0.076 in profit. Check out our latest analysis for Boral How Do I Calculate ROE? The formula for return on equity is: Return on Equity = Net Profit Shareholders' Equity Or for Boral: 7.6% = AU$455m AU$5.9b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2018.) It's easy to understand the 'net profit' part of that equation, but 'shareholders' equity' requires further explanation. It is the capital paid in by shareholders, plus any retained earnings. Shareholders' equity can be calculated by subtracting the total liabilities of the company from the total assets of the company. What Does Return On Equity Mean? ROE looks at the amount a company earns relative to the money it has kept within the business. The 'return' is the yearly profit. A higher profit will lead to a higher ROE. So, all else equal, investors should like a high ROE. That means it can be interesting to compare the ROE of different companies. Does Boral Have A Good Return On Equity? Arguably the easiest way to assess company's ROE is to compare it with the average in its industry. Importantly, this is far from a perfect measure, because companies differ significantly within the same industry classification. As shown in the graphic below, Boral has a lower ROE than the average (11%) in the Basic Materials industry classification. ASX:BLD Past Revenue and Net Income, April 14th 2019 That's not what we like to see. We prefer it when the ROE of a company is above the industry average, but it's not the be-all and end-all if it is lower. Still, shareholders might want to check if insiders have been selling. Story continues How Does Debt Impact Return On Equity? Companies usually need to invest money to grow their profits. The cash for investment can come from prior year profits (retained earnings), issuing new shares, or borrowing. In the case of the first and second options, the ROE will reflect this use of cash, for growth. In the latter case, the debt required for growth will boost returns, but will not impact the shareholders' equity. That will make the ROE look better than if no debt was used. Boral's Debt And Its 7.6% ROE Boral has a debt to equity ratio of 0.40, which is far from excessive. I'm not impressed with its ROE, but the debt levels are not too high, indicating the business has decent prospects. Judicious use of debt to improve returns can certainly be a good thing, although it does elevate risk slightly and reduce future optionality. In Summary Return on equity is one way we can compare the business quality of different companies. In my book the highest quality companies have high return on equity, despite low debt. All else being equal, a higher ROE is better. Having said that, while ROE is a useful indicator of business quality, you'll have to look at a whole range of factors to determine the right price to buy a stock. The rate at which profits are likely to grow, relative to the expectations of profit growth reflected in the current price, must be considered, too. So I think it may be worth checking this free report on analyst forecasts for the company. If you would prefer check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. Nicco Mele (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: courtesy Nicco Mele, AP, Getty Images) Nicco Mele went from running the groundbreaking online organizing and fundraising efforts for Howard Deans 2004 presidential campaign to writing a book warning that the internet was opening the door to chaos, destabilization, fascism and other ills. Now, he says, many of the dark prophecies from his 2013 book, The End of Big, have come truer than he had anticipated, and there is a long way to go to repair the damage. In many ways since I wrote the book things have come more apart, Mele said in an interview on the Yahoo News podcast The Long Game. We are stuck, currently, with a reality where there are two worlds existing side by side as it relates to power and influence, Mele said. There is the old institutional world, where hierarchy, experience, expertise and tradition are core values. And there is the new connected world that is tearing down the old, where power and influence are far more diffuse and broadly shared. The two need to be connected and fused, he said. Mele, who has been director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School since 2016, warned in his book that radical connectivity is altering the exercise of power faster than we can understand it. In the Long Game interview, Mele said there remains a deep need for new institutions to be built that embody the values of the modern online world, but resurface some older values as well. For example, the idea of an establishment existing at all is often decried as inherently undesirable, and institutions are then vilified as tools of a corrupt elite. But, Mele said, that is a bad bargain for everyone. He called for a new establishment. I think we do need a new establishment but we also need to think about what values we want that establishment to have. Theres certainly a critical role for expertise and knowledge, Mele said. He did not come down definitively on one side of the question of whether change in uprooting existing systems and institutions should be radical or gradual. Story continues I dont love the idea of just blowing it up, because theres a lot of collateral damage along the way. On the other hand, the institutional rot is so calcified that incrementalism is going to be of limited use, he said. In many ways what I think we have to do is just imagine and build a parallel infrastructure. The online processing payment company ActBlue is an example of such a parallel institution, he said, because it lowered the barrier to entry into politics by enabling candidates to raise money in small amounts online. If the [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] had built ActBlue [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] never would have been allowed to raise money on it to challenge an incumbent member of the party leadership, Mele said. Mele said that when he moved from Boston to Los Angeles in 2014 to become senior vice president and deputy publisher at the Los Angeles Times, it opened his eyes to something he had overlooked in his book. The book really misses race and to a large extent privilege, he said. The move from Boston to Los Angeles changed his perspective, he said. I went from a very white professional & personal community to a professional and personal community where I was frequently the only white person in the room, Mele said. It really had a profound impact on my view of America and the role that race and immigration play in our cultural fabric and our institutions. The conversation around systemic racial injustice, he said, substantially complicates attempts to look back as he recommended in his book to how a more centralized party nomination system a few decades ago produced leaders who for the most part were basically competent, knowledgeable, civic-minded, and capable of taking a longer-term view. Radical connectivity has opened up new ways of organizing and shaking the money tree, he wrote in his book. But the new connected world, in tearing down party power, had failed to produce a system of producing crops of generally decent, competent, civic-minded political leaders, he wrote. In fact, its increasing polarization by enabling formerly marginal candidates with little stake in the status quo to move to the forefront of the debate. Mele warned then of a dangerous populism that could take hold of our political system through radical connectivity. We get exciting candidates like Barack Obama who can shake up the system but also extremist or fringe candidates who, if elected, could bring the whole house down, he wrote. Many critics of Trump would see that statement as a direct prophecy of the current presidency. CAIRO (AP) Sudanese protesters on Monday welcomed the "positive steps" taken by the ruling military council, which held talks with opposition leaders over the weekend and released some political prisoners. The praise came despite a brief incident earlier Monday in which activists said soldiers attempted to disperse the ongoing protest sit-in outside the military headquarters in the capital, Khartoum, but eventually backed off. Last week, Sudan's military ousted longtime President Omar al-Bashir following four months of street protests against his rule, then appointed a military council that it says will rule for two years or less while elections are organized. Demonstrators fear that the army, dominated by al-Bashir appointees, will cling to power or select one of its own to succeed him. The Sudanese Professionals Association, which is behind the protests, repeated its key demand at a press conference in Khartoum, saying the military must immediately give power to a transitional civilian government that would rule for four years. "The trust is in the street," said prominent activist Mohammed Naji al-Asam, referring to the ongoing sit-in. The SPA also called on the international community to support civilian rule. The African Union meanwhile gave Sudan's military 15 days to hand over power to a "civilian-led political authority" or face suspension from the union's activities. It said a civilian authority should hold elections "as quickly as possible." Earlier in the day, the SPA urged people into the streets, saying "There is an attempt to break up the sit-in. We appeal to everyone to head to the area to protect your revolution and gains." There were no clashes and no one was hurt in the attempted dispersal, but the incident renewed concerns that the military could renege on its promises not to use force against the peaceful demonstrators. Previous attempts to break up the sit-in before al-Bashir's ouster last Thursday killed dozens of people. Story continues Videos circulated online showing hundreds of troops outside the military compound in Khartoum. In the footage, an officer is heard saying they came to open roads, "clean the area" and remove the barricades set up by the protesters to protect their gathering. Some protesters are then seen in the footage sitting down on the ground in front of the soldiers, who subsequently move away. In some videos the protesters chant "Revolution," as well as slogans against al-Bashir's Islamist supporters. Protester Nourhan Mostafa said the sit-in will continue until "the demands the Sudanese revolution are met." Also Monday, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the head of the transitional military council, announced an overhaul of the military leadership and appointed a new chief of staff, according to a military statement. The statement said Gen. Hashem Babakr was appointed the joint chief of staff, replacing Gen. Kamal Abdel-Marouf al-Mahi, who was ousted along with Defense Minister Awad ibn Ouf a day after al-Bashir's overthrow. Babakr, 63, was appointed by al-Bashir as chairman of the joint operations authority in February. Since his ouster, al-Bashir president for nearly 30 years has been under house arrest in Khartoum. The military said he was removed from power in response to the demands of the people. A military spokesman said Sunday it will name a civilian prime minister and Cabinet but not a president to help govern the country. The announcement was unlikely to satisfy the protesters. Lt. Gen. Shamseldin Kibashi said in televised remarks that the military had begun to overhaul the security apparatus and wouldn't break up the demonstrations outside the military headquarters. The U.S., Britain and Norway on Sunday urged the military authorities to "listen to the calls from the Sudanese people." Sudan's uprising began in December as a series of protests against the rising costs of fuel and food, but soon shifted to calls for al-Bashir to step down. Dozens of people were killed in a security crackdown aimed at quashing the protests. The protests against al-Bashir gained further momentum after Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in power for 20 years, resigned earlier this month in response to weeks of similar protests. * Nordic private equity funds lead way in 2019 fund-raising * Local pension schemes set to invest more in unlisted firms * Looking to back next 'unicorn' after Spotify success By Esha Vaish and Simon Jessop STOCKHOLM/LONDON, April 15 (Reuters) - A vibrant start-up scene, which has spawned stars such as Spotify, Skype and Rovio, is inspiring Nordic pension funds to invest more money with local private equity funds. Managers looking to pump up their pension returns hope that this will plug them into the Nordic business world's inner circle and help them to back the best prospects early on. "With Spotify we got a call that maybe there were some shares for sale ... We thought it was a great product so we said let's dig into this and we made an acquisition with our friends at AMF," Bo Selling, Alecta's head of equities, told Reuters. Swedish pension funds Alecta and AMF saw their 2016 investments in Spotify nearly triple in value when it listed in 2018. This success has helped fuel demand from other pension funds and encouraged some to change their investment parameters in order to be able to seek out the region's next big hit. As part of this shift, Sweden said earlier this year it will allow some of its largest state public pension funds, named APs 1, 2, 3 and 4, to allocate up to 40 percent of the about $140 billion they manage to illiquid investments, removing a 5 percent limit for unlisted instruments. "We will most likely do more investments in private equity and venture (capital)," said Jenny Askfelt Rudd, head of alternative investments at AP4, which has about 3 percent of its assets in private equity. Around a quarter of all assets raised in Europe so far in 2019 have gone to funds based in the Nordics, data from industry tracker Preqin showed, part of a global surge in demand that has seen total undeployed capital in the sector pass $2 trillion. This is driven by institutional investors looking to shore up returns as global economic uncertainty roiled stock markets. Story continues But it is not all one-way traffic. Last year, Norway's government recommended against allowing its $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund to expand into private equity. The ball is now in the hands of the country's parliament, with the fund arguing the move could help improve its balance between risk and return, and naming Uber and Airbnb among missed opportunities due to the current restrictions. For interactive versions of the graphics, click here https://tmsnrt.rs/2Fby9bT and here https://tmsnrt.rs/2O77Fv9. Norway's sovereign fund posted a negative return on investment of 6.1 percent in 2018, while AP4 posted its second negative result since 2008 last year and warned it faced significant challenges in delivering returns at levels achieved in the past decade. A Swedish parliamentary committee that worked on the pension rule changes found that where listed equities generated returns of an average 6.9 percent, alternative investments have delivered a combined 12.3 percent. Denmark's PFA, which runs 75 billion euros ($85 billion) in assets, is already active, growing its alternatives investments from 1 billion euros in late 2015 to 5 billion euros now. "We have an ambition to grow that significantly over the coming years," Peter Tind Larsen, head of alternative investments at PFA, said. Despite concerns that demand is fueling a valuation bubble, Selling said Alecta believes there are still opportunities to grow its private equity portfolio, with just 0.5 percent of its 860 billion Swedish crowns ($93 billion) in assets in unlisted equities. "A good company with a good model and good growth prospects can be deemed interesting even if it is priced at a higher multiple on the earnings," Selling said. GET WITH THE PROGRAMMERS On the flipside, private equity firms are seeking partnerships with pension funds to bump up the valuation of assets without having to seek a market listing, bankers say. Independent Vetcare (IVC), Europe's largest veterinary services firm, was valued at 3 billion euros when Alecta and AP6 - a specialist in unlisted investments - bought 20 percent in February versus the roughly 500 million euros EQT paid to buy it in 2016, sources told Reuters. So far in 2019, five Nordic-based funds have raised a combined 4.2 billion euros in assets, 22 percent of the total for Europe as a whole, Preqin data showed. That compares with 16 percent last year and 6 percent in 2017. For an interactive version of the graphics, click here https://tmsnrt.rs/2VMu8jZ and here https://tmsnrt.rs/2Xeeaja. EQT is the local sector leader and has seven of the ten biggest funds raised in the region, including EQT VIII, which last year raised 10.8 billion euros. Others include Nordic Capital, Altor, IK Investment Partners, Creandum and Northzone. Much of their focus is on the region's vibrant digital start-up scene. The European Digital City Index ranks Stockholm second to London in terms of support for digital entrepreneurs. Helsinki and Copenhagen also make the top ten. "Being a programmer is the most common job in Stockholm, so it's everywhere," Ted Persson, operating partner at EQT Ventures, said. Swedish payments company Klarna is seen by bankers as one of the hottest local firms to invest in ahead of a likely IPO, and pension funds seem primed to take a slice in its external fundraising this year. Valued by bankers with knowledge of its recent internal fundraising at around 32 billion Swedish crowns, the firm counts private equity firms Sequoia and Permira, as well as rapper Snoop Dogg, as investors. "A number of the largest pension funds have hired additional people with strong corporate finance expertise, and we ... expect to see these funds taking the lead on larger transactions," Klaus Thune, co-head of Nordic banking at JP Morgan, said. ($1 = 9.2557 Swedish crowns) ($1 = 0.8835 euros) (Editing by Alexander Smith) Aberdeen University Students Association implemented the pro-choice policy in 2017. (Getty) An anti-abortion group has launched legal action against the University of Aberdeen for alleged unlawful discrimination. Aberdeen Life Ethics Society (ALES) said its attempts to be an official society were repeatedly rejected by the Aberdeen University Students Association (AUSA) due to the associations pro-choice policy. If a group becomes an affiliated society, they can have access to funding for events, use meeting rooms, and a stall at freshers fair. ALES began the legal action after months of repeated efforts to resolve this problem through internal bureaucratic channels. They said that both the university and AUSA are in breach of the Equality Act 2010 and the Human Rights Act 1998 by restricting free speech of religion. The papers have been lodged at Aberdeen Sheriff Court. (Getty) Alex Mason, a PHD student and member of the Aberdeen Life and Ethics society, said: Universities should foster free debate and discussion over important ethical issues like abortion. Unfortunately, there is a lot of social pressure on young people to conform to the pro-abortion viewpoint. For many of us, our pro-life beliefs were forged from our understanding of gestational science, as well as our Christian faith and the ability to express these beliefs must be protected. A spokesperson for AUSA said: At this stage we cannot comment on the legal actions taken by the ALES, however following a complaint raised by them, AUSAs Board of Trustees reviewed the matter and after deliberations, ALES were invited to re-apply for affiliation as an AUSA society, with the reassurance that the application would be treated in the same way as any other. However to date no application has been received. Last year, the Glasgow Students for Life, another anti-abortion group, was also denied affiliation by the Students Representative Council at Glasgow University. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK The Daily Beast YouTubeA Connecticut school board member was slugged in the face by an angry parent Tuesday night during a debate on the future of Glastonbury High Schools Native American-inspired mascot.The dust-up between the parent, Mark Finocchiaro, and board secretary Ray McFall, took place during a 10-minute recess after tempers flared amid a public comment period about the Glastonbury Tomahawks name, which was changed last year to the Glastonbury Guardians. The schools team logos were also switched fro There are many theories for why Donald Trump broke with precedent and refused to disclose any of his taxes during the 2016 presidential campaign. One is that the returns could show ties to oligarchs, mobsters or other unsavory figures whom he turned to for cash after most banks cut him off. Another is that they could show that he is not as rich as he claims to be. Still another is that he has been profiting off his presidency as groups interested in favorable treatment have poured money into his hotels or other properties. Perhaps the most likely explanation is that he just doesnt pay much in the way of taxes. Closely held companies, such as the Trump Organization, are adept at shielding their owners from taxes. This is particularly true in real estate development, where companies have gained tax loopholes not available to other industries, on a scale much larger than what is available to ordinary Americans. The possibility that the president could be paying a lower rate of taxes on considerably more wealth and income would be matter of considerable concern, particularly on April 15, the due date for taxes. The same would be true if Trump is profiting off his office or shaping policies based on personal gain. Which is why the president should have released his taxes long ago, and why House Democrats have legitimate cause to demand them now. Protest in New York City on April 15, 2017. Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., has requested six years of returns, relying on a provision written into tax law passed in 1924. Trumps chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, curtly responded that Democrats would never see them. Trumps personal lawyer, William Consovoy, cited a nonexistent limitation that Congress needed a legitimate legislative reason before it could obtain them. The law is unequivocal: The (Treasury secretary) shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such a request. It makes no mention of any rationale. In any event, lawmakers have multiple ones, including the need to craft tax laws that are as fair and equitable as possible and the imperative to engage in oversight of the executive branch. Neal focused on the latter in his letter to Treasury, citing a desire to ensure that the IRS is enforcing the laws in a fair and impartial manner. Story continues This does not mean that the Ways and Means Committee can simply post the returns once it obtains them. The 1924 law also makes clear that the returns are to be considered in closed session. (What could be released in summary form or cited in legislation for further oversight inquiries is less clear.) Trump asserts that he'd love to release his returns but can't because he's under audit. That's bogus. So is the argument made by some Trump defenders that providing the documents would set a bad precedent. If a committee in the future started demanding the tax records of political adversaries or wealthy individuals, it would not pass the smell test for Congress doing its job as intended. A president is a special case. And a president who refuses to show the public what it has a right to know is an even more special case. USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view a unique USA TODAY feature. To read more editorials, go to the Opinion front page or sign up for the daily Opinion email newsletter. To respond to this editorial, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com. If you can't see this reader poll, please refresh your page. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: It's April 15. Do you know where President Trump's tax returns are? Prince Vegeta Knowledge and Power User ID: 456214 04-16-2019 12:30 AM Posts: 2,726 Post: #1 Pentagon developing military options to deter Russia and China in Venezuela Advertisement The deterrence options are being ordered following a White House meeting last week where national security adviser John Bolton told acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan to develop ideas on the Venezuela crisis. The official emphasized strongly that the initial work is being done by the Pentagon's Joint Staff, which conducts planning for future military operations along with the Southern Command, which oversees any US military involvement in the southern hemisphere. And even though Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently said that "all options" remain on the table for dealing with Venezuela, several Pentagon officials continue to say there is no appetite at the Department of Defense for using US military force against the Venezuelan regime to try to force it from power. While President Donald Trump has called for Maduro to leave and has said the Russians have to get out of Venezuela, there is no indication he wants to commit US troops to a major military action there. Instead, deterrence options could include US naval exercises in the immediate region to emphasize humanitarian assistance and more military interaction with neighboring countries. The idea would be to challenge any Russian, Cuban or Chinese notion that they could have unchallenged access to the region. The preliminary planning work being done will at some point be forwarded to Shanahan, who in turn will then present ideas to the White House, the official said. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/pen...spartanntp I have no time for weaklings. The Pentagon is developing new military options for Venezuela aimed at deterring Russian, Cuban and Chinese influence inside the regime of President Nicolas Maduro, but stopping short of any kinetic military actions, according to a defense official familiar with the effort.The deterrence options are being ordered following a White House meeting last week where national security adviser John Bolton told acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan to develop ideas on the Venezuela crisis.The official emphasized strongly that the initial work is being done by the Pentagon's Joint Staff, which conducts planning for future military operations along with the Southern Command, which oversees any US military involvement in the southern hemisphere.And even though Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently said that "all options" remain on the table for dealing with Venezuela, several Pentagon officials continue to say there is no appetite at the Department of Defense for using US military force against the Venezuelan regime to try to force it from power.While President Donald Trump has called for Maduro to leave and has said the Russians have to get out of Venezuela, there is no indication he wants to commit US troops to a major military action there.Instead, deterrence options could include US naval exercises in the immediate region to emphasize humanitarian assistance and more military interaction with neighboring countries. The idea would be to challenge any Russian, Cuban or Chinese notion that they could have unchallenged access to the region.The preliminary planning work being done will at some point be forwarded to Shanahan, who in turn will then present ideas to the White House, the official said.I have no time for weaklings. DES MOINES, Iowa - Four energy bars and stream water. That's all Eric DeSplinter, an Iowa native, and his hiking partner, Gabrielle Wallace, had for sustenance for four-plus days while they were missing in the San Gabriel Mountains in California. "One of us would say something like, 'We're not gonna make it out,' and the other person would pump the other one up," DeSplinter, an experienced hiker, said Saturday, about a week after his terrifying adventure began. "There were other times where we thought that we were screwed, and it was most likely that we werent gonna make it out alive. Those times were a little tougher." The two had planned a hiking trip to reach Cucamonga Peak in southern California. The journey would span 4,000 feet of elevation and take about 10 hours. Instead, a fall near the summit changed their plan and they were in the mountains for five days, with hardly any food, and hiked more than 20 miles in search of safety. "There was a real danger of Get down or youre going to die,'" said DeSplinter, a National Guard veteran who served about a year in Afghanistan. DeSplinter, 33, and Wallace, 31, were rescued via helicopter Wednesday night after being reported missing the previous Saturday. When discovered, they were stuck between two waterfalls, each about 20 feet high. The aircraft was just 10 feet from trees and rocks during the mission, according to the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department. More: Hikers lost for nearly five days in California mountains found, authorities plan rescue More: Yosemite hiker dies after being hit by rock, ice on forbidden trail Eric DeSplinter, a 33-year-old Iowa native, stands with his mother after going missing for five days in the San Gabriel Mountains in California. Their hiking trip was derailed near Cucamonga's peak on April 6, when Wallace slipped on ice, sliding more than 100 feet and landing in mountainside brush, DeSplinter said. She was injured, with cuts to her leg and hands. The two looked for a safe place to call for a ride back instead of continuing to the top. Story continues "We looked down and saw if we descended 200 feet, we can get into a dry valley and it was just walking down large boulders and rocks," DeSplinter said. "So we thought, instead of having to go back on the snow and ice where we might have another slip the easiest path would be just to go down through that canyon." It proved a far more difficult trek, and the two found themselves rock-climbing in the mountains and the surrounding area for the better part of four days, with no cellphone service to alert friends or family of their whereabouts. DeSplinter said he expected to get out of the mountains without any help, even after Wallace's fall and the plan to climb down the Upper Cucamonga Canyon. That canyon which neither had previously hiked has an elevation gain of 2,800 feet that takes about 13.5 hours to traverse, according to a webpage on the California Institute of Technology's website. We didnt anticipate that we were gonna be rescued. At the end of Day One, we knew where we needed to go and we were gonna do it," he said. A collage shows the two people missing in California mountains since Saturday. Eric Desplinter, right, and Gabrielle Wallace Day 2: 'Going the wrong direction' The duo set out to complete their plan to climb down the canyon into the valley Sunday morning. A search-and-rescue team wouldn't be necessary, DeSplinter thought, if they could just get down the Upper Cucamonga Canyon. Back in Iowa, Desplinter's family were just becoming aware of his predicament. His older sister, Nikki Deardorff, said her mother found out at about noon Sunday that Eric hadn't returned from the hike. Karen Ziebarth and her daughter didn't talk about it, but understood what needed to be done. Deardorff put her mother and brother, Tim, on the first flight she could to California, while she tended to her own children and worked at her moms business. Back in California, DeSplinter and Wallace were hearing the sounds of helicopters, unsure if a search had been put together. It had been only one day. But by then, the fruits and snacks DeSplinter had brought for the original 10-hour trip were gone, save those four energy bars. All the filtered water the two had brought with them had been consumed, as well. For the next three-plus days, they would fill their jugs with stream water and filter it, using a LifeStraw. To make matter worse, they became lost while trying to reach the bottom of the canyon. We thought we were going the wrong direction and had to go back up the canyon," he said of that Sunday. "So Day Two was actually spent trying to get back to the point where Gabrielle fell so we could descend down the way we came up on Day One. But once they neared that point at the end of Day Two, they realized they were going the right way originally. An odd-flowing river had confused the situation. "It was extremely unlucky that thats the place that we stopped and we checked the compass," he said. "That was the one place in the canyon that the river did a 180 and, for a slight moment was actually flowing to the north." They started back down the canyon but couldn't get far before nightfall. As temperatures dipped Sunday, the pair readied for another night in the mountains. More: Hiker missing on Mount St. Helens for a week survived on berries, bees More: Missing hiker from Ohio found dead in Smoky Mountains after weeklong search The view from a West Valley (California) Search and Rescue helicopter last week as crew members looked for Iowan Eric DeSplinter and Gabrielle Wallace who were missing in the San Gabriel Mountains for five days before being rescued Wednesday. Day 3: 'Give the rescuers a better chance to find us' On Monday, DeSplinter and Wallace stayed put. We started to descend, but our bodies were pretty beat up and tired, and our feet were really beat up," DeSplinter recalled. "We thought, since we had a near-miss with a helicopter on Night Two, it might be easiest if we can wait here in a nice, open valley. "Give the rescuers a better chance to find us." By Monday, DeSplinter's mother and brother had arrived in the nearby unincorporated community of Mount Baldy, California, and were greeted warmly by people who lived in the area. The number of volunteers and responders from six counties gave them hope. "Morale was high. The locals were providing so much heartfelt support for my mom and my brother," Deardorff said. "It was so uplifting to know that these strangers who don't even know (DeSplinter and Wallace) are giving everything to find people that we love. But those feelings of optimism weren't being felt by the two still on the mountain. The day came and went with no sight of helicopters. "We decided, as a team, to take matters into our own hands," he said. We werent too hopeful on the search and rescue at that point." For Deardorff, the optimism of the day tapered as the sun dipped beneath the horizon. It was becoming hard not to imagine the worst. "Day Three was, like, Wow, because of all the support, she said. My mom was, like, 'That the best day of all five days.' "But as soon as the sun set and I called out there ... it was a 180-" degree turn. A San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department search and rescue team member helps look last week for Iowan Eric DeSplinter and Gabrielle Wallace who were missing for five days before being rescued Wednesday. Day 4: 'Desperate to find him' Day Four kindled more fears for Eric's family. A dreary Tuesday replaced the sunny Monday full of activity at the mission control center at the Mount Baldy Fire Department. Fewer volunteers had shown up, and some of the rescue efforts were affected by the cloud cover. "The weather was such a reflection of how my family was feeling on the mountain that day," Deardorff said. "Very desperate to find him." "(DeSplinter's) so mentally strong, he's so physically strong, he has the ability to make the right decisions you're just, like, 'What happened?'" The situation was desperate for DeSplinter, too. They were determined to reach a better place to alert authorities or make it out of the canyon. But that canyon has a level 3 rating, according to the American Canyoneering Association. A hike of that nature requires multiple rappels and could take a full day when done with the right tools, per the ACA formatting guidelines. And DeSplinter and Wallace didn't have the equipment necessary to safely make it to the valley, he said. The two encountered towering waterfalls and dangerous ledges that couldn't be scaled using just hands and feet on their way down. They had nothing but their clothes, a survival kit, lights and a signaling mirror. They tied a makeshift rope from the jackets they were wearing to help them get down the more dangerous drops. It just continued to get more and more difficult," he said. "Then we came to a place where the canyon got extremely narrow, and it was just like a waterslide. You had to sit down on your butt, slide down, and you end up in a pool at the bottom. There, it looked like they were trapped. A waterfall upwards of 75 feet high was in front of them and the "waterslide," now impossible to climb up, was behind them. They went to the side of the waterfall and began to climb. When they made it to the landing, they started a fire. After hearing the sounds of vehicles all day, they saw a helicopter. Could he have seen them? "(We) signaled, he came over to us, circled us three times and he even stuck his head out the window," DeSplinter said. "At that point, we were very hopeful we thought there was no way he could not have seen us." But no one immediately returned. They had almost no food left, and now were wet and had even fewer clothes left than they set out with. They were losing hope. "We were, like, 'Theres no way search and rescue's gonna find us if they didnt see us on that one," DeSplinter said. "Theyre not coming for us.'" More: Search continues for New Jersey hiker missing from Colorado park More: Missing hiker found alive in Himalayas after 47 days, survived on salt and water Day 5: 'Fear of the unknown' By Wednesday, it had been five days since the pair had lost contact with their family and friends. DeSplinter said the two are not rock climbers, but they decided they had to get to the bottom of the canyon if they were going to survive. "It was the fear of the unknown," he said. "We didnt know what more obstacles were down there, and we didnt have a lifeline." They pulled off some treacherous maneuvers near a waterfall, including scaling two "pretty vertical" drops that totaled 300 feet about the height of a 30-story building all without any safety equipment. "This was definitely beyond what our comfort level was and what our abilities were," he said. They discovered some ropes tied to trees, connected those to their jackets and made a rappel long enough to scale 40-foot drops. That night, the two found an area to build a fire. Their signaling devices a flashlight, a mirror, glow sticks and a reflective blanket were ready. Shortly thereafter, a chopper appeared overhead. The pilot made contact. Within a few hours, they were hoisted upward and taken to a helipad, where medical personnel were waiting for them. West Valley (California) Search and Rescue crew members shown during a search for Iowan Eric DeSplinter and Gabrielle Wallace who were missing for five days before being rescued in the San Gabriel Mountains on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Deardorff was on her way to California. She had learned during a layover that search personnel had found footprints. As she was getting off the plane in California, she learned that her brother was alive. I think I cried more when I found out that he was alive rather than hearing the news of him being missing," she said. "The news of him being missing took my breath away. The news of him being alive that was true happiness." Her brother lost 12 pounds over the five days. Going half a week with extreme physical exertion and only energy bars to eat will do that to you. DeSplinter is grateful for the rescuers, but said he thinks they could have made it out safely on their own within a day or two. He's researched the area more since getting back home and says they were near the end of their journey. That's just like her brother, Deardorff said. As for future hikes, DeSplinter said he may buy a beacon that would notify emergency services or other contacts of his location in case of a future mishap. Hikers should always consider taking more safety equipment than less when preparing for a trip, he said. Eric Desplinter, one of the rescued hikers, seemed to be in high spirits when talking to media. pic.twitter.com/iOEs5FxIei Robert Gundran (@RobertGundran) April 11, 2019 "Go into a situation assuming its not going to go as planned," he said. "You dont have to necessarily plan for being out there for 60 days or something you dont want to carry 100 pounds of gear for a day hike but have some sort of (backup strategy). "Think of things that can go wrong and try to plan for them." The veteran hiker said he'll be traversing that area of the mountains again to retrieve some of the items he and Wallace left behind, including the cellphone Wallace lost when she fell. He was back in the mountains Sunday, his sister said. And, yes, in a couple of weeks, he said he plans to reach Cucamonga Peak. Just don't be surprised if he brings a few more snacks along next time. Eric DeSplinter, a 33-year-old Iowa native, stands with his brother, Tim (right), and sister Nikki Deardorff after going missing for five days in the San Gabriel Mountains in California. Follow Tyler Davis on Twitter @TDavisDMR. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: 'Get down or you're going to die': Rescued hikers describe being lost for five days In the face of attacks from Donald Trump, Republicans and rightwing media outlets, the Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar said on Saturday no one could threaten her unwavering love for America. Related: Yemeni bodegas boycott New York Post over attacks on Ilhan Omar I did not run for Congress to be silent, Omar wrote on Twitter, less than a day after the president shared a video that included footage of her speaking and graphic images of the 9/11 terror attacks. Trump retweeted his message on Saturday. Omar thanked supporters for standing against an administration that ran on banning Muslims from this country. No one person no matter how corrupt, inept, or vicious can threaten my unwavering love for America, she wrote on Twitter. I stand undeterred to continue fighting for equal opportunity in our pursuit of happiness for all Americans. In the hours after the president attacked Omar, who came to the US from Somalia as a refugee and became one of the first Muslim women in Congress, progressive Democrats condemned the president for inciting violence against her. Just last week, a Trump supporter from New York state was charged with threatening to kill Omar. But while presidential candidates rallied behind Omar, House leaders did not immediately take the same approach. The president is inciting violence against a congresswoman Elizabeth Warren Leadership and some freshmen Democrats have disagreed over how to respond to attacks on Omar, including accusations that her criticism of US policy on Israel was antisemitic. Last month, Omar apologized unequivocally after suggesting support for Israel was fueled by donations from a lobby group. On Saturday morning, Speaker Nancy Pelosi hedged her response to Trumps tweet, saying the president shouldnt use the painful images of 9/11 for a political attack but not mentioning Omar. The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must be done with reverence, Pelosi wrote, a comment that could be read as a criticism of Omar as well as the president. It is wrong for the president, as commander-in-chief, to fan the flames to make anyone less safe. Story continues Trump tweeted WE WILL NEVER FORGET! with a video edited to suggest Omar was dismissive of the attacks. The video used part of a speech last month to the Council on American-Islamic Relations in which Omar discussed the problem of Islamophobia, describing the discomfort of being a second-class citizen. After September 11, she said, advocates recognized that some people did something, and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties. Rightwing politicians were quick to say Omar was dismissing the gravity of 9/11. Dan Crenshaw, a congressman from Texas who as a Navy Seal was seriously injured in Afghanistan, falsely claimed Omar does not consider [September 11] a terrorist attack on the USA by terrorists. Two of the most progressive candidates for the Democratic nomination called on all lawmakers to condemn such attacks. Senator Bernie Sanders called attacks on Omar disgusting and dangerous and said Omar would not back down to Trumps racism and hate, and neither will we. Senator Elizabeth Warren said: The president is inciting violence against a sitting congresswoman and an entire group of Americans based on their religion. Its disgusting. Its shameful. And any elected leader who refuses to condemn it shares responsibility for it. Related: Republicans falsely claim Ilhan Omar denied 9/11 attackers were terrorists Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana who has surged in 2020 polls, wrote: After 9/11 we all said we were changed. That we were stronger and more united. Thats what never forget was about. Now, a president uses that dark day to incite his base against a member of Congress, as if for sport. As if we learned nothing that day about the workings of hate. Buttigieg added: The threats against the life of [Omar] make clear what is at stake. Among other candidates, former Hud secretary Julian Castro said he stood with Omar and others targeted by the presidents anti-Muslim rhetoric. Former congressman Beto ORourke said: We are stronger than this presidents hatred and Islamophobia. Do not let him drive us apart or make us afraid. The California senator Kamala Harris wrote: For two years, this president has used the most powerful platform in the world to sow hate [and] division. Putting the safety of a sitting member of Congress at risk [and] vilifying a whole religion is beyond the pale. Ill be blunt we must defeat him. Ilhan Omar, with Democratic representative Sheila Jackson Lee and Nancy Pelosi outside the Capitol. Ilhan Omar, with Democratic representative Sheila Jackson Lee and Nancy Pelosi outside the Capitol.Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP Fox News and the New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch, have devoted high-profile coverage to misleading claims about Omars words. Republican party chair Ronna McDaniel has also attacked the congresswoman. Rashida Tlaib, the other Muslim American woman in Congress, was the first on Friday to call for Democrats to speak up in return. Enough is enough, she wrote. No more silence, with NY Post and now Trump taking Ilhans words out of context to incite violence toward her, its time for more Dems to speak up. Clearly the GOP is fine with this shameful stunt, but we cannot stand by. Related: Trump under fire over Islamophobia after man threatens to kill Ilhan Omar Trumps own comments and falsehoods about September 11 have long attracted criticism. He has repeated false claims about thousands and thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating on the day itself; his business received money meant for small businesses affected by the attack, even though his businesses were not; he has claimed to have helped clear rubble from the attack site, a claim for which evidence does not exist; he has said he watched people jump from the World Trade Center towers from Trump Tower, four miles away, which would not be possible. Perhaps most famously, in an interview hours after the attack on the World Trade Center, part of attacks in which 2,977 people were killed, Trump described his shock and disbelief. Then he added a comment that left his interviewers stunned. Trump, claimed, falsely, that one of his own buildings had been the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, after the World Trade Center. And now its the tallest, he said. Police say a 5-year-old boy remains hospitalized on Saturday after he was thrown by an apparent stranger from a third-floor balcony at the Mall of America near Minneapolis on Friday. The boy suffered serious injuries in the nearly 40 foot fall, Bloomington police Chief Jeffrey Potts said Saturday. Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda, 24, of Minneapolis, was arrested after the attack and has been jailed on a suspicion of attempted homicide charge. Police do not believe Aranda knew the victim or his family before the incident. "(Through) our investigative work and witnesses that we've spoken to, we feel confident saying that the suspect threw the child off of the third floor," CNN quotes Potts. "But as to why he did that, is still something we're looking into and trying to figure out." April 13: Tornado hits central Texas town as severe storms forecast from Dallas to Birmingham, Alabama April 13: Students accused of sexual assault are suing colleges and winning most of the time Aranda has previously been banned from the mall but the ban was not in effect at the time of the incident. He has a history of misdemeanor convictions; some cases were handled through a mental health court, Potts said. The Washington Post reports Aranda was arrested at the mall in 2015 on misdemeanor charges including property damage and disorderly conduct after police say he threw items from the upper mall level and broke items at a store. An attorney for Aranda is not listed in jail records. Contributing: The Associated Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: An apparent stranger threw a 5-year-old boy nearly 40 feet from a mall balcony, police say By Alun John and Sumeet Chatterjee HONG KONG (Reuters) - Asia's internet firms are challenging the region's traditional banks for consumer finances, tapping their massive user networks for business and following a trail blazed in China by tech giants Alibaba and Tencent. The push into banking by companies better known for their messaging apps, cute emojis and online holiday bookings comes as regulators across Asia open up their banking sectors to a new breed of digital players. The shift is in its infancy but contrasts sharply with the banking markets of Europe and North America, where change is slower and such startups tend to be backed by venture capital funds and financial sector incumbents, not tech firms. Asia's tech entrants see their advantage in the way they can seamlessly integrate banking services with their users' regular online activities and the efficiency that comes from their technology. "If you want to open a bank account (in Hong Kong) you need to go to a branch, answer questions for an hour, and you still won't get the account opened without follow up calls," said Wayne Xu, president of ZhongAn International, a unit of Chinese online insurer ZhongAn, setting up a virtual bank. "However, all the information needed at the counter can already be collected on a mobile phone." Hong Kong's banking regulator last month issued one of four so-called virtual banking licenses to ZhongAn in what could be the biggest shake-up in years in a city dominated by HSBC and Standard Chartered. Last week, the regulator said on it was making progress on four additional applications. In South Korea, authorities have issued two online only bank licenses, one of them to Kakao Bank in 2017, which is operated by the company behind the country's largest chat app. "The 45 million monthly average users of our messaging app Kakao Talk is a huge plus for us when advertising our bank," a spokesman for Kakao Bank said. He added the bank uses Kakao's artificial intelligence technology for its automated customer support systems. The bank had 8.9 million users as of March. Story continues Other Asian countries set to approve online-only banks include Taiwan where a group led by a unit of Japanese messaging app operator Line Corp has applied for a license - and Malaysia, which plans guidelines by the end of the year. Bank of Thailand Governor Veerathai Santiprabhob said the central bank was exploring the issue. "Large technology companies are seeing this as a land-grab opportunity where they can build out new sets of financial services that can be cross-sold to their existing users," said Jeff Galvin, a Hong Kong-based partner at McKinsey. DIGITAL ASIA Driving the shift in Asia is mobile technology's deep penetration across all aspects of consumer life. Such trends were forged by Alibaba and Tencent in China where the two upended financial services and drove a revolution in the cashless economy with their digital payment applications. In contrast, U.S. tech giants such as Amazon and Alphabet Inc's Google have focused their financial industry efforts on providing tech and consulting services to incumbents. Asian consumers are far more willing to bank with tech firms than elsewhere in the world. More than 90 percent of consumers under 35 in China and India would bank with a technology firm, according to Bain research, compared to 75 percent in the United States and just 51 percent in France. Graphic: Asian consumers banking with tech firms, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2X1YkI6 The online-only banks in Hong Kong plan to start-off by offering services such as savings accounts, credit cards, personal loans and travel insurance. "What we are seeing in Asia is technology companies moving sideways into finance, inspired by or even threatened by the examples of Alibaba and Tencent," said James Lloyd, partner and APAC fintech leader at consultancy EY. In Asia, the emergence of tech gains in the banking sector comes at a difficult time for the region's incumbents who have begun reassessing the vast branch networks that, until recently, were seen as their competitive advantage. The number of bank branches in Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and Thailand has declined in the last couple of years, dropping by between 1 percent and 7 percent in 2017 from 2015, according to the International Monetary Fund. That compares with growth of as much as 8 percent a decade ago. To be sure, legacy banks in Asia have their own plans to stay relevant in the changing space with some tying up with new rivals. Among the new Hong Kong digital banking licensees is a joint venture between StanChart, Chinese holiday booking giant Ctrip and local telco PCCW. "We think that the ecosystem we can build together will be a great integration of lifestyle into banking," Mary Huen chief executive of StanChart Hong Kong, and chairman of the new virtual bank, said at a press conference. (Reporting by Sumeet Chatterjee and Alun John; additional reporting by Heekyong Yang in Seoul, Liz Lee in Kuala Lumpur, Chayut Setboonsarng in Bangkok; Editing by Jennifer Hughes and Sam Holmes) By Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning had reason to believe that leaking U.S. military reports "would cause injury" to the country, federal prosecutors alleged in a newly unsealed court filing on Monday. In the affidavit submitted to federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, prosecutors said U.S. military reports from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq included information about the "identity and significance of local supporters of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan." When U.S. forces raided the compound in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden was hiding out, for example, they found a letter that showed the Al Qaeda leader was interested in copies of Pentagon documents published on WikiLeaks, the prosecutors said. According to prosecutors, leaked reports on the Afghan war included information on militants' improvised explosive device designs and attacks, including details of U.S. and coalition countermeasures against such home-made explosive devices and their limitations. The prosecution's affidavit is dated Dec. 21, 2017, but was made public on Monday. It follows the unsealing last week of a U.S. indictment charging Assange with conspiring with Manning to gain access to a government computer as part of one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history. Barry Pollack, a lawyer for Assange in Washington, said: "Encouraging sources to provide information, and using methods to protect their identity, are common practices by all journalists. There is no new information in the affidavit that was unavailable to the Department of Justice when it decided in the Obama administration that pursuing criminal charges against Mr. Assange would be contrary to the First Amendment." British police arrested Assange at Washington's request after Ecuador revoked his seven-year asylum on Thursday. He was dragged out of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London and is being held in prison while he faces extradition to the United States. Story continues The U.S. indictment, originally issued in secret by an Alexandria, Virginia-based grand jury in March 2018, said Assange in March 2010 engaged in a conspiracy to help Manning crack a password for a classified U.S. government network. In the unsealed affidavit, prosecutors said Manning also had access to other U.S. government databases, including one relating to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and a State Department database containing military cables. (Reporting by Mark Hosenball, editing by G Crosse) Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) released his tax returns for the past 10 years on Monday amid growing calls that he meet the standard of his rivals in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Sanders and his wife, Jane OMeara Sanders, paid an effective tax rate of 26% on $561,293 in income in 2018. The couple also contributed 3.4% of their income to charity just under $19,000. In addition to Sanders Senate salary of $174,000, the couple earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties on Sanders book sales. Sanders can now join Democratic calls for President Donald Trump to release his financial information without appearing to fall short of his own principles. Senator Sanders believes it is a privilege to live in the United States and he believes it is patriotic to pay the taxes that support our country, Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir said in a statement. As a strong proponent of transparency, the senator hopes President Trump and all Democratic primary candidates will disclose their tax returns. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in Pittsburgh on Sunday. Releasing his tax returns allows Sanders to attack Donald Trump on his transparency without fear of being labeled a hypocrite. (Keith Srakocic/ASSOCIATED PRESS) Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) have all released at least 10 years of tax returns, though some have done so more recently than others. Harris, who made 15 years of returns available, preceded Sanders by a single day. Former Rep. Beto ORourke (D-Texas) released 10 years of tax returns mere minutes after Sanders. South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D), Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and former HUD Secretary Julian Castro have yet to release their tax returns. In releasing his personal financial records, the Vermont senator delivers on a promise he made earlier this month that he would make the returns public by Tax Day. Prior to that announcement, Sanders repeatedly vowed to release his returns but declined to specify a date. He was under some pressure to do so from Democratic insiders with more centrist leanings since, as a presidential candidate in the 2016 election, he had released only his 2014 returns. Story continues Hillary Clinton, Sanders primary opponent in 2016, released eight years of tax returns ending in 2014 during the primary. Later, during the general election, she released her 2015 returns in an unsuccessful bid to goad Trump into releasing his. Sanders tax returns, as he predicted, do not appear to be especially remarkable. One quirky fact is that in 2012 and 2013, he and Jane earned a few thousand dollars through a small antique business. As a member of Congress since 1991, Sanders has already filed periodic disclosures of his personal finances to Congress. Thanks to those disclosures, he has already addressed the widely reported revelation that he and Jane earned just over $1 million in 2016 and 2017 due to advances and royalties from his 2016 campaign book, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In, as well as other subsequent books. I didnt know that it was a crime to write a good book, Sanders told reporters in Gary, Indiana, on Saturday. It turned out to be a best-seller. My view has always been that we need a progressive tax system that demands the wealthiest people in this country finally start paying their fair share in taxes. If I make a lot of money, you make a lot of money, that is what I believe. Bitcoins out-of-the-blue bounce over the $5,000 mark this month has prompted some predictable pontificating from price-obsessed people within and outside the cryptocurrency community. Investors who are long-cryptocurrencies have gleefully pronounced that the Crypto Winter, which began when bitcoins bubble burst at the end of 2017, is now mercifully over. The most optimistic are forecasting a rerun of bitcoins fall 2015 bounce from its prior post-bubble collapse, which sent it not only back above its 2013 high of $1,150 but all the way to a December 2017 peak of $19,500. At the same time, bitcoin skeptics have pointed to the seeming lack of fundamental news behind the price rise and declared it meaningless. Typical of the genre, Matt Novak at Gizmodo penned an angry screed titled Bitcoin Surges 15% Overnight Because Nobody Learned Their Lesson After the Last Crash. The Upside of Bitcoins Upside (Its Not What You Think) One of Novaks insights: To be clear, bitcoin is absolutely worthless by any real measure. Its fake money thats about as practical to use in the real world as Monopoly bills. Readers wont be surprised to hear that I disagree with Novaks simplistic rant. But Im also turned off by the knee-jerk cheerleading from crypto traders whenever bitcoins price bounces. Theres something fundamentally wrong with reducing the measure of bitcoins worldwide importance to a price metric thats denominated in a fiat currency that its advocates hope to replace. It pushes the debate into an inane all-or-nothing binary set of predictions: bitcoin is either going to zero or to the moon. What matters is that 10 years after an unidentified software engineer created it, this decentralized system for recording sequences of transactions continues to do its job, block after block, with no authority in charge, no user able to alter past transactions, and no person or entity able to shut it down. Bitcoin Defends Psychological Support Line After Price Dip to $4,900 Story continues The more this goes on, the more it reinforces the powerful vision behind bitcoin: a peer-to-peer, disintermediated system for exchanging value around the world. And in that context, we can also think of bitcoin the cryptocurrency differentiated from bitcoin the system as a unique, provably scare digital asset that expresses the overall value in that vast potential. Bitcoin is valuable because it exists A point thats lost on critics like Novak is that the longer bitcoin simply survives in the face of the $90 billion valuation that stands as a de facto bounty for hackers to try to take it down, compromise its security or corrupt it the more its overall value is confirmed. Bitcoin is progressively proving itself to be an unstoppable, digital system of global exchange, one that functions outside of the traditional national government-mandated system of currency and banking. That status is what gives bitcoin its value. Of course, the global impact of the bitcoin value exchange system, and therefore its worth to humanity, will be significantly enhanced if adoption advances to a much wider scale and it is used frequently in the worlds transactions. And, yes, a great deal of development work is still needed if it is to ever reach that point. (Some recent technological leaps such as the Lightning Network and the emergence of decentralized, non-custodial asset exchange technologies offer hope that this scaling challenge can be achieved, though nothing is guaranteed.) However, widespread adoption in payments is not necessary for bitcoin to have value. To understand why thats the case, its useful to think about gold, to which bitcoin is often compared. The power of common belief Similar to bitcoin, gold is a mutually agreed store of value that, for all intents and purposes, lies outside the control of nation-state governments and banks. Its not widely used as a day-to-day currency, but it does enjoy a widespread, shared belief in its value. Where does golds value come from? The answer is somewhat tautological: it comes from that same widely held belief, from a shared understanding in golds capacity to function as a depoliticized global system of exchange thats free of manipulation. Sure, we tend to think of gold in terms of its material qualities: that its durable and that its shiny in a way that connotes beauty. But its lasting worth really derives from the more esoteric notion that human beings have for a long time deeply held a shared belief in its value. That belief has turned gold into a system for protecting property, a system used through the centuries by refugees, dissidents and investors for moving and storing value and for hedging against lost spending power. That we now have a digital version of this concept, one thats designed for the borderless, internet-shaped world of the 21st century, is a big deal. When dealing with debates over bitcoins value, its also worth going a little way down the rabbit hole of thinking about what money actually is. Not everyone agrees on a definition, but I think its useful to think of money as a societally agreed system for storing and exchanging value. The system has to have certain properties for people to reach this agreement it must fungible, durable, transferable, divisible, etc. but its the agreement itself that gives it its value. Here, too, is where many of bitcoins detractors get lost. Fixating on the misplaced idea of money as a thing, they exclaim that bitcoin cant have any value as it isnt backed by anything. This, of course, also misses the fact that it is backed by the energy and other resources that miners spend to do the computational work needed to secure the bitcoin ledger. But the bigger point is that bitcoins value, as with all forms of money, comes from the existence of a wide agreement in its potential use as a store of value and medium of exchange. In bitcoins case, the agreement is arguably one that involves 35 million people, if Cambridge Universitys latest survey of authenticated users is to be believed. This large level of participation is essentially why bitcoin holds a much greater value than the altcoins that are forks of its code. So, this is why bitcoin at $5,000 is important, not because its a sign of that new investors are coming to push up its price again, but because it validates the core proposition of bitcoins resilience and promise. Bitcoin puzzle via Shutterstock Related Stories The idyllic Canadian town of Innisfil is accepting bitcoin for tax payments from residents and the mayor is a big proponent. | Source: Twitter/Lynn Dollin A Canadian town mayor says using bitcoin to pay for property taxes has made transaction costs much cheaper. The advantage of doing it as opposed to [using] a credit card is the transaction costs are so much cheaper, Mayor Lynn Dollin of Innisfil, Ontario told Day 6. Innisfil is the first town in Canada to allow residents to use bitcoin to pay their property taxes. Its part of a one-year pilot program the town entered into with Coinberry Pay, a Toronto-based cryptocurrency company. Mayor Wants Ontario Town To Be a Tech Hub The program officially launches this week. Mayor Dollin is embracing the crypto project because she wants to woo entrepreneurs to her lakeshore town of 36,000 people to elevate it has a tech hub one day. It could attract us some opportunities as far as economic development within our community. Innisfil propert taxes bitcoin Innisfil is the first town in Canada to accept bitcoin for property taxes. (screenshot/Innisfil.ca) Dollin says shes aware that bitcoin has been roiled by scandals because its a nascent, unregulated industry, but says shes being cautious. Read the full story on CCN.com. For all the roadblocks Jutta Steiner has faced in her time as Paritys CEO, shes a notable optimist. Despite overseeing the development of a billion-dollar project in Polkadot, the Berlin-native seems unintimidated about her responsibility to cement the firms place in building the next internet and taking blockchain to the next level. Even her recount of Paritys darkest moment, a series of multi-million dollar hacks in 2017, features a dose of Germanic resilience. My son was five weeks old when that happened, she says, recalling cutting short her parental leave. I remember I was in a cafe close to the office and reading news that didn't seem goodThe team starts getting together with everybody else in the community. There's sort of a war room...just trying to collectively figure out what the issue is. Remarkably, she adds, no one left the firm in the aftermath. In fact it grew, now employing around 50 core developers around the world including a concentrated presence in Europe. Meanwhile, Steiners conviction to the promise of decentralising data storage remains untainted. It's also more than just a business model for her its a personal goal, having grown up alongside Germanys privacy community" and the Snowden revelations serving as her wake-up call. That was really a moment where this felt really tangible how screwed up the current situation really is, the former consultant says. From a developers perspective, you do this because you're convinced that this is relevant work and there is a future. Seeking to right the wrongs of the internet is also what drew her to Paritys co-founder and one of Ethereums early innovators, Gavin Wood. She says Wood's own commitment to privacy is ultimately what differentiated him (and arguably divided him) from his peers. When Ethereum was started by Vitalik, that was sort of a project to make money programmable, like financial contracts on blockchains. But then what Gav [Wood] really brought to the space was that notion of decentralized applications. Story continues But for all the joys of blockchain's privacy promises, has Parity's leadership reflected on the security trade-off feared by crypto regulators? Sure, Steiner says, but its not as simple an equation as were led to believe, arguing that poor privacy ultimately has not resulted in perfect security. People who want to do bad are finding ways to secretly move money around in the current system. It's going to happen and law enforcement adapts, it learns new ways to actually get through. She even notes how some FBI investigators are apparently finding utility in being able to track transactions on public ledgers. Rebuilding the internet Since Wood and Steiner started Parity, their commitment to user ownership-agency has morphed into building the decentralised web, with blockchain serving as a key layer. As part of that, Gav founded the non-profit Web3Foundation (W3F) a year-and-a-half ago. Steiner explains W3F is the initial owner, the curator of the popular network, with the idea that it's better to have [the web] be curated by a sort of more neutral entity than a private company. Still, critics have raised eyebrows about the cross-over in leadership between W3F and Parity, and the fact that Web3 subsequently commissioned Parity to build its first project, Polkadot, whose dot sale saw the protocol valued at $1 billion. It certainly hasn't won them any friends, though Steiner defends the set-up. It's more - I mean, not from a legal perspective - but [W3F] is more like a spinoff from what we did and then set up as a separate entity Very similar to what happened in the Ethereum Foundation [and ZCash]. Steiner adds she has no control over W3F and that Wood is one of four board members who each vote independently about the foundation's future. He also reportedly does not sit in on council meetings where Parity is discussed. Still, for all the underlying politics, its estimated timeline looks promising, with W3F recently announcing that the Polkadot protocol will launch in about a year. [For an in-depth look at what Polkadot is and how its funded, click here.] The new business model Regardless of W3Fs structure, Parity is still very much for-profit. In an industry committed to open-source development, there is a tension between money-making and sharing the vision. But Steiner says blockchain firms are following new business models to find a solution, introducing profits later in the growth timeline. We're seeing young companies that have found business models on top of open source. They recognize it makes sense to collaborate on the foundational layers that are more infrastructure. And then find your competitive edge on a higher level," she said. She also seemed to hint at profiting from an on-chain founder's reward model similar to that of ZCash. [If] you have a protocol that has some payment value mechanism built into it, it should be possible...to build some reward mechanism so that the open source protocol doesn't suffer. Indeed, part of the reason Parity is HQed in Berlin rather than Silicon Valley is because of the citys more collaborative outlook, says Steiner. A lot of teams which could be seen, long-term, as competitors would collaborate, she says. "There are still so many problems to solve, right? Like crypto libraries. We do need to collaborate on that, there's no benefit in everybody inventing their own networking protocol. Indeed, Parity shares all its core infrastructure, including the Substrate protocol, allowing users to quickly build their own blockchain. However, according to Steiner, Parity is setting itself apart and monetizing through excellent engineering and delivering on a constant basis - despite the "painful", time-consuming experience of managing its accounting. Shes also sure the companys work on Polkadot will pay off. From a company's perspective, we do bet on Polkadot being successful and the token being worth more in the future, noting W3F continues to manage a good portion of the dots but is under mandate to sell them. It's just cool to see that now really, step by step, I feel that things are coming together," she added. Note: This article was updated to clarify W3F currently owns a "good portion" of dots but will not in future. By Tim Hepher PARIS (Reuters) - The co-founder of Indonesia's Lion Air, one of two airlines that lost passengers and crew in recent crashes involving the 737 MAX, has lashed out at Boeing's handling of the accidents as the potential business fallout from the jet's grounding intensifies. Rusdi Kirana said a recent apology by Boeing over the 346 lives lost in the two disasters, firstly at Lion Air in October and then at Ethiopian Airlines last month, stood in contrast to what he viewed as hasty earlier criticism of Lion Air's pilots. In a telephone interview, Kirana also accused Boeing of treating him as a "piggy bank". Lion Air has spent tens of billions of dollars on plane orders with Boeing to become one of Asia's largest budget carriers. The Indonesian entrepreneur is the figurehead for what is now one of the planemaker's largest customers with 187 jets on order and 200 already delivered. Lion Air threatened in December to axe those orders, but has given no further update. Boeing has embarked on a campaign following the two crashes to restore faith in its best-selling jet and pledged to remove any risk that anti-stall software, suspected of pushing the two planes downwards, could be activated by erroneous data. In November, following an interim report on the Lion Air crash, it voiced questions over whether pilots had used correct procedures. Kirana said the contrasting reactions demonstrated that Boeing was taking fast-growing carriers such as his for granted. "They look down on my airline and my country even though relations are always handled in a proper way. They treat us as Third World," Kirana told Reuters. "They also look down on me. They look at me as their piggy bank," he said in his first interview since the Ethiopian crash. Kirana's comments - by far the strongest since the crash off Indonesia on Oct 29 - underscore the depth of a recent rift between Boeing and Lion Air, which has been balking at taking delivery of Boeing jets worth $21 billion at list prices. Story continues His voice also carries weight in Indonesia where he serves as the country's ambassador to Malaysia, handling relations between two Muslim-majority states with important ties. In a statement to Reuters regarding the comments, Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg said: "We remain heartbroken over the tragic loss of Lion Air Flight 610. We're sorry for the lives lost and deeply regret the devastating impact on the families, friends and colleagues of the passengers and crew." "Rusdi Kirana has been a leader and a pioneer in Asian aviation," he said, adding that Kirana and his team "remain highly valued partners to Boeing". 'INCONSISTENCIES' Although safety experts have raised some questions over crew performance in both crashes, the regulatory fallout has been dominated so far by questions over MCAS anti-stall software, which Boeing has acknowledged provided a common link in the separate chains of events leading to both crashes. Following the Lion Air crash, Boeing issued a statement listing three questions relating to pilot and maintenance actions that had not been addressed in a preliminary report. After a similar report on the Ethiopian crash, Boeing issued a sparser statement focusing on its ongoing software review. It has adopted an increasingly contrite tone as pressure grows over design decisions and its relations with U.S. regulators. Kirana said Boeing had shown inconsistencies in its responses to the two disasters. "(They) cast blame for the first one and apologize after the second," he said. Indonesia has 236 Boeing commercial passenger planes on order and operates the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. Flag carrier Garuda joined Lion Air last month in threatening to cancel 49 MAX orders. Analysts have questioned how easily either airline can fund deliveries as competition grows and have cautioned that both face lengthy negotiations. (Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Jan Harvey) New York (AFP) - Boeing faces a wave of flight cancelations by US airlines and pressure from President Donald Trump to rebrand its top-selling 737 MAX aircraft, a month after the plane was grounded worldwide in the wake of deadly crashes. American and Southwest Airlines say the grounding will disrupt scheduled flights through the summer, during the peak travel season which helps generate corporate profits. American is canceling all 737 MAX flights through August 19 while Southwest, which owns the largest 737 MAX fleet, with 34 planes, is canceling them until August 5. United Airlines, which also ordered the 737 MAX 9, did not respond to an AFP query. In all, an average of 275 flights a day will be canceled, which are likely to put a dent in airline profits and could cause the companies to raise airfares. American already cut a key industry revenue metric -- Total Revenue per Available Seat-Mile, or TRASM -- saying it will rise one percent in 2019, down from a prior estimate of two percent. Southwest is allowing affected passengers to reschedule flights at no additional cost. "Neither Airbus nor Boeing like cancelations and there are stiff contracts which make this very difficult," said Scott Hamilton, managing editor of the aviation news site Leeham News and Analysis. "The companies will swap airplane types, however, if it comes to this." All 737 MAX aircraft have been banned from the world's skies since mid-March after suffering two fatal crashes less than five months apart: a Lion Air flight crashed in the Java Sea in October, leaving 189 dead, and the Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10, which killed 157 people. Crash investigators have zeroed in on the planes' anti-stall system, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS. And Boeing, which has already ceased 737 MAX deliveries and slowed the pace of production, a buildup of delays could increase the penalties it must pay client airlines, Hamilton said. Story continues Trump tweeted early Monday that Boeing had to give its scandal-stricken aircraft a new image. - Rebuilding trust - "What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!), but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name," he said. But Hamilton said Trump was right to doubt his own expertise. "Trump is a boob. Boeing isn't going to rebrand the 737," Hamilton said, pointing to Boeing's log of more than 4,600 backorders, a key sales revenue driver, and adding that the order cancelations so far were "inconsequential." Aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia of Teal Group agreed. "Pretty much all of President Trump's pronouncements on aviation are safely and best ignored," he said. Boeing is finalizing software upgrades for the MCAS, which it has pledged to submit to regulators in the coming weeks so that the 737 MAX grounding order can be lifted. "We're focused on testing and implementing the software update and rebuilding the trust of our airline customers, pilots and the traveling public," a spokesperson told AFP. "We know we have a deep responsibility to everyone who flies on our airplanes to ensure that the MAX is one of the safest aircraft ever to fly." Rebranding the aircraft would impose additional costs on the airlines which would be required to fully retrain pilots, while an updated model involves less intense additional training. Flight cancelations show the airlines, that had hoped to have the planes back in the air by May, now expect it will be longer before the aircraft can return to service. Aviation analysts largely agree and expect the grounding to be lifted by the end of August. In the meantime, the industry is working to regain the trust of the flying public. The US Federal Aviation Administration, which must certify the 737 MAX's airworthiness, released a video last week in which its interim chief Daniel Elwell said the agency was working to keep pilots informed. The FAA also said the agency would not rush to get the 737 MAX flying again. OPELOUSAS, La. (AP) The white man charged in the burnings of three Louisiana black churches faces a mountain of evidence tying him to the crimes, documenting the fires on his cellphone and an interest in arson on Facebook, the state fire marshal said Monday at a hearing that offered new insight into how officials tracked their suspect. Holden Matthews bought a gas can and oil rags similar to those found at the site of the fires, he recorded a conversation with a friend in which he talked about using gasoline to burn churches, and his cellphone held images of the fires before law enforcement even arrived to the blazes, Louisiana Fire Marshal Butch Browning testified at Matthews' bond hearing. The 21-year-old Matthews - the son of a sheriff's deputy - entered a not guilty plea Monday via video conference from the St. Landry Parish jail, as prosecutors added new charges declaring the arsons a hate crime. "There is a substantial amount of evidence, it appears," state District Judge James Doherty said before denying Matthews' bond request, keeping him in jail. In his testimony for prosecutors, Browning outlined a litany of evidence that he said tied Matthews to the torching of the three black churches over 10 days. The fire marshal described cellphone records placing Matthews at the fire locations. On his phone, Browning said, Matthews had images of the church fires in the early stages and the destruction days after the churches were set ablaze, in addition to copies of news reports about the fires. "He actually superimposed himself on those news reports, claiming responsibility for these fires," Browning said. Video surveillance near the churches showed a truck similar to the one Matthews drives, Browning said. Matthews also exchanged text messages with a friend who asked about the fires: "Was that your work?" the fire marshal said. In addition, Browning said Matthews posted on Facebook about and showed interest in a movie called "Lords of Chaos," which Browning said is a recent Norwegian film that involved church burnings. Story continues "The evidence we have was unequivocal," Browning said. Later he added: "He has clearly demonstrated the characteristics of a pathological fire setter." The fires, all started with gasoline, occurred in and around Opelousas, about 60 miles west of Louisiana's capital city of Baton Rouge. The first blaze happened at the St. Mary Baptist Church on March 26 in Port Barre, a town just outside of Opelousas. Days later, the Greater Union Baptist Church and Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Opelousas were burned. Each was more than 100 years old. Matthews, who had no previous criminal record, was arrested Wednesday on three charges of arson of a religious building. Prosecutors filed documents Monday adding three more charges, accusing Matthews of violating Louisiana's hate crime law, a link authorities had previously stopped short of making. Browning said federal officials also are considering filing additional federal hate crime and arson charges against Matthews. The churches were empty at the time, and no one was injured. But at one location, two occupants of a nearby home had to evacuate when the siding on the home started to catch fire from the church. The fires set the community on edge. Gov. John Bel Edwards said the church burnings were a reminder "of a very dark past of intimidation and fear." Matthews, shackled and wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, never spoke to the court during Monday's hearing, letting his court-appointed lawyer enter the not guilty plea for him. His parents watched their son's appearance on video conference from the courtroom, his dad repeatedly wringing his hands and, at one point, leaving the room in tears. Matthews' attorney Quincy Cawthorne questioned some of the evidence cited by Browning and said Matthews didn't have the financial means to be a flight risk. He also objected to suggestions that the house near one of the churches was intentionally set on fire, putting the residents' lives in danger. A pretrial hearing in the case was set for July 17, with jury selection scheduled to begin in the trial on Sept. 10. ___ Follow Melinda Deslatte on Twitter at http://twitter.com/melindadeslatte Estate agent For Sale and To Let signs adorn a fence next to houses on March 14, 2019 in Coventry, England. Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images UK house prices increased by the largest amount in over a year in the four weeks to 6 April, according to data from a benchmark index by property website Rightmove. Data showed a 1.1% monthly rise in asking prices adding 3,447 onto the average cost of buying a home. This was a significant improvement for homeowners compared to the usual seasonal rise of 0.1%. The rise in house prices is indicative of buyers becoming more confident in the property market in at least the medium term. Rightmoves data is based on property ads on its website. It says that this accounts for 90% of residential property on sale in Britain. Over the past three years, property prices have been choppy due to the great uncertainty over the timing and impact of Brexit. READ MORE: Are property raffles worth it? While the EU referendum was in 2016 and Article 50, the two-year mechanism notifying that Britain would leave the EU, was triggered on 29 March 2017, the UK has still not officially sealed a deal or a date for its departure from the bloc. Originally, the UK was meant to leave the EU on 29 March this year. UK prime minister Theresa May reached a deal with the EU but after three attempts to pass it through Britains parliament, politicians rejected the divorce agreement. This has led to back and forths with the EU for an extension to Article 50, in a bid to avoid a default no-deal Brexit. Currently, the extension is until 31 October this year. However, the latest figures show tentative signs of confidence from buyers in the same month as the extension was announced. The more buyers there are in a strained supply market, the higher asking prices are likely to be. If this trend were to continue, it could lead to a major uptick in property prices, given there is still a huge shortage of housing in Britain. Commuters in London. Photo: Reuters There maybe a rise in jobs available and those looking for new roles in the financial services area in London over the last quarter, but year-on-year figures show how much Brexit has damaged the sectors recruitment space. According to the Morgan McKinley London Employment Monitor, while there was a 9% increase in jobs available quarter-on-quarter, there was still a 9% decrease in jobs available year-on-year. Furthermore, while the last quarter showed a 2% increase in job seekers compared to the last period, there was an overall 15% drop in professionals seeking jobs compared to last year. We closed 2018 with a dramatically poor jobs market, because its become virtually impossible for businesses to grow here, so we started 2019 on the back foot. We have under half the jobs and under half the job seekers we had at this time in 2017, said Hakan Enver, managing director of Morgan McKinley Financial Services. Chart: Morgan McKinley Here we are, still waiting for answers Enver said: The inability of the government to reach consensus on a Brexit deal has crushed confidence among City employers. Even with all the uncertainty of the last few years, there was always an assumption that come 29 March 2019, we would have some answers. Yet here we are, still waiting. While the Brexit referendum was in 2016 and Article 50, the two-year mechanism that notifies that Britain will leave the EU, was triggered on 29 March 2017, the UK has still not officially sealed a deal or a date when the UK will leave the bloc. Originally, the UK was meant to leave the EU on 29 March 2019. UK prime minister Theresa May sealed a deal with the EU last year, but after three attempts to pass it through Britains parliament, politicians rejected the deal. This has led to back and forths with Brussels for an extension to Article 50, in a bid to avoid a no-deal Brexit which is the legal default. Currently, the extension is until 31 October this year. Brexit uncertainty is particularly worrying for the financial sector due to the lack of clarity around immigration rules, which could significantly hurt the workforce. Furthermore, there is still significant uncertainty over what the rules and regulations governing the sector will be. Story continues READ MORE: Major UK recruiter makes a mint amid Brexit uncertainty For the big banks, there are no extensions With the Brexit deadline having been extended till the 31 Octoberthe stress on businesses is showing no sign of letting up. The government had over two years to do its homework and complete the assignment, said Enver. Right before the deadline, they finally decide to try to work with the opposition to protect the people, instead of their own political power? They didnt do the homework, they didnt complete the assignment and now theyre asking for one extension after the other as jobs continue to flow out of London with Dublin being by far the biggest beneficiary, followed by Luxembourg, Paris, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam. Its astonishing. For the bigger banks, 29 March was the deadlinethere are no extensions. They have rolled out their Brexit plans and are deftly deploying staff and other resources to key EU locations. Its the smaller firms that are now being hit hardest, as they have fewer resources with which to plan and adapt, said Enver. Meanwhile, recruiters like Robert Walters (RWA.L) are making a mint from diversifying its business. The London-based specialise recruitment consultancy, which has presence across five continents, revealed in its latest trading update that the group net fee income up 10% year-on-year and that 72% of the groups net fee income is now derived from outside of the Britain. READ MORE: Brexit delay could drive up property prices in the UK In this artist's sketch, serial killer Bruce McArthur (centre) attends his sentencing hearing in Toronto on Monday, Feb.4, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Alexandra Newbould There are reports that convicted serial killer Bruce McArthur was allegedly attacked in prison so severely he was taken to hospital. A police source told Global News that the alleged incident happened on the night of Thursday, April 11, at the Millhaven Institution, a maximum security facility about two and half hours east of Toronto. Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) have yet to comment but Global reports they were investigating the assault. The Correctional Service of Canada told Vice News that an inmate was sent to hospital as a precautionary measure following an altercation. However, they wouldnt confirm the inmates identity due to privacy reasons. The CSC also didnt comment on whether the inmate had been released from hospital. The former landscaper is serving a life sentence, after he pleaded guilty in February to eight counts of first-degree murder. He was charged with killing eight men with ties to Torontos gay community, between 2010 and 2017. By Steve Scherer OTTAWA (Reuters) - Maxime Bernier, the founder of a right-wing party running in Canada's October federal election, said on Monday that Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's warnings about the dangers of white supremacy were an attack on an "entire ethnicity." Bernier, a former Cabinet minister who quit the Conservative Party last year to form his own faction called the People's Party of Canada, has focussed on limiting immigration and promoting free trade. His comments on Monday were in reference to last week's move by the Trudeau government to change a report on terrorist threats in Canada that was first published last year to no longer explicitly mention "Sikh extremism." "We're told the word Sikh was removed because 'entire religions should never be equated with terrorism.' And yet, (Trudeau) has been warning us for weeks about the dangers of 'white supremacy,' equating an entire ethnicity with terrorism," Bernier wrote on Twitter and Facebook. "Hypocrite! It's all about pandering for votes," he wrote. Trudeau's office declined to comment, but Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale's office condemned the statement. "While the vast majority of Canadians celebrate our country's diversity, toxic elements continue to peddle vile, hateful intolerance," Goodale's spokesman, Scott Bardsley, said in an email. "We condemn Mr. Bernier's attempt to legitimize them. All political leaders have a responsibility to denounce hatred and intolerance, not court them," he added. The Public Safety Ministry said the number of police-reported hate crimes in Canada jumped 47 percent in 2017, the most recent year for which there are official data. While Canadian politics are not as polarized as those in the United States, there are indications, especially online, of increasing intolerance in Canada, which has a tradition of openness and welcoming immigrants from around the world. Story continues Trudeau attacked Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer in parliament last month for not explicitly condemning white supremacy after the mass shooting at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. Opinion polls show that Liberals have lost ground to Conservatives in recent months, with Scheer's party taking the lead. Scheer defeated Bernier for the Conservative leadership in 2017. The People's Party would win 0.5 percent of the national vote if it were held now instead of October, a Nanos Research poll showed last week. (Reporting by Steve Scherer; Additional reporting by Julie Gordon; Editing by Peter Cooney) Ottawa (AFP) - Canada announced a fourth round of sanctions against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's regime on Monday in response to what it described as its continued "anti-democratic actions." The 43 people targeted by the new measures -- which include asset freezes and dealings prohibitions -- are "responsible for the deteriorating situation in Venezuela," Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a statement. The measures target high-ranking officials of the regime, regional governors and others accused of undermining Venezuela's democratic institutions, adding to 70 individuals that have already been sanctioned. The move comes with 13 Latin American states and Canada, which form the Lima Group, scheduled to meet on Monday in Chile to discuss the Venezuela political and economic crisis. The Maduro regime has been branded illegitimate by over 50 countries, who instead recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido. Guaido declared himself interim president in January, kickstarting a power struggle with Maduro, who last month arrested Guaido's chief of staff -- triggering alarm internationally. Maduro has also blocked Guaido supporters from trucking in US aid from Colombia. The Suncor Energy Inc. Millennium upgrader plant is seen in this aerial photograph taken above the Athabasca oil sands near Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, on Monday, Sept. 10, 2018. Photographer: Ben Nelms/Bloomberg via Getty Images Investors are shunning Canadian energy stocks in the face of a rebound in oil prices that promises to deliver strong earnings from companies hardened by a rough 2018, according to money managers following the battered sector. Western Canadian Select recently crested above US$55 per barrel after trading for just $10.29 in late November. The discount to West Texas Intermediate has narrowed dramatically as the U.S. benchmark climbs towards $65. Most Canadian energy stocks have rallied as a result. The iShares S&P/TSX Capped Energy Index ETF (XEG.TO) has climbed more than 27 per cent since a recent low on Christmas Eve. Suncor Energy Inc. (SU.TO), Encana Corp. (ECA.TO) and Enbridge Inc. (ENB.TO) have gained between 17 and 25 per cent year-to-date. The strong performance has not resonated with investors. One oil executive told me, We're the new tobacco. Nobody wants to touch us. Everybody thinks our product is toxic, Ryan Bushell, president of Newhaven Asset Management, told Yahoo Canada Finance. The sentiment is terrible. Greg Taylor, chief investment officer at Purpose Investments, said enthusiasm around Canadas energy sector is about as low as its ever been. Yahoo Finance Canada Morning Brief People have just hated the sector for so long that they have taken it off their screens, he said. It just feels like investors are exiting the space. Perennial problems persist. Like the lack of takeaway capacity in Western Canada. Crude-by-rail shipments staged a minor recovery in March, according to Genscape. However, the U.S. company found the amount of oil in storage is comparable to December, when the Alberta government announced its production cut. Meanwhile, Chevron Corp.s (CVX) US$33-billion blockbuster acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) last week reinforced the rising value of American shale production. That said, Taylor sees a lot of the big negatives in Canada dissipating, and expects strong results in the coming quarters. Hes watching Cenovus Energy Inc. (CVE.TO) and Whitecap Resources Inc. (WCP.TO). Story continues Bushell said Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNQ.TO), as well as smaller players such as MEG Energy Corp. (MEG.TO), Baytex Energy Corp. (BTE.TO), and Crescent Point Energy Corp. (CPG.TO), have significant room to run. I think there are huge gains to be had. But the sentiment is so poor, especially for the Canadian-listed mid-cap stocks, that its hard to tell if that will happen or not, he said. Crescent Point is less than half of where is bottomed in 2016. The assets havent changed. A lot of their production is U.S.-based, so its not subject to pipeline egress issues. That company should be somewhere near double where it is today. Bushell owns large positions in Enbridge, TransCanada Corp. (TRP.TO), and Pembina Pipeline Corp., (PPL.TO) based on the companies existing infrastructure. He said a new pipeline project would be a gamechanger, but pegs the odds of a greenlight at less than 50 per cent at this point. Taylor said any sliver of good news for the energy patch will be a powerful catalyst to move the sector in-line with improving oil prices. People just need to see some light at the end of the tunnel. The doom and gloom just became so much that it felt like there was nothing going right for the group for so long, he said, emphasizing that earnings have remained strong. This isnt an earnings recession. Its a multiple contraction. What people are willing to pay for long-term growth. If people can start feeling that we have hit the point of maximum pain, that can go a long way to expand the multiples. Both agree that Canadian energy players who have proved resilient through the worst of 2018 will soon be a bright spot for investors as commodity strength and cost cutting flow through to balance sheets. They say its a matter of refocusing the markets attention. The next round of earnings for Canadian companies is going to look fantastic, Bushell said. Its been a long time in the wilderness, but I think investors will find it hard to ignore if companies are able to put up six months or a year of cash-flows without the volatility. Reflecting on the oil executive, whom he declined to name, comparing the industrys reputation to big tobacco, Bushell said it speaks to a sense of hypocrisy around investment in fossil fuels today. I think the sentiment over the last five years has really shifted. To be viewed as an industry that is killing people when everybody likes to fly around the world and go on trips and cruises, he said. I tend to look at things from the point of view of what does humanity need, not what does it want, and try to invest in things that we absolutely need. I think this is one of them. Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android. French supermarket Carrefour and Swiss food conglomerate Nestle have announced in a press release they are putting their instant mashed potato Mousline on a blockchain. By scanning a QR code, customers will be able to learn about the supply chain and production of Mousline. Using the QR code on the products packaging, each consumer will be able to use a secure platform on their smartphone to access information on the production supply chain, including the varieties of potato used, the dates and places of manufacture, information on quality control, and places and dates of storage before the product reaches the shelves, the press release reads. Both Carrefour and Nestle are members of the IBM Food Trust platform, along with companies like U.S. retail giant Walmart. Just last week, another American retailer, Albertsons, announced joining the platform as well. Since joining IBM Food Trust in October, Carrefour has already rolled out other products from its Quality Line on the blockchain, including fresh micro-filtered full-fat milk, oranges, and Auvergne chicken. When customers visit an Enterprise Rent-a-Car establishment for the first time, they are often pleasantly surprised to be waited on by a staff of young managers, typically in their 20s, well dressed, polite, and efficient. The situation is much in contrast to many operations that employ middle-aged managers and hire young people to work their way up doing routine tasks. At Enterprise, the youngsters actually run the show, and they do it very well. And it is not an accident. Enterprise adopted a policy several years ago of hiring young college graduates to staff their local rental agencies. It is a policy that is paying off both for the company and for the young employees, who quickly learn the ins and outs of managing an office. Enterprise offers more entry-level jobs for college graduates than almost any other employer in the United States. Last year they hired 8,500 for their management-training program, 40 percent more than the next highest employer. But according to a recent cover story in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Enterprise does not concern itself with questions such as where its trainees went to college, what they majored in, or even how well they did when they were there. We recognize that great talent can come from all types of institutions, all types of majors and backgrounds, Marie Artim, Enterprises vice president for talent acquisition, explained. As the Chronicle notes, to the company, a college degree matters mostly because it suggests that a candidate has acquired the right mix of skills to succeed in an entry-level job and to move up the ladder from there. Instead, the company simply takes a bachelors degree to signify that applicants can engage in some degree of critical thinking, problem solving, and juggling different responsibilities at the same time. This is what economists such as Ohio Universitys Richard Vedder and George Masons Bryan Caplan have been arguing for years: College degrees are simply a signifier an easy way of telling an employer that you have a basic grasp of the English language, some rudimentary math skills, and the ability to show up on time in clean clothes. On those measures, is a graduate of the University of Michigan any different from a graduate of Michigan State or Northern Michigan University? Not really. Does a 3.8 GPA predict that you will do better or worse at managing a car-rental office than someone with a 2.8 GPA? Probably not. Does majoring in business predict that you will do a better job than an English major or a sociology major or a physics major? Its unlikely. Story continues The management at Enterprise are saying aloud what many employers know to be true. Bosses who require a college degree are taking advantage of a system that does the sorting for them. They understand that a bachelors degree is not really necessary for doing an entry-level job, and that whatever your educational background, you will require significant training to do well in that particular position. Surely there are plenty of high-school graduates who are qualified to run the front desk at a car-rental office. But finding out who those people are is more time-consuming than just looking at a resume and seeing a bachelors degree. Too bad it costs most kids tens of thousands of dollars not to mention the opportunity cost of several years out of the workforce to get that piece of paper. There are easier and cheaper ways to sort people. High schools could do more to teach the basic responsibility and functioning skills that they used to. In an age of helicopter parenting, though, many employers would wonder whether it was really parents who were responsible for high-functioning high-school students. But surely a one- or two-year apprenticeship in any number of fields after high school could show the same evidence of critical thinking and responsibility. Unfortunately, the federal government does not subsidize those paths the same way we subsidize college education through financial aid. Such apprenticeship programs generally require the employer to take on the risk. When a potential employee drops out of such a program, the cost is borne by the employer. When someone drops out of college, the cost is borne only by the student and the taxpayer. In an era when the obsession over getting into an elite college seems stronger than ever, its good to know that some companies dont seem to care much about the higher-education hierarchy. But why should they care about it at all? James Piereson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.Naomi Schaefer Riley is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior fellow at the Independent Womens Forum. More from National Review By Anastasia Moloney BOGOTA, April 15 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Chile will soon start punishing rampant street sexual harassment against women and girls with fines and prison terms but getting victims to speak up will be a significant challenge, experts said on Monday. A law passed this month and expected to come into force within weeks aims to curb street harassment ranging from lewd comments, groping and stalking to men masturbating in public. Three out of four women experienced sexual harassment on the street in the previous year, according to a 2015 survey by the Observatory Against Harassment in Chile (OCAC), a non-profit women's rights group. "We saw a necessity because sexual violence was going on in a systematic way in public spaces," said Maria Jose Guerrero, head of OCAC, which campaigned for the legislation. Under the new law, those convicted face possible fines and up to five years in prison. Chile joins Peru as the second country in Latin America where street sexual harassment has a legal definition making it a specific crime, according to Guerrero. Last year, Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, also passed a law making street sexual harassment a punishable crime. Chile's new law could encourage other governments to recognize pervasive street sexual harassment as a social problem to be addressed by legal measures and education, Guerrero said. But in Chile's "macho" culture, which tends to blame women and condone sexual violence, victims often keep silent, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "Women are questioned, they are asked why they dressed in such a way, they are even told that it didn't happen," Guerrero said. Last year, as the #MeToo movement of women speaking out against sexual abuse grew globally, tens of thousands of women protested in Chilean streets against harassment in universities and against gender-based violence. Around the world, most women have experienced some form of street sexual harassment at least once, according to Holly Kearl, founder of the U.S.-based non-profit, Stop Street Harassment (SSH). "What happens in public spaces is a manifestation of gender inequality and the broader issues of gender violence," she said. "We are not just talking about whistling or 'hey baby' comments," she said. "We are talking about men who are grabbing women and who are following them, flashing and assaulting them." (Reporting by Anastasia Moloney @anastasiabogota, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org) In the world of ETFs, Greater China is still a relatively small player, accounting for only 2.1% of the $5.1 trillion in global ETF assets. But the region, comprising three marketsMainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwanpromises rapid growth ahead, even if ETF adoption still varies significantly by region. The inside look into how investors are choosing and using ETFs in Greater China comes from Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), which has co-sponsored with ETF.com a global survey of professional investors, including financial advisors and institutional investors for six-consecutive years. The last two years offered a focused look into Greater China. Mainland China In Drivers Seat In a nutshell, the Asia-centered assessment of ETF usage found that drivers of adoption are unique to each market, but Mainland China is the engine driving that growth. The number of those allocating to ETFs in mainland China has practically doubled since last year, and 77% of those surveyed say they plan to increase allocations in the next 12 monthsa higher number than the 63% of investors looking to up ETF usage across the broader China region. Growth in the region is closely aligned with Mainland China, which presents a significant opportunity as the onshore asset management industry continues to mature and internationalize, the report said. Hong Kong is well positioned to capitalize on this growth, while Taiwan has been one of the fastest growing ETF markets across Asia with a high level of product innovation. Today 63% of investors surveyed in Mainland China allocate at least 25% of their assets to ETFs. In the Greater China region, that adoption rate sits at 38%results that show ongoing education efforts around the structural benefits of the ETF wrapper seem to be resonating, the survey said. For a larger view, please click on the image above. ETF Selection Not Centered On Cost Another interesting find this year is on how investors in different parts of the region are choosing ETFs. The selection process is anything but uniform when it comes to what matters most to investors. Story continues For example, in Mainland China, where index methodology used to be the No. 1 factor in the process of picking an ETF, investors say that today their top focus is split between two factors: index and ETF issuersthe brand. Perhaps even more interesting is that cost (expense ratio) ranks at No. 7 for these investorsway down in the list of their top selection criteria. By contrast, in Hong Kong and Taiwan, the ETF issuer behind a fund is nowhere among the top three most important factors in selecting an ETF. Instead, in those two markets, its historical performance that drives ETF choice. And again, when it comes to cost, in Hong Kong, fees are at No. 3, but in Taiwan, they are the last thing investors look at. Thats significantly different than in the U.S. and Europe, where expense ratio is one of the top factors determining adoption. In Greater China, cost doesnt seem to be too much of a concern. The emergence of historical performance may come as a surprise to those who subscribe to the conventional wisdom that cost is the single most important criteria for ETF selection, the report said. As ETF adoption by retail investors in Greater China is still at a nascent stage, perhaps investor sensitivity to fees is less acute than in other regions, the report added. When compared with regional mutual funds, ETFs on the higher end of the expense ratiosuch as active or smart beta ETFsstill often present a significant cost value. For a larger view, please click on the image above. Types Of ETFs In Demand Investors surveyed looking to expand their ETF usage said their wish list of funds includes more smart-beta funds, more actively managed ETFs, as well as more ESG (environmental, social, governance) and core index ETFs. From an asset class perspective, they also want more fixed-income and U.S. equity ETFs (see tables below). Some interesting stats here include the fact that 97% of investors surveyed in Greater China have at least one smart-beta ETF in their portfolio, the survey notes. And almost 40% of these investors are looking to increase their allocation to smart-beta funds. On the active front, however, access to active ETFs is still limited, if not completely nonexistent, for most investors in the region. That could be about to change. Earlier this year, regulators in Hong Kong allowed ETF issuers to launch active funds there for the first time. Active ETFs are still not allowed in the mainland or in Taiwan. Active management continues to have a strong position in Asia, and the ability to launch active strategies in a low-cost wrapper could be attractive to investors, the report said. Also of note is the appetite for ESG investing in Mainland China and Taiwan, according to the survey, which found that investors in Greater China have only one ESG ETF listed in the mainland. Regulators across all three markets have recently taken various steps on this front, introducing new reporting rules and disclosure requirements, all with the goal of encouraging socially and environmentally responsible investing. ESG ETFs are still new globally, but given increasing interest from respondents, this will be an area to watch in 2019, the survey said. For a larger view, please click on the image above. For a larger view, please click on the image above. Head Winds ETFs Still Face ETF adoption across Greater China is picking up steam, but it still faces some important challenges. The first is ETF trading, still described as difficult and expensive by a large number of investors in the region. Unpredictable or too wide spreads when it comes to execution are another big concern preventing investors from fully embracing the vehicle. The results highlight how much opportunity exists for global intermediaries to continue to improve the user experience and make trading ETFs more cost effective, the report said. For a larger view, please click on the image above. Sources: BBH, ETF.com Outlook While challenges persist, the outlook for the ETF market in Greater China is positive thanks in part to ongoing education efforts, as well as to an ETF-friendlier regulatory landscape, encouraging product innovation and improved access across the region. Despite 2018s market volatility, ETF AUM [assets under management] for these three markets grew 18%, from $92 billion to $108 billion, the survey found. This years results tell a similar story: The Greater China region continues to embrace ETFs and product innovation will accelerate growth. You can see the survey in its entirety here. Contact Cinthia Murphy at cmurphy@etf.com Recommended Stories Permalink | Copyright 2019 ETF.com. All rights reserved Paris (AFP) - French weapons are being used by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in Yemen, according to a classified note revealed by French media on Monday which contradicts the claims of France's government. The note from the French military intelligence service, published by new investigative media outlet Disclose, concluded that the UAE and Saudi Arabia deployed French weaponry from artillery to ships in their war against Huthi rebels. Under pressure from rights groups in France over the sales, the Paris government has always insisted that French arms are only used in defensive circumstances to deter attacks by the Huthis. France, the third-biggest arms exporter in the world, counts Saudi Arabia and the UAE as loyal clients in the Middle East, its biggest regional market in 2017. Those two countries intervened in 2015 to support the Yemeni government against Huthi rebels, which are backed by Iran, in a war that has left around 10,000 dead and pushed millions to the brink of starvation. The UN calls the situation in Yemen the world's worst humanitarian crisis. - Artillery, tanks, ships, helicopters - The classified note -- provided to the French government in October 2018, according to Disclose -- said that 48 Caesar artillery guns manufactured by the Nexter group were being used along the Saudi-Yemen border. Leclerc tanks, sold in the 1990s to the UAE, have also been used, as have Mirage 2000-9 fighter jets, while French missile-guiding technology called Damocles might have been deployed, according to the assessment. Cougar transport helicopters and the A330 MRTT refuelling plane have also seen action, and two French ships are serving in the blockade of Yemeni ports which has led to food and medical shortages, the DRM military intelligence agency concluded. Asked for comment by AFP, the French government said that "to our knowledge, the French weapons owned by members of the coalition are for the most part in defensive positions, outside of Yemen or in military bases, not on the frontline." Disclose is a new investigative website working in partnership with established media companies including public broadcaster France Info, online brand Mediapart and Franco-German television channel Arte. One of the best investments we can make is in our own knowledge and skill set. With that in mind, this article will work through how we can use Return On Equity (ROE) to better understand a business. We'll use ROE to examine Hitech Corporation Limited (NSE:HITECHCORP), by way of a worked example. Over the last twelve months Hitech has recorded a ROE of 14%. One way to conceptualize this, is that for each 1 of shareholders' equity it has, the company made 0.14 in profit. Check out our latest analysis for Hitech How Do You Calculate Return On Equity? The formula for ROE is: Return on Equity = Net Profit Shareholders' Equity Or for Hitech: 14% = 219m 1.5b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2018.) Most readers would understand what net profit is, but its worth explaining the concept of shareholders equity. It is the capital paid in by shareholders, plus any retained earnings. The easiest way to calculate shareholders' equity is to subtract the company's total liabilities from the total assets. What Does Return On Equity Mean? Return on Equity measures a company's profitability against the profit it has kept for the business (plus any capital injections). The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. The higher the ROE, the more profit the company is making. So, all else equal, investors should like a high ROE. That means ROE can be used to compare two businesses. Does Hitech Have A Good Return On Equity? Arguably the easiest way to assess company's ROE is to compare it with the average in its industry. Importantly, this is far from a perfect measure, because companies differ significantly within the same industry classification. Pleasingly, Hitech has a superior ROE than the average (11%) company in the Packaging industry. NSEI:HITECHCORP Past Revenue and Net Income, April 15th 2019 That is a good sign. In my book, a high ROE almost always warrants a closer look. For example, I often check if insiders have been buying shares . Story continues Why You Should Consider Debt When Looking At ROE Most companies need money -- from somewhere -- to grow their profits. That cash can come from issuing shares, retained earnings, or debt. In the first and second cases, the ROE will reflect this use of cash for investment in the business. In the latter case, the debt used for growth will improve returns, but won't affect the total equity. That will make the ROE look better than if no debt was used. Combining Hitech's Debt And Its 14% Return On Equity Hitech does use a significant amount of debt to increase returns. It has a debt to equity ratio of 1.16. While the ROE isn't too bad, it would probably be a lot lower if the company was forced to reduce debt. Debt does bring extra risk, so it's only really worthwhile when a company generates some decent returns from it. The Bottom Line On ROE Return on equity is useful for comparing the quality of different businesses. Companies that can achieve high returns on equity without too much debt are generally of good quality. If two companies have around the same level of debt to equity, and one has a higher ROE, I'd generally prefer the one with higher ROE. But ROE is just one piece of a bigger puzzle, since high quality businesses often trade on high multiples of earnings. It is important to consider other factors, such as future profit growth -- and how much investment is required going forward. So I think it may be worth checking this free this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow . But note: Hitech may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with high ROE and low debt. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. Here are the companies Yahoo Finance is watching today. Theres a change at the top at Best Buy (BBY). The CFO, Corie Barry, has been named the new CEO. She'll take over in June as the company's first female chief executive. Current CEO Hubert Joly will become executive chairman. President Trump has some advice for Boeing (BA). He tweeted this morning that the aerospace giant should FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name. There's no sign Boeing plans to follow the second two suggestions, but it is working on a software fix for the jet that's been grounded after two deadly crashes. American Airlines (AAL) is joining Southwest in cancelling all of its Max flights into August. Between the two carriers, that means upwards of 275 flights a day. For American, that translates to about 1.5% of all daily flights. They've been flying other jets on some routes the Max once served. Google (GOOG) is breaking up another panel in the UK that was set to review its artificial intelligence work in health care, according to the Wall Street Journal. The news comes amid disputes between the council and DeepMind, Googles AI unit in the UK, over access to information and the unit's independence from Google. Apple's (AAPL) main production partner is moving to India this year. Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou said the iPhone will go into mass production in India. The news represents a shift for Foxconn, which has long assembled Apple products in China. Gou also said he plans to step down in the coming months to help pave the way for younger talent. By Allison Lampert, Jamie Freed and Brenda Goh MONTREAL/SINGAPORE/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Gulfstream Aerospace and Bombardier are trotting out their longest-range business jets at an Asian air show this week, as they compete for orders from China's growing elite, despite the country's slowing economy. The Asian Business Aviation Conference & Exhibition, (ABACE) opens Tuesday in Shanghai under a cloud of economic uncertainty, amid slowing Chinese growth, the U.S.-China trade dispute, and Beijing's crackdown on debt risks that has led funding to dry up in certain industries, brokers said. "The biggest factor that impacted the business jet market was pessimism and uncertainty which stalled purchase intentions or forced those marginal owners to reconsider keeping their business jets," said Jeffrey Lowe, managing director of Hong Kong-based Asian Sky Group. Still, Canada's Bombardier sees its new $73 million Global 7500 business jet making inroads in Greater China against market leader Gulfstream's $65 million-plus G650 family. The plane and train maker said on Sunday it secured firm orders for four Global 7500 planes that were converted from options taken by Hong Kong-based business jet management company HK Bellawings in 2018. Greater China's number of billionaires has been growing yearly by 10 percent over the past three years, and the Global 7500's long range will help to "seize market share and to withstand any economic uncertainty in the region," said Bombardier Business Aircraft President David Coleal by email. Both Gulfstream's 650ER and the Global 7500 connect far-flung cities like New York and Tokyo, an allure for elite Asian buyers who want to fly non-stop to Western hubs. You dont need a G7500 to fly three or four hours. But when you do need (longer) range you can use this jet, said Thomas Flohr, founder and chairman of Vista Global and a Global 7500 customer. Gulfstream, a division of General Dynamics, which brought its large-cabin G500 jet into service last year, delivered 68 new corporate aircraft between 2015 and 2018 in the region, more than double the 32 planes delivered by its Canadian competitor, according to Asian Sky. Story continues Gulfstream President Mark Burns said by email the U.S. company is seeing more optimism in the region and is "starting to see more activity as trade talks appear to be progressing and becoming more specific." The Asia Pacific region, nevertheless, accounted for only about 8 percent of the 3,478 business jets delivered globally over the last five years, compared with 2,122 jets delivered to North America, according to Cirium Fleets Analyzer data. And the number of Chinese-owned second-hand business jets sold outside the country rose to 20 in 2018, compared with an annual average of 10 from 2014 to 2017, according to the Cirium data. Jackie Wu, president of JetSolution Aviation Group, said weaker business jet sales have prompted her Hong Kong company to launch its first charter service using the supermidsized Embraer Legacy 600. "We are an industry that very much reflects the health of an economy, or the world economy," said Jetcraft Asia president David Dixon, adding he nevertheless sees greater demand from smaller Asian countries like Indonesia and Malaysia. (Reporting By Allison Lampert in Montreal, Brenda Goh in Shanghai and Jamie Freed in Singapore; Additional reporting by Stella Qiu in Beijing; Editing by Chris Reese) ZURICH (Reuters) - Credit Suisse has agreed to take majority control of Chinese securities venture Credit Suisse Founder Securities Ltd (CSFS), boosting its stake to 51 percent from 33.3 percent via a capital injection, the Swiss bank said on Monday. Under the deal, the stake held by Credit Suisse's partner Founder Securities Co Ltd will fall to 49 percent. Credit Suisse did not say how much capital it planned to inject should regulators approve the deal. China now allows foreign banks to hold controlling stakes in securities joint ventures as a major part of the country's pledge to ease ownership curbs, especially in the trillion-dollar financial sector. Swiss rival UBS Group became the first foreign bank to hold a majority stake in a Chinese securities venture when China's securities regulator gave the go-ahead in November under new rules announced by Beijing in 2017. JP Morgan and Nomura also won Chinese regulatory approval last month to set up majority-owned brokerage joint ventures. The China Securities Regulatory Commission said at the time it would continue to approve foreign brokerage joint ventures "efficiently". The biggest global investment banks, which struggled to build their China businesses under rules that previously limited them to 49 percent ownership, had long sought the lifting of such limits on joint ventures. Established in 2008 and headquartered in Beijing, CSFS provides capital markets services in the Chinese domestic market, including sponsoring and underwriting A-shares, foreign investment shares, and government and corporate bonds. It also provides financial advisory services, Credit Suisse said. Since October 2016, the business has also operated a securities brokerage operation in Shenzhen Qianhai. Credit Suisse has been present in China for more than 30 years. Its franchise includes equities, investment banking and capital markets, and private banking. It also has an asset management joint venture -- ICBC Credit Suisse Asset Management Co Ltd -- with total assets under management of nearly 1.3 trillion yuan ($193.78 billion) as of the end of 2018. (Reporting by Michael Shields, editing by John Revill and Jane Merriman) PRAGUE (Reuters) - Czech President Milos Zeman will appoint Karel Havlicek, the head of a small business association and deputy chief of the government's science and research council, as new industry minister on April 30, a spokesman said on Monday. The president will also appoint lawyer Vladimir Kremlik as new transport minister, replacing Dan Tok who resigned after serving more than four years, a record tenure for the transport post. Havlicek's main tasks will be regulating the telecoms market and preparing a project to boost the European Union country's nuclear power capacity. Both ministries are controlled by Prime Minister Andrej Babis's ANO party, which leads the coalition government. (Reporting by Robert Muller; Editing by Frances Kerry) Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - The death toll from the collapse of two apartment buildings in Rio de Janeiro has risen to 10, Brazilian officials said Monday, as rescuers search the rubble for 14 people still missing. Another 10 people were wounded when the adjacent structures in the poor neighborhood of Muzema buckled on Friday morning when many of the occupants would have been asleep or eating breakfast. Rescuers are working around the clock with the help of sniffer dogs in the hope of finding more survivors. The buildings collapsed three days after torrential rain wreaked havoc in the city. Sections of road leading up to the hillside favela, which is at the foot of a sheer cliff face, had been washed away, complicating rescue efforts. Many of the cheaply made apartment towers in Muzema were erected without permission from city planning authorities. Like many poor neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro, Muzema is run by shadowy militias that use violence to enforce their rule. They sell land rights and control access to city services such as water and electricity. Authorities have pledged to demolish some of the surrounding buildings in Muzema to prevent further collapses. But residents complained that Muzema and surrounding neighborhoods had long been neglected by the Rio de Janeiro government. As soon as illegal buildings were demolished, new ones were built in their place, they said. From former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, who is making a bid for the U.S. Senate, to presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, the refrain du jour among 2020 Democratic presidential candidates seems to be a pledge to swear off donations from corporate political action committees (PACs). Its a good sound bite to drop on the campaign trail: rejecting corporate and special interest money. But does it really matter on paper? Steven Billet, who oversees a masters program in legislative affairs at George Washington University, says candidates who refuse corporate PAC money are basically giving the sleeves out of their vest. They are giving up nothing because they wouldnt have gotten much corporate PAC money, Billet tells Fortune. A corporate PAC, a type of PAC that raises money in the name of a company, can contribute up to $5,000 to a candidates campaign per election. To put this in perspective, an individual donor can donate up to $2,800 of personal money, and a couple can give up to $5,600. So, if a candidate refuses $5,000 from a corporate PAC, they could potentially get the same amount from a private donor. Corporate PAC contributions are not a big piece of the pie for major candidates, says Andrew Mayersohn, a researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics. There just arent enough corporate PACs out there to fund much of an eight-figure senate campaign, let alone a presidential campaign. And, according to Mayersohn, corporate PACs specifically arent particularly ideological, so they tend to give money to incumbents, rather than candidates in open primaries. Most corporate PACs dont make direct contributions to presidential candidates, he says, especially when theres a primary where you dont know what the outcome will be. And even when corporate PACs do give money to a candidate, the sum pales in comparison to other contributions. In the 2016 presidential election, for example, Hillary Clinton raised around $250,000 from corporate PACsconstituting less than 0.5% of the total money she raised, data analyst Brendan Glavin told Marketplace. That number was even smaller for then-candidate Donald Trump: $26,000 or 0.01% of his total fundraising. Story continues Finding the Loopholes While corporate PACs might not donate money to a specific candidate who doesnt want them, they can still donate to a political party. A candidate like Warren could reject the corporate and special interest money, but that doesnt mean the Democratic Party as a whole will do the same. Money that comes through the party could end up being used to support an individual candidate or to sponsor political events. But perhaps the easiest workaround is that people who work for corporations can donate on an individual basis, money that many candidates gladly continue to accept. In some cases, candidates may even seek out money from a companys executives on an individual basis. Michael Williams, founder of the public policy and communications consulting firm The Williams Group, calls it a sick irony that candidates will turn away lobbyist or corporate PAC money, while continuing to accept money from executives at the same companies. Whats the difference? If you wont take a particular banks money, but youll take the bank executives money? Williams tells Fortune. Are you really materially changing anything? Williams says doing so only perpetuates the myth that money influences policy. If a candidate is completely opposed to an industry, he says, those corporations wont give them money because they dont expect money to change a candidates position. I dont know anyone who was a no on something until they got a contribution and then became a yes, he says. And these private donations tend to add up much more quickly than those from a corporate PAC. Unlike individual contribution limits, which have grown over time, corporate PACs continue to face the $5,000 per candidate donation limita figure that hasnt changed since 1974. As such, the total contributions from individuals have skyrocketed as compared to those from PACs. According to 2017-18 data from OpenSecrets, corporate PAC donations to Democrats totaled $149,426,431, while business donations from individuals to Democrats totaled $920,808,050more than six times the total given by PACs. FEC data for the 2016 presidential election shows that corporate PAC donations to Democratic presidential candidates totaled $942,116, and independent expenditures for non-political committees totaled $4,582,471. But not everyone feels rejecting corporate PAC money is misguided. At the very least, the move could be an effective branding strategy. Brad Smith, a former FEC commissioner and the current chairman of the Institute for Free Speech, a nonprofit that advocates for loosening campaign-finance regulations, calls swearing off corporate PAC money not meaningless, but a calculation, and says the advantage of doing so could outweigh the loss of PAC money. It might even get them a net increase in contributions if it persuades more individuals to give, Smith tells Fortune. What about super PACs? While not all of the Democratic candidates are aligned in this respect, many of the expected frontrunnersincluding Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warrenhave disavowed super PACs. But this is tricky in practice. Super PACs have only been around since 2010, but unlike other PACs, they can accept unlimited contributions from any non-foreign source and can spend unlimited amounts to influence an electionmeaning that their potential power is also limitless. Yet super PACs are intended to operate independently from a candidate: they are legally prohibited from contributing directly to a candidate or party, meaning that their funds are usually used to run ads for or against particular candidates and issues. As a result, a candidate can say that they dont support a super PAC operating on their behalf, but in practice, there isnt all that much they can do to stop it. Any candidate who swears he wont accept super PAC money is either ignorant, or assumes the listener is ignorant, says Smith. A candidate cannot refuse super PAC support. He can publicly ask a super PAC not to spend in his race, but the super PAC can choose to ignore the plea and spend whatever it wants. Such a claim, therefore, amounts to grandstanding, he says. In addition to swearing off super PACs, some candidateslike Julian Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, Beto ORourke, and Elizabeth Warrenhave sworn off PAC money entirely, meaning they wont accept money from labor or ideological PACs, either. Gabbard, ORourke, and Warren are also joined by Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, and Amy Klobuchar in a pledge to refuse money from lobbyists. But the pledge that might matter more than the others, according to Mayersohn, is Warrens. Going a step further than the rest of the crowd, Warren told supporters in a February email that she would not attend high-dollar fundraisers, dinners, or cocktail receptions with donors, in order to provide equal access. Looks like 2020 might become the small dollar donation election, after all. By Yeganeh Torbati and Kristina Cooke WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - When Arturo Balbino, a Texas construction worker, walked into his visa interview at the American consulate in the northern Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez in March, he wasn't nervous. He felt good. Balbino, a 33-year-old Mexican national who had entered the United States illegally 14 years ago, thought he had a strong case for a spousal visa: a wife and children who are U.S. citizens, a father-in-law who had pledged in an affidavit to financially support him if necessary, and a letter from his employer guaranteeing him an $18-per-hour job upon his return. When he went for the interview, he was at the final step of legalizing his status, which would, he hoped, pave the way for a more stable life for himself and his family. Instead, the consular officer denied his application on the grounds that he could become a drain on U.S. taxpayers by requiring government financial assistance, according to documents reviewed by Reuters. That decision stranded Balbino in Mexico indefinitely and upended his familys life. More and more aspiring immigrants especially Mexicans are being denied visas based on determinations by the U.S. State Department that they might become "public charges," dependent on the government for support, according to official data and interviews with attorneys, immigrants and their family members. Lawyers for some immigrants say consular officers are denying visas even when applicants fulfill legal requirements to prove they will be financially independent. The refusals, capping an often complex and lengthy application process, can trap people for months or longer outside the United States, separated from American spouses and children, as they renew their efforts to legally return. Some may never be able to go back. One reason for the rise in refusals are little-known changes last year in the State Department's foreign affairs manual that gave diplomats wider discretion in deciding visa denials on public-charge grounds. The changes occurred in January 2018 as the Department of Homeland Security was preparing a separate, highly controversial proposal to restrict immigration on public-charge grounds. The regulation, officially proposed in October, received more than 200,000 public comments, which will likely take months longer to fully evaluate. Some critics say the State Department is using a back door, tightening immigration policy without going through a similarly high-profile rulemaking process. "The State Department is trying to bypass public comment and implement changes to public-charge (policy) all on its own," said Charles Wheeler, an attorney with the Catholic Legal Immigration Network. "These changes are already having a terrible effect on people." The State Department declined to comment, citing pending litigation over the manual changes. In the lawsuit in a Maryland federal court, the government rejected accusations that the manual changes are motivated by any antipathy toward immigrants and argued that such guidance is not subject to court review or laws requiring public comment. The guidance, government lawyers wrote in a February court filing, is neutral and implements a long-standing U.S. law meant to exclude immigrants who are likely to become burdens on the United States. The government acknowledged in the filing that the guidance "could potentially lead" to more frequent public-charge denials. The changes to the manual are not the only reason for the increase in refusals of immigrant visa applications on public-charge grounds. Those have risen since 2015, when fewer than 900 were issued, according to government data. But after the manual changes in January 2018, the refusals shot up. In the 2018 fiscal year, which ended in September, nearly 13,500 immigrant visa applications were refused on public-charge grounds - quadruple the number in the previous fiscal year and the highest total since 2004. FEWER VISAS FOR MEXICANS Although the State Department does not release visa refusal data by nationality or consulate, immigration lawyers said public-charge enforcement is particularly rigorous at the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez, where all Mexican immigrant visa applications are processed. Mexicans received 11 percent fewer immigrant visas in fiscal year 2018 compared to 2017. That compares to a 4.6 percent overall decline in such visas to people of all nationalities during that period. Previously, the State Department typically considered an "affidavit of support," signed by an American citizen or permanent resident offering to act as a sponsor of the immigrant, sufficient evidence that the person would not become a government burden, immigration lawyers said. To qualify as a sponsor, a person must make at least 125 percent of the U.S. poverty level for that persons household size. According to the affidavit from Balbino's father-in-law, seen by Reuters, he made almost $90,000 a year tens of thousands of dollars more than the government requires for a household of his size. Now, according to the manual, the affidavit is just one factor among many. Consular officers are also now allowed to consider past or current use of public benefits including health and nutrition services. And that includes use by an immigrant's family, even if they are citizens. Under the previous version of the manual, consular officials were not permitted to consider the use of non-cash benefits. Balbino's children's use of the Medicaid program for low-income households and food stamps was an issue that came up in his visa interview, along with questions about his father-in-law's commitment to supporting him, Balbino said. TRAPPED IN MEXICO Public-charge denials can be particularly devastating for people like Balbino, who entered the United States illegally, built lives and have an opportunity to legalize their status through marriage. Its a complex process, but one many immigrants like Balbino are willing to complete. U.S. law requires people who have been present in the United States illegally for longer than six months to leave and remain abroad for several years before attempting to re-enter. But visa applicants can ask for waivers that allow them to return more quickly. Balbino obtained such a waiver in 2017. Once a visa is refused on public-charge grounds, however, such waivers are revoked, trapping the person outside the country for months or years. With Balbino's waiver now revoked, his wife, Darlene, is considering moving with her children to Balbinos hometown in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. She doesn't work and is struggling to pay the bills. "We can't make it on our own any more," she said. Because the family is so strapped, two of the five children, aged 6 and 10, have already been sent to live with Balbino - a move they are finding difficult. Theyve spent their whole life in the United States," Balbino said in an interview. "They don't speak much Spanish." The 6-year-old boy had been receiving therapy for a speech impediment at his Texas school, but after the move to Mexico his speech has started to regress, said Darlene Balbino, who is still in Texas with her two older daughters and a toddler while she figures out what to do next. Her husband is contemplating the possibility that the family will be apart for years. At times I want to think that everything will be okay and Ill be able to be with my family again, Arturo Balbino said. Its very difficult to think that I wont be able to return to watch my children grow up." (Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati in Washington and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Julie Marquis and Ross Colvin) We often see insiders buying up shares in companies that perform well over the long term. Unfortunately, there are also plenty of examples of share prices declining precipitously after insiders have sold shares. So shareholders might well want to know whether insiders have been buying or selling shares in Registry Direct Limited (ASX:RD1). What Is Insider Selling? Most investors know that it is quite permissible for company leaders, such as directors of the board, to buy and sell stock on the market. However, most countries require that the company discloses such transactions to the market. We don't think shareholders should simply follow insider transactions. But equally, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether. For example, a Columbia University study found that 'insiders are more likely to engage in open market purchases of their own companys stock when the firm is about to reveal new agreements with customers and suppliers'. View our latest analysis for Registry Direct The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Registry Direct The Chairman, Donald McLay, made the biggest insider sale in the last 12 months. That single transaction was for AU$105k worth of shares at a price of AU$0.03 each. That means that even when the share price was below the current price of AU$0.04, an insider wanted to cash in some shares. As a general rule we consider it to be discouraging when insiders are selling below the current price, because it suggests they were happy with a lower valuation. Please do note, however, that sellers may have a variety of reasons for selling, so we don't know for sure what they think of the stock price. We note that the biggest single sale was only 11.6% of Donald McLay's holding. Donald McLay was the only individual insider to sell over the last year. Notably Donald McLay was also the biggest buyer, having purchased AU$30k worth of shares. You can see the insider transactions (by individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below! Story continues ASX:RD1 Recent Insider Trading, April 15th 2019 For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket. Insiders at Registry Direct Have Bought Stock Recently Over the last three months, we've seen a bit of insider buying at Registry Direct. Chairman Donald McLay bought AU$23k worth of shares in that time. We like it when there are only buyers, and no sellers. However, in this case the amount invested recently is quite small. Does Registry Direct Boast High Insider Ownership? Many investors like to check how much of a company is owned by insiders. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. Registry Direct insiders own 71% of the company, currently worth about AU$3.7m based on the recent share price. Most shareholders would be happy to see this sort of insider ownership, since it suggests that management incentives are well aligned with other shareholders. So What Does This Data Suggest About Registry Direct Insiders? Insider purchases may have been minimal, in the last three months, but there was no selling at all. That said, the purchases were not large. While we gain confidence from high insider ownership of Registry Direct, we can't say the same about their transactions in the last year, in the absence of further purchases. Along with insider transactions, I recommend checking if Registry Direct is growing revenue. This free chart of historic revenue and earnings should make that easy. If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. WASHINGTON President Donald Trump's personal lawyer sent the Treasury Department a second letter Monday echoing his initial request: Don't give Trump's tax returns to Congress. "Congress has no constitutional authority to act like a junior-varsity IRS, rerunning individual examinations or flyspecking the agencys calculations," said the letter from Trump attorney William S. Consovoy. The letter comes two days after Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, gave the Internal Revenue Service a new deadline of April 23 to produce Trump tax documents or perhaps face a subpoena. President Donald Trump Saying Congress had a right to review returns, Neal said that "it is not the proper function of the IRS, Treasury, or Justice to question or second guess the motivations of the Committee." More: Treasury Department says it won't hand over Trump's tax returns on time, asks for extension More: Democrats make official request to IRS for President Donald Trump's tax returns More: This Congress not 'smart enough' to understand Trump's tax returns, Sarah Sanders says Neal made the same request this month and had set a deadline of Wednesday of last week. The Treasury Department, however, said it needed an extension because it was still reviewing the legal issues involved. Unlike previous presidents, and many White House hopefuls, Trump refused to make his tax returns public after he became a presidential candidate in 2015. In his letter on Monday, Trump's lawyer accused Democratic House members of engaging in a fishing expedition designed to embarrass Trump politically. "I wrote you on April 5 to explain why Chairman Neals request for my clients confidential tax information is illegal," Consovoy said. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump's lawyer repeats: Don't give Trump taxes to Congress WASHINGTON President Donald Trump's suggestion for fighting the massive Notre Dame fire did not get good reviews. Tweeting that it was "so horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris," Trump added: "Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!" Professional firefighters called Trump's proposal impractical at best. Deploying the kinds of airplanes used to fight forest fires would be dangerous in an urban area, they said, noting that force of the water could knock the building down and threaten firefighters on the ground. President Donald Trump "The drop of water by air on this type of building could indeed result in the collapse of the entire structure," the French government civil defense agency tweeted. It later tweeted out a statement in English, in an apparent response to Trump, saying that "hundreds of firemen of the Paris Fire Brigade are doing everything they can to bring the terrible #NotreDame fire under control. All means are being used, except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral." The French newspaper Le Monde derided Trump's plan as "impossible." Critics on Twitter called Trump's comment the epitome of second-guessing in the middle of a disaster. "Thanks Fire Chief Bill," tweeted Michael Cohen, a Boston Globe columnist. So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019 More: 'Everything is burning': Famed Notre Dame cathedral ablaze in Paris Later, during a roundtable discussion on the economy and tax reform in Minnesota, Trump called Notre Dame "one of the great treasures of the world," and said it "looks like it's burning to the ground." Story continues Before giving remarks on the economy, Trump said of the fire: "That puts a damper on what we're about to say." Air tankers are brought in to fight wildfires that are spread over a wide area, and are often brought in hours or even days after the event starts. Hundreds of firemen of the Paris Fire Brigade are doing everything they can to bring the terrible #NotreDame fire under control. All means are being used, except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral. Securite Civile Fr (@SecCivileFrance) April 15, 2019 Wayne McPartland, a retired New York City Fire Department battalion chief, told CNBC that aerial tankers are not the answer at Notre Dame. If you hit that with tons of water from above, thats going to collapse the entire structure and make the situation worse, McPartland said. If you miss, you might hit civilians in the street. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump draws criticism over suggestion of fighting Notre Dame fire with 'flying water tankers' Police have arrested a man after the fatal crash (Picture: PA) Three people have died after their car collided head-on with a vehicle that was driving on the wrong side of the road. Police believe the driver who was heading the wrong way could have been under the influence of drink or drugs during the crash in Peterborough in the early hours of Sunday. Cambridgeshire Police said the man drove on the wrong side of a slip road to Stanground from Fletton Parkway shortly after midnight. He then collided with the oncoming car killing all three of its occupants, police said. He was arrested on suspicion of driving while under the influence of drink or drugs, and of causing death by dangerous driving. The suspect was taken to hospital in a critical condition. Read more Dramatic footage shows police taser knife-wielding man on train station platform Man attacked after fall by worlds deadliest bird with deadly four-inch claws Mother held in Dubai over Facebook horse posts says she wanted to die Pictures from the scene showed a severely crushed small silver car and a dark pickup-truck with a smashed bonnet and windscreen. The chairwoman of the Cambridgeshire Police Federation, Liz Groom, said it was such sad news. Thoughts with the families of those who have died, she tweeted. Also with the officers & other emergency service colleagues who attended the incident and delivered the terrible messages to loved ones. One of the hardest & most difficult parts of our job that you never forget. A stretch of the westbound A road was closed and subsequently reopened. Anyone with information should contact police on 101. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation BK is scheduled to report first-quarter 2019 results on Apr 17, before the market opens. Its revenues and earnings for the to-be-reported quarter are expected to decline year over year. In the last reported quarter, the companys earnings surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate. Higher net interest revenues (NIR), lower expenses and no provisions were partly offset by a decline in fee income. BNY Mellon has an impressive earnings surprise history. Its earnings did not miss the Zacks Consensus Estimate in any of the trailing four quarters. The average positive surprise was 5.7%. The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation Price and EPS Surprise The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation Price and EPS Surprise | The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation Quote However, activities of the company in the first quarter were not adequate to win analysts confidence. As a result, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings of 96 cents decreased 2% over the past 30 days. Moreover, the figure reflects a year-over-year decline of 12.7%. Further, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the companys sales for the to-be-reported quarter is pegged at $3.99 billion, reflecting a decline of 4.8% year over year. Driven by robust fundamentals, BNY Mellons shares have gained 7% in the past six months against nearly 1% decline recorded by the industry it belongs to. Will the price performance improve further post first-quarter earnings? To a great extent, it depends on whether the company will be able to beat earnings estimates this time around. Before we take a look at what our quantitative model predicts, lets check the factors that are likely to impact first-quarter results. Factors to Influence Q1 Results The Zacks Consensus Estimate for assets under management (AUM) for the first quarter is pegged at $1.84 trillion, which reflects growth of 8.4% sequentially. Further, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for total assets under custody and administration of $35.25 trillion reflects growth of 6.5% sequentially. Thus, investment management and performance fees are likely to be positively impacted during the first quarter, driven by expected growth in assets. Moreover, supported by decent loan growth and higher rates (despite the flattening of the yield curve) NIR is expected to improve in the first quarter. Notably, management expects NIR in the first quarter to be flat to up marginally on a sequential basis, based on expectations of decline in non-interest-bearing deposit balances and higher yield on securities portfolio. Despite taking cost-saving initiatives, the companys expenses have remained elevated over the past few years, mainly because of higher litigation and restructuring charges. Moreover, due to continued rise in investment-related costs, overall expenses are expected to increase slightly in the first quarter. Notably, management expects expenses in the first quarter to rise 1-2% sequentially and year over year because of the impact to staff expenses from the acceleration of long-term incentive compensation expenses for retirement eligible employees. Now, lets take a look at what our quantitative model predicts. According to our quantitative model, chances of BNY Mellon beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate in the first quarter are high. This is because it has the right combination of the two key ingredients a positive Earnings ESP and Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) or better which is required to increase the odds of an earnings beat. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter. Earnings ESP: The Earnings ESP for BNY Mellon is +0.63%. Zacks Rank: BNY Mellon currently carries a Zacks Rank of 3, which increases the predictive power of ESP. Other Stocks That Warrant a Look Here are some other finance stocks that you may want to consider as these too have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat this quarter, per our model. BankUnited, Inc. BKU has an Earnings ESP of +1.89% and carries a Zacks Rank of 3 at present. The company is slated to release results on Apr 24. Associated Banc-Corp ASB is expected to release results on Apr 25. It presently has an Earnings ESP of +0.55% and a Zacks Rank #3. SVB Financial Group SIVB is slated to release results on Apr 25. It has an Earnings ESP of +0.42% and currently carries a Zacks Rank #3. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Biggest Tech Breakthrough in a Generation Be among the early investors in the new type of device that experts say could impact society as much as the discovery of electricity. Current technology will soon be outdated and replaced by these new devices. In the process, its expected to create 22 million jobs and generate $12.3 trillion in activity. A select few stocks could skyrocket the most as rollout accelerates for this new tech. Early investors could see gains similar to buying Microsoft in the 1990s. Zacks just-released special report reveals 7 stocks to watch. The report is only available for a limited time. See 7 breakthrough stocks now>> 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 BankUnited, Inc. (BKU) : Free Stock Analysis Report The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BK) : Free Stock Analysis Report Associated Banc-Corp (ASB) : Free Stock Analysis Report SVB Financial Group (SIVB) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research The market expects Community Bank System (CBU) to deliver a year-over-year decline in earnings on higher revenues when it reports results for the quarter ended March 2019. 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 April 22, 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 bank holding company is expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.76 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of -7.3%. Revenues are expected to be $142.19 million, up 0.1% from the year-ago quarter. Estimate Revisions Trend The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has been revised 0.63% 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. 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 more recent version of the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate. 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 Community Bank? For Community Bank, the Most Accurate Estimate is higher than the Zacks Consensus Estimate, suggesting that analysts have recently become bullish on the company's earnings prospects. This has resulted in an Earnings ESP of +3.31%. On the other hand, the stock currently carries a Zacks Rank of #4. So, this combination makes it difficult to conclusively predict that Community Bank will beat the consensus EPS estimate. Does Earnings Surprise History Hold Any Clue? While calculating estimates for a company's future earnings, analysts often consider to what extent it has been able to match past consensus estimates. 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 Community Bank would post earnings of $0.79 per share when it actually produced earnings of $0.81, delivering a surprise of +2.53%. Over the last four quarters, the company has beaten consensus EPS estimates four 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. Community Bank 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. 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 Community Bank System, Inc. (CBU) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research London (AFP) - Ecuadoran President Lenin Moreno on Sunday defended his decision to overturn Julian Assange's asylum status, claiming in an interview with the Guardian newspaper that the WikiLeaks founder had tried to set up a "centre for spying" in Ecuador's London embassy. "It is unfortunate that, from our territory and with the permission of authorities of the previous government, facilities have been provided within the Ecuadoran embassy in London to interfere in processes of other states," Moreno said. "We cannot allow our house, the house that opened its doors, to become a centre for spying," added Moreno, who was elected in 2017. "Our decision is not arbitrary but is based on international law," he said. The WikiLeaks founder is in custody in London awaiting sentencing for breaching his British bail conditions in 2012 by seeking refuge in the Ecuadoran embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden. Earlier Sunday, Assange's lawyer said his client would cooperate with Swedish authorities if they reopen a rape case against him but would continue to resist any bid to extradite him to the United States. "We are absolutely happy to answer those queries if and when they come up," Jennifer Robinson told Sky News television about the rape claims. "The key issue at the moment is US extradition, which we have warned about for many years," she added. Assange was arrested at the embassy on Thursday after Ecuador gave him up, and is now also fighting a US extradition warrant relating to the release by WikiLeaks of a huge cache of official documents. The Australian has always denied the claims of sexual assault and rape in Sweden. The first expired in 2015 and the other was dropped in 2017, but the alleged rape victim has now asked for the case to be reopened. If Stockholm makes a formal extradition request, the British government will have to decide whether to consider it before or after that of the United States. Story continues Robinson said Assange would seek assurances from Sweden that he would not be sent on to America, saying: "That is the same assurance we were seeking in 2010 and the refusal to give that is why he sought asylum." - 'Not above the law' - She added: "He's not above the law. Julian has never been concerned about facing British justice or indeed Swedish justice. This case is and has always been about his concern about being sent to face American injustice." The US indictment charges Assange with "conspiracy", alleging that he worked with former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to crack a password stored on Department of Defence computers in March 2010. He faces up to five years in jail. Also Sunday, WikiLeaks said Australian Consul Clare West would visit the Ecuadoran embassy on Monday to request that the mission hand over Assange's belongings. West met with Assange in prison on Friday. Two left-wing German lawmakers, Heike Hansel and Sevim Dagdelen, along with Spanish MEP Ana Miranda were expected in London on Monday when they were originally set to meet Assange at the embassy. Instead, they will hold a news conference outside the Belmarsh prison where Assange is being held, the German party Die Linke and WikiLeaks said. Manning passed hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, exposing US military wrongdoing in the Iraq war and diplomatic secrets about scores of countries around the world. The conspiracy charge against Assange seems intended to sidestep limits on prosecution potentially arising from the US Constitution's First Amendment guarantee of press freedom. But Robinson insisted: "This indictment clearly engages newsgathering activities and the kinds of communications that journalists have with sources all the time." The lawyer condemned as "outrageous" claims made by Ecuador about Assange's behaviour in the embassy, including that he smeared his faeces on the wall, saying: "That's not true." In the Guardian interview, Moreno charged that Assange "mistreated our officials (and) started to make legal threats even against who was helping him." Assange's father, John Shipton, on Sunday urged Australia to bring his son home. By Geert De Clercq PARIS (Reuters) - EDF shares rose as much as 4.3 percent on Monday on hopes that a partial re-nationalization of the French utility will unlock value and ring-fence EDF's capital-intensive nuclear activities from its renewables and grids. The strategy committee of EDF's board will review a restructuring plan for the 83.7 percent state-owned group on May 28, French daily Le Parisien reported, adding that this would be followed by presentations to a group of 200 top managers on June 7 and to union representatives on June 20. A source familiar with the situation confirmed these dates. EDF declined to comment. The French government has for some time been looking at how to restructure EDF to isolate its volatile nuclear business from the pressures of a stock market listing and provide a boost to the rest of the company. It wants to return EDF's nuclear operations to the public sector but does not necessarily want to buy out minority shareholders in EDF's other business activities. EDF operates 58 nuclear reactors which produce about 75 percent of France's electricity. But the company has been hit by safety outages at dozens of its nuclear plants and has faced billions of euros of cost overruns on a nuclear construction project. The company also requires massive investment of some 55 billion of euros to upgrade its aging nuclear plants. The paper said the plan - codenamed Project Hercules - would be likely to involve the creation of a new holding company owning EDF's nuclear activities and wholesale power sales, and possibly also its hydropower plants. This would allow EDF to ring-fence the financial risks associated with nuclear energy from financial markets. The French government said in November it would consider increasing the state's stake in EDF and possibly create a new parent company with subsidiaries. It was not immediately clear whether EDF's reactor building business Framatome, formerly called Areva, and its nuclear reactors in Britain would also be held in a separate nuclear division. Story continues The paper said the new parent company may not be wholly state-owned, because of the high cost of renationalizing it. EDF has a market value of 41 billion euros ($46 billion), but trades on a price/book ratio of just 0.82, making it the most undervalued share in the Stoxx European Utilities index by that measure. The paper quoted an unnamed source as saying that the state would hesitate to buy out minority shareholders, as it would cost "a fortune", or about 6 to 8 billion euros for 15 percent. Jefferies wrote in a note that this estimate implied a 12.5-16.6 euro per share buyout price and that the midpoint of this range implied a 20 percent premium to the current share price. UBS analyst Sam Arie said he expects that a restructuring of EDF will create two balance sheets, with potentially an IPO of a 'NewCo' similar to the IPO of innogy from within Germany's RWE. "If there is a renationalization of EDF Group, including the nuclear fleet, we expect that would come at a premium for EDFs minorities," he said. The paper said the new parent company would also hold a majority stake in a second holding company which would own some other EDF subsidiaries such as retail power sales, grid units RTE and Enedis. Enedis may partially open its capital to private investors, it said. EDF chief executive Jean-Bernard Levy said in February the government had asked him to make restructuring proposals by the end of 2019. Le Parisien said financial institutions including Societe Generale, JP Morgan, UBS, Oddo and Natixis were working on several restructuring scenarios, (Reporting by Geert De Clercq; editing by Richard Lough and Jane Merriman) Edison International EIX was a big mover last session, as the company saw its shares rise more than 7% on the day. The move came on solid volume too with far more shares changing hands than in a normal session. This breaks the recent trend of the company, as the stock is now trading above the volatile price range of $61.92 to $65.07 in the past one-month time frame. The company's Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current quarter has moved higher over the past few weeks, suggesting that more solid trading could be ahead for Tailored Brands. So make sure to keep an eye on this stock going forward to see if this recent jump can turn into more strength down the road. Edison International currently has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) while its Earnings ESP is positive. Edison International Price Edison International Price | Edison International Quote Investors interested in the Utility Electric Power industry may consider Korea Electric Power Corporation KEP, which has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Is EIX going up? Or down? Predict to see what others think:Up or Down Biggest Tech Breakthrough in a Generation Be among the early investors in the new type of device that experts say could impact society as much as the discovery of electricity. Current technology will soon be outdated and replaced by these new devices. In the process, its expected to create 22 million jobs and generate $12.3 trillion in activity. A select few stocks could skyrocket the most as rollout accelerates for this new tech. Early investors could see gains similar to buying Microsoft in the 1990s. Zacks just-released special report reveals 7 stocks to watch. The report is only available for a limited time. See 7 breakthrough stocks now>> 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 Edison International (EIX) : Free Stock Analysis Report Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEP) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Eni SpAs E installation of Mizton platform offshore Mexico represents its first foreign offshore oil asset installation in the country. In March 2019, Sapura Energys heavy-lift vessel Sapura 3500 DP3 concluded the installation of Enis Mizton platform under the Area 1 Production Sharing Contract (PSC). The platform is expected to be operational in the first half of 2019 and production is anticipated to plateau at 8000 barrels of oil per day (bopd). The yield will be transferred onshore via a 10 multiphase line and processed at an existing Pemex facility. The company was able to accelerate the project on the availability of suitable topside in Texas. In August 2018, Mexicos National Hydrocarbon Commission (Comision Nacional de Hidrocarburos, CNH) had approved Enis plan for discoveries in shallow-water fields Amoca, Mizton and Tecoalli off Mexico. These discoveries form part of the single Area 1 development block, in the shallow waters of the Campeche Bay, off the coast of Tabasco state. In 2015, Area 1 was awarded to Eni in a tender Round One. The company is the sole owner and operator with a 100% interest in the field, Production for Area 1 is scheduled to begin in late 2020 and anticipated to reach 90,000 bopd by 2021. After 75 years of the national oil companys monopoly, the Mexican Government passed a comprehensive Energy Reform in August 2014.Thisenabled international oil companies to obtain operating licenses during subsequent tender rounds. More than 100 contracts were awarded to foreign as well as Mexico-based companies in bid rounds held between 2015 and 2018. Zacks Rank & Key Picks Currently, Eni carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked players in the energy space are Antero Resources Corporation AR, CrossAmerica Partners L.P. CAPL and SEACOR Holdings, Inc CKH. While Antero Resources and CrossAmerica Partners sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), SEACOR Holdings carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Antero Resources is an independent explorer, primarily engaged in the acquisition and development of natural gas, natural gas liquids as well as oil resources in the Appalachian Basin. The companys earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in two of the last four quarters. CrossAmerica Partners is involved in the wholesale distribution of motor fuels, comprising gasoline and diesel fuel. The partnership delivered an average positive earnings surprise of 452.2% in the last four quarters. SEACOR Holdings is a diversified holding company, mainly focused on domestic and international transportation, logistics as well as risk management consultancy. The bottom line for 2019 is expected to inch up 1.7% year over year. The company delivered an average positive earnings surprise of 20.5% in the trailing four quarters. Biggest Tech Breakthrough in a Generation Be among the early investors in the new type of device that experts say could impact society as much as the discovery of electricity. Current technology will soon be outdated and replaced by these new devices. In the process, its expected to create 22 million jobs and generate $12.3 trillion in activity. A select few stocks could skyrocket the most as rollout accelerates for this new tech. Early investors could see gains similar to buying Microsoft in the 1990s. Zacks just-released special report reveals 7 stocks to watch. The report is only available for a limited time. See 7 breakthrough stocks now>> 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 CrossAmerica Partners LP (CAPL) : Free Stock Analysis Report SEACOR Holdings, Inc. (CKH) : Free Stock Analysis Report Eni SpA (E) : Free Stock Analysis Report Antero Resources Corporation (AR) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Tallinn (AFP) - Estonia's liberal Reform party leader Kaja Kallas on Monday lost a confidence vote and failed to form a government one month after winning a hung election. Only the Social Democrats agreed to accept the 41-year-old lawyer's invitation for coalition talks after the March 3 ballot. Fifty-three lawmakers voted against her while 43 voted for. President Kersti Kaljulaid now has one week to choose a new candidate for prime minister. Former premier Juri Ratas, the leader of the runner-up centre-left Centre Party, could win a confidence vote if asked to form a government. He has already signed a coalition agreement with the conservative Isamaa and the far-right EKRE. Together the three parties hold 56 seats in the 101-seat parliament. If two more attempts at forming a government fail, Kaljulaid will be required to proclaim a new general election. Bread-and-butter issues including taxation and public spending dominated the March vote in the 1.3 million-strong country known for its IT savvy, solid economic growth and the eurozone's lowest debt-to-GDP ratio. By Philip Blenkinsop BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is ready to start talks on a trade agreement with the United States and aims to conclude a deal before year-end, European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said on Monday. The EU approved two areas for negotiation, opposed by France with an abstention from Belgium. But agriculture was not included, leaving the 28-country bloc at odds with Washington, which has insisted on including farm products in the talks. The EU vote allows the Commission to start two sets of negotiations - one to cut tariffs on industrial goods, the other to make it easier for companies to show products meet EU or U.S. standards. Malmstrom said she would now reach out to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to see when talks could begin. "We are ready as soon as they are," Malmstrom told a news conference. A spokeswoman for Lighthizer declined to comment. But U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the tax and trade-focused Senate Finance Committee, said a U.S.-EU trade deal that excluded agriculture would be "unlikely" to win approval in the U.S. Congress because so many lawmakers want farm access to Europe. "Elimination of industrial tariffs and non-tariff barriers only get us part of the way there, especially when we face major barriers to agricultural trade in the EU," Grassley, himself an Iowa farmer, said in a statement. "Agriculture is a significant piece of the global economy and it simply doesn't make sense to leave it out." The European Commission has said it is willing to discuss cars as part of the industrial goods talks, but not agriculture. "Agriculture will certainly not be part of these negotiations. This is a red line for Europe," Malmstrom said. She added Brussels would strive to agree what amounted to a limited deal before the Commission's term ends on Oct. 31. "If we agree to start, I think it can go quite quickly." Story continues Malmstrom stressed that the potential tariffs deal was far less ambitious than the previous "TTIP" negotiations, which stalled after three years and have now been rendered obsolete. The two sides are each other's largest trading partners. Flows between the two represent 30 percent of global trade. A Commission survey estimates an agreement on industrial tariffs would increase EU exports to the United States by 8 percent and U.S. products bound for Europe by 9 percent. AUTO TARIFF THREAT Hanging over the talks is U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to impose tariffs on cars and auto parts of around 25 percent on national security grounds. Trump last July agreed with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker not to impose tariffs on EU-produced cars and parts as long as the two sides negotiated on trade, including removal of tariffs on "non-auto industrial goods." But Lighthizer has voiced frustration with a "complete stalemate" with Europe on agriculture, telling a congressional committee in March there would be no U.S.-EU free trade agreement without agricultural access. EU governments agreed the bloc would not conclude negotiations until Washington removed tariffs it has applied to EU steel and aluminum and would suspend negotiations if the Trump administration imposed new tariffs, such as on cars. Germany, whose exports of cars and parts to the United States are more than half the EU total, has been among those most keen to press ahead with talks. France, with very few U.S. car exports, wants climate change provisions in any deal - a difficult demand given Trump's withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. (Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Additional reporting by David Lawder in Washington; Editing by Alison Williams and Rosalba O'Brien) London (AFP) - German and Spanish lawmakers protested against Julian Assange's detention on Monday, gathering outside a London prison to urge Britain and the EU to prevent his extradition to the United States. Two far-left German MPs, Heike Hansel and Sevim Dagdelen of Die Linke, and a Spanish Green member of the European Parliament, Ana Miranda, had been due to meet their "friend" Assange in London's Ecuadoran embassy later on Monday. Instead, following his expulsion and arrest last week, they protested outside the top-security Belmarsh prison in southeast London where he is being held, carrying placards demanding his release. "We are faced with a humanitarian imperative now that Assange is in UK custody and a US extradition request is out for him, after high ranking officials of the US -- including President Donald Trump -- have threatened the publisher with death," said Miranda. The WikiLeaks founder is in custody awaiting sentencing for breaching his British bail conditions in 2012 by seeking refuge in Ecuador's London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden. He was arrested at the embassy on Thursday after Ecuador revoked his asylum, and is now also fighting a US extradition warrant relating to the release by WikiLeaks of a huge cache of official documents. The US indictment charges Assange with "conspiracy" for working with former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to crack a password stored on Department of Defence computers in March 2010. Extradition to the United States would set "a dangerous precedent" for journalists worldwide, said Miranda, adding: "this threatens to criminalise journalism globally." - EU 'must take action' - Dagdelen urged Britain and the EU to block any extradition request. "We call on the British government not to extradite Julian Assange to the USA. "The European Union must take action to protect a politically-persecuted publisher and journalist," said the German politician, calling on Spain and her home country to grant Assange asylum. Story continues The three women were trying to see Assange in prison, but their application was "still pending". "I'm a friend of Julian Assange. He's a son, a father, a brother and a good friend," said Dagdelen. "His whole life he sacrificed for the truth." They also accused the Ecuadoran government of "engaging in a disinformation and slander campaign against Assange" after a series of reports emerged detailing his increasingly disfunctional relationship with embassy staff. Belmarsh has frequently been used in high-profile national security cases, including that of former Finsbury Park Mosque hate preacher Abu Hamza, who now resides in a US "supermax" prison following extradition. Radical cleric Anjem Choudary, who was convicted in 2016 of encouraging support for the Islamic State group, spent some of his sentence there. Belmarsh earned the moniker "the UK's Guantanamo Bay" in the period following the 9/11 attacks after it was used to detain a number of people under anti-terror laws. By Letitia Stein WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld announced his candidacy on Monday to challenge President Donald Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination. Weld, 73, who served two terms as governor, from 1991-1997, enters as a long-shot candidate against an incumbent president who has remained popular within his party. Weld in February had said that he planned to challenge Trump. "I really think if we have six more years of the same stuff weve had out of the White House the last two years that would be a political tragedy," he said on CNN. "So I would be ashamed of myself if I didnt raise my hand and run. Weld's challenge marks the first against Trump by a member of his own party. Other Republicans have publicly flirted with their own challenges, including former Ohio Governor John Kasich, one of the many Republican candidates whom Trump defeated for the party's presidential nomination in 2016. But Republican leaders have signalled little tolerance for intra-party fights as Trump gears up for a potentially challenging bid for a second term. "Any effort to challenge the presidents nomination is bound to go absolutely nowhere," the Republican National Committee said in statement responding to Weld's announcement, noting that its operation and the Republican Party are firmly behind Trump. Weld, a former prosecutor and the vice presidential candidate in 2016 on the Libertarian ticket, has been a consistent critic of Trump. He told CNN that he does not plan to mount an independent bid if unsuccessful. Weld planned to kick off his campaign in New Hampshire, which holds an influential early nominating contest. He said the state's voters would be receptive to his message and familiar with his record in neighbouring Massachusetts. "Right now, all there really is coming out of Washington is divisiveness," he said on CNN, calling both parties responsible but pointedly adding, "the grand master of that is the president himself." Trump's campaign raised more than $30 million in the first quarter of 2019, it said on Sunday, far outpacing the sums raised by individual Democratic candidates during that period. The fundraising underscores the willingness of Republican donors to invest in Trump's re-election bid. (Additional reporting by Eric Beech, James Oliphant, Steve Holland and Doina Chiacu; editing by Leslie Adler and Cynthia Osterman) By Alexandra Alper, Chris Prentice and Michael Martina WASHINGTON/BEIJING, April 14 (Reuters) - U.S. negotiators have tempered demands that China curb industrial subsidies as a condition for a trade deal after strong resistance from Beijing, according to two sources briefed on discussions, marking a retreat on a core U.S. objective for the trade talks. The world's two biggest economies are nine months into a trade war that has cost billions of dollars, roiled financial markets and upended supply chains. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has slapped tariffs on $250 billion worth of imports of Chinese goods to press demands for an end to policies - including industrial subsidies - that Washington says hurt U.S. companies competing with Chinese firms. China responded with its own tit-for-tat tariffs on U.S. goods. The issue of industrial subsidies is thorny because they are intertwined with the Chinese government's industrial policy. Beijing grants subsidies and tax breaks to state-owned firms and to sectors seen as strategic for long-term development. Chinese President Xi Jinping has strengthened the state's role in parts of the economy. In the push to secure a deal in the next month or so, U.S. negotiators have become resigned to securing less than they would like on curbing those subsidies and are focused instead on other areas where they consider demands are more achievable, the sources said. Those include ending forced technology transfers, improving intellectual property protection and widening access to China's markets, the sources said. China has already given ground on those issues. "It's not that there won't be some language on it, but it is not going to be very detailed or specific," one source familiar with the talks said in reference to the subsidies issue. A representative for the White House referred Reuters to the U.S. Trade Representative's Office, which did not respond to a request for comment. Story continues "If U.S. negotiators define success as changing the way China's economy operates, that will never happen," said the other source with knowledge of the trade talks. "A deal that makes Xi look weak is not a worthwhile deal for Xi. Whatever deal we get, it's going to be better than what we've had, and it's not going to be sufficient for some people. But that's politics," that source said. China pledged earlier this year to end market-distorting subsidies for its domestic industries but offered no details on how it would achieve that goal, three people familiar with the trade talks told Reuters in February. MIXED MESSAGES One of the key sticking points in the negotiations is the removal of the $250 billion in U.S. tariffs. It is broadly expected in the trade community that U.S. negotiators want to keep some tariffs on Chinese goods, which Washington sees as retaliation for the years of damage done to its economy by Beijing's unfair trade practices. The role of the state firms may benefit the United States in another part of the trade deal. The Trump administration wants China to make big-ticket purchases of over a trillion dollars of U.S. goods in the next six years to reduce its trade surplus. The companies likely to make the purchases are the state-run firms, both sources said. "The purchasing, for example, reinforces the role of the state sector because the purchasing is all being done through state enterprises," one of the sources said. Another point of contention between the two countries, telecommunications, may drive China to increase the state's role rather than reduce it, the source said. Pressure from the United States on allies to reduce cooperation with Chinese telecommunications champions such as Huawei Technologies could push the government into raising state support to develop technology at home. DECADES OF FRICTION Subsidies and tax breaks have been a source of friction between the two countries for years. Washington says Beijing has failed to comply with its World Trade Organization obligations on subsidies that affect both imports and exports. China has taken steps to address some U.S. concerns in cases brought before the WTO. It has also begun to publicly downplay its push to dominate the future of high-tech industries under its "Made in China 2025" policy, although few expect it to jettison those ambitions. But the USTR complains of a catalog of other subsidies and supports, including preferential access to capital and land. The United States says China has failed to disclose subsidies as required by the WTO. Washington has detailed more than 500 different subsidies it says China applies in notifications to the WTO. The scope of China's local government subsidy programs is largely unknown, and even the Chinese negotiators have said in recent discussions they do not know the details of all those programs. "China continues to shield massive sub-central government subsidies from the scrutiny of WTO members," the USTR said in a February 2019 report to Congress on China's WTO compliance. (Reporting by Alexandra Alper and Chris Prentice in Washington and Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by Chris Sanders and Peter Cooney) A message posted on behalf of Billy MacRitchie, father of Frankie MacRitchie, who died after being attacked by a dog at a holiday park in Looe, Cornwall, on Saturday. The father of a boy mauled to death by a dog has paid an emotional tribute to his son. Frankie MacRitchie died on Saturday after being attacked by a bulldog-type breed" at Tencreek Holiday Park, in Looe, Cornwall. And now his shattered . father Billy has paid tribute to his son in an emotional Facebook post, shared on his behalf by his sister Danielle. Mr MacRitchie, of Plymouth, shared a selection of pictures of him with his son dating back to when Frankie was a baby. A message posted on behalf of Billy MacRitchie, father of Frankie MacRitchie, who died after being attacked by a dog at a holiday park in Looe, Cornwall, on Saturday. In the post he said: My baby Frankie Gray MacRitchie, my whole world has shattered into a million pieces. Daddy is so lost without you little man I really don't know how I'm ever gonna live without you. This should never have happened I wish I could hold you and kiss you forever. You are my whole life and now your gone. Sleep tight my darling boy, my best friend my everything. Relatives leave flowers at the entrance to Tencreek Holiday Park, Looe, Cornwall. Frankie Macritchie was killed by a dog in the early hours of Saturday morning. At the caravan park a number of floral tributes were left to Frankie. A cuddly toy left by his aunt Danielle said: Ive loved you from the second I knew you were coming. The first time I saw you, you were still in mummys belly and I knew right away we were going to be best friends. Im so sorry this has happened, Im going to miss you till my heart stops beating. We love you baby boy. Police outside Tencreek Holiday Park, Looe, Cornwall where nine-year-old Frankie MacRitchie was mauled to death by a dog. Detective Superintendent Mike West, from the D&C Major Crime Investigation Team, said: "Frankie had been staying at the holiday park in the company of adults for a number of evenings prior to his tragic death. "We believe that Frankie was alone in a caravan with the dog as he was attacked, whilst that the adults that he was on holiday with, were in an adjacent unit. These two groups of people were all known to each other and all from the Plymouth area. "This is a desperately sad event which has seen a nine-year-old boy lose his life whilst on holiday; our thoughts and sympathies are with the loved ones of Frankie and all of those who knew him. Tencreek Holiday Park, Looe, Cornwall where nine-year-old Frankie MacRitchie was mauled to death by a dog. Read more from Yahoo News UK: Number of teen pregnancies falls for tenth year running Story continues Man who set fire to model of Grenfell Tower charged Girl dies after brother accidentally shoots her "I also wish to recognise those who came to his aid at the scene; members of the public and emergency services staff who had to work in deeply upsetting conditions." Three hours after the attack, police arrested a 28-year-old woman in Plymouth on suspicion of having a dog dangerously out of control and manslaughter, and have since released her under investigation pending further inquiries. The dog has been seized and remains in kennels in Cornwall. Tencreek Holiday Park spokesman Henry Joce said on Saturday: "The park will remain open offering normal service. Whilst the investigation is under way, no further statements will be made." ---Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK--- Helsinki (AFP) - Finland's Antti Rinne, the Social Democrat leader who will now try to form a government after a slim election victory, is a former trade union boss once known as the "labour market gangster" for his fiery negotiating skills. Aged 56, the silver-haired and serious-looking Rinne is no stranger to the top of government, having become finance minister in 2014 when he deposed the then leader of his party, Jutta Urpilainen, in a bitterly fought leadership contest. Rinne had strongly opposed Urpilainen's decision to support the spending cuts put forward by the then government coalition's largest partner, the centre-right National Coalition Party. After scraping victory in the 2019 election by the narrowest of margins, Rinne now faces the prospect of having to share a platform with the National Coalition once again, although this time as the senior partner. Ideological clashes over the need for more austerity -- to which Rinne is vehemently opposed -- may well surface again. Having won the leadership of his party in 2014, Rinne continued to block any government attempts at austerity, although he led the Social Democrats to a disappointing defeat in the 2015 general elections when the party was relegated to fourth place behind the populist, then-eurosceptic Finns Party. In opposition, Rinne's party remained a strong critic of the spending cuts regime imposed by Centre Party Prime Minister Juha Sipila. Easing off on austerity was a central plank of the Social Democrats' election campaign this time around. If successful at forming a majority government, Rinne will now have to embark on the difficult balancing act of making good on his promises to ease the financial burden on groups such as pensioners, the unemployed and students, while weathering a predicted economic squeeze. Finland's GDP growth is widely expected to slow down in the coming years. - Heart scare - In February, just two months before Sunday's election, Rinne was placed on a month's sick leave after falling ill on holiday and suffering serious heart trouble. Story continues In his absence the party was led by its deputy, the 33-year-old Sanna Marin, who, as a young and dynamic woman, is in many ways Rinne's opposite. But he defied questions about his health to return to the election trail. Prior to joining politics, Rinne was the president of a white-collar union called Pro, where he was known for his stubborn and aggressive tactics around the negotiating table. His readiness to threaten strikes saw him branded a "labour market gangster" by his opponents. Yet the former union hard man also has a softer side, and enjoys playing the piano and clarinet in his spare time, according to Finnish media. A lawyer by background, Rinne was reported by the Finnish national broadcaster Yle to have successfully finished his law degree, in Helsinki during the 1980s, in less than half the usual time. The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris following a fire which destroyed much of the building on Monday evening. Pictures showing Notre Dame cathedral this morning have revealed the scale of destruction caused by the devastating blaze. The catastrophic fire in Paris has left a nation mourning the destruction of its 850-year-old cultural and historic epicentre and sent shockwaves around the world. Hundreds of firefighters tackled the blaze through the night, battling to stop it wreaking complete destruction of the treasured facade after flames torched the roof, sending its spire crashing to the ground before crowds of horrified Parisians. Fire damage was clearly visible in the cathedral's iconic building work. Workers survey the charred structure of the cathedral on Tuesday morning. (PA) Media crews by the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris following a fire which destroyed much of the building on Monday evening. Visiting the scene on Monday night, French president Emmanuel Macron said a national subscription would be launched to rebuild the national monument. It was reported that billionaire French fashion mogul Francois-Henri Pinault had pledged 100 million euros (86 million) towards the effort. Notre Dame is our history, our imagination, where weve lived all our great moments, and is the epicentre of our lives, Mr Macron said. One powerful image released this morning showed the imposing crucifix above the altar still intact. Smoke rises around the alter in front of the cross inside the Notre Dame Cathedral as a fire continues to burn in Paris, France, April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer/Pool The fire takes hold of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. It is believed the blaze may be linked to ongoing renovation work. By 8pm local time, the historic spire had collapsed. (AFP) Notre Dame fire: How the blaze spread. Colossal damage The first harrowing images from within the fire-ravaged cathedral began to emerge as firefighters brought the blaze under control. A smouldering pile of what appeared to be the charred remains of the roof and spire lay smoking in front of the altar, while a cross that had escaped destruction glowed from within the gloom. Gilded candlesticks, artworks and furnishings were among the treasures seen being rushed from the cathedral by a human chain before being bundled into trucks by police officers. Some of the cathedrals most precious objects, including a relic purported to be the crown of thorns worn by Jesus Christ on the cross, were whisked away to a secure facility. Both the bell towers were saved and they were also hopes the stain-glassed windows had survived the fire. But as the blaze ravaged the historic cathedral in the space of an hour, the historic spire and tower were destroyed. Story continues Emergency services were trying to salvage the art and other priceless pieces stored inside. One fireman has been seriously injured fighting the flames. A cathedral spokesman said the entire wooden interior was likely to be destroyed. What caused it? Officials said the fire may be linked to renovation work at one of the world's most famous tourist attractions. The Paris prosecutors office said police will carry out an investigation into involuntary destruction caused by fire, indicating authorities are treating the blaze as a tragic accident for now. Arson, including possible terror-related motives, was earlier ruled out. Smoke ascends across the Paris skyline as flames rise during a fire at the landmark cathedral in the centre of the city. (AFP) Officials fear the cathedral could be completely ruined by the fire. (Reuters) Hundreds of people line bridges across the Seine as the flames ravage the landmark. REUTERS/Charles Platiau People watch from a tour boat on the River Seine as smoke billows and fire engulfs the spire of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier At present there are no reported casualties. Thousands of people lined the streets of Paris as firefighters attempted to tackle the flames. Paris prosecutors opened an investigation into the blaze as the fire was still burning out of control, and the authorities said no-one had been hurt. Smoke can be seen from across the Paris skyline. REUTERS/Charles Platiau Much of the roof and the cathedral's spire are consumed by fire. (Reuters) France in mourning Franck Riester, the French culture minister, tweeted that Major parts of the treasure #NotreDame are now safe at the Paris City Hall. Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo added: The Crown of thorns, the tunic of Saint Louis and several other major works are now in a safe place. A comment from the Louvre Museums Twitter account said: The fire which has struck Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is a tragedy for World Heritage. The Louvre expresses its deepest admiration and solidarity with those who are currently battling the flames. Smoke billows near scaffolding as fire engulfs the spire of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier This photo, taken from across the Seine capture the fire ripping through the spire of Notre-Dame. (AFP) Read more from Yahoo News UK: Number of teen pregnancies falls for tenth year running Man who set fire to model of Grenfell Tower charged Father of boy, nine, killed by dog pays emotional tribute Reaction from around the world Concerns over the scale of the damage to Notre Dame came as expressions of grief were sent to Paris from around the world. Theresa May said: My thoughts are with the people of France tonight and with the emergency services who are fighting the terrible blaze at Notre Dame cathedral. Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby tweeted: Tonight we pray for the firefighters tackling the tragic #NotreDame fire and for everyone in France and beyond who watches and weeps for this beautiful, sacred place where millions have met with Jesus Christ. Nous sommes avec vous. There were also messages of support from US president Donald Trump, former leaders Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and a stream of world leaders. The early stages of a fire that broke out of Notre-Dame, in Paris. (NBC) Mr Trump suggested "perhaps flying water tankers" could be used to extinguish the fire. European Parliament Brexit official Guy Verhofstadt has said he is "so sad" to see "a masterpiece of European gothic is at risk of being destroyed". He tweeted: "So sad to see the images of the burning #NotreDameDeParis. "I hope that the Paris fire brigade will get the fire under control as soon as possible. "My thoughts are with the people of France as a masterpiece of European gothic is at risk of being destroyed." Last year, the Catholic Church in France launched an urgent appeal for funds to save the cathedral, which was starting to crumble. The building, one of the most recognisable churches in the world, is 850 years old and is considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture. TV historian Dan Snow cited other damaging fires on monuments as evidence that Notre Dame will rise again. He tweeted: Its overwhelming but remember that York Minster and Hampton Court burned in the 80s, Windsor Castle in the 90s and Cutty Sark in the 00s. Dresdens Frauenkirche, the Catherine Palace What we build, we can rebuild. Their essence endures. #NotreDame will rise again. The cathedral receives around 12 million visitors each year, making it the most visited monument in Paris. It took around 200 years to build and was started under the reign of King Louis VII in 1160. Beirut (Lebanon) (AFP) - A handful of foreigners remain missing in war-torn Syria, even after the announced fall of the Islamic State group "caliphate" last month following years of abductions and executions. The International Committee of the Red Cross Monday appealed for news of a New Zealand nurse believed abducted by IS in 2013. Following is what we know about Louisa Akavi and other foreign nationals still believed to be held or missing in war-torn Syria, whether detained by IS or other parties: - Louisa Akavi - The New Zealand nurse was snatched along with Syrian drivers Alaa Rajab and Nabil Bakdounes in 2013 while travelling in a Red Cross convoy delivering supplies to Idlib, in northwestern Syria. The ICRC has said it believed they were abducted by IS, two years into the civil war and the year before the extremists declared a cross-border "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq. US-backed forces last month expelled IS from their last patch of that proto-state in eastern Syria, but the jihadists maintain a presence in the war-torn country and neighbouring Iraq. New Zealand has said it disagreed with making the abduction public, but confirmed it had dispatched a special forces unit to Syria to search for Akavi. The New York Times reported the ICRC had reason to believe she was alive, because at least two people described seeing her in December at a clinic in the eastern village of Sousa, one of the last villages held by IS. - John Cantlie - The British journalist was detained by IS on November 22, 2012. He was kidnapped along with US reporter James Foley, who became the first of a string of foreign hostages to be slain in gruesome propaganda videos. Cantlie however appeared in several subsequent videos released by IS in which he delivered jihadist propaganda to the camera in the style of a news report. His last appearance was during the battle for Mosul in late 2016. He looked gaunt and tired. In February, media reports quoting Britain's Security Minister Ben Wallace said Cantlie could still be alive. Story continues But the Free John Cantlie support group on Twitter said those reports were not substantiated, although they hoped they turned out to be true. - Austin Tice - The 36-year-old American journalist was kidnapped in Syria in August 2012 by unidentified armed men after reporting south of Damascus. His kidnapping was never claimed by any organisation. US special envoy for hostage affairs, Robert O'Brien, said in November there was every reason to believe he was alive and still detained in Syria. In December, Tice's father said he believed the Syrian government was best placed to help bring the journalist home. - Grigory Tsurkanu and Roman Zabolotny - The pair, believed to be Russians, were captured in September or early October 2017 in Deir Ezzor province in eastern Syria. Moscow never confirmed the identity of the two men, who appeared in an IS propaganda video. A Cossack group identified them as two veterans from southern Russia in their late thirties. Some Russian media reports said they were mercenaries for a shadowy outfit called Wagner which has been sending ex-servicemen to fight alongside Syrian regime forces. A Russian newspaper said they were executed but their deaths were never confirmed. - Sky news team - Mauritanian national Ishak Moctar and Lebanese citizen Samir Kassab went missing on October 15, 2013, along with their Syrian driver, near the northern city of Aleppo. They were believed held by IS but their fate was never confirmed and they are still considered missing. The pair were believed to still be alive in 2016 and held in the then de-facto Syrian IS capital of Raqa. - Paolo Dall'Oglio - The Jesuit priest known to most as Father Paolo was a well-known figure in Syria, where he lived for years in the 6th century Deir Mar Musa monastery that he renovated, north of Damascus. He was exiled from Syria in 2012 for meeting with members of the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad's regime and kidnapped by IS near Raqa when he returned the following year. He was reported to have been executed and his body dumped in a crevice soon after, but his death was never confirmed by any party. Fosuns Venture Capital Arm Backs Israeli Booking Site in an Ongoing Travel Push Chinese investment group Fosun keeps broadening its travel portfolio. In December its majority-owned travel company, Fosun Tourism, which includes Club Med, spun out as a separate public company that claims to be the largest leisure tourism resort group in the world by revenue. On Monday, Fosuns Shanghai-based corporate venture capital arm, Fosun RZ Capital, said it had led a $6.75 million Series A investment round in Splitty, a hotel booking startup based in Israel. Fosun will definitely invest more in travel, said Wilson Jin, chairman of Fosun RZ Capital. In March 2017, Fosun RZ invested in Ixigo, which has since become the largest price-comparison travel search brand in India. Its reported to be participating in a Series C round in Ixigo, too. It has invested in Shijie Bang, a Beijing-based travel agency specializing in outbound international services for Chinese travelers. The venture capital unit helped Fosuns insurance company invest in MakeMyTrip, Indias largest online travel agency, which is similar to Chinas Ctrip which has, in turn, also invested in MakeMyTrip. A Bet on Blending Hotel Reservations Splitty combines multiple hotel bookings at different rates under one reservation. A customer presents a single voucher when they check in. Hoteliers may be of two minds about Splitty. They want to maintain a high level of occupancy, typically above 65 percent, because high occupancy makes the best use of their fixed costs. However, they dont want to sacrifice too much of their average daily rate or their profit margin to woo guests. Splitty can help boost occupancy. Ive always wondered what can be done to maximize hotel occupancy, said Carl Wilson, a former CIO of Marriott International who has become a board member of the startup. Thats a true challenge, and Splitty actually solves it. But a majority of its inventory matches varies offers for rates, amenities, and cancellation rules to provide consumers with discounts of up to 30 percent off. Hoteliers may worry theyll lose control of their discounting, or revenue management, strategies. Story continues Splitting a reservation isnt something we invented, said CEO Eran Shust. For decades travel agents have done it manually. However, were automating the process at the time of booking and contacting the hotel, so the customer doesnt have a problem at the front desk. Shust argued that Splitty isnt purely about discounting. Nearly 40 percent of the startups booking combinations are between different room types, where you stay in a classic room for three nights and then move to an executive suite for two nights. If the hotel didnt have availability in the classic room for a full five-night stay, it wouldnt have appeared in the search results of online aggregators for a search on those five night without Splittys combination. Jin said he liked Splitty because if its very innovative artificial intelligence solution to a tough technical problem. For example, a search for a five-night stay across multiple rate types will generate too many permutations. No company can practically run hundreds of thousands of searches per customer. Splitty has a workaround. It uses machine learning to analyze typical patterns from a four-year industry-wide pricing data set. Splitty also has business-to-business services. El Al, for instance, uses Splitty to help its employees book hotel rooms. (El Al backs Splitty via Cockpit, its corporate venture arm.) The startup offers global distribution systems like Amadeus and travel agents, it distributes its inventory for resell via a data feed. For airlines it offers white-label hotel booking tool. For hoteliers it offers a widget that can be embedded on any hotels booking engine on its direct website. Since launching a year ago, Splitty has remained small, generating barely $300,000 in revenue last year, Shust said, speaking at Amadeuss T3CH conference in Madrid last month. It has mainly attracted thousands upon thousands of customers from Europe and the U.S. primarily through advertisements in price-comparison search engines Trivago and Skyscanner. Splitty is already in discussion with quite a few travel companies about potential partnerships, Jin said. This year, it plans to expand its business in Asia. Deals with hoteliers and online travel agents worldwide will let it deliver double-digit millions of bookings over the next year, said Shust. A hallmark of good corporate venture capital practice is to be a partner, said Jin, who describes Fosun RZ as a financial investor with strategic resources rather than a strategic investor for the parent company. We not only provide financial support to enterprises but also help startups with various resources for their development. Fosun has a broad portfolio of travel companies, and a lot of connections industry-wide as well. Future Deals Jins 40-person investment team focuses on technology-driven companies. So it only looks to invest in travel companies using technology to solve industry pain points. Meanwhile, parent company Fosun continues to collect assets around three themes what it calls happiness, wellness, and wealth. Unlike formerly acquisitive companies HNA Group, Dalian Wanda, and Anbang Insurance, Fosun continues to report profits and keep a clean bill of health from Chinese regulators. It is considering acquisitions in North America. This year Club Med plans to open up to 10 ski schools in China. Fosun Tourism will open two hotels in China in 2020 or 2021 in projects it will develop and that Thomas Cook, Europes second-largest tourist business after TUI, will manage, as part of a broader joint venture. Subscribe to Skift newsletters covering the business of travel, restaurants, and wellness. Whatever the design project youre working on, client vision is key. When it comes to designing a private home for an individual, the process is usually relatively straightforward, in the sense that its just one or two minds conjuring up ideas for you to tackle (though not always). But when venturing into commercial territory and signing on to work with a brandsay, a digital startup seeking to make its presence known offlinetranslating that companys identity into a tangible aesthetic can pose its own unique hurdles. AD PRO gets the rundown from four designers on how they tackle the challenges of designing spaces for a brand. Danielle Arps, principal, Dani Arps Design While working in-house for a hospitality firm, designer Danielle Arps sought out side projects to tackle in her free time. The first one she nabbed was for Codecademy, a startup based in New York. Shes since started her own design firm and works regularly with startups on their offices. Whats your process for working with a company on communicating its brand identity? Ive streamlined my process at this point, and it holds true for any design typology: The concept development phase is where it all takes place. I meet with the founder or creative director and we brainstorm ideas on how the space should feel. Through this exercise, Im able to work through ways to integrate their company values and culture into the layout. The brand truly drives the design. How do you maintain continuity among the various spaces for one individual brand? Continuity can be achieved in many ways and varies from project to project. For Day One Agency (D1A) [an agency that works with brands including Facebook and American Express], for instance, we really wanted to emphasize its brand color and bicoastal company culture. We created custom wallpaper with old-school cellphones to speak to their influence and marketing through social media. We customized artwork throughout, which highlighted their amazing employees and clients. We also pulled elements from their old office spaces that had sentimental value and were important in calling out how much theyve grown as a company. Story continues What challenges do you face when working with a brand on its spaces? Translating a deck or graphics from a website is not as simple as just using logo and colors; its more conceptual when brought into a space that people occupy. For D1As space, specifically, the biggest challenge was figuring out how to capture the brands essence without being cheesy. What advice would you give to designers taking on their first project for a brand? Connect with your client and research as much as you can about their brand. Once you understand who youre working with and what youre working on, there will be a much stronger vision that youre both equally striving for. Elizabeth Vereker, design director, Studio O+A Design director Elizabeth Vereker of San Franciscobased Studio O+A heads up the firms brand practice, which has created spaces for clients such as Uber, Microsoft, Nike, and Slack. How do you work with brands to translate their identity into an aesthetic? Translating a brand into space requires an understanding of the brands past, present, and future. We begin each design challenge with an in-depth visioning phase, which includes interviews, observation, collaborative exercises, and open dialogue. But one of the biggest challenges in working with a brand is helping the client understand the difference between their external and internal brand. Through our visioning phase, we work to differentiate between those voices to uncover the core of a brands culture. It is this core, rather than a set of standards, logos, or tag lines, that we build a space around. How do you keep a brands visual identity across multiple spaces consistent without being repetitive? Finding the core of a brands culture is imperative to creating a family of spaces that establish individuality while retaining strong brand recognition. In the case of working with a client like Nike, we can use various lines or capsules as a metaphor. Regardless of whether you are looking at a minimally designed jacket from NikeLab, a hoodie from the Nike x Off-White capsule collection, or a retro pair of Air Jordans, there is a through-line of 'modern sport.' Similarly, the spaces we designed for Nikes Running group in Portland and their Digital Innovation Studio in Manhattan share a common language... but each is articulated in a way that speaks to the culture, process, and regionality of the people that inhabit them. Have you seen any recurring challenges while working with different brands? It may sound surprising, but weve found that the younger the brand, the greater the challenge. When a brand is in its infancy and still figuring out who they are, it can be uncomfortable to move past a set of standards and talk theoretically about the essence of their identity. In those early days, building brand recognition is crucial, and the tendency to want to plaster every surface with a logo and match all the furniture to brand colors is a natural one. Canopy's Jackson Square, San Francisco location Joe Fletcher Yves Behar and Amir Mortazavi, cofounders, Canopy Designers Yves Behar of fuseproject and Amir Mortazavi of M-Projects have teamed up to found Canopy, a new coworking space with two locations in San Francisco. As designers yourselves, how did you develop Canopys brand identity? Behar: The brand identity of Canopy started with the notion of building the nirvana of work, from an ergonomic and functional point of view, and from a community and design standpoint. Mortazavi: With that brief in mind, we knew that we had to create an environment that has subtle innovative features that dont scream for attentionlike an accent wall would. Behar: So we chose to resemble neither traditional work environments nor domestic ones, but rather find a unique definition of office design that is warm and welcoming while still exuding the best performance of an office environment. How did you differentiate the two Canopy spaces while maintaining a sense of cohesion? Mortazavi: There is a design DNA that we implemented throughout all of our spaces that connects the locations together. We use a single desaturated tone for fabric choices and specific design elements. We use similar systems by Herman Miller for our workstationsmany designed by Yves. Most importantly, the art form and the science is the balance between different zones that befit the working needs of a contemporary working professional. Behar: At the same time, our color and material palettes change based on unique cultural features of the neighborhood. This approach has the merit to offer consistency, but also unique creative moments in each location. Mortazavi: We wanted the spaces to exude a feeling of continuity with the urban fabric that existed within the neighborhood prior to Canopy launching. For example, in the Jackson Square space, we used various green fabrics such as Raf Simons mohair for Kvadrat and a Divina Melange from Maharam, which echoes the color scheme of Francis Ford Coppolas oxidized copper flatiron buildinghe wrote and edited The Godfather and Apocalypse Now therewhich can be viewed from our window, across the street. As news spread Monday of the catastrophic fire at Notre Dame cathedral in central Paris, U.S. President Donald Trump offered his thoughts on the matter. Two hours later, French safety officials offered a withering take-down on those thoughts. After expressing his shock at seeing the fire in a tweet, Trump suggested, Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly! Frances civil defense agency, Securite Civile, without mentioning Trump, underscored why that would be a terrible idea. All means are being used, except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral, it wrote. It was a reply that quickly got the Twitter population buzzing and a not-so-subtle way for French authorities to suggest that the massive fire was not an issue where they wanted fire-fighting advice from a politician. French fire officials, late Monday, said Notre Dame had been saved from total destruciton, though the roof did collapse. So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019 Hundreds of firemen of the Paris Fire Brigade are doing everything they can to bring the terrible #NotreDame fire under control. All means are being used, except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral. Securite Civile Fr (@SecCivileFrance) April 15, 2019 The U.S. and French governments have had a rocky relationship for several months. Last August, president Emmanuel Macron said Europe can no longer rely on the U.S. for defense after Trump reportedly threatened to pull the U.S. out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Rome (AFP) - Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said Monday he was once more under investigation for alleged false imprisonment after refusing to let migrants disembark from a rescue ship. Attempts to launch trial proceedings against the far-right League for blocking migrants aboard another ship earlier this year fell through after the Senate ruled he should not be stripped of his parliamentary protection to face charges. But prosecutors in the Sicilian port city of Syracuse, where the ship took shelter from bad weather between January 24 and 30, have opened an investigation into alleged false imprisonment and named Salvini and other ministers in their investigation. "I am under investigation once again for 'false imprisonment'," Salvini said on Twitter as it emerged that other senior ministers, including Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and vice-premier Luigi Di Maio, were likewise having their role probed. "I received the same notification (as Salvini) yesterday (Sunday)," said Di Maio of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement which is in a coalition with Salvini's far-right League. Minister of Transport Danilo Toninelli is also under investigation, Italian media reported. "I don't know whether to laugh about it or not," Salvini said, insisting that his policy of closing Italy's port to people attempting the perilous crossing from Libya to Italy still stands. "They can take me to court 18 times -- as long as I am a minister I shall not change my mind" on the issue, he insisted. The probe centres on 47 people rescued on January 19 off Libya by the ship Sea Watch 3, owned by a German charity and flying a Dutch flag, which was only permitted to dock on January 31 after Italy struck a deal with other European countries to take in the migrants. Palermo mayor Leoluca Orlando, who in January had offered to allow the Sea Watch ship to berth, said he hoped that Salvini would "not be tempted to try to dodge justice once more with the odious recourse to parliamentary immunity". The probe earlier this year related to the rescue in August of 190 people by Italy's Diciotti coast guard ship, who were left stuck at sea for 10 days without permission to dock. On Monday, the supreme court will hear from a clothing label which says it has been unfairly treated because of its vulgar name. Lawyers for Erik Brunetti, owner of the popular brand FUCT, will challenge the provisions of federal law that allows for immoral or scandalous matter to be refused trademark protection. Brunetti has run the California-based brand since 1991. He believes his first amendment rights are being infringed. Based on recent decisions, he may have a good case. In 2017, the court ruled in favor of the Slants, an Asian American rock band who had had a trademark filing denied years before. Giving offense is a viewpoint, Justice Samuel Alito wrote. We have said time and again that the public expression of ideas may not be prohibited merely because the ideas are themselves offensive to some of their hearers. Referencing that decision, Brunettis lawyers said in court filings that there is no principled reason to reach a different result here than this court reached as to the disparagement clause. Also in 2017, the US court of appeals for the federal circuit ruled in Brunettis favor. We hold that the [law] against immoral or scandalous marks is unconstitutional because it violates the first amendment, Judge Kimberly Moore found. There are words and images that we do not wish to be confronted with, not as art, nor in the marketplace. The first amendment, however, protects private expression, even private expression which is offensive to a substantial composite of the general public. The government, she wrote, had failed to show any relevant or pressing reason for policing speech. As in the Slants case, the US government will argue Brunetti is not being restricted from using or profiting from the brand name, but rather being denied any added benefits of trademark protections. The scandalous-marks provision is not a restriction on speech, the solicitor general, Noel Francisco, wrote in a court filing. Rather, it is a condition on the availability of government benefits. Between 2003 and 2015 the US government rejected nearly 2,000 trademark applications that were deemed immoral or scandalous , according to a study by the New York University law professors Jeanne Fromer and Barton Beebe, who have filed a brief on Brunettis behalf. They argue that the decision-making process in such cases is inconsistent and often arbitrary. Awaiting the ruling, the trademark office has suspended the cases of other vulgar applicants among them the bands Pussy Riot and Thunderpussy. New York (AFP) - Three hundred die-hard Game of Thrones fans laughed, howled and moaned their way through the premiere of the hugely popular fantasy saga's last season in New York on Sunday. More than an hour before the episode began, a crowd gathered at central Brooklyn's Understudy bar and broke into raucous shouts as the first notes of the famous theme music rang out. Almost 20 months after season seven finished, "GoT" aficionados finally got their fix -- and their fill of a Jon Snow cocktail, specially concocted for the occasion in honor of one of the main characters. The nine most tweeted words Sunday morning all had a link with the world created by author George R. R. Martin, a sign of the immense popularity of the HBO series. The name of character Bran Stark took first place, mentioned in more than 500,000 tweets by 0500 GMT. Bookmakers consider him the most likely to wrest power and reign over the seven kingdoms. A number of masks and get-ups were brought to the Brooklyn screening, with a homemade, Jon Snow-inspired costume with strong fantasy and medieval overtones the clear crowd favorite. One young woman with peroxide blond hair styled a la strongwoman Brienne of Tarth brought along a gnashing papier-mache dragon hand puppet she had made for the occasion. To add a little spice to the night, some fans played a game based on which character would survive the longest in the bloody, deadly world of Game of Thrones. The ruler with the wind now in her sails, Daenerys Targaryen, was selected by Jean-Louis Baron. "She must die, so she'll be the last to die," he said. "The whole world building is absolutely phenomenal," Baron added. "It's a great escape". - Laughter and tears - Many choose to watch the richly layered series at home so they don't miss any of the nuances, or have the option of watching a single scene multiple times. But some, like Robin Akyigit, decided to make an exception for the start of the final series and make it "more of an event." Story continues "One of the reasons why I wanted to be here was to get everybody's reaction," he said. "I love hearing the audience." "Luckily, the sound was great," said Alejandro Hernandez who had come up from Miami. "I was kind of afraid we were going to miss some of it because of everybody talking but everybody was pretty quiet when they needed to be." The crowd of connoisseurs largely restrained their reactions -- but there were moments when they burst into laughter, and at times there were tears too. "I would definitely give it an 8 or a 9," said Hernandez after the lights came up, adding: "It was pretty exciting to have them all back after so long." Cottbus (Germany) (AFP) - "Refugees are bringing crime into our town," an election leaflet declares -- an example of how Germany's far-right feeds its narrative of a country threatened by more than a million new arrivals. Alternative for Germany (AfD) hopes the strategy that made it the biggest opposition party in 2017's general election will pay off once again next month, when voters elect a new European Parliament. Its 12.6-percent score almost two years ago was a shock to the political system, bringing 94 far-right MPs into a legislature with a history of moderation going back to 1949. Hammering the message that led to its success, AfD lead candidate Joerg Meuthen said: "Germany can no longer take in migrants." "Knife attacks, rapes and violent acts against women are proportionally more likely to be committed by people from a Muslim cultural background than by 'people from here'," he asserted. Police statistics show that 38.6 percent of violent crimes were committed by foreigners in 2018, but crime in Germany is also at its lowest since the country's reunification in 1990. "Every single news story in which foreigners are implicated, especially migrants, is blown out of proportion and generalised" to the whole non-German population, argued Miro Dittrich of the anti-racist Amadeu Antonio Foundation. - 'Fake news' - Already-existing fears of the migrant threat were turbocharged on December 31, 2015. Germans were horrified as dozens of women reported falling victim to sexual violence at New Year's Eve street celebrations around Cologne's main train station. The acts blamed mostly on young asylum seekers formed the foundation for the far-right's narrative of dangerous foreigners. Since then, the names of towns and cities where individual crimes have been committed by migrants or asylum seekers have resonated through the media and social networks. Among them is a case in Kandel, near the French border, where a 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death by her Afghan ex-boyfriend. Story continues Armed with her photo and slogans about her death, the local AfD branch organised demonstrations against Chancellor Angela Merkel's asylum policy for months afterwards. And in Chemnitz, AfD supporters marched against migrants on several occasions after the knife killing of a German man. A Syrian man is standing trial for the stabbing. Invented episodes of violence by migrants also frequently make the rounds online, building on the climate of fear generated by true events. The aim is often to depict any and all Muslim asylum seekers as potential killers or rapists. One far-right blog chronicles women's lives "since the invasion" as apparently marked only by sexual violence and murder. One post that was retweeted thousands of times described how a woman's body was thrown into a ditch after she was assaulted by a migrant. But the suspect later turned out to be someone close to the victim. Police in Saxony subsequently accused a local chapter of the AfD of spreading "incendiary, repugnant and oversimplified fake news". - Taken out of context - "This is an old way of communicating: whatever the message is, in the end something will stick in people's heads," anti-racist activist Dittrich said. "One former AfD member described how the party handles information. If it turns out not to be true, they don't mind cutting corners, taking things out of context or just lying openly," he added. In Chemnitz and Cottbus, AfD demonstrators brandished photos supposedly showing 16 women "attacked" in Europe by "migrants" or "Muslims". But it turned out, several cases did not take place in Europe, and, with the exception of one case, there is no evidence supporting the claim that the perpetrators were migrants or Muslims. "As far as I'm concerned, these were the images of women who fell victim to attacks," insisted Christoph Berndt of anti-migrant group Zukunft Heimat (Homeland Future). The group organises monthly demonstrations in Cottbus, near the Polish frontier, urging the government to "close the borders". The far-right activist is a believer in the "great replacement" theory espoused by the man who shot 50 people to death and wounded dozens more at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand last month. Originating in Europe and echoed by AfD leaders, the conspiracy belief alleges Middle Eastern and African newcomers are set to crowd out white populations. But while the AfD has long capitalised from its message about criminal migrants, the effect appears to be losing its power. Latest polls predict the party scoring between 10 and 11 percent in the European Parliament elections, well below the 15 percent support it enjoyed last autumn. Gordon Ramsay (Credit: AP) Gordon Ramsay has clashed with a restaurant critic in a cultural appropriation row over his new restaurant. Lucky Cat will open in Mayfair this summer, but a pop-up launch of the food that will be on offer happened last week. But writing on London Eater, critic Angela Hui took issue with Ramsay and his teams project, said to be inspired by the drinking dens of 1930s Tokyo, and which is being run by Ramsays head chef Ben Orpwood. Hui posted to Instagram while at the launch saying: I can only drink thru the pain that is this an asian event [sic], she wrote in one post. Read more: Gordon Ramsay criticised over Sofia Vergara interview She added in another Japanese? Chinese? Its all Asian who cares. She signed off her story saying: I was the only east Asian person in a room full of 30-40 journalists and chefs. But Ramsay has slammed Huis comments, particularly one in which she referred to Orpwoods spouse as a token Asian wife, which Ramsay said was personal and hugely disrespectful. Despite the very positive feedback from guests, there was, regrettably, one offensive response from the night which I have to call out, he wrote in a post on Instagram. In the 21 years that I have been running restaurants I have had my fair share of reviews good and bad. Critics and reviewers have an important job to do, and its important that they are independent and have freedom of speech. However, the slew of derogatory and offensive social media posts that appeared on Angela Huis social channels, were not professional. Read more: Gordon Ramsay unrecognisable as he goes undercover It is fine to not like my food, but prejudice and insults are not welcome, and Ms Huis comments around my Executive Chef and his wife, calling her a token Asian wife, were personal and hugely disrespectful. Gordon Ramsay Restaurants do not discriminate based on gender, race or beliefs and we dont expect anyone else to. I may not agree with all reviews, but if someone is going to be critical, then I expect them to be professional and have some integrity. Story continues Some have taken issue with Ramsays comments, however. One Instagram use hit back, saying: And here we are, an astounding example of a person in power silencing a WoCs lived experience of racism. To disregard her uncomfortable-ness at the othering she felt at the event, not to mention the absolute lack of care the menu showed to the multiplicity in Asian cooking. This post is nothing but bullying, to call out by name, when you have this level of power directs trolls to the writer it creates, yet again, and unsafe place for this woman. Why? Because she called out the bs, appropriating food. This restaurant concept is steeped in racist, entitled behaviour. Shame on you Gordon and all those around you. Chef George Chen added: Is the famous Chef going to curse at his white cooks in Asian or what? Every chef has a right to interpret another cuisine but the integrity and culture (read authenticity-albeit I hate that term) needs to be studied in depth and not WHITEwashed for marketing purposes! george chen (@ChinaLiveGChen) April 12, 2019 ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's president called on Monday for Britain to free the Parthenon marbles from the "murky prison" of its national museum, upping the rhetoric in a near 200-year-old campaign for the sculptures' return. President Prokopis Pavlopoulos spoke at Athens' own glass-fronted Acropolis Museum, which campaigners hope will one day house the classical reliefs and figures taken by a British diplomat in the early nineteenth century. "Let the British Museum come here and make the comparison between this (Acropolis) museum of light and the murky, if I may say, prison of the British Museum where the Parthenon Marbles are held as trophies," Pavlopoulos said. There was no immediate response from the British Museum. Britain's Lord Elgin removed the 2,500-year-old sculptures from the Acropolis temple in Athens during a period when Greece was under Ottoman rule. They have been placed in a gallery inside the British Museum in London, lit by a long skylight. Greece has repeatedly requested their return since its independence in 1832, and stepped up its campaign in 2009 when it opened its new museum at the foot of the Acropolis hill. That building holds the sculptures that Elgin left behind alongside plaster casts of the missing pieces, lit by the sun coming through a glass wall looking over the original site. "This museum can host the Marbles," Pavlopoulos said. "We are fighting a holy battle for a monument which is unique." The British Museum has refused to return the sculptures, saying they were acquired by Elgin under a legal contract with the Ottoman empire. The museum and other British institutions have also resisted other repatriation campaigns citing legislation preventing them from breaking up collections and arguing that they can preserve items and present them to an international audience. (Reporting by Renee Maltezou; Editing by Andrew Heavens) ATHENS, Greece (AP) The Greek government on Monday said it is in talks with European bailout lenders to repay its debts to the International Monetary Fund early as market borrowing rates have tumbled to their lowest level since 2005. And Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said he was determined to spare austerity-weary Greeks a further increase in tax pain that has been agreed with bailout creditors for next year. Government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said Athens is hoping to repay a "significant portion" of its remaining 9.6 billion euros ($10.9 billion) owed to the IMF ahead of schedule. His remarks follow a meeting in Washington between Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and IMF managing director Christine Lagarde. The yield on Greece's 10-year bond dropped further to 3.28% on Monday, matching levels not seen in 14 years. Greece would need approval from the eurozone's rescue fund to repay its IMF loans early, but top officials in the agency and the European Commission have already praised the idea. The left-wing government in Greece facing national, municipal and European elections this year is planning to boost funding for social programs with the money eventually saved from the cheaper loan repayment, Tzanakopoulos said. "The IMF loans are expensive, with an interest rate of 5.1% so that means we can lower debt servicing costs and we will have an increase in the fiscal space to help vulnerable groups in society," he told private News 24/7 radio. Tsipras said later Monday that the early IMF loan repayment would be an important step forward. He also pledged that if his Syriza party wins parliamentary elections when its mandate expires in October, it will dodge a commitment to boost tax revenues by reducing the income-tax-free threshold. "The tax-free threshold will not be cut as long as Syriza is in government," he said in an interview with private Antenna TV. Tsipras' government has committed to improve tax revenues by about a billion euros through the measure due to be implemented next year. Story continues But Tsipras said this could be avoided provided the country continues to achieve strong budget surpluses which have already allowed Athens to avoid new pension cuts initially agreed with creditors. Greece emerged from its third international bailout program last August and has seen significant improvements in the economy, which had been battered by years of recession and budget cuts. Improvements in Greece's bond yields have been accompanied by a boost to the stock market, which on Monday closed up 26.1% for the year. The country, however, still has a sovereign credit rating below investment grade and a huge national debt worth about 180% of gross domestic product. __ Nicholas Paphitis in Athens contributed to this story. Follow Gatopoulos at http://www.twitter.com/dgatopoulos In 2015 Ian Manocha was appointed CEO of Gresham Technologies plc (LON:GHT). This report will, first, examine the CEO compensation levels in comparison to CEO compensation at companies of similar size. After that, we will consider the growth in the business. And finally we will reflect on how common stockholders have fared in the last few years, as a secondary measure of performance. This process should give us an idea about how appropriately the CEO is paid. See our latest analysis for Gresham Technologies How Does Ian Manocha's Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies? At the time of writing our data says that Gresham Technologies plc has a market cap of UK61m, and is paying total annual CEO compensation of UK349k. (This figure is for the year to December 2018). That's actually a decrease on the year before. While we always look at total compensation first, we note that the salary component is less, at UK260k. We looked at a group of companies with market capitalizations under UK153m, and the median CEO total compensation was UK238k. As you can see, Ian Manocha is paid more than the median CEO pay at companies of a similar size, in the same market. However, this does not necessarily mean Gresham Technologies plc is paying too much. We can get a better idea of how generous the pay is by looking at the performance of the underlying business. You can see, below, how CEO compensation at Gresham Technologies has changed over time. LSE:GHT CEO Compensation, April 15th 2019 Is Gresham Technologies plc Growing? On average over the last three years, Gresham Technologies plc has shrunk earnings per share by 22% each year (measured with a line of best fit). In the last year, its revenue is down -7.3%. Sadly for shareholders, earnings per share are actually down, over three years. And the impression is worse when you consider revenue is down year-on-year. These factors suggest that the business performance wouldn't really justify a high pay packet for the CEO. You might want to check this free visual report on analyst forecasts for future earnings. Story continues Has Gresham Technologies plc Been A Good Investment? Given the total loss of 13% over three years, many shareholders in Gresham Technologies plc are probably rather dissatisfied, to say the least. It therefore might be upsetting for shareholders if the CEO were paid generously. In Summary... We compared total CEO remuneration at Gresham Technologies plc with the amount paid at companies with a similar market capitalization. Our data suggests that it pays above the median CEO pay within that group. We think many shareholders would be underwhelmed with the business growth over the last three years. Arguably worse, investors are without a positive return for the last three years. In our opinion the CEO might be paid too generously! So you may want to check if insiders are buying Gresham Technologies shares with their own money (free access). Important note: Gresham Technologies may not be the best stock to buy. You might find something better in this list of interesting companies with high ROE and low debt. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. Police are thanking a bystander who stepped up to stop a fleeing suspect arrested on suspicion of attempted homicide after allegedly throwing a 5-year-old boy from the third floor of the Mall of America in Minnesota on Friday. More than $500,000 had been donated by Monday morning to a GoFundMe campaign launched by a family friend to assist in the care of the boy, who is still continuing to fight his courageous battle, according to an update posted Sunday to that site, which describes the boy as a strong survivor. PEOPLE is not identifying the boy, whose first name is Landen, by his last name at the familys request. The suspect, 24-year-old Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda, was known to authorities and previously had been barred for a time from the mall in 2015 for offenses that included disorderly conduct and damage to property, Bloomington Police Chief Jeff Potts said at a news conference Saturday. Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda | Bloomington Police Department RELATED: Man Throws Boy, 5, From 3rd Floor Balcony at Mall of America, Critically Injuring Him We feel confident saying that the suspect threw the child off of the third floor, but as to why he did that, it is still something that were looking into and trying to figure out, he said. One witness who witnessed the incident tried to stop the suspect from fleeing, and so were very appreciative of his efforts to try to intervene and help out in a very difficult situation, Potts said. Video link to today's BPD press conference. We will keep you updated as this investigation progresses. Also, a heartfelt thank you to all for keeping this young victim & all involved in your thoughts https://t.co/2GXNoD8ZOB Bloomington Police (@BPD_MN) April 13, 2019 Alamy Authorities ultimately detained the suspect at the malls transit station. He currently is being held in the Hennepin County Jail pending action by the Hennepin County Attorneys Office on formal charges, the chief said. Story continues The suspect and the victim were unknown to each other, he said. He is the sweetest kindest 5-year-old you will ever meet, the family friend wrote in describing Landen on the GoFundMe page. His soul is soft and gentle and instantly brings a smile to everybody he meets. RELATED: Man Charged with Throwing Boy, 5, From Mall of America Balcony Had Previously Been Banned for a Year Police responded to the incident at the mall at 10:17 a.m. Friday. There is video, said the police chief, who added that he estimated the child had fallen about 40 feet from the third to the first level of the mall. As you can imagine, thats a pretty high fall, he said. Potts added: When its involving a young child like that, its pretty gut-wrenching for everybody involved. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. He declined to speculate on the suspects mental health history, but noted that in the suspects prior brushes with law enforcement, it looks like some of those cases were handled through the mental health court, but still ultimately he was convicted of those cases. Raymond Boyd/Getty Images In July 2015, Aranda was taken into custody after police responded to a call about a man throwing things off of the upper level of the mall to the lower level, according to local TV station WCCO, which cited a 2015 complaint stating Aranda initially resisted arrest and refused to give his name to police. An employee from the Bare Minerals store went on to tell police that Aranda had walked into the store, and without saying anything, swept his hand across a display table, knocking off and breaking two containers of lip gloss valued at $18.00 each and three shot glasses valued at $2.00 each, the outlet reported. Court records obtained by PEOPLE show that Aranda was convicted of fifth-degree assault and interfering with an officer of the peace, and was ordered not to return to the property for one year. That August, Aranda was arrested without incident after police responded to a call that a man had been seen smashing computer parts at a local library, according to court documents obtained by WCCO. In the 2015 complaint, police note that Aranda told officers he got angry after he read something on the Facebook. Court records obtained by PEOPLE show that Aranda pleaded guilty to the charge of first-degree property damage and was sentenced to serve 28 days in prison, pay restitution and undergo anger management training. In October 2015, Aranda was arrested for a third time after allegedly throwing drinks at a woman in a restaurant located inside the Mall of America, according to court documents obtained by WCCO. According to the complaint, Aranda repeatedly asked a woman to buy him something to eat or at least give him some money, and after being asked to leave by a restaurant employee, he allegedly grabbed full glasses of ice water and tea, throwing them at the woman. Court records obtained by PEOPLE show that Aranda pled guilty to fifth-degree assault and interfering with an officer of the peace. It could not be determined if he had obtained an attorney to speak on his behalf regarding the current allegation. Rome On the way to Mass on the Friday before Good Friday, I passed the Roman Colosseum. Its hard to have things put in better perspective. Christians were once fed to the lions there, and now its the background to many a tourist selfie. Mass that morning was at the Basilica of Santo Stefano Rotondo al Monte Celi. TripAdvisors top review on it that same morning offered this description: Slightly off the beaten track, Santo Stefano is a lovely, quiet church full of horror. The horror no doubt refers to the frescoes of Christian martyrdom that line the ancient circular basilica. Does it become less horrific when you see the serene smiles if not outright joy on some of the faces as these people approach their end? It depends on whether you believe that the martyr is in for a new beginning. Santo Stefano is a Station Church for the Fifth Week of Lent, part of a tradition that dates back to the fourth century for the penitential season. Though, I confess, when you dont walk the whole path as the Millennial seminarians at the Pontifical North American College do, but take a taxi, its also a tremendous way to visit some of the churches of Rome and before the tourists are awake. Its a way to drink in the breadth and depth of the martyrs, remembering the import of faith what that faith may call for, if one truly believes and truly is tested. If we are really paying attention, it is a reminder that testing takes many forms. Im in the Eternal City for friendship, fellowship, prayer, and what research and reporting that can be had. While Im over here, the pope emeritus, Benedict XVI, has had some thoughts published on the origins of and solutions for the sex scandals in the Church. It makes a whole lot of sense that he would, given his lifetime of service and deep wells of wisdom. His comments are subject to all kinds of controversy and spin. But the most important line is this: Only obedience and love for our Lord Jesus Christ can point the way. That seemed the most appropriate line to highlight as we are set to mark the holiest season on the Christian calendar yet again. He also writes: Story continues There are values which must never be abandoned for a greater value and even surpass the preservation of physical life. There is martyrdom. God is (about) more than mere physical survival. A life that would be bought by the denial of God, a life that is based on a final lie, is a non-life. He notes that martyrdom is a basic category of Christian existence. So it would follow that the very essence of Christianity is at stake here if martyrdom is not a part of our lives. Of course, martyrs exist in the world today. A priest killed while celebrating Mass in France comes to mind. As do Coptic Christians and Iraqi Christians slaughtered by the so-called Islamic State. He explains the importance of the authority of the Church in matters of morality: Those who deny the Church a final teaching competence in this area force her to remain silent precisely where the boundary between truth and lies is at stake. And what if the world were without God? That could only be a a world without meaning, he tells us. For where, then, does everything that is come from? In any case, it has no spiritual purpose. It is somehow simply there and has neither any goal nor any sense. Then there are no standards of good or evil. Then only what is stronger than the other can assert itself. Power is then the only principle. Truth does not count, it actually does not exist. Only if things have a spiritual reason, are intended and conceived only if there is a Creator God who is good and wants the good can the life of man also have meaning. He states the all-important obvious: Yes, there is sin in the Church and evil. But even today there is the Holy Church. . . . There are many people who humbly believe, suffer and love, in whom the real God, the loving God, shows Himself to us. Today God also has His witnesses (martyres) in the world. We just have to be vigilant in order to see and hear them. . . . If we look around and listen with an attentive heart, we can find witnesses everywhere today, especially among ordinary people, but also in the high ranks of the Church, who stand up for God with their life and suffering. It is an inertia of the heart that leads us to not wish to recognize them. One of the great and essential tasks of our evangelization is, as far as we can, to establish habitats of Faith and, above all, to find and recognize them. As I joined seminarians at the North American Pontifical College and others in the 7 a.m. Masses around Rome for the penultimate week of Lent, I prayed I was among martyrs people willing to sacrifice with joy for the love of God. They are the antidote to the evil and confusion in the world, which would suffocate us without the gift of clarity the martyrs demonstrate. They give their lives to God, even when they are not subject to the sword they seek to be poured out in love to others for love of Him. It doesnt get more counter-selfie-culture than that. This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universals Newspaper Enterprise Association. More from National Review REUTERS Three powerful House Democrats are requesting the White House release all documents relating to President Trumps plan to conduct a targeted release of undocumented immigrants in so-called sanctuary cities, a policy intended to serve as retribution for Democrats for failing to sign on with the presidents immigration agenda. In a letter sent on Monday morning, Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Bennie Thompson (D-MS)chairs of the House Oversight, Judiciary and Homeland Security committees, respectivelytold acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan that they are deeply troubled by the Trump administrations proposal. The plan to release immigrants currently in government detention into cities and congressional districts represented by Democrats, they wrote, is a bizarre and unlawful attempt to score political points. Such communities, as a matter of local law or policy, do not cooperate with federal immigration officials in arresting and detaining undocumented people unless they have been accused of committing another criminal offense. Calling the plan alarming, the letter adds that the administration lacks both the legal authority and the ethical justification for manipulating detainee releases in service of scoring political points; and requests a host of documents relating to the plan, including any communications relating to conversations between the White House and immigration agencies regarding the release of migrants into specific areas, as well as all documents within the Department of Homeland Security discussing policy or legal justifications or implications for the policy. The letter asks for the documents by no later than May 3, 2019. Trumps planwhich was first reported by the Washington Post before the president confirmed it via Twitter on Fridayis an apparent attempt to bait local Democratic lawmakers in sanctuary cities into protesting the release of immigrants into their communities, although mayors of numerous such cities told The Daily Beast that they would welcome any former detainees with open arms. Story continues I am proud that Cambridge is a sanctuary city, Mayor Marc McGovern told The Daily Beast. Trump is a schoolyard bully who tries to intimidate and threaten people. Im not intimidated and if asylum seekers find their way to Cambridge, well welcome them. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Read more at The Daily Beast. Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here Johannesburg (AFP) - Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged South African authorities Monday to prosecute the perpetrators of deadly xenophobic violence that displaced some 300 Malawi migrants three weeks ago but has yielded no arrests. From March 25 to 27, mobs armed with metal rods and machetes broke into the homes of foreigners in Durban on South Africa's east coast, chasing them out and looting their belongings, HRW said. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said at least six foreign nationals were killed and several injured, raising fears of a resurgence of xenophobic bloodshed in a country where poor, jobless people accuse migrants of taking their work and benefits. About 88 survivors of the Durban attacks asked to be sent back to Malawi as they felt unsafe, according to representatives of the Malawi High Commission. Others had no choice but to return to the same informal settlement they had been violently chased out of. "Re-integration of foreign nationals into communities without justice and accountability for past xenophobic attacks is a recipe for disaster," said HRW's southern Africa director Dewa Mavhinga. "To deter those who attack foreign nationals, there is an urgent need for effective policing, arrests, and prosecutions." The lack of arrests showed "impunity for xenophobic crimes," said the rights watchdog. Widespread condemnation of the violence prompted emergency talks between South Africa's foreign and police ministers, Lindiwe Sisulu and Bheki Cele, and diplomats of African countries. HRW also urged politicians to refrain from statements that "scapegoat migrants and feed anti-foreigner violence," ahead of May 8 general elections. It cited remarks by President Cyril Ramaphosa at a party rally in March, when he "blamed undocumented migrants for problems and promised a crackdown". The country hosts millions of foreigners, most from African countries and many undocumented. Immigrants bear much of the anger about chronic unemployment and limited economic gains made by poor black people since white-minority rule ended in 1994. Violence erupts sporadically, targeting foreign-owned shops and migrants themselves. Sixty-two people were killed in a wave of xenophobic violence in 2008, and at least seven in a fresh outburst in 2015. TOKYO (Reuters) - British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt reassured Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday that the British government was determined to avoid a no-deal exit from the European Union. "We recognize that Japan has many investments employing hundreds of thousands of people in the U.K. We want strong cooperation to continue," Hunt told Abe at the Japanese leader's residence in Tokyo. Japan is one of Britain's biggest foreign investors, building cars and other products in a country it has viewed as a gateway to the broader European market. Britain's decision to leave the EU has raised concern in London that Japanese firms will shift operations elsewhere if tariff-free trade ends with the rest of the European bloc. Hunt is also visiting Toyota Motor Corp, which plans to build a new car model with Suzuki in Britain, during his trip to Japan. (Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Paul Tait) As new research on identity theft continues to roll in, it paints an unsettling picture of how good crooks are getting at their craft. Although the number of U.S. breaches fell in 2018, the number of records exposed containing sensitive, personally identifiable information (such as Social Security and financial-account numbers) spiked by 126% from the year before, according to a report from the Identity Theft Resource Center. "That tells us thieves aren't committing less crime--they're just getting better at it," says Eva Velasquez, president and CEO of the ITRC. One of the largest breaches disclosed last year was at Marriott International, which admitted in November that its Starwood guest reservation database had been hacked starting in 2014. That exposed up to 383 million guest records (though the number of guests affected is likely smaller because of multiple records). Many records contained data such as passport numbers, addresses, dates of birth and, in some cases, customers' payment-card information. Quora, an online question-and-answer platform, also discovered a breach of account information including names, e-mail addresses and passwords of up to 100 million users. Hackers may try to enter stolen usernames and passwords into other sites--say, those of banks or retailers--in hopes that some customers reuse their log-in details across several accounts. "The chances that some of those credentials will work on one or more other websites are exceptionally high," says Velasquez. Fortunately, none of those 2018 breaches involved Social Security numbers--a key piece of information a thief can use to run away with someone else's identity. But the 2017 Equifax data breach exposed the names, Social Security numbers, birth dates and other sensitive data of more than 145 million Americans. Those bits of info are permanent pieces of your identity, and they may sit idle for years before a criminal puts them to work. Story continues The overall number of fraud victims fell significantly last year from 2017, thanks largely to a decline in fraud against existing credit and debit cards, according to a Javelin Strategy & Research report. But in both 2017 and 2018, the number of victims who faced some liability for fraud more than doubled from 2016, and so did the victims' out-of-pocket costs. Incidents of fraud in which criminals open new financial accounts in a victim's name or take over existing non-card accounts, such as brokerage or retirement accounts, were well above historical levels in 2017 and 2018 and "are much more difficult, and frequently expensive, for victims to resolve," says Javelin. Sophisticated schemes. Imposter scams, in which crooks claim to be representatives of the IRS, Social Security Administration or other entities in attempts to glean personal information or money from their targets, topped the list of consumer complaints submitted to the Federal Trade Commission in 2018--the first time such scams have reached the number-one spot. Scammers are taking aim at both consumers and businesses with increasingly realistic "phishing" e-mails, persuading individuals to click on links or attachments that could infect their computers with malware or prompt them to send sensitive information. In early 2017, Pooja Raval found out that a staff member of the community health center where she worked as a physician had been tricked into e-mailing the employees' W-2 tax forms--which contain a treasure trove of personal info, including Social Security numbers, addresses and income information--to a crook. Thieves can use such valuable pieces of data to impersonate victims in several ways--and since the breach, Raval, of Cambridge, Mass., has encountered a few of them. A criminal attempted to file a tax return and collect a refund in her name; the IRS noticed that something was amiss and sent Raval a letter before issuing the refund. She was instructed to bring the letter and various identifying documents to an IRS center so that she could get an Identity Protection PIN to file with her tax return. (Before she could make it to the center, the IRS sent her the PIN.) Someone has repeatedly tried to use Raval's information to get health insurance. And a credit card was fraudulently opened in her name--despite freezes she placed on her credit reports, says Raval. Rather than being able to take steps to prevent identity theft, she says she has had to "wait and fix it retroactively." Raval says she lacked support from her employer in repairing the damage, and she left the company early last year. Stronger protections. If there's a bright spot among the bad news, it's that policymakers are paying attention. The Equifax data breach "has created a lot of interest in legislation both at the state and federal level to provide consumers with greater protection from identity theft," says Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. Last September, a federal law that made credit freezes free for everyone went into effect. The same law also requires the Social Security Administration to offer financial institutions a more streamlined system to ensure that the Social Security number a customer provides matches up with the name and birth date associated with that SSN. The measure is designed to cut down on synthetic identity fraud, in which criminals piece together real SSNs--often of children--with fake names and other bits of personal info to create new identities. More federal data-privacy laws may be on the way, too. The Senate Banking Committee recently sought input on the collection, use and protection of sensitive personal information by financial regulators and companies. Private companies and the government have a big responsibility in taking better care of your personal data. But you can take steps to safeguard your identity, too. Tax ID theft More than your refund is at risk. The problem: Your tax return could be attractive to an identity thief even if you are not owed a refund. Filing for a refund using a stolen identity is still the most prevalent form of tax ID theft, although new security protocols have made it more difficult. In the past, a criminal needed only your name, date of birth and Social Security Number (SSN) to file a tax return in your name, because he or she could make up the other details, including W-2 information, to claim an outsize refund. Now a thief may need more information to beat the system. Although stolen identity refund fraud remains a threat, employment-related identity theft--in which a crook earns wages under your SSN--is on the rise, says Lisa Weintraub Schifferle, the Federal Trade Commission's identity theft program manager. Another type of tax fraud involves someone claiming your children as his or her dependents. You probably won't know that you are a victim of tax fraud until the Internal Revenue Service tells you, or your electronic filing is rejected because a return has already been submitted using your SSN. How to avoid it: Filing your return as early as you can--even if you owe money--is the only way to beat a thief to the punch. If you are filing electronically, stick with a secure internet connection. Don't use unfamiliar tax software or a new tax preparer without screening for complaints and checking for scams. Victims of tax fraud will be assigned an Identity Protection (IP) PIN. Residents of California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia may request a PIN on their own for federal filing. However, if you're approved, you must use the PIN for all future filings. The IRS will never call or e-mail you and threaten to arrest or deport you if you don't pay up. Normally, the IRS initiates contact by mail. But more recently, the agency started contracting with private debt collectors who may contact you on its behalf. "We used to be able to say that the IRS will never call you to collect a debt, but now you may be called if you owe back taxes," says Schifferle. However, you will be notified by letter first, and legitimate debt collectors will not argue if you want to call the IRS to verify their identity. What to do if you're a victim: The IRS is getting better at catching suspicious returns and verifying with the real people behind those SSNs, says Velasquez. And although the agency will help you sort out the fraud and return the refund you're entitled to, the process could take months. You will need to file all future taxes with an IP PIN, and you may experience other hiccups, such as an inability to use the tool that automatically transfers your tax return data into a FAFSA (the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form) for tax transcripts affected by fraud. If you receive a letter from the IRS noting suspicious activity, call the phone number provided in your letter to learn your next steps. Keep meticulous records of your conversations. Or, if your e-filing was rejected, report the incident to the IRS by filling out and sending in an IRS Identity Theft Affidavit, or Form 14039, by mail; if you report your identity theft at IdentityTheft.gov, you can submit the affidavit electronically. You will still need to file your taxes by the April 15 deadline (or request an extension), even if it means paper filing. The IRS estimates that it will take 120 days to get your refund if one is due, or more than 180 days for complex cases. But Velasquez says that callers to the Identity Theft Resource Center have reported resolutions anywhere from around a month to a year later. You will receive a new IP PIN each year to include on your tax return. Call your state department of revenue (find the link at taxadmin.org/state-tax-agencies) to put it on notice that your federal tax return was compromised, even if you're not sure whether someone is trying to defraud you at the state level, says Velasquez. "A thief can only use your data to file one fraudulent federal return," she says, "but can file across multiple states." They've got your (mobile) number The Social Security number has been the most important unique identifier for decades, but a new kind of ID has emerged in the last decade or so as an alternative: your mobile phone number. When a company wants to verify your identity when you log in to an account from a new device, for example, it'll often ask you to verify a code it texts to the mobile number they have on file. "But that's not a piece of information that's designed to be kept secret," says Jake Williams, security principal of Rendition Infosec and a former NSA hacker. "We give it out, put it in our e-mail signatures." Over the past few years, some hackers have taken advantage of this vulnerability by executing a "SIM swap" hack, typically by calling a telecom company, saying they've lost their phone and need their number--your number--to be swapped to a new SIM card they bought from the store. If they can convince a customer support agent they're you with a few bits of personal information, they'll have access to any account you've secured with your phone number by resetting your password. Most people aren't prominent enough to be subject to this kind of attack, Williams says. People in the public eye or in high-risk positions are more likely to be targeted. For protection, it's possible to port your phone number to a VOIP--an internet-based calling service--which is much more difficult to SIM swap. Medical ID theft Avoid health care hijackers. The problem: Medical identity theft--when a criminal uses your health information to receive medical care or prescription drugs or file insurance claims in your name--is rare, but it's hard to shake and likely on the rise. In the fall of 2017, Tyler P. of Austin, Texas, received a call from the billing department of a local hospital for an emergency-room visit the month before, saying that he owed $7,000 for back surgery. Tyler had been on a plane to Memphis the day the hospital said he had checked in for the procedure. After losing his wallet a few months earlier, Tyler had frozen his credit and was scrutinizing all his bills for any sign of fraud. But with just his driver's license and an insurance card, a thief had all he needed to ask for a back operation and a week-long stay in recovery. "It was nuts," Tyler says. Tyler made a flurry of phone calls, first to his insurance company, then to the police, then to the hospital to begin disputing the charges. But the real challenge was untangling the criminal's medical records from Tyler's. "There were a lot of people [at the hospital] who didn't know what to do with me," he says. Eventually, Tyler connected with an administrator in the billing department who agreed to work with him. Beyond the bill, having incorrect information in a medical record can have deadly consequences years after the crime; for example, you could be denied a certain treatment due to an allergy or condition on records left behind by an identity thief. How to avoid it: Your health providers are likely to ask for your Social Security number, but your health insurance information is usually enough to receive and manage care, especially if you've used the provider in the past. Thankfully, the Social Security Administration stopped printing Medicare cards with SSNs on them in 2018. Review statements you receive from your medical or insurance providers. If you recently received treatment but the explanation of benefits seems to differ even a little, don't write it off as a mistake. And if you receive mail from providers you haven't used, don't toss it; thieves may have used your identity to get care. What to do if you're a victim: File a police report, then contact your medical providers and ask to see a copy of your records. Some institutions may balk at handing them over if you say they've been compromised with someone else's medical data, but the right to request your records overrules an identity thief's right to privacy, says the Federal Trade Commission. Ask your provider for an "accounting of disclosures" to have a paper trail of every institution to which they've sent a copy of your medical records. As you contact providers, send time-stamped letters explaining your situation along with a copy of your police report. If you catch the fraud early, you may be able to contact the billing department of your provider and ask to cancel the debt. But if the debt is passed on to an outside collector, you'll need to use the protections offered by the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act--such as the right to an investigation--to clear things up, according to Pam Dixon, founder of the World Privacy Forum. Credit and debit card fraud Safeguard your plastic and your account information. The problem: The U.S. transition to credit and debit cards equipped with microchips--and payment terminals that accept chip transactions--is reducing fraud on existing card accounts. If ID thieves try to intercept chip transactions, they can't get enough usable data to create counterfeit cards. Losses from fraud on existing card accounts fell from $8.1 billion in 2017 to $6.5 billion in 2018, according to a recent report from Javelin Strategy & Research. But payment terminals at gas pumps, in particular, are vulnerable to "skimming" of customer card data by crooks because gas stations don't yet face liability for counterfeit-card transactions at the pump. Starting in October 2020, gas stations that haven't upgraded to chip terminals at the pump may incur liability for such transactions. Fraudsters are also going online to steal payment credentials. Through a method called formjacking, they embed malicious code on retail websites to grab customers' payment information. Such fraud affected more than 4,800 websites per month last year, on average, according to a recent report from Symantec. Small and midsize retailers are often targets, although well-known companies such as British Airways and Ticketmaster have been hit, too. How to avoid it: Don't store your card information on retail sites or apps. "I never save my payment information. It takes 10 seconds to type it in," says Carl Carpenter, CEO of security firm Arrakis Consulting. Certain issuers--including Bank of America, Capital One and Citi--offer virtual numbers for most of their credit cards. Rather than enter your card's real number when shopping online, you use a different number that's linked to your card account. Gas-pump skimmers are hard to spot because they're typically installed inside the machine. Steer clear of pumps at the edges of the station. Crooks are more likely to place skimmers there, where they can insert the devices unnoticed. At the ATM, shield your hand as you enter your PIN in case a thief has put a camera on the machine to capture your PIN (along with a skimmer to record your card data). It's not a bad idea to get notifications from your financial institutions--whether by e-mail, text message or through a mobile app--each time a transaction goes through on your credit or debit card. Sometimes thieves make small purchases to test a card, which you may not notice if you receive alerts only for large transactions. "Some people say they don't want to be bothered. The truth is, you do want to be bothered," says Adam Levin, founder of identity-protection service CyberScout. Consider paring the number of payment accounts you use so that you have fewer to track, suggests Velasquez. If possible, use a credit card for most purchases. Legally, your liability for fraudulent purchases with a credit card is capped at $50--and you'll owe nothing if your card number (but not the card itself) is used fraudulently. Plus, the major card networks have zero-liability policies for fraudulent account use, and credit cards come with stronger liability protections than debit cards. And with debit and prepaid cards, you may owe late penalties and overdraft fees. What to do if you're a victim: Immediately call your bank or credit card issuer if you see unauthorized transactions. Or your bank may notice first that something is amiss. You'll receive a card with a new number. If a criminal used your financial account's online log-in information to steal funds, change your username and your password. Liability for funds taken with a stolen debit card varies depending on how quickly you report the issue; you're off the hook if your card number (but not the physical card) is stolen and you tell the bank within 60 days of it sending your statement. If you promptly notify your financial institution, you'll likely get the money back--but you may have to wait until the bank processes your claim. Protect your kids' data The federal law that mandates free credit freezes includes provisions for freezing the credit records of children younger than 16. If you're a guardian or conservator or have a power of attorney for someone--say, an elderly parent--you can freeze his or her files, too. If your child doesn't have a credit report, the agency must create one and freeze it upon a parent or guardian's request. You'll have to send the request by snail mail with copies of supporting documents, such as your child's birth certificate and your driver's license. (Freezing a child's Equifax file, however, has been difficult and confusing for some customers, so you may want to wait until the agency works out the kinks.) Children are attractive targets for ID thieves because it may be years before anyone notices that a child's identity has been snatched. Take care to keep track of a child's PINs because several years may pass before the child needs to lift the freeze, says Velasquez. She advises telling a trusted family member or friend where to find your children's PINs as backup. Unusual mail in a child's name--such as preapproved credit card offers or debt-collection notices--is an indication that his or her identity may have been stolen. Tell your children not to hand over their personal information online (or anywhere else) without your permission. The power of putting your credit on ice The case for placing a security freeze on your credit reports is stronger than ever, even if you haven't yet suffered identity theft. Thanks to a federal law that went into effect last year, both placing and lifting a freeze is free for everyone. And when you ask to remove a freeze online or by phone, the credit agencies--Equifax, Experian and TransUnion--must lift it within an hour of receiving your request. A freeze is designed to stop a criminal in his tracks if he attempts to open a credit line in your name. (It does not, however, block criminals from accessing accounts you already have.) A lender cannot view your credit report--a collection of data about your credit activity--in response to a new credit application when a freeze is in place. You must contact each credit agency separately to place and remove freezes. For good measure, you could also freeze your report with Innovis, a fourth credit agency, at innovis.com or by calling 800-540-2505. If you run into roadblocks while dealing with the credit agencies, you can enlist a pro to help. Representatives of the Identity Theft Resource Center's free services (call 888-400-5530) will walk you through the steps. Or, if you subscribe to an identity-theft monitoring service, its reps may assist you. If you're getting nowhere after repeated attempts to work with a credit agency, try submitting a complaint to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It will forward your complaint to the agency and aim to get you a response within 15 days. Managing your freeze. When you place a freeze, each agency will give you a PIN, which you may later need to provide to unfreeze the reports. Equifax and TransUnion now allow customers to thaw their reports through password-protected online accounts (no PIN required), but you'll still need the PIN to lift a freeze over the phone. Keep your PINs and passwords in a safe place. Be aware that new creditors aren't the only entities that may want access to your credit report. Some banks, for example, ping a potential new customer's credit report for identity verification when he or she applies to open a checking or savings account. If you want to use a third-party service that offers free credit scores, access to your credit reports or monitoring of your reports for significant changes, you may have to lift the freeze when you enroll--or, in some cases, the service won't work at all. Ask a service which credit agency's report it accesses--you may have to lift the freeze at only one agency. To create a My Social Security account online, for example, you'll have to remove a freeze temporarily only on your Equifax report; you can re-freeze the report after you've enrolled (you won't have to lift the freeze if you go to a Social Security office to open the account). Whether or not retirement is near, it's smart to create an account now to prevent a thief from opening one in your name and using it to collect benefits. Stay vigilant. Even if you've frozen your credit reports, keep tabs on them. Every 12 months, you can get a free copy of your report from each agency at annualcreditreport.com. Make sure that you recognize each account listed. A credit-monitoring service, which regularly scans your credit report and sends you alerts of significant changes, may be useful even if your reports are frozen. For example, a change in address may indicate that someone has taken over one of your existing accounts and redirected your mail. You can get free monitoring of all three reports through CreditKarma.com (for Equifax and TransUnion monitoring) and FreeCreditScore.com (Experian). Some paid identity-theft monitoring services cover all three credit reports and offer other features, such as scanning of the dark web for your personal information and remediation services if you do become an identity-theft victim (see Early Alert Systems for Identity Theft). If a suspicious account shows up on your credit report, contact the lender's fraud department. If someone has stolen your identity, file a police report and fill out an Identity Theft Report at the Federal Trade Commission's IdentityTheft.gov website, then send those documents to the lender and the credit agencies. The agencies must remove fraudulent information from your reports if you send them the FTC form. Phishing Don't get hooked by fake messages. The problem: Phishing can come in the form of e-mails, texts, social media messages or phone calls that try to extract personal information from you or infect your device with malware. These devious messages may address you by name, appear to come from a person or company you recognize, and mimic the look and tone of communications from your bank, social media accounts or employer. If you fall for a phisher's e-mail or other message and click on a nefarious link, or open a malicious attachment, "your computer or phone gets owned by the bad guys," says Stu Sjouwerman, CEO of KnowBe4, a company that provides security-awareness training. Criminals can monitor your activity, steal your log-in credentials to sensitive websites, spy on you by turning on your camera or microphone remotely, hold your data for ransom, and more. How to avoid it: KnowBe4's top-clicked phishing subject lines in the last three months of 2018 included "Password Check Required Immediately," as well as the timely "Your Order with Amazon.com," and "Happy holidays! Have a drink on us." Kelvin Coleman, executive director of the National Cyber Security Alliance, says phishing campaigns often materialize in relation to big health scares, natural disasters, tax season and elections. Scan e-mails for visual cues that something is off, such as grammatical errors, misspelled words or distorted company logos, says Brian Lapidus, head of identity theft and breach notification at security firm Kroll. Examine the "from" e-mail address to see if the user name and domain are recognizable, or if they contain subtle typos, such as "@amazom.com." Hover over hyperlinks with your cursor to see if the link that pops up matches the web address in the message. Instead of clicking on links from e-mails sent by, say, your bank or brokerage, type the web address into a separate tab. A fishy link may lead to a realistic mockup of the institution's website, complete with the padlock symbol and "https"--widely seen as signs of authenticity--in the URL, says Stacy Shelley, vice president of marketing at PhishLabs, a cybersecurity firm. Rather than opening attachments you don't recognize, use the "preview" function if your e-mail has one to view them safely. Better yet, contact the sender in a separate e-mail or text to ask if he or she e-mailed you an attachment. Be extra careful when viewing e-mail on a mobile device, where you can't hover over a link or easily see a full URL after clicking on a link. Equip your devices with anti-malware software and regularly install security patches and updates. (For more tips, see lockdownyourlogin.org.) Set up two-factor authentication where possible, and back up files once a month to the cloud, an external hard drive or memory stick in case your device needs to be wiped clean or a criminal holds your data for ransom. What to do if you're a victim: Change the passwords to your financial accounts and other important websites as soon as possible, preferably from another computer in case a keylogger is recording these new passwords on your compromised device. Run a malware detection tool, such as Malwarebytes, to see if your computer was infected. If your device has been locked with ransomware, try searching the internet for unique words in your ransomware note to see if you can find a free decoder. Or find a pro to help. Best Buy's Geek Squad charges $100 for remote virus and spyware removal, or $150 for in-store or at-home help. Staples charges $100 for remote service, $160 for an in-store fix, and $300 for a technician to visit your home. McAfee Virus Removal Service ($90) and Norton Spyware & Virus Removal ($100) will help you remotely as well. How to secure your devices Ask any security expert how consumers most often shoot themselves in the foot, and the response will almost certainly be passwords. The most common password in the world is "123456," followed by "password." We are bad at passwords. The best solution is a password manager. LastPass offers a free version of its software that will generate, store and save randomized passwords across all your devices, all locked behind a single master password. Many browsers function like password managers, offering to save your log-in information. Some, including Google Chrome, will even generate a random password for you. But the password requirements for your Google account aren't very strict, with no uppercase letter, number or symbols needed. If your master password is easy to crack, all the accounts saved inside could be at risk. Another crucial practice for securing your devices is two-factor authentication, or 2FA. You've experienced 2FA if a service has sent you an e-mail or text to confirm your identity before signing in. If an account gives you the option to require 2FA whenever you log in, it's generally a good idea to use it. The extra step prevents a thief with your bank password from accessing funds remotely. Not all 2FA systems are equal, however. If an account only offers authentication via basic text messaging, you may be vulnerable to a "SIM swap". For now, this is still rare, and "having 2FA is better than not having it, no question," says Jake Williams, principal of Rendition InfoSec and former NSA hacker. The website turnon2fa.com offers step-by-step instructions for activating the feature across dozens of websites, from Facebook to Fidelity. Where to get help Tap these resources to protect yourself from ID theft, to get assistance if you do become a victim and to receive alerts about new scams. The nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center helps victims resolve identity theft. Call the ITRC at 888-400-5530, or start a live chat online at idtheftcenter.org. The AARP Fraud Watch Network hotline (877-908-3360) offers victim assistance, and you don't have to be an AARP member to use it. The Federal Trade Commission's IdentityTheft.gov walks victims through the steps to recovery depending on the type of fraud they experienced and offers sample letters to send to credit agencies, lenders and other involved parties. FraudSupport.org also guides victims to resources. For detailed instructions on how to place a credit freeze, including web links and phone numbers for the credit agencies, see Freeze Your Credit in Three Steps. To stay up-to-date on the latest scams, you can sign up for alerts at fraud.org, consumer.ftc.gov/features/scam-alerts and aarp.org/money/scams-fraud. To see if any of your e-mail addresses or accounts have turned up in a data breach, go to HaveIBeenPwned.com. If you turn up a positive result, it's time to update your passwords. If a suspicious e-mail shows up in your inbox, use Google's Safe Browsing URL checker to see if a website has been reported as dangerous to visit. This can include malware-laden cesspools as well as legit sites that have been compromised. See more at transparencyreport.google.com. EDITOR'S PICKS Copyright 2019 The Kiplinger Washington Editors Some stocks are best avoided. We really hate to see fellow investors lose their hard-earned money. Spare a thought for those who held Bombay Rayon Fashions Limited (NSE:BRFL) for five whole years - as the share price tanked 95%. And we doubt long term believers are the only worried holders, since the stock price has declined 77% over the last twelve months. Unhappily, the share price slid 1.1% in the last week. While a drop like that is definitely a body blow, money isn't as important as health and happiness. View our latest analysis for Bombay Rayon Fashions Because Bombay Rayon Fashions is loss-making, we think the market is probably more focussed on revenue and revenue growth, at least for now. Shareholders of unprofitable companies usually expect strong revenue growth. That's because it's hard to be confident a company will be sustainable if revenue growth is negligible, and it never makes a profit. Depicted in the graphic below, you'll see revenue and earnings over time. If you want more detail, you can click on the chart itself. NSEI:BRFL Income Statement, April 15th 2019 This free interactive report on Bombay Rayon Fashions's balance sheet strength is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further. A Different Perspective Investors in Bombay Rayon Fashions had a tough year, with a total loss of 77%, against a market gain of about 0.9%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Unfortunately, last year's performance may indicate unresolved challenges, given that it was worse than the annualised loss of 46% over the last half decade. We realise that Buffett has said investors should 'buy when there is blood on the streets', but we caution that investors should first be sure they are buying a high quality businesses. Before spending more time on Bombay Rayon Fashions it might be wise to click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling shares. Story continues Of course Bombay Rayon Fashions may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of growth stocks. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on IN exchanges. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's election commission on Monday banned a Hindu state chief minister from campaigning for three days after anti-Muslim comments in an election that will end next month. The saffron-clad Yogi Adityanath, a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party, had been warned this month about his campaign speeches, the election commission said. The commission said Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, had spoken about a "green virus" in a speech last week in reference to Muslim voters who he said were being wooed by opposition parties. Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been playing to its nationalist base and painting its rivals as soft on terrorism and eager to appease Muslims, who make up about 14 percent of India's 1.3 billion population. A BJP spokesman said the party was inclusive towards all communities. "The party believes in all-together development for all, and we don't believe in any polarization," spokesman Harish Srivastava said. The election commission also imposed a ban on the leader of the Dalits, people at the bottom of the Hindu caste structure, saying she had violated a code of conduct by asking Muslims to vote en bloc for opposition candidates. The ban on Dalit leader Mayawati would run for two days, it said. A spokesman for Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which is in an alliance with another regional party in Uttar Pradesh, could not be reached for comment. The commission on Monday also banned Azam Khan, a leader from the Samajwadi Party (SP), an ally of the BSP, and minister Maneka Gandhi from campaigning for violating the code of conduct. Khan was banned for three days, while Gandhi was banned for two days. Staggered voting in the general election began last Thursday and will end on May 19. Although jobs, nationalism and conditions for farmers are the main issues, religion is an important and sensitive topic. The BJP repeated in its manifesto a commitment to build a Hindu temple in the northern town of Ayodhya at a site disputed by Muslims, seeking to gain the support of majority Hindus. Last week, BJP president Amit Shah referred to illegal Muslim immigrants as termites and vowed to throw them into the sea. Surveys suggest Modi's ruling alliance looks set to win a majority smaller than in the last election in 2014, when it secured a commanding win on a promise to turn India into an economic and military power. (Reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Robert Birsel and David Holmes) India's election watchdog on Monday banned four outspoken politicians, including two top members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, from campaigning in the country's national vote for making provocative speeches. The measures came after the Supreme Court called on the election commission to get tough on hate speech during the world's biggest election, which started last Thursday and runs to May 19. Indian politicians are often accused of using hate or intimidation to win support of the electorate, but soliciting votes on religious lines or threatening voters is prohibited. Maneka Gandhi, the widow of former politician Sanjay Gandhi, received a 48-hour ban for saying Muslims should vote for her -- or their future requests could be shunned if she wins. The election commission said she had violated a provision against appealing "to caste or communal feelings for securing votes" and another against bribery or intimidation. Gandhi is minister for women and child welfare in the cabinet of Modi, whose Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is seeking a second five-year term. Critics have accused Modi of imposing a Hindu agenda on the country and emboldening attacks on Muslims and low-caste Dalits. The election commission gave another 48-hour ban to Dalit leader Mayawati, for calling on Muslims to vote in a bloc against Modi's BJP. Mayawati goes by one name. Yogi Adityanath, the firebrand BJP chief minister of India's most populous state Uttar Pradesh, was sidelined for three days over his response to Mayawati, comparing the election to a battle between Muslim and Hindu gods. Hindus -- who make up the majority community in India -- had "no option" but to support the BJP, he added. Adityanath and Mayawati made "highly provocative speeches" which had "the tone and tenor to aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred between different religious communities," the commission said. Story continues - 'Repugnant' - The authority issued a three-day campaign ban to Azam Khan, a senior official in the Samajwadi Party battling the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. He was sanctioned after saying that former Bollywood actress Jaya Prada of the BJP "wears a khaki underwear." The election commission said the comments violated a directive against actions "repugnant to honour and dignity of women." The Indian campaign has been marked by headline-grabbing declarations by politicians. Adityanath has already waded into trouble by calling Muslims the "green virus" who are set to "engulf the nation". BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj caused controversy last week by saying he was a "saint" who would put a curse on anyone who votes against him. The Supreme Court has in turn called on opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi to explain why he incorrectly attributed remarks to the court saying that Modi had "committed a theft" in agreeing a fighter deal with France. The election commission -- often accused of being ineffective -- has been flooded with complaints since campaigning started in March, and the Supreme Court told it to "act very promptly" on potential violations. The watchdog told the court its code of conduct limits the punishments it can mete out, however. "We can't de-recognise (parties) or disqualify candidates," the counsel representing the commission at the hearing on Monday said. The commission sought to counter critics this month by postponing the release of a fawning film biography of Modi. It also ordered a clampdown on a TV channel dedicated to the prime minister, NaMO TV. Senetas Corporation Limited (ASX:SEN) shareholders might be concerned after seeing the share price drop 27% in the last quarter. But that doesn't change the fact that the returns over the last five years have been pleasing. Its return of 65% has certainly bested the market return! Check out our latest analysis for Senetas While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time. Senetas's earnings per share are down 13% per year, despite strong share price performance over five years. The impact of extraordinary items on earnings, in the last year, partially explain the diversion. Essentially, it doesn't seem likely that investors are focused on EPS. Since the change in EPS doesn't seem to correlate with the change in share price, it's worth taking a look at other metrics. We doubt the modest 0.8% dividend yield is attracting many buyers to the stock. On the other hand, Senetas's revenue is growing nicely, at a compound rate of 9.6% over the last five years. In that case, the company may be sacrificing current earnings per share to drive growth. The chart below shows how revenue and earnings have changed with time, (if you click on the chart you can see the actual values). ASX:SEN Income Statement, April 15th 2019 Take a more thorough look at Senetas's financial health with this free report on its balance sheet. What About Dividends? When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. In the case of Senetas, it has a TSR of 72% for the last 5 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence! Story continues A Different Perspective Investors in Senetas had a tough year, with a total loss of 45% (including dividends), against a market gain of about 12%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 11%, each year, over five years. It could be that the recent sell-off is an opportunity, so it may be worth checking the fundamental data for signs of a long term growth trend. Most investors take the time to check the data on insider transactions. You can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling. We will like Senetas better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider buying. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on AU exchanges. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. For many, the main point of investing is to generate higher returns than the overall market. But in any portfolio, there will be mixed results between individual stocks. At this point some shareholders may be questioning their investment in Hindusthan National Glass & Industries Limited (NSE:HINDNATGLS), since the last five years saw the share price fall 44%. And some of the more recent buyers are probably worried, too, with the stock falling 21% in the last year. Shareholders have had an even rougher run lately, with the share price down 12% in the last 90 days. Check out our latest analysis for Hindusthan National Glass & Industries Hindusthan National Glass & Industries isn't currently profitable, so most analysts would look to revenue growth to get an idea of how fast the underlying business is growing. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally expect to see good revenue growth. That's because it's hard to be confident a company will be sustainable if revenue growth is negligible, and it never makes a profit. You can see how revenue and earnings have changed over time in the image below, (click on the chart to see cashflow). NSEI:HINDNATGLS Income Statement, April 14th 2019 This free interactive report on Hindusthan National Glass & Industries's balance sheet strength is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further. A Different Perspective Hindusthan National Glass & Industries shareholders are down 21% for the year, but the market itself is up 0.9%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Regrettably, last year's performance caps off a bad run, with the shareholders facing a total loss of 11% per year over five years. We realise that Buffett has said investors should 'buy when there is blood on the streets', but we caution that investors should first be sure they are buying a high quality businesses. Shareholders might want to examine this detailed historical graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow. Story continues For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on IN exchanges. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. Tokyo (AFP) - Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday asked Britain to minimise the negative impact of its departure from the European Union on Japanese firms and the global economy. His remarks came during a meeting with visiting British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, and after analysts earlier this year warned that Brexit has in many cases accelerated the decisions of Japanese firms to leave Britain. "Japan welcomes the fact that a no-deal Brexit has been avoided for the time being, and I have a great respect for the effort made by Prime Minister (Theresa) May," Abe said. May was forced to ask fellow EU leaders earlier this month to postpone Brexit for a second time, from April 12 to October 31. She has been unable to persuade MPs to back the withdrawal terms she has struck with Brussels, but is also unwilling to take Britain out of the EU with no deal at all. "I would like to express my hope that any negative impact of the UK's withdrawal from the EU will be minimised on Japanese corporations and on the world economy," Abe said. Around 1,000 Japanese companies operate in Britain, supporting about 140,000 jobs. But automakers Honda and Nissan have said they are axing production at plants in Britain, while electronics giants Sony and Panasonic are scaling back operations and major Japanese banks are pulling out. While there are specific reasons behind each individual business decision, analysts said the spectre of Brexit was haunting Japanese firms across the board. "On the matter of Brexit, as you know we are very determined to avoid a no-deal outcome because we recognise that Japan has many investments, employing hundreds of thousands of people in the UK," Hunt said. "And we know that Japan has helped to transform the British manufacturing industry for the better, and we want that strong cooperation to continue." The British government will resume talks with the main opposition Labour party this week on how to resolve the deadlock over Brexit, a senior minister, David Lidington, said on Sunday. What does it tell you when high-profile tech visionaries increasingly disparage their own industry? I just witnessed the latest case in point: Veteran venture capital investor John Borthwick warning attendees at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism (at CUNY) gala last week to beware the data-industrial complex. Borthwick, founder and CEO of betaworks which has seeded the likes of bitly, Chartbeat and Giphy, told a crowd of journalists, tech executives, academics and students: I have a growing unease about technology today. You may too. Were not wrong. Technology isnt really working for us. Were working for it. Ill get into some specific points from Borthwicks spot-on talk in a second, but first let me add some context. Borthwicks criticism echoes that of longstanding tech investor Roger McNamee, whose book Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe, is a scathing rebuke of Facebooks practices and business model. (Just to give you an idea of McNamees bonafides, he first met Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2006, and according to TechCrunch, McNamees company Elevation Partners bought 1% of Facebook in 2010 for $90 million, a stake now worth $5 billion.) John Borthwick, chief executive officer of Betaworks, speaks during a panel discussion at the TechCrunch Disrupt NYC 2012 conference in New York, U.S., on Tuesday, May 22, 2012. Photographer: Jennifer S. Altman/Bloomberg via Getty Images Then theres Sean Parker of Napster and an early Facebook investor whos come out and said that social media founders knew they were feeding into addictive behavior. VC Chamath Palihapitiya, who also worked at Facebook, now rails against social media. And former Google employee Tristan Harris now heads up the Center for Humane Technology, a group that includes current and former tech executives who believe the business has lost its way. (Heck, even Mark Zuckerberg himself is now calling for his business to be regulated.) The data-industrial complex True, theres no shortage of social media critics these days, but when you have a cohort of high-pedigree insiders like that clamoring for change, we should pay attention. Its also worth noting Borthwicks phraseology, data-industrial complex, which of course is a reference to President Dwight D. Eisenhowers famous farewell address where he admonished Americans to guard against...the militaryindustrial complex. In the same way it was surprising and significant when one of our greatest military leaders warned us against the military, its striking that a leading technologist is sounding the alarm about tech. (Borthwick seems to have been self-aware of that point.) Story continues Now lets go back to Borthwicks speech. He made me realizein a way I hadnt beforethe incredible power the top players have over us. A small number of companiesGoogle, Facebook, YouTube, Instagrammediate the vast majority of our online experiences. The open internet has become a sidebar, he said. While the stated goal of these companies was search, or connecting friends, or maybe finding a videoits become to understand everything that they can do to shape our attention. And just as these platforms mediate us as users, theyre also mediating true innovation. Big tech companies are now how startups reach their customers. A typical startup will spend 40 cents of every dollar that it has on buying distribution, or buying customers, on these platforms. Facebook Chief Executive Officer and founder, Mark Zuckerberg, leaving the Merrion Hotel in Dublin after meeting with Irish politicians to discuss regulation of social media, transparrency in political advertising and the safety of young people and vulnerable adults. On Tuesday, April 2, 2019, in Dublin, Ireland. (Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images) That made me consider how much of my internet time is spent under the auspices of these giant companies. Think Google search, Gmail, Googles web browser Chrome, Facebook, and Instagram. In fact, I cant remember the last time I WASNT using these products and services to connect to the internet. Borthwick ticks off a few abuses just this year: ...in January a journalist discovered Facebook was using a VPN to monitor kids use of competitive apps. Then in February, Google admitted that a Nest thermostat included an undisclosed microphone. Then in March, Facebook admitted it was harvesting phone numbers via a security feature. And last week, a journalist discovered that YouTube had quashed internal dissent around trending toxic content. And were not even 10 days into April. There should be consequences for the technology company The root cause of this behavior Borthwick says is a culture of optimization on one hand, and on the other hand a market-driven imperative for growth. That is whats driving these companies to extend and keep extending this industrial-data complex. To remedy the situation, Borthwick insists we need regulatory oversight: The idea that technology is too fast, too nimble to be regulated, or that self-regulation will create open and fair competition, just hasnt worked. Regulation and antitrust both can and should be applied. We did this with the pharmaceutical industry, we did this with finance, it can be done with tech. There needs to be personal accountability, he says. ...we should certify our professionals as we do with doctors and lawyers. If an algorithm fails to stop a live video of a massacre from trending, or if an algorithm in the software of an airplane mistakenly adjusts its flight pattern and causes it to nosedive, there should be consequences for the technology company and for the person who wrote the code. Ive been thinking about Borthwicks last point concerning physical harm, death and even murder that can now be endgendered by algorithms and software in our ever-more complex world. Borthwick said: Technology isnt in and of itself good or bad. But its not neutral. Tech executives should heed that notion when, sounding like gun manufacturers, they suggest that their platforms dont harm people, only people harm people. Increasingly our countrys wild wild West, anything-goes absence of regulatory oversight for social media and tech companies looks anachronistic, naive, and worst of all, dangerous. But dont take my word for it. Ask the people who know the business best. Andy Serwer is editor-in-chief of Yahoo Finance. Read more: Millionaire entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk defends AOC but not her tax plan Drug companies that benefit from the war on opioid addiction Why Google, Facebook, and Twitter dont want to be media companies DETROIT (AP) A Canadian cab driver who made extra money by steering desperate immigrants to a railroad tunnel under the Detroit River was sentenced Monday to 16 months in a U.S. prison. Juan Garcia-Jimenez, a 53-year-old Canadian citizen who is a native of Guatemala, wept in federal court. Besides a prison sentence, he was fined $8,680 the amount paid by six people who were caught last year when they emerged on foot on the Detroit side of the tunnel. The 1.6-mile (2.5-kilometer) tunnel is used by cargo trains moving between Ontario, Canada, and the United States. Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan Fairchild said it's risky: A walkway is only 17 inches (43.1 centimeters) wide and in poor condition. "They just walked right through the tunnel, which is a very dangerous thing," said Kris Grogan, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. "There is zero room. If a train would have come through there they would have been killed." Garcia-Jimenez would drop people off at a tunnel entrance in Windsor and drive away. Nine people arrested by border officers identified him as the man who helped them leave Canada at different times last year. "Due to the clandestine nature of this criminal activity, there is no way to be certain how many times he has smuggled aliens into the United States in the past," Fairchild said in a court filing. "Countless aliens could have illegally entered the United States with his assistance." Garcia-Jimenez was arrested last August while trying to enter Detroit to celebrate his wedding anniversary. "I am sorry for what I have done," he told U.S. District Judge Stephen Murphy III. ___ Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwhiteap If you just cut a check to Uncle Sam or calculated your tax rate for the year, you may be wondering where do all those hard-earned dollars go? Unfortunately, you cant earmark your tax dollars to departments or programs you support. Your taxes go into the bigger pool contributed by everyone else and are allocated based on need and policy direction. Even so, its smart to understand how the government uses your tax dollars, so you can be an engaged and informed citizen. It may also help you as you evaluate the 2020 presidential candidates and the policies they propose. Lets take a look under the hood of the federal government. For 2018, the federal government received $3.33 trillion in taxes from individuals and corporations, according to the Office of Management and Budget. The total is broken down like this: $1.68 trillion from individual income taxes $1.17 trillion from payroll taxes $204.7 billion from corporate income taxes $95.0 billion from excise taxes $175.9 billion from other The other category includes $23 billion from estate and gift taxes, $41.3 billion from customs duties and fees, $70.8 billion from Federal Reserve deposits and $40.9 billion from other. Tax Day freebies: Get some relief with $1 margaritas, meal deals, free massages and more New York Auto Show: VW reveals compact pickup concept that may come to US Biggest tax spenders Total spending by the federal government in 2018 was $4.22 trillion. But some programs actually raised money, such as leases for the Outer Continental Shelf, which lowered the total 2018 outlay to $4.11 trillion. The majority of tax dollars helps to fund defense, Social Security, Medicare, health programs and social safety net programs such as food stamps and disability payments, along with paying off interest on the national debt. Heres how it breaks down. Social Security: $987.8 billion or 23.4% of total federal spending National defense: $631.2 billion or 15% of total spending Medicare: $588.7 billion or 14% of total spending Health: $551.2 billion or 13.1% of total spending Social safety net programs: $495.3 billion or 11.8% of total spending Interest on debt: $325 billion or 7.7% of total spending The health programs include Medicaid, the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. The social safety net programs funds the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for low-income Americans, Supplemental Security Income for disabled and older Americans, and Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, among other programs. Story continues Heres how the remaining tax dollars were spent in 2018: Veterans benefits and services: $178.9 billion or 4.2% of total spending Education, training, employment and social services: $95.5 billion or 2.3% of total spending Transportation: $92.8 billion or 2.2% of total spending International affairs: $49 billion or 1.2% of total spending Administration of justice: $60.4 billion or 1.4% of total spending Community and regional development: $42.2 billion or 1% of total spending Natural resources and environment: $39.1 billion or 0.9% of total spending General science, space and technology: $31.5 billion or 0.8% of total spending General government: $23.9 billion or 0.6% of total spending Agriculture: $21.8 billion or 0.5% of total spending Energy: $2.2 billion or 0.05% of total spending This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: You just cut a check to the IRS. So what do your taxes pay for? U.S. Senator Kamala Harris and her husband reported more than $2 million in income on their 2018 federal tax return, with the vast majority stemming from her husbands work as a partner in a law firm. The California lawmaker, one of 18 declared candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, released 15 years worth of tax returns Sunday, dating back to when she first held elected office. Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, a partner at the law firm DLA Piper LLP, reported taxable income of $1.8 million for 2018, including $157,352 from her Senate salary. The couple paid $697,611 in taxes this year with an effective rate of 38.4 percent. In 2017, before the Republican tax overhaul went into effect, they paid an effective tax rate of 40 percent and paid about a half-million dollars in taxes on lower income. The couple reported more than $225,000 in state and local tax payments, but the tax overhaul capped the amount they could deduct from their federal taxes at $10,000. Emhoff didnt qualify for a 20 percent deduction for pass-through business owners included in the new law because the deduction isnt granted to law firms. Book Royalties Harris reported profiting about $320,000 from her book The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, which was published in January. Harris is viewed as a top-tier contender in a large and growing Democratic field, running competitively in surveys for third place behind the much better-known former Vice President Joe Biden, who hasnt officially announced, and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. She raised $12 million in the first quarter of 2019, second only to Sanders. Harris has focused her message around progressive economics and social justice for immigrants, African Americans and the LGBT community. She has proposed cutting taxes for middle-income and low-income families by providing tax credits and direct payments to those households. Story continues She has also proposed to pay for these tax breaks by rolling back benefits for those making more than $100,000 and to put a levy on banks with more than $50 billion in assets. A Decades Worth Before being elected to the Senate in 2016, Harris served as the California attorney general and as the San Francisco district attorney. Shes scheduled to campaign in the important early-voting state of South Carolina this week. Harris joins several other 2020 hopefuls, including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, in releasing more than a decade of tax returns. Democrats have been using the release of their tax information to contrast with President Donald Trump, who in the 2016 campaign became the first presidential candidate in more than 40 years to refuse to release his returns. Sanders, who released only one year of returns when he ran for the Democratic nomination in 2016, has said hell make a decades worth public by April 15, the tax filing deadline. His campaign manager Faiz Shakir said Saturday that the senators tax returns will be boring. House Democrats have asked the IRS to hand over Trumps tax returns, citing a 1924 law that allows the chairmen of the tax-writing committee to demand the returns of any American taxpayer. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who oversees the agency, has asked the Justice Department to review the request, but Trump, White House officials, Republican members of Congress and the presidents lawyers have all said it would be a violation of his privacy to do so. Trump has said at times that he cant release his returns because they are under audit, though theres no prohibition from releasing returns to Congress or the public while under audit. The president has been clear from the beginning, as long as his taxes are under audit, hes not going to release them, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Fox News Sunday. House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal has given the IRS an April 23 deadline to release the returns, but the fight is expected to drag on for some time. KAR Auction Services, Inc. (NYSE:KAR), which is in the commercial services business, and is based in United States, saw a double-digit share price rise of over 10% in the past couple of months on the NYSE. With many analysts covering the mid-cap stock, we may expect any price-sensitive announcements have already been factored into the stocks share price. But what if there is still an opportunity to buy? Today I will analyse the most recent data on KAR Auction Servicess outlook and valuation to see if the opportunity still exists. Check out our latest analysis for KAR Auction Services What is KAR Auction Services worth? Great news for investors KAR Auction Services is still trading at a fairly cheap price. According to my valuation, the intrinsic value for the stock is $69.29, which is above what the market is valuing the company at the moment. This indicates a potential opportunity to buy low. Although, there may be another chance to buy again in the future. This is because KAR Auction Servicess beta (a measure of share price volatility) is high, meaning its price movements will be exaggerated relative to the rest of the market. If the market is bearish, the company's shares will likely fall by more than the rest of the market, providing a prime buying opportunity. Can we expect growth from KAR Auction Services? NYSE:KAR Past and Future Earnings, April 15th 2019 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. Buying a great company with a robust outlook at a cheap price is always a good investment, so lets also take a look at the company's future expectations. With profit expected to grow by a double-digit 16% over the next couple of years, the outlook is positive for KAR Auction Services. It looks like higher cash flow is on the cards for the stock, which should feed into a higher share valuation. What this means for you: Are you a shareholder? Since KAR is currently undervalued, it may be a great time to accumulate more of 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. Story continues Are you a potential investor? If youve been keeping an eye on KAR 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 KAR. 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 KAR Auction Services. You can find everything you need to know about KAR Auction Services in the latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in KAR Auction Services, you can use our free platform to see my list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. This article is for investors who would like to improve their understanding of price to earnings ratios (P/E ratios). We'll show how you can use Universal Corporation's (NYSE:UVV) P/E ratio to inform your assessment of the investment opportunity. What is Universal's P/E ratio? Well, based on the last twelve months it is 13.52. That means that at current prices, buyers pay $13.52 for every $1 in trailing yearly profits. Check out our latest analysis for Universal How Do You Calculate A P/E Ratio? The formula for P/E is: Price to Earnings Ratio = Price per Share Earnings per Share (EPS) Or for Universal: P/E of 13.52 = $55.59 $4.11 (Based on the year to December 2018.) Is A High P/E Ratio Good? A higher P/E ratio implies that investors pay a higher price for the earning power of the business. That isn't necessarily good or bad, but a high P/E implies relatively high expectations of what a company can achieve in the future. How Growth Rates Impact P/E Ratios P/E ratios primarily reflect market expectations around earnings growth rates. That's because companies that grow earnings per share quickly will rapidly increase the 'E' in the equation. 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. Universal's 209% EPS improvement over the last year was like bamboo growth after rain; rapid and impressive. On the other hand, the longer term performance is poor, with EPS down 6.5% per year over 5 years. Does Universal Have A Relatively High Or Low P/E For Its Industry? We can get an indication of market expectations by looking at the P/E ratio. We can see in the image below that the average P/E (16.4) for companies in the tobacco industry is higher than Universal's P/E. NYSE:UVV Price Estimation Relative to Market, April 15th 2019 Its relatively low P/E ratio indicates that Universal shareholders think it will struggle to do as well as other companies in its industry classification. While current expectations are low, the stock could be undervalued if the situation is better than the market assumes. If you consider the stock interesting, further research is recommended. For example, I often monitor director buying and selling. Story continues A Limitation: P/E Ratios Ignore Debt and Cash In The Bank Don't forget that the P/E ratio considers market capitalization. Thus, the metric does not reflect cash or debt held by the company. Hypothetically, a company could reduce its future P/E ratio by spending its cash (or taking on debt) to achieve higher earnings. Spending on growth might be good or bad a few years later, but the point is that the P/E ratio does not account for the option (or lack thereof). Is Debt Impacting Universal's P/E? Net debt is 26% of Universal's market cap. You'd want to be aware of this fact, but it doesn't bother us. The Bottom Line On Universal's P/E Ratio Universal has a P/E of 13.5. That's below the average in the US market, which is 18.2. The EPS growth last year was strong, and debt levels are quite reasonable. The low P/E ratio suggests current market expectations are muted, implying these levels of growth will not continue. Investors have an opportunity when market expectations about a stock are wrong. If it is underestimating a company, investors can make money by buying and holding the shares until the market corrects itself. We don't have analyst forecasts, but you could get a better understanding of its growth by checking out this more detailed historical graph of earnings, revenue and cash flow. Of course you might be able to find a better stock than Universal. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have grown earnings strongly. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. South Korean President Moon Jae-in is willing to go anywhere to meet Kim Jong Un for a fourth summit, he said Monday, hailing the North Korean leader's willingness to salvage high-stakes talks with the United States. Kim said Friday he was open to a third meeting with US President Donald Trump if Washington offered "mutually acceptable terms" after their second summit in Hanoi broke down in part over Pyongyang's demands for immediate sanctions relief. Moon, who brokered the talks between Washington and Pyongyang, welcomed Kim's "firm commitment for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula" and called for what would be his fourth meeting with the North's leader. "As soon as North Korea is ready, I hope the two Koreas will be able to sit down together, regardless of venue and form," Moon told a meeting with his top aides. "I will spare no effort to ensure that the upcoming inter-Korean summit becomes a stepping stone for an even bigger opportunity and a more significant outcome." The remarks come after Moon's brief summit with Trump at the White House last week as he tries to reignite the stalled diplomacy. Moon, who has long backed engagement with the nuclear-armed North, has been pushing for the resumption of inter-Korean economic projects, but doing so would fall foul of international sanctions imposed on Pyongyang. Trump and Kim held their first landmark summit in Singapore last June, where they signed a vaguely-worded agreement on the "denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula." The failure to reach agreement at their second summit in Hanoi has raised questions over the future of the accord. Washington has blamed the deadlock on the North's demands for sanctions relief in return for limited nuclear disarmament, but Pyongyang said it had wanted only some of the measures eased. In a speech to Pyongyang's rubber-stamp parliament on Friday, Kim said the Hanoi meeting raised questions about Washington's intention but added he will wait until the end of the year for the US to make "a courageous decision". Trump has welcomed further talks with Kim, insisting their personal relationship was "excellent". Lori Loughlin plans to fight the charges against her in the college admissions bribery case. Monday, the "Full House" actress and her fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, filed federal court documents saying they waive their right to appear in court for an arraignment and plead not guilty. (Their arraignment dates had not been set.) "Ms. Loughlin and her counsel affirm that Ms. Loughlin has received a copy of the (indictment) and that Ms. Loughlin pleads NOT GUILTY to each of the charges against her," the two-paragraph document reads. "Accordingly, Ms. Loughlin respectfully requests that the court accept this waiver and enter Ms. Loughlin's plea of NOT GUILTY." Giannulli's document says much the same. Last week, Loughlin, Giannulli and other parents charged in the cheating scheme were indicted on an additional felony count of money laundering, on top of the mail fraud and honest services fraud counts they were charged with last month by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston. Several other indicted parents entered not guilty pleas, indicating they plan to challenge the government's case against them at trial. They resisted prosecutors' pressure on them to agree to plea negotiations. Loughlin and Giannulli are accused of paying $500,000 in bribes to coaches so their non-athlete daughters could be designated as crew recruits, easing their admission to the University of Southern California-Los Angeles. The couple have not commented publicly on the charges. Their decision to plead not guilty is in contrast to that of actress Felicity Huffman and a dozen other parents who agreed to plead guilty last week, avoiding the additional charge of money laundering and the possibility of conviction at a trial. Huffman issued a statement of contrition after her agreement to plead guilty, saying she was "ashamed" of her actions and apologizing to her daughter and to other students and their parents who work to get into college without cheating. Story continues Actress Lori Loughlin arrives at court to face charges in the college admissions scandal in Boston, on April 3, 2019. 'I am ashamed': Felicity Huffman pleads guilty in college admissions cheating scam Huffman and the other parents who pleaded guilty have not had their sentencing hearings, but prosecutors indicated in proposed plea agreements they plan to demand at least some prison time for them. Huffman was accused of paying $15,000 to a fake charity as a means to arrange for a test monitor to correct her elder daughter's SAT college entrance exam to inflate her score. Loughlin, Giannulli and other parents made their first court appearances in the case, along with Huffman, in Boston on April 3, to something of a circus atmosphere outside the federal courthouse. Supporters and detractors chanted her name or mockingly asked her to pay their college tuition. The documents filed Monday allow them to avoid another public appearance like that. What's next? Under the usual process, preliminary hearings will be scheduled in federal court in Boston to discuss discovery and pretrial motions, says Adam Citron, a former prosecutor who is a defense attorney in New York. "A trial is still a very long way off, and there is still the possibility that Loughlin and her husband will plead (guilty) prior to hearings," Citron says. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lori Loughlin, husband Mossimo Giannulli plead not guilty in college admissions scam Little Zion Missionary Baptit Church Unity Service OPELOUSAS, La. On a sunny Sunday after earlier weekend rain and storms had passed, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards led a unity service here to bring families together from three churches lost to arson in recent weeks. Congregations from three historically black churches St. Mary Baptist Church, Greater Union Baptist Church and Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church gathered for a Palm Sunday group service at Little Zion Baptist Church near downtown Opelousas. The three churches, each with generations of history, burned over a 10-day period, the targets, police say, of 21-year-old Holden Matthews, the son of a St. Landry Parish sheriff's deputy. He was arrested last week, charged with the fires that haunted this St. Landry community. But Sunday's service was a celebration of unity, a time for the families left without their churches to join with visiting pastors and officials from across Louisiana in a service intended to uplift this community. Little Zion Missionary Baptit Church Unity Service "Today we have an opportunity to come together and perform a clergy of our love for our fellow brothers and sisters in their time of need," said Rev. Freddie Jack, president of the Seventh District Missionary Baptist Association. The Voices of Victory choir led the church throughout the service, and donations were presented by local and surrounding parish churches to help aid their efforts in rebuilding the three institutions, including a $2,000 donation to each from Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. April 12: La. church fires: Documents claim suspect bought gas can before crimes April 11: Suspect accused of burning black churches 'didn't seem right,' and used racial slurs "I am originally from this community," said Russell Ledet, a member of Omega Psi Phi. "My family is linked to the Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church and many of our ancestors are linked to that cemetery." The fraternity, founded at the historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C., "denounces any form of disrespect towards centers of worship, particularly the three African American churches burned in St. Landry Parish and Louisiana and resolve to support these institutions in their efforts to rebuild and encourage our members to do the same," Ledet said. Story continues The three congregations could have been filled with heartache, anquish, even anger at this service in the wake of their loss. But they shared hope and faith instead Sunday, and a commitment to come back stronger in the face of the tragedy. Little Zion Missionary Baptit Church Unity Service "This gathering says a lot about this community, it says a lot about these churches and the people who live here," Edwards told the congregations. "What you all in this community and congregations have is an example of faith and an example for the state of Louisiana. Today is Palm Sunday, and Palm Sunday is when we celebrate Jesus' triumphant victory into Jerusalem," he said. "And while hearts may be heavy today because of the burden we have and churches that need to be rebuilt, I hope this tragedy can be turned into a triumph of faith, hope, and love." April 11: Louisiana church fires: Deputy's son arrested as authorities investigate ties to black metal April 9: Fires destroy three churches in Louisiana in the past two weeks. Here's the status of the investigation "It is our obligation to forgive and really, it's actually more than that. Matthew 5: 44: 'Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.' We need to pray for Holden Matthews. I know sometimes that doesn't come naturally to us as human beings, but that is what we are called to do," Edwards said. "Let's pray for him and his family that he will become a better person. I know you will rebuild. A lot of churches have come together to rebuild your churches. You are going to rebuild and you will have young people and maybe not so young people being baptized in those churches." Other officials who attended the service included State Fire Marshall Butch Browning, who led the investigation that resulted in the arrest of Matthews last week; St. Landry Parish President Bill Fontenot; and Opelousas Mayor Julius Alsandor. Many of the families affected by the fires have been involved with their churches their entire lives. Joe Durio, a Port Barre, Louisiana, native and New Orleans chef, would drive more than two hours to Port Barre from New Orleans each Sunday to attend service at St. Mary Baptist Church. April 5: Suspicious fires destroy three black churches in 10 days in Louisiana parish "I was the fifth generation of my family to attend St. Mary Baptist Church. I would drive in from New Orleans every week to come to church and this has been hard to spend it with all of my relatives who raised me to go back and see nothing left there. It's been very hard but there is a strong faith that has come out of this and our church," said Durio. "I'm looking forward to having a bigger and better congregation," he said. There were many locals from the community who came to show their love and support to the families, such as 55-year-old Michael Singelton. "This congregation was wonderful. The service helps lift our community and puts a fire in us to do better. I pray that the Lord goes into that young man's soul and fills him with the real fire. You know we all need a change of heart," said Singelton. Follow The (Lafayette, La.) Daily Advertiser on Twitter: @theadvertiser This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Louisiana congregations devastated by fires share hope, faith in unity service Paris (AFP) - French President Emmanuel Macron proposed an annual day of commemoration for the Rwanda genocide on Sunday as the African nation marked 25 years since the massacres of the minority Tutsi community. The French leader expressed his "solidarity with the Rwandan people and his compassion for the victims and their families" in a statement that proposed April 7 as an annual remembrance day in France. Macron drew criticism from some activists for failing to attend the start of commemoration events in Rwanda on Sunday, instead sending a personal envoy, a Rwandan-born MP Herve Berville who was orphaned in the 1993 violence. A Rwandan victims' group, Ibuka France, hailed Macron's announcement of a national Rwanda genocide day and said it had suggested the idea during a meeting with the 41-year-old leader last week. "My reaction is one of satisfaction," the head of the group, Marcel Kabanda, said before adding that he hoped France would now introspect more about its role in the massacres. "It's not the French population fundamentally, but the political elite that needs to talk about it more. It will take time but it's a new phase," he told AFP. The genocide has cast a long shadow over Franco-Rwandan relations. Rwanda's current President Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, accuses France of having supported the ethnic Hutu forces behind most of the slaughter and of helping some of the perpetrators to escape. On Friday, Macron announced the creation of a commission of historians and researchers that will delve into the French state's archives in a move intended to set the historical record straight. Paris (AFP) - A huge fire swept through the roof of the famed Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on Monday evening, sending flames and huge clouds of grey smoke billowing into the sky. The flames and smoke plumed from the spire and roof of the gothic cathedral, visited by millions of people a year. A spokesman for the cathedral told AFP that the wooden structure supporting the roof was being gutted by the blaze. The fire service said the blaze could be "potentially linked" to ongoing renovations. President Emmanuel Macron cancelled a major televised policy speech he was due to give on Monday evening over the "terrible fire ravaging Notre-Dame." Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo in a tweet described it as a "terrible fire". "The Paris fire service is trying to control the flames," she wrote on Twitter, asking residents to respect the security cordon thrown up around the site. A spokesperson for the cathedral said the fire, which comes as French Catholics prepare to celebrate Easter, broke out at around 1650 GMT. Fire trucks could be seen speeding through Paris towards the scene on the Ile de la Cite -- an island in the Seine at the heart of Paris. The Paris police department in a tweet called on residents to avoid the area and to "make way for rescue vehicles". US President Donald Trump in a tweet said: "So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!" Hundreds of people gathered on the bridges of Paris downriver to witness the scene, some filming the images with their smartphones, an AFP reporter said. A burning smell filled the air. Toppled Malaysian leader Najib Razak returned to court for the second day of his high-profile corruption trial Monday, with the former premier accused of plundering large sums from scandal-hit state fund 1MDB. The 65-year-old finally went on trial this month over his alleged role in looting the investment vehicle, the first of several court cases he is expected to face over the controversy. The ex-prime minister and his cronies are accused of stealing billions of dollars from 1MDB and spending it on everything from high-end real estate to artworks and a luxury yacht. The allegations played a large part in prompting voters to oust his corruption-plagued coalition, which had been in power for six decades, at historic elections last year. Since then, Najib has been arrested and hit with dozens of charges over the scandal. The ex-leader's highly-anticipated trial began on April 3, with Najib denying seven charges related to the theft of 42 million ringgit ($10.2 million) from SRC International, a former 1MDB unit. It is just a fraction of the money Najib is accused of stealing -- he has also been charged in a separate case over the alleged transfer of $681 million to his bank account. He arrived at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur Monday for the second day of proceedings, wearing a dark suit and tie, and passed through a scrum of journalists before entering the courtroom and taking his seat in the dock. - Bank raid - The main witness called Monday was Azizul Adzani Abdul Ghafar, an investigating officer from the central bank, who was part of a team that raided the branch of a local lender, AmBank. The officers seized documents related to accounts held by Najib at the bank, accounts belonging to SRC International, and accounts held by another company. The stolen money from SRC was allegedly sent to Najib's accounts at AmBank. Earlier Najib's defence team cross-examined Companies Commission of Malaysia official Muhamad Akmaluddin Abdullah, who had testified when the trial opened, on matters related to SRC's records. Story continues After the trial was adjourned for the day, Najib's chief lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said the prosecution would have to prove the ex-leader knew the money flows were illicit to convict him. There can be many transactions. The issue is does (Najib) know the exact thing that is going on, does he know in fact it is from illegal sources?" he told reporters outside court. "The prosecution need to show that he is complicit, that he is part of the conspiracy." Najib has consistently denied any wrongdoing over the looting of 1MDB. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who came out of retirement to lead an alliance to a shock election victory against Najib's government last year, has pledged to bring Najib to justice and recoup the huge sums of cash stolen from 1MDB. The US Department of Justice, which is investigating the 1MDB controversy as money was allegedly laundered through the American financial system, believes $4.5 billion in total was looted from the fund. Malaysia has also charged Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs over the scandal, alleging the bank and its former employees stole billions of dollars from 1MDB. Outbreaks have struck around the world (Getty) Measles cases have soared around the world, according to new figures from the World Health Organisation, as anti-vaccine campaigners spread lies on social media. The World Health Organisation said, Preliminary global data shows that reported cases rose by 300% in the first three months of 2019, compared to the same period in 2018. This follows consecutive increases over the past two years. While this data is provisional and not yet complete, it indicates a clear trend. Many countries are in the midst of sizeable measles outbreaks, with all regions of the world experiencing sustained rises in cases. The WHO said that 170 countries have reported 112,163 measles cases while last year, 163 countries had reported 28,124 cases. Read more from Yahoo News UK: Number of teen pregnancies falls for tenth year running Man who set fire to model of Grenfell Tower charged Father of boy, nine, killed by dog pays emotional tribute The WHO said that some outbreaks are due to clusters of unvaccinated people. In America, unvaccinated children have been banned from public areas such as shopping centres and schools as a measles outbreak has gripped New York City. Rockland County has declared a state of emergency, and banned anyone under 18 who is not vaccinated against measles from public areas. Anyone in violation of the declaration could be charged with a misdemeanour punishable by up to six months in jail. Its an attention grab, theres no question about it, Rockland County Executive Ed Day said saying that health workers had faced resistance when investigating measles cases. There will not be law enforcement or deputy sheriffs asking for vaccination records. That is ridiculous, Mr Day said. However, parents will be held accountable if theyre found to be in violation of this emergency declaration. Every year, 1.5 million children around the world die from diseases which can be prevented with vaccines and so-called anti-vaxxers contribute to this. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Measles cases in the U.S. are at the second-highest level in 25 years, with the number expected to rise. There have been 555 reported measles cases in 2019 as of last Thursday, according to figures the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Monday. Thats 183 cases more than last year, and only 112 cases fewer than in 2014, when there were 667 cases. Since its only April, this years number is likely to surpass 2014s and could rival the 963 cases in 1994, 25 years ago. As of last week, the CDC said the disease has spread to five more states Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts and Nevada bringing the total number of states affected up to 20. From Jan. 1 to April 11 this year, there have been 555 individual cases of measles confirmed in 20 states. This is the second-greatest number of cases reported in the U.S. since 1994. (Photo: CDC) Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas and Washington have reported measles cases. Im obviously very concerned about the size and also acceleration of the current outbreak, Dr. Nancy Messonier, director of the CDCs National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told CNN. This is not going to stop on its own. Measles is on the rise globally, with 300% more reported cases in the first three months of 2019 than in the same period last year, the World Health Organization said on Monday. Preliminary global data on #measles shows that reported cases rose by 300% in the first three months of 2019, compared to the same period in 2018. This follows consecutive increases over the past two years. https://t.co/fY27Rlzlqw #VaccinesWork pic.twitter.com/oImdYl4L9G World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) April 15, 2019 There are currently outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Myanmar, the Philippines, Sudan, Thailand and Ukraine. Story continues The outbreak in Madagascar, the largest in the countrys history, has killed more than 1,200 people, most of them children, The Associated Press recently reported. Officials attribute the high number of deaths to low vaccination rates, poverty and malnutrition. In 2017, the most recent year for which estimates are available, it caused close to 110,000 deaths, the WHO said in a release. Even in high-income countries, complications result in hospitalization in up to a quarter of cases, and can lead to lifelong disability, from brain damage and blindness to hearing loss. A volunteer nurse at a health care center in Larintsena, Madagascar, examines a 6-month-old who has measles while her mother, Nifaliana Razaijafisoa, looks on. (Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS) Measles was nearly eliminated in the U.S. in 2000. The CDC attributes the rise of measles cases in the country to outbreaks in unvaccinated communities after travelers overseas contracted the disease and brought it to the U.S. Last year, 82 people brought measles to the U.S. from other countries. It was the greatest number of imported cases since 2000. Health officials have urged the public to get vaccinated for the disease, as the majority of people who have contracted measles were unvaccinated. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a public health emergency last week that would require vaccinations for people living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where parents in ultra-Orthodox communities oppose vaccinating their children. A sign in Williamsburg warning people of measles two days after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a public health emergency in parts of Brooklyn. (Photo: Shannon Stapleton / Reuters) Three major outbreaks last year in New York State, New York City and New Jersey contributed to most of the years measles cases. Those cases occurred primarily among unvaccinated people in Orthodox Jewish communities, the CDC said. The measles virus, which invades the nose and throat, spreads through coughing and sneezing. It causes fever and congestion and can lead to disabling or fatal complications, including severe diarrhea, pneumonia and brain inflammation. The virus can live up to two hours in the air where an infected person coughed or sneezed. The vaccine is 97% effective, authorities say. Measles is so contagious that if one person has it, up to 90% of the people close to that person who are not immune will also become infected, the CDC has said. Related Coverage Measles Cases This Year Surpass 2018's Full-Year Total This article originally appeared on HuffPost. While some investors are already well versed in financial metrics (hat tip), this article is for those who would like to learn about Return On Equity (ROE) and why it is important. We'll use ROE to examine Michelmersh Brick Holdings plc (LON:MBH), by way of a worked example. Over the last twelve months Michelmersh Brick Holdings has recorded a ROE of 7.8%. One way to conceptualize this, is that for each 1 of shareholders' equity it has, the company made 0.078 in profit. View our latest analysis for Michelmersh Brick Holdings How Do I Calculate ROE? The formula for return on equity is: Return on Equity = Net Profit Shareholders' Equity Or for Michelmersh Brick Holdings: 7.8% = UK5.0m UK64m (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2018.) Most know that net profit is the total earnings after all expenses, but the concept of shareholders' equity is a little more complicated. It is all the money paid into the company from shareholders, plus any earnings retained. Shareholders' equity can be calculated by subtracting the total liabilities of the company from the total assets of the company. What Does ROE Mean? ROE looks at the amount a company earns relative to the money it has kept within the business. The 'return' is the yearly profit. The higher the ROE, the more profit the company is making. So, all else being equal, a high ROE is better than a low one. That means it can be interesting to compare the ROE of different companies. Does Michelmersh Brick Holdings Have A Good ROE? One simple way to determine if a company has a good return on equity is to compare it to the average for its industry. Importantly, this is far from a perfect measure, because companies differ significantly within the same industry classification. As shown in the graphic below, Michelmersh Brick Holdings has a lower ROE than the average (13%) in the Basic Materials industry classification. AIM:MBH Past Revenue and Net Income, April 15th 2019 That's not what we like to see. It is better when the ROE is above industry average, but a low one doesn't necessarily mean the business is overpriced. Nonetheless, it could be useful to double-check if insiders have sold shares recently. Story continues The Importance Of Debt To Return On Equity Virtually all companies need money to invest in the business, to grow profits. That cash can come from retained earnings, issuing new shares (equity), or debt. In the case of the first and second options, the ROE will reflect this use of cash, for growth. In the latter case, the debt required for growth will boost returns, but will not impact the shareholders' equity. Thus the use of debt can improve ROE, albeit along with extra risk in the case of stormy weather, metaphorically speaking. Michelmersh Brick Holdings's Debt And Its 7.8% ROE Michelmersh Brick Holdings has a debt to equity ratio of 0.27, which is far from excessive. I'm not impressed with its ROE, but the debt levels are not too high, indicating the business has decent prospects. Judicious use of debt to improve returns can certainly be a good thing, although it does elevate risk slightly and reduce future optionality. In Summary Return on equity is one way we can compare the business quality of different companies. A company that can achieve a high return on equity without debt could be considered a high quality business. All else being equal, a higher ROE is better. But when a business is high quality, the market often bids it up to a price that reflects this. It is important to consider other factors, such as future profit growth -- and how much investment is required going forward. So you might want to take a peek at this data-rich interactive graph of forecasts for the company. Of course Michelmersh Brick Holdings may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have high ROE and low debt. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. A small evangelical Christian college is getting pushback over its decision to invite Vice President Mike Pence to deliver this years commencement speech. Taylor University, in Pences home state of Indiana, has been getting complaints from some students, alumni and faculty since announcing the vice presidents selection as 2019 commencement speaker on April 11. This decision doesnt reassure those with underrepresented voices that they can flourish at Taylor; it leaves them feeling isolated and invisible wrote Amy Peterson, an adjunct faculty member, in an April 12 op-ed for The Washington Post. It reads like a deliberate and definitive statement about who we are and about what we think virtue in the public sphere looks like and, by implication, who doesnt belong. A petition started by 2007 Taylor graduate Alex Hoekstra within hours of the schools announcement has garnered over 3,500 signatures calling for the invitation to be rescinded. Inviting Vice President Pence to Taylor University and giving him a coveted platform for his political views makes our alumni, faculty, staff and current students complicit in the Trump-Pence Administrations policies, which we believe are not consistent with the Christian ethic of love we hold dear, the petition states. The petition includes contact information for university President Paul Lowell Haines, as well as other administrative officials, student organizations, and donors. As an alumni of Taylor and as a gay man Im pretty personally injured by the policies of the Trump/Pence administration and I know that a lot of alumni who identify as other minority groups are personally affected by the Trump/Pence administration, Hoekstra told Newsweek on Thursday. Pence faced similar protests when over 100 students at Notre Dame, a Catholic university, walked out during his 2017 commencement speech there. Its unclear how many of Taylor Universitys roughly 2,000 students are upset with the selection. According to Peterson, a majority of faculty members at the university oppose Pence delivering the May 18 speech. Story continues She wrote: As soon as the announcement was made, a professor from the biblical studies, Christian ministries and philosophy department called for a vote of dissent. After some discussion, during which some faculty expressed support for Pences presence, comparing him to the biblical figure of Daniel, and others critiqued the decision, 49 faculty voted in favor of Pence addressing the community at commencement. Sixty-one voted in opposition. James Garringer, a Taylor University spokesman, said Monday in a statement that the school wasnt reconsidering the invitation. Since making the announcement of Vice President Mike Pences upcoming commencement speech, we have received feedback from people on either side of the issue, Garringer said. Taylor University is an intentional Christian community that strives to encourage positive, respectful and meaningful dialogue. We look forward to hosting the Vice President next month. The school president, in announcing Pence as commencement speaker, called the vice president a good friend to the University over many years, and a Christian brother whose life and values have exemplified what we strive to instill in our graduates. By James Oliphant (Reuters) - Pete Buttigieg, the millennial-aged mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who has enjoyed a surge in opinion polls and a torrent of media coverage, formally launched a bid on Sunday for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. "It is time to walk away from the politics of the past and toward something totally different," he said at a launch event in South Bend. No potential contender in the burgeoning Democratic field has seen as rapid a rise in the early stages of the campaign as Buttigieg, who has gone from obscure Midwestern politician to top-tier contender in a matter of weeks. At 37, Buttigieg becomes the youngest entrant in a field that features 77-year-old U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and, likely soon, 76-year-old former Vice President Joe Biden - a contrast Buttigieg has embraced. "I recognize the audacity of doing this as a Midwestern millennial mayor," he told the crowd. "More than a little bold at age 37 to seek the highest office in the land." The man known as "Mayor Pete" has styled himself as the voice of the millennial generation, often talking about what the United States might look like decades from now. "I take that long view because I have to," Buttigieg said. "I come from that generation that grew up with school shootings as the norm, the generation that produced the bulk of the troops in the post-9/11 conflicts, the generation that is going to be on the business end of climate change for as long as we live." Buttigieg is the first openly gay major presidential candidate, which has given him inroads into a Democratic base that increasingly values diversity and progressivism. During the event, he frequently mentioned his husband, Chasten, and spoke of the struggle to legalize same-sex marriage. "Our marriage exists by the grace of a single vote on the U.S. Supreme Court," he said. As mayor of South Bend since 2012, he has presided over an economic turnaround that has brought new investment into the struggling northwestern Indiana industrial town, an achievement likely to be a central plank of his presidential campaign. Story continues Indeed, his kick-off event was held inside the cavernous former plant that once made Studebaker autos. It closed in 1963 and only now is being redeveloped. Polls of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire released last week showed Buttigieg in third place in both early-voting states, although still well behind Biden and Sanders. Buttigieg raised $7 million in the first quarter of the year, surpassing more established rivals such as U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. More than a dozen Democrats have announced a run for the chance to take on President Donald Trump, a Republican, in the November 2020 general election. Democratic voters will begin the process of selecting a nominee in a series of contests beginning early next year. A former Rhodes Scholar, consultant for the firm McKinsey and Co and U.S. Navy reservist who served in Afghanistan, Buttigieg has the kind of background that could appeal to both moderates and progressives in the party. But questions will persist about whether the mayor of an Indiana city of 100,000 residents is ready to run a nation of 330 million. (Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Jonathan Oatis and Nick Zieminski) Just one year ago, Jamil Rivers, 40, found out she had metastatic breast cancer. The Philadelphia mom of three, who is still working full-time, tells PEOPLE about her diagnosis in the third part of a four-part series about her battle to survive and thrive for her family and for other women battling cancer. When I was diagnosed with stage-4 breast cancer my entire world turned upside down. I couldnt believe it was happening to me. I was so young, I had three young kids, my husband Ricky was battling cancer and now this? One of the hardest parts was that I had no idea what having metastatic breast cancer really meant. I had to educate myself. My health was in my hands and to survive, I needed to know everything. Research was key. I worked full-time through all of my treatments, which included 10 months of chemotherapy. I began to educate other women who were going through cancer and wanted to help them feel prepared like I did. They had to have the correct tools and knowledge. People think breast cancer is an old ladies disease and that couldnt be further from the truth. Young women get it too. It needs to be on their radar. African-American women with breast cancer are also dying at a 40 percent higher rate nationwide, so I make sure to educate them on their unique risks too. Jamil and Ricky Rivers with their three children | Jamil Rivers Im now a board member and a Young Advocate at Living Beyond Breast Cancer, on the metastatic advisory board at Susan G. Komen, and volunteer for the cancer research program at the Department of Defense. I help women who are under the age of 45 and have been diagnosed with breast cancer. I take women under my wing and guide them. Right now Im helping about 30 women. I literally have them all in a spreadsheet and they keep me posted on how theyre doing. A lot of people come to me asking for my help because they feel lost. I teach them about integrative therapy, how to have conversations with your doctors, learning about the type of breast cancer they have and clinical trials that are available. I also keep them up to date on the latest innovations. Story continues It can be so overwhelming and family members and caregivers can only help so much. Women with breast cancer need to feel empowered and its very easy to struggle. They need to fight the fight. Its very easy to retreat within yourself and its hard to talk to other people who dont really get it. Its easy to crumble, but if you do, then what happens? You have to be there for not just yourself, but your family. I want to be a reinforcement and catch women who are stumbling off the track. Jamil Rivers Its so rewarding to see a woman find her strength and push forward. Even if we dont have a cure, we want to live with this disease for a long time. If we can control it like diabetes, then we are okay with that. We dont want to just technically be alive; we want to live and enjoy our lives with our families. Ilhan Omar said she had received death threats in response to the president's tweet - AP US congresswoman Ilhan Omar has blamed Donald Trump for a spike in death threats against her after the president tweeted a video suggesting she was dismissive of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. "This is endangering lives," she said, accusing Mr Trump of fomenting right-wing extremism. "It has to stop." Mr Trump has been heavily criticised for the tweet and accused by some of inciting violence against Ms Omar, who became one of the first Muslim women to sit in Congress in January. The video included a snippet from a recent speech Ms Omar gave to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in which she described the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center as "some people did something," along with news footage of the hijacked airplanes hitting the Twin Towers. Mr Trump shared the video along with the caption: "we will never forget!" Ms Omar was accused of being flippant in describing the perpetrators of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. She later sought to defend herself by tweeting a quote from President George W Bush, in which the Republican president referred to the attackers as "people" just days after the tragedy. I did not run for Congress to be silent. I did not run for Congress to sit on the sidelines. I ran because I believed it was time to restore moral clarity and courage to Congress. To fight and to defend our democracy. Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) April 13, 2019 Neither Mr Trump's tweet nor the video included Ms Omar's full quote or the context of her comments, which were about Muslims feeling that their civil liberties had eroded after the attacks. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House Speaker, called for Mr Trump to take down the video and said that she has taken steps to ensure Ms Omar's safety. "The President's words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger," Ms Pelosi said in a statement. Story continues Soon after Ms Pelosi's statement, the video disappeared as a pinned tweet at the top of Mr Trump's Twitter feed but it has not been deleted. It has had more than 10 million views since it was posted. Mr Trump also lashed out at Ms Pelosi, tweeting on Monday: "Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. hate statements Omar has made". "She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy!" Mr Trump added. Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made. She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019 A man from New York state was recently charged with making death threats against Ms Omar. The congresswoman, who represents a district in Minnesota, said since Mr Trump's tweet she has received numerous threats on her life that referred or replied to the posted video. "Violent crimes and other acts of hate by right-wing extremists and white nationalists are on the rise in this country and around the world," she said. "We can no longer ignore that they are being encouraged by the occupant of the highest office in the land." "We are all Americans," she added. It is not the first time Ms Omar has been the subject of controversy. Earlier this year she apologised for suggesting that congressmen support Israel because of pro-Israeli lobbying and said "my intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole". But she refused to take back a tweet in which she suggested American supporters of Israel "pledge allegiance" to a foreign country. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked House officials on Sunday to review security measures intended to protect Ilhan Omar after President Donald Trump tweeted a video attacking the Minnesota Democrat using images of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Ms Pelosi was not responding to new information about the safety of Ms Omar, according to a senior Democratic aide. She called for the review based on dozens of threats made on Ms Omars life before Trump posted the video on Friday, the aide said. Following the presidents tweet, I spoke with the sergeant-at-arms to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff, Ms Pelosi said in a statement. They will continue to monitor and address the threats she faces. After Ms Pelosi released her statement, a spokesman for Ms Omar, Jeremy Slevin, said, Our office has seen an increase in direct threats on Rep. Omars life many directly referencing the presidents video. He said Ms Omars office has collected a series of menacing tweets over the past few days, some accusing her of treason. The footage promoted by Trump intercut images of the World Trade Centre aflame with comments from Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, about the treatment of Muslims after 9/11. Conservatives have seized on those remarks as dismissive of the attacks. The presidents words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger, Ms Pelosi said. President Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House press secretary, said Trump was not inciting violence against Ms Omar, or Muslims in general, and would not be ashamed for speaking out against violence. She added that Democrats should be taking the same hard line that the president is against Ms Omar. Ms Sanders said on Fox News Sunday that referring to the 9/11 attacks in such a dismissive way is frankly disgusting and abhorrent. Story continues Ms Omar, appearing at an event in Los Angeles in March sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy organisation, suggested that government officials infringed upon the free-speech rights of some Muslim Americans after the 9/11 attacks. CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognised that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties, she said, making an incorrect reference to the organisations founding, which actually took place in 1994. Ms Omars critics have seized on the some people did something remark. But others have said the words were taken out of context. The speech focused on attacks Muslims in America faced after 9/11. A spokesman for Ms Omar has said the entire speech was addressing civil rights and the danger of Islamophobia in the United States and around the world in particular the danger of associating all members of a religion with the acts of a few despicable terrorists. Ms Pelosi, who is travelling in Europe during the congressional recess, has tried to contact Ms Omar, but her travel schedule has made it difficult for the two to connect, a Democratic aide said. The speaker criticised Trump in a series of early-morning tweets Sunday from Germany, where she was visiting with US service members. It is wrong for the President, as Commander-in-Chief, to fan the flames to make anyone less safe, she wrote. But the remarks have caught fire in conservative circles. The New York Post, owned by Trump ally Rupert Murdoch, juxtaposed Ms Omars comments with a picture of the twin towers on its cover last week. On Friday, Trump followed suit. WE WILL NEVER FORGET, the president tweeted to his nearly 60 million followers, while posting the video that repeatedly played Ms Omars reference to some people, then cut to the planes slamming into the Manhattan skyline. Ms Omar has been the subject of numerous threats. Earlier this month, federal prosecutors charged a New York state man with phoning in a death threat to her. The attacks on the congresswoman have provided Democrats with a rare opportunity to unify around Ms Omar, whose previous comments about Israel have been interpreted as antisemitic by some Jewish Democrats in Congress. After a fierce internal debate, Democrats passed a catchall anti-bigotry resolution in March that was intended, in part, to put the controversy over Ms Omars remarks to rest. Ms Pelosi joins a growing list of Democrats, including many of the declared 2020 candidates, who have denounced Trumps tweet. On Saturday, Senator Elizabeth Warren accused the president of inciting violence against a sitting Congresswoman and an entire group of Americans based on their religion in a tweet. Senator Kamala Harris said Trumps actions were another reminder of how important it was to unseat him in 2020. For two years, this President has used the most powerful platform in the world to sow hate & division, she tweeted. Ill be blunt we must defeat him. The New York Times House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has dismissed the influence of congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on her party, describing the socialist wing of Democrats in the House of Representatives as like, five people. Ms Pelosi has previously rejected the rising stars policy proposals including the Green New Deal plan to tackle climate change and the expansion of Medicare for all Americans. In a new interview, the speaker of the House insisted there was only a very small group of left-wing Democrats who subscribed to Ms Ocasio-Cortezs ideas. Asked by 60 Minutes interviewer Lesley Stahl about AOC and her group, Ms Pelosi replied: Thats, like, five people. When Ms Stahl suggested the progressive group is more than five, the California Democrat was careful not to give up on the broad label she applied to a large swathe of the House caucus. Well, the progressive ... Im a progressive, she said. The 79-year-old, who began her second speakership in January following the Democrats victory at the midterms, maintained that her party was not divided between radicals and moderates. By and large, whatever orientation they came to Congress with, they know that we have to hold the centre, she said. That we have to go down the mainstream. She also addressed the idea of improving upon President Obamas Affordable Care Act by expanding Medicare, a plan supported by Ms Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and other left-wing Democrats. Well [the] Affordable Care Act is better than Medicare, theres no question about that. The Affordable Care Act benefits are better. Medicare doesnt have a catastrophic plan. So if you want Medicare for all, youre going to have to change Medicare and lets take a look at that. Pleased to have had a candid discussion with @jeremycorbyn today about the direction of Brexit, Northern Ireland, NATO, acting boldly on climate, protecting human rights, and the necessity of forcefully confronting anti-Semitism & Islamophobia. pic.twitter.com/xadfAaZO8d Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) April 14, 2019 Ms Pelosi met Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Sunday at the beginning of her trip to the UK and Republic of Ireland. She said she had a candid discussion with the opposition leader about Brexit and antisemitism, among other subjects. Story continues The powerful Democrat has previously made subtle criticisms about politicians who depend on social media for public support. Ms Ocasio-Cortez, incidentally, has almost four million followers on Twitter. While there are people who have a large number of Twitter followers, whats important is that we have large numbers of votes on the floor of the House, Ms Pelosi said last week. In a February interview, the speaker of the House brushed off the idea of picking up Ms Ocasio-Cortezs Green New Deal proposal. It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive, Ms Pelosi said. The green dream, or whatever they call it nobody knows what it is, but theyre for it, right? Paris (AFP) - The ousting of Sudan president Omar al-Bashir by the army brought the curtain down on 30 years of iron-fisted rule in the northeastern African nation but failed to quell the anger of protesters who remain encamped outside army headquarters. Few international or regional powers shed public tears over the fall of a man who presided over years of civil war, the break-up of his country and is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes in the region of Darfur. But with protesters fearing that even with Bashir gone the military takeover heralds no meaningful change, the situation remains combustible in the Red Sea state of some 43 million, which borders seven countries. How are world and regional powers viewing the takeover and what would be the consequences outside Sudan of a prolonged period of violence and instability? - African neighbours at risk - Sudan sits nestled in a hugely diverse region in northeast Africa bordered by regional powerhouse Egypt to the north, with strife-torn states like Libya and Chad to the west and key regional player Ethiopia to the south. According to the International Crisis Group, Sudan is "surrounded by neighbours facing internal difficulties of their own" and should Sudan descend into chaos, "the turmoil could spill across borders". A wary observer of events in its bigger neighbour is South Sudan, which was created in 2011 as an independent state after years of fighting under Bashir and has itself been beset by conflict. Sudan remains a guarantor of South Sudan's own peace agreement. - Export violence to Chad? - But the biggest potential flashpoint could be Chad, where the government is fighting both Libya-based rebels and Islamist Boko Haram extremists. Analysts expressed concern over the naming of Mohammad Hamdan Daglo as the deputy chief of Sudanese military council. Widely known as Himeidti, he heads the feared Rapid Support Force (RSF) that grew out of the "janjaweed" militia accused of abuses in Darfur. Story continues "If Himeidti sufficiently reinforces his power he could be tempted to destabilise Chad," said Jerome Tubiana, an independent researcher specialising in Sudan. "The RSF are heavily armed and extremely dangerous. They could also export their violence to Libya and the Central African Republic," he told AFP. - Trouble for Darfur - The changes in Khartoum come with the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region -- which broke out in 2003 when rebels took up arms against Khartoum, accusing it of neglecting the region -- still unresolved. According to Tubiana, "there has been no resolution to the Darfur question and the repression is continuing", with the local population and Sudanese security forces still at odds. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Darfur rebels were currently fighting alongside the militia of strongman Khalifa Haftar in Libya as he seeks to take Tripoli, he added. "They could be tempted to return to Sudan to remind Khartoum to take account of Darfur," said Tubiana. - Heavyweight neighbours fear Islamists - Sudan's neighbour Egypt, and Cairo's influential Gulf allies the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, have raised no objection to the fall of Bashir. Cairo last week expressed its "complete support" for the Sudanese people and, crucially, the army. The situation in Sudan has drawn some parallels with that in Algeria, where popular protests won the resignation of ailing leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika but where the existing military elite is still very much in power. Analysts say the last thing Cairo, Abu Dhabi or Riyadh want in Sudan and Algeria is any kind of popular uprising that could bring to power the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, which they vehemently oppose. "If they are offered a military and pro-Arab authority, then they are okay with that even if it uses militia and is violent," said Tubiana. - EU, US cautious - The European Union and United States have trod nearly as carefully while calling for civilians to be brought into the government. Ethiopia under prime minister Abiy Ahmed and Turkey, whose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeatedly hosted Bashir in defiance of the ICC warrant, have also kept their distance. There is also little chance Sudan's current military authorities, many of whom were themselves involved in the Darfur conflict, will hand Bashir over to the ICC in The Hague to face trial. In a possible recognition of who currently holds the cards, the US envoy to Khartoum on Sunday Steven Koutsis met key military figures in Khartoum including Himeidti. "Washington should step up its coordination with the Gulf States and regional leaders such as Prime Minister Abiy of Ethiopia to press both sides to compromise," said Judd Devermont, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) Nicaragua's government said Monday it will implement a program to guarantee the safe return of exiles, a proposal the opposition dismissed as "absurd." Anyone who fled in the past year and does not have an open court case or formal accusation against them will be eligible to return, the foreign affairs ministry said in a statement. It said the International Organization for Migration would provide technical support, although that group said late Monday it had agreed only to study at the government's plan. The government made the proposal to the opposition Civic Alliance on April 10, but said it didn't reach a consensus. Alliance director Azahalea Solis said the group rejected the proposal as "absurd." "It's ridiculous to act like the exiles would believe the same government that threatened them, persecuted them, killed their relatives and occupied their houses is now going to safeguard their lives and safety," Solis said. She said the proposal did not include any real mechanism for protecting those who return. According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, at least 325 people have been killed during the past year of unrest. The commission estimates there are more than 52,000 people who have fled the country, mostly to Costa Rica. The Civic Alliance believes there are at least 160 people who fled the country while facing an arrest order. Solis said the alliance had countered the government's idea with a plan for returns to be supervised by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, but said the government rejected that idea. The government has opposed the commission as a guarantor of the negotiations. She also criticized the government for not completing the release of political prisoners that authorities had promised. Jairo Bonilla, a student protest leader who went to Costa Rica last year, said he still receives daily threats from government supporters. Story continues "For us as exiles there is no guarantee that we could return and nothing would happen to us," said Bonilla, who maintained that he is accused falsely of violent acts during the protests. Bonilla also said President Daniel Ortega is trying to relieve international pressure on his government. "He wants to make it seem like everything is normal in Nicaragua, that Nicaragua is negotiating, when every day they are killing more people, they are arresting more people without the world realizing it," Bonilla said. Human rights activist Sara Henriquez, exiled in Italy, called the proposal a "tremendous joke." "We don't have any assurance that they aren't going to kill us," she said. "All of us who left for exile, it was because we were threatened with death or we have cases with the police." ___ Associated Press writer Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed to this report. From US-Sino Talks to New Trade Wars, Weakening Global Economic Prospects Recently, IMF cut global growth forecasts. As US-Sino trade talks will give way to next trade wars, new tariff wars will not resolve US deficits but will further impair global economic prospects. Ever since the US-Sino trade talks began almost four months ago, the United States has pushed for a broad commitment focusing on Chinas economic practices, including participation of U.S. firms in certain industries and protection of U.S. intellectual property rights (IPRs). In a recent CNBC interview, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin claimed that the countries had pretty much agreed on an enforcement mechanism for a trade deal. After his meeting with the Chinese delegation last week, President Trump stated that negotiators may need four more weeks to package the deal. But the enthusiasm may prove premature. The state of US-Sino trade talks As the last globalist in the Trump administration, Mnuchins views carry some weight, but he lacks clout to enforce those views. Thats been the case since Gary Cohn, Mnuchins former Goldman Sachs colleague, resigned from the White House ahead of the tariff wars. In turn, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has proven too weak, reluctant and old (81 years) to press for compromise. Thats why trade talks are led by Peter Navarro, Director of National Trade Council, and Robert Lighthizer, U.S. Trade Representative. The former is an advocate of trade mercantilism, who has a dark track record in China-bashing; the latters trade wars began against Japan in the Reagan administration. In addition to enforcement mechanisms, the two are pressing for a pact that would allow US tariffs on Chinese goods to snap back in case of violations - but without permitting China to retaliate in response. Understandably, Chinese negotiators consider such conditions unacceptable. Such conditionality has surprised even Craig Allen, President of US-China Business Council, who believes that Mnuchin may have been too optimistic about the deal, if it is burdened by a conditionality clause. Indeed, US business groups tend to focus on commitments, including the proposed enforcement offices. They dislike negotiating tactics that needlessly prolong the talks and may undermine the progress achieved. Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He has expressed greater caution by stressing that, by the end the proposed four weeks, the two countries may learn whether a trade deal could be reached. And even if a final deal is achieved, it will take another year or two to verify the structural changes associated with the pact. Trade wars' next targets However, a US-China deal will not resolve US trade deficits, which have increased for half a century. The imbalances began in the postwar era after the recovery of the key EU economies - UK, Germany, France and Italy - and the subsequent rise of Japan. Toward the late 20th century, the deficits reflected the emergence of the four dragons; i.e., Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore. Chinas role in these deficits became prominent in the 2000s. Today, the largest deficits prevail with China, US NAFTA partners (Mexico, Canada), key EU countries (Germany, Ireland, Italy), ASEAN (Vietnam, Malaysia) and India. China has been targeted first, but others will follow. Last year, Mexico and Canada were pressured to a revised US first regional pact. Friction has been steadily rising with Japan and Germany. And Trump has pledged to extend the trade war to ASEAN - where the deficits are likely to climb if US companies begin to relocate. Despite half a century of promises to bring an end to deficits, US dependency on trade deficits has only deepened as Washington has become increasingly dependent on foreign financing and sovereign debt (which now exceeds $22.2 trillion, or 106% of US GDP). The net effect is a falling trend line (Figure). Figure U.S. trade deficits have deepened for half a century (US$ Million) Why tariff wars wont resolve US deficits Do the US tariff wars make economic sense? No. Here are some reasons why: US deficit issue is multilateral and regional, not bilateral and national. Trying to resolve it by forcing the bilateral trade deficit down is a bit like mimicking the fictional story of the little Dutch boy who discovered a leak in the dyke and stuck his finger in it to save his country. Thats Trumps strategy. Unfortunately, it ignores the dykes many other leaks and may thus make the flood more likely. Second, Trumps trade hawks presume that international trade is a competition between companies representing different countries. They ignore the fact that, for decades and particularly since the 1980s national industry leaders have built multinational value activities around the world. Consequently as even the OECD has concluded - conventional data on bilateral trade deficits can be misleading, due to multinationals global supply chains. Third, it is the overall size of the trade balance that matters, and that is largely a function of macroeconomic forces, such as domestic savings and investment. If the US domestic investment continues to exceed savings, it will have to continue to import capital and will have a large trade deficit. Since late 2017, the Trump administration has made this challenge much worse, thanks to large tax cuts, which have caused US fiscal deficits to soar. That is likely to cause the trade deficit to increase, irrespective the outcome of the trade war. Of course, one way to avoid this is that the White House will lead the US into a recession, with incomes declining adequately for investment and imports to plummet as with the aftermath of the 2008 crisis (see the Figure). Why tariff wars will weaken global prospects Unfortunately, that path would further penalize American middle-class and working people, but it would also have even more severe implications internationally. It has potential to further derail global economic prospects (which would harm the very same US multinationals Trump claims to support). As US tariff wars undermined the global recovery momentum in early 2018, the IMF now predicts that global economic activity is notably slowing. Global growth is projected to slow to 3.3% in 2019. In the absence of more positive signals, the international environment is faltering toward a darker path. Dr Steinbock is the founder of the Difference Group and has served as the research director at the India, China, and America Institute (USA) and a visiting fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). For more information, see http://www.differencegroup.net/ 2019 Copyright Dan Steinbock - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors. Dan Steinbock Archive 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is said to be sanctioning hackers to target vulnerable crypto exchanges in South-east Asia. | Source:North Korea's Korean Central News Agency. KCNA via REUTERS Despite the heavy international sanctions it is under, North Korea has continued its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs undeterred thanks to the sanctions-circumvention tactics the hermit kingdom has developed. According to the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), one of the chief ways North Korea is financing its WMD programs is through cryptocurrencies, which it has obtained mostly illegally. Currently, it estimated that North Korea may have amassed cryptocurrencies worth between $545 million and $735 million. The hermit kingdom has been linked to various cybercrime activities, the most lucrative of which have been hacking cryptocurrency exchanges. North Korea not Keen on Observing Good Neighborliness In what amounts to old news, the RUSI report says North Korea has been mostly targeting South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges. These exchanges include YouBit and Bithumb. In some instances, North Korean cybercrime operatives have hacked the same South Korean crypto exchanges more than once. This is the case with Bithumb and YouBit. The report further adds that the number of cybercrime operatives working for North Korea is in the thousands. The most prominent of these state-sponsored North Korean cybercrime organizations is the Lazarus Group: The most recent IRS estimate of the tax gap the amount of taxes owed but not paid voluntarily or in a timely manner put the net figure at $406 billion a year from 2008 to 2010. But William G. Gale and Aaron Krupkin of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center suggest that the hole may have grown substantially in the years since. If the tax gap stayed constant relative to GDP since then, it would have reached $560 billion by 2018, they wrote in a recent post looking at the problem of tax evasion. If it stayed constant relative to tax revenues, it would have reached about $600 billion. To put that number in perspective, take another look at the Treasury chart above. Youll see that $600 billion, if the tax gap has grown that large, would be more than the government spent on Medicare last year, and almost as big as the defense budget. Its about three-quarters of the 2018 budget deficit. Cutting IRS spending, as policymakers have done in recent years, is penny-wise and pound-foolish, Gale and Krupkin write. While it is unreasonable to expect to receive all taxes that are owed the government, the IRS could do far more if it had the resources. Adequately funding the IRS and making a variety of structural tax changes would help raise collection of taxes owed and mitigate public concern that the system may be rigged in favor of the wealthy. Roll Calls Doug Sword said Monday that lawmakers may finally be changing their tune on IRS funding, and that Congress and the White House appear ready to open the appropriations spigot once again after years of cutbacks. Fixes wont come cheap, though. Just updating the agencys ancient tech systems would cost more than $2.3 billion, according to IRS Commissioner Charles P. Rettig. But as Gale and Krupkin argue, additional funds would be money well spent as far as government finances are concerned. Like what you're reading? Sign up for our free newsletter. WASHINGTON (AP) Rep. Ilhan Omar says she's faced increased death threats since President Donald Trump spread around a video that purports to show her being dismissive of the 2001 terrorist attacks. "This is endangering lives," she said, accusing Trump of fomenting right-wing extremism. "It has to stop." Her statement late Sunday followed an announcement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that she has taken steps to ensure the safety of the Minnesota Democrat and the speaker's call for Trump to take down the video. Soon after Pelosi's statement, the video disappeared as a pinned tweet at the top of Trump's Twitter feed, but it was not deleted. And Trump further escalated the standoff Monday morning, tweeting that, "Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made" "She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy!" Trump added. Pelosi was among Democrats who had criticized Trump over the tweet , with some accusing him of trying to incite violence against the Muslim lawmaker. An upstate New York man recently was charged with making death threats against her. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders defended Trump earlier Sunday, saying the president has a duty to highlight Omar's history of making comments that others deem anti-Semitic or otherwise offensive and that he wished no "ill will" upon the first-term lawmaker. But Omar said that since Trump retweeted the video Friday night, she's received many threats on her life that referred or replied to the posted video. "Violent crimes and other acts of hate by right-wing extremists and white nationalists are on the rise in this country and around the world," she said. "We can no longer ignore that they are being encouraged by the occupant of the highest office in the land." She said: "We are all Americans." Story continues Earlier, Pelosi issued a statement while traveling in London saying she had spoken with congressional authorities "to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff." Pelosi said officials will continue to monitor and assess threats against Omar and called on Trump to discourage such behavior. "The President's words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger," Pelosi said. "President Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video." The video in Trump's tweet included a snippet from a recent speech Omar gave to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in which she described the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center as "some people did something," along with news footage of the hijacked airplanes hitting the Twin Towers. Trump captioned his tweet with: "WE WILL NEVER FORGET!" Critics accuse Omar of being flippant in describing the perpetrators of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. She later sought to defend herself by tweeting a quote from President George W. Bush, in which the Republican president referred to the attackers as "people" just days after 9/11. Neither Trump's tweet nor the video included Omar's full quote or the context of her comments, which were about Muslims feeling that their civil liberties had eroded after the attacks. The tweet was posted atop Trump's Twitter feed for much of Sunday, with more than 9 million views. It remained lower in the feed after Pelosi requested that the video be pulled. Sanders questioned why Democrats weren't following Trump's example and calling out Omar, too. Democrats who criticized the president over the tweet defended Omar, with some noting their past disagreements with her. "Certainly the president is wishing no ill will and certainly not violence towards anyone, but the president is absolutely and should be calling out the congresswoman for her not only one time but history of anti-Semitic comments," Sanders said. "The bigger question is why aren't Democrats doing the same thing? It's absolutely abhorrent the comments that she continues to make and has made and they look the other way." Omar repeatedly has pushed fellow Democrats into uncomfortable territory with comments about Israel and the strength of the Jewish state's influence in Washington. She apologized for suggesting that lawmakers support Israel for pay and said she isn't criticizing Jews. But she refused to take back a tweet in which she suggested American supporters of Israel "pledge allegiance" to a foreign country. Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat who represents Manhattan's financial district, which was targeted on 9/11, said he had no issues with Omar's characterization of the attack. "I have had some problems with some of her other remarks, but not but not with that one," he said. Sanders commented on "Fox News Sunday" and ABC's "This Week." Nadler appeared on CNN's "State of the Union. ___ Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervillap British Prime Minister Theresa May and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on January 10, 2019 in London, England. Photo: Stefan Rousseau WPA Pool/Getty Images. Japan, one of the worlds largest investors, is bewildered by Brexit, according to the former chief executive of the former government department UK Trade and Investment, the forerunner to the Department for International Trade. Sir Andrew Cahn, who led the body for five years and was until recently a non-executive director of Japanese bank Nomura, told BBC Radio 4s Today Programme the Japanese were bewildered by Brexit. The Japanese are really very disappointed about Brexit, probably of all the countries in the world, they are the ones which have reacted worst to Britains decision to leave the European Union, Cahn said this morning. In January Japans prime minister said the whole world wanted the UK to avoid a no-deal Brexit, which remains the default position if Britain exits the bloc without a ratified deal in place. Abe also pledged total support for the withdrawal agreement agreed by UK prime minister Theresa May with the rest of the EU in November. However, May has tried to pass the deal through parliament three times, and each time it was massively rejected by politicians within her own party and opposition MPs. READ MORE: Japans most powerful business lobby reminds UK of crucial relationship Originally, the UK was meant to leave the EU on 29 March this year, but the constant rejections to Mays deal has led to back and forths with the EU for an extension to Article 50, in a bid to avoid a default no-deal Brexit. Currently, the extension is until 31 October this year. Japan is the third largest economy in the world and is one of the UKs biggest, and most vocal, investors. The UK imports around $13.7bn (10.6bn) in goods a year from Japan. Japanese companies also employ 150,000 people in Britain, and trade between the two countries totalled 28bn in the past year, confirmed the government. Back in 2016, during the referendum, Japans ministry of foreign affairs released a 15-page document detailing how Britains economy would be severely damaged if it left the EUs single market something that would happen in the event of a no-deal Brexit. It warned it would have a natural knock-on effect on investors with close trade ties with the UK. Story continues This was made even more explicit when it pointed out in the note that Britains success in attracting Japanese investment was derived from its membership within the bloc. READ MORE: Brexit delay could push up UK property prices Sir Andrew Cahn added on the BBC programme that foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt had a huge task on his hands, as Japanese firms use the UK as a gateway to the EU. This would be significantly closed if the UK left on World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. Jeremy Hunt said today that Brexit paralysis would be highly damaging to the UKs global standing. (Japan) has signed a deal with the EU and, in a no-deal situation, we hope that would roll over and apply for us, although no-deal, I think, is looking much less likely, he said. I think they are very keen to protect their trading relationship with the UK, but I think they are also wanting to talk to us about other things. However, a spokesperson for Uhuru, the Softbank-backed Internet of Things company, told Yahoo Finance UK: The Brexit delay could create more uncertainty for the technology industry. However, that does not change the UKs fundamental economic advantages, including an advanced and well-educated workforce, access to a big pool of capital and potential investors and strong historical business links with Europe, North America and the Commonwealth. As such, we plan to expand our operations in London and ultimately see Brexit as an opportunity rather than a hindrance. We think more technology companies from Japan and Asia will follow our lead over the coming years. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that she rejects the socialist ideology recently embraced by the left wing of her caucus and claimed that it does not represent a consensus position within the Democratic party. During an appearance on 60 Minutes Sunday evening, Pelosi told CBSs Leslie Stahl that the party has not succumbed to socialism despite the fact that all of its top 2020 presidential contenders have endorsed the elimination of the private health-insurance market. It is allowing [President Donald Trump] to say, Youre all socialists, Stahl said of the partys attachment to Medicare-for-all. Do you know that when we did when Medicare was done by the Congress at the time, under Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan said, Medicare will lead us to a socialist dictatorship. This is an ongoing theme of the Republicans, Pelosi replied. However I do reject socialism as a economic system. If people have that view, thats their view. That is not the view of the Democratic party. While some of the partys presidential-primary candidates, including former representative Beto ORourke and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), have rejected the socialist label, they have, like the rest of their rivals, endorsed many of the policies initially championed by avowed socialist Bernie Sanders. Tuition-free higher education, Medicare-for-all, and support for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs Green New Deal have all emerged as early litmus tests. Pelosi, meanwhile, has attempted to ward off allegations that the partys brand has been defined by the direct, social-media-driven politics of freshman progressives like Representatives Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Thats like five people, Pelosi told Stahl when asked about the outsize influence wielded by Ocasio-Cortez and her cohort. More from National Review Pete Buttigieg formally announced his bid for the presidency on Sunday, drawing thousands of people out into the freezing rain to hear his call for a new generation of American leadership. One day they will write histories, not just about one campaign or one presidency but about the era that began here today, in this building, where past, present, and future meet, the South Bend, Ind., mayor told a crying and cheering crowd. Its cold out, but weve had it with winter. You and I have the chance to usher in a new American spring. The line stretched for blocks outside the event, held at a long-abandoned Studebaker auto plant, once the engine of South Bends economy and now a potent symbol of its decline. People waited all morning in a driving rain, braving winds that flipped umbrellas inside out. The crowd was overwhelmingly white, which may ultimately present a challenge for Buttigieg as he seeks to connect with the broader Democratic base and build a coalition outside his hometown. Buttigieg, 37, is a former Navy intelligence officer who has been mayor of South Bend for eight years. Hes risen in the early 2020 polls as he positions his campaign as a way to move past the partisan battles of Washington and the internal squabbles of the bruising 2016 Democratic primary. A Rhodes Scholar and a Christian who speaks seven languages, his campaign is rooted in his fluency in a particular dialect: the language of the overlooked Midwestern voter. His announcement speech was light on policy: he didnt mention Medicare for All or raising taxes. Instead, Buttigieg organized his message around three pillarsfreedom, security and democracyas he sought to reframe progressive issues like reproductive rights and climate change in ways that connect with Midwestern conservatives. Buttigieg describes abortion rights as a matter of freedom, climate change as a question of security, gerrymandering as a question of democracy. When he talked about climate change, Buttigieg didnt endorse the Green New Deal (an idea he once called the right beginning), but instead echoed President Barack Obamas frustration with Republican inaction. You dont like our plan? he said. Fine. Show us yours! Story continues Buttigieg is the first serious presidential contender who is openly gay, and the atmosphere around his speech was infused with the exuberance and anguish that has characterized the recent history of the LGBTQ rights movement. Before Buttigieg came onstage, attendees gasped when the campaign started playing Barbra Streisands Dont Rain on My Parade, then started laughing and singing along to the now-iconic show tune. A few minutes later, as Buttigieg imagined going back in time to tell his closeted teenage self that on that day he announces his campaign for president, hell do it with his husband looking on, grown men in the audience openly sobbed. When Buttigiegs husband Chasten came out to greet him after the speech, they kissed and the crowd roared. Most of all, Buttigieg returned throughout his speech to the idea of generational change. He cast the election as a choice between Americas future and its past. Such a moment calls for hopeful and audacious voices from communities like ours, he said. And yes, it calls for a new generation of leadership. That message seemed to be resonating with supporters of all ages. I really want to see the younger generation take over, says Linda Zach, a 67-year old retired retail worker and homemaker. The younger ones are gonna inherit everything we screwed up. Its a whole new world out there, says Alice Mayer, a 62-year old retired hospital consultant. We need somebody in office who understands that. Its a sentiment that is as much about boredom as it is about age. Some of the Buttigieg supporters at the Studebaker plant had driven from across Indiana or flown from Los Angeles to hear something new. Many said they were sick of hearing the same arguments and ideas they had heard in 2016. Pete has a quiet passion, says Jacquie Bontrager-McCann, a 33-year old director of member experience at a credit union who supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary but drove three hours from central Indiana to hear Buttigieg speak. She plans to vote for Buttigieg, she says, because she thinks his nuanced approach to issues can help him win over moderate voters. Both Zach and Mayer said they supported Sanders in the 2016 primary too, but that now they were all in for Buttigieg. Hes looking at the future, while Bernies been there, done that, says Mayer. Were ready for a new voice. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex in Morocco - REUTERS When the Duke and Duchess founded their own Instagram account to communicate directly with their public, it was assumed they were beginning a new era as inspirational royal influencers. Few, however, could have predicted how quickly their unborn child would join them to make his or her mark on the world. The SussexRoyal Instagram page has posted a message on behalf of Baby Sussex, thanking fans for the many charity donations they have made in honour of the future seventh-in-line to the throne. In a post praising the public for choosing "to be part of the collective good, they relayed the success of a week-long charity drive and told 4.6 million followers: You made this happen. Thank you. Remarkably, the post referred to their future child as Baby Sussex, the nickname used by fans and the press but never before adopted in official palace communications. The Duke and Duchess had last week named four charities for fans to donate to in lieu of sending gifts for their baby, urging them to help underprivileged children in the UK, Los Angeles and South Africa. Prince Harry and Meghan had asked fans to donate to baby charities in lieu of gifts Credit: PA In an update posted on Monday afternoon, in time for their American audience waking up, the couple said: Not only did many of you lend your support, you took action. While the language of the post, including Americanised spellings, led enthusiastic fans to believe it was written by the Duchess herself while on maternity leave, it is understood to have been posted by a member of staff. "Their royal highnesses wanted you to know the impact of your support - the direct effect your donation, energy, and action made!" it said. "YOU chose to be part of the collective good, and you have a [sic] made a real difference. "Whether a $5 donation, 1000 contribution, offering to volunteer, or spreading the word youve played your part. "And on behalf of The Duke and Duchess (and Baby Sussex), we thank you so much." It was the latest of a dozen posts shared in the last two weeks, including 63 pictures. Four messages have been based on public engagements undertaken by the Duke, five have included details of the baby charities, and one announced Prince Harrys television collaboration with Oprah Winfrey. Story continues The Duke and Duchess had asked the public to donate to four children's charities: Lunchbox Fund, Well Child, Baby2Baby and Little Village. In an update on Monday, the royal account told its followers that Lunchbox can now provide 100,000 additional hot nutritious meals to children in need across South Africa. Little Village, a clothes, toys and equipment bank for young children in London, has received donations from around the world, had a surge in volunteer applications, and re-energized their hard working team of 200+ staff and volunteers. Well Child, which helps seriously ill children to be cared for at home, can now provide more than 300 additional hours of specialist care by a Well Child nurse thanks to the donations. Baby2Baby, which helps children and parents in need in the Duchesss home city of Los Angeles, has received more than 5,000 products including cots, books, backpacks and nappies, along with money. The Duke and Duchesses request followed a viral global baby shower campaign started by fans which raised more than 22,000 after well-wishers donated to animal rescue centre Mayhew, the Campaign for Female Education (Camfed), and WellChild. The Sussexes' baby is due later this month, with Buckingham Palace announcing last week: "The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are very grateful for the goodwill they have received from people throughout the United Kingdom and around the world as they prepare to welcome their baby. "Their Royal Highnesses have taken a personal decision to keep the plans around the arrival of their baby private." By Stephanie Nebehay and Charlotte Greenfield GENEVA/WELLINGTON (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has appealed for information on the fate of three employees abducted in Syria more than five years ago and last known to have been held by Islamic State. Breaking its silence on the case on Sunday, the independent aid agency identified the three as Louisa Akavi, a nurse from New Zealand, and Syrian drivers Alaa Rajab and Nabil Bakdounes. "Our latest credible information indicates that Louisa was alive in late 2018," it said. U.S.-backed forces proclaimed the capture of Islamic State's last territory in Syria last month, eliminating its rule over a caliphate it had proclaimed in Iraq and Syria in 2014. ICRC officials said Akavi might have been swept up among some 70,000 women and children who fled to al-Hol camp after the fall of Islamic State, many of them jihadist sympathisers. ICRC President Peter Maurer raised her case during a visit to the camp, run by Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in March, they added. "We call on anyone with information to please come forward. If our colleagues are still being held, we call for their immediate and unconditional release," the ICRC said in a statement providing a Syrian contact number: +963 953 555 745. It said it had not been able to learn more details about the two drivers, and their fate was not known. The three were travelling in a Red Cross convoy in October 2013, delivering supplies to medical facilities in Idlib, northwestern Syria, when it was stopped by armed men. Four other people abducted with them were released the next day. The Swiss-run agency has a policy of never paying ransoms. Akavi, now 62, joined the ICRC in 1988 and has worked in a number of hotspots. She has been held longer than anyone in ICRC's 156-year history, said Dominik Stillhart, ICRC director of operations worldwide. New Zealand's government said it was searching for Akavi. Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the government had deployed a non-combat team based in Iraq that included special operations personnel, "focused on locating ...and identifying opportunities to recover her." Story continues After being moved by IS forces to Raqqa in 2017, Akavi was seen in Al-Bukamal in late 2018, close to the Syrian-Iraqi border, the last concrete information on her whereabouts, Stillhart said. "What we actually know is that Louisa has been working as a nurse during her abduction which shows her dedication and commitment," he said. (Writing by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Angus MacSwan and John Stonestreet) GENEVA/WELLINGTON (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) appealed on Sunday for information on the whereabouts of three employees abducted in Syria more than five years ago and last known to have been held by Islamic State. Breaking its silence on the case, the independent aid agency identified the three as Louisa Akavi, a nurse from New Zealand, and Syrian drivers Alaa Rajab and Nabil Bakdounes. U.S.-backed forces proclaimed the capture of Islamic State's last territory in Syria last month, eliminating its rule over a caliphate which it had proclaimed in Iraq and Syria in 2014. "We call on anyone with information to please come forward. If our colleagues are still being held, we call for their immediate and unconditional release," the ICRC said in a statement. "Our latest credible information indicates that Louisa was alive in late 2018. The ICRC has never been able to learn more details about Alaa and Nabil, and their fate is not known." The three were traveling in a Red Cross convoy delivering supplies to medical facilities in Idlib, northwestern Syria, when it was stopped by armed men on Oct. 13, 2013. Four other people abducted with them were released the next day. "Following the fall of the last territory held by Islamic State group, we fear there is an extra risk of losing track of Louisa, though we remain hopeful this period will instead open new opportunities for us to learn more about her whereabouts and well-being," the ICRC said. Akavi, now 62, joined the ICRC in 1988 and worked in hotspots including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Somalia and Sri Lanka. She has been held longer than anyone in ICRC's 156-year history, said Dominik Stillhart, ICRC director of operations worldwide. New Zealand's government said it was searching for Akavi, who successive administrations had previously asked media not to name as they feared it would put her at greater risk. Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the government had deployed a non-combat team based in Iraq of around twelve people that included special operations personnel. "This non-combat team was specifically focused on locating Louisa and identifying opportunities to recover her," Peters said in an emailed statement. "Unfortunately the current whereabouts of Louisa is unknown. However, the New Zealand Government continues to work tirelessly to locate her and bring her to safety." After being moved by IS forces to Raqqa in 2017, Akavi was seen in Al-Bukamal in late 2018, close to the Syrian-Iraqi border near the Euphrates River, the last concrete information on her whereabouts, he said. "What we actually know is that Louisa has been working as a nurse during her abduction which shows her dedication and commitment to the mission and mandate of the Red Cross - caring for people affected by conflict," he said. (Editing by Angus MacSwan and Chris Reese) FM Explains on Why Georgia Makes Euro500,000 Voluntary Contribution to CoE By Gvantsa Gabekhadze Georgian Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani has provided an explanation on why the Georgian government has decided to voluntarily contribute 500,000 EUR to the Council of Europe (CoE) budget.Georgian Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze stated on Wednesday during his speech at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) that Russia must pay its CoE membership fee and the issue must not become a reason for any change in CoE procedures or rules.He stated that Georgia is grateful for CoE support over many years and was ready to make a voluntary contribution in its budget.The Georgian government has decided to contribute 500,000 EUR to the CoE budget as a sign of gratitude, Bakhtadze stated.Zalkaliani said that CoE faces a financial crisis due to the Russian decision and such contributions will help the council overcome the problem.Russia must not be given a chance to use its financial levers make an influence on the CoE activities, on its rules and procedures, Zalkaliani said.The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe deprived Russia of voting right in 2014 for illegal annexation of Crimea.Moscow has no right to work at the Assemblys managing body and to send observers on behalf of the Assembly.In June 2017, the Russian governments decision, in reaction to this situation, to suspend payment of its contribution to the budget of the CoE.Russias annual contribution is Euro 33 million, which is 10 percent of the total budget of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly. GENEVA, April 14 (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) appealed on Sunday for information on the whereabouts of three employees abducted in Syria more than five years ago and last known to have been held by Islamic State. Breaking its silence on the case, the independent aid agency identified the three as Louisa Akavi, a nurse from New Zealand, and Syrian drivers Alaa Rajab and Nabil Bakdounes. U.S.-backed forces proclaimed the capture of Islamic State's last territory in Syria last month, eliminating its rule over a caliphate which it had proclaimed in Iraq and Syria in 2014. "We call on anyone with information to please come forward. If our colleagues are still being held, we call for their immediate and unconditional release," the ICRC said in a statement. "Our latest credible information indicates that Louisa was alive in late 2018. The ICRC has never been able to learn more details about Alaa and Nabil, and their fate is not known." The three were traveling in a Red Cross convoy that was delivering supplies to medical facilities in Idlib, northwestern Syria, when it was stopped by armed men on Oct 13, 2013. Four other people abducted with them were released the next day. "Following the fall of the last territory held by Islamic State group, we fear there is an extra risk of losing track of Louisa, though we remain hopeful this period will instead open new opportunities for us to learn more about her whereabouts and well-being," the ICRC said. Akavi, now 62, joined the ICRC in 1988 and worked in hotspots including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Somalia and Sri Lanka. She has been held longer than anyone in ICRC's 156-year, said Dominik Stillhart, ICRC director of operations worldwide. After being moved by IS forces to Raqqa in 2017, she was seen in Al-Bukamal in late 2018, close to the Syrian-Iraqi border near the Euphrates River, the last concrete information on her whereabouts, he said. "What we actually know is that Louisa has been working as a nurse during her abduction which shows her dedication and commitment to the mission and mandate of the Red Cross - caring for people affected by conflict," he said. (Editing by Angus MacSwan) Washington (AFP) - A redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's report into Russian meddling in the US election will be released Thursday, the Justice Department said as President Donald Trump again lashed out at the most politically explosive probe in modern US history. The report could feature allegations that Trump tried to obstruct the investigation, although Attorney General Bill Barr has said there is not sufficient evidence to establish he committed such a crime. Mueller himself has offered no conclusion on this, according to a brief summary of the report from Barr, who was handpicked by Trump. Ahead of the 400-page report's release, Trump and the White House have sought to blunt any possible damage by calling Mueller's investigation illegal and claiming it involved the FBI "spying" on the president's 2016 election campaign. "The Mueller Report, which was written by 18 Angry Democrats who also happen to be Trump Haters (and Clinton Supporters), should have focused on the people who SPIED on my 2016 Campaign, and others who fabricated the whole Russia Hoax," Trump tweeted Monday. "Since there was no Collusion, why was there an Investigation in the first place! Answer - Dirty Cops, Dems and Crooked Hillary!" he wrote. - Trump claims 'complete exoneration' - Barr's four-page March 24 summary of the report, which capped a politically charged 22-month investigation into possible wrongdoing by the president and his advisors to cooperate with a hostile power and sway an American presidential election in his favor, left open as many questions as it answered. Barr said Mueller found no evidence of criminal conspiracy by Trump's campaign to collude with the Russian government to skew the 2016 election in Trump's favor over Democrat Hillary Clinton. But court cases arising from the investigation -- Mueller charged 34 people, including six former Trump aides and 26 Russians -- have detailed multiple contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians. Story continues Those included top officials of the campaign and members of Trump's family seeking "dirt" on Clinton in a June 2016 meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer in New York. Barr also said in his summary there was not enough evidence to charge Trump with obstruction of justice. But he acknowledged, in a detail that set off new speculation, that Mueller himself elected not to rule either way on that point. Barr quoted Mueller as saying: "While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." Even so, Trump declared it "a complete and total exoneration" of him. Barr has been under pressure since his March 24 summary to release the entire report, which the White House says it has yet to view. Barr's redacted version then will not likely be the end of the story. The attorney general has stressed he will release a version that blacks out intelligence information and secret material from the investigation of grand jury convened by Mueller. Critics say the grand jury material is crucial to understanding whether there was evidence of criminal behavior by Trump, and Democrats in Congress are demanding an unexpurgated version of the report. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said they are prepared to issue a subpoena for the uncensored report if Barr does not give it to them voluntarily. - Concerns over Barr's neutrality - Barr himself has raised doubts over whether he will handle the report without political bias. Before Trump recruited him to lead the Justice Department last year, he wrote several critiques of the Mueller investigation, including one in which opined that Mueller had no legal grounds to charge Trump with obstruction. And in front of Congress last week he said he was opening a probe into the origins of the Russia meddling investigation, saying it was possibly that the FBI "spied" on the Trump campaign without grounds. He offered no evidence. That came on the same day that Trump said the investigation amounted to treason and an attempt to take over his government. It was "an attempted coup," Trump said. "This was an attempted takedown of a president." Washington (AFP) - A redacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's final report on the probe into the Russia links of US President Donald Trump's campaign team will be released Thursday, the Department of Justice announced Monday. The release of the 400-page report will come more than three weeks after Attorney General Bill Barr's controversial summary allowed Trump to declare it "a complete and total exoneration" of him after nearly two years of investigation. Barr said Mueller found no evidence that Trump's 2016 campaign team conspired to collude with Moscow to influence the election. The attorney general also said there was not enough evidence to charge Trump with obstruction of justice. But Mueller himself took no stance on the weight of the evidence of obstruction, Barr noted, raising doubts over whether Trump had truly been exonerated by the report. Barr has been under pressure since his March 24 summary to release the entire report, which wrapped up a 22-month investigation that saw 34 people charged, including six former Trump aides. But he has stressed he will only release a version with intelligence information and secret material from the investigation grand jury convened by Mueller blacked out. Critics say the grand jury material is crucial to understanding whether there was evidence of criminal behavior by Trump, and Democrats in Congress are demanding an unexpurgated version of the report. Since Barr's initial summary Trump and the White House have been pushing the view that the probe was unwarranted from the beginning, comprised biased investigators and involved allegedly illegal spying on his campaign by the FBI. "The Mueller Report, which was written by 18 Angry Democrats who also happen to be Trump Haters (and Clinton Supporters), should have focused on the people who SPIED on my 2016 Campaign, and others who fabricated the whole Russia Hoax," Trump tweeted Monday. "Since there was no Collusion, why was there an Investigation in the first place! Answer - Dirty Cops, Dems and Crooked Hillary!" he wrote. WASHINGTON Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has not decided which Democratic presidential hopeful she wants to see win the 2020 nomination, but there is one potential candidate she said doesn't "animate" her: former Vice President Joe Biden. "I will support whoever the Democratic nominee is," the freshman Democrat from New York prefaced when asked her opinion of a Biden candidacy during an interview with Yahoo News' "Skullduggery" podcast Sunday. But the idea of a Biden run "does not particularly animate me right now," she said, citing "a lot of issues." "I can understand why people would be excited by that, this idea that we can go back to the good old days with Obama, with Obamas vice president," she said. "Theres an emotional element to that, but I dont want to go back. I want to go forward." Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., listens during a House Financial Services Committee hearing with leaders of major banks on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 10, 2019. Who is running for president in 2020?: An interactive guide More: Kamala Harris releases 15 years of taxes, reveals $2 million income; Sanders to release his Monday The former vice president has not announced whether he is running, but Biden leads most early polling in the Democratic race to try to unseat President Donald Trump. Ocasio-Cortez's 2020 endorsement carries more weight than would normally be the case for a freshman lawmaker. A lightning rod for conservatives and inspiration for liberals, she has drawn national attention with her proposals such as the Green New Deal to tackle climate change. She was an organizer for fellow socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in 2016, but she isn't ready to give him her full support in the 2020 race just yet. "I'm very supportive of Bernie's run," she said Sunday. "I haven't endorsed anybody, but I'm very supportive of Bernie." She said she also likes Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. She said what Warren "is bringing to the table" is "truly remarkable and transformational." Story continues Although conservative media, including Fox News, have depicted her as the face of "radical Democrats," Ocasio-Cortez said she works well with "a decent amount" of Republicans on Capitol Hill. She balked at naming any of them. "I don't want to risk anyone's career," she joked. "It is an interesting political dynamic though because there are Republicans that I have a relationship with, but they're very nervous about people finding out that we can actually work together well. Like they're scared of getting primaried," she said. "If I really wanted to do damage, I would endorse Mitch McConnell in his next primary." 'Luckily, Kentucky has open borders': AOC told to apologize before visiting the state 'This puts me in danger':Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blames GOP groups for death threats This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says Joe Biden run in 2020 election wouldn't 'animate me' It's no secret that Google and many other companies keep tabs on users, but what might be a surprise is that law enforcement agencies have being asking Google to tap into that information to aid in investigations. The New York Times spoke with current Google employees about the story. Here's Yahoo Finance's Akiko Fujita. Palmer Hall at Rhodes College MEMPHIS, Tenn. Rhodes College is removing the name of Benjamin Palmer from the campus' oldest building, according to a release from the university's board of trustees. Effective immediately, Palmer Hall will now be known as Southwestern Hall. According to numerous historical records, Palmer was devoted to the idea that the Bible justified slavery. "Southwestern Hall honors and restores a name with a rich tradition and history. With these changes we elaborate, rather than replace, history," said a letter signed by Rhodes President Majorie Hass and Board of Trustees Chairman Cary Fowler. The new name commemorates the institution's history: In 1925, the university moved from its original site in Clarksville, Tennessee, and then-President Charles Diehl shortened the university's name from Southwestern Presbyterian University to simply, Southwestern. The name change comes after a three-year investigation into Palmer's history, educational events on campus and a review of comments submitted to the university, according to an announcement sent to the Rhodes community. Rhodes' board of trustees has elected to strike Benjamin Palmer's name from Palmer Hall, the oldest building on the campus. The building is now called Southwestern Hall, after the university's former name. A special committee, The Palmer Hall Discernment Committee, was commissioned for the process and made the final recommendation to the board. The committee said that Palmer's legacy was found to be "fundamentally at odds with our college vision," the release stated. Rhodes students like Nick Walters, who penned an opinion piece about Palmer's legacy, have been advocating for the name change while the committee was forming its decision. "We praise this man as a patriot when he advocated for the dissolution of the United States, an inherently unpatriotic act," Walters said. "We praise his Christian education that, in Palmers mind, included the Bibles declaration of African inferiority to the white race." "Rhodes College," Walters concluded, "claims to strive to create an inclusive environment for all, yet contradicts this by naming their oldest building after a man who stood for the exact opposite ideas." The university is also commissioning a new plaque that will be placed in Southwestern Hall that adds historical context to Palmer's ties to the Rhodes and his pro-slavery legacy. This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Rhodes College removes white supremacist's name from building in Tennessee Have you been searching for a stock that might be well-positioned to maintain its earnings-beat streak in its upcoming report? It is worth considering Rosehill Resources (ROSE), which belongs to the Zacks Oil and Gas - Exploration and Production - United States industry. This company has seen a nice streak of beating earnings estimates, especially when looking at the previous two reports. The average surprise for the last two quarters was 1,357.14%. For the last reported quarter, Rosehill Resources came out with earnings of $0.11 per share versus the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.02 per share, representing a surprise of 450%. For the previous quarter, the company was expected to post earnings of $0.14 per share and it actually produced earnings of $3.31 per share, delivering a surprise of 2,264.29%. Price and EPS Surprise With this earnings history in mind, recent estimates have been moving higher for Rosehill Resources. In fact, the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction) for the company is positive, which is a great sign of an earnings beat, especially when you combine this metric with its nice Zacks Rank. Our research shows that stocks with the combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) or better produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time. In other words, if you have 10 stocks with this combination, the number of stocks that beat the consensus estimate could be as high as seven. 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 related 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. Rosehill Resources has an Earnings ESP of +425.01% at the moment, suggesting that analysts have grown bullish on its near-term earnings potential. When you combine this positive Earnings ESP with the stock's Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), it shows that another beat is possibly around the corner. Story continues With the Earnings ESP metric, it's important to note that a negative value reduces its predictive power; however, a negative Earnings ESP does not indicate an earnings miss. Many companies end up beating the consensus EPS estimate, but that may not be the sole basis for their stocks moving higher. On the other hand, some stocks may hold their ground even if they end up missing the consensus estimate. Because of this, it's really important to check a company's Earnings ESP ahead of its quarterly release to increase the odds of success. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported. 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 KLR Energy Acquisition Corp. (ROSE) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Seoul (AFP) - Productive and driven, he was a model army officer, but he had a secret: he was in a gay sexual relationship with a fellow soldier -- a crime under South Korea's military law. He kept his sexuality hidden from everyone, including friends and family, only meeting his lover off-base and after work. Same-sex acts are legal for South Korean civilians, although homosexual people live largely under the radar as it remains a conservative society, influenced by evangelical Christianity. But the South Korean military classes openly gay men in its ranks as having "special needs" and campaigners say it actively pursues soldiers who have consensual same-sex intercourse with each other. "I worked very hard as an officer, but none of that mattered when I became a suspect," the 27-year-old, who asked for anonymity, told AFP. "There were days when I just wanted to die," he added, explaining that he was caught after authorities discovered his messages on his partner's phone. He faced a criminal conviction and a possible forced outing to his parents, whom he had hoped would never find out the truth about his homosexuality, describing them as "conservative, devout Christians". South Korea has a conscript army to defend itself against the nuclear-armed North, with all able-bodied male citizens obliged to serve for nearly two years. Doing so is seen as a patriotic duty, and failure to complete service can bring enduring stigma that affects social standing, employment prospects and more. South Korea is also the world's only advanced economy to make consensual gay sex between soldiers a crime under military rules. Under clause 92.6 of its criminal code, known as the military sodomy law, soldiers can be jailed for two years with labour if convicted at a court-martial. For homosexual men this can mean having to live a double life. - 'Military witch-hunt' - The officer was among 22 soldiers arrested during a 2017 inquiry into homosexual activity in the army. Story continues He was luckier than most in his position: he was charged during his last month of service, so his case was transferred to a civilian court and he was later acquitted. It was the first time a soldier charged under the military sodomy law had been found not guilty. And while he has begun a civilian life with a new job, and thus far avoided his family finding out any details of his sexual orientation -- prosecutors have since appealed, leaving him in a legal and social limbo as he awaits the next hearing. He said: "It is as if my entire existence was being denied." "I should never have been charged... in the first place," he added. South Korea's armed forces used intrusive "witch-hunt like" tactics in the search for alleged wrong-doing according to the Military Human Rights Center for Korea (MHRCK), an advocacy group in Seoul. As part of the 2017 probe, investigators forced suspects to message dating app users in front of them to hunt down other gay soldiers, it said. Three navy officers are currently under investigation for violating clause 92.6, MHRCK told AFP, after one revealed he was gay to a military counsellor, who then reported him. "The fact that a military therapist disclosed the soldier's sexual orientation without consent says a lot about human rights in South Korea's military," explained the organisation's head Lim Tae-hoon. The navy said the inquiry was being carried out according to the military criminal code, and on the orders of the defence ministry. - 'Archaic and discriminatory' - Authorities regularly cite the need to preserve military discipline as the main reason for the sodomy law. "The ban needs to remain in place as it is required to maintain a sound and wholesome lifestyle and discipline in the military, which is a communal institution," a defence ministry official told AFP. Consensual heterosexual sex is not a crime in South Korea's military, but its conscript army is predominantly male. Allowing homosexuals to serve in the military was a highly disputed issue around the world for decades. A landmark court ruling in India scrapped a colonial-era ban on same-sex relations last year, but the country's army chief said in January that gay sex would not be tolerated in his forces -- one of the largest in the world. In the South, 12 of the 2017 detainees -- the officer AFP interviewed is not among them -- have challenged article 92.6 in the country's Constitutional Court. The law has already been appealed to three times since it was enacted in 1962, and was upheld in a 5-4 ruling as recently as 2016. The situation has been criticised by a number of global rights organisations, including Amnesty International, which called the law "archaic and discriminatory". Last month, Human Rights Watch called for the military sodomy law to be repealed in a brief to the Constitutional Court, branding it a "blight on the country's human rights record". Graeme Reid, the organisation's LGBT rights director, said: "Criminalizing adult consensual same-sex conduct should be relegated to the history books it has no place in Korean society." WASHINGTON, April 14 (Reuters) - Democratic U.S. Senator Kamala Harris released on Sunday 15 years of tax returns through 2018, offering the most complete look to date at a presidential candidate's finances. Harris held public office during the years 2004 through 2018. With her husband, Douglas Emhoff, an attorney, she had a combined adjusted gross income in 2018 of about $1.89 million, and paid total taxes of about $697,000, according to the returns. Harris and Emhoff, who have filed joint tax returns since marrying in 2014, have paid more than $2.2 million in federal taxes over the past five years at an average effective tax rate of 32.6 percent, according to her campaign. RELATED: Sen. Kamala Harris Harris' release of her tax filings follows that of fellow White House contenders like Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren. Senator Bernie Sanders has said he will release his tax filings this week. Tax day is April 15 in the United States. Democrats in the 2020 race have released their tax returns as Republican President Donald Trump resists moves by congressional investigators to review his tax filings in probes related to his businesses and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Trump is the first modern U.S. president not to release his tax returns to the public. After taking control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 elections, Democrats passed a bill that would require presidential candidates to release their tax returns. It has not been voted on by the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans, but Harris supports such legislation. Harris has also called for the repeal of the Republican tax law approved in 2016 that delivered major tax cuts to the wealthy and businesses. In 2018, about $157,000 of Harris and Emhoff's $1.89 million in income came from Harris' salary as a U.S. senator, with the bulk of the rest reported as partnership income from Emhoff's work at a law firm. Before her marriage to Emhoff, most of the income Harris reported each year was from the salary she earned as California's attorney general and, before that, as San Francisco's district attorney. (Reporting by Amanda Becker; Editing by Susan Fenton) EU and Georgia - Export Statistics and Potential By Natalia Kochiashvili Deputy Economy and Sustainable Development Minister Genadi Arveladze attended the session of the European Integration Parliamentary Committee. Deputy Minister presented the 2018 Plan Completion Report of Agreement on Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) and Plan for 2019.In his speech, Arveladze emphasized the significance of the DCFTA agreement when speaking about the growing trade with the European Union. In comparison to 2017 trade turnover between Georgia and EU increased by 17.7% in and in 2018 it reached $3.35 billion, much in part thanks to the DCFTA agreement with the EU. Exports have grown by 11.5% and constituted $7.30 million while imports have increased by 19.5% and reached $2.62 billion. Deputy Minister also mentioned diversification of export products to the EU in 2018. As reported by Arveladze, compared to 2014 the number of companies exporting from Georgia to the EU increased by 37% and reached 789 companies.It was also stated that between 2014-2018 Georgian products such as kiwis, blackcurrants, apples, quinces, glass bottles, furniture, and other products entered the EU market. Georgian side is also working with the EU on behalf of opening the EU market for products of aquaculture and animal origin. Besides that, Deputy Minister noted, that since the session of Georgia-EU geographic designations sub-committee in 2018, Georgian geographic markings of Tee from Tkibuli, Honey from Machakhela, Herbs from Kutaisi and Potatoes from Akhalkalaki are protected.Arveladze addressed the already fulfilled and carrying on reforms as well. Special attention was drawn to the reforms that are carried out in terms of creating the supervision system for manufacturing products on the market: change of codex regarding the safety of products and technical regulation on construction products.Deputy Economy and Sustainable Development Minister also said that with the support of the German International Partnership Society (GIZ) an export strategy that focuses on textile, furniture and communication technologies will be created. According to Arveladze, these fields will have big export potential in the EU market.At present, the DCFTA 2018-2020 Action Plan is carried out. The DCFTA creates a closer economic integration of Georgia with the EU based on reforms in trade-related areas. This regime increases market access between the EU and Georgia based on having better-matched regulations. It is based on the principles of the World Trade Organization. It removes all import duties on goods and provides for broad mutual access to trade in services. It allows EU and Georgian companies to set up a subsidiary or a branch office on a non-discriminatory basis. This allows the foreign company to benefit from the same treatment as domestic companies in the partners market. The president of Seychelles, Danny Faure, implored the world to do more to protect the beating blue heart of our planet in a Sunday speech broadcast live from the depths of the Indian Ocean. Faure, dressed in a Seychelles T-shirt and pink shorts, delivered his plea for the worlds seas while sitting in an underwater craft more than 400 feet below the oceans surface. According to The Associated Press, it was the first time a political speech had been broadcast live from a submersible underwater. Seychelles President Danny Faure, left, delivered a deep-sea plea on Sunday, beseeching the world to do more to protect the world's oceans, The ocean is huge, covering almost 70% of our planet, but we have managed to seriously impact this vast environment through climate change, ocean acidification, overfishing, plastic and other pollution, said Faure, who is the leader of an archipelago under threat from climate change and other manmade environmental impacts. We need decisive, coordinated, international action, Faure added. Only about 5% of the worlds oceans are currently protected, AP said. U.N. member countries have agreed to increase that percentage to 10% by 2020, a goal that wont likely be met but even if that target is reached, it wont be enough to ensure the health of ocean ecosystems and maintain their biodiversity, experts have warned. The President of Seychelles has delivered the world's first-ever political speech from underwater, pleading with world leaders to make ocean protection a priority. pic.twitter.com/LI9L9RQvAk SBS News (@SBSNews) April 15, 2019 Faures underwater visit was part of a series of British-led scientific expeditions, a project dubbed First Descent, aimed at exploring and conserving the Indian Ocean described by the projects website as the least explored and least protected of the worlds oceans. Faure said his deep-sea experience had shown him first-hand how humans have managed to seriously impact this environment through climate change. I can see the incredible wildlife that needs protection, he noted in his speech. Over the years we have created these problems, we must solve them and we must solve them together. BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Slovakia will boost defense spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2022, achieving the NATO goal two years faster than planned, Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini said. "After raising defense spending to 1.73 percent of GDP this year we expect to reach the 2.0 percent level as early as 2022, compared with the originally planned 2024," Pellegrini told a foreign policy conference on Monday. Slovakia, a member of the U.S.-led military alliance since 2004, will spend about 6.5 billion euros ($7.35 billion) by 2030 to modernize its armed forces and reduce its reliance on Russian equipment dating from its Communist past. It signed a $1.9 billion deal last year to buy 14 U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to replace its aging Russian-made MiG-29s. U.S. President Donald Trump has pressed other NATO nations to lift their defense spending beyond the NATO-prescribed 2 percent level. (Reporting by Tatiana Jancarikova; Editing by Mark Heinrich) By Esha Vaish and Simon Jessop STOCKHOLM/LONDON (Reuters) - A vibrant start-up scene, which has spawned stars such as Spotify, Skype and Rovio, is inspiring Nordic pension funds to invest more money with local private equity funds. Managers looking to pump up their pension returns hope that this will plug them into the Nordic business world's inner circle and help them to back the best prospects early on. "With Spotify we got a call that maybe there were some shares for sale ... We thought it was a great product so we said let's dig into this and we made an acquisition with our friends at AMF," Bo Selling, Alecta's head of equities, told Reuters. Swedish pension funds Alecta and AMF saw their 2016 investments in Spotify nearly triple in value when it listed in 2018. This success has helped fuel demand from other pension funds and encouraged some to change their investment parameters in order to be able to seek out the region's next big hit. As part of this shift, Sweden said earlier this year it will allow some of its largest state public pension funds, named APs 1, 2, 3 and 4, to allocate up to 40 percent of the about $140 billion they manage to illiquid investments, removing a 5 percent limit for unlisted instruments. "We will most likely do more investments in private equity and venture (capital)," said Jenny Askfelt Rudd, head of alternative investments at AP4, which has about 3 percent of its assets in private equity. Around a quarter of all assets raised in Europe so far in 2019 have gone to funds based in the Nordics, data from industry tracker Preqin showed, part of a global surge in demand that has seen total undeployed capital in the sector pass $2 trillion. This is driven by institutional investors looking to shore up returns as global economic uncertainty roiled stock markets. But it is not all one-way traffic. Last year, Norway's government recommended against allowing its $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund to expand into private equity. The ball is now in the hands of the country's parliament, with the fund arguing the move could help improve its balance between risk and return, and naming Uber and Airbnb among missed opportunities due to the current restrictions. For interactive versions of the graphics, click here https://tmsnrt.rs/2Fby9bT and here https://tmsnrt.rs/2O77Fv9. Norway's sovereign fund posted a negative return on investment of 6.1 percent in 2018, while AP4 posted its second negative result since 2008 last year and warned it faced significant challenges in delivering returns at levels achieved in the past decade. A Swedish parliamentary committee that worked on the pension rule changes found that where listed equities generated returns of an average 6.9 percent, alternative investments have delivered a combined 12.3 percent. Denmark's PFA, which runs 75 billion euros ($85 billion) in assets, is already active, growing its alternatives investments from 1 billion euros in late 2015 to 5 billion euros now. "We have an ambition to grow that significantly over the coming years," Peter Tind Larsen, head of alternative investments at PFA, said. Despite concerns that demand is fuelling a valuation bubble, Selling said Alecta believes there are still opportunities to grow its private equity portfolio, with just 0.5 percent of its 860 billion Swedish crowns ($93 billion) in assets in unlisted equities. "A good company with a good model and good growth prospects can be deemed interesting even if it is priced at a higher multiple on the earnings," Selling said. GET WITH THE PROGRAMMERS On the flipside, private equity firms are seeking partnerships with pension funds to bump up the valuation of assets without having to seek a market listing, bankers say. Independent Vetcare (IVC), Europe's largest veterinary services firm, was valued at 3 billion euros when Alecta and AP6 - a specialist in unlisted investments - bought 20 percent in February versus the roughly 500 million euros EQT paid to buy it in 2016, sources told Reuters. So far in 2019, five Nordic-based funds have raised a combined 4.2 billion euros in assets, 22 percent of the total for Europe as a whole, Preqin data showed. That compares with 16 percent last year and 6 percent in 2017. For an interactive version of the graphics, click here https://tmsnrt.rs/2VMu8jZ and here https://tmsnrt.rs/2Xeeaja. EQT is the local sector leader and has seven of the ten biggest funds raised in the region, including EQT VIII, which last year raised 10.8 billion euros. Others include Nordic Capital, Altor, IK Investment Partners, Creandum and Northzone. Much of their focus is on the region's vibrant digital start-up scene. The European Digital City Index ranks Stockholm second to London in terms of support for digital entrepreneurs. Helsinki and Copenhagen also make the top ten. "Being a programmer is the most common job in Stockholm, so it's everywhere," Ted Persson, operating partner at EQT Ventures, said. Swedish payments company Klarna is seen by bankers as one of the hottest local firms to invest in ahead of a likely IPO, and pension funds seem primed to take a slice in its external fundraising this year. Valued by bankers with knowledge of its recent internal fundraising at around 32 billion Swedish crowns, the firm counts private equity firms Sequoia and Permira, as well as rapper Snoop Dogg, as investors. "A number of the largest pension funds have hired additional people with strong corporate finance expertise, and we ... expect to see these funds taking the lead on larger transactions," Klaus Thune, co-head of Nordic banking at JP Morgan, said. (Editing by Alexander Smith) More than 31,000 employees of the grocery chain Stop & Shop walked off the job across New England last week, after the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) and management reached an impasse in negotiations. At the weekend, as the strikers attracted support from among others Senator Elizabeth Warren and former vice-president Joe Biden, the two sides restarted efforts to find a compromise over healthcare, wages and pensions. Many stores opened on Friday with severely reduced staff and management working registers. In parking lots at the 240 stores affected, longtime customers refused to cross picket lines. At one location in Somerville, Massachusetts, a staffing agency brought in temporary workers to cover missed shifts, much to the chagrin of strikers. Sign up for the US morning briefing In a video circulated on Facebook, Tyrone Housey, president of UFCW Local 1459 in Springfield, Massachusetts, encouraged union members to ask shoppers not to do business with the company until the strike ends. The strikers come from all roles, from cashiers to bakers, butchers and deli employees. Their three-year contract expired on 23 February. Several local chapters of the union voted to strike. A Stop & Shop spokeswoman, Jennifer Brogan, said the company had been trying to negotiate. Throughout negotiations, Stop & Shop continuously has been available to bargain, every day, for nearly three months, she said. The companys current offer is substantially enhanced, better for associates than most recent UFCW contract settlements, provides overall pay and benefits that are better than what most of our competitors provide, and represents improvements for our associates. For Paul Tritto, 59, the strike is about providing the best care for his autistic grandson. An 18-year employee, now a meat manager, Tritto drives more than 40 miles across state lines for his job, in order to support the 16-year-old and his own wife, who is retired and handicapped. Story continues Related: US union seeks $100m in largest wage theft case involving federal contractor We were actually in the process of getting him on my health insurance, Tritto told the Guardian, adding that the proposal the company is pushing would drastically increase his monthly contributions. For a family plan right now, he said, the deductible is $2,500. With what theyre pushing, it will go up to $5,000. He and his wife would pay more than $300 a month for coverage, he said, not factoring in additional care and adding his grandson to the mix. Management is also axing overtime pay on holidays and Sundays, which would mean Tritto would make $20 an hour on Sundays, instead of $30. Id be forced to take a part-time job, he said. And that takes more time away from my grandson Seth and wife, who cant drive. The latest proposal from Stop & Shop includes pay increases for associates and an increase of $2 to $4 on health insurance premiums. The pay increase is 50 cents an hour. According to the union, it would not offset higher healthcare costs. The UFCW national spokeswoman, Erikka Knuti, told the Guardian the average full-time employee would pay $900 in weekly health premiums over three years. Part-timers would pay $600. Monday is day five of a strike workers think could be successful. Kristen Johnson, a 34-year-old deli manager at a store near McGrath Highway in Massachusetts, said the location usually had about $100,000 in sales on an average Saturday. Theyll be lucky if they make $10,000, she said, describing customers who have joined strikers, delivered pizza and shared coffee. Despite the cuts proposed by the company, Johnson said she was not considering a move. We love what we do, she said, or else we wouldnt be here. We love our customers. Theyre like our second family. Im in it for the long haul. While @StopandShop's parent company made $2 billion in profits and got a tax cut from the #GOPTaxScam, @UFCW workers were getting squeezed by low wages and lousy benefits. Were not gonna put up with it. #UnionStrong. pic.twitter.com/iyDxiyqI0F Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) April 12, 2019 Johnson said strikers loved it when Warren, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, joined them on the picket line on Friday and urged her audience to not cross it. This is a company that made $2bn in profits, that then got a fancy tax break in Washington from the Republicans and now wants to squeeze our workers right here in Massachusetts, she said. Last year, Stop & Shops parent company, Ahold Delhaize, reported profits of more than $2bn. Other unions have been supporting the Stop & Shop workers. The Teamsters Council 10, for example, is cutting off supplies like produce and perishables and stopping trash pick-up. When Flor Bacasegua was pregnant with her fourth child, she endured a 45-minute commute from her home in Mendota, California to a winery in Madera, where she worked overnight security. The drive, the distance, and the hours were more strenuous than what shed faced during her previous three pregnancies, cutting into her time for doctors appointments. By the time she was five months along, shed quit the job. Sometimes I would have to reschedule appointments, Bacasegua, 31, says. It didnt let me enjoy my pregnancy. Her son was bornhealthyin 2015. But a new study shows just how risky the added stress of a commute like Bacaseguas can be for pregnant women. In a new study published earlier this year, researchers at Lehigh University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison found a link between the distance a woman travels to work every day while pregnant and the health outcomes for her child, including low birth weight, the likelihood of a C-section, and intrauterine growth restriction, or when a baby doesnt reach a normal size as measured throughout the pregnancy. While previous research has examined how the distance between a womans home and her doctors office affects the health of her child, this is the first to home in on the daily travel of pregnant womens commutes. For pregnant workers who already travel at least 50 miles to workthe Census definition of a long-distance commuteincreasing the distance by 10 miles raises the likelihood of low birth weight and intrauterine growth restriction by 0.9 and 0.6 percentage points, respectively. Commuting these kinds of distances every day also increases the likelihood that those carrying a male fetus will deliver via cesarean section (male fetuses have been shown to be more sensitive during pregnancy.) The authors did not find a link between commuting and pre-term births once they controlled for prenatal visits. But those appointments are one factor that is dramatically affected by commuting, as Bacasegua found. Difficulties making it to prenatal appointments, along with maternal stress, are the two reasons authors Yang Wang and Muzhe Yang identified behind the link between long commutes and adverse infant health outcomes. Story continues Sign up: Click here to subscribe to the Broadsheet, Fortunes daily newsletter on the worlds most powerful women. The average woman in the study traveled 64 miles, or about 78 minutes by car, to work. Women in the sample had an average of 11 prenatal doctors visitson the low end of the usual 10-15 range. The average time it took for a woman in this sample to get to the first checkup of her pregnancy was 11 weeksmore than the recommended eight weeks or less. Fifteen percent of the women facing long commutes didnt make it to a prenatal appointment until after their first trimester, and 4% didnt go until their third trimester or never made it at all. Put another way, adding 10 miles to a long-distance commuters trip to work can reduce the number of prenatal visits she gets to by 2.5% and increases the number of days between the start date of the pregnancy and a womans first prenatal appointment by 2.665 days. Having a long commute decreases the probability that a mother will make it to her first prenatal check-up within her first trimester by 2.4 percentage points. It increases the probability that shell never make it to a prenatal doctors appointment by 1.5 percentage points. These conclusions come with some interesting policy implications. Could employers and lawmakers negate the health risks commutes are imposing on their employees and constituents by providing better paid leave before a child is born? Right now, New Jersey and California are the only states that allow mothers to take their parental leave before giving birth. Still, many mothers are reluctant to take time off before they go into labor, wanting to earn every last dollar before being off the job for weeks on often unpaid leave. If we have a policy where people can take time off before they give birth, we can improve the health of the mother and child, says Fabiola Santiago, a campaign manager for the paid leave advocacy organization PL+US. While much attention rightfully focuses on low-income communities and the maternal mortality crisis affecting American black women, this studys findings cross income brackets. The women studied in this sample are relatively wealthy; they live in zip codes where the average household income is $75,118.40. Many of the women included in the data are likely living far away from their jobsin suburban or rural communitiesby choice. The study analyzed 2014 and 2015 birth records from New Jersey, one of the U.S. states with the longest commute times. The researchers only measured commutes by distancenot by the time it takes to complete them. So women with shorter (by distance) but possibly more stressful commutes on public transportation are not included in the data. Washington (AFP) - Saudi Arabia is looking to find a way out of its devastating war in Yemen and the United States, the kingdom's stalwart ally, can play a critical role, the International Crisis Group said Sunday. The group, which researches ways to end conflicts, said the United States should appoint a special envoy and suspend most arms shipments to the Saudis with a promise to resume them once the kingdom ends its four-year offensive against Huthi rebels who control much of their southern neighbor. The Saudi-led coalition "needs to stop thinking about how to eke out some notional victory and instead commit itself wholly to finding a political exit, regardless of whether that means empowering the Huthis more than it is comfortable with in the short term," the group said in a study based on interviews with current and former officials in the United States and elsewhere. "The US should lead the way by finding its own exit," it said. The report comes after Congress -- alarmed by persistent civilian casualties and widespread hunger in Yemen, as well as Saudi Arabia's killing of US-based writer Jamal Khashoggi -- voted to cut off US support to the war effort. President Donald Trump, who has closely allied himself with Saudi Arabia, has threatened to veto the bill but has not yet done so. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, a leading critic of the Yemen war, said that even if Trump goes ahead with his veto, Congress can serve as a "bad cop" to pressure Saudi Arabia to change course. "This is not a question of whether or not the coalition is going to defeat the Huthis; that question has been answered," Murphy told a briefing on the report. "The Huthis are going to play a substantial and significant role in the future governance of Yemen, so it is a matter of deciding how the Saudis will live with that in a way that doesn't threaten their long-term security interests." Trump has sided with the Saudis in part because they say they are trying to prevent a victory by rival Iran, which has supported the rebels who share religious kinship with the Shiite clerical regime in Tehran. Story continues But the International Crisis Group said the calculation was reversed, with Iran in fact benefiting the longer the conflict persists, with the Saudis sapped of resources and reputation at a minimal investment by Tehran. "I think they see that they need to end it (but) they don't know how to end it," Robert Malley, the group's president, said of the Saudis. The Saudis keep thinking "a little more military power and the Huthis will crack and then we'll be able to end the war and Iran will be on its backfoot," he said. "But we have four years of evidence to disprove that." By Khalid Abdelaziz KHARTOUM (Reuters) - The Sudanese group that led protests against deposed President Omar al-Bashir called on Monday for the transitional military council that has taken power to be disbanded and for a new interim civilian ruling council to be formed. Representatives of the Sudanese Professionals' Association (SPA) piled pressure on the military commanders who have taken over, issuing a long list of demands for deeper and faster change to end repression and a ruinous economic crisis. If their demands were not met, the group would press on with protests and not join a future transitional government, Ahmed al-Rabie, an SPA member, told Reuters. The SPA held its first news conference since Bashir, who ruled with an autocratic hand since seizing power in a coup 30 years ago, was ousted by the military on Thursday following months of street demonstrations. A new interim civilian body should be given full executive powers, with the armed forces having representation, and the Transitional Military Council (TMC) that took over last week should be dissolved, the SPA said. "If our demand for the formation of a civilian transitional council with military representation is not met, we will not be part of the executive authority, the cabinet, and we will continue the mass escalation and the sit-ins to fulfil our demands," Rabie told Reuters. In a communique on Monday, the African Union's Peace and Security Council called for Sudan's military to transfer power to a "transitional civilian-led political authority" within 15 days or face suspension from the AU. Lieutenant General Jalal al-Deen al-Sheikh, a member of the TMC, met Ethiopia's prime minister in Addis Ababa, where the AU is based, Sudanese state news agency SUNA said. "We are already in the process of choosing a prime minister" for a civilian government," Sheikh said at a news conference in Addis Ababa. "So we are initiating this even before having this session with the African Union. This is our conviction and this is also the way forward to peace, but also, we respect it and we are committed to the decision of the Peace and Security Council." Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the TMC, received phone calls from the Saudi king, UAE president, Qatari emir, Ethiopian prime minister and South Sudanese president, SUNA said on Monday. They expressed support for the TMC in "this delicate and historic stage" and their concern for the security and stability of the country, SUNA said. The TMC's deputy head, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known by his nickname Hemedti, said on Monday the Sudanese forces participating in the Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen will remain there, SUNA said. "We are adhering to our commitment to the coalition, and our forces will remain until the coalition fulfils its goals," Hemedti said. PROTESTERS DEFLECT BID TO END SIT-IN The SPA issued its demands hours after protesters blocked an attempt to break up a sit-in outside the Defence Ministry that has continued despite Bashir's exit, a Reuters witness said. Troops had gathered on three sides of the sit-in and tractors were preparing to remove stone and metal barriers, but protesters joined hands and formed rings around the sit-in area to prevent them. Some of the most prominent SPA leaders, most of whom are in their 20s and 30s and were detained until after Bashir's ouster, spoke at the news conference. SPA representatives also renewed calls for the head of the judiciary and his deputies and public prosecutor to be removed. They demanded the dissolution of Bashir's National Congress Party and said they received affirmation from the TMC that the party will not participate in a transitional government. The SPA also called for the seizure of the party's assets and the arrest of its prominent figures. It demanded the dissolution of paramilitary groups that were loyal to the old government, and of the National Intelligence and Security Service's (NISS) operations authority, and called for an end to Sudan's press law and the public order law, which the SPA has said restricts freedoms. On Saturday, Salah Abdallah Mohamed Saleh, better known as Salah Gosh, resigned as head of NISS. He was once seen as the most powerful person in the country after Bashir and protesters held him responsible for the killing of demonstrators demanding an end to military rule. "For us in the SPA, in the first stage, the transitional government stage, we will play a role in the restoration of the civil service and state institutions and establishing a democratic state," said Gamaria Omar, an SPA member. "Afterwards, the SPA will be comprised of unions, and will be a guardian of democracy in Sudan," she added. Outside the Defence Ministry on Monday, the protesters, numbering about 5,000 in the morning with more arriving, chanted "Freedom, freedom" and "Revolution, revolution", and appealed to the army to protect them. Some drummed and waved national flags as they mingled in the street, while others took shelter from the sun under parasols and makeshift tents. The protest outside the compound, which also includes the intelligence headquarters and the presidential residence, began on April 6, after more than three months of protests triggered by a deepening economic crisis. On Monday the military council said it was restructuring the joint forces command, appointing a new chief of staff for the army and a deputy. Britain's ambassador to Sudan, Irfan Siddiq, said he had met the deputy head of the transitional military council, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, and had "asked for clarity on whereabouts of former President Bashir and other senior former regime figures". When the military announced Bashir's ousting, they said he had been arrested and was being kept at a "safe place". Sudanese sources told Reuters that Bashir was at a presidential residence under "heavy guard". (Corrects sourcing in paragraph 9.) (Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; writing by Yousef Saba and Aidan Lewis; editing by Mark Heinrich and Tom Brown) Damascus (AFP) - Damascus on Monday imposed new limits on subsidised petrol for cars and motorbikes in regime-held areas of Syria, in the latest bid to curb a fuel crisis it blames on Western sanctions. Owners of private cars would now be allowed just 20 litres (about 7.5 gallons) of fuel every five days, said the ministry of petroleum and mineral resources. At petrol stations in the capital, queues hundreds of metres (yards) long have stretched along streets in the past few weeks, with drivers waiting for hours to get their fill. Qusay, a taxi driver in his 30s, said he had camped out in his car overnight to make sure he got some fuel from a station, so far to no avail. "I got to the front of the queue after midnight with less than 20 cars ahead, but then the petrol ran out at the station," he told AFP, adding that "it's still closed". Ahmad al-Hamawi, 45, gave up after four long hours of waiting. "I'll try to forget my car in the coming days and walk to work," said the radio programme director. The measures announced on Monday allow taxi drivers to fill up 20 litres every two days. Motorbikes would be permitted three litres every five days, the ministry said, in what it described as a "temporary measure to fairly distribute petrol". The measures are the latest in a series of restrictions on the daily consumption of subsidised petrol. On April 8, the ministry of petrol and mineral resources said it was temporarily slashing the daily cap on subsidised petrol by half, to 20 litres from 40 per vehicle. Then on April 10 it further halved the amount to 20 litres every two days. On Sunday, the government said it would halve the amount of fuel allocated to public institutions to run their vehicles, state news agency SANA said. The petrol crisis follow fuel oil and cooking gas shortages over the winter. Syrian officials have blamed the crisis on a flurry of Western sanctions targeting the Damascus regime since the start of the civil war in 2011. Story continues In November, the US Treasury issued an advisory threatening penalties against those "involved in petroleum-related shipping transactions with the Government of Syria". Prime Minister Emad Khamis told journalists earlier this month that petrol shipments from Iran had been suspended for six months as Egypt was not allowing them through the Suez Canal, an allegation Cairo has denied. The regime, backed by Iran and Russia, controls almost two-thirds of Syria after a series of victories against rebels and jihadists since 2015, but the country's main oil and gas fields in the northeast remain out of government control. The Legal Issues Committee rejects the legislation proposed by Eka Beselia By Inga Kakulia The Legal Issues Committee of Georgian Parliament rejected the legislation regarding the General Courts proposed by Eka Beselia and 12 other Members of the Parliament. The proposal was backed by 3 deputies while the 5 rejected the legislation. The Independent MP, Eka Beselia, presented the amendment today in front of the Committee. The legislation outlines the criteria for the selection of candidates for the position of Judges in the Supreme Court. The legislation presents the fair and equal voting requirements, as well as the defined rules to be applied in the case of conflict of interests. The legislation also raises the subject of forming the working group on this topic. According to the legislation, in order to nominate someone for the position of the Judge in the Supreme Court they will need to have the support of not only the Judges but also non-judge members of the Court. The special working group will be completed with representatives of the Public Defender, Bar Association, NGOs and Scientific Circles. After the candidate nominated for the position gets the approval of the Supreme Court, the working group will then look into the appropriate candidates for the Supreme Court. After that, according to the legislation, the case will move on to the Legal Issues Committee of the Parliament.The Deputies that worked on this legislation alongside Eka Beselia, were Levan Gogichaishvili, Zviad Kvachantiradze, Gedevan Popkhadze, Beka Natsvlishvili, Irma Inashvili, Giorgi Lomia, Gela Mikadze, Emzar Kvitsiani, Ada Marshania, Nato Chkheidze, Gia Zhorzholiani and Mirian Tsiklauri.After the legislation got rejected by the Committee, Beselia spoke to the local media. The Independent Deputy said that the Legal Issues Committee was packed with the lobbyists for the Supreme Court of Justice and the 10-person list of Judges. When speaking to journalists, Beselia said that ever since January of 2019 the Legal Issues Committee has lost its independence and is no longer capable of making the decision that will benefit the country. Whoever voted against this change is a lobbyist. This isnt unexpected and I was prepared for this. Said Beselia.The Ruling Party, Georgian Dream stand by the claim that the legislation proposed by Beselia is not in line with the Constitution, therefore, it cannot be approved.One of the more controversial comments made by Beselia during the exchange between Beselia and the Committee was that Mikhael Chinchladze, The Member of The High Council of Justice had proposed the project singlehandedly to Irakli Kobakhidze, The Chairman of the Georgian parliament. According to Beselia, they were expected to give the life tenure to the judges that raised some questions. This happened outside of the Constitution, through the Legal Issues Committee. The independent deputy also said that the remark about the Secretary of High Council of Justice was made through the initiative of Mikheil Chanchladze as well. The process was led by the Chairmen of the Parliament and the comments and concerns from the Venice Committee or the Legal Issues Committee remained largely ignored.The members of the ruling party, Georgian Dream, responded to the events and claimed that Beselias bill has no future prospects and her comments are clear speculations.As Mamuka Mdinaradze, Majoritarian for the Georgian Dream, told the reporters, according to the proposed amendments the Justice Council will become the chancellery for the Court, the project is not aligned with the Constitution and the discussions regarding the legislation are a pure formality.Parliament passed the draft law during the first hearing and we are expecting the conclusion from the Venice Commission. Therefore, it is impossible to discuss the support of the project that was presented. On the other hand, Beselia, as a lawyer, knows that this legislation has no real prospects said Mdinaradze.In the heated exchange between Eka Beselia and The Member of the Parliament Majority, Vano Zardiashvili, the Georgian Dream member denied Beselias claims that the remark about The Secretary of High Council of Justice was made according to the initiative of Mikheil Chinchladze. We have never heard about this before. I wont comment about Beselia, because people are tired of hearing about it. The Claims made by Beselia are absurd because no one person can make decisions regarding the Constitution.The right to nominate candidates for the position of judges belongs exclusively to the High Council of Justice and interference from any other government branch in this process is prohibited. This is the main principle of division of power in the Government. The goal of some media outlets is to keep Eka Beselia in the political field, but the society is tired of Beselia, " said Vano Zardiashvili when speaking to the reporters.Comments of the similar nature were made by the Member of the Parliament, Davit Matikashvili, who also denied the possibility of one single person being in charge of the constitution. The MP recalls the long working hours spent on the legislation together with the team that Beselia was a part of. According to Matiashvili, there was no subject that was discussed in private and every party interested was always fully involved in the process of constitutional discussions. In addition to that, the MP doesnt recall Beselia having any objections when the legislation was discussed within the party. The members of the Georgian Dream Party see Beselias efforts as a way to gain political traction.The legislation proposed by Beselia envisages no less than 10 years of professional training for the candidate of the Supreme Court Judge. But as it was mentioned by various members of the majority it goes against the Georgian Constitution, more so that according to the constitution the Supreme Court Judge must have no less than 5 years of working in the field.However, despite the rejection, the legislative initiative will be discussed at the plenary session. (Corrects to make clear April 19-21 talks are between the Taliban and a delegation of prominent Afghans, not with U.S. officials. Corrects name in paragraph 12 to Jeanne (not Jean)) By Abdul Qadir Sediqi KABUL, April 15 (Reuters) - Women will be included for the first time in the Taliban delegation to talks this month in Qatar on the future of Afghanistan, the movement's main spokesman said on Monday. For a group notorious for its strictly conservative attitude to women's rights, the move represents a step towards addressing demands that women be included in the talks, aimed at bringing an end to more than 17 years of war in Afghanistan. "There will be women among Taliban delegation members in the Doha, Qatar meeting," Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban's main spokesman, said by telephone. He did not name the women, but added, "These women have no family relationship with the senior members of the Taliban, they are normal Afghans, from inside and outside the country, who have been supporters and part of the struggle of the Islamic Emirate." The April 19-21 meeting in Doha will be between the Taliban and a delegation comprising prominent Afghans, including opposition politicians and civil society figures. The Taliban have maintained their rejection of formal talks with the Afghan government, which they dismiss as a "puppet" regime controlled by the United States. While Afghanistan remains a deeply conservative country, especially in rural areas, there have been major advances in women's rights since the U.S-led campaign of 2001 that toppled the Taliban government. Many women fear that if the group regains some power, many of these gains could be erased. The movement gained worldwide notoriety when it came to power in the 1990s by forcing women to wear full facial covering and imposing severe restrictions including banning girls from school and forbidding women from working outside the home. Story continues However Taliban spokesmen say the group has changed and it encourages girls' education and other women's rights within an Islamic Sharia system. Civil society groups, the Western-backed government and Afghanistan's international partners have pressed for women to take part in the talks and news of the Taliban delegation was welcomed. Fawzia Koofi, a former member of parliament who took part in a previous round of meetings in Moscow, said the presence of women in the Taliban team was a "good step." "Only women can feel the pain and miseries that Afghan women have suffered. The presence of women among the Taliban negotiators shows that the Taliban's ideology has changed." Jeanne Shaheen, a member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, who has been pressing for women to play a role in the peace talks, said such inclusion would be vital for future international support for Afghanistan. "There are certain levers that we have, that the Taliban are interested in," she told reporters in Kabul, where she was visiting as part of a Congressional delegation. "There is going to be an interest in economic support after the conflict ends." "I think if the Taliban has any interest in getting international support ... it would be in their interest to recognize the importance of including women and including human rights as part of any settlement that happens." (Additional reporting by James Mackenzie Editing by Frances Kerry) Your finances affected your vote on Brexit (Getty) The way people felt about their financial situation was a big factor in whether they voted to leave the European Union, a new study has shown. People who described themselves as finding it very difficult financially were 13% more likely to vote for Brexit, when compared to those who said they were living comfortably. Peoples feelings about their financial situation were actually a much better predictor than their actual income, the scientists said. Read more from Yahoo News UK: Number of teen pregnancies falls for tenth year running Man who set fire to model of Grenfell Tower charged Father of boy, nine, killed by dog pays emotional tribute The researchers say that the finding could help people understand how austerity policies led to the Brexit vote and the wider rise of populism. Academics at the Universities of Bristol, Warwick and ETH Zurich analysed the views of 8,000 prospective voters over a 12-month period before and after the 2016 referendum. Professor Eugenio Proto, of the Department of Economics at the University of Bristol, said: Our research suggests Brexit was not caused by the attitudes of older people, despite this being a commonly held belief. Only the very young were disproportionately pro-Remain. Our insights show there was little difference between being aged 35, 55 or 75. This was not what we had expected to observe in the data. Instead, peoples feelings about their finances rather than their actual income were shown to be the strongest predictor of their views on Brexit. This is an important message for economists and political scientists, stressing once more how the bad feelings created after crisis austerity policies, and spread via the media and social media, have sparked the current wave of populism, and how important it is to take into account human feelings along with material factors. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK The Travelers Companies, Inc. TRV is slated to report first-quarter 2019 results on Apr 18, before market open. The company delivered positive earnings surprise in each of the last four reported quarters. Lets see how things are shaping up for this announcement. Travelers is likely to report premium growth, driven by an improved pricing environment, high levels of retention, a positive renewal premium change as well as substantial growth across its businesses. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for premiums is pegged at $6.8 billion, up 3.6% from first quarter 2018. Successful execution of marketplace strategies and strategic investments are likely to boost commercial businesses. Continued growth at the profitable agency auto and homeowners business is likely to aid personal lines of business. The companys net investment income is likely to rise on an improved rate environment. Higher private equity returns as well as average level of fixed maturity investments are likely to drive investment income. Travelers expects $20-$25 million of higher after-tax net investment income on a quarterly basis in 2019. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the metric is pegged at $615 million, representing 1.5% increase on a year-over-year basis. Improved premiums and investment income are expected to boost the top line in the first quarter of 2019. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues is currently pegged at $7.6 billion, reflecting a year-over-year rise of 4.7%. Productivity and efficiency gains coupled with improved operating leverage should continue to help the company lower its expense ratio. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for underwriting expense ratio stands at 30.23, indicating an improvement of 37 basis points year over year. What Our Quantitative Model States Our proven model shows that Travelers is likely to beat on earnings in the to-be-reported quarter. This is because the stock has the right combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a favorable Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold). Earnings ESP: Travelers has an Earnings ESP of +2.09%. This is because the Most Accurate Estimate is pegged at $2.81, higher than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.76. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they are reported with our Earnings ESP Filter. Story continues The Travelers Companies, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise The Travelers Companies, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise | The Travelers Companies, Inc. Quote Zacks Rank: Travelers carries a Zacks Rank #3, which increases the predictive power of ESP. We caution against Sell-rated stocks (4 or 5) going into an earnings announcement, especially when the company is seeing negative estimate revisions. Stocks to Consider Some stocks worth considering from the insurance industry with the right combination of elements to surpass estimates this time around are as follows: The Progressive Corp. PGR is set to report first-quarter earnings on Apr 16 and has an Earnings ESP of +2.26%. The company has a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. W.R. Berkley Corp. WRB has an Earnings ESP of +2.41% and a Zacks Rank of 3. The company is set to release first-quarter earnings on Apr 23. Cincinnati Financial Corp. CINF has an Earnings ESP of +4.26% and a Zacks Rank #4. The company is slated to announce first-quarter earnings on Apr 24. Biggest Tech Breakthrough in a Generation Be among the early investors in the new type of device that experts say could impact society as much as the discovery of electricity. Current technology will soon be outdated and replaced by these new devices. In the process, its expected to create 22 million jobs and generate $12.3 trillion in activity. A select few stocks could skyrocket the most as rollout accelerates for this new tech. Early investors could see gains similar to buying Microsoft in the 1990s. Zacks just-released special report reveals 7 stocks to watch. The report is only available for a limited time. See 7 breakthrough stocks now>> 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 The Travelers Companies, Inc. (TRV) : Free Stock Analysis Report W.R. Berkley Corporation (WRB) : Free Stock Analysis Report The Progressive Corporation (PGR) : Free Stock Analysis Report Cincinnati Financial Corporation (CINF) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has claimed Donald Trump was simply joking when he repeatedly praised WikiLeaks and declared his love of the platform. Ms Sanders, during an appearance on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, defended the president when questioned over his claim he knows nothing about WikiLeaks in the wake of the arrest of Julian Assange. Look clearly the president was making a joke during the 2016 campaign, certainly we take this seriously, Ms Sanders said. WikiLeaks became major player in the 2016 election after stolen emails from Mr Trumps political rivals campaign were published on the website. Emails from the Democratic National Committee were also published. I love WikiLeaks, Mr Trump said during a rally in October 2016. Ms Sanders continued to claim that the Trump administration deserves credit for Mr Assanges arrest in London, and said that the current president is the first president to take WikiLeaks alleged crimes seriously. The Obama administration was heavily critical of Mr Assange, but ultimately declined to charge him out of concern for the implications of those charges for press freedoms in the US. The former Army intelligence analyst who leaked thousands of US government documents to WikiLeaks, Chelsea Manning, was tried and sentenced to prison time during the Obama administration, but Barack Obama commuted her sentence before leaving office after seven years of detention. Our administration is the only one thats done anything about it. Lets not forget that the reason Julian Assange is being looked at is because of the engagement that he had with Chelsea Manning, Ms Sanders told Mr Wallace on Sunday. That individual is the person that the Obama administration actually commuted their sentence. Were the only ones who have taken this whole process seriously, and actually doing something to solve the problem, she continued. Assange has been accused by the US government of conspiring to help Ms Manning to break into Department of Defense databases, so that those documents could then be published on WikiLeaks. Story continues He was separately convicted of skipping bail in the UK by fleeing to London's Ecuadorian embassy to avoid a Swedish arrest warrant in 2012. Assage faces years in a British prison in an upcoming legal battle over the attempt to extradite him to the US. Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump lambasted the Boeing 737 Max plane on Monday, saying it should be improved with unspecified new features and given a new name. The model has suffered two deadly crashes in a matter of months, the first last October in Indonesia with the death of all 189 people on board and then in Ethiopia on March 10, killing all 157 aboard. Both accidents took place shortly after takeoff. Investigators are focusing on a system that is supposed to help the Boeing workhorse aircraft avoid stalling in flight. "What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!), but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name," Trump wrote in an early morning tweet. "No product has suffered like this one. But again, what the hell do I know?," he added. It is not the first time Trump has weighed in on the Ethiopian crash. Two days after the plane went down, he tweeted that these days jetliners are "becoming far too complex to fly". He added: "Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT. I see it all the time in many products. Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better." On Apr 12, President Donald Trump and the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) unveiled several initiatives to accelerate 5G (fifth generation) wireless network deployment in the United States. Trump said, The race to 5G is on and America must win. Although, Trump reiterated that 5G initiatives should be private-sector led, instead of a government developed shared network proposed earlier, national security will be the key issue for the government. Advantage of 5G Wireless Network The United States is progressing well to lead the world in 5G the next generation of wireless connectivity which will enable faster speeds and low latency wireless broadband services. Although 5G network is not likely to replace existing 4G standards on a large scale before 2020, several telecom behemoths are expected to launch 5G smartphones in 2019. 5G is widely believed to be smarter, faster and more efficient than 4G. It promises mobile data speeds that far outstrip the fastest home broadband network currently available to consumers. Data transmission speed of 5G network can go up to 100 Gbps, which will be 1,000 times faster than the 4G standard. As a result, an entire HD film can be downloaded in less than a second using 5G network. The 2G wireless standard spurred the use of mobile phones instead of using landlines. The 3G wireless network enabled seamless Internet connectivity to mobile phone. 4G standard helped companies that thrive on mobile connectivity and online content. However, 5G wireless network is likely to boost high-tech AI-based products significantly. 5G Wireless and IoT Market Sizes Per Reuters, global 5G wireless market size will reach $1,271 billion by 2025. The market will grow more than 49.1% over the 2018-2025 period. DELOITTE Global has predicted that 25 telecom operators will launch 5G in 2019 and 26 others will follow suite in 2020. About 20 vendors will launch 5G-enabled smartphones in 2019 and over 1 million 5G handsets are likely to be shifted this year. Moreover, research firm IDC predicted that technology spending on IoT will reach $1.2 trillion by 2022. Research firm Bain estimated that the combined IoT market size will reach $520 billion in 2021 from $235 billion in 2017. Per President Trump, 92 big U.S. markets will be ready to go 5G enabled by the end of this year. According to some estimate, U.S. wireless operators will invest $275 billion in 5G networks. This massive investment will create 3 million jobs and add $500 billion to the U.S. GDP. Government Initiatives The FCC auctioned 1,550 MHz spectrum for commercial use of 5G wireless network. Furthermore, the regulator is going to auction a massive 3,400 MHz of new spectrum in the Upper 37 GHz, 39 GHz and 47 GHz spectrum bands. Additionally, the FCC is set to create $20.4 billion Rural Digital Opportunity fund, to provide high-speed broadband connection to 4 million homes and business enterprises in rural areas. Potential Winners While several firms are lined up to take advantage of the significant market opportunity in 5G wireless network, five firms are likely to benefit the most. The chart below shows price performance of these five stocks year to date. Story continues Verizon Communications Inc. VZ has upped the ante against its rivals by aiming to launch the 5G Ultra Wideband network in Chicago and Minneapolis on Apr 11. As the company gears up to increase the tally of 5G Ultra Wideband mobility cities to 30 in 2019, it is offering an exclusive 5G moto mod by Motorola Solutions to power moto z3 the worlds first 5G-enabled smartphone to enable users to fully utilize the network features. The company has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) and an Earnings ESP of +0.17 for the current quarter. AT&T Inc. T remains poised to benefit from the impending 5G boom. The telco giant has already introduced mobile 5G networks in parts of 12 cities and is further planning to add seven more cities to the tally in the first half of 2019. AT&T recently unveiled its 5G policy framework that will hinge on three pillars mobile 5G, fixed wireless and edge computing. In order to have a seamless transition among Wi-Fi, LTE and 5G services, AT&T intends to deploy a standards-based nationwide mobile 5G network in early 2020. The company carries a Zacks Rank #3 and has an Earnings ESP of +0.49 for the current quarter. Qualcomm Inc. QCOM has been trying to retain its leadership in 5G, chipset market and mobile connectivity with several technological achievements and innovative product launches. The company achieved a 5G data connection with the Snapdragon X50 5G modem chipset on 28GHz mmWave spectrum. Notably, Qualcomm Technologies has been at the forefront of driving Gigabit LTE and 5G in the industry. The company carries a Zacks Rank #3 and has an Earnings ESP of +1.41 for the current quarter. Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO is developing a Cloud-to-Client approach to 5G, unifying multivendor solutions into a single, standards-based architecture. It spans multicloud, IP routing, 5G core, service edge, access networks, IoT, and security. Cisco secures the wireless service provider from the cloud, to the network, to the client with its new 5G Security Architecture that builds upon the comprehensive portfolio of threat-centric solutions to securely enable 5G mobile networks. The company holds a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Intel Corp.s INTC primary focus at the moment is data center and cloud, wherein it is doing everything possible to maintain market share and profitability. Supporting this is continued investments in the IoTand non-volatile memory/storage. The new Intel 5G Modem enables both sub-6Ghz and mmWave capabilities helping the industrys ecosystem to develop and launch early connectivity solutions. The company carries a Zacks Rank #3 and has an Earnings ESP of +0.17 for the current quarter. Biggest Tech Breakthrough in a Generation Be among the early investors in the new type of device that experts say could impact society as much as the discovery of electricity. Current technology will soon be outdated and replaced by these new devices. In the process, its expected to create 22 million jobs and generate $12.3 trillion in activity. A select few stocks could skyrocket the most as rollout accelerates for this new tech. Early investors could see gains similar to buying Microsoft in the 1990s. Zacks just-released special report reveals 7 stocks to watch. The report is only available for a limited time. See 7 breakthrough stocks now>> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) : Free Stock Analysis Report QUALCOMM Incorporated (QCOM) : Free Stock Analysis Report AT&T Inc. (T) : Free Stock Analysis Report Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) : Free Stock Analysis Report Intel Corporation (INTC) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research By Humeyra Pamuk WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Turkey's purchase of a Russian air defence missile system should not trigger U.S. sanctions because Ankara is not an adversary of Washington and remains committed to the NATO alliance, Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said on Monday. Speaking at a U.S.-Turkey conference in Washington amid rising tensions between the two NATO allies over Ankara's plan to buy the Russian S-400 missile system, Akar adopted a relatively conciliatory tone and urged to resolve issues via dialogue. "Turkey is clearly not an adversary of the United States," Akar said and added that therefore its procurement of the S-400 system should not be considered within the scope of U.S. sanctions designed to target America's enemies. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that Washington had told Ankara it could face retribution for buying the S-400s under a sanctions law known as Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CATSAA). "This procurement decision does not signify a change in Turkey's course. I'd like to reiterate strongly that there is no change in Turkey's commitment to NATO," Akar said. The disagreement over the F-35 is the latest of a series of diplomatic disputes between the United States and Turkey including Turkish demands that the United States extradite Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, differences over Middle East policy and the war in Syria, and sanctions on Iran. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has refused to back down from Ankara's planned purchase of a Russian S-400 missile defence system that the United States has said would compromise the security of F-35 aircraft, made by Lockheed Martin Corp . Turkey has said it will take delivery of the S-400s in July. In early April, the United States halted delivery of equipment related to the stealthy F-35 fighter aircraft to Turkey, marking the first concrete U.S. step to potentially blocking the delivery of the jet to the NATO ally. Story continues Akar said Turkey was puzzled by the move and expected U.S. and other partners in the programme to fulfil their obligations. "We firmly believe that linking the S-400 to the F-35 project is unfortunate ... We are one of the investors and partners and not just a buyer. We have invested over $1 billion ... and fulfilled all our obligations," he said. Akar repeated Turkey's offer to hold technical talks with the United States to address "technical concerns" over the S-400 purchase. Turkey is also assessing a renewed offer from the United States to buy Patriot missile defence systems, Akar added. "Recently we received the restated offer for the Patriots. This offer is now on the table, we are studying it carefully," he said. (Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Additional reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun in Istanbul; Editing by Dominic Evans and Phil Berlowitz) By Humeyra Pamuk WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Turkey's purchase of a Russian air defense missile system should not trigger U.S. sanctions because Ankara is not an adversary of Washington and remains committed to the NATO alliance, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Monday. Speaking at a U.S.-Turkey conference in Washington as tensions mount between the two NATO allies over Ankara's plan to buy the Russian S-400 missile system, Akar adopted a relatively conciliatory tone and urged that issues be resolved through dialogue. "Turkey is clearly not an adversary of the United States," Akar said, adding that its procurement of the S-400 system should not therefore be considered within the scope of U.S. sanctions designed to target America's enemies. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that Washington had told Ankara it could face retribution for buying the S-400s under a sanctions law known as Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CATSAA). "This procurement decision does not signify a change in Turkey's course. I'd like to reiterate strongly that there is no change in Turkey's commitment to NATO," Akar said. The disagreement over the F-35 is the latest in a series of diplomatic disputes between the United States and Turkey including Turkish demands that Washington extradite cleric Fethullah Gulen, differences over Middle East policy and the war in Syria, and sanctions on Iran. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has refused to back down from Ankara's planned purchase of a Russian S-400 missile defense system the United States has said would compromise the security of F-35 aircraft, made by Lockheed Martin Corp. Turkey has said it will take delivery of the S-400s in July. In early April, the United States halted delivery of equipment related to the stealth F-35 fighter aircraft to Turkey, marking the first concrete U.S. step to potentially blocking the delivery of the jet to Turkey. Akar said Turkey was puzzled by the move and expected the United States and other partners in the program to fulfill their obligations. "We firmly believe that linking the S-400 to the F-35 project is unfortunate. ... We are one of the investors and partners and not just a buyer. We have invested over $1 billion ... and fulfilled all our obligations," he said. Akar repeated Turkey's offer to hold technical talks with the United States to address "technical concerns" over the S-400 purchase. Turkey is also assessing a renewed offer from the United States to buy Patriot missile defense systems, Akar added. "Recently we received the restated offer for the Patriots. This offer is now on the table, we are studying it carefully." Speaking at the same conference, Erdogan adviser Ibrahim Kalin reiterated the wide range of issues on which Ankara and Washington work together in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East and said any imposition of sanctions would dent that cooperation. "Rather than using language of threats from sanctions against Turkey, I think the people here in Congress as well as this administration should understand Turkey's security concerns," he said. The U.S. Congress recently introduced several bipartisan resolutions targeting Turkey, calling on President Donald Trump's administration to impose sanctions or prohibit the transfer of F-35 fighter aircraft. (Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Additional reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun in Istanbul; Editing by Dominic Evans, Phil Berlowitz and Peter Cooney) Eunice Wanjiru Njoki alias Mammito is one of the several women defying odds in a male-dominated comedy industry. She grew up in the largest urban slum in Africa, Kibera, where she learned to survive. Mammito spoke to Buzz magazine about her growing up in the ghetto, alleged pregnancy by fellow comedian Butita, and her career. Where did your stage name come from? Mammito was a name that we called each other in my click of friends, so if you go to Kibera you will find a couple of other Mammitos. What was life like, growing up in the ghetto? Well, I just woke up every day a little bigger; with time my legs were longer and my shoes didnt fit, (laughs sarcastically). I grew up in Kibera Line Saba, Its all I knew, I didnt have anything to compare it with at the time so I cant say it was hard. The ghetto teaches you how to survive so it made it tough, but it also gives you a certain negative attitude. Juliani called it Mtaa mentality; when you grow up with scarcity, it gives you a narrow perspective on life that can sometimes hinder you from reaching your full potential. Initially, I didnt understand how entrenched it was and it took me a long time to overcome. Its like they say you can take someone out of the ghetto but you cant take the ghetto out of them. I watched a lot of TV growing up, so it gave me a different perspective. My mother also taught me to believe in myself and challenged me to think big. However, I still had to learn how to be professional, control my feelings and to make long term career decisions. How many times did you audition before you got a slot on Churchill? Countless time, I cant even remember how many; though they loved my jokes, they would tell me that I lacked courage and stage presence. This comedy thing was not working so my plan was to move to Thika and help my grandmother with her mtumba business. However, I decided to give it just one more try, and that is the day I got in. No matter how many times you have tried, just give it another try; most people give up just when they are about to get there. It looks simple and fun, is comedy that hard? You have no idea how many time I have cried in the loo after a horrible experience on stage. The first time I performed open mic on Churchill no one laughed, its like I was giving a speech, there was nothing but echo. There is even a time I forgot all my lines, I just looked blankly at the crowd and walked off stage, I was so embarrassed I just cried. There was a time I was performing and a certain lady who was in the audience just looked at me dismissively, pulled out her phone and went on like I wasnt even there. That really broke me, nothing hurts like being ignored while you are up there giving your absolute best, I went to the toilet after that and cried like a baby. So why didnt you quit? I actually have a degree in Community Development and Social Work from Mount Kenya University and I have thought of quitting comedy many times. There is just something that keeps pulling me back to the stage, its an addiction I tell you. Over time I have developed a thick skin; you cant go far in life if you keep thinking about what you think people are thinking about you. Just get up there and focus on what you need to do, and people will figure themselves out with time. Do you feel comedy is now a respectable career? Some people still think that we are a bunch of morons just cracking jokes but we are actually very educated people. I may not be using my degree directly but going to school makes you more knowledgeable and expands your world view. It also helps you learn how to interact and socialise with people. Sometimes you dont even know exactly how you are using that knowledge but it comes in handy. Its a job like any other and more people are beginning to appreciate it. How do you feel as one of the most successful female comedians? Fame is a mystery, unless I do a survey I cant really explain why people like me. My comedy is based on real life experiences so I guess people relate. It feels good to be one of the few female comedians; so many have given up and its great to be an inspiration to those who are behind me. You have a great sense of style, where do you get it from? My mom was a seamstress so in the ghetto I was always that hot mama. By the time I was starting comedy she had gotten an out of town job so I had to buy my own clothes. My outfits turned heads in the hood but on set they looked at me like I was an alien. With time however I came to understand how to dress for TV. Is it true that you were expecting Butitas child? There was a time I posted a photo after lunch so my stomach was protruding, I guess that is where the rumours came from. Let me just put it clear that I always use protection, the ones that are studded with ribs, so there is no way I can be pregnant. I use the ones with banana or strawberry flavour because they give extra pleasure, keep me safe, and leave my house smelling very nice, (giggles and laughs). People will believe anything they read on blogs so I am not even shocked. Growing up in the ghetto I saw first-hand how early pregnancies messed up teenagers, so I never had a boyfriend until I was well over eighteen. Relationships are hard, if you start dating so early you just end up a very bitter woman because of all the heart aches you will get. If grown men are struggling to keep their relationships together then what business do you have dating a boy who barely understands himself? So whats next for Mammito? I am going into English comedy so the world can hear this girl from Kibera, and we are establishing comedy clubs so grassroot comedians can also have opportunities. Every first Saturday of the month it goes down at the Blues club at Barclays plaza and we are hoping more venues will take this up. We need to build an industry for next generation; If my kids choose to be comedians I dont want them to struggle like I did. QUICK FIRE Favourite App? As long as its free and without too many pop-up ads. Favourite day of the week? Every day is a blessing. What do you love about your job? Everything. Whats your dream house? One built on legally-registered land. What annoys you the most? Selfishness. Your favourite food? Anything with meat in it. Your dream car? Any that moves me from point A to point B. Johannesburg (AFP) - Two South African men caught at the weekend with 167 rhino horns, one of the biggest hauls recorded and believed to be destined for Asia, appeared in court on Monday, police said. Clive John Melville, 57, and Petrus Stephanus Steyn, 61, both from the southern city of Port Elizabeth, face charges of trafficking rhino horns. The two will remain in custody until 26 April when they will apply for bail, said brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi, spokesman of an elite police unit that investigates specialised types of crime known as the Hawks. They were arrested on Saturday in the Hartbeespoort dam area, north of Pretoria following a tip off that there was a car transporting rhino horns. Police said the rhino horns worth a "substantial amount of money" were destined for the Southeast Asian markets. Demand for rhino horn is primarily fuelled by consumers in China and Vietnam where it is advertised by some traditional medicine practitioners as a wonder ingredient. In reality rhino horn is comprised of little more than keratin, the same protein that makes human hair and fingernails. Nonetheless, horn can fetch up to $60,000 per kilogramme in Asia, stoking lucrative transnational crime networks that have decimated rhino populations in recent decades. South Africa, which is home to about 80 percent of the world rhino population, has been hit hardest. In 2018, 769 rhinos were poached in South Africa alone. More than 7,100 animals have been killed over the past decade. The country is also home to the world's largest privately-run rhino farms. In 2017, a leading private rhino breeder John Hume organised an online rhino auction after South Africa's top court lifted an eight-year moratorium on the domestic trade of rhino horns. Breeders harvest the horns by tranquilising the animals and cutting them off -- a technique they say is humane and wards off poachers. Photographs circulated in the local media after the weekend seizure show horns with markings indicating weight and others that appear to be registration numbers. "These suggest that the horns came from a stockpile of some kind, possibly a private stockpile," Julian Rademeyer, a project leader at TRAFFIC, the international wildlife trade network, told AFP. The way the horns have been cut "looks as though (they were) professionally cut with an electric saw -- again this could point to the possibility that some of the horns came from rhinos that had been dehorned and not necessarily from poached animals," added Rademeyer. By David Shepardson and Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Commerce Department has submitted to the White House the results of a national security investigation into uranium imports, a spokesman for the department said on Monday. The "Section 232" probe was prompted by a petition filed by two U.S. uranium mining companies, Ur-Energy Inc and Energy Fuels Inc, complaining that subsidized foreign competitors, including Russia and Kazakhstan, have caused them to cut capacity and lay off workers. U.S. nuclear power generators oppose the federal government taking action and have argued tariffs or quotas would increase costs for the struggling industry and possibly cause some reactors to shut. The Commerce Department declined to discuss the recommendations because they are confidential. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in July 2018 the probe would canvass the entire U.S. uranium sector from mining through enrichment and defense and industrial consumption. The uranium companies proposed two remedies in their petition - requiring that domestic uranium supply 25 percent of the U.S. market and a requirement for U.S. federal utilities and agencies to buy U.S. uranium - approximately 12 million pounds per year. It would revive the struggling domestic uranium mining industry, which in 2017 saw production fall to near historic lows. Current uranium prices are hovering in the mid-$20s/lb compared to highs over $140/lb in 2007. "We believe that President Trump will recognize the danger of relying on large and increasing levels uranium imports from Russia, China and our geopolitical rivals," said Curtis Moore, a spokesman for Energy Fuels. Energy Fuels and Ur-Energy are quietly preparing for a boost in both demand and prices if the Trump administration were to set a quota for uranium imports. Energy Fuels has recently refurbished two of its mines in Utah to be able to ramp up production if Trump sets a 25 percent quota on uranium imports or imposes tariffs. Story continues Utility companies and environmental groups are opposed to government intervention to bolster domestic uranium mining, albeit for different reasons. The Ad Hoc Utilities Group, a group of electric utilities with nuclear plants in their fleets including Duke Energy Corp, Dominion Energy Inc and Entergy, said it will continue to make the case to the president - a supporter of nuclear energy - that the petition will saddle companies with millions in additional costs if they are forced to source domestic uranium. "The geopolitical issues they raised have been more than adequately debunked," said David Tamsai, spokesman for the group. "The petition would create a mandated market to make profits for two companies." Conservation groups are concerned that boosting domestic demand for uranium will put areas of land with uranium deposits - including acres within the now-redrawn Bears Ears National Monument in Utah and contested acres near the Grand Canyon in Arizona - in danger. "There is a lot of reason to be concerned if these trade measures are taken," said Amber Reimondo of the Grand Canyon Trust. "It will increase demand well beyond what current mines are capable of producing." Trump has 90 days to decide whether to act upon the recommendations. (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Susan Thomas and Tom Brown) By Julio-Cesar Chavez EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) - U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will send about 100 agents to the Mexico border to speed up crossing times, a U.S. congresswoman said on Thursday, as businesses grapple with trade delays after officers were redeployed to immigration duties. The slowdowns began late last month after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to close the border if Mexico did not halt a surge of people seeking asylum in the United States. The administration moved several hundred border agents to handle the influx of migrants, triggering long delays for cross-border traffic because of the staffing shortage. As soon as Monday, CBP plans to send officers from the Canadian border and other parts of the country to El Paso, Texas, said Democratic U.S. Representative Veronica Escobar of Texas, noting she had been informed by CBP Deputy Commissioner Robert Perez. CBP did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Rio Grande Valley, on the eastern edge of the border, was being considered as another point to deploy extra officers, Escobar added. Wait times totaling hours have hit industrial trade hard. Losses have amounted to $800,000 a day for transportation businesses in Mexico's Ciudad Juarez across the border from El Paso, said the head of Mexican trucking association CANACAR, Manuel Sotelo. Data from border business association Index Juarez showed that losses from 28 exporting firms in Ciudad Juarez that utilize the crossing total $15 million over the past week. In El Paso, several truckers said they usually did four crossings a day and were now managing only one. Some manufacturing plants, including automotive factories that depend on constant cross-border shipments, have turned to expensive air freight to stay on schedule. Passenger vehicles that would normally wait up to an hour and a half to cross are now facing four-hour waits. (Reporting by Julio-Cesar Chavez in El Paso, Texas; Additional reporting by Sharay Angulo in Mexico City; Editing by Peter Cooney and Stephen Coates) Twitter Facebook Spring is a time for rebirth, renewal and lots and lots of chocolate. Now, Uber is getting in on the action. Cargo, the exclusive in-car vendor for Uber, will offer free samples of chocolate Easter egg candies starting Monday during rides in select cities - Reese's Peanut Butter eggs and Cadbury Creme eggs, specifically. Here's the full list of cities that will offer free chocolate eggs in Uber rides: New York City Chicago Boston Washington, D.C. Baltimore Minneapolis Los Angeles San Francisco Atlanta Miami Dallas Cargo, the company that partnered with Uber to supply chocolates for this promotional event, is part of a burgeoning business model where vendors sell snacks, drinks, and other essentials such as headphones and phone chargers in ride-hailing cars. You purchase items through a mobile website, then the driver hands you the goods. Read more... More about Cargo, Easter, Ride Hailing Apps, Easter Egg, and Cadbury By Angelika Gruber ZURICH (Reuters) - UBS shareholders should oppose discharging the board and top management of Switzerland's biggest bank from liability after a guilty verdict in a French tax evasion case, proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) said. "A vote against the formal discharge of the board of directors and senior management is warranted on a precautionary basis, as the company was recently found guilty of illegal solicitation and laundering the proceeds of tax evasion by a French court," ISS said in a statement received by Reuters on Monday, ahead of UBS's May 2 annual shareholders meeting. This is the latest opposition from shareholder advisers after a French court in February found UBS guilty of illegally soliciting clients and laundering the proceeds of tax evasion, ordering it to pay 4.5 billion euros ($5.1 billion) in penalties. UBS denies the charges and is appealing against the ruling it has called "incomprehensible". A UBS spokeswoman declined to comment on ISS's recommendations. Ethos Foundation on Friday recommended UBS shareholders reject all of the Swiss bank's executive and board pay proposals at the annual meeting, including binding votes on bonuses and pay packages. Also last week, adviser Glass Lewis voiced its objections to the UBS pay proposal, citing "pay-for-performance concern", and recommended shareholders abstain on the discharge question. Even if ISS does not get its way, a significant showing of shareholder opposition to the board's and management's discharge would be a blow to Chairman Axel Weber and Chief Executive Sergio Ermotti, who last month boosted provisions to cover the case but said they still expect the verdict to be reversed. Ermotti has said he "disappointed" by the court ruling, but highlighted the bank's strong capital and liquidity as reasons UBS could afford to fight the French case. A compliance expert and partner at Swiss law firm Lalive, Daniel Buehr, said a company's board is most accountable, since its members are tasked with making certain that management in important legal cases works in the interest of the company and is not driven by personal motivations. Story continues "It can be damaging when managers commit their reputations and names and then cannot beat a retreat," Buehr said. "In such situations, which happen again and again because it's human nature, it's the board's job to lead, to take control and manage the risks." (Additional reporting by Oliver Hirt and John Revill; Writing by John Miller; Editing by Michael Shields/David Evans) UK dividends could surpass 100bn for the first time in 2019. Photo: Xyz Pictures/imageBROKER/REX/Shutterstock UK dividends jumped 15.7% to a first-quarter record of 19.7bn ($25.8bn) between the beginning of January and the end of March, according to the latest UK Dividend Monitor by Link Asset Services. The dramatic increase in dividends the money paid by a company to its shareholders out of profits was mainly influenced by very large special dividends. Underlying growth was actually slightly slower than expected, the report shows. The biggest impact came from BHP. The global mining group paid a huge 1.7bn special dividend from the proceeds of the disposal of its US shale oil interests, on top of a healthy increase in its final dividend. This made BHP the second-largest dividend payer in the first quarter of the year. READ MORE: Top 20 FTSE 100 dividend-paying stocks Rio Tinto will follow suit in the second quarter, distributing cash from the sale of its Australian coal assets, according to the Link report. The report also shows that the two largest-paying sectors oil and pharmaceuticals accounted for almost two fifths of the first-quarter total. Growth in these industries was almost entirely due to positive exchange-rate effects. With the exception of a small increase from BP, the biggest companies all held their dividends flat on a constant-currency basis. Conversely, tobacco stocks raised their payouts substantially. A breakdown of dividends paid out by sector. Source: Exchange Data International/Link Asset Services Telecoms was a particularly weak sector, with BT cutting payouts and Vodafones payouts remaining flat. Retail was also disappointing, as most companies held dividends flat, while there were notable cuts from Dixons and, unsurprisingly, Debenhams. The monitor shows the top 100 payouts outperformed those by mid-caps companies with a market capitalisation between $2bn (1.5bn) and $10bn (7.6bn) even after special dividends and exchange rates were taken into account. This reflects a slowdown in earnings growth for companies outside the multinational super league, according to the Link report. After stripping out exchange rates and special dividends, top 100 payouts rose 2.6%, while mid-cap payouts fell 2.5%. Story continues The first quarter is usually just the warm-up act for dividends, but this year it has put in a stellar performance, Michael Kempe, chief operating officer of Link Market Services, said. READ MORE: 3 FTSE 100 stocks that just increased their dividends Miners are taking centre stage with large special dividends, but these reflect restructuring and asset sales rather than trading profits. Underlying growth from this sector is now much more normal after grabbing the headlines over the past couple of years. Despite share prices rebounding by around a tenth since January, the yield the expected value of dividends divided by share prices on UK shares has only dropped slightly from a 10-year high in January. It now stands at an extremely attractive 4.6% excluding special dividends, which far exceeds the yield available on other asset classes like government bonds, property, and cash. Kempe said this suggests equities are still extremely cheap, both in comparison to other countries and to other asset classes. READ MORE: Dividends in 2018 broke new records reaching nearly 100 billion Payouts would need to fall far more than they did even during the financial crisis to bring the UK equity yield back into line with the long-run average, and we just dont see that happening, he added. Based on the slightly weaker-than-expected start to 2019, and slower growth in company earnings, the Link report predicted underlying growth of 3.9% this year, down from 5.3% in January. That will take underlying dividends (excluding specials) to 99.7bn a comfortable record. The big boost from specials takes the potential headline dividends to a record 106.1bn this year, smashing through the 100bn mark for the first time, an increase of 6.3% year-on-year. Dividends are projected to break through the 100bn mark in 2019. Source: Exchange Data International/Link Asset Services However, one big unknown for UK dividends in 2019 is the outlook for sterling. A fall in the pound due to a no-deal Brexit will increase the value of dividends from the UKs biggest multinational firms, whereas a rise in the pound would reduce the total in sterling terms. Over the long-term, exchange rates are just noise, as losses one year are later compensated with gains. Investors focused on the fundamentals can see UK equities provide solid income with steady growth, Kempe said. Uncertainty abounds in markets, about the world economy, and about the outlook for the UK in the light of the turmoil surrounding Brexit. For dividends, however, we are confident 2019 will show good growth, even if [the first quarter] was, in truth, a touch weaker than we expected on an underlying basis. London (AFP) - The British government will resume talks with the main opposition Labour party next week on how to resolve the deadlock over Brexit, a senior minister said Sunday. Prime Minister Theresa May's effective deputy, David Lidington, said they wanted to be able to "take stock" of any progress when parliament returns from its Easter break on April 23. "What we have agreed is a programme of meetings next week on particular subjects with the ministers and shadow ministers concerned getting together," he told the BBC. They would discuss environmental standards and workers' rights after Brexit as well as the future security relationship with the EU. "Then we would hope to take stock of where we are as soon as parliament gets back after the Easter recess," he said. "But I don't think that this question can be allowed to drag out for much longer." May was forced to ask fellow EU leaders this week to postpone Brexit for a second time, from April 12 to October 31. She has been unable to persuade MPs to back the withdrawal terms she has struck with Brussels, but is also unwilling to take Britain out of the EU with no deal at all. She is still hoping Brexit can happen in time to avoid Britain taking part in European Parliament elections on May 23. May met Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on April 3 and there have been further lower-level talks since then over Labour's demand for a close future relationship with the EU. Lidington said there must be "compromise on both sides", adding that if no agreement could be reached, they would put a series of Brexit options to parliament to decide. A top British regulator wants tough new rules to protect children from being exploited by tech companies, including a ban on under-18s liking posts on Facebook or being rewarded with Snapchat streaks. The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) on Monday published a proposed Code of Practice to protect childrens privacy online. The most radical proposal is a ban on the use of nudge psychology for under-18s online. Nudge theory was developed by a Nobel Prize-winning economist and uses human psychology to encourage certain behaviours. It has been successfully used to encourage things like blood or organ donation. READ MORE: UK's tough new internet rules are 'blunt tool' However, the ICO, which protects individuals privacy rights in the UK, is worried that tech companies use nudge theory to get people hooked on their platforms. Examples includes features such as Facebook likes or streaks on Snapchat, which are a reward for when people send photos to people frequently on the app. Reward loops or positive reinforcement techniques (such as likes and streaks) can nudge or encourage users to stay actively engaged with a service, allowing the online service to collect more personal data, the report said. Elizabeth Denham, the ICOs Information Commissioner, said in a statement: This is the connected generation. The internet and all its wonders are hardwired into their everyday lives. We shouldnt have to prevent our children from being able to use it, but we must demand that they are protected when they do. This code does that. READ MORE: Britain could launch 'competition unit' to challenge tech giants like Google and Facebook The proposed ban on nudges is one of 16 principals proposed in the new Code of Practice. Others include default high privacy settings for children, switching location tracking off by default, and not sharing any of the data collected on users who are under 18. Tech companies that violate these new rules could be fined 4% of their global turnover or up to 20m (17.25m). Story continues The new rules will be consulted upon until the end of May before being put before parliament. The ICO said it expects them to be law by the end of the year. Britain and the EU have been tracking down on tech companies in recent years. Brussels has levied billions in fines against tech giants like Google and Apple for anti-competitive practices. The UK has also proposed a new legal duty of care for social media companies over their customers, as well as a Facebook tax on global tech giants that make little profit but earn huge revenues. READ MORE: UK announces 'groundbreaking' new 'Facebook tax' to raise 400m Damascus (AFP) - The UN envoy for Syria held "substantial" talks Sunday in Damascus with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem on efforts to find a political settlement to the country's eight-year-long war. "We have had very detailed substantial discussions," Norwegian diplomat Geir Pedersen told reporters after the meeting. "We are now addressing all the issues so all the issues are at the table," he said, without specifying. The envoy said he was set to hold more talks with Syrian officials later in the day. "Let's see how we are able to proceed later this afternoon," he added. State news agency SANA said Pedersen and Muallem discussed ongoing efforts to advance Syria's political process, including moves to form a committee tasked with drawing up a post-war constitution. They also spoke about the envoy's diplomatic activities since his last visit to Damascus in March, SANA added. Pedersen arrived in Damascus on Saturday, in his third official visit to the country since assuming his post in January. He became the fourth UN negotiator aiming to resolve Syria's conflict following the resignation of his predecessor Staffan de Mistura. Since early January, he has travelled extensively to meet with the government, opposition and others. The UN Security Council remains deeply divided over the way forward in Syria. Veto-wielding Russia, a key backer of President Bashar al-Assad, has taken a lead role in diplomatic efforts through the so-called Astana group with Iran and Turkey that has largely sidelined UN diplomacy. Syria's war has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since the conflict began with the repression of anti-government protests in 2011. The regime has made a military comeback with Russian military support since 2015, and now holds almost two-thirds of the country. Kenyan motorists and households have been dealt a blow after the Energy Regulatory Commission on Sunday announced increased fuel prices. In its latest review, the energy regulator announced super petrol will go up by Sh.5.25, diesel by Sh.5.52 and kerosene by Sh.2.76 per litre in Nairobi. The increase means super petrol, diesel and kerosene will retail at Sh106.60, Sh102.13, and Sh102.22 respectively in the Capital Nairobi. In Mombasa, the new prices for Super Petrol, Diesel and Kerosene are now Sh103.98, Sh99.51 and Sh99.60 respectively. These new pump prices include the 8% government imposed tax that was passed through the Finance Act, 2018. The changes in this months prices have been as a consequence of the average landed cost of imported Super Petrol increasing by 9.14%from US$ 568.55 per ton in February 2019 to US$ 620.54 per ton in March 2019; Diesel increasing by 11.19% from US$ 561.64 per ton to US$ 624.51 per ton and Kerosene increasing by 1.88% from US$ 650.29 per ton to US$ 662.55 per ton, said ERC. The new prices will be in force from today, April 15 to May 14, 2019. The timing of the increase means Kenyans will have to dig deeper during the forthcoming Easter holidays when most people usually travel to the countryside. Here is the latest fuel price review bt ERC: Sonoco Products Company (NYSE:SON), which is in the packaging business, and is based in United States, led the NYSE gainers with a relatively large price hike in the past couple of weeks. With many analysts covering the mid-cap stock, we may expect any price-sensitive announcements have already been factored into the stocks share price. However, could the stock still be trading at a relatively cheap price? Lets take a look at Sonoco Productss outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if the opportunity still exists. See our latest analysis for Sonoco Products What is Sonoco Products worth? According to my valuation model, Sonoco Products seems to be fairly priced at around 12.45% above my intrinsic value, which means if you buy Sonoco Products today, youd be paying a relatively fair price for it. And if you believe that the stock is really worth $55.69, then there isnt really any room for the share price grow beyond what its currently trading. What kind of growth will Sonoco Products generate? NYSE:SON Past and Future Earnings, April 15th 2019 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. Buying a great company with a robust outlook at a cheap price is always a good investment, so lets also take a look at the company's future expectations. With profit expected to grow by a double-digit 15% over the next couple of years, the outlook is positive for Sonoco Products. It looks like higher cash flow is on the cards for the stock, which should feed into a higher share valuation. What this means for you: Are you a shareholder? It seems like the market has already priced in SONs positive outlook, with shares trading around its fair value. However, there are also other important factors which we havent considered today, such as the financial strength of the company. Have these factors changed since the last time you looked at the stock? Will you have enough confidence to invest in the company should the price drop below its fair value? Story continues Are you a potential investor? If youve been keeping tabs on SON, now may not be the most advantageous time to buy, given it is trading around its fair value. However, the optimistic prospect is encouraging for the company, which means its worth further examining other factors such as the strength of its balance sheet, in order to take advantage of the next price drop. Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters the fundamentals before you make a decision on Sonoco Products. You can find everything you need to know about Sonoco Products in the latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in Sonoco Products, you can use our free platform to see my list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. Taipei (AFP) - The United States commitment to Taiwan's security remains "rock-solid," a former top-ranking US official said Monday, as the two sides commemorated the 40th anniversary of legislation guaranteeing US support for the island. The laws passed by the US congress in 1979 required Washington to provide Taiwan with means of self-defence even as the United States switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing. Former US House speaker Paul Ryan led the delegation to the island this week, which included congressmen and senior officials, to mark the anniversary of the enactment of the Taiwan Relations Act alongside Taiwan's president Tsai Ing-wen. Since the legislation was passed, Washington has remained Taipei's most powerful unofficial ally and its leading arms supplier. It manages its relations through the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). "Ours is a friendship grounded in history, shared values, and our common embrace of democracy, free markets, the rule of law, religious freedom and human rights," Ryan said at a ceremony at AIT's new office complex in Taipei. "And our commitment to Taiwan's security remains rock solid." He hailed the 40th anniversary of the legislation as a "tremendous milestone" in US-Taiwan relations. Ryan, 49, was the most powerful Republican in Congress when he served as speaker from October 2015 to January 2019. He currently holds no government position. "Our security cooperation contributes to regional peace and stability across the Indo-Pacific region," added US de facto ambassador to Taiwan Brent Christensen. Chinese military aircraft, including Su-30 and J-11 fighter jets, flew over the waters off southern Taiwan earlier Monday in the latest of a recent string of military drills around the island. In response, President Tsai accused China of "challenging stability in the Taiwan Strait". Donald Trump's administration has sought to strengthen ties with Taiwan. It announced plans last year to sell it $330 million spare parts for several aircraft including the F-16 fighter and the C-130 cargo plane. Story continues Trump also signed legislation paving the way for mutual visits by top officials and the US government approved a licence required to sell submarine technology to Taiwan. US warships periodically conduct "freedom of navigation" exercises in the Taiwan Strait, the narrow waterway separating the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, which prompt anger in Beijing. China has stepped up military and diplomatic pressure on Taiwan amid worsening ties since Tsai came to power in May 2016, as she has refused to acknowledge Beijing's claim that Taiwan is part of "one China." In this March 6, 2019, file photo, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., sits with fellow Democrats on the House Education and Labor Committee - AP One of America's first Muslim congresswomen has vowed not to be silenced after Donald Trump led an attack on her for controversial remarks she made about 9/11. Rep Ilhan Omar of Minnesota sparked a furious row after she characterised the atrocity by saying some people did something during a speech in Los Angeles last month to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. On Friday, President Trump tweeted a video tagged WE WILL NEVER FORGET which featured footage of the Twin Towers in flames interspersed with Miss Omar's comments. Hours later, a man was arrested for threatening to kill the former refugee who came to the US from Somalia as a child. Undeterred, the 37-year-old tweeted this weekend: I did not run for Congress to be silent. I did not run for Congress to sit on the sidelines. I ran because I believed it was time to restore moral clarity and courage to Congress. To fight and to defend our democracy. While most fellow members of the Democratic Party leaped to her defence, rounding on Mr Trump for pushing anti Muslim rhetoric and inciting racial hatred, Nancy Pelosi, the most senior Democrat in the House of Representative, was notably measured in her reaction. While admonishing the president, her response has also been read as chastising of the freshman congresswoman who has a history of making controversial remarks. The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must be done with reverence, she tweeted on Saturday. The President shouldn't use the painful images of 9/11 for a political attack. As the row refused to die down this weekend, there was anger from both sides. Cory Booker, who on Saturday became the 18th Democrat to announce that he is running for the presidency, described the US leader's actions as moral vandalism. US President Donald Trump has attacked the Congresswoman on Twitter Credit: SAUL LOEB To see a president of the United States to use images of 9/11 in a vicious, crass, disgusting way - that is so objectionable. That is so offensive. And this is what I mean about moral vandalism in our country thats going on, he told American TV. Story continues And Elizabeth Warren, another presidential contender, said: The President is inciting violence against a sitting congresswoman - and an entire group of Americans based on their religion. Others called for Mr Trump to be banned from Twitter while Republicans argued Miss Omar unforgivably glossed over the horrors of September 11. Ms Omar, who represents Minnesota's 5th Congressional district, became the country's first female Muslim lawmaker along with Rashida Tlaib, when they won seats in last November's mid terms elections. She has remained in the spotlight ever since and in February she was forced to apologise after she made anti Semitic remarks regarding the US's close knit relationship with Israel which she alluded was down to money. Mr Trump called on her to resign. Ms Tlaib has come under fire for her ties to a Palestinian group, some of whose members hold extremist views. On Meet the Press , Kellyanne Conway, counsellor to the president, described the two women as radical freshmen adding that moderate Democrats are frustrated with them. saying they are causing trouble in Pelosi paradise. When asked abut the controversy on Sunday, Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, condemned Miss Omar while emphasising that the president wished Miss Omar no harm. It's absolutely abhorrent the comments she continues to make and has made and Democrats look the other way, she said. I find what her comments to be absolutely disgraceful and unbefitting of a member of Congress and I think that it's a good thing that the president is calling her out for those comments, and the big question is why aren't Democrats doing it as well. On a separate story, Miss Sanders also said Congress was not smart enough to understand Donald Trump's tax returns as the pressure to release them heightened with today MON marking Tax Day in the US. Washington (AFP) - A former refugee and the first black Muslim woman elected to Congress, Ilhan Omar embodied the American dream in her November victory but faces controversies fueled by her own words and President Donald Trump's hostility toward her. Omar's win was celebrated as historic, and her arrival in Washington contributed to the appreciation that Congress was finally becoming a more diverse, representative American institution. Now she is receiving daily death threats. Since her January swearing-in, the 37-year-old Minnesota Democrat has been at the center of a swirling debate about anti-Semitism, discrimination and the role of an outspoken first-year congresswoman who challenges the White House and makes her own party's leadership chafe. Omar's remark that US political backing for the Jewish state is fueled by money from a pro-Israel lobbying group, and her open support for a boycott and divestment movement against Israel led to vocal criticism from both sides of the political aisle. Earlier this month, she acknowledged becoming a lightning rod, telling late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert that identity politics has made immigrants, refugees, women of color and Muslims the focus of intensifying national controversy. "I just happen to embody all of those identities," Omar said on Colbert's CBS show last week. Belligerence against the lawmaker has ramped up dramatically after a clip emerged of her characterizing the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States as "some people did something." On Friday, Trump tweeted a video that juxtaposed the snippet -- which some Democrats say was taken out of context -- with images of the hijacked planes crashing into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers in New York. Omar said Sunday in a statement that many of the increased threats she had received were "directly referencing or replying to the president's video." Trump's startling tweet prompted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most high-ranking Democrat in the country, to denounce his "hateful and inflammatory rhetoric" and demand he take the video down, as she ordered a security review to safeguard Omar and her family. Story continues Even before Trump's post, a man was arrested April 5 and charged with threatening to murder Omar, after he called her office and said "I'll put a bullet in her (expletive) skull," according to Omar's statement. The threats on social media were equally graphic. "She needs to be executed," one Twitter user wrote. - Trump visits Omar's Minnesota - The president, perhaps believing that making her the progressive face of the Democratic Party will help rally his base in the early stages of his 2020 re-election bid, maintained the pressure Monday, tweeting that Omar is "out of control." Democratic leaders "should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful US HATE statements Omar has made," he added. Seizing on a chance to target Omar anew, Trump held a roundtable near Omar's Minneapolis, Minnesota congressional district. The subject was the economy, but Trump strayed into immigration politics as he criticized the US asylum process and called for an end to the visa lottery. "Who do you think these countries are giving us? They're not giving us their finest, that I can tell you," Trump said. Opposing groups of protesters gathered outside the venue, including Trump opponents who held "Stand with Ilhan" placards. Many Democrats have rushed to Omar's defense, among them multiple 2020 presidential candidates. "The disgusting and dangerous attacks against her must end," tweeted Senator Bernie Sanders, a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. Some 200 Democratic activists, teachers, local officials and Jewish and Muslim leaders signed a statement of solidarity with Omar and demanded an end to the attacks. Omar was just eight years old when she and her family fled Somalia's civil war. As a refugee in America, a teenage Omar arrived in the big city of Minneapolis, where she rose to become a Democratic member of the state assembly. Last year, she won the Democratic nomination for her congressional race in a district that has not been represented by a Republican in half a century. The lack of serious conservative opposition in that race perhaps helped lead to her wake-up call when she landed in Washington. "This whole process has really been one of growth for me," she told Colbert. But Omar, who is married, has three children and is the only member of Congress to wear a religious headscarf in the House chamber, has pushed back hard on the "offensive" accusation that her religion and refugee past make her less of a US citizen. "I took an oath to uphold the Constitution," she said. "I am as American as everyone else is." SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Volkswagen will use Chinese software developers to help design a global autonomous vehicle architecture thanks to the prevalence of qualified programmers which carmakers are struggling to hire elsewhere, senior executives said on Monday. As carmakers scramble to develop advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving functions, carmakers are struggling to find qualified engineers to build the software algorithms needed to teach cars the right reflexes. Volkswagen has 4,000 engineers in China, with an average age of 29, spread over five research and development sites and a rapidly growing number of software engineers. "In a short period from now they will be able to do 15 to 20 million lines of programming code on an annual basis," Volkswagen China's passenger cars chief Stephan Woellenstein said in Shanghai on Monday. The prevalence of software engineers, combined with the country's willingness to roll out the infrastructure for connected and self-driving cars, will make China one of the first markets in which autonomous cars gain widespread acceptance, VW managers said. As a result, Chinese suppliers will help Volkswagen Group to design a global autonomous vehicle architecture, he said. "Part of the software development work can be done for instance in Chinese facilities out of Volkswagen Group China," Woellenstein said. For connected vehicles technology China will become a leading global research and development center, said Sven Patuschka, Head of Volkswagen Group China's research and development. "We will further strengthen our capabilities to develop in China for China and for certain technologies for the rest of the world. We find excellent talents here and are ready address customer requirements in this fascinating market," Patuschka said. Volkswagen is reviewing whether to change the structure of its joint ventures with FAW and SAIC as well as JAC to improve research and development capabilities. "We are in discussions about how to broaden and deepen cooperation with our partners," Woellenstein said, declining to comment on whether VW was seeking to change the ownership structure of its joint ventures. Volkswagen's Spanish Seat brand is working with Chinese partner JAC to develop a second smaller electric vehicle architecture. "JAC Volkswagen and SEAT have taken the project lead," VW Group Chief Executive Herbert Diess said. (Reporting by Edward Taylor, editing by Ed Osmond) By Humeyra Pamuk WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House adviser Kellyanne Conway On Sunday said she did not believe President Donald Trump had advance knowledge that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was going to be arrested by the British police and charged by U.S. prosecutors. "Not to my knowledge," Conway told NBC's "Meet the Press" show, when asked if Trump knew ahead of time about Assange, who last Thursday was hauled out of the Ecuador's embassy in London where he had taken refuge since 2012 to avoid extradition. U.S. prosecutors subsequently announced charges on Thursday and accused Assange of conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to gain access to a government computer as part of one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history. The Justice Department said Assange was arrested under an extradition treaty between the United States and Britain. Lawyers for Assange said he may risk torture and his life would be in danger if he were to be extradited to the United States. They have also suggested the charges could chill press freedom. Conway said she believed Trump did not have any knowledge of what was going to happen to Assange but added that based on her numerous conversations with him on the issue, he is against releasing such classified information. "The President believes that those who publish classified information should not do that," she said. "...So anybody who's publishing classified information, in our view, should think thrice before they do that because you can imperil folks." Trump in 2016 said "I love WikiLeaks" after the website released emails that U.S. authorities have said were hacked by Russia to harm his election opponent Hillary Clinton. On Friday, he told reporters he had no opinion on the charges against Assange. "I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing," Trump said. Assange's U.S. indictment arose from a long-running criminal investigation dating back to the administration of President Barack Obama. It was triggered in part by WikiLeaks' publication in 2010 of U.S. military reports about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the diplomatic communications - disclosures that embarrassed the United States and strained relations with allies. (Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Nick Zieminski) British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks pictured at the conclusion of an EU summit in Brussels. Speculation is rife as to who might follow her as the next Prime Minister. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) The Foreign Secretary has said Brexit should take precedence over a Tory leadership race in a sideswipe at fellow content Boris Johnson. Speaking to BBC Radio 4s Today programme Jeremy Hunt argued the focus for him is not Number 10 but rather helping the cabinet secure Theresa Mays Brexit deal. Mr Hunt said: There is one very big difference between me and Boris, which is that I am foreign security and I have a very big job to do to try and get this [Brexit] deal over the line and that has to be my focus. As Europe once again threatens to destroy the party, and following Mrs Mays pledge to step down once her deal is approved speculation about her successor is mounting. Bookies are cutting odds as the contest hots up - so just who are the runners and riders in the latest race for Number 10? Former health secretary and serving Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt. Mr Hunt has tried to play down leadership ambitions as the cabinet strives to make progress over Brexit. Jeremy Hunt Hes held high-profile cabinet positions and is among the most recognisable of the current crop of Conservative politicians. However, during his time as health secretary he was particularly unpopular and his public image isnt exactly filled with warmth. He has argued publicly that the Conservative Party would be best served with securing a Brexit deal before concentrating on its future leader - suggesting he might not fancy his chances, and nor do bookies with him listed as 8/1. Boris Johnson was left badly burned in the previous leadership race but the former Mayor of London is widely considered to be the favourite. Boris Johnson To many he is the face of the Tory party - though its not universally agreed whether this is a good, or bad thing Mr Johnson, a prominent Leave campaigner, has long been linked with aspirations to lead the country. Bookies are offering odds of 9/2 on the former Foreign Secretary and Mayor of London. Surely its a case of when, not if, he takes the reins at Conservative HQ - whether the party is in office or not. Britain's Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary Michael Gove. Does he have leadership aspirations? Michael Gove The environment, food and rural affairs secretary was an ardent vote leave campaigner. He has held several cabinet positions and memorably backed Boris Johnson in 2016 before withdrawing his support leaving the leadership hopeful marooned. Story continues As education secretary he was derided by voters but he remains a senior, and prominent Tory figure and has been given odds of 7/1. Dominic Raab gives evidence about the Brexit backstop to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, in Portcullis House, London. Dominic Raab The former Brexit secretary has been accused of courting publicity and posturing for leadership. However, the MP for Esher and Walton, who has served since 2010, is not as widely recognised as some of his would-be running mates. Despite this hes been listed with odds of 7/1 by some bookmakers but in the company of Johnson, Gove and even Hunt this looks fanciful. Britain's Home Secretary Sajid Javid smiles as he leaves 10 Downing Street in London after a cabinet meeting. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant) Sajid Javid The Home Secretary comes from humble beginnings and often speaks of his father being a bus driver. Despite being forced to weather the storm handed to him following Mrs Mays tenure as Home Secretary with the Windrush scandal he is well regarded. The former business secretary voted to remain - placing him at odds with a strong section of the party membership. Bookies have him pegged at 14/1. Read more from Yahoo News UK: Number of teen pregnancies falls for tenth year running Man who set fire to model of Grenfell Tower charged Girl dies after brother accidentally shoots her Britain's Health Secretary Matt Hancock arrives for a cabinet meeting in 10 Downing Street, London. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham) Matt Hancock Not every MP has launched their own app, but not every MP is Matt Hancock. Seen as something of a figure of fun the former culture secretary and current health secretary is an outsider for the role. He voted to leave the EU which places him in favour of backbenchers such as Jacob-Rees Mogg though he has already spoken in support of a Boris Johnson bid. Hes seen as a bit of a long shot with odds of 12/1. Britain's Andrea Leadsom the Leader of the House of Commons arrives for a cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street in London, Tuesday, March 26, 2019. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham) Andrea Leadsom She withdrew late in the 2016 leadership race making Theresa May the new leader by default. The MP for South Northamptonshire is a leave voter and has been seen as an adversary of Mrs May as she fumbles with her Brexit bill. At present she is the leader of the House of Commons and aside from Theresa May is one of the more high-profile female figures within the party. Bookies are offering odds of 22/1 meaning a 2019 tilt for Number 10 could is seen as no more likely than her last attempt. Plymouth MP Johnny Mercer at his office at the Houses of Parliament in London before making his first speech to the House of Commons. Johnny Mercer The former British army officer was first elected as MP for Plymouth Moor View in 2015. Aged 37 any leadership ambitions he might have could be left to grow, especially when you consider Michael Howard took the reins of the party in his 60s. Mercer, who voted leave, has not yet held cabinet office and recently said he wouldnt stand for the Conservative party were he starting out as a politician based on their current values. Hes seen as an outsider and has odds of 25/1. ---Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK--- Have you been searching for a stock that might be well-positioned to maintain its earnings-beat streak in its upcoming report? It is worth considering Cincinnati Financial (CINF), which belongs to the Zacks Insurance - Property and Casualty industry. This insurer has an established record of topping earnings estimates, especially when looking at the previous two reports. The company boasts an average surprise for the past two quarters of 17.25%. For the most recent quarter, Cincinnati Financial was expected to post earnings of $0.80 per share, but it reported $0.98 per share instead, representing a surprise of 22.50%. For the previous quarter, the consensus estimate was $0.75 per share, while it actually produced $0.84 per share, a surprise of 12%. Price and EPS Surprise With this earnings history in mind, recent estimates have been moving higher for Cincinnati Financial. In fact, the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction) for the company is positive, which is a great sign of an earnings beat, especially when you combine this metric with its nice Zacks Rank. Our research shows that stocks with the combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) or better produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time. In other words, if you have 10 stocks with this combination, the number of stocks that beat the consensus estimate could be as high as seven. 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 related 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. Cincinnati Financial currently has an Earnings ESP of +4.26%, which suggests that analysts have recently become bullish on the company's earnings prospects. This positive Earnings ESP when combined with the stock's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) indicates that another beat is possibly around the corner. We expect the company's next earnings report to be released on April 24, 2019. Story continues With the Earnings ESP metric, it's important to note that a negative value reduces its predictive power; however, a negative Earnings ESP does not indicate an earnings miss. Many companies end up beating the consensus EPS estimate, but that may not be the sole basis for their stocks moving higher. On the other hand, some stocks may hold their ground even if they end up missing the consensus estimate. Because of this, it's really important to check a company's Earnings ESP ahead of its quarterly release to increase the odds of success. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported. 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 Cincinnati Financial Corporation (CINF) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Former Capital FM presenter and beauty queen Pinky Ghelani is a celebrated media personality and public speaker. At age 43, the model boasts a career in media spanning decades having started as an 18-year-old. On a personal level, Pinky has had the misfortune of losing four babies through miscarriage. She spoke to a local magazine about how she dealt with the losses, dating a younger man, and marriage. What has the private life Pinky Ghelani been up to? What havent I been up to? (Laughs). Lets see; I am launching my communications company. I have spoken at several forums like TedX, This Is My Story, Dadasphere and Engage and I consider myself now a public speaker. I work with UNHCR and currently focused on the LuQuLuQu campaign that speaks for refugees in our country. I am working on the My Power of Her Initiative, a push for empowered women to empower other women, and I am currently on track to raise Sh5 million for women refugees under the initiative. Every Monday, I run a panel at Westgate known as What Women Want, where women- experts and learners, come together to discuss everything from finance to beauty. You left radio just as you were becoming a household name I left radio in 2004. I had joined when I was 18 and I felt like I had reached a ceiling. I got married, tried to have a baby and failed. I have had four miscarriages so far. After the first one, I needed to get out of my slumber, because losing a child left me depressed. So when an opportunity arose for me to be the editor of DRUM magazine, I jumped at it. But four months into the job I was very sickly pregnant with my daughter. I kept asking God why he would give me this great opportunity then let me be so unwell. Four miscarriages are a lot. How did you deal with that? What I learned through them is that we are not talking about it enough. We need to be talking about it because it is normal, and as women we dont realise that. We tend to blame ourselves. Also, we dont really support a woman who has gone through a miscarriage. At the end of the day, no matter how fast she lost her child, she still lost a child and we need to stand with her in her mourning and grieving. We need to allow her the space to go through it. It is heart-breaking but we have to normalise it so that there is no longer the black cloud or stigma of losing a child through a miscarriage. You speak a lot about your marriage, and how being older than your husband is not a big deal Many people goOh my God, shes so much older than Raj! Oh my God, what does he see in her? Hello, it is just a three-year difference. Its no big deal. Age aint nothing but a number. We are not getting grey any time soon. I think when it comes to relationships, you have to really be able to connect with the person that you are with. Be open and honest. It is very difficult because you have some very ugly moments. How you handle those moments is what defines your relationship. I started dating my husband when I was working. He was a student in the UK and I was hung up on him so I resigned and followed him to the UK where I started working at Zee TV. Best marriage advice you ever heard? My yoga instructor always says: When it feels uncomfortable and you want to let go, thats the time youre actually growing. I use that principle in all the areas of my life. In marriage, it happens. It is not all love hearts, candy floss, sugar sweet kisses. No. There are some real ugly moments in relationships. But the truth of the matter is that your choice is made when you decide to be with the person that you want to be with. When you have seen them at their lowest and at their ugliest. At 43 now, what is the one thing you know for sure about life? That you have to live unapologetically and to teach others the same. You have to learn to love yourself. I do not mean in an egotistical way, I mean getting down and dirty with your soul. With who you really are. When you are alone and you think no one is watching and you do something that is who you really are. That is the person you need to get to know completely and love without negotiation and without apology. Once you learn to love who you are, that is when you step into your true power. Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers/Photo Getty With Easter right around the corner, Christians are thinking about the death and resurrection of Jesus. The events that took place during what is now called Holy Week certainly transformed the history of the world, but they also created a new villain: Judas. As one of Jesus closest followers and friends you have to wonder what he was thinking when he betrayed Jesus. What did Judas know that we dont? For much of history, we have been led to think that Judas betrayed Jesus for a payout. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Judas received 30 pieces of silver for betraying Jesus. But in modern terms, thats the equivalent of about six weeks of work for a day laborer: not a huge amount, and certainly not enough money to compensate you for betraying someone you had spent years following. If you were already annoyed and planning on leaving the movement, then perhaps this sweetener could help push you further along the path to betrayal. But the general impression that Judas betrayed Jesus for the money doesnt make a great deal of sense. The Gospel of John, which is almost certainly the last of the canonical gospels to be written, doubles down on the idea that Judas was motivated by financial reward. John adds that Judas was a thief who had stolen from the common resources of the group. Some of the gospels introduce the idea of demonic inspiration and possession. According to Luke 22:3, it was during the final week in Jerusalem that the devil placed the idea of betraying Jesus into Judass heart. This isnt just a literary flourish or theological window-dressing; the demonization of Judas has a long history in influencing how people, medieval Christian in particular, have thought about Jews in general. Add this to ahistorical scenes in which the Jews called for the crucifixion of Jesus and say that the blood of Jesus rests on them and their children, and the Jewish people end up as the villains of the piece. The intertwining of antisemitism, the passion narrative, and violence is one of the reasons that it is important we get the historical pieces of the passion narrative correct. Story continues If it wasnt about the money then, historically speaking, why did Judas do it? In truth, no one knows. But there are a number of historically and narratively responsible explanations. In the first place, Judass betrayal of Jesus takes place at the tail end of a difficult few days for Jesus followers. According to the Gospel of Mark, the first gospel to be written and thus the one closest to the actual events, Jesus and his followers spent an evening at the home of Simon the leper in Bethany two days before Jesus arrest and crucifixion. As the group is at dinner, a woman comes in with a jar of extremely expensive perfume and pours it out on Jesuss head. Mark says that some of those who were present were angry at her actions and asked, Why was the ointment wasted in this way? [It] could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor. Mark does not say exactly which of the disciples are indignant, but immediately afterwards, we are told, Judas leaves to betray Jesus to the chief priests. If, as the Gospel of John writes, Judas was the group treasurer, it would make sense that he was angered by this event. During his ministry Jesus and his followers lived close to what we could call the breadline. They received some financial support from his wider group of supporters (particularly women), and they could depend on friends and community members for occasional food and lodging, but life was hard. Organizing the groups limited funds and resources would have been a difficult task. In addition to which, Judas, like the other disciples, had left behind his family (whatever that looked like), home, and hopes of reliable employment when he had decided to follow Jesus. After years of struggling to make ends meet it might be frustrating to watch ones leader do something so wasteful. Modern readers (who, lets face it, know the ending when they first read the gospels) can see all the moments at which Jesus seems to be warning the disciples that he will be arrested and executed, and can therefore understand the scene as an anointing before death. But to the disciples none of this was immediately clear. Moreover, at this particular moment, the disciples had been waiting for something dramatic to happen. Like most first-century Jews living in Roman-occupied Judea and Galilee, they were awaiting the arrival of a messiah to overthrow the shackles of the oppressive Roman government and establish a new regime. While some first-century Jews thought the messiah would be a priestly figure, the assumption that the messiah would help liberate the people was extremely widespread. The disciples had similar expectations. At one point two of the other disciplesJames and John, the sons of Zebedeeask Jesus for positions of authority when that happens. At another moment Peter declares that he will not allow Jesus to die. None of the disciples have an accurate sense of what kind of messiah Jesus actually is; they all misunderstand his message. The week before Jesus is crucified, at the event we know as Palm Sunday, Jesus enters Jerusalem in triumph on the back of a donkey. The whole scenewith crowds assembled waving branches, a leader riding into the city, and the shouts of the people that Jesus comes in the name of the Lordis reminiscent of a Roman Triumph, the celebratory ritual in which a great military leader was welcomed into the city in a procession. Everything about this moment suggests that Jesus is a political figure. Then Jesus proceeds to the Jewish Temple, where he overturns tables and throws out the money changers. To many people, but arguably especially the disciples, it seems as if things are about to happen. The revolution is beginning. But nothing like that actually happens; theres no rebellion. Jesus does not raise an army, organize troops, or even try to evangelize the pilgrims who were visiting Jerusalem for Passover. At this juncture, maybe Judas is tired and disappointed and just wants to go home and try to pick up the pieces of his life. Alternatively, perhaps he thinks he can force Jesus hand and propel him towards a rebellion. If Jesus is arrested, one might imagine, maybe God will intervene. Perhaps Judas genuinely thinks that his actions will expedite the arrival of the Kingdom of God and is horrified at how things unfold? In either case, almost immediately after having betrayed Jesus, Judas regrets his actions and tries to return the money he was paid. In one version of the story, he commits suicide. Modern readers arent the only ones to wonder about Judas thought process and motivations. About 250 years after the death of Jesus, a group of Christians wrote a new history of Judas. The text is known as the Gospel of Judas, and when it was discovered and announced to the world in 2006 it caused something of a media firestorm. In this version of the Easter story, Judas is presented in a much more sympathetic light: he was on a kind of secret mission from Jesus. Jesus asked Judas to do this and even predicted that Judas would be cursed for generations as a result, but also promised him that one day he would be vindicated. The Gospel of Judas tells us absolutely nothing about the historical events that took place on the last few days of Jesuss life, but it does prompt the question: how did Judas actions shape history? According to the Bible, it was the kiss of Judas that led to Jesuss arrest and execution, and without that Jesus might never have been crucified. In some ways, you might say, Christianity owes a lot to Judas. Read more at The Daily Beast. Let's talk about the popular Magna International Inc. (TSE:MG). The company's shares saw a decent share price growth in the teens level on the TSX over the last few months. With many analysts covering the large-cap stock, we may expect any price-sensitive announcements have already been factored into the stocks share price. However, what if the stock is still a bargain? Lets take a look at Magna Internationals outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if the opportunity still exists. View our latest analysis for Magna International What is Magna International worth? Good news, investors! Magna International is still a bargain right now. My valuation model shows that the intrinsic value for the stock is CA$127.68, which is above what the market is valuing the company at the moment. This indicates a potential opportunity to buy low. Whats more interesting is that, Magna Internationals 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. Can we expect growth from Magna International? TSX:MG Past and Future Earnings, April 15th 2019 Investors looking for growth in their portfolio may want to consider the prospects of a company before buying its shares. Buying a great company with a robust outlook at a cheap price is always a good investment, so lets also take a look at the company's future expectations. Though in the case of Magna International, it is expected to deliver a negative earnings growth of -7.2%, which doesnt help build up its investment thesis. It appears that risk of future uncertainty is high, at least in the near term. What this means for you: Are you a shareholder? Although MG is currently undervalued, the negative outlook does bring on some uncertainty, which equates to higher risk. Consider whether you want to increase your portfolio exposure to MG, or whether diversifying into another stock may be a better move for your total risk and return. Story continues Are you a potential investor? If youve been keeping tabs on MG for some time, but hesitant on making the leap, I recommend you dig deeper into the stock. Given its current undervaluation, now is a great time to make a decision. But keep in mind the risks that come with negative growth prospects in the future. Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters the fundamentals before you make a decision on Magna International. You can find everything you need to know about Magna International in the latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in Magna International, you can use our free platform to see my list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. By Dan Whitcomb April 15 (Reuters) - A Wisconsin man who prosecutors say transported seven young women across state lines and forced them into prostitution using ads on Backpage.com before U.S. authorities shut it down was found guilty on Monday on federal sex trafficking charges. The conviction of Erin Graham, 37, marks the latest criminal case stemming from Backpage, which became the largest sex marketing website before it was seized in April 2018 as part of an investigation that saw the website's founders and CEO charged in a 93-count federal court indictment. They are set to go on trial next year. Graham was found guilty of seven counts of sex trafficking following a five-day trial in federal court in Madison, Wisconsin. During the trial victims testified they had been forced to engage in multiple acts of prostitution and turn over the money to him and his girlfriend, Patience Moore, 28, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a written statement. He was arrested in April 2017 when a young woman ran bleeding into a Madison, Wisconsin hotel lobby and hid behind the front desk, prompting a clerk to call police. The woman told a nurse at a local hospital Graham had strangled her to the point of unconsciousness after telling him she wanted to leave. "Through violence and coercion, Graham exploited vulnerable young women into committing commercial sex acts for his profit. In the process the victims were often degraded and robbed of their human dignity," U.S. Attorney Scott Blader said in the statement. Graham faces a sentence of 15 years to life in prison when he is sentenced on July 1. Moore pleaded guilty last month to a role in the sex trafficking scheme and also faces a possible life prison term. Then-Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer agreed to shutter the website in April 2018 as part of an agreement with prosecutors that saw him plead guilty to conspiracy and money laundering charges. A study released to Reuters last week found Backpage's closure dealt a huge blow to the illicit world of online prostitution. Demand for prostitutes dropped 67 percent and search volume plunged 90 percent immediately after the site went offline. Days after the Backpage seizure, President Donald Trump signed into law the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act and Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, or SESTA-FOSTA. The new laws amended the 'safe harbors' provisions of the Communications Decency Act that had protected websites from criminal liability over third-party or user-generated content. (Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; editing by Bill Tarrant and Rosalba O'Brien) Stills taken from an inspection of Bregel's home where 64 dead cats were discovered. (Fox) A woman who runs an animal rescue centre where 64 cats were found dead and 40 other animals neglected has been banned from keeping animals. Caycee Lynn Bregel, 26, she pleaded guilty to 13 counts of mistreatment of animals on Friday. Prosecutors had sought jail time for the offenses, but Judge Jerome Abrams reduced the jail time to three days of time served. According to police reports Bregel received 144 cats and one dog from the Animal Humane Society between July 2017 and February 2018. Caycee Lynn Bregel, 26, of St Paul, has been charged with 13 counts of animal mistreatment after a May 2018 search of her rural Dakota County animal-rescue operation uncovered 64 dead cats and more than 40 other neglected animals. (Courtesy of the Dakota County Sheriff's Office) She ran the nonprofit Minnesota Animal Rescue, formerly called Minnesota Foster Cats and Kittens. Dakota County sheriffs deputies were called to the rental property three times on reports of numerous dogs and cats inside the home and a pig running loose. During one call, the owner of the home said he went inside and saw cats that were skin and bone and without food and water. The abuse and mistreatment of animals in the manner that occurred in this instance was unconscionable, Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom said in a statement. Stills taken from an inspection of Bregel's home where 64 dead cats were discovered. (Fox) Read more from Yahoo News UK: Number of teen pregnancies falls for tenth year running Man who set fire to model of Grenfell Tower charged Father of boy, nine, killed by dog pays emotional tribute The Dakota County Public Health Department condemned the house. Another nine cats, seven puppies and a dog were found in poor living conditions at a shelter Bregel had not yet opened at 949 Eighth St. in Farmington, according to the complaint. Bregel was sentenced in Dakota County District Court to two years of probation, 90 days of electronic home monitoring, 200 hours of community work service, restitution to the Humane Society and her former landlord, and a psychological evaluation. She has also been told she cannot own, possess or care for any animals. ---Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK--- WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump isn't backing down from his tweets about Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, one of the first Muslim women to serve in Congress. In fact, he spoke at an event in Omar's home state of Minnesota on Monday amid a ferocious fight over her comments about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Omar, a Somali-American, says it's more than a rhetorical squabble, and that lives, including hers, are at stake. Trump says national security is at issue and Omar is "ungrateful." A look at the latest rhetorical battle between the pair that's more broadly about race and whether leaders and their words should be blamed for violence. ___ THE AFTERSHOCKS Omar says she's faced increased death threats since Trump spread around a video that purports to show her being dismissive of the 2001 terrorist attacks. "This is endangering lives," she said, accusing Trump of fomenting extremism. "It has to stop." Her statement late Sunday followed an announcement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that she has taken steps to ensure the safety of the Minnesota Democrat. Pelosi also urged Trump to take down the video. The video soon disappeared as a pinned tweet at the top of Trump's Twitter feed, but it was not deleted. Trump further escalated his rhetoric Monday morning, tweeting that, "Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made." Later Monday, Trump announced he was heading to "the Great State of Minnesota!" Omar responded by retweeting that post with the comment, "The Great State of Minnesota, where we don't only welcome immigrants, we send them to Washington." Minnesota has the largest concentration of Somalis in the nation, and most of those are in the Minneapolis area. On Monday at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Pelosi said: "I don't think any president of the United States should use the tragedy of 9/11 as a political tool. I think that is wrong, I think it's beneath the dignity of the office." Story continues ___ WHAT OMAR SAID Omar told a Los Angeles gathering of the Council on American-Islamic Relations on March 23 that many Muslims saw their civil liberties eroded after the Sept. 11 attacks. "For far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I'm tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it," she said in the speech, according to video posted online. "CAIR was founded after 9/11, because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties." CAIR was founded in 1994, according to its website, but its membership skyrocketed after the attacks. ___ HOW TRUMP REACTED The president on Friday retweeted a video that pulled "some people did something" from Omar's speech and included news footage of the hijacked planes hitting the Twin Towers. Trump also tweeted, "WE WILL NEVER FORGET!" The president elevated criticism largely from Omar's political opponents and conservatives who say Omar's phrasing offered a flippant description of the assailants and the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. Neither Trump's tweet nor the video included Omar's full quote or the context of her comments. In Minnesota, Trump kept his remarks at a trucking company in Burnsville mostly focused on the 2017 GOP-passed tax cut. ___ WHO ECHOED TRUMP Other prominent GOP voices joined Trump in criticizing Omar. "First Member of Congress to ever describe terrorists who killed thousands of Americans on 9/11 as 'some people who did something,'" tweeted Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas. The retired Navy SEAL lost his right eye in 2012 in an explosion in Afghanistan. "Here's your something," the New York Post blared on a cover beneath a photograph of the flaming towers. Fox News Channel host Brian Kilmeade said on a "Fox & Friends" segment on Omar, "You have to wonder if she's an American first." ___ LIFE AND DEATH... Omar has been the target of threats in the past. She tweeted back at Kilmeade and Crenshaw: "This is dangerous incitement, given the death threats I face." "My love and commitment to our country and that of my colleagues should never be in question. We are ALL Americans!" An upstate New York man was charged recently with making death threats against her. ___ SAFETY Members of the Congressional Black Caucus said in a conference call Monday they are concerned for Omar's safety, especially as Trump campaigned in Minnesota. Chairwoman Karen Bass said whipping up "outrage" over Omar "further puts her life in danger." Added House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson: "Members of Congress should be free to give their opinions on subjects without fear of threat of bodily harm." "I'm concerned about it and the notion that, if your thinking is different from the president's, you become a target." ___ Associated Press Writer Errin Haines Whack contributed to this report. ___ Follow Kellman on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/APLaurieKellman United Nations (United States) (AFP) - Yemen's government and Huthi rebels have accepted a detailed plan for a much-delayed pullback from the flashpoint city of Hodeida, the UN envoy said Monday, but no timetable was announced for the withdrawals. The redeployment of forces was agreed in December under a ceasefire deal reached in Sweden that offered the best hope in years of moving toward an end to the war that has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine. UN envoy Martin Griffiths told the Security Council that "both parties have now accepted a detailed redeployment plan" for the first stage of the pullback from Hodeida. Griffiths said he received assurances from Huthi leader Abdul Malik al Huthi when they met in Sanaa last week that his forces would support the Hodeida agreement, but the envoy sounded a note of caution after so many delays. "Let us be clear that when -- and I hope it is when and not if -- these redeployments happen, they will be the first voluntary withdrawal of forces in this long conflict," he said by videoconference from Amman. The United Nations announced a deal on the two-stage pullback from Hodeida city and its ports in February, but the redeployment failed to materialize on the ground and the peace effort has since stalled. The United States put the onus on the Huthis to unblock the process and begin redeployments as agreed in the plan. "The Yemeni government has demonstarted a clear commitment to the United Nations led process," acting US Ambassador Jonathan Cohen told the Security Council. "It is time for the Huthis to also show the international community that they too are serious about the UN process and the agreements that they themselves reached in Stockholm," he said. - US warns Huthis - The United States, which has supported the Saudi-led coalition backing the government in Yemen's war, also accused the Huthis of blocking access to a food storage site that contains enough grain to feed 3.7 million people for a month. Story continues The Red Sea Mills "remain closed and the food stocks within may be rotten," said Cohen. "At this point only the Huthis are blocking access to the Mills and they alone will be to blame if the food spoils." The Red Sea port of Hodeida is the entry point for the bulk of imported goods and relief aid to Yemen. The detailed plan on the pullback was negotiated by Danish General Michael Lollesgaard who heads a UN monitoring mission. Following the deal on the first stage, Lollesgaard will now focus on the second phase and seek to resolve disputes over the deployment of local forces in areas from where there has been a pullback. Griffiths said he was laying the groundwork for broader serious negotiations on ending the war in Yemen but added: "We all need to see tangible progress in Hodeida before moving to focus on the political solution." The coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 to push back an advance by Huthi rebels who continue to hold the capital Sanaa, and restore Hadi to power. The conflict has unleashed the world's worst humanitarian conflict, according to the United Nations, with millions facing famine. Volkswagen is weighing the possibility of building a compact pickup for sale in the U.S. The German automaker plans to show a pickup concept called the Tarok at the New York Auto Show later this week. The plans, revealed Monday morning, come after the Tarok made its debut at the Sao Paulo International Motor Show in Brazil in late 2018. Volkswagen revealed a larger pickup concept called the VW Atlas Tanoak at the New York show in 2018. The pivot toward the compact body style suggests that VW may be zeroing in on a real-life opportunity to jump into the intensely competitive market for U.S. pickup buyers. "Although there are no plans to produce the vehicle for the U.S. market, the Tarok concept is being shown to gauge market reaction for a truly versatile and compact entry-level pickup," VW said in a statement. More cars: Follow our New York Auto Show coverage here The two-row Tarok concept is 193.5 inches long with a 73.2-inch bed that extends into the cab. It's 72 inches wide and 66 inches high. The wheelbase is 117.7 inches. It has a 1.4-liter, 147-horsepower, 4-cylinder turbocharged engine and all-wheel drive. 2018 stunner: VW reveals Atlas Tanoak concept pickup America's love affair with pickups: Jeep Gladiator, Ford Ranger continue midsize pickup boom "The key to the Tarok concepts versatility is a variable load area," VW said. "The floor space can be enlarged not only by opening the tailgate, but also using a newly developed mechanism for folding down the bottom of the passenger cabins rear panel." Compact pickups qualify as a segment that essentially disappeared in the U.S. earlier this century. The Chevy S-10, for example, is still made for sale in Brazil but was discontinued in the U.S. about a decade and a half ago. Yet the explosion of sales of midsize pickups, such as the Toyota Tacoma, Chevrolet Colorado and the new-to-the-market Ford Ranger and Jeep Gladiator, suggests that America's thirst for pickups has not been quenched. Story continues VW, which sells the Amarok pickup in other markets, recently negotiated a partnership with Ford to make a midsize pickup for sale in Africa, South America and Europe. That deal did not specify a path to making pickups for the U.S., but analysts have speculated that it's a possible next step. Follow USA TODAY reporter Nathan Bomey on Twitter @NathanBomey. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New York Auto Show: Volkswagen reveals compact pickup concept that may come to U.S. Nelson Kariuki is a 73-year-old sugarcane vendor in Ruaka who believes if he had made better decisions in life, he would now be the owner of Ruaka town. Mr Karikui has two major regrets in life: Wasting his once big fortune on women and alcohol, and his mother rejecting a marriage proposal from the late Mbiyu Koinange. Mr Koinange was the first Kenyan to earn a university degree and later became a powerful Minister of State in the government of founding President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta. He died in 1979 with his wealth estimated at Sh10 billion according to court documents related to long-running inheritance battles. Apparently, Mbiyu Koinange loved Karikuis mother but she was more interested in a jigger infested farmer from Gatanga in Muranga County. My mother was born here and the adjacent land belongs to the Koinange family so one day Koinange proposed to my mother but she declined because she loved my father who hailed from Gatanga. He had jiggers but she chose him. It torments me when I imagine that I could have been Koinanges son if she agreed to marry him. Right now I would be stinking rich! says Kariuki. If not by being Koinanges son, Kariuki also had the opportunity to become a tycoon by his own right through his business ventures in the early 1970s. He says had it not for women and partying, he could be the owner of Ruaka had he invested his earnings on land when an acre cost Sh200. Today, an acre in Ruaka costs millions. A young Kariuki would splash Sh100,000 on women and partying in one session back then. I was the first man to buy a bicycle in this village in 1965. I used the bicycle to ferry goods from Nairobi to Mucatha and will never forget the day I was thrown out from the barmaids house when my supermarket and butchery businesses collapsed in Mucatha. She packed my clothes in a polythene bag and threw me out. I went to live in the city because of shame and many times I would eat rotten fruits in Marikiti market, he recalls. I had built a vast business empire but women and alcohol destroyed my life. These parcels of land you see today could have been mine. The problem is that I never invested my money in land which cost Sh200 an acre and thats why I say today I could be the owner of Ruaka if I did that. In the 1970s, when the Kenyan pound almost equaled a British pound in value, Kariuki and possibly all his boys were ballers. The coffee business was booming and Kariku was living large. In 1973 I was doing very well and was one of the richest men in this area. Coffee business was very profitable back then and I made a lot of money importing coffee from Uganda. There was a scarcity of coffee in the country because the coffee fields had been burnt so I saw a niche and within a couple of months money was not an issue. I would spend Sh150,000 with much ease because I was a friend of money and I felt the urge of buying nice things for women, says Kariuki, who cant stand women anymore. For impressing women with money, Kariuki says, One day I woke up early in the morning and found that only aspirin and salt were left in my supermarket. In addition to stealing from him, the women also infected him with diseases like gonorrhea which was prevalent at the time and Kariuki recalls visiting Casino on Kirinyaga Road to treat gonorrhoea and syphilis covered with a shuka and the doctor would tell us to line up before injecting us on the buttocks with a such a strong medicine that the moment it was administered, we collapsed and slept on the ground until we regained our conscious. I vowed that I will never ever spend a coin on a woman apart from my mother and wife, said Kariuki as quoted by SDE. He was also able to get back on his feet thanks to his small sugarcane business and tea farm in Muranga. The day I put on dreadlocks is the same day I started saving money. That was ten years ago and the reason I live in a mabati house is because Im here to work. I travel to Muranga each weekend to see my family and invest the little money I get in my businesses. Selling sugarcane is profitable because I have managed to purchase a piece of land in Gathanga and Oloitotok. Im also a tea and coffee farmer in Muranga and a proud pagan. Beaver Dam, WI (53916) Today Windy. Cloudy skies will become partly cloudy this afternoon. Morning high of 37F with temps falling to near freezing. Winds WSW at 25 to 35 mph. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph.. Tonight A few passing clouds. Low 19F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph. Bibi Andersson, Swedish Actress and Muse to Ingmar Bergman, Dies at Age 83 Swedish Actress Bibi Andersson Dies at Age 83 Bibi Andersson, the famed Swedish actress and muse to Ingmar Bergman, died Sunday in Stockholm at age 83. Her spokesperson Martin Frostberg confirmed her death, according to the Associated Press. Andersson was hospitalized in France after suffering a stroke in 2009. The actress starred in 13 films by the legendary Bergman, including 1966s psychological drama Persona for which she won best actress at the 4th Guldbagge Awards (the Swedish equivalent of the Academy Awards). Her performance as Alma earned worldwide critical acclaim, as well as a 1968 BAFTA nomination for best actress. Bibi Andersson | IBL/REX/Shutterstock Andersson, whose film career started in her teens, also won best actress for The Mistress at the Berlin Film Festival in 1963. Prior to Persona, Andersson made a name for herself with classic films like Wild Strawberries (1957) and The Seventh Seal (1957). Throughout the course of her two-decade-long career, Andersson appeared in more than 50 films. In 1990, the Swedish actress added theater director to he resume, directing several plays for the Swedens national stage, Dramaten. Her achievements in Swedish cinema cannot be overrated, the Swedish Film Institutes CEO, Anna Serner, said in a statement obtained by the AP. Andersson will be forever remembered as one of Swedens truly great actors, she added. She is survived by her daughter, Jenny, and her third husband, Gabriel Mora Baeza. European Union countries on Monday overruled France and gave the green light for Brussels to open trade talks with Washington as soon as possible and defuse trans-Atlantic tensions. The EU's 28 member states had struggled for months to agree on a mandate to open the talks, with some fearing the delay would restart a trade war with US President Donald Trump. But EU ministers meeting in Luxembourg approved a mandate to negotiate "an agreement limited to the elimination of tariffs for industrial goods only" and another accord designed to remove non-tariff barriers. The ministers said the mandate would exclude agriculture products, which EU trade minister Cecilia Malmstrom said amounted to a "red line" for Europe. US officials have pushed for farm products to be included. "I will now get in contact with our American partners with a view to organising a date for the first round as soon as possible," Malmstrom told a press conference in Brussels. "If we agree to start, I think it can go quite quickly," the Swedish commissioner added. Malmstrom underlined the determination of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, to finish the talks before its five-year term ends on October 31. - 'Climate chaos' - EU sources said France voted against the mandate and Belgium abstained during the Luxembourg meeting. Pursuing a limited trade deal is a key element of a truce negotiated in July that came close earlier this month to imploding after the US threatened $11 billion in fresh trade tariffs against Europe. Paris voted against the mandate over worries about domestic blowback just months ahead of European elections, set for May 23 to 26. French President Emmanuel Macron has insisted the US first sign back up to the Paris climate accord after Trump dumped the pact in 2017, infuriating Macron. But only a qualified majority of EU members was needed to support the talks, meaning France's "non" remained largely symbolic. Greenpeace has called on the Commission and national governments not to enter into trade negotiations with any country that rejects the Paris climate pact. "EU-Trump trade talks would seriously call into question the EU?s resolve on climate change," Greenpeace's Naomi Ages said, warning time was running out to prevent "climate chaos." In a bid to win France over, its EU partners agreed to insist on environmental guarantees during the talks with Washington. In another sop, they also made a specific mention that TTIP, a far more ambitious transatlantic trade plan that never materialised, be officially called "obsolete". The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Paratnership talks stalled following widespread protests in Germany, France and Austria over fears it would undermine EU standards on food and health. At France's demand, agricultural products are also off the table. - 'Ease trade tensions' - Berlin wants the limited deal in order to placate Trump and avoid US auto tariffs that would punish Germany's cherished exports. The mandate from the EU stipulates that the talks would end if the US pursued more levies against Europe, including on cars. It also says the EU cannot conclude the negotiations as long as the metal tariffs remain. The limited deal concerns only industrial goods, excluding the automotive sector. Fishing is also included, but not agriculture, services or public procurement. The US however insists its wants to discuss agriculture, while Europeans would like to include cars. Both sides will have to bridge the gaps before the start of talks. At a meeting last July at the White House, Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker pledged no new tariffs following those on steel and aluminium. That peace was in danger earlier this month after the US threatened to impose tariff counter-measures of up to $11.2 billion on a host of European products in response to subsidies received by aircraft maker Airbus. But Malmstrom said: "This is a welcome decision that will help ease trade tensions." The EU's 28 member states had struggled for months to agree on a mandate to open trans-Atlantic talks, with some fearing the delay would restart a trade war with President Donald Trump EU trade minister Cecilia Malmstrom said she w"ill now get in contact with our American partners with a view to organising a date for the first round as soon as possible" fairy tales were cautionary tales for rich kids/girls Reply Thread Link Sleeping Beauty is the cautionary tale that girls should not fall asleep, lest they be raped pregnant. Reply Parent Thread Link fables were cautionary tales for the regular non rich kids Reply Parent Thread Expand Link On one hand, that's pushing it. On the other, I guess it depends on how early we want to talk to children about how nonconsensual touching is bad, even if it happens in all your favourite kids movies and books. Personally I'd like it if people could put a little more focus on the fact that boys CAN enjoy and relate to books by or about girls because all the gender neutrality within a story isn't going to do anything as long as things related to girls are seen as shameful and "less than" things related to boys. Edited at 2019-04-15 06:33 pm (UTC) Reply Thread Link this is bullshit. schools banning books? why not, I don't know, educating the students to think for themselves instead? Reply Thread Link Because these shit stories are like farts in a spacesuit - they are suffocating and pervasive and story time is a limited resource in early years Ed. Reply Parent Thread Link Yeah that popped up in my notifications like 3 times. Le sigh Reply Thread Link Or you could teach kids about society and gender roles back then and how it's reflected in the fairytale. Just a thought. Or you could teach kids about society and gender roles back then and how it's reflected in the fairytale.Just a thought. Reply Thread Link MTE - you can still have them but teach them the context in which they were created Reply Parent Thread Link Yes back then, it's nowhere near the same today. Depending on the age of the children you compare it to todays society and gender roles and if the students are old enough you can even talk about the Me too movement etc. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link You want to put kindergarten kids through feminism 101? Reply Parent Thread Expand Link ding ding ding Reply Parent Thread Link so one school the alt right are going to shit their fucking pants about this. Reply Thread Link Use the fairy tales as a learning experience, banning them is just silly. Reply Thread Link Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in Hello! Your entry got to top-25 of the most popular entries in LiveJournal!Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in FAQ Reply Thread Link As a MLIS student I'm just going to say no to all of this. Edited at 2019-04-15 08:08 pm (UTC) Reply Thread Link As a school librarian, mte. Reply Parent Thread Link or not ban them and teach kids what might be problematic about them a mess Reply Thread Link Give them politically correct fairytales! My uncle gave me that book, and I loved it. I also loved regular fairy tales too. I think the best thing to do is to promote books and stories with positive role models and to have discussions about the merits of a non-politically correct story and discuss why it was told that way and ask kids what would be a way for the female character to take charge of her story. Reply Thread Link Can people stop acting as if these heteronormative patriarchal sexist occidental deeply problematic barely 200 year old stories are some kind of pre-Big Bang universal truth essential to humanity and life as we know it? Reply Thread Link I feel like this is an instance of just going too far. A lot of "classics" are not anything that would be written today, but they are still taught. My favorite fairy tale when I was a kid was The Snow Queen, Reply Thread Link This is stupid for a number of reasons, not least of which that many fairy tales offer actually quite good female protagonists with as much agency as any of the males. Banning some old books isn't going to fix the pervasive sexism children are indoctrinated into at a young age by the rest of society, it's just going to cut them off from cultural heritage without providing any sort of framework for understanding sexism or other forms of oppression when they encounter it. Reply Thread Link OPEC and heavyweight Russia may fight America for its share of the oil market, Russias Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told TASS on Saturday, even if it means quitting the OPEC deal and lowered oil prices. OPEC and Russia have tapered oil production according to the agreed upon production cut deal, but the United States continues to increase its production and is picking up market share in the processmarket share formerly held by OPEC members and the other non-OPEC signatories to the deal including Russia. Any failure in the production cut deal, however, will have a negative impact on prices, and could theoretically plunge prices into the $40 per barrel territory. This, in turn, would squeeze US oil producers and hurt new investments, Siluanov said. (If the deal is abandoned) the oil prices will go down, then the new investments will shrink, American output will be lower, because the production cost for shale oil is higher than for traditional output. Siluanovs comments came in tandem with warnings of a looming global economic recession. The risks of an upcoming global recession are very high, the Finance Minister said. We are ready for a change in global energy prices we have prepared the budget, the reserves, the balance of payments. We have created this kind of system. Russia has been the wildcard in the OPEC+ production cut deal, and has long sent mixed messages regarding their all-in-ness of the deal. And as US production increases and its market share expanding, OPECs clout is waning, highlighting the importance of its relationship with Russia. Related: Environmentalists Bomb Train Concerns Are Overblown OPECs production has fallen to levels below its commitment. The United States, however, continues to increase production, and currently sits at an all-time-high of 12.2 million bpd, according to the EIA. Before the original production cut deal was established in December 2016, US oil production sat at 8.77 million bpda significant increase that undoubtably puts pressure on any of the countries who have tapered production. President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, however, assured markets that Russia would continue its cooperation with OPEC. We will closely monitor the market, but we will continue cooperation with OPEC, Putin told TASS, following it up with a more ambiguous chaser. If the market situation develops in such a way that reserves increase dramatically, or the US seizes Venezuelan oil and quickly increases its accessibility on the world markets, or something positive happens in Libya in terms of the political situation, and Libya enters the global market, or someone thinks that it is necessary to stop putting pressure on Iran and Iran enters the market with additional volumes, then we will have to take all this into account and make the appropriate decision." Under the terms of the production cut deal forged with OPEC, Russia agreed to shave 230,000 bpd to reach 11.191 million bpd. By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The U.S. sanctions on Venezuelas oil industry have tightened the global heavy to medium crude oil market, sending oil buyers scrambling for alternatives to the heavy Venezuelan oil. Refiners in the United States and Europe have started to replace Venezuelas oil with some of the crudes produced closer to their home, while the worlds largest oil importer and key demand growth driver, China, has been also looking to Venezuelas Latin American neighbors to fill in some of the gap. Brazil is emerging as a big winner from the sanctions on Venezuelait boosted its oil exports to China in the first quarter of 2019 and is expected to further increase its sales and market share in the worlds top crude importer, since Brazil, together with the United States, is one of the few non-OPEC members capable of increasing production significantly in the near term, IHS Markit says. The fly in the ointment, however, is that Brazil has shown volatility in its oil production and exports in recent months, with figures for some months coming in below analyst estimates. If Brazil were to deliver on the production growth that major organizations continue to predict, it could gain a foothold on the most prized market for every oil producing nationChina. With sanctioned Venezuelan oil, the first alternative for buyers would naturally be more medium and heavy crude from OPEC, mostly from its Middle Eastern producers. However, Middle Eastern producers are cutting mostly those grades as part of the OPEC+ production cuts, while Irans heavy oil remains stymied under U.S. sanctions. Canada has its own production issues with the takeaway capacity constraints and cant fully capitalize on the shortage of heavier grades amid the U.S. sanctions on Venezuela. Related: Rock Solid Chinese Demand Boosts Oil Prices So China has increased imports from Brazil. Brazils state-held oil firm Petrobras has said that China absorbed two thirds of its crude oil exports last year, IHS Markit recalls. According to data from IHS Markit, Brazil exported more than 500,000 bpd directly to China in Q1 2019, Fotios Katsoulas, Liquid Bulk Principal Analyst, Maritime & Trade, at IHS Markit, writes. Including shipments to other parts of Asia later re-exported to China, total Brazilian exports to China reached around 660,000 bpd in the first quarter. Brazils exports to China are estimated to have jumped by nearly 50 percent on the year in Q1, according to IHS Markit. Considering Brazils expected production growth, Brazilian oil exports to China could strengthen much more in the second half of 2019, Katsoulas said. China, however, will have to compete with other importers of Brazils Lula grade, which is popular among buyers, including the United States after the sanctions on Venezuela, IHS Markits analyst reckons. The Lula grade has been in high demand recently, and Chinese refiners, although preferring Lula among the Brazilian crudes, are increasingly buying the new medium heavy Buzios grade. Going forward, it is Brazils game to lose in the race to boost its share on the Chinese market. Brazil has failed to deliver the expected high production growth in recent years due to various project delays, but this year both the International Energy Agency (IEA) and OPEC see the Latin American producer boosting oil supply. Recent estimates by the IEA and OPEC show that Brazils production will grow by more than 300,000 bpd this year, and Brazil will see the second-highest supply growth from non-OPEC countries, second only to the United States. However, Brazils production in January and February this year slipped, as maintenance and declines from mature fields was more than new production start-ups. However, there are market experts expressing their skepticism around Brazils ability to maintain its growth projections, as the countrys shipments fell in January before recovering in February and marginally decreasing in March once again. Performance during the last year provides us with an understanding of how volatile Brazilian loadings can be, IHS Markits Katsoulas notes. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Egyptian President Abdul Fatah al-Sisis visit to the White House on April 9, 2019, resulted in one of the worst setbacks for U.S. Middle Eastern policy under the Donald Trump Administration. What was supposed to be a fence-mending exercise between the two countries essentially ended many of the meaningful strategic aspects of the U.S.-Egyptian relationship, despite the fact that the public appearances between the two presidents appeared to be cordial. There have been significant areas of difference and frustration between Egypt and the US, even since the Trump Administration came to office, but there was at least a concerted effort on both sides to work harmoniously. There has also been good personal chemistry between the two presidents since Trump ended what the Egyptians had regarded as a disastrous period under Barack Obama. President Sisi had essentially broken off strategic relations with the U.S. during the Obama Administration tenure in order to resist Obamas insistence that the Muslim Brotherhood play a larger role in Egyptian politics. The question now is who in the Washington bureaucracy will take the blame for pushing Trump to insist on actions by al-Sisi which any fundamental analysis of the situation points to being infeasible and against Egypts view of its own strategic interests. That is not to say that Egypt wishes to end cordiality and cooperation between Washington and Cairo; it does not. But certain battle lines have been drawn in the greater Middle East, and Cairo and the U.S. are not altogether on the same side. Both sides will need to undertake significant, careful action to put relations back on a positive path before the break becomes calcified. The failure on this occasion lay at the door of the U.S. for failing to realize that Washington now needs Egypt more than Egypt needs the U.S. Trump, had, during his White House meeting with Pres. al-Sisi, insisted that Cairo break off or downplay its relations with the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), and the Russian Federation (RF), which Cairo feels it cannot do. The PRC and RF are already firmly entrenched in the Red Sea/Eastern Mediterranean in ways which offer Cairo some benefits without appearing to force Egypt into taking sides in regional disputes. Related: Traders In Limbo As Mounting Uncertainty Pulls Oil In All Directions Trump also hoped the Sisi meeting would re-invigorate his idea of an Arab NATO, the proposed Middle East Security Alliance (MESA), raised at the beginning of his Presidency. MESA would, U.S. planners believed, align the Gulf Arab states particularly Saudi Arabia with Jordan and Egypt to strategically balance and oppose Iran. Cairo cannot realistically support such a position in black and white terms (neither can Qatar or Jordan, at this stage). Cairo is actually open to improved relations with Iran, particularly because the Egyptian Government feels less than secure that the current Saudi regime is stable and reliable. Trump, during the White House meeting, strenuously attempted to support Saudi Arabia and MbS, but received strong pushback from al-Sisi on that account. The measure of Egypts rejection of the U.S. pressure was indicated when al-Sisi, immediately upon returning to Cairo on April 10, 2019, formally withdrew Egypt from MESA. Egypt had very deliberately not sent a delegation to the MESA summit in Riyadh on April 8, 2019. This was as direct a response as could be delivered to the U.S. by Egypt. Despite the realities that Qatar and Jordan have (for different reasons) felt that they must align with the new Middle East Entente (Turkey, Iran, and Qatar), that April 8, 2019, MESA summit included Saudi Arabia, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Jordan. Significantly, it did not include Iraq or Syria. Qatars participation was particularly notable, given the fact that Qatar has been the subject of massive efforts by Saudi Arabia to ostracize it from the region, and because (partly as a result of that Saudi-led effort) Qatar had recently teamed up with Turkey and Iran to form a new Middle Eastern Entente. At the White House meeting, Trump urged Cairo to abandon its support for Khalifa Haftar in Libya, whose Libyan National Army (LNA) forces were, at that time, poised outside the Libyan capital, Tripoli, to take the city, and with it control of the central bank and the Libyan National Oil Company. President al-Sisi steadfastly refused to entertain the abandonment of Haftar as his approach to oppose not only the jihadist Sunni factions in Libya aligned with al-Qaida or DIISH, but also to oppose Turkish/Muslim Brotherhood attempts to dominate a future Libyan Government aligned with the approach of al-Sisi. It is not insignificant that France, the United Arab Emirates, and more recently Saudi Arabia, also support General Haftar. And France and the UAE have been major pillars of financial and military support for Egypt since the Egyptian break with the U.S. This is not to say that Saudi Arabia President Trumps most significant ally in the Arab world has not also been important as a supporter of Egypt; it has. In fact, it may have been Saudi Arabia which was, as a major buyer of French defense goods, responsible for financing the French role in the reconstruction of the Ethiopian Navy. The U.S. failings with regard to forming a stable government in post-Gadhafi Libya go back to the Obama Administrations policies, subsequently embraced by the Trump Administrations State Department, which has very pointedly refused to consider the 1951 UN-sanctioned constitution of Libya which would have ended the inter-tribal rivalries unleashed by the 1969 Gadhafi coup against King Idris I, of Libya. President Trump, in the public aspects of the meeting with al-Sisi, also pushed Egypt on issues of alleged human rights violations, a criticism which the Egyptian Government feels is unfair and hypocritical, especially given that the U.S. did not voice complaints over the rapid slide in the condition of the Egyptian population under Mohammed Morsi, who came into office during the Obama Administration. There is little question that the Trump-Sisi meeting has resulted in a significant weakening of the U.S. in the region, while France, the PRC, the RF, and, indirectly, Iran all benefited. Egypt has seen its regional influence strengthened and now draws support from a number of different sources, both regional and extra-regional, and appears to have moved beyond the eras of British, Soviet, or U.S. subordination. This could well be a watershed moment for Egypt after more than two millennia of external domination by Ptolemaic (Hellenic), Arab, French, British, and other forces. President al-Sisi now seems determined to restore the countrys Egyptian identity. Meanwhile, the removal of Egypt from the Middle East Strategic Alliance may doom MESA to perpetual weakness. Egypts lack of participation undermines the one great initiative which the U.S. had hoped to use to regain some influence in the region, an initiative that has been further undermined by the creation of the new Middle East Entente (dominated by Iran, Turkey, and Qatar, with Syria, Oman, and Jordan playing subordinate parts). Egypts growing strength, and that of Iran (in the Middle East Entente), suggests we may be entering an era in which local powers once again emerge as the dominant forces of the region. Turkeys hope to be a key component in that dynamic, however, is at best problematic: the Turkish economy is now so weakened that alone among the aspirant powers of Egypt, Iran, and Turkey Ankara is rapidly becoming a vassal state of Moscow. This new divide between Washington and Cairo does not mean that the two can no longer work together on some issues. Suez Canal security is critical to the U.S., for example, and the US has thrown its weight behind the Eastern Mediterranean linkages between Egypt, Israel, Cyprus, and Greece on the exploitation of major offshore gas reserves. Now, the U.S. and Egypt could conceivably re-emerge as allies, rather than as senior and junior partners in a marriage which forbids other relations on the part of the junior partner. Two major Washington bureaucratic imperatives, however, seemed to conspire to cause Trump to push established approaches of both the State Department and National Security Advisor John Bolton. The Bolton approach, to directly punish Iran as harshly as possible, clearly grated on President al-Sisi, and the unrealistic belief of State (and the White House) that an Arab, predominantly Sunni, coalition could be mobilized to effectively counter Iran seems to be struggling. The ongoing belief in the U.S. that Egypts defenses are existentially dependent on Washington is something which Cairo cannot comprehend. Washington policy thinking is that Cairo would obey U.S. diktat because it needed spare parts for U.S.-supplied equipment, or because it so needed the relatively small contribution offered by the Camp David Accord aid payments. But, as I noted on April 10, 1972, in Defense Newsletter (the predecessor to Defense & Foreign Affairs), President Anwar as-Sadat was prepared to remove the Soviets from Egypt to achieve greater independence, even though the U.S. at that time felt that Egypt could never defend itself without Soviet support for Egyptian military hardware. Similarly, when President al-Sisi walked away from the direct threats from Barack Obama and risked cutting off U.S. spare parts support for U.S.-supplied defense systems, the U.S. felt that Egypt could not survive without the U.S. Related: Environmentalists Bomb Train Concerns Are Overblown Cairo successfully walked away from the U.S. as it walked away from the Soviets. And the U.S. institutions of strategic policy still have not digested that reality. Clearly, President Trumps desire to support MbS and Saudi Arabia (and to oppose Iran) played a key role, as well, in his desire to win support from al-Sisi. But al-Sisi has always had a more nuanced view of the threats posed by further isolating Iran, or, more pointedly, driving it into alliance with Turkey. Growing U.S. concerns over Turkeys moves away from the West were not seen in the light of Egypts concerns over Turkeys attempts to create a role for itself in North Africa, the Levant, and the Red Sea/Horn, including Sudan. All against Egyptian interests. Washington has not fully come to terms with the reality that the great strategic rivalry in the region is between Turkey and Egypt. They are, essentially, at war, which is why, for example, Egypt and Israel cooperate so extensively to constrain HAMAS in Gaza and in Egyptian Sinai. Egypt also takes a longer view on Iran than the U.S. or Israel do. Egypt sees the Iranian/Persian revival (normalization, as the clerics revolution matures back to Persian normalcy over the coming decade or so) as the return to a major role in the region for Iran. President al-Sisi understands history and geopolitics, and those who did in Washington have now passed out of influence in the new era of reactive politics. In particular, Cairo can feel no added security from the removal on April 10, 2019, of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, and the installation of the Defense Minister Ahmed ibn Auf, as chief of a new Military Council, with Army Chief of Staff Kamal Abdelmarouf as deputy head of the Council. For the Egyptian Government and to the Sudanese opposition this will have seemed like the Islamist military leadership of Sudan replacing al-Bashir because his removal was inevitable. But the pro-Muslim Brotherhood supported by Turkey military has remained in place, something which the opposition and Cairo oppose. A nuanced and unstable pattern is emerging, and, from the U.S. standpoint, President Donald Trump has been poorly advised as to how to benefit from it. A similar case could be made for U.S. failures in the Pakistan and Central Asian situations, largely because of the inherited linear thinking within the State Dept., Defense Dept., the U.S. Intelligence Community, and media. So while a new bipolar world is emerging between the US and the Peoples Republic of China, there is also a new multipolar world emerging, with powers such as Iran, Egypt, and Ethiopia stepping into a new matrix. By Gregory Copley via Defense and Foreign Affairs Special Analysis More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: In what seemed like an episode of the Norwegian television drama Occupied, Norway's largest political party joined smaller ones in the nation's parliament to prevent oil exploration in the scenic Lofoten archipelago. The Labor Party's environmental wing made climate change and scenic beauty big issues. Unlike another contentious oil resource, Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, these islands get around 1 million visitors each year. That implies that many Norwegians have actually seen the islands. In the history of oil-rich nations, Norwegians have followed an unorthodox path. While most such nations have chosen to subsidize domestic prices of petroleum products or at least keep them cheap by policy, Norway has taxed consumption of oil and oil products as if the country were an importer trying to economize on petroleum use. A recent Bloomberg survey showed that the average price of a gallon of gas worldwide was $3.48. The range was 1 cent in Venezuela to $7.61 in Hong Kong. Norway ranked second highest at $6.89. Even more strange is that Norway has become a leading market for all-electric cars. About one-third of all new cars sold in the country last year were all-electric. Of course, Norway has very large hydroelectric resources, resources which produced 93.6 percent of the country's electricity in February 2019, the most recent month for which data is available. But these copious hydropower resources have long been available and didn't prevent the country from becoming dependent on petroleum-fueled transportation just like the rest of the world. Norway also made a fateful and propitious decision shortly after the discovery of its oil and natural gas riches in the North Sea. The country decided to invest much of the tax revenue derived from oil and gas in a sovereign wealth fund to be managed on behalf of the Norwegian people for use by future generations. Most oil-rich nations choose to spend their oil wealth as quickly as it comes in. Today, based on current exchange rates, the Norwegian fund has more than $1 trillion invested, making it the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world. The fund has been used to smooth out government spending at times of low oil prices. Officially, it is a pension fund. But, it has no formal pension obligations. Norway believed at the time of the fund's formation that the fund would help provide support for pensions to its aging population. Related: Permian Takes The Crown As Worlds Top Oil Field Now, here is one truly astounding recent change to the fund's investment strategy. The fund will begin phasing out oil and gas exploration and production companies from its portfolio. That still leaves large integrated majors. The ostensible reason for the change is to make the fund "less vulnerable to a permanent drop in oil prices." The lure of oil wealth seems irresistible. But here is a country that has avoided most of the traps that come from a bonanza of mineral wealth. By managing its oil wealth for the long term and by keeping domestic fuel prices high in a way that makes electric vehicles attractive, Norway has actually partially prepared itself for a post-oil society. In fact, Norway has a goal of phasing out all fossil-fueled vehicles by 2025. That will probably not happen on schedule. But the fact that the Norwegians set such a goal tells us that they have a much more mature attitude towards oil than most of the rest of the world. Those who want to drill in the Lofoten islands say that Norway is forgoing substantial wealth and that the oil under the island chain is needed if Norway is going to arrest the ongoing decline in its oil production. Norway's oil production (defined as crude including lease condensate) peaked in 1997 at more than 3.1 million barrels per day (mbpd). Production in 2018 slumped to just over 1.5 mbpd.* But Norway had long planned for the day when its oil production would decline. If only the rest of the world had thought ahead to such a day, we would not be faced with the specter of the inevitable decline in oil production worldwide and no viable plan for coping with it. *Norway's natural gas production, however, reached a record in 2018 of almost 4.4 trillion cubic feet. Norway is Europe's second largest supplier of natural gas imports (38.8 percent) after Russia (40.6 percent). By Kurt Cobb More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Despite signs of continued tightness in supply, oil prices dropped early on Monday on some profit taking and a Russian minister suggesting that Russia and OPEC could abandon the production cut deal. At 10:09 a.m. EDT on Monday, WTI Crude was down 0.77 percent at $63.40 and Brent Crude was trading down 0.61 percent at $71.11. Last week was the sixth straight week of gains amid tightening supplies due to OPEC and Russias production cuts, the collapse of Venezuelan production, and fighting in Libya which could disrupt the African nations oil industry again. Libyas oil production is still under threat from renewed fighting between warring armed groups, and the situation could become as bad as it was during the 2011 civil war, the National Oil Corporations chairman, Mustafa Sanalla, told the Financial Times in an interview last week. At the start of this week, supply continues to be the focus of the market, but oil futures were marginally lower early Monday in Asia despite the regions stock markets opening stronger as some profit-taking set in, with prices closing just under fresh five-month highs last week, Vanda Insights said. While tighter supply caps oil price declines, during the weekend, Russias Finance Minister Anton Siluanov gave traders food for thought after he was quoted as saying by the Russian TASS news agency that OPEC and Russia could decide to abandon the deal to fight for market share, but this could send oil prices tumbling to $40 a barrel. There isnt any decision yet, Siluanov said, noting that he doesnt know if OPEC could be on board with ditching the deal. Saudi Arabia, OPECs largest producer and de facto leader, has been signaling that it would do whatever it takes to rebalance the market (and support oil prices), and followed through its commitment to cut much deeper than pledged in the pact, as OPECs March production dipped to a four-year low. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The odds of an oil price spike this year are much higher than the prevailing consensus in the market, according to a new report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The oil market has been tightening rapidly this year, due to OPEC+ cuts taking supply off of the market, outages in Iran and Venezuela, and a slowdown in U.S. shale. But forthcoming regulations from the International Maritime Organization (IMO) could provide an additional jolt, particularly as global inventories decline against the backdrop of a tightening market. Now, with distillate inventories at the low end of the range, we see an analogy to 2007/08 when the world run out of diesel refining capacity, Bank of America Merrill Lynch wrote in a note on April 12. Back then, as Saudi Arabia lifted heavy crude production to meet rising global demand for distillates, diesel-to-bunker fuel spreads blew out and so did light-heavy crude spreads. A similar situation could develop over the coming months as ship owners temporarily up their distillate burn to transition out of high sulphur into ultra low sulpur bunker fuel due to the new IMO2020 rules. There are important differences between today and the price spike of 2008, Bank of America notes, including greater spare capacity in 2019, an additional 1.1 million barrels per day (mb/d) of refining capacity set to come online, and the expectation that U.S. shale could quickly add supply in the event of higher oil prices. Still, unlike the gradual tightening in diesel markets of 2007/08, the world faces a major one-off jump in distillate demand, Bank of America argues, referring to worldwide regulations on marine fuels set to take effect at the start of 2020. The rules lower the limit of sulfur concentration in marine fuels from 3.5 percent to just 0.5 percent, which will force shipowners to switch away from heavy fuel oils. Instead, the alternatives include scrubbing technology and a greater use of low-sulfur fuels, including distillates. Related: The Tipping Point In Trumps Quest For Energy Dominance Bank of America says that the regulations could push up distillate demand by 1.1 mb/d year-on-year, which comes on top of the 0.5 mb/d annual trend growth rate, and also on top of the cyclical high during winter. Higher distillate demand could push up crude oil prices as refiners race to turn crude into distillates. About 60% of the average crude barrel can be turned into distillate with the right refining toolkit. But that figure drops below 50% for heavy oil, potentially curbing supply, Bank of America wrote. The bottom line is that there is a chance that oil prices rise much higher this year. In our view, the risk of a Brent crude oil price spike is significantly higher than options markets suggest, Bank of America warned. There are plenty of factors that could head off a price spike, including higher U.S. shale production, an economic slowdown, a decision by OPEC+ to abandon the cuts, a decision by the U.S. to extend waivers on Iran sanctions, or a release of oil from the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve, just to name a few. However, as shippers transition to IMO2020, a cyclical upturn led by trade combined with a cold winter could result in the largest ever surge in distillate demand. If we add a weaker dollar to the mix, we have all the ingredients for a spike in crude oil prices, Bank of America said. Related: Trumps New Ambassador Scrambles To Salvage Relationship With Riyadh The investment bank was skeptical that U.S. shale could fill the gap, at least in the short run. Capital discipline has already led to a slowdown, and the industry could need higher prices for longer-dated futures in order to really incentivize new drilling. In any event, it will also take time for the industry to respond, which means that rising oil prices today will only begin to affect oil production in 4Q19 and 2020, the bank noted. As such, while U.S. shale could add new supply and keep global oil prices in check, it may arrive a little late to avoid a price spike. Bank of America said that the Brent options market only implies a 2 percent chance that Brent spikes to $100 per barrel. The bank says everyone might be underestimating these odds. The massive surge in distillate demand later this year could potentially push oil prices above $100 per barrel, the bank concluded. By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The poorest nation in the Western hemisphere has seen its fuel supply increasingly challenged since a program designed by Venezuela to supply fuel and gain influence in the Caribbean collapsed last year amid the raging Venezuelan crisis. Haiti had received almost 70 percent of its fuel from Venezuela at the peak of the so-called Petrocaribe program, under which Venezuela offered very attractive financing to Caribbean nations to buy its refined oil products. However, after the Petrocaribe program collapsed last year, Haiti was forced to turn to international markets for its fuel supply. But without the Petrocaribe financing for oil, the Caribbean nation has been struggling to find enough U.S. dollars to pay for the product deliveries, and suppliers arent having it. Physical oil supply and trading company Novum Energy Trading Corp suspended earlier this year fuel cargoes bound for Haiti because of overdue paymentsand this has exacerbated the fuel and energy crisis in the Caribbean country. Novum had been supplying fuels to Haiti via the Bureau of Monetization of Programs and Development Aid (BMPAD) for more than four years. In recent months, regretfully the payment performance of BMPAD has deteriorated significantly, Novum Energys chief financial officer Chris Scott said in a statement in January 2019. Earlier this month, Novum Energy updated the market on its operations in Haiti, saying that payments are coming few and far between. Although Novum Energy has received a small portion of the overdue and outstanding invoices, the remaining US$39.7m of overdue invoices are now 60 days late (which is on top of the 45 days of open credit Novum grants BMPAD), it said. Because of the lack of regular payments, Novums vessel MT Nord Innovation, carrying 150,000 barrels of gasoline, has remained outside of Haiti since February 27, awaiting payments and a formal schedule of when we can expect to receive the remaining amounts outstanding, Scott said on April 4. Meanwhile, Haiti has been gripped in 2019 by anti-government protests, with protesters demanding investigations into alleged misuse of the funds from the Petrocaribe program, among other things. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Iraq is set to build an oil refinery of 150,000 bpd processing capacity in the northern city of Kirkuk, according to Iraqi Oil Minister Thamer Ghadhban. The ministry said that it had put the final touches on building the refinery in Kirkuk, which will have a capacity of 150,000 barrels per day, Ghadhban said in a statement on Monday after visiting Kirkuk, according to Reuters. Several Iraqi ministers visited Kirkuk this weekend to meet the governor of the province and discuss new projects and plans that have stalled, some of which were in the oil and electricity sectors. Oil minister Ghadhban stressed the importance of Kirkuk to the Iraqi federal government. Last November, Iraq resumed oil exports from the Kirkuk province, a year after it had stopped oil flows from the area due to a dispute with the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region. Around 300,000 bpd of crude oil previously pumped and exported in the Kirkuk province to the Turkish port of Ceyhan were shut in when the Iraqi federal government moved in October 2017 to take control over the oil fields in Kirkuk from Kurdish forces after the semi-autonomous region held a referendum that Baghdad didnt recognize. However, the only export outlet of the Kirkuk oil is the oil pipeline of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). The Iraqi federal government and the KRG had been in talks for months to try to reach an agreement on resuming Iraqi exports from Kirkuk. Weeks before the resumption of the Iraqi oil exports from the Kirkuk province, the Kurdistan region said that it had upgraded its oil export pipeline, boosting its capacity to 1 million bpd from 700,000 bpd, to accommodate future production growth from the region. This extra capacity will accommodate future production growth from KRG producing fields, and can also be used by the federal government to export the currently stranded oil in Kirkuk and surrounding areas, KRGs ministry said in a statement on November 4. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Oil flow from South Sudan has not been affected by the political turmoil in its neighbor to the north, Sudan, the oil minister of South Sudan, Ezekiel Lul Gatkuoth, has told Reuters. Last week, Omar al-Bashir, long-term President of Sudan, was toppled from power by the military and placed under heavy guard, following months of protests against the government and its handling of a severe economic crisis in the country. Sudans Defense Minister Awad Mohamed Ahmed Ibn Auf said that there would be a two-year transition period of military rule and a council governing the country. Presidential elections will be held after the transition period expires. Sudan, a relatively small African oil producer, has been plagued by economic hardships since South Sudan seceded in 2011. South Sudan broke from Sudan that year and took with it around 350,000 bpd in oil production. After South Sudans secession from Sudan, the two countries have been mutually dependent on oil revenues, because the south has 75 percent of the oil reserves, while the north has the only current transport route for the oil to international markets. After the coup in Sudan, oil flows normally from South Sudan as of Saturday, minister Gatkuoth said. The technical teams from both sides in South Sudan and Sudan are cooperating very well and nothing is alarming at all, he told Reuters. Earlier this year, Gatkuoth said that South Sudan was looking to pump more than 350,000 bpd of oil by the middle of next year, compared to current production levels of around 140,000 bpd. By the end of 2019, South Sudan expects its oil production to nearly double from the current 140,000 bpd to 270,000 bpd, Gatkuoth told Reuters in February this year. By the middle of 2020, the country aims to restore production to the pre-civil war levels, he noted. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: South Koreas imports of Iranian crude last month reached 1.2 million tons, or 8.8 million barrels which was a 23-percent increase on February and a fivefold increase in January, when Korean refiners resumed their purchases of Iranian crude. Reuters reports the daily intake rate for March was a bit above 280,000 barrels, which on an annual basis represents a 12-percent decline. This is understandable as this time last year the U.S. and not yet reinstated sanctions against Tehran and everyone was buying its oil without concern. Now, however, South Korea and Japan are being extra careful: both countries suspended their purchases of Iranian crude ahead of the return of sanctions last November and then waited for two months before they resumed their buying of Iranian oil even though they were granted a sanction waiver. The waivers, also granted to India and China, among others, expire in May, and South Korea and Japan are already negotiating a waiver extension despite Washingtons stated goal of reducing Irans oil exports to zero. According to the latest updates from U.S. officials, the administration will seek to achieve this goal gradually to avoid a shock to the market that would cause a jump in prices. When the current waivers expire, sources told Reuters, the next intermediate goal will be to cut Irans exports to below 1 million bpd, or by 20 percent from the estimated May rate. South Korea was allowed under the sanction waiver to continue importing 200,000 bpd until May. If it scores a waiver extension, this amount will probably be reduced. Earlier this month, the U.S. special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, told Reuters that three of Irans biggest oil importers had stopped buying crude in April ahead of the sanction waiver expiration, although he did not name any of the three. This suspension explains the increased rate of Iranian oil intake in March, with both Korean and Japanese refiners buying as much as they can before the waiver expires without compromising their countries good standing with Washington. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Troops of 72 Special Forces Battalion Makurdi, deployed at Yelwata, in Guma LGA which is a Border town between Benue and Nasarawa State while on patrol along Road Yelwata-Kadarko to monitor post election activities in that axis had an encounter with some suspected armed robbers in the early hours of Friday. The suspected armed robbers were dressed in military desert camouflage and robbing motorists along the road. However, the gallant troops of the Battalion engaged the robbers in a gun battle which resulted in the elimination of one of the armed robbers during the encounter, while others took to their heels. Items recovered include : a. One locally made rifle. b. Three rounds of 7.62MM special ammunition. c. One empty case of7.62MM Special ammunition. Similarly , some cultists who have been terrorising the North-Bank general area in Makurdi metropolis were arrested by Intelligent Operatives of 72 Special Forces Battalion deployed within the town to monitor post election activities. The suspects are Mr Shuaibu Sale, Mr Umar Sule and Mr Idris Bawa. Items recovered from them incude: a. One locally made revolver pistol. b. One round of 9mm c. A poly bag containing weeds suspected to be Indian Hemp. Members of the Public are reminded to be security conscious at all times and enjoined to report any suspicious activities of or movements of individuals or groups to the nearest law enforcement agents for prompt action. Forwarded herewith are some pictures of the incidents for your publication please. SAMSON ZHAKOM Captain Assistant Director Army Public Relations 707 Special Forces Brigade Makurdi. 15 March 2019 Share this: A Lagos High Court in Igbosere has renewed a bench warrant for the arrest of former Super Eagles captain, Augustine Jay-Jay Okocha for alleged tax evasion. Justice Adedayo Akintoye made the order following Okochas alleged failure to settle a 2017 income tax evasion case brought against him by the Lagos State Government. The judge first made the order on January 29, following an application by the Lagos State Ministry of Justice. The ministry told the court that Okocha had also failed to appear in court since 2017 when the case was filed against him. Kindly Share this: Like this: Like Loading Share this: Related Share this: From Greg Swank, 12-4-2 You are about to read a list of 45 goals that found their way down the halls of our great Capitol back in 1963. As... 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Pinerachet No More Trump Adios Macri, hasta nunca La Marioneta se desinfla Asi o mas cinico Almugre Mexico en 1794 Mas arrastrado imposible Hasta cuando! La pura verdad Solidaridad con Palestina Serie Capitalismo Espejismos de la clase trabajadora Asi es! Comerciantes o delincuentes No pasaran! Asi es la vida USA HOY 01/01/1959 La avaricia no tiene limites AYUDA HUMANITARIA? Chile Hoy Asi son las cosas Mapa Electoral de Venezuela Patagonia argentina? Un aniversario mas del mayor genocidio de la Humanidad Retrato del franquismo en Espana Visca Catalunya! El Chulo de Madrid Cuando la policia se roba la democracia Una imagen dice mas que mil palabras La purita verdad Asi gobierna la maldita burguesia Mi pobre clase media Como Chavez nadie Comparte La Colmena via twitter Twittear Programa de la MUD Asi o mas clarito Por que Trump no ataco Corea del Norte? Hace 15 anos Por que la OEA no se pronuncio? Una verguenza nacional La luz que nos guia La Union Europea Premio Nobel de la Paz? Feudalismo ayer y hoy Obama, el mentiroso Curiosa coincidencia Un mundo de cerdos No es extrano? La Marioneta Los ricos protestan, los pobres celebran MARICORI Y OBAMA Cuantas muertes este ano? 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Por culpa de Chavez Cerveza Polar Algun dia Colombia volvera a la ideologia de Bolivar Translate LOS REVOLUCIONARIOS NO TOMAN CACA-COLA No se trata solamente de un capricho, sino de una sana actitud en todos los sentidos. Desde la solidaridad con el pueblo colombiano donde la empresa Caca-Cola ha cometido los mas grandes abusos contra sus trabajadores incluyendo el presunto secuestro y asesinato de los dirigentes del sindicato, hasta la proteccion de la salud de nuestros hijos, enviciados por ese jarabe de cola y azucar, que les produce obesidad prematura. Pensemos tambien los revolucionarios, que ese dinero que gastamos en los refrescos es utilizado por esas empresas para financiar el terrorismo en nuestro pais. Es cierto, no se trata solo de la Caca-Cola, sino tambien de la cerveza, de los cigarrillos y todos esos articulos innecesarios y mas que eso, daninos para nuestra salud. Podriamos incluso pensar en un dia de parada para cada uno de ellos. Es cuestion de irnos organizando. Pero para empezar, que tal si dejamos de comprar Caca-Cola y sus similares? Cuando lo extraordinario se vuelve cotidiano... Discurso del Acto de Grado en Barinas en 12 de Febrero del 2005 Queridos Graduandos: Mas que un discurso, quiero dirigirles algunas palabras que escribi anoche, despues de visitar en las clinicas, a los estudiantes heridos, a consecuencia de los enfrentamientos con la policia de hace apenas dos dias. Me ha tocado por razones del destino, ser la persona que les otorgue el titulo que bien merecieron con sus estudios. Y me siento sumamente orgulloso de serlo. Me consta que la Universidad de Los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora, a pesar de lo dicho por los enemigos de esta universidad, es una universidad de primera. No tendremos la mejor planta fisica, en los salones hace calor. En el comedor hace calor. Pero no es en lo material que las cosas deben valorarse. El mayor capital es el ser humano. Y en eso, nuestra UNELLEZ, lo digo con conocimiento de causa, esta sobrada. Los llaneros venezolanos son nobles, valientes, de coraje. En la UNELLEZ hacen vida, en este momento, aproximadamente 67000 personas. El 97% de ellas son estudiantes. Jovenes que, como Ustedes hasta el dia de hoy, buscan ese titulo, que constata los anos de dedicacion y de estudio. Los jovenes son el rio de la vida, ustedes graduados deben ser los capitanes de esos barcos que naveguen por el rio de la vida. Nuestra Patria atraviesa momentos muy dificiles porque decidio dejar de ser esa matrona de edad vetusta y complaciente, para ser joven, rebelde y altanera. Nuestra imagen ya no es la de una acaudalada ricachona mayamera. En nuestro rostro brilla ahora la sonrisa del Che Guevara, con su diente delantero torcido, su pelo largo y su boina con la estrella. Entender esto, a mi me ha tomado practicamente toda la vida. Tengo 53 anos, y ya perdi mi oportunidad de derramar sangre joven a causa de un ideal. Ustedes son jovenes, estan en la flor de la vida. No cometan por favor el error de renunciar a su instinto de rebelion. El Che Guevara fue Ministro de a Economia en Cuba. Los billetes y las monedas se adornaban con su rostro. Nada de eso le importo. Primero fue a Angola donde paso un penoso ano de combate. Despues se fue a Bolivia, donde encontro la muerte. El Che era el ultimo que comia, el que cargaba la mochila mas pesada. Siempre se sacrificaba por los demas en un estoicismo que mas parecia fervor religioso que ideologia marxista. Si quieren un modelo de vida. Ahi lo tienen. Dije hace unos momentos que el 97% de la poblacion de la UNELLEZ es estudiante. Se imaginan Ustedes la Universidad que podriamos tener si todos los estudiantes tuvieran la abnegacion, la combatividad del Che? Los momentos que se avecinan van a requerir de una gran unidad del pueblo venezolano. La alternativa de continuar siendo libres o regresar a la pobreza se nos planteara en los proximos dias de forma enmascarada, o quizas peor, desenmascarada, vestida con uniforme de soldado del Imperio. Por nuestra parte podemos esperar lo mejor. La macroeconomia no podria ir mejor, la justicia social ha mejorado notablemente. Las misiones ocupan un papel muy importante en el pago de dicha justicia social. Aqui en Barinas ya hemos cumplido con dos de las misiones, la mision Robinson y la mision Sucre. No hay analfabetismo y no hay exclusion en la educacion superior, en estas tierras de Zamora. Pero ay malhaya! Son precisamente estos exitos los que nos hacen mas antipaticos al Imperio. Para ellos, somos inclusive un mal ejemplo que se esta contagiando al resto del continente y cuidado sino al resto del mundo. Nunca venceremos al Imperio. Estara siempre ahi, acechando. Por lo menos hasta que el mismo no se autodestruya. Porque, sepanlo senores, el neoliberalismo es canibal. Cuando le ataque el hambre, se devorara a si mismo. Ustedes, queridos graduandos, a partir de hoy pasan a conformar la elite profesional que debe sostener este pais en los proximos cuarenta o cincuenta anos. Anos decisivos para el logro de nuestra libertad y del rescate de nuestra Soberania. No se dejen comprar. No se dejen corromper. No se dejen gritar. No se dejen pisar. Que nadie les diga que comer, o que vestirse, o que leer. Sean siempre autenticos, rebeldes, contestatarios. Pero eso si, profundamente patriotas, dignos de ser hijos de Bolivar. Muchas gracias y que Dios los bendiga. Alguna duda? Medio siglo de Holocausto Palestino Oscar Zanartu Nacio en Caracas en 1960. Ha realizado exposiciones individuales en las galerias Minotauro, Clave y San Francisco, y en salas de Coro, estado Falcon, y Puerto Ordaz, estado Bolivar. En Paris su obra ha sido exhibida en el Centro Cultural Tanagra, en la Exposicion Cite Internationale des Arts, en las galerias De Mars y Arver Space, al igual que en la Galeria Municipal Levallois, en Levallois Perret (Francia). En muestras colectivas, su obra se ha expuesto en Belgica, Francia, Estados Unidos y Venezuela; en Caracas intervino en la exposicion "Del genesis a la memoria", 1995, organizada por la Fundacion La Previsora. En 1982 obtuvo el Premio Nacional Critven y en 1990 la Mencion de Honor Jose Antonio Paez, en la Embajada de Venezuela en Paris. En 1991 se le concedio el primer premio de Pintura Itinerante, en Levallois Perret, Francia. OZ1 OZ2 OZ3 OZ4 Homenaje a Jason Galarraga La Victoria de Samotracia Odalisca Mas fotos de la nevada del pasado agosto 2008 La Sierra Nevada de Merida Nuestro precioso Churum Meru Homenaje a Picasso Autoretrato Sabes lo que bebes en una Coca-Cola? La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar. Mi profesion? Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos. Sal en la Coca Cola? A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar. De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla: Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gusto Acido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido) azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa) Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantas Mucha Cafeina Conservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o Potasio Dioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebe Sal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracion El uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja. Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos. Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja. En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero). Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma. La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate. Bebidas Light? Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal. Publicado por loretahur En realidad, la formula secreta de la Coca-Cola se puede detallar en 18 segundos en cualquier espectrometro optico, y basicamente la conocen hasta los perros. Lo que ocurre es que no se puede fabricar igual, a no ser que uno disponga de unos cuantos millones de dolares para ganarle la demanda que te metera la Coca-Cola ante la justicia (ellos no perderian).La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gustoAcido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantasMucha CafeinaConservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o PotasioDioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebeSal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracionEl uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el aspartamo , despues de tres semanas mojado, pasa a tener gusto de trapo viejo sucio.Para evitar eso, se agregan una infinidad de otros productos quimicos, uno para alargar la vida del aspartamo, otro para neutralizar el color, otro para mantener el tercer quimico en suspension porque sino el fondo de la gaseosa quedaria oscuro, otro para evitar la cristalizacion del aspartamo, otro para realzar el sabor, dar mas intensidad al acido citrico o fosforito que perderia su sabor por el efecto de los cuatro productos quimicos iniciales... y asi sucesivamente.Un consejo final !!Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.Publicado por loretahur MARGARINA o MANTEQUILLA La margarina fue producida originalmente para engordar a los pavos; cuandolo que hizo en realidad fue matarlos.Las personas que habian puesto el dinero para la investigacion quisieronrecobrarlo asi que empezaron a pensar en una forma de hacerlo.Tenian una sustancia blanca, que no tenia ningun atractivo como comestible,asi que le anadieron el color amarillo, para venderselo a lagente en lugar de la mantequilla.Que tal esa?... Ahora han sacado algunos nuevos sabores para vender mas alos incautos como usted y yo.CONOCE USTED la diferencia entre la margarina y la mantequilla?Siga leyendo hasta el final... porque se pone bastante interesante!Comparacion entre mantequilla y margarina: 1.- Ambas tienen la misma cantidad de calorias. 2.- La mantequilla es ligeramente mas alta en grasas saturadas: 8 gramos,comparada con los 5 gramos que tiene la margarina. 3.- Comer margarina en vez de mantequilla puede aumentar en 53% el riesgo deenfermedades coronarias en las mujeres, de acuerdo con un estudiomedico reciente de la Universidad de Harvard. 4.- Comer mantequilla aumenta la absorcion de gran cantidad de nutrientesque se encuentran en otros alimentos. 5.- La mantequilla provee beneficios nutricionales propios mientras lamargarina tiene solo los que le hayan sido anadidos al fabricarla. 6.- La mantequilla sabe mucho mejor que la margarina y mejora el sabor deotros alimentos.7.- La mantequilla ha existido durante siglos mientras que la margarinatiene menos de 100 anos. Ahora... sobre la margarina: 1.- Es muy alta en acidos grasos trans. (Si, esos que recien ahora loscientificos descubrieron que son malisimos y los gobiernoscomenzaron a prohibirlos) . 2.- Triple riesgo de enfermedades coronarias. 3.- Aumenta el colesterol total y el LDL (el colesterol malo) y disminuye elHDL (el colesterol bueno). 4.- Aumenta en cinco veces el riesgo de cancer. 5.- Disminuye la calidad de la leche materna. 6.- Disminuye la reaccion inmunologica del organismo. 7.- Disminuye la reaccion a la insulina. Y he aqui el factor mas inquietante (AQUI ESTA LA PARTE MAS INTERESANTE! ):A la margarina le falta UNA MOLECULA para ser PLASTICO...!!Solo este hecho es suficiente para evitar el uso de la margarina de porvida, y de cualquier otra cosa que sea hidrogenada (esto significaque se le anade hidrogeno, lo cual cambia la estructura molecular de lassubstancias).Usted puede ensayar lo siguiente:Compre un poco de margarina y dejela en el garaje o en un sitio sombreado.Dentro de unos dias notara dos cosas: * No habra moscas; ni siquiera esos molestos bichos se le acercaran (esto yale debe decir a usted algo). * No se pudre ni huele mal o diferente porque no tiene valor nutritivo; nadacrece en ella. Ni siquiera los diminutos microorganismos puedencrecer en ella.Por que? Porque es casi plastico!! No a la guerra, Si a la Paz Misterios de la ciencia... Los costos de la guerra medicos y capitalismo... 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... 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! " " Pastor Joel Osteen preaches prosperity gospel to the nation's largest congregation at Lakewood Church in Houston. Megachurches like this one are loosely defined as non-Catholic churches with at least 2,000 weekly attendants. Timothy Fadek/Corbis via Getty Images Uniquely American institutions, megachurches have grown by leaps and bounds, especially since the 1980s. These huge houses of worship, boasting thousands of members, often contain multitudes: meeting spaces, pools, movie theaters and roller rinks. By taking a more laid back, everyday approach to religion, these congregations have gained massive popularity even in today's increasingly secular world. But the megachurch movement, and its ties with prosperity gospel and televangelism, has its dark side too. And that's what Stuff They Don't Want You To Know hosts Matt Frederick, Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown explore in The Sordid, Secret World of Televangelists and Megachurches. Advertisement Many megachurches are lauded by their followers as being welcoming, bringing religion to people on an approachable level. Services often become dazzling shows with music and fiery speeches. Many pastors preach a gospel that is as comfortable and easy to slip on as an old sweatshirt, stressing positive thinking as the way to the Lord's heart. It's this kind of theology that makes its way into countless self-help books, including the sensation of "The Secret." Will yourself to have something, and you will have it; picture yourself in a beautiful house, and God will provide. On its face, there isn't much wrong with that who among us has not shared a feel-good meme from author David "Avocado" Wolfe? But the real problem is the dark side to these cavernous cathedrals. Many megachurches preach a prosperity gospel, the idea that God wants us to be rich, and if you aren't, it's through some fault of your own. By tithing to the church as much money as possible, you show your faith in the Lord and it according to the church will return to you, the parishioner, a hundredfold. Of course, only the pastors seem to be getting rich; many of them claim millions of dollars a year in salary, as well as perks like private jets or houses the size of hotels. The prosperity gospel has been blamed for the housing crisis of 2008 and criticized for preying on the poor, encouraging them to give to the church before paying rent or bills, telling them that the $65 million jets they're helping the pastor to purchase are God's will. Hashtag blessed. Televangelism does this too, managing to reach many more thousands of parishioners due to their television presence. And even though famous televangelists like Jim Bakker in the 1980s spent years in jail for fraud, people continue to give them money. And let's not forget that these churches are tax-exempt, despite taking in millions of dollars. According to many evangelicals, this gospel bears no resemblance to the teachings of Jesus, and are just a way for opportunists to take advantage of believers. So what do Matt, Ben and Noel believe? Listen to the entire podcast as they bear witness to the dark underbelly of this religious world and decide for yourself whether these churches are all about God or all about fraud. " " Some hospitals have official policies against entertaining bigoted staffing requests, but many don't, which can leave individual health care providers flying blind. Geribody/Minerva Studio/Leungchopan/Jupiter Images/Thinkstock Walk into a restaurant and demand a white server, and you might get kicked out. Walk into a hospital and demand a white doctor, and you might get a white doctor. It's one of health care's open secrets, according to Kimani Paul-Emile. She's an associate professor of law at Fordham Law School and co-directs the school's Stein Center for Law & Ethics. In a 2012 paper in the UCLA Law Review, Paul-Emile writes, "Such requests by patients are not only quite common but also are often accommodated quietly." Advertisement In the Feb. 25, 2016, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Paul-Emile revisits the subject with colleagues from the UCSF Medical Center. In "Dealing With Racist Patients," the authors suggest a systematic response to patient refusals of doctors based on bigotry, which they say can raise "thorny ethical, legal, and clinical issues and can be painful, confusing, and scarring for the physicians involved." "There is little guidance for hospitals and physicians regarding ways of effectively balancing patients' interests, medical personnel's employment rights, and the duty to treat," they write. It happens to nurses, too, vividly exemplified in a 2012 incident in a Michigan hospital. A new father, who had a swastika tattoo on his arm, demanded that no black nurses touch his newborn. Supervisors acceded, assigning all black nurses to other cases and putting a note in the baby's file indicating no black nurses should touch her. Several nurses successfully sued the hospital for civil rights violations. But it's different with doctors. They typically manage their own assignments (and reassignments) amongst themselves, so when patients reject providers based on criteria like race, ethnicity, gender, religion or sexual orientation, the assigned providers are usually the ones deciding what to do about it. And Paul-Emile says they're flying blind: Hospital policy seldom offers guidelines for handling these demands, she writes in the UCLA Law Review, and the law doesn't seem to address discrimination in this specific context. Not a Rare Occurrence It's hard to know just how often providers face these decisions. Experts use words like "routinely" and "all the time." Research is scarce, but a 2015 survey of physicians throughout the U.S. found that nearly 10 percent of Muslim doctors have faced patient rejection based on their religion. Dr. Nabile M. Safdar, a hospital-based radiologist and executive committee member of the Islamic Medical Association of North America, finds bigoted requests to be "uncommon, but not rare." "He didn't want me as a doctor; why should I have tried to gain his acceptance? Patients have the right to fire a physician. Doctors have the right not to be abused." Dr. Jane Orient, Internist and Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons Safdar hasn't been on the receiving end, but he's seen it. Staff in his department have been rejected based on race, and he's "heard of many encounters when docs were asked their religion and then the patient asked for another provider," he writes in an e-mail. It's pervasive enough that many in health care see it as a serious problem. In 2015, Dr. Keerat Singh and colleagues wrote in The American Journal of Orthopedics that these incidents "can cause significant distress to providers, damage the therapeutic physician-patient relationship, and threaten the collegial and structural framework of an institution." "The silent acquiescence to patients' racist demands in recent times has become a legal, ethical, and medical dilemma," they say. Mixed Signals Safdar says his department has an official policy against entertaining bigoted staffing requests. Dr. Barron Lerner, internist at New York University Langone Medical Center and professor of medicine in the university's division of medical ethics, writes in an email that he and his colleagues "do not reflexively accede to these [demands] by any means." Both note, however, that they do not consider women's requests for female providers either to perform gynecological procedures or due to religious beliefs to be discriminatory. Canada's Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists disagrees, but many physicians feel this way. Lerner says his department usually tries to accommodate women's requests for same-sex providers in these circumstances, which are common, but thinks "the vast majority of MDs would be appalled at a patient who wants a white, male or straight provider." Yet Lerner notes that paying patients with insurance, who typically see private-practice doctors, "choose their doctors based on these characteristics all the time." For a paying patient with insurance, selecting a doctor of choice according to gender or race or some other obvious physical characteristic only takes a provider-directory search and a scan of a provider website. As such, bigoted staffing requests are rare in private practice. So are the serious conflicts that would limit a doctor's options should they arise. "In my private office, patients who don't like me for any reason are bid a pleasant good-by; we do whatever we can to ease the transition," says Dr. Jane Orient, internist and executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. (If they don't "ease the transition" to a different source of care, they violate the code against patient abandonment.) Most hospital doctors do seem appalled by bigoted staffing requests, but according to law professor Paul-Emile and colleagues, physicians in this setting face a "difficult conflict involving their professional obligation to provide nondiscriminatory care, their sense of social justice and personal integrity, and their ethical obligations to respect patients' autonomy and medical best interests." A Professional Quagmire In an excellent opinion piece in The Guardian, Australian oncologist Dr. Ranjana Srivastava writes: "For doctors, reacting to racism is anathema. We would rather suffer the indignity of the occasion than draw attention to ourselves. We are steeped in the learning that the patient always comes first and that the power imbalance between doctor and patient is so great that to object to a patient's conduct is ungallant." A physician's code of ethics revolves around a patient-centered approach to medicine. Doctors are obligated to put their patients' needs above their own, actively enable patient participation in their own health care and respect patients' decisions regarding treatment. Further complicating matters is the doctrine of informed consent. Patients who are mentally sound and in stable condition have the right to refuse medical treatment, including treatment by a specific provider. Doctors can refuse to provide the patient with a new provider, but since they're ethically bound to do no harm, they must consider whether doing so would negatively affect the patient's health. The specifics of the patient's medical condition and options for accessing care elsewhere which hospital patients often lack must factor into the doctor's decision. They must also allow for the possibility of an altered mental state, which not only negates a patient's responsibility for her demands but can also dramatically impede attempts to change her mind. And in an emergency situation, when time is of the essence, doctors are faced with a choice between treating the patient against his will, which violates the duty to respect patients' decisions regarding their care; rejecting the patient's request, which could cause the patient harm; and grabbing the nearest physician of the patient's preferred makeup, if one is available. So, Paul-Emile and colleagues write, "Many healthcare providers accommodate these requests in circumstances in which the patient has no option for care other than a hospital outpatient department and in situations in which a patient is in need of emergency services." There are other reasons, too. In an Aljazeera America article, Elijah Wolfsonnotes an increasing body of research suggesting that race-, cultural- and/or gender-concordance between patient and physician actually improves the outcomes of medical care. Accommodating bigots' requests could make them healthier. The Human Factor None of this changes the fact that bigotry is destructive. As professionals, doctors may want to set their feelings aside, but as people they may want to avoid the conflict. While covering for a colleague in the ER, a male patient rejected Orient because she's a woman, and she says she just went and found him a male provider. "He didn't want me as a doctor; why should I have tried to gain his acceptance?" she asks. "Patients have the right to fire a physician. Doctors have the right not to be abused." Paul-Emile and colleagues fear such conflicts will only multiply "as the U.S. physician population becomes more racially and ethnically diverse." And while they say hospitals should never accede to bigoted demands from stable patients, they offer more nuanced advice to doctors. Five factors, they say, should drive a physician's decision: the urgency of the patient's medical condition, the patient's mental state, the motivations behind the request, the viable options for responding and the effects of those options on the physician. Paul-Emile and her co-authors offer the below framework to hospitals trying to figure out how to handle these demands in emergency situations. However, every patient, and doctor, is different, and ultimately, "the decision to accommodate may be sound when the accommodating physician is comfortable with the decision, employment rights are protected, and the decision does not compromise good medical care," Paul-Emile and colleagues write. Lerner seems to agree. "We like to go case-by-case, for good and bad," he says. "But," he adds, "I am surely in favor of general policy statements that strongly discourage such behaviors." Now That's Ironic Some believe that regularly accommodating race-concordance requests could help narrow the racial gap in quality of health care. MANILA, Philippines A bill that seeks to provide better inclusion for persons with disability (PWD) in the countrys workforce has been filed in Senate. Senate Bill 1249 filed by Senator Bam Aquino urges the government to open at least two percent of available positions for PWD. The bill seeks to amend the Magna Carta for Disabled Persons which mandates companies with more than 100 employees to reserve one percent of positions PWDs. Aquino believes that through the legislation, government offices will be required to ensure that two percent of their employees will comprise of PWDs. Likewise, private organizations will be required to employ a workforce, at least one percent be made up of PWDs. Aquino believes any qualified PWD should have access to employment opportunities to be productive members of the countrys labor force just like able-bodied personnel. The bill is still pending at the Senate Committee on Social Welfare, Welfare and Rural Development. Marje Pelayo The post Bill seeks more job opportunities for PWDs appeared first on UNTV News. TEN members of Cebus Classic Youth Orchestra (CYO) left last March 27 to play with the World Youth Friendship Orchestra (WYFO) in Austria last March 30 and in Hungary on April 2. The group is composed TEN members of Cebus Classic Youth Orchestra (CYO) left last March 27 to play with the World Youth Friendship Orchestra (WYFO) in Austria last March 30 and in Hungary on April 2. The group is composed of Bruce Albert Lim, Al Gabrielle Valendez, Cecile Angela Abellana and Sean Benedict Hong, for violin; Grant Eythan Lim for viola; Marielle Beverly Bugtai for harp and piano; Louie Gexelle Bugtai for percussion; Yani Gale Valendez and Geraldine Abellana for flute; and CYO director Reynaldo Abellana who plays both violin and viola. The World Youth Friendship Orchestra is represented by 15 countries, and this is the first time that musicians from the Philippines joined the group. The WYFO played in Weiner Musikverein (Golden Hall) in Vienna, Austria and in the Danube Palace in Budapest, Hungary to sold-out audiences. Asked how they were able to join WYFO, Reynaldo explained that he always sends videos of CYO concerts to the festival organizers who are always looking for youth orchestras from every country to join the festival. The videos served as the groups audition to qualify for joining the WYFO, with professor Shinichi Minami of Japan giving the group the go-signal. Despite this being a youth orchestra, some adults were allowed to participate. Reynaldo and his wife Geraldine, who plays the flute, were asked to join. Reynaldo was also requested to bring his viola instead of his violin. To his surprise, he was chosen to be the principal violist in both concert venues. In the second part of the Budapest concert, his student, Cecile, was asked to play principal of Violin 2 with Sean Benedict Hong as assistant principal. For the Budapest concert, his assistant violist was his student, Grant. Conductor for the Vienna concert was Stephen Dominic Ellery from England. He also conducted the orchestra in Budapest, as did Shinichi Sukenori from Japan and Xiaoyi Lyu from China For this festival, the Philippine delegation was the only orchestra which did not have a sponsor/benefactor to help defray the cost of transportation and accommodation. But for Reynaldo, the expense was worth the young musicians exposure to a different audience, different music mates and different conductors, especially for those among them who might choose to become professional musicians in their chosen instruments. The students now know that they can play their instruments anywhere in the world under any conductor. As part of the musical growth of CYO, Reynaldo added that the whole group this time, will be off to Vancouver, Canada in April 2020. The group will have pianist Ingrid Sala-Santamaria as its soloist during the tour. Maute-Isis leader Abu Dar MANILA, Philippines Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana on Monday (April 15) said a DNA test from the United States authorities confirmed the death of Maute-ISIS leader Abu Dar. It is confirmed. It is Abu Dars remains, Lorenzana said in a text message to UNTV News. Col. Romeo Brawner Jr., Commander of the 103rd IB Haribon Brigade in an interview said the DNA results are indeed conclusive. The results were given to us by our US counterparts. We were assisted by the United States in confirming the DNA sample that they got from the cadaver of Abu Dar with those of his sons. So, yes. There is positive confirmation that Abu Dar, who was killed during the operation conducted last March 14, Col. Brawner said. The official said Abu Dar was the last remaining leader of the Maute-ISIS group who planned and staged the Marawi siege. He was among the 10 terrorist leaders shown in a recovered video footage planning for the plot in Marawi City along with ISIS emir Isnilon Hapilon. For two years, he had been in hiding and it was only in March this year that the military was able to neutralize him. This means that the Daulah Islamiyah, the new name of the Maute-ISIS group, will finally be ended with the death of their leader, the military commander said. As for his replacement, Brawner said the next in rank to Abu Dar is Abu Zacharia, a little-known Maute leader who, unlike his predecessor, is not a religious leader and doesnt have full influence in the entire group. Secretary Lorenzana, meanwhile, said they have no information yet as to who is currently leading the remaining Maute terrorists who are still in hiding. Well, for now his group is leaderless. We are monitoring who will replace Dar, Lorenzana said. Meanwhile, the Philippine National Police (PNP) welcomes the confirmation of the reported death of Abu Dar, whose complete name was Owaydah Marohombsar. This is a significant development in the governments continuing campaign against terrorism and domestic threat groups, PNP Chief Police General Oscar Albayalde said in a statement. Story continues Government security forces clashed with members of the Maute terror group on March 14 in Tubaran, Lanao del Sur. Abu Dar was among the five terrorists killed in the said encounter, the PNP Chief said. Marje Pelayo The post DNA test confirms death of last Marawi siege terrorist leader Abu Dar appeared first on UNTV News. PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has finally signed the much-delayed P3.757 trillion national budget, which has been in deadlock for months due to supposed insertions and realignments made by some lawmakers.Executive PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has finally signed the much-delayed P3.757 trillion national budget, which has been in deadlock for months due to supposed insertions and realignments made by some lawmakers. Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea confirmed this in a text message to reporters on Monday, April 15. The signing came four days after the President announced that he might veto the "entire" 2019 budget bill, if he finds any irregularities in its provisions. Medialdea said the President vetoed the P95.3 billion worth of budget allocated for the programs under the Department of Public Works and Highways, reasoning that such items are "not part of the President's priority projects." "The President, among others, vetoed P95.3 billion items of appropriations in the details of DPWH programs/projects, which are not within the programmed priorities," the executive secretary said. Palace has yet to release a copy of and provide further details about the 2019 General Appropriations Act. The National Government has been forced to run under a reenacted 2018 budget since January this year, after Congress failed to approve the 2019 budget bill in December last year. The proposed budget for 2019 was only transmitted to Duterte on March 16, after the Senate and the House of Representatives ended squabble over supposed insertions and realignments. (SunStar Philippines) MANILA, Philippines Maynilad Water Services Inc. has reminded its customers to store enough water prior to the implementation of its service interruptions this week. Maynilad announced in an advisory earlier that parts of Metro Manila and Cavite will experience water service interruptions during the Lenten break. READ: Maynilad: No water in parts of Metro Manila, Bacoor next week Maynilads water services will be cut off from April 16 (Tuesday) to April 20 (Saturday). Barangays in Valenzuela, Malabon, Navotas, Quezon City, Manila, Paranaque, Pasay, Las Pinas and Bacoor City in Cavite will be affected. Maynilad will be conducting several water network enhancement activitiesincluding facility maintenance works, pipe Posted by Maynilad Water Services, Inc. on Wednesday, 10 April 2019 The duration of service interruption will last for five to 30 hours, depending on the area. Maynilad said this is due to the water network enhancement activities that will be done during these dates in line with continuous efforts to improve water services in the western zone. These include facility maintenance works, pipe decommissioning and interconnections, and valve replacements. The water company also assured that 40 water tankers will be deployed to deliver water to affected areas when necessary. Aside from the impending water interruption, many consumers are also grappling with rotational brownouts due to low power reserves in Luzon grid amid the extreme weather condition. However, Malacanang ensures that the government is on top of the situation. I was just talking to (Energy) Sec. Al(fonso Cusi), sabi niya we are on top of it, yun ang sabi niya sa akin kanina, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo told reporters at a press briefing Monday. (I was just talking to Sec. Al, he said we are on top of it, thats what he told me earlier.) On Monday, Luzon grid was placed again on red and yellow alerts, the latest in the consecutive alert issuances of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines since last week due to unplanned outages and derated capacity of several power plants. Story continues READ: DOE brownouts possible as Luzon grid goes on red alert again The Department of Energy also expressed hope that the power supply in Luzon grid will stabilize in the coming days as some currently offline power plants will resume operations this week. Robie de Guzman (with details from Rosalie Coz) The post Maynilad: Parts of Metro Manila, Bacoor waterless from April 16-20 appeared first on UNTV News. The Nissan Philippines presidency has been formally handed over from outgoing chief Ramesh Narasimhan to incoming Managing Director Atsushi Najima. Effective since April 1, Najima will report to Vincent Wijnen, senior vice president for sales and for marketing at Nissan Asia and Oceania. In his new role, Najima will be responsible for developing business strategies to maximize Nissans overall performance, managing product introductions, and expanding the availability of the Nissan brand in the Philippines under its midterm plan Nissan M.O.V.E. to 2022. With his rich experience in managing teams across multiple countries, I am confident that Atsushi will continue to drive the strong growth trajectory established by the current leadership team, said Wijnen. Under the strong leadership of Ramesh Narasimhan, Nissan has seen significant growth in the promising Philippines market. In calendar year 2018, Nissans sales volume in the Philippines grew by 40 percent to an 8.7-percent market share, Wijnen added. Najima started as deputy general manager for a regional financial management group in Japan back in 2016. Prior to his current stint, he spent 18 years at Procter & Gamble across Asia, holding various finance and general management roles in the Philippines, Singapore, and Japan. Meanwhile, Narasimhan will be taking the role of president for Nissan Thailand. It was during Narasimhans term that the Japanese marque enjoyed a 34,952 sales peak in its history in the country. The company registered a 40-percent growth, making them the sole brand that posted a double-digit figure rise despite the implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law. In an interview, Najima, who first went in the country back in 2005, said that there have been a lot of difference in the automotive industry then and now. Back then, there were lots of used cars from Japan and the types of car were very limited. Now, Im seeing a lot of new car model with more varieties, Najima said, while expressing beliefs that the local motoring scene has a lot of potential. The post Narasimhan Formally Hands Over Nissan PH Presidency to Najima appeared first on Carmudi Philippines. THE Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas is set to formally conduct a fact-finding investigation on the complaint lawyer Pablo John PJ Garcia filed against Toledo City Mayor John Henry Sonny Osmena THE Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas is set to formally conduct a fact-finding investigation on the complaint lawyer Pablo John PJ Garcia filed against Toledo City Mayor John Henry Sonny Osmena and other town officials for their alleged use of public funds worth P210 million under the Citys Clean and Green program to pay ghost employees in 2018. Osmenas camp welcomed the development. According to a press statement issued last Monday, April 8, Garcia received a letter from the anti-graft office informing him that the case had been docketed as FF-V-19-0096. I thank the Ombudsman-Visayas for the quick and decisive action. This is significant because the Ombudsman may now use its subpoena powers to secure documents and obtain statements which we otherwise, as ordinary citizens, would have difficulty getting, Garcia said. Sought for comment, Inocencio de la Cerna Jr., Osmenas legal counsel, said they would like to remind the anti-graft office to first resolve their motion to inhibit, which they filed last month. (First and foremost) we welcome the move of the Office of the Ombudsman to conduct a fact-finding investigation regarding Clean and Green if only to prove that the complaint filed has no basis in law and in fact. The concerned offices have been ordered to give the Office of the Ombudsman full cooperation, de la Cerna told SunStar Cebu in a text message. Last March 11, Garcia asked the Ombudsman to investigate and preventively suspend Osmena, executive assistant Justin Anthony de Jesus, Acting City Budget Officer Gethsemane Mahinay, Acting City Administrator Ferdinand Marquez, City Treasurer Leonardo Rivera Jr., Councilor Marjorie Perales, Councilor Leo Dolino and Ex-officio Councilor Ophelio Dolino. Garcia also requested the Commission on Audit (COA) to release the certified true copies of some documents pertaining to the release of the amount. In its annual audit for 2017, the COA noted the highly suspicious and irregular disbursement of more than P100 million of public funds as payment for job-order (JO) employees. Story continues The COA report said: The necessity of hiring JO employees could not be established due to lack of contracts and doubtful daily time records of most job orders doing the fieldwork, thus the regularity and propriety of expenditures totaling P113,265,231.40 could not be ascertained. In addition, some JO personnel hired did not perform piece of work or intermittent job of short duration and services rendered exceeded six months. A few days after Garcia lodged the complaint, Osmena urged Deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas Paul Elmer Clemente and anti-graft investigators to inhibit from acting on the matter. In an earlier report, de la Cerna said Garcia and Clemente were classmates in the University of the Philippines (UP) Law Class of 1993. De la Cerna has endorsed a motion asking the anti-graft office to inhibit from investigating Osmena, but Garcia said he has not talked to Clemente after they graduated more than 20 years ago. I would most respectfully remind the Office of the Ombudsman to resolve first the motion to inhibit and recuse itself on the ground that the complainant and the deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas were classmates in the UP College of Law, de la Cerna said. Osmena, Garcia and former Pinamungajan mayor Geraldine Yapha are running for the congressional seat of Cebus third district in the May 13 midterm elections. 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 Philippine National Police (PNP) has recorded a total of 23 incidents with 15 deaths nationwide since the beginning of the summer vacation this year. In a press conference Monday, April 15, PNP Chief Oscar Albayalde said from April 5 to 6 a.m. of April 14, 23 incidents, that include drowning, vehicular accidents, theft, physical injury, act of lasciviousness, shooting and robbery, have been recorded. He said 13 people were injured, while 15 were killed. He also said Monday that 91,201 police personnel were deployed nationwide for route security, target hardening and security operations to ensure the peace and order and security of the public, particularly in places of convergence such as churches, malls, vacation destinations and transportation hubs. Sa ngayon, we are on heightened alert. Binigay namin doon sa mga different regions kung ano ang appreciation nila within their area of responsibility to increase of level yung kanilang alert status into full alert status but most probably by Wednesday, we will be going for a full alert status, especially doon sa mga regions na pinupuntahan ng ating mga kababayan for vacation and worship, he said. Albayalde said they have yet to monitor possible threats this summer, particularly during the Holy Week break. On Friday, April 12, a suspected Abu Sayyaf member was arrested in Quezon City. (SunStar Philippines) In this Wednesday Feb. 7, 2018, file photo a full facial reconstruction model of a head based on the skull of Britain's oldest complete skeleton on display during a screening event of The First Brit: Secrets Of The 10,000 Year Old Man at The Natural History Museum, in London. Scientists say a wave of migrants from a region that is now Greece and Turkey arrived in Britain some 6,000 years ago and virtually replaced the existing hunter-gatherer population, according to a study published Monday April 15, 2019, in the journal Nature. According to Nature, genetic samples of ancient remains show there was little interbreeding between the newcomers and the darker-skinned foragers that had inhabited the British Isles for millennia. (Jonathan Brady/PA via AP, File) A wave of migrants from what is now Greece and Turkey arrived in Britain some 6,000 years ago and virtually replaced the existing hunter-gatherer population, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature. Scientists examining samples of ancient remains dating as far back as 8500 BC found the dark-skinned foragers who had inhabited the British Isles since the last Ice Age left comparatively little trace in the genetic record after the transition to farming, suggesting there wasn't much interbreeding with the newcomers who arrived around 4000 BC. By contrast, the same Aegean migrants mixed extensively with local populations when they introduced farming to continental Europe about 1,000 years earlier, according to previous DNA studies. "It is difficult to say why this is, but it may be that those last British hunter-gatherers were relatively few in number," said Mark G. Thomas, a professor of evolutionary genetics at University College London who co-wrote the study. "Even if these two populations had mixed completely, the ability of adept continental farmers and their descendants to maintain larger population sizes would produce a significant diminishing of hunter-gatherer ancestry over time." The researchers from Britain and the United States found that the remains of Britain's early farmers were genetically similar to those discovered in what is now Spain and Portugal, indicating this population traveled east to west through the Mediterranean, and then up to Britain. Strikingly, the newcomers appear to have arrived first on the western coast before spreading to other parts of Britain, suggesting they didn't cross the English Channel using the shortest possible course but instead braved the wilder Atlantic route. "This route is a continuation of the Mediterranean coastal dispersal route but of course in much more complicated maritime circumstances," said Carles Lalueza-Fox of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona, Spain. Lalueza-Fox, who wasn't involved with the study, said the findings match what is known about the spread of megalithic structures along Europe's Atlantic coast. Perhaps the best-known of these structures is Stonehenge in Britain. "This work highlights the complex population turnovers affecting a rather marginal area of Northwestern Europe and points out the need to investigate all regions with ancient data to understand the shaping of modern human genetic diversity," said Laluelza-Fox. In their paper, Thomas and his colleagues also note the "considerable variation in pigmentation levels in Europe" during the Stone Age as shown from the genetic samples they examined. Whereas Britain's outgoing hunter-gatherersincluding the oldest known Briton, "Cheddar Man"likely had blue or green eyes and dark or even black skin, the farming populations migrating across Europe are believed to have had brown eyes and dark to intermediate skin. More information: Ancient genomes indicate population replacement in Early Neolithic Britain, Nature (2019). www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-0871-9 Journal information: Nature Ancient genomes indicate population replacement in Early Neolithic Britain,(2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41559-019-0871-9 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. View of snow covered peaks in the Areige region of the Pyrenees Mountains that separate France and Spain, the region where scientists found deposits of air-borne plastics A secluded mountain region thought to be free of plastic pollution is in fact blanketed by airborne microplastics on a scale comparable to a major city such as Paris, alarmed researchers reported Monday. Over a five-month period in 2017-2018, an average of 365 tiny bits of plastic settled every day on each square metre of an uninhabited, high-altitude area in the Pyrenees straddling France and Spain, they reported in the journal Nature Geoscience. "It is astounding and worrying that so many particles were found in the Pyrenees field site," said lead author Steve Allen, a doctoral student at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. The study focused on microplastics mostly between 10 and 150 micrometres across, including fragments, fibres and sheet-like pieces of film. By comparison, a human hair is, on average, about 70 micrometres in width. "We would never have anticipated that this study would reveal such high levels of microplastic deposits," added co-author Gael Le Roux, a researcher at EcoLab in Toulouse, in southwestern France. Plastic litter has emerged in the last few years as a major environmental problem. Up to 12 million tonnes of plastics are thought to enter the world's oceans every year, and millions more clog inland waterways and landfills. Plastic takes decades to break down, and even then continues to persist in the environment. Scientists are only now beginning to measure the damage to wildlife and potential impacts on human health. A study earlier this year uncovered plastic fragments in the guts of animals living more than 10 kilometres below the ocean surface. Two whales found beached since the start of the yearone in the Philippines, the other in Sardinia, Italyhad 40 and 20 kilos, respectively, of plastic in their stomachs. Microplastics have also been found in tap water around the world, and even the furthest reaches of Antarctica. As polluted as Paris "Our most significant finding is that microplastics are transported through the atmosphere and deposited in a remote, high-altitude mountain location far from any major city," co-author Deonie Allen, also from EcoLab, told AFP. "This means that microplastics are an atmospheric pollutant." Researchers used two monitoring devices to independently measure particle concentration in an area long considered to be among the most pristine in western Europe. The nearest village is seven kilometres (more than four miles) away, and the nearest city, Toulouse, is more than 100 kilometres. While the scientists were able to identify the types of plastic, they could not say with certainty where they came from or how far they had drifted. Analysing the pattern of air flows, they surmised that some particles had travelled at least 100 kilometres. "But due to the lack of significant local plastic pollution sources, they probably travelled farther," Deonie Allen said. Samplestransported by wind, snow and rainwere collected at the meteorological station of Bernadouze at an altitude of more than 1,500 metres. The researchers were stunned to find that the concentrations of microplastic pollution were on a par with those found in major cities, including Paris and the southern Chinese industrial city of Dongguan. "Our findings are within the range of those reported for greater Paris, and can thus be considered comparable," Deonie Allen told AFP. "We did not expect the number of particles to be so high." Explore further Where do microplastics go in the oceans? More information: Steve Allen et al. Atmospheric transport and deposition of microplastics in a remote mountain catchment, Nature Geoscience (2019). Journal information: Nature Geoscience Steve Allen et al. Atmospheric transport and deposition of microplastics in a remote mountain catchment,(2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-019-0335-5 2019 AFP Bank swallows, like this juvenile, may become endangered unless habitat loss and other threats are reduced. Credit: Shutterstock Many bird populations are crashing, largely because they migrate such long distances and are at risk from human influence at every link in their migratory chain. One favourite, the tiny Canada warbler, is among those that find themselves in trouble. Although this bird weighs only as much as a AAA battery, each spring it flies more than 5,500 kilometres from its winter home in South America to breed in Canada, stopping in Mexico, Texas and Michigan along the way. The Canada warbler makes this incredible journey as many as eight times over the course of its life. Unfortunately, like many North American songbirds, the Canada warbler is at risk of extinction. Deforestation and human development projects are of the utmost concern to Canada warblers and other birds. More than one-third of North America's 1,154 bird species are suffering population declines. Historically, the protection of migratory birds has been difficult. Not only do they require habitat to eat, nest and sleep across two or more continents, but scientists have had limited knowledge about their distribution throughout the year. Today, only one-tenth of migratory birds have enough habitat protected across their yearly ranges to sustain their populations. The Canada warbler flies more than 5,000 kilometres from their wintering grounds in South American to their breeding grounds in Canada and the United States. Credit: Shutterstock Our latest research, published in the journal Nature Communications, provides governments and conservation groups with a blueprint for conserving enough habitat to protect the populations of almost one-third of the warblers, orioles, tanagers and other birds that migrate among the Americas. Millions of bird sightings We used eBird, a global citizen scientist database housed at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, to map migratory songbirds. The database allows birders to enter information about the birds they observe from anywhere in the world. eBird is very popular: more than half a billion sightings have been logged around the world in 15 years. From that, we took 14 million bird sightings collected by hundreds of thousands of citizen scientists to determine the places the Canada warbler and 116 other bird species use for their transcontinental migration. That provided us with guidance on where, when and what type of habitat should be conserved to sustain the populations of these birds. Species diversity of 117 migratory songbird species is shown for every week of the year. Credit: Species maps provided by eBird, animation by Richard Schuster, March 2019. For example, large areas of evergreen forests were highlighted in western Canada. In the eastern Andes and western Amazon basin, we found broadleaf forests were important to survival. Identifying these areas is a vital step for the protection of migratory birds. It will help us to make the best use of limited resources for conservation. Conservation dollars Governments and NGOs should spend about US$1 billion annually on bird conservation to meet global biodiversity targets, but it's been very hard to know where on the migratory chain to make that investment. Our results can help them do a much better job. We found that conservation strategies were most efficient when they incorporated working lands, such as agriculture or forestry, rather than exclusively focusing on areas with limited human impacts such as intact or undisturbed landscapes. This could be because human settlements are generally located in productive areas, which also tend to be high biodiversity areas. This map shows the most important locations for conserving 30 per cent of the population of each species examined. The darker the blue, the more consistently important was the location. Credit: Richard Schuster The importance of shared-use or working landscapes to migratory birds underscores how strategic conservation can accommodate both human livelihoods and biodiversity. Striking the right balance has previously been a challenge because migratory birds are often on the move. But our research showed that when a year's worth of bird location data is considered, conservation can be more efficient and require 56 per cent less land. In the past, efforts to protect migratory species have focused only on breeding areas, as the bulk of research and management has focused on these areas. Our results show that it's more effective to include areas used by multiple species, across the entire year. This study also reveals how a global citizen science effort can enable strategic planning to maximize the return on conservation investments. No other data source could have achieved anything close to this level of detail and efficiency over such a vast area. eBird and more than 300,000 eBirders around the world make it possible for researchers like us to consider the full annual journey of migratory birds formation that can translate to better conservation. We're hopeful that governments and conservation groups will be able to make informed and cost-effective decisions to protect the Canada warbler and other feathered globetrotters. Explore further Climate change could impact critical food supplies for migratory birds This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Embedded with Physicists. Credit: Heloise Chochois I have been popularising quantum physics, my area of research, for many years now. The general public finds the topic fascinating and covers of books and magazines often draw on its mystery. A number of misconceptions have arisen in this area of physics and my purpose here is to look at the facts to debunk seven of these myths. Don't worry, you don't need to know much about quantum physics to read this article. I will mostly be explaining what quantum physics isn't, rather than what it is 1. "Quantum physics is all about uncertainty" Wrong! Quantum physics is probably the most precise scientific discipline ever devised by humankind. It can predict certain properties with extreme accuracy, to 10 decimal places, which later experiments confirm exactly. This myth originated partly in Werner Heisenberg's "uncertainty principle". He showed that there is a limit to how accurately two quantities for instance a particle's speed and its position can be measured simultaneously. When quantum physics is used to calculate other quantities, such as the energy, or the magnetic property of atoms, it is astounding in its precision. 2. "Quantum physics can't be visualised." Quantum physics describes objects that are often "strange" and difficult to put into pictures: wave functions, superimposed states, probability amplitude, complex numbers to name but a few. People often say that they can only be understood with mathematical equations and symbols. And yet we physicists are always making representations of it when we teach and popularise it. We use graphs, drawings, metaphors, projections and many other devices. Which is just as well, because students and even veteran quantum physicists like us need a mental image of the objects being manipulated. The contentious part is the accuracy of these images, as it is difficult to represent a quantum object accurately. Heisenbergs uncertainty principle. Credit: Margaux Khalil and Janet Rafner, Author provided Working together with designers, illustrators and video makers, the Physics Reimagined research team seeks to "draw" quantum physics in all its forms: folding activities, graphic novels, sculptures, 3-D animations, and on and on. 3. "Even scientists don't really understand quantum physics" One of the leading lights in the field, Richard Feynman himself said: "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." But he then immediately added: "I am going to tell you what nature behaves like." Niels Bohr, one of the founding fathers of the discipline, gives a good summary: "Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it." Physicists do understand what they're doing when they're manipulating the quantum formalism. They just need to adapt their intuitions to this new field and its inherent paradoxes. 4. "A few brilliant theorists came up with the entire concept of quantum physics" Design makes it possible to imagine what quantum particles could be. Credit: Paul Morin et al., Author provided The entire history of quantum physics shows the exact opposite: at the very beginning, lab experiments threw up unexpected results, such as the photoelectric effect, black-body radiation, the light emission spectrum of atoms. Only later did brilliant theorists enter the scene, when Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Niels Bohr and others tried to provide explanations. Further fundamental experiments followed, including electrons that bounced weirdly off nickel, silver atoms strangely deviated by a magnetic field, a perfectly conducting metal at low temperatures and so on. Theories and concepts then emerged once again: duality, spin or superconductivity were introduced. The highly productive "back and forth" exchanges between theory and practice are what physics is built on. Experiments generally come first, except in very few cases. 5. "Einstein was quantum physics' worst enemy" Poor old Albert Einstein is often depicted as having been a virulent opponent of quantum physics, probably because of his famous quote, "God does not play dice with the universe." Yet he wasn't against it and what's more, he created it! In 1905 Einstein wrote his foundational article, "On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light", based on the work of Max Planck. In it, he proposed that light was made of small, individual and quantified bodies, called photons. This is what won him the Nobel Prize, in fact, not his work on the theory of relativity. Einstein probably earned that reputation because of his discussions with Niels Bohr, especially on the idea of interpretation and quantum reality, as he didn't accept the concept of nonlocality. Later, experiments on entanglement and violation of Bell's theorem proved him wrong and showed the absence of hidden variables. Einstein fully appreciated the relevance of quantum physics, he just had a few problems with some of its implications, especially as regards locality. Lasers, maglev trains and MRI are just a few of the applications of quantum physics. Credit: Marine Joumard, Flammarion, Author provided 6. "Quantum physics has no practical use" Quantum physics is probably the most useful discipline in modern physics: once physicists understood how light, atoms and electrons worked, they were able to manipulate them. Lasers, MRI in hospitals, LEDs, flash memory, hard disks and above all else, the transistor and electronics all of these technologies were invented by quantum physicists. 7. "Quantum physics might explain certain alternative therapies and other mysteries" Many people who believe in paranormal phenomena and in certain "therapies" claim to be inspired by quantum physics. Indian-American Deepak Chopra is one of the most famous proponents of this approach. He has developed a kind of quantum mysticism in which a pseudo-New Age spirituality finds its credentials in scientific jargon such as "human quantum-body essence", "localised field of energy and information with cybernetic feedback loops", and "harmonisation of the quantum mechanical body". He then purports to establish quantum relationships between mind, consciousness, matter and the universe. "Quantum therapies" also offer care protocols based on the body seen as "a vibration and energy field", host to "vibrating states" and "bioresonances". This is dishonest on two counts. The first trick consists in using scientific terms to mystify quantum physics, when there is in fact no mystery. Lab experiments and daily living have shown its validity. On the other hand, none of the phenomena described by these therapies or beliefs have any scientific basis. Above all, words denote very precise meanings in quantum physics and they are entirely misused in these pseudo-sciences. An equation that raises questions but also provides answers. Credit: Chloe Passavant et al., Author provided More cheating can be found when quantum properties are extrapolated to a human scale. To be absolutely clear, quantum properties such as superposition of states or quantisation don't apply in the living world on a human scale. 2012 Nobel Prizewinner Serge Haroche proved this with his experiments. When an object interacts too much with its environment and becomes too large, it is no longer a quantum object. However, I wouldn't like to judge those who wish to test this approach, which belongs to the realm of belief, not science. Everyone can do as they wish, of course. I would only ask people to refrain from pretending it has any scientific basis in quantum physics. Any such claim is simply false. That's it! I hope that I managed to debunk quantum physics a little. In the end, it is just like any other scientific discipline. Explore further How Einstein's equivalence principle extends to the quantum world This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Nicosulfuron tolerant wheat. Credit: IGDB Chinese farmers are facing worsening problems with the weed jointed goatgrass (Aegilops tauschii), a close relative of wheat. Currently, mesosulfuron is the only wheat-registered foliar-applied herbicide that provides control of jointed goatgrass in China, but it often damages the wheat. Non-transgenic wheat varieties tolerant to imidazolinone (IMI) herbicides can solve these problems by allowing the use of IMI to control goatgrass. However, IMI herbicides persist in the soil and severely damage sensitive crops planted months and even years later. Therefore, non-transgenic crops with herbicide tolerance traits, coupled with low-risk herbicides, are badly needed by millions of multi-cropping farmers in their battle against weeds. Recently, a research team led by Profs. GAO Caixia and LI Jiayang at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGDB, CAS), together with Associate Prof. JIANG Linjian at China Agricultural University (CAU), generated several herbicide-tolerant wheat germplasms using base editing to facilitate weed control in wheat fields. The researchers generated wheat germplasms harboring herbicide tolerance mutations that confer tolerance to sulfonylurea-, imidazolinone- and aryloxyphenoxy propionate-type herbicides by base editing the acetolactate synthase (ALS) and acetyl-coenzyme A carboxylase genes of commercial wheat cultivar Kenong199. Selectable co-editing systems. Credit: IGDB The mutations at wheat ALS P174 codon (TaALS-P174) endow tolerance to nicosulfuron, a sulfonylurea herbicide with a relatively low risk to subsequently planted crops, indicating great application value in field production. The mutations at both the TaALS-P174 and TaALS-G631 positions conferred tolerance to imazapic, an IMI herbicide, at three times and even five times the field-recommended rate. The researchers also obtained quizalofop-tolerant wheat by editing TaACCase-A1992. Moreover, they found that base editing at TaALS-P174 endowed wheat with sufficient resistance to nicosulfuron herbicide in MS growth medium to allow selection. When the TaALS-P174 editor was coupled with editors for other targets of interest, co-editing occurred in the nicosulfuron-resistant plants, and selection for resistance in growth medium enriched the frequency of coupled targets by several-fold. As TaALS-P174 is conserved across plant species, similar selectable co-editing systems could be readily established to facilitate base editing in other plant species. The paper, titled "Generation of herbicide tolerance traits and a new selectable marker in wheat using base editing," will be published online in Nature Plants on April 15, 2019. Explore further A new approach to keeping crops, people safe More information: Generation of herbicide tolerance traits and a new selectable marker in wheat using base editing, www.nature.com/articles/s41477-019-0405-0 Journal information: Nature Plants Generation of herbicide tolerance traits and a new selectable marker in wheat using base editing, DOI: 10.1038/s41477-019-0405-0 Credit: CC0 Public Domain A new online platform enables users to get information about the democratic quality of a specific country with just a few clicks. The new tool has been designed by political scientists from the University of Wurzburg. Take North Korea, for example: The matrix of that nation is deep red dyed with few exceptions and a total score of 0.05clearly an autocratic regime. Sweden is quite the opposite. With all fields dark green and a score of 0.95, the country almost achieves the maximum score, making it a paragon of a functioning democracy. Ukraine is positioned somewhere between these two extremes. Some areas are pale green, some light orange, others dark, yielding a total score of 0.51. It is a hybrid regime that includes both democratic and autocratic elements. The vivid graphics with their differently coloured fields provide information about the democratic quality of a nation at a glance. Political scientists from the University of Wurzburg have developed the so-called democracy matrix within the scope of a project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Professor Hans-Joachim Lauth, who holds the Chair of Comparative Politics and German Government, was in charge of creating the matrix. He was supported by Lukas Lemm and Oliver Schlenkrich, two research assistants. The matrix was launched a few weeks ago and is now open to all interested parties. A differentiated picture over many years "Instead of specifying a single value to describe a country, our matrix shows a differentiated picture of the strengths and weaknesses of a state's democratic elements," Hans-Joachim Lauth explains. What is more, the matrix enables comparing several countries or illustrating developments over years and decades. Information about nearly 200 countries in the period between 1900 and 2017 can be retrieved from the database, including almost all countries of the world with the exception of a few microstates. Lauth had the idea to measure the democratic quality of countries already back in 2004however as a purely qualitative model at the time. A comprehensive database developed by scientists from Sweden and the USA has now made the quantitative implementation possible. "We solely selected variables from data of the valuable Varieties of Democracy project that fit in with our concept," Lukas Lemm explains. The varied dimensions of democracy Three central dimensions of democracy form the vertical pillars of the democracy matrix. They investigate elements of political freedom, political equality as well as political and legal control of governments. Or, simply put: "Are all citizens able to participate in the political process without restrictions? Are all citizens treated equally? And what about control of the government?" says Oliver Schlenkrich. Additionally, the political scientists distinguish five horizontal areas, the so-called institutions, that enable a differentiated view: The quality of elections for example is at the centre of the "Procedures of Decision" institution. How can political parties, organisations and civil society voice their interests? This question is the focus of the "Regulation and Intermediate Sphere" institution. The freedom of the press is covered by the "Public Communication" institution. Judicial independence in the sphere of guaranteed rights and the separation of powers are examples from the "Rules Settlement and Implementation" institution. Three pillars with five institutions each: This yields a total of 15 fields which are depicted by the democracy matrix. A score between zero and one is assigned to each field. Based on this, average values can be calculated for the respective pillars, institutions or for the overall system. "A value between 0.5 and one means that the country is a democracy. Scores below 0.5 are indicative of an autocratic system," says Hans-Joachim Lauth. What is more: A score higher than 0.75 is representative of a functioning democracy; values between 0.5 and 0.75 characterize deficient democracies. There is no ideal democracy Data for Turkey from 2017, for example, clearly illustrates that the country is an autocracy with a total score of 0.35. Japan (0.89) is a functioning democracy; India (0.67) has made it into the "democratic half," but exhibits deficits. And what about countries that have both democratic and autocratic elements in the matrix? The scientists introduced the hybrid regimes category to cover such states. Morocco is one such example: Decision-making procedureselections, for examplegenerally do not satisfy democratic standards, whereas the guarantee of rights meets nearly high standards. However, it is a mistake to think that a country with a score of 1.0 is the ideal democracy. "There is no such thing as an ideal democracy," Lauth says. After all, it is impossible to implement full freedom, full equality and perfect control in one political system at once. Instead, the range of functioning democracies includes "different profiles of democracies" where these aspects are weighted differently. Oliver Schlenkrich points out that countries must make a choice within the scope of these trade-offs. The democracy matrix also shows whether a country has adopted a more egalitarian or libertarian approach. Tunisia, the model country The political scientists believe that journalists, schools and all political stakeholders are potential users of the data matrix, as are politicians and people who are actively involved in politics. "You can use the matrix, for example, to identify a country's strengths and weaknesses, track trends and make decisions about development aid projects on this basis," Lauth says. But of course, the matrix is also of great analytical value for the scientists." They use the matrix data to dig deeper, for example, to determine the causes and effects of special deficits, culture-specific characteristics or structural conditions. The running research project tackles these issues. The data includes nearly 200 countries spanning more than 100 years. This poses the question of whether the political scientists have identified a candidate that can serve as a paragon of democratic development over the recent years. The researchers suggest Tunisia. According to the scientists, it is the only country that has emerged from the Arab Spring of 2010/11 as a model of democracy. This development is reflected in the matrix as follows: In 2009, the country scored only just 0.23 and most fields were a deep red. For 2017, however, the matrix is coloured a friendly green. The total score is now 0.84. Poland and Hungary are examples of negative developments in recent years. The democracy matrix is open to all interested parties free of charge. The website is available in English and German. Go to https://www.democracymatrix.com. Explore further Democracy in decline for one-third of the world Kip Lacy in entomology professor Ken Ross' lab at the Riverbend Research Lab North. Credit: Andrew Davis Tucker/UGA In most colonies, ants work in service of a single reproductive queen, but that's not always the way ant societies function. Researchers at the University of Georgia have found colonies of tropical fire ants, native to Florida and coastal Georgia, that thrive with multiple queens and in close proximity to single-queen colonies of the same species. "The coexistence of two dramatically different social structures fascinated me," Kip Lacy said. "I had to know more." Lacy, who is currently a graduate fellow at the Rockefeller University but received his master's degree in entomology from UGA's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in 2018, worked with UGA fire ant researcher Ken Ross and DeWayne Shoemaker at the University of Tennessee to isolate and document the multi-queen colonies. Their work will appear in the April 2019 edition of Current Biology. An online version of the paper is available here. Lacy worked with colleagues at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service in Gainesville, Florida, to help find and isolate the communities of native fire ants that cover the shoulders and medians of Florida highways. In these areas, they found that multi-queen "polygyne" colonies would be nestled right next to single-queen "monogyne" colonies of the same species. Nests with single queens were found as close as 5 feet away from nests with as many as 13 queens, Lacy said. "They can exist right next to each other, but their social structure remains intact," Lacy said. Many fire ant colonies are founded by a single queen, mated to a male ant from a different colony, who produces all of the eggs to start a colony of her own. However, it's not unheard of for ants of the same species to develop alternative reproductive habits. Ross, who has studied fire ant genetics and social structures for decades, previously documented the coexistence of monogyne and polygyne colonies in populations of Georgia's invasive red imported fire ants. In polygyne colonies of this species, all the ants share a "social chromosome" that is absent from individuals in single-queen colonies. This chromosome apparently induces what Ross described as the "polygyne syndrome." Kip Lacy. Credit: Andrew Davis Tucker/UGA In addition to the number of queens, polygyne colonies of the red imported fire ant differ from monogyne colonies in many ways, including lower levels of aggressiveness toward non-nestmates and smaller body sizes of individual ants. But despite these differences, the fundamental mode of reproduction is the same in both types of coloniesall daughters (both queens and workers) are produced sexually. Lacy was surprised to find that in the tropical fire ant, the reproductive modes of the two types of colonies differed. Just like the red imported fire ants, queens of monogyne colonies produce all daughters sexually. By contrast, in tropical fire ant colonies with multiple queens, Lacy found that the queens reproduce asexually. All reproductive queens and daughter queens inside the colony have been shown to be genetically identical. However, the worker ants in these colonies displayed a much greater genetic diversity; unlike the queens, they were not clones. Controlled experiments revealed that queens were produced asexually and workers were produced sexually in polygyne colonies. "That was a surprise because we also found that the male ants in these colonies seem to be sterile," Lacy said. Lacy and Ross found that queens from multi-queen colonies were mated to males from single-queen colonies. This practice helped facilitate clonality in multi-queen colonies by introducing new genetic material into the colony to maintain genetic diversity, but there is no clear benefit for the male ants. "(Evolutionarily speaking), the males get nothing out of it because their sperm goes to produce workers that are sterile," Ross said. "Those males' genetic lines end there." Lacy and Ross have described the behavior of polygyne queens as "sperm parasitism." "Different species of ants have displayed different forms of social parasitism before, and this is just one more example of that behavior," Ross said. The genetic underpinnings of asexuality and the multi-queen syndrome in the tropical fire ant are currently unknown. However, genetic studies suggest that asexual queens may have evolved from sexually reproducing queens in monogyne colonies. Understanding more about the biology of the tropical fire ants is important because, while they have been displaced by invasive fire ants in some communities in coastal Georgia and Florida, they've become invasive pests across Africa, southeast Asia and even the Galapagos Islands. Explore further Cannibalism helps fire ants invade new territory More information: Kip D. Lacy et al, Joint Evolution of Asexuality and Queen Number in an Ant, Current Biology (2019). Journal information: Current Biology Kip D. Lacy et al, Joint Evolution of Asexuality and Queen Number in an Ant,(2019). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.03.018 In this Saturday, March 23, 2019 file photo, people protest against the copyright bill, in Leipzig, Germany. The European Union approved on Monday April 15, 2019, a copyright law that aims to give more protection to artists and news organizations but which critics say will stifle freedom of speech and online creativity and punish smaller web companies. (Peter Endig/dpa via AP) The European Union has approved a copyright overhaul that aims to give more protection to artists and news organizations but which critics say will stifle freedom of speech and online creativity and punish smaller web companies. Artists, celebrities and tech experts have spoken out both in favor and against the EU directive, which the 28 member states are required to adopt as law and got final approval from the European Council Monday. Here's a look at key issues. ___ WHAT DOES THE DIRECTIVE SAY? The most vigorously debated part of the legislation is a section that makes companies responsible for making sure that copyrighted material isn't uploaded to their platforms without permission from the original creator. It puts the legal onus on platforms to prevent copyright infringement but critics say it will end up having a chilling effect on freedom of expression on the internet and could result in censorship. Another section of the bill that caused concern requires search engines and social media sites to pay for linking to or offering up snippets of news articles. ___ HOW WILL IT AFFECT INTERNET PLATFORMS? Some sites would be forced to license music or videos. If not, sites would have to make sure they don't have unauthorized copyrighted material. Critics worry that could lead to costly automatic filtering. And paying for links could create further costs. That could give tech giants an edge over smaller companies. Google said last year it spent more than $100 million on Content ID, its copyright management system for approved users on YouTube, where more than 400 hours of content is uploaded every minute. The figure includes both staffing and computing resources. ___ HOW WILL IT SHAPE INTERNET CONTENT? Critics say it could act as censorship and change internet culture. They say the automatic filters are blunt instruments, deleting some material that should be allowed online. YouTube has warned of unintended consequences, saying that in cases where copyright is uncertain, it would have to block videos to avoid liability. In this Tuesday March 26, 2019 file photo, people gather at the front of the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, France, to show their support for the copyright bill. The European Union approved on Monday April 15, 2019, a copyright law that aims to give more protection to artists and news organizations but which critics say will stifle freedom of speech and online creativity and punish smaller web companies. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias, File) Some consumers worry that the new rules would bring an end to parodies and viral internet "memes" that have powered online culture and are often based on or inspired by existing songs or movies or other content. The EU denies this. "The new law makes everyone a loser," said Julia Reda, a lawmaker with the Pirate Party, which campaigns for freedom of information online. "Artists, authors and small publishers will not get their fair remuneration and internet users will have to live with limited freedoms. Artistic diversity has made the Internet colorful, but unfortunately the copyright directive will make the Internet duller." ___ WILL IT HELP CONTENT CREATORS? It depends on whom you ask. The music industry and other groups that collect royalties say the revamp will help give writers, artists and creators more protection of their rights and incomes, by requiring tech giants such as Apple, Facebook and Google to pay them more for their work. Some authors and artists fear they won't earn significantly more money but their creativity will be stifled. Google estimates it has paid out more than $3 billion to rights holders through its Content ID system, which was created in 2007. ___ HOW HAVE PEOPLE REACTED? Some high profile artists have spoken out in favor. Former Beatles member Paul McCartney wrote an open letter to EU lawmakers encouraging them to adopt the new rules. But many appear worried it will change the internet as we know it. More than 5.2 million people signed an online petition against them. Internet luminaries such as Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, and Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales have spoken out against it. So has the former frontman for the band Fugees, Wyclef Jean, who has said he is better off financially because fans can freely share his music on internet platforms. Germany wants the rules to be implemented in such a way "that upload filters be averted if possible, and that user rightsfreedom of opinion, about which there has been a lot of discussion herebe preserved," government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Monday. Last month, tens of thousands of people marched in cities across Germany to protest against the directive. Poland's leader has said his country will not implement it, arguing it threatens freedom of speech. ___ WHAT'S NEXT? The EU's member countries have two years to comply by drafting their own national laws. Six countriesItaly, Sweden, Poland, Finland, the Netherlands and Luxembourgvoted against it, so implementation is likely to be uneven, setting the stage for possible legal challenges. Explore further EU parliament backs copyright bill targeting US tech giants 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This 1920 photo of the Teanaway River shows how logs traveled down the river to the mills and railway. Credit: Frederick Krueger Photographs 376/Central Washington University Archives Geologic time is supposed to be slow, and the most solid object should be bedrock. But new University of Washington research upends both concepts: Effects of logging show that human activity can significantly erode bedrock, causing geology to fast forward. The study, published April 15 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focuses on the Teanaway River, a picturesque river in central Washington state. "In the last century, we have more river incision in this area than expected. Something caused these rivers to start eroding a lot more," said lead author Sarah Schanz, a former UW doctoral student who is now a postdoctoral researcher at Indiana University. "We know the Teanaway River has eroded into bedrock before, naturallyit has some terraces that are 1,800 years old. But this current cycle is anthropogenic, or human-driven." Results show that practices related to logging caused bedrock incision of up to 2 meters (6 feet) along the riverbed. As much as a half of what had been a floodplain was transformed into a new terrace abutting the river. "This is the first time that we've been able to pinpoint erosion into bedrock due to human action," Schanz said. "Most rivers are eroding at about a tenth of a millimeter per year. This is about 100 times that amount." The discovery means this beautiful riverbank resulted from human action, not natural forces. It could change how geologists think about landscapes in other parts of the world, such as Taiwan, with its long history of intense human activity. The study began 20 years ago when co-author Brian Collins, a UW senior lecturer in river geology, was curious why there was so much exposed bedrock in the Teanaway. Fluting and pothole formation in the bed of the channel. The survey rod in the foreground is 1.1 meters long. Credit: Brian Collins/University of Washington Collins also noticed unusual river terraces, the stepped structures along the river bank resulting from cycles of the river flooding and then running more quickly, cutting a new channel deeper into the sediment. He led a 2016 study that calculated short-term changes in the Teanaway's western fork and suggested logging may have caused the river to cut a new channel. This site in a community forest offered good access for regular visits by the research team and undergraduate assistants to all three forks. By combining newspaper records, material from the UW Libraries Special Collections, Central Washington University and the local Kittitas County historical society, the researchers were able to piece together and confirm the full history. Before logging roads existed, companies built temporary "splash dams" high up on the slope with all the logs and then broke up the dam with tools or explosives. Released water helped send logs shooting down to the mills. "It was such an event that schools closed, and newspaper records show it really well," Schanz said. "People who are still alive today, some of their earliest memories are of going to see it." Key to the process is that loggers would clear away debris to give the logs a clear shot down the river. This removed barriers that held back sediment and cleared out much of the gravel from the riverbed. Such events, the authors believe, caused the erosion to change dramatically. "If you have too much sediment, you're basically protecting the river from erosion. But if you have not enough sediment, as that sediment is moving along, it starts to hit the bedrock and erode it," Schanz said. David Montgomery, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences, and the other two co-authors used many techniques to analyze the four youngest terraces on the river's edge, including LIDAR maps, carbon dating of rocks and computer models. In 1999 the team even hammered nails into the bedrock and measured the erosion rates directly. The author's 45-pound dog gives a sense of the size of the bedrock boulders being eroded from the side of the Teanaway River. The previous floodplain is just visible at the top of the frame. Credit: Sarah Schanz/Indiana University Many rivers, including the Teanaway, have individual features that show evidence of human impact on areas of bedrock. But this is the first time an entire river basin is found to have been transformed by human activity. "This is a direct topographic signature of the Anthropocene, the 'age of humans' that we now live in," Montgomery said. "The finding that terrace surfaces in the Teanaway are recently-abandoned floodplains suggests that similar landforms around the world may also reflect the influence of human activity." The UW team recently published an overview paper looking at where river terraces have formed worldwide over the past 4,000 years. The authors showed that in many cases, river terrace formation coincided with deforestation. "It's sort of a hand-wavey linkage at this point, but I think this could be prevalent worldwide," said Schanz. "It's just not a signal that we've known to look for before." Schanz will start a faculty position in August at Colorado College, where she plans also to explore what the finding means for how river canyons form through natural processes. "I think the human part is really interesting, but what has broader implications, for me, is the proof that if you change how sediment moves through a river, you can change erosion rates," Schanz said. Explore further New insight into river flows and sediment transport under ice cover More information: Sarah A. Schanz el al., "Anthropogenic strath terrace formation caused by reduced sediment retention," PNAS (2019). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Sarah A. Schanz el al., "Anthropogenic strath terrace formation caused by reduced sediment retention,"(2019). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1814627116 Huge hydropower projects like the Hoover Dam in the US could become a relic of the past because of their huge financial and environmental costs. Credit: University of Sussex Countries relying on the world's biggest and most established source of renewable electricity have seen their poverty, corruption and debt levels rise and their economy slow at significantly greater rates than nations which use other energy resources over the last three decades, a major new study has found. The study also found that hydropower states did not suffer from a hydroelectric resource curse and did not see an increase in internal conflict to any significant degree while carbon reduction benefits were realised only over time after the initial environmental impact of construction. The financial benefits of major hydropower projects could also take decades to emerge, the study published today in The Review of International Political Economy found. The new study by the University of Sussex and the International School of Management in Germany compared the security, political governance, economic development and climate change performance of major hydropower states against oil-producing and all other countries using 30 years of World Bank data. Lead author Professor Benjamin Sovacool, Professor of Energy Policy at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex, said the era of the awe-inspiring mega hydropower projects such as the Hoover Dam in the US and The Three Gorges in China should be coming to an end in favour of smaller projects. He added: "Even though hydropower might not bring immediate and all-encompassing benefits to a country, it is still a vital source of renewable energy." In the most rigorous comparative study of its kind, researchers took a global approach that compared national portfolios of hydroelectric infrastructure where previous research has almost entirely focused on the impacts of individual dams or river basins. Additionally, whereas previous research tended to examine only hydropower states, this study compared hydropower countries with OPEC members and non-hydropower states. The report's authors, Prof Sovacool and Dr. Gotz Walter, say the report should be food for thought for major institutions such as the World Bank, currently calling for substantial and global investment in hydropower as a means towards international development. They add it is a warning to the cheerleaders of major projects such as the Grand Inga Dam in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a $80 billion project costing twice the country's annual GDP, who promise speedy and far-reaching economic impact on a transformational scale. The authors added that while hydroelectricity brought countries improved energy access, economic development and positive spillover effect, the championing of large-scale dam projects to bring about industrialization were not supported by the data analysis. They also recommend that global bodies backing hydroelectric need to better recognize, and perhaps compensate, potential losers of their schemes. The World Commission on Dams estimated that about four million people were displaced annually by hydroelectricity construction or operation while another study looking at global energy accidents over 100 years found hydroelectric dams were responsible for less than 1 percent of total energy accidents but caused 94 percent of reported fatalities and $9.7 billion in damages. Prof Sovacool said: "Our results bring into focus some of the pernicious trade-offs that can occur as one seeks to transition to large-scale sources of energy supply: bringing in jobs and generating economic activity, but also inviting corruption; seeking to supplant fossil-fuels (and lower carbon emissions), but only by increasing levels of debt, or creating new energy security threats." The study found that the level of corruption in hydropower countries scored even higher than petro-states such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Libya although not to a statistically significant level. The authors recommend that smaller-scale, run-of-river designs that can operate without reservoirs, as deployed in Nepal, Tanzania and Sri Lanka, could be used more widely to limit corruption and environmental problems and increase developmental outcomes while still producing sufficient energy to meet demand. Prof Walter, of the International School of Management ISM in Germany, said: "While it has to be kept in mind that our data analysis was correlative and does not automatically imply a negative causal effect of hydropower on poverty, corruption and debt, it is noteworthy that we found any effects at all on the national level, even though hydropower stands for such a small part of respective countries' economies. Practitioners maybe should rethink their underlying assumptions about how they evaluate hydropower's risk." The researchers used country metrics and data to explore six hypotheses about the impact in countries with significant hydropower operations on conflict, poverty, economic growth, national debt, corruption and the environment. The research team used data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Programme; poverty gap figures, GDP per capita data, total debt stocks figures, the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators and metric greenhouse gas emissions per capita. The data was analysed over three timeframes with data from 25 hydropower countries, 11 OPEC countries and 77 hydropower countries used in the first timeframe of 1985-1994. Thirty-three hydropower countries, 10 OPEC, and 94 non-hydropower were analysed in timeframe 2 1995-2004 and 23 hydropower countries, 9 OPEC and 108 non-hydropower in timeframe 3 2005-2014. Hydropower states are defined in this report as countries using dams for at least 70 percent of national electricity. Hydropower is the largest source of renewable electricity around the world providing 16.3 percent of the world's electricity and 85 percent of its renewable power in 2015. Hydroelectric dams are active in more than 150 countries, generating at least 50 percent of total electricity in more than 60 countries and greater than 90 percent in more than 20. Of the $11.1 trillion the world was anticipated to spend on energy infrastructure from 2005 to 2030, $1.9 trillion was expected to go exclusively to hydropower (Haas, 2008). Explore further Environmental regulations may have unintended consequences in energy production More information: Benjamin K. Sovacool et al. Internationalizing the political economy of hydroelectricity: security, development and sustainability in hydropower states, Review of International Political Economy (2018). Benjamin K. Sovacool et al. Internationalizing the political economy of hydroelectricity: security, development and sustainability in hydropower states,(2018). DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2018.1511449 The team found an overrepresentation of males compared to females in the megalith tombs on the British Isles. Credit: Goran Burenhult In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international research team led from Uppsala University discovered kin relationships among Stone Age individuals buried in megalithic tombs in Ireland and Sweden. The kin relations can be traced for more than 10 generations and suggest that megaliths were graves for kindred groups in Stone Age northwestern Europe. Agriculture spread with migrants from the Fertile Crescent into Europe around 9,000 BCE, reaching northwestern Europe by 4,000 BCE. Starting around 4,500 BCE, a new phenomenon of constructing megalithic monuments, particularly for funerary practices, emerged along the Atlantic facade. These constructions have been enigmatic to the scientific community, and the origin and social structure of the groups that erected them has remained largely unknown. The international team sequenced and analysed the genomes from the human remains of 24 individuals from five megalithic burial sites, encompassing the widespread tradition of megalithic construction in northern and western Europe. The team collected human remains of 24 individuals from megaliths on Ireland, in Scotland and the Baltic island of Gotland, Sweden. The remains were radiocarbon-dated to between 3,800 and 2,600 BCE. DNA was extracted from bones and teeth for genome sequencing. The team compared the genomic data to the genetic variation of Stone Age groups and individuals from other parts of Europe. The individuals in the megaliths were closely related to Neolithic farmers in northern and western Europe, and also to some groups in Iberia, but less related to farmer groups in central Europe. The Ansarve site on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea is embedded in an area with mostly hunter-gathers at the time. Credit: Magdalena Fraser The team found an over-representation of males compared to females in the megalith tombs on the British Isles. "We found paternal continuity through time, including the same Y-chromosome haplotypes reoccurring over and over again," says archaeogeneticist Helena Malmstrom of Uppsala University and co-first author. "However, female kindred members were not excluded from the megalith burials as three of the six kinship relationships in these megaliths involved females." The genetic data show close kin relationships among the individuals buried within the megaliths. A likely parent-offspring relation was discovered for individuals in the Listhogil Tomb at the Carrowmore site and Tomb 1 at Primrose Grange, about two kilometers away from each other. "This came as a surprise. It appears as these Neolithic societies were tightly knit with very close kin relations across burial sites," says population-geneticist Federico Sanchez-Quinto of Uppsala University and co-first author. A likely parent-offspring relation was discovered for individuals in the Listhogil Tomb at the Carrowmore site and Tomb 1 at Primrose Grange, about 2 km distance away from each other. Credit: Goran Burenhult The Ansarve site on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea is embedded in an area with mostly hunter-gathers at the time. "The people buried in the Ansarve tomb are remarkably different on a genetic level compared to the contemporaneous individuals excavated from hunter-gather-contexts, showing that the burial tradition in this megalithic tomb, which lasted for over 700 years, was performed by distinct groups with roots in the European Neolithic expansion," says archaeogeneticist Magdalena Fraser of Uppsala University and co-first author. "That we find distinct paternal lineages among the people in the megaliths, an overrepresentation of males in some tombs, and the clear kindred relationships point to towards the individuals being part of a patrilineal segment of the society rather than representing a random sample from a larger Neolithic farmer community," says Mattias Jakobsson, population-geneticist at Uppsala University and senior author of the study. "Our study demonstrates the potential in archaeogenetics to not only reveal large-scale migrations, but also inform about Stone Age societies and the role of particular phenomena in those times such as the megalith phenomena," says Federico Sanchez-Quinto. "The patterns that we observe could be unique to the Primrose, Carrowmore, and Ansarve burials, and future studies of other megaliths are needed to tell whether this is a general pattern for megalith burials," says osteoarchaeologist Jan Stora of Stockholm University. Explore further Stonehenge mystery solved? Prehistoric French may have inspired it and other European megaliths More information: Federico Sanchez-Quinto el al., "Megalithic tombs in western and northern Neolithic Europe were linked to a kindred society," PNAS (2019). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Federico Sanchez-Quinto el al., "Megalithic tombs in western and northern Neolithic Europe were linked to a kindred society,"(2019). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1818037116 Credit: CC0 Public Domain When heterosexuals have casual sex, previous research indicates it is typically the woman who sets the boundaries. If she's not interested, usually nothing will happen. "When men and women in the study met, about half of the men said they were interested in having sex with the woman, whereas most women were uninterested initially," says Associate Professor Mons Bendixen at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU) Department of Psychology. So the women in the study basically have little interest in having casual sex at firstunless they find the man really attractive. But a man who gives the impression of wanting to have sex with anyone, anytime, is definitely not what most women are looking for. That could be why men acted way less interested in sex than they really were. "Men who are overly eager do not come across as attractive," says Professor Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair in the same department. The whole thing is a tactical game, say the researchers, and the new NTNU research suggests that men and women's real intentions may be different from the signals they send each other. Bendixen is the first author of a recent study dealing with the sexual signals that men and women send to each other. Do women really want to have sex? Men who report being the most interested in having sex reduce their signals of interest more. Evidence from the study suggested that women, on the other hand, might pretend to be a little more interested than they actually are. "We think this may be to keep the man's attention a little longer," says Kennair, but this study does not speak to that directly. Or perhaps the strategy gives her more opportunity to assess the quality of the guy. And as long as the woman does not seem to be excluding the possibility of sex, men across the board are willing to spend more time with herand enabling her to check out whether he's a good choice. And if a man is of high quality, that could actually shift the woman's interest, so that an initially uninterested woman becomes truly interested in the man. "The exception to this general sex difference is when the woman is as interested as the man. In this case, women also pretend to show less interest. Both men and women who are truly interested in a partner might be trying to 'play it cool.' In economic terms, it's about supply and demand. The most in-demand people are not the most availablethey are a rare commodity in the mating game," says Professor Martie Haselton of UCLA. "By playing it cool, women and men can also avoid some of the sting of rejection if their partner is not actually interested in them," says Haselton. University intro week leads to more sex The researchers collected two rounds of data from students at NTNU. The survey included questions such as when they last met with a potential sexual partner, and whether they eventually ended up having sex. The first round of data collection took place in the spring, when most students are busy studying. The second round was in the autumn, right after the start of the semester and the introduction week activities. The researchers found a significant difference between the two rounds. Sexual relationships were far more common during the autumn introduction week. Women choose the most attractive guys "Among singles, we found differences between men and women when it came to who ended up having sex," says Bendixen. Women were much more likely to have sex if they thought the potential partner was attractive. This was consistent with previous findings. They were also far more likely to have sex if they were new students. Female students who had been at university for a while were much more selective. "More than half of the new female students who had met an attractive partner the last time they were at a pub or at a party ended up having sex with him," says Bendixen. "This behaviour is probably related to two factors: one is the absence of 'daughter-guarding' or 'sister-guarding' once students arrive at university," says Kennair. Fathersand siblingsmight keep a watchful eye on young women's sexual behaviour and dissuade them from having casual sex. This can be explained by evolutionary biology. But new students in a new city no longer have those same obstacles hindering their free sexual expression. "The second factor has to do with the perception of increased competition for the men," Bendixen says. Female students outnumber male students. So in a lot of groups, it can seem like there's some competition for the men. In this kind of a situation, women are more willing to have sex. The few guys that are available are simply perceived as more attractive. Some get a lota lot get none The most important factor in whether men had sex was how many sexual partners they have had previously. This could contribute to their being perceived as sexually attractive and available. "It's really the same reason for both men and womenthe man's sex appealthat decides whether they end up having sex," says Kennair. So there's a lot for some, and much less for the rest. Once a woman decides to have casual sex, she usually chooses the man she finds most sexually attractive. Other studies show that long-term relationships function slightly differently. In this case women may have to lower their expectations a bit, because the most attractive men are often already taken or because they are able to pursue short-term relationships instead of long-term ones. "A lot of women have had sex with more attractive partners than the men they end up with in long-term relationships," says Kennair. "In our research, women did not appear to act coy in general; rather both sexes downplay their signals if they are very interested. These are novel findings," Bendixen notes. "Further, men do not pursue women that send signals of low interest." Explore further Using Tinder doesn't result in more casual sex More information: Mons Bendixen et al, Adjusting signals of sexual interest in the most recent naturally occurring opposite-sex encounter in two different contexts., Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences (2019). Mons Bendixen et al, Adjusting signals of sexual interest in the most recent naturally occurring opposite-sex encounter in two different contexts.,(2019). DOI: 10.1037/ebs0000162 Floating iceberg in Labrador Sea south of Greenland. Credit: Melissa Gervais/Penn State The North Atlantic warming hole (NAWH), a region of reduced warming located in the North Atlantic Ocean, significantly affects the North Atlantic jet stream in climate simulations of the future, according to a team of researchers. Sea surface temperatures (SST) are projected to increase in most of the world's oceans as the result of global climate change. However, within an area of rotating ocean currents just south of Greenland an anomaly exists where colder sea-surface temperatures were documented in both global climate-model projections and in observations. "It's called a hole because there is a lack of warming," said Melissa Gervais, assistant professor of meteorology and atmospheric science, Penn State, who used the Community Earth System model (CESM) to investigate the impact of the NAWH on atmospheric circulation and midlatitude jets. "We found that this region of the ocean is a really important place for forcing the jet stream that goes across the North Atlantic Ocean." The researchers published their findings in the Journal of Climate. Development of the NAWH is linked to a slowdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a large system of ocean currents that carry warm water from the tropics northwards into the North Atlantic, and is thought to be caused by an influx of fresh water coming from melting Arctic sea ice. Floating iceberg in Labrador Sea south of Greenland. Credit: Melissa Gervais / Penn State Previous research by Gervais and her team demonstrated that this increase in fresh water to the ocean changes circulation patterns and leads to surface cooling. "With more Arctic sea ice melting, more fresh water flows into the Labrador Sea, which leads to a reduction in deep convection," said Gervais who also is an Institute for CyberScience co-hire. "That changes the ocean circulation, allowing it to cool in that region south of Greenland." This cooling pattern, relative to global average SST increase, is predicted to become greater and more apparent relative to the internal ocean variability as the 21st century progresses. "These changes in SST patterns occur as the result of changes in ocean circulation and could have a significant impact on atmospheric circulation and the North Atlantic storm track in the future," said Gervais. Jet streams, high altitude currents of wind flowing above the Earth, transport air masses and drive weather patterns. The relationship between climate change and jet streams is complex and understanding the potential impact of climate change on jet streams is crucial for understanding changes in weather patterns and storm tracks. The Greenland coast taken from the Knorr WHOI research vessel. Credit: Melissa Gervais / Penn State "With climate change we have some ideas about how the jets are going to change. In general, we expect to see a poleward shift and eastward elongation of the jet," said Gervais. "Right now, it's sort of a tug of war between impacts of the tropics and impacts of the arctic. So those two things are competing to shift where the jet is located." Most climate models seem to agree that the Pacific jet stream is going to shift poleward but there is a lot of variability in predictions for the Atlantic, said Gervais. To investigate how the development of the NAWH impacts the jet stream, the team conducted a series of large-ensemble, atmospheric model experiments in the CESM with prescribed SST and sea ice levels over three different time periods. "We ran three simulations," said Gervais. "One with current warming-hole conditions; one where the ocean temperature was increased to fill in the warming hole; and one where its size was twice as deep, to simulate more freshwater from melting ice sheets." Their results indicate that the NAWH plays an important role in midlatitude atmospheric circulation changes in the model's future climate simulations. "We found that it's really quite important for that region," said Gervais. "The NAWH seems to be elongating the jet even further and shifting it a little bit north. Instead of just thinking about how the tropics and arctic amplification are influencing the jet, we now also need to think about how this warming hole is going to influence the jet. These local changes in the North Atlantic jet are of a similar magnitude to the full climate-change response in the region, indicating that the North Atlantic warming hole could be an important additional factor in the tug of war on midlatitude circulation, that has received little attention." Explore further A deep ocean current shift gives 400-year notice of massive climate change More information: Melissa Gervais et al, Impacts of the North Atlantic Warming Hole in Future Climate Projections: Mean Atmospheric Circulation and the North Atlantic jet, Journal of Climate (2019). Journal information: Journal of Climate Melissa Gervais et al, Impacts of the North Atlantic Warming Hole in Future Climate Projections: Mean Atmospheric Circulation and the North Atlantic jet,(2019). DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0647.1 [April 15, 2019] ITWP Group Debuts "Insights on Demand: Building Success in the On-Demand Economy" ITWP-parent holding-company of Toluna, Harris Interactive (News - Alert) , and KuRunData-today announced the official book launch of "Insights on Demand: Building Success in the On-Demand Economy," written by ITWP CEO and founder, Frederic-Charles Petit, in keeping with his mission to transform the market research industry. The book, which is available for print and digital purchase on Amazon here, is designed for brand leaders looking to understand the impact that on-demand insights can have on supporting critical decision-making and business transformation. Insights on Demand was first conceptualized and launched in 2017 as a means to propel the consumer insights industry forward to ensure success in today's on-demand economy. In the current fast-paced atmosphere of the marketing and advertising industries, professionals must develop ideas more rapidly than ever before. To develop the Insights on Demand concept, it was essential to involve industry leaders. As a result, ITWP launched the Insights on Demand Consortium, a multilateral group of more than 150 members from a wide variety of industries, including CPG, high-tech, advertising, and market research - all focused on further evolving, refining and promoting the principles of Insights on Demand as a new and improved solution to optimize consumer insights in real-time and fuel business success in this new economy. The book features commentary from a collection of Consortium members. "'Insights on Demand: Building Success in the On-Demand Economy' will help business leaders understand the need for insight into ever-shifting consumer sentiments, and to drive business success," commented Petit. "In today's on-demand economy, we need to be more forward-thinking tan ever before in our approach to understanding consumers constantly changing needs. Insights on Demand will help businesses harness the deep, meaningful insights they need when they need them most - in real-time." Visit Amazon.com (News - Alert) to purchase the book, or download a digital copy at https://www.insightsondemand.org/. All proceeds from sales of "Insights on Demand: Building Success in the On-Demand Economy" will be donated to the ESOMAR Foundation, the charity arm of ESOMAR, the global industry association of market, social and opinion research. About Frederic-Charles Petit, CEO of ITWP Group, Founder and CEO of Toluna, CEO of Harris Interactive Frederic-Charles Petit's mission is to revolutionize the way brands, and consumers engage with one another, with the ultimate objective of transforming the market research industry into a real-time, mass market and social experience. As CEO of the ITWP Group, Toluna, Harris Interactive and KuRunData, Petit leads a staff of more than 1,400 team members spanning 24 offices and five continents. Each focuses on helping leading companies across the globe make better business decisions by bringing brands and people together via a streamlined research platform, the world's largest social voting community, and leading industry expertise. Petit holds a Master's degree in comparative jurisprudence from New York University and a diploma in advanced studies in international economic law from the Sorbonne in Paris (D. E. A.). He practiced law in the corporate department of the Paris office of Allen & Overy before establishing Toluna in May 2000. About Insights on Demand Insights on Demand is a transformational market category based on business needs for fully integrated approaches to understanding constantly shifting consumer sentiment and taste. This democratized vision for market research makes insights into consumer intent accessible and achievable for all business professionals in companies of all sizes. Insights on Demand promotes integration between technology and companies to provide iterative real-time insights that reflect constantly shifting market sentiment. ITWP, the parent company of Toluna, Harris Interactive Europe, and KuRunData launched Insights on Demand in November 2017, and the Insights on Demand Consortium shortly thereafter. For more information about Insights on Demand, or to join the consortium visit www.insightsondemand.org. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005128/en/ [ Back to the Next Generation Communications Community's Homepage ] Credit: Sonpichit Salangsing/Shutterstock Search online for "climate change" and "tipping points" and you'll find some scary results. Melting ice sheets, the collapse of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation , the permafrost methane "time bomb" and the die-back of the Amazon rainforest threaten to exacerbate the climate crisis and send global warming spiralling out of control. But what if we could leverage similar tipping point dynamics to solve the climate problem? Like physical or environmental systems, socioeconomic and political systems can also exhibit nonlinear dynamics. Memes on the internet can go viral, loan defaults can cascade into financial crises, and public opinion can shift in rapid and radical ways. In an article just out in Science, we outline a new approach to climate change that tries to find areas in socioeconomic and political systems that are "sensitive" where modest but well-timed interventions could generate outsized impacts and accelerate progress towards a post-carbon world. Sensitive Intervention Points (SIPs) These "Sensitive Intervention Points" or SIPs could trigger self-reinforcing feedback loops, which can amplify small changes to produce outsized effects. Take, for example, solar photovoltaics. As more solar panels are produced and deployed, costs fall through "learning-by-doing" as practice, market testing and incremental innovation make the whole process cheaper. Oil and other fossil fuel reserves could become stranded assets. Credit: The Sun photo/Shutterstock Cost reductions lead to greater demand, further deployment, more learning-by-doing, more cost reductions and so on. However, the spread of renewables isn't just dependent on technology and cost improvements. Social dynamics can also play a major role. As people observe their neighbours installing rooftop solar panels they might be more inclined to do so themselves. This effect could cause a shift in cultural and social norms. Financial markets are another key area where SIPs could help accelerate the transition to post-carbon societies. Many companies are currently failing to disclose and account for climate risks associated with assets on their balance sheet. Climate risk can entail physical risks, caused by extreme weather or flooding. They can also entail the risk of assets such as fossil fuel reserves becoming stranded as economies transition to limit warming to 1.5 or 2, when such resources are no longer valuable. Most of the world's current fossil fuel reserves can't be used if the world is to limit warming and they become effectively worthless once this is acknowledged. By not accounting for these risks to fossil fuel assets, high-emission industries are effectively given an advantage over low-carbon alternatives that shouldn't exist. Relatively modest changes to accounting and disclosure guidelines could make a significant difference. If companies are required to disclose information about the climate risks associated with their assets and if such disclosure is consistent and comparable across companies investors can make more informed decisions and the implicit subsidy enjoyed by high-emission industries is likely to rapidly disappear. Opportunities for triggering SIPs in a given system can also change over time. Sometimes "windows of opportunity" open up, where very unlikely changes become possible. A key example in the UK was the political climate in 2007-2008 which enabled the 2008 UK Climate Change Act to pass with near unanimous support. This national legislation was the first of its kind and committed the UK to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% relative to 1990 levels by 2050. The act also created a regular ratcheting cycle which encourages more ambitious future climate action. Since 2008, emissions in the UK have fallen dramatically. However, the UK Climate Change Act's influence beyond the UK is also significant as it encouraged similar legislation in other countries, including the Paris Agreement, which contains the same self-reinforcing ratcheting mechanism. Using SIPs for rapid change Thinking about SIPs in policy and business could accelerate the post-carbon transition but much work lies ahead. The first step is to systematically identify potential SIPs and the mechanisms by which they can be amplified. Unfortunately, traditional economic models commonly used to evaluate climate policy are poorly equipped to do this, but new analytical methods are increasingly being used in policy. These new methods could provide more accurate insights into the costs, benefits and possibilities of SIPs for addressing climate change. As SIPs could be present in all spheres of life, experts in social and natural sciences will need to work together. The window to avert catastrophic climate change is closing fast, but with intelligent interventions at sensitive points in the system, we believe success is still possible. Since the stakes are so high and the time frame so limited it is not possible to chase every seemingly promising idea. But with a smart, strategic approach to unleashing feedback mechanisms and exploiting critical windows of opportunity in systems that are ripe for change, we may just be able to tip the planet onto a post-carbon trajectory. Explore further Economic butterfly wings can create a climate action tornado This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Credit: CC0 Public Domain A new study of evolving attitudes toward gay marriage across the U.S. suggests that state legislation has had a significant impact in reducing anti-gay bias in many parts of the country. The findings, published in PNAS, provide evidence that public policy can shape social norms and alter individuals' attitudes, says senior author Eric Hehman, a professor in McGill University's Department of Psychology. In 2004, Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage. In the following years, 34 other states and Washington, D.C., would follow suit before the Supreme Court ultimately ruled, in June 2015, that same-sex couples could marry nationwide. Since then, polls have suggested that support for same-sex marriage has steadily increased. Eric Hehman, who specializes in how individuals perceive one another and how stereotypes and biases influence behaviour set out to measure whether and how state legislation had an impact on anti-gay bias. "The idea that norms shape attitudes has been around in social psychology for many years," says Hehman. "We wanted to measure if laws and policies can also act as norms and potentially change deeply rooted biases." Since same-sex marriage was legalized in different states over the course of 11 years, Hehman's team was able to map trends in anti-gay bias during this period. By geolocating responses at Project Implicita website launched in 2002 that measures biases of respondentsEugene Ofosu, a graduate student working with Dr. Hehman, examined changing regional anti-gay biases of about 1 million respondents during a 12-year period. The researchers compared these trends before and after state-level legalization of gay marriage in each state. Though implicit and explicit bias against the gay community was decreasing or stable prior to same-sex marriage legalization, the researchers found that legislation supportive of this marginalized population caused anti-gay bias to decline at roughly double the previous rate. In the 15 states that did not pass same-sex marriage legalization locally by contrast, Hehman found a "backlash effect." In those states, anti-gay bias increased in the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling making gay marriage legal nation-wide. One possibility, Hehman says, is thateven though attitudes were shifting toward more acceptance of same-sex marriage, a tipping point of support had not yet been reached in those states for the majority to accept the federal ruling. The study also suggests that attitudes and legislation may be mutually reinforcing: evolving attitudes toward same-sex marriage may have served as impetus for both state and federal legalization. "In other words, representative governments can contribute to and/or intensify change in the attitude of citizens by passing legislation," Hehman says. "We have some evidence that the laws caused this changed in bias, but it is possible the effect goes in both directions." "Same-Sex Marriage Legalization Associated with Reduced Implicit and Explicit Anti-Gay Bias", by Eugene K. Ofosu et al. will be published in PNAS on April 15th, 2019. Explore further Community bias predicts police use of lethal force More information: Eugene K. Ofosu el al., "Same-sex marriage legalization associated with reduced implicit and explicit antigay bias," PNAS (2019). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Eugene K. Ofosu el al., "Same-sex marriage legalization associated with reduced implicit and explicit antigay bias,"(2019). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1806000116 Application of artificial chemical receptor in CAR-engineered T cell manufacturing and immunotherapy of tumor. Credit: CAI Lintao Engineered T cell immunotherapy, such as chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) and T cell receptor T cell (TCR-T) therapy, has emerged as a potent therapeutic strategy for treating tumors. However, the genetic manipulation of primary T cells remains inefficient, especially during the clinical manufacturing process. There's an urgent need to develop a reliable method for the preparation of engineered T cells. A research team led by Prof. Cai Lintao at the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other collaborators developed a "safe, efficient and universal" technique based on bioorthogonal chemistry and glycol-metabolic labeling for viral-mediated engineered T cell manufacturing. Their findings were published in Advanced Functional Materials. In this strategy, the functional azide motifs were anchored on T cell surfaces via the intrinsic glycometabolism of exogenous azide-glucose, thus serving as an artificial ligand for viral binding. The complementary functional moiety dibenzocyclooctyne (DBCO)/-conjugated PEI1.8K (PEI-DBCO) was coated on the lentiviral surface, which strengthened the virus-T cell interaction through DBCO/azide bioorthogonal chemistry. "We found that this artificial chemical receptor effectively facilitated viral binding to T cells and elevated the transduction efficiency of the lentivirus from 20 percent to 80 percent without any effect on T cell proliferation and activity," said Cai. "This artificial chemical modification was also appropriate for introducing other heterologous genes into T cells, including GPF, CAR and TCR, indicating a great potency for universal T cell engineering." The technique has been demonstrated to be safe for human primary T cells as well, without interference from cell expansion or antitumor functions. When put into the CAR-T preparation, the PEI-DBCO/azide-glucose system significantly increased the yield of CAR T cells and boosted their antitumor effect both in vitro and in the B lymphoma xenograft mouse model with a low dose of CAR-T cells, thus reducing clinical adverse effects. "This artificial chemical labeling strategy is an effective, safe and easy upgrade for viral-based gene manipulation of human primary T cells, thereby showing great potential for clinical engineered T lymphocyte manufacturing, including CAR-T and TCR-T cell therapy," said Cai. Prof. CaI, the corresponding author of the paper, was selected as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) on March 25 at the American Academy of Sciences in Washington, a nonprofit organization founded in 1991, for his contributions involving optical probes and biomimetic drug delivery systems in the fields of nanomedicine and cancer theranostics. More information: Hong Pan et al, Glycometabolic Bioorthogonal ChemistryGuided Viral Transduction for Robust Human T Cell Engineering, Advanced Functional Materials (2019). Journal information: Advanced Functional Materials Hong Pan et al, Glycometabolic Bioorthogonal ChemistryGuided Viral Transduction for Robust Human T Cell Engineering,(2019). DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201807528 Canada warbler. Credit: Cameron Rognan/Cornell Lab of Ornithology A new paper published today in the journal Nature Communications shows a blueprint for conserving enough habitat to protect the populations of almost one-third of the warblers, orioles, tanagers, and other birds that migrate among the Americas throughout the year. For the research, an international team of scientists used the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's global citizen science database, eBird, to calculate how to sufficiently conserve habitat across the Western Hemisphere for all the habitats these birds use throughout their annual cycle of breeding, migration, and overwintering. The study provides planners with guidance on the locations and amounts of land that must be conserved for 30 percent of the global populations for each of 117 Neotropical migratory bird species. More than a third of Neotropical migratory birds are suffering population declines, yet a 2015 global assessment found that only 9 percent of migratory bird species have adequate habitat protection across their yearly ranges to protect their populations. Conservation of migratory birds has historically been difficult, partly because they require habitat across continents and conservation efforts have been challenged by limited knowledge of their abundance and distribution over their vast ranges and throughout the year. Species diversity of 117 migratory songbird species is shown for every week of the year. Credit: Species maps provided by eBird, animation by Richard Schuster, March 2019. "We are excited to be the first to use a data-driven approach that identifies the most critical places for bird conservation across breeding, overwintering, and migratory stopover areas throughout the Western Hemisphere. In doing so, we provide guidance on where, when, and what type of habitat should be conserved to sustain populations," said Richard Schuster, Liber Ero Postdoctoral Fellow at Carleton University, and lead author on the Nature Communications paper. "This is a vital step if conservationists are to make the best use of limited resources and address the most critical problems at a hemispheric scale." The team's analysis found that conservation strategies were most efficient when they incorporated working lands, such as agriculture or forestry, rather than exclusively focusing on areas with limited human impacts (i.e., intact or undisturbed landscapes). The importance of shared-use or working landscapes to migratory birds underscores how strategic conservation can accommodate both human livelihoods and biodiversity. The research also found that efficiency was greatestrequiring 56 percent less land areawhen planning across the entire year in full, rather than separately by week. "Efforts to conserve migratory species have traditionally focused on single species and emphasized breeding grounds. Our results show that planning for multiple species across the entire year represents a far more efficient approach to land use planning," said Scott Wilson, Environment and Climate Change Canada research scientist and co-author on the paper. This map shows the most important locations for conserving 30 percent of the population of each species examined. The darker the blue, the more consistently important was the location. Credit: Richard Schuster "This study illustrates how globally crowd-sourced data can facilitate strategic planning to achieve the best return on conservation investments. No other data source could have achieved anything close to this level of detail and efficiency in spatial planning over such a vast area," said Cornell Lab senior conservation science director and co-author Amanda Rodewald. "Prioritizing sites in which to invest our conservation dollars will dramatically improve our returns on the roughly $1 billion spent annually on the conservation of birds by government and nonprofit organizations, often in the absence of spatially explicit information on year-round abundance or geographical representation," said Peter Arcese, co-author and FRBC Chair in Applied Conservation Biology at University of British Columbia. Explore further How birders helped pinpoint hotspots for migratory bird conservation More information: Richard Schuster et al, Optimizing the conservation of migratory species over their full annual cycle, Nature Communications (2019). Journal information: Nature Communications Richard Schuster et al, Optimizing the conservation of migratory species over their full annual cycle,(2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09723-8 After watching YouTube videos of people supercooling water in a bottle and then triggering it to freeze by banging it, something about this concept solidified for Matthew M. Szydagis, an assistant professor of physics at the University at Albany, State University at New York, especially when he saw it again during the Disney movie "Frozen." During the 2019 American Physical Society April Meeting in Denver, Szydagis will describe how this inspired him to explore whether a subatomic particle like dark matter can trigger the freezing of supercooled water. Read more at https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.09253. "All of my work is motivated by the search for dark matter, a form of matter we're sure is out there because we can observe its indirect gravitational effects," Szydagis said. "It makes up a significant fraction of the universe, but we have yet to uncover direct, conclusive and unambiguous evidence of it within the lab." If water is clean enoughlow in impurities, such as dust particulatesand placed in a smooth enough container, Szydagis explained, it can be cooled below its freezing point of 0 C (32 F) without freezing. "This is called 'supercooling' and is similar to how water can be easily superheated in the microwave, essentially heated above its boiling point without actually boiling. It's simply the reverse," he said. "The water ends up, in either of these cases, in a state known as 'metastability,' neither unstable nor quite stable either." This is supercooled water turning into snow on an iPhone camera at 120 FPS slow-motion. Credit: Joshua E. Martin A disturbance can trigger the phase transition, freezing and crystallization, in this case. "This isn't ordinary freezing, and it forms white snow instead of clear ice," he added. "We cooled liquid water to as cold as -20 C (-4 F). in our lab without it freezing. It isn't the same as freezing point depression, like when you salt your sidewalk, because the water was pure and not contaminated with impurities on purpose." The group demonstrated that certain forms of particles hitting the water can microscopically (subatomically) cause it to freeze if it's supercooled first. "Some particles like neutrons can even scatter multiple times within the water," Szydagis said. "We were able to show this not only with commercially available sources of particles, but also a Fiestaware 'radioactive red' plate with orange uranium-based paint from the 1950s." They created a new detector based on the supercooled water, dubbed the "snowball chamber" because that matches well with "bubble" and "cloud" chambers, which are technologies from the early- to mid-20th century that use boiling and condensation. Supercooled water certainly isn't new; it's been studied for numerous decades by chemists and condensed matter physicists, down to -40 C (-40 F). There are even publications about it dating back more than 100 years old. "But we managed to discover a new property of supercooled water," Szydagis said. "To our great surprise, we found that some particles (neutrons) but not others (gamma rays) trigger freezing. Since this is basic research that has never been done before, there was no guarantee it would work. It was a 'let's try it and see' approachthe scientific method in its most basic form. Not only do we have a new detector of fundamental particles, but potentially of dark matter because neutrons are thought to emulate it." The group envisions numerous other potential implications for their discovery, including detecting nuclear weapons in cargo for homeland security, understanding cloud formation, and providing clues as to how certain mammalian species hibernate, supercooling their blood somehow. Explore further Distortion of water droplet surface may increase the likelihood of the droplet freezing More information: The presentation, "The Snowball Chamber: Using Supercooled Water to Search for Low-Mass Dark Matter," took place on Sunday, April 14, in room Governor's Square 11 at the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel. Abstract: The presentation, "The Snowball Chamber: Using Supercooled Water to Search for Low-Mass Dark Matter," took place on Sunday, April 14, in room Governor's Square 11 at the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel. Abstract: meetings.aps.org/Meeting/APR19/Session/J09.8 Artist's conception of HD 21749c, the first Earth-sized planet found by NASA's Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite (TESS), as well as its sibling, HD 21749b, a warm sub-Neptune-sized world. Credit: Robin Dienel, courtesy of the Carnegie Institution for Science A nearby system hosts the first Earth-sized planet discovered by NASA's Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite, as well as a warm sub-Neptune-sized world, according to a new paper from a team of astronomers that includes Carnegie's Johanna Teske, Paul Butler, Steve Shectman, Jeff Crane, and Sharon Wang. Their work is published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. "It's so exciting that TESS, which launched just about a year ago, is already a game-changer in the planet-hunting business," said Teske, who is second author on the paper. "The spacecraft surveys the sky and we collaborate with the TESS follow-up community to flag potentially interesting targets for additional observations using ground-based telescopes and instruments." One such tool, the Planet Finder Spectrograph on the Magellan II telescope at Carnegie's Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, was a crucial component of this effort. It helped confirm the planetary nature of the TESS signal, and to measure the mass of the newly discovered sub-Neptune. The PFSbuilt by Shectman and Crane using a method pioneered by Butler and his collaboratorsworks using a technique called the radial velocity method, which is currently the only way for astronomers to measure the masses of individual planets. Without known masses, it is very challenging to determine a planet's density or its general chemical composition. This method takes advantage of that fact that not only does a star's gravity influence the planet orbiting it, but the planet's gravity also affects the star in turn. The PFS enables astronomers to detect these tiny wobbles that the planet's gravity induces in the star's orbit. "PFS is one of the only instruments in the Southern Hemisphere that can do these types of measurements," Teske added. "So, it will be a very important part of further characterizing the planets found by the TESS mission." With an orbit that takes about 36 days to complete, the sub-Neptune, HD 21749b, has the longest period of any of the TESS discoveries published so far. Because of the technique that TESS employs, it is predicted that most of the planets the mission finds will have orbital periods of fewer than 10 days, so HD 21749b is unusual in this regard. In fact, this also made the detection of the planet in the TESS data an extra challenge. "There was quite some detective work involved, and the right people were there at the right time," said lead author Diana Dragomir of MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. "But we were lucky, and we caught the signals, and they were really clear." Its host star has about 80 percent of the mass of our Sun and is found about 53 light-years distant from Earth. HD 21749b has about 23 times Earth's mass and a radius of about 2.7 times Earth's. Its density indicates the planet has substantial atmosphere but is not rocky, so it could potentially help astronomers understand the composition and evolution of cooler sub-Neptune planet atmospheres. Excitingly, the longer period sub-Neptune planet in this system is not alone. It has a sibling planet, HD 21749c, which takes about eight days to orbit the host star and is much smallersimilar in size to Earth. "Measuring the exact mass and composition of such a small planet will be challenging, but important for comparing HD 21749c to Earth," said Wang. "Carnegie's PFS team is continuing to collect data on this object with this goal in mind." Thanks to TESS, astronomers will be able to measure the masses, atmospheric compositions, and other properties of many smaller exoplanets for the first time. Although small exoplanets are common in our galaxy, there is still much to learn about their diversity and about how they compare to the planets in our own Solar System. "For stars that are very close by and very bright, we expected to find up to a couple dozen Earth-sized planets," said Dragomir. "And here we arethis would be our first one, and it's a milestone for TESS. It sets the path for finding smaller planets around even smaller stars, and those planets may potentially be habitable." Explore further An exoplanet with an 11-hour orbit More information: Diana Dragomir et al, TESS Delivers Its First Earth-sized Planet and a Warm Sub-Neptune, The Astrophysical Journal (2019). Journal information: Astrophysical Journal Letters , Astrophysical Journal Diana Dragomir et al, TESS Delivers Its First Earth-sized Planet and a Warm Sub-Neptune,(2019). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab12ed The arrow in this view of the LaPaz meteorite points to where the scientists found the carbon-rich cometary fragment. The colors are produced polarized light shining through a thin slice of the meteorite; the grid lines are spaced one millimeter apart. Credit: Carles Moyano-Cambero, Institute of Space Sciences, Barcelona A tiny piece of the building blocks from which comets formed has been discovered inside a primitive meteorite. The discovery by a Carnegie Institution of Science-led team, including a researcher now at Arizona State University, was published April 15 in Nature Astronomy. The finding could offer clues to the formation, structure, and evolution of the solar system. "The meteorite is named LaPaz Icefield 02342," says research scientist Jemma Davidson of ASU's Center for Meteorite Studies in the School of Earth and Space Exploration. "The name comes from where it was found in Antarctica's LaPaz Icefield." She adds that it belongs to a class of primitive carbonaceous chondrite meteorites that have undergone minimal changes since they formed more than 4.5 billion years ago, likely beyond the orbit of Jupiter. Construction debris Meteorites were once part of larger bodies, asteroids, which broke up due to collisions in space and survived the trip through Earth's atmosphere. Their makeup can vary substantially from one meteorite to the next, reflecting their origins in diverse parent bodies that formed in different parts of the solar system. Asteroids and comets both formed from the disk of gas and dust that once surrounded the young Sun, but they aggregated at different distances from it, which affected their chemical makeup. Compared to asteroids, comets contain larger fractions of water ice and far more carbon, and typically formed farther from the Sun where the environment was colder. By studying a meteorite's chemistry and mineralogy, researchers such as the paper's lead author, Carnegie's Larry Nittler, can unlock details about its formation and how much heating and other chemical processing it experienced during the solar system's formative years. The carbon-rich fragment of the material comets are built from is colored red in this scanning electron microscope image. The scale bar shows its size. Credit: Larry Nittler, Carnegie Institution for Science 'Bonbon' with a surprise inside Inside the LaPaz meteorite, Nittler's team found a very carbon-rich slice of primitive material. It bears some striking similarities to extraterrestrial dust particles that are thought to have originated in comets that formed near the solar system's outer edges. Approximately 3 to 3.5 million years after the solar system formed, but while Earth was still growing, this tiny objectabout one tenth of a millimeter acrosswas captured by the growing asteroid from which the meteorite originated. "Primitive meteorites provide a snapshot of the early solar system that we can study in the lab," says Davidson. "The LaPaz meteorite is a nice example since it has experienced minimal terrestrial weathering." Meteorites like LaPaz, she notes, are great places to hunt for presolar grains, microscopic pieces of stardust formed by stars that predate the solar system. But none of the team expected also to find evidence for a surviving cometary building block inside a meteorite. An illustration showing how a sliver of cometary building block material was swallowed by an asteroid and preserved inside a meteorite, where it was discovered by a Carnegie-led team of scientists. Credit: Larry Nittler and NASA. Ancient survivor "When Larry and Carles showed me the first electron images of the carbon-rich material," Davidson says, "I knew we were looking at something very rare. It was one of those exciting moments you live for as a scientist." By undertaking sophisticated chemical and isotopic analysis of the material, Nittler and his colleagueswho besides Davidson include Carnegie's Conel Alexander as well as Rhonda Stroud and Bradley De Gregorio of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, and Josep Trigo-Rodriguez, Carles Moyano-Cambero, and Safoura Tanbakouei of the Institute of Space Sciences in Barcelona, Cataloniawere able to show that the encased material likely originated in the icy outer solar system along with objects from the Kuiper Belt, where many comets originate. "Because this sample of cometary building block material was swallowed by an asteroid and preserved inside this meteorite, it was protected from the ravages of entering Earth's atmosphere," Nittler explains. "It gave us a peek at material that would not have survived to reach our planet's surface on its own, helping us to understand the early solar system's chemistry." The existence of this primitive material captured inside the meteorite suggests that due to the drag caused by the surrounding gas, particles like it migrated from the outer edges of the solar system, where comets and Kuiper Belt objects formed, to the closer-in area beyond Jupiter, where the carbonaceous chondrites formed. This reveals details about how our solar system's architecture took shape during the early stages of planet formation. "Discoveries like this demonstrate how important it is to retrieve precious meteorites like LaPaz from Antarctica," says Davidson. "We never know what secrets they'll reveal." Explore further Team identifies water-bearing minerals on asteroid Bennu More information: A cometary building block in a primitive asteroidal meteorite, Nature Astronomy (2019). www.nature.com/articles/s41550-019-0737-8 Journal information: Nature Astronomy A cometary building block in a primitive asteroidal meteorite,(2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-019-0737-8 Credit: CC0 Public Domain Motivated employees who take initiative at work could hold the key to making Australian workplaces safer, new research involving Curtin University researchers has found. The research, published in the European Journal of Work and Organisational Psychology, examined the role of safety in the workplace, what motivates an employee to initiate safety-related change in their jobs, and the positive impact this has on an organisation. Co-author Professor Mark Griffin, Director of the Future of Work Institute based at Curtin University, said safety in the workplace was more than simply following the rules, yet organisations often responded to risks with more rules and stricter compliance requirements. "Employers need to not only ensure that their employees are compliant with the safety rules and procedures in place, but instead take initiative and act proactively when faced with challenging situations that may put other colleagues at risk," Professor Griffin said. "Our research showed that employees who were compliant with the safety rules in an organisation, but did not take initiative, were less likely to be effective when it came to dealing with risks and hazards in the workplace." Co-author ARC Laureate Fellow Professor Sharon Parker, from the Centre for Transformative Work Design at Curtin's Future of Work Institute, said employees played a critical role in helping stem the disturbing level of work-related accidents and injuries around the world. "Most employees have the skills, expertise and local knowledge to prevent problems and accidents in the workplace, but we wanted to understand why only some will go the extra step to initiate better overall safety," Professor Parker said. "Our research also showed that employees who took ownership of situations, had strong capabilities and a future-focused outlook were more likely to make changes that improved workplace safety when they faced a potential difficulty or stressful event." Explore further Research finds after-work hobbies key to proactivity in the workplace More information: Matteo Curcuruto et al. Proactivity towards workplace safety improvement: an investigation of its motivational drivers and organizational outcomes, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology (2019). Matteo Curcuruto et al. Proactivity towards workplace safety improvement: an investigation of its motivational drivers and organizational outcomes,(2019). DOI: 10.1080/1359432X.2019.1572115 Credit: Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock.com Economic thinking governs much of our world. But the discipline's teaching is stuck in the past. Centred around antiquated 19th-century models built on Newtonian physics, economics treats humans as atomic particles, rather than as social beings. While academic research often manages to transcend this simplicity, undergraduate education does not and the influence of these simplified ideas is carried by graduates as they go on to work in politics, media, business and the civil service. Economists such as myself tend to speak in tightly coded jargon and mathematical models. We speak of "economic laws", tacitly positioning these as analogous to the laws of physics. We wrap a thick layer of technical jargon around our study material and ban all moral or ethical discussions from the classroom. We attempt to take cover under the protective white lab coat of "real science", a phenomenon described by Nobel Prize winner Friedrich Hayek as scientism. In short, economics has become a rather quaint and highly guarded discipline. We urgently need to update economics education to change this because economics, as taught in universities, does not reflect or speak to many of the issues of the real world, be they political, environmental or social. The political economy Take the tricky entanglement between politics and economics, which economists tend to try to avoid. Such an attempt is futile. Sidelining politics, history and broader ideas while teaching economics, as most professors do, is like studying the "natural" flows of water in the Netherlands without taking into account that there are people living there who are steering it, building dikes, reclaiming land and channelling the water and ignoring that they have been doing this for thousands of years already. You can't study the system while ignoring the people who make it. Politics and economics are inextricably intertwined, as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx knew all too well. Somehow this has been forgotten. This does not mean economists need to get political or choose sides. But it does mean that we ignore politics at our own peril by blindsiding ourselves or dismissing it as "external stuff", we hamper our understanding of the very system we study. Economists speak in numbers only, clinging to statistical data and quantitative models. We do so in the hope of looking objective. But this is counter-productive "data" cannot tell us everything. Other social sciences such as sociology and anthropology use a broader range of methods, and consequently have a broader perspective on society. If we take our societal role of adviser on economic matters seriously, we will need to open up and adopt the insights that these other disciplines bring us about how the economy works. It is true that academic economists are aware of the shortcomings of their discipline. But unfortunately, this awareness of the complexity of the economic system does not necessarily extend to those who leave university after their degree. And this is what the vast majority of economics graduates do. These are the people who go on to work in big business, governments and central banks, who shape policy and create our "economic common sense". Credit: The Conversation Educational blinders So what sort of ideas do these undergraduate economics students take out of university and into some of the most important careers in our societies? Concerned student groups everywhere have started to systematically map this out. Student members of the University of Manchester Post-Crash Economics Association wrote a book surveying 174 economics modules at seven leading UK universities. They found that fewer than 10% covered anything other than mainstream economics. In the Netherlands, students found that real-world problems, from climate change to inequality, were seriously treated in only 6% of all modules and that only 2% of methods courses were not focused on statistical work. A series of subsequent curriculum review projects, including one covering 13 countries from Argentina to Israel, found similar conditions in economics programs everywhere. Undergraduate economists all over the world learn theories from textbooks that have barely changed since the 1950s. Those theories are based on individual agents, competing in markets to maximise narrowly defined "economic utility" (for people) or profit (for firms). The principles are taught with the same certainty as Newtonian physics, and are as devoid of value judgements. This is absurd. Clearly, there are values; mainstream economics values efficiency, markets and growth and puts individuals over collectives. Yet undergraduates are not taught to recognise, let alone question, these values and the consequences are serious. The models taught in our education ignore inequality, while our societies are being torn apart by it. In our classes, relentless economic growth is an unquestioned dogma, yet this same economic growth is rapidly ripping apart the ecological foundations of our world. And while we all may individually donate to charities, separate our trash and feel guilty about flying too much, we are collectively handicapped in reforming the very system that drives these problems. Hope for change There is hope for change, however. In the UK, a number of economics programmes are gradually becoming more pluralist in terms of theory and methods in response to the movement. Goldsmiths College in London, for instance, has renewed its PPE programme to include the same, and add other disciplines. And the Schumacher College in Devon now offers an Economics for Transition MSc which explicitly ties together economic and ecological systems. Meanwhile, an international accreditation system for pluralist Masters programmes is being set up. But we need renewal on a much broader front: a new approach to economics education, one which does not hide behind the self-imposed limits of 19th century physics-style modelling, but instead considers the societal role of economists seriously. We need an economics which focuses on the entire economic system and which acknowledges all relevant sources of knowledge, rather than apprehensively clinging to statistical data. And one which addresses the issues that are most pressing for society, not those that comfortably fit within its mainstream method. Let's hope that we don't have to wait for the present generation of economists to retire before this can happen. By that time, it might be too late. Explore further Surviving climate change means transforming both economics and design This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Credit: CC0 Public Domain A Harvard physicist has shown that wormholes can exist: tunnels in curved space-time, connecting two distant places, through which travel is possible. But don't pack your bags for a trip to other side of the galaxy yet; although it's theoretically possible, it's not useful for humans to travel through, said the author of the study, Daniel Jafferis, from Harvard University, written in collaboration with Ping Gao, also from Harvard and Aron Wall from Stanford University. "It takes longer to get through these wormholes than to go directly, so they are not very useful for space travel," Jafferis said. He will present his findings at the 2019 American Physical Society April Meeting in Denver. Despite his pessimism for pan-galactic travel, he said that finding a way to construct a wormhole through which light could travel was a boost in the quest to develop a theory of quantum gravity. "The real import of this work is in its relation to the black hole information problem and the connections between gravity and quantum mechanics," Jafferis said. The new theory was inspired when Jafferis began thinking about two black holes that were entangled on a quantum level, as formulated in the ER=EPR correspondence by Juan Maldacena from the Institute for Advanced Study and Lenny Susskind from Stanford. Although this means the direct connection between the black holes is shorter than the wormhole connectionand therefore the wormhole travel is not a shortcutthe theory gives new insights into quantum mechanics. "From the outside perspective, travel through the wormhole is equivalent to quantum teleportation using entangled black holes," Jafferis said. Jafferis based his theory on a setup first devised by Einstein and Rosen in 1935, consisting of a connection between two black holes (the term wormhole was coined in 1957). Because the wormhole is traversable, Jafferis said, it was a special case in which information could be extracted from a black hole. "It gives a causal probe of regions that would otherwise have been behind a horizon, a window to the experience of an observer inside a spacetime, that is accessible from the outside," said Jafferis. To date, a major stumbling block in formulating traversable wormholes has been the need for negative energy, which seemed to be inconsistent with quantum gravity. However, Jafferis has overcome this using quantum field theory tools, calculating quantum effects similar to the Casimir effect. "I think it will teach us deep things about the gauge/gravity correspondence, quantum gravity, and even perhaps a new way to formulate quantum mechanics," Jafferis said. Explore further Scientists dismiss the idea of travel through wormholes More information: The presentation, "Traversable wormholes" will take place at 11:21 a.m. MT, Saturday, April 13, in room Plaza D of the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel. Abstract: The presentation, "Traversable wormholes" will take place at 11:21 a.m. MT, Saturday, April 13, in room Plaza D of the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel. Abstract: meetings.aps.org/Meeting/APR19/Session/B02.2 The holidays are a special time of the year. Along with all the food, presents, word of Jesus and family, there is a ton of joy and happiness. Although COVID still may be lingering, I dont think this Christmas will be any different from any of my past Christmas experiences. Whatever happens with my proposal that the West launch Cold War II, the next three decades will be far less friendly to the Chinese economy than the past three decades have been. There are three reasons for this. First, there is what we might call the law of large economies. Its relatively easy for a small economy to grow rapidlyscores of countries have achieved it in the past, including that former emerging market called the USA. I have on many occasions pointed out that the Soviet Union grew from an almost medieval, serf-based economy to the second largest economy in the world in barely three decades. But growing a very large economy at the same rate is, essentially, impossible. Trees dont grow to the sky, as the USSR, Japan and many other nations have learned. China will learn this lesson, too. Indeed, most formerly poor countries never escape the middle income trap (Brazil, South Africa) once their labor costs become uncompetitive. A large, mature economy that is well-managed (e.g., the U.S.) might grow at 3 percent per annum. A large, mature economy that is poorly managed might grow at 1-2 percent per annum (Western Europe, Japan). A large, mature economy that is extremely poorly managed (China) might shrink at 1-2 percent per annum almost indefinitelyat least until the populace has had enough. The second reason why Chinas future will be less rosy than its recent past has to do with this very economic mismanagement. As I mentioned earlier in this series, the Chinese Communist Party is so desperate to keep economic growth strong that it has continued, far beyond any sane level, to inject government capital into its economy. That has created an investment- and debt-fueled bubble that will inevitably burst, making Japans three decades of economic malaise look tame by comparison. Finally, Chinas future will be far less positive than its past because that past was fueled by a vast increase in global trade, and the age of expanding globalism is now behind us. I pointed out last week that globalism was established, funded, and secured by the United States. But the U.S. is no longer the unipolar power in the world and the U.S. isnt the main beneficiary of globalism. China has been the main beneficiary and, thanks to the U.S., is now the second half of a two-bloc world. In short, the U.S. has, for 30 years, mindlessly funded its own demise. But those days are over. Global trade wont come to a halt, of course, but it wont grow much, either. What will grow are (a) regionalnot globaltrading blocs and (b) countries that are more self-reliant and less dependent on exports for economic growth. Over the next three decades or so the world economy will be dominated by three trading blocs. The largest and, by far, most competitive, will be the North American trade zone. The U.S. recently concluded new trade treaties with Canada and Mexico that establish a trading bloc of nearly a half billion consumers (almost identical to the population of the EUs 19 members, post Brexit) and with annual GDP of $22 trillion. And consider that, depending on what happens with Brexit, it isnt inconceivable that the UK could join the North America trade zone (renamed the Atlantic trade zone), adding 66 million people and almost $3 trillion in GDP. The EU will represent the second largest trading bloc460 million consumers and $18 trillion of GDPbut it is an inefficient and rickety alliance. The fundamental mistake the Europeans made was to accept a lousy compromise structure in a futile attempt to compete head-to-head with the U.S. A United States of Europe wasnt possiblenot a single European nation was willing to relinquish its sovereigntyso, instead, a weak pan-European government was superimposed on the 19 underlying nations. To make matters worse, a common currency (the euro) was established, which vastly magnified competitive differences among the member nations. In an economic world dominated by regional trading blocs, China will be mostly left out in the cold. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, China is pushing Asia-centric trading alliances like the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Viewed with rose-colored glasses, RCEP looks terrific: it covers 50 percent of the worlds population and 32 percent of global GDP. But the reality is far different. RCEP participants are mostly jealous rivals (India-China) or historic enemies (Vietnam-China) or important U.S. allies (Japan, South Korean, Australia). RCEP will reduce a few tariffs, but it will never be a true trading bloc. No one trusts China enough to join such an alliance. Thus, China will have a bloc consisting of its own 1.2 billion consumers (and that population is in decline) and a GDP of $12 trillion, far behind the EU and barely more than half that of the North American trading bloc. China is well aware of what is happening to it, and it has responded in two main ways. First, Xi Jinping has tried to present himself as the new face of globalism, replacing the U.S. This went over well at Davos, but the rest of the world found it laughable. Second, and more important, China has staked its future on the Belt and Road Initiative, a scheme that has actually been written into the Chinese Constitution. Belt and Road is a vast effort to replace the U.S.-dominated global trading system with one dominated by China. This isnt a project the U.S. should take lightly, but it is an effort that is ultimately doomed. Already, nations that eagerly signed on to Belt and Road have realized that it is a roach motelaccept billions of dollars of infrastructure aid from China and you become just another Chinese province. But countries that are desperate for capital will find Belt and Road hard to resisteven Italy, God help it, has signed onand this means that the U.S. will have to confront Belt and Road head-on. That will require putting intense pressure on countries not to join Belt and Road while also offering them alternative sources of aid. Next week, well look at how the worlds nations will likely fare in an economic environment that rewards self-reliance. Next up: Cold War II, Part 9 On April 3, 2019, the Pittsburgh Chapter of ARCS Foundation held its annual Scholar Celebration at the Reed Smith Centre. The chapter raises funds for three-year awards to doctoral students in the sciences and technology at both Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. More than one hundred people gathered for hors doeuvres and socializing, viewing the third-year scholars poster presentations and hearing from Lynn Banaszak, executive director of the Disruptive Health Technology Institute at Carnegie Mellon. Tickets and an auction for a gourmet dinner at the Mansions on Fifth helped raise funds for an additional 2019 Scholar award. Since the Pittsburgh Chapters founding in 2003, it has awarded more than $1.8 million in awards to 133 American scholars studying in Pittsburgh. In addition to raising funds, chapter members have behind-the-scenes access to some of Pittsburghs most interesting science. Antoine Douaihy is intrigued by the use of marijuana to treat chronic pain. As an addiction specialist, hes keenly aware of the value of safe and effective alternatives to prescribing opioids. Several studies suggest pot could be one, at least with some patients, and pain is one of 21 state-approved conditions that get you a medical marijuana card in Pennsylvania. But as a doctor, hes troubled by the missing pieces of the puzzle. And there are many, including answers to basic questions, such as how much relief does pot offer, for what type of pain and at what dose? The story is similar for most other conditions covered under state medical marijuana programs. You have the potential for marijuana to help in certain conditions, but we dont have enough studies and strong evidence to know for sure, said Dr. Douaihy, professor of psychiatry and medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and academic director of addiction medicine services. Legalization of marijuana is spreading among U.S. states, outpacing the effort of science and government to fully understand its medical effectiveness, and impact on public health and safety. Medical marijuana is now legal in 33 states and 10 states and the District of Columbia have legalized pot for recreational use among adults. Yet, its still unclear how legalization will affect usage rates in the long term or whether it will cause more traffic accidents and fatalities. Treating what ails you The potential of marijuana to help patients with conditions ranging from chronic pain, arthritis and epilepsy to insomnia and the affects of chemotherapy is seen as one of the key reasons for the dramatic shift in public opinion in favor of legalizing cannabis. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that American voters favor legalizing marijuana for all adults by 63 percent to 33 percent. They support legalized medical marijuana by a 93 percent to 5 percent margin, despite the fact the U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasnt approved pot as a treatment for most medical conditions. Research on cannabis as a medical treatment is thin. A major reason why is that marijuana, like heroin, is classified as a federal Schedule 1 controlled substance with no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. As such, the Drug Enforcement Agency tightly restrict access to cannabis and how it is used, making research difficult. Few clinical studies with patients have been done on cannabis treatments as a result. Anecdotal evidence and existing research suggest its potential to help patients suffering from certain conditions. Small-scale studies, for example, have reported that cannabis helps reduce diabetic neuropathy pain. Research, including clinical trials, found certain types of childhood epilepsy could be effectively treated with cannabidiol (CBD), a chemical compound found in marijuana. The FDA approved its use to treat those conditions last year. RAND, in the largest study of pots role in reducing opioid deaths, found that deaths fell in states where dispensaries made buying medical marijuana easy for patients, but didnt decline in states where rules for sales were tightened. In Illinois, patients with a doctor-certified condition that could warrant prescribing opioids, such as pain, now automatically qualify for the state medical marijuana program to explore pot as an option. Missing pieces Marijuana contains more than 400 chemicals and 66 unique chemical compounds. The best known, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the primary psychoactive ingredient that gets users high. CBD on the other hand is not intoxicating. Moreover, there are nearly 800 marijuana strains, each having different chemical profiles and effects. With such a complex plant and so few clinical studies, much remains to be learned about how patients respond to marijuana as a treatment for many conditions, including those approved by that state. One is opioid addiction, which Pennsylvania was the first state to add to its medical marijuana program. We have medications that are effective for the treatment of opioid addiction. We cant say we are going to use medical marijuana as a first-line treatment, Dr. Douaihy said. The evidence is weak, anecdotal. You hear of people using marijuana to wean themselves off of opioids, but others dont do well at all. Keep in mind, marijuana has its own addictive potential, which can complicate its usefulness as a treatment for opioid addiction. So, we just dont know. Pennsylvania last year approved eight universities to conduct clinical research on the medical use of marijuana, including the University of Pittsburgh. What is clear is that for marijuana users, legalization has led to a better quality, safer and more transparent product than whats on the street. An advantage patients have is they know when the product was cultivated, processed and who did it, said Patrick Nightingale, executive director of the Pennsylvania Medical Cannabis Society. They know its fresh, tested, pesticide-free and what is on the label is whats in the product. You dont get that in the black market. Public safety concerns Whether legalizing marijuana makes roads and highways less safe for motorists is a critical public safety question that has yet to be conclusively answered. A recent study published in the American Journal of Public Health reports that three years after recreational marijuana was legalized in Washington and Colorado, changes in the overall number of traffic fatalities in those states were not statistically different than in other states where pot was not legalized. But Washington and Colorado have each seen an increase in traffic fatalities that involve drivers with traces of pot in their body. Public officials in both states, however, say its unclear how many of those accidents were caused by marijuana intoxication. In many cases, alcohol or other drugs were also involved. Moreover, finding traces of marijuana in the body does not indicate a driver was intoxicated by the drug or impaired. While marijuana intoxication can last a couple of hours, traces of pot can be detected long afterward, sometimes for weeks or a month or longer. And police dont have a roadside test for drivers to determine marijuana intoxication like they do for alcohol. Another concern is whether legalization will increase the number of people who use it, particularly adolescents who may be inclined to try it but whose brains are still developing and the risk of harm is greater. Marijuana use among adults has risen in states following legalization. But RAND researchers report those trends havent generally been seen among younger populations. In Washington, the states youth health surveys suggest that from 2002 to 2016, marijuana use rose slightly from 25 percent to 26 percent among 12th graders, but fell from 18 to 17 percent among 10th graders and from 10 to 6 percent among 8th graders. Pot was legal for both medical and adult recreational use during the last four years of that period. Legalizing pot for adult recreational use, however, is a recent experiment that 40 states have yet to attempt. As with questions about medical cannabis, definitive answers about how Americans will handle it are elusive, and for the same reason. Its too early to determine whether full legalization will lead to more widespread use, Dr. Douaihy said. We dont have the data. WASHINGTON - Speaking at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) on April 3, five Vaclav Havel Journalism Fellows cited the expansion of media literacy programs, training and education for journalists, and increased support for local news outlets as measures that could help sustain independent media in their countries. The Fellows, visiting Washington from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Russia, were welcomed to the NED by President Carl Gershman, who said we have to be alert to how important it is to defend freedom and democracy, especially in the five countries that are represented by the Havel Journalism Fellows. In keynote remarks, Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek affirmed the importance of journalism to any health democracy, declaring that support to independent media...is the best answer to some of the trends we have witnessed in recent years, like fake news, disinformation, and renewed propaganda activities. The Foreign Ministry of the Czech Republic is a partner in the fellowship program. During a week of meetings, the Havel Fellows also visited the Washington bureaus of CNN, NBC/MSNBC, and Al Jazeera and met with senior journalists at the Washington Bureau of Arizona State Universitys Cronkite School of Journalism, the University of Marylands Phillip Merrill College of Journalism, and the National Press Club. They met with senior staff at the U.S. Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the office of Rep. Francis Rooney, and officials at the U.S. State Department, in addition to numerous think tanks and NGOs. The Vaclav Havel Journalism Fellowship, launched in 2011, is an eight-month program that is inspired by the late Czech leaders belief in the transformational power of free speech, and which builds on RFE/RLs legacy of promoting more open societies through journalism. It is supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and the Dagmar and Vaclav Havel Foundation Vize97. In 2014, RFE/RL and the ministry launched a similar program, the Jiri Dienstbier Journalism Fellowship, for aspiring, independent-minded journalists from the western Balkans. About RFE/RL RFE/RL relies on its networks of local reporters to provide accurate news and information to 34 million people in 26 languages and 22 countries where media freedom is restricted, or where a professional press has not fully developed. Its videos were viewed over 2.6 billion times on Facebook and YouTube in FY2018. RFE/RL is an editorially independent media company funded by a grant from the U.S. Congress through the U.S. Agency for Global Media. ---- FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: Joanna Levison in Prague, levisonj@rferl.org, +420.221.122.080 Martins Zvaners in Washington, zvanersm@rferl.org, +1.202.457.6948 April 15, 2019 in Photo and Video (E) [prMac.com] Naarden, Netherlands - Today, AirBeamTV presents the new app "Mirror for Mac or Windows PC". With this app every iPhone or iPad owner can mirror the display of their phone or tablet on a Mac or PC. Wireless phone screen sharing: The idea for the app arose from the demand of app developers and other professionals who could not find an easy wireless alternative for presenting the content of their phone. "Nowadays it is common practice to connect your computer with a cable to a projector or large TV screen during presentations or demonstrations. Our new app makes it possible to share your phone screen with the same setup without the need of an AppleTV or additional cables," says Jan van Ottele, CEO of AirBeamTV. Ideal classroom solution: In addition, according to Van Ottele, the app is excellent to use in a classroom or training environment. "Especially when teaching at external locations, it is usually not practically organized in terms of technology and you are dependent on the computer systems present. However, with our app you can always share videos, photos and apps from your own phone, as long as the computer or screen you are viewing them is connected to the internet and has the free Chrome browser." Device Requirements: * iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch * Requires iOS 12.0 or later * 124 MB Pricing and Availability: Mirror for Mac or Windows PC 3.3.1 is free to download in the App Store. Users can test the app free before upgrading to the paid version ($4.99 in the US App Store). The premium version has no time limits for mirroring and supports lifetime updates. For both the free and the paid version, everyone can count on fast and free customer service. Since 2014, AirBeamTV is the market leader in easy and smart "screen mirorring" solutions for Apple's iOS and MacOS devices such as iPhones and MacBooks. The company sells screen mirroring applications for most major TV brands, including Samsung, LG, Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Roku and many more. From the picturesque village of Naarden, The Netherlands, a diverse and motivated team of programmers works daily on developing and improving innovative apps. All Material and Software (C) Copyright 2014-2018 AirBeamTV. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, macOS, iPhone, iPad, iPod and Macintosh are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other trademarks and registered trademarks may be the property of their respective owners. ### 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 We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. 2005-2021 All contents of this blog are the property of Bonnie K. Hunter, and cannot be reproduced in any way without prior written consent. Beijing has been incessantly harping on about its successful transition to an open economy and plans to further liberalize its markets to foreign investors. Yet, some critical facets of the worlds second-largest economy are becoming a lot less free. China, the leading surveillance state, has doubled down on internet censorship and plans to police its internet on a scale never witnessed before including banning videos of people with tattoos or even smoking. The Middle Kingdom has unfurled an all-out war to clean up its networks, with AI now being extensively employed to augment efforts by human moderators. Content moderators are the new digital sheriffs, charged with crawling internet networks and purging them of politically sensitive speech, violence, terrorism, sexual acts and self-harm. Heres a peek inside a Chinese censorship operation. Chinas content moderation in action Roughly 762 million Chinese, or 54.3 percent of the population, are internet users--by far the largest number of internet users in the world. Livestreaming is the activity that the authorities censor the mostand for good reason. Nearly 400 million Chinese did live streams last year, generating terabytes of data every day and making it easy for the bad actors to slip by undetected. Armies of sensors are therefore required to keep track of all the content generated. This internet police certainly has its work cut out trying to adjudicate the mountains of content. With AI-enabled censorship now prevalent, how do you train your AI chips to judge literally an infinite variety of settings? For instance, when is a bikini allowed in a live-streaming app and when does it become illegal? To an algorithm, a bikini is a bikini. But to a human sensor, setting and context are what really matters. A bikini at a swimming pool might be perfectly alright yet a skimpy two-piece at the movies might call for flagging. Beijing-based Inke is a large live-streaming company boasting 25 million users. The company is also one of the countrys leading content moderators, with a workforce of 1,200 mostly fresh graduates. Inke employs AI algorithms and facial recognition software to help its army of human moderators do their jobs. AI mostly handles the grunt work of the censorship process, including labeling, rating, and sorting content. Thats the case because huge amounts of resources would be required to train AI algorithms to judge context as efficiently as human censors. The sorted content is then graded in ascending order of risk, which allows the reviewer to monitor large volumes of low-risk content in a short time, while higher risk content is flagged for further review. So, which activity is most censored? Smoking, because the authorities consider it an unhealthy lifestyle. People with excessive tattoos are also a big no-no. Related: Wal-Mart To Roll Out Robots In Hundreds Of U.S. Stores Platforms like Inke are under duress by the government to ensure that no potentially disruptive content is freely streamed. For instance, the company recently pinpointed the site of demonstrations and quickly deployed positioning software to block all streaming within a 10-km radius. Never mind that the outcry was simply directed at a local government that had plans to build a local refuse incineration plant. Perils of the Great Firewall China also closely patrols online activity and flags content that is deemed as being critical of the ruling Communist Party including politically sensitive terms such as Tibets Dalai Lama. Beijing often justifies the Great Firewall, as state censorship is often called, by saying that every state has the right to control its domestic internet space aka cyber sovereignty. To be fair, some types of surveillance appear productive and even justifiable. For instance, timely content moderation by Facebook might have helped avert real-world violence incited by viral content in Myanmar and Sri Lanka. Some Chinese are positive about state surveillance because they feel someones at least watching their back. James Watson, Nobel Prize winner for discovering the structure of DNA, has argued that compulsory DNA fingerprinting could be helpful because it would take away peoples liberty to commit a crime. Yet, the overbearing type of surveillance that Beijing subjects its citizens is not only an indignity but also denies them their basic human rights. Its precisely this platform that the government used to suppress a Muslim minority called the Uighurs and other minorities. But China is in good company. Here in the United States, the NSA has been spying on Americans for years, and by 2010 had accumulated more DNA records than the Chinese government according to Wall Street Journal data. While the US might not have an atrocious human rights record in Chinas league, the biggest problem of the Surveillance State is not so much because it violates standards of privacy but because, in the wrong hands, fuels control and can wreak untold damage. By Alex Kimani for Safehaven.com More Top Reads From Safehaven.com " " A young eastern lowland gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri) rides on the back of its mother in Kahuzi Biega National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo. Guenter Guni/Getty Images In parts of Central Africa, mining of rare minerals used for mobile telephones and other modern technology is pushing already endangered animals to the brink of extinction. A new study conducted by Wildlife Conservation Society in the Democratic Republic of Congo found that mining operations have devastating impacts on wildlife, including species that live within protected areas such as the Itombwe Nature Reserve, an important forested habitat for great apes. The biodiverse area is home to populations of the endangered eastern chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) and the critically endangered Grauer's gorilla subspecies (Gorilla beringei graueri), whose numbers have fallen by 77 percent over the past two decades because of poaching some of which is propelled by nearby mining sites. Advertisement With fewer than 4,000 Grauer's gorilla remaining in the wild, these 400-pound (182-kilogram) cousins of the better-known mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) are being shot and killed by hungry miners. The gorillas live in large groups, can be readily tracked and make for easy prey for people working mines that are often militia-controlled and located illegally within nature reserves. "We found that most miners who participated in the survey hunt wildlife out of necessity," said WCS researcher Charlotte Spira, lead author of the study, published in June in the journal Oryx, in a statement. "And many would stop hunting if they had a secure income, if domestic sources of meat were made available, and if hunting laws were strongly enforced." The miners reported hunted primarily out of necessity because they didn't have other sources or protein available at the remote mining locations, which are often controlled by armed militias, not a central government. Many reported they would much rather eat beef, chicken or fish instead of chimpanzee or gorilla. An estimated 8 to 10 million people take part in the small-scale mines that claim gold, cassiterite and columbite-tantalite (commonly called coltan) from the earth's deep recesses. Cassiterite is used to make tin, while coltan is used in mobile phones and just about all electronic devices. Researchers suggest replacing volatile mining income with safe, sustainable alternatives for employment. Meanwhile, advocacy groups suggest tracking the supply chain, buying only from reputable mines and labeling the end products "bushmeat free" a daunting task, considering the minerals' meandering path to the ultimate buyer. "Six years ago, it was virtually impossible to trace minerals further upstream of the refiner, smelter or metals processor," Jennifer Peyser, a mediator with the dispute resolution organization Resolve, recently told Wired. "Now, there are systems to track material from validated conflict-free mines all the way through the supply chain." Now That's Interesting The Wildlife Conservation Society is encouraging concerned consumers to sign a pledge against conflict minerals. " " The late Nancy Roman was an American astronomer who became the first female executive at NASA. LEGO Group Who among us doesn't know an 8-year-old girl (or 47-year-old woman) that has dreamt of going to space? Danish toy brick icon maker LEGO gets it and thinks one way to help get girls psyched about STEM is with the right LEGO sets. That's why it launched its Women of NASA set. It's based on real-life female space pioneers. But what's even cooler is this set was created and chosen by LEGO fans. Each year, LEGO accepts submissions from the public, inviting anybody with a concept to submit ideas for a new LEGO set to be produced and sold commercially (with the designer receiving 1 percent of the profit from sales). The LEGO Ideas website runs a public contest for each new round of submissions, and fans from around the world vote on their favorite ideas. Once a project has 10,000 votes, it passes along to the LEGO Ideas review board, which chooses the winning concept for that review cycle. Advertisement The themes of projects always vary: the Women of NASA proposal was chosen over a red Lamborghini, a "Little House on the Prairie" log cabin, a vehicle from the comedy film "Spaceballs," and an homage to the first computer built by Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage. The member of the LEGO public who proposed and designed the Women of NASA set is Maia Weinstock, a science writer and LEGO enthusiast who used the LEGO Ideas contest to recognize some of the women who have made NASA's space exploration possible all of whom struggled to gain acceptance in a field historically dominated by white men. " " The LEGO set proposed by Maia Weinstock includes accessories to go along with the characters. Maia Weinstock/Flickr "This proposed set celebrates five notable NASA pioneers and provides an educational building experience to help young ones and adults alike learn about the history of women in STEM," wrote Weinstock in her LEGO Ideas proposal. The women commemorated in this set include: Margaret Hamilton , the computer scientist who developed the idea of computer software as we know it today, and created the flight software in the Apollo missions to the moon. Katherine Johnson , the NASA mathematician (played by Taraji P. Henson in last year's film "Hidden Figures") who , the NASA mathematician (played by Taraji P. Henson in last year's film "Hidden Figures") who calculated the trajectories for the Mercury and Apollo programs, including Apollo 11. Sally Ride , the first American woman in space. Nancy Grace Roman , one of the first female NASA executives, often called "The Mother of the Hubble Telescope" for her enormous contributions to that project. Mae Jemison, who in 1992 became the first African-American woman in space. These tiny space ladies come with a display frame, but also vignettes showing the reams of code that landed the first man on the moon, a tiny Hubble Telescope, mini rocket boosters and other cool stuff. Now That Makes Sense You can propose anything you want to LEGO Ideas, but projects involving sex, drugs, religion or copyrighted material have historically been rejected. Advertisement Originally Published: Mar 2, 2017 " " A Lyrid meteor streaks over Earth on the night of April 22, 2012. NASA/JSC/D. Pettit Comet Thatcher hasn't visited our part of the solar system since the American Civil War. And scientists predict that the giant hunk of ice and dust won't come back here until the year 2276. But every April, some of its debris puts on a nighttime light show enjoyed by millions of stargazers: the Lyrid Meteor Shower. The intensity of that display varies from one year to the next, with some April showers being more spectacular than others. If conditions are favorable and you know where to look you can usually expect to see about 10 to 15 meteors per hour when the Lyrid shower peaks. Yet every few decades or so, they'll arrive in far greater numbers, giving us a springtime "meteor storm" of celestial activity. Usually, the show lasts from April 16 through April 25, give or take a few days. This year is no different. Stargazers can watch the Lyrid for about 10 days, but it's expected to peak in the predawn hours of Thursday, April 22. Advertisement An Infrequent Guest Meteor showers mostly unfold in the pathways of comets. Made of ice, dust, rock and frozen gases, comets are celestial bodies that revolve around our sun and other stars in the universe. So far, astronomers have discovered more than 3,700 individual comets. The Lyrid showers are a byproduct of one particular specimen known as "C/1861 G1 (Thatcher)." Admittedly, that's a mouthful, so feel free to use the object's less formal name, Comet Thatcher. Amateur astronomer A.E. Thatcher is credited with its discovery. On April 5, 1861, he was watching the heavens from his New York City home. That evening, he noticed a strange, luminous body in the constellation Draco. It didn't stay put. Just over a month later, the object came relatively close to Earth, flying just 31.1 million miles (50.1 million kilometers) overhead. Then over the next few months, it approached our sun before exiting the inner solar system, the area that encompasses every planet from Mercury to Mars plus the asteroid belt. You will never get the chance to see Thatcher's comet up close. Like our beloved planet, it orbits the sun, but we now know that it takes Comet Thatcher approximately 415.5 Earth years to complete one rotation around the life-giving ball of plasma. Because of its orbital path, Comet Thatcher spends most of its time far beyond the inner solar system. A.E. Thatcher was lucky; he got to observe his comet during one of its rare forays into the area. Astronomers think that its next visit to the inner solar system will occur in 2276 or so, ending a centuries-long hiatus. Advertisement Crossing Paths Although Comet Thatcher seldom comes our way, Earth predictably crosses its orbital path once a year. In the process, our atmosphere gets pelted by rubbish left behind by the comet on its journey. Whenever a comet approaches the sun, the heat melts some of its ice, freeing little pieces of dust and rock. So therefore, passing comets leave debris trails behind. And those tiny chunks occupy the same orbit as the comet that shed them. Eventually, the comet itself may disintegrate entirely. However, even after it vanishes, a stream of dust will linger in its place, filling up the orbital route that the icy object used to take around the sun. That's why Earth experiences annual meteor showers. On its own sun-centered journey, the planet reliably crosses paths with the debris-clogged orbits of many different comets including A.E. Thatcher's. The detritus starts to burn up once it enters Earth's atmosphere. Fear not; most chunks will never reach the ground. The ones that do hit our planet's surface are called meteorites. They're far less common than meteoroids, those chunks that completely vaporize in our atmosphere. Both meteorites and meteoroids produce flashes of light known as meteors. Every April, our planet makes its yearly passage through Comet Thatcher's orbit. Stargazers are treated to a meteor shower while Earth intersects the debris trail. Advertisement Heroes and Lyres Now if you're standing on the ground, the meteors in whatever shower you're watching will appear to emanate from the same general point in the sky. (Even though they don't; that's just an illusion.) This spot is called the shower's radiant. Most of the yearly showers are named after constellations that sit by their radiant points. For example, meteors in the Perseid Shower, which thrills us every August, seem to fly out of the constellation Perseus. By the same token, the April shower produced by Comet Thatcher is called the Lyrid Shower because its radiant is next to Lyra, a constellation representing the lyre played by the Greek hero Orpheus. Vega one of the brightest stars in the sky helps form the instrument's crossbar. Knowing where the radiant is can enhance your shower-watching experience, but veteran stargazers will tell you not to look at the constellation directly. Meteors will show up all over the sky, and the longest-looking ones are going to appear far away from the radiant. Advertisement An Illuminated History The number of meteors you can expect to witness during the Lyrid shower varies from year to year. At the peak of a Lyrid shower, it's typical to see 10 to15 per hour. Usually, the Perseid showers are a whole lot denser. But every so often, an exceptional Lyrid shower occurs. During the peak of the 1982 Lyrids, for instance, viewers in the Eastern United States reported seeing around 100 meteors per hour. Comets don't shed their dust particles at a constant rate, so one year's shower might be more or less intense than the next one. To try and predict the intensity of a coming shower, astronomers make computer models that take things like comet trajectories and atmospheric changes into account. This year, you can help scientists gather Lyrid data. Simply register with the International Meteor Organization and report your observations after you go Lyrid-gazing. The best way to view the Lyrids are in the Northern Hemisphere during the darkest hours and away from city lights. NASA suggests you lie on your back with your feet facing east. Let your eyes adjust to the darkness and you should begin to see meteors within about 30 minutes. But be patient. The shower will last until early dawn, so you have plenty of time to see the "shooting stars." NOW THAT'S COOL It turns out watching Lyrids is an ancient pastime. A Chinese document dating back to 687 B.C.E. refers to "stars fell like rain" one night. Given the timing of this report, scholars think it could be the earliest written reference to a Lyrid meteor shower or indeed, any meteor shower in recorded history. Advertisement Originally Published: Apr 16, 2020 " " Even the dead have to get around. Do airlines use special language to refer to the transport of human remains? Leon Neal/Rob Melnychuk/Getty Images According to the Internet and urban legend, two things that go hand in hand with a grain of salt, American Airlines uses the code name "Jim Wilson" for human remains being shipped in its cargo hold. But is there any truth to this? After all, it's absolutely true that American, like many other airlines, does ship human remains people die all the time far from their families and final resting places. But no one at American actually uses this code, says an American Airlines spokesperson, and it's not anything that passengers would ever hear. Advertisement Except that there's a page on the National Funeral Directors Association website that specifically instructs its members to use the "American Airlines Cargo Jim Wilson Service." And the American Airlines spokesperson mentioned in a phone call that the name appeared to come from the company that manufactured the air trays used to safely transport the remains. In any case, the NFDA page might be out of date, since it says an air tray costs $75, while the up-to-date American Airlines cargo page lists the cost as $100, and our attempts to contact the NFDA went unanswered. This raises the question, though: do any other airlines use codes like this to protect the sensitivities of other passengers and offer some privacy for the deceased? If they do, they're keeping it a secret even from some of their employees. Calls placed to JetBlue, Alaska Air, and United revealed that they'd never heard of such a thing, but it was intriguing enough that the people who answered the phones were going to look into it. One bewildered JetBlue representative we reached said, "I've never been asked that before." Like everything else related to air travel since September 11, 2001, transporting human remains became more difficult. In 2004, the Transportation Security Administration partnered with funeral homes to come up with some guidelines to help people transport remains with less hassle and better security. This is especially tricky with cremated remains. Airlines may require that you carry them onto the plane rather than checking them into the cargo hold, which means they must go through the X-ray machine. If the container is opaque to the machine, it cannot go onto the plane. And TSA agents are not permitted to open the container, even if you ask them to. There are travel-friendly containers available made of plastic or wood that work with the X-ray machine, but you have to know that in advance. Since Wilson is the tenth most common last name in the United States and James is number 17 on the first-names list, what would a living Jim Wilson think of his name being used this way? There's a Jim Wilson whose LinkedIn profile lists him as a creative director at American Airlines though with zero connections and no other online presence, we could chalk that one up as perhaps an Internet joke. Maybe there's a reason similarly named colleagues at American choose to go by James rather than Jim. So let's chat with a real Jim Wilson, this one a musician from Athens, Georgia, who says he's a bit weirded out by the whole thing. Wilson notes that his creep factor's low, but that "it's not personal," he says. "It's a very common name." He did note that the name John Doe serves its purpose, and the supposed Jim Wilsons aboard any flight aren't anonymous. After weighing all the implications, the living Jim Wilson adds, "If my name is being used for the greater good to ship loved ones, I can only be honored." For a little levity at the end of this otherwise dead-serious topic, let's look to the sky: Now That's Cool You can avoid flying human remains altogether by shipping them via the United States Postal Service, no code name required. You just need an inner container, an outer container, a lot of padding, and to clearly mark the contents on the outside of the box. If you have a problem with a stock brokerage firm, either as an investor or a financial professional, call Sallah Astarita & Cox, LLC Let's find out if our attorneys, who are former SEC Enforcement attorneys and broker-dealer counsel, can help you. Two Romanian hackers are convicted of infecting 400,000 computers in the U.S. with malicious code and stole millions of dollars from the victims. Bogdan Nicolescu and Radu Miclaus are convicted of infecting 400,000 computers, most of them in the U.S.. The malware was developed to steal credentials, financial data, personal information, then the crooks offered them on the dark web marketplaces. The crooks used malicious emails purporting to be legitimate from such entities as Western Union, Norton AntiVirus and the IRS to spread the malware. The spam messages used an attached file that once executed installed onto their computer. The defendants used stolen email credentials to copy a victims email contacts. They also activated files that forced infected computers to register email accounts with AOL. continues the DoJ. The defendants registered more than 100,000 email accounts using this method. They then sent malicious emails from these addresses to the compromised contact lists. Through this method, they sent tens of millions of malicious emails. When victims with infected computers visited websites such as Facebook, PayPal, eBay or others, the defendants would intercept the request and redirect the computer to a nearly identical website they had created. The defendants would then steal account credentials. The two men also advertised fraud using email accounts created using the stolen credentials on behalf of the victims, mined cryptocurrency and stole money and cryptocurrency through credit card fraud. The duo has been convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit service marks, aggravated identity theft, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and 12 counts each of wire fraud. A federal jury today convicted two Bucharest, Romania, residents of 21 counts related to their scheme to infect victim computers with malware in order to steal credit card and other information to sell on dark market websites, mine cryptocurrency and engage in online auction fraud, announced Assistant Attorney General Brian reads the press release published by the DoJ. According to testimony at trial and court documents, Nicolescu, Miclaus, and a co-conspirator who pleaded guilty, collectively operated a criminal conspiracy from Bucharest, Romania. According to the authorities, the Romanian duo, along with a third co-conspirator who has pled guilty, operated their criminal conspiracy from Bucharest since 2007. Sentencing is scheduled for August 24 before Chief Judge Patricia A. Gaughan in the Northern District of Ohio. Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs Romanian Duo, cybercrime) Share this... Linkedin Share this: Twitter Print LinkedIn Facebook More Tumblr Pocket Share On Locked Shields 2019 France wins, the worlds biggest and most advanced international cyber drills organized by NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Center of Excellence (CCDCOE). The international live-fire cyber defence exercise Locked Shields 2019 (LS19) took place on April 8-12 in Tallinn, Estonia, and the figures behind this important competition are important. Locked Shields 2019 is organised by NATO CCDCOE in cooperation with the Estonian Defence Forces, the Finnish Defence Forces, the United States European Command, National Security Research Institute of the Republic of Korea and TalTech. Many industry partners also supported the cyber drill, including Siemens AG, Elisa, Cybernetica, Cisco, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, Arctic Security, Bittium, Clarified Security, Iptron, Bytelife, STM, BHC Laboratory, Bolt and many others. More than a thousand experts from Cyber Defense from 30 different countries participated in the cyber drill. This year the exercise evolved around 4000 virtualised systems that had to take more than 2500 attacks. In addition to maintaining more than 150 complex IT systems per team, the Blue Teams had to be efficient in reporting incidents, executing strategic decisions and solving forensic, legal and media challenges. said Lauri Luht, Head of Cyber Exercises at NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE). Protection of critical infrastructure is essential to ensure the efficient operation of both military and civilian organisations, it is the foundation of our modern digital lifestyle, Like in the past edition, the Locked Shields 2019 exercise sees a fictional island nation named Berylia, which is holding national elections, targeted by massive and coordinated cyber attacks. The participants have to defend the infrastructure from the cyber attacks to the drills act as national cyber rapid reaction teams that help Berylia handle the incident. The Blue Teams were tasked to preserve the operations of more than 150 complex IT systems per team, reporting incidents, executing strategic decisions and solving forensic, legal and media challenges. The cyberattacks cause severe disruptions in multiple areas, including the electric power grid, water purification systems, and 4G public safety networks. The team from France won the cyber defence exercise Locked Shields 2019 Czech and Swedish team take second and third place respectively. The winning team excelled in availability, usability and providing services for the customer, Luht added. This year, the cyber defence exercise highlighted the growing need to enhance dialogue and cooperation between technical experts, civil and military participants and decision-making levels. The exercise addressed first and foremost the protection of critical infrastructure from even more sophisticated reflecting real-world cyber threats, While the aim of the tech game is to maintain the operation of various systems under intense pressure, the strategic part addresses the capability to understand national coordination mechanisms, law enforcement options and strategic communication, CCDCOE explained. Pierluigi Paganini ( SecurityAffairs Locked Shields 2019, hacking) Share this... Linkedin Share this: Twitter Print LinkedIn Facebook More Tumblr Pocket Share On Sim Wong Hoo, founder and CEO of Creative Technology. (PHOTO: Joseph Nair for Yahoo News Singapore) SINGAPORE He was Singapores very own tech superstar in the 1990s but was overtaken by his rivals. Today, Creative Technology founder Sim Wong Hoo is once again making a big splash in sound technology, thanks to his latest product. With the global launch of its headphone tech Super X-Fi (SXFI) early this year, Creative which set the standard for consumer audio in the 1990s with its Sound Blaster cards is riding high on a new wave of interest and numerous accolades. Twenty years in the making and backed by US$100 million in investment, SFXI, which can make headphone audio sound as good if not better than a multi-speaker surround systems, has been touted as a game changer for Creative. Sim, however, is far more bullish on the products prospects. The SXFI is more than game-changing, it is life-changing, the 63-year-old Singaporean told Yahoo Finance Singapore in a recent interview. To me, this is 100 times, 1,000 times more exciting than the Sound Blaster. The entrepreneurs early success story may be familiar to many Singaporeans. Armed with a loan from his brother, Sim and his schoolmate Ng Kai Wa started Creative as a computer shop in Pearl Centre in Singapores Chinatown in 1981. More than a decade later, the companys Sound Blaster cards were being used in more than 400 million personal computers. However, with the introduction of Apples iPod in 2001, coupled with increased competition, the company fell on hard times. In 2006, Creative sued Apple for patents infringement and Apple countersued. The case was eventually settled out of court, with Apple paying Creative US$100 million. As Apple went on to take 80 per cent of the music players market and Creatives new product lines failed to click with consumers, Sim stayed away from the public eye. Creative Technologys Super X-Fi AMP (left) and Bluetooth headphones. (PHOTO: Joseph Nair for Yahoo News Singapore) Praise has poured in for SFXI. The prototype of the headphone holography technology was unveiled in January 2018 and won the AVS Forum Best of CES 2018 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Story continues In September last year, the company launched the first commercial product SXFI AMP, an amplifier packed in a dongle that connects to earphones and headphones for realistic and high-quality audio. This was followed in January by the CES 2019 launch of SXFI Air wireless headphones, which was a resounding success as the SFXI range bagged more than 10 awards. Creative Technologys Super X-Fi app. (PHOTO: Joseph Nair for Yahoo News Singapore) SXFIs tech works in tandem with a mobile app that lets users take a picture of their ears and face and customises a sound profile using artificial intelligence. It then maps that onto a database of existing earphones in the market for a personalised listening experience. Sim said the experience is akin to the black and white TV era being over taken by the advent of colour. It was something so magical no one believed it was possible, he asserted. The SXFI AMP headphone amplifier retails at US$150 and comes with free Aurvana SE headphones, while the SXFI Air wireless bluetooth headphones is sold for US$160. Locally, they can be bought online, at Popular and Challenger stores. App users and more Sim declined to say how many units have been sold so far, or how many they are hoping to sell. But he does hope to get 50 million app users in two years, including free users. The key is to get as many users as you can, and I am waiting to turn on the nuclear option give the app free, Sim said. He expects to release the free app before June. Users can use the app to listen only to local content stored on their smartphones, as it doesnt work on streaming services on Spotify or YouTube. Ultimately, we want them [consumers] to buy our products, he said. The company is also in talks with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) like smartphone and headphone makers, as well as music app operators for the SXFI technology to be incorporated into their products, Sim said. He declined to identify the companies, other than saying they are blown away by the technology and that talks will take time. Also in the pipeline the SXFI TV box whereby up to four users can plug in their individual sound profiles using their respective wireless SXFI Theater headphones. The products are market-ready but not for sale yet, Sim said, as he doesnt want to introduce too many products too soon as it would distract customers. Still, Sim doesnt expect SXFI products to make any significant financial impact on the company which reported a net loss of US$4.9 million for the three months ended 31 December last year until 2020. While it may seem that Creative has a new lease on life with the Super X-Fi, Sim is wary about moving too quickly. There is a famous saying by Deng Xiaoping which means crossing the river by feeling the stones and we are doing just that, he said. I am feeling the stones and crossing the river. I dont want to just jump in the deep-end of the river and drown. Am I being too cautious? Maybe, but having learnt the painful lessons, I have learnt it is better to be cautious. Related stories: Creative CEO Sim Wong Hoo spotted helping customers at IT fair, lauded by netizens Sim Wong Hoo pays tribute to Steve Jobs in ad SINGAPORE (Apr 15): UOB KayHian says any potential disposal of properties by Fu Yu Corp to further streamline its operations could unlock the hidden value and reduce operational costs. Furthermore, the hidden value of Fu Yus assets, on top of its cheap valuation, diversified operations and low utilisation rate, make the manufacturer of precision plastic components and moulds an attractive takeover target. Maintain buy and target price of 28.5 cents, says analyst John Cheong in a Monday report. In its 2018 annual report, Fu Yu revealed that the fair value of its leasehold properties amounted to $65.7 million, with carrying amount of $15.6 million. This $50 million discrepancy indicates Fu Yus book value is undervalued by 7 cents/share or 33% of its market cap, says Cheong. To uncover the up-to-date value of Fu Yus properties, UOB pegged the value of its land to the latest transaction price. As a result, we derived a value of $62.5 million, slightly below the fair value estimated by Fu Yu in its 2018 annual report that amounted to $65.7 million, says Cheong. Cheong notes that Fu Yus most valuable properties are located in Singapore, followed by Malaysia and China. In addition, all nine of Fu Yus properties -- including an investment property in Malaysia -- are being recognised on its balance sheet at cost less accumulated depreciation. Cheong says the recent takeover offer of PCI -- the electronic components manufacturer -- at attractive premium could lead to re-rating. On Jan 4, PCI announced it had received a takeover offer from Platinum at $1.33 per share, a premium of 60.1% over the volume weighted average price of the shares for the 12-month period up to Sept 17 2018. The valuation metrics of 5.5x TTM EV/EBITDA based on the offer price is 83% higher than Fu Yus 3.0x 2019F EV/EBITDA, says Cheong. For 2019, Fu Yu also offers a dividend yield of 8.5% while net cash forms 53% of its market cap. As at 4.11pm, Fu Yu shares were trading at 20 cents. The sun sets behind an oil pump outside Saint-Fiacre, near Paris, France March 28, 2019. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann/File Photo By Devika Krishna Kumar NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices halted their rally on Monday, with both benchmarks down nearly 1 percent, after Russia's finance minister said Russia and OPEC may decide to boost production to fight for market share with the United States, where output remains at record highs. Losses were limited by a tightening of global supplies, as output has fallen in Iran and Venezuela amid signs the United States will further toughen sanctions on those two OPEC producers, and on the threat that renewed fighting could wipe out crude production in Libya. Brent crude futures ended the session at $71.18 a barrel, down 37 cents, or 0.5 percent, having earlier slid below $71. Brent hit its highest since Nov. 12 on Friday at $71.87. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 49 cents, or 0.8 percent, to settle at $63.40 per barrel. Oil prices have been lifted by more than 30 percent this year, mainly due to a deal by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies including Russia, known as OPEC+, to curb by 1.2 million barrels per day from Jan. 1 for six months. The group will meet in June to decide whether to continue withholding supply. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said over the weekend that Russia and OPEC may decide to boost production to fight for market share with the United States, but this would push oil as low as $40 per barrel. "There is a dilemma. What should we do with OPEC: should we lose the market, which is being occupied by the Americans, or quit the deal?" Siluanov, speaking in Washington, said, TASS reported. "(If the deal is abandoned) the oil prices will go down, then the new investments will shrink, American output will be lower, because the production cost for shale oil is higher than for traditional output." While the minister said he did not know whether OPEC countries would be happy with this scenario, the group's de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, is considered keen to keep cutting, but sources within OPEC said it could raise output from July if disruptions continue elsewhere. Story continues "Todays trade provided further evidence of a bull market beginning to show some wear and tear but also a market that doesn't appear to have achieved an interim price top," Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch and Associates, said in a note. "Although talk of potential Russian production increase appeared to weigh on values today, the Saudis remain adamant in spearheading a sharp OPEC output cut that has thus far remained undeterred by Brent values above the $70 mark." Oil prices have faced pressure from a surge in U.S. crude output, which is at a weekly record of 12.2 million bpd, thanks to a shale revolution. U.S. crude oil output from seven major shale formations is expected to rise by about 80,000 bpd in May to a record 8.46 million bpd, the government said. The U.S. drilling rig count, an indicator of future production, last week rose for a second week in a row. "I would expect oil to trade in a relatively tight band around $70 for the time being," said Virendra Chauhan, oil analyst at Energy Aspects in Singapore, pointing to differing signs from the United States and OPEC on future supply. (Additional reporting by Aaron Sheldrick in Tokyo and Dmitry Zhdannikov in London; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Kirsten Donovan) US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ended his tour of South America on Sunday with a brief visit to the Colombian border city of Cucuta, crossed through by thousands of Venezuelans fleeing crisis under President Nicolas Maduro. After attending a Sunday service in the Peruvian capital Lima, the chief US diplomat set off for the final leg of his tour of South America, which began Friday in Chile. In Cucuta, where he met with refugees alongside Colombian President Ivan Duque, Pompeo called upon Maduro to open the border to allow humanitarian aid to enter -- and step down. "Open these bridges, open these borders, you can end this today," he said. "I hope that you will care enough when you see the horror, when you see the tragedy, to change your ways and to leave your country." Branded illegitimate by over 50 countries, who instead recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido, Maduro closed four frontier bridges connecting Venezuela and Cucuta on February 22. That came after National Assembly leader Guaido declared himself interim president on January 23, kickstarting a power struggle with Maduro -- of which the entry of humanitarian aid has been a defining issue. Pompeo promised that the US would continue to use all political and economic means to help Venezuelans. All four countries featured on his itinerary -- Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Colombia -- are led by right-wing or center-right leaders favorable to Washington's uncompromising approach to Maduro. On Saturday, Pompeo paid tribute to Peru's welcome for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan refugees. But he became irritated when a reporter asked if that contradicted US President Donald Trump's harsh immigration policy at home. "Peru has felt first-hand the effects of the disastrous Nicolas Maduro and the pain that he has brought to the Venezuelan people," he said, following talks with President Martin Vizcarra and Foreign Minister Nestor Popolizio. He added that Peru had shown "enormous leadership in responding to this challenge." Over three million Venezuelans, around 10 percent of the population, now live outside the crisis-hit country, ravaged by shortages of food and medicine and repeated power outages. The United Nations predicts that number will hit 5.3 million by the end of 2019. Peru has received the most Venezuelans after Colombia: 750,000, according to Popolizio, testing the capacity of the country's public services. Another objective of Pompeo's whirlwind tour was to blunt trade rival China's growing reach in Latin America. In Chile, whose biggest trading partner is Beijing, he warned of links between Chinese trade and "their desire to steal intellectual property, to have forced technology transfer, to engage in activity that is not economic." Nearly 100 academics worldwide have expressed concern over Singapore's proposed law against "fake news", warning it could threaten academic freedom and hurt the city-state's ambition to become a global education hub. The government this month unveiled a bill containing tough measures, including powers for ministers to order sites like Facebook, Google and Twitter to put warnings next to posts authorities deem false, and extreme cases, to take them down. If an action is deemed malicious and damaging to Singapore's interests, companies could be hit with fines of up to Sg$1 million ($740,000), while individuals could face jail terms of up to 10 years. Authorities in the tightly-controlled country insist the measures are necessary to prevent online falsehoods sowing social divisions, but the move has sparked anger from press freedom groups and tech giants such as Facebook and Google. Now ninety-seven academics from around the world with expertise in Singapore and Asia have signed a letter warning the proposed legislation "may deter scholarship and set precedents harmful to global academia". "We are concerned that the proposed legislation will have unintended detrimental consequences for scholars and research in Singapore," said the group, who included academics from Harvard and Yale, as well as institutions in Britain, Australia, and parts of Asia. The letter, released at the weekend, also warned the law could compromise "Singapore's notable efforts to develop itself into an internationally-recognised hub for excellence in higher education". Singapore is home to several leading higher education institutes, which attract academics from around the world. The group, called Academics Against Disinformation, also said they wrote to the education ministry to express their concerns. The ministry was cited in local media as saying the draft law does not restrict opinion and will not affect academic research work, but the academics said they could not accept the response as a guarantee. Singapore is among several countries seeking to legislate against fake news, and the bill is expected to pass easily through parliament, which is dominated by the long-ruling People's Action Party. The Canadian government said Sunday it suspended financial aid to Nicaragua last year in response to human rights violations -- a decision not publicly disclosed until now. A foreign ministry spokeswoman, Britanny Fletcher, confirmed the cut-off after the CBC, citing a secret memorandum, reported the aid was halted at the end of August, 2018. It came amid a crackdown on anti-government protests, but was kept quiet to give President Daniel Ortega room to reverse course without seeming to be yielding to outside pressure, according to the CBC. "Our government is concerned by the deteriorating human rights situation and economic downturn in Nicaragua. In light of these concerns, we made the decision to suspend direct financial assistance to the Nicaraguan government last summer," Fletcher said. "President Ortegas repressive actions against his people are unacceptable. We continue to consider all diplomatic and policy options at our disposal in order to support the Nicaraguan people." She said Canada still provides support for NGOs and international organizations with projects in Nicaragua "with a focus on help for the most vulnerable." Canada was one of five top donors of bilateral aid to Nicaragua, providing some $20 million in aid a year over all, according to the memorandum cited by the CBC. The President of Chad, Idriss Deby Itno, on Saturday received a message from King Mohammed VI dealing with the promotion of bilateral relations. The message also dealt with the revitalization of the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD) as Chad was hosting and extraordinary session of the conference of heads of state and government of this community. The royal message was handed over to President Idriss Deby by Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita. In a message addressed to the extraordinary summit of the CEN-SAD King Mohammed VI has called on the member countries of the Community to enhance further their economic complementarities, inclusive co-development and joint actions against security challenges to speed up regional and continental integration. The King urged this regional bloc to foster the efficiency of its executive bodies, set up strategies dedicated to human development and to the fight against terrorism and to adopt a common border policy. (PHOTO: SCDF) SINGAPORE More than 20 residents were evacuated, with four conveyed to hospital, following a fire along the corridor of a Tampines flat on Monday morning (15 April), said the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) in a Facebook post. The SCDF said that it was alerted at about 9.15am to a fire at Block 492E Tampines Street 45, involving household items stacked along the corridor on the 11th floor. Prior to its arrival, three Community First Responders had attempted to extinguish the fire using a hose reel. The fire was later extinguished by the SCDF with a water jet. Several occupants from units near the fire were evacuated several by the SCDF, while about 20 residents from the 9th to 12th floors were evacuated by the police, said the SCDF. A man and a boy were conveyed to Singapore General Hospital (SGH) and KK Womens and Childrens Hospital for smoke inhalation. Two Community First Responders were also conveyed to SGH for the same reason, added SCDF. The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Obstructing common areas can hamper firefighting efforts, evacuation and conveyance of patients during a medical emergency, said SCDF. To report such hazards, call the Fire Hazard Reporting hotline at 1800 280 0000 or use the Fire Safety Feedback module on the myResponder mobile app. Other Singapore stories: World No. 1s take different paths to clinch their 2nd Singapore Badminton Open titles Raw appeal of grassroots boxing at The Ring Fighting Championship Fiji survives big scare to advance at HSBC Singapore Rugby Sevens A view of clouds, part of a weather system seen from near Franklin, Texas, U.S., in this still image from social media video dated April 13, 2019. TWITTER @DOC_SANGER/via REUTERS (Reuters) - Severe thunderstorms blasted the U.S. East Coast with gusts of wind up to 50 miles per hour on Monday morning, knocking out power in thousands of homes and putting several states on flood watch, the National Weather Service said. More than 54,000 homes and businesses were without power in Pennsylvania, according to the tracking site PowerOutage.US, with 139,000 more outages reported across New York, Rhode Island, Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland and New Jersey. The National Weather Service forecast heavy rains and flash flooding would exist for the Northeast later on Monday. "This is an ongoing threat," said Brian Hurley, from the center. "There are short spin-ups, pockets of heavy rain and damaging winds that can still hit before this pushes off shore." The storm system picked up strength in the U.S. South over the weekend, where it spurred tornadoes that killed at least five people, including three children, officials said. The massive storm system sped from Texas eastward with dozens of twisters reported as touching down across the South from Texas through Georgia into Pennsylvania. The storm's cold front brought snow to Chicago on Sunday, with 1 to 3 inches (2.5-7.6 cm) reported in central Illinois. Two children, siblings aged three and eight, were killed on Saturday when a tree fell on the car in which they were sitting in Pollok, Texas, a spokeswoman for the Angelina County Sheriff's Department said. A third child, Sebastian Omar Martinez, 13, drowned late on Saturday when he fell into a drainage ditch filled with flash floodwaters near Monroe, Louisiana, Deputy Glenn Springfield of the Ouachita Parish Sheriff's Office said. In another storm death nearby, an unidentified victim's body was trapped in a vehicle submerged in floodwaters in Calhoun, Louisiana, Springfield said. In Mississippi, Governor Phil Bryant said one person was killed and 11 injured over the weekend as tornadoes ripped through 17 counties and left 26,000 homes and businesses without electricity. In addition, three people were killed when a private jet crashed in Mississippi on Saturday, although Bryant said it was unclear whether it was caused by the weather. (Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta, and Barbara Goldberg, Peter Szekely and Gabriella Borter in New York; Editing by Alison Williams and Susan Thomas) Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar meets with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at the Presidential Palace in Cairo, Egypt April 14, 2019 in this handout picture courtesy of the Egyptian Presidency. The Egyptian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS By Aidan Lewis CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday met in Cairo with Khalifa Haftar, the commander of eastern-based Libyan forces, who is under international pressure to halt an advance on the capital Tripoli. Egypt has close ties with Haftar, whose Libyan National Army (LNA) controls the east and swept through the mainly desert south earlier this year before moving to Tripoli ten days ago in a major escalation of conflict. His move is the latest in a cycle of conflict and anarchy since the 2011 toppling of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Haftar has projected himself as the scourge of Islamist militants and of the militias that grew powerful after the uprising. His rivals say he has fuelled conflict and risks returning Libya to authoritarian rule. Egypt and the United Arab Emirates publicly support U.N.-led peace efforts in Libya, while being seen as Haftar's closest regional allies. Sisi, a former army chief, has led a far-reaching crackdown on Islamists with Egypt and has blamed Libya-based militants for some cross-border attacks. A statement from Sisi's office did not mention Haftar's offensive directly but "confirmed Egypt's support for efforts to combat terrorism and extremist groups and militias in order to achieve security and stability for the Libyan citizen". The presidency released photos showing Haftar, dressed in a blue suit, sitting with Sisi and his head of intelligence Abbas Kamel. Haftar, a former general in Gaddafi's army who later turned against him, had long talked of a move on Tripoli, in Libya's west, where an internationally-recognised government sits. His campaign has disrupted efforts by the United Nations to bring rival eastern and western administrations to the negotiating table to plan an election and end the turmoil. Sunday was the day the United Nations had hoped to hold a national conference in the southwestern town of Ghadames. Story continues "Our position will not change," U.N. envoy Ghassan Salame tweeted. "You've learned and tasted war. No matter how obstinate one becomes, there is no solution except a political one." SURPRISE PUSH FOR TRIPOLI As well as thwarting the U.N. plan, the flare-up threatens to disrupt oil supplies, boost migration to Europe, let Islamist militants exploit the chaos, and worsen Libyans' suffering. The fighting has killed 121 people, mainly fighters, and wounded another 561, according to U.N. tallies. Some 13,600 people have fled their homes. Fighting in recent days has been taking place on the outskirts of Tripoli as LNA forces have been bogged down by groups aligned with the Government of National Accord (GNA). The front lines were mostly calm on Sunday morning but military sources said in the afternoon that an eastern Libyan warplane crashed in southern Tripoli. No further details were available. The 75-year-old Haftar's push for Tripoli took many by surprise and has brought calls from round the world for a ceasefire. By moving forces west, his eastern home base is exposed and it may be hard for Haftar to retreat without losing standing among friends and foes alike. While some pro-Haftar media had predicted a quick victory, Tripoli government forces have halted him about 11 km (7 miles) from the centre near an airport that was largely destroyed in a previous bout of fighting five years ago. His lightning drive appears to have united diverse factions in western Libya in the defence of Tripoli. (Additional reporting by Mohamed Wali in Cairo and Ahmed Elumami in Tripoli; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Janet Lawrence and Raissa Kasolowsky) Pete Buttigieg, the gay, liberal mayor of a small American city in the conservative bastion of Indiana, officially launched his presidential bid Sunday, joining a crowded field of Democrats vying for their party's nomination in 2020. The 37-year-old Rhodes scholar and Afghanistan war veteran is the two-term mayor of his hometown of South Bend -- a left-leaning bubble in America's so-called "Rust Belt" region, where the decline of industries such as steel and automobile manufacturing has hurt local economies. Voters in states such as Michigan and Wisconsin helped hand Republican US President Donald Trump his victory in the 2016 election. Buttigieg, who is credited with helping turn South Bend around, has couched himself as a can-do reformer who can speak to voters across the political spectrum. The message has helped catapult him from relative obscurity to becoming one of the leading Democrats in the crowded presidential race. "My name is Pete Buttigieg. They call me 'Mayor Pete.' I'm a proud son of South Bend, Indiana, and I am running for president of the United States!" he told a jubilant crowd of supporters at a former assembly plant turned high-tech hub in South Bend. "That's why I am here, to tell a different story than 'Make America Great Again'" he added, referring to Trump's campaign slogan. "This time it's not just about winning an election. It's about winning an era." The official launch -- in which Buttigieg touched upon a number of liberal talking points such as racial justice, voting rights and health care reform, as well as his faith and marriage to Chasten Buttigieg -- is expected to give his surprisingly strong campaign an additional boost. Campaign staffers said they have been caught by surprise by the speed with which the mayor has generated nationwide political support, and are still staffing up the campaign. Buttigieg had no speech writer to help him prepare his remarks. - 'New generation' - So many people showed up for the launch event that a large crowd was left outside in the rain to watch on a large video screen. Buttigieg braved the elements and thanked the crowd moments before making his official announcement indoors. "He represents a new generation of Democratic leadership. We love his vision," said Jenn Watts, 35, while her three-year-old daughter sat on her shoulders. They were in the cavernous event space in the former plant of defunct automaker Studebaker waiting more than two hours to see Buttigieg speak. "As a young mom with a young daughter, he represents what I want my daughter to see in leadership in this country," Watts added. In the three months since he declared an exploratory committee to test a presidential run, Buttigieg has raised $7 million, more than most other candidates, and jumped to third place in the latest polls of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire -- the earliest states to vote in next year's primary elections. The popular mayor who speaks eight languages and plays classical piano has been the focus of countless news stories and profiles. The fascination has been in no small part due to his background: he would be the youngest, first openly gay, first millennial and first mayor to become president. But Buttigieg must still overcome the perception that his youth and thin resume as mayor of a town of just 100,000 leaves him lacking the experience necessary for the presidency. "I recognize the audacity of doing this as a Midwestern millennial mayor," Buttigieg said. "But the moment we live in compels us to act." Drew Corbin, a 24-year-old college student clutching four campaign T-shirts he had purchased for friends and wearing a campaign cap, said he still had not fully committed to the candidate. "There's a lot of candidates. I don't want to make up my mind so soon, almost a year before the primaries," Corbin said. "But he's definitely my favorite right now." - 'Destined for national politics' - Buttigieg's launch at Studebaker called to mind the plant's closure in 1963 that was still reverberating in the city in 2011 when he was elected mayor. He set out to tear down decaying, abandoned homes and restore the blighted Studebaker complex to make it suitable for new high-tech companies. In an unlikely feat, the city has reversed decades of population decline and attracted new businesses and development, with the mayor's popularity growing in the process. "His appeal, for many people in South Bend, is his ability to look forward and to focus on better days ahead," South Bend-based political science professor Elizabeth Bennion of Indiana University told AFP. "Once people looked at his resume and heard him speak, many started talking about the fact that he was destined for national politics." FILE PHOTO: Bahrain Financial Harbour (L) and Bahrain World Trade Center are are seen in diplomatic area in Manama, Bahrain, February 28, 2018. Picture taken February 28, 2018. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed/File Photo By Aziz El Yaakoubi DUBAI (Reuters) - A delegation from Israel that was due to attend a conference in Bahrain this week has pulled out due to security concerns, the organisers said on Sunday, after Bahrainis held an extensive campaign against the visit. A spokeswoman for Israel's Economy Minister Eli Cohen said his planned visit to Bahrain this week had been "delayed because of political issues". Another Israeli cabinet minister said this referred to coalition talks after Israel's election last week. Israel and the Gulf Arab countries are in the midst of a diplomatic push aimed at forging an alliance against their common enemy Iran. Their efforts have become increasingly public after years of mostly covert contact due to strong opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. The group of around 30 Israeli business executives and government officials was scheduled to participate in a congress organised by the U.S.- based Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) in Bahrain on April 15-18. This prompted an outcry in Bahrain, with parliament joining calls on social media for the visit to be cancelled and some minor street protests held in Manama. "While we advised the Israeli delegation they would be welcome, they decided this morning not to come due to security concerns and a wish not to cause disruption for the other 180 nations participating," Jonathan Ortmans, GEN president, said in a statement. A source close to the matter told Reuters that three Israeli speakers had cancelled because they were unable to obtain visas while the rest of the delegation had "decided not to go." The Bahraini government said the delegation had been invited at the sole initiative of the Global Entrepreneurship Network. "Our responsibility is to ensure a safe and supportive environment for the attending delegations," the government said in a statement. However, acting Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who also holds the intelligence portfolio, denied that the cancellation of Cohen's trip was due to security concerns. Story continues "The head of the delegation is busy with political matters right now," Katz told Israel's Reshet 13 TV, referring to talks on a new coalition government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who won reelection in the April 9 ballot. "Cohen had to choose between travelling to Bahrain - a very important trip - and exploiting the election gains." Last week a group of Bahraini lawyers tried unsuccessfully to get a court to stop immigration authorities from issuing visas to the delegation, while parliament condemned the visit. "Bahrain's parliament announces that the people of Bahrain rejects any Israeli presence on its territory and its lands and any decision allowing this presence is unacceptable," lawmakers said in a statement. Israel has formal diplomatic relations with only two Arab states, neighbouring Egypt and Jordan. But an Israeli cabinet minister visited Abu Dhabi's Grand Mosque last year and fellow Gulf state Oman hosted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a surprise trip, the first time an Israeli leader had visited the Sultanate in 22 years. (Reporting By Aziz El Yaakoubi; Additional reporting by Tova Cohen in Tel Aviv and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky) Fighting near Tripoli has killed 121 people since strongman Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive earlier this month to take the Libyan capital, the World Health Organization said Sunday. In clashes between Haftar's forces and those of the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), both sides have proclaimed "advances" but neither appears to have made substantial progress on the ground in recent days. With more than 560 people wounded since the fighting started on April 4, the WHO said it was sending more medical supplies and staff to Tripoli. On its Twitter feed, the agency denounced "repeated attacks on health care workers" and vehicles during the fighting. The UN's humanitarian coordination office, OCHA, said Saturday that three medical personnel had been killed and that shrapnel had put five ambulances out of action. The mounting violence has sparked global alarm over the oil-rich country, in turmoil since NATO-backed forces overthrew former dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011. A bewildering array of militias have sought to take control since his ouster. Haftar's offensive began shortly before a conference set for this month to discuss Libya's future -- an event the UN cancelled as his forces closed in on the capital. Haftar, who leads the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), has pushed from his power base in the country's east towards the Libyan capital in the west, the seat of the UN-backed unity government led by Fayez al-Sarraj. The unity government said its forces had shot down an LNA fighter jet on Sunday "that was preparing to conduct air raids" south of Tripoli. An LNA source said the plane had come down in an area under its control and that the pilot, who had ejected, was "safe and sound". That came as the strongman met in Cairo with key backer Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, who pledged support for "efforts to fight terrorism and extremist militias to achieve security and stability... throughout the country", Sisi's office said. Haftar also has the support of key Gulf Arab states and Russia. - 'Great advances' - With gunfire echoing through city blocks and tanks rumbling through towns and districts south of Tripoli, many panicked residents have fled their homes. More than 13,500 people have been displaced and over 900 are now living in shelters, OCHA said. Both sides have launched daily air raids and accuse each other of targeting civilians. One air strike the GNA blamed on Haftar's forces hit a school in Ain Zara, south of Tripoli, which has been the scene of violent clashes for days. On Sunday, the UN mission in Libya warned that international humanitarian law "prohibits the bombing of schools, hospitals, ambulances and civilian areas". The mission warned that it would document all breaches in order to inform the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court. The LNA meanwhile accused the Tripoli-based forces of an air raid "targeting civilians" in the Gasr Ben Ghachir region south of Tripoli. GNA spokesman Mohamed Gnounou said his forces had carried out 21 air strikes targeting LNA positions and supply lines between Friday and Saturday. - Terrorists and criminals? - Gnounou late on Saturday claimed "great advances on all fronts", including in Al-Aziziya, a city about 50 kilometres south of Tripoli. "We have not started this war," he said, "but we will decide the time and place of its end." On the LNA's side meanwhile, spokesman Ahmad al-Mesmari said the attacking forces were also "moving forward on all fronts". He reiterated his claim that "terrorists" and "criminals" were fighting on the side of the UN-backed GNA forces. "The decision is no longer in Sarraj's hands," he said. "It is in the hands of terrorists now." The European Union also expressed its "concern" on Thursday at the involvement of "terrorist and criminal elements" in the fighting. Sarraj on Saturday denounced the "misinformation campaign by some parties that our forces include fighters belonging to terrorist organisations and groups". In a statement, he "strongly denied" the claim and insisted that it was the LNA attack on the capital that was "paving the way the way for dormant terrorist cells" to attack Libyans. The Metro Pacific Tollways Corporation (MPTC) is expecting a 10-percent surge in traffic for the Holy Week exodus. For one, North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) President and General Manager Luigi Bautista said that they are expecting around 300,000 vehicles daily to ply their tollways for the Lenten season. During normal days, Bautista said that the NLEX receives 250,000 motorists. But in Holy Wednesday last year, they recorded as much as around 330,000 volume. We are ready to accommodate that 15-percent surge, Bautista told CARMUDI PHILIPPINES. Meanwhile, Cavitex, on the other hand, is a different story. On normal days, traffic reaches 150,000-160,000 a day. But on a Holy Wednesday, it peaks to 175,000, the goes down at the rest of the week. To mitigate the effects of the traffic surge, MPTC launched the expanded Safe Trip Mo, Sagot Ko (SMSK) program. Now on its 10th year, the SMSK will activate 700 tellers and patrol officers to boost the traffic management and toll collection services. During peak hours, toll collection points will increase by 50 percent, with the volume expected to bottleneck in Balintawak, Mindanao Avenue, Bocaue, Tarlac, San Miguel, and Tipo toll plazas. On April 15-22, the traffic management teams will adopt longer working hours in anticipation of the high volume of motorists plying NLEX. Cavitex will do a similar move. MPTC and its partners will set up SMSK motorists camps and provide free calls, WiFi, drinking water, basic mechanic services and first aid treatment in designated locations. The SMSK will also provide free towing services to the nearest exit for Class 1 vehicles on the said dates from 6 AM to 6 PM. Those who can monitor the traffic via Facebook may do so as the real-time situation can be viewed the NLEX Corporation Facebook page. Further, all roadworks in the NLEX, SCTEX, and Cavitex will be suspended beginning April 12 up to the 22nd. The Customer Service Hot Line (3-5000) and Customer Service Centers will be available to serve motorists except on April 19 and 21. Story continues Meanwhile, MPTC Chief Communication Officer Junji Quimbo said that with current projects such as the NLEX Harbor Link currently underway, travel time would be lessened. Those who are Manila-bound may use the Harbor Link Road, Caloocan-bound may use Balintawak Exit, and those going to the east may utilize the Mindanao Avenue Exit, he told CARMUDI Philippines in a separate interview. In short, traffic will be diverted efficiently. The post MPTC Bares Plan for Holy Week Traffic appeared first on Carmudi Philippines. The last days of Jacob Zuma in power and his meeting with King Mohammed VI were perceived as light at the end of the tunnel of relations between two of Africas economic heavyweights, but the persistence of the ANC- led administration in Pretoria puts Morocco and South Africa in a new face-off in which the latter is losing. After the happy-ending of the Cherry Blossom cargo that was unlawfully detained in South Africa and handed to its original owner, Moroccos phosphates producer OCP, South African authorities had to swallow another crushing defeat last month in their myopic support for Algeria and its plots to create a phony state in Moroccos Sahara. When South Africa was holding a meeting of southern African states to voice support for the separatist polisario militias, the bulk of Africa was attending a meeting in Marrakech to back Moroccos efforts to settle the regional conflict under the banner of the UN. The ill will harbored by the ruling ANC party since the death of Nelson Mandela- who was backed by Morocco during apartheid- is an anomaly, notes African paper the Sunday Times. Citing Moroccos foreign minister Nasser Bourita, the paper explained how Rabat outperformed Pretoria through soft power in the realms of migration and south-South cooperation at a time when anti-African migrants rhetoric and practices have made the headlines in South Africa. Touching on the Marrakech conference where two-thirds of African states expressed attachment to the AU position regarding the primacy of the UN process, Bourita deplored that Pretoria prejudged the outcome of the UN-led negotiations for a mutually acceptable political solution. South Africa decided to take sides on an issue in a region hundreds of kilometers away, a position that runs against that of the UN and the African Union, explained the Moroccan foreign minister. The conference held in Pretoria last month was against the UN process, he said, deploring that Pretoria is unable to play the role of a mediator which requires distance from parties to the conflict. The conference in Pretoria is an attempt at dividing Africa, Bourita said, recalling that the AU has decided last July not to interfere with UN efforts to settle the conflict through ongoing negotiations between the parties, Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the Polisairo militias. Venezuelans and other Latin Americans are filing a surge in requests for asylum in European countries, which are more accustomed to dealing with migrants from the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa, figures showed Monday. After citizens from Syria, those from Venezuela were the second-largest group among the 57,000 people who asked for asylum in February in the EU, Switzerland and Norway, according to official figures. Venezuelans fleeing their crisis-hit country filed more asylum applications than Afghans, Iraqis and Nigerians, the next-biggest groups, the European Asylum Support Office said in a statement. "The fact that Venezuelans lodged more applications than Afghans represents a noticeable development," EASO said. "Venezuelan nationals had never lodged such a high number of applications in a single month ever before." There were 3,995 Venezuelans who applied in February, up 51 percent from January and nearly triple the figure a year ago, EASO added. In February, Venezuela saw a worsening of a political, economic and humanitarian crisis resulting from the contested re-election of President Nicola Maduro. EASO said Syrians, who have been fleeing the eight-year civil war, lodged some 5,393 applications, slightly fewer than in January. Afghan applications decreased to December 2018 levels, even if the number was up 31 percent from a year ago. EASO said 1,937 Colombians, 731 Salvadorans, 616 Nicaraguans and 592 Hondurans filed for asylum in February. There were also 351 requests from citizens of Haiti, 323 from Peru, 112 from Cuba and 73 from Guatemala. Most, it said, are seeking to live in Spain. EAS0 said the Colombian applications also amounted to a record high, up 47 percent from January and more than triple the number from a year earlier. Colombia now ranks tenth in the nationalities seeking asylum in Europe. The number of Nicaraguan applicants also increased sharply, from just nine in February 2018, to 616 in February this year. In 2015, the European Union faced its worst migration crisis since World War II, with more than one million people entering the bloc from Syria and other countries in the Middle East and Africa. The EU has sharply cut the migration flow through cooperation with Turkey and Libya, which have been staging areas for migrants crossing the Mediterranean. Bet you thought the oldest luxury hotel east of the Suez Canal would be in China, Japan or India? Think again! It is, in fact, in the country that has been voted the No. 1 Travel Destination in the World for 2019 by none other than Lonely Planet. Let me break it to you that we are talking about the Galle Face Hotel in Sri Lanka. The Galle Face Hotel Sri Lanka, which opened in 1864, sprawls magisterially beside the Galle Face Green in Colombo, lulled by the murmur of the surf and cooled by the eternal sea breezes. Galle Face Hotel Sri Lanka: The Oldest Luxury Hotel East of Suez Canal Heritage Suites This hotel started as a Dutch villa was converted to a full-time hotel in 1894 and oozes history from every pore, where every nook and cranny has a story, and timeless traditions and characters abound. Experience the charm of a hotel where Arthur C. Clarke wrote his final odyssey, 3001, where guests have included the likes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Noel Coward and Mark Twain, from a cavalcade of royalty to heads of state, from Che Guevara to Richard Nixon, Vivian Leigh to Roger Moore, and from the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin Sri Lankas own Stephen Hawking, the mathematician, astronomer and astrobiologist Chandra Wickramasinghe. The Empress Suite in the hotel has a history of itself. Wife of Napolean III, Emperor of France, and Empress Eugenie are some of the names that have stayed in this luxurious suite in the early 1900s. The suite comprising of three stately bedrooms, living area, multiple washrooms, a sitting room and a balcony that sits atop the principle hotel driveway looking over the Iconic Galle Face Green. Galle Face Hotel Sri Lanka: The Oldest Luxury Hotel East of Suez Canal The Story of the Restaurants, Bars and the Pub The tale of food and the tradition at the Verandah is more than a century and a half old. This open restaurant is where the breakfast, lunch and dinner buffet is served. The spread consists of western delights with their scones being the best in Colombo to dishes that speak of Ceylonese heritage including but not limited to Sri Lankan Curry and Rice. If going for something from old Ceylon, do not forget to try the Ambarella Chutney. Story continues In complete contrast, 1864 is the restaurant which boasts of an innovative modern menu and comes coupled with its own wine cellar. It has some of the rarest to fanciest collections that you will find. The most historic landmark within the hotel and arguably in the whole of Colombo - The Chequerboard is an open area right outside the verandah. If you are looking for a drink anytime during the day or if you are waiting for Pimms O'clock in the evening this is the place to be. There is the Pool bar, the Travellers bar and there is the King of the Mambo and the drinks menu is inspired by Cuba. Santeria, Black Mambo, El Guajiro and El Chumbero are some of the popular cocktails here. Galle Face Hotel Sri Lanka: The Oldest Luxury Hotel East of Suez Canal Flag Lowering Ceremony at Sunset Every evening there is a Flag lowering ceremony at one of the prettiest sunsets of a lifetime. This ceremony is synonymous with the brand and takes place near to the renowned Chequerboard. Hotels resident piper shows dignified respect to the Sri Lankan flag as it is ceremoniously lowered at sunset every evening. L'occitane Spa The Galle Face hotel is also the home to the only Loccitane spa in the country. The spa is spread across a sizeable portion in the new wing of the hotel. And if you are staying in one of the junior suites of the premier rooms, you would also enjoy a discount on the pricing. So if you are planning a visit to Sri Lanka, reserve a day to pamper yourself. Galle Face Hotel Sri Lanka: The Oldest Luxury Hotel East of Suez Canal The Gym, the Historian and the Tours The hotel also offers an open bus sightseeing experience of Colombo and a fleet of Mercedes cars to help you travel within the city or to and fro from the International Airport on request. More recently they have launched the Galle Face Expeditions, which is a tour of the very best that Sri Lanka has to offer, going all the way to Kandy and Nuwara Eliya. If you are a history buff, do not miss the regular in-house tour with the resident historian and a visit to the beautiful museum. The swimming pool that sees over the expanse of the Indian Ocean or the 24-hour gym is to cater to the fitness lovers. Tequila fans looking to truly get to know the spirit can spend their nights sleeping in giant tequila barrels at the Matices Hotel de Barricas, which is located in the town of Tequila, Mexico. The hotel claims to be the worlds first to be located within a tequila factory, inviting those who stay to explore the production of tequila (with plenty of samples) at the La Cofradia distillery. %image1 Guests can choose from 30 different barrel rooms that offer either king- or queen-sized beds. Each of the barrel rooms are named after a type of tequila thats made at the distillery and include murals representing the brand theyre named after. Tequila-themed touches can be seen throughout, from barrel-shaped trash cans and key-rings to tables made to look like half of a tequila barrel. Even some of the bathrooms in common areas (each room includes its own bathroom) are shaped like aging barrels and covered in colorful artwork. Guests will be greeted with a tequila welcome drink at check-in, while a mini-bar is also stocked with six varieties of tequila produced in the distillery. ULISES RUIZ/Getty Images Barrel rooms also come with rain showers, Wi-Fi, large windows, and a porch area perfect for enjoying views of the areas agave fields and mountains. The hotel also offers four rooms that aren't barrel-shaped. The on-site restaurant sits roughly 15 feet underground, and guests can access it through the distillerys aging tavern. Story continues The restaurant pays homage to the environment, with concrete walls made of agave fiber and lamps made to resemble the shape agave plants take after theyve been processed and cooked. The space offers regional dishes from the five states in Mexico that are allowed by law to label their beverages as tequila. These include Jalisco (where the town of Tequila is located), Michoacan, Nayarit, Guanajuato, and Tamaulipas, with dishes that range from succulent shrimp with agave sauce to hearty steak and agave pudding. The underground area is also where guests will find a bar that serves famed drinks from the area, like the cantarito a combination of lime juice, orange juice, grapefruit soda, tequila, and a pinch of salt. While staying at the hotel, guests can also sample some of the distillerys extra-aged tequila selections, triple-distilled products, and flavored tequila liquors that range from mango to tamarind. The distillery bottles its tequila in ceramic bottles, which guests can customize on-site to take home. The distillerys tequila selections and other liquors can also be purchased as souvenirs. Besides touring the distillery itself, guests can also take bike tours into town, go horseback riding into the agave fields, and enjoy specialized lessons on how to ferment, distill, or create tequila. An on-site museum allows visitors to delve even deeper into tequilas history, while bookings also include complimentary breakfast, tequila tasting, and transportation into downtown Tequila until midnight. Its also pet friendly, so you and your pets can enjoy the dramatic sunsets over agave fields together. Rates vary, but can often be found at under $200 a night. From school stress, relationships issues to family problems and bullying, there has been a rise in the number of stressed-out children and youth in Singapore, according to experts. Increasingly, these children are turning towards 24-hour hotlines and email befriending services for supportand we are looking at children as young as five years old. Stress when not handled adequately and properly can lead to anxiety, depression or suicidal behaviour. Mental Illness Child Warning Signs In 2016, Samaritans of Singapore (SOS), a suicide prevention agency, received about 1,900 calls from those aged five to 19 in 2016an increase of 70 per cent compared to 2012, as told to Channel NewsAsia. Mental illness is extremely real and its more than just being stressed. This increasingly worrying trend in Singapore sees 1 in 6 people in Singapore suffering from some form of it, with depression, alcohol abuse and OCD (obsessive compulsive disorders) the most common, according to SingHealth HealthXchange. However, like other illnesses, mental illness also have cures and patients can recover and bounce back. Knowing what constitutes mental illness and accepting that it is something that needs to be addressed together as a community is the first step. theAsianparent spoke to Dr Julian Hong, a doctor of DTAP Clinic Group and the alternate director of Resilience Collective. Dr Hong shares his insights on mental illnesses; he identifies common warning signs of mental illnesses in children that parents can look out for, and why a parents role is important on empowerment and recovery. The 5 Different Categories of Mental Illnesses Firstly, it is important to understand that mental illnesses affect ones mood, thinking and behaviour. There are 5 categories of mental illnesses: Mood disorders (Depression, Bipolar) Anxiety disorders (OCD, Generalised Anxiety) Eating Disorders Dementia (Alzheimers) Psychotic Disorders (Schizophrenia) Common Mental Illness Child Warning Signs Story continues 1 in 10 children worldwide experience mental health concerns, however less than 33% of them seek help. For children under 15 years old in Singapore, common mental illnesses include: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) Anxiety Depression A 2010 study in Singapore found that mental illnesses accounted for the largest group of DALYs (33%), for children under the age of 15. *One Disability adjusted life years (DALYs) is a term used to calculate disease burden and is also known as the loss of 1 year of healthy life. As for young people in the age group of 15 to 34 years old , common mental illnesses observed include: Anxiety Depression Schizophrenia Mental Illness Child Warning Signs Do you know mental illness child warning signs? | Image: File photo Mental Illness Child Warning Signs And Risks: What Parents Should Take Note As caregivers to their children, mums and dads play an important role. Their daily interactions with their child allows them to sense when something is not right (i.e. parental instinct). Here are the major conditions and some of the early symptoms of mental illnesses in children: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) There is a tendency for the warning signs of ASD to occur in the first 2 years of a childs life and often affects the social development of children. The warning signs may be present a little, or a lot. They affect the childs interaction and communication with the world around them which includes: Minimal eye contact Little to no smiling Playing with other people or share enjoyment Making noises to get your attention *This is a non exhaustive list of symptoms. At 18 months when your child undergoes routine vaccinations, your doctor would take the opportunity to assess your childs development. And in the process, any concerns of ASD would also be identified. However, if you suspect that your child has a developmental concern, it is advised to seek medical attention early. Attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) There are 3 main components of ADHD: inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity. A child may have one or all of these components of ADHD and they include behaviours such as: Being overly fidgety and squirmy Impulsivity to interrupt others Being unable to wait for their turn Difficulties in controlling their emotions (which often results in huge tantrums and mood swings) Other signs of inattention starts to surface when the child is made to perform a taskusually at school. He/she tends to daydream, is unable to focus and eventually does not complete the task. Sometimes teachers notice these behaviours and reports them to parents. Again if you suspect any degree of ADHD, or face difficulties in parenting your child, please seek early medical attention with a child psychologist, paediatrician or your family doctor. Anxiety When a child is having an anxiety attack, they say my stomach hurts. (Image: File photo) Anxiety in children can present itself as phobias or excessive extreme fears, to anything that can range from loud noises, animals, water to visiting certain places like schools and hospitals. The child responds to these stimuli through crying, throwing tantrums, clinging, avoidance and sometimes even psychosomatic symptoms such as stomach pains or headaches. There are many good tips out there to handle your childs anxiety that the Child Mind Institute suggests. You can adopt these practical steps in your day to day interactions with your child to support him/her through his/her anxieties. However, if these anxieties start to feel out of control, seeking medical help early can alleviate this parental child stress and better equip you to better handle your childs fears and anxieties. Depression Depression is more than the occasional feeling of sadness experienced by a child but something that is persistent (present consistently more than 2 weeks) and affects the daily activity and functioning of the child. Your child may experience all or a combination of these symptoms: Changes in appetite or sleep (excessive or too little) Feelings of sadness Hopelessness Suicidal thoughts Not enjoying activities that child used to enjoy Difficulty in concentrating Lethargy and tiredness Irritability and edginess. The concern behind depression is the deliberate self harm and suicidal ideation which is an important area that needs to be addressed. (more on that below) Schizophrenia Childhood Schizophrenia is the same as adult Schizophrenia which requires lifelong treatment. While it may be difficult to notice the signs and symptoms, they include developmental delays when compared to a childs peers. General signs and symptoms include: Poor self care bathing, dressing Problems performing in school Shows excessive delusions and suspicions of others around Difficulty controlling emotions (too much or lack of) Strange behaviour, ideas or speech Spotting these signs and symptoms though, does not mean that your child has Schizophrenia. It could be pointed towards other mental health issues. And you are advised to seek medical care early for your child. Why Depression Matters And How Parents Should Deal With A Suicidal Child Mental Illness Child Warning Signs Depression is indeed a major concern because if left untreated, it can transition into adulthood. According to SOS, suicide is the leading cause of death for Singapores millennials aged 10 to 29. In 2017, there were 2.5 times more suicide deaths as compared to road traffic accident deaths. And in that same year, 361 precious lives were lost to suicide alone. A 2018 study done in Singapore showed that deliberate self harm occurred in 23% or nearly 1 in 4 adolescents who sought psychiatric help at a local hospital. The risk factors that were associated with this deliberate self harm included the female gender with 5 times more likely, concomitant depressive disorders at 2.5 times more likely and alcohol use at 3.5 times. Parents, children and screen time: Recently there has been a revolting practice called the Momo challenge, where suicide instructions were embedded in innocent childrens videos on Youtube, as reported on CNN. Planting thoughts of self harm into an innocent childs mind is repulsive and it is extremely important for you to take note of your childs screen time and even curate what he or she watches on the internet. There is no substitute for sitting down with your child and watching the programmes with him or her and using those moments to parent the right values across. Trust your parental instincts Unless a youth is aware that he or she has a mental health condition, most of the time concerned parents would bring him/her to see a doctor or counsellor, which begins the process. It is important to trust your parental instincts and in your daily interactions with your child, if you sense that something is amiss especially with some of these warning signs. Every suicidal thought must be taken seriously. You will find the relevant hotlines at the end of the article. Warning Signs (adapted from SOS Singapore): Talk and Speech My family will be better off without me My life is meaningless anyway If you dont love me, Ill kill myself Actions Giving away treasured possessions and saying goodbye Researching suicide methods Writing suicide notes (including emails/diaries/blogs) Mood Emotional outbursts m(anger, sadness, irritability, recklessness) Loss of interest Anxiousness or feelings of shame Parental support is important. Stay with your loved one and listen attentively to let them know that you are very concerned. Let him/her person speak about his/her suicidal thoughts, it does not increase their risk of committing suicide. How can parents and children with mental illnesses be empowered to bounce back? Educate It is important to know the signs of mental health issues in your children. Learn to ask for help where you can. When in doubt, do your online searches, ask questions, ask the experts and find out everything you need to know. Empower This leads you on to the next step of being equipped and empowered once you feel confident on caring for your child. Work with your trusted medical team and your family members and know that you are not alone. Encourage Receive encouragement from those who have gone through the same journey and are going through the same journey of being a caregiver to someone with mental health issues. Exchange tips on best practices. Prevention Is The Best Cure: Where to seek help? For concerns of depression and suicide: For immediate help: Call 999 or the Samaritans of Singapore (SOS) at 1800-221-4444 (Both operates 24/7). Stay on the phone with them until someone comes to you. Alternatively, head down to the Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department of the nearest hospital to have someone attend to you. For non-urgent cases: IMH has a community health assessment team (CHAT) for mental health assessment at Scape Hub Orchard. Make an online appointment here: https://www.chat.mentalhealth.sg/get-help/make-chat-referral/ For concerns of substance and alcohol dependence National addiction management service: https://www.nams.sg/ or call them at 67326837 Getting help as caregiver of a child with mental health concerns You can reach out to Caregivers Alliance, a charity for caregivers by caregivers to support them through this journey of caregiving to a loved one with mental health challenges. Check out https://www.cal.org.sg. All responses are contributed by Dr Julian Hong, a doctor of DTAP Clinic Group and the alternate director of Resilience Collective. Source: CNA, MOH Healthhub, SingHealth HealthXchange The post Mental health issues in kids are worrying. Here are the warning signs appeared first on theAsianparent-Your Guide to Pregnancy, Baby & Raising Kids. Images: Not Here documentary by EmancipAsia Mary is a foreign domestic worker, whose employers abused her by pouring bleach on her hands and slamming her head against the wall. Eventually, Mary couldnt take the abuse any longer, and jumped out of her employers flat window to escape. Abdul is a construction worker, who suffered an accident while on site. Three days after the accident, Abduls boss threatened him to admit the accident happened in the office storeroom instead, compelling him to sign a piece of papersupposedly an agreement of some sort to ensure his silence. Iriana is a trafficked sex worker. She only realised what the work she was in Singapore to do was when she witnessed a friend try to communicate with a man on the streets. In her words, she never expected to find herself in a situation where she had to do this lowest form of work. Mary, Abdul, and Iriana are the faces of modern-day slavery in Singapore. The gripping stories of these three foreign workers are highlighted in EmancipAsias 26-minute documentary, Not Here, that premiered over the weekend at The Projector. The documentary pries apart the carefully constructed veneer of our cosmopolitan city, and looks at the unseen workforce who keep our economy successful. It brings to light the exploitation of foreign workers in Singapore, how our goods and services could be tainted with this enslavement, and what we can do to help on an individual level. After Mary, Abdul, and Iriana each recount their stories, Not Here dissects how each experience is an example of human trafficking based on a simple equation: act + means + purpose. Following the screening, the panel raised a sobering point: exploited foreign workers are likely to receive official help only if their abuse is extraordinarily atrocious. Otherwise, preventing a domestic helper from leaving their employers home, taking a day off, or eating good food are common instances that probably wouldnt raise any alarm bells. Story continues Even though this excessive restriction of personal freedom might be considered inhumane to some, normalising abuse begins when we imply that abuse has to look a certain way for us to care. This negates any sense of inherent cruelty in each action. At times, the documentary and subsequent discussion present dramatic and devastating real-life recounts aimed to shock the audience into action. This includes a recount from a port chaplain, Father Romeo Yu Chang, about trafficked seafarers and fishermen: Some of them say that because of depression, some cannot tolerate it anymore. They just jump into the sea and take their own life. The result is having to confront the uncomfortable realisation that human trafficking isnt an issue that solely plagues third-world countries. It is ours too. Our foreign workforce makes up a staggering one-fifth of Singapores total population, making this an issue that we cannot choose to ignore. According to statistics from the Ministry of Manpower, there were 1,386,000 reported foreign workers in Singapore as of December 2018. This includes 253,800 who held a work permit to be a foreign domestic worker (FDWs) and 280,500 who held a work permit for construction work. In other words, Singapores economy is built on the (literal) backs of foreign labour. In search of a better life for themselves and their families, they raise our children, clean our streets, build our homes, and feed our families. Yet we continue to treat our migrant workforce as objects or property because many of us dont care to understand their lived realities, or consider them equal human beings. We reduce them to stereotypes or caricatures to sort them into categories in our minds, especially those we believe should serve us, and end up stripping them of any sense of humanity. The antidote to objectification is empathy. This starts with mindset change, according to Member of Parliament Louis Ng, who was one of the panellists. Contrary to what cynics believe, a change in mindset isnt superficial or inconsequential. Its a realistic and necessary guiding principle for improving the lives of our migrant workforce, and should work concurrently with policy and legislation. For example, Louis puts up posters of cleaners in his estate that highlight their life stories, including their family and children back in their home country. They too are fathers, sons, brothers, uncles; they too worry about providing for their family; they too deserve respect. In the grand scheme of things, this might be a small action, but each poster humanises the featured cleaner, returning to them a voice thats robbed every time someone belittles them. On an individual level, none of us should be absolved of playing our part even if we dont personally interact with foreign workers. For starters, Ghislaine Nadaud, a panellist who works as a sustainability expert in a bank, reminds us that we all have bank accounts, and therefore should hold our banks accountable to what they do with our money. We can start by enquiring if and how our banks finance companies and industries with environmental risks, and reading our banks environment and social governance reports. At work, those of us who regularly procure vendors should do our due diligence to ensure we dont inadvertently enable companies with unethical work practices. Good employment practices right down to the supply chain should be our most important criteria in assessing whether companies deserve the job. But no matter how good legislation and policies may be, many foreign workers face a web of complex issues, from hefty agent fees to manipulation and coercion from employers. These reinforce their fear that they could be deported anytime. Even if utterly necessary, speaking up and seeking help might not be in their best interests. So perhaps the most direct way we can make a difference would be to speak up for foreign workers publicly, interject if we know someone is being abused, and simply treat them as our equal. While watching the documentary, a memory that constantly came to mind was the time I witnessed a middle-aged man telling off a construction worker, whose construction work had taken up space on a narrow road and hindered traffic flow. The middle-aged man, who was presumably Singaporean (from his accent), hurled vulgarities relentlessly at the construction worker. All this while, the construction worker was completely quiet, without any hint of retaliation; his entire body was steeped in shame. I registered a familiar expression on his face: a pitiful reminder that he would always remain an other in a country he was building. In hindsight, this much is clear to me: the construction worker might not have been trafficked nor exploited by his employer, but he was verbally abused by a member of the public. And this middle-aged mans extreme behaviour was merely a manifestation of a common mindset shared by many others: construction workers fundamentally matter less as human beings. Not a single onlooker stepped in to stop the middle-aged mans tirade. They simply looked away, seemingly repelled by both the foreign workers shame and their own inability and unwillingness to break free from the bystander effect. On my part, I tell myself I didnt speak up either because I was in a rush to get to my destination. But to this day, keeping silent remains one of my regrets. While abuse of power or vulnerability, among other factors, might create an environment ripe for exploitation, there is no denying that our individual mindsets affect our treatment of foreign workers, the policies and legislation we advocate for, and the way we silence their stories. Modern-day slavery happens right under our noses. It is everyday life that can be the most damagingand many of us could be complicit. I am complicit. Have something to say about this story? Write to community@ricemedia.co. The post In Singapore, Modern Slavery Happens Every Day. And We are All Responsible. appeared first on RICE. PRESENTED BY Listen up, folks. We know how to spot a good event to imbibe cocktails when we see one on our drink-o-meter. And youd be glad to know its coming right up this weekend in fact, its starting from Wednesday, April 17 to Sunday, April 21. And we have a pleasant surprise (hint: freebies!) in store when you finish reading this. The people behind Scotlands praised single malt scotch Auchentoshan (pronounced Ok-ken-to-shan, but dont worry if your Scottish accent isnt on point, neither is ours) are bringing their A-game to the neo-classic landmark on Victoria Street, Chijmes. Auchentoshan promises a different drinking experience from your typical bars with this lawn party. First of all, you get to make your own single malt cocktails (we trust your bartender skills will be on point). For a mere SG$10, you can DIY your cocktail by following easy, tutorial-like steps to create 4 signature variations: Chai Me To The Moon, Lowland Spring (well explain why lowland is key in a minute), Tokyo Shoga, and Glasgow Sour. Otherwise, if you just want to grab a drink, sit back, and enjoy Aprils evening vibes, Auchentoshans bartender will serve up your cocktail request for SG$12 consider it a small sum to spend for not making a mess in front of your date. If the name Auchentoshan rings a bell, you already have a head start to a good time, but for those hearing it for the first (certainly not the last) time, its a fine-grade single malt whisky from Glasgow the lower half of Scotland, aka the lowlands. (Get it?) Triple-distillation gives this dark amber liquid citrus, nutty, and spicy flavor notes with a delicious hint of vanilla. The smoothness comes from its authentic approach to achieve maturation. If that sounds impressive, wait till you sip it. If we still have your attention, youre in luck were legit giving away 10 lawn party feasts and were not holding back, folks. We repeat, this is not a drill! Each winner is getting 4 glasses of DIY Auchentoshan cocktails, a yummy platter to pair with your drinks, and 2 Auchentoshan minis to enjoy back home. Dont forget the first rule of a party (in case you need reminding) is to bring your pals along for the ride the more, the merrier. And BYOB doesnt apply here, folks. Story continues How to win? The rules are simple, just email us at info@coconuts.co with the subject line Auchentoshan giveaway and the answer to this question: How many times is Auchentoshan distilled? Dont forget to tell us your full name, IC number, and mobile phone number, too. If you have other plans, this is definitely the time to change em up. Save the dates for Auchentoshans lawn party at Chijmes April 17-21, 2019 (6pm to 10:30pm daily, and 2pm to 7pm on April 21). Stay tuned to the Facebook event page here and tag your moments with #auchentoshan. This article, Singapore weekenders, dont miss this single malt cocktail party on the lawn of neighborhood-fave Chijmes, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company. Want more Coconuts? Sign up for our newsletters! Photo credit: Getty Images From Esquire In 1823, a workman laboring on the roof of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, which had stood untouched above the alleged tomb of St. Paul for over 1,400 years, started a fire that destroyed the basilica almost entirely. Over the next 17 years, contributions from the likes of the Viceroy of Egypt and the Russian Tsar enabled the church to rebuild the place. I suspect that's what next when the ashes finally cool on Ile de la Cite and they go about the business of rebuilding Notre-Dame de Paris. After all, it's already happened once; the cathedral was ransacked and vandalized during the French Revolution, but, thanks to Victor Hugo's novel about the hunchbacked bellringer, a restoration project was launched that took 25 years. It was, of course, a made for television catastrophe. A building almost 900 years old, burning in the Parisian twilight, a spire tumbling to the ground like a flaming spear into the heart of something timeless. Great video. If there only had been cable news when the Colossus of Rhodes came down, or when the Alexandrian Lighthouse tumbled into the sea. And, of course, because this is 2019 and America is out of its mind, the president* provided the comic relief, bellowing into the electric Twitter machine like the guy who clears out the end of a Manhattan saloon. So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly! - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019 When they finally took a moment to respond, the city officials in Paris explained that following the president*'s suggestion probably would cause the entire structure to collapse. (Not content for the president* to be the biggest uniformed blowhard from NYC on the subject, the Cardinal Archbishop Dolan of New York went on Fox News to call the Notre-Dame fire "suspicious," scaring Neil Cavuto half to death.) Story continues It was as much a museum as a place of worship. There was much talk on Monday about how the crown of thorns also may have been destroyed in the fire, especially among credulous anchorfolk who would believe anything. The alleged crown of thorns in question showed up in France in 1238 when the king of Jerusalem gave it to Louis IX. (It previously had been held as collateral for a loan from bankers in Venice.) There is no reason for anyone to believe this is the actual crown of thorns, of course, but apparently it was saved along with a number of other valuable artifacts, so good for all involved. Photo credit: GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT - Getty Images The cathedral, of course, was a monumental work of art that contained, and was festooned with, other monumental works of art. It was central to French history, good and bad. Heretics were burned in front of it. The Third Crusade was proclaimed there, as was the Festival of Reason. Henry VI of England was crowned king also of France within it, and so was Napoleon. It also hosted the marriage of Henry III of England to Margaret of Valois. This interfaith wedding-Henry was a Protestant-was the precursor to the massacre of the Huguenots on St. Bartholomew's Day in 1572. It survived Robespierre and Adolph Hitler. Now, it may have fallen to the same kind of industrial accident that brought down the basilica in Rome almost 300 years ago. History burns as well as wood does. In 2018, the National Museum of Brazil burned and 200 years of assembled history was lost, including the 11,000-year old skull of an early human. Earlier this month, in Tennessee, the Highlander Center, one of the intellectual seedbeds of the long struggle for African-American civil rights was lost to what probably was arson. These places are not as famous, nor as picturesque, as Notre-Dame, but with intellect and vaulting human achievement under attack in so many places these days, all of them leave a lot of the best of what we are in ashes, falling from an evening sky. Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here. ('You Might Also Like',) Khalifa Haftar, commander of the self-style Libyan National Army (LNA) Sunday received his first open international endorsement for his offensive on Tripoli as he met Egypts President Fattah al-Sisi who launched his weight behind the so-called war on terror. The president affirmed Egypts support in efforts to fight terrorism and extremist militias to achieve security and stability for Libyan citizens throughout the country, Sisis office said following the meeting. Haftar launched on April 4 an offensive on the Libyan capital representing the seat of the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), in view of flashing out, he claimed, terror groups reportedly linked to Muslim Brotherhood. The offensive has met tough push-back from forces loyal to the GNA on the outskirts of Tripoli. The GNA forces reportedly Saturday brought down an aircraft belonging to the LNA in a sign of full flesh fighting. The fighting according to UN World Health Organization has caused at least the death of 121 people, with nearly 600 people injured. The military showdown has also displaced 13,000 according to the UN agency. Some of those fleeing the clashes crossed the border into Tunisia. Al-Sisis endorsement will embolden Haftar who is facing international call to halt his ambition. The UN who has been forced to delay a national reconciliation forum it planned for April 14-16 ruled out any military solution to the Libyan political crisis. The US and several world powers called on Haftar to suspend the military march on Tripoli. The North African country has been without a central government since the removal and death of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, in a NATO-backed revolution. The GNA, established in December 2015 under the Skhirat accord, has been struggling to impose its authority as it faces rivalry from Haftar-backed administration based in the east. Managing Director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, has hailed the performance of the Moroccan economy and reaffirmed the support of the International Monetary Fund to the efforts made by the country to speed up reforms to promote a stronger and inclusive growth. The remarks were made at a meeting held in Washington with Moroccan economy minister Mohamed Benchaaboun on the sidelines of the 2019 Spring Meetings of the World Bank and IMF, convened April 12-.14. During their talks, Benchaaboun and Christine Lagarde welcomed the progress made in preparation for the 2021 IMF and WB Annual Meetings due in Marrakech to bring together central bankers, ministers, private sector executives, civil society and academics. The Moroccan minister reiterated the North African Kingdoms commitment to ensure the success of this important event. This meeting was an opportunity for Benchaaboun to underline Moroccos pledge to continue reforms, as part of the debate on the new development model, in order to promote jobs creation, strengthen human capital and bolster the private sector. The agenda of the IMF-WB Annual Meetings of Marrakech features debates on issues of global concern, including the world economic outlook, global financial stability, poverty eradication, inclusive economic growth and job creation, climate change, and others. The last time the WB-IMF annual meetings were held in Africa was in 1973, in Nairobi, Kenya. The Annual Meetings are usually held for two consecutive years in Washington, and every third year in another member country. Last fall, I visited Amsterdam for the first time. As anyone whos visited the capital of the Netherlands can tell you, its (maddeningly) always raining, or about to rain there. And sure enough, on my first day there, it was pouring. I was ready to spend the afternoon happily eating Gouda in bed, but my guide Joe insisted we go out, and handed me an umbrella as he led the way with cheery Dutch efficiency. When I got outside, and I opened the umbrella, I didnt quite know what to do. Instead of the expected dome shape, this one was weirdly angled, with one shorter side and one longer one connected at a 135-degree angle it looked like an upside-down check mark. Advertisement Wait, how am I supposed to use this? I asked Joe. Oh, you havent seen one of these before? he asked, without waiting for my reply. The shorter end is the front, and the longer part is the tail. You basically keep your head underneath the part where the canopy angles. As we circled our way from Anne Franks house to Dam Square to the Rijksmuseum, I gave perfunctory nods; what I really wanted to know about was the umbrella. Why does it look like this? Why am I not getting wet? Do I get to keep it? The Senz, Joe explained, was created by a Dutch industrial designer who wanted to make an umbrella that was storm- and windproof. Unlike that of ordinary umbrellas, the shape is virtually impossible to blow inside out. Theyve gotten really popular with the Dutch, he said, and, indeed, I noticed that nearly two-thirds of the umbrellas people carried on the street were shaped like mine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When I got home and found the companys website, I discovered the Dutch designer was named Gerwin Hoogendoorn and that the umbrella works so well because it mimics the aerodynamic shape of a stealth bomber. Someone smarter than I am can explain it, but I do know that its never turned inside out like my Duane Reade Apt. 5 umbrella has, or that Core Club umbrella I inherited from a boss that came apart on my way to a work party, or that far-too-expensive Brooks Brothers one that was impossible to close. Because of the Senzs funky canopy, theres less fabric to wrap up, too, so the umbrella travels surprisingly well. Note: Theres also a smaller Smart version available on Amazon for $40. Plus, other New Yorkers favorite umbrellas: The Happy Umbrella Advertisement I like how small and compact this umbrella is, which means of course that its ultra portable. And if you know Marimekko, youre already familiar with their super-peppy Finnish designs. Its like the turned-up version of Ikea. When youre holding a bright and bold pattern like this flower (one of their signatures), how can you help feeling anything but happy even on the grayest rainy day? Patrick Mele, Designer The Gentelmans Umbrella Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Theres something incredibly solid about the quality of the London Undercover City Gent umbrella it has a malacca wood handle (which is used to make the finest canes), a beech-wood shaft, gunmetal spokes, and a bronze ferrule. Im absurdly partial to the color orange so I like that version, but I understand that most people would go for the black. Its pricey but worth it. Christopher Mason, Writer Advertisement Advertisement Note: This has sold outmore to come soon, but here is a similar version. The Money-Is-No-Object Umbrella Advertisement I like Talarico solid stick umbrellas because theyre basically walking sticks with an umbrella frame built onto them. I love how seamlessly theyre built. They have the handle and shaft as one piece, which is why its called a solid stick. Its really just a delight to handle, and the canopy locks in with a satisfying thunk too. Personally, I like hickory for the wood the most because it just feels the most luxurious. Mark Cho, Owner of The Armoury Note: The blonde hickory version is unavailable, but another version with dark chestnut wood is. Slate has relationships with various online retailers. If you buy something through our links, Slate may earn an affiliate commission. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change. All prices were up to date at the time of publication. On Friday, Donald Trump posted the following on Twitter: WE WILL NEVER FORGET! pic.twitter.com/VxrGFRFeJM Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 12, 2019 Advertisement The video splices together footage from Sept. 11, 2001, and a clip of a March speech Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar gave to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)a clip edited to suggest that Omar had flippantly described 9/11 as something perpetrated by some people rather than as an attack on the United States perpetrated by terrorists. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trumps tweet about Omar might be the worst tweet ever. Lets review everything thats wrong with it. 1. Its dishonest. It takes almost no research to understand that Omars wording, in the context of a speech that was actually about upholding American ideals, was meant only to distinguish the small group of (non-American) Muslim extremists who perpetrated the attack from the much larger group of (American) Muslims whom she believes were subjected to unwarranted scrutiny and harassment in its wake. What Omar said, emphases mine, was that [CAIR] recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties. Advertisement Advertisement 2. Its racist. Trump has a history of blaming every Muslim in America for the actions of any individual Muslim. His tweet fits in this tradition by suggesting that Omar is on Team Terror and that the rest of us arent going to forget it. Its a method of assigning group responsibility that hes never applied to white Americans after the many acts of mass violence carried out in the U.S. by white people. Racist! 3. It arguably incites violence. A week before Trumps tweet, a Trump supporter in New York was arrested for threatening to murder Omar, who is one of the first female Muslim American members of Congress. A number of prominent Democrats have suggested that Trumps propagandistic, revenge-themed video constitutes an incitement to target Omar; at best, the video and tweet are reckless and cavalier about her safety. Advertisement Advertisement 4. Its hypocritical, opportunistic, etc. On 9/11, Trump crassly (and incorrectly) claimed in a radio interview that now that the World Trade Center towers were no longer standing, he owned the tallest building in lower Manhattan. He would later claim (incorrectly) that the state of New York sent him money to reimburse him for Ground Zero cleanup/recovery work that he claims (with no supporting evidence) his company helped with. His administration is now attempting to give secret nuclear power technology to Saudi Arabia, the country whose governmentper a congressional investigationmay have helped provide support and assistance to a number of 9/11 hijackers. In sum, respecting 9/11 victims and holding their perpetrators accountable only seems to be important to Trump when it can be exploited to bully someone he doesnt like. Not cool! Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement 5. Its in all caps. All caps makes everything 50 percent dumber. Its a crowded field, but I think you could make an argument that, given the reach of Trumps account and the stakes involvedhim being, you know, presidentthe Omar tweet was objectively the worst one ever sent. Or at least you could have made that case until Monday afternoon, when Trump used Twitter to send firefighting tips to the nation of France. Advertisement Advertisement So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019 It turns out that this suggestion could have caused the total collapse of the entire structure. Truly, we may not live in the worst moment in history, but we certainly live in the one that most resembles being trapped inside a TV that an angry, racist crank is shouting at 24 hours a day. Rep. Ilhan Omar, the freshman lawmaker who has been under attack by President Trump based on a speech she made last month about Islamophobia in the wake of Sept. 11, said in a statement Sunday night that she has faced a number of death threats after Trump tweeted a video vilifying her. Since the Presidents tweet Friday evening, I have experienced an increase in direct threats on my lifemany directly referencing or replying to the Presidents video, she said in the statement. I thank the Capitol Police, the FBI, the House Sergeant at Arms, and the Speaker of the House for their attention to these threats. Advertisement The video Trump tweeted cited a speech Omar made to the Council on American Islamic Relations on March 23. For far too long, we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, Im tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it, Omar said in the speech. CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On April 9, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (who at one point was an administrator for a Facebook group that called Islam a cancer) tweeted out a clip of her comments condemning her description of the terror attacks as some people who did something. The next day, Fox & Friends played that line from the speech, and host Brian Kilmeade wondered aloud if shes an American first. The day after that, the New York Post published a photo from the attacks on its cover, causing a coalition of Yemeni-American bodega owners to announce a boycott of the Post, accusing the tabloid of taking Omars words out of context in an effort to provoke hatred and fear. Advertisement Advertisement And on Friday, Trump tweeted out the offensive video, which spliced images of the burning Twin Towers with Omars comments. We will never forget! Trump wrote in the tweet. Many Democrats immediately responded with outrage and accused the president of attempting to foment hate and bigotry among his supporters through attacks on the first congresswoman to wear a hijab in office. Others pointed out the irony of the attacks from a president not known for his empathetic behavior in response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks: Trump himself went on a radio show on the day of the attacks and bragged that he now had the tallest building in downtown Manhattan. He also continued to use the tragedy to support Islamophobic conspiracy theories. During his campaign, he falsely claimed he saw thousands and thousands of Muslims in Jersey City cheering and celebrating as the World Trade Center collapsed in the attacka lie he stood by repeatedly. Advertisement Advertisement On Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she had spoken with officers in charge of security on Capitol Hill to ensure Omars safety. They will continue to monitor and address the threats she faces, Pelosi said in a statement. She also called for Trump to remove the tweet. The Presidents words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Earlier in the month, a 55-year-old New York man was charged with threatening to kill Omar by put[ting] a bullet in herskull. In response to the criticism, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Sunday defended Trumps tweet by attempting to redirect the conversation to another conservative attack on Omar: her supposedly anti-Semitic comments. Certainly the President is wishing no ill will and certainly not violence towards anyone, Sanders said on ABCs This Week. But the President is absolutely and should be calling out the congresswoman for her not only one time but history of anti-Semitic comments. Advertisement Advertisement While the president himself didnt fully address the pushback, he did attack Pelosi for defending Omar: Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made. She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019 Omar, who in her statement Sunday night also charged that the presidents rhetoric encouraged hateful white nationalists and other right-wing extremists and led to an increase in hate crimes, defended herself on Twitter after Trumps attack and reiterated her reasons for running for office. No one personno matter how corrupt, inept, or viciouscan threaten my unwavering love for America, she wrote on Twitter. I stand undeterred to continue fighting for equal opportunity in our pursuit of happiness for all Americans. Last week, Donald Trump allegedly instructed Kevin McAleenan, the border enforcement official he was about to tap as the new head of the Department of Homeland Security, to close the Southwestern border to migrants. This directive came with the promise that Trump would pardon McAleenan if there was legal fallout from that action. The comments, which CNN characterized as a possible joke, alarmed DHS officials, though the White House later denied that the statements were made. But we are waiting to hear Robert Muellers assessment about whether Donald Trump has obstructed justice. Advertisement Last week, Donald Trump said, I know nothing about WikiLeaks. Its not my thing. And yet, throughout the end of the 2016 campaign, he praised the operation as something he loved, despite having been warned not to trust information coming from an entity that was known to be willfully assisting attempts to steal the U.S. election. But we are waiting to hear from Robert Mueller about whether Donald Trump has colluded with foreign powers in the 2016 election. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Last week, we learned Donald Trumps sister Judge Maryanne Trump Barry apparently left her seat on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, thus permanently ending a judicial ethics investigation into whether she was involved in a massive tax evasion scheme reported last year by the New York Times. A complaint seeking to determine whether the scheme was a tax dodgefrom which both Barry and Donald Trump benefitedwas filed last October. (There is a statute of limitations on the tax evasion claims, but there is no statute of limitations on judicial wrongdoing.) On Feb. 1, the courts indicated that the complaint was receiving the full attention of investigators. Ten days later, Barry filed her paperwork to step down. The investigation dies with that action. But we are waiting to hear Robert Muellers conclusions on whether the president has misbehaved. Advertisement Advertisement There is no crime called collusion. There has never been a crime called collusion. Last week, as professor David Rothkopf ably summarized here, Attorney General William Barr testified that he was able to be the arbiter of whether the president obstructed justice, which is actually not the case. He also reversed a long-standing Department of Justice policy to defend statutes because the president told him to. The treasury secretary has refused to abide by a law that on its face demands that the presidents tax returns be turned over to the House Ways and Means Committee, again at the presidents request. In other words, in many departments, we are seeing Trump appointees willing to put the president above the law. We saw a mass purge at the Department of Homeland Security ostensibly because no senior officials are willing to break the law hard enough and fast enough to mollify the president. We heard the president invoke the word treason explicitly to describe his critics. But we are waiting for William Barr to summarize for us whether Robert Mueller concluded that the president has violated the law. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Last week, it was also rumored that the president had threatened to send undocumented immigrants to so-called sanctuary cities to punish political opponents. The White House initially indicated that the proposal was not seriously considered, until the president said it was still being considered, and by Sunday, it was back in play. On Friday, the president tweeted a video incorrectly suggesting that Muslim American Congresswoman Ilhan Omar doesnt think 9/11 was a big deal, the contents of which were so offensive that Fox News would only play 5 seconds of it. On Sunday night, it was reported that the threats against her life had increased to the point that she needed additional security. Still, we are waiting for the Mueller report to help us determine whether the president is fit for office. Advertisement Advertisement There is no crime called collusion. There has never been a crime called collusion, but that is the crime from which Donald Trumpnever having seen the Mueller reportsays he has received complete and total exoneration. Very few people have actually seen the Mueller report, but we do know that there was no explicit finding by Mueller on the question of whether Trump obstructed justice. And yet, when it comes to that very question, much of what we saw happen before our very eyesTrumps treatment of James Comey, his complaints about Jeff Sessions, multiple efforts to stymie the investigationscould certainly be understood to be elements of obstruction of justice. So acute is the sense of national shock and trauma at Trumps open and flagrant misconduct that we are waiting patiently for a Mueller report to confirm that we have all been seeing what weve all been seeing for the past two years. We are standing next to a burning building and waiting for Robert Mueller to let us know if he smells smoke. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We have allowed Donald Trumps narrow legal aperture to define the scope of wrongdoing for the rest of us. Senate Republicans, bearing witness to all this, are extremely upset with the presidents choices for the Fed. Beyond that, they will tolerate quite literally anything, including multiple agencies without Senate-confirmed Cabinet officials and agency heads. High-level collaborators will write memos to the file and count on history to exculpate them for doing their best in the face of an out-of-control autocrat. No matter what facts Mueller assembles, they will discredit it as the lawless work of deep state spies. Robert Mueller was not charged with saving America from Donald Trump. Robert Mueller was not asked to define the scope of his own mandate in order to fit the precise contours of Donald Trumps misdeeds. The persistent and perilous belief that whatever it is Robert Mueller has unearthed in secret is more relevant or compelling than what Donald Trump does openly every single day has produced a national myopia that has everyone so obsessed with the fruits of the Tree of Collusion and the Tree of Obstruction that we may have missed the forest altogether. We dont get to outsource all the crime fighting and unfitness determinations to Robert Mueller and Adam Schiff. This is not the sharing economy; they arent Uber. Advertisement Advertisement We have allowed Donald Trumps narrow legal aperturewhich allows only the noncrime of collusion to be the issueto define the scope of wrongdoing for the rest of us. We have allowed the president to determine and define what we should consider illegal and improper and unfit, and we have allowed the confines of Muellers directive to define what we can hold Trump accountable for. But we should know what is wrong. The issue before us is not just whether Barr eventually lets us know whether Mueller ultimately determined that the president unlawfully conspired with Russian agents to sway the 2016 election, or whether he attempted to obstruct inquiries into related investigations. The issue before us is (or at least, includes): whether Donald Trump has dangled pardons to obtain illegal outcomes, removed officials for their refusal to break the law, rewarded or pardoned others for breaking the law, threatened judges for legal conclusions they have made, violated campaign finance laws, violated tax laws, punished and threatened the free press, incited violence against Muslims, misused his charitable foundation, incited violence against political opponents, violated the Emoluments Clause, directed others to make illegal campaign payments, declined to seek redress for the brutal murder of a journalist by a foreign power, forced family separations at the border, attempted to change the asylum law at the border, banned trans service members, attempted to revoke Dreamers status, had conflicts of interest with Russia and other oligarchs worldwide, persistently lied about his conflicts of interest during the campaign and thereafter, used his twitter feed to incite retributive acts against critics this list could go on and on. And on. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There will be a public reckoning about what the Mueller report contains and who can see it, possibly as soon as this Thursday, when the redacted version will be released. We can wait for that and have it, but we also need to acknowledge that it is not a substitute for a systematic public reckoning about everything else. Being so stunned by whats happening every day that you put all hope in what someone else might uncover tomorrow is a rational way to cope in a time of numbing disintegration of government, rules, and trust. But its not enough. Its not a substitute. Its barely even a start. Attorney General William Barr has indicated that a redacted version of the Mueller report is likely to be sent to Congress this week and made public. It could come any day now, though a Good Friday release, coinciding with the beginning of Passover, would be the news dump to end all news dumps. (Update, April 15, 2019, at 12:10 p.m.: On Monday, the Department of Justice announced that it expected to release the report on Thursday morning.) Whenever the report comes, how will we know what to look for? From Barrs summary released a few weeks ago, we expect the report to focus on both the question of possible collusion between Russian agents and Americans as well as whether the president obstructed justice in seeking to prevent a full and fair investigation of possible collusion. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Passover begins with asking four questions, and in that spirit, I begin with four questions about possible collusion that I have been anticipating since the Barr summary that I hope we will be able to answer once we get to dig into the report itself. On collusion: 1. To what extent did Americans assist or cooperate with Russians or other foreign agents in hacking Democratic National Committee emails, in trying to break into American voter registration databases, or in efforts to spread dirt on President Donald Trumps 2016 presidential election opponent, Hillary Clinton? We know from earlier government reports that Russian agents did all three of these things, but we do not know whether any Americans were involved or might have known at the time of the interference. Barrs summary of Robert Muellers report, meanwhile, stated that Muellers investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities. Did membersor affiliatesof the campaign, though, coordinate with any Russian cutouts, such as Julian Assanges WikiLeaks? Advertisement Advertisement 2. Were any of the people involved in this collusion investigation somehow connected to the Trump campaign or the Trump family? Alternatively, to what extent were campaign or family members duped by foreign agents? The Barr summary is very careful to say that there was no finding in Muellers report of coordination, which it defined in a particular legal way as an agreementtacit or expressbetween the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference. As Ben Steinberg suggests, theres plenty of room for cooperation short of this legal standard that could be described in the report. For example, Mueller might believe that winks and nods suggested both sides were cooperating but doing so in a subtle enough way to prevent prosecutors from proving an illegal conspiracy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement 3. How successful were the hacks into American voter registration databases and other election-connected computers? We have seen conflicting reports of the extent of Russian success in these endeavors, but the details have not been confirmed in an official government report. More importantly, what can be done to prevent such hacking efforts again? 4. If Americans cooperated with Russians in procuring or spreading opposition research, why did Mueller not charge any Americans with any crime in this area? As I explained in an earlier Slate piece, we must learn why Mueller declined to prosecute former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort or Trumps son Donald Trump Jr. for apparently violating laws prohibiting the solicitation of foreign contributions to American campaigns, based on those campaign surrogates June 2016 meeting with Russian agents at Trump Tower. As I wrote, How Mueller answered this question could have profound ramifications for what federal law enforcement will do to stop foreign involvement in the upcoming 2020 elections. Advertisement Advertisement Does Mueller point to new specific evidence Congress might consider in pursuing possible impeachment charges against Trump based upon obstruction? I have two additionaland similarly importantquestions on how Mueller judged the issue of potential presidential obstruction of justice: 1. Does Muellers report use any language suggesting that a reasonable prosecutor acting in her discretion could have charged Trump with obstruction but for Department of Justice policy against indicting a sitting president? We know Mueller refused to make the call on whether Trump obstructed justice, but we do not know why he made that decision and whether it had to do with the strength of the evidence. All we know is that Muellers report says, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him and Barr took the subsequent step of exonerating his boss. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement 2. Does Mueller point to new specific evidence Congress might consider in pursuing possible impeachment charges against Trump based upon obstruction? If Mueller left the issue for Congress, does he do so laying out clear not previously public evidence for possible impeachment, or is there not much more than a judgment call about whether Trumps publicly known actions rise to the level of impeachable offenses? Advertisement Finally, there is a remaining question that encompasses the entire probe and how it was ultimately dealt with: To what extent does it look like Barr is trying to protect Trump and Trumps family, such as Donald Trump Jr.? Despite his expected redactions, has Barr made it possible to evaluate Muellers reasoning or the evidence collected? This is a key question. Already Barr has given Trump a great gift by releasing a summary that has allowed Trump to claim his exoneration for weeks without anyone being able to raise a counterargument based on the actual evidence collected and analyzed by Mueller. We all are waiting to see if the redaction leaves a credible report, or more reason to be suspicious of Barr and a longer list of questions. We should at least know the answer to this question in a matter of days. Because it is guaranteed to be incomplete, the Mueller reportthe version released by William Barr, anywayis going to fail in at least one respect: It will not resolve deep public uncertainty about the extent and scope of Donald Trumps malfeasance. Barrs credibility is low, so the redacted report will be subject to endless forensic analysis as people try to reconstruct whats missing and why. This is not good. Americans should not be in the position of having to fill in the gaps with reasoned inferences at best and conspiracy-minded guesses at worst. Its beneath everyones dignity. But here we are, and if weve learned anything in the past two years, its that Americans have few tools for dealing with an administration that relies so wholly on lyingpublicly, chronically, without shame, and with no intention of correcting misinformation. We fixate instead on secrets because secrets are how government malpractice has been accounted for in the past: Investigations are done, sins are exposed, and consequences are meted out. What the Mueller report captures is both how sticky and how futile this historical approach is in the present climate. Weve become too accustomed to using secrecy as an indicator of scandal. Its often a decent approximation, and we need shortcuts like that now more than ever in order to stay afloat in the downpour of news. But this is one of those shortcuts that needs to be deprecated because its basic premises no longer apply. Trumps wrongdoing is not private. It is, as my colleague Will Saletan has pointed out, quite public. Even the full unredacted report will probably do little but confirm much that we already know. Dealing with Trump means dealing with that factseeking an expose is kind of a weird response to an emperor with no clothes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That this next iteration of the Mueller report wont settle anything because it cantalmost by definitiondoesnt mean the full version wont eventually come out. It almost certainly will, at some point, and it will be good to know what it says. The trouble is that too many others have already spoken for it, in ways that cant be completely erased. This next wave of news about the reports contents may even end up as muddy as the firstand yet what we remember is how Barrs summary was characterized by Republicans as incredibly clear (Sarah Sanders), firm, without equivocation (Lindsey Graham), and without a shadow of a doubt (Kevin McCarthy). Hobbled by redactions, the report will achieve exactly the kind of epistemological confusion this administration generates and coasts on, the kind where Trump can be WikiLeaks biggest booster and then claim to know nothing about themor where Barrs summary can be declared definitive by partisans and much of the mainstream media until Muellers team breaks its legendary silence. Advertisement Advertisement What WikiLeaks understood early (and weaponized) is that we just arent cognitively or emotionally suited to this news environment. Were at the squids squirting ink stage of the American polity. And because media outlets must report on the Mueller reportwhatever there is, even if its redacted and inconclusivetheres a strong chance that the opacity and confusion will be amplified. This, for defenders of the president, is a net positive. A news cycle dominated by a message of exoneration that requires correction later is, after all, the kind of move post-truthers like Newt Gingrich love: It makes the pursuit of reality seem not worth attempting. The best possible result for Republican leaders is for the public to resign itself to a permanent bothsiderism, in which each position is equally bad and the media is perennially and magnificently to blame. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Against this backdrop, its both ironic and understandable that those of us still holding on to hope for truth are so obsessed with papers. Secret papers, specifically. Which the public equates with the real stuff, the substance, even when evidence of wrongdoing is there in plain sight. The weird, almost conspiratorial hypothesis is that the important facts are always hidden from view. But the publics (and the medias) lack of interest in a document trove once it is actually available to them is now legendary. The Panama Papersan incredible cache that no one expected, or demandedproduced nary a ripple in terms of awareness, or outrage, or change. People forget that the Paradise Papers even existed. Its true they dealt with financial chicanery, which is decidedly less sexy than presidential corruption (though should it be?). But it isnt easy to put a succinct frame on a sudden dump of 1.4 terabytes of information, and because there was no easy point of accessno summary, if you willthe exposed financial crime was exposed in name only. The public didnt really know what it meant, or what to do with it. Advertisement Advertisement One of the more effective theorists of this schism between exposure and coverage was, appropriately enough (and as Ive written before), the now-arrested Julian Assange: Youd think the bigger and more important the document is, the more likely it will be reported on, he said in October of 2009, but thats absolutely not true. Its about supply and demand. Zero supply equals high demand, it has value. As soon as we release the material, the supply goes to infinity, so the perceived value goes to zero. Advertisement Advertisement WikiLeaks, as Jay Rosen wrote back in 2010, was experimenting with the internets ability to produce something like radical transparency: Wikileaks is able to report on what the powerful wish to keep secret because the logic of the Internet permits it. This is new. Public indifference to public information totally reshaped Assanges approach to distribution as he shepherded WikiLeaks through different strategies for publicizing its findings. His first discovery, back when WikiLeaks was publishing documents in full, was that open source news production doesnt work. Our initial idea, he said at the University of California, Berkeley in 2010, was that, look at all those people editing Wikipedia. Look at all the junk that theyre working on. Surely, if you give them a fresh classified document about the human rights atrocities in Fallujah, that the rest of the world has not seen before surely those people will step forward, given fresh source material, and do something. It didnt work. So WikiLeaks started producingyou guessed iteditorialized summaries of partial releases. Advertisement Advertisement We understood from experiences like this that we would have to at least give summaries of the material we were releasingat least summariesto get people to pick it up, to get journalists to pick it up to get them to dig deeper. And if we didnt have summaries to give a piece context, it would just fall into the gutter and never be seen again. Advertisement On The Colbert Report in 2010, Stephen Colbert quizzed Assange about exactly that, referring to WikiLeaks packaging of the 2007 Baghdad airstrikes video leaked by Chelsea Manning: You have edited this tape, Colbert says, and you have given it a title called Collateral Damage. Thats not leaking! Thats a pure editorial. Assange replies that WikiLeaks pledge to sources is that we will try to get the maximum possible political impact for the material that they give to us. The promise to the public, he says, is that theyll release the full source material so people can see for themselves. Then I admire that, Colbert says, with irony. I admire someone who is willing to put collateral murder on the first thing people see, knowing that they probably wont look at the rest of it. That way youve properly manipulated the audience into the emotional state you want before something goes on the air. Advertisement (Barr did something similar with his summary, and for a while it seemed to have workedminus the release of the raw data. His mistake was, of course, underestimating Muellers teams willingness to push back, or how vocal House Democrats would beall of which has kept the value of the reports secret information sky-high.) Advertisement Advertisement By the 2016 election, Assange and WikiLeaks had evolved both ideologically and strategically. Once they had the Podesta emails, they realized that an even better strategybetter than farming out different findings to different newspapers, as they did with the Afghanistan war logswas to leak out a few hacked emails at a time with great fanfare, trumpeting their scandalousness and secrecy in tweets. It was a cheaper and faster and more inflammatory strategy, and it worked: Even though there wasnt much there, people took the bait and absorbed the framingscandal!more than the substance. WikiLeaks kept it up, leaking more every time the news cycle started to reset, producing a constant bleed that gave the impression (and only the impression) of an enormous deception being slowly uncovered. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement What WikiLeaks understood early (and weaponized) is that we just arent cognitively or emotionally suited to this news environment. Engagement is superficial and anxious, agreement is achieved more through consensus with like-minded folks than actual comprehension, and the publics document fetish is at an all-time high just when its clearest that the documents in question cant possibly provide the anticipated result. The Mueller report cannot deliver what people actually want from it. Neither can Trumps tax returns. Advertisement The illusion that these secret documents can somehow reroute a river of wrongdoing is an understandable response to public impotence. It now appears to be widely understood (by politicians on both sides of the aisle) that if you just hang tight, the news cycle will bury your scandal under fresh horrors. This has been beyond demoralizing for Americans. The document fetish then is a kind of last hope: If political pressure is a race against irrelevance, and the public keeps losing, maybe paper can do what politics cant. Advertisement I dont think Barrs edition of the Mueller report can fix this. Its not that secret documents shouldnt be public. They clearly should. But their eventual release probably wont achieve any miracles of arbitration: Trump is unlikely to step down because paperwork showed him misbehaving, his supporters are less likely still to accept whatever wrongdoing the report shows, and his opponents will assume the worst parts have been redacted. Any hope that these documents can create a consensus our political climate cant is fading. Still, the impulse to chase information we cant haverather than look to the heaps we already dois tough to shake. Muellers investigation may in hindsight, once all the facts are known, turn out to be a crucial chapter in this strange volume of American history. But for those of us stuck in history as its being made, this next version will occupy an even stranger spot in Americas evolving ideas about whatever the report says, or is, or should be. Thanks to Barrs curious interventions, the Mueller report (which was supposed to be definitive and clarifying) has been successfully transformed into the wild MacGuffin many on the right need it to be: an artifact whose authenticity is chronically in question. Another, better version will always be out there, waiting. Stop me if youve heard this one before: The U.S. is committing itself to a long-term stabilization mission in a chronically unstable country. The mission involves training and equipping the local government forces to fight against jihadi insurgents and wont end until those local forces are capable of fighting on their own. Unfortunately, recruitment is low and the training is slow going, in part because the local U.S.-backed government is weak and commands little public support. Under the pretext of fighting international terrorism, the U.S. is taking on a group that poses little direct threat to the United States, is being drawn into local conflicts unrelated to its ostensible mission, and risks creating more radicalization through civilian casualties. Advertisement It could be Iraq or Afghanistan (or substitute communist for jihadi and it could be any number of Cold War proxy conflicts), but in this case its Somalia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Last week, President Donald Trump issued an executive order extending a 2010 declaration of national emergency related to the conflict in Somalia, reiterating that the U.S. remains strongly committed to Somalias stabilization and that the situation with respect to Somalia continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. As I wrote in March, the U.S. military mission in Somalia has expanded dramatically since Trump took office and declared the Horn of Africa nation an area of active hostilities. This has included a sharp uptick in drone strikes and special forces raids against the militant group al-Shabaab. Until recently, the Pentagon had claimed, remarkably, that no civilians had been killed in these strikes. On April 5, shortly after the release of an Amnesty International report that investigated five of the dozens of strikes and found evidence of 14 civilian deaths, the military finally acknowledged having caused just two. There have also been reports that Somali officials have used the threat of al-Shabaabwhich is nominally affiliated with al-Qaidato draw U.S. firepower into local conflicts over land and clan rivalries. Advertisement Advertisement The U.S. currently has about 500 to 600 military personnel in Somalia, and they may be there for a while. As CNN reports, the U.S. mission hinges on US Special Operations Forces being able to train an elite Somali army unit capable of defeating al Qaeda-linked militants on the ground. The hope is that this group, known as Danab, will one day be an elite fighting force of about 3,000 troops capable of operating throughout the country, but right now its only about 500. One Pentagon official told CNN that it may take approximately seven years for the Somalis to absorb all of these forces. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nearly two decades into the war on terror, critics of U.S. military intervention are accustomed to treating missions like this with skepticism. But in this case, the bigger question is, why isnt the president more skeptical? Advertisement Since taking office, Trump has repeatedly expressed a desire to reduce U.S. military commitments overseas and a frustration over what he sees as U.S. troops being asked to fight other countries wars for them. One wonders whether he even realizes hes committing U.S. troops to a seven-year mission to prop up the government of Somalia at a time when the countrys own neighbors are desperate to pull their troops out of the conflict. (And extending an Obama administration executive order on top of that!) Theres an inherent contradiction in Trumps worldview between his isolationist instincts and his commitment to standing out of the militarys way and letting the generals do what they think necessaryunlike the Obama administrations approach, which he believes was burdensome and legalistic. Left to its own devices, the Pentagon tends to want more troops, more resources, and expanded missions. Advertisement Advertisement This dynamic was on view recently in Syria. After declaring victory over ISIS, Trump ordered a full withdrawal of U.S. troops in December. Trumps advisers and congressional allies eventually talked him down to leaving a peacekeeping force of 200 or even 1,000 troops in the country to protect U.S. allies on the ground and prevent ISISs return. This will probably remain the status quo until the next time Trump gets frustrated and tweets about it The fight against al-Shabaab in Somalia has gotten far less attention from media and lawmakers than the fight against ISIS in Syria, and perhaps consequently, Trump appears to have taken little notice of it. And so, the war continues to expand with vague goals, no clear path to victory, and little to no pushback in Washington. The good old password really has run its course, says Dave Lewis, Cisco global advisory chief information security officer. So what replaces it? Multifactor authentication with biometrics can raise security levels, and its use is trending up, demonstrating an evolutionary step up in identity and credential management. Also in this months podcast, Glen Kitteringham, CPP, and podcast host Chuck Harold discuss the value of academic research to security professionals andmost importantlyhow to put it into practice. Paul Wood, CPP, explains how taking a proactive, empathetic approach to threat assessment can identify and address insider threats while improving organizational morale. 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. Seligas world changed after journalists murder. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Sitting in the Klub pod lampou cafe in Bratislava, Juraj Seliga, 28, recalls the moment he learnt about the tragic events of February 21, 2018 that led him to organise the biggest protests Slovakia had seen since the Velvet Revolution. I woke up at six a.m. that day and about an hour later I got a news alert on my phone, he says. It said a journalist and his fiancee had been murdered. The murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova, in their home in Velka Maca, about 50 kilometres east of Bratislava, changed the lives of many Slovaks. Seliga was one of them. Between sips of coffee in the cafe whose walls are decorated with pictures of the massive protests he helped to bring about, he tells how, shocked by the news, he paced around his flat that morning, but had no idea of how his life was about to change. Juraj Seliga in the cafe (Source: NF) He went to his work at the time, at the NGO Via Iuris where he and other lawyers were working on a project to explain the workings and importance of Constitutional Court judges to the public. But the murders were all they talked about. He got in touch with a friend and former colleague, Veronika Brunckova, and they agreed they would light the candles in public in memory of the murdered couple. They picked a place in the heart of Bratislava the Square of the Slovak National Uprising (SNP) and lit the candles beneath a memorial plaque to the Velvet Revolution. This was no coincidence: the Communist regime had supressed freedom of speech and now a journalist had been silenced. Then-police corps president, Tibor Gaspar, said that the most likely motive for the murder appeared to be Kuciaks investigative journalism work. Kuciaks last, unfinished, story was about links between the Italian Ndrangheta mafia operating in eastern Slovakia and their links to staff at the Government Office. The pair went on Facebook and created an event that immediately spread like wildfire online. Some people were already lighting candles in front of the Aktuality.sk newsroom where Jan Kuciak worked. Seliga bought about 300 candles to give away. They were gone in seconds, he recalls. About 500 people came to the event, but Seliga explains that the number was not important. It was important to us to highlight that what had happened was a disgusting outrage as well as a tragedy. We had to do something. For a Decent Slovakia was born Then he met Karolina Farska, a high-school student, who had organised a series of anti-corruption marches in 2017. They started talking and then began preparing for what would be the first meeting in Bratislava to commemorate Jan Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova on March 2. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Bratislava and other Slovak cities. Slovaks living abroad also got involved, organising smaller gatherings in cities around the world. We were totally shocked by how many people came. After the protest, we sat down together, drank beer and talked about how well it went, Seliga says. The meeting was on a Friday and on Sunday, March 4, Slovak President Andrej Kiska and then-Prime Minister Robert Fico gave separate television addresses. The group watched them together. Read also: Read also: It started with the murder of journalist. How did Slovakia change in 2018? Read more President Kiska suggested a new government be formed or parliamentary elections be held. Ficos reaction shocked Seliga and his friends. We were amazed. Fico started going on about [Kiskas] speech not being written in Slovakia, he says. Fico suggested that Kiskas speech had been written by someone abroad who was working to undermine Fico and his government. Seliga and the other protest organisers had a long discussion about what they should do next or whether they should do anything at all. It was a long and hard night which ended with the For a Decent Slovakia initiative being born. Sahara Energy Resources DMCC, a member of leading international energy and infrastructure conglomerate, Sahara Group, has approved a $600 million donation to support economic growth, peace process and development in South Sudan. According to reports, the facility will also support infrastructure development and youth encouragement. In a statement issued on Sunday, Temitope Shonubi, executive director of Sahara Group, said the group is passionate about spearheading sustainable development in Africa and remains unwavering in its resolve to support peace and trade integration on the continent to promote shared prosperity. He said following the end of the conflict and the reconciliatory efforts made by the leaders of the country, Sahara Group members are delighted to partner with the Government and people of South Sudan, and also to support regional and global initiatives geared towards transforming the nation. The donation will be managed by the nations Central Bank under the watch of a United Nations-led committee. As a reminder, Sahara Foundation, the charity arm of the group has renovated and upgraded the University of Juba Computer Center in South Sudan with brand new computers, central UPS and server, air conditioners, roof-mounted projectors and furniture. Sahara Foundation has also provided farm equipment to cooperatives in a bid to boost crop production and self-sustainability in the region. The commitment of the company follows its announcement last week to acquire French oil major Totals stakes in three refineries in Cameroon, Cote dIvoire and Senegal. The police have launched criminal prosecution for manslaughter. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled A woman died in Nove Zamky (Nitra Region) after being attacked with acid while walking her dog on the morning of April 12. An unknown perpetrator poured the corrosive liquid on her face. The 39-year-old woman called an ambulance and was transported to the hospital. Despite being treated, she succumbed to her injuries, the police wrote on Facebook. The investigator of the regional police headquarters in Nitra launched criminal prosecution for manslaughter. Police officers from several district departments have been working on the case, the police stated. However, they refused to comment on the potential motive of the attack. Her problems with former partners could have been behind the attack, the private broadcaster TV Markiza reported. Acid attacks also happened in the past An acid attacks is considered one of the worst ways to harm others. Even if it does not result in death, the victims are crippled for the rest of their lives. They often suffer from a lot of pain, mental problems and isolation, the Sme daily reported. Attackers often use acid to seek revenge against their victims, psychologist Anton Heretik told Sme. There have been several acid attacks involving Slovaks in the past. The media reported last summer about an incident in Worcester, UK, where a man ordered an acid attack on his son. He was assisted by three Slovaks who have been imprisoned for 12 years, Sme wrote. Read also: Read also: Slovaks involved in the acid attack on a child Read more Another acid attack occurred directly in Slovakia. Back in 1990, Miroslav Stolc of Banska Bystrica assaulted his young lover. He was sentenced to six years in prison. After being conditionally released, he killed two women and was sentenced to life for stabbing a woman in Banska Bystrica, Sme reported. Messer Tatragas will invest 10 million. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled The Messer Tatragas company will invest nearly 10 million in a new argon-producing plant that will be built near Sala (Nitra Region). It will be the biggest argon production in Slovakia and the first argon production plant in the Messer Group with off-gas processing, said Michal Pala, authorised representative of the company, as quoted by the Hospodarske Noviny daily. The plant is expected to produce 7,500 tonnes of argon a year. The production should be launched in two years. The technical gas will be produced in a unique way, but its emissions will be recycled through the secondary production of ammonia. The produced argon will then be sold to neighbouring countries. It is used especially for welding in a protective atmosphere, winemaking and medical applications, the SITA newswire reported. Other plans for Sala Sala is a strategic town for the Messer Group. Back in 2017, they invested 1.5 million into the construction of the plant to revise and maintain gas bottles for all of central Europe. This year, they plan to extend the filling-up station of technical gases by filling to 300 bars worth 2.5 million. Were glad that our mother company decided to invest in the Slovak subsidiary, Pala said, as quoted by SITA. LSNS voters show most support. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Most Slovaks favour the official Euro-Atlantic foreign policy of Slovakia the latest poll for private broadcaster TV Markiza, conducted by the Focus polling agency, suggests. Almost 62 percent of respondents prefer the Euro-Atlantic direction of Slovak foreign policy, while almost 18 percent favour a pro-Russian foreign policy and 20 percent stated they do not know. The poll was carried out between March 28 and 29 on 1,204 respondents. They answered the question: What option do you prefer regarding Slovak foreign policy? They could choose between the Unequivocal pro-European and pro-Atlantic foreign policy, like the one pursued by the Foreign Affairs Ministry or the pro-Russian foreign policy as pursued by Andrej Danko. Pro-Russian Danko? The poll also enquired into the political preferences of the respondents. The pro-Russian policy found greatest support among voters for the far-right Peoples Party Our Slovakia (LSNS): almost 47 percent of respondents. On the other hand, only 37 percent of LSNS voters favour the Euro-Atlantic foreign policy. Read also: Read also: Andrej Danko: I will not renounce Russia Read more Voters for Dankos Slovak National Party (SNS) also preferred a pro-Russian foreign policy at almost 47 percent. At the same time, almost 40 percent of SNS voters support the Euro-Atlantic foreign policy. Smer voters favour the pro-European and pro-Atlantic direction of the country with support of 55 percent, however, 33 percent would prefer a pro-Russian orientation. Pro-European opposition Voters for the coalition of non-parliamentary parties Progressive Slovakia and Spolu (Together) have the clearest idea about foreign policy. More than 94 percent of their voters prefer Euro-Atlantic foreign policy. Only 0.5 percent chose the other option. As for the voters of Freedom and Solidarity (SaS), the Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OLaNO) and the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH), 80 percent support official foreign policy. Danko responds Read also: Read also: Ruling parties split over attitude to Russia Read more Danko was quite critical of the Focus poll. In his opinion, it was stupidly defined since he does not doubt the pro-western direction of current foreign policy, and that the EU is the best solution for Slovakia, as he told the press on April 15 after the coalition council meeting. The meeting was also attended by Foreign Affairs Minister Miroslav Lajcak. I would like to assure you, I asked Minister Lajcak whether he feels the absolute support of the Slovak National Party in our pro-European and pro-Atlantic policy and he did not hesitate for a second, Danko said, as quoted by the SITA newswire. The strategy has not been approved by parliament due to objections from the junior coalition party, the SNS. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Although the Slovak security strategy has not been approved by parliament yet, PM Peter Pellegrini (Smer) and his ministers are still following it. Pellegrini confirmed this at the April 15 conference on foreign policy, in answer to the question of why a new security strategy is absent despite the change in the security environment, the SITA newswire reported. Compromise made Pellegrini pointed out that the security strategy, authored by the Foreign Affairs Ministry, has been approved by the government. However, parliament has not discussed it yet due to the disapproval of the Slovak National Party (SNS) which disliked the fact that the document describes Russia as a threat. Read also: Read also: There is no reason to apologise for our NATO membership Read more Right now, there is no time for parliament to approve it, Pellegrini continued. He and his government, however, are following the new strategy. It is a compromise I made on behalf of myself and my government, Pellegrini said, as quoted by SITA, adding that he wanted parliament to adopt the strategy. The current valid security strategy of Slovakia was adopted in 2004. The preparation of the new document is one of the promises the government made in its programme statement, SITA wrote. The case is linked to Slovakias dominant energy generator, Slovenske Elektrarne. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled The financial unit of the National Criminal Agency (NAKA) arrested an Italian citizen charged with committing the serious crime of violating duties when administering someone elses property. He was detained shortly after his arrival from Milan, at Bratislava airport , the police informed on Facebook. Read also: Read also: Q&A: Why is the third reactor at Mochovce plant a problem? Read more An investigator from the NAKA financial units special team has charged two Italian citizens, identified as P.R. and N.C, with crimes they allegedly committed when serving as the leading representatives of Slovenske Elektrarne, Slovakias dominant energy generator, the police informed. They reportedly caused damages of more than 22 million. Verifying allegation in Mochovce case Read also: Read also: Austrians protest against the completion of Mochovce again Read more The specialised team is conducting all necessary operations to verify the allegations linked to the completion of the third and fourth blocks of the nuclear power plant in Mochovce (Nitra Region). The police do not want to provide further details due to the ongoing investigation. "We don't know the details of today's intervention," said Miroslav Sarissky, external communications manager of Slovenske Elektrarne , as quoted by the TASR newswire. Slovenske Elektrarne will cooperate with the police as much as they can, he added. Entering from a string of respectable off-the-pace efforts in Open company at Dover Downs, a change of tactics proved beneficial for Tiger Thompson N in his Harrah's Philadelphia debut on Sunday afternoon, April 14, as he delivered a crushing seven-and-three-quarter length blow to his rivals in the featured $18,000 top-level conditioned pace. "He's been finishing off really well; his last quarters have been really strong," said Dexter Dunn, driver of the six-year-old Big Jim gelding who could only muster a third-place finish in his previous effort at Dover after being hemmed in. In his local debut, Dunn angled Tiger Thompson N out from third early to brush clear of Bettorever after a sharp :26.3 quarter. After clearing with a circuit to go, Tiger Thompson N controlled middle splits of :55.1 and 1:22.2 before drawing off through the final turn to lead by six at the head of the stretch. Tiger Thompson N capped his lifetime-best 1:50.3 mile with a :28.1 closing split and plenty of energy in reserve. "He still had the plugs in; he was doing it pretty easily," Dunn said of Tiger Thompson N's local debut. "He went a strong mile today on the front and hopefully he can keep that form up." Jack Roger circled a collapsing second flight to take second at 23-1 while Dash Of Danger emerged from last at the top of the stretch to finish third. Trainer Josh Parker acquired Tiger Thompson N in November along with co-owners Nanticoke Racing Inc., Stephen Messick and the Prestige Stable. So far, the eight-time winner has won three times for his American connections. He paid $3.20 to win. For Dunn, the featured win was the cornerstone of a driving hat trick: the New Zealand national also teamed up with Final Justice ($13.00, 1:54.3) and Zampara ($21.00, 1:53.3). Live racing returns to Harrah's Philadelphia on Wednesday, April 17 with first post set for 12:25 p.m. Eastern and a $4,507.07 carryover in the 20-cent Jackpot Hi-5 in race five. (Harrah's Philadelphia) Israeli troops have recently been using a non-lethal crowd dispersal system called Roar (Shaaga in Hebrew) to deal with violent demonstrations at the Gaza border fence. The IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) declared Roar a success but would not provide any details on how it worked. Photos and available descriptions of Roar sound like a similar system first developed in Israel in 2010. This non-lethal weapon was called the Thunder Cannon. Light enough to be mounted in a cart, trailer or hummer type vehicle, it used a new Pulse Detonation Technology that combines LPG (liquefied natural gas) with air to create a sonic boom in a cannon type barrel. Each burst moves forward at 2,000 meters per second and lasts 300 milliseconds. The cannon generates 60 to 100 bursts per second. One 27 pound (12kg) canister of LPG can create 5,000 bursts. A cell phone size control unit does the mixing and detonation. The cannon is effective at hitting people with these sonic bursts, at ranges of up to fifty meters (152 feet), for maximum effect. Even at 100 meters the sonic bursts will cause most crowds to disperse. At ten meters or less, the burst can cause injury, or even be fatal. Anyone hit by the sonic bursts feels it and hears it. It's disorienting, and most people exposed to it flee the area. The effect can be diminished by wearing earplugs or covering your ears with your hands. But that does not make you immune to the impact and when a crowd is the target the crowd tends to break up leaving the more determined folks all alone. The technology was first developed to chase birds away from crops. It has been very effective at this and is still used that way. The military version can be mounted on vehicles, and fitted with a nozzle that can calibrate the shockwaves for special mission requirements. There is also a multi-barrel version. Bended barrels can also be used to fire it around corners. Not much was heard about Thunder Cannon since 2010 but Roar appears to be an upgraded version or a variation on the basic concept. As effective as systems like Roar are there is still a problem with the fact that non-lethal weapons are not one hundred percent non-lethal, and not nearly as effective as proponents would have you believe. Nevertheless, people love to call them non-lethal, because such devices are intended to deal with violent individuals without killing them. A classic example of how this works is the Taser. A gun like device that fires two small barbs into an individual, and then zaps the victim with a non-lethal jolt of electricity, the Taser has been popular with police, who can more easily subdue violent, and often armed, individuals. Before Taser, the cops had a choice between dangerous (for everyone) hand-to-hand combat, or just using their firearms and killing the guy. While the Taser has been a major success for non-lethal weapons, for every thousand or so times you use it, the victim will die (either from a fall, another medical condition, use of drugs or whatever). This has been fodder for the media and put Taser users, and non-lethal-weapons developers, on the defensive. Naturally, the manufacturers of these devices want zero deaths, and the users want a device that will bring down the target every time, at a price (for the device) they can afford to pay. There's no way of satisfying all these demands, but it makes great press insisting that someone should make it so. Another widely used, and somewhat effective, type of non-lethal weapon is the "rubber bullet." This is, literally, a low velocity, rubber-coated bullet (or beanbag fired from a shotgun) that will hurt the victim, but rarely injure or kill. American developers came up with what they believed to be a better version. The FN 303 fires a 17mm plastic round at about 300 feet per second (pistol and rifle bullets travel at speeds of 1,000-3,000 feet per second). The FN 303 is only accurate to about a hundred meters, and the bullet can contain pepper concentrate (that makes the victims skin feel like it's burning), or paint (to mark the guy as someone of note). The FN 303 can be mounted under an M-16 (like the 40mm grenade launcher) or handled as a separate weapon. About a thousand FN 303s were shipped to Iraq in 2006, mainly for use by military police. Commanders also wanted the infantry to use the FN 303 because more operations are taking place in areas controlled by radical militias. The local civilians threw rocks at American troops and staged rowdy demonstrations to block the movement of U.S. soldiers. The civilians knew that American ROE (Rules of Engagement) prohibited troops from firing into crowds unless someone in the crowd was holding weapons. So it was believed that the FN 303 would allow troops to have some control over these mobs. Two soldiers in each nine-man squad were given an FN 303. The civilians quickly figured out what the FN 303 is (a more powerful paintball gun), and were not very intimidated by it. Many troops wanted shotguns, which can also fire a non-lethal (or much less) round, as well as stuff that will kill or maim, and are more intimidating. In the end, the FN 303 failed in Iraq, although it is still used with some success by civilian police. The U.S. Department of Defense also tried to apply high tech when developing non-lethal weapons. This resulted in two notable devices, the LRAD (sonic cannon) and the microwave ADS (Active Defense system). The ADS began development in the 1990s and was scheduled for use in Iraq many times but never made it. This was mostly because of bad image ("death ray"), and fear of the bad press they would get if the ADS were used, whether people died or not. There were also persistent reliability problems. The ADS is a non-lethal weapon that looks like a radar dish. The ADS "radar dish" projects a "burn ray" that is about 110cm (four feet) in diameter. It is effective in fog, smoke and rain. When pointed at people and turned on, it creates a burning sensation on the skin of its victims, causing them to want to leave the area, or at least greatly distracts them. The microwave weapon has a range of about 500 meters. ADS is carried on a hummer or Stryker, along with a machine-gun and other non-lethal weapons. The proposed ROE (Rules of Engagement) for ADS are that anyone who keeps coming after getting hit with painful microwaves is assumed to have evil intent, and will be killed. The microwave is believed to be particularly useful for terrorists who hide in crowds of women and children, using the human shields to get close enough to make an attack. This has been encountered in Somalia and Iraq. Later a new, smaller, version of ADS, called Silent Guardian, with a range of about 250 meters, was developed for use in defending vital targets (like nuclear power plants) against terrorists. The manufacturer also pitched Silent Guardian to the navy (for ship protection), the State Department (for embassy protection) and organizations like the border patrol, or anyone looking for a non-lethal way to quickly disperse crowds. Deployment of ADS has been delayed for years because of concerns about how non-lethal it really is. ADS has been fired, in tests, over 3,000 times. Many of these firings were against human volunteers, and the device performed as predicted, without any permanent damage. But generations of exposure to lurid science fiction descriptions of "death rays" has made the defense bureaucrats anxious over the negative public relations potential if something like ADS was actually used. From a publicity perspective, using more lethal "non-lethal-weapons" is preferable to deploying something safer, but that could be described, however incorrectly, as a "death ray." ADS is undergoing endless evaluation prior to being sent into action. Somewhat more successful, sort of, has been LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device). This is basically a focused beam of sound. Originally, it was designed to emit a very loud sound. Anyone whose head was touched by this beam heard a painfully loud sound. Anyone standing next to them heard nothing. But those hit by the beam promptly fled, or fell to the ground in pain. Permanent hearing loss is possible if the beam is kept on a person for several seconds, but given the effect the sound usually has on people (they move, quickly), it is unlikely to happen. LRAD works. Some U.S. Navy ships also carry it, but not just to repel attacking suicide bombers, or whatever. No, the system was sold to the navy for a much gentler application. LRAD can also broadcast speech for up to 300 meters. The navy eventually used LRAD to warn ships to get out of the way. This was needed in places like the crowded coastal waters of the northern Persian Gulf, where the navy patrols. Many small fishing and cargo boats ply these waters, and it's often hard to get the attention of the crews. With LRAD, you just aim it at a member of the crew and have an interpreter "speak" to the sailor. It was noted that the guy on the receiving end was sometimes terrified, even after he realized it was that large American destroyer that was talking to him. This apparently gave the army guys some ideas, for there were soon rumors in Iraq of a devilish American weapon that makes people believe they are hearing voices in their heads. In 2009, off Somalia, LRAD was used by a tanker crew to try and defeat a pirate attack. But the pirates simply took the pain, kept on coming, and got aboard the chemical tanker. Israel has long used a number of non-lethal weapons, usually for dealing with crowds of angry (and often rock throwing) Palestinians. The Israelis overcome the uncertain effectiveness of non-lethal weapons by always having guys with guns standing by. Roar is the latest example of that. France believes they have the Islamic terrorists on the run in northern Mali and the Sahel but will not discuss the shortcomings of the Mali government. France controls 9,000 troops in the region. Half of them are French and the other half is the local G5 (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger) force that is supported by France and the EU. The UN supports 14,000 peacekeepers, mainly in northern Mali. These peacekeepers are mainly from other African nations. There are some Western contingents that supply helicopter and other tech support. Half the French troops are in northern and central Mali as are about a third of the G5 force. That means Mali has about 18,000 foreign troops to help deal with the Islamic terrorists. The Mali security forces consist of 7,000 military and 4,500 police (for a population of 19 million). Most of the local policing is handled by tribal or clan organizations and volunteer militias (often without firearms). The national government is corrupt and resistant to change (as in becoming less corrupt). Foreign aid tends to disappear without much impact other than making government officials wealthier. Islamic Terrorists The growing tribal violence in central Mali is largely the fault of aggressive Fulani herders. Fulani tribesmen, in general, are also the biggest supporters of the current JNIM (Jamaah Nusrah al Islam wal Muslimin, or Group for the support of Islam and Moslems) al Qaeda coalition. This organization was formed in early 2017 to consolidate the many separate Islamic terror groups in Mali. In part, this was a reaction to the growing threat from ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) which is hostile to everyone who is not ISIL and will attack or recruit from the JNIM members like AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), Ansar Dine, FLM and several other smaller groups. Another reason for the merger was to make it easier to pool resources (including information and advice) and coordinate with other Islamic terror groups in the region. This reduces friction and destructive feuding. Making a coalition like this work is always difficult, especially considering the importance of ethnic differences. The FLM is Fulani (the largest local tribal contribution) while the other groups are largely Tuareg, Arab and some have a lot of foreigners. Note that JNIM did not absorb all of AQIM groups in the area, just local groups that had long been identified with al Qaeda. The income from the drug trade keeps a lot of these factions in business and the Islamic terrorists know that business and religious fanaticism do not mix and keep it that way. Those groups that did not went broke and withered to nothing. Internal politics for Islamic terror groups is a lot messier than these religious zealots like to admit. Thats mainly because each group believes they are uniquely qualified to be the supreme leader (or at least protector) of all Islam. Coping with this aspect of Islamic radicalism has proved burdensome and ultimately becomes a major reason for Islamic terror movements failing and fading away (via desertion and other forms of self-destruction). The new JNIM is more heavily influenced by its Fulani component and that is another reason for more Islamic terrorist attacks in central Mali, which has long been the scene of conflict involving Fulanis. Largely because of the Fulani and JNIM there has been more Islamic terrorist activity since 2017 and that has impeded reconstruction and foreign aid efforts. Add to that the existing culture of corruption, especially in southern Mali and you have an atmosphere that is hostile to good government, national unity and economic growth. These central Mali attacks kill a lot of civilians and those civilians often belong to other local tribes (like the Dogon) and increase friction between the Fulani (who are herders) and the other tribes of central Mali (who tend to be farmers). Nearly all the people of central Mali are Moslem. The French military support is important because the government is still crippled by corruption-driven incompetence and the growing popularity of conservative Islam by the Mali Moslem majority (90 percent). The senior Islamic clerics in Mali are opposed to Islamic terrorism but are heavily influenced by the conservative Saudi Arabian Wahhabi form of Islam. Mali, like most African nations with large Moslem populations, has accepted Saudi offers of cash to build mosques and religious schools. The Saudis also offer Islamic clerics and teachers trained in Saudi Arabia. A growing number of these Saudi trained clerics and teachers received scholarships to study in Saudi Arabia. Sub-Saharan Moslems have not been very receptive to the idea of living according to Sharia (Islamic) law, which is what Wahhabism demands. Local Islamic clerics who regularly criticize corrupt behavior are respected if not always obeyed. One little-discussed reason for the continued survival of Islamic terror groups in Mali is the inability of the government to prosecute captured Islamic terrorist leaders and even those who are convicted and imprisoned are often quietly released soon thereafter. Corruption is strongly suspected because that is how things are done in Mali. That is one reason why the primary drug smuggling routes to the Mediterranean coast run through Mali. This not only enriches local officials but also funds many of the local Islamic terrorist groups. Most of these Islamic terror factions would not exist except for the income provided from the drug smuggling. When it comes to Islamic terrorist leaders avoiding prison the influence of the local clerics who benefitted from the Saudi funded Islamic charities is at work here. While nearly all Mali Islamic clerics condemn Islamic terrorism they are less critical of any group that vigorously defends Islam. Then there are the ultra-fanatic Islamic terrorists, primarily ISIL. The Fulani are the major component of an ISIL faction that operates on both sides of the nearby Niger border as the ISGS (Islamic State in the Greater Sahara). Most of this violence is also about who controls fertile land and water supplies. There is another ISIL faction in the region; Islamic State's West Africa Province (ISWAP), which is one of two factions of Nigeria based Boko Haram. While there are some Fulani in Boko Haram much of the Fulani violence in Nigeria is tribal, not religion based. In Nigeria, the Fulani also fight local farmers (Christian and Moslem) for control of land and water. ISWAP personnel are mostly in northeastern Nigeria as well as smaller numbers in Chad, Niger and northern Cameroon. ISGS and ISWAP do not appear to work together except when it comes to Internet media activities, where ISWAP will mention ISGS accomplishments. ISIL does not have effective central authority at the moment with the senior leadership still dispersed and on the run from recent defeats in eastern Syria. April 11, 2019: In east central Mali, France reported the successful completion of a three week counterterrorism sweep along the Burkina Faso border. The 850 ground troops (81 percent French the rest Malian) aided by French air support sought out and found several JNIM camps and groups of JNIM gunmen. At least 30 Islamic terrorists were killed and many documents (paper and electronic) were captured, along with a few prisoners. Burkina Faso sent more troops to their side of the border to prevent many of the Islamic terrorists from fleeing safely across the border. In the northeast (Menaka), near the Niger border ISGS, the local ISIL faction, took credit for ambushing and killing a local pro-government Tuareg militia leader and several of his associates. April 5, 2019: Over 30,000 people demonstrated in the capital to protest the government failure to halt the tribal violence in central Mali, mainly between Fulani and several other tribes. Over a thousand people have died over the last few years because of this, including 160 during an attack two days ago. Mainly because of this tribal violence over 80,000 people, mainly in central Mali, have fled their homes so far in 2019. April 3, 2019: ISGS, the local ISIL group, released its first video showing an undated attack near the Niger border. Actually, the video was released by ISWAP, the other central Africa ISIL faction. April 2, 2019: The EU (European Union) delivered a Cessna 208 aircraft equipped to operate as an aerial reconnaissance aircraft. The fully equipped aircraft cost $5.5 million and was provided as foreign aid to the Mali air force. Aircraft like this have been used for over a decade in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. In east central Mali, near the Burkina Faso border, a roadside bomb hit a passing French armored vehicle, killing one French soldier and wounding another. Since 2013 French forces in Mali have lost 25 dead. March 29, 2019: The U.S. called for a major reduction in Mali peacekeeping efforts because of continued violence there and lack of cooperation from the Mali government. The U.S. does not have any troops in Mali but is a major supplier of cash to keep the peacekeeping operation going as well as one of many contributors to the G5 force. Canada and Netherlands, which currently have troops in Mali (with the peacekeepers) are also withdrawing with few other Western nations willing to replace them (and the helicopter support they provide). March 28, 2019: In east central Mali, across the border in Burkina Faso, Islamic terrorists (probably a JNIM faction) attacked a border outpost and killed four police. A truck was also destroyed. March 24, 2019: President Ibrahim Keita replaced the head of the armed forces as well as the commander of the land forces. This was in response to the tribal violence in central Mali yesterday that left 160 (mostly Fulani) dead. The Mali security forces handle most of the security in central and southern Mali while foreign peacekeepers and French counter-terrorism forces handle the north and, more frequently of late, parts of central Mali as well. Keita also ordered the Dogon tribal militia believed responsible for the recent attacks to be disbanded. Dogon leaders insist the militia in question does not exist but the attackers were definitely Dogon and the Fulani (some of them associated with Islamic terror groups) want revenge. While the Fulani began this feud several years ago, ending it is difficult. The Dogon (and other non-Fulani tribes) are hostile to the Islamic terror groups, especially the ones that are largely composed of Fulani men. March 23, 2019: In central Mali fighting continued between Fulani herders and local Dogon farmers. The current incident has left about 157 dead, most of them Fulani civilians. This violence has become more frequent since late November 2018. In the last few years the rise of Islamic terrorist groups JMIM, with Fulani comprising most of the membership, has caused more friction with the Dogon people who, while Moslem, are hostile to Islamic terrorists. In the 2018 over 500 civilians have died in central Mali because of the Fulani-Dogon feud. Illinois Institute of Technology Illinois Institute of Technology offers an accelerated MBA program that students can complete by attending courses on Saturdays over the course of six semesters. This program, which is designed for professionals who have already been working for several years, requires the completion of a total of 36 credit hours, or 12 courses. Some topics covered in these courses include business analytics, accounting, sustainable businesses, economic analysis, and financial management and leadership. This MBA is specifically focused on innovation and offers scholarships to students who are interested in innovation in Chicago. University of Chicago The University of Chicago offers a weekend MBA program that is highly flexible, allowing students to make many decisions in terms of course selection and time to degree completion. With only one required course, students must choose 20 courses, some of which are foundational courses while others are elective courses. Students are also able to pursue a concentration area, from over ten choices. Options include international business, finance, entrepreneurship, economics, and strategic management. Some of the courses within the curriculum are lab courses, which provide hands-on experience in areas like private equity, social ventures, marketing research, and real estate. Northwestern University The weekend MBA program at Northwestern University allows students to earn their MBA by attending courses on Saturdays. The curriculum entails ten required courses in addition to elective courses. Students are able to pursue a major within the program, with options in marketing, finance, or strategy. Northwestern's program also offers a number of different pathway options intended to develop skills for a specific field, like real estate, social impact, data analytics, or asset management. Students can pursue a traditional track, which leads to degree completion in around two and a half years, or an accelerated track that leads to degree completion in around two years, though this option may require attending additional evening courses during the week. DePaul University Chicago Students may also want to consider the weekend MBA program at DePaul University Chicago where classes are offered every other weekend. This two-year program is intended for working professionals, and requires that students complete 11 core courses along with seven elective courses, three of which are mandatory. Students can then select the four remaining electives according to a concentration area that interests them. Concentrations are numerous at this school and include entrepreneurship, hospitality leadership, accounting, economics, and finance. University of Illinois - Chicago Another option for a weekend MBA program is the two-year program offered at the University of Illinois - Chicago. In this program, students will meet for classes with their cohort during Saturday sessions. Students can specialize their studies by pursuing a concentration. Some options include business analytics, finance, entrepreneurship, management, and operations and supply-chain management. In total, the program requires 54 credit hours, 26 of which are core courses and the remaining 28 of which can be completed through elective coursework. Moroccos Office Cherifien des Phosphates (OCP) has sealed a multi-year partnership agreement with the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC), and the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) to collaborate on the engineering of new fertilizer technologies, improvement of crop and soil specific fertilizer recommendations, development of value chains and market systems, and research and implementation of fertilizer systems to benefit African farmers, said the institutions in a joint statement. OCP, the worlds larger phosphates exporter, IFDC, and UM6P announced the partnership last week in Washington D.C during the signing of a master agreement between IFDC and OCP. The master agreement outlined collaboration areas in which the OCPUM6PIFDC consortium will undertake projects with the ultimate aim of boosting African agriculture and farmer livelihoods through innovative fertilizers that meet the specific needs of the African soil and socio-economic conditions for sustainable development, the joint statement said. Commenting on the partnership, OCP Chairman and CEO, Mostafa Terrab, said that this important partnership with IFDC confirms and advances our ambition to mobilize world-class resources in research and innovation for the benefit of Africa in general, and African smallholder farmers in particular. President and CEO of IFDC Albin Hubscher said that the partnership will accelerate the development and large-scale production of more efficient fertilizers to increase smallholder productivity and incomes while respecting the environment. The partnership is unique because it invests in a public good: the next generation of African scientists and professionals to drive the growth of the agriculture sector and feed the continent, he said. This new partnership will make use of the unique abilities of the consortium members to combine research and education with implementation under real life conditions. The collaboration will develop science-based interventions, produce a large body of scientific publications, and create the next generation of trans-disciplinary trained scientists who can bridge the gap between science and implementation. In addition to the new partnership with UM6P and IFDC, Moroccos OCP, which owns 75 percent of the worlds reserves in phosphates, concluded several other partnerships with international groups. OCP plays an important role in feeding a growing global population, by providing essential elements for soil fertility and plants growth. With almost a century of experience and revenues reaching US$ 5.95 billion in 2018, OCP Group is a leader in the phosphate rock and the worlds first producer of phosphate-based fertilizers. OCP provides a wide range of well-adapted fertilizer products to enhance soil, increase agricultural yields, and help feeding the planet in a sustainable and affordable way. Committed to best serve the development of Africa, OCP places innovation at the heart of its strategy, in particular to implement sustainable and prosperous agriculture on the continent. As a responsible industrial player, OCP is strongly committed to Africas environmental, social and human development. Colorado Christian University | BS in Business Administration: International Business Colorado Christian University's Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with an emphasis in international business program is designed to prepare graduates for careers with businesses that operate internationally through business and leadership courses. Find out more about this program. Official Program Name: Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with an emphasis in International Business School Offering Program: Colorado Christian University Degree Level: Bachelor's Program Prerequisites: Applicants to the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with an emphasis in International Business program could benefit from strong analytical and math skills when completing the program's business administration core. All bachelor's level programs at Colorado Christian University require a high school diploma or equivalent; some programs may have additional admissions requirements. Program Description: Colorado Christian University's Bachelor of Science in Business Administration program is designed to produce graduates who bring business skills and high moral standards into the field. Students have the opportunity to learn decision-making skills and entrepreneurship skills as well as ethics. Students who choose an emphasis in international business also have the chance to gain a better understanding of various cultures, markets, and global business practices along with economic and financial differences across countries. Students may select certain 500-level classes that can give them as many as 18 credits toward a Master of Business Administration degree. Learning Format: On-campus Program Length: 120 credits. Financial Aid: Eligible students could be able to receive financial aid in the forms of grants, loans, and scholarships. Contact Colorado Christian University's financial aid office for more information. Police have arrested six people after executing a number of search warrants targeting members and associates of the Comanchero motorcycle gang. More than 80 Police staff executed search warrants at 10 properties across the Auckland region on Thursday, including members of the Armed Offenders Squad, Dog Section and Specialist Search Group. The warrants are part of the second phase of an investigation dubbed Operation Nova, run by the National Organised Crime Group. The first phase, terminated on February 12, saw the arrest of five people in New Zealand and one person in Fiji, as well as the seizure of about 11kgs of methamphetamine, and 39kgs of cocaine. The seized substances had a combined street value of over $25 million. As part of Thursdays efforts, almost $4 million in assets have been restrained including two residential properties and several high end vehicles, including a number of Range Rovers, a Rolls Royce and Harley Davidson motorcycles. About $60,000 of cash and firearms have been seized, including a loaded pistol at one address, and a MSSA pistol grip shotgun and rounds of ammunition at another. National Organised Crime Groups Detective Superintendent Greg Williams says the operation has targeted some senior members of the Comancheros who hold leadership positions within the gang. He says the operation has dealt a heavy blow to the Comanchero and will go a long way to reducing the gangs influence and the social harm they cause. The Comancheros have established themselves in East Auckland after patched members, who were deported from Australia, established a chapter. We estimate there are currently about 20 members and associates in that chapter. "Our investigation also revealed plans to allegedly import methamphetamine, and approximately $1 million dollars worth of its precursor, Ephedrine, into New Zealand." The National Manager of the Financial Crime Group, Detective Superintendent Iain Chapman, says Police have also identified professionals including a lawyer and an accountant, who have allegedly been providing aid to the gang by helping them to setup businesses or trusts for the purpose of money laundering. Enquiries into this are ongoing. The offending being alleged here generates significant cash and organised crime groups rely more and more on professionals to hide its true origin so they can benefit from the proceeds, he says. Professionals who aid these gangs will be held to account, says Iain. The Comancheros are rapidly expanding in New Zealand and are trying to establish themselves as one of the leading gangs in this country. Todays operation should send a clear message to them that Police have their sights fixed firmly on them and the professionals who aid their offending. Essentially gangs cause immeasurable harm to our communities by selling them drugs. They then use that money to lead a lavish lifestyle and drive around in high-end vehicles to market themselves. Meanwhile, the people theyre preying on, and their families are suffering, he says. The seizures will help strip the gang of symbols of status and the influence they use to attract others to join. Profit is what drives organised crime, and so we will continue to target this motivation for people to become involved in such crime. Six men have been arrested. A 31-year-old has been charged with money laundering, participating in an organised criminal group, conspiracy to import a class A drug, conspiracy to supply a class B drug and unlawful possession of a firearm. A 30-year-old has been charged with money laundering and participating in an organised criminal group. A 28-year-old has been charged with conspiracy to supply a class B controlled drug, and unlawful possession of a firearm. A 41-year-old has been charged with money laundering and participating in organised criminal group, A 24-year-old and 36-year-old have also been charged with money laundering. All are expected to appear in the Auckland District Court this afternoon. This investigation remains ongoing and at this stage Police cannot rule out the possibility of further restraints and arrests. Rose McGready (2nd from right), has dedicated her life to treating malaria in pregnancy, often relying on the most meagre resources. When Professor Rose McGready (MBBS 90) arrived on the Thai/Myanmar border in 1994, it had been a volatile and dangerous part of the world for many years. Rolling insurgencies against the government from a number of ethnic and political groups created poverty, human rights abuses and the displacement of thousands of Burmese people, many of whom fled into Thailand. The political situation wasnt McGreadys concern though. She was there to help control the drug-resistant malaria that was rampant among the desperate refugees and locals, and the primary cause of death. As she began this temporary work placement at the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU), McGready couldnt have known that this beautiful but fraught region would become her home for 25 years and make her a world authority on malaria in pregnancy. It was supposed to be a six-month stop on my way to Africa. I never made it to Africa, says McGready. In preparation for the African trip, McGready had been studying tropical medicine, and took up the short-term placement at the SMRU to increase those skills. They also desperately needed her existing skills in obstetrics. Not long into the Skype call with SAM, theres a power failure at McGreadys end and the line drops out. When it comes back up, McGready remembers another blackout: We were working in the clinic with only a small kerosene lamp, resuscitating a child on the floor, and my arm felt very hot. My clothes were starting to burn. Electricity is an ongoing challenge. Supply on the Thai side is reasonable, but just 25 km into Myanmar there is no electricity. Even large towns have one generator that only runs for a few hours, which people connect to car batteries. You try to charge your battery in that time, otherwise no power, says McGready. That makes things like an ultrasound difficult. We have to be inventive. A photo, which appears to show an elderly man who was hit in the face by traffic police, has caused an outpouring of anger on social media reports Al-Modon. The traffic directorate in the Syrian capital Damascus has hurried to deny news that has circulated about a painful image showing traffic police beating and insulting an elderly Syrian man in Damascus, which has stirred anger on social media. This denial points to a new strategy pursued by the Syrian regime of trying to burnish its image and relieve frustration in the areas it controls, following the deterioration of services and the dire economic situation. A few years ago, official departments and regime agencies would not have issued any comments about what was occurring on social media. This was probably not due to Syrian state agencies being occupied with more important matters, but instead because of a media strategy based on creating the illusion of an ideal state whose image was trying to be distorted by prejudiced people. The strategy is based on denying all news and reports circulated on social media that expose the exploitation and contempt shown by the regime at all levels, after the pace of the war in the country has slowed over the last two years. Pro-regime sites such as Syria Today have worked to contradict these rumors and the biased information that harms the image of the Syrian state, which they describe as a civilized state. This does not mean they will deny dangerous military or political information, but rather the images of everyday life circulated on social media, which show the extent of the misery in regime-controlled areas, whether in terms of manifestations of poverty, long lines to obtain basic goods, or similar sights. This misery appears clearly in the recent image of traffic police speaking with the driver of a taxi alongside a man of advanced years in a squatting position putting, his head in his hands. A girl is also shown in the wing mirror of her car, as she records the scene, which pro-regime pages described as inappropriate treatment of a Syrian citizen. In the usual copy-and-paste manner, the pro-regime sites said: This is not how citizens should be treated by traffic police. The driver, who is of advanced years, is hit in the face, in full view of people. The Interior Ministry called for an investigation into the scene. The man had fallen to the ground following the blow, in the presence of two police officers. The incident took place in the Azbakiyeh area. The incident sparked a reaction from social media, with people expressing their discontent about the traffic polices inappropriate treatment of citizens and their lack of even the smallest amounts of respect for the passersby who gathered to watch the scene unfold. The police statement denied this, however, saying that what happened was only a, problem between a taxi driver and the driver of a truck, who was holding up the traffic. The statement added that: What appears to be the driver on his knees in front of the police, resulted from low blood pressure because of the exchange occurring between him and the other driver. This sparked widespread scorn among regime loyalists themselves, who pointed out in comments, that the policeman hadnt hit him, but the other policeman who is present is believed to be from the anti-riot police. Later, the old man appeared in a video in which he said he was not struck by any traffic police in Damascus. Some commenters believed the man was forced to record the video, which was broadcast on intelligence agency pages on social media. Other commenters said that the police officer who was wearing military clothes had been the one who struck the mannot the traffic police who appear in the video. 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. Israeli airstrikes on Hamas countryside, regime airstrikes in Idleb, Turkish reinforcements sent to the border and Leishmaniasis disease spreads across Raqqa. Catch up on everything that happened over the weekend. 1. Syrian air defenses intercepted an Israeli aerial attack that targeted military positions in Masyaf city and surrounding areas in the Hama countryside. A military source told SANA that: at about 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, warplanes of the Israeli enemy carried out an airstrike against one of the military positions towards Masyaf city. The source added that regime defenses immediately intercepted the hostile missiles and downed some of them before they reached their targets. It said that the attack caused the destruction of some buildings and injured three fighters. But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the strikes targeted a medium-range missile development center, and killed a number of Iranian fighters and injured 17 members of the regime forces and militiamen loyal to them. Speaking to AFP, Observatory director Rami Abdul Rahman revealed that several Iranian fighters were killed in the attack, but we have not been able to determine their number so far. 2. Five civilians were injured in a regime airstrike in Syrias northwestern Idleb province, according to the White Helmets Civil Defense on Sunday. The White Helmets said on their Facebook page that three children were among those injured in the attack. On Saturday, Syrian Kurds repatriated 25 women and children from Iraqs Yazidi minority after freeing them during the final push against the Islamic State, a local official said. Al-Araby al-Jadeed reported that the US-backed fighters say they rescued some 300 Yazidi women and children during the fight to take the jihadists last scrap of territory in eastern Syria. 4. A source at the Aleppo Police Command told SANA that, on Sunday, terrorist groups positioned in the northern countryside fired rockets on al-Nile street and the al-Khalidiya neighborhood in Aleppo city, killing six civilians and injuring others, and causing material damage to public and private properties. 5. Turkey has sent more commando units to reinforce its southern provinces near its border with Syria. According to Asharq al-Awsat, a military convoy transporting commandos arrived in the southern Hatay province as part of Turkeys recent military reinforcements overnight Saturday, before they headed to the area adjacent to Syrias Idleb region. Turkey has been reinforcing its military presence on the border with Syria days after a visit by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Moscow where he met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The two leaders agreed on launching joint patrols in Idleb. 6. A medical centre has reported the spread of Leishmaniasis disease across the eastern province of Raqqa. Dr. Youssef Al-Naimi, head of the health center of Karama town, in Raqqa, told Zaman Al Wasl that 4,000 Leishmaniasis cases had been recorded, mostly among children in areas close to the sewers of the Euphrates River and due to the lack of protective pesticides. This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. President Assad highlighted the shared struggle that the two countries face and the need for them to enhance relations and to serve common interests reports The Syria Times. On Sunday, President Bashar al-Assad received Iraqi National Security Adviser Faleh al-Fayyad. Talks during the meeting dealt with the bilateral relations between the two countries, affirming the necessity of developing them in different domains to serve the interests of the two brotherly peoples. President Assad asserted that enhancing relations between the two countries serves the interest of the two brotherly peoples to complete the elimination of terrorism in a way that serves their common interests, as well as breaking the different hurdles imposed on them. President Assad affirmed that Syria and Iraq are moving forwards to preserve their sovereignty and the independence of their decision making, in the face of the divisive schemes and the chaos plotted by enemies abroad. He stressed that the fate of the region can only be determined by the regions people, no matter how great the challenges. For his part, Adviser Fayyad affirmed that Syrias strength and its victory over terrorism is a victory for Iraq also and vice versa, any military achievement by the Iraqi side comes in the interest of Syrias stability. This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. While the Islamic State has lost its final piece of territory, there are claims that they are now using the al-Hol refugee camp as a base to organize activities reports Ana Press. On Sunday, Russia Today quoted an unnamed Iraqi intelligence source as saying that: fighters and commanders from the Islamic State (ISIS) have turned the al-Hol refugee camp in Hassakeh province into a base to coordinate their activities. The source said that: ninety percent of residents in the al-Hol camp were from families of the organization and that some of its fighters and commanders had taken it as a base for meetings and to coordinate their movements among the displaced people. It added that most of them are Iraqis, adding that: the organizations fighters and commanders who are exploiting the camp are the fighters who still believe in the caliphate state. The al-Hol camp was built by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in 1991 in the town of al-Hol in the Syrian province of Hassakeh during the Gulf War. At the time it hosted 15,000 Iraqis. It was then reopened in 2003 after the American invasion of Iraq, and now hosts refugees from Syria and Iraq. On Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that the al-Hol camp for Syrian refugees, is undergoing a disastrous humanitarian situation in which 10 to 20 people a day are dying. The United Nations Syria Humanitarian Fund (SHF) allocated 4.3 million dollars in humanitarian aid to the al-Hol displaced camp in northeastern Syria. The press office of the United Nations office in Syria said in a statement last week that it would use these funds to buy tents, blankets, drinking water, cleaning supplies and expand the camp. According to the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs in Syria, Corinne Fleischer, these funds would provide direct aid for tens of thousands of camp residents, especially women and children, who comprise 90 percent of the residents, and that 42 organizations would provide aid in the camp. On Feb 27, 2019, the World Health Organization announced that 73 Syrian refugees, most of them children, had died over the last few months in the al-Hol refugee camp. A statement, issued by the group, was published in a number of press reports including in Russia Today: Over the last three months, more than 37,000 people, mainly women and children, fleeing hostilities in rural areas of neighbouring Deir-ez-Zor, have arrived at the al-Hol camp in Hassakeh governorate. As of Feb. 23, 2019, 73 deaths have been registered. Infants accounted for almost two thirds of all deaths. Almost two thirds of deaths have occurred in different areas of the camp, and the remaining third have occurred in hospitals. Many infants and young children have perished from hypothermia on the way to or shortly after arrival at the camp. On Feb. 23, 2019, a fire broke out in the camp after a gas explosion, which wounded 16 people to various degrees. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said at the end of February that residents had died fleeing the Hajin area in Deir ez-Zor, controlled by ISIS, to the al-Hol camp. They called on, all parties to the conflict and all entities capable of influencing it to expand protections for civilians and infrastructure in accordance with international humanitarian law. 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. Photo: Pulitzer Hannah Dreier won a Pulitzer Prize in feature writing on Monday for three stories, including The Betrayal of Triste, which was published in New York Magazine in collaboration with ProPublica, where it also appeared. The Betrayal of Triste focuses on Henry, a 17-year-old FBI informant on Long Island. Forced to join the brutal gang MS-13 and participate in murders in his native El Salvador as a boy, Henry had fled with his mother to Long Island only to be threatened and intimidated by the gang again there. Even though he was actively helping authorities identify MS-13 ringleaders, Henry was detained for his involvement in the previous incidents as part of a crackdown on the gang. Thanks to Dreiers painstaking reporting, which involved months finding witnesses and earning Henrys trust, the Department of Homeland Security opened a civil-rights investigation, and ICE said it would move Henry into protective custody. As Dreier later reported, Henry was deported to El Salvador. But readers moved by his story donated tens of thousand of dollars to help him begin a new life in Europe, where he is now seeking asylum. The Betrayal of Triste also won the 2018 Online Journalism Award for feature story, and was a finalist for the Public Interest ASME award. Dreiers other two stories cited by the Pulitzer Committee were A Betrayal and He Drew His School Mascot and ICE Labeled Him a Gang Member, which were both published in ProPublica, in association with other outlets. An Indiana man moved into a new home in Muncie, IN (Jerry Gergichs favorite spot), only to notice that 12 boxes of pornographic films and magazines were missing. The man estimates his porn collection which featured films such as Big Bad Grannys is worth $29,000 (which seems a bit questionable since most people will choose to just watch porn for free on the internet these days). Well, it turns out his parents got rid of the porn, and hes suing them for it. Via the Associated Press (through WLKY): The 40-year-old man last week filed a lawsuit in federal court in Michigan, where he moved in with his parents in 2016 following a divorce. He says that when he moved out 10 months later, they delivered his things to his new home in Muncie, Indiana, but that his 12 boxes of pornographic films and magazines were missing. His parents admit they dumped the porn, which included titles such as Frisky Business and Big Bad Grannys. The man is seeking triple financial damages of roughly $87,000. The report adds that the lawsuit includes an email message from the father to the son: I did you a big favor by getting rid of all this stuff. Anyway, heres Paul Rudd bringing over a big box of porn to Steve Carell in The 40-Year-Old Virgin: 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. Ad Investing Trends New this week - 126 interested What Investors Don't Know: Communist China Could Profit Billions From The World "Going Green." Who controls 80% of the works lithium supply (the most important metal for building EV batteries)? China! And if you're outraged by that fact, then you'll love hearing how this western company is fighting back Being the 44th presidents trusty sidekick is indeed Bidens most important credential. Photo: Quirk Books It was always assumed that if Joe Biden decided to run for president for a third time, his service as Barack Obamas vice-president for eight years would be at the top of his resume. But as press reports this weekend indicated, there are fresh signs Biden is planning to make the Obama legacy central to his 2020 strategy. For a career pol whose previce-presidential record has received ever-increasing and often-hostile scrutiny especially from progressives, and particularly from African-Americans its a smart move to act as though he was rebaptized politically in 2008 (its the secular equivalent of one of those late-life religious conversions, like the one some Evangelicals believe career heathen Donald Trump has undergone). After all, would a closet bigot serve the first African-American president so loyally? And for that matter, would Michelle Obamas husband tolerate a vice-president whose handsiness wasnt just an innocent eccentricity? Bidens appropriation of the Obama mantle also puts his rivals a bit on the spot. There has been more than a little surreptitious criticism of Obama implicit in the strategic arguments and policy pronouncements of such candidates as Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and even Pete Buttigieg. But elite progressive disdain for the centrist tradition of the Clintons that Obama arguably continued is not widely shared by the Democratic rank and file, who continue to adore the man. So clinging to him is an effective ideological as well as personal self-defense mechanism for Biden. The bigger question is whether it will work. Its worth remembering that Bidens pre-Obama record basically doesnt exist for a lot of voters, as political scientist Joel Goldstein recently noted: His favorability rating in a Gallup poll as he concluded his vice presidency was 61% (even higher than Obamas). By contrast, when Obama chose Biden as his running mate in August 2008, 51% either had not heard of him or had no opinion about him even though he had served six terms in the Senate, led two major committees, and run the two presidential campaigns that now cause various pundits to dismiss his candidacy. So Bidens opposition to school busing in the 1970s, or his votes against abortion rights early in the 1980s, or his mishandling of the Clarence Thomas hearings, or his sponsorship of a troubling crime bill in the 1990s just arent part of the perception of Uncle Joe in the minds of many actual voters, particularly low-information voters. And while lefty critics (and right-wing opportunists) will continue to bring it all up, its unclear how much his standing will be affected; the latest evidence of inappropriate behavior toward women hasnt hurt him at all so far). On the other hand, the idea that in Joe Biden Democrats can just reboot the Obama campaign of 2008 runs into some pretty sizable psychological barriers that have nothing to do with Bidens ideological heresies, as an Associated Press article on the subject pointed out: Biden, a 76-year-old white man with more than four decades of political experience, is an atypical heir to Obamas legacy, particularly in a Democratic field with a historic number of minority candidates, as well as contenders who represent the kind of generational change Obama ushered in more than a decade ago. The former veep may be a reassuring alternative to fellow-septuagenarian Donald Trump, but he isnt inherently very hopey-changey. But most of all, making his partnership with Obama the strategic centerpiece of his own presidential campaign exposes Biden to the huge risk associated with constant scrutiny of Obamas (and his former staffs) own less-than-excited attitude toward the aspirations of his former veep, as my colleague Matt Stieb has observed: A while back, Obama and Biden reportedly agreed that the former president wouldnt skew the odds by backing a primary candidate. Thus, the Obama-Biden Democrat claim doesnt have the full support of its most important player. Obamas political associates are all over the place heading into 2020; a conspicuous number of them, particularly in Iowa, seem to be gravitating toward Beto ORourke. You can certainly envision a moment down the road when the ghost of the Obama administration becomes less than an unmixed blessing for its best-known alumnus. Photo: Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images Joe Biden, the current Democratic primary front-runner according to most polls, is well aware of the Obama bubble: the phenomenon of party voters favoring the former vice-president because of his association with one of the most popular Democratic leaders in recent history. Hes so aware, in fact, that according to a report from the Associated Press, the nascent Biden campaign intends to lean heavily on Obamas legacy in an attempt to rebuild the coalition that brought him two sturdy Electoral College wins. Its more or less the expected move from the former vice-president, invoking the name of a highly popular centrist in a time when policy proposals from 2020 contenders like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are pushing the Party to the left. According to a recent Pew survey of registered Democrats, 53 percent said they want the party to pursue a more moderate direction, while 40 percent preferred the more liberal politics that emerged in the wake of the 2016 election. More numbers in Bidens favor come from a recent Morning Consult poll, which states hes the second choice of Bernie Sanders supporters, Kamala Harris supporters, and Beto ORourke supporters, suggesting the broad, if secondary appeal of the former vice-president. Perhaps the best argument for a Biden ticket is the possibility of reclaiming working-class Obama-Trump voters for the Democratic Party. According to a Harvard-Harris poll from February, three out of four voters who said theyd back a Biden run dont have a college education. The same poll states hes winning 42 percent of non-college-educated voters, 20 points more than his closest competitor, Bernie Sanders. At a recent labor union event, Biden said he was proud to be an Obama-Biden Democrat, close branding that might be essential in the primary battle, where politicians will hit the former VP for both past policies and recent indiscretions. Already, Bidens opponents are reminding voters of political stances and events like the the crime bill and Anita Hill hearings that could haunt him in the primary and beyond. Though Democrats like Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi say Bidens touchy behavior is not disqualifying, its still baggage that could weigh down his candidacy. (Consider the presidents bizarre tweet on the matter that ignores his own history with unwanted contact.) Allegations of Bidens inappropriate contact have yet to hurt his stance in the polls: 71 percent of California Democrats recently polled felt that Bidens handsiness was not a serious issue. The ex-veep may pull out the Obama-Biden Democrat calling card more frequently in the coming weeks, which is a bit odd, as the Associated Press notes. A while back, Obama and Biden reportedly agreed that the former president wouldnt skew the odds by backing a primary candidate. Thus, the Obama-Biden Democrat claim doesnt have the full support of its most important player. Photography is photographers. ...If you ask me. It's defined by the people who do it. That's whose side I'm on. That's my personal answer, and has been my approach for a long time. Bob Shell, who used to be the Editor-in-Chief of the then-powerful Shutterbug magazine (even though he was technically an independent contractor, not staff) and is currently serving a sentence of thirty-two and a half years in prison for involuntary manslaughter in the death of one of his models,* once sent me a stern, scolding letter lecturing me on my responsibilities as a photo-writer. He was not my editor and I had never written for his magazine. He had at the time been involved somehow in helping orchestrate a campaign of retribution against me by a manufacturer I had offended with a comment in one of my articles. In the course of that kerfuffle, I was accused by the manufacturer of having falsely claimed to be a Shutterbug writer, which was untrue and also pretty stupid: I had credentials from the magazine I did work for, and had nothing to gain from pretending to have credentials from one I didn't work for. Anyway, one result was that letter. It outlined in succinct (and, I thought at the time, remarkably cynical) form the mechanics of what is sometimes called "advertorial." I wish I still had the letteror could find it, as it's probably in the barn somewhere. Of necessity I'm paraphrasing, but one of his points was that our first and main duty as photo writers was to help advertisers sell their products. I wrote an indignant letter in return saying that I thought it was more appropriate to look after the interests of the reader who was thinking of parting with his cash, rather than the people who were trying to coax it out of him. There was a positive lesson in that unpleasant situation, turned out. It led me to take a conscious stand for the rest of my career in magazines: "readers first." I always advocated for readers, tried to inform readers of biases or conflicts of interests, attempted to take them seriously, and primarily strove to see things in terms of their needs, desires and interests. Even if it brought me into conflict with my bosses, which it occasionally did. Dispersed and dynamic It's more or less the same thing with photography and photographers. One can see photography as a sort of automatic writing, if you will, that doesn't have much to do with the intentions of the makerthat is, you took the picture, but you are unaware of the ways the object you made will operate in the world. Fair enough. For example, Geoffrey Batchen, writing (in his first book, Burning with Desire) of John Tagg, says, "Tagg suggests that photography cannot be understood as having a singular identity or singular cultural status. Photography is, [Tagg] says, better regarded as a dispersed and dynamic field of technologies, practices, and images. The compliant ubiquity of this photographic field is such that it is indistinguishable from those institutions or discourses that choose to make use of it. Photography's history is, therefore, a collective and multifarious history of those same institutions and discourses." Later he observes, "[Tagg's] assumption here is that, as a thing with no fixed identity or historical unity, photography potentially belongs to every institution and discipline but its own." Which is such a delightful turn that reading it made me want to clap, even though I would argue with Tagg's position. (I would also argue that photography is essentially subversive, in that a photograph, no matter what "institution or discourse" is controlling it, can still potentially contain elements that can't be managedwhich often becomes clearer after the passage of time, like the living take command of the dead. But never mind.) Is it a cop-out, critically speaking, to simply get behind the makers of photographs and sympathize with their aims and interests? Maybe. But it's where I come down. It makes life easier. I understand my "mission," if you will (the word sounds a little pretentious) as simply to be on the side of photographers. Be sympathetic to their aims, aid them in doing their work, help them have fun, embody the audience, encourage them, and, of course, inform and entertain them. To be on their side, in short. (I don't get too carried away with Marxist, semiotic, capitalist, postmodern, etc. frameworks, either, which is a bonus.) As far as cameras and materials are concerned I don't really care directly about the health of any particular manufacturer or the success of any particular product; I want photographers to have what they need to do their work, whatever that is. I care about industries only in that they have an impact on the people they serve. As far as critical theorizing is concerned, I do enjoy it, but it frequently departs from the way photographers themselves conceive of what they are doing. I'm willing to look at it their way. Simple. Simple I try not to discriminate rigidly between types of photographers. Hobbyist, career artist, family snapshooter, corporate professional; Leicaphile, Photoshop adept, lens collector, amateur tester; intellectual theorist, archivist, sociological documentarian, museumgoer; and so on. I've seen many of the "types" over many yearsor the usual multivalent mishmashes of types**. Of course it's impossible to have no hierarchy in mind, and I have my biases. Long ago I set the simple ones out in a long article called "The Photographer's Menagerie" that outlined a very basic typology in ascending order. I see it isn't on the Web, which might be for the best. The point is just that it's okay in my view to be a 13-year-old snapchatting with friends or a graybeard grousing about the QC problems of East European film stocks, and neither one has to be given more respect because they both get respect, and it's nice not to have to take sides. What is photography? What photographers do. If that looks circular, so be it. If it makes me simple, okay. Mike *I encountered Bob Shell twice over the years. The second time, we had a brief exchange of words, and he encouraged me to try shooting nudes. "It's remarkably freeing," he commented. Which is ironic. **I'm an advanced amateur (AdAm), enthusiast, photo-writer, photobook collector, and recovering lens nut. Each of us is a somewhat different mishmash. Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. (Not) everything must fade away (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.) Featured Comments from: Richard Tugwell: "'There is no such thing as Artonly artists' E. H. Gombrich." is our best selling product in the shop. This perfectly proportioned blend of salt, pepper, rosemary and garlic is so well received it will become a family tradition in your household for pork roast, grilled chicken, venison, roasted potatoes, and even garlic bread. Mixed frequently in small batches, it's always a fresh blend for your kitchen. We have been making this blend for almost 40 years. Over the years, it has been mail ordered to all 50 states and 12 countries. Many of our customers can't live without Roastmary! Try some today Its Miller time? Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Donald Trump has nothing against lawful immigrants in fact, he believes they enrich our society and contribute to our nation. And the president certainly has no investment in maintaining the United States as a majority-white nation; he is, after all, the least racist person you have ever met. The left might try to defame this White House by insisting its hard-line immigration policies are motivated by nativism or even white-nationalist sympathies. But the administration has made its true motives perfectly clear: It has not adopted a zero tolerance policy toward undocumented immigrants out of animus for foreign people but simply out of reverence for American law. In a Trump administration, all immigration laws will be enforced, Trump promised a crowd in Phoenix two months before his election. Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation that is what it means to have laws and to have a country. Trump has repeatedly invoked this absolutist commitment to the law when seeking to justify unpopular immigration policies. The president never offered an affirmative argument for canceling the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provided temporary work permits to 700,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to this country as children. To the contrary, almost immediately after terminating DACA, the president claimed he supported protections for Dreamers in principle and implored Congress to write such protections into legislation. He didnt want to hurt Dreamers or use them as bargaining chips in negotiations with Democrats he just felt the Executive branch did not have the authority to make immigration policy unilaterally. Sure, past Republican presidents (and the federal courts) might have considered deferred action to be within the Executive branchs purview. But Trump was a stickler about the Constitutions separation of powers. We are a nation of laws, not men. On such grounds, the president would later justify making America into the kind of nation that punishes migrant mothers by separating them from their children. Of course, the white-collar-criminal-in-chiefs professed devotion to law and order was always a transparent fraud (this is a man who has publicly insisted that the attorney generals job is to subordinate the law to the presidents personal interests). But even by this administrations standards, its latest efforts to crack down on illegal immigration are gobsmacking in their hypocrisy. Last week, the White House purged many of its own appointees from the Department of Homeland Security, suggesting that the president was looking to go in a tougher direction. Subsequent reporting has clarified that tougher was a euphemism for lawless. Under U.S. law, any foreign national who sets foot on our nations soil has a legal right to seek asylum from persecution or violence in that persons home country if he or she can pass an initial screening conducted by asylum officials. And Congress designed such screenings with an eye toward minimizing the number of genuinely endangered people whom America sends back into harms way (rather than minimizing the number of economic migrants whom our asylum courts are forced to process). As a result, about 90 percent of those who claim asylum make it past the initial screening. As violence and instability in Central America have sent hundreds of thousands of migrant families to our border, this law has created logistical problems for the Trump administration. Litigating asylum claims can take months, even years. And the United States does not have the resources to detain every asylum seeker who makes it past the initial test. Thus the White House finds itself in the position of releasing asylum seekers into the United States, likely allowing some number to slip into the country and thereby become undocumented immigrants. For whatever reason, this administration cares more about curbing such immigration (even though undocumented immigration is associated with reductions in crime, and the U.S. has an acute need for more low skill labor) than it does about enforcing all of Americas immigration laws. As the New York Times explains: To [White House senior adviser Stephen] Miller, the asylum process was a giant loophole that needed to be plugged. And he faulted the asylum officers at Citizenship and Immigration Services who were conducting the screenings for having a cultural bias that made them overly sympathetic to the asylum seekers. You need to tighten up, Miller insisted. Immigration officials on the conference call did not disagree that too many migrants were granted asylum in the initial credible fear screening. But the rules for conducting the screenings were written into law by Congress and designed to be generous so that persecuted people had a real opportunity to seek asylum. It was unclear, the officials said, what else the agency could do. In a separate conversation, President Trump implored thenDHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to ban migrants from seeking asylum. Ms. Nielsen explained why she could not do that, citing economic and legal issues banning migrants from seeking asylum would be against the law. When Ms. Nielsen did not give the president the answer he sought, he turned to Kevin McAleenan, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, and asked him to stop migrants from entering the country. Mr. Trump told Mr. McAleenan that he would pardon him if he ran into any legal problems, according to officials familiar with the conversation though he denied it in a tweet Saturday night. It is abundantly clear, then, that the Trump administrations fanatical opposition to illegal immigration is not rooted in a commitment to upholding U.S. law but rather in some other concern it does not wish to speak in public. A blog for students in my introductory classes in government, and any interested passersby. You'll find news items and random stories that illustrate any of the topics we cover in class. Special attention will be paid to the constitutional issues associated with contemporary issues and disputes. Feel free to send me stories you find important. Please note that due to spam, I'm limiting the ability of people to comment on these pages. My apologies. Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship. Photo: Getty Images With President Trump, you need to give a compliment to get a compliment, as Jimmy Carter learned this weekend after President 39 sent 45 a glowing letter on his handling of the U.S.-China relationship. According to the White House, Carter wrote Trump a beautiful letter about the current negotiations with China, after which the two spoke over the phone on Saturday. By Monday, the White House was ready to share the good news: The President has always liked President Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter and extended his best wishes to them on behalf of the American people. This is a new tune for President Trump, who has previously called Carter the worst President in the history of the United States. Carter, for his part, told the Washington Post in 2017 that the Trump presidency was a disaster in terms of human rights and taking care of people and treating people equal. Former President Jimmy Carter is so happy that he is no longer considered the worst President in the history of the United States! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2013 As the Post notes, Trump has sent his fair share of insults toward the oldest living president most often some repetition of the claim that Carter was the worst U.S. executive until Obama came along. Theres also this odd tweet from 2014: Of course I don't think Jimmy Carter is dead-saw him today on T.V. Just being sarcastic, but never thought he was alive as President, stiff! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 7, 2014 Of course, when one slings as much trash talk as President Trump does, eventually one must recant some of it. Consider the progress in his relationship with former 2016 rival Ted Cruz, growing in just two short years, from lyin Ted to beautiful Ted. Being a local or resident of Luxembourg means you experience the Grand Duchy in a different way. While we have our preferences for having fun in the Grand Duchy, what exactly do you recommend to someone asking how to spend a weekend in Luxembourg. Faced with this question recently, I realised I struggled to think of specific tourist activities to recommend to someone on a flying visit. A tourist flying in for the weekend may not necessarily rent a car to explore the country, especially if they're staying in the capital. As a result, this week's Knowledge Bite may not be as useful for us locals, but hopefully will be a decent bit of inspiration for those of us having friends visiting. For the sake of making this guide more coherent, the premise will be someone flying in to Luxembourg from Friday evening to Sunday evening (or early afternoon). Day 1 - arrival and evening Presuming you arrive in Luxembourg at a time before dinner, you'll be hungry and wanting to explore the city a bit. Once checked in to your hotel/AirBnB/etc, the question revolves around food. To start, I would recommend people wandering around the upper town and starting in the Place d'Armes (although not necessarily eating in any of the outlets there, unless you desperately want McDonalds). From there, head towards the palace area to find restaurants and bars, the latter if you fancy a drink and aren't feeling too peckish. Recommendations: In my opinion, Luxembourg's pizzerias do far superior pizza and pasta than their French or British counterparts, for example. If you've got a hankering for a good pizza, I'd recommend Pizzeria Onesto on Rue du N, Bacchus on Rue du Marche-aux-Herbes (right by the palace and Chamber of Deputies), or Basta Cosi on Rue Louvigny. If Italian's not quite what you're looking for, Rue Louvigny has a decent selection of other restaurants. AFP Next stop - after dinner drinks? The area surrounding the palace has a number of good bars as well, including Go Ten gin bar, Urban, and Octans. If you head further down towards the National Museum of History and Art, you'll also find The Tube and Art Scene, also two popular bars, especially when the weather's warmer. Day 2 - day trip and exploring My personal opinion of exploring a new city is to just go for a wander around. With that in mind, I would spend day two exploring Luxembourg City by having a rough itinerary, but taking time to explore anything that catches your interest. Luxembourg has a lot of wonderful bakeries which serve a purpose of either providing breakfast, snacks, or a light lunch as well. The first stop on this day of tourism is the Bock Casemates for a dose of history and cool tunnel exploring. The handy thing about the Casemates is if it happens to be raining, this could give the rain a chance to stop. Exploring the Casemates should then be followed by a walk along the Corniche, aka Europe's most beautiful balcony, and the descent down to the Grund. Dennis Jarvis/Flickr Once in the Grund, you can choose to go to the National Museum of Natural History or stop and have a drink at one of the outside terraces, but my personal pick of a museum is not located in the Grund. Take the lift up to the Plateau St Esprit and get a bus to Kirchberg (or walk, of course!). In Kirchberg, visit the Drai Eechelen Museum, which is housed in the renovated Fort Thungen and traces Luxembourg's history alongside providing some stunning views of the city from the other side. If you run out of time to visit the museum itself, why not view the virtual tour for summer 2020, by Lux-American cycling personality Mike McQuaide. After the museum, I would recommend popping into Auchan shopping centre. Why Auchan, you ask? I'd recommend Auchan as the supermarket sells macarons at a much cheaper price than Laduree or Oberweis. At 6.50 for 12 macarons, this is basically a bargain. After this, depending on how quick you are, you can head back into Luxembourg City for a nice coffee. Cafes worth visiting include Golden Bean or Downtown on Rue Chimay, Coffee Knopes next to Alima, or Konrad on Rue du Nord. Finally, if you want to experience Luxembourgish food for dinner, head down to Clausen and to Mousel Cantine. If you're wanting to go for more drinks again, Clausen also has a number of bars. Day 3 - day trip Obviously, it may be less stressful to go on a day trip on the full day you're spending in Luxembourg, but some people prefer to explore the city they're staying in before venturing off somewhere else. Vianden may be tricky to visit on a day trip, as the journey by public transport requires several changes. Instead, visiting the town and lake of Echternach could make a nice day trip. The 110 bus connects the capital with Echternach in just under an hour and you get the added bonus of seeing some of Luxembourg on the journey. Echternach is known for its hopping procession (which is on UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list), its Roman villa, and is the oldest town in Luxembourg. Barbara Fuchs Once you've had your fill of Echternach, you return to the capital, collect your belongings and head back home! This is obviously not a very comprehensive list, but a suggestion of how someone could make the most of a weekend in Luxembourg. I personally think it's difficult to venture beyond Luxembourg City without a car, as a car would facilitate going to Luxembourg's Mullerthal area (known as Little Switzerland and famous for its walking trails) or to another of Luxembourg's many castles. Alternate day trips include the German city of Trier (perhaps one for the full day you're spending in Luxembourg) or Vianden castle. Or, if you'd rather spend the whole weekend in Luxembourg City, that is also an option. There are several museums and galleries in the city and a very nice park as well. In this column Mike revisits his shame and embarrassment in failing to get a Luxembourgish driver's license. When it comes to social media, Im definitely guilty of dispersing more than my share of Yay, me! posts. As in: Yay, me--I passed the Luxembourgish language test! Yay, me--I got my Luxembourg passport! Yay, me--I failed the Luxembourg driving test! Actually, I never posted that last one. But its true. Last year, I tried to get my Luxembourg drivers license, but I failed the driving test. Talk about embarrassing. I mean, absolutely humiliating. Ive been driving since I was 17; Ive never had an accident nor lost my license, and I havent had a speeding ticket (or any moving violation) since Ronald Reagan was president. Somehow though, I failed. Thing is, I didnt really want my license anyway. And Im not just saying that. You see, ever since we moved to Luxembourg six years ago, Ive had a wonderful experience here and I think one of the reasons why is because I stopped driving as soon as we arrived. It wasnt a planned decision. I just found that it wasnt necessary anymore. Weve lived the whole of our six years in the city and from day one, I got in the habit of walking, riding my bike, or taking the bus and train everywhere. These days, I bask in not driving. I luxuriate in it. And over time, Ive come to fear that if I ever did get my license, Id go back to driving for every little trip and errand just like I used to in the U.S., and my Luxembourg experience would become mundane and ordinary. But one thing and another, and after living here for five years, we decided it might be a good idea for me to get my license too. My wife, Jen, had gotten hers a few years earlier when the company where she worked moved out of the city. Jen is smart and forward-thinking, and she applied for her Luxembourg license within a year of our moving here and so it was a painless process. Fill out a few forms, drop them off, and a week later she has her Luxembourg license. For me though, it was different. Because Id waited five years, Id not only have to take the driving test, but first Id have to complete four hours of driving lessons. That is, drive around Luxembourg for four hours in one of those little Bozo Driving Academy! cars with an instructor who was so young, she was still a decade away from being born when, as a man in my mid-20s, I drove across America from New Jersey to California. Oh, and the driving lessons cost roughly a hundred euros an hour. On to the driving test. Unlike my first driving exam when I was 17--which took place on a closed course in my own car--my Luxembourg test was on public streets in one of the Bozo Academy cars. Exactly like that first time though, I was nervous as hell. A swirling whirlpool of dread, anxiety and pre-test jitters. But if I didnt even want my license, why was I so nervous, you might ask. Because the potential for humiliation and embarrassment were enormous. I mean, if youve been driving for more than 30 years like I have, what kind of a lunkhead goober do you have to be to fail a simple driving exam? Thatd be like failing a urine test--as long as you can go pee-pee in a cup, you pass, right? *** During the test, the examiner, a large man, positioned himself in the middle of the backseat. He spoke my instructions (turn right, turn left, etc.) in German to my driving instructor, who was also along for the ride and who translated for me. The tiny clown car felt cramped, and crammed with unfamiliarity. And maybe its all the movies I saw growing up in which Germans were the bad guys, but theres something about a person behind me ordering me about in German that sets me on edge. Details of how I failed the test are not important, other than to say that I failed it within 45 seconds of pulling out of the Centre dexamen pratique de conduire in Findel. (I California-stopped through a weird traffic signal that vacillated between flashing-yellow and red.) Thing is, I wasnt told Id done anything wrong until after the exam was over. So, for most of the test, I was good-naturedly chatty, which sometimes calms my nerves in tense situations. Upon returning to the Centre dexamen at the end of the test, I parked the car and breathed a huge sigh of relief. I figured Id passed, and chuckled to myself about having gotten so worked up beforehand. But then I heard a rear door slam and in the rearview mirror, saw the examiner heading inside to his office. My instructor turned to me. You failed! she said. I was shocked. Stunned. Bewildered. But that quickly dissipated and resolved itself into an amorphous mass of shame, disappointment and self-loathing that permeated my beings every cell, molecule and atom. A few weeks later, I received a letter in French from the powers that be saying they had the distinguished honor of inviting me to give the driving exam another try. The honor too of requiring me to spend eight more hours tooling about with a youngster in a Bozo Driving Academy car, and spend 800 more euros to do so. After reading the letter, heres something I didnt post, but could have: Yay, me--Im not getting my Luxembourg drivers license! Mike McQuaide is the author of the 2018 Publikumsprais-winning An American in Luxembourg (Editions Saint-Paul) and creator of the popular Facebook and Instagram pages of the same name. The offender was caught swiping a number of items in a tech shop near Luxembourg's central station at 5.30pm The individual was caught red-handed and the police quickly arrived at the scene. The public prosecutors office had the man arrested and he was brought before the examining magistrate on Sunday morning. Would-be alcohol thief pulls knife on cashier On Saturday at around 8pm, an inebriated man tried to steal alcohol from a shop on Bertrange's the route de Longwy. When he turned aggressive, staff called the police. The man, in return, pulled out a knife and began threatening the cashier. When the police arrived, officers were able to seize the knife and detain him. He was also arrested and faced an investigating magistrate. Luxembourg's government is willing to invest in its digital infrastructure - and become a key player in this sector. On 5G networks, autonomous driving and a multi-billion business. In a parliamentary question to the Ministry of the Economy and the Ministry of Mobility, CSV MP Viviane Reding hoped to probe deeper into questions of digital infrastructure in Luxembourg. Among other things, she inquired about the planned 5G networks and their relation to self-driving cars in the Grand Duchy. To take us a step back, on 3 April, ministers for transport from Germany, France, and Luxembourg officially inaugurated a new testing site for autonomous driving for the Saarland-Lorraine-Luxembourg region in Schengen. First testing sessions will reportedly kick off within the next two years. What do 5G networks have to do with autonomous driving? 5G connectivity is paving the way for self-driving cars. The vehicle will permanently need to be connected to the network and use the signals to steer and accelerate by itself. The ministries explained that the required hardware will be installed in the context of the European research program Horizon2020. Luxembourgish companies participating in the project are, among others, POST and SES Consult. It remains unclear which technologies exactly will be used, the ministries said. In their reply, the ministries also highlighted the national strategy for expanding the 5G network. 5G is a mobile network that is significantly more efficient than its predecessor. It for example allows a quicker exchange of higher volumes of data between different devices. The prospect of 5G networks has led to controversy in some circles. For the time being, it is not possible efficiently to control the software and there are no conclusive studies on potential health hazards caused by the 5G deployments. Multi-billion business Officials nevertheless hope to install the fast network on major transport axes - and gradually become a key player in data economy and mobility. This digital market is estimated to produce revenue of $82,9 billion already. According to the German federation for economy, revenue could even balloon to $4,500 billion by 2050. It should therefore not come as a surprise that Luxembourg's government is willing to invest - and eventually scoop a slice of the digital cake. The TransGriot is available for speaking engagements, college lectures, panel discussions, media interviews, conferences or Trans 101 education efforts for your school, business or professional organizations. For local Houston area, Texas or national events, you can e-mail me at transgriot@yahoo.com For events outside the Houston metro area, I ask that my travel and lodging expenses be covered. This is separate from my speaking fee. If you are interested in having me appear as a speaker or panelist, you can e-mail me with the date and details of your proposed event. Please book as early as possible because my speaking and event calendar slots during the year rapidly fill up. Election Commission (EC) along with Income Tax officials carried out raids at the hostel of an MLA in Tamil Nadu in Omandurar Government Estate on Sunday night. The raids were carried out on the 10th floor at the C block of the hostel, just a few days before the Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu commence. As per reports, the officials entered the hostel at around 10 pm and investigated the hostel till 12.30 am. As many as 30 officials were involved in the joint exercise by EC and the IT department. The raid was carried out on the basis of an alleged tip off that revealed that the cash meant for distribution to voters was stored in the rooms. According to the sources in the IT department, rooms of Tamil Nadu revenue minister RB Udhayakumar and two others were searched. However it is still unclear as to whether the team seized any cash or incriminating documents from the minister's room. Recently, the IT department conducted raids at multiple locations in the state over suspicions that cash was distributed among voters. Reportedly, the raids were conducted in PSK Engineering Construction company (a contractor firm in Chennai), Namakkal and Tirunelveli. There are 39 seats in Tamil Nadu, polls for which will be conducted on April 18, 2019 in a single phased manner along with the lone seat in Puducherry. This will be the second phase of the Lok Sabha polls. (Edited by: Nehal Solanki) Also read: IMF likely to delay bailout package to Pak as talks for finalising deal still on Also read: Hurriyat leader held with Rs 14 lakh cash at Srinagar airport American Airlines announced on Sunday that it would scrap some 115 flights per day in the coming months because its fleet of Boeing 737 MAX planes is being grounded until August 19. America's leading airline had previously only planned to keep the planes out of commission until June 5, with Boeing facing intense scrutiny after 157 people died in an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX crash on March 10 - the second deadly crash involving the aircraft in five months. The global fleet of 737 MAX planes has been barred from flying since mid-March. "These 115 flights represent approximately 1.5 per cent of American's total flying each day this summer," American Airlines chairman and CEO Doug Parker said in a statement. But he stressed his confidence in the aircraft overall. "Based upon our ongoing work with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Boeing, we are highly confident that the MAX will be recertified prior to this time (August 19)," he said. "By extending our cancellations through the summer, we can plan more reliably for the peak travel season and provide confidence to our customers and team members when it comes to their travel plans. "Once the MAX is recertified, we anticipate bringing our MAX aircraft back on line as spares to supplement our operation as needed during the summer." American Airlines had lowered one of its first quarter indicators in light of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes being grounded, along with the partial US government shutdown and technical challenges. Earlier this week, competitor Southwest Airlines said it would operate its 34 aircraft of the same model starting August 5. Also read: Pilots must have 1,000 hours of experience to fly Boeing 737 MAX; DGCA issues stricter rules Also read: Jet Airways pilots, engineers joining SpiceJet with pay cuts of up to 50%: report A couple of months ago I wrote an article entitled Five reasons why Vietnam is ideal for retirement, prompting questions from readers about the first item on my list: Value For Money. Over the past six years, Ive lived in or spent extended periods of time in Vietnam and five other countries in Southeast Asia a solid basis for comparing the value each offers the retiree for money spent. Some of those five countries offer a reasonable cost of living but come up short on overall quality and reliability - roads, water, garbage management, electricity, Internet, service, building construction, and nutritious food. Vietnam offers good quality for all the above factors and it doesnt cost a fortune to access acceptable infrastructure, goods and services. Granted, its still a developing country with developing country hiccups, but generally things function well. There are many types of foreigners living overseas: entrepreneurs, relocatees on company-sponsored temporary expat assignments, others who have found employment without company sponsorship, nomads, part-timers, and retirees. This analysis is not targeted at those relocatees, others with high incomes, nor at shoestring budget types desiring rock-bottom prices. Those earning well need not be deeply concerned about cost, and a bare-bones lifestyle is too basic for most foreigners, especially retired people who value comfort. There are also categories of retirees: those on pensions, both small and large, business owners of retirement age, seasonal part-timers, and of course wealthier types. The focus here is on average costs for a typical retiree lifestyle. I was an average professional wage-earner during my career, so I have a limited budget enough to enjoy a pleasant lifestyle, although not extravagant. These estimates are based on my own experience during the three years Ive spent in Vietnam. Your lifestyle choices and the corresponding costs will surely be different. All estimates are in U.S. dollars at a rate of VND20,000 per dollar, although the actual rate at the time of publication is over 23,000 per dollar. I use a lower rate, thinking that the U.S. dollar is overvalued right now while the Vietnamese dong is undervalued. That 15% between 20,000 and 23,000 makes quite a difference over the months and years, so keep an eye on currency fluctuations. Accommodation A one- or two-bedroom apartment in a modern complex in one of the major urban areas goes for $500-700 per month and can easily top $800 for the finer addresses. Seaside communities are growing rapidly and prices are inching closer to the big city rents. In smaller urban areas there are fewer expats and usually less suitable rental accommodation, with a one- or two-bedroom apartment costing $300-500 per month, and studios or rooms going for $200-350 per month. This space is changing rapidly and there will be upward pressure on prices as the country gains more popularity. I stay in a hotel in Da Lat because it offers flexibility with no lease and is centrally located at an all-in cost of VND5 million ($250) per month. Health insurance Insurance is a must-have for any retiree because quality health care can be difficult to find, expensive, and located far away from where we live. I have a policy with a Vietnamese company which provides me with $20,000 inpatient coverage within Vietnam only at a cost of $250 per year. The purpose of that insurance is to have coverage in case of accident or sudden illness. I pay for doctor visits and medication out of pocket both are inexpensive. There are endless expat options available from branches of international companies but they are much more expensive. I had a policy that covered me all over Asia from a U.S. provider at $100 per month which is cheap by international standards. Visa Vietnam does not yet have a retirement visa program although I understand its in the works and will appear in the coming years. I hold a one-year business visa which costs $395 including an invitation letter from Immigration ($260) and a stamping fee ($135) paid upon arrival at the airport from abroad. Visa holders also need to factor in the cost of visa runs: estimate $200 for a return airplane ticket to a nearby international destination, plus $200 for 2-3 days living expenses, and take note that the trip can be done inexpensively by bus with cheaper accommodation. Eligibility for visa types also depends on nationality. Some passport holders need to exit every three months, so the cost of four visas per year and four trips per year needs to be factored in the budget below. Food and drink I frequent low-level street stalls or humble restaurants, eating fresh, nutritious meals for about $5 per day. Its realistic to double that for those who prefer a higher standard of surroundings and service. Its easy to pay double that again in top-class establishments delivering high standard food, service, and atmosphere. Costs usually decrease as time goes on, so its best to consider the first year as being trial and error, after which best value restaurants are familiar. I didnt include prices of fresh food at the local markets because often for one or two people cooking doesnt come much cheaper than eating out, especially if you go with local food. The chart below depicts typical price ranges for a few common meals, just to give an idea of cost, but even more important is the difference between local offerings and high-end dishes which often use imported ingredients. Scanning down the above list youll see large variations in price, such as local coffee coming in at less than 10% of the cost at the fancy international chains. Of course youll enjoy air-conditioned, well-furnished surroundings, huge portions, and youll get coffee beans imported from halfway around the world, which you need like a hole in the head. Local Vietnamese robusta beans are full-flavoured and delicious in fact I prefer local coffee to imported one even if price was not a factor. That difference in price of VND100,000 ($5) for coffee each day in the above chart represents what I spend on food in a month! This is a good example of why cost of living numbers vary so dramatically in the media. The moral of the story is choosing your pleasures wisely and substitute local products for imports when youre willing to compromise, and you can save yourself a fortune. If you cant substitute, make it a conscious decision and youll enjoy your juicy steak or cheese so much more when it becomes a treat. Other daily expenses Using a motorbike or car legally involves jumping through a number of hoops which vary greatly on circumstances and locations, so thats part of the reason I travel on foot or in a taxi when required. Ive included VND400,000-500,000 ($20-25) per week in a low-end budget and VND500,000-700,000 ($25-35) per week in the high-end budget for taxi fare. A typical 15-20-minute ride is less than VND100,000 ($5) in a regular taxi, less on a motorbike taxi. If you choose to rent a motorbike on a monthly basis, the costs are similar to what I allocate for taxis. Practically every business provides free Wi-Fi that works to the extent that Ive never bought an Internet data package, so Ive made no provision for data here. Personal grooming items such as deodorant, toothpaste, razors, and the like are very reasonably priced, thus not worth budgeting as line items. Laundry expense is minimal, roughly VND100,000 ($5) weekly per person. Estimates are for one person, so everything in the chart below except rent needs to be doubled to calculate costs for two people living together. My own personal budget is between $800 and $850 per month because rent and transportation are cheaper than the Lower Range costs above. A low cost of living has merit only if we get good value, and Vietnam offers value for the retiree dollar. I was convinced on three occasions during my years of nomading that Id found the right country only to learn I was wrong, finally dropping my anchor on the 4th attempt, so shop around before making commitments. Your browser does not support the audio element. A 72-year-old Vietnamese man has dedicated most of his life to building houses for poor strangers instead of fixing his own dilapidated home. Vo Van Mums house is not much to brag about. Its walls are fortified by little more than memories of love and joy, collected over decades of raising seven children in the leaky cottage. A little bit of money could go a long way for Mum, aka Hai Mum. There are repairs the house has needed for years. But for Hai Mum, this little piece of land in the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang is just fine. After all, why would he spend the little money he has fixing his own house when he can put it toward ensuring those around him have a place to call home too? Rather than enjoy a peaceful retirement, the 72-year-old man spends his days volunteering to build charity bridges, fundraising, and rowing along a local river to scoop up old bottles from the water to sell to local scrap dealers in the hope of earning enough money, not to lift his own family out of poverty, but to buy materials to build homes for others. Willing to help The scorching sun over the Co Co River does not stop Hai Mum from jumping in his old wooden boat to collect bottles and wood from its waters. The old mans days are spent sitting atop the roof of his house overlooking the river, scanning the tide for anything he can grab to trade or sell to scrap dealers. On some days, his haul weighs in at a whopping 15 to 18 kilograms. Though scrap dealers normally pay VND3,000 [US$0.13] per kilogram, they give me VND5,000 [$0.22] per kilogram because they know the money goes to charity, Hai Mum said. Each dong he earns is spent on rice for poor families or fixing dilapidated houses in the community. On my lucky days I find drifting wood logs, some of which sell for VND130,000-200,000 [$5.6 - 8.6], depending on their type, he shared, adding that he is able to earn a few hundred thousand dong each month from selling scrap. Pham Tuan Minh, another local resident, is just one of the hundreds of people who have benefited from Hai Mums dedication to helping those in need. The two had been strangers until a friend told Hai Mum of Minhs run-down home and difficult financial situation. We needed VND40-50 million [$1,700-2,200] to build a new house and Hai Mum raised just enough to make sure we could do it, Minh said. Hai Mum rows his boat on the Co Co River in Tien Giang Province to look for plastic bottles he can sell to scrap dealers to earn money to help others. Photo: My Lang / Tuoi Tre A former veteran with seven children For Hai Mum, helping others is a way of life, regardless of the difficulties his own family has faced over the years. With seven children and no farmland, it is a wonder that not only was he able to raise a family, but his now-adult children refused to let poverty distract them from education and landing stable jobs. I remember when our seventh child was in grade 9 he didnt even have clothes to wear, so I had to ask a neighbor to share with us, Tran Thi Minh, Hai Mums wife, recalled. To help ease the familys burden, local authorities classified the household as poor in order to make them eligible for a government allowance. Hai Mums employer also gave him a small piece of riverside land to build a house. Thats why I am repaying the local authorities now, Hai Mum explained. I dont have a lot of money so I spend a lot of time asking for donations to help build houses for people who are ill, elderly, or disadvantaged. However, helping build houses is not the only way he helps others. Last year, for instance, the old man collected over 500 kilograms of rice for the poor, while soliciting enough money to cover the funeral and burial for several members of the local community. A lifetime of generosity In 2008, Hai Mum worked as a volunteer to collect medical plants in the mountains for a charity clinic which treats needy patients who are unable to afford nearby hospitals. The job required him to walk hundreds of kilometers over several days in order to find the plants. After 6.5 years of helping the clinic, the family moved to another village so he started volunteering in building charity bridges. Despite his age, Hai Mum made sure to be at the construction site from dawn till dusk. When the construction of the bridges in the area was completed, he began to travel further out to ensure residents in more rural areas had bridges as well. In 2015, as Hai Mum noticed all the wasted steel and building materials left after the completion of a new bridge, he collected all the leftovers and used them to fortify the damaged pillars and roofs of several poor households. I am very lucky, Hai Mum said, acknowledging the support he receives from his wife. Every time our children send us money, I put VND1 million [$43] to VND2 million [$86] aside in case someone needs help, Minh, his wife, said. We do not have a cent of savings because every time we get some cash, we give it to those in need, she added. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Your browser does not support the audio element. Born in Hai Minh Commune, Hai Hau District, Nam Dinh Province, Nguyen Thi Diep underwent her life-saving liver transplant at the age of nine. Fifteen years later, now she leads a healthy life and works for the well-being of others. Vietnam witnessed its first liver transplant in 2004, when then nine-year-old Nguyen Thi Diep was given a fresh shot at a healthy life by surgeons at Military Hospital 103 in Hanoi. Diep was born with congenital biliary atresia a condition in which a child is born with one or more bile ducts abnormally narrow or blocked. At age three, she went through a Kasai Procedure a method to bypass these bile ducts to help prevent damage to her liver. At age nine, he condition worsened and she was diagnosed with cirrhosis, prompting the need for a liver transplant. Both her grandfather and father offered to donate their organ, but her father proved to be the more suitable donor due to his young age and generally good health. Professor Le The Trung former director of Military Hospital 103 and his team successfully carried out the operation and gave little Diep a breath of new life. When Diep returned to school after a year spent preparing for and recovering from the surgery, both she and her friends were cautioned to avoid physical contact for fear of causing irreparable damage to the newly transplanted liver. Nguyen Thi Diep, then nine years old, and her father after her liver transplant in 2004 A selfless father I wouldnt be here now had it not been for the liver transplant fifteen years ago, she said. And of course, she is fully aware of the sacrifice her father made for her well-being. Ive had a meaningful life. Im indebted to all those whove helped me and sacrificed their health for me, she shared. But while Diep is thankful for her good health, she does admit that she worries for her father. Hes a strong, wonderful father, said the daughter. I know that he agreed to lose part of his liver so that I could live. I am doing well now, but at the expense of his health. Its like he gave birth to me twice. Nguyen Thi Diep also connects with other transplant patients at her hospital via social networking. Photo: Xuan Long / Tuoi Tre Connection with similar fates A sick person who escaped death, Diep seems well connected with others who have undergone similar experiences. Her current boyfriend, a victim of chronic renal failure, is currently undergoing regular treatment at Military Hospital 103. You two understand each others problems, so you have my total support, her father told her when she brought up her relationship. Diep also participates in VIP 103 a social group of more than 300 transplant patients at Military Hospital 103 which provides a forum to exchange information and encouragement related to treatment. What makes me most happy is having all these people by my side so that we can share about the very life we value, Diep said. According to Associate Professor Doctor Bui Van Manh, head of the intensive care unit at Military Hospital 103, there have been nearly 100 liver transplants performed in Vietnam since 2004. These operations are typically performed at such major institutions as the Vietnam-Germany Hospital in Hanoi or Cho Ray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City. Some liver transplant patients have lived up to 30 years since their surgery. Chinese customs seized 7.48 tonnes of smuggled ivory during an operation on March 30, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said in a press release Monday. Customs officers display pieces of African ivory seized in a crackdown on a major smuggling operation during a press conference in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, November 15, 2018. [File photo: IC] It is the largest seizure of smuggled elephant tusks by Chinese customs in recent years, the GAC said. An international ivory smuggling criminal gang was destroyed during the operation. So far this year, Chinese customs has seized 8.48 tonnes of ivory and ivory products and 500.5 tonnes of endangered species in 182 smuggling cases involving 171 suspects, according to the press release. Meanwhile, police have strengthened efforts to crack down on the smuggling of endangered species. More than 200 items of smuggled ivory products and over 830 kilograms of other endangered species have been seized through border controls since 2018, said the Ministry of Public Security. Police have also intensified the hunt for fugitive smugglers overseas. So far this year, two fugitives involved in a high-profile ivory smuggling case, were arrested and repatriated from Nigeria and another in a separate case from Vietnam after fleeing overseas for eight years. In the past three years, police have assisted customs authorities in capturing 18 fugitives suspected of smuggling elephant tusks and other endangered species, the ministry said. China has imposed a complete ban on ivory trade for commercial purposes starting Jan. 1, 2018, as part of its commitment to protecting wild animals. Less than a month after Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal was forced to step down from the board of the beleaguered airline, he has made a play for a re-entry. Shortly after the deadline for the bidding process for Jet Airways' stake sale ended on April 12, Goyal reportedly submit his Expression of Interest as part of a consortium. The lenders to the airline had offered ownership between 32.1% and 75% in the airline, seeking to recover dues worth over Rs 8,400 crore. The initial bid submitted by Goyal's general sales agency (GSA), Jetair Pvt Ltd, is backed by Delaware entity, Future Trend Capital, The Economic Times reported. Jetair, founded in 1974, had represented 17 global airlines before it gave birth to Jet Airways in 1993. Adi Partners, a London-based firm, is reportedly also associated with the consortium. However, the EoI came in at 6:08 pm, eight minutes after the deadline, which might hurt Goyal's chances. Jet Airways reportedly does not come under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), which bans promoters from bidding for their defaulting companies. Jet Airways pilots body defers 'no flying' decision SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar has already made it clear that "nobody is barred from bidding or taking over the airline" as per the rules. "It could be financial investor, it could be airline ... including Naresh Goyal himself or Etihad," he said last month. SBI is the lead lender of a consortium of 26 domestic lenders that took over the reins of the crumbling airline last month as part of its revival plan. "Technically, there is nothing that stops Goyal and his associates from bidding. The forensic report has so far not gone against him," a banker told the daily, adding, "But after being almost nudged out from the board and management, it's a call the bankers would have to take." Although there isn't any publically-available information on Goyal's partner Future Trend Capital, the entity is expected to boast deep pockets. After all, according to the conditions in Jet Airways' bidding document, interested investors need to have a net worth of Rs 1,000 crore and allotted funds of Rs 1,000 crore more to invest in the airline. Several other entities have also submitted expressions of interest in the stake sale, including Etihad Airways, which owns 24% of Jet Airways and is the second largest stakeholder, TPG Capital and Indigo Partners. But the Gulf carrier has reportedly made it clear that it does not want its stake to touch 25% as that would mandate an open offer to minority shareholders of airline as per SEBI's takeover code. Moreover, a foreign carrier can neither hold over 49% in a domestic airline, nor effectively control it. Jet Airways' independent director Rajshree Pathy resigns Hence, it is being speculated that lenders to Jet Airways may opt to bring in multiple, unconnected investors and keep a check on each party's stake. "Investments by Etihad Airways, National Investment and Infrastructure Fund, and a private equity fund like TPG Capital or Indigo Partners - with each holding 24% or less in the expanded equity pool - could be a way to avoid an open offer," said a source. Meanwhile, the airline's operational crisis continues to spiral out of control. It is operating just six ATR turboprop planes and one Boeing 737 on its local routes currently while several lessors are planning to apply to the DGCA to de-register their already grounded planes. Then there are the disgruntled employees, many of whom have not received salaries since January. Jet Airways pilots body, the National Aviator's Guild (NAG), on Sunday deferred its "no flying" call to a later date, in light of the crucial meeting between the management and the lenders today. Much now rides on the latter's decision to release the promised interim loan funding of around Rs 1,000 crore - which was a part of the revival plan for the airline drawn up by the SBI-led consortium - without delay to help the airline stay afloat. "Jet Airways has every chance of survival provided banks give the much-needed interim funding," Manish Raniga, an independent aviation consultant and former vice president of Jet Airways, told the daily. "Failure to do so will impact customer experience and add to the list of turnaround activities required to stabilise the business for long-term viability. Potential investors may find Jet less attractive if operations worsen." With PTI inputs Jet Airways pilots, engineers joining SpiceJet with pay cuts of up to 50%: report The Vietnam News Agency will host the 44th Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA) meeting in Hanoi this week under the theme of For Professional and Innovative Journalism. At this meeting from April 18 to 20, the OANA executive board will mainly focus on three contents, which are strategies of news agencies in response to changes in information use behaviors with a shift to video clips and YouTube; fake news and fact-checking; and regaining trust for traditional newspapers, the Vietnam News Agency reported. Every three years, the organization elects an executive board including 13 member news agencies out of 44 ones. Currently the Vietnamese News Agency is a member of the OANA executive board for the 2016-2019 tenure, while the chair news agency is the Azerbaijan State News Agency Azertac. Every year, a different news agency member of the executive board will act as the chair news agency. OANA meetings are opportunities for the news agencies in the region to share their experience in organizing and expanding, how to follow the latest development trends of other media agencies in the world, and further cooperation among member agencies. The Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA) is an association of news agencies from UNESCO member states in the Asia-Pacific region. Since its establishment in 1961 in Thailand, as an initiative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), OANA has brought together 44 news agencies from 35 countries, noting that OANA members are responsible for two-thirds of information circulated throughout the world. Every day, members of the organization publish around 200 news articles, photo news items, and videos on the OANA website. Former General Director of the Vietnam News Agency Dao Tung speaks at the tenth executive board meeting held in Hanoi from June 17 to 18, 1989. Photo: Vietnam News Agency Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Politics -- Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc arrived in Romania on Sunday for a three-day official visit. Society -- Temperatures are forecast to rise up to 38 degrees Celsius in southern Vietnam on Monday. -- Two elementary school students drowned on Sunday in the north-central province of Thanh Hoa on Sunday. -- Tourists crowded the beach in Vung Tau, a resort city 120km from Ho Chi Minh City, on Sunday, when Vietnam enjoyed a national holiday the Hung Kings Festival. -- Police have arrested five people suspected of transporting 26.6kg of illegal drugs from Cambodia into Vietnam. -- A group of young people from Ho Chi Minh City came to the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho on Sunday to join hands with local students in cleaning up a festival dedicated to traditional cakes and dishes in order to raise awareness of environmental protection. -- British authorities have charged four people with human trafficking after 29 Vietnamese were found in a van pulled over by police in the UK on Friday last week. Lifestyle -- The Bui Vien Walking Street in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City has been turned into a drinking street as beer stores are putting plastic tables and stools on the entirety of the roadway, creating a messy scene in the neighborhood dubbed Westerners street. The southern beach city of Vung Tau was overcrowded on Sunday, the Hung Kings Festival day, as approximately 83,000 people flocked to the popular tourist destination for the holiday. Public workers in Vietnam are given up to three days off, from April 13 to 15, for the national holiday. The Hung Kings Festival is officially celebrated on the 10th day of the third lunar month, which falls on April 14 this year. Many people decided to spend their Sunday in Vung Tau City, located in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, to get away from the heat that is battering southern Vietnam. Statistics showed that more than 40,000 vehicles traveled through the toll station on the section of National Highway 51 that leads to the city. About 30,000 vehicles are recorded by the tollgate on a normal day. Pham Khac To, director of the Vung Tau Tourism Management Board, confirmed that about 83,000 visitors headed to the city on Sunday. Most of the tourists spent their time on Bai Sau (Back Beach), which is adjacent to Thuy Van Street, To continued. Local authorities also tried their best to prevent tourists from bringing food and beer to the beach as well as littering in public areas. Hotels reported an 80-85-percent occupancy rate, To said, adding that room rates also significantly surged. Meanwhile, some resorts offered discounts to attract visitors during the holiday. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Miss Fishers Murder Mysteries the first Australian drama to be adapted in China. Production has begun on a Mandarin language version by the Shanghai 99 Visual Company. 30 episodes will be produced for Tencent Network, to screen in the spring of 2020. The Chinese version will be set in 1930s Shanghai, starring Chinese actress Yili Ma as its glamorous lady detective. Jin Weiyi is the head writer and one of the producers. Fiona Eagger and Deb Cox, Every Cloud Productions founders and creators will serve as creative consultants to the Shanghai 99 Visual Company production. Its such a thrill to be on set in China for the first week of production and to see Miss Fisher incarnated in the fabulous setting of 1930s Shanghai. The cast and crew here are wonderful custodians of the Miss Fisher brand and we look forward to a continuing successful relationship with Shanghai 99, Fiona Eagger and Deb Cox said. Miss Fishers Murder Mysteries, based on Kerry Greenwoods books, has sold to an unprecedented 247 territories in 179 countries and has amassed a fan base in the millions worldwide. Feature film Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears, starring Essie Davis, will be released in Australia by Roadshow Films and in the US by Acorn. Seven spin-off Ms Fishers Modern Murder Mysteries will air on Acorn in the US and UKTV in the UK later this month. Cookies op Tweakers Tweakers maakt gebruik van cookies Tweakers is onderdeel van DPG Media en maakt gebruik van cookies, JavaScript en vergelijkbare technologie om je onder andere een optimale gebruikerservaring te bieden. Functionele en analytische cookies die door Tweakers zelf geplaatst worden, worden gebruikt om de website goed te laten functioneren, bezoekersstatistieken bij te houden en a/b-testen uit te voeren. Ook kan Tweakers hiermee het gedrag van bezoekers vastleggen en analyseren. Cookies kunnen daarnaast worden gebruikt om op Tweakers advertenties te tonen die aansluiten bij je interesses. Daarbij kan gebruikgemaakt worden van bezoekersprofielen die door derden zijn opgesteld. Ook kunnen derden je internetgedrag volgen, zoals bijvoorbeeld het geval is bij embedded videos van YouTube. Tot slot kunnen cookies worden gebruikt om op sites van derden relevante advertenties te tonen. Content van derde partijen, zoals embedded videos van YouTube, wordt met een trackingvrij abonnement standaard uitgeschakeld. Indien je deze content wilt zien, kun je hier expliciet toestemming voor geven. Wil je meer informatie over cookies en hoe ze worden gebruikt? Bekijk dan ons cookiebeleid. Accepteer cookies ... Om deze pagina op Tweakers te kunnen bekijken, moet je cookies accepteren. Cookies accepteren Heb je al een account? Dan kun je hier inloggen! FILE PHOTO: The German share price index DAX graph is pictured at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, April 12, 2019. REUTERS/Staff By Agamoni Ghosh (Reuters) - European shares ended higher on Monday with telecom and retail stocks leading gains as Sino-U.S. trade optimism and strong Chinese economic data eased some worries over global growth - though lacklustre earnings from big U.S. banks weighed. The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose for the fourth straight session, hovering near eight-month highs with most indices in the region gaining, apart from Britain's FTSE 100 which lost ground as miners and oil majors fell. Markets cheered the progress in trade talks after U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday he hoped that the United States and China were close to the final round of negotiations. Reuters reported that U.S. negotiators had tempered demands that China curb industrial subsidies as a condition for a deal after strong resistance from Beijing. "Growth worries will continue to be shrugged off as long as trade talks go well and central banks continue to support monetary policy," said David Madden, an analyst at CMC Markets, London. Investors are bracing for earnings to come later in the week and will also be scrutinizing data - including Germanys ZEW survey and Chinese gross domestic product due on Wednesday. Bank stocks, which led gains earlier in the day on last week's earnings beat from JP Morgan, slipped after lacklustre results from Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. "We do see a bit of pressure on Eurozone banks because of those earnings," said Madden. Shares in Danish healthcare company Ambu rose more than 7 percent, making it the biggest gainer on the STOXX 600, after the U.S. FDA said products produced by some of its rivals had higher than expected levels of contamination. French media conglomerate Vivendi closed at a more than 11-year high after it posted higher first-quarter revenue and said it was forging ahead with the planned sale of up to 50 percent of its UMG music arm. Shares of Norwegian metals maker Norsk Hydro rose to more than two-month highs after the company won further support for its bid to resume full output from its Alunorte alumina refinery in Brazil. Story continues Italian media group Mediaset and its German rival ProSiebenSat.1 Media rose on merger speculation, even though both companies denied they were in talks. The biggest drag on the STOXX were basic resources stocks with London-listed shares of Rio Tinto falling more than 1 percent. The mining company is due to release its production data for the March quarter later in the week. Finland's Nokia weighed on the Helsinki and the euro zone blue chips index after Goldman Sachs downgraded the stock to "sell". Nestle, trading without entitlement to its latest dividend pay-out, dragged down the food & beverages index. Compass Group was among the biggest weights on London's blue-chip index after Barclays downgraded shares of the world's largest caterer to "equal-weight". (Reporting by Medha Singh,Susan Mathew and Agamoni Ghosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Alison Williams and Andrew Heavens) Technology that has dramatically reduced rhino poaching in a South African game reserve could be used to help other threatened species across the world, as conservationists look for new ways to stop poachers before they can reach wildlife. Dimension Data and Cisco first introduced its Connected Conversation effort in 2015, using a mixture of sensors, CCTV, biometrics and wi-fi to proactively detect poachers early, in a remote area in the north-west of the country where there is very limited electronic communication available. The aim of the initiative is to track people instead of animals, collecting data on those who enter the perimeter and sending park rangers alerts when unusual activity is spotted. White rhinos are currently near threatened, while black rhinos are classified as endangered, with little more than 5,000 of the latter remaining, according to the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF). South Africa is home to most of the worlds rhinos, which are under constant threat from poachers, who remove their horns and sell them on the black market for prices higher than gold. Rhino horn is sought by some in the east who believe it has medicinal powers to cure illnesses such as cancer and hangovers, although it is largely composed of keratin, a protein also found in hair and nails. The protection project has already been rolled out to Zambia, with another set to start in Kenya, but conservationists behind it are now looking elsewhere, with a number of interested parties from India, New Zealand and beyond. The project also protects elephants from poachers seeking their ivory tusks (Jamie Harris/PA) I think its particularly well suited to Africa, where what were looking at doing is saving the rhino, elephant, lion and pangolin, and all species that are endangered, said Bruce Watson, conservationist and group executive of the Cisco Alliance at Dimension Data. There are 7,000 endangered species all over the globe, but what were going to do is take the solution and move it into India. Story continues Weve had two requests out of tiger parks in India, then going to Asia, and weve even had a request out of a bay in New Zealand, to look at protecting rays, whales and sharks. Weve been contacted by a park in Montana, its going to be a massive prairie park, probably one of the biggest reserves in the world, to look at putting our solution into that. And then well take it into South America as well, looking at protecting jaguars and mountain lions. A security centre uses CCTV, thermal sensors and heat mapping to track and monitor potential threats (Jamie Harris/PA) The project has been a huge success for the area so far, having not lost a rhino to poaching since January 2017. In its first two years of operation, it managed to reduce poaching in the reserve by 96%. Nationally, South Africa has reported a drop in poaching too, with 508 rhinos killed in the first eight months of 2018, a 26% decrease from the same period in 2017. As well as expansion to protect other species, Connected Conservation are also exploring new solutions to improve its work, using machine learning, artificial intelligence and more sophisticated sensors. The proactive solution is creating a safe haven for the animals to roam freely and protecting the land against illegal people, who are a part of the poaching fraternity, Mr Watson continued. The number of incursions have come down quite dramatically the number of shots fired, the number of wire fence cuts entry points, have all been reduced. 508 rhinos killed by poachers in the first eight months of 2018 Last time a rhino was poached in the Connected Conservation site was in January 2017 In the first two years of operation, it managed to reduce poaching in the reserve by 96% However, the conservationist warned that poachers are continuously trying alternative tricks to get into the reserve. Often what they do is leopard crawl across a road for example on their elbows and knees, so you cant pick up the tracks of shoes, or feet for that matter, he said. Sometimes they put their shoes on the wrong way round so (it looks as if) they are exiting the reserve, as opposed to entering the reserve. Sometimes they put a plastic bottle on their feet so it looks like a small antelope crossing the road. Mr Watson praised the UK and the royal family for its help on the matter, after attending the Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference in London last year with the UKs Minister for the Illegal Wildlife Trade, Mark Field. Xiaomi's Redmi Note 7 Pro will soon have to face competition from Realme 3 Pro. The successor to Realme 3 was spotted on a benchmarking website, Geekbench. The phone will be launched in India on April 22 and the company would be hoping to upstage Xiaomi by offering better specs and support to Fortnite, a battle royale game. As far as the specifications are concerned, the Realme 3 Pro runs on a Snapdragon 710 SoC and comes with 6GB of RAM. The Redmi Note 7 Pro, on the other hand, is powered by Qualcomm's less powerful Snapdragon 675 chipset paired with up to 6GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage expandable via microSD card. The Realme 3 Pro features a 6.3-inch full-HD display and comes with a 3,960mAh battery. The listing also discloses the presence of ColorOS 6.0 user interface running on top of Android 9 Pie. The Realme 3 Pro's connectivity options will include 5 GHz WI-Fi, Bluetooth, and a fingerprint sensor. Talking about the optics, Realme 3 Pro is expected to come with the HDR support and a selfie camera with a resolution greater than 12 MP, similar to the one found on the Redmi Note 7 Pro. Other details have not been made public, but the rear camera is expected to come with a 48-MP sensor to take on Redmi Note 7 Pro's bigger camera. Pricing details for Realme 3 Pro have also not been revealed but going by the price of Redmi Note 7 Pro, the Realme's Pro version will be priced at around Rs 13,999 in the country. The Redmi Note 7 Pro is priced at Rs 13,999 for the 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage model. The 6GB RAM and 128GB storage model of Note 7 Pro which sells for Rs 16,999 in India. Realme will launch its new Pro version of Realme 3 at an event in Delhi University Stadium in India. Edited By: Udit Verma Also Read: Best smartphones under Rs 10,000 in India: Redmi Note 7, Realme U1, and more Also Read: Realme 3 sells 5 lakh units within 3 weeks, next sale on April 9 Also Read: Realme 3 to go on sale on Flipkart; check offers, price, features A fierce dust storm swept through Karachi, Pakistan, on Sunday and Monday, April 14 and 15, killing at least three and injuring many others, Geo News reported. The storm blew down trees and damaged structures around the city, according to local reports. According to Geo News, a number of injuries were caused by collapsing roofs around the city. Social media users said projectiles tossed by the winds have caused widespread damage. Video posted to Twitter on Monday showed travelers on motorbikes battling the dust and wind. Visibility was seen to be notably reduced and the howling of the storm could be heard throughout the footage. Credit: Shehryar Tasleem via Storyful French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday admitted that there are differences with German counterpart Angela Merkel on Brexit, trade and energy policy, saying "fruitful confrontations" and compromises were part of the ties between the two countries.There are difference between Paris and Berlin on Brexit, on climate change and on energy policy.The frank admission of splits in the Franco-German relationship was rare from Macron who has sought to build a close relationship with Merkel to launch an ambitious reform programme for the EU.But Merkel has pushed back against many of Macron's proposals and the duo were publicly at odds in Brussels last week over how to handle Britain's departure from the European Union.Merkel favoured granting London a long extension, while Macron argued for a short one, which would have increased the chances of Britain crashing out without a deal.On trade policy, Macron referred to what he described as the "incoherent" decision to begin EU trade talks with the United States.The trade talks were backed by Merkel and most European Union countries, but opposed by France on the grounds that the US has failed to join global efforts to fight climate change.France and Germany are also at odds over economic policy.Merkel has resisted Macron's call for a shared budget for members of the Eurozone which would finance infrastructure and other investments in weak members of the currency area. Despite Germanys ban on weapons export to the Middle East, a secret German security council meeting has decided to allow shipments to members of the war coalition in Yemen. Such members include the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The approval comes two weeks after Berlin had extended its ban on arms sales to Saudi Arabia; a move put in place shortly after the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year. That extension on the ban did include a conditional exception for systems that had been developed with other countries. When asked during a session of the Bundestag why she agreed to such a deal, Chancellor Angela Merkel simply explained that Germany still involved in projects with London and Paris and must remain a reliable partner. According to Sputnik, while Saudi Arabia will not receive German-made weapons directly, certain components will be supplied to a French company, which in turn will then ship it off to the Kingdom. Added to that are shipments that are earmarked for Qatar, Algeria and Singapore. Despite its indirect sale, Germany has maintained its ban on direct sales to Saudi Arabia. That ban is due to expire on September 30th. The decision by the council was met with anger by those from the left. The approval was deemed simply criminal and a violation of current European law said the deputy parliamentary leader of the Left, Sevim Dagdelen. Iraqi President Barham Salih was among officials to visit on April 14 a mass grave found in the desert west of the city of Samawah. Officials said the grave contained the bodies of Kurds killed by the forces of Saddam Hussein in the late 1980s. Tens of thousands of Kurds were killed by Husseins forces during the final months of the Iran-Iraq war. Human Rights Watch has estimated between 50,000 and 100,000 died. Kurdish officials say up to 182,000 people could have died. Salih, himself a Kurd and the former leader of the Kurdish regional government, said Iraq could never forget the crimes. Credit: Barham Salih via Storyful Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday met in Cairo with Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar who is under intense international pressure to halt an advance on the capital Tripoli. The meeting came as Libya's UN-backed government said its forces shot down a fighter jet belonging to forces of strongman Haftar south of Tripoli on Sunday."The forces of the Libyan army shot down an enemy plane that was preparing to conduct air raids in the Wadi al-Rabie area," Government of National Accord spokesman Mohamed Gnounou told AFP.A source for Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) confirmed the loss of a MiG-23 aircraft but attributed it to a "technical failure".Egypt has close ties with Haftar, whose LNA controls the east and swept through the mainly desert south earlier this year before moving to Tripoli 10 days ago in a major escalation of conflict.His move is the latest in a cycle of conflict and anarchy since the 2011 toppling of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi.Haftar has projected himself as the scourge of Islamist militants and of the militias that grew powerful after the uprising. His rivals say he has fuelled conflict and risks returning Libya to authoritarian rule.A close regional allyEgypt and the United Arab Emirates publicly support UN-led peace efforts in Libya, while being seen as Haftar's closest regional allies. Sisi, a former army chief, has led a far-reaching crackdown on Islamists with Egypt and has blamed Libya-based militants for some cross-border attacks.A statement from Sisi's office did not mention Haftar's offensive directly but "confirmed Egypt's support for efforts to combat terrorism and extremist groups and militias in order to achieve security and stability for the Libyan citizen".The presidency released photos showing Haftar, dressed in a blue suit, sitting with Sisi and his head of intelligence Abbas Kamel.Haftar, a former general in Gaddafi's army who later turned against him, had long talked of a move on Tripoli, in Libya's west, where an internationally recognised government sits.His campaign has disrupted efforts by the United Nations to bring rival eastern and western administrations to the negotiating table to plan an election and end the turmoil.Sunday was the day the United Nations had hoped to hold a national conference in the southwestern town of Ghadames."Our position will not change," UN envoy Ghassan Salame tweeted. "You've learned and tasted war. No matter how obstinate one becomes, there is no solution except a political one."Surprise push for TripoliAs well as thwarting the UN plan, the flare-up threatens to disrupt oil supplies, boost migration to Europe, let Islamist militants exploit the chaos and worsen Libyans' suffering.The fighting has killed 121 people, mainly fighters, and wounded another 561, according to UN tallies. Some 13,600 people have fled their homes.Fighting in recent days has been taking place on the outskirts of Tripoli as LNA forces have been bogged down by groups aligned with the Government of National Accord (GNA).The front lines were mostly calm on Sunday morning but military sources said in the afternoon that an eastern Libyan warplane crashed in southern Tripoli. No further details were available.The 75-year-old Haftar's push for Tripoli took many by surprise and has brought calls from round the world for a ceasefire. By moving forces west, his eastern home base is exposed and it may be hard for Haftar to retreat without losing standing among friends and foes alike.While some pro-Haftar media had predicted a quick victory, Tripoli government forces have halted him about 11km (7 miles) from the centre near an airport that was largely destroyed in a previous bout of fighting five years ago.His lightning drive appears to have united diverse factions in western Libya in the defence of Tripoli.(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS) Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday met in Cairo with Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar who is under intense international pressure to halt an advance on the capital Tripoli. The meeting came as Libya's UN-backed government said its forces shot down a fighter jet belonging to forces of strongman Haftar south of Tripoli on Sunday. "The forces of the Libyan army shot down an enemy plane that was preparing to conduct air raids in the Wadi al-Rabie area," Government of National Accord spokesman Mohamed Gnounou told AFP. A source for Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) confirmed the loss of a MiG-23 aircraft but attributed it to a "technical failure". Egypt has close ties with Haftar, whose LNA controls the east and swept through the mainly desert south earlier this year before moving to Tripoli 10 days ago in a major escalation of conflict. His move is the latest in a cycle of conflict and anarchy since the 2011 toppling of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Haftar has projected himself as the scourge of Islamist militants and of the militias that grew powerful after the uprising. His rivals say he has fuelled conflict and risks returning Libya to authoritarian rule. A close regional ally Egypt and the United Arab Emirates publicly support UN-led peace efforts in Libya, while being seen as Haftar's closest regional allies. Sisi, a former army chief, has led a far-reaching crackdown on Islamists with Egypt and has blamed Libya-based militants for some cross-border attacks. A statement from Sisi's office did not mention Haftar's offensive directly but "confirmed Egypt's support for efforts to combat terrorism and extremist groups and militias in order to achieve security and stability for the Libyan citizen". The presidency released photos showing Haftar, dressed in a blue suit, sitting with Sisi and his head of intelligence Abbas Kamel. Haftar, a former general in Gaddafi's army who later turned against him, had long talked of a move on Tripoli, in Libya's west, where an internationally recognised government sits. Story continues His campaign has disrupted efforts by the United Nations to bring rival eastern and western administrations to the negotiating table to plan an election and end the turmoil. Sunday was the day the United Nations had hoped to hold a national conference in the southwestern town of Ghadames. "Our position will not change," UN envoy Ghassan Salame tweeted. "You've learned and tasted war. No matter how obstinate one becomes, there is no solution except a political one." Surprise push for Tripoli As well as thwarting the UN plan, the flare-up threatens to disrupt oil supplies, boost migration to Europe, let Islamist militants exploit the chaos and worsen Libyans' suffering. The fighting has killed 121 people, mainly fighters, and wounded another 561, according to UN tallies. Some 13,600 people have fled their homes. Fighting in recent days has been taking place on the outskirts of Tripoli as LNA forces have been bogged down by groups aligned with the Government of National Accord (GNA). The front lines were mostly calm on Sunday morning but military sources said in the afternoon that an eastern Libyan warplane crashed in southern Tripoli. No further details were available. The 75-year-old Haftar's push for Tripoli took many by surprise and has brought calls from round the world for a ceasefire. By moving forces west, his eastern home base is exposed and it may be hard for Haftar to retreat without losing standing among friends and foes alike. While some pro-Haftar media had predicted a quick victory, Tripoli government forces have halted him about 11km (7 miles) from the centre near an airport that was largely destroyed in a previous bout of fighting five years ago. His lightning drive appears to have united diverse factions in western Libya in the defence of Tripoli. (FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS) French President Emmanuel Macron will outline a broad new policy direction on Monday following months of town hall meetings across France in response to Yellow Vest protests. Macron will address the nation around 8pm local time..Macrons office said the president will set out the first concrete measures to be taken in response to the grievances gathered online, written in ledgers and aired at over 10,000 town hall meetings between January and March.A presidential aide told AFP agency the announcements would amount to a new act in Macrons two-year-old presidency, marked by profound changes aimed at dispelling the anger that has fuelled five months of often violent anti-government protests.In response to the protests, Macron launched the Great National Debate by attending town hall meetings across the country and gathering proposals via questionnaires in an attempt to transform anger into solutions.With the unrest still simmering, and as Yellow Vest protesters vow a large demonstration at this coming Easter weekend, the pressure on Macron to effectively diffuse the anger is high.He wont get a second chance, French Senate leader Gerard Larcher of the opposition Republicains told Le Figaro newspaper on Saturday.Its double or quits for Macron, the Journal du Dimanche weekly newspaper wrote Sunday.If he succeeds, hes back on the road to 2022, the paper wrote, referring to the date of the next presidential election. If he fails to convince, his capacity to carry out reforms will be jeopardised.Risky announcements about taxesPrime Minister Edouard Philippe suggested some announcements would concern tax cuts, citing demands heard throughout the debate.We need to lower taxes, and lower them more quickly, Philippe said last week.Any move to offset tax cuts with cuts to public spending would risk stoking the anger that sparked the first Yellow Vest protests, which are currently drawing a fraction of participants as at the beginning of the movement.Government figures say 282,000 took part in the first edition on 17 November, while 31,000 turned up on Saturday, even though that figure was up from 22,300 the previous week.What began as a revolt against fuel tax and an unsympathetic image of the government has evolved into a broader anti-capitalist, anti-establishment movement calling for Constitutional reform and for Macron to step down.Many protesters have dismissed in advance whatever Macron announces as an outcome to the Great National Debate, which is referred to as the Great blah blah in Yellow Vest forums online.Macron, we expect nothing from your announcements, read one placard at Saturdays demonstration in Paris. French President Emmanuel Macron will outline a broad new policy direction on Monday following months of town hall meetings across France in response to Yellow Vest protests. Macron will address the nation around 8pm local time. .Macrons office said the president will set out the first concrete measures to be taken in response to the grievances gathered online, written in ledgers and aired at over 10,000 town hall meetings between January and March. A presidential aide told AFP agency the announcements would amount to a new act in Macrons two-year-old presidency, marked by profound changes aimed at dispelling the anger that has fuelled five months of often violent anti-government protests. In response to the protests, Macron launched the Great National Debate by attending town hall meetings across the country and gathering proposals via questionnaires in an attempt to transform anger into solutions. With the unrest still simmering, and as Yellow Vest protesters vow a large demonstration at this coming Easter weekend, the pressure on Macron to effectively diffuse the anger is high. He wont get a second chance, French Senate leader Gerard Larcher of the opposition Republicains told Le Figaro newspaper on Saturday. Its double or quits for Macron, the Journal du Dimanche weekly newspaper wrote Sunday. If he succeeds, hes back on the road to 2022, the paper wrote, referring to the date of the next presidential election. If he fails to convince, his capacity to carry out reforms will be jeopardised. Risky announcements about taxes Prime Minister Edouard Philippe suggested some announcements would concern tax cuts, citing demands heard throughout the debate. We need to lower taxes, and lower them more quickly, Philippe said last week. Any move to offset tax cuts with cuts to public spending would risk stoking the anger that sparked the first Yellow Vest protests, which are currently drawing a fraction of participants as at the beginning of the movement. Story continues Government figures say 282,000 took part in the first edition on 17 November, while 31,000 turned up on Saturday, even though that figure was up from 22,300 the previous week. What began as a revolt against fuel tax and an unsympathetic image of the government has evolved into a broader anti-capitalist, anti-establishment movement calling for Constitutional reform and for Macron to step down. Many protesters have dismissed in advance whatever Macron announces as an outcome to the Great National Debate, which is referred to as the Great blah blah in Yellow Vest forums online. Macron, we expect nothing from your announcements, read one placard at Saturdays demonstration in Paris. Madagascars Ministry of Education has issued an official apology after a publication on its Facebook page last week asking girls to dress modestly to avoid being sexually harassed or assaulted by men.The publication, which came out on Friday, sparked a major storm online.The original posting has a drawing of a woman wearing a mini skirt and a shirt with a plunging neckline accompanied by a short text stating Modest clothes worn by young women minimize the shameful needs of men who like to act on those needs. It is thus the duty of parents to put their daughters on the right path to avoid clothing that attracts attention.The post immediately sparked an uproar, as many people, both men and women, took to social media to voice their outrage at such a request.Using the hashtag MajupeMondroit (My skirt My right), many women took to posting photos of themselves in short skirts or plunging necklines to make the point.Such a comment comes at a time when the MeToo movement has brought the issue of female sexual harassment and assault to the forefront of public discussion all across the world.In response to the outpouring of comments over the weekend, the ministry formally apologized for the publication on Sunday 14 April though a press release.In its letter it stressed that nothing can justify sexual assault towards women, even less so because of what they are wearing.The original publication on its Facebook page has since been taken down. Madagascars Ministry of Education has issued an official apology after a publication on its Facebook page last week asking girls to dress modestly to avoid being sexually harassed or assaulted by men. The publication, which came out on Friday, sparked a major storm online. The original posting has a drawing of a woman wearing a mini skirt and a shirt with a plunging neckline accompanied by a short text stating Modest clothes worn by young women minimize the shameful needs of men who like to act on those needs. It is thus the duty of parents to put their daughters on the right path to avoid clothing that attracts attention. The post immediately sparked an uproar, as many people, both men and women, took to social media to voice their outrage at such a request. Using the hashtag #MajupeMondroit (My skirt My right), many women took to posting photos of themselves in short skirts or plunging necklines to make the point. Such a comment comes at a time when the #MeToo movement has brought the issue of female sexual harassment and assault to the forefront of public discussion all across the world. In response to the outpouring of comments over the weekend, the ministry formally apologized for the publication on Sunday 14 April though a press release. In its letter it stressed that nothing can justify sexual assault towards women, even less so because of what they are wearing. The original publication on its Facebook page has since been taken down. By Ahmed Elumami and Ulf Laessing TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar tried to stage a coup by issuing an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj, U.N. envoy Ghassan Salame said on Monday with Libya's top rivals locked in military confrontation over the capital Tripoli. Haftar's eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) advanced to the outskirts of Tripoli almost two weeks ago, predicting defections and victory within two days. However, Serraj's internationally-recognised government has managed to bog them down in southern suburbs, thanks largely to armed groups who have rushed to aid them from various western Libyan factions. Haftar, a 75-year-old former general in the late dictator Muammar Gaddafi's army, has been building up troop numbers and intensifying air strikes in a campaign he is selling as necessary to restore order and eradicate jihadists. But Salame, speaking to BBC radio, said Haftar's decision to issue in the course of his campaign arrest warrants for Serraj and other top Tripoli officials "sounded more like a coup than counter-terrorism". Haftar's side confirmed the warrant had been issued and Serraj's government said it had been immediately rejected. Diplomats believe Haftar for now faces no pressure to back off from backers including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and France, who see him as the best bet to end the factional chaos plaguing Libya since Gaddafi's fall in a 2011 uprising. Salame, whose plans for a national reconciliation conference this week had to be postponed because of the fighting, said he hoped both side will realise in the coming days that neither could achieve an outright military victory. "We are in fact in a military stalemate since eight days, or nine days," Salame said, adding that both sides had carried out 30 air strikes each that had not changed the situation on the ground. Air strikes and shelling have hit civilian infrastructure and residential homes, especially in the south of Tripoli where Haftar's forces have sought to penetrate government defences. Story continues The U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA said targeting civilian facilities was a violation of international humanitarian law. MOUNTING CIVILIAN CASUALTIES The United Nations Libya mission UNSMIL also warned in a statement that "the bombing of schools, hospitals, ambulances and civilian areas is strictly prohibited", adding that it was documenting such cases for the U.N Security Council. "We are concerned at the mounting civilian casualties, we are concerned at damage to vital civilian infrastructure," David Satterfield, U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary for the Near East affairs, told reporters in a conference call. A school was hit on Saturday in an air strike blamed on Haftar's forces, Tripoli officials said. Two missiles also struck education ministry warehouses late on Sunday, destroying 3.1 million school books, an official in the Tripoli government told Reuters. OCHA said in a tweet five million books and national exam results had been destroyed. In another incident, Reuters reporters on Monday filmed a residential block in southern Tripoli that was hit by at least one rocket. Several families were inside during the strike but escaped with minor injuries. Children's shoes, bread and shards of the rockets lay on the floor of the dwelling. Both sides have traded blame over shellings of residential districts. More than 18,000 people have been displaced by the fighting, 2,500 alone in the past 24 hours, the U.N. migration agency said. Nearly 150 people, mostly combatants, have been killed, the World Health Organization said. More than 600 people have been wounded. The U.N.-organised national reconciliation conference, planned long before Haftar's advance, had been intended to bring the two sides together to end the turmoil and plan an election. No new date has yet been set. Haftar has long said his declared mission is to restore order to the oil-producing North African country. (Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Hani Amara in Tripoli, Aidan Lewis in Cairo and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Mark Heinrich) Following is a summary of current world news briefs. UK PM May says no-deal Brexit planning continues - spokesman British Prime Minister Theresa May has said the government will continue to plan for the possibility of a no-deal Brexit, her spokesman said on Monday. May made the comment in an internal note to staff. U.S. to use all economic, political tools to hold Maduro accountable: Pompeo The United States will use all economic and political tools at its disposal to hold Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accountable for his country's crisis and will make clear to Cuba and Russia they will pay a price for supporting him, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday. Pompeo made the comments in the Colombian border city of Cucuta, the final stop of a three-day trip to Chile, Paraguay and Peru, a clutch of fast-growing countries in a region where Washington's concerns are focused on the Venezuelan crisis and China's growing presence. Israel's president starts consultations on prime minister nomination Israel's president began post-election consultations on Monday with political parties that will lead to his appointment of a candidate to form a government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nomination seemed virtually ensured after his right-wing Likud won the largest number of parliamentary seats in Tuesday's ballot, and his closest rival, Benny Gantz of the centrist Blue and White party, conceded defeat. Ecuador's president says Assange tried to use its embassy to spy WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange repeatedly violated his asylum conditions and tried to use the Ecuadorian embassy in London as a center for spying, Ecuador's President Lenin Moreno told Britain's Guardian newspaper. London police dragged Assange out of the embassy on Thursday after his seven-year asylum was revoked, paving the way for his extradition to the United States for one of the biggest ever leaks of classified information. Story continues China says Japan should do more to seek cooperation, not competition China urged Japan on Monday to do more to follow through on its intention of seeking cooperation with China rather than competition, warning that there was still weakness in their relationship. China and Japan have sparred frequently about their painful history, with Beijing often accusing Tokyo of not properly atoning for Japan's invasion of China before and during World War Two. Sudan protesters move to protect Khartoum sit-in Sudanese protesters moved to block an attempt on Monday to break up a sit-in outside the Defense Ministry, where demonstrators have been pushing for a quick transition to civilian rule after President Omar al-Bashir was ousted, a Reuters witness said. Troops had gathered on three sides of the sit-in and tractors were preparing to remove stone and metal barriers, but protesters joined hands and formed rings around the sit-in area to prevent them. Estonian parliament rejects Reform's Kallas as PM in vote Estonia's parliament as expected voted against Reform Party leader Kaja Kallas as prime minister on Monday with the president now likely to turn to Centre head Juri Ratas to lead the country. Kallas got 45 votes, short of the 51 votes to form a government and become the country's first female prime minister. Denials of U.S. immigrant visas skyrocket after little-heralded rule change When Arturo Balbino, a Texas construction worker, walked into his visa interview at the American consulate in the northern Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez in March, he wasn't nervous. He felt good. Balbino, a 33-year-old Mexican national who had entered the United States illegally 14 years ago, thought he had a strong case for a spousal visa: a wife and children who are U.S. citizens, a father-in-law who had pledged in an affidavit to financially support him if necessary, and a letter from his employer guaranteeing him an $18-per-hour job upon his return. Indian minister says extreme poverty falling, to end by 2031 India's finance minister said on Monday fast economic growth and rapid urbanization would slash the number of people in extreme poverty by 2021 and end it completely in the decade after that. More than 21 percent of India's 1.3 billion people lived on less than $1.90 a day in 2011, when the last census was taken, according to the World Bank. South Korea's Moon pushes for summit with North Korea's Kim despite nuclear standoff South Korea's President Moon Jae-in said on Monday he will pursue "in earnest" another summit with Kim Jong Un despite the North Korean leader's recent criticism of Seoul's self-proclaimed role as a mediator in stalled nuclear talks. Moon has been eager to regain momentum in talks with North Korea since Kim's second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, in Vietnam in February, failed due to conflicting demands by Pyongyang for sanctions relief and by Washington for sweeping North Korean measures to abandon its nuclear program. Is the pangolin being hunted to extinction? (Getty) A huge haul of pangolin scales unearthed In Singapore shows how the shy animal is being hunted to extinction for its meat and for use in Asian folk medicine. Inspectors found two consignments containing 26 tons of scales, worth up to $77 million (58 million) the remains of up to 40,000 slaughtered animals. One consignment was found in 230 bags marked frozen beef and another was marked cassia seeds. One consignment was disguised as cassia seeds (Getty) Trade in the animals was banned in 180 countries, but the latest hoards of scales highlights the threat to the animal, the World Wildlife Fund said. Read more from Yahoo News UK: Number of teen pregnancies falls for tenth year running Man who set fire to model of Grenfell Tower charged Father of boy, nine, killed by dog pays emotional tribute Pangolins are increasingly victims of wildlife crime in Asia and in Africa, the World Wildlife Fund said. All eight species are protected and two are listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Crawford Allan, senior director at wildlife monitoring network TRAFFIC told Bloomberg, It was estimated that on average 20 tons of scales were being smuggled each year, Already, in 2019 we have seen nearly twice that being detected and seized. And those are just the shipments that get detected. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK The Election Commission of India (ECI) has banned UP CM Yogi Adityanath and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati from election campaigning for 72 hours and 48 hours respectively. The ban will start from 6 am tomorrow, for violating the EC's Model Code of Conduct by making objectionable statements in their speeches. The BSP supremo, in her speech in Deoband UP recently, had appealed to Muslims not to vote for a particular party. The EC said the BSP supremo prima facie violated the Model Code of Conduct. During her rally, Mayawati said the Congress party was busy dividing the votes and cautioned the gathering to guard against any such attempt. "In western UP, where people of all communities live...in Saharanpur, Bareilly, where there is a huge Muslim population...I want to tell the Muslim community...don't divide your votes...give it to the BSP, SP and RLD alliance," she had said. Also Read: Lok Sabha Election 2019: Income tax officials raid MLA hostel in Tamil Nadu The EC had earlier asked her to explain her position on the matter in 24 hours of receiving the notice. Starting a row with his comments on the BSP supremo's remarks, UP CM had said if the Congress, SP, and BSP believe in Ali, then we (BJP) also have faith in "Bajrang Bali (Lord Hanuman". Yogi was also served a notice by the EC and was asked to explain his stand on the issue in 24 hours. "The commission, after considering available material in the matter, has decided to provide Yogi with an opportunity to explain his stand regarding the said statement. The explanation shall be submitted within 24 hours of the receipt of the notice, failing which the commission shall take a decision without further reference," Principal Secretary, Election Commission, Anuj Jaipuriar had said. Also Read: Lok Sabha Election 2019: Poll dates, full schedule, voting FAQs, election results, constituencies' details Retorting to Yogi's "Ali" remarks, Mayawati said people of UP should ensure that the BJP does not "get either Ali's vote or Bajrang Bali's vote." The UP will go for the second phase of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls for a total of 8 seats on April 18. The state, which sends maximum 80 MPs to the lower House of Parliament, this time is seeing a triangular contest between the BJP, SP-BSP alliance and the Congress. (Edited by Manoj Sharma) Also read: IMF likely to delay bailout package to Pak as talks for finalising deal still on Also read: Hurriyat leader held with Rs 14 lakh cash at Srinagar airport Col. Joseph Matthews, a military intelligence officer and 1994 graduate of the University of North Georgia (UNG), has been hired as the universitys Commandant of Cadets. Dr. James Conneely, vice president of student affairs and enrollment management at UNG, announced the hiring. In addition to Col. Matthews 26 years of military service and leadership experience, he brings to the position enormous dedication and passion to our cadets success. I am confident that his leadership will continue the positive momentum established by retired Col. Tom Palmer and our Corps of Cadets, Conneely said. Matthews background and experience in military intelligence will be an asset as we continue to build our cyber and strategic studies programs, and he is enthusiastic about our language programs and global engagement opportunities for cadets. Matthews currently serves as the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (G-2), 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam, Hawaii. Matthews and his wife Sarah, a 1995 alumna , have three children: Alaina, who is a freshman at UNG, and Mary and David, who attend schools in Hawaii. Matthews is expected to arrive on campus in mid-July. I feel this is a great opportunity to give back to the university and Corps of Cadets; they gave so much to my wife and I when we were students in Dahlonega, Matthews said. This is truly a dream come true. Now after 26 years of military service, I look forward to continuing to serve our country by helping mold the next generation of UNG cadets into great leaders in our Army and society. Matthews enlisted in the Georgia Army National Guard in 1992 and received an Army commission as an Air Defense Artillery Officer upon graduating from UNG with a bachelors degree in history. He also has earned a Master of Strategic Studies degree from the Army War College and a Master of Military Operational Art and Science degree from the Air Force Command and Staff College. He has edited and been published in scholarly publications and also has experience teaching and training both American and foreign military personnel. Retired Lt. Col. Mike Ivy, director of cadet admissions at UNG, led the search committee that included cadets, students, faculty, staff and alumni. I did not envy the decision of the university leadership, Ivy said. Each of the finalists for this position was exceptional and possessed a unique skill set that would benefit UNG and the Corps of Cadets. Without a doubt, thousands of future leaders will benefit from this decision and have a transformational experience at UNG. Matthews has had multiple overseas deployments, including combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, and he has led military intelligence units at the battalion level. His awards and decorations include the Bronze Star Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Defense Meritorious Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Meritorious Service Medal with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters, Air Medal 2nd Award, Joint Commendation Medal, Army Commendation Medal with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters, Air Force Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters, Joint Meritorious Unit Award with Oak Leaf Cluster, Meritorious Unit Citation, Air Force Outstanding Unit Award with Valor Device, and others. He also is a recipient of the Knowlton Award for exceptional service and significant contribution to the Military Intelligence Corps and the Honorable Order of Saint Barbara Award for outstanding competence and unwavering support to the Air Defense Artillery Corps. In announcing the hiring of Matthews, Conneely also expressed his gratitude to the search committee, led by Ivy, and for the years of service by Palmer, who retires at the end of June. The university owes much gratitude to retired Col. Tom Palmer, who has been the Commandant for 20 years, for his distinguished service to the Corps of Cadets, to this university, and to our nation, Conneely said. He has led with distinction and has built a strong foundation for future success. Donald Trump took to his Twitter early Monday, April 15, saying that the Mueller report cleared him of obstruction and collusion. This comes ahead of the redacted report expected by Attorney General William Barr this week. In fact, the report could come out as early as today. In his tweet, Trump said that the investigators should be investigated, laying it all at the feet of Hillary Clinton, "DNC," and "dirty cops." 'Investigate the Investigators,' Donald Trump says ahead of the Mueller report The Mueller report, redacted by AG Barr, could come at any time and the fact that Trump went onto Twitter so early today to talk about it never went amiss by his critics. After all, it could even drop today. Politico notes that "the 400-page Mueller report, expected to land this week, is the most anticipated political read since Ken Starr, Monica Lewinsky." The report's going to spark a lot of media coverage, no matter how much is hidden from the public. A wild feeding-frenzy from politicians, interest groups, media, critics, and everyday people, is likely to come like a tidal wave. Getting ahead of the wave, Donald Trump reiterated that the Mueller report cleared him of "obstruction" and "collusion." Some commenters on his post felt he could be jumping the gun on that, and they'll wait to see what comes out of it all. In his post, Donald Trump wrote, "Mueller, and the A.G. based on Mueller findings (and great intelligence), have already ruled No Collusion, No Obstruction. These were crimes committed by Crooked Hillary, the DNC, Dirty Cops and others! INVESTIGATE THE INVESTIGATORS!" Mueller, and the A.G. based on Mueller findings (and great intelligence), have already ruled No Collusion, No Obstruction. These were crimes committed by Crooked Hillary, the DNC, Dirty Cops and others! INVESTIGATE THE INVESTIGATORS! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019 Commenters note Donald Trump may not be in the clear on the Mueller report just yet Social media's not the best place if you seek the truth on anything and many people there have their own agendas. Discuss this news on Eunomia Obviously, some of them are Democrats who just enjoy pushing their "resist" agenda. Others support Donald Trump, hoping he emerges as squeakily-clean as possible. Others, merely concerned citizens also have their say. That's why reading good political commentary helps to filter the rhetoric from the rest on Twitter. Over on Twitter, Brian Krassenstein, an editor at HillReporter.com, and a podcaster said that "Mueller DID not rule that there was no Obstruction. He punted it, likely to Congress." In a separate post, he wrote, "Mueller also very very likely outlined plenty of condemning evidence to suggest that the Trump campaign may have colluded with Russia." Well, almost anything could get mined out of this report, so no matter what anyone says, a bit of stuff could easily stick. As Politico noted, "Although Mueller didnt find enough evidence to charge President Donald Trump for conspiring with Russia to win the White House...the report itself is expected to be rich with details uncovered by the sweeping 22-month investigation." Artist Cao Minh Hien can sing lullabies in Thai, Cao Lan, Mong, Tay and Kinh languages. Hien sings a lullaby of the Cao Lan in Bac Giang province. She wears the Cao Lan traditional costume while singing a cradlesong of this ethnic group in Bac Giang. She can sing lullabies at any time while doing other work. Hazara community protestors continue sit-in QUETTA: The Hazara community protestors blocked traffic in a sit-in demonstration for a third day in Quetta on Sunday after a suicide bomb killed at least 20 people in an outdoor market, many of them ethnic Hazaras. Dozens were wounded in the blast on Friday on the outskirts of Quetta. Islamic State had claimed responsibility of the attack. Weve lost hundreds of our loved ones in the last 10 years, Tahir Hazara, leading the sit-in, said. The government failed to protect our community. Terrorists are free to target us, he lamented. Stop killing Hazaras, the crowd chanted. Down with terrorism and sectarianism. The protesters said they will continue their sit-in till the arrest of the culprits. They also urged Prime Minister Imran Khan to visit Quetta. The protesters, who include many women and children, have set up camps and burn wood to keep warm at night. One police official said there were about 200 people taking part on Sunday, blocking the key arterial Western Bypass leading into Quetta. Dozens of Hazaras gathered in Karachi as well, some holding signs saying Shias lives matter. Fridays bloodshed came two days after authorities freed Ramzan Mengal, a top leader of a banned sectarian group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). A private TV channel reported that body parts of the alleged suicide bomber have been sent for DNA test. Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Abdul Razzaq Cheema said the test reports, once issued, would be handed over to Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal, but did not specify when they would be issued. The DIG said a team of CTD officials had visited the site of the attack in Hazarganjis fruit and vegetable market to collect evidences. Representing the protesters, Advocate Tahir Hazara expressed dismay over the federal governments attitude and regretted that Prime Minister Imran Khan had no time to visit Quetta after the tragic incident of Hazarganji. He said the government had failed to protect their lives, as terrorists were continuously targeting the Hazara community in Quetta. We have lost hundreds of our loved ones during the last 10 years, he added. Advocate Tahir said the National Action Plan had been prepared by the parliament with consensus yet many points of NAP were not being implemented. It was for this reason that the people of Hazara community were being targeted by terrorists, he added. PM Khan should ensure full implementation of the National Action Plan, he reiterated. The protesters also chanted slogans against the authorities for failing to protect the people against terrorist attacks. While the provincial authorities contacted the protesters and assured NAPs implementation, the latter refused to end their sit-in until all their demands are met. Meanwhile, more workers of the Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen (MWM) joined in the protest and announced their support for the Hazara community. Addressing a press conference, MWM Secretary General Allama Raja Nasir Abbas demanded that the federal government ensure implementation of NAP. He said frequent attacks against the Hazara community were giving a message to the world that Pakistan was not safe. However, he said, no one was safe in Quetta. Along with ordinary masses, security personnel too had been martyred he said, adding that it raised questions over capabilities of the government. He said the state must act without further delay, because the people were tired of lifting the coffins of their loved ones. Local banks are hurrying to raise capital in order to improve their financial capacity and meet Basel II standards by 2020. The Ho Chi Minh City Securities Corporation (HSC) noted in a recent report that the Asia Joint Stock Commercial Bank (ACB) will likely sell its 41.42 million treasury shares to raise capital to improve its capital adequacy ratio (CAR) by the end of 2019. This is not only ACBs target but also a common goal of other local banks this year, as Circular No. 41 from the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), which comes into force from January 1, 2020, regulates that banks must have a consolidated CAR of at least 8 per cent, as stipulated under Basel II standards. Urgent tasks Under this tight schedule, banks will need to improve their technology systems to calculate safety indicators as well as prepare capital to be ready for Basel II, but State banks are said to be under major pressure to raise capital. According to the National Financial Supervisory Commission (NFSC), the average CAR among credit institutions in the country has been consistently falling since 2017, standing at 11.1 per cent in 2018 thanks to the 12.2 per cent surge in owners equity capital and a 10.8 per cent rise in total risk-weighted assets. Regulatory Tier-1 capital to risk-weighted assets has thus been calculated at 8.8 per cent for 2018; a higher ratio than 2017s 7.8 per cent. Experts have warned that when Basel II norms are applied, banks CAR will plunge due to an increase in the quantum of their risky assets. State-owned commercial banks (SOCBs) have an average CAR of 9.69 per cent; close to the stipulated minimum. Vietcombank (VCB) bears the least pressure because it has many options for raising capital while time is not limited. Vietinbank (CTG), meanwhile, needs to improve its CAR soon and increase its Tier-1 capital more than Tier-2 capital. Of the three SOCBs, BIDV (BID) has the lowest CAR, with no more room to increase Tier-2 capital, so has the fewest options for raising capital. In the case of BID and CTG, according to Viet Dragon Securities Corporation (VDSC), their CAR under the previous regulation (Circular No. 36) approached 9 per cent already. It is more likely that these banks CAR, if calculated in accordance with Circular No. 41, will be below 8 per cent. However, the process of raising charter capital is still pending because of relevant regulations and constraints, while they still need to pay cash dividends to the State. At BID, a strategic placement to KEB Hana Bank was approved but is yet to go through due to complicated conditions in the stock market. CTG was under even stronger pressure when the issuance to new investors was found to be infeasible because the States ownership would have been below the allowed threshold 65 per cent, while the State does not intend to inject more capital into commercial banks. Due to these difficulties, the two banks have asked for support from the State, such as removing the binding conditions of strategic issuance at BID or approving dividend payment by stocks for CTG, said Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy Anh, Research Analyst at VDSC. If approval for these suggestions cannot be obtained, she believes, CTG will need to wait until at least 2020 or later to raise capital, based on the development strategy for Vietnams banking sector, which mentions the governments plan to reduce its ownership in SOCBs to 51 per cent. Otherwise, BID and CTG can still improve their CAR temporarily by restructuring their asset portfolio towards less risky categories along with writing off bad debts and booking general provisions. Effective solutions needed Considering the deadline on CAR under Basel II standards, banks will have a busy year mobilizing capital in 2019. The capital injection is not only to meet the minimum requirements in CAR per the new regulation but also to ensure that banks will have sufficient capital buffers for comfortable growth in the following years. Most listed banks have been paying stock dividends instead of cash dividends, to increase charter capital and retain capital within equity. Only a small number of banks paid cash dividends (MBB 6 per cent and HDB 13 per cent in 2018). However, the size of the stock dividend is limited within the scope of retained earnings and share premium, according to Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh, Research Manager of Banking Sector at Saigon Securities Incorporation (SSI). Banks may issue new shares to foreign investors by way of private placement, she suggested. This method was successfully leveraged for large capital rises in various banks in 2017 and 2018. However, SOCBs had difficulties raising capital this way. State ownership at CTG has already reached the minimum 65 per cent and cant be cut further, while the foreign ownership limit has already been reached. Therefore, additional share issuances by private placement is impossible for CTG. At the same time, the selling price must not be lower than the assessment price and the market price, making it difficult for VCB and BID. For VCB, the bank can only successfully issue new shares to GIC and Mizuho in early 2019 after a long wait for the market price to reduce to the benchmark price. In addition, Ms. Linh sees that issuing new shares to existing shareholders is a method that few banks have applied, including OCB and LPB, because of the limited financial capacity of existing shareholders. SOCBs cant do this because the policy of the government is not to contribute additional capital into any banks under its ownership. In order to increase Tier-2 capital, according to Ms. Thuy Anh from VDSC, banks can issue bonds and certificates of deposits or engage in loan facility agreements with international financial institutions, with a tenure of at least five years. On one hand this method can be proceeded with quickly, but borrowing long term can increase the cost of funds, and the contribution to Tier-2 capital of the debts will gradually decrease when the maturity period is less than five years. Moreover, there is a constraint that banks can only raise Tier-2 capital to as high as 50 per cent of Tier-1 capital. Therefore, she recommended banks still proceed with Tier-1 capital injections to raise capital in a more sustainable manner. They can either retain earnings or increase charter capital by paying stock dividends, issuing ESOP to employees, issuing additional common stocks to existing shareholders, or issuing private placement to new investors, she said. In particular, a stock dividend payment was preferred by private banks, which was implemented by many banks in 2018 and we believe this will continue in 2019. However, she added, the process of raising Tier-1 capital at SOCBs is more complicated, as the decision is heavily dependent on the government. In the case of VCB, the bank could only issue one-third of the shares offered in 2018, so the issuance plan still needs to be continued in 2019, despite the bank gaining approval to apply the CAR under Circular No. 41 and Basel II. More challenging Vietnamese banks will achieve a further improvement in profitability because of wider net interest spreads and lower credit costs, which in turn led to improvements in asset quality, because they utilized profit growth to write off remaining problem legacy loans, said Ms. Rebaca Tan, Analyst at Financial Institutions Group at Moodys. Credit growth will stay stable over the same period because of tighter control by the SBV, and asset quality will improve further, as banks continue cleaning up their balance sheets, she said. However, a Moodys report also noted that most banks would still lack sufficient capital to meet Basel II requirements taking effect in 2020, so raising capital, primarily from foreign investors, due to the underdevelopment of the domestic capital market, would be a key focus for banks in 2019. Moodys points out that despite banks improved financial health, greater competition to attract private investments would make it more challenging for Vietnamese banks to raise capital this year. Earlier, Fitch Ratings also said Vietnams banking system could face a capital shortfall of almost $20 billion, equal to 9 per cent of GDP, to meet Basel II and to increase allowance coverage to a level that reflects underlying asset-quality problems. It forecast that banks were likely to step up capital issuance over the next 18 months, which could improve the credit profiles of rated banks if it resulted in a meaningful and sustained increase in capitalization. However, a lack of depth in the domestic capital market could create challenges, particularly as some banks were close to or at the limit for foreign ownership. The SBV will take one more step on its examination of banks capital buffers and liquidity. Short-term capital to finance mid- and long-term loans has been reduced to 40 per cent from 45 per cent in 2018 and Basel II will be applied from 2020, according to VDSC. Though we believe that banks can easily meet the first one, they will experience a busy year of capital mobilization in 2019 to meet the second one, Ms. Thuy Anh said. The difficulties in capital injection to SOCBs has put pressure on these banks funding costs. Furthermore, whether the capital increase can be successful or not also depends greatly on government support. VN Economic Times A Trans-Pacific transshipment service connecting the Hai Phong International Container Terminal (HICT) in northern Vietnam with the west coast of the US and Canada is now officially underway, shortening freight time by eight days. On the night of April 11, HICT welcomed the maiden call of mother vessel Northern Jaguar, deployed by Ocean Network Express (ONE) on the new PN2 transshipment service. Northern Jaguar is a large vessel operated by an alliance of ONE, Hapag Lloyd, and the Yang Ming Line on the trans-Pacific route and will make regular calls at HICT. PN2 runs from HICT - Yantian - Tacoma - Vancouver - Kaoshiung - Singapore - Laem Chabang - Cai Mep. It cuts travel time from Hai Phong to the west coast of the US and Canada from 25 days to 17 days, calling at overseas transshipment hubs, and therefore helps customers significantly reduce their logistics costs and take the initiative in the delivery of goods, without facing risks at transshipment hubs. Northern Jaguar, with a capacity of 8,814 TEUs, reaching Hai Phong expresses the efforts and determination of HICT staff and employees in improving the capacity and performance of the company. The momentous event affirms HICTs capacity to berth large mother vessels and its position in Hai Phongs terminal operator market. It sets a milestone for container transportation via trans-ocean direct services, not only from HICT but also from the north of Vietnam to the US and European ports without transferring at transshipment hubs. The deployment of this new direct service brings a complete change to the picture of maritime transportation in the north of Vietnam, which contributes significantly to reducing logistics costs, enhancing the competitiveness of Vietnam and its enterprises, and generating a driving force for investment attraction, especially FDI. HICT is a joint venture between the Saigon Newport Corporation, MITSUI O.S.K Lines Ltd. (Japan), Wan Hai Lines Ltd. (Taiwan), and the Itochu Group (Japan), and began operations on May 13, 2018. It is the first deep-water terminal in the northern key economic region, with two main wharves 750 meters in length, a channel depth of 14 meters, a turning basin diameter of 660 meters, and a vessel draft at berth of 16 meters. The terminal is equipped with modern facilities, including eight STS cranes, which are the largest in Vietnam, 24 eRTG cranes, and two slewing cranes for barge berths, along with the TOPS-Expert operations system and the ePORT and eDO electronic port systems. HICT can accommodate container vessels of up to 14,000 TEUs (160,000 DWT), with an annual container throughput of 1.1 million TEUs. In the very near future, HICT will continue to welcome other direct services from Hai Phong to the west and east coasts of the US, India, the Mediterranean, and Europe, putting an international transshipment hub in the north of Vietnam on the map of transshipment hubs in the region and the world. VN Economic Times While the HUD office and Vicem buildings have partially taken shape, PVN Tower and television tower have remained on paper for years. Most skyscraper projects were drawn up nearly a decade ago when the real estate market was hot and investors dreamed of the tallest buildings, buildings with the highest numbers of stories, and the best designed buildings. In July 2010, the national oil and gas group PetroVietnam set up a team in charge of developing the PVN Tower project in Hanoi. The investor hoped that PVN Tower would become a symbol of Vietnams oil & gas industry. It was also expected to be unique with 102 floors and the length of 528 meters. PVC and Ocean Group were chosen to be the contractors for the $1 billion project. The gigantic building was expected to be completed in 2014 and become the pride of Hanoi like the twin towers in Malaysia. PVN Tower only ranked second among the tallest buildings. The first position belonged to the proposed VTV Tower, expected to be 636 meters tall in the West Lake area in Hanoi. However, PVN Tower only ranked second among the tallest buildings. The first position belonged to the proposed VTV Tower, expected to be 636 meters tall in the West Lake area in Hanoi. To implement the tallest building and the tallest television tower in the world, capitalized at $900 million, a joint stock company was established by Vietnam Television (VTV) and its partners SCIC (the State Capital Investment Corporation) and BRG. The project was scheduled to be under implementation for six years, including the 2-year period of investment preparation, before it would became operational in 2021. However, the two huge projects saw big adjustments. PVN Tower has 44 floors instead of 102, while its investment capital was cut from $1 billion to $600 million and then to $200 million. Mai Linh Investment became the new owner of the project after a municipal authorities decision was released in February 2017. Meanwhile, the television tower project failed, and both VTV and SCIC decided to withdraw capital from the project. A representative of VTV said the national television company needs to gather its strength on developing TV programs. SCIC, as a state-owned corporation, has put VTV Tower on a list of projects it needs to give up. The construction work isnt included in the list of business fields the State needs to hold a controlling stake or contribute capital. In addition, HCMC Peoples Committee decided to cut the number of stories at SJC Tower from 54 to 46. This project is located in an advantageous position in the central district 1. It got an investment license in 2005, but the location remains deserted. RELATED NEWS Watch huts on Hues flag tower to be restored The most famous Cham towers in Vietnam H. Dung Vietnams exports to member countries of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership are expected to increase strongly through 2030, reaching 25 percent of the nations total exports. Vietnam's exports to several CPTPP member countries have increased this year. (Source: vietnamexport.com) Shipments to Japan, the countrys largest export market in the bloc followed by Canada and Mexico, have reached 2.9 billion USD so far this year, up from 2.6 billion USD from the same period last year. As many as 269 certificates of origin have been issued in the CPTPP since the pact took effect in January 2019. These figures were unveiled by Ngo Chung Khanh, deputy director of the MoITs Multilateral Trade Policy Department, in a recent press meeting on industrial manufacturing and trade activities. Up to 219 of the 269 certificates of origin were issued to Canada, demonstrating that Vietnamese exporters were utilizing the CPTPP to penetrate Canada, one of the three countries that Vietnam has not signed free trade agreement with, Khanh said, adding that 14 certificates of origin had been issued to Mexico and eight to Peru. Vietnam has yet to sign free trade agreements (FTAs) with three of the 11 CPTPP member countries - Canada, Mexico and Peru. In the medium and long term, Vietnam will benefit more from the CPTPP when more countries join the agreement, Khanh said. The CPTPP is a trading bloc that represents nearly 500 million people with a combined 13.5 percent of the worlds gross domestic product (GDP). The accord is an important milestone in Vietnams global integration as it will promote export turnover, boost institutional reform and improve the business environment. Total import-export turnover between Vietnam and other CPTPP member countries reached nearly 74.5 billion USD in 2018, accounting for 15.5 percent of the countrys total import-export value. Of which, exports reached 36.8 billion USD and imports were 37.7 billion USD, data from Vietnams General Department of Customs showed. Vietnam enjoyed a trade surplus with Canada, Chile, Mexico, Australia and Peru, while suffering a trade deficit with Japan, Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia and Brunei. The Ministry of Planning and Investment has revealed Vietnams exports to the CPTPP countries would grow by 4.04 percent by 2035 and reach 80 billion USD through 2030, making up 25 percent of its total exports. With 75-95 percent of tariff lines being scrapped, export opportunities to the countries Vietnam had yet sign FTAs as well as member it was suffering a trade deficit like Japan and Australia were significant. Khanh said extensive commitments in the trade, service and investment sectors would open more opportunities for Vietnamese businesses to compete in a more transparent and predictable business environment, expand and diversify import and export markets, especially for products and services. In addition, new supply chains would be formed to raise the whole economy, increase labour productivity and enable businesses to participate in higher value-added production chains. He added that the MoIT working with the World Bank and The Australian Embassy in Vietnam to build a web portal for FTAs, with the core being the CPTPP.-VNA Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, his spouse and a high-ranking delegation of Vietnam arrived at Henri Coanda International Airport at 6:15am on April 14 (local time), beginning an official visit to Romania. PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc, his spouse and a high-ranking delegation of Vietnam arrived at Henri Coanda International Airport The visit is being made at the invitation of Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila. During the visit, PM Phuc is scheduled to hold talks with his Romanian counterpart Viorica Dancila, and meet with President Klaus Iohannis, President of the Senate Calin Popescu Tariceanu and President of the Chamber of Deputies Liviu Dragnea. PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc was welcomed at the Henri Coanda International Airport (Source: VNA) The Vietnamese Government leader is also planned to attend and deliver a speech at the Vietnam-Romania Business Forum and the talk with representatives of Romanian localities having cooperative ties with Vietnam. After his arrival, PM Phuc will visit Prahova where he will have a working session with its governor, and meet with the Vietnamese Embassys staff and representatives of the Vietnamese community in the country. Vietnam and Romania officially set up diplomatic relations in February 1950. The two countries have enjoyed growing friendship and cooperation. Both sides have worked together towards a trade revenue target of 500 million USD in the near future, instead of just 200 million USD at present. The official visit to Romania by PM Phuc and his spouse reiterates Vietnams consistent foreign policy of treasuring deepening the traditional friendship and cooperation with the European country in a more practical and efficient manner. This visit, the first by a Vietnamese PM to Romania since 1977, looks to open up opportunities for Vietnam to gain Romanias support in the ties with the European Union (EU), especially in pushing for the signing of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) during the countrys rotating EU Presidency in the first half of 2019. Besides, the visit also looks to step up the two sides coordination at international forums and build plans to prepare for the 70th anniversary of their diplomatic ties. The two sides will seek to boost cooperation across politics, economics, trade-investment, education-training, culture-tourism, agriculture, labour, and local partnership during the visit.-VNA PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc, now on a visit to Romania, on April 15 held a joint press conference with his host PM Viorica Dancila following their talks and signing of cooperation memorandums of understanding in Bucharest earlier the same day. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc holds a joint press conference with his host PM Viorica Dancila on April 15. The host laid a stress on the long-lasting cooperation between the two countries, especially in the field of education. She highlighted that they have always maintain and consolidated political trust on each other. As the rotary Chair of the European Union (EU), Romania supports the signing and ratification of the EU Vietnam Free Trade Agreement and the investment protection agreement between the two sides at the earliest possible date, she said. The leader held that the maintenance of sustainable economic growth over the recent years by the two countries will facilitate the strengthening of bilateral cooperation in various fields, expressing her hope that Vietnam will become a close partner of her country in East Asia. For his part, PM Phuc highlighted that the two countries enjoy a traditional relationship of friendship and cooperation lasting over the past seven decades. In its foreign policy of independence and self-reliance, Vietnam always attaches importance to its close relations with Romania, he affirmed. The Government leader revealed that the two sides had very successful talks, exchanging ideas on concrete measures on pushing up bilateral relations as well as on international and regional issues of mutual concern. The two sides noted that the bilateral relations have developed positively over the recent past, but large room remains for further cooperation and Vietnam hopes that the two countries will become trustful and effective partners of each other, he said. Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila welcomes Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc Vietnam congratulated Romania on its assumption of the rotary chairmanship of the EU for the first six months of this year and believed it will successfully accomplish the term which will help affirm the role and position of Romania in the EU and the international community. PM Viorica Dancila has affirmed to exert efforts to push the EU to officially sign the important agreements within Romanias term of EU chair, PM Phuc revealed, adding the two sides concurred that labour is the focus of cooperation in the time to come. At the talks, the two sides were satisfied to note that they have closely coordinated on importance international issues and supported each other at multilateral forums. They agreed to bring into full play the roles of the two countries in the ASEAN and the EU as Vietnam will be the Chair of ASEAN next year, thus contributing to international and multilateral cooperation for peace and security in the world. PM Phuc also express gratitude to the Romanian government for facilitating the Vietnamese community there to live and integrate into the local society, and said he hope they will continue to bring into full play the role of a bridge in the relations between the two countries. PM Phuc holds talks with Romanian counterpart Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on April 15 holds talks in Bucharest with his host PM of Romania Viorica Dancila. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on April 15 held talks in Bucharest with his host PM of Romania Viorica Dancila during his official visit to the European country from April 14-16. At the talks, the two leaders expressed their joy at the fine development of the bilateral relations of traditional friendship and multifaceted cooperation over the past nearly 70 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1950. The Romanian leader affirmed importance to the relations with Vietnam and stressed that the ongoing visit by PM Phuc is an important milestone in the bilateral relations. She also spoke highly of Vietnams socio-economic achievements and rising role in the region and the world over. The two leaders exchanged ideas on measures to further push up bilateral relations in the fields of great potential like politics, diplomacy, security and national defence, economy, trade, investment, education and training, labour, culture, tourism, agriculture and food processing. They spoke highly of the cooperation between the two countries localities over the recent past, taking this as a direction for the traditional cooperation between the two sides. The two PMs agreed to increase the exchange of high-level delegations and effectively implement existing bilateral cooperation mechanisms. The two sides should make active preparations for the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the bilateral diplomatic relations. The host PM said the Vietnamese community in Romania is small but quite trustworthy and integrating well, making contributions to the socio-economic development of the host country. Meanwhile, PM Phuc thanked his host and the Romanian government for the facilitation of the community. Besides bilateral issues, the two PMs also exchanged ideas on international and regional issues of mutual concern, sharing the vision on and commitments to the acceleration of bilateral cooperation at international forums and organisations. They affirmed the importance of the maintenance of peace, security and stability for cooperation and development, the solution of differences and disputes by peaceful means in line with the international law, the charter of the United Nations and the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. PM Phuc invited the Romanian PM to pay an official visit to Vietnam. The invitation was accepted and will be arranged at a convenient time. Following the talks, the two leaders witnessed the signing of a cooperation memorandum of understanding on agriculture, animal health and food safety, and chaired a joint press conference on the outcome of the talks. PM calls for breakthrough in Vietnam Romania economic ties Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc speaks at the event Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc called for a breakthrough in Vietnam Romania economic, trade and investment ties in his address to the Vietnam Romania business forum in the capital city of Bucharest on April 15. Speaking before hundreds of business delegates and investors, the PM hailed the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Romania Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Vietnamese Embassy in Romania for holding the event. The PM informed participants about the outcomes of his talks with his Romanian counterpart, which he said will open up economic, trade and investment cooperation opportunities for the two nations. He said despite annual growth, the two-way trade, which stood at 218 million USD last year, remains modest compared to their potential. While the two governments have continuously worked to improve business climate, firms themselves must strive to expand their scale and adopt new ways of doing business, he said. According to him, Vietnams membership in 12 free trade agreements and the European Union Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) in the near future will open up opportunities for both sides to boost ties. He also took the occasion to urge the two countries chambers of commerce and industry to step up ties between firms. Highlighting Vietnams advantages in foreign direct investment attraction, he particularly underlined the socio-political stability, improved competitiveness and innovation, a 100 million population and the goal of attracting 50 million tourists. The Government leader wished that Romanian enterprises would push for the signing and ratification of the EVFTA. He suggested the two sides enhance science-technology collaboration, launch direct flights, and facilitate the import of quality farm produce and pharmaceuticals. Romanian business representatives wished that the two governments would further facilitate cooperation opportunities, especially in labour export, industry, culture and education. They expressed willingness to partner with Vietnamese firms, particularly small and medium-sized ones. They backed the signing of the EVFTA, saying that it will make it easier for EU and Romanian to do business in Vietnam. VNA Vietnam and the US reiterated their commitments to deepening cooperation in energy security during their second energy security dialogue in Washington D.C on April 12. At the dialogue The Vietnamese and US delegations emphasised the centrality of energy security to sustained economic development in light of rising energy demands. Both sides affirmed the importance of improving the transparency and predictability of Vietnams energy sector investment climate through private sector-led development and regulatory reforms. US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources (ENR) Francis R. Fannon Fannon offered continued technical assistance to support efforts to enhance the regulatory capacity of the Electricity Regulatory Authority of Vietnam (ERAV). Specifically, ENR will support ERAV with developing a competitive power market; smart grid and demand response programmes; and the regulatory tools necessary for competitive wholesale and retail electricity markets. ENR will continue to work closely with partners in the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) and the Directorate for Standards, Metrology, and Quality (STOMAQ) to increase energy efficiency in the region through technical engagements, and will seek ASEAN endorsement for voluntary best practices. The two sides further recognised the urgency for improving energy efficiency, particularly given that air conditioning comprises up to 50 percent of peak electricity demand in ASEAN countries and has a significant impact on energy security. MoIT Deputy Minister Dang Hoang An said the energy security dialogue mechanism between his ministry and the US Department of State was established two years ago, with the first meeting held in Hanoi in March 2018. This is the first energy security dialogue mechanism between ministries of two countries, he said, noting that it has created conditions for Vietnamese and US businesses to establish relations and accelerate joint projects. Through the dialogue, the two sides shared the views that energy is a potential sector that would help deepen the bilateral comprehensive ties, for interests of the two countries, and for peace and stability in the region and the world at large. The official suggested Vietnam and the US set up more official dialogue mechanisms in other spheres in order to push ahead with the implementation of specific cooperation projects between businesses of the two countries. Regarding renewable energy, Vietnam representatives discussed their pilot programme for Direct Power Purchase Agreements (DPPAs) that allows US corporations with 100 percent renewable energy targets to directly purchase electricity generated from renewable energy sources for their production facilities in Vietnam. In addition, the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) demonstrated its support for enhancing Vietnams storage capacity by funding a joint Electricity Vietnam (EVN)-GE Power study on the use of advanced energy storage technologies to reduce power shortages in Southern Vietnam. During the Dialogue, EVN and GE power signed an agreement to carry out that study. In the sphere of liquefied national gas (LNG), both delegations highlighted the US-Vietnam LNG workshop in Ho Chi Minh City in December 2018, which promoted securing stable LNG supplies for power generation and expediting investments in the LNG sector. The two sides discussed AES Corporations proposal to invest in the Son My 2 LNG-to-power project. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) highlighted its support for cooperating with MoIT on power sector reforms, increasing Vietnams renewable energy and storage capacity, promoting natural gas imports, and enhancing energy efficiency. The US and Vietnam delegations committed to continued cooperation in all of the areas discussed in the dialogue and to review progress at the third Vietnam-US Energy Security Dialogue to be held in Vietnam in 2020.-VNA China has vowed to stop importing solid waste by 2020, while Vietnam is still fumbling for solutions to control scrap imports. Chinese agencies on March 28 announced the countrys plan to cut solid waste imports to zero percent by 2020 with an aim of encouraging plants to treat the high amount of domestic waste. Prior to that, eight categories of steel, copper and aluminum scrap were added to the list of prohibited items in early 2019 and 24 categories of plastic scraps appeared in the list in late 2017. As such, after expanding the list of prohibited scrap items twice, China is taking the last step in its plan to completely prohibit the import of solid waste to protect the environment. Once this happens, scrap flows will have to find alternative docks. Vietnam is believed to be a potential destination, because the country still doesnt have detailed plans to tighten the import of solid waste. Once this happens, scrap flows will have to find alternative docks. Vietnam is believed to be a potential destination, because the country still doesnt have detailed plans to tighten the import of solid waste. Nguyen Huu Nghiep, deputy director of the HCMC Customs Agency, confirmed that scrap imports receive customs clearance if they meet requirements of the environment ministry. Meanwhile, environmentalists have voiced their concern about scrap imports. Le Huy Ba from the Institute for Science & Technology and Environment Management, said it is highly possible that Vietnam would become a new scrap and waste storehouse of the world. Though the risk was anticipated more than one year ago, scrap still arrives in Vietnam. A report showed that the volume of plastic scrap imported to Vietnam increased by 200 percent in 2018 compared with the year before, while China and Hong Kong, the two biggest plastic scrap consumers, saw imports fall by 90 percent. The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment must take responsibility for this, Ba said. More than 20,000 containers of imported scrap have been left at ports because there are no owners. The scrap cannot be re-exported or destroyed. Hundreds of enterprises have been found importing scrap just for sale, and only16 enterprises have been found violating the current laws and have been fined. Pham The Hien, a respected environmental expert, agrees with Ba, saying that when hundreds of scrap containers got stuck at ports, state agencies should have drawn up and submitted to the government a plan to reduce and prohibit scrap imports. They are now still busy building up standards for scrap imports. He said that Vietnam needs to exploit domestic sources before allowing enterprises to import scrap. RELATED NEWS Fears scrap imports are on the rise Strict control cannot prevent flood of scrap steel imports Xuan Lan Vietnamese cuisine has been placed among the 15 most-favored cuisines in the world in a survey conducted by YouGov, a UK-based global public opinion and data company. Bun cha, one of the specialities of Hanoi. Photo: TripAdvisor Conducted from May to December last year, the survey revealed the 34 most popular national cuisines in the world after collecting responses from 25,000 food lovers from 24 countries and territories. Fifty-five per cent of respondents selected Vietnamese food as among their favorites, putting it in 13th position - slightly ahead of Hong Kong and Taiwan, with 54 per cent and 50 per cent, respectively. Regional neighbors Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia followed, with 49 per cent, 49 per cent, and 48 per cent, respectively. Italian food topped the list, with 84 percent, then Chinese, Japanese, Thai, French, and Spanish cuisine. Vietnamese cuisine has become more popular around the world in recent years thanks to international chefs and prestigious food magazines praising several national dishes. Its iconic noodle soup, pho, has appeared on many lists and was most recently named among the worlds 20th best food experiences by world travel guide book Lonely Planet and among the worlds 15 best foods that are easy on a globetrotters pocket by travel site Rough Guides. In 2017, it was listed among the worlds 50 most delicious dishes by CNN, based on a vote of 35,000 people. Another dish, bun cha, charcoal-grilled pork patties and pork belly slices with rice noodles and herb garnish, became known as must-try street food after former US President Barack Obama enjoyed a bowl during his visit in 2016 with famed chef the late Anthony Bourdain. National Geographic also honored bun cha as the one of top 10 delicious street foods in the world. One more popular street food, banh mi, or Vietnamese bread rolls, which are readily found on street corners, was listed in the top 20 street foods in the world by Fodors Travel, a US travel site. Banh mi Hoi An (Hoi An-style bread rolls from the ancient town of Hoi An) was also listed among the worlds Top 10 sandwiches by Austrian travel website Traveller. Earlier this year, when the DPRK-US Summit took place in Hanoi, CNN also recommended five of the best dishes in the capital, including cha ca (fish cooked with turmeric and dill), banh tom (shrimp cake) made from freshwater crayfish or shrimp from West Lake and flour and sweet potato, bun ca (fish noodle soup), bun rieu cua (crab noodle soup), and ca phe trung (egg coffee) - a special drink served at the summit. In 2017, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City were named among the worlds best food destinations by Caterwings, a site that offers online food ordering services in Europe. VN Economic Times Imam-e-Kaaba attended Paigham-e-Islam Conference 15 April, 2019 Related News Imran Khan distributed loan cheques under Kamyab Jawan Programme PTI govt to face all challenges coming its way: Imran khan More on this View All Top 2021 Accessories We Know You Will Love Types of Casino Payment Methods Tips for Taking Incredible iPhone Travel Photos Are Slot Developers Important for players? Best Poker Hands ever played on a Casino Hand Wash and Toiletries in Pakistan And the Role of DUPAS in Reshaping the Industry Woke Bingo President Dr Arif Alvi Sunday said both Kashmir and Palestine will win freedom one day as no community or religion can be suppressed by force. My heart beats with Palestine. My heart beats with Kashmir. Pakistan will continue extending moral and political support to the Kashmiri people, the president said while addressing the Paigham-e-Islam Conference organised by the Pakistan Ulema Council here. The event was also attended by Imam-e-Kaaba Dr Sheikh Abdullah Awad Al Juhany, Chief Justice of Palestinian Shariat Council Mustafa Al-Tawil, Saudi Ambassador in Pakistan Nawaf bin Said Al-Malki, Pakistan Ulema Council Chairman Allama Tahir Ashrafi, representatives of Saudi Ministry of Religious Affairs and religious scholars from across the country. The conference started with the mesmerising recitation of Surah Rahman by Imam-e-Kaaba. Wearing the Palestinian-flag themed scarf, the president said the Jews must keep in mind that like the use of force couldnt eliminate them in the 20th century, the freedom movements in Kashmir and Palestine cannot be ended with force. Recalling Pakistans generous hosting of 3.5 million Afghan refugees, he said the world must learn compassion and humanity from Islam and Muslims as currently, some western countries are resisting to host even few dozen refugees with others erecting walls to bar them letting them die in the sea. He advised the religious scholars to spread the message of social revolution from the pulpit that has been the platform for social messaging since the early days of Islam. He said the clerics must guide the people on social issues like cleanliness, water conservation and tree plantation for being the urgent needs of the country. He said the journey of social change will accomplish only after the introduction of uniform education system in the country. Condoling over the loss of lives in a terror attack that took place in Quetta on Friday, the president said Pakistan has successfully fought out terrorism and the residues will also be eliminated. Thanking the Saudi leadership for further strengthening ties with Pakistan, he believed that no force in the world can harm Muslims if Pakistan and Saudi Arabia stand united for any cause. Earlier, the president gave away shields and souvenirs to the visiting dignitaries and also received the same from Imam-e-Kaaba. Minister for Religious Affairs Nurul Haq Qadri said the clerics owed responsibility to create unity among the Muslims and sensitise them on countrys rules and regulations. He said the government has resolved to protect religious seminaries and is striving for a uniformed education system to bring the seminary students on a par with other educational institutions. The conference decided to evolve an effective and systematic mechanism to streamline the issuance of decrees (fatwas). In this regard Dar-ul-Afta Pakistan will be established in Lahore, in which religious scholars of different schools of thought will get representation. The institution will accomplish its educational and ideological task with the assistance of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Muslim countries to face the challenges confronting the Muslim world. A joint declaration issued at the conclusion of the conference announced that an Islamic ideological alliance would be formed to contain Islamophobia at the international level. A meeting of the leadership of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other Muslim countries would be called to finalise the mechanism for the alliance. The conference endorsed the initiative of Prime Minister Imran Khan and his government to launch One-Nation with One-Education programme. It lauded government efforts to reform educational structure in the country, stating that seminaries as well as conventional school education system should be reformed. Registration of Madaris-i-Arabia with the education ministry is the best initiative... and practical steps in this regard are inevitable, the joint declaration said. It urged the United Nations to enact international laws to ensure respect and protect honour of holy places of all religions. The conference urged all parties to the Afghan conflict to come to the negotiating table and lauded the role of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE for peace talks between Afghan Taliban and the US. A resolution adopted at the conference underlined that no organisation or individual would be allowed to do politics on the issue of finality of Prophethood. The conference pointed out that Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance and forbearance which has nothing to do with terrorism, extremism and sectarian violence. Elements responsible for fanning these evils are enemies of Islam and Muslims. It lauded the role of the armed forces, government and law enforcement agencies for peace and stability in the country. The joint declaration condemned brutalities being committed against oppressed Muslims of Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Palestine and Kashmir and called on the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the UN to take notice of these atrocities. The conference observed that the relocation of the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and the US decision to recognise Golan Heights as Israeli territory were sheer violation of international laws. NAB is an independent institution: Shah Mehmood Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi Sunday said the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is an independent institution, which the government expects will help eradicate corruption from the country. Talking to media after inaugurating a water filtration plant in Shah Rukn-e-Aalam colony here, the minister said the corrupt elements, whether they belong to any party, must be brought to justice. He observed that the NAB is an independent institution and the government cannot pressurize it as it is free in taking its decision. Government cannot get decisions of its choice from NAB we want that NAB bring corrupt elements to justice without any discrimination, he said while responding to a question about the recent verbal spat between the accountability watchdog and Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry. It [NAB] doesnt work under the government, we cannot influence it. We cant bring it under pressure [and] neither will it take decisions at our behest. NAB has to take decisions and it is autonomous. Our expectation is for NAB to support us in the process to eradicate corruption. The eradication of corruption is a pillar of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insafs agenda, he said. We want corrupt elements, no matter which party they belong to, to be uprooted and the class which caused losses to the national exchequer to be held accountable. The nation expects NAB to keep moving forward, without any pressure or concession [to corrupt elements], for a corruption-free Pakistan, he added. The foreign minister said the federal government has no magic wand to fix the economy overnight. Be it Asad Umar or anyone else, nobody can improve the countrys economic situation overnight. Situation cannot be improved by finger snapping, he said while responding to a question about the current economic situation. At the end of the last governments tenure, the trade deficit was at a historical low, the foreign direct investment (FDI) was extremely low and [foreign and domestic] loans had been increased by several folds, he said. [Prime Minister Imran] Khan has already said that the previous governments from 1948 to 2008 heaped a load of Rs 6,000 billion, and during the last 10 years, the country was placed under a burden of Rs 30,000 billion [debt], he continued. Who is responsible for the increase in debt by Rs 24,000 billion? The eight-month-old government of the PTI cannot be held responsible for this, he asserted. Responding to a question about Indias alleged involvement in the terrorist attack in Quetta, the foreign minister said Pakistan is a responsible country and it will not act like India which issues irresponsible statements. Pakistan will investigate the incident thoroughly to trace culprits whether foreign hands are involved or sectarianism is behind this tragic incident, he added. To another question about any threat from India, Qureshi said election process in India is likely to end by May 19, therefore there is need to remain vigilant. past daily news Sep 13 (1) Sep 09 (15) Sep 06 (12) Sep 04 (10) Sep 03 (10) Aug 31 (17) Aug 29 (14) Aug 26 (13) Aug 22 (11) Aug 21 (12) Aug 19 (21) Aug 14 (6) Aug 13 (10) Aug 10 (10) Aug 08 (9) Aug 07 (10) Aug 06 (10) Aug 05 (8) Aug 03 (8) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (7) Jul 31 (14) Jul 29 (1) Jul 27 (7) Jul 25 (5) Jul 24 (10) Jul 22 (11) Jul 19 (16) Jul 17 (6) Jul 16 (10) Jul 15 (13) Jul 12 (7) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (8) Jul 08 (8) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (5) Jul 05 (8) Jul 04 (11) Jul 03 (8) Jul 02 (7) Jul 01 (5) Jun 30 (8) Jun 28 (7) Jun 27 (8) Jun 26 (7) Jun 25 (8) Jun 24 (6) Jun 23 (6) Jun 22 (9) Jun 20 (5) Jun 19 (9) Jun 18 (8) Jun 15 (9) Jun 13 (13) Jun 11 (11) Jun 09 (19) Jun 06 (10) Jun 04 (10) Jun 03 (8) Jun 01 (6) May 31 (5) May 30 (5) May 29 (6) May 28 (7) May 27 (7) May 26 (6) May 25 (4) May 23 (6) May 22 (6) May 21 (4) May 20 (7) May 19 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29 (1) Oct 01 (1) Jul 29 (1) May 11 (1) Jul 11 (1) Focusing on the world of wines, beer, and spirits that we experience through our travels at WineCompass.com and theCompass Craft Beverage Finder. Architecture of the Future, the biggest European architecture conference on emerging technologies, has announced its second edition for the new conference which will be held on October 9-11, 2019, in Kyiv, Ukraine. After the successful release of the first edition of the conference, the second edition of the Architecture of the Future conference on emerging technologies will bring together more than 2,000 architects from 25 countries. "The future of architecture relies completely on emerging technologies," said the Architecture of the Future. The topic of the second edition, which is called "The Inevitable. Disruptive technologies shaping the future of the AES industry", will unite 3 thematic days that fully reveal the latest trends in architectural design and construction. Riyad Joucka, curator of the 2018 Architecture of the Future Conference in Kyiv and Tania Kolchanova, founder the AF Conference. World Architecture Community is official Media partner of the conference and will be bringing you the hottest discussions, keynotes and lectures from the 3-day event, as published in detail in the first year of the conference. To read WAC's full coverage, please visit WAC's Ukraine Architecture News page. For the second edition, Winy Maas, co-founder and principal architect of MVRDV, Tim Geurtjens, co-founder, CTO, MX3D, Xavier De Kestelier, Head of Design Technology and Innovation, HASSELL, Jose Pareja Gomez, Lead VR Developer, Zaha Hadid VR Group, Lukasz Platkowski, Principal, Design Director, Gensler, Kare Stokholm Poulsgaard, Head of Innovations, 3XN/GXN are among the confirmed speakers for Architecture of the Future 2019, see more speakers here. October 9 - the first day of the conference will be devoted to the topic of the designing the cities of the future under the conditions of ever-growing population density. According to the leading architects, human oriented design will take the very first place. Only grasping the human needs is it possible to design a competent and sustainable space. But what place will the new technologies occupy? How can technologies influence the design of the cities of the future? Data analysis, machine learning, innovations in the development of transport, blockchain - these are the directions that in the future will determine not only new specs in urban spaces designing, but the city as a universal unit, affecting further human development. Simone de Gale, Chief Executive at Simone de Gale Architects at the 2018 stage for the AF Conference. October 10 - the second day of the conference will reveal the theme of the future in the design of housing under the conditions of the changing needs of humanity. Architects around the world are testing new construction materials and digital production technologies in an effort to create new housing according to individual human requirements. A promising direction is also the production of new habitats on other planets. Companies like Foster + Partners, HASSELL, AI SpaceFactory and others are designing not only the architectural part, but also researching building structures that allow to erect objects in conditions that are completely different from the Earth environment. October 11 - the third day of the conference will be fully devoted to the innovations in architecture. The technological advances of the digital era provide the AEC industry with many new engines enabling to move to the next stage of building design of tomorrow. Drones, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, big data and the Internet of Things - these are the new additions to the tools of the architect which will change the way we build. The Architecture of the Future 2019 conference is supported by the Ukrainian Steel Construction Center Association and the German manufacturer of industrial mesh GKD, media partners are ArchDaily, World Architecture Community, Pragmatika, The Architect and Hmarochos. You can still get your early bird tickets before 1st May, 2019 and save up to 32%. Buy your tickets from here. All images courtesy of Architecture of the Future > via Architecture of the Future This survey explored the opinions of 500 small business owners in Nevada on retirement saving issues. Small business owners surveyed strongly support a state retirement savings program and most agree that state elected officials should support legislation making it easier for workers to save for retirement. More than half (56%) of small business owners were concern that their employees would not have enough money to cover their health care or living expenses when they retire, with over one in four (29%) saying they are very concerned. Most (76%) say they do not offer a retirement savings plan, largely because of cost, so a state program would be well received, and a majority of these business owners say they would take advantage of it. Interviews were conducted November 19-27, 2018. The sample was drawn from a registered voter list. Half (250) of the interviews were conducted via landline phone and half (250) were conducted via cell phone. A total of 19,300 records were utilized to achieve a base sample of 500. All data are weighted by age and gender according to November 2018 Nevada voter database statistics. For more information, please contact Jennifer Sauer at jsauer@aarp.org. For media inquiries, contact media@aarp.org. Suggested Citation: Sauer, Jennifer. AARP 2018 Nevada Survey of Small Business Owners. Washington, DC: AARP Research, April 2019. https://doi.org/10.26419/res.00239.001 Pak Navy ship visited Port Mina Salman of Bahrain Pakistan Navy ship Shamsheer with embarked AL-43 helicopter visited Port Mina Salman of Bahrain as part of Overseas Deployment for Regional Maritime Security Patrol in North Arabian Sea, Gulf of Oman and Arabian Gulf area. Deployment of PNS Shamsheer in North Arabian Sea is primarily focused on ensuring safety and security of these waters for international shipping. The ship was given a warm welcome by the Royal Bahraini Naval Forces (RBNF) upon its arrival at the Port. The ship was received by the Naval and Air Attache, Pakistan and a large number of RBNF officers including Senior Naval Representative and Liaison Officer for the Royal Bahraini Naval Forces. During the stay at Mina Salman, the Commanding Officer called on Commander RBNF and Ambassador of Pakistan in Bahrain. During the meeting with Commander Royal Bahraini Naval Forces, the Commanding Officer conveyed sincere regards from Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi, Chief of the Naval Staff to the Bahraini Navy and the people of Bahrain and highlighted that the visit of PNS SHAMSHEER is a manifestation of the multifaceted long term collaboration that exists between the two navies. During the visit, the Commanding Officer along with key staff officers, also attended the Change of Command Ceremony of Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150) which was held at HQs US NAVCENT, where Pakistan Navy took over the Command of CTF-150 from Royal Canadian Navy. A reception was held onboard PNS SHAMSHEER. Rear Admiral Yousaf Al Asam, Commander Royal Bahraini Naval Forces graced the occasion as Chief Guest. The reception was also attended by a large number of guests including HE Mr Afzaal Mehmood, Ambassador of Pakistan in Bahrain, Rear Admiral Douglas Beal Vice Commander US NAVCENT/ USN 5th Fleet, Commanders Combined Task Forces 150 & 151, Commanding Officers HMS MONTROSE, HMS BLYTH, HMAS BALLARAT and several key appointment holders from CMF including Senior Naval Reps from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Djibouti, Egypt, Germany, Iraq, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, UK, US and Yemen. During his speech, the Commanding Officer PNS SHAMSHEER apprised that Pakistan Navy, in line with the Government of Pakistans policy, has been a regular contributor to the Combined Maritime Force since 2004 and will continue to do so in the interest of international peace to ensure safety and security of the international waters. He also expressed best hopes for further strengthening the bilateral relations between the navies and peoples of Pakistan and Bahrain. In the last part of its visit, PASSEX (Passage Exercise) was conducted between PNS SHAMSHEER and RBNS AL FAHDL(P-22) in the waters off Bahrain. Subsequently, the ship resumed its role in RMSP in the North Arabian Sea. The ship will also be operating under the direct support of Pakistan led Multinational Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150). Pakistan and Bahrain are tied in eternal bonds of religion and brotherhood. Knights look to continue hot start, Central boys at home this weekend Pakistan released another batch of 100 Indian fishermen Pakistan on Sunday released another batch of 100 Indian fishermen from Malir Jail in Karachi as a goodwill gesture. The fishermen were arrested for fishing illegally in the Pakistani waters during various operations. After their release, the fishermen boarded a train for Lahore where they will be handed over to the Indian authorities at Wagah border crossing on Monday (today). The first batch of 100 fishermen crossed Wagah on April 8, days after Pakistan announced to release 360 Indian prisoners detained for fishing illegally in the countrys territorial waters in the Arabian Sea. Providing details regarding the release, the FO spokesperson had said that Pakistan would be releasing 360 Indian prisoners, of which 355 were fishermen and five civilians. In the first phase on April 8, 100 prisoners will be released. In the second phase on April 15, another 100 will be released. In the third phase on April 22, yet another 100 will be released. In the fourth and last phase on April 29, the remaining 60 prisoners will be released, he had told a media briefing in Islamabad. IT services provider Kosh Solutions was already a four-year-old company with $600,000 in revenue and seven employees when it moved into the WESST Enterprise Center in December 2009. Co-founders Josh Fristoe and Koert Council launched the firm in Las Cruces in September 2005, building the business from scratch on their own. But when they decided to expand to Albuquerque, they turned to WESST. We were the first company to move into the Enterprise Center, Fristoe said. We helped WESST design the data infrastructure and network for the building. The company grew rapidly, moving within a few years from an initial 200-square-foot office into a 1,000-square-foot space at the incubator. Apart from infrastructure and mentoring, WESST provided networking opportunities for Kosh to build its customer base, plus a loan to buy equipment. Kosh left the incubator in 2014. It now employs 38 people in Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Farmington, with $4.5 million in revenue as of last year. While still at WESST, Kosh forged a partnership with another incubator tenant, Medical Practice Solutions. The two companies jointly leased a facility after leaving WESST, and in 2017, they bought a building together near Journal Center. Cohabiting with other businesses and building peer-to-peer relationships is a big part of what WESST does, Fristoe said. Its been great. When Louis Zaina launched RoofCare with two partners in spring 2008, the team joked that hotel lobbies served as their corporate headquarters and a storage unit as their warehouse. We operated that way for nearly two years, until we moved into WESST in fall 2009, Zaina said. The company, which offers maintenance and repair as an alternative to roof replacement, grew into a thriving business during its five years at the WESST Enterprise Center Downtown. The incubator provides all the office space, communications and administrative resources needed for up to 20 startups to grow their businesses, while providing wrap-around training and mentoring services for tenants. RoofCare took advantage of everything. We embraced the full range of services, Zaina said. For a small startup roofing company to call an incubator like that home had huge benefits. When RoofCare moved out in 2014, it had grown from five employees and $1 million in revenue before WESST to 35 people and $4 million. Its continued to grow since then, now serving all of New Mexico with three regional offices and two more it opened in Texas last year. It currently employs 60 people, 50 of them here, reaching $8 million in revenue in 2018. WESST allowed us to forget about all the little things and focus on growing the company, Zaina said. They consistently had a finger on the pulse of our company to make sure we were always looking at the big picture. Not too long ago I wrote a column that said tax law is interesting, not just to those who practice it, but to people in general because it permeates all aspects of our lives. Bob Woodward wrote a book in 1979 called The Brethren, which purported to be an inside look into the Supreme Court. Woodward noted that the Court hates to hear tax cases, which often lack a broad social or constitutional focus. I suspect the 12 courts of appeals, one level below the Supreme Court, also dislike tax cases. But the Seventh Circuit got a good one with the ministers housing allowance. Section 107 of the Internal Revenue Code excludes from income a payment made to a Minister of the Gospel for a housing allowance. If the formalities are satisfied, some of the ministers pay can be designated for things like property taxes, mortgage interest and principal, and utilities and repairs. This designated amount is not taxed. The minister can also claim a deduction for mortgage interest and property taxes under the normal rules that apply to everyone else. So it may be possible to effectively deduct interest and taxes twice, and principal, utilities and repairs once. The aptly named Freedom From Religion Foundation challenged this tax provision. FFRF is based in Madison, Wisconsin, so they brought a suit in a Wisconsin District Court. The Wisconsin Court said the ministers housing provision was unconstitutional as it violated the Establishment Clause. The case was appealed to the Seventh Circuit, which in 2014 dismissed it because the FFRF lacked standing to bring the suit. FFRF then entered into some creative machinations to create standing for some of its officers and, by the employment link, for FFRF itself. Returning to the Wisconsin District Court, FFRF again was able to get a holding that the Section 107 housing allowance was unconstitutional. So the Treasury Department went back to the Seventh Circuit for appeal no. 2. If you like the tax law, this was beginning to look like the great Ali-Frazier sequence of fights. Unfortunately, I can think of no way to rhyme with Chicago, the setting of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, like Ali did with the Thrilla in Manila. Both combatants trained hard for the rematch. They each had hangers-on in their respective camps who filed friend-of-the-court briefs. The decision was carried on Pay-for-View in many local bars (OK, sorry, that part is a lie). The Seventh Circuit applied the 1971 Lemon test, which is not based on some religious significance of a fruit, but instead on an unfortunately named person. It also examined the more recent 2014 historical significance test. A third test was said to be wrapped up in the second prong of the three-pronged Lemon test. If the Supreme Court has done anything, it has sure created some very confusing tests to evaluate the Establishment Clause. For this reason, Vegas odds makers could not create a good line on the FFRF fight. After much discussion of the prongs of the Lemon test, and a bit of delving into the historical significance test, the Court announced that it had a decision. A microphone was lowered from the rafters and the winner, by unanimous decision, was Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, a man who always forces me to google the proper spelling of his name. Yes, the Section 107 housing allowance passes constitutional muster. Or so says the Seventh Circuit. So what, you say? Well it saves 200,000 to 300,000 ministers, found in 384,000 congregations, from amending tax returns and starting interesting discussions about their after-tax compensation packages with their church employers. Yes, our tax laws say something about our values. For some, the Seventh Circuit decision would be representative of poor values why do ministers get a status-based benefit that others do not? The Seventh Circuit believed its decision represented good values. Without the housing allowance, a church organization would argue that the housing was for the convenience of the employer organization, a separate provision that also allows a tax exclusion. This would force the government into the churchs governance and operations to see if the exclusion applied. The courts decision avoided this government involvement in religion. Jim Hamill is the director of Tax Practice at Reynolds, Hix & Co. in Albuquerque. He can be reached at jimhamill@rhcocpa.com. New Mexicos electric consumption could drop markedly over the next decade thanks to new energy-efficiency mandates approved by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. House Bill 291, which the Legislature passed this year and the governor signed into law on April 3, requires the states three public utilities to achieve 5 percent savings off 2020 retail sales by 2025, followed by higher savings targets that the state Public Regulation Commission will set through 2030. It also authorizes up to a 66 percent increase in utility spending on energy-efficiency programs. The new mandates modify the states Efficient Use of Energy Act, enacted in 2005. Under that legislation, Public Service Company of New Mexico, El Paso Electric Co. and Southwestern Public Service were required to achieve 5 percent savings off 2005 retail sales by 2014, and 8 percent by 2020. As of 2018, three utilities had reduced electric demand by a combined 7 percent, saving ratepayers a total of $400 million, according to the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project. But with the mandates scheduled to sunset next year, environmental groups lobbied legislators to set new requirements going forward, said Tammy Fiebelkorn, SWEEPs New Mexico representative. All the utilities are in good shape to meet the 2020 requirements, but then the mandates end, Fiebelkorn said. We wanted to extend them out another decade to make sure the utilities continue to pursue energy efficiency. The laws extension and modification provides critical support to the states new Energy Transition Act, approved by the Legislature and the governor in March. That law now requires the states public utilities to derive all electricity from clean, non-carbon-emitting sources by 2045. Energy efficiency is the unsung hero for fighting climate change and saving customers money at the same time, said Noah Long, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Its the lowest-cost, fastest thing to cut carbon emissions, and its a critical part of the overall effort to achieve New Mexicos clean energy goals. HB 291 includes key changes in spending levels and in the way that utilities recover costs from energy-efficiency investments. Under the current law, utilities cant spend beyond 3 percent of their total retail sales on energy-efficiency measures. That keeps costs down for customers, who pay for those programs through a rate rider on their bills. Now, under HB 291, the utilities must spend at least 3 percent and up to a maximum of 5 percent. If all three utilities raise their investments to the 5 percent level, total spending would jump by $29 million per year to $73 million, up from a combined annual total today of $44 million, according to a fiscal impact report by the Legislative Finance Committee. Higher spending levels will mean a larger rate rider on customers bills. But the law requires utilities to invest only in energy-efficiency programs that cost less than what they would otherwise have spent on electric generation to meet demand. The utilities must show that all programs are cost-effective, Fiebelkorn said. In all cases, spending on energy efficiency must be less expensive than energy produced from other resources to make it cost-effective energy savings. In addition, utility programs help customers reduce consumption and lower their bills, helping to offset the rate rider. PNM, which spent about $80 million on energy efficiency from 2007-2017, has offered rebates to customers who replace energy-hog refrigerators, cooling systems and appliances with modern, efficient models. The utility also offers partial reimbursements to business customers for upgrades to buildings and new energy-efficient home construction, plus home energy checkups for residential consumers in which utility representatives do on-site assessments to show homeowners how they can reduce consumption. During the home walk-throughs, PNM installs energy-efficient gadgets such as light bulbs and smart power strips. As of year-end 2017, PNM estimates its programs had generated electricity savings equivalent to what would power 470,000 homes for a year. The rate rider in 2017 equalled about 3.2 percent of consumers bills, or about $2.31 for an average residential customer. The rate rider allows utilities to recover only the cost of their programs. It doesnt compensate them for decreased electric consumption, which cuts into their bottom line. To address that, HB 291 authorizes a rate adjustment known as decoupling, whereby electric rates will be set based on how much electricity a utility projects it will sell in the coming year. If energy efficiency cuts their sales below that projection, rates will rise slightly to compensate the utility. If sales are above projections, the utility will rebate the difference back to customers. PNM says those changes will help it meet the new mandates. Decoupling is not intended to be an incentive, said PNM Energy Efficiency Program Manager Sharon James. Instead, it removes the disincentive that results when a utility doesnt recover its sunk costs that are tied to energy-efficiency savings. The Turquoise Museum, already a stalwart of the Albuquerque tourism market, has completed its move into one of the citys most iconic buildings, the Gertrude Zachary mansion. The private museum has nearly doubled its footprint with the move out of Old Town. It is now leasing about 8,500 square feet at what is known locally as the castle at 400 Second SW. That, in turn, should allow the museum to greatly increase the number of visitors it can accommodate. The minute we walked into the castle, we knew it would be the perfect home for our world-class turquoise collection, our library and our educational initiatives, Executive Director Jacob Lowry told the Journal last year. The museum had hoped to open in the new spot last summer, but renovations took longer than expected because of difficulties finding appropriate architectural detailing, Lowry said last week. But now that things are up and running, hes happy to once again share the museums collection. Its fascinating to get people through here and be able to see turquoise in a global environment, instead of just showcasing the Southwestern world, that everyone locally knows it as, he said. The museum does have a gallery dedicated to the history and art of turquoise in the Southwest, but it also has stones from across the globe, including Egypt, Iran, China, Tibet, South America and elsewhere. Its signature piece is the George Washington Stone, which Lowry says is among the most collectible turquoise stones in the world. The story goes that when artisans finished cutting it, the stone had a distinctive profile, and they debated over whom it resembled. Ultimately, they settled on George Washington. If you compare it to the profile on a quarter, it actually does look like it, Lowry said. Entrance to the museum is $20 for the general public and $15 for military, AAA members and those under 18 years old or over 55. It also operates a gift shop at the museum and a flower shop next door that has been open for about a year. There are plans to open a cafe, possibly this summer. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, with last entrance at 4 p.m. More information is available at turquoisemuseum.com. Crackin Crab If the desert is making you thirsty for a seafood boil, youre in luck: Crackin Crab has opened a third Albuquerque location at Winrock Town Center. Thats in addition to the restaurants other three sites: one at 10600 Unser in Albuquerque, one at 4959 Pan America Freeway NE in Albuquerque, and one at 604 N. Guadalupe St. in Santa Fe. Husband-and-wife team Rack and Vanh Mingkhamsavath are the duo behind Crackin Crab. In a news release, Rack Mingkhamsavath said he expected a smooth transition with the new restaurant. Vanh Mingkhamsavath said she believes the Winrock location has tremendous upside. In a statement, Richard Gallegos, commercial broker with SVN Team Southwest and the Mingkhamsavaths representative, agreed. Crackin Crabs much-anticipated next expansion phase at Winrock Town Center should be a hit based on the popularity of the exceptional food, and its proximity to a movie theater like the original location, he said. Hobby Lobby Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., the privately held chain of craft and home decor retailers, plans to open a new location in Albuquerque in early June. Construction is underway on a new 55,000-square-foot building at Coors Blvd SW and Lamonica Road SW. The project is expected to bring between 35 and 50 jobs to the area. Full-time employees will make $15.70 an hour, and part-time associates will make $10.45 an hour, according to the company. In a statement, Hobby Lobby Director of Advertising Kelly Black said the company believes shoppers are eagerly anticipating this store opening. The success of our stores in New Mexico is a good indicator that Albuquerque shoppers will be pleased with the quality, selection and value we offer in the craft and home decor market, said Black. Hobby Lobby now has 11 locations in New Mexico. PHOENIX Traffic stops by sheriffs deputies in metropolitan Phoenix have dropped by more than half since a federal judge found the department was racially profiling Latinos in then-Sheriff Joe Arpaios immigration crackdowns, and ordered a massive overhaul to rid it of biased policing. With the agency still under court supervision, deputies worry their reasons for pulling over motorists will be unfairly scrutinized or theyll face internal affairs investigations, according to Arpaios successor, Sheriff Paul Penzone, and several other people interviewed. It all stems from this fear and mentality that the court orders were intended to do harm to the office, instead of improving the quality of the office, Penzone told The Associated Press. Traffic stops by Maricopa County sheriffs deputies have fallen 52% from 2015 to 2018, according to figures provided to the AP by the department. The dramatic decline from 31,700 stops in 2015 to 15,200 in 2018 raises questions about whether officers are missing evidence of illegal drugs, burglaries and other crimes that are sometimes discovered when pulling over motorists. Penzone conceded officers may be missing criminal activity but emphasized its unacceptable for them to back away from their bread-and-butter duties. The latest publicly available traffic-stop analysis for the agency by Arizona State University criminal justice researchers found deputies have made improvements but are still more likely to search and arrest Hispanic drivers than white drivers. Brad Ruehle, president of a group representing the sheriffs deputies, declined to comment on the decrease in traffic stop. Others said its normal for enforcement numbers to decline after a major ruling involving law enforcement. The agency has been under court supervision since a judge concluded in 2013 that sheriffs deputies racially profiled Latinos in Arpaios traffic patrols that targeted immigrants. The traffic stop figures go back only to 2015 because the agency adopted a new record-keeping system, and earlier figures dont contain enough detail to make a comparison. The overhaul includes retraining officers on making constitutional stops, establishing an alert system to spot problematic behavior by officers, equipping deputies with body cameras and holding interventions with officers flagged for having statistical differences from their peers in how they treated Latinos. The judge in the profiling case also ordered an extensive overhaul of the agencys internal affairs operations, which under Arpaios leadership had been criticized for biased decision-making that allowed sheriffs officials to escape accountability. While the agency is improving its compliance with the overhaul, the traffic-stop analysis covering encounters with motorists from July 2016 through June 2017 still found Hispanic drivers are more likely to be searched and arrested by deputies than white drivers. The average length of stops for Hispanic drivers is three minutes longer than for white drivers. John Shjarback, a criminal justice professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, said its normal to see a drop in enforcement numbers after a major court decision or a major event involving a police agency, such as a high-profile shooting involving officers. New York saw a decline in stops after a judge ruled in 2013 that the citys practice of stopping and frisking people without justification violated the civil rights of minorities. The number of stop-and-frisk encounters in the city fell from 685,000 in 2011 to 11,000 in 2018. Shjarback said its an open question among researchers about whether such drops in enforcement lead to increases in crime. David A. Harris, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh who studies racial profiling and wrote a book on the subject, said such decreases are the result of agencies moving away from blanket-enforcement approaches that emphasize the volume of arrests, not the quality of arrests. Harris said officers are being forced to do better work. Now, they actually have to think about whether thats a good idea, and I dont think thats a bad idea at all, Harris said. Joe Clure, executive director of the Arizona Police Association, which advocates on issues affecting officers, said Maricopa County sheriffs deputies have complained to him for years about the court supervision. Clure said deputies self-preservation instincts kick in when they think they are being unfairly scrutinized. Its just human nature, Clure said. You dont want to do anything to get caught under the microscope. The hundreds of internal affairs investigations that have been launched also are discouraging the sheriffs patrol deputies and jail officers from taking the initiative in their work, Clure said. Detention officers, for instance, are doing fewer searches of inmates and cells because they fear being targeted in protracted internal investigations that could make it harder for them to find work at other police agencies, Clure said. The reality is that Judge (Murray) Snow is the actual sheriff in Maricopa County right now, Clure said, referring to the federal judge who delivered the racial profiling verdict and ordered the agency overhaul. State Sen. John Kavanagh, a former police officer who is an ally of Arpaio, said the traffic stop decrease means taxpayers arent getting everything they paid for. Kavanagh doesnt blame officers for making fewer stops but rather an oversight system that he said accuses deputies of being racist. He said it was easy to predict the result of officers facing what they see as unfair scrutiny: You get less work. Kathy Brody, one of the American Civil Liberties Union attorneys leading the profiling case against the sheriffs office, said she wasnt advocating for the sheriffs office to make more traffic stops but said the trend is a poor reflection on the agency. In the past, immigrant rights advocates had argued that the agency under Arpaio pulled over Latinos for minor traffic violations, such as having a broken tail light. Our view is that they should be pulling people over for things that can cause a danger to the community, Brody said. ___ Follow Jacques Billeaud at twitter.com/jacquesbilleaud. WASHINGTON The last decade has been trying for liberals who support the existence of a democratic Jewish state and believe that Palestinians have a right to self-determination within a state of their own. Tuesdays election in Israel made the liberal path even rockier, both inside the country and in the United States. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus victory was not overwhelming, but it was decisive. The country is split in two, but not in equal halves. Netanyahus right-wing Likud Party and the upstart Blue and White Party received virtually the same vote. This was a genuine achievement for Benny Gantz, the former Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff who is the new partys leader. But Gantzs showing came largely at the expense of Israels left and liberal parties. The Labor Party, which once dominated Israels politics, was reduced, on the latest count, to just six parliamentary seats out of 120. On Labors left, the Meretz Party secured only four. To put this in perspective, the two parties together held 56 seats in 1992. As a result, Netanyahus likely governing coalition that includes other right-wingers and religious parties seems on track to win roughly 65 seats, hardly an overwhelming majority but enough to keep him in power. The failure of the left is a commentary on the mood of Israelis who have largely given up hope for accommodation with Palestinians. The countrys electorate is often seen as divided among hawks, doves and security hawks, essentially Israels swing voters. Unlike the conventional hawks, the security hawks are open to reaching agreement with Palestinians if they see doing so as consistent with Israels safety. They move right when they see such an accord as impossible. This has created a kind of vicious cycle: If Palestinian leaders cannot deliver a deal palatable to Israelis, Israeli voters lose hope in its possibility and look for someone who can manage endless conflict. Netanyahu is on the verge of becoming Israels longest-serving prime minister by being viewed as that man. But the lurch to the right in Israel further hardens views on the Palestinian side. Virtually everything Netanyahu does makes conciliation even less likely. His end-of-campaign pledge to annex Jewish settlements on the West Bank would, if carried out, be the final death knell for a two-state process, said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism in the United States. That has to distress anybody who wants a democratic Jewish state and a two-state solution. For pro-Israel liberals, the election will aggravate a growing estrangement. Were walking a very delicate tightrope, Jacobs said in an interview. We are deeply committed to the state of Israel, to its founding promise, and we see policies that are quite antithetical to us and to that promise. Within the Democratic Party, an already fractious debate will become even more heated. Gantz, joined by two other former generals in a campaign that made no promises of a peace deal anytime soon, had reason to hope that more of the security hawks would vote his way. But he failed to make the inroads into the center-right he needed. The opposition vote was further diminished by lower turnout among Arab Israelis. They were frustrated by divisions among their own leaders and the reluctance of Gantzs party to appeal directly for their votes. They were also subject to a voter suppression campaign as Netanyahus party sent supporters with some 1,200 cameras and recording devices into Arab polling places. Allison Kaplan Sommer, a writer for the liberal Haaretz, also pointed to Netanyahus image-burnishing success in creating warm ties with President Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other more authoritarian, more transactional and more relationship-oriented leaders. When it comes to Trump, the Israeli leader can point to how much his constituency resembles his American allys: Netanyahu lost the sophisticated, upscale voters around Tel Aviv to Gantz by more than 2-to-1, but overwhelmed Gantz in more religious Jerusalem, and also in towns that Sommer described as Israels equivalent of Middle America. The fact that Netanyahu could prevail and win his fifth election even in the face of a pending indictment on corruption charges is a tribute to his ruthless and brazen political cunning. But the pending indictment could yet be his undoing. Seeking legal protection from the new Parliament could split his coalition partners and even his own party. For now, Netanyahu is triumphant, the latest politician to gain or hold power by dividing his country and stoking right-wing nationalism. Its not the brand of politics Israels liberal supporters ever expected. Stability and educational value have been the hallmarks of Kathie Winograds time as president of Central New Mexico Community College, a time she recently announced will come to an end when she retires next year. Its been 22 years since Winograd started working at the college, and 12 since she took over as president. That in itself is quite an accomplishment, especially considering that Winograd has seen five presidents try their hand at leading the University of New Mexico since she took CNMs top post. During her time as CNMs first female president, Winograd has led the institution to a number of accomplishments: In 2008, CNM partnered with UNM and Albuquerque Public Schools to make it easier for students to transfer credits among the three systems. In 2009, the community college overtook UNM in student enrollment to become the largest higher education institution in the state a distinction it still holds. In 2013, CNM and APS collaborated again to found College & Career High School, a dual-credit school on CNMs campus. In 2014, CNM opened The STEMulus Center, which houses intensive Deep Dive Coding program boot camps in downtown Albuquerque. During the 2014-15 school year, CNM awarded more degrees and certificates to both Hispanic and Native American students than any other community college in the country. It came in second for the number of degrees and certificates awarded overall. The schools students, faculty and staff will certainly miss the stability, innovation and two decades of institutional knowledge that Winograd has brought to the table. But once again she is thinking ahead giving the school plenty of notice so it can take its time and find a qualified new leader. Its a little early to say goodbye, but not too early to tip our hat to Kathie Winograd, her dedication and her accomplishments. 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. Former University of New Mexico regent Jamie Koch learned there was a months-long waiting list to see a movement disorder specialist when his doctor told Koch he probably had Parkinsons disease. He has since become an advocate for creating a clinic at UNM that will bring together resources to help treat Parkinsons and other movement disorders. Partial funding for such a center was included in a state spending bill, and doctors at the university hospital are hopeful the complex will be up and running by late summer or early fall 2020. This movement center wont benefit me now. I know I have Parkinsons and I know what I have to do and my doctor has me on a good schedule, Koch said in an interview. But people who dont know they have it or somebody who doesnt have much money and it would take nine months to determine if they have Parkinsons, what are they going to do? Thats why I pushed so hard. Support for the center has gained momentum. The 2018 Legislature passed a memorial urging the UNM Health Sciences Center to explore the creation of a movement disorders center. In 2019, funding was allocated to design and construct the center. Koch noted that there was bipartisan support for the project. The state spending bill signed by the governor contains $3.5 million in state funding for the project, and the University of New Mexico has pledged to match that funding, according to a UNM news release. With that $7 million, university officials are planning a 16,000-square-foot, single-story clinic. Planning documents show the clinic would have nearby parking to make for easy access to the clinic, wide hallways and space dedicated for therapy and rehabilitation. The exact location for the facility hasnt been finalized. Parkinsons is a progressive problem. Theres ways you can slow it down with the proper medicine, the proper exercise and the proper program, Koch said. If you have to wait nine months to determine if you have Parkinsons and then once you get Parkinsons it might be six months before you can get in with your doctor because they are so busy (the center) will mean that people can get treated quickly instead of having to wait for a long time. Dr. Sarah Pirio Richardson, a UNM neurologist who specializes in movement disorders, said in addition to bringing together many of the university resources that could help people with Parkinsons and other movement disorders, the clinic will hopefully also attract doctors. She said there are only three movement disorder specialists in the state and about 10,000 possible patients. We need both the infrastructure and the people to do the job and take care of the vast need, she said. Pirio Richardson said in New Mexico there is about a six- to nine-month waiting list to see a movement disorder specialist. There is no cure for Parkinsons. People living with the disease try to manage their symptoms with a combination of medicine and physical therapies. UNMs movement disorders clinic will be modeled like similar clinics that exist in other states. UNMs Amanda Deligtisch, an associate professor in the Department of Neurology, is hopeful that having such a space will help the university take part in clinical trials that could help patients. As a center one of the things you can do is start to expand your experience and footprint into clinical trials so patients in New Mexico could be part of those cures, potentially, she said. SOCORRO In March, a 911 call came in from a hiker stranded in the White Mountain wilderness south of Carrizozo. The weather had turned cold and snowy, and the hiker had gotten turned around. He was able to give just enough information on the 911 call to give rescuers an idea where to start looking. A team from Socorro Search and Rescue was assembled and headed out. Socorro Search and Rescue is a volunteer organization whose members consist primarily of New Mexico Tech students and several community volunteers. The local group acts as a member team of the New Mexico Search and Rescue Council and provides primary search and rescue capabilities to Socorro County, as well as back-up support for the entire state. Evelyn Byrd, a biomedical science major at Tech, was part of the Socorro Search and Rescue team assembled to find the missing hiker in Lincoln County. It was probably the most intense search Ive been on, because of the weather. We were out in the mountains. It was snowy. The winds were blowing 80-plus mph. It was really terrible out, Byrd said. We were looking for a guy who got lost hiking the day before and had spent the night out there. We knew he wasnt wearing proper clothing for the weather. He was wearing just jeans and a hoodie. She said they had a pretty good idea of where to look, but it was still pretty difficult to even get out there because of the weather and terrain. It was pretty steep. I guess there were trails, but you really couldnt see them because of the snow. Nick Tenorio, Socorro native and U.S. Coast Guard retiree, served as operations section chief working with the incident commander. The teams that went out ended up just strictly navigating-based GPS, Byrd said. The hiker did have a cellphone, which is why we had a pretty good idea of where he was. That morning, he managed to get phone service and get off a 911 call, Byrd said. It was just enough to give the searchers an idea of his location. It was below freezing and the wind chill brought the temperatures down a whole bunch for much of the mission, Byrd said. We got on the trail at around 9:45 a.m. and were able to find him at around 3:30 to 4 p.m. That was just to get around to where he was. When the team found him, he was very cold, not feeling so great, she said. Being from the area, he said he knew the area pretty well, but got totally turned around because of the storm the previous night. In this case, were very glad it all turned out OK, we were able to find him and get him out of there, Byrd said. No major injuries. The New Mexico Tech search and rescue student club was formed in 1971. I think were the only group like this in the state, she said. Most other search and rescue groups are made up of just community volunteers. Club President Zoe Havlena says Socorro Search and Rescue operates both as a student club under the Student Association of New Mexico Tech and as a member of the New Mexico Search and Rescue Council under the direct authority of the New Mexico Department of Public Safety and the New Mexico State Police. Training is through New Mexico Search and Rescue, taught by the resource officer, Bob Rogers, who is actually the only paid member on the state level, she said. When someone gets lost or missing, members could be called at any time, day or night. It can be hard to juggle school with being called out on a search or rescue, but most of my professors are understanding, Havlena said. Whenever someone gets lost we get called or get a text message and whoevers available will respond to it. According to the SSAR website, basic membership requirements can be summarized into three items: You must have the basic personal equipment to survive overnight in the wilderness. You must have training in the basic skills involved in search and rescue. (The team will provide these skills.) You must be willing to sacrifice some time, money and energy for training, practice, and actual searches. More information can be found at socorrosar.org, or the groups Facebook page, Socorro Search and Rescue Team. Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE New Mexico faces a court-ordered deadline today to develop a plan that ensures all students get the sufficient public education theyre guaranteed under the state Constitution. But it doesnt sound like anyone will be to court right away. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and state lawmakers this year agreed on a budget plan that will infuse an extra $447 million into public schools, an increase of 16%. The state also approved a variety of other education measures to extend the school year, ramp up teacher pay and revise the accountability system for schools. At least some of the plaintiffs who sued the state say the funding plan still fails to meet the constitutional requirement that a sufficient public education be available to all children in the state. But they also intend to take more time to evaluate the states plan and its impact on students. Maria Archuleta of the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, which represents some of the plaintiffs, said the budget plan adopted by lawmakers doesnt take effect until July 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year. The Center on Law and Poverty wont file anything until we get a clearer view of the impact of the education legislation, she said in a written statement. The money comes through in July but it will like take longer than that to really see what is going on. The lawsuit, filed in 2014, resulted in a landmark court decision last year by state Judge Sarah Singleton who found the state is violating the constitutional rights of at-risk students by failing to provide them with a sufficient education. Her ruling focused on children from low-income families and children who have disabilities, are Native American or are English language learners. In July, Singleton ruled that the state failed to provide sufficient funding to school districts and that the state Public Education Department had failed to ensure the money is well-spent to meet the needs of at-risk students. And she gave the state a mid-April deadline today to provide schools with the necessary resources. But no immediate hearing is scheduled to determine the states compliance. Instead, under Singletons most recent judgment in the case, anyone can file a report after today explaining whether the state is in compliance with her orders and then she will address any issues raised by the filing. Senate Majority Whip Mimi Stewart, an Albuquerque Democrat who jointly sponsored some of this years education legislation, said she hopes the judge, when asked, will agree that the state made a good-faith effort to address her ruling. More work, in any case, will be necessary to improve New Mexicos schools, Stewart said. This was a good first step, she said in an interview Friday, but its certainly not the end of it. The state and its school districts are entering a critical period. Districts are now crafting their budgets for the coming year, based on the state funding and other education legislation. Its important, Stewart said, to see how the changes made at the state level will play out in the individual districts, where educators on the front lines will be working to improve student outcomes. Its not an overnight issue for these schools, she said. You cant starve districts for 10 years and then think in one year, things will be different. Lujan Grisham, a Democrat who took office Jan. 1, after the case was decided, said in March that her administration will litigate aggressively in the coming months to try to avoid long-term court oversight of the states public schools. At least one question is already before the court centering on how much the state should pay the plaintiffs as a reimbursement for their costs. Attorneys for each set of plaintiffs are seeking state reimbursement for the hiring of expert witnesses and to cover other expenses. All told, the state could be liable for up to $449,000 in costs, though state attorneys are fighting the figure. Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal Tom Udall may not be running for reelection in 2020, but New Mexicos senior senator insists his battles in the chamber are far from over. With 20 months to go before retirement, he hasnt given up the hope of blocking President Donald Trumps national emergency. He still wants to bring an end to the war in Afghanistan, and wants to prevent war with Iran. Udall in an interview with the Journal said he wants to protect the planet from further damage from climate change, and will continue to focus on public lands and Native American initiatives. This isnt a retirement, said Udall. I am looking for areas where I can make a difference. Udall didnt expand on his decision to leave the Senate beyond the reasons he gave when he made his announcement last month. He said not having the distraction of a campaign would help him be focused on the tasks remaining at the end of his term, again asserting that the office belongs to the people and not to him. He faces an uphill battle in the Senate with many of the issues hes taking the lead on with Republicans in the majority and resistance from the Trump White House. One of the initiatives Udall introduced the For the People Act faced roadblocks in the Senate earlier this year. Udall sponsored the Senate companion to the same measure that passed the House and addressed voter issues and campaign finance issues. The bill would allow voter same-day registration nationwide, restore ex-inmates right to vote and set up a public financing system for congressional campaigns. It would require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns and Election Day would become a holiday for federal workers. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pledged not to bring it up for a vote. The White House called the bill micromanaging the electoral system, with Trump promising a veto. Udall said he wanted to stop the Trump administration from assaulting our democracy. Udall said the frustration of dealing with the Republican majority and the Trump White House did not factor into his decision not to run for a third term. Its always a battle in the Senate, Udall said. And I want to continue to fight hard on the issues that have New Mexico in the bulls eye. Bridging the divide Udall said he would be looking for Republicans to work with and believes it is possible to build a consensus even on issues where there appears to be a partisan divide. I still hope we can get many things done, Udall said. He mentioned passage of the John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act as an example of what can be accomplished. The act was enacted into law last month. It had bipartisan support in both houses. The act designated more than 270,000 acres as wilderness areas in New Mexico. Udall, Senate colleague Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., and Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M., sponsored key provisions of the law. It is for that reason he believes the effort to block Trumps national emergency on border security issues is not dead. Trump vetoed the previous legislation after it passed the Senate. Twelve Republicans crossed the aisle and voted for the legislation, Udall said. I believe if we continue working, we can get enough votes for a veto-override. Udall and other members of the New Mexico congressional delegation are trying to stop the Trump administration from using funding appropriated for projects at military bases for construction of his proposed wall. Optimism and realism The senator said his biggest disappointment in serving in the Senate is seeing many of the things Ive worked on not get accomplished. But were not giving up, he said. Hes still focused on the nations renewable energy standards, but admits it takes a long time to build a national consensus. He is working on a national renewable energy portfolio with a target of having the nation using 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. His office said he plans to unveil the legislation in May. It is similar to the Energy Transition Act enacted into law in New Mexico last month. Udall said one of the aspects hes enjoyed most as senator is talking to his constituents, hearing their innovative ideas and seeing if the innovations can be used on a national level. He said he is also focused on building a consensus to end the scourge of war. Udall who opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq has cosponsored legislation with Kentucky Republican Rand Paul to bring an end to the war in Afghanistan. It is one issue where he appears more in line with the Trump administration. We should have long ago ended the war in Afghanistan, he said, adding hes talked to parents of soldiers who have served there and had to answer questions about why their loved ones are not coming home. He is further apart with the administration on Iran. Udall fears the Trump administration is preparing for war against Iran. He said he is working on legislation to prevent it, saying only Congress has the authority to declare war. The road ahead He said he wanted to continue to champion the cause of Native Americans, and mentioned fighting for provisions helping Native Americans in the 2018 Farm Bill and the 2013 Violence Against Women Act. Thats up for renewal again, and were going to fight to keep those provisions in, Udall said. The renewal of the Violence Against Women Act passed the House and is now before the Senate. The senator said his time in public service wont end when his term expires in January 2021. He said he will continue to work on issues hes championed in the Senate, but said he was not ready to announce what his future plans will be. Donning a fedora, a button-up shirt and sneakers, John Wesley Austin showed up to World of Dance to leave his heart on the floor. And he did. On Sunday night, the Farmington native competed in The Cut round of the NBC dancing competition. He was the last of the six upper division contestants to compete on the show. The top three move onto the next round; the other three were eliminated. After his emotional performance, Austin scored a 95, securing him second place in the upper division. Austin, known professionally as Poppin John, choreographed his routine to Painting Greys by Emmit Fenn. He dedicated the performance to his wife. Austin used a heart-shaped balloon as part of his routine. This represents love, he said in the episode while being mentored by judge Derek Hough. The 34-year-old New Mexico native is considered one of the best in the world at his style of pop and lock. His talents have taken him to many places over the course of 20 years. Hes amassed more than 200 million views of his dance videos across multiple platforms. My style has been put in a box, Austin told Hough. Im hoping this will tell an emotional story. Austin choreographed the piece for his wife, who he met in Mexico 14 years ago. She didnt speak English. I didnt speak Spanish, he said. I paid for our wedding by street dancing. After his performance, Austin became emotional over the presence of his wife in the audience. She left behind everything for me to pursue my career, he said. Judges Jennifer Lopez, Ne-Yo and Hough were left speechless by his performance. Hough praised Austins vulnerability in the routine. Lopez credited Austin for making everyone feel something with the routine. But it was Ne-Yo who gave Austin the most encouraging words. You have a realistic shot at this million dollars, Ne-Yo told him. When we think about all the public amenities that our tax payments support like roads, education, parks, public safety and more its a wonder we dont celebrate Tax Day. These amenities make our modern economy and quality of life possible. Since we all benefit, everyone should help pay for them but we know that too often those with powerful connections are able to manipulate the tax code to their benefit. The New Mexico Legislature recently made changes to the states tax code that eliminated some of the benefits for the well-connected. Legislators also made big improvements that will help make our upside-down tax code fairer for hard-working families earning moderate wages. When you filed your tax return this year, you may have noticed some changes. Maybe you got a smaller refund than usual or you owed more in state taxes. So what happened to the fairness measures that the legislature just passed? Unfortunately, these changes wont impact your state tax return until you file next year. The only tax law changes that impacted your return this year were from the tax package enacted by the federal government in 2017. While there were both winners and losers in this federal reform spoiler alert: the biggest benefits went to the wealthiest many New Mexico families may have had a higher tax bill or gotten a smaller refund because the federal package eliminated exemptions for dependents. This was a problem when families with multiple children filed their state taxes. One of the changes the legislature made during the 2019 session was a fix for this. Starting next year, families with more than one child will be able to take a $4,000 deduction for each child beyond the first. This will save New Mexico families an estimated $28 million in state income taxes. Another change New Mexicans will see in 2020 is a substantial increase in the Working Families Tax Credit. Now worth 10 percent of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit, the value will rise to 17 percent of the EITC next year. The EITC is one of the most effective anti-poverty programs ever enacted. This increase in the state credit will put an additional $40 million into the hands of families getting the EITC. In Sandoval County alone, working families will receive an additional $1.9 million and studies show they will spend most of it right in their local communities on necessities like groceries, rent and car repairs. So if your tax return had some unwelcome surprises this year, take a deep breath. Its likely to improve next year, and its definitely going to improve for New Mexicos working families. And that along with the fact that every Tax Day means were able to pay our teachers and firefighters, fix our potholes and invest in libraries and parks is a reason to celebrate today. (James Jimenez is the executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children, which has the mission of improving well-being and equity for the states children, families and communities in health, education and economic security by advocating for public policies and providing research.) LAS CRUCES Rental scooters made their debut on New Mexico State Universitys main campus in January, and after a 60-day trial period it appears they are here to stay. The universitys police chief questioned the scooters legality in an email to administration, but the concerns are not enough to dissuade officials from going forward with a request for proposals. San Francisco-based scooter company Spin, owned by the Ford Motor Company, introduced 100 battery-operated kick scooters onto campus on Jan. 18. The scooters are rented through Spins mobile phone app and do not work off campus. Except for a brief interruption immediately after the launch, arising from a dispute with a local contractor, the scooters have been a familiar sight on campus. In February, Spin reported 7,323 trips and 3,119 registered users in the first month of service to NMSU administrators and the student government. Emerson Morrow, who was president of the Associated Students of NMSU until he stepped down on April 12, told the Sun-News the scooters are a win for students, staff and visitors to campus. We have a large campus thats spread out, and nice weather most of the year, Morrow said. This is an ideal opportunity to explore the different ways to get around. Morrow said working with Spin preempted the possibility of another company simply launching scooters on campus without talking to administration, a practice called rogue launching in the scooter industry. Embracing scooters on campus In March, NMSU and Spin extended the companys exclusive service agreement for an additional 60 days while the university gathers proposals from scooter providers for service beginning in August. The request for proposals closes at 2 p.m. on April 30 and is accessible through NMSUs online bidding system. The Sun-News examined 275 pages of emails obtained through a public records request. The communications indicate the administration was planning for scooters to remain as early as the January launch. In a group email distributed to Chancellor Dan Arvizu and President John Floros among other university officials, NMSUs former associate vice president for facilities and services Glen Haubold wrote, The President asked us to review the proposals for scooters, we need to complete this before the 60 days are up, and we are assuming that the trial will lead to scooters remaining on campus, since we want an agreement in place as opposed to removing scooters until we work one out. Haubold retired from NMSU at the end of March. Although NMSU is not spending money to procure scooter service, Haubold wrote in February that selecting a single vendor allows the university to negotiate and enforce terms. According to the proposed scope of work, NMSU wants a contractor to provide a turnkey solution for managing and equipping scooter service, without the university purchasing scooters. The RFP also requests that the contractor provide safety training, signage, a point of contact, and to allow NMSU personnel access to distribute and redistribute the scooters. A spokeswoman for Spin confirmed that the company is submitting a bid, but the company did not respond to interview requests. Scooters and the law During the 60-day trial, emails among administrators discussed accidents and reports of risky behavior with scooters, as well as potential conflicts with New Mexico law, which treats electric scooters as motor vehicles. During New Mexicos 2019 legislative session, state Rep. Nathan Small, D-Las Cruces, sponsored a bill excluding electric foot scooters from the Motor Vehicle Code. The bill did not get a floor vote. On March 7, after an ambulance responded to a scooter-related accident near Milton Hall, campus police chief Stephen Lopez wrote an email to administrators and NMSUs general counsel office pointing out that under current laws, scooters do not properly belong on sidewalks or on streets. The scooters deployed by Spin do not comply with requirements for a vehicle to operate on a roadway (such as having reflectors to the front, sides, and rear), Lopez wrote. Spin also has a placard affixed to the scooters that specifically says they are not allowed on sidewalks (suggesting Spin knows they are not legal on sidewalks, though that is where they are deploying them and encouraging students to ride and park them). What about helmets? Under New Mexico law, safety helmets are required for bicycle and scooter riders under the age of 18 , and anyone renting bicycles, skates, scooters or skateboards must provide helmets for minors. Spin states on its website that riders are required to be 18 years of age and hold a valid drivers license, and recommends helmet use. Yet the scooters are available to the general public on NMSUs campus: anyone with a mobile phone containing the app and payment information may unlock a scooter. Moreover, Spins user agreement permits a parent or legal guardian to allow minors as young as 13 to operate a scooter. Lopez alerted the administration in a March 13 email that allowing a minor to ride without a helmet is a criminal offense: Officers will have to hold the minor until parents arrive to pick them up, and then criminally charge the parents (and anyone who provided the bicycle, scooter, or skateboard). It is a small fine ($10), but it is a criminal offense, not a ticket. Based on feedback, we have heard of some companies operating in some locals across the country providing helmets on every rental scooter. This might be something to consider if NMSU does enter into any further agreements with companies. Responding to an inquiry from the Sun-News, the Spin company wrote that it had distributed complimentary helmets at a campus safety event, and Morrow confirmed Spin had given out a dozen or so. Spin said it planned to distribute more helmets at an unspecified future date. We encourage university enforcement and education, and want to keep people safe without stunting ridership, Spins statement concluded. An email following a February meeting of the university safety committee detailed staff concerns including scooters blocking doorways and wheelchair access, injuries during the first month of service, and scooters traveling at unsafe speeds. Support from students The majority of students who wrote to the spin@nmsu.edu email address for feedback expressed support and gratitude for the scooters. Morrow said, It contributed very positively to student morale this semester. We have a lot of students on campus who dont have a car, especially international students, Morrow said, adding he would like to see scooters move beyond campus, as they provide a mode of transportation to go off campus, pick up groceries, to buy stuff and whatever they need to do within a reasonable distance. As for legal and safety issues, Morrow conceded, I feel like there is still a lot to be figured out. In March, Lopez presented Arvizu and Floros with some proposed regulations and a conceptual map of authorized pathways for scooters combining existing bicycle and multiuse paths with some newly designated paths navigating the horseshoe. It shouldnt be difficult to create a robust network that gets people around, without the need to ride on narrow sidewalks, Lopez wrote. On a conference call with the Sun-News Friday, university architect Heather Watenpaugh said, We have pathways that get you from point A to point B, but we dont have a loop and a network path for the scooters around campus. She said further study would be necessary, possibly with the involvement of the selected provider. Right now, weve asked for general information on the respondents programs and the committee will evaluate prior to awards, Jack Kirby, assistant director of New Mexico State Universitys Environmental Health and Safety office, said. Terms for a final contract might include a mechanical speed limit. They can digitally set the speed limit as part of their software package, he said, noting that during the trial period this semester, Spin reduced its scooters maximum speed. With finalist interviews scheduled for May, there will be time during the summer to negotiate regulations and procedures before students return to a campus whose walkways are shared by feet, wheelchairs, bicycles, skateboards, and a fleet of electric scooters. Algernon DAmmassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonActor on Twitter. 2019 the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.) Visit the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.) at www.lcsun-news.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Max Martini filmed in New Mexico previously with the production Sgt. Will Gardner. The director is bringing his latest project, Manson Brothers Zombie Massacre, to the Land of Enchantment. The New Mexico Film Office announced that the production will begin principal photography mid-April through early May in Santa Fe and Espanola. The feature film is about the Manson Brothers, who are two masked professional wrestling villains in the twilight of their careers. Excommunicated from the big leagues, they now seek out a living trading on their once-famous names in the shady underbelly of the independent pro-wrestling circuit. A warm welcome to the production team of Mssrs. Hagerty and Martini, as well as the entire cast and crew. Manson Brothers highlights the unparalleled creative flexibility offered to the industry by New Mexico and the greater Santa Fe region, said Eric Witt, executive director of the Santa Fe Film Office. We know how to throw down on a diving elbow drop. According to IMDB, Adrian Pasdar, Mike Carey, Chris Margetis, Randy Couture, Bas Rutten and D.B. Sweeney are attached to the film. The production will employ some 65 New Mexico crew members, 21 New Mexico actors and 250 New Mexico background talent, according to the N.M. Film Office. Cabinet Secretary Alicia J. Keyes of the Economic Development Department expects a busy summer production season in New Mexico for film and television as word gets out about new incentives for the industry. Our crews, our climate have always been terrific, and now we have an incentives law to match, Keyes said. The production will qualify for an extra 5% because it is filming outside of the Albuquerque-Santa Fe corridor. Signed into law last month by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, the updated film initiative provides rebates on qualified expenses up to 35% and more than doubles the annual cap on payments. It also exempts the cap altogether for those companies that sign a 10-year partnership with New Mexico. Martini will direct and Michael Hagerty is producing. LAS CRUCES Rental scooters made their debut on New Mexico State Universitys main campus in January, and after a 60-day trial period it appears they are here to stay. The universitys police chief questioned the scooters legality in an email to administration, but the concerns are not enough to dissuade officials from going forward with a request for proposals. San Francisco-based scooter company Spin, owned by the Ford Motor Company, introduced 100 battery-operated kick scooters onto campus on Jan. 18. The scooters are rented through Spins mobile phone app and do not work off campus. Except for a brief interruption immediately after the launch, arising from a dispute with a local contractor, the scooters have been a familiar sight on campus. In February, Spin reported 7,323 trips and 3,119 registered users in the first month of service to NMSU administrators and the student government. Emerson Morrow, who was president of the Associated Students of NMSU until he stepped down on April 12, told the Sun-News the scooters are a win for students, staff and visitors to campus. We have a large campus thats spread out, and nice weather most of the year, Morrow said. This is an ideal opportunity to explore the different ways to get around. Morrow said working with Spin preempted the possibility of another company simply launching scooters on campus without talking to administration, a practice called rogue launching in the scooter industry. In March, NMSU and Spin extended the companys exclusive service agreement for an additional 60 days while the university gathers proposals from scooter providers for service beginning in August. The request for proposals closes at 2 p.m. on April 30 and is accessible through NMSUs online bidding system. The Sun-News examined 275 pages of emails obtained through a public records request. The communications indicate the administration was planning for scooters to remain as early as the January launch. In a group email distributed to Chancellor Dan Arvizu and President John Floros among other university officials, NMSUs former associate vice president for facilities and services Glen Haubold wrote, The President asked us to review the proposals for scooters, we need to complete this before the 60 days are up, and we are assuming that the trial will lead to scooters remaining on campus, since we want an agreement in place as opposed to removing scooters until we work one out. Haubold retired from NMSU at the end of March. Although NMSU is not spending money to procure scooter service, Haubold wrote in February that selecting a single vendor allows the university to negotiate and enforce terms. PARIS A catastrophic fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below. The blaze collapsed the cathedrals spire and spread to one of its landmark rectangular towers, but Paris fire chief Jean-Claude Gallet said the churchs structure had been saved after firefighters managed to stop the fire spreading to the northern belfry. The 12th-century cathedral is home to incalculable works of art and is one of the worlds most famous tourist attractions, immortalized by Victor Hugos 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The exact cause of the blaze was not known, but French media quoted the Paris fire brigade as saying the fire is potentially linked to a 6 million-euro ($6.8 million) renovation project on the churchs spire and its 250 tons of lead. The Paris prosecutors office ruled out arson and possible terror-related motives, and said it was treating it as an accident. Flames shot out of the roof behind the nave of the cathedral, among the most visited landmarks in the world. Hundreds of people lined up bridges around the island that houses the church, watching in shock as acrid smoke rose in plumes. Speaking alongside junior Interior minister Laurent Nunez late Monday, police chief Jean-Claude Gallet said two thirds of the roofing has been ravaged. Gallet said firefighters would keep working overnight to cool down the building. Late Monday, signs pointed to the fire nearing an end as lights could be seen through the windows moving around the front of the cathedral, apparently investigators inspecting the scene. The fire came less than a week before Easter amid Holy Week commemorations. As the cathedral burned, Parisians gathered to pray and sing hymns outside the church of Saint Julien Les Pauvres across the river from Notre Dame while the flames lit the sky behind them. French President Emmanuel Macron was treating the fire as a national emergency, rushing to the scene and straight into meetings at the Paris police headquarters nearby. Paris Archbishop Michel Aupetit invited priests across France to ring church bells in a call for prayers for the beloved Paris cathedral. Deputy mayor Emmanuel Gregoire said emergency services were trying to salvage the famed art pieces stored in the cathedral. Built in the 12th and 13th centuries, Notre Dame is the most famous of the Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages as well as one of the most beloved structures in the world. Situated on the Ile de la Cite, an island in the Seine river, its architecture is famous for, among other things, its many gargoyles and its iconic flying buttresses. Among the most celebrated artworks inside are its three stained-glass rose windows, placed high up on the west, north and south faces of the cathedral. Its priceless treasures also include a Catholic relic, the crown of thorns, which is only occasionally displayed, including on Fridays during Lent. French historian Camille Pascal told BFM broadcast channel the blaze marked the destruction of invaluable heritage. Its been 800 years that the Cathedral watches over Paris, Pascal said. Happy and unfortunate events for centuries have been marked by the bells of Notre Dame. He added: We can be only horrified by what we see. Associated Press reporters at the scene saw massive plumes of yellow brown smoke filling the air above the Cathedral and ash falling on the island that houses Notre Dame and marks the center of Paris. As the spire fell, the sky lit up orange. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said in a Twitter message that Paris firefighters were still trying to limit the fire and urged Paris citizens to respect the security perimeter that has been set around the cathedral. Hidalgo said Paris authorities are in touch with the Paris diocese. Reactions from around the world came swiftly including from the Vatican, which released a statement expressing shock and sadness for the terrible fire that has devastated the Cathedral of Notre Dame, symbol of Christianity in France and in the world. In Washington, Trump tweeted: So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and suggested first responders use flying water tankers to put it out. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, said he was praying to ask the intercession of Notre Dame, our Lady, for the Cathedral at the heart of Paris, and of civilization, now in flames! God preserve this splendid house of prayer, and protect those battling the blaze. ___ Associated Press writers Elaine Ganley and Sylvie Corbet contributed. After only three months in office, Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham recently signed a bill ratcheting back worker freedom and local control in New Mexico. In March, the state legislature voted against worker freedom by explicitly prohibiting local right-to-work ordinances that had been adopted by almost a third of the states counties. These ordinances meant unions could not get a worker fired for not paying them. Most of New Mexicos neighbors including Arizona, Utah, Oklahoma and Texas have had statewide right-to-work laws on the books for years and have experienced far faster economic and population growth than New Mexico. With no likelihood of state legislative action to pass a statewide right-to-work law, 10 of New Mexicos 33 counties (including six of the top 10 in population) voted from late 2017 to early 2019 to adopt ordinances that prohibited unions from getting a worker fired for not paying them. Gov. Lujan Grisham, who replaced Republican Susana Martinez, signed House Bill 85 at the end of March, which preempted those local ordinances. Having received overwhelming union support during her campaign for the Governors Office, it is no surprise that the governor and legislative Democrats passed a ban on local right-to-work laws. It was, however, clearly based on politics and not consistent governing. Simply put, the zeal with which the governor and Legislature killed local control of worker freedom is noticeably absent on other issues. The mantra that labor laws should be made at the state level was repeated by unions and their allies in testimony on this anti-right-to-work legislation as it moved its way through the committee process. But the reality is that the Legislature regularly refuses to preempt other job-killing local laws and ordinances. For instance, local minimum wage bills have a disastrous effect on job prospects for low-skilled workers, but the Legislature just sits back and watches as they are enacted. In late 2017, Albuquerque voters narrowly turned down a local ballot initiative that would have required businesses no matter their size and including nonprofits to offer paid sick leave to employees. The proposed ordinance would have been among the most aggressive in the entire nation. Did politicians, who on one hand preach the need for statewide labor laws, say a word about these local usurpations of power rightly held by the Legislature? Of course they didnt. If anything, they cheered them on or were even involved in the campaigns. The back-and-forth in New Mexico over whether labor policy should be made at the state or local level brings up questions relevant to politicians in almost any state. The U.S. Constitution certainly empowers the states to decide whether to keep power in the state capital or disperse it to counties, cities and other local governments. New Mexico has the worst of both worlds: a politically motivated hodgepodge of policies based purely on political considerations with no bright lines to guide policymakers. Instead, we get local governments pushing the envelope on policies like minimum wage and sick leave mandates. Workers across New Mexico deserve worker freedom and the ability to get work experience. But the state Legislature is determined to stand in the way. Lawmakers are preempting counties from giving private employees the freedom to choose whether they will pay a union, while at the same time refusing to enact statewide laws to protect jobs. In short, the Legislature has its priorities backward. When we think about all the public amenities that our tax payments support like roads and highways, schools and education, internet access, parks, public safety, health care, and more its a wonder we dont celebrate Tax Day. These amenities are, in fact, what make our modern economy and quality of life possible. Since we all benefit from these amenities we understand the necessity for everyone to help pay for them but we know that too often those with powerful connections have been able to manipulate the tax code to their benefit. The New Mexico Legislature recently made some changes to the states tax code that eliminated some of the benefits that had been made at the behest of the well-connected. Legislators also made big improvements that will help make our upside-down tax code fairer for the hard-working families who earn moderate wages but pay the highest share of their incomes in state and local taxes. When you filed your tax return this year, you may have noticed some changes. Maybe you got a smaller refund than usual or you owed more in state taxes. So what happened to the big fairness measures that the state Legislature just passed? Unfortunately, these changes wont impact your New Mexico tax return until you file next year. The only tax law changes that impacted your return this year were from the federal tax package enacted by the federal government in 2017. While there were both winners and losers in this federal reform (spoiler alert: the biggest benefits went to the wealthiest), many New Mexico families may have had a higher tax bill (or gotten a smaller refund) because the federal package eliminated exemptions for dependents. While the Trump tax bill made up for this by increasing the standard deduction, this increase was not enough to cover the lost dependent deductions when families with multiple children filed their state taxes. One of the changes the New Mexico Legislature made during the 2019 session was a fix for this. Starting next year, families with more than one child will be able to take a $4,000 deduction for each child beyond the first. This will save New Mexico families an estimated $28 million in state income taxes. Another change New Mexicans will see in 2020 is a substantial increase in the Working Families Tax Credit. Now worth 10 percent of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit, the value will rise to 17 percent of the EITC next year. The EITC, which returns money to hard-working families who earn low incomes, is one of the most effective anti-poverty programs ever enacted. This increase in the state tax credit will put an additional $40 million into the hands of families who qualify for the EITC. In Bernalillo County alone, working families will receive an additional $9.8 million and studies show they will spend most of it right in their local communities on necessities like groceries, rent, and car repairs. The Legislature made some other changes including closing a loophole that out-of-state corporations use to avoid paying New Mexico taxes, and leveling the playing field for local businesses by taxing all internet sales that will raise money so we can pay our teachers more, rebuild our mental health system, fix our roads, and more. So if your tax return had some unwelcome surprises this year, take a deep breath. Its likely to improve next year, and its definitely going to improve for New Mexicos working families. And that along with the fact that every Tax Day means were able to pay our teachers and firefighters, fix our potholes, and invest in libraries and parks is a reason to celebrate today. The results of the 2019 legislative session are evidence of what can happen when your elected leaders work together to serve the people of New Mexico. Together, the executive, the House, and the Senate developed a spending plan, essentially intact after the governors partial vetoes, that prioritizes those issues most important to New Mexicans and effectively addresses the concerns of the lawsuit that successfully challenged the adequacy of New Mexico schools. Under the 2019 General Appropriation Act, most state agencies will see significant increases after years of being starved of the resources necessary to adequately provide services, and state and higher education employees will see an average 4 percent pay increase. More specifically, spending for the states public colleges is up 4.3 percent, and the Corrections Department will see an increase of 4.9 percent. A 7.1 percent increase for the Health Department primarily will be used to provide services to more New Mexicans with developmentally disabilities, including infants and toddlers. The 10.4 percent increase for the Children, Youth and Families Department will allow for the expansion of child protective services and prekindergarten. Between public school spending on prekindergarten and the increase for the Children, Youth and Families Department, an estimated 3,500 more children will have the option of attending free, full-day kindergarten. In addition, tens of millions of new dollars will go to scholarships and wage subsidies for early childhood educators, childcare subsidies, and home visits to new families, an intensive parenting education program. Perhaps most significantly, the state budget bill includes a 16 percent jump in spending on public schools. Along with other legislation, public schools will see a total increase in state funding of nearly 50 percent. With that funding and a companion education reform bill, spending will nearly double for students at risk of failing because of income, English proficiency, or transience; schools will have the option of adding, and receiving funding for, 10 more school days to the regular school year, after-school programs, and the successful summer program known as K-5 Plus; and all school employees will see pay increases of at least 6 percent, with an estimated 5 percent more for teachers at schools that extend learning time and 14 percent more for teachers at schools that provide K-5 Plus. In addition, new higher minimum salaries for teachers, counselors, and principals will mean those who, after the 6 percent raise, still fall short of those minimums will see even larger increases. Beyond the reforms required by the Yazzie/Martinez lawsuit that resulted in the finding that New Mexico schools are inadequate and fail at-risk students in particular, research shows the best school systems in the world have strong early childhood systems, highly skilled, well compensated teachers, and robust career and technical education options all together in a well-integrated system that serve children from birth to college- or career-readiness. Along with legislation addressing multiculturalism and career and technical education, the state budget and the education reform bills will move New Mexico dramatically forward on building a world-class education system. Further, the Legislature provided more than a billion dollars for road and other infrastructure and public construction projects statewide, an infusion that will not only address long-neglected projects but will ripple through the states economy, and partially tackled tax reform to create stable revenue streams for New Mexico and decrease reliance on the volatile oil industry. Importantly, these increases are well within New Mexicos means. With all spending and revenue bills accounted for, New Mexico will have an estimated $1.44 billion in its general fund reserve, an amount equal to 20 percent of planned spending and well within the cushion economists say will allow the state to weather an economic downturn. Extraordinary revenues from a boom in oil made it possible for the Legislature and the executive to move boldly into education reform and restoration of state services, but it was rare collaboration and cooperation between the two branches that turned the 2019 session into a success for the people of New Mexico. Rep. Patricia Lundstrom is executive director of the Greater Gallup Economic Development Corporation and has represented McKinley and San Juan counties since January 2001. Albuquerques homegrown point-of-sale software startup for restaurants is now offering its employees a piece of the business pie. Lavu announced a new stock option plan Monday for its U.S.-based employees. The benefit reflects continuing growth and success at Lavu, which launched in 2010, allowing the company to give back to its workforce and provide a sense of ownership, said Lavu CEO Saleem S. Khatri. Lavu is at an inflection point and this is a great time for the company to thank those employees who have helped us get to where we are today, Khatri said in a prepared statement. Our Lavuers have built and shaped this company into what it is a rocket ship. The companys point-of-sale software allows restaurants to manage all services on mobile devices in real-time on a single, integrated platform. It sells the system in about 90 countries, with more than 170 employees in Albuquerque, Miami and India. Lavu will ramp up its local workforce in the next few years at its new, 17,700-square-foot office at the U.S. Eagle Plaza building south of Civic Plaza Downtown, where it moved January. It received $270,000 in Local Economic Development Act funding to help pay for the move, in return committing to add at least 46 more local employees. Mayor Tim Keller called it a great example of how successful local startups are growing the citys employment base. The value for local workers and the strength of the local economy when homegrown companies grow and succeed is so important for Albuquerque, Keller said in a prepared statement. Its a focus of our economic development strategy. SUNLAND PARK, N.M. Federal border authorities say more migrants have been arrested after illegally crossing into the United States through New Mexico. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection said 230 migrants were taken into custody late Friday at the base of Mount Cristo Rey in Sunland Park. Officials say the majority of the migrants were from Central American countries. Mount Cristo Rey is a Catholic shrine and is the site where a 29 foot-tall (8.8 meter-tall) limestone statue of Jesus sits on a hill. New Mexicos isolated regions along the U.S.-Mexico border has seen more migrants claim asylum after being detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents. CHICO, Calif. - The Chico Police Department is still searching for the suspect in an armed robbery that occurred on the bike path between East Ave. and Alba Court. The robbery happened just after 4:00 p.m. on Saturday. The male victim said he was approached by an African American man who brandished a handgun and demanded property. The suspect is described as being approximately five feet eight inches tall and sported long dread locks. The suspect has a beard and appeared to be in his 20s. CHICO, Calif. - Chico voters may see a public safety tax on the 2020 ballot. Everyone has ideas about how to make Chico better, cleaner, safer; but the bottom line is the money isn't there. That's why the Chico Chamber wants to know what people think about a sales tax measure to raise more money for what people want the most. They're bringing the idea to the council Tuesday night. "I'm not a fan of sales tax measures but the revenue need is tremendous, so what we're moving forward with is a question to see if this is something people even want to see on the ballot," said Chico Mayor Randall Stone. Public sentiment on tax hikes is always split, but many people today said now more than ever, they're leaning toward anything to boost public safety. "I think it would be wise for the city to have some small increase in a safety tax because we need to take more safety measures here in Chico," said Chico resident Alice Tollefson. A typical public safety type tax is half a cent to a cent more for sales tax. The chamber will likely move forward with a survey to get a gage for what people might be willing to pay into and how they'd want to money to be used. Getting a measure on the ballot is not cheap, so the chamber and the council want to hear what you think at Tuesday night's city council meeting at 6 p.m. at 411 Main Street, Chico. NEWS APP: DOWNLOAD OUR NEWS APP FOR LATEST UPDATES: iOS | Android WEATHER APP: DOWNLOAD OUR WEATHER APP FOR LATEST UPDATES: iOS | Android With a loud explosion and a 30-meter-high water fountain, a World War II bomb was detonated in the Main river in central Frankfurt on Sunday. A large water fountain rises behind the Iron Bridge when a 250 kilogram US-American bomb from the Second World War in the Main River is detonated with a blast in Frankfurt, Germany, Sunday, April 14, 2019. About 600 people had to leave their homes for security reasons. On the right in the background you can see the headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB). [Photo: dpa via AP/Frank Rumpenhorst] The 250-kg U.S. Air Force bomb was discovered on Tuesday during an exercise dive by the fire service, German news agency dpa reported. Several small explosive devices were ignited under water to drive fish away before the actual defusing was carried out, Frankfort police tweeted. The police and fire department updated each step of the detonation procedure on social media to keep the public informed. "As a diver discovered after the detonation, the bomb in the water was totally destroyed by the explosion," the dpa quoted the Darmstadt Regional Council. A total of about 350 police, firefighters, German Red Cross staff and other forces were involved in the evacuation and detonation, the dpa cited the police as saying. In a tweet, Frankfurt Mayor Peter Feldmann thanked all the volunteers for their professional work and dedication, and all the residents who had to leave their homes for their cooperation and patience. It is not uncommon for bombs and other munitions to be found in Germany even more than 70 years after the end of the Second World War. Last April, Berlin authorities evacuated some 10,000 people in order to defuse a 500-kg British World War II bomb found during construction work in the center of the city. In 2017, authorities deactivated a much larger British bomb, a 1.4-ton HC 4000 aerial bomb, found at a Frankfurt construction site. The incident involved a mass evacuation of over 60,000 locals. NEWCASTLE, Calif. - The Placer County Sheriff's Office arrested a man for trying to set his employer on fire. The Sheriff's Office said Robert Weathers, 44, is a transient and registered sex offender from Sacramento. Deputies arrested him Friday after an hours-long search from the ground and air. Authorities said Weathers was hired to do yard work at a home in Newcastle, Friday, when he suddenly began pouring gasoline on the homeowner's driveway, inside the garage, and over another victim's truck. Authorities said the homeowner tried confronting him and Weathers threw gasoline on them, then tried to light the gasoline trail on fire. No one was injured and Weathers fled from the scene. Deputies set up a perimeter around Tierra Del Lago Place and Hector Road, and deployed two K-9s, in addition to CHP's Air21. The search was called off after several hours, as deputies and K-9s lost Weather's tracks. Later Friday evening, deputies working an ABC detail found Weathers walking along Auburn-Folsom Road near Placer Canyon. Weathers was arrested and charged with arson, criminal threats, assault with a caustic chemical and attempted vehicle theft. Weathers is being held on $160,000 bail at the South Placer Jail. Bharti Airtel (Airtel), Indias leading telecom services provider, and the FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO), the women business wing of apex trade body FICCI, launched a carrier agnostic safety app My Circle which has been is designed to empower women in the event of any distress or panic situation. My Circle app enables women to send SOS alerts to any five of their family or friends in 13 languages including English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi, Bangla, Urdu, Assamese, Oriya, and Gujarati. The SOS alert can be launched by simply pressing the SOS prompt on the app. It can also be activated via voice command through Siri on iOS. The voice activation via Google Assistant will soon be available on Android devices also. It will instantly send an SOS alert along with the users location over SMS to the five contacts selected by the user and advise them to immediately reach out/respond to the emergency situation. The app operates by estimating the accurate location of the user which their family/friends can track real time on a link that is sent as part of the alert SMS. My Circle app has been fully developed by Airtel X labs and was conceptualized by an all-women cross functional team. The free to download app is now available on Google Play store (Android) and will be available on App Store (iOS) soon. The app can be installed by both Airtel and non-Airtel customers. Ms. Harmeen Mehta, Global CIO and Head of Digital, Bharti Airtel said My Circle app is an effort by Airtel towards building a safer environment for women. We have leveraged the power of technology to empower women with a simple and intelligent tool that can respond in real time during an emergency situation. My Circle app would act as a deterrent to crime against women, and would empower and make them more confident while travelling. Women are little vulnerable while travelling and when they board a taxi or an auto-rickshaw, they do not know if it is safe. This upgraded app will definitely empower them and boost their confidence while travelling," said Ms Pinky Reddy, Immediate past President, FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO). This apart from being an emergency App is also a utility app developed by Airtel as it has simplified the process of downloading and registering, said Ms Avantika Dalmia, Member governing body, FLO. How to use My Circle app: 1. Download the app and register 2. User will receive OTP to verify identity 3. Add details of five people you are close with and who are most likely to reach out for help 4. Select language settings 5. Get started Publicis Groupe (Euronext Paris: FR0000130577, CAC 40) today announced it has entered into an agreement with Alliance Data Systems Corporation (NYSE: ADS) under which Publicis Groupe will acquire Alliance Datas Epsilon business for a net purchase price of $3.95 billion after tax step-up (total cash consideration of $4.40bn) and build a strategic partnership with Alliance Data remaining business. This acquisition will accelerate the implementation of Publicis strategy to become the preferred transformation partner for its clients. The Directoire (Management Board) and the Conseil de Surveillance (Supervisory Board) of Publicis Groupe have unanimously approved this transaction considering it a one-time opportunity to seize, given the evolution of the industry and the implying transformation of marketing solutions. Arthur Sadoun, Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe, said: Our clients are facing increasing pressure from the rise in consumer expectations, the mainstreaming of direct-to-consumer brands and new data regulations. The only response is to deliver personalized experiences at scale. They have to transform to meet this new market imperative. With the acquisition of Epsilon, Publicis Groupe is bringing the necessary technology, expertise and the talent to complement our offer in creativity, media and business transformation, and help our clients leapfrog their competition and grow profitably. In 2018 with an unprecedented run of major New Business wins, we demonstrated that we have the right model to be the preferred partner of our clients in their transformation. This acquisition will accelerate its implementation, turbo-charge our game changers and help us grow faster by offering an even more end-to-end solution to our clients. With this critical move, we are going further, faster and deeper in our own transformation, becoming a leader in this data-led, digital-first world. Its a one-time opportunity, with very compelling financial terms and delivering double-digit accretion of Headline EPS and Free Cash Flow from Year 1 (2020). We are thrilled to welcome Epsilons remarkable teams and look forward to working together for our clients and growing our relationship with Alliance Data. Edward J. Heffernan, Alliance Data Systems President and CEO, said: Im pleased to say todays announcement represents a trifecta win for Alliance Data, Epsilon and Publicis Groupe. The announcement of this transaction represents the culmination of an extensive assessment of strategic options for our Epsilon business. With this transaction, we have found what we believe to be the right home for Epsilons technology, data assets and associates. Publicis Groupe will be the ideal cultural and strategic fit for Epsilon and its Conversant business, and will help drive Publicis Groupes own transformation in todays data-driven digital world. Furthermore, the unique relationships that have been cultivated between Epsilon and our other Alliance Data businesses will remain intact, and we look forward to working with Publicis Groupe to develop an even broader relationship promoting mutual and sustainable growth going forward. Maurice Levy, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Publicis, said: The Conseil de Surveillance has thoroughly and carefully reviewed this transaction and has approved it unanimously considering that it would be good for all stakeholders. For the clients: it will accelerate the transformation of Publicis making it a more relevant and more competitive partner. For the talents: in a highly competitive environment for talents, Publicis will be in a position to benefit from a remarkable leadership team, 3 700 data scientists and great technology teams and artificial intelligence experts. For our shareholders: the transaction, which was not planned, has great merits from a financial point of view. The price is fair, the transaction is headline EPS and Free Cash Flow accretive at double digit level, it gives a stronger profile of growth and a new and better-balanced mix of product and revenues. Therefore, it will generate value creation that will greatly benefit our shareholders. The Conseil de Surveillance has been convinced by the approach of the Directoire and its Chairman and CEO, Arthur Sadoun, on the integration. The plan is reasonable and should lead to a seamless integration with great potential in growth and cost synergies. We are confident that the plan will deliver the expected results on services, growth and synergies. Epsilon: a technology leader maximizing the value of its clients data at scale Headquartered in the US, Epsilon is a unique technology and platform company focusing on maximizing the value of its clients data. In 2018, Epsilon generated $1.9 billion of net revenue (3), 97% in the United States. Epsilon employs approximately 9,000 employees, including 3,700 data scientists and 2,000 Bangalore-based technology delivery experts. Epsilons expertise spans across the entire data lifecycle from clients first-party raw data to personalized marketing campaigns, using technology, data and platforms to: Onboard client first-party data using Epsilons proprietary software suite (CRM, email and loyalty programs) to create a clean, normalized and organized data set Enrich clients first-party data with Epsilon proprietary data assets (demographic and contact, behavioral and transactional, online and offline data) Build unique ID customer profiles based on enriched data and Artificial Intelligence for segmentation and analytics Activate data to deliver personalized multichannel campaigns at scale with measurement and real-time optimization Epsilons success is evidenced by the endorsement of its blue-chip clients: Epsilon has gained the trust of at least 7 out of the 10 largest US companies across various sectors including Auto, Retail, Financial Services, CPG and Media In addition, its top 50 clients have an average tenure of 14 years and have generated an 8% yearly growth on average over the last two years, demonstrating the significant client benefits delivered by Epsilon. Epsilon has built its assets in technology, data and platforms at an impressive scale. For example, its loyalty software serves 600 million accounts, it has more than 250 million unique consumers identified in the US, and its proprietary platforms Conversant handle 1 billion updates every 5 minutes allowing to further improve messaging based on consumer insights on a real time basis. Epsilon has developed extremely strong artificial intelligence capabilities allowing consumer behavior predictions. In a world where data privacy is paramount, Epsilon remains at the forefront of consumer privacy, cybersecurity and risk management compliance matters. Bryan Kennedy, CEO of Epsilon, said: We are thrilled to join the Publicis Groupe family. During extensive discussions with the Publicis leadership team during the recent review process, we found powerful common ground, including shared values and a strong vision for the future of data-driven, digital-first marketing. Our discussions illuminated the unmistakable market opportunity that combining our complementary offerings would represent. I strongly believe that joining Publicis will benefit Epsilon and Conversants people and bring great value and new opportunity to the clients we serve. In todays fast changing environment, clients are shifting their investments towards data/technologydriven marketing solutions which allow them to foster customer engagement, support growth and reduce costs. Publicis has set a clear ambition to combine creativity, data and technology to address its clients needs and become a leader in marketing and business transformation. This model has been gaining momentum as exemplified by Publicis Groupes #1 position in New Business ranking in 2018 and the growth of its Game Changers. Today, the acquisition of Epsilon is a one-time opportunity to accelerate the implementation of Publicis strategy to deliver personalized experience at scale. With Epsilon at the core, Publicis will become the first player to offer a unique end-to-end services to its clients. It will result in enhanced growth of its existing businesses while opening up new opportunities in an enlarged $1.5 trillon industry. Epsilon will fuel the entire Publicis organization, complementing its existing Solutions and boosting its Game Changers: On the creative side, Epsilon assets will bring customer insights to improve ideation and build more relevant campaigns. By powering the Dynamic Creative Engine, Publicis will go one step further to adapt to real time context of customers (who they are, what they do, what they buy) On the media side, the connection between Epsilons data sets and Publicis Medias billions of touchpoints will provide superior intelligence to build consumer IDs, segment audiences and maximize media buying ROI by accurately measuring and optimizing campaigns in real time On the Digital Business Transformation side, Epsilon will allow Publicis to deliver deep proprietary customer insights to further optimize clients business model Conversely, Epsilons potential will be fully unlocked within Publicis Groupe, thanks to well identified value creation levers. In particular, Epsilon will benefit from Publicis client portfolio and global reach to expand further in the U.S. and overseas. Publicis also intends to replicate the success of Epsilons unique Auto platform to other verticals (such as Health, Financial Services, Telecommunications, Retail). Its not easy being a queen and more so, when you learn about it upon your ascension at the age of 18. From scandal, corruption, political intrigues to ushering in a new British government, there is an uphill task ahead. But one woman did it all with utmost confidence and integrity Victoria. SonyLIV, Indias first premium video on demand (VOD) service, brings her fascinating story to life. Starting 10th April, the platform launches three new English shows to scale up their premium offering to consumers. Directed by Daisy Goodwin and starring well-known artists like Jenna Coleman, Adrian Schiller, and Jordan Walle, Victoria traces the queens journey from her younger days to her courtship and eventual marriage to Prince Albert. Rated 8.2 on IMDB, Victoria is a fine chronicle of the English monarchy coupled with vintage settings, elegant costumes and a story about how England evolved during the reign of Queen Victoria. Also, now streaming on the platform is season two of The Good Doctor and Counterpart. Post season 1, The Good Doctor carries forward the story of Dr. Shaun Murphy, striving to a make a name in an esteemed city hospital. Counterpart leaves the audience thrilled with the life traces of a hapless UN employee, who discovers the agency he works for is hiding a gateway to a parallel dimension. SonyLIV has over 100 English shows in its content repertoire to entertain the audience. Go ahead and start binge watching Victoria and Season 2 of The Good Doctor and Counterpart on SonyLIV this summer! These shows are available for viewing with a subscription fee of Rs 99/- per month and Rs 499/- per year. We have never seen a more amazing time to be in world creativity. Today, we need creative minds who can march into the unknown, stressed Ross Jauncey, Head of Create with Google, while delivering his keynote address on Day 3 at Goafest 2019. He regaled the audiences with various campaigns such as Kupu by Colenso BBDO in New Zealand which was developed to connect with consumers using an interactive app. The app helps people learn TeReo Maori translations by exploring the objects around them. Jauncey further added, Creative is a similar language across the world with ideas that are passionate and to that effect your values are just as important as your product. He also shared a three-point checklist for brands: Keep your ad relevant, dont get complacent and focus on a big idea that will stand out. Adgully caught up with Ross Jauncey to discuss more on the changing aspects of creativity, India as a digital market, privacy concerns and much more. With communication becoming personalised, how does the creative community need to change the way they ideate? Theres a choice or balance between personalisation and big storytelling. Sometimes a story can cut through everybodys interests without being personalised, and other times a personalised story would have an impact for this particular campaign. If you look at something like the Meyers 6 Second Sale that I shared, there is no question that those ads were more relevant being more personal. Often times clients or partners may try to jump the gun to try and get personal without asking whether in this particular use case it is going to be valuable. There are certainly stories that dont need to be personalised for anyone. The stories are strong enough so that you dont need to personalise it for anybody. Before you chase down personalisation, it is important to ask yourself Is it relevant? Is it worth the trouble of doing it? Will it get the better result? Or is it an idea that we can take to scale without worrying about personalisation? In India, every 150 yards theres a different India. How would you advise creators to ideate in this country? You have to embrace the differences. I spoke on stage about understanding what version of India your customers are in. What is the content they are consuming online? And as a brand do you make them feel that you are part of their version of India? Voice search is a big talking point in India. How do you think it will impact our advertising? Voice is the future of search 100 per cent. According to Google, 30 per cent or more searches will come through Voice. We always talk with our brands to start that journey early. Do not wait to figure out what your brand is going to do in Voice until its too late. When mobile web came, a lot of brands thought they didnt need a mobile version of the web and fell behind. When they finally joined other competitors, they lost because competitors were well and truly ahead. We often try this exercise where you stand back to back. One person is a disgruntled customer trying to find solutions and the other person is Voice. They have to think about questions like will you try to be funny all the time, even when it is something serious? There are brands that have started to express themselves on Voice on simple apps and have begun to understand the challenges. With Voice, there are no logos, only sound, so how do you exist only through sound. It is a huge challenge and gives your creative writers a whole new purpose. More importantly, they understand what people really want from the brand. You learn a ton of stuff from Voice that people want from your brand. So, it is really important to get Voice moving. Data is the new oil. How will privacy be protected? I am very proud of how seriously Google takes its privacy. In the spirit of creativity, data can inform the trends if youre advertising, but I dont think as a company we want it to get too specific and make people uncomfortable, which makes them less inclined to share any data. Key concerns for digital global advertising? My key concern is that we get too concerned with automation and programmatic and lose sight of creativity. We have to be honest that creativity has this power to cut through and it can work in conjunction with these other things. We have to hold true to the fact that creativity is a very powerful thing and it has to be an important part of everything we do. We have to realise that in the race to become more digital, we tend to try and cut creative away. If everyone got to a perfect campaign that was meant to reach the right audience at the perfect time then it would become so normal that only an ad that is different would cut through. How do you view the growth of advertising in India? How does it differ from the global market? India is relatively immature in terms of digital spends. They are one of the least mature digital markets and growth wise have the longest to go compared to other countries in the APAC. India is waking up to it now and there is no doubt that it will shift. When it does, no doubt it will have a huge impact. In a competitive digital landscape, how do you marry data, tech and creativity? There is a challenge with the volume of the landscape. Whether it is TikTok or Facebook, we all want you to create a bespoke work for our version of a digital platform, because we know the campaign will work harder when you do that. Obviously, there is a pressure on the agency and how they produce the work to make sure that all that is done well. But I do think agencies can do a better job of knowing the core assets that it would take to run a digital campaign in India and make sure that it is baked into their process. What we are seeing is that a core ad is still being made, but they are thinking about what secondary production team can capture moments in the film that can go on other platforms when they should be thinking about that well beforehand. Under the current policy, what are the permanent adverse outcomes of participation in the Maine Immunization Program as compared to the permanent adverse outcomes of the illness for which we are vaccinating. Can you ask Maine DHHS: What is the rate of serious vaccine adverse events in Maine that result in permanent injury, illness, disability and death per year? What is the number of serious vaccine adverse events in Maine that result in permanent injury, illness, disability and death per year? What is the estimated cost to Maine for permanent adverse vaccine outcomes? What is the rate of serious complications from vaccine targeted illnesses in Maine that result in permanent injury, illness, disability and death per year? What is the number of serious complications from vaccine targeted illnesses in Maine that result in permanent injury, illness, disability and death per year? What is the estimated cost to Maine for permanent adverse outcomes from vaccine targeted illnesses? "We are looking for data that informs the baseline question that should be asked before LD 798 is considered, and thousands of Mainers are dismissed from work or a lifetime of schooling. Last month, in the run up to the hearings on the bill, I asked the Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs to ask Maine DHHS for the foundational data that must be provided to the public before a bill that removes one risk group of children from school, to protect another risk group, should even be considered. How many children are being harmed by the Maine Immunization Program as compared to how many children are being harmed by the diseases for which we vaccinate in Maine? Because Maine has high vaccine rates, and little incidence of outbreaks of vaccine targeted illnesses, the vaccine industry in the state needed a justification for the bill, and they chose immunocompromised children. The Maine DHHS holds the position that Maine should have a 100% vaccine uptake rate for schools (and daycare and preschool and college and health corporations) to protect children with compromised immune systems, and create "safe schools" for them to attend that will not pose a threat to their health. In February, LD 798 was written by the pharmaceutical industry and introduced in Maine. It removes the religious and philosophical vaccine exemption from Maine state law. For everything Thank you for your attention to this important matter, Ginger Taylor, MS DHHS has answered that question for the committee. They "actually have no available answers to these questions." "From: Perkins, Scott [mailto:Scott.Perkins@maine.gov] Sent: Thursday, March 7, 2019 2:20 PM To: Grant, Ben Subject: RE: Question from concerned citizen Good afternoon Ben, We actually have no available answers to these questions. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a self-reporting system that any individual, healthcare provider, or healthcare facility can use to report an adverse event following a vaccine. These reports are then used by the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) to conduct vaccine safety studies based on any data that has raised questions or concerns. Neither of these systems are related to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) which is a separate federal program that provides compensation to individuals whose injuries may have been caused by certain vaccines. Most VAERS reports are made within days of the event and include no documentation on long term outcomes. VAERS receives an average of 196 Maine reports (not necessarily adverse events) per year, 15.5% of these not actually being side effects, but administration errors or vaccine storage errors. The symptoms on these reports range from no adverse event (minor) to an anaphylactic reaction (serious), but no follow up to include the actually long-term outcome. It is impossible to determine based on this data what a federal court system would deem serious adverse events resulting in permanent injury, illness, disability, or death or award compensation for. In follow up, data would come from NVICP: https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/data/index.html" DHHS then goes onto discuss the Vaccine Events Reporting System administered by CDC, which does not investigate the cases of vaccine injury reported to them, and which is considered to be a useless metric of true vaccine injury by anyone involved in the vaccine safety conversation. VAERS was investigated by Harvard Pilgrim a decade ago at the behest of the US CDC, to make recommendations for improvements to the system. Harvard Pilgrim found that less than 1% of reactions actually found there way into the database, but they were unable to finish their contracted work because CDC simply stopped returning their calls. Full report here. "...fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported...Unfortunately, there was never an opportunity to perform system performance assessments because the necessary CDC contacts were no longer available and the CDC consultants responsible for receiving data were no longer responsive to our multiple requests to proceed with testing and evaluation." Further Maine DHHS didn't even bother to run a search on how many total adverse outcomes were reported to VAERS from Maine. The number is 3,758, including 6 deaths. They all may be unfounded reports, or we may need to add a zero to that number to discern the true number. We have no idea. Finally, health care providers and subject to mandated reporting of adverse reactions to VAERS (section 2125(b) of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300aa-25(b))), yet the Maine Immunization Program Provider Policy and Procedure Manual 2019 (attached) presents the information on VAERS reporting as if it is optional: "Reports of adverse events are welcome from all concerned individuals, including the following: Patients, Parents, Healthcare professionals, Pharmacists, and Vaccine manufacturers." The State of Maine has admitted that they don't know how many people are permanently harmed or killed by their vaccine program. Thus the functional vaccine adverse outcome rate for their vaccine program is ZERO. This despite thousands of reports, which may in reality be tens of thousands of injuries. This answer alone should kill LD 798. Yet it has passed out of the Education Committee and will be voted on in the Maine House of Representatives as soon as Tuesday. Not only should LD 798 be shut down immediately, the Maine Immunization Program should be investigated, scuttled and rebuilt from the ground up. You cannot justify a public health program, which MANDATES medical products for children, and which refuses to conduct any surveillance of adverse outcomes to their program, or and which refuses to provide any medical care or compensation for injured Mainers for even the most severe injuries, up to and including, death. There is no vaccine safety infrastructure in Maine. Additionally, please note, Maine DHHS did not provide ANY information on the adverse outcome rate for vaccine targeted illnesses for Maine children, immunocompromised or otherwise, whom the bill sponsor is claiming are in danger from those he wants denied the right to an education. I can find NO reports of permanent harm or death in Maine children from vaccine targeted illnesses in the 21st century. During the hearings, a legislator asked the Maine CDC: "How many school-aged children in Maine do not physically attend school (stay at home) because they have an autoimmune disease?" Maine CDC answered in writing: "Maine CDC does not have this information." Those who voted the Maine bill "ought to pass" in our Education Committee, recognized that the law would violate religious and minority rights, but said it should be done for "The Greater Good." So how exactly do you calculate The Greater Good with no data on either side of the equation? According to the majority of the education committee: "We don't know" vs. "We have no data" = The Greater Good is whatever you want it to be This equation and this bill is bereft of logic. So what about your state? How many vaccine injuries are recognized by the State of New York as they seek to force vaccinated? What is the vaccine injury rate in Washington according to the State of Washington? What is the number for RISK in the risk/benefit analysis of your state vaccine program? Ask them. Request that your state representative ask your state health department or vaccine program the following questions: Drones as a tool for time-lapse motion art? Why not! In fact, drones may be the perfect tool to create a time-lapse tour of a city like Mexico City home to 21 million and one of the largest metropolitan areas in the western hemisphere, noted DIY Photography when it recently featured a stirring four-minute hyperlapse exploration of Mexico Citys iconic landmarks and cityscapes by aerial filmmaker Tarsicio Sanudo. The drone that shot the sequences for the film was the DJI Mavic 2 Pro, which Sanudo used to capture thousands of DNG raw images over a two month period, noted DIYP. These RAW images were then processed and assembled into the sequences which comprise the final film. It took him several months of hard work to finish this project. Stabilizing the sequence is the biggest challenge but the result looks great, added Fstoppers. Fortunately, the Mavic 2 Pro comes with a hyperlapse feature where the pilot can easily set waypoints or keyframes before launching the aerial time-lapse trajectory. The drone will automatically follow the waypoints and shoot images with the desired interval. Today we spotlight Sanudos film along with two other innovative motion projects a time lapse from photographer Flemming Bo Jensen made from every single frame he shot over the course of two music concerts, as well as a mind-bending animation made from Google Earth Images. Hyperia - Mexico City the Hypercity Long before European settlers hit the shore of New England, Mexico City had become the center of the Spanish empire in the Americas with a bustling cultural and commercial activity, notes Fstoppers, adding, "Today, Mexico remains one the most important cities in Latin America, and Tarsicio Sanudo produced an interesting drone-lapse video that captures the most iconic landmarks of his hometown such as the old colonial town (Zocalo), the cathedral, and the Chapultepec Park. Among the scenes Sanudo captured: the eruption of the 18,500-foot Popocatepetl volcano in December. Follow Tarsicio Sanudos work on his website and Instagram account. Turning Every Frame from a Copenhagen Concert Into a Time Lapse I recently documented two concerts in a row for Denmarks best live band, The Minds of 99. I worked for the band and had full access during the shows, so this was the perfect opportunity, noted photographer Flemming Bo Jensen at PetaPixel recently. I took every single picture from the first of the two shows, minus all the backstage photos, and turned 90 minutes of concert into just over 3 minutes of time-lapse video. The 1,564 pictures in this video represent every single frame Jensen shot. I shoot mostly on single shot mode, except for during strobe lighting, so that is a shutter click roughly every 3.5 second, he noted. He used Fujifilm X-T3 and X-T2 cameras with Fujinon XF16mm f/1.4 and XF35mm f/1.4 lenses. I was using both cameras at the same time with one hanging on each shoulder, so there are obvious jumps as I swap cameras, from the 16mm to the 35mm view and back again, he notes. EPOCH, A Film Made with Google Earth Images Epoch is a visual representation of our connection to earth and it's vulnerable glory. Our time here is esoteric, limited and intangible. The fragility which exists in all aspects of life is one thing that is certain. We are brittle, and so is Mother Earth. So writes Irish director and animator Kevin McGloughlin, whose two-minute stop-motion animation is made entirely of Google Earth photos. When flashed one after the next, buildings and roads form circles and squares, while dozens of cul-de-sacs appear to elongate and morph as they flash on screen, noted Colossal recently. McGloughlin spent months sourcing the images and piecing the film together; for sound, he used audio samples from NASA. This one almost killed me, the filmmaker wrote at his Instagram page. The film bears a resemblance to one we featured last year Arena, which also utilized Google Earth-sourced images. That film was created by Kevin McGloughlins twin brother and collaborator, Paraic McGloughlin. Punjab Government to set up Punjabi Film Development Council Youth threw Gutka Sahib in sarovar, captured by SGPC Sevadars and handed over to police CM Channi lays foundation of "Atal Apartments" to fulfil Dream of affordable housing for all Why not probe corruption charges in police postings also, Capt Amarinder asks Channi India's biggest Sports University and an international airport to be built in Jalandhar when AAP government is formed: Arvind Kejriwal Would you like to receive breaking news notifications from The Post and Courier? Sign up to receive news and updates from this site directly to your desktop. Breaking News Columbia Breaking News Greenville Breaking News Myrtle Beach Breaking News Aiken Breaking News N Augusta Breaking News Click on the bell icon to manage your notifications at any time. Success! Please click the 'Allow' button in the 'Show Notifcations' alert in your browser if one is available. Thank you for signing up! Please enable notifications in your browser and reload the page. https://www.aish.com/jw/s/Passover-and-the-Spanish-Inquisition.html Generations of secret Jews defied the Spanish Inquisition to celebrate Passover and other holidays. Five centuries ago, the Jews of Spain were faced with an unimaginable choice: convert to Christianity or leave the country. When King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella united Spain under Catholic control, they celebrated by decreeing that Spain should be an entirely Christian country. As of August 11, 1492, no Jew could remain in the country. Any Jew who would be found in Spain after that date would be tortured to death. Most of Spains Jews fled. August 11, 1492 coincided with the somber Jewish holiday Tisha BAv, when Jews recall the destruction of the ancient Temples in Jerusalem. Added to these national tragedies was the expulsion from Spain. Hundreds of thousands of Jews lined the ports and harbors, embarking on boats headed for North Africa, for Turkey, for Italy and other points unknown. Many of these unfortunate Jews were tricked by unscrupulous captains; some were sold into slavery or even murdered once they left Spanish waters. Some Jews remained, publicly embracing Christianity but continuing to practice Jewish rituals in secret. Doing so was to court death. Seeking to root out secret Jews, the Catholic Church established the Spanish Inquisition in 1480, tasked with interrogating, torturing and - if they determined that people were practicing Judaism in secret - burning Jews in public mass executions. Despite the promise of death by unimaginable torture, many Jews continued to cling to their Jewish tradition, observing Jewish holidays and eating kosher food as best as they could. They were known as conversos. The brutal Inquisition authorities appealed to the public to observe their neighbors and be alert to any sign of Jewish practices. They asked household servants to report any suspicious behavior to church figures. Many of these testimonies have been collected and documented by the husband and wife team Dr. David M. Gitlitz and Dr. Linda Kay Davidson, both former professors at the University of Rhode Island. In each city in which it was active, the Inquisition published a document called the Edict of Grace, which enumerated the offences that could mark someone as a secret Jew and have them hauled before the Inquisition and tortured. According to one local Edict, Jews were people who: (keep) the Sabbaths (by) cooking on...Fridays such food as is required for the Saturdays and on the latter eating the meat thus cooked on Friday as is the manner of the Jews...not eating pork, hare, rabbit, strangled birds...nor eels or other scaleless fish, as laid down in the Jewish law Or who celebrate the Festival of unleavened bread (Passover), beginning by eating lettuce, celery or other bitter herbs on those days. Ironically, as years went by and it became harder and harder for Spains secret Jews to transmit their heritage to their children, the Edict of Grace acted as a guide to some Jews, outlining what they should do if they wished to hold on to their Jewish heritage. Central to Jewish practice was preparing and eating special foods for Passover and holding secret Passover Seders. In the annals of the Inquisition are testimonies of servants and neighbors accusing Jews of secretly celebrating Passover. They paint a heartbreaking picture of committed Jews who tried hard to follow the religion of their ancestors, and suffered terribly for their Jewish devotion. Juan Sanches Exarch was tried by the Inquisition in the city of Teruel in October 1484. Even though Jews had not yet been expelled from Spain, many Jews faced pressure from local officials to convert to Christianity. Juan Sanches Exarch was seemingly one of these Jews who gave into repeated requests and publicly embraced Christianity but continued to maintain a Jewish lifestyle in secret. Fifty-three articles laid out the charges against him; Passover observance featured prominently. He celebrates the Passover, on that day eating matzah, celery, and lettuce as the Jews do the Inquisition put forth. He gets unleavened bread from the Jewish neighborhood on the Passover. He buys new dishes for the Passover. He does everything else the Jews do on Passover. He washes his hands before praying (as is the custom at the Passover seder, and at other Jewish meal times). Juan Sahches Exarch faced a two year trial and in the end was found guilty; he was condemned to death in 1486. In 1492, a high level advisor to King Joan II of Aragon, Pedro de la Caballeria, was questioned by the Inquisition and accused of being a secret Jew. According to another secret Jew who was forced to testify against him, Pedro de la Caballeria admitted that he maintained a Jewish lifestyle in secret. Who hinders me, if I choose, from fasting on Yom Kippur and keeping (Jewish) festivals and all the rest? Now I have complete freedom to do as I like; those old days (of being restricted because he was a Jew) are gone. One of the ritual items that was associated with Pedro de la Caballeria was a dish favored by secret Jews: huevos haminados. This dish of eggs boiled with onion skins, olive oil and ashes, resulted in tinted eggs that had a flavor of onions, and were often eaten on Passover. Another Passover dish embraced by secret Jews was Bunuelos, or dough made from matzah meal thats fried in oil and then drizzled with honey. Many Sephardi Jews continue to make these Passover sweets today. Historians have uncovered a description from a Spanish woman named Margarita de Rivera who lived in Mexico in 1643, who described making bunuelos in secret. One hundred and fifty years after her ancestors were forced to hide their Jewishness, her family continued to make this classic Passover pastry. Matzah was perhaps the most damning Passover foods that could bring Jews before the Inquisition. The Inquisition in the town of Almazan recorded several cases of secret Jews making matzah. A woman named Angelina, identified as the wife of Christoual de Leon of Almazan, was accused of making the dough of flour and eggs, and formed some round, flat cakes with pepper and honey and oil and baking these curious, flat breads in the Spring. In 1505, also in Almaan, a Christian woman in the town named Olalla testified to the Inquisition that she sat behind one of her neighbors, a woman named Beatriz, in church, and observed that week after week, Beatriz would take the communion wafer in her mouth, then discreetly spit it out instead of eating it. During her trial, probably after being tortured, Beatriz admitted that she and a friend, identified only as the wife of Ruy Diaz Lainez, made some cakes separately of another dough that had no leavening and they kneaded it with white wine and honey and clove and pepper, and they made about twenty of those and they kept them...in a storage chest out of sight of prying eyes. Some conversos seem to have had the custom of adding finely ground dirt to their matzah dough, perhaps to imply that the Israelites had so little flour in Egypt that they had to add dust, or perhaps to illustrate that matzah is also known as bread of affliction. Whatever the reason for this curious addition, it comes up in Inquisition documents from the 1620s in the town of Ciudad Rodrigo, in Salamanca near Spains border with Portugal. A secret Jew named Isabel Nunez was accused of making a Passover bread which they used to mix without leavening or salt, saying certain prayers over it. Her friend Ana Lopez was accused of eating Passover bread. (Ana Lopez was acquitted and set free; tragically, it seems that Isabel Nunez was found guilty of being a secret Jew.) For generations, Spanish Jewish families maintained their Jewish lifestyles under pain of death and against the greatest odds. Untold numbers were tortured and killed, burned to death and murdered. May the memories of the secret Jews who kept Passover under unimaginable circumstances and danger be a blessing, and may their memories inspire us today to celebrate Passover with joy and pride. ANKARA, Turkey Two weeks after they voted, Turks are still waiting to know whom the Supreme Electoral Council will declare to be the mayor of Istanbul. Not a day passes without the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) finding a reason to discredit the provisional result, which favors the opposition by a narrow margin. Some days the council orders a recount in a certain district; other days it dismisses the objection. At the opposite end of Turkey, a different process is occurring. In Diyarbakir and other southeastern provinces, the results are not disputed. Everybody knows who won. But the government is leaning heavily on the electoral council to refuse to give the winners their certificate of electoral victory. Last week, the electoral council announced it would not recognize the winners in eight electoral districts in the southeast. Instead it would give the certificate to the candidates who polled second in those districts. The council said it was enforcing the law that barred people who had been dismissed from the civil service from holding electoral office. The eight winners were victims of a controversial decree that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued after the attempted coup of 2016. The edict has been used to fire more than 100,000 civil servants. But the real reason had to do with the political color of the winners. They all belonged to the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the pro-Kurdish party whom Erdogan accuses of being aligned with the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) a charge the HDP denies. The candidates who polled second in the eight districts all belonged to the AKP. The HDP said the electoral councils move was scandalous. On Friday, the partys deputy chairman and legislator for Diyarbakir, Hisyar Ozsoy, said that when the winners filed their candidacies in February, the council found all of them eligible to run in the elections. Had the council denied their candidacies in February, we could have nominated other candidates. It is widely suspected that in February, the council overlooked the HDP candidates dismissals under Erdogan's decree knowing full well the candidates were likely to be elected, and could be barred from taking office afterward. Ozsoy accused the council of laying a very ugly and unlawful trap for the HDP. One of barred winners is Zeyyat Ceylan, who was a teacher until he was dismissed by the decree. He and his female co-candidate (the HDP nominates a man and a woman) were elected in the Baglar district of Diyarbakir. (The council) gave me the license to take part in the election, but nine days later, after I had received 116,000 votes, they said they could not give me the certificate. They would give it to the candidate who came second with 42,000 votes, Ceylan told BBC Turkish. This is not justice; this is cruelty. Observers said that when the councils move was announced, a crowd of about 100 people protested outside the Baglar municipal building. The suburb is a hotbed of Kurdish nationalism. Whenever there is unrest in Diyarbakir, Baglar is the place where protesters set garbage cans on fire and push them into the middle of the street. In that sense, it was surprising that last weeks protest was not bigger. Diyarbakir businessman Shahismail Bedirhanoglu said the small number of protesters showed how much support the HDP has lost owing to its mistakes in previous confrontations with the government. In addition, the party had not run a very active campaign in the city. People voted for the HDP, but they dont support the HDP in terms of taking to the streets, Bedirhanoglu told Al-Monitor. I told HDP officials that they owed a debt to Erdogan and [Interior Minister] Suleyman Soylu because people voted against them [Erdogan and Soylu] rather than for the HDP. Diyarbakir lawyer Sedat Yurtdas, who was a Kurdish member of parliament 25 years ago, criticized the electoral councils move on legal grounds, telling Al-Monitor, There is nothing in the law about assigning victory to the second-place candidates. A second lawyer, a university academic who declined to be named, confirmed what Yurtdas said. He told Al-Monitor that what the electoral council had done was a matter of imposing politics on the law. When Al-Monitor approached the electoral council for a response, an official said council members did not answer questions on the phone, only at press conferences. Yurtdas said the people in the streets of Diyarbakir disapprove of the councils decision, but he did not think it would lead to violence. The Kurds had other concerns at the moment, such as the hunger strikes among prisoners calling for an end to the isolation of the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. But the reversal of the election results, Yurtdas told Al-Monitor, has destroyed peoples faith in the electoral system. It harms their faith in democracy and law. It destroys their belief that radical, pro-democratic change can come about through elections. In southeastern Turkey, when young men and women flee to join the PKK, people say they have gone to the mountains. Bedirhanoglu did not think the election reversal would drive people to the mountains because people expected the government to take over the municipalities by any means. In 2016-17, Erdogan ousted the mayors of more than 90 Kurdish towns and districts, including the co-mayors of Diyarbakir, and appointed trustees to run their municipalities. During the recent campaign, Erdogan repeatedly threatened to do the same if the people elected pro-PKK mayors. If the government dismisses many more mayors, the PKK may see it as a justification for an attack, Bedirhanoglu said. This will cause serious problems. It will weaken the desire among Kurds to live together with Turks. I hope the government will step back from dismissing the elected mayors. Irans ambassador to Iraq confirmed on April 12 that hundreds of members of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) entered Iran to help with flood relief. According to Ambassador Iraj Masjedi, the PMU, which was formed in response to a 2014 religious edict issued by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani to defend Iraq against the Islamic State, entered the provinces of Khuzestan and Lorestan after acquiring visas through Irans embassy and consulate. Social media sites showed videos of PMU caravans entering Iran. Afterward, Iranian-linked social media websites showed the PMU working near the flood-hit areas, waving both the Iraqi flag and that of the PMU unit Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba. The PMU presence set off an online debate, given that the last time an Iraqi force entered Iran it was an invasion ordered by Saddam Hussein in 1980, sparking a bloody eight-year war. Reza Pahlavi, the son of Irans last monarch Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who appears to be staging a comeback from the suburbs of Washington DC, tweeted, Iranians do not need help from terrorist forces in order to rebuild their country. He continued, addressing Iranian officials, Either quickly remove your mercenaries from the homeland or the brave men and women of Khuzestan and Lorestan will remove them. Iran is not the place for militias or foreign armies. Pahlavi's reference to the PMU as terrorist forces is not a distinction shared by the United States. When the PMU was formed, a number of Iranian advisers from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) worked alongside them to fight the Islamic State. The influence of the Iranian advisers, particularly that of IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, became a sore point with the Americans, who were also working alongside the Iraqi forces in the fight against the Islamic State. Pahlavi was not the only Iranian figure to tweet critically about the PMU. Iranian actress Mahnaz Afshar tweeted, Never forget which country our dear ones died fighting, in response to a video of the PMU in Iran. However, Afshar faced widespread criticism. One user tweeted back, Im an [Iranian] Arab we know the difference between Iraqis and the Western-backed Baathists. Taking a jab at Afshars perceived Western orientation, the user added, Never forget who sanctioned and is still sanctioning us. According to an article in the hard-line Kayhan daily, Soleimani invited the PMU and the Afghan Fatemiyoun Division to help with the relief efforts. The article referred to the Fatemiyoun Division as the defenders of the shrine, the moniker given to those who fought alongside Syrian forces against the Islamic State and Syrian rebels. Damascus and other places in Syria are home to important Shiite shrines. In a video released by Iranian news agencies, PMU commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis said that the force came to Iran to help flood victims because it felt indebted after Irans efforts to support Iraqis. Muhandis notably spoke fluent Persian in the video. The IRGC and the Basij organization, which operates under it, have taken the lead in the relief efforts in the aftermath of devastating flooding in Iran. On April 5, the IRGC announced that Soleimani, who oversees IRGC operations outside of the country, will spend a month in flood-hit areas to help with relief efforts. Poor crisis management in the aftermath of the recent floods in Iran has highlighted the weaknesses of management in the country. In fact, deficiencies have become apparent on all levels whether it's crisis prevention and management, or lack of coordination and clarity of responsibilities among various state organs. But before discussing some of the shortcomings, it is important to underline that the extent of the recent floods would have been difficult to manage for most countries in the world and that disaster-related damages would have indeed been inevitable. Having said that, many experts have opined that the floods could have been managed more efficiently and the impact of mismanagement has been so extreme that some experts have called these floods a man-made disaster. Prior to the flooding, commentators argued that Iran had developed a strong sense of crisis management as a country that had faced numerous and regular natural disasters. Nonetheless, the recent failures have pointed to important deficiencies that need to be addressed. A 2014 report from the Iranian National Disaster Management Organization found that Iran has developed an effective and internationally recognized disaster preparedness and response capacity at the national and local levels, but disaster prevention and risk reduction are areas that will require extensive longer-term efforts as well as multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder planning in development sectors such as health, education and urban planning. It added, At the same time, comprehensive concepts and standards of risk reduction which include social dimensions and physical aspects of disaster prevention can be further improved. The above statement captures the key problems in crisis management that also connect directly to some of the governance issues in Iran. Acknowledging the need for greater coordination between diverse stakeholders, Iran created the National Disaster Management Organization (NDMO) in 1999 as a sub-organization to the Ministry of Interior. The authority and responsibilities of NDMO have been subject to legal revisions many times since its inception. Nonetheless, by the admission of many experts, the organ has been inefficient in managing various disasters (earthquakes and floods), partly due to legal ambiguities and partly due to mismanagement. For example, a bill defining the framework for cooperation of diverse organizations in a disaster situation has been stuck in parliament for almost three years. Furthermore, the law to create a fund for compensation of disaster victims, which was passed in 2016, has yet to be implemented, mainly because the government and parliament cannot agree on how to allocate resources to this fund. The planned fund was supposed to act as insurance against natural disasters, but it is still waiting for the relevant resource allocation. In this example, one can identify the pattern of inefficiency: Various state organs cannot agree for years about how to allocate resources to a specific fund. Then, when the crisis emerges, within days, a decision is made to allocate resources from the National Development Fund to pay compensation for damages. There is no doubt that resources would have been used more efficiently in a dedicated fund. It is likely that some of the funds that are released within a crisis mode are exposed to corrupt dealings within state organizations. The most alarming realization in assessing the performance of Iranian authorities in managing disasters is the complete lack of coordination between various institutions. Consequently, President Hassan Rouhani and other government officials criticized and blamed state institutions such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for their actions instead of taking responsibility for their own failures. Rouhani even criticized the Iran Meteorological Organization which itself is part of the administration for failing to produce accurate weather forecasts. However, a review of the alerts and announcements by the meteorological organization in the week prior to the floods underlines that heavy rains had been forecast and that other entities such as provincial governors, municipalities, NDMO, etc., had failed to operationalize that information. In a responsible government, such incompetence should have compelled the minister in charge Minister of Interior Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli to resign. However, in this case, not only did he not resign, he also failed to dismiss any of the incompetent provincial governors, forcing First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri to interfere and dismiss the governor of Golestan province. This lack of coordination and the continuous sense of competition between state institutions and individuals alike have also contributed to this recent disaster on a different level. President Rouhani referred to deforestation and disregard for river zones as a main cause for the severity of floods hitting urban areas. Parliamentarian Parvaneh Maafi, who represents Tehran, has also pointed to the lack of attention to managing river banks as a main cause of the situation. The issuance of licenses for construction on river banks as well as on dried-up river beds has been identified as one of the factors contributing to these floods. Once again, corrupt practices, rent-seeking and ambiguity in institutional responsibilities have harmed the Iranian economy. Beyond the inefficiency of the interaction between various state organizations and the executive branch, entities such as NDMO are incapable of putting in place a comprehensive operational strategy. Like in many other state organizations, the focus is on a theoretical framework that has limited application when disasters actually happen. One study on Iranian hospitals has shown that having a crisis plan and crisis committee without being familiar with knowledge of crisis management, do not help managers to cope with crises. What remains is spontaneous and disorganized reactions by state and society alike, which produces a patchwork of damage repair without really improving the situation or logical preparation for the next disaster. As such, Iran continues to face inherent weaknesses that are mainly caused by a governance system that suffers from over-reliance on institutions that may not be ready to fulfill their responsibilities, a lack of coordination between state institutions, short-termism and legal and structural ambiguities. These shortcomings are aggravated by the failure to allocate resources efficiently, which continues to ruin the foundations of the Iranian economy. It remains to be seen whether the Iranian authorities have learned some lessons from these recent floods and whether constructive steps will be taken in managing future disasters more efficiently. The elections are now behind us, but the real trouble has just begun. Having waited patiently for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to finish his political business, Hamas seems to think the time has come to renew the interrupted negotiations with Israel on a long-term cease-fire deal. To recap: At the end of March, some two weeks prior to election day, Hamas and Israel reached an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire agreement, ending yet another round of violence prompted by the firing of a missile from Gaza into a house in central Israel. While for political reasons Israel declined to admit to striking a deal with Hamas after all, who makes deals with a terror organization? it was clearly no coincidence that Hamas called off its violent border protests and reined in a mass demonstration to mark the first anniversary of its protest campaign. In return, Israel expanded Gazas fishing zone and reopened the Erez and Kerem Shalom border crossings to goods and people. Hamas promised to lie low and Israel committed to returning to the table after the elections to finalize a long-term arrangement. According to the final election results, one particularly formidable obstacle has been removed from Netanyahus path. Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who fantasized about getting the defense ministers job, was not reelected. Bennett, who harped continuously on Netanyahus surrender to Hamas and promised voters to wipe out its leadership, failed to cross the four-seat electoral threshold with his New Right. Bennett is gone, but former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, who resigned last November citing the governments soft policy on Hamas, is lying in wait. Without the five elected Knesset members of Libermans Yisrael Beitenu, Netanyahu does not have sufficient numbers for a coalition. Absent a commitment to annihilate Hamas, Netanyahu cannot form a government. Libermans party was one of the electoral surprises. The party that everyone had written off even before the polling stations opened, assuming that it had lost its core constituency of immigrants from the former Soviet Union and reached the end of its road, won the equivalent of five Knesset seats. These mandates are a particularly strong card now that the other competitor for the defense ministers job crashed at the finish line. Liberman is a political fox. He knows his voters, who forgave him this time for failing to make good on some of his hard-line pledges such as eliminating Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, will not be as forgiving if he goes along with Netanyahus less hawkish policy on Gaza. I quit the Defense Ministry because of the concessions and disagreements over policy on Hamas and the Gaza Strip, he said the day after the elections, when it became evident that Netanyahu could not forge a coalition without him. We have to understand what is going on with this continued surrender to terrorism. We have to agree on policy. If we cannot agree on defense policy, theres no room to talk about the portfolio. Liberman wants to return to the Defense Ministry, but only if he is given free rein. He wants to determine defense policy and defeat Hamas, but that freedom runs counter to the promise Netanyahu gave the organization of a long-term truce. Netanyahu thus finds himself between a rock and a hard place, between Hamas' threats to resume its border protests and perhaps launch another wave of violence and Libermans threats to block the formation of his fifth government. There is a middle ground that could allow everyone to save face, an Israeli defense source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, explaining that the two sides have already agreed to most of the initiatives proposed in recent months by the Egyptian mediators and a final agreement could be wrapped up before Netanyahu puts together his new coalition. Israel would like the comprehensive arrangement to also include the return of the remains of two soldiers, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, and of Israeli civilians held by Hamas, but the organization insists there is no connection between the two issues. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is determined to obtain the release of hundreds of his organization's members jailed in Israel in return for the Israeli soldiers remains and the civilians. Israel will have a hard time acquiescing to this demand, but the week that Liberman quit, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz made an interesting observation: It is possible to reach arrangement without the bodies of Goldin and Shaul. Our national security policy shouldn't be hostage to this, he said in a 2018 radio interview. In the Yom Kippur War, we had prisoners and bodies of soldiers in Syria and Egypt, but we established cease-fires. I believe we will succeed in bringing back the bodies of the soldiers. At the end of March, when Israel and Hamas finalized most of the details of a long-term truce, Haniyeh revealed that progress had been made on lifting Israels siege on the Gaza Strip, but that the understandings did not include a prisoner swap. Netanyahu can nonetheless tie up the loose ends of the deal without resolving this contentious issue and then complete the building of his governing coalition. In any case, the expected arrangement with Hamas would have multiple stages. The first step, maintaining calm on the border and Hamas' control over the Palestinian protests, has actually been already achieved. The next stage calls for progress on various economic projects providing work for tens of thousands of unemployed Palestinians. Naval passage into Gaza, which Israel has blocked for over a decade, will ensue only at a more advanced stage, as will construction of a joint industrial zone at the Karni border crossing and water desalination and sewage treatment facilities. If such a deal is finalized before Netanyahu cobbles together his coalition, Liberman can come on board without appearing to have surrendered to Hamas. Netanyahu has four to five weeks, a long time in Gaza terms, to sew up his coalition and present his fifth government to President Reuven Rivlin. The five Knesset members of the United Right alliance (who are hoping to get two ministerial positions in the new government), are not expected to put up obstacles to a Gaza deal. We will now see some arm wrestling between Netanyahu and Liberman as they vie for the title of Mr. Security and vanquisher of Hamas, but it's just for show. They both ultimately have an interest in cooperation. Netanyahu wants to be prime minister to defend himself against prosecution for corruption, and Liberman wants to restore his honor at the Defense Ministry. Each is sure to scratch the others back. TUNIS, Tunisia Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, 92, recently said he has no desire to run for a second term, opening up speculation about other possible candidates. Not everyone, however, accepts that as his final word on the subject. In all honesty, I dont think I will run for a second term, he said in the opening speech of the first electoral congress of his Nidaa Tounes party. He added, however, that "it is still too early to say" with certainty if he will run. Essebsi said he would announce his decision "in due time." The congress was held April 6 in Monastir. Tunisia's presidential elections are slated for Nov. 17 and the post-revolution Tunisian Constitution guarantees Essebsis right to run for a second term. In the country's first presidential elections, held in November 2014 after the 2011 overthrow of then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Essebsi beat rival Moncef Marzouki, winning a five-year term with 55.7% of the votes. During interviews with local and international media, Essebsi always avoids giving a conclusive answer about whether he will participate in the upcoming elections. On March 27, in an interview with Al-Arabiya TV, he reiterated his right to run for a second term. However, Essebsi stressed in his speech this month that Tunisia needs change and the time has come to open the door to youths. Tunisians expressed different positions on social media toward Essebsis most recent statement. Some lauded the move as a courageous and historical stance, while others described it as a political maneuver against his opponents. Tunisian politicians and even Nidaa Tounes leaders were caught off guard by Essebsis statement. Nidaa Tounes parliament member Tayeb al-Madani told Al-Monitor he was surprised by Essebsis decision, especially as the leadership of his party is still insistent on his candidacy. He went on, We respect the president's desire. We see this as a positive message from the president to give way to competent youths to run in this race. Madani stressed, however, that his party has yet to consider other candidates. He pointed out that the door of candidacy remains open to all party leaders and even to independents that Essebsi might put forward. During the April 6 electoral congress, Essebsi called on Nidaa Tounes leaders to lift the freeze on the partisan membership of Prime Minister Youssef Chahed. On Sept. 14, Chaheds membership was frozen amid escalating party infighting and tense partisan rivalry between him and the president's son Hafez Essebsi, the head of Nidaa Tounes. In statements the same day to Tunisian Shems FM private radio station, Hafez said he also was surprised by his fathers call. He noted, however, that even Chahed can run in the elections as a candidate for Nidaa Tounes. According to an opinion poll published April 2 by Emrhod Consulting, Chahed was the favorite potential candidate among 14.6% of respondents, while Essebsi ranked fifth with only 0.5%. Al-Monitor spoke to political analyst and former member of al-Irada party Tariq al-Kahlawi, who affirmed that Essebsis talk about not running for a second term is not a waiver of power. Essebsi doesn't want to leave through the back door. He doesn't want to end his political career with a humiliating defeat to Chahed who has yet to announce his candidacy in the presidential elections if he decided to run again. Though Essebsi has voiced his desire not to run again, some political observers believe he is saving his candidacy card for a later hand. Kahlawi added, Essebsi has political savvy. He thoroughly studies his political steps while being fully aware of the rise of Chahed's popularity, as demonstrated by the opinion poll results. Add to this Essebsis old age and physical health. Explaining the current presidents call for unfreezing Chaheds Nidaa Tounes membership, Kahlawi said, Essebsi sought to confuse Chahed, who [in the meantime has] founded his own party, Tahya Tounes [Long Live Tunisia], which is gearing up to hold its first electoral congress April 28. In an April 9 press conference, Salim al-Azabi, a founding member of Tahya Tounes, confirmed that Chahed is the political leader of the party. The discussion by Nidaa Tounes' electoral congress of unfreezing Chaheds partisan membership is too little too late, he said, ruling out Chaheds return to that party. In this context, Tahya Tounes member Ismail bin Mahmoud praised Essebsis position of not running and of paving the way for youths. He told Al-Monitor, By calling for unfreezing Chaheds Nidaa Tounes membership, the president has ended about a year of conflict and tension that prevailed between the two heads of the executive authority. Reconciliation would create a stable political climate in Tunisia. Like Azabi, Mahmoud said Chahed will not be returning to Nidaa Tounes and will be the candidate of Tahya Tounes, whether as head of the party or to run in future presidential elections if he so decides. After a two-year wait, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court on March 28 upheld a lower court decision that rockweed harvesters must obtain permission from upland landowners before harvesting in the intertidal area. The impact of the decision on rockweed harvesting in the state is not yet clear, as the largest company, Acadian Seaplants, which was the defendant in the lawsuit, plans to seek permission, while smaller operators say that continued cutting may not be feasible. And those who have sought greater protection for the seaweed believe most landowners will not grant permission for harvesting. The decision also may lead the state to consider implementing additional rockweed cutting regulations that have been recommended but sitting on the shelf for the past five years. "This is an extremely unfortunate decision for an entire industry and for Maine's economy," says Acadian President JeanPaul Deveau. "The sustainable harvesting of rockweed has created jobs and grown businesses, all of which are creating sustainable and environmentally friendly products." Despite the decision, Acadian Seaplants intends to maintain its operations in Maine, where it has grown over the past 20 years to include five full-time employees, upwards of 30 seasonal hand harvesters and two yearround mechanical harvesters. Most of Acadian Seaplants' operations are in Washington County. Moving forward, Acadian Seaplants will seek permission from landowners to harvest rockweed where required. "We have been part of Maine's working waterfront for many years," said Deveau. "We intend to continue to work in these communities, support local causes and invest in the local economy." According to Deveau, Acadian's attorneys are studying the decision to see if there could be grounds for appealing it. The company also will be meeting with the Maine Department of Marine Resources to see what regulations may be put in place because of the decision. As for the impact on rockweed harvesting, Deveau says the industry had been operating under the assumption that it had the right to harvest rockweed under the public trust. Since permission will now need to be obtained from every upland landowner, "it will require substantially more work" to harvest. An independent harvester, James Young of Eastport, who has been harvesting in Cobscook Bay on his own for the past eight years, says that he has tried to honor no-cut requests by landowners, but he notes that "property lines can be hard to find on the water." He will now have to go to municipal offices, obtain lists of landowners and addresses and phone numbers and contact each of them and obtain written permission from property owners. He may ask those who will allow harvesting to place some tape at low water so he can be sure of where the property lines are. Young says he will make an effort to harvest this year but will have to see if it's feasible. If few landowners give permission, he says, "There may not be enough biomass to continue harvesting." If that's the case, "I'll have to move on and do something else." While there were perhaps 15 harvesters in Cobscook Bay last year, Young notes that statewide the decision could affect hundreds of jobs. Gordon Smith, the attorney for Kenneth Ross and Carl Ross, both natives of Calais, and Roque Island Gardner Homestead Corporation, who had sued Acadian for harvesting rockweed from their property without their permission, notes that his clients were concerned about the negative ecological impacts of rockweed harvesting and had been working with the state to try to create more regulations for the harvest. While having to gain the permission of landowners is "another avenue to protect rockweed," he says that his clients hope that the state regulations for greater protection still go forward. As for the impact of the decision, Smith notes that one outcome might be that it will lead to "a more local and regional set of relationships" in which the harvesters may get to know the landowners. Local harvesters, then, may have an advantage in developing those types of relationships. Robin Hadlock Seeley of Pembroke, a Cornell University senior research scientist and a member of the Rockweed Coalition, which has advocated for greater restrictions on harvesting, states, "The Supreme Court's decision is a win for fisheries and for wildlife, both of which depend on intact rockweed beds serving their ecological function in near-shore ecosystems, because I believe most landowners will choose to protect their rockweed from commercial cutting." She notes that NOAA Fisheries recently has designated intertidal seaweed beds as Essential Fish Habitat for cod, and the court decision will allow landowners to help protect juvenile cod. Public access rights explored In its decision, the court found that "rockweed attached to and growing in the intertidal zone is the private property of the adjacent upland landowner. Harvesting rockweed from the intertidal land is therefore not within the collection of rights held in trust by the state, and members of the public are not entitled to engage in that activity as a matter of right." The court applied prior legal precedent in reaching its conclusion that the harvesting of rockweed does not fall within the public's rights to fishing, fowling or navigating, as outlined in a 164147 colonial ordinance. While all of the justices agreed with the decision, three issued a concurring opinion that differed on the rationale. The opinion of the three justices noted that, since the Moody Beach court decision, "a member of the public has been allowed to stroll along the wet sands of Maine's intertidal zone holding a gun or a fishing rod, but not holding the hand of a child." They argued that the law court's 1989 decision erroneously limited the public's use of the intertidal zone and that the public's reasonable and nonabusive use of the intertidal zone should include "the right to walk unfettered upon the wet sand of Maine beaches to peacefully enjoy one of the greatest gifts the State of Maine offers the world." The harvesting of rockweed, though, would not fall within that reasonable access. Of the court ruling, Deveau says, "It's a decision that will make it more difficult for the working waterfront and may open the door to other restrictions on access to products in the working waterfront. It's of grave concern to the economy, particularly in rural Maine." He adds, "There are people who don't want to see economic activity in the intertidal zone. Will they seek to have more restrictions? The question is: What's next?" However, Seeley notes that intertidal fisheries, including clam and worm digging, are not threatened by the court's decision. "The right to take shellfish in the intertidal zone is settled law under the 'fishing, fowling and navigating' clause of the 164147 colonial ordinance. This court case clarified what is common sense -- that seaweeds are not fish." Attorney Smith also does not believe that the case will lead to more challenges to restrict public access along the coast, since he points out that three justices signaled that they would like to overturn the Moody Beach decision and explored a legal doctrine, not yet in effect, that would allow for greater access in the intertidal area. "This is not erosive of public access," says Smith, adding that he doesn't see the case as being part of a pattern to limit access to the intertidal zone. He notes that his clients, Ken and Carl Ross, "don't fit the picture of wealthy landowners trying to restrict public access." Their grandparents purchased the property in Pembroke in the 1900s, and they were born and raised in Calais. "They have no issue with public access," says Smith, explaining that they are conservationists. Smith also notes that the amicus briefs filed in support of the case included ones filed by fishermen's groups that are concerned about the importance of rockweed to the health of the fisheries. "They don't want to limit public access," Smith notes. He adds that the public in this case is a Canadian-based corporation engaged in the large-scale commercial extraction of a resource. Regulations going forward Rockweed landings in Maine have increased steadily in recent years, with the value jumping nearly tenfold in 17 years, from $84,138 in 2001 to $820,846 in 2018. In response to the increased harvesting, the state has been considering additional regulations, based partly on the rockweed management plan for Cobscook Bay. In 2014 a Rockweed Fishery Management Plan had been presented to the Department of Marine Resources (DMR) by a DMR plan development team but was never implemented. That plan made a number of recommendations for rockweed harvesting, including coastwide sector management, as is conducted in Cobscook Bay, with a 17% maximum harvest of the assessed biomass; the designation of no-harvest areas; and harvester training. Then in 2015 a Rockweed Working Group prepared for the DMR a list of criteria for determining no-harvest areas, including impacts on sensitive species. Those recommendations were not acted on by the DMR, as the agency awaited the court decision. According to Jeff Nichols, spokesman for the DMR, the department will now look at the decision to see if it should try to enact any of the recommendations either through rule or statute. Seeley believes the 2014 proposed rockweed management plan needs to be rewritten in light of the court decision. "The plan intentionally avoided all mention of ownership other than to state that the ownership question was unsettled. Now that question has been settled. The plan quietly assumed seaweed was a public resource. Now we know it isn't." She also believes that the question about whether sectors can be assigned for three to six years needs to be reviewed by the Maine Attorney General's office. She adds, "There needs to be acknowledgement that conservation lands will likely be off limits as the groups that own these lands will likely deny permission for commercial seaweed harvests on their intertidal lands." The United States is pressing its Kurdish allies in Syria to ease their resistance to allowing Turkish forces to deploy on their side of the Turkish-Syrian border, well-informed sources told Al-Monitor. The Turkish forces would be a part of the proposed safe zone in northeastern Syria. US officials are pushing for a limited number of Turkish forces to be allowed to deploy on the Syrian side of the border, along a stretch of territory running from the east of the Euphrates River to the Iraqi border, according to a senior official from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The source told Al-Monitor, The subject has already been broached with us and we regard the presence of Turkish troops on our soil as extremely problematic and have made our position clear. The source said that the Donald Trump administrations Syria envoy, Ambassador Jim Jeffrey, was expected to travel to northeastern Syria in the coming days, when he is likely to renew demands that Turkish forces be allowed to enter northeastern Syria. SDF commander in chief Mazlum Kobane is known to be viscerally opposed to any intrusion by Turkish forces. But Kobane is also a firm advocate of maintaining the partnership with the United States, which puts him in a bind. Another SDF official told Al-Monitor that the US demand would never be accepted. US officials did not respond to Al-Monitors request for comment. Jeffrey said at an annual conference of Turkish American business lobbies in Washington that Turkey and the United States had yet to agree on the contours of a safe zone plan, though they continued to work on it. Jeffrey's comments, translated into Turkish on Turkeys NTV news channel, made clear that the United States understood Turkeys security concerns and that the sides were focused on a plan that would exclude the Syrian Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG). Vaguely defined locals are supposed to replace the YPG. Arabs in Arab-majority areas and Kurds in others, the second SDF official said, confirming knowledge of the plan. The YPG is the driving force of the SDF, but it is also linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PKK has fought for Kurdish independence and now for self-rule inside Turkey since 1984. Turkey says the two groups are the same terrorists and pose an existential risk to Turkeys national security. Turkey is furious that the United States is continuing its partnership with the YPG. Hardly a day passes without a pro-government news outlet publishing proof of further American treachery. US officials privately acknowledge there is little difference between the YPG and the PKK. Yet they cling to the fanciful notion that the YPG can be peeled away from the PKK and its commanders in Iraqi Kurdistan. Now Washington is reportedly telling YPG-linked Syrian Kurds in the SDF to leave the YPG, while whispering vague promises of getting Turkey back to the negotiating table with imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, whose moral authority over the movement remains unchallenged some 20 years after he was captured with the CIAs help. More likely, the United States will do the leaving. Richard Outzen, senior adviser for Syria engagement at the State Department, spoke at a panel organized by a pro-government Turkish think tank, the SETA Foundation, in Washington today, saying, The US policy is first of all that we are going to withdraw those troops. Now the modalities of how quickly that happens and what exactly we do in the wake of it, how much support we get from the international coalition [to eliminate residual IS presence] that will survive the withdrawal of our troops, the safe zone plays a big role in that." Trump had announced in December that he was withdrawing all US troops from Syria in 30 days. The withdrawal has been deferred but not rescinded following pushback from the Pentagon and notably Central Command that wants to preserve the alliance with the SDF and is leery of the risks posed by an ill-planned departure. US pressure on the Syrian Kurds fits the broader pattern of Washington demanding concessions from the SDF on behalf of Ankara without Ankara delivering any concessions to the Kurds in return, sources with close knowledge of the deliberations between Ankara, Washington and the SDF told Al-Monitor. Kobane confirmed this in a recent interview with Al-Monitor, saying Turkey was never satisfied and kept asking for more. The status of the Arab-dominated town of Manbij is a case in point. Turkey vowed to invade Manbij if the town's military and legislative councils were not purged of individuals Ankara deemed as linked to the YPG. In January, the Manbij councils were reconstituted with new members duly vetted to meet all of Turkeys demands. Yet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to threaten to invade Manbij and expunge the YPG from the border. Erdogan repeated these threats in a speech on the night of the March 31 local elections, dispelling all hope that it was just pre-electoral saber-rattling aimed at winning nationalist votes. Our target is now eliminating the terror structures in Manbij and east of the Euphrates," Erdogan said, "and making Syria a safe place for [Syrians] sheltering in our country to return to their homes. Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar recently inaugurated an Advanced Joint Operations Center on the border where the offensive will supposedly be coordinated. Jeffrey and his team have used Erdogans threats to wrest even more ground from the SDF and to push them to replicate the Manbij model east of the Euphrates River. They are telling the SDF, We cant keep the Turks out so we need to let them in peacefully,'" a source familiar with the administrations thinking said. The Kurds get nothing out of it other than being told that each new concession will stave off a Turkish attack. It's a bottomless and dangerous pit, the source said. This policy of appeasement stands in stark contrast with Washingtons vows to impose sanctions on Turkey over its acquisition of the Russian-made S-400 missile systems, as well as its continued detention of US nationals and Turkish employees of US diplomatic missions on spurious terrorism charges. At the same time, Washington is pressuring the Kurds to not engage with the Syrian regime and instead to unite with Turkey against the regime so as to exert maximum pressure on President Bashar al-Assad in the hope that he will fall. This would fulfill the US administrations other goal of reducing Irans influence. It could also wrest Turkey out of Russias orbit, or so the thinking goes. But critics say it fails to take stock of how Russia will react. Russia has made clear that it would not welcome further Turkish colonizing in Syria, specifically the kind that it oversaw when it allowed Turkish forces to overrun Kurdish-majority Afrin in January 2018. In the meantime, Manbij is becoming more unstable. The Islamic State claimed responsibility March 26 for an attack that killed seven Manbij Military Council guards. Twin blasts struck the town April 11, injuring several residents. A suicide bomber killed four Americans in January, including two service members, and 10 others in Manbij. It was the single deadliest day for American forces in Syria. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Fabrice Balanche, an associate professor at Frances Lyon 2 University who has written extensively about Syria, told Al-Monitor, The Manbij attack was a message of what could follow if the Americans stay. Russia, Iran, nobody will leave them in peace. And Turkish intelligence may choose to look the other way. Update: April 16, 2019. An earlier version of this story included a quote attributed to Richard Outzen that was incomplete and, hence, open to misinterpretation. It has been removed. A large tract of undeveloped land near two major Birmingham-area thoroughfares will be auctioned in May. Granger Thagard Auction has announced 65 acres near U.S. 280 and Interstate 459 will be auctioned May 9 at the Hampton Inn, 3400 Colonnade Parkway, at 1 p.m. The land, in three parcels, will be sold as is with its current zoning, according to an announcement from Granger Thagard. It is west of The Summit and faces The Colonnade development along I-459. The areas location gives it potential for development, as its traffic count from U.S. 280, I-459 and Cahaba River Road totals a quarter-million cars. The land is three parcels - 12 acres in Vestavia Hills with frontage on Cahaba River Road, 28 acres in Birmingham with frontage on U.S. 280, and 25 acres in Vestavia Hills with frontage on Cahaba River Road. Auctioneer Jack Granger said the successful bidder can either put this site to work immediately with their idea of development or will develop their master plan." A conservation easement is also a possibility. Auction co-owner Bill Thagard said the property has some major topographical challenges as well as a large active stream of water in certain areas of those topographical challenges. Chip Wann is the now the first chief operating officer of Birminghams Royal Cup, Inc. The companys board of directors has unanimously approved naming Wann to the post, which was created to oversee all aspects of the companys day-to-day business and personnel decisions. Wann is currently chief financial officer, a post he has held for more than two years. Wann said he is honored to contribute to an organization that holds an unwavering commitment to providing its customers with the highest-quality products and service. The company, owned by the Smith family since 1950, is one of the nations oldest and largest family-owned coffee and tea businesses. In February, the company announced it was consolidating its family of products and reimagining them into four core brand identities. Royal Cup employs almost 400 people in Alabama. President and CEO Bill Smith said Wann has played an instrumental role in positioning Royal Cup for sustainable, profitable growth. Our team, along with my family, is excited to see what further impact Chips leadership and invaluable contributions will bring to Royal Cup," he said. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals has ordered a new murder trial for Alfonso Jarmon, a man whose attorney died days after collapsing during closing arguments. Jarmon has been serving a life sentence for his conviction in the 2016 slaying of his 77-year-old neighbor Charles Hugh Perkins in Florence. Jarmon was convicted in 2017 one day after his attorney collapsed during her closing arguments at the Lauderdale County Courthouse. After defense attorney Jean Darby was taken to the hospital from the courtroom, Lauderdale County Circuit Judge Gil Self appointed new lawyers for Jarmon. The judge denied the new lawyers requests for a mistrial and to recess the trial for the weekend. In a 4-1 vote, the appeals court ruled that Circuit Judge Gil Self should have granted the motion for a recess. By denying new counsel's motion to continue and quickly pressing ahead with trial after the defendant's trial attorney became incapacitated, the trial court unconstitutionally limited Jarmon's right to counsel, especially in consideration of the voluminous mental-health evidence presented at trial, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals wrote in an opinion issued Friday. At trial, Darby presented two lines of defense for Jarmon that he acted in self-defense and that he was not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. Because Darby didnt complete her closing argument, Jarmons Sixth Amendment right was violated, the appellate court ruled. The right to have counsel present a closing statement to the jury is a fundamental right under the Sixth Amendments guarantee of the effective assistance of counsel, the appellate court wrote in its decision. At trial, the prosecution suggested the judge could tell the jury to disregard the prosecutions closing arguments. The judge agreed and told the jury they could consider the part of closing arguments that Darby completed but they should disregard the prosecutions closing. Lauderdale County District Attorney Chris Connolly said hes disappointed in the appellate courts decision. We certainly dont want to put the victims family through a new trial, Connolly told AL.com. At trial, multiple eyewitnesses testified to seeing Jarmon shoot Perkins in the head. Connolly said he hopes the Alabama Attorney Generals Office will appeal the appellate courts decision to the state Supreme Court. An AGs office spokesman said the case is being reviewed. Darby died at a local hospital two days after she collapsed in court. UPDATE: Bessemer police on Monday reported Victoria Nicole Harris-Rowser has been found safe. EARLIER STORY: Bessemer Police are asking for help finding a missing woman. Victoria Harris, 40, who has also gone by Victoria Nicole Harris-Rowser, was reported missing Saturday night by her family, which normally has close contact with her, said Bessemer Police Lt. Christian Clemons. She was reported missing by her daughter last night, Clemons said. Apparently this is out of character for her. Although shes been gone for less than 24 hours, If your normal circle of family hasnt heard from you and reports you missing, we want to get it out as quickly as possible, Clemons said. She was last seen leaving Westlake Lodge Apartments in Bessemer in her 2018 black Honda Accord with tinted windows. The Alabama license plate number for the Accord is JFT693. Anyone who knows her whereabouts is asked to notify the Bessemer Police: the Bessemer Police Department at 205-425-2411, or Detective Hamburger at 205-337-5068. An inmate escaped a north Alabama prison work-release facility in Decatur this morning, authorities said. Billy Harold Anderson, 29, is described by state prison officials as 5 feet 11 inches and about 135 pounds. Anderson has brown hair and brown eyes. Anderson escaped the North Alabama Community Based Facility just before 7:30 a.m., according to an Alabama Department of Corrections spokesman. The facility is on Alabama 20 in Decatur. Anderson is serving an 18-month sentence for a Lauderdale County burglary conviction, records show. At the time of his escape, Anderson was wearing regular clothes, rather than a prison jumpsuit, officials said. For the second straight Republican House primary, U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks of Huntsville will face a challenge from a decorated serviceman. Chris Lewis of Florence, a retired U.S. Navy commander, announced his candidacy for the 5th Congressional District on Monday at an event in his hometown. Last year, Brooks defeated Clayton Hinchman in the GOP primary. Hinchman, a Huntsville businessman, lost a leg while serving in the Army in Iraq. Lewis, who retired in 2016 after 23 years in the Navy, is running on a guiding principle of Service before self, according to his campaign announcement as well as his campaign website. Issues he plans to address include establishing term limits for elected politicians, reducing the national debt, supporting the Second Amendment and defending the sanctity of life as well as support for veterans. As a retired Naval Officer, I believe it is our countrys duty to stand in support of our veterans, Lewis said in the announcement. I personally understand the difficulties in navigating the Veterans Affairs bureaucracy and the challenge of re-entering society after military service. It is imperative we provide our men and women in uniform the caliber and level of commitment that they gave to protect our country and our rights. Lewis graduated from Bradshaw High School in Florence before receiving his degree from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. In his military career, he served as a Naval flight officer, a strategic analyst for NATO's Strategic Commands in Portugal as well as in defense acquisition. After retirement, Lewis worked with the Department of Defense by providing program management support to Arnold Engineering Development Center at Arnold Air Force Base in Tennessee. He also operates a farm and owns a consulting firm. Lewis is also involved with several community organizations, including as board president of the Children's Museum of the Shoals. Brooks, serving his fifth term in Congress, has not announced his plans yet for 2020. He has not ruled out a run for U.S. Senate next year, though he has said it was unlikely he would run. A bill in the Alabama Legislature to repeal Common Core seems to have stalled in the House after passing quickly through the Senate last week. Its doesnt appear to be dead, but its not going anywhere fast, AL.coms Trisha Crain reports. As debate continues around Common Core, or in Alabamas case, College and Career Ready Standards, Leslie Richards, a secondary math specialist with the Jefferson County Department of Education, came in to show people what the math being taught in Alabama schools really looks like. Richards insists that there is No such thing as a Common Core math lesson," and instead that schools have standards that students must reach. In the above video, Richards explains a few methods students are taught to help them achieve those standards. She uses two examples to explain how students are taught to visualize math, which helps those students who dont naturally think like mathematicians. One example is adding fractions. Richards shows two ways to add fractions, including the area model method, a more visual technique. But she insists these are not the only methods students students can use. Next, Richards shows a couple of methods students can use for multiplication. She again uses an area model method here, as well as the distributive property, which might look more familiar to parents. Note: A previous version of this video incorrectly showed the sum of 760 and 228 as 998. The correct sum is 988. The mistake was a typo during video creation, not a result of Alabamas math standards. We regret the error, and it has been fixed. To read more about Alabama education, follow @Trish_Crain on Twitter. Do you have an idea for a data story about Alabama? Email Ramsey Archibald at rarchibald@al.com, and follow him on Twitter @RamseyArchibald. For more videos and stories like this, follow Reckon by AL.com on Facebook and Twitter. A 29-year-old Florida man is charged with sexual extortion and stalking involving a 14-year-old in Trussville. Justin Richard Testani, of Sanford, Fl., was booked into the Jefferson County Jail last week after being extradited to Alabama on the felony charge of sexual extortion. On Monday, authorities here filed a new charge of stalking against him, in a case that dates back more than one year. According to court records, Testani in December 2017 caused the teen to produce images or photographs while engaged in a sexual act. He was booked into the Jefferson County Jail on April 10 and ordered held without bond on the Class B felony The following day, records show, Testanis attorney filed a motion requesting bond for his client, contending he is not a threat to the life and property of others in Jefferson County and noting that he when he was arrested in Florida, he immediately waived extradition and voluntarily returned to Jefferson County. According to the attorneys filings, Testani lives with his father in Florida and holds two jobs one as a restaurant server and another as an Uber driver. If released on bond, the motion stated, Testani would return to live with his father and continue with employment. On Friday, Jefferson County District Judge William Bell Jr. reduced Testanis bond from no bond to $30,000. That same day, prosecutors filed a motion asking the judge to reconsider his decision, noting that the victim and the detective adamantly opposed bond being set. All of the crimes, the motion states, happened online. According to Deputy District Attorney Logan Flowers motion, Testani made multiple threats to kill and rape the victim as part of his extortion efforts. He also forced the victim to perform multiple sexually-explicit actions under threat of exposure and/or violence. The stalking charge, also a felony, was issued Monday. Testani is being held on no bond. Story was updated to reflect the suspect is 29, not 19. Authorities have released the name of a Jefferson County worker killed early Sunday while trying to clear a roadway following powerful storms that moved through the area. The Jefferson County Coroners Office identified the victim as David Wade Reynolds. He was 54 and lived in Adger. The crash happened about 2:15 a.m. on 15th Street Road near Hueytown, said Jefferson County Sheriffs Office Capt. David Agee. Reynolds worked for the countys Roads and Transportation as the Highway Coordinator and had been with the county for more than 20 years. Agee said Reynolds was cutting up a tree to clear the road when a motorist struck him. He was taken to UAB Medical West where he was pronounced dead at 2:51 a.m. The driver remained on the scene and cooperated with investigators. Officials released this statement Monday morning from County Attorney Theo Lawson: The county is grieving with the family of Mr. Reynolds this morning. He was a valued member of the Roads and Transportation family and will be greatly missed. The countys Human Resources Department has counselors on site talking with Reynolds co-workers. For the Wabanaki peoples and their supporters, a clear message has emerged in recent years: The best way to combat the many challenges facing Native communities, including drug and alcohol abuse, is through a firm connection with their rich culture. Wabanaki Public Health has embraced this pathway and is conducting outreach in hotspots throughout the state to teach professionals how to advocate prevention through cultural emphasis. The most recent Culture is Prevention workshop took place on Tuesday, April 9, at the Wabanaki Culture Center in Calais. During the workshop, Saige Purser, substance use disorder coordinator with Wabanaki Public Health, addressed why preventionoriented programs are so needed. Tribal communities are faced with a large number of health disparities -- including higher mortality from virtually all causes -- based on systemic health inequities, including reduced access to support resources and increased risk factors based on historical trauma. It culminates in high levels of addiction and depression. According to Purser, Natives are routinely told they have a significantly higher chance of diabetes, heart disease and a range of chronic, lifelimiting ailments -- statements that may not always be backed up by medical research but which can impose additional psychological stress and further worsen outcomes when additional support isn't provided. Another major health challenge is simply a lack of access to fresh produce. This is a distinct departure from the past, when tribal communities were selfsufficient. While there is still some connection to the land, such as the stillcontested Penobscot River, Natives cannot sustain themselves off the fish from the river any longer because of the industrial contamination. "So, even if we had the knowledge, they are polluted, so we cannot consume them," Purser says. Purser described how some policies instituted federally and reinforced by tribes serve to introduce further challenges to cultural survival, including blood quantum policies. According to blood quantum policies, individuals without a sufficient amount of Native blood cannot receive benefits or claim themselves to be part of a tribe. "Blood quantum is a way of erasing people," Purser says. "It's a kind of genocide." With both past and present forms of oppression in place, young Natives are highly vulnerable to making negative health choices -- unless their culture intervenes. Purser relayed the recorded responses from members of the Penobscot Youth Council to a series of questions to illustrate their mindset. Asked to identify the biggest problem for Native youth, the group responded racism. "I hear it a lot from the Calais High School. Old Town. Orono. Instances in which this has happened," Purser says. "It's real, it's happening and they're feeling it." The biggest influences on drug use for the members of the youth council include older peers, parents, the pervasiveness of drug use in the community and depression. Asked what they wanted people to know about Maine Natives, the group said, according to Purser, "We're not your mascot. We're more than a reservation." With positive reinforcements of culture in place, such as Wabanaki Public Health's intertribal gathering and its ongoing efforts to connect with Native youths, community outcomes improve, Purser said. "That's why we do culture is prevention. It works. Culture is important," Purser says. Outside of the value that stems from organizing youth activities for Native and nonNatives alike, progress is being made to reduce inequities in Maine communities. Some of that is happening on the federal end, as described by workshop attendee Andrea Sockabasin, youth prevention coordinator for Wabanaki Public Health. Sockabasin shared how the Maliseet community has won a wellness grant from the Centers for Disease Control to promote traditional activities for health purposes. In the past, such grants would have come with reporting requirements that were difficult if not impossible to meet for indigenous communities, but the organization is adapting. Along with coordinating fiddlehead harvesting, the Maliseet group has organized traditional snowshoeing, sweat lodge ceremonies, sacred medicines workshops and more, most of which is aimed at the youth. "The youth are our future," Sockabasin says. "If we don't invest in them now, we won't have a future." State troopers are investigating a crash in Blount County that left one person dead. The single-car crash happened Monday morning on Interstate 65 near mile marker 284 in a construction zone, according to the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. ALEA said on social media that one person, a pedestrian, was killed in the crash. As of 8:15 a.m., one lane of the interstates northbound side was closed in the area. Motorists should use caution while crews work to clean up the wreck. A 41-year-old man was found dead in the backyard of an abandoned Selma home Saturday night. The discovery was made about 7 p.m. at 714 Lapsley Street, Selma Police Chief Spencer Collier said Sunday. The victim was later identified as Tarrance Callen, a Selma resident. Investigators secured the scene and processed it for evidence. Callens body was taken for autopsy and it was determined he was the victim of a homicide. Authorities have not said how he was killed, and no arrests have been announced. Callen marks Selmas third homicide in 2019. In the totality, the homicide rate and violent crime as a whole is down so far in 2019, the chief said. However, those statistics are meaningless to the victims family and rightfully so. We will commit the manpower needed to get answers in a timely manner. A man wanted on felony child molestation charges in Indiana shot himself as Alabama lawmen tried to take him into custody Monday morning. Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor said deputies about 10 a.m. Monday went to a home on Lato Road in Seale after getting a tip that fugitive Christopher Allen Garner Sr. was staying at the residence. Taylor said once they got to the scene, they met with family members who verified Garner was inside. Investigators made entry into the home at which point the sheriff said Garner shot himself before he was able to be taken into custody. He was transported Piedmont Hospital. His condition is unknown. Garner was wanted on two felony counts of child molestation by the Madison County Sheriffs Department in Indiana. The investigation has been turned over to the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. This is an opinion piece. Early Friday morning, a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled that Alabama could execute Christopher Lee Price. In dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer took an unusual step: He criticized his colleagues for not meeting in person before resolving the appeal, which had been filed late Thursday night. Generally, the justices are extremely secretive about the workings of the court. But not here. Breyer and his three progressive colleagues made the conscious decision to peel back the curtain, and in the process, cast doubt on the majority's decision-making process. Tensions on the post-Kennedy Court are now spilling into view. Maybe we can mediate. My recommendation: Conservatives should agree to a three-day delay to handle last-minute capital punishment appeals; liberals should resist the urge to go public. The court, and the country, would be better for it. Full coverage of the death penalty in Alabama. Every year, the Supreme Court decides about 80 cases. Some take a year from start to finish. Most death penalty appeals, however, are resolved in hours, not months. Consider Dunn v. Price. The prisoner was scheduled to be executed before midnight on Thursday, April 11. Earlier that day, a district court judge put the execution on hold for 60 days. She found that Alabama's proposed execution protocol would likely be more painful than an alternative method, known as nitrogen hypoxia. The state appealed. Several hours later, the Court of Appeals declined to disturb the lower court's ruling, given the looming deadline. Around 9 p.m. Thursday, the state filed an emergency motion with the Supreme Court. Early Friday morning, five justices voted to authorize the execution: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. In a single paragraph, the majority suggested that Price waited too long to pursue his claim. This order on the court's so-called shadow docket allowed the justices to quickly and quietly resolve a controversial matter. Or at least that was the plan. But in response, Breyer wrote an impassioned dissent, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. He shined light on the shadow docket and explained the justices' late-night deliberations. Breyer "requested that the Court take no action until" its regularly scheduled conference on Friday. He said the "delay was warranted" so the justices could hash out the issue in person. His conservative colleagues disagreed. They wouldn't wait a few more hours, even though Alabama had already called off the execution. (Once midnight struck, the state's death warrant had expired.) It is very rare for the justices to detail their internal procedures. Why did Breyer break the code of silence? It was most likely an act of despair. We are now living in the post-Kennedy Court. Various issues seem to divide the conservative members of the court. But on the death penalty, they are united. Look no further than Bucklew v. Precythe. This 5-to-4 decision held that Missouri's lethal injection protocol was not "cruel and unusual punishment." Moreover, Gorsuch's majority opinion explained, the courts should be skeptical of "11th-hour stays" of executions that "interpose unjustified delay." Sotomayor, in dissent, wrote that reviewing capital cases with "an especially jaundiced eye . . . would effect a radical reinvention of established law." Breyer and his colleagues can see the writing on the wall. At some point, the court will institutionalize Gorsuch's "jaundiced" review of capital appeals. And going forward, there will be five votes to tip the scale in favor of the state on such last-minute claims. This recognition likely nudged Breyer to criticize how his colleagues manage their internal deliberations. This approach has both pros and cons. First, the public has been alerted to what the court does and does not do before allowing a person to be executed. It will be little comfort to Price, and death penalty opponents more broadly, that the justices were not even willing to meet face to face before allowing his sentence to proceed. There is a cost, though, to Breyer's disclosure. Other aspects of the deliberative process that were once considered sacrosanct might become public. Trust among the justices will be eroded. Justices who publicly air their grievances can, in the words of one federal judge, "irreparably damage the already strained working relationships among the judges" and can "serve to undermine public confidence in [judges'] ability to perform our important role in American democracy." Breyer and his colleagues must have made a calculated decision: Highlighting the method with which the court reviewed the appeal was worth the cost of diminishing collegiality on the court. How can this logjam be resolved? Breyer proposed that the court meet in person before greenlighting the green mile. Generally, this approach is impractical - which is why I suspect the conservatives did not want to set a new precedent. Between October and June, the justices conference three times a month - in total, about two dozen times a year. (They do not meet in July and August.) This approach, if adopted consistently, could inject weeklong delays into the resolution of last-minute appeals. Moreover, the justices maintain hectic travel schedules - impromptu in-person meetings are simply impossible. Price's appeal was an outlier: A conference was scheduled for the following day. Perhaps there is a middle ground. As a matter of course, the court should automatically halt any executions for 72 hours - an "administrative stay." During this time, the justices can circulate memorandums, or even convene by videoconference, to discuss the matter. If, after three days, a majority of the court still believes the execution should proceed, then the stay dissolves automatically. And any dissenting justices can prepare a dissent under less-frenzied conditions. True enough, Price's execution warrant would have expired during this period. But he has been on death row for two decades. Another month, in the grand scheme of things, is trivial. This minimal delay would allow the members of the court, and the public, to trust the procedural, if not substantive, fairness of the process. --- Josh Blackman is a constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. An extraordinary event that should be celebrated by everyone who cares about Alabamas economy and future workforce happened here in Montgomery. Hundreds of children joined forces with elected leaders to spotlight the crisis well face if the 2020 Census shortchanges funding for programs that support the health, safety, educational achievement and overall quality of life for children statewide. As a former president and CEO of the Business Council of Alabama I was especially pleased with the way the participants described how the census something that could seem benign or obscure determines the amount of funding we receive for programs everyday people truly care about. Among other things, Im talking about funding for quality early education through Head Start and Early Head Start, healthy school meals through the National School Lunch Program, medical care through the Childrens Health Insurance Program, and child care assistance for hard working families through the Child Care and Development Block Grant. Census data also determines how many lawmakers will represent Alabama in the U.S. House of Representatives. The participants had a simple, clear request: They want lawmakers to ensure the U.S. Census Bureau has the resources it needs to ensure the count is accurate. Spurred by many factors including the fact that about 1 million children were undercounted in 2010 the Bureau wants to use new technology, including more satellite data, handheld devices to coordinate field workers, along with a call center to help people fill out the questionnaire, and surveys people can fill out online. One big problem for us in Alabama is that about 15 percent of our population lives in what the Bureau considers hard-to-count neighborhoods, where more than 20 percent of households didnt mail back census questionnaires in 2010. Thats one reason why the Bureau will, for the first time, encourage households to submit responses online. Unfortunately, our demographics could compound the problem since about 25 percent of Alabamas households either have no internet access or depend on slow dial-up service. Another challenge is that the alternative to online counting which is mailing surveys and dispatching temporary workers to visit homes of people who dont respond is time-consuming and costly, especially in rural counties that are difficult to reach. Other challenges are financial. In contrast to the run-up to our last census in 2010, the Bureau hasnt received the funding it needs to test new technologies and other practices, and the low unemployment rate means fewer workers to fill thousands of open census jobs. Although Congress did add money in its FY18 and FY19 spending bills to help overcome a $3 billion shortfall in funding, lawmakers will face competing interests when determining funding for the 2020 fiscal year. Im also concerned about how an inaccurate census will impact our broader economy. Our children need early education, sound nutrition and health care to succeed in school, so its easy to see how insufficient funding will hurt our future workforce. I also want to note that business people depend on census data to understand the education levels of potential workers, household incomes and where people live. This data helps us determine where to locate operations and what products to offer. It also helps others identify barriers and solutions to improve our local schools, health care system, and transportation options that our workers rely on. Equally important, smart business people make investments based on market research and other forms of sound data. Fortunately, Alabamas child advocates and lawmakers are well aware of these issues. Stephen Woerner, the Executive Director of Voices for Alabamas Children called for $5 million to fund a census public awareness campaign which amounts to a dollar per resident. Governor Kay Ivey and other lawmakers spoke at the event. All made good points about the losses well incur with inaccurate data and about the wisdom of investing in the processes that will ensure we get this right. As a taxpayer, that means filling out your forms when the count is underway just one year from now, protecting the federal resources we deserve. William Canary is the former President and CEO of the Business Council of Alabama (2003-2018) Energy giant Rosneft struck major deals with Iraqs Kurdish region in 2017. Today, it has yet to cash in on them. Erbil, Iraq Two years after Iraqs new constitution in 2005 officially recognised the autonomy of the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, Russia established formal relations with its regional government (the KRG) by opening a consulate in its capital Erbil. By then, the United States, the United Kingdom, Iran and Turkey had become the main political and economic players in the oil-rich region, which holds proven reserves of some 45 billion barrels of oil (10th biggest in the world) and is estimated to have between 2.8 to 5.7 trillion cubic metres of natural gas (roughly as much as Algeria). Although Russia boasted historic relations with the Kurdish leadership (Mustafa Barzani, the father of the former KRG president, Masoud Barzani, spent 12 years in exile in the Soviet Union), it seemed there was little space for it to play a major role in the autonomous region. But when, in the early 2010s, Russian energy companies sent delegations to probe for potential oil deals, KRGs western partners became nervous. According to a former Russian diplomat who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, the UKs foreign office, in particular, was worried. In a 2012 conversation with him, British officials expressed their concern that the Russian companies entry into the Kurdish energy sector could stir trouble by giving the KRG political backing to go against the common consensus among the UK, US, Turkey and Iran that the Kurdish region should remain part of Iraq. In 2012, Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom signed a contract for exploration and oil production in two blocks in the Kurdish region and just a year later KRGs President Masoud Barzani went on a four-day visit to Moscow, meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller. Four years later, the fears of the British Foreign Office proved justified. A series of energy deals that another Russian state-owned energy company, Rosneft, concluded in 2017 with the debtladen KRG, saved it from economic collapse and helped it gain enough political leverage to pursue an independence referendum on September 25 of that year, against the advice of all of its close allies, including the US and the UK. It was not the first time Rosneft, whose CEO Igor Sechin is perceived to be one of Putins closest political allies, had come to the rescue of a foreign government in financial distress and under political duress. Over the past few years, it has continued to invest heavily in crisis-stricken Venezuela, despite losing millions of dollars in the process. Rosnefts investment has effectively propped President Nicholas Maduros government and secured Russia a loyal ally in the US backyard. The Kremlin has long been accused of using state-owned energy companies as political tools. In the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, however, Russian diplomatic gains appear much more limited because of political uncertainty, and regulatory and technical barriers. In fact, Rosneft is yet to turn a profit from the more than $4bn it invested in oil and gas deals, sources have told Al Jazeera. So, two years after the Rosneft deals were concluded, what did Russia get out of its KRG gamble? Saving the KRG In 2016, the KRG was suffering from a severe political and economic crisis. It was in the middle of fighting a war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), which had become a source of insecurity and a significant financial burden. Its budget had taken a major hit after the 2014 slump in oil prices had dwindled revenues. And a dispute with Baghdad over the right to export oil independently had escalated and resulted in the cutting of payments from the federal budget. As the Kurdish region was backtracking on major economic achievements of the post-2003 period, popular anger had grown exponentially. The economic recession and cuts to salaries had provoked angry mass protests across the region. Having racked up a debt of between $20bn and $25bn (way above the size of its economy), the KRG was running out of options to save itself from bankruptcy. In March 2016, the KRG offered major oil assets to Turkey in exchange for $5bn in debt forgiveness and cash, in addition to the $1bn Ankara had already lent; major oil deals were also offered to US companies. Both the Turks and the Americans, however, appeared reluctant to take up what was on offer. In June, Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani headed to Russia to attend the St Petersburg Economic Forum Putins flagship investment event where he met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to discuss developing relations [] in the oil and gas sector. Seven months later, on February 21, Rosneft joined Gazprom as a major investor in the Kurdish region by signing a deal worth $2.1bn for pre-paid oil for 2017-2019 and becoming the first major oil company to pre-finance KRG oil. That cash injection was crucial. According to Bilal Wahab, a fellow at the Washington Institute in the US, these funds helped avert a major financial disaster and international embarrassment for the KRG by enabling it to settle a dispute with Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum ahead of another hearing by the London Court of International Arbitration scheduled for the summer of that year. The Kurdish authorities paid $1bn to the Emirati companies and restructured the remaining $1.24bn it owed. The deal also provided some legitimacy to KRGs oil export operations, which Baghdad had long claimed were illegal without its formal permission, Wahab pointed out. On June 2, Nechirvan Barzani once again attended the St Petersburg summit and signed a number of agreements with Rosneft, paving the way for three more deals, including projects worth $400m for five exploration blocks in the Kurdish regions northwest. On September 18, just a week before the independence referendum was scheduled to be held, the KRG announced it had signed a contract with the Russian company to develop a gas pipeline project in the autonomous region with a planned investment of $1bn, according to Reuters news agency. The project envisions a pipeline with a capacity of 30 billion cubic metres a year to be linked to the Turkish gas network and eventually export Kurdish gas to Europe. Then, in October, three days after forces loyal to Baghdad captured the oil-rich city of Kirkuk from the Kurds, the KRG announced it had sold its 60 percent share in the company that runs the regions oil pipeline to Rosneft as part of a major pipeline project worth $1.8bn. All these deals came in combination with an informal commitment for political support from Moscow, according to the former Russian diplomat. Although officially Russia declared a neutral position towards the referendum, the Kremlin unofficially made it clear it was going to stand by Masoud Barzani, he said. This gave enough confidence to the Kurdish leadership to proceed with the vote on September 25, despite serious warnings from Baghdad. The fact that a number of deals were signed amid unprecedented uncertainty and insecurity in the Kurdish region, and right after Erbil lost control over oil-rich Kirkuk (which accounted for some 40 percent of its oil exports) demonstrated that Russia stayed true to its commitment. As a top KRG official told Al Jazeera, in that grave political and economic situation, what saved us was Russia! Although it displeased the KRGs US and European allies, Russian support helped the region overcome international political isolation through this difficult period and start rebuilding its devastated economy. Rosnefts financial injection boosted its energy sector. The arbitration settlement allowed Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum to start investing again in the Kurdish region and expand their gas production capacity. The KRG also had enough leverage to start negotiations with Baghdad. In March, the Iraqi government sent money for the salaries of government employees in the Kurdish region for the first time since 2014; as a result, for the first time in many months, KRG civil servants received their pay in full. Russias elusive gains While the KRG has been reaping the benefit of these deals, Russia and Rosnefts gains from this high-risk investment are yet to materialise in full. In fact, pursuing these and other deals in 2017 got the Russian energy giant heavily in debt at a time when the Russian economy was just emerging from a two-year recession. It had to borrow some $17bn in that year alone and by 2018, its debt stood at $55bn, which worried investors. What appears to be the main accomplishment of the Rosneft investments in the Kurdish region is securing the gas pipeline contract in September 2017. According to an official from the KRGs ministry of national resources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Rosnefts entry into the Kurdish energy sector is about gas, not oil. Russia just wanted to reserve the right to develop the gas pipeline [to Europe]. Nabucco failed, thats why Russia came. The Europeans are to blame, the official told Al Jazeera, referring to a pipeline project which was supposed to provide countries in Southeastern Europe with an alternative source of gas and decrease their dependency on Russian gas imports and which has since been scrapped. Currently, Gazprom holds monopoly over Russian gas exports to Europe. According to Salih Yilmaz, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence, by securing a gas deal with the KRG, Rosneft seeks not only to increase gas exports under Russian control to Europe, but also challenge Gazprom. Bringing the Kurdish natural gas to Turkey [and then] to Europe is probably Rosnefts best bet for rivalling Gazproms gas export monopoly, [which] Rosneft and peers have been lobbying the Russian government to end, Yilmaz told Al Jazeera. Rosnefts acquisition of 30 percent of Egypts Zohr gas field in the Mediterranean Sea a deal which was closed in October 2017 just two weeks after the KRG one was signed also reflects these ambitions. Although both companies are majority state-owned, they are perceived to be driven by divergent oligarchic interests within the Russian economic elite. According to Yilmaz, the development of the gas pipeline project in the Kurdish region could take a couple of years under ideal conditions, but given ongoing tensions in the region and the fact that there is no immediate and urgent demand for such gas exports, it could take much longer. Right now, its probably more of a good-to-have [project], so I suspect that it wont be done any time soon, he explained. However, there is another major obstacle to realising this and the other deals Rosneft and the KRG have signed: Baghdad has rejected them since they were concluded without its approval. The Iraqi government has long argued that the KRG does not have the right to unilaterally sell oil without its permission; Erbil has countered by pointing out that a provision in the Iraqi constitution allows it to exploit natural resources on its territory. In the past, the central Iraqi government has successfully undermined KRG oil trade on a number of occasions, with courts in the US and Canada ruling in its favour and blocking attempted sales. It has filed lawsuits in both international and local courts seeking to block the KRG from exporting oil through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline. In the past, these regulatory challenges have kept major oil companies out of the Iraqi region. The lack of a final agreement between Baghdad and Erbil on the question of energy resource development and revenue transfer has effectively rendered the status of Rosnefts deals uncertain. When asked about the official position of the Iraq government on the Rosneft contracts, Asim Jehad, a spokesperson for the Iraqi oil ministry told Al Jazeera: Successive federal governments have expressed their reservations, opposition, and rejection of the KRGs activities [exporting oil and concluding contracts] This government intends to solve this problem through serious dialogue. But according to Hoshyar Ali, the head of diplomatic relations for the Kurdish opposition Gorran movement, the newly-formed government of Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, who has so far pushed for negotiations with the Kurds, is unstable and lacks a unified block of support in parliament. A potential collapse of his cabinet could derail the current efforts to reach an agreement with Erbil and undermine the Rosneft deals, he pointed out. To reach permanent agreement on the issue of oil specifically that is, that Baghdad disputes all the deals that the KRG has signed with foreign companies you have to have a law for oil and gas in Baghdad. Then [based on] the constitution we can work which side has what rights and of course, these deals would be either recognised by Baghdad or they would be rejected, Ali told Al Jazeera. There is this famous saying in the Middle East: The weak sign the contracts, the strong tear them apart, he added. Although Kurdish media outlets have claimed that Russia is mediating between Erbil and Baghdad, a number of officials and close observers have confirmed to Al Jazeera that Moscow has rather limited political sway in Iraq, including in the Kurdish region. The US and Iran remain the main power brokers, flanked by Turkey and the UK. Even though the Rosneft deals saved the KRG, they were not enough to upset this balance of power that the two countries that led the 2003 invasion and Iraqs two most influential neighbours had tacitly agreed on. The limit of Russian influence in Iraq was demonstrated by the temporary deal that Erbil and Baghdad struck in mid-November 2018 to restart the pumping of oil (50,000-100,000 barrels per day) from the Kirkuk oil fields through the Kurdish pipeline to Turkey. The US had pressed for the agreement in order to put an end to a deal Baghdad had struck with Tehran, while trying to avoid the use of the Kurdish pipeline. It had agreed to ship Kirkuk oil on trucks to Iranian refiners in the north in exchange for Iranian oil being delivered to Iraqs southern ports. Full compliance with the new set of US sanctions imposed on Iran, however, meant this deal had to be scrapped and Baghdad had to resume exports through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline. According to the former Russian official, the Russians are very much aware that the status of Rosneft contracts is still in doubt. The US mediation efforts between Baghdad and Erbil got them nervous, as they feared their interests may be undermined, he said. The fact that the KRG lost control over oil-rich Kirkuk not only slashed its exports almost in half, and hence decreased the potential revenue for Rosneft from the share of the pipeline it owns, but also put under question the payment of its dues as a whole. In March 2018, Nechirvan Barzani told the media that one of the conditions for the KRG resuming the transfer of all funds from oil exports to Baghdad is the payment of tariffs to Rosneft for the use of the pipeline. However, the November deal did not include a provision for the payment of tariffs to Rosneft. According to Delshad Shaban, the former deputy head of the oil and gas committee in the Kurdish parliament, the payment of tariffs is pending a final political deal between Erbil and Baghdad. As per its agreement with the KRG, the Russian company should be paid $1.5 per barrel, in addition to $1 per barrel for storage at the port and other extra costs, he told Al Jazeera. Rosnefts deal for the five blocks in the northern part of the Kurdish region might also prove difficult to make profitable. According to Govand Sherwani, an oil expert and professor at Erbils Cihan University, oil exploration in Iraqs Kurdish region is considered high-risk because there are just a few studies available of the area and there is no guarantee that a company investing hundreds of millions in a block would actually find oil. In fact, just before Rosneft signed this deal, major companies like Exxon-Mobil and Chevron, had started pulling out of exploration blocks that had yielded disappointing returns; between 2014 and 2016, 19 such blocks had been relinquished. Only one of the deals Rosneft concluded in 2017 seems to have started generating some revenue. The KRG started transferring oil to the Russian company just two months after the $2.1bn deal was signed, and as per the agreement is supposed to export between 15m and 25m barrels annually for period 2017-2019. Neither Rosneft, nor the KRG have released exact numbers on how much Kurdish oil has already been shipped, but according to Sergey Aleksashenko, a former Russian deputy minister of finance, between 50 and 65 percent of the $2.1bn has been paid back in the form of oil. Rosneft and the KRGs ministry of natural resources could not be reached for comment. Overall, it appears that Rosnefts investment in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq has been a risky gamble and, like in Venezuela, whether it pays off or not, will depend on how the geopolitical situation evolves. In both places, the US appears to be the main player, whose actions could determine the outcome of Rosnefts deals. If Washington decides to escalate its campaign against Iran, Iraq is one of the main battlegrounds where the Iranians could push back. And there is nothing easier than destabilising an already unstable government and mobilising once again pro-Iranian militias in the country. Follow Mariya Petkova on Twitter: @mkpetkova And what could still go wrong. Sudan and Algeria can easily evoke memories of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions of 2010 and 2011. Like their neighbours, Sudanese and Algerian protesters managed to overthrow their autocratic leaders after decades of rule, in a matter of months, and without a single shot fired. Marching, chanting, resisting and daring, the people of Sudan and Algeria pressed on with their calls for freedom and democracy until they were able to disarm the old guard politicians and generals alike and force them to acquiesce to their initial demands. It may still be too early to judge, but so far it looks like these latecomers have learned important lessons from Arab as well as other revolutions. In fact, Sudan and Algeria may well be able to deter the counter-revolution and avert the dangers of civil war. The signs are hopeful. Non-violence and inclusion So far, revolutionaries in Sudan and Algeria are still firmly on the path of non-violence, a la Tunisia and Egypt. Peaceful protest has proven the least costly and the most constructive among all possible strategies and scenarios, not only to confront repression, but also to pave the way for democracy. Indeed, non-violent revolutions are most capable of splitting the regimes rank and file and straining its legitimacy. If history is any guide, violent revolts tend to coalesce and galvanise a dictatorships base, making it harder to bring down. They also produce alternative leadership that is no less violent than the repressive regimes they aim to overthrow. Those who fight and kill their opponents with enthusiasm and determination are likely to turn against their allies and people with equal vengeance. But for civil disobedience, boycott, demonstrations and other forms of non-violent strategies to work, they require popular mobilisation. In Algeria and Sudan, people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds, young and old, women and men, secular and religious came together in their demand for freedom and better living. Sudans leading popular voice, the Sudanese Professionals Association, reflected this embrace of inclusiveness rather brilliantly in its recent call to put Christ at the heart of the revolution, asking Christians and people of all other confessions to participate in a day of civil disobedience and worship for peace. Such inclusion of different elements of society prevents the regime from taking advantage of any potential splits or feelings of alienation, as has happened in both Syria and Egypt, in order to discredit the revolution and justify repression against its supporters. Inclusion also means readiness to incorporate segments of the old order into the movement for change. Not only does this broaden the popular base of the revolution, but it also diminishes the regimes authority and hastens its demise. Autocrats depend on a system of political and financial patronage that involves the participation of certain segments of society mostly out of economic necessity, not political loyalty. Condemning or alienating those middle- and low-ranking bureaucrats or government employees, including teachers and policemen, is counterproductive and harmful; attracting and incorporating them in the revolution can contribute to its potential success. A greater popular mobilisation behind the revolution ensures greater participation in the ensuing democratic process, which guarantees its long-term consolidation. That may take time, lots of time. What, not who, comes next A revolution is a thrilling, liberating rush of social and political adrenaline, but even with broad support, its long-term success depends on consistency and perseverance. The pressure cant ease just because the despot is gone. What must come next is a slow, tedious, and deliberate process of organisation, negotiation and reconciliation. Without it, any revolution ends in the dustbins of history. For, if people return home to business-as-usual after the fall of an autocrat, they allow the old regime to reconstitute itself in one form or another. Unlike totalitarian revolutions, such as Russias or Irans, where change is swift, brutal and decisive, democratic revolutions require time, discipline and endurance. Historically, democracy comes after big disruptions, and in long phases and stages; it almost never evolves in a linear fashion. The French Revolution, which took decades to realise its potential, is a good example. Changing an autocrat might be hard; changing the system behind him is even harder. The important question for all revolutions is not who but what comes after. The Algerian and Sudanese people seem well aware of that. They celebrated the bloodless ouster of Bouteflika and al-Bashir, but they did so knowing well that this was only the beginning of a very long and fraught process. The swift introduction of substitute leaders from within the old system in both countries underlined the need for more comprehensive thinking about the way forward. In both Algeria and Sudan, the protesters know they need to get the military on their side and on their terms, like in Tunisia, in order to avoid an Egypt-like scenario. Tunisias experience also teaches that protests must go on until a new transparent system of accountability is in place. This means knowing not only whom you oppose, but also what you want both in the short and long term. Its rather easy to be against corrupt repressive leaders, but much harder to articulate and implement a vision for a better future. Democracy and democrats This brings us to the old chicken-and-egg riddle: What comes first, democracy or democrats? For how is it possible to nurture democracy without democrats, or democrats without democracy? The simple answer is: They come in tandem. It takes experience and courage to foster them. Democracy is no panacea. It is a lot of work and results can be mixed, sometimes undemocratic, even after decades and centuries of democratic rule. Just look at the rise of fascist anti-democratic right-wing parties in a number of leading democracies. And in the Arab world, liberal democracy, the truest form of democracy, may indeed be seen as a controversial idea or a foreign import by traditional and conservative portions of society. All of this means that there is a need for open debate, for trial and error, which takes time lots of time. And that is why priority needs to be given to a gradual transition over immediate elections something the revolutionaries of both Sudan and Algeria seem to insist on. They demand a transition into civilian, not military rule one that prepares the political and legal frameworks to hold free and fair elections. Rushing to the polls immediately is certain to privilege older, more organised parties and fracture the newly formed groups driving the revolution, as they compete for power. Egypt is a good example of how the ancien regime can exploit post-election tensions between liberal secularist and conservative Islamists to mount a coup detat against an elected president. This does not mean open-ended transition that drags on endlessly. As the new Sudanese Freedom and Change alliance, a public committee representing the demands of the protesters, proposes, a four-year period may be suitable to stabilise the country politically and economically and chart a new way forward. Algeria seems to follow suit, as it has rejected the announcement of presidential elections in July under the same old rules. Now that Algerian judges have decided to boycott supervising such premature elections, the pressure is building up for their postponement until the country is ready. Meanwhile, another crucial process that has to take place is managing expectations. Like their neighbours before them, Algerians and Sudanese who have risked a lot in the struggle for regime change, will come to expect a lot. The Sudanese who revolted against al-Bashir for the lack of bread and fuel, will expect indeed, demand solutions not slogans from the transitional government. No doubt, many confuse democracy with prosperity in the West. Democracy may facilitate creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship, but it does not guarantee a higher standard of living, at least not in the short term. And in a heavily indebted, underdeveloped nation with few national sources of income, freedom and democracy may generate more anger than wealth. The art of the impossible So far developments in Sudan and Algeria have gone in the right direction, but there is also a lot that can still go wrong, considering the road to democracy is full of traps and pitfalls. If recent Arab Spring experiences are anything to go by, the worst is yet to come, especially, as the generals continue to vie for control. But the long silenced Sudanese and Algerians majorities and their invisible elites have defied all the scare campaigns that warned of a descent into chaos. They have rejected all forms of domestic and foreign intervention, especially military intervention, to avoid the destruction seen in Libya, Syria and Yemen. In short, they prefer to be self-reliant, buoyantly industrious and innovative revolutionaries. And it sure takes innovation to confront violence with non-violence, to protest loudly and negotiate calmly, to raise the stakes and reduce the risks, to elevate the aspirations and limit the expectations. It will also take more creativity to continue to use accessible means to realise inaccessible ends. The art of revolution entails deep societal transformation to ensure the sustainability and durability of political transformation. Notre Dame, or Our Lady, is a jewel of French Gothic architecture nestled on an island on Paris River Seine. The celebrated Notre Dame is the architectural jewel at the heart of the French capital one of the finest examples of French Gothic construction and home to invaluable works of art and artefacts. The cathedral, which dates back to the 12th century and took more than a century to build, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that attracts between 12 and 14 million tourists each year in France. Visitors are drawn to admire its stained-glass windows, flying buttresses, impressive sculptures and carved-stone gargoyles. The seat of the archbishop of Paris and a centre of the Catholic faith, Notre Dame has also been the target of political violence throughout its history. In the 16thcentury, it was pillaged by Protestant Huguenots and later plundered during the French Revolution in the 1790s, after which it fell into a period of neglect. In 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned emperor of the French in the cathedral. A general view of the interior of the cathedral [File: Charles Platiau/Reuters] It featured in Victor Hugos classic novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, published in 1831. The book revived interest in the building and shortly afterwards a restoration project began. Notre Dame survived the two world wars of the 20th century. At the end of the German occupation in 1944, the cathedral rang its bells to announce the liberation of Paris. At the time the fire broke out, it was undergoing renovation work, with scaffolding surrounding some of its structures. A number of statues had previously been removed for the effort. As of late Monday, the raging fire put the buildings future under threat; its 19th-century spire, which was in the process being renovated, and vast sections of its 12th-century roof collapsed. Here are some of the treasures that may be at risk in the blaze: Paintings The big Mays of Notre-Dame de Paris L arge-scale paintings that were commissioned almost every year by the Parisian Goldsmiths Society between 1630 to 1707 to be offered each May 1 at the cathedral in honour of the Virgin Mary. The Visitation, by Jean Jouvenet A masterpiece of the 18th century depicting the Virgin Mary raising her eyes to heaven, near her cousin Elizabeth, bowed before her, who is in the sixth month of the conception of John the Baptist A masterpiece of the 18th century depicting the Virgin Mary Saint Thomas Aquinas, Fountain of Wisdom, by Antoine Nicolas Estimated to have been completed in 1648, the artwork depicts Saint Thomas Aquinas sitting on a pedestal dressed in the garments of the Dominican order, to which he belonged. Stained glass The rose windows Notre Dames north, south and west rose windows are described on the cathedrals website as one of the greatest masterpieces of Christianity. The south rose window was built in 1260, about 10 years after the north rose window was constructed. Sculptures Notre Dames exterior features a collection of sculptures known as grotesques, stone creatures intended to protect the church from malevolent spirits. Organs The Great organ With five keyboards and nearly 8,000 pipes, Notre Dames great organ is probably the most famous musical instrument of its kind in the world. It is believed to have been constructed sometime in the 13th century, With five keyboards and nearly 8,000 pipes, Notre Dames great organ is probably the most famous musical instrument of its kind in the world. It is believed to have been constructed sometime in the 13th century, according to the cathedrals website. The Choir organ An instrument of 2,000 pipes that is believed to have been constructed in the 19th century. President Lenin Moreno accuses the Australian national of setting up centre for spying from Ecuadors London embassy. The Ecuadoran president has defended his decision to withdraw Julian Assanges asylum status, saying that the WikiLeaks founder had tried to set up a spying centre from the diplomatic mission in London. It is unfortunate that, from our territory and with the permission of authorities of the previous government, facilities have been provided within the Ecuadorian embassy in London to interfere in processes of other states, Lenin Moreno told The Guardian newspaper on Sunday. We cannot allow our house, the house that opened its door to become a centre for spying. Our decision is not arbitrary but is based on international law. 190402183841403 On Thursday, UK police announced the arrest of Assange following the Ecuadoran governments withdrawal of asylum. Assange pleaded not guilty to the charge of breaking the terms of his bail in 2012 when he sought refuge at the embassy in London, but was convicted nevertheless. He will be sentenced at a later date when he will face a maximum sentence of 12 months in prison for the offence. The Australian national is also facing sexual assault charges in Sweden. The first expired in 2015 and the other was dropped in 2017, but the alleged rape victim has now asked for the case to be reopened. Should Stockholm make a request to extradite Assange, the UK government will have to consider whether this should be done before or after that of the United States, where the 47-year-old is fighting a US extradition warrant relating to the release by WikiLeaks of a huge cache of official documents. UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid would be expected to have the final say in which claim takes priority. More than 70 British legislators have urged Javid to give priority to a case involving rape allegations ahead of the US request. Outrageous allegations Assanges lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, said her client would cooperate with Swedish authorities if they reopen the rape case against him but would continue to resist any bid to extradite him to the US. We are absolutely happy to answer those queries if and when they come up, Robinson told Sky News television about the rape claims. The key issue at the moment is US extradition, which we have warned about for many years. Hes not above the law. Julian has never been concerned about facing British justice or indeed Swedish justice. This case is and has always been about his concern about being sent to face American injustice. Separately, Robinson denied the Ecuadoran governments claims about her clients worsening behaviour inside the Latin American countrys embassy in London. 190413130235608 I think the first thing to say is Ecuador has been making some pretty outrageous allegations over the past few days to justify what was an unlawful and extraordinary act in allowing British police to come inside an embassy. In the Guardian interview, Moreno charged that Assange mistreated our officials [and] started to make legal threats even against who was helping him. WikiLeaks said Australian Consul Clare West would visit the Ecuadoran embassy on Monday to request that the mission hand over Assanges belongings. West met with Assange in prison on Friday. Major rail project expected to resume next month after the Malaysian government secured a one-third reduction in cost. Putrajaya, Malaysia Malaysia has renegotiated a major rail project with China to reduce the cost of construction by a third and increase the level of local involvement, signalling a shift in Chinas approach to its six-year-old Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Nine months of protracted negotiations over the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) following last Mays historic change in government, resulted in a mutually beneficial agreement for both China and Malaysia, Malaysias Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told journalists at his office in Putrajaya on Monday. The original agreement was negotiated and signed in 2016 by Mahathirs predecessor Najib Razak. It was an unjustified, hefty lump sum price which lacked clarity in terms of technical specifications, price and, by extension economic justification, Mahathir told the media. We chose to go back to the negotiating table and call for a more equitable deal, whereby the needs of the Malaysian people would be prioritised. Under the agreement signed in Beijing on Friday, the 640-kilometre and 20-station railway will cost 68.7 million ringgit ($16.7m) per kilometre, compared with 95.5 million ringgit ($23.2m) previously, Mahathir said. 190107030233089 Work on the project, which was suspended last year, is expected to resume in May with completion set for the end of 2026. BRI concerns Mahathirs government promised to review all major projects agreed by the previous administration after it replaced Najib, who is now on trial in relation to alleged corruption at state fund 1MDB. The ECRL project was awarded through direct negotiation at a sum of 65.5 billion ringgit ($15.9bn). The concern [about debt] was there but this is a solution to our concerns, Mahathir told reporters. When we were still in opposition, we felt the way the award was made, and the total cost was not right. Chinas BRI was touted by President Xi Jinping as a way to boost trade and economic growth across the world through massive infrastructure development from Asia to Africa and Europe. But one-sided contracts favouring Chinese construction companies and the huge costs involved have created apprehension that countries that signed up to the plan risked ending up with billions of dollars of debt. 170514142652061 Sri Lanka was forced to sell its Hambantota Port back to China last year after it was unable to service the loans on the project. Politicians in Indonesia, a country long suspicious of China, have also raised concerns about the level of Chinese involvement in new rail and port projects in the archipelago. Presidential contender Prabowo Subianto has promised to review a $6bn China-backed high-speed rail project agreed by incumbent Joko Widodo if he comes to power in elections on Wednesday. Things can change The renegotiation with Malaysia showed that China needed to put more effort into assessing political risks, said Singapore-based economist Song Seng Wun. You cannot take the political backdrop as a given. Things can change. 190321170015949 The Malaysia announcement comes as China prepares to host its second Belt and Road Summit in Beijing at the end of this month. Under the latest agreement, Malaysia will not need to borrow as much from Chinas Exim Bank ensuring interest payments are reduced although Mahathir said the final amount had yet to be calculated. Payments on the project will also be made in accordance with the progression of the work, while Malaysian companies will also have a greater stake in the railways construction. The company that operates and maintains the ECRL will be a joint venture between China Communications Construction Company, the original project developer, and Malaysia Rail Link, the local partner. The railway will connect towns from Malaysias northeast near the Thai border and along the South China Sea with Port Klang on the Strait of Malacca, providing a crucial land route for freight between Port Klang and Kuantan where China is developing a major port. While the original line would have required a tunnel to be blasted beneath the mountain range that runs along the central spine of the Malaysian peninsula, the new route travels further south avoiding the mountains, as well as the Klang Gates Quartz Ridge, a wall of solid quartz that is the longest in the world. Importantly, the new alignment also prioritises cultural, heritage and environmental factors, Mahathir noted. The three million Chinese-Indonesians have long faced discrimination in the country. Medan, Indonesia In February, presidential hopeful Prabowo Subianto made his first visit to Medan, the provincial capital of North Sumatra and home to one of Indonesias largest populations of ethnic Chinese. Thousands turned out to hear what the former general had to say. While many other Indonesians might be focussed on issues of identity, the ethnic Chinese minority has more pragmatic concerns. People are often swayed by religious affiliations or racial ties, but thats less the case with Chinese-Indonesian voters, said Endar Hadi Purwanto, who owns a traditional Chinese tea shop in Medan. Were more interested in the goals of the candidates and whether they are really going to work in the best interests of the people. According to a 2010 census, there are around three million Chinese-Indonesians in the country. Around six percent of them are in North Sumatra. In Medan, these voters make up 10 percent of the population after the Batak and Javanese. But the ethnic Chinese community has long faced discrimination in the country. 190408080355562 In the 1960s, anti-communist purges that swept the archipelago as Soeharto wrested power from founding President Sukarno, an estimated 500,000 people died, including thousands of Chinese-Indonesians. As Soeharto consolidated his position as president, Chinese language schools were banned, as was the celebration of traditional Chinese holidays such as the Lunar New Year. Many ethnic Chinese changed their names to make them sound more Indonesian. It became a struggle for Chinese to find work in the ranks of the civil service or politics due to racial discrimination. As a result, many became business owners in order to carve out their own livelihoods in Indonesia. Sitting in his Ho Teh Tiam tea shop, Endar said the experience of the past continues to affect the decisions Indonesias ethnic Chinese make today. We had to create our own opportunities and our own businesses, said Endar. [So] infrastructure and growth are big issues for Chinese-Indonesians. Were interested in candidates who care about efficiency and make things easier for business owners. Anti-Chinese image Brilian Moktar is a member of the Regional House of Peoples Representatives (DPRD) for North Sumatra and one of the few Chinese-Indonesians to have broken into politics in the region. He agreed that Chinese-Indonesian voters were an important voice in North Sumatra, telling Al Jazeera that were one of the largest groups in the province, ahead of say Malay or Minangkabau voters, so our votes certainly count. But Moktar also explained that courting this community was not a guarantee to success. Prabowos been rejected three times [in previous elections] by the majority of Indonesian voters. And Chinese-Indonesian voters are strongly influenced by facts, not identity politics. We vote based on logic, he said. For many Chinese-Indonesian voters, Prabowos strong nationalistic stance is also likely to deter them from voting for him. 190409075921126 Prabowo was accused of instigating anti-Chinese riots in 1998 when Soeharto was forced from power. They originated in Medan and spread to other parts of the country, leaving more than 1,000 people dead. Prabowo was discharged from the military in August 1998 but has always denied stirring up racial unrest in the country. Prabowo is infamous for his anti-Chinese image, said Ericssen, an independent political analyst who specialises in Indonesian electoral politics. Ericssen, who is originally from North Sumatra, added that there were other, more pragmatic reasons why Prabowo may want to reach out to this community. Unlike in 2014, when his campaign had strong financial power, this years it has been financially challenging for Prabowo, said Ericssen. He launched public fundraising including gala dinners with the Chinese-Indonesian community. Prabowo needs their money and Chinese-Indonesians who are tired of Jokowis government will see Prabowo as an alternative. Money machine Yohanes Sulaiman, a political analyst and lecturer at Universitas Jenderal Achmad Yani, agrees. As a voting bloc it seems both sides dont care except seeing Chinese-Indonesians as a money machine, said Sulaiman. Think about it. If they cared about [minority groups like] Christians and Chinese-Indonesians, theres no way they would have allowed cases like Meilianas to happen. Meiliana, a Chinese-Indonesian Buddhist from Tanjung Balai in North Sumatra, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for blasphemy in August 2018. She was blamed for complaining about the volume of the speakers at her local mosque. Meilianas conviction was upheld last week by Indonesias highest court, but she told Al Jazeera that she rejected the allegations against her. Race and religion shouldnt be used to create divisions between us, Meiliana said from prison. The case inflamed ethnic tensions in North Sumatra after rioters set fire to Buddhist temples in Tanjung Balai, and politicians, including incumbent President Joko Widodo, sought to distance themselves from the case claiming that they could not intervene in the legal process. In travelling to Medan, Prabowo campaign spokesman, Dahnil Anzar Simanjuntak said the team was recognising the importance of North Sumatra to the political landscape. Nationally, opinion polls suggest Widodo remains in the lead as election day nears, and many Chinese-Indonesian voters appear unconvinced by Prabowos attempt to win their votes this time around. In the end, the relationship between Prabowo and Chinese-Indonesian voters is not really about their vote. It is about political branding, political impression and political financing, said Ericssen. A Chinese woman charged with lying her way into US President Donald Trumps Florida resort last month entered a not guilty plea on Monday in federal court. Yujing Zhang was formally indicted on Friday for making false statements to a federal officer and entering or remaining in a restricted area, charges that carry a sentence of up to five years in prison. During her arraignment and detention hearing in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, a federal prosecutor said Yujing could face more charges. Federal Magistrate Judge William Matthewman refused to set bail for Yujing, saying there is an extreme risk of flight if she were released. The FBI is examining whether Yujing has any links to intelligence agencies in China or political influence operations, two US government sources have told Reuters news agency. Malware Yujing was arrested on March 30 after Secret Service agents say she lied to gain access to the presidents exclusive Mar-a-Lago club. She carried two passports, four mobile phones, a laptop, an external hard drive and a thumb drive carrying computer malware, agents said. In a later check of her hotel room, agents say, they found a device for detecting hidden cameras, more computer gear, $8,000 in cash and numerous debit and credit cards. She is not charged with espionage, but the FBI is still investigating. 190319094027135 The Secret Service said Yujing gained access by telling an agent outside Mar-a-Lago that she was a member arriving for a swim. Agents say she wasnt on the membership list, but a club manager thought Yujing might be a members daughter about seven percent of Chinese nationals have Zhang in their names, that countrys third-most common surname. Agents then asked Yujing if the member was her father, but they say she did not answer definitively. They still admitted her. Yujings story changed when she got inside, agents say, telling a front desk receptionist she was there to attend the United Nations Chinese American Association event scheduled for that evening. No such event was scheduled and agents were summoned. They say she became confrontational, so she was taken off the property and then to the local Secret Service office, undergoing about nine hours of questioning. She had arrived in the US two days earlier on a flight from Shanghai to Newark, New Jersey. Her public defender, Robert Adler, suggested during last weeks hearing that Yujing may not have been lying but confused by the language barrier. But a Secret Service agent wrote in court documents that during questioning she read and spoke English very well. A Secret Service agent told Matthewman last week that when an agency analyst uploaded the malware found on Yujings thumb drive, it immediately began installing and corrupting his computers files. The Secret Service says when such tests are conducted the computer is not on any network, so no damage was done. Government analysts were still trying to determine the malwares purpose. Adler said wire records show Yujing paid $20,000 in February to Charles Lee, a Chinese national, for admission to the event. Lee ran the UN Chinese Friendship Association and was photographed at least twice with Cindy Yang, a Republican donor and former Florida massage parlour owner. She recently made news after it was learned she was promising Chinese business leaders that her consulting firm could get them access to Mar-a-Lago and mingle with the president. Extinction Rebellion protesters bring parts of central London to a standstill to draw attention to global warming. Thousands of environmental protesters blocked access to landmarks and roads in central London, in an attempt to force the British government to declare climate change an emergency. Activists converged on Marble Arch, Oxford Circus, Piccadilly Circus and Parliament Square on Monday, while some smashed windows and daubed graffiti at the offices of energy giant Shell, near Waterloo. At sites across the British capital, campaigners chanted slogans and held placards that read There is no Planet B and Extinction is forever. Activists say the roadblocks could last for two weeks. By Tuesday morning, 113 adults had been arrested, most for breaching public order laws and obstructing a highway, Londons Metropolitan Police said. The figure includes three men and two women who were arrested at the UK offices of energy giant Royal Dutch Shell on suspicion of criminal damage. Extinction Rebellion The protests are being led by the Extinction Rebellion group and will involve demonstrations in 80 cities in 33 countries around the world in the coming days. The group, which made headlines earlier this month when some of its members held a semi-nude protest in the British parliament during a Brexit debate, has warned its members they could face arrest for participation in non-violent civil disobedience. The aim is to contribute to an escalating series of acts of civil disobedience which bring about change, said Larch Maxey, 46, a spokesman for the movement. 190403185301668 The plan is disruption and that disruption escalates until you get the attention of the people you are persuading to change, he said. Extinction Rebellion, which was launched in October by academics, wants the government to declare a climate and ecological emergency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025, halt biodiversity loss and create citizen assemblies on climate and ecological justice to oversee climate policy. Reporting from Marble Arch in central London, Al Jazeeras Bernard Smith said the protesters planned to camp there for at least three days. They are using this new type of civil disobedience to get the message of climate change across, he said. They have even set up solar panels because their intention is to camp out here. They say they are doing it because of the frustration over decades of warnings over climate change being ignored and the only way they can get people to take notice is to do this sort of civil disobedience. Our children will die On Waterloo Bridge, demonstrators set up a skateboard ramp and vegetarian food stalls, while others marched up and down the bridge behind a group of drummers. 190415112233494 Ruby Brookman, 22, a volunteer who helps refugees, told AFP news agency: Im here because our generation is going to be affected by this. I work with refugees and we saw people moving with climate change: drought in East Africa a while ago, the recent hurricanes in Zimbabwe. Protester Olivia Evershed, 23, said climate policies must be altered quickly to prevent catastrophic changes. If we dont do anything to change this, our children will die, she told the Associated Press news agency. Hollywood actor Willem Dafoe said he was sending a video message in support of the activists, telling them: Im with you. The group is also supported by US academic Noam Chomsky, as well as Canadian author Naomi Klein. More than 200 attendees look for solutions to hold states and individuals accountable for human rights violations. Doha, Qatar Seeking to find ways to hold individuals and countries accountable for war crimes and human rights violations around the world, speakers at a conference in the Qatari capital have recommended the establishment of an international mechanism to combat impunity and the disregard of international law by powerful nations. The problem is particularly acute in the Arab world, where devastating atrocities during civil wars and widespread human rights abuses are committed by regimes and armed groups alike, the speakers said on Monday. A lack of regional legislation and mechanisms to deter such violations bring the problems to crisis levels, with hundreds of thousands killed in Syria, Yemen going through the worlds worst humanitarian crisis, and Libya witnessing a burgeoning conflict. The international conference on national, regional, and international mechanisms to combat impunity and ensure accountability under international law was sponsored by Qatars National Human Rights Committee (NHRC). The NHRC chief, Ali bin Samikh al-Marri, noted the lack of a proper criminal justice system in the Arab world to deal with war crimes and rights abuses, and said the road to addressing violations must come through fostering national, regional and international criminal justice mechanisms. Lack of action But critics argue the international community and the UN organisations have failed to act against those who committed war crimes and human rights violations in the region. The people of Syria are very frustrated with the lack of action by the international community to hold the regime of President Bashar al-Assad accountable for its war crimes against the Syrian people, said Fadel Abdul Ghani of the Syrian Network for Human Rights. 190315191933901 The Syrian government stands accused of committing chemical attacks against civilians and other war crimes during eight years of war. Abdul Ghani said the international community has failed and that Syria is a huge example of this failure. Qatari lawyer Abdullah Taher raised concern the United States and other world powers are not held accountable for their misdeeds in the Arab world and elsewhere. Only developing countries and poor ones are held to account by the international organisations, he said. We want solutions for holding those responsible for committing war crimes in the region held to account. Unexpected and deeply flawed On April 12, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague turned down a request by its chief prosecutor to open a war crimes probe in Afghanistan, which could have looked into the possible role of US forces in wrongdoing, saying it would not serve the interests of justice. 190226123228334 The rejection came in part because of the US refusal to cooperate with any inquiry, including a decision in March to deny ICC personnel visas and revoking an entry visa for the chief prosecutor. I strongly doubt that the judges would have adopted such an unexpected and deeply flawed interpretation of the interests of justice had the US not so aggressively pressured the court to reject the Afghanistan investigation, said Kevin Jon Heller, a professor of international law at the Australia National University and the University of Amsterdam. The ICC decision reinforced a perception in Arab nations and developing countries that such international organisations cannot make independent decisions in the interest of justice, the participants said. Heller said the ICCs decision not to investigate the alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan will provide a road map to encourage other powerful states such as Russia to act with impunity and disregard international law. As a result, Heller argued, the ICC will now likely only focus on investigating abuses committed by weak states, rebel groups or deposed heads of state. Those are the only crimes where the ICC can expect significant state cooperation, said Heller. Ending impunity Panellists also questioned why the US is allowed to support the illegal Israeli occupation of the Palestinian West Bank and recognise Israeli sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights. How could you fight impunity here when the worlds most powerful country, the US, sets the example to other countries that powerful states are above international law, said Dawod Kuttab, a Jordanian writer and human rights activist. Mona Rishmawi, the chief of the rule of law, equality and non-discrimination branch at the UN high commission for human rights, said there is a wide gulf between powerful Western nations that call for international law and justice while not necessarily adhering to it and Arab governments that violate their peoples human rights. Every state is looking after its own interests and not necessarily the interests of human rights or the rule of law, she told Al Jazeera. We in the Arab world should listen to our people who are on the streets in Sudan, Algeria and elsewhere demanding dignity, justice and an end to corruption by the ruling regimes. The two-day conference concluded with a lengthy list of recommendations for nation states, civil society and national, international and regional mechanisms to help end impunity. Follow Ali Younes on Twitter: @ali_reports If MPs approve proposed constitutional amendments, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi can stay in power until at least 2030. Egypts parliament is set to vote on constitutional amendments including an extension to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisis current four-year term in office. If approved by parliament on Tuesday, the amendments will be put to a public referendum, widely expected later this month, before they go into effect, Ali Abdelaal, the parliament speaker, said on Sunday. Proposed constitutional amendments had previously suggested that Sisi would be allowed to seek two new six-year terms after his current one expires in 2022. But according to a recent draft seen by Reuters news agency, the latest amendments could allow Sisi to stay in power until 2030 by extending his current term by two more years and allowing him to run again in 2024. State television reported parliaments legislative committee approved the amendments and they were ready to go to the full house for a vote, scheduled for Tuesday. Abdelaal said the changes were the result of civic discussions organised by parliament to hear diverse views on the proposed amendments. Sisis supporters dominate the 596-member assembly. More changes The proposals also call for setting up a second parliamentary chamber, the Senate, composed of 180 members and giving the president new powers over appointing judges and the public prosecutor. They also include amending Article 200 of the Constitution to add the militarys duty is to protect the constitution and democracy and the fundamental makeup of the country and its civil nature. Some critics fear those changes will give the military more influence on political life in Egypt. Sisis supporters say the changes are necessary to give him more time to complete major development projects and economic reforms. His critics say they concentrate more powers in the hands of a leader accused by rights groups of presiding over a relentless crackdown on freedoms. The development comes eight years since Egypts pro-democracy uprising ended Hosni Mubaraks nearly 30-year rule. Sisi led the 2013 military overthrow of elected president and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi and was elected Egypts leader the following year. He has presided over an unprecedented crackdown on dissent and was re-elected last year after all potentially serious challengers were jailed or pressured to exit the presidential race. New civil society coalition urges voters to quiz candidates and push the environment higher up the political agenda. Jakarta, Indonesia One-third of Indonesias rainforest will disappear by 2020 if nothing is done to reverse the damage caused by logging and palm oil plantations. The water around the tourist island of Bali is full of plastic, while deforestation and mining are causing devastating floods. Despite the threats, the state of the environment has not been a key issue with the country heading to the polls this week. Neither candidate has strong policies on environmental protection, said Ratri Kusumohartono, a forest campaigner with Greenpeace Indonesia. Both are still pursuing extractive industries as the main source of national income. A new civil society, focussing its attention on young voters, aims to change that. The movement is called Golongan Hutan (Golhut), or Forest Groups, a play on the name of Golkar, the political party that dominated the country in the era of president Soeharto and the slang term for not voting, golput. It is the first time that a major, multi-organisational campaign has been developed in Indonesia to hold political candidates to account on green issues. An indigenous-managed forest in the west of Java. The sign reads This forest no longer belongs to the state. Despite the environmental problems facing Indonesia, the environment is not an electoral issue [Kate Walton/Al Jazeera] We do not have the luxury of time to continue letting Indonesians face the uncertainty of natural disasters and climate change, said Golhut in a press release. Sustainable development is only an illusion if the next government is not willing to make fundamental changes to the nations economic and developmental policies. Millennial voters aged between 18 and 35 make up 40 percent of voters in this years poll, meaning their choices at the ballot box will be hugely influential. Internet and media-savvy, these voters rely heavily on online sources for their news so Golhut has designed infographics and short videos to highlight the countrys environmental challenges. Corruption, collusion, nepotism This year is a political year, so it has strong momentum to focus on important issues like environmental sustainability, said Kusumohartono of Greenpeace which is part of the Golhut coalition. Through the Golhut campaign, we want to raise awareness on corruption, collusion, and nepotism in the forestry sector. The current Indonesian government, under President Joko Widodo, who is up for re-election, has made significant strides in reducing corruption. The nations Corruption Eradication Commission is widely viewed as one of the most successful government bodies, and corruption in areas such as taxation has been all but eradicated. In the forestry sector, however, Kusumohartono told Al Jazeera that bribes remain common, particularly around the palm oil and timber industries, and corruption is complicated by weak law enforcement. Many young voters care about corruption, she said. But because the majority live in urban areas, they are not aware of how corruption contributes to environmental destruction. We use the internet and social media to reach them, and ask them to put questions to the candidates on these topics. Kusumohartono said more than 6,000 questions had been asked as of April 1, but only one received an answer. The Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) a new party that is seen as the millennials party responded to a question with a link to PSIs environmental policy. Rice fields give way to natural growth forests in western Java [Kate Walton/Al Jazeera] Clock ticking Forests are just the entry point to get voters concerned about the environment, said Ririn Sefsani, Human Rights Defenders team leader at Kemitraan, another organisation behind Golhut. Were not just about protecting forests but the whole environmental system. Forests are representative of the problems Indonesia is facing. Environmental issues are a major challenge for Indonesia, its archipelago stretching 2,830 kilometres along the equator from Aceh in the west to Papua in the east. Deforestation, mining, and erosion are causing more floods than ever before. In 2017, 343 people were killed and 2.5 million displaced as a result of flooding. Jakarta, the countrys sprawling capital is sinking faster than any other city on the planet, parts of it as much as 20cm annually, primarily due to drops in groundwater levels. Forty percent of Jakarta is now below sea level. Sefsani said Golhut users questions will be compiled over the coming weeks and presented as citizens concerns to both presidential candidates, as well as to Bappenas, the National Development Agency, for consideration in its 2020-2024 National Mid-Term Development Plan. While a more environmentally friendly approach to the economy will be welcome, Golhut coalition members are pushing for even more. An infographic on their Instagram page states that Indonesia lost the equivalent of 86 trillion rupiah ($6bn) as a result of state-owned land being rented to companies between 2003 and 2012, leading to deforestation of more than 3.6 trillion hectares in the four years leading up to 2012. With 86 trillion [rupiah], you could buy fried snacks for all your future children and grandchildren, and youd still have money left over, reads the caption. What do you think this money should have been used for? Omar accuses Trump of encouraging hate after he tweeted edited video suggesting she had been dismissive of 9/11 attacks. Ilhan Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to the United States Congress, said on Sunday that she has faced increased death threats since President Donald Trump tweeted an edited video that purports to show her being dismissive of the September 11, 2001 attacks. This is endangering lives, she said. It has to stop. Her statement late on Sunday followed an announcement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that she has taken steps to ensure the safety of the Minnesota Democrat and the speakers call for Trump to take down the video. Soon after Pelosis statement, the video disappeared as a pinned tweet at the top of Trumps Twitter feed, but it was not deleted. Pelosi was among the Democrats who had criticised Trump over the tweet, with some accusing him of trying to incite violence against the Muslim politician. An upstate New York man was recently charged with making death threats against her. Speaking to US media earlier on Sunday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders defended Trump, saying the president has a duty to highlight Omars history of making comments that others deem anti-Semitic or otherwise offensive and that he wished no ill will upon the first-term politician. Trump on Monday tweeted that Omar is out of control and criticised Pelosi for defending the Minnesota Democrat. Trump encourages hate Omar said that since Trump retweeted the video on Friday night, she has received many threats that referred or replied to the posted video. Violent crimes and other acts of hate by right-wing extremists and white nationalists are on the rise in this country and around the world, she said. We can no longer ignore that they are being encouraged by the occupant of the highest office in the land. She said: We are all Americans. We are all Americans. This is endangering lives. It has to stop. pic.twitter.com/gwB2kDUIRp Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) April 15, 2019 Earlier, Pelosi issued a statement while travelling in London, saying she had spoken with congressional authorities to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff. Pelosi said officials will continue to monitor and assess threats against Omar and called on Trump to discourage such behaviour. The presidents words weigh a tonne, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger, Pelosi said. President Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video. The video in Trumps tweet included a snippet from a recent speech Omar gave to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) last month, in which she described the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center as some people did something, along with news footage of the hijacked aeroplanes hitting the Twin Towers. Trump captioned his tweet with, WE WILL NEVER FORGET! Critics accuse Omar of being flippant in describing the perpetrators of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. She later sought to defend herself by tweeting a quote from President George W Bush, in which the Republican president referred to the attackers as people just days after 9/11. Neither Trumps tweet nor the video included Omars full quote or the context of her comments, which were about Muslims feeling that their civil liberties had eroded after the attacks. The tweet was posted atop Trumps Twitter feed for much of Sunday, with more than nine million views. It remained lower in the feed after Pelosi requested that the video be pulled. #BoycottNYPost Last week, the New York Post newspaper ran a front-page headline that said, heres your something, along with a photo of the World Trade Center in flames. The cover prompted the Yemeni American Merchants Association to call for a boycott of the newspaper. Over the weekend, Yemen American bodegas and stores across New York City refused to sell the paper in their stores. The boycott is ongoing. Our merchants will not sell your hate and bigotry @nypost. Our stores will not be a platform to spread fear in the streets of #NYC! #BoycottNYPost pic.twitter.com/tJJpDOcVS2 YAMAbodegastrikebaby (@YAMAMerchants) April 15, 2019 Celebrities, activists and politicians, including many who have criticised Omar in the past for comments on Israel, came to Omars defence under #IStandWithIlhanOmar. Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat who represents Manhattans financial district, which was targeted on 9/11, said he had no issues with Omars characterisation of the attack. I have had some problems with some of her other remarks, but not but not with that one, he told CNNs State of the Union programme. Omar has received numerous death threats since taking office in January. Last month, she was the subject of anti-Muslim attack in the West Virginia legislature, where a poster was displayed at a Republican-sponsored gathering that falsely linked her to the 9/11 attacks. When Arturo Balbino, a Texas construction worker, walked into his visa interview at the US consulate in the northern Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez in March, he wasnt nervous. He felt good. Balbino, a 33-year-old Mexican national who had entered the United States without proper documents 14 years ago, thought he had a strong case for a spousal visa: a wife and children who are US citizens, a father-in-law who had pledged in an affidavit to financially support him if necessary, and a letter from his employer guaranteeing him a $18-per-hour job upon his return. When he went for the interview, he was at the final step of legalising his status, which would, he hoped, pave the way for a stabler life for himself and his family. Instead, the consular officer denied his application on the grounds that he could become a drain on US taxpayers by requiring government financial assistance, according to documents reviewed by Reuters news agency. That decision stranded Balbino in Mexico indefinitely and upended his familys life. Balbino poses for a photo inside his house in Neutla, Guanajuato state, Mexico [Edgard Garrido/Reuters] More and more aspiring immigrants especially Mexicans are being denied visas based on the determination by the US State Department that they might become public charges, dependent on the government for support, according to official data and interviews with lawyers, immigrants and their family members. Lawyers for some immigrants say consular officers are denying visas even when applicants fulfil legal requirements to prove they will be financially independent. The refusals, capping an often complex and lengthy application process, can trap people for months or longer outside the US, separated from American spouses and children, as they renew their efforts to return. Some may never be able to go back. One reason for the rise in refusals is little-known changes last year in the State Departments foreign affairs manual that gave diplomats wider discretion in deciding visa denials on public-charge grounds. The changes occurred in January 2018 as the Department of Homeland Security was preparing a separate, highly controversial proposal to restrict immigration on public-charge grounds. The regulation, officially proposed in October, received more than 200,000 public comments, which will likely take months longer to fully evaluate. Some critics say the State Department is using a back door, tightening immigration policy without going through a similarly high-profile rule-making process. 181010124607862 The State Department is trying to bypass public comment and implement changes to public-charge (policy) all on its own, said Charles Wheeler, a lawyer with the Catholic Legal Immigration Network. These changes are already having a terrible effect on people. The State Department declined to comment, citing pending litigation over the manual changes. In the lawsuit in a Maryland federal court, the government rejected accusations that the manual changes are motivated by any antipathy towards immigrants and argued that such guidance is not subject to court review or laws requiring public comment. The guidance, government lawyers wrote in a February court filing, is neutral and implements a long-standing US law meant to exclude immigrants who are likely to become burdens on the US. The government acknowledged in the filing that the guidance could potentially lead to more frequent public-charge denials. The changes to the manual are not the only reason for the increase in refusals of immigrant visa applications on public-charge grounds. Those have risen since 2015, when fewer than 900 were issued, according to government data. But after the manual changes in January 2018, the refusals shot up. In the 2018 fiscal year, which ended in September, nearly 13,500 immigrant visa applications were refused on public-charge grounds quadruple the number in the previous fiscal year and the highest total since 2004. 180923064341246 Fewer visas for Mexicans Although the State Department does not release visa refusal data by nationality or consulate, immigration lawyers said public-charge enforcement is particularly rigorous at the US consulate in Ciudad Juarez, where all Mexican immigrant visa applications are processed. Mexicans received 11 percent fewer immigrant visas in the fiscal year 2018 compared with 2017, much higher than a 4.6 percent overall decline in such visas to people of all nationalities during that period. Previously, the State Department typically considered an affidavit of support, signed by an American citizen or permanent resident offering to act as a sponsor of the immigrant, sufficient evidence that the person would not become a government burden, immigration lawyers said. To qualify as a sponsor, a person must make at least 125 percent of the US poverty level for that persons household size. According to the affidavit from Balbinos father-in-law, seen by Reuters, he made almost $90,000 a year tens of thousands of dollars more than the government requires for a household of his size. Now, according to the manual, the affidavit is just one factor among many. Consular officers are now also allowed to consider past or current use of public benefits, including health and nutrition services. And that includes use by an immigrants family, even if they are citizens. Under the previous version of the manual, consular officials were not permitted to consider the use of non-cash benefits. Balbinos childrens use of the Medicaid programme for low-income households and food stamps was an issue that came up in his visa interview, along with questions about his father-in-laws commitment to supporting him, Balbino said. Trapped in Mexico Public-charge denials can be particularly devastating for people like Balbino, who entered the US without documents, built lives and have an opportunity to legalise their status through marriage. Its a complex process, but many immigrants like Balbino are willing to complete. US law requires people who have been present in the US without documents for longer than six months to leave and remain abroad for several years before attempting to re-enter. 190412221134816 But visa applicants can ask for waivers that allow them to return more quickly. Balbino obtained such a waiver in 2017. Once a visa is refused on public-charge grounds, however, such waivers are revoked, trapping the person outside the country for months or years. With Balbinos waiver now revoked, his wife, Darlene, is considering moving with her children to his hometown in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. She doesnt work and is struggling to pay the bills. We cant make it on our own any more, she said. Balbino leaves an ice cream shop with his son Javen, 6, in Neutla, Guanajuato state, Mexico [Edgard Garrido/Reuters] Because the family is so strapped, two of the five children, aged six and 10, have already been sent to live with Balbino a move they are finding difficult. They have spent their whole life in the United States, Balbino said in an interview. They dont speak much Spanish. The six-year-old boy had been receiving therapy for a speech impediment at his Texas school, but after the move to Mexico, his speech has started to regress, said Darlene, who is still in Texas with her two older daughters and a toddler while she figures out what to do next. Her husband is contemplating the possibility that the family will be apart for years. At times, I want to think that everything will be okay and Ill be able to be with my family again, Arturo Balbino said. Its very difficult to think that I wont be able to return to watch my children grow up. Guwahati, April 13 : As a celebration of the self and the individual, Blenders Pride Magical Nights 2019 arrived in Guwahati, the capital city of Assam as an extension to the coveted Blenders Pride Fashion Tour that introduced its extraordinary new concept-'Pride'. The evening delved into the idea of 'Pride' through one's choices, style and legacy, as designer maestro Varun Bahl collaborated with fashion sculptor Pallavi Mohan to curate a phenomenal experience with their exquisite ensembles. Captivating the audience with her charisma, showstopper Sanya Malhotra looked stunning in Varun's masterpiece. Far removed from the traditional confines of mere success, Blenders Pride Magical Nights 2019 defined 'Pride' as an inner sense of achievement, of uniqueness and of individuality, all the things that are a hallmark of today's generation. As a meaningful expression of success, the evening recognized individuals who have created their own distinct tales of style, and are instilled with a strong sense of positive pride, for their self-earned achievements. While their distinct choices define their individuality, the taste of pride which comes from their accomplishments is one for these indivziduals. Commenting on the occasion, Raja Banerji, Assistant Vice President, Pernod Ricard India, said that, Instilled with a strong sense of positive pride, individuals today are driven by confidence and belief for attaining success. "For today's consumer, having a unique style and expressing the same is non-negotiable. Style and Pride, hence are fundamentally democratic. It is every individual's potential to create their unique identity and to strive for authenticity. Blenders Pride Magical Nights brings this alive through an eclectic collaboration of the most stylish and talented in fashion, to deliver a never seen before and exciting experience to the consumers," Raja Banerji said. Designer Varun Bahl showcased his pret collection that includes easy, ready-to-wear, coordinates for the modern Indian woman, who dresses according to her personality. In this fast changing landscape of Indian fashion, the Varun Bahl Pret collection is aimed at the young, aspiring Indian woman who is looking for signature pieces that add a distinct design value to her wardrobe, and also act as long-lasting separates that can be paired and styled in multiple ways. Talking about his curation designer Varun Bahl said that, Style today, has many facets and cannot be confined. "It is a reflection of one's authenticity and uniqueness. Weaving these reflections of style together at Blenders Pride Magical Nights, I take great pride in narrating what has made me what I am today; therefore, it's an absolute honor to be associated with the brand, as it provides a stage to bring forth individuality in the most unique fashion," Varun Bahl said. Weaving a seamless story around 'My Identity, My Pride', Guwahati also got to witness Pallavi Mohan's collections that merge western sensibilities with Indian ethos. (By Hemanta Kumar Nath, Guwahati) The electoral body, which manages the biggest electoral exercise on Earth, struggles to act against poll violations. New Delhi, India In 2011, Hillary Clinton, a former US secretary of state and presidential candidate, during her visit to India, referred to Indias electoral commission as a global gold standard in election management. The Election Commission of India (ECI) a constitutional authority has successfully conducted 16 general elections since the countrys independence from British rule in 1947. Voting for Indias multi-phase general elections kicked off last week with 900 million people eligible to vote in the biggest democratic exercise in the world. And more than 11 million election officials deployed to over one million polling stations located in every nook and cranny of the country will ensure that the process goes smoothly. To administer free and fair elections, the ECI framed a Model Code of Conduct (MCC), a set of guidelines for candidates and political parties, that came into effect as soon as the election dates were announced and will stay in force until the results are declared. 190410185739389 As per MCC guidelines, candidates and political parties are banned from invoking religion and caste in campaigning while a limit has been placed on expenditures by candidates and parties. Incumbent governments are also barred from announcing new schemes and programmes after the MCC comes into force. But it seems the ECI, touted as the most powerful electoral body in the world, has struggled to act against violators. In the past few weeks alone, the ECI has received hundreds of thousands of complaints alleging violations of the MCC. On April 1, while addressing a rally in Maharashtras Wardha district, Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacked opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhis decision to contest the election from Keralas Wayanad seat which has a significant Muslim presence saying the Congress was afraid of fielding candidates from constituencies dominated by Hindus. The ECI did not act, despite the MCC ban on such statements, while at the same time it served notice to Mayawati, a prominent Dalit leader, for seeking Muslim votes in an election speech. Indias far-right politicians are infamous for hate speech against minority groups such as Muslims and Dalits but most of them get away with it. According to the latest count, 70 members of parliament and state legislatures have hate-speech cases pending against them. Candidates accused of using hate speech against minorities are three times more successful in elections, according to ECI data. Recently, Maneka Gandhi, a federal minister from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in her speech warned Muslims not to vote against her. The electoral body also issued orders that the armed forces should not be used to promote political parties. This followed an outcry over the BJP campaigns use of a photograph of a fighter pilot who was captured and later released by Pakistan during a recent military standoff. However, the pilots photographs have continued to feature prominently on the ruling partys campaign material. In violation of the ECI orders, on March 27, Modi used the pilots name in an interview with Republic TV without censure from the election monitor. When a complaint was filed against Modi, election officials said they had received a complaint but no action had been taken so far.. In the past two years, the ECI has also been accused of delaying election dates to benefit the BJP. In October 2017, the polling dates for Gujarat were delayed by 12 days. The BJP-led state and central governments used the delay to announce a slew of schemes and development projects that were inaugurated by Modi in a whirlwind tour. The delay led opposition parties and civil society groups to allege that the ECI was pressured by the ruling party to grant it extra time to announce schemes tailored for the election. On Monday, a group of prominent retired bureaucrats wrote to President Ramnath Kovind saying the ECI was suffering from a crisis in credibility. The signatories included former National Security Advisor (NSA) Shivshankar Menon and the former Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Najeeb Jung. They said they were distressed by the misuse, abuse and blatant disregard of the MCC by Prime Minister Modis BJP and the ECIs pusillanimity in dealing with these violations. On Friday, it was the BJPs turn to register its complaint. The ruling party said it was let down by the ECI for not acting against Rahul Gandhi for calling the prime minister a thief last September. It also filed a complaint against vote-rigging in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh states where elections were held on April 11. PDT Achary, former Secretary General of Lok Sabha and a constitutional expert, said, The ECI does not take complaints to their logical conclusion. Once the response to the ECI notice comes in, ECI does not go any further, as if the response is always satisfactory. This was apparent in a recent case when the ECI issued a notice to Yogi Adityanath, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh known for his anti-Muslim statements. On April 1, he gave a speech in which he referred to the Indian army as Modi ki Sena (Modis army). The ECI finally acted against Yogi and Mayawati on Sunday when it imposed a temporary ban on them election campaigning. Sheyphali Sharan, the official spokesperson of the ECI, told Al Jazeera, EC is working to the best of its ability. We will not ignore any complaints. We are committed to making sure that the elections are conducted in a free, impartial manner. Last week, the ECI banned the release of a Bollywood biopic on Modi and ordered the BJP to stop the airing of a channel called NaMo TV, saying it would disturb [a] level playing field. Although the MCC sets a limit for how much a candidate can spend on campaigning, it has hardly been enforced, says Major General Anil Verma, coordinator of the NGO, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). Black money and cash are an open secret in Indian election campaigns. Even when the election expenditure cap per candidate is $100,000 (Rs 7 million) this year, the actual expenditure often goes up to $800,000 (Rs 55 million). The ECI cant take action because it does not have an investigating unit to prove it, he said. 190410185739389 Organisations such as ADR have been calling for reforms to strengthen the ECI but successive governments have dragged their feet. But N Gopalaswami, former Chief Election Commissioner says it is wrong to question the intention of the ECI. He says, No election commission is completely partisan. There may be some individuals but not the entire commission. The problem is that ECI does not have a statutory backing to go beyond the notices. It does not have the power to file cases once the elections are over. It has to go to the Supreme Court to do so, he told Al Jazeera. Achary, the constitutional expert, said the MCC is a product of consensus, it is a set of guidelines with no legal binding but there was still a way to deal with complaints. There is a provision for the EC that if any party violates MCC, they can withdraw the election symbol of a party. The point is will the EC derecognise the symbol of the ruling party when a prime minister violates MCC? Achary asked. The Indira Gandhi years Political observers have drawn parallels between Modi and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who briefly imposed a state of emergency and disrupted Indias only democratic process in the late 1970s. She was accused of electoral malpractice in the 1971 elections but the ECI failed to act against her. She was later disqualified as a Member of Parliament after her opponent went to court. In 1989, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) RVS Peri Sastri introduced wide-ranging electoral reforms, including reducing the voting age to 18 from 21. He also stood his ground when Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi Indira Gandhis son tried to manipulate election dates to his advantage. The show of power by Sastri prompted the government to make a multi-member panel to head the ECI a move widely seen as the first attempt to dilute the power of the ECI and its chief. TN Seshan, an Indian Administrative Services officer, who stepped in as the tenth Chief Election Commissioner in 1990, is also credited with a range of reforms to conduct free and fair elections. He introduced the concept of voter photo ID and enlisted security forces to check booth capturing and voter intimidation, to much acclaim. In the 90s, TN Seshan was one Election Commissioner who showed how powerful the ECI is. In his time, political parties were afraid of the ECI, especially those parties that were known for booth capturing. It became impossible for them to continue as before, Achary said. Parisians and visitors express shock and dismay as they watch inferno that destroyed the heart of Paris. Residents in Paris and visitors have packed the areas around the famed Notre Dame cathedral, expressing shock and disbelief as they watched a massive fire engulf the iconic symbol in the centre of Frances capital. Some people bore witness to the inferno by chance on Monday evening, others headed to the scene on purpose. All were horrified by what they saw. Notre Dame is the heart of Paris and I came as soon as I heard. This is our heart and it is disappearing in the flames, Claire, a 15-year-old onlooker, told Al Jazeera, tears streaming down her face. What do we have left? Police attempted to clear pedestrians away from the two islands in the River Seine, including the Ile de la Cite which houses the soaring Gothic church, one of Europes best-known landmarks. But throngs of onlookers kept trying to approach, snarling traffic as they massed on the stone bridges leading to the islands. Gasping and crying, they watched in horror as the cathedrals spire came crashing down. Police were attempting to clear pedestrians away from the two islands in the River Seine [Victoria Baux/Al Jazeera] There is a feeling of shock everywhere, witness Timothee Meuret told Al Jazeera, describing the fire as absolutely huge. Everyone was quiet and some people were in tears. It was really emotional. Yvette, a French-American student, told Al Jazeera she rushed to the scene to see the cathedral one last time while it was still here. I came as soon as I could because I didnt know how bad the fire was going to be or how much of the structure was still going to be standing, she said. For me, this is Paris. This is such a big part of the city, I couldnt stand to watch from a distance. Built in the 12th and 13th centuries, Notre Dame is the most famous of the Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages as well as one of the most beloved structures in the world. Its architecture is renowned for, among other things, its many gargoyles and iconic flying buttresses. Among the most celebrated artworks inside are its three stained-glass rose windows, placed high up on the west, north and south faces of the cathedral. Its priceless treasures also include a Catholic relic, the crown of thorns, which is only occasionally displayed, including on Fridays during Lent. A spokesman said the entire wooden frame of the cathedral would likely come down, and that the vault of the edifice could be threatened too. Flames rise from Notre Dame cathedral in central Paris[Thibault Camus/AP Photo] There is nothing left [of the building], Mary Mahiou, a witness, told Al Jazeera. We can see the firefighters, trying to do their best but unfortunately we dont believe that theres anything that can be done. Its really sad. Nedjma, another witness, said she saw the fire on her way home from work. As we walked, we could feel ashes on our faces. Everyone was really shocked by this, she told Al Jazeera. Its a huge monument and a huge part of Pariss history. Anne-Elisabeth Moutet, a French journalist in Paris, call the fire as a disaster that took place just days before Easter amid Holy Week commemorations. We all have a personal relationship with the cathedral youd think that it will always be there and it will outlast you and suddenly you feel that it can destroyed. Victoria Baux contributed to the report US Attorney General William Barr has provided only a glimpse of Special Counsel Robert Muellers report on the inquiry into Russias role in the 2016 US election, with many details expected to emerge when a redacted version of the document is released on Thursday. In a press conference on Thursday ahead of the redacted reports release, Barr offered a spirited defence of President Donald Trump, emphasising that Mueller found no collusion between Trumps campaign and Moscow. Barr, a Trump appointee, said Muellers report recounts 10 episodes involving Trump that were investigated as potential acts of criminal obstruction of justice. Barr said Mueller did not reach a prosecutorial judgment and that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded the evidence was not sufficient to establish the president committed an offence. President Trump faced an unprecedented situation. As he entered into office and sought to perform his responsibilities as president, federal agents and prosecutors were scrutinizing his conduct before and after taking office and the conduct of some of his associates, Barr said. At the same time, there was relentless speculation in the news media about the presidents personal culpability. Yet, as he said from the beginning, there was in fact no collusion, added Barr, one of handful of people to have seen the report. Barr said Trumps personal lawyers were given the opportunity to read a final version of the redacted report before it was publicly released, a revelation certain to infuriate congressional Democrats. Barr added that he will send the redacted version of the report, which is nearly 400 pages, to Congress at 11:00am (15:00GMT) on Thursday. The attorney general has said he was blacking out four types of information: grand jury information, intelligence sources and methods, potential interference with ongoing prosecutions, and information that would implicate privacy or reputation interest of peripheral players in the Trump-Russia probe. But Democrats, who are demanding the release of the full, unredacted version, have heavily criticised Barrs handling of the rollout of the report. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Barr had thrown out his credibility and the DOJs independence with his single-minded effort to protect Trump. And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, The process is poisoned before the report is even released. 190418130236282 Pelosi and Schumer issued a joint statement early on Thursday calling for Mueller to appear before Congress as soon as possible. They said Barrs partisan handling of the report has resulted in a crisis of confidence in his independence and impartiality. For his part, Trump has repeatedly called the Mueller investigation a witch-hunt. Here are five things to look for when the redacted report is issued: 1. Obstruction of justice: why no exoneration? Perhaps the biggest political risk for Trump is the special counsels supporting evidence behind Muellers assertion that while the report does not conclude the Republican president committed the crime of obstruction of justice, it also does not exonerate him on that point. 190401145753073 According to Barrs March 24 letter, Mueller has presented evidence on both sides of the question without concluding whether to prosecute. Barr filled that void by asserting there was no prosecutable case. But Barrs statement in the letter that most of Trumps actions that had raised questions about obstruction were the subject of public reporting suggested that some actions were not publicly known. Democrats in Congress do not believe Barr, a Trump appointee, should have the final say on the matter. Although the prospect that the Democratic-led House of Representatives would begin the impeachment process to try to remove Trump from office appears to have receded, the House Judiciary Committee will be looking for any evidence relevant to ongoing probes into obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power by the president or others in the administration. Barrs comment that most of what Mueller probed on obstruction has been publicly reported indicates that events like Trumps firing of James Comey as FBI director in May 2017, when the agency was heading the Russia inquiry, are likely to be the focus of this section of the report. 2. Russian information warfare and campaign contacts The report will detail indictments by Mueller of two Kremlin-backed operations to influence the 2016 election: one against a St Petersburg-based troll farm called the Internet Research Agency accused of waging information warfare over social media; and the other charging Russian intelligence officers with hacking into Democratic Party servers and pilfering emails leaked to hurt its candidate Hillary Clinton. 190322205843843 With those two indictments already public and bearing no apparent link to the president, the focus may be on what Mueller concluded, if anything, about other incidents that involved contacts between Russians and people in Trumps orbit. That could include the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in New York in which a Russian lawyer promised dirt on Clinton to senior campaign officials, as well as a secret January 2017 meeting in the Seychelles investigated as a possible attempt to set up a back channel between the incoming Trump administration and the Kremlin while Democrat Barack Obama was still president. Any analysis of such contacts could shed light on why Mueller, according to Barrs summary, did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities. 3. Manafort, Ukraine policy and polling data In the weeks before Trumps former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was sentenced in March to seven and a half years in prison mostly for financial crimes related to millions of dollars he was paid by pro-Russia Ukrainian politicians, Muellers team provided hints about what their pursuit of him was really about. 190326083105913 Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann told a judge in February that an August 2, 2016 meeting between Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik, a consultant Mueller has said has ties to Russian intelligence, went to the heart of the special counsels investigation. The meeting included a discussion about a proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine in terms favourable to the Kremlin, an issue that has damaged Russias relations with the West. Prosecutors also said Manafort shared Trump campaign polling data with Kilimnik, although the significance of that act remains unclear. One focus will be on what Mueller ultimately concluded about Manaforts interactions with Kilimnik and whether a failed attempt to secure cooperation from Manafort, who was found by a judge to have lied to prosecutors in breach of a plea agreement, significantly impeded the special counsels work. 4. US national security concerns Although Mueller did not find a criminal conspiracy with Russia, according to Barr, there is a chance the report will detail behaviour and financial entanglements that give fodder to critics who have said Trump has shown a pattern of deference to the Kremlin. One example of such an entanglement was the proposal to build a Trump tower in Moscow, a deal potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars that never materialised. Michael Cohen, Trumps former personal lawyer, admitted to lying to Congress about the project to provide cover because Trump on the campaign trail had denied any dealings with Russia. 190322234420467 In the absence of criminal charges arising from Muellers inquiry, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has shifted his focus to whether Trump is compromised by such entanglements, influencing his policy decisions and posing a risk to national security. Some legal experts have said the counterintelligence probe Mueller inherited from Comey may prove more significant than his criminal inquiry, though it is not clear to what degree counterintelligence findings will be included in the report. Barr has also said he planned to redact material related to intelligence-gathering sources and methods. 5. Middle East influence and other probes Another focus is whether Mueller will disclose anything from his inquiries into the Middle Eastern efforts to influence Trump. 190311134818971 One mystery is what, if anything, came of the special counsels questioning of George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman and consultant to the crown princes of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia who started cooperating with Mueller last year. Nader attended the Seychelles meeting. He too was present at a Trump Tower meeting in August 2016, three months before the election, at which an Israeli social media specialist spoke with the presidents son, Donald Trump Jr, about how his firm Psy-Group, which employed several former Israeli intelligence officers, could help the Trump campaign, according to the New York Times. Muellers interest in Nader suggested the special counsel looked into whether additional countries sought to influence the election and whether they did so in concert with Russia. A lawyer for Nader did not respond to a request for comment. Barr has said he will redact from the Mueller report information on other ongoing matters, including inquiries referred to other offices in the Justice Department. That makes it unclear if any findings related to the Middle East will appear in the report. Worldwide condolences to the French people came quickly as the massive blaze engulfed the historic Parisian landmark. Notre Dame Cathedral went up in flames on Monday in a roaring blaze that devastated the icon in Paris- a searing loss for the city and for France. Flames that began in the early evening burst through the roof of the centuries-old cathedral and engulfed the spire, which quickly collapsed followed by the entire roof. A huge plume of smoke wafted across the city and ash fell over a large area. Parisians watched on, many of them lost for words. Reaction from around the world was swift. The Catholic Church in the Holy Land said it is praying the fire was not intentional while expressing solidarity with the church in France. We pray that there will be no injuries, for the fire not to be intentional, and for least possible damage to the church, a statement released in Jerusalem said. Symbol of European culture German Chancellor Angela Merkel was among the first world leaders to offer her sympathies over the fire that overwhelmed the 12th century icon, saying our thoughts are with our French friends. Merkels office called the building a symbol of France and of our European culture. These horrible images of Notre-Dame on fire are painful, Merkels spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Twitter. Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he hoped fire services would succeed in quickly bringing the blaze under control and saving the monument. The Cathedral of Notre Dame is shown in 1911 [AP Photo] US President Donald Trump expressed his sorrow shortly after the fire broke out and even made suggestions on how first responders should tackle it. So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly, Trump offered his advice on Twitter. The Vatican learned with shock and sadness the news of the terrible fire which has devastated the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, a symbol of Christianity in France and the world, Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said in a statement. We express our solidarity to French Catholics and to the people of Paris and we offer our prayers for firefighters and those who are doing what is possible to face this dramatic situation, said Gisotti. https://twitter.com/Mnurferuz/status/1117865323103809536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw The United Nations cultural agency said it stood at Frances side to save and restore Notre Dame Cathedral, a priceless heritage. Notre Dame was added to UNESCOs world heritage list in 1991. Audrey Azoulay, secretary-general of UNESCO, said the agency was monitoring the effort to put out the blaze. Police in Paris said the cause of the massive fire enveloping the cathedral isnt yet known, adding no deaths were reported. Notre Dame is one of the worlds great treasures, and were thinking of the people of France in your time of grief. Its in our nature to mourn when we see history lost but its also in our nature to rebuild for tomorrow, as strong as we can. pic.twitter.com/SpMEvv1BzB Barack Obama (@BarackObama) April 15, 2019 Terrible blaze British Prime Minister Theresa May expressed her thoughts for the people of France and emergency services battling the devastating fire. My thoughts are with the people of France tonight and with the emergency services who are fighting the terrible blaze at Notre Dame Cathedral, the British leader tweeted. London Mayor Sadiq Khan offered his citys condolences to the French people. Heartbreaking scenes of Notre Dame cathedral in flames, Khan said on Twitter. London stands in sorrow with Paris today and in friendship always. Located on the Ile de la Cite in the centre of Paris, the Gothic cathedral is among the most famous from the Middle Ages and was built on the ruins of two earlier churches. The ancient monument was undergoing a $6.8m renovation when the blaze started. Horrified by the pictures coming from Paris with the fire engulfing Notre Dame Cathedral a unique example of world heritage that has stood tall since the 14th century. My thoughts are with the people and government of France. https://t.co/KnLegnlRFH Antonio Guterres (@antonioguterres) April 15, 2019 The Notre Dame Cathedral is one of Paris most popular tourist landmarks and attracts millions of visitors every year. The cathedral was immortalised in Victor Hugos The Hunchback of Notre Dame, published in 1831, and has long been a subject of fascination in popular culture as well as the traditional art world. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, said he was praying to ask the intercession of Notre Dame, our Lady, for the Cathedral at the heart of Paris, and of civilization, now in flames! God preserve this splendid house of prayer, and protect those battling the blaze. US-sponsored deal of the century will likely exclude a sovereign Palestinian state, the Washington Post reports. A United Statess proposal for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, dubbed the deal of the century, will likely not include a fully sovereign Palestinian state, the Washington Post reported. According to sources familiar with the main elements of the deal, the agreement pledged practical improvements in the lives of Palestinians but stops short of securing a Palestinian state. The White House is expected to reveal its long-awaited peace deal, spearheaded by Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trumps son-in-law, later this year. While officials have kept details of the plan secret, comments from Kushner and other US officials suggest that it does away with statehood as the starting premise of peace efforts, the Washington Post reported. The plan is likely to focus heavily on Israeli security concerns. It revolves around a proposal that foresees major infrastructure and industrial work, particularly in the besieged Gaza Strip. For the plan to succeed or even pass the starting gate, it will need at least initial buy-in from both Israel and the Palestinians as well as from the Gulf Arab states, which officials say will be asked to substantially bankroll the economic portion. Years of failed US-efforts Most analysts give Kushner little chance of success where decades of US-backed efforts have failed. Since the failure of the 1993 Oslo Accords, US-led initiatives to revive a peace deal have been fruitless. In an effort to salvage elements of the Oslo Accords, including concerns over territory, settlements, Palestinian refugees and the right of return, former US President Bill Clinton attempted to revive negotiations and reach a final-status agreement during the Camp David Summit in 2000. 180910164949522 But the process failed and ongoing developments, including the continued growth of illegal Jewish settlements in occupied territories, have stymied peace efforts in the ensuing years. Trump, who has developed an even warmer relationship with Israel than previous US presidents, officially recognised Jerusalem as Israels capital last year by moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, breaking with decades of US policy. The status of Jerusalem has been a sticking point in the conflict. In 1967, Israel illegally occupied the eastern half of Jerusalem, and in 1980, passed a law declaring it as the eternal and undivided capital of Israel. Economic opportunity Arab officials familiar with Kushners deal said he has offered no specifics, but suggested that the plan turned on economic opportunities for Palestinians and an enshrining of Israeli control of occupied territory, according to the Washington Post. Kushner and other US officials have linked peace and economic development to Arab recognition of Israel and acceptance of a version of the status quo on Palestinian autonomy, as opposed to sovereignty, people who have spoken with the Kushner team said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus promise on the eve of his re-election last week to annex some illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, has added to the perception among diplomats and analysts that the Trump administration will greenlight broad Israeli control over occupied Palestinian land. What weve tried to do is figure out what is a realistic and what is a fair solution to the issues here in 2019 that can enable people to live better lives, Kushner said in an interview with Sky News Arabia as he sought Arab support on a visit to the region in February. We believe we have a plan that is fair, realistic and implementable that will enable people to live better lives, a senior White House official said Friday, according to the Post. We looked at past efforts and solicited ideas from both sides and partners in the region with the recognition that what has been tried in the past has not worked. Thus, we have taken an unconventional approach founded on not hiding from reality, but instead speaking [the] truth. Netanyahu has promised to consider the plan, which Trump has said will ask concessions of both sides. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said the US is biased, but a chief adviser said last week that the Palestinians would not reject the Trump plan out of hand. Former Trump lawyer Jason D Greenblatt, who would be the lead US negotiator for talks, tweeted a direct appeal to Palestinian leaders last week. To the PA: Our plan will greatly improve Palestinian lives & create something very different than what exists, Greenblatt wrote. Its a realistic plan to thrive/prosper even if it means compromises. Its not a sell out if the plan isnt realistic, no one can deliver it. Kushner defensive in Saudi summit The Palestinian Authority cut off all official contact with the Trump administration in December 2017 when it first recognised Jerusalem as Israels capital. The move incensed Palestinian leaders, who have long perceived occupied East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. Kushner and Greenblatt have called the Palestinian boycott shortsighted in discussions with Arab and European nations whose financial and political backing they seek. But Kushner has also pointed to the Jerusalem decision as a potential selling point, telling a Saudi audience during a Middle East tour in February that Trump keeps his word and can thus be a trustworthy broker for peace, the Post reported. That February 26 meeting in Riyadh included Saudi intellectuals and columnists as well as government officials, and the participants were chosen by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), one person familiar with the session said. The prince and de facto ruler has forged a close relationship with Kushner and is seen as more supportive of the peace plan than is his father, King Salman. [Kushner] did listen to critical points and questions but wasnt willing to think about criticism and was defensive, the person familiar with the session said. He seemed to have been surprised when he learned that the majority of people in the room were critical of his plan and told him that King Salman emphasized the rights of the Palestinians, the person said. Although Trump had said in September that he expected a rollout within four months, US officials reset the timeline when it became clear that Netanyahu would call early elections. The plan will wait at least until after Netanyahu forms a government. Kushner has been less eager to discuss the US financial contribution, analysts said, and it is not clear whether Congress would back any large-scale US spending towards a deal that did not promise Palestinian statehood, the Post said. Severity of outbreaks could be worse since only about one in 10 actual measles cases is reported, UN body says. The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised alarm over a 300 percent increase in the case of measles globally in the first quarter of 2019 compared with last year. The statement by the United Nations health agency comes as health experts in various parts of the world blame a growing anti-vaccination movement for the rise in outbreaks of the highly contagious but preventable disease. The WHO said on Monday that the early trends for 2019 likely underestimated the severity of the outbreaks since only about one in 10 actual measles cases was reported. Many countries are in the midst of sizeable measles outbreaks, with all regions of the world experiencing sustained rises in cases, the WHO said. 190302111622632 So far this year, 170 countries have reported 112,163 measles cases to WHO. At this time in 2018, 163 countries had reported 28,124 cases. Spikes in case numbers have also occurred in countries with high overall vaccination coverage, including the United States, the WHO said. The disease has spread fast among clusters of unvaccinated people, it added. New York Citys mayor declared a public health emergency in parts of Brooklyn last week after a measles outbreak emerged in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, where some had resisted vaccination on religious grounds. The WHO said that the most dramatic rise in cases a 700-percent increase compared with last year has been reported on the African continent, which has weaker vaccination coverage than other regions. Anti-vax movement Measles an airborne infection causing fever, coughing and rashes that can be deadly in rare cases had been officially eliminated in many countries with advanced healthcare systems. But the so-called anti-vax movement driven by fraudulent claims linking the MMR vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella, and risk of autism in children has gained traction. Repeated studies the most recent involving more than 650,000 children monitored for more than a decade have shown that there is no such link. But according to the WHO, global coverage for the first vaccine dose has been stalled at 85 percent, while 67 percent of people have received the second dose. Calls have mounted in several countries to make measles vaccinations mandatory, including in Germany. Australia earlier this month launched a major education campaign to encourage residents to get vaccinated. Turning the tide against measles will require effective public-facing communication and engagement on the critical importance of vaccination, and the dangers of the diseases they prevent, the WHO said. ICRC seeks new information of New Zealand nurse and two Syrian drivers reportedly held by ISIL. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has appealed for information about three of its staff members abducted in Syria more than five years ago. The ICRC said on Sunday that Louisa Akavi, Alaa Rajab and Nabil Bakdounes were kidnapped in the northwestern state of Idlib in late 2013, revealing their identities for the first time in the hope of securing their release. The status of Akavi, a 62-year-old New Zealand nurse, is unknown, but her employer said it has received recent witness reports suggesting she might be alive. Our latest credible information indicates that Louisa was alive in late 2018, the ICRC said. Dominik Stillhart, ICRC director of operations, said it decided to permit publication of her name in the hope that it would lead to more information about Akavis whereabouts. 190218233213761 We have not spoken publicly before today because from the moment Louisa and the others were kidnapped, every decision we made was to maximise the chances of winning their freedom, Stillhart said in a statement. With Islamic State group having lost the last of its territory, we felt it was now time to speak out, it said referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS). US-backed Syrian forces announced the capture of ISILs last pocket of territory in northeastern Syria last month, eliminating its rule over a self-declared caliphate it had proclaimed in Iraq and Syria in 2014. ICRC officials said Akavi might have been swept up among some 70,000 women and children who fled to al-Hol camp after the fall of ISIL. The outpouring has sparked a humanitarian crisis in the Kurdish-run camps, which are struggling to accommodate the influx of women and children. At a news conference on Monday, New Zealands Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern refused to answer questions about Akavi but indicated she was disappointed the ICRC had gone public before her fate had been learned. Youll forgive me, I hope, for not commenting on that case, Ardern said. It remains the governments view that it would be preferable if the case was not in the public domain. Unconditional release New Zealands foreign minister confirmed on Monday Akavi has been held captive by the ISIL armed group in Syria and said his country is continuing to work with ICRC to locate and recover Akavi. This has been a uniquely complex and difficult case Louisa went to Syria with the ICRC to deliver humanitarian relief to people suffering as a result of a brutal civil war and ISIS occupation, Winston Peters said. Where a New Zealander is held by a terrorist organisation, the government takes all appropriate action to recover them. That is exactly what we have done here, he added. ICRC President Peter Maurer raised the case during a visit to the camp last month, the group said. The past five and a half years have been an extremely difficult time for the families of our three abducted colleagues. Louisa is a true and compassionate humanitarian. Alaa and Nabil were committed colleagues and an integral part of our aid deliveries, said Stillhart, the groups director of operations. We call on anyone with information to please come forward. If our colleagues are still being held, we call for their immediate and unconditional release, he said. ICRC had not been able to learn more details about the fate of the two drivers, both of whom were dedicated husbands and caring fathers. The three staff members were travelling in a Red Cross convoy that was delivering supplies to medical facilities in the northwestern province of Idlib in Syria, when armed men stopped their vehicles on October 13, 2013. The gunmen abducted seven people; four were released the following day, according to the ICRCs statement. Al Jazeeras Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, Lebanon, said the ICRC is gathering information from those who used to live under ISILs rule. ISIL was territorially defeated a few weeks ago, thousands of wives and children of ISIL fighters are now in a camp in northeast Syria, so it is trying to gather information, she said. The ICRC staff members are not the only ones who were [held] by ISIL and remain missing: there is the Italian priest Father Paolo, the British journalist John Cantlie who appeared in ISIL propaganda videos and Lebanese cameraman Samir Kassab, she added. Meanwhile, Akavis family said they miss her and are proud of the work to which she has dedicated her life. We think about her every day and hope she feels that and finds strength in that, said a video statement issued by family spokesman Tuaine Robati. We know she is thinking of us and that she will be worried about us too. At least 11 killed, and 11 others wounded in rockets fired from rebel-held Idlib province, state-run media reported. The death toll from rockets fired in the government-held northern city of Aleppo in Syria has risen to at least 11 people, state-run news agency Sana reported on Monday. According to an unnamed police source quoted by Sana, terrorist groups, the term used for armed groups in the nearby rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib, launched the attack on Sunday night. The attacks wounded another 11 people in the al-Khaldiya neighbourhood, the police source said, all of whom were civilians who were rushed to two separate hospitals for treatment. It added that one of several rockets landed on a crowded market in Aleppo, the countrys second-largest city and a major industrial hub that bore the brunt of years of fighting. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based war monitor reported that Hayet Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched the attacks, adding that 20 rockets were fired into several neighbourhoods in Aleppo. SOHR said that five members of the security services were among those killed. Idlib is the last remaining rebel-held stronghold in Syria, which has been embroiled in a bloody civil war shortly after peaceful protests against President Bashar al-Assads government began in 2011. It has been dubbed a dumping ground for evacuees, and is currently dominated by former al-Qaeda affiliate HTS. Syrian government forces managed to regain large swathes of land from rebel fighters since Russia intervened militarily on the side of Assads forces in 2015. Since Assads government regained control of Aleppo at the end of 2016, armed groups and rebel fighters have targeted the city intermittently. Assads forces have recaptured all rebel-held areas but Idlib province and parts of the neighbouring provinces of Hama, Aleppo and Latakia. Since September, these areas have been subject to a Russian-Turkish agreement providing for the creation of a demilitarised zone, allowing them to avoid a major government offensive. While Russia backs Assad, Turkey has been supporting factions from the Free Syrian Army a loose entity of opposition rebel groups. Despite the deal, Assads government has resumed its deadly bombings in Idlib, while armed groups most notably HTS have launched numerous attacks against government-held positions. Prior attempts to curb government-led air strikes on rebel-held cities across Syria have also failed. Idlib is included in the so-called de-escalation zones aimed at shoring up ceasefires. The deal agreed upon with Assads allies Russia and Iran at a meeting in Kazakhstans capital, Astana, did not include HTS, Idlibs most dominant force. In 2016, HTS was designated a terrorist group by Russia. The pretext has been used as a recurring reason as to why Idlib home to nearly three million people has been subject to government-led strikes. The Syrian conflict, now in its ninth year, has claimed an estimated 400,000 lives and displaced millions of Syrians, according to the UN. Sudans main protest group has called on its supporters to protect your revolution after armed forces loyal to the countrys ruling military council unsuccessfully tried to remove roadblocks put in place around a sit-in being held outside the defence ministry in the capital. The Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) on Monday urged protesters to continue the now 10-day-long demonstration outside the sprawling complex in Khartoum in a bid to heighten pressure on the military council and force it to hand over power to a civilian government. We urge all the people to go immediately to the army headquarters to stop attempts to disperse protesters, the SPA said in a statement. Thousands of activists remained camped outside the Khartoum facility overnight after protest leaders issued demands to the military council set up after long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir was overthrown. The SPA, which spearheaded the four months of protests leading to al-Bashirs fall, called on the council to immediately transfer power to a civilian government. Sudanese demonstrators display their national flag and the national flag of South Sudan, as they attended a sit-in protest outside the defence ministry in Khartoum [Reuters] It said the resulting transitional government and the armed forces must bring to justice both al-Bashir and officials from his feared National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS). Activists accuse NISS forces of violently cracking down on protesters, killing dozens of people and wounding hundreds more. The United States, Norway and the United Kingdom, meanwhile, urged the military council and other parties to hold talks over the countrys transition to civilian rule. In a joint statement by their embassies on Sunday, they warned against any use of violence to break up the protests and said the legitimate change the Sudanese people demanded had not taken place. It is time for the transitional military council and all other parties to enter into an inclusive dialogue to effect a transition to civilian rule, they said. This must be done credibly and swiftly, with protest leaders, political opposition, civil society organisations, and all relevant elements of society, including women. Council committed to transition Sudans military council on Monday said it was restructuring the council and appointed Colonel General Hashem Abdel Muttalib Ahmed Babakr as army chief of staff. Colonel General Mohamed Othman al-Hussein was appointed as deputy chief of staff, the council said in a statement. On Sunday, the council met political leaders and urged them to agree on an independent figure to be prime minister, an AFP news agency correspondent at the meeting said. We want to set up a civilian state based on freedom, justice and democracy, a council member, Lieutenant General Yasser al-Ata, told members of several political parties. 190411125048555 A 10-member delegation representing the protesters delivered a list of demands during talks with the council late on Saturday, according to a statement by the Freedom and Change alliance. But in a press conference later, the councils spokesperson did not respond to the protesters latest demands, although he did announce the appointment of a new intelligence chief of the NISS. The foreign ministry said the military councils chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan was committed to having a complete civilian government and urged other nations to back the council in order to achieve the Sudanese goal of democratic transition. On Saturday, al-Burhan vowed to dismantle al-Bashirs government, lifting a night-time curfew with immediate effect. He also pledged that individuals implicated in killing protesters would face justice and that protesters detained under a state of emergency imposed by al-Bashir during his final weeks in power would be freed. Al-Bashir ruled Sudan for 30 years before he was deposed last week following mass protests that have rocked the country since December. Tens of thousands of people have massed non-stop outside the army headquarters since April 6, initially urging the military to back their demand for al-Bashirs removal. But his departure in a coup failed to satisfy the protesters, who have called for justice for al-Bashir-era officials. The SPA also demanded the confiscation of properties belonging to his National Congress Party and the release of soldiers who sided with their revolution. Late on Sunday, the military council said it has set up a committee to register NCP properties and take control of them. Sudans principal protest group has demanded the immediate formation of a civilian-led government to replace the countrys new ruling military council, warning that the demonstrators revolution faces threat from the remnants of the regime of deposed leader Omar al-Bashir. Fearing that the core of the old establishment is far from gone, the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) on Monday reiterated its call for the military council to be dissolved and substituted by a civilian one that will only include limited army representation. The umbrella organisation, which spearheaded the months of protests that precipitated al-Bashirs removal, also demanded the sacking of Sudans prosecutor general and judiciary head, as well as the disbanding of the former presidents National Congress Party (NCP). The objectives of the revolution cannot be achieved totally and completely in the face of the backstage manipulations by the remnants of the regime, SPA member Taha Osman told reporters in the capital, Khartoum. The key demand is the formation of a civil council to guarantee that the revolution is safeguarded and all the goals are achieved. Protect your revolution On April 11, after nearly four months of the popular uprising, a military takeover ended al-Bashirs 30-year authoritarian rule. In a televised address to the nation, Sudans then-Defence Minister, Lieutenant General Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf, announced that al-Bashir who had seized power himself in a 1989 coup had been arrested and taken to a safe location. But the protesters elation quickly turned to anger as Ibn Auf, a long-time al-Bashir loyalist, announced the establishment of a two-year transitional military council and later was sworn in as its head. 190414135158735 Defying a newly imposed curfew, the demonstrators continued taking to the streets, denouncing Ibn Aufs statement as a farce. Barely 24 hours later, the military council was forced to appoint its second leader in two days, with Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan replacing Ibn Auf. Since then, negotiations have taken place between the council and protest organisers, who on Saturday submitted a list of demands to Sudans military rulers. The military council is yet to formally respond to those demands, which include the transfer of power to a civilian-headed transitional authority for a period of four years, at the end of which elections will be held. It has, however, made a number of moves in an apparent bid to appease the protesters, including the lifting of the nighttime curfew. Al-Burhan has also vowed to restructure state institutions and uproot the [Bashir] regime and its symbols but has also said that the transition to civilian rule could take up to two years. Concessions fail to appease protesters Al Jazeeras Mohamed Vall, reporting from Khartoum, said the recent concessions by Sudans military rulers had failed to win over protesters, many of whom remain distrustful of the higher echelons of the countrys armed forces due to their historical links to al-Bashirs former administration. Remember, we are talking about a regime that has been deep-rooted in power for 30 years, so the SPA and other powers behind this protest know that the top ranks of the military, those who have staged this coup, will not easily give up the power that the military used to have in Sudan, Vall said. 190415114207364 Some of the military leaders are very close to the former regime and the protesters want to make sure that anyone who has links with the former regime [and] with the former NCP have to leave the stage and that new powers and a new Sudan should emerge, he added. The SPAs press conference came just hours after it called on protesters to safeguard the revolution in the wake of a failed attempt by security forces to remove roadblocks put in place around a sit-in being held outside a vast complex housing the Sudanese military headquarters and defence ministry in Khartoum. We urge all the people to go immediately to the army headquarters to stop attempts to disperse protesters, the SPA said in a statement. Mohammed Amin contributed to this report Skillful enamel techniques Satsuma pottery is decorated by handily drawing, using Gosu Blue techniques, with a blue light color covering the surface of the ceramic body. The color of Gosu Blue, can be blue, dark blue, green or black, is dependent on the burning degree of the sophisticated artistic expressions. Nowadays, it is hard to find the Imperial Satsuma, a genuine Gosu Blue work of Edo period. Late of Ming dynasty, from the 16th century to first half of the 17th century, the red and green light painted ceramics with freely bold designs were exported by China to Southeast Asia and Japan. These potteries were called Gosu Akae by Japanese. The uses of brushstroke in painting made Gosu Akae look more vivid in brilliant red color, and this technique immediately changed the Japanese ceramic decoration. Late of Ming dynasty, from the 16th century to first half of the 17th century, the red and green light painted ceramics with freely bold designs were exported by China to Southeast Asia and Japan. These potteries were called Gosu Akae by Japanese. The uses of brushstroke in painting made Gosu Akae look more vivid in brilliant red color, and this technique immediately changed the Japanese ceramic decoration. In Japanese language, the word "Gosu" means from the South of China. This enamel technique was brought to the Arita region, the hub of Japanese ceramics in the early Edo period. Gradually, Gosu had been also known as blue enamel pigment, which was widely used in ceramics production, such as blue and white ceramics. This blue enamel has a high saturation, very special and solid, making it never fades. This technique was strongly applied by the Japanese in the 19th century in producing Satsuma pottery. That explained why they were named Gosu Blue. The Gosu Blue technique make the motifs colors becoming brighter and more shimmering. The artists usually use a heavy dark blue, but in case the artist use a slighter color, the painting still hides everything under it. Gosu Blue technique is to handily put the special large Dami painting brush into the "Gosu enamel" and skillfully paint on the ceramic body. The enamel drip is controlled by using fingers to carefully squeeze the broom. It requires to be high skill, concentrated and, and patient to draw handily. The colors are mixing depending on type of season, weather and humidity. Therefore, people never find two Gosu Blue products are identical. Satsuma Gosu Blue masterpiece Looking at the Satsuma Gosu Blue masterpieces recall us back to the turning point of Japanese economy, when it moved from the Chinese reclusion to autonomy of politics and culture, 150 years ago. The collectors can easily see the differences in Gosu products which were made before and after the 1968 historic transition. Before 1867, the ancient potteries were used to make tea sets. They used to be decorated by smooth and simple painting motifs. The front of the plate was covered by yellow, blue and white chrysanthemums which are growing by the water stream under a clear sky. In the back of the plate, there was a Mitsuba Aoi or Tokugawa Aoi standing near the Satsuma. The signature and name of Satsuma artist or a bindweed flower were usually in the center of the plate (Figures 1, 2 and 3). Since 1868, after learning western techniques, Japanese had been using some natural minerals and elements, such as Cobalt or Asbolite in painting the Kyoto-Satsuma pottery. This technique help making the blue light look more luxurious and outstanding although the potteries were fully covered by yellow motifs. Westerners can understand more about Japanese culture and spirituality through: The western tea set which is produced by dragonware technique (around 1872 - Figure 4). It is covered by the blue enamel images of Long Tho Bodhisattva and other bodhisattvas with letters in their hands (58cm high - Figure 5); Or the cauldron which is decorated by images of The Buddha Amitabh and his disciples under the embodiments of the GuanYin; Or the brilliant vase which is painted by the colorful Bodhisattva image (32cm high - Figure 6). Figure 1. Figure 2. Figure 3. Figure 4. Figure 5. Figure 6. Dr. TRUONG DINH BAO LONG Was Hitler right-wing? Wikipedia says he was, but does history confirm this? Today's American left would love to be able to assert that Hitler was right-wing in order to bolster the claim that President Trump is Hitler 2.0. For example, Beto O'Rourke referred to a deceptively edited video that people on the Left claim shows President Trump calling asylum-seekers at the Mexican-American border "animals. In fact, Trump's comment about "animals" was referring to some of the most heinous people on the planet today: members of the MS-13 gang. Then, in case anyone paying attention to his comments was insufficiently provoked, O'Rourke added this: "Now, we would not be surprised if in the Third Reich if other human beings were described as an infestation, as a cockroach, or a pest that you would want to kill, but to do that in 2017 or '18 in the United States of America doesn't make sense." This is not the first time someone on the left has erroneously accused Trump of Nazi-like tendencies. When Trump spoke about the protests in 2017 that turned violent in Charlottesville, Virginia, he clearly stated a forthright denunciation of the neo-Nazis and their use of violence by saying, "The neo-Nazis and white nationalists ... should be condemned totally." Rather than sharing Trump's comment, most media outlets promulgated the fiction that Trump endorsed the neo-Nazis by repeatedly citing deceptively edited comments. A few days later, giving the media a second chance at getting their facts straight, Trump said, "Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans." Unfortunately, the media failed to correct their disingenuous reporting, and thus was born an incident of fake news so notorious that it even garnered its own nickname: the Charlottesville Hoax. The Left has been calling those on the right Nazis and fascists for a long time. Given the tremendous damage false narratives and specious definitions can cause, it would be helpful to bring forward a clear definition of left and right wing in America today. Since the right espouses individual rights and limited power for the government, we can examine the historical record to determine if Hitler and the Nazis' rise to power in Germany was built on these ideals. What did Hitler say to persuade Germany that he was the best person to lead their nation? Long before becoming chancellor, Hitler presented his choice of governing philosophies for Germany when he announced his 25 Point Program on February 24, 1920. Let's examine a few of his 25 points to see how they compare to current events in US politics. 23. We demand legal opposition to known lies and their promulgation through the press. Publications which are counter to the general good are to be forbidden. Point 23 of Hitler's program places the state in complete control of the press and hence free speech. In similar fashion, Democrats have shown that they wish to be able to forbid speech they don't like. In 2014, every single Senate Democrat voted for a constitutional amendment that would have given to Congress and the States the power to "regulate and set reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and others to influence elections." 24. We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. The Party ... is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework: "THE GOOD OF THE COMMUNITY BEFORE THE GOOD OF THE INDIVIDUAL." These ALL CAPS were included in the original version by the way, emphatically showing that the citizen was to be totally suborned to the state. Current thinking on the Left regards an individual's free expression of his faith to be allowable only in private. Check with Chick-fil-A and outspoken Christians on college campuses or in Hollywood to gauge the ferocity of abuse likely to come your way for standing up for your beliefs in the public square. 7. We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens. The Democrats two months ago released their Green New Deal, which has an overview released by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's office stating that it aims to provide "economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work." Most, if not all, of the Democrats currently running for president have come out in favor of the Green New Deal. 17. We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and prevention of all speculation in land. The Green New Deal is not bashful about matching Hitler's level of government confiscation, demanding that anyone owning property in America must involve himself in "upgrading all existing buildings in the United States and building new buildings to achieve maximal energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort, and durability." 25. For the execution of all of this we demand the formation of a strong central power in the Reich. Unlimited authority of the central parliament over the whole Reich and its organizations in general. Hitler was clear that he was in favor of unlimited authority for his government. The Democrats' enthusiastic welcome for the Green New Deal shows that just like Hitler and the Nazis, the left today relentlessly pushes for the government to gain controlling power over speech, the economy, health care, energy, our homes, and even our lives. Fortunately, the right has noticed the Left's growing thirst for power and continues to fight the expansion of government. For example, when the government takeover of health care known as Obamacare was passed by Democrats in Congress using questionable parliamentary tactics, Tea Party activists rose up in indignation, costing Democrats 63 seats in the House along with six in the Senate in the next election. Maybe back then some of us failed to see the Left's pursuit of a totalitarian government evidenced by Obamacare, but America today is grateful for the wonderfully revelatory document that is the Green New Deal. It espouses the largest expansion of government ever proposed in America, and has been endorsed by almost every Democrat running for president. Neither Hitler nor today's left-wing Democrats ever saw a governmental power-grab they didn't aid and abet. Clearly, Trump isn't and never has been Hitler 2.0. He and his followers are determined to limit the reach of government, understanding that if government grows unchecked, personal freedom and an individual's opportunity to advance himself will gradually disappear. If we continue to allow Americans to flourish and prosper through their own free choices and hard work, the result will always be America "the shining city on a hill." Image: Louis P. Hirshman via Wikimedia Commons. Elections in Israel often resemble performances of the theater of the absurd. This results from the parliamentary electoral system in which voters choose not individuals but vote for a party list. Political parties are allocated seats in the Knesset in proportion to the number of votes in the country as a whole. The threshold for gaining seats is 3.2% of total vote, increased from 2% in 2014, a device to prevent small parties from obtaining seats. Because of the candidacy of multiple parties, the result is that no one party has ever achieved a majority of the national vote since the first election in 1949, and therefore Israel has never had a one-party government but always coalitions. The outcome of the election on April 9, 2019 reflected the issue. The election was hard fought, and was a tight race, and was an illustration that Israel is a vibrant pluralistic democracy. Nevertheless, plus ca change, plus cest la meme chose. Forty parties competed, from serious ones to Zehut led by the colorful pro-marijuana libertarian and extreme nationalist Moshe Feiglin. The main contenders can best be considered in terms of right-wing and left-wing blocs. The right includes Likud (36), Kulena (5 seats), Union of Right Wing Parties (5), Shas (8), and United Torah Judaism (7). Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi) was regarded as the dominant personality of these right-wing groups of free marketeers and strong nationalists. The left bloc was Blue and White (35), a new group that adopted the colors of the Israeli flag, Labor (6), Arab left-wing Hadesh Taal (6), Yisrael Beitainu (5), Meretz (4) to which can be added the United Arab List-Balad (4). The left bloc featured the 69-year-old General Benny Gantz, the same age as Netanyahu, a son of Holocaust survivors, a newcomer to politics, chief of staff of Israeli army 2011-2015 when he retired, a lifetime soldier, who appealed to the political center, to those leaning left, and those whose main objective was to defeat Bibi. Gantz, concentrating on the failures of Bibi, always spoke of a real government alternative that would replace Netanyahu. He established the Blue and White Alliance as a centrist, secular party. He also, at the start of his campaign, spoke somewhat imprudently of the number of terrorists he had killed when army commander in the 2014 war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. He was ambiguous about policy issues, but stressed the need for clean government and integrity, and contrasted his personality to that of Netanyahu, a man with expensive personal tastes in clothes and cigars, and one who had been indicted for accepting gifts from wealthy businessmen and for giving favors to obtain positive media coverage. Gantz stressed his military experience and those of his main associates, Gabi Ashkenazi and Moshe Yaalon, who were former chiefs of staff. The Blue and White party, only seven weeks old, which combined Gantzs group, Israel Resilience party, with the centrist Yesh Atid, led by Yair Lapid, former finance minister and TV personality, and a small party led by Moshe Bogie Yaalon, former chief of military staff, and defense minister under Netanyahu, gained 35 seats. The 2019 election did not concentrate on discussion or debate of particular issues but was really a referendum on Netanyahu and his thirteen years as prime minster. If he remains in the post, he will in July 2019 have surpassed David Ben-Gurion record as the longest-serving prime minister. A towering figure in Israeli politics since he beat Shimon Peres in 1996 to become prime minister, Bibis supporters proclaim him as a magician, even as king of Israel. No one can deny the 69-year-old Netanyahus political skills, especially those of campaigning, even on the beaches. He overcame the challenge of Naftali Bennett, chief of staff 2006-8, and Ayelet Shaked in 2012 for leadership of his party, and the party under these two former rising stars did not obtain 3.25% of the vote in 2019 and therefore has no parliamentary seats. Netanyahu successfully portrayed himself as the only person qualified to safeguard Israel against the threats to security from Iran, Hezballah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza. He also reminded voters, especially the 400,000 settlers in the West Bank, of his opposition in 2005 to withdrawing Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip. Bibi used religious imagery: I believe that the lord and history have given the people of Israel another opportunity, a golden opportunity, to turn our country into a strong nation among the strongest in the world. His verbiage might also have been subtle campaigning, probably an appeal to the Ultra-Orthodox, the haredim, who are growing in proportion, comprising over 8% or 600,000-700,000, of the Israel Jewish population because of their higher birthrate than that of secular citizens. Bibis victory confirmed that the left is not in power. Labor, once the dominant party of social democracy in Israel, and prominent in the Socialist International when Golda Meir was vice-president, is now in 2019 reduced to six seats. In the context of present-day modernity and globalization, and the increasing activity of Muslims from the Maghreb, Israel has emphasized Zionism more than socialism, and has moved to the political right while the left has moved to the center. Netanyahu has benefited from Israels economic performance, low unemployment, high incomes, emphasis on technology, attraction of considerable foreign investment into the high wage sector, and privatization, though his administration has also witnessed cuts in subsidies for unemployed and in child assistance payments. Bibi, as a shrewd campaigner, has also benefited by his rapport and contacts with Sunni Arabs in the Gulf and Egypt and Muslim leaders in Africa, and the nationalist leaders in the world, such as Narendra Modi in Delhi, Budapest, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, and rather surprisingly, Chinas vice president Wang Qishan and Viktor Orban, prime minister of Hungary. Most of all, Netanyahu benefited from support by President Donald Trump and his declared policies: opposition of the nuclear deal with Iran; movement of U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; declaration that the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps is a terrorist organization; approval of Bibis declaration of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights; and no opposition to suggestions for annexation of part of the West Bank. In Israel in 2019 there were some similarities with Trump in 2016. The left, often with a slogan anyone but Bibi imitates the campaign against Trump. Netanyahu had been falsely accused of racism, and he faced a largely hostile press. In extraordinary fashion, Bibi not only accepted Trumps invitation to the White House, but also, five days before the election, one to the Kremlin where he talked with President Vladimir Putin without any mention of collusion. As a result, the body of an Israeli soldier missing since the 1982 Lebanon War, found by the Russian army in Syria, was returned to Bibi. Bibi also benefited from the low turnout, around 50%, among the 1.9 million Israeli-Arabs, who are politically split. In 2015, four Arab parties formed a joint list in the election and won 13 seats. In 2019 the Arabs were divided between two parties, the secular Balad, and the Islamist Raam. Some Arabs called for a boycott of the 2019 election. Others claimed that 1,200 cameras were hidden in Arab polling stations, and this caused fear of voting. An Israeli government can only be formed if a party is able to control at least 61 of the 120 seats in the Knesset. Since no single party has achieved this, the President of Israel Reuven Rivlin, a largely nonpolitical ceremonial figure, has to choose as prime minister the party leader who has the best chance to form a coalition government. In 2019 this is almost certain to mean the reappointment of Netanyahu. The election shows the rightward trend in Israel, with 56% describing themselves as right-wing. Polls suggest that Netanyahu was supported by two-thirds of voters 18-24, and by more than half of those aged 25-34. Support for the Ultra-Orthodox has grown. This means, among other things, less support for a two-state solution. The country is liberal on social issues such as gay rights and universal health care and on economic issues, but it has become more rigid on security issues, largely because of Palestinian reluctance to negotiate. Bibi has shown that the country is not isolated internationally despite of no agreement with the Palestinians, but it is incumbent on him to continue the search for a negotiated settlement. This week, Montana senator Jon Tester wrote an op-ed for the Billings Gazette. Tester has never agreed with Trump regarding the need for a wall on the border and he did not disappoint his like-minded followers this time either. One of the things he stressed was his disapproval of Trump declaring a national emergency and taking money from our military -- to spend billions on a border wall that Republicans and Democrats alike rejected. Twelve Republicans voted against Trumps Emergency Declaration. However, their vote against it was seemingly not for the same reasons Tester did. They feared Trumps Emergency Declaration would be setting a precedent that could be used by future Presidents. Several of the twelve even expressed their agreement with Trump on the need for a wall. Senator Mike Lee R-Utah said: This [my vote] is not about the president. This is not about my disagreement with or disapproval of the president or his approach to border security or his approach to build a barrier along our southern border. I think all those things need to happen. Republican Senator, Pat Toomey said I support what the president is trying to do. He just couldnt support doing it with an Emergency Declaration. Tester serves on the committee that votes to fund the Department of Homeland Security. He indicated he made the trip to McAllen, Texas to learn firsthand what tools were needed for CBP to do its job. I asked the $25 billion question: should that solution be a wall from sea to shining sea? The answer, he said, was a resounding no. Ask the right question and you get the answer you want. It appears as though this was his goal. The President did not declare that he needed to build a wall from sea to shining sea. So, of course, the only way they could correctly answer him was to say, no. On the other hand, there is a plethora of comments made by current and former CBP and ICE officials stating otherwise. For example, former acting ICE director Thomas Homan said, Migrant caravans will continue to make the perilous journey to the U.S. until the wall is built and loopholes in the laws are closed. Tester said, I visited the ports of entry -- where the vast majority of dangerous illegal drugs, like heroin, enter this country. A wall would do nothing to stop this flow of narcotics at our legal crossings. Of course, it goes without saying that a wall would not stop the flow of narcotics at our legal crossings. Nobody has said it would. But a wall could go a long way toward plugging the holes in the sieve and funneling more drugs through our ports of entry, where they stand a better chance of being detected. These illegal drugs are responsible for killing record numbers of people. Are these lost lives worth the cost of building a wall? Tester also said, We need to re-examine our immigration laws. Tester is among many senior members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, who are making similar comments. Where have they been all these years? Tester closes by stating: Washington is full of folks pontificating about immigration policy. But its by talking to the folks who understand it best that we can do the hard job of better securing our borders in an effective, cost-efficient, and humane way. The key is be willing to ask the right questions and talk to the right people. For example, talk to members of the Texas Senate and Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick, to learn what Texans know and deal with every day. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick recognizes the seriousness of the problem and is trying to let politicians in Washington know so they can do something about it. Patrick said, We adopted Senate Resolution 535 declaring the crisis situation on the Texas-Mexico border an emergency, to make it crystal clear to Congress that the crisis at the border is very real. Just a few of the important points included in the long and detailed Texas Senate Resolution 535: The U.S. Congress has the moral and constitutional responsibility to fully maintain the operational security of the Texas-Mexico International Border. An unprotected border facilitates drug smuggling, human trafficking and facilitates spillover violence from criminal cartels and poses a grave threat to human security. Due to the unprecedented influx of migrants overwhelming the capacity of CBP facilities and the ongoing crisis, U.S. border patrol agents at the Del Rio sector have begun releasing detainees into Texas. New reports that undocumented women have made their way into border towns after being beaten for disobeying smugglers, impregnated by strangers, coerced into prostitution, shackled to beds and trees, bound with duct tape, rope, and handcuffs. 194,000 criminal aliens booked into Texas jails from 2011 to 2019 were charged with more than 299,000 criminal offenses. [Criminal offences exceeded the number of criminals, which implies there was a significant amount of recidivism.] The Texas Senate supports the President in his efforts to move forward with emergency action. The United States Congress consistently delays action causing Texas to [needlessly] expend significant resources. One of the Texas Senates final actions was to instruct the Secretary of the Texas Senate to forward the Texas Resolution to President Trump along with the leaders of the U.S. House and Senate. I hope Senator Tester makes an effort to read it. Memo to Republicans: dont rest easy on your laurels, thinking that casting the word socialism on Democrats as an aspersion will win the White House in 2020. The House chamber may have erupted in cheers when President Trump declared America will never be a socialist country during his State of the Union, but the applause came mainly from the GOP caucus, whose median age is somewhere around Medicare. Socialism -- the word and its concomitant collective sentiment, not the actual system -- is renascent within the Democratic Partys youthful wing. American millennials have a generally rosy view of the reddish ideology, as opposed to capitalism, which many view as the sole reason boozy brunches are served exclusively on the weekend. The Republican consultant class is convinced that pinning the socialism badge on Democratic candidates is going to awaken some slumbering middle-class reaction, which will pay dividends in the voting booth. That thinking may be true for anyone age 50 and up who remembers the Cold War. But, it finds little purchase among those who were too young to experience the Reagan revolution or who were born after the fall of the Berlin Wall. When soi-disant socialist Bernie Sanders says the old Soviet Union was... not my thing, and that he prefers the generous welfare states of Nordic countries, he can get away with it, despite warbling Woody Guthries communist odes in the USSR during his honeymoon. Sanders isnt challenged on his flawed portrayal of socialism because few people use the term correctly these days. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a member of Democratic Socialists of America, was right when she asserted that many Americans dont understand socialism. Where she erred, however, was in declaring the library and the post office is socialism (sic). Having a few publicly funded entities in a largely capitalist economy doesnt automatically mean that Lenin still walks among us. Socialism has one definition: government ownership of the means of production, as succinctly put by Ludwig von Mises. Throwing democratic in front of it, as Sanders and his progressive company often do, doesnt make it a compound noun with an entirely different meaning; its the same property abolition with a patina of plebiscite. So, when certain Republican politicians point to the starvation and chaos in Venezuela as proof of socialisms failure, few Americans with socialist sympathies pay attention. What they see, rather, is the U.S.s meddlesome grip along with Maduros incompetent and brutish governing style. And when a hapless GOP pundit recalls the murderous crimes committed with collective license in the Soviet Union, the reference is easily dismissed. The collapse of the Red Menace was a modern miracle; but, thanks to social media, among other perspective-distorting developments, our sense of time has flattened, leaving historical events without proper reflection. December 26, 1991, might as well have occurred at the same time as the Book of Jeremiah. A lack of knowledge about Stalinism, the gulags, the Holodomor, and the countless souls lost to socialisms necessary aggression makes the ideology more appealing, especially among millennials who see our current system as less than perfect. Their shortsightedness makes everything new and surprising. They dont take what the French call longue duree of history. Mired in myopia, every injustice, every moral blemish, every slight becomes a great tragedy, nonpareil in its wickedness Many of Americas young adults lack perspective because theyve blessedly been spared major catastrophe. Yes, the 2008 financial crisis made getting a job out of college difficult for some (your humble author not excluded). But, unlike the Great Depression before it, there was no large-scale indigence, no mass migration across the desiccated prairie, no waiting in bread lines in the bitter cold in a tattered long coat. The contention, recently made by the privileged daughter of Jonathan Alter in Time, that millennials have never experienced American prosperity in our adult lives is a load of mental tommyrot. Waiting out the depressed job market circa 2010 on a MacBook Air and a smartphone was the cushiest suffering anyone could hope for any time pre-20th century. The Trump campaigns plan to use socialism as a cudgel with which to beat Democrats with will only go so far. Older generations not already pledged to the GOP will appreciate the message. But, memories of the Cold War are fading. Millennials, and even those within Gen-X, have no shared reference of the Wests resistance to the the Soviets. The Marshall Plan, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Greek Civil War, the Prague Spring, the Korean War, Vietnam, Polish Solidarity -- all are distant notes in a textbook. Their animating force has been lost to, ironically enough, a decades-long sustained peace following the breakup of the USSR (Islamic terrorism notwithstanding). Socialism is not the bugaboo it once was. In some cases, and in some deep-blue districts, its viewed more or less favorably. The President shouldnt fall into the consultant-contrived trap of thinking its invocation is a pathway to victory in 2020. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang's Regular Press Conference on April 15, 2019 2019/04/15 Q: According to some media reports, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently made some unfriendly remarks about China and China-Latin America relations while visiting Chile and other Latin American countries. Would you like to comment on that? A: In cooperation with Latin America, China is committed to the principle of mutual respect, equality, mutual benefit and win-win results. With shared development as the aim, such cooperation has given a strong boost to the economic development and improvement of people's well-being in the region. We may look at Chile as an example. Trade between China and Chile reached 42.8 billion US dollars last year, of which 26.9 billion was export to China, a 26.9% increase year-on-year. In 2018, Chinese investment in Chile exceeded 6 billion US dollars, playing a significant role in the economic and social development of the country. Such facts serve to show that it is opportunity that China brings to Latin America. We have taken note of the groundless accusations Secretary Pompeo leveled against China on the Venezuela issue. I would like to point out that China's position on the Venezuela issue is clear and consistent. We are committed to upholding the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and peace and stability in the region. US Secretary of State Pompeo's attempts to slander China and sow discord between China and Latin American countries are irresponsible and nonsensical. We are strongly opposed to it. The US has long been treating Latin America as its backyard, where it would resort to willful use of pressure, threat or even subversion. People can tell right from wrong. I am sure Latin American countries are fully capable of telling a true friend from a false one who is ignoring rules and spreading chaos. I need to point out that for quite some time, certain US politicians have been touring the globe with the same script in their pockets to smear China, starting fires and fanning the flames and sowing discords. Such behaviors are really beneath their dignity. A lie will remain a lie, even if repeated a thousand times. Monsieur Pompeo might as well take a break. Q: As Premier Li Keqiang has just concluded a visit to Europe, we noted that in both the China-EU Summit Joint Statement and the Guidelines for Cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs), there are expressions about continuing to forge synergies between the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the EU Strategy on Connecting Europe and Asia. We get the general impression that lately, EU agencies and member states and various social strata in Europe are paying more attention to and taking a more active part in the BRI. With the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) just around the corner, what do you think of the prospects of BRI cooperation between China and Europe? A: Indeed, BRI cooperation is a key area of China-Europe cooperation. It is the two sides' shared hope to forge synergies between the BRI and the EU Strategy on Connecting Europe and Asia to achieve common development under the principle of consultation and cooperation for shared benefits. As of today, the 16 CEECs and Greece have all signed BRI cooperation documents with China. Only recently, some other European countries such as Italy and Luxembourg also signed relevant MOUs with China. Going forward, China stands ready to work with the European side to seek synergies between our respective development strategies to better leverage comparative strengths and enhance cooperation in such areas as connectivity, production capacity and equipment manufacturing for win-win results and shared prosperity. The upcoming second BRF to be held in Beijing will be attended by many European leaders and senior representatives. China will join other parties including European countries in discussions on how to advance BRI cooperation to ensure this road of opportunity and cooperation will enjoy broader prospects and smoother progress. Q: Over the weekend, there were reports from the Reuters saying that China has made a complaint in the WTO about the Australian government's decision to ban Huawei from supplying equipment for 5G. Could you confirm that? What are China's plans at the WTO? Do you plan to make a complaint against the Australian government? What actions might you take on this situation regarding Australia and 5G? A: China's position on 5G cooperation is very clear. As we repeatedly emphasized, we hope countries can continue to take measures conducive to trade and investment facilitation and liberalization and win-win cooperation, which will deliver benefits to all economies. The Chinese government expects other governments to foster a fair, open, transparent and non-discriminatory market environment. Any country adopting discriminatory practices, no matter under what pretext, will only hurt its own international cooperation and forfeit the benefits it could have gained. As to your question, I'd refer you to the Ministry of Commerce for more details. What I can tell you is that China upholds the rules-based multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core. Q: Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono began visiting China last Saturday. Today Premier Li Keqiang and State Councilor Wang Yi met and held talks with him respectively. Could you please give us more details? Did they talk about President Xi's visit to Japan? How does China view this visit by Foreign Minister Taro Kono and other members of the Cabinet of Japan? A: We will release the official readout of Foreign Minister Taro Kono's visit to China and his meetings and talks with Chinese leaders in due course. You may refer to that later. According to the information I have at this moment, Premier Li Keqiang met with Foreign Minister Taro Kono and State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with him. State Councilor Wang Yi stressed that in the face of profound changes unseen in a century, it is even more important and necessary for the two countries to step up coordination and cooperation. The two sides should remain committed to the general direction of peace and friendship, follow through on the political consensus of being cooperative partners instead of threats to one another and supporting each other's peaceful development, and achieve common development through mutually beneficial cooperation. The China-Japan relationship has just begun to improve. While facing important opportunities, it is still sensitive and fragile. The Japanese side said many times that China and Japan should switch from competition to coordination and we hope that Japan will roll out more practical measures to this end. Specifically, first, we hope that the two sides will continue to enhance political mutual trust and ensure that the bilateral relations will always remain on the right track under the guidance of the four political documents and the important consensus between the leaders of the two countries; second, we need to improve and upgrade the bilateral practical cooperation and make a bigger pie of common interests for mutual benefit and win-win results. State Councilor Wang Yi made it very clear that China welcomes Japan's high-level delegation to the Second BRF; third, we need to continue to promote cultural and people-to-people exchanges so as to gain more public support for developing the bilateral relations; fourth, we should stay committed to managing differences in a constructive manner through dialogue and negotiation. In the meantime, China and Japan share extensive common interests in the multilateral field. We should strengthen our communication and coordination in such multilateral mechanisms as the G20 and the WTO, jointly uphold multilateralism and the free trading system, and improve global governance. State Councilor Wang Yi said explicitly that China supports Japan in hosting a successful G20 Osaka summit. Foreign Minister Taro Kono also made positive remarks, for which you may refer to the Japanese delegation. Foreign Minister Taro Kono led a group of Japanese Cabinet ministers to China and exchanged in-depth views with the Chinese side on China-Japan relations and issues of mutual interest. You may have noted that the two sides have held a series of activities, including the opening ceremony of the China-Japan Youth Exchange Year yesterday. We hope that Foreign Minister Taro Kono's visit to China will be conducive to the further development of China-Japan relations in the new era and helping the bilateral relations to maintain the momentum of improvement and development in the right track. We believe that as long as the two sides remain committed to their consensus, this visit will surely prove to be a significant event. You asked about whether the two sides talked about the Chinese leader's visit to Japan, as we said on many occasions, high-level exchanges are of important significance to promoting China-Japan relations and the two sides should make positive efforts to this end. Q: Last week, you refuted reports alleging that high-level employees of the Dutch chip-maker ASML stole its technologies and passed them to the Chinese government. We noted that ASML later issued a notice to clarify the situation. ASML CEO Peter Wennink also denied false reports that there was any national conspiracy to steal information from his company. Do you have further comments on this? A: We have noted the statement made by ASML. As for any further comments, maybe it is time that the Dutch newspaper that spread this rumor in the first place gave some explanations. I would like to reiterate that when it comes to respecting and protecting intellectual property rights, our attitude is serious and our actions are effective. Just like what the ASML CEO has pointed out, China has taken effective measures to respect and protect intellectual property rights. We stand ready to continue to strengthen the mutually beneficial cooperation with the Dutch side in the scientific and technological sector and conduct dialogue, exchange and cooperation in protecting intellectual property. Q: On April 12, Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched the Guidelines for the Implementation of the UNSC Resolutions Concerning Targeted Financial Sanctions, Travel Ban and Arms Embargo to further oversee and guide the federal and provincial governments' implementation of sanctions against individuals and entities designated by the UNSC. What is your comment? A: China has noted relevant reports. The issuance of the Guidelines is the latest step taken by Pakistan to implement its National Action Plan to counter terrorism, which showcases Pakistan's position and determination to resolutely combat terrorism and implement relevant UNSC sanctions resolution. China commends that. Pakistan is an important participant in the global fight against terrorism and has made tremendous efforts and sacrifices for international counter-terrorism cooperation and the international counter-terrorism cause. China supports Pakistan in advancing its counter-terrorism efforts in light of its own national conditions and hopes that the international community will strengthen counter-terrorism cooperation to jointly uphold global and regional peace and stability. Q: A question about the Belt and Road. India is highly unlikely to attend the second Belt and Road Forum. In an interview with a Chinese media last month, Indian envoy hinted that. He said no country can participate in an initiative that ignores its core concerns of sovereignty and territorial integrity. What does China think of India's view? A: You should ask the Indian side if its government or various communities will participate in BRI cooperation or related activities. While the BRI was proposed by China, it has grown into an international public good. The success of the first BRF together with the bumper practical outcomes speaks volumes. The fact that more countries and international organizations are taking an active part in the second forum is further proof to its success. You mentioned misgivings some people in India cite for not participating in BRI cooperation, in particular, Indian's core concerns. I would like to reiterate that the BRI is an open and inclusive initiative for economic cooperation. It never concerns territorial disputes. In pursuing BRI cooperation, China and partner countries are committed to equality, openness and transparency, to business operations centered around enterprises and to market rules and international norms. For those with inaccurate judgment on the BRI based on misunderstandings due to lack of knowledge of the real situation, I would like to reassure them that China is sincerely and resolutely committed to the principle of consultation and cooperation for shared benefit, equality and mutual benefit. Follow-up: You are saying that this time a lot of international organizations are coming to participate in the Belt and Road Forum. Are you trying to say that if India does not participate this time again, it's going to miss out a lot? A: Since its initiation, the Belt and Road cooperation has been inclusive and open to all countries that are interested in joining and working for win-win cooperation. It excludes no one. If the relevant country would like to take some time to see, we can wait. You asked whether not participating means missing out opportunities as this time a lot of countries and international organizations are coming to participate in the second BRF. I am afraid you have to ask the countries that choose not to participate. Q: DPRK's Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un said that he would like to have a third meeting with US President Trump. What is your comment? A: Sustaining the momentum for dialogue on the Korean Peninsula issue to resolve all relevant parties' concerns and realize denuclearization serves the common interests of all sides and meets the expectations of the international community. China has all along encouraged the DPRK and the US to meet each other half way, stick to the right direction of settling the issue through dialogue, step up engagement, take phased and synchronized steps as part of a package solution, respect and accommodate each other's legitimate concerns, narrow differences and expand consensus, and work with all parties concerned towards denuclearization and a political settlement. This past Thursday night, Daily Wire writer Michael Knowles came to speak at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC). A mob of thirty or so students and hangers-on heckled him, and one sprayed him with what proved to be a nontoxic substance. While the campus police wrestled the student to the ground, his or her or hir colleagues chanted the lethal and long since discredited mantra, Hands up, dont shoot. For conservative speakers on college campuses, the disruption was business more or less as usual. What was not usual, at least not in this part of the world, was the official response. As quickly became clear, there are no liberals any more. Their young have cowed them here and elsewhere into a cringing, uncritical embrace of the progressive menu du jour. The missive UMKC chancellor Mauli Agrawal sent to the campus community after the event reads like a hostage letter. To describe Knowless views, Agrawal used the words controversial, unpopular, and extreme. Agrawal concluded his plea for civility by asking students to stay true to our values in the face of provocation, and to respond to bias and intolerance with reason and courage. If Rep. Ilhan Some people did something Omar had spoken on campus, Agrawals letter might have made some sense, but she didnt. The speaker, Michael Knowles, is cut from the same cloth as his better-known colleague Ben Shapiro: young, sane, restrained, and very smart. The talk that tested campus values was titled, Men Are Not Women. Knowles acknowledged liberal feminist Meghan Murphy as the inspiration for his title. Murphy, the editor of the Feminist Current, was notoriously banned from Twitter for tweeting, Women arent men. Wrote Murphy after being banned, This is hardly an abhorrent thing to say, nor should it be considered hateful to ask questions about the notion that people can change sex or ask for explanations about transgender ideology. Like Chancellor Agrawal, the editors of the Kansas City Star avoided the issue in question and attacked Knowles for daring to raise it. Instead of the chancellors pious handwringing, however, the Star editors responded with satire, the talent for which they conspicuously lack. Read the stunningly daft headline, At UMKC, a D-List conservative was sad to be squirted with the makings of a bubble bath. According to the Star editors, Knowles apparently came to UMKC for no greater purpose than to claim victimhood. To them, he simply played his assigned role in the mutual trollery sometimes referred to as the debate over free speech on campus. The editors expressed dismay that Missouri Gov. Mike Parson did not find this outrage kabuki as boring as they pretended to. As the editors have to know, there is nothing mutual about the trollery. I live half-a-mile from the UMKC campus. My wife is a professor there. If I remember right, the last campus event I attended was a presentation by author Frank McCourt, who had come to town to promote his new book, Angelas Ashes. That book was published in 1996. McCourt died ten years ago. Knowles was reportedly the first conservative speaker invited to the campus in five years. UMKC aint Berkeley. It sits a mile from the Kansas-Missouri border. In 2016, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 19 percentage points in Missouri, 21 in Kansas. This is a reasonably sane part of the country. When the University of Missouris flagship campus in Columbia erupted in pointless protest three-plus years ago, the citizens and legislators of Missouri showed their disapproval not just in polls and in legislation but by withholding their children. The resulting attendance drop at the university flirted with the catastrophic. Most UMKC students commute to school, many from Kansas Citys blue-collar suburbs. By and large they lack the time and tattoos to participate in the kind of silliness that paralyzed the Columbia mothership and disrupted Knowless talk. Administrators and Star editors have no reason to fear them. Yet they do. They fear them because they think the humorless, mindless, oddly overweight -- one girl wore a T-Shirt that said simply and aptly Fat-- protesters speak for the students writ large. They dont. And they sure as hell dont speak for the citizenry. When Agrawal talks of views we disagree with and our values, he forgets who the we is that sustains the university. I suspect that at least 80-90 percent of Missouri taxpayers would have nodded in approval throughout Knowless speech. Said Knowles, If you took a time machine back all the way to the way-way back of five years ago, and you told people a man would come to a university to defend the proposition men are not women, and this would be a hugely controversial event, [they] would have laughed in your face. The views that Agrawal feels compelled to defend strike the average citizen as goofy now and will strike them as goofy a millennium hence. Are there no liberals left to rein their children in? Why did the Ecuadorian embassy invite the London cops into its sovereign territory and ask them to extract Julian Assange like a bad zit? Well, because he was abusing his hosts. The Sun of London has zeroed in on just how freakishly disgusting the man acted as he nested away in the Ecuadorian embassy, according to reports: JULIAN Assange was kicked out of the Ecuador embassy for allegedly sharing a photo of the president eating a lobster. The WikiLeaks founder is accused of leaking an embarrassing snap of Ecuadorian premier Lenin Moreno dining on a platter of lobster in bed in a luxury hotel room. Mr Moreno was so furious at the breach that he ordered Assange's seven-year refuge at the embassy be ended on Thursday, the Mail on Sunday reports. The silver-haired hacker was booted out of his Knightsbridge safe haven after being handcuffed by embassy security and dragged out by officers from Scotland Yard. That was his host shielding him from the long arm of the law. And it wasn't just WikiLeaking he did to the Ecuadorians; he reportedly also did some Wikidumping: He was said to have smeared his own poo all over the building's walls in a protest and annoyed staff by skateboarding late at night. Julian Assange's lawyer Jennifer Robinson just denied claims he staged a dirty protest. She said: "It's not true. "Ecuador has been making some pretty outrageous allegations over the last few days to justify what was an unlawful and extraordinary act in allowing British police to come inside an embassy." Given that WikiLeaks itself correctly forecast the Ecuadorian kick-out over the private photos of the president, which I noticed here ten days ago, I am going to believe that the Ecuadorians would have wanted him out on this disgusting matter, too, which also involves news of ungrateful guest behavior getting out. There were leaks about the impending arrest, all right probably from WikiLeaks or its sympathizers but poo is a lot harder for WikiLeaks to spin, so there's been no leaking on that. The Ecuadorians wanted him out (which was indeed an accurate leak), and boy do they have stories... When the story about the photos leaked out ten days ago, whoever was doing the leaking was trying to sound the alarm about Assange's imminent kick-out. We were all supposed to be alarmed and pressure the Ecuadorian government not to do it. But seriously, why shouldn't a guy who leaked private photos of his own hosts as they shielded him not be kicked out? Some may argue it's a petty reason, and Assange's own attorney even absurdly argues that it was "illegal," but what was going on here? Assange was a guest, not the boss there, and an embassy is like a home sometimes it actually is a home and this guy gets into the private stuff of his hosts and publishes it to embarrass them? Like Aesop's scorpion, this guy just can't help himself. The photo release of the Ecuadorian president eating lobster in bed was not only embarrassing to the president, but also politically damaging, given that the country, which is in really bad hock to China, is now under "austerity" in a bid to dig its way out. Assange probably wanted to damage that president so he would get a different one more to his own liking. Leaking is what he does, so he or his buddies probably leaked. The feces-smearing incident was already sitting there as a demerit, and Assange knew that Moreno also wasn't happy with him. It would explain why sending out politically damaging photos was just the thing... He chose poorly. All he had to do was not smear feces on the walls. All he had to do was stay out of the Ecuadorian president's photos. He couldn't manage even that. He leaked and he leaked, and apparently took a dump, too. Now he's whining about it. Oh, cripes put him in jail, and let him bother the convicts about it. Saturday Night Live was funny indeed in its skit about Assange in jail, but its comic writers didn't get the half of it. Image credit: Twitter screen shot from Ruptly video. Is this the face of criminal justice "reform"? Dallas County district attorney John Creuzot is enacting sweeping changes to the way his office deals with crime. It appears that Creuzot will be giving petty criminals a pass. Creuzot will "decriminalize" most petty crimes against property, reform the bail system, and refuse to prosecute first-time drug offenders. Dallas Morning News: But as we work toward improvements, we are apprehensive about Creuzot's plan to decriminalize low-level crimes. It has the potential to send the wrong message about our tolerance for any crime in this county. We worry about the new policy creating a system that tells petty criminals their bad acts are OK and that demands police officers look the other way. And we can't lose sight of the thousands of real victims of these crimes for which their experiences erode their feelings of safety real or perceived in their neighborhoods. Yes the victims. There are few crimes that are "victimless," and most victims are traumatized by the crimes committed against them. But Creuzot has created a brand new justice program that he calls "decriminalizing poverty" as if being poor were an excuse to break the law. Still, we worry that some aspects of his policy that he calls "decriminalizing poverty" may go too far in the other direction, particularly at a time when residents across this region are worried about increased crime in their neighborhoods, from package theft to car break-ins. Creuzot says he'll decline to prosecute theft of personal items worth less than $750 unless the theft was for financial gain. He says he's in the process of dismissing all misdemeanor marijuana cases filed before he took office with a few exceptions including those where a deadly weapon was used. And he'll stop prosecuting most first-time marijuana offenses and some misdemeanors that he believes often stem from poverty. We remind Creuzot that most poor people in this city are law-abiding citizens. And sometimes, petty criminals escalate their activities to more serious offenses when enforcement is slack on more minor crimes. The "broken windows" theory of crime prevention cleaned up New York City in the 1990s, turning an unlivable hell-hole into a more civilized city. And it was exactly the kind of petty crimes that Creuzot will now refuse to prosecute that got so many criminals off the street and improved the quality of life for all New Yorkers, rich and poor. The murder rate went way down, as did rates for violent crime. It turned out that many of those "petty criminals" also engaged in violent acts. Getting them off the streets of New York worked. But criminal justice "reformers" hated the "broken windows" theory of law enforcement. Too many minorities went to jail. The police searches of random teens was deemed excessive. The concept that if you break the law, you pay the price will now go out the window as poverty becomes an excuse for lawbreaking. This is a racist policy. It presupposes that the poor are incapable of restraining themselves and acting within the law. While fewer minorities will go to jail, and more criminals will be able to make bail, the law-abiding citizens of Dallas will suffer the consequences of this "kinder, gentler" criminal justice system. We should revisit the issue of crime in Dallas in a year or two. How bad do you think it will get? A recent copy of that highbrow epigone of German journalism, Die Zeit, carried a piece called "Hungary is lost." It is as good an example as any of the hopeless left-wing morass that German media have fallen into recently. Hungary has been in the news for its opposition to European Union policies, especially over migration, and its efforts to preserve its own unique culture and nationhood, so it's not a popular state within the European Union establishments. The Zeit piece starts out claiming to be an introduction to the idea that Hungarian democracy is being "systematically destroyed" by "hate, racism and right-wing gangsterism," which have become the "state's rationale." Curiously, the English translation of the same sentence is rendered with the relatively anodyne "the institutions, the legal system and the social fabric are nothing but a pile of rubble," perhaps indicating that the editors were aware that they were going too far. There is no evidence of any even-handedness in the body of the long article, full as it is, loaded with barely disguised innuendo, slander, and outright lies about the country. The lie that no independent press is tolerated is exposed by the author's own admission that opposition media freely exist in Hungary. What is never mentioned for obvious reasons is that Orban's Fidesz party has a serious political challenge, not from the left, but from the right-wing Jobbik party, which has polled second in recent elections. And so, Orban is declared a "Fuehrer" who rules by "fear, hate and verbal aggression" and engages in "fascistoid hate campaigns" not seen since the 1930s, while the Hungarian people are slandered as the "most hate-filled in the EU." A particularly slanderous bent is reserved by the anonymous author for the Hungarian economy, which is booming by any objective criterion. According to Zeit's writer or writers, four million of the 10 million Hungarians live in abject poverty, while the highest level of poverty measured by Eurostat is less than 15%, and thus, the claim is that Hungary is beneath the average for the E.U. That would be news if it were true, and it's not. Moreover, the unemployment rate has collapsed under Orban from 11.94% in 2012 to 3.6% now. Overall, Hungary has been hugely successful economically, and with an average salary of $1,148/per month today a vast improvement from the dismal days of communism it is on its way to prosperity. Much of the venom of the author, who is identified as a former Central European University (CEU) employee, which means a George Soros hire, is reserved for Orban's anti-immigration stand and the Hungarians' alleged anti-Semitism. On the former, the author has little to say except to inform us with a straight face that "refugees are systematically starved to death in distant internment camps." This would certainly be news to even the most unhinged migrant acolyte and is, as a matter of fact, a bald-faced lie. As for the Hungarians' supposed anti-Semitism, which we are told on faith afflicts fully 30% of the population, there is no accusation that is more deliberately fraudulent than this. Soros is, of course, a familiar figure in America recently analyzed perceptively by Stefan Kanfer in the City Journal. Having made a killing in the market by financial machinations, fair or foul (he was convicted for insider trading by the French), he began investing heavily in his Open Society Foundation in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. Initially, he funded some worthwhile causes and individuals, but eventually, he settled where he is now as the main financier of hard-left causes. Those familiar with Soros's ideology are well aware that the long-term goal of the man "who fancied himself as some kind of god" has always been the "eradication of national sovereignty" and "open borders and global governance." In spending billions to achieve these goals, his main enemies have always been the United States, which he has called "the main obstacle to a stable and just world order" and Israel. Regarding the latter, Soros has funded all manner of anti-Israeli and barely disguised anti-Semitic causes such as BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) as well as multiple subversive Palestinian causes. He has also, as a matter of course, funded the who's-who of the left, including Hillary Clinton, Black Lives Matter, pro-immigration groups, and anti-Catholic activists, to mention just a few of them. So what is it that Die Zeit finds so objectionable in Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban to resort to such obvious slander and lies to demonize him? Perhaps we should let Orban speak for himself. He believes that no country should be made to take migrants against its will, which is the current policy of Angela Merkel, Jean-Claude Juncker, and other E.U. leaders. That's especially since it has become quite clear that many of the Muslim immigrants refuse to accept European norms and integrate. After all, as voting in the recent Turkish referendum showed that 63% of German Turks voted for Islamist dictator Recit Tayyip Erdogan. He has also said that the Hungarians have lived in their part of Europe for a thousand years and would like to stay there another thousand years. What exactly is wrong with that? Alex Alexiev is chairman of the Center for Balkan and Black Sea Studies (CBBSS.org). He can be reached at alexievalex4@gmail.com. A version of Les Miserables, new to U.S. viewers, began airing on PBS Sunday night. While even nominally civilized people of the West were cognizant of the cruelty human beings were capable of for hundreds of years, Victor Hugo's novel of 1862 was an exceptional rendition of man's capacity for barbarity. While Lincoln and the abolitionists were fighting to end slavery in America after having won independence from England, France was still suffering the disastrous consequences of its own ten-year revolution. That nation lacked the spirit of humanity that animated our revolution and resulted in the American Constitution. Their revolution devolved into mass murder. The Reign of Terror began when the Jacobins seized power in 1793. Thousands were guillotined, and Christianity was eradicated. Sound familiar? Our left has driven itself into a Jacobin frenzy. If they could guillotine President Trump and every one of his supporters and get away with it, many leftists would. Via Wikimedia Commons. They actually do believe we should all be discounted, erased, disempowered. Our votes should not count in their world. They are smart and entitled; we are stupid and should not be heard. It has taken many centuries to arrive at the moment in time in which we now live and breathe. The American miracle, our Constitution and market economy, has brought wealth and security to millions of people on the planet. And yet to the global left, the U.S. is a scourge to be eradicated, just as Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, should be extinguished. This is how lunatic the Left has become. They revere power and control over liberty, over freedom for every individual. They do not count or see us as individuals; they see us all as members of one identity group or another. We are black, white, gay, trans, rich, poor, etc. We are nothing to the Left but faceless members of a privileged, oppressed, or hated bracket of one kind or another. All of us, no matter what category to which we have been assigned, are either pawns in their game of power over all or objects of contempt for our noisy efforts and, in 2016, success in electing someone we chose. Oh, the horror! They cannot abide their loss and self-righteously set out to undo it. Of this, there is no longer any doubt. They attempted a coup and failed. Now they are really mad! The migrants attempting to enter the U.S. illegally at the southern border do present a major crisis, despite the Democrats' protestations to the contrary. They know how serious it is, but giving in to Trump's attempt to implement border security is impossible for this crowd of naysayers. They would rather see the country overrun with illegals, knowing many of them are gang members, cartel operatives, trafficked women and children, and persons with no knowledge of modern civilized behavior because they have never been socialized into such a political order. These are the people our Democrats are inviting to breach our borders by the thousands in hopes of derailing Trump. How dumb is this? Really dumb. Now that Trump suggested the possibility of delivering these migrants to those virtue-signaling sanctuary cities, the same migrant-loving left is up in arms with outrage. How dare he put those pawns in our cities? This after the mayors and governors of sanctuary cities and states insist their states and cities are safer because of all their illegal residents. Hmmm. One has to wonder: how many Hondurans will it take to lower the crime rate in Chicago? The Democrats lie about the crime stats, and they lie about wanting more illegals in their own cities. All of this brings us back to man's inhumanity to man. The Democrats' party used to be viable. Men like Truman and JFK loved the country and wanted to do right by its people. That began to change with LBJ, a political thug if there ever were one. Carter was just weak and ineffectual. Clinton was surprisingly moderate after he lost the House. Obama did incalculable damage to the nation; it will be years before the truth of his desecration of America is written by legitimate historians. He was a stealth president who set out to transform the country and largely succeeded to that end. He was a race-hustler of the first order who succeeded in escalating the racial rage of American blacks. He did it on purpose and was wildly effective. All of the Democrats running for president have prostrated themselves before the ridiculous and corrupt Al Sharpton. Not one of them has the guts to deny fealty to this horrid man. Not one. The Democrats' party today is defined by Ocasio-Cortez; Tlaib; and Ilhan Omar, the woman who thinks the crime of 9/11 was "some people" doing "something" whose most important consequence was a rise in Islamophobia. The party is led by men like Jerald Nadler, Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, Ted Leiu; each of them, all of them, are intellectually challenged. One has only to see them confronted by the glorious Candace Owens to know this is true. There is not a wise man or woman among them. Not one. They have just become hatefully anti-American and inhumane. Hugo's Javert pursued Valjean like the Democrats of today are harassing Donald Trump. All those who know the book should remember that it was Valjean who was the good man. The recent wave of asylum-seekers from Central America who have shown up at our southern border points out the desperate need for reforming our asylum laws and procedures. The fact is, few asylum-seekers will be successful because they don't come here to escape religious persecution or political oppression. They come for "a better life." You can hardly blame them for that, considering the hell-holes they are trying to escape. But asylum laws were written not to give people a better life. And the fact that so many asylum-seekers are allowed to stay in the U.S. until their cases are decided in court means that many tens of thousands will become permanent illegal residents. Senator Lindsey Graham wants to discourage asylum-seekers from coming, and he is writing a bill to close several loopholes being exploited by Central American migrants. Washington Times: "We have to change these laws so people stop coming," Mr. Graham told Fox News during an appearance on "Sunday Morning Futures." "Doing what we are doing is not working the crisis has to come to an end," he added. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee said lawmakers will mark up a bill once they return from recess later this month. He wants to change the time officials can detain a minor child to more than 20 days, saying the court decision now in place requires them to be released after 20 days of detainment, long before a family's asylum case can be decided, causing many family units (and sometimes fake families) to be released. Mr. Graham also said the law now only lets the U.S. return minor children to Mexico or Canada instead of the Central American country from which they came, so he wants to alter the law to allow the unaccompanied minors to be returned to Central America. The senator said the people in Central America are aware of these quirks and have been exploiting them. The push to reform asylum laws may become part of a larger package to reform the immigration system: The renewed push to change current U.S. immigration law comes after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, signaled last week he's willing to start negotiating with Democrats on a major immigration reform bill, saying something needs to get done and it will require the GOP making concessions. Mr. McConnell said Republicans want to see action on border security and changes to the policies that create the incentives drawing migrants toward the U.S. right now but said that will mean dealing with Democrats who control the House. "I think it's way past time for us to have an adult bipartisan discussion about our immigration laws and see what we can agree to," he told reporters Thursday. Asked whether that means he would entertain the broad "comprehensive immigration reform" approach Democrats say is necessary, Mr. McConnell signaled an openness. "I'm willing to enter into a negotiation to see what we can do to fix the problems," he said. The two most frightening words on the Hill are "comprehensive reform." That approach always end up leading to a slew of unintended consequences as poorly written bills become law. The incrementalist approach might take longer, but it would have far fewer problems in the long run. Graham has the right idea, and anything Congress does to stem the massive tide of humanity showing up at our southern border demanding someone take care of them would be welcome. The Conservative and Reform rabbinical leadership along with affiliated lay groups and tepid pro-Israel groups have revealed their elitist contempt for democracy and their disdain for Zionism by appealing to President Trump to force Prime Minister Netanyahu to break his electoral pledges. They did this in a letter sent to a Jewish publication, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, on Friday, April 12. In that letter, they called on our president to stop Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from extending sovereignty over Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. Why not ask President Trump to do what they really want: overthrow the Israeli government and install a secular leftist government? Because that is what they want. They don't care about democracy or rule of law if Israelis dare not to want what they think Israelis should want. The rabbis, ironically enough, are trying to declare U.S. sovereignty over Israel. They are acting as if Israel were a vassal state of the U.S. These American rabbis and those allied with their thinking refuse to pay any attention to what the Israelis have found out while waiting patiently for decades while the Palestinian Arabs keep repaying their every peace effort with ever increasing terrorism. The Arab leadership will not agree to "live side by side in peace and security" with the Jewish state. At this point, most Israelis are no longer prepared to live in limbo. They have already rejected what these American rabbis demand they accept. On April 9, the Israeli electorate gave a loud, resounding "no" to parties whose vision for Israel these Americans endorse, giving them the lowest election support ever. Not surprisingly, these American interlopers are not listening to what Israelis want at all. Perhaps what is most galling is that the rabbis' outrageous April 12 letter oversteps their authority to speak for even American Jews within their respective denominations. They are not interpreting Jewish law, their alleged area of expertise, but are acting as Democratic Party partisans with its allegiance to the shibboleth that two states for two peoples will bring peace. After Netanyahu pledged to extend sovereignty to all Israelis living in the disputed areas that are the heartland of biblical Israel, the Israeli public applauded that pledge. Israelis gave Netanyahu the highest proportion of the vote that he has ever received in any election. What's downright laughable is that these unelected American rabbis are now willing to prostrate themselves before President Trump, whom they daily defame, calling on him to impose their preferences on an electorate that has rejected them as a threat to their survival. These arrogant, insulated rabbis have not learned from thousands of rockets fired from Gaza or the tens of thousands of missiles on the Lebanon border or the decades of stabbing, shooting, ramming attacks on Jews in Judea and Samaria. But Israelis have. These letter-writing hypocrites hide behind protestations of love for Israel and then condition that love on doing it my way or the highway. They threaten that the American Jewish community will not support Israel if it does not do what they want. How dare they? We witness with sorrow the power of Rep. Ilhan Omar and her cohort in the cowing of the four Jewish Democratic representatives who cravenly echoed the rabbis' calumny. Not one of them had the courage to demand that Rep. Omar be removed from the House Foreign Affairs Committee despite her outrages against American Jews and against Israel. Now they dare to tell Netanyahu to ignore the will of his people and kowtow to them, as they kowtow to their freshman colleague. Reps. Engel, Lowey, Deutch and Schneider have you no shame? Perhaps they all the representatives, the rabbis, and their cheerleaders fear that they may soon be turned away by what the Democratic Party is becoming. Appeasement, however, is unlikely to win them a delay in excommunication. And since the real religion of their declining congregations is whatever is this year's Democratic Party platform, they now attempt to hoist this outrageous letter as a "Jewish" position. Let us be clear: the rabbis have no authority to speak for American Jews in the political arena. They have disgraced themselves by doing so. We are hopeful that President Trump won't be swayed by these leftist Democrats in clerical clothing. The authors are chairmen, JewsChooseTrump.org Photo credit: U.S. State Department. Data. Privacy. Is there a difference? Yes is the short answer, although they are not always independent. However, with the number of reports now circulating around your data and your privacy it is worth taking a moment to understand what each of these mean and how they differ to ensure you are best protected in cases where either, or both are put at risk. Definition is a problem Even the definition can be a little confusing at times and further adding to that confusion is the definition of either of these words can vary from country to country. For example, in some countries, the fundamental difference between the two is described as data privacy and data protection. Advertisement While data privacy does in theory complicate an understanding of the difference between data and privacy when you compare it to data protection, it might actually help to better understand the difference. For instance, while data protection adequately refers to protecting your data, it does not automatically or always mean your privacy is protected. Thats unless you are in Europe where the difference between data protection and privacy protection are more interchangeable another example of the confusing nature of the geographical differences in settling on a globally-understood definition. For the sake of clarity here, we will briefly address the two as entirely different entities. As when all is said and done they are entirely different entities. Advertisement Data You use data with your mobile plan and your home internet. In this sense, it is a very easy thing to understand as you consume materials and the measurement of that materials is usually defined in data. This is different to the energy used (battery or power) to consumer those same materials. Data in the privacy (confusion intended) context is not that much different although the emphasis on what is data, is. Just like you consume x amount of GB when streaming a Netflix movie on your phone, companies have customers who consume some of their resources. And just like you might count how much data youve consumed over the past month to calculate any charges that might be coming your way, companies count their data in a similar way. If its a video-streaming service for example, then that might mean the company counts how many times one particular title was watched, how many thumbs up it received, or the overall numerical value (out of a total of five) the title received from customer reviews. Advertisement If on social media, this same data might mean the number of likes given or received, the amount of shares, views, or whatever other metric or unique trait the service uses and counts. Put simply, data is the numerical aspect of our online behaviors. This then can be collected and used. And yes, while your data is included in that collection (your likes, shares, views and so on), thats not to say your privacy is, or has been. Privacy In this explanation which looks to more clearly separate the two for the purpose of understanding the difference, privacy means information that is directly related to you as an individual. Advertisement Yes, while your likes and shares are related to you in the sense they represent your behaviors and actions, on their own they cant be attributed to, or used to identify you in the real world. If you gave Stranger Things a 4.3 out of 5 or a thumbs up on Netflix, then you are probably only one of many who have given that exact title, that exact review number or a thumbs up. Theres nothing that ties the information to you, specifically. The difference therefore is sometimes best understood in the intimacy of the data or information in question. After all, names, addresses, and personal information is still data in the grander scheme of things, but when talking in terms of instances that we now so often see in the media, the difference usually comes down to how far or how close that information is to you on a personal level. The further it is away, the more it becomes strictly data, and the less privacy plays a roll. Data breach vs privacy breach The difference explained here will help to make sure understanding what has been put at risk the next time a high profile breach takes place. As sometimes the media can make things worse by suggesting a privacy breach has happened when in fact it was a data breach, or vice vera. This is a common problem and one all sites likely suffer from at some point due to the intrinsic differences and similarities in definition. For example, heres one of our articles that focuses in on a data breach when in fact it was both a data and privacy breach. Advertisement Working on the basis of a clear distinction between the two, this is why you will often hear companies that have experienced a breach state something along the lines of no personal information was shared. This is due to them suffering a data breach only. In these instances, data has leaked out or been stolen which might be related to information thats been collected on user behaviors, but not information on users. On some occasions, that might even be highly sensitive information such as medical or financial data. However, again, if theres nothing that can be used to attribute that leaked data, even if its medical or financial, to you as a user, than it remains only a data breach. The use of only is not meant to signify that its not still a problem, or that you should take the breach any easier, or not hold the company/service to account as much as you should. It just mean that information that can be related to you on a personal level has not been shared, lost or stolen. Only your numerical values. Advertisement Therefore, for most people a privacy breach is going to usually be more of a concern as this will most likely include information that is directly relevant to you on an intimate level. Whether it be your name, bank account information (different to data), medical information (different to data), social security details, these are example of information that can be used to identify you in some way. Compared to data alone which only highlights what someone did or did not do. Does knowing this help me to be better protected? Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that knowing what you are risking should at least help in protecting yourself from certain, and more intimate breaches. But no in the sense that as already explained these definitions are not always as separate as they should be, and this is made worse by companies not explicitly defining what they mean by your data and your privacy. Advertisement What it should definitely do, however, is raise awareness within yourself to not take everything a company says it does on your behalf on face value. If, for example, a company says we value your privacy that does not automatically mean they also value your data. They certainly might place a value on your data and chances are the more of a value the company places on your data, the more likely they dont really abide by a we value your data sentiment. To explain, data is valuable and most people now understand it is a commodity to be traded and sold to the highest bidder. Companies who value your privacy, but not your data, might be more inclined to not only collect that data but also sell it on to advertisers. From their perspective, as long as they are not sharing information that connects that data to an individual they are not doing anything wrong. They are in fact, respecting and valuing your privacy as they said they do. This is where the world has become murkier lately and while the actions of a company might not be so noble, they are usually legal. There has already been plenty of examples of this happening in recent times when consumers thought they were protected by a company only to find out the company had been sharing user data. Again, theirs as in sharing unanimous data that although is the users data, is not directly attributed to the user. For many companies, without a name attached to that data, it is no longer the property of those users. This is why it is important to understand the difference and even if that understanding doesnt help with companies who collect data or personal information. As knowing how protection from one does not automatically protect you from the other puts you in the drivers seat when making certain decisions. If a company is honest enough it will state that it wont share your personal information, but might share your data. If it only says it wont share your personal information (that it values your privacy) then it still might mean they are collecting data on you. The wider industry still has a lot of work to do In an ideal world, the distinction between the two would be a lot clearer and various governments and agencies are trying to do just that, as well as introducing stricter punishments to ensure more companies are held more accountable. However, with personal information also a form of data, and with many differing viewpoints on what constitutes yours and theirs, once you sign up to a service and agree to the T&Cs, it remains unclear how quickly full clarity on the topic will take. Thats without even taking into consideration the linguistic and language differences of the words data and privacy. Or for that matter, the legal differences. For example, the protection of data is something that usually implies the fencing off of data from unauthorized viewing or usage the security of data. In this instance, unauthorized is what legality of action will likely linger on. If a company authorizes someone else to look at your data or your personal data (another linguistic difference), then that technically would not be a data breach. You might consider it to be considering your data has been shared with a party that was not authorized by you, but in terms of a breach, the company openly and actively provided access again, this is something that might have been disclosed in the T&Cs and by signing permission by you is understood. Even in cases where the access was not admitted when signing up, it might not be an illegal activity. A breach of trust, probably, but not necessarily a data or privacy breach. Once again, this might heavily depend on where you (or the company) is located, or even the time at which it occurred. Chinese Ambassador Designate Presents Copy of the Letter of Credence to Minister Alie Kabba 2019/04/15 The Chinese Ambassador Designate to Sierra Leone, His Excellency Hu Zhangliang on Monday 1st April, 2019 presented copy of the letter of credence to Hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Dr. Alie Kabba at his Tower Hill office in Freetown. Ambassador Designate Mr. Hu thanked the Minister and his team for the hospitable welcome accorded him. He said China and Sierra Leone are traditional friends and that under the leadership of His Excellency President Xi Jinping of the People's Republic of China and President Julius Maada Bio of the Republic of Sierra Leone, China-Sierra Leone relations have been further strengthened. "The Chinese government and people attach great importance to the development of their relations with the Government and people of Sierra Leone. The Chinese side wishes to expand and deepen cooperation with the Sierra Leone side in various fields so as to bring more benefits to our two peoples." Said Mr. Hu. In his response, the Hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Dr Alie Kabba welcomed the Ambassador designate to the Republic of Sierra Leone and thanked the government and people of China for the warm welcome accorded him during his visit to China early this year. The Hon. Minister said that China and Sierra Leone have established a tight bond decades back meant good for the peoples of both countries. The relationship between the two countries is forging ahead toward an even stronger community with a shared future through win-win cooperation. Google is being targeted by antitrust authorities in the European Union yet again, this time on the mobile app front. While it has only been a year since the firm was heavily penalized by the largest political bloc on the Old Continent, its now facing a more localized investigation started by the Dutch government. The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) recently announced the start of a probe into Apples App Store practices, adding that its also seeking input on Google and its own digital storefront, by far the largest such distribution platform in the Android ecosystem. As the Android operating system happens to account for the vast majority of active smartphones in the world, including the Netherlands, Amsterdam is now looking at what policies are behind the manner wherein its run and whether those rulesets are in any way harmful to the very concept of paid competition. Right now, the focus is on transparency and potential lack thereof but the investigation is bound to expand as suggestions from affected app creators and distributors keep coming. The ACM wants to protect any and all app developers and publishers that may be affected by store policies that constitute abuse, the agency said, noting it already has some indications of that being the case in the world of iOS software and expressing a belief about how something similar might apply in the case of Google, though it doesnt appear it received any complaints against Alphabets subsidiary in that regard as of right now. Advertisement What may hurt the legitimacy of the probe is its origin; as the lack of any successful litigation arguing the opposite illustrates, antitrust claims aimed at Apple are frivolous by virtue of the fact iOS isnt licensed to third parties and even if it was, it accounts for a minuscule percentage of the overall smartphone user base across the world. While many doubted and still doubt the effectiveness of the 2018 fine sanctioned by the European Commission following years of in-depth investigations, theres no denying its power of drawing the attention of the entire world to Googles mobile practices and how they dovetail with its dominance in other tech segments. At least partially due to that trembling aftermath of the $5-billion fine, still by far the largest one ever issued by an EU body over antitrust violations, the Department of Justice in Googles home country was also considering a probe of the technology juggernauts business with the goal of determining whether any of its policies are detrimental to the overall state of market competition in the United States. Any market. Even as prominent Google critics such as Yelp would argue the answer to that question is a clear and resounding yes, no such investigation was started to date. Half a year following the original report on the matter, it seems unlikely the DOJ would still be weighing its options when it comes to such a high-profile case. Whats equally unlikely is that some kind of a probe began in secrecy; the antitrust division of the DOJ has a traditionally weak handle on internal leaks, with one of the more recent examples being the fact that most of its dealings surrounding the highly sensitive AT&T acquisition of Time Warner ended up in the public weeks before becoming official. Law enforcement officers and investigators at the federal level have increasingly been reliant on Googles location data tracking, according to a recent report from The New York Times citing Google employees close to the matter. According to the Googlers, the data stored in a massive database referred to as Sensorvault has become a subject of increasing interest to officials, with warrants requesting access to the data spiking significantly over the past six months. More concerning for privacy advocates, the warrants are no longer completely reliant on other clues for a crime thats under investigation either. Instead, the warrants request location data on users within the area and timeframe in which a crime occurred, forcing Google to hand over dozens or hundreds of users tracked data. Sensorvault, the Googlers indicate, contains highly-detailed location records stored from hundreds of millions of devices going back almost ten years. While the search giant has not provided a specific number of requests received, the unspecified employees reportedly claim to have seen as many as 180 requests in one week in 2019. Advertisement Is the data reliable? Google employees claim to have been surprised by the appearance of the warrants. Brian McClendon, a developer in a lead position on Google Maps and other location-based services through 2015, refers to the relatively new usage as a fishing expedition. Thats because the database is not actually optimized for the task in question, the Googlers say. So, as a result of the number of requests for information in the database rising so suddenly, employees are having difficulty keeping up with the warrants. It can presently take as much as six months for a warrant to be fulfilled. Advertisement That also means the data isnt necessarily as reliable as law enforcement officials might like, although location data has served as evidence in several high-profile cases. Nowhere is that better highlighted than a recent case involving Jorge Molina, who was originally arrested for a murder in Arizona that involved a vehicle matching the description of one he owned. Location data served to investigators seemed to show that Mr. Molina had been in the area of the crime around the time it was committed with the data tracking closely with the movement of the vehicle seen in surveillance footage. Later, witnesses came forward to cement Mr. Molinas alibi with evidence that he had been with on the night of the crime. It was also revealed that the suspect had logged into other users accounts to check his Google Account and that his mothers ex-boyfriend Marcos Gaeta often took his car for his own personal use. Advertisement Subsequently, Mr. Molina was released after being held for a week but had lost his job at a Macys warehouse where he was initially arrested and had his vehicle repossessed. What does this mean for end users? For privacy advocates, the increased usage of location data by law enforcement agencies isnt surprising but is a concern since it isnt completely accurate and it isnt just Google that is storing the data in a way that allows for later retrieval. Advertisement Google is known to hold onto the data potentially forever, until users delete it, and has taken other steps to ensure that data remains anonymous even to police until suspects are narrowed down. The search giant has also reportedly provided data only within the strict confines of a well-defined warrant, without revealing any information about the users whose data has been sent to investigators. More details are only provided once police narrow down their search to a handful of suspects. Not only is there no guarantee thats the same process followed by other companies, however, but the location data can still extend beyond the initial search zone. In effect, law enforcement seems to be able to request further data from a suspect device once it has left that area after suspects have been narrowed down. Courts are still debating about data pooled from cell towers which will become more accurate with 5G, given the short range of mmWave cells currently being deployed and have not ruled on the use of geofence-based warrants. Even as lawmakers seem to be increasingly concerned about various internet giants practice of collecting and using the personal data of end users, it appears law enforcement officials are far less concerned about privacy. In celebration of the upcoming theatrical release of Marvels Avengers: Endgame, Google has teamed up with the publishing studio to release no fewer than five new characters to the AR-heavy Playground feature found on its Pixel devices. The new Playmoji are rolling out starting today to help fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe gear up for the movies April 26 premiere with the addition of War Machine, Thor, Black Widow, Rocket and of course Captain Marvel. The new characters will be usable in exactly the same way as the previous additions to Playground namely, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Nebula, and Okoye. That means theyll react to users facial expressions and make use of ARCore motion tracking and light estimation for a more realistic appearance. Users just need to download or already have installed the Marvel Studios Avengers: Endgame pack on their Pixel-branded device as the characters will be added via update. Advertisement In promotion of features that the Pixel (and other Androids) brings to the table This wouldnt be a Pixel reveal without some of Googles quirky culturally-aware flare and a new video ad spot spanning the events leading up to Avengers: Endgame is part of the announcement. Centering more prominently on features found on all modern Android gadgets but showcased via the companys own Pixel 3 handsets, that places the AI-powered Google Assistant front-and-center highlighting the ways a user might interact with Assistant in an Avengers style emergency. From the very beginning, the action in the advertisement peaks out and that doesnt stop until it comes to an end but Pixel users amid the chaos are shown keeping their cool and using their phone like they would any other day. Prime examples of the contrast include a cab driver who is forced to come to a stop when his Google Assistant informs him of a 23-hour slowdown on his route. The driver looks up before nonchalantly commenting that its aliens again before being rerouted. Advertisement Users also take advantage of Assistant to capture a selfie via voice command while another captures a short video of Iron Man. In one of the final scenes, an exasperated young woman in a cafe asks Google to play a relaxing mix of focus music from a playlist before going back to what she was doing. What is Playground? The Pixel-exclusive Pixel Playground is an ARCore-built tool that takes augmented reality to the next level, centered around Playmoji. Those are essentially 3D AR objects intended to look like and act like the real deal instead of just acting like more traditional stickers. Users are also able to interact with them to a small degree thanks to the incorporation of algorithms that track people and objects in the immediate environment. Advertisement One of the first Playmoji Google introduced for Pixel Playground was one of Donald Glover AKA Childish Gambino which utilized those advanced features to let users dance alongside the performer. The company even kicked off a dance competition on social media to celebrate that launch using the hashtag #pixeldanceoff. Theres a new social media sharing trend for the new Avengers addition too, although there doesnt appear to be any kind of contest associated with this one. Users who want to share their poses and interactions with the new AR characters are encouraged to do that alongside the hashtag #pixelendgame. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fMRXLl1OYA&feature=youtu.be Taiwanese handset maker, HTC, is working on a new mid-range smartphone, recent benchmark results reveal. The upcoming mid-tier smartphone, which was tested using popular benchmarking tools AnTuTu and Geekbench, will likely feature the Snapdragon 710 chipset from Qualcomm. This upper mid-range chipset from the American semiconductor firm contains an octa-core Kryo 360 CPU running at a maximum clock speed of 2.2GHz and the Adreno 616 GPU, and it also offers improved performance on artificial intelligence tasks and support for AI frameworks like TensorFlow and TensorFlow Lite. Both benchmark results also reveal that the handset, which has the model number HTC 2Q7A100, will have 6GB of RAM, and the AnTuTu listing further shows that the device will have 128GB of internal flash storage. The smartphone will have an 18:9 aspect ratio display, with a resolution of 2160 x 1080, and like many recently-launched smartphones, the upcoming mid-range handset from HTC will ship with Android 9 Pie pre-installed. Advertisement Aside from the specifications shared by the benchmark results, there is little information available about the design or the possible name of the upcoming mid-range smartphone from HTC. It is likely that the handset is still in an early stage of development, and it may take several months before HTC releases the device. However, late last year, the company released the HTC Desire 12s, which sported the Snapdragon 435 chipset and is available in Taiwan and China for under $200. In comparison, the upcoming mid-range device will have much more powerful chipset, which translates to considerably better performance. However, the more premium hardware internals of the handset will likely result in a higher price tag. Consumers will likely see additional mid-range smartphones from HTC, as the company will now focus on developing mid-tier and premium devices. However, this corporate decision means that the handset maker will leave the low-end segment of the smartphone market. Moreover, reports indicate that HTC will revamp its handset offerings, and the Taiwanese tech firm may brand its devices differently this year. Advertisement Among the lineups that might be affected by the shift in marketing strategy is the companys flagship HTC U series. Rumors emerged last November that HTC will not release a device named the HTC U13, and it will possibly launch the successor to the HTC U12+ with different branding. However, it is not yet clear if HTCs mid-range handsets will also undergo a rebrand like its more expensive offerings. Moving forward, despite its recent financial troubles, HTC will continue releasing smartphones in the foreseeable future, and recent reports indicate that HTC is also working on a 5G-capable smartphone. This handset will hit the store shelves in the second half of 2019, and the Taiwanese tech firm is also working on a variety of 5G mobile smart hub products to complement its 5G smartphone. The company also plans to continue the integration of blockchain technologies into its devices, and it also predicts that virtual reality and augmented reality applications will take-off with the help of 5G. Given that HTC has an extensive portfolio of VR headsets, HTC could take advantage of its expertise in VR and AR to boost its smartphone portfolio once 5G handsets become more widespread. It is a cliche to refer to an election as the feast of democracy, but this time the polls coincide with the festive season rather than with a passion for democracy. While the candidates compete for the publics attention, many people are either packing their cases or looking forward to it. Meanwhile, opinion polls hint at what the outcome might be and comparing the snapshots taken in the last few months can provide some insight as to how the public opinion is feeling as a whole. The PSOE and ERC are looking solid, whereas the PP and Ciudadanos are struggling. Vox is bound to burst the the Spanish parliaments bubble of respectability. Podemos are losing votes, while JxCat are striving to reverse their downward spiral. The absentees But the most interesting detail arising from the polls published so far is to do with the number of undecided voters. When you look at the election campaign and the calendar, it makes sense that 40 per cent of Spaniards havent decided which party they will vote for yet. As many as four out of ten voters seem mired in a sea of doubt, as they pour over election manifestos every evening, after having dinner glued to their TVs, where the public broadcaster is showing campaign ads as mandated by the Electoral Board. However, considering the sort of campaign we have seen thus far, it might be reasonable to assume that what we are experiencing is not a supply surplus, but a significant section of voters who feel disappointed and confused. This might lead them to make a rational choice, but could also prompt them to shirk their responsibility towards a frustrating political reality or even cast an unpredictable protest vote. The decision of which party to vote for is increasingly being made in the eleventh hour and is largely based on the election campaign. As time goes by, family tradition and loyalty to the conventional parties play less of a role in the emotional blend that is catalysed mainly through television. It is for this reason that the debate which PM Pedro Sanchez has chosen to take part in is so revealing of his campaign strategy. The picture of the TV debate hosted by Antena 3 and La Sexta will bring out the two blocs: the right vs the left, the regressive Spain vs the Spain that flirts with constitutional reform. The photograph of the debate will show us, once again, the picture of the [right-wing] demonstration in Madrids Plaza de Colon a few months ago. Ciudadanos and the PP have been lured into whitewashing Vox, Spains up-and-coming far-right party, and they are openly competing to woo the voters of Abascal, the prodigal son of Aznars PP (1). Furthermore, the PSOE has elected to have Vox physically present at the debate, rather than lurking in the shadows whilst setting the agenda. The PSOEs weaknesses The PSOE has chosen to give us another photograph of the Colon march, in contrast with its apparently compromising rhetoric that avoids going into specifics due to the strain within the socialist party itself and its refusal to commit to a post-election agreement. A case in point is our interview with Meritxell Batet, the socialist candidate for Barcelona, in which she implied that the PSOE will not seek an agreement with Ciudadanos after the polls because her party supports a social democratic agenda. However, she remained reluctant to vow that much for the sake of her voters. The PSOEs game is about highlighting the two blocs and splitting up the conservative vote without clarifying what options they will consider for an agreement after the polls. Batet was fairly transparent about her partys intentions to her interlocutor, but she was at pains to remain non-committal about an agreement with the other parties on the left. Post-election agreements are not the norm in the Spanish parliament but, despite all the campaign rhetoric and the promises of eternal love or hatred, the general public realises that it is the election result that will determine any subsequent agreements. The PSOEs red lines that would prevent a pact with Ciudadanos will be erased, provided that a parliamentary majority is viable and Spains large corporations nod in that direction. Mertixell Batets weakness lies in her criticism of the pro-independence parties that support the Catalan government: overcome by amnesia, she has forgotten the socialist partys neglect of its own pro-sovereignty voters. Promises of a modest constitutional reform perhaps wooed many voters years ago, but nowadays they wont be persuaded by a timid reform that does not include a referendum [on independence] or any substantial changes. When we hear the PSOE talk about reforming Spains regional funding system, we cannot forget the bitterness of some of Catalonias socialists towards their colleagues in Spains Finance Ministry, who refused to commit the funding enshrined in the Catalan Statute, pay out student grants and cover (as promised) the expenses incurred by legislation on dependents, as well as many other public expenses that were handed down to regional administrations, albeit without the necessary funds. The PSOEs election vows will ring hollow and remain a threat to the partys own unitary spirit which is reluctant to recognise Catalonias specificity until it is prepared to acknowledge its own share of responsibility for the current state of affairs. ______________ Translators notes: (1) Vox leader Santiago Abascal was a long-time PP member. The Executive Committee supports the chief executive officer (CEO) in his duty of managing the day-to-day operations of Airbus business and is the Companys top executive body. It comprises the Heads of Divisions and major Functions. We are in a period of exceptional change in our industry and we need to prepare Airbus for the opportunities and challenges ahead, said Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury. With our pioneering spirit we can build on our past success to prepare the Airbus of tomorrow in order to better serve our customers, increase our competitiveness and grow in a sustainable way. We will utilise new digital technologies to optimise our industrial system and open up new market opportunities while prioritising customer satisfaction. Our organisation and ways of working will evolve over time and allow all Airbus employees to contribute to the future success of the Company. The new Executive Committee is united in the goal of creating value for all stakeholders while upholding our values and behaving with the right mindset. Id like to thank the Board of Directors for their endorsement of this new top management team. Besides CEO Guillaume Faury, the following top managers form the Airbus Executive Committee: Dominik Asam, Chief Financial Officer Thierry Baril, Chief Human Resources Officer Jean-Brice Dumont, Executive Vice-President Engineering Bruno Even, Chief Executive Officer of Airbus Helicopters John Harrison, General Counsel Dirk Hoke, Chief Executive Officer of Airbus Defence and Space Julie Kitcher, Executive Vice-President Communications & Corporate Affairs Philippe Mhun, Executive Vice-President Programmes & Services Christian Scherer, Chief Commercial Officer Michael Schollhorn, Chief Operations Officer Grazia Vittadini, Chief Technology Officer New Chinese Ambassador to Sierra Leone Presents the Letter of Credence to President Bio 2019/04/15 On 11 April, 2019, the Chinese Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Sierra Leone, Hu Zhangliang, presented the Letter of Credence to His Excellency President Julius Maada Bio at State House in Freetown. Ambassador Hu conveyed the warm greetings and best wishes from His Excellency President Xi Jinping of the People's Republic of China to His Excellency President Julius Maada Bio. Ambassador Hu said it was an honour and privilege to represent his country in Sierra Leone. He said China had high respect for the Government of Sierra Leone because of the devoted efforts of President Bio to the wellbeing of the people, adding that under President Bio's leadership in one year, Sierra Leone has embarked on a new historical path with fresh vitality. Ambassador Hu pointed out, " China and Sierra Leone enjoy traditional relationship. Over the past 48 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties, the two countries have enhanced political trust and have made good progress in advancing the friendship and cooperation in various fields. China appreciates Sierra Leone's efforts in maintaining strong ties between our two countries. " " Last year's meeting between His Excellency President Xi Jinping and Your Excellency sets out the blueprint for the future of our bilateral relations. China has had great importance placed on the comprehensive, strategic and cooperative partnership with Sierra Leone. We will continue to strengthen cooperation with Sierra Leone in areas of infrastructure, agriculture, health care, education, culture, military and other fields to further develop our relations and bring benefits to our people, " the Ambassador said to President Bio. H.E. President Bio welcomed the arrival of Ambassador Hu and assured the Ambassador that he will receive full support and facilitation from the Presidency and the Sierra Leone Government in carrying out his lofty mission. It wasnt easy, and it wasnt fast, and it involved shock physical material. The dreamy photograph represents a tremendous technological achievement, assembled using eight radio telescopes in four continentstwo each in Hawaii and Chile, and one each in Arizona, Mexico, Spain, and Antarcticaall synced together to scan the skies for several days in a row. The Atlantic If youre an English-speaker jaded about the City of Lights, head to the library. As I learned more about the American Library and its place in the history of literary Paris, I recovered some long-repudiated belief in the citys magnetic pull and inspirational force. Conjuring scenes of my old heroes in the librarys reading rooms made me swoon all over again, decades after their work first moved me. LitHub SpiceJet scrip climbed 8.60 per cent to close at Rs 119.35 on the BSE. In a release on Monday, the SpiceJet said it will be the first Indian budget carrier to launch daily direct flights on the Mumbai-Colombo, Mumbai-Dhaka, Mumbai-Riyadh, Mumbai-Hong Kong and Mumbai-Kathmandu sectors. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Shares of SpiceJet zoomed nearly 9 per cent Monday amid the company announcing that it will launch direct flights from Mumbai to seven international destinations, including Colombo, Jeddah, Dhaka, Riyadh and Hong Kong. The scrip climbed 8.60 per cent to close at Rs 119.35 on the Bombay Stock Exchange. During the trade, it jumped 9.19 per cent to Rs 120. About 77 lakh shares of the company were traded on the BSE during the day. Shares of SpiceJet had zoomed 8.5 per cent on Friday after the airline announced it will induct 16 Boeing 737-800 NG aircraft, a move that will help in bringing down flight cancellations. Direct flights would also be operated from Mumbai to Bangkok and Kathmandu. The no-frills airline would start the services from the end of May. In a release on Monday, the SpiceJet said it will be the first Indian budget carrier to launch daily direct flights on the Mumbai-Colombo, Mumbai-Dhaka, Mumbai-Riyadh, Mumbai-Hong Kong and Mumbai-Kathmandu sectors. Ayushman Bharat, PM-Kisan, cooking gas, rural roads and rural electrification represent major successes of the Modi govt. New Delhi: Former Niti Aayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya has said the Modi government has achieved 'major successes' in social sector programmes like Ayushman Bharat, PM-Kisan and rural electrification. Besides, this government has made an 'unprecedented progress' in tackling corruption, he added. On the reforms undertaken by the Narendra Modi-led NDA government, he said the three major areas of initiatives were implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) and direct benefit transfer (DBT). In an interview to PTI, the eminent economist said "...Ayushman Bharat, PM-Kisan, cooking gas, rural roads and rural electrification represent major successes of the Modi government. Unprecedented progress has also been made in combating corruption." Talking about infrastructure sector, he said the government has managed to greatly accelerate outcomes in sectors like roads, railways, waterways, civil aviation and digitisation. On questioning the credibility of statistical data by over 100 economists and social scientists, Panagariya said unless such critics identify precisely what part of the CSO/MOSPI methodology, described in detail in a 40-page document, they find problematic, their statements only amount to assertions. "None of the international institutions including the World Bank, IMF and the United Nations, have expressed any doubt in the integrity of our statistical institutions or the numbers these institutions generate. Nor have I seen any objective evidence that the institutions have tried to fudge their data on their own or at the behest of any other government departments," he asserted. The Columbia University professor also noted that revision of GDP estimates is nothing new and this has been a well established practice. Former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan recently had expressed doubts over Indian economy growing 7 per cent when not enough jobs were created and said the current cloud over the GDP numbers must be cleared by appointing an impartial look at the data. Besides, expressing concern over political interference in influencing statistical data in India as many as 108 economists and social scientists had called for restoration of institutional independence and integrity to the statistical organisations. Panagariya served as the first vice chairman of NITI Aayog for two years from 2015 to 2017. The 30-share index was trading 67.91 points or 0.18 per cent higher at 38,835.02. The NSE Nifty was trading 21.20 points, or 0.18 per cent, up at 11,664.65 in early session. Mumbai: Domestic equity benchmarks started on a positive note Monday led by gains in IT bellwether TCS, amid sustained foreign fund inflow and positive global cues. After rising over 100 points in early session, the 30-share index was trading 67.91 points or 0.18 per cent higher at 38,835.02. The NSE Nifty was trading 21.20 points, or 0.18 per cent, up at 11,664.65 in early session. During the past week, the Sensex fell 95.12 points or 0.24 per cent, while the Nifty shed 22.5 points or 0.19 per cent. Top gainers in the Sensex pack include Tata Motors, TCS, Coal India, HCL Tech, Vedanta, Tata Steel, Hero MotoCorp, ITC, Kotak Bank, Asian Paints, IndusInd Bank and Axis Bank, rising up to 4.12 per cent. TCS led the gains in early trade after the company Friday reported a 17.7 per cent growth in consolidated net profit at Rs 8,126 crore for the March 2019 quarter. According to Rajesh Gopinathan, chief executive officer and managing director at TCS, this is the strongest revenue growth that the firm have had in the last fifteen quarters. On the other hand, Infosys was the top loser, shedding 2.73 per cent on BSE. The IT major Friday posted a 10.5 per cent rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 4,078 crore for the March 2019 quarter, and guided towards 7.5-9.5 per cent growth in revenue for FY 2019-20. Bharti Airtel, Sun Pharma, M&M, ONGC and Maruti were among the other losers on Sensex. Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) purchased equity worth Rs 897.45 crore on Friday, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) sold equities to the tune of Rs 15.99 crore, provisional data available with stock exchanges showed. The rupee appreciated marginally to 69.17 against the US dollar in early trade. Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, was 0.13 per cent lower at USD 71.46 per barrel. Elsewhere in Asia, benchmark equity indices in Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul were positive in early trade. South Africa: Affiliate Centre to prepare SA for 4IR Government is set to launch the Affiliate Centre which will ensure South African industries move at an enhanced speed towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). The Department of Science and Technology says the Affiliate Centre is a partnership with the World Economic Forum's Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Network (C4IR Network). The centre, which will be launched on Tuesday, will be a public-private partnership which will be based at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). In terms of this model, industry and government - through the CSIR - will co-fund the initiatives to be undertaken by the local Centre. The Affiliate Centre will focus on issues of local concern, but also contribute to the overall research and thought leadership processes of the C4IR Network. Processes are underway to expand the C4IR Network with Affiliate Centre in several other jurisdictions, the department said on Monday. The department says the centre will put South Africa on the 4IR map as it joins other leading countries such as China, India and Japan who also have similar centres. The forum established the C4IR in San Francisco in 2017 as a hub for global, multi-stakeholder cooperation to develop policy frameworks and advance collaborations that accelerate the benefits of science and technology. Science and Technology Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane will launch the centre, which will be attended by Head of the Forums C4IR Network, Murat Sonmez, at a breakfast consultation meeting in Pretoria. - SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2019-04-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. A rare Komodo dragon celebrated her eighth birthday at the Australian Reptile Park on Monday, coinciding with the final season premiere of the popular television show Game of Thrones. Newborn Komodo dragons are seen in the cage in Surabaya Zoo, Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, on March 7, 2019. 74 baby Komodo dragons were born from January to February of 2019 at the Zoo. [File Photo: Xinhua] Named after one of the main characters, Daenerys is also referred to on the hit television program as the Mother of Dragons. This image released by HBO shows Emilia Clarke in a scene from "Game of Thrones." [Photo: HBO via AP] To make the most of the amusing coincidence zookeepers threw Daenery a special lizard party, complete with decorations, presents and tasty snacks. "Despite her draconic appearance, Daenerys is a total sweetheart!" Daniel Rumsey, head of Reptiles at the Australian Reptile Park, said. "We walk her every single day and she loves the attention she gets from our visitors. It was great to see her get into her presents to find the tasty meat treats inside." "As part of her birthday surprise, we also presented our very own Queen Daenerys with a crown." While the event was a light-hearted affair, Rumsey hopes the added attention will help shine a spotlight on the plight of the world's largest lizard, whose number is drastically declining. Found on the Indonesian island of Komodo, it's estimated there are only 3,000 to 5,000 of the creatures left in the wild. Considered a "vulnerable" species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, Rumsey said "human encroachment, poaching, natural disasters and a shortage of egg laying females" are to blame for the Komodo dragon's dwindling population. Three women, 20 roles and one smooth-talking devil all add up to one helluva good time in Hells Belles, the musical opening this weekend at Empire Stage in Fort Lauderdale. Historys most infamous women carry a tuneor an axeor a grudgein Hells theater district, where a show-biz-loving devil emcees a never-ending revue featuring famous and infamous women from history. Janis Joplin celebrates sex, drugs, booze and rock n roll before an epic showdown between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Then Princess Diana makes a surprise visit from Heaven, where shes incredibly bored hanging out with Mother Theresa. Its all basically a satire on the social issues surrounding these women, explained producer Eileen Weiss. I mean, who decides whether they go to heaven and hell? Some of them are having the time of their life while others desperately want to leave. Its all about womens rights and also gay and lesbian rights. Hells Belles, with book and lyrics by Bryan D. Leys and music by Steve Liebman, was initially presented as a benefit performance at New York Citys Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center more than a decade ago. Weiss and her sister Sharon acquired the show in 2008 and produced additional runs at the Duplex, Wings Theatre, West End Theatre and Midtown Theatre. The Off-Broadway production ran at the Elektra Theatre in 2014. Our goal was always to do regional productions or tour. The writer, Bryan, updates the script to fit the locale and the current political locationironically, Donald Trump was always in the show. There always was a reference, it wasnt added just for this productionand every time the material gets tighter. Its very, very funny, she said. Liebman died a couple of years ago, Weiss reported, although the score for the show remains one of his most performed. For the South Florida premiere, Weiss tapped director Kevin Dean and music director Paul Tine for the 85-minute, one act production. For the first time, one of the belles will be played by a man, Trevor Peringer, who appeared as Ginger in the Empire Stage Production of Gilligans Fire Island three years ago. In addition to Peringer, who will be returning to Fort Lauderdale from San Diego, the other cast members include local actors Larry Buzzeo and Sharyn Peoples, and newcomer Lauren Tuma. Hells Belles will be performed April 11 May 5 at Empire Stage, 1140 N. Flagler Dr. in Fort Lauderdale. Tickets are $35 at EmpireStage.com. Upon her return from the US after the treatment, the actress realised that the wisest step towards spreading awareness will be by talking about it. Be it Sarfarosh or Once Upon A Time in Mumbai Dobaara, Sonali Bendre has always bowled over the audience with her performances. And just last year she took the same audience and fans by surprise when she shared with the world her high-grade cancer diagnosis. Since then, the actress has been vocal about the disease, wanting people to become aware of their bodies and health. Speaking at CAHOCON 2019 organised by Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organisation, the actress unabatingly shared her survival story and spoke on how early detection and awareness are important. Calling it a different phase of her life, Sonali recalls, My husband and I say, BC and AC Before and after cancer; it is like a different lifetime. I did not look at what was happening to me, I did not ask too many questions as much as I should have. Further describing that period, she said, I kept telling myself that I am putting in 18 hours a day, so obviously I am fine. Now that I look back, I ask myself how did I do that? Then the question was why did I put up with this pain? What was I waiting for? For me to collapse to understand what my body was trying to tell me? So, it comes down to the fact that my body was giving me signals, but I was not looking at it as I should have. When I started listening to the signals, I went in for a TCRE procedure. Then suddenly we discovered that there was something in there that was causing this whole thing all this while. Later we discovered it was not just there, it was spreading all over and that too very fast, it was the fourth stage. So I dont know how I pulled it off till then. But that was a shocker, adds Bendre. The actress attributes this suffering to the fact that a woman is taught since the beginning how tolerance is good for her. Probably as women, without knowing whats going on with us, we are taught sehen-shakti acchhi baat hoti hai (tolerance is good). We are told that we have to be tough and endure pain; we are told since we have to bear a child, so we have to bear the pain. So we kind of internalise that and tell ourselves that we can bear the pain and go on, she stated. Having fought the battle against cancer, the reality TV judge emphasises on the importance of early detection and awareness when it comes to dealing with this deadly disease. It is not a disease that can be diagnosed easily, so what I understand is that eventually early detection is the most important thing when this disease is concerned. I feel the disease is less scary than the treatment. Had I detected it early, there were more chances it would have cost me less, I would have to go through less painful treatments and could have tapped onto treatment options too. When it happened to me, I realised how many people in my family had it and had not spoken about it, she shared. Upon her return from the US after the treatment, the actress realised that the wisest step towards spreading awareness will be by talking about it. When I came back (to Mumbai), I realised that we need to make it an open thing. It is not something that needed hiding and keeping it only limited to the family. Hiding these things takes a toll on your mental health, and it is hard to recover from that. It becomes a vicious circle. So, if my voice can be heard and if my talking about it makes people share their stories, then I am happy to do that, Sonali concluded. There are huge speculations about Raj Kumar Guptas next venture : The Black Tiger. Even as Raj Kumar Guptas trailer of his upcoming venture Indias Most Wanted is being attached to the Kalank trailer there are huge speculations about his next venture on RAW agent Ravindra Kaushik: The Black Tiger. Sources in the trade had earlier insisted that Arjun Kapoor was the man who would be repeated in the film after his Indias Most Wanted film with Gupta. Now, there are rumours that it will either be Hrithik Roshan as speculated earlier or even Ranbir Kapoor. Whenever a director meets an actor or has a conversation with him, such news is about to fly around. Gupta is basically wrapping the script of the film at the moment which he will pursue once he is close to the release of Indias Most Wanted. No actor has been finalised at the moment and Gupta is not just waiting for the actors dates but also needs to present the full script to the lead actor before locking him, informs a source. Gupta had approached Hrithik in August last year but there was no development afterwards. And now, the name has started floating again. We hope Gupta, who has been making films on real-life stories like No One Killed Jessica and now Indias Most Wanted, brings alive another story on screen at the earliest. Sanskriti Media Goyal was seen celebrating birth anniversary of B.R. Ambedkar along with BJP leaders taking Congress leaders by surprise. Bhopal: Treasurer of Madhya Pradesh unit of Congress Govind Goyal, considered a loyalist of former chief minister and partys nominee for Bhopal Lok Sabha seat Digvijaya Singh, on Sunday created a ripple in political circles by attending an event of the BJP. Mr Goyal was seen celebrating birth anniversary of B.R. Ambedkar along with BJP leaders taking Congress leaders by surprise. He however asked the reporters not to read between lines over the development. Ambedkar ji is pride of India and a respectable figure for all the leaders. Hence, there is nothing unusual in celebrating his birth anniversary in the company of BJP leaders, Mr Goyal who was said to be sulking over his denial of Congress ticket from Bhopal said. Mr Goyal had also earlier dropped in residence of former CM and BJP national Vice-President Shivraj Singh Chouhan and former minister Viswas Sarang triggering speculations that he might switch over to BJP soon. A major decision will be taken in a day or two regarding Mr Goyal, state BJP vice-president Rameswar Sharma who was also present on the occasion hosted by the party hinted. He also claimed that Mr Modi targeted the DMK misusing the Income Tax department to protect his ally, the AIADMK. Chennai: The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) chief M. K. Stalin has accused the Narendra Modi government of misusing the central agencies to sustain the AIADMK in power. The Income Tax raids in Vellore have been a planned move against the DMK. It was aimed at helping the AIADMK to continue in power. If we get a majority in the Assembly then this government will collapse, Mr Stalin said while campaigning in Vellore on Sunday. He also claimed that Mr Modi targeted the DMK misusing the Income Tax department to protect his ally, the AIADMK. But this April 18 election will see the fall of the AIADMK government and the BJP at the Centre and a new government will be in place in Delhi under the Congress, Mr Stalin asserted. The Income Tax raids on a godown belonging to DMK treasurer Duraimurugans associate at Katpadi in neighbouring Vellore yielded about Rs 11.5 crore packed in gunny bags and thought to be meant for bribing voters in the Lok Sabha poll. Mr Duraimurugans son Kathir Anand is the party candidate for the Vellore seat. The currency notes were found packed in small covers with ward numbers and contact details written on them. Officials packed them in 19 carton boxes, a tourist bag, and bundled the covers in a gunny bag. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. Congress president Rahul Gandhi and the chief minister had on Saturday morning paid floral tributes at the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial in Amritsar. Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh, along state governor V.P. Singh Badnore and others, takes part in a candle light march on the eve of the centenary of Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar. (Photo: PTI) Chandigarh: Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder on Sunday accused Union government of playing dirty politics saying that the Central government had deliberately chosen to hold a parallel event instead of supporting the initiatives and programmes of the state government on the occasion of hundred years of Jallianwala bagh massacre. The event was organised in Amritsar on Saturday by the Centre and it was attended by Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu. In a statement chief minister said that he had personally approached the Prime Minister several times over the last two years to seek support for ensuring that the occasion is commemorated in a befitting manner but the Centre had failed to respond suitably. Instead, the Modi government decided to hold its own event, quite evidently to score political brownie points in the backdrop of the Lok Sabha elections, he alleged. This was truly shocking considering that the Prime Minister is the chairman of the Jallianwala Bagh Trust, Mr Singh said. Congress president Rahul Gandhi and the chief minister had on Saturday morning paid floral tributes at the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial in Amritsar. On Saturday afternoon, Mr Naidu visited Jallianwala Bagh and paid tributes to those killed in the massacre. The ceremony was organised by the Union ministry of culture. Mr Singh claimed it did not befit a Prime Minister of the country to stoop so low in order to woo voters. Later Chief Minister reacted to the speech of Prime Minister Modi where he attacked Amarinder Singh. In a tweet Amarinder Singh said Shocked at your remarks in Kathua on Jallianwala Bagh @narendramodi Ji. You used a sombre occasion to play dirty politics, conveniently ignoring your own governments decision to hold a parallel event instead of extending support to my govt, which wed been requesting for 2 yrs, Singh tweeted. Unlike the BJP, the Congress leadership does not believe in dictating terms to its state governments, Singh said in his statement, countering Modis remark that he did not attend the Centres event under pressure from his party high command. These things happen in the BJP, which you, Mr Modi, are running in your typical dictatorial style, he alleged. Singh claimed it did not befit a prime minister of the country to stoop so low in order to woo voters and urged Modi to refrain from demeaning the high office. Modi also hit out at the Congress for migration of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley. Srinagar: Predicting a landslide victory for the ruling BJP in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that there is a powerful wave in favour of the saffron party which is all set to win thrice the seats that Congress will get. Addressing an election rally in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir, Mr Modi also hit out at Congress for raising doubts on the Balakot airstrikes, its failure to prevent atrocities against Kashmiri Pandits and corruption in defence deals. Ive seen a powerful wave in favour of the BJP... according to opinion polls and surveys, the BJP will get thrice the seats that Congress will win, he said while campaigning for minister of state in PMO Jitendra Singh, who is seeking re-election from Udhampur. Mr Modi slammed the Congress for raising doubts on the Balakot airstrikes and said that the Opposition party has never trusted the valour of the armed forces. The Congress never trusts valour of Indian armed force. They raise doubts on IAF strikes, he said, adding, For the Congress, the Army is only a way of earning money. Lashing out at the Congress, the Prime Minister said, The Congress is infected with germs. The Grand Old Partys manifesto promises that AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act) will be removed from the state if they come to power to demoralise the security forces. Can a patriot speak like this? Shouldnt our security forces have a safety net? he asked the people at the rally. Looking to score over rivals on the issue of patriotism, Mr Modi accused the Congress of politicising the Jallianwala Bagh centenary event in Amritsar on Saturday and hit out at Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh for skipping the same. He said, The vice-president was in Jallianwala Bagh for the event but the Congress chief minister was not there. Mr Modi also hit out at the Congress for migration of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley. It was due to the policies of the Congress that Kashmiri Pandits had to leave their own home. The Congress and their friends were so worried about the vote bank that they overlooked the atrocities on Kashmiri Pandits, he said. Im committed to settle displaced Kashmiri Pandits in their native places in Kashmir, said the Prime Minister. Lashing out at former chief minister Omar Abdullah over his promise to get back executive posts of Sadr-e-Riyasat and Prime Minister to the state if his National Conference (NC) party is voted to power, the Prime Minister said that he will never allow the Abdullahs and the Muftis to divide India. I will not allow Abdullahs and Muftis to divide the country.Main na jhukta hun, na bikta hun, he said, referring to the Abdullah family and Mufti family in the state that have dominated the political scene for decades. The Abdullah and Mufti families have ruined three generations in the state. They have laid siege to the state for three generations. For the better future of the state, they need to be voted out, he said. The bright future of J&K can be ensured only after their departure. They can bring their entire clan into the field, can abuse Modi as much as they want but they wont be able to divide this nation, he said. The Prime Minister thanked voters for coming out in large numbers for polling in Baramulla and Jammu constituencies in the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections and said, You have given a befitting reply to terrorist leaders and opportunists. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. Tharoor was sitting on weighing scales at a temple, when it collapsed injuring his head. Later, the Congress leader was rushed to a hospital and doctors said his condition was stable. (Photo: ANI | Twitter) Mumbai: Congress candidate from Keralas Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency Shashi Tharoor was injured on Monday. According to news agency ANI, he suffered injuries on his head and has received 6 stitches. He also suffered a minor leg injury after the hook of the weighing scale came off and hit his head, they added. 'Thulabharam' is a Hindu ritual in which a person is weighed against a commodity such as flowers, grains, fruits and similar articles in temples and the equal value or quantity is offered as donation. Later, the Congress leader was rushed to a hospital and doctors said his condition was stable. The conch party supremo reiterated that BJD will support any side in Lok Sabha that supports just demands of Odisha. Bhubaneswar: Odisha chief minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik on Sunday said PM Narendra Modi does not deserve a second term. I dont really think so. No, Mr Patnaik told a national news channel on being asked whether Modi deserves another chance as prime minister. Mr Modi has not been successful. During the last five years, there has been no improvement in unemployment, irrigation and railways, Mr Patnaik, who is seeking a straight fifth term, added. However, he described late BJP leader Atal Behari Vajpayee as one of the best prime ministers India has had. The conch party supremo reiterated that BJD will support any side in Lok Sabha that supports just demands of Odisha. On being asked about his perception towards Rahul Gandhi as a leader of the Congress party, Mr Patnaik said, He still has to mature. Taking a dig at Mr Modis statement that Odisha will become another Tripura where BJP will form the government, Mr Patnaik said, In his (Narendra Modi) dreams. He also exuded confidence that the BJD will have a comfortable majority in this elections. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. To support their argument, petitioners cited the recent Supreme Court judgement allowing the entry of women in Kerala's Sabarimala Temple. A petition was filed in the Supreme Court on Monday pleading that Muslim women should be allowed to enter and offer namaz inside mosques. (Photo: File) New Delhi: A petition was filed in the Supreme Court on Monday pleading that Muslim women should be allowed to enter and offer namaz inside mosques. Moving the plea, a Muslim couple asked the apex court to declare the prohibition on entry of women inside mosques in the country as "illegal and unconstitutional" as it violated the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution. Pointing out that there was no mention of any gender segregation in either Quran or Hadith, the couple's counsel Ashutosh Dubey said: "....such practices are not only repugnant to the basic dignity of a woman as an individual, but also violative of their fundamental rights..." The petition has arraigned the Union government, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, the Central Wakf Council, the Maharashtra State Board of Wakfs and All India Muslim Personal Law Board as parties to the case. The petitioners said that there were no records stating that the Quran and Prophet Muhammad opposed women entering mosques and offering prayers, and in fact, men and women have equal constitutional rights to worship, according to their beliefs. At present, women are allowed to offer prayers at mosques under the Jamaat-e-Islami and Mujahid denominations but they are barred from mosques under the predominant Sunni faction, said the petition. The petition also mentioned that in mosques where women are allowed, there are separate entrances and enclosures for worship for the two genders. The petition said that there should not be any gender discrimination at all, and that all Muslim women should be allowed to pray in all mosques, cutting across denominations. The petition also alluded to the practice in Mecca, where "the faithful, both men and women, together circumambulate the Kaaba". Besides, most sacred mosques in the world equally embrace both men and women, the petitioners said. To support their argument, the petitioners cited the recent Supreme Court judgement allowing the entry of women in Kerala's Sabarimala Temple. "The hon'ble court in the case of Sabarimala held that 'religion cannot be used as cover to deny rights of worship to women as it is against human dignity'. Prohibition on women is due to non-religious reasons and it is a grim shadow of discrimination going on for centuries," the petitioners said. The loss of faith in the electoral procedure is raising a question mark on the countrys democratic structure, says Kapil Sibal. Opposition leaders including TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, Congress' Abhishek Manu Singhvi and AAP's national convenor Arvind Kejriwal, on Sunday questioned the reliability of the electronic voting machines (EVMS) and demanded a mandatory paper trail count in at least 50 per cent of the Assembly constituencies in all Lok Sabha seats. (Photo: ANI) New Delhi: The Opposition parties on Sunday once again raised the issue of the alleged hacking of electronic voting machines (EVMs), and said they planned to move the Supreme Court to demand verification of at least 50 per cent of all votes by a paper trail. Highlighting the issue of transparency in the electoral process, the parties, including the Congress, Telugu Desam Party, Samajwadi Party, CPI(M), CPI and AAP, sought protection of voters rights with a call to save democracy. While Delhi chief minister and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal accused the ruling BJP of programming the EVMs to win the Lok Sabha elections, his Andhra Pradesh counterpart, N. Chandrababu Naidu, said 21 political parties had sought the verification of VVPAT paper trails of 50 per cent of all EVMs. On Saturday, Mr Naidu had met chief election commissioner Sunil Arora to raise the issue of EVMs malfunctioning, but was rebutted by the CEC, who said the expert fielded by him had run into trouble with the commission over EVM hacking. The Supreme Court had on Monday directed the Election Commission to increase the random matching of VVPAT slips with EVMs to five polling booths per Assembly segment, from one at present, in the Lok Sabha polls, saying it would provide greater satisfaction not just to the political parties but the entire electorate. The Delhi chief minister claimed that people were losing faith in EVMs and election procedures. This was raising a question mark on the countrys democratic structure, he added. Congress leader and senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi said the Opposition parties would approach the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the EC to count at least 50 per cent of VVPAT slips with EVMs in every Assembly segment. Mr Singhvi said the Opposition parties would carry out a nationwide campaign on the issue of discrepancies in EVMs and alleged that the EC was not doing enough to address the issue of EVMs malfunctioning. Another senior lawyer and top Congress leader Kapil Sibal said: If the EC will ignore this issue, then we will take other measures. We will not sit quietly. We will approach the Supreme Court. This demand by Opposition parties comes in the peak election season. The first of seven phases of the Lok Sabha polls was held on April 11, and the next one is due on April 18. All the Opposition parties have been demanding that the votes polled through EVMs be verified with at least 50 per cent voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPATs). A VVPAT is intended as an independent verification system for voting machines designed to allow voters to verify that their vote was recorded correctly, and will help detect any possible election fraud or malfunction of EVMs. (WB) Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorneys Office announced at a D.C. Superior Court hearing on Tuesday that they were dropping a charge of misdemeanor solicitation for prostitution against transgender activist Dee Curry. Superior Court Judge Thomas J. Motley immediately approved the prosecutors request for a Nolle Prosequi, a legal term for stopping a prosecution, and dismissed the case. The two prosecutors, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Marco Crocetti and Joshua Rothman, gave no reason for their decision to drop the charge. William Miller, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorneys Office, said his office would have no comment on the prosecutors decision. Curry, 64, a D.C. resident and longtime advocate for transgender rights, denies she was engaging in prostitution at the time of her arrest on Feb. 8 on the 1300 block of West Virginia Ave., N.E. She says she considers the undercover D.C. police tactics used to arrest her a form of entrapment that she feels the LGBT community and the public at large should view as a misuse of police resources to target commercial sex workers, especially trans sex workers. Curry disclosed her arrest in an interview with the Washington Blade last month, saying she wanted to bring to light what she believes to be an improper arrest and unfair police targeting of transgender female sex workers. She acknowledged that she had engaged in sex work in the past and that her arrest took place along a street where trans sex workers are known to congregate. But Curry said she was in the area to visit her godmother who lives in a nearby house. She said an undercover police officer posing as an Uber driver drove up to her and led her to believe he was seeking a passenger. Police charging documents allege that Curry consented to the undercover officers suggestion that she engage in sex for money. Curry told the Blade she needed a ride home and may have played along with who she thought was an Uber driver, but says she doesnt recall giving consent to sex for money. Regardless of what she may have said to the driver, Curry says she believes the police tactic of assigning a cop to pose as a driver for hire who she says solicited her for sex constitutes a misuse of police resources and a possible targeting of transgender women for such arrests. D.C. police spokesperson Alaina Gertz told the Blade last month prior to Tuesdays dismissal of the case that the department could not comment on the specific circumstances surrounding Currys arrest because it was a pending case. But Gertz said the police enforcement efforts do not target any specific population and that prostitution arrests are generated by citizen complaints and are focused on geographic areas were those complaints are located. When contacted on Tuesday, Gertz declined to comment on the dismissal of the charge against Curry. Lt. Brett Parson, who oversees the police LGBT Liaison Unit, has said that protecting the safety of the transgender community at a time when it as well as the LGBT community as a whole has been targeted for hate crimes and other violent crime is a high priority for the department and the liaison unit. Legal observers, including the online legal information site Nolo, say prosecutors decide to drop a criminal charge against someone for a number of reasons, including a reevaluation of evidence, the emergence of new evidence, the failure of witnesses to cooperate, or a desire to give a defendant a second chance. I believe the reason why it happened I think a lot of times what they do is they target individuals who are vulnerable, Curry told the Blade in an interview outside the courthouse on Tuesday, minutes after her case was dismissed. And I think because I no longer live that lifestyle and because I have a following and because I advocate for people who are in a position of vulnerability, they really didnt feel it would be worth going up against that kind of dynamic, she said. Currys arrest also came at a time when many LGBT activists have joined human rights groups in calling for the decriminalization of sex work between consenting adults. D.C. Council member David Grosso (I-At-Large) has said he plans to reintroduce a bill he first introduced in 2017 calling for decriminalizing prostitution between consenting adults in D.C. Im elated that this has been dismissed, said Curry. Im no longer engaged in that type of work. I do believe they should decriminalize Priyanka Gandhi says BJP removed special status given to Northeast by Congress. Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi with party LS candidate Susmita Deb takes part in a roadshow, during the ongoing general polls at Silchar, Assam. (Photo: PTI) Guwahati: Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi who on Sunday held a roadshow in Silchar for Sushmita Dev, called up on the people to chose a new government very carefully. Slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government for withdrawing various special status granted to North-Eastern states, Ms Gandhi said, No one is more sensible than the public, and you have the power to choose. You are the only ones who can decide who is a good leader and who is not. While addressing a gathering at the end of a roadshow, Ms Gandhi also regretted, The strategies and intentions of the government that has been ruling for the last five years are erroneous. After coming to power BJP has removed the special status which Congress had given to the Northeast. In Silchar a trade hub was going to be set up under United Progressive Alliance (UPA) governments Look East policy but BJP dropped that too, which means its strategies and intentions are bad, she added. Taking a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party, Ms Gandhi said, BJP advertises itself so perfectly that whenever you watch television, open a newspaper or a tiffin in a train, you will see their faces. Taking Prime Minister head on, Ms Gandhi said, PM Modi doesnt have time to visit his constituency Varanasi but has time to visit America, Pakistan and several other countries. She also asked then people to vote for Sushmita Dev. I came here for Sushmita. She has the kind of determination that Indira Gandhi had and she wants to work for you wholeheartedly. Sushmita is always there to speak up for you. Polling for Silchar Lok Sabha seat will be held in second phase on April 18. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. The announcement was made by the minister and senior Haryana leader at his official residence in the national capital. New Delhi: Union steel minister Chaudhary Birender Singh on Sunday said he has offered to resign from the cabinet and from Rajya Sabha. The move came following the selection of his son Brijendra Singhs name as the BJPs candidate from Hisar in Haryana. The announcement was made by the minister and senior Haryana leader at his official residence in the national capital. The Union minister said he had informed BJP president Amit Shah about his offer to resign, with which he wants to send across a message of anti-dynastic politics as his son has got the Lok Sabha ticket. Brijendra Singh, is an IAS officer of the Assam cadre from the 1998 batch. Brijender quit the IAS and joined the BJP recently. In 2016, the minister was shifted to steel ministry from the ministry of rural development, panchayati raj and drinking water and sanitation. Mr Singh had joined BJP in 2014 after his over four-decade-old association with the Congress party. Earlier on Sunday, the BJP released the 20th list of candidates for Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan for the ongoing general elections. The BJP has announced two candidates for Haryana, three for Madhya Pradesh and one candidate for Rajasthan in the list. The party also named one candidate for by-elections to the Uluberia Purba assembly constituency in West Bengal. Lok Sabha elections are being held from April 11 and will go on till May 19 in seven phases. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. Vidisha is going to LS polls on May 12. The constituency is one of five seats in MP where BJP is yet to declare its candidates. Bhopal: Vidisha Lok Sabha constituency in Madhya Pradesh (MP) has a unique identity of electing only a VVIP in its electoral history. The BJP stronghold flaunts its record of electing tall saffron figures such as former Prime Minister late Atal Behari Vajapyee, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in the past and is now clamouring for Prime Minister Narendra to contest from the seat in the ensuing LS elections. BJP circle in Madhya Pradesh is currently abuzz with talks that the constituency may host a VVIP in this poll too and the possibility of Mr Modi choosing it as his second seat after Varanasi cannot be ruled out. The delay in declaring candidate for Vidisha by BJP has lent credence to the speculation. All kinds of speculations are doing rounds on the Vidisha candidate for BJP. It is true that there are whisperings in the party on nomination of PM for the seat. Although, I cannot rule out any of the talks, I can also term such a speculation as wild at the stage, a BJP spokesman said. The constituency has remained loyal to the BJP, barring in 1980 and 1984 Lok Sabha elections when Congress veteran Pratap Bhanu Sharma wrested the seat from BJP, since its constitution in 1967. Former PM late Vajpayee was elected from the constituency in 1991. Former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan represented the constituency five times in a row since 1991 and external affairs minister Swaraj has been winning from the constituency in the last two Lok Sabha polls. Mr Chouhan has been offered to contest either from Bhopal or Vidisha in the ensuing LS polls. But, he was not willing to shift to Centre by contesting the parliamentary elections. The dilemma over selection of candidate for the seat by the party has given birth to speculation that the party may consider to field the PM in the constituency, the BJP spokesman said. Vidisha is going to LS polls on May 12. The constituency is one of five seats in MP where BJP is yet to declare its candidates. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. These five constituencies in upper Assam comprise ethnic Assamese communities and tea tribes. Muslim voters are going to play the key role in second and the third phase of polling as was visible with the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF). Guwahati: If tea-tribe communities had the trump card in the first phase of polling in Assams five Lok Sabha constituencies, Muslim voters are going to play the key role in second and the third phase of polling as was visible with the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), appealing to its supporters to vote for the party opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in the six of the nine seats it is not contesting this time. Silchar, Karimganj, Autonomous District and Nagaon will go to the polls in the second phase on April 18 and Guwahati, Mangaldai, Barpeta, Kokrajhar and Dhubri will vote in the third and last phase on April 23. The AIUDF has restricted itself to contesting the three seats it holds Karimganj, Dhubri and Barpeta. In all the five constituencies, Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Kaliabor, Tezpur and Lakhimpur, where polling was completed in the first phase on Thursday, the battle was a straight fight between Congress and BJP along with its ally, AGP. These five constituencies in upper Assam comprise ethnic Assamese communities and tea tribes. The demography of voters in the remaining nine constituencies in central Assam, Barak valley, western Assam and lower Assam, including Guwahati, is a mix of ethnic communities, tribal groups, adivasis and Bengali-speaking Hindu and Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh. The AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal while asserting his stand said, We are appealing to our voters in the seats that we are not contesting this time to vote for any party which opposes the citizenship bill. Our policy this time is to prevent the division of the anti-citizenship bill votes and so we decided to restrict ourselves to just three seats that we hold at present. The AIUDF spokesperson, Champak Kalita, also denied the perception created in the media that the AIUDF had given space to the Congress by not contesting in these seats. Mr Kalita was of the view that they are appealing their voters to vote for the party or candidate opposing the citizenship bill. He clarified, We dont consider AGP or BPF to be anti-citizenship bill parties. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. On Sunday, few parts of Mumbai also witnessed light rains. Mumbai: Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra must brace themselves for light rains as pre-monsoon showers are likely to hit central Maharashtra. For the past 24 hours since Saturday, a few parts of Maharashtra have received light rains and thunderstorms along with dust storms in isolated areas of the state. On Sunday, few parts of Mumbai also witnessed light rains. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a warning about thunderstorms and lightning, which are likely to take place over central Maharashtra till April 16. These areas include Thane, Palghar and Pune along with Marathwada and Vidarbha. According to the IMD, the weather conditions could be attributed to the cyclonic circulation persisting over south of central Maharashtra. Along with this, a trough is extending from West Madhya Pradesh towards Karnataka, falling over parts of Maharashtra, said an IMD official. Officials further stated that the extra moisture formation would lead to light rains in isolated parts of Maharashtra. Skymet Weather, a private weather forecasting agency, also stated that scattered rain and thundershowers accompanied with isolated hailstorm activities are expected to occur today over parts of Maharashtra particularly central Maharashtra and Vidarbha region. On April 15 and 16, we expect the intensity and spread of weather activities to increase over Maharashtra and many parts may receive light to moderate rain and thundershower activities accompanied with strong winds and lightning strikes. An isolated hailstorm cannot be ruled out, read the report. Meanwhile, Mumbai may also receive few spells of rain and thundershowers during this period. In the meantime, Mumbai recorded a spike in the day temperature on Sunday as the maximum temperature recorded for 34.5, one degree above the normal, after recording 33 degrees last week. The minimum temperature was recorded at 24 degrees. Humidity levels were also recorded at 69 per cent. 'Kalank', which releases on April 17, reunites Madhuri with her '90s co-star Sanjay Dutt. Mumbai: Madhuri Dixit Nene says she does not believe in adhering to ageist stereotypes and will choose roles which give her the opportunity to do the "unexpected". The veteran star, who established herself as a versatile performer with movies like "Ram Lakhan", "Tezaab", "Dil", "Hum Aapke Hain Koun...!", "Mrityudand", "Pukar", "Devdas". In 2007, she returned with "Aaja Nachle" and then again took a break only to return to the silver screen in 2014 with powerful roles in "Dedh Ishqiya" and "Gulaab Gang". "I have never adhered to... like now that I am a wife or mother of two kids so I have to play only those kind of roles. Just because I am a wife and a mother so I should do only those kind of roles. I don't believe in that. "I believe in doing something different, something that breaks the stereotype. So I did 'Dedh Ishqiya', 'Gulab Gang', 'Bucket List' and 'Total Dhamaal'. These films put me in a different light. People should expect that I will do something unexpected on screen," Madhuri told PTI in an interview. She dominated the '90s as a Bollywood leading lady and after shifting her base back to Mumbai from Denver, US, she is here to stay. "I think one has to change with times. I am walking with time. If I am making a film I have to make a film that is realistic and I know this is something people will like and relate to. I may make an action film. "What is most important is your creativity should not go away. You should always be creative, look for new things to do. I should not be afraid of taking risks." Madhuri, 51, who made production debut with husband Sriram Nene through the Netflix Original film "15 August", says her choices are always going to be different as an actor and as a producer. "For my first film (as a producer) I wanted to do something that is relatable. Chaawls is a dying culture. There is unity and love everybody knows what is happening in other person's house. Everyone comes together during happy and sad moments. "And my next film 'Kalank' is far from simple. The characters are larger than life, there is a lot of angst and there is turmoil. The sets are larger than life." "Kalank" came her way after the untimely demise of Sridevi, who was earlier supposed to star as Bahaar Begum in the Abhishek Varman-directed film. "As an actor it wasn't difficult to play this role. But emotionally it was difficult as you know something unfortunate had happened so suddenly. I am also a mother, she has two kids, who are so young, so thinking of all that, it was really sad." "Kalank", which releases on April 17, also reunites Madhuri with her '90s co-star Sanjay Dutt. The actor said working with Dutt was a great experience. "We have worked together earlier. So there was no re-bonding or awkwardness or anything. I have worked with Anil Kapoor ji (in 'Total Dhamaal') and Sanjay after a long time and it was great. "There is a kind of comfort and I know how the scenes will be, how the action and reaction is going to be," she said. In 2008, this tiny West African nation banned all non-biodegradable plastic bags. What do you think of when you hear about Rwanda? If you are into history, the Rwandan genocide will certainly come to mind; it was an orgy of bloodletting in which 500,000 to one million ethnic Tutsis were brutally slaughtered by Hutu extremists such as Interahamwe, who succeeded in wiping out 70 per cent of the Tutsi population often with weapons no more sophisticated than machetes. But what you may not know is that Rwanda has recently won a rather unlikely accolade that of being the worlds first plastic-free nation. In 2008, this tiny West African nation banned all non-biodegradable plastic bags, making the possession, manufacture and importing of such punishable by a six-month jail term and fines. Visitors are searched, and any plastic bags found are confiscated. The results have been spectacular, and in 2008, UN Habitat named the capital Kigali as the cleanest city in Africa. I found myself thinking of this while driving in Karachi on a windy day as disposed plastic bags flew around like birds from hell. They adorned trash heaps and trees alike, hanging on the branches like a flag of chaos. And then I saw a rather lovely panaflex asking people to refrain from using plastic bags and had no option but to reflect on the number of times I had seen proud announcements of a ban on such bags. The latest such ban, at least in Sindh, was announced in November last year and was supposed to first be implemented in Sukkur and then in the rest of the province. Banners were put up and shopkeepers were warned but, to no ones surprise, absolutely no implementation took place. Note also that as per the Sindh Environment Protection (SEP) Act 2014 and its Section 14(3) reads that no person shall import, manufacture, stockpile, trade, supply, distribute or sell any scheduled plastic product which is non-degradable. Hunza has also recently banned plastic bags, and one hopes the inhabitants will have greater success in the implementation. I can bore you with figures: in the past 10 years, the world has produced more plastic than in the last century. One million plastic bags are produced every minute. Half of it is used only once and thrown away. Enough plastic is thrown away each year to circle the earth four times. We have not even spared the oceans, and in a scene out of a nightmare a dead whale washed up in the Philippines was recently found to have 40 kg of plastic in its stomach. More recently, a dead pregnant whale was also found to have ingested 22 kg of plastic. I started with the Rwanda example (Kenya also stands out in this regard) because in the popular imagination, African countries are backward basket cases, not models to aspire to. So when naysayers argue that such a ban would be impossible to implement for a Third World nation, these (and other) examples stand out in contradiction. After the contract for 12 helicopters was signed, Italian prosecutors alleged wrongful payments to Indian entities. Christian Michel was among those acquitted in Italy in the A-W case. The ED has drawn up a chargesheet against this British national and has leaked it to the media. (Photo: PTI/File) It seems the Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland helicopter deal, signed by the UPA government in February 2010, is the flavour of the election season for only one reason the government's unenviable record is being sought to be covered up through an unreasonable attack on its principal opponent. After the contract for 12 helicopters was signed, Italian prosecutors alleged wrongful payments to Indian entities. In February 2013, the Italians arrested the CEO of Finmeccanica, the parent company of A-W. Following this, then defence minister A.K. Antony ordered a CBI investigation. In January 2014, under Mr Antonys supervision, the defence ministry cancelled the contract. By June 2014, all the payments made by the Indian side (about 45 per cent of the total contracted amount) had been recovered. Finally, there was no deal. But the Italian legal system was not done yet. After all, high-level Indian personalities were alleged to have been paid off, including a former IAF chief, top bureaucrats, and political personalities all the way to the top tier that included the circle around Congress leader Sonia Gandhi. In April 2016, the Milan Court of Appeal overturned a lower court's conviction of four years' imprisonment for the Finmeccanica CEO. In December the same year, the Italian Supreme Court ordered a re-trial. Also in December, the CBI arrested former IAF chief S.P. Tyagi and subsequently filed a charge-sheet against him and nine others, possibly taking a cue from the Italian re-trial directive. On January 8, 2018, however, the third Court of Appeals in Milan acquitted all the defendants of all charges on ground of there not being adequate evidence of wrongdoing. The CBI or the Indian government did not judicially respond to the Italian verdict. Yet, last December, India got the UAE to deport Christian Michel, who is apparently involved in the arms trade as an intermediary, and the man is in custody, undergoing rigorous examination by the Enforcement Directorate. Mr Michel was among those acquitted in Italy in the A-W case. The ED has drawn up a chargesheet against this British national and has leaked it to the media. The point of the leak is to target Congress leader Ahmed Patel, a long-time secretary to Ms Gandhi. The ED has contended that his name has been suggested by Mr Michel during interrogation, which the latter's lawyer has vigorously denied in court. In a large number of shocking cases related to terrorism and other matters following years of investigation and interrogation, the government agencies have not been able to prove their case against accused persons, and have had to face humiliation in court. Yet and this is the shock top leaders of the ruling dispensation think nothing of bandying about in public the unproven police version, even before the court has looked at it, in the hope that the mud will stick. He's been charged with falsifying financial documents in under-reporting his compensation and with breach of trust in dubious payments. Tokyo: Japan's Supreme Court has turned down an appeal by the lawyers for Nissan's former Chairman Carlos Ghosn to end his detention following his arrest for the fourth time on financial misconduct allegations. The court decision came Friday, and was relayed to foreign media on Monday. Ghosn was arrested in November and released on bail last month, but was arrested again on April 4. He's been charged with falsifying financial documents in under-reporting his retirement compensation and with breach of trust in dubious payments. He says he's innocent, noting that the compensation was never decided and claiming the payments were legitimate. His detention has been approved through April 22, but can be extended. It's unclear when his trial will start. Long detentions and multiple arrests are routine in Japan, but rearresting a person who cleared bail, as Ghosn did, is unusual. Ghosn led Nissan for two decades, rescuing it from the brink of bankruptcy. Shareholders voted him off the company's board last week. In a video released by his lawyers before his latest arrest, Ghosn said some executives plotted against him in what he called a "conspiracy" over unfounded fears about losing Nissan's autonomy to alliance partner Renault SA of France. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. The firms statement acknowledged the very many friends at Baker McKenzie and outside the Firm who worked with and admired Paul calling him a visionary, true leader, and a good friend. Jaime Trujillo was appointed acting global chair of the firm in October 2018 and will continue in this role while the firm identifies a new global chair. If you would like to pass on your condolences to Pauls family at this time, please email [email protected] Dentons appoints first female US managing partner Mary G. Wilson has been appointed US managing partner at Dentons, the first female in the role. The Chicago based lawyer joins US chief executive Mike McNamara in leading the firms region, McNamara was the last person to hold the managing partner role, which has been vacant since 2017. As a firm, we are committed to developing talent, which is why its so rewarding to see these lawyers achieve such a significant career milestone, he said. They are all leaders in their field; they consistently deliver outstanding work for our clients and positively contribute to the culture of the firm. I wish them all the best as they embark on this new stage of their careers. HSF said that it promotes partners based on rigorous criteria, which include client needs, growth sectors, and the firms markets. The firms new Australian partners are: Kate Cahill Disputes, Sydney Cahill is known for her commercial-litigation work, including her extensive experience in large-scale and complex contentious regulatory investigations and enforcement actions, court proceedings, and class actions. She has a particular focus on the banking and financial-services sector. She is an expert in financial crime regulatory issues, including anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism. Back in September last year, while driving his Urus on a deserted road in Freshwater, Isle of Wight, where he has a second home, Cumberbatch hit a cyclist. And then he got duly slapped in the face for not even making an effort to brake and avoid impact.A friend of Michael Lawrence, a 63-year-old fisherman who claims to be the victim in this collision, tells The Sun that the actor has failed on his promise to call and make things right. So Lawrence is thinking of taking him to court, because otherwise, he doesnt get any kind of compensation.The accident occurred while Lawrence had taken his brand new bike for a ride. He saw the car coming but he had no place to pull over to safety, so he stretched out his hand, hoping that the driver would stop in time. He Cumberbatch didnt.It totally ruptured his arm, the pal says, adding that Lawrence took the hit in his forearm, breaking the wing mirror off Cumberbatchs car. There was blood everywhere. Scooby [Lawrence] is no shrinking violet and he bloody hurt him by the sounds of it. [He] dusted himself off and, full of adrenaline, reacted as he knows best by slapping him.Thats when Cumberbatch took off his hat and Lawrence recognized him for the A-list that he is. The fisherman nearly had a heart attack, according to his unnamed pal.Cumberbatch offered him a t-shirt and water to clean himself up and gave him a lift to the nearest medical facility. He also reported the accident to the police but refused to press charges for being slapped. Cumberbatch and Lawrence exchanged numbers and the actor promised hed call.Because he didnt, Lawrence wants to sue, even though police consider the matter a closed one. In response, a rep for Cumberbatch says that he doesnt even own a Lamborghini. SUV At the Shanghai Auto Show this week, Mercedes is showing the Concept GLB, the precursor of a productionthat will be slotted between the GLA and GLC and that will become a jack of all trades when it comes to configuration or capabilities."The Concept GLB is a durable and practical SUV with nonetheless compact dimensions. Whether it is a generous, seven-seater family vehicle or a versatile leisure time companion: we are certain that this concept will be of great interest to our customers," said in a statement Britta Seeger, Mercedes executive in charge of sales.The concept looks and is muscular, having been equipped for the auto show with hardware meant to emphasize its adventurous nature.It rides on 17-inch wheels with rough-treaded off-road tires as the GLB aims to be one of the most capable off-roaders in the German stables and, as Mercedes puts it, capable of feeling right at home on rough farm tracks.Based on the same platform as the A-Class , the GLB will be offered in various configuration, including as a seven-seater like the concept currently on display in Shanghai.The interior is all brown on the concept, with leather wrapping most of the cars elements and giving it a vintage fee, quickly dismissed by the Widescreen Cockpit and the MBUX system.As shown in China, the Concept is powered by the same M260 four-cylinder petrol engine deployed in the A-Class. Here, it develops 224 hp and 350 Nm of torque when paired to an eight-speed dual clutch transmission.When it will be launched rumors point to the SUV being offered in GLB 35 and GLB 45 variants, with a hybrid option possibly even plug-in - likely to join the range later down the line.Full details on the Mercedes-Benz Concept GLB can be found in the document attached below. All 2019 Civics get a new rounded-off front bumper, complemented by a more angular pair of foglight housings. The rear gets a milder makeover, consisting of a new lower valence on the bumper. New wheel designs are also part of the new package, save for one variant. As for the rest of the vehicle's body, it carries over largely unchanged. The 1.8 E has LED headlights, chrome door handles, and new 16-inch alloys. Meanwhile, the range-topping 1.5 RS Turbo adds more gloss black trimmings, as well as new 18-inch wheels, an RS badge on the grill piece, and rear spoiler. It was first shown in the US, then we saw it in Thailand. Now, it's here. The 2019 Honda Civic has landed in the Philippines, sporting a refreshed design inside and out. Aside from that, they've added a new variant too, bringing the local Civic range to three. These are the 1.8 S, 1.8 E, and 1.5 RS Turbo. The newest addition to the Civic lineup is the 1.8 S. It now serves as the entry-level model of the range, bumping up the 1.8 E to mid-level status. By the looks of it, the 1.8 S model inherits most of its looks from the current 1.8 E with its 16-inch alloy wheels, and chrome grill. The main difference aside from the familiar wheels is that the base Civic has its chrome pieces stripped off from the door handles. Another key difference of the 1.8 S and the rest of the range are the halogen projector headlights. The 1.8 E and 1.5 RS Turbo get LED units. Inside, the 2019 Civic 1.8 E and 1.5 RS Turbo get a redesigned infotainment system. There are now buttons on the corners of the screen to improve tactile feel, and the 'slide to adjust' volume control has been changed in favor of a more traditional dial. Both retain Apple CarPlay and Android Auto capability. There's even the redesign climate control which now allows users to adjust the fan speed without going through the touchscreen. In the RS, it gets new sport pedals with extra grip pads, and the red contrast stitching is more prominent that before. Leather and power adjustable seats are also exclusive to the RS. Meanwhile, in the 1.8 S, it still retains a touchscreen audio system, sans the aforementioned smartphone linking programs. It does keep Bluetooth and auxiliary functions, allowing drivers to keep their hands off the phone and keep it on the steering wheel. Speaking of which, all three variants keep their steering wheel mounted controls, as well as cruise control. Engines are the same as before meaning the 1.8-liter engine still makes 141 PS and 174 Nm of torque, while the RS sticks to the 1.5-liter turbo good for 173 PS and 220 Nm of torque. All variants shift via a continuously variable transmission. It's also good to know that stability control is still standard across the range. Prices for the 2019 Honda Civic is as follows: Civic 1.8 S: Php 1,115,000 Civic 1.8 E: Php 1,185,000 Civic 1.5 RS Turbo: 1,608,000 Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. The 2019 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced Monday. The big winner: Local news outlets swept the major awards categories, winning the top prizes in public service, breaking news and investigative reporting. The big shockers: There were no Pulitzers awarded for work related to the Mueller probe or the investigations into the wrongdoings of Big Tech companies. Full list of winners in journalism and descriptions of their awards, via The Pulitzer Board: Public Service (1917-present) Winner: South Florida Sun Sentinel "for exposing failings by school and law enforcement officials before and after the deadly shooting rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School." Breaking News Reporting (1998-present) Winner: Staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "for immersive, compassionate coverage of the massacre at Pittsburghs Tree of Life synagogue that captured the anguish and resilience of a community thrust into grief." Investigative Reporting (1985-present) Winner: Matt Hamilton, Harriet Ryan and Paul Pringle of the Los Angeles Times "for consequential reporting on a University of Southern California gynecologist accused of violating hundreds of young women for more than a quarter-century." Explanatory Reporting (1998-present) Winner: David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner of The New York Times "for Times for an exhaustive 18-month investigation of President Donald Trumps finances that debunked his claims of self-made wealth and revealed a business empire riddled with tax dodges. Local Reporting (1948-1952, 2007-present) Winner: Staff of The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La. "for a damning portrayal of the states discriminatory conviction system, including a Jim Crow-era law, that enabled Louisiana courts to send defendants to jail without jury consensus on the accuseds guilt." National Reporting (1948-present) Winner: Staff of The Wall Street Journal "for uncovering President Trumps secret payoffs to two women during his campaign who claimed to have had affairs with him, and the web of supporters who facilitated the transactions, triggering criminal inquiries and calls for impeachment." International Reporting (1948-present) NOTE: This year had two winners. Winner: Maggie Michael, Maad al-Zikry and Nariman El-Mofty of Associated Press "Press for a revelatory yearlong series detailing the atrocities of the war in Yemen, including theft of food aid, deployment of child soldiers and torture of prisoners." Maggie Michael, Maad al-Zikry and Nariman El-Mofty of Associated Press "Press for a revelatory yearlong series detailing the atrocities of the war in Yemen, including theft of food aid, deployment of child soldiers and torture of prisoners." Winner: Staff of Reuters, with notable contributions from Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo "for expertly exposing the military units and Buddhist villagers responsible for the systematic expulsion and murder of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, courageous coverage that landed its reporters in prison." Feature Writing (1979-present) Winner: Hannah Dreier of ProPublica "for a series of powerful, intimate narratives that followed Salvadoran immigrants on New Yorks Long Island whose lives were shattered by a botched federal crackdown on the international criminal gang MS-13." Commentary (1973-present) Winner: Tony Messenger of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch "for bold columns that exposed the malfeasance and injustice of forcing poor rural Missourians charged with misdemeanor crimes to pay unaffordable fines or be sent to jail." Criticism (1973-present) Winner: Carlos Lozada of The Washington Post "for trenchant and searching reviews and essays that joined warm emotion and careful analysis in examining a broad range of books addressing government and the American experience." Editorial Writing (1917-present) Winner: Brent Staples of The New York Times "for editorials written with extraordinary moral clarity that charted the racial fault lines in the United States at a polarizing moment in the nations history." Editorial Cartooning (1922-present) Winner: Darrin Bell, freelancer "for beautiful and daring editorial cartoons that took on issues affecting disenfranchised communities, calling out lies, hypocrisy and fraud in the political turmoil surrounding the Trump administration." Breaking News Photography (2000-present) Winner: Photography Staff of Reuters "for a vivid and startling visual narrative of the urgency, desperation and sadness of migrants as they journeyed to the U.S. from Central and South America." Feature Photography (1968-present) Winner: Lorenzo Tugnoli of The Washington Post "for brilliant photo storytelling of the tragic famine in Yemen, shown through images in which beauty and composure are intertwined with devastation." The big picture: The Board also announced special citation this year to the Capital Gazette of Annapolis, Maryland. The award, given in honor of the five people that lost their lives from the deadly shooting attack at the news company last year, comes with a $100,000 bequest by the Pulitzer Board. About the awards: More than 2,500 entries are submitted each year to the Pulitzer Prize competition, and 21 prizes are awarded, according to the Pulitzer Prize Board. The yearlong process begins with the appointment of 102 distinguished jurors who make three recommendations in each of 21 categories. BOWLING GREEN, Ohio Ohio voters who have flipped between parties in past presidential elections and supported Donald Trump in 2016 now say their first choice in 2020 is ... Barack Obama. Why it matters: Obama isn't running. And none of the 18 Democrats actually running have broken through in rural Ohio as the antidote to President Trump. This is the biggest takeaway from an Engagious/Focus Pointe Global focus group I watched last week. The group included 12 swing voters, half of whom voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 and then flipped to Hillary Clinton in 2016, and half of whom went for Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016. Five of the six Obama/Trump voters would pick Obama if he could run again in 2020. Among the reasons: Obama is "more of a diplomatic person," as one participant put it; another said he's "more intellectual." Obama/Trump voters would pick Obama if he could run again in 2020. Among the reasons: Obama is "more of a diplomatic person," as one participant put it; another said he's "more intellectual." Another common refrain: "I think this country needs a sense of calmness," said Brenda R., a 62-year-old Obama/Trump voter. Yes, but: It's only April, so the Democrats running will have plenty of time to change voters' minds in places like this. But these swing voters' desire to rebuke Trump by voting for his predecessor shows the long road ahead for 2020 Democrats hoping to break through in some parts of the Midwest. Between the lines: All but two of the participants said their 2016 vote was a vote against the other candidate, not for the person they supported. "I wanted something new and different to shake it up in a more positive way," said Brenda R. Frederick W., a 23-year-old who went for Trump in 2016, said: I didnt want [Clinton] to be president. I liked Trump more because hes real. We knew what we were getting into when we voted for him. a 23-year-old who went for Trump in 2016, said: I didnt want [Clinton] to be president. I liked Trump more because hes real. We knew what we were getting into when we voted for him. When these swing voters were asked if there was anyone not running for president in 2020 that they wished would run, Obama was the only name that came up. What they're saying: Christopher Martinez, a 42-year-old IT specialist who voted for Trump, said although he hasn't made a decision about who to support in 2020, "if it were someone like Obama then maybe I'd vote against Trump." His bottom line: "Somebody that's very honest and transparent." Lynn Savial, a retired librarian who voted Republican for 45 years until she went for Clinton in 2016, said Trump "has been much worse than I thought." a retired librarian who voted Republican for 45 years until she went for Clinton in 2016, said Trump "has been much worse than I thought." She's looking for a candidate with "a strong personality, but someone who has high ideals. Not a person that lies like Trump ... Even if its something I dont want to hear, I want them to be really honest." with "a strong personality, but someone who has high ideals. Not a person that lies like Trump ... Even if its something I dont want to hear, I want them to be really honest." Christopher DiRando, a 24-year-old high school teacher who voted for Trump, is not planning on doing the same in 2020. "I will definitely not vote for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren; I just want to see a level-headed, competent person." The bottom line: These Ohio swing voters are craving normalcy, and they're defining that by who they already know Obama. That shows how far the crop of 2020 Democrats have to go before any of them can take his place. Go deeper: China will release first quarter GDP on Wednesday. Why it matters: Though the report's accuracy is questioned, it's still closely watched. Economists expect the Chinese economy to have expanded 6.3% on an annual basis, slower than the 6.4% in the prior quarter. On the earnings front, look for an update on Netflix's cash burn on Tuesday. Multinational conglomerate Honeywell reports on Thursday: Its earnings generally give a good indication of the health of the market as a whole. It's a shortened week for many traders, as markets around the world including the U.S., London and even Hong Kong are closed for Good Friday. Per Reuters, this week marks "the first of four consecutive shortened trading weeks," where at least one major exchange is closed for one day. 2 big tech IPOs are coming this week: Pinterest and Zoom. Thought bubble by Axios' Dan Primack: Pinterest is consumer-focused and unprofitable . There's also not anything else quite like it, and you can see an actual path to profitability. . There's also not anything else quite like it, and you can see an actual path to profitability. Zoom is enterprise-focused, profitable and likely to be valued 7 times above its last private round. It plays in a mature videoconferencing space, but seems to do it better than its legacy peers. Apple and Tesla will be in court this week. Ecuador revoked Julian Assange's offer of asylum after he tried to use its London embassy that sheltered him to "interfere in processes of other states," the country's President Lenin Moreno told The Guardian on Sunday. Details: We can not allow our house, the house that opened its doors, to become a center for spying, he told the paper. "This activity violates asylum conditions." He insisted no other country influenced the decision to revoke Assange's asylum, which enabled his arrest Thursday under a U.S. extradition warrant. The big picture: The embassy had provided the 47-year-old WikiLeaks founder with shelter since 2012, after he was released on bail in the U.K. over sexual assault allegations in Sweden. Assange claimed he could be extradited to the U.S. to face prosecution for his work with WikiLeaks if he returned to Sweden to face those charges. What's next? Assange is expected to fight extradition to the U.S., where he faces prosecution for the federal charge of "conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified U.S. government computer." The U.S. alleges Assange conspired with Chelsea Manning in 2010 to crack a password on Defense Department computers. The other side: Assange's lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, told Sky News that the allegations Ecuador's government had made against her client, including about a lack of hygiene, were "outrageous." "Ecuador has made these allegations to justify the unlawful and extraordinary act of letting police come inside an embassy," she said. Although she was bet down to 2-5 by the wagering public, the John Chappell-trained and driven Tough It Out had to live up to her name in order to secure a victory the $35,000 Marion Young Memorial on Sunday (April 14) at Fraser Downs. And live up to her name she did. Chappell and the three-year-old daughter of Blue Burner lined up in Post 2 for the Sunday tilt, which comprised of an eight-pack of sophomore pacing fillies. Tough It Out got away fourth early as spirited leavers were quickest off the switch. Feel So Close (who was driven by Kelly Hoerdt) wanted the front early and was first down to the quarter pole in :28.1 over the fast track. Tough It Out wasnt having much of the early outcome, though, as Chappell had his student out and racing first-up from fourth while the opening station was being clicked off. Hoerdt and Feel So Close werent in the mood to just give up the engine, as they made Tough It Out pay a bit of a price for the top. Hoerdt would go on to relent, and released Tough It Out to the point just prior to the half-mile pole, which was passed in :57.1. The rest of the field didnt allow Tough It Out to get loose on the lead once she cleared, as attackers (Machazulu, driven by Scott Knight, and Crystal Dragon, driven by Paul Davies) came calling in the third quarter. With a name like Tough It Out and the publics full support behind her, Chappells pupil wasnt going to go down without a fight. Tough It Out continued on with her business early in the final quarter, and it appeared to be enough to repel her foes. She opened up a bit of daylight through the stretch and was well in hand. Chappell geared his charge down just a bit in the final moments of the contest, as the outcome wasnt in doubt at that point. Tough It Out was first under the wire in a lifes-best 1:57.1. Feel So Close who was also aptly named, in this respect finished second for Hoerdt and bottomed out the exactor. Hotpieceoface, who had raced third on the inside for much of the mile, filled out the triactor for pilot Anthony Succarotte. Tough It Out has now recorded three wins, two seconds and three thirds from nine lifetime starts, good for $46,150 in purse earnings. She is now unbeaten to start her sophomore campaign (two starts) and has banked $20,900 thus far in 19. Tough It Out is a homebred of Evert Vandenborn, of Langley, BC. To view the harness racing results for Sunday at Fraser, click the following link: Sunday Results Fraser Downs. The International Committee of the Red Cross on Monday called for the release of New Zealand nurse Louisa Akavi, kidnapped by the Islamic State, or ISIS, in Syria in 2013. "She has dedicated her life to those affected by war and violence, and she went to Syria because people needed her. She wanted to use her skills to make a difference." New Zealand Red Cross Secretary-General Niamh Lawless The big picture: The New Zealand government and Red Cross kept the kidnapping of Akavi, 62, secret because of concerns that her life might be at risk. The New York Times first reported Sunday that since the Islamic State has fallen, the Red Cross has made Akavi's name public in hopes to find her alive. The other side: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made clear at a press conference the government did not think the media blackout should have been lifted. She declined to comment further on the issue. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vowed to hold Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his government "accountable for their corruption," as he wrapped up a 4-nation tour of South America in Colombia on Sunday. Details: Pompeo made the pledge after meeting with Venezuelan migrants near Colombia's border with Venezuela. He called on Maduro to lift his aid blockade. "Mr. Maduro, open these bridges, open these borders," he said, invoking President Reagan's 1987 "tear down this wall" speech in Berlin. "I hope that you will care enough when you see the horror ... to change your ways and to leave your country." Context: The Washington Post reports Pompeo responded testily earlier at a Lima press conference to a question on whether Peru might consider speaking with Maduro if Western sanctions left the refugee and humanitarian crisis in a worse state. He said it "showed an incredible lack of understanding" before blaming "the Russians, the Cubans" and Maduro. The big picture: The U.S. sanctions are designed to deprive Maduro of assets and pile pressure on him to resign. They have crippled the country's oil industry. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said last week the U.S. "must consider the use of military assets to bring aid to the people of Venezuela." Mike Pompeo's visit to Paraguay last weekend the first by an American secretary of state in half a century marked a new turn in the U.S. relationship with a country long seen as a friendly backwater. Why it matters: Paraguay has taken on greater strategic importance in light of new hemispheric issues: the Venezuelan crisis, Chinas rise in Latin America and the Trump administration's efforts to build ties with conservative governments across the region. Between the lines: A key member of the Lima Group countries that are pressing for democracy in Venezuela, Paraguay repudiated the fraudulent re-election of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in May 2018 and quickly recognized the interim government of National Assembly President Juan Guaido in January. Paraguay remains the only country in South America to diplomatically recognize Taiwan and not the Peoples Republic of China as the legitimate government of China. This stance is at odds with most of Latin America and the world, including the United States, yet Pompeo hailed the people of Paraguay for "standing up for their own interests and beliefs by supporting a democratic Taiwan." the people of Paraguay for "standing up for their own interests and beliefs by supporting a democratic Taiwan." Paraguays new president, Mario Abdo Benitez, who assumed office in August 2018, is part of a cluster of conservative leaders who have recently taken power across South America: Argentinas Mauricio Macri, Chiles Sebastian Pinera, Colombias Ivan Duque, and Brazils Jair Bolsonaro. The Trump administration has taken this opportunity to beef up its regional policy messaging around combating leftist governments in the hemisphere. The bottom line: Pompeos visit underscores that the Trump administration will leave no stone unturned in its efforts to diplomatically corner Maduro, combat Chinese influence and bolster ties with like-minded allies in the region. Daniel P. Erikson is managing director at Blue Star Strategies and a senior fellow at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. President Trump is coming up empty handed on his promises to bolster Americas ailing coal and nuclear power industries. The big picture: For a president who has aggressively pushed the legal and political boundaries to make good on policy priorities, particularly immigration, the lack of action in this area is striking two years into Trumps administration. Between the lines: Political and legal issues are at play, according to people familiar with the dynamics. Trumps positions on immigration appeal to his supporters' emotions more than his positions on coal, and the issue cuts more deeply and widely across the presidents conservative base than coal. Nuclear, meanwhile, has never been a top-tier political concern for Trump. appeal to his supporters' emotions more than his positions on coal, and the issue cuts more deeply and widely across the presidents conservative base than coal. Nuclear, meanwhile, has never been a top-tier political concern for Trump. White House officials have successfully argued that any big actions to prop up economically struggling coal and nuclear power plants would be woefully indefensible in court. Where it stands: Its a messy road to nowhere, for now. Nuclear power and coal dont share many attributes in common other than theyre both economically struggling for similar reasons: competition from cheap natural gas and, to a lesser extent, renewables. cheap natural gas and, to a lesser extent, renewables. On top of inaction, trade policies under consideration could make matters even worse for the nuclear industry like new restrictions on uranium they use for fuel. (More on that later.) For the last year and a half, Energy Secretary Rick Perry has been trying but failing to find a way to help the wave of ailing coal and nuclear power plants across the Eastern United States. He asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, an independent government agency, to take action. He was rejected. He considered using a little-known law called the Defense Production Act to invoke national security to save certain plants. Thats been on ice for months after White House resistance. More than a year ago, Bankrupt FirstEnergy Solutions asked Perry to keep open certain coal and nuclear plants in the name of national security. Representatives of the firm said they have no updates to share, and an Energy Department spokeswoman didnt have a comment other than to say its still pending. Ive thrown a lot of jello over at the wall on this one trying to find some solutions that we can all, or at least a majority of us can get behind to support that, Perry said at an energy conference last month. The other side: This is a triumph of a diverse and broad set of energy interests ranging from natural gas to wind that rallied together to oppose the administration's efforts, arguing any such moves would upend market forces and could increase electricity prices for consumers. The Trump administration is taking some steps to help nuclear power and coal, such as research investments for new technologies and unprecedented regulatory rollbacks. A White House official said coal has been buoyed by numerous executive actions the administration has taken and regulations it is repealing, particularly at the Environmental Protection Agency. The official also pointed to the funding of Energy Department initiatives and laws streamlining permitting processes that president has backed to help nuclear power. But these steps are just not significant enough to change the prevailing declining direction of either sector, and especially the plants under economic duress. Meanwhile, the nuclear power industry is now among the long list of sectors concerned about Trumps protectionist trade agenda. The administration is considering imposing quotas requiring a certain percentage of uranium the fuel used in nuclear plants to be sourced domestically in the name of national security. A coalition of utilities say such a move could hurt the very same economically struggling reactors Trump says he wants to help, pushing them over the edge and forcing them to shut down. The Commerce Department faced a Sunday (yesterday) deadline to send its recommendation on the matter to Trump. He now has 90 days to decide. What were watching: As Trumps reelection campaign picks up, the president could likely raise the issue of saving coal and nuclear plants again, which puts policy experts within the administration in a bind because theyve exhausted most options. Theyre totally stuck. I dont know how theyre going to fix it, said one person familiar with the dynamics. The likelihood that Trump comes back to them at some point and says do something is pretty high. Go deeper: Nancy Pelosi clapped back at President Trump after he took the unusual step of using Twitter to go after the House speaker for her interview on CBS' "60 Minutes" Sunday night. Why it matters: While Trump has traded barbs with several Democrats on Twitter, it is unusual for him to single out Pelosi on the social media platform. Earlier Sunday, the House speaker demanded Trump remove a video he tweeted Friday showing footage of the September 11 attacks spliced with edited remarks by Muslim Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), claiming the president's "hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger." A tweet previously embedded here has been deleted or was tweeted from an account that has been suspended or deleted. Details: In her interview with CBS Lesley Stahl, Pelosi said she believed the Democratic Party could work with Trump. "He's not worth the trouble of saying you're so horrible we can't work together. No, we need to work together. I think our future is strong enough built on a strong foundation to withstand everything, including the current occupant of the White House." Armenia and Azerbaijan reaffirmed on Monday their stated intention to strengthen the ceasefire regime in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone and take other take confidence-building measures during fresh peace talks mediated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Lavrov hosted his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts, Zohrab Mnatsakanian and Elmar Mammadyarov, more two weeks after an Armenian-Azerbaijani summit held in Vienna. The three ministers were joined in Moscow by the U.S., Russian and French mediators co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group. The Ministers emphasized their interest in further stabilization of the situation in the conflict zone, in particular during agricultural activities, read a joint statement released by the participants of the talks. They also agreed to take measures, on a mutual basis, to allow families to have access to their relatives held in custody in the respective detention centers of the parties. The Ministers expressed their willingness to start concrete work on establishing contacts between people, including through mutual visits of media representatives, added the statement. It described the Moscow talks as a follow-up to the agreements that were reached by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev at their March 29 summit in Vienna. Both Aliyev and Pashinian gave a largely positive assessment of what was their fourth meeting in six months. There has been a significant decrease in ceasefire violations around Karabakh and along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border since their first face-to-face contact in September. Lavrov, Mnatsakanian and Mammadyarov said they also exchanged detailed views on key aspects of the settlement process. It was not clear whether the conflicting parties narrowed their differences on a compromise peace formula that has been advanced by the United States, Russia and France for more than a decade. Their statement said only that they will continue their contacts in the near future. Hundreds of workers of a cement plant owned by businessman Gagik Tsarukian went on strike on Monday after its management announced plans to fire them, saying that the Armenian government will not protect it against much cheaper cement imports from Iran. Citing mounting losses incurred by domestic cement manufacturers, the government decided earlier this year to impose hefty tariffs on those imports. A relevant government bill, portrayed as an anti-dumping measure, was discussed by an Armenian parliament committee on economic issues on Friday. Tsarukians Multi Group holding company says that the bill was amended at the last minute to make sure that the tariffs do not apply to cement clinker, a nodular material developed before the final stage of cement production. Later on Friday, the group informed most of the 1,100 or so employees of the Ararat Tsement plant that they will be laid off within two months. The workers responded by going on strike in protest. They also blocked a road leading to the plant located just outside Ararat, a small town 50 kilometers south of Yerevan. This is a strategically important plant, one of them told RFE/RLs Armenian service. The whole town of Ararat will get empty if its shut down. We just want to keep working, said another protester. He warned that he will have to leave Armenia if he loses his job. Meeting with the workers, Multi Groups chief executive, Sedrak Arustamian, insisted that the onus is on the government to save the plant from closure. As a result of Fridays [parliament committee] meeting it was decided to remove clinker from the bill, he said. If they decided not to include clinker, then its better for us to also import clinker and provide the market [with cheaper cement.] Arustamian argued that Ararat Tsement would need a fraction of its current workforce to manufacture cement with Iranian clinker. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian gave no indication that his government is ready to meet Multi Groups demand when he commented on the strike. He described it as a problem between the employer and employees. The Ararat plant faced an uncertain future amid mounting tensions between Pashinians My Step alliance and Tsarukians Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), the largest parliamentary opposition force. Earlier this month Tsarukian publicly criticized the governments economic policies and said many government officials are incompetent. This was followed by bitter recriminations traded by My Step and the BHK over a transgender activists bombshell speech delivered in the Armenian parliament. On April 9 Pashinian accused a senior BHK lawmaker of organizing a political provocation against the parliament majority loyal to him. Tsarukian and his associated rejected the accusation. Tax officials raided a sprawling market and pressurized gas stations belonging to Tsarukian in the following days. BHK representatives suggested that the tax audits are politically motivated. Pashinian on Monday seemed to dismiss speculation that he ordered a crackdown on Multi Group businesses in retaliation against Tsarukians public statements. The government does not need to take away anything from anyone, he told journalists. The government doesnt need dodgy political support because the government functions with a popular mandate and will do so as long as it has that mandate. The United States welcomes democratic change in Armenia and will continue to help its government combat corruption and strengthen the rule of law, Lynne Tracy, the recently appointed U.S. ambassador in Yerevan, said on Monday. Tracy also defended Washingtons very good track record in Armenia, responding to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinians recent criticism of what he called a lack of U.S. support for his government. I think the key point is that we want to make sure that were supporting Armenias democracy agenda, she told RFE/RLs Armenian service in an interview. A few words come to my mind immediately, Tracy said when asked about her impressions of her first contacts with Armenian government officials. One is opportunity, another is positive energy, enthusiasm. I think that fits very well with the agenda that we have together: one of promoting democracy, which in many ways is so important to strengthening the sovereignty of the country. She said the U.S. is also trying to assist the government in strengthening institutions responsible for law-enforcement and the judiciary and at the same time ensuring that they are seen as accountable to people, transparent in their activities. We are encouraged, she said, while cautioning that there is still work ahead. Tracy was careful not to comment on corruption and other charges brought against a number of former senior Armenian officials, notably former President Robert Kocharian. I dont want to speculate on ongoing court cases, she said. What I do see is that this government has indicated a desire to strengthen institutions that are so critical to the rule of law. Thats the courts, the police, the Ministry of Justice, and other bodies that are responsible for oversight of tackling corruption. In that respect, we are going to continue to encourage the government to pursue those sorts of reforms, and I think then youll see the spaces for fair trials, for the confidence of the people in the judicial system, added the U.S. diplomat. Speaking in the Armenian parliament late last month, Pashinian complained about Washingtons zero reaction to democratic change in his country. He seemed unhappy with the fact that there has been no significant increase in U.S. economic assistance to Yerevan since last years velvet revolution which brought him to power. Commenting on the criticism, Tracy said: Im very proud of the fact that since 1992 the United States has provided over $2 billion in assistance to Armenia in developing the partnership that we have today. That is so wide-ranging. In 2018, we provided $26.7 million in assistance but that really doesnt tell the whole story, she went on. USAID, in multi-year programs that are active, is providing $66 million worth of assistance. Im also very proud of the fact that the United States was the first country to provide elections assistance after the events of last year. We were the only country to provide assistance in municipal elections. So I think we have a very good track record, stressed the envoy. We have talked to the government about where we can continue to work and I only see a good partnership there. By Leman Mammadova Favorable conditions created for foreign investors in Azerbaijan attract the businessmen to invest in various spheres in the country. Pakistani pharmaceutical company WnsFeild Pharmaceuticals eyes to enter the Azerbaijani market, said Zafar Balok, director of the company's Sales and Export Department. He noted that the Azerbaijan-Turkey-Pakistan Forum, which was held in Baku on April 11-13, is a good opportunity to showcase the products. "Presently, we are reviewing the market," Balok said. "We export the products to foreign countries. If we succeed, we would like to supply products to Azerbaijan." WnsFeild Pharmaceuticals was formed in 2007. The company exports its products to Yemen, Afghanistan, Rwanda and other countries. Also, negotiations are underway with such countries as Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Kenya. Last year, the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Pakistan reached $11.2 million, according to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee. Azerbaijani goods worth $808,130 were exported to Pakistan in 2018. At present, Azerbaijan takes significant steps to develop pharmaceutical industry, as it is mainly dependent on imports. Azerbaijan plans to produce pharmaceutical products worth 1.3 million manats ($760,000) in 2019. The production will be expanded in subsequent years. Thus, the output is expected to reach 38.8 million manats ($ 22.83 million) in 2020, 39.5 million manats ($23.24 million) in 2021 and 40.2 million manats ($ 23.65 million) in 2022 due to the operation of new pharmaceutical companies starting from 2019. To develop the pharmaceutical industry in the country, Pirallahi Industrial Park was established in 2016. Specialized in the production of pharmaceutical products, the Park aims to reduce dependence on imports in this area, to meet the medicine demand of the population and to increase employment. The Pirallahi Industrial Park currently has four residents including the joint Azerbaijani-Russian plant Hayat Pharm, Azerbaijani-Iranian plant Caspian Pharmed, plant of Diamed Co., and plant of IFFA. These plants are under construction. The Diamed Co. plant will allow Azerbaijan to become independent from the import of syringes, while the joint Azerbaijani-Russian plant will produce medicines of various pharmaceutical groups, including cancer, antifungal, antiemetic, antiviral and other drugs. In addition, a big pharmaceutical enterprise will be built in Azerbaijan through Belarusian investments. The enterprise will provide the Azerbaijani market with the most modern high-tech oncology medicines. German pharmaceutical companies are also interested in this sector and watch the Azerbaijani market, considering possible market entry in 2019-2020. Developing pharmaceutical manufacturing in oil-rich Azerbaijan may become one of major directions in the country's aspiration to diversify its non-oil sector of the economy. --- Leman Mammadova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Trend: Azerbaijan has launched the next stage of implementing the project in the field of vocational education, a source in the National Confederation of Entrepreneurs (Employers) Organizations of Azerbaijan told Trend. The project is being implemented with the assistance of the National Confederation of Entrepreneurs (Employers) Organizations of Azerbaijan and the German government, according to the source. "The project has been extended for three years, it is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany (BMZ) and the German Economic Development Fund (SEQUA GmbH)," the source noted. "The project cost is about 20,000 euros." The project is aimed at strengthening cooperation between employers and the system of vocational education in the field of youth employment in Azerbaijan. The National Confederation of Entrepreneurs (Employers) Organizations of Azerbaijan was established March 5, 1999 in Baku and passed the official state registration. The confederation brings together over 1,000 business entities. After having raced to 40 wins, over $1.6-million in purses and an OBrien Award, there is no doubt that Bigtime Ball enjoyed his time on the racetrack. Although he is now enjoying his retirement, the 15-year-old son of Presidential Ball still loves getting out in front of his fans. The geldings affinity for the spotlight was on display at the Can-Am All Breeds Equine Expo earlier this month at the Markham Fairgrounds in Ontario. Bigtime Ball was under western tack at the event and was showing the versatility of the breed and promoting the Ontario Standardbred Show Series, much to the delight of Sarah Waldram. I got Ball in June of 2017, Waldram told Trot Insider. His retirement home could no longer care for him due to health reasons, so Gord Irwin contacted me and the rest is history. Waldram, who was looking forward to the Can-Am All Breeds Equine Expo at the Markham Fairgrounds, was pleased with the way that Bigtime Ball took to the event. The first day at the fairgrounds was a bit overwhelming for him, she said, but once he got used to all of the noises he settled and showed the crowd just how versatile the Standardbred breed is. He did his breed proud! Waldram told Trot Insider that Bigtime Ball is truly enjoying his retirement from racing. He is loving his new life at a small boarding facility in Omemee, said Waldram, who explained that Bigtime Ball prefers to live outside, except during fly season. Waldram has been involved in the show series for some time, as she helped Tammi Hughes run the show in Orono until just a few years ago. Being able to incorporate Bigtime Ball into the series has been a joy for Waldram. Ball got to go to his first show 10 days after I got him (in 2017) and he finished second in halter and won the pleasure driving class, she explained. He didn't show in 2018 because of hoof issues, but I'm planning on taking him to all three shows this summer. Bigtime Ball is also a part of the Ontario Mounted Special Services Unit, as he performs in drill competitions, a mounted event and trail patrol. Waldram told Trot Insider that her ultimate goal is to train Bigtime Ball for mounted search and rescue. By Leman Mammadova Local wine products, that define the largest part in country's non-oil export potential, are strengthening its position in the current markets abroad as well as striving for new ones. Azerbaijani producer of alcoholic beverages, Naiqin-K Tovuz-Baltiya LLC, intends to export the products to China in the second half of 2019, the company told Trend. "On average, one consignment of the products intended for export reached 20 tons of alcoholic beverages," the company said. "The biggest volume of export accounts for the markets of Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic countries. The company intends to establish stable supplies to the Polish and German markets. The corresponding negotiations with European partners have intensified." The grape and fruit wines, brandy and fruit liqueurs are produced in the company. The company is using Italian, French and German equipment. Distinguished by its quality, Azerbaijani wines are in demand in Chinese markets. Azerbaijani wines received the highest award at the International Wine Challenge in June 2018 in Shanghai. At present, Azerbaijan's wine houses are operating in China, in Urumqi and Shanghai cities. The first Azerbaijans Wine House opened in Urumqi in September 2018, the second one in Shanghai on November 8, 2018. It should be noted that Ministry of Economy and the Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO) organized the first export mission of this year to Beijing, China on 25 February-1 March. The mission included 16 Azerbaijani companies operating in the field of food, wine and other alcoholic drinks. Since March 1, the sale of Azerbaijani wines has already been launched in China's BHG markets. This year, the Ministry of Economy is planning to organize three more export missions to China. Winery occupies one of the most important areas in the food industry of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is famous for its high quality grape varieties. Five major wine-growing regions of the country are Shamakhi, Ismayilli, Gabala, Ganja, Tovuz. Local grape varieties in Azerbaijan include White Shani, Derbendi, Nail, Bayanshire, Gamashara, Ganja Pink, Bendi, Madrasa, Black Shani, Zeynabi, Misgali, Khindogni, Agdam Kechiemdzheyi, Tebrizi, and Marandi. In order to ensure sustainable development of winemaking in the country, increasing interest in wine production and exports, the State Program on the development of wine growing in the Republic of Azerbaijan in 2018-2025 has been approved in May 2018, which will lead to development of wine tourism and increase the amount of loans allocated to the wine industry in Azerbaijan. According to the State Program, the export of wine from Azerbaijan should increase five-fold by 2025. Azerbaijan Wine Manufacturers and Exporters Association was established to coordinate activities between producers and exporters of wine and winery products with the support of the AZPROMO in 2016. Currently, about 40 winemaking enterprises operate in Azerbaijan producing natural wine, sparkling wine, liqueur, brandy, vodka, ethyl alcohol, cognac and etc. Most of producers target Russian and European markets as well as new growing markets for Azerbaijani wine such as China. As an example of recent success, the winners of the "Prodexpo International Wine Competition and Guide" contest were wines from Goygol Wine Plant - "Karabakh Chardonnay" gold, "Karabakh saperavi" silver, "Karabakh rose" bronze medal. Recently, local wine products have been featured at Prowein 2019 international exhibition in Germany, the world's leading trade fair for wine and spirits. Azerbaijani wines are welcomed by exhibitors and companies. As a result of the discussions, Absheron Wine Company has already reached a preliminary agreement on exporting its products to Germany. Moreover, Naiqin Co-Tovuz Baltiya and Aspi Agro companies held talks on export its products to Germany, France and the Netherlands, while Sharg Ulduzu and Agro-Azerinvest to Norway, Germany and China. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan plans to develop the first wine tourist route in the history of Azerbaijan by mid-2019. A new highly specialized tourist route will pass through the wineries of Azerbaijan, Absheron, Ismayilli, Shirvan, Gabala, Sheki and Goygol regions. Tourism experts intend to pave the route in such a way that within a few days foreigners would be taken from one region to another, giving them the opportunity to visit wineries where the legendary Azerbaijani alcoholic beverages are produced. In addition, tourists will get the opportunity to personally taste wine drinks. Then, Azerbaijan intends to connect it with the famous Georgian wine route, paving the way for tourists from Sheki to Kakheti, Georgian region. --- Leman Mammadova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Mirsaid Ibrahimzade Director of NaT IN, one of the largest wool importers in India, is on a visit to Baku, organized by the and the Azexport.az portal of the Economic Reform Analysis and Communication Center. During the visit, the guests met with the directors of Farhad-91 LLC and Drujba LLC, one of the leading wool producers in Azerbaijan. At the end of the discussions, the parties reached an initial agreement on the export of 5,000 tons of domestically produced wool with the technical indicators between 25-29 and 29-34 microns to India. NaT IN for 35 years is engaged in wool imports to India from more than 17 countries, including New Zealand, Syria, Greece, Spain, Italy, Egypt and China. The manager of Azexport portal, Aykhan Kadeshov, said that the launch of cooperation with one of the leading companies in the field, NaT IN, can be considered as the launch of a new stage for the export of Azerbaijani wool to India and other countries. Despite the wool production in the Republic of Azerbaijan is increasing in recent years, there are some problems with its export. In 1985, about 11,000 tons of wool production was registered, 9,000 tons in 1995 and in 2015, about 17,000 tons of wool was produced. Wool producers do not know how and whom to sell the product they produce. Now, they are able to take advantage of Azexport portal. Azexport.az portal contributes to the growth of export of sheep wool from our country, as well as expansion of export geography. "Azexport.az" portal of the Center for Analysis of Economic Reforms and Communications was created under the Order of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan dated September 21, 2016 "Establishing Unified Database of Goods Manufactured in the Republic of Azerbaijan". Portal offers entrepreneurs the opportunity to export goods produced in our country to traditional and new markets via international e-trading platforms. The mission of Azexport.az is to provide information about products of Azerbaijani origin and become beneficial platform for their sales in foreign and domestic markets. Azexport.az, integrated with the most popular electronic trading platforms, makes the products available to potential buyers from anywhere in the world. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Laman Ismayilova Park Inn Hotel will host Caspian Awards on May 12. The main goal of the project is motivation for further successful activities in various fields, networking and exchange of experience. The prize is awarded for successful activities in the field of culture, art, sports, business, medicine and public life. The project is organized by Caspian Events Group, Trend Life reported. Winners are determined by voting in social networks and media monitoring throughout the year. Among the guests are the representatives of foreign countries. Media partners of the event are Azernews.az, Trend.az, Day.az, Milli.az. --- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov In the spring session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjorn Jagland remembered by an ambiguous statement. Jagland said that Nagorno-Karabakh is considered a grey zone for Europe, but he is convinced that European monitoring bodies and human rights representatives should be able to work in such territories and their reachlessness is simply unacceptable. he official several times emphasized his position on this issue, explaining that the CE representatives in grey zones do not carry out political, but purely humanitarian work. It seems that the head of the Council of Europe does not understand why Azerbaijan is against the travel of representatives of the European structures to their territories occupied by Armenia. Baku does not welcome any "human rights" games in this region and has repeatedly made these statements. Like the Prime Minister of Armenia, Jagland can hold any opinion, but it will not affect the position of Baku in any way. Which is completely logical and in accordance with international standards does not allow the involvement of so-called illegal entities in international programs and projects. Even if Jagland argues that "representatives of the Council of Europe in the "grey zones" do not political but strictly humanitarian work". The response of the Azerbaijani government is not long in coming. Commenting on this information, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Leyla Abdullayeva noted that the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Jagland invited the member states of the organization to take a political decision regarding the visit to the so-called "grey zones", including Nagorno-Karabakh. She said that Azerbaijans position in this regard is clear and repeatedly communicated to all relevant international organizations, including the Council of Europe. "It is the sovereign right of the state to allow certain persons, whether representatives of international organizations or other citizens of other states, to enter its territory within the internationally recognized borders and in accordance with their domestic legislation," said Abdullayeva. Azerbaijan has repeatedly declared the inadmissibility of interference in internal affairs by any state and politicians, regardless of power and authority. The policy pursued by Baku is based on pragmatism, the country does not interfere in the internal affairs of another state, and accepts the same practice in relations with itself. The limited thinking of some European officials, who are ready to sacrifice Azerbaijan, which is a reliable partner, long-term projects and enormous benefits for the sake of complaints of a failed country that can never take the place of Azerbaijan for Europe, is unclear. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The US is impressed by Azerbaijans efforts in preventing illicit drug trafficking, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of International Narcoticsand Law Enforcement Affairs Richard Glenn told reporters in Baku April 15, Trend reports. The US supports Azerbaijans efforts in preventing the transportation of drugs through its borders, he said. The US wants to cooperate in Azerbaijan in this direction, he noted, expressing hope for renewed cooperation between the US and the 115 countries that make up the anti-drug trafficking group. Drug trafficking is an international problem, and no country can cope with it alone, he said. It is necessary to ensure international partnership in this issue, he added. He noted that Azerbaijan is geographically at the crossroads of international trade routes. But unfortunately, this also opens the way for the transit of drugs through the countrys territory, he said. He also touched upon the transit of drugs through the territory of Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh region occupied by Armenia. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Azerbaijan actively participates in all global platforms to contribute to the strengthening of international peace, Azerbaijani Prime Minister Novruz Mammadov said. Mammadov made the remarks at the 36th International Drug Enforcement Conference, being held in Baku, Trend reports on April 15. The prime minister stressed that the Azerbaijani foreign policy is based on mutual effective and fruitful cooperation with all countries. "Azerbaijan has become a reliable partner on the international arena, Mammadov said. The country was one of the countries which first joined the US counter-terrorism operation. Azerbaijan and the US cooperate fruitfully." He stressed that Azerbaijans such big energy projects as Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum, TANAP changed the world map. "Azerbaijan plays an important role in ensuring Europes energy security," Mammadov said. He stressed that drug addiction and illicit drug trafficking are among the most serious problems. "Illicit drug trafficking also poses big threats to international security as a source of terrorism financing, Mammadov said. Azerbaijan demonstrates a firm stance against the spread of these phenomena in the country, named the fight against illicit drug trafficking as a priority and joined the corresponding international conventions in this sphere. Big tasks have been set before the law enforcement agencies in this sphere, he said. Over the past five years, 8 tons 354 kilograms of drugs have been withdrawn from circulation in Azerbaijan." Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven adjacent regions are under the Armenian occupation more than 25 years and this creates favourable conditions for international terrorism and illicit drug trafficking in this territory," Mammadov said. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Trend: An intensive training of Azerbaijani cadets is being conducted at the "Garaheybat" Training Center, Trend reports referring to the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan. The training is held according to the academic program of the Azerbaijan Military Academy named after Heydar Aliyev. In the course of training conducted in the field condition, the leaders of the training areas familiarize the military personnel involved in preparatory training with safety rules, shooting conditions and other requirements. Servicemen work out the use of various types of small arms and carry out practical shooting exercises. By Trend The 36th International Drug Enforcement Conference is being held in Baku, Trend reports on April 15. The conference, organized with the active participation of the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee and dedicated to the topic "Mobilization of global partners", aims at bringing together high-ranking officials involved in the global fight against illicit drug trafficking, discussing the ways to solve this problem, exchanging views and best practices. While addressing the conference, Azerbaijani Prime Minister Novruz Mammadov said that the Azerbaijani foreign policy is based on mutual effective and fruitful cooperation with all countries. Azerbaijan actively participates in all global platforms to contribute to the strengthening of international peace, Mammadov said. He stressed that drug addiction and illicit drug trafficking are among the most serious problems. "Illicit drug trafficking also poses big threats to international security as a source of terrorism financing, Mammadov said. In turn, Chairman of Azerbaijans State Commission on Combating Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking Ali Hasanov said that three state programs have been successfully implemented in Azerbaijan in the fight against drug abuse and illicit drug trafficking. Hasanov noted that there is a serious struggle in Azerbaijan against illicit drug trafficking using modern technologies, and big cargoes of drugs have been recently withdrawn from circulation. In turn, Chairman of the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee Safar Mehdiyev emphasized that 16 drug trafficking gangs were revealed over three months of 2019 and 520 kilograms of drugs were withdrawn from circulation thanks to the taken measures. While delivering speech at the event, US ambassador to Azerbaijan Earle Litzenberger said that Azerbaijan is a reliable partner of the US in the fight against international terrorism and makes an important contribution to ensuring international peace. By conducting such activities, the country makes a significant contribution to the fight against illicit drug trafficking, Litzenberger added. The 36th International Drug Enforcement Conference, organized by the Azerbaijani State Commission on Combating Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking together with the Drug Enforcement Administration of the US Department of Justice kicked off in Baku on April 15. The proposal about holding the international conference in Azerbaijan was obtained from the Drug Enforcement Administration of the US Department of Justice. The international conference, which brought together about 500 representatives from over 150 countries, will create conditions for the use of modern methods of combating illicit drug trafficking. The foundation of this unique platform was laid in 1983 in Panama. Then the conference has become a global forum in which representatives from more than 130 countries participate. During the conference, which will last until April 17, new messages on the fight against illicit drug trafficking will be sent from Baku to the world. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The UN and the EU are launching EU4Climate, a regional project to combat climate change in Azerbaijan, Simona Gatti, minister-counselor of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan, said at the presentation of the project in Baku, Trend reports. The project will be financed by the UN and the EU. Gatti noted that the EU is cooperating with Azerbaijan to combat climate change. This project will help implement in Azerbaijan the measures reflected in the Paris Agreement, as well as support the improvement of legislation in this direction, she said. The project is planned to be implemented in the Eastern Partnership countries - Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and Armenia. The EU4Climate project is being implemented to help the Eastern Partnership countries to combat climate change, prepare a strategy for the development of preventive measures in this area, as well as to help integrate climate change issues into the main policy of states. The project will be implemented until 2022 in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and Armenia. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Leman Mammadova A presentation of the modern systems of the French company Thales, designed for the "purple" line of the Baku Metro, was held on April 13. The presentation was held by the head of the Thales representative office in Azerbaijan Mehmet Shahan and the technical director Mikhail Malinovsky. The Baku Metro, which currently consists of three 36.6 km long lines and 25 stations, will turn into a network of five 119.1 km long lines and 76 stations. The most modern systems are used on the line that was commissioned during the period of independence, and the two operating stations. Shahan noted that the phased installation of systems began with the launch of the purple line. In the future, the entire metro infrastructure will be transferred to SCADA systems. At the moment, four systems of the company Thales are installed on the "purple" line. This is a microprocessor system that controls the movement of trains, dispatching control, which already exists on the purple line, but will later cover the entire metro system, the Tetra radio communication system, which provides a connection between the driver and the train dispatcher, the control system of escalators and engineering structures and other equipment, noted Shahan. The first and third systems are already operational on the line. The movement of trains on the "green" and "red" lines is carried out using SAT-ALI systems (automatic speed control, automatic locomotive control). However, the CBTC systems, or the management of trains through radio waves, which is considered the latest product of technological development, starting with the purple line, will be the beginning of a completely new era in the Baku metro. This will increase the safety and speed of trains, shorten the intervals between them, save electricity, he added. Shahan added that two of the Azerbaijani-French documents signed within Vice President of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva's visit to France on March 11, 2019, are related to the development of Baku Metro in recent years - Research agreement on the establishment of Operation Control Center and Agreement on the implementation of alarm and telecommunication systems of the Khojasan depot. At the same time, the first important steps are being taken to modernize the Red and Green Line automation systems of the Baku Metro Thales is one of the world leaders in the development and application of modern automation systems used in subways. The works started under the Memorandum of Understanding between the Baku Metro and Thales, signed during the Azerbaijan-France economic forum held in Baku on May 12, 2014. Baku metro, which was put into operation on November 6, 1967 is the public urban transport system linking underground railway lines in Azerbaijan. Having 25 stations on three lines Green, Red and Purple the Baku Metro is 36.63 km in length. By 2030, it is planned to expand the infrastructure of Baku Metro and create a giant underground transport network consisting of 76 stations, six electric depots, and five lines with a total length of 119.1 kilometers. Recently, Bakmil station of Baku Metro was opened after major overhaul. The reconstruction work started in August, 2017. The station was commissioned at the operating land site of Nariman Narimanov station on September 25, 1970 and has been operating as a station since 1979. --- Leman Mammadova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Standardbred horseman Wilbur R. Bun Zendt, 99, of Mifflintown, PA, passed away on Friday, April 12, 2019 at his home, surrounded by his family. Born March 7, 1920, in Walker Township, Juniata County, he was a son of the late Howard and Sylvia (Lauver) Zendt. His wife, Kathryn (Cleck) Zendt, whom he married March 29, 1941, passed away on October 31, 2003. Zendt is survived by three children: Cinda Lauver (Larry); William W. Zendt (Leslie) and Jan Lauver (Joe); eight grandchildren; 14 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild. He was preceded in death by two sisters and four brothers. A farmer all his life, Zendt also trained and drove Standardbreds from 1949 until recently. He was a member of Centre Lutheran Church and also attended Cedar Grove BIC Church. He was a member of Walker Grange. Zendt enjoyed playing the keyboard, hunting, travelling, spending time with his family, and drinking coffee with his friends at the barn. His funeral will be held at 11 a.m. on Tuesday (April 16) at Cedar Grove Brethren In Christ Church, 287 Deerville Road, Mifflintown, PA, with Rev. Kenneth Hepner and Rev. Mike Sigler officiating. Interment will be in Cedar Grove Cemetery. Although there will be no viewing, the family will receive friends on Tuesday at the church from 10 a.m. until the time of the services. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be sent to Family Hospice, Home Nursing Agency, 129 S. Main St., Lewistown, PA, 17044. Guss Funeral Home, Inc., 20 S. Third Street, Mifflintown, has care of the arrangements. Condolences may be left by clicking here. Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the family and friends of Wilbur Bun Zendt. (USTA) By Abdul Kerimkhanov After the year since Nikol Pashinyan came to power, the euphoria of the velvet revolution subsided, and expectations gradually transformed into disappointment. The Armenian leader pinned up his hopes that last-year events in Armenia will change the attitude of the European structures towards his country. Pashinyan, who counts on Europe too much and, most important, without any reasons, always hurries to make speeches there with special excitement. However, Pashinyan's speeches often resemble some kind of a show or simple clowning. Playing the ape before Europe does not add credibility to him as a politician. The same attitude was shown when he participated in the spring session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. His trip to Strasbourg was presented in Armenia as if the PACE would convene only to observe the organizer of the April coup. For a year now, the Armenian public has been trying to create the feeling that the whole world revolves around change of power topic in Armenia. Pashinyan brought back repeated theses on the Karabakh settlement to Strasbourg. Judging by the reports of the Armenian media, at all meetings, Pashinyan said that Azerbaijan should renounce the use of force, the people should prepare for peace, illegal regime created in Karabakh should return to the negotiating table and so on. He expressed hope that "the call voiced from this tribune will receive an adequate response in Azerbaijani society." Apparently, Pashinyan wants to hear from the Azerbaijani side recognition of the Armenian occupation as a fact in response to these frivolous appeals. However, the unreality of such a situation is understood both in Armenia and in Europe. Therefore, Pashinyans unnatural peacefulness is not perceived and does not find support. It is clear to the world community that the words about peace and the inadmissibility of hatred from his lips pursue only one goal - to delay the start of a new war. Armenia is absolutely not ready for it and will not be ready in the coming years. In addition, putting forward conditions impracticable in the realities of the ongoing occupation, he exposes Baku as a militarist and supporter of eternal hostility between the two peoples. In addition, Pashinyan presented PACE with claims that it "is not taking any measures to strengthen democratic institutions in Nagorno-Karabakh and develop civil society." The unrecognized secessionist entity should not be an obstacle for European officials to travel to the occupied territories. Speculation around the topic of human rights, according to Yerevans calculations, is the best way to legitimize the separatist regime, to involve it in all sorts of European programs. Nervousness of Yerevan in connection with this issue can be understood. Europe doesnt even try to break the taboo on visiting Karabakh established by Baku and this worries Armenian circles. Earlier, answering a journalists question about recent threats from Minister of Defense David Tonoyan directed against Azerbaijan, Pashinyan admitted that the Armenian ministers statement is true and doesnt contradict his own peace rhetoric. Its just a matter of how one interprets the situation, he said. Assuring that there are no contradictions in his calls for peace and announcing new territorial seizures, Pashinyan actually declared the whole of Europe that Armenia is preparing new aggression. His statements about peace are just a curtain in order to cover up the aggressive nature of the Armenian state, which represents a real threat to stability in the region. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has arrived for a state visit to the Republic of Uzbekistan, Trend reports citing Kazinform. On Sunday evening, the plane of the President of Kazakhstan landed at the Tashkent International Airport named after Islam Karimov. There, the Head of State was greeted by Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan Abdulaziz Kamilov and mayor of Tashkent city Jahongir Ortikhodjaev. According to the Akorda's press service, during the visit the leaders of the two countries will discuss the topical issues of bilateral cooperation aimed at further strengthening of trade and economic, social and humanitarian, transit and transport cooperation as well as the key problems of regional and international agenda. The visit will result in signing of a number of important documents. Also, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Shavkat Mirziyoyev are expected to participate in the solemn ceremony of inauguration of the Year of Kazakhstan in Uzbekistan. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The Central Bank of Iran denied reports on asking for a loan from the International Monetary Fund. The central bank has not filed an application for a loan to the International Monetary Fund, CBI said in a statement published on its official website, Trend reports. The Public Relations Department of the CBI announced that it did not file any requests the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Central Bank's public relations also stressed that this year, the governor of the central bank did not attend the IMF Spring Summit and canceled its visit to Washington on Monday. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov Turkmenistan is among the countries possessing significant reserves of hydrocarbons, mainly natural gas. The concept of the gas industry development in the country is focused on energy security and economic efficiency. Turkmen media have reported that Turkmenistan plans to resume gas deliveries to Russia on April 15. There are currently no other details about the amount of gas supplies and its price. Talks on the resumption of gas supplies to Russia, continuing from autumn 2018, were preceded by a conflict between Russia's Gazprom and Turkmengaz. For several years, the parties threatened each other with proceedings in international arbitration. In 2015, representatives of Turkmengas announced that Gazprom did not pay bills and declared the Russian concern insolvent. In response, Gazprom filed a lawsuit demanding a review of prices for gas purchased in Turkmenistan and a refund of $5 billion for overpayment. At the beginning of 2016, Gazprom stopped purchasing Turkmen gas and later, in the same year, signed a contract for gas supply with Uzbekneftegaz. Diplomatic relations between Turkmenistan and Russia were established on April 8, 1992. At present, about 190 companies with Russian capital operate in Turkmenistan. In October 2017, Turkmenistan and Russia signed the strategic partnership agreement. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have agreed on joint projects in the fields of transport, logistics, tourism and industrial cooperation, Trend reports via Uzbek media. The meeting between the presidents of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev was held in the Kuksaroy residence in Tashkent. Tokayev arrived in the capital of Uzbekistan on his first state visit at the invitation of Mirziyoyev. "We highly appreciate the fact that your first state visit as president of Kazakhstan was a visit to Uzbekistan. We see a clear manifestation of commitment to further deepen the strategic partnership between our countries by that. For us, Kazakhstan is a close neighbor and strategic partner. We are pleased with the positive dynamics all areas of cooperation", Mirziyoyev said. Tokayev, in response, thanked for the invitation and welcome and expressed confidence that the negotiations would be fruitful. Tokayev, in response, thanked for the invitation and welcome and expressed confidence that the negotiations would be fruitful. "I fully agree with your assessment of the quality and practical content of cooperation between our countries. You, and the first President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, have brought interstate relations to a completely new level. I consider it my task to maintain these rates. In Kazakhstan, there is a very high need for cooperation with fraternal Uzbekistan," Tokayev stressed. During the meeting, the heads of state discussed the prospects for further strengthening bilateral relations of friendship and good neighborliness, cooperation in the field of trade, transport, industrial cooperation, tourism and other areas. An exchange of views took place on regional and international issues of mutual interest. The parties confirmed their mutual desire to reach the level of $5 billion of trade in the coming years. The Intergovernmental Commission on Bilateral Cooperation between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan was tasked with expanding the range of trade relations, finding and developing new long-term forms of economic cooperation. This will contribute to strengthening and building up mutually beneficial economic cooperation, implementing new promising projects in the field of trade, investment, logistics, creating integrated industrial technology parks, research and innovation clusters and free economic zones (FEZ). The sides also considered the issues of strengthening peace and security in the region, helping to resolve the situation in Afghanistan. The meeting reaffirmed the unity and proximity of the two countries' positions on regional and international agendas. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Iran has very good relations with neighboring countries, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters, Trend reports via Khabar TV. He said that after the withdrawal of the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the European signatories of the deal undertook many commitments. He also added that the European parties had to launch INSTEX (Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges), a special-purpose vehicle established in January 2019 by France, Germany and the UK to facilitate non-dollar trade with Iran, in order to start the implementation of their commitments. The European side must fulfill its obligations, he said. I dont know how much time the European countries will need to start this mechanism, he noted. The JCPOA was signed on July 14, 2015, between Iran and P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the UK, the US plus Germany). The US left the JCPOA on May 8, 2018. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov The fourth Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner was delivered to the fleet of the Uzbekistan Airways national airline on April 13. The aircraft was acquired as part of an investment project to upgrade and expand the fleet of Uzbekistan Airways with modern aviation technology to ensure competitiveness and safety of flights. The airliner is designed to carry 246 passengers: 24 in business class and 222 in economy class. The fourth Dreamliner, as well as the three previous ones, is equipped with General Electric Aviation's GEnx-1B engines, providing low noise levels, minimal carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere and better fuel efficiency. Uzbekistan Airways plans to have six airliners of this type in its fleet in 2020 and to become the leading operator of this aircraft in the CIS. The new aircraft will be able to fly from the cities of Uzbekistan to the airports in the U.S., the Far East and Asia. The air carrier, which operates 30 Western-made aircraft, plans to increase the passenger traffic from 3 million in 2018 to 3.3 million people by 2021. The airline operates flights to more than 20 cities in Europe, North America, the Middle East, Asia, 24 cities in the CIS countries and 10 destinations on local airlines. Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner is one of the most modern aircraft in the world. The airliner that combines the latest technical solutions allows flying longer distances. In light of the use of latest technologies aircraft has many advantages in operation, economical in fuel consumption and has a comfortable environment for passengers. This airliner is different from other aircraft in its technical and operational parameters. It weighs less than comparable airplanes. Despite this, the flight range and load capacity is even more than for comparable airliners, though it consumes 20 percent less fuel. Aircraft has resources to perform 15-hour non-stop flight covering distance up to 15,700 km. These indicators make Dreamliner a leader among modern passenger aircraft. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Mirsaid Ibrahimzade Azerbaijan, a country with a rich culture and centuries-old history, has a variety of architectural monuments and sights. Historical and cultural reserves of Azerbaijan have a special place among such attractions. State Tourism Agency of Azerbaijan has announced April 18 as the open day at historical and cultural reserves of Azerbaijan on the occasion of the International Day for Monuments and Sites also known as World Heritage Day. World Heritage Day is an international observance held on April 18 each year around the world with different types of activities, including visits to monuments and heritage sites, conferences, round tables and newspaper articles. On this day, citizens of Azerbaijan, as well as tourists may visit the historical sites of the country for free. Free admission will be offered from 10:00 to 19:00 in the Ateshgah State Historical-Architectural Reserve, Yanardag State Historical-Cultural and Natural Reserve, Basgal State Historical-Cultural Reserve, Khinalig State Historical-Architectural and Ethnographic Reserve, Lahij State Historical-Cultural Reserve, Yukhary Bash State Historical-Architectural Reserve in Sheki and Kish State Historical-Architectural Reserve (including the Palace of Sheki Khans). Cultural reserves and historical sites in the regions of the country have attracted many visitors throughout the year. One of such examples is the Ateshgah Temple. The place that is associated with ancient history and religious beliefs is among the most attractive places of the country. The number of people visiting the place is increasing every year. Last year their number was 30,751, some 25,346 of which were foreigners. Tourists coming from Russia and Arab countries made up the main share of those who visited Ateshgah. Basgal settlement is located in the Ismayilli region at an altitude of 998 meters above sea level and is also a part of the state cultural and historical reserve. A number of historians believe that Basgal was founded in the 4th century. The small yet miraculous Khinalig village is located at the peak of the Caucasus Mountains, 2,350 meters above the sea level in the Guba region. The village was declared a State Historic-Architecture and Ethnography Reserve from 2007. There are a number of tours and guests houses in the village, which make trip to Khinalig more convenient for tourists. It is noteworthy that last year 56,742 tourists visited the Yukhari Bash State Historical-Architectural Reserve in Sheki, some 40,182 people visited Lahij State Historical and Cultural Reserve in Ismayilli, and 25,850 tourists came to see Kish Historical-Architectural Reserve in Sheki. The International Day for Monuments and Sites was proposed by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) on April 18, 1982 and approved by the General Assembly of UNESCO in 1983. The aim is to promote awareness about the diversity of cultural heritage of humanity, their vulnerability and the efforts required for their protection and conservation. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Laman Ismayilova "From Regions to Regions" Art Festival has reached Neftchala. The handicraft fair boasts with inspiring at works and genuine artists. Dozens of the nation's finest artists and crafters displayed their handcrafted works at the Heydar Aliyev Center. The art festival showcases the cultural diversity of Azerbaijani regions. The project aims at expanding cultural exchange between the regions as well as contributes to the emergence of new initiatives. The festival was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Culture, Neftchala Executive Power, regional cultural departments. Sixteen regional cultural administrations of the Ministry of Culture installed tents, where samples of folk art, reflecting the cultural heritage of cities and regions, works of art, souvenirs were presented. The Jirtdan Puppet Theater was presented to the attention of young viewers. Local residents and guests of the city enjoyed marvelous concert with the participation of folk and dance ensembles. "From Regions to Regions" Art Festival has been already held in Ganja, Agdash, Aghstafa and other country's regions. --- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz The Hawaii Volcano Observatory is monitoring Mauna Loa closely as the volcano shows signs of increasing activity following the Kilauea eruption. A lava flow from Mauna Loa during its 1984 eruption. Photo by R.W. Decker via Wikipedia The most important thing is that there is no cause for alarm, said HVO scientist-in-charge Tina Neal. However, she added, activity surrounding Mauna Loa has risen to levels comparable to a higher period of activity between 2014 and 2017. Those signs of higher activity include increased earthquakes and ground deformation around the volcanos summit. Neal said the volcano has experienced up to 90 earthquakes a week since August, although most of the quakes have been mild, measuring 2.0 or less on the Richter scale. Neal said earthquakes on Mauna Loa dropped to less than five a week around early 2018. HVOs alert status level for Mauna Loa dropped from Advisory to Normal around that time, and it remains at that level to this day. As for ground deformation, Neal said deformation rates appear similar to how they were in the volcanos more active period starting in 2014, but are not as high as the highest deformation rates during that time, when some parts of the volcano measured approximately 5 cm of deformation in a year. Mauna Loas renewed activity comes shortly after the cessation of significant volcanic activity around Kilauea, whose alert status sits at Normal. The Kilauea eruption last year also began shortly after a decrease in volcanic activity at Mauna Loa. Neal said there is no perfect correlation between the two volcanoes activity that is, there is no guarantee that one volcano will become more active as the other becomes less so. However, she added, there is some geological basis to suggest such a pattern, meaning that it could stand to reason that Mauna Loa is stirring now because Kilauea has fallen silent. But, this [new activity] would test that hypothesis, Neal said. Neal said further observation of Mauna Loa will help geologists understand how the Kilauea eruption affected Mauna Loa. The eruption changed the pressure relationship between the volcanoes, she said, and the effects of that have yet to be studied. Neal also said that gas monitoring equipment at Mauna Loa summit has not detected any fumes emerging from the volcano. Neal said it is too early to predict what Mauna Loas new activity means for the future. An eruption could be anywhere from months to years away, Neal said. But we do know that its not days or weeks away. Be ready for the next volcanic eruption! Follow us on FACEBOOK and TWITTER. Share your thoughts in our DISCUSSION FORUMS. Donate through Paypal. Please and thank you [HawaiiTribuneHerald] Here are three events this Saturday where you can help clean beaches in the South Bay and Long Beach after this week's storm. Sant Jordi (Saint George) is one of the Catalans'most important and best-loved festivals. In addition to commemorating the patron saint of Catalonia, Sant Jordi has become a day for celebrating culture, imagination and love. And believe us when we say that you can feel them in the air and in every corner of the city. Books and roses fill the streets on a day when hardly anyone stays at home. This year we've sought to embody the true significance of the day by launching an initiative to design the image for Sant Jordi and bring the talent of artists from around the world to public attention. In 2019, we have chosen MAGOZ, a Catalan illustrator who is known both at home and abroad. His drawing kicks off the first of these initiatives. Every year, an illustrator from a different country will interpret this truly special day so we can wish everybody a Happy Sant Jordi from Catalonia. The magic of Sant Jordi has its origins in the distant past. As long ago as the 15th century, men gave their beloved a rose. Nowadays, roses of every colour and meaning are given with devotion and affection to wives, girlfriends, female colleagues and friends, sisters, mothers In 1930 the custom of giving a book on Book Day was added to the celebration of Sant Jordi, and, as a result, the tradition was declared World Book and Copyright Day by UNESCO. Love and culture are the two core themes of this special day that fill the personal experiences of every Catalan with meaning. For MAGOZ, the creator of the image for Sant Jordi 2019, the memory is closely linked to the literary competition, the "Jocs Florals", at his school: Every year it gave us the opportunity to write a story and even illustrate it. The prizes brought an added touch of excitement. And he adds: "For me Sant Jordi has always been associated with culture and imagination". Books and roses: the essence of Sant Jordi. MAGOZ, with his markedly conceptual and minimalist style has used these elements that he describes as having "2a very poetic backstory", and produced an animation showing a book appearing from nowhere. "The story unfolds from here, culminating in a rose," he explains. The pages of the book keep turning and help us understand how the legend of Sant Jordi was forged and has been passed down from generation to generation". Adding a commemorative poster to a day when culture and talent take centre stage will undoubtedly be a step forward in bringing Catalan design worldwide recognition. According to MAGOZ, who has long-standing experience in the fields of illustration and graphic design, "Barcelona is a highly valued brand around the world, and synonymous with creativity and quality. This isn't just due to its great talents and big names, but because it's a magnet for other artists too". Walking through the city streets, giving roses, getting your favourite author's autograph, soaking up the feeling of happiness on every corner As we said earlier, Sant Jordi is a very special day for local people, and for MAGOZ too, who is thrilled at being chosen for the first commission to design the poster for Sant Jordi: "I'm really happy to be able to continue contributing to culture while living abroad [MAGOZ lives in Malmo, Sweden]. And I'd like to say to the illustrator chosen to do the design in 2020 to have fun and I can't wait to see the result of his work". Happy Sant Jordi! - Edittio's creative project. - When the Veterans Memorial was unveiled at the Ben J. Rogers Visitors Center nearly 10 years ago, its sculptor, Ron Petitt, was already imagining a new monument one to honor friends, loved ones and all those he served with in the Vietnam War. Kerwin Stone, president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 292 in Beaumont, of which Petitt was a founding member, said the serious conversion surrounding a Vietnam War-specific monument began in March. Last Monday, Jefferson County Commissioners Court approved the proposed statue. It is expected to be unveiled on March 29, 2020 National Vietnam Veterans Day. As much as we enjoy and appreciate the all-veterans memorial at the visitors center, we still felt a need to honor the veterans from Vietnam in particular, said Stone, 71, who served as an Air Force surveillance officer during the war. A few of Petitts pieces are already on display in his hometown. He is the artist behind the memorial statues at the police station, fire museum and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park in Beaumont. Petitt, 68, served from 1971 to 1972 in Army intelligence. He graduated from Lamar University and was a Beaumont police officer before he moved to Colorado. In 2016 he created a World War II memorial that stands in Pleasanton, California, cemetery where more than 500 veterans are buried. He sees that piece as a predecessor to the one he is now sculpting for the city of Beaumont. He has begun working, starting from scratch to create a similar image: A soldier kneeling with his weapon, the helmet of a fallen soldier on the gun, gazing into the distance. Its the same idea, Petitt said. Its a soldier honoring his fallen friends and comrades, but this will be the next generation. War is the same, and they experienced the same things loss of friends, the horror of combat its a son following his fathers footsteps, one after the other. Petitt said he hopes to capture what is known colloquially as the 1,000-yard stare in this new sculpture. The stare, Petitt said, refers to the emotionless, unfocused gaze of a soldier who has witnessed the death and destruction of war. Were getting older, Stone said. The average age of Vietnam veterans is 72, and the VVA loses members regularly. Members of Chapter 292 felt a statue to accompany the one standing at the visitors center would be fitting way to honor those those who served their country. This is probably going to be our last big project, Stone said. We used to do parades and barbecues. We were very active in the community, but our members are aging. This is a way, we thought, to honor them and keep their memory alive. Even though Petitt is absorbing much of the cost of the statue, the VVA still needs to raise $60,000 for materials, casting costs and a budget for long-term maintenance of the statue. Fundraising is in its infancy with only a few donations made since the project was approved last week. There is quite a ways to go, but Stone said events will be planned and efforts made to reach their goal. Its very humbling, very much an honor, to have this type of memorial in our town, Stone said. Everything about the project feels personal to Stone, and not just because its being made by a friend. It will stand for generations as a reminder of the sacrifices he, Petitt and every other Vietnam veteran made all those years ago. We were there, Stone said. We did something important and we are proud of our service. haley.bruyn@beaumontenterprise.com twitter.com/HaleyWrites_BE 1 /4 People in North Korea's capital pay tribute to the statues of Kim Il Sung (left) and Kim Jong Il, former leaders of North Korea, on Mansu Hill to mark the Day of the Sun in Pyongyang, April 15, 2019. Monday is the anniversary of the 1912 birth of the country's founder Kim Il Sung, which is a national holiday in North Korea. [Photo: AP/Cha Song Ho] By Delana Isles THE MANAGEMENT of InterHealth Canada-TCI Hospital is conducting a review into the circumstances around the death of a three-day-old baby boy, following claims of negligence. The tragic and unfortunate death of the child first came to light on Facebook and Whatsapp posts last week. The post was written by a concerned citizen Deandra Stubbs. Stubbs shared that on March 31, a baby boy was born at the Cheshire Hall Medical Centre, and mother and baby were released the following day. She said everything seemed normal until three days later on April 3 when the mother tended to her son and found him bleeding from the mouth. When the parents arrived at the hospital they were given a number to wait in line, but after some time passed with no attention to the distressed child, the mother informed the front desk clerk of the urgency of the situation, Stubbs said. She continued that the parents were told to wait their turn as the clerk was neither a nurse nor a doctor. The family continued to wait as medical staff walked in and out of the emergency section paying scant attention to the distressed baby, Stubbs said. The mother then stopped a nurse to enquire when she would receive assistance and was allegedly told that the staff were changing shift, as such the baby had to wait. Stubbs recounted that it was while waiting for service from the medical staff that the three-day-old baby died in the mothers arms. "I am greatly saddened and Im not even a mother yet, how could the staff in the emergency room be so trifling. "The negligence of the nurses and front desk leave me to question what is considered an emergency at a hospitalthis is something that should not be swept under the rug, Stubbs posted. She further called for support for the family of the deceased child: "I asked that you please share this, so that this gets the right authority attention, that we can have something done, for the better for the hospital in this country. "I also ask that we pray for the family, for healing and for justice. Following Stubbs post, the hospital issued a statement on Friday on the babys death. That statement read: "The management of InterHealth Canada-Turks and Caicos Islands Hospital is currently conducting a review of the circumstances surrounding the unfortunate passing of a three-day-old neonate who presented to the Emergency Department on April 3, 2019. Efforts were made to resuscitate the patient without success. The hospital further stated that the matter has been referred to the coroner for an autopsy, adding: "The neonate was born at Cheshire Hall Medical Centre and discharged with no health complications. Due to patient confidentiality, no further information can be released. Up to press time there has been no word as to the cause of the babys death or the results of the hospitals investigations into allegations of negligence of their medical staff. This one really hurts. There are homicides almost every month in any large city, and sometimes we tend to read about them and move on. But last weeks killing of Anthony Wilson in Beaumont was one of those losses that leaves you numb with anger and grief. This one touches everyone who cares about Beaumont and Southeast Texas, everyone who wants to leave something better for the next generation. Anthony was the exact type of person every city needs to become better. He was a 37-year-old man with a loving wife and two children. A Lamar graduate. He was an entrepreneur, owner of a landscaping business that even had two employees. He was living and building the American dream for himself, for his family, for others. And in one tragic moment last week, it was all gone. Police say he saw three young men trying to break into his truck on Wisteria, confronted them and followed them. He was shot and killed about a half-mile from his home. The suspects allegedly took his truck and work trailer but abandoned it a short distance away. Senseless. Gut-wrenching. Infuriating. This isnt just a nightmare for Wilsons family and friends. Beaumont has been deprived of a young man who was having an impact in an ever-widening circle of people. In a city that often loses young achievers like him, he stayed and was prospering. A man who should have been nurtured and protected by his city was removed from it in a senseless act of violence. A part of our future went with him. And what can you say about the three young men who are accused of doing something so cruel and unfathomable? They were students at West Brook. Think about that: high school students. Teenagers. Instead of building their own futures, thinking about math classes and what they might do after they graduate, they were suspected in a string of auto burglaries in the West Dowlen neighborhood. And when someone tried to stop them from committing another crime, one of them allegedly shot him. Thats hard to process, and its too common. Police Chief Jimmy Singletary said that over the past four years, Beaumont has been plagued by a large number of young men committing violent crime and showing absolutely no remorse. Thats unacceptable for them, for us, for everyone who cares about Beaumont. We have to figure out why these children and teenagers are growing up like this, so unmoored and dangerous, and we have to change the trajectory of their lives. Because we cant lose any more Anthony Wilsons. If we do, eventually we wont have a city that produces any more of them. Omni Ophthalmic Management Consultants acquired an eye center with locations in Pennsylvania and Maryland, according to a press release published in PE Hub. Five key notes: 1. Omni Ophthalmic is a portfolio of NMS Capital, a private equity firm. The company acquired Ludwick Eye Center, a regional medical and surgical eye care services provider. The organization has centers in Chambersburg and Waynesboro, Pa., as well as Hagerstown, Md. 2. The companies did not disclose the terms of their agreement, which is Omni's fourth affiliation in the past two years. 3. The acquisition is Omni Ophthalmic's first affiliation in Maryland. The firm already has locations in Pennsylvania and the acquisition strengthens it's presence in the region. 4. Ludwick Eye Center includes three clinics and two ASCs. Omni now has 70 providers and 20 practice locations in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions of the U.S. 5. All together, Omni centers generate combined revenue of more than $100 million. Regent Surgical Health named an ASC industry veteran its new vice president of business development. Four things to know: 1. Scott Bergman joined Regent Surgical Health as vice president of business development, where he will work with physician groups and hospital systems as the company merges and acquires new facilities. He will also support the company through developing de novo ASCs. 2. Mr. Bergman was director of business development for an orthopedic center prior to joining Regent. He also spent time as administrator of a multispecialty ASC. "His deep knowledge of the ASC industry, especially in orthopedics, and the track record he has established for business management and development success will help accelerate growth of Regent's portfolio of health system and ASC joint ventures," said Regent Chief Development Officer Thomas Crossen. 3. In addition to his new role with Regent, Mr. Bergman is a board member of the New Jersey ASC Association. 4. Regent Surgical Health now has 23 ASCs it developed, manages and owns, including 17 joint venture centers. Nine of Regent's centers perform outpatient total joint replacement. At the Surgery Center at Pelham, careful patient management leads to successful total joint replacement surgeries in the outpatient setting, while payer management leads to profitable financial outcomes. Walking is the best medicine. Aristotle Since making the decision to satisfy patient demands in 2014,we have performed approximately 200 total joint replacement (TJR) surgeries at the Surgery Center at Pelham in Greer, South Carolina. Careful analysis after each procedure has allowed us to optimize our outpatient care methods, as well as the complex coding, billing and patient education process we found necessary to provide quality care and maintain profitability. The benefits of moving TJR surgeries to the outpatient setting are numerous. Patients are normally discharged in three to four hours after the surgery and recover in the comfort of their own homes without unnecessary services and surprise bills. The fact that the same exact procedure costs about one-fourth as much at our ambulatory surgery center (ASC) as it would in an inpatient setting allows patients to concentrate on their recovery rather than being burdened with financial worries. With the steady increase in healthcare costs, high deductible insurance plans and clinical advantages, its not surprising that the patient demand for outpatient TJR surgeries is rising. Primary total hip arthroplasty (THA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA) are projected to grow 73% from 1.1 million in 2016 to 1.9 million in 2026. While only 15%, or 165,000 total procedures were performed in an outpatient setting in 2016by 2026, this number will rise to 51%, or 969,000 total procedures. This represents an increase of approximately 487% over just ten years, according to Sg2 Research.1 We are not only proud of the fact that we are able to offer TJR procedures, but were also thrilled to set and meet patient expectations. Numerous factors attribute to the fact we have achieved 99% patient satisfaction rates. Perhaps most important, weve prioritized the education and concerns of cost-conscious patients as well as thoroughly addressed pre- and post-operation care. Learning to walk before you run and continually striving to improve is key when deciding to implement total joint procedures in an ASC setting. After each surgery, we carefully review the entire patient case, note what could have gone better, and rectify any factor found in order to streamline and perfect the process. Were aware that patients are attuned to high-cost healthcare and emphasize transparent pricing. Patients have the option to visit our website to receive an estimate of their cost of care based on a given surgeons treatment plan and specific benefits provided by the insurance payor. We found early on that negotiating with vendors for the price of implants was not only possible, but also extremely beneficial, for the surgical payment process both as a healthcare provider and patient. Weve used the same vendor for all implants, which allows us to negotiate a lower cost based on volume. We bill for implants at cost. Patient selection is a crucial process for ASCs to address when performing TJRs. With more data at our disposal, healthcare facilities can and should follow stricter guidelines while deciding which individuals are appropriate candidates for the procedure. Patients who are healthy enough can receive the exact same surgery and medications in an outpatient center that they would as inpatients, except possibly the anesthesia. Patients can recognize true outpatient benefits after they receive the same quality post-op care, only at a more aggressive, accelerated rate with as little as three hours recovery time prior to discharge. Our staff then follows up with patients via a phone call - the day after surgery and once a month for six months after that. Two days after the operation, surgeons will see patients in their office to change the dressings and reassure the patients in their early post-op recovery process. Strategies to help ensure quick release: Optimizing patients. Patients considered candidates for a successful TJR surgery in an ambulatory surgery center are those who are middle-aged, have a body mass index (BMI) lower than 40 and are otherwise physically healthy. Uncontrolled diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, high risk or history of deep vein thrombosis/pulmonary embolism, or a history of heart disease or stroke and other serious conditions are contraindications to outpatient TJR surgery. Using general anesthesia. While a surgeon will more likely use a neuraxial block such as a spinal, for inpatient surgery, our surgeons use a general anesthetic combined with a periarticular block and a peripheral block for outpatient procedures, which allows patients to exit surgery prepared to walk and limits the likelihood of urinary retention issues. Patient education. Our staff uses a personalized approach to educate patients. This allows patients to know exactly what to expect before, during and after surgery in both clinical and financial terms. We are 100% transparent with surgical costs and advertise the low-cost benefits of TJR surgeries performed in our surgery center via our website, the radio and highway billboards. Aggressive post-operation recovery. We make sure that patients are up on their feet the same day as surgery, usually within two hours after the procedure, depending on the rate of progress. This allows both the patient and the physician to feel comfortable with releasing the patient quickly. Coordinating home care. We ensure beforehand that patients have adequate support at home after their surgery, whether its a family member or professional home healthcare worker. We work closely with home healthcare workers so that they contact the patient, and visit before surgery, to let them know what to expect once home. They also visit the patient at home the day of surgery. Losing the tourniquet. Weve been able to take advantage of modern technology to begin conducting knee surgeries as computer-navigated, tourniquet-less procedures, which ultimately allow for a much quicker recovery with less pain. Using an anterior approach on hips. Surgeons have refined surgical approaches over the years to aid in maximizing exposure necessary to complete the surgery successfully, while minimizing adverse effects and cuts to the surrounding tissue and muscle. Less pain decreases the need for prescription narcotics, which could be beneficial considering our nations current opioid crisis. Individuals seen in an outpatient facility are at lower risk for exposure to infections, which is often a concern in hospitals. Since beginning total joint replacement procedures on optimized patients, weve had a total of zero infections at our surgery center. While its important for TJR surgery to be successful from the patients perspective, it must also be successfulor profitablefor us as a business. Therefore, medical coding and billing procedures need to be accurate and efficient, while creating cordial working relationships with insurers to ensure optimized reimbursement. Thanks to profit-sharing with all employees, the Surgery Center at Pelham has lower staff turnover than most facilities. Giving employees a vested interest can encourage reduced cost and waste. Both our surgeons and business office staff are experienced and knowledgeable, creating a more streamlined process for clinical and front-desk procedures. Perhaps the most significant of the business office staffs responsibilitiesone where its critical not to lose that knowledge baseaffecting patient satisfaction and an organizations bottom line are coding and billing. One year before performing our first total joint procedure, we began working with third-party insurers and employers to develop clinical protocols in hopes of standardizing care and generating quicker pre-approval from payors for these types of surgeries. In fact, insurance companies have since used our proposed standardized protocol to judge the processes of other healthcare organizations in various regions. Its no question the business office personnel are integral to coding, billing and proper reimbursement. Naturally, they need to ensure that patients meet pre-surgery requirements, but they also need to be thoroughly trained in financial counseling, the pre-authorization process, insurance verification and eligibility, providing an estimate of the patients financial responsibility in addition to collecting the deductible, co-pay or co-insurance in advance or on the day of surgery. Indeed, each of these functions encompass numerous other components that can ultimately affect a patients health and an organizations revenue. If the staff doesnt have comprehensive knowledge of these areas, costly errors are likely to be made. Medical coders must know each patients specific health insurance contracts through and through. Not only do they need to know the relevant codes for each surgery, but how particular implants and procedures are reimbursed. Every contract uses the same common procedural terminology (CPT) codes, for example, but how they determine implant reimbursement will likely be different depending on the contract. Creating summaries of pertinent information from each contract can enable coders to easily and quickly find needed information. Each managed care contract is likely to stipulate exactly how an implant must be billed. For example: An insurance carriers HMO contract might outline a specific amount be paid to the ASC for a total joint procedure, with the implant cost included in that reimbursement amount. The same carriers PPO contract may pay a certain amount for the procedure, with separate reimbursement for the implant and even additional reimbursement for shipping, handling and tax. Managed care contracts will also stipulate what documentation each payer requires for different implant charges. Some payers require electronic billing and then may request the implant invoice later. Others may have a portal where the ASC is required to upload each implant invoice or may request paper copies of invoices. When the payments are received, staff members need to ensure that the payments match the amount stipulated in the contracts. Most importantly, they need to flag underpayments. For example, when a payment was received for $18,000 but the contract stipulated $22,000, staff members need to note this underpayment and follow up. In addition, sometimes payers will lump payments into one line on the EOB. These payments must be posted by line item to ensure that each code is reimbursed properly. Because total joint surgeries are big ticket items, its important to conduct a monthly audit to ensure that each procedure was coded, billed and paid correctly. If you uncover any discrepancies, drill down to see where the mistake originated, and then file an appeal if warranted. Pay particularly close attention to implant billing, since implants are expensive items that could represent 25% to 30% of your overall reimbursement and payment for them is closely tied to very specific contract stipulations. Remember, your center has to buy these implants upfront--so if you are not paid correctly, your ASC will take a hard-dollar loss. The devil is in the details, as the saying goes. Even a seemingly insignificant mistake could lead to denials, incorrect payments, underpayments or even no payment at all after we have already incurred significant expenses. Whatever the case, the more knowledge of contract details an ASCs staff has, the less likely it will be to delay the billing process and lower potential reimbursement. For Surgery Center at Pelham, knowledgeable patients and skilled staff, as well as a proactive team work approach to patient education and clinical procedural modification, has led to successful and profitable total joint replacement surgeries for patients in an outpatient setting. To learn more from National Medical, click here References 1. Vizient. Outpatient Joint Replacement: An Unnecessary Concern or Market Reality? https://newsroom.vizientinc.com/newsletter/research-and-insights-news/outpatient-joint-replacement-unnecessary-concern-or-market-rea Google is in the processes of dismantling a panel that aims at reviewing its artificial intelligence solutions in healthcare, according to The Wall Street Journal. The dissolvement of the AI advisory board is due to disagreements about how to govern itself, sources close to the matter told the WSJ. Google's AI unit is struggling with how to set guidelines for its different sensitive work. Governments and leaders across the globe are calling for AI developers to also develop more guidelines for the technology. The European Commission proposed a set of AI ethical guidelines. While researchers urge tech companies to adopt these guidelines, there have also been pushes for companies to conduct oversight in-house. Google has been conducing its oversight in-house. However, the tech giant has faced various challenges in doing so. Earlier in April, Google highlighted its global, independent ethics council to guide the company on AI-related research and products. The council was disbanded a week later, the WSJ reports. Back in 2018 a similar incident also occurred when Google began whittling down an independent panel designed to monitor its AI work in healthcare. Google said it was doing so because of a reorganization in its healthcare-focused business. Others suggested the decision to dismantle the panel was because of disagreements between advisory members and DeepMind, Google's U.K.-based AI research unit, people close with the matter told WSJ. Although many of Google's independent panels have been disbanded, one still plans to publish a "lessons learned" report, which will include recommendations on how to better equip boards in the future, sources close to the matter told WSJ. Healthcare is the lowest-performing S&P 500 sector so far in 2019, after being the best-performing last year, according to The Wall Street Journal. Healthcare shares rose 3.8 percent from January through April 12, compared to the broader S&P 500 indexs 16 percent climb. Healthcare stocks were a market leader last summer. The change is attributed to the threat of stricter regulation, which has negatively affected healthcare shares, according to the WSJ. The publication reports that healthcare shares also are affected by CVS Health and Walgreens earlier this year projecting lower annual earnings due to lower profits from the sale of generic drugs. Investors are scared about the massive amount of uncertainty in terms of regulation, Brock Moseley, founder of Miracle Mile Advisors in Los Angeles, told the WSJ. "Theres a critical eye around the healthcare space and drug pricing. These challenging trends do give us some worry." Additionally, shares of health insurers UnitedHealth, Humana and Cigna have reportedly dropped this year as discussion of proposed "Medicare for All" legislation continues, and investors worry about regulation of managed-care businesses. Still, some investors expect the healthcare sector to bounce back in the long term, according to the WSJ. FactSet, a financial data and software company, reported that healthcare companies are projected to post the second-highest profit growth among S&P 500's sectors in the first quarter. Read the full WSJ report here. More articles on healthcare finance: Phoenix hospital reopens 10 hospitals seeking RCM talent RCM tip of the day: Work with, monitor your vendors via co-sourcing Redding, Calif.-based Shasta College implemented human-resembling electronic medical simulators to train nurses and other medical personnel, Redding Record Searchlight reports. The technology-equipped device, named Victoria, is made of plastic, features correct human anatomy and is controlled by a laptop computer. Victoria allows nursing students to practice healthcare functions, such as using stethoscopes to listen to a heartbeat or sound of breathing, as well as fluid buildup detection in a patient's legs. "The value of them to a training program is that it's a no-risk situation to the patient's health," Shasta College nursing clinical skills lab coordinator Lynnette Crowe, told Redding Record Searchlight. "They can learn more from failures than their successes." Victoria is one of 10 of Shasta College's advanced technology-equipped simulators. The college has 50 additional medical simulators, but these do not feature advanced technology. Redding, Calif.-based Mercy Medical Center, one of three local hospitals Shasta College nursing students can complete their mandatory clinical hours, will receive a new medical simulation device, named Hal, next month, according to the report. Hal can be wirelessly controlled and can simulate as male or female. "It's got lung sounds, bowel sounds, heart tones, its eyes dilate," Mercy Medical Center's Manager of Education Sandra Rock, RN, said. "He can talk, he can sweat ... he has veins, you can palpate his pulses. This is an up-and-coming way to train nurses across the board." Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health and UPMC in Pittsburgh are collaborating with DNAnexus, a biomedical informatics and data management company, on a precision medicine study of multiple sclerosis treatments. For the study, Sutter Health Center for Precision Medicine scientists will add de-identified, genomic datasets to DNAnexus' clinical genomic data management platform, which facilitates ongoing precision medicine data sharing among a network of healthcare providers. The UPMC Genome Center will then use the patient information to generate clinical genomic data from samples of the program's participants. In May, Sutter Health researchers will enroll more than 500 MS patients in the study's first phase, which aims to collect EHR data, patient-reported outcomes, imaging data and blood samples in addition to whole exome sequencing done by UPMC. DNAnexus will analyze patient's genetic data and link it with clinical data stored on its platform. After the patient data is added to DNAnexus' platform, Sutter Health will assess the patients' clinical and genomic features that correlate with MS subtypes, disability progression, MRI changes and differential responses to disease modifying therapies, among other factors. "Datasets generated in a real-world setting will propel Sutter Health to the forefront of MS research worldwide," Sutter Health Precision Medicine Director Gregory Tranah, PhD, said in a news release. "Collaborating with DNAnexus allows access to cutting-edge bioinformatics tools to better understand our clinically meaningful 'big data.' This is an important step to advance precision medicine efforts across Sutter and, ultimately, to improve treatments for people with MS in our community and the millions of people affected with the disease worldwide." An executive from New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health, Winnie Mack, will become interim leader of East Meadow, N.Y.-based Nassau University Medical Center, effective April 15, according to a Newsday report. Ms. Mack will lead the hospital as part of a multiyear agreement Northwell Health signed with the struggling hospital. Per the agreement, Northwell will provide interim leadership at Nassau University Medical Center as well as help it build a senior leadership team. It will also provide consultative services. Additionally, Northwell will develop a five-year strategic plan to help Nassau University Medical Center and its associated facilities recover financially. Ms. Mack, senior vice president of operations at Northwell Health, will oversee Nassau University Medical Center as president and CEO of NuHealth, the public benefit corporation that runs the hospital. She has 40 years of experience in the healthcare industry. Northwell Health and Nassau University Medical Center have been affiliated with each other since 2005, and they have partnered previously for physician recruitment activities. Healthcare facilities in South Carolina are reviewing emergency plans after two hospital shootings occurred in the state last week, according to NBC affiliate WCBD-TV. The shootings occurred at the Regional Medical Center-Orangeburg (S.C.) on April 10 and Clinton, S.C.-based Laurens County Memorial Hospital on April 11. In total, three people were injured. Michael Puckett, director of emergency management for Florence, S.C.-based McLeod Health, said system leaders met with security teams and emergency room staff to review emergency plans after the shootings. "We have heightened alertness and awareness to everybody," he told WCBD-TV. The shootings have also renewed calls for stricter legislation to protect healthcare workers in the state. South Carolina is one of only three states that does not have an enhanced penalty for violence against healthcare workers, according to a 2016 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. THE TURKS and Caicos Islands is for the first time taking part in the World Gourmet Summit, the most anticipated and prestigious culinary festivals in the world. This is the 23rd year the festival is being hosted and is taking place across several restaurants and venues in Singapore from April 1 to May 12. The TCI culinary team includes culinary ambassador Nikita Skippings, private chef Lorraine Kenlock and two junior chefs Kevin Missick and Robinangel Simons who completed the Turks and Caicos Hotel and Tourism Association (TCHTA) hospitality adventure programme. Participation in the mega event is by invitation only, and this year the TCI snagged an invite after Peter Knipp, founder of the World Gourmet Summit visited Providenciales in 2018 and expressed that he was extremely impressed with the culinary scene. During his visit last year, he met with key industry stakeholders and subsequently an invitation was extended for TCI to participate in the exclusive festival. The event features a diverse curation of cuisines from around the world and local chefs will have the unique opportunity to introduce the territorys native cuisine to an international audience. The culinary team representing the TCI hosted a tasting event on Monday (April 8), at Crackpot Kitchen where invited guests were treated to a preview of the traditional dishes which will be served during the event including tropical scorched conch, stewed conch and dough and island fish and grits each featuring a gourmet flair. At the event, Director of Tourism Ramon Andrews said the TCI is positioning itself as the culinary capital of the Caribbean and the preferred gourmet destination. "Turks and Caicos is renowned for our pristine, white sand beaches, however increasingly, we are attracting travellers from around the globe for our cultural and diverse culinary experiences, top chefs, and food festivals. "From the Caribbean Food and Wine Festival, Turks and Caicos Conch Festival to the annual Lobster Festivals, our destination offers visitors an opportunity to savour the culinary adventures the Islands have to offer. Andrews said the Tourist Board is pleased to sponsor and endorse the TCIs participation which will assist with promoting the destination on a global culinary stage. The culinary team from the TCI is sponsored by The Caribbean Food and Wine Festival (which is underwritten by Grace Bay Resorts and The Wine Cellar). Nikheel Advani, co-founder of the Caribbean Food and Wine Festival, was instrumental in securing the TCIs participation in this years summit, a press statement from the Tourist Board stated. Advani commented: "This is the first time that the Turks and Caicos Islands culinary talents will be showcased on a global platform at one of the most prestigious gourmet events - The World Gourmet Summit. "We will also have the opportunity to take two young Turks and Caicos Islands chefs - one from the Community College and the other from the Litl Chefs programme - who will shadow the Turks and Caicos Islands master and guest chefs - they will take part in all the culinary experiences the gastronomic event has to offer. "We are truly honoured to be invited to this event and are proud to promote the Turks and Caicos Islands internationally. Stacy Cox, CEO of the TCHTA, shared similar sentiments while congratulating Kevin Missick and Robinangel Simons on their selection to participate in prestigious event. "The TCHTA is always looking for ways to develop local talent and their progress down the path to a culinary career has been remarkable. "Were incredibly delighted that they will be able to experience the culinary side of Singapore first hand and we look forward to seeing how they can apply that experience upon return, Cox said. Since 1997, the World Gourmet Summit has successfully grown into a globally recognised culinary event. Every year, international chefs showcase their talents with vintner dinners and specially themed and celebrity dinners. Chef Lorraine Kenlock, owner of Frenz Deck (the only farm to table dining experience in Providenciales), is participating as a special guest chef and chef Nikita Skippings is designated as an international master chef. Both chefs will participate in a number of events including Chefs A La Minute - Meet the Stars and the opening reception. The opening reception will include notable guests such as ambassadors of various embassies and countries, WGS International master chefs and other talented chefs in the industry, media and industry heavyweights. The chefs will be accompanied by Deputy Director of Tourism Mary Lightbourne, Nikheel Advani co-founder of CFWF, Murad Mohamad CFWF committee member, and Stacy Cox CEO of TCHTA. The Turks and Caicos Islands presence at the World Gourmet Summit is historic and presents a great opportunity for exposure and promotion of our culture and heritage through food, the Tourist Board released read. Islanders are invited to follow Team TCIs experience at the World Gourmet Summit by following the official hashtags on social media - #WGS #WorldGourmetSummit #WGS2019 #TCIWGS #TurksAndCaicos #WhyILoveTCI #TeamTCI. Kaiser Permanente Colorado has begun preliminary talks with its labor unions about workforce needs after the layoff of 400 workers in the last six months, according to The Denver Post. The state's largest health insurer is in the process of making operational changes so we can remain competitive and continue to provide the quality and service that our members expect, Kaiser spokeswoman Amy Whited told the Post. No final decisions have been made and no changes are imminent, she said, but the company has started preliminary discussions with our labor unions to evaluate our future workforce requirements. While some positions may be eliminated as part of this review, others may be added. UFCW Local Union 7, which represents some Kaiser employees, declined to comment to the Post. The discussions between Kaiser and its labor unions come after Kaiser announced about 200 layoffs in November and about 200 more in February amid financial struggles. Kaiser previously cited losses of $65 million over three years and blamed the financial problems on rising hospital prices. According to the Post, Kaiser has more than 7,000 employees in Colorado. More articles on human capital and risk: Yale-New Haven Hospital, cafeteria workers sign labor deal Idaho nurses vote to unionize Stanford Health Care, Packard Childrens Hospital nurses authorize strike Registered nurses at Valencia, Calif.-based Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital will meet April 15 to discuss how they want to move forward since they have not been able to agree on a contract with hospital administrators, according to The Santa Clarita Valley Proclaimer. If they elect to walk off the job, they're required to give the hospital at least a 10-day strike notice. The nurses, represented by the California Nurses Association, seek a four-hour break relief nurse for each unit and shift to allow for legal breaks, as well as pay based on experience, among other demands, the Proclaimer reports. Hospital officials did not respond to the Proclaimer's requests for comment. More articles on human capital and risk: Yale-New Haven Hospital, cafeteria workers sign labor deal Idaho nurses vote to unionize Stanford Health Care, Packard Childrens Hospital nurses authorize strike A now-shuttered home health company based in Chicago has filed a proposed class-action lawsuit in federal court against HHS and AdvanceMed, a Medicare contractor. AdvanceMed is one of several contractors hired by CMS to use data mining techniques to identify possible patterns of fraud in Medicare claims. In 2016, Simply Home Healthcare submitted patient charts to AdvanceMed for review. Roughly nine months later, AdvanceMed had the company's Medicare payments suspended, according to the complaint. AdvanceMed said Simply Home Healthcare received overpayments from Medicare due to documentation errors and requested additional medical records and a rebuttal letter from the company, according to the complaint. After receiving the additional information, AdvanceMed allegedly told Simply the Medicare payment suspension would continue, and the reason for the suspension had changed from overpayment to fraud. Simply Home Healthcare's Medicare suspension was lifted in September 2017. At that time, AdvanceMed allegedly told Simply it owed Medicare $5.4 million, which was calculated by applying the alleged medical record error rate against the company's previous four years of Medicare payments. The total amount due was reduced to $4.8 million through the appeals process. The "millions of dollars in alleged debt" put Simply out of business in August 2018, according to the complaint. Simply alleges AdvanceMed is "misapplying federal laws and regulations in a way that harms small healthcare providers for the sole purpose of inflating billable hours and winning additional contracts with the CMS." Robert Kunio, the president of Simply, said in an April 10 press release that more than 100 other home health companies and hospices were put out of business by AdvanceMed's tactics. More articles on legal and regulatory issues: Sutter Health enters $30M settlement over upcoding allegations UHS can't dodge claims it held patients illegally, investors say Ex-physician assistant gets prison time for role in $1B healthcare fraud scheme The CEO of Omaha, Neb.-based Children's Hospital & Medical Center was named in more than a dozen lawsuits related to his time at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, according to an article from the The World-Herald posted on Live Well Nebraska. Richard Azizkhan, MD, was chief of surgery at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center before taking on the CEO role at Children's in Nebraska. For part of the time Dr. Azizkhan was at the Cincinnati hospital, he and an employed spine surgeon were cited in lawsuits filed by more than 500 patients at Cincinnati Children's and other area hospitals. The lawsuits, filed in 2018, accuse the spine surgeon of performing unnecessary and sometimes botched surgeries. In January 2019, two surgeons sued Omaha Children's and Dr. Azizkhan, accusing the parties of suspending the surgeons' privileges after they raised concerns about another surgeon. While the cases in Omaha and Cincinnati are not tied, they both raise questions about surgeon competence, patient safety and management oversight, according to The World-Herald. In a statement to The World-Herald, Omaha Children's officials said the hospital doesn't comment on litigation. In an internal hospital memo obtained by The World-Herald, Dr. Azizkhan said hospital administrators are usually involved in litigation "[t]o exert pressure to settle or to increase a plaintiff's opportunity for a monetary settlement and that can lead to sensational headlines," he told staff. "While it would be inappropriate for me to speak to specifics of that ongoing litigation, I can say this: patient safety has always been and remains my highest priority." More articles on legal and regulatory issues: Sutter Health enters $30M settlement over upcoding allegations UHS can't dodge claims it held patients illegally, investors say Ex-physician assistant gets prison time for role in $1B healthcare fraud scheme At least eight people died and dozens were injured as severe storms made their way across the South this weekend, according to an Associated Press story published by Time. The storms, which included suspected tornados and flooding, reportedly resulted in power outages in Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Georgia. Two children, age 3 and 8, died April 13 on a rural road near Pollok, Texas which is about 160 miles southeast of Dallas after a tree fell on the car they were riding in during a thunderstorm, Angelina County Sheriffs Office Capt. Alton Lenderman told The New York Times. At the Caddo Mounds State Historic Site in Alto, Texas which is about 130 miles southeast of Dallas a suspected tornado hit during a Native American cultural event, leaving at least one person dead and about 24 others injured, according to the Associated Press. Cherokee County Judge Chris Davis told the Times at least 16 people were taken to the hospital from Caddo Mounds, some via helicopter, and many more people received treatment near the scene. The Associated Press reported that one person also died in Weches, Texas, near the Caddo Mounds site, and that Franklin, Texas, in Robertson County sustained extensive damage after a tornado in the area. Robertson County Sheriff Gerald Yezak told the publication two injured people were hospitalized and others were treated at the scene. In Hamilton, Miss., a man in his late 90s was found dead April 14 after a tree fell on his house, Monroe County Sheriff Cecil Cantrell told the Associated Press. In Shelby, Ohio, an apparent tornado struck April 14, causing damage to several homes and businesses, the Times Gazette reported. The Associated Press reported that two deaths were also reported in Louisiana, where flash flooding occurred, and in Hueytown, Ala., a Birmingham suburb, a county employee died April 14 after being hit by a vehicle while he was trying to clear away trees. More articles on patient flow: Cardiologist's exit forces Indiana hospital to suspend heart transplant program Walmart sees benefit of flying employees to top hospitals for care Lehigh Valley Health hospital to shutter ER amid system consolidation Elite Medical Center, a Las Vegas-based acute care hospital that some experts say is operating similarly to a 24/7 freestanding emergency room, doesn't contract with any payers, according to the Milbank News. EMC is a state-licensed hospital. It is an unaccredited hospital that has no agreements with insurers, meaning patients have to pay out-of-network prices for care. Under state law, EMC isn't required to be accredited by CMS or accept public or private insurance. On EMC's website, the medical center states, "This facility is not a participating provider in any health benefit plan provider network. However, under the [ACA], your health insurance company is required to process your emergency visit at in-network benefit levels. The physician providing medical care at this facility may bill separately from the facility for the medical care provided to you." While Nevada doesn't provide licenses for freestanding ERs though hospitals can open satellite ERs at other locations EMC obtained a state license to operate as a hospital. As a result, it has to be able to admit patients for 48 hours. Bill Welch, president and CEO of the Nevada Hospital Association, told Milbank News: "We think that Elite Medical Center, if they want to operate as a hospital in the state, that they should operate as a CMS-certified center and they should be accredited and Medicare participating. Without those things, we're concerned." EMC CEO Butch Frazier defended the hospital in an emailed statement to the publication, saying it often has higher online patient ratings than University Medical Center in Las Vegas. "EMC tries hard to make sure that the ultimate charges paid by the patients and by the insurers to EMC are in line with what they are paying for the same services at other hospitals in the area," Mr. Frazier said. He added that EMC is seeking CMS accreditation. Duluth, Minn.-based Essentia Health will take over ownership of two pharmacies in Minnesota in June, according to The Brainerd Dispatch. The two Lakes Area Pharmacies, one in Pequot Lakes and the other in Pine River, were owned by area pharmacist David Parry, PharmD. The transition in ownership will offer residents more coordinated care, as pharmacists will have access to patients' health history through the EHR, according to Essentia Health officials. The pharmacy will offer prescription and over-the counter medications, safe disposal sites, medication management, online refills, mail delivery and vaccines. Editor's note: This article was updated April 16 at 5:12 p.m. Parents who lost children to the opioid epidemic are pressing Harvard University to strip the Sackler name from one of its museums, according to The Boston Globe. Parents and supporters rallied and protested in front of the Arthur M. Sackler Museum last week, arguing that his family's involvement in the opioid crisis should be enough to remove the name. The Sackler family owns OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma. "Sacklers lie, our children die, take down their name!" the protesters chanted, according to the report. The protest was organized by Team Sharing Inc., a support group for parents whose children died of drug overdoses. Purdue Pharma faces more than 1,600 lawsuits linked its opioid marketing strategies. Read the full report here. Healthcare workers in intensive care units regularly miss hand hygiene opportunities, according to a study presented at this month's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases meeting in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Researchers from the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine in Iowa City, Iowa, studied data from the "Strategies to Reduce Transmission of Antimicrobial Resistant Bacteria in Intensive Care Units" study. They identified task transitions, which they defined at two consecutive patient care tasks, and examined hand hygiene opportunities. They examined 3,246 hours of observation in ICUs at 18 U.S. facilities between December 2005 and August 2006. The researchers found that general compliance with hand hygiene protocols was low, and healthcare workers moved from dirtier to cleaner patient care tasks in two-thirds of the task transitions recorded. The workers moved from cleaner to dirtier tasks in only a third of the task transitions. When moving from dirtier to cleaner tasks, healthcare workers performed proper hand hygiene only about 50 percent of the time. The study revealed that physicians were 50 percent more likely to move from dirtier to cleaner tasks than nurses. Other healthcare workers, such as radiology technicians and respiratory therapists, were more than twice as likely to move from dirtier to cleaner tasks. The researchers cautioned that healthcare worker behavior might have been influenced by the presence of observers. Earlier this year the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency issued an order that shut down operations at a large sterilization facility in Willowbrook, Ill., owned by Sterigenics. Now, despite the FDA preparing for delays and potential device shortages, several devices are in short supply, according to a notice on the FDA website and several device manufacturer letters obtained by Becker's Hospital Review. The FDA alerted providers to a shortage of pediatric breathing tubes manufactured by Smiths Medical. The Bivona tracheostomy tubes are used in healthcare facilities and at home to help adult and pediatric patients breathe. While approved for use in both adult and pediatric patients, the temporary shortage is likely to affect pediatric patients because there is a limited supply of other alternatives, according to the FDA notice. The FDA is working with Smiths Medical to "quickly resolve their sterilization challenges and bring these critical devices to the patients who need them as quickly as possible," according to the notice. They expect the critical devices to be available again the week of April 22. Another supplier, Guerbet USA, alerted customers in March that its "consumables for Optistar, Optivantage and Illumena power injectors may experience limited availability" until the sterilization issues are resolved. Additionally, Cardinal Health alerted customers of a temporary supply shortage of its Kendall intrauterine pressure catheter related to the sterilization facility closure, according to a customer letter obtained by Becker's. The shortages are expected to be temporary. The National Center for the Advancement of Translational Sciences awarded a $3.6 million grant to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston in support of pediatric telehealth research. The five-year grant builds on work already underway as part of the Supporting Pediatric Research on Outcomes and Utilization of Telehealth, a network of institutions and pediatric providers within the American Academy of Pediatrics. The grant will establish a support structure for telehealth research that will provide tools, resources, education and advocacy materials, among other resources. "This is a huge step forward in the development of safe and impactful telehealth programs across the country," MUSC Children's Health CMIO S. David McSwain, MD, said in a news release emailed to Becker's Hospital Review. "Academic research into the real impact of telehealth services is a critical component of developing and growing programs with the greatest potential to improve our healthcare system. Many physicians and other healthcare providers are hesitant about incorporating telehealth into their practices because its difficult to separate the theoretical benefits from the real value." Other sub-awarded institutions of the grant are Denver-based University of Colorado Children's Hospital Colorado, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Mercy Clinic in St. Louis. Little Rock-based University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Chairman of Orthopedics C. Lowry Barnes, MD, is a finalist for Arkansas Business' Administrator of the Year. In an article about Dr. Barnes, Arkansas Business outlined his career as an Arkansas native that earned his degree at UAMS. He then completed additional fellowship training at Boston-based Harvard before returning to Arkansas and launching a private practice. He was the first orthopedic surgeon with fellowship training in joint replacement to practice in the state. He eventually joined Arkansas Specialty Orthopaedics and then CHI St. Vincent, both in Little Rock, before returning to UAMS. In addition to practicing medicine, Dr. Barnes has several patents for developing hip and knee replacements and he has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, according to the report. He sees around 1,000 patients per month in addition to his administrative responsibilities. Mark Slaughter (second from right), director general for investment, Department for International Trade, with (L-R) Sean Canning, Laura Hourican and Kieran Long from Firstsource Solutions A global outsourcing company has unveiled its new 1m office hub in Belfast with the potential to bring 450 new jobs. Firstsource Solutions has opened a new hub in Olive Tree House on Fountain Street, one of the areas in Belfast city centre to feel the impact of the August 2018 Primark fire. The upgraded premises is capable of housing 600 people. The Indian-owned company has already relocated 150 staff to the building, where it provides customer support for Sky customers in the Republic. Firstsource is one of Northern Ireland's largest private employers with close to 2,000 staff across Belfast and Londonderry, providing call centre services for companies such as RBS, Ulster Bank and mobile phone network GiffGaff. The group is planning further growth across the UK, with up to 450 potential job opportunities across customer service, human resources, IT and general management roles. Firstsource's UK operation works across the banking, financial services, insurance, telecommunications, media, utilities and healthcare sectors. Sean Canning, chief operational officer for customer management at Firstsource Solutions, said: "This significant investment will enable us to support and upskill local talent, offer career progression, support the local economy, win new business and continue to support existing clients with world-class customer management. He said: "Our new location at Olive Tree House is a welcome addition to a part of the city where commercial businesses have struggled in recent months due to the well-publicised fire at Primark. "We are looking forward to bringing footfall back into this area and supporting local businesses further. "Belfast is a vibrant city and Firstsource is making an important contribution to its future through our innovation and digital capabilities as we help businesses advance customer experience through automation, analytics and process improvements." Graham Stuart, Minister for Investment within the Department for International Trade, welcomed Firstsource's commitment to the UK. "Their new investment will help support jobs and drive growth at home and abroad, as their business goes from strength to strength," he said. "This signals a strong vote of confidence in the Northern Irish economy and my department will continue to work hard to ensure the benefits of global investment are felt in every part of the country, and the UK maintains its position as the top destination for foreign direct investment in Europe." Footfall in Northern Ireland's shops slumped by 3.3% during March, the worst rate of decline of all the UK regions, according to a report out today. And the NI Retail Consortium said concern over the UK's exit from the EU as the original Brexit Day of March 29 approached may have put people off visiting high streets, retail parks and shopping centres. It also forecast more pressure on spending power from increased domestic and business rates. According to the report from information service Springboard and the NI Retail Consortium, March's NI performance also brought to an end five months of footfall growth. Northern Ireland also bucked the wider UK trend, where six out of 10 regions had seen growth on the high street. But high streets here suffered the steepest decline in the UK at 3.6%, while retail park footfall had also declined at the same rate. And the last week in March brought the steepest rate of decline in the province at 6%. In contrast, footfall for UK high streets as a whole had gone up by 2.5% in March, although in March 2018 there had been a dramatic fall of 8.6% the year before. Across retail parks, shopping centres and high streets, footfall was up 1.4% in the UK as a whole. Aodhan Connolly, director of the NI Retail Consortium, said: "Disappointingly, Northern Ireland is now bottom of the UK league table. This fall is not wholly unexpected, however, with both consumer and business confidence taking a knock in the past few months. "There has been growing uncertainty as we approached the March 29 original Brexit deadline and that uncertainty is reflected in the fact that shoppers did not want to spend as much time in our retail destinations." Diane Wehrle, marketing and insights director at Springboard, said that the overall figures suggested people were tightening the pursestrings. "With consumer confidence continuing to languish, shoppers are clearly focused on prudence which is impacting on the number of trips being made to bricks and mortar destinations." She said the extra time between now and October - after the EU granted the UK an extension for Brexit - must be used wisely. "We now have a window of six months to prevent this Brexit anxiety from affecting our industry and shoppers again, but rather than breathing easy, our politicians and the EU must make a renewed effort to find a solution that prevents a 'no deal' hard Brexit." But Mr Connolly said confidence was also being knocked by rises in business and domestic rates - the type of issues which needed local government intervention. "While Brexit is out of our hands locally, issues such as business rates are not and we need our politicians back working at Stormont now more than ever. "We need political leadership to take the bold decisions to make Northern Ireland a better place, to live, work and invest." A charity set up after the death of a young Northern Ireland man abroad six years ago has made its 700th repatriation. Eithne and Colin Bell formed the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust in memory of their 26-year-old son, who was killed in a hit-and-run collision in New York in 2013. The organisation was set up the same year. The weekend marked the 700th repatriation of remains of a person who died overseas to Ireland. So far this year the charity has assisted with around 70 repatriations. "Once it arises on your own door, you notice it," Mr Bell told RTE Radio. "You probably wouldn't have noticed the amount of Irish people dying abroad but once it comes to your own door, you notice." His wife said that this year alone around 70 bodies have been brought home "and we're only in April". It can cost up to 10,000 to transport a body home to Ireland. Former teacher Colin explained: "We take quite a few people home from England - it's generally 1,000 to 2,000. "From Europe, it could be 4,000 to 6,000. In Thailand, you're up to 7,000 to 8,000. "If you go to Australia, it's around 8,000. "America is quite expensive, it's generally between 8,000 and 10,000. "We have a network now of experience and if a family contacts us we can say: 'Look, you don't have to do another thing we'll look after everything and we'll pay for it as well'." The charity does not receive any Government funding and sustains itself on donations. When an Irish person dies abroad, it reaches out to the family and offers to help with financial costs. The community in Newry came together and held fundraisers in order to help bring Kevin's body back to Ireland, raising 150,000. "I suppose that was the start of it," said Mr Bell. "A couple of weeks after Kevin's funeral we heard of a young fella from Carryduff in Belfast had been killed in Thailand, so we contacted the parents and said we have this money we'll pay to bring your son home. "We kept reaching out and then we said: 'Look, we'll make this Kevin's legacy'." One of the United States' most influential politicians is visiting Ireland with a clear promise to help block any US-UK trade deal unless the Good Friday Agreement is protected. Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi is to visit the border region and make a historic address to the Oireachtas during her two-day visit. Her comments are likely to be closely watched by US President Donald Trump with whom Ms Pelosi regularly clashes over policy and politics. Read More Ahead of coming to Ireland, Ms Pelosi and a delegation of congressmen held a series of high-level meetings with British politicians, including Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. And speaking at a London School of Economics event last night, she warned the US will not strike a wide-ranging trade deal with the UK after Brexit unless the threat of a hard border in Ireland is removed. "We made it clear to all, If there is any harm to the Good Friday accord, no (trade) treaty," she said. "I have to say though every single person, including Theresa May who we spoke to on the phone, everyone said don't even worry about that, it is unthinkable that we would even go there." President Trump, a supporter of Brexit, has repeatedly said he is prepared to enter a large scale trade agreement with the UK. During Taoiseach Leo Varadkars visit to the White House last month, the President was critical of the EUs trading position but said hed like to see the whole situation with Brexit work out. We can do a very big trade deal with the UK. Separately, he tweeted: My Administration looks forward to negotiating a large scale Trade Deal with the United Kingdom. The potential is unlimited! However, the Congress and members of Ms Pelosis Democratic Party will have a major say in any future trade deals. In London she claimed the US missed an opportunity to gain economic leverage over China when it opted to put tariffs on the EU rather than join forces with it. "I thought one of the biggest opportunities was for the US. and the EU to join together - the biggest market in the world, the two combined - and use that leverage in negotiations with the Chinese," Ms Pelosi said. "So I wasn't pleased when the President put tariffs on the EU because you kind of started to weaken that strength vis-a-vis China." A man and woman have been charged with child cruelty after a baby, believed to be about one-month-old, was found abandoned in Belfast city centre. The infant, wrapped in a blue blanket, was discovered by bin men outside the CastleCourt entrance on Royal Avenue. The circumstances remain unclear, but the baby was discovered last Sunday just before the shopping centre opened. An ambulance was called and the child was treated at the scene. Concerned shoppers looked on as the infant was taken to the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children. A 41-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman have now been charged with child cruelty. The woman was further charged with possession of drugs. The pair appeared at Belfast Magistrates Court on April 9 and released on bail. The Ambulance Service said it had received a 999 call at 2.04pm on Sunday, April 7 following reports that "a baby had been injured following an incident in Royal Avenue". "The NIAS dispatched an emergency crew to the scene and following assessment and initial treatment at the scene the child was taken by ambulance to the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children," it said. Belfast Deputy Lord Mayor Emmet McDonough-Brown said: "That a baby was left to fend for itself is obviously very shocking and I hope that he or she is OK. "What it seems like to me is that if they are the child's parents, they are struggling and my heart goes out to them. "I hope that they get the help and support they need to be better parents. "I would urge any parent out there struggling to avail of the help services that are available to them. The PSNI told the Belfast Telegraph: "A 41-year-old man was charged with child cruelty and a 38-year-old woman was charged with child cruelty and possession of a controlled class C drug. "They were both due to appear at Belfast Magistrates Court on Tuesday April 9." The pair are due to appear again in court next month. A teenager charged with disorderly behaviour at two separate Belfast hospitals must remain in custody, a judge ruled today. Ryan Nesbitt was refused bail amid a police officers claims that his alleged behaviour was the worst of its type she has ever witnessed. Read More The 18-year-old, of Malone Road in the city, is accused of disorderly behaviour at the Mater Hospital on March 16. He also faces counts of assaulting a policewoman and resisting police on the same date. Nesbitt is separately charged with disorderly behaviour in the Royal Victoria Hospital's Accident and Emergency Department, and assaults on two other police officers on January 16. He appeared before Belfast Magistrates' Court in a new bid to secure bail. Opposing his application, a PSNI officer said she had studied CCTV recordings of the incident at the Royal. "I have viewed the footage - it's the worst incident of disorderly behaviour I have ever seen," she claimed. "It was in the A&E while people were trying to get treated, they told police how scared they were of his behaviour while they were there." Defence counsel argued that Nesbitt has already served the equivalent of a six-month sentence in custody for the two cases. But District Judge Fiona Bagnall backed a previous ruling that his application to be freed was "hopeless". She confirmed: "At this point in time I'm not releasing him." UUP veteran Danny Kennedy has announced he will seek the party's nomination for the upcoming European elections after long-serving MEP Jim Nicholson ruled himself out. On Monday Mr Nicholson announced he wouldn't seek the UUP nomination after serving as an MEP for nearly 30 years. The UUP veteran had been intending to retire from politics after the end of his term as MEP, with the UK set to leave the EU as a result of Brexit. The former Newry and Armagh MP moved to quash speculation he could run again with Brexit delayed, saying that he still believes it's time to "hand the baton on". On the heel's of Mr Nicholson's announcement former Minister for Regional Development Danny Kennedy confirmed he would be seeking the nomination. I can confirm that it is my intention to seek the nomination of my Party to stand as its candidate in the forthcoming European Election (2/2) @uuponline Danny Kennedy (@DKennedy_UUP) April 15, 2019 "Jim Nicholson has been an outstanding MEP for the people of Northern Ireland for 30 years. I want to thank him for his massive contribution and his hard work," Mr Kennedy wrote on Twitter. Mr Kennedy had served as the MLA for Newry and Armagh nearly 20 years before losing his seat in the March 2017 election. Following his defeat, the 59-year-old was outspoken about his struggle readjusting to private life after so long in politics. He revealed that he had registered for Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) and said his visit to the Newry Jobs & Benefits office was the first time he had been there since his stint as Employment Minister. Expand Close Jim Nicholson represented the party in Brussels for 30 years (UUP/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jim Nicholson represented the party in Brussels for 30 years (UUP/PA) The UUP will meet at Templepatrick's Hilton Hotel on Saturday to select the party's candidate. Read More Wishing his successor well, Mr Nicholson said that he had been proud of his work as MEP since his election in June 1989. The 74-year-old said he had " always endeavoured to do what's right for all our people no matter their background". Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) He said that the way Brexit had been handled so far was "scandalous" and called on the UK to leave the EU before the end of June with a "sensible deal". Mr Nicholson said that unionist concerns over the Irish border backstop must be heard and said if they were not addressed it would undermine the Good Friday Agreement. UUP Leader Robin Swann paid tribute to Mr Nicholson's long service as an MEP. "He has been a sensible voice in politics throughout the Troubles and right up until the present day," Mr Swann said. "He is an unashamed unionist and has always stood up for the interests of Northern Ireland and our place within the United Kingdom." The UK is currently preparing to take part in the elections after Prime Minister Theresa May secured a Brexit extension until October 31. If the House of Commons can agree on a Brexit deal prior to the May elections, then the UK will not have to take part. However, if MPs fail to reach an agreement the elections will take place and UK MEPs will serve until a Brexit solution is found. On Monday Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the total focus of ministers was to ensure the country did not have to vote in the elections to the European Parliament. A device found during a security alert in Londonderry on Monday morning was an "elaborate hoax", police have said. Around 40 families were forced from their homes after reports a suspect device was left on a doorstep. Police cordoned off an area in the Clon Elagh area of the city following the discovery of the suspicious object. Following further examination the object was declared to be an elaborate hoax and residents were allowed to return to their homes. Inspector McDermott asked anyone with information to come forward. I would like to thank the local community for their patience in giving us time as we dealt with the incident," he said. Our enquiries are continuing and I would appeal to anyone who noticed any suspicious activity in the area or anyone with any information, to contact police on the non-emergency number 101, quoting reference number 326 15/4/19. "Alternatively, information can also be provided to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 which is 100% anonymous and gives people the power to speak up and stop crime." DUP MP Gregory Campbell has hit back at Mary Lou McDonald after the Sinn Fein leader said her party does not have a "scorched earth policy" regarding Irish unity. Ms McDonald was asked by Guardian journalist Owen Jones whether Brexit was making a united Ireland more likely and if it was "bitter-sweet" in that respect. She replied: "It's not bitter-sweet, we don't have a scorched earth policy as regards Irish unity. I don't take a simplistic view of the end justifying the means. And we are very conscious that we have an obligation to people in terms of jobs, in terms of the security of their families, their ability to turn the light on, to put bread on the table and we say that Brexit is hugely damaging for everyone." She said that "economically in bread and butter terms it's hugely damaging". "There's changes afoot on the island of Ireland in terms of demographics which is not always my first port of call - I don't like this idea of outbreeding your opposition to get constitutional change - but the demographic trends are clear," the Dublin TD said. "But also the politics has changed on the island, there's a real sense of an appetite for progress and modernity, which I think is really encouraging. And also, bear this in mind, the Northern state was based on the premise of an in-built unionist majority for ever and ever. "That's gone now, it's gone in the last two elections, so all of those things are in the mix. But if you're asking me if I'm secretly delighted that Brexit has happened, the answer is 'no'." But East Londonderry MP Mr Campbell said some people will find her reference to population demographics "offensive" and took exception to her using the "scorched earth" phrase. He said: "The fact that she uses that term without it being put to her, in other words she introduces it into the conversation, indicates to me, as I have thought for some time, that that is exactly the type of policy they are adopting - a scorched earth policy. "I'm sure what will be found as offensive is the repeat of this demographic change issue that they keep raising now from time to time. "They seem to equate to more Catholics meaning more nationalists, when they totally ignore the tens of thousands of Catholics who, if there was a border poll, would vote to stay within the UK because they know that economically and socially and for a whole series of other reasons that that's where they are better off - and they're not denied their Irishness by doing that. "She seems to obliterate that and assume more Catholics means more nationalists, which it doesn't. "But I think the more salient point is the one I referred to, the no scorched earth policy, because that is exactly what they are doing in this business of trying to dress up Brexit as a precursor to some sort of poll that will lead to a united Ireland. "They know that the more they push that, the more divisive politics becomes in Northern Ireland and the scorched earth policy that they say they don't adopt, is exactly what's happening precisely - because they adopt that." Elsewhere in the video interview, Ms McDonald said she thinks Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn understands Ireland and said that she wants to see more discussions around a referendum on Irish unity. She added: "We need to start moving the conversation onwards around the whole issue of constitutional change and a poll on unity." The NCA is appealing for information to trace one-legged drugs kingpin Richard Wakeling (National Crime Agency/PA) CCTV footage has been released of a one-legged drug dealer who has been a fugitive for more than a year. Richard Wakeling, 52, from Brentwood, Essex, tried to import 8 million of liquid amphetamine into the UK in April 2016. He fled before his trial began and was sentenced to 11 years in his absence at Chelmsford Crown Court on April 9 last year. On Monday, the National Crime Agency released CCTV footage of him leaving his home on January 5 last year as investigators continue to try to track him down. The clip shows him chatting to a workman and getting into his white Audi Q3, registration number EF66 ZWR. He left Essex that day and travelled through Iver in Buckinghamshire, before catching a bus from Heathrow to Glasgow and taking a ferry from Stranraer to Belfast. Expand Close CCTV still issued by the National Crime Agency (NCA/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp CCTV still issued by the National Crime Agency (NCA/PA) The NCA said he has family in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Canada and Thailand. A week after he disappeared, his car was driven back to his home in Essex. NCA operations manager Paul Green said: Wakeling has been on the run for well over a year now and knows we are still looking for him. He should also know we will do everything in our power to bring him back to serve his sentence. I would urge him to hand himself in. Ive no doubt someone seeing this appeal will have information about his whereabouts. Anyone helping Wakeling or actively frustrating our efforts to find him could be arrested for assisting an offender. An academic who was dismissed from his teaching position at Union Theological College in Belfast last week has said he is considering leaving the Presbyterian Church. Professor Laurence Kirkpatrick said he is now on Jobseeker's Allowance after a Church disciplinary panel found him guilty of "gross misconduct" as a result of comments he made to BBC Radio Ulster's Talkback programme in June last year. A final appeal against the college's decision to dismiss him will be heard in the first week of next month. "I don't hold out much hope of the appeal being successful. By mid-May I will know the conclusion, but leaving the Presbyterian Church in Ireland will certainly be an option for me," he said. "I've devoted my whole working life to the Presbyterian Church and I'd leave with a heavy heart, but why would I stay in an organisation that has sacked me?" Prof Kirkpatrick was a guest on a BBC NI Talkback panel in June 2018 after the Presbyterian Church's decision to loosen ties to the Church of Scotland. That was mainly due to the Church of Scotland's more liberal attitude to same-sex relationships. He was subsequently suspended by the Presbyterian Church from his lecturing post at Union Theological College for his comments. "I had been asked, theoretically, that if there was a practising gay student in a class on Christian ethics, what would I feel if they were being told they were indulging in a sinful practice?," he said. "I said I'd be horrified. I never criticised the Church's viewpoint. I would have thought, at third level education, students should receive a spectrum of views. Students should be broadened. "Under the evangelical conservatism of a right-wing regime that only wants to put across the mission of the Church we've got a problem." Earlier this month Queen's University revealed it is to formally end its link with the Presbyterian-run college. "The issues have been signposted by the university for some time," said Prof Kirkpatrick. "Issues have been flagged up at reviews over the past four years - what could be improved, what should be improved and what must be improved. Union College failed to react and has never signed up to the university's equality and diversity policy. "I'm not looking to be a martyr, but almost 40 Presbyterians were approached to speak last year when the General Assembly issues arose. "They were frightened for their jobs, frightened about the publicity. "There's certainly a fear factor in lots of Presbyterians who have been sympathetic to me. They're horrified with the direction of travel within the Church," he added. "Even a couple of years ago I couldn't see myself ever leaving my position. Now I'm on Jobseeker's Allowance and that's quite a change for me. "I saw my job as an educationalist who opened minds but I've been banging my head against a brick wall. "I've had Catholic students come to me and say they keep their heads down in the college. This is 2019, not 1619. "There has always been another issue with transparency of appointments to Union College. Teaching staff have been male and Presbyterian and the university has had no say in part-time staff. That was never addressed, so while I regret it I understand the view of Queen's that the partnership had to come to an end. "In two years' time, with only 30 third year students, Union College will seem a very hollow place." The Presbyterian Church in Ireland said it would "be improper for us to comment in detail at this time". "While we would obviously differ with many of the points he sought to make, to respond to them in any specific way while a personnel matter is still ongoing, and subject to due process, would be very inappropriate," it said. "With regard to wider issues relating to Union Theological College, the college is and always has been part of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, fully under the control of the Church's General Assembly. "We were naturally disappointed and deeply regret this week's decision by Queen's University, Belfast. "In our understanding this was largely because there was only one remaining college teaching undergraduate courses in the Institute of Theology at Queen's, which was Union Theological College. "In the view of Queen's this made the Institute no longer viable with regard to diversity. "Moving forward, the college will continue to ensure that students from home and overseas will benefit from theological study in a warm and positive Christian environment, being taught by academic theologians of the highest standing, some of whom are indeed world leaders in their field." 'PSNI spokesman Inspector Robinson called for anyone with information about the incident to come forward' (stock photo) A woman died in a road accident on Dree Hill outside Dromara yesterday. Michelle Healy, who was in her 40s and from the local area, died when the red Mitsubishi vehicle she was driving left the road at around 1.10pm, police said. She was the 18th person to die on Northern Ireland's roads this year. Dree Hill is a long, narrow country road high in the Mournes, running south from Dromara towards Slieve Croob. Local political representatives offered their condolences to the grieving family. Slieve Croob SDLP councillor John Rice said Ms Healey came from a well respected family in the Castlewellan area. "I was with the family earlier today, paying my respects," he said. "All our hearts go out to the Healy family circle. "It's a dreadful tragedy." DUP candidate for Slieve Croob, Maynard Hanna, said: "I wish to express my sadness and deepest condolences on the death of a young woman on the Dree Hill Road, Dromara, this afternoon. This will be a very difficult time for this woman's family, and my thoughts and prayers, and those of the local community, will be with her loved ones at this most horrendous time. "As a former serving police officer, one of the most difficult jobs was delivering such tragic news to a family. "I can, therefore, appreciate the pain the family must be suffering right now. "I urge road users to be cautious on our roads, especially rural roads." Alliance councillor Andrew McMurray also offered his sympathy to the Healy family. "It's terrible when roads claim a life," he said. PSNI spokesman Inspector Robinson called for anyone with information about the incident to come forward. "I am appealing to anyone who witnessed the collision or who may have captured dashcam footage to please get in touch with the Collision Investigation Unit by calling 101," he said. Assembly Members will receive their full pension entitlement - even if they never return to Stormont. Almost two-and-a-half years since they last convened, they are still entitled to the same pension levels they always were. Their salaries have been reduced from 49,500 to 35,888 in two stages since last September because they are not performing the full range of their legislative functions while Stormont is mothballed. But despite the two salary cuts imposed by the Secretary of State, pension pot levels have stayed the same. With a new Assembly election now envisaged before devolution can be restored, a significant number of the MLAs are expected to retire rather than run again. Assembly pensions trustee Jim Wells of the DUP told the Belfast Telegraph that the MLA pension scheme, which is comparable to those available in other devolved assemblies in the UK, is audited and checked by the NI Audit Office, by actuaries and by independent external consultants, and "has always received a clean bill of health". Mr Wells confirmed last night that while MLAs now pay 12.5% of their reduced salary of 35,000 into their pension pot, they continue to build up pension entitlements as if they were still receiving their full pay of 49,500. Mr Wells also voiced concerns that media focus on the salary and expenses of public representatives made it impossible to attract a representative cross-section of society to stand for election. "It's a very volatile career, and we are not attracting enough high-calibre people who are prepared to leave secure long-term careers to enter full-time politics as an MLA," the long-serving South Down representative said. MLAs are still paying up to 12.5% of their salaries into the pension scheme, which is separate from the Civil Service or local government schemes and comes in addition to the state pension. As its employer, the Assembly Commission, which is responsible for the day-to-day running of Parliament Buildings at Stormont, also contributes to the MLAs' pension pot, which is known as a 'career average scheme'. A source explained: "Each year an MLA is in post, he or she accrues a pension of one-fiftieth of their average salary. "If their average salary was 50,000 at the time of their retirement, then their pension would be 1,000 for each year of service. The average MLA serves eight years at Stormont and can expect a pension of around 8,000 per annum." Chairman of the Assembly pension trustees, Alliance MLA Trevor Lunn, told our sister paper Sunday Life it had not been the decision of MLAs themselves to keep the present arrangements. "The decision to maintain members' pension entitlement was taken at Westminster level, it had nothing to do with the trustees or members of the pension scheme," the Lagan Valley MLA said. "Neither myself or the other trustees (representing the DUP, Sinn Fein, SDLP and Ulster Unionists) had any input into the decision to reduce our salaries or the decision by Her Majesty's Government to maintain our pension entitlement during this period. "We do not control contribution levels or the benefits allocated, they were set by the Independent Financial Review Panel." Over 3000 members of staff at poultry firm Moy Park are to be balloted for strike action in a dispute over pay negotiations. Unite Regional Officer Sean McKeever said that the ballot would proceed in the coming weeks due to "unreasonable management demands in ongoing pay negotiations". Mr McKeever said that during pay negotiations the incoming management team from Pilgrim's Pride Corporation had "brought forward proposals seeking to undermine shift allowances, sickness scheme, holiday entitlement, attendance allowance, nomi/statutory days and decent breaks". He said that the current conditions were "hard won by this workforce over many years and are simply not up for negotiation". Read More In response to Mr McKeever's claims a Moy Park spokesperson said that the company were aware of the statement and "will continue to engage with the union and work towards a negotiated agreement". Pointing to recent union successes, Mr McKeever said staff at Moy Park were "not a workforce that will stand by as they slash and burn their way in a race-to-the-bottom on rights and entitlements". He said that the company's latest annual pre-tax profits were just short of 60m and this showed the business was not "struggling for survival". Expand Close Concern: Unites Sean McKeever / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Concern: Unites Sean McKeever "The attacks on workers pay and conditions are simply part of a drive to maximise profits and increase returns for corporate shareholders," Mr McKeever said. Unite is now preparing the roll-out of a ballot on all-out strike action of our more than three thousand members working for Moy Park in Northern Ireland. Management need to recognise the determination of this workforce before it leads to unnecessary and entirely avoidable disruption to their operations here. Earlier this month it emerged that the company will cease processing of live birds at the Ballymena plant which will have a knock-on effect on its nearby hatchery. Other production processes will continue at the plant. Around 1,700 people are employed at the site, however it understood no job losses are being considered with staff moved to other sites, or to other roles until production fully resumes. Moy Park is one of Northern Ireland's biggest employers and is a huge buyer of poultry on both sides of the border. Based in Craigavon, Co Armagh, it employs 6,300 people across Northern Ireland and 12,000 more at operations in the Republic and elsewhere in Europe. Founded in 1943 it was bought by JBS from Marfig for 1.2bn in 2015 before being sold on to the Pilgrim's Pride Corporation in September 2017, a subsidiary of JBS. That purchase is currently subject of legal proceedings in the US by shareholders to determine if the purchase was fair. Last year it was reported the company had a record turnover of 1.5bn with pre-tax profits of 64milion. A care home owned by Runwood Homes has been found to be using communal net underwear seven months after it was told to cease the practice. A health inspector visited Clifton Nursing Home in June last year and discovered that residents there were being forced to share underwear. Management at the north Belfast home was handed a notice to ensure that net pants, stockings and tights are provided for each patient's individual use and not used communally. However, it can be revealed that when the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) returned in January of this year, it found evidence that communal underwear was still in use. The inspector also uncovered failings in the way pressure relieving mattresses were used. This was also raised as a concern during the visit last June. A subsequent inspection of the home in August did not check whether both issues had been addressed. Relatives of residents also raised concerns over staffing levels and continuity of care at the home, recurrent issues in a number of facilities owned by Runwood Homes. One person said that staff levels appeared to be fine during the day, but "night staffing seems less adequate". They continued: "Clothes go missing and there seems to be less staff and less management at night." Another relative said: "I am concerned regarding staff turnover, continuity of care is impacted by change of staff or agency. Manager turnover is a concern." The RQIA inspector also identified a lack of household and clinical waste bins throughout the home, and questioned whether there would be adequate cleaning products to deal with an infection outbreak. He also found kitchenette doors wedged open throughout the home, which presented a risk to residents and staff in the event of a fire. This was an issue also highlighted in the inspection last June. The latest RQIA inspection of Clifton Nursing Home uncovered examples of good practice and no enforcement action was taken as a result. Assurances were also given by Runwood Homes that the practice of using shared net underwear would cease immediately. Despite this, the findings of the January inspection have cast a shadow over the official opening of a new residential care unit at Dunmurry Manor, also owned by Runwood Homes. The firm held an official ribbon-cutting ceremony at the troubled facility last week as it attempts to move on from a series of shocking failings at a number of its homes across Northern Ireland. It is currently at the centre of a police probe into allegations of abuse and neglect at Dunmurry Manor following on from the publication of the findings of an investigation into conditions at the home. Eddie Lynch, the Commissioner for Older People in Northern Ireland, was damning in his assessment of the management of the facility, highlighting a number of serious issues, including the fact that staff had to buy their own blood pressure monitors. Mr Lynch also raised concerns over the dignity of residents of Dunmurry Manor and revealed one woman had a pressure sore so deep that her bone was exposed. Runwood Homes did not respond to a request for comment. A mum of a young boy killed by the RUC from a plastic bullet has appealed to the Government to release its files on his death after learning they will not be publicly released for another four decades. And questions have been asked of what the Government has to hide in keeping the files classified for so long. Helen Whitters said she was shocked to learn of the decision to keep the files sealed. I find this deeply shocking," she said in a letter to the Secretary of State. "Why should a file on the death of my 15-year-old child, which happened almost 40 years ago, remain classified for another 40 years? "I brought Paul into this world. When this file is opened on January 1 2059 I will not be alive. No one will still be alive who actually knew Paul as the lovely, handsome, caring, intelligent young man that he was. None of his family, his friends, his classmates. "Your government does not have the right to withhold this from my family. You do not have the right to withhold this from his two brothers and sister. A Government spokesperson said that Karen Bradley "recognises the terrible loss suffered by those who lost loved ones as a result of the Troubles and expresses her sincere condolences to the Whitters family during this extremely difficult time". The spokesperson said that the Secretary of State "cannot comment publicly on specific cases but will respond privately to Mrs Whitters' letter". Files are usually classified and kept from the public because they relate to issues such as sensitive personal information, health and safety, relations with other countries or national security. Monday marks the 38th anniversary of the death of 15-year-old Paul Whitters. The second oldest in a family of three sons, he was born in Scotland and raised in Clydebank and Glasgow. At the age of 11 his parents returned to their original home of Londonderry. During April 1981 tensions in the city were running high, with many taking to the streets to support republican hunger strikers in the Maze. The Catholic teen was at the front of a group of youths who had been throwing stones when he was hit on the head by a baton round and died in hospital 10 days later. Why should a file on the death of my 15-year-old child, which happened almost 40 years ago, remain classified for another 40 years? Expand Close Helen Whitters mother of Paul Whitters who died in April 1981 after being shot by a plastic bullet pictured at the press conference given by Nuala O'Loan the Police Ombudsman in Londonderry in 2007. Picture Martin McKeown. 16.4.07 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Helen Whitters mother of Paul Whitters who died in April 1981 after being shot by a plastic bullet pictured at the press conference given by Nuala O'Loan the Police Ombudsman in Londonderry in 2007. Picture Martin McKeown. 16.4.07 The Police Ombudsman found in a 2007 report the firing of the baton gun was "wrong and unjustified". It said the gun was used in contravention of the rules in place at the time. No warning was given by loudhailer and it was fired at less than the permissible range of 20 metres. His death was the subject of an inquest and was referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who directed no prosecution. In 1987 the RUC settled a subsequent civil action without any admission of liability. The Guardian reports his mother Helen has written to the Northern Ireland Secretary of State Karen Bradley appealing for her to open the files on the death. It comes after she learned a review in 2018 put back the scheduled release of the files at the National Archive in London to 2059. "I find this deeply shocking," said his mother Helen in her letter. "Why should a file on the death of my 15-year-old child, which happened almost 40 years ago, remain classified for another 40 years? What has the British government, the NIO [Northern Ireland Office], the RUC got to hide? What secrets must be protected about events that April evening in Great James St?" What has the British Government to hide. Colum Eastwood SDLP Leader Colum Eastwood also called for the files to be released saying their continued closure "effectively sentences his family to a life without the truth about what happened that day". "That is unacceptable," he said. "What has the British Government to hide from a grieving family 38 years after the killing of their son? The Secretary of State should release the files to the family to afford them some measure of truth and closure. Paul and other teenagers had been throwing stones at the RUC in the Bogside. Eyewitnesses said the teen was wearing a green mask. A 2007 Police Ombudsman was critical of police actions although found there was no evidence of an intent to kill the teenager. Ombudsman's investigators identified evidence to suggest the baton gun may have misfired and the baton round may have malfunctioned, but have ruled that it was an unjustified shooting. They backed a complaint from the Whitters family that the police had made no attempt to arrest Paul before the shot was fired and that they did not conduct a proper investigation into his death. There was also no attempt made by police to interview six individuals who gave statements to a solicitor about the shooting. In 1981 police had deployed in Derry's Great James Street to stop rioters getting into a bakery yard. A lorry arrived and began unloading a delivery. There are conflicting accounts as to what happened next, but a number of youths were seen throwing stones. A security guard told police he believed the lorry was to be hijacked. Police came to the gate of the bakery and the inspector on duty ordered an officer to fire at Paul Whitters, who was in front of the other youths and was described by police officers as the "lead rioter". The officer fired, hitting Paul on the forehead. He died in hospital 10 days later of severe head injuries. 'Compelling' An inquest was held into Paul's death but his family were not satisfied by its findings and turned to the Police Ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan. Her investigators traced the security guard and the lorry driver, but neither of them were able to add to the evidence they had already given years ago. One of the boys who had been in the area that day came forward and gave evidence. The investigators also traced and spoke to an independent scientist and weapons expert who had been hired by the family as part of their civil action. Mrs O'Loan described his evidence, which was not available to the DPP or Coroner, as "compelling". Although the Forensic Science Service of Northern Ireland examined the weapon at the time and found no fault with it, the independent scientist said that when he tested it four years later, the majority of the shots hit 20 inches high from targets he aimed at. Officers involved refused to talk to the Police Ombudsman. Mrs O'Loan said: "The scientist concluded that if the police officer aimed for Paul's head he would probably have missed. The fact that the baton round hit the head suggests the police officer probably aimed at the lower part of the body. This evidence, combined with evidence of eyewitnesses that Paul was stooping down and standing up again introduces reasonable doubt as to whether the police officer fired at his head." The senior officer who led the investigation into Paul Whitters' death took statements only from the police officers, the security guard, the lorry driver and one other person. Nuala O'Loan said: "He did not take statements from eyewitnesses. He did not think it necessary to make inquiries in the neighbouring houses nor give valid reasons why he did not do this. In the absence of a full account from this police officer, and based on the evidence from the files and the statements obtained as part of this investigation, I must conclude that the investigation was not done properly." The British Government is trying to cover up its role in state killings, Sinn Fein has claimed. Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley is considering the shape of new structures investigating the toxic legacy of unresolved deaths during the 30-year conflict. Some MPs and veterans have pressed for a statute of limitations which would protect former soldiers from prosecution. Ms Bradley has said she does not support the measure and it was omitted from her recent consultation on addressing the past. Brexit is an unprecedented act of political vandalism. This election is an opportunity to say time is up on Brexit and on DUP/Tory cuts - @MaryLouMcDonald tells #LE19 manifesto launch pic.twitter.com/gdU7bdtWPW Sinn Fein (@sinnfeinireland) April 15, 2019 Sinn Feins local government election manifesto said: The British Government has sought to cover up its role in the deaths of many Irish citizens and is seeking to introduce an amnesty for those it directed to carry out such killings. Sinn Fein will continue to oppose the British Governments policy on this issue and demand that the legacy mechanisms agreed at Stormont House are implemented in a human rights-compliant manner. Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has said the Ministry of Defence is working across Government to drive through a new package of safeguards to ensure members of the Armed Forces are not treated unfairly. He pledged the Government will urgently reform the system for dealing with legacy issues and said serving and former personnel cannot live in constant fear of prosecution. Expand Close On Friday thousands of motor bikers demonstrated outside Parliament against the legal action facing former Soldier F and urged the Government to step in to protect veterans from prosecution (Kirsty OConnor/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp On Friday thousands of motor bikers demonstrated outside Parliament against the legal action facing former Soldier F and urged the Government to step in to protect veterans from prosecution (Kirsty OConnor/PA) One former serviceman, Soldier F, is to be prosecuted following the deaths of civil rights protesters shot in Londonderry on Bloody Sunday in 1972. On Friday thousands of motor bikers demonstrated outside Parliament against the legal action and urged the Government to step in to protect veterans from prosecution. A statute of limitations is backed by many Conservative backbenchers, including some who are former soldiers. Many unionists in Northern Ireland have expressed concern it could lead to an amnesty for former republican and loyalist paramilitaries. Integrity and genuine power-sharing are non-negotiable Sinn Fein Vice-President @moneillsf speaking at the launch of the partys local election manifesto in Ballymena #SF2019 pic.twitter.com/XeiqyhEsAs NewryArmagh SinnFein (@newryarmaghsf) April 15, 2019 Sinn Fein launched its manifesto for next months local council elections in Ballymena, Co Antrim. It focused on familiar themes like the political vandalism of Brexit, Tory austerity and the need to prepare for a United Ireland. Leader Mary Lou McDonald said: Brexit has added to uncertainty and instability. Under the Tory and DUP pact funding for health and public services isnt even enough to stand still and now they seek to impose Brexit against the will of the people. This is an unprecedented act of political vandalism. This election is an opportunity to say time is up on Brexit, time is up on the DUP/Tory cuts. Sinn Fein is standing 400 candidates across the island of Ireland in the local government elections, including 155 in Northern Ireland. The party would ban zero-hour contracts which it said had created insecurity and uncertainty for workers. In Ballymena this morning supporting all our council candidates for the launch of our local government manifesto. Sinn Fein are offering people the opportunity to elect strong, passionate & capable republican representation across the north on 2nd May #VotailSinnFein #le19 pic.twitter.com/pWYCuzIgAE Caoimhe Archibald (@CArchibald_SF) April 15, 2019 It urged the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to do more for communities. While PSNI has made progress in working with other statutory agencies such as health boards and social services in order to provide better outcomes for vulnerable people, we are concerned that the police are not properly engaging with local communities and community organisations to find local solutions to problems, it said. A UK Government spokesman said: The Governments 2017 NI manifesto made clear: We continue to believe that any approach to the past must be fully consistent with the rule of law. Conservatives in government have consistently said that we will not introduce amnesties or immunities from prosecution. The new legacy bodies will have the needs of victims and survivors at their heart. This position was very recently restated in the Governments response to an e-petition to Parliament on immunity for soldiers which sets out: This Government believes in the rule of law. Where there is evidence of wrongdoing it is right that this should be investigated and, where the evidence exists, for prosecutions to follow. We do not support amnesties or immunity from prosecution. This response also reasserts the Governments commitment to the implementation of the Stormont House Agreement. Early days how did you start, whats the eureka moment and how did you build the product? The idea of establishing this business came with my personal experience and an approach to solve bigger problems of this particular industry with latest technologies available worldwide. As today people have become dependent on gadgets like laptop and mobile, all of their data is stored in that so we make sure that their data is secure and is in safe hands. We majorly focused on enhanced customer experience. Phixman is one of its own kind ideas because users are free to shop services online and experience great hospitality at Phixman offline stores nationally. How did you establish your team initially? Our team is a perfect combination of young minds as well experienced people. We are divided into various departments like operations rollout, marketing, customer relation, logistics, accounts and various other categories with a common objective of solving bigger problems and creating better customer experience. The total team size 2018 is 80 people, Anjali Bhatt is the HR Head of the company, who has provided us a team of expert professionals and great talents who became pillars of the company foundation and is continuously helping us to grow. Can you please share background of the founder Mr. Shaad Rehman with us? Mr.Shaad Rehman, a 29-year-old mechanical engineer from Patna at Indore Institute of Science and Technology (IIST), Madhya Pradesh. He was always enthusiastic for technology and gadgets and decided to do something related to same in future. After graduating from college in 2014, Shaad got placed in Asahi India Glass Ltd, a glass manufacturing and Supplier Company in India with a decent package. He worked for a year as Senior Manager in Asahi and later on focused on a gadget repair startup and decided to follow his passions which lead to the invention of Phixman in 2015. What is the Unique Selling Proposition of your business? Our services is in 4easy steps, first the customer books repair online adding all the details about the problem in the device then we send our delivery boy to pick up the device from the address mentioned. In the next step we diagnose the device and repair it and send it back to the customer safe and solid with all their data intact. One thing that sets us apart from our competitors is our guaranteed service. We guarantee 24 hour repair, home picking of gadget, safety of data and most importantly payment after customer satisfaction. We charge after we deliver the gadget to the client and they are satisfied for the fact that their device is completely repaired with all the data in it. Also we have dedicated exclusive stores that are looking forward to customers who want personal assistance care and understanding. What are the challenges you have faced to establish your company? We believe, facing challenges is the way to premium success. Whenever we start a business we face lot of challenges like funding, hiring technicians, competition and giving the best service. Likewise, we also faced lot of challenges while starting up the business and due our commitment and focus; we succeeded in overcoming the challenges and establishing a business. Being a service sector business, our aim is to provide the best man power and services to the clients. It requires a lot of technical knowledge in repairing business so we had to hire best repairing engineers. We overcame all our loopholes and established this business. How has your company evolved and grown? It has been a great journey which started from Indore with a single outlet and steadily we grew nationally in 15 states having 25 exclusive stores. Our turnover till date has grown up to 10 Cr and with new approaches of expansion both nationally and internationally we would grow by almost 5 times in the coming financial year. Is your company boot strapped or you outsourcing your investment? We are a boot strapped company, we are totally self-funded and we have no financial liability. Our profit making is such in this industry that all our all business expenses are met adequately. But as we plan to expand our business, we are looking out to raise Series A funding in the near future. Please share your future plans with us Recently, we have collaborated with Detel and its new brand Pre Loved Device in which we will be selling refurbished phones with six months warranty and that to at a very low cost. Future plans, we would say there is a common future plan for every business and company which is to grow and get worldwide presence and make goodwill in the market. We would say we want to set a benchmark in repairing industry in such a way that Phixman should be the name whenever someone needs gadgets repairing whether in India or internationally and for this we intend to launch 500 stores worldwide very soon. We are working to create awareness among Electronics brands in Indian and International market who is working hard for post retails services for achieving customer loyalty. To all those brands Phixman is a complete end to end solution for them ready with service and retail channels. Six councils spent more than 120,000 sending officials to a real estate conference in Cannes in the south of France, sparking criticism of the use of public money. The four-day event last month took place in the upmarket Riviera city, the venue for the world-famous annual film festival. MIPIM bills itself as "the world's largest international property investment conference" which "gathers all the key international players of the real estate sector for four days of exhibition, networking, and transactions". This was the fourth year running that a group represented Belfast at MIPIM. But for the first time the delegation included representatives from five other councils as part of the Belfast Region City Deal programme of investment. Also present were members from Antrim and Newtownabbey; Ards and North Down; Lisburn and Castlereagh, Mid and East Antrim, and Newry, Mourne and Down councils. The total cost of the trip to ratepayers was 122,300. James Roberts, political director of right-wing pressure group the TaxPayers' Alliance, questioned the benefits of the trip. "Stories of bureaucrats taking swish trips to the south of France are starting to leave taxpayers with a sad sense of deja vu," he said. "Council officials urgently need to cut back or justify jetting off on these jollies." The figures emerged days after a report revealed how 20 senior officials at councils here are on six-figure pay packages. The largest sponsorship for MIPIM came from Belfast City Council, which spent 80,000. That's 20,000 more than 2018. Seven representatives attended, including the chair of the city growth and regeneration committee, SDLP councillor Donal Lyons, and chief executive Suzanne Wylie. They were part of the 100-member Belfast-led delegation which also included Belfast Harbour, Invest NI, Queen's and Ulster Universities and Translink. Defending the trip, Mr Lyons said: "When Belfast City Council sent its first delegation to MIPIM in 2016, council set a target of bringing 1bn worth of investment to the city. "Three years later, thanks to waterside and harbour developments, and major regeneration schemes for the city like Merchant Square, we're on course to see that figure double to 2bn worth of investment. "This success is in part due to council taking a strong, proactive role in marketing Belfast as a city for investment. "With MIPIM being the prime event in the European real estate calendar for so many of the world's investors, developers and funders from both the private and public sector, it is essential that we take the opportunity to showcase Belfast and the opportunities our city presents for investors. "Our participation in MIPIM is about showing a strong public-private partnership, working hand in hand to deliver for the city and the region. "This year was the biggest 'Team Belfast' delegation to date with more than 30 public and private organisations represented. "Our delegation included the five councils partnering with Belfast City Council in the Belfast Region City Deal - a deal worth 850m - along with developers and investors, with key sectors such as advanced engineering, education, transport, tourism, construction, financial and professional, technology, and life and health sciences all represented." Four local authorities - Ards and North Down, Lisburn and Castlereagh, Mid and East Antrim and Newry, Mourne and Down - each spent 10,000 sending representatives to the event. Attending from Ards and North Down were Ulster Unionist mayor Richard Smart, chief executive Stephen Reid and the director of regeneration, development and planning, Susie McCullough. The council said: "Our delegation presented a number of development sites from our area including tourism accommodation opportunities, Bangor Waterfront and Whitespots Regional Park. "Several follow up meetings have already been arranged from contacts identified at the conference." Mid and East Antrim sent three council officers and a councillor to the conference. The council said: "During more than 100 meetings over three days, our delegation promoted a number of development opportunities in our area. "We are delighted to have secured visits from key investors to Mid and East Antrim on the back of relationships established at MIPIM as we continue to target significant private-sector investment to complement the 80m City Deal funding recently secured for our area." Newry, Mourne and Down was represented by the chairman, SDLP councillor Mark Murnin, chief executive Liam Hannaway and Marie Ward, director of enterprise, regeneration and tourism. It said: "During the visit the council delegation attended a number of meetings with potential investors. "Newry, Mourne and Down District Council continues to target significant private-sector investment to complement the City Deal funding recently secured for our district. "Part of our area's plans include the delivery of the Southern Relief Road, a new civic centre and a new conferencing and enhanced theatre facility in Newry City." The lowest spend of approximately 2,300 was by Antrim and Newtownabbey. Two council staff attended to promote "key sites across the borough" to potential investors and developers including Global Point and Corr's Corner, Belfast International Airport and The Junction. Lisburn and Castlereagh did not disclose how many representatives it sent to the event but said its "financial commitment to MIPIM matched that of the other Belfast Region City Deal partner councils". Last Tuesday a report revealed 20 senior council officials here received financial packages totalling more than 100,000 in pay and benefits last year. Six work for Belfast City Council while four are employed by Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Council, a report revealed. A replica of an R2D2 droid built by Jack Hanna and his father Adrian, from Downpatrick, at the opening of the R2D2 road in Malin Head, County Donegal, Ireland (Niall Carson/PA) A road in Ireland has been renamed the R2D2 in tribute to one of Star Wars most famous characters. New signs were unveiled on what was the R242 near Malin Head in Co Donegal to mark the location where scenes from the most recent instalment of the franchise, The Last Jedi, were filmed. A replica R2D2 droid joined other Star Wars characters on the islands most northerly point to celebrate the novel tourism initiative. The name change on a road that runs through the scenic Inishowen peninsula has been approved by Donegal County Council. It was initially agreed on a temporary basis but the switch is now set to become permanent. Expand Close Adrian Hanna dressed as a Tusken Raider poses with an R2D2 replica (Niall Carson/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Adrian Hanna dressed as a Tusken Raider poses with an R2D2 replica (Niall Carson/PA) Jack Murray, a local councillor who also works with tourism organisation Explore Inishowen, first proposed the rebrand. It is so simple, because we had the R242 and just the one letter change and youve captured Star Wars and one of the famous characters in Star Wars R2D2, he said. Expand Close The opening of the R2D2 road in Malin Head, County Donegal, Ireland (Niall Carson/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The opening of the R2D2 road in Malin Head, County Donegal, Ireland (Niall Carson/PA) Hopefully for a long time tourists will come and get their photo taken with the R2D2 sign and see the beautiful location where Star Wars was filmed. The signage has been erected ahead of Inishowens first May The Fourth festival next month. Star Wars events are held around the world on May 4 due to the date sounding like the phrase synonymous with the movies, May The Force Be With You. The three day event in Inishowen will celebrate the areas links with the franchise. Expand Close Jack Hanna from Downpatrick in County Down pushes his hand built R2D2 replica into position (Niall Carson/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jack Hanna from Downpatrick in County Down pushes his hand built R2D2 replica into position (Niall Carson/PA) Various locations along Irelands Wild Atlantic Way were used as locations for Star Wars. The rocky island of Skellig Michael off the coast of Co Kerry provided backdrops for the Last Jedi and the Force Awakens. Kerry already started its own May The Fourth festival last year. Expand Close Adrian Hanna dressed as a Tusken Raider poses with an R2D2 replica (Niall Carson/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Adrian Hanna dressed as a Tusken Raider poses with an R2D2 replica (Niall Carson/PA) A range of dignitaries attended Mondays ceremony at Farrens Bar close to where the Last Jedi was shot at Malin Head. Star Wars superfans Adrian Hanna and his son Jack, from Downpatrick, Co Down, who are members of re-enactment group the 501 Legion Ireland Garrison, brought their home-made R2D2 droid as the special guest. Irish education minister Joe McHugh, a TD for Co Donegal, formally cut the ribbon at the ceremony. Expand Close Star Wars fans dressed as Darth Vader (right) and Chewbacca on a boat trip to Skellig Michael off Kerry (Brian Lawless/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Star Wars fans dressed as Darth Vader (right) and Chewbacca on a boat trip to Skellig Michael off Kerry (Brian Lawless/PA) Today is about reinforcing something good that happened here a couple of years ago through Star Wars and the film creation, he said. Now we have the possibility of having an annual event here and its very much community focused as well. Tourism promotion body, Failte Ireland, has announced details of the festival programme on Inishowen. It includes a Star Wars themed 3km Fun Run, Yoda Yoga on the beach and outdoor drive-in movie screenings. A UK think-tank has called on Prime Minister Theresa May to shelve her planned Festival of Britain - because it risks stirring up tensions in Ireland. British Future, led by former Fabian society director Sunder Katwala, fears that the planned showcase in 2022 celebrating the best of Britain has "the worst possible timing". The festival will coincide with not only the formation of the Irish Free State, but also the start of the Irish Civil War, which erupted in the wake of partition. In a research report on the festival, British Future suggested that it be deferred. "The Festival of Great Britain and Northern Ireland should be postponed from 2022, to help shift its messaging away from Brexit, to avoid coinciding with the centenary of the partition of Ireland, and to allow a lead-time for developing an imaginative cultural programme that is delivered across the breadth of the UK," the report said. Mr Katwala, the report's author, told The Guardian newspaper: "Holding a Festival of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 2022, on the centenary of Ireland's partition and civil war, would be the worst possible timing. "It is only likely to heighten tensions between communities - and that's before we know Brexit's implications for the border. "Right across the UK, a festival so closely associated with Brexit may only reinforce divides when it could be bridging them." Announcing the festival in autumn 2018, the Prime Minister said the it would strengthen "our precious Union". The Prime Minister's plans echo the Festival of Britain in 1951, designed to promote optimism and confidence in the future after the Second World War. Three people have been arrested after a raid on a social club in Belfast. Police said a member of the public reported a break-in at the Lamh Dhearg GFC social club on the Upper Sringfield Road in the early hours of Monday and seeing a number of people leave in a silver car. It is not known if anything was taken. Police are investigating the incident as a burglary and thanked the member of the public for reporting the incident. "Officers attended immediately," said Detective Sergeant Paddy Conlan, "and using information provided by the reporting person, stopped a silver Peugeot 307 car. "The occupants of the car, two men aged 26 and 27, and a 26-year-old woman, were subsequently arrested on suspicion of aggravated burglary and going equipped for theft. "All three remain in custody this morning assisting with our enquiries. It is unclear at this time if anything was taken from the club and our investigation is ongoing. I would like to thank the member of the public for their quick thinking and prompt actions in alerting police to this incident. I would also ask anyone who noticed any suspicious activity in the area at the time or who has any information which could assist us with our enquiries to contact detectives at Musgrave on 101 quoting reference number 75 15/04/19. "Alternatively, information can also be provided to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 which is 100% anonymous and gives people the power to speak up and stop crime. The Avoniel Play Park in east Belfast is set to be closed for "some time" after a fire in the park on Monday. Local charity Charter NI said the fire would result in the closure of the park. "How anyone could do this on the first day of Easter holidays is unbelievable," a spokesperson said on Twitter. "This park will now be closed for some time completely ruining fun for a long of young children." A Fire Service spokesperson confirmed that one appliance attended the scene and extinguished the fire on Monday evening. Police have confirmed they are investigating the incident and enquiries are ongoing. Sinn Fein deputy leader Michelle O'Neill at the launch of an Irish Unity billboard in west Belfast More than six out of 10 people in the Republic would vote in favour of a united Ireland in a referendum arising out of the current Brexit crisis, a new survey suggests. The opinion poll indicated that 62% of people across the border favour reunification, with 28% against and 10% saying they would not vote in such a poll. Read More Support for a united Ireland is spread fairly evenly, with 60% saying "yes" in Dublin, the rest of Leinster and Munster. But that figure rises to 70% in Connacht-Ulster, which includes border counties. Support is also evenly spread between men and women. Younger people, in the 18-24 age group, are most in favour with 77%. The backing slightly tails off in the older age groups. People over 65 are least enthusiastic, although support is over 50%. Research was conducted online with a sample of over 1,000 people chosen from all age groups, social class and regions. The survey was commissioned by the firm LottoLand and the question was framed in terms of unity in the aftermath of Brexit. DUP MEP Diane Dodds claimed focusing on a united Ireland was divisive and out of touch. "The people of Northern Ireland want a functioning Assembly and Executive rather than a divisive border poll," she said. "While most people want decisions made about their GPs, mental health services, schools and hospitals, Sinn Fein is focused on a united Ireland. "They are out of touch with the priorities which matter to people," she added. "Northern Ireland's future is best placed in the Union. Just look at our free NHS. Who would want to leave a health system which is free at the point of need? That's even before you consider the economic, defence, diplomatic, social, historical and cultural reasons for being part of the United Kingdom." Alliance MLA Stephen Farry, a former Stormont minister, said the key political challenge was not Irish unity, but making Northern Ireland work. "There is nothing surprising with this outcome," Mr Farry said. "People are entitled to campaign and seek different constitutional outcomes, but in all scenarios the central challenge remains how to make Northern Ireland work. "That must be the main priority for all political leaders." Meanwhile, two of the architects of the Good Friday Agreement have combined to pen a strong message to both the Conservative and Labour leaders. Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern warned that the 1998 Agreement is under threat. They also endorse a second Brexit referendum before the latest extension expires on October 31 next. "Following the Good Friday Agreement, there were two referendums. "The referendum in Northern Ireland, on the Agreement, based on facts not promises, clarity not ambiguity, received a 71% yes result," they wrote in The Guardian newspaper. "The related referendum in the Republic of Ireland achieved a 94% yes. "There is now time for a confirmatory referendum given the EU has expanded the Brexit deadline to 31 October. "It is this that must be pursued, and May should take the lead in that process," Mr Ahern and Mr Blair added. The fire has spread to one of Notre Dames two towers (AP) The structure of Notre Dame has been saved after a huge fire destroyed parts of the famous cathedral, according to a fire chief in Paris. The update came after officials earlier warned that firefighters may not be able to stop the huge blaze which tore through the cathedral. Speaking outside the cathedral, fire chief Jean-Claude Gallet had told reporters he was not sure we are capable of stopping the spreading to Notre Dames second tower and belfry, but he later said they had been successful in stopping it spreading to the northern belfry of the 850-year-old Gothic building. President Emmanuel Macron addressed crowds outside Notre Dame and pledged to rebuild the cathedral. He announced that the French government would set up a public fund to collect donations for the building works. The fire will go on for several days. I would like to thank the firefighters on behalf of the nation, he said. At this time, the worst has been avoided. Even if the building hasnt been completely destroyed, the next few hours will be difficult, but thanks to the efforts of so many, the facade has been saved. Expand Close Firefighters try to stop the blaze from damaging Notre Dames facade (Thibault Camus/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Firefighters try to stop the blaze from damaging Notre Dames facade (Thibault Camus/AP) Notre Dame is our history, our imagination, where weve lived all our great moments, and is the epicentre of our lives. Its the story of our books, our paintings. Its the cathedral for all French people, even if they have never been. But it is burning and I know this sadness will be felt by all of our citizens. Tomorrow a national subscription will be launched for people around the country to help rebuild this great Notre Dame, he said. Because thats what the French people want. That is what their history requires. Because that is our destiny. Concerns over the scale of the damage to Notre Dame came as expressions of grief were sent to Paris from around the world. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) Mr Macron earlier sent out his thoughts for all Catholics and to the French people. Notre Dame is aflame, he said. Expand Close A firefighter tackles the blaze (Francois Mori/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A firefighter tackles the blaze (Francois Mori/AP) Great emotion for the whole nation. Our thoughts go out to all Catholics and for to the French people. Like all of my fellow citizens, I am sad to see this part of us burn tonight. Notre-Dame is aflame. Great emotion for the whole nation. Our thoughts go out to all Catholics and to the French people. Like all of my fellow citizens, I am sad to see this part of us burn tonight. https://t.co/27CrJgJkJb Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) April 15, 2019 Prime Minister Theresa May sent her wishes to the French capital from her walking holiday with her husband in Wales, where she is spending the beginning of parliamentary recess. My thoughts are with the people of France tonight and with the emergency services who are fighting the terrible blaze at Notre Dame cathedral, she said. My thoughts are with the people of France tonight and with the emergency services who are fighting the terrible blaze at Notre-Dame cathedral. Theresa May (@theresa_may) April 15, 2019 Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump tweeted some advice for the Paris Fire Brigade, suggesting flying water tankers to put out the flames. The fire began on Monday evening, with first reports emerging of smoke in the cathedral shortly before 6pm. The last visitors of the day were evacuated and the Paris Fire Brigade began to fight flames which had emerged from the cathedrals roof. A French official said that while the source of the fire was unknown, it could be linked to renovation works to fix Notre Dames historic stone walls and buttresses. The fire first brought down the cathedrals 315ft (96m) spire, and has spread to one of its two towers, which form its famed frontage. Expand Close The spire of Notre Dame burned before falling completely (Thibault Camus/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The spire of Notre Dame burned before falling completely (Thibault Camus/AP) Notre Dame is one of the citys oldest and most recognisable buildings, and work began on it in 1163. The original structure was completed nearly 200 years later, in 1345, and its name literally translates to Our Lady of Paris. Some 13 million people now visit the Catholic landmark every year more than 30,000 every day on average according to its official website, and it is believed to be the most visited structure in the French capital. Its renovation works were estimated to cost around 150 million euro (130 million). Environmental protesters have threatened to bring London to a standstill as they attempt to disrupt some of the capitals busiest areas and force the Government to declare a climate emergency. Activists have pledged to block five central locations including Parliament Square in a non-violent act of resistance and rebellion that campaigners say could go on for weeks. Thousands of people will converge on Marble Arch, Oxford Circus, Waterloo Bridge, Piccadilly Circus, as well as near Parliament, peacefully blocking traffic and creating a festival of action including peoples assemblies, performances, talks, workshops and food, campaign group Extinction Rebellion said. We wish to make peace with ourselves by making peace with our neighbour Earth Dr Rowan Williams The movement, which is demanding the Government takes urgent action on climate change and wildlife declines, has received support from actress and activist Dame Emma Thompson and former archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams. Speaking at a meditation on the eve of the protests Dr Williams said humans had declared war on nature. He said: We are here tonight to declare that we do not wish to be at war. We wish to make peace with ourselves by making peace with our neighbour Earth and with our God. Thompson has previously said of the demonstrations: It is time to stand up and save our home. Expand Close Protesters aim to cause disruption in central London as part of Extinction Rebellion demonstrations (Jonathan Brady/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Protesters aim to cause disruption in central London as part of Extinction Rebellion demonstrations (Jonathan Brady/PA) Organisers said: The International Rebellion begins and Extinction Rebellion will be bringing London to a standstill for up to two weeks. They will be blocking five of the citys busiest and most iconic locations in a non-violent, peaceful act of rebellion where they invite people to join them for several days of creative, artist-led resistance. Demonstrators arrived at Londons Hyde Park on Sunday, some having journeyed to the city on foot in recent weeks from various parts of the UK for what is described as an International Rebellion. Monday will see people in at least 80 cities in more than 33 countries hold similar demonstrations on the same environmental issues, campaigners said. While organisers encouraged people to set up camp in Hyde Park overnight into Monday, they have been warned they could be breaking the law by doing so is an offence under Royal Parks legislation. A spokeswoman for The Royal Parks said Extinction Rebellion had not asked for permission to begin the protest in the park and that camping is not allowed. Police said their operational response to camping would be dependent on what if any other issues might be ongoing at the time. Scotland Yard said they have appropriate policing plans in place for the demonstrations and that officers will be used from across the force to support the public order operation during the coming weeks. Police advised people travelling around London in the coming days to allow extra time for their journey in the event of road closures and general disruption. Theresa May has been warned that Brexiteer anger will explode if she strikes a Brexit pact with Jeremy Corbyn to keep the UK closely tied to the European Union. Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage claimed the UKs democracy was under threat as he sought to build momentum for his movement ahead of the European elections. His comments came after Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt warned that Mrs May could struggle to hang on to power if she cannot get her Brexit deal through Parliament before the May 23 European poll. Mr Hunt said the total focus of ministers was to ensure the country did not have to vote in the elections to the European Parliament on May 23. Speaking during a visit to Japan, he acknowledged that the Government would be facing a very serious situation if it failed to do so. But Mr Farage, speaking at a rally in Shoreham-by-Sea, said even a Brexit deal with Labour which allowed the elections to be cancelled would not save her from a Eurosceptic backlash. He said: The only way they could be stopped is if Mrs May signed up to a deal with Mr Corbyn which kept us stuck, permanently, in a customs union and under single market rules. A message to you Prime Minister: If you think by doing that deal and cancelling the European elections that the threat of Farage and the Brexit Party will go away, you are in for a rude shock. If you betray us that much, this will explode. Expand Close Nigel Farage addressing the Brexit Party rally (Gareth Fuller/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Nigel Farage addressing the Brexit Party rally (Gareth Fuller/PA) He told his supporters: What we are now fighting for is much, much bigger than Brexit. What we are now fighting for is for the survival of the very principle of democracy in this country. Mr Farages new party was boosted by the defections of three MEPs, who followed him in shifting over from Ukip. Deputy chairman and East Midlands MEP Margot Parker, West Midlands MEP Jill Seymour and Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire MEP Jane Collins announced their resignations on Monday. Former British Chambers of Commerce director general John Longworth has also confirmed he will stand for the party in the European elections. NEW: John Longworth, former Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce is our latest candidate. Businessmen with real life experience know how to do deals. Our current political class are useless. pic.twitter.com/H6dieou5h5 Reform UK (@reformparty_uk) April 15, 2019 On the other side of the Brexit divide, the pro-EU centrist party Renew has given its backing to The Independent Group as the breakaway former Labour and Tory MPs seek to form their new party to contest the European elections. Many Tory MPs are furious that the elections may have to take place at all following the delay to Brexit. Mr Hunt acknowledged that the party could be heading for a disastrous showing at the polls if the country was required to vote. In terms of polling it certainly looks that way, he told BBC Radio 4s Today programme. Mr Hunt said it would be highly, extremely, very, very challenging for Mrs May if she was not able to get her deal through. That would be a very serious situation I dont pretend otherwise but we arent at that point, he said. He said talks with Labour aimed at finding a cross-party consensus on the way forward were proving more constructive than many at Westminster had expected. A series of working groups are being set up within the Brexit talks with Labour to look at specific issues, Downing Street said. Business Secretary Greg Clark and his Labour shadow Rebecca Long-Bailey will look at services and consumer and workers rights, Environment Secretary Michael Gove and his counterpart Sue Hayman will consider environmental protections, and Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay and Labours Sir Keir Starmer will look at security. With Parliament in recess, and Mrs May on a walking holiday in North Wales, no imminent breakthrough is expected. Expand Close Theresa May became Conservative leader and Prime Minister in 2016 (Stefan Rousseau/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Theresa May became Conservative leader and Prime Minister in 2016 (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Meanwhile, the Prime Ministers potential successors jostled for position in the Tory leadership race, with Home Secretary Sajid Javid making a high-profile speech on tackling crime which focused heavily on his personal history. Chancellor Philip Hammond mocked prominent Tory Brexiteers for engaging in a suicide pact during failed bids to beat Theresa May to the Tory leadership. Mr Hammond used a speech in the US on Friday to say Mr Gove and former foreign secretary Boris Johnson had formed an unintended suicide pact in the 2016 leadership contest, the Daily Telegraph said. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) The Chancellor said that Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom had effectively knifed herself during the race to become Prime Minister, according to the newspaper. Mr Hammond said in a speech at the British embassy in Washington DC the Tories have the joy of a leadership contest ahead. Firefighters are still at the scene of a forest blaze which broke out on Saturday evening. Emergency services were called to the scene near Loch Doon, Dalmellington, in East Ayrshire at around 6.50pm on Saturday. East Ayrshire Council said the fire affected an area of around five miles and urged people to stay away while emergency services dealt with the incident. 23:50hrs Progress being made in tackling fire in Loch Doon/Braiden area. Were on standby supporting emergency services and local community. #eastayrshire East Ayrshire (@EastAyrshire) April 14, 2019 Three fire engines went to the scene on Saturday evening and the Forestry Commission and Police Scotland were also involved in dealing with the incident. One fire engine remained at the scene on Monday morning. A rest and welfare facility was set up in the community centre in Dalmellington for any local residents affected by the fire. Ninety-six lanterns are lit on the steps of St Georges Hall in Liverpool to mark the 30th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster (Eleanor Barlow/PA) The 96 victims of the Hillsborough disaster have been remembered in Liverpool on the 30th anniversary of the tragedy. Ninety-six lanterns were lit on the steps of St Georges Hall on Monday morning to mark 30 years since the disaster at the FA Cup semi-final. Pictures of the men, women and children who lost their lives in the crush on the Leppings Lane terrace of Sheffield Wednesdays ground were displayed on banners with the words Never forgotten and flowers were laid by family members, local politicians and members of the public. Speaking outside St Georges Hall, Louise Brookes, whose brother, Andrew, died in the disaster, said: Andrew has been dead now four years longer than he was alive. Today we want to provide the city with an opportunity to be here, lay tributes and pay their respects and their thoughts to the families. I hope it gives them comfort that the city is thinking of them todayMayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson He was only 26 when he died and he had his whole future and whole life ahead of him. I really struggle with that. Expand Close Ninety-six lanterns are lit on the steps of St Georges Hall in Liverpool (Eleanor Barlow/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Ninety-six lanterns are lit on the steps of St Georges Hall in Liverpool (Eleanor Barlow/PA) Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson and Lord Mayor Christine Banks laid wreaths on behalf of the people of Liverpool. Mr Anderson said the anniversary was an emotional day and a milestone. He said: Today we want to provide the city with an opportunity to be here, lay tributes and pay their respects and their thoughts to the families. I hope it gives them comfort that the city is thinking of them today. Expand Close Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson and Lord Mayor Christine Banks stand on the steps of St Georges Hall after laying wreaths to mark the 30th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster (Eleanor Barlow/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson and Lord Mayor Christine Banks stand on the steps of St Georges Hall after laying wreaths to mark the 30th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster (Eleanor Barlow/PA) Metro mayor of the Liverpool city region Steve Rotheram, who was at the match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest on April 15 1989, said: We have never forgotten and we will never forget the 96. It will be a very raw day for those people affected, not just by the loss of a loved one but who were there, the survivors for instance, and those people who witnessed the events on the day. Its something that in my minds eye I can still conjure up images of because I was there on the day. Former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard, whose cousin, Jon-Paul Gilhooley, 10, was the youngest victim of the tragedy, was among those to pay tribute on social media. He posted a picture of the Hillsborough memorial on Twitter and wrote Never forgotten. Expand Close The city will fall silent at 3.06pm the time the match was stopped and flags will be flown at half-mast (Eleanor Barlow/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The city will fall silent at 3.06pm the time the match was stopped and flags will be flown at half-mast (Eleanor Barlow/PA) The city will fall silent at 3.06pm, the time the match was stopped, to remember the 96. Flags on civic buildings will be flown at half mast and the bells of the Town Hall will toll 96 times. Traffic going through the tunnels which link the city to the Wirral will be stopped for one minute as the silence is held and the Mersey Ferries will mark the anniversary by sounding their horns. A memorial service is due to be held at Liverpool Cathedral at 2.45pm and The Kop at Anfield will be open between 1pm and 4pm for anyone who would like to sit for a period of reflection. Plans for a public commemoration event on the steps of St Georges Hall were cancelled after a jury failed to reach a verdict in the trial of match commander David Duckenfield, who is charged with the gross negligence manslaughter of 95 of the victims. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is seeking a retrial, but it will be opposed by lawyers for the former chief superintendent at a hearing in June. Expand Close Former Sheffield Wednesday club secretary Graham Mackrell is due to be sentenced on May 13 (Owen Humphreys/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Former Sheffield Wednesday club secretary Graham Mackrell is due to be sentenced on May 13 (Owen Humphreys/PA) Former Sheffield Wednesday club secretary Graham Mackrell is due to be sentenced on May 13 after he was found guilty of failing to discharge a duty under the Health and Safety at Work Act in respect of ensuring there were enough turnstiles to prevent unduly large crowds building up outside the ground before the match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Police were called to reports of an assault outside an Aldi in Edinburgh (Peter Byrne/PA) A man is in hospital following a suspected assault outside an Aldi in Edinburgh. Emergency services were called to assist the injured man on Gilmerton Road on Sunday evening and cordoned off the area. A Police Scotland spokesman said: At around 5.15pm on Sunday 14 April, police in Edinburgh responded to reports that a man had been assaulted on Gilmerton Road. The person was taken by ambulance to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Officers remain in attendance and the road is closed between Ellens Glen Road and Moredunvale Road. The severity and cause of the mans injuries have not been confirmed, but the road remained closed by 9pm and police say their investigations are ongoing. Michelle Obama has recalled the joy she felt at seeing the Queen wearing a pin she gave her as a gift. The former US first lady spoke of her fondness for the Queen and praised her for her graciousness and wit. Mrs Obama sparked controversy when she touched the Queen on the back and has previously said that the Monarch branded royal protocol rubbish during a visit to Windsor Castle. Expand Close Mrs Obama heaped praise upon the Queen (Kirsty OConnor/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mrs Obama heaped praise upon the Queen (Kirsty OConnor/PA) Mrs Obama was asked about the Queen on the London stop of her Becoming book tour on Sunday night, and she said: Shes wonderfully warm. And funny. And shes elegant and kind and considerate in really interesting ways. I remember, I dont know if it was the first visit or the second visit, we gave her this little pin. You know, what do you give her majesty the Queen? Its like, ok, we gave her a little pin and I remember the evening of the dinner after we exchanged gifts, we were standing in line and she had on a beautiful Im sure it was covered in diamonds and a crown, and you sort of look and go all of that is real you know. You go thats nice but its all real. And in the gloriousness of that outfit that she had on she put on the little bitty pin we gave her. And I did the same thing, I was like You wore the pin, and she just said mmh hmm yes. That was my experience. That has been my experience. That kind of warmth and graciousness, and intelligence and wit. I like her. Expand Close Michelle Obama said the Queen was warm, kind and funny (Kirsty OConnor/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Michelle Obama said the Queen was warm, kind and funny (Kirsty OConnor/PA) Mrs Obama was asked if she would do anything differently on meeting the Queen again in light of accusations that she broke protocol, and she said: What is true among world leaders is that there are people who handle protocol, and usually the people theyre representing dont want all that protocol. So you wonder well who are you doing this for because they dont want it, we dont want it. But its just the way things are. So I dont know that I could have done anything differently because it was a natural human reaction. I learned over the course of my time on the international stage to see that either hold my hands together tightly or behind my back to sort of kind of just make sure I was thinking before I reacted naturally. But in that moment, no. That was absolutely the right thing to do, because it was the human thing to do. A Ukip MEP has announced she is quitting the party to join Nigel Farages new Brexit Party. West Midlands MEP Jill Seymour said that under current leader Gerard Batten, Ukip had moved to the extreme right of politics. I have tendered my resignation from UKIP, and will see out the remainder of my MEP mandate as a @brexitparty_uk representative pic.twitter.com/gVcpJp0GQ6 Jill Seymour (@JSeymourUKIP) April 15, 2019 I am not walking away from the partys original core principles, but the present partys direction means it has walked away from me, and its original membership, she said. I shall now be sitting as an officially designated Brexit Party MEP for the remainder of my mandate in the European Parliament. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) Ms Seymour, who resigned last year as the partys transport spokesman, added: No one person should ever be bigger than a political party, but sadly I believe that Mr Batten will be instrumental in its demise. Her move follows the announcement last week that the sister of leading Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, Annunziata, had left the Conservative Party to stand as a Brexit Party candidate in next months elections to the European Parliament. More than 30 homes were damaged when severe weather struck Franklin, Texas (Laura McKenzie/The Eagle via AP) Powerful storms have swept across the southern United States after unleashing suspected tornadoes and flooding that killed at least eight people, including three children. Nearly 90,000 customers were without power in Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Georgia as of midday on Sunday, as the severe weather left a trail of destruction. Two children were killed on a back road in East Texas when a pine tree fell onto the car in which they were riding in a severe thunderstorm on Saturday near Pollok, about 150 miles south east of Dallas. Updated midday Severe Weather Outlook from @NWSSPC: pic.twitter.com/chNmNDgJWG National Weather Service (@NWS) April 14, 2019 The tree flattened the car like a pancake, said Captain Alton Lenderman of the Angelina County Sheriffs Office. The children, aged eight and three, were pronounced dead at the scene, although both parents, who were in the front seat, escaped injury, he said. At least 25 people were taken to hospitals for treatment after a suspected tornado struck the Caddo Mounds State Historic Site in East Texas during a Native American cultural event in Alto, said Police Chief Jeremy Jackson. At least eight were critically hurt. There was widespread damage in Alto, a town of about 1,200, and the school district cancelled classes until its buildings can be inspected to ensure they are safe. A tornado flattened much of the south side of the central Texas town of Franklin, overturning mobile homes and damaging other residences, said Robertson County Sheriff Gerald Yezak. The weather service said preliminary information showed an EF-3 tornado touched down with winds of 140 mph. ICYMI: An EF-3 tornado has been confirmed from Saturday morning, with the town of Franklin, TX receiving the most significant damage. This information is sill preliminary, and more assessments will be completed in the coming days. #dfwwx #ctxwx pic.twitter.com/mV3xXjs9gk NWS Fort Worth (@NWSFortWorth) April 14, 2019 The tornado destroyed 55 homes, a church, four businesses, a duplex, and part of the local housing authority building, authorities said. Two people were taken to hospital for injuries that were not thought to be life-threatening, while others were treated at the scene, Mr Yezak said. Heavy rains and storms battered Mississippi into the night on Saturday as the storms moved east. A 95-year-old man died after a tree crashed onto his caravan in north eastern Mississippi, Monroe County Road Manager Sonny Clay said at a news conference, adding that a tornado had struck. Nineteen residents were taken to hospitals, including two in critical condition. A tornado was reported in the area 140 miles south east of Memphis, Tennessee, at the time. National Weather Service meteorologist John Moore said a possible twister touched down in the Vicksburg, Mississippi, area. No injuries were reported there, but officials said several businesses and vehicles were damaged. The storm damaged a roof of a hotel in New Albany, Mississippi, and Mississippi State Universitys 21,000 students huddled in basements and hallways as a tornado came near the schools campus in Starkville. Expand Close A car lies upside down in a ditch following a suspected tornado (Laura McKenzie/College Station Eagle via AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A car lies upside down in a ditch following a suspected tornado (Laura McKenzie/College Station Eagle via AP) University spokesman Sid Salter said some debris, possibly carried by the tornado, was found on campus, but no injuries were reported and no buildings were damaged. Trees were toppled and minor damage was reported in residential areas east of the campus. The large storm system also unleashed flash floods in Louisiana, where two deaths were reported. Thirteen-year-old Sebastian Omar Martinez drowned in a drainage canal after flash flooding struck Bawcomville, near Monroe, said Deputy Glenn Springfield of the Ouachita Parish Sheriffs Department. Separately, one person died when a car was submerged in floodwaters in Calhoun, also near Monroe. As the storm moved into Alabama, a possible tornado knocked out power and damaged mobile homes in Troy, about 50 miles south of Montgomery. A county employee died after being struck by a vehicle while he was helping clear away trees about 2:15am on Sunday near the Birmingham suburb of Hueytown, said Captain David Agee of the Jefferson County Sheriffs Office. The man, whose name was not released, died after being taken to a hospital. A massive fire consumed Notre-Dame Cathedral on Monday, gutting and destroying the roof of the Paris landmark and stunning France and the world, but firefighters said they had saved the shell of the stone structure from collapse. Flames that began in the early evening burst rapidly through the roof of the centuries-old cathedral and engulfed the spire, which toppled, quickly followed by the entire roof. Read More As it burned into the evening, firefighters battled to prevent one of the main bell towers from collapsing. One firefighter was seriously injured - the only reported casualty. "We now believe that the two towers of Notre-Dame have been saved," Paris fire chief Jean-Claude Gallet told reporters at the scene. "We now consider that the main structure of Notre-Dame has been saved and preserved." There was still a risk that some of the interior structures could collapse, and firefighters would work overnight to cool them down, he said. Distraught Parisians and stunned tourists gazed in disbelief as the inferno raged at the cathedral, which sits on the Ile de la Cite, an island in the River Seine and marks the very centre of Paris. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Flames and smoke rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) AP The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris following a fire which destroyed much of the building on Monday evening. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Monday April 15, 2019. See PA story FIRE NotreDame. Photo credit should read: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire PA Smoke is seen around the alter inside Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. (Philippe Wojazer/Pool via AP) AP The steeple of the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral collapses as the cathedral is engulfed in flames in central Paris on April 15, 2019. - A huge fire swept through the roof of the famed Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on April 15, 2019, sending flames and huge clouds of grey smoke billowing into the sky. The flames and smoke plumed from the spire and roof of the gothic cathedral, visited by millions of people a year. A spokesman for the cathedral told AFP that the wooden structure supporting the roof was being gutted by the blaze. (Photo by Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT / AFP) (Photo credit should read GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT/AFP/Getty Images) *** BESTPIX *** AFP/Getty Images An aerial view of the fire raging at Notre Dame Cathedral. (Photo by - / AFP)-/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Firemen inspect the Notre Dame cathedral after the fire in Paris, Tuesday, April 16, 2019. Experts are assessing the blackened shell of Paris' iconic Notre Dame cathedral to establish next steps to save what remains after a devastating fire destroyed much of the almost 900-year-old building. With the fire that broke out Monday evening and quickly consumed the cathedral now under control, attention is turning to ensuring the structural integrity of the remaining building. (AP Photo/Christophe Enaa) AP Flames and smoke are seen as the interior of the Notre-Dame Cathedral continues to burn on April 15, 2019, in the French capital Paris. - A huge fire swept through the roof of the famed Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on April 15, 2019, sending flames and huge clouds of grey smoke billowing into the sky. The flames and smoke plumed from the spire and roof of the gothic cathedral, visited by millions of people a year. A spokesman for the cathedral told AFP that the wooden structure supporting the roof was being gutted by the blaze. (Photo by PHILIPPE WOJAZER / POOL / AFP)PHILIPPE WOJAZER/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Flames rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) AP A fire fighter uses a hose as Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. A catastrophic fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris' soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) AP Flames and smoke rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) AP Firefighters tackle the blaze as flames and smoke rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) AP Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. A catastrophic fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris' soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) AP People pray as Notre Dame cathedral burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) AP Flames illuminate the night sky as Notre Dame cathedral burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) AP Firefighters use hoses as Notre Dame cathedral burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. A catastrophic fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris' soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) AP Firefighters tackle the blaze as flames and smoke rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler) AP Firefighters use hoses as Notre Dame cathedral burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. A catastrophic fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris' soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) AP A fire fighter uses a hose as Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. A catastrophic fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris' soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) AP File photo dated 01/03/15 of the North Rose stained glass window at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, France, which is feared to have been destroyed by fire. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Monday April 15, 2019. See PA story FIRE NotreDame. Photo credit should read: David Davies/PA Wire PA A fire fighter gestures as a hose as Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. A catastrophic fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris' soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) AP People watch Notre Dame cathedral burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. A catastrophic fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris' soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) AP People watch Notre Dame cathedral burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. A catastrophic fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris' soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) AP A fire fighter tackles the blaze as flames and smoke rise while Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. A catastrophic fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris' soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) AP A fire fighter tackles the blaze as flames and smoke rise while Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. A catastrophic fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris' soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) AP People watch as flames and smoke rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) AP People watch as flames and smoke rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) AP People watch as flames and smoke rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) AP (Lori Hinant/AP) AP/PA Images (AP) AP/PA Images (Thibault Camus/AP) AP/PA Images (Thibault Camus/AP) AP/PA Images (Thibault Camus/AP) AP/PA Images (Thibault Camus/AP) AP/PA Images (Lori Hinant/AP) AP/PA Images Thibault Camus/AP) AP/PA Images (Lori Hinnant/AP) AP/PA Images (Thibault Camus/AP) AP/PA Images (Michel Euler/AP) AP/PA Images Firefighters tackle the blaze at Notre Dame (Francois Mori/AP) Smoke and flames coming from the roof of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Photo credit: Ashley Huntington/Mercedes Girona/PA Wire PA Handout photo taken with permission from the twitter feed of @slopezserra of smoke pouring from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, which is on fire. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Monday April 15, 2019. See PA story FIRE NotreDame. Photo credit should read: @slopezserra/PA Wire NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used in for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder. PA Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Lori Hinant) AP Handout video grab taken from the Twitter feed of @leistomania93 of smoke and flames coming from the roof of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Monday April 15, 2019. See PA story FIRE NotreDame. Photo credit should read: @leistomania93/PA Wire NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used in for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder. PA Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Lori Hinant) AP Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Lori Hinant) AP Flames and smoke are seen billowing from the roof at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on April 15, 2019. - (Photo by Pierre Galey / AFP)PIERRE GALEY/AFP/Getty Images The steeple collapses as smoke and flames engulf the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on April 15, 2019. Photo by Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT / AFP)GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Flames and smoke rise from Notre Dame Cathedral (Michel Euler/AP) AP/PA Images Firefighters tackle the blaze at Notre Dame (Thibault Camus/AP) Crowds watch from a safe distance (Thibault Camus/AP) AP/PA Images Smoke billows from Notre Dame Cathedral (Lori Hinnant/AP) AP/PA Images Notre Dame Cathedral by the River Seine (Mike Egerton/PA) PA Archive/PA Images Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris (David Davies/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Flames and smoke rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) Thousands of onlookers lined bridges over Seine and along its embankments, held at a distance by a police cordon. World leaders expressed shock and sent condolences to the French people. President Emmanuel Macron said the whole nation was distressed. "Like all our compatriots, I am sad this evening to see this part of all of us burn," he tweeted. This is just so heartbreaking. I remember visiting the cathedral on my first school trip in 1985 and was amazed at its scale and the detail of its masonry. History has been lost tonight in a very tangible way. https://t.co/6IbKwWnWrZ Arlene Foster #WeWillMeetAgain (@ArleneFosterUK) April 15, 2019 A huge plume of smoke wafted across the city and ash fell over a large area. People watching gasped as the spire folded over onto itself and fell into the inferno. Firefighters battled smoke and falling drops of molten lead to salvage priceless artworks and relics. A centuries-old crown of thorns made from reeds and gold and the tunic worn by Saint Louis, a 13th century king of France, were saved, Notre-Dame's top administrative cleric, Monsignor Patrick Chauvet said. But firefighters had struggled to take down some of the large paintings in time, he said. The Paris prosecutor's office said it had launched an inquiry into the fire. Several police sources said that they were working on the assumption for now that it was accidental. Read More "Everything is collapsing," a police officer near the scene said as the cathedral continued to burn. Macron, who cancelled an address to the nation that he had been due to give on Monday evening, went to the scene of the blaze and talked to officials trying to contain it. The French Civil Security service, possibly responding to U.S. President Donald Trump's suggestion that firefighters "act quickly" and employ flying water tankers, said that was not an option as it might destroy the entire building. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the cathedral a "symbol of France and our European culture". British Prime Minister Theresa May said her thoughts were with the French people and emergency services fighting the "terrible blaze" The Vatican said the fire at the "symbol of Christianity in France and in the world" had caused shock and sadness and said it was praying for the firefighters. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, said at the scene that some of many artworks that were in the cathedral had been taken out and were being put in safe storage. The cathedral, which dates back to the 12th century, features in Victor Hugo's classic novel "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame". It is a UNESCO World Heritage site that attracts millions of tourists every year. It is a focal point for French Roman Catholics who like Christians around the world are celebrating Holy Week, marking the death and resurrection of Jesus. The archbishop of Paris called on all priests in Paris to ring church bells as a gesture of solidarity for Notre-Dame. "I have a lot of friends who live abroad and every time they come I tell them to go to Notre-Dame," said witness Samantha Silva, with tears in her eyes. "I've visited it so many times, but it will never be the same. It's a real symbol of Paris." The cathedral was in the midst of renovations, with some sections under scaffolding, and bronze statues were removed last week for works. Built over a century starting in 1163, Notre-Dame is considered to be among the finest examples of French Gothic cathedral architecture. It is renowned for its rib vaulting, flying buttresses and stunning stained glass windows, as well as its many carved stone gargoyles. Its 100-metre-long (330-foot) roof, of which a large section was consumed in the first hour of the blaze, was one of the oldest such structures in Paris, according to the cathedrals website. A centre of Roman Catholic faith, over the centuries Notre-Dame has also been a target of political upheaval. It was ransacked by rioting Protestant Huguenots in the 16th century, pillaged again during the French Revolution of the 1790s and left in a state of semi-neglect. Hugos 1831 work led to revived interest in the cathedral and a major partly botched restoration that began in 1844. The wood-and-lead spire was built during that restoration, according to the cathedral's website. "Notre-Dame belonged to all humanity. What a tragic spectacle," tweeted Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Union's executive Commission. "What horror. I share the French nation's sadness." Serbias state television has announced that Mirjana Markovic, the widow of former leader Slobodan Milosevic, has died in Russia. She was 76. The RTS report said Markovic died Sunday in a hospital. Milosevics SPS party sent condolences to the family. There were no officials details about the cause of death, but Serbian media said she died of pneumonia after several recent surgeries. Markovic was the leader of a neo-Communist party during Milosevics rule in Serbia in the 1990s, a coalition partner with a major influence on her husband. She fled Serbia in 2003 after Milosevic was ousted from power in a popular revolt and handed over to the UN court in The Hague, Netherlands, where he faced a genocide trial for his role in the Balkan wars of the 1990s. He died in jail there in 2006 before a verdict. After Milosevic was ousted from power in a popular revolt in 2000, Markovic was sought for questioning over the killing of Milosevics political opponents during his autocratic rule in the 1990s. In 2005, Serbian authorities asked for her extradition, but Moscow refused, saying she had been granted political asylum. Though she was never formally charged, it was widely suspected that Markovic played a role in the assassination in 1999 of prominent Belgrade newspaper editor Slavko Curuvija, who was gunned down during the NATO bombing of Serbia. Markovic had publicly accused him of supporting the military alliance attacks. A Serbian court recently convicted four ex-state security members of the murder but without saying who ordered it. She was known for her diaries published in local newspapers that often predicted future political moves and events. The former Serbian first ladys notes were written in a poetic, flowery style that contrasted with her ruthless behaviour toward her husbands political opponents. A Serbian appeals court recently overturned a one-year prison sentence for Markovic and ordered a retrial for abuse of position in 2000 for helping allocate a state-owned apartment to her grandsons nanny. Markovic had worked a professor of sociology at the University of Belgrade. She is survived by her son and a daughter. Last week I was at a brilliant and shocking international conference in London called Invisible Victims: Persecuted Believers And Western Governments. Much of the discussion was about the persecution of Christians - a deeply unfashionable issue in the UK. We're having outrage and protests in London against the Dorchester Hotel because it's owned by the Sultan of Brunei who has just introduced Sharia Law, but the issue is the legalisation of death by stoning for homosexuals. We should all oppose such barbarity, but it's depressing how rarely we see people getting so worked up in public about what is happening to religious minorities all over the world, particularly Christians. In the UK, in liberal circles, Christianity now seems to have been damned because it is the state religion and therefore something to be ashamed of. So it was no surprise that this conference was sponsored by two conservative organisations, the Budapest-based Danube Institute and London's New Culture Forum, both of which exist to promote democratic debate and to challenge cultural orthodoxies that prevent free thought and exchange of ideas. Over the past few years, when I first began to read of the religious imbalance in Syrian refugees coming here, it was difficult to find a convincing explanation. The Barnabas Fund, a charity that supports persecuted Christians, sought figures from the Home Office with a Freedom of Information request, and met what it described as "a sustained attempt by Home Office officials to avoid their release". It took an order from the Information Commissioner threatening the Home Office with contempt of court proceedings to get the information. And so we learned last year that of the 7,060 Syrian refugees the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) recommended to the UK in 2017, only 25 were Christians (0.35%), of whom only 11 were accepted. Yet Christians were over 10% of the Syrian population when the war began and they have been brutally persecuted. It was then admitted that not a single Christian was among the 1,112 Syrian refugees resettled in the UK in the first three months of 2018. All were Muslim. Liberal media inevitably reacted dismissively to the suggestion that the UK Government was discriminating against Christians and alleged the right was stirring up anti-Muslim prejudice. Did not UNHCR explain there were few Christians among Syrian refugees in their Middle Eastern refugee camps from which come the recommendations for resettlement? But the truth is that Christians avoid the UNHCR refugee camps where they get no protection from further persecution and violence from Islamists. If you want to read stunning accounts of religious persecution around the world, read this paper Lord Alton gave at the conference: (https://www.copticsolidarity.org/2019/04/10/how-indifference-to-discrimination-can-lead-to-persecution-and-outright-genocide/). David Alton has spent his life on humanitarian work, travels to terrible places, and was eloquent about what is suffered by Christians in North Korea, Sudan, China, Nigeria, Pakistan and the contemporary genocide in Iraq and Syria. "The aim is to stamp out the Christian faith wherever it is found," he said. He reminded us of "the four great murderers of the 20th century - Mao, Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot - all united by their hatred of religious faith and liberal democracy". While the 21st century has brought us vicious attacks on religious freedom in almost every corner of the world. John O'Sullivan, president of the Danube Institute, published in advance of the conference an eye-opening article (https://catholicherald.co.uk/magazine/the-persecution-trap-vulnerable-christians-are-running-out-of-allies/) highlighting how Western liberal countries - which in theory do not discriminate between religions - have in practice a tendency to favour other religions over Christianity, abroad as well as at home. The exceptions are Poland and Hungary. Among the brilliant contributions, we had a paper from a Hungarian minister, Hajnalka Juhasz, who described in fascinating detail how Hungary succeeds in helping Christian communities in the Middle East to rebuild their churches and their lives securely. But then Hungary wants to protect distinctively Christian culture and is therefore in collision with the EU Commission. What most sticks in my mind is Lord Alton's quotation from the Polish friar Maximilian Kolbe, who chose in the Auschwitz concentration camp to be starved to death to save a stranger: "The most deadly poison of our time is indifference." 'Certainly there is no publicly-listed company locally whose shareholders would not be angry and prompted to take measures against such a flagrant misuse of funds' The ratepayers in no fewer than six Northern Ireland council areas must be shaking their heads in disbelief at our revelation in today's paper that their officials spent 120,000 on attending a property investment conference in Cannes. They may have travelled by air but images of gravy trains spring to mind. The staggering amount of ratepayers' money spent on this exotic excursion is almost beyond belief. The six councils are Belfast, Antrim and Newtownabbey, Ards and North Down, Lisburn and Castlereagh, Mid and East Antrim, and Newry, Mourne and Down, and they must address basic questions about such an enormous outlay. How much "property investments" business do the councils undertake? How can they justify such expenditure? In an age of conference calls and digital networking, people will also be asking could the information the councils sought not have been sourced more inexpensively. Why is it these gatherings of "all the key international players of the real estate sector" to spend four days of "exhibition networking and transaction" never seem to take place in less glamorous locations? Local councils do have large property portfolios, but how much is held for investment? Previously, only Belfast council representatives attended this Cannes event. Could the Belfast group not just have shared its new-found expertise with the others back at home, rather than all have a jolly to the French Riviera? Last week we revealed the 20 senior council officials here receiving remuneration packages totalling more than 100,000 a year. Six were from Belfast council. Officials may argue, with some justification, that the creation in 2015 of the 11 "super councils", replacing the previous 26 councils, means they rival some of the biggest private sector organisations in terms of staff and budgets. This means they must then expect to have their activities scrutinised just as forensically. Certainly there is no publicly-listed company locally whose shareholders would not be angry and prompted to take measures against such a flagrant misuse of funds. Some may feel that because a large organization is funded by ratepayers, anything can be justified financially. Yet ratepayers themselves need to spend wisely, so why can't councils, their staff and consultants do the same? We'd all like to jet off to Cannes on business, but for most people real life is not like that. AN ex-UVF hitman has signed the nomination papers for a DUP council candidate, Sunday Life can reveal. Robert Hayes Spence, known as Bobby Spence, endorsed Belfast City Council re-election hopeful Dale Pankhurst for next month's poll. Read More Mr Pankhurst has already defended having his papers signed by Orangeman John Aughey (below), who was jailed for driving his car into a crowd of protesters at a parade in north Belfast. Mr Pankhurst said he was unaware Spence had served time in jail. In June 1988 Spence was jailed for 12 years for trying to murder republican Anthony "Booster" Hughes at his north Belfast home the previous September. He was caught in a hijacked car with a pistol, gloves and a mask which the Crown said were to be used to kill a man, later revealed to be Hughes, in Ardoyne. Three years earlier, Spence was convicted at Belfast Crown Court on the word of UVF supergrass William 'Budgie' Allen. He was found guilty of maliciously wounding a man in September 1982, possession of firearms and UVF membership and received a two- year sentence suspended for two years. Spence (61) is also the nephew of late UVF leader Gusty Spence and was once kneecapped by Shankill Butcher Lenny Murphy for disobeying orders. Last night Mr Pankhurst told Sunday Life he knew Spence was involved in the conflict but was not aware he served jail time. Expand Close Bobby Spence / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Bobby Spence "I know him as a personal friend and fellow bandsman but the past is the past," he said. "He doesn't eulogise what happened in the way republicans and Sinn Fein do and I am happy for him to sign my nomination papers." Following his release from prison Spence kept his head down until he found himself back in the headlines for defying a Parades Commission ruling. In August 2015 he and four others walked free from court with suspended sentences on 11 counts of breaching the Parades Commission determination at Twaddell Avenue in north Belfast. Spence (circled) and his fellow members of the Pride of Ardoyne flute band repeatedly flouted the ruling, which district judge Amanda Henderson described as "flagrant breaches of the law''. Expand Close Police officers treat Phoebe Clawson after she was struck by a car driven by Aughey in Ardoyne in July 2015 Photopress Belfast / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Police officers treat Phoebe Clawson after she was struck by a car driven by Aughey in Ardoyne in July 2015 Convicted along with him were Belfast men James Cosby (26) from Glenbryn Road, David Johnston (23) from Westway Crescent, David John Murphy (38) of Berwick Road, and Gary Edwin Wells (27) from Loughview Close. The court was told the sentences were suspended after references were provided for the men by local councillors and church leaders. Spence was back in court with bandmates in November 2016, again accused of breaching a Parades Commission ruling, this time outside a Catholic church in east Belfast. They were accused of defying the order by playing Simon & Garfunkel's Sound Of Silence close to St Matthew's Church in the Short Strand. Expand Close John Aughey Photopress Belfast / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp John Aughey All had the charges withdrawn after agreeing to be bound over to keep the peace for 12 months. Last week Mr Pankhurst was forced to defend shamed Orangeman John Aughey signing his nomination papers despite being jailed for running over a teenage girl in his car after a parade in July 2015. Aughey was found guilty of dangerous driving causing grievous bodily injury, assault causing actual bodily harm and assault. "John Aughey has been a long-term family friend and neighbour. I thought it nice to ask him to sign my nomination papers," said Mr Pankhurst. Last year Sunday Life reported how Mark Officer, the loyalist drug dealer who signed nomination papers for Gillian Simpson, Mr Pankhurst's running mate in the Oldpark ward, was a client of a major Catholic drug dealer. Desy Lindsay was jailed for 14 months for supplying weed and cocaine to others including Officer, who was caught with 1 million of coke belonging to the west Belfast UDA. We all have read about Jesus journey to the cross and the pain and agony he went through to save mankind. Jesus was a political nuisance and saw him as a threat, and the rabbis believed he was blasphemous calling himself the son of God. Additionally, Jesus was condemned by Pontius Pilate for rebelling against the Roman Empire, for helping the poor, chastising the greedy and the establishment. The Sadducees, who only believed the written law of Mosses--Pharisees and the chief priest also played their part in Jesus journey to the cross. Was the death of Jesus a calling, a murder, or both? The death of the Lord was predicted in the Old Testament as it was written he was despised, afflicted, rejected and led like a lamb to his slaughter, according to Isaiah 53. Zechariah also shares about Jesus death and what his ministry on earth would be. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself." This He said, signifying by what death He would die (John 12). The Bible shares in Psalm 22 that Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones-- people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing. It seems that Jesus persecutors were all part of the bigger plan. Jesus knew he was going to be betrayed, he knew Peter would deny him, and knew Judas would betray him. He knew from the foundations of the world he was brought to earth to die for mans sins. Before Abraham, Jesus said I am. In Mathew Jesus revealed to the disciples what was to come of him. He was going to be rejected by the scribes, elders, and chief priests and would be killed and rise in three days. From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. Jesus had to die to fulfill the calling to save the world from spending eternity away without God, and being killed was his sacrifice to all men. The book of Genesis contains some of the best known stories from the Christian faith. Even non-Christians in the West are likely familiar with how the snake tricked Adam and Eve and the famous line let there be light from the creation story. Almost every child has also owned a book, picture, ornament or tchotchke of some sort that depicts the animals boarding the ark two by two. Though the sanitized version of Noahs Ark is always popular with children most parents avoid discussing how everyone but Noahs family drowned skeptics and even faithful Christians have long held the belief that the story of Noahs Ark was just that, a story. Recent scientific discoveries, however, suggest that the tale of the Great Flood is rooted in historical fact and cultural tragedy. The evidence supporting the flood narrative is hard to ignore, but it went undiscovered for quite some time. The reason for that is simple. Scholars and archeologists expected to find evidence of the flood, if there was any, in the Middle East likely near the Tigris or Euphrates. The most compelling evidence for a catastrophe of biblical proportions, however, was found much farther west in the Balkans. More precisely, it was found at the bottom of the Black Sea. The Black Sea is well known to be exactly that, a landlocked body of salt water found in Eastern Europe. It is not the place most people would begin their search for the flood that forms the foundation of stories like the tale of Noahs Ark in the book of Genesis. Scientists, however, have reason to believe that the Black Sea was originally a massive freshwater lake and that its transformation into a salty sea was traumatic enough to engrave itself in the collective memory of mankind. At the end of the Ice Age, the water level of the Mediterranean Sea rose rapidly. Eventually, the extra water needed somewhere to go. That somewhere was the Black Sea. Around 7500 B.C., the waters of the Mediterranean flowed northward and shattered the thin, then-dry barrier of the Bosporus. Salt water roared into the Black Sea with a force more than 200 times that of Niagara Falls. Sediment was pushed into the Black Sea and, as the pressure from the Mediterranean only increased, the flood began to gouge the actual bedrock. Today, there is an underwater channel nearly 300 feet deep carved in the bottom of the Black Sea, and the surrounding dry land is still dangerously prone to rockslides from where the Mediterranean flood destabilized the entire area. Until the Mediterranean flooded the Black Sea, the area would have been fertile, and thus populated, farmland. The residents of the area had the horrifying experience of watching a wall of water roar toward them fast enough to bury an area the size of Manhattan under more than 2,600 feet of water. Leaving the immediate area would not have been enough either. At that time, the ocean moved inland at a rate of more than a mile per day, and the raging waters could be heard more than 100 miles away. Understandably, anyone in the area fled for their lives. At this point, archaeologists take over from geologists in order to suggest exactly what happened to the people that managed to stay in front of the flood. At this same point in history, unfamiliar people and new customs sprang up abruptly in ancient cultures spanning an area from Egypt to Paris. It is believed that these customs were brought by foreigners migrating to new areas. Those foreigners could have been refugees fleeing the flood of the Black Sea. In fact, some people have suggested that this massive flood was the reason that the Indo-European language, the original language from which almost all European and Indian languages evolved, began to break up into new and unique languages. The spread of a displaced people would also explain why flood narratives are so common. There are stories of floods in almost every culture on Earth, but those that originate in the Middle East and Mediterranean contain more similarities than one would expect to find in cultures that had limited contact with one another. These common themes, however, would make perfect sense if they were all based on the same catastrophic event. Some people would argue that the Black Sea deluge does not fit the parameters of the flood described in Genesis. The rise of the Black Sea no doubt covered a massive area of land for a single flood, but it fell far short of covering the entire world. The emphasis on the flood covering the globe, however, is not inherently consistent with the original text. Later translations of the Bible certainly suggest that the flood in Genesis covered every inch of the Earth. This is not what the Hebrew says. The word used in the Bible to describe the area covered by the flood is eretz. This is commonly translated as world, but it would be more accurate to characterize it as meaning earth, country, way and ground. As such, the flood may well have covered the earth but it would be the literal earth, as in the soil, where Noah lived. In fact, the word eretz is still used today to refer to the modern State of Israel, and anyone with access to a map knows that when it comes to physical landmass, Israel is tiny. There is no way to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Black Sea deluge is the flood referenced in one of Genesis most famous stories, but there is never any way to prove any ancient event for certain. All anyone can do is layout the best evidence they can find in order to try and make sense of the events of centuries past that mankinds collective cultural memory preserved for the ages. Jesus Was on the Cross About Six Hours Jesus final hours on the cross lasted from approximately 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., a period about six hours. The chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked Him. He saved other, they said, 'but He cant save Himself! Hes the king of Israel! Let Him come down now from the cross and we will believe in Him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue Him now if HE wants Him, for He said, I am the Son of God (Matthew 27:41-43). Answering the question of how long Jesus was on the cross is complicated by the fact that two systems of marking time are used in the Gospels. Matthew, Mark and Luke use the Jewish system of marking time. John uses the Roman System. Using the Jewish system, Mark says, They crucified Him and divided His garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified Him (Mark 15:24-25). According to this, Christs crucifixion began at 9:00 a.m. Also, using the Jewish system of marking time, Matthew says that from the sixth hour there was darkness over the land until the ninth hour (Matthew 27:45). That is, the darkness lasted from 12 noon to 3 p.m. This was Jesus final hours on the cross. Holy Week is the time from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday. Also included within Holy Week are Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Holy Week, also referred to as Passion Week is so named because of the passion with which Jesus willingly went to the cross in order to pay for the sins of His people. Holy Week is described in Matthew chapters 21-27, Mark chapters 11-15, Luke chapters 19-23 and John chapters 12-19. Holy Week begins with the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday on the back of a colt as prophesied in Zechariah 9:9. It is also referred to as Passion Week because in that time, Jesus Christ truly revealed His passion for us in the suffering He willingly went through on our behalf. As Christians, we are called during Holy Week to be passionate in our worship of Jesus and in our proclamation of the Gospel. As Jesus suffered for us, so should we be willing to suffer for the cause of following Him and proclaiming the message of His death and resurrection. Interested in learning more about Holy Week. Here are six things you may not know about the week leading up to Jesus crucifixion. Brave Nusrat died to put us on shame for tolerating injustices Thousands of women social leaders and general public were demonstrating in the streets all over the country to protest burning to death of a madrasa student Nusrat Jahan Rafi. After struggling with severe burn injuries, she breathed her last on April 10 making us all feel guilty for being inactive against the criminal gangs and the wrongs they are doing. The government also has no regrets for its inability to protect lives of others. The leaders of criminal gangs enjoying impunity for their political connection are to be stopped if protection against sex abusers is to be secured. The demand for punishment is not the way for preventing crimes. Most cases are great opportunities for some to make money. The stark truth is such criminal gangs are active all over the country committing rape, murder, extortion and other crimes. They accumulate illegal wealth. It is heard that taka five lakhs were spent to get the job done. There is no assurance that the government can take strong position against such gangs for their links with politics of the government. The OC of Sonagazi police station in Feni is a party to the impunity system and should have been made an accused. He has been transferred to protect him from public wrath. Those who are nurturing and protecting these criminal gangs should be condemned. But these gangs exist as a political adjunct and as we do not have effective political opposition, we want to see social movements growing to save Nusrats still alive but remain vulnerable. The Principal of the madrasa Siraj Ud Daula was not accused initially. But the situation forced to make the Principal accused. Nusrat was earlier threatened with dire consequences if the case was not withdrawn. But brave Nusrat refused to withdraw the case. As has come to light the police joked with her when she went to the police station to lodge the case for sexual harassment. Why police help did not come should be investigated intensely. For the sake of discipline in the police, if not for anything else, the OC of Sonagazi police station in Feni should have been punished properly. In fact there is every justification to make him an accused as an abettor to the killing of the girl student. The pro-government women rights NGOs have been slow to react and feeble in their protest. Our politics has no humanity. But a lot of social bodies came forward to express their disgust at the brutal killing. The government supported women bodies carefully shielded the government by shifting the entire blame on the police as if police are not part of the government. Negligence of the police is negligence of the government under a non-accountable government. Nusrat's cry for justice was not to attract the attention of the government or the police but to whole society that tolerates such heinous wrongs and a justice system unable to guarantee justice due to political pressure. The victims of horrors of sexual abuse hardly get publicity, not to talk of getting justice. These crimes against women have become the easiest ones. One placard carried by women protesters angrily announced their determination to avenge Nusrat's terrible killing by burning. That is the approach right in the present situation. According to information supplied by the police makes it clear that Siraj Ud Daula has been continuing his sexual harassment activities together with his gang members to the knowledge of all. He was in jail in connection with another crimes. But that did not stop him from giving order from the jail to burn Nusrat. Nusrat's cry for justice was not to the government or the police but to whole society that tolerates such wrongs and a justice system unable to guarantee justice against impunity. The pervasive fear has made us all helpless victims in our own country. Demanding justice after commission of life-threatening crimes without the government's competence to prevent crimes is farcical for saving lives. Malaysia slashed the cost of a China-backed rail construction project by about a third through a more equitable renegotiation with Beijing and avoided a potential cancelation penalty of U.S. $5 billion, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told reporters on Monday. Under the newly renegotiated East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) signed with China on April 12, the projects cost will be cut to 44 billion ringgit ($11 billion) from 65.5 billion ringgit ($16 billion) from the original agreement signed by Malaysias previous government in 2017, Mahathir said. Among other economic benefits, his government won a larger share of jobs for Malaysians who would be working on the infrastructure project, the prime minister said. The PH government was faced with the choice to either renegotiate or pay termination costs of about 21.78 billion ringgit ($5 billion), with nothing to show for it, Mahathir said during a news conference, referring to the Pakatan Harapan coalition government he leads. As such, we chose to go back to the negotiation table and call for a more equitable deal, whereby the needs of Malaysian people would be prioritized. Signing the deal in August 2017, then-Prime Minister Najib Razak, hailed the 688-km (427-mile) project spanning the states of Selangor, Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan, as a game changer for Malaysia, stating it was to be completed in 2024. It was an unjustified, hefty lump sum price which lacked clarity in terms of technical specifications, price and, by extension, economic justification, Mahathir said of the deal signed by his predecessor. Mahathir said the ECRL projects completion date had been extended to Dec.31, 2026. Construction, halted in July 2018, should resume soon. As you know, part of the work is already been done. We will continue with that work. As far as payment is concerned we will pay according to the progress of the construction, Mahathir told reporters. Mahathir said the projects main contractor, China Communications Construction Co Ltd (CCCC) would refund the Malaysian government 1 billion ringgit ($243 million) within a month. The refund is a portion of the 3.1 billion ringgit (U.S $750 million) advance payment for Phase 2 of the ECRL project. The balance will be settled within three months after deductions for verified claims due to abortive works, suspension and cancellation of the northern extension, Mahathir said. In Beijing on Friday, a Chinese government official praised the negotiations. The governments of Malaysia and China as well as the companies involved have been in close communication for the relevant project, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lu Kang said. We are glad that after friendly consultations, the two sides have reached a solution. We hope the construction of the project can be resumed at an early date for more win-win outcomes. [T]he governments and businesses of China and Malaysia have reached relevant consensus and signed an agreement in the spirit of mutual respect and equal-footed negotiation, which is conducive to both sides, Kang said in response to a follow-on question about ECRL. A journalist reads a handout on the East Coast Rail Link project distributed at a press conference in Putrajaya, Malaysia. April 15, 2019. [S. Mahfuz/BenarNews] Rail link shortened Under the new deal, the ECRL has been shortened to 648 km (402), leading to some of the cost saving. One of the sections cut was at the request of the government in Selangor state, because the original route passed through an area it seeks to have declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Finance Minister Guan Eng said. The Gombak Selangor Quartz Ridge is built entirely of quartz formed about 200 million years ago. The most spectacular part of the quartz ridge is its protruding mid-section, which encompasses Taman Melawati, National Zoo in the Ampang Jaya area and part of Selayang Municipal Area, according to UNESCO. If the rail link were allowed to go ahead, the UNESCO application would fail because natural heritage sites cannot include new infrastructure work that damages the site, he told BenarNews during a question and answer session at the Malaysian embassy in Washington on Saturday. Other benefits Along with seeing a reduction in the projects cost, Mahathir said the country should see other economic benefits as well. He announced that construction jobs for local workers would increase from the 30 percent agreed to in the original contract to 40 percent. Mahathir also announced that while last weeks agreement was explicitly for the ECRL, he expected to reach a deal to sell palm oil to China. Malaysian economist Jalilah Baba told BenarNews that the government did well in renegotiating the agreement on the rail project. It is a good outcome. Having been able to cut the cost is obviously a great move for the government. Furthermore, the project is not badly affected and is still going to go on, he said. It will also have a good impact on our financial stability and we do not owe much to the Chinese government, meaning we do not pay high interest because we did not take a huge loan. she said. Writing in Forbes magazine, economics professor Panos Mourdoukoutas praised Mahathir for saving Malaysia from a debt trap with China. The new deal is a big win for Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. He made good on his election campaign promise to renegotiate Chinas investments in the country, which served the interests of Beijing more than they served the interests of Kuala Lumpur, Mourdoukoutas said. Chinas concerns Economist Barjoyai Bardai of National University of Malaysia also rated the renegotiation as a success, saying that both countries wanted to continue with the ECRL. China wants the project because it is part of their One Belt, One Road (OBOR) project and Malaysia wants to protect its diplomatic relationship and trade with China, he said. Meanwhile, a Chinese policy expert told the New York Times that China made the deal because its OBOR efforts to link Beijing with the rest of Asia, as well as Europe and Africa by building massive highways, railways, ports and other infrastructure was hurting its reputation. Were in a period of China making tactical adjustments based on a deeply unpopular reputation, Jude Blanchette told the New York Times. This accommodation was made in context of China recognizing that the Belt and Road Initiative is less popular than China wished it was, said Blanchette, a senior adviser at Crumpton Group, which describes itself as a strategic international advisory and business development firm. Police guard a municipal gymnasium in the town of Kauswagan in Lanao del Norte province, after an improvised bomb exploded, Feb. 6, 2019. The U.S. Embassy in Manila on Monday warned citizens to be careful while traveling in the Philippines because of the possibility of terrorist activity as the mostly Catholic country prepared for a week-long Lenten break. The advisory comes a week after troops saw intense clashes against Abu Sayyaf militants linked to the Islamic State (IS) on the southern island of Jolo, where two hostages a Malaysian and Indonesian were killed in rescue attempts. The Embassy reminds U.S. citizens to exercise caution while traveling and residing in the Philippines. The holiday season is a prime time for criminal and terrorist activity, it warned in a notice. While victims can oftentimes simply be at the wrong place at the wrong time, they can also be targeted because of a perception of affluence. Any public event that draws holiday crowds can be a target for terrorist groups seeking publicity for their cause, it said. The advisory specifically asked people to keep a low profile, avoid walking in dark and isolated areas, and stay alert in locations frequented by western tourists. The new notice followed the U.S. announcement on April 9 introducing a new indicator on travel advisories focusing on the risk of kidnapping or hostage taking that named the Philippines and 34 other countries. The U.S. Department of State has no greater responsibility than the safety and welfare of Americans overseas, it said in the announcement, adding it will work closely with U.S. agencies to prevent and resolve cases of kidnapping and hostage taking. Police chief calls for calm National police chief Oscar Albayalde told reporters it was understandable for the U.S. to include the Philippines among 35 countries even as he sought to assure the public to remain calm. We cannot deny that there are kidnapping incidents, especially in the southern Philippines, where there are terrorist groups so its normal for them to issue a security advisory for our country, Albayalde said. Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano, on the other hand, questioned the latest travel warning. We do not know yet how they came up with the list, but with the strong stance of President Rodrigo Duterte against criminality in general, we see no basis for including us in this list. We will request from the U.S. Embassy what were the parameters used since even Malaysia and Russia were included, Ano said, referring to the list of 35. On Sunday, Philippine officials announced the U.S. confirmed that a senior Filipino militant, Owaida Marohombsar, whom the Philippines military officials had referred to as Humam Abdul Najib (alias Abu Dar) was killed in a March gun fight. Dar was among those who helped plan the Marawi siege that began in March 2017 and ended five months later with the deaths of the Maute brothers and Isnilon Hapilon, the overall IS regional leader. In addition, the Philippine military had reported that about two dozen pro-IS groups are actively recruiting members on the southern island of Mindanao to replenish their ranks following defeat at Marawi. The siege, the biggest and most audacious launched in the region, led to battles that killed 1,200 people, most of them militants. Several Southeast Asian IS militants, as well as fighters from the Middle East, joined the effort. Two weeks ago, a homemade bomb exploded at a packed restaurant in Isulan, a city in Sultan Kudarat province, about 1,441 km (900 miles) south of Manila, leaving one dead and 17 wounded. It was the latest attack since Jan. 27 when militants detonated two bombs at a Catholic church in Jolo, killing 23 people and wounding more than 100 others. The IS leadership claimed responsibility for the attack. Jeoffrey Maitem in Cotabato City, Philippines, contributed to this report. Moncks Corner, SC (29461) Today A mix of clouds and sun during the morning will give way to cloudy skies this afternoon. High 73F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Partly cloudy. Low 54F. Winds light and variable. Last week was a catch-up week. I've finally gotten a break in my workload, but instead of relaxing, I took care of all the little things I've let go the last couple of months and even got some yard work done. It feels great to work human hours again. I don't think I need to tell Game of Thrones fans that the new (final) season started last night, but have you been watching Discovery of Witches on AMC? If you're in the UK or get Sundance Now, you've probably already seen it. But I had to wait for it come on AMC, so I'm stuck with once-a-week viewing. I loved the books and couldn't wait to see the series. Based on the first episode, I love the way it's filmed, the actors, and how the show interprets the books. I started a print book and a digital book last week and finished two audiobooks. I'll have more on Bakhita and Tiny Hot Dogs next week, but here's what I thought of the other two. The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by Balli Kaur Jaswal (HarperAudio; 13 hr, 10 min; April 30). Even though I don't have sisters, I was fairly quickly caught up in this story of three sisters who travel to India to honor their late-mother's last request. Rajni, much older than the other two sisters, is organized and proper and maybe even a little uptight. Jezmeen, in her early 30s, is still hoping to make it big as an actress, though she's currently between jobs. Shirnia, the "good" sister, impulsively married a man she met through an online Indian dating app and moved from her native London to Melbourne, Australia. Each is hiding personal problems from her sisters. They all undertake this trip through India with mixed feelings, but they want to honor their mother's dying request that they scatter her ashes in the sacred waters of her homeland. On the surface, the novel is a light and sometimes funny sibling road trip through a country that none of them know--although when she was just a teenager, Rajini accompanied her mother on a single journey to visit relatives. Deeper layers explore mother-daughter relationships, sisters, life in India for women, Punjabi culture, aspects of Sikh religion, marriage, and other general contemporary issues. I was surprised at how strongly I connected to the sisters and sympathized with their problems. I, of course, can't speak to the authenticity of the British Punjabi experience described by Jaswal, but the story felt true to me. I listened to the audiobook for a freelance assignment. The bulk of the book was nicely performed by Soneela Nankani, who captured the sisters' different personalities and set the tone for both the humor and the more serious scenes. Deepti Gupta read the few short sections voiced by the Shergill sisters' mother. Side note: No one is more surprised than I am to discover that I'm a science-fiction fan. Seriously, I never really got into the sci-fi television series when I was kid, and though I watched the early Star Wars movies (and even copyedited a few of the novels), I never became immersed in that universe. But in the last few years, and particularly recently, I've found several series and trilogies I love, the Illuminae Files books by Annie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff among them. So when I saw they had written a new series, described as a science-fiction epic, I had to give it a try. Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (Listening Library; 11 hr, 30 min; May 7). The book opens as Tyler, the top student in the newly graduated class of cadets from Aurora Academy, rescues the only survivor from a centuries-old space ship. As a result of this act of heroism and the ensuing mandatory quarantine, Tyler misses the chance to pick his own crew for the peacekeeping, humanitarian, and diplomatic missions he's been trained to lead. The good news is that his twin sister and his lifelong best friend hold out to serve under him. The bad news is that he's stuck with three people no one else wanted. Meanwhile, Auri is revived from cryo-sleep, only to discover she's missed more than 200 years of history and is, within hours of awakening, already a person of interest. Before she can sort out friend from enemy in a world she barely recognizes, she's told by academy authorities to stow away in the cargo hold of Tyler's ship. The consequences of these acts, circumstances, and discoveries converge with universe-shattering consequences. I always like a book that is told from multiple viewpoints, and Kaufman and Kristoff do this brilliantly. The characters are fully realized, each carrying his or her own cultural and personal and familial baggage and each with a distinct personality and attitude. I liked the slow build up of trust (or not) among the crew and the way the six main characters interacted with each other. The revelation of the foundational conflict was well set up, presented a few surprises, and points to more adventures and discoveries to come as the series progresses. I'm being vague because you should learn about this universe, Auri, and Tyler's squad on your own. In fact, I recommend that you not read reviews, for fear of totally ruining the story. (Though Kirkus doesn't reveal any secrets.) Put this on your wish list in print or in audio. I'm going to find it really, really hard to wait for the next book. (review copy provided by the publisher) The audiobook is read primarily by Kim Mai Guest (Auri), Johnathan McClain (Tyler), Erin Spencer (Tyler's twin), and Candice Moll (Tyler's best friend). Lincoln Hoppe, Donnabella Mortel, Jonathan Todd Ross, and Steve West take on the other crew members and one of the handheld computers. There are no weak links here; the eight narrators kept the characters consistent and were equally adept at building tension. Good pacing and expressive performances made it hard for me to take out my earbuds. By Samantha Sharp Brian DAurelio 96, former long-haired monkey of the SICSIC spirit crew, is senior director of national promotions and events marketing at Sirius XM Radio. He has formerly worked for Emmis Communication New York, Z100 New York and Chicago Public Radio. He recently offered his best career tips and tricks to students attending his keynote speech at the annual Media Career Day hosted by the School of Media and Communication. He said that it was ironic to come back after 23 years as a guest speaker for a keynote, since his career really started at an event like it. Listening to the keynote speech of 1987 alumna Lisa Braun, former MTV marketing director, and asking her for an internship with MTV was an assertive moment for DAurelio. His MTV experience in Manhattan led him to Chicago, where he spent the first few years of his professional career working in radio promotions and on-air talent for Rock 103.5 and 97.9 The Loop. In addition to his current marketing position, He hosts a weekly four-hour show on Alt-Nation (Channel 36 on Sirius XM). He said the hands-on skills he gained from working at WBGU-FM served him well after college, because the professional environment there was similar to the professional radio stations he later worked in. One of the things that I learned is when youre in college, any professional in any industry will take your call, and will want to talk to you. Because at one point they were in your shoes, DAurelio said during the luncheon portion of Media Career Day. DAurelio stressed five distinct predictions and advice for students during his 30-minute speech, with references to The Matrix and his participation in the 1995 jock strap run WBGU-FM fundraiser. Summarizing the predictions at the conclusion of his PowerPoint presentation, he said, Convergence will continue, remember that you are a valuable resource, work hard to stay outside of bubbles, remember that the matrix is just the beginning of technology and that we need your leadership. Your life is going to be constant succession of opportunities to either do something or sit back in your bubble and stay comfortable, DAurelio said. Those that rise to the top always default to being assertive. Every moment counts: even before that day that I contacted Lisa Braun from MTV, there were many small moments of assertiveness that propelled me. He completed four internships before graduation and recommended that to stand out, students need to assert themselves and take advantage of the opportunities that are presented to them before they leave college. This advice stems from his personal experience of taking in all the tools BG had to offer and from contributing his time to WBGU-FM, BG24 News and SICSIC. Always default to saying yes to the things that will make you better. Dont hesitate because youre worried about what the masses will think. In addition, he said, You have a right to not know things, so when you walk into an organization and you dont know things, you dont have to feel stupid. You just have to ask questions. Those who ask the questions in an organization are perceived as people who get it and are going to do well. Self-motivation and believing in yourself were championed throughout his talk, as well as the idea of learning to adapt and understanding technology as it applies to media careers. He acknowledged that students taking an enticing gap year after graduation will have a difficult time job hunting, because the job market is filled with an abundance of people applying for the same jobs. When you are at school here youve got to do everything you can possibly imagine to open new doors and make new contacts, because as soon as you graduate those doors close. Gaining perspective is another crucial component to professional success, he said. During his freshman year, he thought that being a weatherman would be awesome and funny, because its just standing in front of a green screen. Instead, he was informed by his weather and climate class that being a weatherman was not that simple. He discovered that there is a great deal of math and calculations that happen before the green-screen reporting can take place. As a former college student who was skeptical of the future of the internet, DAurelio has seen lots of technological advancements like the birth of smartphones and tablets that have altered the course of his career. He advised students to maximize their ability to teach older employees new technology, because it makes their input invaluable to media organizations. If there was anything that I have learned, its that you have to put in the time and you have to get the experience, so that you can handle things when they take a turn for the worse, as opposed to just managing the good times. Richwood, TX (77531) Today Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High near 80F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight A few clouds. Low 69F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. For Immediate Release, April 15, 2019 Contact: Robin Silver, Center for Biological Diversity, (602) 799-3275, rsilver@biologicaldiversity.org Mark Larson, Maricopa Audubon, (480) 310-3261, larsonwarren@gmail.com Lawsuit Seeks New Critical Habitat for Endangered Mount Graham Red Squirrels TUCSON, Ariz. The Center for Biological Diversity and Maricopa Audubon filed a lawsuit in federal district court today to compel the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to expand critical habitat for Arizonas highly endangered Mount Graham red squirrel. The squirrels live only in the Pinaleno Mountains, an isolated sky island range in southeastern Arizona. Only about 75 remain on Earth. Their current designated critical habitat includes spruce-fir forests above 9,200 feet. But telescope construction and fires have pushed the squirrels to lower elevations, which is where they need new habitat protections. With so few Mount Graham red squirrels left, federal officials need to safeguard the last places they still live, said Robin Silver, a Center cofounder. Telescope construction and fires destroyed so many of the trees where they made their homes. These incredibly rare animals desperately need new habitat protection. In December 2017 the groups petitioned the Fish and Wildlife Service requesting that the agency expand critical habitat to include lower-elevation, mixed-conifer forests. Those forest areas were not included in the original 1990 critical habitat designation since, at that time, the great majority of squirrels occupied spruce-fir forests at the highest elevations of the mountain. The Service was required to issue a 90-day finding in response to the 2017 petition, but has failed to do so. The squirrels no longer live in the area originally designated as critical habitat because it has been destroyed by the construction of mountaintop telescopes, wildfires and fires set unnecessarily to protect the telescopes. After widespread loss of their homes to the telescopes and fire, the squirrels desperately need new habitat protection, said Mark Larson, Maricopa Audubon president. One challenge for the squirrel is that the best remaining habitat is occupied by a camp and recreational cabins that were supposed to have been removed to mitigate impacts from the telescopes, but never were. In response to a previous notice sent by the Center, the U.S. Forest Service, which issues the leases for the camp and cabins, is currently consulting with the Fish and Wildlife Service over how it can avoid violating the Endangered Species Act by jeopardizing the squirrels survival. Media Advisory, April 15, 2019 Contact: Jenny Keatinge, (805) 403-3822, jkeatinge@biologicaldiversity.org Santa Monica Rally to Focus on Protecting Wolves in California, Nationwide SANTA MONICA, Calif. Wildlife advocates in wolf masks will rally Wednesday morning in Santa Monica before a California Fish and Game Commission meeting where state officials will consider formally opposing the Trump administrations plan to end federal wolf protection across the country. The commission will take public testimony during the meeting. Wolves will never truly return home to California if Trumps plan goes through, said Jenny Keatinge, California wildlife policy specialist with the Center for Biological Diversity. Stripping federal protections from this iconic species now would contradict science, subvert the law and undermine decades of wolf recovery efforts. We hope Californias top wildlife officials take a stand against this disastrous proposal. What: Rally for wolves followed by California Fish and Game Commission meeting When: Rally at 7:45 a.m., commission meeting begins at 8:30 a.m. Where: 1855 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90403 Media availability: Volunteer activists and representatives from the Center for Biological Diversity will be available for interviews before and after the rally and public meeting. Background The Trump administration in March announced its proposal to strip Endangered Species Act protection for nearly all wolves in the lower 48 states. That would end 40 years of wolf recovery across the country and leave many wolf populations vulnerable to more hunting, trapping and poisoning. Although wolves in California would remain protected under state law, Trumps plan would end protection in neighboring states. This would leave Californias wolves isolated and vulnerable to inbreeding, essentially preventing the recovery of wolves in the state. A 2013 study found that wolves may have once been widely distributed in California and have been part of the states cultural heritage for thousands of years. They were driven to extinction in California by the mid-1920s. In late 2011 a wolf from Oregon, OR-7, entered California, beginning the return of wolves to the area. Wolves are protected under Californias Endangered Species Act. Today fewer than a dozen known wolves live in Northern California. International representatives of almost all user segments will gather at POWTECH from 9 to 11 April, when 825 exhibitors from 35 countries showcase their innovations and best practices in six halls. Trade visitors to this leading show can also look forward to numerous presentations in the exhibitor forums. For the first time, the event will feature the new Networking Campus, where start-ups, developers and young researchers will explore the markets and technologies of the future. PARTEC, the renowned international congress on particle technology, is a fitting complement to POWTECH; this year it offers a high-quality programme on the theme Particles for a better life. In its scope and diversity, the pairing of POWTECH and PARTEC makes for an event that is not to be missed by industry representatives, stresses Beate Fischer, Director of POWTECH and PARTEC. The blend of exhibition, technical presentations and networking platform goes a long way towards helping participants successfully exploit future opportunities in the various segments and adapt to tomorrows trends. The high quality of the event is not just reflected in the exhibitors but also in the first-class programme of the PARTEC Congress and the exhibitor presentations in the exhibition halls. Around 39 percent of exhibitors at this years POWTECH originate from outside Germany, with large contingents from Italy, Switzerland and the UK, but also the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and China. Germany has the strongest showing with 500 exhibitors. PARTEC programme references everyday life PARTEC, the international congress for particle technology, takes place parallel to POWTECH once again this year. More than 500 delegates from 30 countries are expected to attend. The congress is chaired by Professor Stefan Heinrich, Director of the Institute of Solids Process Engineering and Particle Technology at the Technical University of Hamburg. Under the theme Particles for a better life, the congress will present the latest research findings that help improve many aspects of our everyday lives. One such example is a retard release coating for blood pressure tablets. Six high-calibre keynote speakers cover a wide range of topics and will focus on fields of application like additive manufacturing or CO2 reduction. The speakers provide new inspiration through their insights. As well as traditional areas of application, the congress will also explore cutting-edge technologies from the life sciences and energy and environmental technology. Congress visitors can look forward to other speakers from the USA, UK, Australia and Germany. The congress is sponsored by the VDI Association of Process and Chemical Engineering (GVC) and also receives support from numerous other associations and organisations. Friedrich Loffler Prize for Young Scientists in Particle Technology Another highlight of the event is the presentation of the Friedrich Loffler Prize by the VDI-GVC on 9 April during the official opening of PARTEC. This award recognises young experts from industry or the research community who have demonstrated particular merit in the fields of particle research, particle technology and product design. On the first day of the fair, the presentation of 180 research posters will be opened and discussed. Share your knowledge and have your say at the Networking Campus The Networking Campus celebrates its premiere at this years POWTECH as an interactive think tank for Generation Future. This is where young scientists and entrepreneurs have the opportunity to present their innovations and discuss the technologies and markets of the future. In this context, the focus is on the link between disruptive technologies and process engineering. The Networking Campus features more than 30 presentations, 2 panel discussions and 17 exhibiting institutes, associations and start-ups. This new communication-fostering format brings a breath of fresh air to POWTECH and encourages intensive professional dialogue between specialists, says Beate Fischer. In the case of digital transformation, virtual reality and energy storage it is important not just to listen but to brainstorm and contribute as well, Fischer continues. Recruiting Day The issue of recruiting also gets its fair share of attention. A Jobs Board, the Dechema/VDI-GVE ProcessNet Cafe and the Recruiting Day on the third day provide opportunities for networking between potential employees and employers. Ten companies will give corporate pitches to present themselves to potential job applicants. The adjacent interview corners can be used for preliminary conversations about new job opportunities. Spotlight on explosion protection Explosion protection is high on the agenda at POWTECH. At guided tours, in daily live demonstrations under controlled conditions and in the forum programme, manufacturers showcase their solutions for avoiding accidents in production facilities. German and international developments in the areas of standardisation, research and technology in explosion protection are also covered. Exhibitor forums and special shows offer in-depth industry insights For visitors from the medicine manufacturing segment, the Pharma.Manufacturing.Excellence Forum in Hall 3, which has an English-language programme, is a major port of call. For the first time, the Forum will feature a table top display by manufacturers of pharmaceutical excipients. This means that the exhibition is complemented by scientific presentations on tablet manufacture, coating and continuous manufacturing as well as the guided tours held on the Thursday. The Forum is coordinated by the APV (International Association for Pharmaceutical Technology). The expert forum Chemicals & Food in Hall 2 puts the spotlight on dosing, explosion protection, compressed air supply and the handling of powders and bulk solids. Experts from the food sector will provide insights into Food Economy 4.0, food safety and pneumatic conveying. The same hall also accommodates the special show Dust recognises boundaries free trade doesnt organised by the VDMA Group Air Purification and Drying Technology. This is where specialists will share their expertise on efficient and safe processes for occupational and environmental safety. Authorities in Somalia should urgently investigate an attack on the privately-owned station Universal TV and hold those responsible to account, the Committee to Protect Journalists said. Traffic flows in Mogadishu's Hodan district in 2018. On March 30, 2019 armed men raided the offices of Somalia's Universal TV station. Credit: CPJ/Reuters/Feisal Omar. Ten armed individuals, including nine in police uniform, who claimed to be attached to Somalia's revenue authority, stormed the offices of Universal TV in the capital, Mogadishu, on March 30, and started shooting inside the building, according to Abdullahi Hersi Kulmiye, Universal TV's East Africa director, and a statement by the government-recognised National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ).Abdullahi and Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu, secretary general of the government-recognised NUSOJ, both told CPJ that the motive for the attack was unclear, but that they did not think it was to do with unpaid taxes. Abdullahi said that the men did not demand money. Mohamed Moalimuu told CPJ in an email, "We believe it is kind of intimidation or pressure from the commander behind the raid." The man who led the raid was in civilian clothing, they said.Abdinur Mohamed Ahmed, the director of communication at the office of the President in Somalia, told CPJ via email yesterday that the case was under investigation and "appropriate measures would be taken once investigations are complete". In a March 30 post condemning the attack on his official Facebook page, Abdinur said it was an unacceptable that it was carried out by a section of the same security forces meant to enforce the rule of law. Abdinur did not respond to CPJ's follow-up email asking if the attackers had been identified.Abdullahi told CPJ that government officials with whom he spoke, including Commissioner of Police Bashir Abdi Mohamed and Internal Security Minister Mohamed Islow Duale, denied deploying police to the station, and said they would investigate. Neither official responded to CPJ's phone calls and text messages today and yesterday."This attack on Universal TV is outrageous and an unfortunate reminder that Somali journalists cannot expect safety, even in their own offices," said CPJ's Sub-Saharan Africa representative, Muthoki Mumo. "Authorities need to guard against impunity by credibly investigating this attack and ensuring those responsible are prosecuted."Abdullahi told CPJ that he asked the armed men to leave and said he would speak to the man who identified himself as their commander but they refused and an argument ensued. The men refused to speak in Abdullahi's office or to speak with Abdullahi Hassan Bariise, a police official whom Abdullahi called and whose department covers the Ministry of Finance and revenue collection department. Abdullahi said that the police official denied deploying the men to the station and said that he would send a response team. CPJ tried to reach the police official by phone today and yesterday, but was unsuccessful.Abdullahi said that when he warned the armed men that their actions might be recorded, the leader confiscated his phone and started to shoot inside the building. Abdullahi told CPJ that most of the staff had been moved to another part of the building by the time the shooting started and that no one were injured. He said that a camera was damaged and programming was disrupted during the morning and did not resume until later in the afternoon.Military guards from the nearby presidential palace arrived at Universal TV and disarmed and detained the 10 men, according to Abdullahi and Mohamed Moalimuu, who said he arrived at the station shortly after the attack.Mohamed Moalimuu and Abdullahi told CPJ that sources in the police identified the individual who commanded the armed men and that Universal TV has filed a complaint against him at the military court in Mogadishu. The court's mandate includes prosecuting police, according to a 2014 report by Human Rights Watch. Authorities in the Comoros should stop detaining journalists and censoring the press in the wake of the disputed March 24 presidential election, the Committee to Protect Journalists said this week. Soldiers stand guard on April 2, 2019, in Moroni, the capital of the Comoros. Journalists have been detained and newspapers have been disrupted surrounding the country's recent presidential election. Credit: CPJ/AFP/Youssouf Ibrahim. Toufe Maecha, editor-in-chief of the privately owned daily Masiwa Komor, was detained by authorities and interrogated, and three newspapers have had their print runsseized following the election, according to news On March 24, incumbent President Azali Assoumani was re-elected in the Indian Ocean nation, in an election that opposition political figures have decried as illegitimate, according to news "Not only do these blatant attacks infringe on press freedom, they rob the public of important information they need during a time of crisis," said CPJ's Sub-Saharan Africa representative, Muthoki Mumo. "Comorian authorities should stop censoring the media and harassing or detaining journalists who cover political events."On March 30, gendarmes in the capital, Moroni, detained Toufe for six hours and accused him of espionage after he went to the gendarmes' station to inquire about arrests made since the election, according to media reports and a statement posted on the newspaper's Facebook page.Toufe is at least the third journalist detained in the last two months, after Abdallah Abdou Hassane and Oubeidillah Mchangama were arrested in February and remain in custody, as CPJ reported at the time.Toufe was interrogated about why he was at the gendarmes' station and forced to undress, according to an April 5 statement by the International Union of the Francophone Press, of which Toufe is the Comorian chapter president. Toufe was released without charge but was warned against talking about his experience in custody, according to the statement.In an emailed statement to CPJ, the Comoros Ministry of Foreign Affairs disputed the characterisation that Toufe was detained, saying that the journalist entered the gendarmes' station without following proper procedures and was questioned and released.Since the election, Comorian authorities have disrupted the distribution of three private newspapers, according to news reports and the International Union of the Francophone Press statement.Copies of the March 28 edition of La Gazette des Comores were seized by authorities before they could reach newsstands in response to an article covering opposition leaders disputing the election results, according to news The March 29 edition of Al-Fajr was also confiscated by authorities in response to a front-page piece headlined "La Guerre Commence" ("The War Begins") in reference to the post-election turmoil, according to an article on the paper's website.On April 1, authorities raided the printer that produces La Gazette des Comores, Al-Fajr, and Masiwa Komor and prevented the day's editions from being distributed, according to news reports . Each paper's April 1 front page featured accounts of Toufe's detention, according to those reports.On April 2, private media outlets throughout the country declared a two-week boycott of government press conferences and other events to protest the recent attacks on the press, according to French news agency RFI In its statement to CPJ, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the government had not banned critical or free reporting in the countryHowever, when questioned about Toufe's detention and the seizure of newspapers in an interview with RFI published on April 4, President Azali admitted that the headline "La Guerre Commence" had been banned by authorities, saying "we cannot allow that"."[Journalists] are first Comorians, they must think of the interest of the country," Azali said.CPJ called Mohamed Daoudou, minister for the interior and government spokesperson, but was unable to reach him. He did not respond to CPJ's text messages. This job expired on 13 May 2019. South Africa at forefront of the struggle for human rights and dignity 15. 4. 2019 / Jan Darmovzal cas cteni 3 minuty South Africa has again shown its sensitivity and determination when it comes to abuse and violations of human rights. The South African minister of International Relations Lindiwe Sisulu has announced that South Africa has initiated the so called Stage One in downgrading relations with Israel. The South African diplomatic mission to Israel will no longer operate as an embassy but merely as a liaison office. Such a decision effectively means that this liaison office will have almost no agenda except for consular services and the facilitation of people-to-people relations. South Africa at forefront of the struggle for human rights and dignity Sisulu stated that: We are in the process of following the downgrade resolution of the ruling party and stage one has been completed. Our ambassador is back in South Africa and we will not be replacing him. Our liaison office in Tel Aviv will have no political mandate, no trade mandate and no development co-operation mandate. It will not be responsible for trade and commercial activities. Sisulu went on to say that: The ANCs position in relation to Israel is very clear. We have no relations with Israel. Thats what we would like the government to adopt as soon as possible. ANC (the African National Congress), the ruling party in South Africa, adopted the decision to degrade diplomatic relations with Israel after Israel shot dozens of unarmed civilian protesters during the Great March of Return in 2018. Since the protests at Gaza border started, Israeli soldiers have intentionally shot dead more then 190 civilians including children, reporters and medical personnel who were performing their duties of assisting other injured civilians (the UN Human Rights Council report). South Africa has been long criticising Israeli apartheid policies and its human rights violations. Not without a good reason. It were theSouth Africans themselves who were living under a relentless apartheid regime for many years. Whose voice in international arena should be more regarded when speaking about apartheid than the one of South Africa? Who else knows better than the South Africans how it feels to live as a second class citizen? How it feels to go to work or school every day and to have to present a permit when leaving your own neighbourhood and how it feels to have to come back home before a certain hour to avoid punishment for being late? And last but not least how it feels to suffer and accept all these humiliating injustices in your own homeland? No other country in the world is more appropriate to speak about these things then the one that has experienced them. The Israeli ambassador to South Africa Lior Keinan said: No comment regarding South African policy making. Israel has been gravely violating the international legal order and it has institutionalized apartheid through its Nation State Law. Perhaps the only possible comment from the Israeli side could be a sincere apology for the decades of illegal occupation, tens of thousands of killed civilians and a genuine promise to abide by and respect International law in all its aspects. The world should honor and be grateful to South Africa for its courage and perseverance in fighting against injustice and apartheid. The South Africans have done something that adds value and meaning to the human race, something that shapes our characters and perception of what is right. It is something that will leave a legacy to our descendants to show them that we have always been standing on the side of justice and human dignity. The world leaders should follow the lead of South Africa in dealing with Israel. Obviously, countries have varying motivations and reasons for treating Israel they way they do and for accepting the unacceptable. But it is worth while supporting those countries which keep human rights as their top priority and which take concrete steps to protect them. 0 Manila (CNN Philippines Life) Sister Mary John Mananzan, the co-founder of womens organization Gabriela, was a political activist in the Philippines before she became a feminist. It was only when she went to a womens conference in Venice, Austria and heard discussions about incest and wife-beating that she felt the need to call herself a feminist. It dawned on me, My goodness these [abuses] are in the Philippines too, she says. [I realized] you cannot have a social transformation unless this gender question is resolved. Another known feminist, Ging Deles, who helped develop one of the first laws protecting women in the Philippines, got into feminism in the 80s. She says that she was working in the social development sector, but after meetings of bigger social development conferences, women began gathering together. Through these smaller get-togethers, it became clear how the issues of women were largely different from men, urging them to further push for womens rights. Mich Dulce, a designer and co-founder of the womens community collective Grrrl Gang, shares that she got into feminism because of music. In a previous interview with CNN Philippines Life, she said: The [feminist music movement of the 60s] was what led me to become a feminist. I was not born woke. I lived in a bubble for such a long time. Deles, Mananzan, and Dulce all call themselves feminists and yet they all had different access points to feminism. We all come from diverse contexts, so if youre looking for an entry point towards understanding the womens movement in the Philippines, heres a list of literature, films, and video discussions that you can consume: Books and zines The Woman Question in the Philippines According to Gantala Press Faye Cura, this booklet by Sr. Mary John Mananzan offers an introduction to the state of women in the Philippines. It contextualizes the oppression of Filipinas within the country's colonial/neocolonial history, she says. It [also] discusses the challenges faced by women today inequality and discrimination, gender-based violence, trafficking, and poverty, as well as Filipina women's constant efforts to overcome these through feminism and the women's movement. The Woman Question in the Philippines is available through Amazon. Daloy I and Daloy II Batis AWARE (Association of Women in Action for Rights and Empowerment) is an organization that advocates for the rights of Filipino migrant women. In 2016, together with the publishing outfit Youth and Beauty Brigade, Batis AWARE published Daloy 1, a zine that features writings of Filipino migrant women. In 2018, Batis AWARE and YBB published Daloy 2, which dives deeper into the issues of Filipino migrant women their day-to-day struggles, the abuses they face, and the continuous fight for their rights, among others. Daloy 2 is available through Gantala Press online. Centennial Crossings: Readings on Babaylan Feminism in the Philippines While there is a scarcity of recorded historical data on pre-colonial Philippines, there have been pieces of literature that reveal the central role women play during this era. A significant icon of pre-colonial Philippines is the babaylan, a healer or shaman who is usually a woman. In the book Centennial Crossings: Readings on Babaylan Feminism in the Philippines, the editors Fe Mangahas and Jenny Llaguno shine a light on how babaylanism is the inherent source of a Filipinas strength and that babaylanism may perhaps be the forebearer of the womens movement in the country. Centennial Crossings: Readings on Babaylan Feminism in the Philippines is available through Amazon. Amazons of the Huk Rebellion: Gender, Sex, and Revolution in the Philippines Written by Vina Lanzona, this book details how women in the Philippines were central to the revolution against Japanese occupation. [This] provides an in-depth narration and analysis of the life and heroism of women warriors of the Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon (Hukbalahap), says Faye Cura. [It begins] at the onset of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines until after the war has ended and the Amazons were vilified in popular imagination. A must-read for all Filipinos. Amazons of the Huk Rebellion: Gender, Sex, and Revolution in the Philippines is available through Amazon. Sarilaysay: Tinig ng 20 Babae sa Sariling Danas Bilang Manunulat The book is by Dr. Rosario Torres-Yu, a professor at the University of the Philippines, who has authored various research on Philippine literature, language, and gender studies. In this book, Torres-Yu presents 20 Filipino women writers who have made their voices heard throughout history. The book is divided in three parts: women writers before World War II (Anacleta Villacorta-Agoncillo, Liwayway Arceo, Amelia Lapena Bonifacio, Gloria Villaraza Guzman, and Genoveva Edroza Matute); women writers after the war (Lualhati Bautista, Fanny Garcia, Sol Juvida, Marra Lanot, Rosario Lucero, Elynia Mabanglo, Rosalinda Pineda-Ofreneo, Lilla Quindoza-Santiago, Aida Santos); and women writers from the 80s to the noughties (Rebecca Anonuevo, Glecy Atienza, Mayette Bayuga, Joi Barrios, Benilda Santos, and Luna Sicat). Sarilaysay: Tinig ng 20 Babae sa Sariling Danas Bilang Manunulat is available through Amazon. I Love My Body Feminist-artist Nikki Luna published this picture book primarily for children, one with a simple message: your body is yours and yours alone. In a previous interview with CNN Philippines Life, Luna said that it was important for the language to be accessible in order to reach a wide audience. I wrote it thinking that maybe some of them don't know how to read or they try or it's hard, she explained in the interview. So it has to be read easily. That even their parents can read it, who have a hard time reading. The book is also designated for marginalized groups, especially since many victims of sexual abuse who are part of these communities dont necessarily have the resources to get out of their situation. I Love My Body is available through the Power In Her Story website. Sa Ngalan ng Ina/In the Name of the Mother: 100 Years of Feminist Poetry This book was edited by poet Lilia Quindoza-Santiago. It is the first collection of Philippine poetry by women of this scale and magnitude, beginning in 1889 up to the country's centennial celebration, says Faye Cura. Containing scholarly texts on the women's movement and feminist poetry, it exposes women's participation in the grand project or ideal of nation-building or writing the nation. Super cool too because it unequivocally declares itself as a feminist collection. Sa Ngalan ng Ina/In the Name of the Mother: 100 Years of Feminist Poetry is available at the Br. Fidelis Leddy Learning Resource Center. Songs of Ourselves This is an anthology of poetry and fiction written by women writers and edited by Edna Zapanta Manlapaz. Cultural critic and writer Katrina Stuart-Santiago says of the book: This anthology is like a crash course in the multifarious voices of women, thinking and writing in a language arguably not ours, which means conversations about womanhood layered with concepts of colonialism, othering, whiteness-brownness, social class, inequality, [and] competition. Songs of Ourselves is available through Amazon. Ang Silid Na Mahiwaga Literary and art critic Soledad Reyes edited the book Ang Silid Na Mahiwaga, which is a collection of poetry and fiction written in Filipino by female writers. The mapping of the Pinay womans voice here starts with Gregoria de Jesus, which makes it a powerful and empowering anthology that reminds of the breadth and scope of experience of our women, says Stuart-Santiago. [It also discusses] the distinct traditions we are bound to in the local(e), and the historical import of hearing these voices in the language that is arguably ours. Ang Silid Na Mahiwaga is available through Anvil Publishing. How Do You Know Your Pearls Are Real? This book was written by Barbara Gonzalez. Stuart-Santiago says that the voice of Gonzalez is one thats liberating in its simplicity, its everyday analysis of what its like to be a woman who is powerful and empowered, moving from the home to the corporate world, to caring for children to being daughter herself, dealing with the patriarchy one day at a time. A reminder that all of our voices matter, as long as we are clear that some injustices are bigger than the ones we experience. How Do you Know Your Pearls Are Real? is available through Amazon. The Long Stag Party Authored by Dolores Feria, the book is said to be ahead of its time. In 1991, [it] was teaching us about the complexity of woman power, where being powerful as women and gaining positions of power as women might not necessarily mean acting for the benefit of a majority of women who have yet to be given the same kind of opportunities or choices, explains Stuart-Santiago. A necessary read, a lesson and reminder of the complexity of fighting for womens rights, while remaining conscious of our privilege. The Long Stag Party is available through Amazon. Films and videos She For She Forum: Emmeline Verzosa on The State of Filipino Women Emmeline Verzosa, the executive director of the Philippine Commission on Women, talks about various aspects of womens issues in the Philippines. She explains the participation of women in politics and how its still hindered by preconceived reproductive roles as well as the belief that politics and leadership is not part of a womans sphere. Verzosa also touches on the plight of migrant workers and how despite their being the biggest contributors of remittance, there are still rising instances of exploitation and abuse. She then reports on the rural women who are still in poverty and are still continuously under threat because of environmental disasters, affecting their food security. Feminism and social development work Feminists Patricia Cunanan, Ging Deles, Sr. Mary John Mananzan, and Karina David talk about the nexus of feminism and social development work. In this video, they discuss the unequal treatment of men and women in development programs how women do so much of the important things in various sectors and yet government programs do not necessarily support womens issues and the importance of also making men understand gender issues and the system that enables their sense of entitlement and proprietorship over women. She For She Forum: Panel discussion on feminism today in the Philippines In this forum, former Department of Social Welfare and Development Secretary Judy Taguiwalo, Philippine Commission on Womens Emmeline Verzosa, Gabriela co-founder Sr. Mary John Mananzan, and professor Mina Roces discuss the pressing obstacles on gender equality in the Philippines, womens political rights, and womens causes that need to be highlighted. They also talk about the importance of educating women, not only in terms of producing educated women but in producing women that are conscious about the struggles and oppression put upon women. Lorna This 2014 film was written and directed by Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo, with Shamaine Buencamino as its star. Stuart-Santiago says of the film: [This is about] a woman who is growing old alone but not lonely, embracing her idiosyncrasies and tragedies, ready to take risks while facing the repercussions of her decisions, standing strong in her belief in romance, while at the same time taking sex for what it is, ready to flirt with then next guy she sees, ready to be disappointed when it doesnt work out. And always, always, ready to be alone, smoke a cigarette, and read a book. Comfortable in her womanhood, content in her independence. A lesson for all women of all ages. Separada Separada was written by Tessie Tomas and directed by Chito Rono. It is sisterhood that is at the heart of this film, and it is one that resonates because the five friends are such Pinay archetypes on the one hand, but also in the course of the movie, actually break free from rules and expectations, shares critic Katrina Stuart-Santiago about the film. All the women go through their own individual struggles with love and romance, but fall back on each other, tequila shots, and a whole lot of honest banter. Its sisterhood without the cheering squad, self-care, safe spaces rhetoric of the present; instead it is slap in the face, deal with the truth, kind of sisterhood. More real and painful, but what we all need to see, if not have in our lives. Relasyon The 1982 film starring Vilma Santos was written by Raquel Villavicencio, Ricky Lee, and Ishmael Bernal, and directed by Ishmael Bernal. The kerida [played by Santos] as lead character is interesting enough, but that this particular characterization was self-aware, clear about where she stood in the bigger scheme of things, adjusting as she saw fit, re-adjusting in the face of crisis, and in the end left with not much else but photographs, is a joy to watch, shares Stuart-Santiago. It allows the woman her own story, without putting her on the defensive about the decisions shes made, and keeping her to her own laughter and tears and persona regardless of the mans presence or absence. A lesson in how we tell our own stories, and how we might view other womens lives. Broken Marriage Another Vilma Santos starrer, this 1983 film was written by Bing Caballero and Joe Carreon, and directed by Ishmael Bernal. Stuart-Santiago shares that this is about a woman struggling to keep everything together career, motherhood, marriage, independent thought one that echoes issues of woman power in the present, issues that many women continue to struggle with. The answer is simple: somethings gotta to give, compromises are necessary, and compromising need not mean a surrendering of ones power. Instead it can be a conscious, deliberate decision to choose one thing over the other, as it makes this point ahead of its time: the insistence that women must have it all can be as oppressive as denying her the right to choose. OTTAWA - Canada has formally joined a German-French coalition aimed at saving the international world order from destruction by various world dictators and autocrats and U.S. President Donald Trump. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/4/2019 (975 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland appears as a witness at a Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade at the Senate of Canada Building in Ottawa on Tuesday, April 9, 2019. Canada has added 43 additional people to its list of sanctions against those it says are cronies of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick OTTAWA - Canada has formally joined a German-French coalition aimed at saving the international world order from destruction by various world dictators and autocrats and U.S. President Donald Trump. The initiative is part of ongoing government efforts to shore up international co-operation at a time of waning American leadership and Trump's outspoken disdain of institutions created after the Second World War, including the G7, the World Trade Organization and the United Nations. Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland offered Canada's support for the Alliance for Multilateralism during a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Dinard, France earlier this month. Japan also joined the new alliance during the meeting, and Freeland marked the moment on Twitter posting a photo of herself with Jean-Yves Le Drian, Heiko Mass and Taro Kono, her French, German and Japanese counterparts. "Many of today's greatest challenges are global and they can only be solved when we work together. That is why Canada stands united with its German, French, and Japanese friends," Freeland said in the photo's caption. Freeland also avoided any direct mention of the Trump administration, as has been her approach generally in her frequent critiques of the attacks on the world's multilateral order and the need to defend against them. Le Drian and Maas appeared to dance around the fact that the United States was not a member when they formally unveiled the new alliance in early April at the United Nations. France's envoy to Canada, however, connected the initiative to Trump in a recent interview. "Mr. Trump doesn't like to value multilateralism," said Ambassador Kareen Rispal, referring to his withdrawal from the Paris climate change agreement, and his criticism of the UN and WTO. "It sends the wrong message to the world if we think that because Mr. Trump is not in favour of multilateralism, it doesn't mean we I mean countries like Canada, France, Germany and many others are not still strong believers." During testimony last week before the Senate foreign affairs committee, Freeland said that Canada joined the alliance overs concerns in the G7 over the growing threats posed by authoritarian regimes and their disinformation campaigns aimed and discrediting democracy and its institutions. She commended "G7 partners" Germany, France and Japan, but again made no mention of the U.S. "We agree that the greatest challenges of our time like climate change, income inequality, managing the power of global technology platforms, maintaining rules-based global trade and mass migration, are truly international challenges," Freeland said. "We know in order to walk the walk in supporting the rules-based international order we need to show people how essential these institutions are in our daily lives." Freeland cited Canada's participation in several other multilateral initiatives, including the Lima Group coalition on Venezuela, and ongoing support for international trade bodies and treaties. On Monday, Canada imposed sanctions on another 43 people it says are implicated in the political and economic crisis in Venezuela. The sanctions, now totalling 113, target high ranking officials in the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, including regional governors and those undermining democratic institutions, said Global Affairs Canada. The new sanctions coincided with Freeland joining her counterparts in Santiago, Chile at their 12th Lima Group meeting. The Western Hemisphere Coalition does not include the U.S., but is nonetheless aligned with the Trump administration in calling for Maduro's ouster. Canada, its Lima Group allies, and the U.S. are among approximately 50 countries that say Maduro stole his country's election last year and is no longer the legitimate leader of Venezuela. They instead recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country's interim president, and have called on the Venezuelan military to back him. Canada has excluded the U.S. from another multilateral initiative, aimed at reforming the WTO. In October, Canada hosted 13 of the WTO's more than 160 members in Ottawa for a meeting that is looking at ways to reform the world's trade referee. On Monday, Freeland's office responded to the WTO's most recent decision in its ongoing softwood lumber dispute with the U.S. Last week, the WTO issued what was essentially a split decision that upheld a controversial U.S. practice known as "zeroing" to calculate anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood. "We welcome the recent WTO panel ruling that the United States did not follow the rules in calculating its anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood lumber. The United States must bring its measures into conformity with its WTO obligations," Freeland said in a separate statement. "Canada will be appealing the WTO panels separate findings on the U.S. practice of zeroing and its use of the differential pricing methodology. The WTO has ruled more than 20 times that zeroing, a method of calculating and applying artificially high and unfair duty rates, is inconsistent with WTO rules." EDMONTON - A man who was arrested in Edmonton with the help of a citizen after allegedly lighting vehicles on fire now faces charges. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/4/2019 (975 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. EDMONTON - A man who was arrested in Edmonton with the help of a citizen after allegedly lighting vehicles on fire now faces charges. Police say no one was injured in the Friday evening incident near Whyte Avenue, but 13 vehicles were damaged. They say officers responded to multiple calls about a man who was reported to be walking around pouring fuel on vehicles and setting them on fire. In one instance, people with fire extinguishers rushed to aid a driver after liquid was poured on the hood of a vehicle from a jerry can and ignited. A suspect was arrested after he was chased and tackled by another man inside a coffee shop. Malice Sutton, who is 22, is facing various arson charges, possession of an incendiary material and assault with a weapon. Ross Lockwood, who was skateboarding with a friend in Edmonton's Whyte Avenue bar and restaurant district, said he pulled out his camera and began recording when he overheard someone exclaim that a person had just set another car on fire. "There was a man wearing dark clothing carrying a jerry can full of gasoline. He was pouring the gasoline onto and by cars parked cars but more worrying, he poured it onto the hood of an occupied vehicle," said Lockwood, who posted his video of the incident on Reddit. "The vehicle caught on fire." In the video, the man appears to hold the jerry can towards people on the sidewalk, who kept their distance. "I think a lot of people recognized just how dangerous it is to try to intervene with someone who's got a full can of gas and a lighter, and no one took real action until it was safe to do so, and that's exactly what happened," Lockwood said. The video appears to show the man walking across the street, raising his arms and throwing the jerry can into the air as his backpack falls to the pavement. He then appears to continue walking, apparently waving at pedestrians. The video then shows a person wearing a Hawaiian shirt and jeans running after the man, following him into a Starbucks, trailed by someone carrying what appeared to be a plank. "A man in a red Hawaiian shirt brought him to the ground, and after that, several others stepped in to aid the man in the red shirt and they held him until police arrived," Lockwood said. Police said in an email that they responded to a report of a male pouring fuel onto multiple vehicles and setting them on fire on Friday night. With the help of a citizen, the email said, a male suspect was taken into custody and charges are pending. Police said 13 vehicles were damaged but no one was hurt. Social media reacted to video with accolades for the man in the Hawaiian shirt. Some posts compared him to Magnum P.I. One Batman-themed meme had a picture of a spotlight shining into the air, but instead of showing a bat symbol, it had a Hawaiian shirt. Lockwood has no idea who the man was. "I have no background for the man in the red shirt, but I just want to say thank you for the actions that you took on Friday night," said Lockwood, who has turned over his video to police. SALMON ARM, B.C. - A former foster child of a British Columbia man killed at a church on the weekend is remembering the shooting victim as someone who helped him discover his potential. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/4/2019 (975 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. RCMP officers talk behind a barricade in front of the Salmon Arm Church of Christ in Salmon Arm, B.C. on Sunday, April 14, 2019.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Murray Mitchell SALMON ARM, B.C. - A former foster child of a British Columbia man killed at a church on the weekend is remembering the shooting victim as someone who helped him discover his potential. The man gunned down while attending services at the Salmon Arm Church of Christ on Sunday has been identified as Gord Parmenter who, along with his wife Peggy, had cared for foster children in the Interior B.C. community. "Gord and Peggy were more than foster parents. They treated me like their own kin," the former foster child, who can't be named, wrote in an email. "Gordon was driven by his faith and helping people was his way of serving God," the statement said. "I was a very complex case and complexity is what Gord specialized in. He helped me become who I am today, and always with a laugh." The former foster son said he wept for an hour after learning Parmenter, 78, had been killed. Salmon Arm RCMP say a second man was seriously injured in the shooting before church parishioners managed to wrestled a 25-year-old suspect to the ground and held him until police arrived. The B.C. prosecution service says Matrix Savage Gathergood was charged with first-degree murder, aggravated assault and disguise with the intent to commit an indictable offence. He appeared in court Tuesday and will next appear on April 23. The foster son said the Parmenters took him and several other foster children in over the years because Gord Parmenter had volunteered to be the emergency placement home in Salmon Arm. "This meant that he would welcome kids into his home who had nowhere else to go," said the foster son, who added some of his favourite memories of Parmenter are of spending time tinkering in the retired cabinet-maker's woodworking shop. "Woodworking was his third love. God was his first followed by his wife," said the statement, in which the foster son also remembered Parmenter for his inspirational stories that helped children deal with "heartache, disappointment and general teenage pitfalls." "Without him I never would have made it to Grade 12. I was fear-stricken at the thought of attending classes. However, I was able to reintegrate into the school system in Grade 11. I am now in my third term of college. I would not be there were it not for Gord." The statement also references a mid-March fire that severely damaged the Salmon-Arm-area trailer home owned by the Parmenters. RCMP reported at the time that the blaze was "suspicious and likely arson," but have not linked that fire to the fatal shooting. Salmon Arm Mayor Alan Harrison said the community is looking for ways to support the Parmenter family. "We're a community of under 20,000 people so people know each other here," he said. "He was certainly an elder in the congregation in his church. He was ... well known and very well respected in our community." (The Canadian Press, CHNL) OTTAWA - The national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women is fighting in court for access to two RCMP files the national police force is refusing to hand over. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/4/2019 (976 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A ceremonial fire is lit at the beginning of the National Inquiry of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Richmond, B.C., Wednesday, April, 4, 2018. The national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women is fighting in court for access to two RCMP files the national police force is refusing to hand over. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward OTTAWA - The national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women is fighting in court for access to two RCMP files the national police force is refusing to hand over. The inquiry is set to issue its long-awaited report in June, but says it wants the contested Mountie files to complete its work on one of the saddest chapters in Canada's recent history. Little is publicly known about the two disputed files other than their titles: "Missing Person: Missing Indigenous Woman" and "Homicide: Murdered Indigenous Woman." Both sides agreed to an expedited process and hope to have hearing dates on the dispute before mid-May in the Federal Court of Canada, said Catherine Kloczkowski, a spokeswoman for the inquiry. "The RCMP should have disclosed these relevant files to the National Inquiry months ago," she said. "They did not." Federal lawyers acting on behalf of the RCMP have yet to make submissions to the court. A statement from the Mounties said the RCMP makes every effort to co-operate with the inquiry, but this assistance "must not come at the expense of compromising the integrity of ongoing criminal investigations." In an April 8 notice of application outlining its case, the inquiry seeks a court order disclosing the two files to commission lawyers. As part of its mandate, the inquiry established a forensic document-review team to confidentially review police and institutional files, seeking to identify systemic barriers or other weaknesses related to the protection of Indigenous women and girls. The ultimate aim was to make recommendations about the underlying causes of disappearances, deaths and acts of violence. The inquiry issued two subpoenas last September directing the RCMP to disclose various files, according to the notice of application. In December, the police force produced written rationales claiming public-interest privilege over 59 files because the cases were still under investigation. Federal lawyers and inquiry counsel then agreed to a procedure, in keeping with the common law, to test the RCMP's claims of privilege on 12 files most keenly sought by the forensic document-review team. An RCMP investigator with knowledge of each file was interviewed by an inquiry lawyer in front of one of the inquiry's four commissioners. After the interviews, lawyers for each side made submissions. The sitting commissioner then ruled on whether public interest privilege had been established. During the interviews, which took place in January, the inquiry abandoned its challenge on one file and the government dropped its claim of privilege over another. Seven of the remaining 10 files were ordered to be turned over to the inquiry, and one was ruled to be validly withheld, leaving just the two files now at the centre of the court battle. Federal lawyers objected to their disclosure by filing certificates with the Federal Court under the Canada Evidence Act, which allows for a hearing to decide whether secrecy will prevail. The court must weigh the public interest in disclosing the two files to the inquiry against any public interest in keeping them under wraps. In its notice, the inquiry says the contested files "are no longer under active investigation" and should be given to the forensic document team. The RCMP said in its statement to The Canadian Press that the force has reviewed, assessed and disclosed a total of 23 active files to the inquiry. "In two such cases, however, the risk to ongoing investigations and future prosecutions is too high to disclose them." Kloczkowski said that upon receiving the two files, the inquiry could, under its terms of reference, use them to make recommendations or refer the contents to authorities for further action. The commissioners can pass along information to appropriate agencies if it could be used in the investigation or prosecution of Criminal Code offences, or if it points to misconduct. The commissioners have already identified a "number of cases" that appear to warrant alerting authorities, Kloczkowski said. Although the inquiry can't disclose details of those cases, the number of referred cases will be made public at the end its mandate, she added. Follow @Jim Bronskill on Twitter TORONTO - The federal government will end up with the power to regulate almost every facet of life such as when you can drive or where you can live if its law aimed at curbing harmful greenhouse gas emissions is allowed to stand, Ontario's top court heard Monday. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/4/2019 (976 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The steel mills in the Hamilton waterfront harbour are shown in Hamilton, Ont., on Tuesday, October 23, 2018. Ontario's battle against Ottawa's carbon tax gets underway in the province's top court today. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette TORONTO - The federal government will end up with the power to regulate almost every facet of life such as when you can drive or where you can live if its law aimed at curbing harmful greenhouse gas emissions is allowed to stand, Ontario's top court heard Monday. The law is so broad, a lawyer for the province said on Day 1 of a four-day Appeal Court hearing, that it would give the Ottawa powers that would destabilize Canada in the name of curbing the cumulative effects of global-warming emissions. "They could regulate where you live, how often you drive your car," Josh Hunter told the five-justice panel. "It would unbalance the federation." Hunter said Ontario's constitutional challenge to the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act was not intended as a debate on the realities or dangers of global warming. What's at stake, he said, is which level of government has the power to deal with the problem. "Which measure is the best measure the most efficient measure is best left for legislatures to decide," Hunter said. "Which legislature? That's what we're here to decide." The federal law that kicked in on April 1 imposes a charge on gasoline and other fossil fuels as well as on industrial polluters. The law applies only in provinces that have no carbon-pricing scheme that meets national standards Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick. The Liberal government, which is due to make submissions on Tuesday, insists its law is an appropriate response to the nationally important issue of climate change. The aim, the government says, is to cajole people into changing their behaviour. The justices repeatedly pressed Hunter to explain what Ottawa should do if a province doesn't want to tackle greenhouse gas emissions, thereby undermining other provinces. "When you think about air pollution, the word 'Ontario' sort of dissolves with the air," said Justice James MacPherson. "It's national and international." Hunter agreed cross-provincial solutions were needed, just not what Ottawa has put in place. "The effect is that you're regulating local industries, local land use, local heating," Hunter said. Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford has said Ontario can curb greenhouse gas emissions on its own and has already taken significant steps to do so. Those steps, Hunter told court, include shutting down coal-fired power plants a measure taken by the previous Liberal government which has sharply reduced the province's harmful emissions. "Ontario is further ahead than all the other provinces," Hunter said. "(But) none of those (steps) count toward determining whether Ontario has a stringent plan." In addition, he said, the province is developing a "made in Ontario environmental plan" that is still under consideration. Hunter also argued the law slaps a "tax" on ordinary people every time they drive to work or heat their homes. In response, the justices pointed out that Ottawa is promising to return almost all the money it collects to people in the affected provinces. Hunter, however, said the rebates via the federal climate action incentive flow to everyone in the province regardless of whether they even drive, for example. "It's not just that you get back what you give," he said. Hunter's co-counsel Padraic Ryan said even if the justices accept the law as constitutional, the charge as levied on carbon is illegal. Giving everyone a tax does not help reduce greenhouse gases, he said. "We say it is a tax that has not been authorized," Ryan said. "The charges imposed under the act are unconstitutional taxes." Fourteen interveners, including provinces such as Saskatchewan and British Columbia, Alberta Conservatives, Indigenous organizations who point out they are acutely vulnerable to global warming, as well as business and environmental groups, will get their say over the course of the hearing, which continues on Tuesday. The financial adviser credited as one of the architects in exposing the 1bn tracker mortgage scandal has insisted he will not become a member of the club when joining the newly established banking culture board. Padraic Kissane was named on the Irish Banking Culture Board (IBCB), which is funded by the five main retail banks and aims to promote an environment in which ethical behaviour is made inevitable; fair customer outcomes are achieved; and reputation for competence is rediscovered. The board was set up in the wake of the tracker scandal, which happened when almost 40,000 customers were wrongly put on more expensive loans by more than a dozen lenders. Years after the scandal, there are still customers who have not yet received their redress and compensation, which has led to vociferous criticism from politicians and consumer advocates such as Mr Kissane. More than 25,000 bank employees from AIB, Bank of Ireland, KBC Bank Ireland, Permanent TSB, and Ulster Bank were invited to participate in the employee culture survey, conducted by the UK Banking Standards Board on behalf of the new entity. Critics have voiced concern that the board, which is chaired by retired judge John Hedigan, will not be independent as it is funded by the banks and includes a number of senior banking figures on the board, such as Ulster Bank chief executive Jane Howard. However, Mr Kissane said he would not have joined if he felt the board could not have an impact in improving customer trust. If its an Irish banking culture board, consumers are central to it. I want to represent them to reflect what has happened (with the tracker mortgage scandal) because what I have seen in my office has been a disgrace. I was very impressed with the boards chairman, who I feel is in it for all the right reasons. Of course there will be knockers, but it would have been easy to sit on the fence and criticise from there. Ive been challenging these matters for so long I literally see it as continuing that journey. Hopefully, we can assist in restoring some trust because at least customers will be better informed. Mr Kissane said he would not be afraid to voice his disapproval if he felt the board was not working, and would never be a member of the club. If I was to go that route, I would have given up a lot earlier. Of course, there are concerns about the banks funding it, but the way I see it is that it is customers money that is actually paying for it. Im certainly not all of a sudden in the club and intend to represent customers, not banks. Doolin has been awarded Failte Irelands Destination Award for Excellence in Customer Service. Tourism businesses in the popular Co Clare village undertook Failte Irelands Accredited Service Excellence Programme to achieve the award. Almost 120 local tourism frontline staff across 41 local businesses completed a dedicated course of customer care training. The programme is aimed at helping tourism businesses reach the highest standards in customer care. Speaking at the presentation of the award, Dr Dean Panter, National Development Manager Hospitality Operations at Failte Ireland said: It is a marvellous achievement for Doolin to achieve the Destination Award from Failte Ireland. "Todays award substantially reinforces Doolins reputation as a destination where visitors are at the centre of everything a business does. Miriam Kennedy, Failte Irelands Head of the Wild Atlantic Way said: Tourism is our largest indigenous industry with 260,000 people employed in the sector and the importance of tourism to local communities along the Wild Atlantic Way such as Doolin cannot be underestimated. "In Doolin, the support for the training from the local business community has been overwhelming with 41 businesses getting fully behind the Programme with nearly 120 front-facing staff now trained to provide excellence in customer care. Niall Hughes, Chairperson of Doolin Tourism said it is a historic day for the village and that its community is thrilled that it has been recognised for its big heart. "Today's award for Doolin is a validation of the warmth and welcoming nature of its people, who annually host hundreds of thousand of happy visitors. "We are thrilled that our little village has been recognised for its big heart and the award is a confirmation that Doolin guarantees "best in class" customer service with a memorable stay and experience for every guest." Ten motorists accused of dodging M50 tolls were hit with fines totalling almost 100,000 today. The penalties ranging from 3,000 to 22,000 were handed down by Judge Anthony Halpin at Dublin District Court. One motorist who allegedly used Irelands busiest motorway 800 times without paying had a bench warrant issued for his arrest after he failed to turn up to for his trial. He is contesting his case and has instructed a solicitor to defend him. In all the prosecutions which resulted in the 97,000 in fines imposed today, none of the motorists who had been summonsed came to court. Cases against them went ahead in their absence. Judge Halpin imposed smaller fines on some motorists who made efforts to pay their tolls but said, The people who disregard it totally are fined heaviest, they have no regard whatsoever. In one case he adjourned he granted legal aid and said this was due to the seriousness of the offence. The barrier-free toll motorway is operated by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII). Judge Halpin said the authority was in charge of maintaining the roads and he warned, If people want to use certain roads they have to pay; if they dont, the penalties are quite high. Each case finalised today featured five sample counts and photo evidence of how many times the defendants vehicles had been detected using the motorway without paying the charge. The court heard the prosecution evidence showed the passage of the vehicles, mostly private cars, on the motorway on dates in May, August, October and November 2018, as well as proof of vehicle ownership at the time. Vehicle owners were given six months to pay the fines as well up to 350 in prosecution costs. Prosecuting counsel Thomas Rice BL (instructed by Pierse Fitzgibbon Solicitors) said a TII official had certificates of ownership as well as images of the vehicles passing the toll gantry on the M50. The court can impose fines of up to 5,000 per charge as well as a sentence of up to six months. Nicole Spellman, of 19 Kilcarrig Green, Fettercairn, Tallaght, Dublin was fined 22,000, the highest amount in the list of cases today. Judge Halpin heard she was sent about 1,300 letters in relation to 446 unpaid M50 tolls and there were no payments. Adrian Frandes, trading as Roomheat, with an address at 12 Whitechurch Close, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16 was fined 3,000. The court heard the TII would have sent him just over 600 letters about the unpaid charges. His vehicle had a history of 174 passages with no payment received. Oleg Gherman, of 63 Innisfree, Stepaside Lane, Sandyford, Dublin, had a car with history of 156 trips on the M50 with three payments, the last being on July 31. Judge Halpin heard this defendant would have been contacted by post 450 times by TII. He received fines totalling 5,000. Ronan Rattigan of 2 Templeview Avenue, Clarehall, Dublin 13 was fined 10,000 for his five sample counts. The court was told his vehicle had a history of 141 passages and no payments. Elena Ershova, with an address at The Lodge House, Killucan, Co Westmeath, was given 5,000 in fines. Her car had a history of 165 trips on the motorway with three payments and she was issued close to 500 letters. Marek Cornaga, of 75 Armagh Court, Waterville, Blanchardstown, Dublin, was also fined 5,000. The court heard his car had done 177 trips on the M50 and there were six payments. He would have received just under 500 letters about the tolls, the court heard. Mark Kealy of 13 Drumcairn Drive, Fettercairn, Tallaght, Dublin was fined 14,000. His car had a history of 198 journeys on the M50 and no payments. Judge Halpin was told the defendant would have been sent approximately 600 letters. James Gallagher, with an address at 145 Church Hill, Tullamore, Co Offaly, was the owner of a goods vehicle with a history of 447 trips on the M50 but no payments were received despite being sent 1,300 letters, the court heard. Judge Halpin ordered him to pay 19,000 in fines. Lynn McLoughlin with an address at 3564 Lakeside Park, Newbridge, Co Kildare, was fined 5,000 over five unpaid tolls in September and October. The court heard since she became the owner, her car had a history of 170 passages with six payments. Ted Purman, wIth an address at 31 Longdale Terrace, Ballymun, Dublin was fined 9,000. Judge Halpin was told this mans car had done 258 trips on the motorway but no tolls were paid even though he was sent 750 letters. The court has heard it was TIIs policy to negotiate with defendants and some cases on the list were adjourned. The registered owner of a vehicle is responsible even if they were not driving the vehicle. The standard M50 toll for an unregistered private car is 3.10 must be paid before 8pm the following day or else there is a 3 penalty for having missed the deadline. Motorists have 14 days from the date of issue to pay for the journey and the initial penalty; otherwise a further penalty of 41 is applied. After a further 56 days there is an additional penalty charge of 103 and if it remains unpaid legal proceedings follow with the possibility of a court fine of up to 5,000 as well as a jail term of six-months, or both, per offence. A young Cork woman who has been convicted of shoplifting more than 100 times was back before the court for sentencing on another spree of thefts. Judge Olann Kelleher said that he would take into consideration the background difficulties of Margaret Deasy, 30, of Cork Simon Community. However, the judge said he also had to consider the safety and welfare of shop owners and the people they employed. Deasy came before Cork District Court where she pleaded guilty to stealing goods from shops in Cork city nine times since February. Judge Kelleher said that an overall sentence of 10 months was appropriate and he jailed her for that period. As well as the thefts she admitted being threatening towards gardai and refusing to leave the scene of a disturbance when directed by gardai. Sergeant John Kelleher said that this incident occurred at Lower Oliver Plunkett Street on January 11. Sergeant Kelleher said gardai directed a group of approximately 20 people to leave the area and all of them except Margaret Deasy agreed to go. She stood in the middle of the road blocking traffic. When directed to leave the area she replied to the guards, Not a hope, go fuck yourselves, Sgt Kelleher said. Deasy had 146 previous convictions, of which 112 were for theft. She had eight for engaging in threatening behaviour. Her latest shoplifting offences between February and last Saturday afternoon saw her steal hundreds of euro worth of goods from shops in Cork city centre including Holland & Barrett, Debenhams, Marks & Spencer, Aldi at Elysian and Mr Price on North Main Street. Mr Buttimer said Deasy had consulted with him at length on Friday and indicated that she would be pleading guilty to all of the theft charges and then try to get on to a rehabilitation programme. But events overtook her as a result of further shoplifting on Saturday afternoon which caused her to be arrested and come to court in custody today. Drones should be properly integrated into traditional aviation's mapping systems to avoid potentially deadly collisions, a standards expert said. A total of 117 near-miss reports have been filed, data up to late last year showed, although none have involved fatalities. A digital world map could be created so pilots can clearly see where other craft are, James Dunthorne told a conference in Belfast. The standards director at the trade association for remotely piloted aircraft said the future was robotic. He said: "We have a good framework of regulations, we just need now aerodromes to be able to integrate drones into those areas of airspace effectively. If you have only got disparate systems how do we integrate air taxis, how do we integrate drones, how does a helicopter pilot know where a drone is when it is flying around? "These are the things where we need a single map of the world in terms of air transportation so that any particular aircraft can see any other particular aircraft." He addressed a conference on drones at the Innovation Factory in West Belfast. Before Christmas, Gatwick airport ground to a halt after reports of drone sightings. The runway at the UK's second busiest airport was closed for 33 hours, causing cancellation or delays to around 1,000 flights. Mr Dunthorne added: "What we saw at Gatwick happen was a huge amount of confusion, a lack of preparedness, there was also not the right technology installed to be able to combat these machines. Since that has happened this has raised awareness around aerodromes around the country and they have changed the way they are doing things. He said airport managers had since created emergency action plans. Managers at Heathrow shut down the airport for just over an hour rather than two days. Mr Dunthorne said: "It was clear that once they realised there was not a threat they were back up and running again." He added: "You can have as many laws and regulations out there as you want but criminals will always do criminal behaviours. "You can outlaw murder but there will always be people out there who commit murder. James Pick from COPTRZ, Niall Mulvaney from EVP, Shane Smith from Innovation Factory and Andrew Murray from EVP at a special event at the Springfield Road site in Belfast which examines the commercial potential of drone technology. Photo: Brendan Gallagher Photography/PA Wire. "Regulations will only go so far." He said they needed to improve. "There was clearly a risk from mid-air collisions from drones being flown in those areas when in the past it had been relied on the pilot to avoid those situations from happening. "Clearly with the number of near-misses that has not been sufficient. "It is clear that eyes are not good enough for avoiding collisions, every year we see countless mid-air collisions between manned aviation. "I know people personally who have died through mid-air collision through manned aviation so people's eyes are not good enough to be able to avoid collisions so what we need is a digital solution to this." - PA Four men have been arrested by gardai in connection with a shooting in Drogheda. Gardai say a number of premises were also searched as part of the investigation. Greater transparency, treating customers with fairness and maintaining the highest ethical standards will be the focus of a new board tasked with overseeing a change in banking culture. The Irish Banking Culture Board has been established to ensure a change within the banking system for staff, customers and stakeholders. A judge has ordered the arrest of both the mother and father of a young girl who did not progress into secondary school and has missed every day of first year. The parents were due to appear at Dublin District Court today accused of neglecting their childs education. The prosecution against the west Dublin couple has been brought by Tusla, the Child and Family Agency. They had been served with summonses and the prosecution had its first listing before Judge Anthony Halpin. However, the man and woman were not present when their case was called. Solicitor Stephanie O'Meara, prosecuting, told Judge Halpin the parents had been personally served with the summonses. She said their daughter had not progressed into secondary school. The child had missed 100 per cent of first year in secondary school, it was alleged. Due to the lack of engagement an application for a bench warrant was made in respect of the parents. Judge Halpin noted their non-attendance and acceded to the request to issue bench warrants for both, to have them arrested and brought before the court. A parent could be fined up to 1,000 and jailed for a month if convicted of breaking the Education (Welfare) Act for not complying with an official warning about a childs school attendance. It is alleged the mother and father contravened a school attendance notice sent earlier. The notice is a warning that legal action would follow if a child did not attend school regularly. Before doing this, the Child and Family Agency's educational welfare services must make reasonable efforts to consult with the parents and the child. Under the Act the minimum school leaving age was raised to 16 years or the completion of three years of post-primary education. Meanwhile, two other truancy-related prosecutions against parents were adjourned today by Judge Halpin who noted they needed time to obtain legal representation. Mary Lowry's evidence against Patrick Quirke was "a piece of the most devious poison that has been delivered across the face of the Central Criminal Court for many a year," defence lawyers have told the jury in the love triangle murder trial. On day two of the defence closing speech Bernard Condon SC said Ms Lowry was manipulative, told lies and put a spin on her evidence as he detailed what he told the six men and six women is evidence of her attempts to "rewrite history". Mr Quirke, 50, of Breanshamore, Co Tipperary has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Bobby Ryan, a part-time DJ known as Mr Moonlight. Mr Ryan went missing on June 3, 2011 after leaving his girlfriend Mary Lowry's home at about 6.30am. His body was found in an underground run-off tank on the farm owned by Ms Lowry and leased by the accused at Fawnagown, Tipperary 22 months later in April 2013. The prosecution has claimed Mr Quirke murdered Mr Ryan so he could rekindle an affair with Ms Lowry, 52. Mary Lowry tried to do a "devious" thing, Mr Condon said, when she gave evidence about seeing Mr Quirke on the day Mr Ryan went missing. Ms Lowry was interviewed in June 2011 and told gardai that she saw Mr Quirke at about 8.30am on her driveway that Friday morning. She said Mr Quirke would be coming and going at all times and she knew he was going away that weekend and probably wanted to get a few jobs done before setting off. In a statement in 2013, following the discovery of the body, she said she didn't know Mr Quirke was going away, that it was unusual for him to be there so early and that she noted he was "hot and sweaty and bothered looking". Mr Condon said she told this to a jury that is being asked to convict a man of the most serious offence of murder and added: "That was a piece of the most devious poison that has been delivered across the face of the Central Criminal Court for many a year." In cross-examination Ms Lowry denied telling lies and said she can't remember what she said seven years ago and added: "I speak the truth to what my memory is." Mr Condon said that Ms Lowry was trying to put something into the juror's minds that there is something "nefarious" going on with Mr Quirke and asked, "why is she doing that?" He said it was worrying and "worthy of very serious concern. What is going on here?" Counsel said she had sworn to tell the truth and asked: What was she trying to do and why was she trying to do it? Mr Condon opened by telling the jury to consider the quality, not the quantity of the evidence they have heard. Much of it, he said, relied on Mary Lowry and even if proven true, would say nothing about murder but suggest she was in a relationship with Pat Quirke that was at different times good, bad, and indifferent. The end of the relationship was bitter and petty, like many relationships when they break up. Ms Lowry's first attempt to revise history, he said, was when she said that the accused was not good friends with her late husband Martin Lowry. All the evidence, counsel said, states otherwise. In the witness box, she described her affair with Mr Quirke as "sordid" but Mr Condon asked if this was just her talking with hindsight, looking back on something she now regrets and trying to put herself in the best light possible. She had also said that she was "controlled" by Mr Quirke but, Mr Condon said, this is based only on Ms Lowry's unsupported evidence. He asked them to consider the statement made to gardai by her brother Eddie Quigley in which he said he told Patrick Quirke: "Mary will make up her own mind and you and me won't change that." That, Mr Condon said, is a very different view of Mary Lowry to the "naive or vulnerable person she seeks to put across". She was, counsel said, "about the business of manipulation. She was manipulative." Bobby Ryan He further asked whether the episode when she gave out to Bobby Ryan for five hours travelling back from Bundoran because he had spent the previous night dancing and talking to another woman was evidence that Ms Lowry was controlled or controlling. She had made light of it, Mr Condon said, telling the jury that his ear must have been "reddened". But Mr Condon reminded them that Bobby Ryan's response was to suggest that they end the relationship. She lied in her account of what happened in Bundoran, Mr Condon said. Firstly, she told gardai that Bobby wasn't feeling well and didn't want to dance. When he went to the toilet she started dancing with another man and when she came back Bobby was dancing with another woman and spent hours chatting to her. In her evidence to the jury, Mr Condon said, she said she asked Bobby's permission to dance with another man and he said it was fine. This, he said, was a very specific detail and an "out and out lie". She had also changed her story, counsel said, from saying that Bobby had met the woman the night before to saying this was a woman he knew from years ago and they were just chatting about old times and therefore there was no problem. If she can't give a coherent story about this incident Mr Condon asked the jury how can they believe what she says about Patrick Quirke. He further reminded the jury that following the trip to Bundoran Ms Lowry said she was "fuming" and "raging" with Bobby. He asked them to consider that the prosecution made much of Patrick Quirke saying he was angry when he found out that Mary was seeing Bobby but here was Mary Lowry saying similar things in the context of a relationship. "So what," he said, adding: "There's not a lot of weight you can attach to those kind of words and you have to be careful." He dubbed as a "tabloid headline" a phrase used by gardai that Mr Quirke had "sex on demand and cash on demand" from Mary Lowry. Mr Condon said there was no suggestion he had sex on demand. This was, he said, a consenting relationship between adults. He said Mr Quirke had been coherent and consistent through many hours of questioning by gardai who engaged in "nods and winks" in their questioning. There is also nothing wrong, he said, with the financial relationship between Mr Quirke and Ms Lowry. Ms Lowry also stated that she was assaulted by Mr Quirke in late 2010 or early 2011 when he was asking her for compensation after his herd was infected by a cow from Ms Lowry's late husband's herd. Mr Condon said you would never be able to convict Mr Quirke if this were an allegation in court. Patrick Quirke He further reminded the jury that Ms Lowry would later tell gardai, in the days after Mr Ryan's disappearance, that Patrick Quirke would have your best interests at heart and that she "always got on fine" with him. He told the jury that if she was assaulted by Mr Quirke then she was lying to gardai when she said she always got on fine with him. When confronted with this during cross-examination Ms Lowry said she was assaulted and she did not lie. Mr Condon said this was a person capable of saying "black is white" and much of what the prosecution used to suggest that Patrick Quirke was a "bad person" was based on her evidence. The jury, Mr Condon said, is entitled to the "unvarnished truth", not spin. Ms Lowry was the "base line fuel" that the prosecution was using to push their case but she is "very very wanting" Mr Condon said. He reminded the jury of the evidence of Ms Lowry regarding the day of Bobby's disappearance. He arrived at her house on June 2, 2011 some time after 9pm. The following morning they awoke at 6 or 6.15am and he left at about 6.30am. She said there was a delay in Mr Ryan's van crossing the cattle grid at the end of her drive but she couldn't be clear as to how long it took. Mary Lowry He said the prosecution wants the jury to believe this was the time in which Mr Ryan was killed but questioned how, on a June morning in the countryside, nobody heard anything. Rita Lowry, Mary's mother-in-law and Mary had their windows open, he said. Going into the financial relationship, Mr Condon said there was an attempt to use hindsight to adopt the most negative inferences possible around the fact that Ms Lowry left 100,000 to the Quirkes in her will to help with expenses relating to her children. This was done, he said, with a solicitor and was a normal thing to do considering Imelda Quirke is aunt to Ms Lowry's children and they live nearby. He said there was also nothing unusual in the rental situation at Fawnagowan or in the fact that Mr Quirke received Single Farm Payments from the EU. The trial heard that in 2011 Mr Quirke called Tusla, the child and family agency, and claimed that Ms Lowry was neglecting her children. Mr Condon said the jury could say this was "badness" but he added there is evidence to support Mr Quirke having some concerns for and interest in Ms Lowry's children. He said this evidence is "of a piece" with relationship break downs and doesn't prove murder. Mr Condon will continue his speech to the jury tomorrow in front of Justice Eileen Creedon. A new website has been set up to support families grieving the loss of a baby. The first-of-its-kind website in Ireland was launched by the INFANT Centre at University College Cork in partnership with the Irish Hospice Foundation. Pregnancyandinfantloss.ie will offer the latest research into the cause of baby loss while promoting emotional well-being and offer details on how to access the appropriate support services. Pregnancy loss is the most common complication of pregnancy. Dr Keelin ODonoghue, Consultant Obstetrician at Cork University Maternity Hospital and Principal Investigator at INFANT - which Irelands only dedicated perinatal research centre - said the website will help raise awareness. "The website is a step forward in our commitment to consistent quality care for parents, as well as education and support for maternity staff while raising awareness of pregnancy loss and recognising its wide impact," said Dr ODonoghue. The website is an initiative of the Implementation Group for the National Standards for Bereavement Care Following Pregnancy Loss and Perinatal Death. The programme of implementation of the Standards was led by Dr ODonoghue and HSE Programme Manager Riona Cotter. The Standards, launched in August 2016, defined the care parents and families should receive following a pregnancy loss or perinatal death in all Irish maternity hospitals. Professor Geraldine Boylan, INFANT Director, said: "This is an example of the excellent resources available through the INFANT centre at UCC that have a real-world impact and will make a difference to grieving parents and families." Irish Hospice Foundation CEO Sharon Foley added that they were very proud to support the website. "The loss of a child is devastating to any parent," said Ms Foley. "Grieving parents should be able to access sensitive and consistent bereavement care at every stage of their journey and in every location throughout Ireland. "Maternity hospitals play a vital role in supporting parents whose child dies following pregnancy and post birth. "It is vital we support staff with tools and information which will equip them to give this bereavement care to parents. "This new website will play a major role, I believe, in providing vital information to parents and staff following pregnancy and perinatal death in our hospitals." - pregnancyandinfantloss.ie Energy Minister Richard Bruton is open to considering annual hikes in carbon taxes and confirms that upward changes to the levy will be considered for the 2020 budget. He said it is a matter for the Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe but that it is a trajectory that he and the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had said should be put in place. A woman in Pakistan who had allegedly been gang-raped has accused a police officer investigating her case of raping her. The woman from the city of Uch Sharif claims that she registered her gang-rape case three months previously and it was given to an officer from the Ahmedpur East Saddar police station. Paris, TX (75460) Today Scattered thunderstorms this morning, then cloudy skies this afternoon. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. High around 70F. SW winds shifting to N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms this evening becoming more widespread overnight. Low 58F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%. An Italian man accused of raping a British teenager on a Mediterranean cruise has been released without charge by Spanish authorities because of a legal loophole. The 17-year-old girl was travelling with her parents on the MSC Divina when her alleged attacker, an 18-year-old, forced her into his cabin in the early hours of Thursday morning. But the suspect was freed after a judge ruled he did not have jurisdiction over a case committed on a Panama-registered vessel in international waters by an Italian against a British person. The incident took place when the vessel was in international waters halfway between Mallorca and Valencia, Spanish newspaper Levante EMV reported. The complainant was examined both on board the vessel, which is operated by MSC Cruises, and by medics at Le Fey hospital when it docked at Valencia. The cabin was also examined by forensic officers and the complainant's clothing taken for analysis, while the suspect was arrested after he returned from sightseeing in Valencia. Police investigated whether the suspect had an address in Spain, which would have given the Spanish authorities the power to deal with the case. The vessel departed Valencia for Marseille at about 4.15pm on Thursday afternoon with the complainant and her family but without the suspect who was still being held by the Spanish authorities. Although the suspect has been freed, the forensic investigation is ongoing and the forensic samples and clothing are being processed by the Legal Medicine Institute of Valencia, Levante EMV said. A spokesman for MSC Cruises said: "As there is an ongoing investigation, we are unable to provide any additional comment on this matter." He added: "Our company is fully cooperating with the authorities overseeing this investigation, but is not itself in any way subject to it." A spokeswoman for the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: "Our consular staff are providing support and assistance to a British woman and her family following an incident on board a cruise ship." The MSC Divina has 1,750 cabins and can carry 4,345 guests. MSC Cruises states on its website that the ship's design was inspired by Italian actress Sophia Loren. Latest: The structure of Notre Dame has been saved after a huge fire destroyed parts of the famous cathedral, according to a fire chief in Paris. The update came after officials earlier warned that firefighters may not be able to stop the huge blaze which tore through the cathedral. Speaking outside the cathedral, fire chief Jean-Claude Gallet had told reporters he was not sure we are capable of stopping the spreading to Notre Dames second tower and belfry, but he later said they had been successful in stopping it spreading to the northern belfry of the 850-year-old Gothic building. Speaking at the scene, French President Emmanuel Macron pledged to rebuild Notre Dame, and said he will seek international help to do so. I say to you very solemnly this evening, this cathedral will be rebuilt. He thanked the fire fighters who worked "with extreme courage" over the course of the evening to fight the blaze and who would continue to do so. He said that "the worst has been avoided but the battle hasn't been won yet". The fire began on Monday evening, with first reports emerging of smoke in the cathedral shortly before 6pm. The last visitors of the day were evacuated and the Paris Fire Brigade began to fight flames which had emerged from the cathedrals roof. A French official said that while the source of the fire was unknown, it could be linked to renovation works to fix Notre Dames historic stone walls and buttresses. The fire first brought down the cathedrals 315ft (96m) spire, and has spread to one of its two towers, which form its famed frontage. Notre Dame is one of the citys oldest and most recognisable buildings, and work began on it in 1163. The original structure was completed nearly 200 years later, in 1345, and its name literally translates to Our Lady of Paris. Some 13 million people now visit the Catholic landmark every year more than 30,000 every day on average according to its official website, and it is believed to be the most visited structure in the French capital. The renovation works were estimated to cost around 150 million. (PA Graphics) Notre Dame fire: Fire chief 'not sure' they can stop blaze from spreading Update 9.30pm: The Paris fire chief said it is unclear if city firefighters will be able to keep the blaze at the Notre Dame cathedral from spreading and causing more destruction. Earlier this evening, a catastrophic fire engulfed the world-famous cathedral, toppling its spire and threatening the entire wooden frame of the building. Firefighters douse flames rising from the roof at Notre-Dame Cathedral. Picture: Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images Jean-Claude Gallet, speaking outside the cathedral, said "we are not sure we are capable of stopping the spreading" to Notre Dame's second tower and belfry. He said: "If it collapses, you can imagine how important the damage will be." French President Emmanuel Macron is at the scene of the Notre Dame Cathedral fire, and is meeting senior police officers. A firefighter tackles the blaze as flames and smoke rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler) 'Our Lady of Paris in flames': World reacts as fire engulfs Notre Dame cathedral Update 8.30pm: A catastrophic fire has engulfed the world-famous Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, toppling its spire and threatening the entire wooden frame of the building. French President Emmanuel Macron has arrived at the scene of the Notre Dame Cathedral fire, and is meeting senior police officers. He tweeted earlier: "Our Lady of Paris in flames. Emotion of a whole nation. Thought for all Catholics and for all French. Like all our countrymen, I'm sad tonight to see this part of us burn." Video of the collapse of #NotreDame Cathedral while burning in fire. The iconic Gothic structure in the heart of Paris had millions of visitors every year. (@ZelinskyAdam) https://t.co/QGP1UqZL38 Negar Mortazavi (@NegarMortazavi) April 15, 2019 The deputy mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Gregoire, said the cathedral had suffered "colossal damages", and the emergency services were trying to salvage the art and other priceless pieces stored in the cathedral. A cathedral spokesman said the entire wooden interior was burning and likely to be destroyed. Officials said the fire may be linked to renovation work at one of the world's most famous tourist attractions, French media reported. Paris prosecutors opened an investigation into the blaze as the fire was still burning out of control, and the authorities said no-one had been hurt. Hundreds of people on bridges around Notre Dame in Paris, watching in shock as fire engulfs the famed cathedral. Photos and videos on social media show the roof of the 850-year-old Gothic building covered in flames, issuing a plume of smoke above the city. The Paris fire brigade can be seen in videos dousing the blaze with water. A church spokesman said all of the cathedral's frame was burning after the spire collapsed. The emergency services were trying to salvage the priceless artwork stored in the cathedral. Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo described it as a "terrible fire" and urged people at the scene to stay safe. Picture: AP Photo/Thibault Camus President Michael D Higgins said that the building is "part of a shared global cultural heritage". "I would like to express the feelings of solidarity of the Irish people with the people of France at the catastrophic damage to one of the most iconic buildings in Europe - a building which the people of Paris have shared with millions from all over the world." The Notre Dame Cathedral has suffered many instances of catastrophic damage over the centuries, and it is my hope that it will survive this latest terrible catastrophe. World leaders, politicians and other famous figures have taken to social media to express their upset at the fire. So sad to see the images of the burning #NotreDameDeParis. I hope that the Paris fire brigade will get the fire under control as soon as possible. My thoughts are with the people of France as a masterpiece of European gothic is at risk of being destroyed. Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) April 15, 2019 Notre-Dame de Paris est Notre-Dame de toute lEurope. We are all with Paris today. Charles Michel (@eucopresident) April 15, 2019 My heart goes out to Paris. Notre Dame is a symbol of our ability as human beings to unite for a higher purposeto build breathtaking spaces for worship that no one person could have built on their own. I wish France strength and shared purpose as they grieve and rebuild. Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) April 15, 2019 The Met and the collective cultural community are watching in shock and horror at the fire engulfing Notre-Dame Cathedral. We are sending all of our support and strength to the people of Paris and stand ready to provide any and all resources we can. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (@metmuseum) April 15, 2019 Famous Notre Dame spire collapses as fire engulfs the Gothic cathedral Update 6.40pm: The spire at Notre Dame Cathedral has collapsed after a fire broke out at the famous Gothic cathedral this evening. The fire broke out at the famous cathedral in the French capital, Paris, shortly after 6pm. Heres the video of Notre Dame cathedrals spire collapsing amidst the flames.https://t.co/uR2LWrIFGJ Jerry Christmas (@JerryDunleavy) April 15, 2019 Pictures circulating on social media showed flames coming out of the Gothic cathedral and plumes of smoke billowing from its roof. Footage showing its famous spire collapsing also emerged online. The cause of the fire is said to potentially involve the renovation works being carried out at the site, the Parisian fire service said. Smoke and flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris. Photo: FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty Images. US President Donald Trump suggested on Twitter that the fire was put out with flying water tankers. So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, he wrote. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly! Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, this evening. Massive plumes of yellow-brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. Photo: AP/Lori Hinant. Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo described it as a terrible fire and urged people at the scene to stay safe. Un terrible incendie est en cours a la cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris. Les @PompiersParis sont en train de tenter de maitriser les flammes. Nous sommes mobilises sur place en lien etroit avec le @dioceseParis. J'invite chacune et chacun a respecter le perimetre de securite. pic.twitter.com/9X0tGtlgba Anne Hidalgo (@Anne_Hidalgo) April 15, 2019 Ashley Huntington, 21, an American university student studying in Paris, said: Our class ran what was supposed to be 30 minutes walking but we probably got here in 20 running. You could just get close and see the smoke. The smoke is everywhere in the sky. It seems like more pieces of the scaffolding are currently falling. The back roof has collapsed, the two towers are still intact but the middle part is totally up in flames and you can start to see the scaffolding. The top scaffolding has all gone now. There is a complete emptiness in the middle section. It just looks like its out of control. Ive never seen a fire in real life but the flames keep getting bigger and bigger. I dont think its getting better at all. The police right now are definitely making sure the public is cleared away. We keep getting pushed further and further away. Smoke billowing from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. pic.twitter.com/mvx4jN19fH David Almacy (@almacy) April 15, 2019 Smoke and flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris. Photo: FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty Images. Picture: @slopezserra/PA Wire Additional reporting PA Afterpay co-founder Nick Molnar says the rollout of its buy now, pay later service in the United States has beaten the company's expectations, and is being helped by millennials' aversion to debt. The payment firm, whose value has surged to $5.9 billion in the past year, launched in the world's biggest consumer market last May, and the sheer potential of the US has been one reason for investors' enthusiasm for the stock. Nick Molnar CEO Afterpay says its target market in the US is also debt-shy. Credit:Attila Csaszar Mr Molnar, the chief executive who is also leading the expansion into the US, on Monday sounded an upbeat note on its US performance, which it has previously said was on track to have 1 million customers by March. Its exceeded all of our expectations, he said at a fintech conference called AltFi in Sydney. Bankers love Saudi Arabia's state oil producer Aramco, and who can blame them. The company received more than $US100 billion ($140 billion) of orders for its debut $US12 billion bond last week, defying lingering concerns over the kingdom's internal stability and the future trajectory of oil prices. Its success is more proof that oil will remain the life blood of the global economy for many decades to come. Aramco's debt has still proved too enticing for Wall Street to ignore. Credit:Bloomberg The world's largest single producer of crude is an enticing morsel for bond investors because of the fundamentals underpinning its core business. Aramco has the capacity to pump up to 12.5m barrels per day of crude if required, accounting for a significant chunk of the daily 100m barrel oil market. Few companies are as vital to the economic prosperity of all humanity, despite the claims of climate change campaigners that the end of the oil age is nigh. In a world where oil investment is becoming socially too toxic for some institutional investors to handle, Aramco's debt has still proved too enticing for Wall Street to ignore. There is no shortage of buyers for Saudi Arabia's crude, and prices pushing above $US70 per barrel make its oil producing giant's debt even more appealing. Scott Morrison got his hands dirty as he took his campaign to Melbourne on Monday, climbing into bobcats and chucking mulch on the back of a ute in the outer suburban seat of Deakin. But his efforts were blackened by the dirty back-room leadership plays of last year, which the Labor opposition has revived as part of a series of attack ads airing in Victoria this week. Prime Minister Scott Morrison moves some mulch at Daisys Garden Supplies in Ringwood on Monday. Credit: Dominic Lorrimer The ads target Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, calling him a right-winger who "made fun of climate change victims" and "plotted to dump Malcolm Turnbull", even though he lives 1500 kilometres away in Brisbane. Mr Dutton famously argued Melburnians were too frightened by African gangs to go out to restaurants at night, and Labor believes he remains highly unpopular in the city. The man was believed to be heading interstate from Victoria yesterday after setting up dozens of bomb threats in Melbourne, Canberra and the country NSW towns of Yass and Queanbeyan. A letter that is believed to match handwriting of other letters by the bomb hoaxer, was received by The Age yesterday. The letters said the man was thought to be headed toward Melbourne. This letter, and the one threatening to bomb Parliament House, was on paper carrying the Department of Defence letterhead. Police last night said the mans background overseas, particularly in the United States, suggested he presents danger. Police said the man, although an Australian citizen, had spent 31 years in the US. He was intelligent, educated and probably capable of making a live bomb. Police supplied this picture of 'John Charles Dixon', the man they say can help them with their inquiries. Police suspect the hoaxer has spent months planning the bomb scares. Hand writing specialists have linked him with similar incidents in Sydney, notably the car-bomb scare outside the Sydney Hilton. Although the man expressed vehement anti-nuclear ideas in several warning letters, nothing connected him to established anti-nuclear groups, police said. Police said the man was resourceful. He had obtained what appeared to be a genuine Department of Defence letterhead and also used another letterhead, that of the group People for Nuclear Disarmament. A man who police hope will help them in their investigations is Mr. John Charles Dixon, or Dr. John Dixon Jenkins, as he was known to some people in Melbourne. He is known to have been in the US at least as recently as 1979 and to have what police describe as an academic background, although he has previously shied away from questions about his education. Mr. Dixon arrived in Melbourne late last year, having been followed south by Sydney detectives who wanted to question him about a bomb hoax. The acting assistant commissioner for crime, Mr. Phil Bennett, said the Victoria Police had broken the usual practice of not publicising bomb scares because of grave fears for public safety. Mr. Bennett urged the public to watch for the man, who was last known to be driving a brown and white 1963 Holden sedan with Queensland number plates. He is described as being 185 centimetres tall, with sandy hair, a fair-to-ruddy complexion and possibly wearing steel-rimmed glasses. The first of what became a rash of bomb scares occurred on Monday morning when several Melbourne newspapers received letters warning that devices had been set at 15 eastern and southern suburban schools. Constable Phil Case carries out the hoax bomb in a paper bag from Parliament House in Canberra. Credit:SMH Archives The letters, which listed 10 of the schools and clues on how to find the other five, warned that one of the 15 devices was a live bomb. Enclosed was a snapshot of a device resembling a crude gelignite time bomb. Within two hours, television stations received warnings that bombs had been set at Myer, Coles and McDonalds stores in the city. Late on Monday night two prominent anti-nuclear Labor MPs, Federal backbencher Mr. Gerry Hand and State backbencher Mrs. Joan Coxsedge, received death threats, believed to be from the same man. And yesterday police said that further threats had been made to stores, companies and Government department, including the railways. By last night police had been handed 23 threatening letters believed written by the man. Federal police in Canberra took more than 10 hours to begin searching for a bomb at Parliament House after a letter said they would find one behind a big wooden cabinet, across from the mens toilet near Kings Hall, Federal Parliament. That was exactly where police discovered a make-believe bomb: two sticks of dowel wrapped in plastic tape, connected to an ignition device. Officers from the bomb unit checked it. The Prime Minister, Mr. Hawke, was turned away as he tried to enter Parliament House. Hundreds of staff and journalists were evacuated and public entry to the building was barred for three hours. A Federal police spokesman said last night that security had not been tightened after the incident Because the article was found to be a replica. Had it been a proper bomb with detonators and wires, the system would have detected it. John Charles Dickson Jenkins at time of his arrest in 1984. Credit:The Age Archives Explaining why police had not checked Parliament House until yesterday morning, although they had received the letter late the previous night, the spokesman said nine similar warning had to be sifted through. They were doing them one by one. It was a process of elimination, he said. Sergeant Garry Griffiths of the Federal police fraud squad told reporters that the device had been treated as a serious and genuine bomb. Sergeant Griffiths said that he believed the suspect had the skill to build a lethal bomb. He said the letters to some Federal politicians and prominent business executives had contained death threats. Some of the letter has demanded that they renounce the use of nuclear weapons before Easter, but the author had not spelled out what he would do if no one issued a renunciation. Two new electric scooter companies may be hopeful of toppling popular scooter company Lime from prime position on Brisbane's streets, after Adelaide City Council recently evicted Lime in favour of scooter companies Beam and RIDE. Earlier this year, Adelaide City Council held an expression of interest process for up to two scooter companies to operate in the city until October, after Lime had operated a two-month trial on the streets. A Lime scooter user on the streets of Brisbane. Credit:AAP Beam and RIDE were the two successful companies, prompting a sharp rebuke from Lime. "The City of Adelaide will now request Lime to cease operations across the City of Adelaide after it was unsuccessful in its bid to secure one of the two new permits," the council statement said last week. A man has been shot dead by an intruder at his home in Brisbane's south overnight. Police said the victim was shot in the chest following a confrontation with an intruder in the garage. The crime scene in MacGregor on Tuesday morning. Credit:Toby Crockford Emergency services were called to the Delfin Drive home in MacGregor about 11.40pm on Monday. The 56-year-old man was rushed to Princess Alexandra Hospital in a critical condition, but died. Melbourne Express is almost done for the day but you can continue talking over at our Facebook page. This morning, we're discussing Federation Square, and the planning minister's description of it as a sad space. Robin Allinson says the space doesn't need reinvigorating: "every time I go there it's full of activity". Julia Kaylock disagrees: "It's horrible, a wasteland that has nothing to recommend it, why would people want to go there? FInal say goes to Gordon Reid: "The original designer of Fed Square failed by having the square turn its back on the Yarra. Imagine if it was steeped down to the riverbank and people enjoying that space". The theatre of the Queensland Parliament's question time is relayed in catchy grabs on the nightly news and its one-liners splashed across newspapers and news websites. And now that political performance will be conveyed on canvas. Artist Julie Fragar painted the official portrait of Queensland's first female premier Anna Bligh. Credit:Louis Lim Artist Julie Fragar spent two sitting weeks in the Queensland Parliament in March and April observing politicians and journalists in the media gallery, while photographer Louis Lim captured the scenes, with plans to transform what she experienced into a series of paintings. The latest project is part of a larger area of research for Dr Fragar, in which she examines the relationship between individuals and institutions. South Bend, Indiana: Pete Buttigieg, the little-known Indiana mayor who has risen to prominence in the early stages of the 2020 Democratic presidential race, has made his official campaign entrance by claiming the mantle of youthful generation ready to reshape the country. "I recognise the audacity of doing this as a Midwestern Millennial mayor. More than a little bold, at age 37, to seek the highest office in the land," he said to cheers of "Pete, Pete, Pete" from an audience assembled in a former Studebaker auto plant. The South Bend mayor, a Rhodes scholar and Afghanistan war veteran who has been exploring a White House run since January, has now joined a field of a dozen-plus rivals vying to take on US President Donald Trump. "The forces of change in our country today are tectonic," he said. "Forces that help to explain what made this current presidency even possible. That's why, this time, it's not just about winning an election - it's about winning an era." Latest News More rate action as CBA hikes across the board again Fourth rate rise in two months for Australia's biggest lender Why human interactions are so vital to the broker channel New AFG strategy partnership manager on rebuilding the personal touch Following widespread reports of dramatic downsizing of both its workforce and branch system, Commonwealth Bank (CBA) has released an official response deeming the reports misleading and unnecessarily alarming. The statement confirmed that, as indicated by the banks half year results, there is a need to manage costs in order to be able to invest in things that will make a measurable and long-term difference for its customers, but also expressed disappointment that speculation may be repeated as fact. CBA singled out one rumour in particular, saying: The suggestion that 300 of the banks network of branches is under consideration is incorrect and misleading. It has been suggested that the 300 figure may instead refer to a reduction in CBAs ATM system, which is the largest in the country. ATMs require constant servicing, stocking, and upgrading, so scaling back would eliminate a number of costs. Additionally, attention was drawn to the natural turnover that takes place in large companies through people retiring, leaving for other jobs, and perhaps most significantly through businesses being sold. CBA is currently in the process of selling a number of its businesses. Colonial First State Global Asset Management (CFSGAM) has been sold and the deal is due to be complete by the end of this financial year. The sale of CBAs Australian and New Zealand life insurance business, announced September 2017, is slated to be finalized by the end of June as well. The suspended demerger of CBAs wealth management and mortgage broking businesses could be implemented some time in the next 18 months to two years. Each of these deals would see hundreds or even thousands of employees leaving CBA. With a company attempting to cut costs and not looking to replace the natural attrition of its workforce, its not unreasonable to expect a significant reduction in the number of employees at Commonwealth Bank in the near future. CBAs statement concluded with the banks assurance that it will be open and transparent as soon as any decisions have been made. Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC Manhattan Beach Three cheers for CUNY Kingsborough Community College, which was honored as one of the top community colleges in the nation by a nonprofit think tank on April 2. The Aspen Institute recognized the school as one of 10 finalists for its 2019 prize for Community College Excellence for the schools innovative support of students inside and out of the classroom, according to a rep with the organization. Kingsborough Community College is a national pioneer in supporting students with intensive academic and nonacademic support, said Joshua Wyner. As a result, it has improved graduation rates in recent years, serving as a model for other community colleges in New York and beyond. The $1 million award is given every other year to schools that show outstanding achievement in student success from an original pool of more than 1,000 community colleges around the country, according to the institute. Kingsboroughs president said the recognition served as a reminder of the schools commitment to student success and future well-being. This is a testament to our outstanding faculty, staff, and students, said Dr. Claudia Schrader. Our daily mission is to ensure the success of the students we serve and be their bridge to a bright future. Being recognized in this way reminds us that we are fulfilling our mission every day. Standing O salutes CUNY Kingsborough Community College on its outstanding achievement! Aidan Graham Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC Sunset Park Hip, hip, hooray for the doctors, patients, and prostate cancer survivors who officially opened the Maimonides Prostate Center on March 26. The new center at the Maimonides Cancer Center, on Eighth Avenue at 63rd Street in Sunset Park is Kings Countys only full-service prostate center, according to information from hospital reps, who added that the medical center offers men suffering from the cancer and related conditions the most advanced and personalized treatment options available. The center will host all of the prostate-related treatments the hospital offers, including high intensity-focused ultrasounds, clinical trials, and support groups and services, reps said. At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Maimonides President and Chief Executive Officer Kenneth D. Gibbs, Senior Vice President of Operations and Clinical Programs Declan Doyle, and Chief of Urology and Center Director Dr. David Silver made remarks about the importance of the center and the work doctors will be able to do in it. One six-year survivor who attended the event said that the more people knew about the center and its offerings, the more it would help people. The more exposure that they have, people can see whats going on and whats available for them, said Ernest Johnson, who lives in East New York. Julianne McShane Park Slope Budding green thumbs Faculty and students at a Park Slope Catholic school cut the ribbon on a new, hydroponic greenhouse on March 25. The high-tech classroom for budding green thumbs was dedicated to a beloved former teacher at St. Saviour High School credited with pioneering the academys environmental science program, and the retired instructor couldnt have been more pleased to accept the honor. After 31 years of teaching at St. Saviour and running beach clean-ups and other environmental community service projects, I am extremely honored to be a part of this special day with my St. Saviour family, said Roberta Willard. The new classrooms utilizes hydroponics farming technology to teach kids about the future of food, and has already been used to grow crops including cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, lettuce, mint, rosemary and nasturtium, an edible flower, according to the schools principal. This is an exciting time for St. Saviour High School. Our students have been able to learn about plant-based sustainable agriculture and the impact it will have on the future, said Dr. Paula McKeown. The hydroponic classroom was constructed in partnership with New York Sun Works, a non-for-profit that uses hydroponic farming tech to teach kids about the science of sustainability, and is the first hydroponic-equipped greenhouse at a school within the Brooklyn Diocese. Colin Mixson Reach reporter Julianne McShane at (718) 2602523 or by e-mail at jmcsh ane@s chnep smedi a.com . Follow her on Twitter @juliannemcshane. Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC Police are trying to find a purloiner who they say filched four houses of worship in Williamsburg in February and March. The man allegedly robbed a total of $1,250 and $250 worth of office supplies from three synagogues and one church, two on Feb. 9 and another two on March 12, according to the authorities. Police released surveillance camera footage from the thiefs most recent port of call a Synagogue on South Ninth Street at Driggs Avenue which shows the baddie, who is described as being between 30 and 40 years old. The suspect was last seen wearing a black cap, black jacket, grey hooded shirt, blue jeans and tan shoes. The alleged thief entered the location through an unsecured elevator and took some $400 and office supplies before making a run for it at 7:50 p.m., according to cops. He allegedly started his spree the month before when he stole $250 from a Lee Avenue Synagogues donation box after entering the building through an unsecured front door at Taylor Street at 2:30 a.m., police said. That same day, he allegedly snuck into a Hooper Street church through an unsecured rear window at Marcy Avenue and took some $250 worth of office supplies, at 4 p.m., according to authorities. The suspect collected his third bounty at a Bedford Avenue Synagogue at Division Avenue on March 12, when he allegedly stole $600 and office supplies before fleeing at 2:50 p.m., police said. Anyone with information in regard to the identity of this male is asked to call the NYPDs Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website at WWW.NYPDC RIMES TOPPE RS.COM , on Twitter @ NYPDTips. 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. 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Digital Editor Flying out from the will be costlier by a massive 120 per cent from Tuesday following the airport tariff regulator Aera allowing it to revise upwards the user development fee (UDF) for four month. The nation's third busiest airport after New Delhi and Mumbai, plans to use the additional fee to fund its expansion. "With the Aera order coming into effect from April 16, the UDF for domestic departures will be revised to Rs 306 from Rs 139 while for international departures it will be Rs 1,226 from Rs 558 earlier," Bangalore airport said in a statement Monday. The new charges for domestic and international travel translate into an increase of 120 percent and 119 percent, respectively, it added. The revised fee is applicable for tickets procured between April 16 and August 15, it said adding the increased fee will be rolled back from August 16. The Rs 13,000-crore second phase expansion entails construction of a new terminal, a second runway, access roads, and a multi-modal transport hub, company said, adding these work is scheduled to be completed by March 2021. "This incremental increase in charges will provide us with the much-needed relief as we are in the midst of a Rs 13,000-crore capacity expansion," said Hari Marar, the managing director and chief executive. As mandated by Aera (Airports Economic Regulatory Authority), the money generated from the incremental UDF hike during these four months, will be deposited in a separate bank account and will be used only to fund the ongoing expansion, he added. The Kempegowda International Airport began operations in May 2008 and is the second airport build on a PPP model after Kochi which was commissioned in the late 1990s. The airport handled 26.91 million passengers in FY18 and is one of the fastest growing in the world. Canadian NRI Prem Watsa-run Fairfax owns 54 percent in the airport and Siemens Projects Ventures 20 hold percent. Of the remaining 26 percent, Karnataka government and the Airports Authority holds 13 percent each, respectively. By Trend Swiss company Mircea Tudor Scan Tech S.A. (MTST) is looking to implement a new project in Uzbekistan. The project will help transfer high tech industry to Uzbekistan, by setting-up a local production facility capable to satisfy all local needs and to export different kind of scanners in the regional market, the company told Trend . Mircea Tudor Scan Tech S.A. (MTST) is a Swiss company with over 20 years of experience in developing innovative scanning technologies, proving high expertise to develop unique internationally patented scanning technologies for civil and military aircrafts, occupied cars and vans, trains, trucks and containers. MTST operates in Switzerland a state-of-the-art factory and an R&D center for nuclear technologies with fast-prototyping capacity. The company is deeply involved in large-scale security projects covering borders, critical infrastructures, seaports and airports. The company noted that currently, there are only 7 producers of such technologies globally but none of the competitors can supply the full range of scanners for cars, vans, trucks and containers, trains, boats and aircrafts. Tudor Tech stated that their company is the only one in the world covering all type of scanning solutions and all type of imaging technologies; low energy x-Ray, Gamma and high-energy x-Ray that will be transferred to Uzbekistan. "We are contributing our high expertise accumulated within 20 years of development of complex nuclear technologies as well as with our expertise of setting-up a production facility," the company said. The company stressed that Uzbek attractiveness to foreign capital seems to be enough for Tudor Scan Tech deciding to enter a partnership for such advanced technology in this country. "The next step in the project is to enlarge the cooperation in the field of medical imaging systems and other medical technological equipment that Tudor Tech has in its portfolio," said the company. Tudor Scan Tech underlined that the main challenge of the company is to propose Tudor Tech AERIA, a new and revolutionary field proven solution for civil and military aviation safety and security, introducing finally the technological support in airplane bomb on board clearing and fast security screening of airplanes arriving from low security/high risk origin of flights. For the military aviation, AERIA can generate within few minutes only conclusive dual view (top view and side view) high resolution radiography, capable to reveal sub-millimeter details and material separation, extremely useful for fast assessment of the mechanical and structural integrity of the aircraft after combat missions or as routine checks. The scanning process can reveal eventual foreign objects on board, detached/misplaced objects or parts, liquid leakages and many other anomalies, including inside the technical cavities, inaccessible for security of safety inspection. The company noted that the cars scanner and the truck/container scanner can bring a high level of security of the airfields or other critical infrastructures areas, by scanning all vehicles accessing the secured area, eliminating significant vulnerabilities. The truck and container scanner ML 64 is the only mobile scanner for trucks and containers in the world fully robotized, remote operated, eliminating exposure of the operators to radiation and eliminating the risk of human casualties in case of explosion of the inspected vehicle. Earlier Trend reported that a high-tech plant for the production of scanners by technology of the Swiss company Tudor Tech will be built in Jizzak region of Uzbekistan. Jet Airways, which revolutionized Indian aviation after the government ended the monopoly of state-owned carriers, is now on the brink of shutting down, devastated by management missteps and the feisty low-cost airlines that followed in its footsteps. Out of cash and desperate for a buyer, Jet is now operating just nine planes, according to the Press Trust of India, down from 123 at its peak. The company had grounded dozens of aircraft over the past few weeks as its finances deteriorated, and on Friday, it canceled its last remaining international flights through at least Monday, ... Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Monday took to Twitter to make public the negotiations for a pre-poll alliance for Delhis seven Lok Sabha seats between his party and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which triggered a war of tweets between supporters of the two parties. An alliance between the Congress and AAP in Delhi would mean the rout of the BJP. The Congress is willing to give up four Delhi seats to the AAP to ensure this. But, Mr. (Arvind) Kejriwal has done yet another U turn! Our doors are still open, but the clock is running out, Gandhi tweeted, with the ... (CNN) Gordon Ramsay's newest London restaurant has become embroiled in a row over alleged cultural appropriation after an Asian food critic accused the celebrity chef of tokenism. Ramsey's restaurant group is preparing to launch Lucky Cat, which promotional material describes as "an authentic Asian Eating House and vibrant late-night lounge, inspired by the drinking dens of 1930s Tokyo and the Far East." But at a preview night last week, food writer Angela Hui claimed "it was nothing if not a real life Ramsay kitchen nightmare." Writing on Eater website, Hui said said she was "the only east Asian person in a room full of 30-40 journalists and chefs" and that the setting was "more seedy nightclub than Asian eating house." In a series of scathing accompanying posts made to Instagram, the screengrabs of which were embedded in the review, Hui she could only "drink thru the pain that is this an "Asian' event." In another she added, "Japanese? Chinese? It's all Asian who cares." At the event, according to Hui, Ramsay remarked that the restaurant's head chef, Ben Orpwood was "more qualified and experienced than me in this field," and that "he's done the research, having traveled back and forth to south Asia for many months." Critics have pointed out that the restaurant, which will replace Ramsey's Maze in the city's Mayfair area, does not appear to have any Asian chefs. Ramsay hit back at the review in an Instagram post, saying that "despite the very positive feedback from guests" he had to call out "one offensive response from the night." He went on to accuse Hui of being unprofessional for publishing a "slew of derogatory and offensive social media posts" in her social channels. "It is fine to not like my food, but prejudice and insults are not welcome," said Ramsey. He went on to accuse Hui of making offensive and disrespectful personal comments, alleging that one comment on Hui's Instagram called Orpwood's wife a "token Asian." "Gordon Ramsay Restaurants do not discriminate based on gender, race or beliefs and we don't expect anyone else to. I may not agree with all reviews, but if someone is going to be critical, then I expect them to be professional and have some integrity." CNN has reached out to Gordon Ramsay's restaurant group for comment. According to Hui, dishes at the preview included a mini wagyu pastrami burger with "Asian" chilli jam and otoro fatty tuna, English asparagus and smoked ponzu emulsion and smoked duck breast with plum. Other chefs have since weighed in on the controversy. Entrepreneur and restaurateur George Chen tweeted: "Is the famous Chef going to curse at his white cooks in Asian or what? Every chef has a right to interpret another cuisine but the integrity and culture (read authenticity-albeit I hate that term) needs to be studied in depth and not WHITEwashed for marketing purposes!" Chen went on to clarify that he was not saying "white chefs shouldn't cook Chinese/Asian," but "to say Authentic Asian, etc, like he knows better when he should've just stated these are his interpretations of a cuisine...which is wonderful because he certainly can cook." This story was first published on CNN.com, "Gordon Ramsay's new 'authentic Asian' restaurant kicks off cultural appropriation row." Dubai Airports has confirmed operations teams at both airports are good to go for the commencement of the 45-day-long refurbishment of the southern runway at Dubai International (DXB) set to begin tomorrow (April 16). The runway is nearing the end of its design life and requires a complete upgrade to accommodate future traffic growth. Planning and preparations have been under way for almost two years in close coordination with Dubai Aviation Engineering Projects, airlines, dnata, the regulator and a host of other service partners to make sure this massive project goes off without a hitch, said Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports. The main visible difference for passengers will be a potential change in airports, although scheduling experts have optimised DXBs one runway operation to the point where there will be only a 29 per cent reduction in the number of available seats. Thanks to the additional capacity provided by DWC, the number of flights across the Dubai Airport system will see a reduction of just 19 per cent and a seat reduction of just 20 per cent. Many customers will get to experience the speed and convenience of Dubais second airport Dubai World Central (DWC) for the first time during the closure as it takes on additional traffic from affected scheduled, charter, cargo and general aviation operations. DWC will handle an average of 145 passenger flights per day operated during the period by airlines including flydubai, Wizz Air, Aeroflot, Indigo, SpiceJet, Gulf Air, Ukraine International Airlines, Ural Airlines, Nepal Airlines, Kuwait Airways and flynas. The last piece of ground equipment to DWC was delivered yesterday (April 14). The logistics of the equipment move were managed by dnata and were tantamount to opening up an airport the size of Glasgow overnight. In just a few days over 600 pieces of equipment have been moved to DWC in order to handle the additional traffic and ensure a seamless and smooth operation from day one through to day 45. Dubais Roads and Transport Authority will provide a fully integrated ground transportation solution for DWC with a regular bus service from key locations in Dubai and a dedicated fleet of taxis serving the airport offering discounts throughout the closure period. Dubai Airports will also have a free express bus service operating between DXB and DWC every 30 minutes departing from DXB Terminals 1, 2 and 3. Customers will also be able to take advantage of the free shaded parking at DWCs 2,500 capacity car park. Meanwhile at DXB, airfield preparations commenced months ago as engineering teams undertook a number of works in advance of the full runway closure. Once the runway closes at 1500 local time on April 16, the site will see more than 90 construction vehicles enter and exit every hour transporting more than 18,500 truckloads of concrete, asphalt, materials and personnel. More than 1,900 employees will be involved in the project. Were confident we are fully prepared and good to go for April 16, said Griffiths. We are encouraging passengers to confirm their airport of departure before they set out to take their flights but otherwise they can expect smooth operations and great service. TradeArabia News Service Tesla Inc.s Elon Musk said Panasonic Corp. cell lines at the electric-car makers Nevada battery factory have been holding up production of its Model 3 sedans. Pana cell lines at Giga are only at 24GWh/yr & have been a constraint on Model 3 output since July, Musk wrote in a tweet Saturday. Tesla wont spend money on more capacity until existing lines get closer to 35GWh. Tesla shares tumbled Thursday after the Nikkei reported that the company and Panasonic were freezing plans to expand capacity at the plant near Reno. Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor The company should fix its troubled 737 MAX and choose a new name following the Ethiopian Air Lines and Lion Air Crashes. What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!), but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name, Trump said on Twitter. No product has suffered like this one. But again, what the hell do I know? Two crashes of the plane - Lion Air flight ... Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor BJP president Amit Shah on Monday demanded apology from Samajwadi Party (SP) and its ally Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) over Azam Khan's derogatory comments against actor and BJP candidate from Rampur constituency Jaya Prada, saying that Khan's remarks were an insult to 'women power'. "The repugnant comments by Azam Khan against Jaya Prada ji are not an insult of just Jaya ji but of crores of India's mothers and daughters. The Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Azam Khan should immediately apologise to the crore of women of the country for insulting the matru shakti (women power)," Shah said at an election rally here. In UP's Rampur, SP leader Khan said on Sunday, "I brought her (Jaya Prada) to Rampur. You are a witness that I did not allow anyone to touch her body. It took you 17 years to identify her real face but I got to know in 17 days that she wears khaki underwear." The SP, BSP and Rashtriya Lok Dal have forged an alliance in Uttar Pradesh to contest the Lok Sabha elections in the state. Shah also asked Congress president Rahul Gandhi and SP president Akhilesh Yadav to clarify their stand on the matter. He said, "I want to ask SP, Bahen Mayawati ji and Rahul Gandhi whether they agree with Azam Khan's comments." Accusing the Congress of fear of defeat in the elections, Shah said: "Earlier, they used to make excuses of EVM tampering after the elections. But, now they are saying that the BJP will win even before the polls. It shows that Congress is foreseeing its defeat." Gujarat will vote for all of the 26 Lok Sabha seats in the third phase of the elections on April 23. The counting of votes will take place on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday hit out at Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan for his "objectionable remarks" against film actor and BJP leader Jaya Prada, stating that the remarks made show his party's "thinking and culture." Adityanath's response comes a day after Khan while addressing a rally, claimed that the actor-turned-politician wears "Khaki underwear." "This shows the thinking and culture of Samajwadi Party. The silence of Samajwadi Party chief (Akhilesh Yadav) and his ally Mayawati (Bahujan Samaj Party supremo), who is also a woman, is surprising. This is very unfortunate," Adityanath said while speaking to ANI. "Azam Khan's statement is extremely disrespectful and shows his cheap mindset," the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister added. Criticising Khan for his below-the-belt remarks, Union Minister of Textiles Smriti Irani, while speaking to ANI in Amethi, said: "Derogatory comments were being made on a woman and SP leaders were sitting silently. I urge them that has its own place and respect for women in India has its own." Senior Congress Sheila Dikshit, too, condemned Khan's remarks. "This is highly condemnable, he owes an apology to women immediately. It is unacceptable, action should be taken against him," she added. Earlier in the day, Jaya Prada had said Khan should not be allowed to contest the Lok Sabha elections. "He shouldn't be allowed to contest elections. Because if this man wins, what will happen to democracy? There will be no place for women in society," she said. However, Khan, while speaking to ANI, said he did not name anyone and would withdraw his candidature from the ongoing polls if proved guilty. Khan is contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Rampur against Jaya Prada. The election for 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state is scheduled to be conducted in all seven phases. Eight seats in the state went to polls in the first phase on April 11. The final phase of voting will take place on May 19. The results will be announced on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former President Omar al-Bashir planned on suppressing protests here using military force, according to a spokesman from Sudan's transitional military council which is currently in power in the African nation. "Al-Bashir's regime decided to suppress the protests by force - that made us interfere," Shams al-Din Kabashi Ibrahim said on Sunday. The transitional council was established for a period of two years after the military overthrew Bashir in a coup on Thursday. While the Sudanese Defence Minister, Awad Ibn Auf, was appointed as the head of the newly created body initially, he stepped down from power within 24 hours of taking the post. The state of emergency has since been lifted by the council, the current chief of which met with the leadership from the protester's side.The rallies in Sudan were initially triggered by the rise in bread prices. Calls for Bashir's resignation gained traction throughout the protest, with the former President resigning on Thursday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday accused Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik of shedding crocodile tears over the killing of BJP worker Manguli Jena in Khordha district and said that the party will respond to it by ballot and not bullet. Jena was allegedly shot dead by two unidentified bike-borne miscreants near his party office on Sunday evening, the police said. Condemning the murder of Khordha Mandal president Manguli Jena, Pradhan said, "We have to respond to his death not by the bullet, but by ballot. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen babu is shedding crocodile tears. The incident like this in a democracy is condemnable." The BJP leader's reaction came after Patnaik, condemning the incident, said: "I strongly condemn the heinous murder that has taken place in Khordha and requested the Election Commissioner to direct the police to take strict action against those involved." "Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Odisha on April 16. We were making arrangements for it. I took all the details from Manguli Jena. But unfortunately, assailants shot him dead late last night," Pradhan said while addressing the media here. He also accused the state police of working on the orders of the Chief Minister. "Constitutional arrangements in Odisha have completely vanished. The police officers are working on the orders of Naveen Babu. Police are not supporting fairness but supporting the goons," Pradhan said. "The election process should be completed with fairness. The ruling party cannot misuse its power for the sake of ending the election process," he added. The Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in Odisha are scheduled to be held simultaneously in four phases. The remaining three phases will be held on April 18, 23 and 29. The counting of votes will take place on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Union Cabinet on Monday gave ex-post facto approval to the MoUs between India and Bolivia on cooperation in geology and traditional systems of medicine. The meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi also approved the pact with Cambodia for cooperation in communications, according to an official statement. With Denmark, the Cabinet gave its approval for a cooperation agreement in renewable energy with focus on offshore wind energy. Prime Minister Modi was apprised about an MoU signed in May 2018 with Brazil to collaborate on innovation in science and technology besides biotechnology education, training and research. The Cabinet was apprised about an MoU under which the Department of Posts will issue postage stamps on Queen Hur Hwang-ok of South Korea by 2019-end. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Azizi Developments, one of the leading private developers in the UAE, is partnering with Dubai Islamic Bank, the UAEs largest Islamic bank, to offer investors an exclusive property buying solution, called MyHome, across all of its projects. MyHome simplifies the home buying process through a heightened degree of flexibility and affordability. Customers can choose payment plan options of up to 48 months at mortgage-like rates, said the statement from Azizi Developments. Those opting for payment plans of up to 6 months will pay no charges. This solution addresses all types of payments towards home buying, allowing customers to budget payments to the developer, service fees, registration fees, bank processing fees, and much more. Designed around their home buying needs, customers are granted the power of choice with a variety of benefits across the entire spectrum of the home buying journey. MyHome addresses needs beyond home financing; it provides security for customers families, wealth, and health, with a wide array of benefits. CEO Farhad Azizi said: "In consolidation of our customer-centric approach and in celebration of our recently-announced Year of Construction, it is our privilege to partner with Dubai Islamic Bank, an esteemed institution, to offer interested parties financial solutions that will cover our full line-up of world-class residential choices." DIB Chief of Home Finance Varun Sood said: "As the largest home finance provider in the UAE, we continue to shape the dynamic skyline of the country and provide our customers with exclusive home finance offerings and a seamless experience around our flexible and value-driven offerings." "Knowing our customers needs has been a key factor that helped us work successfully with our partners in the past. We are excited to expand our relationship with Azizi Developments through this unique proposition aimed at facilitating home finance ownership for the populous across the nation," noted Sood. Azizi said the company envisions and strives to offer its customers premium, affordable properties that yield high rental returns by delivering quality projects that appeal to different lifestyles. "This partnership is in line with Azizi Developments belief that developers owe their customers timely handovers and quality properties in the same way that financing options are best handled by banks that specialise in offering customers optimal services and platforms, granting them opportunities and facilitated, flexible payment plans that a developers mortgage or collection teams may not have access to," he added.-TradeArabia News Service Stepping up the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) attack against Opposition parties over security, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday accused the Congress and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) of having an "anti- mentality." "The BJP, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is working with a motive of 'sabka saath sabka vikas' for the welfare of the people. On the other hand, Congress and BJD's stand is exposed because of their negative and anti-India mentality, and for adopting a soft approach towards Naxalism, terrorism and anti-India activities," he said at a rally here. The BJP leader claimed that Congress and BJD were in the electoral process only to create a mess and had no agenda of development for the poor and the youth. Adityanath also said that only BJP can take tough decisions to eradicate the menace of terrorism. "It is only BJP which talks about zero tolerance policy towards terrorism. Only BJP can eliminate terrorists by storming into their safe houses," Yogi told the gathering. He went on to accuse Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik-led Odisha government of failing to implement the Centre's welfare schemes. "Money sent by central government for the development of Odisha has not been used by the BJD government. Naveen Babu's government has flopped in implementing schemes whether it is about providing Rs 5 lakh insurance cover under Ayushman Bharat or the toilet scheme," he said. Yogi alleged that the state government did nothing to prevent religious conversions in Odisha and asserted that if there was a BJP government in the state, it would not let that happen. "The BJD never gave a thought to it," he added. The Lok Sabha and Assembly elections are being held simultaneously in four phases in Odisha. Counting of votes will take place on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Taking note of their alleged objectionable statements in speeches, Election Commission on Monday barred Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and BSP chief Mayawati from election campaigning for 72 hours and 48 hours respectively, for violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The bar comes into force from 6 am on April 16. Election Commission citing Article 324 of the Constitution has barred both Mayawati and Yogi Adityanath from holding any public meetings, public processions, public rallies, road shows and interviews, public utterances in media (electronic, print and social media) in connection with the ongoing elections. The EC took action after it issued show-cause notices to both the leaders in the case of respective violation of MCC. The Commission observed: "Mayawati in her impugned speech, has appealed to secure votes on religious lines that tantamount to violation of provisions of 'General Conduct' of "Model Code of Conduct, for the guidance of political parties and candidates". Mayawati made the objectionable statements during the public rally on April 7 at Deoband, Saharanpur. While Yogi Adityanath made some objectionable statements during a public rally at Meerut on April 9. EC said that the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister has accepted using reference of "Hara Virus" and "Bajrangbali" in his speech. "Commission observes that being a senior leader, Adityanath should have desisted himself in making statements that have the undertone and propensity to polarize the election, which is not confined to the constituency only where the statement is made, but to the other parts as well due to dissemination of information in this digital age," the EC said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Justifying his decision to withdraw Julian Assange's asylum status, Ecuadoran President Lenin Moreno in an interview to the Guardian newspaper on Sunday that the Wikileaks founder had violated his asylum rules many times and attempted to use the Embassy as a "centre for spying". The British newspaper reported that Moreno accused Assange of hacking into his private details after Wikileaks leaked photos of the President dinning on his bed with a giant platter of lobster in front of him. This was followed by snapshots of 200 private e-mails, texts, documents and other photos of Moreno along with his wife on lavish European vacations, which were posted on the anonymous website INApapers.org early last month, at a time when austerity measures have been implemented on Ecuador. "Any attempt to destabilise is a reprehensible act for Ecuador because we are a sovereign nation and respectful of the of each country," The Guardian quoted Moreno as saying. "It is unfortunate that from our territory and with the permission of authorities of the previous government, facilities have been provided within the Ecuadorian embassy in London to interfere in processes of other states," Moreno added. Referring to the leaked pictures, he said: "We cannot allow our house, the house that opened its doors, to become a centre for spying. This activity violates asylum conditions. Our decision is not arbitrary but is based on international law." Moreno told The Guardian that he has been promised in written undertakings that Assange's fundamental rights would be taken care of and would not be sent to any other country that would likely award him death penalty. Assange, 47, was kicked out of the Ecuadoran Embassy last Thursday after his political asylum was revoked, putting an end to his almost seven-year stint. After being found guilty of breaching his bail conditions, Assange now faces up to 12 months prison sentence. He lost the battle against his extradition to Sweden where he faced allegations including of rape, which he denies. In addition, the Wikileaks founder is also facing extradition to the United States which has accused him of leaking classified government information and conspiring with Chelsea Manning, a former US Army intelligence analyst, who allegedly provided the whistleblower with a password to government computers. Meanwhile, revoking Assange's asylum has triggered controversies in Ecuador. Former President Rafael Correa has accused US Moreno of "crime humanity will never forget" and described him as "the greatest traitor in Ecuadorian and Latin American history", The Guardian reported. In his interview, the Ecuadoran President further accused Assange of repeatedly interfering in the internal affairs of other states, referring to WikiLeaks' publication of Vatican documents in January 2019. "It is unfortunate that there are individuals dedicated to violating the privacy of people," Moreno told The Guardian. The President said the decision to remove Assange from the embassy was a sovereign decision of his government and was not forced upon him by any external power, apparently referring to the United States and Britain. "He was a guest who was offered a dignified treatment, but he did not have the basic principle of reciprocity for the country that knew how to welcome him, or the willingness to accept protocols [from] the country that welcomed him. The withdrawal of his asylum occurred in strict adherence to international law. It is a sovereign decision. We do not make decisions based on external pressures from any country," Moreno was quoted as saying. However, Assange's lawyer Jennifer Robinson has refuted the allegations of poor behaviour on Assange's part on Sunday. Assange's father, John Shipton, has also requested the Australian government to step in and bring his son back to his homeland. As Assange faces extradition to two countries, it is up to the British Home Secretary to decide next which country should take priority in his case. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Iraq on Sunday rejected US "unilateral" proclamation to recognise Israel's sovereignty on Golan Heights, saying Golan is Syrian territory. "US president Trump's proclamation on Golan is unilateral and it violates the international legitimacy... Iraq doesn't recognize it," Sana quoted Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali al-Hakim as saying. "Golan is a Syrian territory and the international resolutions recognize Syria's sovereignty on Golan," he added. The US got global condemnation after US President Donald Trump signed an official decree in Washington DC on March 26, in the presence of Israel's President Benjamin Netanyahu, to recognise Israel's sovereignty on the Golan Heights. The proclamation escalated the tensions between Syria and Israel. Scores of Syrians hit the streets to protest against US decision. Israel had formally annexed the territory in 1981 after capturing the region from Syria during the six-day war in 1967. The Israeli annexation has long been decried by the community which regards Golan Heights as an occupied territory and Israeli settlements in the region are illegal as per international law. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Himachal Pradesh BJP chief Satpal Singh Satti used derogatory language against Congress president Rahul Gandhi and asserted that the latter should not call Prime Minister Narendra Modi "chor" (thief) when his entire family is out on bail. "Rahul Gandhi is out on bail, his mother is out on bail, his brother-in-law is out on bail, and yet he calls the Prime Minister a 'chor' (thief). Modi ji is not even on bail, there is no case against him then who are you to call him (Modi) a chor like any judge? A Punjabi man asked me to convey this to you with a heavy heart, and that inspires me to tell you this. If this country's 'chowkidar' (watchman) is a 'chor', then you are a m********," he said at a rally here on April 13. The remark has irked the Congress, who has demanded an apology from the BJP leader. "The government has failed in the last five years and they are speaking like this. The public does not like this kind of language. It is very shameful the way comments are being made on leaders. Satti and the BJP must apologise," Himachal Pradesh Congress chief Naresh Chauhan told ANI. Modi had declared himself as the 'chowkidar' who watches over the country's borders and wealth while campaigning during 2014 Lok Sabha polls, and the same idea was used for the BJP campaign "Main Bhi Chowkidar" for the ongoing general elections. However, the Congress countered his claim to allege that "chowkidar chor hain (the watchman is a thief)", referring to the alleged scam in Rafale fighter jet deal with France. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Azam Khan on Monday clarified that he did not make any objectionable remarks against film actor and BJP candidate Jaya Prada, fighting the Lok Sabha polls from Rampur against him. Khan's clarification came after he allegedly while addressing a poll campaign rally here, made a below-the-belt remark against Prada. "I brought her (Jaya Prada) to Rampur. You are a witness that I did not allow anyone to touch her body. It took you 17 years to identify her real face but I got to know in 17 days that she wears khaki underp****," Khan said on Sunday. Asserting that he did not name anyone, the Samajwadi leader told ANI that he would withdraw his candidature from the ongoing polls if proved guilty. "I have said that people took time to know real face in reference to a man once said that he brought 150 rifles with him and if he sees Azam, he would have shot him dead. My leaders also did a mistake. Now, it has been revealed that he has an RSS pant on his body. Short is worn by men," Khan told ANI. "I was a nine-time MLA from Rampur and been a minister. I know what to say. "If anyone proves that I have named anyone and insulted anyone by name. If it is proved, I will step back from the elections," he added. Khan also accused the media of misinterpreting his comments. "I am disappointed. Media did not like me; I also did not like them. They have caused damage to the country," he said. The actor-turned-politician Jaya Prada had won the Rampur Lok Sabha seat in 2004 and 2009 on SP ticket but later she was expelled on account of alleged anti-party activities in 2010. She had joined the BJP last month. The election for 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state is scheduled to be conducted in all seven phases. Eight seats in the state went to polls in the first phase on April 11. The final phase of voting will take place on May 19. The results will be announced on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Iran on Sunday (local time) summoned the French ambassador Philippe Thiebaud over his colleague's tweets regarding the possible re-imposition of sanctions on the Middle-Eastern country upon the expiry of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2025. The tweet in question was posted by France's Ambassador to the US, Gerard Araud, according to Sputnik. Iran's Foreign Ministry condemned the statement, labeling it as "unacceptable," accusing the diplomat of an "open violation" of the JCPOA. The deal, also referred to as the Iran Nuclear Deal, was clinched in 2015 by Iran, USA, Russia, France, China, UK, Germany, and the European Union. Tehran limited its enrichment capacities, opening its sites to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in exchange for sanctions being lifted. The United States re-instated sanctions against Iran after exiting from the accord after US President Donald Trump took office following the 2016 Presidential elections. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Commission for Women (NCW) will write to the Election Commission for strict action against Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Azam Khan for his objectionable remark against BJP's Rampur candidate Jaya Prada, its Chairperson Rekha Sharma said on Monday. "We are writing to the EC to take strict action against him because he has to learn a lesson now. It is high time, he has to stop this. Women are not sex objects. I think, women voters should vote against such people who are treating women in such a way," she told ANI. Sharma said, "He is always talking dirty about women and in this election, it is the second remark he made against a woman politician. The NCW has taken suo-motu cognisance and we are sending him notice." The NCW chief's reaction came after Khan while addressing a poll rally in his parliamentary constituency Rampur, allegedly made a below-the-belt remark against actor-turned-politician Jaya Prada. "I brought her (Jaya Prada) to Rampur. You are a witness that I did not allow anyone to touch her body. It took you 17 years to identify her real face but I got to know in 17 days that she wears khaki underwear," Khan said on Sunday. However, asserting that he did not name anyone, the Samajwadi Party leader told ANI that he would withdraw his candidature from Rampur Lok Sabha seat if proved guilty. "I said that people took time to know the real face in reference to a man, who once said that he brought 150 rifles with him and if he saw Azam, he would have shot him dead... Now, it has been revealed that he has an RSS pant. Shorts are worn by men," Khan told ANI, referring to his remarks at the rally. "I have been a nine-time MLA from Rampur and also held a ministerial post. I know what to say. If anyone proves that I have named anyone and insulted anyone by name then I will step back from the elections," he said. Khan also accused the media of misinterpreting his comments. "I am disappointed. Media does not like me; I also do not like them. They have caused damage to the country," he claimed. Jaya Prada had won the Rampur seat in 2004 and 2009 on SP tickets but later she was expelled from the party for alleged anti-party activities in 2010. She joined BJP last month. Eight Lok Sabha constituencies in western Uttar Pradesh went to polls in the first phase on April 11. The state, which has 80 seats, will vote in all the next six stages of the general elections. Counting of votes will be held on May 23 after completion of polling on May 19. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A ceasefire between the Afghan government and the Taliban is the "quickest way to prevent casualties" in war-torn Afghanistan, US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad said on Monday. "The quickest way to prevent casualties is to agree to a ceasefire. Taliban senior leadership should allow their representatives to come to the table and discuss. I will continue to press the case," tweeted Khalilzad "The US entered peace talks because more war is not the answer. During the talks, I have proposed ways to reduce violence. By refusing to work with us to end the killing, the Talibs are prolonging it. Let Afghan people judge whether Talib statements encouraging more violence is way forward," he added. "Afghanistan has been at war for decades, at times with each other. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians have died. Rather than another season of fighting, Afghans are demanding a new way forward" he went on to say. The US special envoy made these remarks following an attack by Taliban in Shirzad Districts of Afghanistan on Friday. Khalilzad has held five rounds of talks with the Taliban so far in a bid to end the conflict. Last week, Taliban had announced its annual spring offensive, with an aim of "eradicating occupation" and "cleansing Muslim homeland from invasion and corruption". It comes as a major setback to the US as it is holding talks with the Taliban since last year to end the conflict in the country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) North Korea leader Kim Jong-un is expected to hold his first-ever summit with Russia President Vladimir Putin next week, reports Yonhap news agency. "Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to make a trip to the Far East region around April 24. Chances are fairly high that a summit between Russia and North Korea could take place around that time," the news agency quoted a government official who did not wish to be identified, as saying. The Russian President is visiting China to take part in One Belt One Road forum, which is scheduled to take place on April 26-27. He is expected to meet Kim on the sideline of the forum. Reportedly, the senior officials of Pyongyang and Moscow are travelling to each other's country for the preparation of the Summit. Earlier this month, Russia's interior minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev had visited Pyongyang. Yonhap noted that North Korea has deepened its ties with Russia after the failed summit with the US in Hanoi, Vietnam last month. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) RAK Petroleum plc, an Oslo-listed oil and gas investment company, said it plans to repurchase such number of its class A shares with ISIN GB00BRGBL804 at the Repurchase Price up to a maximum aggregate consideration of $15 million. This is in accordance with the authorization provided at its Annual General Meeting on June 1, 2018. The Company and SpareBank 1 Markets AS (the "Manager") have entered into a repurchase contract in the form approved by the AGM (the Repurchase Contract), pursuant to which the Manager is initiating a reverse tender offer (the "Buyback Offer") to holders of beneficial interests in the Shares. The Manager will then settle the Share repurchase as principal and for its own account, following which the Manager has an obligation to sell the Shares to the Company, which has an obligation to purchase them from the Manager. The Company has decided to ask the Manager to launch the Buyback Offer at this time because, among other things, (i) its available funds exceed the near-term cash needs of its business, (ii) relatively low liquidity in the market for its shares may be hindering the ability of some shareholders to sell, and (iii) the Company believes its shares are undervalued relative to their intrinsic value. Thus, the Buyback Offer may be seen as providing an opportunity for some shareholders to sell their Shares. The Buyback Offer will commence on April 15, 2019 at 8:00 CET and will expire on April 26, 2019 at 14:00 CET, unless extended at the sole discretion of the Company (the "Buyback Offer Period"). The Company, by way of instruction to the Manager, shall be entitled in its complete discretion to waive, amend, extend, accelerate, terminate or withdraw the Buyback Offer at any time before expiry of the Buyback Offer Period. The number of Shares to be repurchased, if any, and the price per Share will be determined through a reverse bookbuilding process in which Eligible Shareholders (as defined below) may offer to tender to the Manager all or a portion of their Shares at prices they set. The Buyback Offer is not conditional on any minimum number of Shares being tendered. It is proposed that the Company repurchase such number of Shares at the Repurchase Price (as defined below) up to a maximum aggregate consideration of $15 million (the "Cap"), subject to any amendments by the Company of the Buyback Offer in accordance with the below. Shares repurchased will be cancelled and result in a reduction of the Companys registered share capital. If the Company elects to acquire Shares pursuant to the Buyback Offer, it will select one price to be paid for all the Shares validly offered for tender at and below that price (the "Repurchase Price"), but it may in its sole discretion direct the Manager to accept all, or a pro-rata portion of, any offers to tender Shares which are tendered at a price equal to or below the Repurchase Price. Any acceptances of Offers will be subject to the Cap. Shareholders offering to sell their Shares at prices lower than the Repurchase Price selected by the Company will receive the higher Repurchase Price for their Shares. Offers to sell Shares at prices higher than the Repurchase Price selected by the Company will not be accepted and will not result in a Share sale. Subject to any amendments of the Buyback Offer Period, the Company expects to announce the results of the Buyback Offer on 26 April 2019 under the Company's ticker "RAKP" on www.newsweb.no. The Company will then announce whether it will buy back any Shares and, if so, the number of Shares to be repurchased and their Repurchase Price. Shareholders who do not intend to offer to sell any of their Shares in the Buyback Offer do not need to do anything in response to the Buyback Offer or this announcement. Eligible Shareholders who wish to offer for sale all or a portion of their Shares must complete and sign the tender form available on the Companys website and submit it by e-mail to the Manager before expiry of the Buyback Offer Period. Offers to sell Shares are binding on the shareholder and irrevocable until expiry of the Buyback Offer Period and may until such time not be withdrawn, modified or altered. All Eligible Shareholders who may want to participate in the Buyback Offer must be registered clients of the Manager. If a Shareholder is not a current client of the Manager, it must complete the Manager's client registration process, including applicable know-your-customer and anti-money laundering requirements, as set out in Appendix 1 to the Tender Form. Eligible Shareholders who may wish to tender Shares in the Buyback Offer should immediately begin the client registration process by completing Appendix 1 to the Tender Form and submitting the relevant documents to the Manager by 19 April 2019. However, the Manager will use reasonable efforts to process the client registration also for any such documents submitted after 19 April 2019 on a first-come, first-serve basis, but no assurance can be given that any documents submitted after 19 April 2019 will be processed prior to expiry of the Buyback Offer Period. Even if the documents are completed and submitted to the Manager by 19 April 2019, there can be no assurance that the Manager will be able to complete the client registration process to its satisfaction prior to the end of the Buyback Offer Period due to follow-up requests which, in the Manager's sole discretion, are not met, the Manager's internal policies relating to registration of new clients or otherwise. Fulfilling the Managers client registration requirements does not obligate a Shareholder to submit a Tender Form or to participate in the Buyback Offer. If the Eligible Shareholder does not complete the client registration process before the end of the Buyback Offer Period, its Tender Form will not be accepted. If an Eligible Shareholder holds Shares registered in the name of and through a financial intermediary (including a special purpose vehicle) and intends to tender its Shares in the Buyback Offer, it must contact the financial intermediary and instruct it accordingly. The Company suggests that such shareholders begin that process immediately as well. Cash settlement for the Shares acquired in the Buyback Offer is expected to be on or about May 3, 2019, unless settlement is delayed due to technical and/or administrative reasons, by way of transfer to the bank account registered on the respective Eligible Shareholders' VPS account for dividend payments. TradeArabia News Service Begusarai (Bihar) [India], Apr 15 (ANI): Lack of basic amenities and unfulfilled promises by the government has forced electorates of Bihar's Thatha village to boycott the ongoing general elections. Residents of the village told ANI that neither the district administration nor any politician has paid heed to their demands in the last five years. Surrounded by river Budhigandak on three sides, the village in Begusarai district has a single road which connects it to the rest of the state. However, none of the residents wish to travel by it as the condition of the road is dilapidated, thereby forcing them to travel by boat. Protesting the apathy, locals of the village have decided to stay away from voting. A Thatha resident Geeta Devi said: "There is no medical facility in the village, and to reach the nearby hospital, one must catch a boat before 8 pm. Similarly, pregnant women and students of the village suffer in the absence of a road. The entire village would boycott polls unless they are provided with a bridge or a road." "Pehle raasta, phir vote (First road, then vote)," she added. Echoing similar sentiments, a student whose school is situated across the river said, "The road is in bad condition that is why we use the boat. I often get late to school. There is no other way. The government is doing nothing to fix this". The entire episode also adds to the woes of the lone boatman of the village, as he claims to be travelling at least 200 times a day, back and forth. Bihar goes to polls in seven phases. The counting of votes will take place on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday accused Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik of "shedding crocodile tears" on the murder of BJP worker in Khordha district yesterday, and appealed to people to respond to the killing by ballot and not bullet. Speaking on the murder of BJP Khordha Mandal president Manguli Jena, Pradhan said: "We have to respond to his death not by bullet, but by ballot. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Babu is shedding crocodile tears. Incidents like this in a democracy is condemnable." Jena was allegedly shot dead by two unidentified bike-borne miscreants near the district party office, the police had said on Sunday. Patnaik had condemned the murder and said, "I strongly condemn the heinous murder that has taken place in Khordha. I have requested the Election Commissioner to direct the police to take strict action against those involved. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rajya Sabha MP and Shiv Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut on Monday said that his blood boils when someone tries to "intimidate" him with the model code of conduct (MCC). "When someone repeatedly tries to intimidate us with the law and the MCC, then our blood boils. This is how we are and we cannot do anything about it," Raut told ANI. He went to the extent of saying, "Plus, we do not care much about laws." Raut was responding to a question on his statement made at a public gathering in Bhayander, a Mumbai suburb. He had said: "We are the kind of people who don't give a damn about the law (bhaad mein gaya kaanoon). We say what we want to and deal with 'these issues'." He had also said that if he did not say something that is in his mind, he felt suffocated. However, the Shiv Sena leader sought to downplay the issue saying that such things happen during elections. "It is okay. Sometimes it happens when we are on the dais," Raut said. He said that he makes more mistakes when he is constantly told to abide by the laws of MCC. The MCC came into effect with the announcement of the seven phases of Lok Sabha elections by the Election Commission on March 10. MCC is a set of guidelines issued by the poll panel to political parties and candidates during elections with respect to speeches, processions and general conduct among other things. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to file nomination from Varanasi parliamentary constituency next week. Sources in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who are in charge of planning his election schedule, told ANI that Prime Minister Modi may file the nomination on April 26. The BJP workers and leaders are working on a plan to organise a two-day mega programme in the run-up to the filing of nomination during which Prime Minister Modi will hold two road shows in the constituency. According to sources, Prime Minister Modi would reach the city on April 25 and will head for a road show from Banaras Hindu University to Dashashwamedh Ghat. The later part of the day has been reserved for a visit to the Kaal Bhairav Temple following which he will participate in the Ganga Aarti on the ghats of the holy city. On the same day, PM Modi would spend time with party workers and intellectuals, sources added. For the next day, the Prime Minister is expected to begin his schedule with prayers at the iconic Kashi Vishwanath Temple. BJP workers are giving final touches to the itinerary of the day, which includes another road show as Prime Minister proceeds to file his nomination. He may also hold media interaction. PM Modi held similar mega road shows in 2014 - both before and after winning the constituency in the 16th Lok Sabha elections. Three years later, the Prime Minister hit the streets of Varanasi for campaigning during the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. During the 2014 general elections, Prime Minister Modi contested and won from Vadodara in Gujarat as well as from Varanasi but retained the later after trouncing Aam Aadmi Party convenor Arvind Kejriwal with a massive margin of 3.37 lakh votes. Varanasi will vote on May 19 - in the seventh and the last phase of the Lok Sabha elections. The counting of votes will take place on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has demanded that a sedition case be registered against his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath for calling the armed forces 'Modi ji ki sena'. "Yogi ji is saying this is Modi sena. There should be a case of sedition registered against Yogi ji. If someone criticises the government, the person is immediately called anti- But who is the anti- ..The (UP) Chief Minister says 'Modi ji ki sena hai'' (Prime Minister Narendra Modi's armed forces). Where do you want to take the country," he told reporters on Sunday. Gehlot said that while people are proud of the bravery of the armed forces, this is the first time the services are being politicised. "In Pakistan, the military has ruled repeatedly. However, in our country, we have kept the armed forces away from politics for the last 70 years. This is the first time when attempts are being made to politicise the services. The day the Army starts interfering in the country's internal affair as in Pakistan, what will happen? Our Army does not think that way. It carries out the job of protecting the country," he said. Addressing a public rally in Ghaziabad on April 1, Adityanath had referred to the armed forces as "Modi ji ki Sena" while drawing a comparison between the steps taken by the BJP-led central government against terrorism and the previous Congress government. Later, the Election Commission had issued a censure to Adityanath and had advised the "senior political leader" to be careful. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A massive fire broke out at Notre Dame Cathedral here on Monday evening with the blaze engulfing the iconic 13th century Notre Dame Cathedral and causing its famous spire to collapse. French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his sadness at the loss. "Notre-Dame de Paris in flames. Emotion of a whole nation. Thought for all Catholics and for all French. Like all our compatriots, I am sad tonight to see this part of us burn," Macron tweeted. One of Paris' most popular tourist attractions, the cathedral's famous spire has collapsed in the massive blaze. The French Minister of Interior, Christophe Castaner, has ensured that "exceptional" measures are being taken to contain the blaze. Witnesses in Paris say that ash and embers are falling from the sky in Paris, in the wake of the massive blaze. The medieval cathedral is considered a religious symbol for Catholics all around the world, with many tweeting about their heartbreak over the incident. US President Donald Trump suggested that "flying water tankers" should be deployed to deal with the violent fire. "So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!" he tweeted. "Notre Dame is an iconic symbol of faith to people all over the - and it is heartbreaking to see a house of God in flames. Our thoughts and prayers are with the firefighters on the scene and all the people of Paris," US Vice President Mike Pence tweeted. "Heart-breaking scenes of Notre Dame cathedral in flames. London stands in sorrow with Paris today, and in friendship always," London Mayor Sadiq Khan tweeted. Completed in the 13th Century, the cathedral is considered a feat of architecture with its towers, spire, flying buttresses and stained glass. It draws nearly 13 million tourists to Paris every year. The cause of the fire remains unknown as emergency services continue to battle the blaze. No casualties or injuries have been reported as of now. Investigations into the incident have been launched by the Paris Prosecutor. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to watch 'PM Narendra Modi' before deciding whether the film should be banned or not. A top court bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, comprising Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Sanjiv Khanna, asked the EC to watch the Narendra Modi biopic and submit its view to the court by April 22 in a sealed cover. On April 12, the makers of the Vivek Oberoi-starrer had moved the apex court, challenging the stay of the film's release. The producer of the film, Sandip SSingh, had said that the poll panel banned the movie without watching it. The film was scheduled to release on April 11, coinciding with the commencement of the Lok Sabha polls in the country. However, on April 10, the EC stayed the release of the biopic till elections culminate, stating that the film disturbs the level-playing field. On April 9, the apex court had dismissed a plea on the release of the film and said that the responsibility will lie on the shoulders of the EC to decide whether the film is in violation of the model code of conduct. Helmed by Omung Kumar, the film stars Vivek Oberoi, Zarina Wahab, and Barkha Bisht Sengupta, among others, and is based on the life of the incumbent Prime Minister. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to the Centre and the Election Commission of India (ECI) on a plea seeking directions to bring all recognised political parties under the ambit of Right to Information (RTI) Act. A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi comprising Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Sanjiv Khanna issued the notice on the petition filed by BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Upadhyay. Upadhyay had filed the petition in the apex court on April 7, seeking directions to declare all and state recognised political parties as a 'public authority.' The petition said: "As per Section 29C of the Representation of People Act (RPA), donations received by political parties are required to be reported to the Election Commission of India. This obligation points towards their public character." "Therefore, this court can declare that political parties are a 'public authority' under Section 2(h) of the RTI Act, 2005, by reading 10th Schedule of the Constitution with Sections 29A, 29B and 29C of the RPA," argues the petitioner. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Monday refused to stay Madras High Court's order imposing a ban on Chinese video app TikTok. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi posted the matter for hearing on April 22 as the case is coming up for hearing in the Madras High Court tomorrow. The apex court was hearing an appeal filed by Chinese company ByteDance against the High Court which said there were over billion downloads of its app and the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court had passed an ex-parte order. In its April 3 order, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court had directed the Centre to ban the mobile app, voicing concern over "pornographic and inappropriate content" being made available through the app. The order also restrained the media from telecasting videos made using the app. The order had come after the court noted that through this app, children are being exposed to inappropriate content including pornography, adding that minors are also being exposed to strangers through this app. "It is evident from media reports that pornography and inappropriate contents are made available in this kind of cyber applications. The children are exposed to strangers and there is a possibility of the photographs and other private details of the children are being landed in the hands of predators or third parties," the bench had observed. "On March 27, an auto driver was arrested for posting a video that included a woman from Chennai on TikTok Mobile App. A 15-year-old girl is said to have committed suicide at Mumbai for being scolded by her grandmother for use of TikTok Mobile App. An old man is said to have fallen in the waterfalls in Valparai, while taking a selfie or Tik Tok video. Before many tragic incidents would occur, the government has to take appropriate steps," the plea filed by Madurai senior lawyer Muttu Kumar read. TikTok, an app that allows users to create and share short videos with special effects, has over 54 million monthly active users in India. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tottenham forward Son Heung-min has donated around PS100,000 to the victims of a deadly blaze in South Korea that left two people dead and hundreds of people homeless. "It's nothing compared to what the victims have sacrificed. Although I'm living abroad, I know what's happening in my home country" Goal.com quoted Son as saying. "I think it's something I should do when there's a big disaster in my home country. I believe money does not matter. The most important thing is a mind to do something for the victims," he added. The fire swept across the country's north-eastern mountainous region, close to the border with North Korea. Investigators believe the fire began from a transform spark on the evening of April 5 and destroyed nearly 400 homes. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) recently presented the Global Champion Award to Egypts Minister of Tourism, Dr Rania al-Mashat, for Egypts efforts in promoting sustainable tourism. The annual award recognises the efforts of countries or officials in countries that have succeeded, through their policies and initiatives, in raising the competitiveness of the tourism sector. This is the first time for a country or a minister in the Middle East to receive such an award, the WTTC said, which was held during the 2019 Global Summit held in Seville, Spain, between April 2 and 4. Under Al-Mashat's guidance, Egypts tourism sector recovered rapidly with the country's tourist numbers increasing 16.5 per cent in 2018, which is higher than the global average of 3.9 per cent. Upon receiving the award, Dr Al-Mashat said: "The appreciation of the International Council for Tourism and Travel for the efforts of Egypt to promote the tourism sector is a certificate and a token we all cherish." She explained that the Ministry of Tourism's main goal is to enable at least one member of each Egyptian family to work in the sector. - TradeArabia News Service Leaders of Telugu Nadu Students Federation (TNSF), the youth wing of TDP on Sunday vandalised YSRCP's party office here after their district president Tirumala Naidu was allegedly attacked with iron rods. TNSF leaders and workers went to YSRCP's Nellore rural party office and staged a protest. They also tore down the YSRCP party boards and flexies of party chief Jaganmohan Reddy. TNSF alleged that YSRCP MLA Sridhar Reddy is responsible for the attack on Naidu. Later, the police reached the spot and detained TNSF leaders. Naidu is currently in the hospital and is undergoing treatment after suffering "critical injuries" on his head and hand. Earlier on April 11 polling in Andhra Pradesh was marred with violence, as multiple clashes broke out between workers of Telugu Desam Party and YSRCP across the state. Polling was held on Thursday for 25 Lok Sabha and 175 Assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With insightful keynotes and deep dive workshops, the two day TiECON 2019 organised in Pune by not for profit making organisation - The Indus Entrepreneurs gave an enriching experience to more than 500 startup entrepreneurs to take them into the second wave. More than 50 experts deliberated and interacted with the audience to address a host of issues facing young entrepreneurs. This was the seventh edition of TiECON Pune. A special report prepared in partnership with KPMG on entrepreneurship in Pune was published. The Jugalbandi session between startups and grown ups moderated by TiECON 2019 chairperson Vineet Patni saw stalwarts and Corporate Advisor R. Gopalakrishnan and Angel Investor and mentor R. Narayanan share some interesting insights on startups and grown ups. R. Narayanan who has been deeply involved in startups said that while the success rate in startups is still low and the startup industry has to yet take off we should not be judgmental, just like a baby tries to walk and falls down to get up again and in the process learns to walk, similarly we should not stress startups on what not to do , instead we should give them a free hand. R. Gopalakrishnan said that a startup is like a new baby born and one has to nurture it. The good thing is that they are young and have no boundaries, no preconceived notions and fear and the only thing they see is success and there is a valuable learning process in a freewheeling environment. Nasscom Chairman and Group CEO WNS Global Services Keshav Murugesh said that an idea is just the beginning that by itself is not enough, the key to success lies in how you implement them and the timing which is very crucial. Talking about ideas Paani Foundation Satyajeet Bhatkal CEO Paani Foundation said that during the Satyameya Jayate series they came across a startling fact that there was no problem in India which had not been solved but the solution was restricted to a specific area or village and had not converted into a mass movement. So "we have the know how but no scale and I think communication is the missing link between these two. We came up with the idea of Water Cup which is a competition and is fun, modern and participative. It adds to the excitement of participating and also gives an opportunity of sharing knowledge. We concentrated on one issue and that is of water and in the state of Maharashtra which already was a laboratory of techniques to fight endemic droughts, but this was confined to only a few talukas. There is a need to convert this into a mass movement to transform the face of the entire landscape." Kiran Rao said that "I am a city girl and my idea of village came from paintings, film shoots and I didn't really get a chance to know more about it. Going to villages changed my perspective about my own life. At a deeper level, something changed and I felt more connected with people and in a sense experienced a bright new world and felt connected to the vast nature. "It was an incredibly transformative and fulfilling experience for me. It has been a fun thing to do too. It connected me to nature and it made me realize how far we have gone to destroy it. This gave me a chance to step up to help conserve our nature. The Jalmitra initiative which we have started is to bridge the gap between the villages and the city. This is bringing about a transformation where an entire community is working towards a common goal,"Rao said. Ganesh Natrajan talked about the importance of digital transformation and its' ability to impact businesses and change our perception and ambitions. "TiECON 2019 provided a great platform for deep learning on several domains, a departure from most such conferences," said Ravi Nigam, Charter Member TiE Pune. "TiECON Pune 2019 provided wholesome values with Deep Dives in Masterclasses and broader perspectives with plenary sessions and investor pitches. The Nurture Pavilion showcased work by TiE Pune in mentorship" commented Kiran Deshpande - President TiE Pune. Charter member Vivek Gupta said that "based on the feedback we've received so far, we believe we've once again reset the bar this year by making TiECon a two full day event, and by focusing one day on Master classes on curated and relevant topics for entrepreneurs, and another day of powerful keynotes and panel discussions." Vineet Patni , Chairperson TiECON 2019 said the unique two day event clearly made waves; in learning, Networking, and experiencing some of the best speakers. This immensely successful, well attended TiECON 2019 has set high standards for the future! . (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President Donald Trump's possible plan of sending undocumented immigrants to sanctuary cities is undergoing a "complete and thorough review," according to White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders. Speaking to Fox News, she said: "Whether or not it moves forward -- that's yet to be determined. This was raised at a staff level, initially, and pushed back on. The President wants us to explore it again, and that's being done, and they're doing a complete and thorough review. Sanders added that they "have to look at all options," to respond to the situation at the US-Mexico border, reports Xinhua. 'Sanctuary cities' are local jurisdictions in the United States which refrain from cooperating with authorities, detaining undocumented immigrants for possible deportation. The US President threatened on "placing illegal immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only" earlier this week, blaming the Democrats for the country's "weak" immigration laws. Trump added that the United States "has the absolute legal right to have apprehended illegal immigrants transferred to Sanctuary Cities." His statements have since been slammed by the Democrats. "We hereby demand that they be taken care of at the highest level, especially by the State of California," he further said. The leader has been vocal about his dislike towards the influx of undocumented immigrants, especially through the nation's southern border with Mexico. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on Monday said that the Army has plans to hold joint exercise with the Indian Coast Guard. "We are inducting some Air Cushion Vehicles (ACVs) and since they (Coast Guard) have expertise in it, we will be carrying joint training and ultimately joint exercise along with Coast Guards on how to operate this ACVs inland and along the coastal area," General Rawat told ANI. He also said that the newly commissioned Indian Coast Guard Ship ICGS Veera will help the Coast Guard to monitor the maritime boundaries more effectively and will also add to their strengths. "You are aware that Indian Coast Guard, along with Indian Navy, is responsible for maintaining maritime surveillance and ensuring that our Exclusive Economic Zone is monitored effectively," he said. "Coast Guard has been carrying its task in a professional manner and continuously upgrading their efforts. This happens only when they are provided additional resources. ICGS Veera which has been commissioned will add to their strengths," he said. The Army Chief was here to participate in the commissioning programme of ICGS Veera in the Coast Guard. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Approval facilitates to continue operations and regular supply of urea to the farmers The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the proposal of the Department of fertilizers to extend the duration of New Urea Policy-2015 from 1 April 2019 till further orders, except for the provisions which stand already amended vide notification dated 28 March 2018. It will facilitate to continue operations and regular supply of urea to the farmers. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Grossed over Rs 23000 crore in Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) through more than 17 lakh transactions on the platform Government e Marketplace (GeM), the national public procurement portal offering end to end solution for all procurement needs of Central and State govt. departments and PSUs has closed the FY 2018-19 on a high note. The year witnessed a four-fold increase in total value of transactions on the portal and doubling of number of sellers in the marketplace. There has also been an overall growth in other dimensions like number of categories, products and buyers. Despite such phenomenal growth in transactions, average rejection rate of supplies remained below one percent, which is proof of high quality of products/services offered on the portal. Significant Milestones achieved in FY 2018-19: * Grossed over Rs 23,000 crore in Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) through more than 17 lakh transactions on the platform. * Made over 8.8 lakh products available on its platform through a network of over 2 lakh sellers and service providers. * These products and services are being bought by over 34,000 government organisations * (Central, State Governments and PSUs) registered on the platform. * 42% of transactions by volume are done with MSMEs registered on the platform. * Buyers from across 36 States and Union Territories (UTs) are buying on the platform. 24 States and UTs have signed a formal MoU with GeM to adopt it as the core procurement portal in their respective territories. * Average savings of more than 25% achieved across transactions on the platform. * Integration with Aadhaar, UdyogAadhaar, Ministry of Corporate Affairs21 (MCA21), Public Financial Management System (PFMS), PAN, GSTN, Controller General of Defence Accounts (CGDA), Railways, and Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) empanelled rating agencies for robust registration process. * Training of over 1.3 lakh buyers and sellers has been conducted across 28 States and UTs to enable them to seamlessly operate the platform. * MoUs have been signed with 12 banks for payment integration (State GeM Pool Account-SGPA, Electronic Performance Bank Guarantee-ePBG, Electronic Earnest Money Deposit-eEMD) to facilitate a cashless, contactless and paperless paymentsystem on the platform. * MoU signed with MSME Ministry, Common Service Centers (CSC) and industrial associations (CII, FICCI, AIMA, MAIT, FICCI, PHD Chamber of Commerce & Industry, IIA and ASSOCHAM. for facilitating training, capacity building and on boarding of manufactures and vendors across the country. * Integration with Quality Council of India (QCI) for ensuring quality compliances of the products and services offered through GeM. * Traffic on GeM website has increased by 50% in FY 2018-19 Vs. 2017-18 During the year, GeM was awarded Digital India Platinum Award for 'Exemplary Online Service' by the Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY). It was also nominated for the prestigious UN-ITU WSIS. GeM had taken up some special initiatives to spread awareness, train prospective users and promote inclusiveness in the marketplace. One such mega initiative was National Mission on GeM, organized during the months of September-October 2018. Launched on 5th September 2018, the Mission witnessed 315 capacity building exercises across 187 districts of 31 states/UTs. Apart from the States, UT, Central Ministries and CPSU events, 18 dedicated theme-based events, which included technology architecture, services, credit facilities, legal framework, localization etc. were held to steer the future roadmap for GeM and strategize exponential growth. As a part of inclusive agenda, another special initiative was launched to enable Women Entrepreneurs and Women led Self Help Groups to showcase and sell their products on GeM. The initiative is aptly named as 'Womaniya'. Another programme like SWAYATT- an initiative to promote Start-ups, Women and Youth Advantage Through e-Transactions, was launched in February 2019.In association with Start -up India, GeM Start-up Runway has been initiated to facilitate Start-ups in selling innovative products and services to government buyers. Since its inception on 9 August 2016, GeM has transformed public procurement in the country by leveraging technology and making procurement contactless, paperless, and cashless. GeM facilitates procurement at the right price, right quality and right quantity in a transparent and efficient manner. The platform reduces manual process inefficiencies and human interventions in procurement and enables increased coverage, access, and efficiency of faceless standardised public procurement. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Three Indian student teams won awards in NASA's annual Human Exploration Rover Challenge at the US Space and Rocket Centre in Huntsville, Alabama. The team from KIET Group of Institutions in Ghaziabad won the "AIAA Neil Armstrong Best Design Award" in the college/university division, NASA said in a statement late Sunday. The Mukesh Patel School of Technology Management and Engineering from Mumbai won the "Frank Joe Sexton Memorial Pit Crew Award" in the college/university division. The Mukesh Patel school also won the System Safety Challenge Award at the competition hosted by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville and held at the US Space and Rocket Centre. Lovely Professional University from Phagwara, Punjab, won the STEM Engagement Award. The International Space Institute of Leipzig, Germany, won first place in the high school division with 91 points and the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez - Team 1 won the college/university division with 101 points. NASA astronaut and two-time spaceflight veteran Sunita "Suni" Williams also interacted with teams and participating in the activities. "The creativity, skill and resourcefulness demonstrated each year on the rover course are the very traits that paved our path to the Moon in 1969, and the ones that will continue to carry NASA forward to the Moon again in 2024," said Bob Musgrove, Acting Manager of the Office of STEM Engagement at Marshall. Nearly 100 teams took part in the competition, hailing from 23 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, as well as a record number of countries, including Bangladesh, Germany, India, Mexico, Morocco and Peru. The competition challenges high school and college teams to design, build and test human-powered roving vehicles inspired by the Apollo lunar missions and future exploration missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. --IANS na/ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Monday told the Election Commission to respond immediately to hate speeches after the poll panel said it was "toothless" and "powerless" when the model code of conduct was violated. In a sharp jibe at the Election Commission counsel, Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said: "This is something you are duty bound to do. You have to be prompt, you have to act immediately. You can't drag it." The court agreed to examine the statements made by BSP chief Mayawati, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and others. A bench of Chief Justice Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna put the matter for consideration on Tuesday. The court sought the presence of the Election Commission official during the hearing. Taking up a petition filed by NRI Harpreet Mansukhani, the bench sought to know from advocate Amit Sharma, appearing for the EC, regarding the nature of action that shall be initiated against the politicians for alleged hate speeches or statements seeking votes on the basis of religion or caste. The Election Commission informed the court that its power was circumscribed and so it could only issue notice, then an advisory and lodge a criminal complaint on repeated violations. The counsel for the poll body said it was "toothless" and "powerless" against hate and religious speeches made during the elections. The apex court said that then it was appropriate to examine the scope of powers of the poll panel that is also a constitutional body. The EC counsel said that in cases of complaints, it issues notice and seeks reply regarding the violation of the model code of conduct. "We ask them to be careful and issue an advisory." The counsel replied that it does not have power to de-recognise or disqualify the offending person. And if the candidate continues to to violate the Model Code of Conduct, then the poll body can file a compliant. Senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, appearing for the petitioner, contended that the Election Commission already had vast power under the Article 324 of the Constitution. The bench enquired from the EC counsel what action did it take against Adityanath on his statement on 'Modiji ki Sena' (Modi's Army). The EC counsel said the matter was closed after his explanation but there were two matters wherein both Mayawati and Adityanath had to respond by April 12. The petitioner pleaded before the court that it should take strict action against political parties if their spokespersons or leaders made speeches or make remarks in media specifically on religion and caste. The petitioner requested the court to set up a committee under the chairmanship of a retired Supreme Court judge to monitor the election process and the Election Commission. The petitioner informed the court that EC, in a historical perspective, was yet to act against political parties, although, under the Representation of the People Act, 1951, this was permissible. --IANS ss/mr/pg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on Monday hit out at the Congress, alleging that it had done "injustice" to the people for decades but now during the elections, has started talking of "Nyay (justice)". Addressing a gathering here before the filing of nomination papers by BJP's Jaipur candidate and sitting MP Ramcharan Bohra, she said that those who ruled the nation for 55 years and spoke of eradicating poverty failed in their promises and hence poverty could not be eliminated from India. Hitting out at the present Ashok Gehlot-led party government, Raje accused it of failing to give full loan waiver to farmers while the unemployed could not get their allowance as promised. Surprisingly, their party continues speaking of Nyay," she said at a jibe at the Congress' poll promise of a minimum income support scheme, which aims to provide Rs 72,000 annually to 20 per cent of the poorest families. Raje also said that this Lok Sabha election is not a normal election but "stands synonymous for soldiers' respect and national security". "Prime Minister Narendra Modi helped in eradicating corruption from India and hence we need to ensure that we help him come as PM again," she added. BJP state President Madan Lal Saini, who was also present, accused Congress of trying to "throttle democracy" during the Emergency (1975-77) and "torturing" various sections of people. --IANS arc/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Delhi court on Monday reserved the order on the bail plea of Sushen Mohan Gupta, an alleged middleman in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal case. Special Judge Arvind Kumar said he will deliver the order on April 20. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has opposed Sushen's bail plea. He was arrested on March 26, a day after the court allowed Rajiv Saxena, a Dubai-based businessman and another alleged middleman in the deal, to turn approver. The court also listed the plea of British national Christian Michel, the key middleman accused in the case, seeking a "free and fair" trial, for further hearing on April 12. He has alleged that the fresh supplementary chargesheet filed in the case was accessed by some media outlets. The ED has filed the reply on his plea and raised question on the maintainability of his application. Michel was extradited to India on December 4, 2018, from the United Arab Emirates. According to the ED, Saxena, in connivance with lawyer Gautam Khaitan, developed the global corporate structure that laundered money for payment to politicians, bureaucrats and Indian Air Force (IAF) officials to influence the contract for supplying 12 VVIP choppers in favour of AgustaWestland, the Rome-based helicopter design and manufacturing company. --IANS ak/ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Ak Zhol Democratic Party of Kazakhstan failed to decide at its meeting yesterday whom it would nominate as its candidate for Kazakh president, agreeing to make a final decision on this issue at its congress on April 24, the party's press service said. Representatives of the Turkestan, Mangystau, Almatyregions, Almaty and Nur-Sultan proposed to nominate leader of Ak Zhoparty Azat Peruashev. But he has refrained and suggested to give others the possibility to become a candidate, Interfax reported. With Jet Airways suspending its international flights in the face of deep financial crisis and staring at closure, rivals Air India and SpiceJet are eyeing the beleaguered carrier's flying rights to the lucrative India-Dubai route. The two airlines are learnt to have urged the Civil Aviation Ministry to allocate traffic rights to them, in case Jet Airways fails to utilize the weekly seat quota granted by the government. Talking to IANS, a senior Air India executive said that fares on the India-Dubai route had soared following sudden withdrawal of nearly 13,000 seats operated by Jet Airways on the sector. "The seats may be reallocated to domestic carriers before Emirates has its monopoly at the cost of Indian carriers," the executive from the Indian flag carrier said. Low-cost carrier SpiceJet, which has been on an expansion drive, also wants the government to allocate it the unutilized seats so that it could mount more capacity on the commercially profitable route. The Gurgaon-based airline is looking to add about 6,000 seats per week from about 12,800 seats per week now. The airline on Monday announced to operate flights to eight foreign destinations including Dubai from Mumbai. The new flights will be started by May-end. Industry experts have supported the idea of allocating unutilized seat entitlements by Jet Airways, stating it will help consumers. "The government's job is to protect the consumers and the sector and not necessarily an individual company. The promoters knew that the airline was in financial trouble almost a year back, yet they have been playing hard ball and negotiations have been stretched to the point that finding a credible buyer is going to be a real challenge," said Dhiraj Mathur, Partner, PwC. He said that the drastic capacity reduction has sent fares into the stratosphere and threatens to jeopardize the sector's phenomenal growth in the past decade. "Given this, the government should specify a very short time limit for concluding the resolution and then allocate the international traffic rights to other willing airlines who have the capacity," he added. Crisis-ridden Jet Airways is desperately looking for funds as it is making its last ditch effort to get an investor on board. The airline is currently operating 7 aircraft from its peak of 119 a few months back. Travel industry veteran Rajji Rai also supported domestic airlines' demand to re-allocate traffic rights given the twin issue of Pakistan banning overflying of Indian carriers over its airspace and Jet crisis pushing the fares northward. "Due to restrictions imposed by Pakistan flying time to Dubai went up thus burning more fuel. Jet crisis added to the problem. The government must not allow Emirates to take over the India-Dubai sector," he added. (Nirbhay Kumar can be contacted at nirbhay.k@ians.in) --IANS nk/sn/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A popular California-based South Indian classical dance group will tell the stories of American activists Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King by employing the stylistic vocabulary of the Bharatnatyam dance form. The Abhinaya Dance Company of San Jose will perform "I Have A Dream: Stories of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King", Jr." in Oakland on April 27, the American Bazaar reported on Sunday. "I Have A Dream: Stories of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr." is a re-staging of excerpts from Abhinaya's performance "Stories of Justice", presented last November in San Jose, and features an opening number titled "Gandhi's Inspiration". The show is directed by artistic director Mythili Kumar and the performance depicts the non-violent resistance strategies of King and seeks to demonstrate that the fight for social justice is ongoing and that past struggles provide lessons that enable us to confront our current problems. Abhinaya dancers will dramatically portray key protests in King's life, where he emphasised the principle of non-violence, deriving inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi's resistance movement against the British in India. Acclaimed choreographer and dancer Rasika Kumar will present her solo on Parks' life. --IANS ksk/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) American Airlines has extended the cancellation of its Boeing 737 Max flights until August 19 due to the indefinite global grounding of the plane model, the company has announced. American, the world's largest airline, decided to extend cancellations from early June through August 19, to help plan ahead for the busy summer travel season. Southwest Airlines last week also extended flight cancellations for 737 Max planes from June until August, CNN reported. "Based upon our ongoing work with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Boeing, we are highly confident that the MAX will be re-certified prior to this time," American Chairman and CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom said on Sunday in a message to airline staff. "But by extending our cancellations through the summer, we can plan more reliably for the peak travel season." Approximately 115 flights a day will be cancelled through August 19, representing about 1.5 per cent of the airline's total daily flights, they said. The airline has 24 737 Max jets in its fleet. American has previously said that all flights that were originally scheduled on a MAX plane will not be cancelled, with some being substituted with other aircraft. The 737 Max was grounded in March after one of the planes flown by Ethiopian Airlines crashed, killing everyone on board. It was the second accident involving the jet model in less than six months, after another flown by Indonesia's Lion Air crashed last October. The crashes killed 346 people in total. The causes of the crashes are still being investigated, but the focus has been on an automatic safety feature that may have forced the nose of each plane lower when it incorrectly sensed the plane was in danger of going into a stall. Boeing and the FAA said they are working on an upgrade of the 737 Max software to deal with that safety feature. Boeing announced earlier this month it was cutting the production rate for all of its 737 planes from 52 a month to 42 amid the worldwide grounding. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal on Monday ushered in "Poila Boisakh", the Bengali New Year, amidst traditional gaiety and fervour. The first day of the year is all about dressing up in new clothes, exchanging pleasantries, traditional sweets and "shubho naba barsho" (happy new year) greetings. Various temples like Kalighat and Dakshineshwar witnessed a huge footfall as devout Bengalis offered prayers, flowers and sweets wishing a fruitful year ahead. Revellers, cutting across religious barriers, celebrated the day with family and friends. During this time of the year family members fly back to Bengal from across the world to be with their near and dear ones. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee extended her greetings to everyone on the social media. All sorts of sweets starting from traditional sandesh (cottage cheese sweet), Rosogolla (sugary spongy sweet) to sugar-free and fusion sweets kept flying off the shelves of all confectioners. With the day also marking the start of a new financial year, shopkeepers and businessmen observed the "haal khata" ceremony -- closing their old account books and opening new ones. Smiling traders welcomed customers with sweets and new Bengali calendars, as people went on a shopping spree. The Bangabda or the Bengali calendar was promulgated in 1584 A.D. by Mughal emperor Akbar. Initially known as the "Tarikh-e-Elahi", the purpose of the calendar was to glorify Akbar's ascent to the throne along with facilitating revenue collection. Cashing in on the fervour, eateries across the city and the state have laid out lavish spreads of authentic Bengali cuisine, including daab chingri (jumbo prawn in tender coconut), muri ghanto (quintessential Bengali Fish head curry) and a variety of lip-smacking traditional desserts like mishti doi (sweet yoghurt). --IANS bnd/ssp/in (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday accused the BJP, Congress and the CPI-M of forming a nexus to defeat the Trinamool Congress in the Lok Sabha elections in the state. Banerjee's allegation came at an election rally in Murshidabad district where her party is in a four-cornered battle with the three. The Trinamool has never won any of the three Lok Sabha seats in Murshidabad -- Baharampur, Murshidabad and Jangipur. Although the Trinamool MLAs and its members at gram panchayats and panchayat samity levels have won, but voters in Baharampur, Murshidabad and Jangipur parliamentary constituencies have never blessed the Trinamool despite many development work undertaken by the government, she said. She also accused the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of funding the Congress' Baharampur candidate and sitting MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and its Jangipur candidate and former President Pranab Mukherjee's son Abhijit Mukherjee. "BJP, Congress and CPI-M have formed a nexus to defeat Trinamool. They fight together against the Trinamool. They fought together in panchayat. Trinamool is powerful in Bengal," she said. The Trinamool leader said: "Why are they (Congress and Left) trying to weaken our party to strengthen the BJP?" She warned that the Congress "should not feel that they are the only national party" in the opposition grand alliance. "Trinamool is also a recognised as a national party." Accusing state Congress leaders of having a nexus with the Communist Party of India-Marxist, Banerjee said many leaders and even she herself left the Congress and formed the Trinamool Congress because there were leaders who were maintaining relation with the CPI-M. Banerjee also alleged some state Congress leaders of having formed an understanding with the BJP and that is why she said that the Central Bureau of Investigation did not harass them. "Ask Adhir, whether the CBI harasses him or not," she told a rally at Beldanga. Launching a scathing attack on Chowdhury, Banerjee said: "How many days does he stay in Bahrampur? He does for the BJP in the morning, Congress in the afternoon and CPI-M in the evening." She alleged that the Congress did not protest the implementation of the NRC in Assam while her party had been fighting relentlessly against the National Register of Citizens. Banerjee also accused the central forces -- the Border Security Force, Central Reserve Police Force and Central Industrial Security Force -- of threatening rural people to work in favour of the BJP. "I have respect for the central forces -- BSF, CRPF and CISF. I have got some information that you (central forces) are threatening people in some rural areas to work in favour of the BJP. Law and order is a state subject and if you have any issues, (you) discuss with the state," Banerjee said. --IANS bdc/ssp/in/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) This Lok Sabha constituency, a BJP bastion which it has claimed for around 25 years, may, if the Modi magic continues, give it another chance amid the twin challenges of the SP-BSP-RLD alliance and the polarisation of a section of the voters. Many voters that IANS spoke to expressed their displeasure against incumbent MP Bhola Singh but have decided to vote for the party only because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom they described as the perfect prime ministerial candidate among the leaders of the other political parties. Property dealer Vinod Sharma told IANS that the people will cast their votes in Modi's name. The victory margin, he said, may go down to 1.20 lakh from over 4 lakh the last time around, but BJP will win the election. "As the people are angry with the sitting MP, it will impact the result. If there had been any other BJP candidate, the margin of victory would have crossed that of the last election. "The people will vote in the name of Modi not for the BJP or its candidate. There is anger against the BJP because its leaders have used derogatory remarks on many occasions and it has hurt the sentiments of the people. "The BJP MP has never visited in the constituency," Guddu, who runs a tyre repair shop at the entrance of Bulandshahr city, told IANS. There is a fight between the BJP and the alliance, said Guddu, adding that the Congress is nowhere in the fight. The BJP has been winning from Bulandshahr since 1991 and lost only once in 2009 to the Samajwadi Party. Bhola Singh is up against Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal alliance candidate Yogesh Verma, the husband of Meerut mayor Sunita Verma. Bansi Lal Pahadia, who had been elected to the state assembly from Khurja in 2012, is the Congress nominee. In 2014, Bhola Singh had defeated his nearest rival, Pradeep Kumar Jatav of the BSP, by over 4 lakh votes. This time around, Modi is the first choice of voters except for the majority of Muslims, and Dalits in the Western Uttar Pradesh constituency which comprises five assembly segments - Bulandshahr, Syana, Anupshahr, Debai and Shikarpur. But, despite a 70 per cent Hindu population, as per the 2011 census, victory will not be an easy task for the BJP as the polarisation of Dalit, Muslim and Jat votes may pose a tough challenge. Jats, who account for some 3.2 lakh voters, are divided between the BJP and the RLD and their support for either party can change the scenario. If they majorly favour the alliance, the BJP will be in for a cracker of a contest. Talking about the Jat votes, Narendra Sharma, who runs deals in electrical goods, said: "There is majority of Jats in Agauta, Saidpur, Bibinagar, Bandaul and Jauli villages. They are angry with the RLD for joining hands with the BSP. They will vote for the BJP." A resident of Aguata, Sanjay Sharma, said: "Over 90 per cent people in my are will vote for the flower (the BJP symbol) because of Modi. There is 60 per cent Jats and 20 per cent Branhmins here." Asked about the impact of Goods and Services Tax (GST), Devendra Kumar, a businessman from Syana said: "How will the country progress if we do not pay tax? There is a little bit of impact of GST on the business but it will benefit in the long term." Muslims, who form a significant 22 per cent of the total population play an important role in Bulandshahr constituency. Thus, if they throw their weight behind the alliance and dump the Congress, this would spell danger for the BJP. Mohd. Shabir, who deals in electric goods, told IANS: "There is a fight between the BJP and the gathbandhan (alliance) here. Congress has no base in Bulandshahr. There was a mahagathbandhan rally here on Saturday. Over 50 per cent Jats are supporting the alliance which were the BJP supporters earlier. Around 10 per cent Muslims are also supporting the BJP." Shabir said that Modi is very good and should be elected again, only his "juniors like (BJP President) Amit Shah and (UP Chief Minister) Yogi Adityanath try to spread hatred". Sahendrapal, a farmer of Chingrawathi, from where over 20 people have been held by the police in connection with last year's violence, said some Lodhi Rajputs are against the BJP in his village but overall consensus is with Modi.A "Modi government has helped farmers by waiving off interest on Rs 1 lakh loan taken on the Kisan (credit) card." He, however, said the alliance is giving a challenge to the BJP. As for Congress candidate Pahadia, who belongs to the Khatik Scheduled Caste, he can also swing the almost 1 lakh votes of the community and this will directly impact the BJP's Bhola Singh, who is from the same caste.Bulandshahr, which has over 17 lakh voters, is reserved for Scheduled Castes. It will go to the polls on April 18. The counting of votes will take place on May 23. The constituency, a sugarcane belt of Uttar Pradesh, was in the news for the mob violence on December 3 last year that claimed the lives of a police inspector and a youth. (Rajnish Singh can be contacted at rajnish.s@ians.in) --IANS rak/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) High-voltage electioneering peaked in 14 Lok Sabha constituencies across central and southern regions of Karnataka for the first-phase poll in the state on April 18, a poll official said on Monday. "As campaign ends on Tuesday evening for the first phase of polling on Thursday, leaders and candidates of political parties and independents are criss-crossing the twin regions to woo the electorate for their votes," the official monitoring electioneering across the state told IANS here. Of the 28 parliamentary constituencies from the southern state, including five reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and two for the Scheduled Tribes (STs), polling in the remaining 14 seats will be held in the western or coastal and northern regions on April 23. Vote count for all the seats is due on May 23. "After Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed five rallies in both the regions last week for the BJP candidates, and Congress President Rahul Gandhi for the joint candidates of his party and the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) in five places, their state leaders have been holding rallies, public meetings, road shows and door-to-door canvassing for the battle of the ballot at the hustings," said the official. Modi addressed rallies at Chitradurga, Mysuru, Koppal, Mangaluru and Bengaluru, while Gandhi did in Bengaluru, Kolar, Chitradurga and Mysuru. The 14 constituencies to vote in the first phase are Udupi-Chikmagalur, Hassan, Dakshina Kannada, Chitradurga (SC), Tumkur, Mandya, Mysore, Chamarajnagar (SC), Bangalore Rural, Bangalore North, Bangalore Central, Bangalore South, Chikkaballapur and Kolar (SC). Prominent leaders sweating out for the BJP over the last two weeks are its state unit president B.S. Yeddyurappa and others, including K.S. Eshwarappa, K.R. Ashok, Arvind Limbavalli, Suresh Kumar and party general secretary Muralidhar Rao. Party's national President Amit Shah and Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari and Smriti Irani also came calling to address the party's rallies in the twin regions. For the Congress, besides Gandhi, its general secretary and state unit in-charge K.C. Venugopal, its Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and its state unit president Dinesh Gundu Rao have been campaigning for their contestants and the JD-S candidates. From the JD-S, its supreme H.D. Deve Gowda, its state Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, party's state working president H. Vishwanath, PWD Minister H.D. Revanna and Anitha Kumaraswamy have been campaigning mostly for its four candidates. Of the four JD-S contestants, Deve Gowda is contesting from Tumkur, opting out of the party's bastion Hassan, from where his grandson and Revanna's son Prajwal is in the fray. Gowda's another grandson and Kumaraswamy's son Nikhil is contesting against Sumalatha in Mandya. As part of pre-poll tie-up and seat-sharing arrangement, Congress is contesting in 21 seats and JD-S in seven in both phases. In the first phase, the Congress is in 10 seats, including three reserved for the SCs, and the JD-S in four seats. In the second phase, the Congress is in 11 seats and the JD-S in three. The BJP is contesting in 27 seats in the two phases -- 13 in the first phase -- and supporting multilingual south Indian actress Sumalatha Ambareesh, contesting as an Independent in Mandya, about 100km from Bengaluru. As many as 241 candidates, including 15 women and 133 Independents are in the fray for 14 seats. Though the BJP has one woman -- Shobha Karandlaje in the fray for the second time from Udupi-Chikkamagalur, Congress and JD-S have not fielded any woman in the first phase, while there are 7 women as Independents. Among the constituencies, Bangalore North has the highest number of 31 candidates, followed by 25 in Bangalore South and 22 each in Bangalore Central, Mandya and Mysore. Lowest number of candidates is six in Hassan, followed by 10 in Chamarajnagar, 12 in Udupi-Chikkmagalur and 13 in Dakshina Kannada. Key constituencies in the first phase are all the three seats in Bangalore, Mandya, Hassan and Tumkur. In the 2014 general elections, of the 14 seats, the BJP and the Congress had won six each and JD-S two. --IANS fb/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) World renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma performed at the US-Mexico border to make a statement about global unity, urging listeners to "build bridges, not walls", the media reported. The classical musician brought his touring Bach Project to Laredo, Texas, in hopes that his music will connect people with each other no matter their cultural differences, CNN reported on Sunday. "I've lived my life at the borders. Between cultures. Between disciplines. Between musics. Between generations," said Ma, who performed with the Juarez-Lincoln International Bridge, which connects Texas and Mexico, as a backdrop behind him. "In culture, we build bridges, not walls. A country is not a hotel and it's not full." Ma's performance on Saturday was planned as part of a Day of Action, a joint event involving Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, to celebrate the common culture between the adjoining border cities. His appearance came as President Donald Trump continues to pursue his goal of building a wall along the US Southern border. Ma is one of the world's most celebrated cellists. He has performed for eight American presidents and has received the National Medal of the Arts, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the J. Paul Getty Medal Award, among other honours. In 2018, he embarked on his ambitious Bach Project, a plan to perform Bach's cello suites in 36 locations around the world. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Chinese tech employees have pushed back against the industrys notoriously long hours, known as the "996" schedule of working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week, the media reported on Monday. For months, former and current employees of some of the country's most well-known companies had been posting evidence of unpaid, often compulsory or heavily encouraged overtime on the code-sharing platform Github, reports the Guardian. Over the last few weeks, that discussion spread across Chinese social media, prompting an outcry and a broader debate about work culture in China. Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, one of the companies included in a black list of firms forcing overtime on employees, has defended its long hours in comments. He called the "996" schedule "a huge blessing" and said workers should consider it an honour rather than a burden. "If you join Alibaba, you should get ready to work 12 hours a day. Otherwise why did you come to Alibaba? We don't need those who comfortably work eight hours," he said, according to comments posted on the company's Wechat account. Telecom giant Huawei reportedly promotes an aggressive, cut-throat "wolf culture" among its ranks. On Github, users have created a blacklist of more than 150 companies, including Bytedance, the creator of the video app TikTok, Huawei, and ecommerce firm Pinduoduo. Former and current employees continue to add to and edit the list, uploading details of the companies and the hours they require. --IANS ksk/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bringing out the alliance talk in public domain, Congress President Rahul Gandhi and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal on Monday blamed each other for the delay in forging an alliance between them in the national capital. In a tweet, Gandhi said the Congress was willing to give up four of the seven parliamentary seats in Delhi to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). "An alliance between the Congress and AAP in Delhi would mean the rout of the BJP. The Congress is willing to give up four Delhi seats to the AAP to ensure this. But Kejriwal has done yet another U turn! Our doors are still open, but the clock is running out," Gandhi said. Responding to the tweet in Hindi, Kejriwal said he had not taken any U-turn and he feels sad over Gandhi's comments. "What U-turn? The talks are still going on. Your tweet shows that the alliance is not your wish but just a showoff. I feel sorry that you are making statements. Today, it is very important to save the country from the threat of the Modi-Shah duo. It is unfortunate that you are helping Modi by dividing the anti-Modi vote in UP and other states too," he said. On Sunday, when asked about a possible alliance with the Congress in Delhi, Kejriwal said he and his party were ready to do anything to save the country from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah. The talks between the Congress and the AAP for an alliance in Delhi is said to be still on despite the AAP's insistence on an alliance in Haryana and Chandigarh as well. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP bagged all the seven seats while the AAP came second. --IANS nks/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The EU Council approved the amendments to the Gas Directive on the undersea parts of pipelines, including Russias Nord Stream-2. "The Council today [April 15] formally adopted an amendment to the so-called gas directive which aims at closing a legal gap in the EU's regulatory framework and boosting competition in the gas market. This is the final step in the legislative process," the Council's press release said. According to the materials of the Council, the amendments were passed without discussion. The changes will enter into force 20 days after the date of their publication in the EU's official press. The EU states have nine months to incorporate the new rules into their national legislation. "The overall objective of the amendment to the gas directive is to ensure that the rules governing the EU's internal gas market apply to gas transmission lines between a member state and a third country, up to the border of the member state's territory and territorial sea," the press release added. The European Parliament passed the amendments on April 4. They stipulate that the existing and future pipelines cannot be operated by the same company that produces the fuel. A leading analyst of the National Energy Security Fund, a lecturer at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Igor Yushkov, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that the updated EU Gas Directive is a de facto sanction against Nord Stream 2. "The European Union does not want to officially impose sanctions in order not to get a negative reaction from Gazprom, so Brussels found a way out in adopting antitrust laws restricting Nord Stream 2. Now, Gazprom will have to turn the last section to a separate project under the management of an independent operator. It will also face a problem with loading the pipeline at full capacity, as the Gas Directive requires that 50% of its capacity should be reserved for an alternative supplier," he explained. For its part, Gazprom will argue that there is no alternative supplier or LNG plant at sea where the European part of the pipeline starts, that is, competition is impossible. In this regard, the amendments to the Third Energy Package cannot be applied to the Nord Stream-2. I think that by adopting this document, the EU wants to prevent Gazprom from loading Nord Stream-2 for a certain period," Igor Yushkov said, adding that the new directive does not affect implementation of the European part of the Turkish Stream. A senior analyst of 'Uralsib', Alexei Kokin, noted that the impact of the new Gas Directive on Russia's gas pipeline projects in Europe is not so clear. "Everything will depend on how the approval mechanism of new projects and existing pipelines will be applied. In practice, the position of influential EU members will decide. It is not yet clear that these difficulties will be able to block Nord Stream 2," he believes. "Now, if any EU countries consider that a project threatens their security or gives Gazprom too strong negotiating position, they will have more opportunities to block such a project - but it is not clear how exactly the new directive will work. The main risk for Nord Stream 2 is being underloaded, it should be bypassed through a consensus that will allow Gazprom to use its full capacity, but it poses no risks for the European part of the Turkish Stream," Alexei Kokin concluded. Slamming the ruling Congress in Rajasthan over the incident of stone pelting during Ram Navmi procession in Jodhpur, state BJP President Madanlal Saini on Monday blamed the Congress for the worsening law and order situation in the state. Five people were injured in Jodhpur when two groups resorted to stone pelting during a Ram Navmi procession on Saturday. Addressing media here at the BJP office, Saini said: "Criminals are roaming freely in the state as they have no fear of police administration." "Even in the home town of the Chief Minister (Ashok Gehlot), criminals have no fear. Such an attack on a religious procession is condemnable." Speaking on district administration's denial on permitting a religious procession on Ram Navmi in Tonk and Chomu, he said: "The Chief Minister should issue a statement on this." --IANS arc/pg/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Before Marvel fans assemble across the globe to watch the biggest on-screen battle between superheroes like Iron Man, Captain America and Thor, and supervillain Thanos, they are coming up with fun theories. Robert Downey Jr., one of the lead actors of "Avengers: Endgame", has a favourite, and says this is exactly what's going to happen in the film. When the superheroes failed to save the day in last year's blockbuster film "Avengers: Infinity War", the fans were left disappointed. While the actors and makers of "Avengers: Endgame" are tight-lipped about its conclusion, ahead of the release of the movie, which will take the story forward from "Avengers: Infinity War", fans are discussing how the mighty superheroes will defeat the mad titan Thanos. Downey Jr., who danced his way through the promotion of the Russo Brothers' directorial here on Monday, gave a thumbs up to one fan theory. "My favourite is Ant-Man goes up Thanos' b***' and makes himself grow big and that's exactly what happens," the actor, known for his witty humour, said here. This was followed by roaring laughter in the audience of select media, including IANS. His co-star Brie Larson liked the ones that involve defeating Thanos. Calling the theories "hilarious and completely crazy", their co-star Jeremy Renner added: "People have invested in the stories and characters. It makes me feel proud to be a part of it." Though their characters are up against Thanos, played by actor Josh Brolin, Downey Jr. finds it impossible "not to love this guy. I think he almost feels bad that he has to play such a bad guy." But on a serious note, the "Iron Man" star feels proud to be part of the franchise that started over a decade ago. "I am looking out and seeing all of you...some of you hold this cinematic universe close to your heart. It has some symbolism stuff. It's really coming to be that way for us. "I am glad that I am part of witnessing this cultural moment, that's coming up and I have a lot of gratitude," he said. The superstar also heaped praise on Larson and her film "Captain Marvel", the first female-led superhero film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, for breaking a "double pane glass window and establishing what this genre is supposed to be". --IANS nn/rb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United Arab Emirates (UAE) only Sikh temple will host iftar for workers throughout the upcoming month of Ramadan, the chairman of the Guru Nanak Darbar Gurudwara said. The Gurudwara in Dubai's Jebel Ali, which has been hosting an interfaith iftar during every Ramadan in the past six years, will offer the meals to workers in the area every day, Chairman Surender Singh Kandhari told Gulf News on Sunday. "There are a lot of Muslim workers in this area. There are not many places from where they can break their fast. We will invite these workers to have iftar from our Gurudwara." He said the free vegetarian meal (langar) offered to every visitor in the Gurudwara will be given to those visiting to break the fast also. "We will add dates, fruits, rose milk, buttermilk and some Indian snacks like pakora, samosa also for them. We expect to host 100 to 200 every day during Ramadan," said Kandhari. He was speaking after an official ceremony marking Baisakhi, the Sikh New Year, which was attended by top officials of Dubai's Community Development Authority (CDA). "This year is very important for us here in the UAE. It is the Year of Tolerance for the UAE, 550th Year of Guru Nanak's birth anniversary, 150th year of Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary, 320th year of the birth of Khalsa Panth, and 100th year of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre which happened on a Baisakhi. "Keeping all these in mind, we celebrated Baisakhi to send across the message of love, peace, humanity and tolerance," Kandhari added. --IANS ksk/mr (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 on Monday said the Election Commission has to clear people's doubts over the functioning of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and take all steps to bring transparency in the system. The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief wondered what objection the poll body has over the demand of the opposition parties for ensuring transparency in the conduct of the polls by matching 50 per cent of VVPAT slips with the votes recorded in the EVMs. A day after the opposition parties led by Naidu decided to file a review petition in the Supreme Court for counting of 50 per cent VVPAT slips, Naidu addressed a news conference here to target the Election Commission (EC) again for its stubbornness over use EVMs without taking adequate measures to prevent their manipulation. He alleged that the EC tried to mislead the apex court by filing a false affidavit stating that it will take six days to count VVPAT. Naidu said his fight over EVMs would not stop here, but he would go to other states, meet leaders of other parties and address meetings to create awareness. He said opposition parties would have to prepare an action plan to launch a peoples' agitation against the attitude of the Election Commission, saying this was a democratic compulsion. "When we are showing how EVMs can be manipulated and tampered with, they are doing Instead of clearing the doubts, they are launching counter-attack," said Naidu in an obvious reference to EC's objection to inclusion of Hari Prasad Vemuru, who is an accused in a case of alleged EVM theft, in the TDP delegation that called on the poll body officials. Referring to the polling for Assembly and Lok Sabha elections held in Andhra Pradesh on April 11, Naidu said he never saw such badly oraganised polls. "Their own Chief Electoral Officer could not cast the vote. People voted till 4 a.m. the next day," he said. He also claimed that VVPATs were displaying slips only for three seconds instead of seven seconds as claimed by the EC. He rubbished the allegations of his political rivals that he is raising the doubts on EVMs out of fear of defeat. Claiming that there was an undercurrent in TDP's favour, he said the party would win 150 seats in 175-member Assembly. He reiterated that only 18 out of 190 countries were using EVMs. He said EVMs can be manipulated by several means as technology was not updated. He also claimed that there was no provision for any audit of EVMs, either in terms of software or hardware. --IANS ms/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a major setback to the ruling AIADMK, the Election Commission of India (EC) on Monday banned its advertisement running in television and social media on grounds that it violated its model code of conduct (MCC). In a letter issued to all the media (TV channels and Print), the poll body said the AIADMK's advertisement "Oru Kudumba Aatchi" (rule of one family) is telecast in electronic and social media based on unverified allegations or distortions. The Commission said the telecast of the video should be stopped forthwith. Further telecast of the advertisement will attract severe punishment and penal provisions of the Cable TV Act and other laws in force. The DMK had complained to the Election Commission against the AIADMK's advertisement which made baseless allegations against it. The poll body in its letter said political parties are telecasting/ broadcasting their advertisements without the approval of the State Level Media Certification and Monitoring Committee or being telecast without mentioning the approval number. The Election Commission had earlier banned AIADMK's advertisement as it made unverified allegations against the DMK. --IANS vj/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Jharkhand Minister and Congress leader Yogendra Sao on Monday surrendered before the Additional District Judge S.S. Prasad's court after the Supreme Court directives in a case of mob instigation. The Congress leader had been granted conditional bail by the SC and was asked to stay in Bhopal along with his legislator wife Nirmala Devi. The SC had cancelled Sao's bail on April 4 and on April 12 asked him to surrender by April 15. The Jharkhand government had moved the SC seeking cancellation of Sao's bail, citing his involvement in political activities and regular visits to Jharkhand and New Delhi. Sao is accused of instigating mob against the administration in 2016 in the Hazaribagh district that led to firing in which four persons were killed. The mob was protesting against the National Thermal Power Corporation's mining work at Barkagao in Hazaribagh. Before surrendering, Sao told reporters, "It's a conspiracy against me. I was visiting Ranchi for court-related issues. I will move to the high court. I have full faith in the judiciary." --IANS ns/rs/pcj (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Social Democratic Party (SDP) narrowly beat the right-wing Finns Party in the Finnish parliamentary elections. With 99.3 per cent of the ballots counted, the SDP, headed by former union leader Antti Rinne, obtained 17.7 per cent of the votes and 40 seats in Parliament, while the anti-immigration Finns Party, who are also in the opposition - obtained 17.5 per cent of the votes and 39 seats, Efe news reported. Thus, in a result that may be a harbinger for Europe-wide elections later this year, the nationalist Finns Party managed to garner more votes than the conservative governing National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) headed by Acting Finance Minister Petteri Orpo, which secured 17 per cent of the votes and 38 seats. The Centre Party - which is also in the country's governing coalition - headed by Prime Minister Juha Sipila, appears to be the big loser, obtaining 13.8 per cent of the votes and 31 seats in Parliament, its worst showing in history. In 2015, the Centre Party had held 49 seats after garnering more than 21 per cent of the vote. Meanwhile, the Green League is the party that gained the most support, after the SDP, capturing 11.5 per cent of the vote and 20 parliamentary seats, five more than they obtained in 2015. The Left Alliance also increased its support, garnering 8.2 per cent of the votes, a result that allows them to increase the number of their seats in parliament by four to 16. The other parties obtaining seats in the new 200-seat Finland's Parliament Eduskunta are the Swedish People's Party with 4.5 per cent of the votes and 9 seats and the Christian Democrats with 3.9 per cent of the votes and 5 seats. Blue Reform, a party that split off from the Finns Party, received 1 per cent of the votes but did not manage to secure any seats in parliament. The latest opinion polls had indicated that the Social Democrats stood an excellent chance of becoming the country's largest party, thus securing the post of Prime Minister, although it was widely recognised that they would obtain less than 20 per cent of the vote. The leftist SDP has not held the post of PM since 2003. Among the party's key policies are favouring work-related immigration to ensure that the labour force in Finland - whose population is aging - does not stagnate and allowing in a moderate number of refugees from afflicted countries on humanitarian grounds. The Finnish government of Juha Sipila resigned in March citing a failure to achieve social welfare and healthcare reform goals. The country's President approved Sipila's resignation but asked him to continue leading a caretaker government until a new cabinet could be appointed. More than 1.5 million people - 34.5 per cent of the total - voted in advance of the parliamentary elections under a system put in place in 1970 to encourage participation. The Finnish parliamentary election was being closely watched in Europe and elsewhere because the European Union holds its own legislative elections in less than two months and a strong showing by the ultra-conservative anti-immigration parties could presage increased clout for such political forces in Europe as a whole. Finland is slated to take over the rotating EU presidency from Romania in July. --IANS vin/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The influential Catholic Church in Goa on Monday expressed regret over a recent hate speech by a Catholic priest criticising the BJP, party's national President Amit Shah and late Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, which went viral and is being investigated by election authorities. A statement issued by the Diocesan Centre for Social Communications Media, the communications arm of the Church in Goa, also said that the priest in question has been asked to refrain from making such speeches. "The concerned priest in this case has been cautioned to refrain from making such statements. We sincerely regret any pain or hurt that these statements may have caused," said the statement issued late on Monday. In the undated video, which went viral on Saturday, D'Silva described Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah as a "demon" while also alleging that Parrikar's affliction of pancreatic cancer was a "wrath of God". He also said that minorities are being harassed by the BJP, especially in Gujarat. The state's Chief Electoral Officer has already ordered a probe, after the Goa BJP filed a complaint saying the sermon was a "hate speech". The Church communique also said that before elections to the Assembly or the Parliament, the Church in Goa does issue guidelines to its priests to encourage their parishioners to fulfil their duty to vote and that general principles are also given on what to look for in the candidates and in their manifestos. "While doing so, priests are advised not to mention in public any names of candidates or of political parties. It is a matter of regret that, nonetheless, there are a few instances when this particular advice is not followed," the statement said. --IANS maya/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As chorus in India grows to safeguard key defence installations and organisations from nation-state cyber criminals, IBM with its enterprise-grade security solutions is ready to partner the government on cyber-proofing sensitive data on Cloud. According to Vikas Arora, IBM Cloud and Cognitive Software Leader, IBM India/South Asia, the company is ready with a very comprehensive portfolio of products that provides end-to-end security. "We already provide a lot of security relations to both the enterprises and the government. We are more than willing to partner with enterprises and government on the security initiatives," Arora told IANS. A new IBM-Ponemon Institute study last week revealed that nearly 79 per cent of Indian firms do not have a computer security incident response plan (CSIRP) in place that is applied consistently across operations. In the past two years, 51 per cent of Indian organisations surveyed experienced a data breach and 56 per cent experienced a cyber-security incident. "Security is no longer an IT issue. It's an issue that is being discussed, deliberated and reviewed at the board level. This is because the time it takes to resolve a cyber-attack incident has gone up in India. The cost of an incident has also gone up in India," the IBM Executive emphasised. While studies show that companies who can respond quickly and efficiently to contain a cyber-attack within 30 days save over $1 million on the total cost of a data breach on average, shortfalls in proper cyber-security incident response planning have remained consistent for several years. IBM has cyber ranges of its own that simulates incidents to better prepare for a quick and efficient response. "The focus of IBM cyber ranges is to create environment, scenarios and use cases to essentially better prepare organisations to deal with situations they have to respond to," noted Arora. Not just the government, industries across the spectrum - retail, banking automotive, telecom, manufacturing - are aiming to have a secure environment when it comes to both security and application of cognitive technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in perceiving real-time cyber threats. According to a recent report by the New Delhi-based Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF), India also urgently requires to enhance the cyber capabilities of its armed forces, including the operationalisation of a Defence Cyber Agency. "Whenever there is a security incident, it is not just responding it from the technology perspective. There is a PR response, there is a marketing response, there is obviously a senior-level executive response and there is a legal response. "Our cyber ranges keep all these in mind as we prepare enterprises to gauge internal and external threat intelligence and mitigate cyber threats," said Arora. Global professional services firm EY early this year announced the launch of advanced Security Operations Centres (SOCs) in India along with IBM. Part of EY's Managed Services offerings and powered by IBM's "QRadar" platform, these SOCs are designed to detect, respond and address advanced cyber-attacks and risks. "This combination will help EY customers secure their organisations more effectively," said Arora. (Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in) --IANS na/ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The visit of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission to Islamabad for finalising a bailout package for Pakistan may be delayed as both sides are still engaged in an intense discussion on the proposed programme, official sources told Dawn news. Finance Minister Asad Umar said earlier this month that the mission would visit Islamabad soon after the spring meetings of the World Bank Group, which includes the IMF and an agreement should be signed by the end of this month. The meetings, held in Washington this week, ended on Sunday. At a news briefing in Washington on the night of April 11, Umar said the two sides had "more or less, reached an understanding" on the bailout package and "in a day or two, we hope to reach a full agreement". But it seems that "both sides are still engaged in an intense conversation on the final details of that full agreement", an official source told Dawn on Sunday. "So, the IMF mission is now more likely to visit Islamabad in May, not April." Another official familiar with the Pakistan-IMF talks said: "Islamabad still hopes to conclude the agreement before June, as they believe the bailout package would help budget prospects." When asked how much money did Pakistan expect from the IMF, a source said: "The amount and length of the programme also depends on the nature of the package. "If the conditions are too restrictive, Pakistan would expect a larger package, i.e. more assistance for a longer period." The IMF has also insisted on full disclosure of all financial cooperation between Pakistan and China, including assistance related to infrastructure development, nuclear power plants, joint manufacturing of JF-17 Thunder fighter jets and procurement of submarines. It is also demanding details of more than $6.5 billion of commercial loans Pakistan has received from China in the past two and a half years. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Following the Israeli spacecraft Beresheets failure to land safely on the moon this week, SpaceIL chairman Morris Kahn announced he was launching project Beresheet 2, effective immediately. "Ive come to announce a new project: Beresheet 2. We started something and we need to finish it. Well put our flag on the moon," Kahn wrote on Twitter. He added that "Project Beresheet 2 begins tomorrow A mission team will be meeting tomorrow to start work," Times of Israel reported. Kahn later shared an English-language video on Twitter in which he said: "Were going to complete the mission." The project was a joint venture between the Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries, funded almost entirely by private donations from well-known Jewish philanthropists, including Kahn, Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, Lynn Schusterman, and others. Immediately after the result, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel will make another attempt. Indias defence cooperation with the UK is set to receive a boost with the two countries renewing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) amid their keenness to identify mutual capability needs and collaborate in the areas of defence and security. The Defence Equipment Cooperation MoU renews the one signed on April 1, 1997, which was subsequently renewed on April 2007. "The signing of this Memorandum of Understanding underpins the collaboration between our two nations, building on our defence ties, and ensuring our nations are able to combat emerging threats for generations to come," said UK Defence Minister Stuart Andrew. By collaborating and exploiting procurement opportunities together, both nations will be able to benefit from technological and manufacturing capabilities and support long-term cooperation between their defence and security industries, a statement issued by the British High Commission said on Monday. The pact was signed by Air Marshal Richard Knighton on behalf of the UK Ministry of Defence and Barun Mitra, Additional Secretary Defence Production in the Ministry of Defence on behalf of the Indian government, said the High Commission statement. "As major world economies, Britain and India both have a proud global maritime history, with impressive futures ahead," Andrew said, according to the statement. At bilateral defence and security equipment talks in London last week, the two nations agreed to re-double efforts to identify mutual defence and security capability needs and collaborate on solutions, it said. The agreement, which marks a step change in India and the United Kingdom's defence relationship, comes after a visit by India's Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Sunil Lanba, to HMS Queen Elizabeth in Portsmouth last month. It also follows HMS Dragon's visit to Goa in December last year, where the ship took part in the longstanding naval exercise, The Konkan Series. In addition to the bilateral talks last week, UK and Indian industry met to discuss how they would forge deeper and broader partnerships to contribute to these efforts. "I am delighted that the Ministries of Defence of India and the United Kingdom have signed this Memorandum of Understanding," Minister of State for Trade and Export Promotion Baroness Fairhead said. "This agreement will help us develop closer, mutually beneficial relationships between our respective defence and security industries," Fairhead added. The signing of the MoU significantly comes at a time when India and Pakistan have been witnessing tensions in the aftermath of the ghastly Pulwama terror attack carried out by Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). --IANS akk/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old openly gay Mayor of South Bend, US state of Indiana, has officially announced his presidential bid. "I am a proud son of South Bend, Indiana. And I am running for President of the United States," Xinhua quoted Buttigieg as saying to supporters at a rally in South Bend on Sunday. "I recognise the audacity of doing this as Midwestern millennial mayor. More than a little bold -- at age 37 -- to seek the highest office in the land," he added. Buttigieg is joining a crowded, diverse field of more than a dozen Democratic candidates, with progressive appeal featuring his Christian faith and sexual identity. A veteran of war in Afghanistan, Buttigieg is the first openly gay candidate to pursue a major party presidential nomination. He has garnered media attention for his feud with Christian-conservative Vice President Mike Pence for the former Indiana governor's opposition to gay rights. Buttigieg's campaign has raised over 7 million U.S. dollars in the first quarter of this year. Latest polls of voters of Iowa and New Hampshire, the earliest states to vote in next year's primary elections, have put Buttigieg in the third place among Democratic contenders. --IANS vin/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) that has dealt with a reputation for poor security for years, now makes PCs vulnerable even if it is just installed in them, a security researcher has found. According to researcher John Page, an unpatched exploit in the web browser's handling of MHT files (IE's web archive format), hackers can use to both spy on Windows users and steal their local data. "As Windows opens MHT files using IE by default, you don't even have to run the browser for this to be a problem -- all you have to do is open an attachment sent through chat or email. "This wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for the disclosure of the flaw. Page posted details of the exploit after Microsoft reportedly declined to roll out an urgent security fix, Engadget reported on Sunday. The vulnerability affects Microsoft Windows 7, Windows 10 and Windows Server 2012 R2. "Microsoft said a fix would be 'considered' in a future release. While that does suggest a patch is on the way, it leaves millions of users potentially vulnerable unless they either turn off Internet Explorer or point to another app that can open MHT files," the report added. The news came at a time when Microsoft, coming to terms with the Outlook.com data breach case, reached out to some users, informing them of the hack which exposed data sent over emails to hackers who kept accessing their accounts between January 1 to March 28. In an email, Microsoft claimed that apart from the content of the emails including attachments, the hackers could have possibly viewed account email addresses, folder names and subject lines of the mails sent and received. The case came to notice when the software giant discovered that the credentials of a support agent were compromised for its web mail service which led to unauthorised access into some accounts. --IANS ksc/na/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Income Tax (IT) department has for now concluded search operations in the premises of PSK Engineering after seizing about Rs 14.18 crore in cash, an IT official said on Monday. "Total cash seizure is Rs 14.18 crore and Rs 112 crore of unaccounted income has been admitted to," the official told IANS. The officials had on April 12 searched the premises of PSK Engineering in Chennai, Namakkal and Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu to flush out cash apparently aimed at bribing voters. The company was into construction business. Several incriminating documents and accounts with details of generation of unaccounted money by inflating the expenditure, payments made to influential persons and unaccounted capital were also seized, said the official. In the operation carried out in the premises of one Sujai Reddy, evidences of investment of Rs 16 crore in a Malaysian company was found which was not disclosed in his IT returns, said the official. "Unaccounted cash of Rs 18 lakh was seized from Reddy's premises." Meanwhile, the flying squads of the Election Commission searched the MLA hostel here on Sunday night after it got information of cash stocked in the hostel rooms for distribution to voters. The Lok Sabha polls in Tamil Nadu are slated for April 18. --IANS vj/pg/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Campobasso (Italy)/Rome, April 15 (IANS/AKI) Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte on Monday urged a negotiated solution to the escalating conflict in oil-rich Libya between the internationally recognised government in Tripoli and forces loyal to eastern military strongman Khalifa Haftar. He also called on Haftar's militia to withdraw from Tripoli and an immediate truce in the fighting with forces loyal to the internationally-recognised government, while warning any military intervention could plunge the chaos-stricken North African country into a "devastating" humanitarian crisis that would impact Italy as well. "Armed conflict is not the solution. We have a precise strategy and want a political solution," Conte told reporters upon his arrival in the southern Italian city of Campobasso for talks with local officials. "I will do my utmost to ensure that all Libyan stakeholders as well as members of the international community work together for a peaceful solution in Libya and its permanent stability," he added. Italy's first priority is a truce in the fighting and talks are taking place in Rome between the government, Qatar's Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Mohammad Al Thani and Libya's UN-backed Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj's deputy Ahmed Maitig, Conte said. "We are following the unfolding events in Libya and are worried because we must stem this armed conflict without fail," he said. The warfare in Italy's former colony has intensified this month since Haftar began a military offensive against "terrorist" groups in the capital in which at least 160 civilians have been killed and 16,000 have fled their homes, according to the UN. Earlier Conte, after talks with Qatar's Thani in Rome, told reporters that Italy hopes that the Libyan National Army troops will withdraw from Tripoli, referring to Haftar's self-styled force. "We want an immediate ceasefire," he said. Conte also said that they "absolutely must avoid a humanitarian crisis, which would be devastating, not only for the obvious repercussions on our country, but for the Libyan people". "Once again, the political dialogue supported by Italy has shown itself to be the only way forward. The view that military intervention could be a solution for Libya has been discredited - force can never lead to sustainable solutions," he said. Nations have stepped up a diplomatic push to broker an "inclusive" and "sustainable" peace in war-wracked Libya under the auspices of the United Nations, Conte added. A UN-backed national conference in southwest Libya slated for April 14-16 that was due to hammer out a roadmap for elections has been cancelled due to the warfare in the capital between Haftar's militia and forces loyal to the UN-backed government. Qatar shared Italy's "intense concern" at the "military escalation" in Libya and that "this cannot be the answer" to the lawless country's problems, Conte said. Thani earlier held talks in Rome with his Italian counterpart Enzo Moavero Milanesi which allowed "an in-depth exchange of views on the most recent dynamics of the Libyan crisis," according to a statement. Libya has been wracked by conflict since the Nato-backed ouster of late dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Rival administrations in the east and west are backed by a myriad of militias vying for power in the oil-rich country, which was an Italian colony from 1911-1947. Meanwhile, Italy's embassy in Libya on Monday brushed off social media reports that it had closed amid the escalating military conflict in Tripoli, tweeting that it was "open" and was operating normally. "There has been no reduction of Italy's institutional presence in Libya," the tweet added. --IANS/AKI vd (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.) Troubled Jet Airways' board will meet on Tuesday to chalk out future course of action after the airline failed to get emergency funding from lenders on Monday. Awaiting outcome of lenders' meet with the government, the cash-starved airline has extended cancellation of international flights till April 18 (Thursday). On Friday, it suspended all international operations till April 15 (Monday). The airline's CEO Vinay Dube wrote to staff saying the management would seek guidance from the board on the next steps. In his message to employees, Dube said the airline has been working with lenders to secure interim funding for its operations. "The interim funding has not been forthcoming thus far and as a result of which we have extended cancellation of international operations through Thursday, April 19," he wrote. "We will keep you updated on all critical developments," he added. Late on Monday evening, the SBI that leads the consortium of Jet's lenders said merchant banker SBI Caps' legal team was working on the expressions of interest (EoIs) received from investors, and bidders will be selected soon. "The proposed equity conversion by banks, if any, will be undertaken as a transitory mechanism to facilitate the bidding-cum-sale process," the State Bank of India (SBI) said in a statement. The SBI Caps is acting on behalf of the group of lenders as part of the bank-led resolution process. Necessary support to facilitate the process is being extended by other banks in the consortium. "Cooperation and support from all other stakeholders will be the key to success of the process," SBI said. The development assumes significance as the airline has almost run out of funds to pay for fuel and other operational expenses. It has folded up most operations due to grounding of over 80 per cent of its fleet by lessors, and is running just 7 aircraft, barely enough to save its air operating permit (AOP). Industry insiders say fuel supply is expected to run out on Tuesday afternoon as fresh payments would be required for vendors. Without extra funds the airline may temporarily suspend operations. Even the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has started giving its slots to other carriers suggesting Jet's closure is just a matter of time. Jet's woes has intensified as the airline that once operated around 120 aircraft is now left with just 16-plane fleet. It owes over Rs 8,000 crore to the SBI-led consortium of lenders. Its only ray of hope is an immediate injection of interim funding and the completion of the stake sale process, initiated by lenders. --IANS nk-rv/sn/pcj (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Financially-stressed Jet Airways has time till Tuesday afternoon to pay fuel vendors failing which it might have to ground its operational fleet, industry sources said on Monday. According to industry insiders, the company is almost out of funds and is relying solely on the scant funds being infused by lenders on an expense-to-expense basis. "The fuel supply is expected to run out from Tuesday afternoon as fresh payments would be required for vendors," an industry source told IANS in New Delhi. Corroborating this, a Jet Airways official told IANS in New Delhi: "A proposal for a fresh fund infusion has been given to the lenders." At present, Jet is operating only 7 aircraft for domestic operations due to the grounding of over 80 per cent of its fleet by lessors owing to non-payment of dues. The full service carrier's situation is critical as the airline, that once operated around 120 aircraft, is now left with just 16 planes in its fleet. Currently, the airline owes over Rs 8,000 crore to a consortium of lenders led by the state-run State Bank of India (SBI). Jet has suspended international operations till Monday afternoon. The only hope for the airline now lies in an immediate dose of interim funding and the completion of the stake sale process initiated by the lenders. The airline on Sunday said it has extended the cancellation of its west-bound flights -- to and from Amsterdam, London and Paris -- until April 16. On Sunday, Jet's pilots' union deferred its decision of "no pay no work" from Monday, citing the meeting of the lenders' consortium with the airline management slated for later in the day. A senior member of the National Aviators' Guild (NAG) had said that the pilots would await the outcome of Monday's meeting. (Rohit Vaid can be contacted at rohit.v@ians.in) --IANS rv/sn/bc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actors John Travolta and Kelly Preston honoured their son Jett on what would have been his 27th birthday. The "American Crime Story" actor and his wife took to Instagram on April 13 to pay tribute to their eldest child who died in 2009, reports aceshowbiz.com. Jett, who had autism and suffered other serious health issues, died at the age of 16, after hitting his head on a bathtub when he suffered a seizure during a family trip to the Bahamas. Travolta shared some fan art of his son, and wrote alongside the portrait: "A painting a fan made of my son Jett! Happy birthday my son I love you!". "Happy Birthday Jetty, my sweet love," Preston captioned a slideshow of photographs that included images of her and her husband with their son. The post comes a week after the 56-year-old "Sky High" actress shared a black and white photograph of her and Travolta kissing and cuddling Jett, in honour of Autism Awareness Month. The couple, who wed in 1991, is also parents to daughter Ella, 19, and son Benjamin, 8. --IANS dc/rb/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Democratic presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris, who is of Indian and Jamaican descent, has released 15 years of her tax returns, showing that she and her husband earned almost $1.9 million in 2018, the media reported. The returns released on Sunday showed most of the adjusted gross income of $1,884,319 in 2018 reported by Harris came from her husband Doug Emhoff's earnings as a lawyer, reports The Washington Post. Harris reported $157,352 in Senate salary and $320,125 in net profit from the memoir she released before announcing her campaign. The returns covered every year that Harris, a former attorney general of California and district attorney of San Francisco, has served in elective office. Harris and Emhoff have filed jointly since they were married in 2014. Emhoff has reported more than $1 million in income in every year since, and the couple has paid more than $2 million combined in federal taxes. Harris's income has been relatively consistent since she began serving as San Francisco's top prosecutor in 2004, then as attorney general from 2011 until 2017, the year she joined the US Senate. She joins Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand and Amy Klobuchar, as well as Washington Governor Jay Inslee, in making tax returns public as part of their Democratic presidential campaigns. Warren has released 11 years of her returns, Gillibrand and Klobuchar 12. Harris's household income places her in the upper tier of candidates who have shared their returns so far, The Washington Post reported. Warren's 2018 returns revealed roughly $900,000 in combined income for her and her husband. Gillibrand's filing included her $167,000 Senate salary and $50,000 in book proceeds. Klobuchar released her tax returns through 2017, and reported less than $300,000 in combined income for her and her husband that year. Inslee's 2018 return reported an adjusted gross income of $202,912. Former presidential hopeful Senator Bernie Sanders also has vowed to release his tax returns by Monday. Senator Cory Booker, former congressman Beto O'Rourke and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg are yet to release their financial documents. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Even before the controversy over her vote-for-job statements for Muslims could settle down, Union Minister Maneka Gandhi has made another statement -- this time classifying villages on the basis of votes she gets. Gandhi, who is the BJP candidate from Sultanpur, said at a meeting: "I will develop an ABCD system and prioritise development work on this basis. "For instance, villages that cast 80 per cent votes for Bharatiya Janata Party will be put in category A, those that cast 60 per cent votes will be in category B and so on and so forth." She further said that this would help in developing a framework for development. "Villages in A category will get priority in development and then will come the turn of other categories. It is up to you whether you make it to A, B, C or D. No one should fall in D category as we all come here to do well," she said. Gandhi said that the BJP has also implemented the same category system at Pilibhit, from where her son Varun Gandhi is now the BJP candidate. She is already facing a notice from the Election Commission for her earlier statement in which she said that if Muslims do not vote for her, they should not expect her to give them jobs. "My feelings get hurt. If Muslims then come to me asking for work, then I will think let it be, how does it matter? After all, a job is a deal," making it clear that Muslims should not expect jobs if they don't vote for her. Following her previous remarks, the Election Commission had issued a show-cause notice demanding an explanation. Maneka Gandhi is contesting from Sultanpur where she is pitted against Sanjay Sinh of Congress and Chandra Bhadra Singh of BSP. Sultanpur goes to polls in the sixth phase on May 12. --IANS amita/in (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has arrived in Uzbekistan for a state visit yesterday. Tokayev's plane landed at the Tashkent International Airport named after Islam Karimov on Sunday evening. There, the Kazakh president was greeted by Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan Abdulaziz Kamilov and mayor of Tashkent city Jahongir Ortikhodjaev. According to the Akorda's press service, during the visit Tokayev will discuss with Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev the topical issues of bilateral cooperation aimed at further strengthening of trade and economic, social and humanitarian, transit and transport cooperation as well as the key problems of regional and international agenda. The visit will result in signing of a number of important documents. Also, the two presidents are expected to participate in the solemn ceremony of inauguration of the Year of Kazakhstan in Uzbekistan. Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Monday accused Prime Minster Narendra Modi of giving away public money to big industrialists. Addressing an election rally here, the Congress President said: "Narendra Modi is stealing public money and giving it to industrialists." He also accused Modi of destroying farmers all across the country. He also accused Modi of telling a lie to the people in the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign when he promised to give every Indian Rs 15 lakh of black money he had promised to bring back from abroad. "The Prime Minister promised that Rs 15 lakh will be deposited in everyone's bank account but not one person got a single penny," he said. The Congress President slammed Modi for wasting public money on promoting himself. "You see Modi's advertisements all the time. Switch on the TV and Modi is there, on radio, road and everywhere, there is Modi," he said in Fatehpur Sikri, and demanded to know where was the BJP getting all this money from. He said: "We have waived loans of farmers in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan within two days of coming to the power. "I dream to do this for the UP farmers also." "I have already told the three Chief Ministers that there should be a food processing unit in every state," he said. Gandhi said that wherever the farmers are growing potatoes, there will be a factory to produce potato chips and where they grow tomatoes, a ketchup factory will be established. "We are preparing a network of food processing industry in MP, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. Once it will be done, farmers will be able to sell their products directly to the factories," he said. Meanwhile, Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi targeted the Bharatiya Janata Party. "If you are nationalist, talk about India instead of Pakistan in the elections. Talk about youth, farmer and soldier. If you are nationalist, then respect martyrs," she said. Priyanka Gandhi also raised farmers' issues. "If you are nationalist, then why you did not meet the farmer who came at your doorstep barefoot," she asked. She said: "Seeing the BJP's campaign you would think that a lot of work has been done in the past five years. But the reality is different. "The truth of their work can be seen on the faces of unemployed youths and helpless farmers," she said. After addressing the election meeting, Rahul Gandhi started his 'Nyay Yatra' from Fatehpur Sikri. During the campaign, Priyanka Gandhi, Congress General Secretary Jyotiraditya Scindia and party candidate from Fatehpur Sikri Raj Babbar shared the stage with Rahul Gandhi. --IANS hindi-rs/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah are scheduled to address five more public rallies in West Bengal this month, a state BJP leader said on Monday. While Modi is scheduled to address three rallies ahead of the third and fourth phase of polling in the state, Shah will also hold two more public meetings on consecutive days. "Modiji will hold a public rally in South Dinajpur district's Buniadpur on April 20. He is also scheduled to hold two more rallies in the state on April 24," a state BJP leader, who did not want to be named, told IANS. "Of the two rallies scheduled on April 24, one might be held in Nadia district's Ranaghat and the other in Birbhum district's Colour," he said. The leader also said that Amit Shah is scheduled to hold two rallies in the state on April 22 and 23 but said the venues are yet to be confirmed. Modi has already held three rallies in the first week of April in north Bengal's Siliguri and Cooch Behar as well as Kolkata's Brigade Parade Ground, while Shah held two rallies in the Darjeeling hills and Raiganj on April 11. --IANS mgr/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Monday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was trying to incite communal violence to win votes. Speaking to the media on the sidelines of an election gathering in Anantnag district, Mehbooba said: "He is trying to incite communal violence to win votes. They saw defeat coming their way in the first phase and they are now creating insecurity everywhere. "The situation they have created suggests that they might stage another Balakot like attack on Pakistan to get votes." In the gathering, she also demanded a probe into the February 14 Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF troopers were killed. --IANS sq/ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Muslim Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has said that in the days since President Donald Trump tweeted about a speech she gave last month, she has experienced an increase in death threats. "Since the President's tweet Friday evening (April 12), I have experienced an increase in direct threats on my life - many directly referencing or replying to the President's video. I thank the Capitol Police, the FBI, the House Sergeant at Arms, and the Speaker of the House for their attention to these threats," Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, said in a statement released on Sunday evening. She also alleged that President Trump is encouraging right-wing extremist violence, CNN reported. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders denied earlier Sunday the President was trying to incite violence. In the April 12 tweet, Trump wrote: "We will never forget!" and included video of a speech Omar gave last month in which she said: "For far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I'm tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it. "CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognised that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to civil liberties." Omar was speaking last month to a California chapter of CAIR - the Council on American-Islamic Relations. It was actually founded in 1994. Trump also included in the tweet an edited video of the 9/11 attacks. In her statement, Omar noted Trump would be visiting her home state on Monday for a rally, reports CNN. "Violent crimes and other acts of hate by right-wing extremists and white nationalists are on the rise in this country and around the world. We can no longer ignore that they are being encouraged by the occupant of the highest office in the land. "Counties that hosted a 2016 Trump rally saw a 226 per cent increase in hate crimes in the months following the rally. And assaults increase when cities host Trump rallies. This is particularly concerning given the president's visit to my home state of Minnesota on Monday." Following Omar's statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday night that she had spoken with the House Sergeant at Arms about the Congresswoman's safety and that she wanted to make sure a security assessment was being conducted. "They will continue to monitor and address the threats she faces," Pelosi added. Earlier this month, federal prosecutors charged a man with threatening to assault and murder Omar. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The polls to Tamil Nadu's 39 Lok Sabha seats and the by-elections for 18 assembly seats, both slated for April 18, are not driven by a single narrative but by a combination of several national and state-specific issues, say experts and stake-holders. About 5.99 crore voters will decide the electoral fate of 845 candidates in the Lok Sabha battle in Tamil Nadu. "There is no single major narrative in the polls. It is a combination of several issues - some prevalent state wide and others in some pockets only," political strategist Jhon Arokiasamy told IANS. Concurring with him, DMK spokesperson T.K.S. Elangovan told IANS: "The major issues are unemployment, price rise, rise in fuel prices, and the failure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to keep up his 2014 poll promises." That apart, water crisis - both for drinking and irrigation, the anti-Sterlite Copper smelter plant agitation and the killing of 13 protestors in police firing last May, infrastructure (road and hydrocarbon extraction) projects affecting the livelihood of people are some other issues that are before the people to take into account before casting their vote. While one view is that the fight seems to be between the DMK and the Bharatiya Janata Party with the ruling AIADMK relegated to the background, the second view is that the AIADMK is deliberately keeping the BJP in the forefront as a strategy. "The Lok Sabha poll core issue has turned out to be the DMK versus the BJP. The BJP wants to make an entry into Tamil Nadu," Ramu Manivannan, a Professor of Political Science at University of Madras, told IANS. He said the DMK is mobilising all its forces against the BJP and DMK President M.K. Stalin has been strongly criticising Prime Minister Modi as "facist" in his rallies. "Earlier BJP used to say the two Dravidian parties - the AIADMK and the DMK - had stalled Tamil Nadu's progress. But now, the BJP cannot say that anymore as it has aligned with the AIADMK," Manivannan remarked. Former AIADMK MP K.C. Palanisamy maintained that all these years, the election fight in Tamil Nadu had always be between the AIADMK and the DMK. But "this time around, the AIADMK leadership has failed to maintain that line, giving prominence to the BJP", he told IANS. Arokiasamy did not agree, noting Chief Minister K. Palaniswami has been attacking Stalin in all his rallies while speaking about the need for a strong leadership like Modi's for the nation. Another AIADMK leader, however, held that if the DMK is targeting BJP, "it is good for the AIADMK". "The BJP is not a major force in Tamil Nadu now. There is no point in targeting that party to gain politically," the AIADMK leader, who did not want to be named, told IANS. Arokiasamy also argued that the BJP is spoiling not only its chances but also that of its alliance partners by its views on the eight-lane expressway between Chennai-Salem and the NEET exam. "Overall it boils down to centre-state relations and the rights of the states," he said. Recently the Madras High Court struck down the land acquisition for the expressway project between Chennai-Salem. The project was opposed by farmers in five districts and barring the ruling AIADMK and the BJP, all other parties were opposing the project. Recently, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, in an election rally in the state, said the project will be completed following the procedures. Similarly, when all the parties including AIADMK were opposed to NEET, Union Minister Piyush Goyal said there is no need to scrap the entrance exam for medical colleges. --IANS vj/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday defended invoking martyrs in his poll campaigns, saying there was nothing wrong in highlighting the sacrifices made by security personnel, adding some parties have made the deaths of farmers a political issue. "Thousands of soldiers have died in the past 40 years due to terrorism. Is it not an issue as to what should be done for them? If farmers die, it is an issue, then why not soldiers who die defending the counrty?" he said in an interview to DD News. "We want to strengthen our forces. We have been fighting terrorism for the past 40 years. If we do not take this to public, what is the logic?" Opposition parties have lodged complaints to the Election Commission over "politicisation" of the death of 40 CRPF personnel in Pulwama and subsequent retaliatory airstrike in Balakot in Pakistan. Modi said the country cannot be run without nationalism. "Can any country run without nationalism? If we want to bring Olympic medals, the chances increase if the youth is filled with nationalism," he said. The Prime Minister said a section of "hyper-secular" people in the country were targeting his government. Nothing had happened since Nehru's time to resolve Jammu & Kashmir conflict, he said. "We toed one line for 70 years. There has been no outcome. We prepared roadmaps in regards to Articles 370 and 35 A (of Constitution). Should not we take people into confidence and inform them about it?" he said. Over the charges of National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah and Peoples Democratic Party leader Mehbooba Mufti that "Kashmir will be separated", Modi said "They have always used such language. They have resorted to emotional blackmailing and emotional exploitation". Calling them outdated, Modi said panchayat elections in the state saw 70-75 per cent polling despite a boycot call by these leaders. Modi also took a dig at Congress President Rahul Gandhi for raising Rafale fighter jet deal issue even when there were "no proof showing any irregularities" in it. "He raised wrong issues about Rafale to wash away his father's sins in Bofors case by attributing it to nationalism," said Modi. --IANS spk/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on Monday warned of the risks Japan faces due to its ageing population. In 2017, there were 50 Japanese people aged 65 per hundred, while the rest were aged between 20 to 64, and this ratio is projected to rise to 79 per hundred in 2050, according to a report presented by OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria here. "Half of the children born in Japan in 2017 are expected to live to the age of 107," Gurria said during the presentation. This implies that, unless a series of reforms are implemented, Japan will lose its working-age population by 25 per cent in 2050, reports Efe news. The official estimates contained in the report indicate that if in 2018, social spending on elderly population accounted for 18.8 per cent of the GDP, in 2060, it will be 23.2 per cent if certain measures are not undertaken. Among them, Gurria mentioned the need to revise the mandatory retirement age, which is 65 years, although 80 per cent of Japanese companies set it at 60 years. The report also highlighted a lack of career growth for the Japanese despite an increase in employment levels. The OECD's recommendations for Japan includes increasing the number of foreign workers in the country as Japan has the third-lowest number of foreign workers, more than only Poland and Mexico. In the press conference, Gurria also highlighted the decision taken by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government to increase the value added tax from 8 per cent to 10 per cent in October, which will serve to gradually reduce the country's budget deficit. Gurria said that, among OECD member countries, only Canada has a VAT lower than Japan and thereby recommended progressive increases of one percentage point in Japan in subsequent years. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pro-Khalistan group 'Sikhs For Justice (SFJ)' has claimed that the Pakistan government has banned the registration of the 'Khalistan Referendum Team 2020' on its soil at the behest of the Narendra Modi government. SFJ legal adviser Gurpatwant Singh Pannun claimed on Monday that authorities in Pakistan had stopped the group's activists from putting up posters and banners of the Khalistan referendum campaign at Gurdwara Panja Sahib in Hassan Abdal where thousands of Sikhs from India were visiting to celebrate the 320th year of Khalsa Sajna Diwas. A 'jatha' of 389 Indian devotees, under the aegis of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), were visiting Pakistan till April 21 to offer prayers at various gurdwaras in that country on the occasion of Baisakhi. The SFJ had put up hoardings and banners of its separatist activities at Sikh shrines in Pakistan last year during the visit of Indian pilgrims which was objected to by Indian authorities. "Pro-Khalistan activists were officially invited to launch the registration the president of Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee on behalf of the Pakistan government. The Khalistan activists from North America and Europe, who reached Pakistan in the first week of April, were not allowed to post banners of Khalistan in Gurdwara Panja Sahib and were forced to stop the scheduled plan to register volunteers for Referendum 2020," Pannun said in an official statement issued from the SFJ New York headquarters. "Prime Minister Imran Khan and (Pakistan) Army Chief (Qamar Javed) Bajwa, who have been deceptively claiming to be the messiah of the Sikh community have succumbed and bowed down to Modi government's dictatorial pressure to ban SFJ's 'Khalistan Referendum Team 2020' registration event at Panja Sahib during the visiting Sikh pilgrims from India," Pannun said. The SFJ is a secessionist group which is seeking a separate Sikh homeland -- Khalistan. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has been critical of the SFJ saying that it is a "one-man army caked by Pakistan's ISI" (Inter-Services Intelligence). "Pakistan Army and ISI have treaded the path of alienating the global Sikh community who have continuously supported Pakistan during India's threat of jingoistic war," Pannun said. Reiterating that 'Punjab Independence Referendum 2020' is a democratic campaign for "right to self-determination through ballot not bullet", he claimed that SFJ's global peaceful movement was being undermined by the Pakistan government. --IANS js/in/ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Before campaigning for the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections ends on Tuesday, some candidates from Tripura East constituency used the 'Poila Baisakh' (Bengali New Year) on Monday to reach out to the electorate personally. Tripura Congress President Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Burman, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) candidate Jitendra Chowdhury and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nominee Rebati Tripura interacted with the people on Monday too. The constituency, reserved for tribals, goes to the polls in the second phase on Thursday and the campaigning will end on 5 p.m. on Tuesday. Tribal leader Rebati Tripura, accompanied by the others, carried out a door-to-door campaign and exchanged new year's greetings with the voters. Academician-turned-politician Rebati said: "I am a new entrant. So I have no time to relax. I am using my time to expand my relationship with the people." Deb Burman, a royal scion, told IANS: "Exchanging greetings and campaigning for the elections are going together. This is the best way to maintain social life and personal relationship." Sitting Lok Sabha member and CPI-M candidate for the Tripura East seat, Jitendra Chowdhury, campaigned in the mountainous Jampui areas, adjoining Mizoram. "There is a very little time left. So we do not waste our time. Sharing good wishes and campaigning are going on together," Chowdhury told IANS over phone from northern Tripura. Pragya Deb Burman of Congress said she was busy in exchanging greetings with the people while her brother and state party chief Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Burman was campaigning in the constituency. "I have already covered most of the habitations in the constituency," said Pragya Burman, who studied from the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (under ISRO) in Dehradun. --IANS sc/pg/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after NCP supremo Sharad Pawar claimed that Manohar Parrikar quit as Defence Minister because of disagreements over the Rafale fighter jet deal, the late Goa Chief Minister's son accused him of lying for political gain. Parrikar's eldest son Utpal Parrikar, who has taken the plunge into active politics, also said that his father was an "upright individual" and was the "chief architect" of the Rafale aircraft acquisition deal. "Today, he is not among us, which is why perhaps you are taking the liberty to use his name and speak lies. This is a new low in the Indian political discourse. Being a senior and respected politician, the people of India did not expect such a statement from you, Pawar saheb," he said in a letter to Pawar, which was released to the media on Monday. Pawar, in a statement on Sunday, alleged that the Rafale deal was "not acceptable" to Parrikar, as a result of which he resigned from the post of Defence Minister. Parrikar served as Defence Minister from 2014-17, when the fighter jet deal was being negotiated between the Indian and French governments. Utpal Parrikar, however, termed Pawar's comments an "unfortunate and insensitive attempt to invoke my father's name to push blatant falsehoods for political gains". He also obliquely referred to a courtesy visit by Congress President Rahul Gandhi to meet Parrikar in Goa earlier this year, which the late Goa CM's son claims, was also used later for "petty gains". "Many historic decisions were taken by him for which he will be remembered forever. One of them was the Rafale fighter aircraft acquisition deal of which he was one of the chief architects," Utpal Parrikar said, while commenting on his father's achievements as a minister in the Narendra Modi government. Utpal Parrikar, who is being tipped to contest from the Panaji assembly seat, formerly represented by his father since 1994, also said that Pawar's comments were part of a "malicious misinformation campaign that seens to hinder the strengthening our armed forces". This is not the first time that Parrikar's reference in a Rafale deal-related development has triggered controversy. Earlier this year, Goa Health Minister Vishwajit Rane created a stir after a purported conversation between him and local journalists was released by the Congress, in which Rane claims that Parrikar in a cabinet meeting in December 2018 had claimed that files related to the Rafale deal were stored in his bedroom. --IANS maya/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A young man was detained in the Belgian city of Wavre on suspicion of plotting a terror attack, the spokesman for the federal prosecutor's office Eric Van Der Sypt said. A Belgian daily La Derniere Heure reported earlier that the young Muslim convert identified went to his grandmothers home on April 13 to say goodbye before carrying out an attack over the weekend. The spokesman confirmed to the Belga news agency that a 22-year-old had been detained by anti-terror police and would face a judge soon who would decide whether he should stay in custody. A laptop and cell phones were seized in the operation. The prosecutions spokesman did not comment on what or when the suspect allegedly planned to target in the attack. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan here on Monday urged the UN to investigate the alleged extrajudicial killings by Pakistani security forces that has caused widespread outrage in the last few months. The independent rights watchdog in its annual report "State of Human Rights in 2018," released in Islamabad, also requested the UN for probe other issues, like the situation of human rights activists and the state of religious freedom in the country, reported Efe news. The report said the commission "requests for country visits from UN Special Rapporteurs on extrajudicial executions". Since 2012, it said, Pakistan has accepted country visit requests by the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers and the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. But "the requests for visits from a number of other special procedures remain pending." It said the public conscience in Pakistan "was unremittingly assailed by reports of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, abuse and murder of children, violence towards women, child labour, religious intolerance, persecution of minorities, crimes committed in the name of 'honour'". The request has come after four people -- three from the same family -- were killed in a police encounter in January. After the killing, the Counter Terrorism Department said the four were terrorists and were killed in a shootout among themselves. But eyewitnesses and survivors denied the claim. In a video posted on the social media, a nine-year-old survivor of the shootout said the police started firing without any reason, causing outrage in the country. Since then, five policemen have been arrested, five senior police officers and its investigation branch have been suspended. In early 2018, the killing of 27-year-old Naqeebullah Mehsud, an aspiring model accused of being linked to the Taliban, and three others triggered severe criticism of the authorities. This led to arrest of police officer Rao Anwar who has dramatically fallen from grace after being considered a hero for killing 444 alleged terrorists since 2011. He has been charged with Mehsud's alleged extrajudicial killing. The case triggered a nation-wide protest by Pashtun youths. They demanded an end to extrajudicial killings, disappearances and removal of land mines in the areas where they live. In January, a court dismissed terrorism charges against Mehsud and his three friends and held that the police encounter was staged. --IANS pg/pcj (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress President Rahul Gandhi and party general secretaries Priyanka Gandhi and Jyotiraditya Scindia on Monday launched a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a road show in Agra. Addressing the gathering in Jarar Mandi in Bah tehsil, around 70 km from Agra city, Priyanka Gandhi said: "The public resources are being spent on massive publicity campaigns. From food packets to radio and TV, there was publicity for the BJP everywhere." "No one seemed concerned about unemployed youth or the plight of the poor farmers," she said. "Whoever raised basic issues, was dubbed as anti-national. If the BJP was concerned about 'nationalism' why institutions that strengthened nationalism were being eroded," she questioned. "The NYAY scheme would empower the poor," Priyanka said. Lashing out at the BJP, Rahul Gandhi raised three issues -- employment for youth, loan waivers for farmers and Rs 15 lakh in the bank accounts of people -- dubbing them as big lies of the saffron party. "The demonetisation had badly affected the poor and the farmers," he said. He also emphasised that whatever the Congress has promised in its manifesto will definitely be implemented. The Congress President also wondered from where the money for all the publicity is coming. Earlier, Congress candidate from Fatehpur Sikri Lok Sabha seat Raj Babbar demanded to convert the parliamentary constituency into a district along with the establishment of a Sainik School here. --IANS bk/rs/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is making an appeal over information about three staff members abducted in Syria more than five years ago. In its first detailed statement on the incident, the ICRC said on Sunday night Louisa Akavi, Alaa Rajab and Nabil Bakdounes were seized in October 2013 while travelling to Idlib province in north-western Syria, the BBC reported. Akavi, a citizen of New Zealand, is a 62-year-old nurse who has carried out 17 field missions, while Rajab and Bakdounes, both Syrian nationals, worked as drivers who delivered humanitarian assistance in the country. Akavi was held by the Islamic State group and there is evidence she was alive in late 2018, according to the ICRC. The fate of Rajab and Bakdounes is not known. "The past five and a half years have been an extremely difficult time for the families of our three abducted colleagues. Louisa is a true and compassionate humanitarian. Alaa and Nabil were committed colleagues and an integral part of our aid deliveries," said Dominik Stillhart, ICRC's director of operations. "We call on anyone with information to please come forward. If our colleagues are still being held, we call for their immediate and unconditional release." Meanwhile, the New Zealand government on Monday said that a special forces team has been trying to locate Akavi. "This has involved members of the NZDF (New Zealand Defence Force) drawn from the Special Operations Force, and personnel have visited Syria from time to time as required," said Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters told the media. "This non-combat team was specifically focused on locating Louisa and identifying opportunities to recover her." Akavi is a veteran of conflict zones who has worked in Bosnia, Somalia, and Afghanistan. She survived the 1996 attack on the Red Cross compound in Chechnya, in which six colleagues were killed. In 1999 she was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal for services to nursing. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Calling the issue of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir the biggest challenge before India, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said it cannot be solved until the "failed obsolete thought" of Article 370 as a "loose constitutional connect" between the state and the rest of the country is rejected. He said the challenge needs a fresh approach and only a strong government and a leader with clarity alone was capable of resolving the Kashmir issue. Referring to the past Congress governments, he said the challenge cannot be resolved by those who created the problem and who believe that a "loose constitutional connect" will lead to integration. He added that it could only be done through a fresh approach "which is uncompromising on terror" and "committed to total integration" and through "reversal of the historical blunders". Targeting the Congress, Jaitley said it was identified with the creation of the problem itself by "wishing the issue away" when Pakistan did not reconcile to Kashmir being a part of India. "Instead of working for total integration, the party wanted a loose and liberal constitutional connect between rest of the nation and the state under an erroneous impression that such an arrangement would further the cause of integration," he said in a Facebook post. "Article 370 was disastrously thought out as a constitutional connect between rest of the country and the state. Article 35A was surreptitiously introduced in 1954. It catered to a separatist psyche and legitimised discrimination," he added. Jaitley said terror supported from across the border "can't be fought either with velvet gloves or a policy of appeasement". "This challenge can obviously be resolved with a fresh approach which is uncompromising on terror, uncompromising in its determination to enforce the rule of law and committed to total integration. A strong government and a leader with clarity alone is capable of resolving the Kashmir issue," he said. Targeting National Conference (NC) and the People's Democratic Party (PDP), he said the two regional parties were, of late, more strident in advocating secession of the state if firm measures are taken. Development in the state has suffered due to terror and both democracy and secularism had been a casualty in the valley, he added. The BJP leader said the people of Jammu and Kashmir have to be at the centre point in India's strategy and they should get opportunities, peace and security of life, and freedom from terror. "A state free from terror itself will imply much lesser security presence." Jaitley also attacked the opposition on the issue of Pulwama suicide bombing and Balakot terror strike saying whenever the two issues were raised, the opposition parties were on the back-foot and questioned why national security and terrorism were being made into subject matters of electoral debates. "India's opposition argues that elections have to be fought on the 'real issues' and not on the issues of national security. It is my endeavour to argue that national security and terrorism are the most important issues which concern India in the long run. All other challenges are capable of early resolution," he said. Jaitley said that poverty was declining at a fast pace, urbanisation was increasing, the size of middle class was growing and the economy was expanding, which would result in creation of jobs. "These are all challenges that India is capable of capturing and resolving over the next decade or two," he said asking the question on where India stood on the issue of national security and terror. He said peace was established in Punjab, Northeast and in the South, and that the operation of Maoist terror was restricted and narrow. "As the economic profile of India move upwards, it will become extremely difficult for the Maoists to sustain their violent movement to overthrow democracy. The security 'might' of the State is far superior to handle this movement. The same, however, can't be said of what is happening in the state of Jammu and Kashmir and terrorism emanating from region," he added. --IANS vv/in (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) "Avengers: Endgame" directors Joe and Anthony Russo, collectively known as the Russo Brothers, are set to join forces with actor Tom Holland again. This time for a smaller film that has a "bit heavier material". "We are going to do our next movie with Tom Holland, who plays Spider-Man," Joe said here on Monday. The directors and Holland have worked together in Marvel films "Captain America: Civil War", "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers: Endgame". Talking about their next film, Joe said: "It is a smaller film about a war veteran who comes home with PTSD and develops a heroin addiction." "So, it's a bit heavier material... We thought it was an important issue to tackle," he added. The directors are here to promote "Avengers: Endgame", the 22nd film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. --IANS nn/rb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Samsung India, which is targeting $4 billion in revenues from its Galaxy "A" series of phones in 2019, is geared up to challenge its Chinese competitors with several new devices, including the Galaxy A70 smartphone next week and the Galaxy A80 in May, a top company official said on Monday. "We will launch the Galaxy A70 in India next week in the Rs 25,000-Rs 30,000 bracket and the Galaxy A80 in the Rs 45,000-Rs 50,000 bracket in May," Ranjivjit Singh, Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President, Samsung India, told IANS. Featuring a 6.7-inch Infinity-U display, the Galaxy A70 comes with 4,500mAh battery, super-charging technology and a triple camera system at the rear. Galaxy A80, which was announced globally on April 10, has a pop-up rotating triple-camera system and a full-screen display. The South Korean tech giant is facing stiff competition from Chinese smartphone makers, especially in the budget and mid-range segment. Samsung's increased focus on the 'A' series which offers phones in the Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000 segment, shows that the company is ready to give its Chinese competitors a tough fight in the coming days. "We are targeting $4 billion from the Galaxy A series over the calendar year. Just in the first 40 days starting March 1, we have sold a total of two million units of three Galaxy 'A' models in India -- A50, A30 and A10. The revenue turnover from these three phones in 40 days is $500 million. I think this is a record for any brand in the industry," Singh added. "When the rest of the portfolio in the 'A' series becomes available we are sure of not only achieving, but exceeding our target," he said, adding that the A series phones will continue to be available across the channels - both online and offline. Samsung earlier announced that it would launch at least one phone every month from March to June this year. Earlier this month, it announced Galaxy A20, its fourth smartphone in the Galaxy A series this year. Galaxy A20 is available in India for Rs 12,490. In March, Samsung launched Galaxy A10 for Rs 8,490, A 30 for Rs 16,990 and A50 in two variants - one for Rs 19,990 and the other at Rs 22,990. Samsung now has a phone in the Galaxy A series in almost all price ranges in the Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000 bracket. "The portfolio is ever-evolving with the consumer. To hit $4 billion revenue I will have to look at every opportunity. We will come up with the right opportunity for the range you are referring to (the Rs 30,000-Rs 45,000 segment). Just because we have not announced "A" phone in this range in India, does not mean we are not working on it," Singh told IANS. Samsung India, which earned revenues of $5.5 billion from its smartphones business in the country in the 2018 financial year, is also launching other cheaper phones -- like the 'M' series -- to take on the Chinese smartphone makers. "We are going to ship out Galaxy A2 core this week at Rs 5,290. This is going to be a tremendous boost to people who want to switch from feature phones to smartphones. This is going to be huge in terms of volume," Singh added. (Gokul Bhagabati can be contacted at gokul.b@ians.in) --IANS gb/na/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Lucknow, April 15 (INS) The Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) said on Monday that it will go it alone in the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh. "We will field 25 candidates and contest on our own. We have waited long enough for the BJP and we are going ahead alone," said UP minister and SBSP president Om Prakash Rajbhar on Monday. Rajbhar had walked into Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's official residence at 3 a.m on Sunday with his resignation letter, but was turned back since the chief minister was sleeping. Rajbhar said if the BJP wanted to remove him from the council of ministers, it could do so. Sources said that the BJP was willing to give one seat to SBSP on the condition that it should be contested on the BJP symbol. The SBSP, which represents the Rajbhar community, had won four seats in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. The relationship between BJP and SBSP has been rather tumultuous with the SBSP leveling allegations against the Adityanath government. --IANS amita/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Monday refused to interfere, for now, with the Madras High Court's order banning Chinese video app TikTok, and directed further hearing in the matter on April 22. The decision by the bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Sanjiv Khanna, came on an appeal by Chinese company ByteDance, which developed the app, contending that the High Court order was ex-parte. The matter is also listed for hearing before the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday (April 16). Expressing concern over the "pornographic and inappropriate" contents of the TikTok, the high court had, on April 3, directed the Centre to ban the app. It had also restrained the visual and social media from telecasting through the app. The ban order came after court noted that children were being exposed to pornographic and inappropriate material. With over 54 million users every month, TikTok allows its users to create and share videos and these may have inappropriate content. These user-created videos that often contain memes, lip-syncing of songs and sometimes sleazy posts regularly find ways to other popular social media sites including Facebook, WhatsApp and ShareChat. These are the platforms where most adult social media users are now getting introduced to TikTok. Meanwhile, TikTok, in a statement, said: "We are committed to continuously enhancing our existing measures and introducing additional technical and moderation processes as a part of our ongoing commitment to our users in India. In line with this, we have been stepping up efforts to take down the objectionable content." TikTok also said that to date, "we have removed over 6 million videos that violated our terms of use and community guidelines, following an exhaustive review of contents generated by our users in India". --IANS pk/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to examine statements made by political leaders violative of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) after the Election Commission admitted it was "toothless" and "powerless" vis-a-vis hate speeches made during the election campaign. The court will take up the matter at 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday, saying it wants to examine the scope of powers of the Election Commission. Speeches by BSP chief Mayawati, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and others were cited as violations of the MCC. The Election Commission told the court that it can merely issue notice, then an advisory and lodge a criminal complaint in the case of repeated violations. The counsel for the poll body said it was "toothless" and "powerless" against hate and religious speeches made during the election campaign. The apex court said then it was appropriate to examine the scope of powers of the poll panel which is also a constitutional body. The EC counsel informed the court that it had already sought reply from Mayawati to furnish a reply regarding her election speech seeking votes on the basis of religion. Mayawati was supposed to reply by April 12 but the EC was yet to get it. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked: "What do you propose to do?" The EC counsel replied that it does not have the power to de-recognise or disqualify the person and it can only send advisories. And if the candidate continues to to violate the MCC, then it can file a compliant. The Supreme Court directed the Election Commission official to be present in court on Tuesday. --IANS ss/in/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP President Amit Shah will address election rallies next month for the four Lok Sabha seats in Himachal Pradesh, it was announced on Monday. Shah would tour the state on May 5 and 12, a BJP spokesperson told IANS. The public meeting venues will be announced later. He said rallies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his cabinet Ministers Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari and Smriti Irani have also been planned. The spokesperson said a decision to hold rallies involving national leaders was taken at an election review meeting chaired by Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur here. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won all four seats - Shimla (reserved), Mandi, Kangra and Hamirpur. The hill state will go to the polls on May 19. --IANS vg/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) First President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev has sent a letter to former President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan, who is currently in custody. "In the letter, Nazarbayev informed Kocharyan about the well-known domestic political changes and processes taking place in Kazakhstan," Kochryan's office reported. In addition, Nazarbayev said he fondly remembers the years of their joint work, and expressed hope that his personal contacts with Kocharyan will be continued, News.am reported. The Border Security Force on Monday seized two kilograms of silver ornaments worth Rs 58,000 from an international check post in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas and arrested one man, the BSF said. Acting on a tip-off, the paramilitary troopers raided Panditpara village and seized the smuggled ornaments. Monotosh Chakravarty, a resident of Swarupnagar, was arrested from ICP Gobardah during manual frisking, a BSF officer said. The accused was handed over to Basirhat police station. The BSF has so far in 2019 seized silver ornaments worth over Rs 7,00,000 and arrested three smugglers from the south Bengal frontier. --IANS mgr/in (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has mounted a counter-intelligence operation that aims to bar Chinese academics from the US if they are suspected of having links to Chinese intelligence agencies, the media reported. As many as 30 Chinese professors in the social sciences, heads of academic institutes, and experts who help explain government policies have had their visas to the US cancelled in the past year, or put on administrative review, The New York Times reported on Sunday. It follows the warning of the FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, at a Senate hearing last year that China presented "a whole-of-society threat on their end" that required a "whole-of-society response". The FBI said on Sunday that it would not confirm or deny any investigations into the scholars' visits. President Donald Trump's administration has sought to crack down on what it sees as intellectual property theft by Chinese scientists working at American research institutions. Last year, it began restricting visas for Chinese graduate students studying in sensitive research fields and warned biomedical researchers at American universities to beware of Chinese spies trying to steal information from their laboratories. China has also for several decades denied visas to a number of influential American academics who have been critical of Beijing's human rights record. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Indian-American Congressman Ami Bera has offered to help the residents of California's Sacramento County who might be having issues with filing of taxes. Bera, the US Representative for California's 7th Congressional District, has been representing the Sacramento County since 2013. He announced on his Twitter handle that his office was eager to help in whichever way it can, the American Bazaar reported. April 15 marks the Tax Day in the US. The new federal tax law might make it more challenging for many families to figure out tax filings this year, Bera said. His office has also been educating the people about the taxpayers' rights. Everyone that disagrees with an Internal Revenue Service decision is entitled to appeal the decision before an independent board. According to Bera's office, even though the tax filing day is April 15, the IRS does provide a few ways in which one can apply for an extension. --IANS ksk/pcj (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has arrived in the Colombian border city of Cucuta, where he will visit two border crossing points and meet Colombian President Ivan Duque to discuss the crisis in neighbouring Venezuela. After ending his Peru visit, the top US diplomat to Colombia arrived here a little before 4 pm at Camilo Daza International Airport for the final leg of a regional tour he began in Chile, Efe news reported. At the air terminal, Pompeo was welcomed by Colombia's Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo Garcia. Before arriving here, Pompeo visited three countries -- Chile, Paraguay and Peru. The main issue on his agenda was the Venezuelan crisis and the challenges of dealing with the situation both regionally and internationally. In Cucuta, the main border crossing point between Colombia and Venezuela, Pompeo went to a shelter housing Venezuelan refugees where he met with Duque and Vice President Marta Lucia Ramirez, as well as Humberto Calderon Berti, the ambassador to Colombia appointed by Venezuela's interim president, Juan Guaido. Pompeo and Duque chatted with some of the Venezuelans being housed at the shelter, including several children, who told them about the difficulties they had experienced living in their country. Upon leaving the shelter, Pompeo signed a mural on which he wrote "Blessings to you all." Underneath that, Duque added the phrase "We're united in solidarity and affection." Later, Pompeo and Duque went to the Simon Bolivar border bridge between Colombia and Venezuela, where they strolled around on the Colombian side of the bridge and heard shouts of "Freedom! Freedom!" from a large crowd of Venezuelans. Duque told reporters in English that Colombia had taken in 1.5 million Venezuelans over the past two years. The US official and Duque also went to visit the warehouse facilities where humanitarian aid is being stockpiled on the Colombian side of the Tienditas border bridge, which is currently being blocked by Venezuelan troops so that this aid cannot be ferried into their country, this on the order of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Before the arrival of the US Secretary of State, Duque presented in Cucuta an "Impact Plan," a package of measures to help Colombia's provinces bordering on Venezuela deal with the effects of the crisis in the oil-producing neighboring country. That package of measures is valued at approximately 712 billion pesos (about $229 million) and is targeted at the provinces of Norte de Santander, Arauca, Cesar, La Guajira, Vichada and Guainia. This is Pompeo's second visit to Colombia this year after he traveled to the city of Cartagena on Jan. 2, where he spoke with Duque about the Venezuelan crisis and the fight against drug trafficking. Venezuela has been mired in a severe political, economic and social crisis for years, but it became more acute in January when Maduro was inaugurated to a second six-year term after winning an election the previous May that was held to be fraudulent by the Venezuelan opposition and a significant portion of the international community. After Maduro's inauguration, the head of the opposition-controlled Parliament, Juan Guaido, proclaimed himself Venezuela's interim president and since then he has received recognition as the country's legitimate leader by more than 50 nations around the world, including the US and most of the nations of Latin America and Europe. The US, Colombia and other nations began stockpiling humanitarian aid for Venezuela in Cucuta, Brazil and Curacao some months ago with an eye toward shipping it into Venezuela to alleviate the suffering of the Venezuelan people, but Maduro has blocked those shipments, claiming that there is no crisis in Venezuela and that aid shipments could be the pretext for a US-led invasion. --IANS vin/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) For the first time in perhaps four decades, criminals are taking a backseat in the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh and it is the Yogi Adityanath government that deserves credit for this. The crackdown on criminals by the Yogi government has forced a majority of the mafia dons to keep a low profile in the elections, especially after the daylight murder of mafia don Munna Bajrangi inside Baghpat jail in July last year. BJP spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi said: "It is mainly due to the iron hand of the Yogi government that criminals have gone back into their shell. If they were earlier active in politics, it was because the then governments were encouraging them." While political parties are not exactly shying away from fielding candidates with criminal antecedents but they are certainly maintaining a distance from established mafia candidates. Erstwhile mafia don Hari Shankar Tiwari has given up on electoral due to advancing age but his sons Bhisham Shankar Tiwari and Vinay Tiwari are active in electoral His sons are in BSP and the ticket of his elder son Bhisham Shankar Tiwari is yet to be announced form Sant Kabir Nagar. Mafia don Mukhtar Ansari, presently a legislator in the state Assembly, is keeping away from elections though his brother Afzal Ansari is keen to contest from Ghazipur on a BSP ticket but the same has not yet been confirmed. Mukhtar Ansari is lodged in jail since 2005 on charges of the murder of a BJP MLA Krishnand Rai. Another mafia don, Dhananjay Singh, is set to contest form Jaunpur but his ticket from the Nishad Party, which recently entered into an alliance with the BJP, is awaiting 'clearance'. The BJP has made it clear that it is unwilling to field the young politician on its symbol. Mafia don Brijesh Singh, who is lodged in Varanasi jail, has also not made any efforts to field his relatives in the Lok Sabha elections. He has been maintaining a low profile since the Adityanath government came to power. A member of the UP Legislative Council, Brijesh Singh now avoids attending sessions of the state legislature too. Independent legislator and former Minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh a.k.a. Raja Bhaiyya, however, has floated his own party called Jansatta Dal and is fielding candidates in the Lok Sabha elections. Raja Bhaiyya was jailed under POTA in 2003 during the Mayawati regime. He served as Minister in the Kalyan Singh and Rajnath Singh governments and also in Mulayam Singh and Akhilesh Yadav governments. Mafia don Ateeq Ahmad, with 42 criminal cases against him, is also presently in jail. His supporters are in touch with smaller parties. If he manages to get a ticket, he will contest from Allahabad. According to former Director General of Police Vikram Singh, who played a key role in the formation of the Special Task Force in Uttar Pradesh in 1998, the increasing number of youth voters and the growing reach of social media has checked criminalization of in the state to a large extent. "Candidates are now required to declare their criminal cases and the information goes viral on the net within no time. This is serving as a deterrent," he said. --IANS amita/mr--IANS (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The ban on Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from campaigning in the Lok Sabha elections for 3 days over hate speeches is not the first punitive action by the Election Commission (EC) against erring politicians. During the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the poll panel had banned Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Amit Shah and Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Azam Khan from holding public meetings or road shows in UP. The EC had also asked authorities to initiate criminal proceedings against them. The action against Shah in connection with his speech at a rally in riot-hit Muzaffarnagar where he called for "revenge". "You have been treated as second-grade citizens. It is time for revenge now. Batons, guns and swords belong to a bygone era. These days you take revenge by pressing the button," he said. The action against Khan was taken over his remark that "No Hindu soldier died in the 1999 Kargil war, which was won by Muslim soldiers". As in the case of Mayawati and Adityanath, the action against Shah and Khan was taken under Article 324, which gives the EC wide powers to ensure free and fair elections. But Monday's action against Mayawati and Adityanath came after the Supreme Court pulled up the poll panel for blatant violation of the model code of conduct. Welcoming the EC action, constitution expert P.D.T. Achary said it might have come under pressure, realising that the Supreme Court would take harsh view of things on Tuesday, when the case is listed for consideration. "The EC always had teeth, but unless it showed them no one would fear it. It is a good beginning to set right the wrongs," he told IANS. Given the gravity of the offence, the EC could have barred the two leaders for campaigning from the entire election, he said. "But this is a signal, just a beginning. It would act as deterrent for others by sending a message that the poll panel can take the most stringent action, if needed, and can even bar violators from campaigning for the whole election," he said. --IANS vv/rtp/pcj (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A fire tore through a pharmaceutical company in China's Shandong province, killing at least 10 persons and injuring 12 others, the fourth major industrial accident in the country since last month. The incident took place in the pharmaceutical company in Jinan city, state-run China Daily reported. Ten persons were killed and 12 injured in the incident, the report said. This is the fourth industrial explosion in China since last month. On March 31, seven persons were killed and five others injured in an explosion at a scrap metal moulding plant in China's Jiangsu Province. On March 30, five personswere killed in an explosion in a factory in China's Shandong Province. On March 22, one of China's worst industrial accidents in which 78 people were killed and over 600 others injured took place. The powerful blast at a pesticide factory in eastern city of Yancheng demolished a number of other factories in the industrial park. Following the accident, the Chinese government ordered nationwide inspection of chemical industries to prevent large scale factory explosion. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Eleven militants, including five ISIS terrorists, were arrested on Monday in Karachi, the capital of Pakistan's southern Sindh province, officials said. Police conducted a raid on a compound in Karachi's Taiser Town on the basis of intelligence reports and arrested five ISIS terrorists, a senior police official said. The suspects were identified as Abdullah, alias Hamza, Waqar, Waseem, Naveed and Mudassir, he added. The official said that jihadi lliterature, weapons, hand grenades and bullets were recovered from their hideout. The suspects would indoctrinate people over social media and give them various offers to join the group, he added. The ISIS Saturday claimed responsibility for a suicide attack that killed 21 people and wounded more than 50 others in Quetta, the provincial capital of restive Balochistan province, in an attack believed to be targeting the minority Hazara Shia community. The Pakistani officials have repeatedly denied presence of the ISIS in the country, but the Middle Eastern terror group has claimed a number of attacks in the past. In a separate operation, the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) arrested six militants, including a serving policeman, who were affiliated with a banned sectarian outfit, officials said. "All six suspects are affiliated with Sipah-e-Muhammad and have received their training abroad and were paid through a network which mainly targeted members of their supposed rival sect," CTD Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Abdullah Shaikh said. Some of the arrested suspects' names were included in the 'Red Book' of the most wanted suspects, he said. Shaikh said the initial investigations had revealed that the suspects were paid around Rs 60,000 per month through a network from abroad. The suspects had been involved in the killings of 50 people between 2003 and 2019 in Karachi on sectarian grounds and mainly targeted members of their supposed rival sect, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Police have detained 17 more suspects connected to a chemical blast in eastern China last month which killed 78 and left hundreds injured, local authorities said Monday. The explosion in eastern Jiangsu province was one of the worst industrial accidents in the country in recent years and led to the closure of the plant. Police have taken "criminal coercive measures" against the 17 suspects, said the Yancheng city government on its official Twitter-like Weibo account, bringing the number people rounded up over the blast to 26. The latest group includes individuals from an unnamed third-party organisation, who are accused of falsifying project evaluations, and Jiangsu Tianjiayi Chemical company, whose plant was involved in the blast. The March 21 explosion razed an industrial park and blew out the windows of surrounding homes. Deadly industrial accidents are common in China, where safety regulations are often poorly enforced. In 2015, massive chemical blasts in the northern port city of Tianjin killed at least 165 people. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 15) President Rodrigo Duterte has yet to approve the proposed 2019 national budget, but the government already plans an even higher appropriation for next year. According to the National Budget Memorandum 132 issued by the Department of Budget and Management on April 12, the government is considering a 9.1 percent or 343 billion increase in 2020 from the proposed 3.76-trillion spending in 2019. With the percentage increase, the Cabinet-level Development Budget Coordination Committee has set a 4.1-trillion outlay for 2020. READ: Congress passes 2019 budget after 2-month delay Of the amount, 44.9 percent or 1.8 trillion will be allotted for Tier 1 or ongoing programs, activities, and projects of different agencies. A total of 911.7 billion or 22.2 percent of the budget, meanwhile, will cover Tier 2 or expanded and new programs and projects. Automatic appropriations such as debt serviving, and special purpose funds will account for 32.8 percent or 1.34 trillion. Cash-based system Based on the memorandum, the 2020 budget will follow a cash-based budgeting scheme, the same system that then Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno proposed for 2019. Diokno is now Bangko Sentral governor replacing Nestor Espenilla who succumbed to cancer in February. READ: The struggle for the 2019 national budget In a cash-based set-up, agencies are required to spend their entire budget within a year. This is different from the previous system that allowed spending to be extended to two years. "This system (cash-based) promotes efficiency of expenditure planning and public service delivery by shifting the performance metrics to actual delivery of goods and services rather than obligations made or contracts awarded," the memorandum says. In line with the system, the DBM said "only implementation-ready programs and projects shall be considered in the national budget." Priorities Under the Budget circular, the administration will prioritize infrastructure, anti-poverty, and pro-employment initiatives. The government will shell out P1.044 trillion for infrastructure projects, equivalent to 4.9 percent of the country's economic growth as measure in gross domestic product. This will include transport infrastructure, agriculture development, tourism development, and social infrastructure programs. The Budget Department also cited new critical programs such as the implementation of the Universal Health Care Act and Rice Tarriffication Act; transition to the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao; institutionalization of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program; and operation of the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development. The planned budget will also cover other priority initiatives such as the implementation of K-12 and technical and vocational programs; Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act; unconditional cash transfer; Risk Resiliency Programs; as well as coastal resources management. President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon will make an official visit to Russia on April 16-17 at Russian President Vladimir Putins invitation. "The talks agenda involves key bilateral matters and steps to boost mutually beneficial cooperation in the areas of politics, trade, economy and culture," the Kremlin press service said in the statement. "The parties will also exchange views on pressing regional issues," TASS cited the press service as saying. In addition, the two countries presidents are expected to sign a number of documents during their Moscow talks. Three men have been arrested in connection with a burglary at a house in Delhi's Preet Vihar area and Rs 2 lakh in cash and jewellery worth Rs 3 lakh were recovered from them, police said Monday. The accused were identified as Harish Chand (32), Pradeep Verma (29) and Sachin Patil (32), they said. More than 100 people were questioned and footage from several CCTV cameras installed in the locality were scanned to ascertain and identify the accused involved in the incident, a senior police official said. Following this police arrested Chand, a resident of UP's Amroha. During interrogation, Chand admitted that after committing the burglary, he reached his village where he met Pradeep Verma, a resident of Sambhal, and sold all the jewellery items to him, the officer said. At the instance of Chand, Verma was arrested, he said. Verma disclosed that he had further sold the jewellery items to one Sachin Patil at Sambhal, following which he was arrested, the officer said. The stolen items have been recovered, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Three persons, including a woman, were killed after an altercation between two men over staying the night at a house in Dhalai district, a police officer said on Monday. The incident happened on Sunday at a remote tribal hamlet Paisaramkarbaripara, about 120 km from the state capital, when a villager refused to allow a man to stay at his house for the night, with a woman who had earlier sought refuge, the Superintendent of Police (SP), Sudipta Das, said. The episode triggered a war of words between the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress. The Congress claimed that all the three deceased were its supporters, and that they were killed by BJP cadres. "Three Congress supporters were brutally beaten up and murdered. Two others are hospitalised in critical condition, while another is missing," Tripura Congress vice-president Tapas Dey said on Monday. The BJP, however, denied the charge, with spokesperson Nabendu Bhattacharya asserting that no worker of the saffron party was involved. The SP, meanwhile, ruled out any political link with the incident. Trouble started after a 40-year-old woman, who came to the village to take part in the traditional Biju festival, sought shelter at the house of the local resident, since she could not go back home at that hour, Das said. Soon after, a 19-year-old man demanded to stay the night at his place, and in the woman's room, the SP said. When the owner of the house refused to oblige the man, the latter caught hold of an axe and allegedly killed him, his father and the woman, Das said. The man has been arrested. The Congress has also lodged a complaint with the returning officer of the East Tripura (ST) constituency, which will go to polls on April 18. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Five suspected ISIS militants were arrested Monday during a raid in Karachi, the capital of Pakistan's southern Sindh province, police said. Police conducted a raid on a compound in Karachi's Taiser Town on the basis of intelligence reports and arrested the suspected terrorists, a senior police official said. The suspects were identified as Abdullah, alias Hamza, Waqar, Waseem, Naveed and Mudassir, he added. The official said that jihadi lliterature, weapons, hand grenades and bullets were recovered from their hideout. The suspects would indoctrinate people over social media and give them various offers to join the group, he added. The ISIS Saturday claimed responsibility for a suicide attack that killed 21 people and wounded more than 50 others in Quetta, the provincial capital of restive Balochistan province, in an attack believed to be targeting the minority Hazara Shia community. The Pakistani officials have repeatedly denied presence of the ISIS in the country, but the Middle Eastern terror group has claimed a number of attacks in the past. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Around 93 per cent voters cast their ballots during repolling at the Konarchar booth in Meghalaya's West Garo Hills on Monday, for both the Lok Sabha and the Selsella bye-elections, officials said. The repoll was necessitated due to a mix up of the EVMs for the Lok Sabha and Selsella by-election held on April 11, they said. Out of a total of 674 eligible voters under Konachar polling station, 665 cast their ballot for the Lok Sabha elections and 663 for the assembly by-poll, election officials said. The figure is 14 votes less than that on April 11, which saw 668 voters exercising their franchise for the general elections and 674 for the assembly by-poll, the officials said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey came out in support of Yogi Adityanath, who has censured by the EC for his communal remarks, saying the chief minister only took the name of God. The statement came hours after the Election Commission "strongly condemned" Adityanath and BSP supremo Mayawati for their communal remarks and barred them from campaigning for 72 and 48 hours respectively. In a statement issued here, Pandey said, "The BJP is a disciplined political party and we respect the decision of the Election Commission. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath did not in any way provoke religious sentiments, nor did he make any statement which could spread communal unrest. He only took the name of God." "On the other hand, BSP supremo Mayawati and SP leader Azam Khan are seeking votes in the name of religion and also trying to spread communal unrest. "Azam Khan resorted to use of vulgar and undignified language, and hence action should be initiated against Azam Khan and not Adityanath." he said. The Uttar Pradesh BJP chief also urged the poll panel to re-consider its decision to impose 72-hour ban on Adityanath. The Uttar Pradesh chief minister was served the notice for his "Ali" and "Bajrang Bali" remarks while addressing a rally in Meerut. He compared the Lok Sabha elections to a contest between 'Ali', a revered figure in Islam, and Bajrang Bali, the Hindu god Hanuman. On the other hand, Mayawati was issued the notice for her speech in Deoband appealing to Muslims to not vote for a particular party. The BSP chief had prima facie violated the model code of conduct, the poll panel found. The orders barring Adityanath and Mayawati from campaigning for 72 hours and 48 hours respectively, will come into effect from 6 am on Tuesday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Cracking the whip, the Election Commission Monday banned Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, BSP leader Mayawati, SP leader Azam Khan and Union minister Maneka Gandhi from campaigning for their hate comments. While Adityanath and Khan have been barred for 72 hours, Mayawati and Gandhi face a 48-hour ban. The nationwide ban comes into force at 6 am Tuesday, the poll panel said. According to EC officials, this is the first time an all-India ban has been imposed on politicians to campaign in elections and also it is for the first time such a restriction has been put against a chief minister. While Adityanath, Mayawati and Gandhi were found guilty of violating the model code, EC said Khan, who also faced a state-specific ban during 2014 polls, not only violated the poll code, he also disregarded its directive asking politicians to desist from "deeds or actions construed as being repugnant to the honour and dignity of women". "...the Commission has observed that Azam Khan has not changed his way of campaigning and he is still indulging in using very objectionable language in election campaigning," the order said "reprimanding him". In its order on Adityanath, the Commission said it "strongly condemns" the impugned statement made by the UP chief minister and "censured" him for "misconduct". The Election Commission order to bar these leaders came within hours of the Supreme Court taking note of the communal remarks made by Adityanath and Mayawati and asking the poll watchdog about the action it has initiated against them. However, a senior EC functionary said the Commission had examined the issues of Adityanath and Mayawati on April 14-15, and came up with the final decision on Monday after lots of deliberation as it felt a clear message should go out to the politicians. Using its powers under Article 324 of the Constitution, the EC barred them from "holding any public meetings, public processions, public rallies, road shows and interviews, public utterances in media (print, electronic and social media) in connection with the ongoing elections for 72 and 48 hours from 6.00 am on April 16". On the different time periods for the leaders, a senior EC official said, "It is for the second time that the Uttar Pradesh CM has been issued a show cause notice by the EC. On April 5, he was asked to be 'careful' in the future. Khan had faced a similar ban in 2014 for campaigning in UP." "This is the first show cause and action against the BSP president and the Union minister... the severity of the action is, therefore, different," he said. Mayawati was issued the notice for her speech in Deoband, where she appealed to Muslims to not vote for the Congress. The BSP chief had violated the Model Code of Conduct, the poll panel found. Adityanath was served the notice for the "Ali" and "Bajrang Bali" remarks he made while addressing a rally in Meerut. He compared the Lok Sabha elections to a contest between 'Ali', a revered figure in Islam, and Bajrang Bali (another name of the Hindu god Hanuman). The poll panel also observed that being the chief minister of a state, Adityanath has an "added responsibility to not only uphold the basic tenets, including secularism, of the Constitution of India, but also to display the same in his public appearances". The order said, the EC is convinced that Adityanath made a "highly provocative" speech, which had the "tone and tenor" to aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred between religious communities. The poll panel told Mayawati that being a senior leader, she should have "desisted" from making such comments that have the "undertone and propensity to polarise the elections" in several constituencies due to the reach of the media. During the Lok Sabha polls of 2014, Khan had faced a ban for campaigning in Utttar Pradesh for his religious remarks. Now BJP chief Amit Shah also faced a similar ban in 2014, but later it was lifted after he assured the poll body that he would not disturb public tranquillity and law and order. Since Khan had not given a similar assurance, the ban on him had continued. A similar ban was placed on BJP leader Giriraj Singh from campaigning in Jharkhand and Bihar for his controversial remarks. SP leader Akhilesh Yadav took to Twitter to ask EC whether it is capable to issue similar directives to the prime minister. "EC directive against @mayawati ji begs the question: do they have integrity to stop PM from asking for votes in name of the army?" Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remarks asking first-time voters to dedicate their vote to those who carried out the Balakot air strike are under examination of the poll panel. Maneka had on Thursday last told Muslims to vote for her as they will need her once the Lok Sabha elections are over. "We are not Mahatma Gandhi's children that we keep giving and not get anything in return," she said in Sultanpur's Muslim-dominated Turabkhani area. Targeting BJP's Jaya Prada, Khan at a rally on Sunday had said, "...the underwear beneath is of khakhi colour". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 26-year-old man who was on the run for five years after allegedly killing his neighbour over parking in Delhi's Uttam Nagar area has been arrested, police said Monday. Laloo Yadav of Bihar's Begusarai, a vendor, was absconding since 2014 in a case of murder, they said. With the help of his friend Anil, Laloo killed one of his neighbours, Arvind, over altercation regarding parking of his vending cart after which a case was registered at Uttam Nagar police station, G Ramgopal Naik, Deputy Commissioner of Police (crime) said. Anil was arrested after the incident, while Laloo managed to flee, he said. A reward of Rs 25,000 was declared on the whereabouts of Laloo and he was declared a proclaimed offender by the Tis Hazari court, the officer said. The arrest was made on April 9 after police got a tip off that Yadav would be coming at his native place to sell off his land. A raid was conducted in Begusarai from where he was apprehended, police said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) State-run Air India is set to resume its flight services to Madrid from New Delhi from April 18, the airline said Monday. The airline had temporarily suspended services to Madrid along with Birmingham from New Delhi last month following the closure of the Pakistani airspace for all West-bound flights to and from India. The national carrier operates three times-a-week flight services to the Spanish capital from New Delhi. "Air India is set to resume its thrice-a-week service on the Delhi-Madrid-Delhi sector from April 18, after a brief interlude to cater to the consistent heavy demand from passengers both in Spain and India," the airline said in a statement. The New Delhi-Madrid route is serviced by India's flagship aircraft Boeing 787-800. Air India has also announced return fares, starting from Euro 487, for travel on Madrid-Delhi-Madrid sector. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) / -- The alumni of Manipal American University of Antigua, College of Medicine are certainly the perfect brand ambassadors of Manipal AUA. The community of their alumni mirrors Manipal AUA's success at what they stand for, that is shaping well-rounded doctors through their global medicine program to address the projected shortage of physicians globally. A recent U.S. study reveals that India alone is short of 6 lakh doctors and 2 million nurses. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/834877/MAUA_Logo.jpg ) (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/871575/Dr_Swaiman_Medical_Camp.jpg) We bring you an inspiring story from India about the success of Dr. Swaiman Singh's Medical Camps. In March, Dr. Swaiman Singh, American University of Antigua (AUA) College of Medicine - Class of 2015, organized a series of medical camps in three cities in the state of Punjab, India, where he grew up. In each of the camps, in Pakhoke, Jalandhar, and Ludhiana, large numbers of residents turned out for preventive care check-ups, health screenings, and other medical services. The camp saw around 4,000 patients on the first day, as reported by local media. After the camps, they did personal follow-ups in two out of three places. The Pakhoke camp received five days of follow-up, and the Jalandhar camp had two days. The Ludhiana camp received follow-up over the phone by them and in person through local doctors there. A team of physicians from a wide variety of fields, including surgery, obstetrics, pediatrics, orthopedics, oncology, dental, and ophthalmology, joined Dr. Singh. Several non-profit organizations donated medication, and Mai Bhago College of Nursing students and instructors volunteered to help. Dr. Singh said that the goals for the camps were to learn about the diseases are affecting the local populations in different parts of India, to see what he and others can do to help in the future, and to build enthusiasm around social work in the local community. Dr. Singh said, "They learned a lot. Some of the major takeaways were that diabetes mellitus (DM) and hypertension (HTN) are big problems, as well as alcohol, steroid, and antihistamine abuse. Skin care is a challenge due to pollution and bad sanitation. Lack of education and screening opportunities also pose ongoing obstacles. There's a huge need for doctors in India but having more nurse practitioners might help close the gap. On the positive side, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are close to non-existent because smoking isn't common." The medical camps resulted in the following successes: Testing more than 800 attendees' eyes and giving out more than 200 pairs of prescription eyeglasses Administering dental and eye check-ups and giving toothbrushes to all Pakhoke school children Performing 300 electrocardiography tests Testing and diagnosing many patients with diabetes and high blood pressure Using Apple Watches as a screening tool to identify atrial fibrillation, and diagnosing five attendees Conducting cancer screenings, including mammograms Providing free medication and guidance to attendees Dr. Singh is already looking ahead to the medical camps he is planning for 2020, which will be held from March 14 to 28. According Dr. Singh, they would need to keep the focus on dermatology, HTN, DM, heart disease, headaches, pain, gastritis, oncology, and OBGYN services. They would be looking to meet more innovators, as they feel using Apple Watches was a huge success. For the next year, they are planning to use other new technologies that are cost-effective. They have already reached out to couple of companies, including one that makes stethoscopes and another that makes portable EKG machines. They are looking forward to expanding their efforts to help as many people as possible. Since compassion and humanity is the foundation of the global medical program, AUA has philanthropically come forward to support one of the world's most challenging and ignored social cause of elderly care, by co-sponsoring a fundraiser musical event in aid of Omashram Trust Old Age Home, Bengaluru. Read more AUA alumni success stories. About American University of Antigua (AUA) American University of Antigua (AUA) is an accredited, for-profit medical school in the Caribbean and is in Antigua and Barbuda. In 2008, Bengaluru-based Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG) purchased the college from New York-based Greater Caribbean Learning Resources, Inc. and formed Manipal Education Americas, LLC. In 2006, AUA College of Medicine was approved by the New York State Education Department and, in 2011, recognized by the Medical Board of California. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been taking potshots at Sharad Pawar in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls, is unlikely to address a rally on the NCP chief's home turf Baramati in Maharashtra, apparently due to his busy schedule, party leaders said Monday. Instead of Modi, BJP president Amit Shah is likely to address a rally in Baramati in Pune district on April 19. Maharashtra BJP leaders were trying to organise a rally of the PM in Baramati. However, he is unlikely to come due to his busy schedule, they said. "Instead of Modiji, now Amitji will hold a rally in Baramati city on April 19," said a BJP leader. PM Modi will address a rally at Akluj neighbouring Baramati on April 17, he said, adding that the proposed rally will also have a positive impact on Baramati constituency. "Modi is likely to arrive in Pune on April 16 evening and stay there overnight before heading for Akluj the next day. He will not address any rally or meeting in Pune," the party leader said. In his rallies held in Maharashtra, Modi had said that Pawar was losing grip over the NCP and his nephew Ajit Pawar is trying to take charge. Interestingly, the Sharad Pawar-led party had announced its support for the BJP when the results of the 2014 assembly elections established that the saffron party was forming the government. Senior BJP leaders Nitin Gadkari, Yogi Adityanath and Smriti Irani are likely to hold rallies in Baramati. During his visit to Pune in February, Shah had set a target of winning 45 seats from Maharashtra including Baramati, which is currently represented by Pawar's daughter Supriya Sule. The BJP has fielded Kanchan Kul, wife of a legislator from BJP ally RSP, against Sule. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Russia is ready to return a debt of 60 million euro to the Council of Europe, which has been accumulated over two years of non-payment, a diplomatic source familiar with the situation said. Earlier, chairman of the Russian Federation Councils Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev said that in addition to the full restoration of the Russian delegations rights, PACE should eliminate the very threat of further discrimination against national delegations. "In this case, Russia will be ready not only to pay its annual contribution, but also to recover the debt that has accumulated over the past two years," he stressed, noting that this is Russia's official position. The Federation Council noted the need to reform the Council of Europe so that each delegation has a guaranteed voting right, the Izvestia newspaper wrote. A few youngsters Monday hurled stones on PDP president Mehbooba Mufti's carcade while she was electioneering in South Kashmir's Khiram area, leaving her security guard injured, officials said here. Mufti was returning after offering prayers at the Khiram Dargah, which is revered by the local Muslim population. A Special Services Guard (SSG), a force carved out of Jammu and Kashmir police to protect the serving and former chief ministers, was injured, the officials said. A spare vehicle in her motorcade was also damaged, they said. Police present at the spot chased the youngsters and later detained them for questioning. Others in the entourage, including the PDP president, escaped unhurt. According to the preliminary report, the youngsters were expressing their unhappiness over the PDP's tie up with the BJP after the 2014 assembly elections. Traditionally a bastion of the PDP, Khiram is located 77 km from Srinagar and is surrounded on three sides by mountains, separating it from Sallar in the east and Tral and Shikargah in west and north, respectively. Mufti is contesting the Lok Sabha election from the Anantnag seat, which she had won in 2014. The constituency, is spread over the four districts of Anantnag, Kulgam, Pulwama and Shopian and it is going to the polls in three phases from April 29 to May 6. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A year after claims of sexual assault and harassment rocked the UN agency that fights HIV, UNAIDS looked like it might be on the mend, the top deputy facing the allegations had departed. The leader who presided over the troubled institution announced plans to bow out early and managers vowed to correct the agency's "toxic" atmosphere in a scathing probe. But the upheaval is not over. Confidential documents obtained by The Associated Press show UNAIDS is grappling with previously unreported allegations of financial and sexual misconduct involving Martina Brostrom, who went public last March with claims that one of the organization's top officials assaulted her in 2015. As part of a preliminary internal inquiry, investigators for the World Health Organisation, which oversees UNAIDS, wrote that they had found "evidence" that Brostrom and her former supervisor may have taken part in "fraudulent practices and misuse of travel funds," the documents show. The inquiry was put on hold in late 2016 after Brostrom asked for whistleblower protection in a formal complaint to UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe alleging that Dr Luiz Loures, one of Sidibe's deputies, forcibly kissed her and tried to drag her out of a Bangkok hotel elevator. In a statement that did not identify Brostrom by name, UNAIDS said the investigation was suspended "to safeguard the integrity of a potentially related sexual harassment case". Edward Flaherty, a lawyer for Brostrom, said she had no knowledge of any such inquiry. "She is unaware, and has not been advised, of any such investigation and denies any assertion of impropriety," Flaherty said of the Swedish employee. The ongoing turmoil is a damaging distraction for an agency at the centre of multibillion-dollar, taxpayer-funded UN efforts to end the global AIDS epidemic by 2030. The virus affects more than 37 million people worldwide and kills more than 900,000 people every year. The allegations of sexual assault and managerial mismanagement prompted Sweden to announce last year it would suspend its funding to the agency. The Scandinavian country is UNAIDS' No. 2 donor, providing more than USD 30 million in 2017. "Anytime there are claims about misuse of funds, it's incredibly damaging to an agency's credibility," said Devi Sridhar, a professor of global public health at the University of Edinburgh. "UNAIDS goes into countries to protect those who are marginalised, including sex workers, drug users, poor communities to advocate for AIDS prevention and treatment," Sridhar said. "How can they do that when it's widely known there's an internal culture that permits bad behaviour?" Brostrom's complaint against Loures prompted two inquiries a UN investigation that concluded there was insufficient evidence to support her claims and an independent assessment of the agency's management that found a culture of impunity and "defective leadership". Amid the resulting criticism, Sidibe announced he would step down in June, six months early. Loures left after his contract expired last March. Brostrom, who some credited with sparking a #MeToo movement at the UN, told Sidibe in November 2016 that her work environment became increasingly fraught immediately after the alleged assault by Loures. Brostrom was working as a technical adviser in UNAIDS' Office of Special Initiatives when the problems with Loures began. "LL started to explicitly block my work, excluded me from participation in key meetings in areas in which I was leading and blocked my requests for duty travel," she wrote in an email that was provided to the AP. She said she became "the victim of a malicious and anonymous defamation campaign in early 2016." According to internal documents reviewed by the AP, the UN ethics office and other senior UNAIDS officials received a series of anonymous emails in early 2016 alleging misconduct by Brostrom's former supervisor, prompting the preliminary internal review that ultimately grew to include examining Brostrom's own conduct. Brostrom told officials that immediately after the alleged attack by Loures, she called her mother, a friend and her then-supervisor to tell them what happened. Brostrom's mother told WHO investigators that her daughter "was very upset and she was crying and she didn't think that such a thing could happen to her". When Brostrom went public with her story, two other women described similar encounters with Loures, who denies all the allegations. "I have always said that the allegations made against me are false," Loures told the AP in an email Saturday. Loures said Brostrom's accusations against him were only made after he took steps to investigate the misconduct of her former male supervisor. "I found (they) had not taken permission for travel on several occasions and had cheated the system," he said. Brostrom and her former supervisor are both currently on leave from UNAIDS for undisclosed reasons. The WHO investigation into them remains preliminary. In the preliminary report obtained by the AP, which described discussions with both Brostrom and the supervisor regarding potential misconduct, officials noted that they reviewed an array of documents, including more than 1,900 emails. In one confidential memo provided to the AP, WHO investigators said they found evidence that Brostrom and her ex-boss "may have engaged in unprofessional conduct," including the misuse of funds. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Army Monday paid tribute to Major Vikas Singh, who died after falling into a gorge along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir during routine patrolling. Chinar Corps commander Lt Gen K J S Dhillon and all ranks paid homage to Major Singh in a solemn ceremony at Badamibagh cantonment here, an army spokesman said. "The gallant officer made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty while patrolling along LoC in Machhil Sector in Kupwara district on 14 April," the spokesman said. Major Singh slipped into the gorge during a patrol along the LoC in Machil sector on Saturday, resulting in critical injuries to the officer. He was rushed to a hospital, where from he was evacuated to the Army's 92 base hospital at Badamibagh Cantonment here. However, the Major succumbed to the injuries at the hospital on Sunday. Hailing from Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh, Major Singh had joined the army as a Lieutenant in 2010. He is survived by wife and a four-month-old daughter, the spokesman said. PTI MIJ -- --------------------- M Inayat Jehangir Chief of Bureau PTI Kashmir --We bring the World to you"Disclaimer : This e-mail message may contain proprietary, confidential or legally privileged information for the sole use of the person or entity to whom this message was originally addressed. Please delete this e-mail, if it is not meant for you. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Aska Lok Sabha seat in south Odisha, considered a pocket borough of the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD), is witnessing a keen contest between the Naveen Patnaik-led party and the BJP this time. The BJD has nominated Pramila Bisoi, a 68-year-old woman self-help group (SHG) member, while the BJP has fielded Anita Subhadarshini, daughter of former Odisha minister and political stalwart Rama Krushna Patnaik. The Congress is supporting Ramakrushna Panda of the CPI, which had won the seat once in the past. All the three contenders are first timers. Chief Minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik, who has an emotional connect with the Aska Lok Sabha seat, had said, "Aska will create a history and show the way to the entire country by sending a woman SHG member to parliament and four women to the state assembly." The legendary Biju Patnaik was elected to the Lok Sabha from Aska in 1996, while Naveen Patnaik fought his maiden poll battle from the seat and won in 1997 in a by-election after the death of his father. He was also elected to the Lok Sabha from Aska in 1998 and 1999 before confining his political activities to the state. Naveen Patnaik has been winning assembly elections from Hinjili, which is under this Lok Sabha constituency, since 2000. Pramila Bisoi, described as the chief minister's women empowerment mascot, appears to be confident of her victory as the ruling party had secured 60 per cent votes in the 2014 election. The BJD candidate Ladu Kishore Swain had defeated Congress nominee Srilokanath Rath by a margin of 3,11,997 votes and the ruling party had also won all the seven assembly segments under the lok Sabha constituency in 2014. Countering the opposition claims about her educational qualification and inability to speak Hindi or English, Bisoi said language is not a barrier to express thoughts. "I may be a novice in politics, but I am aware that several MPs from south Indian states don't know these languages. They have been doing well as MPs," she said. Describing Naveen Patnaik as her "trump card," Bisoi said BJD's developmental work is the main poll plank. "When our village (Cheramaria) was cut off due to floods in river Rushikulya after cyclone Titli last year, no one came to the rescue of the marooned people, but the BJD government took prompt steps to provide relief," Bisoi recalled. Fighting her maiden poll battle, Anita Subhadarshini is banking on the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the influence of her parents. "Though I am contesting for the first time, I had managed the elections of my father and mother several times," she said. Her father Rama Krushna Patnaik had won five times as MLA, while mother Kumudini Patnaik had been elected from Aska Lok Sabha seat in 2000. "Elections are not new to me. I have learnt a lot from my association with polls due to my parents," said 50-year-old Anita. She alleged that the constituency has been totally neglected by the BJD government and people of the area are highly impressed with the performance of the Modi government. With the support of the Congress, the CPI candidate is trying his best to regain the seat. CPIs Duti Krushna Panda had been elected from the constituency in 1971. CPI nominee Ramakrushna Panda said the people of the area will reject both the BJD and the BJP as they are disillusioned with the "false promises" made by both the parties. The temperature in the area, hovering around 40 degree celsius, seems no deterrent for electioneering with the contestants intensifying campaign for the April 18 election in this seat. While BJP president Amit Shah addressed a public meeting at Polasara, union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and Manoj Sinha also hit the campaign trail to bolster the BJP's poll prospects. For the BJD, the chief minister undertook whirlwind tours of the constituency canvassing for Pramila Bisoi by holding roadshows and addressing public meetings. Similarly, Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Niranjan Patnaik and other senior leaders campaigned intensively for the CPI candidate. Situated on the banks of river Rushikulya and Badanadi, Aska parliamentary constituency has been facing frequent floods which happens to be a major worry for the residents of the area. People of the constituency feel that candidates are not highlighting the need for a long-term plan for mitigation of flood menace. "We have demanded construction of a ring embankment to save Aska town from floods. But it is yet to be fulfilled," said a resident of Aska. The Lok Sabha constituency comprising Aska, Kabisurya Nagara, Polasara, Khallikote (SC), Sorada, Sanakhemundi and Hinjili assembly segments has over 15.24 lakh voters. Apart from fielding Bisoi from the Lok Sabha seat, the BJD has nominated four other women for assembly segments coming under it - Latika Pradhan (Kabisurya Nagara), Nandini Devi (Sanakhemundi), Manjula Swain (Aska) and Suryamani Baidya (Khallikote) this time. The constituency has remained a BJD bastion for over two decades. The Congress had tasted its last victory in the constituency in 1991. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday highlighted efforts made by his government for the betterment of minorities, in an indirect rebuff to the opposition Mahagathbandhan which has been attacking him for realigning with the BJP. People may try to create misperceptions but nobody can conceal the truth. Plenty of welfare schemes for the minorities have been launched during my stint in power. Madrasas have been given the same priority as government schools, he said. The JD(U) national president was adderessing an election rally in the Lok Sabha constituency named after this district where muslims are said to be in the majority. Moulvis teaching at the Madrasas are getting emoluments at par with the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission., Meritorious students from these seminaries are being given scholarships upon scoring well in examinations like Vastaniya, Fokaniya and Molvi, Kumar underscored. Our government has ensured that power, sanitation facilities and cooking gas reach each and every household irrespective of the social groups to which the inhabitants might belong, the chief minister asserted. Women got respect under our regime. It was upon their demand that we imposed prohibition and the radical step has transformed the lives of many poor families, he claimed. I have served the people for 13 years since I have been in power. Service has been my Dharma and I have been ceaselessly striving to ensure rule of law with social justice without neglecting any segment of the society. Please do vote for my party. Consider it as the mazdoori (wages) for my labour, Kumar said in an impassioned plea in support of his Kishanganj candidate Mahmood Ashraf. Despite having come to power in 2005 as an ally of the BJP, Kumar had succeeded in winning over a section of the minorities who had previously been solidly behind his arch rival Lalu Prasads RJD. He endeared himself to the minorities through measures like affirmative action for Pasmanda muslims, opening of an extension campus here of the Aligarh Muslim University for which he had to fight a long battle with the Congress-led government at the Centre and keeping pro-Hindutva elements in the state on a tight leash. His popularity among the muslims soared after he snapped ties with the BJP expressing disagreement with projection of the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as the Prime Ministerial candidate. Though his party got drubbed in the Lok Sabha polls, the Mahagathbandhan which came into being after he joined hands with arch rival Lalu Prasads RJD received wholehearted support in the 2015 polls from the minorities who ignored competing claims on their votes by AIMIM headed by Asaduddin Owaisi besides Mulayam Singh Yadavs Samajwadi Party. Upon his return to the NDA in 2017, Kumar has been facing accusations of capitulation before the BJP and, during the ongoing Lok Sabha polls he has been criticized for fielding only one Muslim in the 17 seats that the JD(U) is contesting in Bihar where the total number is 40. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With the number of tigers steadily on the rise at Nandhaur Wildlife Sanctuary in Uttarakhand, the authorities feel upgrading it to a tiger reserve is necessary for the conservation of tigers at the facility. "The number of tigers at the sanctuary when it came into being in 2012 was nine which rose to 27 in 2018. The number is set to cross 32 this year," Director of the sanctuary N N Pandey said. Nandhaur Wildlife Sanctuary is situated close to the Nandhaur river in Kumaon region of the state and spread over an area of 269.5 square km. The official said the steady rise in tiger population at the sanctuary over the years and the growing trend indicate that the sanctuary with the limited resources at its disposal may not be able to efficiently handle its responsibilities for long. "Though the Wildlife Institute of India and the Forest Department are working hard with financial help from the Zoological Society of London to maintain the sanctuary as a safe habitat for tigers, the task may get difficult in the long run," Pandey said. He said the situation becomes rather delicate from the point of view of tiger conservation as the sanctuary at present does not come formally under the ambit of the National Tiger Conservation Authority. The state government can play a role in its elevation as a tiger reserve so that it gets central government funds and the expertise of national level zoological scientists to conserve the growing population of tigers at the sanctuary, the official said. Advocating a tiger reserve status for the sanctuary, senior biologist at the Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India, Ajaj Spengku, said the density of tiger population at the sanctuary is very healthy and every step should be taken to boost its resources and maintain it as an ideal habitat for tigers. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hitting out at senior SP leader Azam Khan for his derogatory remarks on her, BJP's Rampur Lok Sabha seat candidate Jaya Prada, Monday said he has transgressed the 'lakshman rekha' and is no longer her brother. Khan, without taking names, on Sunday had said it took "you 17 years to understand her reality" but, "I could recognise it in 17 days that she wears a khaki underwear". The BJP claimed that the comment was made against Prada, who is fighting the Lok Sabha polls against the Samajwadi Party (SP) leader. "(He has) crossed the lakshman rekhaa (his limits) this time. He is no longer a brother to me. I had considered him as my brother and tolerated everything, but now I cannot tolerate (this)," she told reporters in Rampur. The actor-turned-politician also said the people will give an answer as people respect women. "What is this man doing? Does he have the right to contest polls? I appeal to the Election Commission that he should not be allowed to contest the polls, he is not eligible to contest the polls," she said. Khan had told a an election rally in Rampur, "... you got represented (by her) for 10 years." "People of Rampur, people of Uttar Pradesh and people of India, it took you 17 years to understand her reality. But, I could recognise it in 17 days that she wears a khaki underwear, he had said. The video of Khan's purported speech was also doing the rounds on various social media platform. Seeking an answer from SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, Prada said, "I am asking Akihlesh, whether you will allow such a person to contest the polls. Shame. He (Khan) should be expelled." Rampur goes to polls in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections on April 23. Prada also cited a Sanskrit shloka and said that "a family in which women are revered or given due respect, that family is blessed with divine qualities, divine food and children, and a family in which women are not revered, all their work bears no result". Taking note of reports, the National Commission for Women Monday strongly condemned the "extremely derogatory" remarks made by SP leader Khan against Prada and issued a show cause notice to him. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Election Commission is examining SP leader Azam Khan's remarks against BJP's Jaya Prada to ascertain if the comments go beyond the violation of the Model Code of Conduct, an official of the poll panel said Monday. Without taking names, Khan on Sunday had said at an election rally in Uttar Pradesh's Rampur district that it took "you 17 years to understand her reality" but, "I could recognise it in 17 days that she wears a khaki underwear". The BJP has pitted actor-turned-politician Jaya Prada against Khan from the Rampur Lok Sabha seat. The report, which includes the transcript of Khan's comments against the BJP candidate, was sent to the Uttar Pradesh electoral officer, who has in turn sent it to the EC for a decision. The official cited a clause in the Model Code of Conduct that asks parties and candidates to "confine" their political attack during campaigning to policies and programmes of rivals. "Parties and candidates shall refrain from criticism of all aspects of private life, not connected with the public activities of the leaders or workers of other parties," reads a part of the clause. The official said, "If the EC concludes that he has actually made those remarks, it would take a call based on the provision. It can also go beyond the ambit of the model code as the reported remarks are not in a good taste." Based on Khan's reply to a possible show-cause notice, the EC may decide on a punishment which goes beyond censure or reprimand, he said. An FIR was registered Monday against Khan for his remarks under under the Indian Penal Code's section 509 and provisions of the Representation of the People Act. The section pertains to word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman. Khan had said "People of Rampur, people of Uttar Pradesh and people of India, it took you 17 years to understand her reality. But, I could recognize it in 17 days that she wears a khaki underwear. The video of Khan's purported speech was also doing the rounds on various social media platform. Khan on Monday clarified that he had not named anyone in his speech. "I have not taken the name of any person, nor did I tell the positive aspect or negative aspect of anyone. I only referred to a sick person in Delhi, who deserves sympathy, and who had once said that he will spray bullets on me with 150 rifles... "I only said that it took people long to identify them, and the same mistake was committed by our party leaders as well," the SP leader said. "It is also known that there was a RSS pant on his body, and pants are worn by men. If anyone can prove that I had taken any name, or maligned anyone, then I will not contest the polls," Khan added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court Monday directed the Election Commission to watch the full biopic on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and take an informed decision by April 19 on banning its pan India release. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi also directed the poll panel to submit its decision to the court in a sealed cover and said it will consider the matter on April 22. Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for film producers who have challenged the EC's ban on the biopic's release till the current general elections are over, said the poll panel has taken the decision based just on watching the promo, not the entire movie. He suggested they are willing to hold a special screening for the poll panel or its committee so that they can take an informed decision by Friday. The EC had last Wednesday banned the screening of the biopic during the current poll period, saying any such film that subserves the purpose of any political entity or individual should not be displayed in the electronic media. In a separate order, it had also directed the producers "not to exhibit the film titled 'PM Narendra Modi' till further orders. The Commission's order came on April 10, a day before it was to be released, coinciding with the first phase of Lok Sabha elections. Votes for all 543 seats will be counted on May 23 after the end of the seven-phase polling on May 19. Acting on the complaints of political parties, including the Congress, the poll panel had asserted that any biopic material with the potential to disturb the level playing field should not be displayed in the area where Model Code of Conduct was in force. The copy of the order was also sent to the Central Board of Film Certification chairman and Secretary, Information and Broadcasting ministry. "It is claimed that such creative contents are kind of surrogate publicity by the candidate or the political party during the period of model code. Though the display materials claim to be part of creative content, it is contended that these have propensity and potentiality to affect the level playing field which is not in consonance with the provisions of the model code of conduct," the EC had noted. The order had specifically stated that in view of the admitted acts and material available on record, this film being a biopic on Narendra Modi, "prime minister and a political leader and a prospective candidate in the current general elections" can not be exhibited in view of Commission's order. The EC order came after the apex court on Tuesday disposed of the petition filed by a Congress activist seeking stay on the release of the biopic, saying the poll panel was the right forum to decide the issue. The Modi biopic, starring Vivek Oberoi and directed by Omung Kumar, tells the story of PM Modi's rise to power from his humble beginnings. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Miscreants torched the motorcycle of a BJP functionary in nearby Pollachi early Monday, sparking off tension, police said. The BJP area secretary Shivakumar had parked the two-wheeler in front of his house late Sunday night after campaigning for the April 18 Lok Sabha election, the police said. He has lodged a complaint with the police who are on the lookout for the miscreants. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Russia's Finance Ministry sees no particular need to issue Eurobonds this year, Deputy Russian Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said. The Finance Ministry plans to focus on the domestic debt market, he noted, describing it as an absolute priority. He said that external borrowing as a source of the budget deficit financing is not a priority, pointing out that there is no "deficit" either. Therefore, there is no special need to enter foreign markets," the Deputy Finance Minister explained. In March, Russia's Finance Ministry floated Eurobonds worth $3 billion and mature in 2035, and an additional Eurobonds placement in euro worth 750 million euro and mature in 2025. The final yield guidance for dollar-denominated Russian Eurobonds was fixed at the level of 5.1% and for euro-denominated Eurobonds - as 2.375%. VTB Capital and Gazprombank are acting as arrangers. Storchak also noted that the Finance Ministry expects a continuous high demand for OFZ bonds. The former deputy chairman of the Russian Central bank, head of the finance, monetary circulation and credit department at RANEPA, Alexander Khandruev, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that despite the budget surplus, government bonds is an important part of government fiscal policy. "Debt securities should be issued to be in portfolios of commercial banks for refinancing to ensure the liquidity. Without a large government securities portfolio, the Bank of Russia will not be able to pursue a neutral monetary policy. Quantitative easing was based on the fact that the Fed and the ECB have accumulated large government securities portfolios," he said. "The deficit-free budget has its advantages, but at the same time it creates problems for the development of the debt market. The debt market must be developed. But it should not be overheated," Alexander Khandruyev added, noting that the Ministry of Finance's focus on national debt market does not mean that government bonds will not be available for purchase by non-residents. The professor at the department of the stock market and investments at the Higher School of Economics, Alexander Abramov, in turn, recalled that the Russian Ministry of Finance has always been cautious in the foreign debt market. "Storchak's statement probably means that the Ministry of Finance will mainly borrow in the form of government securities on the domestic market. But I would not link it with the development of the stock market - the fact is that the large borrowings by the Ministry of Finance have a negative effect on private companies' securities," he pointed out. "The Ministry of Finance plans to ensure stability at any cost, therefore, it builds up an emergency stash, regardless of whether the budget is surplus or deficit. In terms of common sense, the Ministry of Finance does not need to borrow at all, but this is its stability strategy, set forward the problems of economic development," Alexander Abramov concluded. Asserting that the Supreme Court has exposed Rahul Gandhi's "lie" on the Rafale deal, the BJP Monday urged the Election Commission to take "serious cognisance" of his comments, claiming that the Congress chief stands "guilty" of violation of the Model Code of Conduct. While the Congress said it will provide a "comprehensive and strong" explanation to the court and accused the BJP of distorting Gandhi's comments, BJP president Amit Shah led his party's all out attack on him. The ruling party's broadside against Gandhi came after the Supreme Court directed the Congress chief to give an explanation by April 22 for "incorrectly" attributing his remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi to its verdict in the Rafale review petitions last week. Shah said it has become the nature of the opposition party to tell a lie repeatedly. "The Supreme Court heard the (Rafale) case on a preliminary technical objection. It passed its order, and Rahul baba started saying the Supreme Court had rebuked the government on the Rafale issue. In reality, no such thing happened," he said addressing a rally in Gujarat. The BJP fielded its senior leaders and Union ministers Prakash Javadekar and Ravi Shankar Prasad in two separate press conferences to target Gandhi after the apex court said it will consider the criminal contempt petition filed by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi against the Congress chief. The apex court also made it clear that views attributed to it in the remarks made by Gandhi in public have been "incorrectly attributed" to it. On April 10, the Supreme Court had set aside the government's objection to certain documents filed by petitioners seeking a review of its Rafale deal verdict, which had ruled out a probe into the purchase of the fighter aircraft. Gandhi had claimed that the court had accepted that there was corruption in the deal and that Modi gave Rs 30,000 crore to businessman Anil Ambani. "The Supreme Court has exposed Gandhi's lie. He lies daily and one of those lies has been exposed," Javadekar told reporters. Prasad said the Supreme Court's observations and notice to Gandhi "reinforces" the need for the Election Commission to take serious cognisance of his baseless allegations against Modi. The BJP had last week filed an application with the election watchdog, seeking action against Gandhi for his comments. Asserting that Gandhi stands guilty of violating the Model Code of Conduct, Prasad said he not only levelled "untrue allegations" but also used a constitutional body like the Supreme Court for political purpose. "If Gandhi is left with even an iota of shame, then he should apologise... He has taken Indian to a new low," he said. The Congress sought to play down the development in the court, saying it has issued a notice but the BJP is citing it as a final verdict. "We will give a comprehensive and strong explanation. The BJP is trying to distort Gandhi's comments even though his intent was not to hurt anyone. The interpretation given by the BJP is certainly objectionable," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told reporters. Hitting out at the BJP, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal claimed that Modi had cited the court's order on the Rafale review petition to assert that his government has been given a clean chit in the deal. In its December 2018 verdict, the Supreme Court had said there is no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar Rafale fighter jet deal with France, as it had rejected the demand for a probe. Citing new documents and disclosure, some petitioners have filed a review plea. Reacting to the Congress' claim that Gandhi's comments were distorted, Prasad took a swipe at the party, saying that it had sought evidence of what happened during the Balakot air strike, but does not accept what its president said in public. The BJP also played a video of Gandhi's comments at the press conference. Accusing Gandhi of repeatedly "denigrating" constitutional institutions, Prasad said the Congress alleges that the Constitution is under threat in the Modi government, but it should answer as to who is making a mockery of it. "When will Rahul Gandhi stop this shameless showering of abuses on our leader (Modi)," he asked. Javadekar said the Congress and the Gandhi family cannot accept that Modi has run an honest government while the UPA dispensation was "mired in scams and scandals". Taking a dig at the Congress president, the BJP leader said people earlier believed that Gandhi used to make wrong statements due to his lack of understanding, but it was clear now that he was doing "deliberate mischiefs". Targeting Gandhi, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said "right to free speech" is not "right to falsehood". "Indian democracy does not permit them (dynasts) to rewrite Court orders... To manufacture a Court order for a political propaganda is a new low for Rahul Gandhi. The lower he sinks, the higher we rise," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Accusing Rahul Gandhi of insulting people of a particular caste by his "why all Modis are thieves" comment, the BJP Monday moved the election commission demanding action against the Congress chief. Gandhi on Monday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue of corruption and asked how come all "thieves" have 'Modi' as the common surname as he referred to fugitive businessman Nirav Modi and former IPL chairman Lalit Modi. Led by Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, a BJP delegation which included leaders Om Pathak and Satyapal Jain met top poll panel officials here and demanded action against Gandhi. "We requested the election commission to take action against Rahul Gandhi as he has insulted people from a backward caste by asking why all Modis are thieves. This shows his feudal mindset," Naqvi said. Jain claimed that the Congress president's remark is an insult to a specific caste and therefore the delegation has requested the Election Commission to take cognisance of it. The BJP has also demanded deployment of paramilitary forces in all districts of West Bengal and video recording of polling in the state, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP is committed to protecting the interests of indigenous people against the influx of illegal immigrants, a major concern in Manipur which witnessed violent protests against the now-aborted Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, the party's candidate from the Inner Manipur seat - R K Ranjan Singh - has said. Singh said the protests in the state in February this year against the bill were based on "ill-informed campaigns" and reiterated that his party will curb illegal immigration into India through a fresh version of the bill, along with the implementation of National Register of Citizens (NRC) across the country. "It is clearly stated in our manifesto that we will bring the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill and it already has appropriate measures to safeguard the interests of indigenous people against immigration of foreigners," Singh told PTI here. He reiterated that "the bill cannot be implemented without the consent of the states where immigrants are proposed to be accommodated". Asked about the protests against the bill in the state, he blamed the Congress for carrying out "misinformed campaigns". "The bill was introduced in Parliament with the approval of a Parliamentary Standing Committee in 2016. At that time, there was a Congress government in Manipur. Why didn't they raise the issue then and are bringing it up now only at the time of elections?" he said. On the issue of illegal immigration, he said the BJP has made it clear in its manifesto that NRC will be implemented, as it has been done in Assam, in a phased manner across all the states in the country. "Once that's done, there will be a complete check on illegal immigrants," Singh said adding people of Manipur need not worry about the influx of illegal immigrants. On the long-pending demand for implementation of Inner Line Permit (ILP) in Manipur, Singh said the state unit of the party has been persuading the Centre to consider Manipur People's Protection Bill which was passed by the state Assembly in July 2018. The bill seeks to regulate the entry of 'non-Manipuris' into the state. It defines 'Manipur people' as those citizens of India who have been living in Manipur before 1951. The bill proposes registration of the non-Manipuris within a month of its enactment. Thereafter, no outsider would be able to enter the state without a pass. It is yet to be approved by the President. Singh blamed the Congress for "letting illegal immigrants enter the Northeast, including Manipur, during its rule for decades" and said his party was only trying to address the issue. "Illegal immigration of foreigners into India was allowed by the Congress and not the BJP," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Body of a Kashmiri student, who died in Bangladesh, reached her native village on Monday, officials said. Body of Quaratul Ain, a resident of south Kashmir's Anantnag district, reached her native village on Monday where her last rites were performed, the officials said. They said Quaratul Ain, a fourth-year MBBS student, died on Saturday after suffering a seizure at her hostel in Tairunnessa Memorial Medical College (TMMC) in Bangladesh's Ghazipur district. Arrangements were made to airlift the body from Bangladesh to Srinagar after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj assured the family of all possible help to bring back the student's mortal remains, the officials said. Former chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah had sought help from Swaraj for the return of the student's mortal remains. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Boeing faces a wave of flight cancellations by US airlines and pressure from President Donald Trump to re-brand its top-selling 737 MAX aircraft, a month after the plane was grounded worldwide in the wake of deadly crashes. American and Southwest Airlines say the grounding will disrupt scheduled flights through the summer, during the peak travel season which helps generate corporate profits. American is cancelling all 737 MAX flights through August 19 while Southwest, which owns the largest 737 MAX fleet, with 34 planes, is cancelling them until August 5. United Airlines, which also ordered the 737 MAX 9, did not respond to an AFP query. In all, an average of 275 flights a day will be cancelled, which are likely to put a dent in airline profits and could cause the companies to raise airfares. American already cut a key industry revenue metric -- Total Revenue per Available Seat-Mile, or TRASM -- saying it will rise one percent in 2019, down from a prior estimate of two per cent. Southwest is allowing affected passengers to reschedule flights at no additional cost. "Neither Airbus nor Boeing like cancellations and there are stiff contracts which make this very difficult," said Scott Hamilton, managing editor of the aviation site Leeham and Analysis. "The companies will swap airplane types, however, if it comes to this." All 737 MAX aircraft have been banned from the world's skies since mid-March after suffering two fatal crashes less than five months apart: a Lion Air flight crashed in the Java Sea in October, leaving 189 dead, and the Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10, which killed 157 people. Crash investigators have zeroed in on the planes' anti-stall system, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS. And Boeing, which has already ceased 737 MAX deliveries and slowed the pace of production, a buildup of delays could increase the penalties it must pay client airlines, Hamilton said. Trump tweeted early Monday that Boeing had to give its scandal-stricken aircraft a new image. "What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!), but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name," he said. But Hamilton said Trump was right to doubt his own expertise. "Trump is a boob. Boeing isn't going to rebrand the 737," Hamilton said, pointing to Boeing's log of more than 4,600 backorders, a key sales revenue driver, and adding that the order cancellations so far were "inconsequential." Aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia of Teal Group agreed. "Pretty much all of President Trump's pronouncements on aviation are safely and best ignored," he said. Boeing is finalizing software upgrades for the MCAS, which it has pledged to submit to regulators in the coming weeks so that the 737 MAX grounding order can be lifted. "We're focused on testing and implementing the software update and rebuilding the trust of our airline customers, pilots and the travelling public," a spokesperson told AFP. "We know we have a deep responsibility to everyone who flies on our airplanes to ensure that the MAX is one of the safest aircraft ever to fly." Rebranding the aircraft would impose additional costs on the airlines which would be required to fully retrain pilots, while an updated model involves less intense additional training. Flight cancellations show the airlines, that had hoped to have the planes back in the air by May, now expect it will be longer before the aircraft can return to service. Aviation analysts largely agree and expect the grounding to be lifted by the end of August. In the meantime, the industry is working to regain the trust of the flying public. The US Federal Aviation Administration, which must certify the 737 MAX's airworthiness, released a video last week in which its interim chief Daniel Elwell said the agency was working to keep pilots informed. The FAA also said the agency would not rush to get the 737 MAX flying again. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The government has decided to create an additional post of Deputy Comptroller and Auditor General, which will oversee coordination of audits of states as well as telecommunication. The decision was taken at a Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi Monday. "The Union Cabinet...has given its approval to create one post of Deputy CAG (Coordination, Communication and Information System) in Pay Level-17 (by abolishing one STS level post) in the Office of Comptroller & Auditor General(CAG) of India," an official statement said. The Deputy CAG shall oversee the coordination among state audits, audit of telecommunication and coordinate the various information systems initiatives within the Indian Audit & Accounts Department (IA&AD), it added. Expenditure on account of creation of this post will be about Rs 21 lakh. As per CAG's website, currently there are 5 Deputy CAGs. Their scope of work includes governments accounts, central revenue audit, defence and railways, commercial and reports of central, communications and information systems. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Union Cabinet Monday gave ex post facto approval to an agreement signed between India and Denmark for cooperation in the field of with focus on offshore wind energy The agreement was signed in March 2019 in New Delhi, an official statement said. "The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has given its approval for a cooperation agreement between Ministry of New and of India and Ministry for Energy, Utilities and Climate of the Kingdom of Denmark on strategic sector cooperation in the field of with a focus on offshore wind energy and a letter of intent to establish an Indo-Danish Centre of Excellence for renewable energy in India," the statement said. The areas of cooperation would include technical capacity building for management of offshore wind projects, measures to develop and sustain a highly efficient wind industry -- onshore as well as offshore, measures to ensure high quality of wind turbines, components and certification requirements, forecasting and scheduling of offshore wind, it said. The Indo-Danish Centre of Excellence in Integrated Renewable Power would work on renewable energy resource assessments with focus on onshore and offshore wind, hybridisation of wind, solar, hydro and storage technologies, testing and R&D, and skill development/capacity building. The signing of the pact will help in strengthening bilateral cooperation between the two countries, the statement added. China on Monday hailed its all-weather ally Pakistan for announcing new guidelines for implementing the UNSC sanctions targeting proscribed individuals and entities operating in the country and urged the international community to back Islamabad's "great efforts" in combatting terrorism. Amid intense global pressure to rein in terror outfits, Pakistan on Friday launched guidelines for implementing the UNSC sanctions targeting UN-proscribed individuals and entities in the country. The guidelines were prepared by the National Committee for overseeing implementation of sanctions against individuals and entities designated by the UN Security Council 1267 Al Qaida/Da'esh Sanctions regime and Security Council 1988 (Taliban Sanctions regime). "The newly released guidelines are Pakistan's latest measure to implement the National Action Plan. I think it shows Pakistan's position and resolve to fight terrorism and to firmly implement the relevant UN resolutions. "China highly applauds that. Pakistan is an important participant in the international counter-terrorism campaign," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told media briefing here replying to a question on the recently released guidelines by Pakistan's Foreign Ministry for the federal and provincial governments to further implement the relevant UN sanctions on individuals and terrorist organisations. "The international community should enhance support to Islamabad," the spokesperson said, adding that Pakistan has "long been making great efforts and sacrifices towards this goal". He also said that China supports Pakistan in advancing the counter-terrorism efforts based on its own national conditions, and "we hope the international community can enhance cooperation and jointly uphold the regional peace and stability." Pakistan is under intense global pressure to rein in terrorist outfits operating from its soil after the Pulwama attack, carried out by a suicide bomber of Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), that killed 40 CRPF personnel in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district on February 14. Pakistan also came under intense pressure from the international community to crackdown on terror outfits and leaders after the Paris-based international terror financing watchdog, Financial Action Task Force (FATF), in June last year, placed it on the "grey list" of countries whose domestic laws are considered weak to tackle the challenges of money laundering and terrorism financing. The FATF, which recently reviewed steps taken by Pakistan, has asked Islamabad to implement a new set of constraints in its crackdown against terror financing, including documenting and regulating all gold markets. The new list of recommendations from the FATF which requires Pakistan to document all gold markets and purchase and sale of gold in the country, ensure restriction on supply of gold and jewellery to banned outfits and terrorist organisations. The FATF has asked Pakistan to collect data of all trusts operating across the country as well as their bank accounts on the district level, and ensure regulation of thousands of registered trust organisations. The compliance report would be taken up by the FATF review group in its meeting scheduled in May. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) China Monday played down India's reported plans to boycott the upcoming 2nd Belt and Road Forum (BRF), saying India may have misunderstood the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and suggested New Delhi to "wait and see" before taking a decision. The BRI is a multi-billion-dollar initiative launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping when he came to power in 2013. It aims to link Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Gulf region, Africa and Europe with a network of land and sea routes. China is expected to hold the 2nd BRF meeting from April 25 to 27 here. Beijing already said officials of over 100 countries besides 40 government leaders have agreed to take part in it. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a media briefing here that the BRI is an economic cooperation project and it does not involve territorial disputes. "The Indian comments on not participating in the BRI for various reasons, I would like to say that the BRI is an open and inclusive economic cooperation initiative. It does not involve territorial and maritime disputes," he said. The USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which has been officially designated as a flagship project of the BRI, has become a stumbling block for India to take part in it as the controversial project is being laid through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. India has already protested to China over the CPEC violating its sovereignty and boycotted the first BRF held in 2017. Asked for comments on India's reported plans to boycott the 2nd BRF, Kang said, "Whether the Indian side will participate in the BRI forum, I think you need to ask India for a more specific answer." In BRI, China and other counties uphold the principle of equality, openness inclusiveness and transparency, he added. "We follow market based principles and the customary international rules," the spokesman said. "I think may be some sides have misunderstandings on the BRI and thus have some wrong judgement. Please know that China follows principle of cooperation and consultation for shared benefit and that principles will not change," he said. Asked whether China is suggesting that India would miss out a lot by not participating in the event, Lu said, "the BRI has been an open and inclusive initiative for all countries and organisations interested in this". "But of course, if the relevant side would like to wait and see, we do not oppose that and as for the participation of international organisations in the BRF some countries losing out on opportunities, you may need to ask the countries that does not participate in the BRF," he said. Lu said BRI is already a success. "I would like to re-emphasise that the BRI is proposed by China but it is already an international public good. The first BRF has been success and many practical outcomes were achieved. And now more international organisations and countries are participating in the BRI cooperation. I think it speaks volumes," he said. The BRF is being held to consolidate China's trillion-dollar BRI to further its global influence by financing and building massive infrastructure projects throughout the world. Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Misri has signalled India's boycott of 2nd BRF as well by saying that "to be honest, we have made no secret of our views and our position on BRI is clear and consistent and one that we have conveyed to the authorities concerned." "Above all, connectivity initiatives must be pursued in a manner that respects sovereignty, equality and territorial integrity of nations. No country can participate in an initiative that ignores its core concerns on sovereignty and territorial integrity," he told the state-run daily Global Times last month. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Chinese woman charged with lying to illegally enter President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club while carrying computer malware could be granted bail Monday, though she likely would not be released as her visa has been revoked. Federal Magistrate Judge William Matthewman will decide whether to grant bail to Yujing Zhang, 32, on charges of lying to Secret Service agents and illegally entering a restricted area. If he does, immigration officials would likely detain her if she posts it because without a visa she has no authorisation to be in the country. Zhang faces up to five years if convicted. Zhang was arrested March 30 after Secret Service agents say she lied to gain access to the president's exclusive club. She carried two passports, four cellphones, a laptop, an external hard drive and a thumb drive carrying computer malware, agents said. In a later check of her hotel room, agents say, they found a device for detecting hidden cameras, more computer gear, USD 8,000 in cash and numerous debit and credit cards. She is not charged with espionage, but the FBI is still investigating. Her bail hearing began last week, but was adjourned to give her public defenders additional time to make a case for her release. The Secret Service says Zhang gained access by telling an agent outside Mar-a-Lago that she was a member arriving for a swim. Agents say she wasn't on the membership list, but a club manager thought Zhang might be a member's daughter -- about 7 per cent of Chinese nationals are named Zhang, that country's third-most common surname. Agents then asked Zhang if the member was her father, but they say she did not answer definitively. They still admitted her. Zhang's story changed when she got inside, agents say, telling a front desk receptionist she was there to attend the United Nations Chinese American Association event scheduled for that evening. No such event was scheduled and agents were summoned. They say she became confrontational, so she was taken off property and then to the local Secret Service office, undergoing about nine hours of questioning. She had arrived in the US two days earlier on a flight from Shanghai to Newark, New Jersey. Her public defender, Robert Adler, suggested during last week's hearing that Zhang might have been not have been lying but confused by the language barrier. A Secret Service agent told Matthewman last week that when an agency analyst uploaded the malware found on Zhang's thumb drive, it immediately began installing and corrupting his computer's files. The Secret Service says when such tests are conducted the computer is not on any network, so no damage was done. Government analysts were still trying to determine the malware's purpose. Adler said wire records show Zhang paid USD 20,000 in February to Charles Lee, a Chinese national, for admission to the event. Lee ran the United Nations Chinese Friendship Association and was photographed at least twice with Cindy Yang, a Republican donor and former Florida massage parlour owner. She recently made after it was learned she was promising Chinese business leaders that her consulting firm could get them access to Mar-a-Lago and mingle with the president. Yang previously owned a spa where New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was charged with soliciting prostitution. Kraft has pleaded not guilty but has also apologised for his conduct. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) RAF Museum Cosford in Shropshire, England is opening up one of their rare electronics surveillance aircraft to the public for a limited time starting today. Take a tour of the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod R.1, one of just two of the type remaining, for a close look at the secret spy plane to get an idea for the important job that RAF aircrews were performing every day from the Cold War through the war in Afghanistan. The RAF Museum press release continues Returning in 2019, step on board the Nimrod XV249 and learn about its intelligence gathering role in the Royal Air Force. You will gain an insight into the operational history of the aircraft from its time as Maritime Reconnaissance through to its conversion into a Signals Intelligence gathering aircraft as well as hear about the crews on board and get to see some of its sophisticated surveillance equipment. As one of only four Nimrod R.1 variants built, you will gain a rare insight into the RAFs intelligence capabilities. Nimrod Tours are available on the following days in 2019 Monday 15 Sunday 28 April Saturday 25 Sunday 2 June Monday 22 Wednesday 31 July Thursday 1 Saturday 31 August Nimrod Tours cost 5.00 per person. Tours last 15 minutes (max 6 people per tour) and morning time slots can be pre-booked in advance to guarantee availability. Afternoon Tours may be available on the day on a first come first served basis. Please note: All children on Nimrod Tours need to buy a ticket and be accompanied by an adult. Nimrod Tours are not recommended for children under the age of 8. Please be aware all tours are subject to availability. Former Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar told the Supreme Court on Monday that he could not file his response on Saturday to the CBI's plea seeking his arrest in the multi-crore-rupee Saradha chit fund scam and sought adjournment of the hearing. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi took note of the submission of senior advocate Indira Jaising, appearing for Kumar, and postponed the hearing on the plea of the probe agency till April 22. "Indira Jaising, senior counsel, submits that the counter-affidavit of respondent no. 3 (Kumar) was required to be filed on Saturday (April 13) but Saturday being a holiday for the registry, she may be allowed to file the same today. "The said affidavit may be brought on record during the course of the day. Rejoinder affidavit, if any, be filed on or before April 20. The matter will be listed on April 22," the bench, also comprising justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna, said. The apex court had sought Kumar's response on April 8 on the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) plea seeking his arrest in the chit fund scam. The court had, on February 5, granted protection from arrest to Kumar while directing him to appear before the CBI and "faithfully" cooperate in the investigation. The central probe agency has sought vacation of the February 5 order so that it can arrest and interrogate Kumar. "This is the interim application (IA) of the CBI seeking custodial interrogation of Rajeev Kumar. Issue notice. Let the matter be listed for hearing on April 15," the bench had said. It had also allowed the CBI to file a fresh affidavit regarding its allegations that telecom operators Vodafone and Airtel were not cooperating with it in the probe. In its plea in the apex court, the agency has said the recall of the order granting Kumar interim protection from arrest was necessary "to unravel the entire gamut of the larger conspiracy in the ponzi scheme cases". The CBI has also sought the court's directions to the authorities in West Bengal to comply with the earlier orders of the court "in letter and spirit" and not to create any hurdle in the agency's probe or try to "intimidate, harass and scare" its officials investigating the cases. "Recall the interim protection granted to Rajeev Kumar for no coercive steps, including arrest, granted by this court by order dated February 5, 2019 to enable the CBI to subject him to interrogation in accordance with the law to unravel the entire gamut of the larger conspiracy in these ponzi scheme cases and its subsequent investigation," the CBI application says. The agency said it needed to examine Kumar and other police officials to recover the material evidence and look into the acts of omission and commission on the part of the Bidhan Nagar police commissionerate and SIT officials in causing concealment of the evidence collected by them during the investigation. Earlier, the apex court had termed as "very very serious" the revelations made by the CBI in its status report related to the recent interrogation of Kumar in connection with the Saradha chit fund scam. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An inquiry has been launched by poll officials in Goa into an alleged hate speech given by a Christian priest against the BJP even as the Goa Church has expressed "regret" over his statement. South Goa District Election Officer Ajit Roy has begun the inquiry on directions of Goa Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Kunal. A video of the priest from South Goa addressing some people inside a church has gone viral on social media. In the clip, the priest, who is speaking in Konkani, is seen criticising the BJP, party president Amit Shah, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and late Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar. The BJP's Goa unit had lodged a complaint against the priest on Sunday. "We are inquiring into the complaint. Right now we are going through the content of the tape," Roy told PTI. He further said the authorities will first check the origin of the tape, as part of the inquiry process. A complaint was also filed by a local resident, who alleged that through his speech, the priest was spreading hatred and also violated the model code of conduct (MCC). The BJP had claimed that the video clip shows "a religious priest addressing people within the building of a religious institution and creating an atmosphere of hate and fear against a particular political party". Meanwhile, the Goa Church has expressed regret over "pain or hurt" caused by the remarks of the priest. "It is regretted that the Parish Priest of Raia, while addressing his parishioners recently, has made some objectionable statements about a specific political party as well as individuals of that party," Diocesan Centre for Social Communications Media has said in a statement released here. "Before elections to the Assembly or Parliament, the Church in Goa issues guidelines to its priests to encourage their parishioners to fulfill their duty to vote for the candidate or party that will better safeguard the interests of our state and nation," it said. The Church also said that priests are advised not to mention in public any names of candidates or of political parties. "The concerned priest in this case has been cautioned to refrain from making such statements," the statement said. Polling will be held for the two Lok Sabha seats in Goa on April 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a first, the EC on Monday imposed a nation-wide ban on Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath and Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati from campaigning for 72 and 48 hours respectively from Tuesday for their "provocative" communal remarks, which it said had the "propensity to polarise the elections". The Election Commission order to bar these leaders came within few hours of the Supreme Court taking note of the communal remarks by them during their Lok Sabha poll campaigns and asking the poll watchdog about the action it has initiated against them. However, a senior EC functionary said the commission had examined the two issues on April 14-15, and came up with the final decision on Monday after lots of deliberation as it felt a clear message should go out to the politicians. In its order, the commission said, it "strongly condemns" the impugned statement made by the UP chief minister and "censured" him for "misconduct". Using its constitutional powers under Article 324 of the Constitution, the EC barred him from "holding any public meetings, public processions, public rallies, road shows and interviews, public utterances in media (print, electronic and social media) in connection with the ongoing elections for 72 hours (three days) from 6.00 am on April 16." In another order on similar lines, the commission also censured and "strongly" condemned Mayawati for her remarks, and barred her from campaigning for 48 hours or two days, starting from 6.00 am Tuesday. According to EC officials, this is for the first time an all-India ban has been imposed on politicians to campaign in elections and also it is for the first time such a restriction has been put against a chief minister. On the different time periods for the leaders, a senior EC official said, "it is for the second time that the Uttar Pradesh CM has been issued a show cause notice by the EC. On April 5, he was asked to be 'careful' in the future." "This is the first show cause and action against the BSP president ... the severity of the action is, therefore, different," he said. The EC has written to chief electoral officers of all states informing them about their decision on Adityanath and Mayawati to ensure that the orders are not violated. Mayawati was issued the notice for her speech in Deoband, where she appealed to Muslims to not vote for the Congress. The BSP chief had violated the Model Code of Conduct, the poll panel found. Chief Minister Adityanath was served the notice for his "Ali" and "Bajrang Bali" remarks while addressing a rally in Meerut. He compared the Lok Sabha elections to a contest between 'Ali', a revered figure in Islam, and Bajrang Bali (another name of the Hindu god Hanuman). The poll panel also observed that being the chief minister of a state, Adityanath has an "added responsibility to not only uphold the basic tenets, including secularism, of the Constitution of India, but also to display the same in his public appearances". The order said, the EC is convinced that Adityanath made a "highly provocative" speech which had the "tone and tenor" to aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred between religious communities. The poll panel told Mayawati that being a senior leader, she should have "desisted" from making such comments that have the "undertone and propensity to polarise the elections" in several constituencies due to the reach of the media. Earlier, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi has summoned a representative of the EC on Tuesday while agreeing to examine the poll panel's contention that it has limited legal powers to deal with hate speeches of politicians during electioneering. During 2014 LS polls, the EC had imposed state-specific ban on BJP leader Amit Shah and SP leader Azam Khan from campaigning in Uttar Pradesh on April 11 for their controversial remarks. The ban on Shah was lifted in a few days after he assured the poll body that he would not disturb public tranquillity and law and order. Since Khan had not given a similar assurance, the ban on him had continued. A similar ban was placed on BJP leader Giriraj Singh from campaigning in Jharkhand and Bihar for his controversial remarks that people who do not vote for Narendra Modi will have to find a place in Pakistan. While there was no immediate reaction from Adityanath and Mayawati, SP leader Akhilesh Yadav took to Twitter to ask EC whether it is capable to issue similar directives to the prime minister. "EC directive against @mayawati ji begs the question: do they have integrity to stop PM from asking for votes in name of the army? Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remarks asking first-time voters to dedicate their vote to those who carried out the Balakot air strike are under examination of the poll panel. The poll authorities in Maharashtra's Latur, where he made the speech, have told EC that prima facie the comments are violative of its orders, asking parties against using the armed forces in their campaigns. Meanwhile, the EC is also examining SP leader Azam Khan's alleged "underwear" jibe against his BJP rival from Rampur Lok Sabha seat Jay Prada. "If the EC concludes that he has actually made those remarks, it would take a call based on the provision. It can also go beyond the ambit of the model code as the reported remarks are not in a good taste," a senior EC official said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress on Monday demanded a Lokpal probe into former Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa's 'diary' and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to answer whether its contents were correct, else put the former CM behind the bars. Addressing a press conference, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal asked the Income Tax department to act on the "Yeddyurappa diary" which has been in its custody since 2012, soon after the BJP leader relinquished the charge of the chief minister of Karnataka. "The I-T and ED officials should question the ministers whose names are written in the diaries and the money trail of this black money should be found out," Sibal said. He alleged that if the contents of the diary is correct, all top BJP leadership is involved in allegedly accepting bribes to the tune of over Rs 1,800 crore, as written in the diary. Sibal also played a video of the "original diary" of Yeddyurappa showing the names of BJP leaders and others in the diary's contents written in Kannada. He, however, did not take any responsibility for the contents of the video. "We had demanded a probe and since the Lokpal has been constituted, this should be the first probe by it," Sibal told reporters, adding the Lokpal has powers to take cognizance of the matter suo motu under the act. "We want that the prime minister should publicly tell if this is correct or not... The prime minister should answer. If the prime minister says Yeddyurappa is speaking a lie, then why should he not be arrested. If this (contents of diary) is true then it is a very serious issue and why should Yeddyurappa not be arrested. There should be a thorough probe," he said. Sibal said no one can hide the truth which will come out once there is an independent and thorough probe into the entire matter and asked the Income Tax Department and the Enforcement Directorate to start investigation. He also demanded that the witnesses in the matter be questioned. Taking a swipe at the BJP, the former Union minister said had the names of the opposition leaders been written in the diary and had it been recovered from an opposition leader, the BJP would have gone all out to attack them and a probe would have been ordered. "They make money to the tune of crores through noteban and they should make us stand in the dock instead. What kind of is this," he asked. The Congress leader also alleged that Modi's claim of a scam-free government had fallen flat and a number of scams had taken place during his tenure. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP Monday wanted to know why Congress chief Rahul Gandhi was silent over the remarks of National Conference leader Omar Abdullah that his party would strive to restore Jammu and Kashmir's autonomy that could include having a wazir-e-azam (prime minister). Omar Abdullah's statement means Jammu and Kashmir having a separate constitution, BJP national secretary P Muralidhar Rao said. "It means a separate flag. India having two Prime Ministers, India having two flags and India having two constitutions. Is it acceptable for India? This is a straight question and it would be raised in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and even in entire country," he told reporters here. "...Congress stands for dilution...it stands for balkanisation of India," he said. Rao sought to know why DMK president M K Stalin, an alliance partner of the Congress in Tamil Nadu, also remained silent on the matter. The BJP leader asserted his party was for one Nation, one Constitution. Omar Abdullah while addressing a public rally at Bandipora, North Kashmir recently, said, his party will work towards getting back the coveted posts of 'Sadr-e-Riyasat' (president) and 'Wazir-e-Azam' (prime minister) for Jammu and Kashmir. On Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy reported remarks that air strikes on terror camps at Balakot should not be celebrated, Rao sought to know whether it was the idea of the Congress or the UPA. "What is the link of Indian Muslims with the Balakot of Pakistan. If we celebrate the achievement of Indian forces, it is not partisan," he said. "Kumaraswamy's comment polarises and is an insult to Indian Muslims," he said. Rao also hit out at Gandhi for not clarifying his stand on the comments allegedly made by Kumaraswamy. "My party's argument is India is not safe with the Congress. India's unity and political sovereignty are threatened because they (UPA) have multiple agenda within the coalition," he said. On Stalin comments that Rahul Gandhi would be Prime Minister after the polls, he said, "there are no takers for it.... the anti-BJP opposition is not accepting this proposal." "So, there is no NDA vs the Rest... Rest is not united. Anti-BJP is not united," he claimed. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal Chief Minister Monday accused Congress of taking help from RSS to win elections and urged to the people to defeat the "deadly" combine of the Congress, BJP and the Left. The Trinamool Congress supremo recalled former president Pranab Mukherjee's participation in an event of the RSS in its headquarters in Nagpur in 2018 and alleged that the organisation is campaigning for his son, Congress candidate Abhijit Mukherjee. "Don't force me to open the Pandora's box. The entire gameplan of the Congress will be exposed," she told an election rally at Beldanga in Muslim-dominated Murshidabad district. "Baharampore Congress candidate Adhir Chowdhury's tactics to win election with the help of the Left and BJP will not be successful this time ... People should not to vote for such a party with a dubious character," Banerjee. TMC candidate for Baharampore Apurba Sarkar (David), who is contesting against Chowdhury, had defected from the Congress and joined her party. "RSS is campaigning for Abhijit Mukherjee at Jangipur and Adhir Chowdhury at Baharampore, while the CPI(M) has already sold out to BJP," Banerjee alleged. "This tactics of the Congress-Left-BJP combine will be given a fitting reply by the people of Bengal. The Trinamool Congress will win all 42 seats in West Bengal by defeating this deadly combine," she claimed. Addressing another rally at Bhagwangola in the same district, Banerjee hit out at BJP for trying to gain political mileage by playing the religion card. "The BJP is trying to divide the people in the name of religion. They are using it as a tool to divide the masses in Bengal ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. The culture of Bengal never supports the of violence," she said. The TMC supremo also cautioned people against RSS alleged bid to bribe the voters. Referring to BJP's stand on implementing NRC in the country, Banerjee said she would not allow it in West Bengal. "We are confident that we will foil this misadventure in the state," she said. She also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for doing by taking the name of the army. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Criticising the sitting Dakshina Kannada (DK) MP Nalin Kumar Kateel for his irresponsible attitude towards the Lok Sabha constituency, Congress leader and state Irrigation Minister D K Shivakumar Monday asked the people to vote for development and harmony in the district. Addressing a press meet here, Shivakumar, who is here to campaign for party candidate Mithun Rai, slammed the BJP for doing hardly anything for the constituency which had been represented by their MPs in the last 28 years. The minister hoped that the educated and intelligent people of DK will give Mithun Rai a chance to fulfil their dreams of development. "The present MP is not aware of the problems faced by the people in the coastal district. The youth are leaving Mangaluru to other cities seeking jobs. No major development work had been done for the port, airport or other facilities in the city during the last ten years," he alleged. The sitting MP could not also raise a finger against the merger of Vijaya Bank with Bank of Baroda, which had hurt the people of DK, he said. The 'Ache Din' promised by the BJP had never come and the country was facing a crisis in almost all the sectors, including agriculture, he said. Farmers have been totally ignored by the Centre, he alleged. Shivakumar wanted the workers of BJP and RSS to set aside their political differences and support Mithun Rai in the elections. He said the concept of Hindutva is unique in the world and everyone should respect the culture and tradition of the country. DCC president Harish Kumar, MLC, and party leader Ibrahim Kodijal were among those present. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress Monday filed a complaint with the Election Commission against BJP's Himachal Pradesh chief Satpal Singh Satti for allegedly making a derogatory comment against Rahul Gandhi. The party has also lodged a police complaint against the BJP leader, urging Shimla Police to register a case against him. Earlier the Congress's state unit spokesperson Naresh Chauhan had sought Satti's apology, but he refused saying he merely read out the contents of a message which was already viral on social media. "I have narrated an incident while addressing a public meeting in Nalagarh tehsil of Solan district whereby a derogatory remark was made against Rahul in retaliation of using 'chor' word for PM in a viral social media message," Satti told PTI. "The person who used the derogatory word and made such a message viral can not be our worker. Even then I asked my workers to restrain from using such remark or sharing such messages," he said. He said the Congress leaders listened to only a part of his speech. "They should hear my speech in totality and then they will come to the conclusion that I have not used any derogatory remark against Rahul Gandhi," Satti said. He said, "Our workers have their own sentiments for the PM. So, Rahul Gandhi and Congress leaders should also apologise for using 'chor' word for PM in public meetings and should stop using that word for Modi". Talking to PTI, state Congress general secretary Rajneesh Kimta said he has filed a complaint against Satti with the Election Commission for the remarks. Kimta said he also filed an online complaint with Sadar police station and sent a copy of it to Shimla superintendent of police. When contacted, Shimla SP Omapati Jamwal said, "An online complaint has been received at Sadar police station. We are studying the contents of the complaint." Kimta said the Congress would hold protest rallies across the state on Tuesday at 11 am. "If Satti does not apologise publicly for making the derogatory remarks, the Congress will not hesitate to gherao him," he added. In Delhi, Congress leader Kapil Sibal said one cannot expect anything better from the BJP as it is their culture to abuse, started by Prime Minister Narendra Modi before the 2014 elections. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A police constable was arrested here Monday for allegedly handing over postal ballot papers meant for service personnel to a local DMK leader, police said. Constable Anthony Sekhar of Uvari police station allegedly collected Rs 7,500 from Jayaraj, a former local level DMK secretary, and gave the ballot papers which were to be sent to the postal vote polling centre in the city, they said. Election flying squad headed by Dinesh Kumar found the ballot papers in the car of Jayaraj while checking it and based on his statement arrested the constable, police said. A case under the Representation of People Act had been registered and action would be taken against Jayaraj also, they said adding further investigation was on to ascertain why the ballot papers were handed over the party man. Police did not specify how many postal ballot papers were seized. Ahead of the April 18 Lok Sabha elections and bypolls to assembly constituencies, police personnel who would be on poll duty have been casting their votes through the postal ballot in the past few days. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court Monday made it clear that the remarks made by Rahul Gandhi in the media on the Rafale case verdict were "incorrectly attributed" to the apex court and directed the Congress President to give his explanation by April 22. The top court gave a categorical clarification that in its Rafale judgement there was no occasion for it to make a mention of the alleged contemptous observation that "Chowkidar Narendra Modi chor hain" as has been attributed to it by Gandhi. The apex court decided to consider the criminal contempt petition filed by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi against Gandhi for attributing to it some observations that were not in the Rafale judgement. It observed that politicians should not attribute any findings or views to the court in their speeches. In the order, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said: "We have considered the matter. We make it clear that this Court had no occasion to record any view or finding or make any observation as allegedly attributed to the Court by the respondent (Gandhi) in as much as what was decided by this Court was a purely legal question of admissibility of certain documents to which objections were raised by the Attorney General." The bench, also comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna, said: "Having clarified the matter, we deem it proper to ask Gandhi for his explanation which will be laid before us on or before April 22." While giving liberty to Lekhi to file additional affidavit to support her criminal contempt petition against Gandhi, the bench said: "We further observe that no views, observations or findings should be attributed to the Court in political address to the media and in public speeches, unless such views, observations or findings are recorded by the Court. It posted the matter for further hearing on April 23. Lekhi, who is a sitting Lok Sabha MP from New Delhi constituency, has in her plea alleged that Gandhi has attributed his personal remarks to the top court and tried to create prejudice. At the outset, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Lekhi, said it is a gross case of contempt committed by Gandhi who incorrectly attributed some remarks to the apex court about its judgement on Rafale case. Rohatgi said Gandhi had come out in the public to make a remark that the "Supreme Court in its judgement said Chowkidar Narendra Modi chor hain". The bench said, "You were right to the extent we never said what has been brought in the petition. We will seek clarification". Lekhi latched onto the apex court clarification to attack Gandhi, saying as to how the man who does not understand "Constitutional morality" and "democratic traditions" would represent Indians in Parliament. She said the Congress President does not understand "Constitutional propriety" and was dragging institutions like the Supreme Court into "shabby politics". Lekhi said Gandhi was raking up the issue on India's Rafale fighter jet deal with France to hide their own corruption. "Out of four members of a family, three are on bail. Will they be giving lessons on honesty and integrity. To hide their own false, they are using these things," Lekhi told PTI. She was apparently referring to the National Herald case and Enforcement Directorate case against Gandhi's brother-in-law Robert Vadra in money laundering case. The Congress President and his mother Sonia Gandhi are accused in the National Herald case in which they have been accused of cheating and misappropriating funds. The Congress president had on April 10 claimed that the apex court has made it "clear" that Prime Minister Narendra Modi "committed a theft". He had made the statement while interacting with reporters in Amethi after filing his nomination papers where he is contesting against BJP leader and union minister Smriti Irani. Gandhi had also recalled a recent interview by the prime minister, in which Modi had said the Supreme Court had given a clean chit to his government on the Rafale deal. The apex court, which had earlier cleared the Modi government of accusations of corruption over the Rafale deal with France, on April 10 said it will hear a review petition on the basis of the new documents referred to by petitioners. It had on April 10 allowed the plea of petitioners relying on leaked documents for seeking review of its Rafale judgement and dismissed the government's preliminary objections claiming "privilege" over them. "I am happy and I have been saying so for months that Hindustan's PM has given the air force money to (industrialist) Anil Ambani, and the SC has accepted it. The SC is going to investigate it," Gandhi had said. "I want to thank the SC. It's a very happy day. The SC has talked about justice. Justice has prevailed," he had added. The Rafale fighter is a twin-engine Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) manufactured by French aerospace company Dassault Aviation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Advertisement By The Associated Press Apr. 10, 2019 | FRANKFORT By The Associated Press Apr. 10, 2019 | 07:12 PM | FRANKFORT Kentucky's largest school district received a subpoena from Republican Gov. Matt Bevin's administration on Wednesday that seeks the names of teachers who might have used sick days to attend statehouse rallies while the legislature met. Widespread absences in some districts forced classes to be canceled for as long as a few days while teachers clad in red-shirts converged on Kentucky's Capitol earlier this year, drawing Bevin's criticism. The teachers' many concerns this year included an unsuccessful measure before the GOP-dominated legislature that would have granted tax credits to people who donate to scholarship funds for special needs children and those in foster care or low- to middle-income homes to attend private schools. The bill died. The Kentucky Labor Cabinet sent a subpoena Wednesday to Jefferson County Public Schools, which includes Louisville. It's the state's largest district and one of the biggest in the country with nearly 100,000 students. A school district spokesman confirmed its receipt. Officials in two other Kentucky districts Oldham and Bullitt counties said school officials also received subpoenas involving teacher absences. House Democratic leaders in Kentucky condemned the use of subpoenas, calling it a "new low" for Bevin's administration meant to "strong-arm any opposition." "Our teachers were exercising their First Amendment right to be heard on legislative matters directly affecting them," the top House Democrats said in a statement. Kentucky Labor Cabinet spokeswoman Haley Bradburn said Wednesday the matter had been referred to the Office of Inspector General, adding the cabinet doesn't comment on OIG inquiries. Earlier this year, when Jefferson County schools were again forced to cancel classes, Bevin responded by posting a video on his Twitter page with the caption "SICK OF 'SICKOUTS,'" where he accused teachers of "walking out on students." It amplified Bevin's clash with teachers and education advocates this year as he is seeking a second term. One of the Democrats running for governor, state Attorney General Andy Beshear, said the subpoenas appeared to be "another example of our bully governor going after anybody who disagrees with him." Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis told the Courier Journal on Wednesday that he learned of the subpoenas only after they were issued. "I played no role in their decision making," he told the Louisville newspaper while in Ashland, Kentucky, for a state education board meeting. Lewis said recently that the superintendents who had to cancel classes while teachers protested at the Capitol should close loopholes in sick leave policies. Lewis recommended they have teachers use personal leave instead of sick leave to engage in political advocacy. In late March, he said he had "no intention" of punishing teachers, but that districts should investigate to determine if discipline was warranted. In its subpoena, the Labor Cabinet asked Jefferson County Public School officials for records identifying the names of any school district employees who called in sick on dates when "sickouts" occurred in late February and March, according to a copy of the document. It also seeks any documentation that teachers provided to prove they were sick, including doctors' notes. The cabinet also wants copies of the district's sick leave policies and copies of records in which district officials discussed the decision to close schools due to sickouts. It instructed the district not to disclose information about the subpoena's contents to anyone affected by the requests, saying such disclosures could hinder an ongoing investigation. Teachers in Kentucky don't strike but have coordinated among themselves to use all their sick days on the same day, forcing districts to close because they don't have enough substitutes to cover classes. Last year, Republican lawmakers in Kentucky passed a bill making changes to the public pension system. It prompted protests from thousands of teachers who closed schools in more than 30 districts across the state. The state Supreme Court struck that law down on procedural grounds. Late in 2018 Bevin called the legislature back in session to pass a version of the bill again, but lawmakers could not reach an agreement and adjourned. The country was heading towards a coalition government as neither the Congress nor the BJP are unlikely to get an absolute majority despite claims by political leadership, former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said Monday. He said the mood of the country is clearly in favour of bringing in a UPA government to reject communal and divisive forces. The senior Congress leader observed that neither of the two national parties were in a position to cross the 150 mark out of 543, despite claims to the contrary by BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In Karnataka, he said the Congress along with its ally JD(S) is expected to win around 20 seats out of 28 parliamentary constituencies. The first phase of polling is scheduled on April 18 in the state. Talking to PTI in an exclusive interview during a campaign trail, Siddaramaiah said: "Both Congress and BJP appear not to be in a position to get an absolute majority on their own. The UPA will however get a clear majority." Holding that claims and reality are two different things, he said there is no Modi wave. On the contrary, there is a growing wave of people wanting to curb divisive and communal forces. This has put full stop to the second term for the NDA. "According to me, the UPA will get enough seats and will emerge as a single largest front. Naturally, other regional parties will rally around," he said and added the Mahagathbandhan (the grand-alliance) has taken place so that the secular votes are not divided. He said, "The campaign is against the BJP which is a communal party. All secular forces which were fighting each other, have come together to prevent division of votes among secular parties. We are fighting against the communal party." Siddaramaiah, who is also chairman of the Congress-JD(S) coalition committee in the state, is however, confident that the Congress will be able to make a major in roads in Karnataka along with the JD(S), limiting the BJP to anywhere between 8 and 10 seats out of 28 parliamentary constituencies. The Congress, which is contesting 21 seats in the state, would win 13-14 seats and its ally JD(S) will take the combine tallly to around 20, he said. Rubbishing claims that there was lack of coordination between Congress and JD(S) workers resulting from an unfair allocation of seats, he said the two parties were in perfect harmony and the campaigning was going on satisfactorily. "This issue has been verified because myself and JD(S) chief H D Deve Gowda jointly toured all constituencies. Look, myself and G T Devegowda of JD(S) fought against each other during the last assembly elections, now we have come together. We have asked workers to work together," he said. Three out of seven seats allocated to JD(S) are being contested by former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda and his two grandsons, forcing the JD(S) leadership to concentrate on three constituencies of Tumkur, Mandya and Hassan. Gowda is contesting from Tumkur, his grandson and chief minister H D Kumaraswamy's son Nikhil Kumaraswamy from Mandya and elder son H D Revanna's son Ujwal Revanna from Hassan. Asserting that Congress-JD(S) alliance will benefit in this Lok Sabha poll, Siddaramaiah said, "Our vote share will be definitely more than the BJP. Both voters, irrespective of what Congress and JD(S) got in the assembly poll, put together will get more votes." On too much of Modi bashing in election campaign, he said, "It is because Modi is prime minister of this country and has completed five years. Who else should I attack? If you attack Modi, it means we are attacking the RSS. He is a symbol of RSS." He said the Congress's narrative of the election campaign is positive unlike the BJP which is not raising issues concerning the poor people, farmers, youth and women. "Is Modi discussing these issues in the public meeting? Why he is not mentioning his achievements in the public meeting? He is talking only about surgical strikes" the Congress leader said. "There were 12 surgical strikes in the past. In the first war against Pakistan in 1948-49, Narendra Modi was not even born then. In 1977, when Indira Gandhi was PM and Bangladesh was liberated, where was he? Was he a soldier in Indian army?" Siddaramaiah said adding these surgical strikes are taking place frequently in the country after Independence. Even the BJP's manifesto talks of the same old issues such as scrapping of Article 370 and construction of Ram temple. "It is raising emotional and very old issues. These issues were there since 1982," he noted. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A CPI(M) delegation led by party general secretary Sitaram Yechury met the Chief Election Commissioner on Monday and submitted two memorandums alleging "large-scale manipulation" in Tripura and West Bengal during the first phase of Lok Sabha polls on April 11. The delegation, consisting of Nilotpal Basu, member of politburo, and Shankar Prasad Datta, CPI(M) candidate from West Tripura, in their memorandums demanded a re-poll in 464 booths in the parliamentary constituency. They demanded the Commission to ensure that the election in East Tripura parliamentary constituency, scheduled in the second phase on April 18, be free and fair. They also raised the issue of violation of the model code of conduct on the two seats that went to polls West Bengal. "What was on evidence on April 11 was a complete absence of central para-military forces to ensure the conduct of a free and fair poll. Therefore, we strongly urge that the Commission conduct re-poll for the 464 booths in which the elections were completely rigged, the specific booth numbers and assembly constituency segments have been already made available for the Commission," one of the memorandums read. "Large-scale manipulation of polls in the first phase of voting, especially in West Bengal and Tripura has raised huge question marks," Yechury tweeted earlier Monday. While Bengal will vote in all seven phases, the second seat in Tripura will go to polls on April 18. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) State-run companies will have 12 months to monetise non-core assets identified by a ministerial panel headed by the finance minister, failing which the finance ministry may restrict budgetary allocations to the CPSEs. The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) Monday issued the guidelines for monetisation of non-core assets of CPSEs and immovable enemy properties, following a Cabinet decision in February. According to the guidelines, an inter-ministerial group (IMG), chaired by the secretary of DIPAM, will identify the non-core assets of the CPSEs on its own and also on the basis of recommendations of the Niti Aayog. The final call, however, will be taken by the finance minister-headed panel. Once the Alternative Mechanism, comprising the finance minister, road transport minister and the minister of concerned administrative ministry, approves the assets for monetisation, it should be completed within 12 months from the date of approval. This will be the target to be achieved by the CPSEs as part of the memorandum of understanding with the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE). "The Department of Expenditure and Department of Economic Affairs may consider any proposal from the CPSE/administrative ministry for budgetary support only after looking at the achievement of asset monetisation target by the CPSE. Performance of contract management will be considered before sanctioning any government budgetary support," the guidelines said. The guidelines also provides CPSEs an option to seek relaxation from the IMG of the 12-month deadline for sale of non-core assets. It further said that "any budgetary support for the CPSEs will be considered by the Department of Expenditure and DEA only if asset monetisation target is achieved by the CPSEs, unless exemption has been taken". With regard to sale of immovable enemy properties, the guidelines said that the assets would be identified for disposal in consultation with the stakeholders including the respective state governments. The Custodian of Enemy Property for India (CEPI) or the Ministry of Home Affairs will select the properties for disposal and will also certify that a clear title deed is available and the property is free of any encumbrances and encroachment. The ministerial panel will also decide on the threshold over which non-core assets of CPSEs and immovable enemy properties would be taken up for monetisation under the asset monetisation framework. Non-core assets below the threshold would be sold by the state-owned entities themselves. The amount raised through sale of non-core assets would form part of the disinvestment proceeds. The government has set a target of Rs 90,000 crore to be raised through CPSE disinvestment in current financial year, up from the Rs 85,000 crore mopped up in the previous financial year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Dakar Rally will be held in Saudi Arabia from 2020, organisers announced Monday, offering contestants an "unknown landscape and uncharted terrain". "After 30 years of discovering the beauty of Africa and a decade of adventure exploring the spectacular landscape of South America, a new chapter in the history of Dakar will be written as the world's biggest rally makes its Middle East debut in Saudi Arabia," ASO said in a statement. The Dakar has been held in South America since 2009. The gruelling multi-stage rally was previously held in Africa but was relocated after terrorist threats in Mauritania in 2008. Dakar director David Castera described the relocation to Saudi Arabia as "a voyage into the unknown". "By going to Saudi Arabia, it is of course that aspect that fascinates me," Castera said. "I'm convinced that such a feeling will be shared by all the riders, drivers and copilots. As the director of the event, it's a massive challenge to be faced with a blank page with limitless possibilities." Castera said Saudi Arabia offered up "a monumental geography, made for the most audacious itineraries". "We are spoilt for choice. Sports, navigation, a will to surpass oneself: all these aspects will naturally be glorified on this territory made for rally-raids. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Dausa Lok Sabha constituency neighbouring Jaipur is gearing to an interesting woman vs woman fight with both the BJP and Congress having fielded women candidates from here. With the BJP belatedly announcing former Union minister Jaskaur Meena's candidature from here, Dausa has emerged as the sole parliamentary constituency in the state to have two women contenders to take on each other. The Congress has fielded its sitting MLA Murari Meena's wife Savita Meena from this reserved parliamentary seat. The BJP took time to finalise its candidate for Dausa as the constituency had several contenders backed by different factions within the party. The ticket seekers among BJP leaders reportedly included Rajya Sabha member Kirodi Singh Meena and independent MLA Om Prakash Hudla. While Kirodi Meena wanted a ticket for his wife Golma Devi, Hudla was backed by former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, say poll watchers. With Jaskaur Meena able to secure the BJP ticket amid the multilateral contest for it within the party, the Congress is hoping to capitalise on a perceived dissension within the saffron party. "There is a massive tussle going on within the BJP. The Congress will get the benefit due to tussle between the local political leaders dominance. The Congress will definitely get the edge," said party's Dausa district president Ramji Lal Odh. In the 2018 assembly elections, the political rivalry of local Meena community leaders had played a spoilsport for the BJP where the party could not win any of the seven assembly seats in Dausa parliamentary constituency. The BJP leaders, however, deny any dissension within the party over grant of ticket to Jaskaur Meena, saying her name was finalised after Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar met all three contenders. He had also met Raje. The BJP leaders also deny that the delay in announcement of candidate would impact the party's poll prospects. "The Congress will not be able to take any edge over us. Don't worry everything will get right soon. We have started campaigning in right earnest and holding meetings in support of Jaskaur Meena," BJP Dausa district president Ghanshyam Balahedi said. Political commentators, however, say the tussle within the BJP for Dausa seat is not new. In 2008, the BJP had given ticket to Jaskaur Meena from Sawai Madhopur seat after denying it to Kirodi Meena who had then left the BJP. In 2014, Dr Meena contested election on National People's Party ticket unsuccessfully. Ahead of the 2018 assembly election, he joined the BJP again and became Rajya Sabha MP from the party. Dausa parliamentary seat comprises seven assembly seats. The Congress had won Lalsot, Dausa, Sikrai and Chaksu assembly seats while BJP dissident Om Prakash Hudla was elected as an independent from Mahuwa seat. Two other independent candidates from Bassi and Thanagazi seats have supported the Congress government in the state. Dausa is slated to go to polls on May 6 along with a total of 51 constituencies in seven states in the 5th phase of the Lok Sabha elections. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Observing that Good Friday was commemorated by all communities and Easter eggs and chocolates enjoyed by all, the Bombay High Court Monday directed that the day be declared as an official public holiday in the Union Territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli. A bench of Chief Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice N M Jamdar directed the administration of the two Union Territories (UTs) to declare Friday, April 19, a public holiday. The administrator of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu had earlier issued a notification marking Good Friday as an optional holiday at government offices. The Christian community from the UTs approached the HC earlier this month with a public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the notification. Their counsel Harish Jagtiani argued that while the Christian population in these UTs accounted for just 2 per cent of the total population, the "principles of secularism" mandated that one consider the "sentiments of the minority community and not the numbers". The petitioners said in the plea that this was the "first instance" in the history of UTs that Good Friday had not been notified as a public holiday. "Ever since these territories came under the Indian Union, it (Good Friday) has always been declared as a public holiday considering that many Christians are residing in far flung areas of these UTs," the plea read. Advocate S S Deshmukh, who appeared for the administration of the UTs, told the court that the central government rules permitted the administrator to notify a total of 17 days in the year as public holidays. Such list had already been exhausted and hence, Good Friday had been declared as an optional holiday instead of a gazetted public holiday this year, Deshmukh said. The bench, however, noted that people of "all castes, communities, and creed" commemorated Good Friday and celebrated Easter and Christmas. And keeping in mind the sentiments of the Christian community, Good Friday must be declared a public holiday, it noted. "Christmas is celebrated with much bonhomie by all communities. People of all castes, creed and communities commemorate Good Friday... And chocolate bunnies and Easter eggs are eaten and enjoyed by all," the bench said. "Considering the importance of Good Friday for the community (Christians), the administrator to declare it as a public holiday," it said while disposing of the petition. Good Friday commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It is followed by the celebration of Easter Sunday, commemorating the resurrection of Christ. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Women and children waved and shook hands with Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman Monday as she participated in a roadshow criss-crossing coastal stretches along with Kummanam Rajasekharan, the BJP candidate from the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat. The constituency is witnessing a fierce triangular fight between Congress leader and sitting MP Shashi Tharoor, ruling LDF candidate C Divakaran (CPI) and Rajasekharan, the former Mizoram governor. Local people were seen rushing to the open vehicle in which the minister was travelling along with Rajasekharan as it slowed down to greet and shake hands with her and present flowers. Despite the late hour,women and children, who had gathered at various points, waved and shook hands with Sitharaman as the roadshow progressed. Sitharaman had visited the coastal areas of Thiruvananthapuram when the Ockhi cyclone had hit the Kerala shores in December 2017 and consoled women who had lost their husbands and children. Earlier, addressing an election meeting at Attingal, she sought votes for the BJP candidate Shobha Surendran. "Vote for Modi, vote for Shobha Surendran and make her MP. Give us a Vishu (festival) gift," she said. The State is celebrating Vishu, the Malayalam new year day, Monday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had ensured corruption-free good governance during the five year tenure of the BJP-NDA government, Sitharaman said. The minority interests had been protected. Whenever Modi went abroad, the opposition Congress ridiculed him asking if he would go to the Gulf countries and Muslim nations. Today, Modi has got top awards from Saudi Arabia, and Iran, Sitharaman said. Describing Modi as a visionary leader, she said it was due to his efforts that 95 per cent of the country had become open defecation free. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi CEO has written to the Election Commission drawing its attention to a on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which went online earlier this month and is being aired without permission from the Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC), officials said. The move comes days after the EC banned the screening of a biopic on the prime minister during the current poll period, saying any such film that subserves purpose of any political entity or individual should not be displayed in the electronic media. Meanwhile, district election officer (East) K Mahesh also wrote to the Delhi CEO asking whether the has been approved by the MCMC, a senior official said. "The MCMC of the East Delhi constituency had received a complaint on April 11 through a grievance redressal portal," the official said. As per the complaint, the was being streamed despite directions from the EC banning such biopics, he said. Sources from the Chief Electoral Officer, Delhi said the letter from the East district might be forwarded to the EC in continuation of the letter already sent by them. An official from the Delhi CEO office said, "We wrote a letter to the Election Commission bringing it to their notice that a web series is streaming. Since it is not a Delhi specific matter, we have urged the EC to take cognisance of the matter." Another official said, "The web series has been produced by a private entity and so far, we have not found that the party has any stake in it. Ideally, the producers of the web series, who are based in Mumbai, should have taken permission from the poll body there to stream the series since the model code of conduct is in place." The 10-episode web series Modi: Journey of a Common Man, is currently being streamed on Eros Now platforms. Directed by Umesh Shukla of OMG: Oh My God fame, the series features actors Faisal Khan, Ashish Sharma and Mahesh Thakur, who portray Modi at different stages of his life. When contacted, one of the actors of the series said he had no idea about the matter. Disneyland Paris on Monday announced a series of measures to make Europe's biggest private tourist attraction more environmentally friendly, including banning plastic straws. The theme park east of the French capital, which draws 15 million visitors a year, is like a small town in its own right, producing 19 tonnes of waste last year. It currently recycles paper, glass and 18 other types of materials accounting for around half of all its waste, a level it aims to increase to 60 percent in 2020, said Nicole Ouimet-Herter, the park's manager. Starting Thursday it will bin plastic straws, to be replaced with fully biodegradable paper versions that will be distributed only if patrons request them. The announcement follows a vote last month in the European Parliament to ban single-use plastic products such as straws, cutlery and cotton buds from 2021. It comes as pressure mounts on companies and citizens to wean themselves off the plastics blamed for clogging up oceans. Disneyland Paris, owned by The Walt Disney Company, also announced several other initiatives to clean up its act. Next week, shops in the park will stop handing out free plastic bags, offering instead the option of purchasing bags made of 80 percent recycled plastic for 1 or 2 euros (USD 1.13-USD 2.26). And starting in June several of the park's hotels will no longer stock bathrooms with small bottles of shower gel or shampoo, replacing them with bigger ones that can be refilled. Euro Disney, the park's operator, said it was also planning to install solar panels on the sprawling 22-square-kilometre site to get more power from renewables. Currently, renewable energy sources account for only 10 percent of the electricity used. "We are undertaking concrete actions to reduce our impact on the But we also have the power to dazzle children and want to have a positive influence on them to encourage them to take care of nature," said Mireille Smeets, Euro Disney's director of corporate social responsibility. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) DMDK chief Vijayakanth, who has been keeping a low profile due to health issues, Monday campaigned here for candidates of the AIADMK-led alliance in Tamil Nadu. Seated in his campaign van, the yesteryear actor sought votes for his party candidate Azhagapuram R Mohanraj and Sam Paul (PMK) contesting from north and central Chennai Lok Sabha seats respectively. Vijayakanth made brief remarks and asked the people to vote for the drum symbol of his party and the mango symbol of the PMK a day before the campaign draws to a close. The DMDK chief had returned from USA in February this year after medical treatment and had presided over an event in which his party entered into a poll pact with the ruling AIADMK. Campaign for the Lok Sabha and bypolls in Tamil Nadu ends on April 16 and the State goes to polls on April 18. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a heart-warming gesture, the UAE's only Sikh Gurdwara here, will host iftar for workers throughout the holy month of Ramzan, offering vegetarian meals, according to a media report. The Gurdwara in Dubai's Jebel Ali, which has been hosting an interfaith iftar during every Ramzan in the past six years, will offer iftar meals to workers in the area everyday during this year's Ramadan, Surender Singh Kandhari, the chairman of the Guru Nanak Darbar Gurdwara, said on Sunday during Baisakhi festival celebration. Iftar-a fast-breaking meal- is a daily ritual during the holy month of Ramzan that will start in the first week of May. "There are a lot of Muslim workers in this area. There are not many places from where they can break their fast. We will invite these workers to have iftar from our Gurdwara," Kandhari was quoted as saying by the Gulf "There are a lot of Muslim workers in this area. There are not many places from where they can break their fast. We will invite these workers to have iftar from our Gurdwara," he said. He said the free vegetarian meal (langar) offered to every visitor in the Gurdwara will be given to those visiting to break the fast also. "We will add dates, fruits, rose milk, buttermilk and some Indian snacks like pakora, samosa also for them. We expect to host 100 to 200 people every day during Ramzan," said Kandhari. He was speaking after Baisakhi ceremony, the Sikh New Year, which was attended by top officials of Dubai's Community Development Authority (CDA). "This year is very important for us here in the UAE. It is the Year of Tolerance for the UAE, 550th Year of Guru Nanak's birth anniversary, 150th year of Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary, 320th year of the birth of Khalsa Panth, and 100th year of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre which happened on a Baisakhi. "Keeping all these in mind, we celebrated Baisakhi to send across the message of love, peace, humanity and tolerance," Kandhari added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Election Commission Monday "censured" Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and BSP supremo Mayawati for their communal remarks and barred them from campaigning for 72 and 48 hours respectively. The poll panel has issued two separate orders against Adityanath and Mayawati and said these will come into force from 6 am on Tuesday. The orders of the commission came soon after the Supreme Court took note of the communal remarks made by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo and the chief minister during their Lok Sabha poll campaigns. The court has asked the poll watchdog about the action it has initiated against them. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi has summoned a representative of the Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday while agreeing to examine the poll panel's contention that it has limited legal powers to deal with hate speeches of politicians during electioneering. In its order related to Adityanath, the commission said, it "strongly condemns" the impugned statement made by him and "censured" him for "misconduct". Using its constitutional powers under Article 324 of the Constitution, the EC barred him from "holding any public meetings, public processions, public rallies, road shows and interviews, public utterances in media (print, electronic and social media) in connection with the ongoing elections for 72 hours (three days) from 6.00 am on April 16." In another order, the commission also censured and "strongly" condemned Mayawati for her remarks.The EC has barred her from campaigning for 48 hours or two days. On being asked about the different time periods for the two leaders, a senior EC functionary explained: "It is for the second time that the Uttar Pradesh CM has been issued a show cause notice by the EC. On April 5, he was asked to be 'careful' in the future." "This is the first show cause and action against the BSP president ... the severity of the action is, therefore, different," he said. The functionary said the commission examined the two issues on April 14 and April 15, and came up with the final decision on Monday as it felt a clear message should go out to the politicians. The EC has written to chief electoral officers of all states informing them about their decision on Adityanath and Mayawati to ensure that its orders are not violated. Mayawati was issued the notice for her speech in Deoband in which she appealed to Muslims to not vote for the Congress. The BSP chief has violated the Model Code of Conduct, the poll panel found. Chief Minister Adityanath was served the notice for his "Ali" and "Bajrang Bali" remarks while addressing a rally in Meerut. He compared the Lok Sabha elections to a contest between 'Ali', a revered figure in Islam, and Bajrang Bali, the Hindu god Hanuman. In its order on Adityanath, the poll panel observed that being the chief minister of a state, he has an "added responsibility to not only uphold the basic tenets, including secularism, of the Constitution of India, but also to display the same in his public appearances". The order said, the EC is convinced that Adityanath made a "highly provocative" speech which had the "tone and tenor" to aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred between religious communities. The poll panel told Mayawati that being a senior leader, she should have "desisted" from making such comments that have the "undertone and propensity to polarise the elections" in several constituencies due to the reach of the media. The EC had taken a similar step in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls when it had banned BJP leader Amit Shah and SP leader Azam Khan from campaigning in Uttar Pradesh on April 11 for their controversial remarks. The ban on Shah was lifted in a few days after he assured the poll body that he would not disturb public tranquillity and law and order. Since Khan had not given a similar assurance, the ban on him had continued. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrabab Naidu, key interlocutor among 21 opposition parties demanding verification of at least 50 per cent of polled votes against VVAPT slips, Monday alleged the Election Commission was functioning under the 'guidance' of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP. Opposition parties on Sunday had held a meeting to discuss the issue of EVM malfunctioning and said they will approach the Supreme Court again to demand that at least 50 per cent of paper trails be verified with EVMs. Naidu had met Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora Saturday to raise the issue of alleged malfunctioning of EVMs. The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief also asked the people of Karnataka to vote in favor of the JD(S)- Congress coalition candidates in the coming Lok Sabha polls. "Yesterday I met the Election Commission. All of you are here and I want to tell you one thing. This Election Commission is working under the guidance of Narendra Modi and BJP," Naidu said, addressing a public meeting in Mandyas Pandavapura. Alleging that the independent functioning of all constitutional organisations is under threat,he said "We are all together to fight against EVMs...as of today EVMs are vulnerable." Demanding verification of VVPAT paper trails of 50 per cent of the EVMs, he said "...we all suspect that the government of India and also the Election Commission of doing some fraud in VVPAT." Naidu on Monday campaigned in Mandya,where Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamys son Nikhil is the joint candidate of the ruling JD(S)-Congress alliance. Noting that this was a very important election for the nation and not just for Mandya or Karnataka alone, he said, "I'm appealing to all of you in Karnataka ...you have to vote for the JD(S)-Congress candidates. Naidu alleged that the current Prime Minister was the least accountable one in the last 70 years. "He never addressed one press conference...Democracy is in danger," he said, as he alleged that the CBI, Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax department, Reserve Bank of India, and the Election commission of India were being misused by Modi and BJP President Amit Shah. "Has Narendra Modi done anything for Karnataka in the last five years? We are paying taxes, nothing has been done for our states...even for Andhra Pradesh and other South Indian states and several parts of the country," he said as he hit out at Modi on various issues, including theRafale deal. Praising former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda and Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, Naidu asked people of Mandya to vote for Nikhil and defeat BJP in the state. Interestingly, multi-lingual actress and widow of actor turned politician M H Ambareesh- Sumalatha, who is from Andra Pradesh and reportedly belongs to the Naidu community, is contesting as independent against Nikhil, for whom Naidu campaigned on Monday in the Vokkaliga bastion. With an intention to avoid large-scale damage to JD(S) with splitting of Vokkaliga votes as both Nikhil and Sumalatha hail from the community, a campaign is on in Mandya to project her as an outsider, with several party leaders questioning her identity and stating that she is not a "Gowdthi" (not Vokkaliga), pointing at her Telugu background. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Slapped with a 48-hour ban on campaigning by the EC for her "provocative" communal remarks, BSP supremo Mayawati Monday alleged the decision appears to have been "taken under pressure" and it will be remembered as a "black day". Terming the ban a "sudden unprecedented order based on wrong facts", she asserted that the poor and deprived sections of the society will not forget it as she was being deprived of her right to appeal to uproot the BJP from power. The EC on Monday imposed a nation-wide ban on Mayawati, among other leaders, for their "provocative" communal remarks, which it said had the "propensity to polarise the elections". The action follows her speech in Deoband last week where she appealed to Muslim voters to not vote for Congress to avoid division in the anti-BJP votes. "All citizens have the rights to move about and put forth their point of view. But here, the Election Commission has suddenly given an order which has cruelly deprived me of my rights on the basis of wrong facts. "This order will be remembered in the history of Election Commission as a black day," Mayawati told reporters here while claiming that the "hurried" decision seems to have been taken under pressure. "The intention behind this order is clear that as BSP chief I am not able to make an appeal to the people to uproot the BJP from power...The EC knows that campaigning for the second phase ends Tuesday evening and the Agra joint rally was scheduled. Now, I will not be able to make an appeal to the voters of Agra, Mathura and Fatehpur. "Would such a sudden order, in a democratic set up like India, not be called murder of democracy," she posed. The BSP chief said that she had complete faith in her followers and supporters who would understand the intention behind the order and will cast their votes fearlessly in favour of the alliance. As for the ban on Adityanath, she said it will have no impact on the BJP as he is not party president. Mayawati also alleged that Election Commission has "closed its eyes and ears" on speeches by BJP president Amit Shah Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other saffron party leaders. "Shah and Modi have been given an open hand to spread hatred among different communities and play with the security of the country," the BSP president said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remarks asking first-time voters to dedicate their vote to those who carried out the Balakot air strike are under examination of the poll panel. About the rally in Agra scheduled Tuesday, Mayawati said senior BSP leaders will go there with her message. Even as the opposition parties accuse the BJP of sidelining its stalwarts in the ongoing Lok Sabha election, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma on Monday said elderly leaders were revered only in the saffron party. "What happened to former prime minister and Congress stalwart PV Narasimha Rao after his death is known to all of us. No one had gone to pay respect to the departed soul. Similarly, former Congress president Sitaram Kesri's end was very tragic. Apart from this, an office-bearer of the party (Congress chief Rahul Gandhi) had once torn a copy of a legislation passed by the Manmohan Singh government. Will they teach us how to show respect to our elders? It (Congress) is a party that alienates the elderly people," Sharma told PTI. "On the contrary, Prime Minister Narendra Modi walked in the funeral procession of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Such is the quantum of respect in the BJP for its stalwarts. Both Atalji and (LK) Advaniji are our idols," he added. The BJP has not fielded Advani in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls, prompting its rivals to take a dig at the saffron party. Sharma also took a jibe at Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav for his "wishful thinking". "They (SP) are contesting only 37 seats (in Uttar Pradesh) and dreaming of either becoming the prime minister or facilitating someone else to become the prime minister. This is simply laughable. You were unable to bring development in Uttar Pradesh and you will end up worsening the entire country through your unrealistic schemes and announcements," he said. Asserting that the BJP firmly believed in "nation first, party next and self last", Sharma said, "We are following this, but if someone is dreaming of dividing India, then the people of the country will give them an appropriate answer and their dreams will remain unfulfilled. The BJP will strongly deal with those who stay in India but want to hog the limelight in the Pakistani media. Elections may be the first priority for them, but for us, it is nation first. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) German and Spanish lawmakers protested against Julian Assange's detention on Monday, gathering outside a London prison to urge Britain and the EU to prevent his extradition to the United States. Two far-left German MPs, Heike Hansel and Sevim Dagdelen of Die Linke, and a Spanish Green member of the European Parliament, Ana Miranda, had been due to meet their "friend" Assange in London's Ecuadoran embassy later on Monday. Instead, following his expulsion and arrest last week, they protested outside the top-security Belmarsh prison in southeast London where he is being held, carrying placards demanding his release. "We are faced with a humanitarian imperative now that Assange is in UK custody and a US extradition request is out for him, after high ranking officials of the US -- including President Donald Trump -- have threatened the publisher with death," said Miranda. The WikiLeaks founder is in custody awaiting sentencing for breaching his British bail conditions in 2012 by seeking refuge in Ecuador's London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden. He was arrested at the embassy on Thursday after Ecuador revoked his asylum, and is now also fighting a US extradition warrant relating to the release by WikiLeaks of a huge cache of official documents. The US indictment charges Assange with "conspiracy" for working with former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to crack a password stored on Department of Defence computers in March 2010. Extradition to the United States would set "a dangerous precedent" for journalists worldwide, said Miranda, adding: "this threatens to criminalise journalism globally." Dagdelen urged Britain and the EU to block any extradition request. "We call on the British government not to extradite Julian Assange to the USA. "The European Union must take action to protect a politically-persecuted publisher and journalist," said the German politician, calling on Spain and her home country to grant Assange asylum. The three women were trying to see Assange in prison, but their application was "still pending". "I'm a friend of Julian Assange. He's a son, a father, a brother and a good friend," said Dagdelen. "His whole life he sacrificed for the truth." They also accused the Ecuadoran government of "engaging in a disinformation and slander campaign against Assange" after a series of reports emerged detailing his increasingly disfunctional relationship with embassy staff. Belmarsh has frequently been used in high-profile national security cases, including that of former Finsbury Park Mosque hate preacher Abu Hamza, who now resides in a US "supermax" prison following extradition. Radical cleric Anjem Choudary, who was convicted in 2016 of encouraging support for the Islamic State group, spent some of his sentence there. Belmarsh earned the moniker "the UK's Guantanamo Bay" in the period following the 9/11 attacks after it was used to detain a number of people under anti-terror laws. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India's exports grew by 11 per cent to USD 32.55 billion in March on account of higher growth in sectors including pharma, chemicals and engineering, government data showed Monday. Imports rose by 1.44 per cent to USD 43.44 billion during the month. However, trade deficit narrows to USD 10.89 billion as compared to USD 13.51 billion in the same month last year. Gold imports rose by 31.22 per cent to USD 3.27 billion in March 2019. Oil imports rose by 5.55 per cent in March to USD 11.75 billion. For the full fiscal (2018-19), exports grew by 9 per cent to USD 331 billion and imports rose by 8.99 per cent to USD 507.44 billion. In result, the country's trade deficit widened to USD 176.42 billion for the entire fiscal, compared to USD 162 billion in 2017-18, data showed. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A farmer and his bull died Monday after they came into contact with a live wire in a village in Chhattisgarh's Jashpur district, police said. The incident occurred in Marga village under Manora development block when Bartholomish Tigga was taking his cattle to his field, said Jashpur Superintendent of Police Shankar Lal Baghel. Tigga inadvertently stepped on the broken 11 KV live electric wire which was lying near his field, he said, adding that Tigga's bull also suffered electric shock. Both of them died on the spot, the SP said. Blaming Electricity department for the incident, locals staged a protest and blocked Jashpur-Sanna road for about an hour, he said, adding that they dispersed after police officials pacified them. A compensation has been ordered for the kin of the deceased by local administration. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Finland's leftist Social Democrats won a razor-thin victory in Sunday's general election, holding off the far-right Finns Party which surged on an anti-immigration agenda. With 100 per cent of ballots counted, the Social Democrats, led by 56-year-old former trade union boss Antti Rinne, picked up 40 seats in parliament, after campaigning on a ticket of fierce opposition to the austerity imposed by the previous centre-right government of Prime Minister Juha Sipila. Meanwhile the Finns Party, which won 39 seats, had focused almost entirely on an anti-immigration agenda under the leadership of hardline MEP Jussi Halla-aho, who also decried the "climate hysteria" of the other parties. Only 0.2 percentage points separated the two parties -- in a heavily splintered political landscape where the Social Democrats were the biggest party with 17.7 per cent of votes. They will head a government for the first time in 16 years, though it has been a junior coalition member since then. The Finns Party has seen a surge in support in recent months, urging people to "vote for some borders" and pledging to reduce Finland's asylum intake to "almost zero". It more than doubled its presence in parliament, from 17 seats to 39, and regained all of the ground it lost when more than half of Finns Party MPs fled the party in 2017 on the election of hardline leader Jussi Halla-aho. During the campaign, most parties expressed strong reservations about sharing a government platform with Halla-aho's party, while stopping short of ruling it out entirely. Finnish governments are typically a coalition of three or four parties that form the minimum 101-seat majority in parliament. The Social Democrats' Antti Rinne has previously said his party would find it "very difficult" to enter a coalition with the Finns Party. But after declaring victory on Sunday, Rinne did not rule out a collaboration, saying he "has questions" for the party. "Some of the questions will be about values," Rinne told Finnish media. "The Social Democratic Party's values are very important, it's the glue that will hold the government together." Rinne could also choose to form a coalition with the conservative National Coalition party, which came in third with 38 seats. Although the two parties have repeatedly clashed over the conservatives' austerity policies during the last four years, political commentator Sini Korpinen told AFP the pair would more than likely choose to collaborate in order to keep the Finns Party in opposition. "It's very hard to see that the other parties would say no to the Social Democrats, because then we would be in a situation with Halla-aho trying to form a government and I just don't see that happening," Korpinen said. Outgoing Prime Minister Juha Sipila said his Centre Party was the election's "biggest loser", blaming the "difficult economic decisions" his administration made in an attempt to rebalance the economy after a long slump. Voter turnout of 72 per cent was higher than the 70.1 per cent who voted in 2015. The current government's cuts to Finland's prized education system, and a tightening of unemployment benefit criteria, had provoked loud and widespread public opposition. Rinne has been a staunch opponent of the National Coalition's austerity policies over the past four years. And Petteri Orpo, leader of the conservative National Coalition Party and co-architect of the government's savings programme, has denounced the Social Democratic Party's anti-austerity plans as "irresponsible". However, in a tacit acknowledgement that the public mood was against further belt-tightening, Orpo has insisted that the economy is now strong enough to allow for some more generous public spending. Opinion polls had suggested the Social Democrats' lead was narrowing towards the end of their campaign, with some blaming Rinne's inability to attract large numbers of new, younger voters. The growing Finns Party ratings, on the other hand, appeared to be driven by new supporters who have not voted in the past. Finns Party leader Halla-aho sought to dispel accusations that he hoped to keep his party in opposition after the election, so as to avoid facing the tough decisions of being in power. On Sunday he said his party was open to being in a coalition "but not at any cost". The Finns Party does have previous experience of being in government, when they became the second-largest party in the 2015 election. But that led to the group splitting acrimoniously when its popularity spiralled following unpopular compromises on immigration and EU bailouts. The hardline faction, led by Halla-aho, went into opposition in 2017, and the party took a further lurch to the right. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan was slapped on Monday with an FIR by the UP Police and a notice from the National Commission for Women for his alleged "khaki underwear" jibe against BJP leader Jaya Prada, while the saffron party mounted a sharp political attack comparing his "disgusting" comments to disrobing of Draupadi in Mahabharata. The actor-turned-politician, who was earlier with the SP and has now been pitted by the BJP against Khan from Rampur Lok Sabha seat, demanded his immediate disqualification from contesting polls and said she had considered him a brother but he has now crossed the 'lakshman rekha'. The Election Commission officials said they are examining the alleged remarks made by Khan, who has often stoked controversies with his speeches, and that the poll panel can even go beyond the ambit of the model code as the reported comments are not in a good taste. During the last Lok Sabha elections in 2014, the EC had imposed a ban on Khan from campaigning in Uttar Pradesh for his provocative speeches and had also lodged an FIR against him. Khan, however, remained defiant and said he did not name any person in his speech and if anyone proves that he had taken any name or maligned anyone then he would not contest the polls. Without naming the actor, Khan had told an election rally on Sunday in Rampur "... You got represented (by her) for 10 years. People of Rampur, people of Uttar Pradesh and people of India, it took you 17 years to understand her reality. But, I could recognize it in 17 days that she wears a khaki underwear." As the remarks drew a sharp criticism, with the BJP launching a scathing attack on him and other SP leaders including the party chief Akhilesh Yadav who was allegedly himself present at the rally, the police lodged an FIR against Khan. Rampur's District Magistrate Aajaneya Kumar Singh told PTI, "An FIR has been registered against Azam Khan under section 509 of the IPC (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and under sections of the Representation of People's Act." The National Commission for Women (NCW) issued a show cause notice to Khan, saying his remarks were "extremely derogatory, offensive, unethical and show disrespect towards dignity of women". It also urged the EC to take "strong action" against the SP leader. The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) also asked the EC to take strict action against politicians making "disparaging" comments against women. Union Minister Sushma Swaraj questioned SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav's silence on the matter and asked him not to stay silent like 'Bhishma Pitamah' did at disrobing of Draupadi in Mahabharata. Tagging a video of Khan's remarks, Swaraj tweeted, "Brother Mulayam, you are the patriarch of the Samajwadi Party. In Rampur, Draupadi is being disrobed in front of you. Don't commit the mistake of staying silent like Bhishma Pitamah", referring to an incident from the famous Indian mythology Mahabharata. Swaraj also tagged SP president Akhilesh Yadav, who was allegedly present at the rally when Khan made the controversial remarks, his wife Dimple Yadav and film star Jaya Bachchan, who is also an SP leader. At an election rally in Gujarat, BJP chief Amit Shah hit out at Khan and his party, as well as its ally in Uttar Pradesh BSP, and sought their apology for their leader's "disgusting" remark, calling it an insult to crores of mothers and sisters", not Jaya Prada alone. BJP leader and union minister Smriti Irani also questioned the silence of the Congress and its allies on Khan's remarkes and alleged it was a clear indication that those connected with the UPA were disrespectful towards women. "There is silence on the part of the Congress, its allies and other such political parties on the derogatory comments of Azam Khan...there has not been any opposition to it nor any condemnation...this proves that those in the UPA are disrespectful towards women," she told reporters in Amethi, where she is fighting Lok Sabha election against Rahul Gandhi. Speaking to reporters in Rampur, Jaya Prada said, "(Khan has) crossed the lakshman rekha (his limits) this time. He is no longer a brother to me. I had considered him as my brother and tolerated everything, but now I cannot tolerate (this)." Seeking an answer from SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, she said, "I am asking Akihlesh, whether you will allow such a person to contest the polls. Shame. He (Khan) should be expelled." Jaya Prada had represented Rampur twice in Lok Sabha after winning in 2004 and 2009 as a Samajwadi Party leader. Later she was expelled from the party, along with Amar Singh, following differences with Mulayam Singh Yadav. Last month she joined BJP and has been nominated as the saffron party's candidate against Khan from Rampur, which goes to polls on April 23. Singh, who is considered as her mentor in UP politics, also attacked Khan and called him "filth and muck" of Indian Singh also alleged Khan of distributing Jaya Prada's morphed pictures during last elections and of launching a vicious propaganda against him and her. Khan and some other SP leaders sought to suggest that Khan's comments were targeted at Singh. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan was slapped Monday with a poll campaign ban, an FIR and a women commission notice for his alleged "khaki underwear" jibe at BJP leader Jaya Prada, while the saffron party mounted a sharp political attack comparing his "disgusting" comments to disrobing of Draupadi in Mahabharata. The actor-turned-politician, who was earlier with the SP and has now been pitted by the BJP against Khan from Rampur Lok Sabha seat, demanded his immediate disqualification from contesting polls and said she had considered him a brother but he has now crossed the 'lakshman rekha'. After examining the remarks made at an election rally on Sunday by Khan, who has often stoked controversies with his speeches, the Election Commission on Monday night imposed a nationwide ban on him from campaigning for 72 hours, beginning Tuesday. During the last Lok Sabha elections in 2014, the EC had imposed a ban on Khan from campaigning in Uttar Pradesh for his provocative speeches and had also lodged an FIR against him. Khan, however, remained defiant and said he did not name any person in his speech and if anyone proves that he had taken any name or maligned anyone then he would not contest the polls. Without naming the actor, Khan had told the election rally in Rampur "... You got represented (by her) for 10 years. People of Rampur, people of Uttar Pradesh and people of India, it took you 17 years to understand her reality. But, I could recognize it in 17 days that she wears a khaki underwear." Jaya Prada had represented Rampur twice in Lok Sabha after winning in 2004 and 2009 as a Samajwadi Party leader. Later she was expelled from the party, along with Amar Singh, following differences with Mulayam Singh Yadav. Last month she joined BJP and has been nominated as the saffron party's candidate against Khan from Rampur, which goes to polls on April 23. Khan and some other SP leaders sought to suggest that Khan's comments were targeted at Singh, who is considered her mentor in UP As the remarks drew a sharp criticism, with the BJP launching a scathing attack on him and other SP leaders including the party chief Akhilesh Yadav who was allegedly himself present at the rally, the police lodged an FIR against Khan. Rampur's District Magistrate Aajaneya Kumar Singh told PTI, "An FIR has been registered against Azam Khan under section 509 of the IPC (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and under sections of the Representation of People's Act." The National Commission for Women (NCW) issued a show cause notice to Khan, saying his remarks were "extremely derogatory, offensive, unethical and show disrespect towards dignity of women". It also urged the EC to take "strong action" against the SP leader. The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) also asked the EC to take strict action against politicians making "disparaging" comments against women. Union Minister Sushma Swaraj questioned SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav's silence on the matter and asked him not to stay silent like 'Bhishma Pitamah' did at disrobing of Draupadi in Mahabharata. Tagging a video of Khan's remarks, Swaraj tweeted, "Brother Mulayam, you are the patriarch of the Samajwadi Party. In Rampur, Draupadi is being disrobed in front of you. Don't commit the mistake of staying silent like Bhishma Pitamah", referring to an incident from the famous Indian mythology Mahabharata. Swaraj also tagged SP president Akhilesh Yadav, who was allegedly present at the rally when Khan made the controversial remarks, his wife Dimple Yadav and film star Jaya Bachchan, who is also an SP leader. At an election rally in Gujarat, BJP chief Amit Shah hit out at Khan and his party, as well as its ally in Uttar Pradesh BSP, and sought their apology for their leader's "disgusting" remark, calling it an insult to crores of mothers and sisters", not Jaya Prada alone. BJP leader and union minister Smriti Irani also questioned the silence of the Congress and its allies on Khan's remarkes and alleged it was a clear indication that those connected with the UPA were disrespectful towards women. "There is silence on the part of the Congress, its allies and other such political parties on the derogatory comments of Azam Khan...there has not been any opposition to it nor any condemnation...this proves that those in the UPA are disrespectful towards women," she told reporters in Amethi, where she is fighting Lok Sabha election against Rahul Gandhi. Speaking to reporters in Rampur, Jaya Prada said, "(Khan has) crossed the lakshman rekha (his limits) this time. He is no longer a brother to me. I had considered him as my brother and tolerated everything, but now I cannot tolerate (this)." Seeking an answer from SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, she said, "I am asking Akihlesh, whether you will allow such a person to contest the polls. Shame. He (Khan) should be expelled." Amar Singh also attacked Khan, calling him "filth and muck" of Indian The former SP leader also alleged Khan of distributing Jaya Prada's morphed pictures during last elections and of launching a vicious propaganda against him and the actor-politician. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An FIR was registered Monday against senior leader for his "underwear" jibe against BJP leader and film actor Jaya Prada who is fighting the from Rampur against him. District magistrate of Rampur Aajaneya Kumar Singh Monday told PTI, "An FIR has been registered against under section 509 of the IPC (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and under sections of the Representation of People's Act." On Sunday, without naming the actor, Khan told the gathering in an election rally in Rampur "... you got represented (by her) for 10 years. "People of Rampur, people of Uttar Pradesh and people of India, it took you 17 years to understand her reality. But, I could recognize it in 17 days that she wears a khaki underwear. (Rampur waalo, Uttar Pradesh waalo, Hindustan waalo, usski asliyat samajhne mein aapko 17 baras lag gaye. Main 17 dinon mein pehchaan gaya ki inke neeche kaa jo underwear hai, woh khaki rang kaa hai), said Khan. The video of Khan's purported speech was also doing the rounds on various social media platform. However, Azam on Monday clarified that he had not named anyone in his speech. "I have not taken the name of any person, nor did I tell the positive aspect or negative aspect of anyone. I only referred to a sick person in Delhi, who deserves sympathy, and who had once said that he will spray bullets on me with 150 rifles...I only said that it took people long to identify them, and the same mistake was committed by our party leaders as well," the SP leader said. "It was also known that there was a RSS pant on his body, and pants are worn by men. If anyone can prove that I had taken any name, or maligned anyone, then I will not contest the polls," Khan added. A colossal fire swept through the famed Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on Monday, causing a spire to collapse and raising fears over the future of the nearly millenium old building and its precious artworks. The fire, which began in the early evening, sent flames and huge clouds of grey smoke billowing into the Paris sky as stunned Parisians and tourists watched on in sheer horror. The cause of the blaze was not immediately confirmed but the cathedral had been undergoing intense restoration work to help the 850-year-old gothic masterpiece better deal with the tests of time. The flames and smoke plumed from the spire and roof of the cathedral, visited by millions of people a year. Deputy Paris mayor Emmanuel Gregoire told BFM TV the spire "collapsed inwards" and that workers were scrambling "to save all the artworks that can be saved." A spokesman for the cathedral told AFP that the wooden structure supporting the roof was being gutted by the blaze. "Everything is burning," the spokesman for Notre Dame, Andre Finot, told AFP. The fire service said the blaze could be "potentially linked" to ongoing renovations. President Emmanuel Macron cancelled a major televised policy speech he was due to give on Monday evening over the "terrible fire ravaging Notre-Dame." He was to head to the scene in person, the Elysee announced. In a tweet he expressed the "emotion of a whole nation" on seeing Notre-Dame ablaze. "Like all my compatriots I am sad to see a part of us burn this evening" he said, expressing solidarity with "all Catholics and all French people." German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Notre-Dame cathedral a "symbol of European culture" as the blaze raged. Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo in a tweet described it as a "terrible fire". Vast clouds of grey-white smoke billowed round the cathedral as yellow flames still licked the top of the building. There was no immediate indication of any casualties in the blaze. "The Paris fire service is trying to control the flames," Hidalgo wrote on Twitter, asking residents to respect the security cordon thrown up around the site. A spokesperson for the cathedral said the fire, which comes as French Catholics prepare to celebrate Easter, broke out at around 1650 GMT. Fire trucks could be seen speeding through Paris towards the scene on the Ile de la Cite -- an island in the Seine at the heart of Paris. The Paris police department in a tweet called on residents to avoid the area and to "make way for rescue vehicles". US President Donald Trump in a tweet said: "So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!" Hundreds of people gathered on the bridges of Paris downriver to witness the scene, some filming the images with their smartphones, an AFP reporter said. The cathedral had been undergoing intense restoration work which last week saw statues lifted from the top of the cathedral. Built between the years 1163 and 1345, Notre-Dame is one of the most popular tourist sites in Paris, drawing around 13 million people every year. The spire, like the rest of the gothic edifice, had been undergoing the 11-million-euro (USD 12.4-million) overhaul financed by the French state to repair damage inflicted by time, pollution and the weather. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rafale is the French jet at the centre of controversy and 'Rafel' the name of their village. It's an unfortunate coincidence that makes them the butt of jokes and attracts negative attention, say residents of the hamlet who desperately want a name change. The small village, home to about 200 families, falls in Chhattisgarh's Mahasamund constituency which votes on April 18. "People of other villages make fun of us, saying we will be subjected to investigation if the Congress comes to power. We even went to the chief minister's office with a request to change the name of our village but could not meet him," 83-year-old Dharam Singh, the eldest in the village, told PTI over phone. "The name only attracts negative ire because of the Rafale controversy but no one cares about our village. Outside the state, not many people know about the village," he said. The village, according to Singh, lacks basic facilities such as water and sanitation. Farming is dependent on rain as there are no irrigation facilities. "Politicians have adopted so many villages across the country but no one even visits our village. Two weeks ago, a few BJP workers came but they were also ground level people. Whoever wins the elections and comes to power, our request will be to change the name," he said. Singh has no idea why the village is called Rafel and what it means. "I don't know but this has been the name for decades, even before was formed in 2000. I don't know the logic behind the name," he said. Bharatiya Janata Party's Chandulal Sahu is the sitting member of Parliament from Mahasamund and is contesting again from the constituency. He is up against Congress' Dhanendra Sahu and Bahujan Samaj Party's Dhansing Kosariya. The Congress and other opposition parties have been targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the government on the Rafale fighter jet deal with France, alleging that the price of each aircraft was sharply hiked and the contract will benefit industrialist Anil Ambani. The government and Ambani have denied the allegations. A 69-year-old French national associated with a child protection organisation has been arrested here for allegedly sexually abusing two teenage boys, police said. Acting on a tip-off, the police arrested Georges Igor Himansky with his victims, aged 14 and 15, from Kathmandu's Thamel area on Friday. During the raid, he was found to be involved in sexual activities with the boys, police said. "The police has filed a case of unnatural sex and child sex abuse against the French man at the Kathmandu District Court," a statement issued by the Nepal Police said. Himansky's association with Association for the Protection of Children (APC) made it easy for him to find vulnerable boys, media reports said. The accused had been feeding his perverse fantasies involving young boys for years by presenting himself as a benevolent foreigner who helped children from the street and from poor economic background, an investigator was quoted as saying by the Kathmandu Post. Nilkantha Acharya, executive director of APC, said that Himansky used to volunteer as a yoga instructor and he had been sponsoring one of the children without the organisation's consent. "Police suspect Himansky had long been entreating young Nepali boys and engaging in sexual activities with them because this was his seventh visit to Nepal," he was quoted as saying by the paper. Investigation has also revealed that Himansky had been arrested in his own country in 2000 for a paedophilia-related crime. Himansky is the third French paedophile arrested in Nepal this year. Police arrested two French men for sexually abusing children from Kathmandu in July last year, the paper reported. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A fresh round of talks will be held between the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress Wednesday, where the AAP will propose an tie-up in Delhi, Haryana and Chandigarh with a seat sharing ratio of 5:2 in the national capital, sources said. Senior leader Ahmed Patel would hold talks on Congress's behalf and the AAP will be represented by party leader Sanjay Singh, they said. The meeting would be mediated by NCP leader Sharad Pawar. This is the second meeting held in his presence over talks on alliance. On Sunday, Kejriwal said his party would do anything to "save the country" from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief was addressing a press conference in New Delhi after a meeting of opposition parties to discuss the issue of EVM malfunctioning in the ongoing parliamentary election. The sources said seat sharing in Delhi has to be done in the ratio of 5:2, with five seats for the AAP and two seats for the Congress. They said a response in the matter is awaited from the grand old party. The uncertainty over an alliance between the AAP and the Congress has been continuing for some time now. The talks derailed after they failed to reach an agreement over seat-sharing in Delhi and Haryana. The Congress had proposed three seats for the AAP and four seats for the grand old party, but senior party leader Sanjay Singh called off the talks. Congress' in-charge for Delhi PC Chacko had said Friday the party would go it alone in Delhi as the AAP had taken an "impractical stand". AAP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia although said Saturday that his party was ready to form an alliance with the Congress in Delhi, Haryana and Chandigarh, but it would not agree for a tie-up just in the national capital. The AAP has announced names for all seven seats in Delhi, while the Congress is yet to make an announcement about it. Delhi goes to polls in the sixth phase of election on May 12. The results would be declared on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Markets regulator Sebi has barred Kashyap Technologies and six other entities, including Clifford Capital Partners, for at least five years from securities market in a matter related to manipulation of global depository receipts (GDRs). Among the six entities, five were Kashyap Technologies' directors when the violation took place. Besides, Sebi directed Kashyap Technologies ltd (KTL) to continue efforts to recover an outstanding sum of 10.39 million from Clifford Capital Partners, the only subscriber of the company's GDRs. The regulator after an investigation of a GDR issue during December 2007 found that the firm issued 0.49 million GDRs worth USD 16.5 million on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. It was observed that the entire 0.49 million GDRs were subscribed by only one entity, Clifford Capital Partners. The subscription amount for GDRs was paid by Clifford after securing a loan from Lisbon-based bank Banco Efisa. However, the firm had pledged the GDR proceeds to the bank against the loan given to Clifford for subscription of GDRs, Sebi said in an order on Friday. Besides, the firm gave a false and misleading corporate announcement that its GDR issue was successfully allotted whereas the same was subscribed by only one entity, the regulator said. Regarding the five directors, Sebi said they were the members of the board of directors who approved the resolution regarding the loan agreement to Clifford and thus were part of the fraudulent arrangement of facilitating the subscription of its own GDR. Further, it said Clifford had the knowledge of the fact that KTL itself was acting as a security provider for the loan being taken by it for subscribing the GDR issue, hence the claim that it was not a party to the scheme is not acceptable. Moreover, USD 10.39 million was transferred to Clifford by KTL for default in repayment of loan to the bank. The regulator found that the Clifford acquired the GDR, to the extent of USD 10.39 million for free and at the cost of investors of KTL which cleared the loan of Clifford from the GDR proceeds. By indulging in such activities, all the entities violated the PFUTP (Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices) regulations, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said. The five directors are A Venkatramani, A Ganesan, R Dakshinamurthy, A Sivakumaran and R Gopalan. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Germany lamented the huge fire devastating Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on Monday, with Chancellor Angela Merkel's office calling the building a "symbol of France and of our European culture". "These horrible images of Notre-Dame on fire are painful," Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Twitter. "Notre-Dame is a symbol of France and of our European culture. Our thoughts are with our French friends. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 50-year-old man was apprehended at a Delhi Metro station in Ghaziabad on Monday for allegedly carrying a pistol and live bullet rounds in his bag, officials said. CISF personnel apprehended Raj Kumar, a resident of Uttar Pradesh, at the Arthala metro station around 11:30 am after the baggage scanner detected a country-made pistol and three bullets in his bag, they said. The station is on the red line of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and is located in Ghaziabad in the national capital region. The man was handed over to the local police by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel for further investigation, officials said. Carrying arms and ammunition in the Delhi Metro is banned by the law. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Centre on Monday extended the ceasefire agreement by one year with two insurgent groups in Nagaland, while a fresh pact for suspension of operations was signed with another outfit, the Home Ministry said. A ceasefire is in operation between the Union government and the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Neopao Konyak/Kitovi) and National Socialist Council of Nagaland/Reformation (NSCN/R). It was decided to extend the suspension of operation agreement with NSCN/NK and NSCN/R for a further period of one year with effect from April 28 this year till April 27, 2020, a Home Ministry statement said. This was signed on behalf of the central government by Satyendra Garg, Joint Secretary, in the Home Ministry, and Jack Jimomi, Supervisor, GPRN/NSCN, on behalf of NSCN/NK and by Amento Chishi, Supervisor, and Toshi Longkumer, Secretary, on behalf of NSCN/R. Meanwhile, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland/K-Khango has also entered into a fresh ceasefire agreement with the Union government from Monday for a period of one year, the statement said. The new ceasefire agreement and revised ceasefire ground rules were signed by Garg and Newell Naga, Supervisor and Michael Yeptho, member, on behalf of NSCN/K-Khango. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Archaeology of Cyprus During the winter months, it can be difficult to find things to write about for White Mountain Druid Sanctuary because it is buried under snow and frozen ground. However, Kirk Thomas, who is creating WMDSanctuary, has found an archaeological tour company in the Mediterranean that he really likes. He has written several Facebook posts about the history of Cyprus, so I'm going to post those here. First post The Archaeology of Cyprus So my tour in Cyprus really began today, and we visited our first two sites, plus a museum. Photos will commence in later posts as I report on my travels here. Cyprus has been a crossroads for this part of the Mediterranean for millennia. There was a vibrant Neolithic culture here, which disappeared for a couple of hundred years (like on Malta) but was eventually replaced by a new culture in the Copper and Bronze Ages. They had a strong trade with Bronze Age Ugarit and the rest of those 'empires', such as the Mycenaeans, Hittites, and Egyptians. When that all collapsed it would appear that Cyprus hung on a bit and transitioned into the Iron Age (like everyone else around there) until they were conquered by the Phoenicians in the 9th century, followed by the Assyrians, and then the Persians. During this time the great city states came into being, and these were ruled by local elites and kings under their conquerors. It was after Alexander the Great's death when Ptolemy took over Egypt and Cyprus that the local kings were suppressed (either killed or driven to suicide, I read). This period ended with the Roman conquest, and after the western Empire fell Cyprus was part of the Byzantine Empire until the Crusades. After the Knights of Malta and others like them Cyprus was conquered by the Ottomans, and after the First World War fell to the British. Cyprus became independent after the Second World War but in the 1970's the northern part of the island was conquered by the Turks to forestall a coup that would have made the island part of Greece. They're still divided to this day. First day of tour, April 11, 2019 Khirokitia The Neolithic in Cyprus is divided into two main parts, the Aceramic Neolithic (7000-5000 BCE, before they had invented pottery), the Ceramic Neolithic (4500-4000 BCE, with pottery), and the Chalcolithic (4000-2400 BCE, which is when copper began to be used along with stone). The site at Khirokitia is from the Aceramic phase, and is all the more remarkable for that. This site closely resembles a large walled village, and was continuously occupied for centuries. The place is full of 'houses', called 'tholoi' (singular, 'tholos') by the archaeologists, which is a better term because they might not have been houses after all. In about 80% of them there were human burials under the floors. Lots of them. In each tholos. Building foundations in the east part of the village More foundations in the east part Reconstructions in the Archaeological Park Another reconstruction to show how they were built The settlement is actually quite large. When you look at the map you will see how little has actually been excavated so far. At the end of the Aceramic period, however, all of the sites, including Khirokitia, were abandoned. After a few hundred years of apparent nothingness, remains from the Ceramic period can be found around the island. Map of the site. The green is the greatest extent of the village. the orange and yellow are the parts that have been excavated. Since they didn't have pottery they made bowls and other utensils out of stone (see photo). They even carved some very simple figurines out of river stones. A stone bowl (and my foot for size comparison) And they built a rather impressive wall around most of the settlement (except where there was an escarpment which provided its own protection). Even more impressive is the entrance to the site. Instead of just an opening in the wall, you had to climb a couple of steps, make a hard left turn and climb many more steps, make a hard right turn with more steps, and find yourself facing a large tholos which forced you to make a right turn yet again to enter the site. Why this was done is unknown. There is no evidence of fighting, no weapons, arrow heads, or evidence of burning, so warfare isn't an obvious answer. Perhaps the twisty entrance was to keep domesticated animals out? In any case, it certainly marked out a boundary of some kind. Looking down the reconstruction of the entry to the village. Some of the tholoi had massive stone columns inside of them, far more than needed to hold up a roof. In the reconstruction you can see that they might have held a sort of mezzanine, for a bed? Or maybe for storage? This reconstructed building is modeled on one of the first ones you see when you enter the actual site. Note the large columns holding up a mezzanine. Is this a sleeping loft? A storage place? Or a place to lay out the dead? But there is also another possible explanation for all this. Could Khirokitia be a City of the Dead? Perhaps the village walls were to mark out sacred space. Maybe the 'mezzanines' were where a body would be laid out before being buried? In some cases, the doors to the tholoi were walled up. Perhaps this one was 'full'? In a reconstructed tholos, there is an image of a burial in the floor. Another possibility is that the place was both a living settlement and a place of the dead. Keeping your mighty ancestors with you might have been very comforting. But we may never know. As someone who began the "Avengers" journey with "Iron Man" ten years ago, Robert Downey Jr says it is gratifying to see actors like Brie Larson, the newest addition to the team as Captain Marvel, shatter the glass ceiling. Downey Jr was certainly the star attraction as he struck his trademark Iron Man pose during the Asia press conference for "Avengers: Endgame" with co-stars Jeremy Renner, Larson and directors Anthony and Joe Russo on Monday. The actor said the emotional involvement of the audience with the franchise is the reward for the time and effort the team has put in these movies for the past decade. "I'm honestly looking at, seeing all of you, and I know some of you hold this cinematic universe close to your heart and it has this symbolism stuff and it has really come to that way for us too," he said when asked about his future plans for the coming 10 years. The 54-year-old star said trying to establish himself through Tony Stark to witnessing Larson's introduction as Carol Danvers has been a fulfilling experience. "Now, I honestly just feel like I get to be a part of witnessing this cultural moment that's coming up and I'm filled with a lot of gratitude. Just to be (here) next door to the centre stage, to the lady of the hour here (Larson), who's broken through this double-pane glass window and kind of re-established what this genre is supposed to be, is just very gratifying," he added. After his emotional response, the actor, known for his self-deprecating humour, quipped, "I sound so sincere. I'll stick around anyway." Captain Marvel, the first female superhero to have her own stand-alone, has been billed as the most powerful among the Marvel superheroes in the current lot. Fans are anticipating she will play a crucial role as the remaining Avengers team up to fight supervillain Thanos after he wiped off half of the universe's population. Larson said it was good to not know what happens in "Endgame", which she shot prior to "Captain Marvel", as she would never end up accidentally giving out spoilers. Joking about the film's lengthy runtime of over three hours, the director duo advised fans to avoid drinking before the start as they would miss the crucial moments if they opt for a bathroom break. Russo brothers have been tight-lipped about their plans to return to the MCU after "Endgame" but they said the film is their best work till date. "We had an incredible experience working with Marvel. It has been the best of our careers. There is nothing set in stone or I can tell you specifically but we would absolutely love to work with them again," Joe said. The filmmakers are, however, coming back to their indie roots with a film about a war veteran, featuring "Spider-Man" star Tom Holland. Titled "Cherry", the film is reportedly based on an autobiographical novel of the same name by Nico Walker. "We are moving into our next movie with Tom Holland. It is a smaller movie about a war veteran who comes home from Iraq with PTSD and develops a heroin addiction. "So, it's a bit heavier material but we are having this opioid epidemic. We just thought it was an important issue to attack," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Gujarat Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) Monday seized 5 kg methamphetamine from a house in Pahadganj in New Delhi. The seizure is part of a larger consignment which was dispatched from Pakistan and received off the Gujarat coast in Kutch. The seized drug, also known as Ice, is estimated to cost Rs 24 crore in the international markets, it said. The seizure was made on the basis of information provided by one of the two accused arrested two days ago in connection with the seizure of 100 kg heroin from a boat off Porbandar coast in which nine Iranian nationals were arrested, the ATS said in a release. The ATS said Niyamat Khan Ahmedzai, an Afghan national who was arrested earlier, told the sleuths that he had handed over 10 kg Ice to another accused from Kerala, Mohammed Abdul Salaam Kunni, in Delhi. The ATS team took Kunni to Delhi who led the officials to the house, it said. Kunni revealed that rest of the consignment was dispatched to Saudi Arabia using willing passengers in various flights as couriers, the ATS said. Ice, also referred to as shabu, crystal, crystal meth or d-meth, is the purest and the most potent form of methamphetamine. It comes as powder or crystals that are usually snorted, injected or smoked, the release said. Haji Nadar, an Afghan national whose name came up during interrogation, had instructed Ahmedzai over phone that he will have to receive the consignment of Ice coming from a boat from Pakistan and landing in Kutch coast. He was further instructed to hand over the consignment to Kunni in Delhi, the ATS said. "The accused further revealed that this consignment is part of a larger consignment landed at Kutch coast," it said. In a joint operation on March 27, the ATS, the Indian Coast Guard and the Marine Task Force had seized 100 kg heroin, estimated to cost Rs 500 crore in the international markets, and arrested nine Iranian nationals. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a first, the Election Commission on Monday imposed a nationwide campaign ban on Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath for 72 hours and on Union Minister Maneka Gandhi and Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati for 48 hours from Tuesday for their "provocative" communal remarks, which it said had the "propensity to polarise the elections". A 72-hour campaign ban has also been imposed on Samajwadi Party's Azam Khan for his alleged "khaki underwear" jibe against actor-politician Jaya Prada, who is his rival BJP candidate in Rampur Lok Sabha seat. The all-India ban on all four leaders -- two from the ruling BJP and two from opposition parties -- comes into force from 6.00 AM Tuesday. While Adityanath, Mayawati and Gandhi were found guilty of violating the model code, the EC said Khan not only violated the poll code, he also disregarded its November 2013 directive asking politicians to desist from "deeds or actions construed as being repugnant to the honour and dignity of women". For the first time a pan-India ban has been imposed on politicians, while any restriction on a chief minister and a union minister is unprecedented. While there was no immediate reaction from Adityanath, Mayawati alleged the order has been passed "under pressure" and it would be remembered as a "black day" in the EC's history. She has faced action for appealing to Muslims to not vote for the Congress to avoid their anti-BJP votes getting divided. Her alliance partner and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav asked the EC whether it is capable to issue similar directives to the prime minister to stop him from asking for votes in name of the Army. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remarks asking first-time voters to dedicate their vote to those who carried out the Balakot air strike are under examination of the poll panel. The poll authorities in Maharashtra's Latur, where he made the speech, have told EC that prima facie the comments are violative of its orders asking parties against using the armed forces in their campaigns. The EC order to bar Adityanath and Mayawati came soon after the Supreme Court asking the poll watchdog about the action it has initiated against them. However, a senior EC functionary said the commission had examined the two issues on April 14-15, and came up with the final decision after lots of deliberation as it felt a clear message needed to go out to the politicians. In its order, the commission said it "strongly condemns" the impugned statement made by the UP chief minister and "censured" him for "misconduct". Using its constitutional powers, the EC barred him from "holding any public meetings, public processions, public rallies, road shows and interviews, public utterances in media (print, electronic and social media) in connection with the ongoing elections for 72 hours (three days) from 6.00 am on April 16." In another order, the EC censured and "strongly" condemned Mayawati for her remarks, and barred her from campaigning for two days. On different ban periods for the leaders, a senior EC official said, "It is for the second time that Adityanath has been issued a show cause notice. On April 5, he was asked to be 'careful' in future, following his 'Modiji ki sena' remarks. Besides, Khan had faced a similar ban in 2014 for campaigning in UP." "However, this is the first show cause and action against the BSP president ... The severity of the action is, therefore, different," he said. Adityanath was served the notice for his speech at a rally in Meerut, where he compared the Lok Sabha elections to a contest between 'Ali', a revered figure in Islam, and 'Bajrang Bali' (a name for Hindu god Hanuman). The poll panel observed that Adityanath, being a chief minister, has an "added responsibility to not only uphold the basic tenets, including secularism, of the Constitution of India, but also to display the same in his public appearances". The EC said it is convinced that Adityanath made a "highly provocative" speech which had the "tone and tenor" to aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred between religious communities. The poll panel told Mayawati that being a senior leader, she should have "desisted" from making comments that have the "undertone and propensity to polarise the elections" in several constituencies due to the reach of the media. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had summoned a representative of the EC earlier on Tuesday while agreeing to examine the poll panel's contention that it has limited legal powers to deal with hate speeches of politicians during electioneering. During 2014 LS polls, the EC had imposed state-specific ban on BJP leader Amit Shah and SP's Azam Khan from campaigning in Uttar Pradesh for their controversial remarks. The ban on Shah was lifted in a few days after he assured the poll body that he would not disturb public tranquillity and law and order. Since Khan had not given a similar assurance, the ban on him had continued. A similar ban was placed on BJP leader Giriraj Singh in 2014 from campaigning in Jharkhand and Bihar for his controversial remarks that people who do not vote for Narendra Modi will have to find a place in Pakistan. Action against Maneka followed her remarks on Thursday when she asked Muslims to vote for her as they will need her once the Lok Sabha elections are over. In its order on Khan, the EC noted the SP leader "has not changed his way of campaigning and he is still indulging in using very objectionable language in election campaigning. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi High Court Monday asked the city's pollution control committee not to take any coercive step against over 800 traders, who have been asked to pay Rs 1 lakh each in damages for causing pollution by engaging in scrapping activity in west Delhi's Mayapuri. Violence broke out in the area on April 13 when officials reached there along with a large contingent of police and paramilitary forces to carry out a sealing drive. Justice Vibhu Bakhru, in an interim order, said no coercive steps should be taken against the traders till the next date of hearing, that is, April 26. The court also sought response of the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) represented by advocate Sanjeev Ralli, Delhi government and DDA on a plea by several traders operating in Mayapuri industrial area. The DPCC had asked the traders to pay environmental damage charges of Rs 1 lakh each. Senior advocate Kirti Uppal and lawyers Sahil Bhalaik and Tushar Giri, appearing for the traders, challenged the DPCC's order issued earlier this month. The lawyers claimed these traders run motor parts shops in the area and were not indulging in any polluting activities. They also said no show cause notice was issued to the traders before imposing the penalty. Earlier this month, the DPCC had said in a statement that the industries carrying out scrapping activity inside or outside the Mayapuri industrial area have been levied the penalty. The action follows the guidelines of the National Green Tribunal (NGT), it had said. The committee had also levied an environmental compensation fine of Rs five lakh each on the South Delhi Municipal Corporation, the public works department (PWD) and the district-level monitoring committee after a report highlighting dumping of biomedical waste in Barapullah drain was published, it had said in the statement. The sealing drive on April 13 was conducted by the DPCC, which was acting on directions of the NGT. The tribunal had asked regulatory authorities to ensure closure of "illegal and unauthorised scrap industries in Mayapuri... generating chemicals, oils and poisonous fumes resulting in air pollution, deaths and diseases in Delhi. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Madras High Court Monday dismissed a petition by an Independent candidate seeking to cancel election in Madurai Lok Sabha constituency for alleged large scale distribution of cash by AIADMK and DMK after the Election Commission informed the charges were found to be unsubstantiated. A bench of Justices S Manikumar and Subramaniom Prasad dismissed the petition by K K Ramesh who sought a direction to the Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer and the Returning Officer of Madurai constituency to either cancel or postpone the polling slated for April 18. The petitioner alleged both the AIADMK and DMK were distributing cash to the voters and crores of rupees were given. Election Commission counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan, citing Constitutional provisions, raised preliminary objections on maintainability of the petition as just two days were left for the polling. He said based on the petitioner's complaints about money distribution in Madurai constituency, the flying squads conducted inspections on two occasions but found nothing to substantiate the allegations. In several places, CCTV cameras have been set up and surveillance teams and flying squads were making surprise visits to prevent money distribution, he added. Recording the submissions, the bench dismissed the petition. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court Monday issued a notice to former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav in connection with reportedly issuing threats to IPS officer Amitabh Thakur about four years ago. It also fixed May 4 for next hearing on the matter. A bench of Justice Shashikant passed the order on a petition moved by Thakur. Yadav has been accused of threatening the senior police official over phone on July 10, 2015. The police investigated the case and gave the SP patriarch a clean chit. Thakur, however, opposed the final report in the court. Later, the chief judicial magistrate (CJM), Lucknow rejected the final report by the police and directed to register the case as a complaint. The IPS officer challenged the CJM order, pleading that the matter should be registered as a police case as he argued that all the evidence was pointing towards a prima facie case against the Samajwadi Party (SP) leader. An FIR was registered on July 11, 2015 following a complaint by Thakur that Yadav threatened him over phone and released the audio of the phone call. The officer alleged that Yadav was unhappy over a complaint lodged by the former's wife Nutan against then state minister Gayatri Prasad Prajapati. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Madras High Court Monday observed there is a growing trend of corruption among higher authorities in the state department and stressed the need for the vigilance and anti-corruption departments to investigate them. It also asked authorities to verify details of properties of teaching and non-teaching staff in government schools. "There is a growing trend of corruption amongst the higher authorities in department. "Thus, the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Department must conduct investigations against the authorities of the department in the event of any inputs or otherwise," Justice S M Subramaniam said. The judge directed the principal secretary to government and the director of school education to verify details of movable and immovable properties of teaching and non-teaching staff in government and government-aided schools with reference to the declaration made by these employees in service records. "If any discrepancies are identified, suitable actions are to be taken, if necessary, through the department of vigilance and anti-corruption and under discipline and appeal rules," the court said. It also directed the state school education department to implement the Aadhaar enabled biometric attendance system in all government schools and government-aided institutions as per the government policy and as expeditiously as possible. The court rejected petitioner R Annal's prayer challenging implementation of the attendance system for teaching and non-teaching staff employed in these schools. The attendance system was systematically being implemented by the Union government, high courts and other public institutions across the country, the court said. "When the government thought fit to introduce such an advanced system for the purpose of ensuring foolproof attendance system in public services, it cannot be objected by none other than a teacher working in a school, who is expected to be a role model for young children," it said. The government was constrained to implement such a scheme as teachers in government schools are not attending school in time and leaving before school hours. "These teachers are involving in various other activities unconnected with their teaching profession even in the schools," it said. The court observed that growing indiscipline as well as negligence on part of teachers and non-teaching staff were not properly dealt with by competent educational authorities. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The head of a kindergarten in China has been detained for allegedly sexually assaulting a 4-year-old girl, official media here reported on Monday. Police in Sheqi county, Henan Province, said on Friday that the head of Happy Baby Kindergarten surnamed Sun had been detained after a video accusing him of raping children went viral on the internet. Police said that they are investigating and obtaining evidence under the local procuratorate's direction. The video shows a mother protesting at the kindergarten's gate with a banner reading "Brute Sun sexually abused a little girl, immoral and outrageous!" According to a police's notice in the video, the 4-year-old victim Xiaoya (pseudonym) told her parents that Sun took her to a bed and sexually abused her after parents continuously asked her why she did not want to go to school, state-run Global Times reported. After receiving the tip-off, the police said they immediately assigned a gynecological examination on Xiaoya and interrogated Sun. The video shows the kindergarten implemented a closed management system where parents could not enter the campus during class time. Sun cooked for students and ferried them to school. A person familiar with the matter told the Beijing that the kindergarten runs without officially issued qualification, noting that the kindergarten was poorly managed and the surveillance cameras were powered off. The kindergarten is located in a residential building and has 55 students in three classes under the four teachers' guidance, said the person, who asked for anonymity, adding that Sun is the only adult male in this kindergarten. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das on Monday criticised the Congress and said that the country witnessed the highest number of terrorist attacks and corruption cases during its dispensation at the Centre. Addressing an election rally at Haflaganj in favour of Dulal Chand Goswami -- the JD(U) candidate contesting from the Katihar Lok Sabha seat -- Das said the general elections of 2019 will set the course and direction of the country. It is up to the people whether they would elect a dynasty or give another opportunity to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "The corrupt Congress party broke the morale of the Army," Das claimed. He also alleged that the Congress government did not dare to retaliate in the face of repeated terrorist attacks on key installations. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The 72nd Himachal Day was celebrated with gaiety and fervour in the state on Monday. Governor Acharya Devvrat unfurled the national flag at an event on the historic Ridge maidan in Shimla to mark the day. He inspected an impressive parade led by Parade Commander Deputy Superintendent of Police Shakti Singh. Contingents of state police, home guards, NCC cadets, Bharat Scouts and Guides participated in the parade. Various other functions were also held at district and sub-divisional headquarters. Speaking in Shimla, the governor said it was a matter of great pride that the tiny hill-state developed rapidly after coming into existence on April 15, 1948 following the merger of 30 princely states. Difficult geographical conditions, inaccessible areas and other complexities could not affect the courage of the people, he said, adding that the honest and hard-working people took it to greater heights. The governor also expressed concern on the issue of drug addiction and said it's a serious threat to society. He asked people to work together and spread awareness against such social evils. He paid tributes to the freedom fighters and martyrs who made the supreme sacrifice for the nation. A colourful cultural programme was presented by students and a small skit was also performed by the District Election Department to make people aware about the importance of voting. Chief Secretary B.K. Agarwal, Director General of Police S.R. Mardi, additional chief secretaries, secretaries, senior officers of the state government and other prominent people were present at the event. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress chief Rahul Gandhi Monday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue of corruption and asked how come all "thieves" have 'Modi' as the common surname as he referred to fugitive businessman Nirav Modi and former IPL chairman Lalit Modi. Gandhi made the remarks while addressing a rally in support of Congress's Nanded Lok Sabha seat candidate and the party's Maharashtra chief Ashok Chavan. Keeping up his attack on Modi on the Rafale fighter jet deal, Gandhi asked the prime minister how come industrialist Anil Ambani got the offset contract despite having no experience in manufacturing such planes. He reiterated his charge that Modi had put Rs 30,000 crore of the people's money into Ambani's pocket by ensuring that the businessman got the contract instead of state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), which, he said, has been manufacturing aircraft for the last 70 years. "The planes which did the air strikes in Balakot? HAL. Sukhoi, Jaguar, Mirage, MiG. HAL is a government company and is making planes for the last 70 years," he said. The Indian Air Force had carried out the strike on a terror training camp in Pakistan's Balakot in February-end in retaliation to the Pulwama attack in which 40 CRPF men were killed. Gandhi also challenged the prime minister for a debate on the Rafale deal, the alleged sudden increase in the turnover of BJP chief Amit Shah's son's company and other "scams". In the past, Ambani has rejected Gandhi's allegations and emphasised that the government had no role in Rafale maker Dassault picking his company as a local partner. "But tell me one thing...Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Narendra Modi...how come they all have Modi as common name. How come all the thieves have Modi as the common name?" he asked. Reacting to the Congress leader's surname comment, Rajasthan BJP chief Madan Lal Saini claimed that it was an insult to a particular section of the society. Gandhi claimed that the prime minister did not reply to questions he had raised in Parliament in regard to the Rafale deal. He accused Modi of being a "chowkidar (watchman) of rich people like Ambani". "Not all the chowkidars are chor (thieves)... But one chowkidar has defamed all the chowkidars," he said, attacking Modi. Gandhi accused the central government of writing off loans worth Rs 3.5 lakh crore of the rich, but not of the poor, particularly farmers. The Congress leader said his party, if voted to power, it will bring a law that will ensure farmers are not arrested in the event of non-payment of loan. "If the likes of Anil Ambani are not in jail for not repaying loans, why should farmers be in jail?" he asked. Gandhi reiterated that if his party forms government, it would present two budgets: one national and the other for farmers. He expounded the Nyay programme, aimed at ensuring minimum income guarantee to the poor, and his party plans to implement it on coming to power. The party, in its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections, has said Nyay assures up to Rs 72,000 a year or Rs 6,000 a month income to 20 per cent of India's poorest families. The money will be transferred into the accounts of 5 crore women from such families, Gandhi said. Slamming Modi for "failing to keep his promise of giving two crore jobs to India's youth", Gandhi said, "We will provide 22 lakh jobs a year after the Congress comes to power". "Unemployment in India is now highest in the last 45 years," he said. Gandhi also slammed the government on the issue of demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax, saying they hurt the economy and rendered people jobless. Nanded, from where Chavan is seeking re-election, will vote on April 18. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Himachal BJP chief Satpal Singh Satti Monday refused to apologise for allegedly making a derogatory comment against Congress president Rahul Gandhi, saying he was merely reading a message shared widely on social media, asking party workers not to forward such texts. He said rather the Congress president should apologise for calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi a 'chor'. Himachal Congress chief spokesperson Naresh Chauhan had Sunday accused Satti of making a derogatory remark against Rahul Gandhi and sought his apology. Satti told PTI that he merely read out the contents of a message which was already viral on social media. "I have narrated an incident while addressing a public meeting in Nalagarh tehsil of Solan district whereby a derogatory remark was made against Rahul in retaliation of using 'chor' word for PM in a viral social media message," he said. "The person who used the derogatory word and made such a message viral can not be our worker. Even then I asked my workers to restrain from using such remark or sharing such messages," Satti said. He said the Congress leaders listened to only a part of his speech. "They should hear my speech in totality and then they will come to the conclusion that I have not used any derogatory remark against Rahul Gandhi," Satti said. He said, "Our workers have their own sentiments for the PM. So, Rahul Gandhi and Congress leaders should also apologise for using 'chor' word for PM in public meetings and should stop using that word for Modi". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress on Monday hit out at the BJP over the alleged abusive remarks against Rahul Gandhi made by the saffron party's Himachal Pradesh unit chief, alleging it is the culture of the ruling party to do so and the prime minister is silent over it. Congress leader Kapil Sibal claimed that one cannot expect anything better from the BJP as it is their culture to abuse, started by Prime Minister Narendra Modi before the 2014 elections. "They have a culture of abusing... which the prime minister started. This is their culture," he told reporters. "We cannot expect anything else from the BJP. The prime minister is still silent on this. Their leader or the president of a state unit has made an abusive remark which I cannot even publicly utter, but the prime minister is silent," Sibal said. To a question on Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan's derogatory comments against Jaya Prada, he said, "I believe a complaint is being filed or has been filed in the poll panel. It is the Election Commission's responsibility to take whatever action it wishes to take." On whether candidates making objectionable comments should be barred from contesting polls, Sibal said, "That is the responsibility of an authority under the Constitution and that authority has the freedom to take whatever action it wishes to take. We should expect that authority to take action in the context of the alleged statement." Himachal Congress chief spokesperson Naresh Chauhan had Sunday accused the BJP's state unit chief Satpal Singh Satti of making a derogatory comment against Rahul Gandhi and sought his apology for it. Satti, however, refused to apologise for the alleged comment saying he was merely reading a message shared widely on social media and asserted that he had asked party workers not to forward such texts. He said rather the Congress president should apologise for calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi a thief. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A New Zealand nurse abducted with two drivers in Syria in 2013 may still be alive, the International Committee of the Red Cross has revealed for the first time in an appeal for of her whereabouts. Louisa Akavi was snatched along with Syrian drivers Alaa Rajab and Nabil Bakdounes while travelling in a Red Cross convoy delivering supplies to Idlib, in the northwest of the country. Armed men stopped their convoy on October 13, 2013, and abducted seven people, four of whom were released the following day. The ICRC said it believed they were abducted by the Islamic State group (IS). "Our latest credible information indicates that Louisa was alive in late 2018," the group said Sunday in a statement from Geneva. "The ICRC has never been able to learn more details about Alaa and Nabil, and their fate is not known." New Zealand said it had dispatched a special forces unit to Syria to search for Akavi, who was believed to be still held by IS. "This has involved members of the NZDF (New Zealand defence force) drawn from the Special Operations Force, and personnel have visited Syria from time to time as required," New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters said Monday. "This non-combat team was specifically focused on locating Louisa and identifying opportunities to recover her. "The efforts to locate and recover Louisa are ongoing, and there are a number of operational or intelligence matters the government won't be commenting on," he said. Peters said information about the kidnapping had not been previously released for fear that any publicity would place the hostages at greater risk, and New Zealand media outlets which knew Akavi had been taken hostage agreed not to publish the story. "In these situations the priority must be the safety of the hostage and we received clear advice that any publicity would place Louisa at even greater risk," Peters said. "The government is very grateful for the cooperation of media outlets over many years in respecting this advice and undertaking not to publish ... and we thank them for their principled approach." ICRC operations director Dominik Stillhart said it was an "extremely difficult time" for the families of the three. "Louisa is a true and compassionate humanitarian. Alaa and Nabil were committed colleagues and an integral part of our aid deliveries. "We call on anyone with information to please come forward. If our colleagues are still being held, we call for their immediate and unconditional release." Akavi had carried out 17 field missions with the ICRC and the New Zealand Red Cross, the statement said. Rajab and Bakdounes were "dedicated husbands and caring fathers", it added. A spokesman for Akavi's family, Tuaine Robati, said she knew the dangers she faced. "She's been through tough times in her job before but she's stuck at it because she loves it," he said. "Louisa is an incredibly experienced nurse and aid worker who knew the risks of her job. Our family misses her very much and is concerned for her safety." The war in Syria, which began in 2011, has claimed more than 370,000 lives and forced millions of people to flee their homes. The Kurdish-led SDF, backed by a US-led coalition, captured the last IS bastion in eastern Syria on March 23, and had detained thousands of suspected IS fighters. But this could make it more difficult to find Akavi. The New York Times has reported the Red Cross has reason to believe she is alive, because at least two people described seeing her in December at a clinic in Sousa, one of the final villages to be held by IS jihadists. "We are speaking out today to publicly honour and acknowledge Louisa's, Alaa's, and Nabil's hardship and suffering," the ICRC statement said. The organisation has 98 foreign workers and 580 Syrians working in the country. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights accuses IS of abducting thousands of people since 2014. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the Abdullahs and Muftis of trying to break the country, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah Monday retorted back, saying if his family wanted to break India, "there would have been no India". Addressing a poll rally in Kathua district on Sunday, the prime minister had slammed the Abdullahs and Muftis, saying the two families "ruined" three generations of Jammu and Kashmir and he will not allow them to "divide" India. The NC leader said it was Modi who was trying to break the country, but he will not succeed. "Our party fights for the rights of all the people be it Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians or Buddhists and we will continue to fight. Even if Modi tries his best, he will not be able to break India. I want to tell him from here today that you will break, but India will not. You accuse the Abdullahs of trying to break India, if we wanted to break India, there would have been no India then," he said. Addressing a workers' rally near the city centre here, the former chief minister said Modi should remember that it was him (Abdullah) who held the country's flag when no one wanted to fight elections in the state in 1996. "Modi should remember that in 1996 when no was ready (for elections), I was the one who went ahead even as my colleagues said we should not contest. But I wanted the people to get rid of the difficulties they were facing...I held this flag and went ahead at that difficult time. You (Modi) should never forget that. There was no one here then, but now you scream," he said. Referring to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's statement that the Centre would make a stronger sedition law, Abdullah said "we will see what you will do" but Modi and the BJP cannot win the hearts of Kashmiris. "You cannot win our hearts. Hearts cannot be won by (using) pellet guns or banning highway or by doing injustice. You say we are not loyal, par agar hum wafadar nahin, tum bhi toa dildar nahin (if we are not loyal, you are also not large-hearted). You say we are your atoot-ang (integral part), how are we the integral part? Where? This is a lie. If we are your integral part, then do justice with us," he said. The former Union minister said Modi and BJP president Amit Shah were "destroying" the country and challenged them to hold an election rally in Kashmir. "Where does he (Modi) address a rally? In Kathua, in Akhnoor. He does not address Muslims in Kashmir because he knows that he has betrayed them. You (Modi) did not raise your voice when the Indian Muslim, who did not go to Pakistan and accepted India, was attacked by your people. Were they not Indians? Had they not spilled their blood for India? "Which leader fought the British when General Dyer killed people at Jalianwala Bagh? He was Saifuddin Kitchloo a Kashmiri from Baramulla. And hundreds of those killed there were from Kashmir. Did you ever remember them or take Kitchloo's name? You only remember those who killed Mahatma Gandhi. (Nathuram) Ghodse's temple is built in India and you said nothing. Are Muslims not a part of India? We are not dividing the country, but you are, on religious lines. You and Amit Shah are destroying India. So, desist from accusing us," he said. Referring to the post-poll scenario of the 2014 assembly elections when no party got a majority in the state, Abdullah said some people from the BJP had visited him in a hospital where he was undergoing treatment and wanted the NC to ally with the saffron party. "But, I told them that I was in hospital and had nothing to do with it. I am happy that Omar Abdullah did not join those people whose hands are drenched with the blood of Muslims," he said. "I want to tell Modi that Farooq Abdullah will not support you till his death. Do whatever you want, but you cannot buy our faith", he added. The NC president asked people to be cautious as the BJP would try to lure them with money. "They will come to you with money. They have about Rs 30,000 crore from Rafale deal," he said, asking people to be united and vote for the NC. Addressing the rally, party's vice president Omar Abdullah said during this election, the people of Jammu and Kashmir have come to know about the challenges and conspiracies that the state faces. "There are several powers which are trying to change the map of J-K. Some people are there who want to weaken J-K's identity and special status which we have inherited. The PM of this country warns this state in his every speech and screams the names of our party leaders and our party, saying that he will not let us succeed. Modi sahib, we will see what you will do to us if you win on May 23 (counting day)," he said. The NC vice-president, while referring to Modi's Kathua speech on Sunday, said his party was not like those who say one thing before the polls and another afterwards. "The speech you (Modi) made yesterday in which you said that you want to rid the state of the two dynasties, I remember you made the same speech in 2014. But, then what did you do in January 2015? You embraced one of the two dynasties. You made two chief ministers from that dynasty. So, should I be answerable or you? We do not make false promises," he said referring to the PDP-BJP alliance in the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Maharashtra Finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar has dared the Congress to implement its minimum income guarantee scheme called Nyay in states by ruled by it. In an interview to PTI, he said the Congress itself knew its ambitious poverty-alleviation scheme was not implementable. The Congress, in its manifesto, has said that 20 per cent poorest families in the country will get Rs 72,000 annually as part of its Nyunatam Aay Yojana (Nyay). When asked about the Nyay scheme, the minister said, similarly, in 2004, the Maharashtra Congress government under Sushil Kumar Shinde had promised free electricity, only to raise tariff by Re 1 per unit in six months. Shinde also promised food grains at Re 1 per kg, but the then Congress president later called it a "printing mistake", he said. Similarly, a Congress promise during the recent Rajasthan Assembly elections of allowance for unemployed people is yet to to be fulfilled. "There can be sunrise at midnight but Congress cannot have its own prime minister. Yet, if they are so clever with economics and if they have the courage, they should start the (Nyay) scheme with states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and set an example. If it removes unemployment there (Congress-ruled states), people might believe them," he said. "The Congress knows this scheme is not implementable. In 2013, Dr Manmohan Singh had said if he is unable to reduce subsidies amounting to Rs 1,39,000 crore, the country will deviate from the right path and there will be financial chaos. A dialogue of his then had become famous. He had asked if money grew on trees," Mungantiwar said. He further said the Congress was not clarifying where the Rs 4 lakh crore needed for the scheme will be raised. "The Congress has a history of not fulfilling promises. In 1971, they spoke of garibi hatao (removing poverty), but poverty remained. The Congress has an anti-democratic heart," the minister alleged. When asked if issues like the construction of Ram temple, the Pulwama attack and air strike inside Pakistan were a (BJP) ploy to deviate from "real issues" as the Opposition parties claim, the minister said on the contrary, the BJP and other NDA constituents have been working hard on a development agenda since coming to power in 2014. "However, they (the Opposition) are trying to create an atmosphere as if for us only issues like Pulwama, Ram temple are important. In the last 5 years, when Modi ji talks of development, Ayushman Bharat, farmers credit card, Jan Dhan scheme, the same people kept asking what happened to Ram temple and when we talk about Ram temple, they ask what happened to development," he said. Mungantiwar said PM Modi gives equal importance to of development and quality of living as well as the country's pride and security. Mungantiwar said the issues raised by the Congress president (Rahul Gandhi) now were first raised by the party in 1952, and sought to know why they were not solved in all these years. "Except Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, all those who have ruled the country belonged to Congress gotra (lineage). It was under PM Modi that a government with absolute majority was formed without the Congress gotra. Modiji uses his authority only for the service of the common man," Mungantiwar said. Accusing the Congress of being "two-faced", the senior BJP leader said it "troubled" Babasaheb Ambedkar the most but now asks for votes in the name of the Dalit icon. "Babasaheb had written a book asking what the Congress had done for the untouchables. Babasaheb, while drafting the Constitution, had spoken for a Uniform Civil Code, and had opposed Article 370," he said. "Dr Ambedkar was not given a Bharat Ratna for 34 years after his death, and today they (Congress) ask for votes in his name," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Civil liberties activist Gautam Navlakha Monday told the Bombay High Court that he was in contact with Naxals only for research and his books and asked how this contact can attract provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. Navlakha approached the high court seeking to quash the case lodged against him by the Pune Police after the Elgar Parishad held on December 31, 2017 that had allegedly triggered violence at Koregaon Bhima in Pune the next day. The police had accused Navlakha and four other activists of having Maoist links. Navlakha's counsel Yug Chaudhary on Monday told a division bench of Justices Ranjit More and Bharati Dangre that he (Navlakha) was an author and peace activist and was a specialist on conflict zones. "He was in the past appointed as a mediator by the government of India when Naxals had kidnapped six policemen.He is in contact with Naxals but that is only for his books and other fact finding researches. How can this contact attract provisions of the UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act)," Chaudhary said. "Navlakha is being attacked by both sides (government and Naxal organisations). Both sides think he is being biased towards the other," he added. The bench has posted the petition for further hearing on April 26. The court also extended protection from arrest granted to Navlakha till the next date of hearing. Besides Navlakha, four others -- Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Sudha Bharadwaj, are accused in the case. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India's services exports rose 5.5 per cent to USD 16.58 billion in February 2018-19 from USD 15.71 billion in the same month a year ago, data from the Reserve Bank showed Monday. However, the exports during February 2019 were lower than January's USD 17.75 billion. Services imports in February 2018-19 declined by 3.3 per cent to USD 9.81 million, compared to USD 10.14 billion in the year-ago month, as per the RBI data on 'India's International Trade in Services: February 2019'. The imports stood at USD 11.3 billion during January this year. The RBI releases monthly data on India's international trade in services with a lag of around 45 days. The monthly data on services are provisional and would undergo revision when the Balance of Payments (BoP) data are released on a quarterly basis. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Indian-American Congressman Ami Bera has offered to help the residents of California's Sacramento County who might be having issues with filing of taxes after the introduction of new federal tax law. Bera, the US Representative for California's 7th Congressional District, has been representing the Sacramento County since 2013. He announced on his Twitter handle that his office was eager to help in whichever way it can. The new law has new deduction cap on state and local taxes, which the law caps at USD 10,000. Before 2018, taxpayers were allowed to deduct their total combined state and local taxes from their federal taxes, softening the blow of high property and income taxes in states like New Jersey and California. The impact is keenly felt by middle-class homeowners who live in towns with high property taxes. April 15 marks the Tax Day in the US. "This tax season, I know many families are sitting around their kitchen tables and are trying to figure out how to make ends meet. And this year, the new federal tax law may make this even more challenging. My office is here to help you however we can," according to a statement on his website. The new federal tax law might make it more challenging for many families to figure out tax filings this year, Bera said. His office has also been educating the people about the taxpayers' rights. Everyone that disagrees with an Internal Revenue Service decision is entitled to appeal the decision before an independent board. According to Bera's office, even though the tax filing day is April 15, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) does provide a few ways in which one can apply for an extension. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress president Rahul Gandhi Monday targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale deal, saying he ensured "inexperienced" industrialist Anil Ambani got it, but not state-owned HAL which made some of the planes used in the Balakot air strike. The Indian Air Force carried out strikes on terror camps in Balakot in February, after the Pulwama terror attack, in which 40 CRPF men were killed. Gandhi made the remarks at a rally here as he campaigned for Maharashtra Congress chief Ashok Chavan who is contesting from the Nanded Lok Sabha constituency. The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is a state-run company that manufactures and maintains fighter planes. "Anil Ambani never made an aircraft but HAL knows how to make planes. They have been doing it for the last 70 years," Gandhi said. "The planes which did the air strikes in Balakot? HAL. Sukhoi, Jaguar, Mirage, MiG. HAL is a government company and is making planes for the last 70 years," he said. Gandhi said when he raised questions over the deal in Parliament, Modi evaded answers on the issue. "For one-and-a-half hours he spoke (in Parliament). He took names of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi...But could not look into the eyes of the country. "He did not talk about the Rafale deal, Anil Ambani...Because the chowkidar (watchman) is chor (thief)," Gandhi said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Expands Tansim Project with New Acquisition Brisbane, April 15, 2019 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Emerging lithium miner Sayona Mining Limited ( ASX:SYA ) ( OTCMKTS:DMNXF ) has expanded its Canadian lithium interests, announcing today the acquisition of a 100% interest in the Lac Simard lithium prospect, Val d'Or, Quebec from the privately owned Exiro Minerals Corp.Highlights- Sayona expands Tansim Lithium Project with acquisition of 100% interest in Lac Simard lithium prospect, Val d'Or, Quebec from privately owned Exiro Minerals Corp.- Acquisition follows latest drilling results at Tansim showing potential for new lithium deposit- Move adds to Sayona's Canada holdings amid push for new lithium-battery industry in Quebec.The acquisition has expanded Sayona's emerging Tansim Lithium Project, located just 82 kilometres south-west of the Company's flagship Authier Lithium Project. It also follows recent exploration drilling results at Tansim showing the potential for a new lithium deposit (refer ASX announcement 9 April 2019).Under the agreement with Exiro Minerals, Sayona can acquire a 100% interest by making cash and share payments and undertaking work on the property over a three-year period, with Exiro retaining a 2% net smelter return (NSR) royalty.Sayona's Managing Director, Dan O'Neill, said the acquisition would help strengthen the Company's project pipeline in the rapidly emerging Quebec lithium industry."Tansim's potential has been reinforced by the latest exploration results, which point to the possibility of a new lithium deposit within relatively close proximity to Authier," Mr O'Neill said."This acquisition will allow shareholders to further benefit from the growth of the Tansim project, as we work to unlock value from our lithium project pipeline in Canada and Western Australia."Agreement TermsUnder the agreement with Exiro Minerals, Sayona may earn a 100% interest in the Lac Simard property by:- Issuing to Exiro shares in Sayona totalling - $20,000 worth of shares upon signing; $30,000 worth of shares on or before the first anniversary; $40,000 worth of shares on or before the second anniversary; and $50,000 worth of shares on or before the third anniversary;- Making cash payments totalling $50,000 on or before the third anniversary;- File, transfer, apply and have accepted minimum assessment work on the property totalling - $10,000 worth of assessment work on or before the first anniversary; and $10,000 worth of assessment work on or before the second anniversary.Upon completion of the option terms, Exiro will retain a 2% NSR royalty on the property.Exiro's COO, Joshua Bailey said: "Lac Simard was the first mineral property staked by Exiro and we welcome this agreement with Sayona, an experienced lithium company in Canada. Sayona's board and management have had considerable success advancing the nearby Authier lithium project and adjacent Tansim property and we are pleased to work together to advance this project for the benefit of everyone."Sayona's Mr O'Neill added: "Sayona welcomes the opportunity to support Quebec's ambitions to be at the forefront of the global revolution in lithium-ion battery technology. With our work at Authier and Tansim, we are committed to developing a sustainable and profitable industry that helps unlock value from the metal of the 21st century."About Sayona Mining Ltd Sayona Mining Limited (ASX:SYA) (OTCMKTS:SYAXF) is an Australian, ASX-listed (SYA) company focused on sourcing and developing the raw materials required to construct lithium-ion batteries for use in the rapidly growing new and green technology sectors. The Company has lithium projects in Quebec, Canada and in Western Australia. Please visit us as at www.sayonamining.com.au on Monday suffered a blow with West Indies fast bowler Alzarri Joseph being ruled out of the ongoing IPL with a shoulder injury. Check 2019 ICC cricket World Cup news here The Antiguan youngster took a bad tumble while trying to prevent the ball from reaching the boundary in an IPL game for against Rajasthan Royals on April 13. "He has dislocated his shoulder and is out of this IPL season," sources told PTI on Monday. Joseph, a late replacement for the injured New Zealand pacer Adam Milne, had a sensational debut in the T20 league against hosts Sunrisers Hyderabad on April 6 when he grabbed a League-best 6-12. But his joy was shortlived as he conceded 53 runs in three overs against Rajasthan before getting injured badly by landing on his shoulder close to the boundary line. He was then forced to leave the field. have the option to ask for a replacement for the remainder of their engagements but they are unlikely to enforce that choice, it is learnt. Another Indian naval ship INS Magar Saturday reached Mozambique's Beira city loaded with suitable relief material, the government said. The ship handed over 250 tonne of rice and 500 kg of epidemic medicines for the population of Beira affected by Cyclone Idai. The material was received by Mozambican Minister of Agriculture Higino Francisco de Marrule, an official statement said. INS Magar cast off around on Sunday, it said. Three Indian Naval ships were among the first responders in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai in mid-March, providing rescue, medical care and relief to around 3,500 people in Beira. Local Indian community and Indian entities have also come forward offering their assistance, it said. The Mozambican government has expressed its gratitude for support and solidarity extended by Government of India. The professionalism, human approach and proficiency of Indian naval crew have received appreciation from the government and the people of Mozambique, as well as international agencies, it said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Chartered accountants' apex body ICAI said it has provided technical assistance to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nepal (ICAN) for further strengthening the latter's examination systems. According to a release, officers from ICAN visited the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) to peruse the examination system and discuss various activities related to smooth conduct of examinations. The representatives of ICAN were briefed about the process and various activities carried out by the examination department of ICAI. The delegation was appreciative of the efforts taken by ICAI in this regard, the release added. In 2017, both institutes signed a pact which provides that they would be jointly working for the advancement of accounting knowledge, professional and intellectual development, advancing the interests of their respective members and positively contributing to the development of the accounting profession in India and Nepal. The first pact between the two institutes was signed in 1998 wherein ICAI provided assistance to ICAN for development of profession and regulatory framework. For furthering the terms of the agreement, ICAI has been assisting ICAN in various areas from time to time, the release said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India's top refiner Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has set up a trading desk at its office here to buy crude oil from international market on a real-time basis, helping it cut import price by locking in best price and quality, its Director (Finance) A K Sharma said. IOC, which buys 30 per cent (15 million tonne) of its oil requirement from spot or current market, had set up a trading office in Singapore in 2017 but has now developed in-house software and trading team to buy crude oil on a real-time basis. It made the first purchase through the desk on March 25 when it bought one million barrel of Nigeria's Agbami crude, he said. While private sector firms like Reliance Industries have had a local trading desk for buying of crude and exporting fuel it produces, IOC would be the first state-owned refiner to set up such a desk. Sharma said the Singapore desk was used to buy crude oil on a short-tender basis where the purchase was decided in two-hour time after receipt of offers from an international seller. This is compared to 10 hours taken to decide on purchase in traditional tenders. But with a trading desk at its office in the national capital, IOC is deciding on purchases on a real-time basis, he said. "This helps us get the best price and most suitable, value giving crude," he said. In traditional tenders as well as short tenders floated through the Singapore office, IOC would seek quotations from international sellers for a particular grade and quantity of crude oil. It would decide on the price based on the lowest bid rate with no scope of any negotiations on the offer. However, with the trading desk now, it on a real-time basis negotiates with crude traders, often pitching price of one with another to get the best rate. "We have set up a compliance process," he said. "We have established an in-house process where four traders, without interacting with one another, lock in best available price. A supervisor, who does not have the benefit of the identity of the seller, then instructs for further negotiations on an offer based on offers from other sellers. The traders then negotiate with the seller to bring down the price." IOC plans to transfer the trading desk once it stabilises in Singapore to do the real-time purchase of quantities of crude oil it buys from the spot market. Also, it could trade on fuel its refineries would export, he said. The company buys about 70 per cent of its crude needs from oil companies such as Saudi Aramco of Saudi Arabia and SOMO of Iraq on annual term contracts. The rest is bought from the spot market through tenders. Sharma said ultimately most of the spot purchases would be done through the trading desk. He, however, did not give a timeframe for moving to that. Currently, one cargo of 1 million barrels are bought through trading desks at Singapore or at New Delhi. Sharma said IOCL Singapore Pvt Ltd - the company's Singapore subsidiary - will ultimately handle the trading desk. IOCL Singapore has two officers as compared to four traders plus supervisor and compliance officer at the trading desk in the national capital, he said adding the company will gradually increase its workforce in line with transactions. Singapore is the trading hub for the world's biggest consumer region and an office there will help it have better access to information and speedier decision making. Before 2017, public sector oil companies would often lose out on opportunities to buy cheaper crude from the international spot markets as their sourcing policies required them to float a tender and obtain approvals from the oil ministry before they could place an order. The process used to take up to two months. While these companies had board approvals to set up offices abroad, they could not go ahead due to policy constraints and concerns over transparency in the public procurement policy. The trading desk is part of progression IOC has seen in crude procurement policy since 2016 when the government gave flexibility to state refiners to devise their own crude import policies. Prior to that, IOC used to take 26 hours to decide on a tender for import of crude oil from spot or current market. In April 2016, after the Cabinet gave state-owned oil refiners freedom to devise their own crude import policies, the time has been shrunk to 12 hours. Time for deciding on tenders for export of petroleum products or fuel was cut to just 9 hours from the previous 35 hours. "Earlier, we had a three-member committee comprising two company executives and one senior official of the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to decide on awarding tenders for import of crude oil from the spot market. Now we have an internal committee which can take decisions quickly," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) After decades of conflict, Iraq is seeking to reclaim a leadership role and status in the Arab world with a centrist policy and a determination among the country's top leaders to maintain good relations with both Iran and the United States. A flurry of recent diplomatic activity and high-profile visits to the Iraqi capital, including this month's re-opening of a Saudi Consulate in Baghdad for the first time in nearly 30 years points to a new era of openness as the nation sheds its war image and re-engages with the world. "Iraq is coming back to the neighbourhood," President Barham Salih told The Associated Press in a nearly hour-long interview last month. The veteran politician laid out a vision centered on an "Iraq First" policy, saying his country can no longer afford to be caught in regional disputes. "For almost four decades Iraq was the domain in which everybody pursued their agenda at the expense of the Iraqi people. It's time we say we need a new political order ... in which Iraq must be an important pillar," Salih said. Iraq has emerged from a ruinous three-year war against the Islamic State group and faces the mammoth task of reconciling, rebuilding and returning tens of thousands of displaced to their homes. And while the extremists' territorial "caliphate" has been defeated in Iraq and Syria, the militants have now shifted to an insurgency campaign of targeted assassinations, car bombings, and suicide attacks. The issue of Iran-backed Shiite militias who fought IS alongside Iraqi security forces poses a challenge to the government's central authority, and the country's oil-based economy is suffering from wide-scale corruption. "Iraq's path to reclaiming a leadership role in the Arab world will depend on how successful its leaders are in tackling security and economic challenges at home," Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute wrote recently. Amid rapidly escalating tensions between the US and Iran, Iraq also needs to maintain a delicate balance with the two as Baghdad has strong ties with both countries. The dynamics are complex. The Shiite-majority country lies on the fault line between Shiite Iran and the mostly Sunni Arab world, led by powerhouse Saudi Arabia, and has long been a theater in which Saudi-Iran rivalry for regional supremacy played out. Relations have been particularly frosty with Riyadh, which broke relations with Baghdad following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and never really warmed much as Iraq was increasingly pulled into Iran's orbit in later years. Iraq needs much help and investment to rebuild its cities something it can only get from oil- and gas-rich Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia. But it can also ill afford to alienate Iran, which holds enormous political and military sway in Iraq through powerful militias and pro-Iran politicians. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Runaway IS bride Shamima Begum will receive the UK taxpayer-funded legal aid to fight against the government's revocation of her British citizenship, according to UK media reports on Monday. The 19-year-old London schoolgirl of Bangladeshi descent, who fled the UK to join the Islamic State (IS) terrorist network in Syria over four years ago, was stripped of her British citizenship by UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid in February this year after she appealed for safe passage back to the country of her birth from a Syrian refugee camp. Her family had said it planned to challenge the decision. The UK's Legal Aid Agency decided to assist Begum in response to an application made on March 19, the reports said. According to Britain's legal aid system, financial assistance is provided by the taxpayers to those who are unable to afford legal representation themselves, regardless of their citizenship, whether they are accused of a crime or a victim who seeks the help of a lawyer through the court process. The reports of Begum's access to the aid was received with some concern within the UK government circles, with UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt saying the Legal Aid Agency's decision to assist Begum has made him "very uncomfortable." "On a personal level, it makes me very uncomfortable because she made a series of choices and she knew the choices she was making, so I think we made decisions about her future based on those choices," Hunt said. "However, we are a country that believes that people with limited means should have access to the resources of the state if they want to challenge the decisions the state has made about them," he said. The grounds for revoking Begum's citizenship are believed to be linked to her parents' Bangladeshi dual nationality, which makes her eligible for dual nationality. However, the Bangladesh government has since denied any such right for the British-born national. Tasnime Akunjee, who has represented the Begum family since 2015, has filed an appeal for her with the UK's Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC). A Legal Aid Agency spokesperson said: "We are unable to comment on individual cases. Anybody applying for legal aid in a SIAC case is subject to strict eligibility tests." Last month, Akunjee had sent a letter on behalf of the Begum family to Javid asking for "mercy" and a rethink over his decision following the death of her three-week-old baby boy after falling ill at the Syrian detention camp. Her case has since reportedly been taken over by human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce of London-based legal firm Birnberg Peirce & Partners. A spokesperson for the UK Home Office said it would not comment on individual cases, but added that "any decisions to deprive individuals of their citizenship are based on all available evidence and not taken lightly". Under the 1981 British Nationality Act, a person can be deprived of their citizenship if the Home Secretary is satisfied it would be "conducive to the public good" and they would not become stateless as a result. "I have not deployed the power on the basis that someone could have citizenship to a second country. I've always applied it on the strict advice (of lawyers) that when the power is deployed with respect to that individual they already have more than one citizenship," Javid told the UK Parliament's Home Affairs Select Committee last month, when called in to explain his decision to revoke Begum's citizenship. Begum was 15 when she fled to join ISIS in February 2015 and married Dutch ISIS recruit Yago Riedijk as a so-called jihadi bride. Her 27-year-old husband is being held in a Kurdish detention centre in north-eastern Syria. Both the Netherlands and Bangladesh have since denied that Begum would have a right to enter either country. Begum, currently lodged at a Syrian detention camp, lost new-born baby Jarrah last month to a chest infection and has repeatedly appealed to be allowed to return to the UK. "I was brainwashed. I came here believing everything that I had been told, while knowing little about the truths of my religion," she said in her last interview from the camp earlier this month. Her case, now the subject of appeals and legal challenges, is expected to run into many months and even years. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) For the Communist Party of India (CPI), the ongoing general elections is about fighting the "anti-people and pro-corporate, undemocratic dictatorial BJP government", the party's candidate for Inner Manipur seat Moirangthem Nara Singh said Monday. Singh, who is fighting Lok Sabha elections for the fourth time, believes that the people of Manipur will play their part in voting out the BJP which has "shown its true saffron colours" during the last two years of its rule in the state. "They are a communal party and are trying to impose their agenda through Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) and implement the Hinduvta philosophy," Singh told PTI here. He said people have to understand the underlying motive why the BJP is forcefully trying to implement the CAB. "It is because of the philosophy they have and their saffronisation programme has to be fought," Singh added. He further said CPI has been "opposing this kind of ideology and have been fighting against it" right from the very beginning. "We have been saying that BJP's policy is anti-people, pro-corporate and it is an undemocratic dictatorial government. They are trying to do whatever they want," he claimed. Referring to the crackdown last September on students and teachers of Manipur University who were demanding the removal of then Vice Chancellor of Manipur University, AP Pandey, he said the whole approach of the state government during the crisis highlighted its "high-handed" attitude. "Why did the removal of a VC of an university became such a huge issue and made people of the state suffer? The midnight crackdown on students of Manipur Univesrity and putting students and teachers in jail shows that this is a dictatorial government," he said. When asked what significant role can CPI play in national considering the fact that it has become a fringe player, he said,"In the political life of an organisation there are many ups and downs. The purpose for which we have been fighting are for the people and we are gaining momentum." Projecting a "crucial role" for the party, he claimed an alternative government will be formed by an alliance of with other parties who are "secular and democratic". "We are confident, some more parties will also join our alliance after the results are out. We will be able to defeat BJP," he added. The CPI has won the seat twice in the past and in the last three Lok Sabha polls, Singh continued to be runners-up, losing to Congress's Thokchom Meinya. When asked about Congress, Singh said,"Congress and BJP are the same. It is just that their names are different but their ways of doing things are the same." He further said, "People of Manipur were unhappy with the Congress and they thought BJP would be a better option but now they have realised in the last two years of BJP rule in the state that this party is no different. They are fed up with them, with the way how they have ruled the state."Polling in the Inner Manipur seat would be held on April 18. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Anthony and Joe Russo are returning to their indie roots with "Cherry", featuring Tom Holland, post the release of their much-awaited Marvel movie "Avengers: Endgame". "Cherry", based on Nico Walker's autobiographical novel of the same name, revolves around a former Army medic who after his return from Iraq suffers from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and gets addicted to opiods. The director duo, who are currently promoting "Endgame" in South Korea, said they felt it was important to highlight the consequences of PTSD and drug addiction through this story. "We are moving into our next movie with Tom Holland. It is a smaller movie about a war veteran who comes home from Iraq with PTSD and develops a heroin addiction. So, it's a bit heavier material but we are having this opioid epidemic. We just thought it was an important issue to attack," Joe said at the Asia press conference of "Endgame" Monday. Besides the upcoming Marvel film, the directors have worked with Holland in "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Captain America: Civil War". When asked about their future at Marvel, Joe said they had a great time working with the studio and would love to work with the team again. "We had an incredible experience working with Marvel. It has been the best of our careers. There is nothing set in stone or I can tell you specifically but we would absolutely love to work with them again," he said. Russo brothers were joined at the conference by "Endgame" cast members, Robert Downey Jr, Brie Larson, Jeremy Renner, executive producer Trinh Tran and Marvel chief Kevin Feige. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Veteran BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi has sought an inquiry by the Election Commission into a fake letter being circulated in his name on social media and critical of the party's leadership and Lok Sabha poll prospects. The fake letter, addressed to another party veteran L K Advani, has been in circulation for last few days. Demanding an investigation by the poll panel, Joshi has written to Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora that he has not written any such letter. "My friends in media called me up and told me that since yesterday a letter addressed by me to L K Advani Ji has been circulated on social media. I have read the contents of it and I am attaching them with this letter. I have not sent any such letter to Advani Ji. Kindly, immediately look into the matter and find the source of the letter, through which it came to social media," Joshi said. Both Joshi and Adavani, who are among the founders of the party, had won last Lok Sabha elections in 2014 from Kanpur and Gandhinagar, respectively, but they have not got the party tickets to fight polls this time. Joshi, the party's third president, had said after being denied ticket from Kanpur that the BJP general secretary (organisation), Ram Lal, a Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) appointee, had conveyed him the party leadership's decision that he should not be contesting the polls. Advani, who has been replaced by the BJP president Amit Shah in the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat, said earlier this month that his party has never regarded those who disagreed with it politically as "anti-nationals" or "enemies" but only as adversaries, remarks which came at a time when top BJP leaders have used anti-national barbs against political rivals on the issue of national security. Earlier in 2015, Advani and Joshi were among some senior BJP leaders who had strongly criticised the party's leadership after the setback in the Bihar Assembly polls. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Cristiano Ronaldo will spearhead Juventus' old guard as they look to finish the job on Tuesday against Ajax's impressive young guns in a quarter-final clash between two sides desperate to end years of Champions League heartbreak. Juventus have the edge on away goals thanks to Ronaldo's 125th Champions League goal in a 1-1 draw in Amsterdam, but Ajax's David Neres ensured the teams will start on a knife-edge in Turin in a repeat of the 1973 and 1996 finals. Juventus have put their bid to wrap up an eighth consecutive Serie A title on the back burner as they focus on their European ambitions. Massimiliano Allegri lined out with a young squad against lowly SPAL on Saturday and the champions fell to a 2-1 defeat when a point would have sufficed for another Scudetto. "The Scudetto will come sooner or later," said Allegri, whose side hold a 17-point lead on second-placed Napoli with six games left. "If we had put all our starters in, it would have been easier to win it, but there is the goal to obtain on Tuesday." Juventus have won the Champions League twice, most recently in 1996 when they beat Ajax in the final. Four-time winners Ajax won their third consecutive title in 1973 at the expense of Juventus, last lifting the trophy in 1995. Allegri said he was prepared for "a difficult match against a very impressive team". Ronaldo was rested at the weekend along with regulars Leonardo Bonucci, Blaise Matuidi, Alex Sandro, Mario Mandzukic and Miralem Pjanic. Teenager Moise Kean's fine form continued with the 19-year-old scoring his sixth goal in as many games. Captain Giorgio Chiellini, however, remains a doubt with the 34-year-old defender recovering from a calf injury, with Daniele Rugani a possible replacement. But Ronaldo remains Juve's key weapon. The 34-year-old was signed for 100 million euros ($117 million) last summer, and pocketed an annual 31 million-euro salary to help Juventus win a competition they have finished runners-up in a record seven times, most recently in 2015 and 2017. Ronaldo has played a leading role in all of his five previous European triumphs, including with the tie-clinching, 97th-minute penalty for Real Madrid against Juventus last season in the quarters. He has scored five goals this campaign, one against Manchester United and a hat-trick which rescued Juventus in the last 16, second leg against Atletico, before returning from injury to score against Ajax. - De Jong doubt - =================The financial clout of Dutch league leaders Ajax is significantly less than Juventus. The club, who are captained by 19-year-old defender Matthijs de Ligt, spent a reported club-record 45 million euros last summer on new signings to bolster their Champions League hopes. Defensive midfielder Daley Blind arrived from Manchester United, and forward Dusan Tadic from Southampton, to provide leadership for a young squad where the average age is 24 years. Ajax's strike-force of 22-year-old Neres, Dusan Tadic and Hakim Ziyech have proven effective this season. Veteran Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, 35, also hit form with a hat-trick in a 6-2 win over Excelsior in the Dutch league at the weekend. But midfielder Frenkie de Jong, 21, is uncertain to start after going off clutching his hamstring. Neres stole the limelight with his seventh goal in eight games against Juventus in Amsterdam, but Barcelona-bound De Jong was outstanding in midfield. Both teams produced memorable second-leg comebacks in the round of 16. Ajax overturned a 2-1 home defeat by Real Madrid to oust the three-time holders with a stunning 4-1 victory at the Santiago Bernabeu to reach their first quarter-final since 2003. Ronaldo's hat-trick rescued Juventus, who lost 2-0 against Atletico Madrid in Spain. While Juve are looking to reach a third semi-final in five seasons, Ajax have not made it to the last four since 1997. The winners would go through to a semi-final against the winners of the all-English tie between Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 15) President Rodrigo Duterte vetoed a bill granting benefits to surviving dependents of deceased retired government officials for being "onerous" to the government. "The new benefits granted in addition to the benefits enjoyed by other government offices would 'erode the national government's thrust to standardize and rationalize the current compensation framework in the bureaucracy'," the chief executive said in his veto message to the Senate dated April 12. Duterte added the bill would "create too much disparity and inequality in compensation among public servants." Senate Bill No. 1917 or House Bill No. 7820 provides expanded benefits to the surviving children, who are solo parents, of deceased retired members of government agencies, including the Commission on Audit, Civil Service Commission, Commission on Elections, and the Office of the Ombudsman. The current law, Republic Act. No. 10084, grants benefits only to the surviving legitimate spouse of deceased retired government workers. The proposed measure, authored by Senator Loren Legarda, likewise extends the benefits to surviving parents of these government officials. The Senate approved the said bill on third and final reading back in January. In a statement Monday, Malacanang said that providing benefits outside the current compensation was "too burdensome for the government." "In vetoing this bill, (President Duterte) has ensured that disparity and inequality in compensation among public servants will be prevented since the additional benefits proposed in the enrolled bill are extraordinary benefits not granted to any government official under the present compensation scheme of the government," Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said. Operational and Canadian Listing Update Melbourne, April 15, 2019 AEST (ABN Newswire) - The directors of Nova Minerals Limited (Nova or Company) ( ASX:NVA ) ( FRA:QM3 ) are please to provide a operational update to the market across our project portfolio.Snow Lake Resources Ltd (SNOW) (Thompson Brothers Lithium Project)The Company is pleased to announce that the technical team's work has been ongoing in the background with further QA/QP testing to be completed over the next few months.Nova Minerals welcomes the recent announcement and developments in the region of the Thompson Brothers Lithium Project with Sinomine Rare Metals of Beijing to acquire the Tanco mine as part of the purchase of Cabot Corps specialty fluid division announced in February of 2019. The Tanco Mine is a pegmatite that has been mined since 1968 and has produced spodumene, cesium and tantalum at various times through its mine life. This is a significant development for the region. Given the proximity and as the Thompson Brothers Lithium Project is the most advanced in the region, this development highlights the significance of the region and allows the potential for Snow Lake and other parties to collaborate further in establishing a center for a source of spodumene.We are also pleased that Snow Lake Resources has moved to the next steps of transferring title of the Thompson Brothers Lithium Project to obtain 100% ownership. Snow Lake Resources Ltd has forwarded all consideration cash and share pursuant to agreements signed between the parties (ASX Announcement 19 November 2018). It is intended to have title transferred over to Snowlake and qualified by independent qualified person within the NI 43-101 and initial public offering prospectus to be filed by Snow Lake.Furthermore, Snow Lake Resource Ltd is seeking a Non-Offering Prospectus Listing on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE). Snow Lake has raised sufficient capital and float as announced on 14 February 2019. The CSE requires that an issuer have a public float of at least 150 public holders holding at least a board lot each of the security. The public float consists of shares held by people who are not related to the issuer. Each holder is subject to a four month holding escrow period prior to commencement of trade. Nova anticipates commencement of trade late in July or early August, 2019.Snow Lake Resources will keep its shareholders updated on operations and developments in due course.Estelle Gold CampThe 112km2 Estelle landholding sits adjacent to the Whistler project (+ 9.5 Moz AuEq) held by Gold Mining Inc. and in the same assemblage of rocks that hosts Northern Dynasty's giant Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum-silver deposit (105 Moz Au). A direct correlation between gold grade and vein density is similarly reported at the Fort Knox (+ 4 Moz) and Dublin Gulch (+ 6 Moz) RIRGS deposits (Hart, 2007). Study results suggest that the 1) association of Au with Bi-Te, 2) association of Au with sheeted veins containing arsenopyrite, and 3) restriction of alteration to narrow selvages adjacent to veins at the Estelle Property are consistent with the genetic deposit model for RIRGS(see Note below).Following completion of our exploration targeting programme over the last seasons summer period, our prioritised drill programme aims to test all the highest- ranked prospects with a particular focus to drill Oxide North through 2019 and ready further prospects for drilling beyond 2019. Due to the size and nature of the project the Company has set a prioritised systematic exploration strategy to give the Company best indication and potential to discover multiple multi million ounce gold deposits with stringent criteria to ensure we get the greatest return on exploration dollars spent.Prioritised Systematic Exploration StrategyThe Company's ranked and prioritised systematic exploration strategy and activities at Estelle are guided by an exploration "Project Pipeline" process to maximise the probability of multiple major discoveries (see Table 1 in link below). Each Milestone is defined by a specific deliverable and has each criteria needs to be ticked to determine which prospect must pass through before moving to the next Milestone. Economic criteria and probability of success increase as projects move along the pipeline. The methodology helps to ensure work is carried out across all stages of the process, cost are kept minimal and that focus is kept on the best quality targets and that the pipeline is kept full with early Milestone projects.As per announcement dated 6 August 2018 (CEO's Letter to Shareholders) we maintain a strong view that Nova Minerals should be seen through two prisms, One is as a growth story. The other is as a value play.The board looks forward to announcing more updates on Nova's lead up and 2019 drill campaign in the near future.NVA Managing Director, Mr. Avi Kimelman said:"This is transformational period for the Company and we understand it has been tough market conditions and a slower IPO process then expected although despite these challenges we are pleased with the perseverance of the entire Snow Lake team to secure sufficient funding, float and moving to transfer 100% title of the Thompson Brothers Lithium Project into Snow Lake Resources Ltd in order to progress to the next stage of our IPO ambition and with a date on listing now becoming apparent."Snow Lake is now well positioned as we progress to IPO and look forward to introducing the Thompson Brothers Lithium Project to the North American Market and maintaining the Company's fast track development strategy with the technical team's ongoing background desktop work and analysis maintaining this approach. We look forward to Snow Lake announcing once completed to the satisfaction of QA/QP consultants over the coming months.""As previously announced, although Nova will be a significant shareholder of Snow Lake with full board representation. Snow Lake Resources will fund itself and act completely independent of Nova with a group of professional and independent Directors and Audit committee allowing Nova to focus it reserves on developing its Gold Assets with immediate focus on the district scale Estelle project.""We also look forward to updating the market on the Officer Hill Gold Project in Joint Venture with Newmont in the near term."Note: Source: Ore Characterization of the Estelle Property in the South-~Central Alaska Range, Ember Flagg, University of Nevada, Las VegasTo view tables and figures, please visit:About Nova Minerals Limited Nova Minerals Limited (ASX:NVA) (FRA:QM3) (OTCMKTS:NVAAF) is a dynamic explorer and developer of its flagship Estelle Gold district in the Tintina gold belt. Nova's strategy is to substantially increase the current 4.7Moz resource on the Korbel prospect. Subsequently to continue to lock in value through moving Korbel towards production whilst increasing the resource base across the pipeline of targets within the Estelle gold district. Nova Minerals also holds strategic investments in Snow Lake Resources Ltd (Thompson Brothers Lithium Project), Torian Resources Ltd (ASX:TNR) and RotorX Aircraft Manufacturing Co. Mining dependents of Karnataka will stage a protest here at Jantar Mantar on Tuesday to press for non-discriminatory practices in iron ore trade in the state and an immediate action by the Centre to improve their livelihoods, an industry association said. The development follows mining dependents in the state requesting the Supreme Court-appointed panel to allow free iron ore trade in the state. "Around 600 Karnataka mining dependents from Bellary, Hospet, Chitradurga districts and surrounding mining belts to protest at Jantar Mantar, Delhi, on April 16, 2019, under the banner of Karnataka Gani Avalambithara Vedike (KGAV)," KGAV, which represents mining dependents, said in a statement. Around 2 lakh mining dependents, it said, have sought the immediate action by the Centre in rescuing their livelihoods "from the prejudiced policies prevailing only in Karnataka", the statement said. After mining was banned in Karnataka, scores of people dependant on iron ore mining industry including truckers and small scale industries, were hit as it resulted in job loss and extreme cases of poverty, it had earlier said. The Supreme Court later allowed mining with production limits and other restrictions. It also appointed a Central Empowered Committee (CEC) to look into issues related to iron ore mining in Karnataka. "Why only Karnataka iron ore industry is being subjected to such highly prejudiced treatment in terms of discriminatory policies, without paying any heed to the survival of lakhs of mining dependents?" KGAV spokesperson Rajakumar S questioned. The government, he said, should have fair trade practices equally across the country, including Karnataka. The livelihood of mining dependents became highly uncertain even after the Supreme Court permitted to start mining, as production cap, e-auction and lots of other restrictions lowered the mining capacity, the KGAV noted. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress president Rahul Gandhi Monday accused AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal of doing an "U-turn" on the alliance talks between the two parties and said the doors of the Congress are open, but time is running out. However, Kejriwal claimed that the talks are still on and accused Gandhi of helping the BJP by "dividing anti-Modi votes in Uttar Pradesh and in some other states" The Congress president on Twitter said his party is willing to give four of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to ensure that the their alliance defeats the BJP. The BJP had won all the seven seat in the national capital in 2014. "An alliance between the Congress and AAP in Delhi would mean the rout of the BJP. The Congress is willing to give up 4 Delhi seats to the AAP to ensure this. "But, Mr Kejriwal has done yet another U turn. Our doors are still open, but the clock is running out," Gandhi tweeted. He used the hashtag "AbAAPkiBaari" to target the AAP leadership to come out with its side for an alliance with the Congress. The Congress and AAP have been in talks for an alliance in Delhi for sometime. Hitting out at Gandhi on Twitter, Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal said, "What U-turn. The talks are still on." "Your tweet shows that an alliance is not your desire but only a pretension. I am pained that you are giving mere statements," he said. "Today, the foremost issue is to save the country from the threat of Modi-Shah. Unfortunately, you are helping Modi by dividing anti-Modi votes in Uttar Pradesh and in some other states," Kejriwal tweeted in Hindi. The Congress has accused the Kejriwal-led party of backing out from its commitment, as it is demanding seats in Goa, Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh, besides Delhi for a pre-poll understanding with the Congress. Congress leaders have said they only want a tie-up with AAP in Delhi. The seat-sharing arrangement of four for AAP and three for Congress has been arrived at on the basis of the vote share of both parties in 2017 civic polls here, they said. Leaders of the two parties have held several rounds of discussions for a poll tie-up but the talks have reportedly failed. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP Coimbatore Lok Sabha candidate C P Radhakrishnan Monday accused the Left parties of spreading false information on the implementation of goods and services tax (GST) and its impact on industries in the region. Talking to reporters here, Radhakrishnan said almost all the industries, be it manufacturer or service sector, numbering around 42,000 in the district, have been functioning as usual with the only problem being acute labour shortage. He said he, along with Tamil Nadu municipal administration minister S P Velumani and Fisheries minister D Jayakumar, had ensured that the demands of the industries were met by reducing the tax rates. Left parties, in collusion with the DMK, were tryjng to confuse the people and industries by spreading false information to mar the reputation of the Narendra Modi government, he said. In Coimbatore, CPI-M candidate P R Natarajan is pitted against Radhakrishnan. When asked about the government report tabled in the Assembly that 50,000 MSMEs downed the shutters due to GST, he said the closure was because of other reasons, including the 13 to 15-hour power cut during the DMK rule and loss of capital after paying for diesel to run the generators during power cuts. He said 56,600 people were benefited under the Mudra scheme with loans for Rs 865 crore disbursed in the city alone. Evading a direct reply on the remarks of two union ministers - Nitin Gadkari and Piyush Goyal - on the implementation of Chennai-Salem green corridor and the need for NEET, Radhakrishnan said people were more aware about the issues. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A leopard was beaten to death by local people on Monday morning after it attacked and injured four persons in Teghwara village of Bihar's Muzaffarpur district, an official said. The injured have been have been sent to a primary health centre for first-aid, Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) (East) Kundan Kumar said. Kumar, however, could not give details about the nature of their injuries. "Villagers came out in large numbers after four people were attacked by the leopard. They gheraoed the animal, and hurled stones at it, before beating it to death," he added. Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) D K Shukla said the animal might have strayed into the village from nearby Valmikinagar sanctuary, along the Gandak river, or from Nepal. "We got information around 8:30 am that a leopard has been sighted in Teghwara village. By the time our forest department team reached the village, it was dead," he said. The team has taken the leopard's body into custody and sent it to a veterinary hospital in the district for post- mortem, the PCCF said. "As the leopard belongs to Schedule-I category of Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, police have lodged an FIR against unnamed persons in connection with the incident," he said, adding that officials are trying to ascertain why the animal strayed into the village. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Demonetisation locked their destiny into airless rooms where they do double the work for less than half the pay, say daily wage workers in this western Uttar Pradesh town's famous 'Tala Nagri'. Aligarh has been synonymous with locks since the Mughal era but the once thriving lock industry, employing more than one lakh people, has been brought its knees with demonetisation and GST dealing it a body blow. So, Shanti, who spends nine hours a day with four others making locks in 'Tala Nagri' (lock town), finds herself earning dramatically less than she did before November 2016, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonetised high value currency notes. Four machines around her lie vacant. They have been lying vacant for the past three years since demonetisation. Now I do the work of two at Rs 150 per day, she said. Before November 2016, she said she earned Rs 400 per day. Her colleague Jamal said his vote in the elections on April 18 will be for the candidate that can help them improve their lives. These are poll issues for us. We will be voting keeping in mind the brunt we bore because of demonetisation and high GST rate, he said. Jamal and Shanti are among the semi-skilled labourers not eligible for minimum salary because the company she works for has less than 20 employees. The minimum salary for workers like her in a cottage industry with over 20 employees is Rs 324 per day. You get nothing from Rs 150 per day. My house is three kilometres away and I have to walk because e-rickshaws take Rs 20 one way. I tried getting a job elsewhere but the lock companies are so badly hit by GST that they cannot afford more workers like us, Shanti said. The legendary lock industry of Aligarh, about 150 km from the national capital Delhi, accounts for almost 75 per cent of the production in the country, earning the city the sobriquet 'Tala Nagri' and making the 'Aligarh lock' a byword for quality and also a distinct brand. We don't have automation in our industry despite the talk of make in India and digitisation and we are dependent on labour intensive machines. The end result is that we are not able to compete with China. "On top of that, policies like demonetisation and high rate of GST are pushing us on the brink of closure, said Zafar Alam, manufacturer of Link Locks and a former MLA of Samajwadi Party. He said manufacturers will become traders if the government does not give incentives for automation and impose anti-dumping duty on Chinese products. According to Prakash Sharma, owner of the Rajput Locks on Shahjamal Road which has over 40 lock industries, locks were made at every house in the area. But half the houses stopped making locks after GST was implemented at 18 per cent. Earlier we were paying 4 per cent in taxes, he said. So we were hit by both -- on the one hand facing competition from China and, on the other, high GST rates, he added. Hameed, who owns a unit on the same street, said China's import duty for locks is 23 per cent. We sell our lock at Rs 27 while the same Chinese product is sold at Rs 18. Shopkeepers have stopped buying our products as they say that our locks do not sell anymore because of high price, he said. Unable to face competition, industry insiders said many smaller manufactures were forced to shut shop. Our worlds crashed in the past four years. We want a government that would reduce the GST rates and bring automation technology too, said Girish, a lock industry owner. Workers said they want a government that will respect their skills and give them proper training to help them upgrade. The upcoming elections in Aligarh will be fought between incumbent BJP MP Satish Kumar Gautam, Congress candidate Birendra Singh and Mahagathbandan candidate Ajit Baliya. Aligarh goes to the polls on April 18 in round two of the seven-phase elections. The constituency has a total of 18,73,993 voters. Khair, Baroli, Atroli , Kol and Aligarh city are assembly seats in the constituency. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Long before 'chai pe charcha' became a political buzzword, 'baithaks' were the melting pot of ideas and discourse across towns and villages in western Uttar Pradesh. A continuum of tradition and culture going back centuries, the long, leisurely discussions over hookah or maybe a cup of tea mirrored the political preoccupations of the times, the concerns of the day and sometimes even served as a forum to sort out disputes. They are still the nerve centre of discussion and discourse and Arshad Rafique, a retired employee of the electricity department, heads to a 'baithak' (meeting) after dinner around 9 pm where people from his 'mohalla' Qazi Sarai congregate every night. Over the years, Rafique said, the baithaks' have been symbols of secularism and brotherhood. But some cracks between different communities and castes are visible of late and sharp arguments are not uncommon now, said the 70-year-old. 'Baithaks' in towns and villages such as Nagina, Seohara, Bijnor and Amroha have been a constant for hundreds of years, said Rafique, who has been part of one baithak' or the other since the age of 10. While chai pe charcha' (conversation over tea) was a completely political idea that gave a fillip to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 2014 campaign, baithaks' in this region are more about tradition and culture, and the topics discussed can be as varied as the day itself, said old-timers. It is held in several mohallas' and people congregate in the house of the person whose family has commanded respect for generations. Though the tradition is on the wane with Gen Next making a move towards big cities, baithaks' are active in many places albeit with dwindling numbers. Qazi Arshad Masood hosts a baithak' at his home everyday to discuss ideas and thoughts, continuing an evening ritual that started with his grandfather. He acknowledged the changing nature of discussions over the years. Earlier, civil disputes and quarrels were also sorted at the baithak' apart from discussions on raging political issues, but that feature is now missing. It is mostly politics. In election season, who is voting for whom dominates the discourse, Masood told PTI. Another key feature that is missing now from these baithaks' is the hookah. Now the discussions are just over a cup of tea, said Masood, who is also head of the Sugarcane Development Cooperative Society of Nagina. It is not just about sharing political and social ideas. Children also learn etiquette and the manner in how to conduct discussion and debate. A 'baithak' at my place was more about problem solving and the resolution of conflicts, while the 'baithak' at former Union minister Hafiz Mohammad Ibrahim (also in Nagina) was about political issues and public works to be undertaken, Masood said, lamenting that the tradition might be on its last legs with the youth moving to bigger cities. According to Prashant Goel, a lawyer from Bijnor, those attending a particular baithak' become like family over the years. If one person is unwell and does not turn up for a couple of days, all regulars land up at his home to check on him. Rakesh Mishra, also a lawyer, echoed similar views. Though baithaks' are mostly attended by only men, it creates a bond among their families and they are there by each other's side through life's ups and downs, he said. The baithaks' typically lasted for less than an hour with everybody sharing their ideas, but these days extend to two hours or more with elections making for an interesting conversation. The major topic dominating the discussion these days at these meetings in western UP is whether Muslims will go with the SP-BSP-RLD mahagathbandhan' or the Congress or there will be a split in votes, benefitting the BJP. Interestingly, everyone at these meetings seems to consider himself a psephologist, a political expert, and predictions keep flowing. Though most predictions and opinions offered may be exaggerated and off the mark, the friendly banter seems more meaningful than the hollow TV debates and the politically-motivated 'chai pe charcha', said Tanvir Pervez, whose house in Nagina hosted such a baithak' before he moved to Ghaziabad. The "chai pe charcha" was a concept started by the BJP as a campaign tool in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in 2014. Elections in Uttar Pradesh are being held over seven phases. While eight constituencies in Western Uttar Pradesh voted in the first phase, eight more will go to the polls in the second phase on April 18. The votes for the Lok Sabha election will be counted on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB) Monday said it plans to allot nearly 5 per cent equity shares on a preferential basis to Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd. However, it is not to be considered as a capital raising means before their proposed merger. "The bank is proposing to make a preferential allotment to Indiabulls Housing Finance to the extent of 4.99 per cent of the bank's post-money equity," LVB said in a statement. It is expected that the relevant date (of allotment of equity) could be by the end of April 2019, it added. "This does not presuppose any capital augmentation on account of the proposed merger, which would only conclude after receipt of all regulatory approvals," it added. Earlier this month, the private sector lender had announced its merger with Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd (IBHL) in a share-swap deal with an intent to create a combined entity with larger capital base and wider geographical reach. The board of LVB has approved the merger with IBHL in which shareholders of the bank will get 14 shares of IBHL for every 100 shares they hold. The combined entity, with employee strength of 14,302, will have a loan book size of Rs 1.23 lakh crore for the first nine month period of 2018-19. After the proposed merger, IBH will get access to low cost deposits, geographical diversification and expanded client-base and cross-selling opportunities. However, the Reserve Bank (RBI) is yet to examine the merger proposal of the bank and the NBFC. LVB shares closed 1.65 per cent down at Rs 89.20 on BSE, while IBHL closed 0.55 per cent up at Rs 834.65 apiece. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An infant who was kidnapped from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus in Mumbai on March 29 has been rescued from Nashik, a senior police official said Monday. The child was rescued after Thane police, probing an earlier child kidnapping case in Mumbra township here, got vital leads on the CSMT incident, said Deepak Deoraj, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime), Thane. A 10-month old toddler Salman was kidnapped on February 3 from Mumbra and several Thane police teams were probing the case and scouring CCTV images from the vicinity, he said. "We found similarities in the Mumbra and CMST kidnappings and started working on the leads. In the Mumbra case, our main suspect was a burkha-clad woman," Deoraj told reporters here. He said a Thane police team reached Panchavati area in Nashik on Sunday and found the infant kidnapped from CSMT with a woman identified as Neelam Sanjay Bora (35). "Bora has been arrested and the child rescued. Efforts are on to trace 10-month-old Salman who was kidnapped in February from Mumbra," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actor-turned-politician Urmila Matondkar was Monday granted police protection after a group of "BJP supporters" clashed with Congress workers during her poll campaign in north Mumbai. The scuffle took place near Borivali railway station where Matondkar, the Congress candidate from the Mumbai North Lok Sabha constituency, was canvassing, police said. An onlooker said some BJP workers shouted 'Modi, Modi' as they confronted the Congress workers outside the railway station. The BJP has fielded sitting MP Gopal Shetty from the constituency. Matondkar told reporters that she lodged a police complaint "after some BJP workers barged into her rally". "We received an application from Matondkar and granted her protection till the elections get over," said Sangramsinh Nishandar, DCP, Zone XI. Asked if those involved in the scuffle were supporters of the BJP as claimed by Matondkar, the DCP said police do not have any such proof at this moment. "What we can say is that those involved in the incident were commuters," he added. In her complaint, Matondkar also demanded strict action against the "BJP supporters" for violating the model code of conduct. Meanwhile, Shetty suggested that those who clashed with Congress workers were not BJP activists, but some local train commuters who admired the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Matondkar stated that the supporters of the BJP tried to thwart her interaction with the people, which was organised after procuring requisite permissions from the authorities concerned. Around 25 "supporters" of the BJP carrying the party flags chanted "Modi, Modi", she alleged. Matondkar also said she was shocked by the "blatant violation" of the model code of conduct by the workers of the ruling party, and blamed the BJP for "creating fear". "This is just the beginning and may take a violent turn. I have asked for police protection as there is a threat to my life. I have filed a police complaint," she said. Matondkar also said that those who "barged" into the rally were not common people, but activists of the BJP. The common people will not behave in "violent ways" like these persons, she added. "Those who confronted our rally indulged in vulgar dancing and used abusive language. May be they wanted to scare the women who were walking near us," she said, adding that the BJP supporters also made indecent gestures towards women and started dancing after beating up few of her supporters including women. "I am mentally disturbed and I am in shock due to the incident," the actor said in the complaint. Matondkar said she was contemplating approaching the Election Commission on the issue. Taking to Twitter, she also said, "Shocked at the blatant violation of code of conduct and hostile acts by BJP workers.. I was constrained to lodge police complaint for my own safety and to save the dignity of my female supporters." However, Shetty said that some commuters raised slogans hailing the prime minister. "As the Congress and the BJP enjoy the right to campaign, so does the people. What can we do if people who admire Modi raise slogans in his name?" he asked. Mumbai goes to polls on April 29 in the fourth phase of the general election. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A poll rally of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati scheduled here Wednesday stood cancelled following the Election Commission (EC) order barring her from campaigning for 48 hours starting 6 am Tuesday. Mayawati was scheduled to address her first election rally in Gujarat for the 2019 polls at Kankaria Ground here Wednesday and preparations for the event were on in full swing. However, the party has been forced to call it off in the wake of the order passed by the poll panel. "Behen Mayawatiji was scheduled to address an election rally in Gujarat on April 17. It has been cancelled after the Election Commission order. "We will see if the public meeting is rescheduled, but for now it stands cancelled," said Gujarat BSP secretary Pradeep Parmar. The BSP has fielded its candidates on all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat which will have a single phase polling on April 23. The EC Monday "censured" Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Mayawati for their communal remarks and barred them from campaigning for 72 and 48 hours, respectively. The EC order came soon after the Supreme Court took note of the communal remarks made by Mayawati and Adityanath during their Lok Sabha poll campaigns. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) DroneShield Limited (ASX:DRO) (FRA:DRH) (OTCMKTS:DRSHF) is pleased to advise that the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), the Australian Federal Government agency regulator of the communications spectrum nationally, has granted DroneShield the first exemption permit of its kind to undertake advanced testing of the Company's Electronic Warfare and counterdrone. PDP president Mehbooba Mufti Monday accused the BJP of creating a fear psychosis under the guise of national security to prepare for another Balakot-like strike in desperation to win Lok Sabha elections. "In its desperation to win this election, seems like misappropriation of our jawans sacrifices & polarising the electorate hasn't helped BJP. Now they are creating fear psychosis by using national security as a guise to prepare ground for another Balakot-like strike," Mehbooba, who was an ally of BJP in Jammu and Kashmir from 2015 to 2018, said in a tweet. She was reacting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's reference to Pulwama attack and the consequent air strike inside Pakistani territory by India Air Force. "When they made their second mistake in Pulwama, we entered their home and conducted airstrike. Udhar walon ko bhi samajh mein aa gaya hai ki agar teesri galti ki toh lene ke dene pad jaenge (They also know that if they commit another mistake, they will be in real trouble)," the Prime Minister said at a rally at Moradabad in UP. In another tweet the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, while reacting to Modi's speech at Kathua rally, said Kashmir belonged to Kashmiris and was not anybody's heirloom to inherit. "Kashmir belongs to Kashmiris. Not anybody's heirloom to inherit. Self seeking is intentionally blurring lines between self & country, exploiting armed forces to grab power, fuelling communal & dividing the country in the name of religion. Kuch yaad aaya (do you remember anything)?" she said. At Kathua, Modi accused NC and PDP leadership of causing destruction in Jammu and Kashmir and said the key for the state's brighter future lay in removing these two families from power. "I want to tell those who have occupied the seat of power for the last three generations, including Abdullahs and Muftis, that it is 'Modi jo na bikta hai, na darta hai aur na jukta hai' (Modi is not for sale, is not afraid and not ready to bow). "Bring all your family members on field and abuse Modi as much you want but you will not be able to disintegrate the country. Shyama Prasad's ideology is 'wachan patra' (agreement) for us and it is carved in stone which cannot be removed by anyone," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Ministry of Home Affairs has conveyed to the Delhi High Court that it, along with the Ministry of Defence, will abide by any decision of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) on the dual control over the Assam Rifles. In an affidavit filed to the Delhi High Court, the MHA has conveyed that the Union Home Secretary had held a meeting with the Defence Secretary on April 4 to discuss the issue. Assam Riffles, the 184-year-old paramilitary force of the country, is under the administrative control of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) while the operational control lies with the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The meeting discussed about a note moved by the MHA for the CCS on March 20 for resolving the issue of dual control over Assam Rifles. The CCS is chaired by the Prime Minister and comprises the Minister of External Affairs, the Home minister, the Finance minister and the Defence minister. It was decided by both MHA and MoD that they will abide by the decision of the CCS, the MHA told the high court in its affidavit. The court is now learnt to have issued a notice to the Cabinet Secretary to inform it as to what decision the CCS had taken on the note forwarded to it by the MHA, an official said. The court was hearing a petition filed by the Assam Rifles Ex-Servicemen Welfare Association through lawyer Neha Rathi on the difficulties faced by the retired personnel of the force with regard to the payment of pension due to the dual control of the force. The Assam Rifles came into being in 1835 as a militia called the 'Cachar Levy'. With approximately 750 men, this force was formed to primarily protect British tea estates and their settlements against tribal raids. Subsequently, all these forces were reorganised and renamed as the 'Frontier Force' as their role was increased to conduct of punitive expeditions across the borders of undivided Assam. This force significantly contributed in opening the region to administration and commerce and over time it came to be known as the "right arm of the civil and left arm of the military". It sent over 3,000 men as part of the British Army to Europe and the Middle East. In 1917, recognising their work during the Great War, fighting shoulder to shoulder with Rifle Regiments of the regular British Army, the name of the force was changed to 'Assam Rifles'. The post-independence role of the Assam Rifles continued to evolve, ranging from conventional combat role during the Sino-India War 1962, operating in foreign land as part of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka in 1987 (Operation Pawan) to peacekeeping role in the North-Eastern areas of India in the face of growing tribal unrest and insurgency wherein the maintenance of law and order, countering insurgency and reassuring the people of the region became important tasks for the Assam Rifles. Now, the Assam Rifles remains deployed in some of the most remote areas in the Northeast and provides security to the locals. The force has grown substantially over the years from 17 battalions in 1960 to 46 battalions with about 46,000 personnel at present. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress chief Rahul Gandhi Monday claimed Prime Minister Narendra Modi changed terms of the Rafale deal to benefit industrialist Anil Ambani to the tune of Rs 30,000 crore. Gandhi's fresh attack on Modi came on a day when the Supreme Court said certain remarks made by the Congress chief on the Rafale case verdict were "incorrectly attributed" to it. At a poll rally here, Gandhi also said he got the idea of 'Nyay' scheme from Modis "fake promise" ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls to deposit Rs 15 lakh in every citizen's bank account. Hard selling his party's manifesto pledge of providing Rs 72,000 a year to each of the poorest five crore families, he said money for the 'Nyay' scheme will come from the pockets of people like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. Speaking at the rally in the home state of Modi, Gandhi once again alleged corruption in the Rafale deal. Mahuva, which is in Bhavnagar district, comes under the Amerli Lok Sabha constituency. "Under the UPA deal, the fighter aircraft was to be made by HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd). We were to procure 126 fighter jets (from France). "But Narendra Modi changed the deal. He said 36 fighter jets will be made in France and purchased by us and he gave Rs 30,000 crore to Anil Ambani, who had no prior experience of making fighter jets," Gandhi said. The Congress chief said the Modi government is buying Rafale jets from French firm Dassault at an inflated price. "He (Anil Ambani) has never made an aircraft, but you give this big deal to him, why? Just because he is your friend. "The (former) President of France told me that when Narendra Modi visited that country, he told them we will purchase one Rafale fighter jet for Rs 1,600 crore instead of Rs 526 crore and from that give Rs 30,000 crore to Anil Ambani," Gandhi said. "The case is going on in the Supreme Court... (and), when the CBI says they will investigate, the agency's director is removed at midnight. 'The Hindu' newspaper said Narendra Modi continued parallel negotiations with the French company and French government," he said. Continuing his attack on Modi, Gandhi said the PM is the 'chowkidar' (watchman) of the rich, not the poor. "He told common people don't make me prime minister, but make me chowkidar. "Tell me one thing - is chowkidar present in front of the house of farmers and labourers? He is not your chowkidar but that of (businessmen like) Adani and Ambani. "His work is to snatch your water, electricity and land and give it to these 15-20 industrialists," he said. Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court made it clear that remarks made by Rahul Gandhi on the Rafale case verdict were "incorrectly attributed" to the apex court and directed the Congress President to give his explanation by April 22. Gandhi said the middle class will not be burdened with more taxes to fund 'Nyay', the minimum income scheme for the poor. "Narendra Modi promised Rs 15 lakh to all though it was a false promise... from it an idea came to me. I called my think-tank and asked them what is the amount of money that we can transfer to the peoples account directly. "They told me we can give Rs 72,000 per year," he said. "Modi made a false promise of Rs 15 lakh, but I am giving you a real promise that in the next five years Rs 3.60 lakh crore will be given to 20 per cent poor people of the country if the Congress comes to power," Gandhi said. "People are asking from where this money will come... it will not come from common people, we will not raise income tax for it, but it will come from industrialists like Mallya, Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi," he said. The three industrialists, presently abroad, are wanted in India for fraud and money laundering. If the Congress comes to power after the Lok Sabha polls, its government will present two budgets - one for the entire country and the other exclusively for farmers, Gandhi said. Gujarat, which has 26 Lok Sabha seats, will vote in a single phase on April 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hours after the Supreme Court sought an explanation from Rahul Gandhi for his certain remarks on the Rafale deal, the Congress chief Monday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of changing its terms to benefit his "friend" Anil Ambani to the tune of Rs 30,000 crore. Addressing a rally here, Gandhi also said he got the idea of 'Nyay' scheme from Modi's "fake promise" of depositing Rs 15 lakh into every citizen's bank account. Hard selling his party's pledge of providing Rs 72,000 a year to 20 per cent poorest families, he said money for the 'Nyay' scheme will come from the pockets of fugitive economic offenders like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. "As part of the UPA deal, HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd) had to manufacture the fighter aircraft. We were to procure 126 fighter jets (from France). "But Narendra Modi changed the deal. He said we will purchase 36 French-made fighter jets and gave Rs 30,000 crore to Anil Ambani, who has no experience of making fighter aircraft," Gandhi alleged. The Congress chief alleged the Modi government is buying the aircraft at an inflated price. "He (Anil Ambani) has never made an aircraft, but you gave this big deal to him, why? Just because he is your friend. "The (former) President of France told me that when Narendra Modi visited that country, he told them 'we will purchase one Rafale fighter jet for Rs 1,600 crore instead of Rs 526 crore and from that give Rs 30,000 crore to Anil Ambani'," Gandhi alleged. "The case is going on in the Supreme Court... (and), when the CBI says they will investigate, the agency's director is removed at midnight. 'The Hindu' newspaper said Narendra Modi continued parallel negotiations with the French company and French government," he said. The Congress president said the PM is the 'chowkidar' (watchman) of the rich, not the poor. "He told common people don't make me prime minister, but make me chowkidar. Tell me one thing - have you seen a chowkidar guarding the houses of farmers and labourers? He is not your chowkidar but that of (businessmen like) Adani and Ambani. He snatches your water, electricity and land and gives it to these 15-20 industrialists," Gandhi alleged. Anil Ambani has rejected Gandhi's allegations and emphasised that the government had no role in Dassault Aviation picking up his company as a local partner. Earlier in the day, the SC made it clear that certain remarks made by Gandhi on the Rafale case verdict were "incorrectly attributed" to the apex court and asked him to give his explanation on or before April 22. The Congress president had on April 10 claimed that the apex court has made it "clear" that Modi "committed a theft". Gandhi alleged Modi, after his five-year rule, has not fulfilled his three key promises of 2014 - creating two crore jobs per year, transferring Rs 15 lakh into people's accounts and giving the right price for farm commodities. He said the middle class will not be burdened with more taxes to fund 'Nyay', the minimum income scheme for the poor. "Modi promised Rs 15 lakh to all though it was a false promise... from it an idea came to me. I called my think-tank and asked them how much money we can transfer to people directly.They told me we can give Rs 72,000 per year," Gandhi said. "Modi made a false promise of Rs 15 lakh, but I am making a real promise that in the next five years Rs 3.60 lakh crore will be given to 20 per cent poor people of the country if the Congress comes to power," Gandhi said. "People are asking from where this money will come... it will not come from common people, we will not levy income tax for it, but it will come from industrialists like Mallya, Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi," he said. The three industrialists, presently abroad, are wanted in India for fraud and money laundering. Gandhi said the country will have a separate budget for farmers if his party forms the next government. "Earlier we used to have two budgets - one main (general) budget and second Railway budget. But this was scrapped after 2014 (when the BJP came to power). "When we come to power in 2019, we will once again have two separate budgets one national budget and another budget for farmers in which we will tell you in advance what will be MSPs for various products," he said. Gandhi said the Congress will bring a law to ensure that if farmers default on payment of loan instalment, he would not be jailed. "Big industrialists do not go behind bars if they default on loan payment, then why should you (farmers) go to jail? Gandhi was campaigning for Congress candidate Paresh Dhanani, the Leader of Opposition in the assembly contesting from the Amreli Lok Sabha constituency. Mahuva, though located in Bhavnagar district, falls in the Amreli Lok Sabha constituency. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Mumbai-bound Vistara flight made an emergency landing at the Jaipur International Airport Monday after an elderly passenger's health worsened mid-air, an official said. Vistara UK987 flying from New Delhi to Mumbai landed at the airport at 3.15 pm, Jaipur airport director J S Balhara said. He said a medical team at the airport was apprised about the medical emergency to handle the situation. Raza Hussain, 70, was referred to a nearby private hospital in an ambulance with a doctor. He was accompanied by his family member. The flight had 136 passengers on board and two of them were disembarked at the airport here, including a relative of the patient. The flight departed at 4.58 pm for Mumbai, the airport director said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Monday rejected the opposition's argument that elections should not be fought on national security issues, saying security and terrorism are the most important issues in long run while all other challenges are capable of early resolution. He also said that the biggest challenge before India is the issue of Jammu & Kashmir and terror as it concerns nation's sovereignty. "India's opposition argues that elections have to be fought on the 'real issues' and not on the issues of national security. It is my endeavour to argue that national security and terrorism are the most important issues which concern India in the long run. All other challenges are capable of early resolution," Jaitley said in a facebook post titled 'Why Jammu and Kashmir, and new approach to terrorism will remain a key political issue'. The opposition parties had accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of politicising death of over 40 CRPF personnel in Pulwama and Indian Air Force's retaliatory attack at Balakot in Pakistan for electoral gains. Several former service chiefs and military veterans have written to President Ram Nath Kovind, expressing concern over political leaders taking credit for military operations to pursue political agenda. Giving reasons for making national security and terrorism subject matters of electoral debate, Jaitley said, "it relates to country's sovereignty, integrity and security". "Terror supported from across the border can't be fought either with velvet gloves or a policy of appeasement," he said, adding the two regional parties (PDP and NC) have played a disappointing role, and the current leadership of the opposition parties have hardly a roadmap except to tread on the path to disaster. This challenge, Jaitley added, can be resolved with a fresh approach, which is uncompromising on terror, and determination to enforce the rule of law with commitment to total integration. He further said that during the course of election campaign, whenever issues relating to the terror attack at Pulwama and the air strikes at Balakot are raised, India's opposition is on the back-foot. "A strong Government and a leader with clarity alone is capable of resolving the Kashmir issue. This will necessarily require reversal of the historical blunders of the past," the minister said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Nationalism and martyrdom of soldiers are as much an election issue as the death of farmers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Monday, rejecting allegations that he was using the defence forces in his campaign speeches for winning the polls. In an interview to national broadcaster Doordarshan, Modi said the country is suffering because of terrorism for the last 40 years and there is no reason for people not being told about this. "If we don't tell them what our views are on this, then what is the logic in that? ...Can any country move ahead without the feeling of nationalism," he said. "In a country where thousands of its soldiers have been martyred, shouldn't that be an election issue? If farmers die, then it is an election issue, but when soldiers die then it is not an election issue? How can that be?" the prime minister added. Last week, Modi asked first-time voters to dedicate their votes to those who carried out the air strike in Pakistan's Balakot. He also also urged to dedicate their first votes to the security personnel killed in the Pulwama terror attack. The comments created political furore with opposition parties accusing the prime minister of using the defence forces for winning the polls. The poll panel took notice and the remarks are currently under examination. The poll authorities in Maharashtra's Latur, where he made the speech, have told the Election Commission that prima facie the comments are violative of its orders, asking parties against using the armed forces in their campaigns. Modi in his interview also took a swipe at Congress president Rahul Gandhi, alleging that he was raking up the Rafale issue to wash the sins of his father. "He has made the Rafale issue to wash the sins of his father. For the past six months, he has been making it an issue without any proof," he said. Modi further said that in the past five years his government has addressed the basic requirements of the people that should have been fulfilled within the first ten to twenty years of Independence. He said that his comments against the Gandhi family was against dynastic and his opposition was issue-based and not personal. "Dynastic is the most dangerous thing for a democracy," he said. Commenting on the Congress's 'NYAY' or minimum income promise, Modi said with the announcement of the scheme, the Congress has accepted that they have done "great injustice" to the people for the past 60 years. "Will they give nyay (justice)?," he asked, referring to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Talking about BJP's chances in the ongoing elections, Modi said there is an "unprecedented wave of support" for his party. "I have not seen this even in 2014," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A policeman was Monday injured, and his rifle looted, after Naxals attacked him with sharp-edged weapons in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district, police said. The incident took placeat 1:30 am when constable Venkat Rao Majji was on night patrol at a five-day Ram Navami fair in Madded town in the district, a local police official said. "Some Naxals attacked the constable in the dark with sharp-edged weapons when he was talking on the phone. Before the other security personnel there could react, the ultras looted his self-loading rifle and fled," the official said. "The injured constable was rushed to a local hospital and then shifted to Bijapur town for further treatment. Efforts are on to nab the attackers," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) There is a need to change the development paradigm and aim for a climate resilient development, moving away from traditional metrics, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu Monday said. Address the fourth Asia Pacific Forum on Urban Resilience and Adaptation that began here on Monday, he said, "The new urban infrastructure should be low-carbon, green and climate resilient." In a series of tweets, Naidu also emphasised that climate vulnerability and its likely impacts should be factored in all development strategies. The three-day event is being hosted by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation in association with UN (ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability). This event is being organised in India for the first time and 31 countries are taking part in this programme that was inaugurated by the vice president, the SDMC said in a statement. "We need to change our development paradigm and aim for climate resilient development, moving away from traditional metrics of measuring development. The new urban infrastructure should be low-carbon, green and climate resilient," Naidu tweeted. He urged all city, province and country representatives to adopt various multi-dimensional and innovative approaches, as a part of their endeavour to achieve the United Nations Agenda for Sustainable Development, to ensure low emissions oriented development. "The need of the hour is to encourage green infrastructure, enable a circular economy and promote resource efficiency to achieve climate resilient urban development," Naidu said in another tweet. The Resilient Cities Asia Pacific (RCAP) Congress 2019 is offering cities and regions from Asia-Pacific a variety of innovative solutions that build resilience to climate change at the sub-national level. "The outcomes of the RCAP 2019 will be presented in the NDC Conference to be held in Berlin in June this year," the SDMC statement said, adding about 200 participants, including at least 50 mayors from different cities in the region are participating in the forum. Besides, representatives of international organisations such as the UNEP, UNDP, UN-HABITAT, UNESCAP, UNISDR, UNIDO are also present in the event. Bilateral and multilateral funding agencies such as SDC, EU, IDRC, World Bank, ADB, GIZ, Rockefeller Foundation, OECD, and others are also attending the event, the SDMC said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Netherlands will cooperate with Haryana Agricultural University (HAU) here in its efforts for management of paddy stubble. A four-member delegation led by Siebe Schuur, Counsellor for Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality from the Embassy of the Netherlands in India, called on HAU Vice-Chancellor K P Singh here on Monday, a statement said. Siebe Schuur assured the university to support its efforts being made for management of crop residue, particularly, paddy straw. He said companies of the Netherlands are eager to invest in India in projects related to the management of paddy straw. A large number of farmers burn the paddy straw which creates the problem of environmental pollution. HAU is working for providing simple and economical options to farmers for safeguarding the as well as management of paddy straw, the Vice-Chancellor said. The University has also got a project worth Rs 4 crore from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to develop suitable technologies for crop residue management and popularize the available methods and machinery among the farmers. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Get AfricaFocus Bulletin by e-mail! Format for print or mobile Africa/Global: Ebola Resurgence Tests Global Response AfricaFocus Bulletin April 15, 2019 (190415) (Reposted from sources cited below) Editor's Note Despite a worsening Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the World Health Organization on Friday again decided not to declare the outbreak a global health emergency. While expressing deep concern about the number of increasing cases in parts of Congo, and the potential risk of the disease spreading to neighboring countries, the W.H.O. said the epidemic did not meet the criteria for declaring an international public health emergency. - New York Times, April 12, 2019 (http://tinyurl.com/y5ochm2v) With more than 750 deaths since first reported in August 2018, the epidemic in northeastern DRC is the second largest recorded, behind the multi-country epidemic in West Africa which left 11,325 dead in 2014-2016. The DRC outbreak has not yet crossed international borders, and the coordinated response is taking advantage of new solutions, including an effective vaccine tested in 2015. But many global health experts argue that the remoteness of the location and the lack of international media attention is again leading to underestimation of the danger and an inadequate global response, as happened in West Africa. As of late March, WHO had received less than half of its $148 million funding request for Ebola response over the next six months. If the Trump administrations budget proposal of the 2020 fiscal year were enacted, global health funding would fall even further short, as that budget zeroes out US funding for UNICEF and cuts US contributions to WHO by 47%. The budget proposes a $1.3 billion (20%) cut for the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which is a key global institution for technical research and support in fighting epidemics. Fortunately, as indicated by congressional hearings in March, there is bipartisan support for funding for global health. I consider this every bit as much of a defense budget as anything at DOD [US Department of Defense]," ranking Republican representative Tom Cole {R-OK) said ... "As I've said on many, many occasions, we're much more likely to die in pandemics than in terrorist attacks. This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from the testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee by CDC Director Dr. Robert R. Redfield, as well as links to other sources of relevant information on the DRC Ebola epidemic. For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Ebola and other health issues, visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-health.php On the current outbreak Ebola Epidemic in Congo Could Last Another Year, C.D.C. Director Warns, New York Times, March 16, 2019 http://tinyurl.com/y392wexl Helen Branswell, WHO asks panel to weigh whether Ebola outbreak is global emergency, StatNews, April 10, 2019 http://tinyurl.com/y5mhc4c9 Regular updates from the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/infectious-disease-topics/ebola On funding for global health House Lawmakers Criticize Trump's Bid to Cut NIH, CDC Budgets, Medscape, March 14, 2019 https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/910374 The White House has proposed reducing CDC's fiscal 2020 funding to $5.3 billion for fiscal 2020 from about $6.6 billion in fiscal 2019. CDC Coalition letter from 225 organizations, March 4, 2019 http://tinyurl.com/yyrq843c The undersigned 225 members of the CDC Coalition and other supporting state and national organizations urge you to provide at least $7.8 billion for the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions programs in the FY 2020 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations bill. The White House Seeks to Eliminate Funding for UNICEF, UN Dispatch, March 12, 2019 http://tinyurl.com/y6k8oq3q ++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++ U.S. Public Health Response to the Ebola Outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Other Emerging Health Threats Robert R. Redfield, M.D. Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Testimony before the Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies , United States Senate March 14, 2019 http://tinyurl.com/y552kbqc CDC is working, in collaboration with interagency and international partners, to end this outbreak and ensure the health and security of our country. We have comprehensive Ebola response capabilities developed over 40 years at the forefront of Ebola virus research and further refined by more than 20 Ebola outbreak responses. In the wake of the worst Ebola outbreak in history, the 20142016 West Africa outbreak that claimed over 11,000 lives, CDC has made significant advancements in Ebola science, surveillance, and response. For example, we confirmed that live Ebola virus can persist in specific body fluids, such as in seminal fluids, for over a year following infection. In response to the epidemic, we also trained epidemiologists and laboratory scientists and provided testing materials and support to African countries at greatest risk of Ebola outbreaks. In addition, in June 2015 we established CDCs Global Rapid Response Team, a cadre of over 500 highly-trained responders ready to deploy on short notice anywhere in the world to respond to global health emergencies. In response to the current outbreak in the eastern DRC, CDC has deployed 133 expert disease detectives to the DRC, neighboring countries, and the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva ... The current outbreak of Ebola is in the northeast corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which borders South Sudan, Uganda, and Rwanda. The area affected is more than 1,000 miles by air from Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC. Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74330870 The complex situation in the DRC has limited CDCs direct participation at the outbreaks epicenter, which is located far from the capital city of Kinshasa in an area threatened by armed conflict, crime, and civil unrest, as well as heavy cross-border movement. In August 2018, before the security situation escalated, I was able to visit the DRC city of Beni to see first-hand the work being done. I heard directly from our international partners on the ground how valued and desired CDCs contribution is, with their greatest request being expanded CDC technical leadership and expertise in the field. My visit reinforced for me the essential role CDC can play in changing the trajectory of the Ebola outbreak. The current outbreak is the largest and longest single country Ebola outbreak to date, with case counts continuing to increase and key response indicators going in the wrong direction. Status of the Epidemic On August 1, 2018, the DRC Ministry of Health and Population reported an outbreak of Ebola virus disease in North Kivu Province. It is now the largest Ebola outbreak in the DRC and the second largest ever since the virus was discovered there in a village near the Ebola River in 1976. As of March 7, 2019, 907 cases have been reported, including 569 deaths (63%). This includes 841 laboratory-confirmed cases and 66 probable cases. Due to challenges in detecting and reporting cases posed by the security situation, CDC suspects the true number of cases is much larger. Past outbreaks of Ebola in the DRC typically occurred in sparselypopulated, rural areas. The current outbreaklike the prior outbreak in West Africaincludes densely-populated urban areas, increasing the likelihood of human- to-human spread. Since the outbreak began, the greatest number of cases has been in Beni town (235 cases), which has a municipal population of 340,000 and a greater area population of about 1 million. North Kivu health zones of Katwa (260 cases) and Butembo (84 cases) are also heavily-affected, and encompass an urban area with a population of approximately 1 million. The affected region is about 780 miles away from Equateur province, where a prior Ebola outbreak was reported in May 2018 and declared over in late July. Although both outbreaks were caused by Zaire ebolavirus, genetic differences between the viruses suggest the two outbreaks are not linked. Status of Response Efforts The DRC Ministry of Health and Population is leading the response, with strong assistance from WHO. CDC is providing technical guidance to the DRC government, bordering countries, and partners, bringing to bear decades of experience, global health investments, and lessons learned in the West Africa Ebola response. For example, CDC has updated ring vaccination protocols, which strategically focus vaccination efforts on the contacts of cases and people who are in close contact with those contacts. CDC has also updated vaccination training materials, trained 150 and deployed 127 Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP) graduates, and developed two new Ebola databases for surveillance and vaccination tracking to replace a manual record-keeping system. All partners are working together toward one goal: to end this outbreak as soon as possible. In August, CDC deployed Ebola experts to Beni, but they were removed due to security concerns [related to elections]. The departure order was lifted on January 31, 2019 following the peaceful completion of the electoral process. CDCs Country Director for the DRC has returned, and CDC has deployed five staff to Kinshasa. CDC is ready to deploy more teams to support the DRC and WHO and the integrated U.S. Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) emergency outbreak response, as required. Specifically, CDC would apply its technical and scientific expertise to help strengthen contact tracing and infection control practices in the field, two critical factors affecting ongoing transmission in the area. We are working closely with other U.S. government agencies, such as Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, Department of Defense, National Security Council, and others to consider all potential options for support and deployment. CDC is continuing to support contact tracing, infection prevention and control in healthcare settings, border health, risk communications and health education, and vaccine administration key pillars of the Ebola outbreak response. In addition to CDCs presence in the DRC, CDC also has deployed staff to augment our country offices in the neighboring countries of Uganda, Rwanda, and South Sudan, which are preparing for the possibility of imported cases arriving from the DRC. Contact Tracing Contact tracing is finding everyone who comes in contact, either directly or through contaminated materials, with a sick Ebola patient. Contacts are watched for signs of illness and if ill, taken to a health facility before they can infect others. One missed contact can keep the outbreak going. When someone is not known to be a contact, they are usually only identified in a late stage of illness and have spread the infection to others already. As of March 7, 2019, a total of 4,265 out of 4,950 (86%) known contacts of people with Ebola were followed. However, of recent cases, only 65% were known contacts and only 38% were known contacts that were being followed at the time of symptom onset. The high proportion of cases that are not known contacts or lost to follow-up indicates that contact tracing must improve if the outbreak is to be contained. CDC designed train- the-trainers courses for frontline response workers, focusing on contact tracing methods. CDC also created an Ebola Exposure Window Calculator app for case investigators, which can be downloaded for free on smartphones. Infection Prevention and Control in Healthcare Settings Healthcare settings have played an important role in amplifying transmission in this and many prior outbreaks. Implementing proper infection control and prevention practices is critical to stopping the spread of the virus within the healthcare delivery system and to the community. Prompt identification and isolation of patients arriving at healthcare facilities with possible Ebola virus infection is essential so they may be safely evaluated and, if necessary, transported to an Ebola Treatment Unit for further care. CDC estimates that, as of February 27, 2019, approximately 42% of cases were still not being effectively identified and isolated to prevent transmission to others. Infected people who are not initially recognized to have Ebola may receive care at multiple facilities before Ebola is suspected, exposing numerous patients and healthcare workers to the virus. As of February 27, 2019, 73 local healthcare workers have contracted Ebola in the DRC. On 14 September 2018, medical workers are thoroughly cleaned after visiting patients at an Ebola treatment centre in Butembo, Democratic Republic of Congo, after a recent outbreak of the deadly disease. Credit: UNICEF/UN0235950/Nybo. CDC is providing assistance to response partners and surrounding countries to improve the capacity of healthcare facilities to rapidly identify and isolate suspected Ebola cases, train personnel, and improve infection prevention and control. At least 150 healthcare personnel have been trained by CDC in Uganda and Rwanda since October 2018. Using information from interviews conducted at border crossings, refugee transit centers, and district health offices, CDC identified clinics and hospitals in border districts of neighboring countries that would be most likely to receive an imported case of Ebola from the outbreak area. CDC assessed triage practices at these facilities, interviewed and informed staff about risks of imported Ebola, and prioritized facilities for additional training and support. Border Health The two DRC provinces affected by this outbreak, North Kivu and Ituri, border Uganda. North Kivu also borders Rwanda and Ituri province touches South Sudan. There is significant population movement across these country borders. The Mpondwe Border Crossing is the busiest official ground crossing on the border between Uganda and the DRC, with a peak of 19,000 travelers passing through each day. At the Rubavu District Point of Entry between Goma, DRC and Gisenyi/Rubavu City, Rwanda, 60,000 people cross daily. This high volume of movement, which includes pedestrian, commercial car, and truck traffic, poses significant concern for potential cross-border transmission of infectious diseases. The WHO assessment is that there is a very high risk of spread regionally. Preparedness activities in bordering countries are ongoing and CDC is providing technical assistance on their border health security efforts. Building on collaborations from the earlier 2018 outbreak, CDC is working with the DRC Ministry of Health and Population and other partners to adapt and implement screening protocols at country-prioritized airports and ground crossings, and to map population movement into and out of the outbreak zone to determine where surveillance should be enhanced. As of March 3, 2019 about 40.4 million travelers have been screened at 80 priority ports and crossing points in the DRC since the outbreak began. Risk Communications and Health Education CDC social and behavioral scientists have deployed to WHO headquarters and several countries bordering the DRC to guide risk communication and community engagement strategies. Risk communication leads from CDC, WHO, International Red Cross, and UNICEF have set a strategic direction for risk communication activities and produced a framework that has been shared widely with response partners. CDC and the Red Cross are leveraging the unique strengths of each of their organizations to bring the perspectives of DRC residents to the attention of Ebola response teams. Red Cross volunteers engage with and educate DRC community members about Ebola and document individuals beliefs, observations, questions, and suggestions about combating Ebola. Red Cross sends this information to CDC, where scientists analyze it and develop reports for all participating partners to inform outreach efforts. Data are being collected and analyzed at regular intervals to monitor changes in knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions as the outbreak evolves and to assess the effectiveness of health communication messages. Vaccine Administration CDC conducted a clinical trial in Sierra Leone during the West Africa Ebola outbreak, enrolling and vaccinating nearly 8,000 healthcare and frontline workers. Although this and several other studies have shown that the investigational vaccine is safe and protective against the Ebola virus, more scientific research is needed before the vaccine can be licensed. Therefore, the investigational vaccine is being used in the current outbreak on a compassionate basis. WHO and the Ministries of Health lead the vaccination program, but CDC contributes expert technical support and our experience continues to be valued in each new country undertaking the process. CDC has played a critical role in identifying and implementing preventive vaccination of high-risk healthcare and frontline workers in the DRC. In the field, CDCs Ebola vaccination implementation expert has provided supervision to national-level teams to ensure high-quality vaccination implementation. We have embedded CDC staff in the DRC Vaccine Commission within the Emergency Operations Center to assist with data analysis of vaccine indicators and improving the quality of the ring vaccination efforts. One week after discovery of the Ebola outbreak in North Kivu, frontline health workers begin vaccination at the Magina health center. Credit: WHO. As of March 7, 2019, the remaining number of vaccine doses in Beni was approximately 11,490. Our projections show that, depending on the vaccination strategies used and other contextual factors, demand for Ebola vaccine could exceed supply sometime between May and mid-September of 2019, indicating a need to augment the available vaccine supply. As of March 7, 2019, 85,877 individuals have been vaccinated. CDC has also collaborated with WHO colleagues in Uganda, South Sudan, and Rwanda to translate ring vaccination concepts for Ebola preparedness, and has provided technical assistance to countries as they have considered the use of Ebola vaccine. In addition, we have applied our expertise to update Ebola vaccination protocols, operating procedures, and training and communications materials for use at national and local levels, and facilitated trainings for national staff. Our work across multiple countries has helped standardize procedures and facilitate dissemination of best practices. Outlook of the Epidemic Based on the lessons learned from the West Africa Ebola outbreak, transmission can be stopped and the outbreak terminated when at least 70% of cases are effectively isolated after becoming ill, that is, moved to an Ebola Treatment Unit before they have infected anyone else. This needs to be sustained for at least two to three months to end the outbreak. Without improving the current effective case isolation rate of 58%, our models indicate that the cumulative number of Ebola cases could reach an estimated 1,184 by late August of 2019, or worse with further deterioration of the fragile security situation. However, as noted above, there are many uncertainties about the current outbreak in the DRC. The WHO and the government of the DRCs SRP 3.0 includes recommendations to strengthen contact tracing and rapid identification and isolation of cases. CDC is committed to leveraging its resources and global health security expertise to help end the outbreak. Risk to the United States CDC understands that an international outbreak of Ebola puts the United States at risk and we appreciate the trust placed in CDC to keep Americans safe from public health threats both domestically and abroad. At this time, we believe the direct risk to the United States remains extremely low based on the travel volume and patterns from the outbreak areas to the United States and the implementation of border screening measures at key airports and ports in the DRC and neighboring countries. Big Picture: Global Health Security The ongoing response to Ebola in the DRC demonstrates CDCs commitment to strengthening global health security. CDC has been engaged in global health security work for over seven decades and is able to leverage the essential public health assets developed by notable initiatives like the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Presidents Malaria Initiative, and global polio eradication to support core global health security programs and ensure the safety of Americans. With an understanding of the increasing threats posed by infectious disease globally and in the context of the West Africa Ebola outbreak, CDC received $582 million in supplemental funding for a five-year effort in support of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA). GHSA was launched by a growing partnership of nations, international organizations, and non-governmental stakeholders in 2014 with a stated vision of a world safe and secure from global health threats posed by infectious diseases. We appreciate the continued commitment of Congress to global heath security, as demonstrated by the funding provided to CDC for global health security in FY 2018 and 2019. This support enables CDC to continue work that protects Americans by detecting and preventing infectious disease threats before they reach our borders. The DRC serves as an example of a country where CDC investments have built capacity since program operations began in 2002, including activities specifically to prepare for an Ebola outbreak. These efforts have also fostered strong relationships with the DRC and surrounding countries ministries of health that have proved critical in times of crisis. In May 2018, an outbreak of Ebola in the Equateur province of the DRC raised international concern due to its size, logistical challenges caused by the remote area, and early spread to more populated cities. That outbreak was limited to 53 cases and 29 deaths. The swift response ensured it was quickly controlled, and on July 25, 2018 WHO and the DRC officially declared that the outbreak was over. Without a doubt, our global health security activities in the DRC enabled a faster, more effective and successful response to the May 2018 outbreak, and have made a difference even considering the complex security situation of the current outbreak. The DRC Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP), developed with assistance from CDC and modeled after CDCs own training programs, has trained around 150 disease detectives who are crucial to accurately detecting and identifying outbreaks. The DRC graduated its first cohort of FETP residents in 2015. These are the disease detectives who are supporting the current Ebola outbreak and serve as an example of how CDC supports sustainable capacity development of countries to respond to outbreaks within their own borders. Training programs like these work effectively because they are complemented by decades of field experience that CDC experts bring, teaching new detectives how to not only respond to issues after they have occurred, but rapidly identify diseases and prevent spread. CDC maintains long-standing collaborations in the DRC for priority diseases, including monkeypox virus response and prevention, building capacity and skills that have been beneficial for Ebola response. Sustainable investments, such as resources and expertise to train laboratory technicians, renovate and upgrade two laboratories, and establish a National Emergency Operations Center in the DRC, are all being leveraged in the current Ebola response. 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 There will be no online voting for the 2019 polls for Indian expatriates in the UAE, the Consul-General of India in Dubai has said, as he dismissed rumours that it was possible for non-resident Indians to vote online for the ongoing general elections. Indian expats have complained that social media platforms have been rife with forwards of misleading posts that suggest non-resident Indians (NRIs) can vote online for 2019 polls. There will be no e-voting for the 2019 elections, the Consul-General of India in Dubai, Vipul was quoted as saying in a media on Sunday. "One can register on the National Voters' Service Portal (NVSP), and ensure that their name has appeared in the electoral roll," he told Khaleej Times, adding that the only way people can vote is by personally visiting the polling booth in their respective constituency. According to many Indian expats, the posts have been making the rounds since January. While some of them believed the posts, others cross checked on the website of the Election Commission of India and social media handles to find that the forwards 'fake news'. "I've been receiving this message from several WhatsApp groups in the past week. I first saw the messages in January, and now the volume has increased," Lincy Monse, a government employee who has been working in the UAE for 15 years, was quoted as saying in the report. "My husband has already left for India and will be casting his vote on April 21 in Kottayam. When I saw the post, I was excited and thought he could vote here. Later, I realised the is fake," she said, adding a lot of NRIs want to exercise their right to vote, so I assumed it has become a reality. Nihad Ahmed, a marketing professional from Kashmir, said: "I got a forward a few months ago. It was a misleading article in an English daily that caused me to believe that online voting is a reality. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Chairman and says she has no plans to run for office but in her post-retirement time she will focus on finding systemic solutions" to address an impending care crisis due to a shortage of caregivers to look after young children and the elderly. Nooyi, speaking at the 2019 Women in the World Summit here last week, warned that there is going to be a massive shortage of about a million caregivers for young children and the elderly in the US in the next couple of years. She said the problem has to be addressed and solutions worked on really fast because everyday there are 10,000 baby boomers retiring, using the term to describe the demographic born worldwide between 1946 and 1964. Many of these boomers are going to need care going forward and the millennials are going to have to care for these boomers because they are the sandwich generation between the (baby boomers) and the kids. How are you going to make it all work, Nooyi said. How are we going to redefine what is family, how we share each others' time to create a more nurturing environment, she said. "This is going to require a symposium of the kind we have never had to talk about these issues, put a cost to it and figure out how to address it because if we don't, we are going to be facing a major care crisis which we won't know how to address in the next 24-36 months. That's what worries me," she said to a huge applause from the audience. When asked how she would take the idea and put it to work and whether one should expect her to run for office, Nooyi replied, No. Nooyi stressed that care workers, who typically earn less per hour than they would working at a local convenience store, are opting to work in a more social environment as opposed to doing care work for children and elderly people. "That's going to create a massive care shortage for us. We are going to have a million caregiver shortage - between aging care and child care - in a couple of years. What are we going to do. She said need millennials in the work place because otherwise the productivity of the country is impacted. We need women in the workplace but society also wants the millennial women to have two kids each to make sure the population is replaced the right way. "But we cannot expect you to have those kids if we don't give you the support system," she said to another round of applause from the audience. This is a real issue that as countries, companies, communities, families and societies we have to figure out a sensible way to come together and come up with true policy options and start working on this. If we don't come with up some systemic solutions to address this issue, there is going to be a crunch, she said. She added that she is trying to bring people together to write something about the issue in a way that is clear and crisp and everybody can understand what the problem and the solution is. Now the real question is how do we bring the right people around the table to say this is the set of solutions that will work and this is how we can pay for it. Nooyi said she is encouraged by efforts in to look for solutions to the crisis, including through the many childcare bills making their way through Congress, paid family leave and support systems required for caregivers. We can bring this care crisis together as an issue that galvanises action and around that wrap a whole bunch of other factors which together can address this issue. It is an urgent issue and in my wonderful retirement years now, this is one of the things, I'm going to focus a lot of my attention on, she said , adding that she is trying to convene the ex women-CEOs to say we have to sign up to this and she will be writing and publishing on this issue. We have to stop talking about this as a problem, we have to get to what is the solution, demand answers, she said. Nooyi emphasised the critical need for employees, particularly women, to find how to strike a balance between children and work while working to move up the career pyramid. Nooyi narrated her own experience of how she managed to strike a balance between her work and taking care of her young children while moving up the ladder in She said she had made it very clear at the outset that her children will spend time with her in the office if she couldn't go home early to be with them. Very early in my time at PepsiCo, I had decided that I was going to be one of the guys but I was also going to be a woman so I was not going to allow them to push me around, which used to happen quite often. She stepped down on October 2 last year as PepsiCo's CEO, after 24 years with the company, the last 12 as of the global beverage giant. Nooyi said when she joined in 1994, her eldest daughter was around 8 years old while the younger one was nine months. "I was in the middle of this large scale transformation of the company between 1994 and 2000, working 24/7, she said, adding that she decided that after 5 pm, her kids were allowed to come to her office to be with her, play and sleep in her office. "That's the price of having me work at PepsiCo because if I couldn't go home and take care of the kids, my office was going to become the place where they will hang out, she said. When asked if her bosses were ok with such an arrangement, Nooyi, who was then Head of Corporate Strategy, said to an applause, Did they have a choice. If you want me, that's the price of having me." It comes down to, if you establish a niche for yourself that you are competent and make yourself indispensable based on competence, what can they do without you. If they didn't want me because they didn't want kids running around, then get somebody else, get a guy who couldn't do the job as well, she said. Nooyi said she faced zero resistance to this approach of hers and even her boss, then Steven Reinemund always helped her out during instances when she had to attend to both her daughters at the same time. When you have bosses like that, it's a piece of cake, she said. The North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) has "failed" to get ODF certificate in a third-party survey conducted under the Swachh Bharat Mission, sources have said. They said that the third-party has sent its report to the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry, informing that the civic body has failed to get the Open Defecation Free (ODF) status in its survey. The development comes days after areas falling under the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) were declared open defecation free in a survey conducted by the Quality Council of India. "The NDMC has failed to get the ODF certification in a third-party independent survey," sources told PTI. Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has blamed the AAP government for municipal corporations not having "happy record" under the Swachh Bharat Mission. "Delhi doesn't have happy record and for this (NDMC's failure to get ODF status), I squarely blame the AAP government. They (AAP) are only indulged in disruption. If one asks about it, they pass the buck on MCD, but they forget MCDs are under the Delhi government. They don't want to take any responsibility of anything," Puri told PTI. He said there are several urban local bodies which have improved a lot under the Swachh Bharat Mission, a flagship programme of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In 2014, there was only 34 per cent sanitation cover in the country, but today it has reached more than 95 per cent due to the Swachh Bharat Mission, Puri said, adding that it is a very positive moment in a very positive direction. Reacting to the development, a top official in the NDMC said that the civic boy will again apply for the certificate with "full preparation". "When we are fully confident, we will apply again... We are continuously working to ensure cleaning under Swachh Bharat Mission," the official said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after his candidature was withdrawn from the Khadoor Sahib seat by the SAD (Taksali), former Army chief General (retired) Joginder Jaswant Singh Monday said he is not leaving the battleground rather sacrificing the seat in the interest of Punjab and the Sikh community. Vowing to support the Punjab Democratic Alliance (PDA) candidate, Paramjit Kaur Khalra, from the Khadoor Sahib seat in the Lok Sabha polls, Singh said he has set an "example" by withdrawing his candidature to strengthen the third front in the state to root out the "corrupt" Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). The SAD (Taksali), the breakaway faction of the SAD, had Sunday evening announced that it was withdrawing Singh's candidature from the Khadoor Sahib seat in favour of PDA candidate Khalra, who is the wife of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra. "I am sacrificing my seat in the interest of Punjab and the Sikh panth (community). I do not think that I am leaving the battleground" Singh, 73, told the reporters here. "I sacrificed the seat from the position of strength, not from the weakness," the ex-Army chief asserted. He said the "misrule" of the Congress and the Akali Dal in the state should not continue further. "We should root out these corrupt parties from Punjab," Singh said. "If (Paramjit Kaur) Khalra wins, I will consider my sacrifice worth of it," he said. Singh said he had told the SAD (Taksali) chief, Ranjit Singh Brahmpura, that they should try to defeat the traditional parties -- Congress and Akali Dal -- at any cost. "I told him (Brahmpura) that it is important either she (Khalra) step down or she be fielded her from another seat, otherwise I was ready to sacrifice my seat. Because we were fighting each other," the ex-Army chief said. He said the political landscape changed after the name of Khalra was announced by the PDA. Moreover, the talks between the SAD (Taksali), AAP and PDA also could not materialise, he added. Singh ruled out contesting the Lok Sabha polls from any other seat. "I am not after any post. I got many positions on merit," he said. The Akali Dal has fielded Bibi Jagir Kaur, while the Congress has given ticket toJasbir Singh Dimpa from the Khadoor Sahib seat. The Aam Aadmi Party has fielded party's youth wing leader Manjinder Singh Sidhu. The former Army chief had unsuccessfully contested the Patiala seat in 2017 assembly polls against Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on a SAD ticket. He was the first Sikh to be appointed as the Army chief in 2005. He had also been the governor of Arunachal Pradesh. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) French firefighters Monday won an hours-long battle to save the main structure of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, after a colossal fire caused the spire of the historic edifice to crash to the ground and wiped out centuries of heritage. French President Emmanuel Macron vowed that "we will rebuild" Notre-Dame and expressed relief that "the worst had been avoided" in a fire that risked bringing the entire edifice down. The fire destroyed the roof of the 850-year-old UNESCO world heritage landmark, whose spectacular Gothic spire collapsed before the eyes of horrified onlookers on a previously pristine early spring evening. The fire, which came as Catholics prepare to celebrate Easter, sent orange flames and clouds of grey smoke bill owing into the sky as stunned Parisians and tourists watched on in horror. As darkness fell, some 400 firefighters then battled to control the fire and save at least its iconic front towers. They finally gained the upper hand as midnight approached. fire brigade chief Jean-Claude Gallet said "we can consider that the main structure of Notre-Dame has been saved and preserved" as well as the two towers. Deputy Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, also present at the scene, said that for the first time "the fire had decreased in intensity" while still urging "extreme caution". "This is really sad -- the saddest thing I've ever stood and watched in my life," said British tourist Sam Ogden, a 50-year-old onlooker, who had come to visit the cathedral with her family. ALSO READ: Firefighters battle to save iconic Notre Dame after fire destroys steeple Gasps and cries of "Oh my god" erupted around an hour after the fire first broke out when the top portion of the church's spire came crashing down. Firefighters douse flames from the burning Cathedral in Paris, France April 15, 2019. Photo: Reuters The cause of the blaze was not immediately confirmed. The cathedral had been undergoing intense restoration work which the fire service said could be linked to the blaze. French prosecutors said the blaze was being treated as an "involuntary" fire, indicating that foul play was ruled out for now. Last week, dramatic footage had shown workers removing 16 copper statues from the spire which was undergoing a revamp financed by the state and private donors. Historians expressed incredulity at the collapse of a building that has been a symbol of France for almost a millennium and withstood war and revolution. "If is the Eiffel Tower then France is It's the entire culture, entire history of France incarnated in this monument," Bernard Lecompte, a writer and specialist in religious history told BFM TV. Deputy mayor Emmanuel Gregoire told the channel that workers were scrambling "to save all the artworks that can be saved." Macron had earlier cancelled a major televised policy speech he was due to give on Monday evening to respond to months of protests, and instead headed to the scene in person. Visibly emotional, he said while the "worst had been avoided" and the facade and two towers saved "the next hours will be difficult". Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said he felt a "sadness beyond words" but added the fire services "were still fighting... heroically, to save what can be saved". Notre-Dame is aflame. Great emotion for the whole nation. Our thoughts go out to all Catholics and to the French people. Like all of my fellow citizens, I am sad to see this part of us burn tonight. https://t.co/27CrJgJkJb Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) April 15, 2019 German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Notre-Dame cathedral a "symbol of European culture" as the blaze raged. The Vatican on Monday expressed its "incredulity" and "sadness", expressing " our closeness with French Catholics and with the Parisian population." There was no immediate indication of any casualties in the blaze. US President Donald Trump in a tweet said it was "horrible" to watch the fire but caused controversy by offering advice on how to put it out. So horrible to watch the massive fire at Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019 "Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!" he said. But France's civil security service, which oversees crisis management in the country, tweeted back at Trump that the use of water-bombing aircraft was not being considered. "If used, (this) could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral," it said. Hundreds of people gathered on the bridges of Paris to witness the scene, many filming the images with their smartphones. The cathedral was located at the centre of the French capital in the Middle Ages and its construction was completed in the mid-12th century after some 200 years of work. During the French Revolution in the 18th century, the cathedral was vandalised in widespread anti-Catholic violence: its spire was dismantled, its treasures plundered and its large statues at the grand entrance doors destroyed. It would go on to feature as a central character in a Victor Hugo novel published in 1831, "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame" and shortly afterwards a restoration project lasting two decades got underway, led by architect Eugene Viollet-le-Duc. It would survive the devastation of two world conflicts in the 20th century and famously rang its bells on August 24, 1944, the day of the Liberation of Paris from German occupation at the end of the World War II. "Paris is disfigured. The city will never be like it was before," said Philippe, a communications worker in his mid-30s, who had biked over to the scene after being alerted of the fire by a friend. "It's a tragedy," he added. "If you pray, now is the time to pray. A group of NRIs in Houston organised a flash mob dance while others are involved in callathons to galvanise support for various political parties as the crucial weeks-long general elections began in India. Donning 'Namo Again' T-Shirts, waving tricolour and dancing on the tunes of 'Namo Namo' song, the BJP supporters organised the flash mob dance in support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the crowded Miller Outdoor Theatre in Houston downtown Saturday evening. The saffron clad volunteers have been working tirelessly asking people to support Modi for a second term. These volunteers are hosting 'Chai Pe Charcha' meetings, making calls to voters in India and organising catchy Bollywood flash mobs to reach masses back home, organisers said. So far the overseas friends of BJP USA (OFBJP USA) has reached over 5,000 voters through direct phone calls, they said. "Receiving a call from a concerned NRI leaves a special impression on the voter and he/she gets encouraged to participate in the elections as we push for every voter to go out and vote," Achalesh Amar, one of the volunteers leading this campaign, told PTI. "These supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi clearly believe that support can be shown anywhere, whether onlookers can vote in the coming Lok Sabha elections or not. After all, there is always social media," said Madhukar Adi, a BJP volunteer, who organised the flash mob dance Saturday. Gitesh Desai, the 2019 Pravasi Bhartiya Samman winner and coordinator for NRI4MODI2019 in Houston, said, "the weekly callathon is one of the many activities we have undertaken to support Modi and the BJP for the 2019 general election of India." Indian-American BJP supporters had a global callathon this weekend. "This was joined by multiple cities in the US, Canada, Japan, the UK and Australia at the same time," Amar said. Supporters of the Indian National Congress are also organising similar events in support of their party. They are engaging the Indian electorate, by participating in phone banks from New Jersey to California, or by being physically present in India. Mohinder Singh Gilzian, the new president of Indian Overseas Congress USA, told PTI over phone from New York, that the "upcoming elections in India are very critical, and we are planning to send teams of volunteers so that we can make a difference." "We will also strive to create a strong social media presence to challenge the misinformation campaign that is waged by the opposition," he said. "Our country is indeed in a crisis, and as NRIs, we need to step up, be united and defeat this regime in this upcoming election. It is essential that as NRIs who are living in every part of the world, we fight all forms of bigotry and hatred and bring the country back where the government can focus on development and prosperity for all its citizens," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal were awarded Pulitzer Prizes on Tuesday for their separate investigations of President and his family. The Times won the prestigious journalism award for a probe of the Trump family's finances that "debunked his claims of self-made wealth and revealed a business empire riddled with tax dodges," the Pulitzer Prize Board announced during a ceremony at New York's Columbia University. The Journal won for its coverage of Trump's secret hush money payments to two women during his 2016 presidential campaign who claimed to have had affairs with him. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel won a Pulitzer for its coverage of failings by school and law enforcement officials before and after the February 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was honoured for its coverage of the October 2018 shooting at a synagogue in the city that left 11 people dead. The Associated Press won a Pulitzer for reporting for its coverage of the war on drugs in the Philippines. Reuters was honoured for reporting for its coverage of atrocities committed against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. In other categories, "The Overstory" by Richard Powers won the Pulitzer for fiction and "Fairview" by Jackie Sibblies Drury won the prize for drama. Special citations were awarded to soul legend Aretha Franklin for her contributions to music and to the staff of the Capital Gazette newspaper of Annapolis, Maryland, which lost five employees in a June 2018 shooting. Congress president Rahul Gandhi Monday said funds for his party's 'Nyay' minimum income guarantee scheme will come from the pockets of fugitives like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. The Congress, in its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections, has said Nyay assures up to Rs 72,000 a year or Rs 6,000 a month income to 20 per cent of India's poorest families if the party is voted to power. The three businessmen mentioned by Gandhi, are wanted in India for fraud and money laundering. "I was inspired by Narendra Modi's false promise of giving Rs 15 lakh to every Indian," Gandhi said at a poll rally here, while speaking about the scheme, which the Congress has described as a "surgical strike" on poverty. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union minister Rajnath Singh Monday said opposition parties are questioning the reliability of electronic voting machines as they are apprehending defeat in the Lok Sabha elections. Addressing an election meeting at Chaumuha town here in favour of BJP candidate Hema Malini, he said, "The way after the polling of 91 seats, opposition parties are questioning the reliability of EVMs, it is clear that they have virtually accepted their defeat." Persisting with their doubts over the credibility of EVMs, several opposition parties have said they will move the Supreme Court to seek verification of at least 50 per cent of the polled votes against VVAPT slips. Opposition parties, including the Congress, Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Samajwadi Party, CPI and CPI(M), also jointly addressed a press conference to highlight the issue of transparency in the election process and protection of voter rights and gave a call to "save democracy". Exuding confidence that the Narendra Modi government will come back to power, the Union home minister said the NDA will make the National Security Act (NSA) more robust and check its misuse if voted to power again. He also mentioned the Pulwama terror attack and the Centre's befitting reply to the same. "I congratulate Prime Minister Narendra Modi for eliminating terror centres through surgical strike," Singh said. The senior BJP leader also hit out at the Congress over its response to the IAF air strikes in Balakot. "Atal Bihari Vajpayee had congratulated then PM Indira Gandhi after the 1971 India-Pakistan war for her bold step, but the Congress today is acting otherwise," he said. Singh also took a dig at the BSP-SP opposition alliance in Uttar Pradesh, saying the parties entered into a 'Mahagathabandhan' as they are afraid of the 'Modi wave'. Underlining the 'progress' made by the country under Modi, he said, in 2014, India was placed at ninth position among the world's 10 developing countries. The leadership of Modi catapulted the country to sixth position, he said. The home minister added, "Indira Gandhi se lekar, Rajiv Gandhi aur ab Rahul Gandhi ne garibi ko mudda banaya hai. Jis din Bharat Congress mukt ho jayega, garibi swayam hat jayegi." The statement can be loosely translated to "From Indira Gandhi to Rajiv Gandhi to now Rahul Gandhi, they have all made poverty a poll slogan. The day India will get rid of Congress, poverty will be automatically eliminated from the country". He said farmers will be provided interest-free loans for five years if BJP comes to power again. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) SoftBank-backed OYO Hotels & Homes Monday said it has partnered Spanish firm Hotelbeds that will provide the Indian company with access to more than 60,000 travel buying intermediaries around the world. The preferred agreement represents OYO's first-ever distribution partnership with a bedbank, OYO said in a statement. No financial details of the partnership were disclosed. Bedbank is an organisation that negotiates special rates with accommodation providers and acts as a wholesaler. "The partnership provides OYO with access to more than 60,000 travel-buying intermediaries around the world that use the Hotelbeds platform, including tour operators, airline websites, points redemption programs, loyalty plans, and MICE operators from more than 140 source markets," the statement said. Also, Hotelbeds' clients will have access to OYO's portfolio of over 18,000 franchised and leased hotels and over 10,000 homes and villas across 10 countries, it added. "Hotelbeds distribution channel of B2B travel buyers helps us access new customer segments and geographies. The bedbank company's cost-efficient distribution channel makes them an ideal partner to achieve our goal," OYO Hotels & Homes Chief Strategy Officer Maninder Gulati said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Even though the internet is known for bridging the distance among users, new research has found that when it comes to online dating, most people still prefer to only interact with people who live in close proximity to them. This comes from a study published in Sociological Science which analyzed messaging patterns across a major online dating site. The study was conducted by Elizabeth Bruch and Mark Newman who both study complex systems at the University of Michigan and at the Santa Fe Institute. They also found that race, to an extent, affected the interactions of people on the dating site. According to the report, a black woman would have to be at least 8 years younger than the average white woman, in order to be able to compete. Even though everyones on the same dating site, theres a distinct clustering to who interacts with whom, says Bruch. Its not surprising that the dating markets were geographically clustered. But the precise boundaries of those markets were a little surprising to us. A crucial aspect of the analysis is that we were looking not just at who sent messages to whom, but who sent messages and got a reply, says Newman In other words, at least one message went in both directions between two people. We did this because we felt that that was a more reliable indicator of mutual [romantic] interest. To carry out the research, the duo used an advanced algorithm to analyze 15 million of these two-way interactions among heterosexual users ofthe online dating site, it exposed 19 diverse communities that narrowly mirrored geographic regions in the landscape of the lower 48 states. Bruch mentions that these findings are consistent with a recent study of Facebook data, which showed thatonline friendships decrease with geographic distance. Just like the Facebook study, this present study, found that Texans for instance, were more interested in interacting with other Texans, according to the report, it didnt seem to matter that users in the northern part of the state (Texas) live nearer to prospective matches in the Oklahoma panhandle than to those in Central or South Texas. The people from California were found to have grouped themselves into messaging communities around Northern and Southern part of the state, while it was noted that people from Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, and Arkansas remained interested in having an interstate relationship The study also found that people preferred to interact with their age groups and that women were usually a bit younger than the men they messaged on the site. In Seattle, women in their 40s experience just a slight asymmetry in the number of single men and women, but in New York, the numbers are far more skewed, says Bruch. Based purely on sex ratios within submarkets: if I was a single guy in my 20s, Id want to date in New York. But if I was a single woman in her 40s, Id head straight to Seattle. Accusing the Congress of adopting a "soft approach" towards terrorists and naxals, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Monday that China and Pakistan no longer indulge in adventurism as India now has a strong government led by the BJP. Addressing a rally in this steel city, the firebrand BJP leader also said that "infiltration by the Chinese army, a regular affair during the Congress-led UPA government, ended after Narendra Modi became the prime minister". "Similarly, Pakistan was chopping off the heads of our soldiers on the border during the UPA rule. Now, with Modi as the prime minister, China and Pakistan cannot afford to indulge in misadventures," he said. Referring to India's response to the Pulwama terror strike, the senior BJP leader said, "Pakistan was given a fitting reply after the killing of 40 CRPF jawans". "India's action was not just confined to destruction of terror camps. It was a strong step towards breaking the backbone of Pakistan," he said, adding that the BJP has "zero tolerance" towards terrorism". Coming down heavily on the Congress, Adityanath alleged that the country has failed to take giants strides on road to development due to the soft approach of the grand old party towards terrorists and naxalites. "A strong Modi wave was sweeping across the country," he said, urging the people of Odisha to vote for a double- engine government of the BJP at the Centre and the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan will embark on his first ever official visit to Iran on April 21 as part of Islamabad's efforts to promote bilateral ties with the neighbouring nation. The two countries had recently witnessed downward spiral in their relationship after Tehran accused Islamabad of "harbouring terrorists" following a suicide attack in Iran's southeastern province of Sistan-Balochistan, bordering Pakistan, on February 13 that left 27 Revolutionary Guards Corps personnel dead. Iran and Pakistan share a nearly 1,000 km border. According to a Foreign Office (FO) statement, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani invited Khan for the visit. The two-day visit will include a brief stop-over in Mashhad before arriving in Tehran for bilateral talks with the Iranian leadership, it stated. During his trip, Khan will hold meetings with Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei and President Rouhani. He will be accompanied by a high-level delegation, including ministers for Finance, Human Rights, Maritime Affairs, Inter-Provincial Coordination, and adviser on Commerce and Task force on Energy, and Special Assistant for Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resources besides other senior officials. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's independent human rights watchdog Monday raised concerns about incidents of forced conversions and marriages of Hindu and Christian girls, saying around 1,000 such cases were reported in the southern Sindh province alone last year. In its annual report, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said the government has done little in the past to stop such forced marriages and asked the lawmakers to pass effective legislation to end the practice. "Around one thousand cases of Hindu and Christian girls were estimated in the province of Sindh alone in 2018. The cities where such cases occurred frequently included Umerkot, Tharparkar, Mirpurkhas, Badin, Karachi, Tando Allahyar, Kashmore and Ghotki," said the 335-page report titled 'State of Human Rights in 2018'. Stating that no authentic data is available on forced conversions and forced marriages in Pakistan, the report said that the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act 2013 has not been enforced effectively and the state's response to forced marriages has been mixed. "If not accomplices, police are insensitive and indifferent at best in most cases," the report said. It said that the "minorities continued to face harassment, arrest or even death for simply living their lives in accordance with their beliefs in Pakistan in 2018." The report came less than a week after the Islamabad High Court declared that the two Hindu teenage sisters - Raveena (13) and Reena (15) - were not forcibly converted from Hinduism to Islam, and permitted them to live with their spouses. The two Hindu girls were allegedly kidnapped by a group of "influential" men from their home in Ghotki district in Sindh on the eve of Holi. Soon after the kidnapping, a video went viral in which a cleric was purportedly shown soleminising the marriage of the two girls, triggering a nationwide outrage. The Hindu community members took out massive demonstrations seeking strict action against those responsible for forced conversion and marriages of Hindu girls. Prime Minister Imran Khan also ordered probe to ascertain if the two girls were abducted and forcibly converted and married. A five-member commission probed the matter and concluded that it was not a forced conversion. The counsel for the girls' parents, however, asserted that the case pertained to forced conversion. A Hindu lawmaker from Prime Minister Khan's party last month moved two bills in Parliament seeking enhancement of punishment for those involved in forced conversion and for making child marriage a cognisable offence. The bills were accompanied by a resolution with the support of minority lawmakers from all major political parties condemning such incidents. The five-point resolution called for immediate passage of the bill against forced conversions, which had been unanimously passed by the Sindh Assembly in 2016 and then reverted due to pressure of extremist elements, from all the legislatures. Hindus form the biggest minority community in Pakistan. According to official estimates, 75 lakh Hindus live in Pakistan. Majority of Pakistan's Hindu population is settled in Sindh province. According to media reports, approximately 25 forced marriages take place every month only in Umerkot district in Sindh province. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A group of 100 Indian fishermen Monday crossed over to the Indian side through Attari-Wagah border after the Pakistan government released them from jail as a goodwill gesture. The fishermen crossed over to India this evening on the basis of 'emergency travel certificates' issued by the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, officials said. Immediately after the repatriation, a medical examination of all the fishermen was conducted, they said. The neighbouring country had released the first batch of 100 Indian fishermen on April 7. The fishermen were arrested for fishing illegally in Pakistani waters during various operations. Both the countries frequently arrest fishermen as there is no clear demarcation of the maritime border in the Arabian Sea and these fishermen do not have boats equipped with the technology to know their precise location. Owing to the lengthy and slow bureaucratic and legal procedures, the fishermen usually remain in jail for several months and sometimes years. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A colossal fire swept through the famed Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on Monday, causing a spire to collapse and threatening to destroy the entire masterpiece and its precious artworks. The fire, which began in the early evening, sent flames and huge clouds of grey smoke billowing into the Paris sky as stunned Parisians and tourists watched on in sheer horror. Some were in tears, others offered prayers from the banks of the river Seine as the much-loved attraction at the heart of the City of Light was consumed by the inferno. "This is really sad - the saddest thing I've ever stood and watched in my life," said British tourist Sam Ogden, a 50-year-old onlooker, who had come to visit the cathedral with her family. Gasps and cries of "Oh my god" erupted around an hour after the fire first broke out when the top portion of the church's spire came crashing down. "It looked tiny to begin with, then within an hour it all came down," Ogden added. The cause of the blaze was not immediately confirmed but the cathedral had been undergoing intense restoration work wich the fire service said could be to blame. Last week, dramatic footage had shown workers removing 16 copper statues from the spire which was undergoing a revamp financed by the state and private donors. Deputy Paris mayor Emmanuel Gregoire told BFM TV the spire "collapsed inwards" and that workers were scrambling "to save all the artworks that can be saved." A spokesman for the cathedral told AFP that the wooden structure supporting the roof was being gutted by the blaze. "Everything is burning," the spokesman for Notre Dame, Andre Finot, told AFP. President Emmanuel Macron cancelled a major televised policy speech he was due to give on Monday evening over the "terrible fire ravaging Notre-Dame." He headed to the scene in person. In a tweet he expressed the "emotion of a whole nation" on seeing Notre-Dame ablaze. "Like all my compatriots I am sad to see a part of us burn this evening" he said, expressing solidarity with "all Catholics and all French people." German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Notre-Dame cathedral a "symbol of European culture" as the blaze raged. There was no immediate indication of any casualties in the blaze. "The Paris fire service is trying to control the flames," Paris's Mayor Anne Hidalgo wrote on Twitter, asking residents to respect the security cordon thrown up around the site. A spokesperson for the cathedral said the fire, which comes as French Catholics prepare to celebrate Easter, broke out at around 1650 GMT. US President Donald Trump in a tweet said: "So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!" Hundreds of people gathered on the bridges of Paris downriver to witness the scene, many filming the images with their smartphones. The cathedral was located at the centre of the French capital in the Middle Ages and its construction was completed in the mid-12th century after some 200 years of work. During the French Revolution in the 18th century, the cathedral was vandalised duing widespread anti-Catholic violence: its spire was dismantled, its treasures plundered and its large statues at the grand entrance doors destroyed. It would go on to feature as a central character in a Victor Hugo novel published in 1831, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and shortly afterwards a restoration project lasting two decades got underway, led by architect Eugene Viollet-le-Duc. It would survive the devastation of two world conflicts in the 20th century and famously rang its bells on August 24, 1944, the day of the Liberation of Paris from German occupation at the end of the WWII. "Paris is disfigured. The city will never be like it was before," said Philippe, a communications worker in his mid-30s, who had biked over to the scene after being alerted of the fire by a friend. "It's a tragedy," he added. "If you pray, now is the time to pray. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's son Utpal Monday described as "insensitive" and a "new low in Indian politics" NCP chief Sharad Pawar's remark that the late BJP leader quit his post at the Centre and returned to Goa because he did not agree with the Rafale deal. In a strongly-worded letter addressed to Pawar, Utpal Parrikar termed Pawar's remark as another attempt to invoke his father's name to push "blatant falsehood for political gains". He said the Parrikar family was saddened to read the remarks of Pawar, himself a former Defence Minister. "This is yet another unfortunate and insensitive attempt to invoke my father's name to push blatant falsehood for political gains," Utpal Parrikar said. Addressing reporters in Kolhapur on Saturday, Pawar had said, "The Rafale deal was not acceptable to Parrikar. He therefore quit as Defence minister and returned to Goa." Manohar Parrikar, who took over as defence minister in November 2014, was sworn in as Goa chief minister on March 14, 2017. He died on March 17 this year after a long battle with a pancreatic cancer. Manohar Parrikar was the defence minister when the Rafale fighter jet deal was signed with France. In an apparent reference to Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Utpal Parrikar said even when his father was alive and courageously fighting his illness, certain political leaders dragged his name in controversy for petty "That time, my father had given a fitting reply to such insinuations and innuendos. Today he is not amongst us, which is why perhaps you are taking the liberty to use his name and speak lies. This is a new low in the Indian political discourse," Utpal Parrikar wrote in the letter. A controversy had erupted after Gandhi met ailing Manohar Parrikar in Panaji in January this year. After the meeting, the Congress chief said in Delhi that Manohar Parrikar had said he had nothing to do with the new Rafale deal. Manohar Parrikar had rebutted Gandhi's claim about the purported conversation between them. Utpal Parrikar further stated that being a senior and respected politician, the people of India did not expect such a statement from Pawar. "But, now that you have made this statement, let me once again state the basic facts. My father was an honest, upright individual who worked in the best interest of the country, be it in Delhi or in Goa," Utpal Parrikar said. Utpal Parrikar, the eldest of two sons of Manohar Parrikar, also said his father went on to serve as the defence minister, and by all accounts, did an excellent job. "Many historic decisions were taken by him for which he will be remembered forever. One of them was the Rafale fighter aircraft acquisition deal of which he was one of the chief architects," he said. "Later, when the people of Goa wanted him to come back to serve them, Parrikar, ever the people's leader, dutifully came back and served Goa till his last breath," he said. Utpal Parrikar said Pawar's remarks were an insult to the love between the people of Goa and the late CM. "As a former defence minister yourself, I am sure you know the importance of equipping our brave soldiers well. It is extremely distressing to see you becoming part of malicious misinformation campaign that seeks to hinder the strengthening of our armed forces," he added. "It is sad that those who never bothered to enquire about my father when he was putting up a brave fight against illness have begun invoking his name to indulge in political mudslinging. I urge you to desist from such conduct," Utpal Parrikar stated. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Maharashtra BJP leader Vinod Tawde Monday dubbed as "inappropriate" NCP chief Sharad Pawar's remark that former defence minister Manohar Parrikar relinquished his post at the Centre and returned to Goa because he did not agree with the Rafale fighter jet deal. However, Tawde also justified the party's frequent attacks against former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi. "If Pawar ever wanted to say anything about Parrikar, he could have said when Parrikar was alive. It is inappropriate to say anything against a person who is not alive anymore," the state education minister told reporters. When asked about the BJP's tirade against Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi, Tawde said, "We only talk about their political failures, and will continue to do so. We never made a comment about them the way Pawar has made about Parrikar". Responding to Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's remark that the BJP is a threat to the Constitution, the minister said that the "biggest insult" to the Constitution was caused by Priyanka's grandmother late Indira Gandhi (during Emergency)". Tawde accused Pawar of having double standards when it comes to talking about security agencies and terror attacks. "He talks about Pulwama terror attack. He also appeals to the Centre to bring back Kulbhushan Jadhav from Pakistan but objects when the BJP makes any references to surgical or air strikes. Should we also raise questions about the Mumbai bomb blasts and the 26/11 terror attack, and doubt the ability of the previous government?" Tawde asked. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A team led by an Indian American student has been chosen by NASA to have their CubeSat -- a mini research satellite to detect cosmic rays -- flown into space on future missions of the US space agency. The researchers from the Yale Undergraduate Aerospace Association (YUAA), led by 21-year-old Keshav Raghavan, are among the 16 teams across the country whose CubeSats will be flown into space on missions planned to launch in 2020, 2021 and 2022. The team's CubeSat BLAST (Bouchet Low-Earth Alpha/Beta Space Telescope) is named for physicist Edward A Bouchet -- the first African American to receive a PhD in America. Students designed the satellite over the course of four years, and received the launch grant through NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative competition. According to the NASA, BLAST is a scientific investigation mission to map the distribution of galactic cosmic radiation across the night sky. The satellite will identify and count alpha particles and beta particles in the rays, and measure the radiation energy around Earth. BLAST will contribute to the ongoing search for the origins and nature of these rays, which will provide insight into the origins of the universe. Typical CubeSat projects cost about USD 30,000, while the one developed by the team will cost around USD 13,000 to USD 20,000, according to Andrew Krzywosz, co-president of YUAA. Once BLAST, a cosmic ray detector, goes into orbit, it will collect data about particles travelling to earth from distant supernovae, Raghavan said. "Building a CubeSat and launching it into space is an ambition YUAA has had for quite a while. The founding members in 2011 had it as a goal in the back of their minds, but at that time, it was totally beyond our capabilities as a club," said Jonathan Li, co-president of YUAA. The team said that as the satellite is 'smaller than a loaf of bread,' it costs orders of magnitude less than large-scale satellites. The work, so far, has culminated in a viable prototype that the team anticipates will be ready for launch in slightly over a year. CubeSats are miniature satellites intended as a standard, inexpensive design that can easily fit alongside larger satellites aboard launch vehicles. The CubeSat model has given student groups, hobbyist organizations, and research teams operating with limited funding or experience unprecedented access to space. CubeSats are built from a modular structure of 10x10x10cm cubes, and feature a wide variety of commercially available off-the-shelf components designed to fit the structure from various manufacturers. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A plea was filed in the Supreme Court on Monday seeking setting up of a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the alleged non-disclosure by Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the details of a plot allotted to him in Gandhi Nagar in his election affidavits. The petition filed by Maharashtra-based Saket Gokhale has alleged that in October 2002, when Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, he was allotted land in Gandhi Nagar by the state as per government policy. It said the state government had formulated a policy for allotment of land to public servants including MPs, MLAs and government servants without auction on nominal price. The plea alleged that in 2007 Modi had mentioned the plot allotted to him in Gandhi Nagar in the list of assets in his election affidavit filed for the state Assembly polls. "The allotted lands under the said government resolution cannot be sold or transferred or gifted without the permission of the district collector and from 2012, without the permission of the Gujarat High Court," it said. The plea alleged that in his election affidavits filed in 2012 and 2014, Modi did not mention the said plot in his list of assets. It sought direction to Gujarat government to produce all the records pertaining to ownership of the land and constitute a court-monitored SIT, headed by a retired Chief Justice of India, to probe the immovable assets of Modi, particularly with regard to plot in Gandhi Nagar. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court Monday directed the Election Commission to re-examine its earlier order and take an informed decision on banning pan-India release of the biopic on Prime Minister Narendra Modi after watching the full movie. The top court directed the poll panel to take a decision by April 19 and submit its report in a sealed cover to the court. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna said that it will consider the EC report and hear the matter on April 22. Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for film producers who have challenged the EC's ban on the biopic's release till the current general elections are over, said the poll panel has taken the decision based just on watching the promo, not the entire movie. He suggested that the producers are willing to hold a special screening for the poll panel or its committee on Tuesday or Wednesday, so that they can take an informed decision by Friday. To this, the bench asked EC's counsel Amit Sharma, whether the poll panel has watched the movie or not. He said the entire movie was not available and a decision to ban the release was taken after watching the trailer. The bench then asked the poll panel to watch the full movie and then take an informed decision on whether its release should be banned or not. The EC had on April 10 stalled the release of the film until the polls end, asserting that any biopic material with the potential to disturb the level-playing field during elections should not be displayed. The Commission, in a separate order, also directed the producers "not to exhibit the film titled 'PM Narendra Modi' till further orders. The film was earlier set to release on April 11. Acting on the complaints of political parties, including the Congress, the poll panel also said that any poster or publicity material concerning any such certified content, which either depicts a candidate (including prospective) for the furtherance (or purported to further) of electoral prospects, directly or indirectly, shall not be put on display in electronic media in the area where MCC is in force. The Left had also opposed the release of the film saying it would disturb the level-playing field for other parties in the election and was in violation of the Model Code of Conduct. The Modi biopic, starring Vivek Oberoi has been the most-talked about movie in this election season. Directed by Omung Kumar, it tells the story of Modi's rise to power from his humble beginnings. The apex court had on April 9, dismissed a petition filed by a Congress leader Aman Panwar seeking stay on the release of the biopic saying the Election Commission would be an "appropriate" place to seek the redressal. The apex court had said it was not entertaining the petition for the stay on the release of the film which would be "premature" in view of the fact that the movie is yet to be certified by the Censor Board. It said even if the film is released on April 11, as claimed by the Congress leader, it will be appropriate for him to seek a redressal from the Election Commission. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi's feelings for the elders in the BJP are just like what a son would have for his parents, senior party leader from Maharashtra Sudhir Mungantiwar said. The ruling party, especially the PM and its chief Amit Shah, have been getting brickbats from the opposition for denying Lok Sabha tickets to patriarch LK Advani and senior leader Murli Manohar Joshi. "PM Modi's pure feelings for his elders (in the party) are similar to what a son has for his parents," Mungantiwar said during an interview with PTI. He said Modi and Advani agreed that after one attains 75 years of age, one should remain in politics, however, the new generation should also be given a chance. "Health also does not permit one to do active politics after 75. Therefore, he (Modi) believes that the experience should be used for the betterment of the nation," Mungantiwar claimed. He dismissed claims that the BJP's tally in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls would reduce and asserted that the National Democratic Alliance may cross the 350-mark under Modi's leadership. "Initially, TV channels had predicted 220-230 for the NDA, and have now increased it to 297. There are six more (Lok Sabha poll) phases pending. Crossing 350 is not unrealistic," he said repeating the BJP's poll slogan 'Modi hai to mumkim hai' (With Modi, it is possible). Terming the Opposition's "mahagathbandhan" (grand alliance) as "thug-bandhan" (pact among thugs), he claimed the biggest thug, the Congress, was being rejected by constituents like the SP, BSP. He praised the Modi dispensation for its robust foreign affairs and cited Justice Dalveer Bhandari becoming a judge in the International Court of Justice with the highest number of votes and the United States' strict admonition of Pakistan over terrorism as examples. He hit out at the Congress for promising to repeal the sedition law and said even Babasaheb Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution, was against such a move. "They (Congress) have crossed their limits. Looking at the Congress' manifesto, it seems as if it was made in Pakistan," Mungantiwar alleged. He said Modi had ensured that national security as well as the issue of unemployment are given equal importance. On a question on state politics, he said only Congress leader Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil could say if he would join the ruling BJP. Vikhe Patil's son Sujay has already joined the BJP and is contesting Lok Sabha polls from Ahmednagar. "You never know he (Vikhe Patil) may join during Janmashthami. However only he can answer if he will join. But, if he is willing to, he is welcome in the BJP," Mungantiwar said. On the BJP's alliance with the Shiv Sena, he said, "The sangam is such that our caste is Maharashtrian, religion Indian and gotra (lineage) Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Four robbers and a security guard of a bank were arrested here on Monday after an exchange of fire, police said. A police constable and two of the four robbers were injured in the firing, they said. During a routine checking at Govind puram colony, two motorcycles were signalled to stop but the riders sped away and were chased by the a team from Kavi Nagar police station, SP (city) Shlok Kumar said. The injured were rushed to hospital and their condition was stated to be stable, he said, adding during the preliminarily investigation, it was found that the accused were enroute to rob Rs 20 lakh from a local school. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a battle for prestige, a political greenhorn will take on rank outsider and fellow son of the soil in a triangular contest here that will gauge the voters' mood of the two year-old K Palaniswami government. An endorsement or rejection of the ruling party nominee P Raveendranath Kumar could assume significance as he is contesting from his father and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam's home turf of Theni. The next assembly elections in Tamil Nadu are scheduled in 2021. Congress has fielded former union Minister E V K S Elangovan and rival AIADMK leader T T V Dhinakaran's AMMK is banking on his earlier stint as then Periyakulam MP to spring a surprise against the other two. It has nominated Thanga Tamil Selvan, a key aide of Dhinakaran, and also one of the disqualified AIADMK MLAs who revolted against Palaniswami in 2017. Thanga Tamil Selvan had earlier represented Andipatti, an Assembly segment falling under Theni. Agriculture being the main vocation in the district, drinking water supply, civic amenities, including proper drainage facilities, jobs and raising the height of the Mullaperiar Dam, an inter-state issue involving Kerala, are key demands of the locals. The contest being a triangular one, the three main contestants are leaving no stone unturned to secure a victory, and embark on a hectic campaign schedule from dawn till the presecribed hours through the day. Though new to electoral politics, Raveendranath Kumar exudes confidence of winning with much ease in what he termed as "AIADMK's fortress." Countering criticism of dynasty when he was nominated from the southern segment, Kumar brushes aside the charges, saying he has been in active for many years, having "grown from the grassroots level" and being appointed to various party posts earlier. "There is massive public support for us. No party can defeat us as this is AIADMK's fortress," he said about Theni. Though the ruling party won the seat in 2014, Congress emerged victorious in in 2009 and 2004. AIADMK's R Parthipan snatched it from the national party in 2014, following a 74 per cent turnout. Kumar's promises include job creation and striving to increase the height of the Mullaperiyar Dam to 152 feet. The inter-state row revolves around the dam located in Kerala's Idukky district and maintained by Tamil Nadu, over its structural strength. Following a legal battle between the two states, the Supreme Court in 2014 held that the over 120 year-old dam was safe and allowed Tamil Nadu to raise water level to 142 feet and ultimately to 152 feet after completion of strengthening measures on the reservoir. It caters to five southern districts of the state, including Theni. Kumar believes he will also romp home riding on the track record of the AIADMK government in implementing 'visionary schemes' of 'Amma', the late J Jayalalithaa, and the "powerful" Two Leaves symbol. However, Thanga Tamil Selvan does not take Kumar seriously. "This is a direct contest between me and EVKS (Elangovan). Only the media is highlighting Kumar being the son of Panneerselvam, but there is no such euphoria among the people," he said. "Deputy Chief Minister (Panneerselvam) himself has not addressed matters including drinking water supply, even in his Bodinayakkanur constituency," he told PTI. Banking on Dhinakaran's previous stint as then Periyakulam MP, the disqualified MLA believes his leader's hard work will pay off, as the AMMK leader "has been to all villages, met a lot of people, and enjoys a good reputation." He is confident of a "grand victory" and his promises to the electors include provision of safe drinking water, the Mullaperiyar issue and implementing the Dindugul-Sabarimala railway line. He also vows to lend his voice against the India-Based Nutrino Observatory if elected as Member of Parliament, saying AMMK had earlier staged a protest against it since the locals are up in arms against the scientific venture at Pottipuram in Theni. Congress' Elangovan,known for his outspoken but sometimes controversial statements, is battling the "outsider" tag as he is a native of Erode in western Tamil Nadu. However, he shrugs it off, saying he "belongs to all of Tamil Nadu." Grandson of rational leader, the late E V Ramasamy Periyar, the former TNCC chief recalls running in the family and says they have been serving the people for long. "Whether it is me or my family, including my grandfather (Ramasamy), we have been striving for social justice for the last many years. I belong to whole of Tamil Nadu. Theni is not a foreign constituency to me," he said. A nominee of the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA), Elangovan says he is contesting "with a faith on the people" and vows to defeat the AIADMK alliance, whose constituents include BJP. In his campaign, he trains his guns against the BJP and its policies, while claiming the voters are also against the ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu. His assurances include making Theni a "big tourist spot" as it lies in the foot of the picturesque Western Ghats. The constituency is dotted with six Assembly segments, including two Reserved ones. While AIADMK bagged all of them under Jayalalithaa in 2016, bypolls to Andipatti and Periyakulam are being held simultaneously on April 18. There are about 10.75 lakh voters in the Theni Lok Sabha segment. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi Police has lodged 131 FIRs for defacement of public property even as over three lakh hoardings, banners and posters of political parties have been removed from various parts of the national capital, officials said Monday. An FIR and two non-cognisable reports were lodged after the flying squads of Chief Electoral Office, Delhi found posters of political parties being carried in cars without due permission, they said. Till date, 3,05,546 hoardings/banners/posters have been removed from all over Delhi. Out of which, 30,533 were removed from New Delhi Municipal Council, 43,075 from East Delhi Municipal Corporation, 2,411 from Delhi Cantonment Board, 1,26,566 from South Delhi Municipal Corporation and 1,02,961 from North Delhi Municipal Corporation, respectively, Chief Electoral Officer Ranbir Singh said. Under the Delhi Prevention of Defacement of Property Act, 131 FIRs were registered, including 26 against political parties. These include 13 FIRs against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), nine against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), two against Congress and two against others. The rest of the FIRs were filed against non-political entities, officials said. An FIR was lodged at Chhawla police station after a car carrying posters, scarves and banners of BJP was intercepted by the Delhi poll body's static surveillance team, they said. Two non-cognisable reports (NCRs) were lodged in Shahdara police district. One of them was lodged after a car was found carrying 17 bundles of posters of Samajwadi Party (SP) in Shahdara on Monday. Later, the driver led the police to the printing press where the bundles were being printed and three more bundles were seized from there, police said. The other non-cognisable report was lodged when a cab was found plying with banners of BJP without permission, they said. A total of 1,361 bottles, 91 half and 1,24,849 quarters of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) along with 804 bottles, 1,095 half and 2,49,020 quarters of countrymade liquor were seized. A total of 5,831 bottles of beer were also seized, officials said. A total number of 856 FlRs were registered under the Excise Act and 851 persons arrested in this connection, they said. As many as 316 FlRs were registered under the Arms Act wherein 358 persons were arrested and 1,320.84 kilograms of narcotics/drugs seized. Till date, cash worth Rs 2,40,22,850 has been seized by the static surveillance and flying squad teams. Apart from this, 430 unlicensed weapons and 2,578 cartridges and explosives were also seized by the authorities, they said. Narcotics worth Rs 348 crore were seized, while the total seizure, including cash and jewellery, is worth Rs 388 crore. Meanwhile, the Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC) of the Delhi poll body received 242 applications for clearing advertisements, out of which, 205 have been cleared, 17 rejected and 20 are pending, the officials said. The BJP had submitted 158 applications, Congress 66 and AAP 16 applications, they added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior Congress leader and Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy Monday flayed the Bharathiya Janata Party (BJP) for keeping mum on demanding statehood for the union territory. Addressing reporters at PCC office here, he said the election manifestos of the Congress and the DMK had promised to get the statehood if the Secular Progressive Alliance was voted to power. "But, the BJP is keeping quite without making any demand to procure statehood and it is amusing that the AINRC has joined hands with the BJP to contest the Lok Sabha poll here," he said. Narayanasamy said the territorial government has been facing obstacles in getting grants and funds from the NDA government at the Centre. Besides, the proposals of the territorial government were rejected by the Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi. He said the free rice scheme too could not be implemented because of the alleged negative approach of Bedi. "Whatever proposals the government sends to her, she rejects them and returns the files without giving them her approval," he said. The election manifesto of the Congress released recently was an ideal roadmap for promoting the welfare of the poor, women, scheduled castes and tribes, and students, he said. PCC leader and Minister for Public Works A Namassivayam was also present. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP MP Meenakashi Lekhi Monday latched onto the Supreme Court clarification in the Rafale fighter jet case to attack Congress President Rahul Gandhi, saying as to how the man who does not understand "Constitutional morality" and "democratic traditions" would represent Indians in Parliament. Lekhi, who filed a criminal contempt case against Gandhi, said he does not understand "Constitutional propriety" and was dragging institutions like the Supreme Court into "shabby politics". Her comments came after the apex court made it clear that remarks made by Gandhi in the media on the Rafale case verdict were "incorrectly attributed" to it and directed Gandhi to give the explanation by April 22. Lekhi, sitting Lok Sabha MP from New Delhi Parliamentary constituency, said Gandhi was raking up the issue on India's Rafale fighter jet deal with France to hide their own corruption. "Out of four members of a family, three are on bail. Will they be giving lessons on honesty and integrity. To hide their own false, they are using these things," Lekhi told PTI. She was apparently referring to the National Herald case and Enforcement Directorate case against Gandhi's brother-in-law Robert Vadra in money laundering case. The Congress President and his mother Sonia have been accused of cheating and misappropriating funds in the National Herald case. Upbeat over the Monday's order of the top court on her criminal contempt case against Gandhi, Lekhi said: "The apex court while clarifying its order today has said that this (what Gandhi attributed to the apex court) was not even discussed. "That means he should come and explain to the court by next Monday, how did he get to say all this. Here is a person who does not understand constitutional propriety, democratic traditions and drags institutions like the Supreme Court into this kind of shabby politics." She further said: "The man who does not understand Constitutional morality and democratic traditions, should he be representing Indians in the Parliament? He has been yelling and shouting about Rafale deal time and again but you think people of this country do not understand what is going on to hide their own corruption." Lekhi, through senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, had submitted that Gandhi had come out in the public to make a remark that the "Supreme Court in its judgement (Rafale case) said, "Chowkidar Narendra Modi chor hain"The bench said, "You were right to the extent we never said what has been brought in the petition. We will seek clarification". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Amid a continuing blame game over seat-sharing in Delhi, Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal Monday engaged in a public spat, with the Congress president accusing the AAP of taking a U-turn over alliance talks and the Delhi chief minister hitting back. The Congress chief said that while the doors of his party are open, time is running out, but Kejriwal slammed him, questioning what U-turn was he talking about as the talks were still on. He also accused Gandhi of helping the BJP by "dividing anti-Modi votes in Uttar Pradesh and in some other states". Amid this sparring on Twitter, sources claimed the two sides were still "engaged" in taking the alliance talks forward and are likely to meet again on Wednesday over seat sharing between the two. The Congress chief said his party is willing to give four of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi to the AAP to ensure that their alliance defeats the BJP, which had won all the seven seats in 2014. "An alliance between the Congress and the AAP in Delhi would mean the rout of the BJP. The Congress is willing to give up four seats in Delhi to the AAP to ensure this. "But, Mr Kejriwal has done yet another U-turn. Our doors are still open, but the clock is running out," Gandhi tweeted. He used the hashtag "AbAAPkiBaari" to target the AAP leadership to come out with its side for an alliance with the Congress. Hitting back, Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal said, "What U-turn. The talks are still on." "Your tweet shows that an alliance is not your desire but only a pretension. I am pained that you are giving mere statements," he said. "Today, the foremost issue is to save the country from the threat of Modi-Shah. Unfortunately, you are helping Modi by dividing anti-Modi votes in Uttar Pradesh and in some other states," Kejriwal tweeted in Hindi. Congress insiders claimed that party's incharge PC Chacko Monday sent messages to AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh, seeking their answer. "The AAP leaders have been asked to make up their mind on alliance in Delhi alone considering the ground realities," they said. AAP sources said that Singh and senior Congress leader Ahmad Patel will meet on Wednesday for discussing alliance prospects. The Congress has offered the AAP 4:3 seat-sharing formula, four Lok Sabha seats for the ruling party and three seats for itself. The arrangement has been arrived at on basis of the vote share of both parties in 2017 civic polls here, they said. The Congress has accused the Kejriwal-led outfit of backing out from its commitment, as it is demanding seats in Goa, Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh, besides Delhi for a pre-poll understanding with the Congress. AAP leader Sanjay Singh said in response to Gandhi's tweet, "The Congress is not giving even a single seat to the AAP in Punjab where it has four MPs and 20 MLAs, and in Haryana." "In Delhi where the Congress has zero MPs and MLAs, it is demanding three seats. Is this how agreement happens? Why do not you want to stop the BJP in other states," he asked. The AAP has already announced its candidates on the seven parliamentary constituencies in Delhi, while the Congress has finalised names of its candidates which could be announced soon. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Monday accused Congress President Rahul Gandhi of manufacturing Supreme Court order on Rafale deal for political propaganda and said 'right to free speech' is not 'right to falsehood'. The minister was commenting on the Supreme Court order which said that the remarks made by Gandhi on its April 10 Rafale case verdict were "incorrectly attributed" to the apex court and directed the Congress President to give his explanation by April 22. In a series of tweets, Jaitley said, "In Rahul Gandhi's politics, the Right to Free Speech includes the Right to Falsehood". He further said dynasts are also subject to the Supreme Court and while truth holds together, falsehood falls apart. "Indian democracy does not permit them (dynasts) to rewrite Court orders... To manufacture a Court order for a political propaganda is a new low for Rahul Gandhi. The lower he sinks, the higher we rise," Jaitley said. BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi in her plea before the Supreme Court alleged that Gandhi has attributed his personal remarks to the top court and tried to create prejudice. The Congress president on April 10 claimed that the apex court has made it "clear" that Prime Minister Narendra Modi "committed a theft". The Supreme Court on April 10 allowed the plea of petitioners relying on leaked documents for seeking review of its Rafale judgement and dismissed the government's preliminary objections claiming "privilege" over them. "I am happy and I have been saying so for months that Hindustan's PM has given the air force money to (industrialist) Anil Ambani, and the SC has accepted it. The SC is going to investigate it," Gandhi had said. "I want to thank the SC. It's a very happy day. The SC has talked about justice. Justice has prevailed," he had added. The Rafale fighter is a twin-engine Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) manufactured by French aerospace company Dassault Aviation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Even a 30-second advertisement on television costs lakhs of rupees, Congress president Rahul Gandhi said on Monday and asked who was funding Prime Minister Narendra Modi's campaign for the ongoing Lok Sabha polls. Addressing a rally in favour of Congress nominee Raj Babbar from Fatehpur Sikri, which goes to the polls in the second phase on April 18, Gandhi said, "Everywhere it is the publicity of Narendra Modi. Where is the money coming from? Thirty seconds on TV or newspaper advertisements require lakhs of rupees. Who is giving the money for it? It is not coming from Modi's pocket." He alleged that the prime minister had looted public money and given it to fugitive businessmen such as Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi, Lalit Modi and Vijay Mallya. Attacking Modi over his "failed" promises, Gandhi said the prime minister had lied to the youth about generating two crore jobs and to the people of India about putting Rs 15 lakh in everyone's bank account. "Modi has destroyed the farmers of this country. He came to power making false promises. I will not say we will deposit Rs 15 lakh in everyone's bank account. I will give you a practical number. We will deposit Rs 72,000 in the bank accounts of the poor people," he added. Elaborating on the "Nyay" scheme promised by the Congress, Gandhi said he had consulted economists on extending financial help to the poor people without disturbing the economy and was given the figure of Rs 72,000 per annum. "When we talk about the Nyay scheme, Modi asks where the money will come from. I want to tell you that it will not come from the pockets of the middle class. There will be no hike in the income tax. It will come from Anil Ambani, Mehul Choksi, Nirav Modi and go to your pockets," the Congress chief said. Asking the gathering if anyone had benefitted from Modi's promise of Rs 15 lakh, he said the Congress's promise of Rs 72,000 would benefit 20 per cent of the most poor people in the country. Claiming that 22 lakh government posts were lying vacant and the current rate of unemployment in the country was the poorest in 45 years, the Congress chief said after coming to power, his party would fill these vacant posts, besides generating 10 lakh jobs at the panchayat level. "Farmers work day and night and the benefit is taken away by others...they want to make two Hindustans -- one for Anil Ambani and others who get whatever they want and the other for the common people ," he said. "If the money of the rich is waived, then farm loans will also be waived...if farmers go to jail for not re-paying their debts, so will be the case with the rich," Gandhi said, adding that the Congress governments in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh had waived agricultural loans in two days as against the promise of 10 days. Highlighting the promises made in the Congress's election manifesto, he said there will be a separate farmers' budget which will spell out what the government will give the farmers and the minimum support price (MSP) for their produce. Gandhi took a dig at Modi, saying earlier, the slogan was "achche din ayenge" (good days will come), but in five years, it had changed to "chowkidar chor hai" (the watchman is the thief). Describing the Lok Sabha poll contest as a fight between the Congress's ideology and hatred, Gandhi exuded confidence that his party is coming back to power at the Centre after a gap of five years. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court has exposed Rahul Gandhi's "lie" on the Rafale deal, the BJP said on Monday, claiming that people want the Congress president to apologise for "defaming" Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Union minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Prakash Javadekar hit out at Gandhi at a press conference after the apex court said it had made no such observations as allegedly attributed to it by the Congress chief. The Supreme Court was hearing a contempt case filed against Gandhi by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi after the Congress president reportedly said the apex court had accepted that there was corruption in the Rafale fighter jets deal and that Modi gave away Rs 30,000 crore to industrialist Anil Ambani. "The Supreme Court has exposed Gandhi's lie. He lies daily and one of those lies has been exposed.... People are demanding that he tender an apology," Javadekar said. He accused Gandhi of using the court to defame Modi and institutions, claiming that the Congress and the Gandhi family could not accept that Modi had run such an honest government while the UPA dispensation was mired in scams and scandals. Gandhi was responsible for taking Indian to a new low, the Union human resource development minister said. Taking a dig at the Congress president, the BJP leader said people earlier believed that Gandhi used to make wrong statements due to his lack of understanding, but it was clear now that he was doing "deliberate mischiefs". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) MNS chief Raj Thackeray Monday appealed to people to ensure "disappearance" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah from the political scene of the country for spreading "lies" and "causing" communal disharmony. Addressing a poll rally in Solapur district of Maharashtra, he called the prime minister "shameless" for seeking votes in the name of jawans without acknowledging their sacrifice. In controversial remarks, he asked the people gathered at the rally to accept money if offered to them by those who are "looting" the country. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) is not contesting the Lok Sabha elections, but Thackeray has been addressing rallies in support of Congress-NCP-led alliance candidates, who are pitted against the BJP-Shiv Sena combine. "I am here to wake all of you up against the tactics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah. "The kind of lies they have spread and caused communal disharmony, you should ensure they both get disappeared from the political horizons of this country," he said. In a veiled attack on the Shiv Sena, he said, "Those who are helping Modi-Shah should also not be spared. You should not vote for those who help Modi-Shah stay in power." Thackeray, however, did not mention the Shiv Sena, his former party, or any of its leaders in his speech. After showing a video of Modi, where he purportedly claims a trader takes more risk than a jawan, Thackeray said, "The prime minister seeks votes from people in the name of jawans, but makes such remarks about their sacrifice. I have so far not seen a more "shameless" prime minister than him." "They are trying to fool you by raising non-issues ahead of elections. If they distribute money, accept it. This is the right time to loot them. "You cannot imagine the way our country is being looted by these people, but accept their money and do not look back," Thackeray said. He claimed Modi and Shah are pushing the country on path of authoritarianism like the current regime in Russia where power is concentrated in the hands of 7-8 people. Thackeray also exposed the Maharashtra government's claim of a village in Amravati district - Harisal - being the first digital village in the country. However, a video procured by MNS workers shows no digital services such as Internet connection and card swapping for financial transaction, among others, are operational in the village, he said. "What Adolf Hitler did to Germany in 1930s is going to be replicated in India if Modi and Shah return to power," Thackeray warned. Solapur will vote on April 18. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Akali leader Bikram Singh Majithia Monday took a swipe at the SAD (Taksali) for withdrawing its candidate from Khadoor Sahib seat, saying the party "ran away" as it has been "rejected" by the people. The SAD (Taksali), a breakaway faction of the Shiromani Akali Dal, Sunday evening announced withdrawal of its candidate, ex-Army chief Joginder Jaswant Singh, from Khadoor Sahib and its support to PDA's Paramjeet Kaur Khalra, the wife of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra. Addressing a gathering here, Majithia said, "The so called Taksalis backed out of contesting from Khadoor Sahib and ran away from the field bag and baggage because they have been rejected by the people and knew that they will face an ignoble defeat." In a snide remark, he claimed that SAD (Taksali) chief Ranjit Singh Brahmpura and his team were so eager to depart from the electoral battlefield that they "forgot to even inform their candidate". "It is sad that they befooled the (retired) General (J J Singh) in their desperation to save their own skin. A decorated soldier was let down and had to run away from the battlefield after being backstabbed by his own team," Majithia alleged. Gen J J Singh (retd) had Sunday said it was his decision to withdraw candidature. Claiming that the "self-proclaimed Taksalis" has been "exposed", Majithia said, "Their own team members are leaving them because they realize that the entire outfit is a Congress team. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Delhi court Monday extended by three days the custodial interrogation of a sacked Supreme Court staffer, arrested for allegedly posting wrong information on the apex court's website related to a case involving Reliance Communications chairman Anil Ambani. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Manish Khurana sent Tapan Kumar Chakraborty to further custody after the Delhi Police told the court that the accused was to be confronted with various documents and his "sustained custodial interrogation was required". "In the interest of justice, I am of the opinion that police custody is required to be extended," the judge said. The court, meanwhile, sent the second accused -- Manav Sharma -- to the judicial custody for two weeks, noting that he was not required for further custodial interrogation. The accused were arrested on April 7. After the January incident, they were dismissed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi. The duo had allegedly uploaded an apex court order, which said Ambani's presence in a case had been dispensed with, despite the court ordering that he be present for the next hearing, police said. The top court had sacked the two officials for tampering with its January 7 order on the issue of personal appearance of Reliance Communication Chairman Anil Ambani in connection with the contempt matter filed against him by Swedish telecom group Ericsson. Justice Gogoi has passed directions to terminate the services of the two court officials who were responsible for noting the judge's orders and getting them uploaded on the apex court's website. Justice R F Nariman, who was dealing with Ambani's case, had forwarded a complaint to the CJI that the order in the matter for the presence of the contemnor was not properly found in it. The order dictated stated that the personal appearance of the alleged contemnor(s) is not dispensed with, but it found the word 'not' was missing. The discrepancy in this regard was brought to the notice of the bench on January 10 by senior advocate Dushyant Dave, who was appearing for Ericsson. Taking note of the fact, an order was passed by the Chief Justice on administrative side dismissing the two employees. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With Sudan in turmoil following the ouster of their ally Omar al-Bashir, Gulf powerhouses Saudi Arabia and the UAE are following events closely as they seek to protect their interests, analysts say. Sudan plays a key role in the regional interests of Saudi Arabia and its allies, siding with Riyadh against Shiite Iran and providing troops in the Saudi-led coalition fighting in the Yemen war. And after weeks of silence on Sudan's political turmoil, Saudi Arabia and the UAE on Sunday released a lukewarm reaction to Bashir's toppling, calling for "stability" and a "peaceful transition". "Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are by nature averse to all popular movements or revolutions," said Karim Bitar, director of research at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs. "These are powers that largely privilege the status quo. They fear that any effervescence, any national protest movement, will lead to an oil slick -- that there will be contagion." Tens of thousands have protested outside Sudan's army headquarters since April 6, initially to urge the military to back their demand that Bashir be removed. Thousands have remained encamped there to keep up the pressure on a military council that took power after ending Bashir's three-decade rule on Thursday. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have both voiced backing for the transitional council, with Riyadh promising an aid package to the people of Sudan "in order to alleviate suffering", according to a statement published by state agency SPA. "The Gulf states are watching Sudan with apprehension and will do everything possible to ensure that the transition happens in continuity, meaning that Sudan remains under military control," Bitar told AFP. Bashir, who ruled Sudan with an iron fist for nearly 30 years, broke ranks with Saudi Arabia's regional arch-nemesis Iran after Riyadh's intervention in the Yemen war, sending much-needed troops to battle rebels linked to Tehran alongside the Saudi-led coalition. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has risen as the head of the transitional council -- a move analysts say is not unwelcome in some Gulf states. "All sides in the Gulf want to maintain some sort of stability," said Andreas Krieg, a professor at King's College London. "Burhan has no ties to the Islamist deep state and has been one of the main liaisons of Sudan to the UAE during the Yemen war. "Burhan appears to be more prone to accept the UAE's policy of zero tolerance towards political Islam than others." As Sudan looks to the future, the Gulf monarchies are watching closely. "The Gulf states don't want a violent transfer of power. They don't want another tragedy like Libya, Syria or Iraq," said Mustafa Alani of the Geneva-based Gulf Research Center. "The only way is a peaceful transfer of power," he added. "In Sudan and Algeria, change is inevitable. The military institutions will supervise the change and hand over power to the civilians." One Gulf state that has remained silent on the Sudan protests is Qatar, locked in a nearly two-year-old diplomatic standoff with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt. Riyadh and its allies severed all ties with Qatar on accusations the emirate was too close to Iran and to Sunni extremists including the Taliban and Muslim Brotherhood. Gas-rich Qatar had wielded some influence over Bashir's regime before Khartoum joined ranks with Riyadh in the Yemen war. With Bashir gone, it remains to be seen whether Sudan will continue to fight in Yemen -- and whether Doha will support the new government. "Qatar has its own reasons to object because it had some sort of influence on the previous regime," Alani said. "Qatar has an objective of supporting Islamists in power because they have some sort of influence over this sort of regime." And while Qatar has "a tendency to support opposition movements," the country's historic proximity to the Bashir regime leaves it in an uncomfortable position in the interim, according to Bitar. But across the board, Bashir's ouster is a pivotal moment for the Gulf. "One shared goal across Gulf states is maintaining Sudan's stability -- preserving the institutions of the state while reform and transition takes place," said Elizabeth Dickinson of the International Crisis Group. "We are not in the Gulf of 2011, completely allergic to transition," Dickinson told AFP. "Leaders here understand that autocratic governments that do not perform cannot survive. The question is how they should fail. "With so much fragility across the greater region, there is a sense here that a managed transition could be the best way forward. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya asserted Monday that the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party will remain in alliance with the BJP in the state, hours after the SBSP said it will contest this Lok Sabha election "on its own". "Om Prakash Rajbhar has been with BJP and will remain with it in Lok Sabha elections," Maurya said when asked about the SPSP chief's statement on severing electoral ties with the BJP. This morning, Rajbhar told reporters at his residence here, "SBSP will contest the Lok Sabha election on its own. It will field candidates on 25 seats in Uttar Pradesh." He said his party will announce its candidates soon. His decision to contest alone in the Lok Sabha election is precipitated by a disagreement over candidature on a seat, where the BJP has proposed to field an SBSP candidate on its symbol. Rajbhar said he did not agree with the proposal during a meeting on April 13. Rajbhar's son and SBSP general secretary Arun Rajbhar said, "The alliance with BJP is for assembly polls and not for Lok Sabha elections." The SBSP had won four seats in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election. On Azam Khan's derogatory remarks, against rival BJP candidate from Rampur Jaya Prada, Maurya said a case has been filed and action is being initiated against the Samajwadi Party leader. He also demand the Election Commission to ban Khan from contesting elections. "I urge the Election Commission that in this case of humiliation of a woman, strict action be taken against the SP leader and he should be banned from contesting," Maurya said. On Sunday, Khan, without taking any name, said, "It took you 17 years to understand her reality". "I recognised it in 17 days that she wears 'khaki' underwear." The BJP has claimed that the boorish remark was made against Prada. Earlier on Monday, addressing a Backward Caste Sammelan of his party in Baansdeeh area in Ballia district, Maurya attacked the Congress, claiming the work that could not be done in 55 years, has been done in the past five years of the BJP rule. He also attacked the SP-BSP-RLD alliance, alleging governments run and supported by these parties at the Centre had looted funds and they have again come together to breed corruption. "Can those who buy tickets by giving money work for development," he asked. He also had a dig at SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, asking how someone who has no respect for his father and uncle have it for his 'bua'. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A lawyer Monday filed a plea in the Supreme Court seeking to intervene as a party in a pending case and sought a direction to authorities not to evict any forest dweller in the country. A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra refused to entertain a separate PIL of lawyer M L Sharma on the issue of eviction of illegal forest dwellers and asked him to rather file an application seeking to intervene in a pending case. The apex court had on March 25 referred Sharma's plea before Justice Mishra's bench adding that in any case, the February 13 order, directing 21 states to evict 11.8 lakh illegal forest dwellers, has already been stayed by the court. Sharma, appearing for Chhattisgarh-based Tarika Tarangini Larka, had submitted that the issues raised in the PIL were of larger interest for forest dwellers and hence, the notice be issued. The apex court had on March 5 taken cognisance of another plea filed by Larka, seeking a direction to the Centre not to allot possession of any forest land belonging to tribals to anyone other than 'adivasi' residing in that particular area. The top court, while dealing with other similar pending petition, had on February 28 stayed its February 13 order directing 21 states to evict 11.8 lakh illegal forest dwellers whose claims over the forest land have been rejected by authorities. The petition has alleged that authorities in Tamnar of Chhattisgarh's Raigarh district have "forcibly" grabbed a large area of tribal land and handed it to outsiders and now are trying to oust 'adivasi' from the area. "For this, they adopted simple strategy declaring forest dweller as non-adivasi to grab their land in the forest and village by rejecting their claim upon land," the plea has said. It has sought restoration of land acquired by the government from tribals in Chhattisgarh for mining and other purposes and to provide them value of mined minerals. The petition has also sought setting up of a special investigation team (SIT) comprising retired judges of the apex court to look into the alleged illegal acquisition of land belonging to tribals throughout the country. Besides, it has sought a direction to the CBI to register an FIR under the provisions of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Act to investigate the matters brought to light by the SIT and to file their report before the apex court. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court Monday directed Congress president Rahul Gandhi to give an explanation by April 22 for "incorrectly" attributing his remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi to its verdict in the Rafale review petitions last week. The court gave the direction on a petition filed by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi seeking contempt action against Gandhi after she claimed he attributed some observations to the apex court which was not in the Rafale judgement on April 10 on the admissibility of certain 'leaked' documents as evidence. Stating that it will consider the criminal contempt petition filed by Lekhi, the court made it clear that views attributed to it in the remarks made by Gandhi in public have been "incorrectly attributed" to this court. Reacting to the direction, the Congress said it will provide an explanation to the Supreme Court while the BJP asserted that the top court has exposed Gandhi's "lie". Finance Minister Arun Jaitley accused Gandhi of "manufacturing" a court order for political propaganda, asserting that 'right to free speech' is not 'right to falsehood'. "We make it clear that views, observations, findings attributed to this court in the alleged speeches, remarks made by Gandhi to media/public have been incorrectly attributed to this court. We also make it clear that this court had no occasion to make such observation in as much as it was deciding legal admissibility of certain documents which were objected by the attorney general," a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said. The bench also comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna said, "Having clarified the matter we deem it appropriate to seek explanation of Gandhi." The bench further said the explanation by Gandhi has to be filed on or before next Monday and the matter will be heard on April 23 (next Tuesday). Lekhi, a sitting Lok Sabha MP from New Delhi constituency, in her plea alleged that Gandhi has attributed his personal remarks to the top court and tried to create prejudice. Later, Lekhi said Gandhi does not understand "Constitutional propriety" and was dragging institutions like the Supreme Court into "shabby politics". Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Lekhi, told the court that a gross case of contempt was committed by Gandhi. Rohatgi said Gandhi had come out in the public to make a remark that the "Supreme Court in its judgement said "Chowkidar Narendra Modi chor hain". The bench said, "You were right to the extent we never said what has been brought in the petition. We will seek clarification". The Congress president had on April 10 claimed that the apex court has made it "clear" that Prime Minister Narendra Modi "committed a theft". He had made the statement while interacting with reporters in Amethi after filing his nomination papers where he is contesting against BJP leader and union minister Smriti Irani. The apex court, which last December cleared the Modi government of allegations of irregularities over the Rafale deal with France, on April 10 said it will hear a review petition on the basis of some 'leaked' documents, referred to by the petitioners who have demanded a probe. It dismissed the government's preliminary objections claiming "privilege" over them. In a series of tweets, Jaitley said, "In Rahul Gandhi's politics, the Right to Free Speech includes the Right to Falsehood". He further said dynasts are also subject to the Supreme Court and while truth holds together, falsehood falls apart. "Indian democracy does not permit them (dynasts) to rewrite Court orders... To manufacture a Court order for a political propaganda is a new low for Rahul Gandhi. The lower he sinks, the higher we rise," Jaitley said. Union minister and senior BJP leader Prakash Javadekar hit out at Gandhi at a press conference after the apex court's direction. "The Supreme Court has exposed Gandhi's lie. He lies daily and one of those lies has been exposed.... People are demanding that he tender an apology," Javadekar said. He accused Gandhi of using the court to defame Modi and institutions, claiming that the Congress and the Gandhi family could not accept that Modi had run such an honest government while the UPA dispensation was mired in scams and scandals. BJP chief Amit Shah also attacked Gandhi at a rally in Gujarat and accused him of "lying". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court Monday refused to stay the Madras High Court order that directed the Centre to ban the "Tiktok" app over concerns about access to pornographic content through it. The top court said that ban directive was just an interim order and the high court is schedule to hear the matter on April 16. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna said that it is keeping the issue open for further adjudication and would consider it on April 22. Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Chinese company ByteDance, said there were over billion downloads of the mobile app and an ex-parte orders were passed by the Madurai bench of Madras High Court. He said the court did not even issue notice in the matter and an order was passed without hearing them. The bench said the high court is already seized of the matter and the ban order was just an interim order. "We are not closing the issue. Let the high court hear the matter," the bench said and listed the matter for further hearing on April 22. The high court had on April 3 directed the Centre to ban mobile application "TikTok" as it voiced concern over the "pornographic and inappropriate content" being made available through such apps. It had directed the media not to telecast video clips made with TikTok. The app allows the users to create short videos and then share them. It had asked the government if it would enact a statute on the line of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act in the US and posted the matter for further hearing on April 16. The high court's interim order came on a public interest litigation (PIL) which alleged that the app encouraged paedophiles and the content "degraded culture and encouraged pornography". Even after the havoc caused by Blue whale online game, which reportedly led to suicides by several people, officials have not learnt that they should be alert to these types of problems, the high court said. Only when the officials and policy makers were able to act on the problems of society, decision could be taken to prevent these kind of apps, it had said. Voicing concern, the court had said that it was evident from media reports that pornography and inappropriate content were made available through such mobile applications. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The EC action came after the Supreme Court took note of the alleged hate speeches made by Mayawati and Yogi Adityanath during campaigns The (EC) on Monday banned Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo from election campaigning for 72 hours and 48 hours, respectively, starting from 6 am on Tuesday, for violating the Model Code of Conduct by making objectionable statements in their speeches, reported news agency ANI. The action came after the took note of the alleged hate speeches made by and during campaigns and sought to know from the poll panel about the action initiated against them so far. The "strongly condemned" Adityanath and for their communal remarks. The two have also been "censured". Mayawati was issued the notice for her speech in Deoband appealing to Muslims to not vote for a particular party. The BSP chief had prima facie violated the model code of conduct, the poll panel found. Adityanath was served the notice for his "Ali" and "Bajrang Bali" remarks while addressing a rally in Meerut. He compared the elections to a contest between 'Ali', a revered figure in Islam, and Bajrang Bali, the Hindu god Hanuman. A bench headed by summoned a representative of the for Tuesday while agreeing to examine the poll panel's contention that it has limited legal power to deal with hate speeches of politicians during electioneering. The bench referred to submissions of the that they can issue notice, then advisory and finally lodge a complaint against an errant politician for violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) by giving hate speeches based on caste and religion during campaign. "The EC says they are toothless. They say that they first issue notice, then advisory and then complain," the bench said, adding it would examine the aspect relating to poll panel's power to deal with hate speeches during poll campaign. During the hearing, the bench asked the counsel for EC as to what action they have taken against Mayawati and for alleged hate speeches. The counsel appearing for poll panel said that it has already issued notices against the two politicians. "Tell us what actions you have taken against Mayawati and Yogi Adityanath," the bench asked and fixed the matter for tomorrow. The bench was hearing a PIL filed by an NRI Yoga teacher based in Sharjah in the (UAE), seeking a direction to the EC to take "strict action" against political parties if their spokespersons make remarks based on caste and religion in the media in the run up to general elections. A scuffle broke out between Congress workers and BJP supporters during Congress candidate from Mumbai North, Urmila Matondkar's election campaign at Borivali here Monday, police said. The BJP workers chanted slogans outside the Borivali railway station, shouting 'Modi, Modi' as they confronted the Congress workers, an onlooker said. Matondkar approached the Borivali police station and lodged a police complaint after the scuffle. She has sought police protection after the incident and is expected to address media on the incident later in the day, an aide of the Congress candidate said. BJP has fielded sitting MP Gopal Shetty from the constituency. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Over 480 flying squads and 232 static surveillance teams have been formed to monitor the enforcement of the model code of conduct in view of the April 18 Lok Sabha polls in the state, officials said Monday. Director General of Police (Elections), Tamil Nadu, Ashutosh Shukla conducted a review meeting here to review the election preparedness. The meeting reviewed, among other things, poll process, law and order maintenance during the pre-poll and post-poll periods in the districts of West Zone of Salem, Coimbatore and Tirupur City, Salem and Coimbatore Ranges. The meeting was told that 483 flying squads and 232 static surveillance teams have been formed to monitor the enforcement of MCC and 918 cases were booked for violation of the code. Instruction was given to take up effective patrolling in the sensitive and vulnerable areas identified in certain pockets and also to identify and to optimally utilize resources like manpower, both serving police personnel and non-police personnel for the election duty, a release said. Shukla emphasized the importance of uninterrupted communication for effective functioning of law and order machinery during election. On the law and order front, the DGP instructed police officials to identify the places which are trouble prone and to form adequate number of Quick Reaction Teams (QRT) to ensure smooth conduct of poll process and maintenance of public order and tranquility during the election. According to the release, to prevent Left Wing Extremist activities in the Forest areas in West Zone, Naxalite Special Division (NSD) teams and STF Teams have been engaged andadditional Flying Squad deployed in sensitive pockets. West Zone IG K Periaiah, Coimbatore City Police Commissioner Sumit Sharan, Tiruppur City Police Commissioner Sanjeev Kumar, Salem range DIG Senthil Kumar, Coimbatore City Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Sujith Kumar were among those who attended the meeting. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP chief Amit Shah Monday attacked Congress president Rahul Gandhi for "lying" over a Supreme Court order on the Rafale fighter jet purchase deal. The Congress tells a lie and repeats it, Shah said, adding that Gandhi had got notice from the apex court for his utterances on the Rafale deal. Shah was addressing a rally in Kodinar town in Gir Somnath district for the party's Junagadh Lok Sabha candidate. "The Supreme Court heard the (Rafale) case on a preliminary technical objection. The Supreme Court passed its judgement, and Rahul baba started saying the Supreme Court had rebuked the government on the Rafale issue. In reality, no such thing happened," Shah said. The Congress president had on April 10 claimed that the apex court has made it "clear" that Prime Minister Narendra Modi "committed a theft". The apex court, which had earlier cleared the Modi government of accusations of corruption over the Rafale deal with France, had on April 9 said it will hear a review petition on the basis of the new documents, referred to by petitioners. "It only worked to remove a preliminary objection. The case is still going on, and has also been heard in the past. But he (Gandhi) started speaking repeatedly. A BJP MP moved a contempt notice. And today, the respectable SC has issued notice and asked Rahul Gandhi to explain what he had said," Shah told the crowd. "Telling a lie, telling it loudly, and repeatedly, has become the nature of the Congress party," Shah said. The BJP chief also hit out at Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan for his objectionable remarks against BJP's Rampur Lok Sabha candidate actor-turned-politician Jaya Prada. Shah said Khan, the SP and its Uttar Pradesh ally BSP should apologise for the "disgusting" remark. "The disgusting comment made by Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan on BJP candidate Jaya Prada is an insult to mothers. The comment on Jaya Prada is not on her but on crores of women. I would like to ask Samajwadi Party, Behen Mayawati ji and Rahul Gandhi whether they agree to Azam Khan's comment," Shah said. Shah also hit out at the opposition for their tirade against electronic voting machines. "The Congress is scared of defeat. Earlier they would put the reason of defeat on EVMs. Now, even as the first phase of election is completed, it says BJP will win due to EVM. This shows Congress party has accepted defeat," he said. "You have won in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh. The EVM is good where it (Congress) wins, and bad where it loses. Rahul Baba, it does not matter what you say. The people of the country understand everything," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Alleging that peddling falsehoods has become the nature of the Congress, BJP president Amit Shah Mondayattacked Congress chief Rahul Gandhi for "lying" over a Supreme Court order on the Rafale fighter jet purchase deal. The Congress tells a lie and repeats it, Shah said,adding Gandhi had got a notice from the apex court for his utterances on the Rafale deal. Canvassing for BJP candidates, Shah addressed a rally at Kodinar in Gir Somnath district for the party nominee from Junagadh, and another at Deesa town of Banaskantha district. "The Supreme Court heard the (Rafale) case on a preliminary technical objection. The Supreme Court passed its judgement, and Rahul baba started saying the Supreme Court hadrebuked the government on the Rafale issue. In reality, no such thing happened," Shah said in Kodinar. The Congress president had on April 10 claimed that the apex court has made it "clear" that Prime Minister Narendra Modi "committed a theft". The apex court, which had earlier cleared the Modi government of accusations of corruption over the Rafale deal with France, had on April 9 said it will hear a review petition on the basis of the new documents, referred to by petitioners. "It only worked to remove a preliminary objection. The case is still going on, and has also been heard in the past. But he (Gandhi) started speaking repeatedly. A BJP MP moved a contempt notice. "And today, the respectable SC has issued notice and asked Rahul Gandhi to explain what he had said," Shah told the crowd. "Telling a lie, telling it loudly, and repeatedly, has become the nature of the Congress party," he said. The BJP chief also hit out at Samajwadi Party (SP) leaderAzam Khan for his objectionable remarks against BJP's Rampur Lok Sabha candidate Jaya Prada. Shah said Khan, the SP, and its Uttar Pradesh ally BSPshould apologise for the "disgusting" remark. "The disgusting comment made by Samajwadi Party leaderAzam Khan on BJP candidate Jaya Prada is an insult to mothers. "The comment on Jaya Prada is not on her but on crores of women. I would like to ask Samajwadi Party, Behen Mayawati ji and Rahul Gandhi whether they agree with Azam Khan's comment," Shah said. He also hit out at the Opposition for their tiradeagainst electronic voting machines (EVMs). "The Congress is scared of defeat. Earlier they would put the reason of defeat on EVMs. Now, even as the first phaseof election is completed, it says BJP will win due to EVMs. This shows Congress party has accepted defeat," he said. "You have won (assembly elections) in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. The EVM is good where it (Congress) wins, andbad where it loses. Rahul Baba, it does not matter what you say. The people of the country understand everything," he said. Shah further said the Modi government has worked hard to alleviate poverty and secure the country. Taking a dig, he said the Congress and Pakistan had "mourned" after the Balakot air strike. "While youths across the country were bursting crackers, distributing sweets, paying tributes to martyrs, a mourning was held at two places. One in Pakistan, which was crying and beating its chest. "The second mourning gripped the office of Congress," he said, adding that the main opposition party is still batting for holding talks with Pakistan. In an apparent reference to a popular Bollywood song, Shah said, "Rahul Baba, go ahead and do 'Ilu Ilu' with terrorists, but this is BJP and Narendra Modi government. Our policy is clear. For every bullet from Pakistan, we will respond with a bomb." The BJP chief also attacked former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah over his "separate PMs" remark, and asked Gandhi if he agrees with Abdullah. Speaking at Deesa, Shah took a dig at the "maha- gatbandhan" (grand alliance of anti-BJP parties). "This is how the coalition government will be run. (BSP supremo) Mayawati will become prime minister on Monday, Akhilesh Yadav (SP chief) on Tuesday, Sharad Pawar (NCP president) on Wednesday, Chandrababu Naidu (TDP president) on Thursday, Deve Gowda (JD-S leader) on Friday, Mamata Banerjee (TMC chief) Saturday, and Sunday will be holiday. Can a country be run like this?" he asked. Shah said the Congress is still doing a lip service for the cause of the poor even after four generation of the party has ruled the country for 55 years. Shah held a two-km-long roadshow at Deesa before addressing the rally. Gujarat will vote in a single phase on April 23 for all its 26 Lok Sabha seats. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Sikh community in Singapore has added great vibrancy and vitality to the fabric of the country's multiracial society, a Singaporean minister has said, lauding the community for contributing to nation-building efforts and distinguishing itself in many different fields from education to law. Communications and Information Minister S Iswaran, while launching a year-long celebration commemorating the Sikh faith founder Guru Nanak's 550th birth annivesary on Sunday, said the small Sikh community is able to thrive in multiracial Singapore is a testament to the country's commitment to having an inclusive society. The Sikh community has added great vibrancy and vitality to the fabric of Singapore society, the Indian-origin minister said. "The community has left a mark on Singapore, not just in terms of the economic aspects but also in our social development," Iswaran said. As part of the celebration, the community initiated a Sewa Pledge, aiming to collectively clock 550,000 hours of volunteer service this year as a reverence to the 550 birth year of Guru Nanak. The pledge was started in November last year with the intention of rallying the 12,000-strong Sikh community in Singapore to give back to society. The year-long celebrations will also include a heritage day in June to raise awareness about Sikhism, and a harmony walk in August which will include representatives from other faiths, The Straits Times reported on Monday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) All eyes will be on Sivaganga in southern Tamil Nadu where Congress nominee Karti Chidambaram will battle it out in a triangular contest in the Lok Sabha seat held by his father P Chidambaram seven times since 1984. A nail biting finish is in the offing in view of the tough contest among Karti, BJP national secretary H Raja and the candidate of TTV Dhinakaran's Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK). Mukkulathor and Mutharaiyar, a backward caste community, Nagarathar and the Scheduled Castes make up the main caste composition. Apart from them, Muslims and Christians are also among the electorate spread across the vast constituency falling under Sivaganga and Pudukottai districts. A visit to a number of villages in the constituency revealed that a section of Mukkulathor, the traditional supporters of the AIADMK was oscillating in its choice between the ruling AIADMK's ally BJP and rival AMMK. AIADMK top leader O Panneerselvam, AMMK leader Dhinakaran and his party candidate Therpogi V Pandi belong to the Mukkulathor community. Also, with several AIADMK cadres at the local level now siding with AMMK, it has virtually widened the scope for a split in the anti-DMK and anti-Congress votes. Both the Congress and BJP bank on their Dravidian allies' organisational strength to win the seat. DMK and AIADMK has alliance with Congress and BJP respectively. Requesting anonymity, some Congress workers rued that the Sivaganga Lok Sabha ticket has been repeatedly going to one family for about 30 years, a reference to the hold of Chidambaram on the seat from 1984. The 47-year old Karti, who is facing corruption cases, is currently on bail. He has been maintaining that the cases were politically motivated. On the other hand, Raja is perceived as accessible and well known. A local, whose view of supported by many, in Karaikudi said: "Raja is accecssible, well known, but infamous for courting controversies." AMMK has aligned with the Social Democratic Party of India and hopes that it would give an edge in getting Muslim votes in the April 18 elections. While Karti's main poll plank is voting out Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Raja is wooing the voters saying P Chidambaram had not addressed issues facing the constituency despite being a union minister for a long period during the Congress regimes. The only issue for the people in the polls was about dislodging Modi from power, Karti told PTI. Raja slammed P Chidambaram for "not addressing," the issues of industries, including closure of textile mills in Sivaganga, when he was a minister. He said such issues mattered a lot for the people. AMMK's Pandi alleged P Chidambaram faced widespread resentment among the people and Raja was a "divisive" personality and both parties cannot nurse hopes for a win. In the 2014 elections, Karti, on his maiden electoral foray, was comprehensively defeated here while the AIADMK had wrested the seat. The AIADMK, DMK, Congress and the BJP had then contested the elections with smaller allies. For the electorate, which is spread out in the Assembly segments of Sivaganga, Thirumayam, Alangudi, Karaikudi, Tiruppattur, and Manamadurai (Reserved), lack of jobs at the local level tops the list among the polls issues. Sitting under tree shade on the fringes of the sleepy Vengavayal hamlet, village elder and a retired rice mill worker Seena Karuppasamy complained rice mills do not employ local people anymore. "Labourers are brought from Bihar and Jharkhand for comparatively paltry wages. They work and live within the mill compounds," he told PTI. Other kinds of sources of employment, including farm related tasks, were neither regular, nor remunerative, he added. The number of rice mills too dwindled over the years, he said and rued that several men have to travel far away for jobs. On steps for job creation during his father's tenure both as a Minister and an MP, Karti cited initiatives, including setting up a BHEL facility at Thirumayam. Besides, he also listed out several other development and welfare projects undertaken by his father. Power Plant Piping Unit, a new manufacturing unit of BHEL, was setup in 2011 at Thirumayam. AMMK candidate Pandi is not ready to buy the argument and alleged,"you must understand that Chidambaram was Sivaganga MP for about 30 years. Also, Chidambaram had been a Central Minister for several years and held various portfolios. Considering such aspects, no big ticket project really useful for the local people were brought for our region." Local youth like C Nagarajan and others alleged the BHEL unit does not give adequate opportunities to the local youth and a "large number of employees are from other states."Despite repeated attempts, BHEL officials were unavailable for comments. On the accusation against him by his rivals and some locals that he was not accessible, Karti replied "how have you now accessed me...? this is Goebbels propaganda... there is no truth in it." Among other issues, the people of Neduvasal who had for long protested against the Hydrocarbon project seek reassurance that the initiative will not be pursued. They also complained about relief package being not commensurate with the damages caused by cyclone Gaja. Such factors are expected to have a bearing on the choice of voters in this belt which falls under Alangudi Assembly segment. Karti in his campaign focuses on his party's showpiece scheme of 'Nyay,' asserting it will be a game changer in the lives of poor. Also, he assures village women folk of lowering the cable television charges to enable them watch their favourite soap operas. Raja's campaign, though has references to national security, is not to the extent seen in BJP's campaign elsewhere in the country. He speaks more of local issues, promises implementation of Cauvery Gundaru River linking project, making Sivaganga a textile hub for spurring employment opportunities. Sivaganga has more women electors and number 7,84,513 as against 7,65,811 elgible men voters. The third gender account for 66. Though 26 candidates including Kamal Haasan-led Makkal Needhi Maiam's Kavingnar Snekan are in the fray, the main contest is among the Congress, BJP and the AMMK. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Shares of SpiceJet zoomed nearly 9 per cent Monday amid the company announcing that it will launch direct flights from Mumbai to seven international destinations, including Colombo, Jeddah, Dhaka, Riyadh and Hong Kong. The scrip climbed 8.60 per cent to close at Rs 119.35 on the BSE. During the trade, it jumped 9.19 per cent to Rs 120. About 77 lakh shares of the company were traded on the BSE during the day. Shares of SpiceJet had zoomed 8.5 per cent Friday after the airline announced it will induct 16 Boeing 737-800 NG aircraft, a move that will help in bringing down flight cancellations. Direct flights would also be operated from Mumbai to Bangkok and Kathmandu. The no-frills airline would start the services from the end of May. In a release on Monday, the carrier said it will be the first Indian budget carrier to launch daily direct flights on the Mumbai-Colombo, Mumbai-Dhaka, Mumbai-Riyadh, Mumbai-Hong Kong and Mumbai-Kathmandu sectors. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sudanese protest organisers on Monday demanded the new military council be scrapped, as demonstrators kept up calls for a civilian government at a sit-in outside army headquarters. Thousands of demonstrators have continued to rally in support of demands for civilian rule, despite an apparent attempt to disperse them following the ouster last week of veteran president Omar al-Bashir. "We want the military council to be dissolved and be replaced by a civilian council having representatives of the army," said Mohamed Naji, a senior leader of the Sudanese Professionals Association. The organisation which spearheaded months of protests leading to Bashir's fall also demanded the sacking of the country's judiciary chief and prosecutor general. The SPA's latest demands came as the military council faced mounting public and diplomatic pressure to hand over power to a civilian administration. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for "a rapid transfer of power to a civilian transitional government," in a phone call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. "This must be followed by a credible, inclusive political process that meets the expectations of the Sudanese people with regard to economic and political reforms," her office said in a statement. Sisi meanwhile reiterated Egypt's support for "the brotherly Sudanese people's will" and said Cairo would "not interfere in its internal affairs", according to a presidential statement. Their comments come a day after the Khartoum embassies of Britain, the United States and Norway issued a joint statement calling for "inclusive dialogue to effect a transition to civilian rule". Outside army headquarters crowds remained camped outside the complex, despite SPA warnings of "an attempt to disperse the sit-in". "We call on our people to come immediately to the sit-in area to protect our revolution," the SPA said in a statement, without saying who was responsible. Witnesses said several army vehicles had surrounded the area and that troops were seen removing the barricades which demonstrators had put up as a security measure. "I felt frustrated when they tried to break the sit-in, but I still trust the army because it's not possible that they would give up on protesters," said demonstrator Mohamed al-Fatih. Portraits of people killed in the months of rallies covered the facades of several buildings in the area. "Until we see tangible results, we are not moving from here," said protester Abdulhadi Hajj Ahmed. A 10-member delegation representing the protesters delivered a list of demands during talks with the council late Saturday, according to a statement by the Alliance for Freedom and Change umbrella group. But in a conference, the council's spokesman did not respond to the protesters' demands. The military council however met with political parties on Sunday, urging them to agree on an "independent figure" to be prime minister, an AFP correspondent at the meeting said. "We want to set up a civilian state based on freedom, justice and democracy," a council member, Lieutenant General Yasser al-Ata, told members of several political parties. The foreign ministry said military council head General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan was "committed to having a complete civilian government" and urged other nations to back the council in order to achieve "the Sudanese goal of democratic transition". Burhan has pledged that individuals implicated in killing protesters would be held to account and that demonstrators detained under a state of emergency imposed by the president during his final weeks in power would be freed. The SPA says Bashir must also face justice, along with officials from his feared National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) whose chief Salih Ghosh resigned on Saturday. As part of the shake-up at the top, a new NISS head and army chief of staff have been appointed. Bashir ruled Sudan with an iron fist for 30 years before he was deposed last week following mass protests that have rocked the country since December. The SPA has additionally called for the confiscation of properties belonging to the ousted president's National Congress Party and the release of soldiers who sided with their movement. Late on Sunday, the military council said it has set up a committee to register NCP properties and seize control of them. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At 31, the Surendranagar Lok Sabha constituency has the highest number of candidates for a seat in Gujarat with at least two of them seen as having potential to eat into the votes of main rivals Congress and the BJP. The constituency in the Saurashtra region, a Koli community-dominated seat won by the BJP in 2014, has as many as 25 independents in the fray. Despite so many candidates in the fray, the main fight is likely to be between the BJP and the Congress, the parties which dominate the politician scene in Gujarat. The saffron outfit has dropped its sitting MP from here Devji Fatehpara and given ticket to Mahendra Munjpara, while the Congress has fielded Somabhai Patel, who had lost in 2014. Ex-BJP MLA Lalji Mer, contesting as an independent, is seen as affecting the prospects of Congress's Patel. Another candidate Davji Dekavadiya, the nominee of the Hindusthan Nirman Dal, a party formed by former VHP leader Pravin Togadia, is seen as eating into the votes of Munjpara. Mer and Patel belong to the same Tarbada Koli sub- caste and this may lead to division of their community's votes, thus harming the prospects of the latter. Munjpara belongs to the Thakor Koli sub-caste. Mer was with the BJP till November last year and later joined the Congress, from where he was hoping for a ticket to contest the Lok Sabha elections. When the party decided to renominate Patel, a three- time MP, Mer entered the fray as an independent. In 2009, Mer had contested the Lok Sabha elections from here against Patel as the BJP candidate and lost by a margin of around 4,800 votes. Mer bemoaned lack of development in Surendranagar and said his fight is against both the Congress and the BJP. "No Member of Parliament who represented Surendranagar ever worked for the development of the area. Despite there being two dams, city dwellers still suffer from erratic water supply and farmers have to suffer due to lack of irrigation water," said Mer. "I am contesting the election because my supporters asked me to do so. "My fight is against both the Congress and BJP, as none of the two parties worked for the development of the people of Surendranagar," said the former Dhandhuka MLA who had faced defeat in the 2017 Assembly elections. On the other hand, Dekavadiya, the candidate of Togadia's party, has been associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mentor of the BJP, for over 25 years. The fledging party is contesting on two principal issues - Ram temple and cow protection. "I am getting positive response in villages across the district with a network of former VHP members here supporting our party supremo Togadia and my candidature," Dekavadiya, a former chairman of Sursagar Dairy, or Surendranagar District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union Ltd, said. "People have understood that the BJP made a fool out of them in the name of Ram Mandir. We have told them that while BJP has gone back on its promise, only we can ensure that Ram mandir is constructed (in Ayodhya). Cow protection is our second most important priority," he said. However, both BJP and the Congress claimed the candidature of Dekavadiya and Mer posed no threat to their respective electoral prospects. District BJP media in-charge Harshad Gandhi played down the threat from Dekavadiya, saying he is not a known face in the region. "He is not a known figure and it is an exaggeration to say he can take away significant number of votes," he said. Other than Surendranagar, the Hindusthan Nirman Dal has fielded candidates on over a half a dozen other seats in Gujarat - Patan, Sabarkantha, Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad East, Junagadh, Kheda, Dahod and Kutch. While Surendranagar has the highest number of candidates in the fray at 31, the Panchmahal Lok Sabha seat has the lowest nominees at six. Jamnagar has the second highest number of candidates at 28 and Ahmedabad (East) third highest at 26. Voting for all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat will take place in a single phase on April 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The case relating to "unauthorised usage and storage" of details of 7.82 crore Aadhaar holders from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana will be transferred to a Special Investigation Team appointed by the Telangana government, a senior police official said on Monday. Based on a complaint by officials of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the Cyberabad Police Friday filed one more case against city-based IT Grids India Pvt Ltd for alleged unauthorised use of data of voters. "As the SIT under the leadership of Inspector General of Police Stephen Ravindra is investigating the case, this complaint (by UIDAI) will also be transferred to it," Madhapur Deputy Commissioner of Police A Venkateshwar Rao told PTI. The city police had earlier registered a case against IT Grids India for illegally using and storing information of crores of voters of Andhra Pradesh through "Seva Mitra" mobile application allegedly used by the ruling TDP in AP. The Telangana government handed over the case to the SIT which seized hard disks belonging to IT Grids and sent them to Telangana State Forensic Science Laboratory (TSFSL) for forensic examination. The TSFSL in its preliminary report has stated the seized hard disks contained a database of a large number of records pertaining to Aadhaar number in a particular structural database. Based on the TSFSL report, UIDAI filed a complaint with police on Friday. Upon further examination of the digital evidence, it was found that 7,82,21,397 records of Aadhaar data belonging to people of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were used by IT Grids India for "Seva Mitra" application of the TDP, the UIDAI said in its complaint. A senior official of UIDAI said some state government departments were permitted to use Aadhaar data for verification purpose. "Storing Aadhaar data is a crime. Some mobile companies are also given permission to use Aadhaar data for verification. But they cannot store data and they cannot deviate from the assigned purpose," the official said. The alleged data theft has become a contentious issue between the two neighbouring states. Earlier, the TDP government had dismissed the charge of data theft and sought transfer of the case from Telangana to Andhra Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu had accused the BJP and the TRS of helping the YSR Congress Party. When contacted, K Vijayanand, Principal Secretary (Information Technology, Electronics and Communications), Andhra Pradesh, refused to comment, saying he has to go through the contents of the UIDAI complaint. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Karnataka BJP Vice President Tejaswini Ananth Kumar, who was denied a ticket by the party from Bangalore South, Monday rejected "rumours" she was asking people to vote for NOTA and said her name was being "misused". She said her call to people has always been "vote for BJP to make Narendra Modi Prime Minister once again" and added that she has filed a police complaint as it is was an attempt to level a "false allegation" against her. "There are pamphlets being shared on the social media, including Whats App groups that I have been asking people to vote for NOTA. This is far from the truth...my name is being misused and this is an attempt to level false allegations against me," Tejaswini said in her first interaction with the media after taking over as BJP state president. Stating that she has come from and belongs to the "BJP parivar" and pointing to her late husband Ananth Kumar's association with BJP, including his stint a six time MP from Bangalore South and as Union Minister, she said "now I have also been made party Vice President... I have never said it, some are doing it to confuse voters." "I have always said, vote for BJP to make Narendra Modi Prime Minister once again and have been campaigning in the same way. There is no need to vote for NOTA," she said, adding she has filed a police complaint on the matter and the cyber crime division had also been requested to take strict action. Posters asking people to vote NOTA in Bengaluru South to support Tejaswini Ananth Kumar are being shared widely on the social media. She declined to comment to a question on the reported statement of B L Santosh, BJP National Joint General Secretary (Org), on the party denying a ticket to her, saying she had not heard him directly stating it and only seen media reports. "It will not be fair for me to comment. He is a senior leader and holds a high office in the party... will discuss with him," she added. Santosh had reportedly said that the BJP cannot give a ticket on the basis of one's genes, in reference to Tejaswini being denied the ticket. Many within BJP feel Santosh was instrumental in getting the party ticket to Tejaswi Surya from Bangalore South. Tejaswini said though she has seen party activities from up close, she has a lot to learn now that she was directly involved in the party affairs. "The priority is now to win more seats for BJP. Last time we had sent three MPs from Bangalore region. This time we will have to send all the four (indicating Bangalore rural, where Congress has a sitting MP)." Asked whether she has got a satisfactory explanation on why she was denied a ticket,Tejaswini said,"... this is a time of war, at such time you cannot get answers to all questions. Party leaders may have had their own reasons for giving someone a ticket. They may talk about it later." She said she was always with the party and its leadership. In a surprise move, BJP on March 26 had announced the ticket to 28-year-old Tejaswi Surya, just hours before the deadline for filing of nominations for the first phase of polls in Karnataka, denying ticket to Tejaswini, who was earlier tipped as the party candidate. The decision to deny her the ticket had created resentment within the BJP, as it was the state leadership which had recommended her name to the central leadership. Tejaswini too had initially stayed away from campaigning, but subsequently she was appointed as state BJP vice President. Congress' B K Hariprasad is in the fray from Bangalore South. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Monday suffered head injuries when the hook of a weighing scale came off and hit his head while performing 'thulabharam' ritual at a temple here. According to party sources, Tharoor, who is aiming for a hat-trick from Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency, sustained injuries on his head, which required six stitches. The 63-year old MP also suffered a minor leg injury in the incident which occurred at a Devi temple here. 'Thulabharam' is a Hindu ritual in which a person is weighed against a commodity such as flowers, grains, fruits and similar articles in temples and the equal value or quantity is offered as donation. Monday being the Malayalam new year day ('Vishu'), Tharoor performed the ritual by offering sugar equal to his weight in the morning before embarking on his poll campaign. He was accompanied by his family members and party leaders and workers including MLA, V S Sivakumar. While he was sitting on one of the pans of the weighing scale, the hook came off and fell on his head, the party sources added. He was taken to Trivandrum Medical College hospital for detailed examination, the sources said. Television channels showed the former union minister getting into a car with a bandaged head and waving to onlookers wearing a blood-stained kurta. NASA has awarded three teams from India as part of the US space agency's annual Human Exploration Rover Challenge which invites high school and college students to build and test roving vehicles for future missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. The team from KIET Group of Institutions in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, won the "AIAA Neil Armstrong Best Design Award", which recognises systems best designed to meet the Rover Challenge performance requirements, NASA said in a statement. The Mukesh Patel School of Technology Management and Engineering from Mumbai, Maharashtra, won the "Frank Joe Sexton Memorial Pit Crew Award" -- for ingenuity and persistence in overcoming problems during the race -- as well as the "System Safety Challenge Award". A team from Lovely Professional University in Phagwara, Punjab, won the "STEM Engagement Award", presented to the team that best informed others about rocketry and other space-related topics. Nearly 100 teams took part in the competition, hailing from a record number of countries, including the US, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, Germany, Mexico, Morocco and Peru. Indian-American NASA astronaut and two-time spaceflight veteran Sunita Williams attended the second day of the event, interacting with teams and participating in the day's activities. The International Space Institute of Leipzig, Germany, won first place in the high school division with 91 points; and a team from University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez won the college/university division with 101 points. Teams were awarded points based on the successful navigation of obstacles and completion of tasks. The competition, hosted by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and held at the US Space & Rocket Center, this year marked 25 years since the inaugural event, the statement said. "We are so proud to congratulate this year's winners, and every team that competed," said Bob Musgrove, Acting Manager of the Office of STEM Engagement at Marshall. "The creativity, skill and resourcefulness demonstrated each year on the rover course are the very traits that paved our path to the Moon in 1969, and the ones that will continue to carry NASA forward to the Moon again in 2024," said Musgrove. Rover Challenge provides learning opportunities to students who, someday, may be responsible for planning future space missions, including crewed missions to other worlds. After constructing their own rovers, teams attempt to traverse a nearly three-quarter-mile course with gruelling obstacles that simulate terrain found on Mars, as well as other planets, moons and asteroids throughout the solar system. In addition, they have to complete tasks, such as sample collection and instrument deployment. Teams had a six-minute window to navigate the course, gathering points and trying to complete 14 obstacles. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Donald Trump on Monday asked Boeing to "fix" its beleagured 737 Max plane, introduce new features and re-brand the aircraft after two deadly crashes involving the model led to grounding of the jets across the world, including by Indian carriers. Trump's latest comments on the Boeing aircraft came hours after American Airlines, the world's largest, extended flight cancellations into mid-August because of the Boeing 737 Max grounding. "What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!), but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name," Trump said on Twitter. "No product has suffered like this one. But again, what the hell do I know?," he said. Last month, 737 Max aircraft were grounded worldwide following fatal crashes involving Ethiopian Airlines and Indonesia's Lion Air, killing all 346 people aboard the two planes. Two days after the Ethiopian Airlines plane went down on March 10, Trump tweeted that modern jetliners are "becoming far too complex to fly". He added: "Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT. I see it all the time in many products. Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better." American Airlines decided to extend cancellations from early June through August 19, to help plan ahead for the busy summer travel season. Southwest Airlines last week also extended flight cancellations for 737 Max planes from June until August. "Based upon our ongoing work with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Boeing, we are highly confident that the MAX will be recertified prior to this time," American Chairman and CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom said Sunday in a message to airline staff. "But by extending our cancellations through the summer, we can plan more reliably for the peak travel season." Approximately 115 flights a day will be cancelled through August 19, representing about 1.5 per cent of the airline's total daily flights, they said. The airline has 24 737 Max jets in its fleet. American has previously said that all flights that were originally scheduled on a MAX plane will not be cancelled, with some being substituted with other aircraft. All Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft being operated by Indian carriers have been grounded since the Ethiopian Airlines crash. SpiceJet has been most affected by the grounding of 737 Max 8 aircraft as it has 12 of them in its fleet. Jet Airways has not been affected as its five 737 Max 8 aircraft have already been grounded - even before the grounding decision of the government -- due to non-payment of dues to lessors. The causes of the two crashes involving Boeing 737 Max are still being investigated, but the focus has been on an automatic safety feature that may have forced the nose of each plane lower when it incorrectly sensed the plane was in danger of going into a stall. Investigators are focusing on the plane's anti-stall software, the Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). Boeing and the FAA said they are working on an upgrade of the 737 Max software to deal with that safety feature. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said on Thursday the company is closing in on a fix for the software, and a majority of the 50 customers that have ordered 737 Max planes have had a chance to test it using a flight simulator. He added that the update will make the plane "even safer" because it will prevent "erroneous" sensor readings. "It's our responsibility to eliminate this risk," Muilenburg said. He did not say when 737 Max planes may begin flying again. Boeing announced earlier this month it was cutting the production rate for all of its 737 planes from 52 a month to 42 amid the worldwide grounding. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Experts from the University of Birmingham have tied up with medical professionals in India to set up an innovative research centre that will help improve care for surgical patients. A team from the university's joint research team, involving the UK's National Institute for Health Research Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery (NIHR), travelled to Punjab recently to launch the first-ever surgical research hub in India at Christian Medical College and Hospital (CMC) in Ludhiana and deliver a training workshop. "Each year, 4.2 million people die within 30 days of an operation, half of these deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries such as India. Surgical Site Infection (SSI) is the most common surgical complication and this workshop represents an important step forward in reducing SSI in India and other countries," said NIHR's Clinical Research Fellow Dr Dmitri Nepogodiev. "SSI can have a catastrophic impact on patients in India, driving many people into poverty as they struggle to work and pay healthcare bills. Reducing SSI has huge benefits as patients suffer less and save money, whilst being able to return to work or school faster," he said. As part of the global initiative, patients would also need fewer and shorter courses of antibiotics, helping to reduce global antimicrobial resistance as well as for hospitals reducing costs by discharging patients earlier and preventing re-admissions. Dr Nepogodiev co-led the programme with Programme Manager Dr Sohini Chakrabortee, along with surgeons from India Dr Dhruv Ghosh (CMC Ludhiana) and Dr Rohin Mittal (CMC Vellore). Hub Lead Dr Ghosh added: "There is a critical need to improve surgical infrastructure across India and beyond in order to improve patient care and reduce the devastating impact of a lack of surgical care. "We are delighted to link with our partners at the University of Birmingham in this latest stage of a global health research initiative that has the potential to save many thousands of lives in India." Among the first studies to be launched by the joint India-UK team is a surgical trial to look at interventions to reduce the impact of post-surgical infection. The team will also evaluate access to healthcare for patients requiring surgery. A two-day training workshop marked a key stage in establishing the independent and sustainable research hubs and trial centre part of a major health research programme to help develop surgical research that will have the potential to improve the quality of surgery. Launched with partners from low- and middle-income countries and the Universities of Edinburgh and Warwick, the Global Health Research Unit aims to establish hubs and/or trial centres in India and other partner countries that will perform their own clinical research relevant to local populations, whilst serving global needs. The unit is based at the University of Birmingham and co-directed by Professor Dion Morton, Barling Chair of Surgery at the University's Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences, and Professor Peter Brocklehurst, Director of the Birmingham Clinical Trials Unit. Partners in the unit have also formed a Policy and Implementation Consortium to work with professional associations, NGOs and government organisations across the world, including the World Health Organisation (WHO). This consortium will use the results from the research generated by the unit as a tool to inform changes in clinical practice and provide evidence to drive policy changes across the globe. The NIHR, established by the UK government's Department of Health, had awarded 7 million pounds to the Birmingham, Edinburgh and Warwick universities to set up the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery at the University of Birmingham a few years ago. Over a period of four years, until March 2021, the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery will establish sustainable international research hubs across a range of low- and middle-income countries, including India. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Brexit may be causing all sorts of uncertainty in Britain but it doesn't seem to be putting off foreign investors. In a survey on corporate deal-making published Monday, consulting and accounting firm EY says Britain is the top investment destination in the world for the first time in the report's 10-year history overtaking the United States, which has held the top spot since 2014. The pound's fall since the June 2016 vote to leave the European Union has made British assets cheaper, but Steve Krouskos, a global vice chair at EY, notes Britain also remains an "open environment for foreign investors" even in the midst of the Brexit chaos. That culture, he said, is reinforced by the English language, a skilled workforce, and a strong technology base. Those long-standing strengths have helped Britain recover as a place to do business since the shock of the June 2016 referendum, which saw the country narrowly vote to leave the EU. With so much uncertainty surrounding the future of the British economy, the country slumped down EY's rankings. In the October 2016 survey, Britain was as low as seventh. There have been a number of high-profile investments in Britain over the past year, including Comcast's purchase of satellite broadcaster Sky for around 30 billion pounds (currently USD39 billion) and Coca-Cola's takeover of Costa Coffee for near 4 billion pounds (USD5.2 billion). Krouskos said he hasn't encountered executives who want Britain to crash out of the EU without a deal and that the remainder are "split down the middle" between those who want the country to leave the bloc smoothly with a deal and those who want Brexit stopped. Britain's exit from the EU, originally scheduled for March 29, has been delayed until October 31, though it could happen sooner should British lawmakers back the withdrawal agreement that Prime Minister Theresa May negotiated with the EU. Following three defeats in Parliaments, May opted to ask for an extension rather than crash out of the bloc, a scenario that many politicians and business leaders say could lead to a deep recession as tariffs are slapped on British exports and other restrictions are imposed on trade. EY found that global interest in mergers and acquisitions is at a 10-year high as managers try to adapt to technological change, with 59 per cent of companies planning a deal in the next year, up from 52 per cent a year ago. The improvement appears at odds with a slowdown in the global economy. Last week, the International Monetary Fund cut its global growth forecast for this year to 3.3 per cent from 3.5 per cent, largely because of trade tensions, particularly between China and the U.S. Krouskos said the mood among executives is better than the growth forecasts suggest. "The increase in acquisition appetite is a clear indication that executives are focused on their pursuit of growth, underpinned by high expectations of their own future performance," he said. "There is uncertainty in the market, but for many, disruption is driving M&A rather than stalling it deals are a means to reshape portfolios at an accelerated pace and futureproof businesses." EY surveyed 2,900 senior executives across 47 countries in February and March 2019. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United Nations' cultural agency said Monday that it "stood at France's side to save and restore" Notre-Dame cathedral, "a priceless heritage" which erupted in flames earlier in the afternoon. Audrey Azoulay, secretary general of UNESCO, said the agency was monitoring the effort to put out the blaze, which consumed the iconic church's spire as flames spread across the roof. Notre-Dame was added to UNESCO's world heritage list in 1991, Azoulay added in a tweet. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Social Justice Minister and Republican Party of India(A) president Ramdas Athawale Monday said the Congress-JD(S) coalition government in Karnataka will not last long and asked Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy to join hands with BJP for the state's welfare. Terming the Congress as "casteist", the Dalit leader said that party president Rahul Gandhi should not dream about becoming Prime Minister. "...Kumaraswamy is upset, I request him-why are you behind Congress when the BJP-JD(S) coalition government can be formed?"Athawale told reporters here. Stating that there was such a proposal earlier, he said "Congress was clever, they supported Kumaraswamy and made him CM, but Kumaraswamy is crying, he is not happy with Congress people. So I feel that this government will not last long." "Kumaraswamy has to come back to the BJP and if Karnataka's development has to happen...Kumaraswamy has to leave Congress and come back. Staying with BJP will benefit as Modi ji government is coming (to power) with NDA securing over 350 seats" he added. In 2006, Kumaraswamy had joined hands with BJP to formthe coalition government, overthrowing the Dharm Singh led Congress-JD(S) government, that lasted about 20 months. Asking Kumaraswamy to join hands with BJP for the benefit of the state, Athawale said "you will become the Deputy Chief Minister... He (Kumaraswamy) is not happy with theCongress... as Deputy Chief Minister he will be happier than now(as Chief Minister)." "Asked if he would mediate between BJP and JD(S) leaders, he said after the Lok Sabha elections, "we can try, because if Modi government comes, then I doubt that Kumaraswamy will be safe (as Chief Minister)."Athawale said eradication of poverty was something only Modi could do and not Rahul Gandhi and the Congress president should not dream about becoming Prime Minister. "Eradication of poverty is Narendra Modi's work, not Rahul Gandhi's- it is not something he can do. Rahul Gandhi should not dream about becoming Prime Minister," he said. "As long as there is a Narendra Modi wave in the country, how can Rahul Gandhi become the prime minister?" he added. Stating that Rahul Gandhi does not have the support of Mahagatbandhan leaders, Athawale said the leaders were posingfor photographs only to oppose Modi. He said the Congress calls BJP "jaatiwadi" (casteist), but it is the most casteist party. "Their face may besecular, but within they are casteist, so I left them. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The residents of a village in Chhattisgarh's tribal-dominated Jashpur district have decided to boycott Lok Sabha polls in protest against what they claimed was lack of road and water facilities there. Residents of Darupisa village in Dokda panchayat have put up a banner declaring their intent to skip polls scheduled in their area on April 23. The village is part of the Kunkuri assembly segment and Raigarh (ST) Lok Sabha seat. "Public representatives have never paid heed to our long pending demands for a connecting road and water facilities. Due to this apathy, we don't have access to education and health facilities," said village head Alex Toppo. While politicians, campaigning for last year's Assembly polls, had promised to look into their demands, they forgot about it once the elections were over, Toppo alleged. "Tired of hollow promises, the villagers have decided to boycott Lok Sabha polls," he said. A banner displayed outside the village takes a dig at politicians and public representatives by proclaiming "As no development works have been done in our village, we have decided to boycott election. We as villagers are embarrassed that we could not make a road for politicians. Meet us in next election". Kunkuri Congress MLA UD Minj said the village will get basic facilities after the Lok Sabha polls are over, citing the model code of conduct in place since March 10. "We will talk to villagers. Since the model code of conduct is in place, the issue of road and drinking water will be addressed after Lok Sabha polls are over," Minj claimed. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United States congratulated the new Palestinian government Sunday, a day after incoming prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh announced his new cabinet alongside president Mahmud Abbas -- leaving out the Islamist movement Hamas. "Congratulations to the new Palestinian Authority Cabinet," tweeted Jason Greenblatt, assistant to US President Donald Trump and special representative for international negotiations. "With the experience of those on the list, we hope we will be able to work together toward peace and improving Palestinian lives. It's time for a new chapter." Several key positions were unchanged from the previous administration of Rami Hamdallah. Analysts say the change of government was made to further isolate Hamas, which has been at odds with the Fatah party of Abbas and Shtayyeh for more than a decade. They say 84-year-old Abbas, in power since 2005, retains the real decision-making authority. In a statement late Saturday, Abbas confirmed the new government and welcomed the cabinet. It includes many of his longtime allies and members of Fatah, though several smaller factions are also represented. It comes as the Trump administration is expected to finally publish a long-delayed peace plan. The contents remain closely guarded, but Palestinians have reason to fear it will be skewed toward Israel. Since coming to power, Trump has proven to be perhaps the most pro-Israel American president in history, breaking with decades of international consensus to recognize Jerusalem as the country's capital and Israel's control over the Golan Heights. The peace plan is being developed by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, an Orthodox Jew whose close family ties to Netanyahu have heightened Palestinian suspicions over whether the US administration can serve as an honest broker. US officials have only revealed vague outlines of what the plan might propose, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has suggested it could break abruptly with precedent. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India's vegetable oil imports rose 26 per cent to 14.46 lakh tonnes during March, driven by sharp increase in inward shipments of refined palm oil from Malaysia, industry body SEA said Monday. Expressing concern over rising imports of refined palm oil, the Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) demanded that the duty difference between crude and refined oil should be increased to protect farmers as well as edible oil processors. According to the data, edible oil imports rose to 13,93,255 tonnes in March 2019 from 11,22,685 tonnes in the year-ago period. Imports of non-edible oil jumped more than two-fold to 53,302 tonnes from 23,366 tonnes. "Ministry of Finance, with effect from January 1, 2019, reduced import duty on palm oil and also reduced the duty difference between crude and palm oil from 10 per cent to 5 per cent on palmolein to be imported from Malaysia. "As anticipated, worst fears have come true and India is flooded with RBD (refined, bleached and deodorised) Palmolein from Malaysia. Reduction in duty difference between CPO (crude palm oil) and Palmolein sourced from Malaysia has resulted in RBD palmolein imports going up from 1,30,000 tonnes in December 2018 to over 3,00,000 tonnes in March 2019," SEA said. This development has also the potential of sounding the death knell of palm refining industry in India. "This also has seriously impacted the prices of mustard seed and being currently quoted Rs 700-800 per quintal below of Minimum Support Price (MSP) of Rs 4,200 per quintal. This will have a huge negative impact on incomes of mustard farmers. This anomaly needs to be corrected," the association said. There is an urgent need to create duty difference of 10 per cent, between CPO and RBD palmolein as was prevailing before January 1, 2019 to survive in this situation, it added. "The overall import of vegetable oils during November 2018 to March 2019 is reported at 63,09,406 tonnes as compared to 59,31,829 tonnes in the previous year," SEA said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Citing "relentless persecution", whistleblower bureaucrat Sanjiv Chaturvedi has asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to disclose the details of the 2014 conversation he had with then Union health minister Harsh Vardhan. The conversation between Modi and Vardhan led to his removal as anti-corruption officer of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Chaturvedi has said in a letter to the prime minister on February 28. Though the letter was written in February, the contents of the letter have been accessed only recently. Chaturvedi has sought action against those responsible for harassing him as well as disclosure of information related to the status of investigation of corruption cases against serving central ministers, in accordance with a recent order of the Central Information Commission. In his letter, Chaturvedi said he was subjected to "relentless persecution" and dragged into "endless litigations" in more than a dozen court cases across four high courts, tribunals and Supreme Court after the phone conversation between Modi and Vardhan on August 23, 2014. The telephonic conversation was on the issue of removing Chaturvedi from the post of chief vigilance officer, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), according to the response to an RTI query filed by Chaturvedi. A letter dated August 23, 2014, issued by then Union Health secretary Lov Verma to the Prime Minister's Office said, "The Hon'ble Prime Minister of India had a telephonic discussion with the Hon'ble Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare regarding relieving of charge of CVO, AIIMS, New Delhi from Shri Sanjiv Chaturvedi, Deputy Secretary, AIIMS, New Delhi." A detailed note in this regard is submitted for perusal of Hon'ble Prime Minister of India," the letter said. In his letter to the prime minister, Chaturvedi has cited a May 2014 file noting of then health secretary mentioning his exemplary performance as CVO. He has also cited the Parliamentary Committee Report of August 2015, which strongly deprecated the non-serious approach of the Ministry towards tackling such a large number of cases of corruption at AIIMS. Chaturvedi, who earlier worked with the Haryana government, faced similar harassment earlier. Recently, in a case related to award of zero grading into his annual performance report, Uttarakhand High Court termed the central government/AIIMS vindictive and imposed a fine of Rs 25,000. This order was upheld by the Supreme Court, which imposed a further fine of Rs 25,000. Chaturvedi is a 2002 batch officer of India Forest Service and exposed a series of corruption cases during his tenure as AIIMS CVO between 2012 and 2016. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The top Democrat in the US Congress ordered a safety review for a Muslim congresswoman and her family Sunday after accusing President of putting her in danger by tweeting a video of her spliced with footage of the 9/11 attacks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took time out from an official trip to issue a strong statement urging Trump to remove the clip featuring Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar. "Following the president's tweet, I spoke with the sergeant-at-arms to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff," she said. "The president's words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger. President Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video." Trump's spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, meanwhile, defended the president Sunday against accusations that he was inciting violence toward Omar. Omar has been at the center of an escalating row after a clip emerged of her characterising the deadliest attack on US soil as "some people did something." On Friday, Trump tweeted a video that juxtaposed the snippet, which Omar's fellow Democrats say was taken out of context, with images of the hijacked planes used in the attacks crashing into the Twin Towers that once dominated New York's skyline. Menacing music accompanies Omar's words. The clip, which had been viewed more than 9.4 million times as of Sunday afternoon, ends with the words: "SEPTEMBER 11 2001 WE REMEMBER." Prominent Democrats including Beto O'Rourke, Kamala Harris and Omar's fellow first-time Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were quick to rush to Omar's defence, accusing the president and other Republicans of deliberately de-contextualizing her remarks and endangering her life. Sanders, however, defended Trump, telling ABC television's "This Week" that "the president is wishing no ill will and certainly not violence towards anyone." But, she added: "It's absolutely abhorrent the comments she continues to make and has made and (Democrats) look the other way. "I find her comments to be absolutely disgraceful and unbefitting of a member of Congress and I think that it's a good thing that the president is calling her out for those comm Omar has mounted her own trenchant fight back, tweeting Saturday: "No one person - no matter how corrupt, inept, or vicious - can threaten my unwavering love for America. "I stand undeterred to continue fighting for equal opportunity in our pursuit of happiness for all Americans," she said. The controversy arose after Omar delivered a 20-minute address to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) shortly after the New Zealand mosque attacks in March. "For far too long, we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I'm tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it," she said. "CAIR was founded after 9/11," she added, "because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties." The civil rights group was in fact founded in 1994 but grew significantly after 2001. The speech did not initially receive significant attention until the snippet in question was highlighted weeks later by controversial Australian personality Mohammad Tawhidi who refers to himself as the "Imam of Peace. The 4-3 formula suggested by Congress to AAP for an alliance in Delhi is based on the results of the 2017 municipal elections, former Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken explained Monday, hours after Rahul Gandhi accused Arvind Kejriwal of taking a "U Turn" on the issue. After Gandhi tweeted that the doors for a tie-up were open although time is running out, Maken on the social media platform explained how the Congress party's formula came about. "Why 4-3 formula between AAP-INC?" Maken tweeted along with charts to explain the rationale behind the formula based on the 2017 municipal poll results. His analysis in essence is based on the vote share and seats (wards) won by Congress and AAP in the municipal polls. As per Maken's charts, Congress won 31 seats and AAP won 49 seats, polling 21 per cent and 26 per cent votes, respectively, in the elections for three municipal corporations in Delhi. Further, as per vote share of Congress (21 per cent), he calculated the seat share of the party for Lok Sabha polls to be 3.13 approximated to 3. The AAP's seat share for Lok Sabha thus comes to be 3.87 per cent approximated to 4. Also, as per number of seats won (31), the party's seat share for Lok Sabha polls comes around 2.71 approximated to 3. The AAP's seat share based on 49 wards won by it, is calculated to 4.29 per cent or 4. The AAP has so far refused to accept the 4-3 formula floated by the Congress, demanding alliance in Haryana and Chandigarh as well for the Lok Sabha election. The Bharatiya Janata Party had handed down a humiliating defeat to both Congress and AAP in the municipal polls, winning 184 of the 272 wards in three municipal corporations. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court today said that it will not interfere in the Tik Tok matter as the Madras High Court is hearing it on Tuesday. Madras High Court on April 4 directed the Central Government to ban popular Chinese video app TikTok, saying it was "encouraging pornography". The order also directs the media from telecasting videos made using the app. Flying out from the Bengaluru airport will be costlier by a massive 120 percent from Tuesday following the airport tariff regulator Aera allowing it to revise upwards the user development fee (UDF) for four month. The nation's third busiest airport after New Delhi and Mumbai, plans to use the additional fee to fund its expansion. "With the Aera order coming into effect from April 16, the UDF for domestic departures will be revised to Rs 306 from Rs 139 while for international departures it will be Rs 1,226 from Rs 558 earlier," Bangalore airport said in a statement Monday. The new charges for domestic and international travel translate into an increase of 120 percent and 119 percent, respectively, it added. The revised fee is applicable for tickets procured between April 16 and August 15, it said adding the increased fee will be rolled back from August 16. The Rs 13,000-crore second phase expansion entails construction of a new terminal, a second runway, access roads, and a multi-modal transport hub, company said, adding these work is scheduled to be completed by March 2021. "This incremental increase in charges will provide us with the much-needed relief as we are in the midst of a Rs 13,000-crore capacity expansion," said Hari Marar, the managing director and chief executive. As mandated by Aera (Airports Economic Regulatory Authority), the money generated from the incremental UDF hike during these four months, will be deposited in a separate bank account and will be used only to fund the ongoing expansion, he added. The Kempegowda International Airport began operations in May 2008 and is the second airport build on a PPP model after Kochi which was commissioned in the late 1990s. The airport handled 26.91 million passengers in FY18 and is one of the fastest growing in the world. Canadian NRI Prem Watsa-run Fairfax owns 54 percent in the airport and Siemens Projects Ventures 20 hold percent. Of the remaining 26 percent, Karnataka government and the Airports Authority holds 13 percent each, respectively. Also Read: TCS, Infosys together add 53,303 employees in FY19 Also Read: Netflix announces 10 new original films for Indian audiences A Chandigarh consumer forum has slapped a penalty of Rs 9,000 on retail brand Bata India Ltd for asking a consumer to pay Rs 3 for a paper bag. The regulator also censured the company over the harassment of customers and deficiency in its services. Chandigarh resident Dinesh Prasad Raturi, in his complaint to the consumer forum, said that he had bought a pair of shoes from a Bata store in Sector 22D on February 5. The store charged him Rs 402 inclusive of the paper bag charges but he sought a refund of Rs 3 (paper bag charge) refusing to pay it and also demanded a compensation for deficiency in services. Raturi also told the forum that by levying the paper bag charge on him, Bata was also endorsing its brand on the bag which was not justified, India Today reported. Also Read: Lok Sabha Election 2019 LIVE updates: Rahul, Priyanka Gandhi, Jyotiraditya Scindia to hold rally in Fatehpur Sikri However, the company has rebutted the allegations of deficiency in its services but the forum refused to give it any breather and said that forcing a consumer to pay for a paper bag was undoubtedly a glitch in Bata's services. The regulator also said that it was the store's duty to provide a free paper bag to the customer who had bought their product, according to the report. The forum ordered Bata India to refund the cost of the bag (Rs 3) and pay for the litigation charges of Rs 1,000. The regulator further directed Bata to pay the compensation of Rs 3,000 to the customer for the mental agony caused by the deficiency in services and ordered the company to pay Rs 5,000 in the legal aid account of the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission. The forum further ordered Bata India to provide free paper bags to its customers and also distinguished that if the companies were that worried about the environment, they must provide free environment-friendly bags to their customers. Also Read: Share Market Live: Sensex, Nifty open flat amid Q4 earnings; Tata Motors top gainer, Infosys worst performer Also Read: PM Modi asks top officials to prepare 100-day agenda; job, education, health sectors on focus The United States (US) wants the Switzerland-based international trade body World Trade Organisation (WTO) to review the 'developing country' status of India and China, the two fastest growing economies in the world. Though both are the world's leading nation in terms of economic growth, the US claims they continue to enjoy special trade benefits that come with a 'developing country' tag. The developing nations in question, India and China, have in turn flagged several key factors, including per capita income and human development indicators, where they are still lagging and are far behind than the developed countries like the US, Singapore, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, etc. The economists are also divided over the issue, but many of them feel neighbouring countries like China, Singapore, South Korea, and Hong Kong are way ahead in economic prosperity than India, and that putting India on the same scale can't be justified. Let us first compare India's social and economic indicators with these rising Asian countries. Social and economic indicators As per the 2017 World Bank figures, the per capita national income in India was $1,800, while other countries like Singapore, South Korea, and China reported per capita national income of $54,530, $28,380, and $8,690, respectively, reported Financial Express. In terms of Human Development Index, India ranked at 103, while China, South Korea, Singapore, and the US rank at 86, 22, 9 and 13, respectively. While India had 21.2 per cent poor population (living on $1.90 a day as per 2011 purchasing power parity), China had 7.9 per cent population in the category, while Singapore and South Korea had almost negligible poor population. While India employed around 41.6 per cent of the population in agriculture, while China, South Korea, Singapore and the US had 16.4 per cent, 4.8 per cent, 0.1 per cent and 1.6 per cent population that depended on agriculture. Despite all odds, India is expected to remain the fastest growing emerging market economy and the economy is expected to grow at 7.5 per cent in the next three years. What does 'developing' nation tag mean? The World Bank classifies all countries of the world into one of the three broad categories: developed economies, economies in transition and developing economies. A developing nation tag means a country will get a certain advantage in terms of subsidies and tariff than a developed nation. The developing countries get a longer time to implement global initiatives and more flexibility in adopting measures to boost international trade. For example, a developing nation like India can provide larger input subsidies and MSP as compared to developed nations. However, comparing India with these nations is extremely iniquitous, says Abhijit Das, head of the Centre for WTO Studies at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade. He told the daily: "It would be extremely iniquitous if India is to be treated on a par with the US (developed countries) at the WTO, given that the per capita income of the US is over 30 times higher than India's." India shares list of 380 products with China for exports to bridge trade deficit Despite huge pressure from the US, China has also refused to shed the 'developing nation' tag. The US argues China shouldn't be categorised as a developing nation because it has seen almost two decades of unprecedented economic prosperity. China, however, maintains that though its GDP per capita of the country has risen up to $16,660 in 2017, it is still lower than the US, which has the GDP per capita of $59,501, so China will take some time before it fully accepts the developed nation tag. India, on the other hand, wants to achieve this feat as soon as possible. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during the release of the BJP's 'Sankalp Patra' for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections recently, urged people to provide his party, the BJP, five more years to set India on the track of a "developed nation". "It is said that 21st century belongs to Asia and today I am asking why can't India lead... or should India lead or not? Our manifesto says when our country completes 100 years of independence in 2047, it should be transformed as a developed nation, moving on from the developing nation tag," he said. Edited by Manoj Sharma India's capital market outperforms US, UK and China in FY19 despite global, domestic headwinds Tata Nano, world's cheapest or most affordable car would have turned a decade old by mid-July this year. The use of the future imperfect tense here is deliberate. Even though the company has not officially said it, the last of the Nanos may have already been produced. Tata Motors has not produced a single Nano this year so far-January to March - and only one car part from the inventory of 2018 was delivered to a customer in February. This marks a new low in the journey of the car that could never deliver on the hype that preceded its unveil in 2008 and launch the following year. Forever dogged by perceptions of a "cheap" car and dwarfed by its overbearing Rs 1 lakh price tag, sales of the Nano have always been underwhelming but in the last few years, it has reduced to a trickle. In fiscal 2019, mere 376 Nanos were delivered to customers. That is almost half of what its direct rival that also happens to be India's bestselling car-Maruti Alto - sells in a day. The lack of demand for the car is such that trying to produce it on a continuous basis in a factory no longer made sense. In June last year, Tata Motors decided to make it in the Sanand factory only if there were orders placed by customers. It was also the month when sales of the car had hit a new month-low of just three units. In the subsequent months, Tata kept producing and selling a few of them-on an average 52 cars every month between June and December, but it was evident the end was near. This year, it has quite literally hit rock bottom. The company maintains it has not taken a call if and when it will withdraw the car from the market. Nano's descent into ignominy has been well documented but it still makes for an engaging read. At its peak in 2011-12, its sales touched 74,527 units. It has been a downward slide ever since despite repeated attempts at propping it up including giving it a full facelift with the GenX Nano replete with an automatic transmission in 2015. Nothing has worked. The stigma of being a cheap car and questions over its quality and durability that first surfaced after a dozen cars caught fire in its initial days have stuck but beyond the low sales, there are other reasons that may have precipitated the end. This month, India embarked on the implementation of new safety norms for cars with anti-lock-braking system becoming mandatory on all cars. This will be followed by standard driver side airbag, speed warning system, seatbelt reminder, rear parking sensors and better structural stability to withstand crash testing in ensuing months. In its current form, these features make Nano unsaleable in the market--it is one of the few cars in the country to not offer ABS and airbags even in its top of the line variants. Upgrading it to meet these norms is possible but needs investment, which does not make sense given the low volumes. Even cars like the Omni van from Maruti that still have takers - nearly 80,000 unit sales In fiscal 2019 - have been discontinued as it did not make sense to upgrade them. Rumours of its end have circulated for quite some time and even the die-hard optimists will struggle to make a case for the Nano now. Yet, given that it was a dream project of Tata Group Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata, it is a sensitive topic in the boardrooms of Tata Motors. Most senior executives refuse to speak on the future of the car and those who do are mostly defensive about it. Nano also found itself in the centre of the controversy between Tata and former chairman of the group Cyrus Mistry in the fag end of 2016 when the latter alleged that the car had reached a peak loss of Rs 1,000 crore. Mistry would go on to say that Tata Motors was unable to close down the project due to emotional reasons. The company may not have spoken but the customers have. The first three months of this year clearly show that Nano has no takers in India. The official announcement of its end is merely a formality now. Also Read: Is India a 'developing country'? America doesn't think so Also Read: India to be fourth largest private wealth market globally by 2028, says report President Donald Trump on Monday asked Boeing to "fix" its beleaguered 737 Max plane, introduce new features and re-brand the aircraft after two deadly crashes involving the model led to the grounding of the jets across the world, including by Indian carriers. Trump's latest comments on the Boeing aircraft came hours after American Airlines, the world's largest, extended flight cancellations into mid-August because of the Boeing 737 Max grounding. "What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!), but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name," Trump said on Twitter. "No product has suffered like this one. But again, what the hell do I know?" he said. Last month, 737 Max aircraft were grounded worldwide following fatal crashes involving Ethiopian Airlines and Indonesia's Lion Air, killing all 346 people aboard the two planes. Two days after the Ethiopian Airlines plane went down on March 10, Trump tweeted that modern jetliners are "becoming far too complex to fly". He added: "Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT. I see it all the time in many products. Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better." American Airlines decided to extend cancellations from early June through August 19, to help plan ahead for the busy summer travel season. Southwest Airlines last week also extended flight cancellations for 737 Max planes from June until August. "Based upon our ongoing work with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Boeing, we are highly confident that the MAX will be recertified prior to this time," American Chairman and CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom said Sunday in a message to airline staff. "But by extending our cancellations through the summer, we can plan more reliably for the peak travel season." Approximately 115 flights a day will be cancelled through August 19, representing about 1.5 per cent of the airline's total daily flights, they said. The airline has 24 737 Max jets in its fleet. American has previously said that all flights that were originally scheduled on a MAX plane will not be cancelled, with some being substituted with other aircraft. All Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft being operated by Indian carriers have been grounded since the Ethiopian Airlines crash. SpiceJet has been most affected by the grounding of 737 Max 8 aircraft as it has 12 of them in its fleet. Jet Airways has not been affected as its five 737 Max 8 aircraft have already been grounded - even before the grounding decision of the government -- due to non-payment of dues to lessors. The causes of the two crashes involving Boeing 737 Max are still being investigated, but the focus has been on an automatic safety feature that may have forced the nose of each plane lower when it incorrectly sensed the plane was in danger of going into a stall. Investigators are focusing on the plane's anti-stall software, the Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). Boeing and the FAA said they are working on an upgrade of the 737 Max software to deal with that safety feature. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said on Thursday the company is closing in on a fix for the software, and a majority of the 50 customers that have ordered 737 Max planes have had a chance to test it using a flight simulator. He added that the update will make the plane "even safer" because it will prevent "erroneous" sensor readings. "It's our responsibility to eliminate this risk," Muilenburg said. He did not say when 737 Max planes may begin flying again. Boeing announced earlier this month it was cutting the production rate for all of its 737 planes from 52 a month to 42 amid the worldwide grounding. Also Read: Is India a 'developing country'? America doesn't think so Also Read: India to be fourth largest private wealth market globally by 2028, says report An average of almost 71 new companies were formed every day in the first quarter of 2019, according to a new report by CRIF Vision-net. In total, 6,413 new companies were formed in Ireland in the first quarter of 2019, the best Q1 figures in the past 13 years up almost 14% on the previously record-breaking first quarter of 2018. Professional services was the biggest contributor to new start-ups in Quarter One. The professional services industry saw 1,448 new start-ups in the first three months of the year, presenting a 22% increase on this time last year. Social and personal services grew by 50% (945 new companies). The third largest sector was financial services, however it decreased by one percent to 708 new start-up companies (compared to 715 in Q1 2018). Construction saw a modest one percent growth during this time. In total, 12 counties recorded double-digit growth in start-ups in Quarter One. Dublin recorded the highest number of start-ups with 3,089 start-ups established in the capital in the first quarter of the new year, amounting to almost 50% of the total number of start-ups established. Cork followed with 690 new companies in the first quarter up 13.3% on Q1 2018, with Galway coming in third with 236 new start-ups established in Q1 2019 - down by just 1.2% on Q1 2018. Limerick saw 210 new start-ups created, representing a 7.7% increase on the same period last year. This Quarter One growth in company start-ups wasnt limited to the counties with the largest urban populations. Louth (up 21%), Donegal (up 16.5%), Kerry (up 7%), Wicklow (up 14%) and Wexford (up 38%) all saw significant increases in new company start-ups. CRIF Vision-net say Brexit remains the greatest challenge of 2019 and sits at the very top of all business agendas amongst companies big and small. This concern is particularly acute for companies vulnerable to supply chain disruption, costly tariffs and border checks potentially on the horizon. Commenting on the quarterly data, CRIF Regional Director for the UK and Ireland, Sara Costantini said, "We are very encouraged by the continued growth in Irish company start-ups in Quarter One. In fact, our international data indicates that we are on course to outperform some of Europes biggest economies, including Germany, in 2019." She added, "While the domestic economy is thriving, external challenges continue to loom large and our data suggests this cloud of uncertainty is being felt across many other European economies. The next number of weeks will be crucial in shaping European market confidence in 2019 and beyond." Source: www.businessworld.ie Japan to Send High-Level Delegation to Chinas Belt and Road Summit By Zhao Runhua / Apr 15, 2019 05:25 PM / World Japan will send a high-level delegation to the second Belt and Road Forum in China later this month, Japanese officials agreed during high-level talks between the two countries this weekend. Japanese officials said they will attend in order to expand their cooperation in Belt and Road-related fields. Minister of foreign affairs Wang Yi said the dialogue over the weekend was constructive, though China expects Japan to participate in the Belt and Road Initiative with a more positive and clear manner. Japan has not specified who they will send to the forum. Though the U.S. has the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Friday that White House adviser Matt Pottinger will lead a delegation to the event. Pottinger also led the U.S. delegation to the first Belt and Road Forum, which took place in Beijing in 2017. During a high-level conference in March, Wang said the Belt and Road Forum will be the most important diplomatic event in China this year. Related: Davos Panel Upbeat On Belt And Road Benefits Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 15) If the country wants to enforce its victory over China in an international tribunal, then it should develop nuclear weapons, former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said. "You want to match China? Develop your nuclear weapons like North Korea," Enrile told CNN Philippines' The Source on Monday. Enrile said the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant built during the Marcos administration had an accompanying plan to develop nuclear weapons as well. "Plinano namin 'yun para magkaroon tayo ng nuclear weapon para hindi tayo inaapi nang maski sino, kaya nating manindigan. Eh manindigan tayo ngayon, ano gagamitin natin? Kwitis?" Enrile said. [Translation: We planned that so that we can have a nuclear weapon so that we are not bullied by anyone and we can stand up for ourselves. But if we stand up now, what would we use? Firecrackers?] The Constitution states that the country adopts and pursues "a policy of freedom from nuclear weapons in its territory." The country is also a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty. Meanwhile, it has been reported by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency that China "invests considerable resources to maintain a limited, survivable nuclear force that can guarantee a damaging retaliatory strike." Enrile said if the Philippines has the money to develop nuclear weapons, no one would have been able to stop it. "If Iran, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea and even Cuba, before, could do it, if we went through it, I don't think they could have stopped us," he said. In the meantime, as China continues its advance in the South China Sea and refuses to recognize the 2016 international tribunal award, Enrile said the country can negotiate with the East Asian giant. Close to 400 Chinese vessels have been spotted close to Philippine-occupied Pag-asa island in the first quarter of the year. Pag-asa is the seat of Kalayaan municipality under Palawan province. Manila has protested the presence of Chinese vessels. Despite protests, China continues to assert that Spratlys is theirs, while the Philippines says otherwise. Thursday, April 11, 2019 Toronto, Ontario Library and Archives Canada (LAC) will provide $1.5 million to support 52 projects (including 47 new projects) by archives, libraries and documentary heritage institutions throughout Canada. The recipients of the Documentary Heritage Communities Program (DHCP) for 20192020 were announced today at TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. Twelve projects submitted by organizations from British Columbia will receive funding. They include: At Risk: Preserving Our Most Vulnerable Fonds (Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre), Burnaby , $14,999; , $14,999; Home Run at Powell Street (Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre), Burnaby , $47,906; , $47,906; Lakes District Museum Digitization Project (Lakes District Museum Society), Burns Lake , $24,977; , $24,977; Indigenous and Community Capacity Building: Archives Regional Training and Development Clinic in North-West Coastal British Columbia (Archives Association of British Columbia), Port Coquitlam , $9,102; , $9,102; Indigenous and Community Capacity Building: Archives Regional Training and Development Clinics (Archives Association of British Columbia), Port Coquitlam , $21,194; , $21,194; Digital Preservation of Archive Collection (The Revelstoke Heritage Railway Society), Revelstoke , $21,692; , $21,692; Canadian Pacific Railway Revelstoke Division Accident Reports Digitization Project (Revelstoke Museum & Archives Association), Revelstoke , $14,490; , $14,490; Map Preservation/Digitization (Rossland Historical Museum Association), Rossland , $15,249; , $15,249; Ready To Be Written: Western Front's Digital Preservation and Migration Project (Western Front), Vancouver , $24,998; , $24,998; BC Soccer Archives Digitization and Access Project (British Columbia Soccer Association), Vancouver , $24,075; , $24,075; The Vancouver Holocaust Education Centres Increasing Access to Holocaust Symposia and Events Project (Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre), Vancouver , $8,102; , $8,102; Canadian Jewish Congress Pacific Region Fonds Processing (Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia), Vancouver, $16,180. View the list of all recipients for 20192020. Beat Cancer Like a Boss The American Cancer Society has teamed up with ambassador and survivor, Simone I. Smith, and her husband, LL COOL J, to create a movement that will empower, uplift and encourage millions to face their biggest battles like a boss. Inspired by Simones story of strength and resilience, the message is clear: Beat Cancer Like A Boss. The American Cancer Society is spreading this powerful message to motivate those affected by cancer to keep going. In particular, members of the African American community, which has for decades maintained the highest death rate and lowest survival rate of any racial or ethnic group for most cancers in the United States. Join us in the fight. Lets spread awareness, empower each other, and beat cancer like a boss. Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact. Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here. Care2 Stands With: humanitarians, animal lovers, feminists, rabble-rousers, nature-buffs, creatives, the naturally curious, and people who really love to do the right thing. You are our people. You Care. We Care2. California Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday proposed a new fund to pay for wildfire liabilities and said he would hold the states largest utility more accountable for insuring safety against the growing number of blazes in the state. The creation of a fund that would allow utilities to pay for wildfire damage claims sent PG&E Corp shares soaring nearly 12 percent before closing 3.95 percent higher on Friday. PG&E is a textbook example of what happens when a utility does not invest in safety after numerous deadly reminders to do so over many years, a report released by Newsom said. PG&E said in a statement that it is embracing the calls for change, and committed to resolving wildfire victims claims fairly and expeditiously. Newsoms report calls for shifting liability for wildfire damage to a fault-based system. The current system, known as inverse condemnation, exposes the states utilities to liabilities from wildfires regardless of their negligence, as long as their equipment is involved. The current system pushed PG&E to seek bankruptcy protection in January, as it faced liabilities in excess of $30 billion related to the deadliest wildfires in the states history. Spreading the Costs The governors report proposed creating two funds to help utilities pay for wildfire damage claims and spread the cost more widely among stakeholders. Another large utility, Southern California Edison Co , said in a statement that it is encouraged by the broad scope of Newsoms report, which reflects the need to address wildfire liability and regulatory reform. Shares of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison, rose 7.2 percent. Travis Miller of Morningstar Research Services LLC said the news was positive for shareholders, though there is a long road ahead to implementing policies. The governments support for the utilities should alleviate some of the markets concerns about future liabilities, he said. The report was harshly critical of PG&E, saying it is taking advantage of the bankruptcy process to promote the interests of investors over fire victims and other stakeholders. The state will monitor and intervene in the bankruptcy proceedings to protect Californias interests, it said. Federal Forest Lands Damage estimates for the 2018 wildfire season are staggering, with insured losses alone exceeding $12 billion, the report said. The current system for allocating costs associated with catastrophic wildfires often caused by utility infrastructure, but exacerbated by drought, climate change, land-use policies and a lack of forest management is untenable both for utility customers and for our economy, the report said. It calls on the federal government to better manage its forests, as the owner of 57 percent of Californias forest lands. President Donald Trump in January threatened to cut off federal relief to California for wildfires for what he called mismanagement of the states forests. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is providing assistance to survivors after wildfires in November collectively damaged or destroyed over 20,000 structures and killed at least 89 people. The largest blaze was the Camp Fire that destroyed most of the Northern California town of Paradise, killing at least 86 people the deadliest wildfire in the United States in at least a century. More than 25 million acres of Californias wildlands are classified as under very high or extreme fire threat. About a quarter of the states population, or 11 million people, lives in that high-risk area, the report said. (Reporting by Aishwarya Venugopal and Shanti Nair in Bengaluru; writing by Bill Tarrant.) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Soyia Ellison, soyia.ellison@cartercenter.org Read the report ATLANTA The Carter Center today released a report analyzing the resolution of electoral disputes stemming from Kenyas 2017 presidential and parliamentary elections, which found that lower courts faced significant challenges in assessing consistently whether alleged electoral violations were substantial enough to warrant annulment of election results. To address these challenges and enable Kenyas courts to make consistent rulings on future election petitions, the Center encourages the Supreme Court to clarify the factors that lower courts should apply when considering what constitutes a substantial violation of the constitutions requirement for free, fair, transparent, and accountable elections. President Uhuru Kenyattas recent extension of the Building Bridges initiative, a task force charged with evaluating national challenges and recommending reforms, offers a renewed opportunity in advance of the 2022 elections for Kenyans to consider appropriate reforms to bring Kenyan practices into greater alignment with international practices for electoral dispute resolution. The Carter Centers report reviews the High Courts April 2018 decision that struck down most of the provisions of the 2017 Elections Act amendments. The National Assembly passed the act after the Supreme Courts annulment of the August 2017 presidential elections but before the fresh presidential re-run election in October 2017. According to the Centers report, the 2018 High Court ruling is likely to complicate future efforts to reform the electoral system through legislation because any changes to the legal framework that are viewed as contrary to the 2010 Constitutions requirements for free, fair, transparent, and accountable elections are likely to be deemed unconstitutional. In striking down the 2017 Election Act amendments, the 2018 High Court maintained the standard that was established in the Supreme Courts 2017 ruling that determined that courts can annul an election in Kenya if it was conducted so poorly that it was not substantially in accordance with the constitutions principles for free, fair, transparent, and accountable elections, irrespective of whether the results were affected. The 2017 Supreme Court ruling overturned the August 2017 presidential elections, without saying whether the violation impacted the election results, and ordered that fresh presidential elections be held. As a result of the 2018 High Court decision, petitioners challenging election results do not have to prove that any non-compliance with the law or constitution impacted the results of the polls, which means that Kenyas current legal framework for electoral disputes is at odds with the majority of international practice on this issue. In its report, the Center looked at how the High Court and Court of Appeal applied the 2017 Supreme Court ruling in a number of cases in which the results of an election were challenged. It found that lower courts reached vastly different conclusions when applying the legal precedent. In the cases scrutinized, there was no agreement among the lower courts on what constitutes a substantial versus a non-substantial violation of the principles in the constitution and the law. Despite concerns that the High Courts 2018 decision has reaffirmed a low threshold for nullifying an election by not requiring that violations affect the election results, recent rulings by the Supreme Court indicate that the court is aware that the threshold should not be too low. Only three of 299 petitions filed to challenge elections (in various races for governor, senator, member of parliament, country woman representative, and member of county assembly) resulted in a decision to annul the race and require a new by-election. This suggests that the Supreme Court is applying a relatively high threshold for what constitutes a substantial violation of the constitution. The Carter Center encourages the Supreme Court to clarify the factors that lower courts should apply when assessing potential violations of Kenyas constitutional principles regarding free, fair, transparent, and accountable elections, so that the difference between substantial and non-substantial violations is clear and so that the potential impact on the election results is taken into consideration. Through the Building Bridges initiative and other mechanisms, Kenyans should consider appropriate reforms to bring the legal framework around electoral dispute resolution into alignment with international practice. The Carter Center in Kenya: The Carter Centers international election observation mission monitored key parts of the electoral process from April through November 2017. Following its mission, the Center deployed a small team of experts from February to August 2018 to conduct further activities focused on information and communications technology, legal reform, and womens and youth participation. The Centers legal brief builds on its previous public statements and reports, including a 2018 report outlining key challenges women and youth face when trying to participate in politics and offering detailed recommendations for strengthening their political engagement in the future. Womens political participation is also addressed in The Carter Centers briefing paper on gender quota, which analyzes the two-thirds gender rule in the 2010 Constitution. Related Resources Report on Legal Issues from Kenya 2017 Presidential Election Gender Quota Legal Brief Youth and Women's Consulations on Political Participation in Kenya: Findings and Recommendations ### "Waging Peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope." A not-for-profit, nongovernmental organization, The Carter Center has helped to improve life for people in over 80 countries by resolving conflicts; advancing democracy, human rights, and economic opportunity; preventing diseases; and improving mental health care. The Carter Center was founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, in partnership with Emory University, to advance peace and health worldwide. Photo: www.sa4christ.com Salmon Arm Church of Christ. UPDATE 7:56 a.m. A former foster child of a Salmon Arm, British Columbia shooting victim is remembering Gordon Parmenter as the man who helped him discover his potential. The foster child, who can't be named, has identified Parmenter as the man shot to death Sunday at a church in Salmon Arm, about 100 kilometres north of Kelowna. Salmon Arm RCMP confirm the shooting, which also seriously injured a second man in the church before other parishioners wrestled a 25-year-old man to the ground and held him until police arrived. In a statement to The Canadian Press, the former foster child says he lived with Parmenter and his wife Peggy from 2012 or 2013 until he aged out of the system in 2017. The statement says without Parmenter's help, he would never have completed high school, discovered his love of music or continued to college, adding that he wept for an hour upon learning of the death. Charges are pending and police say the suspect knew at least one of the victims, but they note that the attack was not religiously motivated, nor has it created any ongoing risk to public safety. -with files from Canadian Press UPDATE: 5:45 p.m. Police say the suspect in a fatal shooting at a church in Salmon Arm was not religiously motivated. Church of Christ in Salmon Arm was hosting an event when a man allegedly entered the church and shot two of the parishioners. Officers rushed to the scene just after 10:30 a.m. and immediately determined that two individuals were seriously wounded and required urgent medical assistance. Paramedics were called to the church for two patients and they transported one man to hospital by air ambulance in stable condition. One individual was declared deceased at the scene. Condolences have poured in online identifying the deceased as Gordon Parmenter, an elder at the church. A 25-year-old man was wrestled to the ground by a number of parishioners and a rifle was seized. He remains in police custody with charges pending. "While the investigation is in the preliminary stages, there is no information to suggest there are any ongoing threats to public safety, said Sgt. Scott West. Police have determined that at least one of the victims was known to the suspect, and it is not believed at this time the event was religiously motivated. RCMP have notified the BC Coroners Service and the next of kin notifications have been completed. No information is being released by police about the victims at this time. Salmon Arm RCMP, with the assistance of the Southeast District Major Crime Unit, are conducting the investigation. Victim Services support has also been called in to assist with those impacted by the incident. UPDATE: 4:45 p.m. Condolences are pouring in online for an elder at a church in Salmon Arm after a shooting occurred in the small town. Paramedics were called to the Church of Christ just after 10:30 a.m. on Sunday for two patients and they transported one man to hospital by air ambulance. Reports indicate that Gordon Parmenter has died on Sunday. No words to express our sorrow! Many, many prayers being lifted up for all of you! Gordon was a great man, said one person on Facebook. Our hearts are shattered. Another person said their hearts are heavy with the news. Our prayers are with the Parmenter family and all the congregation who witnessed this tragedy, said another person. The churchs website says Parmenter was married to a woman named Peggy and together they have four children and numerous grandchildren. One person is in custody at this time and police say the investigation is still in the early stages. Photo: Contributed UPDATE: 1:30 p.m. Police are now providing more details about a serious incident that unfolded at a church in Salmon Arm on Sunday. Cpl. Chris Manseau tells Castanet a man has been taken into custody after a "possible shooting" at a church. The area is contained and we have an indication (that) there is no active or ongoing threat, said Manseau. Paramedics were called to the Church of Christ just after 10:30 a.m. on Sunday and say they transported one man to hospital by air ambulance. We had two patients and we transported one, said Amy Robertson, spokesperson for BC Emergency Health Services. Witnesses from the scene said people were visibly upset and crying outside the church. A lot of crying, and obviously upset people, said one witness. "I overheard several people behind the RCMP tape say it was a shooting. RCMP have not confirmed if there was a shooting at the scene. BC Ambulance would not provide any further details about the injuries. We are at the very early stages of the investigation and will provide an update later today, said Manseau. UPDATE: 12:30 p.m. Police are investigating after an incident at a church in Salmon Arm on Sunday. One person was taken from the scene to hospital by air ambulance and officers have surrounded the Salmon Arm Church of Christ. Witnesses at the scene describe people are visibly upset and crying outside the church. Castanet spoke with an officer at the Salmon Arm RCMP detachment who said they are currently investigating at the scene of the church and will provide more details when they are finished. ORIGINAL: 11:50 a.m. An air ambulance helicopter has landed in Salmon Arm on Sunday morning and police have surrounded a church. Witnesses on scene say the MedEvac landed in Blackburn Park and paramedics entered the Salmon Arm Church of Christ. One victim was seen being removed from the church and placed in the air ambulance. Unconfirmed reports indicate there might have been a shooting, but RCMP have not confirmed. A lot of crying, and obviously upset people outside the church, said one witness. "I overheard several people behind the RCMP tape say it was a shooting." Castanet will update once more information becomes available. Photo: The Canadian Press Martin Winterkorn, former CEO of the German car manufacturer 'Volkswagen', arrives for a questioning at an investigation committee of the German federal parliament in Berlin, Germany. German prosecutors have indicted former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn and four others on charges of fraud and unfair competition, saying he failed to prevent the manipulation of engine software that let Volkswagen cars cheat on diesel emission tests. Prosecutors in Braunschweig said Monday that Winterkorn knew about the deceptive software since at least May 25, 2014, despite his public statements he only became aware of the issue shortly before the scandal broke in September 2015. The prosecutors said the defendants all of them top Volkswagen managers were part of an ongoing deception that started in 2006. The company has admitted installing software that could tell when the cars were on test stands for emissions certification. When the cars went on to everyday driving, the emission controls were turned off, improving mileage and performance but emitting far more than the U.S. legal limit of nitrogen oxides, a class of pollutant that is harmful to health. The prosecutors say that the defendants added a software update costing 23 million euros in 2014 in an attempt to cover up the true reason for the elevated pollution emissions during regular driving. Winterkorn and the others face from six months to 10 years imprisonment if convicted on charges of aggravated fraud involving serious losses. Bonuses collected due to sales based on the deception could be forfeited. Prosecutors said bonus that could be forfeited ranged from around 300,000 euros to 11 million euros ($340,000 to $12.45 million). Volkswagen has paid more than 27 billion euros in fines and settlements in the months and years since being caught. The company apologized and pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the United States, where two executives were sentenced to prison and several others charged, although they could not be extradited. Bangladesh cement exports continue to slide in 9MFY19 15 April 2019 Bangladesh's cement industry recorded a reduction of 16.4 per cent in export revenue to US$8.16m during the first nine months of FY18-19 (July 2018-March 2019) compared to US$9.76, earned in the equivalent period of the previous financial year, according to the Bangladesh Export Promotion Bureau. The export figure also includes a minor amount of salt, stone and related products. The nine months' export value is also short by 21.2 per cent of the target set by the government for the 9MFY18-19, ie, US$10.35m. For FY18-19 (July 2018-June 2019) the country's government has set an export target of US$14m for cement industry, against US$12.59m from the previous fiscal year. The target is based on the government's anticipation of 11.2 per cent growth in cement exports. Presently, cement is reportedly being exported to India, Myanmar, Nepal, Maldives and Sri Lanka. Published under East African Portland Cement completes land sale 15 April 2019 Government majority-owned East Africa Portland Cement Company (EAPCC) is selling land to the government after making KES1.26bn (US$12.4bn) losses in 2H18. EAPCC Chairman, Edwin Kinyua, finalised the 900-acre land sale with the Kenyan government at the opening of the Homes Expo in Nairobi. Revenue from the land sale is will also see EAPCC develop residential offices for the government's infrastructure security team at Athi River. "We have also held fruitful discussions with KCB Group which could see us sign a new land deal with KCB Mortgage Division that will see us partner in a residential development. The decision will be known in the next 90 days," Mr Kinyua said. He also welcomed the Buy Kenya Build Kenya policy saying the expected 80m bags of cement deal between the government and contractors that will be hired to put up the 500,000 affordable housing units will inject new demand for cement, giving cement manufacturers a lifeline worth KES40bn. "This means full-steam production, more jobs and upgrades to our machinery. We have since spent KES500m on the plant upgrade and a further KES2bn will be spent on plant upgrades in the next financial year," Mr Kinyua said. Published under The Tennessee Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution will convene their 114th State Conference at the Franklin Marriott Cool Springs Conference Center April 25-28. Chief John Ross Chapter members will be in attendance as member Sarah Roach assumes a new position as registrar for the state society. Ms. Roach joined the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution in 1977 and, in the subsequent years, she has proven her direct descent from 25 patriots who either served in the American Revolution or rendered support to the revolutionary cause. Ms. Roach, a retired Tennessee Valley Authority executive, has served the Chief John Ross Chapter as regent, registrar, first vice regent and historian, in addition to chairing numerous chapter committees and chairing the Chattanooga Area Regents Council. She currently serves the Tennessee Society as the chairman, TSDAR Master Report and State Publications while having previously having served as chairman of the State Regents Project Book, Lineage Research and Chapter Development and Revitalization Committees. Ms. Roach served NSDAR as the National vice chair, Lineage Research, Minority and Ethnic Research. Chief John Ross Chapter members have actively served the state society throughout its almost 100-year history with members Luanne Hobbs Dewitt, WandaLynn Poteet Garrett and Linda Moss Mines having served on the TSDAR Board during the three most recent administrations. The Tennessee Society Daughters of the American Revolutions state conference consists of workshops, business sessions, committee meetings, social functions, and awards presentations. Special guest Denise Doring Van Buren, first vice president general of the National Society of the DAR, will give the keynote speech at the Friday evening opening night dinner. The featured speaker for the Saturday evening Chapter Regents Banquet will be Brad Akard, director of Development at Cheekwood. Honored guests will include the state regents of Mississippi, New York, Vermont, and Virginia and workshops will feature Historic Preservation in Tennessee, Native Tennessee Plants, and Genetic Genealogy. For more information regarding membership in the Chief John Ross Chapter, NSDAR and for assistance in documenting your familys revolutionary genealogy, contact localhistorycounts@gmail.com. Jackson, Tenn. - The Jackson Generals broke free with a season-high eight runs scored on Sunday, beating the Chattanooga Lookouts, 8-6, at The Ballpark at Jackson. The Lookouts rallied for five runs in the final inning.. The seven-inning result got the Generals (4-5) a series split with the Lookouts (4-4), due to the second game of Sunday's double-header being postponed due to inclement weather. Jackson and Chattanooga will make up the contest when they meet in late May. Game highlights (from redsmiinorleagues.com) TJ Friedl went 0-2 with 2 walks and a run scored. Jose Siri went 1-2 with 2 walks, a run, and an RBI. Gavin LaValley went 1-3 with a walk, run, and an RBI. Brantley Bell went 0-2 with 2 walks and an RBI. Alfredo Rodriguez went 1-2 with 2 walks, a run, and 2 RBI. Box Score The Mississippi Braves are in town this week for a five-game set with Chattanooga. Game one is this evening (Monday) at AT&T Field at 7:15 p.m. The M-Braves have Atlanta's #4 prospect, 20-year old Cristian Pache, on their roster. MLB Pipeline has this to say about Pache: "Pache might be the best defensive outfielder in the Minor Leagues at present and once he gets to the big leagues, he'll immediately join a list of elite-level center fielders. His speed allows him to cover a tremendous amount of ground and his plus instincts, reads and routes allow that to play up even more. He has a gun for an arm to go with it that would more than work in right, though there is zero question he's a Gold Glove caliber center fielder long-term. Pache's straight running speed is close to top of the scale, but he's yet to translate it effectively in terms of stolen bases. Pache's power is just starting to show up, at least in terms of extra-base ability, and he's showing signs of making adjustments to his swing that could eventually allow him to approach average power in the future. If he can continue to refine that swing and his approach, Pache has the potential to be an All-Star caliber player. Even if he falls a little short of that, his ability to make contact, his speed and his outstanding defense point to a long Major League career." Although we're not in your district, you took the time to respond to an email my husband sent to the city councilman of our district concerning an incident where city workers on March 21, doing work in and around the storm water ditch that runs alongside our home, accidentally broke out our son's rear window on his convertible Cobra Mustang when an object of some kind must have flown out from under a trimmer or something being operated and hit the rear window, breaking it. An individual from the city did come out and called police where an incident report was made and my husband said the individual stated "he'd be in touch." After a week of not hearing anything back my husband sent an email to the 311 Department and the young lady immediately responded stating the info would be forwarded. At the time we were merely hoping to gather information on whether there was anything else we needed to do on our end to get things moving. When we heard nothing after about another week we decided to write our city councilman, but heard nothing directly from him. It seems your reply was sent on or around April 4 but for whatever reason it went to my husband's spam folder. We're grateful that you took time out from your schedule to respond. The car is in wonderful running condition in addition to holding a lot of sentimental value to our son (USAF). Although the Mustang is no longer used for traveling, it has taken him to military bases on assignments pretty much all across the nation. From Florida to Virginia and on through the Colorado mountains in the dead of winter, up to Utah and a number of other states. When we didn't receive a response from our city councilman, or thought we hadn't received any reply at all, we wrote the mayor's office. Only today, Sunday, when I decided to check my husband's spam box on his behalf to clean it out, because he forgets to check it, did I notice a response from you. We still haven't gotten a response one way or the other from the city works department. However, we just wanted to let you know how grateful we are that you took the time to respond, although we don't live in your district. Forever Grateful, Camp & Brenda Washington * * * Camp and I just want to take the time to thank Mayor Andy Berke and Miss Loudermilk for responding after I wrote to the Chattanoogan about the broken rear window on our son's Mustang. Regardless of the outcome and whatever the city works department decide, we're both grateful they both took the time to respond. It's understandable that with such a busy schedule, and I'm sure Mayor Berke receives many emails, that he cannot be expect to reply to them all. My husband and I have always thought highly of Mayor Berke, and always will. Anyone care for another story of the ventures of Miz Cobra M? Well here goes, whether you want to hear it or not: It was the dead of winter, January to be exact, when my son was on his way to a military base in Utah. The route taking him through parts of Colorado. As always, when traveling a great distances or isolated areas he passed on detail information about the routes he'd be taking. On this occasion, believing he'd avoid the bad Colorado weather that time of the year by taking a more southern route from Denver and head upward through southern parts of Utah, he decided it might be safer travel south upward rather than continue traveling northward. I hadn't lived in Colorado since the 1970s, but there was something about the route he planned I found disturbing for whatever reason. I couldn't shake the premonition and the feeling this was not the better route to take. So I sent out pleas to all those who've traveled the lands before and even to Miz C'Tang, asking if this was not the route to take to please guide my son onto a safer one. Finally, after days of feeling a sense of foreboding a calmness took hold and I felt peace. Low and behold, when he arrived in Denver and was within minutes of taking that originally planned route, he stopped for gas and noticed Miz Cobra was leaking radiator fluid. He called to have the car towed to a shop using a plan he keeps for such emergencies, and when the tow operator came out to tow the car a conversation ensued with the tower asking him where he was heading. My son told him and explained the route he plan to take. The tow truck operator told him not to take that route but to continue on the northerly route once the car was repaired. The tow operator went on to say they'd had several vehicles lose their brakes using that route and go over the steep mountainside. They'd already had either five or six fatalities for the month of January alone. The narrow roads could be unsafe even in warmer months. In winter months they could be especially treacherous and deadly. When Miz Cobra was repaired my son continued on the northerly route the tow operator had advised and made it safely into Utah. End of Story. Thank You/ A special Thank You To Mayor Berke and Miss Loudermilk. At least we now have a better understanding of matters. Brenda & Camp Washington Five years after employees at Volkswagen's Tennessee plant rejected representation by the United Auto Workers, the union is back for another try. A vote is expected as soon as the end of this month. While the UAW labors to find a way into this Volkswagen plant, let me tell you how my co-workers and I fought tirelessly to get the same union out of ours. I live and work in Hamilton, Al., a three-hour drive west of the Chattanooga plant where the UAW hopes to take control. My employer, the NTN-Bower corporation, manufactures the roller bearings used in the wheels of passenger automobiles and other forms of transportation. It's safe to say the plant, which has been in Hamilton since 1972, is the livelihood for the hundreds of people it employs in Marion County. The UAW first organized the plant in 1976, and for most employees the union was a fact of life--for better or worse. I first became aware of the UAW's lack of less-than-beneficial in 2007, when a prolonged strike threatened to shut down the plant. My husband and son both worked there; our family needed the income, so they crossed the picket line and continued to work. It was a dangerous decision; strikers were aggressively harassing employees who continued to work, using racial slurs and even dropping tacks to try to flatten their tires. Someone had to stand up for families like mine who simply couldn't risk going on strike. I wrote a letter to the editor in support of the employees who crossed the picket line, and received encouraging phone calls from families around town. I was even at the plant so often in support of my husband and son that I decided to get a job there myself. It didn't take me long to see first hand how the UAW was putting the plant at risk. The union's leaders were willing to gamble with the livelihoods of hundreds of workers, and were actively protecting lazy and incompetent employees who made the rest of us look bad. The union had to go. I started collecting signatures on a petition to remove (or "decertify") the UAW from our plant. That's easier said than done: The union and its enablers started their own campaign of intimidation, threatening employees who dared to cross them. These threats were personal for me; during my signature-gathering process, I frequently had harassing phone calls made to my house, and even had three of our family dogs die under mysterious circumstances. It was a very difficult time for me and my family. To this day, I can't talk about these events without crying. But someone had to stand up to these bullies, who definitely did not provide respect and dignity in the workplace. Faced with a plant whose employees no longer wanted it, the union used its tried-and-true playbook to toss up legal barriers--an effective stall tactic, thanks to its massive bank account and army of lawyers. The union actually lost multiple decertification votes, but used its legal might to get earlier results voided. Finally, in 2015, we kicked the UAW out of plant in Hamilton for good. Today, my story should stand as a cautionary tale for workers who are evaluating the union's track record--a track record that today includes a federal investigation for corruption. The UAW will make lots of promises to workers during its campaign that it's under no obligation to keep. But like a roach motel, once you check in to the UAW, it's difficult if not impossible to check out. Ginger Estes Employee at the NTN-Bower Corporation in Hamilton, Al. There are 5.8 million Americans living with Alzheimer's (120,000 in Tennessee) and over 16 million (435,000) unpaid Alzheimer's caregivers. Over 1,200 advocates from across the nation just returned from the Alzheimer's Impact Movement Advocacy Forum in Washington, D.C. On Capitol Hill we asked our senators and Congressman Fleischmann to support legislation to provide researchers, clinicians and caregivers with resources necessary to combat Alzheimer's. Also urging increased funding for research at the National Institutes of Health and the BOLD Act. Rep. Fleischmann as a ranking member of the Appropriation's Committee is crucial to moving these funding requests forward. I also met and thanked Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, for her part in introducing the BOLD Act and helping it get passed in December 2018. Alzheimer's is the 6th leading cause of death in the nation (4th in Tennessee). It is also the most expensive with an estimated cost of $290 billion in 2019. Someone develops Alzheimer's every 65 seconds making it a public health crisis. There is no prevention, no cure, no survivors. I know. My husband was diagnosed in 2004 at the age 57 and passed away in June 2018. I had the privilege of taking care of him. Now I will advocate for him. Andrea "Andi" Erwin Superintendent Dr. Bryan Johnson and Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger announced the creation of the communitys first-ever Childrens Cabinet Monday morning. The Childrens Cabinet brings together government agencies and child-serving community organizations with the goal of connecting every student in Hamilton County with what he or she needs to thrive. The Cabinet is comprised of leaders of county and city agencies who serve students, as well as other key community organizations like United Way of Greater Chattanooga. The City of Chattanooga has committed key staff to serve on the Cabinet in support of the citys students outside of the school day with the shared goal of aligning resources, services and supports for student success. Mayor Coppinger said, Too many of our children lack the support and opportunities they need to be successful in school and life. Only 20 percent of a students time is spent in the classroom. Our schools cannot meet the needs of our youth on their own. By coordinating government and community resources, we can better prepare our students for life and work, which is vital for the future of our community. The initial charge of the Childrens Cabinet will be to support the school districts pilot of Student Success Plans. Like a roadmap, personalized Student Success Plans identify and connect students to basics they need like food, housing, and healthcare, as well as high-quality after-school and summer experiences, mentoring and internships. Student Success Plans will be piloted in at least six schools in the 2019-2020 school year with the goal of expanding to all schools in the future. The Childrens Cabinet will work with the school district to identify and address the needs of students identified through the Student Success Plan process. We are working hard to improve academic success for every Hamilton County child, but 80 percent of a students time is spent outside of school which limits how much schools can do alone, said Dr. Bryan Johnson. We are fortunate so many organizations and people are willing to partner with us to help connect the resources to the students who need them, The Childrens Cabinet builds on the work of Chattanooga 2.0, which has convened a broad set of community leaders and organizations to help increase educational and workforce opportunities for students. Chattanooga 2.0 staff and partners will serve an integral role in supporting the work of the Cabinet as it moves forward. The Childrens Cabinet shows the continued commitment of our elected leadership to the well-being and success of our students. The Cabinet will help us reach our shared vision of being the smartest community in the South, and achieve the bold goals set forth by Chattanooga 2.0, said Molly Blankenship, Vice President of Talent Initiatives of the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce and Interim Executive Director of Chattanooga 2.0. Mayor Coppinger sai, Other communities across the country are using the Childrens Cabinet model to align resources and coordinate supports for youth with promising results. We are confident the Cabinet will work in our community. We know that with the right support, every child in Hamilton County can thrive. Curate MedAesthetics (Curate), a boutique MedSpa concept located in Ooltewahs Cambridge Square community, will host an open house event on April 25 from 5-7 p.m. "The event will introduce attendees to Curates wide array of state-of-the-art MedSpa services as well as its professional staff and newly renovated space which overlooks the public square," officials said. Attendance is free and open to the public. Curate is located at 9447 Bradmore Lane, Suite 201. Founded by local Nurse Practitioner Cindy Wilson, Curate provides medical aesthetic treatments and simple skincare solutions designed to help clients look and feel their best. Ms. Wilson, who has more than 14 years of nursing experience, has trained extensively throughout the United States and has also served in consulting roles in California and the Bahamas. As part of the Curate venture, Ms. Wilson partnered with Dr. Terry Melvin to serve as the MedSpas medical director.Our goal is to help our clients find solutions that are tailored to their specific needs, said Ms. Wilson. To do that effectively, you need to understand both the science and the aesthetic. We want the experience at Curate to be luxurious and elegant, but we also want to interact with our clients in a way that is meaningful and focused on helping them achieve the look and feel that is best for them.Curate offers a number of MedAesthetic services including Botox cosmetic/Dysport; filler and contour Juvederrm and Kybella treatments; and resurfacing and complexion rejuvenation through Skinmedica topical products. Ms. Wilson will also be scheduling one-on-one counseling sessions with all clients to build customized treatment plans. Mark Kimball, CEO of Erlanger Western Carolina Hospital (EWCH) presented North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper with a resolution urging the North Carolina General Assembly to expand Medicaid in North Carolina as soon as possible at a roundtable discussion at the hospital on April 11. Across North Carolina, 40 percent of rural hospitals are operating with budget deficits and four have closed since 2014, said officials with Governor Coopers office. Nationally, 82 percent of rural hospital closures since 2014 have been in states that did not close the coverage gap. Erlangers resolution highlights the challenges rural hospitals face, including estimates that it costs EWCH more than $17 million per year to treat uninsured patients. Delayed care often results in acute emergencies requiring expensive hospitalizations, said Governor Kimball. Creating accessibility to affordable health care while simultaneously creating jobs is an important part of this resolution and we encourage the representatives of North Carolina to support the NC Health Care for Working Families legislation. As a critical access hospital, we see how lack of care accessibility and income dramatically affects our communities. Erlanger officials were joined at the roundtable discussion by other hospital and community leaders as well as Pastor Tim Huff from Murphy Free Methodist Church, Tom OBrien, president and CEO of Industries Opportunities, Inc., and Dr. Brian Mitchell from Peachtree Community Health Center. We get told time and again that getting a good nights sleep is good for our overall health. Still, about one in three Americans dont get the shut-eye they need. Interestingly enough, sleep deprivation varies depending on where you live in the country and adults in some states are really feeling the effects. With help from 24/7 Wall St. and a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we take a look at the 15 most sleep-deprived states in the country. (The No. 1 state on our list will shock you!) 15. New Jersey New Jersey road sign | benkrut/ iStock/ Getty Images New Jersey 101.5 tells us the state of New Jersey, where roughly half of the general population is chronically deprived of sleep. As Dr. Jonathan Kass of the Cooper University Hospital Sleep Disorder Center tells the station: The average person needs at least eight hours, and they probably get six to seven hours. Next: Coming in at No. 14 14. Arkansas Arkansas road sign | wellesenterprises/ iStock/ Getty Images The CDC used a number of factors when looking at why people in certain regions have trouble getting even seven hours of sleep a night, including stress levels, average blood pressure, and level of poverty. Arkansas has issues in all three of these areas, reportedly having the eighth highest poverty rate in the country and the third highest of adult reporting to be mentally distressed. Next: Coming in at No. 13 13. Pennsylvania Pennsylvania road sign | AndreyKrav/ iStock/ Getty Images The CDCs study found that about one-third of the 440,000 people they surveyed nationally arent getting enough sleep at night. In the state of Pennsylvania, which has a population of roughly 12.81 million, the average percentage of sleep-deprived adults tops out at about 37.5%. Next: Coming in at No. 12 12. Delaware Delaware road sign | AndreyKrav/ iStock/ Getty Images When it comes to chunks of the population that deal with overwhelming stress, Delaware falls in the middle of the pack with the 22nd lowest percentage of adults experiencing mental distress, according to the CDCs findings. Nevertheless, a whopping 37.6% of residents polled for the study say they dont get adequate sleep at night. Next: Coming in at No. 11 11. Ohio Ohio sign along a rural farm road at the Ohio/Michigan state line | fotoguy22/ iStock/ Getty Images Over a third of Ohioans may be sleep-deprived, but there is at least an effort to help get that number down. The Sleep Disorders Center at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center is one of the first hospital-based sleep centers in the country to specialize in helping patients have more restful sleep, whether its treatment for snoring or disorders like narcolepsy. Next: Coming in at No. 10 10. West Virginia West Virginia road sign | Feverpitched/ iStock/ Getty Images A big source of sleepless nights for West Virginia is due to a large amount of the population living beneath the national poverty line. According to a 2018 article in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, the number of economically distressed counties within the state is also rising. Child poverty is also a big issue in the state. Next: Coming in at No. 9 9. New York New York state sign | wellesenterprises/ iStock/ Getty Images NYC may boast about being the city that never sleeps but the entire Empire State is actually suffering from a large number of adults who dont get enough Zs. Financial stress and a rising number of health problems particularly obesity, which can have a profound effect on whether you have sleep disorders contribute to sleep deprivation in New York state Next: Coming in at No. 8 8. Indiana Indiana state sign | csfotoimages/ iStock/ Getty Images Indiana lies in a particular hub of the Mid West where sleep deprivation is high, with 38.5% of adults getting less than seven hours of sleep a night, according to the CDCs findings. 14% of the adults in the state report being under mental distress on a regular basis, ranking Indiana the 14th worst state for stress across the board, according to the CDC. Next: Coming in at No. 7 7. South Carolina South Carolina road sign | suesmith2/ iStock/ Getty Images Stress and high blood pressure are big factors when it comes to how much sleep you can get both of which pose a problem in South Carolina. According to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, about 1 in 3 South Carolinians have been told by a doctor that they have high blood pressure, also called hypertension. Thousands more South Carolinians have high blood pressure and dont know it. Next: Coming in at No. 6 6. Michigan Michigan welcome sign | benkrut/ iStock/ Getty Images According to a study by Sleepopolis, the average adult Michigan resident is losing more than 30 hours of sleep per month, which is higher than the national average. According to the CDCs findings, a whopping 38.7% of adults in the state arent getting a recommended eight hours of sleep at night on a regular basis. Next: Coming in at No. 5 5. Georgia Georgia state sign | suesmith2/ iStock/ Getty Images Its no wonder Georgia is so high up on the list Albany and Macon crack the top ten of cities across the country with residents who have the worst sleep habits. Getting enough exercise has a big impact on whether you get enough sleep, and since only a reported one in five Georgians meet the guidelines for aerobic and strength exercise a correlation is very possible. Next: Coming in at No. 4 4. Alabama Alabama sign near the state border | Allard1/ iStock/ Getty Images With one of the highest rates of obesity and blood pressure in the country, Alabama comes in at No. 4 on the CDCs list. Additionally, a University of Alabama researcher found that the young adult/college age is prone to ignoring the benefits of getting a good nights sleep which can lead to chronic diseases down the road. Next: Coming in at No. 3 3. Maryland Maryland road sign | Lady-Photo/ iStock/ Getty Images While the CDCs study didnt delve into exactly why Maryland ranks so high on their list of sleep-deprived states, sleep specialists told the Baltimore Sun untraditional work shifts, overscheduled lives, and problems dealing with stress, are common factors that contribute to sleeplessness. They also said people can be deprived of sleep for so long they dont even recognize that they are fatigued. Next: Coming in at No. 2 2. Kentucky Kentucky road sign | benkrut/ iStock/ Getty Images With over 39% of polled adults reported they get less than seven hours of sleep a night thats more than one in three people Kentucky holds the No. 2 spot on the CDCs list. The state has one of the highest rates of inactive adults in the country and a high number of residents with high blood pressure and obesity. Next: You wont believe what state comes in at No.1 1. Hawaii Honolulu highway exit sign | Manakin/ iStock/ Getty Images Thats right. The island state known for its beaches and laid-back vibe has a big problem when it comes to its adult population getting quality sleep. Dr. Roger Yim of The Queens Medical Center Sleep Laboratory tells Honolulu Magazine that the high cost of living on the islands has a huge impact. A lot of people have two or three jobs, and so theyre not getting as much sleep, he says. Add to that the heavy traffic, needing to start your commute earlierit all cuts into your sleep schedule. Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! After getting spoofed by the SNL crew over the weekend, fans of The View probably wanted to see how the ladies at the table would react Monday, April 15. Instead, they got a repeat broadcast of a March episode featuring SNLs own Aidy Bryant. Had Bryant been scheduled for a new show, she would have been able to walk everyone through her princess of Arizona Meghan McCain impression. Chances are it would have been fun for all concerned. Nothing like a good split screen. #SNL pic.twitter.com/K4MwyU6kGz Saturday Night Live SNL (@nbcsnl) April 14, 2019 However, it was no accident. ABCs broadcast schedule shows the encore presentation was planned. The same goes for the April 16 show. On Tuesday, viewers will get a replay of the March show that featured Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Preet Bharara. In fact, there will be repeats of The View through April 19. The View will be all repeats from April 15-19. Whoopi, Abby Huntsman, and Joy Behar on The View | Paula Lobo/ABC via Getty Images Every episode of the week will be an encore presentation. On Wednesday, the March 27 episode featuring Stacey Abrams will run. Thursdays show takes the audience back to February, when Mary J. Blige and former View co-host Sara Gaines appeared. On Friday, it will be a replay of the episode from early this month that featured Taraji Henson and 2020 candidate Tim Ryan. While there are a few quality shows in there, fans wont be getting any new material. That may be disappointing for folks hoping to watch the ladies weigh in on the latest gossip and news out of Washington, but at least one co-host is staying busy during the hiatus this week. Excited to be on location filming my new show The Whole Truth for @DiscoveryID. pic.twitter.com/2Mn8xd8XPh Sunny Hostin (@sunny) April 14, 2019 Otherwise, the rest of the gang seemed to be enjoying their time off enough to laugh at themselves following the SNL send-up. (Whoopi, always a light tweeter, was the only one who didnt mention the skit on her Twitter account.) Joy Behar may have had the best line of the bunch. Finally an actual female is playing me. Thank you Kate [McKinnon], she tweeted. The View returns to ABC April 22. THE VIEW Joy Behar and Ana Navarro check out the latest on Anas phone. | Heidi Gutman/ABC via Getty Images After the week off, The View will return Monday, April 22 with new episodes. At press time, there were no guests scheduled yet, but you can imagine there will be at least one member of Congress coming to discuss the release of Mueller report. As chaotic as the political discussions can get on The View, it typically makes for better TV than the infomercials the audience occasionally sees (as they did with the cast of Shark Tank last week). Meanwhile, it should be a good opportunity for Whoopi to continue working her way back to full strength. Following the serious illness she overcame earlier this year, she could probably use the week to recover from her return to the workplace. In summary, it will be five days before fans of The View hear from the gang SNL described as five best friends with nothing in common. Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! With so much attention on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, its easy for Prince William and Kate Middleton to fade to the background. But recent rumors have brought the couples marriage to the forefront. And still, the couple seems stronger than ever. With all the rumors and demands on the couple, how do William and Kate make their marriage work, despite it all? Prince William and Kate Middleton will celebrate their anniversary later this month The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary on April 29. Though they have only been married for eight years, the couple has been together for nearly two decades. William and Kate met while attending college. While the couple didnt announce their relationship until 2004, Hello! reported the couple moved in together (along with other roommates) in 2002. It is likely that they began dating somewhere between 2002 and 2004. The royal couple married on April 29, 2011, at Westminster Abbey in front of an estimated two billion people. Kate stunned in a beautiful designer dress and William beamed as his princess joined his side. During the ceremony, William can be seen joking with his future wife, saying, I thought this would be a small family affair. Prince William and Kate Middleton have three children together Two years after their fairytale wedding, the couple welcomed their first child, Prince George. Kates pregnancy proved to be difficult, with extreme morning sickness and a subsequent hospitalization leading to the couples pregnancy announcement. The following year, the couple announced they were expecting their second child. Kate again suffered from terrible morning sickness and it was revealed that the princess suffered from hyperemesis gravidarum. Princess Charlotte was born in May 2015. On April 23, 2018, the royal couple welcomed their third child, Prince Louis, less than one month before Prince Harry married Meghan Markle. Prince William and Kate Middleton have been targets of rumors Though the couple seems to have the perfect marriage, that doesnt stop the rumors from spreading. William has recently been accused of cheating on his wife with her former best friend, Rose Hanbury. Adding fuel to the fire, according to reports, the duchess recently broke off her longtime relationship with her friend in an abrupt and dramatic fashion. This isnt the first time rumors have surrounded the future king. In 2017, William went on a ski trip with friends without his wife. The prince was photographed drinking and partying and being very touchy with other women. Sources say that Kate was less than pleased when her husband returned home. Despite everything, Prince William and Kate Middleton make it work The royal couple is just like any other couple. Trust and respect are an integral part of a relationship. The couple has been together for nearly 20 years and has developed a solid foundation. Its easy for the public to buy into the royal scandals and think that theres trouble in paradise, but that comes with the territory of living a public life. William and Kate know each other and their relationship and are able to separate themselves from the intense scrutiny. But beyond trust and respect, it is clear that the two have fun together. Its obvious that the couple likes to joke and make fun of each other, and they have even given each other some pretty funny nicknames. Kate reportedly called her future husband Big Willy before the two got married. Now, the prince has earned the name Prince Baldy. As for the duchess, she has a nickname too. Kate is reportedly joked to be the Duchess of Do-little. For months, royal experts and fans have tried to predict Meghan Markles birth plan. And now, with the Duchess of Sussexs due date quickly approaching, many are convinced the mother-to-be will welcome her firstborn son or daughter at home. Most modern royal women have welcomed their babies at the St Marys Hospital Lindo Wing and posed for a photocall just hours later. Princess Diana delivered both Prince William and Prince Harry at the famed hospital and Kate Middleton welcomed all three of her children there, too. However, Meghan Markle might opt for a more private, at-home birth like Queen Elizabeth and the royal women before her did. Meghan Markle and Prince Harry | BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty Images Does tradition play a part in Meghan Markles alleged decision to have a home birth? We think not. Up ahead, find out why some believe the Duchess of Sussex is considering a home birth at Frogmore Cottage. Why does Meghan Markle want a home birth? The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are expecting their bundle of joy later this month and some believe they will try for a home birth. However, if things dont go according to plan, Meghan Markle is fully prepared to give birth in a hospital if necessary. A source confirmed that while Meghan Markle is in good health, she hasnt ruled out a potential hospital birth for safety reasons. It is her favored choice, but it obviously depends on how things are nearer the time, the unnamed source revealed to Daily Mail. The queens doctors might have something to do with it Why does Meghan Markle want a home birth? Some think it has something to do with Queen Elizabeths doctors. Meghan said she doesnt want the men in suits. She was adamant that she wanted her own people. It did leave a few of us baffled, says a Daily Mail source. It is slightly surprising. These people [the Queens doctors] are the best of the best and when it comes down to it, their role would actually be very limited in the birth itself, assuming all goes to plan, another insider dished. That said, Meghan Markles refusal of Queen Elizabeths doctors has not been confirmed by the royal family and might not be reason enough to have a home birth. After all, if it were really about the doctors, she could hire a team of her own for the hospital birth. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex want privacy The real reason Prince Harry and Meghan Markle want a home birth? It might have something to do with privacy. According to Kensington Palace, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex plan to keep the arrival of their baby as private as possible. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are very grateful for the goodwill they have received from people throughout the United Kingdom and around the world as they prepare to welcome their baby, the palace said in a statement last week. Their royal highnesses have taken a personal decision to keep the plans around the arrival of their baby private. The Duke and Duchess look forward to sharing the exciting news with everyone once they have had an opportunity to celebrate privately as a new family. A hospital birth risks media attention, which could be why Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are considering something more intimate and private such as a home birth. Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! While it might seem like the royal family is plagued with feud rumors, cheating allegations, and scandals galore, they actually know a thing or two about keeping their real business out of the news. Last week, Kensington Palace confirmed that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle plan to forgo royal tradition and wait until they have had some times as a family of three before introducing their baby to the public. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle | Neil Mockford/GC Images The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are very grateful for the goodwill they have received from people throughout the United Kingdom and around the world as they prepare to welcome their baby, the palace said in a statement. Their royal highnesses have taken a personal decision to keep the plans around the arrival of their baby private. The Duke and Duchess look forward to sharing the exciting news with everyone once they have had an opportunity to celebrate privately as a new family, they added. Despite Prince Harry and Meghan Markle plan to keep the birth of their firstborn a secret, the public is ecstatic about his or her much-anticipated arrival and likely wont keep away from St Marys Hospital and other rumored places of birth. How will the royal family distract the public when Meghan Markle goes into labor? Find out, below. How the royal family might distract the public when Meghan Markle goes into labor If Meghan Markle doesnt opt for a home birth and instead delivers at the Lindo Wing at St Marys Hospital or another hospital close to Frogmore Cottage, the royal family will likely need to distract the public from these places when she goes into labor. Since the Duke and Duchess of Sussex dont plan on sharing their babys arrival at first, it must look like their offices are continuing to operate. One way they might do so is by sharing news about Prince Harry and Meghan Markles work, such as this posting. Additionally, they might utilize Prince William and Kate Middletons social media and distract the public with a new photo of Prince George, Princess Charlotte, or Prince Louis or make another type of announcement to attract eyes to their page. Security Measures On top of online distractions, the royal family might have the Duke and Duchess take an alternative route to the hospital. While the plan wouldnt exactly be seamless, they might be able to throw off some paparazzi and fans. Alternate routes are regularly practiced in the royal family as a security measure. In addition to taking a different route, they might try to make it to the hospital in the middle of the night or early morning even if Meghan Markle is only in the early stages of labor. If the Duchess of Sussex intends to give birth at a hospital and starts to experience contractions in the middle of the night or early morning, she will likely head to the hospital as soon as possible. Leaving in the middle of the night or early morning means fewer eyes on her and Prince Harry. Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! SundanceTV has announced a new premiere date for its upcoming limited series The Name of the Rose. The show will debut on Thursday, May 23 at 10/9c, the network revealed. A tale of murder and intrigue set in a 14th-century Italian monastery, its adapted from the best-selling novel by Umberto Eco. John Turturro plays the lead Richard Sammel as Malachi, John Turturro as William of Baskerville, Maurizio Lombardi as Berengar, and Damian Hardung as Adso in The Name of the Rose | Fabio Lovino/SundanceTV John Turturro will star in the eight-part series as William Baskerville, a Franciscan monk who travels with a novice, Adso von Melk (Damian Hardung ), to a monastery in the Alps. When a series of murders occurs, Baskerville and von Melk begin to investigate. At the same time, they must deal with Bernard Gui (Rupert Everett), a merciless inquisitor who prosecutes anyone who speaks out against the Pope. In addition to Turturro, Hardung, and Everett, the series also stars Michael Emerson, Sebastian Koch, James Cosmo, Richard Sammel, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, and Greta Scarano. The book sold 50 million copies The Name of the Rose was Ecos debut novel, and it has sold more than 50 million copies since it was first published in Italy in 1980. (It was translated into English in 1983.) The dense book, which is a detective story that also deals with semiotics, philosophy, and medieval theological disputes, was previously made into a movie in 1986. That film starred Sean Connery as Baskerville and Christian Slater as von Melk. Eco, who died in 2016, seemed to think that adaptation didnt quite capture the spirit of his novel. A book like this is a club sandwich, with turkey, salami, tomato, cheese, lettuce. And the movie is obliged to choose only the lettuce or the cheese, eliminating everything else the theological side, the political side. Its a nice movie, he told the Guardian in 2011. Turturros character has been compared to Sherlock Holmes Christian Slater and Sean Connery in the 1986 film version of The Name Of The Rose | 20th Century-Fox/Getty Images The character of Baskerville isnt unlike one of the worlds most famous fictional detectives, Jan Diedrichsen, General Manager, SundanceTV and Sundance Now, said when the series was announced last year. William of Baskerville is nothing less than a medieval Sherlock Holmes. The story is beloved because it combines the best of serialized crime drama in the vein of SundanceTVs Top of the Lake with a dramatic, wildly visual setting rarely depicted on television, he said. Turturro has said that he was determined that the new adaptation honor the original book. In fact, he only agreed to take the part if producers stayed true to Ecos work. I read the book and I loved it. I started writing to [director] Giacomo [Battiato] to say, Why isnt there more Eco, this is eight hours, you dont have to reduce it, Turturro told Variety. I said, If you put more of Eco in, then Im interested. He added that the story is surprisingly relevant, despite the medieval setting. I thought it was a very relevant book, maybe more at this particular time than even when it came out, Turturro said. You look at all the stuff thats exploding all over, whether its the strongmen who are in vogue all of the scandals in the church [and] mens oppression of women its all in the book. Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! At least eight people were killed over the weekend after several tornadoes touched down and flooding ensued across Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Georgia. According to ABC News, the tornadoes and flooding killed at least eight people including 3 children left dozens injured and essentially flattened one Texas town. According to AccuWeather, the deadly storm system spawned dozens of tornadoes across the southern states. The National Weather Service reports that an EF-3 tornado touched down in Franklin, Texas, 125 miles away from Dallas. According to Franklin authorities, the tornado nearly flattened the town, destroying 55 homes, a church, four businesses, a duplex and part of the local housing authority building, ABC News reports. An EF-2 tornado is reported to have touched down in Hamilton, TX where 19 people were taken to the hospital for treatment. Another tornado in Mississippi took the life of 95-year-old Roy Ratliff, after the twister struck his trailer. An additional 19 people including two in critical condition were taken to the hospital for treatment due to tornado-related injuries. According to ABC News, one man, 72-year-old Robert Scott, says he fell asleep in his recliner chair late Saturday and woke up to find that he was in his yard. Scotts house had been torn apart by a tornado. His wife Linda, 71, was also in the house when the tornado ripped it off of its foundation. The two, thanked God that they both survived the twister. Were living, and God has blessed us, Scott told ABC News. In Vicksburg, Mississippi, another possible tornado touched down. So far, no injuries have been reported in Vicksburg. In Louisiana, the storm system caused flash flooding which took the lives of two people, 13-year-old Sebastian Omar Martinez who drowned in a drainage canal in Bawcomville, LA. Another person whose name has not been released also drowned after their car was submerged in floodwaters in Calhoun, LA. In Alabama, a possible tornado knocked out power lines and damaged mobile homes. ABC News reports that some 90,000 people across Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Georgia were without power as of mid-day Sunday. According to Poweroutage.us, however, it appears that power in affected areas has been restored. Photo courtesy: Unsplash/Nikolas Noonan More than 100 Chinese police officers and SWAT team members closed a newly constructed church and beat dozens of Christians who were guarding it, and then buried Bibles and hymnbooks before leaving. The incident in Henan Chinas third largest province took place in January and was reported by BitterWinter.org April 10. Chinese officials also seized the churchs cash and other possessions. As soon as they entered the church, they smashed the donation box and pocketed the money, which totaled thousands of [yuan likely hundreds in U.S. dollars.] They also questioned us about where all of our churchs money was kept, a church member told Bitter Winter, which monitors religious persecution in China. The congregation, True Jesus Church in Anping, had opened a new building in July 2018 that cost around $300,000 U.S. But the Chinese accused the congregation of being in contact with foreign governments. The Chinese plan on converting the building to a nursing home, Bitter Winter reported. Officials arrived Jan. 4 in dozens of vehicles to take over the building. When 60 or so church members barricaded the entrance with benches, more officers were called to the scene and stormed into the church. They beat the believers, leaving about 15 Christians on the floor moaning in pain. One woman who is in her 70s also was beaten, Bitter Winter reported. Police dug a pit and buried the Bibles and hymnbooks. They also removed the air conditioning units, audio speakers, washing machines, a computer and a piano. Police detained the churchs director for 15 days. Related: Chinese City Pays Citizens $1,500 to Be a Mini Judas and Turn in Christians Chinese Official Vows to Eliminate Christianity in China How I Can Only Imagine Smuggled the Gospel into China Were Not Allowed to Print Anything about Jesus, Chinese Print Shop Tells Church Persecution Rising in China: And Things Could Get Worse Michael Foust is a freelance writer. Visit his blog, MichaelFoust.com. Photo courtesy: Denny Ryanto/Unsplash Several thousand alumni, faculty members and supporters of an Indiana private Christian university are urging the school to rescind its speaking invitation to Vice President Mike Pence, saying the Trump administrations policies arent consistent with Christian ethics. Taylor University of Upland, Ind., announced Thursday that Pence would speak at its May 18 commencement. The schools president, Paul Lowell Haines, said in a statement Pence has been a good friend to the University over many years and is a Christian brother whose life and values have exemplified what we strive to instill in our graduates. Taylor University is a non-denominational private Christian school founded in 1846. More than 3,300 alumni and supporters of the university have signed a Change.org petition protesting the invitation. Inviting Vice President Pence to Taylor University and giving him a coveted platform for his political views makes our alumni, faculty, staff and current students complicit in the Trump-Pence Administration's policies, which we believe are not consistent with the Christian ethic of love we hold dear, the petition reads. An unidentified tenured professor at Taylor told Salon the invitation blindsided people. I immediately became angry and cynical, the professor said, thinking that our dear seniors were being sold out, that the administration was hedging its bets that they could turn graduation into a political statement and, furthermore, a revenue stream that this move would please people with deep pockets with whom the administration would like to partner and that that outcome was more desirable to them than whatever the faculty and student body wanted. Pence has strong Indiana roots. He is a graduate of the states Hanover University and the Indiana University School of Law. He also is a former congressman and governor. Taylor University is pleased and honored to welcome to our campus and its 2019 Commencement exercises, Vice President Mike Pence, Haines said. Mr. Pence has been a good friend to the University over many years, and is a Christian brother whose life and values have exemplified what we strive to instill in our graduates. We welcome the Vice President and his wife, Karen Pence, to this 173-year-old premier institution of Christian higher education, and thank them for their love and service for our nation, our state, and our institution. The announcement of Pences speaking invitation on the schools Facebook page drew a mixed reaction. I am very honored to be a part of the 2019 graduating class of Taylor University and am also very honored to have Vice President Mike Pence speak at my commencement ceremony! Jenny Miller wrote. Thank you to all those working hard to ensure a great day! Sandy Hoeks Swartzentruber wrote, As a parent of an incoming freshman, I have to say this is highly disappointing to me. We were assured that a spectrum of political beliefs were represented at Taylor and that students of all political persuasions would feel comfortable. Taylor is known as a theologically conservative school. Its statement of faith says in part it is firmly committed to the lordship of Jesus Christ and evangelical Christianity. Its statement on human sexuality labels as immoral all premarital and extra-marital sexual activity, which it defines as fornication, adultery, incest, prostitution, homosexual behavior, and all sexual activity involving children. Michael Foust is a freelance writer. Visit his blog, MichaelFoust.com. Photo courtesy: Getty Images/Ethan Miller/Staff Victoria Osteen reveals why she remains positive and fights discouragement, negativity Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment New York Times best-selling author Victoria Osteen just released her new book Exceptional You! and revealed to The Christian Post why and how she remains positive despite criticism, discouragement and negative experiences. The co-pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, alongside her husband, Joel Osteen, lists seven practices that can help readers remain focused on lifes victories at a time when negativity has saturated society. Osteen and her husband reach millions worldwide through radio, television and their Night of Hope events held across the United States, but the mother of two says she's no stranger to negativity and discouragement. In her book, she provides practical advice on how she and her family remain focused on the goodness of God through all of life's setbacks. The following is an edited transcript of The Christian Post's interview with Osteen in which she describes the motivation behind Exceptional You! and addresses people who might think positivity is unrealistic. She also shares some of the things she does to embrace what God says about His children. CP: What inspired you to write Exceptional You!? Osteen: I believe that inside of every person is exceptional. Were created, formed and fashioned in the image of an exceptional God, and I just want people to know that they have exceptional in them. They have gifts, they have talents, and sometimes, people go around and they don't feel exceptional. They feel ordinary and they try to find their identity in things outside themselves: social media, looking at other people, and trying to follow this example or that example. I just really want people to know whose they are (belonging to God) and who they are because of whose they are. So I just think that this thought of exceptional is important in this time where people are struggling with who they are, struggling with their identity. I just want people to stir up the gifts and the talents God has for them and really understand theyre exceptional in God's eyes. CP: What advice do you have for anyone who puts their confidence in their success and giftings and have trouble with finding their worth in God alone? Osteen: I think we can all struggle with that if we're not careful. In the society that we live, we think we are what we do. And comparison is the worst thing that we can do and we're usually comparing our weaknesses to someone else's strengths. It's such an important thing to realize that we have gifts and that we have talents, and that we're all on a journey and not every journey looks alike. There's a divine purpose and destiny that's uniquely ours. When we begin to really look to God and say, "God, show me my calling. Yes, I want to sing, I want to be in a band, I want to follow this dream." But if we really say, "God, we want to do this, but really, I'm going to give you my dreams. I'm going to go for them, but I'm going to give them to you, Lord, and you take them and you can make them better than I ever thought possible." Sometimes we just get so stuck in our own way that we forget that God is here to help us not only fulfill our dreams but to fulfill our souls. When we realize that God is in control of our lives and His plans for us are good, it may not look exactly like we think it should look, but we should enjoy every day and realize it's a gift from God and appreciate what we have. I wrote in one of the chapters about "don't wait to appreciate," sometimes people have to lose something, they have to realize how valuable it really was. So I encourage everyone to really appreciate what you have right now. Because you might not like your job, you might be disgruntled with your family member, but there are people who are praying for what you have. CP: Your book provides seven exceptional practices. Can you share a testimony of how you had to apply one of those practices to your own life? Osteen: You know, every morning when we get up we should just say, "OK, I'm going to reset my life. I'm not going to carry around yesterday's mistakes. I'm not going to carry around disappointments, things that didn't work out." Whatever it is, "Oh, I didn't work out or didn't take my kids here." Even simple things, if we will decide today's a new day and we have an opportunity to choose how we're going to live our life, and we're going to prioritize our time. But the choice is ours and the attitude with which we do it with is ours. Sometimes we just set every dial in our life and we get up and we just go full speed ahead, when we really need to re-evaluate our lives and how we are spending our time. What are we setting as priorities in our life? I think that's one thing that I really would encourage people to do because God's mercies are new every single day. And every day He gives us what we need for the day. So it's how we utilize it or how we spend it, so to speak, and how we steward it. The choice is ours and many times it's, What attitude are we going to have? even if we start out our day and we face an unexpected challenge. CP: Not everyone is as positive as you and your husband have happily displayed throughout the years. How do you encourage those people who might think being overly positive is not being realistic? Osteen: Sometimes it's easy maybe the way you were raised or the area you were brought up in to just see things one way. I just encourage people to look for what's right in your life, and not always looking for what's wrong in your life. Filling your memory box with good things. It does come as a positive message, but God is a positive and hopeful God. Were to put our faith in the substance of things hoped for. God wants us to hope and believe and expect good things for our life, and then we have to take it a step further and we have to look for those good things. Bad things happen in our lives and we have to train ourselves to look for the good because anybody can see what's wrong, anybody can see what's bad. And I believe when we begin to really decide that we're going to look for the good, be appreciative every single day and just have that grateful heart, somehow it changes our perspective. I think so many times we have to think about what we're thinking about as well. Negative thoughts can just swirl in our minds. We can think about them over and over again. We have to learn that we have to erase those negative thoughts. But the only way we can really erase them is to replace them with affirming thoughts of faith, replace them with what God says about you. You can't just leave your mind open and empty because the wrong things will fill it. So you have to be proactive and just decide that when you catch yourself thinking negative thoughts and everybody has to do this we have to just catch ourselves and just say, "You know what? I believe that God's helping me. That whatever is going to come against me, I can bear." And just begin to even quote Scripture. Begin to think positive thoughts. But you can't just leave your mind open. You have to replace and erase those negative thoughts. CP: Christians tend to get spiritual amnesia and forget the way God has helped and rescued them in the past. What are practical things that you do to help yourself remember specific positive memories? Osteen: I talked in the book about keeping your memory box full of good things. The Bible talks about, Out of the good that a man puts in his heart that's where the good will come out. It's our responsibility to have those places in our hearts or even physically. I have a notebook that has all of where my children have written me notes, my husband, (Mother's Day, birthday) and they just put a smile on my face. I'll just go through those or I'll take a gratitude list that I have and just begin to remember and say it out loud, even what I'm grateful for because sometimes thinking it is not enough. You have to get it in the atmosphere. You have to let it fill the atmosphere that you're in. I like to do things like that and really, there's negative people in our lives and sometimes you have to just get away from the negative and you have to go somewhere where there's positive, faith-filled words being spoken in a community of believers. You have to make these choices every single day because the truth is, life is hard. And if we don't fight a good fight of faith and decide we're going to put ourselves in the places that are going to feed our soul, then it's going to even be harder. Keep your memory box full of good things. In fact, one time, I would get to where if someone complimented me, I would think, "Oh, they're just being nice, they don't really mean it." Then one day, I was like, "First off, that's not doing me any good and it's disrespectful to the person. And it was as if God just dropped in my heart, "When someone's giving you a compliment, you receive it like I'm talking to you." So if someone says something nice like, "good job," I'll just say, "Thank you very much." And I just think to myself, "Thank you, Lord, I'm just going to put that in my memory box." Louisiana church will give away free gas and prayers on Good Friday Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment In a creative move that combines ministering to both the material and spiritual needs of their community, the Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist in New Orleans, Louisiana, will be giving away free gas to their community on Good Friday while supplies last. Executive Pastor Donna Williams told The Christian Post Friday that come April 19, the church will give gas away from 9 a.m. until 11 a.m. at Sterling Express station located at 1667 Tchoupitoulas Street and the Gentilly-Paris Shell located at 2035 Gentilly Boulevard. We do this as a way of giving back to the community. This is the second year that we will be doing it. We call it [the] Greater Good Friday Gas Giveaway, Williams said. Community members hoping for a shot at the free gas will have to make sure that they are among the first 250 people to show up at the gas stations. We plan to service 250 people and we have two different gas stations that they give the gas away, so once we reach the amount that we expect to giveaway then unfortunately we just have to turn some people away, she said. Williams explained that if people miss out on the free gas, the church will also be offering prayers and an invitation to join them at Greater St. Stephen Baptist for worship on Easter Sunday. Were there and we witness to them. If they want prayer we offer prayer and we invite them to celebrate with us on Easter Sunday, she said. When the church first held the event which was the brainchild of Senior Pastor Debra B. Morton last year, Williams said they were able to invite many people to church and about 20 percent of them showed up for church on Sunday. I would say maybe 20 percent [showed up], she said. We give them cards and we ask them to bring the cards and we have a small reception planned for them, those who show up. Beginning next Wednesday as well, Williams said the church will kick off a more traditional Easter event in which they will host early morning services from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. until Good Friday. We call it a Holy Week Symposium service that starts on Wednesday morning. Weve been doing it for like 50 some odd years. Its a one hour service on Wednesday, Thursday and Good Friday morning. And that is just overwhelming, so many people come, Williams said. They look forward to it because its something that weve done traditionally. For the gas giveaway, Williams said Morton wants the community to know that the church cares. She explained that the church conducts other types of community outreach like feeding the hungry and providing clothes to those who are in need but we just thought that the gas would be something that people needed [at this time]. For this Easter, Williams added, Greater St. Stephen is promoting the theme, Jesus, the Cross: The Salvation factor. We just all want people to know that Jesus Christ died and He was crucified and He was risen so that we can all have a better life, she ended. All-male black college Morehouse to accept transgender men; slammed for 'masculinist gender norms' Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Morehouse College, Americas only all-male historically black college, will begin accepting women who identify as men, a move that upsets some in the LGBT community because it enforces "masculinist gender norms." Students born male but who now identify as female will not be admitted to the 152-year-old institution. The Morehouse College Board of Trustees has approved a Gender Identity Policy that will allow individuals who self-identify as men, regardless of the sex assigned to them at birth, to be considered for admission in the nations only historically black school for men, the Atlanta college, which also describes itself as Americas largest liberal arts institution for men, said Saturday in a release. The announcement explained that the decision was made to implement the new policy, which will begin for the Fall of 2020 class, after 15 months of community engagement with faculty, staff, students, and alumni through a task force created by the president of Morehouse College, Dr. David A. Thomas. We found that when our admission representatives were going out, oftentimes people would ask them, Does Morehouse admit transgender people? David A. Thomas, the president of the college told The New York Times on Sunday. Terrance Dixon, vice president for enrollment management at Morehouse, further explained the thinking behind the decision. In a rapidly changing world that includes a better understanding of gender identity, were proud to expand our admissions policy to consider trans men who want to be part of an institution that has produced some of the greatest leaders in social justice, politics, business, and the arts for more than 150 years, Dixon said in the statement released by the school. The ratification of this policy affirms the Colleges commitment to develop men with disciplined minds who will lead lives of leadership and service. Morehouse officials further noted that to continue at the school every student must self-identify as a man. If a student transitions from a man to a woman, that student will no longer be eligible to matriculate at Morehouse. Exemptions from this rule may be granted by a three-person committee appointed by the President after a written appeal is submitted by the student. In the event that the impacted student disagrees with the decision of the committee, the student may make a final appeal to the President of Morehouse, the college said. Morehouse student Marquintas Oldham, 21, who identifies as queer, non-binary and who prefers to use the pronouns they and their, told the New York Times that the schools new policy is erasing their existence. Who I am on this campus, they are trying to kind of like remove me from self-identifying myself, Oldham, who identified as male when he first started at the school, said. They said in their policy that they are going to still use male-gendered language and that affects me. Sometimes I do dress as a feminine, non-binary person, so when I dress the way I want to dress and its a problem, that affects me. Oldham, who is set to graduate in 2021, transitioned while he was enrolled. I knew I was part of the queer community, I knew I was gay, but I got here to Morehouse and this was different for me. I decided to just live. On Sunday, an association of LGBT Morehouse alumni called the new policy, anti trans. This is an anti-trans policy to enforce conformity to masculinist gender norms under the guise of trans acceptance. Anyone who goes to Morehouse will risk being de- enrolled if they eventually identify as a trans woman / femme or bend gender anywhere on the femme spectrum, the group said on Twitter. Rashad Raymond Moore, 29, who graduated from Morehouse in 2012, told The New York Times that keeping the college all male was a big part of the schools history. Making the decision to include transgender men, said Moore, will change the schools moral fiber. It is the only black institution in the United States that is dedicated to the intellectual and moral formation of black men and to allow trans women to enroll or matriculate or graduate from Morehouse would change the moral fiber of the institution completely, he said. American missionary in Paraguay gunned down in home by suspected robber Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment An American Christian missionary in Paraguay was killed in his own home last week by a suspected robber after serving as a missionary for over 25 years, according to his sponsoring agency. Ethnos360, founded in 1942 as New Tribes Mission, announced on Friday that it lost one of its own, 50-year-old Wayne Goddard. Goddard served the people in Paraguay for over two decades before he was gunned down during an apparent robbery attempt. According to Ethnos360, Goddard was assaulted by armed men while serving the Ava Guarani and Pai Tavytera tribes. Goddard served as a cross-cultural worker for Ethnos360, which operates in various countries around the world to help local churches train and send missionaries to reach the unreached people groups in their regions. Goddard worked hands-on with the mission agencys partner Mision a Nuevas Tribus en el Paraguay since 1994. He is survived by his brother and father. As news of his death has reached the world, its our desire to recognize the sacrifice Wayne made as he followed our Lord in willing service, an Ethnos360 Facebook post reads. Please join us in prayer for his family and the people he served and loved in Paraguay. According to Goddards family, he was killed last Tuesday. Ethnos360 didnt make the announcement until days later to give his family days to grieve in silence. In a family blog post, Goddards cousin, Mike Goddard, explained that Goddard grew up in Paraguay and was a third-generation missionary. Goddards memorial was on Sunday in Asuncion. He was a faithful man of God and will be dearly missed, the blog post reads. We are very thankful for the precious memories that we have with him as well as the time this past Christmas holiday, where Wayne participated and we could also celebrate his 50th birthday. We know that he is with our Savior, which has strengthened our hearts and has given us courage to continue moving forward. As reported by Evangelical Focus, Goddard was wounded by gunshots in his home in the indigenous colony of Mboijagua, which is about 12 miles from the Paraguayan Villa Ygatimi district. He was taken to a nearby hospital where he died. An investigation on Goddards death was opened and a search was put on for the killer. Officer Sergio Servian told Evangelical Focus that Goddards house was located thousands of meters away from the last available dirt road in a location that was hidden and dark. The Paraguay-based newspaper Ultima Hora reports that police have taken one suspect, who is believed to be the man who killed Goddard, into custody. The suspect is 42-year-old Atanacio Godoy Fernandez. The newspaper also notes that it is believed that as many as five people entered Goddards home Tuesday night with the express purpose of robbery. Franklin Graham, others call for prayers for Sudan following overthrow of gov't Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The Rev. Franklin Graham and other Christian leaders are urging supporters to pray about the current political crisis in the African nation of Sudan. The head of the charity group Samaritans Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association took to his official Facebook page last Friday to comment on the developments. Graham spoke about twice meeting with newly deposed Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir. The first of the meetings involved asking the dictator to stop bombing our Samaritan's Purse hospital in the south during the war, which he did. Tens of thousands of people died under his reign. Pray for the people of this war-plagued nationand the churches there, wrote Graham. It is my prayer that God will give them a new leader who is not associated with this former regime and who will lead Sudan to peace, safety, and prosperity for the people. Last Thursday, President al-Bashir, who had ruled Sudan as a dictator since 1989 and was charged with committing genocide in the Darfur region during the nation's decades-long civil war, was overthrown following months of protests. Amnesty International Secretary General Kumi Naidoo released a statement last Thursday celebrating the news of the removal of al-Bashir, saying that it should serve as a wake-up call to leaders around the world who think they can get away with denying people their basic rights. However, Naidoo also expressed concern over the series of emergency measures announced by the military following al-Bashirs removal from power. Sudans military authorities should ensure that emergency laws are not used to undermine peoples rights. Instead, they must now consign to history the assault on human rights that marked al-Bashirs 30 years in power, stated Naidoo. The transitional authorities must take all necessary measures to facilitate a peaceful transfer of power in Sudan. That means respecting the rights to freedom of expression and assembly, and ultimately ending an era of bloodshed and oppression in the country. An Islamic government, the al-Bashir regime was known for its intolerance toward religious minorities, including Christians. In a 2014 interview with The Christian Post, Sudanese lawyer Nahmia Shaloka, who was forced to flee the country due to persecution, explained that al-Bashir wanted Sudan to be "purely Islamic" and "governed by Sharia law." Open Doors USA, a Christian persecution watchdog group, recently ranked Sudan No. 6 on its World Watch List of worst persecutors of Christians. In response to the news that al-Bashir had been overthrown, Open Doors stated that the Christian community in Sudan is waiting and watching along with the rest of the world. While Bashir was no doubt a dictator likely guilty of terrible crimes, there is no assurance that his replacement will be any better, said the group. Open Doors has heard from church leaders in Sudan who are right now asking you to pray with them and for Sudan. They ask us to Pray the next leaders of Sudan will commit to allowing Christians and other religious minorities the ability to live out their faith freely. Joni Eareckson Tada used hospital stay to share Gospel Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Evangelical speaker and author Joni Eareckson Tada has shared a health update and revealed how she used a recent two-week hospital stint to share the Gospel with a number of nurses, respiratory therapists, and doctors. On the Joni and Friends website, Tada shared how, on March 27, her husband Ken rushed her to the ER as she could barely draw a breath and had chest pain. The preliminary diagnosis was at first gloomy, but over time the assessment was much brighter, she said. Basically, over the many years, my chronic quadriplegia has put a strain on my heart and lungs. The good news is, doctors believe that with medication and with a more efficient way of breathing, my condition can be reversed. During her 14 days of hospitalization Tada said her assignment was straight out of Acts 20:24, But life is worth nothing unless I use it for doing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus the work of telling others the Good News about Gods almighty kindness and love. When nurses and aides, respiratory therapists, and doctors asked how I was doing, I could say, Jesus gives me His peace. Its not as the world gives, so my hearts not troubled and Im not afraid, she recalled. Then, they usually got a pep-talk from Ken Tada, a Joni book and a Joni and Friends newsletter. Tada, a well-known advocate for those with disabilities, shared a photo of an IV drip attached to her arm alongside a copy of her 1976 book Joni. Yes, the photo is a little jarring, but thats life, she wrote. And Im not shy to say that when life is hard (and we see it all the time at Joni and Friends), God is so very good but we only discover how good when we get about his Acts 20:24 mission no matter where he places us. Even if its in a hospital for 2 weeks. She concluded: Thank you for your prayers; I am now resting on the residual intercessions still reverberating before Gods Throne! Many, many blessings (and a special blessing on all you who sent texts and emails, notes, and posted on Facebook I appreciated every encouragement)! Tada, who recently completed of a series of radiation treatments for a recurrence of cancer, was discharged from the hospital on April 9. In a Facebook update posted just two days later, Tada shared a photo of herself and her husband smiling in a field of flowers. Since we missed going on vacation during my hospital stay, Ken decided to treat me to a quick trip to the high desert to see the last of the California poppy bloom, she captioned the photo. Brisk wind, cold temps, but warm hearts filled with thanksgiving to God! Tada was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer eight years ago. After undergoing a mastectomy and chemotherapy treatment, she was declared cancer-free. In November, she underwent tests on a small nodule that had developed over the site of her mastectomy. After biopsies, doctors discovered a small cancerous tumor within the nodule. In an interview conducted shortly after Tada announced her cancer had returned, the popular speaker and author was asked if she was ready for Heaven. Yeah, she said in response. I think any Christian should be ready at any time. Of course, like Paul, Im torn. I dont want to face the rigors of radiation on a quadriplegic body, she continued. And I have to postpone pursuing options to address my chronic pain during chemotherapy. Its going to be a lot of discomfort in the next few months. Im a little torn like the Apostle Paul, but I would love to be free of the suffering and affliction. Tada explained that while she would love to be in Heaven, she believes its more needful for Christ that she remains on earth, as there are millions of people with disabilities who dont know Jesus. And thats why I show up at work every single day at Joni and Friends, she said. It breaks my heart to think the suffering a person in a wheelchair is going through is only an omen of even greater suffering to come if he doesnt know Christ. In addition to founding Joni and Friends in 1979, Tada has also served as a senior associate for disability concerns for the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, an adviser to the American Leprosy Mission, and the National Institute on Learning Disabilities. Mike Huckabee responds to 'hateful bigot' accusations: 'I refuse to deny God's law' Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Despite being dubbed a hateful bigot and mean-spirited conservative by left-leaning websites, Mike Huckabee has said he will not apologize for identifying the redefining of gender and sexual identity as the greatest threat to the moral fiber of America. On Saturday, Huckabee took a moment on his TV political commentary program on TBN to address the backlash he experienced following an interview with The Christian Post. I need to warn you that according to some recent news articles, you are watching a show hosted by a hateful bigot, Huckabee told the audience. And that was about the nicest thing that was said about me. The host of Huckabee explained that during his interview with CP, he was asked to identify what he believes is the biggest threat facing culture. So I replied that I thought it was the abandonment of the biblical standards of family, the view that there is no such thing as maleness or femaleness anymore, and that marriage doesn't really matter, that divorce is no big deal and that any form of marriage is equally valid, not just between a male and a female, he said. I also said that it's that fathers don't seem to be that important to the development of a child, that gender is fluid, and that we can just choose a gender based on how we feel rather than how we were created, and that the Bible is some old book that no longer represents our changing culture, he continued. The former Southern Baptist pastor said that since CPs article went live, virtually every left-wing publication in the country has blasted him for homophoboic and anti-LGBTQ hate, including Huffington Post, Right Wing Watch, Pink News and others. But Huckabee pointed out that he never specifically mentioned the LGBT community in his interview: My main point was that the reason for so much cultural confusion and moral decadence was the Christian Church. Too many modern churches have decided to preach a Gospel that just doesn't offend anyone by basically saying, Just do whatever you feel about. And so we have ignored, or maybe dismissed, biblical standards so that we can be modern, relevant, in touch, hip and relatable. The host of the No. 1 program on TBN clarified that while he doesnt believe God wants His people to be obnoxious, judgmental, hateful, our self righteous, Christians must challenge our culture to tune itself to God's truth rather than demand that God tune Himself to my truth and our culture. Before playing an instrument, every musician must tune their instrument to a fixed, absolute note on the musical scale or chaos and noise will result, he explained. I want to be very clear. I don't hate anybody, I really don't, he said. But I refuse to ignore or deny God's law or natural law, and if I fail to tune my life to those standards, how can I hope to make music of my life? When every instrument in the band plays according to its own standard of tuning, the result [is] chaos and noise. The instruments are not the same in tone or volume or sound, but they do join together to make music only if they agree on the tuning device. Huckabee said that while all people are free to live how they desire, they are not free to tune their lives to what they think, feel, and believe instead of a standard that God has created. Otherwise you'll end up with a result that is anything but beautiful, he said. Now, if that makes me a hateful bigot, then it's because those who labeled me that are tuned to a different standard. So with no apology, I'll do my best to tune my life and beliefs to God's unchanging standard rather than to ask Him if He could rewrite the Bible and tune His standards to me, he concluded. In his interview with CP, Huckabee argued that the gender dysphoria we're seeing today is largely due to the fact that the Church has failed to present very clearly the words of Jesus and Genesis 5:2: Male and female He created them. Huckabee pointed out that society today celebrates single parenting and posits the idea that fathers really arent necessary when it comes to raising children. There are some people who are in single parenthood, not because they want to be, but because they were forced to be. And we ought to give [them] all the support, he clarified. But we should never pretend that it is as good as a loving mother and father in a home where a child sees both genders play out their norms because that's the modeling of behavior that would be ideal for a child to grow up in. The Church, he contended, needs to clearly present a biblical view of gender and identity even though its not considered politically correct. People are afraid that if they are really biblical, it will alienate people and I think that's nonsense, he said. Yes, it will alienate some people who are more interested in preserving the lifestyle they have chosen than a lifestyle that will be practical and will work. But it will also be a lifesaver for the people who are really looking for genuine truth. Watch Huckabee's comments below. Most religious groups becoming more Republican, data show Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Most religious groups in the United States, including mainline Protestant denominations like the United Methodist Church, have become more Republican since 2008, according to a political science researcher. Ryan Burge of Eastern Illinois University analyzed data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, between 2008 and 2018, using two-year intervals. He looked at 34 different religious groups in the United States who had at least 100 respondents in the biannual survey. In an analysis published last week by Religion in Public, Burge found that of the 34 faith traditions charted, 27 of them leaned more Republican in 2018 than they did in 2008. Only seven became more Democrat. Burge noted that the average shift for all of the groups from 2008 to 2018 was +0.13 on the scale, with a positive change associated with becoming more Republican while a negative change meant becoming more Democrat. Among surveyed religious groups, major shifts rightward included Independent Baptist at 0.69, American Baptist Churches in USA at 0.43, Other Pentecostal Church at 0.72, and Eastern or Greek Orthodox at 0.61. The United Methodist Church, which has in recent months endured a divisive debate over LGBT issues, shifted rightward by 0.34 from 2008 to 2018, according to the report. Rightward shifts were also documented for non-Christian traditions like Buddhists (0.29), Agnostics (0.14), and Jewish (0.1). The religious category that went the most leftward during the time period were respondents who identified as Mormon, with an overall shift of -0.31. Other groups that leaned more Democrat in 2018 than in 2008 included atheists (-0.28), nondenominational Fundamentalist (-0.23), and other (-0.16). Taken together," Burge concluded, "this evidence strikes a blow to the argument that there is polarization among Protestant Christian traditions. Looked at here, the overwhelming narrative is that Protestants are more and more Republican every two years. ... American religion is becoming more and more synonymous with the Republican Party while those who have no religious affiliation tend to be the (weak) base for the Democrats. If one wants to be an active Christian but disagrees with Republican politics, where do they go? Despite the fact that most Democrats do currently claim a religious affiliation, it seems that the places of refuge are dwindling every year. Burges analysis of a rightward shift in most religious groups comes as many candidates in the crowded Democratic presidential primary field address faith issues. Emma Green of the Atlantic noted in a story published earlier this month that Faith has come up often in the 2020 Democratic race so far. In her campaign-kickoff speech, Senator Kamala Harris of California nodded to the faith of abolitionist and civil-rights leaders, arguing that to love the religion of Jesus is to hate the religion of the slave master, wrote Green. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts referred to the Book of Matthew in a CNN town-hall interview in mid-March while talking about the importance of fighting poverty. At a similar CNN event, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey told potential voters that Christ is the center of my life, and quoted Jewish teachings in Hebrew. Democrat candidate and openly gay South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg garnered attention for recent comments in which he argued that entering a same-sex marriage strengthened his Christian faith. My marriage to Chasten has made me a better man and yes, Mr. Vice President, it has moved me closer to God, stated Buttigieg at an LGBT Victory Fund event, as reported by USA Today. And that's the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand, that if you've got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator. In response, conservative commentator Erick Erickson argued that Buttigiegs comments against Pence and others against President Donald Trump showed why progressive Christianity is so corrupt and flawed. As much as Buttigieg makes a valid critique on the presidents behavior and evangelicals' excusing that behavior, Buttigieg wants to reject the inconvenient parts of faith he does not like, wrote Erickson earlier this month. Buttigieg wants to use the social obligations as Christians against the president, but wants to avoid any implication on the personal obligations of Christians in terms of clear biblical sexual ethics and how we are to live our lives applying our faith even for the least of these. 'Roe v. Wade' director Nick Loeb shares pro-life conversion, says he dreams of 2 aborted babies Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment ANAHEIM, California Actor Nick Loeb, director of the upcoming film "Roe v. Wade," revealed why he went from being a pro-choice advocate who supported two abortions in past relationships to a vocal defender of the unborn. I grew up in the '80s and early '90s, and I was taught that when I woman gets pregnant, its just a bunch of cells; theres no life there, its not a baby until it can kick, Loeb recalled in an interview with The Christian Post where he admitted to sometimes dreaming of the unborn children he fathered. So I had no problem with a woman doing whatever she wanted to do with her own body. I thought, science tells you theres no life there, so why not terminate it if thats what you want to do? The actor said that in his 20s, he supported two different girlfriends who decided to terminate their pregnancies. But as the years passed, he began to dream of the children who had been so easily discarded. As I got older, into my late 20s and early 30s, I started to have dreams of the children that had been aborted. I saw them at the ages they wouldve been at that time, he said. That prompted me to begin looking more into the issue, researching and educating myself. But Loeb said he wasnt yet truly pro-life and adopted the mantra, I am pro-life for me, but it's OK for you to be pro-choice and make your own decisions. That changed when a friend began challenging him on his beliefs. My friend said, Do you think its OK to rob banks? I said, No, of course not. He said, But its OK for other people to rob banks? I said, No. He said, Then why is abortion not OK for you, but its OK for other people? The actor said he then decided abortion was only acceptable in cases of rape until he was in a car accident nine years ago that led to permanent Sciatica, an excruciating nerve pain running down the length of his leg. Im not going to compare it to rape; rape is a horrible thing that women go through, he clarified, but Ill live with this pain my entire life, its a horrible thing, a bad thing that happened to me. But I cant just get rid of it and kill it and its not even a life. So yes, bad things happen to women, bad things happen to people all the time, but why are we going to punish another life or something that happened to you? Yes, youll go through nine months of trauma because youll have to carry it, he said. But its not as bad as the lifetime of trauma youll have when you abort it. So you weigh that out as well. And if you dont want to live with that child after, there are millions of people who want to adopt your baby. So to me, I really wasn't pro-life although I labeled myself that, he continued. People arent pro-life until theyre really for life, under any circumstances, no matter what, no excuses, no exceptions. Starring Jon Voight, Robert Davi, Corbin Bernsen, John Schneider and Stacey Dash, Roe v. Wade tells the true story of how Norma McCorvey, commonly known as Jane Roe, was persuaded by lies and manipulation to sue the government for the right to have an abortion, according to the film synopsis. The script, co-written by Loeb, was developed from actual court records to share the truth behind the case that has allowed the killing of more than 60 million children in the United States. The film will be released in theaters nationwide in the fall of 2019. Loeb told CP that many people are pro-choice because Hollywood has glamorized abortion and reinforced the myth that life doesnt begin at conception. He pointed out that while the pro-life camp does an excellent job with fundraisers, galas and other events, it has done a poor job of tackling pop culture. He explained: Planned Parenthood has been incredible with getting celebrities on board. The Kardashians did an entire episode where Planned Parenthood spent $30 million bringing them to a clinic, showing about wellness and talking about their services. They've been great at getting their theme into movies and pop culture today." Pop culture, Loeb said, is what drives social change, adding, "We have a president that got elected because of pop culture, right? You want to affect change in America today, you have to go to pop culture; you have to spend the money, he said. The film has already experienced pushback. During an interview with Fox News last March, Loeb revealed that Facebook had blocked their efforts to promote the film. In another interview, he said that some actors even walked off the set and quit after finding out it would have a pro-life perspective. Still, Loeb told CP hes optimistic and hopes the film leads to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and educates the public on the devastating reality of abortion. I think things are changing today with the advent of technology and being able to see the baby's heartbeat within the first three weeks, Loeb said. Even millennials today and kids out of college are trending more toward life and toward the social conservative side of the life issue. I think so much of it is lack of education because I can't really think that anyone is that evil to think it's OK to kill a child. We really need a movie to educate. We want to show that life begins at conception, period, he added. This movie is so important because people believe what they see, and we want to change hearts and minds. To help support the movie or for more information, visit "Roe v. Wade" movie.com. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The Trump Administration has been a stalwart defender of Americans religious liberty. From repealing the HHS mandate, to protecting religious rights in the workplace, and especially the appointment of justices and judges who respect the First Amendment, the more that was promised by the President after that initial executive order has been delivered. However, the Administrations actions concerning religious freedom outside the United States is not as impressive as its talk. Last summers Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom featured spellbinding rhetoric delivered by a Whos Who of people whove devoted their lives to the cause of religious freedom. The ministerial culminated in a statement called the Potomac Declaration, which stated, among other things, that Religious freedom is universal and inalienable, and states must respect and protect this human right. Remember the scene in the movie Braveheart, in which Mel Gibsons William Wallace delivers a barn burner of a speech to Scottish forces, whereupon Stephen, his Irish lieutenant, asks, Fine speech. Now what? While Wallace had an answer for Stephen, unfortunately the same cannot be said of the current administration, as WORLD magazine recently reported. Under [the Trump] administration, WORLD told its readers, refugee admissions have plunged to historic lows, with persecuted Christians in the Middle East suffering from the fallout. Just how low? The number of Middle East Christians admitted into the United States in 2018 fell by a staggering 98 percent from 2016. Christians from countries that Open Doors ranked highest for religious persecution saw a 76 percent decline from 2016 to 2018. So far, the downward trend is continuing in 2019. In the first months of this year, 30 Iranian Christians, 25 Iraqi Christians, and zero Syrian Christian refugees had been admitted to the United States. As the saying goes, these low numbers arent a bug of the system, theyre a feature. According to one former administration official, the architect of White House immigration policy, Stephen Miller, once said that he would be happy if not a single refugee foot ever again touched American soil. Whatever you make of the truthfulness of that story, the truth of the refugee story remains: Unless the U.S. is willing to admit persecuted religious minorities as refugees, the Potomac Declaration, as well as all those great speeches by those amazing leaders at the Ministerial are nothing but empty noise. Think about it: The countries represented at the Ministerial didnt need to be admonished not to persecute religious minorities. The Potomac Declaration wasnt directed at them. It was directed at Iraq, where the dire situation facing Christians is at least partly due to our invading and destabilizing the country. It was directed at Iran, Pakistan, and Syria and other countries on Open Doors list. Unfortunately, these are the least likely places to take the Potomac Declaration to heart, which leaves us with the question, Now what? At least part of the answer has to be for the United States to admit people fleeing religious persecution as refugees. Otherwise were sending a clear message to their persecutors that we dont mean what we say about religious freedom. As WORLD says, this administration runs the risk of growing disillusionment among Christians for whom their persecuted brethren is a key concern. Christians have enjoyed nearly-unprecedented access to the White House, to administration officials and many of the promises made to us have been kept. Unfortunately, the promise to aid persecuted Christians around the world has not been kept. We see our persecuted brothers and sisters caught up in the middle of what is a very necessary larger debate over immigration. The administration could both secure the border and help refugees under religious persecution. And if it did, it would be a huge political win. But even more important, with each year setting new records for religious persecution and martyrs around the world, its the right thing to do. Resources Left behind, Harvest Prude | WORLD | March 28, 2019 Religious liberty report card: The Trump administration's first year, Travis Weber | Family Research Council | January 12, 2018 Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom Potomac Declaration Share, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor | U. S. Department of State | July 26, 2018 Originally posted at Breakpoint. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment (JNS) Imagine if there was a member of Congress who openly supported an anti-Semitic movement, issued multiple statements promoting traditional themes of Jew-hatred and then gave a speech at a fundraiser for an organization founded as a front group for terrorists in which the 9/11 attacks were described as merely as some people did something. And then imagine if the person who did all these things was embraced as a heroine and, more importantly, a victim of hate. Thats the enviable position that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) finds herself in after doing all of the above in the space of just the three months since she was sworn in as a new member of Congress in January. Her latest surge of publicity involved a speech she gave for the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the pushback about her 9/11 comments, whereby many Democrats embraced her as the victim of a hate crime because The New York Post published a cover reminding her about the horror that something entailed. Omar has received death threats in recent months, and there is no excuse for that. No one should be threatened with hate or death for expressing their views, even when they are hateful as some of Omars have been. But what demands our attention here is not the contents of her CAIR speech or even the Post cover with its depiction of the iconic photograph of the World Trade Center towers in flames, but rather a curious process by which a person who has made a name for herself largely on the strength of anti-Semitic incitement has been transformed into a victim. In doing so, those who have rallied to her defense have resurrected the myth of a post-9/11 backlash against Muslims. That has shifted the narrative of that trauma from one of an Islamist terror war against the West into one that focused on the victimization of Muslims. But the ability of Omar and her defenders to use it to effectively deflect charges of anti-Semitism and to essentially legitimize her as a public figure is something that ought to alarm everyone, no matter what your politics or religious beliefs. Omar, like her fellow controversial members of the Democrats freshman class, Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have gotten far more publicity than they probably deserve for their meager accomplishments so far. Still, the trio of radicals have not only mesmerized the media, but also proven to have considerably more influence over their party than most political observers would have thought. Nothing demonstrated their unexpected power more than the way that Omars alliesled by the ubiquitous AOCwere able to prevent the House of Representatives from condemning her after she slandered supporters of Israel and Jews by claiming that they were buying Congress (Its all about the Benjamins baby) and exhibiting dual loyalty. Omar refused to back down and found herself the object of much public sympathy for what supporters claimed was an attempt to single her out solely because she was black, Muslim and an immigrant. Omar emerged triumphant from that fiasco. If there was any doubt about that, it was removed by the way Democrats instinctively moved to protect her from criticisms of her 9/11 remarks, and instead condemned the Post and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) as racists for calling her out. In one sense, the kerfuffle is a typical inside-the-Beltway absurdity, with AOC asking Crenshawa decorated former Navy SEAL who lost an eye fighting in Afghanistanwhat he has ever done to fight terrorism. But this is more than just the usual political tit-for-tat on Twitter. In her speech to CAIR, Omar claimed that the group had been founded after 9/11 in order to defend Muslims against a backlash after the attacks. This is patently false. CAIR was founded in 1994 as a political front for the Holy Land Foundation, a group that raised funds for the Hamas terror group that was eventually shut down by the Treasury Department. Her support for CAIR is consistent with her backing for the anti-Semitic BDS movement. But the broader point to be made here is the way the effort to shift the discussion about 9/11 from a seminal moment in the long struggle against Islamist terror to a mere excuse to discriminate against Muslims is now being used to downplay Omars anti-Semitism. The debate about this mythical backlash has been going on for a decade, especially during the controversy over an abortive attempt to build an Islamic center within the shadow of the fallen World Trade Center towers. At that time, I wrote in Commentary magazine about the way false fears were being used to make Muslims appear to be the true victims of the slaughter. The mainstream media had accepted as truth the claims that Muslims had been the subjects of a wave of discrimination after 9/11, even though there was no objective proof to back up that assertion. To the contrary, the U.S. government, the mass media and American popular culture had bent over backwards to avoid stigmatizing Muslims. As FBI hate-crime statistics in the years after 2001 showed, there had been no discernable evidence of a backlash of hate. During those years and the following decade since the World Trade Center mosque debate, statistics consistently showed that Jews remained the prime focus of religious hate in this country with anti-Semitic attacks or incidents of any kind far outnumbering those against Muslims. While all forms of bias are despicable, the backlash narrative was, as I noted in 2010, a successful effort to redirect, redefine and rewrite the unambiguous meaning of an unambiguous event in order to defame the United States. But its now being weaponized again to portray an unapologetic anti-Semite like Omar as a victim. The point of this campaign is to protect her and all others who seek to delegitimize Jews and supporters of Israel with an impenetrable cloak of immunity that belongs to victims. Decent personsJewish and non-Jewish, Republican or Democratcannot allow this big lie to stand unopposed. Originally published at JNS. Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNSJewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin. Challenged by the Beatitudes: can we live like Jesus whatever the cost? It's a sunny afternoon, and I'm walking along the South Bank trying to make eye contact with people I pass, which is a bit awkward if I'm honest. This is Central London and we do not look strangers in the eye. All of this is largely the fault of my San Franciscan friend, Mark Scandrette. For a week, a group of us have committed to daily spending an hour in a busy location, noticing the people around us, making proper eye contact and (internally) speaking a blessing on them: "beloved child of God, may you be well." So far, so Californian. But there is a purpose to this. We're taking part in a "Learning Lab' a ten-week group experiment with the beatitudes. "Blessed are the merciful" said Jesus, "for they will be shown mercy" so we're working on how we judge, what instant decisions we make about people, and what it would be like to move through life looking at each other with eyes of compassion and mercy. An hour of eye contact may sound like a small thing, but as I've engaged in these practices in the beatitudes for the last couple of years, I've been radically challenged. The beatitudes are a piece of poetry, ancient wisdom, a subversion of the idea of what it is to be 'blessed' like the gods. But they're also a call to action at the same time poetic and intensely practical. As Paul Coelho puts it, "The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion." We who have learnt to think like ancient Greeks are all too easily distracted by the abstract. Faith is so quickly reduced to ideas and beliefs but Jesus was a 1st century Jew. He lived in a Hebraic culture that dealt in material and tangible terms. The invitation of the beatitudes is an invitation to a radically different way of living. An invitation to change the world by acting differently. In a world where the poor are blessed, we're invited to live simply, to share and to be grateful. To unclench our hands from the things we are holding on to in our scarcity, and practice generosity. In a world where meekness is blessed, we're challenged to stop striving and competing and comparing but to serve others instead. In a world where 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day, the beatitudes ask us hard questions about how our actions and our consumption add to the injustice that others experience daily. These are not easy paths to walk neither are they small and inconsequential choices. The beatitudes find purchase in our individual lives, but also in our corporate life, in our political and economic systems, in how we do business and what we consume and how we respond to difference and oppression everywhere. As Easter approaches, we are faced with the reality that the way Jesus lived and acted and loved ultimately cost him his life. The beatitudes call us to put into action the ideas that we have about peace-making and justice and doing good whatever the cost. This is not reserved for exceptional individuals or icons of change like Tubman, Gandhi, and King. It is the way that we all invited to, if we follow in the way of Jesus. Our 'Learning Lab' lasted just ten weeks but the challenge of practicing the way of Jesus lasts a lifetime. "Too often words are worthless and found cheap But others count for something, when they're spoken let them speak Hear these words spoken from an ancient mount Thunder clap, earth shatter, ground rumble hear the sound ... If these words become the catalyst of incarnation Liberation for our spiritual incarceration Then nine beats to the bar is the rhythm of regeneration Re-creation, in this generation." [9/8 Steve Bassett/Eric Leroy Wilson, NINE BEATS Collective] Less than half of British Christians believe Jesus died on the cross for their sins Only 46 per cent of British Christians believe Jesus died on the cross to save them from their sins, a new poll has found. The survey of 2,042 British adults was carried out by ComRes on behalf of the BBC and asked participants, 'To what extent, if at all, do you agree or disagree that Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected at Easter so that you can be forgiven for your sins?' Out of the respondents who identified as Christian, a quarter said they neither disagreed nor agreed, while 17 per cent of Christians said they did not agree. The results were released at the start of Holy Week, when millions of Christians around the world will be preparing to commemorate the cross and resurrection of Jesus over Easter weekend. The BBC also quizzed people on their views around forgiveness and whether there were some actions that were too awful to forgive. Respondents were asked to what extent, if at all, they would forgive someone who committed: murder, child abuse, sexual abuse, infidelity, verbal abuse, abuse on social media, lying, stealing, swearing and discrimination. People were the most prepared to overlook swearing, with 39 per cent of respondents saying there was no need to forgive this, while half said it was easy to forgive. At the other end of the spectrum was child abuse, with 85 per cent of all respondents deeming this impossible to forgive. Sexual abuse and murder were close behind at 79 per cent and 73 per cent respectively. The poll also revealed that only a minority regularly attend a religious service. Asked on average how often they attended a religious service, excluding marriages and funerals, nearly two-thirds (65 per cent) of all respondents answered 'never'. Major fire breaks out at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris Firefighters are on the scene at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris after a huge fire broke out in the landmark building on Monday afternoon. Video footage on social media showed a large fire ravaging the roof and spire as smoke billowed from the building in central Paris. The gothic cathedral dates back to the 1100s and is famous as the setting of the classic Victor Hugo novel, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. It is also one of the the city's most visited tourist attractions. France 2 television reports that police are treating the fire as an accident, Reuters news agency reports, but officials are yet to confirm the cause of the blaze. They said the area around the cathedral has been cleared as firefighters tackle the blaze. "A terrible fire is underway at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris," Mayor Anne Hidalgo said on Twitter. Extensive renovations were being carried out on the building, with scaffolding surrounding it in parts. The deputy mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Gregoire, says the cathedral has suffered "colossal damages" while a cathedral spokesman told the Guardian that the entire wooden interior was on fire and likely to be destroyed. Malcolm McLoughlin, Associate Pastor of Trinity International Church in Paris, told Christian Today he was "heartsick" at the devastation caused by the fire to such a beloved building. "We are heartsick at this terrible loss and are grieving with the people from Paris and around the world. Notre Dame Cathedral is iconic and deeply loved by the millions who visit it each year," he said. "We as followers of Jesus are praying for comfort for the grieving, strength for the firefighters, and wisdom for our leaders. May this catastrophe draw us closer to our Lord Jesus." Rowan Williams leads climate change vigil outside St Paul's Cathedral Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, led protesters over the weekend in praying for the world's leaders to take tougher action on climate change. The prayer vigil brought Christians together outside St Paul's Cathedral in London on Palm Sunday to mark the start of the Extinction Rebellion's week of peaceful climate protests. The vigil was organised by Christian Climate Action (CCA), a community of Christians committed to acts of public witness and non-violent direct action to challenge climate breakdown. In London, Extinction Rebellion campaigners will be blocking roads, hosting art installations and putting on protest performances. Dr Williams said CCA was responding to the scale of the environmental crisis facing the world. He said: "Christians are called by God to show to the world what the divine image looks like - the image of a divine creator who brought the world to birth, called it good, and summoned human beings to reflect this divine care and delight through their own work in the world, animated by the gift of Christ's Spirit. "Christian Climate Action seeks to respond to that summons; in the face of impending environmental crisis, we need to encourage one another to grow more fully into the joyful responsibility we are made for." Churches around London are supporting the Extinction Rebellion's week of action by opening up their facilities as accommodation for protesters. Others will ring their church bells 12 times to symbolise the warning from scientists that the world has just 12 years to avert a climate catastrophe by limiting global warming to 1.5C. In Marble Arch, in the heart of the capital, clergy will be taking part in environmental stations of the cross and foot-washing to support tired protesters. Holly-Anna Petersen, a member of CCA who attends St Luke's Church in North London, said that in spite of years of protests and petitions, she was "frustrated that decision-makers still aren't creating the change needed". "The desperation and suffering that climate change is causing around the world breaks my heart," she said. "People are fighting for their very survival. This is not okay, this is an emergency and must be treated like one. "In the UK, people hear the science of climate change and are scared for their children and grandchildren." She said, however, that her Christian faith gave her hope for the future. "My hope does not come from blindly repeating the same old strategies which have failed us," she said. "It comes from seeing ordinary people responding prayerfully to the challenge of climate breakdown - having the bravery to work through the anxieties that we each have and taking the action required." CCA member Fr Martin Newell, from Birmingham, said he was prepared to go to prison if it meant that more would be done to stem harmful climate change. "As Christians, we are called to do all we can to stand up against injustice and for our common home," he said. "I don't want to be arrested or go to prison, but if that is what it means to be faithful in the face of climate breakdown then I am willing do so, just as Jesus did after he turned over the tables in the temple. "We know Christians are called to a sacrificial faith and that we are each called to do all that we can." He added that more needed to be done at the government level to address climate change. "Changing our light bulbs is not going to cut it. We need dramatic changes in government policy if we stand any chance of saving God's beautiful creation and the humanity that He loves," he said. "Non-violent direct action is a strategy that can bring the political earthquake that is needed, and so like many faithful Christians before me, this is my response." Masterworks from the estate of Lila and Herman Shickman Two rare Spanish still life highlights from the collection of the late New York art dealer and his wife, which are touring to Madrid, London, Los Angeles and Hong Kong The top lot being offered by Christies in May is Still Life with Flowers and Fruit by Juan van der Hamen y Leon. Painted in 1629, the work depicts a Venetian crystal vase of flowers emerging from the shadows surrounded by woven baskets of fruit and vegetables and metal platters of pears and figs and is one of the most important Spanish still-life works to remain in private hands. Van der Hamen was born in Madrid in 1596, and descended from a Flemish noble family. Like his father, he was a member of the Archers Guard, a corps whose members were all from the Netherlands and dedicated to the protection of the King of Spain. His paintings helped to establish an enduring tradition for the still-life genre in Spain that extended through the 17th and 18th centuries. Van der Hamen's Still Life with Flowers and Fruit, which was last sold in 1969, will carry an estimate of $6,000,000-9,000,000. It is thus poised not only to break a world auction record for the artist, but also to become the most expensive Spanish still life ever auctioned. Shickmans connoisseurship provided him with the foresight to collect masterworks ahead of market trends Ben Hall As a dealer and trusted advisor to top collectors and museums, Herman Shickmans connoisseurship provided him with the foresight to collect masterworks ahead of market trends, says Ben Hall, Chairman of Old Masters at Christies in New York. As a result, the Lila and Herman Shickman Collection is a veritable treasure trove offering unparalleled quality. Sign up today Christie's Online Magazine delivers our best features, videos, and auction news to your inbox every week Subscribe (Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said Monday that migrants caught crossing the southern border into the U.S. will be sent to so-called sanctuary cities if they can no longer be legally detained. Trump announced the policy shift on Twitter -- along with a demand that Congress must fix the laws and loopholes -- after earlier saying the policy shift was under consideration. Before the presidents tweet, three House committee chairmen demanded to see internal White House and Homeland Security communications related to Trumps plans for release of the migrants. "These reports are alarming," wrote Judiciarys Jerrold Nadler, Oversight and Reforms Elijah Cummings, and Homeland Securitys Bennie Thompson, in a letter Monday to acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan. CHILD DEPORTATION: Motion filed to re-open the case of 11-year-old who escaped gang violence in El Salvador The three Democrats wrote that they are believe the administration lacks the legal authority to transfer detainees in such a manner. They demanded the documents by May 3. The three pointed to multiple reports of plans to send the migrants to largely Democratic municipalities that prevent their police from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. It isnt clear how such a program would be carried out, including how the migrants would be kept from leaving those areas. BREAKING POINT: In El Paso, no quick fix to surge of migrant families On Friday, Trump tweeted, "Due to the fact that Democrats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws, we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only." Extensive Review Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, confirmed Sunday on ABCs "This Week" that the administration is "doing a full and thorough and extensive review." "The president likes the idea, and Democrats have said they want these individuals into their communities, so lets see if it works and everybody gets a win out of it," she said. COMMUNITY RALLIES: Fundraising effort launched for 11-year-old girl ordered deported without family In their letter Monday, Nadler, Cummings and Thompson said, "Not only does the administration lack the legal authority to transfer detainees in this manner, it is shocking that the president and senior administration officials are even considering manipulating release decisions for purely political reasons." Citing news reports, the three wrote that "the plan appears to have been specifically designed to target Democratic districts," and that it runs against Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy guidelines and legal advice. The chairmen demanded that the administration produce emails and other communications between the White House and Homeland Security officials "concerning such a transfer or release of immigration detainees to or in specific locations of the U.S." They also want all internal communications between Department of Homeland Security officials on the topic, as well as documents "discussing political and legal justifications of such a move." When a plan to move detainees to "sanctuary cities" was reported Thursday by the Washington Post, the White House and the Department of Homeland Security said the proposal had been rejected and was no longer under consideration. That changed when Trump issued his tweet on Friday. Trump has previously threatened to cut off federal funding for local governments that adopt policies protecting undocumented immigrants. Get the latest: Stay up to date on all variety of topics with HoustonChronicle.com newsletters To contact the reporter on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum, Laurie Asseo 2019 Bloomberg L.P. Fort Worth oil company TEP Barnett USA plans to go horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing inside two neighboring cities. The company is seeking permission from the Railroad Commission of Texas to obtain drilling permits for three projects inside Arlington and Grand Prairie city limits. Using an already-existing drilling pad off State Highway 360 and East Pioneer Parkway in East Arlington, the company plans to target the Newark East field of the Barnett Shale geological layer to a depth of 9,000 feet. Surrounded by homes, fast food restaurants, a trucking center, a credit union and a day care, TEP Barnett USA has previously used the pad to drill four wells within Arlington city limits. Permian Basin Houston oil company Independence Resources Management is going grunge for its first new wells in 2019. The company obtained drilling permits for six new horizontal wells on its Pearl Jam lease in Midland. Located off FM 1788 about 11 east of Midland, the wells target the Spraberry field to a depth of 11,000 feet. Eagle Ford Shale More Information Top 10 Drilling Permits by Company (Wednesday, April 4 through Tuesday, April 9) EOG Resources 23 Occidental Petroleum 14 Exxon Mobil 12 Encana 12 Laredo Petroleum 9 Anadarko Petroleum 8 Double Eagle Energy Holdings III LLC 7 Independence Resources Management 6 Cimarex Energy 6 Atoka Operating 6 Source: Railroad Commission of Texas See More Collapse Sanchez Energy is planning to drill three oil wells in a remote area of Webb County. The Houston company received drilling permits for horizontal wells on its Briscoe Chupadera Ranch lease off FM 1472 and Chupadera Ranch Road. The wells target the Briscoe Ranch field of the Eagle Ford geological layer to a depth of 7,000 feet. Haynesville Shale Tyler oil company Tanos Exploration is preparing to drill two horizontal wells in East Texas. The company is seeking permission to drill an oil well targeting the Carthage field of the Cotton Valley geological layer on a lease in Panola County to a depth of 9,622 feet. A gas well in neighboring Harrison County targets the Carthage field of the Haynesville Shale down to a depth of 11,280 feet. Barnett Shale Houston oil company Lime Rock Resources is getting ready to drill on leases it bought from ConocoPhillips subsidiary Burlington Resources last year. Lime Rock is seeking permission to drill two horizontal wells on its Rock Ranch McDougal Unit lease in Wise County. The gas wells target the Newark East field of the Barnett Shale geological layer to a depth of 8,500 feet. Conventionals Sunoco Pipeline is preparing to drill five vertical wells that will be used to install equipment to prevent corrosion of pipelines in West Central Texas. The company filed for drilling permits to develop five cathodic protection wells to support crude oil pipeline projects in Brown, Callahan, Runnels, Stephens and Taylor counties. Oilfield wastewater disposal volumes are expected to double in the Permian Basin within the next two to three years, a new analysis from global energy intelligence firm Wood Mackenzie shows. As drilling activity continues to expand in the arid region between West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, hydraulic fracturing has resulted in growing challenges in sourcing water and what to do with wastewater from completed wells. Wastewater disposal costs can account for a third of total lease operating expenses in the Permian Basin, Wood Mackenzie Director of Upstream Consulting Matthias Bloennigen said in a statement. "Even with 100 percent water reuse for further completions, which is unlikely, the current saltwater disposal infrastructure is expected to hit capacity in the near future," Bloennigen said. "As Permian operators continue to focus on boosting production output, they will need to develop and refine their water strategies." SERVICE SECTOR: Drillinginfo, B3 Insight complete Permian Basin water study While exploration and production companies scramble to avoid bottlenecks and well shut-ins, water midstream companies are providing various solutions as the water management challenges grow. More than a dozen water-related infrastructure deals have taken place in the Permian over the last three years, and the pace of transactions is expected to pick up considerably in 2019. "We've seen a lot of interest from private equity, as there's still a huge need for water infrastructure," Bloennigen said. "But it's important that people understand the factors at play in the Permian before they invest." FUEL FIX: Get daily energy news headlines in your inbox With more than 460 drilling rigs in operation in the Permian Basin, the arid region accounts for nearly half of the exploration and production activity in the United States. Some 246 operators have filed more than 2,400 drilling permits for projects on the Texas side of the Permian Basin, accounting for nearly two-third of drilling permits in the Lone Star State, Railroad Commission of Texas show. 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. Andrew Harrer WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a power industry trade group's petition to challenge New York state's plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the subsidization of nuclear power plants. The Electric Power Supply Association claimed in a lawsuit that the New York Public Service Commission had violated federal law requiring power rates be "just and reasonable" when they elected to award $7 billion in rate increases through their zero emissions credit program. DALLAS (AP) Police in Dallas have arrested a 29-year-old man in the brutal beating of a transgender woman in an attack that was caught on cellphone video. Dallas police say Edward Thomas was arrested at about 9:30 p.m. Sunday "for his role" in the attack. He was jailed on suspicion of aggravated assault, and records don't list an attorney who could speak on his behalf. Holocaust Museum Houston will host New York Times bestselling author Heather Morris for a free public lecture and book signing on April 24 from 7:30 to 9 p.m. at the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center. Morris award-winning novel, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, is a powerful portrait of courage, sacrifice and compassion. The Tattooist of Auschwitz is based on the experiences of Slovakian Jew Lale Sokolov, who was transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1942. His fluency in multiple languages earned him a promotion from hard labor to the job of Tatowierer, the inmate responsible for tattooing a string of numbers on the arm of each new arrival. While on duty, he calms a petrified young woman about to react unwisely under his needle - and quickly begins to fall in love with Gita, prisoner 34902. I tattooed her number on her left hand, Sokolov recalled in an interview with Morris, and she tattooed her number in my heart. This event is co-sponsored by and will take place at the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center at 5601 S. Braeswood Blvd., Houston, TX 77096. Books will be available for purchase for a book signing after the lecture. Admission is free, but seating is limited and advance registration is required. To RSVP online, visit hmh.org. Holocaust Museum Houston is temporarily located one mile south of NRG Stadium at 9220 Kirby Drive, Suite 100, Houston, TX 77054. Museum hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Museum admission is $12 for adults; $8 for active-duty military and AARP members; free for children, students and college-level students with valid ID; and free on Sundays. For more information, visit hmh.org or call 713-942-8000. April 6 An Officer was dispatched to the 7000 block of Southbound in reference to a subject with an outstanding warrant with the West University Place Police Department. An Officer arrived and placed the subject into custody without incident. An Officer observed a vehicle traveling 58 mph in a 30 mph zone in the 5700 block of Buffalo Speedway. The Officer also observed the black sedan disregard a red light in the 5300 block of Buffalo Speedway. A traffic stop was initiated and upon further investigation, the driver of the motor vehicle was placed in custody for the criminal offense of Driving While Intoxicated. An officer was dispatched to the Harris County Jail facility to pick up a male subject who had an open warrant out of the City of West University Place Police Department. Upon arrival the officer took care and custody of the subject who was transported to the West University Place Police Department Jail without incident. An Officer was dispatched to the 5300 block of Kirby in response to a commercial burglary that had already occurred. At 12:39 p.m., a police officer was dispatched to the West U PD Lobby in reference to a found property call. At 3:09 p.m., a police officer was dispatched to the 6400 block of Westchester, in reference to a Burglary of a Motor Vehicle, which had already occurred. An officer observed a vehicle traveling westbound in the 4200 block of Bissonnet with an expired registration. A traffic stop was conducted and after further investigation, the driver was found to be in possession of marijuana. The driver was eligible to participate in the Misdemeanor Marijuana Diversion Program and was released from the scene. April 8 An officer was dispatched to the 3100 block of Lafayette in regards to a theft that already occurred. At 4:04 p.m., officers were dispatched to the 4000 block of Browning in reference to suspicious activity. The reportee said three suspects were smoking marijuana in their vehicle. Officers arrived on location and the marijuana was confiscated for destruction purposes. An officer was dispatched to the West U PD Lobby in regards to a theft that had already occurred. An officer was dispatched to the Harris County Sheriffs Office Jail to pick up an individual with outstanding warrants through the City of West University Municipal Court. The individual (Charles King) was taken into custody and transported without incident. April 9 An officer was dispatched to a residence to talk to a victim about a case of identity theft that had already occurred. At 2:46 p.m., an officer was dispatched to the 6300 block of Mercer in regards to a burglary of a motor vehicle that already occurred. An officer was dispatched to the 2800 block Quenby in reference to a burglary of a vehicle report that had already occurred. April 10 An officer observed a vehicle fail to signal lane change while traveling northbound in the 5500 block of Buffalo Speedway. A traffic stop was conducted and after further investigation, the driver (John Stevenson) was arrested for Driving While Intoxicated. An officer observed a vehicle traveling eastbound in the 2900 block of Lafayette with no visible registration sticker. A traffic stop was initiated and during the course of contact, the officer was able to detect an odor of marijuana emanating from within the vehicle. A vehicle search was conducted and narcotics were found. The passenger (Julian Martinez) was arrested for possession of a controlled substance. An Officer was dispatched to the West U PD Lobby in regards to a found Texas ID. A found property report was generated. An officer was dispatched to the intersection of the 3000 block of University and the 6300 block of Belmont in regards to a report of found property. The reportee advised that he found a debit card hanging on a fence. April 11 An Officer was dispatched to the West U PD Lobby to speak with a complainant who stated that their identity was stolen. A report for identity theft was generated. April 12 At 7:36 a.m., an officer was dispatched to the 6300 block of Rutgers in reference to a report of a theft. A glut of weekend festivities, including the Art Car Parade and the 'Game of Thrones' premiere, kept Houston party goers busy all weekend. Our party saga began Friday at the Hotel Alessandra in downtown Houston. An invite-only soiree was held to celebrate the hotel's two-year anniversary. Among the 500 attendees, a few celebrities were spotted, including former Texans star Chester Pitts and ABC 13's Miya Shay. Elsewhere, guests at the Art Car Ball brought out the quirky outfits ahead of Saturday's parade. Colorful wigs, revealing costumes and Internet memes brought to life helped add some glam to Hermann Square. Organizers also attracted some bands and artists, including DJ Fredster and Renegade Carnies. It wasn't all parties though. Saturday, hundreds tried to dance and kick their way into becoming a Houston Texans cheerleader at the Houston Methodist Training Center. Of those hundreds at the tryouts, only 33 will be selected for the 2019-20 season. Art lovers in the suburbs got their fix at The Woodlands Waterway Arts Festival. Around two hundred artists managed to show off their work, including a village-like installation with live music and Mexican foods. Despite some inclement weather, thousands managed to make their way to Allen Parkway for the annual Art Car Parade. A few umbrellas could be seen among the crowds, but the real spotlight was on the zany cars that took to the asphalt. You can get read more about the parade at HoustonChronicle.com. Sunday, the Japan Festival Houston at Hermann Park attracted quite a few Japanophiles. Attendees were spotted wearing kimonos, kabuto helmets and cosplay costumes. The two-day festival featured a traditional Japanese tea ceremony and other exhibitions. In Humble, thousands with a hankering for barbecue descended on the 7th annual Houston BBQ Festival. Thirty vendors cooked up a storm, including Pinkerton's Barbecue and Pappa Charlie's. Some of the pitmasters had set up shop the night before to smoke their meats. Finally, Houstonians readied themselves for the premiere of "Game of Thrones" final season. More than several watch parties took place around the city, and we happened to snap viewers at Montrose's Camerata at Paulie's. 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. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 15) Going home for the Holy Week? If you're heading to the ports anytime soon, then expect jampacked terminals and fully booked trips, the Philippine Coast Guard said Monday. Ships operating in the Manila port already listed fully-booked trips for the duration of the Holy Week, PCG spokesperson Armand Balilo told CNN Philippines' Balitaan. He advised travelers, who have yet to purchase tickets, not to push through as there's no certainty of booking a trip at this time. "Lahat ng barko rito ay fully booked, so inaasahan natin na mula ngayon hanggang sa (end ng) week na 'to ay dadagsa pa ang pasahero," Balilo said. [Translation: All the ships here are fully booked, so we're expecting an influx of passengers until the end of the week.] "Pero yung mga ngayon pa lang pupunta, baka wag na kayong pumunta sapagkat sa tingin ko po ay mahihirapan na kayong makakuha ng ticket," he added. [Translation: But those who are just on the way, maybe it's better not to go because I think it will be hard for you to get a ticket.] PCG added the influx of passengers may reach its peak on Holy Wednesday. The Batangas port, on the other hand, is continuously attracting passengers as the Holy Week begins. "'Yung Batangas, pag umaga medyo mababa pero pag hapon, dumadami. Etong Sabado-Linggo, nag-average siya ng 6,000 bawat araw ang pasahero," the spokesperson said. [Translation: In Batangas, in the morning the passenger turnout is kind of low, but it increases in the afternoon. This weekend, we had an average of 6,000 passengers.] As of 12 p.m. Monday, the PCG said it has monitored a total of 97,233 outbound passengers in all ports around the country. PCG said it has not monitored any weather disturbance for the week. It added officials have deployed additional people on the ground for safety and security measures. (West End, Anguilla: RAPF Release) At 1605 on 13 April,2019, the Royal Anguilla Police Force (RAPF) responded to a report of an incident in the West End. The incident resulted in the death of one resident of Anguilla. The RAPF are carrying out a thorough investigation in to this matter. A family liaison officer has been assigned to the family of the deceased. A pathologist will arrive in Anguilla on 15th April 2019 and will carry out an autopsy to determine the cause of death. Both the Acting Governor and the RAPF would like to express their sincere condolences to family and friends of the deceased and all those who are affected by this incident. A further statement will be issued by the RAPF in due course. Theater design assignment: Think about Willie Wonka and get creative. Five thespians from Friendswood High School did just that and are heading to the state finals in University Interscholastic Leagues theatrical design competition. Its the second year in a row for senior Sydney Chambers-Oller to qualify in the category of set design. Keana Jazdyk, a junior, will compete in marketing, while senior Gracie Ruiz, junior Gabriela Weakley and sophomore Ashleigh Prince each advanced in hair and makeup. Students across the state, including a dozen in Amy Thorntons technical theater classes at Friendswood High, submitted entries in the categories of set design, marketing, costumes and hair and makeup for a hypothetical staging of Roald Dahls Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They all did a great job, Thornton said. The state theatrical design contest will be held April 25-26 at the Round Rock Performing Arts Center near Austin. The contests directorial prompt advised students to find out everything they could about the late British author and seek inspiration from his life and words to justify their design choices. Ruiz, for example, plastered the face of one character, Mike Teavee, with candy canes as her way of depicting the authors almost chaotic early years, she said. Crown of candy wrappers The 18-year-old daughter of Chad and Sara Ruiz also created a crown of candy wrappers for the plays eccentric chocolatier, Willy Wonka, and styled Veruca Salt, a billionaires petulant daughter, in rich pink, blue and purple colors. Jazdyk said she read Dahls autobiography and gleaned from it that he was big on creativity and imagination. In the marketing challenge, she was inspired to design a poster for the hypothetical production that shows the title character holding the Golden Ticket he finds, which grants him entry to Willy Wonkas chocolate factory. You cant see his face, just his eyes, and they are pretty big with excitement, said the 17-year-old daughter of David and Michiyo Jazdyk. For the playbill, she drew about 20 miniature portraits of the shows cast members, placing them against a unique rectangular background with a different color for each quadrant. Weakley, 16, said that her hair and makeup for Willy Wonka pictures him as old but eccentric. It has a lot of color blues, oranges and yellows that show how hes in touch with his youth, said the daughter of Bill and Grace Weakley. His hair is white, but he has a pink face with freckles, like a kid. Prince designed costumes for Mike Teavee, the wealthy Salt family and an Oompa Loompa, a diminutive worker in the chocolate factory. The daughter of Joseph and Maria Prince placed them in the Renaissance, Thornton said. In addition to sketching her set design, Chambers-Oller constructed a clay model of the proposed set she envisioned. She always includes a lot of detail, said Thornton. The 18-year-old daughter of David and Sarah Oller created a model made out of clay, with a hill covered with fabric and a tube filled with painted fabric to simulate a chocolate river, said her teacher. On April 25, the state qualifiers will be allowed to revise and make adjustments to their displays in the design gallery. Next, they will give 90-second presentations to the judges about their design choices. On April 26, the students will be treated to master classes, which will be followed by judges critiques and the announcement of the top awards in each category. The second annual Color For a Cause 5K was held early Saturday, April 13, at Cinco Ranch High School, located at 23440 Cinco Ranch Blvd. The event was presented by the Cinco Ranch High School Future Business Leaders of America chapter and benefits The Arc of Katy. "It's for a good cause,"Cinco Ranch High School senior Mizuki Kurata said prior to the event. She went on to say that The Arc of Katy is a nonprofit that provides a place for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to socialize and learn. There were 5K and 1K versions of the run where participants along both routes were showered with colored cornstarch. The Arc of Katy relocated its day program to 5819 10th St. in Katy after Hurricane Harvey flooded its former location at the Monty Ballard YMCA's Camp. The day program is open to those 18 and older and includes a variety of activities from recreational outings to community-based trips. Fred Shafer, president of The Arc of Katy, previously said, "Last year we had a number of members of The Arc of Katy participate in the run as well as board members. It's just a fun time." Kurata said the second annual Color for a Cause will raise funds to help the nonprofit. In its first year, the event raised $5,600. This year's goal is $5,000, she said. Shafer said, "We use the money that comes through the Color For a Cause to support programs we provide through The Arc of Katy. It's not earmarked for a specific activity." In addition to the day program, the Arc of Katy offers a Be Strong water aerobics and exercise program, he said, as well as a three-session summer program for individuals with intellectual and development disabilities 14 and older. "The summer program operates pretty much like a day program," Shafer said. "We go to different places in the community and have them exposed to different things in the Katy community." Monthly socials also are scheduled. That might be a popcorn or movie night or the Jingle Bell Jam at Christmas and the barn dance in November, he said. "It (Color for a Cause) is a neat opportunity to socialize with friends and family," said Kurata. The event featured food trucks and local restaurants, as well as a small group of band students will perform music. Kurata said people might want to wear face masks if the colored cornstarch that will be thrown upon participants might bother them. Visit www.thearcofkaty.org for more information about Color For a Cause and for The Arc of Katy's May 3 major fundraising gala at the Omni Houston Hotel at Westside. Reporter Karen Zurawski contributed to this report. rkent@hcnonline.com Fulshear Police Department / Fulshear Police Department The Fulshear Police Department is looking forward to bringing smiles and sharing kindness with young patients at Texas Childrens Hospital-West Campus. Lt. Lindsay Miller said the Bring Cheer Drive is the first time the department has engaged in this type of event. On April 25, department officers will visit the hospital with donated toys. White-tie, by definition, is the most formal of traditional Western dress codes. It requires that male attendees wear a black tailcoat, waistcoat and the eponymous white bow tie with a standing wingtip collar. Women wear their most opulent and embellished evening or ball gowns; jewelry, tiaras and even gloves are encouraged. In 2007, the White House held a white-tie state dinner for Queen Elizabeth II. Seven years later, in 2014, when the Vogue-endorsed Met Gala announced a white-tie dress code, a number of outlets including the New York Times and Time magazine acknowledged the difficulty and expense of white-tie attire, even at the celebrity level. The Bayou City's own social calendar includes not one, but two annual white-tie gatherings: Houston International Initiative's Consular Ball, hosted by the mayor's office, and the Houston Grand Opera Ball. For both occasions, stakes and expectations couldn't be higher. ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Prom style on a budget Saturday's attendees to the latter gala didn't disappoint Chairs Marcia and Alfredo Vilas challenged HGO supporters to shake things up. The "Cielito Lindo" theme -- meaning "pretty darling" or "heavenly one" -- was pulled from a beloved Mexican song written by Quirino Mendoza y Cortes in 1882. The motif was oh-so-Houston appropriate, a celebration of our city's festive and diverse makeup -- a thrilling prospect for the sartorially obsessed. But without the Wortham Theater Center, where HGO Ball is traditionally held, and its XL-red carpet with that extravagant, al fresco step-and-repeat, some 450 arriving guests didn't quite know where to go or where to stand to capture their painstakingly assembled outfits in full-length. And that's not necessarily a fault of the venue. Rachael and Jason Volz's industrial North Houston space wowed as a backdrop for Big Ass Balloon's the "Balloon Room" installation late last summer. Stages Repertory Theatre couldn't get party-goers to leave its historic gala earlier this year. The Volzes clearly have a good thing going. Mandarin Design Lab's 20-foot sombrero wall and towering butterfly diva made for stunning backdrops. The issue, it seemed, was scale. Ballgowns can be voluminous, fickle things to maneuver. Hallie Vanderhider's peplum Marchesa, Myrtle Jone's chartreuse cape and Kelley Lubanko's ombre tulle Monique Lhuillier gown, for example, each require significant square footage to achieve full effect. As did Fady Armanious' winged Alexander McQueen short coat; a flash of crimson fabric tucked under his jacket sleeve dazzled every time he managed to lift his arms. Range of motion proved essential for grabbing addictive mini empanadas and Paloma cocktails served two ways. Inside the ballroom, deceptively strong jalapeno strawberry margaritas trumped all, and quickly became the most requested libation of the night. PARTY FOR THE PLANET: Zoo, Arboretum and Memorial Park events mark Earth Day Underneath a 60-foot calla lily chandelier and climbing bougainvillea, patrons sat for an interior Mexican feast while a series of famed mariachi performances played in the background. Soprano, guest artist and current star of HGO's "Don Giovanni" Ailyn Perez graced the stage first. Two-time Grammy Award-winning Mariachi los Camperos followed with two sets, and was joined by Latin music sensation Vanessa Alonzo. Afterward, the Richard Brown Orchestra's Las Catrinas put on quite the show; and later, so did Tumbaka, a salsa band. The extended -- albeit spirited -- set-list marked a departure from HGO Ball's usual "introduction, performance, then party" format. Service in concert (a.k.a. synchronized table service) was also notably absent, which didn't affect the creativity behind A Fare Extraordinaire's huachinango and shrimp a la brasa (red snapper, shrimp and guacamole -- a crowd favorite), halibut al pastor and filet of beef tenderloin or impressively-textured chocolate tamale. Delectable? Yes. White-tie dramatic? Not exactly. But the ball's biggest source of contention proved a streaming video and monetary ask, both unprecedented for this high-priced event, shortly after the 10 o'clock hour. Some speculated that the dissolution of HGO's special events committee may have contributed to the program changes. Houston Grand Opera Ball remains one of the hottest -- and most charitable, considering the $1.2 million raised -- tickets in town. And as Betty Tutor mused of the move: "You know, change is hard. But it's good to shake things up. I think it's fabulous." She's right, it is fabulous. Maybe it's just not white-tie. PREVIEW: Get experts picks for concerts, kids stuff, fine arts, movies and more delivered to your inbox weekly. A mother and her 16-year-old son are recovering after a gunman shot them at a birthday party in northwest Houston early Sunday morning, Houston police said. The mother and son were at the Wingate Hotel near FM 1960 and Mills Road Saturday night into the morning. Compassus - Houston has recognized Michael Andrade for his dedicated volunteer work. Since starting in July, Andrade has spent more than 60 hours with patients and over 1,100 hours helping with administrative duties. According to www.compassus.com, Compassus is a nationwide network of community-based hospice, palliative and home health care services. Compassus has two locations in the greater Houston area, one located at 1170 St. James Place, Suite 330, Houston, in the Uptown neighborhood. Compassus mission is to Offer high-quality and compassionate care to improve the quality of life for patients and their families. Andrade, who resides in the Galleria area, started volunteering when he hurt himself at his regular job, and had to leave work. Volunteering is a way for him to keep busy. He volunteers at both of Compassus Houston locations. I think its just a nice thing to do, to give back, Andrade said. I also have older neighbors that I help out too. It just feels good. According to Compassus Executive Director April Rose, hospice care is a Medicare funded program. One of the rules that Compassus has to abide by is to have a volunteer program, with 5 percent of patient care coming from volunteers each year. We have always succeeded that with over 20 percent. We have a great participation program Michael is our shining star, but of course we appreciate all of our volunteers, Rose said. Andrade helps out wherever he is needed, from visiting with patients to helping out with administrative paperwork and organizing the supply room. Volunteers are just that, volunteers. They have to give their own time, Rose said. He gives his own time on a daily basis. He has dedicated his time. He really and truly is a part of our team. He is a member of the family here. Andrade said that he enjoys keeping the patients company, and that they are all appreciative of what he does. This one lady right now that I am seeing, she always asks why I am here and I told her I am here to look after her. She always asked my name but now she recognizes me. She grabs my hand and she holds it forever. If I try to get away from her she will grab on my shirt, Andrade said. Andrade continued, She never has shoes on. I went and bought her some slippers. She was so happy, she was crying. She is so sweet. Andrade hopes to keep on volunteering with Compassus indefinitely. This is something that I like doing. All the people there, they are all really nice. I get along with everyone. They all appreciate what I do, Andrade said. Rose notes that there are currently about 25 active volunteers at Compassus, and they are always looking for more people to want to help. Those who are interested can go to https://www.compassus.com/volunteers. rebecca.hazen@chron.com On Saturday, a tornado hit the Caddo Mounds Historic Site west of Nacogdoches. While damage was extensive to both persons and property, thankfully no deaths were reported. To bring the story home, we will link the history of the site to our area spinning off the popular tradition that Caddo Indians built the site over 1,200 years ago. Explored will be data pointing instead to the Bidai (Bedias) Indians of the original Montgomery County area as the actual architects of the Great Caddo Mounds. The primary source for our story is the diary of the Mexican General Manuel Mier y Teran*. In 1828, the general led an expedition to Texas on a reconnoitering mission for the Mexican government. Near the Neches River en route to Nacogdoches, General Mier y Teran recorded the following: After leaving the deep bottoms where this river runs and spills over, there is a small mound an ancient Bedias site -probably 30 to 40 feet high and some 40 varas in circumference. On the generals return trip from Nacogdoches he records the following: At the mounds of the Neches at 12. There are three mounds according to the story, built by the Bedias. In addition to being near the Neches, what other concurring data in the Mier Diary, supports the claim that these Bidai mounds were the great Caddo Mounds? The first point links the Bidai to the Caddo. Gen. Mier y Teran quotes what he calls a Caddo Captain as follows: He told me himself that the small tribes called the Tejas, Bedias, Navadaches, and Navadoches had been cut off from the Caddo. A second point centers on whether the Bidai were in Texas over 1,200 years ago, when the mounds were presumably erected. The general informs us that the Bidai he met claimed to be descendants of the original tribe in Texas. He quoted the Bidai as stating that all the other tribes are foreign and the Bedias are the only native ones. Mier y Teran furthermore writes, What does seem certain is that they [the Bidai] really should be considered the original or among the oldest savages in Texas. Additionally, Jean Louis Berlander, a Frenchman who traveled with Teran as well as engaging several later trips to Texas, espoused an opinion on the matter. He left no doubt, stating that the Bidai were undoubtedly the oldest of the native people of Texas. Not only were they the states oldest and original tribe, but the Bidai were also the original leaders or sovereigns of the whole state. Mier y Teran writes, the chief of the Bidai said in a conversation with the empresario of the colony {Stephen F. Austin] that he was dissatisfied with the government of Mexico. The reasons for the chiefs dissatisfaction are revealing. The Bidai chief stated that Mexico failed to seek his permission before granting land to the North Americans. Furthermore, he added that his tribe owned all of Texas, including all the land, the waters, and the buffalo, deer and turkeys . The chief added that the neglect of the Mexican government is even more disturbing with respect to the fact that [he, the chief] had been quite generous in dealing with that government and granting lands to the Americans. Thus, does the diary of General Mier Y Teran paint a plausible case for the Bidai as the architects of the famous Caddo Mounds. *The Diary is the subject of the book, TEXAS BY TERAN, Jack Jackson (Ed.) & John Wheat(trans) Robin Montgomery is a native if Montgomery County, and a professor, historian, author and columnist for The Courier. Fort Bend County Precinct 3 Constable Wayne Thompson is urging Texas legislators to pass a bill to protect people from lawsuits who break into locked automobiles to rescue animals in distress. Thompson sent a letter to the members of the Texas House judiciary and civil jurisprudence committee to support House Bill 810 the Animal Hot Car Rescue Bill to complement HB 478 which was passed last session to provide civil immunity to those breaking into vehicles to save children or the elderly in harms way. The legislation before you seeks to extend that protection for Good Samaritans if they act quickly and lawfully to rescue domestic companion animals trapped in hot cars, Thompson wrote. The Bill, filed in January by Austin state Rep. Celia Israel (D-Austin), would require the Good Samaritans to notify law enforcement before entering the suspect vehicle and remain at the scene with the trapped animal until authorities arrive. The Texas heat can quickly become dangerous for anyone inside a parked car human or four-legged friend. This bill would save lives, Rep. Israel said after introducing the bill. Texas has the highest rate of vehicular heat stroke cases in the country, claiming 107 children from 1988 to 2016. Also, on 90 degree days, temperatures inside a car with windows rolled up can reach 116 degrees in less than 10 minutes, Thompson said. Fort Bend Precinct 3 Chief Deputy Robert Van Pelt said Thompson backs the measure because its common sense and in the communitys best interest to extend the same protection to vulnerable pets in danger of physical harm. Removing the civil liability for people who may have to enter a vehicle by force or otherwise to rescue an animal in imminent danger is the humane thing to do, Van Pelt said. Officials with the Texas SPCA said they support passage of the measure. If so, Texas will be the thirteenth state in the country to provide civil immunity in such cases, said Laura Donahue Halloran with the Austin-based Texas Humane Legislation Network. We 100 percent support that bill, Halloran said. There is overwhelming support from citizens who want this law passed. Halloran said she senses more political will in Austin than during the last session to get the measure passed and eventually signed into law. During the last session, the elderly and young children were added to the protected groups in HB 478, along with domestic animals that were the original reason for the bill. But any mention of vulnerable house pets trapped in cars was removed from HB 478. The Dogs in Hot Cars bill passed without the dogs, Halloran said. According to HB 810, a Good Samaritan must notify police or call 911 before breaking into the vehicle to free a trapped animal in distress. Also, no more force than is absolutely necessary is allowed. Halloran said theres no criminal risk to the owner of the pet if a bystander is forced to break in. Also, she hasnt heard of any case of a car burglar rescuing a car stereo rather than a trapped pet. That hasnt been the case. We havent seen that play out in other states that have civil immunity laws, Halloran said. This is pretty common sense legislation. mike.glenn@chron.com The Conroe City Council approved an update to its 2045 Major Thoroughfare Plan, adding improvements to four roads to help with the future growth of the city. According to Director of Capital Projects and Transportation Tommy Woolley, the city has not updated the plan in several years. A major thoroughfare plan is a long range planning tool that identifies what roads will be needed or what road improvements will be needed to accommodate future growth. Woolley noted the plan is not a list of construction projects, does not prioritize projects or set forth a timeline. The plan is strictly used as a planning tool, he noted. The additions to the plan include the extension of Park Dale Drive south to Crighton Road, the extension of Mike Meador Boulevard south from North Loop 336 to Hilbig Road, South Pine Lake Road from Texas 105 to Rabon Chapel Road and Roman Hills Boulevard from Texas 105 to FM 2854. Woolley said South Pine Lake Road and Roman Hill Boulevard are on the countys major thoroughfare plan but staff wanted to include them on the citys plan because the roads would need to be upgraded at some point. Park Dale Drive Woolley said the northern part of the road has been built. He said this will help with traffic if there is a train blocking the intersections allowing drivers access north to the Loop 336 intersection where vehicles can go under the tracks. This would give a second access to the loop beside going all the way back to Ed Kharbat Drive, he said. Mike Meador Boulevard The extension of this road, Woolley said, would give a second access to North Loop 336. It will help with safety and mobility in the area, he said adding Precinct 1 Commissioner Mike Meador is supportive of the future project. The view the major thoroughfare plan, visit www.cityofconroe.org. cdominguez@hcnonline.com (ANSA) - Rome, April 15 - Some 800,000 migrants are set to invade Italy from conflict-torn Libya, Premier Fayez al-Sarraj told Corriere della Sera Monday. "Do something quickly," he said, "the worsening of the situation in Libya could push 800,000 migrants and Libyans to invade Italy and Europe". Among them, he said, were criminals and, above all, jihadists linked to ISIS. Sarraj thanked Italy for its mediation and support for peace in Libya. Eastern Libyan strongman General Khalifa Haftar has "betrayed Libya and the international community" with his offensive on the UN-backed government in Tripoli, Sarraj said. "We need Rome and the EU to be united and firm in blocking Haftar's war of aggression," he told journalists. "I thank Italy for keeping its embassy open, for keeping the Misrata field camp and for the political support that the Conte government is offering us. "We are faced with an aggression that might spread its cancer in all the Mediterranean". Deputy Premier and 5-Star Movement (m5S) leader Luigi Di Maio said that "we will never let 800,000 migrants into Italy". He said "we can't do so with policies adopted thus far, we must do so with Europe and stop people getting ahead of themselves within the government". Ghassan Salame, the UN's special envoy for Libya, on Monday accused General Haftar of conducting a coup attempt. He denied that it was an anti-terrorism operation in speaking to the BBC. Dozens have been killed in the fighting since the general ordered his Libyan National Army forces to advance on Tripoli, where the UN-backed Government of National Accord is located. Interior Minister and League leader Matteo Salvini said "there are those who are playing at war for their interests". He said that western powers should remember the lessons of the past. Salvini has criticised France for its alleged support for Haftar. Premier Giuseppe Conte met Qatari Deputy Premier Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani to discuss the Libya crisis in Rome Monday. Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi, meanwhile, met Libyan Deputy Premier Ahmed Maitig. Conte said "we must stop this conflict continuing. I will do my utmost to make sure all the Libyan actors work with us for a peaceful solution". Conte called for an immediate ceasefire in Libya and the withdrawal of the LNA forces after his talks with al Thani. "I reiterated (to him) our strong concern for this military drift" in the north African country where the LNA forces loyal to eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar are attacking forces loyal to the UN-backed government in Tripoli, said the Italian premier. Conte said those who had thought arms might be a "solution" had been given the lie by events. He aid "political dialogue once more proves to be the only sustainable option". Conte urged all sides to avert a "devastating" humanitarian crisis for the sake of Italy, the EU and the Libyan people. Referring to tensions between government partners the League and the 5-Star Movement, he said "now is not the time to split or to trust to argument, but to work concretely for a solution". The toll from the fighting between forces loyal to Haftar and the UN-backed government in Tripoli rose to 147 dead and 614 injured with 18,000 displaced Monday. Salvini is once more under investigation for kidnapping migrants, the minister himself said Monday. Salvini said he is being probed for allegedly abducting migrants allegedly held on a ship stopped from landing in Siracusa from January 24 to 30 this year. Salvini said the prosecutor in the case, Carmelo Zuccaro, had filed to dismiss the case at the same time as he had submitted the charges. Earlier this year the Senate voted not to lift Salvini's parliamentary immunity to face charges in another alleged migrant kidnapping case. Salvini took the opportunity Monday to respond to fellow Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio who on Sunday said Italy's blockade of ports to NGO migrant rescue ships was "only temporary", sources said. Salvini said "I take the opportunity to reply to the minister: for me the ports will remain closed", reiterating his long-held stance. He said "I respect the work of the colleague Di Maio who is dealing with jobs, but on the issues of the control of borders and organised crime it's me who decides. "If minister Di Maio or (Defence Minister Elisabetta) Trenta think differently they should say so in cabinet and we'll have a frank discussion. "With me the ports will remain unavailably closed and sealed to the traffickers in human beings". Sources at Di Maio's 5-Star Movement (M5S) said "the interior minister's position is curious. When he fears being tried, he says we do things together, and when he is in an electoral campaign he says he decides about ports on his own." Di Maio said "I'm not interested in rows, I don't want to cause a row, it's bad for the country. "My only aim is to protect Italy, its companies and prevent another migratory emergency"". At the weekend Di Maio and Trenta both warned of the prospect of a surge in migrants leaving Libya because of the conflict there. Trenta had said that "with the war in Libya, migrants become refugees". Trenta on Monday offered to explain international law that means that "those fleeing Libya today are refugees" to the League and far-right movements who have criticised her. "I see that today the League and some far-right movements have attacked your truly," she said. "I can invite them all to me, to the ministry, so I can explain to them a bit of international law and so they can perhaps understand what their aggressive tomes on Libya can produce," she said. Rome prosecutors said last month there are "elements to posit" kidnapping charges in the case of the SeaWatch 3 migrant rescue ship which had to wait 12 days off Siracusa before getting the OK to land at Catania on January 31. German NGO SeaWatch said it was "happy" that the "ordeal" of the 47 migrants on board the Dutch-flagged ship was over after six EU countries agreed to take them. The Rome prosecutors sent their case file on to Siracusa colleagues who then handed the case to the Catania ministers tribunal. The Senate recently voted not to let kidnapping charges proceed against Salvini in another migrant rescue standoff with the EU last August. In that case, Salvini kept 177 migrants on board coast guard ship Diciotti for two weeks until Albania, Ireland and the Italian Church agreed to take them in. Salvini recently said on the SeaWatch case: "is there another trial against baddy Salvini on the way? Salvini last year closed Italian ports to NGO migrant rescue ships. A Harris County court on Monday tossed out yet another drug case over links to the officers at the center of the botched Pecan Park drug raid that left a couple dead and five officers injured earlier this year. The dismissed felony charge against Xavier Womack hinged on claims that former narcotics officer Steven Bryant - who recently retired under investigation - spotted the Houston man going in and out of a supposed drug house. But Womack's defense attorney, Lisa Andrews, says she repeatedly told prosecutors that her client was never at the scene, and it wasn't until after the outcome in Pecan Park sparked broader questions about police handling of drug cases that the Harris County District Attorney's Office agreed to drop Womack's drug charge. READ MORE: 2nd drug case involving embattled Officer Gerald Goines dismissed in the 'interest of justice' "I knew the officers were lying," Andrews told the Houston Chronicle on Monday. "But for the unfortunate circumstances" that led to the officers' departure from the department, Andrews continued, "I would be hoping to convince a jury of these facts against the word of two police officers." The dismissal marks at least the fifth case dropped in the fallout from the Jan. 28 bust, which was unrelated to Womack's arrest and prosecution. In addition to Bryant, former Officer Gerald Goines is also under investigation and recently retired from the Houston Police Department. Lawyers for the two officers at the center of the investigation did not immediately offer comment on the dismissal, but Harris County District Attorney spokesman Dane Schiller weighed in late Monday. "As the investigation continues, we are proceeding thoroughly and methodically," he said. "We are still delving not only into the Harding Street shootings. but other cases in which certain officers were involved." The arrest that started Womack's case came in 2017, when police said they'd been surveilling a house and had seen the South Side man coming and going, Andrews said. Afterward, police searched the place and instead arrested someone else they believed to be Womack. "However, when they executed the search warrant, my client was not present at the target house, and they arrested someone else they believed was my client," Andrews said. "That told me they never really saw my client at the house." When prosecutors realized that, they dropped charges against the other man and instead collared Womack, saying he'd been at the scene. "I told the DA's office all of this from day one, and of course they chose to believe the officers' version," Andrews said. "Because of that, I set it for trial." Court records show the 2017 arrest was dismissed because of an "investigation pending against investigating officers." The charge was possession with intent to deliver between 4 and 200 grams of cocaine. The police involved in the arrest came under scrutiny earlier this year after investigators accused 54-year-old Goines of lying on the search warrant affidavit used to justify a no-knock raid at 7815 Harding Street. When officers burst in the home that evening in search of a heroin dealer, they kicked off a gun battle that left dead Dennis Tuttle, his wife Rhogena Nicholas, and a pit bull they'd been dog-sitting. READ MORE: FBI opens civil rights investigation into botched Houston drug bust, police chief says But the raid netted no heroin and only a small amount of cocaine and marijuana, and the slain couple's friends and neighbors have repeatedly maintained that they weren't drug dealers. Days later, as Goines lay in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound to the neck, investigators realized they couldn't find the confidential informant behind the alleged heroin buy that started it all. When asked for details, Goines first named one informant and then another - but, according to court filings, police couldn't find anyone who admitted acting as the confidential informant before the raid. Instead, all of Goines' informants said they'd never met the Tuttles. That revelation pushed the police department to retool policies around the use of no-knock raids, and also sparked investigations by police, prosecutors and the FBI. In addition to probing the possibility of criminal wrongdoing, prosecutors launched a review of more than 2,000 cases handled by Goines and Bryant - both whom retired under investigation. Almost as soon as prosecutors announced their case review, a Harris County judged signed off on the dismissal of a drug case against Courtney Jacobs. In the weeks that followed, at least three more drug cases against other defendants were dismissed. 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. To get to the finals of the University Interscholastic Leagues 2018-19 set design contest, Dawson High School senior Lauren Hale had to be good at pretending. The 17-year-old had to rely on her minds eye to create sketches for a production of Roald Dahls Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. And, unlike the stage sets she has helped make since her freshman year at Dawson, Hale worked knowing that the entire production was hypothetical. Students from across the state entered the UIL theatrical design competition, which includes categories for set design, marketing, costumes and hair and makeup. The students were required to create designs for the hypothetical staging. Contestants were directed to find out everything they could about Dahl and seek inspiration from his life and words to justify their design choices. Hales entry includes original color sketches and a two-page paper in which she explained the connections between what she learned about the late British authors life and how she applied her findings to specific set details in support of the story. In addition, she said, I used the app Pinterest to put together a bunch of photos that closely resembled my ideas for the show. Then I made a mind map, which is similar, except I wrote out the concepts of the show on paper and connected them. It ended up looking like a map. Everything else was just trial and error until I drew something I liked. The state theatrical design contest will be April 25-26 at the Round Rock Performing Arts Center near Austin. Hales research informed her use of both dark and bright colors for the set. Roald Dahl is known for creating childrens books that dont try to make children believe that everything is rainbows and butterflies all the time, said the daughter of Trevor and Valerie Hale of Pearland. There are many dark themes in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. So, I wanted it to be known through the colors that this isnt a typical fairy tale. Dahls 1964 novel, like a 1976 stage adaptation by Richard George, features an eccentric chocolatier who invited five children to his factory. However, what begins as a seemingly harmless adventure becomes painful and humiliating for four of the children. The play is set in a real place (London), but the actual events and factory are very surreal and magical, Hale said. I wanted to create an in-between something not quite boring but not quite surreal and imagined. On April 25, the state qualifiers will be allowed to revise and make adjustments to their displays in the design gallery. Next, they will give 90-second presentations to the judges about their design choices. On April 26, the students will be treated to master classes, which will be followed by judges critiques and the announcement of the top awards in each category. Hale has worked on stage sets for about four productions each year since her freshman year. She plans to major in theatrical production in the Katherine McGovern College of the Arts at the University of Houston. I want to be a professional set designer and lighting designer, Hale said. I really just want to make art for theater. Don Maines is a freelance writer who can be reached at donmaines@att.net Thousands of art lovers descended upon The Woodlands Town Green Park and Waterway Square on Saturday and Sunday, April 13-14, for the 14th annual The Woodlands Waterway Arts Festival, enjoying the sunny day before a large rain storm hit later in the afternoon. After a rain storm and windy weather put a damper on festivities in the late afternoon on Saturday, the sunny weather and mild temperatures of Sunday drew a much larger crowd of festival-goers numbering in the thousands. (ANSA) - Rome, April 15 - Some 800,000 migrants are set to invade Italy from conflict-torn Libya, Premier Fayez al-Sarraj told Corriere della Sera Monday. "Do something quickly," he said, "the worsening of the situation in Libya could push 800,000 migrants and Libyans to invade Italy and Europe". Among them, he said, were criminals and, above all, jihadists linked to ISIS. Sarraj thanked Italy for its mediation and support for peace in Libya. Eastern Libyan strongman General Khalifa Haftar has "betrayed Libya and the international community" with his offensive on the UN-backed government in Tripoli, Sarraj said. "We need Rome and the EU to be united and firm in blocking Haftar's war of aggression," he told journalists. "I thank Italy for keeping its embassy open, for keeping the Misrata field camp and for the political support that the Conte government is offering us. "We are faced with an aggression that might spread its cancer in all the Mediterranean". Ghassan Salame, the UN's special envoy for Libya, on Monday accused General Haftar of conducting a coup attempt. He denied that it was an anti-terrorism operation in speaking to the BBC. Dozens have been killed in the fighting since the general ordered his Libyan National Army forces to advance on Tripoli, where the UN-backed Government of National Accord is located. Interior Minister and League leader Matteo Salvini said "there are those who are playing at war for their interests". He said that western powers should remember the lessons of the past. Salvini has criticised France for its alleged support for Haftar. Premier Giuseppe Conte met Qatari Deputy Premier Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani to discuss the Libya crisis in Rome Monday. Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi met Libyan Deputy Premier Ahmed Maitig. Conte said "we must stop this conflict continuing. I will do my utmost to make sure all the Libyan actors work with us for a peaceful solution". The toll from the fighting between forces loyal to Haftar and the UN-backed government in Tripoli rose to 147 dead and 614 injured with 18,000 displaced Monday. Salvini is once more under investigation for kidnapping migrants, the minister himself said Monday. Salvini said he is being probed for allegedly abducting migrants allegedly held on a ship stopped from landing in Siracusa from January 24 to 30 this year. Salvini said the prosecutor in the case, Carmelo Zuccaro, had filed to dismiss the case at the same time as he had submitted the charges. Earlier this year the Senate voted not to lift Salvini's parliamentary immunity to face charges in another alleged migrant kidnapping case. Salvini took the opportunity Monday to respond to fellow Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio who on Sunday said Italy's blockade of ports to NGO migrant rescue ships was "only temporary", sources said. Salvini said "I take the opportunity to reply to the minister: for me the ports will remain closed", reiterating his long-held stance. He said "I respect the work of the colleague Di Maio who is dealing with jobs, but on the issues of the control of borders and organised crime it's me who decides. "If minister Di Maio or (Defence Minister Elisabetta) Trenta think differently they should say so in cabinet and we'll have a frank discussion. "With me the ports will remain unavailably closed and sealed to the traffickers in human beings". Sources at Di Maio's 5-Star Movement (M5S) said "the interior minister's position is curious. When he fears being tried, he says we do things together, and when he is in an electoral campaign he says he decides about ports on his own." Di Maio said "I'm not interested in rows, I don't want to cause a row, it's bad for the country. "My only aim is to protect Italy, its companies and prevent another migratory emergency"". At the weekend Di Maio and Trenta both warned of the prospect of a surge in migrants leaving Libya because of the conflict there. Trenta had said that "with the war in Libya, migrants become refugees". Trenta on Monday offered to explain international law that means that "those fleeing Libya today are refugees" to the League and far-right movements who have criticised her. "I see that today the League and some far-right movements have attacked your truly," she said. "I can invite them all to me, to the ministry, so I can explain to them a bit of international law and so they can perhaps understand what their aggressive tomes on Libya can produce," she said. Rome prosecutors said last month there are "elements to posit" kidnapping charges in the case of the SeaWatch 3 migrant rescue ship which had to wait 12 days off Siracusa before getting the OK to land at Catania on January 31. German NGO SeaWatch said it was "happy" that the "ordeal" of the 47 migrants on board the Dutch-flagged ship was over after six EU countries agreed to take them. The Rome prosecutors sent their case file on to Siracusa colleagues who then handed the case to the Catania ministers tribunal. The Senate recently voted not to let kidnapping charges proceed against Salvini in another migrant rescue standoff with the EU last August. In that case, Salvini kept 177 migrants on board coast guard ship Diciotti for two weeks until Albania, Ireland and the Italian Church agreed to take them in. Salvini recently said on the SeaWatch case: "is there another trial against baddy Salvini on the way? Salvini last year closed Italian ports to NGO migrant rescue ships. (ANSA) - Rome, April 15 - Some 800,000 migrants are set to invade Italy from conflict-torn Libya, Premier Fayez al-Sarraj told Corriere della Sera Monday. "Do something quickly," he said, "the worsening of the situation in Libya could push 800,000 migrants and Libyans to invade Italy and Europe". Among them, he said, were criminals and, above all, jihadists linked to ISIS. Sarraj thanked Italy for its mediation and support for peace in Libya. Eastern Libyan strongman General Khalifa Haftar has "betrayed Libya and the international community" with his offensive on the UN-backed government in Tripoli, Sarraj said. "We need Rome and the EU to be united and firm in blocking Haftar's war of aggression," he told journalists. "I thank Italy for keeping its embassy open, for keeping the Misrata field camp and for the political support that the Conte government is offering us. "We are faced with an aggression that might spread its cancer in all the Mediterranean". (ANSA) - Rome, April 15 - Eastern Libyan strongman General Khalifa Haftar has "betrayed Libya and the international community" with his offensive on the UN-backed government in Tripoli, Premier Fayez al-Sarraj said Monday. "We need Rome and the EU to be united and firm in blocking Haftar's war of aggression," he told journalists. "I thank Italy for keeping its embassy open, for keeping the Misrata field camp and for the political support that the Conte government is offering us. "We are faced with an aggression that might spread its cancer in all the Mediterranean". (ANSA) - Rome, April 15 - Premier Giuseppe Conte on Monday called for an immediate ceasefire in Libya and the withdrawal of the LNA forces after talks with Qatari Deputy Premier Mohammed al Thani. "I reiterated (to him) our strong concern for this military drift" in the north African country where the LNA forces loyal to eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar are attacking forces loyal to the UN-backed government in Tripoli, said the Italian premier. Conte said those who had thought arms might be a "solution" had been given the lie by events. He aid "political dialogue once more proves to be the only sustainable option". Conte urged all sides to avert a "devastating" humanitarian crisis for the sake of Italy, the EU and the Libyan people. Referring to tensions between government partners the League and the 5-Star Movement, he said "now is not the time to split or to trust to argument, but to work concretely for a solution". From thousands of miles away in Houston, Father Ted Baenziger watched Monday as a catastrophic inferno ravaged the storied Cathedral of Notre Dame where he has celebrated Mass dozens of times. The 72-year-old Basilian order priest was most fearful that the ornate stained-glass rose windows that he had come to adore from his time at the 12th-century house of worship had been destroyed. The southern-most window was gifted to the cathedral by King St. Louis in 1260, Baenziger said. "I'm just devastated by the damage that's been done to this place," said Baenziger, a French professor emeritus at the University of St. Thomas. "They were two of the most extraordinary stained-glass windows that I've ever seen in my life. One of the greatest honors Baenziger described was getting to know the historic cathedral from having celebrated Mass there more than two dozen times in front of awestruck globetrotters and from guiding more than 40 tours the last one in the summer of 2018 within its sandstone walls. His tours at the one of the world's most visited landmarks focused on the French-Gothic architecture of the church and the role that Notre Dame and the ground where it stands has had as a sacred space, he said. "I feel very privileged," Baenziger said. "I see that it's going to be a long time before we do Mass again in that Cathedral." THE LATEST: Catastrophic fire engulfs Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris Firefighters were struggling to save the structure as Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, head of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, mourned the damage. The flames had just toppled the iconic 19th-century spire and were threatening to engulf the rest of the cathedral. Fire crews soon stopped the blaze from spreading to the northern belfry. "This particular cathedral is not only a majestic Church, it is also a world treasure," DiNardo said in a written statement. "Noble in architecture and art, it has long been a symbol of the transcendent human spirit as well as our longing for God." The cause of the fire was not yet known Monday evening but Parisian fire officials believed it to be accidental and possibly linked to the $6.8 million renovation project that the cathedral's spire comprised of 250 tons of lead was undergoing. DiNardo shared his condolences to Parisians and Archbishop Michel Aupetit of Paris, who called on the nation's clergy to ring church bells for the cathedral. "We pray for all the people of France, entrusting all to the prayers and intercession of the Mother of God, especially the firefighters battling the fire," DiNardo added. DiNardo, 69, penned the message on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops while recovering from a stroke that left him hospitalized on March 15 while leading the Stations of the Cross ceremony. He is still undergoing rehabilitation, an archdiocese spokeswoman said. Houston's Museum of Fine Arts paid tribute to the cathedral as an inspiration to art by tweeting an image of the "Notre Dame, Paris" oil painting from French Neo-impressionist Maximilien Luce in its collection. Alexis Andres, Consul General of France in Houston, wrote on Twitter that he was grateful to the firefighters who managed to stop the fire and the many people who shared expressions of hope and solidarity. He also assured the museum that the cathedral would be restored. "Notre Dame is not lost," Andres tweeted. "We will rebuild it! And together we will give it a Renaissance." The Associated Press contributed to this report. A woman opening up a northeast Houston convenience store was robbed in a matter of seconds, video shows. The employee was opening the gate to the Mini Mart in the 12100 block of Homestead Road, near Winfield Road, around 8:20 a.m. March 22 when a man ran up to her, according to the Houston Police Department. As she had her back turned to the parking lot, the man rushed her, snatched her purse and ran off within seconds, surveillance video shows. The woman tried to chase the robber but could not keep up, police said. She traced her phone to a nearby ditch, but her purse and the suspect were nowhere to be seen, police said. The robber is only described as a tall, skinny male wearing a black hoodie, a black mask and black pants, detectives said. Anyone with information is urged to call Houston Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS (8477). 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 (ANSA) - Rome, April 15 - Italy and France should put their differences on Libya behind them, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani said Monday. "The appeal I launch it Italy and France is to end the time of tug-of-war and arrive at a solution to stabilise Libya," he said on Italian radio. "Going on like this there will only be more dead and migrants fleeing and arriving on our chores. We must intervene at once. "The duty of the Union is to put the French and Italians together to find an accord. The French have made mistakes but Italy has a too weak presence to be incisive". OECD countries and stakeholders gathered in Paris on March 13-14, 2019 for a public consultation on the tax challenges of digitalization. The countries at that meeting reaffirmed their commitment to finding a long-term solution to the digital tax question by 2020. In this context, it is worthwhile making two points. First, the OECD itself uses the term tax challenges of digitalization because it wants to get away from the idea that the international tax conversation is just about digital services or highly digitalized business models. It is a much broader question affecting companies in all sectors. Second, the OECD came out with a recommendation in 2015, which posited that the right way to tax digital services was to extend the VAT to cover them. A number of countries are implementing this approach. The question of digital taxation is complicated fundamentally because we are really reconceiving how the international tax system should work for all companies. After all, why should there even be a conversation about digital taxation? Presumably the goal is not to discourage digitalization per se such as excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol are designed to do. If not, then what would justify a sector-specific tax? The UK and the EU consider that the digital economy has created a new source of value active user participation that entitles the countries where users reside to a share of any above-normal profits of digital companies. But it is not clear that user engagement with digital platforms is qualitatively different from their use of other media in a tax relevant way. There is also no way to distinguish between users that provide value and users that do not, which makes the concept of user participation fundamentally flawed as a tax concept. As the OECD said in 2015, since the entire economy is digitalizing, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to ring-fence the digital economy for tax purposes. In this context, it is worthwhile recalling that in 2014, the EUs panel of experts argued against creating a special tax regime for digital companies. See below. First: there should not be a special tax regime for digital companies. Rather the general rules should be applied or adapted so that digital companies are treated in the same way as others. Countries are reportedly reverting to the idea that international tax reform should, as originally envisaged when the OECD tax reform process started, involve all sectors of the economy. As countries prepare for the G20 June 28-29, 2019 Fukuoka, Japan summit where digital taxation will be discussed, it is again important for countries to strive for consensus, which is not impossible to achieve. This is possible, at least in part because U.S. thinking about taxation of intangibles especially minimum taxation has shifted in a way which arguably makes it possible to strike a deal. Determining value of B2C digital services is a challenge There is no broadly accepted methodology for determining the value creation and consumption value of digital services that consumers do not pay for. The European Commission articulated its rationale for digital taxation in a March 21, 2018 release entitled: Fair Taxation of the Digital Economy: In the digital economy, value is often created from a combination of algorithms, user data, sales functions and knowledge. For example, a user contributes to value creation by sharing his/her preferences (e.g. liking a page) on a social media forum. This data will later be used and monetised for targeted advertising. The profits are not necessarily taxed in the country of the user (and viewer of the advert), but rather in the country where the advertising algorithms has been developed, for example. This means that the user contribution to the profits is not taken into account when the company is taxed. So even though the R&D cost associated with the development of an algorithm may not take place in the EU, the EU considers it reasonable to have a tax take of the economic activity generated by that algorithm. However, as the IMF noted in a March 29, 2019 report entitled: IMF Policy Paper: Corporate Taxation in the Global Economy, it is very difficult to distinguish cases where users create value from those in which they just consume. There is today simply no principled and widely accepted methodology for determining how much is value creation and how much is consumption in transactions involving consumers accessing Internet services without paying for them. The EU approach also contradicts the patent box tax regimes that exist in a number of EU member states, including the UK and France. The underlying policy behind a patent box is to incentivize (through a reduced corporate rate) domestic activities related to IP generation. But one of the main arguments in favor of a Digital Services Tax is that tech companies do not pay enough tax. That position appear to be inconsistent for countries such as the UK and France, which provide for a reduced rate of IP related income through patent boxes. The concept of consumption is further complicated for cloud firms because it is not clear where consumption occurs and what constitutes consumption. Moreover, there is the question of how to allocate costs between countries the cost of developing algorithms, user data, sales functions and data. This helps explain why many observers consider the EU digital tax proposal (which is not proceeding at this time), the UK proposal and the French plan to be really veiled (and sometimes not so veiled) measures to tax mostly the large U.S. tech firms. For example, the French Ministry of Economy and Finance refers to the French digital tax as the GAFA tax in its March 5, 2019 press release. Besides, unilateral digital services taxes not considered by anybody to be a long-term viable option The UK Digital Services Tax (DST), scheduled to go into effect in April 2020 is described as temporary in this UK consultation document. However, taxes denoted as temporary often have a way of remaining in effect for a long time, particularly when they do not have a set date of expiration. In the meantime, they can contribute to undermining the stated purposes of international tax reform. Again, as the IMF puts it in its policy paper: Political pressures to introduce some form of digital service tax are strong in many countries but their uncoordinated proliferation creates complexity and jeopardizes tax cooperation. Moreover, there is the beginning of an emerging consensus on international taxation It is clear that there is broad concern about profit shifting. That is why it might make sense to work with minimum taxation proposals as long as they are not sector specific. For instance, the German Federation of Industries reportedly considered a minimum corporate tax in lieu of the EUs proposed digital tax. The 2017 U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) imposes a 10.5% minimum tax on global intangible income. Going forward, there is also an emerging consensus that some measure of reapportionment, i.e. country allocations of taxation rights, might be warranted. Moreover, the OECD process has already led to increased tax collections for governments. The OECD reports that over 3 billion Euros have been collected in the EU as a result of implementation of the new International VAT/GST guidelines. So let that consensus emerge Mainstream thinking in OECD member countries (including in the United States) has evolved in the direction of significant reform. Reforms should be sector neutral; accommodate developing country equities such as ease of tax administration; acknowledge that consumption is not a straightforward concept; and, ensure that there is a realistic accounting of costs, and not just revenue, in a single country. In this context, it worthwhile remembering that OECD tax recommendations often do lead to substantive changes in OECD member countries. In the United States, for example, on December 20, 2018 the U.S. Treasury Department released new rules limiting the use of so-called hybrid financing arrangements to take advantage of different rules in different countries. The limits on interest deductions in the 2017 TCJA also reflected OECD recommendations. All this suggests that countries should let the OECD tax reform process play out with reform leading to a rational treatment of profit shifting that is applicable to all sectors of the economy. Democrats all over the country are still clamoring for a look at Pres. Donald Trumps unreleased tax returns, but New Yorks state Legislature may be better poised than Congress to actually unveil the long-sheltered documents. Since the 2016 general election, when then-candidate Trump broke tradition by not releasing his tax returns he said, falsely, that he couldnt because he was under audit some Democrats have viewed his tax returns and the financial information they contain as the holy grail in their quest to discredit and defeat Trump. Although control of the House of Representatives now gives Democrats more leverage in that pursuit, the Trump administration has still resisted attempts by House leaders to obtain the returns. Now, with a Democratic-controlled state Legislature and governor eager to reveal potentially damaging information that those tax returns could contain, Albany has been working a bill that would allow the release of Trumps state tax returns. The legislation, sponsored by state Sen. Brad Hoylman and Assemblyman David Buchwald, is actually one of a few attempts in Albany to obtain Trumps taxes. City & State took a look at where those various attempts stand, and how likely they are to pan out. What bills are targeting Trumps tax returns? Hoylman and Buchwalds newest bill is aimed at uncovering Trumps tax returns by amending state laws that prohibit private tax information from being released, in order to allow the commissioner of New Yorks Department of Taxation and Finance to release any state tax return requested by leaders of certain congressional committees for any specific and legitimate legislative purpose. Under the bill, leaders of three congressional committees the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee and the Joint Committee on Taxation would be able to submit written requests for tax returns to the New York tax department and the U.S. Department of Treasury. The draft bill does not go into detail about what would qualify as a specific and legitimate legislative purpose. This newest bill is one of three similar pieces of legislation introduced in New York since Trumps election, each of them aimed at accessing the presidents long-sought returns, albeit by varying routes. Those attempts, however, could not pass the Republican-controlled state Senate. The New York TRUTH Act, introduced Buchwald and Hoylman in 2017, would require the state Department of Taxation and Finance to release five years of state income tax returns of statewide elected officials, as well as the president of the United States. Others subject to the required disclosure would include New Yorks U.S. senators, governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and state comptroller. Short for Tax Returns Uphold Transparency and Honesty, the TRUTH Act is a not-so-veiled attempt to target Trump, as most of the statewide elected officials named release their tax returns voluntarily. An even less subtle attempt is New Yorks TRUMP Act, a bill introduced by Hoylman in 2017 that would require candidates for president and vice president to release their past tax returns if they wanted to appear on New Yorks primary and general election ballots. More states California, New Jersey and at least a few dozen others have introduced similar state legislation that would tie ballot access to the release of tax returns. Why are lawmakers picking up these fights at the state level? Since Trumps business is based in New York and he lived in New York City prior to his election, his state tax returns could show a lot about his finances. The tax-return legislation introduced last week comes just after the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal requested access to six years of the presidents tax returns under a provision of the federal tax code. Trump has said that he would challenge the request due to the fact that he is still being audited. The Internal Revenue Service missed the deadline Neal set for answering the request on Wednesday last week, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that more time is needed to look into the legality of House Democrats request. The Committee's request raises serious issues concerning the constitutional scope of Congressional investigative authority, the legitimacy of the asserted legislative purpose, and the constitutional rights of American citizens, Mnuchin wrote in a letter to Neal. Hoylman and Buchwalds latest bill is a sign that New York Democrats arent willing to wait for the Trump administration to cooperate with Congress any longer. Who supports this legislation? Last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo stated his support of Hoylman and Buchwalds bill, suggesting that the legislation would encounter few obstacles to passage with the support of the Democratic-controlled state Legislature and the governor. The governors office, however, wants to avoid conspicuously targeting Trump and politicizing the process. As long as it applies to everybody, Cuomo advisor Richard Azzopardi told The New York Times, we support it. With the recent failure of the House to access the tax returns, Hoylman says the time is ripe for Albany to take the lead. "Here you have a president who is stonewalling the U.S. Congress, a co-equal branch of government undertaking its important oversight responsibilities," he told NBC News. "Lo and behold, we have Donald Trump's tax returns here in the state of New York and we can provide them to Congress if the IRS, if the Treasury Department won't." What are Republicans saying? Republican lawmakers have denounced these efforts as a political stunt. Ed Cox, Chairman of the New York Republican Party, said that Democrats were still stuck in 2016. "They want to re-litigate an issue that's already been decided by the people of this country, he said, even though Trump promised throughout the campaign to eventually release his returns. Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb added that Democrats in Albany have bigger tax issues to worry about, like the fact that New York has some of the highest, most oppressive taxes in America. Are these bills constitutional? Even if this legislation were to pass in New York something thats likely with Hoylman and Buchwalds latest bill it would face significant legal challenges. With New Yorks TRUMP Act in particular, the question of constitutionality has been the source of heated debate for two years. Richard Hasen, an election law expert and professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, said that the idea of restricting ballot access to only those who release their tax returns could go beyond the powers of state legislatures. On the one hand, Article II of the Constitution gives state legislatures very broad powers to set the rules for conducting presidential elections, Hasen said. In fact, the Legislature could decide for itself we were told in Bush v. Gore that if it wants to take the power back and not even hold elections for who is going to get the state's presidential elector votes. So it's a very broad power. On the other hand, you can't impose additional qualifications on people running for office other than those listed in the Constitution. The qualifications built into the U.S. Constitution include requirements that a candidate must be a natural-born U.S. citizen and at least 35 years old. Really the question is whether requiring someone to produce their tax returns in order to appear on the ballot is within the power of state legislatures to set the rules for choosing presidential electors, or whether it is adding additional qualifications to the rules for who can run for president, Hasen said. If it's the latter, then it's unconstitutional. There is also the fact that in a state as blue as New York, ballot access may not mean that much to Trump. Still, Hasen said that if the TRUMP Act passed and was found to be constitutional, New York Republicans wouldnt take kindly to it, even if they know their state wouldnt vote for Trump. I think there would be quite an uproar among millions of Republicans who are New Yorkers if they couldn't vote for their preferred presidential candidate, he said. Even if that candidate's not a winner, they're still effectively being deprived of their choice. (Trump supporters could, however, still write in his name on the ballot). How does this backfire on Democrats? Whether or not Albany Democrats attempts to get their hands on Trumps taxes will be successful, it seems clear that their strategy is to go down every route possible, whether through restricting ballot access or changing state law to allow the release of private tax information. Three successive legislative attempts in New York alone may create the impression that local lawmakers have tunnel vision. The problem with continually going after him on the taxes without a focus on the daily duties of government it can be viewed as somewhat obsessive, said political consultant George Arzt. To spend this much time on his taxes may be a side effort, but it should not be the main effort in going against Trump. There is also the possibility that any of these bills that seem to be aimed directly at Trump could become weapons used against Democrats if control of the state Legislature shifts to Republicans in the future. The TRUMP Act, requiring the release of tax returns as a condition of ballot access could set a dangerous precedent for Democrats. I think the issue would be, if the state can do this, what else might the state Legislature condition in order to get on the ballots? asked Hasen. Once you give states the power to require people to do certain things for purposes of running for president, you might be able to extract certain things that could politically harm one side or the other. Will these efforts succeed? New York is better positioned than ever to pass legislation that would force the release of Trumps tax returns, but that doesnt mean that Democrats will see those documents anytime soon. As each of the three bills introduced by Albany Democrats over the past two years are vulnerable to legal challenges, and a protracted battle could follow New Yorks passage of any of them. I think it may pass, Arzt said of the bill Hoylman and Buchwald introduced last week, but it has to be looked at by the lawyers and the state in whether it's legal or not. And for the TRUMP Act, the constitutional question remains a sticking point that could result in a legal battle at the highest level. I think someone would challenge it, and it's the kind of case that could end up before the Supreme Court, Hasen said. That doesnt mean that nothing has changed over the past two years. With Democrats gaining more ground in both New York state and federal government, the public could at the very least get some answers as to whether these legislative attempts in Albany are constitutionally or legally viable. This has been talked about for almost two years and now the issue seems to be finally coming to a head, because we're getting to a point where this legislation is going to pass, and the Democrats have demanded the tax returns in the House, Hasen said. I think we'll have a much better sense of where things are in a few months. (ANSA) - Milan, April 15 - Interior Minister Matteo Salvini is under investigation for kidnapping migrants, Salvini himself said Monday. He said he is being probed for allegedly abducting migrants allegedly held on a ship stopped from landing in Siracusa from January 24 to 30 this year. Salvini said the prosecutor in the case, Carmelo Zuccaro, had filed to dismiss the case at the same time as he had submitted the charges. Earlier this year the Senate voted not to lift Salvini's parliamentary immunity to face charges in another alleged migrant kidnapping case. Salvini took the opportunity Monday to respond to fellow Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio who on Sunday said Italy's blockade of ports to NGO migrant rescue ships was "only temporary", sources said. Salvini said "I take the opportunity to reply to the minister: for me the ports will remain closed", reiterating his long-held stance. He said "I respect the work of the colleague Di Maio who is dealing with jobs, but on the issues of the control of borders and organised crime it's me who decides. "If minister Di Maio or (Defence Minister Elisabetta) Trenta think differently they should say so in cabinet and we'll have a frank discussion. "With me the ports will remain unavailably closed and sealed to the traffickers in human beings". Sources at Di Maio's 5-Star Movement (M5S) said "the interior minister's position is curious. When he fears being tried, he says we do things together, and when he is in an electoral campaign he says he decides about ports on his own." At the weekend Di Maio and Trenta both warned of the prospect of a surge in migrants leaving Libya because of the conflict there. Trenta had said that "with the war in Libya, migrants become refugees". Trenta on Monday offered to explain international law that means that "those fleeing Libya today are refugees" to the League and far-right movements who have criticised her. "I see that today the League and some far-right movements have attacked your truly," she said. "I can invite them all to me, to the ministry, so I can explain to them a bit of international law and so they can perhaps understand what their aggressive tomes on Libya can produce," she said. Some 800,000 migrants are set to invade Italy from conflict-torn Libya, Premier Fayez al-Sarraj told Corriere della Sera Monday. "Do something quickly," he said, "the worsening of the situation in Libya could push 800,000 migrants and Libyans to invade Italy and Europe". Among them, he said, were criminals and, above all, jihadists linked to ISIS. Sarraj thanked Italy for its mediation and support for peace in Libya. In his first year in office, Gov. Andrew Cuomo created 10 regional councils to overhaul the distribution of state economic development funds and he named someone from academia as one of the two co-chairs on each council. The appointments marked the beginning of a close collaboration between the administration and institutions of higher learning, public and private alike. In another high-profile partnership, Cuomo announced earlier this year that engineering experts at Columbia and Cornell universities had developed an innovative alternative to avoid the long-planned L train tunnel closure in New York City. It is the leaders of schools and programs like these that make up City & States inaugural Higher Education Power 50. The list which identifies the most politically powerful members of New Yorks colleges, universities and other centers of learning is not another ranking of institutions of higher education. Ratings of the best schools or assessments of academic excellence are factors, but so too are each leaders achievements, influence in policymaking, and connections to key city and state government officials from the governor to the mayor and on down. 1. Kristina Johnson Submitted Chancellor of the State University of New York The State University of New York is the largest such system in the country, but its vast size hasnt kept it from evolving and innovating especially under the forward-looking leadership of Chancellor Kristina Johnson. Johnson is first openly gay person and just the second woman to run SUNY, which boasts 64 campuses, serves 1.4 million students and has so many alumni that one in three college-educated New Yorkers have a SUNY degree. Appointed nearly two years ago, the former Obama administration energy official, hydropower executive and world-class inventor has energized the system, spearheading partnerships with the tech industry, including IBM's commitment of $2 billion to SUNY Polytechnic Institute and other institutions, and pursuing a plan for zero carbon operation. More so than many leaders in academia, Johnson is a player in New York politics and policymaking. She lobbies for funding for SUNYs many schools and programs, is spearheading the rollout of the governors Excelsior scholarship, backed the DREAM Act, champions faculty diversity and unapologetically trumpets the economic benefits of a college degree. 2. Andrew Hamilton NYU Photo Bureau President of New York University As New York Universitys 16th president, Andrew Hamilton has overseen a period of rapid growth for the landmark New York City institution, building out its engineering and medical schools, continuing an expansion overseas in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai, and becoming a political powerhouse in his own right. In 2017 he presided over a $500 million Downtown Brooklyn expansion, taking over an old Metropolitan Transportation Authority headquarters for the newly re-christened NYU Tandon School of Engineering. Other expansions include the massive 735,000 square foot student hub on Mercer Street. Hamilton is also a diplomat of sorts. The award-winning chemist and former leader at Oxford University inherited a delicate situation when he became NYUs president in January 2016: a strained faculty-administration relationship, campus turmoil and neighborhood tensions surrounding some of the colleges expansion plans. However, Hamilton has made significant effort to defuse these situations and has opened up dialogue with the student body surrounding concerns about tuition cost. Hamilton is also a board member of the influential American Council on Education. 3. Lee Bollinger Eileen Barroso/Columbia University President of Columbia University Lee Bollinger has had a steady hand in his stewardship of Columbia University, New York Citys flagship institution of higher learning, which he has led since 2002. The Columbia Law School graduate spearheaded the Ivy League institutions expansion into nearby Harlem, winning a years-long land use battle to pave the way for the schools new Manhattanville Campus. Bollinger has not shied away from political issues, overseeing Columbias collaboration with a number of other universities on a legal challenge to the 2017 executive order restricting immigration. And when Gov. Andrew Cuomo joined former Vice President Al Gore to announce new efforts to combat climate change, the venue for that announcement was Columbia. A noted legal scholar on First Amendment rights, Bollinger has found himself at the center of free speech debates that have roiled his campus. PrezBo, as the 19th president of Columbia University is called by undergraduates there, has taken fire on hot-button topics including the Israel-Palestine debate and a 2007 speech on campus by Iranian Prime Minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 4. Felix Matos Rodriguez Photo by Aisha Hassan Incoming Chancellor of the City University of New York Felix Matos Rodriguez the current president of Queens College, has worked his way up through the CUNY system. The Puerto Rico native started out as the president of the Bronxs Hostos Community College, where during his five-year tenure he dramatically raised retention rates and doubled fundraising. Then in 2014 he took over as president of Queens College, where he gained recognition for his acumen as a fundraiser, nearly doubling the Queens College Foundations endowment. Rodriguez has earned repeated commendations for his success at making Queens College into a machine of social mobility, propelling working class students into the middle class. In August 2018, The Chronicle of Higher Education ranked Queens College 11th out of all U.S. colleges for upward social and economic mobility. Rodriguez is due to start his new position on May 1, and will be the first Latino chancellor of CUNY, a sprawling system with 25 campuses all across the city. He brings with him a track record of creating the kind of social mobility that the CUNY system is renowned for. 5. Martha Pollack Cornell University Photography President of Cornell University While Cornell University has traditionally been known as an elite Ivy League institution with a leafy campus in Ithaca, it has become much more than that and computer scientist Martha Pollack has wasted little time in drawing on her tech background to help shape the schools agenda since taking over as its 14th president in 2017. In partnership with the de Blasio administration, Pollack is overseeing the development of Cornell Tech, a groundbreaking school on Roosevelt Island that was conceived during the Bloomberg years and was reportedly a factor behind Amazons plan to move its HQ2 to Queens. Even with Amazon backing out, the campus is forecasted to create 8,000 permanent jobs and generate economic activity in excess of $23 billion over a 35 year period. An expert in artificial intelligence, Pollack serves on the board of computer giant IBM, which is expanding the tech industry in upstate New York. On her watch Cornell has also launched the Institute of Politics and Global Affairs, headed by former U.S. Rep. Steve Israel. The first piece of journalism that Dana Canedy, administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes, mentioned during Monday afternoons announcement of the 2019 prizes was one that did not win: a series of obituaries, by the staff of The Eagle Eye student newspaper at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. These budding journalists remind us of the medias unwavering commitment to bearing witness, even in the most wrenching of circumstances, said Canedy, speaking from a podium in a crowded lecture hall at Columbia University that included dozens of student journalists. Next, Canedy named the five journalists who lost their lives in last Junes shooting at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland; she spoke also of Jamal Khashoggi, of The Washington Post, who was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last October. It was, unfortunately, the theme of Canedys remarks and of the 103rd iteration of the prizes this year: the rising tide of violence in the country, which journalists have had to cover and of which they have become targets themselves. The award for public service, the Pulitzers top honor, went to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, for its coverage of failures by police and school officials after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting. The next award, for breaking news, went to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for its coverage in the wake of a shooting at Pittsburghs Tree of Life synagogue. Many of the seats in the lecture hall not filled by students were filled by representatives of press advocacy groups. A special award to the Capital Gazette, for demonstrating unflagging commitment to covering the news and serving their community at a time of unspeakable grief, in the words of the citation, made for a total of three Pulitzers on the subject of mass shootings. Related: The pressures of active-shooter coverage on school journalists The prizes also addressed threats to journalists elsewhere. In an unusual move, two prizes were awarded for international reporting, including one to the staff of Reuters, with special mention of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, Reuters journalists who were imprisoned last year for their coverage of government violence against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. Sign up for CJR 's daily email Though Canedy said the first goal of the Pulitzers is to acknowledge great work, she said in a question and answer session following the announcements that she hoped this years prizes would also draw attention to violence and threats to journalists. I think what we just did made a huge statement, she said. The presidents influence hangs over any conversation about threats to journalists and press freedom, but for a year full of Trump-related bombshells, his name was hardly spoken during Mondays event. Still, two blockbuster works on Trump and his inner circle nabbed prizes. First, The New York Timess David Barstow, Susanne Craig, and Russ Buettner were recognized in the explanatory reporting category for their 10,000-word epic on the dubious tax practices employed by Trump over decades and the riches he inherited from his father. The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, received the national reporting honor for uncovering hush money payments by Trump and his associates to silence women amid the 2016 presidential campaign. THE FULL LIST OF 2019 WINNERS: Public Service: South Florida Sun Sentinel: For exposing failings by school and law enforcement officials before and after the deadly shooting rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Finalists: ProPublica and The Washington Post Breaking News Reporting: Staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: For immersive, compassionate coverage of the massacre at Pittsburghs Tree of Life synagogue that captured the anguish and resilience of a community thrust into grief. Finalists: Staff of the Chico Enterprise-Record, in collaboration with the Bay Area News Group; and Staff of the South Florida Sun Sentinel Investigative Reporting: Matt Hamilton, Harriet Ryan and Paul Pringle of the Los Angeles Times: For consequential reporting on a University of Southern California gynecologist accused of violating hundreds of young women for more than a quarter-century. Finalists: David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner of The New York Times; and Kathleen McGrory and Neil Bedi of the Tampa Bay Times Explanatory Reporting: David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner of The New York Times: For an exhaustive 18-month investigation of President Donald Trumps finances that debunked his claims of self-made wealth and revealed a business empire riddled with tax dodges. (Moved by the Board from the Investigative Reporting category, where it was also entered.) Finalists: Aaron Glantz and Emmanuel Martinez of Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, Emeryville, Calif., in collaboration with Associated Press, PRX and the PBS NewsHour; Kyra Gurney, Nicholas Nehamas, Jay Weaver, and Jim Wyss of the Miami Herald; and Staff of The Washington Post Local Reporting: Staff of The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La.: For a damning portrayal of the states discriminatory conviction system, including a Jim Crow-era law, that enabled Louisiana courts to send defendants to jail without jury consensus on the accuseds guilt. Finalists: Barbara Laker, Wendy Ruderman, Dylan Purcell and Jessica Griffin of The Philadelphia Inquirer; and Brandon Stahl, Jennifer Bjorhus, MaryJo Webster, and Renee Jones Schneider of the Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Minn. National Reporting: Staff of The Wall Street Journal: For uncovering President Trumps secret payoffs to two women during his campaign who claimed to have had affairs with him, and the web of supporters who facilitated the transactions, triggering criminal inquiries and calls for impeachment. Finalists: Staff of Associated Press; and Staff of The New York Times, with contributions from Carole Cadwalladr of The Guardian/The Observer of London International Reporting: Maggie Michael, Maad al-Zikry and Nariman El-Mofty of Associated Press: For a revelatory yearlong series detailing the atrocities of the war in Yemen, including theft of food aid, deployment of child soldiers and torture of prisoners. And Staff of Reuters, with notable contributions from Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo: For expertly exposing the military units and Buddhist villagers responsible for the systematic expulsion and murder of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, courageous coverage that landed its reporters in prison. Finalists: Rukmini Callimachi of The New York Times Feature Writing: Hannah Dreier of ProPublica: For a series of powerful, intimate narratives that followed Salvadoran immigrants on New Yorks Long Island whose lives were shattered by a botched federal crackdown on the international criminal gang MS-13. Finalists: Deanna Pan and Jennifer Berry Hawes of The Post and Courier, Charleston, S.C.; and Elizabeth Bruenig of The Washington Post Commentary: Tony Messenger of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: For bold columns that exposed the malfeasance and injustice of forcing poor rural Missourians charged with misdemeanor crimes to pay unaffordable fines or be sent to jail. Finalists: Caitlin Flanagan of The Atlantic; and Melinda Henneberger of The Kansas City Star Criticism: Carlos Lozada of The Washington Post: For trenchant and searching reviews and essays that joined warm emotion and careful analysis in examining a broad range of books addressing government and the American experience. Finalists: Jill Lepore of The New Yorker; and Manohla Dargis of The New York Times Editorial Writing: Brent Staples of The New York Times: For editorials written with extraordinary moral clarity that charted the racial fault lines in the United States at a polarizing moment in the nations history. Finalists: Editorial Staff of The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La.; and the Editorial Staff of the Capital Gazette, Annapolis, Md. Editorial Cartooning: Darrin Bell, freelancer: For beautiful and daring editorial cartoons that took on issues affecting disenfranchised communities, calling out lies, hypocrisy and fraud in the political turmoil surrounding the Trump administration. Finalists: Ken Fisher, drawing as Ruben Bolling, freelancer; and Rob Rogers, freelancer Breaking News Photography: Photography Staff of Reuters: For a vivid and startling visual narrative of the urgency, desperation and sadness of migrants as they journeyed to the U.S. from Central and South America. Finalists: Noah Berger, John Locher and Ringo H. W. Chiu of Associated Press; and Photography Staff of Associated Press Feature Photography: Lorenzo Tugnoli of The Washington Post: For brilliant photo storytelling of the tragic famine in Yemen, shown through images in which beauty and composure are intertwined with devastation. (Moved by the jury from Breaking News Photography, where it was originally entered.) Finalists: Craig F. Walker of The Boston Globe; and Maggie Steber and Lynn Johnson of National Geographic ICYMI: How the press emerges from the coup in Sudan Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Andrew McCormick is an independent journalist and former CJR Delacorte Fellow. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, the South China Morning Post, and more. Follow him on Twitter @AndrewMcCormck. For the past two weeks, we have been highlighting major changes in Associated Press style, as announced at the annual conference of ACES: The Society for Editing. This last roundup will include some smaller changes that might still have big impacts. The first concerns the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. No longer should the church or its followers be called Mormon by default, both the church and AP say. No longer should the initials LDS be used to refer to the church. Instead, the full name of the church should be used on first reference, the AP says, with the church, church members, or members of the faith used in latter, er, later references. Its members can be called Latter-day Saints. (Note the hyphen and lack of capitalization.) You can take the Mormon out of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but you cant take the Mormon out of the church. After all, its principal document is the Book of Mormon. And the AP allows that, When necessary for space or clarity or in quotations or proper names, Mormon, Mormons, and Latter-day Saints are acceptable. That means that breaking the Mormon habit might be hard. The changes result from the churchs effectively rebranding itself, though its president insists it is not a renaming, rebranding, or cosmetic change. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the name of the Church Latter-day Saints believe came by revelation from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the church said in a news release in March. More than getting the name right as an institution, the invitation to use the full name of the Church is an opportunity for Latter-day Saints to refocus their lives on the living Christ. Sign up for CJR 's daily email To emphasize this change, the websites LDS.org (for members of the church) and Mormon.org (for nonmembers) will eventually be absorbed by ChurchofJesusChrist.org. Already, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has become simply the Tabernacle Choir, though it still shows up in searches with Mormon attached. Reclaiming its original name also allows the church to stop using names that others had given it. Since the first year of the Churchs founding, critics and others have sought to call the Church and its followers by other namesnames Latter-day Saints used out of convenience at first but then came to embrace themselves, the churchs release said. The presidents letter expounded on that: In the early days of the restored Church, terms such as Mormon Church and Mormons were often used as epithetsas cruel terms, abusive terms. In this way, the church is joining the tendency for groups to claim their own names rather than the names others people give them, as we have seen with African American (instead of colored, or Negro, or worse), Latino (instead of Hispanic or Spanish), and others. That goal to reemphasize Christ in the church brings us to the next AP style change: no longer will hyphens be required in words with the letter e doubled in them. Until recently, AP style called for hyphens in words with duplicated vowels or tripled consonants, like anti-intellectual, pre-empt, and shell-like. Now, the advice is to not hyphenate most words with the prefixes pre- or re-. That gives us preeclampsia, preexisting, reelect, and reenter, among other words. The stylebook calls this a recognition of common usage and dictionary preferences, which doesnt help them look any less weird to some people. (The New Yorker solves this problem the old-fashioned way, by using the dieresis, as in reenter.) This is in keeping with the lack of hyphenation for other pre- and re- words. But (isnt there always?), the AP still wants hyphens in what it calls hyphenated coinage, like pre-convention and pre-noon. And its still anti-intellectual and shell-like. AP has traditionally been less hyphen-happy than other style guides, and in line with that, it is dropping the hyphen in passerby. This one confounded many journalists, who often left the hyphen out of the singular but put it in the plural, passers-by (or occasionally wrote passerbys). Now, they can pass both those hyphens by, since the plural is passersby. And last, the AP updated its discussion of medical marijuana. In its detailed discussion of cannabidiol, THC, and the like, it added a new term: budtender. But not just anyone growing cannabis is one: The term is reserved for an employee of a dispensary who interacts with and sells products to customers. Dont bogart that term, though: The term is acceptable in limited uses, such as quotes or colloquial references; often terms like employee, worker or staff member will suffice. Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Merrill Perlman managed copy desks across the newsroom at the New York Times, where she worked for twenty-five years. Follow her on Twitter at @meperl. Pete Buttigieg is having a moment. In recent weeks, the longshot presidential bid of the hitherto obscure Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has attracted intense media interest. Yesterday, Mayor Pete chatter amped up again: New York magazine unveiled its new Buttigieg cover package; Politico Magazine dropped its own, similar profile; and The New York Times put him on A1 (albeit below the fold). Later in the day, Buttigiegs official campaign launch, in South Bend, made a buzz. The only time I have heard as excited a reaction to a campaign as I heard today about Buttigiegs launch was Barack Obama in 2008 and Ronald Reagan in 1980, Joe Scarboroughwho already hyped Buttigieg after a March interview on Morning Joetweeted. Yes, its very early. But the reaction has been remarkable. Buttigieg stories usually hit the same notesmillennial; openly gay; veteran; speaks Norwegian; plays piano; reads Joyce; its boot-edge-edge; Chasten, his husband, the breakout social media starthe list goes on. Taken together, these talking points explain a large part of the Buttigieg boom. His generational alignment and sexual orientation open up legitimate new conversations about the direction of US political culture. Other aspects of Buttigiegs media appeal, however, invite greater self-reflection on our part. Hes a white man in a cycle that has so far paid disproportionate attention to white male candidates. His liberal-yet-Midwestern-folksy positioning intrigues watchers of the horse race (fund-raising tallies are commonly touted; so are the assessments of Democratic operatives). His overt, cultured intellectualism makes him an obvious foil for Trump, without forcing us to think too hard about the structural forces that put Trump in the White House. And hes fun: a TV-character candidate pitched somewhere between the West Wing and Parks and Recreation writers rooms. ICYMI: WaPos tagline is Democracy Dies in Darkness. The paper published an op-ed that undermines that. Another big reason Buttigieg has blown up? Access. In her New York cover story, Olivia Nuzzi writes that Buttigieg will say yes to any interview. Yesterday, she reinforced that point on CNNs Reliable Sources. His campaigns been very savvy giving a lot of access to really whoever asks for it, she told host Brian Stelter. Hes really everywhere Nobody else is that accessible right now and I think that really counts for a lot. It makes a big difference in how much attention you get at an early stage if youre available for comment or for an interview. The press, obviously, should welcome the opportunity to engage openly with candidates for public office. But access alone isnt a good reason to lavish disproportionate attention on one candidate over all the others. Buttigieg has attracted some good, thoughtful reporting. Overall, however, its hard to escape the impression that weve let Buttigieg talk his way into serious presidential contention without demanding much substance. As several features on Buttigieg have noted, his platform, as far as it exists, is long on values and hopeful-sounding rhetoric, but short on policy specifics, at least compared to rivals like Elizabeth Warren. In the Times, Alexander Burns devoted a whole article to Buttigiegs longstanding preoccupation with personality and messaging, at the expense of hard detail. In news coverage, however, that strategy is rarely more than a footnote. It seems, collectively, that were wise to what Buttigieg is doing. And yet we have fallen for it. Buttigieg told Nuzzi that hell use substance to outlive his flavor-of-the-month period. (What does that mean? Nuzzi writes. I have no idea.) But he told Burns it would be inauthentic for him to outline too many proposals because presidents arent free to execute the letter of their plans. Theres plenty to be skeptical about here. To date, however, the bulk of Buttigieg coverage has contrived to turn him into a Thing, then marvel that hes somehow become a Thing, with questions coming later. Will his moment last? Going forward, our coverage choices will determine the answer. Sign up for CJR 's daily email Below, more on Pete Buttigieg: Explaining the appeal: Nuzzi offers a memorable one-paragraph summation of Buttigiegs appeal. Sick of old people? He looks like Alex P. Keaton. Scared of young people? He looks like Alex P. Keaton. Religious? Hes a Christian. Atheist? Hes not weird about it. Wary of Washington? Hes from flyover country. Horrified by flyover country? He has degrees from Harvard and Oxford. It goes on. Read the rest here . A media transformation: An interesting nugget from Adam Wrens piece for Politico Magazine : In [Buttigiegs] first visits to New Hampshire, he could reliably fill somebodys living room. Today, hes getting stopped by fans in airportsthough they sometimes mistake him for a reporter, he jokes, since hes on cable news so frequentlyand has a dedicated pack of national and international reporters following him, a byproduct of those well-received TV interviews. On Fox: According to Wren , Buttigieg was the first Democratic candidate for 2020 to appear on Fox News Sunday . While the Democratic National Committee has sworn off Fox News as a debate partner, individual candidates are free to appear on the network if they choose. Tonight, Bernie Sanders will participate in a Fox News town hall in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, at 6.30pm ET. Deep breaths: As Buttigieg coverage started to amp up earlier this month , The Washington Post s Margaret Sullivan wrote that it was time for a few deep breaths A young, promising politician having his media moment can be captivating. Its part of what makes politics a great spectator sport. And it might even turn out to mean something. But, remember, weve been here before. Howard Dean had his moment in 2003. So did Herman Cain in 2011. Somehow, life went on. Pulse rates returned to their normal levels. Other notable stories: ICYMI: The problem with Captain Americas new both sides website Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Jon Allsop is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, and The Nation, among other outlets. He writes CJRs newsletter The Media Today. Find him on Twitter @Jon_Allsop. On March 14, 2018, just hours after covering a student walkout against gun violence for Northwestern Universitys The Daily Northwestern, photo editor Colin Boyle found himself with a new assignment on his hands. Local police were responding to a report of a gunman at a residence hall on the Evanston, Illinois, campus. When Boyle arrived at the scene, he immediately began taking photos and interviewing officers. As news of the situation traveled and the campus went into lockdown, Boyles Twitter feed became the go-to source for worried parents and alumni, reporters in nearby Chicago, and students frustrated by what they felt was reticent communication from the university. Evanston Police Department eventually concluded that the report was a hoax. Still, Boyle reflects on the chaos, pressures, and challenges of covering an active-shooter threat as it evolved. There was a huge responsibility that I felt, Boyle says. I still am trying to process that to this day. Its kind of a lot to consider. ICYMI: The real costs of Devon Nuness defamation lawsuit The threat of an active shooter on campus confronts student journalists with a perfect storm: a young, sensitive audience already rattled by the specter of gun violence; an erosion of local newsrooms that has forced college publications to step in as papers of record; and a social-media economy that values speed and details, even at the expense of the truth. Compounding those pressures is the tension inherent to being a student reporter, asked to cover a community that is also your own. You really know a lot of these people and you want to give them the best information you can so they can be safe, Ryan Wangman, who covered the gun scare as The Daily Northwesterns city editor, says. But you also want to be safe yourself and you want to make sure youre being accurate. Sign up for weekly emails from the United States Project Faced with a clash between professional obligations and personal anxieties, some reporters feel they must suppress the latter. When Texas Tech alerted its students to an active shooter on campus in October, The Daily Toreadors editor in chief McKenzi Morris felt she had no choice but to push her own fear aside. We knew that if we let ourselves go there and let ourselves be freaked out and let ourselves be scared that there was no way we would get over that, she says. She gathered with her fellow editors to acknowledge the gravity of the moment. We paused, and I just told them, I love yall, please be safe. Do this job right, but dont do it to the point that its going to get you hurt, she says. And then we just went right back into work mode. In situations like these, there isnt much time to be scared, says Jordyn Hermani, who was editor in chief of Central Michigan Universitys CM Life when a shooting took place in a dorm room last March, two weeks after the mass shooting in Parkland. Hermani texted her parents to let them know what was going on, and then blocked their phone numbers so she could concentrate on reporting. If youre trying to fill too many roles at the same time, something is just logically going to fall through, Hermani says. I couldnt be worrying about what my parents were thinking at the time of trying to also tell 20,000 other parents whats going on. Even as campus publications provide authoritative reporting for their communities, the panic intrinsic to active-shooter events enables a social media rumor maelstrom that is almost impossible to manage. At Texas Tech, Morris remembers how quickly fabricated or misleading details of the suspect spread across Twitter. First, the shooter had fled campus in a white truck, then a gold car; they were wearing a shirt, then they werent wearing a shirt; there were multiple shooters, then multiple students had been shot. The staff of CM Life responded to incorrect student tweets with fact-checks, but Hermani likens the process to battling the Hydra, two new claims popping up for each one refuted. National news outlets now share student-journalist coverage and direct their audiences to college newsroom accounts, which Boyle says increases the pressure for student journalists to manage social media. Faced with these pressures, student journalists can too quickly lose sight of their own mental wellbeing. In the moment, it felt like this rush: I have to get stuff done, I have to publish as much as I could and relay as much information, says Boyle. But at the end of the day, were all humans, and I should have taken more time to process everything that was going on. A month and a half after the shooting at Texas Tech, Morriss advisers staged a quasi-intervention for the four Daily Toreador staffers who had covered the incident. It came to a point where it was affecting our classwork, it was affecting our relationships both in and outside of the newsroom, Morris says. Encouraged to talk it through and cry it out a little bit, the group spent three hours one night opening up about what they had experienced and the toll it had taken. They reflected on their coveragewhat theyd done well, what they might changeand finally articulated the emotions they had ignored for weeks. We didnt realize how hard it was going to be for us. Its hard covering this when its your campus because you do feel so closely connected to everything, Morris says. You have to take time and take care of yourself and realize, Its OK that its hard. Its OK that youre not OK. Related: Its time to rethink coverage of school shootings Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Maitreyi Anantharaman is a writer and student living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A former senior claims examiner for the Kaiser Permanente health plan in California was booked into jail last week on a mail fraud charge stemming from $7 million in invoices that he approved from five private investigation firms. Federal prosecutors say 48-year-old Michael Albert Quinn was aware that the private investigators did little of the work for which they billed Kaiser. He knew that firsthand because payroll records show that he worked full-time for two of the firms while at the same time working at his full-time position with Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, according to a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. District Attorneys Office for Northern California. Quinn also was paid separately by the vendors each of them located in Reno, Nevada and owned by individuals identified in the complaint as K.B., R.D. and K.R - for surveillance and other work as a private contractor. All told, the vendors paid him $2.78 million from 2007 to 2014, according the complaint. Quinn also supervised these same cases as a Kaiser employee, FBI Special Agent William J. Leoni stated in the criminal complaint. In short, I believe Quinn received the equivalent of two full-time incomes for managing and purportedly investigating the same cases for Kaiser and the PI firms owned by K.B. Quinn was hired by Kaiser Permanente legal division in 1998 to investigate malpractice and premises liability complaints. Another Kaiser employee became suspicious in 2014 after Quinn told the employee that he owned two expensive homes and had recently purchased two high-end automobiles. Kaiser initiated an audit and discovered that Quinn had authorized payment of $7 million in invoices for investigative work. By comparison, all of the other claims examiners had authorized a combined $578,345 in invoices from investigations firms. The auditors discovered that the PI firms did now show any work product to support the amounts billed, according to the complaint. They did file some investigation reports, but they contained only biographical information that could easily be obtained through subscription-based research services. Whats more, Quinn never contacted the attorneys assigned to his cases about the investigative work that had done. The auditors looked into Kaisers work-issued laptop computer and found invoices sent to the vendors by Michael A. Quinn Investigations and Quinn Legal. Kaiser terminated Quinn in July 2014. Quinn is the second Kaiser employee accused of a seven-figure swindle against Kaiser Permanente. In 2013, Asim Waqar was convicted and sentenced to 33 months in prison on wire fraud and tax evasion charges. Investigators say Waqar, while working as a software project manager for Kaiser in Oakland, paid the wife of a college friend in Detroit for work on technology projects, even though no work was actually done. He received $428,300 in kickbacks for his troubles, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office. The East Bay Times reported Friday that Alameda County court records show that Quinn had been arrested in 2002 on an embezzlement charge connected to his employment as a loss-control specialist for a major department store chain. Kaiser Permanente issued a statement saying it filed a civil suit against Quinn and his associates and was not aware when it hired Quinn that he had been accused of embezzlement while working at Nordstrom. Since Kaiser Permanente hired Mr. Quinn more than 20 years ago, we have continued to improve our hiring process, which, of course, now includes various background checks that may not have been commonly used by companies two decades ago, the company said. Quinn was being held at the Glen Dyer Detention Facility in Oakland late Friday, according to online records. He faces a 20-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine if convicted. Utility giant PG&E Corp. capped its best day since going bankrupt in January thanks to Californias governor. Gavin Newsom called on lawmakers on Friday to find a way to help the states utilities cover the costs of devastating wildfires costs so crippling that PG&E was forced to file for Chapter 11 in January while facing $30 billion in liabilities. He issued a report outlining possible solutions including an insurance fund utilities could tap into sending the clearest signal yet that California will move to keep its power companies solvent. We all have a burden and a responsibility to assume the costs, Newsom said in a news conference when the report was released. As a result of the wildfires, he said, We are in a very precarious state. Newsom, a Democrat, asked for legislation to be passed by July 12. His party holds the majority in the state legislature. In doing so, Newsom delivered what Wall Street has been waiting on for months: Clarity on exactly what the state will do to help utilities, including Edison International and Sempra Energy, avoid the same fate as PG&E. Edisons Southern California Edison utility and Sempras San Diego Gas & Electric have both seen their credit downgraded due to the wildfire risks and face junk status within months without a fix from the state. PG&E, which didnt immediately respond to a request for comment, jumped 21 percent to $23.08, its highest close since Jan. 24. Edison surged 7.2 percent at $67.13, and Sempra gained 1.4 percent. While he called for action to aid utilities, Newsom wasnt shy in addressing PG&Es culpability during a press conference. He raised the idea, on several occasions, of a possible government takeover should PG&E continue to be bad actors and mislead the state. Newsom noted that, in the report, there is a word that drives shivers up peoples spines: Its called municipalization. And, he added, If they dont get it done. We will get it done. Newsoms report outlines policy options that include a catastrophic wildfire fund utilities could use for liabilities and a liquidity fund. It doesnt make an outright recommendation on whether the state should kill a legal doctrine known as inverse condemnation that holds utilities strictly liable for damages should their equipment cause a fire. But it does suggest that lawmakers consider changing the doctrine to a fault-based standard that would make utilities responsible if there was misconduct involved. Also recommended in the report: Reform the California Public Utilities Commission that oversees power companies. The state can take no options off the table in the PG&E bankruptcy case, including municipalization of all or part of operations; breaking up PG&Es territory into smaller markets; and focusing its operations on pipes and wires. Consider creating a state power-buying agency to backstop utilities. Weigh a liquidity fund that would provide bridge financing to pay for fire claims while regulators weigh whether ratepayers should pick up costs. Utility shareholders and ratepayers may pay for the fund. Explore a catastrophic wildfire fund that would help utilities immediately pay for damages if they face massive liabilities. Shareholders could contribute, and insurance companies would agree to cap claims.Newsoms report drew a mixed reception. Key lawmakers pledged to work with him, with Senate President Toni Atkins saying legislators will dive into the details of the report in the coming weeks. Advocacy group Consumer Watchdog meanwhile said a PG&E bailout shouldnt be buried in the fine print of legislative action. While Californias utilities rallied, Moodys Investors Service said the impact on the companies credit remains to be seen. The report represents concrete progress toward options for managing wildfire risk a credit positive, the ratings company said. While Moodys said none of the reports suggestions alone would mitigate utility risk, combined, the strategies start to exhibit more promise. About the photo: The sun rises through a cloud of smoke after a wildfire swept through the area in Sonoma County on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2017, in Santa Rosa, Calif. (Paul Kitagaki Jr. /The Sacramento Bee via AP) PARADISE, Calif. The sky was turning orange and the embers were flying from the Camp Fire when Oney and Donna Carrell and Donnas father sped away from their Paradise home. I thought, `Oh, well, the house is done, Oney Carrell said. A few days later, they learned otherwise. The Carrells home survived the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history with a couple of warped window frames, a partially charred down spout and a stubborn smoky smell inside. Most of their neighborhood was destroyed. A guest house in their backyard, where Donnas father lived, was reduced to ashes, along with a couple of sheds. Yet their beautifully restored 1940 Studebaker sat untouched in the garage. The arc of destruction the Camp Fire carved through Paradise was seemingly random: Why were some houses saved and others incinerated? As millions of Californians brace for another wildfire season , a McClatchy analysis of fire and property records shows the answer might be found in something as simple as the roofs over their heads _ and the year their house was built. A landmark 2008 building code designed for Californias fire-prone regions requiring fire-resistant roofs, siding and other safeguards _ appears to have protected the Carrells home and dozens of others like it from the Camp Fire. That year marks a pivotal moment in the states deadly and expensive history of destructive natural disasters. All told, about 51 percent of the 350 single-family homes built after 2008 in the path of the Camp Fire were undamaged, according to McClatchys analysis of Cal Fire data and Butte County property records. By contrast, only 18 percent of the 12,100 homes built prior to 2008 escaped damage. Those figures dont include mobile homes, which burned in nearly equal measure regardless of age. These are great standards; they work, said senior engineer Robert Raymer of the California Building Industry Association, who consulted with state officials on the building code. Yet despite this lesson, California may end up falling short in its effort to protect homes from the next wildfire. Mushrooming cities such as Folsom, where an 11,000-home development is springing up, have the ability to bypass the states safety standards in spite of considerable fire risks. The state, which offers cash incentives to bolster old homes against earthquakes, so far has done nothing to get Californians to retrofit homes built before 2008 for fire safety. It hasnt helped that housing construction went into a deep dive in 2008 and has been slow to recover. Raymer said only 860,000 homes and apartments have been built statewide since the code went into effect. Thats just 6 percent of the states housing stock. According to Cal Fire, as many as 3 million homes lie within the various fire hazard severity zones around the state. Dave Sapsis, a Cal Fire wildland fire scientist, said theres no way to know definitively how many of those homes were built before 2008, but he believes its the preponderance of them, the majority. The situation is worse in rural California, where housing construction lags but the fire hazards are among the worst in the state, Raymer said. Fewer than 3 percent of the homes in the path of the Camp Fire were built after 2008. Most of our inventory that was here prior to the fire was (built) between the 40s and the 70s, said Paradise Town Councilman Michael Zuccolillo, a real estate agent. The average home here was from the 70s. That leaves thousands of homes at risk from the next inferno across California, their wood-shake shingles waiting to ignite. What are we going to do about the existing housing stock thats been built in these places? said Max Moritz, a wildfire specialist at UC Santa Barbara. For the existing housing stock thats out there, that isnt built to these codes, we have a massive retrofitting issue on our hands. They have structure ignition vulnerabilities that are built into the situation, theyre baked into the problem. The Weakest Link The Carrells, now living in a rental in Roseville, designed their Paradise home and did much of the interior work themselves; they knew that home was built with fire safety in mind. I knew we were in the middle of the forest, Oney Carrell said during a recent visit to Paradise. Why wouldnt you do everything you could to make it last? But even hes amazed that their home made it. Stepping over a blackened patio drain just a few feet from the back of the house, he wondered aloud: I dont know why it stopped here. Its almost impossible to say for certain why some homes are still standing in Paradise, while others were ruined. Landscaping surely played a role ; fire experts say homes buffered by so-called defensible space probably did better than those wrapped in shrubs. Luck was a big factor, too, as homes were no doubt spared by last-second shifts in the winds. Nevertheless, experts say, McClatchys analysis reinforces their belief that Californias fire-safe building code can make a difference in an era of increasing vulnerability. Daniel Gorham, a former firefighter and U.S. Forest Service researcher who works for the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety in South Carolina, said the California code is becoming a model for other fire-prone states. California is leaps and bounds ahead of other parts of the country, Gorham said. California is on the forefront. Advocates say fire-resistant building materials arent particularly expensive. A study last fall by Headwater Economics, a consulting firm in Bozeman, Mont., found that a new home built to wildfire-resistant codes can be constructed for roughly the same cost as a typical home. But getting Californians to retrofit homes built before 2008 is an enormous task. The state requires property owners in fire zones who replace at least half their roof to install fire-retardant materials on the entire roof. Other than that, however, theres nothing forcing Californians to safeguard their existing homes against fire hazards. A few California cities have taken matters into their own hands. In 2008, the City Council in Big Bear Lake, a community of 5,200 in San Bernardino County, passed an ordinance declaring wood shake shingle roofs a severe fire hazard and danger and ordered homeowners to replace them by 2012. Armed with state and federal grants, it offered cash incentives of up to $4,500 apiece for new roofs. Although the grant program has run out, I cant think of the last time I saw a shake roof in Big Bear, said Patrick Johnston, the citys chief building official. Most Californians, however, are on their own when it comes to spending the tens of thousands of dollars needed to replace a roof or install fire-resistant siding. The state offers no financial incentives for fire safety the way it does, say, for earthquakes _ homeowners in quake zones can get up to $3,000 apiece from the state to gird their homes against seismic disaster. There are signs, however, that the state is beginning to get more serious about retrofitting homes for fire safety. A law signed last year by former Gov. Jerry Brown requires the state fire marshal to develop a suggested list of low-cost retrofits by January 2020. The state would then promote these retrofits in its education and outreach efforts. California also might start throwing cash at the problem. A new bill, AB 38, introduced earlier this year by Democratic Assemblyman Jim Wood of Santa Rosa, would create a $1 billion fire hardened homes revolving loan fund to help homeowners retrofit their properties. The issue is personal for Wood, a dentist who spent weeks helping identify victims from the Camp Fire and the wine country fires of October 2017. Although eligibility terms havent been spelled out, the bill would offer low-interest and no-interest loans to help those who otherwise couldnt pay for new roofs or other safeguards. A lot of these small towns are not as well off financially, he said. We need to find a way to help them, especially if theyre poorer. The fund might not be nearly enough to go around _ not with hundreds of thousands of homes in need of retrofits, and a new roof alone costing $10,000 or more. The $1 billion, indeed, thats not enough to rehab every home, said the Building Industry Associations Raymer. But he said its an absolutely excellent way to kick things off. Wood said state officials would have to figure out a plan for parceling out the money to where its needed most _ probably starting with lower-income areas near forests. Obviously we want to affect the areas with the highest risk first, the assemblyman said. A lot of these small towns are not as well off financially. We need to find a way to help them, especially if theyre poorer. Mapping Severity Zones The fire-safe building code had its origins in two significant fires from a generation ago _ the Panorama Fire of 1980, which spilled out of the mountains into the city of San Bernardino; and the monstrous Oakland Hills Fire of 1991, which wiped out 2,500 homes and killed 25 people. In response, the Legislature ordered the Department of Fire Protection and Forestry to start mapping major fire risks in California, in the hinterlands as well as urban areas. The result was a collection of maps of the states fire hazard severity zones, encompassing more than one-third of Californias land mass. Based on factors such as terrain, vegetation and weather patterns, the zones represent Cal Fires attempt to predict the probability of a fire starting and the likelihood that it could become significant, said Cal Fires Sapsis. The maps spawned tighter building standards. The Legislature mandated fire-resistant roofs in these fire-prone areas. Then in 2008 the state laid out a more comprehensive scheme. The California Building Standards Commission rolled out a suite of regulations, known as Chapter 7A, that set strict rules for roofing materials, siding, windows, decks and other elements of a home built in 2008 or later _ right down to the minimum specs for the wire mesh that must be installed on attic vents to keep embers out (no more than a quarter-inch of space between the wires). Experts said the regulations seem to be particularly effective at protecting structures from the types of wildfires that are increasingly common in California, where wind gusts can blow embers a mile or two ahead of the main wall of flames and do some of the worst damage. A window breaks, a vent breaks, the fire gets into your home and youve got an interior structure fire, said Joe Poire, the city of Santa Barbaras fire marshal. Enforcement of the building code carries a few wrinkles. In the mainly rural areas where Cal Fire is in charge of fire protection, the Chapter 7A code is automatically enforced in any region that Cal Fire has designated as a severity zone _ moderate, high or very high. In urban areas that have their own fire departments, the code is generally used only in spots where Cal Fire says the threat is very high. Local governments have the discretion of rejecting the Cal Fire designation, and Sapsis said some city councils have been squeamish about the states maps because of fears that the Chapter 7A code will inflate construction costs, or for other reasons. Yet interviews with local officials throughout California by McClatchy indicate that the vast majority of cities and towns go along with Cal Fires recommendations. Santa Barbara city officials extended the building code to coastal areas that had been overlooked by Cal Fires mappers. The map omits small portions of Paradise, but the building code is enforced across the entire town, said Paradise public information officer Colette Curtis. Danger in Santa Rosa, Folsom? Nevertheless, there are places where local officials are reluctant to impose strict building codes _ even where fire has caused catastrophe. Before Paradise exploded, Santa Rosas Coffey Park was the poster child for recent California wildfire disasters: Five people died and 1,321 homes were destroyed by the Tubbs Fire in October 2017. Coffey Park wasnt subject to Californias Chapter 7A building code. It still isnt. Unlike some areas of Santa Rosa, the neighborhood hasnt been designated a very high fire hazard zone by Cal Fire. City officials are OK with that. Although developers rebuilding Coffey Park are being urged to consider fire-resistant materials, city spokeswoman Adriane Mertens said the city doesnt see any reason to impose the 7A code in the neighborhood. There were very, very high winds that night, Mertens said. There were embers that were blown across the (Highway 101) freeway, across six lanes of freeway, into Coffey Park. Jack Cohen, a fire scientist in Montana who helped develop the 7A code, said he thinks Santa Rosa is committing an error in judgment by rebuilding without the safeguards. In any event, Cal Fire is updating its fire hazard maps over the next year or so, taking into account more sophisticated data on wind and other climate factors, and Sapsis said spots such as Coffey Park could wind up designated as high-risk areas. Once the maps are done, any region placed inside Cal Fires very high fire zone will have no choice but to comply, under a bill signed into law by Brown last year. But there will still be ways for cities to skirt the state building code. Look at Folsom, widely considered one of the most vulnerable places in greater Sacramento to fire. The countys hazard mitigation plan says 44,000 residents of Folsom are already at moderate or higher wildfire risk. Now the suburb is building a development called Folsom Ranch, eventually to be home to 25,000 people, on a parcel south of Highway 50. The development is on land that used to be subject to the strict state building code. Now it isnt. How did that happen? Years ago, the land was outside Folsoms city limits and Cal Fire was responsible for its safety. Cal Fires maps put the land in the moderate risk zone a threat level high enough that, under the states regulations, the fire-safe building code took effect. As it happened, no construction took place during that time, city officials say. The situation changed when the city annexed the land to forge ahead with Folsom Ranch. Because the land has never been in the states very high risk zone, the city feels comfortable letting Folsom Ranch develop without the Chapter 7A building code. Fire Chief Felipe Rodriguez said Folsom officials are still open to the possibility of strengthening, hardening, our future homes. But for now, the city is only requiring homeowners associations to implement a vegetation management plan and install fire-resistant fencing around properties that abut open space areas, Rodriguez said. Is Folsom courting danger? Rodriguez doesnt think so. The city will build two fire stations in the development and will be able to suppress a fire during its early stages, he said. Sticks in a Fireplace The hundreds of thousands of older homes in fire zones arent just more vulnerable in their own right. Experts say they spread danger to new homes built to stricter standards. One little house built to a new standard, surrounded by a bunch of older stuff, is likely to get swamped, Sapsis said. Paradise provided a grim reminder of that problem. The Camp Fire destroyed more than 80 percent of the 4,100 mobile homes in its path, whether they were built to the new code or not, according to McClatchys data analysis. That isnt surprising, Sapsis said, given that many of Paradises mobile homes were jammed alongside one another in mobile home parks. Theyre stacked so close together, theyre like sticks in a fireplace, Sapsis said. Sapsis and others say the lesson is that strong building codes arent enough. In particular, experts say communities must pay more attention to how they lay out their neighborhoods, allowing for firebreaks and enough space between houses. In the name of affordable housing, were moving housing closer and closer to one another, said Chris Dicus, a forestry and fire expert at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. That serves to have house-to-house-to-house ignition. The problem isnt limited to densely-packed urban areas. I live in a rural community, and I have got six feet basically separating me from my neighbor, said Dicus, who lives outside of Morro Bay. In addition, experts say California is struggling to enforce the state law regarding defensible space around properties. The law requires that property owners maintain as much as 100 feet of defensible space around homes and other buildings in and around a mountainous area, forest-covered lands, brush-covered lands, grass-covered lands, or land that is covered with flammable material. That means keeping trees and shrubs pruned and spaced far apart. Within five feet of the building, property owners are supposed to remove anything that could catch fire: mulch, plants, woodpiles and so on. In practice, however, enforcement of the defensible space law has been spotty at best. Raymer, of the California Building Industry Association, said most property owners dont understand how to maintain their yards. The state doesnt impose penalties for non-compliance, and only a few local governments have chosen to do so, Raymer said. Legislation could change that. SB 190, by Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, would require the state fire marshal to develop a model defensible space program, including penalties, that local governments could adopt. The problem extends beyond homeowners property lines. Gov. Gavin Newsom, finding some rare common ground with the Trump administration, is advocating for more aggressive management of forested lands. A thinned forest northeast of Paradise provided one of the rare victories of the Camp Fire. As the fire raged out of the tiny community of Pulga, it essentially spared the northern part of Magalia. The reason was a series of forest-thinning projects conducted in recent years and overseen by the U.S. Forest Service, Sierra Pacific Industries and the volunteer Butte County Fire Safe Council. The council also worked diligently with area residents to clear brush from their property. All that work did exactly what we hoped it would do, said Calli-Jane DeAnda, executive director of the council, which secured $1 million in grants to remove fuels from forested areas. This investment of public money is so worth the effort. The Paradise Lab Experiment The rebuilding of Paradise means thousands of homes are going to be constructed in the coming years to the stricter standards promulgated by the state in 2008. It represents the single largest test of the effectiveness of the building code. That is an absolute lab experiment for us, Sapsis said. On the streets of Paradise, though, community leaders are taking a more measured view. Zuccolillo, the town councilman, said asphalt roofs and stucco siding might give us more of a chance but he doubts they will guarantee Paradises safety. I saw metal buildings, metal and stucco buildings, burn to the ground, he said. Still, theres plenty of evidence, all over Paradise, that the states building code can protect property. The other day, Sean Herr pulled into his driveway on the west side of Paradise, where he and his wife Dawn were raising their two young children. The first thing he did was bring out the ultimate symbol of resiliency: an American flag, the same one that flew on his front porch the day of the Camp Fire. Like the flag, the house is still standing. The Herrs home, built in 2010, suffered a bit of scorching and some interior smoke damage _ the smoke is bad enough that theyre still temporarily living in Chico and arent certain theyll move back. Still, they marvel at what a close call they had. A Ford Excursion and a boat parked in the front yard, just a few feet from their porch, were destroyed. Five motorcycles locked in a shed behind the house got ruined. Most of their neighborhood is gone. The Herrs believe their attention to defensible space _ the house is mostly encircled in gravel _ and the strictness of the building code probably made the difference. Our yard and the construction of the house saved it for sure, Dawn Herr said, gesturing to a small scorch mark by the side of the house. You can see it tried to catch on fire. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. With an increasing number of forest fires scorching portions of Washington each year, the Legislature is considering a proposal to create a fund dedicated to preventing and battling wildfires. In March, Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz and state Senate Democrats proposed to increase the tax on premiums for property and casualty insurance in order to raise $62.5 million annually to pay for wildfire suppression and prevention. Never before have we faced a wildfire crisis of this magnitude, Franz told lawmakers recently. And one way or another, we are going to pay for our wildfires and dying forests. The question is whether we are going to pay to react as we deal with smoke and flames, or pay to be proactive. The states insurance industry pushed back on the proposal, saying it amounted to a 20% tax increase that unfairly targeted insurers. Franz countered that more than 2.2 million homes in Washington are exposed to wildfire, and the cost to fight such fires has averaged $153 million per year over the past five years. Its getting harder to keep our communities and our firefighters safe, she said. The proposal would help the state modernize its wildland firefighting forces, as well as help restore 1.25 million acres of forests to make them more fire resistant, she said. The money would come from raising the tax on premiums for property and casualty insurance from 2% to 2.52%. Franz said the increase would cost the average household less than $2 per month. Washington needs dedicated funds for wildfire suppression and to restore the health of diseased and dying forests, Franz told the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which held a hearing on the bill Monday. Several lawmakers agreed with her. Were seeing wildfires that are bigger and harder to contain, and were seeing them far more often, said Sen. Kevin Van De Wege, D-Sequim. What should have been beautiful skies over the Olympic Peninsula last summer were gray and overcast. The air around Puget Sound was so unhealthy, people had to stay indoors. In eastern Washington, people lost homes and other valuable property, he said. If we dont take action now, this is what we can expect every summer in the years to come. Sen. Christine Rolfes, D-Bainbridge Island, agreed. Year after year, we rely on our states rainy day fund to reimburse catastrophic fire response. Its time for the state to plan responsibly in order to protect communities and invest in healthy forests Rolfes said. Mel Sorensen of the American Property and Casualty Insurance Association opposes the proposal. This is a societal priority, not just an insurers priority. A different funding source should be found, he said. The tax will apply to all manner of property and casualty insurance, including renters, vehicles, medical malpractice and other sorts of insurance, Sorensen said. Clark Sitzes, representing the Professional Insurance Agents of Washington, said insurance buyers are very price sensitive and a few dollars may prompt some people not to buy policies. The insurance representatives also questioned the estimated cost of $2 per month, saying that sounded low considering the variety of policies held by many residents. The proposal is supported by the Washington Public Employees Association, which represents wildland firefighters, spokesman Seamus Petrie said. This will enable the department to increase training, Petrie said. Franz told the committee that in the past decade the wildfire season in Washington has increased from three months to nine months, and the state was seeing bigger and more destructive fires. No one is safe from it, she said. Last year was the Department of Natural Resources busiest fire season ever. The agency responded to more than 1,850 wildfires, and 440,000 acres burned across Washington. Forty percent of those fires were west of the Cascades. In March, the state saw 50 unseasonal wildfires, 49 of them in western Washington, lawmakers were told. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. (ANSA) - Milan, April 15 - Interior Minister Matteo Salvini is under investigation for kidnapping migrants, Salvini said Monday. He said he is being probed for allegedly abducting migrants allegedly held on a ship stopped from landing in Siracusa from January 24 to 30 this year. Salvini said the prosecutor in the case, Carmelo Zuccaro, had filed to dismiss the case at the same time as he had submitted the charges. Earlier this year the Senate voted not to lift Salvini's parliamentary immunity to face charges in another migrant kidnapping case. Salvini took the opportunity to respond to fellow Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio who on Sunday said Italy's blockade of ports to NGO migrant rescue ships was "only temporary", sources said. Salvini said "I take the opportunity to reply to the minister: for me the ports will remain closed", reiterating his long-held stance. He said "I respect the work of the colleague Di Maio who is dealing with jobs, but on the issues of the control of borders and organised crime it's me who decides. "If minister Di Maio or (Defence Minister Elisabetta) Trenta think differently they should say so in cabinet and we'll have a frank discussion. "With me the ports will remain unavailably closed and sealed to the traffickers in human beings". At the weekend Di Maio and Trenta both warned of the prospect of a surge in migrants leaving Libya because of the conflict there. From Returning to Jaffa, by Philip Metres: But she doesnt look like a refugee, my student said, eyeing her grandmotherly cardigan, her gray-black coif and new laptop. Ive asked her to tell her story, but on her PowerPoint, It is 1948. I am nine. Ill tell you only what I know... From Nahida Halaby Gordons remembrances in a collection she edited: Palestine is our Home: Voices of Loss, Courage and Steadfastness: In the spring to 1948, we fell asleep at night to the sound of bombs aimed at Yafa [an Arabic name for Jaffa]. In my childish imagination, the bombs sounded like large pipes being thrown around my giants... The lighthouse became a friend as I watched its hypnotic recurring sweep of light through the transom of my bedroom door, and this friend lulled me to sleep every night. Poet Philip Metres and retired math professor Nahida Halaby Gordon at John Carroll University. Metres's new collection of poems,"Returning to Jaffa", is inspired by Gordon's childhood flight from Palestine and her work for Palestinian rights.Lisa DeJong/The Plain Dealer One local professors plight has inspired anothers poems. In his new collection Returning to Jaffa, John Carroll University poet Philip Metres views Jaffa partly through the eyes of of retired Case Western Reserve University mathematician Nahida Halaby Gordon, whose family reluctantly fled that violent city in 1948, on the verge of Israels independence. Metres will release his 36-page paperback at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Loganberry Books, 13015 Larchmere Blvd., Shaker Heights. The book falls in a genre known as docupoetry, with his words, Gordons, tourist postcards, government edicts and more. Seventy-one years after fleeing, Gordon still misses her homeland. The atmosphere, the memories, the food.... She smiles. The fruits. Gordon was two when her Palestinian Presbyterian family moved from Jerusalem to Jaffa, a bustling, cosmopolitan city on the Mediterranean, fragrant with famous oranges, diverse in ethnicity and faith. She says families of the different groups made friends and shared holidays. But Jaffa had suffered centuries of colonization and violence. The young Nahida could play on her big veranda but not venture from home by herself. In 1948, the violence grew. She often heard gunshots and bombs. An explosion finally bloodied her father. Forsaking a lucrative importing business, he fled with the family to Lebanon, then Cincinnati. The daughter studied there, followed a husband to Wooster and taught probability and statistics for Case Westerns medical school. She often revisited the Middle East, sometimes on prestigious Fulbright scholarships. She found her old house split into 15 apartments. She rang all the bells. An occupant finally answered and led her inside. The woman had fled pogroms in Russia and said she just wanted to live a normal life in Jaffa. Recalls Gordon, I wondered how she can live a normal life when she is living in stolen property and a stolen country. The two women finally hugged and parted. Gordon has served as president of the Interfaith Council for Peace in the Middle East and written and spoken widely about the regions conflicts. In the mid-2000s, she spoke at the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Main Library. Metres was there. The more I got to understand the details of her life and predicament, he says, the more it seemed to be incredibly her own and yet connected to the larger story of Palestinian refugees and dispossession: going back to the place you lived and sometimes being accepted and sometimes not." Metres grandparents were Lebanese Catholic immigrants to the U.S. He grew more interested in his ancestral home when his sister went to Birzeit University and married a Palestinian Muslim social worker. Today, he runs a John Carroll interdisciplinary program of studies in peace, justice and human rights. He also teaches a course on Israeli and Palestinian literature. He often brings Gordon to speak to the students, and her words have gradually inspired his. Among other controversies, Metres collection highlights the eventual disappearance of vital records of Jaffas Palestinians. He says, People get erased not only by physical removal but archival removal. Now hes working on a longer book about the Middle East from multiple points of view. People often argue about which group lived in Palestine first and which deserves what slice of it now. Gordon and Metres would rather talk about peace. Says Metres: We should acknowledge and be at home with all these layers of 10,000 years of a great history from all the civilizations that have been there. Gordon rejects the common call to separate Israel and Palestine. Its become one country already. They have to learn to live together. Philip Metres' new collection, "Returning to Jaffa," was inspired by Nahida Halaby Gordon's childhood flight from Palestine.Lisa DeJong/The Plain Dealer Returning to Jaffa is available for $12 from diodeeditions.com. Nahida Halaby Gordon edited "Palestine Is Our Home: Voices of Loss, Courage and Steadfastness," a 2016 collection about Palestine.Lisa DeJong/The Plain Dealer Palestine Is Our Home: Voices of Loss, Courage and Steadfastness (2016, Palestine Books) is available on amazon.com for $19.95 plus shipping. AVON, Ohio -- Weapons violation, Colorado Ave: A Cleveland woman was arrested for improperly handling a firearm in a motor vehicle and carrying a concealed weapon at 3:54 p.m. April 1 after a traffic stop on Interstate 90. She was later taken to the Lorain County Jail. Police had no further information at the time of the report. Drunken driver, Chester Road: A driver was pulled over for a traffic violation at 11:53 p.m. April 3. The driver was later found to be intoxicated and was arrested for operating a motor vehicle while impaired. If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page. Read more news from the Sun Sentinel here. LAKEWOOD, Ohio -- GTI (Green Thumb Industries) Ohio LLC plans on opening two medical marijuana dispensaries in Lakewood. The Chicago-based company has proposed construction of two RISE stores on undeveloped lots at 11818 Madison Ave. and 18607 Detroit Ave. Both locations received approval from the Lakewood Planning Commission and Architectural Board of Review. Work can begin once construction documents are approved by the Lakewood Building Department. We love Northeast Ohio, we like the city of Cleveland and we figured that Lakewood, given the population density, would provide an opportunity to serve a large patient community, GTI Ohio LLC Manager Adam Robbins said. We believe the locations are in a good spot for the Northeast Ohio community with easy accessibility from the interstate. With 17 existing locations in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maryland, Florida, Illinois and Nevada, GTI Ohio LLC earlier this year was awarded five Ohio provisional licenses, which allow for the opening of dispensaries in Lakewood, as well as in downtown Cleveland (currently under construction), Lorain and Toledo. These sites are for the retail of medical cannabis only, Robbins said. There will be no production, no cultivation at these locations. Its just for the dispensing of medical cannabis. All the medical cannabis will be sourced locally from the state of Ohio from the licensed cultivators and manufacturers that won their application through the Ohio Department of Commerce, which is the body overseeing cultivation and processing. The medical marijuana will be sold to regular patients and patient caregivers as part of the Ohio Medical Marijuana program. So, not just anybody can walk into these facilities. GTI Ohio LLC hopes to open both Lakewood locations toward the end of 2019. Mayor Mike Summers felt it was inevitable that Lakewood would have license applicants. Consequently, we created and ultimately approved ordinances that compensate the city for extra costs of public safety and create clear safety expectations and building design approval processes, Summers said. We were surprised that Lakewood applicants received two of the five initial licenses granted in Cuyahoga County. Lakewoods annual fees of $25,000 a year and 1.5 percent of annual sales over $1.2 million dollars are among the highest municipal fees in the country. These funds can be used to support expanded human services for our most vulnerable residents," he said. Lakewood Director of Planning & Development Bryce Sylvester said that from an economic development perspective, both projects bring new buildings to Lakewoods commercial corridors, which will generate new annual real estate taxes and income taxes. Once both operations are up and running, the annual fee is analogous to a company moving to Lakewood with a $5 million payroll, Sylvester said. Additionally, weve learned that GTI is also exploring the option of installing solar panels at the Madison location, which supports Lakewoods initiatives related to resiliency and sustainable building practices. Read more news from the Sun Post Herald here. OLMSTED FALLS, Ohio -- During Olmsted Falls Middle Schools annual eighth-grade trip to Washington, D.C., April 3-5, a number of students reported illnesses. While the final dinner stop on the way home was cut short, with the group returning home more than an hour and a half earlier than scheduled, all of the scheduled activities and site visits included in the original itinerary were completed. Last week, with parental approval, the Cuyahoga County Board of Health (CCBH) interviewed students regarding the illness. Weve received notification that the stool samples submitted to the Ohio Department of Health have tested positive for norovirus, CCBH Communications Officer Kevin Brennan said in a press release. This is consistent with the preliminary information about the signs and symptoms that were reported by attendees who became ill during last weeks school trip to Washington, D.C. The investigation remains ongoing as we attempt to identify potential sources of exposure. Commonly referred to as stomach flu, the highly contagious norovirus causes nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and stomach cramps. The CCBH recommends frequently washing hands, rinsing fruits and vegetables, cooking shellfish thoroughly, staying home when sick and for two days after symptoms stop, and avoiding preparing food for others when sick and for two days after symptoms stop to reduce the chance of getting or spreading the illness. We would like to thank the school officials, students and their parents for promptly providing information earlier in the week to allow for the identification of the cause of the illness, CCBH Director of Epidemiology, Surveillance and Informatics Chris Kippes said in the press statement. The eighth-grade trip included 264 students, 20 staff members and 22 parent/guardian chaperones. The district estimated that roughly 30 students were sick. Principal Mark Kurz addressed the illness issue in a press statement. The health, safety and well-being of students is always our top priority, Kurz said. Were grateful to the Cuyahoga County Board of Health for their partnership, professionalism and efficiency in this investigation. Olmsted Falls Middle School worked collaboratively to cooperate with the Board of Health and appreciates how quickly the preliminary information from their investigation has yielded confirmation of norovirus as the illness that impacted our students. Read more news from the Sun Post Herald here. INDEPENDENCE, Ohio -- Drugs, Rockside Road: Police were called to a Holiday Inn hotel at 11:55 p.m. March 26 for a man dressed as a woman, who was in an argument with a cab driver over an unpaid fare, according to the police report. The issue over the cab fare was resolved, but police found drugs and drug abuse instruments on one of the men at the scene. He was charged with felony drug abuse. A second man involved in the incident was found to have warrants out of the Cuyahoga County Sheriffs Office and the Parma Police Department. Impaired driver, Granger Road: A driver was arrested on a number of traffic and drug charges at 4:15 a.m. March 26. The driver was pulled over for swerving in and out of his lane and nearly striking another car. When police asked for his license, the man handed over his entire wallet. He failed field sobriety tests and was found to have a suspended license and a warrant out of the Garfield Heights Police Department. A vape pen with marijuana residue was found inside the car, along with a digital scale. The driver was cited for driving outside marked lanes, driving under suspension, operating a motor vehicle while impaired, refusing to take a breath test, drug abuse and drug paraphernalia possession. Drugs, Interstate 77: A driver was pulled over at 11:48 p.m. March 27 for failing to signal for a lane change. Officers saw a bag of marijuana inside the car. The driver was cited for drug abuse. Theft, Rockside Road: A diner at an Applebees restaurant reported finding an unauthorized $20 charge on their credit card for a meal at 6 p.m. March 23. Police spoke with the complainants server when she arrived for work, and the server admitted to adding the additional $20 to the complainants bill as a tip after police showed her a copy of the receipt. Drugs, Meadows Lane: A driver was stopped at 11:03 p.m. March 27 for driving slowly and changing lanes rapidly. An opened bottle of alcohol and marijuana were found inside the car. A passenger admitted that the marijuana was his and was charged with drug abuse. If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page. Read more news from the Parma Sun Post here. BROOK PARK, Ohio -- One fleeing man was caught, another escaped and the status of a third man was uncertain in two separate incidents recently reported by Brook Park police. In the first incident, two 18-year-old men ran from the scene of a vehicle crash, leaving behind an injured and dazed passenger, at about 11 a.m. March 26 at Ohio 237 and Cargo Road. One of the men had been driving a Hyundai Santa Fe sport-utility vehicle. The other man and a 33-year-old woman were passengers. Police werent clear regarding where the men and woman lived. While southbound at Ohio 237 and Cargo, the SUV rear-ended a Jeep Grand Cherokee, which was stopped at a red light. Witnesses said one of the men ran toward railroad tracks at Eastland Road, then turned north and ran along the tracks. The other man ran west across Ohio 237 onto the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport property and into a United Airlines office. Cleveland police drove to the United Airlines office, where they found the man. Police took him back to the crash scene, where witnesses identified him as the passenger who had run from the SUV. The man revealed the identity of the SUV driver to police. Meanwhile, workers with the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority told police that the other 18-year-old man, the SUV driver, had jumped onto a train headed north to Cleveland. Police cited the driver for driving without a license and leaving the scene of a crash. However, it wasnt clear whether police have found the SUV driver. The injured woman was taken to Southwest General Health Center in Berea. Also on the run On March 27, a 36-year-old Brook Park man -- who was wanted by Middleburg Heights police for running from a car during a traffic stop -- ran from and escaped Brook Park police on March 27 at Delores and Hocking boulevards. Middleburg Heights police had pulled over the mans car on Interstate 71. He jumped out of the car, ran off I-71 and disappeared on Sylvia Drive. It wasnt clear when this incident occurred. At about 1:50 a.m. March 27, Brook Park police stopped a pickup truck, in which the man was a passenger, that was traveling without headlights at Dolores and Hocking, then on Holland Road. The mans mother was driving the truck. When the truck stopped, the man jumped out and ran again. Police chased him. The man darted into a Holland back yard and police lost sight of him. Police cited his mother for driving without headlights and warned her that she, knowing that her son was wanted, could be criminally charged if she continues to help him escape police. Read more stories from the News Sun here. NORTH RIDGEVILLE, Ohio -- In 1995, North Ridgeville residents passed the citys first paramedic levy to hire seven firefighter-paramedics and to equip Fire Department ambulances to provide advanced life support care, according to Fire Chief John Reese. A renewal levy for the paramedic services will be on the May 7 ballot. The levy is on the ballot every five years. This years levy is asking for a .5-mill increase for the purpose of increasing department staffing. We consider the levy to be our report card from our residents. If we have done a good job over the past five years and the residents are happy, that is reflected in the number of votes the paramedic levy receives, Reese said. The current levy is for 1.75 mills. The May renewal with a .5-mill increase would result in a 2.25 mill levy and reflect an increase of $17.50 per year on every $100,000 of home valuation. In 2017, Reese noted, Our paramedic service became one of six EMS agencies in the state of Ohio to receive the Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services accreditation, which signifies we met the gold standard determined by the ambulance industry to be essential in a modern EMS provider. "Our EMS service also receives an American Heart Association Mission Lifeline Achievement Award each year for our successful care of cardiac patients in the field. The program has been a huge success, he said, and we are proud that all 36 of our department staff are now state-certified paramedics. Currently, two of the three ambulances that operate each day are staffed with three firefighter-paramedics. The third ambulance is staffed with only two, Reese said. The new levy would fully staff the third ambulance, he said, so the department would not have to send an extra ambulance or call for mutual aid for assistance. For more information on the citys paramedic service or levy, call Reese at 440-353-0803. Read more news from the Sun Sentinel here. CLEVELAND, Ohio An argument over tax return checks led to a transgender woman being shot in the head, police say. The 21-year-old woman suffered life-threatening injuries and is being treated at University Hospitals, according to police. John Booth, 61, is charged with felonious assault in connection with the shooting. A warrant was issued for his arrest. The shooting happened about 4 a.m. Monday in the front yard of a home on East 147th Street, north of St. Clair Avenue in the citys Collinwood neighborhood. An argument broke out inside the home between Booth and the 21-year-old womans mother. The womans mother accused Booth of stealing her tax check, police reports say. The argument became heated, and the 21-year-old woman confronted Booth, police reports say. She went outside and Booth shot her in the head, according to police reports. To comment on this story, visit Mondays crime and courts comment section. CLEVELAND, Ohio A MetroHealth initiative helping people with severe mental health diagnoses and criminal convictions get back on track is proving effective in keeping participants out of jail, data shows. The Wellness Reentry Assistance Program launched in 2013, identifies Cuyahoga County jail inmates with serious mental health conditions and provides mental and primary health care, as well as for the 30- to 50 percent of inmates struggling with substance abuse, addiction care. The program helps participants plan for their release and supports them after they leave jail. Its also free for them. The program can help former inmates fill out food stamp applications or social security paperwork, line up jobs, find housing, schedule and arrange transportation to doctors appointments and fill prescriptions. I see it time and time again, its very overwhelming for these folks who are recently exiting incarceration. They dont even know where to start. You walk out of jail, and you might have lost your apartment and all your clothes and everything. And youre just standing there on the sidewalk, WRAP nurse care coordinator Rashell Tallent said in an interview. Our patients know that they can come here. We have a plan. The program also works to help individuals who are not currently in jail, but who have a history of incarceration. Since 2013, the program has touched about 900 people. Participants are typically low-level, non-violent offenders. Data collected between 2015 and 2018 shows that of the 214 participants who actively participated in the program, the number of days they spent in jail decreased about 60 percent between the year before they enrolled in the program and the year after, from about 20,260 to about 7,960. The number of times members of the group were booked into jail in the same time period also was cut in half, from about 320 times to about 160. The program costs between $200,000 and $300,000 annually, and has received support from the U.S. Department of Justice, the Woodruff Foundation and the Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board of Cuyahoga County. It expects to receive money this year from the ADAHMS Board, Cuyahoga County and philanthropic grants. We dont view our patients primarily as offenders, even though they are in jail, they have been arrested, said its founder, Ewald Horwath, who chairs the MetroHealth department of psychiatry said. Were approaching it from the standpoint of these are people who need treatment. Shannon Kuhn, a 38-year-old mother from Parma, said WRAP helped her connect with doctors, and get sober. She was approached about the program during a two-month stint in Cuyahoga County jail a little more than a year ago, which she said was her first time in jail. Her charges have now been dismissed, and shes awaiting expungement, because of her participation in WRAP. She said shes never received the kind of support she got from the program. She went from being homeless and staying with a friend, to having her own home, a full-time job, and a car. They just hugged me and just gave me love, she said, recalling her first experience with the program. They let me know that they were going to be there for me. And they have been there for me for over a year now, every step of the way anything I needed. (ANSA) - Milan, April 15 - Interior Minister Matteo Salvini is under investigation for kidnapping migrants, Salvini himself said Monday - as a feared surge of 800,000 refugees from Libya's conflict was seen by the UN-backed government there. Salvini said he is being probed for allegedly abducting migrants allegedly held on a ship stopped from landing in Siracusa from January 24 to 30 this year. Salvini said the prosecutor in the case, Carmelo Zuccaro, had filed to dismiss the case at the same time as he had submitted the charges. Earlier this year the Senate voted not to lift Salvini's parliamentary immunity to face charges in another alleged migrant kidnapping case. Salvini took the opportunity Monday to respond to fellow Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio who on Sunday said Italy's blockade of ports to NGO migrant rescue ships was "only temporary", sources said. Salvini said "I take the opportunity to reply to the minister: for me the ports will remain closed", reiterating his long-held stance. He said "I respect the work of the colleague Di Maio who is dealing with jobs, but on the issues of the control of borders and organised crime it's me who decides. "If minister Di Maio or (Defence Minister Elisabetta) Trenta think differently they should say so in cabinet and we'll have a frank discussion. "With me the ports will remain unavailably closed and sealed to the traffickers in human beings". Sources at Di Maio's 5-Star Movement (M5S) said "the interior minister's position is curious. When he fears being tried, he says we do things together, and when he is in an electoral campaign he says he decides about ports on his own." At the weekend Di Maio and Trenta both warned of the prospect of a surge in migrants leaving Libya because of the conflict there. Trenta had said that "with the war in Libya, migrants become refugees". Trenta on Monday offered to explain international law that means that "those fleeing Libya today are refugees" to the League and far-right movements who have criticised her. "I see that today the League and some far-right movements have attacked your truly," she said. "I can invite them all to me, to the ministry, so I can explain to them a bit of international law and so they can perhaps understand what their aggressive tomes on Libya can produce," she said. Some 800,000 migrants are set to invade Italy from conflict-torn Libya, Premier Fayez al-Sarraj told Corriere della Sera Monday. "Do something quickly," he said, "the worsening of the situation in Libya could push 800,000 migrants and Libyans to invade Italy and Europe". Among them, he said, were criminals and, above all, jihadists linked to ISIS. Sarraj thanked Italy for its mediation and support for peace in Libya. Salvini said "there are those who are playing at war for their interests". He said that western powers should remember the lessons of the past. Salvini has criticised France for its alleged support for ewastern Libyan strongman General Khalifa Haftar. Ghassan Salame, the UN's special envoy for Libya, on Monday accused General Haftar of conducting a coup attempt. He denied that it was an anti-terrorism operation in speaking to the BBC. Dozens have been killed in the fighting since the general ordered his Libyan National Army forces to advance on Tripoli, where the UN-backed Government of National Accord is located. Premier Giuseppe Conte will meet Qatari Deputy Premier Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani to discuss the Libya crisis in Rome Monday. Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi will meet Libyan Deputy Premier Ahmed Maitig. Conte said "we must stop this conflict continuing. I will do my utmost to make sure all the Libyan actors work with us for a peaceful solution". The toll from the fighting between forces loyal to Haftar and the UN-backed government in Tripoli rose to 130 dead and 560 injured with 16,000 displaced Monday. Rome prosecutors said last month there are "elements to posit" kidnapping charges in the case of the SeaWatch 3 migrant rescue ship which had to wait 12 days off Siracusa before getting the OK to land at Catania on January 31. German NGO SeaWatch said it was "happy" that the "ordeal" of the 47 migrants on board the Dutch-flagged ship was over after six EU countries agreed to take them. The Rome prosecutors sent their case file on to Siracusa colleagues who then handed the case to the Catania ministers tribunal. The Senate recently voted not to let kidnapping charges proceed against Salvini in another migrant rescue standoff with the EU last August. In that case, Salvini kept 177 migrants on board coast guard ship Diciotti for two weeks until Albania, Ireland and the Italian Church agreed to take them in. Salvini recently said on the SeaWatch case: "is there another trial against baddy Salvini on the way? Salvini last year closed Italian ports to NGO migrant rescue ships. WASHINGTON House Democrats are sharpening their focus on White House immigration adviser Stephen Miller, with key lawmakers saying he should be brought before congressional committees to testify about his role in recent policy controversies. The talk of bringing Miller before lawmakers comes days after The Washington Post reported that he played a key role in a plan first discussed last year to release undocumented immigrants into "sanctuary cities" represented by President Donald Trump's Democratic critics. While the plan never came to fruition because of objections from agency officials, Trump has since embraced the idea. With a slate of new vacancies at the Department of Homeland Security, including the departure last week of the secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, Miller has emerged as a key target for Democrats who see him as an influential survivor in an administration that has otherwise churned through personnel. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., on Sunday cited Miller's role in developing the targeted-release plan in calling on him to testify. "Steve Miller, who seems to be the boss of everybody on immigration, ought to come before Congress and explain some of these policies," he said in a CNN interview. While Cabinet officials routinely testify before Congress on budget and oversight matters, it is unusual for lawmakers to publicly question presidential advisers like Miller - particularly in an adversarial scenario. Presidents of both parties have declined to make their executive aides available to congressional committees, citing the constitutional separation of powers. Miller, a former congressional aide whose title is senior policy adviser, has played a central role in the Trump administration's aggressive and controversial immigration policies since its earliest days - helping to orchestrate the January 2017 executive order that barred travelers from seven countries and suspended refugee admissions. More recently, he has been a firm proponent inside the White House of adopting a zero-tolerance approach at the U.S.-Mexico border to deter asylum seekers streaming toward the United States from Central America. Homeland Security officials say he has pressured agencies to take firmer action to fight the recent surge of migrants massing at the border. Regarding the policy of targeting sanctuary cities - jurisdictions that do not fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities - for the release of undocumented immigrants, a congressional investigator told The Washington Post, "It was basically an idea that Miller wanted that nobody else wanted to carry out." Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on border security, facilitation and operations, said in an interview that Miller needs to come before her panel to "make his case for these terrible policies to the American people instead of being this shadow puppeteer." "It's clear that he's the one pulling the strings," she said. "And if he's going to continue advocating for these policies and personnel change, then he needs to come before the American people and explain himself. He has to be held accountable." Miller and White House communications officials did not respond Sunday to requests for comment on Miller. Press secretary Sarah Sanders said during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday" that the administration was "looking at all options" regarding the targeted release plan. The proposal, she said, is not an "ideal solution" but is one that could be implemented if Democrats refuse to negotiate with Trump on border security. Trump, meanwhile, conducted a Saturday night Twitter back-and-forth with Democratic Oakland, California, Mayor Libby Schaaf with a suggestion that she and other mayors did not want to host immigrants detained at the border. "If they don't want to serve our Nation by taking care of them, why should other cities & towns?" he said. Schaaf, who last year oversaw the strengthening of Oakland's sanctuary policy and warned residents of an upcoming federal immigration raid, told Trump to "stop fanning hate and division" in a tweet of her own. "Oakland welcomes all, no matter where you came from or how you got here," she said. Trump and his deputies otherwise spent the weekend pushing congressional Democrats to take legislative action to address the border crisis. "Democrats must change the Immigration Laws FAST," Trump tweeted Saturday. "If not, Sanctuary Cities must immediately ACT to take care of the Illegal Immigrants." The Trump administration and Congress have struggled to respond to the rapid surge in migrants at the southern border, many of them women and children, which has been reflected in a massive spike in apprehensions. Between October and February, U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended 268,044 migrants - the fastest pace recorded by the agency since 2008 and more than double the rate seen two years ago. In a Sunday appearance on NBC News' "Meet the Press," White House counselor Kellyanne Conway accused an "unserious Congress" of not taking tougher action to stop migrants from crossing into the country. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday on Fox News that he is planning to introduce a new immigration package after the Senate returns from its two-week recess, although he did not give an exact date. The legislation, he said, "will deter people from Central America from continuing to come, change our asylum laws, make sure you have more than 20 days to deal with an unaccompanied minor, and you can send people back to Central America." Graham said Republicans were hoping to garner Democratic support for the legislation: "I'm going to try to find a compromise here." House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., speaking on ABC News' "This Week," said he was willing to sit down with Republicans to discuss legislation but laid the crisis squarely at Trump's feet. "Before Donald Trump took office, we had a situation that was manageable - we had spikes, but it also went down. But what we have now is a constant pushing of the system so that it doesn't work," Thompson said. "Rather than being punitive, the president has to step up and provide real leadership, which he's failed to do on immigration." On Capitol Hill, Democrats are eyeing Miller as the common thread in the many controversial immigration policies they are seeking to examine. "We don't see Stephen Miller as an expert," Thompson said. "He's a young man who has some novel ideas that most Democrats disagree with." Some are already in effect, such as Trump's recent national emergency declaration and the practice of "metering" asylum claims at border stations - leaving migrants to either wait weeks for entry or seek apprehension by entering the United States illegally between official ports of entry. Others are under consideration, such as a plan called "binary choice" that would give migrant families the option of remaining detained together or agreeing to a separation that would allow children to remain free from custody. "Every single one of those policies, I believe, is driven by Stephen Miller and proudly embraced by Trump, and they're illegal on some level and yet they're still trying to do it," Rice said. "We can do what we're meant to do, and we can have oversight." Rice said her panel will probably request emails and documents to determine to what extent Miller and other White House officials pressured agencies on these controversial policies. Democratic and Republican presidents have declined to make their executive aides available to congressional committees. In 2014, for instance, lawyers for President Barack Obama refused a request from the House Oversight Committee to allow David Simas, the president's director of political strategy, to testify regarding an investigation into White House political activity. Two years later, Obama foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes also refused to testify before the same committee, citing executive privilege. Karl Rove, the top political adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, was subpoenaed by congressional Democrats in 2007. He resigned and left the White House before the subpoena could be enforced. As a private citizen, he declined another subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee on the basis of executive privilege but later testified during an investigation into the politically motivated firings of U.S. attorneys. Nadler on Sunday conceded that Miller is likely to invoke executive privilege to avoid testimony, but he said that would be a "misuse" of the claim. "He seems to be making the decisions - not the Cabinet secretaries who come and go," Nadler said. Rice said Miller has no legal or rational basis for him not to show up before Congress. You cannot have the architect for these illegal policies act with compute impunity and no accountability, she said. CLEVELAND, Ohio The project has been on the horizon for a decade and a half: six wind turbines erected in Lake Erie, in the first freshwater wind project in North America. But fervor over the issue is revving up now among boaters, as the developer, the nonprofit Lake Erie Energy Development Co., works through stipulations with the state. The Lake Erie Marine Trades Association -- made up of boat dealers, clubs and other enthusiasts -- opposes the $126 million, 20.7-megawatt project dubbed Icebreaker, planned for 8 miles north of Cleveland. So does the nonprofit Lake Erie Foundation. Both LEEDCo. and its opponents point to hundreds of pages of documents they say prove their points. The fight is not so much over the six turbines up for state approval right now but for the wind farm it could precipitate: thousands of spinning blades the Lake Erie Foundation fears will desecrate Lake Erie. LEEDCo. CEO Lorry Wagner says there are currently no plans for more turbines. You can have all the dreams and aspirations you want, but until you climb that first hill and see whats out there, you better focus on that first hill. But Icebreaker is a pilot project, with a $40 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. LEEDCo. has partnered with Norway-based Fred Olsen Renewables, and its website says we can build an industry and supply chain in Northeast Ohio that will creation 8,000 new good paying jobs and pump nearly $14 billion into our economy by 2030 as the industry grows here. An expansion would require more studies and more approvals. Said foundation board member John Lipaj: You cannot treat this as a six-turbine stand-alone project. We have to be realistic and treat it for what it is. Meanwhile, here are the facts about the current project, and some of the issues the sides disagree on. Environmental studies Icebreaker has received approvals from 14 federal, state and local agencies, Wagner said. In July, the staff of the Ohio Power Siting Board recommended approval, with 34 stipulations, including the ability to study bird and bat migration. LEEDCo. and the state are currently working through those stipulations. The U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last year signed off a 180-page environmental assessment, finding no significant environmental impact. The impression we get is a few boaters have rattled the cage, Wagner said. It has created, shall we say, hysteria that something is going to be done that will impact the environment in a negative way. The Lake Erie Foundation says the project deserves a deeper, more independent analysis an environmental impact statement. None of us are against wind turbines, Lipaj said. Were saying because this project has such huge ramifications for Lake Erie forever that we just need to slow this thing down and research this the right way. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service field inspector in a 2017 letter also pushed for an environmental impact statement, urging an analysis of the potential cumulative impacts of facilitating accelerated development of utility-scale wind power in Lake Erie. The Ohio Power Siting Board has the final say. Economic development The two sides disagree about economic impact and jobs numbers. A LEEDCo. study predicts the six turbines will create 500 jobs and $41.2 million in earnings during construction. Those jobs are broken down: 159 on-site construction jobs 187 specialized jobs, likely from experts outside the area 150 jobs created through the spending of additional household income Thats not a windfall, says Lipaj. Unions have been manipulated to believe there are going to be 500 real jobs, he said. Wagner said the project could lead to investment in the wind industry in Cleveland though Lipaj said wind farms in Ontario have not brought new manufacturing jobs. You gotta be at the table if you want to get anything out of it, Wagner said. The size The light gray V126 turbines, each of which would generate 3.45 megawatts of energy, would be 479 feet tall, with the lowest point of the blade 65 feet above the water. So how big is that? According to Wagner, if you stand on the shore downtown and extend your arm and give a thumbs up, the turbines would be half the size of your thumbnail. The turbines will probably look bigger from the shore of Rocky River or Lakewood, since the turbines will be built northwest of downtown. Opponents show different simulations, where turbines would be much more visible on the horizon. Tourism Visitors to Ohios Lake Erie region spend more than $10.7 billion annually nearly 30 percent of Ohios total tourism dollars, according to the Lake Erie Commission. The Lake Erie Foundation says wind turbines would harm tourism, and quote a North Carolina State University Study that says vacationers wouldnt rent homes in view of offshore turbines. Theyre not coming here to look at wind turbines. Theyre here to look at a beautiful lake. LEEDCo. points to Block Island, where five turbines off the coast of Rhode Island have increased visitors. Environment impact The Black Swamp Bird Observatory is opposed to Icebreaker because of possible deaths of birds migrating across the lake. The Lake Erie Foundation worries a cable buried at the bottom of the lake, from the land to the turbines, could cause problems for fish. Opponents also worry about what would happen if the turbines fall into disrepair or the chemicals and lubricants inside the turbines leaked? LEEDCo. says the turbines are safe, and all of the issues have been addressed with plans. The turbines will have bird-safe lighting and collision detection equipment and stop operations during peak migration season. It is working on a radar study check how high migratory birds fly. The Sierra Club and Ohio Environmental Council have signed off on the project. There is money in place to cover safely removing turbines from the lake in about 25 years. Lake Erie will not be a windmill graveyard, Wagner said. There are strict requirements to safely remove turbines when they are no longer functionaland there must be funding in place to pay for that during the life of the project. Besides, Wagner said, what about leakage from gas tanks of power boats, running all over the lake? Public comments The city of Cleveland, the Cleveland Foundation and Lorain, Cuyahoga and Lake counties are among partners on the project. LEEDCo. has given more than 400 public presentations since 2006, and public hearings have drawn both positive and negative speakers. So have the written comments. Negative: What is everyone thinking? We have a beautiful natural resource. This idea will make certain people rich through tax breaks, etc. It does nothing for the residents of this community, writes Nancy McCann. Positive: I have recently purchased a home that sits on the shores of lake Erie in the city of Bay Village and I have come to learn firsthand, the power of the winds that come off of our lake. It is only logical to harness the power of the winds that stream over Lake Erie, writes Julie Sullivan. Theres back and forth even on the boaters. Though the Lake Erie Marine Trades Association opposes the project, LEEDCo. has a survey that shows high support for wind turbines. For more Lake Erie news, follow RocktheLake on Facebook. CLEVELAND, Ohio - The ACLU of Ohio is calling for major reforms to the roughly 300 mayors courts in the state and for the outright elimination of the courts in Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton and Summit counties. In a report released Monday, ALCU researchers cite compelling evidence of racial disparities in mayors courts operating in the inner-ring suburbs of Akron, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus. Overall, the ACLU concludes that mayors courts, which handle traffic violations and minor misdemeanors that would otherwise be prosecuted in a municipal court, are largely discriminatory, profit-seeking and lacking in transparency. The report [read it below] is a result of an analysis by ACLU researches, who looked at mayors court statistics across the state for 2016 and 2017 and observed proceedings in 19 mayors courts from September 2017 to November 2018. Researchers also obtained police staffing records and interviewed government officials, including mayors, magistrates, police officers, municipal court judges, municipal court clerks and city solicitors. The recommendations include: Restoring state funding to municipalities so they are less reliant on fines and fees imposed by their mayors courts to fund their budgets. Shutting down mayors courts in Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton and Summit counties. Better training for mayors court staff and greater transparency of court operations. More oversight of mayors courts and better record-keeping. Abolishing drivers license suspensions for reasons other than public safety. Some mayors courts need to go The report is particularly critical of the mayors courts operating in the inner-ring suburbs of Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Akron. According to the report, African Americans are more likely to be ticketed than white people in those areas, and not just because more black people live there. In Newburgh Heights, for instance, 50 percent of citations went to African Americans in 2016 while the population at the time was only 19.7 percent black. The report also states that one of the reasons given in support of mayors courts that they are more convenient is actually not the case in those counties. Mayors courts in both the inner-ring and outer-ring suburbs are more difficult to reach by car or public transportation than the local municipal court, according to the report. Mayors courts abuse the poor Another complaint is that mayors courts rarely take into consideration a defendants ability to pay, something that a municipal court judge is more likely to do. From our review of records for 18 mayors courts and court-watching, we did not find a single record of a court assessing peoples ability to pay their fines, the report states. Failure to inquire into the reasons that someone cannot pay their fines results in increased punishment for people who are too poor to pay them. Another solution would be to offer payment plans, the report states. But even that option has been rejected by mayors courts, requiring defendants to return to court, sometimes multiple times. While observing proceedings in seven mayors courts, including those in Bratenahl, Brooklyn, Newburgh Heights, North Olmsted and Parma Heights, researchers found the magistrates told those assembled in the courtroom that payment plans were not an option, according to the report. The result are burdensome continuances. Continuances are especially harmful for poorer community members who may have to travel back and forth to the court multiples times because they are unable to pay off their fines and fees, the report states. Continuances in these cases prolong contact with mayors courts, which increases the likelihood that people will miss additional court dates. The report recommends that the Ohio General Assembly require mayors courts to hold ability-to-pay hearings before assessing fees, fines, license forfeitures or bench warrants. And if someone cant make their payment, the court should not be allowed to suspend that persons license as punishment. License suspensions criminalize people for driving to work, taking their children to school, driving to the grocery store, and other essential everyday tasks, the report states. This has made it difficult for people to find and keep employment because many jobs require a valid drivers license, and employers have also been burdened because they cannot find workers who have reliable transportation. More transparency and impartiality needed Among the others suggestion is that mayors or their appointed magistrates be prevented from presiding over mayors courts and that instead a more impartial magistrate should be appointed and paid for by the local municipal court. Court staff also should be better trained and made to follow procedures. Though the Supreme Court of Ohio requires mayors courts to audio record their proceedings, we do not know of a single mayors court that records its proceedings, the report states. While dismissive of mayors courts, the ACLU points to one court that tries to do things right. Its in Yellow Springs, near Dayton, and there the mayors court adjudicates cases based on principles of justice developed by President Obamas Taskforce on 21st Century Policing. The court, which operates at a loss, will sometimes offer community service in lieu of fines and also offers payment plans, according to the report. SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio -- Notre Dame College President Thomas Kruczek will step down in June to return to Florida, according to a university press release. Kruczek became president of the Catholic liberal arts college in 2014. He and his wife intend to move back to spend more time with her elderly mother. Before Notre Dame College, Kruczek served as Dean of the College of Business and Management for Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida. Notre Dame is now one of four Northeast Ohio colleges looking for a new leader. Kent State University, the University of Akron and Northeast Ohio Medical University all are in the midst of presidential searches. During Kruczeks tenure, Notre Dame College received its largest gift in its history. The $1.5 million grant in 2017 is designed to support STEM programming. Kruczek also spearheaded the creation of an office to evaluate academic programs, an entrepreneurship co-major and a 25,000 square foot student center. About 1,460 students attend Notre Dame College as of fall 2018. Kruczeks last day will be June 30. WASHINGTON, D.C. - Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown may have given up on running for president, but his literary dreams are still alive. Brown says hell publish a new book in November called Desk 88, about eight progressive senators who changed America. All of them once occupied the desk he currently uses on the Senate floor. The 352-page book would have made a nifty presidential campaign tie-in. It uses his desks former occupants to discuss the triumphs and failures of the Progressive idea over the past century, and describes their fights against special interests to promote economic and racial fairness," according to promotional materials about the book. The senators it discusses are New Yorks Robert F. Kennedy and Herbert Lehman, Tennessees Al Gore Sr., South Dakotas George McGovern, Alabamas Hugo Black, Wisconsins William Proxmire, Idahos Glen Taylor, and Rhode Islands Theodore Francis Green. Today, these advances are in peril as employers shed their responsibilities to employees and communities, and a U.S. president gives cover to bigotry, the promotional materials say. But the Progressive idea is not dead. Recalling his own career, Brown dramatizes the hard work and high ideals required to renew the social contract and create a new era in which Americans of all backgrounds can know the dignity of work. This isnt Browns first publishing foray. He has also written books called Myths of Free Trade: Why American Trade Policy Has Failed," and Congress from the Inside: Observations from the Majority and the Minority. CLEVELAND -- Every day, people are arrested and thrown in jail via Ohios mayors courts. Mayors courts are a quasi-judicial court system that gives mayors the power to hear traffic and local ordinance violations. The current system is dangerous for Ohioans because these courts are easily turned into profit-making enterprises. Mayors courts are a widespread problem in our state, especially in the Greater Cleveland area. There are almost 300 mayors courts in Ohio, and one out of six traffic tickets in 2016 were issued in a municipality with a mayors court. The Ohio General Assembly must reform mayors courts so that they are fair, transparent, and accountable to the public. The fundamental problem with mayors courts is that they consolidate executive and judicial power in the office of the mayor. This means that mayors can instruct their municipalitys police officers to issue citations and then adjudicate these citations in their mayors court to collect court costs, fines, and fees. Sri Thakkilapati is the senior policy researcher for the ACLU of Ohio. In a report issued today, the ACLU of Ohio has found that police officers in 51 mayors-court municipalities issued an average of 168.8 citations each in 2016. This was four times greater than the average number of citations issued by police elsewhere in Ohio. The mayors court in North Olmsted issued 7,705 citations in 2016 and collected more than $1.3 million from unsuspecting Ohioans. The problems with profit-oriented policing are made worse when mayors courts operate with a single-minded focus on revenue generation. Mayors courts are not courts of record, meaning there are no recordings or transcripts of what transpires in court. When a mayor or magistrate in a mayors court acts in violation of peoples rights, defendants have no evidence of court misconduct. This allows mayors-court officials to use coercive tactics to squeeze revenue out of people who appear in their courts. Between August 2017 and October 2018, we observed in 16 mayors courts around the state. In nine of these courts, we witnessed magistrates and prosecutors pressure people into guilty or no-contest pleas, even when defendants initially stated that they were not guilty. Low-income communities and communities of color are the hardest hit by revenue-oriented mayors courts. Mayors courts can use the threat and reality of arrest and jail time to compel the payment of fines. A common and harmful practice is the issuance of arrest warrants for missed court appearances, the majority of which are for unpaid fines and fees. In 2016, a mere nine courts issued 8,232 arrest warrants. Between May 1, 2017 and Aug. 1, 2017, Bratenahls mayors court issued more than 100 arrest warrants; the overwhelming majority of these warrants were for black people who had missed their court dates. During court observations in August 2018 and September 2018, the ACLU of Ohio observed three instances where people were sentenced to jail time in a mayors court because they could not pay their fines. Predominantly white inner-ring suburbs with mayors courts use law enforcement to help preserve racial boundaries. In every inner-ring suburb we investigated with a mayors court, black people were cited more frequently than white people. Police in Newburgh Heights issued 50 percent of citations to black people, yet in 2016 only 19.7 percent of the population of Newburgh Heights was black. Newburgh Heights is entirely in the 44105 zip code, yet fewer than two percent of black people who live in the 44105 zip code live in Newburgh Heights. Citations help to keep white enclaves like Newburgh Heights segregated. They signal to black drivers who enter white communities that they are out of place. Chart of Ohio communities with mayor's courts that issue a high percentage of traffic citations to black drivers, contrasted with the percent of black residents in those communities. (ACLU of Ohio) One of the five recommendations we are making to the Ohio General Assembly is to abolish mayors courts in Cuyahoga, Summit, Franklin, and Hamilton counties. There is compelling evidence of racial disparities in mayors-court municipalities in these counties. Second, both inner-ring and outer suburbs with mayors courts are less centrally located than municipal courts. These mayors courts are more difficult to reach by car or public transportation than municipal courts. While some legislators and members of the public have called for mayors courts to be abolished altogether, the ACLU of Ohio is asking for strategic reform of the mayors court system. Many of the mayors courts in rural counties do not show a pattern of profit-oriented ticketing and adjudication, but court staff lack the training and oversight to make these courts fair and transparent. Ohioans in rural communities would have to travel long distances to reach a municipal court and there is limited public transportation in these areas. For these reasons, we are recommending five comprehensive reforms to the mayors court system. These reforms are: 1. Restore state funding to municipalities so that court fines and fees are not used to fund municipal and state budgets. 2. Eliminate mayors courts in Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton, and Summit counties. 3. Increase education and procedural requirements for mayors courts. 4. Expand oversight of mayors courts. 5. Abolish drivers license suspensions for any reason not related to public safety. We urge the Ohio General Assembly to reform mayors courts so they deliver justice to all, rather than revenue to some. Sri Thakkilapati is senior policy researcher for the ACLU of Ohio. *************** Have something to say about this topic? Use the comments to share your thoughts. Then, stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the Follow option at the top of the comments, and look for updates via the small blue bell in the lower right as you look at more stories on cleveland.com. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent running for president as a Democrat, said General Motors should be frozen out of federal contracts for how it handled the Lordstown factorys closure. Heres what you need to know: -Sanders made the proclamation Sunday at Lordstown High School during a town hall with union members. -He said companies that close American factories down to transfer jobs overseas should be barred from federal contracts. -"If entities like General Motors think that they can throw workers out on the street while theyre making billions of profit, and then move to Mexico and pay starvation wages and then line up for federal contracts, theyve got another thing coming, he said. -Ohio Republican Party Chairwoman Jane Timken said before Sanders appearance he was out of touch with Ohioans. She added that Republicans shoulder none of the blame for factory closures despite controlling Ohio state government nearly universally for the last three decades. Read more: Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 15) The National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL) has sought protection from the Supreme Court against President Rodrigo Duterte and other government officials over supposed violation on their rights to life, liberty, and security. In their writ of amparo petition filed Monday, members of the NUPL said they tagged the President and other officials as respondents because of their "participation and position in the implementation of the government's all-out war policy" against progressive groups, political activists, and those they perceive as supporters or sympathizers of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People's Army. Among the respondents is BGen. Antonio Parlade, whom the petitioners accused of "wild red-tagging." Parlade, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) deputy chief of staff for civil military operations, previously said the CPP recruits members from universities through screenings of martial law films. In March, he also said the European Union has been unknowingly releasing funds to communist rebels through their organizational fronts. READ: AFP official: CPP recruits in Manila schools through martial law film screenings Other respondents include Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, Armed Forces chief Gen. Benjamin Madrigal and other military officials. They said this is clearly intended to intimidate and prevent them from pursuing their profession as lawyers and from practicing their advocacy as peoples' lawyers serving the poor and the marginalized. "Lawyering is not terrorism. The cause of the client and the case that we're handling should not be associated with us. General parlade should do his homework we've been in existence for 12 years," NUPL President Edre Olalia told reporters. In the meantime, they want the court to issue a temporary protection order to prohibit the President and other officials from "threatening or committing any acts against them." Petitioners are also asking the court to compel the respondents under the writ of habeas data to produce and if necessary to destroy all information about them. Italy-Uae: Jiacc and Etihad Credit Insurance sign MoU During visit of Italian government delegation in Dubai (ANSAmed) - Dubai, April 15 - The Joint Italian Arab Chamber (JIACC) and Etihad Credit Insurance Company (ECI) have signed today in Dubai a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to cooperate with each other to develop and deepen their business relationship, and to explore, strengthen and foster trade and economic cooperation between the Republic of Italy and the United Arab Emirates. The MoU has been signed within the framework of the Business Mission to the UAE led by the Italian Minister of Economic Development, Luigi Di Maio. The agreement signed between ECI and JIACC aims to foster the collaboration and communication in different fields. In particular, the MoU constitutes the basis to (among other goals) - Promote the United Arab Emirates as a regional hub in the Republic of Italy, also by exploring possible mutual cooperation to boost Arab investment in Italian companies interested in: doing business with Arab companies; investing in Arab countries; producing goods for the local and regional market, - Enhance trade and support business relations between the Republic of Italy and United Arab Emirates, in cooperation with Italian industrial association, - Ease trade and export by organizing joint workshops, forums, B2B meetings and events among exporting corporations, located in Italy and in the Arab world, - Enhance trade between UAE and Italy with focus on Halal industry, through Sharia' compliant insurance and finance solutions. Cesare Trevisani, Chairman of the Joint Italian Arab Chamber of Commerce, said; "We are really proud to announce the signing of such an important agreement, that confirms the excellent relations existing between Italy and the United Arab Emirates. The Memorandum of Understanding with Etihad Credit Insurance Company represents a fundamental step to ensure a significant and positive development of the trade and economic cooperation between our Countries. The private sector will play a central role in the transformation process that is impacting Italian and Arab economies, and the collaboration between JIACC and ECI will give investors and entrepreneurs from both parts the chance to explore outstanding business opportunities." Massimo Falcioni, CEO of Etihad Credit Insurance Company stated:" ECI's partnership with JIACC is an important landmark in the Arab-Italian trade relations as its collaboration extends to our commitment to supporting UAE's non-oil exports, trade, investments, and strategic sectors development, aligned with the UAE Vision 2021. This partnership will have a positive impact on the halal industry at large as it will provide access to ECI's Shariah-compliant financial services and products that will benefit the burgeoning halal industry in Italy." (ANSAmed). Entire Haftar company surrenders in south Tarhuna Brigade company surrenders to Misurata militia (ANSAmed) - TRIPOLI, APRIL 15 - An entire company of the Tarhuna Brigade of General Khalifa Haftar's forces surrendered to Libyan unity government forces at the front in Suani ban Adem, 25 km southwest of Tripoli, informed sources told ANSA on Monday. The company was made up of about 30 soldiers and handed over its men and vehicles, which included various pick-up trucks and armoured cars, to Brigade 166 of Misrata, which is active in the area.(ANSAmed). Essebsi's son elected president of Nidaa Tounes party Party concludes convention in Monastir (ANSAmed) - TUNIS, APRIL 15 - Mohamed Hafedh Caid Essebsi, son of Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, is the new president of the central committee of the modernist party Nidaa Tounes, following elections at the party's convention in Monastir. The convention took place amidst tensions and divisions that confirm the crisis in the party that garnered the biggest consensus in the 2014 legislative elections. The meeting of party "rivals" in Monastir also elected Hammamet Sofiene Toubel, president of the Nidaa Tounes group in parliament, to head a "parallel" central committee. During the convention it emerged that the current Tunisian president will not run in the next presidential elections. The government coalition party Nidaa Tounes has been experiencing a deep crisis for years that has caused schisms, loss of MPs, and loss of consensus in general. Relations are particularly difficult between the current prime minister, Youssef Chahed, and Hafedh Caid Essebsi, the Tunisian president's son as well as executive director of Nidaa Tounes. The party's executive committee, recognising Chahed's position, decided in September to suspend the prime minister's membership in the party. The convention in Monastir revoked the suspension upon Essebi's request, but Chahed is now already involved in and backed by the party Tahya Tounes.(ANSAmed). Chevron is starting the week fresh on the heels of its worst day in more than a year. The major oil company tumbled 5% on Friday in its biggest one-day drop since February 2018 after announcing a $33 billion deal to buy Anadarko Petroleum. Occidental Petroleum also reportedly is interested in the oil and gas exploration company. While Chevron dropped on the deal, Joule Financial founder Quint Tatro sees opportunity in its weakness. "Even though the group as a whole seems to be getting a boost, obviously Chevron, the buyer, is not," Tatro said on CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Friday. "You've got to look at a name like this that is trading 14 to 15 times forward earnings. Obviously they're spending $30 billion to try to grow that profit, so we like the acquisition." Chevron is expected to post a 2019 earnings contraction of 14 percent, followed by a 23 percent surge in 2020, according to FactSet. "We need to do a lot more work really into the fundamentals to see how this will be accretive to the bottom line," said Tatro. "Basically it expands their shale play, their deep-water drilling, so it's hard to do but ultimately I think this is a day where you've got to hold your nose and you go in and you add to your Chevron position." Tatro also likes Chevron for its strong balance sheet and steady dividend. The company yields 4%, double the S&P 500. Craig Johnson, chief market technician at Piper Jaffray, is more conservative on the energy group as a whole. The XLE energy ETF "still is at a point where we need to get above about $68. That's where your 200-day moving average is at, which is declining," Johnson said Friday on "Trading Nation." "There's still a long way to go. Again, I like energy, but I'm more of a neutral to these names. Is the M&A activity going to put a little bit of a bid under these names? It probably will, but I'd rather be a selective buyer of these names, especially the XLE." The XLE ETF has not traded above its 200-day moving average since October. It has fallen 7% since then. Disclosure: Joule Financial holds CVX. Alibaba's founder and billionaire Jack Ma has stirred up controversy after saying that young people should see major tech companies' overtime work cultures as a "huge blessing." In a message to employees last week, Ma said that many workers lack the opportunity to put in extra hours at work, so those with the option should take full advantage of it. "I personally think that being able to work 996 is a huge blessing," Ma said Thursday in remarks posted on Alibaba's WeChat account. The so-called "996" schedule refers to working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. The e-commerce entrepreneur was weighing in on a growing debate around work-life balance that has emerged among Chinese tech employees in recent weeks. Last month, activists on Microsoft's code-sharing site GitHub set up a discussion group called "996.ICU," suggesting that employees who work those hours could experience burnout and end up in an intensive care unit. EU countries approved sweeping reforms to the bloc's copyright laws on Monday, marking a symbolic end to a political battle that has pitted tech giants against high-profile media figures. The copyright directive was backed by 19 countries at an EU Council vote, with six member states including Italy and the Netherlands voting against it. Three countries abstained. The legislation, which was passed by lawmakers at the EU Parliament last month, aims to update Europe's rules on copyright to reflect the challenges posed by the age of information. But it's been criticized by Google and internet freedom campaigners who worry it will result in censorship. One of the most heavily scrutinized aspects of the law, Article 13 or 17 as it's now numbered would make tech firms liable for copyright breaches. This means they will have to acquire licenses from rights holders to be able to host such content in the first place. Opponents of the law say this will lead to filtering systems that block everything from memes to GIFs before they're even uploaded. The EU, however, says this won't be the case, claiming that people will still be able to share such content freely. Either way, it's expected to hit platforms that rely on user-generated content like YouTube, Facebook and Instagram hard. Financials stocks came under pressure Monday after declining revenue from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs soured the positive earnings news out from J.P. Morgan last week. Ahead of earnings from Bank of America and Morgan Stanley later this week, five experts weigh in on the mixed quarter for the big banks so far. Chris Verrone, head of technical analysis at Strategas Research, said a steep decline last year should give some of these names a pop. "Goldman, Morgan, they had 40% declines last year. These were devastating bear markets. We think they're bottoming. Morgan Stanley back above its 200-day moving average for the first time in a year. Maybe this is a sign that the yield curve actually steepens here. Maybe this is a sign that rates actually go up. It's a broad call for us. We think rates are starting to bottom here. We think frankly signs of cyclicality are emerging everywhere and banks benefit from that." Jeffrey Harte, principal at Sandler O'Neill, said it's best to bet on the largest of the financials and sees one winner among them. "For those looking at bank stocks and your financials in general, I'd be looking at the large-cap big ones. Citi is one I like a lot and they reported this morning and actually the numbers look really good. The big thing we needed to see was consumer growth and we saw it. They kind of delivered on the big market skepticism there." Jim Cramer, host of CNBC's "Mad Money," said it was an uneven quarter with some bright spots that should continue. "They key thing to recognize is March was great. January was weak March was full bore, continuing, that's what matters, not what happened this quarter but what was happening and what's going to happen in subsequent quarters. It could be an opportunity." Stephen Weiss, founder and managing partner at Short Hills Capital, said regulatory headwinds from Washington might linger. "This is a group that just hadn't done well, it's sort of been ignored. Now it's done quite well so it snuck up on you. There's no basis for regulating them further and to the extent that we regulate them further you weaken the smaller competitors." Josh Brown, co-founder and CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management, said major pre- and post-market moves in these stocks makes trading difficult. Increasing trade protectionism around the globe is the biggest threat to global economic growth, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda says. "There [is] some sort of protectionism" around global trade, Kuroda told CNBC's Sara Eisen in an interview that aired Monday. "That is I think most serious risk involved in the global economy." Kuroda's comments come as China and the U.S. try to strike a trade deal that would end an ongoing tariff war. The two sides appear to be closing in on a deal. The Chinese made unprecedented proposals on forced technology transfers, a sticking point in the negotiations, Reuters reported earlier. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also said Sunday that the U.S. is open to facing penalties if it doesn't comply with an agreed-upon trade deal. However, Mnuchin also said Monday the two sides still have lots of work ahead of them. Investors have been fretting over the possibility of a protracted trade war as it could hinder future corporate profits. The International Monetary Fund also cut its economic growth forecast for 2019 to 3.3% from 3.5%, with trade among the risks cited. "By the way, [the] IMF world economic outlook main scenario does assume the U.S.-China trade conflict will not worsen," Kuroda said. If it worsens, it could lead to a different outlook for the global economy. Still, Kuroda said the Chinese economy is "likely to recover in the second half" of 2019, highlighting the "huge fiscal stimulus measures the government has already decided." Global equities have been on a tear lately, with the iShares MSCI ACWI ETF surging more than 15% in 2019. On top of getting a boost from the perceived progress in U.S.-China trade talks, stocks have benefited from a pivot away from tighter monetary policy from the major central banks. But Kuroda said there may be more room for central-bank easing, although he added that looser policy is note needed right now. Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube. Catalent said on Monday it would buy privately held gene therapy-focused Paragon Bioservices in an all-cash deal for $1.2 billion, helping the drug developer expand its capabilities to make specialized and costly treatments. Paragon, backed by private-equity firms Camden Partners and NewSpring Capital, focuses on developing and manufacturing products such as complex biopharmaceuticals for its clients. Catalent also develops drugs for other companies and does business in Asia, Europe, and North and South America. The deal follows other multi-billion dollar deals as drug companies have been aggressively moving into the potentially $40 billion addressable market for gene therapy, where treatments for rare, genetic diseases command some of the highest prices. In Februray, Swiss drugmaker Roche agreed to buy U.S.-based gene therapy specialist Spark Therapeutics for $4.3 billion, while Novartis purchased U.S.-based Avexis for $8.7 billion last year. Catalent expects the transaction to add to its adjusted earnings in the second full fiscal year after closing. The company said it will fund the deal with proceeds from a $650 million incremental term loan and issuance of $650 million of a new series of convertible preferred stock. After the deal closes, Paragon will be led by its Chief Executive Officer Pete Buzy. The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that Catalent had agreed to buy Paragon. Yeast isnt a food or an ingredient, except in tiny ways. It plays on food, like a conductor, or a cook. So when you realize that yeast floats in the air and lives forever, or almost forever, you may have more respect for its governance, its fungal baton. A random search engine found an article that had the word Holbrook in it, Holbrook being not an actor but a hamlet yes on Long Island, New York, where my beloved Costco sits, 20 minutes by car from the St. James Brewery. Low-ceiling industrial malls dont magnetize shoppers, but St. James set up in one because it needed room to brew. Associated Press recently posted more than one piece about St. James brewer and sea diver Jamie Adams, who, with a team, recovered motley bottles probably of a Bass barley wine from a somewhat glamorous British passenger liner, the SS Oregon. Speed-demon Oregon, which held almost 1500 windswept passengers, went down in the Atlantic on March 16, 1886, approaching its berth in New York City. Everyone was saved, in case you were worried. The Oregon sank not far from the coast of Fire Island, now a resort sand bar that has many bars. An errant, unidentified schooner had smashed a hole in the pre-Titanics hull. Adams and staff fussed with the intact bottles that still had gunk in them and sucked some out. After Petri dish breeding, they settled on a long-dormant but assertive strain of yeast to ferment both a local IPA, Fleur de Lees, and an ale they named Deep Ascent. Deep Ascent is not the first shipwreck brew. Last year, yeasts from bottles on the Sydney Cove, a merchant ship that sank off the coast of Tasmania in 1797, were tweaked to make The Wreck Preservation Ale by Australias James Squire brewery, which writes that the Wreck has hints of blackcurrant, a splash of spicy yeast character and a wisp of smoke. Fleur de Lees, brewed with both the submerged yeast and an earthbound Belgian that could be older, as well as Long Island hops, is surprisingly rich and heady, without berry innuendo, but maybe a touch of caramel (perhaps the yeast-belch called diacetyl) that is sometimes considered a flaw. Its fine here. Ive not tried the newsworthy Deep Ascent, made with only the rescued stuff, because the first batch is gone; another is brewing. Although a spectrum of yeasts excretes various flavors, theres no palate way I know to tell that either brew is old underwater beer. Any bottle or can left open for a day is old. First time I served and explained the curious Holbrook IPA, I heard ugh jokes until it was tasted. Were my scoffers thinking rotten corpse, or just about the blotched surface of an unknown soldier in the back of their fridge? Eating old things makes people upset, in their minds, not their mouths. But everything we eat is old, which I learned when I was a biology major. The freshest tomato, like the one I bit in my backyard when it was still on the vine, has Ancestry.com in its juice. Some organisms survive by building shells, just like humans. Others find other ways. Particular sourdough starters or levains, which are microscopically throbbing blobs of yeast and flour, have been fed like pets and passed along from 19th-century snowbank to refrigerator for generations, but no one says ugh to the hoary loaves that result unless someone cant bake. Theres a line in a song about everything old being new, but yeast is neither. It continues. Then there are mouths that want to know, really know, what things tasted like eons ago. Some little one near the bullrush Nile bit into a firm but yielding plum, dotted with rain, mottled. Without warning, a tingling coursed from mouth to where gut, brain? Its hard enough to figure how our young encompass what they eat. But children then? Slower or faster, despaired for or assumed? If thoughtful, what thoughts? The oldest record of olive oil in Italy is residue staining a chic ceramic jar, broken into hundreds of pieces, dug and gathered in Castelluccio, Sicily, from the end of the third millennium B.C. Pineapple, my own sure taste of it, is what the ancient child could be storing in his or her hunger and pleasure memory to mark that pubescent plum. Or yesterdays seemly peach. We have no way of knowing what went on as our fantastic ancestors chewed, beyond diaries and narratives, which have their own independence. But eating, more than almost anything I can think of, denies direct description: read recipes or restaurant reviews, and youll see how smartly the best writers twist and turn when it comes to flavor. A vocabulary of taste is narrow and self-referring, in the way fat is fatty. Does everyone taste perceive, react to, go to private animal places the same things differently, or is the garlic mashed always an equivalent that potato-eaters slide down and smile about, in imaginary dining unison? Israel was crushing oil from olives at least 8000 years ago, a discovery that used the same logic, which means only a ghost of oil was left. Archeological consumers want to know which was a better shopping value, and were the jugged oils doctored with dicey product from Tuscany or Syria? All I wish to figure out is how these olive oils were regarded, went down, and if there were any happiness in them. Those few of you who have plucked an olive off a tree, you must have some sense of the continuity of flavor and nourishment. Id love to sip a wine older than myself, which in my case becomes ever more difficult and expensive. How could I not ask how far it would carry me back, to let me see what else is there. China's approval process for biotech crops is beset by regulatory hurdles and delays that have cost U.S. companies billions of dollars and added to challenges for American farmers. Industry groups and members of Congress have been urging the Trump administration to press China to make its regulatory process for approving agricultural biotech products more transparent and timely. High-level talks earlier this month in Washington between Chinese and U.S. negotiators touched on a variety of nontariff barrier issues. A spokesman for China's Ministry of Commerce, Gao Feng, told reporters Thursday the talks achieved "new progress," adding that technology transfer and intellectual property were among the issues discussed. Chinese regulatory policies on genetically modified organism seeds are seen as protectionist and favoring domestic development and commercialization of agricultural biotechnology, according to industry observers. Beijing is believed to have spent over $3.5 billion on biotech crop research to help develop its domestic industry. "The GMO approvals protocols are very oblique and yet have been a huge problem for the U.S.," said Joseph Glauber, a former U.S. Department of Agriculture chief economist and now a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington. The financial impact of delays in Chinese approval of U.S. biotech crops is estimated to have resulted in direct impact of nearly $5 billion over five years, according to a study commissioned by the industry trade group CropLife International. When including the "ripple effects" to the overall U.S. economy, the report by researcher Informa estimated impacts topping $14 billion. In January, China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs approved five new biotech traits for imported crops, including varieties of soybeans from Bayer and DowDuPont. It was agency's first approvals since mid-2017 and came during a round of trade talks in Beijing between U.S. and Chinese officials. "We are encouraged that systemic improvements in the regulatory process in China remain an important focus in ongoing negotiations," said Christi Dixon, a spokesperson for Bayer, which last year completed the acquisition of U.S. seed giant Monsanto. "We support the goal of these negotiations enabling a predictable, timely, transparent and science-based process that fuels both global innovation and trade." Added Dixon, "A predictable global regulatory system is essential in ensuring companies can continue to deliver new innovations to farmers around the world in a predictable and timely way." Genetic traits in seeds have been developed to improve yields and be more resistant to pests, diseases and adverse weather conditions such as drought. Seed companies also have engineered crops to be resistant to weedkillers or herbicides. US President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable on immigration and border security at the US Border Patrol Calexico Station in Calexico, California, April 5, 2019. Top Democrats in the House of Representatives on Monday sent a letter to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security demanding documents related to the Trump administration's plan to release detained immigrants in cities that shelter undocumented immigrants. The plan, which was rejected twice in the past year, was confirmed to be still in the works by President Donald Trump last week after its existence was first reported by The Washington Post. In a post Monday on Twitter, the president said the plan was moving forward, writing in a tweet that "Illegal Immigrants who can no longer be legally held (Congress must fix the laws and loopholes) will be, subject to Homeland Security, given to Sanctuary Cities and States!" Trump tweet The announcement that the plan was still under consideration marked a dramatic reversal from the stance other administration officials had taken. One DHS official told reporters Thursday that the plan "was a suggestion that was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion." And a former DHS official told NBC News that the White House dropped the plan after it was deemed "so illegal." Now Democrats are seeking emails between the White House and DHS officials, as well as documents "discussing policy or legal justifications or implications" for the plan, according to the letter, which is signed by the chairs of the Judiciary, Oversight and Homeland Security committees. "Not only does the Administration lack the legal authority to transfer detainees in this manner, it is shocking that the President and senior Administration officials are even considering manipulating release decisions for purely political reasons," wrote Reps. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. The representatives are seeking documents between November 2018 and April 15, 2019, and gave the White House until May 3 to make them available. The letter was sent to Mick Mulvaney, acting chief of staff, and Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan. The report in the Post noted that the plan was dismissed twice in the last six months after legal officials rejected it and also raised concerns that it could heighten public relations problems. It said the plan sought to penalize Democrats whose congressional districts were located in so-called sanctuary cities, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who represents parts of San Francisco. Trump has said that Democrats should be "very happy" about the plan. The White House did not immediately provide comment. Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple Inc., waves while onstage with Oprah Winfrey, chief executive officer of Oprah Winfrey Network LLC, during an event at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California, U.S., on Monday, March 25, 2019. The two presentations couldn't have been more jarringly different. Last month, Apple launched its hotly awaited new TV service, Apple TV+. Notable celebrities took the stage, including Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Aniston, Steven Spielberg, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carrell. But the payoff was lacking. There were virtually no clips of actual show footage, leading to somewhat droning monologues from stars and creators. More curious, there were no details about the service. How much would it cost? How much would Apple spend on original content? Could you bundle it with other Apple subscription products? When would Apple TV+ be available? Nothing. Why even bother with a launch with all of these key details missing? Then it was Disney's turn to debut its streaming service, Disney+, last week. Celebrities were lacking, but Disney showed actual video of shows and movies, including surefire mega-hits "Frozen 2," The Lion King remake, and "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker," which will all eventually join the subscription service. Disney executives methodically checked off all the specifics. The service will be $6.99 per month or $69.99 annually, underpricing Netflix. All programming will be available for offline downloading. Disney will spend $1 billion on original programming for the service by 2020 and more than $2 billion by 2024. Disney plans to bundle Disney+ with Hulu and ESPN+ for a discount (although no discount pricing was given on this point). As the presentation went on, it grew clear that Disney+ is much of what Apple+ wants to be. Apple wants family-friendly content. That's Disney+. Apple wants a recurring revenue subscription product to help change part of the growth narrative around the company. That's Disney+. Apple wants Hollywood's best to build branded content that fits with Apple's best-in-class mobile products. That's Disney+. Chinese President Xi Jinping reacts during the signing of a memorandum of understanding on China's Belt and Road Initiative in Rome, Italy, on March 23, 2019. Alessia Pierdomenico | Bloomberg | Getty Images Washington is announcing that has largely agreed on an enforcement mechanism with Beijing to monitor bilateral trade while China continues to accumulate soaring surpluses on its goods sales to the U.S. China's customs records show that the country's surplus with the U.S. rose 40 percent in March from the previous month to stand at $62.66 billion for the first quarter of this year. That's how China is responding to threats U.S. President Donald Trump issued during his election campaign and repeatedly since that he would put a stop to that. Speaking of China, Trump told a campaign rally on Staten Island, New York in April 2016 that "they're ripping us off, folks." He repeated the same view last September during a press conference in Warsaw, Poland. Trump could say it again tomorrow without being contradicted by the data. EU allies going their own ways The trade statistics from the U.S. Commerce Department indicate that on Trump's watch China pocketed a U.S. trade surplus of $829.3 billion between January 2017 and January 2019 (the latest U.S. data point available). I believe that the Chinese are making a mistake by challenging the U.S. on such a sensitive issue. Granting that Washington may have gone too far in its attempts to control China's economic policies, Beijing still could have and should have preempted all that by reducing its sales to the U.S. while stepping up purchases of American goods and services. That would have shown Beijing's determination to substantially run down its excessive, and unsustainable, surpluses on U.S. trades. Had Beijing made such a gesture of smart statecraft, it would have smoothed the way to a fast and reasonable trade agreement. And it is quite possible that such a gesture could have also opened up a new chapter of friendlier, more cooperative and more productive bilateral relations. Indeed, Chinese President Xi Jinping cannot expect his idea of a "great power relationship" to work while China continues to maintain an excessively unbalanced trade relationship with the United States. Beijing, of course, has its own reasons for doing what it's doing, and its attitude on trade issues reflects a much broader view of its relations with Washington. It is also very likely that China could have been encouraged in its intransigence on U.S. trade by the fact that America's close friends and allies are all flocking to Beijing in search of trade and investments. China has now become the EU's second-largest trade partner, closely behind the United States. Beijing's share of EU trade has tripled since 2000 to 15.4 percent, and is now only slightly below the U.S. share of 17.1 percent. The big difference is that last year the EU ran a 184 billion euro trade deficit with China, while recording a 140 billion euro trade surplus with the U.S. A recent visit to Europe by Xi in late March followed by last week's visit of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang are the latest indications of how much the U.S. "trade war" with China differs from majestic welcoming ceremonies and an eager search for mutually beneficial relations the Chinese statesmen have encountered during their trips to Italy, France, the EU Commission and the Balkans for an annual summit with Central and East European leaders. China promises Italy rolled out the red carpet for China's president, clinching deals worth $2.8 billion in energy, finance, engineering and agricultural produce. Italy also offered China access to the port of Trieste, an ideal entry-point to major European markets, and agreed on China's development of the port of Genoa. The crowning achievement for China was Italy's decision to participate in China's Belt and Road Initiative the first G-7 country to do so. The U.S. National Security Council publicly disapproved, saying that Italy's "Endorsing BRI lends legitimacy to China's predatory approach to investment." WHNSC tweet: Italy is a major global economy and a great investment destination. Endorsing BRI lends legitimacy to China's predatory approach to investment and will bring no benefits to the Italian people. French President Emmanuel Macron also lobbied hard against Italy's China deals, invoking the European solidarity and the need for a common economic and political approach to China. Macron eventually softened his attitude and rhetoric as China decided to place an estimated $30 billion order for Airbus planes. That was a contract he was expected to sign during his visit to China in January of last year, but the Chinese decided to keep dangling the juicy deals to test Macron's policies. Last week's annual EU-China summit in Brussels was held in a friendly atmosphere as Beijing committed to concluding an investment agreement, a work-in-progress since 2013, by the end of next year or earlier. That document should rule out China's industrial subsidies and forced technological transfers while opening up markets for EU companies. In addition to all of those promises, Beijing pressed the right buttons with regard to rules-based multilateral trading system, the enhanced role of the World Trade Organization, and China's firm interest in EU's unity. That was all music to European ears and a sharp contrast to U.S. hostility to multilateralism, WTO and the EU as a trading bloc. Reassuring the EU that China does not want to divide Europe, Li was off to Croatia, beaming about the "diamond era" with that small Balkan country where he secured access to the port of Rijeka, another strategic entry point into Europe for the maritime traffic that delivers most of its merchandise to the continent. Croatia also hosted the annual 16+1 meeting of China and countries of Central and Eastern Europe, 11 of which are EU members. Investment thoughts Germany has no plans to stop Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from participating in build up of ultra-high speed internet, known as 5G, in the country if it complies with all the security requirements, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. The president of the Bundesnetzagentur, the country's telecommunications regulator, told the FT that no equipment suppliers, including Huawei, "should, or may, be specifically excluded." Jochen Homann told the newspaper that his agency has yet to see evidence that Huawei poses a security risk. He added that if Huawei meets the security requirements imposed by the regulator, it can take part in the 5G network roll-out. Huawei is up against mounting worries that its technology will enable Chinese espionage through those high-speed mobile networks. The United States banned Huawei from selling 5G networking equipment to U.S. firms. Other countries have followed suit, including Australia, Japan and New Zealand. Huawei claims the security concerns are unfounded. A crowd holding a a mask with a cartoon image of Indonesian President Joko Widodo at a political rally in Jakarta, Indonesia. Ed Wray | Getty Images Indonesia Southeast Asia's most populous country is due to hold elections this week, and some 193 million voters are expected to cast their votes for five levels of public office in a single day. The April 17 polls will see millions of voters cast their ballots at more than 800,000 polling stations across the archipelago an exercise described by some analysts as the world's largest single-day elections. "The scale of Indonesia's electoral process is mind-boggling, with five separate elections at once," said Ben Bland, director of the Southeast Asia project at Australian think tank Lowy Institute. "By contrast, India, which is the world's biggest democracy, is conducting its parliamentary elections through a rolling regional process over six weeks in April and May," Bland wrote in a report posted on the think tank's website. India kicked off its month-long political contest last Thursday. The South Asian nation is the second most populous country in the world with a population of around 1.31 billion, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, Indonesia ranks fourth globally with 264.9 million people spreading across 17,000 islands, U.S. Census Bureau data showed. What to expect Indonesian voters will cast five ballots to select the following office-holders: President and vice president 575 members of the People's Representative Council, or Indonesia's house of representatives 136 members of the Regional Representative Council, or the senate More than 2,000 seats in provincial legislatures Around 18,000 seats in district and city councils The presidential race has dominated media coverage and public discussions. Incumbent President Joko Widodo popularly known as Jokowi is expected to repeat his victory over Prabowo Subianto, according to opinion polls. The two candidates ran against each other in the 2014 presidential race. An equally important event to watch is the contest for the People's Representative Council or the house of representatives, said Achmad Sukarsono, the lead analyst for Indonesia at risk consultancy Control Risks. The chamber has been dominated by a coalition led by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, or the PDIP the political party backing Jokowi's presidential bid. But the coalition's presence in parliament could slip to a slim majority, predicted Sukarsono. He explained that seats in the chamber are allocated based on a complicated formula, and corruption scandals surrounding an ally of PDIP could give the opposition camp an opportunity to increase its presence in parliament. "We expect the next parliament to be more fractured," the analyst said. "All these point to a more convoluted and disputed parliamentary process, and consequently a president with a diminished ability to enact his agenda." After voting ends, approved pollsters are expected to release "quick counts" or a preliminary outcome of the elections. Official results will likely be known a few weeks later. What investors are watching Jokowi winning a second-term in office is the most favorable outcome for financial markets, said Jason Daw, head of emerging markets strategy at French banking giant Societe Generale. "Investors are comfortable with Jokowi's policies and governing style," Daw told CNBC in an email. "A surprise win by Prabowo could jolt investor sentiment." Foreign investors poured into the Indonesian stock market in the first two months of 2019. They bought a net 10.47 trillion rupiah ($740.18 million) worth of shares in January and February this year, according to the country's stock exchange. Italy's Deputy Prime Minister, Luigi Di Maio, has told CNBC that his country will not change course despite fears of ballooning debt and struggling growth. Last week, Italy's anti-austerity government cut its 2019 growth forecast to 0.2% from a previous forecast of 1%. The country also raised its 2019 deficit to 2.4%, breaking a commitment given to the European Commission last year to stick to just over 2%. The government also predicted public debt would hit a fresh record high of 132.6% of gross domestic product (GDP). After the announcement, the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial affairs, Pierre Moscovici, said "We could again have problems with Italy." Luigi Di Maio, Leader of 5-Star Movement (M5S) leaves the parliament after a new day of meetings for the formation of the new government on April 26, 2018 in Rome, Italy. Antonio Masiello | Getty Images Speaking to CNBC's Dan Murphy in Dubai on Monday, Di Maio said he still had faith in his government's plan to reject austerity measures preferred by lawmakers in Brussels. "We are not going to change path.We are on this path for growth and we want to further improve Italian production compared to the the past," he said. The 32-year-old said Italy's attempts to improve its economy had to be looked at in the context of the ongoing trade dispute between the United States and China as well as Britain's drawn out exit from the European Union. "When we forecasted 1% GDP growth, Germany forecasted to grow by 1.9%, now Germany is fighting to achieve 0.5% growth. So our targets are positive, compared to other European nations. We are not resigned to zero percent growth and we are passing a series of laws to boost growth in Italy," he said. The deputy prime minister added that while there had been some losses in value to Italian banks at the end of 2018, the volatility in markets had passed and he didn't think there was a risk for Italian lenders at the moment. "We are a country of savers, we have a lot of private savings and this is very important for our economy. So, in general, I don't see any risk for the Italian banks, for the euro zone, and for Europe." To meet its deficit targets in 2020 and 2021, the Italian government agreed with the European Commission in December that it would raise value-added tax (VAT), or find other means to generate the cash. Di Maio has maintained that the Italian government will not raise VAT to generate 23 billion euros ($25.9 billion) in 2020 and, at the same time, will deliver income tax cuts worth an estimated 12 billion euros. Fulfilling both of these promises may please voters but risks further boosting Italy's eye-watering debt and angering Brussels. Italy's Finance Minister Giovanni Tria told CNBC Friday that despite no obvious alternative to raise the much needed cash, Rome would still look to avoid higher rates of value-added tax (VAT). "We'll find a balanced solution and we'll form a fiscal system considering our budget constraint," he told CNBC's Joummana Bercetche at the IMF's Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C. Tria said that investors in Italian bonds should not take fright at Italy's slipping budget as the country retained a "productive economy" and that current year indicators were predicting a growth recovery in 2019. Lyft's week is off to a dreary start as the stock continues to tumble after dipping nearly 20% over the previous week. The stock hit a new 52-week low Monday, down 6.3% with a market capitalization of $16 billion. The drop shaved more than $1 billion off of its market cap. Lyft has ended more trading days in the negative than positive since its debut March 29. Analysts have worried that Uber's imminent entrance into the public market could further push down Lyft's stock. Uber is expected to seek a valuation of $90 billion to $100 billion and has a far more complex business than Lyft's which it is sure to tout on its roadshow. "We believe there could be continued pressure on Lyft shares while investors wait for Uber's roadshow and dig further into the full financial metrics," analysts from Wedbush Securities wrote in a note Friday, giving Lyft a neutral rating with a 12-month price target of $80. "In our opinion, the battle for market share will be balanced going forward. We think there's plenty of work to do and time to go until investors start to feel like they are missing out on the 'next Amazon' although we believe Lyft remains in a strong position to capitalize on this fertile market opportunity." Still, analysts have struggled to compare the two companies, with many still unsure what to make of Uber's high expected IPO valuation while it continues to sustain significant losses. But even so, some continue to doubt the value of either company. Valuation expert and New York University professor Aswath Damodaran said in an interview on CNBC's "Fast Money" last week that both Uber and Lyft rely on "free agent[s]" in both customers and drivers for their core businesses. "There is absolutely no stickiness in the business, and they know it," Damodaran said. "That's the basic problem I have with the ride-sharing business not just Lyft." Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube. Watch: Lyft goes public but has no clear path to make a profit It's only April, but already this year more store closures nearly 6,000 have been announced than in all of 2018. That surely isn't helping mall owners. Foot traffic at some of the best shopping centers across the country peaked around August 2018 and has since started to fall, after rebounding for much of last year, according to a new report from data analytics firm Thasos, which uses more than 100 million mobile phones to track when consumers enter and leave certain trade areas. The good news for a lot of malls was that many retailers made a "comeback" and were able to draw in more shoppers by using promotions in 2018, John Collins, Thasos co-founder and chief product officer, said. "But if you're selling merchandise at a loss, you can only do that for so long." As retailers are now starting to talk about pulling back on discounting, this could be one reason why traffic is dropping at malls, he said, in addition to the fact that some purchases are moving online. Another issue is landlords have been hoping that offering shoppers new experiences would make it more exciting to go to the mall, but the early evidence isn't showing a boost in activity. Thasos: Traffic has peaked at enclosed malls anchored by department stores U.S. retailers so far have announced they will shut 5,994 stores, while opening 2,641, according to real estate tracking done by Coresight Research. That's more locations slated to go dark than during last year. In 2018, there were 5,864 closures announced and 3,239 openings, Coresight said. The planned closures include more than 2,000 from Payless ShoeSource, which filed for bankruptcy, hundreds from clothing retailers like Gymboree, Charlotte Russe, Victoria's Secret and Gap, and discount chain Fred's. Meantime, chains like Aldi, Dollar Tree, Ollie's Bargain Outlet, Five Below and Levi's are planning to open more stores. On the closures front, however, the outlook doesn't appear to be getting any better, Coresight predicts. That's after 2017 was a record year for closures announced by U.S. retailers amounting to more than 8,000. "I expect store closures to accelerate in 2019, hitting some 12,000 by year end," Deborah Weinswig, founder and CEO of Coresight, said. "The slowdown we saw in 2018 seems to have been a brief respite in what's a steady, long-term trend." Mall and shopping center owners, looking for ways to fill empty space, have in turn been forced to negotiate on lease terms with tenants and settle on cheaper rents. "It's funny because none of the retailers [closing stores] are surprising," DJ Busch, analyst at commercial real estate services firm Green Street Advisors, said. "But when it happens in a wave, it disrupts negotiating power. It creates a soft point." Then, landlords are turning to up-and-coming digitally native brands like shirt company Untuckit, glasses maker Warby Parker and mattress retailer Casper, which are opening hundreds of stores as a group across the country after finding success on the internet, to move into their properties. They're hoping adding tenants that provide unique experiences, like Legoland, Crayola Experience and Dave & Busters, will lure shoppers from their homes and out to the mall. But Thasos' Collins said that might not be going as planned. His firm found malls with so-called experiential tenants that aren't just focused on selling products, like Apple, Italian food hall Eataly and Tesla, haven't been drawing in extra traffic. Up until the final three months of 2018, indoor shopping malls with "experiential" tenants didn't benefit from greater shopper traffic on a year-over-year basis when compared with indoor malls without any of those unique, nonapparel tenants, Thasos said. Thasos: Experiential tenants not yet offering 'meaningful edge' to traffic like landlords thought "This suggests [real estate investment trusts] are overpaying to bring in Tesla and Apple, and others, in order to drive foot traffic to the property," Collins said. With more store closures likely on the horizon, consumers can expect to start seeing hotels, gyms, apartment complexes, more food halls and grocery stores at traditional malls, turning them into more like city centers. The new Hudson Yards mall, which opened in New York last month, is the perfect example of this mixed-use model. Mall owners are also experimenting with spaces that let young brands rotate in and out frequently, where they sign short-term leases and gain access to data on foot traffic and shopping patterns. Macerich, the third-largest mall owner in the nation, has a business called BrandBox that it's rolling out at its centers across the U.S. "I think this is a multiyear transition," Busch said. "Cleanse out some of these retailers that lasted longer than they should have. ... It's going to be tough. Anyone who thinks otherwise is too optimistic. But it doesn't mean this is a dead business. ... It can continue to be a good business as underproductive [retailers] go away, and the strong landlords invest." Mall owners including Simon, Brookfield, Taubman, Macerich, PREIT, CBL and Washington Prime are expected to report quarterly earnings in the coming weeks and will offer a glimpse at the current leasing environment and how they're dealing with the latest wave of store closures. Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp., attends the Viva Tech start-up and technology gathering at Parc des Expositions Porte de Versailles in Paris on May 24, 2018. "I'm disappointed to hear about any behavior in our workplace that falls short of the diverse and inclusive culture we are striving to create," Nadella wrote in Monday's email, which was published by Quartz . "But I'm encouraged that people feel empowered to speak up and demand change. I want all of us to learn and act on this feedback." Among other things, Google set new standards around employee training, promised more detailed disclosures about investigations and said it would form a team of advisors to address sexual harassment. Now Microsoft has a multifaceted plan of its own. Microsoft isn't the first technology company looking to raise standards for employees following reports of sexual harassment. Google CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that company's plan in November after thousands of employees staged protests. Microsoft is shaking up its human resources policies to address employee complaints of discrimination and harassment, and criticisms of an insufficient company response to those complaints. The changes, which CEO Satya Nadella announced to employees in an email Monday, are coming less than two weeks after it became clear that workers were talking about how they had been mistreated in an email thread . The email chain spread inside the company earlier this month, as first reported by Quartz. In it, women reportedly described instances of harassing behavior, such as being asked to sit on a co-worker's lap, and being called denigrating names. Executives addressed the complaints with a series of internal meetings and other steps. Monday's email from Nadella describes more concrete steps that the company will take to stop and address such behavior. Currently, Microsoft's top executives consider diversity and inclusion when they decide compensation for the company's dozens of corporate vice presidents. This year, it will also become a factor for all executives who are general managers and above, Nadella wrote in the email. Microsoft will come up with new training materials around standards of business conduct, and all employees will "participate in the conversation" this year, while managers will be required to go through new training that will become available in the company's 2020 fiscal year, which begins in July, Nadella wrote. Microsoft will also provide information about career progression in annual updates around employee representation. The company is also making several changes when it comes to responding to complaints. "We will add HR professionals to enhance our listening capacity when issues are first raised. HR is also creating a new Employee Advocacy Team that will focus exclusively on assisting employees going through a workplace investigation, including helping employees understand the process, guiding them through investigations and following up after investigations are finished to check in on the employees involved," Nadella wrote in his message. The company will bring on HR investigators with an eye toward lowering the median time of an investigation to one month or shorter than that, Nadella wrote. Microsoft will also come up with new guidelines for disciplines for bad behavior, and the company will give managers a range of expected discipline; if managers desire to give employees discipline outside of the range, a corporate vice president will have to sign off on it. Employees who file complaints will receive information about what happened as a result of investigations, including discipline. And in the 2020 fiscal year Microsoft will start publishing internal reports, at least annually, about what sorts of complaints employees are filing and what sort of discipline people are receiving in response. In 2014 people criticized Nadella for comments he made around gender and compensation. "It's not really about asking for the raise but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along. And that I think might be one of the additional superpowers that quite frankly women who don't ask for raises have. Because that's good karma, that'll come back," Nadella said. Nadella apologized, and announced plans around diversity. "In some ways, I'm glad I messed up in such a public forum because it helped me confront an unconscious bias I didn't know I had, and it helped me find a new sense of empathy for the great women in my life and at my company," Nadella wrote in his 2017 book "Hit Refresh." WATCH: Etsy's push for diversity Special counsel Robert Mueller (L) arrives at the U.S. Capitol for closed meeting with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee June 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. A redacted version of the report by special counsel Robert Mueller is expected to be released to Congress and to the public by the Justice Department a day before the Easter holiday weekend, a department official said Monday. But the release of anything less than the full report will not placate congressional Democrats, who want to see all of it. The report, totaling more than 300 pages, details Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, and the question of whether President Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russian agents in that meddling. The Justice Department has had Mueller's full report since the special counsel submitted it on March 22. Attorney General William Barr, in a four-page summary of the report's main conclusions, has said that the special counsel found no evidence that Trump's campaign colluded with Russians. Barr also has said that based on the report, he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded that the evidence collected by Mueller's team "is not sufficient to establish that" Trump committed obstruction of justice. Mueller himself "did not draw a conclusion one way or the other as to whether the examined conduct [by Trump] constituted obstruction." Barr last Wednesday told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that the report would be released this week. But he spelled out four categories of redactions he planned to make before releasing the report to Congress and the public. Those areas include information related to the grand jury used by the special counsel during his probe, and information related to ongoing investigations. Congressional Democrats, led by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., have argued that they are entitled to view the entire report without redactions and have demanded that Barr provide it to them. The Judiciary Committee two weeks ago voted to authorize a subpoena for the unredacted report. That subpoena has not been issued, as yet. Democrats have increasingly criticized Barr's handling of the report particularly his determination after just two days of having the voluminous document that there was insufficient evidence to conclude that there was not enough evidence to conclude that Trump obstructed justice. They have also voiced their concerns about Barr's views in light of an unsolicited memo he sent to the Justice Department last June criticizing the Mueller probe. Trump has repeatedly railed against Mueller's investigation, calling it a "witch hunt," even after claiming that the report totally exonerated him. But the special counsel specifically said in the report, according to Barr's summary, that "while the report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." And several members of Mueller's team, speaking on the condition of anonymity, reportedly have said that the evidence that Trump tried to obstruct the probe is stronger than Barr has publicly suggested. Trump vented on Twitter about Mueller's investigation about a half-hour after the made its Justice Department announcement that the report would be released Thursday morning. Tweet Tweet This picture taken on April 5, 2019 shows a nurse preparing the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine at the Rockland County Health Department in Haverstraw, Rockland County, New York. New York City's health department closed a child care center after it allegedly failed to provide vaccination records amid a measles outbreak, city officials announced Monday. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio last week declared measles a public health emergency and ordered mandatory vaccinations for people living in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood where the disease is spreading. United Talmudical Academy in Williamsburg allegedly did not provide the city with records, prompting the city to close it, officials said. The city said 23 child care programs and yeshivas, or Orthodox Jewish schools, have received violations for not following the city's order to exclude unvaccinated children. The United Talmudical Academy in Williamsburg is the first to be closed. "It's crucial in this outbreak that child care programs and schools maintain up to date and accurate immunization and attendance records," Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot said in a statement. "It's the only way we can make sure schools are properly keeping unvaccinated students and staff out of child care centers to hasten the end of this outbreak." Of the 90 new cases reported last week, 77 were in New York, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday. Williamsburg is home to a large Orthodox Jewish population. Some of them have refused to vaccinate their children, leaving the tight-knit communities vulnerable to the highly contagious disease. Measles is highly contagious, infecting up to 90 percent of unvaccinated people who are exposed to it, according to the CDC. Doctors say two doses of the mumps, measles and rubella vaccine are about 97 percent effective at preventing measles. "Vaccine is the path to stopping this outbreak," Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Herminia Palacio said at a press conference. "This is the time to get vaccinated." Merger talks between Occidental Petroleum and Anadarko Petroleum were ongoing when Chevron announced on Friday it would acquire Anadarko for $33 billion, preventing Occidental from potentially upping its offer price, sources tell CNBC. The deal announcement by Chevron cut short the talks between Occidental and Anadarko, the sources told CNBC's David Faber, who reported the rival bid by Houston-based Occidental on Friday. The Occidental bid had reached the mid-$70s per share and was being structured as a 40% cash deal. Occidental was under the impression talks would extend into the weekend, with an opportunity to increase its bid, people familiar with the situation say. Mergers and acquisitions are often announced on Monday, and the Friday announcement caught some parties involved in the process by surprise. Occidental continues to consider whether it should take the price to shareholders in an unsolicited offer, the sources say. The breakup fee for the Chevron-Anadarko deal is said to be 3% of the deal. But Shaich stepped down as chief executive in 2017, and his relationship with the company he founded has soured. A judge recently dismissed a lawsuit from Panera against Shaich regarding the hiring of top tech executives. In 2014, Panera founder Ron Shaich said his chain was competing for a different customer than those restaurants. "We're focused in a different niche, which is a higher-quality experience and a less time-sensitive experience," he said. The breakfast wars have been heating up for five years as chains like McDonald's , Dunkin' and Taco Bell have pushed early morning offerings as a way to attract consumers who are juggling busy schedules and long commutes. Panera Bread has long been associated with bagels and pastries, but the company is finally trying to make breakfast a bigger chunk of sales. Now, Panera is switching its breakfast strategy. Historically, more than three-quarters of its business happens after 11 a.m., the company said, but it wants to change that. This time, Panera is trying to appeal to time-sensitive customers. Off-premise breakfast dining offers more growth opportunity, especially as Panera sees the competitions' early-morning options offering speed and convenience but light on quality. "We believe that we have an opportunity to fill that void," said Dan Wegiel, Panera's chief growth and strategy officer. The company has offered breakfast sandwiches since last year, but it unveiled new breakfast wraps Monday. Sara Burnett, Panera's vice president of wellness and food policy, called the wraps "the ultimate portable on-the-go breakfast." Wegiel expects that the menu changes could also unlock more opportunities for its catering business, 30% of which is already breakfast. More menu diversity means more selection for catering customers, who tend to hit a menu fatigue point and stop ordering as often. Panera has also been investing in its coffee offerings. For a long time, its most visible java drinks have been its self-serve drip coffee. "We weren't putting forward the best coffee experience," Burnett said. The company is now paying more attention. This spring, it is rolling out cold brew products, following in the footsteps of more established coffee names like Starbucks and Dunkin'. It will also upgrade its drip coffee options with new light and dark roasts. Wegiel said Panera hopes to formulate unique blends to attract the customer looking for quality coffee. To further emphasize quality, employees will start grinding whole beans in house, and customers will be able to see more of the coffee-making process as Panera's coffee stations get their own remodel. Along the way, Panera has leaned on the coffee expertise of its owner, JAB Holding, which bought Panera two years ago. Its coffee empire includes Peet's Coffee, Caribou Coffee, Espresso House, Stumptown Coffee Roasters and Jacobs Douwe Egberts. JAB also holds a roughly 71.5% stake in Keurig Dr Pepper. Wegiel said the first thing that Panera discussed with JAB when the two began working together was the branding of Panera's coffee. Rather than agreeing to a licensing deal with one of its many coffee brands, JAB said Panera would be crazy not to lead with its own brand, according to Wegiel. "They think that we haven't been using and leveraging the brand as we could," he said. The menu changes come as Panera has been rolling out breakfast delivery nationwide. Customers can now order coffee and their favorite breakfast food from 624 of its stores. Panera at first decided to focus on offering delivery after breakfast because initial tests found that early-morning delivery did not have enough demand or drivers. But the company kept it as an option in test markets. Over time, Wegiel said, it became worth the effort as awareness and delivery volumes grew. And Panera has even more digital plans to increase convenience for its customers. The company has already rolled out a function on its app that lets customers reorder past orders. Breakfast, more than other meals, tends to habit-driven, and customers short of time will be able to place their orders more quickly. The company will start testing Panera Tap in May in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. Customers buying self-serve coffee will just need to open Panera's mobile app and tap their phones against an NFC smart poster to pay. Caddie Jim Mackay waits on the 16th tee during the pro-am prior to the start of the Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale on January 28, 2015 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Check out the companies making headlines midday Monday: Citigroup The bank's stock fell 0.1% after reporting mixed quarterly results. Citigroup's earnings per share topped analyst expectations as the company repurchased more than $4 billion in stock. However, revenue fell amid a drag in equity-market trading. Goldman Sachs Shares of Goldman Sachs slid about 3.8% after the investment bank posted weaker-than-expected first-quarter revenue. The bank said Monday that revenue dropped 13% to $8.81 billion, below analyst's $8.9 billion estimate. Sales of its institutional client services trading division, the bank's biggest business, fell 18% year over year. Levi Strauss The jeans maker's stock rose 6.8% after analysts at J.P. Morgan initiated it with an overweight and set a $26 year-end price target. "We view the combination of a strong tenured management team led by CEO C. Bergh and brand heritage as a competitive advantage in expanding to a global lifestyle brand," J. P. Morgan said in a statement. Nokia Nokia dropped 5.1% after Goldman Sachs downgraded the stock to sell from neutral, citing increasing competition from companies like Samsung and Ericsson. Goldman's estimates show Ericsson holds 29% of the global wireless networking market, Nokia and Huawei each hold 23%, while Samsung only holds 5% of the market. Waste Management Shares of Waste Management rose 2.4% after the company announced plans to buy smaller rival Advanced Disposal Services for about $3 billion. The top waste management service company would pay $33.15 per share in cash for Advanced Disposal, in a move to expand its footprint in the eastern United States. Insys Therapeutics Shares of the pharmaceutical company dropped 4.4% after announcing CEO Saeed Motahari will leave his post. Andrew Long will be the new CEO. Motahari's departure follows the end of closing arguments in the criminal trial of executive John Kapoor. Prosecutors say Kapoor, along with four co-defendants, bribed doctors. Spotify Technology Spotify dropped more than 4% after reports said Amazon is in talks to launch a free music streaming service. Billboard, citing sources familiar with the matter, reported the ecommerce giant would make the service available as soon as next week through its Echo speakers. Amazon's move would put pressure on music-streaming giant Spotify, which has a freebie option that lets users listen to select albums. Gogo Shares of the in-flight internet service company soared over 8% after releasing preliminary first-quarter earnings and announcing a $900 secured notes offering. The company cited better-than-expected commercial aviation service revenue and low operating costs behind its financial gains. Lyft Shares of Lyft plunged 6.3% after the ride sharing company announced it will recall thousands of electric bikes in its bike-share programs in New York, Washington and San Francisco because of a braking problem. This came after riders reported "stronger than expected braking force on the front wheel." CNBC's Yun Li, Nadine El-Bawab and Jessica Bursztynsky contributed to this report. There are a number of subjects that some people don't like to talk about in public: politics, religion, how much they weigh. But people are more uncomfortable talking about their credit card debt than any of those topics, according to a new survey. A recent survey from personal finance site CreditCards.com polled 1,000 U.S. adults in March and found that, on average, nearly half of Americans (47 percent) felt uncomfortable discussing their credit card debt with anyone, and 30 percent felt uncomfortable discussing it with immediate family (such as spouses, parents, siblings and adult children). That's more than the 19 percent on average who are uncomfortable talking about weight with immediate family, 14 percent who are uncomfortable talking about their political views, 12 percent who are uncomfortable about talking about their health and 12 percent who are uncomfortable talking about their religion. The only topic that more people actually felt uncomfortable talking about than credit card debt was their love lives (48 percent), the survey found. While credit card debt might be a taboo topic to many, it's incredibly common. A March survey of credit card users by real estate data company Cleber found that 47 percent of Americans carry a monthly balance on their credit cards, and of those, 70 percent say the balance is over $1,000 on average. Experts often encourage talking about finances with others, like friends or family. Star of ABC's "Shark Tank" Kevin O'Leary, for example, recommends talking about about money with romantic partners, co-workers and if you're a parent your kids. "I think kids should be taught at the age of 5 onward where money comes from," O'Leary previously told CNBC Make It. "We do a very poor job in North America telling kids about finance. We teach them sex education, geography, math, reading, all kinds of learning skills, but we don't tell them about debt. No wonder they get into trouble as soon as they get a credit card." "Debt is a bad thing. Understanding where money comes from is important," he adds. "Make money a part of the family at the dinner table. Talk about where it comes from, how you make it and how hard it is to have." Correction: This article has been updated to clarify that 47 percent is in reference to people who feel uncomfortable talking about credit card debt with anyone, and 30 percent who feel uncomfortable discussing it with immediate family. Don't miss: Kevin O'Leary: Why you should 'absolutely' talk about your salary with co-workers and friends Like this story? Subscribe to CNBC Make It on YouTube! Health care just caught a cold. The Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund, an exchange-traded fund tracking 62 major health-care companies, has shed more than 2% in the last month. The iShares U.S. Healthcare Providers ETF, a similar fund tracking 47 health-care providers, has lost about 5%. Uncertainty around the fate of the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare, and rising drug prices, has weighed on the group in recent weeks. The downward moves have left health care as the only market sector still in the red, and the worst-performing one in the last month, after a banner year as 2018's best-performing sector. Tom Lydon, editor and proprietor of ETFTrends.com, told CNBC's "ETF Edge" on Monday that the weakness could also be tied to a change in investors' priorities. "In Q4 of last year, we saw big declines in the stock market, but health care buoyed because of [its] value," Lydon said. "Value's a little bit out of favor today, so that's another reason why the big health-care stocks aren't doing as well." But Dan Wiener, chairman of Adviser Investments, sees something bigger at play. "You have to remember health care is an enormous part of this economy. We're talking about close to 20% of the economy," Wiener told CNBC in the same "ETF Edge" interview. "You've got the biotechs. You've got the health-care providers. You've got the pharma. You've got the device companies." Most broad-based health-care ETFs have all of those categories in their holdings, Wiener noted. However, two of those holdings far outweigh the rest. "[Tuesday] morning, we're going to get [Johnson & Johnson] earnings," Wiener said. "If you look at the big health-care ETFs, what are the two biggest stocks in there? J&J and Pfizer. And we're not talking about 5% positions. Between the two of them, we're talking 15%. Those are big. I mean, if J&J and Pfizer don't have a good day, the whole sector disappears on the ETF side." That could prove disastrous for the sector's various ETFs, but there's no harm in getting more granular, Lydon said. "It's kind of been the tale of two cities" with "conventional health-care" companies and the biotechnology names, he noted, with traditional health-care stocks tacking on only mid-single-digit gains year to date, but some biotech stocks up north of 20%. So, if you're on the hunt for health-care stocks, be sure you know where to look. President Donald Trump said Monday that Boeing should "fix" and "rebrand" its popular 737 Max after the jet's anti-stall software was implicated in two fatal crashes that killed 346 people since October. "What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!), but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name. No product has suffered like this one. But again, what the hell do I know?" Trump tweeted. TWEET Trump's tweet stands in contrast with his earlier statement that the main problem with air travel was that flying had simply become "far too complex." "Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT," he tweeted in March, after the deadly crash in Ethiopia. "I see it all the time in many products. Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better." But some aviation experts say that re-branding is not a serious solution for Boeing. Re-branding would require a new certification process with the Federal Aviation Administration that would likely take the plane out of service for too long and create other complications. "Airplanes are not laundry detergent, chewing gym or aspirin. You don't and you can't just rebrand them," said Henry Harteveldt, president of Atmosphere Research Group. "Aircraft types are associated with FAA certification and pilot training. The passengers and crew would see right through this. It's not like you can change the plane's appearance. People would know it's a 737." He said there's a stigma associated with the Max now, "but if Boeing does what it needs to do to fix the problem, if the airline is certified by safety regulators and goes on to fly reliably, then the stigma that exists now will fade away." Boeing has slowed production of the Max jet and plans to submit a software fix to Federal Aviation Administration regulators within the next couple of weeks. Company spokesman Chaz Bickers told CNBC on Monday that Boeing's "focused on testing and implementing the software update, finalizing pilot training and materials, and rebuilding trust with our airline customers and the traveling public." "We know we have a deep responsibility to everyone who flies on our airplanes to ensure that the MAX is one of the safest aircraft ever to fly," he said. Several major airlines have extended Max cancellations through the summer. American has canceled Max flights through Aug. 19, totaling 115 flights per day, while Southwest has canceled through Aug. 5 and United through June 5. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko holds a news conference at Olympiskiy Stadium on April 14, 2019 in Kiev, Ukraine. Zelensky, a television comedian making his first run for political office, challenged President Poroshenko to a debate at the stadium ahead of the April 21 vote, but due to a disagreement over dates, Zelensky did not show up to the event organized by Poroshenko. The favorite to win Ukraine's presidential election this weekend caused a stir on Sunday by skipping a live televised debate with incumbent Petro Poroshenko but even that isn't expect to damage his chances of winning the upcoming final round of voting. Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian and actor and the favorite to win a run-off round in the election this coming Sunday, had agreed to face the more seasoned politician and incumbent President Petro Poroshenko in a televised debate from Kiev's Olympic Stadium but the pair had disagreed on a date. That left Poroshenko to speak on his own for 45 minutes while standing next to an empty lectern for his political opponent. Zelensky had not said that he was going to attend the debate, instead agreeing to attend a televised debate on Friday, April 21. It's not the first bizarre episode in an election race that has enlivened Ukrainians who appear to have tired of the country's old political guard. Zelensky accepted Poroshenko's invitation to hold debates with three conditions, one of them being that both candidates take live drug and alcohol tests to, as Zelenksy put it, "show the Ukrainian people that neither is an alcoholic or drug addict." Experts say Zelenksy's "no-show" has not affected the likelihood that he will become president at a final run-off vote next on April 21. "I still cannot see Poroshenko winning - he (Zelensky) is just too far ahead," Timothy Ash, senior emerging markets strategist at Bluebay Asset Management, told CNBC on Monday. "Poroshenko's negative ratings are just too high. He lost this election months ago," Ash added. Unsurprisingly, Poroshenko used his uninterrupted platform on Sunday to criticize an absent Zelensky and his apparent lack of concrete manifesto. "If he hides from people again, if he is afraid, we will invite him again. We will invite him every day to every live show for the whole country to see who it is going to elect for the next five years," Poroshenko told the audience Sunday, according to news reports. Libertarian candidate for Vice President and former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld speaks to students in Boston, Mass. in 2016. However, Trump retains high popularity among Republicans, which, if sustained, will make it very difficult for any challenger to defeat him in a contest for the GOP nomination. New Hampshire holds the first primary of the 2020 nomination contest, and has long been seen favorable campaigning grounds for both Republicans and Democrats from neighboring Massachusetts. Weld, 73, plans to be in New Hampshire on Tuesday for the first of two days of campaigning. "I'm in!" Weld said in a tweet announcing his candidacy, the first so far by a GOP contender to try to deny Trump's bid for a second term in the White House. William Weld, the former two-term governor of Massachusetts, announced Monday that he will challenge President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination for president in 2020. Weld, a former United States Attorney appointed by President Ronald Reagan, later served as the Republican governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997. Weld was the Libertarian Party's nominee for vice president in 2016 on a ticket headed by ex-New Mexico governor Gary Johnson. He and Johnson won nearly 4.9 million votes, or 3.28 percent of the popular ballots cast, finishing well behind Trump, who won 46 percent of the popular vote, and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who finished first in the popular balloting with 48.18 percent. Trump won the presidency by getting 304 votes in the Electoral College. In a statement, Weld described his intention to return the United States "to the principles of Lincoln equality, dignity and opportunity for all." "There is no greater cause on earth than to preserve what truly makes America great. I am ready to lead that fight," Weld said. His campaign web site touted his having as governor "cut taxes 21 times, never raised them, balanced the budget, and oversaw six upgrades in the state's bond rating." "He signed landmark welfare reform, established public education standards, and was a trailblazer as an early proponent for LGBT civil rights," the site said. But a spokesman for the Republican National Committee was dismissive of Weld's challenge, noting, "President Trump enjoys unprecedented support among Republicans." "He has already delivered a long list of incredible accomplishments for conservatives and the country. The RNC and the Republican Party are firmly behind the president," the spokesman said. "Any effort to challenge the president's nomination is bound to go absolutely nowhere." Weld's campaign web site, www.weld2020.org, posted a three-minute video that opens up with the words, "America Has a Choice." "New Hampshire, 2019," a voice says on the video. "A better America starts here. Bill Weld for president. Join us." Weld said, "Ours is a nation built on courage, resilience, and independence. In these times of great political strife, when both major parties are entrenched in their 'win at all cost' battles, the voices of the American people are being ignored and our nation is suffering." "It is time for patriotic men and women across our great nation to stand and plant a flag," he said. On the video, Weld touts his conservative principles and successes as the first Republican governor of Massachusetts in more than a decade. He depicts a corroded Democrat-led political machine that leaned heavily on tax increases and welfare programs, and casts himself as its libertarian antithesis. Declaring that "America deserves better," the video then shifts to Trump, targeting some of the president's most controversial remarks. It includes clips of Trump dismissing the late Arizona Sen. John McCain's service in the Vietnam War and appearing to mockingly mimic a disabled reporter. It also has audio of Trump, on the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape, boasting about groping women without their consent. Bazaar Corporate Radar | Feb 22, 2021, 12:00 AM IST Bazaar Corporate Radar Bazaar Corporate Radar is your window into the minds of top CEOs, Boardrooms, global economists, fund managers and sector analysts. If it?s making news, you?ll find it on Bazaar Corporate Radar. The Missourians Opinion section is a public forum for the discussion of ideas. The views presented in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. If you would like to contribute to the Opinion page with a response or an original topic of your own, visit our submission form ICA trials contactless, breeze-through immigration clearance at Tuas Checkpoint You may expect to breeze through your next immigration clearance at the Tuas Checkpoint. The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) is conducting a six-month trial for a new contactless immigration clearance system, which has commenced last Monday, April 8. The trial is takes over one of the automated arrival lanes in the bus hall at Tuas Checkpoint, ICA said in a press statement on April 15. Photo courtesy: ICA Singapore The new immigration clearance system makes use of travellers' iris and facial images for clearance. The traveller will not be required to present his or her thumbprint nor passport for immigration clearance at the automated lane. Back-end, the system will verify if the identified traveller holds a valid passport, ICA explained. The process flow is as follows: Photo courtesy: ICA Singapore Singaporean travellers will be the first to benefit from this initiative. Citizens aged six and above who are holding passports, with numbers beginning with the letter K and issued after January 1, 2018, will be eligible for the trial. Participants of the trial are reminded not to wear sunglasses, cap or other head gear that will obstruct their full facial image when using the contactless immigration clearance lane. ICA officers will also be onsite to assist travellers participating in the trial. Ministers consult on abolishing no-fault eviction of tenants This will free families who previously had to live in fear The Times Leader Warning that victory for tenants could equal fewer homes available for rent The Guardian It will effectively created open-ended tenancies Daily Telegraph Targeting landlords is tempting but may ultimately hit tenants Anne Ashworth, The Times House sellers are losing patience with political uncertainty Daily Telegraph Buy-to-let loans are already plummeting The Times Javid urges cross-department co-operation against national emergency of youth violence Landlords can currently issue so-called section 21 orders to evict their tenants within eight weeks once a fixed-term tenancy has ended. Abolishing them will effectively create open-ended tenancies, the government said. The consultation will take place before the summer. Theresa May, the prime minister, said: This important step will not only protect tenants from unethical behaviour, but also give them the long-term certainty and the peace of mind they deserve.The National Landlords Association, which represents private residential landlords, criticised the proposals. Landlords currently have little choice but to use Section 21, said Richard Lambert, NLA chief executive. They have no confidence in the ability or the capacity of the courts to deal with possession claims quickly and surely, regardless of the strength of the landlords case. FT The Home Secretary will call for knife crime menace gripping Britain to be treated like an outbreak of some virulent disease. And he will urge the vast array of government departments to do more to work together to ensure there is no let up until the violence is eradicated. He will make the warning as he gives his first major speech on crime to an audience of 100 police and charity bosses in London today. His words will be taken as a thinly veiled leadership pitch, as he tries to woo the Tory grassroots by showing them he is the man to crack down on crime. Britain is in the grip of a knife crime epidemic, with 135 fatal stabbings in London last year a 10-year high. The Sun Police research finds a way to predict the location of stabbings Daily Telegraph The Home Secretarys speech will make a broad call not to leave anyone behind Daily Telegraph Hunt for dealer who sold drugs to 13-year-old WalesOnline May will break the Conservatives if she does a deal with Corbyn, IDS warns As ministers prepare to hold more talks with Labour, the ex-Tory leader said the party will revolt if she accepts an EU customs union. He also said it would be a disaster for the party to fight Euro elections and Britain must leave deal or no deal before the vote at the end of May. The PMs deputy David Lidington yesterday repeatedly refused to rule out keeping Britain in a form of customs union with Brussels as the price for Labours support. But Mr Duncan Smith told The Sun: If they do that the Conservative party will revolt. That will break the Conservative party. It will be a bridge too far. The Sun >Yesterday: Hammond mocks Gove, Johnson and Leadsom over leadership suicide pacts Philip Hammond has ridiculed three Brexiteer Tory leadership candidates for engaging in suicide pacts when they each failed in their bid to be Prime Minister instead of Theresa May. In a speech in Washington, the Chancellor said Michael Gove and Boris Johnson had formed an unintended suicide pact during the last leadership contest while Andrea Leadsom effectively knifed herself in a private suicide pact. The Chancellor said there was likely to be a far wider field this time and joked that he may be the only member of the 320-strong Parliamentary Conservative Party who isnt standing in the forthcoming contest. Daily Telegraph Lammy doubles down on calling Brexiteer MPs Nazis Mr Lammy, the MP for Tottenham, was appearing on The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One when he was asked about comments he made in March in which he said that, like Churchill, he would not appease the ERG. He replied that he was unrepentant. I would say that that wasnt strong enough, he added. In 1938 there were allies who hatched a plan for Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia, and Churchill said No, and he stood alone. We must not appease. Were in a situation now, and let me just be clear, Im an ethnic minority. We have, in the ERG, in Jacob Rees-Mogg, someone who is happy to put onto his web pages the horrible, racist AfD [Alternative for Germany] party, a party thats Islamophobic and on the far right. Mr Lammy added: Theyre happy to use the phrase grand wizard. KKK is what it evokes to me when I think of that phrase and the Deep South. Im sorry, but very, very seriously, of course we should not appease that, of course we should not appease that. The Times >Today: ToryDiary: Anger >Yesterday: NHS funding row between England and Wales intensifies Thousands of Welsh patients could be banned from English hospitals as a funding row escalates. Conservatives have demanded that the Welsh government pay up while NHS insiders expressed frustration that politicians are just throwing rocks at each other. Last week the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said that apart from emergency or maternity patients, it would no longer treat people from Wales because they did not bring in as much money as those living in England. The Welsh government said that the decision was unacceptable. Hospitals are paid a fixed fee by the NHS for each patient they treat. In England the tariff was raised this month as part of a budget boost. Wales opted not to increase rates, widening a gap that means English hospitals get paid about 8 per cent less for treating patients referred from Wales. The Times Hospital left patient with Downs Syndrome without food for 19 days Daily Mail 53,000 pupils stuck in rudderless schools The Times We need to get to the root of the student mental health crisis Clare Foges, The Times Who will have the guts to scrap HS2? It is apparently too big to cancel: a monument to the risks of cross-party consensus, and of letting politicians indulge their fantasies of guiding the economy using taxpayers money. Our leaders have too much at stake to change tack now, hence their lack of shame at the nebulous and evershifting case for spending such vast sums on this white elephant. Thank goodness, then, for Liz Truss. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury said in an interview with the Spectator last week that HS2 will feature in the zero-based capital review the Government will shortly conduct, and will be assessed for value for money. Let us hope that rigorous cost-benefit analysis will reveal (again) that the billions would be better spent on regional rail, roads or tax cuts. But would even that be enough to kill this scheme? Tom Welsh, Daily Telegraph >Today: Chloe Westleys column: Its the end of the line for HS2, or should be Morgan and De Piero: The next Speaker should be a woman Out in the country there are women moving into what were previously men-only fields of work, striving for equality but not achieving it yet. And so the election of our new Speaker is an important moment. At a time when we have such a vibrant group of hugely talented women across the House, electing another man as Speaker would be more than a missed opportunity. It would be a setback. Many of us came in to parliament with equality for women being one of our goals. We can advance that cause by showing the outside world that our parliament is no longer the old boys network of the past. The Speaker of the House of Commons is one of the big roles in public life, most of which are still held by men. A woman Speaker would not only show how our House has changed but also offer encouragement to women in this country struggling to move forward in their own lives. Nicky Morgan and Gloria De Piero, The Times Bercow wants to stay on even longer The Times Macron accused of complicity in Libya crisis Further price rises at the pumps will fuel discontent Daily Telegraph Leader Russia criticises the US for aggressive behaviour Daily Mail Assange allegedly hit embassy staff Italy and France are at daggers drawn, pitted on opposite sides in an escalating battle for control of Libya and the oil fields of the upper Sahara. Astonishing details have come to light indicating that French president Emmanuel Macron secretly endorsed a military campaign to overthrow the UN-backed government in Tripoli on the eve of an international peace conference, effectively working in league with Russia and Saudi Arabia against global consensus. It also makes a mockery of the EUs foreign policy institutions. The armed attack on western Libya risks a full-blown civil war and an oil supply shock for the eurozone economy at a delicate juncture. Brent crude prices have spiked to a five-month high of $71.60 but could go much higher if Libyas crude exports are suddenly disrupted. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Daily Telegraph President Moreno of Ecuador said in an interview that Assange had bothered and threatened guards; [and] hit and mistreated employees of the embassy. Mr Moreno, who inherited the problem of the Assange residency when he took office two years ago, added that the founder of Wikileaks had breached a list of rules of behaviour that included penetrating the security apparatus of the mission . . . put up a security camera and electronic apparatus which was not authorised; and maintained improper hygienic conduct which went on constantly during his stay in the embassy. The Ecuadorean president also said that the health of Assange, 47, had deteriorated. Ecuador withdrew his asylum on Wednesday and on Thursday he was arrested by the Metropolitan Police. Later that day Westminster magistrates found him guilty of breaching his bail. The Times His case shows womens rights come second to political games Jess Phillips, The Guardian Ecuador says Assange tried to use their embassy as a centre for spying The Guardian He does not deserve our sympathy Edward Lucas, The Times >Yesterday: WATCH: Perry argues that the law has caught up with Assange News in Brief Tony Devenish is a member of the London Assembly for West Central. One of the unsung roles of a politician is to act as a lightning rod to dissipate the understandable anger of the public, at whatever the Government of the day has f ***** up. Recently I attended a business breakfast where at the start, every single business leader bawled me out for the state of the B word. Then our Housing Minister Kit Malthouse (my predecessor on the London Assembly and a former Deputy Leader of Westminster City Council) spoke and answered questions for an hour. Those same business leaders made a point of coming up to me afterwards to say that despite Brexit, our Conservative Government and local government was doing some good work. Well done Kit. With the relentless negativity of political coverage over recent months, Conservatives in our town halls have a record to be proud of. We must continue to shout from the rooftops, and cherish these real bread and butter victories rather than talk ourselves into defeatism and a slow motion car crash ahead of local elections (outside London) next month. Those who dont vote Conservative in our local elections will regret the sheer ineptitude of living under a Labour or Lib Dem Council please dont go there. Here are seven reasons why you are better off with a Conservative council: Excellent state education. Across our country academies, free schools and Conservative local authority run schools give our children the start in life that schools in many (not all) Labour local authorities fail time and time again to deliver. Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster schools outperform Labour-run Camden on every single audited measure. It is Conservative councils that can be trusted to help find the sites needed for new free schools. Clean streets and frequent bin collections. Hammersmith and Fulham Council street cleaning has got so poor since Labour won the council in 2014 that former Tory Council Leader (and Deputy Mayor of London) Stephen Greenhalgh has announced that hes looking to become the directly elected Mayor of that borough to reconnect local people with a Council that currently ignores them. Award-winning adults and social care for our most vulnerable residents. Conservative councils innovate with compassion and where necessary lobby Government for more money. Our local government leaders have pressed for the Green Paper on how to reform this most difficult of issues, which is waiting in Whitehall ready to go post Brexit. Brexit preparations. Conservative councils from Kent County Council to Westminster City Council have led reassurance messaging to EU nationals and logistics practical contingency planning and I say this not to play into the hands of the doom-mongers. This is grown up politics working with central Government and business to be ready to adjust to new circumstances. Transport. Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, has pathetically cut pothole spending and waged war on the motorist with a ULEZ clean air policy. Even his Transport for London experts say wont improve air quality, yet another Labour stealth tax, not to mention Crossrail Labour incompetence on a grand scale. Conservatives champion practical measures such as clean buses and electric cars. Hammersmith and Fulham Council showed Labours usual level of incompetence by failing to install parking meters which could accept the new one pound coins for nearly a year. Value for money. It is easy for noisy special interest groups to sneer but Council Tax is a regressive tax , falling disproportionally on the poorest and those on fixed incomes. It is right that Conservative councils strive to keep increases to a minimum, contrasting with the inefficiency of many Labour and Lib Dem run councils. Housing. After Labours economic crash of a decade ago house building collapsed. We are now building twice as many homes a year than we were ten years ago. Conservative local authorities and the private sector have answers to real bread and butter issues. We all need to champion the case for more and better housing in the coming month. So these local elections matter in themselves. They are not just a chance to protest against central Government. Indeed Conservative councils have been willing to challenge the Government where necessary. I know councils in London best where elections are not taking place this year. But the same story applies to Conservative councils across the country that apply the same principles. So I hope that wherever elections are happening all Conservatives will turnout and vote to have Conservative councillors. This is the full text of a speech delivered today by Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary. Today, were standing here on the site of a disused pickle factory, next to a very attractive gasworks. In 2013 after a brief spell as a medical storage facility, new life was given to this old unloved warehouse now converted to a trendy events venue. What we see here today is a thriving business, a cultural asset and a pillar of the local community. A testament to the Olympic legacy of London 2012, this building speaks to the optimism of those games and the story of regeneration across East London. We have seen the undoubted benefits of this legacy. Investment, jobs, prosperity all necessary to changing peoples life chances. But the story doesnt end here. In a way, I wish it did. Economic prosperity can create the building blocks to stronger communities but that alone is not enough. A closer look at those streets that are surrounding us will show you that our job is not yet done. There are still too many places where that longed for prosperity has not reached, streets like the ones surrounding us, up and down the country that are instead dangerous and sometimes deadly. On an almost weekly basis, we wake up to the news that another person has been stabbed, that robbery is on the rise, that serious violent crime is on the up. This is not just a concern for those communities who are directly affected by that crime. It rightly causes national alarm. A recent YouGov poll showed that for the first time, crime was a more important issue to the public than health. Last year saw a 14 per cent increase in homicides, a 15 per cent increase in hospital admissions for assaults involving a sharp instrument, a 17 per cent increase in recorded robberies. This does not make for easy reading and that is exactly why it cannot be ignored. In my job as Home Secretary it is my duty to protect the public. And at the Home Office we work tirelessly to find the right policy solutions to tackle all types of crime. But what affects me more is my job as a father. Take knife crime. Like everyone else I see the reports on young people feeling the need to carry weapons; it makes me worry about my teenage children. Will they be hurt if theyre out in the wrong place at the wrong time on a night out? What if they get into an argument that then escalates? I may be the Home Secretary but Im not ashamed to confess; I have stayed up late at night waiting to hear the key turning in the door. And only then going to bed knowing that they have come home safe and sound. And like any other dad, when I watch the news and see the faces of all those young victims of knife crime I despair at the waste of those lives. Many of those lost were of similar ages to my own children. So sometimes I cannot help but see the faces of my own children in the pictures of those victims. I find it hard to detach the personal from the policy. So I know that if we dont feel safe on our own streets, if I dont think they are safe enough for my children, or if we see our communities being torn apart by crime then something has gone terribly wrong. Dealing with this scourge is not a simple question of turning around the statistics. The reasons for this rise in violent crime are many. Changes in illicit drugs market and the drive for profit has made criminal gangs take bigger risks and exploit even more vulnerable people. Alcohol abuse and the escalation of violence through social media are other factors that contribute to this picture. The serious violence strategy the Government set out a year ago, has been a major focus of mine, especially trying to understand how we got to this point, and focusing on the immediate that are steps required to bring the situation under control. The police told me that more powers, more tools and, yes, resources were needed to make a difference. Thats why I secured nearly a billion pounds more funding, including council tax, for police forces, in this years Police Financial Settlement. That means more money to stamp out drug dealing for tackling serious and organised crime and for local police forces. It means that Police and Crime Commissioners are already planning to recruit 3,500 extra police officers and police staff. And thats not all. We are supporting the police by changing the law through the Offensive Weapons Bill, making it more difficult for young people to buy bladed weapons and corrosive substances. We know that acid is becoming a new weapon of choice for violent criminals. Now, if you are going to buy or carry acid, youre having to have a very good reason. We are changing the law in other ways too.I am trialling reforms that return authority to the police and give them the discretion that they need to effectively carry out stop-and-search. I know this is not universally welcome. I know that. There is concern that in enforcing these powers, BAME communities will be affected disproportionately, but we must acknowledge that violence disproportionately impacts BAME communities too. And if stop and search rates drop too low, it does perhaps create a culture of immunity amongst those who carry knives. Stop-and-search saves lives. There are people alive today because of stop and search. I cant say that clearly enough. The Funding settlement and powers went a long way to supporting our forces, but senior officers told me that they needed more. More support and more funding. They asked for 50 million to be immediately released to tackle the rise in serious violence. I doubled it. There is now 100 million extra. 20 million from the Home Office, and 80 million in new funding from the Treasury. The forces facing the highest levels of serious violent crime will receive this additional funding for surge capacity so they can tackle knife crime in real-time, and not at half-speed. And while all these efforts will make a big difference to our immediate efforts, the lasting solutions are not short-term. We know that crime doesnt just appear. It has taken several years for the rise in violent crime to take hold, so we know that the answers cannot be a quick fix. Before a young person ever picks up a knife, they have been the victim of a string of lost opportunities and missed chances. Any youth worker can tell you that gangs recruit the most vulnerable young people.That drug runners who travel over county lines coerce them into committing crimes. These children are at risk, and we can detect early on who they are. We can do that. The kid that plays truant. The ones that get into fights. The pupils who struggle at school. And even though we can see the path to criminality, somehow, we still expect these children to make good life choices all on their own. The sad fact is that many feel that they cant lose the opportunities that they never had in the first place. What they and their families need is our help. It is exactly why I have launched a 200 million Youth Endowment Fund, to invest in the futures of this countrys most vulnerable youngsters. This fund helps steer them away from violence and offers them a better future. This is not a one-off pot of money, the funding is spread over ten years, enabling long-term planning and interventions through a childs most important years. But to address the root causes of serious violence we do need to go much further. We need to tackle adverse childhood experiences in the round, and better identify those children who are most at risk. Children who grow up with substance abuse, with parental criminality, with perhaps domestic violence. I was lucky enough to realise the dream of every parent to give your children a better start in life than the one you had yourself, but it could have been very different. I grew up on what was dubbed by one tabloid as the most dangerous street in Britain. Its not so difficult to see how instead of being Cabinet, I could have been taken in to a life of crime. There were the pupils at school that shoplifted, and asked if I wanted to help. The drug dealers who stood near the school gates and told you by joining in you could make easy money.But I was lucky. I had loving and supporting parents, who despite their own circumstances gave me security. I had some brilliant teachers who motivated me to go further than what was expected of me. I even had a girlfriend who believed in me and supported me despite my lack of prospects and went onto to become my wife. Thanks to them all I have built a better life for myself and my family. With their help, I suppose, I made it. But I do not look back at my upbringing and see it as something in the distant past. The lessons of my childhood help shape the decisions I make every day. Shaping what I want to see for other kids who are just like me. Thats why I know the problems we face are not within the remit of any one government department. By the time a person becomes a problem for the police, it is often too late. If we are to deliver meaningful change, and stop the violence before it begins, then the mind-set of government needs to shift. We need to instigate a sense of shared responsibility. Take the frontline professionals, the teachers and nurses, the social and youth workers, all of them already working tirelessly to protect vulnerable young people and enhance the life chances of young people. I have met teachers who have watched helplessly as one of their students falls under the influence of a gang. Nurses who, night after night, have seen teenagers brought into hospital with knife wounds. So I asked myself, what more can I do to help the people who work on the frontline? That is why we have planned a public health approach to tackle violent crime. In practice, this means bringing together education, health, social services, housing, youth and social workers, to work them together coherently. It will enable those agencies to collaborate and share information. They will be able to jointly plan and target their support to help young people at risk, to prevent and stop violence altogether. It is not about blaming those frontline staff for the violence, or asking them to do more. Far from it. It is about giving them the confidence to report their concerns, safe in the knowledge that everyone will close ranks to protect that child. A public health approach doesnt mean passing the problem onto the NHS or a teacher. Rather, it means that serious violence is treated like the outbreak of some virulent disease. A national emergency. Our legislation will place a legal duty on all parts of the government to work together not to apportion blame but to ensure there is no let up, until the violence itself is eradicated. We have already announced a new Serious Violence Implementation Task Force, the work of which will be driven by research and evidence starting with the review of drugs misuse led by Dame Carol Black. We already know that the drugs trade is a major catalyst of serious violence. Thats why we launched the National County Lines Coordination Centre in September. But the review will also bring home to middle-class drug users that they are part of the problem. They may never set foot in a deprived area. They may never see an act of serious violence, but their illicit habits are adding fuel to the fire that is engulfing our communities. If we are to understand violence, we must also understand all its drivers and we in government are at the start of understanding how data can help us do that. Creating and understanding the causes and pathways to crime. Recent analysis by my own department found that the top 5 per cent of crime hotspots accounted for some 17 per cent of the total volume of acquisitive crime. In plain English, crime such as burglaries and car thefts. That is why the Home Office will be developing new proposals for a Crime Prevention Data Lab. We will be exploring how we can bring together information from the police and other agencies, to enhance our ability to make targeted and effective interventions. And just as technology can help us prevent crimes, so too can it help criminals. Identities can be stolen online. Credit cards cloned from fake machines. Keyless entry systems tricked to gain access to your car. Criminals are smart, so businesses need to get smarter. I ask myself, if we can do this, what more can business do to help us? Products and services must be designed to make crime harder to commit. The tech might be new, but the principle is not. In the 1980s, vehicle manufacturers and government came to the conclusion that you could design products to make it more difficult to commit a crime. It is the reason a modern car comes with central locking, an alarm, steering locks and an immobilizer in all cars as standard. So I will be chairing a meeting with industry leaders, and asking them how they will help us in the fight against acquisitive crime. Preventing crime can be as simple as fitting locks, alarm systems, and proper street lighting. This may seem like common sense, and in some ways it is, but it works. One trial in Nottingham saw the windows in council houses replaced with more secure versions. Their evaluation showed this intervention yielded a remarkable 42 per cent reduction in burglary from those properties. We have applied the same ideas to moped-enabled crime including a new standard of anti-theft devices on the mopeds themselves. And working with the Metropolitan Police to target hotspot areas, and design more secure two-wheeled vehicle parking. This work led to a decrease of over 40 per cent of moped crime in a single year. So, we are now looking to apply this similar approach to a wider set of crimes. Just as we can design products to prevent crime, we can also design policy to shape the lives of young people to prevent criminality. Changing the lives of young people will not be an easy task. Crime has a way of drawing in those who feel a little bit worthless. But when you belong to something greater than yourself, when you have something to lose, its not as easy to throw your life away. Undoubtedly, of course there must be strong ramifications for those who commit crime there must be. I do not shirk from my responsibility, as Home Secretary, to keep the public safe, whatever that takes. I want us to be able to come back to this venue and know that, for these communities, something has changed. But to do that, we need to change how we see our young people. No life is less important than another. No future should be pre-determined by where youre born, or how youre brought up. We cannot afford to leave anyone behind. Six years ago, the TaxPayers Alliance reported that in the last year, five times more Labour people were appointed to public bodies than Tories. Since then, the figures have varied, and some Conservative members or supporters have been selected to fill important posts. Nonetheless, it remains the case that, since it took office in 2010, our Party has punched beneath its weight when it comes to public appointments. One of the reasons seems to be that Tories simply dont apply in the same number as Labour supporters. To help remedy this, every week we put up links to some of the main public appointments vacancies, so that qualified Conservatives might be aware of the opportunities presented. Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs Members Do you want to play a leading role in advising the Government on a range of issues relating to drug misuse? The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) is one of the most important expert advisory non-departmental public bodies in Government. Under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 the ACMD has a statutory duty to keep drug misuse in the United Kingdom under review, and to advise the Government on measures for preventing misuse and the resulting health and social problems. The ACMD is also a statutory consultee under the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. As a member of the ACMD, you will contribute towards the development and delivery of independent and expert advice to Government. Time: 10-15 days per annum. Remuneration: Travel expenses. Closes: 16 April Department for Transport General Aviation Champion Ensuring the department is able to effectively take into account the specific needs of the GA sector by: collating and distilling for the Minister the views of the private and commercial General Aviation sectors (the GA sector) on the impacts of policies of relevance to them, indicating how much support various propositions have across the sector and where that support is located; undertaking visits and holding meetings with GA stakeholders wishing to make a case to the government for policy change or stability and to summarise for the Minister the features and findings of these events; assisting the GA sector in prioritising its concerns, setting them out in detail and with rigour and putting them into a wider context of government policy; [and] working with the GA sector to help it to present its position to a range of relevant government departments and to capitalise on interactions with and feedback offered by those departments. Time: Two days per month. Remuneration: 350 per diem. Closes: 19 April Financial Reporting Council Chair/Deputy Chair The mission of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) is to promote transparency and integrity in business. These are cornerstones to generating public trust and confidence in UK business and help attract investment in successful companies that provide jobs, create prosperity and generate economic growth. The FRC sets the UK Corporate Governance & Stewardship Codes which aim to make investors more accountable to their clients and beneficiaries. The FRC also sets standards for accounting, auditing and actuarial work. As the UKs independent regulator and Competent Authority for Audit it monitors, and takes action where necessary, to promote the quality of corporate reporting and audit. It also operates independent enforcement arrangements for accountants and actuaries.. Time: 3 days per week. Remuneration: 150,000 per annum Closes: 22 April Ministry of Defence Defence Board Member (NED) The Secretary of State for Defence is seeking to appoint a Non-Executive Board Member to join the Board of the Ministry of Defence. The successful candidate will work with the rest of the Defence Board to support Ministers in setting the strategic direction of the Department, whilst also supporting and challenging the senior management team on the delivery of policy objectives. Non-Executive Board Members are expected to provide independent scrutiny for the department, support good governance and advise on policy matters and cross-government initiatives. Time: 15-20 days per annum. Remuneration: 15,000 per annum Closes: 26 April Defence Equipment & Support Chair DE&S is an arms length body of the Ministry of Defence (MOD). We are at the leading edge of defence procurement operating across sectors, with a civilian and military workforce of around 11,400 in the UK and abroad. We manage a vast range of complex projects to buy and support the equipment and services that the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force need to operate effectively. We deliver major commercial projects for Government; negotiating deals with FTSE 100 companies and equivalents, and spent 13.5 billion last financial year for our armed forces customers. This is an exciting opportunity to lead the board of an organisation which plays a critical role in maintaining national security, whilst delivering some of the most complex projects and programmes in the world in a fast paced and challenging environment. Time: 2-3 days per week. Remuneration: 150,000 per annum Closes: 29 April Defence Nuclear Safety Committee Chair The Defence Nuclear Safety Committee (DNSC) is the primary source of independent expert advice to the Secretary of State for Defence on all nuclear safety issues associated with the Defence Nuclear Programme (DNP). The DNP has a scope covering the Nuclear Weapon Programme and the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Programme which encompasses Nuclear Submarines and the infrastructure used to support both programmes The Committees ultimate focus is assuring the Secretary of State for Defence about the soundness of the Departments safety practices and safety management arrangements. Time: 25 days per annum approx. Remuneration: 465 per diem plus expenses. Closes: 29 April British Council Board of Trustees Chair The Chair will be critical to delivering the British Councils purpose. The Chair must be credible with senior stakeholders and able to operate at the highest levels on a global stage, both within and outside government. The Chair must have a passion for the British Councils mission, and an enthusiasm for and understanding of the arts and education and the diversity of contemporary British life, culture and society. Candidates must demonstrate a strong record of achievement at the most senior level in large and complex organisations. They must have the international awareness necessary to operate confidently in less stable and more politically sensitive parts of the world. Time: 40+ days per annum. Remuneration: Reasonable expenses. Closes: 03 May Copywright Tribunal Lay Members We are seeking people to sit on the Copyright Tribunal as lay members. If you are appointed, you will sit alongside the legally qualified Chair of the Tribunal to provide your perspective and opinion on all matters on the case, with a focus on the commercial, financial, cultural and non-legal aspects of the dispute. While copyright licensing disputes are rare, the disputes that arise are often complex yet interesting and go to the heart of the value of copyright works in society. As such, the workload is varied and it is important to be aware that there may be no cases in any one year. Time: 25 days per annum typically. Remuneration: 450 per diem plus travel and subsistence. Closes: 05 May Historic England Commissioners Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate Englands spectacular historic environment, from churches and battlefields to parks and high streets. We champion and protect the places that define who we are and where we have come from as a nation. We champion the historic environment, helping people discover the great places that add colour and character to our lives. We include everyones history because we know every community has made a contribution that is worth understanding and celebrating. We protect by identifying the most important parts of our heritage, by listing and conserving, and by speaking up for places that are at risk. We care by helping communities and professionals to look after their local heritage. Time: 15-20 days per annum typically. Remuneration: 4,133 per year plus reasonable expanses. Closes: 15 May Some victims of the tech support scam who live in Ohio are getting justice. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the state of Ohio are sending out $92,000 in refunds to consumers who were tricked. Weve reported on this scheme over the years. There are many variations of the tech support scam, but most go like this: an ad that looks like a security alert pops up on a consumers computer informing them they have a virus and provides a toll-free number to call to get it removed. If the victim bites, he or she will be charged several hundred dollars for lifetime support and sold useless software they dont need. Its rare that victims ever get relief, but in this case the FTC and Ohio reached a settlement with operators who were doing business under a variety of names, including Repair All PC and WebTech World, among others. Masquerading as Microsoft As early as 2015, scammers were cold calling consumers and claiming to be employees of Microsoft, telling their intended victims that an analysis had indicated their PC was infected with malware that could be removed for a hefty fee. In one year, Microsoft said it received 175,000 complaints about that scheme. The latest FTC complaint said people who called the toll-free number listed on the pop-up ads were urged to provide the telemarketers with remote access to their computers. The telemarketers then went through the motions of running diagnostic tests before delivering the bad news -- the victims computer was packed with viruses, had been hacked, or had other problems. Checks are in the mail The FTC said it is mailing checks, averaging $417 each, to 222 victims of the scam. Those receiving a check should deposit or cash it within 60 days, as indicated on the check. The FTC also points out that it never requires people to pay money or provide account information to cash a refund check, heading off yet another scam in which criminals promise to help victims receive their compensation in exchange for a fee. Consumers who believe they are due a refund should watch their mail for a check. If they have questions, they can contact the FTCs refund administrator -- Rust Consulting, Inc. -- at 1-877-773-8183. 100% Website antennevorarlberg.at uses latest and advanced technologies like: JQuery and Boostrap. It supports HTTPS and GZIP compression. The main html page has a size of 371307 bytes (362.60 kb uncompressed) and 32109 bytes (31.36 kb compressed). This CoolSocial report was updated on 2021-12-08, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. 80% Website hunedoreanul.gandul.info uses latest and advanced technologies. It supports HTTPS. The main html page has a size of . This CoolSocial report was updated on 2021-10-09, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. Norwegian Cruise Lines Sun returned to Port Canaveral on Friday for a second season of popular cruises from the Port to Cuba, as well as sailings to the Bahamas. Starting Monday, April 15, the Norwegian Sun, which in 2018 became the first homeported cruise ship to sail from Port Canaveral to Cuba, will offer four-, five- and seven-day cruises to Havana, Cuba, with select sailings also calling to Key West during its four-day cruises. Ports of call during the Suns five- and seven-day voyages include Key West, Nassau, Bahamas, or Norwegians private island beach at Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas. We are excited that the Norwegian Sun is returning for another season of cruises to Cuba, Port CEO Capt. John Murray stated. More than 30,000 guests sailed on cruises from the Port to Havana last year, and were pleased to be hosting more sailing opportunities this summer season. For its four-night Cuba cruises, the Sun will depart the Port each Monday during the summer sailing season and return each Friday. Three-night cruises to the Bahamas sail on Fridays and return on Mondays. In Cuba, the Sun will berth in Havana Harbor in the heart of Old Havana, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Guests can experience the culture and history of Cuba with OFAC (U.S.Treasury Office of Foreign Assets)-compliant shore excursions. The Sun, which was homeported at Port from 2010 to 2012, will be berthed at Cruise Terminal 10 as it was in 2018. CT-10 recently received more than $35 million in renovations. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 15) The arraignment for the cyber libel case against online news agency Rappler, its CEO Maria Ressa, and its former researcher will push through on Tuesday after a local court denied their appeal to junk the case. The Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 46, in an order issued on April 12 and released on Monday, denied their motion to quash "for lack of merit." The cyber libel charge stemmed from a story written by former Rappler researcher Reynaldo Santos and published by the news site, where it claimed businessman Wilfredo Keng lent a vehicle to former Chief Justice Renato Corona. It also alleged Keng was involved in human trafficking and drug smuggling. The article, titled "CJ using SUVs of controversial businessman" was published in May 2012 four months before the enactment of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. However, the story was supposedly updated and republished in February 2014 due to a typographical error. The Department of Justice indicted Rappler, Ressa, and Santos in February 2019 citing the "multiple publication rule," saying the story is still covered by the law because the cyber crime law was already passed when it was updated. The Manila court upheld DOJ's earlier resolution that the prescriptive period for cyber libel is 12 years, contrary to the argument of Rappler that the one year period of prescription has lapsed. "The instant case was filed in Court on February 5, 2019, which is well within the period of 12 years, negating the assertion raised by the Accused that the offense already prescribed," Branch 46 Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa said in her order. Ressa posted bail for the cyber libel case on February 13 after the court ordered her arrest. This only one of the string of cases filed against Rappler and the journalist. Royal Caribbean Cruises is inching closer to a new office at PortMiami, as the Miami Tourism and Ports Committee has approved a deal that will enable the cruise line to construct a new office and parking garage adjacent to its current office. The deal is for 40 years, according to Miami Dade Tourism documents. The cruise line is said to have maxed out space at its current office, and has expanded operations by leasing space in downtown Miami for additional employees. Under the agreement, Royal Caribbean will develop the project at its own expense. Other plans, according to county documents, include a daycare, fitness center and green space, as well as renovation of some of its existing buildings. Rent payments to Miami-Dade county, over a 40-year term, will total $311 million. In addition are two five-year options. Royal Caribbean will also assume responsibility for landscaping, janitorial and cleaning services, reducing operating expenses for the port. In 2020, Princess Cruises returns to Tahiti with the 680-guest Pacific Princess, offering a series of roundtrip cruises for the first time since 2015. Tahiti and French Polynesia cruises open for sale on April 17, 2019. Cruises include five 10-day Tahiti & French Polynesia departures, sailing roundtrip from Tahiti (Papeete). Every voyage includes overnight calls in Tahitis capital Papeete and Bora Bora, as well as a late-night stay in Raiatea. Additional ports includes Huahine, Rangiroa, and Moorea. Cruise vacations begin Oct. 5, 15, 25 and Nov. 4 and 14, 2020 starting at $1,999. Tahiti and French Polynesia lure travelers from all over the world seeking pure unspoiled paradise, snorkeling, swimming adventures and relaxation, said Jan Swartz Princess Cruises president. With our return to Tahiti in 2020, Princess Cruises offers the best way to explore this remote island life aboard our intimate Pacific Princess. Princess Cruises has a long history with Tahiti and is a highly valued partner showcasing the diversity of our islands, the rich authentic local culture, and the great variety of experiences that await discovery, notes Paul Sloan, Tahiti Tourisme, Directeur General and CEO. We are eagerly looking forward to next year and welcoming Pacific Princess back to The Islands of Tahiti. With four Grand Adventure & Crossings itineraries, Pacific Princess also offers longer sailings for guests to experience the Aloha spirit of the Hawaiian Islands or discover the treasures of South America, including Easter Island with its mysterious Moai. A 19- or 29-day Hawaii & Tahiti Grand Adventure cruise departs Vancouver Sept. 16, 2020 and a 25- or 35-day Tahiti, South America & Panama Canal Crossing departs Tahiti on Nov. 14 or 24, 2020. The Port of Seattle, celebrating 20 years as a key cruise homeport, has started the 2019 season with the arrival of the first ship, the Celebrity Eclipse, at the Bell Street Pier Cruise Terminal at Pier 66. The results of a new economic impact report show that the cruise business creates nearly $900 million a year in local business revenue, according to a press release, with each homeport ship call contributing an average $4.2 million to the states economy, and supporting over 5,500 jobs. Cruise vessels made port-of-call stops in Elliot Bay prior to the Port building a homeport cruise terminal. Regularly scheduled cruise service began in May 2000 with a long-term commitment from Norwegian Cruise Line, beginning a partnership that lasts to this day. Over twenty years ago this community turned a novel idea into a nearly $900 million industry and helped the Port become the most environmentally progressive homeport in North America, said Port of Seattle Commission President Stephanie Bowman. Today that economic opportunity reaches all the way from Eastern Washington farms and ranches that provide food for cruise customers, to King County attractions that depend upon summer season travelers to support year-round activities. Alaska cruises are a bucket list item for people all over the world, and we look forward to hosting them for decades to come. The Port expects an estimated 1,208,590 revenue cruise passengers this year, breaking last years record of 1,114,888. This year, the Port of Seattle will host the three largest cruise vessels on the West Coast, leading with the addition of the Norwegian Joy, and the return of its sister ship, Norwegian Bliss, both of which carry upwards of 4,000 passengers. There is also the arrival of the Ovation of the Seas from Royal Caribbean, with 4,180 passengers, which will be the largest cruise vessel on the West Coast this season. We helped the Port become the first homeport in North America with two berths powered by clean energy. It was a real breakthrough in terms of innovation, and the unique design we built became in demand all over North America, said Mike Watts, Vice President at Cochran Marine. Seattles ambition to aim for higher sustainability standards created unexpected revenue opportunities for our local business and improved air quality for other cities. Maritime industrial jobs form the foundation for our regions middle class, said International Longshore and Warehouse Union President Rich Austin. Seattle has been smart to maintain jobs on our working waterfront. Figuring out how cruise, cargo, and other maritime uses can work together in our harbor sets the next generation of maritime workers up for success. Cruise season is by far the busiest time of year for us and the benefits of those sales support businesses in three different counties, said Jon Gores, Sales Manager at Pike Brewing. We buy barley in Skagit County, hops in Yakima, and brew beer here in King County. We make significant sales both onboard cruise vessels and to cruise tourists who visit our brewery in Pike Place Market. Those cruise sales extend business revenue nearly all the way across our state. For a growing number of cruise passengers, Alaska is just part of the journey, said Woodinville Wine Country Executive Director Sandra Lee. Working with travel agents to promote cruise and stay packages has led to thousands of passengers taking trips out to Woodinville Wine Country. Our local wine businesses are also marketing heavily to cruise ships to bring that Washington experience on board with local wines and varietals. The total economic impact of cruise ships to the state economy in 2019, including direct, indirect, and induced impacts is estimated at 5,500 jobs, $260.1 million in labor income, and $893.6 million in business output, according to the port. Based on these estimates, in 2019 each homeport vessel call on average will support a total of $4.2 million in economic activity to the region. Port of Seattle Commissioners also approved the Port Valet program last month, which allows cruise passengers to have their bags taken from the ship and transported directly to their airline before departing for Sea-Tac International Airport. Passengers also receive their airline boarding pass before leaving the ship. T The Port of Seattle is also exploring the development of a new cruise facility at the north berth of Terminal 46 and is seeking a partner to support co-investment into the terminal and to operate the facility once construction is completed. Photo Credit: Don Wilson, Port of Seattle John R. Patrick, president of Attitude LLC and former vice president for Internet Technology at IBM, where he worked for 35 years, will be giving a free talk, Attitude Opportunities, and book signing at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury on Thursday, June 6. Click here to sign up at Events category. Splitting his time between his homes in Danbury and Florida, Patrick has published five books, including his most recent, Home Attitude: Everything You Need To Know To Make Your Home Smart. Other titles include Election Attitude How Internet Voting Leads to a Stronger Democracy (2016), Net Attitude: What it is, How to Get it, and Why it is More Important Than Ever (2016), Health Attitude: Unraveling and Solving the Complexities of Healthcare (2015) and Net Attitude: What It Is, How to Get It, and Why Your Company Cant Survive Without It (2001). His talk, a benefit for the Housatonic Habitat for Humanity, is from 7 to 9:30 p.m., in the ballroom at Western Connecticut State Universitys West Side campus, 43 Lake Ave. Ext., Danbury. BERLIN After shootings at two New Zealand mosques killed 50 last month, the Islamic Association of Greater Hartford staged active shooter training Sunday for members, according to NBC CT. Berlin police detective Ted Fuini led the training at the associations mosque on the Berlin Turnpike. The training was the same type of presentation the police department does at local schools and businesses, Fuini said. Some members expressed sadness that their children were questioning how to save themselves if a person came into the mosque to do them harm, NBC CT said. But mosque leaders also said it was an important conversation to have. The mosques Director of Education Fatma Antar said, At the same time it was sad and it was sad to hear the kids asking these types of questions. The mosque has also hired a security guard and formed a safety committee, NBC CT said. As soon as we heard about New Zealand, we were getting all of those emails and messages amongst the teachers and parents like how can we keep our kids safe? teacher and parent Tasnuba Hoque told NBC CT. The mosque is trying to provide this training for all of the parents, all the teachers. So you know if there ever was a situation like this how to save yourself, how to save the students, all the other members of this mosque, Hoque continued. HARTFORD House Majority Leader Matt Ritter meant it when he said he wanted to vote on getting rid of Connecticuts religious exemption for vaccines. At the end of March, Ritter wrote Attorney General William Tong to ask for a formal legal opinion regarding the constitutionality of eliminating the religious exemption for required immunizations. Pre-school and school-aged children can present a statement saying they are not immunized because it would be contrary to the religious beliefs of such a child or the parents or guardian of such child. Ritter points to the recent measles outbreaks in New York and the Pacific Northwest as the reason the religious exemption should be eliminated. As you may know three states California, Mississippi and West Virginia currently do not have a religious or philosophical exemption for required school immunizations. In addition, the lack of either exemption has been challenged and upheld under federal constitutional principles, Ritter wrote in his letter. A spokeswoman for Tong said they have received the request and, we are reviewing relevant law and expect to deliver an opinion sometime next month. In the meantime, 41 Republicans and three Democrats who support the religious exemption have also written to Tong outlining why, under federal and state law, they believe it would be unnecessary and illegal to eliminate the religious exemption. Connecticut currently has one of the highest vaccination rates in the country at 98.2 percent, far greater than the 75-86 percent required to achieve herd immunity for mumps, the 80-86 percent required for polio, and the 83-94 percent required for measles, the 44 lawmakers said. The use of the religious exemption in Connecticut, therefore, poses absolutely no threat to public health or safety. Ritter said those might be the statewide rates, but he thinks they should be able to get immunization information by school district. The Department of Public Health does not publicly disseminate that information. Under Conn. Gen. Stat. sec. 19a-25, the Department cannot publish, make available or disseminate reports of the findings of studies of morbidity and mortality (such as a school or school districts immunization rates) or any other documents that include identifiable health data or any item, collection, or grouping of health data that makes the individual or organization supplying it or described in it identifiable (e.g. in the case of the annual immunization survey, a specific school), the department said in response to a CTNewsJunkie Freedom of Information request. In addition, the same statute precludes the department from producing reports that do not contain identifiable health data in response to specific requests since doing so would result in linking the report to an identifiable individual or organization. Ritter said hes working with Senate President Martin Looney to pass legislation that would give the public access to that school district-based information. He said he hopes its 98.2 percent in each school district, but at the moment they dont know and parents deserve to have that information. He said once they know if there are any hot spots of unvaccinated children then they can evaluate the information and come up with a plan for legislation in 2020. However, those who support the religious exemption dont trust that lawmakers wont move forward this year with legislation. It is our firm believe that the elimination of the religious exemption would violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, at least five provisions of Connecticuts Constitution, and at least three Connecticut General Statutes, the 44 lawmakers said in their letter to Tong. They said getting rid of the religious exemption would have the effect of giving preference to some religious believes over others, and prohibiting children from freely exercising their religious beliefs. One is not able to freely exercise his or her religion if that exercise results in the loss of the right to a free public education. Essentially, Parents would be forced to choose between violating their sincerely held religious beliefs and gaining access to a free public education, the 44 lawmakers wrote. At a press conference in March, Ritter said that any unvaccinated child could be homeschooled. By denying access to a public education and its related programming and activities on the basis of religious belief, certain groups of people are provided with more rights and privileges than others, in violation of the equal protection clauses of the U.S. and Connecticut Constitutions, the 44 lawmakers who support keeping the religious exemption wrote. They went onto write that the right to a free public education is guaranteed by our Constitution. Taking the issue of religion and equal protection further, they said another Connecticut statute makes it illegal to deny anyone full and equal accommodations in any place of public accommodation on the basis of creed, and creed is a much broader term than religion, the 44 lawmakers wrote in their letter to Tong. They admitted that Ritter could add notwithstanding the state statutes eliminating the religious exemption would violate, but they opined he cant do that when it comes to the Connecticut Constitution. The letters to Tong come around the same time as Connecticuts third confirmed measles case this year. Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated 43 Republicans and one Democrat wrote a letter to Attorney General William Tong in support of religious exemptions for child vaccinations. WASHINGTON After another long day at work, Rep. Jahana Hayes spent the evening sitting on the floor of her office, surrounded by briefing papers and other documents that would help her prepare for a match-up with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. The match-up was over an issue of great concern to Hayes the use of federal funds to arm and train teachers. As a former National Teacher of the Year who represents Newtown in Congress, Hayes, 46, has embraced both education and gun control as priorities. Now she had the chance to tackle both in a very public forum and wanted to be prepared. The result the next day at a House Education and Labor Committee hearing was a fiery exchange with DeVos, whose education policies are anathema to many teachers and the powerful unions that represent them. That public exchange garnered national attention, but it was a bit of an outlier for Hayes, who is one of the quieter members of a diverse, assertive and independent freshman class of House Democrats. During her first 100 days in office, Hayes has distinguished herself as a former teacher who is also willing to be a student when it comes to learning the ways of the U.S. Capitol and the complex subjects lawmakers must understand. Hayes said she was surprised by the intensity of the spotlight on her freshman class, which, among other things, led her to be profiled in a cover story for Rolling Stone magazine. Theres been a lot of attention that I dont think I was prepared for, she said. Unlike fellow freshmen who posed on the cover of the magazine with her, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, Hayes has eschewed a brasher style in favor of a more cautious approach to navigating the world of Washington politics. She is one of the most interesting new Democratic women, but she is not at the forefront, said Ronald Schurin, a University of Connecticut political science professor. Besides hiring staff and setting up offices on Capitol Hill and in her sprawling northwest Connecticut congressional district, Hayes had to learn about the issues before the committees on which she serve the Education and Labor Committee and the Agriculture Committee and decide which informal congressional caucuses she would join. Those informal caucuses include the Congressional Black Caucus and the Gun Violence Prevention Caucus. Then theres meetings with constituents who drop by her office, a flood of media requests including many from student reporters, one of whom was only in the fifth grade. There are also hearings to attend, votes to cast, and evening receptions, including those intended to raise campaign cash. On a recent day, Hayes was picked up from her rental apartment near the U.S. Capitol and was at her office by 7 a.m. She attended a Democratic caucus meeting, then rushed to give a speech at a gathering of the Council of Chief State School Officers, the group that runs the Teacher of the Year program. Then it was back to the Capitol for a hearing on insurance and a meeting with Education and Labor Committee staff. Also, at some point during the day, Hayes hustled to the House chamber for roll call votes. Between those votes she ran outside to pose on the Capitol buildings steps with visiting students from Connecticut. To try to deal with conflicting demands, many lawmakers have their staffs schedule them in 15-minute blocks of time. That doesnt work for Hayes. I come from a background of relationship building, she said. You give each person the time they need. Its foreign to me to always be rushed. She conceded, though, that the result of trying to satisfy so many demands is you are spread very thin. An unvarnished progressive The first black Democrat to represent Connecticut in Congress, Hayes has an inspiring life story. Hayes grew up with her grandmother in Waterburys toughest housing project and became a teen-age mother, like her mother and grandmother, at 17. Her family struggled with substance abuse, relied on public assistance, and once even lost their apartment. She has a stylized map of Waterbury on the wall of her congressional office, along with whimsical portraits of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and poet Maya Angelou, their faces painted in triplicate by Connecticut artist Jack Rosenberg. Still, the office still feels a little like a work in progress maybe because Hayes occupies it so infrequently, being so busy elsewhere. I spend very little time in the office, she said. When she does, callers to her office are shocked when she gets on the phone with them. If Im in the office, I tell the staff I can talk to them for 5 minutes, she said. People are surprised I get on the phone, so I say but you called me! Hayes won the seat of retired Rep. Elizabeth Esty, a Democrat whose politics were more moderate and business-oriented. Hayes, meanwhile, is an unvarnished progressive, with a firm belief in both the social programs that helped her family and the public schools that led her to a college education and a career. Conservatives have attacked Hayes for her support of Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, an aspirational proposal championed by Ocasio-Cortez that aims to combat climate change and promote social justice. Already, Hayes support for the Green New Deal has spawned an attack ad by a conservative political action committee. Schurin considers Hayes generally a loyal Democrat, but not one who would make huge waves and will focus on education. Shes not an AOC, Schurin said. Shes someone who veers a little closer to the establishment than some of the other freshmen. And unlike some of the others, she can speak with authority on a subject area, and thats education. Hayes hadnt planned to trade the schoolhouse for the U.S. Congress. She was encouraged to run by Sen. Chris Murphy, who held the 5th District congressional seat when he was in the U.S. House of Representatives. Murphy is an informal mentor and his former policy director, Joe Dunn, is now Hayess chief of staff. And Hayes has other influential friends in Congress. House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., the highest ranking African-American in Congress, became aware of Hayes because of a controversy at the 2018 5th District Democratic convention. In an event marred by accusations of dubious vote switching, rival candidate Mary Glassman squeaked out a narrow victory over Hayes at that convention. I was drawn to the way (Hayes) responded to the obviously contentious convention, Clyburn said. Instead of walking away, she used the primary to vindicate herself. Clyburn helped raise money for Hayes primary campaign, but did not meet the new congresswoman until last September, when they both attended the Congressional Black Caucus legislative conference in Washington D.C. Clyburn said he was impressed Hayes was a former history teacher, as he once was. There was just this real natural connection that we had, he said. Not a pushover Hayes joined Congress just as her party took over control of the U.S. House from the Republican Party. House Democrats now have the ability and numbers to get their priorities through the chamber. But many of the bills approved in the House will die in the Senate, which is still under Republican control. Still, Hayes said she is in awe we are able to accomplish things. I thought it was a lot more complicated, Hayes said. I also think it is wrong to say we cant do anything because the Senate wont go for it. Hayes cited, among other major House accomplishments this year, a bill that would expand FBI background checks of gun buyers to individual sales on the internet and at gun shows, and another bill, sponsored by Clyburn, aimed at closing the Charleston loophole, a gap in the background check system that allowed a man to purchase a gun and kill nine members of a South Carolina church four years ago. Known for her optimism and megawatt smile, Hayes has also revealed her tough side. At a closed-door meeting of House Democrats, Hayes challenge House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on a resolution that was in the works aimed at responding to GOP charges that fellow freshman Omar had made anti-Semitic remarks. Hayes protested the evolving resolution was being pushed too quickly by Pelosi to the floor and lawmakers had not seen a final draft. Then there was the confrontation with DeVos. Sometime after she was sworn into office, Hayes had a private meeting with DeVos. I said to her I need for you to be successful so kids can be successful, Hayes said. But at the recent hearing on the Department of Educations budget, Hayes would not allow DeVos to insist she had no authority to tell school districts whether they could use a certain federal education grant to arm and train teachers. Brandishing an internal memo from the agency that said DeVos had that authority, Hayes said read the memo. I would like to submit these documents for the record so that the secretary has the ability to read the memo that came from her office, Hayes added. Hayes divides her time between the nations capital and her home in Wolcott, attending events in the state when Congress is not in session. But never on Sunday. I try to keep Sundays for myself, she said. I really have to be protective of that time because I have a 10-year-old son. Hayes also has three grown children and a husband, Milford, who is a police officer. Having survived her first hundred days in office, Clyburn predicted shes going to do very well. BRIDGEPORT Westport-based Connoisseur Media announced Monday it has acquired two more radio stations in Connecticut, including Bridgeports WICC600-AM. The company has executed an asset exchange agreement with Cumulus Media Inc. whereby Connoisseur Media will acquire two stations in Southern Connecticut in exchange for four stations in and around Allentown, Pennsylvania, the company said in a prepared statement. In addition to WICC, Connoisseur is also acquiring WEBE108-FM, based in Westport. A report about the deal on radioInsight.com says the station swaps allow both companies to grow in their respective markets as Cumulus owns Country Cat Country 96 WCTO Easton and AC 100.7 WLEV Allentown in the Allentown market and Connoisseur owns Classic Rock 95.9 The Fox WFOX-FM Norwalk and AC Star 99.9 WEZN Bridgeport in Fairfield County. The stations being traded to Cumulus Media are located in and around Allentown, Pennsylvania (WODE-FM, WWYY-FM, WEEX-AM, WTKZAM and translator W234AX). A local marketing agreement for the stations for each respective party will begin May 1. The exchange is expected to close in the third quarter of 2019, pending FCC approval, the statement from Connoisseur Media said. As a Connecticut-based company, this transaction represents an exceptional opportunity to continue to invest in the southern part of the state and will offer more ways for us to serve our listeners, clients and community, Connoisseur Media CEO Jeffrey Warshaw said. As a resident of Westport, the home to WEBE 108, I am thrilled to add these legendary stations to our Connecticut operations. As a lifelong Connecticut resident and the former General Sales Manager of WEBE/WICC, it is my privilege to lead these stations, Connoisseur Media SVP/Market Manager Kristin Okesson said. The combined reach of our portfolio will offer exciting opportunities for our partners and to the communities we serve. We are acquiring premier radio stations and a talented team which will allow us to expand our position in Fairfield County. If the deal closes, Connoisseur Media will own and/or operate 23 radio stations in seven markets: Billings, MT; Bridgeport, Stamford/Norwalk and New Haven, CT; Nassau-Suffolk (Long Island), NY; Frederick, MD and Stroudsburg-WilkesBarre, PA. MONROE Seven places that serve food including Masuk High School failed an inspection by the town health department in the first quarter of this year. However, all of them have either already passed a reinspection or are expected to in the near future. Monroe has roughly 100 licensed food service operations, and 45 underwent routine inspections in the first three months of 2019. Among those that failed, the most common violation was holding food at the wrong temperature. Monroe Health Director Nancy Brault partly attributed this to a learning curve, as the town adopts the Food and Drug Administrations food code model. Under the FDA model, cold foods need to be kept at 41 degrees. The previous standard was 45 degrees. Though there remain some compliance issues, Brault said, our food operators are much more in tune with the FDA code on holding temperatures, than they were last year, when the town started moving to the new standards. Restaurants and other establishments that serve food are scored on a 100-point scale. A restaurant fails if it scores below an 80, or if it has one or more violations that are worth four points. These include holding food at the improper temperature, not having adequate hand-washing facilities and other problems. Of those that failed inspection, Brault said, only two have not undergone and passed a re-inspection Masuk High and The Waterview. However, she said, both of those establishments initially failed because of a problem with a piece of equipment that has since been fixed, and Brault expected them to pass in the near future. Below is a complete list of which restaurants failed inspection, some of the reasons why and, where applicable, when they passed re-inspection. Country Pizza, 418 Main St. Monroe: Failed Jan. 29. Scored an 82 with four-point violations for storing food at improper temperatures, having a blocked hand sink and not having the proper shellfish tags (which help track products, and help ensure freshness). Restaurant was re-inspected on Feb. 26 and scored a 94 with no four-point violations. MacDaddys, 650 Main St.: Failed inspection Feb. 25. Scored an 83 with four-point violations for improper temperature and improper hand-washing facilities. Passed re-inspection on March 29 with a 94. Masuk High School, 1014 Monroe Turnpike: Failed inspection Feb. 28. Scored a 96 with a four-point violation for having food at improper temperatures. The food in the salad bar was out of temperature and needed to be thrown out during the inspection and the cheese unit in the salad bar needed to be replaced. The school hasnt been re-inspected, but the health director said the problem has been fixed and it is expected to be re-inspected soon. Monroe Diner, 568 Main St.: Failed Jan. 31. Scored an 85 with a four-point violation for having food at the improper temperature. Restaurant was re-inspected Feb. 26 and scored a 92 with no four-point violations. Monroe Fish, 477 Main St.: Failed twice first on Jan. 31, when it scored an 83 with a four-point violation for holding food at the wrong temperature. The store failed again on Feb. 25, when it scored an 88, with a four-point violation for holding food at the improper temperature. The store was re-inspected on March 29, when it scored a 95 with no four-point violations. Buffalo Bills, 650 Main St.: Failed inspection Feb. 28. Scored an 87 with a four-point violation for storing food at the improper temperature. Passed re-inspection April 3 with a 93, and no four-point violations. The Waterview, 215 Roosevelt Drive: Failed inspection Feb. 28. Scored an 85 with one four-point violation for storing food at the improper temperature, due to a walk-in cooler that wasnt calibrated to hold food at no more than 41 degrees. Though the facility hasnt been re-inspected, the health inspector said the walk-in has been fixed, and the Waterview is expected to pass re-inspection. On the fifth day of a workers strike, negotiations on a new contract for Stop & Shops 31,000 employees will continue on Monday. United Food and Commercial Workers Local 919 said met Sunday with the food giants negotiaters. In its latest update, it said we met with the company several times Sunday. While negotiations continue, keep engaging with your customers reminding the community what this is all about: protecting health care, good jobs and better pay for New England families. Vida Movahedi was arrested last October for showing her head uncovered in Tehrans Enghelab Square. She was convicted of "fomenting corruption and debauchery" on 2 March, but her sentence was made public only recently. She describes her fight as civic revolt. Tehran (AsiaNews/Agencies) An Iranian court sentenced a woman to a year's imprisonment after she was convicted of objecting to covering her hair, a controversial issue that has sparked street protests in recent months repressed by force and arrests. Vida Movahedi was taken into custody last October for showing her head uncovered (pictured) in Enghelab (Revolution) Square, waving her veil and some red balloons, her lawyer Payam Derafchane told media. The activist was sentenced for "fomenting corruption and debauchery", he explained in a trial that saw her convicted on 2 March. State news agency IRNA announced the decision only a few days ago. Movahedi, the mother of a two-year-old girl, had already participated in public protests in late December 2017 in central Tehran, becoming the face and symbol of the struggle against the compulsory veil. Like scores of other women, she was arrested. At her trial she told the judge that she was "against the compulsory Islamic veil" and that she wanted to express her opinion through a "civic revolt". According to some sources, she could be released on bail but, so far, the authorities have refused to do so. For women, covering their heads became compulsory in Iran following the rise to power of the ayatollahs following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The fight against the obligation is nothing new. However, since the beginning of last year the movement has expanded and acquired greater vigour and visibility. Through videos and messages posted online, activists encourage women to remove their head coverings and post their pictures on social media. Reacting to the protests, the deputy speaker of the Iranian Parliament suggested in January that a referendum might be held on the issue, but so far, nothing has officially happened. A Tennessee hunter is making a name for himself. Cameron Bond took a 20-pound white gobbler April 6 in the Volunteer State. Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency officials described it as a leucistic animal, saying it had a loss of pigmentation. "The beard of the bird was dark and the back feathers still hold some color as seen in the photo," staff said. Turkey hunting season in the state opened March 31 and continues through May 1, the Nashville Tennessean reported. by Nirmala Carvalho The three-city trip (Sydney, Nowra and Melbourne) lasted from 25 March to 8 April. The first Mass in Bengali was held in St John Mary Vianney Parish. Mumbai (AsiaNews) Card Patrick DRozario, archbishop of Dhaka, travelled to Australia where he met several Christian families who emigrated from Bangladesh in search of work. The pastoral visit took place from 25 March to 8 April. Writing from Singapore airport where he was waiting for his connecting flight to Dhaka, the prelate stressed how exceptional the event was, the first pastoral visit by a Bangladeshi bishop organised by the Bengali Christian community in three places in Australia. The cardinal spent seven days in Sydney, three days in Nowra and finally four days in Melbourne. In Sydney, the cardinal met 24 families, attended three family gatherings, celebrated Mass in Bengali for 250 Christians at the Rockdale Church. He also met with 60 officials and workers of Caritas Australia, with whom he discussed the situation of the local Catholic Church and its role in relation to sensitive issues such as Rohingya refugees and climate change. In Nowra he met with local parishioners, including 13 Indian families, baptised his great- nephew and met five parish priests at St Michael Church. Finally, in Melbourne, he met "with 80 people who made history: a long preparation, long-distance travel, extensive and creative programmes with a Christian spirit, prayers, generosity and unity. For the first time, a Bengali Mass was celebrated at St John Vianney, a Sunday Mass with the multicultural community at the parish [church] and a Mass in the Syro-Malabar rite with 600 Malayalis, i.e. Malayalam speakers originally from Kerala. O Bee CU CEO James Collins (left) discusses cannabis banking. When Washington state legalized the use of marijuana in 2014, O Bee Credit Union in Tumwater, Wash., initially decided not to serve marijuana-related businesses. But when members started asking for cannabis banking services, O Bee changed course and introduced deposit accounts, debit cards, and some other services for these organizations. The credit unions rationale: We serve the member, not the business. Today, O Bee serves more than 200 cannabis-related businesses, and continues to expand its efforts. The one thing we will not do for them at this point is lending, says O Bee President/CEO James Collins. We look forward to doing that in the future when its less murky on the legislative side. When CEOs are asked what their top priorities are, attracting and retaining talent is always on that list. In fact, a hallmark of successful organizations that are able to grow year-over-year is often related to how the organization manages and administers talent development. In order for credit unions to continue to provide exceptional service to their members and compete with other financial institutions, they must have a sustainable strategy that includes retaining and advancing talent. Why is attracting and retaining talent just as important as other business strategies? The credit union industry is experiencing disruptive digital forces and increased complexity as the new digital-human workforce is creating a large skill and knowledge gap for over 50 percent of talent, according to the World Economic Forums The Future of Jobs Report 2018. Leaders are now faced with this challenge: Can employees whose jobs are impacted by machines be reskilled to perform other types of roles in the credit union? To address this, credit unions across the country should consider focusing their efforts on becoming a learning organization, which is one that drives improved business results with the learning of its employees, and continuously transforms itself through creating, acquiring and transferring knowledge. For example, some roles now require dramatically more technical skills, while others require a renewed focus on distinctly human skills such as creativity, critical thinking and persuasion. Focusing on learning in these areas will help ensure the workforce will be better prepared to adapt more quickly. Becoming a learning organization increases employee engagement, boosts member satisfaction and improves business results. There are three components that drive these changes: an engaging learning environment, disciplined processes and practices to share data and knowledge, as well as leaders that reinforce learning and performance. Establishing the Right Environment An engaged workforce will drive higher member engagement, lower quality defects and better business outcomes. But what does an engaging learning environment look like? You might already have one or have components that can easily be enhanced to achieve such an environment. In an engaging learning environment, employees are encouraged to bring new ways of operating and collaborating, pursue differing perspectives and challenge the status quo. In order to achieve such an environment in a credit union, employees must feel empowered to provide unique and customized service to members within the appropriate guidelines. Additionally, the environment needs to be consistently refreshed with new learnings and skill enhancements to provide exceptional service to members. The final piece that many credit unions are lacking is the time and attention to pause, reflect, analyze and diagnose current organizational processes that are not broken, but may need enhancements. This is a powerful piece in creating a true learning environment and exponentially greater business results. Creating a Culture of Knowledge Sharing The second component that can elevate a credit unions success as a thriving learning organization is a disciplined culture of creating, acquiring and documenting, as well as applying and sharing knowledge. The value of knowledge is truly a competitive advantage and can increase business results through higher member satisfaction and value. Your knowledge management practices must be consistent, yet agile enough to continuously capture, update and easily deploy information across your organization. Member-facing employees need the most current and accurate data to ensure continued member trust and loyalty. Setting the Tone from Leadership Lastly, leaders must reinforce and continuously participate in these learning and growing opportunities. If employees see their leaders living the status quo and only focused on the current state, employees will neglect developing new skills and better ways of doing things. On the other hand, if they observe leaders forging new paths and utilizing new innovations to meet members needs, employees will follow suit. This top-down approach can facilitate a learning environment as employees will feel comfortable voicing their opinions and ideas. While becoming a learning organization might at first seem like a daunting or tedious task, the benefits are endless and can be achieved with small tweaks on a daily basis or through larger company-wide initiatives at each credit unions own pace. Learning organizations not only experience enhanced employee engagement, improved member satisfaction and increased business results, but also establish an environment in which employees feel appreciated and a part of a team. For the first time "No Religion" has topped a survey of Americans' religious identity, according to a new analysis by a political scientist. The non-religious edged out Catholics and evangelicals in the long-running General Social Survey. Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University and a Baptist pastor, found that 23.1% of Americans now claim no religion. A growing number of Americans reject organized religion "Religious nones," as they are called by researchers, are a diverse group made up of atheists, agnostics, the spiritual, and those who are no specific organized religion in particular. A rejection of organized religion is the common thread they share. "It is the first time we have seen this. The same questions have been asked for 44 years," Burge told CNN. The meteoric rise of religious nones began in the early 1990s and has grown 266% since 1991, he said. Burge estimates that 'No Religion' will be the largest group outright in four to six years. The reasons why the numbers exploded Experts still debate the factors behind this wave of Americans declaring no religion. One reason could be the internet, says Nick Fish, the president of American Atheists. It provides a place for nonbelievers to find each other. "The ease of access to the internet helped build communities where they didn't feel alone," he says. Robyn Blumner, executive director of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science, sees the change as a generational trend driven by millennials. "We are seeing the rise of a generation of Americans who are hungry for facts and curious about the world," she says. They are an underrepresented group Whatever the causes, the non-religious represent a growing constituency. Yet this demographic is greatly underrepresented in Washington's halls of power. There is not a single open atheist amid the most diverse Congress in history, according to a Pew study. The Congressional Freethought Caucus's 10 members try to represent non-theist interests while protecting the secular character of government. "This growing group of Americans can feel like there is at least some people in Congress who believe they matter." says the co-chair and founder, Rep. Jared Huffman of California. Sante Fe, New Mexico A jury found a former Roman Catholic priest who was captured in Morocco guilty Wednesday of sexually abusing an altar boy at a veterans cemetery and Air Force base in New Mexico in the early 1990s. The jury reached the verdict against 81-year-old Arthur Perrault following a trial in Santa Fe in which several men testified that they had been abused by him as children in his car, a church rectory and other locations. Perrault, a native of Bristol, and graduate of Sacred Heart High School in Waterbury, had served parishes in Sharon, East Hartford and New Haven and Naugatuck. The victim at the center of the case said Perrault took him on excursions to amusement parks and the military base in Albuquerque and had touched him inappropriately as many as 100 times starting when he was 10. The abuse ended in 1992, the same year Perrault vanished from the state as an attorney prepared to file two lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe alleging Perrault had sexually assaulted seven children. He fled to escape justice because he knew he was guilty, federal prosecutor Sean Sullivan said. Authorities believe Perrault had numerous victims in New Mexico. However, the federal charges against him stemmed only from the treatment of the one boy at Santa Fe National Cemetery and Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, where Perrault had been a chaplain. Perraults attorney Sam Winder said the former priest maintained his innocence and planned to appeal the conviction. The verdict came as the Roman Catholic church faces mounting pressure to do more to address the decades-long clergy abuse scandal. In New Mexico, dozens of victims have won more than $50 million in settlements from the Santa Fe Archdiocese, which has filed for bankruptcy protection as a result of lawsuits. In 2016, Perrault was among more than 70 clergy members on a list released by the Santa Fe Archdiocese identifying those who had been credibly accused of abusing children in New Mexico. He first arrived in the state in the 1960s after church officials in Connecticut sent him to a center that treated priests accused of abuse located in the secluded Jemez Mountains north of Albuquerque. The facility was operated by the religious order Servants of the Paraclete. Federal authorities said their decades-long pursuit of Perrault showed how far they were willing to go to bring him to justice. He was arrested in 2017 in Tangier, Morocco, where authorities say he had been teaching at an English language school for children. The African country has no extradition treaty with the United States but expelled Perrault after his arrest, allowing the U.S. to bring him back to New Mexico to face charges of aggravated sexual abuse and abusive sexual contact. The cemetery and military base where the abuse occurred are within federal jurisdiction, and the charges carry no statute of limitations. Despite the passage of many years, and Arthur Perraults efforts to evade justice and deny his victims their day in court, he has at long last been held accountable for his crimes, U.S. Attorney John Anderson said in a statement. The jury returned the verdict several hours after beginning deliberations. Some people who were present when the verdict was read broke down in tears. Perrault was expressionless as he left the courtroom with the aid of a walker. Elaine Montoya, 59, of Albuquerque had travelled to Santa Fe to learn the verdict. She said she had been sexually abused by Perrault, starting when she was 14 and grew frustrated with the churchs lack of response over the years. Its a precedent and its saying to people that we are no longer going to tolerate abuse by Roman Catholic priests here in New Mexico, Montoya said of the verdict. She did not testify in the criminal case. A sentencing hearing for Perrault has not been scheduled. Hudetz reported from Albuquerque. STORY LINK Pound to Australian Dollar Exchange Rates Rise despite US-China Trade Deal Optimism GBP/AUD Exchange Rate Rises as UK House Prices Soar GBP/AUD Forecast: Sterling Could Rise on Cross-Party Brexit Breakthrough Like this piece? Please share with your friends and colleagues: The Pound Australian Dollar (GBP/AUD) exchange rate rose today and is currently trading around AU$1.8269 on the inter-bank market.The Australian Dollar (AUD) fell against the Pound (GBP) today despite increased risk appetite following the news that the US and China were coming ever closer to securing a trade deal.This came after the Secretary of the US Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, said that the two superpowers were making progress in their talks.Mnuchin said:I think were hopeful that were getting close to the final round of concluding issues We are making progress, I want to be careful. This is not a public negotiation... this is a very, very detailed agreement covering issues that have never been dealt with before.With China being Australias closest trading partner, this has left many Aussie traders feeling optimistic. Although this has not been enough to encourage the AUD/GBP exchange rate.Sterling, however, gained on the Australian Dollar following the publication of the UK Rightmove House Price Index figures for April, which rose to 1.1% and encouraged market confidence in the Pound.Guy Gittens, a Managing Director at Chestertons, a London estate agency, commented:Weve seen the Brexit uncertainty played out in an unusual way - applicants are starting to come back because they can see value, and with no clear end in sight over Brexit, people who were wanting to hold off are getting on with it and trying to move, putting upward pressure on properties coming to market.Prime Minister Theresa May has, however, announced that no-deal Brexit plans will go ahead despite the EUs delay up until 31 October this year.Meanwhile, the Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has urged that it is an absolute priority that the UK should leave the European Union by 23 May to avoid taking part in the important European elections.Aussie traders will be looking ahead to tomorrows publication of the Reserve Bank of Australias meeting minutes, and with any indications of a bullish tone about the Australian economy, this could see the AUD/GBP exchange rate rise.Tomorrow will also see the release of Chinese economic data, with the most important being the FDI Foreign Direct Investment figures for March.Sterling investors, meanwhile, will be awaiting tomorrows printing of the UK unemployment rate figures, which are expected to remain steady.The GBP/AUD exchange rate will remain sensitive to Brexit developments this week, and any signs of cross-party talks offering a way out of the current political deadlock could prove Pound-positive. International Money Transfer? Ask our resident FX expert a money transfer question or try John's new, free, no-obligation personal service! ,where he helps every step of the way, ensuring you get the best exchange rates on your currency requirements. TAGS: Australian Dollar Forecasts Daily Currency Updates Pound Australian Dollar Forecasts Pound Sterling Forecasts by Sergio Ticozzi Fr. Anthony Yao Shun for Jining,; Fr. Stephen Xu Hongwei for Hanzhong,. Both had already been chosen by the Holy See years before. Both elections took place in a hotel, under the full control of the local civil authorities, with a single candidate imposed. There does not seem to be a need for the chosen ones to be presented to the pope for approval and appointment. Perhaps only for sheer formality. Hong Kong (AsiaNews) On April 9, the ex-vicar general, 54 years old Fr. Anthony Yao Shun, was appointed ordinary of the diocese of Jining (Wumeng), in Inner Mongolia. The ceremony took place in a hotel under the full control of the civil authorities, but chaired by Msgr. Meng Qinglu, bishop of Hohhot, the provincial capital. Fr. Yao was the only candidate proposed and was voted by 29 priests, 4 nuns and ten lay people. On April 11, in Hanzhong (Shaanxi), Fr. Stephen Xu Hongwei, the 44-year-old parish priest of the cathedral, was elected episcopal candidate for the diocese of Hanzhong. This election also took place in a hotel under the full control of the civil authorities. The voters, chaired by Msgr. Dang Mingyan, bishop of the provincial capital, Xi'an, were 27 priests, 3 nuns, 23 lay people, some of whom were proposed by the government, and the candidate, in this case too the only one, obtained 52 votes. The procedure of both elections was similar: they took place in a hotel, under the full control of the local civil authorities; presided over by the bishop of the provincial capital, with the diocesan clergy, representatives of nuns and lay people as voters, with a single candidate. However, both had already been accepted by the Holy See years before the Provisional Agreement between the Vatican and China. Despite being the first elections of episcopal candidates after the Agreement, they reveal nothing new, since the candidates had already been approved by the Holy See and there was only one candidate imposed. The election was therefore quite formal and not very democratic, as well as being conducted in all respects according to the procedure that was followed before the Agreement. There does not appear to be any need for the only candidate to be presented to the pope for approval and appointment, or if it is done, it will be purely for formality. It was hoped that the procedure for new elections of episcopal candidates would reveal more details of the 'secret' content of the Agreement, but given the particularity of these two elections, this has not been the case and the details of the contents of the Agreement still remain secret. The procedure followed does however reveal problematic elements: the event is conducted under the full control of the civil authorities and in a secular environment, almost like a civil event; although it is called democratic election, in fact it was not, as it was not conducted according to the requirements of canon law. On the positive side there is the fact that the Chinese authorities have accepted and supported the candidate that the Holy See had already approved, and for this, we must thank the Lord. It could be the only positive effect of the Agreement, although similar decisions had been made by the civil authorities even before the Agreement. Added scoring makes Berlin Brothersvalley D5 title contender Berlin won three straight District 5-A girls basketball championships, but missed out on gold the past two seasons. The Mountaineers have pieces to make run this season. by Vladimir Rozanskij His wife participated in a beauty contest and posted the photos on social media. As a punishment, the diocese transferred her husband a priest to a remote village in the Urals. The family crisis also affects the Uxorate clergy. Patriarch Kirill denounces the lack of education of seminarians in marriage. The drive to get them married quickly, before ordination, creating fragile and improvised unions. Moscow (AsiaNews) - A Brazilian dance in carnival costumes, during Lent: this is what Oksana Zotova, the wife of priest Sergy Zotov, performed in a beauty contest. Whats more, she posted photographs of the competition on social networks. As a result, the Russian Orthodox eparchy of Magnitogorsk, in the Ural region, punished the priest by sending him to a remote village. On April 12, the diocese's secretary, Father Lev (Baklitskij) explained the diocese's reasons to the Ria Novosti agency. Fr Lev said the priest was summoned and was told that, due to his wife's behavior, as a punishment he would have to temporarily move to the village of Fershampenuaz, in the province of Nagajaksksk, at least until the story is forgotten. For orthodox Uxorate (married) priests, transfers are usually rare and agreed upon, so as not to upset family life, but in this case - according to Fr. Lev - "the scandal could not be ignored," even though we know Father Sergius as a good priest ". The priest, he added, have no particular limitations in public behavior, "they can also go to the sauna or to the beach with their wife, but not put the photos on social media". The case of Father Sergij and Oksana fits into a rather worrying picture for the families of Orthodox priests. The same Patriarch of Moscow Kirill (Gundjaev), on March 20 at a meeting of the Superior Council of the Diocese of Moscow, underlined: "The crisis of family values, which has infected the whole of contemporary society, has touched the life of the priests, even if not to the same extent as the laity, and yet we note many situations of crisis in the families of our priests, starting with our diocese of the city of Moscow ". The dynamic indicates a clear deterioration compared to 10-20 years ago, according to Kirill "to the totalitarian spread of morally doubtful representations of relations between men and women". The head of the Russian Church has insisted on the importance that priests live the family dimension fully, without being justified by pastoral commitments, which force them to be often absent from home. This is especially true for country towns and villages, where people's lives are more visible than in cities, and the priest is called to be even more an example to everyone. Kirill also recalled that "there are still many exemplary families, both priestly and lay, where the house is really a small Church, but this Church must be built with difficulty and with the help of God". The patriarch also insisted on the importance of the education of seminarians in the various diocesan institutions, where together with studies and various spiritual exercises "we must teach them to be ready, at least theoretically, to face the problems of family life". In the Russian Church, seminaries are widespread, but many are still underdeveloped, and family issues are left to the personal experience of priests. Often the only attention given to the issue is to require that seminarians decide on the question of marriage, which must precede priestly ordination, with the consequence of rather fragile and improvised unions. According to Orthodox ecclesiastical canons, if a priest's wife asks for a divorce, he is reduced to the lay state. The role of the wife or "pretense" (in Russian popular: the popadja), is often confined to the service of cleaning the church and ritual assistance, singing in the choir or responding on their own to priestly invocations, and of course to bear the burdensome home commitments almost entirely alone. The priests' families are traditionally the most fruitful, with numerous sons and daughters, mostly destined to become priests or the wives of priests. The bishops, who are instead chosen among the monks, are often not very attentive to the family questions of their priests, leaving them at the mercy of the difficulties highlight by the patriarch Kirill. Dear Editor: It is a bright new day in Dutchess County. Some of our most important leaders are joining forces to link the county and its educational institutions to the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel. Important things happen when great minds get together. The president of Vassar College seems to have discussed plans with the deputy consul general during her trip to Israel. Now many more leaders on on board, including our county executive and decision makers at the Culinary Institute of America and IBM. Here are some suggestions for how this visionary group might partner with the apartheid state: Israel already trains many U.S. police forces in military tactics and weaponry. Maybe the police in Poughkeepsie and Beacon could patrol in armored vehicles rather than on bikes. Checkpoint technology might also benefit these communities. People of the wrong color or religion could be made to wait in long lines and be inspected before they travel out of their areas. Israels high-tech surveillance industry could be used to track goings-on within these inner-city ghettos. On a cheerier note, Dutchess County could benefit from all the Israeli products that support the occupation, like Jaffa oranges, Ahava cosmetics, Sabra hummus and Psagot wines. Nothing like the taste and feel of products that come from appropriated territories. The Culinary Institute could even create a settlement restaurant where diners could experience the thrill of being overlords in the Promised Land. Fred Nagel Rhinebeck, N.Y. by Bernardo Cervellera Thousands of faithful participate in the different masses. Palm Sunday celebrated on Friday and Saturday to to allow for workers to attend and given the impossibility of gathering all the faithful together at one time. For the Easter Sunday there will be 23 masses in 13 languages, from 5.30 am until midnight. The economic crisis and the unemployed. Bishop Hinder: The Master needs us. Abu Dhabi (AsiaNews) - Indians from Kerala and Goa; Filipinos from Manila and Mindanao; Koreans and Polynesians, Africans from Nigeria and Tanzania; and then Britons, Italians, French, Germans, Americans: This is the mixture of faces and races that fills the large courtyard in front of the Cathedral of St. Joseph, for the celebration of Palm Sunday in this Islamic country that is Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. A crowd of thousands of people gather around the bishop, Msgr. Paul Hinder, apostolic vicar of southern Arabia, who is preparing to bless the palms, in memory of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. These are real palm leaves (needles) - the only tree that grows here in abundance - graceful and embellished with some colored flowers, white, yellow, or red rose. In the days leading up to Palm Sunday there were thousands of faithful, all foreigners, all Catholics, who occupied the halls and the two churches - of Saint Joseph and Saint Teresa - close to the episcopate. "Here in Abu Dhabi we have been celebrating Palm Sunday since last Friday," says Capuchin Fr. Gandolf, personal secretary of Msgr. Hinder, who has spent 14 years in the Emirates. Indeed, in Abu Dhabi, Friday is a day of celebration; on Saturday you work half a day; Sunday is a full working day. The faithful who are in the emirates are migrants who have found work here as waiters, nurses, cooks, babysitters, drivers, managers ... Given that it is not easy to get vacation or rest time from work to devote to prayer, the celebration of the holy day was spread out: some managed to come to mass on Fridays, others on Saturdays, others on Sundays. On the other hand, if they all came together, there would be no possibility of gathering tens of thousands of faithful at the same time. The exception was during the visit of Pope Francis in February, when for the first time in the history of the emirates, permission was given for a mass in a public place, in the stadium ..., which brought together over 100 thousand people. Instead the standard practice is that Christian rites must be celebrated indoors, or within the church enclosure. Usually the tens of thousands of faithful share the spaces: the churches, the courtyard, a room on the first floor, the back yard. Each linguistic community is given an hour and a half for the celebration. The sign indicating the Easter Sunday times is impressive: 23 masses in 13 languages, to be celebrated between 5.30 am and midnight! As the procession of palms advances, hundreds of faithful preceded her to sit on the carefully ordered plastic chairs. An African girl, in silence, looks motionless at the crucifix in the center of the altar. At the beginning of Passion Week, it is easy to feel close to Jesus in suffering. Some faithful tell me that due to the prolonged low oil price, various companies in the emirates are closing and are unable to pay their employees. For many of them, having arrived here with their family, it means having to go home empty-handed, or waiting for better times, struggling to survive. Anthony, a man from Kerala, who has worked here for years, has not received a salary for 6 months. The reading of the Passion and the melody of the song is poignant: my God, my God, why have you abandoned me? In the homily, Msgr. Hinder is inspired by the phrase of the disciples who, in search of the donkey for Jesus to mount at the entrance to Jerusalem, say: "The Master needs it". And the bishop concludes: "The Master, Jesus, also needs us, as we are". The Master needs all these Christians who in an Islamic society support its development and humanize the features that are profoundly marked by the world of business. And it also needs the unemployed, who reveal the fragility of economic programs: a fragility that brings suffering if the labor laws - which also exist in the emirates - are not applied. At Communion time, rows of Indian and Filipino altar boys take priests to different areas of the courtyard to distribute the Eucharist. The choir of Filipinos sings accompanied by the flute and violins of some Indian girls. At the end of the celebration, people fade out quietly, smiling and chatting, waiting for Easter and resurrection. The many children chase each other shaking their palms with roses. Meanwhile, in the church of St. Joseph and in that of St. Teresa two more masses are about to begin, with thousands of faithful. Since ISIS bride Shamima Begum was tracked down to a Syrian refugee camp, she has become a full-blown celebrity When jihadi bride Shamima Begum was tracked down to a Syrian refugee camp in February, I wrote that if everything went according to the usual script she'd be flown back to Britain on a private jet, chartered at taxpayers' expense. She would become a full-blown celebrity, interviewed sympathetically by the BBC and Left-wing newspapers and would probably sue the Government for compensation. On legal aid, naturally. That column was written only partly in jest but it's already coming true. As the Mail revealed exclusively yesterday, lawyers acting for Begum will be granted legal aid to fight the Home Secretary's decision to strip her of British citizenship. Her case is now in the capable hands of superstar solicitor Gareth Peirce, who the IRA used to have on speed dial. Mrs Peirce's clients include Julian Assange, Guantanamo Bay inmate Moazzam Begg, and members of the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six. The decision to grant legal aid is being taken despite the fact that no such application has been received from Begum herself. Her family's original solicitor, Tasnime Akunjee, who passed the file on to Peirce, insists normal documentation could not be provided because he was denied access to his client by the Syrian authorities. Which is a little strange, given that news organisations appear to have no problems talking to Begum. It has become a rite of passage for every foreign correspondent passing through the region to interview her. The media circus which surrounds Begum has turned her into a one-woman edition of I'm A Jihadi... Get Me Out Of Here! She's become the terrorist equivalent of Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs, who was holed up for years in Brazil. The only difference is that Ronnie Biggs desperately sought to avoid extradition. Begum says she is desperate to return 'home'. British jihadi Shamima Begum says she is now desperate to return 'home', and has been granted legal aid to fight the Home Secretary's decision to strip her of citizenship In an especially bizarre twist, one reporter seeking a fresh angle even solicited her views on Brexit. (She's just as 'bored' with it as the rest us.) You couldn't make it up. Although she's still stuck in a detention camp, Begum has acquired all the trappings of a modern celebrity. She's even got an official spokesman, Dal Babu, an ex-Met police chief superintendent, who seems to have taken on the same kind of role for the Begum family as that former BBC chap, Clarence Somebody, assumed for the parents of missing Madeleine McCann. Babu was all over the media yesterday, pouring cold water on reports from what he called 'unidentified sources' that Begum, far from being an innocent abroad, had stitched suicide bombers into explosive vests and carried a Kalashnikov rifle. Curious how her useful idiots confidently rubbish intelligence obtained from reliable national and international security sources yet gullibly swallow anything Begum herself claims. One thing Izal mastered over the years along with beheadings, setting fire to people in cages and throwing homosexuals off tall buildings was propaganda. Begum is now in the capable hands of solicitor Gareth Peirce, whose clients have included Julian Assange, Guantanamo Bay inmate Moazzam Begg, and members of the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six For all we know, Begum's protestations of being a simple caliphate wife and mother are all part of an elaborate cover story. It is further reported that she's looking for a book deal, so no doubt literary agents will be falling over each other to represent her. Now, in Gareth Peirce, she has an A-list yuman rites brief, too. There's little we can do about credulous journalists and hang-wringing sympathisers anxious to paint 'Shamima' as the real victim in all this. If commercial news organisations and publishers want to waste their own money seeking her side of the story that's entirely their prerogative. But what should alarm us is the idea British taxpayers are being forced to foot the bill for her lawsuit against the Government. It could eventually cost us hundreds of thousands of pounds. The ease with which funding is being granted by the Legal Aid Agency has rightly provoked widespread outrage, especially as more worthy applicants, such as relatives of those killed by the IRA, have been turned down flat. Despite 'savage cuts' to the legal aid budget, there's never any shortage of cash when it comes to furnishing terror suspects with the best briefs money can buy. Lawyers acting for the two men who murdered Fusilier Lee Rigby with meat cleavers pocketed 250,000. Hate preacher and terrorist recruiting sergeant Ram Jam Choudary received 140,000. Yes, I appreciate that everyone should be entitled to legal representation when accused, falsely or otherwise, of a crime, even if they can't afford it. It's one hallmark of a civilised society. But there have to be limits. Granting legal aid to a woman who has repeatedly said she hates Britain, and who chose to defect to a foreign terrorist state, whose acolytes have carried out atrocities on British soil is a bridge too far. Begum joined a bloodthirsty jihadist army, which murdered British hostages, killed, raped and tortured countless civilians, and claimed responsibility for attacks in 70 cities around the world, including London and Manchester. Leaving Begum aside for a moment, though, what this case has done is to shine a light on the legal aid system and the way it can be milked by unscrupulous lawyers. No, I'm not including Gareth Peirce in that category. But there are endless examples of law firms getting fat on the taxpayer teat, pursuing the most undeserving cases. For years, until he was belatedly struck off, that red-bespectacled spiv Phil Shyster and his ambulance-chasing associates raked in millions harvesting bogus claims of war crimes against brave British soldiers. Scandalously, it turns out that not one but two firms applied to represent Begum. How can it be right for lawyers to seek legal aid for a 'client' who hasn't asked for their help and with whom they have never spoken? Even more scandalously, the Ministry of Justice won't tell us the identity of the unsuccessful applicants. So, no surprise there. Nor are we permitted to know on what grounds the application is being granted. The 'independent' Legal Aid Agency is run by lawyers for lawyers. When and if the Begum case does come to court, it will be held most likely behind closed doors. So much for justice being seen to be done. Worse, it was revealed last night that Begum may not be the only Izal jihadi likely to receive financial largesse from the taxpayer. The number can't be confirmed, but it seems inevitable that we'll end up forking out millions to lawyers acting for those who went to Syria and Iraq to fight. You won't be surprised, either, to learn that Jeremy Corbyn thoroughly approves of doling out money to people facing terrorist charges. He's never met an enemy of Britain he didn't like. At this rate, expect Corbyn to be on the Tarmac at Northolt to welcome home the prodigal Shamima Begum when she is flown back here to a rock star's reception on a private jet, naturally, chartered at taxpayers' expense. by Joseph Hung Over the past three months, a number of youths took part in intensive lessons on the catechesis and religious life. In Tan Viet parish, the baptised thanked priests, catechists and faithful. Thousands of faithful took part in spiritual retreats and moments of prayer organised by the Redemptorist fathers. Ho Chi Minh City (AsiaNews) In the period before Easter, some 43 young people were welcomed into the Catholic community in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), including 23 who were baptised three days ago in Tan Viet parish. Over the past three months, especially during Lent, these youth took part in intensive lessons on the catechesis and religious life. In their journey of faith, the catechumens received the spiritual support of all the parishioners, who urged them to become a tool of evangelisation in society. During the celebration of their baptism, Fr Dominique Vu Ngoc Thu, vicar of Tan Viet, told them: "After learning the teachings of the catechism and the Gospel, you recognised Gods love. You came to him to follow him and bear witness to his love in the world." At the end of the service, the newly baptised thanked the priests, catechists and faithful who explained the Catholic faith to them and accompanied them in their prayers. At Lent every year, the Redemptorist Fathers of Saigon organise several catechism courses for children, adults, couples and catechumens. This year, thousands of people took part in spiritual retreats and moments of prayer, which the priests held in various parishes within the archdiocese. Many young people also joined a number of charitable initiatives. Nearly 1,000 children participated in a retreat held between 8 and 10 April, including 20 from a group of 29 catechumens who were baptised on 7 April at the headquarters of the Order. During the service, Fr Joseph explained to them: "Today, with the seal of baptism and the sacrament of confirmation, you have become aware that the sign of Christians is the sign of the Holy Cross [...]. "This, he went on to say, is the sign of God's love for us. Especially you, 29 catechumens, should know how to always live according to the Word of God. We follow the sign of God's love, so as to bring it to the brothers and sisters who surround us." As a 54-year-old Jew, when hear the word 'Nazi', I listen. I pay close attention because, like every other Jew, I know the meaning of the word and its special resonance. If the Nazis had not been defeated, I wouldn't be here. I would never have been born because, had Adolf Hitler successfully invaded Britain and won the war, my parents both born in London would have joined the millions of Jews murdered by the Nazis. So I have a message for David Lammy, the Labour MP who at the weekend likened members of the hard-Brexit European Research Group (ERG) of Conservative MPs to the Nazis. David Lammy's statement at the weekend likening members of the hard-Brexit European Research Group to the Nazis exposes him as an ignorant, hate-mongering fool It's a message that comes from my heart: How dare you? How dare you compare people with whom you disagree on Brexit with the men and women who committed genocide who planned in meticulous detail the most efficient mechanism for murdering an entire people? You ignorant, hate-mongering fool... Mr Lammy's words are so shockingly inappropriate that they seem even worse the more one thinks about them. Last month, Mr Lammy attended an anti-Brexit rally at which he said: 'I'm just looking over there at Winston Churchill. On the 30th of September, 1938, he stood up in Parliament and he said we would not appease Hitler. 'I'm looking across to Nelson Mandela who would not give in to apartheid. We say we will not give in to the ERG. We will not appease!' Jacob Rees-Mogg is one of the most destructive forces in modern British politics. Everything he touches fails. But it is unfair to liken him to a Nazi On the Andrew Marr Show on BBC One on Sunday, Mr Marr said to Mr Lammy: 'By implication you're comparing the ERG to the Nazi Party or at least to South African racists. That was an unacceptable comparison, wasn't it?' Instead of apologising for his remarks, Mr Lammy said: 'I would say that wasn't strong enough.' In other words, the ERG all of whom are elected Conservative MPs are worse than the Nazis who invaded most of Europe and sought to subjugate the world. Doubling down, Mr Lammy said: 'In 1938, there were allies who hatched a plan for Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia, and Churchill said: 'No.' And he stood alone.' Mr Lammy repeated: 'We must not appease.' Thus, by opposing Brexit, Mr Lammy appeared to be comparing himself to Churchill. The implication was clear: anyone who does not share Mr Lammy's view that hard Brexiteers are Nazis is therefore an appeaser of Nazis. As it happens, I'm a Brexiteer. But I regard the ERG as deluded fools. I consider Jacob Rees-Mogg, the chairman of the ERG, to be one of the most destructive forces in modern British politics. Everything he touches fails, whether it was the farcical vote of no confidence in Mrs May that he orchestrated at the end of last year, or his bone-headed stance against Mrs May's Withdrawal Agreement which he then reversed when he realised, far too late, that he was endangering Brexit itself. And I viewed with horror Mr Rees-Mogg's decision last month to post on Twitter a video of a speech made by the co-leader of the German far-Right party Alternative fur Deutschland (Alternative for Germany). No mainstream British politician should have anything to do with the AfD. David Lammy criticised Boris Johnson for associating with Donald Trump's former strategist Steve Bannon Rightly, Mr Lammy pointed to Mr Rees-Mogg's tweet quoting the AfD: 'We have, in the ERG, in Jacob Rees-Mogg, someone who is happy to put onto his web pages the horrible, racist AfD party, a party that's Islamophobic and on the far-Right.' Had Mr Lammy stopped there, or had he simply attacked the ERG, I would have agreed with him. Their obstinacy over Brexit has caused great damage. But the idea that ERG members are comparable to the Nazis because they have a different view on Brexit from Mr Lammy and from me is so grotesque that it reveals far more about the MP for the North London district of Tottenham than it does about the ERG. Under questioning from Mr Marr, Mr Lammy also cited contact between Boris Johnson and Steve Bannon, President Trump's former adviser who is building an alliance of extreme Right-wing populist parties in Europe. Mr Lammy asked rhetorically: 'What kind of country are we going to be like if these people [Mr Rees-Mogg and Mr Johnson] are running it?' Mr Marr then asked Mr Lammy if he was really saying that Mr Rees-Mogg and Mr Johnson were Nazis. He replied: 'Ask Boris Johnson why he's hanging out with Steve Bannon.' Mr Bannon is a deeply worrying figure whose shady attempt to create a pan-European movement of far-Right parties needs to be countered. But he is not does this really need to be said? a Nazi. The word 'Nazi' is bandied around as if it means 'someone whose views I find disgusting'. There are just people still alive who know what Nazism is. They fled their homes or survived concentration camps. And they saw what real Nazis are and how they behave. Notoriously, the now Independent MP Anna Soubry was verbally abused outside Parliament as a 'Nazi' by a pro-Brexit demonstrator some months ago. But there is one big difference while Ms Soubry's assailant was arrested and is expected to face trial, Mr Lammy, on national TV, can accuse people with whom he disagrees of being Nazis and get off scot-free. There is, however, another aspect to this sorry story which shows that Mr Lammy is not merely an idiot with no concept of recent history, but a cynical hypocrite, too. As an MP, he is campaigning to put his party into power. Yet that party is now led by a man who has done more to unleash a culture of 'Jew-hate' than any politician since Hitler was defeated in 1945. Under Jeremy Corbyn, Labour has become institutionally anti-Semitic and is preparing for an investigation by the Equality And Human Rights Commission. Barely a day passes without news of yet another anti-Semitic Labour member or candidate emerging. And Mr Corbyn himself has a long and foul history of embracing Jew-haters, from describing terrorists as 'friends' to inviting the hate preacher Raed Salah (who peddled the libel that Jews drink the blood of first-born children) to tea in the Commons and donating money to Paul Eisen, a Holocaust denier. No wonder that, in a recent poll of British Jews, 96 per cent said anti-Semitism is now an important factor for them in deciding how to vote. This is the party Mr Lammy represents, and the leader he wants to see installed as Prime Minister. Yet he has the gall to accuse the ERG, which simply takes a different view to him on Brexit, of being Nazis. I have a suggestion for Mr Lammy. Over the next few days, he should read a history of the Third Reich. I can recommend a few, such as Sir Richard Evans's The Third Reich In Power or Sir Ian Kershaw's biography of Hitler. Then Mr Lammy might learn who and what the Nazis really were and hang his head in shame. Stephen Pollard is editor of The Jewish Chronicle. Advertisement From babies waddling around on the ice, to fully grown Emperor penguins diving into the water to find fish, a photographer has spent nine years capturing one of the worlds most charismatic creatures in their natural habitat. Over course of almost a decade, British photographer Sue Flood visited remote colonies and in her new book Emperor: The Perfect Penguin she has shown their ability to survive in temperatures that can reach -50C with 150km/h winds. The photographer, who is originally from North Wales, and spent 11 years working with the BBC on TV series' including Blue Planet and Planet Earth, has made around 50 trips to the Arctic and Antarctic during her career. And despite the bitterly cold conditions, Sue said she is 'lucky' and 'privileged' to spend time with Emperor penguins for a living. The foreword to the book was written by presenter Michael Palin, who described Sue as 'one of the elite wildlife photographers of today', and said learning with her was like 'being taught maths by Albert Einstein.' Some of the breathtaking pictures included in her book include an adorable young penguin being cared for by its parent, and a colony encroaching on humans observing nearby. Sue explained how while she was camping near the colony, she would sometimes be woken up in the middle of the night 'by the sound of their calling' - but added she could 'never get tired of the view.' Here are a selection of photographs from Emperor: The Perfect Penguin the collection: Several chicks stand on the ice, with their parents keeping a careful watch, in this low angle shot taken by photographer Sue Flood. The Welsh wildlife photographer has travelled back and forth to Antarctica over the past nine years to observe Emperor penguins The Emperor penguins, pictured while being observed by explorers, can survive in temperatures as low as -50C with 150km/h winds. Wildlife photographer Sue said she was privileged to see the birds in their natural habitat The vastness of Antarctica and the resilience of the Emperors, who are the tallest and heaviest of all penguin species, is also shown through Sue's photography. Pictured is a expedition travel company's ship on the ice, as nine penguins sit in front of it Presenter Michael Palin, pictured with Sue at Orne Harbour in the Antarctic Peninsula. He wrote a foreword for her book, and said learning from the photographer was like being 'taught maths by Albert Einstein' Sue narrates the penguins' long journey across the sea ice, and the immense effort it takes for human photographers to follow them in her book. These three penguins are captured just as they emerge from the cold water and slide back onto solid ice The colony huddles together on the ice, making sure to keep all the young penguins nearby. While on expedition Sue would camp near the birds, and sometimes be woken up in the middle of the night 'by the sound of their calling' A baby penguin eagerly awaits feeding time from its parent. After breeding season, male penguins look after the egg while the female goes fishing. When they return, the female's bring food in their bellies which they regurgitate for the chicks to eat Emperor penguins are impressive swimmers and can reach depths of over 500m when diving. Sue snapped this photograph just as a large bird came back onto the ice after taking a dip in the water The penguins' journey in Antarctica is mapped in the book and Sue, who has worked with the BBC on TV series including Blue Planet and Planet Earth, visited the continent several times over nine-years to create her collection of photography Sue said: 'My ambition ... is to let more people experience some of the worlds remotest places and to share with them the magical beauty of the landscapes and wildlife to be found there' Emperor: The Perfect Penguin is available from ACC Art Books for 30 Supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio detailed her 'beachy Brazilian' beauty routine before heading to the beach as she admitted her pimples sometimes make her feel like a 'teenager' all over again. In a video with Vogue, the 38-year-old former Victoria's Secret model showed fans the many steps in her beauty routine so they, too, could achieve a Brazilian glow in time for summer. But the model confessed when doing her makeup that she still gets a few pimples on occasion, specifically along her jawline and chin. Fresh-faced: Alessandra Ambrosio, 38, detailed her makeup and skincare routine in a video with Vogue to achieve a 'beachy Brazilian' glow Baring it all: The supermodel went through the various steps of her skincare routine, while showing off her makeup-free skin on camera First step: She will first apply a sheet mask and use a jade roller on her skin to help makeup the face and increase circulation Priorities: The former Victoria's Secret Angel admitted she sometimes gets pimples, which make her feel like a teenager. She uses concealer to cover any unwanted marks 'I feel like a teenager every time I have to cover my pimples,' Alessandra said when concealing the marks. 'I guess its a good thing,' she continued. 'Thank you pimples for making me feel like a teenager.' The beauty routine first started with the model piling her long brown hair into a bun at the top of her head to promote more volume. 'My hair is very straight, and I want to get that kind of like that beautiful beach look,' Alessandra said. Face wipes removed any excess makeup on Alessandra's skin from the previous night before the model decided to use a mask to awaken the skin. First, she applied hand sanitizer to her hands, before placing the sheet mask onto her face and using a jade roller to press the product into the skin. 'When Im doing a mask it feels nice and gets the circulation going in my face,' she said about the beauty tool. 'Usually this jade roller is in my fridge, so its very cold because in the morning I want to wake up. And this definitely wakes me up.' Once the mask was taken off, Alessandra then spritzed her skin with Kiehl's Cactus Flower & 'Tibetan Ginseng' Hydrating Mist ($27). She admitted to always carrying a mist with her to keep the skin hydrated, especially on planes. The beauty routine then moved to sunscreen as Alessandra lived in California where the sun was plentiful. Smooth: Next step in her routine is foundation, and Alessandra prefers a tinted moisturizer so her skin still looks like skin Focused: After the foundation is done, Alessandra will apply brow gel to smooth the area. She will then use eyeliner to make her eyes look bigger Busy: 'Im a mom of two,' she said during the video while using concealer. 'I feel young, but Im not that young. Im going to use it on my brown spots that I have' Cheeky grin: Bronzing up the face was the next step in Alessandra's routine as she worked to match the color to her current skin tone Bright: She then applied blush to the apples of her cheeks and opted to go without highlighter 'Sun is a big thing for me,' she said. 'Every day is sunny here. So I have to wear sunblock. I protect my skin because I want to keep going to the sun every day.' Alessandra will apply sunscreen to her face before using Dr. Barbara Sturm Sun Drops ($145) to provide an extra dewy glow to her complexion. Instead of using foundation, Alessandra opts for a tinted moisturizer from Beauty Counter ($45) that still provides full coverage to cover any unwanted marks. 'I am not a big fan of foundation but if I have something special I would obviously apply some,' Alessandra confessed. 'But I like the skin to show.' 'Brazilian beauty to me it means natural,' she continued. 'It means glowy. You get a little tan.' Her next step is concealer to cover any dark marks or unwanted blemishes. 'Im a mom of two,' she said during the video. 'I feel young, but Im not that young. Im going to use it on my brown spots that I have.' The Yves Saint Laurent Touche Eclat All-Over Brightening Penlighter concealer ($35) was then applied underneath her eyes in a lighter shade. Alessandra moved onto eyes where she puts an emphasis on the eyeliner to create a subtle cat eye. She said the liner works to make her eyes appear bigger. To achieve the perfect cat eye, she advised to 'always aim to the end of your eyebrow' when creating the tip. Get the glow: An important step in Alessandra's routine is bronzing up the skin with the combination of oil and moisturizer Bombshell: Alessandra then shook her hair loose from its bun before adding a little volume with the help of hair products Beautiful: With her glowy look complete, Alessandra was ready to head off to the beaches in California for a relaxing day She then applied the L'Oreal Paris Lash Lifting and Lengthening Washable Mascara ($13), which she described as her new favorite mascara. Bronzing up the face was the next step in Alessandra's routine as she worked to match the color to her current skin tone. Then, instead of using any highlighter, Alessandra brightened up the face with Charlotte Tilbury's Beach Lip & Cheek Stick ($45). For lips she contoured the edges with a darker lip pencil before applying lip stick and a balm over top. The final step in her beauty routine involved bronzing up the skin and giving it a nice glow before heading to the beach. 'I was a Victorias Secret Model, an Angel, for almost like 20 years,' Alessandra said while prepping her body products. 'I did 17 fashion shows for Victorias Secret, and one of the biggest parts is taking care of your skin. I like to keep it nice and moist and shiny and pretty and glowy. You want to get that glow.' She combined Costa Brazil's Jungle Oil ($98) with Charlotte Tilbury's Supermodel Body Body Highlighter ($65) to hydrate her body before heading out to the beach. A couple who lost weight so they could keep up with their young grandson have completed their jaw-dropping transformations after being surprised with a trip to New York City for head-to-toe ambush makeovers. As an update to the beloved Today show segment, people from around the country are being asked to submit why they should receive ambush makeovers with celebrity hairstylist Louis Licari and Today fashion expert Jill Martin. This week, it was Kelly and Keith Moore who ended up capturing the team's hearts. Jill flew to Wichita, Kansas, to surprise Kelly, 57, and Keith, 60, with the news that they were headed to the Big Apple for some primping in pampering in celebration of their weight loss. Scroll down for video His and hers! Kelly and Keith Moore received dramatic ambush makeovers on the Today show Thursday. The couple was surprised with a trip to New York City in addition to the makeover Before: Kelly, 57, and Keith, 60, wowed the Today show team with their story, revealing that they both lost weight so they could keep up with their young grandson Elijah The couple was undoubtedly shocked to find Jill outside of their door, and Kelly couldn't help but ask: 'What are you doing at my house?' Grandma: Kelly, who lost more than 40 pounds, said it used to be too hard for her to get on the floor to play with Elijah The stylist happily revealed that the Today show was flying them to New York City for ambush makeovers. Kelly recently lost more than 40 pounds, explaining it was her grandson Elijah who served as the ultimate motivator. 'I was finding out that when I tried to play with him and get down on the floor, it was too hard,' she explained. 'I lost a bunch of weight and he lost some weight, and we both feel so much better.' Keith started to tear up while talking about how 'amazing' his wife is, and she stressed that he also deserves a new look because 'he works really hard.' 'We both just feel so much better,' Kelly said. 'I look in the mirror and I don't look like how I feel. We need pizzazz.' Throwback: Kelly explained that she and Keith wanted to look as good as they felt Begging for a transformation: 'I look in the mirror and I don't look like how I feel. We need pizzazz,' she said Kelly's daughter Jade, her boyfriend Will, and their son Elijah also flew to New York to see the couple unveil their new looks on Thursday morning's episode of the Today show. Keith was the first to come out to show off his transformation much to the delight of Jade and Will, who were blown away by his new look. 'It's incredible,' Jade said of his makeover, which involved cutting and styling his long gray locks as well as swapping his loose-fitting clothes with a tailored blazer and jeans. Say what? The couple was undoubtedly shocked to find Jill outside of their door Big reveal: The stylist happily revealed that the Today show was flying them to New York City for ambush makeovers Love: Keith started to tear up while talking about how 'amazing' his wife is 'Oh my,' he said when he looked in the mirror. 'No way.' After he confirmed that he liked his new appearance, Today host Hoda Kotb gushed that he looks 'like a GQ model.' Louis explained that Igor Musayev took Keith's hair from 'very long' to 'very groomed,' while he blended his grays away. 'Keith, you are probably the most handsome man in America, so own it,' the hairstylist told him. Looking good: Keith's makeover involved cutting and styling his long gray locks as well as swapping his loose-fitting clothes with a tailored blazer and jeans 'Incredible': Kelly's daughter Jade, her boyfriend Will, and their son Elijah also flew to New York to see the couple unveil their new looks, and they were stunned by Keith's transformation New 'do: Celebrity hairstylist Louis Licari explained that Igor Musayev took Keith's hair from 'very long' to 'very groomed,' while he blended his grays away Aww: Keith had tears in his eyes while everyone gushed about how good he looks He was so overcome with emotion that he started to cry, and the sweet moment got even sweeter when Elijah wandered over so he could pick him up. After Kelly stepped on stage, it was Keith's turn to be blown away. His jaw dropped when he saw his wife's dramatic transformation for the first time, and she was equally surprised when she saw him. 'Oh my God,' she said, throwing her hands over her mouth. Kelly was just as ecstatic when she turned around and looked in the mirror. Beautiful: Kelly looked just as good when she stepped on state with a smile on her face. She sporting new highlights and skinny jeans that were six sizes smaller than she used to wear Amazed: Keith's jaw dropped when he saw his wife's dramatic transformation for the first time, and she was equally surprised when she saw him So sweet: Keith walked over and handed her a bouquet of roses, and she couldn't' resist touching his hair 'Wow,' she said. Keith walked over and handed her a bouquet of roses, and she was so excited she started jumping up and down. Louis explained that Kelly's long locks were cut into stylish layers, and he updated her color by giving her highlights and covering her gray pieces. Jill, meanwhile, dressed her in a tan sueded drape jacket and skinny jeans, which she happily pointed were six sizes smaller than Kelly used to wear before her weight loss. Looking good: Louis explained that Kelly's long locks were cut into stylish layers, and he updated her color by giving her highlights and covering her gray pieces Success: The couple looked completely different after their makeovers much to their delight The stylist topped off the look with cutout pumps and statement jewelry. Jade admitted that she was 'speechless,' but she and Will both agreed that they deserved the makeover. Kelly's transformation was so dramatic that it appeared as though Elijah didn't recognize her. When she tried calling him over to her, he just stood in place and stared. 'He'll figure it out,' Hoda assured her. A pair of $54 leggings from UK-based outlet Marks & Spencer have been heralded as a workout essential by Australian fitness fans - who say the tights are better than high-end products. The M&S Collection Perfect Blackout Cropped Leggings are three-quarter length tights that not only look stylish but have also been praised for their affordable price point and good quality. Those who love high-intensity forms of exercise will be pleased to know the tights are made from a breathable fabric that pulls moisture away from the body. These three-quarter length tights (pictured) from M&S, priced at $54, are made from a breathable fabric that also pulls moisture away from the body Testers of the tights said that they are suitable for a number of different sports. These include walking, Pilates, yoga, barre, strength training or circuit training. Those who have tried them online said the tights are especially good at remaining black - and others praised the hidden back pocket, which is perfect for a mobile phone. The tights come with a handy back pocket which features a zip enclosure that's big enough to hold a cellphone The leggings hold a three-and-half star rating out of five on the M&S website, with reviewers saying they are 'excellent' as well as praising them for their fit. 'Excellent very supporting leggings. As good as much more expensive brands,' wrote one person. 'They're very tight when pulling up the legs but once you get them up there they're great and the colour is a dream, you rarely find a workout legging in this colour,' said another. The tights feature a high waistband which makes them idea for forms of exercise where bending or squatting is requried Others who had also purchased the tights and left reviews commented that the garment ran slightly smaller than expected. 'Nice leggings - but had to return as very small fit - not much stretch I would buy a size up from usual size,' said one. Australian shoppers wishing to purchase the tights will be pleased to know M&S ships to Australia and there's also a 35-day window for returning products. An old 1940s warehouse in Victoria has been transformed into a stunning two bedroom home complete with a modern kitchen, a powder room and modern decor. The North Melbourne home is one of eight in the complex and features a private courtyard and underground garage. 'It is a loft-style townhouse and as you are on the stairs you have a city skyline view,' estate agent Charles Bongiovanni told realestate.com.au. 'The developer kept the shell and lifted the roof to get the second storey. The external walls have also been retained so it has a real warehouse feel to it.' An old 1940s warehouse in Victoria has been transformed into a stunning two bedroom home complete with a modern kitchen, a powder room and modern decor 'It is a loft-style townhouse and as you are on the stairs you have a city skyline view,' estate agent Charles Bongiovanni told realestate.com.au The external walls of the old building were retained to retain the warehouse feel in the courtyard The property is open plan, opening up to the living room with a custom-built study area and storage room. The modern adjoining kitchen is made up of stone bench tops, a pull-out pantry and stainless steel appliances. Upstairs are two bedrooms which both have built-in wardrobes as well as a bathroom and laundry. For an added bit of luxury there is also a powder room. Stone bench tops, a pull-out pantry and stainless steel appliances complement the modern adjoining kitchen The 1940s townhouse in North Melbourne, Australia, is one of eight in the complex and features a private courtyard and underground garage Some of the amenities that make up the home are split-system air conditioners, a basement carpark, keyless entry and an alarm system. The townhouse was designed by award-winning architect Richard Kerr and won't set buyers back millions as it currently has a price tag of $750,000 to $800,000. Mr Bongiovanna said the architecturally designed loft-style townhouse was attracting young professionals who were looking to move into the area. 'Especially around North Melbourne there's a real attraction to these unique buildings.' A former events planner who taught herself to sew is now a popular designer loved by the stars. Nadine Merabi, 37, from Manchester, who had no formal fashion training, simply bought a sewing machine and learned the skill by watching YouTube tutorials. Now, the self-taught fashion designer boasts a celebrity clientele and has dressed the likes of Little Mix, Mel B, Paloma Faith and Michelle Keegan - along with brides and women who want to feel confident and look good. Having never even threaded a sewing machine before she set out, Nadine's business is on target to generate an impressive 1.5 million turnover by the end of this year. Nadine Merabi (above), 37, from Manchester, has launched a 1.5 million pound clothing business which is loved by the stars - including Michelle Keegan, Paloma Faith and Mel B Michelle Keegan opted to wear one of Nadine's designs when she attended Revlon's Choose Love Masquerade Ball held at the Victoria and Albert Museum (above) Brooke Vincent (pictured) was Nadine's very first celebrity client. Above, arriving for the 2012 British Soap Awards at ITV London Studios, South Bank, London Former Saturday member Rochelle Humes donned a sparkly gold design for her lavish 30th birthday celebrations at Soho Farmhouse Nadine's website went online and global in 2015 and her brand NADINE MERABI is now sold in around 60 select stockists around the world. Her first famous client was Coronation Street actress Brooke Vincent - who she already knew from when she used to run events. 'She found out I was making dresses and asked me to design one for her for the National Television Awards in January 2011,' said Nadine. 'Id never done anything like this before and we were still in the studio at 3.30am in the morning to get it finished in time. It was an off-the-shoulder cream crepe dress with boning and a split to the thigh.' The talented designer (above ) has no formal design or fashion training, and simply bought a sewing machine and learned to sew and perfect her skills using online YouTube tutorials One of Nadine's proudest moments was seeing Mel B in one of her designs. She said: 'I grew up loving the Spice Girls so to see Scary Spice in one of my designs was mind blowing.' Pictured, Mel B in a Nedine Merabi jumpsuit as she arrived as the America's Got Talent Season 12 Kick off event in Los Angeles All that glitters! Meghan Trainor sizzled in plunging sequined jumpsuit at Ellen DeGeneres' 60th birthday celebration 'I knew how I wanted it to look, but I was basically learning as I was making it, which is what I do most of the time.' She continued: 'Brooke was in a big story line at the time, so she was splashed all over the front pages of the newspapers with Sacha Parkinson and the dress got loads of exposure.' Speaking of the other famous faces she's dressed, Nadine said: 'I have lots of celebrity clients including Catherine Tyldesley, Paloma Faith, Jade Thirlwall, Rochelle Humes, Meghan Trainor and Myleene Klass.' Despite her success in the industry, Nadine never started out as a designer and actually worked as a freelance party planner, running events and promotions in Manchester. 'I knew I didnt want to do this for the rest of my career,' explained Nadine. 'It was around this time that I started hand sewing a few pieces, so I decided to bite the bullet and leave events to try my hand at designing. I had a couple of months wages under my belt to keep me going and just took the plunge.' She added: 'When I was working in events, I was getting ready for another party and felt deflated at having to wear something that didnt make me feel special.' 'I wanted to wear something different that nobody else had, without having to pay 2,000 or more.' Nadine decided to bite the bullet and leave events to try her hand at designing. Above, the Dina and Lola dress from her collection Nadine has lots of celebrity clients including Catherine Tyldesley (pictured), Paloma Faith, Michelle Keegan, Jade Thirlwall, Rochelle Humes, Meghan Trainor and Myleene Klass. Pictured, Catherine Tyldesley at The British Soap Awards at The Lowry in Manchester 'I was also finding women all around me wanting to get dressed up more and more often, whether they were going to hen-dos, weddings or parties, so I felt there was a real gap in the market.' Nadine bought her first sewing machine back in October 2010 and while at first she didnt even know how to thread it, she hasn't looked back since. 'I spent the next two weeks at home watching YouTube tutorials and learning how to sew,' explained the talented designer. 'One of the first nights I had it, I started sewing and didnt finish until 3am I was just so determined to complete a dress and was so excited to wear my own design for the first time.' 'I love the satisfaction of working with my hands, feeling the fabric and seeing the designs come to life.' After making two dresses in two weeks, a friend suggested that Nadine try and sell them in a pop-up store opening in Manchester. 'I went a long to speak to the woman running it and she said I could have a rail in the December if I made more dresses,' she explained. 'I ended up making 20 dresses in two months to sit on the rail and none of them had zips, as I hadnt mastered that skill just yet.' Nadine started designing dresses after finding women all around her wanting to get dressed up more and more often - and felt there was a real gap in the market. Pictured the Nyla dress (left) and Stella gold dress (right) And the fashion designer fondly remembers the first dress she ever sold - which got snapped off the rails during the launch of Merabis first collection in 2010. 'The first dress I ever made was a long black boob tube with a white stripe and it sold on the first night of the pop up,' she explained. 'Among the 20 dresses I made for the pop up, there was a backless dress thats still being manufactured now. Of course, its been tweaked and refined but it sells online as the DINA dress.' Speaking of her first customer, Nadine explained: 'Selling at the pop-up went on for two years and my first paying customer still buys a MERABI dress every December for her Christmas party.' 'From the very beginning, the brand has kept on evolving and diversifying and our audience base has grown with it too; there are now women in their forties and fifties alongside girls of sixteen wearing my designs.' 'The range has also evolved from full-on floor length evening gowns to shorter party dresses and jumpsuits and new collections, such as the RESORT range of lighter, summer pieces and MARRY ME IN MERABI that will be launched in June for weddings, hen dos and honeymoons.' Catherine Tyldesley was spotted arriving at the Mirror Ball in Manchester, looking like Jessica Rabbit, wearing Nadine's red sparkled dress Myleene Klass opted for a full-length black gown as she attended The Global Awards with Very.co.uk at the Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith on March 7, 2019 in London Nadine started promoting her brand via social media - and the business has continued to grow from there. 'The pop-up was promoted on Facebook, as it was a time before Instagram, but when I met Blue Wilson and Nathan Alexander from BODA SKINS and formed a partnership with them in 2013, we officially launched the brand online and marketed it on Instagram,' she explained. 'We now have around 162,000 followers on Instagram and 60% of them are international, which means we do a lot of exporting, mainly to the United States.' 'However, while the brand reaches a global audience, it stills retains the spirit, creativity and confidence that Manchester is famous for.' And while she's keeping shtum at the moment, the Manchester-based designer has revealed there are some exciting plans on the horizon. 'Weve just signed up with a big PR agency in LA so we're busy building relationships with stylists and A-listers in the States,' she explained. 'Im also getting requests from top A-listers for bespoke pieces, so watch this space.' Nadine admitted that there have been many proud moments to date, but she recalled one that particularly stands out in her memory. 'The first was right at the beginning when I saw a woman in a bar in Mayfair wearing MERABI,' she explained. 'I really wanted to go up to her and tell her I had designed her dress - but I didnt. Now women across London are wearing my brand, but back then it was such a surreal moment.' Lady in red! Demi Rose (above) flaunted her cleavage in a crimson number for a reception at a South African winery Former Love Island contestant Laura Anderson donned a Nadine Merabi design as she attended International Day of the Girl gala at Annabel's, Berkeley Square in Mayfair, London 'The second was waking up one morning and looking at the Mail Online, only to see Mel B wearing one of my jumpsuits as she walked the red carpet with Simon Cowell and Heidi Klum on Americas Got Talent. I grew up loving the Spice Girls so to see Scary Spice in one of my designs was mind blowing.' And boasting a famous clientele, Nadine's design's have featured at many glitzy events. 'My pieces have featured heavily at the NTAs and Soap Awards,' she said. 'Paloma Faith has performed in MERABI and Una Healy recently wore one of my designs. Its great to have this kind of exposure, but for me its all about the designing.' 'The most expensive piece Ive sold was a bespoke dress for around 10,000. The materials cost a lot more and it took a lot of time to hand embellish it.' Describing how no two days are the same in her job, she said: 'I get to the studio at either 8am or 10am and because Im involved in every aspect of the business, I can be in meetings a lot of the day around sales, marketing and e-com.' 'I have great support around me now so Im not sitting sewing every day, but Im still very much designing and creating and if I get to do this in my working day, its a great day.' She continued: 'I go to London tomorrow to help cast models for a photoshoot for the website and Im there again for three days next week to oversee the shoot.' Former Love Island star Ellie Brown was seen leaving Chotto Matte restaurant in Soho in one of Nadine's designs Demi Rose is a fan of the brand and has worn dresses designed by Nadine on several occasions. Above, leaving the Beauty Awards with OK! 'However, Im often travelling the world looking for new fabrics, embellishments and inspiration for my designs or holding influencer events and running pop-up stores in UAE and the US. Just recently I was attending the Oscars events in LA. Now, Nadine's business has grown by 400% in just three years and she will reach around 1.5m turnover by the end of 2019. 'The brand sells inhouse, online through www.nadinemerabi.com and in around 60 stockists worldwide, with just one stockist in each area to retain an air of exclusivity,' explained Nadine. 'Were also exporting a lot too to regions such as the United States, the Middle East and Australasia its really exciting.' She added: 'The whole process has been amazing and Ive taken inspiration from the strength, power and creativity of the women in my life, including my clients. 'I cant count the number of times a client has come to a private fitting with the belief that they would never be able to wear "glamorous" clothing. It takes a lot of bravery to push yourself out of your comfort zone and try something new.' 'After trying on a few designs the transformation can be amazing. Women go from believing I could never wear that to feeling a million dollars. A dress doesnt control your self confidence in life, but it can genuinely help your confidence for the night.' Stay-at-home mum Nancy Du, 43, made headlines earlier this year when she shared her overflowing bento lunchbox and accessory collection that requires two cupboards and four separate shelves of storage. And now, three months on, the dedicated Melbourne-based mum has shared some of the imaginative lunches she's been making her little boy Jack, five, since he started school. Every morning, Ms Du spends an hour creating a nourishing lunchbox for her partner Pat, 32, and about 20 minutes perfecting lunches for Jack - complete with little characters, colourful snacks and food cut into playful shapes. She then picks a box from her colossal collection to complete her creation. Stay-at-home mum Nancy Du , 43, made headlines earlier this year when she shared her overflowing bento lunchbox and accessory collection that requires two cupboards and four separate shelves of storage (pictured is her son Jack, five) And now, three months on, the dedicated Melbourne-based mum has shared some of the imaginative lunches she's been making her little boy Jack, five, since he started school 'Because Jack is still new to having lunch at kinder I need to make quick and easy lunches for him,' Ms Du, the founder of Come Bento With Me, said. 'I make two different lunches most days - one for my partner which is pretty much left over dinner plus additional sides and one for my son which has some leftovers incorporated into it but mainly easy to eat foods. 'I make sure that there is protein, carbohydrates, fruit and veggies and make sure that the lunches are colourful and as healthy as possible. His kinder is actually a junk free zone which is good as I try not to pack processed foods for him.' One of her favourite lunches is to make is a 'kiddy version' of a vegetable pork roll made by cutting it into three and putting them on a skewer. She then adds little round rice balls or nigiri and some fruit. Every morning, Ms Du spends an hour creating a nourishing lunchbox for her partner Pat, 32, and about 20 minutes perfecting lunches for Jack - complete with little characters, colourful snacks and food cut into playful shapes 'Because Jack is still new to having lunch at kinder I need to make quick and easy lunches for him,' Ms Du, the founder of Come Bento With Me , said 'I make sure that there is protein, carbohydrates, fruit and veggies and make sure that the lunches are colourful and as healthy as possible,' she said Ms Du said she is constantly thinking of new ways to be creative and always plans the meals ahead of time. 'I do my usual weekly shopping at my local supermarket and J Mart, a Korean Supermarket and a Japanese online store, Ichiba Junction,' she said. 'For example, I will buy frozen beef and pork from J Mart store and Ichiba Junction. The beef comes in one kilo frozen packs that I separate into smaller portions and that can last me about four to six meals depending on what I am making.' Ms Du says she is proud with the playful lunches she has come up with so far and is always looking to come up with new and inventive ways to brighten up their days. 'When I look back at my first lunches I do see how far I have come. I get my inspiration from people I follow on Instagram, recipes I come across from people that I follow on Facebook and love putting my own spin on things too,' Ms Du said. One of her favourite lunches is to make is a 'kiddy version' of a vegetable pork roll made by cutting it into three and putting them on a skewer Ms Du said she loves having such a variety of options and is proud of the collection she has amassed over the past year 'I also love browsing through Bento&Co to see what new products they have - although I have amassed a small collection and have no desire to buy anymore, everytime I look at it I want to buy more to add to my collection.' Ms Du said she loves having such a variety of options and is proud of the collection she has amassed over the past year. 'It really is no different to people collecting dvds, games for certain consoles, dolls or shoes. I do not drink, or smoke or take drugs, recreation or otherwise and this is what I love doing,' she said. 'I love food and I love cooking - cooking is my way of showing my family how much I love them and how much they mean to me. It's an added bonus that they love my cooking, so I am blessed.' 'It really is no different to people collecting dvds, games for certain consoles, dolls or shoes. I do not drink, or smoke or take drugs, recreation or otherwise and this is what I love doing,' Ms Du (left) said Speaking to FEMAIL previously, Ms Du said lunch-packing is far from a monotonous chore and is instead a much-loved hobby Speaking to FEMAIL previously, Ms Du said lunch-packing is far from a monotonous chore and is instead a much-loved hobby. 'Jack is starting kinder and that is how the bento collection started, he is my inspiration behind all this,' Ms Du said. 'I wanted to make him yummy lunches for kinder. Growing up in a big family of seven children and both parents working, my lunches back then consisted of a stale sandwich and some home brand Strassburg if we were lucky. 'I would always look at other kids lunches and envy the yummy lunches they had so I guess I am making up for my lost childhood and want to provide my son and partner with healthy, varied and yummy lunches.' Ms Du did some research and came across online stores with lunchboxes she loved the look of before her collection really took off Ms Du did some research and came across online stores with lunchboxes she loved the look of before her collection really took off. 'Between the three of us I currently have about 70 bento boxes and about 10 snack boxes that I accumulated in the last two months and they are all varied in shapes and sizes,' she said. 'Depending on what I make for lunch, I choose a box accordingly. My son loves the bento boxes that I have bought for him and he thanks me for them.' 'Between the three of us I currently have about 70 bento boxes and about 10 snack boxes that I accumulated in two months and they are all varied in shapes and sizes,' she said Ms Du also has 250 food picks, vegetable cutters, silicon cups, sauce bottles, nori cutters and egg shapers as part of her enormous collection which she groups into categories and stores in stackable trays. Jack also has 22 drink bottles and half of them are stainless steel for insulation in summer. While some may think the collection is over the top, Ms Du says she is simply providing for her family what she could only dream of having as a child. 'I was born in Vietnam during the Vietnam War and our family was lucky to escape and flee to Finland,' she said. 'From there we stayed for about seven years and then we were sponsored to go to Australia by our cousins. 'It brings me great joy to feed the people that I love and see them enjoy my food.' Ms Du can be found on Instagram and on Facebook and regularly shares her amazing lunches and lunch recipes A royal fan has revealed how she perfectly recreates some of Meghan and Kate's most stylish looks, even without their extensive budget. Sharon Adler, 37, has managed to create her own royal-inspired wardrobe for a fraction of the price - by scouring eBay and Poshmark for second-hand items. The financial director from New York also finds low-cost alternatives on the high street, and snatches up designer pieces worn by the Duchesses when they're on sale. Sharon said she first developed an interest in British royal style when Kate Middleton became engaged to Prince William in 2010, before becoming intrigued by Meghan's closet in the lead up to her wedding to Prince Harry. Since then, she has found some great dupes and also purchased designer items, such as Meghan's Roland Mouret handbag, for a heavily discounted price on second-hand clothing website, Depop. Sharon Adler, 37, pictured wearing the Reiss dress that Meghan Markle wore on International Women's day, is inspired by the royals' wardrobes and tries to recreate their looks Sharon buys the items, such as the Reiss dress pictured on the Duchess of Sussex, when they are on sale or by searching for them on eBay to get them at a discount Sharon said that recreating the Duchess of Sussex's and Duchess of Cambridge's wardrobes has inspired her to feel more confident and positive in her day-to-day life. Sharon - who documents her outfits inspired by the Royals on Instagram as @royallyinspired - explains: 'I fell in love with Kate Middleton's style when she wore her now iconic Issa wrap dress to announce her engagement to William. 'She was so beautiful and poised. Her gorgeous outfit really opened my eyes to a new way of dressing that combined elegance with approachability. The royal fan (left), pictured recreating the outfit that Meghan wore to announce her engagement to Prince Harry in November 2017 (right) Sharon, left in a $82 (63) dress from Gap, found a replica of Meghan's $688 (525) Veronica Beard dress, right, that she wore whilst in Tonga in October 2018 'As a person too, Kate appealed to me. She always seemed so positive and caring, both to William and later their children, and her charity work with kids. So I started replicating her outfits in my own wardrobe. 'I was also immediately drawn to Meghan's classic yet casual style when she started dating Harry, and I started recreating it too. 'But more importantly, Meghan is a focused and accomplished person, who successfully pursued her dreams long before she met her "Prince". 'Meghan is articulate and passionate about her beliefs, and dressing like her reminds me that anyone can embody those qualities. Sharon, left, also has the navy and white J.Crew jacket that the Duchess of Sussex, right, wore on a visit to Birmingham with Price Harry Sharon, pictured recreating Meghan's casual style from when the she visited Morocco in February, said investing in the basics is a great way to start a royal-inspired wardrobe The royal fan, left, found Meghan's green Jason Wu dress on sale but the store did not have her size. Sharon said: 'I was at least able to squeeze into it and take a photo! It's all part of the fun' Sharon 'fell in love with Kate Middleton's style' when she wore her Issa wrap dress, pictured, to announce her engagement to William and has been shopping like the royals' ever since 'While the clothes don't make the woman, they serve as a little reminder that one doesn't have to be famous or royal in order to be strong and confident. 'Fashion is a form of self-expression and I have a lot of fun recreating the wardrobes of these two inspirational and strong women.' When Sharon first became fascinated by the Duchess of Cambridge's style nine years ago, she realized she would have to be inventive if she wanted to expand her royal wardrobe on a cheaper budget. SHARON'S TOP TIPS FOR RECREATING MEGHAN'S AND KATE MOST STYLISH LOOKS PATIENCE: You have to keep looking for the specific items you want. Sometimes it can take years, but don't give up! You never know when or where you may find it. PERSISTENCE: Keep checking Poshmark and Ebay, keep looking in sales sections. Whenever you are shopping or have a free moment, do a quick search for your wish-list items! BE CREATIVE: If you can't find the exact piece, try to find something that will give a similar impression, such as I did the Gap dress. Just do Google searches of the type of item you are looking for, you never know what might pop up. There are also websites that sell copies of outfits worn by Kate or Meghan or clothing 'inspired' by royal fashion such as Ali Express and some shops on Etsy for reasonable prices. Even Amazon has a good selection of royal inspired items for lower prices. BEGIN WITH A FEW CLASSIC PIECES: There are a lot of items that are reasonably priced and still available if you want to start replicating, but want to start slow. For instance, Meghan loves button down shirts from J Crew, both white and denim. She also has a pair of Rothys flats she wore during the tour of Australia that are still available. Kate likes Breton striped tops, its easy to find striped tops that are similar to the ones she has worn. She also recently wore 2 J Crew sweaters. She regularly wears a pair of Ray Ban Wayfarer Folding Classic sunglasses. These are timeless pieces which you can wear again and again! Advertisement She explains: 'In the early days, when Kate was the only duchess on the scene, I couldn't afford most of the clothes that she wore. So I tried to buy items that were inspired by her look, rather than the identical pieces. 'But now I can afford to buy some of their actual clothing, and whenever either duchess wears something from a high street store, I try to purchase it if it's available. 'However Meghan and Kate do still wear their fair share of expensive designer pieces, so I also look for clothes that are similar, but at a more reasonable price point. 'Living in New York City, I'm lucky to have access to stores, which sell some of the high-end royal clothing. Sometimes, I go to these stores and try on the dresses even if I can't afford to buy them. 'It's great to see them up close and appreciate the fabric and fit in person. And it inspires me to scout for low-cost replicas of them.' The most expensive royal-inspired item that Sharon has purchased is the $767 (585) Mackage navy coat that the Duchess of Sussex wore for her first royal engagement with Harry in Nottingham in December 2017. However with her resourceful ways, Sharon managed to hunt down Meghan's All Saints Jumper whilst it was on sale. She managed to get the jumper for $145 (110) instead of $223 (170). She also purchased Meghan's Roland Mouret handbag for a heavily discounted price on second-hand clothing website, Depop. Sharon has also found high-street pieces which wonderfully resemble the designer items that the Duchesses have worn. She says: 'Its definitely a thrill when you find an exact royal piece that you have been coveting, however, I think its just as fun to re-create one of Meghan's or Kate's looks at a more affordable price point. 'Recently I found a good duplicate at Gap of the blue $688 (525) Veronica Beard dress which Meghan wore on tour. 'It was also a light blue, button down dress but it cost about 12 per cent of the price of the Veronica Beard dress! 'And for one of Kate's first appearances back after her most recent maternity leave, she wore a Fjallraven sweaterbut, which costs around $197 (150). 'I know that those sweaters can be really itchy. So I went to a discount cashmere retailer near me and found a sweater which pretty closely resembled Kate's Fjallraven one for a fraction of the price. 'I like to find items inspired by the Duchesses' jewellery collections too. While much of what Kate and Meghan wear is expensive, I have been quite lucky to have found similar looking items at lower prices. Sharon, pictured, also managed to grab the red self-portrait dress that Meghan wore in Tonga The Duchess of Sussex wowed in the customised version of a red Self Portrait dress, when she and the Duke touched down in Tonga - despite the label hanging off the hem Sharon said she will try to buy an item worn by the royals immediately as the clothing often sells out. She is pictured recreating what Meghan wore to Birmingham in March after buying the same All Saints jumper when it was reduced to $145 (110) from $223 (170) Meghan's simple outfit of a cream jumper and black trousers which she wore in March 2018 while visiting Birmingham was one of the simpler for Sharon to recreate with duplicates 'So on days when I don't wear "royal" clothing, I like to throw on a piece of jewellery - whether that's a ring, earrings or a bracelet - and still feel that I have a little something extra with me to help me get through the day!' Sharon admits it can be hard to track down particular pieces from Kate's and Meghan's closets as they can sell out so quickly. She says: 'If I see either Kate or Meghan wearing something that I like, I will try to buy it immediately as they often sell out quickly. If Sharon, pictured recreating Meghan's July 2018 Wimbledon look, cannot get hold of an item straight away she will check eBay, Depop or Poshmark Meghan, pictured at Wimbledon, paired the striped shirt with cream trousers whereas Sharon made it more casual by donning a pair of blue jeans Although not the exact same colour as theLK Bennett dress Kate wore in December 2018, Sharon, pictured, managed to track down two similar spotty dresses from the designer The Duchess of Cambridge is pictured after meeting volunteers at the homeless charity The Passage in London while wearing a 325 green and cream silk polka dot dress from LK Bennett 'But if I can't get hold of it, I'll check Ebay and Poshmark frequently to see if it will pop up. 'I think to be successful at replicating royal outfits, one has to be both patient and persistent. 'You have to keep looking for the items you want and you also have to be prepared that it may take a while to find them! You never know when you may stumble upon something good 'I was at Saks Fifth Avenue a while ago and found that green Jason Wu dress Meghan wore on tour on sale. Sadly they didn't have my size, but I was at least able to squeeze into it and take a photo! It's all part of the fun. Sharon said she loves sharing her royal-inspired wardrobe. She is pictured wearing an adapted version of the Club Monaco trench that the Duchess of Sussex wore while visiting New Zealand As well as finding the clothes Sharon, pictured left and right, likes to accessorise like the royals and has invested in sunglasses and handbags similar to Kate and Meghan's Sharon, pictured, recreated Meghan's outfit which she wore to watch Prince Harry in the Audi Polo Challenge at Coworth Park Polo Club in 2017, and even wore similar over sized sunglasses Meghan, left, looked impeccably stylish in a navy asymmetric dress and a chic white blazer at the polo game in 2017. Sharon said dressing like the Duchess gives her a 'confidence boost' 'I love sharing my outfits with other royal fashion watchers on Instagram and chatting about ways to copy the Duchesses' outfits. 'There's an active community of women across the world who feel empowered and inspired by Meghan's and Kate's style. 'Dressing like them gives me a little boost of confidence and allows me take a bit of the Duchesses' poise and elegance with me wherever I go'. The royal fan, pictured left and right recreating Meghan Markle's look, runs an Instagram account to share her inspired outfits Another pointer Sharon, pictured recreating the outfit the Duchess of Sussex wore to launch her cook book in September 2018, gives to women who might like to dress like Meghan and Kate is to always be willing to wait for an item and to shop around for similar clothes A waitress who had no idea she was pregnant gave birth at home and had to cut the umbilical cord with a pair of scissors before her boyfriend accused her of finding the baby in the street. Charlotte Dubard, 24, from Bow, east London, gave birth in her bath after not knowing she was pregnant - only for her boyfriend Miguel Angel, 28, to get in from work and accuse her of finding the baby in the street. The stunned new mum had no idea she was due to have a baby - despite suddenly craving sugar and gaining around 11lbs in weight. She felt a series of sudden abdominal pains so decided to investigate with her iPhone camera. After taking a video, she was stunned to see her baby's hair sprouting out from 'downstairs.' Charlotte Dubard, 24, from Bow, east London, gave birth at home after not knowing she was pregnant - only for her boyfriend to get in from work and accuse her of finding the baby in the street. Pictured, she was a size 8-10 throughout her pregnancy When the waitress felt a sudden abdominal pain, she decided to investigate with her iPhone camera and saw the baby's hair. Above, Charlotte, Miguel and Elias Pictured, Charlotte and Elias with their surprise baby. Following his birth, Elias was immediately taken to the hospital after his surprise birth and put in intensive care for thorough checks The graduate - who was a size eight to ten throughout her secret pregnancy - allowed instinct to take over as she gave birth in the bath. Baby Elias was born at a healthy 6lbs 8oz on January 29. Charlotte underwent the excruciating experience all alone and without the aid of painkillers. She then found a pair of nail scissors to slice her umbilical cord before ringing Miguel and telling him he needed to come home urgently. He dashed back from his job at Pret-a-Manger to the couple's flat. The new mum (right) had no idea she was due to have a baby - despite suddenly craving sugar and gaining around 11lbs in weight. Pictured, Charlotte, her boyfriend Miguel Angel, 28 and baby Elias Recalling the moment Miguel saw Charlotte holding baby Elias (centre) for the first time, she explained: 'When Miguel came home, he screamed "Oh my god you found a baby in the street!"' Charlotte said she feels 'incredibly lucky' to have such a healthy baby (above) as she was smoking, drinking and working 14 hour days throughout her pregnancy 'When Miguel came home, he screamed "Oh my god you found a baby in the street!" said Charlotte. 'I started bawling and said "This is ours." He was in shock. Neither of us could believe it was ours. It was the most mysterious thing.' She admitted that it took Miguel 'ages to believe' the tot was his. Reflecting on her pregnancy, Charlotte said that she had gained some weight, but not enough to give her pause. 'I obviously gained a little bit of weight but nowhere near enough to make me think I could be pregnant,' she said. She added: 'In hindsight, I was craving a lot of sugar, and I did also have a problem with my leg which meant I had to be off work for a week. The doctor said that was probably the pressure from the baby. 'One evening, I started to get cramps but they were really quite mild - milder than my usual period pains. 'Then the next day they continued and they kept coming and going in waves which I now realise were my contractions.' After the new mother had given birth, she found a pair of nail scissors to slice her umbilical cord. Pictured, Charlotte and baby Elias Allowing instinct to take over, Charlotte gave birth to her surprise baby in the bath - and she then called Miguel and told him to get home 'urgently' Little Elias was immediately taken to the hospital after his surprise birth and put in intensive care for thorough checks. 'It was only once we got to the hospital that I really registered what had happened,' said Charlotte. 'I was so traumatised from the birth, I had barely registered Elias at all.' 'But then when we were waiting for the doctor, Miguel said, "Look he has your nose" and that's when I suddenly realised he was ours.' The waitress added that she feels incredibly lucky to have such a healthy baby, despite smoking, drinking and working 14 hour days throughout her pregnancy. She also continued taking the contraceptive pill while pregnant, and claims her periods remained normal during those nine months. 'I call him my miracle baby because he is so healthy after all I put him through,' she explained. 'Also, so many things could have gone wrong with me giving birth alone, but it all went remarkably smoothly.' 'The midwives even asked me how I knew where to cut the umbilical cord, because if I had done it wrong it could have been so dangerous. I have no idea how I knew exactly what to do, I guess instinct took over.' Charlotte and Miguel first met on dating app Happn in the capital just under three years ago. While they planned to move to the US, they're now staying put. Pictured, Charlotte, Miguel and Elias Charlotte admitted that while she was usually very careful at taking the contraceptive pill, she recalled two occasions when she forgot to take it around the time Elias was presumably conceived. Pictured, mother and son Elias Charlotte and Miguel met on dating app Happn in the capital just under three years ago. Though she said she was usually very careful at taking the contraceptive pill, she recalled two occasions when she forgot to take it around the time Elias was presumably conceived. The student couple had been planning to move to the US but are now staying put in London. She credits her family for making the transition into motherhood so easily. 'I actually didn't tell my mum right away, because she was working and I knew she wouldn't be able to finish her shift if I told her,' she explained. 'I waited until the next day and she was so shocked. 'But my family have been so supportive, they're very strict Catholics and they see Elias as a miracle. My grandmother says he is a little angel.' While rare, symptomless pregnancies are a recognised phenomenon. Back in 2016, the Royal College of Midwives estimated they accounted for around one in 2,500 cases in the UK. This translates as 320 cases each year of women not knowing they were pregnant. Charlotte's mother has set up a GoFundMe account so people can donate to help the new parents adjust. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are closely monitoring the situation, calling for "stability" and a "peaceful transition". The two countries are ready to support the transitional military council and want the military to stay in control. For now, Qatar is silent. A climate of instability pervades the region. Riyadh (AsiaNews/Agencies) Gulf states, in particular Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), are worried about the political and institutional crisis in Sudan, where protests triggered by the high cost of living, have led to the downfall of the thirty-year dictatorial regime of President Omar al-Bashir. According to many analysts and experts, the two Sunni monarchies are closely monitoring the situation in order to protect their interests in the region. For Riyadh and its allies, Khartoum plays a key role, both in the fight (men and materiel) against the Shia forces in Yemen and in their containment policy vis-a-vis Iran, Saudi Arabias main enemy in the Middle East. Yesterday, after weeks of silence, Saudi Arabia and the UAE issued a first lukewarm statement on Bashirs overthrow, calling for "stability" and a "peaceful transition". "Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are by nature averse to all popular movements or revolutions," said Karim Bitar, director of research at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs. "These are powers that largely privilege the status quo. They fear that any effervescence, any national protest movement, will lead to an oil slick -- that there will be contagion." The recent protests in Sudan, triggered by the rise in the cost of bread and basic foodstuffs, turned into a popular movement that ended Bashirs thirty-year regime, following a coup. The Sudanese military set up a transitional council to govern the country and, among its first measures, it ordered the arrest of all the members of the previous government. The generals have promised not to repress protests, which are continue despite the arrest of the former strongman. People plan to continue to be in the streets until a new civilian government is sworn in. A spokesman for the military council called on the opposition to choose a new Prime Minister and announced the suspension of media censorship and the release of police and military officers arrested for defending the protesters. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi say they back the transitional council, and the Saudis have already pledged economic aid to the people of Sudan "in order to alleviate suffering". "The Gulf states are watching Sudan with apprehension and will do everything possible to ensure that the transition happens in continuity, meaning that Sudan remains under military [and not civil] control," Bitar told media General Abdel Fattah al-Burhans rise as the head of the transitional council is not unwelcome in some Gulf states. The latter see him as someone who can guarantee stability and has close ties with the UAE, especially in the Yemen War in opposition to Iran. The goal is to prevent other tragedies like those in Libya, Syria and Iraq. "In Sudan and Algeria, change is inevitable. The military institutions will supervise the change and hand over power to the civilians, said Mustafa Alani of the Geneva-based Gulf Research Center. The only Gulf state that has remained silent so far is Qatar, which has been in the middle of a serious political and diplomatic rift with Saudi Arabia for almost two years. Bashirs departure shifts the balance of power even for Qatar, which will have to decide if it wants to support the new government, especially in light of the new governments decision vis-a-vis the Yemen crisis. One element on which most experts seem to agree is that Bashirs downfall represents a crucial moment for the Gulf region. With uncertain prevailing in the region, a "managed transition" seems to be the best solution for everyone. She's famously hard to impress, especially when it comes to her sartorial choices. But Anna Wintour, 69, has been particularly taken by the Duchess of Sussex, calling her 'an inspiration'. Speaking to former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown, 65, at the 2019 Women in the World summit in New York the editor-in-chief of Vogue said: 'She's really bringing modernity to the royal family in a way that is inspiring'. 'I think the image that I have in my mind the Duchess of Sussex walking down the aisle by herself, that to me was representative of a modern woman.' Anna Wintour has been particularly taken by the Duchess of Sussex's styling prowess, calling her 'an inspiration' while speaking to former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown at the 2019 Women in the World summit in New York Anna said that the Duchess of Sussex (pictured in Tonga) was bringing 'modernity' to the royal family and is 'very respectful' in her designer choices Continuing to praise the former actress, 37, Anna, who was wearing a leopard print maxi dress continued and shielded her face in sunglasses said: 'When she went on that trip to Australia and New Zealand, she was very respectful in choosing a lot of unknown Australian designers to wear, which was great,' 'But I think, more importantly, she's really bringing modernity to the royal family in a way that is inspiring' she continued. Anna, who is famous for her signature style of black sunglasses, a tea-length dress and statement necklace added that she's considering changing up her 'uniform' thanks to the royal's bold style choices. When Tina asked her how she 'arrived' at her look, and whether or not a uniform is the best solution for a working woman, Anna said it was 'an entirely personal decision'. Anna (left) who is famous for her signature style of black sunglasses, a tea-length dress and statement necklace, told journalist Tina Brown (right) that she's considering changing up her 'uniform' thanks to the Duchess's bold style choices Anna added that the 'the image of the Duchess of Sussex walking down the aisle by herself; during her wedding to Prince Harry in Windsor (picture) 'was representative of a modern woman.' Anna praised Meghan for wearing Australian labels during her tour of Australia and New Zealand. Picture, Meghan holding hands with Harry. She is wearing a Martin Grant dress. He was one of the lesser-known labels that the Duchess gave a huge boost to, wearing three of his designs at different points during the tour 'It's probably an easier decision to wear the same thing every day and not have to be concerned' she continued. 'I've been thinking a lot about suits recently so thank you to the Duchess of Sussex!' But Meghan wasn't the only royal the journalist praised. She also recalled her lunch with Harry's late mother Princess Diana, just six weeks before her death in August 1997. With Tina, Anna met at the Princess of Wales at the Four Seasons in New York, where she donned a mint green Chanel suit. When Tina asked Anna how she 'arrived' at her look, and whether or not a uniform is the best solution for a working woman, Anna said it was 'an entirely personal decision'. 'It's probably an easier decision to wear the same thing every day and not have to be concerned' she continued. 'I've been thinking a lot about suits recently so thank you to the Duchess of Sussex!'. Pictured: Meghan wears a suit to attend the WellChild awards in London Meghan wasn't the only royal the journalist praised. She also recalled her lunch with Harry's late mother Princess Diana, just six weeks before her death in August 1997. Pictured: Anna with the Princess of Wales, Washington Post owner Katheryn Graham, designer Ralph Lauren, and Georgetown University President Leo J. O'Donovan in Washington D.C. 'She looked incredible first of all. That was the most important thing and she looked fantastic' the Vogue editor said. 'I heard that she spent a lot of time deciding what to wear to that particular lunch. 'I think that the part of her popularity was that Princess Diana really was so good with the media and was so in tune with them and welcomed them rather than standing back. 'In a way, she was certainly the first person in the royal family to understand the benefits of that.' The son of an Australian billionaire who went viral with a YouTube video documenting his extravagant lifestyle, has revealed he once married a stranger during a binge-filled weekend of private jets, sushi and champagne. Sydney-born Bobby Misner, 23, the son of Tom Misner -who founded the SAE Institute music school - clocked up 5 million views with his 2018 video 'Life of a Billionaire's son', which sees him showing off his father's private jets, mansions and super yachts. And the vlogger, who has caused much controversy with his ostentatious displays of wealth, has revealed he once splurged 13,000 during a two-day party, which saw him fly a girl to Ibiza on his father's private jet - before buying her a diamond ring and 'marrying' her. Describing being a YouTuber as the 'number one job', he claimed rich kids see him as an 'icon' in a new interview. Billionaire's son Bobby Misner, 23, from Sydney, has revealed he once married a stranger during a binge-filled weekend of private jets, sushi and champagne The vlogger, who has caused much controversy with his ostentatious displays of wealth, has now revealed he once splurged 13,000 during a two-day party, which saw him fly a girl to Ibiza on his father's private jet - seen - before buying her a diamond ring and 'marrying' her Speaking to The Times, Bobby said: [I display my wealth online] because I want to get views. 'Being a YouTuber is the number one job. If you go into a school and ask kids what they want to be, they say a YouTuber. I have a niche. People watch me because I can show them stuff no one else can show them. Rich kids see me as an icon. Reminiscing over his most extravagant moment to date, Boggy remembered: 'One weekend I spent thousands on champagne and sushi, then flew a girl to Ibiza. We partied all weekend then we got married at this place called the Cave. 'I spent 15,000 euros (13,000) on nonsense that weekend. I bought her a diamond ring then whisked her off to the South Of France in my dads jet. I bought a BMW M2 and we started thinking about buying a house together'. Describing being a YouTuber as the 'number one job', Bobby - seen with friends at a Swiss spa - claimed rich kids see him as an 'icon' in a new interview Bobby, seen in front of one of his colleciton of cars, also admitted that he landed in hot water with actress Lindsay Lohan, after claiming in his video that they had dated However their whirlwind romance was short lived and the couple soon parted ways - aided by the fact that their marriage wasn't official - though he has previously stated that they officially divorced. He added: 'And then we realised its just not happening. We dont talk anymore ever.' Bobby also admitted that he landed in hot water with actress Lindsay Lohan, after claiming in his video that they had dated. Clearing up what happened, he added: 'We didnt really date. We just hooked up and hung out. I passed out in her hotel room because I was so drunk and she woke me up on the couch. Shes super cool. [After the video came out] she texted me: "What are you saying".' He added: 'Im not going to change the video. Her sister and I definitely dated. Pictured in front of another of his fast cars, grew up in a single-parent household with his mother and sister, claiming to have lived a modest life into his teens But when he hit 15, his father Tom Misner sold the SAE Group in 2010 for $300million (230million), moving his son to Europe to live with him, something that 'changed his life forever'. He is seen in his father's private jet Bobby grew up in a single-parent household with his mother and sister, claiming to have lived a modest life into his teens. But when he hit 15, his father Tom Misner sold the SAE Group in 2010 for $300million (230million), moving his son to Europe to live with him, something that 'changed his life forever'. Bobby was sent boarding school Millfield, one of the world's most prestigious independent schools, but was expelled soon afterwards. Describing himself, he said he was a 'delinquent, rebel, outsider, misfit' compared to many of the other students at the school but he wasn't alone. After leaving school Bobby said he worked for his father at Abbey Road Studios in London, before he moved to Los Angeles where he has started clothing company Rich Misfits - with t-shirts retailing at between $300 - $600 (220 - 450). Bobby - seen in his father's jet - was sent boarding school Millfield, one of the world's most prestigious independent schools, but was expelled soon afterwards Ivanka Trump looked ready for spring as she continued her tour of Africa on Monday, wearing a $1,700 floral-print dress as she sat down for a meeting with the president of Ethiopia. The 37-year-old first daughter met with President Sahle-Work Zewde during a visit to Addis Ababa, and the pair were seen enjoying an animated conversation, with images showing them both laughing happily as they engaged in a discussion. Ivanka shared a picture on her Instagram Story of her meeting with the president, writing, 'Honored to meet with the @sahleworksewde today, the only serving female President in Africa!' Busy bee: Ivanka Trump, 37, visited with President Sahle-Work Zewde of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa to promote the Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative Ready for summer! The first daughter wore a $1,655 Emilia Wickstead dress for the meeting Proud: The first daughter shared on Instagram about meeting with Ethiopia's first female president (pictured) and called the moment an 'honor' Open discussion: The two women sat together to discuss Ivanka's Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative Empowered: The goal for Ivanka's four-day tour in Africa was to promote her Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative In talks: On Monday, Ivanka met with the Ethiopian president before attending the African Women's Economic Empowerment Dialogue meeting Encouragement: In her Instagram Story, Ivanka expressed her excitement for meeting with the Ethiopian president as she felt her perspective would further empower the initiative She continued: 'I thoroughly enjoyed exchanging ideas & learning from her experiences. Her perspective will inform our work to advance womens economic empowerment on the continent & beyond.' It was all smiles from Ivanka during her meeting while wearing a $1,655 floral shirt dress from Emilia Wickstead, which she paired with white heels. The dress was cinched at Ivanka's waist with a white belt to add more dimension to the fabric's shape as the first daughter spent her Monday attending multiple meetings and visits. Ivanka wore hair straight for the meeting as the two women posed for pictures before sitting down for a discussion. She also attended the African Women's Economic Empowerment Dialogue meeting at the United Nations Economic Commission as part of her four-day trip in Africa. Ivanka sat next to President Sahle-Work Zewde while promoting her efforts her Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative which intends to 50 million women in developing countries by 2025. Earlier on Monday morning, Ivanka visited Holy Trinity Cathedral to meet with religious leaders and lay a wreath for the people who were killed during the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash last month. All smiles: Ivanka paired her floral dress with white heels and wore her hair straight on Monday Happy: 'I thoroughly enjoyed exchanging ideas and learning from her experiences,' Ivanka wrote on Instagram about meeting with President Sahle-Work Zewde of Ethiopia Seat at the table: Ivanka attended the African Women's Economic Empowerment Dialogue meeting at the United Nations Economic Commission on Monday (pictured) Important: The first daughter was seated next to President Sahle-Work Zewde of Ethiopia as she discussed her goals for women in developing countries Form-fitting: The dress was cinched at the waist with a white belt to add more shape Gorgeous: The floral dress was a change from the outfit Ivanka wore earlier when attending the Holy Trinity Cathedral, which included a black veil She's arrived! Ivanka will meet with a variety of leaders and officials during her four-day trip in Africa before heading to the Ivory Coast Ready to discuss: The dress was one of the more summery pieces the first daughter has worn this year A total of 21 United Nations staffers and 12 aid workers were killed when a Boeing 737 Max crashed just minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa, with Nairobi the intended destination. Airlines and countries have since grounded Boeing 737 Max airplanes in response to the crash over concern of other faulty machines. Ivanka wore a black short-sleeved dress and matching flats for the visit. She also pulled her hair back into a bun and fitted a black lace veil on her head for the occasion. The first daughter's schedule has been busy since she touched down in Addis Ababa early Sunday morning. She first took to Instagram to share photos of her meeting as the head of the Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative. Ivanka smiled as she sat and listened to her hosts alongside Mark Green, administrator of the US Agency for International Development. 'Joined @USAIDMarkGreen with the Ethiopian Women in Coffee Association (EWIC) for a great discussion (and coffee cupping!) with inspiring female entrepreneurs,' she wrote in the caption of a three-photo set. 'With @USAID support, they are overcoming lack of access to capital and growing their businesses.' Picture perfect: Ivanka kept her makeup simple with blush on her cheekbones and a light pink lip to match her floral dress Fun times: The president's 2020 budget proposal requests $100 million for the Ivanka's initiative to help women On the move: Ivanka was pictured throughout the day alongside President Sahle-Work Zewde Poised: The two women posed for a number of pictures while also speaking together about how to improve the lives of women in developing countries Ear-to-ear grins: Ivanka was also pictured with Kwesi Quartey, Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission, on Monday Her trip has been met with some criticism when Ivanka was pictured speaking with local women at a textile manufacturing center. The criticism came because Ivanka's now-defunct clothing company faced allegations of using workers in China to produce merchandise. Ignoring backlash, Ivanka has made women's economic empowerment a centerpiece of her White House portfolio. The goal for Ivanka's cause is to economically empower 50 million women in developing countries by 2025. Money for the effort will come through USAID, which initially set up a $50 million fund using dollars already budgeted. The president's 2020 budget proposal requests $100 million for the initiative, which will also be supported by programs across the government as well as private investment. Emotional: On Monday morning, Ivanka paid her respects to the victims who died in the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash last month Tribute: The first daughter wore a black dress and matching flats before placing a wreath at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa for the victims of the crash Focused: Ivanka shared photos of her meeting with the Ethiopian Women in Coffee Association on Sunday morning Enjoyable: It is Ivanka Trump's first visit to Africa since the White House undertook the Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative in February Fun: Ivanka tried her hand at a traditional weaving loom at Moya, a manufacturing center of textile and traditional crafts, with Moya founder Sara Abera (right) on Sunday The White House spending plan would cut overall funding for diplomacy and development. Ivanka has made women's economic empowerment a centerpiece of her White House portfolio. She has made a number of international trips, with a focus on these issues, including to Japan and India. Her travel to Africa follows a five-day tour that Melania Trump made there last year, with a focus on child welfare. However, Ivanka's efforts could be complicated by the President's own remarks after his private comments about 's***hole countries' in Africa and other regions were leaked to journalists. Advertisement Barbara Bush tied the knot to her husband Craig Coyne in an intimate ceremony back in October but the couple had yet another wedding this weekend, six months later. According to Instagram posts from guests, the 37-year-old former first daughter and her 37-year-old husband had yet another set of nuptials this weekend in Crawford, Texas, where her parents, former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura, have a ranch. While their first wedding last fall was thought to be a small, private affair of about 20 people, this time around the happy couple had 200 guests to celebrate them saying 'I do.' Take two! Barbara Bush had a second wedding in Texas this weekend (pictured at the Western-themed rehearsal dinner with friend Megan Ferguson) Another one! The 37-year-old bride already got married back in October but had a second party this weekend (pictured at the event with designer Prabal Gurung) Beautiful: The elegant affair was held at the Bush home, Prairie Chapel Ranch Theme: Photos shared on Instagram show the rustic Western decor The wedding was held at the Bush home, Prairie Chapel Ranch. Though they didn't get great weather for the occasion, a tent on the grounds kept everyone sheltered. Inside was a rustic Western theme, with chairs made out of rough, branch-like wood and minimalist flowers in green vases. Long tables were set up with simple place settings with gold-colored cutlery, votive candles, and typed-up menus. An eight-piece band, Taylor Pace Orchestra, performed on a raised stage at one end of the tent. Guests at the event included actress Megan Ferguson, Sky Ting Yoga co-founders Krissy Jones and Chloe Kernaghan, jewelry designer Siena Crawford, fashion executive Alyssa Zachary, T Magazine editor Isabel Wilkinson, restaurateur Kyle Hotchkiss Carone, and designer Prabal Gurung, who wrote a touching tribute to Barbara on Instagram. 'Yall my dearest friend, the gorgeous BB got married this weekend and we danced the nights away,' he wrote. 'Love you B, congratulations to you and Craig xPG.' Interestingly, the picture he shared from the evening shows Barbara wearing not white but a blue and green dress, so the bride may have gone a less traditional route for her second wedding party. Socialite and editor Derek Blasberg was also nearby in Texas this weekend and is thought to have attended the event. So far, George W. has been the most photogenic of the bunch, happily posing for pictures with the band and the catering crew that worked the event. Music: An eight-piece band, Taylor Pace Orchestra, performed on a raised stage and later took a picture with former President George W. Bush Friendly: Bush also smiled for a photo with the catering crew in the kitchen Pretty: Long tables were set up with simple place settings with gold-colored cutlery, votive candles, and typed-up menus Barbara and her immediate family have yet to post about the event, and while dad George has turned up in some social media snaps, others like Barbara's twin sister Jenna have not. While it's incredibly like she was there, it's yet to be confirmed since so far, Jenna has only post on Instagram about her daughter Mila's sixth birthday, which fell on the same day. Barbara's aunts, uncles, and cousins also have not posted anything on social media, so it's unclear whether her more famous family members like uncle Jeb and cousins Lauren Bush Lauren and Ashley Bush LeFevre were there. When Ashley tied the knot in March, it was also unconfirmed whether Jenna, Barbara, George, and Laura were in attendance. They did, however, turn up for the black tie wedding of Ashley and Lauren's brother Pierce to Sarahbeth Melton in March of 2018 Meanwhile, the rehearsal dinner the evening before appears to have been a much more casual affair with a laid-back 'saloon' theme. Guests were invited to dress up in country Western attire, sitting on folding chairs alongside tables with red-checkered tablecloths with strings of light serving as the main decor. Barbara, of course, wore something special for the occasion, dressing in a white strapless gown with a sweetheart neckline, glamorous lace bodice, and dramatic fringe skirt. All in all, the wedding weekend was certainly a bigger and more elaborate affair than the 'intimate' ceremony at the family's estate in Kennebunkport, Maine in October, which took place just five weeks and Barbara and and Craig got engaged. Having fun: Prabal shared some more pictures from his time in Texas, including a few dressed- up shots from what appears to be the Western-themed rehearsal dinner party Gloomy: Other guests shared a few snaps from the wedding as well, including this one showing off the less-than-fortuitous weather Partay: Guests like Sky Ting Yoga's Chloe Kernaghan (left) and Isabel Wilkinson (right) shared photos of themselves enjoying the Texas countryside Cutie: Though sister Jenna hasn't shared any pictures from the wedding just yet, she did post this birthday tribute to her daughter Mila, who just turned six and it seems to have been taken in the same spot Barbara's friends were posing Barbara's friends took pictures around town (left) and posed in front of a giant American flag at the rehearsal dinner Star-studded: Restaurateur Kyle Hotchkiss Carone covered up with Prabal Gurung during the outside ceremony (left). Barbara's friend Derek Blasberg was also in Texas this weekend and is thought to have attended the wedding (right) Social media snaps: He shared some videos of what seems to be the breakfast buffet at his hotel Barbara explained later that the pair was in a bit of a hurry: Her grandmother and namesake, Barbara Bush, had died just sixth months before, and they were concerned about the health of her grandfather, former President George H. W. Bush. 'Craig didn't get to meet my grandmother. I thought there would be plenty of time for that to happen,' she told People. 'We just thought, let's try to do it soon. We knew we wanted to be married we'd already made that decision so we didn't need months of an engagement.' They were smart to have sped things up: H.W. Bush died less than two months later, on November 30. That wedding was a much more family-focused event, held in Kennebunkport to make things easier for her grandfather. George W. proudly walked his daughter down the aisle, while family members including her twin sister and maid of honor Jenna watched on. The first one! Barbara officially tied the knot in a smaller ceremony back in October Gamily: She's pictured with her parents, her new husband, her sister Jenna, and Jenna's husband and kids Fashionable: The bride wore three different dresses for the special occasion, and her parents and sister had outfit changes too Too cute! Her nieces, Mila and Poppy, served as flower girls Speedy! Barbara had only been engaged for five weeks before the wedding in Maine 'It was a very secret wedding, a little bit like my elusive sister,' Jenna said in a phone call to the Today show the following Monday. 'But also, just family in a place that means family love, and it was just beautiful.' The wedding was officiated by Barbara's aunt, Dorothy Bush Koch, and both of Barbara's nieces, five-year-old Mila and three-year-old Poppy, were flower girls. Poppy had a dual role as ring bearer. 'Poppy realized that the box was empty so she ran to the front and she kept holding it open, like 'This is fake, this is fake,'' Jenna said in a phone call into the Today show the Monday morning after the nuptials. 'And at one point we were all praying and Poppy ran and almost tackled Barbara and gave her a huge hug.' The bride wore a custom Vera Wang gown, Gianvito Rossi heels, and a pair of Larkspur & Hawk earrings given to her by her sister to be her 'something blue.' Barbara also paid tribute to her late grandmother with her 'something borrowed,' wearing a bracelet that George H. W. had given the older woman on their 70th wedding anniversary. The former first lady was also honored during the reception when Jenna read a letter that George H. W. wrote to her years before. Important: She decided to move fast to ensure that her grandpa, the late former President George H.W. Bush, could be around for the big day Flashback: Her sister Jenna shared sweet messages about the wedding at the tine She added: 'It was small and in a place that we have grown up and have so many incredible memories, in Maine' 'I ended with a letter that my grandfather wrote to my grandmother because I searched all the romantics and Shakespeare just wasn't doing it. He was sitting right next to me as I read it,' Jenna told Today. After the wedding, Barbara's father shared a picture of himself walking her down the aisle on Instagram, captioning it with a loving message. 'Barbara is named for a unique and strong woman and rightly so, because she is unique and strong. @laurawbush and I are so proud of our compassionate, daring, fierce, kind, intelligent, loving daughter. And we're thrilled to welcome Craig Coyne to our family,' he wrote. Barbara also said she was thrilled with how it all went. 'It was wonderful. It was everything we wanted,' she told Today. 'It was small and in a place that we have grown up and have so many incredible memories, in Maine. We just wanted to make sure we could do it while my grandfather was still healthy.' Barbara and Craig met when they were set up on a blind date by friends in November 2017. Craig proposed in late August or early September, picking the same spot where Barbara's grandparents got engaged. The couple lives in New York. Pippa Middleton looked chic as she took her son out for a stroll in a sunny London today. Pippa, 35, chatted to her friend as she pushed baby Arthur through London in his pushchair. Wearing both sunglasses and a coat - the Duchess of Cambridge's younger sister was prepared for the changing weather in London today. With blue skies she protected her eyes from the sun, but she also donned a pink coat, black jeans and trainers to protect herself from the cold. Pippa Middleton looked chic as she took her son out for a stroll in a sunny London today as she went for a walk Wearing both sunglasses and a coat - the Duchess of Cambridge's younger sister was prepared for the changing weather in London today Joined by a friend on her stroll they seemed deep in conversation, while her friend also walked her two dogs - a black Labrador and a Cocker Spaniel named Rafa. Pippa's hair was pinned back off her face, while she kept her make up to a minimum and wore the animal print sunnies. Pippa has kept a relatively low profile since she and husband James Matthews welcomed their first child together, Arthur, in October last year. However she has been keen to stay active in the first months of motherhood and has been spotted walking with Arthur in his buggie- on a number of occasions, often near the 17million family home. Pippa has kept a relatively low profile since she and husband James Matthews welcomed their first child together, Arthur, in October last year Joined by a friend on her stroll they seemed deep in conversation, while her friend also walked two dogs The mother of one was seen regularly checking on baby Arthur as her and her fiend took the short stroll in London today The state-of-the-art pushchair is from Dutch-based brand Bugaboo, favoured by celebrity parents including Gwyneth Paltrow, Victoria Beckham and Sir Elton John. Pippa's older sister the Duchess of Cambridge, 37, is also rumoured to have purchased a Bugaboo design ahead of the birth of Prince George in 2013. The mother of one was seen regularly checking on baby Arthur as her and her fiend took the short stroll in London today. The state-of-the-art pushchair is from Dutch-based brand Bugaboo, favoured by celebrity parents including Gwyneth Paltrow, Victoria Beckham and Sir Elton John Pippa married financier James, elder brother to Made In Chelsea star Spencer,in May 2017, and their first child - Arthur Michael William - was born in October 2018 Pippa's hair was pinned back off her face, while she kept her make up to a minimum and wore the animal print sunnies Hands-on father James has also been seen taking his son out and was the picture of pride as he pushed him through London. Pippa married financier James, elder brother to Made In Chelsea star Spencer,in May 2017, and their first child - Arthur Michael William - was born in October 2018. The pair live together in Matthews' sprawling Chelsea mansion, which they renovated ahead of their son's arrival. Melania Trump's normally-picture perfect appearance met its match on Monday morning, when the first lady was caught in some very blustery weather that saw her left without a single hair in place. The 48-year-old, who traveled from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to visit troops and their families at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, found herself caught up in several serious gusts of wind, both on her way to board the plane, and when she landed. Ever the pro in front of the camera, the mother-of-one maintained a gleaming smile as she made her way onto and off the military aircraft, despite the fact that her long brunette locks were whipping around her face making it almost impossible for her to see. Up in the air! Melania Trump suffered a rather awkward hair mishap when she was caught in some very windy weather during a trip to Fort Bragg in North Carolina Blustery: The 48-year-old first lady's normally-perfect tresses were blown about above her head as she arrived for her visit Keep calm and carry on! She appeared determined not to let the violent winds faze her as she greeted waiting members of the military before taking off from Joint Base Andrews What a warm welcome! Once she had arrived at Fort Bragg, the weather didn't seem to get any better, and Melania was seen trying to pat down her 'do at the back Before boarding her plane in Maryland, the first lady was seen greeting several waiting members of the military, shaking hands with her right hand, while using the other to try and blow her long locks out of her face. Similarly when she arrived in North Carolina, Melania found herself caught up in yet another rather large gust of wind as she made her way onto the tarmac - joined this time by Vice President Mike Pence's wife Karen, who appeared to be suffering some similar issues in the blustery weather. The pair made a valiant effort to proceed down the plane's steps without batting an eyelid, despite the fact that Melania was almost totally unable to see anything thanks to the large sections of hair that were blowing about her face and eyes. Once on the tarmac, the problem persisted, with Melania's normally-wavy hairstyle getting more volumizing help that it has perhaps ever seen, as the wind continued to wreak havoc, whipping her locks straight up into the air. Melania appeared unfazed by her rather disastrous-looking 'do, and continued to smile and wave at the cameras, no doubt thankful that she had chosen to wear a large pair of sunglasses - which served more as protective eyewear than anything else. Once safely on the ground, Melania refused to let the wind get her down - smiling and waving for the waiting photographers even as the gusts continued to whip her hair around her face. Flying high: Melania was no doubt thankful for her large sunglasses, which served more as a form of protective eyewear Dream duo: The mother-of-one was joined on the flight by Vice President Mike Pence's wife Karen, who appeared to be having similar difficulties with the wind Great gusts: At one point it looked as though Melania might not be able to see where she was going, thanks to the large strands of hair being blown in front of her face Made it! Both women made it to the bottom of the stairs safely without any mishaps What wind? Melania's smile did not falter as she made her way into a waiting SUV Even when she arrived at her destination, which was just a short drive from the air strip where her plane landed, Melania couldn't catch a break, and was seen getting out of her SUV with the wind once again causing her hair to fly up in the air. Other than her blown-about hairstyle, Melania looked incredibly chic in her military-inspired ensemble, which consisted of a $895 khaki jacket by Alexa Chung, a pair of olive green trousers, and her much-loved snakeskin pumps from Manolo Blahnik, which retail for around $900. Melania and Karen are due to make several stops during their trip to Fort Bragg, including a visit to a middle school, 'in recognition of the month of the military child'. By the time the two ladies arrived at the school, where they were greeted by crowds of waiting children, they looked much more put together, with both of them showing off very sleek, demure hairstyles that were a world away from the out-there 'dos that had been blown about mercilessly in the wind. Smiling happily, Melania addressed the children using a microphone, turning around the room to take in the whole group, which was assembled in the school's gym. Prior to the trip, FLOTUS explained that meeting the children of the military was one of the things she was most looking forward to, saying in a statement: 'Our military is the embodiment of our Nations spirit and the protector of our freedoms. 'I am looking forward to learning more about the incredible work that our brave men and women in uniform perform on a daily basis. I am also eager to meet with their children and spouses who sacrifice in ways large and small so that the American people are safe.' Back to normal! Melania's hair was coiffed back into a perfectly sleek style by the time she arrived at the Fort Bragg middle school Supportive: In a statement issued before the trip, Melania said that she was 'eager to meet with the children and spouses' of the military Karen the added: 'Our nations military service members and their families deserve our care and respect. 'I am always honored to have the opportunity to spend time with those who serve and work tirelessly to protect our freedoms. I am looking forward to our visit to Fort Bragg to offer support and encouragement to our Armed Forces and their families, who also serve.' After addressing the children - who gave both Melania and Karen a round of applause upon their arrival - the pair went to speak with members of the military. 'Together you provide our nation with the worlds most capable military forces and stand ready to respond anywhere in the world at a moments notice,' Melania told them, according to her spokesperson Stephanie Grisham. 'I would also like to take a moment to recognize elements of the 18th fires brigade who (just this weekend) deployed to the Middle East and Afghanistan. On behalf of this country, @POTUS and I stand with each man and woman in uniform serving to defend us all.' Addressing their family members, she continued: 'This month we recognize military children and their important role in our country. They are our future leaders and I can think of no better place to inspire leadership than among the military community.' Despite having a busy day at Fort Bragg, Melania also found time to share prayers for the people of Paris after learning about the Notre Dame Cathedral fire. 'My heart breaks for the people of Paris after seeing the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral,' she tweeted. 'Praying for everyones safety.' A simple five-minute iPad test could spot early signs of dementia and help doctors diagnose the memory-robbing disorder earlier than before. The NHS is now trialling the exam, which tests the speed and accuracy of a person's thinking by showing them pictures of animals. People doing the 'quick and easy' test are shown 100 photos and have to decide whether or not there is an animal in the picture. Some have obvious creatures, while others have hidden animals and half have no animals at all. If people are slow to respond or incorrectly identify the animals it could be a sign their brain function is reduced potentially signalling a dementia risk. The test, which can be done at home in minutes, shows users a fast succession of pictures and requires them to indicate whether or not the image had an animal in it. In the sample pictured, the image on the left has no animal, while the other two have a pig and a marsupial in The NHS trust for South London and Maudsley is trialling the online test, which was developed by international healthcare tech company Cognetivity. Benefits of the test are that it can be done at home and may be able to spot signs of brain decline before any symptoms appear that a doctor may notice. Many people aren't diagnosed with the condition, which affects around 850,000 people in the UK, until its effects start to appear by then it is often too late. Common symptoms include memory problems, difficulty with understanding or communicating, and mood changes. The Cognetivity test, named the Integrated Cognitive Assessment, tests visual processing to give a patient a score at the end based on their speed and accuracy. In a test on 448 people, each photo was shown for 100milliseconds before the user had to categorise it as either animal or no-animal. They indicated this by tapping the left or right of the screen, and were not required to count or identify the creatures. The test could also be done on a computer. People doing the test were shown an image either containing an animal or not for 100milliseconds (pictured, a sample of the animal images) and then required to categorise the image as animal or non-animal At the end of the test the user was given a score between 0 and 100 which could be compared with other traditional tests used by doctors (pictured, samples of non-animal images) Carol Routledge, director of research at Alzheimers Research UK, told The Sunday Times: 'This test, which is at the early stages of development, has the potential to help detect disease before memory and thinking problems have impacted peoples lives. 'And its encouraging to see this technology enter into trials that assess its potential. 'Sensitive AI techniques provide huge opportunity to improve how we detect the diseases that cause dementia, ensuring an accurate diagnosis for everyone at a time thats right for them.' ALZHEIMER'S MAY AFFECT TWICE AS MANY AS BELIEVED The number of people living with Alzheimer's could be twice as high as scientists believe, an expert has claimed. Dr Clifford Jack, an Alzheimer's researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, said many sufferers have early, symptomless signs of the disease. Doctors currently only diagnose patients with Alzheimer's when they show physical signs of the memory-robbing disorder. But Dr Jack and colleagues found in a study of 2,500 people that twice as many had biological signs of the brain disease than were showing symptoms. Dr Jack told The Telegraph this month: 'The prevalence of Alzheimer's disease are all based on... the question "do you have dementia?"' He said: 'Classically defined Alzheimers undercounts people who have the pathology but do not have symptoms. 'A lot more people have the disease but do not have symptoms, just like a lot more people have hypertension than have had a stroke, or a lot more people have diabetes than people who have gone blind.' Advertisement But Ms Routledge added the test would need extensive testing before it can be used widely. Next month, NHS trials are expected to expand into north London, Sussex and Devon it could be used nationwide as soon as next year. A study of the effectiveness of the test suggested existing exams could be affected by how clever someone is and whether they've done them before. But the iPad exam could not be fooled in the same way regular testing on young, intelligent people showed they did not improve their score when they did it every other day for two weeks. Everyone in the study was over the age of 18 and didn't have any physical or vision problems which would interfere with their ability to complete the task. The spot-the-animal test could be used to find signs of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which is when a person's brain doesn't function as well as it should at their age. MCI is often a precursor to dementia and is hard to spot because it's usually not severe enough to interfere with someone's life or cause noticeable problems. At the end of the test people are given a score between 0 and 100 which could be compared against other, standard, pen-and-paper tests already used by doctors. People who return a concerning result on the test may be asked to do it again to check they weren't distracted or tired, or they could be referred to a doctor. Developer Sina Habibi, chief executive of Cognetivity, said: 'Every image is different from the others in terms of its complexity and level of surprise.' A study of the test's effectiveness was published in the journal Scientific Reports. A paramedic has told how she suffered a stroke when she stretched her neck and ruptured a major artery. Natalie Kunicki, who works for London Ambulance Service, even mistook her own symptoms as being drunk and was too embarrassed to phone 999. She was watching films in bed with a friend after a night out last month, when she stretched her neck and heard a loud 'crack', but didn't think much of it. When Ms Kunicki, 23, got up for the bathroom 15 minutes later, she collapsed to the floor as she was unable to move her left leg. She was rushed to hospital where she was told her vertebral artery - a major artery in the neck - had burst. This caused a blood clot to form in her brain and triggered a stroke. Ms Kunicki, who was living in West Hampstead at the time, was so shocked she was left 'emotionless' for days. She is now rebuilding her life and slowly gaining her mobility back. But doctors are unsure when and if she will ever fully recover. Natalie Kunicki, who works for London Ambulance Service, mistook her own symptoms of a stroke as being drunk on March 4 and initially was too embarrassed to phone 999 Ms Kunicki, pictured during her nurse training in Australia, was watching films in bed with a friend after a night out when she stretched her neck and heard a loud 'crack' Doctors confirmed that Ms Kunicki's vertebral artery - a major artery in the neck - had burst causing a blood clot to form in her brain and triggered a stroke. Pictured in hospital Ms Kunicki said: 'People need to know that even if you're young something this simple can cause a stroke. 'I wasn't even trying to crack my neck. I just moved and it happened. I stretched my neck and I could just hear this "crack, crack, crack". 'My friend asked "was that your neck?" but all my joints crack quite a bit so I didn't think anything of it. I just laughed. 'I got up and tried to walk to the bathroom and I was swaying everywhere. I looked down and realised I wasn't moving my left leg at all then I fell to the floor.' She added: 'My friend had to come and pick me up. He thought I was drunk but I knew something else was wrong. 'I thought I had been drugged. The date rape drug can cause paralysis.' Ms Kunicki, who moved from Canberra, Australia, to join the LAS in December 2017, admits she was hesitant at first to call 999 as she didn't want colleagues to turn up and find her 'tipsy'. She said: 'I'm a paramedic and I didn't ring 999 for ten minutes because I thought it was too unlikely it would be a stroke when I should have known much better.' After struggling to fall back to sleep, Ms Kunicki finally put aside her embarrassment and called the emergency services. As soon as the ambulance crew started carrying out tests, Ms Kunicki realised there was something seriously wrong as her coordination had deteriorated and her heart rate and blood pressure were 'sky high'. She said: 'I was trying to call 999 but I was dithering about it. Ms Kunicki is now rebuilding her life but doctors are unsure when and if she will regain full mobility. She said she can't walk for longer than 15 minutes. Pictured, walking in hospital As soon as the ambulance crew started carrying out tests, Ms Kunicki realised there was something seriously wrong as her coordination had deteriorated and her heart rate and blood pressure were 'sky high'. Pictured in hospital 'I think they did look at me at first like they thought I was just a classic drunk 23-year-old but I told them I was a paramedic and I knew something was wrong.' After tests, the ambulance crew rushed Ms Kunicki to University College London Hospital where it was confirmed she had suffered a stroke and would need emergency surgery. After being blue-lighted to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Ms Kunicki underwent three-hour surgery where doctors discovered her burst artery. While surgeons were able to repair Ms Kunicki's artery with a stent, they couldnt clear the clot in her brain but they believe it will dissolve in time. Ms Kunicki, whose left side was almost completely paralysed by the stroke, said the diagnosis was such a shock that she became 'emotionless' for days. She said: 'When the consultant told me I'd had a stroke I was in shock. 'The doctors told me later that just that stretching of my neck had caused my vertebral artery to rupture. It was just spontaneous and there's a one in a million chance of it happening. 'I don't smoke, I don't really drink and I don't have any family history of strokes so it's quite strange it happened to me when I was just moving in bed. 'I was just completely shut off, trying to compute what had happened. People said I was a bit like a robot and didn't show much emotion.' Ms Kunicki was left feeling so low she told her consultant they 'should have killed her'. Ms Kunicki said: 'I expected to wake up from this miracle surgery and everything would be fixed but my mobility was worse and they couldn't clear the clot. 'At the start I couldn't move my thumb and forefinger. I could kind of move my wrist up and down. I couldn't lift my arm. I could bend my left leg but I couldn't wiggle my toes. Natalie underwent three-hour surgery where doctors discovered her burst artery. While surgeons were able to repair Natalies artery with a stent, they couldnt clear the clot in her brain but they believe it will dissolve in time. Pictured at hospital after Ms Kunicki was so shocked she was left 'emotionless' for days, and is now rebuilding her life but doctors are unsure when and if she will regain full mobility. Pictured in hospital recovering Ms Kunicki was so shocked about her diagnosis of a stroke so young that she was left 'emotionless' for days and even told a nurse they 'should have killed her'. Pictured before her stroke - she enjoyed keeping fit and going to the gym 'I think I scared my consultant because after I woke up she came in to ask how I was going but I told her "you should have killed me". 'Depression is really common after a stroke because you lose so much of your independence and your dignity.' Now she has recovered some movement and sensation, Ms Kunicki is feeling much better. Doing daily exercises has helped her regain enough movement in her leg, arm and hand. Doctors cannot give an exact timescale for a full recovery but Ms Kunicki is hoping to be back to work for 'light duty' in six to 12 months. She said: 'I've recovered movement in my left side. I can walk but not for more than five minutes. 'I'm really clumsy. I can't do up buttons, I find it too difficult. I can feel hot and cold now but I still feel a bit numb. 'The doctors just say things like "we're hoping for a full recovery" and won't give an exact time because they don't want to get my hopes up. 'But I'm determined to get back to work as soon as I can. I just love it.' As well as her determination to go back to work, Ms Kunicki is also committed to raising more awareness of strokes in young people. Even as a healthcare professional, Ms Kunicki was shocked to discover how common strokes in young people and children can be. Ms Kunicki said she regularly cracks her joints so didn't think much of it when her neck made a cracking sound. Pictured, healthy and active before her stroke Doctors cannot give an exact timescale for a full recovery but Ms Kunicki is hoping to be back to work for 'light duty' in six to 12 months. She was flooded with support from friends and family (pictured with gifts in hospital) Ms Kennedy has been forced to give up her flat as she cannot afford the rent and is keen to get back to her work which she said she loves. Pictured before She said: 'I have been called out to so many people having strokes and they're always in their 70s or 80s. I have never been to a young person having a stroke. 'Mine was one in a million but a ruptured vertebral artery is actually quite a common cause of strokes in young people. 'They will be in the gym or doing something quite physical and it happens. Strokes are also quite common in kids.' After her stroke Ms Kunicki was forced to give up her flat in West Hampstead as she can't afford the rent while taking so much time off work. Instead since her discharge, Ms Kunicki has been living with her parents Peter Kunicki, 65, and Anne Kunicki, 62, in Harrow, London. But they are due to move back to Australia in July. Ms Kunicki's brother Michael Kunicki, 33, has set up a fundraising page for her while she gets back on her feet. Ms Kunicki said: 'Eighty per cent of the donations are from people I work with which means so much. I really want to get back in my own flat and I really don't want to have to move back to Australia. I love my work too much and I don't want to leave them.' To donate to Ms Kunicki's gofundme page, click here. A vaccine which could protect people from catching the deadly Nipah virus has been developed by scientists. Experts say it works well in animals and they plan to keep testing it with the aim of making it available to humans in at-risk areas. Researchers at the Jefferson Vaccine Center in Philadelphia created the jab using both living and dead forms of the virus. Nipah can be caught from contaminated food or from pigs, bats or other infected humans, and it may kill as many as three quarters of people who get it. The Nipah virus (pictured, an illustration of the individual viruses) can in severe cases cause lung infections like pneumonia, and trigger seizures, coma, and the brain infection encephalitis. The World Health Organization says urgent work is needed to find a treatment It is one of the World Health Organization's priority pathogens, meaning urgent action is needed against it. Scientists at Jefferson modified an existing rabies vaccine to create the jab, because the viruses are physically similar, they said. It works by training the body to prevent the virus causing disease in the nervous system. And their similarities mean the injection works against both infections. Serious infections with the virus can cause lung conditions like pneumonia and a build-up of fluid in the lungs, or the brain infection encephalitis, seizures or coma. 'We have a vaccine that is safe and effective against Nipah, Hendra, and Rabies virus in mice,' said Dr Matthias Schnell, the leader of the development team. 'Future work will focus on testing the vaccine on different species and establishing the right dose of injection. 'We also used the same vaccine platform to develop vaccines against several other emerging viruses, including a vaccine against Ebola virus, which is close to entering into its first clinical trial.' WHAT IS THE NIPAH VIRUS? The Nipah virus (NiV) is a type of henipavirus, which are naturally held in fruit bats. The virus can cause illness in pigs and humans, and can be spread to humans from animals, infected food and other people with the virus. Symptoms may appear between five and 14 days after becoming infected, and can last up to two weeks. They include: fever, headache, drowsiness, disorientation and mental confusion. Symptoms may progress to a coma, and some patients have breathing problems. The virus is thought to be fatal in around 70 per cent of cases. There is no vaccine or cure, but patients may receive supportive treatment to relieve symptoms. Nipah virus infection can be prevented by avoiding exposure to sick pigs and bats in endemic areas and not drinking raw date palm sap. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advertisement The researchers first created a vaccine using live versions of the Nipah virus, and managed to create one equally as effective using a dead version of it. In live vaccines the viruses can still multiply, though not enough to cause disease in healthy people and animals. However, a dead-virus vaccine may be more suitable for people with weak immune systems like HIV patients, pregnant women and children, the scientists said. Although outbreaks of the Nipah virus are rare, at least 17 people died in an outbreak in India last year. The infection was first discovered in Malaysia in 1999 and has since been caught by people in Bangladesh and India. It is also present in bats in Cambodia, Ghana, Indonesia, Madagascar, the Philippines and Thailand, suggesting there is potential for it to spread among people there. The World Health Organization (WHO) said the virus is a public health concern because 'it infects a wide range of animals and causes severe disease and death in people'. The WHO lists Nipah alongside other deadly, threatening diseases such as Ebola, Lassa fever, Zika, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever and Rift Valley fever. The development comes after an organisation in February awarded $31million (23.6m) to a Japanese university working on a vaccine for Nipah. Researchers at the University of Tokyo were granted the investment by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. The organisation is funded by the British Wellcome Trust, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the German, Norwegian, Japanese and Indian governments. A boy's 'lazy eye' turned out to be a sign of a terminal brain tumour, his heartbroken family have revealed. Charlie Stephenson, nine, showed no other symptoms and his parents Tony and Soeli suspected he would just need corrective glasses. But the couple's world came crashing down in February this year when Charlie was diagnosed with the rare diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG). Doctors have said he has nine to 12 months to live because the tumour is inoperable, leaving Mr and Mrs Stephenson feeling 'empty'. In a few months, Charlie will lose his eyesight, communication and coordination as the tumour grows and presses on crucial nerves. The family are now hoping to raise 125,000 for a treatment that may help prolong Charlie's life for a few more months. Nine-year-old Charlie Stephenson's 'lazy eye' turned out to be a sign of a terminal brain tumour as his family have been told he only has nine months to live. Pictured in hospital showing his left lazy eye Charlie, who lives in Norfolk, showed no other symptoms and his parents Tony and Soeli Stephenson suspected he would just need corrective glasses Mr and Mrs Stephenson's world came crashing down in February this year when Charlie was diagnosed with rare inoperable cancer diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG). The family pictured together The family are hoping to raise 125,000 for treatment that will potentially double Charlie's life expectancy. Pictured, Charlie with his eye turning inwards due to the brain tumour Mr Stephenson, 44, a truck driver from Martham, Norfolk, said: 'We never thought a lazy eye would turn out to be something so devastating. 'They think he will have six good months and the last three months the tumour will rob him of his eyesight, his ability to communicate, to feed himself and affect his breathing and heart rate. 'He could effectively have locked in syndrome which is a hideous way to go for anyone - let alone a nine-year-old boy. 'It was a total shock when we were told. I had a bonny, bouncy, boy who was full of fun. Life was grand then in less than 10 minutes our lives crumbled. 'I feel empty. A lot of things do not feel worth doing but I'm just trying to do all I can for him and put everything into giving him what he asks for.' Mr Stephenson added: 'I can't even think that far ahead to a point when he won't be here. My wife has been having dreams about what he'll be wearing at his funeral.' He and Mrs Stephenson, 41, a carer, have both given up work to care for their son after his diagnosis. They first noticed Charlie's left eye looked lazy and had started to turn inwards earlier this year. Two weeks after they noticed it they took him to the GP and he was referred to the paediatric ward at James Paget University Hospital in Great Yarmouth. Three days after the referral was made they took Charlie to A&E after he experienced double vision. A CT scan discovered a shadow on the back of his brain and he was transferred to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge. Following an MRI scan he was diagnosed with DIPG - which can't be operated on because of it's located in the pons part of the brain -on February 12. Mr Stephenson said: 'We were taken into a room with about seven different medical professionals so at that point we were thinking "this is a lot worse than initially thought". The first word the consultant said was "sorry". 'We were told it was inoperable brain cancer and the survival rate was zero. 'The phrase they used was "dumb luck". There's nothing genetic or environmental that could have affected it.' Mr Stephenson said: 'We've spent hours going through photographs of him to see if there's anything that we missed'. Pictured, Charlie before his diagnosis Charlie has been given nine to 12 months to live but there is no guarantee, according to doctors. Pictured before the diagnosis Charlie has had 13 sessions of radiotherapy over three weeks and is now on a course of steroids which have made him gain weight (pictured) Mr Stephenson said: 'I had a bonny, bouncy, boy who was full of fun. Life was grand then in less than 10 minutes our lives crumbled'. Pictured, the family since Charlie was diagnosed Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, also known as diffuse midline glioma, is a brain tumour found in a part of the brain stem called the pons. The pons controls essential bodily functions such as heartbeat, breathing, swallowing, eye movement, eyesight, and balance, and therefore the cancer affects a child's ability to move, communicate and even eat and drink. Approximately 20 to 40 children in the UK and 150 to 300 patients in the US are diagnosed with it each year. Mr Stephenson said: 'There were no other symptoms or things to look out for. 'We've spent hours going through photographs of him to see if there's anything that we missed. 'They told us if he didn't have radiotherapy we were looking at a maximum of six months. 'With palliative radiotherapy he's got nine to 12 months but there's no guarantee.' Charlie, pictured in hospital, will lose his eyesight, communication and coordination as the tumour grows and presses on nerves Mr and Mrs Stephenson are trying their best to make the most of Charlie's remaining days but say it has been difficult. Charlie pictured with his mother at an unknown date Charlie has had 13 sessions of radiotherapy over three weeks and is now on a course of steroids to try and ease the symptoms - which include slurred speech and struggling to walk. The family are now looking to raise 125,000 for a procedure that is not available on the NHS. Although not offering a cure it could prolong Charlie's life - in some cases doubling life expectancy - and help give him a 'better death'. The procedure, called Convection Enhanced Delivery, delivers chemotherapy directly to tumour through four narrow hollow tubes that are inserted into the brain. It is for high-grade tumours that cannot be operated on due to their location. Currently, in the UK, the private Harley Street Clinic Children's Hospital in London is using CED to treat children with this very rare cancer. The pair have managed to raise more than 25,000 so far thanks to the community rallying round to help and are also keen to raise awareness of the rare cancer. Mr Stephenson said: 'It's amazing how resilient he is. He tries to have a smile on his face. We've told him he's got cancer but he's not fully aware of what cancer is. 'We haven't told him he's going to die because he would just give up. He's asked us that question and we've explained that people do die from cancer. We've tried to be as truthful as we can. 'It's heart-breaking hearing your child ask that question. 'We are trying to keep hopeful but I'm also a realist and we know that we have to spend as much quality time with him as possible. 'It's about helping him enjoy the things he likes doing. He loves playing Fortnite [a game] and he loves being in nature.' To donate click here. The Bengali New Year or Pohela Boishakh is celebrated in various parts of South Asia and among migrant communities. It began during the Mughal era and celebrates national harmony. Dhaka (AsiaNews) Yesterday was Pohela Boishakh, the first day on the Bengali calendar, and the beginning the year 1426, an event that was marked with great celebrations across the country, including stalls selling sweets and street food, colourful balloons, typical dances and festive dances, wagons and processions. Local sources told AsiaNews that in Dhaka, the people took to the streets to celebrate the New Year included children, elderly and adults who wore a garment that included the typical colours of the festivity: red and white. Outdoor celebrations began early in the morning and had to be concluded by no later than 5 pm, as established by a police ordinance. Bengali New Year was introduced by Mughal Emperor Akbar in the year 1556 of the Gregorian calendar. In the local language it is called Pohela Boishakh, the first day of the year, and is celebrated in many areas of South Asia and abroad among Bengali communities. For the occasion, families prepare traditional dish: rice soaked in water the evening before, a fish cream topped with chilli and onion and Ilish (Tenualosa ilisha), a fresh water fish that is Bangladeshs national fish. Over the years the event has turned into a multi-religious and multi-ethnic festival, uniting the countrys various communities in a harmonious way. Bangladesh President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina issued a message of greeting for the occasion. The President stressed that the celebration is "universal and non-communal" and wished "happiness, peace and progress to the country". The Prime Minister highlighted the results of the "fight against terrorism, fundamentalism and drugs" in a message of hope for "progress and forgetting shortcomings and sorrows". Many of us rely on hand sanitiser to keep us 'germ free' at a festival, on the tube or while grabbing lunch on the go. But while most just rub a blob into their hand and carry on with their day, a study suggests the gels are only effective if thoroughly applied for 15 seconds. Although this may sound unnecessary, it is actually half as complicated as the World Health Organization's advice, which recommends applying hand sanitiser in a six-step, 30-second process. Hand sanitisers may only be effective when rubbed in for 15 seconds, study suggests (stock) The research was carried out by University Hospital Basel and led by Dr Sarah Tschudin-Sutter, of the department of infectiology and hospital hygiene. Hand hygiene is the single most effective thing healthcare workers can do to reduce the spread of infectious diseases, the scientists claim. The WHO says sanitiser is the 'preferred route' due to it being 'faster, more effective and better tolerated than washing with soap and water'. However, there is limited evidence on which 'hand gel technique' is most effective, they warned. The WHO recommends rubbing an alcohol-based product in for 20-to-30 seconds, however, adherence to this has been shown to be poor. As a first step, it advises a 'palm-full' amount of the gel is applied. Hands should then be rubbed palm-to-palm, before placing the right over the left and interlacing the fingers. This process should then be repeated with the left hand over the right. The palms should then be rubbed together with the fingers interlaced. As a fifth step, the backs of the fingers should be rubbed against the opposing palms, as well as thumb being covered in the sanitiser. Once the hands are dry, they are 'safe'. To test whether this lengthy process is necessary, the researchers had 20 volunteers aged 18-to-51 apply hand sanitiser via four techniques. The first group followed the WHO's regimen for 30 seconds, while the second group completed the same process but for just 15 seconds. The third group followed a three-step process for 30 seconds and the fourth the same shortened process but for 15 seconds. After each application, the researchers analysed the number of bacteria on the participants' hands. Results revealed the 15 second rubs were as effective at reducing bacterial counts as the 30-second process. The findings will be presented in full at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases in Amsterdam. Although 15 seconds may sound like a lot to the average person, the researchers hope their study will be good news for healthcare workers. 'The time pressure and heavy workload experienced by healthcare workers reduces compliance with hand hygiene standards,' Dr Tschudin-Sutter said. 'Our findings suggest shortening hand rubbing time and simplifying the technique for use of hand rub could be a safe alternative that is easier to fit into their busy routine, could enhance the overall quality of hand hygiene performance, and have a positive effect on adherence.' The researchers stress, however, the study was carried out in a laboratory and therefore different results may occur in a clinical setting. They also only looked at how hand sanitisers reduce bacteria and not other pathogens, such as viruses. Scientists claim to have made the first ever 3D-printed heart with human tissue and blood vessels. Although the organ is only the size of a cherry and cannot pump blood, experts said its creation is a 'major medical breakthrough'. The heart is believed to the be the first ever to have been printed with cells, blood vessels and chambers. Although the hearts will need more work before they can pump blood, the scientists hope to begin trials using them within a year. Scientists in Israel say they have produced the first 3D print of a heart with human tissue and vessels, calling it a 'major medical breakthrough' even though they are a long way off from creating the first hearts suitable for transplant Researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel unveiled their creation today and explained how it was made with human cells. Tal Dvir, who led the project, said: 'People have managed to 3D-print the structure of a heart in the past, but not with cells or with blood vessels.' And he added it is 'the first time anyone anywhere has successfully engineered and printed an entire heart replete with cells, blood vessels, ventricles and chambers'. The organ is about the size of a rabbit's heart and can contract like a muscle but can not do a full pumping motion. It was made of cells that were multiplied from a sample of fatty tissue taken from a human patient. Beginning by multiplying the cells to produce small patches of heart tissue, the scientists scaled up their operation to eventually build the whole organ. But working out how to expand the sample of cells enough to be able to produce an entire human heart remains a challenge, they said. And an extremely high resolution printer would be needed to print the smallest blood vessels. The heart was printed using cells harvested from a biopsy of a real living patient this means, if it works, it could be tailor and made from someone's own cells, reducing the risk of rejection Professor Tal Dvir (pictured with the heart), from Tel Aviv University, said this is the first time scientists have managed to print a heart complete with blood vessels and human tissue 3D-printing hearts could one day provide hope for those whose organs are damaged by disease or injury but printers will have to be very sophisticated to create small vessels The heart created by the team in Israel was about the size of a rabbit's heart and had its own blood vessels, which can be seen in blue in the image In theory, the technique may one day be able to produce someone a new heart using recycled cells from their own body reducing the risk of it being rejected. 'Maybe, in 10 years, there will be organ printers in the finest hospitals around the world, and these procedures will be conducted routinely,' said Professor Dvir. But he accepts it may be safer to start transplants with an organ less crucial than a heart. The spleen, appendix, gall bladder and kidney and even a lung can be removed without killing the patient, for example, so could be candidates for trials. The next stages of the Israeli team's research will be trying to teach the 3D-printed hearts to beat like living ones. And then they will attempt to transplant the lab-grown organs into animals, which they hope to be able to do within a year, Professor Dvir said. At 100 years old, legendary yoga instructor Tao Porchon-Lynch has no plans to slow down. She is still teaching multiple times a week in Hartsdale, a northern suburb of New York City, and she dances in the local Fred Astaire society. Since she first encountered yoga at age seven in her native India, Porchon-Lynch has trained with some of the greatest, and went on to mentor, among others, Deepak Chopra. In recent years she has appeared on America's Got Talent as a ballroom dancer, and authored two books. Earlier this year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi awarded her the prestigious Padma Shri Award for exceptional achievement. But with her 101st birthday round the corner - on August 13 - Porchon-Lynch insists she feels as spritely as ever. 100-year-old Tao Porchon-Lynch teaches a yoga class in Hartsdale, New York, where she lives alone in a suburban apartment with a tight-knit circle of friends and plenty of activities 'When I wake up in the morning, I look at the sun and I say, "This is going to be the best day of my life" and it will be. It always is.' Porchon-Lynch lives alone in her suburban apartment, but when needed, she has a circle of care that includes current and former students and friends dropping by, plus members of a wine society she's in. 'Her life is a yoga path,' says Sylvia Samilton-Baker, her yoga student who is also an instructor. She told the Associated Press she first discovered yoga while strolling along a beach, transfixed by a group of boys doing yoga poses. Her aunt told her the movements were 'not ladylike,' and she responded, 'If boys can do it, I can do it.' By the time Porchon-Lynch was a teenager, already teaching yoga, she was able to explain how to breathe in a healthy way - especially to people in awkward sitting positions. 'I said, "You're squashing your lungs. Your lungs are not down in the navel, they are above,"' she said. Her focus on breathing, she says, is still the constant that keeps her going. 'The breath is teaching us - listen to it,' she says. 'Feel your lungs expand outward, stretch your hands up towards the ceiling and feel the energy there. Breathe in the breath of life and breathe out peace.' Earlier this year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi awarded her the prestigious Padma Shri Award for exceptional achievement Since she first encountered yoga at age seven in her native India, Porchon-Lynch has trained with some of the greatest, and went on to mentor, among others, Deepak Chopra A toddler is battling a rare and aggressive cancer that has left her 'looking pregnant'. Cleo Keenan, of Blackpool, suddenly developed an abnormal swelling in her midriff earlier this year, which doctors put down to a hormone imbalance she has suffered from before. It was not until she endured severe abdominal pain that a CT scan revealed the two-year-old is suffering from stage three adrenal carcinoma, which affects the outer layer of the adrenal glands - found just above the kidneys. Following her diagnosis, Cleo started chemotherapy and blood transfusions. She now requires more treatment to shrink the tumour before undergoing surgery to remove it. However, her parents Shannon Latham, 23, and Ryan Keenan, 26, have been told their 'little warrior' has just a 25-to-35 per cent chance of surviving, with the tumour returning in 80 per cent of cases. Cleo Keenan (left) is battling a rare and aggressive cancer that has left her 'looking pregnant'. Since being diagnosed on April 1, the toddler (pictured right in hospital) has endured chemotherapy and blood transfusions, and requires more treatment before surgery The youngster's mother Shannon Latham calls Cleo her 'little fighter', adding she is 'so strong'. Ms Latham is pictured with her daughters Emelia, five, Cleo and Ellie-Mae, four (left-to-right) Speaking of her daughter's symptoms, Ms Latham said: 'She looked like she was pregnant. I was getting more and more concerned.' Cleo was taken to a medical centre in February, where doctors initially dismissed her symptoms as being nothing new. 'Because of her hormone changes, they thought she had a hormone imbalance,' Ms Latham said. Cleo was then rushed to Blackpool Victoria Hospital's A&E department last month with a severe stomach ache. The youngster was given a CT scan, which revealed the huge tumour inside her abdomen. She was taken to Manchester Children's Hospital the next day for further tests. Two weeks later, at the start of April, she received the devastating diagnosis. 'It was such a shock when we found out,' Ms Latham said. 'It's just begun to sink in because she's so young and she's such a bright child. 'She had always been absolutely healthy. She was like any other two-year-old.' Doctors initially thought Cleo's swollen abdomen (left and right) was due to a hormonal balance she has suffered from before. A scan revealed the cancer after she endured pain Cleo required urgent treatment, which began the day after she was diagnosed. Ms Latham, who is also mother to Emelia, five, and Ellie-Mae, four, said: 'On April 2 she started chemotherapy and she was on that for four days. It was draining. 'The chemo started making her ill, and she's had to have a blood transfusion and injections of so many different medications.' 'She's gone from being a normal happy child to a really poorly little thing and it's really difficult to see. 'I'm sat there every day with her just watching her go down and down. 'I wish there was a way I could take it away from her and fight it. That's what's hard. I can't take it away from her.' Despite everything she has endured, the youngster (left) is managing to stay positive. Her mother claims the tumour is 'grapefruit sized' and pressing on her internal organs Cleo is due to undergo further chemotherapy before an operation to remove the tumour and her affected adrenal gland later this year. However, her mother claims there is an 80 per cent chance the tumour will return even after surgery. WHAT IS ADRENAL CARCINOMA? Adrenal carcinoma is a 'very rare' cancer that starts in the outer layer of the adrenal glands. The adrenal glands produce hormones and are located above the kidneys. Adrenal carcinoma can cause too many of these hormones to be made, leading to symptoms. For example, too much cortisol can affect the body's blood sugar balance. And excessive amounts of aldosterone can upset water and salt levels, as well as blood pressure. Adrenal carcinoma's cause is often unclear. Some people are born with a genetic mutation that puts them at risk. Symptoms can include: Raised blood pressure Thirst Passing urine more frequently Muscle cramps Weight gain, particularly in the abdomen Muscle wasting of the limbs Fat accumulation at the base of the neck Swelling of the face Mild diabetes Abnormal hair growth on the face, arms and upper back Treatment depends on the size of the tumour and whether it has spread. Adrenal carcinoma is often fast growing and only diagnosed at a late stage, which makes treatment tricky. It can include, however, surgery to remove the affected gland, as well as radiotherapy and chemo. Source: Cancer Research UK Advertisement 'All we can do is remain positive and happy,' Ms Latham said. 'It keeps a smile on Cleo's face. That's what we want for the whole time she's being treated; for her to keep smiling. 'We just say to ourselves this is just another chapter of her life. 'We are shrinking the tumour with chemotherapy at the moment and once it's small enough they're going to remove it. 'There's an 80 per cent chance of it recurring, but that means there's a 20 per cent chance it won't.' Writing on her fundraising page, Ms Latham claims her daughter's tumour is 'the size of a grapefruit' and is 'causing her intestines to be squashed to the left side'. She claims Cleo's heart rate has gone up as a result of the growth, which also leaves her feeling 'full all the time' and 'peeing constantly' because it presses on her bladder. But despite everything she has endured, the youngster manages to stay positive. 'Cleo is still smiling through every single day,' Ms Latham said. 'She still laughs and jokes, and the hospital has been amazing - she's been having fun in their playroom. She's a little warrior. 'When I see her smiling when I'm with her it makes everything much easier. 'Cleo is bubbly and independent. She's really advanced for her age. She's not like other two-year-olds. Her speech is amazing. She speaks like a four or five-year-old. 'She's a great child and a great little fighter. She's been so strong in hospital.' Ms Latham credits her partner for helping her get through this difficult time. 'Ryan rings me every day and when he asked me about Cleo he also makes sure I'm eating and everything,' she said. 'He's my rock at the minute.' The family has set up a Facebook page - Cleo's Chapter - to document the toddler's cancer fight. They have also launched an online fundraiser to help pay for their regular journeys between Blackpool and Manchester Children's Hospital, where Cleo is being treated. Donate here. A baby boy born last summer without an anus is finally heading home after doctors spent months trying to repair his birth defect. Jackson Brian Kuhn has a twin brother Jamison, who was not born with any defects and was discharged days after they were born in Pennsylvania in July. But Jackson, born with skin covering his anus, endured a tough start, undergoing seven surgeries, which dealt a tough blow to his fragile body, leaving him routinely sick. Finally, after eight months, doctors decided Jackson can go home, although he still needs a colostomy bag and has to wait a few more months to be ready for full reconstruction surgery. Struggling with the tumult of medical bills, his parents, Andrew Kuhn and Katie Faulkner, were urged by friends to set up a GoFundMe page. Jackson Brian Kuhn has a twin brother Jamison, who was not born with any defects and was discharged days after they were born in Pennsylvania in July Shortly after the boys were born, the doctors fell silent as they examined Jackson in a nerve-wracking few minutes for Andrew and Katie, who was still delirious from the surgery 'He's a strong boy already and is going to put up a strong fight,' Kuhn wrote on the page. 'Thank you all for your love and support. I'm not one to be a charity case, but I just would love everyone prayers to continue for this family.' The couple spoke recently to Fox 43 about the nerve-wracking moment in the delivery room when their doctors turned quiet. Their two boys were both delivered via C-section, but as the doctors cleaned them up the were working slower, studying closer, and speaking in hushed tones with one another. 'I saw that they were examining one of the babies, they had the other one, and took him away and a bunch of doctors were surrounding,' Kuhn said. 'I was just like something doesn't seem right something doesn't feel right.' The doctors came back and informed them that Jackson had an imperforate anus, which affects one in every 5,000 babies, and is more common in boys. It is normally coupled with other abnormalities of the rectum, but the immediate concern is reconstruction surgery to remove the extra patch of skin. The little boys sharing a moment together. Despite Jackson's ordeals, they are close It's not clear what causes children to develop an imperforate anus, but it's clear that it happens very early in gestation - around five to seven weeks. The exact type of surgery they need depends on their defect. Some may have a rectum that is severely underdeveloped, which will require surgeons pulling through to attach the rectum to the new one they have fashioned surgically. They may also need to work with the surrounding organs to ensure they are not connected to the rectum. Beyond the emotional ordeal, the Kuhn-Faulkner family have financial stress to face. To keep up, they need an eye-watering $100,000. 'You feel depressed and stressed out every day you're thinking what's going to happen next and what bill is going to come in the mail next,' Kuhn told Fox. But, he added: 'Just seeing his smiling face every day home with us beats any bill.' Emily Piercell was just 27 when she discovered a lump in her breast. Doctors said she was too young to get cancer - until she convinced them to do a biopsy that revealed a stage three tumor Doctors refused to do a biopsy on a lump that Emily Piercell found in her breast when she was just 27. But when the mass tripled in size, she demanded a biopsy which revealed stage three cancer, inspiring her to trail blaze a program to help young women advocate for themselves - and to teach doctors to listen. Programs coordinator at Rethink Breast Cancer, Emily Piercell - now 31 - from Ontario, Canada, was an aspiring lawyer before cancer turned her world upside down. Breast cancer is relatively rare in young people, but it happens - to 70,000 men and women between 15 and 39 each year in the US. Like Emily, 80 percent of young breast cancer patients find their own tumors, but are often dismissed by doctors who do only preliminary tests of their masses but, now, Emily has dedicated her professional life to making sure doctors listen to patients. It was May 2015 when Emily noticed a lump in her breast and went to her doctor to get checked out. Emily's doctor wasn't concerned by the lump because she had no family history of breast cancer and she was only 27 at the time. Emily was sent for an ultrasound and doctors concluded that the lump was dense tissue and nothing of concern, so they didn't do a biopsy. Over the next three months, Emily's lump tripled in size and grew to 10 centimeters in both length and width. Because her cancer was fairly advanced by the time it was diagnosed, Emily had to have chemo, surgery and radiation therapies that 'ruined her skin,' she said Emily returned to her doctor who sent her for another ultrasound which, again, showed the lump as just dense tissue. But this time, Emily pushed for a biopsy to be done, despite the radiologist's reluctance. The biopsy revealed that Emily's doctors were wrong. She had triple positive stage three breast cancer. Emily says she regularly checked her breasts for lumps or abnormalities, the best at-home screening women can do for breast cancer. At first, even she thought there might be a simpler explanation for what she felt. 'I had recently changed birth control and within one cycle my hands and feet were swollen, and I noticed a large lump in my right breast,' Emily says. 'I went to my family doctor who wasn't concerned but she sent me for a biopsy and ultrasound anyway. The ultrasound looked like the lump was normal dense tissue, so the radiologist didn't do a biopsy, but he sent me for a mammogram which came back negative.' Emily and her husband, Jose (pictured), didn't expect to have to face a life-threatening disease together so early in their lives together. During treatment, Emily lost her hair, so she and Jose (left) had matching buzz cuts for a while In fairness to her doctors, it isn't just that phyisicians are in the habit of turning away young women who might have breast cancer - there currently are no reliable screening tools for breast cancer in people under 40. Young women tend to have denser breast tissue than older women. Dense breast tissue is both a risk factor for breast cancer and an impediment to testing. While a small lump or nodule might be nothing to be concerned about, a growing mass certainly is. 'Over the next three months, my lump tripled in size and took up my entire breast. It was 10 by 10 centimeters by this point,' Emily says. Again, Emily's mass just looked like dense tissue on the ultrasound. 'Fortunately, this time, I advocated for myself and insisted on a biopsy because I knew it wasn't normal. The biopsy came back showing I had breast cancer.' Hers was particularly unusual not only because Emily was so young, but because she didn't seem to have non-clinical warning signs that she could develop breast cancer early, like a family history. Emily got to ring the remission bell over two years ago (left). She remains on hormone therapy though her active treatment is over and she wants desperately to have a child of her own, according to Emily's writing Instagram posts, but her doctors have warned she could relapse (pictured right with a friend's child) But it's actually a bit of a myth that family history is predictive of breast cancer. Though it raises risks by about 25 percent, between 75 and 85 percent of women that get breast cancer have no close relatives with the disease and fewer have associated genetic mutations. Family history or none, Emily knew that what was happening to her breast was not right. 'The second time I went for an ultrasound, the radiologist nearly didn't even come into the room. I kept saying to the technician that my lump wasn't normal, so he went to speak to the radiologist and told him he had to look for himself because one breast felt hard.' Emily was right. The mass was cancerous, and had reached the third stage - progression that was not helped by the delay in her treatment. 'By the time I eventually received my breast cancer diagnosis, we knew the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes,' said Emily. After she went into remission, Emily decided to stay involved in cancer advocacy instead of becoming a lawyer. She and her friends stay active in breast cancer nonprofit work, including participating in benefit runs At last she started chemotherapy and was booked for surgery. 'Treatment was really difficult. I was nauseous, weak, moody, had bone pain and mouth sores,' Emily said. 'The first week after chemotherapy I couldn't take care of myself. The second week I felt better and by the third week I was back to normal, just a weaker version.' But the double mastectomy brought Emily more existential pain. 'At the time of my mastectomy, after chemotherapy, there was still cancer in three lymph nodes,' Emily said. 'I know, without a doubt, I would have had a different diagnosis if I didn't insist on the biopsy. Within three months the tumor grew from nothing to my whole breast.' But because of the wait, she would have to have all the tissue removed - and have the same done in the other breast, to be safe. 'Losing my breasts felt like I lost a limb and a part of myself. I was so scared to be done with chemotherapy and move onto surgery,' Emily said. 'Then, radiation was okay, but it killed my skin.' It was a grueling battle, but it worked. Emily went into remission. Since her shock diagnosis in 2015, the now 31-year-old has written about life after cancer and continues to work with a breast cancer nonprofit (left). Among Emily's missions is to remind everyone that cancer changes decades of young person's life to come (right) In June 2017 Emily was called to the bar and became a lawyer, but after going on a retreat with Rethink Breast Cancer, Emily sent them her CV for opportunities in their legal department. The group didn't have any legal positions available at the time, but they said they could use her help elsewhere in the meantime. Once she was in the company, Emily learned loved supporting other young women fighting breast cancer and stopped looking for legal positions. 'Legal work didn't make me feel good in the way that what I'm doing now does. I think I'm where I'm supposed to be,' Emily said. 'Some days I'm still hard on myself about not being a lawyer because I worked hard to be one, but I have different priorities now. 'My career has changed, and I have dedicated my life to helping other young women who are dealing with cancer. 'Cancer is awful, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone but I'm doing really well now. I'm more confident in myself and celebrate all my little victories. Life really does get better with time and I've learned that I'm stronger than I thought I was.' Getting scammed might be an early indicator that an older person is starting to have cognitive declines, a new study suggests. About a third of people 85 or older have Alzheimer's disease. There is no cure and treatments to help slow down memory loss only work if a patient starts taking them early. But most people don't begin to lose their ability to recall things like names until the disease has progressed substantially. Finding early cues could be crucial to diagnosing and treating Alzheimer's disease as soon as possible. Plus, the study authors from Rush University in Chicago note, elder fraud leads to the loss of $35 billion a year, so knowing how many people may be at risk for such scams may help us better protect at-risk senior citizens. Older Americans that fall for phone scams may be at a two-fold risk of Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment, a new study suggests Elderly people have long been considered easy targets for cons and frauds. Perhaps the classic example is the so-called grandparents scam, in which con artists contact elderly people and impersonate the grandchildren or other family members, asking for financial assistance to help cover the costs of a car crash or similar emergency. Older populations tend to have more readily accessible cash and are seen as alone, and thus more likely to pick a phone cal, even if it's from an unfamiliar number. But scientists have long suspected that something much more sinister than simply targeting 'gullible' older people is going on when it comes to scamming. And the new study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, demonstrates that vulnerability to cons may be an early symptom of cognitive declines, and 'harbinger' of Alzheimer's disease. Scientists at Rush University had been hearing a growing number of reports of elder fraud in recent years. 'Even cognitively intact older people fall prey to pretty hard-to-believe scams,' lead study author Dr Patricia Boyle told Daily Mail Online. 'We want to know if this is telling us something about what's going on in the brain, of something that's going awry.' The researchers assessed how 'scam aware' 935 older Americans were, then continued to track their mental acuity for an average of six years. They asked questions to gauge if the participants knew when something was 'too good to be true,' if they answered the phone even when it was an unfamiliar number, and if they had a hard time hanging up the phone. Over the course of the following years, the participants cognition was assessed with standard neuropsychiatric tests. Of the original participants, 264 died, and their brain's were autopsied for signs of Alzheimer's disease. Significant links between scam awareness and both mild cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease development became clear to the researchers when they compared the resulting data. Altogether, they found that those who were not scam aware were at about double the risk of either cognitive decline or Alzheimer's disease. '[Scam awareness] involves multiple functions, cognition and, to some degree, evaluating an offer or situation also involves emotional regulation and social judgement' explained Dr Boyle. 'Social judgement is a complex behavior that's probably supported by diverse networks, and therefore [this function] may be at a vulnerability to early brain changes...which suggests that Alzheimer's disease and associated change affects broader changes...than memory loss - it's much more complex.' By the time that memory loss shows up, Alzheimer's disease has already wreaked significant havoc on the brain. So paying attention to more subtle indicators - like scam vulnerability - might help researchers identify at-risk patients far earlier and protect them in more than one way. The new research suggests that far more older people might be vulnerable to both con artists and Alzheimer's disease than previously thought, Dr Boyle said. 'We need to put in measures to protect the wealth as well as the health of our older adults,' she added. One in four NHS hospitals is routinely failing to put enough nurses on duty to keep patients safe, a damning report says. Experts warn that the lessons of the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal have been forgotten amid a desperate staffing crisis across the Health Service. The 224-page report, funded by the research arm of the NHS, concluded that patients are routinely cared for in wards that are left at a 'high risk' staffing level. The report also warned that healthcare assistants who do not have the same training as registered nurses are being used to shore up the lack of fully qualified staff. One in four NHS hospitals is routinely failing to put enough nurses on duty to keep patients safe, a damning report says The 224-page report, funded by the research arm of the NHS, concluded that patients are routinely cared for in wards that are left at a 'high risk' staffing level The review, conducted by Southampton University, said a 40,000 shortage in registered nurses across England meant hospitals find it impossible to safely staff their wards. This has 'resulted in a gradual dilution of national safe staffing policy'. The 2013 Francis Inquiry identified inadequate staffing as contributing to the crisis at Mid Staffordshire hospital, in which hundreds of patients are thought to have died as a result of neglect between 2005 and 2009. The NHS watchdog NICE then recommended that a level of more than eight patients per registered nurse should trigger a review of staffing. But the Government stopped short of making the recommendation into a mandatory minimum staffing level leaving it up to individual NHS trusts to set their own staffing requirements. The new report, which questioned 91 directors of nursing in NHS trusts, said: 'One in four trusts surveyed reported that the number of patients per registered nurse had exceeded 1:8 on more than 65 per cent of shifts in the past 12 months.' Lead author Professor Jane Ball said: 'The ongoing national shortage of registered nurses, and failure to increase supply sufficiently, has not been addressed. This failure has prevented safe staffing levels from being achieved. 'NICE identified a ratio of eight patients per registered nurse as a level that threatens patient safety. But in our survey of directors of nursing, one in four reported wards were routinely running with this high-risk level.' Her team said hospitals face major challenges in recruiting and retaining registered nurses, with an average vacancy rate of 10 per cent across the country. Some hospitals have a 20 per cent nurse shortfall. The review, conducted by Southampton University, said a 40,000 shortage in registered nurses across England meant hospitals find it impossible to safely staff their wards The report warned of a 'dilution' in skills on wards as healthcare assistants are used to fill the gaps. It said the number of full-time equivalent nurses in NHS trusts has risen by 10 per cent since 2013 but there has been a 30 per cent rise in healthcare assistants and support staff. 'The disproportionate increase in support staff numbers has resulted in a slight lowering of skill mix,' the report said. 'Registered nurses account for 66 per cent of nursing staff in 2017 compared with 69 per cent in 2013.' A 2016 study, also by Southampton University, warned that, for every 25 patients, substituting just one qualified nurse with a lower-qualified member of staff was associated with a 21 per cent increase in the odds of dying. Professor Ball added: 'The continued failure to train enough registered nurses to meet patient needs is a fundamental flaw.' She said trusts had been left with 'a clear vision of safe staffing but without sufficient means in terms of registered nurses to deliver on it'. Patricia Marquis, of the Royal College of Nursing, said: 'Mid Staffordshire showed us the dire consequences of nurse shortages and yet those precious lessons have been forgotten so quickly.' A Department of Health spokesman said: 'The Care Quality Commission requires that all healthcare providers have appropriate staffing levels and our Long Term Plan sets out how we will ensure the NHS stays the safest healthcare system in the world. 'There are over 15,800 more nurses on wards since 2010, 52,000 more in training and we are improving staff retention by promoting flexibility, wellbeing and career development.' Tax deadline day in the US is always greeted by queues outside the offices of H&R Block, the specialists in completing Americas notoriously complex returns. This year there is a new trend. Wealthy New Yorkers are switching tax domicile from the Big Apple to low- or no-state income tax zones such as Florida. In the small print of Donald Trumps epic tax cut package, which became law in 2017, was a provision that local income tax (in New York it can be as high as 12.7 per cent) can only be deducted on federal tax returns up to $10,000. Jeremy Corbyn and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell want to raise the top rate of income tax to 50 per cent and impose taxes on the wealthy For Wall Streets high rollers this represents a huge tax rise, which is driving wealth creators to move residence. The relationship between high taxes, investment and output is sensitive. When President Hollande of France raised the top rate of income tax to 80 per cent, there was an immediate exodus of French entrepreneurs and traders to London and other locations. It is worth bearing this in mind as Britain contemplates a Corbyn government with plans to raise the top rate of income tax to 50 per cent, impose taxes on the wealthy and possibly seize up to 10 per cent of the capital of every company with 250 employees. The evidence from New York and France of what happens when governments aim to squeeze the pips of the wealthy is unambiguous. Entrepreneurs are driven out and investment and job creation takes a beating. The Thatcher governments dismantling of a Labour structure that saw the well-off paying more in taxes than they earned, brought businesses, entrepreneurs and the wealthy back from overseas. George Osbornes decision to reduce Labours hike in the top rate of income tax from 50 per cent to 45 per cent saw no loss in revenues as employment in the UK reached record levels along with tax receipts. In 2010, receipts from a 28 per cent corporation tax were 35.5billion. After the cut to 19 per cent, corporation tax income climbed to 58billion in 2018/19. You dont have to be a messianic supply-sider to recognise that the higher the taxes on the well-off and business, the greater the disincentive to invest. Jeremy Corbyn and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell will kill the golden goose which delivered record employment in Britain if they continue to pursue soak-the-rich tax policies which drive managers and businesses offshore. Poor deal Claims by sprightly Non-Standard Finance (NSF) boss John van Kuffeler that he is a person who investors, regulators and customers can rely upon to clean up Britains sub-prime lending industry by absorbing Provident Financial are threadbare. Van Kuffeler, armed with the support of major investors, claimed victory when the irrevocable support of shareholders tipped over the 50 per cent mark. But with 90 per cent acceptances required (although it could seek a lower threshold), full victory is not assured. Van Kuffelers case has been that NSFs regulatory record is better than that of Provvy, and his superior understanding of the enterprise makes his leadership preferable to that of the other friend of the poor, Malcolm Le May. There could be something to that, given that Le May is occupied finding a chairman for spread-betting group IG. But van Kuffeler does not inspire much confidence either. Regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has already intervened to warn NSF against the danger of lifting controls on lending and putting in place new incentives. After the London Capital & Finance mini-bond scandal blew a hole in the FCAs reputation, it is unimaginable that regulators are going to nod through the NSF deal. That is especially true following the admission that NSF has been in technical breach of the Companies Act by paying dividends out of reserves and through an intra-company transaction in 2016. None of this suggests that van Kuffeler or NSF are fit and proper stewards to be lenders to Britains vulnerable and least credit-worthy borrowers. Before any deal is done, van Kuffeler and Le May must put personal ambition to one side, resign and allow new management teams to settle before proceeding with a potentially disastrous merger for all involved. That includes the embattled FCA. Ginastics Has desperation set in at Waitrose? After providing free coffee and copies of the Daily Mail, it has jumped on the gin bandwagon and is offering designer tastings at home. Next, perhaps, midlife makeovers in the empty aisles. The FTSE 100 closed down 0.19 points at 7436.87 and the pound was at $1.31 against the dollar. Debenhams chief executive Sergio Bucher is expected to step down as the troubled department store chain enters a new phase under the ownership of its lenders. In other retail news, the number of shoppers visiting stores in March was 1.4 per cent higher than the same time last year when the Beast From the East pummelled many UK high streets, a report has found. And TSB has become the first retail bank to guarantee customers that they will be refunded if they fall victim to fraud. by Wang Zhicheng In Lanzhou another priest forcibly taken away. A church destroyed in Xiangtao (Hubei). Underground priests do not feel safe: they can disappear at any time. The faithful are holding a sit-in from this morning in front of the local government office. Beijing (AsiaNews) Since 8 am this morning the faithful of Xuanhua (Hebei) have been holding a sit-in at the entrance to the local government building to demand the safe return of Fr. Paul Zhang Guangjun (photo 1), kidnapped yesterday by national security agents. Fr. Zhang, 49, is an unofficial priest of the diocese, who does not agree to join the Patriotic Association (PA), the controlling body of the Chinese Catholic Church. Because of this, Fr. Zhang was beaten and injured by members of the United Front. In the diocese of Lanzhou (Gansu) another unofficial priest, Fr. Hong Wanxi (photo 3), 60, was forcibly taken to his home village by the United Front, having also refused to join the PA. Yesterday, a group of strangers stopped the car of Fr. Zhang smashed the glass of the window (photo 2) and started beating the priest. Another person, a man, who was with the priest was taken, thrown out and wildly beaten, leaving him with fractures. According to reports of the faithful, the two thought that the group was some gang of criminals and they resisted. Then the thugs revealed they worked for public security. They took the priest, threw him to the ground and then dragged him into their car and took him away. Fr. Zhang is an underground priest of Xuanhua, a diocese recognized by the Vatican, but absorbed into the official diocese of Zhangjiakou, where underground priests are being head hunted to force them to pass into the official church, by joining the PA. The faithful are worried and afraid because their priests are not safe and risk disappearing in the hands of the police at any time. Fifteen days ago, while Fr. Zhang was celebrating Mass in the house of one of the faithful, the police raided it. The operation ended quietly and without violence. Several years ago, Fr. Zhang was beaten by a group of people from the United Front, the body that oversees religious affairs. Even then he was asked to register with the PA and he was beaten when he refused. Also yesterday, Fr. Hong Wanxi, a priest from Shandan County (Lanzhou, Gansu), was forced to leave his Church and forcibly moved to his home town. The reason is always the same: refusal to join the PA and to be part of the official diocese of Shijiazhuang. At least 10 people, including policemen and members of the United Front and the Religious Affairs Office, took him, put him in the car and dragged him away. Meanwhile, news has arrived that last April 12, in Hubei, a Catholic church was destroyed: It was Xutang, in Xiangtao (photo 4) The boss of Centrica is fighting for his job as investors lose faith in his leadership. Iain Conn has been chief executive of the British Gas owner since 2015 picking up 11.1million in pay along the way. But the FTSE 100 group's shares have tumbled 60 per cent on his watch and are at their lowest level since 1999. The father-of-three's position is seen as particularly vulnerable since the arrival of Charles Berry, who succeeded Rick Haythornthwaite as chairman in February. Under fire: Iain Conn has held been chief executive of the FTSE 100 giant since the start of 2015 - picking up 11.2m in pay along the way One major institutional investor said: 'With the new chairman coming in, Iain Conn's days are numbered.' And with Centrica's prized dividend under threat, a City source told the Mail that major shareholders are questioning Conn's future. The source said: 'Shareholders have voiced desires to see a change in management. I think, personally, people have no issues with Iain Conn. But there wouldn't be too many who would be disappointed if he went.' Conn has also attracted the ire of retail investors who have seen the value of their savings plummet from 279p a share when he took over in 2015 to 109.05p at the close of business yesterday. The slump has slashed Centrica's value from 15.9billion to 6.2billion. The backlash among shareholders comes a week after it emerged that Conn, 56, enjoyed a 44 per cent pay rise to 2.4million in 2018. The rise of 740,000 covered a year when British Gas hiked bills for millions of families and saw 742,000 customers leave. The City source said: 'The new chairman only started at the beginning of the year and he's unlikely to change the chief executive immediately. 'But by the time we get to the middle of the year, maybe he's had a bit more time to think about the business, speak to those shareholders and understand the issues. 'Speaking to a number of major shareholders, there are plenty of questions around Conn's strategy. 'The core business is obviously struggling, and Centrica is looking to innovate in other areas to compensate for some of that.' Those areas include connected home devices such as Hive, which allows customers to control their lights, heating and security cameras from their phone over the internet, and energy management for schools and hospitals which need on-site generators or solar panels. While investors may be more convinced by Centrica's moves into the energy management niche, they are raising red flags about the emphasis on connected homes. Some worry Centrica could be outmanoeuvred by tech experts such as Google or Amazon. Conn is also facing a backlash at the annual general meeting on May 13. Trade union Unison, which represents around 5,000 Centrica employees, is rallying staff who hold shares in the firm, as well as institutional investors such as pension funds, to vote against Conn's pay package. Matt Lay, national energy officer at Unison, said: 'Staff feel badly let down by Iain Conn. We don't believe he has demonstrated leadership on this issue. 'This man is being rewarded for performance when the business is shrinking. It is a reward for failure for a boss who doesn't appear to have identified a strategy to right the business. It's incredibly insensitive and destructive, and sets a bad example.' Conn is understood to have support among other shareholders, however. Advisory group Glass Lewis, which speaks for around 30 per cent of Centrica investors, have publicly backed both his pay and his reappointment. Centrica this month announced another 500 jobs are at risk 400 of which are based in Glasgow - as part of the company's plan to cut 2,000 jobs this year. It has axed 7,700 jobs since 2015. Centrica declined to comment last night. Corporate raider Edward Bramson accused Barclays bosses of pursuing a flawed strategy which will only cost investors money The corporate raider demanding a seat on Barclays' board has insisted its investment arm must be hacked back to boost shares. As the war of words escalated, US-based Edward Bramson accused Barclays bosses of pursuing a flawed strategy which will cost investors money. The latest broadside came ahead of the lender's annual meeting next month when Bramson hopes to win a shareholder vote making him a non-executive director. He is thought to favour massive cutbacks to the lender's prized investment banking arm. In the letter to Barclays' backers, Bramson's fund Sherborne Investors stated: 'The stubbornly low valuation that the market accords to the shares of Barclays will continue until the board finally adopts a strategy that is more realistic and shareholder-orientated.' Barclays has urged shareholders to vote against Bramson's appointment to its board. In its own letter last week, the bank claimed Bramson does not understand the industry and would be unable to work with other directors in a fair and open way. But 68-year-old Bramson insisted he could play a useful role on the board by offering an alternative point of view. He said: 'It seems to us that a board comprised of 12 or more senior business people should be able to accommodate and resolve occasional differences of perspective and arrive at better and more sustainable outcomes for shareholders than a board that cannot. 'An alternative voice on the board would seem to be healthy for the company and its shareholders.' It came as shareholder advice group Glass Lewis issued a scathing attack on Bramson, and urged investors to vote against his appointment to Barclays' board. Barclays declined to comment last night. Alibaba founder Jack Ma is calling for his countrymen to work 12-hour days, six days a week China's richest man is calling for his countrymen to work 12-hour days, six days a week. Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba China's version of eBay described the opportunity to put in more hours as a 'blessing'. Fellow tech entrepreneur Richard Liu, the boss of online shopping giant JD, has echoed Ma's calls, speaking out against a rise in the number of 'slackers' in China. Defending the so-called 996 system working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week Ma, 54, said: 'I personally think that being able to work 996 is a huge blessing.' He said he had regularly worked long hours as he built Alibaba in the late 1990s and explained that 'if we find things we like, 996 is not a problem'. The father-of-three added: 'If you don't put out more time and energy than others, how can you achieve the success you want?' He said without the 996 system, China's economy was 'very likely to lose vitality and impetus'. Economic growth has slowed to 6 per cent per year after growth of 10 per cent for more than 25 years. Aidan James, a father from Merseyside who went to fight against ISIS in Syria, faces a retrial for terror charges after a jury failed to reach a verdict A British Army reject accused of travelling to Syria to fight against ISIS faces a retrial over allegations he attended a terrorist training camp. Aidan James, 28, of Formby, Merseyside, had no previous military experience when he allegedly set out in 2017 to fight with the YPG Kurdish militia. The prosecution alleged that he received training from the banned Marxist group PKK, before joining YPG units - or People's Protection Units - in Syria. A jury today said they could not agree verdicts after deliberating for 14 hours. The father-of-one had denied engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts and two charges of attending a place used for terrorist training. The PKK is proscribed in Britain because it has fought a terrorist campaign in Turkey, but the UK has supported the YPG, who form the main contingent of the anti-ISIS forces. Jurors were told he fought alongside banned groups in the region and was no different to fundamentalists who plot to bring carnage to the UK. James was claimed to have set out in 2017 to fight with the YPG Kurdish militia in Syria. He went on trial over claims he trained with banned group the PKK while he was there After spending six months in the warzone he returned to London via Amsterdam and was immediately picked up by anti-terror police officers at Liverpool Airport in February 2018. But Andrew Hall QC, defending, said the prosecution case was 'nonsense' as his client had no interest in the YPG's wider political aims. Last week, Mr Justice Edis told jurors that James had 'no case to answer' in relation to the first allegation of preparation for terrorism and told them to formally acquit him of the charge. The senior judge said at the Old Bailey in London that prosecutors did not seek a conviction if the defendant's 'activity was solely limited to the fight against ISIS'. At the conclusion of the prosecution case, jurors were told that James had declined to give evidence in his defence. Advertisement Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek has put his California lake house up for sale at $1.4 million, just a month after he revealed he was diagnosed with cancer. The 78-year-old's hideaway overlooks Lake Nacimiento in Paso Robles, which is about two hours away from Santa Maria, was put on the market on Friday, DailyMail.com can disclose. The 2,595 sq ft vacation home that was built in 2000 has three bedrooms, two bathrooms and sits on 30 acres of land. The $1.4 million price tag also includes all of the furniture, as well as all of the home's 'toys', such as two SkiDoos and two Quads. The listing comes after Trebek announced in early March he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, vowing he was going to fight through it and keep working. Alex Trebek's vacation home overlooking Lake Nacimiento in Paso Robles, California, has been put on the market for $1.4 million, DailyMail.com can disclose The 2,595 square feet vacation home that was built in 2000 has three bedrooms, two bathrooms and sits on 30 acres of land The property was offered to Trebek 'specially by the original developers, and he has developed the property with great care and aesthetic' It offers the best lake frontage of all of Ranchos del Lago and has a private ramp into the lake as well as a covered dock The listing comes after Trebek announced in early March he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, vowing that he was going to fight through it and keep working. Pictured: Trebek arriving at a medical center in Beverly Hills on March 8 According to the real estate listing, the property was offered to Trebek 'specially by the original developers, and he has developed the property with great care and aesthetic.' It offers the best lake frontage of all of Ranchos del Lago and has a private ramp into the lake as well as a covered dock. The lake home makes for a perfect 'turnkey' - ready to be rented out to vacationers almost immediately. This is believed to be Trebek's vacation home as his main residence is in Los Angeles. Trebek announced his devastating diagnosis in a message on YouTube on March 6, saying: 'Now, just like 50,000 other people in the United States each year, this week I was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. 'Now normally, the prognosis for this is not very encouraging, but Im going to fight this, and Im going to keep working.' Trebek shared the message personally with his many fan on Jeopardy's YouTube channel. '[W]ith the love and support of my family and friends and with the help of your prayers also, I plan to beat the low survival rate statistics for this disease,' he said. 'Truth told, I have to! Because under the terms of my contract, I have to host Jeopardy! for three more years! 'So help me. Keep the faith and well win. Well get it done. Thank you.' The lake home makes for a perfect 'turnkey' - ready to be rented out to vacationers almost immediately This is believed to be Trebek's vacation home as his main residence is in Los Angeles According to the real estate listing, the property was offered to Trebek 'specially by the original developers, and he has developed the property with great care and aesthetic' The 2,595 square feet home is move in ready, as all the furniture in the home is included Trebek, who has been the host of Jeopardy! for 35 seasons, immediately began chemotherapy treatment, TMZ reported. The syndicated program is viewed by 23 million people each week, making it the top-rated quiz show on U.S. television. Jeopardy! is produced by Sony Pictures Television Sony, a division of Sony Corp, and distributed by a division of CBS Corp. The show is recorded on the Sony Pictures lot in Culver City, California. 'The show normally has two production days a week, when multiple episodes of the daily show are taped in a row,' a spokesperson said. On Monday, the official Jeopardy Instagram account shared a photo of Trebek with television writer and producer Norman Lear, teasing an episode that aired later that day in which an entire category was devoted to Lear. It's not clear how far in advance the show films, so the date the photo was taken is not known. The 78-year-old's hideaway overlooks Lake Nacimiento in Paso Robles, which is about two hours away from Santa Maria, was put on the market on Friday Trebek, who has been the host of Jeopardy! for 35 seasons, immediately began chemotherapy treatment after he announced his diagnosis Also on the 30 acre property is this 1,500 metal building that has a full bathroom The vacation home offers the best lake frontage of all of Ranchos del Lago and has a private ramp into the lake as well as a covered dock In the years leading up to Trebek's recent announcement of his cancer diagnosis, the Ontario native has had a few health scares. In December 2017, he underwent brain surgery after he was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Trebek was experiencing complications from a fall the month before when he hit his head. On December 16 of that year, he underwent surgery to remove a subdural hematoma, which occurs when there is a build-up of bleeding on the brain usually after a head injury. In 2015, he needed to host Jeopardy! sitting down due to a knee replacement that he underwent. In 2012, he suffered a mild heart attack. Trebek is married to his wife of 29 years, Jean Currivan, with whom he shares two children - Matthew, 29, and Emily, 27. Matthew Trebek is the owner of the popular Mexican eatery Oso in New York City. Emily works in real estate in Los Angeles, according to PEOPLE. Facebook's security spending on CEO Mark Zuckerberg more than doubled to $22.6 million in 2018, a regulatory filing revealed. The spend was up from around $9 million in 2017 on security for Zuckerberg and his family. A $2.6 million portion was spent on private jets for the boss, which the company classes as part of an overall security program. Facebook co-founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before a combined Senate Judiciary and Commerce committee hearing on Capitol Hill in April last year Zuckerberg arrives to testify before a House Energy and Commerce hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington in April last year The news comes as Zuckerberg faces increased scrutiny after the Cambridge Analytica scandal alleging improper harvesting of 87 million personal profiles which broke in March last year. Facebook has drawn public ire over their role in Russia's alleged influence on the 2016 U.S. presidential election. And Zuckerberg has sat before committees in the United States and abroad to answer questions over Facebook's handling of users' information. The regulatory finding revealed Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg took home $23.7 million in 2018 compared to $25.2 million last year. Separately, Facebook said Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings would vacate his seat on the social media company's board and not be nominated for re-election. Hastings' departure comes as the Menlo Park-based company beefs up its push into videos. Hastings has served on Facebook's board since 2011. The company also said it would nominate PayPal's senior vice president of core markets, Peggy Alford, to its board in place of University of North Carolina President Emeritus Erskine Bowles, who will also not be re-nominated. In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last Friday, Facebook investors listed proposals to oust Zuckerberg from the executive seat, Business Insider reported. Investors controlling roughly $3 billion of Facebook's stock support the measure but it still has little probability of gaining ground. The issue stems from Facebook's dual-class share structure - they allow their Class B shares to have 10 times the voting power of their Class A shares. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg leaving The Merrion Hotel in Dublin after a meeting with politicians to discuss regulation of social media and harmful content in April 2019 Zuckerberg owns roughly 75 percent of the class B stock and the chances of him being ousted are slim. At the end of the annual investor meeting shareholders will be able to vote on a proposal calling for 'fair and appropriate mechanisms through which disproportionate rights of Class B shareholders could be eliminated.' It added: 'Fake news, election interference, and threats to our democracy -- shareholders need more than deny, deflect, and delay. We urge shareholders to vote FOR a recapitalization plan for all outstanding stock to have one vote per share.' Facebook has also called for its investors to strike down that proposal. A former McDonald's crew trainer has lifted the lid on some of the fast food giant's best-kept secrets. The Sydney man, who asked to remain anonymous, worked at McDonald's for close to a decade while at school and university. Six years later, the 26-year-old has shared the ordering tips every customer should know including how to make sure your burger is fresh and chips are hot. FRESH BURGERS While McDonald's boasts about making burgers 'fresh to order' what they don't let customers know is that the meat is pre-cooked and kept in a heated cabinet. Workers are supposed to throw away meat after its timer goes off. Customers who request their meat is made without salt and pepper are guaranteed a fresh burger, as kitchen staff will have to lay a new run of beef down on the grill. If you're after a fresh burger, ask for your meat to come without salt and pepper FRESH FRIES Like burger patties, fries can often be left to go cold if workers aren't keeping track of how long each batch has been sitting there. If you order your fries without salt, you are guaranteed hot and crispy chips. Simply ask for some salt on the side - a free condiment at McDonald's - and add it to your fresh fries (but be warned, you'll infuriate the staff). To guarantee fresh fries, ask for no salt. You'll have to wait three and a half minutes while staff put a new batch into the deep fryer $1.10 McFlurry hack The McFlurry is considered to be the king of late-night dessert options by many. But McDonald's has capitalised on Australia's love for the ice cream treat by boosting its price up to over $5 in some stores. For those after ice cream and a topping without the price tag, order a soft serve cone in a lid for $0.60 and then add Oreo or M&Ms for $0.50 extra. Likewise, if you're craving a sundae but don't want to pay the premium - simply order a soft serve cone in a lid and add strawberry, hot fudge or caramel sauce on top. McDonald's has capitalised on the popularity of the regular McFlurry (left) by boosting the price of one to almost $5. Order a cone in a lid with Oreo (right) for a fraction of the price HAPPY MEALS ARE CHEAPER Desperate for a Cheeseburger or McNuggets meal but not willing to spend top dollar? Try ordering a Happy Meal for either option, they're both significantly cheaper. While a small McNugget meal (six piece) will cost you $8.25 the Happy Meal alternative comes in at $7.55. That's a saving of $0.70 for the exact same meal plus you get a toy for your troubles. While McDonald's staff are meant to make sure Happy Meals are only sold to children, there's no way they can monitor who's ordering what. ALLERGIES = FRESH FOOD While staff are meant to change their gloves regularly, keep the burger-assembling bench clean and waste old meat things can get out of hand during peak-hour. If you're wanting an immaculate burger made properly I suggest saying you're allergic to an ingredient or gluten free. Kitchen staff take allergy requests very seriously - there's a huge liability if a customer gets sick - so they will wear clean gloves, wipe down the bench and take extra precaution with your order. Meat, fish, chicken and bacon are all placed in trays that are kept in heating cabinets (pictured above) with timers. Once those timers run out staff are told to waste the product If you feel strange making the requests to an employee, the process of removing seasoning from your burger and fries is very simple on the self-serve machine. Simply click 'customise item' on the screen and follow the prompts NO ICE = FREE SOFT DRINK An old trick but a classic, if you're extra thirsty but don't have enough money to upsize your coke ask for a soft drink with no ice. Staff are trained to fill close to a third of the cup with ice in a bid to save money on soft drink. But be warned, a 'no-ice' soft drink isn't for everyone - it won't be as cold as you're used to and will be missing that refreshing icy kick. NEVER ORDER A FILET-O-FISH LATE AT NIGHT The Filet-o-Fish is an acquired taste, and as such the demand for it is significantly lower than other burgers like the Big Mac or Quarter Pounder. As a result, the fish portion can often be left sitting in a heated shelf for hours - despite policy clearly stating it should be removed after its timer runs out. If your heart is set on a late-night Filet-o-Fish, I suggest politely asking the manager if you can have a fresh burger. How to get free Coke: Order a soft drink with 'no ice' - staff are trained to fill cups close to a third full with ice CHEAP CHEESEBURGERS AND MCCHICKENS A new promotion running at most McDonald's stores is the $1 hamburger. Simply add a slice of cheese ($0.60) to the burger and you now have a cheeseburger for $1.60, compared to the $3.05 it's supposed to cost. The same goes for a McChicken burger. Try ordering a Chicken N' Cheese with lettuce added to it for an extra $0.50. The creation will cost you $4, compared to the $5.70 a McChicken will set you back (plus it means you'll get an extra half slice of cheese on your burger). PICKLES, TOMATO SAUCE, WATER, SALT AND PEPPER ARE FREE Customers are technically entitled to order pickles, tomato sauce and salt and pepper for free - among other things. Try your luck ordering a bulk amount of any of the above - I've seen a customer walk out with an entire bag of pickles for free. Treating McDonald's employees (stock image) with respect and kindness goes a long way BE POLITE If you want quality customer service and fresh food, you'd be surprised how big of a difference it makes treating the staff decently. Employees working at the counter will almost always go out of their way to ensure customers get fresh burgers if they're asked nicely. Conversely, customers who treat staff like they are their slaves will more than likely end up with that old Cheeseburger or flat soft drink. American Airlines announced Sunday that it was canceling 115 flights per day through mid-August because of ongoing problems with the Boeing 737 Max aircraft. The announcement made American the second major carrier to cancel Max flights through the busy summer season. Southwest Airlines, the largest operator of Boeing jets, announced last week that it would cancel its Max flights through August 5. American's cancellations will last through August 19. American Airlines is canceling 115 flights per day through mid-August because of ongoing problems with the Boeing 737 Max aircraft which remain grounded The U.S. and other countries grounded Boeing's 737 Max plane in mid-March after deadly plane crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia. Boeing aims to finish fixing the planes in late April, and any changes would have to be submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration and foreign regulators for approval. American previously planned to cancel Max flights through early June. But by extending cancellations through the summer, the airline can plan more reliably for the peak travel season, said Doug Parker, American's chairman and CEO, and Robert Isom, president, in a letter to employees Sunday. Airlines are being forced to ground their planes longer than expected after Boeing and the FAA said the company needs more time to complete changes to a flight-control system suspected of playing a role in the crashes. Its unclear when the Max, which has been grounded since mid-March, will return. Boeing has slowed production and stopped deliveries as it works on a software fix American's cancellations represent 1.5% of its total flights each day of the summer. The airline, which has 24 Max jets, said its reservations and sales teams will work with customers to manage their travel plans. American explained on its website that not all flights previously scheduled on a Max would be canceled, because the airline plans to substitute other aircraft for some flights. That also means some flights that were not scheduled to take place on a Max plane may be canceled because the airline aims to affect the smallest number of customers. American also said on its website that customers can request a full refund if they choose not to be rebooked. On Twitter, American Airlines passengers posted complaints Sunday about canceled flights impacting vacations, speaking engagements and travel to funerals and noted problems re-booking flights. American canceled 350 out of Dallas-Fort Worth Saturday, but that had nothing to do with the Max, said spokesman Ross Feinsten. The cancellations were caused by hail, thunderstorms and high winds in Dallas followed by snow in Chicago, he said. 'We're working as hard as possible to rebook customers,' Feinstein said. A Stanford professor is under investigation for the role he may have played in the birth of the world's first genetically-edited babies at the direction of a Chinese scientist. Biotechnology professor Dr. Stephen Quake, 49, was an academic adviser eight years ago to Dr. He Jiankui, 35, limited to Dr. He's work on immune responses to the flu vaccine in Dr. Quake's lab while on the California campus. Dr. He worked with a woman and her HIV-infected male partner, and succeeded in editing a gene in two embryos created with their eggs and sperm to make it impossible for HIV to infect the embryos' cells. The woman then became pregnant with those two embryos and gave birth to resulting twin girls in October who may be immune to HIV. Now, Dr. Quake has been accused of being highly involved in the experiment which many scientists and geneticists have called unethical, unsafe, and medically unnecessary, the New York Times reported. Dr. Quake, however, denies any level of involvement beyond urging Dr. He not to go through with the project in 2016, but then recommending he seek ethical review and oversight once it became clear Dr. He was insistent on moving forward. Biotechnology professor Dr. Stephen Quake (left) has been accused by the president of a Chinese university of participating in a controversial human gene editing experiment which bore twins girls in October. Dr. He Jiankui (right), who was Dr. Quake's academic advisee at Stanford University eight years ago, succeeded in editing the genetics of two human embryos to prevent HIV from infecting the resulting children Purdue University's College of Agriculture explains gene editing as 'when a scientist makes a tiny, controlled change in the DNA of a living organism.' The site explains, 'The simplest way to envision this process is to imagine editing a giant manuscript. You flip through the hundreds of pages until you reach the once sentence you wish to alter, and then carefully change a single word. This creates only a tiny change in an enormously complex word document or, in this case, genome.' In the US, Dr. Quake is widely considered to be a star in the field of genome sequencing, which is essentially drawing up a blueprint of a specific human's DNA, but does not work in genome editing. Despite this, the president of Dr. He's Chinese university sent a letter to Stanford after news broke of what Dr. He had done, saying: 'Prof. Stephen Quake provided instructions to the preparation and implementation of the experiment, the publication of papers, the promotion and news release, and the strategies to react after the news release.' The Chinese university president said Dr. Quake 'violated the internationally recognized academic ethics and codes of conduct, and must be condemned.' In this October 9, 2018 photo, a microplate containing embryos that have been genetically edited is seen in a laboratory in Shenzhen in southern China's Guangdong province To deliberately alter the genes of human embryos with the intent of birthing a child from those embryos is currently illegal in the US, but its not illegal in China. Still, two days after Dr. He announced the births of the world's first genetically-edited humans in November, a group of 122 Chinese scientists released a statement calling what Dr. He did 'crazy' and 'a huge blow to the global reputation and development of Chinese science.' Dr. Quake said that he told Dr. He not to pursue editing the genes in human embryos using Crispr-Cas9 technology to deliberately disable a gene, known as CCR5. This gene is necessary to make a protein that H.I.V. needs to enter cells. 'I said, "Thats a terrible idea. Why would you want to do that?"' Dr. Quake said, rcalling, 'He kind of pushed back and it was clear that he wasnt listening to me.' Dr. Quake continued, 'I said, "All right, if youre not going to be convinced that I think this is a bad idea and you want to go down this path, then you need to do it properly and with proper respect for the people who are involved, and the field,' which meant seeking the approval of the Chinese equivalent of American institutional review boards (known as I.R.B.s), making sure he had proper informed consent from the couple, and only doing what was 'medically necessary.' Dr. Quake said he assumed if Dr. He went this route, he'd be stopped by the appropriate medical and research oversight institutions in China. When Dr. He moved forward with his experiment, he emailed Dr. Quake in April of 2018, telling him, 'Success! [...] The embryo with CCR5 gene edited was transplanted to the women 10 days ago, and today the pregnancy is confirmed!' At the time, Dr. Quake emailed back, 'Wow, thats quite an achievement! Hopefully she will carry to term...' Dr. Quake said he had assumed all proper steps had been followed in China. In June 2017, Dr. He emailed Dr. Quake a document seeming to show a hospital ethics committee had approved his plan. 'It was good to see that he had engaged with his I.R.B.-equivalent there and had approval to do his research, and Im thinking its their responsibility to manage this,' Dr. Quake said. 'If in my interactions with JK [a nickname for Dr. He] I had any hint of misconduct, I would have handled it completely differently. And I think I would have been very aggressive about telling people about that.' In this October 9, 2018 file photo, an embryo is shown being edited in a sperm injection microscope in a laboratory in Shenzhen in southern China's Guangdong province, during work by scientist He Jiankui's team In mid-October, Dr. He emailed Dr. Quake again to say the babies had been born, but asked Dr. Quake to 'please keep it in confidential,' and added, 'I want get help from you on how to announce the result, PR and ethics.' Dr. Quake replied, 'Let's definitely meet up,' and said he did advise Dr. He on when and how to release the news, but said that Dr. He did not follow his ultimate advice to wait for peer review of his process. Instead, Dr. He announced the birth of the twins in November at a summit on human genome editing in Hong Kong. Now, one of two Chinese hospitals involved has asked police to investigate alleged 'fraudulent ethical review materials,' according to the Beijing News. Despite the international outcry against Dr. He's claim that he has edited genes in human embryos which then resulted in the birth of genetically-edited twins, research is being celebrated in the field around the globe, including in the US. Dr. Shoukhrat Mitalipov, director of the Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy at Oregon Health and Science University, made history in 2017 by using gene editing on human embryos to successfully remove a dangerous gene mutation that is known to cause heart failure, according to the study published by the nature International Journal of Medicine. Rice University, where Dr. He earned a PhD before his postdoctoral work at Stanford, is investigating Michael Deem (pictured), who also advised Dr. He. Dr. Deem has been accused of being actively involved in Dr. He's human genome editing project and had said publicly that he was on site for portions of its execution But Dr. Mitalipov told the Times that Dr. He's work is 'completely insane,' adding that it's different from what he does because what Dr. He did is not medically necessary, since HIV-infected sperm does not infect embryos with the disease. Dr. He said he's not sure that's universally accepted in the medical community. In 2017, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine developed recommended guidelines for the editing of human genetic material in embryos, advocating use of the science only to alter genes known to cause 'serious diseases and disability,' and only when there is no 'reasonable alternative.' Rice University, where Dr. He earned a PhD before his postdoctoral work at Stanford, is investigating Michael Deem, who also advised Dr. He. Dr. Deem has been accused of being actively involved in Dr. He's human genome editing project and had said publicly that he was on site for portions of its execution. Through his attorneys, Dr. Deem has denied any involvement. Carmen Yulin Cruz, the Trump-bashing mayor of San Juan, ripped the U.S. president Sunday for 'throwing paper towels' at Puerto Ricans and his claim that 'big water, ocean water' prevented his administration from doling out relief faster. She said in Pittsburgh, at a rally in support of Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, that 'two devastating hurricanes' tore the territory apart and 'rather than finding words of comfort,' the sitting president 'neglected all of us.' 'He made sure that the people that needed help didn't get the help,' she said. 'You can kill people with a gun or you can kill people with neglect.' Carmen Yulin Cruz, the Trump-bashing mayor of San Juan was in Pittsburgh on Sunday at a rally in support of Bernie Sanders ' presidential campaign. She's pictured with Sanders before the event alongside fellow campaign co-chair Nina Turner She ripped the U.S. president Sunday for 'throwing paper towels' at Puerto Ricans during an Oct. 2017 visit to San Juan U.S. President Donald Trump tosses rolls of paper towels to people at a hurricane relief distribution center at Calvary Chapel in San Juan, Puerto Rico Cruz has been one of his most vocal political opponents ever since the 2017 incident She told attendees of the Sanders rally on Sunday, 'The world is watching. The world saw that he went down to Puerto Rico and threw paper towels at us' She said that 3,000 Puerto Ricans died as a result of Hurricanes Irma and Maria, 'because President Trump did not have it in him to get the job done.' Cruz ridiculed Trump for his claim that the vast expanse of ocean between the continental U.S. and the island hampered relief efforts. 'He actually said, "It's an island surrounded by water, lots and lots of water ocean water," ' she said. 'It may be because he's racist, it may be because he doesn't have a clue." ' Donald Trump said in a Sept. 2017 speech that 'the response and recovery effort probably has never been seen for something like this' and offered his condolence's to the U.S. territory's people. 'This is an island surrounded by water, big water, ocean water,' he noted. Days later, he visited he island to see the wreckage for himself and hear from local leaders like Cruz. He stopped at an aid distribution center while he was there, and he was filmed throwing rolls of paper towels at smiling Puerto Ricans. Cruz has been one of his most vocal political opponents ever since. She said Sunday that she told him during the visit, ' "We are dying here, and you are killing us with your incompetence, your bureaucracy and your inefficiency.' 'This man turned his back on us, but the people of the United States, the unions of the United States, fed us, gave us water and let us know that we were not alone,' she said in Pittsburgh. She told attendees of the Sanders rally, 'The world is watching. The world saw that he went down to Puerto Rico and threw paper towels at us. 'His idea of helping was throwing paper towels. His idea of not getting the job done was blaming those who are suffering,' she stated. Cruz went to college in Pittsburgh. She attended Carnegie Mellon in the Pennsylvania city Supporters wave signs as Presidential hopeful, Sen. Bernie Sanders addresses a crowd during the campaign rally in Pittsburgh on Sunday evening Yulin Cruz was referring to Trump's insistence a year after the hurricane that his administration 'got A Pluses' for its hurricane work everywhere else. He said it did an 'unappreciated great job in Puerto Rico, even though an inaccessible island with very poor electricity and a totally incompetent Mayor of San Juan),' in a Sept. 2018 tweet. She had attacked the Republican president in a tweet the day before. 'Pres Trump thinks loosing 3,000 lives is a success. Can you imagine what he thinks failure looks like?' she said. Cruz is a Carnegie Mellon grad. She's a co-chair of Sanders' 2020 campaign. The senator acknowledged her feud with Trump, who he's been trashing as a 'pathological liar' on the campaign trail, at the beginning of his rally remarks. 'There is a reason why Mayor Cruz is Trump's "least favorite mayor," ' he said, 'and that's because she is a woman of integrity and courage and she is standing up for her people, and not afraid to take on Trump's racism.' Hong Kong: Internet Economy Summit opens More than 70 renowned experts, industry leaders and government officials from overseas, the Mainland and Hong Kong gathered to share their insights on global technology trends at the Internet Economy Summit 2019 . They are also discussing business adoption in spurring the growth of the internet economy at the two-day summit. With the theme Digital Economy Redefines Our Future, the event has six thematic forums on how data will fuel innovations in sectors including fintech, artificial intelligence, smart manufacturing, cyber security, as well as in the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Chief Executive Carrie Lam gave opening remarks at the summits opening day today which featured two forums. At the Visionary Forum, speakers enlightened the audience on ways businesses and the community can stay resilient amid technology disruptions. Speakers included Amazon Web Services General Counsel Bob Kimball, Alibaba Global Business Group President Angel Zhao and Twitter Asia Pacific Vice President Maya Hari. The summit comes as the Government is taking forward various initiatives to build Hong Kong into a smarter city. Estonia is well known for deploying technology innovations to transform the nation into a digitally integrated and seamlessly connected country. The countrys Global Affairs Director of Government Chief Information Officer Office of the Ministry of Economic Affairs & Communications, Sandra Sarav, spoke about Estonias experience in leveraging new and emerging technologies to maximise value in government processes. The Chambers Forum included keynote speeches by representatives from Microsoft and Sino Group, with four panel discussion sessions. More than 2,000 people are expected to attend the summit organised by the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer and the Hong Kong Cyberport Management Company. This story has been published on: 2019-04-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 15) It's not the right time for the Philippines to bring up its dispute with China over the South China Sea, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro "Teddyboy" Locsin Jr. said Monday. "This is actually not the right time to bring up disagreements over the South China/West Philippine Sea with both sides hot under the collar while a pissing contest is in full flower," Locsin said in a tweet. On Sunday, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said recent pronouncements of Malacanang are sufficient invocation of the 2016 ruling, which recognizes the Philippines' sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone after China repeatedly imposed its historical nine-dash line claim over more than 90 percent of the South China Sea. A day after, he further said President Rodrigo Duterte had already asserted the Philippines' sovereignty relative to the ruling after he asked China to lay off Pag-asa Island in the contested Spratly group. Military officials earlier reported there were over 200 Chinese vessels swarming the area from January to March this year. But when Locsin was asked if Manila raised the ruling to China, Locsin responded: "So far we've been ignored like we ignore their historical claim. It is a contest of ignoring each other's claim. So far." Pressed further on when he will raise the ruling, Locsin said he will decide on that matter. China has refused to observe the ruling, and critics of Duterte said this is due to the administration's warmer ties with the East Asian giant. Unsuspecting motorists could be slapped with a hefty fine for having their mobile phone in their lap while in the drive-thru of McDonalds. New South Wales police this week revealed motorists risk being fined if any part of their body touches their mobile phone while in a restaurant drive-thru. But the surprising rule isn't so new. In fact, it falls under an already instated longstanding law about not holding your phone while driving a motor vehicle. Unsuspecting motorists could be slapped with a hefty fine for having their mobile phone in their lap while in the drive-thru of McDonalds The surprising rule isn't so new. In fact, it falls under an already instated longstanding law about not holding your phone while driving a motor vehicle (stock) 'The offence is that you're not supposed to be driving while using a mobile phone, if the vehicle is moving through a car park, including a drive-thru, drivers can be done,' a NSW police spokeswoman told Yahoo News. According to Transport for New South Wales website, you're not allowed to hold your phone in any way while in control of a motor vehicle, including in your lap and between your shoulder and ear. Anyone who gets caught using their phone while in a drive-thru in New South Wales can be fined five demerit points and ordered to pay a $377 fine. 'During double demerit periods, drivers who break the rules will be penalised 10 demerit points,' the website states. Elsewhere across the country, motorists risk being hit with similar fines. Queensland motorists can be fined $391 and have 3 demerit points recorded against their traffic history if they're caught holding a phone for any reason while driving. 'Double demerit points apply for second or subsequent mobile phone offences committed within 1 year after an earlier offence,' the Queensland Goverment website states. New South Wales police this week confirmed what many drivers are surprised to learn - your mobile shouldn't touch any part of your body while in a drive-thru Western Australia motorists who get busted using their mobile phone behind face a $400 fine and risk losing three demerit points. While Victorian and Western Australian motorists risk being penalised the most, with fines in each state costing $484 and $447 respectively - in addition to losing four demerit points. The Northern Territory and Tasmania have the cheapest fines, with drivers being hit with $250 and $300 fines respectively - as well as losing three demerit points. In all states and territories, the only time motorists are allowed to use their phones is when they're securely fixed in a holder and not obscuring vision of the road, or if they can be operated without being touched. 'Drivers are only allowed to hold a phone to pass it to a passenger,' the Transport for New South Wales website states. Daily Mail Australia has reached out to NSW Police for comment. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has been accused of giving cancer sufferers false hope with his plan to pay all of their out-of-pocket medical expenses. The government claims there's a cost blowout of almost $6billion in Labor's figures. Five years after his mother Ann died of breast cancer, Mr Shorten delivered a Budget-in-reply speech where he promised a Labor government led by him would dedicate an extra $2.3billion over four years to fund six million free cancer scans, X-rays and mammograms. 'I saw it with my Mum and her battle with breast cancer,' he told Parliament on April 4. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten (pictured with his late mother Ann) has been accused of giving cancer sufferers false hope with his plan to pay all their out-of-pocket medical expenses 'Cancer is frightening, it's isolating, it's exhausting.' Mr Hunt released Department of Health data arguing Labor's $2.3billion boost to cancer treatment, over four years, would cost taxpayers $6.8billion. The Health Minister claimed that Labor's plan only factored in the $1.1billion cost of scans and consultations, leaving a $5.7billion black hole. 'Mr Shorten has been caught out making false promises,' he said in a statement on Monday. The Health Minister described the promise as being worse than Labor's 2016 election campaign, which accused former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull of plotting to privatise Medicare. Five years after his mother, Mr Shorten delivered a Budget-in-reply speech where he promised a Labor government led by him would dedicate $2.3billion over four years to fund six million free cancer scans, X-rays and mammograms 'This is worse than "Mediscare" because he is playing with people's health and hopes,' Mr Hunt said. 'It is a disgraceful abuse of high office a $5.7 billion black-hole is proof of that - not only can't Labor manage money, they can't manage health and they do not deserve to be trusted to manage the country.' The Labor campaign, however, has produced a letter from the Department of Health secretary Glenys Beauchamp to Labor's health frontbencher Catherine King explaining that it does not cost Opposition policies. 'I take seriously my responsibilities and the obligation of the department to ensure we do not support or participate in any political commentary,' Ms Beauchamp said. 'In this context, I can again assure you that I require the utmost propriety and integrity from departmental officers.' The government's attack on Labor's policy was based on 421 cancer treatments subsidised under the Medicare Benefit Schedule, with 13.8million cancer-related services performed every year. A spokesman for Ms King said Mr Hunt had 'completely misrepresented' the Opposition's policy by focusing on some procedures covered by Medicare. With an election campaign now underway, Health Minister Greg Hunt (picutred) has accused the Opposition Leader of getting his costs wrong to the tune of $5.7billion Mr Shorten's mother, Dr Ann Rosemary Shorten (centre), died aged 79 in April 2014. She obtained a PhD in 1976 from Melbourne's Monash University as she raised Bill Shorten (left) and his twin brother Robert (right), and later became a senior lecturer Mr Shorten's mother, Dr Ann Rosemary Shorten, died aged 79 in April 2014. She obtained a PhD in 1976 from Melbourne's Monash University as she raised Mr Shorten and his twin brother Robert, and later became a senior lecturer. The late Dr Shorten graduated with first-class honours in 1985 from Monash University, and won the Supreme Court Prize and the Flos Greig Memorial Prize, the same year the Opposition Leader began an arts and law degree at the same university. Mr Hunt appears in danger of losing his once-safe Victorian Mornington Peninsula electorate of Flinders, with betting agency Sportsbet putting his odds at $1.80, compared $2 for Labor. Support for Pauline Hanson's One Nation has plummeted following the NRA scandal, according the latest Newspoll. Australian voter preference for the party is at four per cent in the wake of the guns-for-funds scandal - the lowest for the party since 2016. The shift is good news for the Morrison government, giving the Coalition its equal-best primary vote since just after the last election. In March, it was revealed senior One Nation officials were secretly filmed taking trips to the United States to lobby the National Rifle Association for millions in funds. Scroll down for video In March, it was revealed senior One Nation officials were secretly filmed taking trips to the United States to lobby the National Rifle Association for funds Al-Jazeera reporter Rodger Muller, who posed as the leader of a fake lobby group called Gun Rights Australia, broke the story. The scandal prompted Ms Hanson to host a press conference, during which she blamed the media for targeting her. Prime Minister Scott Morrison called the attempt to influence Australian politics 'abhorrent.' With the federal election set for next month, the Coalition and Labor are neck and neck with a primary vote of 39 per cent each, according the poll for The Australian. Labor maintains a two-party-preferred lead of 52 per cent to 48 per cent with Greens preferences. This represents a swing of 2.4 per cent against the Coalition and a potential loss of 10 seats. The Coalition is gaining momentum, however, building on a two-point jump in its primary vote two weeks ago, adding another point in the latest Newspoll. The Greens remained unchanged on 9 per cent. Going into the first full week of the campaign, Prime Minister Scott Morrison enjoys an unchanged 11-point lead over Opposition Leader Bill Shorten as the preferred prime minister. The election has been called for May 18 with campaigning ramping up across the country. A father-of-four has shared heartbreaking photographs of his five-year-old in her hospital bed after she was left brain damaged in the Christchurch terror attack. Wasseim Alsati was approaching the Al Noor mosque with his youngest daughter Alen, five, when the gunman walked out and shot them both on March 15. Wasseim, who spoke exclusively with Daily Mail Australia about the terror attack and its aftermath, shared images of his young daughter in hospital surrounded by family and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. It comes as the loving dad calls for the alleged shooter to be given the death penalty. Father-of-four Wasseim Alsati has shared heartbreaking photographs of his five-year-old in her hospital bed with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern A passerby after the attack launched into action and rushed both Mr Alsati and his daughter to hospital which Mr Alsati said might have been the difference between life and death Mr Alsati was discharged from hospital over the weekend, but Alen is still recovering from brain injuries in Starship Childrens Hospital in Auckland. Despite undergoing numerous surgeries, doctors are still unsure of the extent of Alen's brain injuries. Now, a month on from the attack, Mr Alsati, who owns a barbershop in Christchurch, has broken his silence about the day that changed his familys life. Wasseim shared images of the bullet that was taken out of his stomach after the terror attack He said that he and others affected by the massacre are planning to petition the New Zealand government to change the law. While nothing has been put in motion yet as some victims remain in hospital, Mr Alsati says there is a consensus among them that the shooter should be sentenced to death. We are still recovering, people are still in hospital. But we all decide privately that we are going to ask the government for the death penalty,' he told Daily Mail Australia. The reason why he used New Zealand is because there is no death penalty. But with a case like this, we need the law to be changed. Weve been talking inside the community. We havent said much about it but we are looking to go out and ask for him to be hanged. We are going to do that. We are going to ask for this to happen. Mr Alsati says his stance is reinforced because he believes the suspect has shown no remorse and pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. I dont feel anything about him shooting me, I am really angry that he shot my daughter,' Mr Alsati said. I understand the hate against Islam, Muslims. But that doesnt give anybody the right to shoot kids. Recalling the day of the terror attack that claimed 50 lives, Mr Alsati says he at first, thought the gunman was a soldier - but realised that wasnt the case when he pointed a gun at his young daughters head. We were about 35 metres away from the mosque walking, hand in hand, beside each other,' he said. Wasseim Alsati was approaching the Al Noor mosque with his youngest daughter Alen, five, (pictured) when the gunman walked out and shot them both on March 15, shooting them both I saw him walking out, but I didnt hear any shotguns, I saw him walking out and he looked at my daughter, he didnt look at me. He was wearing a New Zealand military or even a mix between a New Zealand and Australian military uniform. He looked at my daughter, he launched his weapon and within a few seconds, I grabbed my daughter and I held her. And I realised that he is not military and he was pointing to her head, so by the time I grab her, I hold the front of her T-shirt and by the time I pull her up, he shot her. And then the second bullet, he shot her in the foot, in the toes. And then I got a shot in my tummy. And then I got two shots in my bum. Mr Alsati says doctors are still unsure if his daughter got hit by one or two bullets in her mid-section - but believe it may have been two because of the size of the gunshot wound. Wasseim Alsati (pictured with his family) said that he and others affected by the massacre are planning to petition the New Zealand government to change the law so the attacker can be hanged Alen (pictured) is responsive and has managed to say a few words including 'Dad' after his wife told her his name A month since then, his daughter is responsive and has said a few words including Dad. He said: My daughter, good news today, she respond to me. I talk to her. She respond with yes and no. But she took a long time to understand the question or say a very small word. Her mum said my name Wasseim and she said Dad. And then she said yes for a question. Mr Alsati says he and his wife are still unaware of the extent of Alens injuries. And while Mr Alsati has been discharged from hospital, he still has a long road to recovery - and is also suffering from nightmares. In his first days in hospital, he frequently woke up screaming. Every time I woke up, I screamed, looking for my daughter,' he said. And I was crying and telling myself that I couldnt save my daughter. A GiveALittle fundraising page has amassed more than $45,000 for the family. A vigilante protesting unsolicited advertisements at a busy train station has been caught on film blasting three billboards with a fire extinguisher filled with paint. Kyle Magee covered the electronic billboards at Melbourne Central station in front of stunned onlookers on March 22. He later admitted to the act on his website, describing the screens as 'some of the most obnoxious advertising in Melbourne'. 'My actions are a practical intervention against the tangible form of outdoor advertising, but they're also a symbolic protest against all the unsolicited for-profit advertising we are exposed to through all mediums (print, radio, television, digital),' he wrote. Kyle Magee covered the electronic billboards at Melbourne Central station in front of stunned onlookers on March 22 Mr Magee said he successfully sprayed three out of the 12 billboards before he ran out of paint. 'I guess next time I'll need a trolley and at least four fire extinguishers,' he said on his web page. Police arrived shortly thereafter and arrested Mr Magee. He was eventually released pending charges for criminal damage. But Mr Magee is no stranger to the police station, having been charged multiple times for similar acts. He later admitted to the act on his website, describing the screens as 'some of the most obnoxious advertising in Melbourne' Police arrived shortly thereafter and arrested Mr Magee. He was eventually released pending charges for criminal damage He said he 'always pleads not guilty... and has been to jail seven times'. 'Basically, our global system is so horribly unjust, murderous and ecocidal that I can only live in full protest, and in the most directed and constructive way possible,' Mr Magee said. 'The protest I make is deliberately simple as devoid of skill, originality, style, and aesthetic principles, as is humanly possible.' While some people branded Mr Magee as a 'hero' and 'legend' online, others were quick to discredit his actions. 'He's not a hero. He's a p***k,' one person wrote. Mr Magee is no stranger to the police station, having been charged multiple times for similar acts While some people branded Mr Magee as a 'hero' and 'legend' online, others were quick to discredit his actions 'Advertising in railway stations does not harm anyone, sure you might be tempted to buy something shown but that is entirely your choice,' a second person said. 'If people did this regularly, advertisers won't bother to advertise and the railway station or company will need to make up for lost revenue somehow, by either cutting services, firing people, or raising prices. Nobody wins,' another user wrote. But others said his form of protest was acceptable, deeming the advertising itself as a form of 'vandalism'. 'Advertising is an intrusion. A disruption. It is essentially dishonest and manipulative. Out public spaces are degraded by this commercialisation,' one person wrote. Mr Magee said: 'To me for-profit advertising and the for-profit media it funds are two parts of the same anti-democratic media system' and he hopes his protesting will one day contribute to the introduction of a 'democratic media system'. A two-day manhunt ended on Sunday when Florida police announced the arrest of a gunman who allegedly shot dead his girlfriend, her six-year-old daughter, and her mother on Friday night before apologizing for the triple murder on Facebook. Ernst Cherizard, 38, was taken into custody by the Haines City Police Department in central Florida on Sunday. He was seen being led out in handcuffs while wearing a white prison suit. Two police officers escorted Cherizard to a police cruiser. A booking photo taken shortly after his arrest shows Cherizard shirtless while he stares blankly into the camera. Ernst Cherizard, 38, turned himself in to police in central Florida on Sunday after a two-day manhunt His arrest was announced by the Haines City Police Department on Sunday A booking photo taken shortly after his arrest shows Cherizard shirtless while he stares blankly into the camera Authorities say Cherizard committed a triple homicide Friday night in Haines City, which is just outside the Tampa Bay region. Cherizard allegedly shot dead his 23-year-old girlfriend, Eli Junia Normil, inside an apartment complex, according to WTSP-TV. According to police, Cherizard then shot and wounded Normils six-year-old daughter, Elizabelle Frenel. Elizabelle suffered three gunshot wounds, according to police. Investigators say Cherizard aimed at least one of the shots at her head, WTVT-TV reported. A short time later, Normils mother, Nicole Guillume, 48, arrived at the scene. She, too, was fatally shot by Cherizard, according to WTVT-TV. Cherizard, 38, was sought by local police in Florida as well as the United States Marshals Service Cherizard is a suspect in a triple homicide which took place on Friday night in the central Florida town of Haines City. The victims of Friday's triple homicide in Haines City are seen left to right: Eli Junia Normil, 23; Nicole Guillume, 48; and Elizabelle Frenel, six Police said Cherizard shot six-year-old Elizabelle three times. One shot was aimed at her head Normil and her mother died at the scene. The Haines City Police Department announced on Sunday that Elizabelle succumbed to her wounds at an Orlando hospital just before 11pm on Saturday. Cherizard and Normil shared two small children. Elizabelle is Normils daughter from a different father. Police say that Cherizard then fled the scene in a 2011 Nissan Ultima with Florida license plate GZN C82. Investigators said Cherizard left the scene while young Elizabelle was bleeding from her wounds. On Facebook, Cherizard wrote a rambling 255-word post in which he threatened to kill himself and claimed that he and his girlfriend, Normil, were fighting for the gun before he lost it and started hearing voices in my head. Cherizard is seen left with Eli Junia Normil in this undated file photo In a Facebook post, Cherizard claims that he and his girlfriend were 'fighting for the gun' before he 'lost it' and started 'hearing voices in my head.' Eli Junia Normil is seen left with her mother, Nicole Guillume, 48 On Facebook, Cherizard wrote a rambling 255-word post in which he threatened to kill himself and claimed that he and his girlfriend, Normil, got into an argument because he was in contact with his 'ex baby mama'. He also claimed on Facebook that he and Normil got into an argument because he was in contact with his 'ex baby mama'. The post read: Before I turn myself in or kill myself theres no words I can say to ease ya pain today supposed to be a great day for me really... 'I didnt see my 5 year old daughter since June 23rd 2015 that kills me inside I lost my mother n cant see my daughter... 'I didnt know how to cope that but I finally get a txt to see my daughter today pick her up... 'Thats why this s*** happen... 'My girl wasnt to happy bout me talking to my ex baby mama to see my kids... Police say that Cherizard then fled the scene in a 2011 Nissan Ultima with Florida license plate GZN C82 Before turning himself in, Cherizard was last seen passing the Boynton Beach toll plaza just after midnight on Saturday The Boynton Beach toll plaza is seen in the above stock image 'Idk what happen all I know is we was fighting for the gun then I lost it its almost like I was hearing voices in my head I love them I deserve the worst thats coming for me nothing less and one thing plz Guys dont keep no guns at your home man fr I we had 2 guns one for one for me n now look what happen I f*** up my life up and the one I truly love and care bout I dont think my kids deserve this at all they wont know their mom this is pure evil and Im not a evil person at All sorry guys I took a great person live from you guys now its time for me to pay for what Ive done... to my kids ABIGAIL,MIA,ERNEST JR. And ERNESTINA C. Daddy is so sorry with all my heart I cant even explain what happened cuz I cant believe this happened. The post went viral. It was shared more than 1,200 times and was commented upon more than 2,300 times as of Sunday night. Local law enforcement officials were horrified and angered by what they saw. The local chief of police says the public shouldnt believe Cherizard is sincerely remorseful. Despite his indicated remorse, make no mistake about it this man is a monster, Haines City Police Chief Jim Elensky said in a news release. Investigators are seen above at the apartment complex in Haines City where the shootings took place Despite his indicated remorse, make no mistake about it this man is a monster, Haines City Police Chief Jim Elensky said (above) To consciously shoot three innocent, unarmed females is nothing less than being a coward. To shoot a truly innocent six-year-old child is disgusting and beyond comprehension. Moreover, he shot the child at least three times, once being in the head. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and the first responders who did everything they could at the scene. They also must live with this tragedy. Police say they do not know what drove Cherizard to allegedly carry out the shootings. No motivation, no motive at this point. [It's still] early on in the investigation, Elensky said. Normil's brother, Annel Normil, said: I was traumatized. I spoke to her two days ago and she was like I'm doing good bro I'm working. She's the manager at one of the fast-food restaurants down in the Haines City area. Annel Normil said that from his interactions with Cherizard, he never believed he was capable of hurting her. He always talked to me like he cared for my sister and that he wanted to marry her one day, Normil said. He always seems cool to me. I don't think he would have ever done something like that. The local police said that the United States Marshals Service assisted efforts to track down Cherizard. A woman is accused of becoming violent over her common-law husband's lack of response when she had asked him if she was pretty. Lizeth Guadalupe Ramirez, 20, of Laredo, Texas, was met by police officers after they received an assault report on Tuesday night. She told the police that her common-law husband had attacked and attempted to strangle her, according to the Laredo Morning Times. The accused husband gave authorities a differing version of events. Lizeth Guadalupe Ramirez, 20, was arrested after she allegedly struck her common-law husband for not responding when she asked if she was pretty The husband said that Ramirez had become angered at him at the movies after he did not respond when she asked him if she was pretty. He told police that he could not hear her at the time, but allegedly this lack of response led to Ramirez striking him multiple times on the car trip home. According to the husband, once they arrived home she allegedly shoved him and hit him again when another relative tried to separate the two. The relative also was allegedly struck by Ramirez who ended up being charged with two counts of assault and family violence. Ramirez was released from Webb County Jail on Thursday on $16,000 bond. A tradesman has been accused of assaulting an elderly woman and stomping on her friend's head in a wild brawl over who should get out of a lift first. The court heard Jesse William Leslie Donaghy, 21, allegedly 'stomped' on Jeremy Rhys Hill's head and kicked it 'several times' as he lay on the ground at the Sundale building in Southport on the Gold Coast on December 16. Ailene Patricia Treadaway, 64, was allegedly pushed by Donaghy during the attack, making her fall back into the elevator, according to the Queensland Police service court brief tended to the Supreme Court of Queensland. The court heard Jesse Donaghy (pictured), 21, allegedly pushed a 64-year-old woman to the floor of an elevator and stomped on her friend's head in a brawl over who should get out of the lift first Mrs Treadway was in an elevator with Mr Hill when she asked four men including Donaghy and his co-accused Mitchell Paul Wyles, who were entering, if she and her companion could exit first. Wyles allegedly told the victims: 'Why don't you get f***ed, you f***ing c***,' the Courier Mail reported. Wyles allegedly punched Mr Hill in the head after he was pushed by him in a move to protect Mrs Treadaway from possible danger. CCTV footage captured the entire elevator brawl, which spread into the foyer of the building and was broken up by security. Police allege Mrs Treadaway was bruised on her elbow, upper chest, both wrists and lips, while Mr Hill was bruised on his head, cheeks and lips. Donaghy was granted bail for 23 charges, including his attacks on Mr Hill and Mrs Treadaway, by Supreme Court Justice Jean Dalton on Wednesday. Donaghy allegedly stomped on Jeremy Rhys Hill's head and kicked it several times as he lay on the floor The court heard Donaghy was on parole and was serving a suspended sentence for cocaine trafficking and production charges during the time of the alleged offence. The 21-year-old is still charged for possessing 103g of cocaine worth $36,000, 130g of steroid tablets, a small packet of oral jelly Viagra and drug paraphernalia. He is also still charged with possessing knuckledusters and live ammunition. Police allege Donaghy had sold $290,000 worth of cocaine, after the drugs were discovered in his apartment. CCTV footage has captured the brawl involving Donaghy and his co-accused Mitchell Paul Wyles at the Sundale building (pictured) in Southport He will face Southport Magistrates Court on May 23 for the drug-related charges. Donaghy, who had worked as a tradesman at Focus Facades, must adhere to a curfew and live with his mother in Currumbin in the Gold Coast's south. He is banned from leaving the state, must not use his passport and has been banned of using weapons or drugs as part of his bail conditions. Mobile phone networks have been accused of misleading customers about signal levels. EE, Vodafone, O2 and Three all failed to give undercover reporters accurate information about their network coverage. Mobile phone companies provide maps of the UK so customers can look at the kind of service they are able to receive on their network. Undercover investigators from Channel 4 programme Supershoppers spoke to representatives from all four companines online, over the phone and in-store. Mobile phone networks have been accused of misleading customers about signal levels (stock image) EE, Vodafone, O2 and Three all failed to give undercover reporters accurate information about their network coverage (file image) Around 80 per cent failed to state the limitations of the coverage maps or say that they were a guide only with one salesman saying they were as accurate as it gets. When pushed for more details, just four admitted that there were some limitations to their maps. Trading standards consultant Peter Stonely said: It is important enough to put that disclaimer on their website because they know they cant guarantee it 100 per cent, so their staff should be putting that same information across to the consumer. When information is given to you it must be accurate. EE and O2 said their websites make clear that a coverage map is simply a guide. But Three accepted that their staff were not clear with the investigators. Supershoppers airs tonight on Channel 4 at 8pm. Kathleen Alexandra 'Kick' Kennedy, the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., turned 31 years old on Saturday and shared the outpouring of love she received over social media. The youngest child of RFK Jr., 65, and Emily Ruth Black, 61, who divorced in 1994, shared birthday tributes on her Instagram story. The sweet posts included a picture of her cream-colored cake adorned with white frosted hearts, flowers and filigree, a throwback post from her father, and a modern family photo including her stepmom, Cheryl Hines, 53, who married RFK Jr. in 2014. Kathleen Alexandra 'Kick' Kennedy, the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., turned 31 years old on Saturday and shared the outpouring of love she received over social media. Kick is pictured at a Remembrance and Celebration of the Life & Enduring Legacy of Robert F. Kennedy event at Arlington National Cemetery on June 6, 2018 in Arlington, Virginia Kick was born into the Kennedy dynasty on April 13, 1988. The much-loved actor who has appeared on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Newsroom, and had a cameo as herself on an episode of Gossip Girl, shared posts from her loved ones on her life anniversary. With the picture of her cake, Kick wrote, 'Thank you Bobbyrillis!' which could have been a shoutout to her brother, Bobby Kennedy III. The sweet posts included a picture of her cream-colored cake adorned with white frosted hearts, flowers and filigree (shown), a throwback post from her father, and a modern family photo including her stepmom, Cheryl Hines, 53, who married RFK Jr. in 2014 One snap showed her and friend 'KelCon' looking at polaroids while kneeling on a hardwood floor, with text celebrating their friendship 'from London to La La Land,' the latter of which is a common nickname for Los Angeles. Cousin Mariah Kennedy Cuomo, who is the daughter of Kerry Kennedy and current New York governor Andrew Cuomo, posted a group photo with Kick and their other cousins, which Kick reshared. (Kerry Kennedy is the sister of Kick's father, RFK Jr) One snap showed her and friend 'KelCon' looking at polaroids while kneeling on a hardwood floor, with text celebrating their friendship 'from London to La La Land,' the latter of which is a common nickname for Los Angeles. Cousin Mariah Kennedy Cuomo, who is the daughter of Kerry Kennedy and current New York governor Andrew Cuomo, posted a group photo with Kick and their other cousins, which Kick reshared. (Kerry Kennedy is the sister of Kick's father, RFK Jr.) An artist with the username '@princesszha' shared an older photo with Kick, showing the two sitting on a curb taking a break from rollerblading, writing, 'Happy birthday my little kitty kickster!!!' An artist with the username '@princesszha' shared an older photo with Kick, showing the two sitting on a curb taking a break from rollerblading, writing, 'Happy birthday my little kitty kickster!!!' Film and Broadway actor Annie Starke, 30, posted a childhood image of Kick, writing, 'This. Picture. Is. Everything.' Kick agreed, reposting it and adding, '...yes. LOVE YA ANNIE' with the hashtag '#giginannie,' apparently revealing another nickname for the Kennedy. Filmmaker Francesca de Sola opted for a seated photo of Kick on the slopes, writing, 'Happy birthday to this black diamond of a girl' Film and Broadway actor Annie Starke, 30, posted a childhood image of Kick, writing, 'This. Picture. Is. Everything.' Kick agreed, reposting it and adding, '...yes. LOVE YA ANNIE' with the hashtag '#giginannie,' apparently revealing another nickname for the Kennedy. Filmmaker Francesca de Sola opted for a seated photo of Kick on the slopes, writing, 'Happy birthday to this black diamond of a girl.' A friend with the username '@l.jk.w' posted a picture of a video game on a television screen with Kick tagged and a half-cut cake in the shot, writing, 'cake and cart @kickkennedy.' When Kick reposted that image, she wrote, 'Why am I bad at this? I used to be good at this. #eldermillennial' A friend with the username '@l.jk.w' posted a picture of a video game on a television screen with Kick tagged and a half-cut cake in the shot, writing, 'cake and cart @kickkennedy.' When Kick reposted that image, she wrote, 'Why am I bad at this? I used to be good at this. #eldermillennial' Another photo Kick shared on her story was a throwback from her father's birthday tribute, showing Kick as a little girl attempting to pet a large bird by a fountain, in sepia Kick's stepmom Cheryl also shared an image that made it onto Kick's story, with a gif of a flag that read, 'Cheryl Squad' Another photo she shared on her story was a throwback from her father's birthday tribute, showing Kick as a little girl attempting to pet a large bird by a fountain, in sepia tone. Kick's stepmom Cheryl also shared an image that made it onto Kick's story, with a gif of a flag that read, 'Cheryl Squad.' A sweet post of a photo of Kick with friend Gail Evertz read, 'Kickeroo! Its your Birthday! Celebrate your amazing talent, beauty, brains and sense of fun! Youre amazing...always! Happy Birthday, Kick! Love you oooodles!' Kick shared that image as well, writing, 'Last birthday blast! Gail is my hero!' while joking, 'I seem to have very large hands.' A sweet post of a photo of Kick with friend Gail Evertz read, 'Kickeroo! Its your Birthday! Celebrate your amazing talent, beauty, brains and sense of fun! Youre amazing...always! Happy Birthday, Kick! Love you oooodles!' On his own Instagram page, Kick's father, RFK Jr., shared a series of images including one of him hovering over his daughter while she crouches beneath him, with RFK Jr. holding himself up in the air between two walls Leeping the message short and sweet, he wrote, 'Happy 31st birthday to my daughter, Kick' On his own Instagram page, Kick's father shared a series of images including one of him hovering over his daughter while she crouches beneath him, with RFK Jr. holding himself up in the air between two walls. Keeping the message short and sweet, he wrote, 'Happy 31st birthday to my daughter, Kick.' Kick was named after her great-aunt, the late Kathleen Kennedy, who was also nicknamed 'Kick' and was blacklisted from the family following her brief marriage to William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington in 1944, according to Town & Country magazine. She died in a plane crash at the age of 28, on May 13, 1948. Kick's grandfather was Robert F. Kennedy, who along with her great-aunt were the younger siblings of assassinated president John F. Kennedy. JFK was the second-oldest of the nine Kennedy kids all born to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. Home Secretary Sajid Javid will insist later today that violent crime needs to be 'stamped out' Violent crime is a virulent disease which requires a major shift in Government mindsets to be stamped out, the Home Secretary will say today. Sajid Javid will call for a two-pronged approach, involving limiting the opportunities for crime and reforming the lives of would-be criminals to ensure nobody gets left behind. He will urge firms to use technology similar to vehicle immobilisers on cars to make their products harder to steal. At a speech in east London, Mr Javid will encourage teachers, health workers and police officers to report would-be offenders. The aim is for these individuals to then be referred to violence reduction units for support. It comes two weeks after his major youth violence summit with Theresa May, at which he called for a public health approach to tackling knife crime. This suggested public officials including teachers and NHS staff had a legal duty to report the suspicious behaviour of would-be offenders. But the announcement caused outcry among teaching unions and nursing leaders who said they were being scapegoated. Mr Javid who is tipped as a Tory leadership contender will describe the recent surge in violent crime as an outbreak of some virulent disease. Addressing 100 guests including charity leaders and senior police, he will say the mindset of Government needs to shift, adding: Changing the lives of young people will not be an easy task. No future should be pre-determined by where youre born or how youre brought up. We cannot afford to leave anyone behind. n A prison officer had his throat slashed by an inmate yesterday. The officer, who needed 17 stitches, was attacked at HMP Nottingham, a category B prison. A conservative journalist is claiming she was ejected from a public Bernie Sanders campaign event in Ohio on Sunday. Kaitlin Bennett, 23, who occasionally reports for the far right conspiracy site run by right-wing provocateur Alex Jones, posted video on Twitter showing her being kicked out of the members-only event. As soon as she sat down in one of the front rows, she was approached by a security guard who asked her to leave. Conservative journalist Kaitlin Bennett was ejected from a Bernie Sanders campaign event Bennett was sitting in the audience waiting for the event to begin, when a security guard at the event approached her and told her to leave When Bennett asked why she couldn't stay and watch, the official said that it was 'invite only.' 'No, it's public,' Bennett responded. 'On Bernie Sanders' website it says public.' I am a conservative journalist and was just ejected from a @BernieSanders rally for expressing my 1st amendment. I was just sitting there and was told I had to leave, with no reason given except that his campaign didn't want me there. THIS is actual fascism. pic.twitter.com/iyaMwAHMMU Kaitlin Bennett (@KaitMarieox) April 14, 2019 'I am a conservative journalist and was just ejected from a @BernieSanders rally for expressing my 1st amendment. I was just sitting there and was told I had to leave, with no reason given except that his campaign didn't want me there. THIS is actual fascism,' Bennett wrote on Twitter. During the video, the security guard refuses to answer her questions as to whether she has violated any rules and repeatedly asks her to leave, implying that the event was a private one. 'Ma'am, this is an event that we've paid for, this is an event we've bought the space [for].' 'So, I'm being ejected from a public event?' Bennett asks, before reluctantly following the guard out of the hall. 'I'm going to ask you one more time,' he said. 'Can someone tell me what I did?' Bennett asks as she is being escorted out of the building. 'I need to know what rules I violated.' But the argument didn't end there. The police officer agreed with me that I did nothing wrong, but booted me anyway. On my way out, the private security officer told me he supports me but has to do his job. Thank you @BernieSanders for exposing how intolerant the left really is towards dissenting opinions. pic.twitter.com/lzFX1s8gjP Kaitlin Bennett (@KaitMarieox) April 14, 2019 Bennett tweeted video of herself being ejected from the Sanders campaign event Security guards explained to Bennett that the event was a private one and wanted her to leave Once outside the room she proceeded to quarrel with another security guard. Although he appeared to be more sympathetic to Bennett's cause, he still asked her to leave the premises. 'It's considered private property and a private event,' the security guard explained. Bennett and her fiance, Justin, informed him that the town hall was publicized as a public event on the Sanders campaign website. 'This is what I've been told by the campaign staff,' the security guard responded. 'I am following their orders.' 'So you work for the campaign staff?' Bennett asked the security guard. 'We're contracted through them,' he explained. 'I'm just doing what they've asked me to do. I have no control over this. They asked me, they said that they would like you to leave for the day.' 'We are facilitating that because we are contracted by them. I'll have to ask you to please keep walking and keep this as nice as possible,' he said. Being sent away only saw Bennett go on to rant even more furiously at the 'injustice' 'The police officer agreed with me that I did nothing wrong, but booted me anyway. On my way out, the private security officer told me he supports me but has to do his job. Thank you @BernieSanders for exposing how intolerant the left really is towards dissenting opinions,' Bennett wrote in a second tweet. While outside, Bennett went on a lengthy rant about being 'discriminated against' because of her affiliations calling the entire situation 'ridiculous.' 'So what we just saw was Bernie Sanders' campaign discriminated against a certain journalist. Those people recognized me,' she said. 'I am a woman journalist and I got ejected from a Bernie Sanders town hall event. I'm not allowed to report on it, I'm not even allowed to listen to Bernie.' 'There's a socialist inside who supports nothing along the lines of private property, but he's going to use it to his advantage to keep people that he doesn't like from asking him some hard questions,' she noted. When Bennett asked why she couldn't stay and watch, the official said that it was 'invite only' Bennett pointed out that Sanders' supporters would like her to change her mind about Trump and support Sanders,'But I can't even listen to what Bernie has to say!' Bennett insists the event was advertised as public on Sanders' campaign website. 'This is a public high school. This is not a private property. This is not a private event,' she repeats. Some local media reports have suggested that the event, held at Lordstown High School by the American Federation of Teachers, was in fact closed to the public while others have stated it was free and open to all-comers. The AFT invited Sanders to speak to the members of its Lordstown chapter and as a result would be strictly members only. Bennett's stunt ended up drawing mixed reactions on Twitter. Some Conservative commentators called Sanders 'a communist dictator' and said that her being evicted was a 'violation of her First Amendment rights.' Liberals said her appearance was nothing more than a PR stunt and ridiculed her journalistic credentials. Bennett made headlines last year and became known as the Kent State Gun Girl for flaunting an AR-10 rifle at her graduation. Bennett has also shared photos of herself posing with other weapons, and waving a Trump, Make America Great Again flag. Kaitlin Bennett rose to fame after posting graduation photos from Kent State University showing her wearing a short, white dress with a rifle strapped over her back An eastern grey kangaroo named Rufus spends his evenings lounging inside a couple's home - and won't go outside until he's kissed the owner goodnight. Footage shared by ViralHog shows the 40kg roo being picked up from the couch and carried back outside for the night in Boston, South Australia. 'Rufus chooses to come into the house every night to have a sleep on his favourite spot on the couch!' the caption read. An eastern grey kangaroo named Rufus has taken to lounging around inside and enjoying the creature comforts of indoor living while also trying to avoid the night Rufus returns the affection shown to him by giving goodnight kisses (pictured) before he is taken back outside for the rest of the night 'He comes up to the window near the back door and looks inside waiting for us to open the door, then inside he hops!' Rufus then finds his spot on the big couch and remains there as long as he can. 'He loves being inside at night and the only way we can get him back outside is to carry him!' the caption continued. 'He is currently 38kg so not sure how much longer I'll be able to lift him! I better get to the gym or hire a crane!' Rufus returns the affection shown to him by the couple, giving one a 'kiss' before being taken back outside for the night. The video garnered comments from interested You Tube users. 'Your dog is weird,' one user joked. 'Love Rufus; wonder if he has an IG channel,' another added. It is only legal to own a kangaroo as a pet in Victoria while in other states people have to acquire the correct license to own a kangaroo, for example as a petting zoo attraction. Under South Australia's National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972 all three species of kangaroo, the red, the western grey and the euro, are all protected. However the pair do not keep the animal inside indefinitely, rather the kangaroo chooses to come into their home to relax before being taken back outside. Seychellois President Danny Faure called for stronger protection of the 'beating blue heart of our planet' In a striking speech delivered from deep below the ocean's surface the Seychelles president made a global plea for stronger protection of the 'beating blue heart of our planet.' President Danny Faure's call for action, the first-ever live speech from an underwater submersible, came from one of the many island nations threatened by global warming. He spoke during a visit to an ambitious British-led science expedition exploring the depths of the Indian Ocean. Oceans cover over two-thirds of the world's surface but remain, for the most part, uncharted. Mr Faure said: 'We have better maps of Mars than we do of the ocean floor'. The President's speech was during a British-led exploration of the Indian Ocean He gave the speech while inside a manned submersible that was resting on the seabed off the coast of the Seychelles 400 feet below the surface of the sea 'This issue is bigger than all of us, and we cannot wait for the next generation to solve it. We are running out of excuses to not take action, and running out of time,' the president said from a manned submersible 400 feet (121 meters) below the waves, on the seabed off the outer islands of the African nation. Wearing a Seychelles T-shirt and shorts, the president said that the experience was: 'So, so cool'. It made him more determined than ever to speak out for marine protection, he said. 'We just need to do what needs to be done. The scientists have spoken.' The oceans' role in regulating climate and the threats they face are underestimated by many, even though as Mr Faure pointed out they generate 'half of the oxygen we breathe.' Scientific missions are crucial in taking stock of underwater ecosystems' health. Small island nations are among the most vulnerable to sea level rise caused by climate change, and some have found creative ways to express their concerns. Mr Faure's speech came a decade after members of the Maldives' Cabinet donned scuba gear and used hand signals at an underwater meeting highlighting global warming's threat to the lowest-lying nation on earth. By the end of the mission, researchers expect to have conducted over 300 deployments, collected around 1,400 samples and 16 terabytes of data and surveyed about 30 square kilometers (11.5 sq. miles) of seabed using high-resolution multi-beam sonar equipment Oceans cover over two-thirds of the world's surface but remain, for the most part, uncharted Land erosion, dying coral reefs and the increased frequency of extreme weather events threaten such countries' existence. During the expedition, marine scientists from the University of Oxford have surveyed underwater life, mapped large areas of the sea floor and gone deep with manned submersibles and underwater drones. Little is known about the watery world below depths of 30 meters, the limit to which a normal scuba diver can go. Operating down to 500 meters, the scientists were the first to explore areas of great diversity where sunlight weakens and the deep ocean begins. By the end of the mission, researchers expect to have conducted over 300 deployments, collected around 1,400 samples and 16 terabytes of data and surveyed about 30 square kilometers (11.5 sq. miles) of seabed using high-resolution multi-beam sonar equipment. Mr Faure said: 'We have better maps of Mars than we do of the ocean floor' The data will be used to help the Seychelles expand its policy of protecting almost a third of its national waters by 2020. The initiative is important for the country's 'blue economy,' an attempt to balance development needs with those of the environment. 'From this depth, I can see the incredible wildlife that needs our protection, and the consequences of damaging this huge ecosystem that has existed for millennia,' Mr Faure said in his speech. 'Over the years, we have created these problems. We can solve them.' Currently, only about 5 per cent of the world's oceans are protected. Countries have agreed to increase the area to 10 per cent by 2020. But experts and environmental campaigners say between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of the oceans outside nations' territorial waters should get protected status to ensure marine biodiversity. Researchers hope their findings also will inform ongoing United Nations talks aimed at forging the first high seas conservation treaty, scheduled to conclude this year. Environmental groups argue an international treaty is urgently needed because climate change, overfishing and efforts to mine the seabed for precious minerals are putting unsustainable pressure on marine life that could have devastating consequences for creatures on land as well. Oceans will be one of the seven main themes of this year's U.N. climate summit in Chile in December. While scientists with the Nekton mission are nearing the end of their expedition, much of their work is just beginning. In the next few months, researchers at Oxford will analyse the samples and video surveys and put them together with environmental data. 'When we pull them together we can understand not just what we see in the areas that we've visited but what we might expect in other regions in the Seychelles,' said Lucy Woodall, the mission's chief scientist. This is the first of a half-dozen regions the mission plans to explore before the end of 2022, when scientists will present their research at a summit on the state of the Indian Ocean. Billions of people live along the ocean's shores in Africa and Asia. Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared to belittle Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's affiliation with a progressive group in Congress in a new interview. In the sit-down with Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes on Sunday, the 79-year-old Pelosi was asked about pushback she received from the left-wing of her own party. The Speaker is specifically asked about the Democrat's progressive caucus that includes the outspoken 29-year-old Ocasio-Cortez. Scroll down for video Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi appeared to take another dig at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, this time dismissing the progressive wing associated with the congresswoman during an interview with 60 Minutes that aired on Sunday Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, shown here, seems to have had her affiliation with the more left-wing faction of the Democrats derided by Speaker Pelosi Can the Speaker of the House unify the Democratic party while getting pushback from the left and self-described democratic socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? https://t.co/f4VUYTYIdw pic.twitter.com/a9wOobPj5g 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) April 14, 2019 'You have these wings - AOC, and her group on one side,' Stahl begins asking her. 'That's like five people,' Pelosi interjected. 'No, it's - the progressive group is more than five,' Stahl responds. 'Well, the progressive - I'm a progressive. Yeah,' the Speaker adds. Pelosi may have been referring to the Justice Democrats, a political action committee that supported a small slate of seven representatives that includes Ocasio-Cortez. The Congressional Progressive Caucus, however, includes 78 members of the House of Representatives and Senator Bernie Sanders, according to its website. Speaker Pelosi vigorously deflected an appearance of conflict among her fellow Democrats to Lesley Stahl interviewing her on 60 Minutes while also brushing off issues like Medicare for all President Trump tweeted his own negative opinion about the 60 Minutes interview of Speaker Pelosi on Sunday night Stahl continued to press about challenges from the progressive groups with their calls for replacing Obamacare with Medicare for all, an issue Pelosi has disagreed about with her more liberal wing. While explaining her position that she does believe the Affordable Care Act is the better option, the Speaker deflects the idea that Medicare for all is socialist or that socialism is in fact favored by Democrats. 'I do reject socialism as an economic system. If people have that view, that's their view,' she said addressing those more progressive members of her party. 'That is not the view of the Democratic Party.' Earlier this month, Pelosi also appeared to take a subtle swipe at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez while discussing members of Congress with large Twitter followings. She made it clear that the number of followers will not impress her, but rather how good representatives are at passing legislation. 'While there are people who have a large number of Twitter followers, what's important is that we have a large number of votes on the floor of the house,' she said on April 8. Though she didn't mention Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by name, the freshman NY congresswoman has amassed a huge Twitter following. Ocasio-Cortez has 3.87 million Twitter followers to Pelosi's 2.42 million. Following its airing, President Trump added is own impression of the 60 Minuts interview, calling it a 'puff piece' on Twitter. A mother whose straight-A student daughter was killed at a level crossing after being hit by a 'silent' midnight train is now suing Network Rail over her child's tragic death. Milena Gagic, 16, died instantly when she was hit by the night train at the level crossing in Hipperholme, Halifax, in December 2014. The teenager, from Halifax, West Yorkshire, who was tipped for a place at Oxford or Cambridge, and wanted to be a zoologist. Her mother, Leanne Gagic, is now suing Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd for 22,124 for breaching its duty of care- although her barrister explained that her case is 'not about money'. Milena Gagic was killed after she ventured onto a railway line and was struck by a train at 55mph Milena and her best friend, Amelia Hustwick, had gone to the crossing late at night to chat because it was 'a nice place to hang out', Central London County Court heard. They sat between the train tracks, 'laughing and giggling' because they thought trains did not run at night. Both girls had grown up in the local area and believed that, if any train did approach, it would sound its horn. But since 2007, a 'night time quiet period' had been ushered in, barring horns between 11pm and 7am, said barrister Stephen Glyn. Her mother is now suing Network Rail over her daughter's death Mrs Gagic says that Network Rail breached its duty of care in failing to properly warn people that night trains no longer sounded their horns at Hipperholme, where villagers hear the sounds of train whistles over 100 times a day. She claims that a simple sign explaining that drivers would no longer sound their horn overnight would have saved her daughter's life. But Network Rail is disputing fault, denying breaching its duty, and suggesting that Milena was herself to blame. Signs may have been ineffective as studies suggest they are frequently missed, Network Rail claimed. Milena was studying for her A-levels when she died, said her devastated mother, having clocked up eleven A-stars at GCSE. She dreamed of being a zoologist and 'wanted to go to university very much,' she added. Barrister Mr Glyn said it was hard to see and hear approaching trains at the crossing location due to curvature of the track. And he claimed locals such as Milena and Amelia would have been lulled into a false sense of security because train horns continued to sound during the day. He said Network Rail had long accepted there was a risk at the crossing because 'whistle boards', which instruct drivers to sound their horn, were previously in place. However, the company banned night time horn use in 2007 due to 'noise pollution complaints', the court heard. That curfew was rolled out across the network as a 'blanket rule', said Mr Glyn. Despite knowing of the risk to public safety, Network Rail had 'done nothing' to mitigate the risk after removing the whistle boards, the mother claimed in court Despite knowing of the risk to public safety, Network Rail had 'done nothing' to mitigate the risk after removing the whistle boards, he claimed before Judge Heather Baucher. 'The girls were simply not looking for a train or looking out for its motion because they relied upon the whistle board,' he said. 'It is most unlikely that these two intelligent 16-year-old A-level students would have used the crossing as they did if they had been warned by a sign that trains ran silently at night.' Mr Glyn also highlighted a statement made by Amelia Hustwick to police, setting out the background to the tragedy. She explained how the two girls had gone out that night after going to the shops to buy ingredients for baking biscuits. Milena was studying for her A-levels when she died, said her devastated mother, having clocked up eleven A-stars at GCSE They went on to a friend's house and later sat in the park for a short while, also smoking some cannabis. But neither girl was high when they finally reached the level crossing, she stressed, and Mr Glyn also confirmed that no drugs traces were detected in post mortem reports on Milena. 'We just sat there laughing and giggling,' she said. 'The train rushed past out of nowhere going very fast. I looked up and assumed that Milena had jumped out of the way. 'But then I saw her body lying in a heap ten metres away.' She added: 'We thought if a train comes, it would toot. We just didn't think they ran at night.' She and Milena were like 'two peas in a pod', she explained, adding: 'She was my favourite person in the world.' They had gone to the crossing because it was a good place to hang out, she said, and added: 'We did not go there to take our lives.' The train was travelling at around 55mph at impact and only Amelia managed to jump out of its path. Network Rail barrister, Helen Hobhouse, argued that its 'duty of care' was restricted to pedestrians crossing the track. Studies also show that signs are 'frequently not noticed or observed', she said. And she added: 'There would have been no significant risk to anyone using the crossing between 11pm and 7am, provided they checked carefully in both directions before crossing the track'. The judge reserved judgment on the case until a later date. A sheriff says all three people aboard a twin-engine jet were killed when it crashed in some woods in northern Mississippi. Union County Sheriff Jimmy Edwards tells news outlets that those killed were pilot Tommy Nix, 70, and his wife Merline Nix, 69, of Belmont, Mississippi, and co-pilot 48-year-old Jarrod Holloway of Booneville, Mississippi. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Rick Breitenfeldt tells The Associated Press that the Rockwell Sabreliner 65 aircraft crashed about 10:30pm on Saturday between New Albany and Blue Springs. Tommy Nix, right, and his wife Merline Nix of Belmont, Mississippi, and co-pilot Jarrod Holloway of Booneville, Mississippi were killed in the crash on Saturday night The jet was bound for Alabama's Marion County-Rankin Fite Airport from University Oxford Airport in Mississippi. The state and the southern U.S. saw severe storms over the weekend, which included tornadoes and flooding that left eight people dead. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency on Sunday following the powerful weather. The storms were sweeping through Mississippi at the time of the crash, but Breitenfeldt says it was not immediately clear if weather was a factor in the crash. He says the FAA and the National Transportation Safety board will investigate. The President of Ecuador claims Julian Assange violated the terms of his asylum in his country's embassy by using it as a 'centre for spying'. Lenin Moreno told the Guardian that the decision to end Assange's asylum suddenly last week was based on the WikiLeaks founder allegedly 'breaking international law'. Moreno said Assange had 'attempted to intefere in processes of other states' during his time at the embassy in London. Assange lived in the embassy for more than seven years before his arrest on Thursday. It comes as Assange's father John Shipton urged the Australian government to intervene and bring him back to his home country. Scroll down for video Ecuador President Lenin Moreno claimed Julian Assange used the Ecuadorean embassy as a 'centre for spying' Jennifer Robinson, Assange's lawyer, says claims he smeared faeces on the walls of his apartment in the Knightsbridge embassy were lies used to force him out 'It is unfortunate that, from our territory and with the permission of authorities of the previous government, facilities have been provided within the Ecuadorian embassy in London to interfere in processes of other states. 'We can not allow our house, the house that opened its doors, to become a centre for spying,' Moreno said, in an apparent reference to the leaked pictures. 'This activity violates asylum conditions. Our decision is not arbitrary but is based on international law'. Moreno also previously accused the Australian of 'discourteous and aggressive behaviour' as he confirmed the south American country had withdrawn his asylum status. Moreno also previously accused the Australian of 'discourteous and aggressive behaviour' Rafael Correa, Ecuadorian president when Assange was granted asylum, branded Moreno a traitor. But the country's Interior Minister Maria Paula Romo hit back by claiming Correa had allowed the 47-year-old to get away with some unimaginable behaviour. She said: 'During his stay at the Ecuadorian Embassy, during the government of the former president Rafael Correa, they tolerated things like Mr Assange putting faeces on the walls of the embassy and other types of behaviour of this kind that is far removed from the minimum respect a guest should have in a country which has generously welcomed him.' Meanwhile Mr Shipton, who lives in Melbourne, urged prime minister Scott Morrison to step in following Assange's arrest in London last week. The 74-year-old told News Corp Australia that Mr Morrison and the country's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) 'should in a nuanced way do something'. Julian Assange arrives at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London on Thursday He added: 'It can be resolved simply to the satisfaction of all. There has been some talk in a meeting between a senator and a senior DFAT official to extradite Julian to Australia.' Mr Morrison has previously said Assange, an Australian citizen, will have consular assistance available to him but will not get 'special treatment'. Mr Shipton also expressed shock at the appearance of his son in footage of his removal from London's Ecuadorian embassy on Thursday. 'I saw him, the way they dragged him down the steps, the coppers - he didn't look good,' he added. 'I'm 74 and I look better than him and he's 47. It's such a shock.' Assange spent almost seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London following defeat in his legal battle against extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted over two separate allegations, one of rape and one of molestation. In May 2017, Sweden's top prosecutor dropped the long-running inquiry into a rape claim against Assange, which he has always denied. But his arrest prompted the lawyer for a Swedish woman who alleged she was raped by Assange during a visit to Stockholm in 2010 to say they wanted the case reopened. Prosecutors in Sweden have since confirmed that, while the investigation has not been resumed, they are looking into the case. Assange was bundled out of the Ecuadorian embassy and hauled before Westminster Magistrate's on Thursday where he was found guilty of failing to surrender to the court. Assange was thrown out of his Ecuador embassy bolthole in London where he had been given refuge since 2012 He could face up to 12 months in a UK prison when he is sentenced at Southwark Crown Court, but is wanted in the US for hacking charges and in Sweden for sexual assault offences. But he is set to challenge any extradition attempts in the Supreme Court with an army of top-shot barristers. Edward Fitzgerald QC and Ben Cooper are also reportedly poised to join Assange's defence team. The pair have fought previous extradition cases such as Gary McKinnon and Lauri Love. Ecuador's government said Assange's seven-year stay at their embassy in London cost the South American country 5million. Foreign Minister Jose Valencia released the figures as he detailed the money that had been spent on keeping the 47-year-old Wikileaks founder after he entered the embassy on August 16 2012. Most - nearly 4.5 million - was spent on security, but Mr Valencia also told the countrys legislators that 305,000 went on medical expenditure, food and washing his clothes. Julian Assange was captured skateboarding through the Ecuadorian embassy wearing in shorts in security footage He ignored repeated warnings not to leave half-eaten meals and unwashed dishes in the kitchen He revealed another 230,000 was spent on legal advice the Australian received in 2012. The Ecuadorian government said Assange, arrested on Thursday after his diplomatic asylum was withdrawn by the countrys president Lenin Moreno, had paid for his own upkeep since the start of last December. His arrest came after the Ecuadorian government ended his asylum status, saying it was tired of his 'discourteous' behaviour and poor personal hygiene, which reportedly included smearing faeces on the walls of the country's London embassy. Security footage that has come to light over the weekend has show Assange skateboarding through the embassy. Unable to exercise outside, Assange reportedly caused mayhem with his skateboard, left dirty dishes out and blasted loud music. Assange appears pale and dishevelled in the clip. Julian Assange's long legal battle 2006 Assange creates Wikileaks with a group of like-minded activists and IT experts to provide a secure way for whistleblowers to leak information. He quickly becomes its figurehead and a lightning rod for criticism. 2010 March: U.S. authorities allege Assange engaged in a conspiracy to hack a classified U.S. government computer with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. July: Wikileaks starts releasing tens of thousands of top secrets documents, including a video of U.S. helicopter pilots gunning down 12 civilians in Baghdad in 2007. What followed was the release of more than 90,000 classified US military files from the Afghan war and 400,000 from Iraq that included the names of informants. August: Two Swedish women claim that they each had consensual sex with Assange in separate instances when he was on a 10-day trip to Stockholm. They allege the sex became non-consensual when Assange refused to wear a condom. First woman claims Assange was staying at her apartment in Stockholm when he ripped off her clothes. She told police that when she realized Assange was trying to have unprotected sex with her, she demanded he use a condom. She claims he ripped the condom before having sex. Second Swedish woman claims she had sex with Assange at her apartment in Stockholm and she made him wear a condom. She alleges that she later woke up to find Assange having unprotected sex with her. He was questioned by police in Stockholm and denied the allegations. Assange was granted permission by Swedish authorities to fly back to the U.K. November: A Swedish court ruled that the investigation should be reopened and Assange should be detained for questioning on suspicion of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion. An international arrest warrant is issued by Swedish police through Interpol. Wikileaks releases its cache of more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables. December: Assange presents himself to London police and appears at an extradition hearing where he is remanded in custody. Assange is granted conditional bail at the High Court in London after his supporters pay 240,000 in cash and sureties. 2011 February: A British judge rules Assange should be extradited to Sweden but Wikileaks found vows to fight the decision. April: A cache of classified U.S. military documents is released by Wikileaks, including intelligence assessments on nearly all of the 779 people who are detained at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. November: Assange loses High Court appeal against the decision to extradite him. 2012 June: Assange enters the Ecuadorian embassy in London requesting political asylum. August: Assange is granted political asylum by Ecuador. 2013 June: Assange tells a group of journalists he will not leave the embassy even if sex charges against him are dropped out of fear he will be extradited to the U.S. 2015 August: Swedish prosecutors drop investigation into some of the sex allegations against Assange due to time restrictions. The investigation into suspected rape remains active. 2016 July: Wikileaks begins leaking emails U.S. Democratic Party officials favoring Hillary Clinton. November: Assange is questioned over the sex allegation at the Ecuadorian Embassy in the presence of Sweden's assistant prosecutor Ingrid Isgren and police inspector Cecilia Redell. The interview spans two days. 2017 January: Barack Obama agrees to free whistleblower Chelsea Manning from prison. Her pending release prompts speculation Assange will end his self-imposed exile after Wikileaks tweeted he would agree to U.S. extradition. April: Lenin Moreno becomes the new president of Ecuador who was known to want to improve diplomatic relations between his country and the U.S. May: An investigation into a sex allegation against Assange is suddenly dropped by Swedish prosecutors. 2018 January: Ecuador confirms it has granted citizenship to Assange following his request. February: Assange is visited by Pamela Anderson and Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel. March: The Ecuadorian Embassy suspends Assange's internet access because he wasn't complying with a promise he made the previous year to 'not send messages which entailed interference in relation to other states'. August: U.S. Senate committee asks to interview Assange as part of their investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. September: Assange steps down as editor of WikiLeaks. October: Assange reveals he will launch legal action against the government of Ecuador, accusing it of violating his 'fundamental rights and freedoms'. November: U.S. Justice Department inadvertently names Assange in a court document that says he has been charged in secret. 2019 January: Assange's lawyers say they are taking action to make President Trump's administration reveal charges 'secretly filed' against him. April 6: WikiLeaks tweets that a high level Ecuadorian source has told them Assange will be expelled from the embassy within 'hours or days'. But a senior Ecuadorian official says no decision has been made to remove him from the London building. April 11: Assange has his diplomatic asylum revoked by Ecuador and he is arrested by the Metropolitan Police; he is remanded in custody by a judge at Westminster Magistrates Court. April 12: He is found guilty of breaching his bail terms. May 1: Sentenced to 11 months in jail. May 2: Court hearing takes place over Assange's proposed extradition to the U.S. He tells a court he does not consent to the extradition and the case is adjourned until May 30. May 13: Swedish prosecutors reopen rape case saying they still want to question Assange. June 3: Swedish court rules against detaining him in absentia, setting back the extradition case. June 12 Home Secretary Sajid Javid signs an extradition request from the US. June 13 A hearing sets out the date for Assange's full extradition hearing - February next year. November Swedish prosecutors stop investigation into an allegation of rape against Mr Assange November 25 - Medics say without correct medical care Assange 'could die' in Belmarsh December 13 - Hearing in London hears he is being blocked from seeing key evidence in case December 19 - Appears at Westminster Magistrates' Court via video-link where his lawyer claims US bid to extradite him is 'political'. 2020 June: Assange failed to appear via video link for his most recent court matter in London's Westminster Magistrates' Court Advertisement Was Julian Assange expelled from the embassy over a leaked picture of a lobster? Snap of Ecuador's president eating in bed got Assange pinched A spat over scoffing lobster in bed was behind Julian Assange's exit from the Ecuadorian embassy last week and the ensuing political storm over what to do with the WikiLeaks fugitive. Assange's seven-year stay at the Knightsbridge embassy ended when he was handcuffed at the behest of his exasperated South American hosts and dragged out by officers from Scotland Yard. Last night, it emerged that Assange was removed after embarrassing pictures of Ecuador president Lenin Moreno dining on lobster at a luxury hotel room were leaked to a website. In February, more than 200 private emails and text messages belonging to Mr Moreno and his wife, as well as pictures of the family on lavish holidays in Europe, were leaked to a site called INApapers.org. An embarrassing photo of Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno lying in bed enjoying a plate of lobster emerged online Assange being driven in handcuffs to Westminster Magistrates Court in London by police on Thursday The most embarrassing photos were of Mr Moreno eating lobster in his hotel bed. The pictures caused uproar in Ecuador since it showed the president luxuriating at a time when he had imposed austerity measures on his people. Last night, The Mail on Sunday was able to find the photograph on several Twitter pages, as well as Spanish-language websites, including the Republic del Banano site. Mr Moreno has accused Assange of leaking the material, a claim which WikiLeaks has always denied. On Thursday, as Assange was being dragged out of the embassy, Mr Moreno told reporters he did not have the right to 'hack private phones'. But WikiLeaks said in a statement on its website: 'In short, the [Ecuadorian] government seeks a false pretext to end the asylum and protection of Julian Assange.' After Assange was arrested, it emerged that he led an erratic and squalid lifestyle at the embassy. He was accused of smearing walls with excrement and blocking a toilet with soiled underwear. Now Westminster is divided over whether to extradite him to the United States, where he is wanted for releasing millions of secret documents online, or to Sweden, where he has been accused of rape. The decision will be for Home Secretary Sajid Javid, who has made clear 'all options are on the table'. A Home Office source said: 'He is calmly establishing what Home Office policy levers are at his disposal to make sure that Mr Assange faces justice, which he believes is absolutely essential.' Assange can only be extradited to Sweden if the country's prosecuting authority reopens its investigation and its government issues a fresh European Arrest Warrant. If Assange is extradited there, he will face a charge of rape against a woman identified only as W. Assange has always denied the charge. Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott sparked outrage last week by appearing to downplay the sex assault allegations, claiming Assange was being targeted because he had embarrassed the US military. Within hours, Labour was accused of a total about-turn after Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry told the BBC he should face justice in Sweden. That was followed yesterday by a letter from Ms Abbott herself to colleagues saying 'rape is a heinous crime'. She added that the UK should extradite Assange to Sweden if the authorities there reopened their investigations. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange makes a statement to the media and supporters from a window of the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2012 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn added: 'If there are allegations which Julian Assange needs to answer of sexual issues, sexual attacks that may or may not have taken place in Sweden, then it's a matter for the courts to decide but I do think he should answer those questions.' Tory chairman Brandon Lewis said: 'No one should be above the law, yet the fact that Jeremy Corbyn's Labour were so quick to jump to the defence of someone facing such serious allegations speaks volumes.' Last night, a lawyer acting for woman W in Sweden said: 'We hope the British authorities will co-operate so that Assange can be extradited to Sweden before the statute of limitations for the rape allegation expires in August 2020.' A man threatened to blow up the Duke and Duchess of Sussexs wedding, it was reported last night. Mohammed Jibra-Eel Saleh caused a security scare after he sent a chain of emails to Prince Andrew and Government officials warning that the royal couples wedding day last May would be a blast. The 37-year-old, who claimed to be the Muslim Prince of Spain in his communications, now faces a spell in prison after he was found guilty of malicious communications, The Daily Telegraph reported. Saleh wrote Were at war and your grandsons wedding is going to be a blast in his emails to the Duke of York, the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Defence just 12 days before the big day, Leicester Crown Court heard. Mohammed Jibra-Eel Saleh caused a security scare after he sent a chain of emails to Prince Andrew and Government officials warning that the royal couples wedding day last May would be a blast. Pictured: Harry and Meghan visiting the Bristol Old Vic in February this year In one email to Prince Andrew, Saleh from Leicester, wrote: You f****g stupid British royal family. I am the Muslim Prince of Spain married to the illegitimate daughter of the former King of Spain, Juan Carloss daughter called Marguerita. All you British royal family are going to die for having me arrested and tortured in prison in Netherlands. Were at war, b***h. Your grandson wedding is going to be a blast. The court heard how the emails to the Duke were quite similar to ones Government officials received. Police tracked down Saleh and arrested him two days before Prince Harry married Meghan Markle. Despite initially pleading not guilty, Saleh was found guilty last month to three charges of sending electronic communications with intent to cause distress and anxiety and sending an electronic communication which conveyed a threat. Due to suspected mental health issues, it was a trial of facts as Saleh was deemed unfit to stand trial and plea. The defendant is at home on unconditional bail and awaits sentencing. Joey Kwong, prosecuting, told the court that three similar threatening emails had been sent to the various recipients using two different mobile phones. Following a Google subscriber check police established Saleh was a user, but Lucy Jones, defending Saleh questioned whether those prosecuting could prove it was actually him who pressed send on those emails. A man has been taken in for questioning by homicide detectives after a second man was found dead in a Melbourne home. The unidentified man's body was found by police in a property on Rodney Street in Gisborne, 54km north-west of Melbourne, around 6.30pm on Sunday. The cause of death has not yet been confirmed, but it's understood police are treating the incident as suspicious. The unidentified man's body was found by police in a property on Rodney Street in Gisborne, 54km north-west of Melbourne, around 6.30pm on Sunday Police believe the man had died sometime between Thursday and Sunday, a neighbour told The Herald Sun. While another resident told the publication a 'weapon was involved'. 'Not a gun, so probably a knife,' they said. Another local described the area as a 'very safe place' and said they'd not heard of anything like this happening before. Officers will reportedly stay outside the home until the man in custody has been questioned (pictured) Police were still at the scene on Monday morning. Officers will reportedly stay outside the home until the man in custody has been questioned. The questioning is expected to happen at some point on Monday. A wildlife rescue worker was also seen retrieving a bird from the premises around 8am. Trauma cleaners were also seen attending the property on Monday. Anyone with any information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. The mother of an officer who was gunned down on the job has made a desperate plea ahead of the release of one of the men convicted over her son's death. Benjamin Ernest Power, who was sentenced to nine years in prison for being an accomplice in the murder of Detective Senior Constable Damian Leeding in 2011, is expected to walk free later this week. Constable Leeding was shot in the face at point blank range after responding to an armed hold-up at the Pacific Pines Tavern on the Gold Coast. Detective Senior Constable Damian Leeding (pictured right alongside his wife Sonya) was murdered in 2011 The 35-year-old father-of-two died three days later in hospital. His murderer, Phillip Graeme Abell and another accomplice Donna McAvoy were both sentenced to life in jail for their crimes, The Courier Mail reported. Power became eligible for parole in August last year, but his first application was rejected. Det Sen Const Leeding's mother, Julie Waters, has strongly opposed his release since she was first warned he could be freed. Det Sen Const Leeding's mother, Julie Waters (pictured), has strongly opposed Power's release since she was first warned he could be freed Thousands of mourners gathered at the Gold Coast Highway as Constable Leeding's body was led away in the funeral procession Constable Leeding (pictured) responded to an armed hold-up at the Pacific Pines Tavern on the Gold Coast In a heartfelt letter to the Parole Board, she questioned why he should be given the chance to live a normal life. 'I feel like I've been given a life sentence too. I can't believe he (Power) could be out of jail so soon and getting on with his life. Lucky him. 'The lives of my family changed forever the day we lost Damian and it's had a devastating impact on all of us,' she said. Power's second parole bid was approved and he is due to be released on Tuesday. However, thanks to Ms Waters' resilience and campaigning, Power will now need to obey a number of parole conditions. He will have to wear an electronic tracking device and will not be allowed enter part of southeast Queensland where Ms Waters and her family reside. 'I'd much rather he be rotting in jail than out in the community but at least some strict conditions have been imposed on him,' she said. Microsoft says hackers were able to get access to emails sent by users of Outlook, MSN, and Hotmail. The software giant first acknowledged on Saturday that a breach affected a customer support account, which was then used to gain access to information about private users email accounts. The hackers were able to see information such as subject lines of emails and whom users communicated with, according to Motherboard. But the hack was worse than originally thought. Instead of limited information related to the emails, hackers were able to see the contents of emails from a large number of users across several Microsoft-owned platforms. The hack initially targeted the credentials of a Microsoft support agent. This allowed the hackers to gain access to non-corporate level email accounts, which belong to regular consumers who use Microsoft platforms for personal communications. Microsoft acknowledged on Saturday that a breach affected a customer support account, which was then used to gain access to information about private users email accounts across numerous platforms, including Outlook (seen above) The company sent an email to users acknowledging the existence of the breach In an email sent to Microsoft email customers, the company wrote: We have identified that a Microsoft support agents credentials were compromised, enabling individuals outside Microsoft to access information within your Microsoft email account. This unauthorized access could have allowed unauthorized parties to access and/or view information related to your email account (such as your email address, folder names, the subject lines of emails, and the names of other email addresses you communicated with), but not the content of any emails or attachments, between January 1, 2019 and March 28, 2019. Microsoft said that it immediately disabled the compromised credentials. It also encouraged email users to reset their passwords and beware of phishing or other spam emails. A copy of the email was posted to Reddit. Despite Microsofts claims, Motherboard reported that hackers were able to gain access to email contents. The website says it has screenshots sent by a source that provides insights into what hackers were able to see. These screenshots show redacted pages that include options for the hackers to gain access to Email Body. Microsoft said that it immediately disabled the compromised credentials. It also encouraged email users to reset their passwords and beware of phishing or other spam emails. The image above shows the logo of Hotmail Microsoft told Motherboard that those whose full email contents were vulnerable to hacking were notified, though the company did not specify how many customers were affected. We addressed this scheme, which affected a limited subset of consumer accounts, by disabling the compromised credentials and blocking the perpetrators access, a Microsoft spokesperson told Motherboard in a statement. In January, the largest ever collection of breached data ever was discovered, exposing more than one billion unique combinations of email addresses and passwords. A security researcher found the 87GB dump of data hidden on a hacker forum and said many of them have been previously included in other leaks such as the infamous MySpace and LinkedIn breaches. Troy Hunt, who runs the 'Have I Been Pwned' breach-notification service, found the leak on cloud-service MEGA and called it 'Collection #1'. An Australian backpacker has claimed she has been turned down for 20 farm jobs because employers only want foreign staff. Charley Newton, 20, has been visiting rural Queensland from South Australia but has struggled to find work. She has applied for more than 20 labouring roles including fruit picking but claims she has not been accepted because of her nationality. Charley Newton (pictured), 20, has been visiting rural Queensland from South Australia but has struggled to find work The backpacker (pictured) has applied for more than 20 labouring roles including fruit picking but claims she has not been accepted because of her nationality The show compared Miss Newton's plight with two German backpackers Hannes and Jannik (pictured), who found work in Queensland 'As soon as I said I was Aussie I didn't get a response back,' she told Today Tonight about one of her applications. Miss Newton said that after being rejected several times, she put a post in a local Facebook group saying she was looking for some seasonal work. 'I got loads of responses from people saying "good luck - you're Australian, Australians don't get work out here",' she said. Steve Baker from the Australian Workers' Union told the programme that farmers prefer foreign backpackers on working holiday visas to Australians because 'they don't understand their rights.' 'At the end of the day, Aussie workers are not lazy,' Mr Baker said. 'They are being overlooked because overseas workers are easier to exploit.' The show compared Miss Newton's plight with two German backpackers Hannes and Jannik, who found work in Queensland. They said they loved working in Australia because the pay was so much better than in Europe and the hours more flexible. 'We are happy with any work where we can get money and don't have to sign a contract for the long term,' they said. Miss Newton (left) said that after being rejected several times, she put a post in a local Facebook group saying she was looking for some seasonal work Miss Newton (pictured) said her plan was to head back to South Australia and find work there 'In Germany everything comes with a contract.' Miss Newtown said her plan was to head back to South Australia and find work there. Australia offers working holiday visas to people from 42 countries around the world. The visa allows young adults to stay and work in Australia for up to two years. In order to be allowed to stay for a second year, the applicant has to work in a certain approved sector for three months. In the six months to December 31, 80,305 first year working holiday visas were granted and 18,812 second-year visas were approved. Around 92 per cent of the second-year applicants said they did agricultural work, around seven per cent did construction work, and less than one per cent did mining work. The eligible countries have reciprocal programmes in place, benefiting Australians who want to travel and work abroad. There are more than one million Australians working overseas. A young couple have been stung by a surprise $92,000 bill for a flaw in their building - despite the feature being approved by authorities. Jessica Howsey and Ryan Silvagni bought an apartment in a block of units in South Yarra, Melbourne, after they became engaged. Their apartment block was audited by the Victorian Building Authority in 2018 and was found to have the same dangerous cladding as was on Grenfell Tower when it caught fire in 2017, killing 72 people. The couple were told they would have to pay more than $90,000 for the cladding to be removed. 'We are first-home owners, we are young professionals. There are people here who are retired, there are single mums in this building, I mean it is almost a joke,' Ms Howsey told Nine News. Scroll down for video Jessica Howsey and Ryan Silvagni (pictured) bought an apartment in a block of units in South Yarra, Melbourne, after they became engaged They were given a huge bill by the VBA to remove the cladding on their new home. 'We have to come up with $90,000 to replace cladding that wasn't disclosed on any documentation that was signed off by local councils and fire authorities, it's like a slap in the face to be honest,' Mr Silvagni said. The couple have been advised to take out a loan to pay for the cladding to be removed. But Ms Howsey said the loan scheme provided by the Government for cladding removal was not applicable for their circumstances. 'There is a cladding rectification agreement loan that's being made available by the Government but there is only one council participating at the moment because it is optional,' she said. 'You cannot create a scheme for optics and say, ''look how we are helping Australians'', when you make it optional and you make it flawed - no one can access that scheme.' Their apartment block (pictured) was audited by the Victorian Building Authority in 2018 and was found to have the same dangerous cladding as was on Grenfell Tower when it caught fire in 2017 Pensioners Jennifer, 78, and Kevin Opie, 84, also live in the apartment block, and were shocked to find out they would be charged to remove the cladding on their building. 'We opened up our computer and saw that we owed $92,000... we were absolutely panic-stricken, we were devastated, we couldn't believe it,' Mrs Opie said. The couple were told that if they did not pay the $92,000 to remove the cladding in two months then they would face further fines of $20,000 or be evicted from the property. Mrs Opie said the stress had forced her to take anxiety medication and stopped her from sleeping. The Opies said the VBA told them to take out a loan to pay for the removal. In a statement, the VBA said public safety was their 'first priority'. 'Combustible cladding needs to be removed from these buildings and the VBA will support owners through this difficult process,' a VBA spokesperson said. 'The Supreme Court of Victoria determined in December 2017, that after an occupancy permit is issued, the Victorian Building Authority cannot direct builders to fix non-compliant work. 'This means that owners are responsible for fixing their buildings. The VBA acknowledges the difficulty for owners and will help them navigate this complex task.' President Trump has lashed out on Twitter to complain about the appointment of a former Obama administration cyber security official as lobbyist for Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies. Samir Jain was the former senior director for cybersecurity policy at the White House National Security Council during the Obama administration, but he has now registered as a lobbyist for Shenzhen-based Huawei. 'Chinese Telecom Giant Huawei hires former Obama Cyber Security Official as a lobbyist. This is not good, or acceptable!' the President wrote in a tweet on Sunday evening. The company, which is owned by the Chinese government, has fallen under the suspicion of U.S. officials in the past over fears the technology firm might be using its products to somehow spy on Americans. Huawei has hired Samir Jain, former Obama administration ex-White House National Security Council cyber security chief, however President Trump believes the hiring of Jain to lobby for Huawei is part of a major propaganda and influence campaign by the Chinese government 'This is not good, or acceptable!' In a tweet, President Trump slammed telecom giant Huawei for hiring a former Obama administration cyber security official as a lobbyist Trump's tweet shows that he believes that the hiring of Jain to lobby for Huawei is part of a major propaganda and influence campaign by the Chinese government to counter the U.S. government crackdown on Huawei. Jain, is now with the lobbying firm Jones Day on behalf of the Chinese firm. Jain served at the White House from 2016 to 2017 and before that was an associate deputy attorney general from 2014 to 2015, where he worked on national security and computer fraud issues. While at the White House, Jain led a team that was responsible for cyber security and was chairman of an inter-agency group that reviewed proposed cyber operations by the U.S. government. The U.S. government began a crackdown on Huawei over fears the technology firm might be using its products to spy on Americans and asked allies to follow suit He also worked on international issues, such as a campaign to win support for U.S.-proposed international cyber norms. While at the Justice Department, Jain also took part in international negotiations 'such as China's agreement not to engage in cyber-enabled intellectual property theft for commercial gain,' his biography states. The U.S. is jockeying for position with China over 5G and has effectively banned Huawei from most U.S. networks due to concerns that it might enable Chinese government spying, which Huawei denies. Trump's administration has been warning other countries against adopting 5G systems from Huawei citing security concerns, with mixed results. Huawei has been instrumental in developing 5G technology but the U.S. has been urging its allies not to allow such equipment to be introduced for fear of Chinese government spying Huawei is the world's largest maker of such equipment and the U.S. has accused the company of being controlled by China's ruling Communist Party and thus obliged to spy on its behalf. Huawei maintains that it would say no to requests from the Chinese government for confidential information about foreign users of its technology. For more than a year, the White House has been mulling an executive order that would direct the Commerce Department to block U.S. companies from buying equipment from foreign telecommunications makers that pose significant national security risks. The FCC since March 2018 has also been considering rules to bar the use of funds from a government program to purchase equipment or services from companies that pose a security threat to U.S. communications networks. President Trump has reportedly raised more than $30million for his reelection bid in the first quarter of 2019 - which is roughly equal to the amount raised by the top two Democratic candidates combined. Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaigns director of communications, says that overall the president has so far amassed a whopping $40.8million war chest. The substantial funds give Trump a head start over his Democratic rivals, who are fighting to emerge from a field of 18 candidates, according to CNN. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is the Democratic candidate who has raised the most funds. President Trump raised more than $30million in the first quarter of 2019, a top campaign aide says In the 41 days since he announced his candidacy, the democratic socialist has raised $18.2million. Senator Kamala Harris of California has raised the second-largest amount of money during the first quarter of 2019 - $12million. Overall, Sanders has a war chest of $28million. But while Trump will have plenty of money to fund his reelection campaign, whoever emerges from the Democratic field will have an enthusiastic base of donors. During the first quarter, 10 Democratic candidates raised a combined total of $79.6million - which surpasses the $65.6million that the entire Democratic field raised during the early stages of the 2016 election cycle. Senator Elizabeth Warrens presidential campaign raised $6 million in the first quarter of 2019, lagging behind Democratic rivals after swearing off expensive fundraising events. Senator Bernie Sanders (left) of Vermont is the Democratic candidate who has raised the most funds - $28million. Senator Kamala Harris (right) is in second place, raising $12million during the first quarter of 2019 The April fundraising deadline is one of the first big tests for the more than 15 Democrats vying for their partys nomination to challenge Trump. Also out-pacing Warren was Beto ORourke, the former U.S congressman from Texas who raised $9.4 million in the first 18 days, his campaign said. Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who recently saw a bump in opinion polls but is still considered a long-shot, announced earlier this month that he had raised $7 million during the first quarter. Buttigieg officially announced his candidacy in South Bend on Sunday. Within hours of the announcement, his campaign announced that he had raised an additional $1million. Warren raised more than two other members of the Senate vying for the nomination. Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker each raised about $5 million. On Monday, Democratic candidates are expected to file reports with the Federal Election Commission which will shed more light on the extent of their fundraising efforts. A vegan bodybuilder has won a seat in the New South Wales upper house and will hold the balance of power alongside a mixed bag of crossbenchers. Animal Justice Party representative Emma Hurst snagged a crucial seat in the state's Legislative Council when the final preferences were distributed on Monday. Ms Hurst will join controversial former Labor leader Mark Latham and a second One Nation representative, former detective Rod Roberts, on the crossbench. But libertarian David Leyonhjelm and lockout law opponent Tyson Koh from Keep Sydney Open both missed out on a seat. Gold medal winning bodybuilder Emma Hurst has won a seat in the NSW Legislative Council 'I plan to do whatever it takes to make changes for animals,' Ms Hurst said today Mr Leyonhjelm quit his job as a federal senator in the hope of winning an eight year term in the NSW Parliament. He prematurely announced he had won a seat in a Facebook post more than a fortnight ago. 'Resigning early from the Senate to run in my home state was a gamble, but it has paid off,' he said. Keep Sydney Open had been widely tipped to win a place in their first election but admitted 'in the end it wasn't enough'. Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm (left) and Keep Sydney Open's Tyson Koh (right) lost out 'We don't want to be lead with fear and knee-jerk policy that keeps us stuck in the past,' the party said in a statement. Ms Hurst, a psychologist, will be the Animal Justice Party's second representative in the upper house after party president Mark Pearson. In a statement after her victory, she said: 'I won't be some politician full of empty promises. 'I plan to do whatever it takes to make changes for animals because there are still millions of hens in cages, there are koalas having their homes torn down, and there are animals being shot from the skies.' Emma Hurst's election victory follows last week's vegan protests (in Melbourne above) The Liberal-National coalition government won eight of the 21 upper house seats up for grabs in the March 23 election while Labor snared seven. Premier Gladys Berejiklian's government needs five crossbench votes to pass legislation into law. Horrifying footage has emerged of the moment a drug-crazed carjacker brandishing a gun drags a woman from her luxury Jaguar and throws her to the ground before stealing her car during a high-speed police chase through Melbourne. Melbourne County Court released police helicopter footage to Daily Mail Australia on Monday of Patrick McMillan, 34, who sped away in a stolen Holden on November 24, 2017, while on a three- to four-week drug binge on cocaine, ice, alcohol and GHB or grievous bodily harm. An off-duty police officer noticed McMillan as he drove through the northeastern Melbourne suburb of Greensborough, followed him and called Triple 0. McMillan gets out of his stolen car with his gun drawn and runs at the woman in her Jaguar McMillan noticed the police officer following him, stopped in front of his car and confronted him, pointing a handgun at the officer's head. 'Why the f*** are you following me?' the Herald Sun reported him as saying. The police officer then drove off with McMillan following him. McMillan veered off and was, in turn, chased by police. The fugitive drove recklessly through Melbourne's western and northern suburbs reaching speeds of up to 200km/h. He ran red lights, drove on the footpath and on the wrong side of the road during the police chase which lasted almost 90 minutes. At one point he drove straight through train boom gates in his efforts to avoid police. It was near Ivanhoe train station that he stopped his stolen car and ran towards a woman sitting in a red Jaguar, with his gun drawn. McMillan drags the woman from her Jaguar before flinging her to the ground by her hair With the woman driver on the ground, McMillan pushes his way into the Jaguar while bystanders try to stop the ice addict stealing the car Good Samaritan bystanders appear in the video to be trying to grab the keys. One shelters below the door to hide from McMillan's gun The video footage shows him struggling with her inside the car before dragging her out and throwing her roughly to the ground by her hair. He then got in the car and attempted to drive off. The video shows several onlookers coming to the woman's aid during the attack which occurred about 5.40pm. In the video footage they appear to be trying to pull the keys out of the ignition. One good samaritan crouched by the driver's door, sheltering from the gun which McMillan was pointing at them. The video shows the bystanders opening the car's doors and trying to get inside to thwart McMillan who reverses, smashing into a white car behind before speeding off with the boot still open. McMillan drove off in the woman's Jaguar again reaching speeds of up to 200km/h before smashing his way through the exit boom gate of Doncaster shopping centre carpark where he stole another vehicle, this time a Mercedes. After speeding off in the Mercedes he made his way to the Chadstone Shopping Centre carpark where he struck again. McMillan reverses into a white car behind, smashing into it as bystanders open the doors in an effort to stop him before he goes speeding off with the boot still open. McMillan was fuelled by a weeks-long drug binge of cocaine, ice, alcohol and GHB when he went on his carjacking crime spree, pointing his gun at bystanders, police and motorists McMillan pointed his gun at the driver of a Nissan Skyline, ordering him out of his vehicle in the Chadstone Shopping Centre carpark. He was arrested after entering a driveway at Pascoe Vale Road. Patrick McMillan pleaded guilty last Tuesday in the Melbourne County Court before Judge Lyon to 17 charges including carjacking, assault, armed robbery and assaulting a police officer. The court heard McMillan had a history of ice addiction and that the crimes were part of a number of offences he had committed in November 2017, including hitting a man in the head with a sawn-off shotgun during an aggravated armed robbery on November 22. A small plane with two passengers and one pilot on board crashed into the front lawn of a home in Long Island on Sunday. The crash occurred at around 10.15pm in the outer borough of New York City. The plane had departed from Niagara Falls in Canada and first attempted to land at Republic Airport in Farmingdale before being redirected to JFK, ABC News reported. The Nassau County Police Department told DailyMail.com all three people aboard the plane were uninjured. A small plane with two passengers and one pilot on board crashed into the front lawn of a home in Long Island on Sunday Officials said the passengers are visiting the area from Korea and attempted to land at Republic Airport but missed the runway four times. The plane was then advised to attempt to land at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens but missed the runway there, twice, and was running low on fuel when it got caught on the roof of a church on Clarendon Road. Then the plane came down in the residential area, getting tangled in power lines. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released the following statement regarding the crash: 'A Cessna 172 aircraft crashed into some power lines in a residential neighborhood approximately two mile northeast of John F. Kennedy International Airport in Valley Stream, New York at 10.19pm. 'Three people were on board.' The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it was a Cessna 172 aircraft that crashed The only injury sustained by a person on board was a sprained finger when the plane went down in Valley Stream, Long Island The FAA has said it will investigate the circumstances surrounding the crash As the plane came down, the landing gear the wings and the body of the aircraft all got caught in power lines. Despite the aircraft crash landing so close to a home, there was no damage done to the house. There were also no injuries to anyone on the ground. When the plane came down, the landing gear the wings and the body of the aircraft all got caught in power lines The plane had departed from Niagara Falls in Canada and first attempted to land at Republic Airport in Farmingdale before being redirected to JFK It's not known at this time where the plane had departed from, or where it was heading. The FAA has said it will investigate the circumstances surrounding the crash. The plane went down in the front yard of a residence located at 113 Clarendon Drive in Valley Stream. Rep. Ilhan Omar says she's faced increased death threats since President Trump spread around a video that purports to show her being dismissive of the 2001 terrorist attacks. 'This is endangering lives,' she said, accusing Trump of fomenting right-wing extremism. 'It has to stop.' Her statement late Sunday followed an announcement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that she has taken steps to ensure the safety of the Minnesota Democrat and the speaker's call for Trump to take down the video. Soon after Pelosi's statement, the video disappeared as a pinned tweet at the top of Trump's Twitter feed, but it was not deleted. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in Washington, April 10. Omar put out a statement on Sunday revealing an increase in the number of death threats she's received since President Trump tweeted a video that purports she spoke dismissively of the 9/11 terrorist attacks President Trump in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Friday. Trump tweeted a video that evening making a comment on Rep. Omar's comments regarding 9/11 that she says has increased the number of death threats being sent her way Pelosi was among Democrats who had criticized Trump over the tweet, with some accusing him of trying to incite violence against the Muslim lawmaker. An upstate New York man recently was charged with making death threats against her. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders defended Trump earlier Sunday, saying the president has a duty to highlight Omar's history of making comments that others deem anti-Semitic or otherwise offensive and that he wished no 'ill will' upon the first-term lawmaker. But Omar said that since Trump tweeted the video Friday night, she's received many threats on her life that referred or replied to the posted video. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, left, and Rep. Ilhan Omar, attend a rally to introduce the 'Equality Act,' on March 13. Pelosi has looked into improving security for Omar and calling on Trump to take down his tweet in the wake of the death threats that are being sent Omar's way 'Violent crimes and other acts of hate by right-wing extremists and white nationalists are on the rise in this country and around the world,' she said. 'We can no longer ignore that they are being encouraged by the occupant of the highest office in the land.' She said: 'We are all Americans.' Earlier, Pelosi issued a statement while traveling in London saying she had spoken with congressional authorities 'to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff.' Pelosi said officials will continue to monitor and assess threats against Omar, and called on Trump to discourage such behavior. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders in the Oval Office on April 11. Sanders claims that the president wishes no 'ill will and certainly not violence towards anyone.' Trump tweeted a video on Friday evening that showed a snippet of a speech Rep. Ilhan Omar gave at the Council on American-Islamic Relations inter-cut with images of the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001 'The President's words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger,' Pelosi said. 'President Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video.' The tweeted video also comes after a 55-year-old New York man was arrested and charged with threatening to assault and murder Rep. Omar on April 6. Patrick Carlineo Jr. of Addison, New York, faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted, the U.S. Department of Justice said. According to prosecutors, Carlineo spoke by telephone with one of Omar's staff members on March 21 and asked the employee: 'Do you work for the Muslim Brotherhood? Why are you working for her, she's a (expletive) terrorist. I'll put a bullet in her (expletive) skull.' The video in Trump's tweet included a snippet from a recent speech Omar gave to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in which she refers to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center as 'some people did something,' as news footage of the hijacked airplanes hitting the Twin Towers is added. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., sits with fellow Democrats on the House Education and Labor Committee. President Trump weighed in on the most recent controversy involving Omar, pushing the Minnesota congresswoman to demand he stop Trump captioned his tweet with: 'WE WILL NEVER FORGET!' Critics accuse Omar of being flippant in describing the perpetrators of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. She later sought to defend herself by tweeting a quote from President George W. Bush, in which the Republican president referred to the attackers as 'people' just days after 9/11. Neither Trump's tweet nor the video included Omar's full quote or the context of her comments, which were about Muslims feeling that their civil liberties had eroded after the attacks. The tweet was posted atop Trump's Twitter feed for much of Sunday, with more than 9 million views. It remained lower in the feed after Pelosi requested that the video be pulled. Sanders questioned why Democrats weren't following Trump's example and calling out Omar, too. Democrats who criticized the president over the tweet defended Omar, with some noting their past disagreements with her. 'Certainly the president is wishing no ill will and certainly not violence towards anyone, but the president is absolutely and should be calling out the congresswoman for her - not only one time - but history of anti-Semitic comments,' Sanders said. 'The bigger question is why aren't Democrats doing the same thing? It's absolutely abhorrent the comments that she continues to make and has made and they look the other way.' Omar repeatedly has pushed fellow Democrats into uncomfortable territory with comments about Israel and the strength of the Jewish state's influence in Washington. She apologized for suggesting that lawmakers support Israel for pay and said she isn't criticizing Jews. But she refused to take back a tweet in which she suggested American supporters of Israel 'pledge allegiance' to a foreign country. Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat who represents Manhattan's financial district, which was targeted on 9/11, said he had no issues with Omar's characterization of the attack. 'I have had some problems with some of her other remarks, but not - but not with that one,' Nadler said. Sanders commented on 'Fox News Sunday' and ABC's 'This Week.' Nadler appeared on CNN's 'State of the Union. A two-day-old boy who vanished from a New Zealand hospital and is in need of 'urgent medical attention' is believed to have been taken by his mother. The infant, who disappeared from Middlemore Hospital in Otahuhu, southeast of Auckland, over the weekend may be in need of urgent medical attention. Police believe the child is with his mother Dorothy Opetaia and they are likely to be still in the South Auckland area, near the hospital. Police believe the child is with his mother Dorothy Opetaia (pictured) and they are likely to be in the South Auckland area Detective Senior Sergeant Malcolm Hassall from Counties Manukau Police said someone in the Opetaia family may know where the baby is. He said authorities are concerned for the child's wellbeing and is seeking assistance from the general public to locate the mother and child's whereabouts. 'I have serious concerns for the wellbeing of the baby boy who desperately requires medical care,' Det Sgnt Hassall said. 'I'm appealing for Dorothy or any family members to take the baby to any hospital straight away, delaying medical attention could cause him to become seriously ill.' Anyone with information about the child or Ms Opetaia has been urged to get in contact with Counties Manukau Police immediately on 09 261 1321. Married At First Sight star Sam Ball ditched his high-vis workwear and left his banged-up Hyundai at home as his ex-girlfriend was pleading not guilty to stalking and harassing him on Monday. Ball, carefully styled head-to-toe in a suit without socks, was instead dropped off at Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court in a $247,000 G-Class Mercedes, while Akila Ahmunett's case was being mentioned inside. The tattooed tradesman was not required to be in court for Ahmunett's matter and would not tell Daily Mail Australia why he was there. His usual mode of transport, a Hyundai i30 which appeared to have recently been in an accident, was parked near his inner-city home. Ahmunett, is accused of harassing Ball with calls, texts and emails and of breaching an apprehended violence order police took out on his behalf. MAFS star Sam Ball ditched his high-vis workwear and left his banged-up Hyundai i30 at home as his ex-girlfriend was pleading not guilty to stalking and harassing him in a Sydney court Sydney tradesman Sam Ball was dropped off at Downing Centre Local Court on Monday morning in a $247,000 G-Class Mercedes. He spent about 20 minutes inside then drove off Sam Ball, dressed in high-vis gear, gets into his Hyundai after work to drive home last month The 30-year-old was not required to appear in person on Monday and is on a curfew which does not allow her to leave home between 10pm and 6am. When Ahmunett first faced court last month one charge of trespassing on Ball's Alexandria property was dismissed. She is still facing charges of stalking or intimidating Ball, another count of trespass and one of using a carriage service to menace, harrass or offend. Ball, 26, was paired on MAFS with store manager 'bride' Elizabeth Sobinoff, 27, but went on to have a fling with Ines Basic, 28. Basic has also crossed paths with the law courts, appearing in Cleveland Magistrates Court, Brisbane, on March 26 where she pleaded guilty to drink driving. The legal assistant was sentenced to 70 hours community service and was disqualified from driving for the offence which took place on Christmas Day 2018. Last Thursday Ball apologised for his behaviour on the show which included fat-shaming Sobinoff on their wedding day and later running off with Basic. 'I'm sorry if I've offended anyone, male or female, that's watched the show,' he said in a video shared to Instagram on Thursday. 'I'm disgusted and ashamed of the way I acted and treated other people. I made a lot of mistakes, and I'm going to be a better person for that.' Sam Ball's white Hyundai i30 was parked in an inner-city garage after recently being damaged Ball promised that fans would be able to see the 'real Sam' on his new YouTube channel, rather than the 'highly edited' version shown on MAFS. The aspiring actor began going out with Ahmunett after MAFS had finished shooting late last year and first contacted police about her on February 4. He called police after his then girlfriend allegedly confronted him inside his home at Alexandria and the pair had a heated argument. Ball went to police again on February 21 to apply for an AVO, claiming Ahmunett had been stalking him and subjecting him to unwanted texts, calls and emails. He also allegedly accused her of taking his phone and vetting his friends on social media, including deleting the profiles of women. Police were called to Ball's home about 2am on February 22 when they arrested Ahmunett, who lives at Russell Lea in Sydney's inner-west. It is alleged between 6pm and 11pm on the previous day she 'did use a carriage service, namely phone, email and social media, in such a way that reasonable persons would regard that use as being menacing harassing or offensive.' The aspiring actor began going out with Ahmunett after MAFS had finished shooting late last year and first contacted police about her on February 4. He has an interim AVO out against her Sam Ball speaks to a police officer outside Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on Monday The stalk and intimidate charge relates to the same date and times. Newtown Local Court previously heard Ball made three statements to police about what had happened between the pair. Ahmunett was taken into custody again on March 21 after allegedly breaching the AVO by turning up at Ball's home shortly after 3am. She was released the next day on bail. On Monday not guilty pleas were entered on her behalf to the charges laid before March 21. Ahmunett's barrister Geoff Harrison said last month he would 'make representations' to police about reconsidering the charges against his client. Police have still not responded to those representations. 'There's two sides to every story,' Mr Harrison said outside court last month. Ahmunett's matter will be mentioned again on May 8. News of Ball asking for an AVO against Ahmunett came just days after it was revealed her real name was Tabbaa. She appeared under that name on 60 Minutes in 2014 claiming her parents kidnapped her when she was just 13. Ahmunett told the program she was beaten by her father and kidnapped while holidaying in Egypt in 2002. She said her brother used to beat her with a belt and a kettle cord. Ahmunett was tricked into leaving the country and was taken to Syria where she remained in an arranged marriage for five years. She escaped on her 18th birthday with the help of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Since that program aired, Ahmunett has undergone cosmetic surgery and now runs Akila Laser and Beauty in Darlinghurst. Sam Ball leaves the Downing Centre Local Court in Sydney on Monday morning in a Mercedes Lee Miller, 54, pleaded guilty on Friday to killing Marilyn Hickey, a former friend, in Bremerton, Washington in 1992 A Boise man is pleading guilty to a 1992 cold case murder in Washington state based on evidence found from a different cold case killing in Idaho in 1994. Lee Miller, 54, pleaded guilty on Friday to killing Marilyn Hickey, a former friend, in Bremerton, Washington in 1992. Authorities used DNA evidence that was first discovered during an investigation of a different murder. Miller is the suspect in the 1994 killing of Cheryle Barratt, according to the Boise Police Department. Hickey was found strangled to death in her apartment in Bremerton after leaving a local bar with a man who matched Millers description, according to KOMO-TV. She was also found with a pair of scissors in her chest. Investigators believed she was stabbed post-mortem, according to the Idaho Statesman. Investigators were unable to find enough evidence to track down a suspect in the case, which went cold. But investigators got a break in 2006, when unknown DNA found at the scene of the murder of another woman, Cheryle Barratt of Boise, matched the unknown DNA from the scene of the Hickey murder. The police departments of Boise and Bremerton began to compare notes. The investigators from Bremerton had the name Lee Miller, which was written on a slip of paper found in Hickeys purse. The Boise police also had the same name. He wasn't a suspect in either one of our cases at the time, said Det. Martin Garland of Bremerton Police. But because he was the only person that was in both of our case files we identified him as likely the person that was responsible. In order to make an arrest, investigators needed to confirm that it was Millers DNA found at both crime scenes. So they managed to obtain a cigarette butt used by Miller. After sending the butt to the lab, the DNA matched. Miller is expected to plead guilty to the Idaho murder. As part of a deal with prosecutors, he will serve his sentence in the Idaho prison system so that he can be close to his family. A federal judge denied bail Monday for a Chinese woman charged with lying to illegally enter President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, saying her actions and statements suggest 'she was up to something nefarious' and there is an 'extreme risk of flight' if she were released. Federal Magistrate Judge William Matthewman issued the ruling for 33-year-old Yujing Zhang, who pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of lying to federal agents and illegal entering of a restricted area. Zhang faces up to five years if convicted. Prosecutors did back away from their previous contention that Zhang was carrying a computer thumb drive containing malware, saying further tests have put that in doubt. Matthewman said he was particularly concerned that when Secret Service agents questioned Zhang on March 30 at Mar-a-Lago shortly after she gained admission, the defendant said she was carrying four cellphones, a laptop and an external hard drive because she feared they would be stolen if she left them in her hotel room. Yujing Zhang was arrested with two passports, four cell phones, and a USB drive that a Secret Service agent found had malware when inserting it into his computer Club: Mar-a-Lago is nicknamed the Winter White House but continues to operate as a members club while Trump is there - as he was when Yujing Zhang was arrested Seen in court: This was how Yujing Zhang appeared in court Monday for a hearing in front of federal Magistrate Judge William Matthewman in West Palm Beach. She is being held in a special wing of the county jail for those arrested on federal charges and was denied bail But during a search of her room later, agents found more electronics gear - including a device to detect hidden cameras - $8,000 in cash and numerous credit and debit cards, all of it unsecured. 'It does seem to the court that her alleged innocent explanation is refuted by what she left behind,' Matthewman said. 'It does appear to the court that Ms. Zhang was up to something nefarious ... when she gained access to Mar-a-Lago.' Target? The FBI is investigating if Zhang was a Chinese spy Because of that, Matthewman said he feared that if he allowed Zhang to be released, she would flee back to China. The U.S. and China do not have an extradition treaty. Zhang is not charged with espionage, but prosecutor Rolando Garcia said the investigation remains active. Even if Matthewman had decided to grant bail, immigration officials would most likely have detained Zhang because her U.S. visa has been revoked. Zhang showed no reaction throughout the hearing except for once saying she didn't understand when Garcia said she was at times 'within an arm's length' of Mar-a-Lago computers. One of Zhang's public defenders, Kristy Militello, told Matthewman she believes that Zhang, who works as a business consultant, was confused by the agents' questions and they misunderstood her when they say she said she was a member. Zhang speaks English, but her level of expertise is disputed by the prosecution and defense. During court hearings, she listened to a Mandarin translator but also spoke directly to her attorneys occasionally. Militello said Zhang had come to Mar-a-Lago believing there would be a dinner that evening for a United Nations group, part of a $20,000 travel package she had purchased from a man named 'Charles' she only knew through social media. Militello pointed to a receipt Zhang received from Charles Lee, a Chinese national who promotes such events at Mar-a-Lago, and a flyer she had promoting it. She requested Zhang be released on $250,000 bail secured by her father and said she would wear a monitoring device to ensure she didn't leave the area. 'It is a sad fact of this case that if a Mandarin interpreter was provided at that first contact with the Secret Service, we very well may not be here,' Militello told Matthewman. She said Zhang cooperated with agents, followed their directions, allowed her belongings to be searched and sat through nine hours of questioning. Lee ran the United Nations Chinese Friendship Association and was photographed at least twice with Cindy Yang, a Republican donor and former Florida massage parlor owner. She recently made news after it was learned she was promising Chinese business leaders that her consulting firm could get them access to Mar-a-Lago and mingle with the president. Yang previously owned a spa where New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was charged with soliciting prostitution. Kraft has pleaded not guilty but has also apologized for his conduct. A Secret Service agent told Matthewman last week that when an agency analyst uploaded the malware found on Zhang's thumb drive, it immediately began installing and corrupting his computer's files. The Secret Service says when such tests are conducted the computer is not on any network, so no damage was done. Government analysts were still trying to determine the malware's purpose. A 'bulldog' that mauled a nine-year-old boy to death at a caravan park had been left alone with the youngster despite a history of attacks, it emerged today, as its owner was revealed as a nail technician who is a friend of the family. Frankie MacRitchie was killed by a seven-year-old 'bulldog-type breed' called Winston while on holiday at Tencreek Holiday Park in Looe, Cornwall. Owner Sadie Totterdell, 28, a friend of Frankie's mother Tawnee Willis, was arrested in Plymouth on suspicion of manslaughter and having a dog dangerously out of control, but was later released under investigation. Speaking from the family home, Miss Totterdell's mother said her daughter was 'distraught' at the 'tragedy'. Frankie had been staying at the park with relatives and friends, but they were in an 'adjacent' caravan when he was attacked at around 5am on Saturday. Members of the public who heard 'sounds of distress' coming from the caravan rushed over to give Frankie first aid before the emergency services arrived but he died at the scene. Ms Willis, 30, was reportedly seen crying and screaming in her dressing gown after the incident. The owner of a dog that mauled a boy to death at a holiday park in Cornwall has been named as nail technician Sadie Totterdell, 28, pictured with a similar dog Frankie MacRitchie, nine, pictured with mother Tawnee Willis in a photo taken just hours before his death, was posted with the caption 'caravan life with my babes' Frankie MacRitchie, nine, was found dead by police inside a static caravan following the dog attack at around 5am on a Saturday Ms Totterdell's (pictured left and right) mother said her daughter was 'distraught' at Frankie's death Ms Totterdell's mother Denise, 58, today said both families were reeling from the tragedy. She said: 'Sadie is not good at all. It is just tragic, really. 'It is still too raw we are all trying to still just process it, especially for the family as well. It is just so, so sad.' Denise said her daughter was not at home and dogs could be heard barking from within the property. Meanwhile Ms Willis is staying at her parents' home and today declined to comment on the story any further. A source told The Sun that the dog was often muzzled after being involved in four less-serious attacks in the past, including one that happened just a few weeks ago. It is claimed that Frankie's mother and Ms Totterdell had gone for drinks in another caravan when the attack took place. Today Frankie's headteacher at Riverside Primary School, Plymouth, described him as a 'happy, laid-back character' in a tribute. Frankie MacRitchie, nine, with mother Tawnee Willis. He is believed to have been staying with his grandmother in a caravan when the tragic incident claimed his life Frankie's heartbroken father left a tribute to the youngster online last night in which he said his 'whole world has shattered into a million pieces' He said: 'Frankie was just a really funny young man. He was a very bubbly young boy. He enjoyed coming to school. 'He had a number of friends - he was very social. He was quite cheeky - quite cheeky in his own little ways. The horrific attack was allegedly by a 'bulldog-type breed'. A similar dog is pictured 'I've been looking at photos of him from the last school trip and in every photo he is pulling a funny face. 'But he has a smile on his face as well.' The school opened today so pupils could speak to psychologists if they needed support. Staff also let parents take flowers to the school and write in a book of condolence - despite being closed for the Easter break. The front of the school will stay open all week for people to leave flowers. Mr Jones said the school was doing 'all we can to support those pupils and parents that have been touched by this terrible incident' with help from the educational psychology team. Frankie's heartbroken father Billy MacRitchie left a tribute to the youngster online last night in which he said his 'whole world has shattered into a million pieces'. He wrote: 'Daddy is so lost without you little man I really don't know how I'm ever gonna live without you. 'This should never have happened I wish I could hold you and kiss you forever. You are my whole life and now your gone. Relatives leave flowers at the entrance to Tencreek Holiday Park, Looe, Cornwall today Frankie MacRitchie with his father Billy, pictured together before the youngster's death Relatives leave flowers and a cuddly toy at the entrance to Tencreek Holiday Park, Looe, Cornwall today 'Sleep tight my darling boy, my best friend, my everything.' Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 The Dangerous Dogs Act (1991) outlaws four types of dog; the pitbull terrier, Japanese tosa, dogo Argentino, and fila Brasilerio (Brazilian Mastiff). Owners of dogs who attack someone can face jail time depending on the severity on their home or any private property, unless the dog attacks a trespasser. Prison sentences in England and Wales are: - Up to 14 years for a fatal dog attack - Up to five years for injury - Up to three years if an assistance dog is attacked Source: Gov.uk Advertisement One holidaymaker staying told the Sun how they saw the dog wandering the park without a lead. He added: 'I thought it had a dark face. Now I realise his white fur was covered in blood.' Yesterday Frankie's family laid flowers at the entrance to the holiday park and paid tribute to him. His aunt Danielle MacRitchie, 35, left a bouquet of flowers and a handwritten note, saying: 'Auntie Danielle loved you so much baby boy. 'I've loved you from the second I knew you were coming.The first time I saw you, you were still in mummy's belly and I knew right away we were going to be best friends. 'I'm so sorry this has happened. I am going to miss you till my heart stops beating. We love you baby boy.' She also posted on Facebook: 'My baby boy I just want you back now, I want this to stop now. Our lives are ruined forever. How do we ever stop this pain?' Police tapes cordon off a large area around static caravans at the Tencreek Holiday Park, Looe, Cornwall today, April 14, 2019 Emergency services descended on Tencreek Holiday Park in Looe, Cornwall, just before 5am after a ten-year-old boy was mauled by a dog Officers were alerted to reports of an 'unresponsive' child who was pronounced dead at the scene Her boyfriend Matthew Watering, 35, added: 'We have been to Looe today to lay some flowers which as you can imagine was very difficult, the circumstances in how this has happened is so tragic and hard to understand, I don't think any of us will. 'We love you so much Frankie and will hold our memories forever. 'Words can't describe the pain our family are going through today we love you so much. Heartbroken.' The 'bulldog-type' dog has been seized and remains in kennels in Cornwall. Mike West, Detective Superintendent from Devon and Cornwall Police's major crime investigation team, said the force is still investigating if the dog is registered as a dangerous breed. Breeds banned under the Dangerous Dogs Act include the pit bull terrier, Japanese tosa, dogo argentino and the fila brasileiro. 'Whether or not the dog will be put down is not a decision for the police at this time,' Det Supt West said. 'We've got specialists that are looking at the breed of the dog, and that's part of our inquiries. We need to understand exactly what the breed of the dog is.' He added in a statement: 'Frankie had been staying at the holiday park in the company of adults for a number of evenings prior to his tragic death. 'We believe that Frankie was alone in a caravan with the dog as he was attacked, whilst the adults that he was on holiday with were in an adjacent unit these two groups of people were known to each other and from the Plymouth area. 'This is a desperately sad event which has seen a nine-year-old boy lose his life whilst on holiday; our thoughts and sympathies are with the loved ones of Frankie and those who knew him. 'I also wish to recognise those who came to his aid at the scene members of the public and emergency services staff who had to work in deeply upsetting conditions. 'We appreciate that this case will shock and upset the public. However, we urge the public not to apportion blame on this tragic incident, and to allow us to do our job and to fully investigate this matter.' Management at the holiday park offered their 'deepest sympathies' to Frankie's family. A picture posted by Tawnee Willis of her son Frankie Macritchie, nine, was found dead by police inside a static caravan following the dog attack at around 5am on a Saturday An angry cancer sufferer has confronted Bill Shorten over his multi-billion-dollar plan to fight the deadly disease while on the campaign trail in Melbourne on Monday. Rob Gibbs, 48, has spent close to $20,000 on his cancer treatment for leukaemia in the past year and he doesn't trust politicians. He is sceptical of Labor leader Bill Shorten and his promise to make cancer scans and specialist visits cheaper would actually be delivered. 'You're always hearing them promise things. As soon as they get elected they forget about it,' Mr Gibbs told reporters at Casey Hospital in Victoria on Monday. An angry cancer sufferer has confronted Bill Shorten (pictured together) over his multi-billion-dollar plan to fight the deadly disease while on the campaign trail on Monday 'My six-year-old girl, it's heartbreaking when she comes to visit me and she walks out the hallway and she starts crying, 'is dad going to come home ever?''' Mr Gibbs, who has lost two toes and could lose his leg, was having a coffee at Casey Hospital when he spotted Mr Shorten speaking to the media. 'To me, what you're talking about is the exact reason why I'm running for prime minister,' Mr Shorten told Mr Gibbs. 'We are going to fund six million extra scans ... we're going to fund three million extra visits to the specialists.' Mr Gibbs was a Country Fire Authority volunteer for 12 years and doctors believe his cancer is linked to firefighting work. He mistrusts politicians because Victorian Labor promised to cover volunteer firefighters who get certain types of cancer, but never passed the laws despite widespread support from all parties. Mr Shorten promised to take it up with Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, and pledged to follow up Mr Gibbs' case. 'I'm not going to promise you an outcome, I promise you though I'm never going to give up,' Mr Shorten said. Mr Shorten (file picture with wife Chloe) promised to take it up with Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, and pledged to follow up Mr Gibbs' case Labor is promising to put an extra $2.3 billion into Medicare and cancer research to make cancer treatment cheaper. Labor has been targeting Liberal seats in the first five days of the campaign, including Reid and Robertson in NSW, and Deakin in Victoria. A truck carrying an anti-Labor slogan drove past the hospital several times before Mr Shorten addressed the media. When the driver was asked who he was voting for he refused to comment and couldn't say where he was voting or if he was registered to vote in Australia. He said he was being paid by a company to drive the truck and drove off before Mr Shorten spoke. A police union has been left outraged after a man was prevented from handing himself in over the discovery of a dead body. The suspect, 55, in custody, attempted to hand himself into Gisborne Police Station in Melbourne's north-west at about 5.30pm on Sunday only to find it locked up. An unidentified man's body was found on a Rodney Street property at 6.30pm, which police are treating as suspicious. Secretary of the Police Association, Wayne Gatt, said the closed station was a resourcing issue. The alleged offender in custody attempted to hand himself into Gisborne Police Station (pictured) only to find it locked up 'It has become a recurrent theme where a lot of locations these days have insufficient police resources available to deal with situations like this,' he told 3AW. Gisborne police station was closed because did not run for 24 hours. The alleged offender resorted to pressing an intercom button, which put him in contact with nearest police station in Kyneton - 30 kilometres away. Kyneton police confirmed there was one officer inside the Gisborne station, which Mr Gatt said was a rare occurrence. The officer was meant to be on patrol that afternoon but happened to be at the station to complete another job, The Age reported. Mr Gatt said it was unacceptable the officer had to deal with the man by himself. 'We are now also seeing our members placed at risk because of this and we simply cannot allow it to continue,' he said. 'They've been trying to run that station as a 24-hour police station since about March 2012. 'They've only recently had to wind back night shift services to the community on the basis of insufficient resources.' An unidentified man's body was found on a Rodney Street property at 6.30pm on Sunday, which police are treating as suspicious Meanwhile, the cause of the man's death has not been confirmed but it's understood police are treating the incident as suspicious. Police believe the man had died sometime between Thursday and Sunday, a neighbour told The Herald Sun. While another resident told the publication a 'weapon was involved'. 'Not a gun, so probably a knife,' they said. Another local described the area as a 'very safe place' and said they'd not heard of anything like this happening before. Police believe the man had died sometime between Thursday and Sunday, a neighbour said Police were still at the scene on Monday morning. Officers will reportedly stay outside the home until the man in custody has been questioned. A wildlife rescue worker was also seen retrieving a bird from the premises around 8am. Trauma cleaners were also seen attending the property on Monday. No charges have been laid at this stage. Anyone with any information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. Advertisement Ivanka Trump honored victims of the Ethiopian Airlines crash on Monday by attending a special ceremony and laying a wreath to the dead. During her visit to Addis Ababa, Ivanka stopped off at a cathedral in the Ethiopian capital to pay tribute to the 157 people killed when the plane crashed soon after takeoff last month. The president's daughter and senior adviser visited Holy Trinity Cathedral, where she met with religious leaders and laid a wreath to mourn the dead. A total of 21 United Nations staffers and 12 aid workers were killed last month when the Boeing 737 Max crashed minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa en route to Nairobi. Airlines and countries around the world have grounded Boeing 737 Max jets or banned them from their airspace following the crash. A similar crash involving the same Boeing model plane crashed into the waters off Indonesia last October, killing all 189 on board. White House senior adviser Ivanka Trump (right) is welcomed as she arrives for a ceremony for the victims of the Ethiopian Airlines crash Trump (center) arriving for a ceremony at Holy Trinity Cathedral Religious leaders (pictured) line the steps of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa after White House senior adviser Ivanka Trump arrived for the ceremony on Monday American Airlines announced on Sunday that it was canceling 115 flights per day through mid-August because of ongoing problems with the Boeing 737 Max aircraft. The announcement made American the second domestic major carrier to cancel Max flights through the busy summer season. Southwest Airlines, the largest operator of Boeing jets, announced last week that it would cancel its Max flights. The U.S. and around another 40 countries grounded Boeing's 737 Max plane in mid-March after the deadly plane crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia. The First Daughter touched down in Addis Ababa early on Sunday and took to Instagram to share photos of her first meeting the head of the Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative. The WGDPI initiative aims to train women worldwide to help them get well-paying jobs. Ivanka is due to visit Ethiopia and Ivory Coast over the next three days and is via flying commercial airlines, rather than using a US State Department aircraft. Her schedule includes a women's economic empowerment summit in Ivory Coast as well as site visits and meetings with political leaders, executives and female entrepreneurs in both countries. Yesterday she visited a coffee shop and textile company in Addis Ababa. It was her first stop in Africa on a four-day trip to Ethiopia and Ivory Coast on behalf of a White House project intended to boost 50 million women in developing countries by 2025. The president's daughter (pictured) was at the event to pay tribute to the victims of the air disaster which claimed the lives of all 157 passengers on board the Ethiopian Airlines flight last month Trump (center) is greeted as she arrives for a ceremony at Holy Trinity Cathedral Motorists are paying the highest petrol prices in five months in time for the Easter school holidays. Average Australian unleaded prices have soared by 3.5 cents during the past week, hitting 144.5 cents a litre for the first time since mid-November. Sydney and Brisbane fuel prices at some service stations have surged even higher to 160 cents a litre, as of Monday afternoon, following the end of the discounting cycle. Motorists are paying the highest petrol prices in five months in time for the Easter school holidays (stock image) CommSec senior economist Ryan Felsman said a rise in global crude oil prices for six consecutive weeks was to blame. 'The school holidays are underway with the Easter-Anzac Day block of public holidays encouraging most Aussies to take some extended time off,' he said. 'Those who have hit the road would've noticed that petrol prices have lifted.' Metropolitan petrol prices have risen by 4.9 cents to 145.3 cents per litre during the past week as regional bower prices increased by 0.7 cents to 142.8 cents a litre. Average Australian unleaded prices have soared by 3.5 cents during the past week, hitting 144.5 cents a litre for the first time since mid-November (stock image of Sydney's Epping Road in Lane Cove) Last week, the key Singapore Tapis price of crude oil rose by US$5.80 or 7.5 per cent, to a six-month high of US$82.90 a barrel. Average Australian petrol prices Sydney: 149.5 cents a litre Melbourne: 152.3 cents a litre Brisbane: 157.6 cents a litre Adelaide: 156.2 cents a litre Perth: 135.1 cents a litre Canberra: 144.1 cents a litre Darwin: 138 cents a litre Hobart: 147.7 cents a litre Source: Motor Mouth data for average prices, Monday, April 15 Advertisement In Australian dollar terms, that equated to an increase of $8.03 or 7.4 per cent to $116.24 a barrel or 73.10 cents a litre, Mr Felsman said. As of Monday, Motor Mouth data showed Sydney's average unleaded price at 149.5 cents a litre, compared with 152.3 cents for Melbourne, 157.6 cents for Brisbane, 156.2 cents for Adelaide, 135.1 cents for Perth, 144.1 cents for Canberra, 138 cents for Darwin and 147.7 cents for Hobart. Global crude oil prices have risen for six consecutive weeks, after the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia cut oil production, pushing up prices by 40 per cent in 2019. Mr Felsman, however, said petrol prices could retreat in the second half of 2019 as Russia withdrew from its supply-reduction pact with Saudi Arabia, and the United States increased production activity. A blue collar elderly male worker has died in an accident at a factory in south-east Melbourne. The man, aged in his 70s, was working in a cage when it fell four metres from a forklift to the ground, in the suburb of Clayton at about 12.30pm. 'Police will prepare a report for the coroner following a fatal industrial accident in Clayton on Monday (15 April), a Victoria police spokeswoman told Daily Mail. 'The incident occurred at a McNaughton Road factory shortly before 12.30pm. A male worker was declared deceased at the scene. WorkSafe will investigate the incident.' The fatality being the number of workplace deaths this year to 10, which is one more than at the same time last year. A Worksafe spokesperson has confirmed that inspectors have attended the scene. Police raided a property and seized a loaded Beretta 9mm pistol, another stolen gun, ammunition, drugs and $197,00 worth of jewellery that is suspected to be stolen. Police executed a search warrant on November 8 at the home in Carnation Avenue in Bankstown, Western Sydney and a 19-year-old man was arrested. The raid was part of an ongoing police operation targeting illicit activities of criminal networks. Police raided a property and seized a loaded Beretta 9mm pistol, another stolen gun, ammunition, drugs and $197,00 worth of jewellery that is suspected to be stolen Police executed a search warrant on November 8 at the home in Carnation Avenue in Bankstown, Western Sydney and a 19-year-old man was arrested The man was taken to Bankstown Police Station and charged with two counts relating to possessing an unauthorised and unregistered pistol, two counts of not keeping a firearm safe and possessing ammunition. He was also charged with two counts of possessing prohibited drugs alongside possessing goods suspected of being stolen. The man was refused bail and appeared at Parramatta Bail Court yesterday where he was granted conditional bail. He is due to reappear at Bankstown Local Court on Wednesday. The man was taken to Bankstown Police Station and charged with two counts relating to possessing an unauthorized and unregistered pistol, two counts of not keeping a firearm safe and possessing ammunition alongside other charges A woman who was gang-raped in Pakistan has accused a police officer of raping her in a further attack when she went to report the crime. The woman, from the city of Uch Sharif in Pakistan, claims the officer took her to a house on the pretext of wanting to interview her, and then attacked her. She also alleges that the police officer filmed the attack and threatened her if she reported it to anyone. The assistant sub-inspector has now been arrested, according to English-language newspaper Dawn. A woman in Pakistan claims a police officer raped her after she had gone to a police station in Ahmedpur East (pictured) to report an earlier gang-rape attack The woman had gone to the police station in Ahmedpur East to register the earlier case, in which she was allegedly raped by two men. She said the police officer had summoned her on February 12 and claimed he wanted to record her witness statement. Pakistan's police have been under fresh scrutiny this year amid a wave of deadly shootings of suspects. In January more than a dozen counter-terror officers were arrested after a middle-aged couple, their 13-year-old daughter and another man were shot and killed. Police initially claimed the incident was a shootout with insurgents but family members and witnesses said police had killed the four in cold blood. The shooting sparked widespread outrage, with hundreds of mourners gathering in Lahore and chanting anti-police slogans. Pakistani PM Imran Khan said he was 'shocked at seeing the traumatized children who saw their parents shot before their eyes. Thousands of people have died in so-called 'encounter killings' in which police shoot suspects who are allegedly resisting arrest. A father of three is in the fight of his life after being put in a coma following a fiery crash on a busy Sydney road yesterday morning. Charles Williamson, 45, has the support of his wife and three young kids who are waiting by his bedside at the Royal North Shore Hospital, but they haven't been able to speak to him yet as he remains in a coma. He was on his way to the Rotary Revival car show in Eastern Creek, when his vehicle swerved into oncoming traffic on King Georges Road, Hurstville, around 6am this morning. Mr Williamson's best friend, Bill Nabhan, said the family man had only just recovered from cancer Mr Williamson's best friend, Bill Nabhan, said the family man had only just recovered from cancer. 'That guy who yelled out "is anyone in the car?" and couldn't believe no one was helping him... (he) deserves a medal,' Mr Nabhan told 7 News. 'I just can't believe a human being can be so strong, to run over there and risk his own life and virtually get burnt to get some stranger out.' he said. 'That car was coming straight for me,' witness Anthony Musumeci said, after the car clipped his fishing boat. A father of three is in the fight of his life after being put in a coma following a fiery crash on a busy Sydney road yesterday morning A driver, passionate about cars, is now fighting for his life after his vintage car erupted into flames on a busy Sydney road 'I was looking at his headlights... I don't know how I managed to avoid it.' Mr Williamson's beloved Vintage Mazda immediately burst into flames after it clammed into the medium strip, trapping him inside the engulfed vehicle. CCTV footage shows horrified onlookers rush to save the man, risking their own lives. 'Is anyone there?' Mr Musumeci repeatedly yells, as he approaches the flames. CCTV footage shows horrified onlookers rush to save the man, risking their own lives Mr Williamson had the help from his son (pictured), who was one of the first on the scene, desperately using a hose to try and put out the fire 'I can't get him out!' responded another distressed onlooker. But Mr Williamson had the help from his son, who was one of the first on the scene, desperately using a hose to try and put out the fire. His son was travelling in a separate car, closely behind. It took almost five minutes to pull the unconscious Mr Williamson out of his burning car. But police say it could have been much worse for the dad, if it hadn't been for the brave bystanders. Mr Williamson was headed for the Rotary Revival car show, which boasted of around 500 attendees, where his own vehicle would have taken centre stage throughout the event Instead, he is now fighting for his life with critical burns in Royal North Shore Hospital, after being transferred from St George Hospital 'The onlookers did an exceptional job and without their efforts, the driver of that vehicle would certainly be deceased already,' Chief Inspector Leonard Jones told 9 News. Mr Williamson was headed for the Rotary Revival car show, which boasted of around 500 attendees, where his own vehicle would have taken centre stage throughout the event. But instead, he is now fighting for his life with critical burns in Royal North Shore Hospital, after being transferred from St George Hospital. A NSW Police spokesman told Daily Mail Australia that their investigations are still ongoing, but 'speed may be considered a factor in the crash.' The British mother jailed in Dubai for branding her ex-husband's new wife a 'horse' has revealed the 'turmoil' she went through while she was held in the country. Laleh Shahravesh was separated from her 14-year-old daughter, Paris, at immigration control and arrested as they headed to the funeral of ex-husband Pedro dos Santos. Today they gave their first joint interview since her release on Friday as they appeared on Good Morning Britain. A tearful Ms Shahravesh - who appeared wearing a necklace with her and her daughter's name - said of her detention: 'I was literally in isolation, I didnt sleep, I couldnt eat, I was in turmoil, I didnt understand what was going on. Why is this happening to me? I was trying to find reasons.' While her mother was detained in a UAE hotel, Paris wrote to Dubai's leader begging for her release. Ms Shahravesh (pictured on today's Good Morning Britain alongside her daughter, Paris) has spoken of her 'turmoil' at the 'isolation' she felt while she as detained in Dubai The mother (pictured on GMB this morning) says that she and her daughter are determined to return to the country in order to pay their respects to Pedro Ms Shahravesh said that it was 'the best feeling ever' being able to hold her child's hand again after she settled the case with a 625 fine, but added: 'Its also mixed with a lot of other emotions that I am trying to work through. This morning she recalled her terror at being torn away from Paris at Passport Control as they headed to pay their respects. 'We were at Passport Control and the lady looked at my passport and she went and got another gentleman, I thought maybe its to do with a visa,' she said. 'Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine what would follow. 'By the time we went to Immigration Police, I was very upset and scared. I was very mindful that Paris was with me as well. It was late...I was crying, I was distressed. Pictured: Ms Shahravesh greets her daughter at Heathrow Airport after she settled her case for 625 in Dubai The mother and daughter are pictured during a tearful reunion at the airport following the detention in the UAE 'They wanted me to go to a police station to make my statement but they werent allowed to take Paris with them. They wanted me to call someone to take Paris away. I was like, "No...Im not going to be separated from my daughter."' The country's strict cyber crime laws saw her held for writing on Facebook in Farsi: 'I hope you go under the ground you idiot. Damn you. You left me for this horse.' Today she said that the post was partly spurred by 'severe depression' following a 'terribly acrimonious divorce'. 'I was left with no money, suffering from severe depression, I had to represent myself in court,' she said. 'I was in a very, very bad place in my life. That post was on my Facebook, it was directed at Pedro, I was hurt and upset.' Ms Shahravesh caleld Samah al Hammadi (left, with Pedro) a 'horse' and was held in Dubai as a result (right, Ms Shahravesh outside court following a hearing at which she broke down) But the 55-year-old denied that she had been harassing her ex and says that she and her daughter are still determined to pay their respects. 'I was not harassing Pedro, right up until the moment that he passed away,' she said. 'That is so far from the truth. In fact, he appeared on our doorstep last year, he came into the flat, he spent hours with us, he took Paris out for supper. That was our last memory of him and it was a good one. 'We went there to pay our respects to him, we went there for Paris and I just feel that we didnt have a chance to make that peace with him that we needed and especially for Paris. They havent stopped me... I can go back, I can go back whenever I want to and we will because we need to pay our respects to Pedro.' Paris said that although she as aware that her parents were going through a bitter divorce battle, she had no idea her mother's post would cause such uproar. 'I was aware of was that both my parents were going through a very un-amicable divorce but never did I think that some sort of social mishap had occurred,' she said. 'I didnt think anything of it when we were pulled to one side at the airport.' Ms Shahravesh fought back tears as she said: 'I was extremely proud of Paris, I still am. She was amazing throughout all of this, the strength that she has shown, the resilience for me the most painful decision I have had to make was to send her home that was after the twelve hours in the police station the night before.' A 'Casanova conman' who fleeced women out of thousands of pounds by posing as a former Royal Marine has been jailed again after almost immediately returning to his life of lies after leaving prison. Michael Brain, 49, was banned from using social media in 2016 when he was jailed for four years in 2016 for conning victims out of 40,000 by pretending to be a former Royal Marine on dating sites and using pictures of himself in uniform. But just weeks after his release last year he was back on Facebook and Instagram describing himself as 'ex-special forces'. Alongside his 2016 sentence, Brain was handed a Criminal Behaviour Order that banned him from social media, dating sites and making false claims about his service. The grandfather-of-one admitted breaching the order at Plymouth Crown Court and was jailed for two years. Michael Brain, 49, pictured, has been jailed again just months after being released from prison for conning women out of 40,000 by pretending to be a former Royal Marine on dating sites The court heard between 2012 and 2015 he conned up to 28 women who handed over 40,000 which he blew on gambling and alcohol. He had also claimed he suffered burns injuries 'on the front lines' but was actually hurt by a gas canister while staying in a caravan. Brain was banned from social media, dating sites and making false claims in 2016, but returned to Facebook and Instagram in September 2018 and claimed he was 'ex-special forces' The Criminal Behaviour Order banned him from using dating websites, social media or lying about his service history. Prosecutor Tom Faulkner said Brain had previously lied about being in the Royal Marines and used dating sites like Plenty of Fish to meet women. The court heard an ex partner spotted that he had set up a Facebook account as 'Michael Roger', replacing his surname with his middle name. On an Instagram account he boasted he was ex special forces before later changing it to just 'ex-forces'. He also used his Facebook account to try to sell a car, despite the ban. Brain had been working with probation officers since his release but they were unaware of his online activity, the court heard. In mitigation, the court heard he had found a job as a driver and had secured a place to live following his release. His lawyers also claimed he had 'not posted much' on Instagram and had not conned anyone out of cash. A bullfrog destined for the dinner table has saved its own life after apparently miaowing like a cat on the chopping board. The unusual sound shocked the chef, who was about to kill the frog alive. He immediately called over his boss at a restaurant in the city of Chongqing in China. The restaurant owner, Mr Luo, said he could not bear to have the frog killed due to its 'unique cries', according to local reports. Mr Luo decided to keep it as a pet. The bullfrog allegedly made the unusual sound just when the chef was about to kill it in China The owner of the restaurant has decided to keep the frog as a pet due to its 'unique cries' The bullfrog made the impressive sound last Thursday morning just when the chef was about to raise the cleaver while preparing dishes ahead of lunch time at the Xila Restaurant in Yubei District, reported Xinhua News Agency. The chef instantly alerted Mr Luo and his colleagues, who were having breakfast in another room, while holding the 'miaowing' frog. Mr Luo told reporters he had seen hundreds of bullfrogs before, but had never met one that sounded like that. Speaking to Huizhou TV Station, Mr Luo said the frog was going to be killed and used as the ingredient for a local specialty called 'chilli bullfrog'. The animal was said to be one of the three bullfrogs that had been purchased by the restaurant. Its cries also saved the other two bullfrogs. Mr Luo claimed that all of the three frogs could 'miaow'. They would allegedly miaow during the day and 'squeak like pigs' at night. The frog was going to be killed and turned into a local specialty called 'chilli bullfrog' (pictured) Bullfrogs are native to North America east of the Rockies and have been described as 'one of the most successful amphibians in the world'. They could out-compete just about everything Experts have not been able to explain the phenomenon. 'It depends on the situation of the bullfrog. If there is only one that can make the sound, it could be a symptom of an illness,' one expert told Chongqing Morning Post. Mr Luo said he had planned to release the three bullfrogs, but his friends warned him against it. Experts agreed, adding that releasing the bullfrogs would be 'inadvisable'. Bullfrogs are listed as an invasive species in China. Native to North America east of the Rockies, the species has been described as 'one of the most successful amphibians in the world' and could out-compete just about everything, according to National Geographic. In China, there are regulations to ban people from releasing the animals to the wild. For example, residents in Beijing could be fined up to 500,000 yuan (56,926) if they are caught doing so. Advertisement These pictures show a woman being caned in front of delighted spectators as a punishment for having sex outside wedlock in Indonesia. The terrified woman was seen kneeling on a stage, while an official holding a cane prepared to flog her and a crowd gathered to witness the Sharia law flogging. The humiliating punishment was carried out in the country's arch-conservative Aceh province, the only one which observes Sharia criminal law. Public caning: A woman who broke Sharia law faces punishment by public whipping for having sexual relations outside of wedlock, as a masked official brandishes a weapon and prepares to hit the kneeling woman Spectator event: Men standing near the stage take pictures of the public flogging on their phones as the kneeling woman is hit with the cane for breaking the Aceh region's Sharia law Memories: Men use their mobile phones to record the public caning of a woman accused of having sexual relations outside of wedlock in Banda Aceh, a city in the only Indonesian region which practises Sharia law An official known as 'algojo' wore a masked hood and a robe to cover their face and body completely as they brandished the weapon in the city of Banda Aceh. The woman kept her head down as she was escorted by two other women and prepared to face the punishment for having sex outside wedlock. Many of the spectators close to the stage held up their mobile phones, apparently taking pictures or video footage of the act. In another picture a man was seen grimacing near the executioner, wearing similar white clothes to the woman, but it is unclear if he too was being punished. Flogging is common for a range of offences in the region at the tip of Sumatra island, including gambling, drinking alcohol and having gay sex. Aceh adopted sharia after it was granted special autonomy in 2001, an attempt by the central government to quell a long-running separatist insurgency. Brutal: An official known as an 'algojo', wearing a mask, hood and robe to cover their face and body completely, hits the kneeling woman on the back after she broke the region's law by having sex outside wedlock Hidden: The hooded guard brandishes their weapon as they carry out the public flogging. The most severe punishments in Indonesia's Aceh province can see offenders caned up to 100 times Grim task: The hooded guard prepares to carry out the punishment in Indonesia. A man is seen grimacing in front of him wearing similar white clothes to the woman who was punished Rights groups slam public caning as cruel, and Indonesia's President Joko Widodo has called for it to end. But the practice has wide support among Aceh's mostly Muslim population - around 98 per cent of its five million residents practise Islam. A 100-stroke punishment is reserved for the most severe crimes and offenders may also be sentenced to prison time. In 2018, Aceh said that flogging would be carried out behind prison walls in future, but some local governments have continued public whippings. Last year a village in the province banned WiFi after children were caught viewing porn sites instead of going to Koran study class. The same district made headlines last year when it banned men and women from dining together unless they were married or related. Preparation: The flogging victim is escorted to her position by another woman, as the cane-wielding official looks on from the left and three other men watch on from the right Terrified: The woman (centre) who was punished for breaking Sharia law keeps her head down as she is escorted in the grip of two female officials in Indonesia Standing guard: A police officer holds a weapon during the public caning. The woman prisoner had been accused of having sexual relations outside of wedlock in Banda Aceh Obama famously broke royal protocol at a reception at Buckingham Palace in April 2009 by placing her arm around the Queen Michelle Obama joked on Sunday about the uproar surrounding her breach of royal protocol when she placed her arm around the Queen during a visit to Buckingham Palace while she was First Lady. Obama visited the Queen in April 2009 with President Barack Obama when she placed an arm around the monarch. The 55-year-old, who was at London's O2 arena to promote her best-selling new memoir said, 'Yikes! Sorry guys,' but added it had been the right thing to do - a natural human reaction. Obama had previously said the Monarch branded royal protocol 'rubbish' during a later visit to Windsor Castle. Asked if she would do anything differently she said she had no regrets: 'What is true among world leaders is that there are people who handle protocol, and usually the people they're representing don't want all that protocol. 'So you wonder well who are you doing this for because they don't want it, we don't want it. 'But it's just the way things are. So I don't know that I could have done anything differently because it was a natural human reaction. Michelle Obama said the Queen was warm, kind and funny as she addressed an audience in London on Sunday night An Intimate Conversation With Michelle Obama featured the former First Lady alongside late night TV host Stephen Colbert at the O2 arena President Barack Obama, the Queen and First Lady Michelle Obama arriving at Winfield House, the US Ambassador's residence in London in May 2011 'I learned over the course of my time on the international stage to see that either hold my hands together tightly or behind my back to sort of kind of just make sure I was thinking before I reacted naturally. 'But in that moment, no. That was absolutely the right thing to do, because it was the human thing to do.' She said she had been touched by the queen's decision to wear a small pin badge the presidential couple had given her as a gift, and described Britain's 92-year-old monarch in glowing terms. Obama said: 'She's wonderfully warm. And funny. And she's elegant and kind and considerate in really interesting ways. 'I remember, I don't know if it was the first visit or the second visit, we gave her this little pin. You know, what do you give her majesty the Queen? Obama was wrapped up warm in a black overcoat on a chilly night in London's West End on Saturday 'It's like, OK, we gave her a little pin and I remember the evening of the dinner after we exchanged gifts, we were standing in line and she had on a beautiful - I'm sure it was covered in diamonds and a crown, and you sort of look and go "all of that is real" you know. 'You go "that's nice" but it's all real. And in the gloriousness of that outfit that she had on she put on the little bitty pin we gave her. 'And I did the same thing, I was like 'You wore the pin', and she just said "hmm hmm yes". 'That was my experience. That has been my experience. That kind of warmth and graciousness, and intelligence and wit. I like her.' Obama's book tour has so far taken her across North America and Scandinavia. After London, she will go to Paris and Amsterdam. Last month, the book's publisher said the memoir titled Becoming could become the biggest-selling autobiography ever. Obama was guarded by numerous burly security personnel as she headed out to the open door of her waiting car after dinner at an exclusive restaurant in Mayfair in London on Saturday night Obama heaped praise upon the Queen as she joked about her gaffe at Buckingham Palace Obama, asked by host Stephen Colbert what advice she had for people in Britain about how to stay calm in a time of turmoil - a likely reference to political divisions over Brexit - said London was unique and should treasure its diversity. 'This trepidation, the anxiety, it's everywhere, it's all over the world,' she said. 'I was looking out over the city, London, a beautiful city, and the thing I love about it is it is truly representative of true international diversity, in ways that you don't see in cities, most cities particularly, even in the United States, and that is a gift,' she said, drawing cheers. A British soldier has appeared in court in Spain today accused of glassing her fellow off-duty servicewoman at a nightclub in Magaluf. Sydney Cole, 19, from London, allegedly plunged a shattered glass into her friend Sarah Garrity's neck at Bananas de Magaluf disco. Ms Garrity, 22, who lives in Middlesbrough, was found in a critical condition and is in intensive care in hospital. Cole was arrested by the Civil Guard and appeared at court in the Majorcan capital Palma to be questioned by a judge this afternoon. Cole, 19, from London, is escorted by two Civil Guards to court in the Palma to be questioned by a judge Ms Garrity kisses Cole on the cheek in a picture posted on Cole's Instagram account Cole (right) and Ms Garrity (left) were said by police to have been friends. A source said the incident took place after an 'argument' The attack happened at around 1am this morning and police have launched a full investigation, with Cole (pictured) being arrested The hearing this afternoon was taking place behind closed doors where the judge will decide whether to remand her in custody or release her on bail. Cole said nothing as she was escorted into court with her head bowed in handcuffs and wearing blue denim shorts and a white denim top. The incident happened at around 1am this morning and police have launched a full investigation. When doctors arrived, Scottish-born Ms Garrity was in a critical condition after losing a lot of blood. Medics managed to stop the bleeding and stabilise her before she was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit of Hospital Son Espases. A few hours later, official sources confirmed to Spanish newspaper Ultima Hora that her life was not in danger. Sydeny Cole, pictured heading to court in Palma, Majorca today, allegedly plunged a shattered glass into friend Sarah Garrity's neck at the Bananas de Magaluf disco Cole is led into the court in handcuffs, wearing blue denim shorts and a white denim top Cole stands in a nightclub in Budapest, Hungary. Police have launched an investigation into the incident in the early hours of this morning Another social media picture shows Cole (centre) during her passing out parade in 2017 The attack took place in the popular area of Punta Bellena and followed some sort of argument. A source said: 'The girl who was injured suffered a cut to her throat. She was rushed to intensive care and had an emergency op. 'She's still very serious but we're hearing the operation has been successful and saved her life.' A source at Son Espases Hospital in Palma confirmed this morning the injured woman was 'critical' and in intensive care. A source in the emergency response coordination centre said: 'We received the first calls at 12.55am, about a fight in a nightclub between two female friends. Ms Garrity (right) was rushed to the intensive care unit at Hospital Son Espases and is in a critical condition, despite her life not being in danger. She was allegedly attacked by Cole (left) who was arrested at the scene Sarah Ann Garrity (pictured), 22, from Middlesbrough is in critical condition in hospital after the attack The incident happened at the Bananas de Magaluf nightclub (pictured) in the popular party area of Punta Ballena 'The alert that came in said the incident involved a physical attack with a glass by one friend against another.' Police sources described the pair as friends. It was not immediately clear if the casualty was glassed with a broken bottle or was hurt when a glass was thrown at her, although sources said they believed she suffered a cut throat after a glass was thrown. An Army spokesman said: 'We are aware of an incident involving two off duty soldiers in Spain. 'An investigation by the local Spanish police is ongoing, and it would be inappropriate to comment further.' Advertisement Fascinating color images from 120 years ago capture what life was really like in the Wild West and reveal the harsh reality of the Gold Rush-era. Stunning color images dating from just before the turn of the 19th century depict a rugged cowboy brandishing a lasso, a thoughtful miner enjoying a smoke in the doorway of a dug-out cabin, and a pioneer merchant plying his wares from a ramshackle wooden shop. Many of the photochroms were captured in Colorado during the 1880s and 1890s, where a gold rush in the 1850s drew crowds of hopeful prospectors looking to make their fortune. Gold was first discovered in Colorado by a group of Cherokee on their way to California when they found flecks of the precious metal in a stream bed in the South Platte basin, near present-day Denver. The knowledge of gold in the area remained unused for around a decade until it reached William Green Russell, a Georgian who was married to a Cherokee woman and had worked the California gold fields in the 1850s. He sent an expedition party to the area and when word got back east, the Colorado Gold Rush was on, with thousands of prospectors flooding west shouting the slogan, 'Pikes Peak or Bust'. By the end of the century, the region was still almost completely lawless with outlaws and rustlers roaming around the plains. Photochrom was invented in the 1880s and was most popular in the 1890s, when these images were taken. This is a method of making colorized photographs from black and white negatives via the direct photographic transfer of a negative onto lithographic printing plates. Although true color photography had been developed by then it was not commercially practical yet. Grub's up for these Wild West pioneers, eating beside their makeshift canteen. The Pike's Peak Gold Rush sent many Americans into a frenzy, prompting them to pack up their belongings and head west to Colorado. These stunning color pictures were produced using a method called photochrom and depict the harsh reality of daily life during the Gold Rush-era A talented cowboy swings his lasso. The cowboy became the symbol of the white settlers of the late 19th century, often depicted in popular culture as a glamorous or heroic figure. The reality was different and often they lead hard lives struggling to survive in the brutal wilderness of the plains and the lawless West A Chinese family living in the Wild West. Many of the Chinese population immigrants who went to the US to work on building the groundbreaking railroads connecting the US East and West coasts. The railroads opened up the West for settlement and economic development as white settlers poured to the region A member of the Pueblo de Taos Native American tribe. The indigenous population was often removed from their home land and forced on to reservations. In the conflicts that resulted these population shifts and the loss of the bison, the Native American, despite occasional victories, seemed doomed to defeat by the greater numbers of settlers and the military force of the US government A pioneer merchant, selling whatever he could to whoever he could passing his ramshackle wooden cabin in Colorado. For those trying to earn a decent living, life was hard and most had to turn to physical labor such as mining, cattle herding, or fishing to make ends meet A miner enjoying a smoking break in the entrance to his dug-out rudimentary cabin in the Colorado mountains. African-American settlers also came West from the Deep South, convinced by promoters of all-black Western towns that prosperity could be found there A cowboy rounding up his cattle on a Colorado ranch. Although the land was fertile and rich, it did not take long for the huge herds of American bison that dominated the plains to be wiped out, as their pelts and meats were hugely desirable and easy to come by. Much of Colorado was lawless with outlaws and rustlers roaming the territory A blacksmith labors in the rugged landscape of the Colorado mountains. The railroads brought white settlers from the East who poured across the Mississippi to mine, farm, and ranch in the hope of making their fortunes. The rush created a few mining camps such as Denver City and Boulder City that would later develop into cities A steer being successfully rounded up, lassoed to the floor and slaughtered. The loss of the bison and growth of white settlement drastically affected the lives of the indigenous Americans living in the West. A significant proportion of cowboys were of Latin or Chinese descent and black cowboys were also not uncommon during the period Loading up the donkeys with silver to carry it back to town. The life of the cowboy was far from glamorous, involving long, hard hours of labor, poor living conditions, and economic hardship. After losing decisive battles most of the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes which lives in the areas affected by the rush were moved to a reservation in present-day Oklahoma A cowboy brought to life in color by these photochroms. The life of a cattleman has been glamorized over the years with the reality very different from the one portrayed in films and TV. The Colorado Gold Rush is often referred to as the 'Pikes Peak Gold Rush' and lead to the creation of the Colorado Territory in 1861 A pack of mules carrying lumber in Colorado. In 1859 the number of '59ers' as they became known peaked as they flooded to Colorado after the discovery of gold around a decade earlier. By the 1880s, most Native American had been confined to reservations, often in areas of the West that appeared least desirable to white settlers A man fishing on Williams' Fork, Middle Park, in Colorado. Over 100,000 people participated in the Colorado Gold Rush rush and were known as 'Fifty-Niners', a reference to 1859, the year the rush to Colorado peaked. As many as 40,000 were thought to have made the journey at the height of the rush Conditions during the turn of the 19th century could often be brutal for the settlers and the indigenous population. Pictured is a miner's cabin in winter covered in snow. After 1858 Anglo-Americans increasingly occupied the areas inhabited by the Plains Indians, killing buffalo, trampling grazing grass, and cutting down timber. Native Americans soon found their resource base dwindling, and some began raiding wagon trains for supplies or in hopes of scaring off other white immigrants A pack train on a treacherous mountain road in the Colorado Rockies. Gold was first discovered by a group of Cherokee on their way to California over the Cherokee Trail when they found gold in a stream bed in the South Platte basin, near present-day Denver. The information remained unused for around a decade until it reached William Green Russell, a Georgian who was married to a Cherokee woman and had worked the California gold fields in the 1850s. He sent an exploration party to the area ISIS has claimed to have killed 362 people in 92 attacks around the world in just three days following the collapse of its so-called 'caliphate'. The terror group said it used suicide bombers as well as landmines and assassins to carry out a 'revenge invasion' following its expulsion from Baghouz, Syria, last month. It claimed responsibility for attacks in 80 cities across the world, including a blast in Kolomna, near Moscow. Scroll for video An ISIS fighter fires his weapon during clashes with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in Baghouz in March Islamic State fighters and their families walk as they surrender in the village of Baghouz last month Statements from the group said they were responsible for 14 attacks in Iraq, ten in Syria, as well as ones in Africa, Somalia, Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt and the Caucasus from April 8 to 10, the Times reported. But analysts have argued some of the strikes outside of Iraq and Syria could not have been ISIS-led. The Kolomna explosion, which saw one person injured, had no evidence supporting a terror attack and authorities believe it was a gas leak. Random attacks in Libya, Sinai and Syria however, may have been coordinated by the group. Terrorists stormed security forces' houses in Libya in the early hours and killed a number of soldiers and officers before taking people hostage. Security staff were also set upon in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula - with an ISIS suicide bomber blowing them up alongside civilians. Back in Syria, where the group had been based until March 23, fighters also killed two Kurdish military figures. Fighters from the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces worked to expel Isis forces from Baghouz It comes after ISIS spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir hit back at claims by the White House that the group had been wiped out in Syria last month. In a rambling 44-minute recording, he said the claims were confused and ordered for a counteroffensive after the New Zealand mosque attacks. Yesterday, it was revealed ISIS were planning another Bataclan-style massacre, which shook Paris in 2015. The chilling plans were found on a hard drive dropped by terrorists as they fled Syria. Killers stormed the Bataclan concert hall and other areas of the French capital and slaughtered 130 people. As many as 130 people were killed in a series of terror attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015 and the documents suggest similar plans are in the works It is now planning to repeat the horrific incident in a new wave of atrocities across Europe - including an attack on a high-speed train network in Germany and on an oil pipeline in Switzerland, the stash of files suggested. Despite its stronghold being destroyed, the terror group still has international networks which it uses to move fighters over borders and fund operations. The operations include bank robberies, vehicle rammings, assassinations and computer hacking. The documents reveal how a member called Abu Khabab al-Muhajir, who controls two terror cells in Germany and one in Russia, will direct operations abroad. The attacks will focus on stealing money to fund the terror group. US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces declared victory over the jihadists in Syria on March 23 in Baghouz, after reducing their once terrifying proto-state to a ghostly riverside camp. An SDF fighter surveys the bombed-out field below in the remote village of Baghouz close to the Euphrates River in eastern Syria - clothing and tent coverings can be seen scattered over the ground where thousands once lived Smoke rising behind destroyed vehicles and damaged buildings in the village of Baghouz in Syria's eastern Deir Ezzor province near the Iraqi border, a day after the Islamic State group's 'caliphate' was declared defeated by the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces There was a time when the jihadists injected fear and claimed deadly attacks across the Middle East and beyond. After declaring a 'caliphate' in Syria and Iraq in 2014, they ruled over millions in a territory the size of the United Kingdom. But in Baghouz, the group's fighters emerged last month from tunnels and caves in the rocky hillside to surrender. Advertisement Thousands of lanterns illuminated the night sky in a dazzling spectacle during a traditional festival in south-west China on Saturday. The rice paper and bamboo lights, known as Kongming lanterns, were released by tourists and local residents by the Lancang River in Jinghong, Yunnan province to celebrate the New Year of the Dai ethnic group. The dazzling event sees participants painting blessings of 'good health' and 'good fortune' on the sides of the lanterns before igniting and releasing them into the sky. Thousands of lanterns illuminated the night sky in a dazzling spectacle during a festival in Yunnan, China on Saturday night Illuminated: The rice paper and bamboo lights, known as Kongming lanterns, were released by tourists and local residents by the Lancang River in Jinghong, Yunnan province to celebrate the New Year of the Dai ethnic group The impressive extravaganza is also part of the six-day celebrations of the annual Water-Splashing Festival in China The impressive extravaganza is also part of the six-day celebrations of the annual Songkran Festival, also known as the Water-Splashing Festival in China. The Songkran Festival is also widely celebrated in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, India, and Vietnam. The Dai people, one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognised by the Chinese government, live in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture which boarders borders Myanmar to the south-west and Laos to the south-east. Sky high blessings: Families wish for good fortune before igniting and releasing the candle-lit paper lantern into the night sky The impressive extravaganza is also part of the six-day celebrations of the annual Water-Splashing Festival in China The city's airport has also been closed between 8pm to midnight during the event for safety reasons The stunning extravaganza celebrates the New Year of the Dai ethnic group and Water-Splashing Festival in China The city's airport has also been closed between 8pm and midnight during the event for safety reasons, according to video news site Pear. 'This is my first time participating in the activity during the Water-Splashing Festival. I find it particularly festive. It's amazing to see so many Kongming lanterns in the sky,' Xu, a tourist from Kunming, told CCTV. The Water-Splashing Festival, which runs until April 19, sees revellers dousing each other with buckets of water or high-powered water pistols for good fortune in the new year. Revellers splash water on one another to convey wishes for happiness and prosperity during the Water-Splashing Festival The Dai people, one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognised by the Chinese government, live in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture which boarders borders Myanmar to the south-west and Laos to the south-east A tight-knit community has been 'torn apart' after two men raped their friend in a caravan after she refused a threesome. Shaun Bloomfield and Luke Merryfull, both 24, were on Wednesday jailed for the horrific sexual assault at a 21st birthday party in western Victoria in 2016. The incident sent shock-waves through the sleepy town of Balmoral, four hours west of Melbourne, where about 200 residents were forced to grapple with the offending committed by of two of their own. The victim, who thought she could trust her two friends, was forced to flee interstate following the sexual assault, news.com.au reported. Shaun Bloomfield (left) and Luke Merryfull (right), both 24, were on Wednesday jailed for the sexual assault at a 21st birthday party in western Victoria in 2016 The incident sent shock-waves through the sleepy town of Balmoral (pictured), four hours west of Melbourne, where about 200 residents were forced to grapple with the offending committed by of two of their own The Victorian County Court heard a threesome was suggested by Merryfull but the woman 'immediately and clearly' rejected it or 'any sex of any kind' with either of the men. She was then raped by both men who climbed in the caravan bed on either side of her. The convicted sex offenders were joined in court by community members, with some staunch supporters in disbelief the men sexually assaulted their friend. 'The whole matter has ripped apart the community of a beautiful, sleepy little hollow where generations of families have lived,' an anonymous community member told news.com.au. 'I could not believe how many (of Bloomfield and Merryfull's supporters) went to the sentence hearing. It was outrageous.' The community member said the men have a long family history in the small town. The victim, who thought she could trust her two friends, was forced to flee interstate following the sexual assault (pictured: Bloomfield) 'In a small community like this there is a huge bias which has resulted in some people taking sides with Bloomfield and Merryfull,' she said. According to the community member, the victim and her family had been left 'ostracised' by those supporting Merryfull and Bloomfield. In a victim impact statement read out in court last Monday, the woman described ongoing pain inflicted by the two men she had trusted for 10 years. 'This will always have an impact on my life,' the statement read. 'The offenders have not shown any remorse, guilt or empathy of what they have done for me.' A jury found Bloomfield (left) guilty of two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault and Merryfull (right) guilty of rape, following the 2016 attack 'They have continued to live their lives normally, playing sports, working and hanging out with friends in our hometown.' Three years on, the victim said she still struggles to cope and admitted she fears returning to the small town to visit her family. The caravan where the rape took place still sits on a main road and is frequently seen by locals. Bloomfield and Merryfull previously denied they raped the woman and claimed the sex was consensual. But a jury found Bloomfield guilty of two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault and Merryfull guilty of rape, following the 2016 attack. The Victorian County Court (pictured) heard a threesome was suggested by Merryfull but the woman 'immediately and clearly' rejected it or 'any sex of any kind' with either of the men Judge Mullaly said he aimed to give the men sentences proportionate to their crimes and that their lawyers accepted a jail term was necessary. 'It remains, nonetheless, a grave step to send young men like you to jail but that is my heavy responsibility,' he said. 'I'm doing the best I can,' he later added. Merryfull was jailed for four years and 10 months and must serve two years and 10 months before being eligible for release on parole. Bloomfield was jailed for five years and eight months, with a minimum term of three years and four months. Health Secretary Matt Hancock has been bombarded on Twitter with images of flowers made to looks like female genitalia by campaigners demanding better access to cervical screening. In what was branded a public cervix announcement the artwork showing violets in the shape of vulvas were sent to the minister in charge of the NHS today using the hashtag #notashringkingviolet. The campaign, backed by the Womens Equality Party (WEP) and two cancer charities came after a Daily Mail poll revealed that almost half of women have delayed life-saving cervical cancer tests because they could not get an appointment at their GP surgery. Experts said the procedure was becoming increasing inaccessible due to a shortage of available slots at under-pressure surgeries. More than a quarter of women say they have missed their smear test altogether because they were unable to make a consultation. For a fifth, this had happened multiple times, with some admitting they had waited five years before eventually being screened. A WEP spokeswoman said: 'Recent media coverage of the drop in cervical screening attendance has focused almost entirely on womens embarrassment about their bodies. 'It is true that relentless body-shaming of every part of womens bodies affects the way we feel about ourselves, there are bigger causes of the 20-year low in screening attendance in England, Scotland and Wales, which are far less convenient for the governments. The IT systems being used for screening programmes are out of date and not fit for purpose, resulting in letters being sent late and to the wrong women. And when women do try to book an appointment with a GP surgery, they are often only available between 9am and 5pm or come with long waiting times.' Women's Equality Party co-founder Catherine Meyer was among those who copied Matt Hancock in to tweets today in a bid to raise concerns about access to smear tests Matt Hancock took over at Health Secretary from Jeremy Hunt last year and is seen as an outsider to replace Theresa May. Cervical screening attendance is at its worst level in two decades and just 71 per cent of the eligible population are up-to-date on their tests. Campaigners said women who had finally plucked up the courage to pick up the phone were then put off by the long waits and lack of appointments. Cervical cancer is the most common form of cancer in the under-35s and there are 3,200 new cases in the UK each year, and 1,000 deaths. Sam Ransom put off having her smear test because she could not get an appointment at the evenings or weekends Almost half of women have delayed life-saving cervical cancer tests because they could not get an appointment at their GP surgery (pictured human papillomavirus screening set) But this mortality rate would be significantly higher were it not for the NHSs screening programme, which detects abnormal cells before they develop into tumours. Women are invited to have smear tests every three years from the ages of 25 to 49, and then every five years up to the age of 65. But many GP surgeries are understaffed and struggling to meet the needs of their patients, particularly in areas where the population is rising. Experts said the procedure was becoming increasing inaccessible due to a shortage of available slots at under-pressure surgeries (pictured speculum used during examination) Some can only offer smear test clinics on one day a week or only have one nurse to carry them out, who may be on holiday or off sick. Many GP practices have long waiting lists and consultations are frequently cancelled at the last minute, when women have already booked time off work. The survey of 2,037 women, conducted by Jos Cervical Cancer Trust on behalf of the Daily Mail, found that 43 per cent of women had been forced to delay their test at least once because they could not get an appointment. Another 27 per cent said they had missed that years smear test completely because they were unable to make a slot. Among the women who had missed or delayed the procedure, 41 per cent reported waiting a year or more before finally having it done. This included 9 per cent who said they had waited five years or more and 3 per cent who waited more than ten years. Without screening, cervical cancer is extremely difficult to diagnose and there arent usually any symptoms in the early stages. 'I found out I had a tumour after eight-month wait': Woman, 34, reveals she was left infertile after putting off appointment Sam was working long hours as a PA and unwilling to take time off and explain the reason to her male bosses Sam Ransom put off having her smear test because she could not get an appointment at the evenings or weekends. She was working long hours as a PA and unwilling to take time off and explain the reason to her male bosses. The NHS sent her an invitation letter shortly after her 25th birthday in November 2009, but she waited eight months before going for an appointment. When the results came back they showed she had a fast-growing tumour and was also four months pregnant. Miss Ransom was advised to have an abortion as the pregnancy would drastically reduce her survival chances. Tragically, the radiotherapy and chemotherapy left her infertile. Now 34, she is engaged and living in Lordswood, near Chatham, Kent. She said: I put it off due to work commitments and doctors only being open at certain times during the day. Advertisement Often by the time the signs do appear, tumours have spread to other organs. Robert Music, chief executive of Jos Cervical Cancer Trust, said: Women who have taken a long time to pluck up the courage to pick up the phone are then told its four weeks, eight weeks or call back. Theres a worry that theyll get disenchanted, lose confidence and they may not book again. Thats our biggest concern. Weve got this amazing programme which saves 5,000 lives every year but its becoming more and more inaccessible. Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP for Brighton said: There are very serious concerns that women are finding it very difficult to get an appointment for a smear test and that ministers arent properly addressing this. More than a quarter of women say they have missed their smear test altogether because they were unable to make a consultation Smear tests save lives and ministers cannot ignore this vital question of access. Dr Asha Kasliwal, president of the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, said the problem was being worsened by cuts to local sexual health clinics, which used to offer the tests. Many clinics have either closed or no longer offer the tests, meaning women have to go to their GPs. The survey, which involved women aged 25 to 65, found that only 6.5 per cent of respondents could say if their surgery offered screening appointments outside the hours of 9am to 5pm. This is a huge problem as many are reluctant to book time off work or explain precisely why they need to be absent. Last month, the NHS launched its first cervical cancer campaign to try to halt the declining uptake. The awareness drive, run by Public Health England, involved TV and social media adverts which urged women not to be embarrassed about the procedure. But campaigners say the lack of available appointments is a bigger problem than shame or fear. An NHS spokesman said: There are now more GP appointments available than ever before, cancer survival rates are at their highest ever and all girls can also get the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine free from the NHS which helps protect them against cervical cancer. A Canadian tourist was killed in Thailand after dropping from a zip line when the safety locks broke. Reports from Chiang Mai, where the tragedy took place, suggest that the 25-year-old's safety locks broke, sending him plunging more than 164 feet into a creek below. Police suspected that the safety locks could not hold the tourist's 180 kilogram (397 lbs) weight, adding that there were not enough safety cables. Emergency services remove the 25-year-old man's body from the creek below the zipline A family friend of the victim disputed the weight offered by police and other reports suggest he weighed closer to 275 lbs. Police eventually confirmed that he weighed around 264 pounds, under the weight limit. The operator, Flight of the Gibbon, accepted culpability and said it would compensate the victim's family. The company, based in Mae Kam Pong, were also ordered to cease operations pending the end of the police investigation. They state on their website that people weighing more than 125 kilograms (275.5lbs) are not allowed to ride. A police picture showing the snapped safety locks. The operator of the ride has accepted fault Reports suggested the operator was charged with fatal negligence for allowing the Canadian to ride but no charge can be filed until police inspect the equipment, including the snapped metal wires. Yesterday afternoon, Chiang Mai police chief Maj. Gen. Pichate Jiranantasin said that investigators remain unable to file any charges because a full autopsy and equipment inspection report is needed. 'I've ordered them to speed up the investigation as much as is possible,' he said. Workers at the zip line service said the safety locks broke shortly after the tourist took off from the starting point, according to Khaosod English. The tragic incident follows several similar ones across the country. Two Chinese tourists died after falling from two separate zipline attractions, operated by Skyline Adventure and Flying Squirrels in 2015, the last time a death of this nature occurred in the Chang Mai region. Britain was today named as the world's top investment destination for businesses despite Brexit, knocking the United States off the top spot for the first time in five years. The survey on corporate deal-making by consulting and accounting firm EY said Britain was the top investment destination in the world for the first time in the report's 10-year history. The pound's fall since the June 2016 vote to leave the European Union has made British assets cheaper, but Steve Krouskos, a global vice chair at EY, said Britain also remained an 'open environment for foreign investors' even in the midst of the Brexit chaos. That culture, he said, is reinforced by the English language, a skilled workforce, and a strong technology base. Those long-standing strengths have helped Britain recover as a place to do business since the shock of the June 2016 referendum, which saw the country narrowly vote to leave the EU. With so much uncertainty surrounding the future of the British economy, the country slumped down EY's rankings. In the October 2016 survey, Britain was as low as seventh. There have been a number of high-profile investments in Britain over the past year, including Comcast's purchase of satellite broadcaster Sky for around 30 billion pounds (currently $39 billion) and Coca-Cola's takeover of Costa Coffee for near 4 billion pounds ($5.2 billion). Krouskos said he hasn't encountered executives who want Britain to crash out of the EU without a deal and that the remainder are 'split down the middle' between those who want the country to leave the bloc smoothly with a deal and those who want Brexit stopped. A British Union flag is flown behind a European Union flag during demonstrations near Parliament in London, Wednesday, April 10, 2019. Just days away from a no-deal Brexit, European Union leaders meet Wednesday to discuss granting the United Kingdom a new delay to its departure from the bloc. Britain's exit from the EU, originally scheduled for March 29, has been delayed until Oct. 31, though it could happen sooner should British lawmakers back the withdrawal agreement that Prime Minister Theresa May negotiated with the EU. Following three defeats in Parliaments, May opted to ask for an extension rather than crash out of the bloc, a scenario that many politicians and business leaders say could lead to a deep recession as tariffs are slapped on British exports and other restrictions are imposed on trade. EY found that global interest in mergers and acquisitions is at a 10-year high as managers try to adapt to technological change, with 59 percent of companies planning a deal in the next year, up from 52 percent a year ago. The improvement appears at odds with a slowdown in the global economy. Last week, the International Monetary Fund cut its global growth forecast for this year to 3.3 percent from 3.5 percent, largely because of trade tensions, particularly between China and the U.S. Krouskos said the mood among executives is better than the growth forecasts suggest. 'The increase in acquisition appetite is a clear indication that executives are focused on their pursuit of growth, underpinned by high expectations of their own future performance,' he said. 'There is uncertainty in the market, but for many, disruption is driving M&A rather than stalling it - deals are a means to reshape portfolios at an accelerated pace and futureproof businesses.' EY surveyed 2,900 senior executives across 47 countries in February and March 2019. A former nursing home worker has been jailed for nine months after he brutally bashed an elderly woman in his care because she was 'doing his head in'. Michael Andrew Mullen, 55, was sentenced in Adelaide Magistrates Court on Monday after he was found guilty with one count of assault against resident Elizabeth Hannaford, 72. Mullen worked as an aged-care worker at Lourdes Valley Nursing Home in the Adelaide suburb of Myrtle Bank in 2015 when Ms Hannahford was found with severe bruising and swelling on her face. A former nursing home worker has been jailed for nine months after he brutally bashed elderly woman Elizabeth Hannaford because she was 'doing his head in' Ms Hannaford - who suffered from dementia - was in the care of Mullen was struck more than once with excessive force when Mullen became 'frustrated' with her throughout the night. The 55-year-old was found guilty of the aggravated assault in February. But, Mullen had initially denied the allegations against him and pleaded not guilty - but Ms Hannaford's roommate backed up the charges against him. Meg Rogers gave evidence saying Mullen had gone into the pair's room and was frustrated over Ms Hannaford pulling cords that sounded an alarm. Ms Rogers said words to the effect of 'there'll be consequences if you continue this behaviour' and 'you are doing my bloody head in'. Ms Hannaford - who suffered from dementia - was in the care of Mullen was struck more than once with excessive force when Mullen became 'frustrated' with her throughout the night In a statement before her death, Ms Rogers said she heard Mullen's punches and Ms Hannaford saying 'no' in a 'pained and wounded' voice. Ms Rogers said Mullen said 'you're doing my bloody head in' and threatened that there would be 'consequences' if she kept going. In a police interview, Mullen denied the assault and suggested Ms Hannaford may have rolled over and hit herself on a cabinet beside the bed. Ms Hannaford died several months after the incident - but her family continues with court action against Mullen. He was sentenced to 12 months behind bars, with a non-parole period of nine months. Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern issued a joint call for a new Brexit referendum today warning leaving the EU was the biggest threat to the Good Friday Agreement. The former leaders of the UK and Ireland said the peace plan was based on talks between both sides confirmed by public votes - proving the case for a new referendum on Brexit. While insisting there was no comparison between the reconciliation crucial to ending the Troubles, they said both Leave and Remain voters must be brought into the Brexit process. They said the new delay to Brexit until October 31 meant there was now time for a referendum - and called on Mrs May to lead it before she quits Downing Street. Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern (pictured together in 2006 while PM and Taoiseach) issued a joint call for a new Brexit referendum today warning leaving the EU was the biggest threat to the Good Friday Agreement Mr Blair and Mr Ahern said the question of how to manage the border went to the heart of the entire Brexit negotiation. Mr Blair and Mr Ahern both entered office in 1997 and shared a decade alongside each as Prime Minister and Taoiseach. Writing in the Guardian today, they said: 'Following the Good Friday agreement, there were two referendums. 'The referendum in Northern Ireland, on the agreement, based on facts not promises, clarity not ambiguity, received a 71 per cent yes result. The related referendum in the Republic of Ireland achieved a 94 per cent yes. 'There is now time for a confirmatory referendum given the EU has expanded the Brexit deadline to 31 October. 'It is this that must be pursued, and May should take the lead in that process.' The ex-leaders urged Mrs May to learn from the mistakes of the past three years and instead use the new Brexit delay to 'encourage calm amid the chaos'. They said Mrs May should resist attempts to oust her over the next six months and bids to create an ill-defined 'proper Brexit'. Mr Blair and Mr Ahern said: 'Of course, nobody should compare the tragedy of the Troubles to Brexit, but as the rhetoric becomes stronger, the language becomes more divisive and inflammatory, the divisions in the Tory and Labour parties more evident, the need for calm matters even more. 'Having conversations with the public matters. Speak to those who voted remain, the 48%, alongside those who voted leave, and try to understand both. They said the new delay to Brexit until October 31 meant there was now time for a referendum - and called on Mrs May (pictured yesterday on holiday in Wales) to lead it before she quits Downing Street 'Speak to those who do not tweet incessantly or rage endlessly on radio phone-ins, as well as those who do. 'Understand that the public are undergoing the same process of churn and reflection as the politicians, and give them permission to be honest about that. 'Getting away from the media chaos to do this matters. Getting the right personalities together from across parties matters. Teams of rivals must be built.' They added: 'On Brexit, it is time to do the same; to elevate the discussion above individual interests to the collective, to expand the definition of us and shrink the definition of them.' Mr Blair and Mr Ahern said the question of how to manage the border went to the heart of the entire Brexit negotiation. They said: 'The question is how much friction is compatible with the Good Friday agreement, and that in turns defines any Brexit agreement that will pass through parliament.' A Russian priest has been barred from entering a cathedral and banished to a remote village after his wife won a beauty pageant. Oksana Zotova, 32, has faced brutal criticism and threats after being crowned 'Miss Sexuality' in the contest in Magnitogorsk, Russia. Her husband Sergiy Zotov has been banned from officiating in Magnitogorsk Orthodox Cathedral - and has been exiled to a remote and sleepy village church 43 miles away. The 31-year-old cleric has been told he has no way back because of the 'scandal', unless his wife - a beauty therapist with her own salon - 'repents'. Oksana Zotova, 32, has faced brutal criticism and threats after being crowned 'Miss Sexuality' in the contest in Magnitogorsk, Russia Sergiy Zotov (left) has been barred from officiating in Magnitogorsk Orthodox Cathedral - and has been exiled to a remote and sleepy village church 43 miles away The exiled priest said that his wife 'understands her mistakes (and) knows what she did wrong' - yet she has not repented, and instead criticised the church. Meanwhile Mr Zotova said his wife faced 'threats, abuse, and other angry messages' - and said he planned to call the police. Mrs Zotova received a barrage of criticism for her 'sinful' behaviour and 'glamour lady appearance' despite no photos of her being risque. She is accused of 'flaunting' her 'luxury lifestyle' by showing off her 'red lips, pink skirt, high heels and iPhone' when priests and their wives should be 'modest' and 'demure'. Mrs Zotova received a barrage of criticism for her 'sinful' behaviour and 'glamour lady appearance' despite no photos of her being risque She is accused of 'flaunting' her 'luxury lifestyle' by showing off her 'red lips, pink skirt, high heels and iPhone' Oksana Zotova (pictured), 32, has faced brutal criticism and threats after being crowned 'Miss Sexuality' in the contest in Magnitogorsk, Russia Some comments made online were also 'offensive and threatening'. Father Feodor Saprykin, chairman of the church court, told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper: 'It is a great sin when the wife of a priest exposes herself like this. 'Father Sergiy Zotov will not go back to his previous place of service until his wife repents. 'What kind of priest is he, if he can't manage his own family? How can he run the local church community?' The 31-year-old cleric has been told he has no way back because of the 'scandal', unless his wife - a beauty therapist with her own salon - 'repents' The mother-of-two admitted the contest reached its culmination during Orthodox Lent - but said the date was changed at the last minute The couple had parental permission to marry when both were under 18 and they have been wed for 15 years. The contest - called 'You Are Unique' - included women from all walks of life, married and unmarried. Mrs Zotov had to remove her social media accounts but far from repenting over her Miss Sexuality title, she hit back: 'Yes, I took part, what is the problem?'. Her critics claimed she and the priest had taken a holiday to Barbados which both strongly deny. The mother-of-two admitted the contest reached its culmination during Orthodox Lent - but said the date was changed at the last minute. 'I had already put so much effort into it,' she said. 'I came back home, asked my husband what to do. He said 'make up your mind yourself'. 'So I decided to take part.' Mrs Zotov said she is from a deeply religious family, and her brother is also a priest and that she obeys religious restrictions by wearing modest clothes and covering her head when she goes to church. She said: 'I never wear too open clothes or a low neckline. I do not wear skirts that are too short. I put on shorts but only when on holidays. Mrs Zotov said she is from a deeply religious family, and her brother is also a priest and that she obeys religious restrictions by wearing modest clothes in church 'Of course, some people may get confused with my girlish style which is bright and unusual.' The mother says the constant bullying has made her feel ill and has affected her family. She said: 'I am feeling ill from all this now. I am getting support from my family and friends. 'I am a calm person. I am not going to hide or to suffer depression. But this bullying affected all my family. I had to shut down my accounts in all social networks.' Many critics accused her off hypocrisy. She said: 'What you must know about priests and their wives - they preach one thing and behave in a different way.' But Mrs Zotov has won support too for being a 'modern woman'. She said: 'Wives of priests are usually tearful and grey-looking women. We are sick and tired of this. This wife is doing well. She is bright and modern women, I wish to see more of such wives.' An 18-year-old student has died after she was allegedly set on fire by a gang - after refusing to withdraw attempted rape claims against the head teacher of her school. Nusrat Jahan Femi was doused in flammable liquid and set alight on the roof of her school in Dhaka, Bangladesh, according to reports. She died five days ago in Dhaka Medical College Hospital with 75 per cent burns to her body but relayed details of the attack to her brother as protests erupted across Bangladesh. The principal, Siraj-ud-Daula, has been in jail since the end of last month because of the claims from the girl that he attempted to rape her in his office, yet police say he 'instructed' the attack. Different organisations held a protest rally against the murder of Nusrat Jahan Rafi Police said 13 people, including two girls, were involved in Nusrat's killing. Forces arrested eight people in connection with her death and announced that a teacher was among those allegedly involved. Police Bureau of Investigations chief Banaj Kanti Majumdar said several people including one defendant visited the principal in jail days before the attack. A group of four unidentified persons poured kerosene on the 18-year-old girl and set her afire on April 6. Protests in Bangladesh are pictured The brutal scene took place minutes before Nusrat was due to take an Arabic exam, her brother told local media. He told The Daily Star in Bangladesh that his sister was lured to the roof by four people claiming that her friend was being assaulted there. 'They asked her to withdraw the case against Principal Maulana Siraj Ud Doula. As she refused to budge, one of them poured kerosene on her from a glass and set her ablaze,' the victim's elder brother told the paper quoting what she told him before she died in her hospital bed. A group of people staged a demonstration in Sylhet, Bangladesh this afternoon demanding justice for Nusrat Jahan Rafi 'With all of her body in flames, she ran down the stairs screaming for help. Fellow students doused the fire,' he added. He added further that his sister said all of the attackers 'seemed to be female' and that they had their faces and hands covered. He also said that his family has since received death threats after opening an official case. Fierce protests have broke out too, with people condemning the attackers. Prime minister Sheikh Hasina urged 'exemplary punishment' for the 'heinous crimes'. Nusrat's funeral ceremony was held on Thursday in her hometown, Uttar Charsandia. Her father, Musa Manik, said: 'We are satisfied with the progress of the investigation, but a speedy trial is a must.' Violence broke out in Denmark with cars and rubbish bins set on fire yesterday after a far-right anti-Islam activist threw a copy of the Koran into the air. Copenhagen police said 23 people had been arrested last night after officers fired tear gas in clashes with protesters. Extremist politician Rasmus Paludan - who wants Islam banned from Denmark - had thrown the religion's holy book into the air several times in Noerrebro, an immigrant-heavy district in the Danish capital. Danish PM Lars Loekke Rasmussen called Paludan's actions a 'meaningless provocation' and urged his countrymen to 'meet him with arguments, not violence'. Unrest: A Danish police officer stands guard with a burning wreckage behind him, during unrest following the demonstration in Copenhagen yesterday Clashes: Police wearing helmets and carrying batons attempt to calm the violence which broke out in Denmark on Sunday Counter-protesters threw cobblestones at him and at the police who moved in first to protect him and then to escort him away. The unrest spread to other parts of the city, where dustbins and bicycles were set on fire and police responded with tear gas after missiles were thrown at them. Copenhagen police said they had used tear gas and were yesterday urging people to stay away from the area, or stay indoors if they were already there. Prime Minister Mr Rasmussen said on Twitter: 'I strongly repudiate Paludan's meaningless provocations which have no purpose other than to sow discord. 'Meet him with arguments - not violence. Protect democracy and freedom of expression. Do not let derogatory actions directed at specific groups in Denmark destroy our unity.' Wreckage: Bicycles are seen burning and lying on the ground with a police vehicle on the scene amid violence in Copenhagen on Sunday On guard: Danish police officers in the immigrant-heavy area of Noerrebro in Copenhagen where an anti-Islam activist threw a Koran into the air Wrestled: Two police officers tackle a person on the ground during Sunday's violence in a migrant neighbourhood in Denmark's capital Paludan is the founder of a party called Stram Kurs, or Hard Line, which has called explicitly for Islam to be banned from Denmark. It says Denmark should be a country for people who were 'ethnic Danes at birth' or adopted as infants, and have 'Danish genus and Danish native language'. Paludan has already received a suspended sentence for racist abuse and his party has no seats in Denmark's Parliament or at local level. According to Danish broadcaster TV2, Paludan was not injured himself in the violence which erupted on Sunday. Last year Denmark's immigration minister faced a backlash after suggesting that Muslims fasting for Ramadan pose a safety hazard in some jobs. Integration minister Inger Stoejberg urged people fasting to to take leave from work 'to avoid negative consequences for the rest of Danish society'. An Australian grandmother has been reunited with her three orphan grandchildren five years after they were taken from Sydney and forced into ISIS territory. Karen Nettleton, 58, tracked down grandkids Zaynab, 17, Hoda, 16, Humzeh, eight, at the al-Hawl refugee camp in Syria late last month, after desperately trying to bring them home for years. The three children, along with their two other brothers Abdullah and Zarqawi, were taken to Syria by their mother Tara Nettleton to join the Islamic State in 2014. Tara, who died in 2015, was married to ISIS terrorist Khaled Sharrouf, who became notorious after photos circulated of his young son holding up the severed head of soldier, captioned: 'That's my boy.' Sharrouf was killed alongside his two eldest sons, Abdullah and Zarqawi in a US air strike near Raqqa in 2017. After the defeat of ISIS last year, the three surviving children were taken to the Kurdish-controlled camp in northern Syria and have begged to return home. ABC's Four Corners captured the heart-wrenching moment Karen finally found her grandchildren at the squalid campground of more than 70,000 refugees. Scroll down for video Emotional reunion: Sydney grandmother Karen Nettleton (pictured right) reunited with her grandchildren last month, five years after they were taken to an ISIS stronghold. Granddaughter Hoda Sharrouf, 16, is seen wearing a black niqab The heartwarming moment also marked the first time Karen met her great-grandchildren, Zaynab's children Aiesha and Fatimah Zaynab (top left), Hoda (top right), and Humzeh (bottom, middle) are in the Al-Howl camp. Their two brothers (also pictured) are believed to have died in airstrikes After searching through a sea of shoddy white tents in a muddy open field for 45 minutes, she finally found her youngest grandson Humzeh. 'Humzeh! Oh, baby. Oh, my baby! Where's your sisters?' she said. The young boy then runs to find Hoda and Zaynab, who were inside their tent and dressed in black niqabs. The Sydney grandmother was seen breaking down in tears after seeing Hoda, who was only 11 years old when she arrived in Syria. 'Oh, Hoda, I'm here. I'm here. Oh, my baby. I missed you so much too. Oh, my God. This is real. I'm here,' Karen said. An emotional Hoda replied: 'I cannot believe I'm hugging you. I'm pretty sure I'm dreaming. I'm scared I'm going to wake up. I'm so scared I'm gonna wake up.' They were later joined by Zaynab, who is seven-months pregnant with her third child and had been suffering from dysentery and severe anaemia. Both girls were reluctant to remove their veils at the camp where women are forced to wear niqabs. The heartwarming moment also marked the first time Karen met her great-grandchildren, Aiesha and Fatimah. Khaled Sharrouf (left) who died in 2017, became Australia's most notorious home grown terrorist after images circulated of his young son holding up the severed head of soldier, captioned, 'That's my boy' Zaynab gave birth after marrying her father's best friend, Mohamed Elomar at the tender age of 13, which Karen said gave her a feeling of 'disgust'. Elomar died in 2015. As she reaches the end of her third trimester, Zaynab now fears she will be forced to give birth at the squalid camp. 'I think that's my biggest fear now, is to give birth here because I've heard a lot of stories of people giving birth inside their tent and a lot of them haven't worked out, like, properly,' she said. 'Some children have made it, some children have died.' The siblings said they desperately want to return to Australia to 'live a normal life,' revealing they were taken to the ISIS stronghold without any warning. Zaynab said she had long been trying to flee ISIS, but feared being caught and tortured as punishment. 'We've been wanting to come home for a very long time, but we were just scared,' she said. 'For me and my children, I want to live a normal life just like anyone would want to live a normal life.' Hoda revealed she had no idea she had arrived in Syria until she heard people speaking Arabic after crossing the border with her family. 'I asked my mum where we were and she told me we were in Syria. I started crying. I told her, "When the hell are we getting back home''?' 'I didn't know where we were... I thought we could get out whenever we wanted to. But you can't. Once you get in you're stuck,' she said. The children's mum, Tara Nettleton, was raised in suburban Sydney. She later converted to Islam after meeting Sharrouf. Tara died in 2015 after suffering complications with appendicitis ABC's Four Corners captured the heart-wrenching moment Karen finally found her grandchildren at the squalid campground of more than 70,000 refugees Hoda began to ask to return home 'every five seconds' and had been constantly reassured by her mum that they'd go home up until the day she died. She described her grandmother as the 'only thing' she had left of her mum. 'You're like...you're like mum's scent. I just wanted to see you again for that, like, one purpose. It's been so hard these past five years,' she told Karen. Tara died in a Mosul hospital in September 2015 after suffering complications from appendicitis, but Karen revealed she did not learn of her daughter's death until four months later. She then embarked on a years-long mission to get her grandchildren back to Australia. She kept in touch with the kids sporadically through text messages and phone calls, and often received messages from them desperately pleading to be brought home. In March, she received a phone call from one of her granddaughters who revealed they were staying at the camp and she flew out to Syria. She had previously travelled to the Middle East twice in an attempt to rescue them but failed both times. Sharrouf, who was killed in 2017, had shared photos of him and his sons embracing their new lifestyle Hoda (left), Zaynab (right) and Humzeh (centre) are alive and in the camp. Abdullah (second from left) and Zarqawi (second from right) are believed to have died in airstrikes 'Friday night I get a phone call from Hoda telling me she's in the refugee camp, al-Hawl refugee camp. I could not believe it,' she said. 'And then to get the call from Zaynab it took a couple of days for Zaynab because she had to be processed, but getting her call was being told she was there, to actually hear her voice. I just knew they were all safe, they will all be together,' she said. After leaving the last ISIS stronghold of Baghouz, the siblings spent a few nights in the freezing desert before American troops found them and took them to the refugee camp. Harrowing text messages revealed the children's desperate pleas with their grandmother, begging her to get them out and asking for basic necessities such as wipes and soap. Karen has been desperately trying to bring her grandchildren back to Australia for five years. She kept in touch with the kids sporadically through text messages and phone calls and often received messages from them desperately pleading to be brought home Both Karen and her grandchildren have maintained they are not a threat to Australians and do not deserve to pay the price for their parents' actions 'Please, Nana, try and come tomorrow even if it's raining because we physically and emotionally can't take this anymore It's too hard. I'm crying myself to sleep because this is the first time I've felt like I'm in prison. Please, Nana, I beg you, I can't wait another day,' Zaynab said in a message. Karen arrived at the camp with a suitcase full of treats - Skittles, Freddos, and chocolate Flakes - as well as necessities for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. KHALED SHARROUF'S CHILDREN Daughter Zaynab, 17 - Alive Daughter Hoda, 15 - Alive Son Abdullah - Died aged 12 in 2017 Son Zarqawi - Died aged 11 in 2017 Son Humzeh, eight - Alive Advertisement Despite being able to locate her grandchildren at the camp, it is still a long way before Karen can take them back home. Kurdish authorities must approve of the children's release and are awaiting authorisation from the Australian government. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he wasn't willing to risk the lives of officials to rescue the three children. He later softened his stance saying he would only help the children of extremists - not adults - return from the war zones and was working with international aid workers to repatriate them. Both Karen and her grandchildren have maintained they are not a threat to Australians and do not deserve to pay the price for their parents' actions. 'Well, I would say that we weren't the ones that chose to come here in the first place. I mean, we were brought here by our parents. And now that our parents are gone...we want to live,' Zaynab said. 'They're not a threat or a danger to anyone. They're not. I mean Zaynab's a mum, 17 years old, two children, one on the way. Humzeh is a little boy - eight. His main worry is his friends. And Hoda is the quiet one. She's...she's the real soft one,' Karen added. 'Just because their last name is Sharrouf doesn't mean they're monsters. Are my children a risk to Australia? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. No way.' Advertisement A giant map revealing WHSmith's vast commercial empire in the 1930s when high street trade was booming has emerged for sale for 30,000. The 7ft by 7ft painted map was commissioned by the newsagent to show more than 200 British and northern European branches on March 31, 1931, including outlets in Brussels and Paris. It was produced by MacDonald Gill, one of the leading graphic designers of the age, and hung in the retailer's boardroom in Swindon, Wiltshire. The headquarters remain in Wiltshire today although its operations have expanded to more than 1,400 stores in 28 countries. According to Mr Gill's ledger he was paid 765 for the project, which works out at around 42,000 in today's money. The colourful map, which includes the old WHSmith red and gold logo, has different symbols to mark the chain's different outlets - yellow for wholesale branches, red for bookstalls and green for bookshops. A giant map showing WHSmith's empire of more than 200 stores around the UK and mainland Europe in 1931 has gone up for auction and is valued at 30,000. According to the inscription, it shows the location of every single WH Smith book shop, stall and wholesaler, using different colours to show each - red for stalls, yellow for wholesalers and green for shops The map, created by graphic designer MacDonald Gill, a prominent graphic designer of the time, shows how the business rose out of trading at railway stations in the 1800s to become Britain's leading bookseller with outlets at ports and major cities across the UK. The map also shows the then head office in Strand House, Holborn, London, which served as its base from 1914 to 1956 Mr Gill illustrated the map in an Art Deco style complete with wavy lines to represent the sea and steam ships sailing between Britain and France. The map was commissioned in 1931 and hung on the walls of the head office both in London and when the business moved to Swindon in 1967, where it remains today The bulk of the stores are in London and the south east, but there are also outlets in Swansea, Belfast, on the Isle of Man and even in Brussels, Belgium. The cities of London, Manchester and Newcastle have been magnified to provide more details on their shop locations, and Gill has added decorative details with Art Deco style shoals of fish and drawings of paperboys. The map has been consigned for sale by the WHSmith Archive and goes under the hammer at Chorley Auctioneers of Cheltenham in Gloucestershire. Auctioneer Thomas Jenner-Fust said: 'The map would have hung in the WHSmith boardroom for many years before being placed into their archive. 'It is incredibly detailed and there is wonderful added decorative detail from biplanes and horse-drawn vehicles to shoals of fish in Art Deco waves off the coastline. 'At this time, WHSmith was going international so in addition to their British wholesale branches, bookstalls and bookshops they have marked their bookshops in Paris and Brussels. 'It is an extraordinary map.' The map still features the company's old red and gold logo, named after William Henry Smith, the son of founder Henry Walton Smith who opened it as a news vendor in London in the late 1700s alongside his wife Anna. The firm built up its empire at railway stations throughout the 1800s until 1905, when rows over stall rentals at stations prompted a change in business model, with the business setting up 150 shops around the UK in just three months targeting locations near stations to keep on top of the commuter trade The map is described as 'incredibly detailed' by Chorley Auctioneers of Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, who are selling it tomorrow. It features illustrations of various forms of transport of the day including trains, early motor cars and horses and carts The map includes more detailed drawings of prominent shops, including the London head office and the Brussels outlet, left, which was opened 11 years before in 1920 and was only the second international branch after Paris. It also shows how shops were opened along railway lines to London WHSmith was founded in 1792 and began as a small news vendor in London run by Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna, and passed to their sons Henry Edward and William Henry Smith in 1816. William Henry proved the more astute businessman and so the shop became WH Smith & Son in 1846, when his son of the same name also became a partner. The first bookstall was opened in November 1848 and the Smiths began expanding to railway stations first in London and then across the UK to target commuters, selling cheaply printed version of popular publications called 'yellowbacks'. By 1860 the younger WHSmith had taken full control and he eventually moved into politics, becoming an MP in 1868 and eventually the First Lord of the Admiralty in 1877 and First Lord of the Treasury in 1887. Upon his death aged 66 in 1891, his wife was created as Viscountess Hambleden and his eldest son, William Frederick, who became the second Viscount Hambleden in 1913, took over the business. By the early 1900s the business had expanded across the country with stalls and shops, and opened its first international branch in Paris in 1903, followed by Brussels in 1920. In 1905 the company rapidly expanded by opening 150 new locations in just three months in reaction to a dispute over rents for stalls at stations on the Great Western and London and North Western Railway lines. Rather than pay higher rents, the business model was changed to operate shops nearby to keep on top of the commuter trade. WHSmith continued to buy out smaller chains over the next few decades but the most significant expansion did not come until the 1970s when the business expanded into other sectors including music and film. The cities of London, Manchester, pictured, and Newcastle have been magnified to provide more details on their shop locations, and Gill has added decorative details with Art Deco style shoals of fish, sailboats and drawings of paperboys A travel branch was created in 1973 and DIY chain Do It All was purchased in 1979. WHSmith then bought Waterstones in 1989 and in the 1990s it snapped up some of Virgin Megastores smaller shops. But by the 2000s the travel department was closed and Waterstones and Virgin concerns had been sold on, while the company has struggled to compete with the rise of Amazon and other online retailers since the turn of the century. Today operates over 1,400 stores in 28 countries, including more than 100 Post Office branches in the UK after it began combining its stores with them in 2007. Internationally, the chain still operates several shops in airports around Europe as well as branches in Canada, India and Australia. It ran shops in US airports between 1985 and 2003. The sale of the map takes place tomorrow. A beauty queen has been stripped of her title for a 'breach of contract' after she revealed she was pregnant. Joyce Prado, 22, who won Miss Bolivia Universe last year, was dethroned after it emerged she was two months pregnant. She confirmed rumours her and partner Rodrigo Gimenez - a Paraguayan model - would be having a baby and getting married soon. Joyce Prado walks on stage in costume at Miss Universe in Thailand last year (left) and returns for the swimsuit contest wearing a Bolivia sash (right) The beauty model has been stripped of her crown following revelations she was two months pregnant She confirmed rumours her and partner Rodrigo Gimenez - a Paraguayan model - would be having a baby and getting married soon She told local media: 'Yes, we are going to have a baby, we have the support of our families, we are both happy, I love Rodrigo and this news has brought us closer together. Prado failed to make it through to the semi finals of Miss Universe last year 'We do not have a wedding date, but hopefully it will be soon, we will take it easy we have the support of our families.' Prado represented Bolivia at Miss Universe 2018 in Thailand but failed to make the semi finals. She became Miss Bolivia last year and won Miss Tourism Bolivia in 2015. Promotions Gloria, the modelling agency which has produced Miss Bolivia since 1985, is known for mixing beauty with politics. It said in a statement: 'The reasons [for Prado being stripped of her title] are strictly related to the breach of contract, leaving on record that we maintain cordial relations in a field of mutual understanding, safeguarding the confidentiality clause.' But Prado seemed unconcerned by the news as she posed on Instagram holding a top she had bought for her son. She wrote: 'The miracle of life is indescribable, especially when it comes to the arrival of a new member of the family. Prado poses on Instagram for her 28,000 followers holding a babygrow next to Gimenez She wrote next to the post: 'The miracle of life is indescribable, especially when it comes to the arrival of a new member of the family' 'Becoming a father or mother may be the most important challenge that comes our way in life, but just as it can be difficult, it can also be the most rewarding thing in the world. 'I want to share with you that I am the happiest woman in the world because my life is full of love, because together with the man of my dreams we are beginning to live the most beautiful stage of our lives. 'Since I knew that I will become a mother, I can not stop imagining how I will look with my baby in my arms, never imagine feeling such a great emotion just knowing that from within me there is a seed that grows every day and the only thing that I ask God to be born safe and sound that his daddy@rodrigodanielpyand I will take care of protecting him and training him all the love we have to give him.' Prado smiles during rehearsals for the 2018 Miss Universe competition at the Impact Arena in Bangkok on December 16 In 2010, a British born Miss Bolivia Universe became President Evo Morales's right hand woman. Jessica Anne Jordan Burton, who was born in Bath, Somerset, returned to Bolivia when she was a child and took part in Miss Universe in 2006. But she said she always had an interest in politics and became development chief for the border province of Beni - pitting the then 26-year-old up against drug traffickers. A man has revealed how he survived Melbourne's nightclub shooting by playing dead - as he watched a security guard at the venue get shot in the face. Ali Shohani, 26, was at Love Machine nightclub on Sunday morning, when he saw the gunman open fire in the brazen drive-by shooting. The reveller was shot in the arm, before he watched a bullet strike bouncer Aaron Khalid Osmani, who later died. 'He just got shot in front of me. Aaron looked at me in my face before he fell down to the floor,' Mr Shahini told 9News as he choked back tears. 'It was like a war zone, I have never experienced this in my life,' he said of the shooting which took place in Prahran at around 3.20am - while he was lining up to get into the nightclub. Ali Shohani played dead at Melbourne's Love Machine nightclub on Sunday morning, while he saw nightclub bouncer Aaron Khalid Osmani get shot in the face Mr Shahini fell to the ground after being shot. 'I thought they were going to continue shooting so I just thought I should stay on the floor,' he said. After being treated by paramedics on the scene, Mr Shohani drove himself to hospital where he underwent surgery to remove a bullet in his arm. Meanwhile, a man who was waiting in line outside of the nightclub, in Prahran, is fighting for life in hospital. After being treated by paramedics on the scene, Mr Shohani drove himself to hospital where he underwent surgery to remove a bullet in his arm Richard Arow (pictured with his girlfriend Rebekah Spinks) is fighting for life in hospital a day after he was gunned down in a drive-by shooting Social media posts by 28-year-old Richard Arow's friends and girlfriend on Monday afternoon suggested he had died. However, Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Tess Walsh hours later confirmed he was still alive but in a critical condition in hospital. 'Innocent people have been impacted in the most serious way,' she said in reference to Mr Arow. Worried friends of Mr Arow (pictured left with friends inside a different nightclub) posted about him on social media on Monday afternoon The Chelsea FC fan's friend Anthony Morello wrote on social media: 'Our friend was innocently standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. 'Your million dollar smile & warm energy was so infectious and would light up any room you walked into. 'One of the friendliest and most cheerful guys I've had the pleasure of meeting... You will be missed by many and remembered for ever as someone with a big beautiful heart.' Another friend, Pasha Okanlar, blamed himself for Mr Arow being shot as he was not out clubbing with him that night as he often was. 'My heart is broken, brother you were something different like you were a true brother, a real one, always kept it real and kept it 100 per cent,' he wrote. 'So many laughs so many tears we had my brother, we always had each other's back but on this one time I wasn't there look what happened.' Mr Arow was outside the Love Machine nightclub (crime scene pictured) in Prahran about 3.10am on Sunday when four shots were fired from a stolen Porsche A third friend, Krystal Jade, wrote: 'Your presence was of pure calmness and positivity. You were truly a well respected soul full of kindness upon every meeting.' Assistant Commissioner Walsh said police were not certain who was responsible for the shooting but were investigating links to Middle Eastern and bikie gangs. 'We think this is quite a specific, targeted attack, but we do not understand the motive, nor the people who are involved in it at this time,' she said. Aaron Khalid Osmani, 37, died in hospital from his injuries after he was shot outside the Love Machine Nightclub She said Love Machine's owners had been very cooperative and detectives hoped to review CCTV from venue and nearby for clues. They would also investigate whether it was linked to other recent underworld-linked shootings. Assistant Commissioner Walsh asked anyone with information to contact police, particularly those known to the shooters. 'If you have a firearm about you, then you have the propensity to use them. That's why I plea to family and friends of those involved to provide us with information to help your loved one from escalating this,' she said. Police are hunting two men (pictured on CCTV) seen running from a burning Porsche used in a drive-by shooting at a nightclub in which a bouncer was killed Mr Osmani was remembered as a 'beautiful soul' who was loved by all as friends and colleagues flooded social media with tributes to the 'kind soul'. 'My heart is broken... you were the most kind-hearted soul I have met since I started working at Love Machine,' wrote one female worker at the club. 'You were everything to me. I'm broken that you are gone,' wrote another. Steve Yousif, a host at the nightclub, also took to Facebook after the tragedy. The car was torched in Wollert, north Melbourne after the 3am shooting at Love Machine in Prahran on Sunday He said: 'Overwhelmed with all your calls and texts, nothing but love for you all. 'What happened last night was uncalled for and devastating. For some of you it was a night out, the rest of the Love Machine family lost a beautiful soul today.' Police are hunting two men seen running from a burning Porsche used in the drive-by shooting, which may have been carried out by a bikie gang. The Love Machine (pictured) was packed with patrons at the time of the shooting The stolen car was torched in Wollert, north Melbourne after the shooting. CCTV images show two men running away from the burnt-out getaway car two hours after the attack. Police are investigating if the shooting is linked to recent extortion attempts by the Comancheros gang, reported The Age. Gang members have reportedly caused trouble at Love Machine and nearby Lux nightclub, which have the same owner, in recent weeks. They have apparently threatened staff, refused to pay for drinks and demanded payments from the venues known to host bikies, strippers and underworld figures. Love Machine staff said in a statement on Sunday afternoon: 'We regret to inform you that Love Machine will not be operating tonight. 'The events that occurred outside the venue last night have shocked us deeply and we are working closely with authorities to assist with the ongoing investigation.' Sajid Javid has told how he could have fallen into a life of crime as he spoke of his fears his own children could become victims of Britain's knife attack epidemic. The Home Secretary and Tory leadership hopeful spoke in London today as politicians scramble to tackle the spiralling problem of knife crime in the UK. Javid, a father of four, told of his own fears when he lies in bed at night waiting for his children to come home. He also told how he too could have turned to a life of crime himself when, as a schoolboy, drug dealers approached him at his school gates. Sajid Javid today backed the use of stop and search powers as he spoke about knife crime Sajid Javid (pictured) with his wife Laura Sajid has said of his worries waiting up for his own children to return home at night Mr Javid said: 'I may be the Home Secretary but I'm not ashamed to confess; I have stayed up late at night waiting to hear the key turning in the door. And only then going to bed knowing that they have come home safe and sound. 'And like any other dad, when I watch the news and see the faces of all those young victims of knife crime I despair at the waste of those lives.' A young Mr Javid in his school days. The Home Secretary shared the picture on Instagram, saying '#extrememakeover #agedwell' Speaking of his own experience, he added: 'I grew up on what was dubbed by one tabloid as "the most dangerous street in Britain". It's not so difficult to see how instead of being Cabinet, I could have been taken in to a life of crime. 'There were the pupils at school that shoplifted, and asked if I wanted to help. The drug dealers who stood near the school gates and told you by joining in you could make easy money. 'But I was lucky. I had loving and supporting parents, who despite their own circumstances gave me security. I had some brilliant teachers who motivated me to go further than what was expected of me. 'I even had a girlfriend who believed in me and supported me despite my lack of prospects and went onto to become my wife. Thanks to them all I have built a better life for myself and my family.' Stop and search powers were previously restricted by former Home Secretary, now Prime Minister Theresa May, amid racism claims. But following a rise in the number of attacks, there have been greater calls for officers to increase their use. Javid said today that he is trialling a scheme to give police officers greater ability to use the powers at their own discretion. He said: 'Stop and search saves lives. There are people that are alive today because of stop and search. I cannot say this clearly enough.' The scene of London's latest stabbing, in Bounds Green in the north of the capital last week He added that knife crime should be treated like the outbreak of a 'virulent disease', and the 'mindset of Government needs to shift' to combat the scourge. The Government and police have come under intense pressure over violent crime following a spate of fatal stabbings in London and Birmingham. Mr Javid paid tribute to his wife, Laura, and his family for helping him make a success of his life There were 285 homicides where the method of killing was by a knife or sharp instrument in England and Wales in 2017/18 - the highest number since records started in 1946. In the year to September, police recorded around 1.5 million 'violence against the person' offences - a jump of nearly a fifth on the previous 12 months. Polling data released last week suggested that public concern about crime is at its highest since the riots of 2011. Ministers have announced a 100 million cash injection for police to tackle knife crime and relaxed rules on the use of enhanced stop and search powers in badly-hit areas. Mr Javid and Prime Minister Theresa May have also unveiled a new 'public health' approach to violent crime. Under the plans, state bodies could be made subject to a legal duty requiring them to have 'due regard' to the prevention and tackling of serious violence. The proposals drew criticism from leaders in a number of the professions that would be affected. Mr Javid used his speech today to try to reassure health workers and teachers, saying the approach is about giving them the confidence to report their concerns, 'safe in the knowledge that everyone will close ranks to protect that child'. Barnardo's chief executive Javed Khan said: 'Serious youth violence has now become a crisis - there's no other way of talking about it. 'To tackle this growing scourge, we must address the 'poverty of hope' felt by too many children and young people across the country, who see little or no chance of a positive future. 'Caught in a vicious cycle, they carry knives because they don't feel safe.' The EU has adopted copyright reforms championed by the media despite opposition from Google and campaigners saying it restricts internet freedom. The reform, which got final approval from the European Council on Monday, was loudly backed by news publishers and artists who want protection over their content being shared. It now forces Google to pay publishers for news and Facebook to filter out protected content. The EU has adopted copyright reforms championed by the media despite opposition from Google and campaigners saying it restricts internet freedom (stock image) But it was strongly opposed by internet freedom activists and Silicon Valley, especially Google, which makes huge profits from the advertising generated alongside the content it hosts. Critics also say will stifle freedom of speech and online creativity and punish smaller web companies. Nineteen countries endorsed the revamp which hasn't been updated in almost two decades - before the birth of YouTube or Facebook. EU countries adopted the reforms that were agreed last month by the European Parliament, they said in a statement. Critics also say will stifle freedom of speech and online creativity and punish smaller web companies (stock image) 'The new rules ensure adequate protection for authors and artists, while opening up new possibilities for accessing and sharing copyright-protected content online throughout the European Union,' they said. An EU source said Italy, Finland, Sweden, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Poland voted against the controversial legislation. What are the key issues to the revamped copyright reform? WHAT DOES THE DIRECTIVE SAY? The most vigorously debated part of the legislation is a section that makes companies responsible for making sure that copyrighted material isn't uploaded to their platforms without permission from the original creator. It puts the legal onus on platforms to prevent copyright infringement but critics say it will end up having a chilling effect on freedom of expression on the internet and could result in censorship. Another section of the bill that caused concern requires search engines and social media sites to pay for linking to or offering up snippets of news articles. HOW WILL IT AFFECT INTERNET PLATFORMS? Some sites would be forced to license music or videos. If not, sites would have to make sure they don't have unauthorized copyrighted material. Critics worry that could lead to costly automatic filtering. And paying for links could create further costs. That could give tech giants an edge over smaller companies. Google said last year it spent more than $100 million on Content ID, its copyright management system for approved users on YouTube, where more than 400 hours of content is uploaded every minute. The figure includes both staffing and computing resources. HOW WILL IT SHAPE INTERNET CONTENT? Critics say it could act as censorship and change internet culture. They say the automatic filters are blunt instruments, deleting some material that should be allowed online. YouTube has warned of unintended consequences, saying that in cases where copyright is uncertain, it would have to block videos to avoid liability. Some consumers worry that the new rules would bring an end to parodies and viral internet 'memes' that have powered online culture and are often based on or inspired by existing songs or movies or other content. The EU denies this. 'Despite recent improvements, the EU Directive falls short of creating a balanced and modern framework for copyright,' Maud Sacquet, senior policy manager at the Computer & Communications Industry Association, a lobby group. 'We fear it will harm online innovation and restrict online freedoms in Europe.' WILL IT HELP CONTENT CREATORS? It depends on whom you ask. The music industry and other groups that collect royalties say the directive will help give writers, artists and creators more protection of their rights and incomes, by requiring tech giants such as Apple, Facebook and Google to pay them more for their work. Some authors and artists fear they won't earn significantly more money but their creativity will be stifled. Google estimates it has paid out more than $3 billion to rights holders through its Content ID system, which was created in 2007. HOW HAVE PEOPLE REACTED? Some high profile artists have spoken out in favor. Former Beatles member Paul McCartney wrote an open letter to EU lawmakers encouraging them to adopt the new rules. But many appear worried it will change the internet as we know it. More than 5.2 million people signed an online petition against the directive. Internet luminaries such as Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, and Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales have spoken out against it. So has the former frontman for the band Fugees, Wyclef Jean, who has said he is better off financially because fans can freely share his music on internet platforms. Last month, tens of thousands of people marched in cities across Germany to protest against the directive. Wikipedia's German-language page was temporarily blacked out in protest and visitors were greeted with a statement from online encyclopedia authors urging them to ask their EU lawmakers to stop the bill. Poland's leader has said his country will not implement the directive, arguing it threatens freedom of speech. WHAT'S NEXT? The EU's member countries have two years to comply with the directive by drafting their own national laws. Six countries - Italy, Sweden, Poland, Finland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg - voted against it, so implementation is likely to be uneven, setting the stage for legal challenges. Donald Trump has claimed he would be able to fix the troubled Boeing 737 Max and rebrand it after the double air tragedies that killed 346 people. The president said he would get engineers to resolve the software problems with the jet and add some additional features, then rebrand it in order to help the crisis-hit manufacturer. Trump took to Twitter this morning to offer his advice to Boeing on how to revive the ailing 737 Max brand. He said in a tweet: 'What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!), but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name. No product has suffered like this one. But again, what the hell do I know?' Sensors on the aircraft have been blamed for confusing pilots and causing two crashes in the space of six moths and the model has been grounded around the world. The FAA grounded the plane since March 13 in the wake of the double air disasters. President Donald Trump tweeted his ideas for helping Boeing rebrand the troubled 737 Max plane in the early hours of this morning Trump tweeted his advice this morning to Boeing on how to revive the 737 Max brand after two crashes claimed the lives of 346 people All 157 passengers on board the Ethiopia Airlines flight died last month when the Boeing 737 Max crashed minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa en route to Nairobi. A total of 21 United Nations staffers and 12 aid workers were killed in the tragedy. A similar crash involving the same Boeing Lion Air model crashed into the Java Sea off Indonesia last October, killing all 189 on board. Airlines and countries around the world grounded the Boeing 737 Max jets or banned them from their airspace following the Ethiopian and Indonesian crashes. Donald Trump, who owned the Trump Shuttle airline from 1989 to 1992 and is an aviation enthusiast, weighed in with his own advice. Trump said this morning that fixing the jet and adding 'some additional great features' would help relaunch the model, before adding 'what do I know?' at the end. He also linked his knowledge of branding to his accession as president. Boeing has slowed production of the 737 Max model and stopped deliveries as the company works on a software fix The doomed Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max that crashed and killed 157 people last month reportedly had its angle-of-attack sensor damaged on takeoff from a foreign object or bird It is not the first time Trump has weighed in on the Ethiopian crash. Two days after the plane went down, he tweeted that these days jetliners are 'becoming far too complex to fly'. He added: 'Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT. I see it all the time in many products. Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better.' His daughter and adviser, Ivanka Trump, today honored the victims of the Ethiopian Airlines crash by attending a special ceremony and laying a wreath in the country's capital Addis Ababa during her tour of Africa. The Ethiopia Airlines jet reportedly had its angle-of-attack sensor damaged on takeoff from a foreign object or bird, experts said last week. The damaged sensor went on to trigger inaccurate data and resulted in the pilots turning the anti-stall software - known as MCAS - off, but it re-engaged and pushed the jet downwards. The pilots are said to have tried to manually bring the nose of the plane back up before restoring power but they were unable to regain control - ultimately resulting in the plane crashing to the ground. Boeing vowed to fix the software problems detected in its 737 Max flight control system with a new patch following the two deadly crashes that led to the worldwide grounding of the manufacturer's flagship model. A preliminary accident report into last month's fatal crash in Ethiopia found that faulty sensor readings and multiple automatic commands to push down the nose of the Boeing plane contributed to the crash, leaving the crew struggling to regain control. The plane's grounding has also threatened the U.S. summer travel season, with some airlines removing the 737 from their schedules through August and canceling a number of scheduled flights. The Federal Aviation Administration has been meeting with representatives from American Airlines Group Inc, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines Co over the next steps after more than 300 Boeing 737 MAXs were grounded worldwide. FAA officials have also convened a joint review with aviation regulators from other countries, while federal prosecutors, the U.S. Department of Transportation inspector general's office and a blue-ribbon panel are reviewing the plane's certification. A three-year-old girl in south-east China has survived after she was impaled with a 10-inch chopstick through her mouth in a freak accident. The youngster, named only as Fang Fang, had been running around with a pair of chopsticks in her hand during dinner when she tripped and fell at home in Pingxiang, Jiangxi province. One of the chopsticks was lodged into her skull so deep that doctors could feel it protruding at the back of her head under her skin, according to Chinese reports. The three-year-old girl, named only as Fang Fang, was running around with a pair of chopsticks in her hand during dinner when she tripped and fell at home in Pingxiang, Jiangxi province The child was transferred to a larger hospital in Changsha, capital of Hunan province, about two hours away on April 12 for treatment. Shocking x-ray images show the chopstick almost puncturing the back of the girl's head, with nearly four inches of the wooden stick embedded into her skull. Associate Professor Huang Donghai at the Xiangya Hospital Of Central South University told Changsha Evening News that there was no obvious bleeding from the wound, but the end of the chopstick could be felt on the back of her head. Shocking x-ray images show the chopstick almost puncturing the back of the girl's head, with nearly four inches of the wooden stick embedded into her skull Associate Professor Huang Donghai at the Xiangya Hospital Of Central South University said there was no obvious bleeding from the wound, but the end of the chopstick could be felt on the back of the girl's head He added that fortunately, the girl has avoided damage to her brainstem, major arteries or cervical vertebrae from the accident. 'The chopstick avoided all of her important organs and pierced only her soft tissue,' Dr Huang said, calling the girl 'incredibly lucky'. Any sudden movements from the child would have caused the chopstick to shift, worsening her injuries. A team of surgeons were able to carefully remove the chopstick in an operation about eight hours after she sustained the shocking injury. Fang Fang is in stable condition and expected to make a full recovery, the report added. Dr Huang also warned that parents should always keep an eye on their children and not let them play with sharp objects, especially when they're eating. Stunning video shows the moment lightening strikes Manhattan's One World Trade Center as powerful storms battered the Northeast overnight. Photographer Max Guiliani captured footage of a vivid lightening bolt flashing across the sky as it made contact with the tallest building in New York City on Sunday evening. Tens of thousands of homes were left without power after the storms roared through the mid-Atlantic region into early Monday morning. The weather caused the roof to collapse at an apartment complex in Camden, New Jersey, where no one was injured but 27 residents were forced to evacuate their homes. Stunning video shows the moment lightening strikes Manhattan's One World Trade Center as powerful storms battered New York and New Jersey on Sunday night and into Monday morning The weather caused the roof to collapse at an apartment complex in Camden, New Jersey No one was injured but 27 residents were forced to evacuate their homes, including Angel Berros, who snapped the photo above of storm damage inside his apartment The storms were part of a powerful system that unleashed heavy rains, lightning and strong winds through the South over the weekend. The system carved a path toward the Northeast through the Ohio Valley, where a suspected tornado damaged a handful of homes and sent at least six people to the hospital. The Times Gazette reported several homes and businesses were damaged after an apparent tornado struck Shelby, Ohio, at around 4pm on Sunday. Later that night the National Weather Service issued tornado watch warnings for parts of Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Weather conditions in the Northeast are expected to mellow out through the middle of the week before more rain moves in by the weekend. In the Midwest, rain and thunderstorms are expected midweek, threatening to trigger flooding in areas still reeling from floods last month. A motor home is seen stranded in floodwaters in Dushore, Pennsylvania, on Monday morning Strong winds caused trees and power lines to topple in Thompson, Pennsylvania Weather conditions in the Northeast are expected to mellow out through the middle of the week while more rain and thunderstorms falls over the Midwest Another round of wet weather will roll across the Eastern seaboard into the weekend Weekend storms have been blamed for the deaths of at least eight people across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, where flash flooding and more than a dozen tornadoes were reported on Saturday. Jace, three, and Dilynn Creel, eight, were crushed to death in the back of their family's car when a tornado toppled a tree in Lufkin, Texas. A GoFundMe campaign set up for the boys' heartbroken parents, Brittney and Edward Creel, who were in the front seat but made it out physically unharmed, has raised more than it's $20,000 goal on Sunday. Sebastian Omar Martinez, 13, reportedly drowned when a severe storm system tearing across the South on Saturday caused flash flooding in Bawcomville, Louisiana About 40 miles away at the Caddo Mound State Historical Site, one woman was killed when a tornado tore through a Native American cultural festival. In neighboring Houston County, the sheriff's office confirmed one person was killed in Weches, some six miles southwest of Caddo Mound. In Louisiana, 13-year-old Sebastian Omar Martinez drowned in a drainage area as flash floods took over Bawcomville near Monroe on Saturday. Several hours later, a person died in a submerged vehicle near Interstate 20 in Calhoun. A county employee in Alabama died after being struck by a vehicle while he was helping clear away trees toppled by the storm on Sunday afternoon in the Birmingham suburb of Hueytown. His name has not been released. Roy Ratliff, 95, was killed late Saturday in Monroe County, Mississippi, as a tornado tore through Hamilton, about 45 miles northeast of Mississippi State University. Three-year-old Jace (left) and eight-year-old Dilynn Creel (right) were killed in a tornado on Saturday in Lufkin, Texas. The brothers were crushed to death in the back of their car when a tree toppled, according to the Angelina County Sheriff's Office A car is seen stranded in a ditch in Lufkin, Texas, after a tornado tore through on Saturday Ramsey Barreto was prosecuted for filming while driving but his case could be overturned after his lawyers pointed out an apparent loophole in the law A driver prosecuted for filming the aftermath of a road crash while behind the wheel could be let off in a potentially landmark legal case. Builder Ramsey Barreto was convicted of driving while using a hand-held phone by Willesden Magistrates last summer after police spotted him filming while driving past a crash in Ruislip, north London. But his conviction was overturned when his legal team insisted the current laws only ban people speaking or texting on phones while driving, not filming. The case has now been brought before the High Court, with lawyers saying it could expose a loophole in phone use while driving cases. Mr Barreto was stopped by police in Field End Road, Ruislip on August 19 2017, with police saying he filmed for between 10 and 15 seconds, the High Court heard. He denied the police officer's claims, insisting his passenger was filming, but both magistrates and then a crown court judge rejected his claims. But despite rejecting his pleas of innocence, appeal judge Simon Davis still quashed Mr Barreto's conviction because his use of the phone did not involve 'interactive communication', the High Court heard. Mr Barreto was stopped by police who said he filmed the aftermath of a crash on this street Mr Barreto had been charged under road safety regulations dating back to 1986, which were revised in December 2003 to take account of the mobile phone hazard. The 2003 rules bar drivers from using hand-held phones, but Mr Barreto's lawyers claim the restriction is aimed only at 'performing an interactive communication function'. That would prevent all talking, texting and internet usage - but not using a phone as a camera, argued Mr Barreto's barrister, Jyoti Wood. In the High Court, prosecution lawyer Louis Mably QC attacked the crown court ruling, claiming it was illogical. 'The purpose of the regulation is to guard against unsafe driving caused by drivers holding their phones and using them, thereby distracting themselves from proper concentration and control of their vehicles,' said the barrister. 'There is no rational distinction to be drawn between a mobile telephone used by a driver to perform an interactive communication function on the one hand, and use by a driver for a different equally distracting purpose on the other,' he added. What is the law on driving while using a mobile phone? Using a hand-held mobile phone while driving is illegal. Laws were first enacted in December 2003. Since 2017, the penalty has been six points on your licence and a 200 fine. Driver are allowed to use a phone if it is fully hands-free, but not allowed to pick it up. The law still applies when your vehicle is stopped at lights or in a traffic queue. The current case centres on whether using a phone to film, rather than communicate with someone, should be treated as driving without due care and attention rather than driving while using a hand-held phone. Source: RAC Advertisement But Miss Wood, for Mr Barreto, said the rules in question never referred to using mobiles as a camera. If using a camera while driving was an offence it should be covered by a charge of driving without due care and attention, she also argued. Top judge Lady Justice Thirlwall will now give judgment on the case at a later date. Outside court afterwards, Mr Barreto's solicitor, Dominic Smith, said he hoped the High Court would clarify the law as it stands. 'If the DPP wins, it means any use of a handheld mobile phone while driving is prohibited - whether that's using it to scratch your head or even swat a fly,' he said. 'If we're correct, it means you cannot use a phone to communicate, send texts, answer calls or access the Internet. 'But if you use it for any other purpose, you cannot be prosecuted for this offence, although you may be committing another offence such as driving without due care and attention. 'We are finding complete inconsistency with police forces up and down the country; some police forces will say that any use of a mobile phone while driving is prohibited, while others take a more pragmatic approach.' A man fleeing a traffic stop allegedly left his one-year-old daughter to die on the backseat of a burning car, according to South Carolina police. Imhotep Norman, 26, was arrested on Friday and charged with homicide by child abuse after the body of toddler Xena Rah'Lah Norman was found inside the vehicle. The South Carolina State Highway Patrol claimed that troopers stopped him for speeding on Interstate 85. Captain Kelley Hughes said the pursuing troopers noticed Norman's car was smoking and sparking. Imhotep Norman (left), 26, was charged with homicide by child abuse after the body of his one-year-old daughter, Xena Norman (right), was found in his burning car after he fled South Carolina police on Friday The State Highway Patrol claim troopers tried to stop Norman for speeding down Interstate 85 on Friday. Police said the suspect's car burst into flames and he fled on foot while it rolled to a stop. Investigators then found Xena's body on the back seat of the car (pictured) Authorities said a bag was thrown from the moving car and later recovered. The bag tested positive for illegal drugs. Police said Norman's car burst into flames and he fled on foot while it rolled to a stop. Investigators then found Xena's body on the rear seats. Norman was later arrested. Following the little girl's death, her mother, Thaisha Young, started a GoFundMe page seeking donations for funeral expenses. 'I am going through a rough time, I have lost the love of my life MY BABY, MY HEART, MY FIRST CHILD AND ONLY. 'This situation I am facing has affected my ENTIRE LIFE!' Young wrote on the account. Norman (right) is being held at the Spartanburg County Detention Center. He appeared before a Spartanburg County judge on Saturday, where his bond was denied Norman (pictured) told the judge on Saturday: 'I just know that the car wasnt on fire when I got out the car. I would have stayed in that car with my daughter' During the bond hearing, Norman's mother (pictured) spoke on his behalf. 'He loved her so much,' she said through tears As of Monday morning, the account had raised more than $4,000 toward its $5,000 goal. Norman is being held at the Spartanburg County Detention Center. He appeared before a Spartanburg County judge on Saturday, where his bond was denied. According to Fox Carolina, Norman told the judge: 'I just know that the car wasnt on fire when I got out the car. I would have stayed in that car with my daughter. 'I would have never got out the car while the car was on fire. I seen sparks coming from under the tires when I tried to stop and I couldnt stop at that point. I dont know why what happened to the car were I couldnt stop.' During the bond hearing, Norman's mother spoke on his behalf. 'He loved her so much,' his mother said through tears. An autopsy to determine Xena's exact cause of death will be performed. The parents of a college student who was stabbed to death, allegedly by a man who claimed he was her Uber driver, have spoken out to call for technology that will make ride-sharing safer. Samantha Josephson, 21, died in South Carolina last month after getting into Nathaniel David Rowland's car. Police say he posed as her Uber driver then enabled child lock once she was in the vehicle to kill her. His family say he is innocent and that he was passed out at a party when it happened. They claim someone stole his car and that they are responsible for the young woman's killing. On Monday, Samantha's parents Seymour and Marci appeared on Good Morning America to pay tribute to her and to advance their campaign to make ride-sharing safer. They are calling for a change in the law which requires all ride-sharing drivers to display a sing in their window, have front license plates and to have QR codes in both of their backseat windows for passengers to scan before they get inside. Scroll down for video Samantha Josephson, 21, was stabbed to death last month after getting in a car she thought was her Uber Marci and Seymour Josephson appeared on Good Morning America on Monday to pay tribute to their daughter Samantha and call for tougher laws on ride-sharing safety An @ABC News Exclusive: @GStephanopoulos speaks with the parents of the late University of South Carolina student Samantha Josephson who was killed after getting into a car she mistakenly thought was an Uber. https://t.co/3fwvXf7EvS pic.twitter.com/VA6QQYwMbA Good Morning America (@GMA) April 15, 2019 'We grow up teaching our kids not to get in cars with strangers and what do we do? 'We get in cars with strangers,' Seymour said. Samantha was a student at the University of South Carolina. On March 29, she requested an Uber to take her home from a night out with friends at around 3am. She was shown on surveillance camera footage getting into Rowland's black Chevy Impala then was not heard from again. The couple is calling for ride-sharing app to install QR codes on the hind windows of their cars for riders to check that they are getting into the right vehicle The young woman's body was found nearby by turkey hunters the next day and Rowland was arrested. Police found Samantha's cell phone in the back seat of his car along with her blood. Authorities say he put the child lock on in the car to stop her from escaping. On Monday, her father said that if she had been able to scan a code to ensure it was her car before getting in, she may still be alive. 'Putting a QR code on both of the windows, like a bar code, it turns green , that's my ride, if it's not my rife, it turns red. The tech already exists,' he said. They are also calling for it to be mandated for all ride-sharing drivers to display a sign in their window identifying themselves as drivers. Another change they want to see is that it should be illegal for ride-sharing drivers to not have front license plates. 'When the car's pulling up, you can't see the front license plate. If you're going to be in the ride sharing industry, you should have a front license,' Seymour said. Police say Samantha got in Nathaniel David Rowland's car, thinking he was her driver. He is in custody on murder and kidnapping charges but is yet to enter a plea Surveillance images released by police show Josephson wearing an orange shirt and black pants and talking on the phone seconds before she disappeared Samantha is shown getting into Rowland's Chevy Impala. Police say he enabled child lock to stop her from getting out afterwards Samantha's mother added that passenger should ask their drivers to tell them their name before setting off. 'You have to ask, "What's my name?" It has to be automatic, like putting on a seatbelt,' she said. The devastated parents will travel back to The University of South Carolina to attend their daughter's posthumous graduation, they said. 'It will be the hardest thing for us to go but we need to go because she wanted us there. I had reviewed some of our old text messages and she said something about us not being able to attend and that it'd be OK and I said we wouldn't miss it for the world,' Marci said. Rowland, 24, is in custody on kidnapping and murder charges. He has not yet entered a plea and will return to court on April 22. His parents say he is innocent and that someone else killed the young woman. Samantha's parents previously pleaded with a judge to keep him locked up for life, saying: 'It sickens us to think that his face was the last thing that my baby girl saw on this Earth. Does he even know her name?' President Donald Trump on Monday revived his accusation that the Obama Administration 'spied' on his campaign this time employing a slogan he used days ago to attack Rep. Ilhan Omar using charged footage of the Sept. 11th attacks. 'THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN (We will never forget)!' Trump Tweeted Monday morning before heading out to Ilhan's home state of Minnesota for a tax event. Trump's tweet followed his call hours earlier for an investigation of the investigators as Washington awaited the release of Robert Mueller's report and braces for a look at its findings. He relied on the same slogan he had referenced days ago when going after Omar. President Donald Trump called for an investigation of the investigators ahead of the release of Robert Mueller's report On Friday afternoon, Trump tweeted a video of a plane crashing into one of the Twin Towers on Sept. 11th, as he blasted Omar for her comment that 'some people did something.' Critics called the lawmaker's language dismissive, although Omar said her words were taken out of context. 'WE WILL NEVER FORGET!' Trump wrote, in a tweet that Democratic critics immediately blasted for stoking emotions and potentially endangering the first-term Muslim congresswoman. Trump tweeted out the spying accusation Monday, adding: 'We will never forget' REMEMBER THIS? Trump used similar language on Friday while attacking Rep. Ilhan Omar. He retweeted a video that showed a plane striking one of the Twin Towers. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she had sought additional security precautions for Omar, one of two Muslim women serving in Congress 'This is endangering lives,' said Omar in response to Friday's tweet, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she took additional measures to ensure Omar's safety. Trump's Monday missives, by using the identical language from last week, linked the two events. Trump considers the Russia probe to be 'illegal' and a 'witch hunt,' and has called it an attack on the country that he has compared to a coup. Surveillance warrants at the start of the investigation were approved by judges who hear special foreign intelligence cases, although Trump's defenders have argued that the process was corrupted by the use of the golden showers dossier. President Trump said it was time to 'INVESTIGATE THE INVESTIGATORS' as Washington prepared for the release of the Mueller report Omar also spoke of a recent Fox News segment in which host Brian Kilmeade questioned if she was 'an American first', saying she expected her colleagues to come out in her defense U.S. President Donald Trump walks to board Air Force One before departing Washington on travel to Minnesota from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., April 15, 2019 In an early morning tweet, the president claimed Mueller and Attorney General William Barr, based on the special counsel's findings, 'ruled No Collusion, No Obstruction' for him and his 2016 campaign team. He then pivoted to claim crimes were committed by Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and 'dirty cops' - a likely reference to the FBI based on his past criticism - and called for an investigation. 'Mueller, and the A.G. based on Mueller findings (and great intelligence), have already ruled No Collusion, No Obstruction. These were crimes committed by Crooked Hillary, the DNC, Dirty Cops and others! INVESTIGATE THE INVESTIGATORS!,' he tweeted. His public spin comes the week Mueller's report is expected to be given to members of Congress and released to the public any day now. The 400-page report will have some redactions for on-going investigations but is expected to lay out Mueller's findings in its probe of Russia's role in the 2016 election. Democrats have demanded the full report after Barr, in a letter to Congress, said Mueller left it up to the attorney general to determine whether the president obstructed justice in the investigation. Barr wrote he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein determined there was no cause for obstruction. 'The Mueller report is about an attack on our elections by a foreign government. And we want to know about that. We wanna know about that in terms of being able to prevent it from happening again. So it's bigger even than Donald Trump,' Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CBS' '60 Minutes' in an interview that aired Sunday night. She wouldn't say if she thinks Barr is covering up for Trump. 'I have no idea. I have no idea. He may be whitewashing, but I don't know if he's covering anything up. There's no use having that discussion. All we need to do is see the Mueller report,' she said. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said on Sunday she doesn't think the full report will be damaging to President Trump. 'I don't think it's going to be damaging to the president because the entire purpose of the investigation was whether or not there was collusion. Mueller was crystal clear in the fact that there was no collusion,' she said on 'Fox News Sunday. She argued that if Mueller could not determine obstruction that meant there wasn't any. 'They couldn't find anything. They couldnt make a determination which is basically Muellers way legally of saying we can't find anything. We're going to leave that up to the process which is the attorney general. He has made a decision, and so, we consider this to be case closed. That there was no collusion, there was no obstruction which I don't know how you can interpret that any other way than total exoneration,' Sanders said. Trump has long claimed to be the victim of a 'witch hunt' and railed against former FBI director James Comey and former agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. The two agents, who were having an affair, were working on the counter intelligence investigation of Trump's campaign during the 2016 election and their texts revealed their belief Trump should not win the presidency. House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have demanded the full Mueller report White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said she doesn't think the full report will be damaging to President Trump Attorney General William Barr testified last week he should be in a position to release the redacted Mueller report 'within a week' Trump has repeatedly railed against the probe of Clinton's private email server, which then-FBI director Comey said was 'extremely careless' but did not recommend filing charges. The president's tweet on Monday also reflects comments his attorney general made late week when he testified before Congress. Barr told lawmakers last Tuesday he was 'reviewing' the conduct of the FBI at the start of the Russia probe and he revealed he will make public a redacted version of the Mueller report within a week. 'I am reviewing the conduct of the investigation and trying to get my arms around all the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted during the summer of 2016,' Barr said at a subcommittee hearing. Republicans on Capitol Hill have taken up the president's call to investigate those who pursued the Russia investigation over the last 19 months. Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsay Graham is conducting his own investigation of the origins of the probe, while also probing the FBI's 2016 Clinton email investigation. Jeremy Corbyn provoked fury today as he said Shamima Begum should be allowed to apply for legal aid to challenge moves to strip her of UK citizenship today. The Labour leader insisted the Jihadi bride 'is a British national' despite action by the Home Secretary to bar her from the United Kingdom. Mr Corbyn said Sajid Javid's move to strip her of British citzenship was 'very questionable'. Jeremy Corbyn (pictured in Halifax today) said Shamima Begum should be allowed to apply for legal aid to challenge moves to strip her of UK citizenship But Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said it would come as 'no surprise' Mr Corbyn was in favour, accusing the Labour leader of 'consistently supporting terrorist sympathisers'. Mr Javid's action came after she was found in a Syrian refugee camp and said she wanted to come home. He admitted today he could not interfere with her application for legal aid, which is based on an applicant's entitlement to help in the courts. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said today he would be 'very uncomfortable' if Shamima Begum successfully wins legal aid to fight the decision to strip her of UK citizenship Speaking on a visit to Halifax today, Mr Corbyn said: 'She is a British national and, therefore, she has that right, like any of us do, to apply for legal aid if she has a problem. She has legal rights, just like anybody else does. 'The whole point of legal aid is that if you're facing a prosecution then you're entitled to be represented and that's a fundamental rule of law, a fundamental point in any democratic society. 'We cannot and should not judge outside of a court. 'A court must make that decision and every person in front of a court, whatever they're accused of doing, how heinous or bad the crime is, is entitled to that representation.' Mr Bridgen told MailOnline: 'It will come as no surprise that Jeremy Corbyn is supporting someone who was stitching suicide vests onto bombers a few months ago. 'People would not expect anything different from Jeremy Corbyn who has consistently supported terrorists and terrorist sympathisers, particularly if they are acting against our country.' Tory MP David TC Davies highlighted reports at the week suggesting Begum played an active part in Islamic States operations, sewing suicide bombers into explosive vests. Given that evidence we need to do everything possible to ensure she does not come back into the UK, the Monmouth MP told MailOnline. Its staggering that we are now picking up legal bills for a bunch of lawyers who are going to work to get her back. Jeremy Corbyn needs to work out whose side he is on. Is he on the side of the British people, or people who worked to carry out acts mayhem within our borders? Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: 'On a personal level, it makes me very uncomfortable because she made a series of choices and she knew the choices she was making, so I think we made decisions about her future based on those choices. 'However, we are a country that believes that people with limited means should have access to the resources of the state if they want to challenge the decisions the state has made about them and, for obvious reasons, those decisions are made independent from politicians.' Mr Hunt added: 'The decision to deprive her of her citizenship was taken by a politician. 'Obviously the decision about whether she accesses legal aid or not has to be done independently.' Dal Babu, a former chief superintendent in the Metropolitan Police, is a friend of the family. He told Today that Ms Begum should have legal aid to make sure the correct process is followed. Mr Hunt (pictured today in Tokyo) said the Jihadi bride 'knew the choices she was making' when she flew from London to Syria aged 15 Mr Babu said: 'Isis is a murderous organisation. They are a horrendous organisation and I don't think anyone in their right mind would be joining that organisation. 'She was a young woman. She was 15 when she was groomed. The police were aware of this, the counter-terrorism police were aware of this, the school she was at was aware of this, and the social workers at Tower Hamlets Council were aware of this. 'There has been no serious case review. Normally, when a young person dies as a result of failures in safeguarding, there is a serious case review.' Mr Babu said that, in order for a proper review to take place, Ms Begum needed to get legal aid. 'I think legal aid is a principle of the British legal justice system. There will be people who can afford to have swanky lawyers, there will be people who have no money who are in desperate situations.' A Legal Aid Agency spokesman said: 'We are unable to comment on individual cases. 'Anybody applying for legal aid in a Special Immigration Appeal Commission case is subject to strict eligibility tests.' Home Secretary Sajid Javid (pictured today in London) stripped Begum of her citizenship after she was found in a Syrian refugee camp and said she wanted to come home Mark Tipper, whose brother Trooper Simon Tipper was killed in the 1982 Hyde Park bombing, is among critics who have condemned the move as 'absolutely disgusting', according to the Daily Mail. He was refused funding to pursue a case in the civil courts, although the decision was later reversed following public outrage. Corey Stoughton, advocacy director at Liberty human rights group, described the granting of legal aid in this case as 'not just appropriate but absolutely necessary to ensure that the Government's decisions are properly scrutinised'. She said: 'Stripping someone of their citizenship is among the most severe punishments a government can exercise, and the evidence that this decision will render Shamima Begum effectively stateless presents a powerful argument for subjecting this case to rigorous scrutiny in court. 'This case could have widespread repercussions for thousands of people, and more broadly for how the Government uses dramatic powers to take away fundamental rights.' By Brian Gallagher for Dailymail.com The Season 7 finale set the stage for an epic battle, as The Night King (with the help of the resurrected dragon Viserion) destroyed The Wall at Eastwatch, entering Westeros for the first time. While the Season 8 premiere did not show The Night King and his army advancing further into Westeros, Jon Snow (Kit Harington) finally learned the truth about who he really is - the true heir to the Iron Throne, while his new queen, Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) set foot in Winterfell for the first time. Aside from the reveal of Jon Snow's true heritage, one of the other memorable moments was Snow continuing his romance with Daenerys Targaryen, as they took time near a waterfall to start kissing. However, as they start kissing, the dragons react, but Daenerys tells him not to be afraid. Still, he keeps eyeing the dragon. The epic return: Game of Thrones returned on Sunday night with fans tuning in from around the globe to watch the explosive premiere of season eight The truth: Jon Snow (Kit Harington) finally learned the truth about who he really is - the true heir to the Iron Throne, while his new queen Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) set foot in Winterfell for the first time Jon the future king: Jon Snow braces for the truth on the Season 8 premiere of Game of Thrones If Dany and Jon's relationship is to move forward, it's clear that Jon needs to somehow find a way to get on the good side of her remaining two dragons. The Season 8 premiere kicked off with a recap of Season 7, which ended with The Night King destroying the wall at Eastwatch and the White Walker army setting foot in Westeros. The opening scene showed a young boy running through the snowy landscape in Winterfell, rushing past a number of people before he gets to a crowd, as we see Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) as part of the crowd. Kiss: Jon's romance with Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) also took center stage during the premiere episode, with the pair sharing a passionate embrace by a waterfall Scared of the dragon: However, as they kiss the dragons take umbrage. Daenerys tells Jon not to be afraid, but he keeps a close eye on them Watchful dragon: If Dany and Jon's relationship is to move forward, it's clear that Jon needs to somehow find a way to get on the good side of her remaining two dragons Dany's dragons: While the Night King has one dragon, Daenerys still has two more - Drogon and Rhaegal The young boy rushes to climb up a tree to see the commotion, scaling high enough for him to see the massive army of Unsullied soldiers entering Westeros, lead by Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow, as Arya sees her adopted brother for the first time in several years. Part of this convoy is The Hound (Rory McCann) and Gendry (Joe Dempsie), as we see inside one of the wagons where Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) tells a joke to the eunuch Varys (Conleth Hill) about having no balls. Jon Snow tells Daenerys that Northerners don't trust outsiders, as the Winterfell townsfolk react in shock to the dragons flying overhead, including Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner). Dragons in Winterfell: Jon tells Daenerys that Northerners don't trust outsiders, as the Winterfell townsfolk react in shock to the dragons flying overhead, including Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) Jon snow reunites with Bran, stating, 'Look at you. Youre a man,' to which Bran replies, 'Almost.' Jon hugs Sansa, who replies that his sister Arya is 'lurking somewhere.' Jon introduces Dany to Sansa, as Dany says, 'The north is as beautiful as your brother claimed, as are you,' but Bran interjects with, 'We dont have time for this.' Young Ned Umber (Harry Grasby), the Lord of House Umber, says they need more horses and wagons, with Sansa telling him theyll have as many as they can spare, tells him to send his people here to Winterfell. Dany and Jon: Jon Snow tells Daenerys that Northerners don't trust outsiders, as the Winterfell townsfolk react in shock to the dragons flying overhead, including Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) Young Lyanna Stark (Aisling Franciosi) isn't too thrilled Jon has returned with the Dragon queen. 'You left a king and you came back, I dont know what you are,' but Jon interjects, 'Its not important.' Lyanna adds, 'It is important. We named you king in the north,' but Tyrion interjects with a statement that isn't too popular with the Northerners. 'We have brought two full grown dragons and soon the Lannister army will join our cause but we must fight together now or die,' the half-man says. Dany introduction: Jon introduces Dany to Sansa, as Dany says, 'He north is as beautiful as your brother claimed, as are you' Sansa has more logistical concerns, asking how they plan to feed everyone, and asking what dragons eat, with Daenerys answering, 'Whatever they want.' Gendry is seen passing out dragon glass, as Tyrion reunites with Sansa, since the last time they spoke was at the Purple Wedding way back in Season 4, where King Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) was poisoned to death. 'We both survived,' Sansa said, with Tyrion adding that he underestimated her. Tyrion tells Sansa that she has every right to be worried about her sister and Sansa doesn't believe that she will help them in their war, with Sansa adding, 'I used to think you were the cleverest man alive.' Reunited: Jon and Arya reunite, Arya asks how he survived a knife through the heart, he says he didn't, without mentioning the fact that he was resurrected by Mellisandre (Carice Van Houten) While the Night King has one dragon, Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) still has two more - Drogon and Rhaegal - which she'll take into battle against The Night King, alongside Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and his new weapons forged from Dragonglass, the one substance that can kill White Walkers. Jon and Arya reunite, Arya asks how he survived a knife through the heart, he says he didn't, though he doesn't mention that he was resurrected by the red priestess Melissandre (Carice Van Houten). Jon mentions she still has her sword, needle, which she says she's used, 'once or twice.' Jon asks where she was before that he could use her help with Sansa, Arya says Sansa is defending her family, and he says he's her family to, with Arya adding, 'Don't forget that.' Back at the Red Keep, Qyburn (Anton Lesser) tells Cersei some 'terrible news' that the dead have broken through the wall, which Cersei replies with, 'Good,' as the Golden Army's ships are seen coming into the harbor. On one of the ships, Yara (Gemma Whelan) is tied up to a ship, asking Euron (Pilou Asbaek) why he doesn't kill her, but he responds that he'd have no one to talk to if he killed her. Yara says Euron picked the losing side, with Euron saying he'll just serve somewhere else, but first he wants to 'f**k the queen.' Cersei: Back at the Red Keep, Qyburn (Anton Lesser) tells Cersei some 'terrible news' that the dead have broken through the wall, which Cersei replies with, 'Good,' as the Golden Army's ships are seen coming into the harbor Throne room: As the Golden Company leader Harry Strickland (Marc Rissmann, right) leaves, Euron wants to bed Cersei, but she reminds him that their deal was that would happen after the war In the Throne Room, Cersei is disappointed to learn that the Golden Company did not bring any elephants, which they are known for, but he says they aren't good for long sea journeys like the one they took to King's Landing. As the Golden Company leader Harry Strickland (Marc Rissmann) leaves, Euron wants to bed Cersei, but she reminds him that their deal was that would happen after the war. When he persists, she says he's executed men for less, but he tells her they were lesser men, and while she turns to leave, she stops, allowing him to join her, as Euron gets his wish after all. Euron's wish: When he persists, she says he's executed men for less, but he tells her they were lesser men, and while she turns to leave, she stops, allowing him to join her, as Euron gets his wish after all Bronn: When he persists, she says he's executed men for less, but he tells her they were lesser men, and while she turns to leave, she stops, allowing him to join her, as Euron gets his wish after all He's got company: Bronn (Jerome Flynn) is with a trio of whores, telling them he was the only man to kill a dragon, when he's interrupted by Qyburn, who tells Bronn he's needed by the Queen Bronn's guests: Bronn has a foursome with three whores before he's interrupted by Qyburn Nude scene: Bronn entertains three nude ladies in the Season 8 premiere Getting comfortable: Bronn's fun doesn't last too long before he's rudely interrupted Bronn (Jerome Flynn) is with a trio of whores, telling them he was the only man to kill a dragon, when he's interrupted by Qyburn, who tells Bronn he's needed by the Queen. Qyburn says the Crown has wronged him and they want to right it, telling him there is a chest of gold in a wagon right outside. Qyburn says the Queen's brothers (Jaime and Tyrion) are unlikely to survive their adventures up north, but if they don't, she wants Bronn to kill them... with the same crossbow Tyrion killed their father Tywin (Charles Dance) with in the Season 4 finale. Since Bronn has a history with broth Jaime and Tyrion, it will be something to keep an eye on for the rest of the season, as fans will ultimately learn if Bronn will choose money over honor. Qyburn: Qyburn says the Crown has wronged him and they want to right it, telling him there is a chest of gold in a wagon right outside Crossbow: Qyburn says the Queen's brothers (Jaime and Tyrion) are unlikely to survive their adventures up north, but if they don't, she wants Bronn to kill them... with the same crossbow Tyrion killed their father Tywin (Charles Dance) with in the Season 4 finale Power couple: Euron asks Cersei how he stacks up to both the late King Robert Baratheon and her brother, with Cersei saying he might be the most arrogant man she's ever met, and while she likes that, now she wants to be alone, with Euron telling her before leaving that he's going to put a prince in her belly Prince: While she likes that, now she wants to be alone, with Euron telling her before leaving that he's going to put a prince in her belly After their tryst in bed, Euron asks Cersei how he stacks up to both the late King Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy) and her brother, which indicates how far that talk of her incest-fueled romance with Jaime have spread. Cersei adds that he might be the most arrogant man she's ever met, and while she likes that, now she wants to be alone, with Euron telling her before leaving that he's going to put a prince in her belly. On the Iron Island's ship, a number of guards are killed, with Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen) coming to save his sister, who returns the favor by head-butting him, before picking him up as they leave together. Yara says that Euron can't defend the Iron Islands and they can take their home back, but Yara says he wants to go to Winterfell to fight for the Starks. While we don't see Yara and Theon go their separate ways, it seems Yara has made peace with her brother going off to fight for his adoptive family who raised him. Siblings: Yara says that Euron can't defend the Iron Islands and they can take their home back, but Yara says he wants to go to Winterfell to fight for the Starks Making peace: While we don't see Yara and Theon go their separate ways, it seems Yara has made peace with her brother going off to fight for his adoptive family who raised him The Carstarks return to Winterfell, with Davos Seaworth (Liam Cunningham) telling Tyrion that they need to earn the Northerners' trust. Davos proposes that Daenerys and Jon rule the Seven Kingdoms, a Varys (Conleth Hill) and Tyrion discuss the possibilities of their rule, as they watch Dany and Jon talk below. Daenerys mentions to Jon that his sister doesn't like her, adding that she doesn't have to be her friend, but she is her queen, before a group of Dothraki soldiers ride up, telling her that her dragons are 'barely eating.' Ruler: Davos proposes that Daenerys and Jon rule the Seven Kingdoms, a Varys (Conleth Hill) and Tyrion discuss the possibilities of their rule Surprised: They fly through the snow-filled valleys of the north, as Daenerys looks on with surprise at Jon as they land, with Jon adding that she's, 'completely ruined horses for me' How to ride your dragon: Daenerys and Jon head up to see the dragons, with Daenerys telling her that they don't like the North, and when she gets on to ride one, she tells Jon to do the same, but he doesn't know how to ride a dragon Daenerys and Jon head up to see the dragons, with Daenerys telling Jon that her 'children' don't like the North, and when she gets on to ride one, she tells Jon to do the same, but he doesn't know how to ride a dragon. Jon ultimately mounts the dragon as it flies off, much to the delight of Daenerys, who takes off with her dragon as well as they fly around Winterfell as Tyrion, Varys and Davos look on in awe. They fly through the snow-filled valleys of the north, as Daenerys looks on with surprise at Jon as they land, with Jon adding that she's, 'completely ruined horses for me.' He's off: Jon ultimately mounts the dragon as it flies off, much to the delight of Daenerys, who takes off with her dragon as well as they fly around Winterfell as Tyrion, Varys and Davos look on in awe Terrified: Jon Snow is not in his element as he flies one of Dany's dragons Jon takes flight: Jon Snow rides a dragon for the first time A natural: Jon Snow gets the hang of riding a dragon Back in Winterfell, Gendry starts forging weapons made of dragon glass, as The Hound starts picking on him, but Arya arrives telling him to let him be. The Hound says she left him to die, but she adds that she robbed him first, with The Hound smiling, adding that she's a 'cold little b***h,' which is probably why she's still alive. She shows Gendry the drawing of a weapon she wants him to make, as she flirts a bit with Gendry. Blacksmith Gendry: Back in Winterfell, Gendry starts forging weapons made of dragon glass, as The Hound starts picking on him, but Arya arrives telling him to let him be The Hound: The Hound says she left him to die, but she adds that she robbed him first, with The Hound smiling, adding that she's a 'cold little b***h,' which is probably why she's still alive Arya's weapon: She shows Gendry the drawing of a weapon she wants him to make, as she flirts a bit with Gendry Jon and Dany: Jon ultimately mounts the dragon as it flies off, much to the delight of Daenerys, who takes off with her dragon as well as they fly around Winterfell as Tyrion, Varys and Davos look on in awe Jon comes to see Sansa, who tells him that one of their allies are not coming to join the fight, which leads to Jon and Sansa arguing about their new Targaryen ruler, with Jon stating she's not her father. Sansa asks if he bent the knee to save the North, or because he loves her, which he does not answer. Daenerys Taragaryen comes to see Samwell Tarly, the man who saved her longtime friend Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen), who seeks to reward him for his service. Giving thanks: Daenerys Taragaryen comes to see Samwell Tarly, the man who saved her longtime friend Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen), who seeks to reward him for his service Pardon me: Samwell seeks a pardon, because he borrowed some books from The Citadel and he borrowed a sword from his family, which Daenerys realizes is Randyll Tarly (James Faulkner), who she had burned alive in Season 7 Samwell seeks a pardon, because he borrowed some books from The Citadel and he borrowed a sword from his family, which Daenerys realizes is Randyll Tarly (James Faulkner), who she had burned alive in Season 7. A distraught Samwell says that he will now be able to return home, now that his brother Dickon (Thomas Hopper) is the Lord, but she tells him that he stood with his father and he's dead too. Samwell runs out of the room, distraught, when he finds The Three Eyed Raven, asking him what he's doing out here, and he responds by saying it's time to tell Jon Snow the truth. The Three Eyed Raven says Jon trusts Samwell more than anyone and now is the time. Dany: Samwell tells Jon that Daenerys executed his father and brother, but Jon didn't know, telling Sam he's sorry but he needs to end this war Jon Snow waits in the crypts below Winterfell, when Samwell comes to see him, but he can't quite make out the words to tell him. He tells Jon that Daenerys executed his father and brother, but Jon didn't know, telling Sam he's sorry but he needs to end this war. An angry Sam asks if he'd do the same thing, and he says he's not the King in the North anymore, he's actually the King of the Seven Kingdoms, before telling him his mother is Lyanna Stark and his real father is Rhaegar Targaryen. "You've never been a bastard. You're Aegon Targaryen, the heir to the Iron Throne,' Samwell tells him. Jon says that his father Ned Stark was the most honorable man he's ever met, asking if he lied to him his entire life, with Sam telling him that he did it all to protect him. Crypts: Jon Snow waits in the crypts below Winterfell, when Samwell comes to see him, but he can't quite make out the words to tell him Angry Sam: An angry Sam asks if he'd do the same thing, and he says he's not the King in the North anymore, he's actually the King of the Seven Kingdoms, before telling him his mother is Lyanna Stark and his real father is Rhaegar Targaryen True king: 'You've never been a bastard. You're Aegon Targaryen, the heir to the Iron Throne,' Samwell tells him Jon says Daenerys is the queen but Sam says he's not, stating that Jon gave up his throne to save his people, asking Jon if she would do the same thing. Somewhere in The North, Beric Dondarion (Richard Dormer) and Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju) are seen alive and well, their status unclear after the Season 7 finale when they were at Eastwatch as The Night King destroyed The Wall. They're seen at a dark castle as they run into Eddison Tollett (Ben Crompton), who shows them an undead boy spiked to a wall, which comes screaming back to life before they set it on fire. Beric: Somewhere in The North, Beric Dondarion (Richard Dormer) and Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju) are seen alive and well, their status unclear after the Season 7 finale when they were at Eastwatch as The Night King destroyed The Wall Dolorous Edd: They're seen at a dark castle as they run into Eddison Tollett (Ben Crompton) On fire: Edd shows them an undead boy spiked to a wall, which comes screaming back to life before they set it on fire Back at Winterfell, a hooded figure arrives on horseback, revealed to be Jaime Lannister, who sees Bran Stark, the boy he threw out of the Winterfell tower in the first episode of the entire series, which crippled him for life. Jaime threw the young boy out of the window in the pilot episode because he was climbing a tower in Winterfell and saw Jaime making love to his sister Cersei, so he threw the boy out of the window, to protect their affair. He has a shocked look on his face as the first episode of this final season of Game of Thrones has come to an end. The final season continues with the second episode of Season 8 on Sunday, April 21 at 9 PM ET on HBO. Back at Winterfell: Back at Winterfell, a hooded figure arrives on horseback, revealed to be Jaime Lannister, who sees Bran Stark, the boy he threw out of the Winterfell tower in the first episode of the entire series, which crippled him for life Reunited: Jaime threw the young boy out of the window in the pilot episode because he was climbing a tower in Winterfell and saw Jaime making love to his sister Cersei, so he threw the boy out of the window, to protect their affair The final season will span six episodes, the first two of which will run roughly the normal episode length at 54 minutes and 58 minutes. The third episode will be the longest in series history, spanning 82 minutes, with the fourth episode spanning 78 minutes and the fifth and sixth spanning 80 minutes apiece. HBO has still not revealed any of the titles of the final six episodes of Game of Thrones. Police have arrested a teenage boy who is accused of killing his grandparents at their home in eastern Wisconsin and planning to launch an attack against his own high school. Officers found the victims dead from gunshot wounds at their house on West Edgewood Drive in Grand Chute during a welfare check at 11.37pm on Sunday. Alexander Kraus, 17, was arrested at the scene of the crime. Kraus was booked into the Outagamie County Jail on two counts of first-degree intentional homicide. Authorities identified the deceased on Monday afternoon as the teenage suspect's paternal grandparents, 74-year-old Dennis Kraus and 73-year-old Letha Kraus. Neenah Joint School District said in a statement Monday that Kraus also planned an attack at Neenah High School, where he is a junior. Alexander Kraus, 17, has been arrested on first-degree intentional homicide charges after he allegedly shot dead his grandparents in Wisconsin. Authorities identified the deceased on Monday afternoon as the teenage suspect's paternal grandparents, 74-year-old Dennis Kraus and 73-year-old Letha Kraus Police performing a welfare check Sunday found the victims dead inside their Grand Chute home (pictured) Kraus was arrested at the scene of the crime after allegedly shooting his grandparents Grand Chute police officer Travis Waas said on Monday that during an interview, Kraus admitted to shooting the Grand Chute couple and acknowledged that he plotted to cause harm at the school. Waas said a long gun, believed to have been used in the crime, was recovered at the home. No information has been provided on why Kraus shot the couple. Investigators learned about the school plan in talking with Kraus and recovered documentation relating to it, Waas said. The school district released a statement Monday saying police determined there was no danger to students and staff at the high school and that the school day would proceed as normal. Additional counselors were available to students and there was an extra police presence at the high school, the district said. Kraus is expected to make his initial court appearance Tuesday. Waas said a long gun, believed to have been used in the crime, was recovered at the home. No information has been provided on why Kraus shot the couple, pictured Grand Chute police officer Travis Waas said on Monday that during an interview, Kraus admitted to shooting his grandfather Dennis Kraus The Auburn university gymnast who dislocated both her knees during a floor routine just two months before her wedding has vowed to learn to walk again before her big day. Samantha Cerio, a 22-year-old senior who is getting married in June, suffered the career-ending injury during an NCAA regional semifinal held in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on April 5. She immediately underwent surgery for her horrific injuries, including multiple torn ligaments in both knees, and remains in a wheelchair while she recovers. Cerio told the Today show on Monday that she is determined to walk down the aisle when she marries her fiance Trey Wood in Fairhope, Alabama, on June 1. Scroll down for video Samantha Cerio, a 22-year-old senior who is getting married in June, spoke out about her recovery on Monday after injuring herself on April 5 during an NCAA regional semifinal 'Hopefully it's looking real good. I know I'm going to do everything in my power to make it happen,' she said. 'We're going to work hard for it,' she added, saying she is currently working with a team of physical therapists. Footage of her harrowing injury quickly went viral earlier this month after it showed the moment her legs buckled during the floor exercise and left her screaming in pain. Cerio said that while she knew something was a 'little wrong' when she landed a tumbling run, she didn't know the full extent of her injuries until she actually looked down at her legs. 'I could feel my pass was off by just a little... usually even if they feel off I can get through,' she said. Cerio said that she is determined to walk down the aisle when she marries her fiance Trey Wood (above) in Fairhope, Alabama on June 1. She has already undergone surgery on both of her legs after dislocating her knees and tearing the ligaments For now, Cerio remains wheelchair-bound but she has vowed to walk again before she gets married in two months 'When I had landed that one I felt like something was a little wrong. I thought I had just hyperextended my knees until I looked down and that wasn't the case. 'Then that's when I saw what had happened, that's when like the pain kind of started to set in and it got worse.' Despite the career ending injury, Cerio said she is still upbeat and is looking forward to the future. The senior, who was named SEC co-scholar athlete of the year, will graduate this year with an aerospace engineering degree. She will head to Seattle to begin working for Boeing soon after her wedding as a structural design analysis engineer. The 22-year-old senior suffered the career ending injury during an NCAA regional semifinal held on Friday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana Horrific footage captured the moment Cerio's legs buckled during the floor exercise when she landed badly at the end of a tumbling run The couple got engaged in November last year and will get married in Alabama before moving to Seattle where she is set to begin working for Boeing 'I'm really excited just because I have so many positive things coming up. I mean, this is a small setback, but it's just another thing to get through,' she said. 'Even though that was my last gymnastics meet, everything we do, everything I have done and trained for Auburn has always been for my team. Just knowing that I have their support behind me 100 percent... that's always helped me.' When she announced her retirement the day after suffering her injury, Cerio said she couldn't be prouder of the person she had become. 'After 18 years I am hanging up my grips and leaving the chalk behind. I couldn't be prouder of the person that gymnastics has made me to become. It's taught me hard work, humility, integrity, and dedication, just to name a few,' she wrote on Instagram. 'It's given me challenges and road blocks that I would have never imagined that has tested who I am as a person.' 'It may not have ended the way I had planned, but nothing ever goes as planned.' President Donald Trump says illegal immigrants the Department of Homeland Security cannot keep in custody will be transported to cities that promote themselves as safe spaces for illegal immigrants. 'Those Illegal Immigrants who can no longer be legally held (Congress must fix the laws and loopholes) will be, subject to Homeland Security, given to Sanctuary Cities and States!' he said in a Monday tweet. He called on Congress to return to Washington D.C. to 'fix the immigration laws' in another tweet, as he blamed Democrats for his failure to deliver on a key campaign promise to slow the flow of migrants into the United States. 'Congress should come back to D.C. now and FIX THE IMMIGRATION LAWS!' he insisted. Lawmakers are on a two-week, legislative recess. They're meeting with constituents in their congressional districts. The President has the power, under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, to call a special session of the Congress any time he chooses. Trump's tweet did not appear to be an order but a suggestion. President Trump called on Congress to return to Washington D.C. to 'fix the immigration laws' as he struggles to full fill his key campaign promise. They are on a standard two-week recess Trump also claimed that illegal immigrants the Department of Homeland Security can no longer keep in custody will be transported to cities that promote themselves as safe spaces for illegal immigrants Trump made building a border wall and stemming the tide of illegal immigrants a key promise of his 2016 campaign. But as his 2020 re-election bid gets closer, his wall remains unfunded by Congress. He declared a national emergency to get the money but he will not be able to finish the border barrier before the next presidential election. Even if he does, his administration has admitted that it won't totally solve the immigration problems the president has been raging about. That will take additional legislation from Congress and new Department of Homeland Security regulations. Trump fired his Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen a week ago as he moved to put immigration hardliners in charge of it. He insisted Monday, at a tax day event, that American immigration laws are 'horrible and foolish' and they allow thugs to claim asylum. 'It's a big con job that's what it is,' he contended. 'And Congress has to get smart. and when I say Congress, I can't blame the Republicans. The Republicans want to do it.' He noted that it takes 60 votes in the Senate to pass most bills and Democrats currently control the House. The president predicted in Minnesota, he state he lost in the 2016 election, that immigration would be a winning issue for him. 'We can retake the House,' he said. 'We can retake the House.' He said last week that the White House was considering alternative ideas - such as dumping illegal immigrants into sanctuary cities - to control where migrants roam after they're mandatory release from government custody. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Sunday that Trump likes an administration plan to send them to sanctuary cities and called it a win 'everybody' as she appeared on Sunday morning news programs. 'The president likes the idea and Democrats have said they want these individuals into their communities so let's see if it works and everybody gets a win out of it,' she said on ABC's 'This Week.' Trump made building a border wall and stemming the tide of illegal immigrants a key promise of his 2016 campaign. But as his 2020 re-election bid gets closer, his wall remains unfunded by Congress The president confirmed that he was 'strongly' considering the measure, after the Washington Post reported on a plan to send immigrants in custody to the district of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Trump also made clear he intends to target the immigrants in U.S. custody in the home-states and districts of his political rivals despite statements by his staff that it was not in the offing. 'California is always saying 'We want more people.' We will give them a lot. We will give them an unlimited supply,' Trump said Friday. Pelosi's office blasted his idea. 'Using human beings - including little children - as pawns in their warped game to perpetuate fear and demonize immigrants is despicable,' said Pelosi spokeswoman Ashley Etienne said in statement Friday. Sanders said the White House has explored a number of options to stop illegal immigrants from coming over the U.S.-Mexico border. She added that the sanctuary cities option would not be a top choice. 'We talked about a number of different things over the last two years that we'd love to see happen. Certainly, this wouldn't be our first choice because ideally we wouldn't be dealing with the massive influx of illegal immigrants coming across the border, the crisis that we have both from a national security and humanitarian standpoint,' she told ABC News. People belonging to a caravan of migrants from Honduras en route to the United States walk across a bridge as they leave Tapachula, Mexico, in April White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said President Trump likes a plan to dump illegal immigrants in sanctuary cities President Donald Trump said he if the cities want more people he'll give them more She said if immigrants were released into sanctuary cities it would be because of the Democrats. 'If Democrats continue to be unwilling to do that, then we're going to look at all of our options and we don't want to put all of the burden on one or two border communities. And Democrats have stated time and time again they support open borders, they support sanctuary cities. So, let's spread out some of that burden and let's put it in some of those other locations if that's what they want to see happen and are refusing to actually help fix the problem,' she said. SANCTUARY CITIES - WHAT AND WHERE Sanctuary cities - and states - are those which in broad terms protect illegal immigrants from deportation by federal authorities. There is no legal definition and no single set of laws - so agreeing which places are sanctuary cities or states is in itself contentious. But broadly, most sanctuary cities say that their police officers do not ask for immigration status, and do not report it to the federal authorities when they detain, arrest or process suspects. Most will also decline to detain illegal immigrants on requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement unless they are accused of serious crimes. The degree of seriousness varies from place to place. In New York, even a felony is no guarantee that an immigration detainer will be obeyed. California is the biggest single sanctuary area, with local law enforcement agencies banned by state law from using money, personnel or equipment to help federal immigration authorities act against illegal. While critics might say some places are sanctuary cities, local lawmakers often deny it. In Los Angeles, where cops are banned from stopping people solely on suspicion of being illegal, the mayor has rejected the label, and frequently co-operates with immigration agencies. Cities which identify as sanctuary include: Berkeley, California, since 1971 San Francisco, CA Boulder, Colorado Hartford, Connecticut St Petersburg, Florida Chicago, Illinois Urbana, IL Evanston, IL New Orleans, Louisiana Albany, New York Kalamazoo, Michigan Jersey City, New Jersey Newark, New Jersey New York, New York Portland, Oregon Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Seattle, Washington Cities accused of being sanctuary cities because of laws which limit co-operation with ICE, but which deny it include: Los Angeles, California Atlanta, Georgia Portland, Maine Baltimore, Maryland Boston, Massachusetts Detroit, Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan Minneapolis, Minnesota Advertisement Sanders also sought to unravel a situation in which White House staff and the president had been contradicting one another. 'This was raised at a staff level initially and pushed back on. The president wants us to explore again, so that is being done and they're doing a complete and thorough review. But again, the big thing is, if Democrats, including the mayors and members of Congress in these communities want these individuals, they should be helping the president frankly look for solutions to bring them to their communities instead of fighting that president every step of the way,' she said on 'Fox News Sunday.' Trump said last week in tweets that the idea was indeed under consideration. 'Due to the fact that Democrats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws, we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only,' Trump wrote, confirming a story in the Washington Post, an outlet he often attacks as part of the 'fake news.' 'The Radical Left always seems to have an Open Borders, Open Arms policy so this should make them very happy!' Trump said. By adding the word 'only,' the president provided a new detail to the plan. Although the paper had reported top aides pushed the idea with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, it did not say sanctuary cities would be the only location where his administration would ship the illegal immigrants. He also took a different tack than the White House, which shortly before his tweet downplayed the idea. 'The idea was briefly and informally raised and quickly rejected, according to a White House statement, the Washington Post reported. A White House statement in the original story said: 'This was a suggestion that was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion.' Trump denied a separate claim from two other news outlets that he offered to pardon his acting DHS secretary if he violates U.S. immigration law. 'I never offered Pardons to Homeland Security Officials, never ordered anyone to close our Southern Border (although I have the absolute right to do so, and may if Mexico does not apprehend the illegals coming to our Border), and am not 'frustrated.' It is all Fake & Corrupt News!,' he said in a Saturday tweet. Sanders also said Sunday that President Trump did not tell the top border agent he would pardon him if he arrested for enforcing policies to stop immigrants. 'We're a country of laws and we have a president who supports that and is not asking anybody to do anything outside of those bounds. In fact, he's asking Congress to step up and give greater legal standing so they can do more to stop this crisis. No one's trying to skirt the law and certainly not being encouraged by the president to do so,' she said on ABC's 'This Week.' CNN and The New York Times reported last week that the president - during an earlier visit to the border - offered Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan a pardon should he be arrested for enforcing any policy to keep out immigrants that ran afoul of the law. Sanders slammed a source of the story, picking a fight with Trump nemesis CNN. 'I don't know about you, but CNN isn't usually my first stop for a good source, particularly not when it comes to this president. The president is actually the president trying to enforce laws not go around them,' she said. Sanders said the president has asked border agents to do 'everything they are allowed to do under the law. 'It's the same thing he says publicly day in and day out. It's the same thing he says behind closed doors to staff, is figure out how we stop this crisis, how we fix this problem,' she said on 'Fox News Sunday.' The president was reported to have told McAleenan he 'would pardon him if he ever went to jail for denying US entry to migrants,' according to the CNN report, which said the comment was paraphrased. Trump allegedly dangled the offer on his visit to the border town of Calexico, amid a looming staff shakeup at DHS that would leave McAleenan in charge temporarily. The network sourced the report to two officials briefed on the exchange, and said it was unclear if it was intended as a joke. Trump met with McAleenan during a border visit, where he railed against immigration and declared the nation 'full' and unable to take any additional people. 'The system is full. Can't take you anymore. Whether it's asylum, whether it's anything you want, it's illegal immigration. We can't take you anymore, Trump said. 'We can't take you. Our country is full. Our area is full. The sector is full. Can't take you anymore, I'm sorry. Can't happen. So turn around. That's the way it is,' he said. After mentioning the Border Patrol at the event, Trump mentioned backstage conversations, where he expressed a hint of defeatism about the existing laws. 'And I was telling some of the people before: If it's full, there's nothing you can do about it. We have some horrible court decisions that have been made over the years. It's very unfair and that's the way it is.' 'But the system is full. And when it's full, there's nothing you can do. You have to say, 'I'm sorry, we can't take you.' We've been trying to take people, and I have to disagree with it. We've been trying to take people and you can't do it. You can't do it. So we're going to look at that and we're going to look at it very, very strongly,' Trump said. As the acting head McAleenan does not need Senate confirmation, although he could be required to testify before Congress on budget matters or as his role as head of the Border Patrol. This would give lawmakers an opportunity to ask him about the reported exchange under oath. Freshman congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she isn't excited about former Vice President Joe Biden running in 2020 as the Democratic nominee. 'I don't know,' Ocasio-Cortez told Yahoo News when asked if she would support Biden, should he announce. 'I mean I will support whoever the Democratic nominee is.' She added that a potential Biden run 'does not particularly animate me right now' and she has 'a lot of issues' with that prospect. Biden has not announced whether he's running in 2020 yet, and if he were to enter the race he would be joining an already crowded Democratic field that includes 18 candidates already. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says a Joe Biden presidential run doesn't 'animate' her Biden has not said whether he will be launching a bid Democratic nomination, but has long been considering a run Ocasio-Cortez has not officially endorsed any candidate, but she did serve as an organizer on Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016 'I can understand why people would be excited by that this idea that we can go back to the good old days with Obama, with Obama's vice president,' Ocasio-Cortez said. 'There's an emotional element to that, but I don't want to go back. I want to go forward.' The Democratic representative from New York said that she is 'very supportive of Bernie's run,' but did not formally endorse him, or any other candidate. Ocasio-Cortez was an organizer for independent Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2016 run for the Democratic nomination against Hillary Clinton. 'I'm very supportive of Bernie's run. I haven't endorsed anybody, but I'm very supportive of Bernie,' Ocasio-Cortez said. She also specifically mentioned one other candidate: Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Sanders announced Feb. 19 that he would be launching his second consecutive bid for the Democratic nomination. He is an independent senator, and identifies as a Democratic Socialist AOC also mentioned one other candidate, and said she liked what Sen. Elizabeth Warren brought to the table Warren was one of the early announcers. She launched her presidential exploratory committee Dec 31, 2018 and officially announced she was running on Feb. 9, 2019. 'I also think what Elizabeth Warren has been bringing to the table is truly remarkable, truly remarkable and transformational,' Ocasio-Cortez said. Warren's campaign is lagging behind many other Democrats. She raised only $6 million in the first quarter of 2019 after promising not to engage in expensive fundraising events. Former long-shot candidate and mayor of South Bend, Indiana Pete Buttigieg raised $7 million in the first quarter of the year. Warren was the center of controversy last year when she released her DNA test results that showed she was only 1/1024 Native American after she made claims to aboriginal heritage when applying for a professorship. She doubled-down on the claims when President Donald Trump began calling her 'Pocahontas.' Ocasio-Cortez became a breakout hit after winning the Democratic nomination against 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley in the 2018 midterm elections. She has had growing popularity, especially among young progressive Democrats and those who supported Sanders, a self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist, in his run for the White House in 2016. Despite this popularity, Ocasio-Cortez says she doesn't know if she would consider running for for president in the future. 'I really don't know. I think about it every once in a while, but this is pretty hard already,' Ocasio-Cortez said. 'I just want to be most useful, and I'm not trying to kind of impose some personal ambition. I think that, if a window opens and I feel like I can do well, and do better, and offer more to people, then I would consider it. But I don't have like a 10-year plan or a five-year plan or anything.' A four-year-old boy who accidentally shot himself in the head is making a 'miracle' recovery, according to his family. Na'vaun Lamarii Price Jackson, four, of Oakland, California, accidentally shot himself in the head after finding a gun under a pillow at his mother's estranged boyfriend's home on March 27 at about 2pm. Na'vaun was hospitalized in critical condition, put on life support and then put under a medically-induced coma. The bullet was said to have entered his forehead, between his eyes, leaving doctors to remove part of his skull and brain, according to Fox 11. Doctors told relatives that it was likely that the boy would be brain dead or never be able to walk again. The bullet entered Na'vaun's forehead, between the eyes, requiring that part of his brain and skull be removed. Doctors believed that he would be either brain dead or never able to walk Na'vaun Lamarii Price Jackson, four, found a gun under a pillow at his mother's estranged boyfriend's home and accidentally shot himself in the head with it on March 27 - he is pictured above before the shooting But, Na'vaun's family now says that his condition is improving and that he is making a 'miracle' recovery just two-and-a-half weeks after the incident. The child's grandfather, Ramon Price, said in a GoFundMe update that Na'vaun's condition was upgraded to stable and that he is now out of the ICU and undergoing physical therapy. Na'vaun 'still has a long road ahead', Price wrote, adding 'Thank you all for your love and support please continue to pray.' Price has also posted videos from the hospital on his Facebook page, showing his grandson in improved conditions, including one clip in which the boy repeatedly smiles while being tickled and holds out a toy, despite having both arms held straight in foam casts. Just two-and-a-half weeks after the incident, Na'vaun is said to be making a recovery. He is now able to smile, sit up in his wheelchair, hold onto things and kick at them Na'vaun has not been able to speak yet, but his relatives remain hopeful about his condition Na'vaun's mother, Brijjanna Price (shown), said that although she knew there was a gun in the home at the time, she did not know where it was kept Price told ABC7 News that the boy is able to move his foot and kick at pillows, use his hands to reach for things and hold them and move his head and follow people with his eyes. Na'vaun is also said to be able to sit up in a wheelchair, but he has not yet been able to speak. 'Every day he's doing something different so my son's going to be back soon,' Na'vaun's mother, Brijjanna Price, told ABC7 News. 'He may not be back to the way he was, but he'll be back.' Na'vaun's grandfather, Ramon Price, has been posting updates on his grandson's condition on Facebook She added that although she know's her son's life will never be exactly the same as it was prior to the shooting, 'I want him to just live his life, grow up, be something, be what he wants to be.' Court documents obtained by Fox 11 showed that Brijjanna's estranged boyfriend, Terrence L. Wilson, was charged with one count each of child abuse, possession of a firearm by a felon and first-degree criminal firearm storage following Na'vaun's accidental shooting. Wilson reportedly told police that he slept with the gun under his pillow and had forgotten to lock it up, while Brijjanna said that she knew there was a gun in the house, but that she didn't know where it was kept. Brijjanna told ABC7 News that if she had known that the gun was kept under the pillow, 'my son wouldn't have been in that house'. Na'vaun's father, Nathan Jackson, is in state prison and has only been able to see his son via Skype. He is said to be serving a nine-year sentence at Salinas Valley State Prison for assault with a firearm, according to the Los Angeles Times. The child's relatives are said to be in the process of petitioning Governor Gavin Newsom's office to release Jackson so that he can visit Na'vaun - who he has not yet met in person - in the hospital. The family started the GoFundMe to pay Na'vaun's hospital bills and also to cover living expenses while Brijjanna is unable to work while she remains by her son's side at the hospital. It has so far raised more than $2,000. Wilson is said to have had six prior convictions, including second-degree robbery from 1999, and second-degree burglary, conspiracy to commit a crime, two counts of insurance fraud and grand theft, all from 2003, according to court documents obtained by the East Bay Times. He's been steering the Labour ship for four years since becoming the party's leader. But Jeremy Corbyn found himself high and dry this morning as he posed for pictures in a canoe - on dry land. The hard-Left opposition leader posed for pictures in a green wooden boat, donning a life jacket and safety helmet, during a visit to West Yorkshire. But bizarrely his boat remained on dry-land throughout the photocall during MPs' Easter recess at Sunnyvale Fishery and Outdoor Activity Centre, a youth crime reduction project in Calderdale, near Halifax. Despite the ongoing Brexit turmoil the Commons does not sit again until April 23, with MPs being given 11 days to have a holiday and work in their constituencies. While he is in the north of England Prime Minister Theresa May is in Wale son a walking holiday with her husband Philip. Mr Corbyn, who was accompanied on his visit by shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, posed for pictures with little more than two weeks to go until local elections take place in England and Northern Ireland. Water shortage: Mr Corbyn donned a life jacket and helmet for pictures today in a canoe which did not leave land Mr Corbyn adopted a safety first approach in Yorkshire today, donning full safety gear to pose for pictures in a canoe that remained on dry land On a lovely day in Yorkshire he posed with a paddle despite a lack of water beneath the keel of his vessel Mr Corbyn was accompanied on his trip to Yorkshire by shadow home secretary Diane Abbott (right), who remained on dry land The 69-year-old also tried his hand at archery in front of the cameras, with one eyewitness saying he 'eventually found the target'. After half-a-dozen wayward efforts, he managed a shot in the black ring and then quit while he was ahead after landing a shot in the red. He then moved on to the watersports area and talked to youngsters after donning the life jacket and a helmet to sit in the canoe. But he did not launch on to the lake. He later said he was determined to make 'youth provision' a requirement for local councils, saying: 'This, of course, is in a background where there's been a 70 per cent cut in youth service provision in the past nine years - 800 million taken out of youth services. 'And, not very surprisingly, there's been an increase in youth crime and youth violence. 'So we do, as a country, have to invest in young people. That means youth services, that means youth workers.' Mr Corbyn, who has taken aim at becoming Prime Minister amidst the Brexit chaos, also tried his hand at archery Mr Corbyn took aim alongside children at the Sunnyvale Fishery and Outdoor Activity Centre near Halifax Mr Corbyn is not the first senior politician to look unintentionally embarrassing in photos. In August last year Mrs May was dubbed the 'Maybot' after dancing awkwardly with schoolchildren during a visit to South Africa. The Prime Minister's toe-curling moves as she watched a display of traditional singing and dancing sparked comparisons with footballer Peter Crouch's famous 'robot'. But she took the mockery lightly, admitting: 'I suspect my dancing this morning might not make it on to Strictly.' She even sent herself up as she arrived for her leader's speech at the September party conference in Birmingham, grooving onto the stage while Abba's disco classic Dancing Queen played int he background. Theresa May's robotic moves while meeting scouts in Kenya last summer (left) made headlines and she sent herself up at the Conservative Party Conference the following month (right) Ed Miliband's time as leader of Labour was haunted by images showing him battling a bacon sandwich in 2014 And in May 2014 Ed Miliband kick-started an internet meme as he struggled to master a bacon sandwich at a cafe in New Covent Garden Market in London. The awkward images haunted the rest of the then Labour leader's term in office and the party failed to win the General Election the following year, sparking his resignation and replacement by Mr Corbyn. Boris Johnson made several photographic faux pas while Mayor of London. During the 2012 Olympics he famously became stuck on a zipwire in Victoria Park, close to the games site. Three years later in 2015 he collided with 10-year-old Toki Sekiguchi during a game of street rugby outside the Tokyo Square Gardens building. The youngster was unharmed. Boris Johnson was left hanging above Victoria Park in east London during the Olympics in 2012 Three years later he collided with Japanese schoolboy Toki Sekiguchi during a game of street rugby in Tokyo Then prime minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha look at the fish counter inside Fresh From The Sea in Port Isaac, Cornwall, in August 2011 Two years later in 2013 they were again captivated by the array of sea creatures on offer, this time at the market in Aljezur, in south west Portugal And former prime minister David Cameron contributed his own understated pictures to the genre while in office, regularly releasing holiday pictures of himself and his wife Samantha staring or pointing at fish. Mr Corbyn used the trip to say that jihadi bride Shamima Begum was 'entitled' to legal aid while she fights an attempt by the Government to trip her of her citizenship. He said: 'She is a British citizen. She's therefore entitled to apply for legal aid if she has a legal problem just like anybody else is. 'And that decision will have to be made by the legal aid authorities and I think they should be allowed to make that decision. 'She is a British citizen and I do think the idea of removing her citizenship is questionable, very questionable, wrong. 'Creating stateless people in the world isn't going to solve any problems. 'If she comes back here, she's obviously going to have to face a lot of questioning, she's obviously going to have to face the possibility of legal action being taken against her. But that seems to me to be the right thing to do so, that way, you're also going get the intelligence on what she did and what happened to her as well. 'She is a British national and, therefore, she has that right, like any of us do, to apply for legal aid if she has a problem.' Mr Corbyn said: 'She has legal rights, just like anybody else does. 'The whole point of legal aid is that if you're facing a prosecution then you're entitled to be represented and that's a fundamental rule of law, a fundamental point in any democratic society. 'We cannot and should not judge outside of a court. A court must make that decision and every person in front of a court, whatever they're accused of doing, how heinous or bad the crime is, is entitled to that representation.' An Alabama man and a baby were accidentally shot and wounded outside a Chuck E Cheese restaurant over the weekend after police say a gun inside a diaper bag discharged while the man was changing the child. The incident took place just before 3pm on Saturday in the parking lot at the Olde Towne shopping center on Montgomery Highway in Vestavia Hills. According to police, the man and the young girl were in the backseat of a car when the gun went off, shooting the man in the chest. The same bullet also struck the child in the leg. A man and a baby were accidentally shot outside this Chuck E Cheese in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, on Saturday after a gun went off inside a diaper bag The man was taken to UAB Hospital Trauma Center to be treated for potentially life-threatening injuries, reported Al.com. The child was rushed to Children's of Alabama Hospital, and is in a good condition. Police have not released the names of the victims, or commented on the nature of their relationship. It appears the adult male was changing the child's diaper in the backseat of a vehicle in this parking lot when he made contact with the gun in the diaper bag, causing it to fire The child was rushed to Children's of Alabama Hospital, and is in a good condition Vestavia Hills police Lt. Michael Keller said it appears that the adult victim was in the process of changing the girl's diaper in the backseat when he came into contact with the gun inside the diaper bag and the weapon fired a single bullet. 'You dont expect anyone would bring a gun around where kids would be. It just doesnt make any sense,' Chuck E Cheese patron John Gerrard told WBRC. As of Monday morning, no charges have been filed in connection to the shooting. A family of roofers who conned elderly victims out of 500,000 in six months by charging huge fees for unnecessary work are facing jail. Brothers Patrick Cleere, 66, and William Cleere, 65, defrauded 11 vulnerable homeowners across London and Essex. A third brother, Timothy Cleere, 39, laundered the money they made by overcharging for minor repairs. Between April and September 2016 the roofers cold-called victims they had identified as vulnerable to convince them their homes needed work. Victims were told their homes were in danger of collapse if repairs were not urgently carried out. Patrick Cleere (left) and William Cleere (right) defrauded 11 vulnerable homeowners across London and Essex They then presented the homeowners with vastly inflated bills, often for work than had not been done. One victim in Chingford, East London, lost 129,000 after being targeted by the brothers. Repairs which could have been carried out for worth just 250 cost another victim 38,000. The scheme operated under a number of names, including Ready 2 Roof and NBC Maintenance, and appeared legitimate by hiring low-paid staff and sometimes bringing equipment on site. Prosecutor Robin Sellars said: 'This case involves a large scale campaign of fraud perpetrated by Patrick and William Cleere acting as what we would refer to as an organised crime group against a number of individuals. 'The offenders under the pretext of carrying out legitimate roofing repairs would 'cold call' on the occupants of houses and sell building work that wasn't required and often wasn't in the end undertaken or completed. A third brother, Timothy Cleere, 39, laundered the money they made by overcharging for minor repairs 'The fees that were charged for these works were grossly inflated and pressure was put on the householders in the first instance to make payment in cash and to make payment quickly. 'Around 300,000 was transferred from victim's bank accounts to suspect bank accounts and just over 250,000 given by the victims in cash. 'The escalation in the work required to be done was a common theme.' Mr Sellars said the roofers would arrange for casual workmen to go to the house and carry out cosmetic work on the roof and then ask for additional payment. After the gang abandoned the site, they would again approach the victims posing as surveyors, trading standard officers or representatives from official bodies and attempt to extract more money. Inner London Crown Court heard that ringleader Patrick Cleere had a number of aliases he would use with his unwitting customers. He played a 'managerial and organisational' role in the conspiracy. William Cleere pleaded guilty to the fraud during the course of the trial. William's son-in-law Damien Foley, 40, and employee Hadil El Failali Laroussi, 29, were both acquitted of any involvement in the scam. The brothers were brought to justice after a joint investigation between the Metropolitan Police and three local police forces. Trading standards officers from Enfield, Bromley and Essex county were also involved in the sting. Patrick Cleere, of Ealing, denied but was convicted of conspiracy to fraud and two counts of money laundering. The three men will appear again at Inner London Crown Court on May 10 for sentence. William Cleere, of Ealing, admitted fraud and money laundering. Timothy Cleere, of Ruislip, admitted converting criminal property. Foley, of Northolt, was cleared of one count of fraud and two counts of money laundering. Laroussi, of Greyhound Road, Tottenham, was cleared of one count of money laundering. A gang of cold call conmen who dubbed themselves 'The Wolves of Wind Street' tricked trusting pensioners out of 425,000. The four conmen named themselves after hit Hollywood movie The Wolf of Wall Street starring Leonardo DiCaprio in their cold call scam operation. But instead of targeting of wealthy investors like the film, they conned 1,200 elderly people out of their cash - calling them: 'Pension rich suckers.' The four conmen named themselves after hit Hollywood movie The Wolf of Wall Street starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Pictured outside Swansea Crown Court today: Kyle Lewis, 30 and Darren Palmer 42 The four spent their cash wining and dining on Wind Street main strip of bars and clubs in Swansea, South Wales. Kyle Lewis, 30, Darren Palmer, 42, David Alford, 33, and Jason Cunliff, 42, ran the huge telemarketing scam out of an office. Prosecutor Lee Reynolds said: 'This business targeted elderly consumers in what can be described as an audacious and calculated fraud.' They hired staff to promise 'free' boilers under a 'Government scheme' and charged an upfront fee of 299 or 399. But only three elderly customers received boilers out of 1,200 people who paid up. Mr Reynolds said: 'There were no Government schemes that would enable people who were not on benefits to have free boilers.' A court heard those three customers still did not get their boiler free of charge as they were signed up for monthly payments lasting 12 years. Mr Reynolds said: 'The three consumers will be paying back well into their 90s for the three boilers that were installed.' The four spent their cash wining and dining on Wind Street in Swansea. Pictured are the other two gang members: David Alford, 33, and Jason Cunliff, 42 Lewis, Palmer and Alford were directors of Renewable Energies Centre Ltd and REC Home Audits and ran it for just five months. Cunliff was hired as a compliance manager just six weeks before they were arrested - to give the business 'an air of respect.' The gang would lavish their staff with free drinks in pubs and clubs based on Wind Street in Swansea city centre. The court heard the gang led a 'champagne lifestyle' and also spent the cash on 'flash cars' and 'living the high life.' Text messages between them showed them calling their victims 'pension rich suckers' and bragging about making TV appearances on 'Watchdog, The Ferret and Rogue Traders.' They also bragged about being 'photogenic and awesome in court.' An investigation was sparked by Swansea Trading Standards following a string of complaints. The cold call fraud comes after Swansea was dubbed 'the nuisance call capital of the UK' by the Information Commissioner's Office in 2016. Swansea Crown Court heard officers raided the office and seized damming CCTV footage and thousands of phone recordings. The four spent their cash wining and dining on Wind Street main strip of bars and clubs in Swansea, South Wales In one CCTV clip, a staff member said: 'She thinks I'm going to speak to a director now, to guarantee the funding. 'She wants the work done September, October. I said the fund will be gone by then. 'So what I'm going to do is 'speak to a director', which I'm not. You are milking them, bullshitting them.' The court heard victims were repeatedly reassured the funding scheme was run by the Government. But in reality they needed to be on benefits to qualify for a free boiler. When customers tried to delay making a decision callers piled on pressure by claiming they would miss out if they waited. The company raked in up to 5,000 a day - with a total amount gained of 425,000. The Wolf of Wall Street, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, (middle) tells the story of a team who scammed wealthy investors Now the gang has been found guilty of conspiracy to defraud. One victim, Sonja Owen from Rhymney, South Wales, paid 299 and only got a survey of her house. She said: 'I hope that they get sentenced and their assets taken off them, and they should be made to pay everybody back. Not only us, but everybody they've scammed.' The gang await sentencing. A wealthy New York investment advisor is being sued for more than $5million by his ex-girlfriend who claims he assaulted and humiliated her on a trip to Jamaica earlier this year, in a violent outburst that has left her struggling with PTSD. Yale educated Matthew Ram Shannon Lee, 45, is co-founder and partner of the Manhattan based investment advisor firm, Seven Bridges Advisors, which currently manages a staggering $5billion worth of assets. Lee met Jenna Bickelmann, 33, a buyer for fashion store, Milly, through The League an exclusive dating app with membership plans costing up to $999 a month. The app - whose name is a nod to Ivy League - bills itself as a 'dating and social networking community' whose members share the common thread of 'ambition and a drive to succeed.' Jenna Bickelmann, 33, is suing Matthew Ram Shannon Lee, 45, for $5million over claims he physically and emotionally abused her during their months-long relationship, leaving her with PTSD Lee is co-founder and partner of the Manhattan based investment advisor firm, Seven Bridges Advisors, which currently manages $5billion worth of assets According to court documents obtained by DailyMail.com the couple met in person in September 2018. Three months later, on December 29, Lee invited Bickelmann to join him on a business trip to Charleston, South Carolina where he was attending conferences at the elite, invite-only Renaissance Weekend. The weekend was one of several organized across the country each year by an organization once co-chaired by Bill Clinton and Gerald Ford. The weekends began almost forty years ago as a four-day house party thrown by former US Ambassador Phil Lader and his wife at their home in Hilton Head Island. Exclusive and discrete they have been attended by Supreme Court Justices, Senators, Members of Congress and Governors, business leaders, astronauts, Olympic athletes, and Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and Nobel prizewinners. Lee covered all of Bicklemann's expenses including airfares so she could join him on the trip that spanned New Year's Eve. Guests were encouraged to enjoy Charleston's, 'cocoon of gentility.' That 'gentility' didn't even make it past New Year's Day for Bickelmann and Lee who, she claims, got into 'a heated verbal argument' when she wanted to dine somewhere other than the restaurant he had booked. Despite this, she agreed to join him on a trip to Jamaica later that month. The couple flew out on January 23 and stayed at The Lagoons, a gated community in Montego Bay where a two-bedroom villa can cost up to $15,000 a week. Bickelmann met Lee through exclusive dating app The League in fall 2018 and the couple went on two trips together to South Carolina in December and Jamaica in January 2019 On the Jamaica trip, Lee 'violently struck [her] on the right side of her face with the back of his right hand,' according to court documents seen by DailyMail.com. Lee is pictured second from the left at the New York Society of Security Analysts (NYSSA) conference in 2016 As before, Lee paid for everything and, as before, things quickly descended into acrimony. On January 25, two days after their arrival, Bicklemann claims, that Lee committed the first of two assaults against her after they got into an argument in a taxicab. Bickelmann, who works as a buyer for fashion store Milly, is suing for damages to recover from 'personal injuries, emotional distress, assault and battery' According to her lawsuit, 'Lee grabbed [her] face with his hand, shoved her backwards away from him into the seat of the taxi cab and called [her] 'a f***ing b****.' Shocked, Bickelmann called a male friend who advised her that Lee's behavior was 'abnormal and that she should leave Jamaica as soon as she could for her own safety.' She told Lee that she wanted to return to New York and he agreed to change her departure flight from January 27 to 26 while he stayed on. Her court filing states that Lee had planned a yacht outing at 1pm on the day of her departure and therefore told her to leave the villa and head to the airport at 12.30pm. When she said she did not want to make the short trip - some fifteen minutes drive - so early as her flight was not until 3.30pm the couple got into an argument over the best way to lock up the villa. Lee didn't want to be late but nor did he want to leave the keys with Bickelmann. According to Bickelmann the verbal argument turned violent when she attempted to leave the patio where they had been arguing and go back inside. She claimed, 'In the midst of removing herself from this argument with [Lee] who was continuously yelling at her in a degrading manner and cursing at her, [Lee] violently struck [her] on the right side of her face with the back of his right hand.' The hit was so unexpected and violent, she claims, she lost her balance and fell onto a nearby patio chair. Bickelmann says in the lawsuit that Lee knew she had previously been in an abusive relationship and suffered from TMJ which was made worse by his alleged abuse After regaining her balance, her complaint continued, 'she ran to another chairnow in fear of being hit a second time she began to cry and was in disbelief he struck her.' Bickelmann claimed her face 'began to swell and become very red,' and that she repeatedly stated, 'Ram you just hit me!' Her screams and their shouting were loud enough for a concerned neighbor to call The Lagoons Security who witnessed Lee pull the weeping Bickelmann back into the villa and shut the sliding glass doors. The alleged assault was made all the worse, Bickelmann has claimed, by the fact that Lee knew her to be a victim of domestic violence and that she suffered from Temporomandibular Joint Disorder causing her severe pain in her jaw. She has also been diagnosed as suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of the alleged assault. DailyMail.com has requested comment from both Lee and Bicklemann's attorney, but have not heard back. Two never-before-seen poems by celebrated writer Daphne du Maurier have been discovered hidden inside a photo frame 90 years later. The poems are believed to have been penned in the late 1920s by the romantic novelist before she broke onto the literary scene. Her first novel, The Loving Spirit, was published in 1931, with her big breakthrough, Rebecca, released seven years later in 1938. She also wrote the stories for films including Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now. The poems were written on a carefully folded sheet of A4 paper concealed within a 5ins high blue leather frame which contained a photo of du Maurier in a swimming costume. Pictured: The piece of paper concealed in a picture frame that features two previously unseen poems by the novelist Song of the Happy Prostitute is a reflection on the way the professions is regarded by some commentators on sex workers Daphne du Maurier (pictured, left, at her home near Fowey in Cornwall in 1945 and, right, in her study) penned the two poems before she became a literary star One, titled Song of the Happy Prostitute, tells the story of a woman who resents the assumptions made about her profession. In it, du Maurier writes: 'Why do they picture me as tired and old, selling myself with sorrow, just to gain a few dull pence to shield me from the rain?' Du Maurier is pictured with her husband, Lieutenant General Sir Frederick 'Boy' Browning in 1956 A second, untitled poem discusses the theme of 'loneliness', with the writer longing for her youth when life was 'bliss'. Both are being sold by auctioneers Rowley's, of Ely, Cambridgeshire, who expect them to fetch 600. They were uncovered by an eagle-eyed auctioneer Roddy Lloyd who has been tasked with selling an archive of du Maurier's letters and photos, which includes snaps with the Royals. Du Maurier and her husband, Lieutenant General Sir Frederick 'Boy' Browning, were friends with the Queen and Prince Philip in the late 1940s and 50s, when they enjoyed yachting days out. The lieutenant general was a close colleague of Lord Louis Mountbatten during World War Two and also worked for the Royal family after the war. The archive belongs to Kristen Baker-Munton, Lt Gen 'Boy' Browning's godson. Du Marier's untitled poem on loneliness: 'When I was ten, I thought the greatest bliss, 'Would be to rest all day upon hot sand under a burning sun, 'Time has slipped by, and finally I've known, 'The lure of beaches under exotic skies and find my dreams to be misguided lies, 'For God! How dull it is to rest alone.' Advertisement Auctioneer Roddy Lloyd said: 'It was by pure luck that I looked in the back of the frame and I am still not quite sure what made me do it. 'The pose of du Maurier in the photograph reminded me of Rolls-Royce's Spirit of Ecstasy and I opened it up to take the photo out - and the piece paper was behind it. 'It's always exciting when you come across something like this - it's an auctioneer's dream. 'We think it dates from the 1920s when du Maurier was around 20. The poems are not juvenile ones of a child, nor the polished products of her later years. 'They show her working on her craft at an interesting time and are perhaps from her early visits to Ferryside at Bodinnick in Cornwall where she would write. The Queen and Prince Philip (both right) enjoy a day out on a yacht owned by the novelist Daphne du Maurier and her husband 'The Song of the Happy Prostitute' is really interesting but not, perhaps, what one would expect from du Maurier which might explain why it was hidden away in this fashion, probably by du Maurier herself.' Du Maurier also wrote the novels Jamaica Inn, Frenchman's Creek and Rebecca, which sold nearly three million copies and was turned into a film starring Laurence Olivier. She died in 1989 in Cornwall. The sale takes place on April 27. Charges have been dropped against a woman accused of attacking Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway at a Mexican restaurant in suburban Washington last year. Mary Elizabeth Inabinett, 63, of Chevy Chase, was due to stand trial on Monday in Montgomery County, Maryland, for second-degree assault and disorderly conduct. But a county prosecutor asked the judge to dismiss the charges after Inabinett wrote an apology letter to the White House staffer. Conway told police she was attending a birthday party with her teenage daughter in Bethesda when she felt a woman grab and shake her shoulders last October. Mary Elizabeth Inabinett, 63, of Chevy Chase, (left) and Kellyanne Conway at the White House last week (right) Uncle Julio's Restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland, is where Conway says she was grabbed and shaken by a woman late last year Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway speaks to reporters outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington in February 2019 The police charging document stated the woman who confronted Conway yelled, 'Shame on you' and 'other comments believed to about Conway's political views.' Conway was uninjured, the document says. Montgomery County prosecutor Kathy Knight said Inabinett sent Conway a letter apologizing for the incident. 'She has apologized for choosing this time and place to vent her political views,' Knight said. 'That was inappropriate.' Knight noted Inabinett had never been arrested for a crime before. Ramon Korionoff, a spokesman for the Montgomery County State's Attorney's Office said dropping the charges is 'the best resolution for this particular set of circumstances.' Maraya Pratt, an attorney for Inabinett said she couldn't immediately comment. In a CNN interview earlier this year, Conway said she was standing next to her middle school-aged daughter and some of her daughter's friends when the woman began shaking her 'to the point where I thought maybe somebody was hugging me.' She said it felt 'weird' and 'a little aggressive,' so she turned around to face the woman. 'She was just unhinged. She was out of control,' she said. 'Her whole face was terror and anger.' Conway said she told President Donald Trump about the incident 'long after' it happened. She said Trump asked her, 'Are you OK? Is your daughter OK? Are the other girls OK?' The restaurant's manager told police the woman who confronted Conway had to be forcibly removed from the premises. Conway told police the woman yelled and gestured at her for eight to ten minutes before she was escorted out of the restaurant. Conway's daughter provided officers with a short video clip and photograph of the encounter. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders (left) and Conway (right) our, and Principal Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley watch U.S. President Donald Trump speaking to members of the media prior to his departure from the White House Inabinett is married to Andy Sharpless, a former executive vice president of Discovery.com who has served as CEO of Oceana since 2003. The celebrated environmental group works to preserve and restore ocean ecosystems worldwide. She describes herself in her LinkednIn profile as a former 'Alinsky-style community organizer in Maryland, Delaware, Philadelphia and Massachusetts' who now works as a volunteer recruiter at Ashoka, a Virginia-based nonprofit that supports more than 3,500 social entrepreneurs. Ashoka lists 'empathy' first among the planks in its platform for global success, describing it as 'the ability to understand and respond to the feelings of others.' A search team headed by nearly three dozen women discovered 30 bodies secretly buried in Mexico over the weekend. The news came on the same day that government officials said Red Cross ambulances will get armed escorts as authorities struggle to stop contain escalating gang violence. Mexican officials confirmed that the human remains were found in unmarked graves in the northwestern state of Sonora. The volunteer group called 'Guerreras Buscadoras (Warrior Searchers) came across 27 sets of body parts on Saturday with the assistance of forensics experts that canvassed the grounds of the Yaqui Valley, a rural city where two criminal gangs have been embroiled in an ongoing turf war. The women-led group, who have friends and family members missing, found three more sets of remains in a field near the northern city of Cajeme on Sunday. A volunteer group called 'Guerreras Buscadoras' found 27 sets of body parts of missing persons Saturday in Sonora, Mexico The search group initially came together in 2017 due to the lack of action from the the government, organizing their own digging teams in search of disappeared loved ones. The team, which is headed by Maria Teresa Valadez, whose 30-year-old brother Fernando disappeared in August 2015, had recently located the remains of eight human bodies on March 30. 'The will allows us to do more,' Valadez said according to Mexican newspaper Diaro del Yaqui. 'We have shovels, picks, rods and we will not get tired because there are still more treasures to find.' The group gathered on Saturday at 8am local time at the Sonora prosecutor's' office before embarking on the search. Maria Teresa Valadez (center) leads the team of searchers that have been trying to locate the bodies of their missing friends and family members sine 2017 On Sunday, the government of the north-central state of Guanajuato said that state or local police will accompany Red Cross ambulances 'on the high risk or high-impact calls.' That would presumably be calls related to gunshot victims. A day prior, a man wounded by gunfire was abducted by gunmen from a Red Cross ambulance in the city of Salamanca, which has been plagued by violence between fuel theft gangs due to its gasoline refinery. The Guanajuato state chapter of the first-aid group shuttered operations in the city of 270,000 but later resumed ambulance service. In a statement, the Mexican Red Cross said it 'is an impartial and neutral institution before all conflicts and its purpose is to relieve human suffering,' adding the '#We are not part of the conflict' hashtag. Violence in Mexico has worsened in the last year, with homicides running at their highest rate on record and surpassing the previous peak set in 2011. Earlier this month, a woman with gunshot wounds was executed inside an ambulance in Mexico's Pacific state of Guerrero, while paramedics were reportedly beaten up. The archdiocese of the central state of Puebla said in a recent statement that Rev. Ambrosio Arellano Espinoza, a 78-year-old priest, was apparently tortured during a robbery attempt. It said he had been found with severe burns on his hands and feet, but was at a hospital in stable but serious condition. Clandestine burial sites have often been used by drug cartels in Mexico to hide the bodies of executed rivals or kidnap victims. While hundreds of such sites date back to the height of the drug war from 2010 to 2016, some are more recent. Searchers in Mexico generally count the dead by the number of skulls, but not all heads are always present at the time of burial, suggesting death tolls could be even higher. Volunteer searchers often act on tips about where burial grounds are located and then walk through fields plunging rods into the earth to detect the telltale odor of decomposing bodies. A Liberal MP has exploded at suggestions party heavyweight Peter Dutton is a 'racist' in a QandA discussion about white supremacy. Queensland Senator James McGrath jumped to the defence of the Home Affairs Minister in a heated debate with Greens Senator Larissa Waters on Monday evening. The discussion spiralled out of control after audience member Blair Martin asked Senator McGrath and One Nation politician Malcolm Roberts how their parties would stop the rise of white supremacy. The audience member addressed a photograph from the Longman by-election in 2018 where a few LNP members displayed a white supremacy symbol. Queensland Senator James McGrath (pictured) jumped to the defence of Peter Dutton in heated QandA discussion about white supremacy Larissa Waters (pictured) suggested Peter Dutton was a racist when Senator McGrath defended Queensland and the Liberal National Party 'I would like to know why the senator (Mr McGrath) completely disregards the premise of my question when this state is well known for being a racist state, being a very bigoted state,' Mr Blair said. Senator McGrath denied the accusation, claiming Queensland is not racist. 'The Liberal National Party is a party for all Queenslanders regardless of where you come from or how long you've been here, as long as you share our values, and one of our values is inclusivity of we are just colourblind when it comes to the colour of your own skin,' Senator McGrath said. 'And that's the way it should be and I'm sure the Greens and I hope Labor would agree with that.' Despite seeking agreement from other the parties, Senator McGrath was met with a rebuttal from Senator Waters. 'I don't think Peter Dutton would,' she jumped in. Senator McGrath then questioned the Greens politician for evidence on Mr Dutton being a racist and she said: 'Look at the entire policy platform that he undertook as Immigration Minister and frankly the whole government' 'I beg your pardon. Are you serious about that?,' Mr McGrath responded. An increasingly agitated Mr McGrath prepared for debate but Senator Waters maintained her stance and agreed with her accusations against Mr Dutton. Host Virginia Trioli attempted to intervene and move the conversation forward but Senator McGrath was not finished. 'I'm sorry, she has just accused a senior member of my party of being a racist and I'm calling her out on that,' he said. Senator McGrath then questioned the Greens politician for evidence on Mr Dutton being a racist and she said: 'Look at the entire policy platform that he undertook as Immigration Minister and frankly the whole government'. Ms Trioli failed to persuade a change in conversation. Host Virginia Trioli (pictured) attempted to intervene and move the conversation forward but Senator McGrath was not finished 'I will not accept this. Where were your tears for those people who drowned at sea?' Senator McGrath hit back. 'Where were your tears for people who drowned at sea and were eaten by sharks?' The crowd began to boo while Senator McGrath pointed at the Greens politician who shook her head in response. Ms Trioli was forced asked the senator not to shout but he turned the blame on the audience. 'I'm sorry they were booing me so I had to shout,' he said. The debate was able to move forward when the following question asked about the recent vegan protests. The QandA segment hosted a panel of four politicians from Queensland who are campaigning for the Federal Election on May 18. A horrifying video emerged on Saturday that purportedly shows a gang affiliated with El Chapo's Sinaloa Cartel beheading a man and then dumping the severed head outside a government building in the state of the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. The victim is reportedly from a rival cartel, part of a series of escalating turf wars in the country. In the video, five supposed members of the Gentes de Aquiles (Aquiles' People) gang, one of 10 cells loyal to El Chapo's syndicate, are shown beating the victim and driving his head towards the ground before a slow decapitation with a saw. Suspected members of a gang affiliated to El Chapo's Sinaloa Cartel sawed off a male rival's head, recording the frightening moment on a video before it was uploaded to social media Cops responding to a 911 call in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, found a severed head next to a tarp, which included a warning message to corrupt cops and government officials The barbaric act is believed to have happened on Friday at 3am local time. State cops cordoned off the area around the severed head but were not able to make any arrests. The name of the victim has not been publicly released. The decapitated head was bound with tape and placed next to a sign that was intended to serve as a warning for corrupt cops and government officials working with rival criminal organizations. Playa del Carmen is located in Quintana Roo, the fourth most dangerous state in Mexico, according to the 2018 Global Peace Index A gang member's head was chopped off and left outside a Playa del Carmen government building early Friday El Chapo's (center) Sinaloa Cartel relies on the armed support of 10 cells, including Gentes de Aquiles [Aquiles' Peoples] which claimed responsibility to the barbaric crime 'To the people of Playa del Carmen, we have already come to this city to wipe out the traitors and f****** corrupt police. Do not be scared, the problem is not with you but against all those taxi drivers, state leaders and prosecutors who are at the service of these [gangs] and they have been located. We really are a cartel, so watch out because I am going to chop you all into pieces and the proof is there. We're coming for everybody that is on the list and I will catch you all with your pants down.' Mexico suffered a record-high number of assassinations in the first two months of 2019. The Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System said 5,803 people were killed in January and February, a 13 per cent increase from the same period in 2018. An average of 92 assassinations were registered every 24 hours in the first month of of 2019, spiking in February to 100 victims each day. According to the 2018 Global Peace Index, the Quintana Roo is Mexico's fourth most violent state, tallying 3,720 murders. Democrats are demanding that senior White House advisor Stephen Miller appear to testify as the figure who is behind the president's recent purge of homeland officials and new immigration crackdown. The push follows President Trump's escalating demands for a border crackdown, including his proposal to ship illegal immigrants to 'sanctuary cities' including areas represented by political opponents like Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 'Probably Stephen Miller, who seems to be the boss of everybody on immigration, ought to come before Congress and explain some of these policies,' House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerold Nadler told CNN's 'State of the Union' Sunday. Congress routinely summons agency heads to testify on administration policy and budgeting, but the White House usually turns down requests to make presidential advisors available for questioning. Democrats are demanding that senior White House advisor Stephen Miller testify about immigration policy In the case of Miller, the 33-year-old age has amassed enough influence on immigration matters that Democrats believe he is currently the person calling the shots. It was Miller who administration officials was behind the new policy Trump is exploring to ship illegal immigrants to 'sanctuary cities.' Miller has also been identified as the figure behind the purge where Trump pushed out Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, the head of the Secret Service and a top Homeland deputy, while withdrawing the nomination of a head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. His perceived sway has reached the point that Trump said he himself was running immigration policy when asked by DailyMail.com last week about Miller's influence. 'Frankly, there is only one person that is running it. You know who that is? It's me,' Trump said. Miller is identified as behind the purge of homeland officials including Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen Miller, 33, has amassed influence on immigration, where he has demanded tougher policies at the border and pushed earlier administration travel bans House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) wants Miller to testify President Trump said he himself was driving immigration policy when asked about Miller (r) Representative Kathleen Rice, a Democrat from New York, said Miller is pulling the strings on immigration Rep. Kathleen Rice of New York, who heads a homeland security subcommittee in the House, also said Miller needed to appear in Congress. She said he should 'make his case for these terrible policies to the American people instead of being this shadow puppeteer,' the Washington Post reported. 'It's clear that he's the one pulling the strings,' she continued. 'And if he's going to continue advocating for these policies and personnel changes, then he needs to come before the American people and explain himself. He has to be held accountable,' Rice added. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi is among senior figures who have questioned how the young aide has obtained influence over top security experts with decades in the field, including In the case of Ron Vitiello, the withdrawn nominee to head ICE, the president moved on from an official who served as acting deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection and had run the Border Patrol. 'We don't see Stephen Miller as an expert,' Thompson told the POst. 'He's a young man who has some novel ideas that most Democrats disagree with.' Lawyers for President Donald Trump warned the U.S. Treasury on Monday that Democratic lawmakers are pursuing 'unchecked congressional power' by requesting Trump's tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service. And a pair of Trump lawyers also warned the firm of Trump's longtime accountant not to comply with the House Oversight Committee's demand for documents. The committee was asking for tax return information for Trump, as well as for a variety of LLCs and Trusts that formed a basis for his business enterprises. The firm indicated it would comply but sought a 'friendly' subpoena from the Committee then got a stern warning from Trump's representatives. Lawyers for President Donald Trump told an accounting firm not to provide Trump tax returns to a congressional committee Politico on Monday reported that Trump lawyer William Consovoy and fellow Trump attorney Stefan Passantino warned accounting firm Mazars USA against complying with an expected subpoena from another House panel, the Oversight and Reform Committee. The Oversight Committee in March had written to Mazars USA requesting documents related to services provided by the firm or its predecessor to Trump and the Trump Organization. Accountant Donald Bender House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings was expected to issue the subpoena later on Monday seeking a decade's worth of Trump's financial records, according to Politico. Passantino previously served in the White House counsel's office. 'It is no secret that the Democrat Party has decided to use its new House majority to launch a flood of investigations into the president's personal affairs in hopes of using anything they can find to damage him politically,' they wrote Jerry Bernstein, outside counsel for Mazars. They put the firm 'on notice,' pending potential litigation over the issue, and wrote that Oversight 'is not a miniature Department of Justice, charged with investigating and prosecuting potential federal crimes. It is a legislative body, not 'a law enforcement or trial agency,' and the chairman's attempt to assume for Congress the role of police, prosecutor, and judge is unconstitutional.' House Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Elijah Cummings, D-Md., is seeking financial documents to investigate claims Donald Trump 'inflated' his net worth when seeking loans Rep. Richard Neal, the House Ways and Means Committee chairman, has given the IRS until April 23 to hand over President Donald Trump's tax returns In a letter to Treasury General Counsel Brent McIntosh, Consovoy accused the chairman of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, Richard Neal, of inventing a legislative justification for the request while pursuing political aims. Treasury officials had no immediate comment. Consovoy's letter, which appeared to increase the odds of a lengthy court battle, came two days after Neal, a Democrat, set a final April 23 deadline for the IRS to turn over six years of Trump's individual and business tax returns. Trump broke with a decades-old precedent by refusing to release his returns as a presidential candidate in 2016 and continues to do so as president, saying his tax returns are under IRS audit. The IRS, which is overseen by the Treasury Department, has said that Trump could release his returns even while under audit. Neal formally requested Trump's returns on April 3, saying his committee was exercising its jurisdiction over IRS audits and enforcement of the tax law regarding the president. Neal set an initial April 10 deadline that the Trump administration missed. Democrats want the Republican president's tax returns as part of their investigations of possible conflicts of interest posed by Trump's continued ownership of extensive business interests, even as he serves the public as president. 'Congress has no constitutional authority to act like a junior-varsity IRS, rerunning individual examinations or flyspecking the agency's calculations,' Consovoy said in his letter. 'Congress especially has no constitutional authority to interfere with an ongoing examination.' As Ways and Means chairman, Neal is the only lawmaker in the House authorized to request individual tax information under a federal law that says the Treasury secretary 'shall furnish' the data. 'We are incredibly confident about the legal ground that we are standing on. If the IRS does not comply with the request, Chairman Neal will likely issue a subpoena for the returns,' said Representative Judy Chu, a Democratic member of the Ways and Means Committee. Consovoy accused Neal of pursuing a 'radical view of unchecked congressional power (that) has no support in law.' He dismissed the notion that the request is legislatively justified, saying, 'No one actually believes this.' Despite the law's clarity, Democrats have long acknowledged that the request, if denied, would mean a federal court battle that could ultimately be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court. Consovoy's letter surfaced after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Monday that he will act in accordance with the law regarding the request for Trump's tax returns. 'We're analyzing the law, we're consulting with the Department of Justice,' Mnuchin said in an interview on Fox Business Network while reiterating concerns about lawmakers' demands. 'I will follow the law,' Mnuchin told the cable network, adding that he would review related 'constitutional issues' carefully. Mnuchin is involved in the decision because his department has oversight of the IRS. Trump's 2016 Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, responded to the events on Twitter. 'The secretary of the treasury and head of the IRS continue to refuse to turn over Trump's tax returns to Congress for reasons even they can't clearly articulate,' she wrote. Echoing Republicans in Congress, Mnuchin said he was concerned Democrats' demand could lead the federal tax agency to become a tool for political disputes. 'This is about whether Congress for the first time, unprecedented, should use a law that protects your privacy to go after someone for purely political reasons. That's a dangerous precedent,' Representative Kevin Brady, the top Republican on Neal's committee, told CNBC. Representatives for Neal and Cummings could not be immediately reached for comment. A controversial artist has exhibited homeless men from London for 48 hours inside a glass case in Denmark. 'Disneyland for the sick' was the brainchild of Danish artist Kristian von Hornsleth. The installation - which Mr von Hornsleth says was turned down by four major UK galleries because it was deemed too controversial - attracted 2,000 people to the Kunstmuseum in Randers, Denmark this weekend. The artist said that the men are English because the project started in England but had to move when galleries in London feared getting 'a brick through the window' because it is so controversial. A controversial artist has exhibited homeless men from London for 48 hours inside a glass case in Denmark. Kevin, one of the participants, reaches out to a woman attending the exhibition Three rough sleepers were flown over from London to take part as well as each receiving 2,000 after their portraits sold for 28,000 each. Mr von Hornsleth said: 'It's not because I don't want to exhibit it in England, but my two galleries over there won't have anything to do with it. 'They think it is too controversial, they are too scared to get a brick through the window.' One of the men involved in the show holds up three signs towards the crowd in the museum The three men inside the display box in the Kunstmuseum in Randers, Denmark this weekend The three homeless men even dished out money to the crowds at the gallery in a role reversal A group photo shows the artist (centre) and his art subjects who he flew to Denmark from their native England He added that over the weekend in its adopted home, the exhibition was at first 'very intimidating for everyone.' He said audience members at first stayed several metres away from the box but after half an hour they started to interact. 'It was very touching. People started to relax and it became very warm-hearted in the end,' said the artist. 'We're very proud of the guys, they did fantastically well and they've all decided to turn their lives around. The rough sleepers were flown over from London to take part as well as each receiving 2,000 Kevin, who participated in the display at the Kunstmuseum in Randers, Denmark A group photo of Kristian and his art subjects, some of whom participated in his latest piece 'We've empowered them - now they want to be activists and no longer passive beggars in the street, and hopefully this is the start of that.' The rough sleepers sat in a glass display case in the museum in two-hour shifts after making it past customs to arrive in Denmark. They stayed in a hotel paid for by the artist. Mr von Hornsleth said he aimed use the display to show how homeless people are 'severely mistreated' by bureaucracy.' Museum director Lise Jeppesen told a Danish TV channel why she took a punt on the exhibition, and the controversial artist. She said: 'So one says 'they are too weak to have meaning as independent individuals themselves. It may well be they say they want to and they see themselves as co-creators, but I know better so I know they don't know what they say yes to. I say 'okay, then Kristian has the room'. Kristian von Hornsleth (centre) with participants in his works reacting to media coverage Former British soldier Darren O'Shea (left) and Kevin as part of a previous project His latest work is part of his SUPER CRASH exhibition, which will take place in the same museum until the end of July. His previous 'Buy a Homeless' project saw ten rough sleepers in London 'sold' and given tracking devices. Mr von Hornsleth added: 'The homeless guys are a mirror image of the future of Denmark. 'They are the ones whose existence we'd rather forget. 'These people have been living a slum existence for 20 years and have faced everything. 'They are mistreated by the system. People needed to see them with their own eyes. 'Perhaps you can see in them a reflection of yourself, or you can walk by them and feel glad that you haven't been forced into homelessness with a syringe in your arm.' Former British soldier Darren O'Shea, 41, who became homeless after his family life broke down in 2014 'After decades of privatisation, the dismantling of the welfare state, and now the surveillance capitalism of the tech giants, the arts will have to be the ones pressuring the powers that be, by becoming more activist..' Each of the rough sleepers come from the UK, including former British soldier Darren O'Shea, 41, who became homeless after his family life broke down in 2014. Darren, from Peckham, London, served as a rifleman in the Royal Green Jackets from 1997 to 2004 and served in Northern Ireland and the Balkans. Kristian von Hornsleth's painting of Ritchie (left) and his painting of Bryan on the right for a previous project The 41-year-old was sleeping in the doorway of a theatre in the West End when he was asked to take part in the project, but has since turned his life around and is currently studying for a Master's degree in social science and homelessness. He said: 'It went brilliantly, so many people turned up. 'It was alright, it was a bit like being back on the street again - but we were there for a very serious reason which I think we got across. 'At first people were shocked when they saw us, then they realised we were having fun. 'People were welling up because they found it emotional.' Anothe rone of the men told Danish TV: 'Well, we're always getting looked at nayway whether it's here or on the street. There's no difference really.' A Florida deputy filmed lifting and body slamming an 11-year-old boy to the ground outside a school 'did not use excessive force,' according to St. Lucie's Sheriff. In a video filmed on April 9, the child can be seen walking away from a St. Lucie Sheriff's deputy Diederech Hueck before Hueck runs after him, lifts him into the air, and then throws him onto the pavement in front of Lincoln Park Academy, Fort Pierce. The footage from the cell phone of a fellow student watching from a school bus shows the law enforcement officer then place himself on top of the child, whose grandfather told WPTV is now undergoing a mental-health evaluation. Sheriff Ken Mascara said it's important to know the context of what occurred and the history of the 11-year-old student. The video of the incident showing the St. Lucie County Sheriff's deputy taking down the sixth grader outside Lincoln Park Academy in Fort Pierce on April 9 has gone viral Diederech Hueck was seen lifting up and then throwing the 11-year-old boy to the ground outside school Mascara said the student had caused multiple disturbances on the day in question, 'refused to comply with instructions by school staff and was physically aggressive to staff as well as students'. 'The deputy did everything he could to defuse the situation,' Mascara said, as reported by Treasure Coast Newspapers. 'His use of force fell within the legal, and our agency guidelines.' Following the incident the Sheriff's Office said the sixth grader was taken to hospital for a check-up but complained of no injuries and left simply with a Band Aid on his knee. Sheriff Ken Mascara said his deputy's use of force fell within legal and agency guidelines Sheriff Ken Mascara said it's important to know the context of what occurred and the history of the 11-year-old student and to view the video 'in context' Mascara said he didn't think the deputy used excessive force in the video. 'I think the context is most important before you watch the video,' Mascara added. Mascara said the student is facing charges including battery on a teacher, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct on campus. The sheriff said the student has a history of violence in school and at home. 'The student also has a safety plan established by the school that requires that he be escorted anywhere on the school campus by staff, which should lead people to summarize that this kid is a pretty big danger to just about everyone at school,' the sheriff said. Hueck has been a school resource deputy for eight years. He spent five years at Fort Pierce Westwood High School and three in his current role at Lincoln Park Academy. Police reports state he has thrown himself at classroom window and slammed his own head into a wall during incidents at school that day and in February The sheriff office said the youngster is on a Diversion Program for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, a felony. The child has to be escorted around school after sex allegations involving a female student. The boy had been arrested by the school resource officer for aggravated assault five days prior. Hueck also arrested him February, after he initially resisted arrest for disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace following an incident where he disrupted a class he was not supposed to be in. During the incident he slammed his own head into a wall. The child faces aggravated assault charges from a staff member who accuses him of chest bumping him earlier in the Tuesday incident. He was arrested for assault and battery after Tuesday's incident as a staff member complained he chest bumped him Mascara explained that the assistant principal had asked the deputy to follow him after the boy stormed out of the Dean's office while waiting for a parent to arrive and witness his suspension. Dean Drummond was absent on the day of the incident. Police claimed the child was 'walking with his fist clenched and had an agitated expression on his face. His brows were turned down and he was punching his fist into the palm of his hand'. They stated he then 'continued pulling away, twisting and turning his body'. Deputy Hueck noted in his report that he'd reviewed surveillance videos to confirm several staff members had tried to get the child to comply earlier before he was called in. Child was arrested for disturbing the peace at Lincoln Park Academy in February and assault with a knife, without intent to kill, in April Parents and guardians at Lincoln Park Academy were horrified after learning about the incident. 'If the kid was fighting him back and he felt like he was in some kind of danger, then I could justify his actions, but it didn't appear to be that way,' father of twins, General Platt told WPTV. 'That's kind of rough to be at a school campus, he didn't have to slam him down like that.' Jazmine Arias, whose sister attends the school, said: 'I would have freaked out if I saw that in person. He's a kid, I don't think a little kid should be thrown to the ground like that.' The school did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment. Sheriff Mascara also noted the deputy involved had worked for years at a high school nearby and had never reached a point where he needed to handle a situation in such a tactile way, even when putting himself between fighting students. Sheriff Ken Mascara said Hueck had not been suspended and his actions were justified because the student had been 'running around the school campus and not responding to any commands by the school staff' 'Our school resource deputy is very familiar with this student and knows he has a violent history, including possessing weapons,' Sheriff Mascara said in a press conference last Wednesday. 'At the end of the day the deputy did everything he could to diffuse the situation, and his use of force fell within the legal and our agency guidelines.' According to a police report, the boy was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill on April 4 when a 50-year-old female victim complained he was holding a knife in an 'aggressive manner' when she visited him at his residence to resolve an argument they'd just had at her home a few blocks away. He claimed to police that he believed the alleged victim was going to abuse him. The child was taken to a juvenile detention center and the Department of Children and Families was notified. Surveillance camera footage from a nightclub in Brazil recorded the moment a police officer reacted to being bumped into by a fellow cop by drawing his gun and shooting him dead. Video from the camera inside a bustling Barril 66 night spot in Aguas Clara, Brasilia, showed the military police officer walking by his assailant on Monday at 3:09am local time, brushing the killer cop's arm. The victim, identified as first lieutenant Herison de Oliveira Bezerra, 38, was then shoved by Civil Police agent Pericles Marcos Junior. WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES Brazilian Military Police Lieutenant Herison de Oliveira Bezerra (pictured) died from gun shot wounds suffered during an argument with Civil Police officer Pericles Marcos Junior CCTV camera at the club captured the shocking moment two police officers drew their weapons at each other (pictured) De Oliveira Bezerra then tried to rush Junior who pulled out his .40 caliber handgun. The victim also pulled out his own gun before Junior fired three shots. He was shot twice in the chest and once in the abdomen. The father of one was transported to a local hospital where he later died. A woman, whose name has not been released, was also wounded in the thigh during the shooting and treated at the same medical facility. According to Brazilian news paper Jornal de Brasilia, the victim and the shooter were previously spotted arguing. Witnesses said de Oliveira Bezerra was on his way back from the restroom when the shooting occurred. Junior tried fleeing the scene but was quickly apprehended and confessed to the crime. A veteran of the Troubles in Northern Ireland has criticised a murder charge being brought against a fellow former soldier as a 'politically motivated witch hunt'. Alan Barry, co-founder of Justice for Northern Ireland veterans, branded the British government as spineless after the announcement that a second veteran is to be prosecuted with murder by the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland. The veteran, known only as Soldier B, has been accused of shooting 15-year-old Daniel Hegarty twice in the head near his Londonderry home in July 1972. Mr Barry told MailOnline this afternoon that the British government should be ashamed for caving to Irish republicans. Daniel Hegarty (pictured) was killed in Londonderry where he was shot twice in the head aged just 15 years old This is a politically motivated witch hunt coming from Northern Ireland and Sinn Fein,' he said. We have a spineless government. This is a government that has shown how spineless they are on Brexit, we have the same lack of back bone over standing up to the republican movement in Northern Ireland.' Daniel was shot in the Creggan area during Operation Motorman, which was aimed at removing 'no go zones' for Catholics and Protestants during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The former soldier will also be charged with wounding with intent after Daniel's cousin Christopher Hegarty, then aged 17, was shot and injured in the incident. Last year the Hegarty family won the right to seek the prosecution of the soldier after the High Court quashed a PPS decision not to bring criminal charges against him. It comes amid public outcry following last month's announcement when a former paratrooper known as Soldier F faced murder charges over the Bloody Sunday massacre in Bogside - which took place the same year. Pictured: An armoured vehicle patrols Londonderry during Operation Motorman in Northern Ireland's Troubles Pictured: British troops move through the streets of Londonderry in Northern Ireland in August 1972 Daniel Hegarty's sisters Philomena, Kathleen and Margaret are pictured on the spot where he was shot in 1972 during Operation Motorman. Last year they won the right to seek the prosecution of Soldier B Director of the PPS Stephen Herron met with members of the Hegarty family to inform them of the decision at a private meeting in Londonderry on Monday. Mr Herron said: 'Following the ruling of the Divisional Court last year I conducted a review of this case. I have given careful consideration to all of the available evidence. 'This has included material obtained in the course of the initial investigation, by a later investigation carried out by the Historical Enquiries Team, material generated by inquest proceedings and a number of expert forensic reports, the most recent of which was provided after the court ruling in 2018. 'I have concluded that the evidence which can be presented at court is sufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction and that the evidential test for prosecution is met. Soldier F is accused of murdering Patrick McKinney (left) and James Wray (right) on Bloody Sunday and today it was announced that Soldier B will also be charged Pictured: Stephen Herron, Northern Irelands director of public prosecutions, as the PPS announces that Soldier B will be charged 'As with all cases, I have also carefully considered whether the public interest requires prosecution through the courts. Veteran hands service medal back in protest at Soldier F's treatment The CPS announced last month that the man, whose identity is being protected, is to face prosecution for the murders of James Wray and William McKinney on Bloody Sunday. The massacre in January 1972 occurred when soldiers from 1 Para opened fire on protesters, claiming the lives of 14 Irish nationals and wounding at least 14 more. But the move has outraged veterans, with Martin Ledbury - who joined the Royal Artillery aged 16 - handing back his service medal in protest of the treatment of Soldier F. The father-of-one, now 59, described Soldier F as 'part of the brotherhood' of veterans and is now planning to give back his service medal in a mark of solidarity. Advertisement 'Particular consideration was given to Soldier B's ill health, regarding which an updated medical report was obtained. 'In line with our Code for Prosecutors, I have concluded, given the seriousness of the charges, that the public interest test for prosecution is also met. 'I have therefore taken the decision to prosecute an individual identified as soldier B for the offence of murder in relation to the death of Daniel Hegarty and for the wounding of Christopher Hegarty. 'This decision has been reached following an objective and impartial application of the test for prosecution which was conducted in accordance with the Code for Prosecutors and with the benefit of advice from senior counsel.' The charges face by Soldier F have sparked outrage among veterans and supporters. Soldier F is the only paratrooper to be facing charges in relation to the Bloody Sunday massacre and thousands of bikers descended on central London on Friday to protest his treatment. British veteran 'Soldier F' to be charged with murder over Bloody Sunday massacre in Londonderry By Richard Spillett It was announced last month that a former serviceman, named only as 'Soldier F', will stand trial for the murders of two men during the Bloody Sunday shooting in 1972 and the attempted murders of four others. Soldier F is one of 17 former members of the 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment who were investigated over the violence which left 13 people dead in Londonderry in 1972. The sixteen other British military veterans who were investigated over Bloody Sunday will not face action, it was announced this morning. A photo from January 30 1972 shows demonstrators facing off with British soldiers minutes before paratroopers opened fire, killing 13 civilians on what became known as Bloody Sunday Soldier F is now thought to be in his 70s and faces trial for the alleged murders of James Wray and William McKinney and the alleged attempted murders of Joseph Friel, Michael Quinn, Joe Mahon and Patrick O'Donnell. In the wake of the landmark decision to prosecute the soldier, MPs accused the government of failing to do enough to protect those who fought in the Army. At the same time as Soldier F's prosecution was announced, authorities revealed that two alleged Official IRA members would face no criminal action. The British government said it will support Soldier F and cover all of his legal costs, with Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson praising the 'courage and distinction' of those who fought in Northern Ireland. But the minister was criticised by fellow Tory MP and ex-Army Officer Johnny Mercer for failing to do enough to protect soldiers from prosecution. Families of those killed wept after the prosecutor's decision was announced on March 14. They welcomed the charges brought against Soldier F but said they felt more of the group should face court. Soldier F was not named by prosecutors but may be named when he's brought before court in the coming weeks, but could apply for his anonymity to be extended. Soldiers involved in the shooting were given anonymity in the 2010 public inquiry, although the report refers to him being called 'Dave' by fellow Paras. Advertisement President Donald Trump said Monday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has lost control of her caucus and Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Muslim congresswoman from Minnesota, is running the show. As he prepared to fly to Omar's home state for a Tax Day event, the president called the Minnesota Democrat an 'anti-Semite' and claimed she's 'ungrateful' in a tweet that questioned the Somalian-born lawmaker's loyalty to the United States. 'Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made. She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy!' he claimed. Omar and her family applied for asylum and relocated to the U.S. in the mid-90's. She became a U.S. citizen as a teen. She said Monday in a tweet as he arrived in Minnesota that her state is so welcoming to immigrants they put one in Congress, as she clapped back at the U.S. president who wants to dramatically lower the number of refugees the country takes in. 'The Great State of Minnesota, where we dont only welcome immigrants, we send them to Washington,' she told him. President Donald Trump said Monday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has lost control of her caucus and Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Muslim congresswoman from Minnesota, is running the show Pelosi on Sunday called on President Donald Trump to remove a 'dangerous' video from his Twitter feed that was critical of Omar. Democrats claim it brought threats of violence against the congresswoman Omar and her family applied for asylum and relocated to the U.S. in the mid-90's. She became a U.S. citizen as a teen As he prepared to fly to Omar's home state for a Tax Day event, the president called the Minnesota Democrat an 'anti-Semite' and claimed she's 'ungrateful' in a tweet that questioned the Somalian-born lawmaker's loyalty to the United States The tweets were the latest chapter in the battle between Trump and Omar, and Pelosi and Trump, which picked back up Friday when the U.S. president tweeted a video of the Democratic lawmaker referring to 9/11 attackers as 'people' rather than terrorists during a fundraiser for the Council of American-Islamic Relations. Pelosi said Sunday that Trump should remove the 'dangerous' video from his Twitter feed, following Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's lead. Democrats say Trump's video brought threats of violence against Omar. 'The President's words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger. President Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video,' Pelosi said in a statement from London, where she is on travel with lawmakers. She said she asked Capitol Police to investigate threats of violence against the freshman legislator. 'Following the President's tweet, I spoke with the Sergeant-at-Arms to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff. They will continue to monitor and address the threats she faces,' Pelosi said. The video had been pinned to the top of Trump's feed. He had removed it by the time the altercation escalated on Monday. 'WE WILL NEVER FORGET,' the president said in a Friday night tweet that accompanied a 43-second video of the Twin Towers burning down on September 11, 2001 and a clip of Omar's comments at the CAIR fundraiser. She said Monday in a tweet as he arrived in Minnesota that her state is so welcoming to immigrants they put one in Congress, as she clapped back at the U.S. president who wants to dramatically lower the number of refugees the country takes in Speaker Pelosi also said she's asked Capitol Police to conduct 'security assessment' of Omar White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said President Trump wishes 'no ill will' against Rep. Ilhan Omar White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Sunday that President Trump wishes Representative Omar 'no ill will' as she insisted he was right to put the congresswoman on blast. 'Certainly the president is wishing no ill will, and certainly not violence towards anyone, but the president is absolutely and should be calling out the congresswoman for her not only one time but history of anti-Semitic comments,' Sanders said on ABC News' 'This Week' in Sunday morning interview. She said Omar's description of the 9/11 terror attacks as 'people who did something' was 'absolutely abhorrent' and Democrats should also confront her. 'I find what her comments to be absolutely disgraceful and unbefitting of a Member of Congress,' Sanders said,' and I think that it's a good thing that the president is calling her out for those comments, and the big question is why aren't Democrats doing it as well,' Sanders said. Democrats rushed to defend the freshman lawmaker, who made history last year when Minnesotans elected her to Congress. She is one of two Muslim women serving in the legislative body. Omar herself hit back at the president Saturday in a series of explosive tweets, insisting she remains undeterred by Trump's criticism and will continue to 'fight and defend' democracy against his administration's policies. She stirred controversy again last week after remarks she made last month about Muslims in the context of the 9/11 terror attacks resurfaced. In Saturday tweets she said she 'didn't run for Congress to be silent' and the nation's 'core beliefs are under threat' from the current administration. 'I did not run for Congress to be silent. I did not run for Congress to sit on the sidelines,' she added. 'I ran because I believed it was time to restore moral clarity and courage to Congress.' Omar also addressed insults involving her patriotisn, saying, 'No one person no matter how corrupt, inept, or vicious can threaten my unwavering love for America. I stand undeterred to continue fighting for equal opportunity in our pursuit of happiness for all Americans.' Omar has on several occasions been accused of Antisemitism. She says the furor surrounding her 9/11 comments stems from the fact that she's Muslim Trump tweeted 'WE WILL NEVER FORGET' with a video that showed Omar's 'some people did something' 9/11 speech intersected with video of the disaster His video stressed the remark she says is being taken out of context about the 9/11 hijackers He came under scrutiny for using painful images of the Twin Towers burning to go after her Omar concluded the thread by thanking those that continued to stick by her in her fight to establish an 'America we all deserve,' in nod to Ocasio-Cortez's effort on Friday evening to get Democratic lawmakers to back up their colleague. Ocasio-Cortez branded the tweet a 'dangerous' declaration of prejudice that could incite harm against the politician who's facing a slew of death threats and abuse. 'Members of Congress have a duty to respond to the President's explicit attack today,' Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Friday evening. '[Ilhan Omar's] life is in danger. For our colleagues to be silent is to be complicit in the outright, dangerous targeting of a member of Congress. We must speak out.' The New Yorker shared an image of Martin Niemoller's famous poem 'First they came' that was inspired by the Holocaust and hangs on the wall of the Washington, D.C. museum memorializing the tragedy. The poem reads: 'First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for meand there was no one left to speak for me.' On Saturday, Omar took to Twitter with an explosive thread of tweets in response President's attack, insisting she 'didn't run for congress to be silent' AOC tweeted in defense of Omar using Martin Niemoller's famous poem 'First they came' to condemn a tweet of the President's on Friday night Despite the poem's sharing of similar themes to her tweet, Ocasio-Cortez sparked outrage online among critics who believed her use of Niemoller's famed piece was 'disturbing' in the context that it was used. The outcry stemmed from a number of comments that Omar has made over the past few months about Israel. Omar's speech to CAIR was about the necessity for the organization in today's political environment. She said, 'Far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and frankly, I'm tired of it and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it. 'CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something, and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.' Since the controversial comments went viral on Twitter, Omar has defended herself by invoking George W. Bush's remarks at Ground Zero. He intentionally refused to refer to the hijackers as Muslims. 'Was Bush downplaying the terrorist attack? What if he was a Muslim,' she asked on Twitter. Despite the poem sharing similar themes to her tweet, AOC has been widely blasted by critics who believe the Holocaust-origins of 'First They Came...' make the use of it in defense of Omar inappropriate Democrats for the presidency, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O'Rourke, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg lined up to support her after Trump seized on the comparison. They called the president's behavior 'disgusting' and noted that Omar was already receiving death threats. Sanders said Saturday at an event: 'Remember, George W. Bush, I didn't have a lot in common with him. 'What did he do a few days after 9/11, he went into a mosque. You remember that? He went into a mosque to say that criminals, terrorists, attacked the United States, not the Muslim community. That's what he did. It's true. We have had a president who for cheap political gain is trying to divide us up, by the color of our skin ... by our religion. 'By God, that is not what a president should - we can disagree, for God's sakes, that's democracy, but you don't have the President of the United States trying to get us to hate undocumented people. You know, that's not what America's supposed to be about.' The Washington Post first noted that Bush once referred to the terrorists as 'the people who knocked these buildings down' in remarks at Ground Zero a few days after the attack. Omar piggybacked on the example in a tweet that linked to the original article. She had said at a fundraiser for CAIR that the organization 'was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties. 'So you can't just say that today someone is looking at me strange and that I am trying to make myself look pleasant. You have to say that this person is looking at me strange, I am not comfortable with it, and I am going to talk to them and ask them why. Because that is the right you have,' she stated. The remarks earned her new criticism, having already weathered allegations that she's an anti-Semite. 'First Member of Congress to ever describe terrorists who killed thousands of Americans on 9/11 as 'some people who did something,' GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw said in an accusatory tweet. 'Unbelievable.' Fox & Friends' Brian Kilmeade said on the morning program he co-hosts, 'You have to wonder if she's an American first.' The New York Post on Thursday even went as far as to splash a photograph one of the World Trade Center towers collapsing in a ball of flames, with the banner: 'Rep. Ilhan Omar: 9/11 was 'some people did something.' The Washington Post's fact checker first pointed out that Bush once said something similar in a Sept. 14, 2001 speech, when he spoke through a bullhorn at Ground Zero. Bush told rescue workers in an impromptu speech through a bullhorn that the nation mourns victims of the Twin Towers attack. 'I can't hear you!' one told him. Bush said, 'I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people -- and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!' Rep. Ilhan Omar compared her controversial 9/11 comment to one George W. Bush made after the attack, suggesting Friday that he would have faced similar backlash if he were Muslim It was part of an intentional effort by Bush not to refer to the attackers as Muslims. Three days after the impromptu speech delivered by bullhorn, Bush visited the Islamic Center of Washington D.C. to condemn attacks on Muslims. He said: 'The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace. They represent evil and war. 'Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don't represent the best of America, they represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior.' Omar connected the dots on Friday and pointed out in a tweet that Bush did not come under assault for having referred to the attackers as 'people' instead of murderers or terrorists. Bernie Sanders was the first major Democrat to follow in AOC's footsteps on Friday night Elizabeth Warren was next, tweeting after Sanders that she too found Trump's attack 'disgusting' Minnesota's Amy Klobuchar joined her Senate colleagues in supporting Omar hours later. She was careful to note that she does not condone the congresswoman's remarks but found Trump's tweet to be offensive The New York Post even went as far as to splash a photograph one of the World Trade Center towers collapsing in a ball of flames, with the banner: 'Rep. Ilhan Omar: 9/11 was 'some people did something'' Other candidates including Beto O'Rourke, Pete Buttigieg and Julian Castro also condemned Trump's attack on Omar The issue of whether to link al Qaeda and other terrorist attacks including 9/11 to Islam became a campaign issue in 2016 when Trump accused former Barack Obama of refusing to call out 'radical Islamic terrorism.' He then leveled the same charge at Hillary Clinton, accusing her of being in 'total denial' for not calling the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, the work of a radical Islamic terrorist. She had tweeted: 'Islam is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people, and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.' Trump said, 'She is in total denial. And her continuing reluctance to ever name the enemy broadcasts weakness across the world.' However, when he made his first foreign trip as president to Saudi Arabia, the home country of a majority of the 9/11 attackers and its mastermind Osama bin Laden, he struck a different note. 'This is not a battle between different faiths, different sects, or different civilizations,' Trump said. 'This is a battle between barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate human life, and decent people of all religions who seek to protect it.' Chinese authorities are using a vast system of facial recognition cameras to track its Uighur Muslim minority across the country, according to a New York Times report. Facial recognition technology - integrated into China's huge networks of surveillance cameras - has been programmed to look exclusively for Uighurs based on their appearance and keep records of their movements across China, according to the report on Sunday. Beijing has already attracted widespread criticism for its treatment of Uighurs in the northwest region of Xinjiang, where up to one million members of mostly Muslim Turkic-speaking minority groups are held in internment camps, according to estimates cited by a UN panel. Security cameras are seen on a street in Urumqi, Xinjiang region in July 2010. Chinese authorities are using a vast system of facial recognition technology to track its Uighur Muslim minority across the country, according to a report published in the New York Times on Sunday A policemen watch screens showing public areas monitored by security cameras in Urumqi Police are now reportedly using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to target Uighurs outside Xinjiang, including in wealthy cities like Hangzhou and Wenzhou. The newspaper claims one central city scanned whether residents were Uighurs 500,000 times in one month alone. Beijing announced a plan in 2017 to become the world leader in the AI industry. But there have been concerns in the international community that new smart technology is being used for heavy police surveillance in recent years after violent inter-ethnic tensions. An Uighur woman rests near a cage protecting heavily armed Chinese paramilitary policemen on duty in Urumqi in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang in 2014. Beijing has already attracted widespread criticism for its treatment of Uighurs in the northwest region of Xinjiang A gate of what is officially known as a vocational skills education centre under construction in Dabancheng, in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Nearly one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim Turkic minorities are reportedly being held in detention centres in Xinjiang The Times cites experts who say this is the first known example of a government intentionally using AI for racial profiling, with appetite for the new systems growing in cities across the country. In the central province of Shaanxi, authorities reportedly 'aimed to acquire a smart camera system last year that 'should support facial recognition to identify Uighur/non-Uighur attributes'.' The Times says China's Ministry of Public Security did not respond to a faxed request for comment. Xinjiang, which shares a border with several countries including Pakistan and Afghanistan, has long suffered from violent unrest, which China claims is orchestrated by an organised 'terrorist' movement seeking the region's independence. A passenger has his face scanned by a face recognition system to buy a subway ticket and enter a metro station in Guangzhou city, south China's Guangdong province It has implemented a massive, high-tech security crackdown, which it says has prevented any violent incidents in over two years. But many Uighurs and Xinjiang experts say the violent episodes stem largely from spontaneous outbursts of anger at Chinese cultural and religious repression, and that Beijing plays up terrorism to justify tight control of the resource-rich region. While it previously denied the existence of the camps, Beijing has moved towards acknowledging their existence - but insists they are for 'vocational education' and are vital in the fight against separatist sentiments and religious extremism. It has also gone on a public relations blitz since last October in a bid to counter a global outcry against the camps by inviting diplomats and journalists to tour the centres. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 15) The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) signed the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the Republic Act 11165 or the Telecommunicating Act, which allows private sector employees to work in alternative workplaces. DOLE Secretary Silvestre Bello signed the IRR recently, according to an April 11 statement. Under the rules, a management prerogative or collective bargaining option can be used to implement the work scheme. "The work arrangement must not be less than the minimum labor standards set by law, and shall include compensable work hours, a minimum number of work hours, overtime, rest days, entitlement to leave benefits, social welfare benefits, and security of tenure," Bello was quoted saying. To effectively implement the telecommuting program, DOLE said the employer and employees shall adhere to and be guided by the mutually agreed policy or telecommuting agreement. The policy includes the applicable code of conduct and performance evaluation and assessment; appropriate alternative workplace; use and cost of equipment; observance of data privacy; and occupational safety and health, among others. Companies who will adopt the telecommuting work arrangement must notify DOLE's nearest field or provincial office. The rules will take effect 15 days after its publication in a newspaper of general circulation and posting in the DOLE website. Sporting fans have slammed a new $360million stadium in Sydney's west after being met with obstructed views during a tour on Sunday morning. More than a thousand people poured into the new Western Sydney Stadium in Parramatta after it was officially opened by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian. The 30,0000-seat rectanglular ground will play host to NRL and A-League games. But fans were unimpressed with the new stadium's layout, taking to Twitter to point out that some seats had an obstructed view of the field. 'So this is how I am meant to watch games from an expensive gold membership seat?' one man tweeted. Sporting fans have slammed a new $360 million stadium in Sydney's west after being met with obstructed views Fans were unimpressed with the new stadium's layout, taking to Twitter to point out that some seats had an obstructed view of the field The frustrated fan wasn't alone, with dozens of social media users also taking issue with the poor view. 'Ouch... refund?!' wrote one, while another asked 'how is this possible?' 'Money well spent paying for that seat , look at all the action you can see,' added a third. Other users joked about the view, suggesting the seats were reserved for opposing teams or referees. 'That's where the referee sits for Storm games,' one said. 'Im pretty sure thats where they are putting the away fans,' said another. One social media user suggested members get a refund after seeing the poor view Other users joked about the view, suggesting the seats were reserved for opposing teams or referees But Ms Berejiklian defended her new stadium. She claimed voters gave her government the tick of approval to move forward with opening the first of three controversial sporting stadiums. 'The people of NSW... gave us the tick to keep moving forward and we know in our heart of hearts what is right for the citizens of our state,' she said. The stadium boasts the steepest stands in the country, according to the state government, and has been designed to amplify crowd noise. The Parramatta Eels, Western Sydney Wanderers, Wests Tigers and NSW Waratahs will also call the stadium home. The round 6 NRL match between Parramatta Eels and West Tigers will be the first sporting event at the stadium on April 22. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian defended the stadium during its official opening on Sunday The Supreme Court is again rejecting a gay death row inmate's appeal that claims jurors in South Dakota were biased against him because of his sexual orientation. Charles Russell Rhines, now 62, was sentenced to death in 1993 after being convicted of murder for fatally stabbing doughnut shop employee, Donnivan Schaeffer, while robbing the Rapid City, South Dakota, store in 1992. Rhines' legal team legal team took his death row appeal to the Supreme Court, arguing that Rhines sexual orientation influenced the outcome, claiming that his jury opted for the lethal punishment because Rhines is gay. The Supreme Court rejected South Dakota death row inmate Charles Russell Rhines' appeal claiming that his jurors were biased against him because of his sexual orientation. He's pictured at left in the 1990s and at right in a more recent mugshot On Monday, the justices opted to leave Rhines' death sentence in place. No comment about their decision was issued. Justices had rejected a similar appeal from Rhines in 2018. Rhines' appeal followed the high court's 2017 ruling that evidence of racial bias in the jury room allows a judge to consider setting aside a verdict. Rhines claimed one juror made a joke saying that 'Rhines might enjoy a life in prison where he would be among so many men'. Rhines was convicted of murdering a doughnut shop employee during the commission of a robbery in 1992 In 2015, Rhines' new lawyers began seeking interviews in an effort to shore up their appeal and, in a 2016 sworn statement, juror Frances Cersosimo claimed that a member of the jury said: 'If he's gay, we'd be sending him where he wants to go.' Meanwhile, juror Bennett Blake alleged to an investigator: 'There was lots of discussion of homosexuality. There was a lot of disgust. This is a farming community.' And, juror Harry Keeney, said in a 2016 sworn statement: 'We also knew he was a homosexual and thought he shouldn't be able to spend his life with men in prison.' Although Rhines' death sentence was upheld in August 2018, it was thought that the new filing could bring about a different result. Jurors are not supposed to talk about deliberations. However, in the Pena Rodriguez v. Colorado case, a rare challenge of a conviction was allowed thanks to a 5-to-3 vote two years ago after claims of racial bias. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy has said: 'Racial bias implicates unique historical, constitutional and institutional concerns.' But when asked by Chief Justice Roberts whether it could be allowed in cases of homophobia, he wrote: 'Sexual orientation is not immutable to the same extent as race. The jury found Rhines guilty of murdering Donnivan Schaeffer, a doughnut shop employee, and given a death sentence for the crime. Schaeffer's grave marker is shown here The Supreme Court previously rejected a similar appeal that Rhines had filed in 2018 'No civil war has been fought over it. No politician has ever proposed constructing a wall to keep homosexuals out of the country.' But South Dakota's attorney general Jason R. Ravnsborg, elected in 2018, is claiming they don't have grounds for an appeal based on bias. Ravnsborg has dismissed comments from jury 26 years ago as a 'stab at humor' that 'did not go over well'. 'The alleged juror comments here are not clear and explicit expressions of animus toward homosexuals,' Ravnsborg wrote. 'At best, they fall into the category of an "offhand comment". ' Referring to a note to the judge signed by the 12 members of the jury during deliberations that asked if Rhines be 'allowed to marry or have conjugal visits', he claimed it proved the jury was 'not phased by, or even convinced of, Rhines's homosexuality'. He claimed it was 'not even a consideration'. The judge did not reply to the note which also asked whether Rhines would 'be allowed to mix with the general inmate population and if he would 'have a cellmate'. 'What jury conceived of gay marriage in 1992?' Ravnsborg asked. 'And the fact that the jurors asked about Rhines's access to conjugal visits with visitors from outside the prison walls also belies Rhines's assertion that they believed prison would afford him a harem of male sexual companions.' There is no set limit of appeals that a death row inmate can submit. Two of France's most famous rappers will settle their on-going feud with a 1.75million cage fight following a punch-up between their entourages in Paris airport. Elie Yaffa who uses the stage name Booba and Okou Armand Gnakouri who calls himself Kaaris - ended up behind bars after clashing violently in Orly Airport lobby. The bitter rivals have challenged one another to an MMA (mixed martial arts) battle in Switzerland, with the winner taking home the grand prize of almost 2million. The two artists, Booba (left) and Kaaris, are set to end their dispute with an MMA (mixed martial arts) battle in Switzerland Kaaris, 39, took to social media to announce the fight with a video of himself signing the contract as he threatened to 'drink his rival's blood'. Rival Booba, 41, was quick to respond to the threat, replying: 'I will beat you to death, you son of a b****'. The rapper also posted photos on Instagram of his exercise regime as he prepares for an eight-month training stint before the fight scheduled in December. It will take place in the Swiss city of Geneva due to violent MMA being banned in France. The pair bumped into each other with their entourages and violently clashed at Paris airport Promoter Raid Salah said talks to schedule the fight between the two rappers was 'very difficult', because they 'threw tantrums', according to The Local. Booba and Kaaris spent three weeks in prison before being released on bail of 26,000 - and were both handed 18 months suspended sentences. Both rappers were on their way to Barcelona to give a concert in different nightclubs when their paths crossed, with the pair having feuded since 2013. Footage posted on social media showed the men fighting between the shelves of the shop and chasing and kicking one another around the departure lounge. Frightened onlookers, many of whom were with young children, were filmed fleeing the scene as the burly men trade punches, and one man even hammering another with a bottle of perfume. The brawl became so intense that Orlys Departure Lounge 10 in Hall 1 of the west terminal was shut down for an hour, with some flights delayed or cancelled. Eleven men were arrested following the brawl which has been widely shared on social media, including Booba, wearing a black t-shirt, and Kaaris, dressed in grey. Prosecutors tried to establish who was responsible for starting the fight but decided both men were to blame. Both rappers were handed a 43,000 fine on top of their suspended sentences. Eleven men were arrested including Booba wearing a black t-shirt, and Kaaris wearing a grey It is estimated the two rappers cost the Orly airport shop around 40,000 in damage - something which is being settled outside of court. Both Booba and Kaaris are bitter rap rivals, and frequently exchange angry words on social media, but the fight was the first time that their hatred spilled over into real life violence. Booba was once a mentor to Kaaris, but their professional relationship turned sour in around 2012. In April, Booba provoked his rival by posting a montage of Kaariss greatest hits, saying he Booba was responsible for all his best work. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex sparked fresh royal baby fever this afternoon as they referred to their first child as 'Baby Sussex' for the first time, just days before its expected arrival. On their official Instagram page today, Prince Harry and Meghan thanked royal fans for donating to charities for children and parents instead of sending them gifts. As they count the total amount raised ahead of the baby's arrival, the couple added: 'On behalf of The Duke and Duchess (and Baby Sussex), we thank you so much.' On their official Instagram page today, Prince Harry and Meghan thanked royal fans for donating to charities for children and parents instead of sending them gifts The reference to 'Baby Sussex' in the post today delighted royal fans on social media Fans were touched by the royal couple's adoption of 'their' name for the unborn child The reference to 'Baby Sussex' delighted royal fans on social media, with one praising the initiative and saying: 'Mentioning Baby Sussex is the cherry on top!' The post also used the American word 'diapers' - perhaps a nod to it being written by Meghan - and it was informally signed off: 'You made this happen. Thank you.' It comes a week after they asked well-wishers to donate to charities for children and parents including The Lunch Box Fund, Little Village, WellChild and Baby2Baby. Harry and Meghan are believed to be planning a home birth for their first child at their new home Frogmore Cottage, close to the Queen's Windsor Castle home. The couple are also said to have picked their own team to directly oversee the arrival of the Queen's latest great grandchild - dispensing with senior royal medical staff. Meghan and Harry are keeping details about the arrangements for the birth private, with news only released after they have celebrated privately as a new family. In an update today, the royal account revealed that Lunchbox can now provide 100,000 additional hot nutritious meals to children in need across South Africa. Little Village, a clothes, toys and equipment bank for young children, has received donations from around the world and had a surge in volunteer applications. Well Child, which helps seriously ill children to be cared for at home, can now provide more than 300 additional hours of specialist care by a Well Child nurse thanks to the donations. Baby2Baby, which helps children and parents in need in Meghan's home city of Los Angeles, has received more than 5,000 products including cots, books, backpacks and nappies, along with money. Harry and Meghan's request followed a viral global baby shower campaign started by Twitter user @freepeeper, urging well-wishers to donate to the charities Mayhew, the Campaign for Female Education (Camfed), and WellChild. It comes on the day a bookmaker slashed the odds on the Duchess of Sussex giving birth over the Easter weekend. More than half a million people liked this Instagram post by the couple suggesting that in lieu of gifts, well-wishers could donate to charity The Sussexes have chosen four charities to benefit from their fans' largesse: The Lunchbox; Baby 2 Baby, Well Child Awards and Little Village Ladbrokes has it at 3/1 that Meghan and the Duke of Sussex will welcome their first-born sometime between the Good Friday and Easter Monday bank holidays. Easter Sunday on April 21 also coincides with the Queen's 93rd birthday this year. The odds for a baby girl are 4/7, while a boy is 13/10. For the baby's name, Elizabeth and Diana are the joint front runners at 6/1, followed by 8/1 for Victoria. Albert and Philip are the most popular boys' names at 12/1. Harry and Meghan left their three-week tour of Australia and New Zealand last year laden with more than 300 gifts for their little one. From cuddly toy echidnas and platypuses, to Baby Sussexs first pair of UGG boots, they were overwhelmed by presents from well-wishers and dignitaries. Details were released by Buckingham Palace last week as part of the annual disclosure of gifts given to senior royals in the course of their official duties last year. A marine has been shot dead in his barracks, allegedly by one of his comrades, on their South Carolina air base. Cpl. Tyler Wallingford, 21, died on Friday after being shot in his barracks at the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina. Cpl. Spencer Daily, who is also 21, is being held in custody for his death. It is unclear why he allegedly shot Wallingford, a beloved son and friend who was also a volunteer fire fighter. Cpl. Tyler Wallingford, 21, (left) was shot dead on Friday at the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina. Cpl. Spencer Daily (right) is in custody for his death The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is leading the investigation into his death. Second Lieutenant Kevin Buss, a Marines spokesman, has not yet revealed what Daily's alleged motive was. 'Our deepest condolences go out to the family and friends of our fallen Marine,' he told DailyMail.com in a statement. It is unclear how long he and Wallingford had been in the military. The pair were friends on Facebook and both were Aircraft Ordnance Technicians with VMFAT-501. Daily enlisted in 2015 and Wallingford enlisted in 2016. Wallingford's grieving family in Standish, Maine, begged for answers on social media as news of his death spread. The men are both Aircraft Ordnance Technicians with VMFAT-501 at the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina (pictured) Friends and relatives paid tribute to Wallingford on social media as an 'amazing soul'. He was a volunteer fire fighter in his home town of Standish, Maine 'I still can't believe my nephew is gone. My family is absolutely devastated. Daily's alleged motive is not known 'Tyler was just an adventurous fun loving young man,' his aunt Amy Hanen said on Facebook. 'His whole life was an adventure. He absolutely loved the outdoors and being pushed physically to another level,' she added. The young man's parents have not yet spoken about his death. Friends described him as an 'amazing soul' who 'touched so many people's lives.' 'You were such a good man,' said one friend in a tribute on social media. According to his social media page, he had a girlfriend as recently as two months ago. She is yet to publicly comment on his death. Dr Susan Lim Mey Lee - who allegedly charged 12million to provide breast cancer treatment to the Queen of Brunei's sister - is before a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in the UK this week A leading surgeon who failed to tell British authorities she'd been found guilty of professional misconduct in Singapore has insisted she shouldn't be struck off in the UK. Dr Susan Lim Mey Lee was barred from working in the south-east Asian country after allegedly charging the Queen of Brunei's sister 12million for breast cancer treatment. Dr Lee, who was also registered to work in the UK, practised in Singapore between 2001 and 2007 and carried out the country's first liver transplant. But was found guilty of malpractice in 2012 and suspended for three years. It later came to light that she had not informed British authorities of the case against her in Singapore. She has not practised medicine since 2013 but is now fighting against being struck off in the UK in a case before the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS). The case against her in Singapore was that she charged 12million ($24m Singapore dollars) for coordinating the treatment of the Queen of Brunei's sister over a six-month period in 2007. The Singapore High Court rejected an appeal which she lodged in 2013, describing the 'opportunistic and arbitrary' fees charged as 'grossly excessive'. Today, at a hearing in Manchester, her lawyer Ian Winter QC argued that she had provided a high standard of care and had not sought to deliberately mislead. Pictured; the Queen of Brunei, whose sister was treated for breast cancer by Dr Lee He described her as a role model for 'Asian doctors' and in particular 'Asian female doctors.' He added that she did not expose the vulnerability of the patient involved because the costs were paid by the Ministry of Health in Brunei rather than her. As well as this he said if the patient had not died it is unlikely the case would ever have come before a hearing. He said: 'She has been fully and completely disciplined in the only jurisdiction she has ever practised in.' He suggested she could voluntarily remove herself from the UK register. Representing the GMC, Simon Jackson QC argued she should face a sanction and said she had not shown insight into her actions. He said: 'Even now there are instances where she says it appropriate to charge this because of the nature of the service being provided.' The hearing, which Dr Lee is not attending, continues. The scaffolding company at the centre of a deadly collapse that killed an 18-year-old apprentice is being sued by another labourer. Young formworker Christopher Cassaniti died on April 1 after nine storeys of scaffolding collapsed at a semi-completed block of flats in Macquarie Park, in Sydney's north-west. Another worker, a 39-year-old man, was pulled free from the scaffolding in a critical condition but has since stabilised. Synergy Scaffolding Services, who erected the scaffolding, are currently being sued in the NSW Supreme Court by a worker who was allegedly injured in a separate workplace accident, Sydney Morning Herald reported. Scroll down for video Young formworker Christopher Cassaniti died on April 1 after nine storeys of scaffolding collapsed at a semi-completed block of flats in Macquarie Park, in Sydney's north-west Another worker, a 39-year-old man, was pulled free from the scaffolding in a critical condition but has since stabilised Bilal Alelaimat was allegedly struck when scaffolding fell at a site on Hampton Road in Artarmon, Sydney's north, in October 2012. Mr Alelaimat is claiming damages for the alleged accident, but Synergy said it is 'vigorously defending' the lawsuit. Court documents seen by Sydney Morning Herald allege employees from Synergy were dismantling scaffolding on level three when a piece hit Mr Alelaimat who was below. Synergy is accused of negligence by 'failing to handle the scaffolding part carefully' and 'failing to secure the scaffolding part so as to prevent it falling' in the statement of claim. Mr Alelaimat was employed as a labourer and a driver by DJ's Scaffolding Services when the incident occurred but alleges he was directed by Synergy. He claims he reported all aspects of his work to Synergy. Dozens of tradesmen watched on in horror as police tried to clear the fallen scaffolding Synergy Scaffolding Services, who erected the scaffolding, are currently being sued in the NSW Supreme Court by a worker who was allegedly injured in a separate workplace accident The allegations have been denied by Synergy who are arguing they are not guilty of negligence. The defence alleges any damage suffered by Mr Alelaimat was his own fault for 'placing himself in a position of peril in the circumstances' and 'failing to keep a proper lookout'. Synergy are also arguing Mr Alelaimat's 2017 claim had expired as personal injury action must be launched within three years under the NSW Limitations Act 1969. Ibrahim Dakdouk, lawyer for Synergy, said the man lodging the claim was not a labourer employed by Synergy. Mr Cassaniti is the fifth person to die at a construction site in Australia this year 'Synergy wishes to respect the legal process and all parties rights to a fair trial and therefore will abstain from delving into the particulars of the case, save to say the claim will be vigorously defended,' he said in a statement to Sydney Morning Herald. The incident at Macquarie Park is currently under investigation by SafeWork NSW and Police. Mr Cassaniti is the fifth person to die at a construction site in Australia this year. Family, friends and co-workers wearing bright orange high-visibility work shirts attended Mr Cassaniti's funeral at St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney on Friday. Police in New York City are on the hunt for a sticky-fingered escort who they say swiped a Rolex from a 60-year-old man as he slept at a Midtown Manhattan hotel. According to the NYPD, the theft took place on April 7 at The Maxwell New York City Hotel on Lexington Avenue. The victim, who has not been named, told investigators that he fell asleep in the early morning hours in his room, and woke up nine hours later to find his expensive watch missing. Have YOU seen mystery woman? The NYPD is searching for this 25-year-old woman with a 'Truth' neck tattoo who is accused of stealing a Rolex from a sleeping 60-year-old man He later discovered that $2,000 worth of unauthorized transactions have been made on his phone without his knowledge. The hotel guest said that when he went to bed, his 25-year-old female companion, who has the word 'Truth' tattooed on her neck, was in the room with him, reported the New York Post. By the time he woke up at 10am the next morning, the woman had vanished. The suspect is known by the name 'Skylar' at the escort service where she works, a police source told New York Daily News. Police described the suspect as a Hispanic woman with long brown hair, standing at 5 feet 6 inches tall. She was last seen wearing a red halter top and acid-washed blue jeans. A guest at The Maxwell New York City Hotel in Manhattan told police the woman stole his watch and made $2,000 worth of transactions on his phone while he slept on April 7 Rates at The Maxwell Hotel range from about $150 a night for a basic room to $2,400 a night for a penthouse terrace suite. The NYPD has released a photo of the suspect showing her sporting a black lace top, bold brows and red nail polish. Anyone with information on the tattooed mystery woman's identity is being asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS. Actress Lori Loughlin and her fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli are pleading not guilty in the college admissions bribery scam. Loughlin, 54, and Giannulli, 55, said in court documents filed Monday they are waiving their right to appear in court for an arraignment and plead not guilty. The couple and more than a dozen other parents were indicted last week on charges of mail fraud and money laundering conspiracy. The Full House star and husband Giannulli each face up to 40 years in prison for allegedly paying $500,000 to get their daughters, Olivia and Isabella, into USC, as crew recruits, even though neither is a rower. Scroll down for video Lori Laughlin seen arriving home wearing shades and a cap after pleading not guilty in court documents filed Monday Laughlin (pictured above) and her fashion designer husband, along with more than a dozen other parents, were indicted last week on charges of mail fraud and money laundering conspiracy Loughlin and her husband Giannulli (pictured above on April 3 leaving federal court in Boston) said in court documents on Monday that they are pleading not guilty to charges that they took part in a sweeping college admissions bribery scam They haven't publicly addressed the allegations against them. DailyMail.com revealed that Loughlin and Giannulli turned down a plea deal which would have drastically reduced their sentences because they thought prosecutors were 'bluffing' when they said they could end up behind bars. The couple were initially charged with mail and mail fraud but federal prosecutors added money laundering to the list of accusations against them. Olivia Jade Giannulli, (pictured left) Lori Loughlin (center) and Isabella Rose Giannulli (pictured right) attend The Women's Cancer Research Fund's An Unforgettable Evening Benefit Gala at the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons Hotel on February 28 Several other indicted parents have also entered not guilty pleas. Fellow actress Felicity Huffman and 12 other parents have agreed to plead guilty. Huffman was accused of paying a consultant, Rick Singer, $15,000 (11,000) disguised as a charitable donation to boost her daughter's test score. Authorities say the 56-year-old actress also discussed going through with the same plan for her younger daughter, but ultimately decided not to. Felicity Huffman leaves court. Huffman and 12 other parents have agreed to plead guilty Huffman apologized for taking part in the scheme, saying in a statement that she accepts full responsibility for her actions and 'will accept the consequences that stem from those actions'. 'My daughter knew absolutely nothing about my actions, and in my misguided and profoundly wrong way, I have betrayed her,' Huffman said. 'This transgression toward her and the public I will carry for the rest of my life. My desire to help my daughter is no excuse to break the law or engage in dishonesty.' Prosecutors say they will seek a prison sentence that's on the low end of between four and 10 months for Huffman. Huffman is scheduled to appear in Boston's federal court on May 24 to plead guilty. Other parents indicted include Michelle Janavs, whose family developed the microwave snack line Hot Pockets before selling their company, and William McGlashan, who co-founded an investment fund with U2's Bono in 2017. The Full House star and husband Giannulli each face up to 40 years in prison for allegedly paying $500,000 to get their daughters, Olivia (pictured right) and Isabella (pictured left), into USC It is the biggest college admissions scandal prosecuted by the Justice Department, embroiling elite universities across the country and laying bare the lengths to which status-seeking parents will go to secure their children a coveted spot. The scandal arose on March 12 when the US Attorney's Office announced that 50 people including Loughlin, Giannulli and actress Felicity Huffman had allegedly involved in the cheating scandal. Prosecutors say the scheme was overseen by California college admissions consultant William "Rick" Singer, who has admitted to facilitating the cheating scam and bribing coaches to present the parents' children as fake athletic recruits. The younger of Loughlin and Giannulli's two daughters, YouTube star Olivia, is said to be barely speaking to either of her parents in the scandals wake, previous reports have suggested. She has been spotted staying with friends in LA instead of at home with her parents in Bel Air. This is the unbelievable moment a judge is found alive wedged inside the footwell of his mangled car which has been crushed between two trucks into a mangled wreck. The driver, Davi Cardoso, 35, is miraculously still conscious and talking in a video of the carnage, filmed after the smash in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, last Thursday. It then took rescuers more than three hours to get him out of the car, by which time he had lost consciousness. Judge Davi Cardoso, 35, has been miraculously found alive inside the footwell of his car after a crash in Belo Horizonte, Brazil Mr Cardoso had been driving home from work on the BR040 motorway when the horrendous pile-up happened in heavy traffic during rush hour. The footage shows other motorists beside the two trucks exclaiming in amazement as they discover Mr Cardoso alive and trapped in his car's unrecognisable remains. The white cab of the trailing truck is forced up against the red trailer of the one in front, with what is left of Mr Cardoso's car jammed in between. One man in a grey vest peers into the tiny space after pulling open a section of shattered glass on the Fiat Punto and the judge waves his hand. Others then appear to shout for him to remain calm as the man cries 'get me out!' and traffic continues to flow past. In a remarkable stroke of luck, it appears Mr Cardoso was thrown into the footwell of the car in the crash, the only space inside the mangled vehicle that remained intact. Fortunately, petrol didn't leak from the stricken vehicle, although steam hissing from the engine caused alarm. Rescuers are then seen at the crash site and have been able to get the now-unconscious 35-year-old out of the wreck. A bag of fluids connected to a drip has been hung up on the truck in front and is taken down when Mr Cardoso is lowered to the floor on a stretcher. His brother Mateus is seen smiling and embracing his father beside the stretcher, amazed at Mr Cardoso's remarkable escape. His car became crushed between two trucks on the BR040 motorway during rush hour while Mr Cardoso was driving home It took rescuers three hours to free him from the footwell, by which time he had lost consciousness According to road traffic police, the accident was allegedly caused by the driver of another heavy goods vehicle who made a dangerous manoeuvre which precipitated the series of near tragic events Celebrating the rescue, Mateus said they were 'grateful for all the efforts made to save Davi and that it was nothing short of a miracle he had survived.' According to road traffic police, the accident was allegedly caused by the driver of another heavy goods vehicle who made a dangerous manoeuvre which precipitated the series of near tragic events. Military police officer, Sergeant Fabiano Silva said to Brazilian Record TV: 'A truck in front of the red lorry apparently changed lanes without warning, forcing the driver of the red lorry to hit his brakes. 'Davi was travelling right behind the truck and was forced to slam on his brakes too. 'We believe the lorry behind Davi couldn't stop in time and it ploughed into his car. 'It literally rode over and came to rest on top of his vehicle with the heavy weight of the cab crushing and sandwiching it underneath the rear axle of the red truck in front.' Sergeant Silva said: 'Unfortunately we couldn't remove him ourselves because we had to wait for the fire crew to make its way to the location, through the heavy traffic, with the right cutting and lifting equipment.' A crane was used to lift the cab of the truck off the top of the car and an inflatable device kept the heavy goods vehicle propped up and cushioned underneath to stabilise and prevent it from toppling over onto officers while they worked to release the victim. Fire service captain, Thiago Mirando, said: 'It was a difficult and dangerous procedure prising the vehicles apart and keeping the victim's health stable.' Fortunately no one else was in the car with Mr Cardoso as it could have been 'a major tragedy' said captain Mirando. James O'Shea, 22, was found dead at Darwin College on January 20 after taking his own life. He is seen here in an undated photo A Cambridge University PhD student killed himself at his halls of residence after 'falling apart' due to stress, an inquest heard today. James O'Shea, 22, returned home to live with his mother in the summer of 2017 after finishing a masters degree at Bristol University, where he told doctors about feeling 'depressed and increasingly low'. Deferring his place at Cambridge until January 2018, he visited the local GP four times to speak about his struggles with mental health and was prescribed the anti-depressant Citalopram before being asked to return 14 days later. However, the inquest heard his surgery did not see him again until October when Mr O'Shea's mother, Kate O'Shea', was concerned he might try to take his own life. Mr O'Shea also shared that he wished to die and was seriously contemplating 'jumping off a cliff' and 'wrote notes' to family members. However, his inquest heard he would often hide how he was truly feeling to NHS staff and a private counsellor he was speaking to online. Mrs O'Shea said: 'James was terrified of being sectioned. He made a good face to people. 'He would pour his heart out to me and then would come back and say that 'I'm alright now. 'He had seen his uncle in a mental home and it had a big impact on him, he was really disturbed.' Mr O'Shea took up his place at Darwin College in Cambridge in January 2018, and was found dead on the 20th of that month. His mother said he had been 'falling apart' due to the stress of his studies. At the inquest, Bursar of Darwin College, Cambridge John Dix, was asked by the coroner about mental health issues at universities. Mr Dix replied saying: 'Some have described the growth of mental health issues in universities in terms of an epidemic'. Mr O'Shea has been diagnosed with low level Asperger's as a child, the inquest was told. Online counsellor from Action For Asperger's, Ryan Tebbit, said that in the 11 sessions he spent talking to the student he 'engaged well.' 'He looked for answers and knew it could be tough when looking into yourself,' Mr Tebbit said. 'James was committed to working hard and I felt that we worked well and had a mutual respect and trust. I had no concerns he might kill himself. 'He found social interactions very hard, he thought that there was a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things and he was ashamed when he did things wrong.' Mr O'Shea did not disclose to Bristol University in his four years of study that he had been diagnosed with Asperger's. The talented student 'loved' his family and work but felt he was 'a social failure', the inquest heard. Mr O'Shea's parents, David and Kate, arriving at the Coroner's Court today in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. For confidential support visit Samaritans.org or phone 116 123 The court was told police had found a handwritten note Mr O'Shea had written before his death. Speaking at the inquest today, his father David O'Shea told the court how he could see his 'wellbeing' deteriorating during the time he was finishing his masters. David, who is divorced from his former wife, said: 'James lived most of his time in Cornwall with his mother. He visited with his sister. 'In 2017 it was clear his wellbeing was deteriorating. I thought it was stress. He told me he stayed in the library till 11pm. I'd call and he was in the library.' Mrs O'Shea also told the court that it was clear James was 'burned out' when he returned from Bristol. She said: 'He was seeking support. He spoke to GPs in the hope of getting some Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. 'He was prescribed Citalopram, he took it sporadically. He grew more suicidal and we think he took an attempt on his life. 'It became clear as he took Citalopram he became more demotivated and eventually took his own life.' Citalopram is a type of antidepressant often used to treat depression and also sometimes for panic attacks. Citalopram helps many people recover from depression. Mrs O'Shea added: 'We had every hope that he would flourish at Bristol University. He needed to connect with other palaeontologists and struggled without them. 'He was a joy to be around, but never understood his gift. His dissertation was ground breaking and he had incredible comic timing.' His father David also told the court that Mr O'Shea was anxious about telling his classmates that he had Asperger's. He added: 'He was anxious about telling friends about him having Asperger's unless they treated him differently.' David had arranged to meet his son on the January 20. He said: 'I arrived [at the halls of residence] at 12.45pm and did not reply to my telephone calls or ringing on his flat door. 'I decided to wait, at some point between 2-3pm someone he lived with took me to the porter and we opened the door using the spare key. 'That was when I found James face down in the wardrobe.' The inquest confirmed that Mr O'Shea had taken his own life and that there was no third party involvement. For confidential support visit Samaritans.org or phone 116 123. Italian police have dismantled two 'bone-breaking' gangs in Sicily which had been smashing victims' limbs to stage road accidents and defraud car insurance firms. More than 40 people were arrested in Palermo after investigators discovered hard-up victims were having their arms or legs broken in exchange for a small part of the pay-out from insurers, police said. Those in on the fraud included false witnesses to the accidents, doctors providing fake medical reports, physiotherapy centres certifying care that was never provided, and a lawyer filing the claims. The gang would break a victim's bones and place them on a road in Palermo (pictured) and get fake witnesses to speak to emergency services to commit insurance fraud The victims were 'people on the margins of society... drug addicts, alcoholics and the mentally ill'. They were promised a cut of the insurance pay-out, but took home as little as 260. The gang broke upper or lower limbs - referred to in code as the 'first floor' and 'ground floor' - by throwing cast-iron body-building weights at their victims or beating them with iron bars. Police initially uncovered the scam in 2017 after the death of a Tunisian who initially appeared to have died in a road accident. But it was discovered during the autopsy he had a heart attack after a beating. The man had been given crack cocaine to minimise the pain. Eleven people were arrested in a first operation against two other gangs in Sicily last August, and three of them turned state witness, leading police to investigate some 250 suspects. Italian police found there had been more than 60 attacks, after they wiretapped the culprits' phones (stock) Around 60 attacks were uncovered in wiretaps, with the criminals preferring to target teenage single mothers because the payouts were bigger. The victims were taken to isolated apartments or warehouses, and given mild painkillers or ice packs to numb their limbs. The arms or legs were suspended between blocks of concrete and a bag of iron weights or large stones were thrown at them to fracture them, police said. Multiple fractures were better because they were subject to larger payouts. Five of those arrested Monday specialised in the bone breaking, according to the Giornale di Sicilia local daily, including one dubbed 'Tony the Meek'. The head of one of the gangs drove a luxury car and owned a speedboat, reports said. The road 'accidents' were staged in areas not covered by video surveillance cameras. Gang members would then pose in hospital as the victims' relatives, to ensure they stuck to the story. A mother has described being gang-raped, beaten and tortured at the side of a road by a gang while her young son slept in her car nearly 40 years ago. Charise Thompson has told her story in an emotional Facebook post decades after she says she was kidnapped by a gang of six men by the side of a highway between the cities of Freer and Laredo, in Duval County, Texas. She took to social media to tell her story because she says she wants to help other victims of sexual violence. While driving to her mother's for Thanksgiving in 1981, Thompson tells how she got out her car to change a flat tire and was bundled into the back of a van by a gang of six men. She says the men kidnapped her and gang raped her - before trying to drill holes in her ankles and hang her up 'like wild game'. Continuing the devastating story, she says the men beat her with a tyre iron and ran her over before leaving her for dead and she struggled several miles to find help at a nearby town. As evidence of her claims, Thompson shows a horrific bloody picture of her face after the attack. Charise Thompson suffered devastating injuries after the attack in 1981 in which she was beaten and left for dead at the side of a road in Texas. She shared this horrific image of her injuries alongside a Facebook post describing the attack Thompson with her son James who was only four when she was attacked. He was asleep her her vehicle when she was abducted and gang raped Emotional Facebook post: Charise says she describes the story in a post on social media made earlier this month The mother, who is now 61 and lives with her veteran husband, adds: 'This is my story, this is my life and I will share it every time I can because each time I do I hear from people who are telling their story for the first time.' 'We have to talk about it and keep talking until there is no secret, no stigma, no sexual assault against any man, woman or child.' Thompson suffered devastating internal injuries, shattered teeth and 14 broken bones, including two fractured legs, in the ghastly assault in November 1981. Thompson (pictured above in a recent photo), who is now 61 and lives with her veteran husband, said: 'This is my story, this is my life and I will share it every time I can because each time I do I hear from people who are telling their story for the first time' She posted a picture of her battered face on Facebook last month alongside a long caption describing her ordeal in graphic detail. Despite her horrific injuries Thompson managed to crawl on her elbows two-and-a-half miles along the side of the road to get back to her four-year-old, James, where he was still sleeping in the locked car. She says: ' In 1981 I was attacked by a group of men while changing a tire on the side of the highway in Texas. They took me from the scene for which I will always be grateful since my 4-year-old son was asleep in the car. 'Hours later they left me in a drainage ditch for dead with 14 broken bones (not counting ribs, fingers or multiple breaks), kicked out or broke most of my teeth, fractured my skull in several places, tried to drill holes in my ankles to string me up like wild game, ran over me and my insides were dangling to my knees.' 'When I was sure they were gone I crawled 2 1/2 miles on broken legs and elbows to get help to my son. The first thing the cop that rode in the ambulance asked me was "What did you do to make them so mad"? A doctor at the hospital said it was just as well if I didn't make it. When the police got to my car, it was still locked and my son asleep in the back seat. Thompson is pictured above in a recent photo with her son James who was only four when she was attacked 'For me, 31 units of blood, 17 weeks in the hospital, an emergency hysterectomy at 27 and a number of reconstructive surgeries and physical rehabs later, I struggled to get through the aftermath. I was not their only victim but I was the only survivor. Only one was arrested and he was accidentally released on a personal recon bond and never seen again.' After being taken to hospital, Thompson said she spent more than four months in hospital and needed 31 units of blood. Five years later she needed an emergency hysterectomy and reconstructive surgeries. But her ordeal did not finished there as she then contracted Hepatitis C from blood transfusions which lead to her suffering from liver disease and a series of strokes, she said. Charise Thompson with her husband Chris. They have been together over 35 years Thompson is pictured above in a recent photo with her mother - she was on her way to her mom's for Thanksgiving when she was attacked. Thompson now lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming, with her husband She adds: ' From the blood, I got Hepatitis C which has been an ongoing nightmare for 25+ years and put me into late-stage liver disease. 'After hundreds of thousands of dollars in failed treatments, my body went into spontaneous remission almost two years ago and has remained "negative" since, but the problems didn't go with it. I was left with temporal arteritis, much like the worse migraine you ever had or saw, only this is 24/7 and never lets up. 'Other complications included a series of strokes that put me in a wheelchair for 13 years, my bones hurt and I can always tell when the weather is changing, along with problems with my thyroid, intestines, and the damage to my liver which caused things like hepatic encephalopathy.' Although the brutal ordeal took place 38 years ago, Thompson wants to help others deal with the trauma of sex attacks and volunteered at a crisis center. She has since moved from Laredo to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where she lives with her husband. She wrote on social media: 'I had a unique perspective that I was sure could help others who had been through trauma, and I had personal experience. 'Here in Wyoming, I found a new kind of peace, and I worked with Safehouse for 12 years. It was in helping others to make that transition from Victim to Survivor that I found the very best help for me and my true healing.' 'It was in helping others to make that transition from victim to survivor that I found the very best help for me and my true healing. A GoFundMe was set up to help Thompson pay for the drugs she needs due to Hepatitis C 'No one will ever rain on my parade. I am not a victim, I am a survivor and a survivor I will always be. So life continues to be a struggle physically but I will shout my story from the rooftops if it helps or inspires just one person. 'If it helps one person to not feel so alone or encourages them to tell their story. We have to bring it out of the darkness and into the light, to eliminate the stigma from women who are made to feel guilty but did absolutely nothing wrong.' Charise has also told her story on GoFundMe page posted two years ago. President Donald Trump celebrated 'finally' agreeing with something musician Cher said. 'I finally agree with @Cher!' Trump tweeted Monday after his vocal critic said Sunday night that problems within American cities need to be address before focusing on illegal immigrants in the U.S. Trump doubled-down at an event announcing new initiative on 5G Friday on previous claims that he would begin sending illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities. 'California is always saying 'We want more people.' We will give them a lot. We will give them an unlimited supply,' Trump told reporters at the event. Trump tweets that he FINALLY agrees with Cher after he attacked his plans to bus thousands of illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities Trump proposed that politicians in sanctuary cities, who refuse to hand over illegal immigrants to authorities, take them into their cities 'And let's see if they're so happy,' Trump continued. 'They say 'we have open arms,' they're always saying they have open arms, let's see if they have open arms. The alternative is to change the laws, and we can do that very, very quickly, very easily. OK?' Cher, who often takes to Twitter to insult the president and current administration, tweeted over the weekend that she doesn't want illegal immigrants sent to her city, which is a sanctuary city. Instead Cher said outlasting problems in Los Angeles, like poverty and homelessness, need to be addressed first. 'I Understand Helping struggling Immigrants, but MY CITY (Los Angeles) ISNT TAKING CARE OF ITS OWN,' Cher lamented. 'WHAT ABOUT THE 50,000+ Citizens WHO LIVE ON THE STREETS.PPL WHO LIVE BELOW POVERTY LINE,& HUNGRY? If My State Can't Take Care of Its Own(Many Are VETS)How Can it Take Care Of More.' Cher says she wants there to be more focus on U.S. citizens already suffering in sanctuary cities, rather than sending an influx of illegal immigrants to add to the issues Trump sent another tweet Monday saying subject to moves by DHS, illegal immigrants would be 'given' to sanctuary cities Trump said during the event that since current law only allows illegal immigrants to be held for 20 days, he wants them to then be bussed to sanctuary cities once that 20-day holding period is up. Although Trump continues to say he is "strongly considering" implementing the proposal, a White House official and a spokesman for DHS indicated to the Washington Post that the proposal is no longer under consideration. Former DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen departed the White House after conflicting with Trump on several issues related to immigration. Source told the Post that he would often direct her, and others at DHS, to lead initiatives that conflicted with U.S. law. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose district includes sanctuary city San Francisco, said at the wrap-up of the Democrats annual retreat last week that Trump's proposal is unbecoming of the president of a country made up of immigrants. Yvonne Copland, 64, died at the scene on the Isle of Wight yesterday The family of a grandmother-of-four who died in a crash involving a double-decker bus have paid tribute to her. Yvonne Copland, 64, died after the collision at the junction of Forest Road and Betty Haunt Lane in Newport, Isle of Wight on Sunday, sparking a major incident. Mrs Copland, from Newport, had been travelling in a red Fiat Bravo, and three other people in the car were taken to hospital in a serious condition. Despite medics rushing to the scene, they were unable to save Mrs Copland after the collision yesterday. Paying tribute to her today, Mrs Copland's family said: 'She was a much loved wife, "ma" of four children and four grandchildren who was loved by all who knew her. 'She will be greatly missed by all her family and friends. 'We would like to thank the efforts of the first responders, air ambulance crew, paramedics, police, fire, members of the public and all hospital staff. Pictured: The scene on the Isle of Wight where Mrs Copland died in a crash involving a double decker bus and two cars Four people travelling in a silver Mini Cooper were taken to hospital after yesterday's incident Bus operator Southern Vectis had said that it is believed the double-decker ended up in the Fiat's path after a crash moments earlier 'We would also like to thank everyone for their best wishes and support, but would respectfully ask for privacy at this difficult time.' Among the 22 people who were injured, nineteen were taken to hospital, including four who had been airlifted. The driver of the bus, a man in his 50s, suffered a serious injury and 10 passengers on the bus were taken to hospital as a precaution. Four people travelling in a silver Mini Cooper were taken to hospital as a precaution. At least three air ambulances and 15 emergency service workers attended the scene, with detectives investigating the cause. Mrs Copland died and 22 were injured after the double-decker bus hit two cars on Forest Road, near Newport The bus driver, a man in his 50s, was also said to have been seriously injured in the crash (pictured: The scene of the crash on April 14) Bus operator Southern Vectis have said that it is believed the double-decker ended up in the Fiat's path after a crash moments earlier. General manager Richard Tyldsley had said: 'Early indications suggest a car pulled out in front of a route 7 bus and our driver was unable to avoid it. The bus was forced into the path of another car. 'At this stage the full circumstances of the incident are unclear but sadly I understand one of the cars' occupants has died. 'This is very distressing for all concerned and I would like to pass our sincere condolences to their family and friends.' The operator would aid the police and conduct its own investigation, he added. At least 15 emergency service crews attended the scene and three helicopters had arrived from other counties in the UK Four fire engines and several members of their crew at the scene on the Isle of Wight yesterday Extra staff had to be called in to St Mary's Hospital, Newport, after the crash. Hospital staff asked people not to come to Accident and Emergency unless it is 'absolutely necessary'. Fire crews were seen rescuing people from the wreckage on the single-carriageway road, lined by trees and fields. Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service group commander Justin Harden had said: 'My thoughts are with the deceased's family, on behalf of everybody here. 'It has been a significant incident, the like of which we have not seen for some time.' Four people were airlifted to hospitals off the island and 15 people were rushed to St Mary's Hospital in Newport Pictured: A helicopter flies overhead near the crash site on the Isle of Wight One witness, 23-year-old holidaymaker Alisha Smith, said the bus hit a second car after colliding with a Mini that pulled into the road. She said: 'We were driving down the road. A Mini pulled out from a side road. 'The driver did his best to avoid it, but we hit and then bounced on to hit another car following in a different direction. 'The next thing I know, I was on the floor and got up to see if everyone was okay. 'A few were hurt and covered in blood, but no one severely injured at the top.' A Hampshire Police spokesman said: 'If anyone witnessed the collision and hasn't already spoken to police, please call 101 and quote reference 375 of April 14. 'If you saw any of the vehicles prior to the collision or have dashcam footage of the vehicles or the incident, please get in touch.' Russia is demanding that the US release a Russian citizen who was convicted of kidnapping for moving her children from Kansas to her country of origin amid divorce proceedings. Bogdana Osipova, who is referred to by her married name of Mobley in court documents, was convicted in Kansas last month of one count of international parental kidnapping and two counts of attempting to extort money. Ospivoa, 38, faces up to 20 years in prison on each extortion count and up to three years on the kidnapping count at her May 20 sentencing hearing. Bogdana Osipova (pictured left and right in her mugshot), 38, was convicted last month of one count of international parental kidnapping and two counts of attempting to extort money US prosecutors said Osipova kidnapped her children (pictured with their mother) by moving them from Kansas to her native Russia The Russian Embassy in the US released a statement demanding that Osipova be released The Russian Embassy said in a tweet Friday that US authorities should 'stop their lawless behavior and release the Russian citizen Bogdana Osipova, thus returning the mother to her children.' A Russian court has found that the children should remain in Russia. US prosecutors said Osipova, who emigrated to the US in 2003 and has dual citizenship, left Wichita, Kansas, in April 2014 with one child from her first marriage and another child from a second marriage to Brian Mobley, an Air Force recruiter. She gave birth to a third child soon after returning to Russia. She was arrested in September 2017 after returning to the US without her children to change child support arrangements. Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov previously rejected a plea from Kansas Republican Rep. Ron Estes that the younger children - six-year-old Sophia and four-year-old Isabella - be reunited with their father. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a briefing that the children are living with relatives in Kaliningrad, The Wichita Eagle reported. A US judge granted Bogdana's American ex-husband, Brian Mobley (pictured left and right) full custody of the children (daughter Sophia seen left) in December 2014 Mobley said he has not seen Sophia (right) from the time she was one, and he has never met his daughter Isabella (left) Osipova's oldest child, Ian, is 16, and her first husband isn't seeking custody of him. Antonov told Estes that Osipova has been a victim of 'discrimination and psychological pressure' in the US criminal case. 'We've attempted to work with Russian authorities to find a diplomatic solution to this situation on behalf of a constituent, but clearly Russia is not interested in adhering to court rulings or acting in good faith,' Estes said Friday in a tweet. 'I once again call on Russia to reunite this father with his children and will work with the State Department in solving this case.' Weeks before Osipova left for Russia, Mobley filed for divorce and was granted joint custody. The Russian court system granted the couple a divorce in July 2014. That December, a Kansas judge also granted the couple a divorce and ordered her to return the two youngest children. The Kansas judge awarded sole custody to her ex-husband because Osipova had left the US without court approval or Mobley's knowledge. A Russian court has found that the children should remain in Russia with Osipova According to the US criminal complaint, Mobley hasn't been able to see his children. His ex-wife in January 2015 showed up to a meeting in Poland without the children. She allowed him to talk to the children on the phone and on Skype until November 2016, when she said he needed to send money to communicate with them, the complaint said. Zakharova said the Russian court sees the situation differently. 'Her claim to her ex-husband for alimony, which was supported by a Russian court, was qualified there as extortion,' Zakharova said in the ministry's translation of a briefing. Mobley's new wife, Melissa, wrote on Facebook in 2017: 'He was in an abusive marriage and when he tried to divorce her she left to use the kids as leverage over him. She is all kinds of evil.' Melissa and Brian Mobley got married in 2015 and are currently raising four daughters together. Joseph Achenbach, 35, of Watertown, Conn. was booked on multiple charges Saturday, including driving under the influence and reckless endangerment A Connecticut couple returned home from a shopping trip to find a naked man walking around their house after he crashed his vehicle in their yard, police say. Joseph Achenbach, 35, was arrested in Newtown, Connecticut Saturday morning and charged with drunk driving, reckless endangerment, criminal trespass, evading responsibility and disorderly conduct. Police said Achenbach was intoxicated and naked while driving his Ford Escape SUV on Church Hill Road in Newtown around 8am Saturday. He allegedly turned off the road before crashing into the backyard of a house while its owners were away. Then Achenbach is alleged to have entered the home through an unlocked sliding glass door. The homeowners called police after they arrived back and stumbled upon the completely nude man, according to the News-Times. Newtown Lt. Aaron Bahamonde said in a statement to the News-Times that he could say 'with certainty that alcohol and/or drugs played a role in Achenbach's behavior.' 'Obviously this was a very terrifying situation for the homeowners and we are very happy our officers were able to respond in a prompt manner, and apprehend the suspect without anyone getting hurt,' Bahamonde said. Achenbach didn't appear to let the situation damper his mood though. He is seen smiling widely in his police mugshot, while wearing a garment provided to him by the arresting agency. Police never did find his clothes after he was arrested. He is scheduled to be arraigned Monday after being held over the weekend on a $5,000 bond. Police are appealing for help identifying a woman who was found dead on a Cornish beach earlier today. They have released a description of the woman including details of distinctive tattoos in the hope of gathering more information about the currently 'unexplained' death. Emergency services received a 999 call just before 7am of reports of a deceased woman being found on Perranporth beach on the north Cornwall coast. Emergency services responded to a 999 call at around 7am this morning after dog walker spotted a deceased woman's body lying at the water's edge On arrival, the woman's body was located on the waterline, and searches of the beach were carried out by police and the coastguard. Officers are conducting enquiries to establish who the woman is and the circumstances surrounding her death. In an appeal to the public, Detective Constable Simon Murray, of Truro CID released a detailed description of the woman. 'Just before 7am on Monday 15 April 2019, police were called to Perranporth beach after dog walkers discovered the body of a deceased female along the waterline,' said DC Murray. The beach at Perranporth with a giant sundial overlooking it from the south. The coastal area was ranked the ninth best beach in the UK by Tripadvisor this year 'Police are still trying to identify this female. 'She is described as a white female, aged in her late 20s to mid-30s, between 5ft 4in and 5ft 6in tall and of average build. 'She has shoulder-length dark brown hair and has several tattoos; a large Celtic-type tattoo on her right thigh and a date in Roman numerals on her ankle.' The police investigation into the woman's death continues. Anyone with information is urged to call 101, or email 101@dc.police.uk, quoting enquiry number EN/5586/19. A 74-year-old woman has died after falling from the first floor in Urban Outfitters in front of horrified shoppers. Police were called to the shop in Nottingham city centre to reports a woman had sustained 'serious injuries' after falling, but she was pronounced dead shortly after the fall. The incident happened at around 3.10pm on Friday, April 12, and a witness at the scene said he saw 'screens put up' at the main entrance inside the intu Victoria Centre. They added police and medic cars were parked outside the Victoria Centre for a majority of the afternoon. Police were called to the shop in Nottingham city centre to reports a woman had sustained 'serious injuries' after falling, but she was pronounced dead shortly after the fall. Pictured: GV of intu Victoria Centre A Nottinghamshire Police spokeswoman said: 'We were called to Urban Outfitters in Victoria Centre, Nottingham, at 3.10pm on Friday, April 12, following reports a woman had sustained serious injuries after falling from the first floor. 'A 74-year-old woman was pronounced dead shortly after the fall. Her family have been informed. 'We are not treating the death as suspicious.' Nigel Wheatley, general manager for intu Victoria Centre, said: 'We are very sorry to say that a customer passed away after an incident at one of our retailers on Friday afternoon, despite the paramedics and medical team's best efforts. 'Our deepest sympathies are with her family and friends. We are unable able to provide any more information at this stage.' An East Midlands Ambulance Service spokeswoman added: 'We received a call at 3pm on April 12 to Urban Outfitters in Lower Parliament Street in Nottingham. 'The caller reported that someone had fallen. We sent a community first responder, a paramedic in an ambulance car, two crewed ambulances and the air ambulance.' Melania Trump told a group of school children Monday she considers herself a mother first but would serve as first lady again, calling it a 'privilege' and an 'honor.' She talked to the kids about her life in the White House and how she balances her official duties to being a mom to 13-year-old Barron Trump. 'It's a balancing act and my son - our son - is still a priority. So I feel I am still a mother first. He is at an age where he needs parents for guidance,' she told middle schoolers at the Albritton Middle School. Melania Trump told a group of school children she considers herself a mother first but would serve as first lady again Karen Pence and Melania Trump took questions from school kids for about 15 minutes A lively group of 379 kids greeted the first lady and second lady Karen Pence, who took questions for about 15 minutes. 'We are working hard every day to keep America great,' Melania Trump told a student who asked both women about their jobs. And the first lady, who waited six months to move to Washington D.C. after President Donald Trump's election, said she supported his re-election effort and would want to be first lady again. 'I think our husbands are doing a fantastic job and I would support my husband if he would run again and yes, it's a privilege, a great honor to serve,' she said. She said her favorite part of her job is the people she meets. Before taking questions, Trump and Pence listened to a choir of students sing The first lady greeted service members and their families Melania Trump poses with troops at Fort Bragg 'My favorite experience is meeting all of you, meeting people all around the country and meeting people all around the world. And shine a spotlight on children and our next generation,' she said. 'There is a lot of change,' she told the kids of being first lady. 'You move from the city that you leave, and you taking care of different things that you took care of before. 'But I would not change for anything. I love what I do. And what will affect I will always shine a light on children. And next generation. I'm here to spread positivity and confidence in being all of you, as you make heard, I have initiative Be Best. 'And I encourage all of you to be best in everything that you do, to challenge yourself to be true to yourself, and to have positive way in your life.' Trump and Pence traveled to Fort Bragg on Monday for 'the month of the military child' to meet with soldiers and answer questions from students on the military base. 'It was like being with a rock star,' Pence told service members later of visiting the school children with the first lady. It was a windy spring day both in North Carolina and Washington D.C. The first lady often had to push her back as it flew in the breeze. Karen Pence and Melania Trump shook hands with the kids before they left First lady Melania Trump and second lady Karen Pence traveled to Fort Bragg The first lady wore pants and a safari-type jacket on the windy spring day Melania Trump wore pants, a belted safari-type jacked and her signature stilettos. After their time with the children, Trump and Pence met with military families. In brief remarks, the first lady thanked the service members for their service. 'This month we recognize military children and their important role in our country. They are our future leaders and I can think of no better place to inspire leadership than among the military community. The strength of this community is visible in its recovery efforts from the devastating effects of Hurricane Florence last year. I want to say thank you to all those who responded during that great time of need,' she said. She then shook hands with the soldiers and their families. She later remarked: 'Today was an incredibly impactful visit. 'The United States Military is a national treasure and I am so grateful to all the hard working men and women who serve. Thank you to Fort Bragg for welcoming us and letting us inside this tight-knit and admirable community of true heroes. 'To all the spouses here, my heart and appreciation goes out to you. With readiness as the top priority at Fort Bragg, Im sure there is nothing more difficult to bear than to watch a loved one leave the safety and comfort of home to fight in dark and dangerous places around the world. 'My husband and I extend our deepest gratitude and heartfelt thanks for the sacrifices that your families make for the protection of our country.' Fort Bragg is the home of the Airborne and Army Special Operations. Trump and Pence began their day at a briefing about special operations capabilities, which included a tour of the base. The last time the two spouses were together was in November, when they packed care packages with the Red Cross for troops overseas. The bodies of two young women who were found dead in a Texas oil field that was dubbed the infamous Killing Fields have finally been identified after 30 years following a breakthrough in forensic DNA analysis. Police on Monday identified the two women as Audrey Lee Cook, from Memphis, Tennessee, and Donna Prudhomme, from Port Arthur, Texas. Cook was found in 1986 and Prudhomme was discovered in 1991. The identification of their bodies comes decades after their grisly remains were discovered in the oil field along Calder Road in League City just outside Houston. Police on Monday identified the two women Audrey Lee Cook, (left) from Memphis, Tennessee, and Donna Prudhomme, (right) from Port Arthur, Texas. Cook was found in 1986 and Prudhomme was discovered in 1991 Their bodies were uncovered in the same location where two other previously identified women were murdered and dumped. Thirty bodies have been found in the Killing Fields since the 1970s. Advances in forensic technology allowed detectives to finally identity the skeletal remains of the latest two victims who, up until this week, had only been known as Jane Doe and Janet Doe. Cook and Prudhomme were identified in part due to DNA phenotyping, which can predict physical appearance and provide renderings of the victims. Authorities also used genetic genealogy, which is what detectives used to help catch the infamous Golden State serial killer. It is the use of new DNA technology testing combined with traditional genealogical methods to establish the relationship between an individual and their ancestors who have voluntarily uploaded their DNA to public genealogy databases. Audrey Lee Cook (pictured left in a rendering police released last year) was believed to have been 30 years old when she died Donna Prudhomme (pictured left) in a rendering police released last year following DNA phenotyping) is believed to have been 34 when she was killed Detectives investigating the two cold case murders started building family trees in April last year based on the genetic genealogy. They were able to narrow down potential family members who provided DNA that investigators then positively linked to the murdered women. Cook, who born in 1955, was believed to have been 30 years old when she died. Authorities said she may have died anywhere from six weeks to six months before her body was found. She was believed to have been living in the Houston area at the time and lost contact with her family in December 1985. Associates reported that she possibly sold and used cocaine. Prudhomme, who was born in 1957, was believed to be 34 when she was killed. The identification of their bodies comes decades after their grisly remains were discovered in the oil field along Calder Road in League City just outside Houston Police believe she had been dead six weeks when her body was discovered. Authorities have suggested she died from apparent injuries to her upper spine. Prudhomme was last known to have lived in Nassau Bay, Texas in the same year that she was killed. Detectives believe that Prudhomme frequented several of the local bars in the area near where she lived. Despite the two women finally being identified, police said their murder cases still remain unsolved. Cook and Prudhomme were never officially reported missing by their families. President Donald Trump tweeted about the massive fire engulfing Notre Dame Monday, suggesting the use of flying water tankers to douse the flames then appeared to criticize renovation work that may have caused it. Trump tweeted from aboard Air Force One en route to Minnesota, while viewers around the world were watching the iconic cathedral in flames. 'So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!' Trump wrote while en route to Minnesota for an event about taxes. Later, at his Tax Day event, Trump told a crowd about the 'terrible, terrible fire.' 'The fire that they're having at the Notre Dame Cathedral is something like few people have witnessed,' the president said. 'When we left the plane, it was burning at a level that you rarely see a fire burn. It's one of the great treasures of the world,' Trump continued. Scroll down for video President Donald Trump tweeted about the fire at Notre Dame Monday 'Its one of the great treasures in the world. The greatest artists in the world. Probably if you think about it it might be greater almost than any museum in the world and its burning very badly. Looks like Its burning to the ground,' the president added, as firefighters struggled to contain the blaze. Trump said he had a 'communication' with France but did not specify if he spoke to French authorities. 'That puts a damper on what were about to say to be honest,' Trump told his audience in Minnesota. 'Because that is beyond countries. Thats beyond anything. Thats a part of our growing up, its a part of our culture, its a part of our lives. Thats a truly great cathedral. And Ive been there and Ive seen it Theres probably no cathedral in the world like it,' Trump said. The president said the French believe the fire was related to the ongoing renovation of the 850-year-old cathedral. 'They think it was caused by renovation. And I hope that's the reason,' Trump continued. 'Renovation. What's that all about?' Trump said. Then he called it a 'terrible sight to behold.' 'With that being said, I want to tell you that a lot of progress has been made by our country in the last two and a half years, ' Trump said, segueing into his tax event. 'Hard to believe we're already starting to think about our next election.' The president suggested the use of airborne tankers The French government tweeted out its reason in English for not using water tankers from the air At the end of his roundtable event, where he hailed tax cuts, gains against ISIS and other matters, Trump returned to Notre Dame. 'We all want to extend our regards and our hopes and our "God Bless you" to Paris and to France, what they're going through,' Trump said. 'This is one of the true catastrophes,' he said. 'Hopefully they did better than they were doing when I left the plane but it was not a good situation with respect to Notre Dame Cathedral.' CNN reported hours after Trump's tweet that the French government responded to questions about the lack of air tankers. The reason was not due to a lack of capability, but rather to concerns that air drops could cause the cathedral's walls to implode, according to the report. France's ambassador to the U.S., Gerard Araud, told the network: 'It's not possible to use water tankers which could only worsen he situation of the building.' He mentioned the difficulty of containing the fire with intense heat and tons of wood acting as fuel. 'So I think we have only to pray now,' he said. The French civil security division posted a tweet that appeared to rebut Trump posting single English language missive on its French-language account. 'Hundreds of firemen of the Paris Fire Brigade are doing everything they can to bring the terrible #NotreDame fire under control. All means are being used, except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral,' according to the tweet. First lady Melania Trump, who did work in Paris during her modeling career, also tweeted about the fire. 'My heart breaks for the people of Paris after seeing the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral. Praying for everyones safety,' Melania Trump wrote. PARIS, FRANCE - APRIL 15: Flames and smoke rising from the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, France on April 15, 2019 A fire broke out at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris, potentially involving renovation works being carried out at the site, the fire service said.Images posted on social media showed flames and huge clouds of smoke billowing above the roof of the gothic cathedral, the most visited historic monument in Europe The president suggested: 'Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out.' Above an air tanker drops water on a fire along the Ronald Reagan (118) Freeway in Simi Valley, Calif., Monday, Nov. 12, 2018 The president had the capability to monitor televised reports while in flight to Minnesota. Televised coverage showed billowing smoke and flames engulfing the roof of the building, but scant few early signs of an effective firefighting response. One helicopter was seen circling the area as Parisian firefighters made their way to the seen. There were no early images of any immediate effort from the air. Firefighters eventually were able to assemble fire boats on the river. The cathedral is located on the corner of Ile de la Cite, on a spit of land that juts out into the river Seine. It wasn't immediately known why there weren't air capabilities deployed, or whether they even were available. 'My heart breaks for the people of Paris after seeing the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral. Praying for everyones safety,' Melania Trump wrote Monday Ivanka Trump tweeted about the event from Ethiopia The president's daughter, traveling in Africa, also tweeted about the event. 'Watching flames engulf the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. A devastating and shocking sight. Praying for the safety of all,' Ivanka Trump wrote. According to French newspaper Le Monde, the fire broke out in the attic of the monument before spreading across the roof. The cathedral is one the finest example of French Gothic architecture in Europe, and one of the most visited buildings in the world. Notre Dame - which means 'Our Lady' - was build in 1160 and completed by 1260, and has been modified on a number of occasions throughout the century. Vice President Mike Pence tweeted Monday: 'Notre Dame is an iconic symbol of faith to people all over the world and it is heartbreaking to see a house of God in flames. Our thoughts and prayers are with the firefighters on the scene and all the people of Paris.' A 22-year-old man is facing multiple charges after he set fire to 13 vehicles on a busy street in Edmonton, Canada. The incident happened on Whyte Avenue, a street popular with bar and restaurant goers, on Friday at around 8.30pm. Officers were called after reports that a man, who police have identified as 22-year-old Malice Sutton, was pouring gasoline on cars using a jerry can and setting them alight. Officers were called to Whyte Avenue after reports that a man was pouring gasoline on cars using a jerry can and setting them alight Police have identified the suspect as 22-year-old Malice Sutton (pictured above) CTV News Edmonton showed video appearing to show the suspect also lighting Molotov cocktails behind a local store shortly before the alleged arson spree began. General manager of Next Act Pub, CJ Rowein told CTV News that the man drew a line in gasoline and lit it on the sidewalk after targeting a number of cars. He lit all four cars on the east side of 104th, crossed the street and then hit about five or six to this side,' Rowein said. A woman, who's car was damaged in the attack, Jessica Venne, was driving down the street in her red Ford Escape when the suspect poured gasoline on her hood and lit the car on fire, as reported by the Edmonton Journal. Venne pulled up to the intersection off Whyte Avenue and found her car becoming a target. Thirteen cars were set on fire during the alleged arson spree on Friday night. CTV News Edmonton showed video appearing to show the suspect also lighting Molotov cocktails behind a local store shortly before the spree began Whyte Avenue where the incident happened is a street popular with bar and restaurant goers 'Inside me I went, 'No, don't you dare,' and he poured gasoline all over my hood and lit it instantly,' Venne said. Although she was in shock, Venne said she quickly tried to catch the wind while rounding the corner onto Whyte Avenue, which helped extinguish the flames. She then pulled over and poured water over the hood, putting the fire out. There was slight discoloration to her vehicle but it was not badly damaged. 'I basically fell to my knees and had a little cry because I was just in shock,' she said. 'It was very scary to be in my vehicle with my hood on fire.' Jeff Halaby, a local restaurant owner, helped stop the suspect. 'I just was like, I don't want him to continue down the path,' said Halaby. 'I didn't have anything to stop him with, so I looked around the restaurant to see if I could find anything and I found a piece of baseboard.' The suspect is said to have drawn a line in gasoline and lit it on the sidewalk after targeting a number of cars Sutton was taken down by a by-stander in Starbucks who performed a citizen's arrest before police arrived and took him into custody Sutton's charged with 11 counts of arson causing damage, three counts of arson with disregard for human life, four counts of possessing incendiary material and one count of assault with a weapon Halaby said he followed the suspect toward Starbucks. Before he arrived at the coffee shop, Halaby found that the suspect had been taken down by another man. Sutton's charged with 11 counts of arson causing damage, three counts of arson with disregard for human life, four counts of possessing incendiary material and one count of assault with a weapon. No-one was injured in the incident. Historian Kenneth Clark told British television viewers that he could not easily define 'civilisation'. 'But,' he said, turning towards Notre Dame cathedral in his 1969 BBC series, 'I think I can recognise it when I see it.' Possibly the world's most famous church, 'Our Lady of Paris' is an enduring gothic masterpiece, a place of pilgrimage for Roman Catholics from all over the world and symbol of French nationhood. The possibility of its total destruction is as inconceivable as Big Ben tumbling into the Thames. Standing on a small island in the middle of the Seine, its two huge Gothic towers, unique rose windows, rich sculptural adornments and menacing gargoyles are at the centre of one of the most recognisable urban vistas on the planet. Construction began in 1163 on the site of an older church and before that a pagan temple under the reign of Louis VII, with the foundation stone laid by Pope Alexander III. Thousands of labourers slaved for nearly two centuries until its completion in 1345. The interior of Notre Dame with its chandeliers illuminated. As the seat of the Archibishop of Paris the cathedral is a major site of Catholic worship 'Appearance to Peter and John' and 'Appearance to the disciples at Emmaus', parts of 'Appearances of the Risen Christ', a chancel screen inside of Notre Dame A picture taken less than a month ago shows a scaffold during the restoration of Notre Dame de Paris cathedral, in Paris The building of the cathedral began in the 12th century and the building has survived sackings and Revolution The nave of the cathedral seen from inside towers above the parishioner past stained glass windows to rib vaulted ceilings A view of the middle-age stained glass rosace on the southern side of the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral The interior of the cathedral is domed with magnificent 12th century rib vaults and the spire, replaced in the 19th century, weighed 750 tonnes The reconstruction of the spire, photographed in the 1850s. The original had to be torn down in the late eighteenth century after hundreds of years of damage Using innovative architectural techniques to assert France's growing status as a European power, its soaring vaulted ceilings, flying buttresses and doors surmounted by a row of figures of Old Testament kings were an expression of royal grandeur. The building is longer than a football pitch at 427ft, with its largely wooden spire which collapsed last night once soaring 300ft into the Parisian sky. Indeed it is the mode of constructing of the roof structure entirely in timber, with each beam being made from a single oak tree in a tight lattice which may be the key to understanding last night's disaster. In all, 5,000 oaks were used in making it. Among the catalogue of scenes from medieval history that have played out within its sacred confines, Henry VI of England was crowned there in 1431 in the midst of the Hundred Years War, the only English king to be crowned monarch in both nations. In 1558 Mary Queen of Scots married the French dauphin, Francis II, within its walls, and in 1572 the future Henry IV of France was also married there. But as well as wonderful scenes of chivalry, the cathedral has also survived its share of misfortune although, curiously, it had avoided any devastating fire until yesterday's disaster. In 1548, at the height of the Reformation, rioting Protestant Huguenots damaged some of the statues, considering them idolatrous, and in the 1790s it suffered significant desecration during the French Revolution. Many of its treasures were looted and the so-called 'sans-culottes' decapitated the heads of 28 statues, thinking they were French kings, not the biblical figures they really represented. Notre Dame de Paris is home to the relic accepted by Catholics the world as the holy crown of thorns worn by Jesus Christ on the cross A priest pictured wiping the Crown of Thorns, a relic of the passion of Christ, protected in a case and kept at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris Bells were melted down to make cannon balls and the vandalised structure was then rededicated as a temple to the bizarre state-sanctioned Cult of Reason, as French leaders attempted to invent a new religion to fill the people's spiritual void. In 1793, the Cult of Reason's greatest and most lascivious pageant was held at the cathedral, with a new shrine to 'Liberty' replacing its Christian altar and the inscription 'To Philosophy' being carved in stone over the cathedral's doors. During the same pageant, seductive girls dressed in tricolour sashes enacted a 'tableau vivant', surrounding a live model dressed as the Goddess of Reason, whom philosopher Thomas Carlyle sarcastically dubbed 'one of the best [goddesses] ... though her teeth were a little defective'. As France's atheistic fervour abated, however, the cathedral came to be used as a food warehouse and fell into disrepair. Notre Dame cathedral is photographed from the top of the Jussieu University tower in Paris. Its original bone-white colour re-emerged in the 1960s after a massive cleaning and restoration project Intricate stonework at the base of the 19th century replica of the 13th century spire led to a structure made of oak A view of Paris looking out beyond the famous bell towers of Notre Dame, with the Eiffel Tower in the background The 16 copper statues which decorate the roof of the Notre-Dame de Paris are removed for restoration works. A series of cranes evacuated the statues prior to the beginning of the restoration work at the beginning of last week By the time of Napoleon's rise to power, Notre Dame was in danger of total demolition, but its significance was recognised by the politically astute Corsican. He was crowned emperor there in 1804 in a ceremony presided over by Pope Pius VII. Again, it was allowed to fall into a state of decay, but this time it was novelist Victor Hugo who shot the building back into the public's consciousness with his 1831 best-seller The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. 'Assuredly the Cathedral of Notre Dame at Paris is, to this day, a majestic and sublime edifice,' he wrote. 'But noble as it has remained while growing old, one cannot but regret, cannot but feel indignant at the innumerable degradations and mutilations inflicted on the venerable pile, both by the action of time and the hand of man, regardless alike of Charlemagne, who laid the first stone, and Philip Augustus, who laid the last.' Hugo's romantic descriptions, coupled with his observations about the damage it had sustained, helped to prompt a fresh round of restoration to the building by King Louis-Philippe. The magnificent Emmanuel, Notre Dame's largest bourdon, is the only original bell in the cathedral not destroyed during the French Revolution In the classic 1939 movie adaptation of Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame Charles Laughton played the titluar Quasimodo, pictured here on one of the bells Charles Laughton played the Hunchback of Notre Dame, pictured here praying on the cathedral walls The hunchbacked bell-ringer Quasimodo remains one of the most famous characters in world literature, with a 1996 Disney cartoon adaptation imprinting the cathedral's gothic majesty on to a new generation. Amazingly, it stood proud through both world wars and the Nazi occupation of Paris without taking major damage. During the liberation of Paris in August 1944, the cathedral suffered hits from stray bullets, with some of the medieval glass being damaged. And it was there that a special mass was held later that month to mark the end of the occupation, attended by General Charles De Gaulle, whose funeral service was also held there in 1970. Until yesterday, Notre Dame was Paris's most visited monument, with entry to the main cathedral free to its 12million annual visitors double the number that go to the Eiffel Tower and an active congregation of worshippers. Today Paris, and the world, greet with horror the inestimable and seemingly total loss of one of the crowning glories of western achievement. Notre Dame statues soared above Paris before coming down to earth as they were lifted off the iconic cathedral just days ago in preparation for the restoration Religious statues which sat atop Notre Dame Cathedral came down for the first time in more than a century as part of a restoration of the Paris churchs towering spire. A statue representing St Paul is lifted by a cranein the background of one of the cathedral's famous gargoyles A 100-metre high crane lowered the copper statues representing the 12 apostles and four evangelists on to a truck. A worker helps remove the statue representing St Andrew amid a forest of scaffolding on top of the cathedral The operation gave the public a ground-level look at the statues for the first time. The head of the statue representing St Thomas is loaded into a box for safekeeping during the extensive planned renovation The figures regular posts look over the French capital from Notre Dames 96-metre high peak. St Andrews statue soars above the French capital, with Tour Montparnasse in the background (right of picture) The three-metre tall statues are being sent to south-western France. A workman accompanied the statue of St Andrew as it descends to earth, one of sixteen sculptures removed days ago Their removal was part of the 5m renovation project on the cathedral spire and its 250 tons (226 tonnes) of lead. Terry Gilliam says he misses the way comedy used to be, lamenting that 'now we can't laugh at anybody because it causes offense' Terry Gilliam longs for the old days of comedy, lamenting that 'now we can't laugh at anybody because it causes offense'. The filmmaker, who became famous in the late 1960s as the American member of British comedy group Monty Python, spoke to the Wall Street Journal this week ahead of the release of his latest film, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. During the interview, Gilliam reflects on his career and how much of it has been consumed by the new movie, which took 30 years to complete. When asked about his opinions on the difference between British and American comedy, Gilliam said: 'I always felt the British are very good at laughing at themselves. The Americans are better at laughing at other people. 'I still think it's pretty true, but its changing because now we cant laugh at anybody because it causes offense. 'Theres a kind of egotism out there: "Oh, they were making fun of me." Never heard of you. Im making fun of an idea.' Gilliam, 78, became famous in the late 1960s as the American member of British comedy group Monty Python. He is seen top left with fellow actors John Cleese (top right), Terry Jones (bottom left) and Michael Palin (bottom right) in 1999 The filmmaker discussed his latest movie, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published this week He also addressed his perceived anger in response to the head of BBC comedies' recent comments that a modern day Monty Python wouldn't have 'six white Oxbridge blokes'. 'I wasnt particularly angry, I just played angry,' he said. 'The idea is that were already excluded because the world has changed. I said, Im tired of being, as a white male, blamed for everything thats wrong in the world. So now I want you to call me Loretta. Im a black lesbian in transition. 'That all comes from "Life of Brian", [the 1979 Python film spoofing religious epics] when Eric [Idle's character], whose name is Stan, says: "I want you to call me Loretta. I want to be a woman." 'People now might take offense at that. And when offense becomes so easy, it takes the fun out of offending!' Gilliam made a point to recognize the impact that Monty Python, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary this year, has had on his career. 'Python opened the doors to everything, to me being a movie director, which is what I really wanted to do all along,' he said. Gilliam (second from right) told the Wall Street Journal that Monty Python 'opened the doors to everything, to me being a movie director, which is what I really wanted to do all along' After his time with the comedy troop, Gilliam went on to direct Time Bandits (1981), The Fisher King (1991) and Brazil (1985). All three of those films feature a blending of fantasy and reality similar to that of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which draws inspiration from Spaniard Miguel de Cervantes two-part novel 'Don Quixote' and offers a contemporary take on its theme of chasing grand aspirations. Adam Driver stars as Toby, 'a frustrated filmmaker and disillusioned advertising executive, becomes pulled into a world of time jumping fantasy when a Spanish cobbler (Jonathan Pryce) who believes he is Don Quixote, mistakes Toby for his trusted squire Sancho Panza,' according to the film's synopsis. Gilliam told the Journal that he wonders if the film has 'destroyed his life', remarking: 'To become a mad man, is that the worst that could happen?' He first came up with the idea for the film in 1989 but didn't actually start production until 2000. Johnny Depp and Jean Rochefort were slated to play the leads in the storm when filming was interrupted by flooding, tornadoes and Rochefort's health issues. When asked whether the fact that he started the film in his 40s and finished it in his 70s had any effect on the final product, Gilliam said: 'Yes and no. Most of the ideas were there from the start. 'The final version is better now that its more about Tobys sense of guilt. Its the only reason he tags along and its in a sense his redemption.' The Man Who Killed Don Quixote hits theaters on Friday. Authorities in the Dominican Republic want to arrest a man accused of a love triangle shooting that left a woman and her male companion dead. Celestino Trinidad, 54, allegedly shot 21-year-old Angelica Maria Rodriguez Munoz, while she was carrying her two-year-old daughter inside her home Friday night. The victim's father, Patricio Rodriguez, said his daughter was carrying his granddaughter, who was crying, when Trinidad opened fire. Trinidad is also accused of killing his former lover's friend, Carlos Manuel Nova Manon, 23. Angelica Maria Rodriguez Munoz (pictured) was allegedly shot dead at her home by her ex-boyfriend in the Dominican Republic on Friday night The Dominican National Police wants to arrest 54-year-old Celestino Trinidad (pictured), who reportedly killed this former girlfriend and her male friend According to a preliminary police report, Trinidad showed up unannounced at Rodriguez Munoz's residence in the Dominican capital. After entering the home with a key he had stolen the suspect opened fire, according to Dominican news site El Masacre. Rodriguez Munoz was reportedly turned off by Trinidad's controlling and aggressive behavior and had ended the relationship four months ago, according to her father. But Trinidad reportedly insisted that she resume their broken relationship and continued to harass and follow her whereabouts. Nova Manon's family said that Trinidad was a retired member of the Dominican Republic's police force. However, the island's National Police denied that he ever served the department. Aretha Franklin is still getting R-E-S-P-E-C-T after death: The Queen of Soul received the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation honor Monday, becoming the first individual woman to earn a special citation prize since the honor was first awarded in 1930. The Pulitzer board said the award was given to Franklin for 'her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades.' Franklin died on August 16 at her home in Detroit from pancreatic cancer at age 76. The Queen of Soul received the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation honor on Monday The superstar musician was the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when she entered the prestigious organization in 1987. The Pulitzer board most recently awarded a special citation prize in 2010 to Hank Williams, the country music legend who died in 1953. From the arts world, other recipients include Duke Ellington, Bob Dylan, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, George Gershwin, Ray Bradbury, William Schuman, Milton Babbitt, Scott Joplin, Roger Sessions, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Before Monday, only 41 special citation prizes had been awarded since 1930, and winners have ranged from individual people to organizations and groups, including the New York Times, writers E.B. White, Alex Haley and Kenneth Roberts, and Columbia University and its Graduate School of Journalism. Franklin and the Capital Gazette newspaper received special citation honors this year. 'Aretha is blessed and highly favored even in death. She's continued to receive multiple awards - she's received almost every award imaginable and now to get the Pulitzer Prize, it's just amazing,' Sabrina Owens, Franklin's niece and the executor of her estate, said in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday. 'Aretha continues to bless us with her music and just paving the way for women going forward. It's thrilling. She would be so happy right now.' Aretha Franklin performs during the 47th Annual Academy Awards ceremony in LA in 1975 When Owens heard the news that Franklin won a Pulitzer, she and the family were 'surprised but in another way we were not because that's just the kind of person Aretha was.' 'She was just very gifted and talented, and the world is still recognizing that,' she said. Franklin's inclusion into the exclusive club re-confirms the impact her music - and voice - had and continues to have on the world. She became a cultural icon and genius of American song, considered by many to be the greatest popular vocalist of her time. Her voice transcended age, category and her own life. Franklin was professional singer and accomplished pianist by her late teens and a superstar by her mid-20s. Raised in Detroit, she recorded hundreds of tracks and had dozens of hits over the span of a half century, including 20 that reached No. 1 on the R&B charts. The Queen of Soul received the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation honor Monday becoming the first individual woman to earn a special citation prize since the honor was first awarded in 1930 But her reputation was defined by an extraordinary run of Top 10 smashes in the late 1960s, from the morning-after bliss of '(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,' to the wised-up 'Chain of Fools' to her unstoppable call for 'Respect,' transforming Otis Redding's song into a classic worldwide anthem - especially for the feminist and civil rights movements - making it one of the most recognizable and heard songs of all-time. She sold millions of albums and won countless awards, including 18 Grammys, the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. She performed at the inaugurations of Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and even sang at the funeral for civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks and at the dedication of Martin Luther King Jr's memorial. The superstar musician was the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when she entered the prestigious organization in 1987. She is pictured here in 2011 Rolling Stone ranked Franklin No.1 on its list of the Top 100 singers and she was also named one of the 20 most important entertainers of the 20th century by Time magazine, which celebrated her 'mezzo-soprano, the gospel growls, the throaty howls, the girlish vocal tickles, the swoops, the dives, the blue-sky high notes, the blue-sea low notes. Female vocalists don't get the credit as innovators that male instrumentalists do. They should. Franklin has mastered her instrument as surely as John Coltrane mastered his sax.' Franklin was born in Memphis, Tennessee, though her family moved to Buffalo, New York, and then settled in Detroit. She grew up singing in the church alongside her father Rev. C.L. Franklin, a prominent Baptist minister who recorded dozens of albums of sermons and music. Franklin, pictured here in 2005, became a cultural icon and genius of American song and is considered by many to be the greatest popular vocalist of her time She joined him on tour and she released a gospel album in 1956. Four years later, she signed with Columbia Records and when her contract ran out in 1966, she joined Atlantic Records. That's when she blazed the pop and R&B charts with a string of hits, including 'Respect,' ''I Say a Little Prayer,' ''Think,' ''Chain of Fools,' ''Day Dreaming,' ''(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You've Been Gone,' ''Rock Steady' and 'Until You Come Back to Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do).' Other prizes the Pulitzer committee handed out went to Richard Powers for his innovative novel 'The Overstory,' which shows us the world through the perspective of nature, won for fiction. The drama prize went to 'Fairview,' by Jackie Sibblies Drury, and Eliza Griswold's 'Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America' won for general nonfiction. Ellen Reid's opera 'p r i s m,' which tackles sexual and emotional abuse, was given the music award, and Forrest Gander's elegiac 'Be With' the poetry prize. Franklin's voice transcended age, category and her own life. She is pictured here in 2017 Left: 'Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom,' by David W. Blight, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History. Right: New Directions Publishing shows 'Be With,' by Forrest Gander, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry The lives of Franklin, Douglass and Locke spanned and helped define more than a century of political and social change: Douglass was the country's leading abolitionist of the 19th century, Locke the so-called 'Dean' of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s and Franklin a transcendent and inspiring voice of the civil rights and feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s. 'I think one of the through-lines of those three lives is music,' says Stewart, whose Locke biography also won a National Book Award. 'Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America' by Eliza Griswold, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction 'Frederick Douglass was one of the first people to provide an intellectual portrait of the spirituals, to show they were not just religious music, but statements of humanity and longing for freedom among the slaves. For Locke, spirituals were his favorite musical forms because they had that religious-philosophical dimension of the black experience, culled into a unique aesthetic form. And then you think of Aretha Franklin, who came out of gospel and brought into it popular music. So you can see a real continuum.' Drury's 'Fairview' brings the story of African-Americans into the present, skewering white people's obsession with black stereotypes. It begins as a contemporary domestic comedy involving a well-off black family and ends with the invisible fourth wall destroyed and the audience pulled down a rabbit hole of race and identity. The Pulitzer board called it a 'hard-hitting drama that examines race in a highly conceptual, layered structure, ultimately bringing audiences into the actors' community to face deep-seated prejudices.' This cover image released by W. W. Norton & Company shows 'The Overstory,' a novel by Richard Powers, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Powers, 61, has long been praised by critics and fellow writers for his blend of science, literature and technology; Margaret Atwood has likened his gifts and ambitions to Herman Melville's. The Pulitzer for fiction could well bring commercial success to the author, whose previous works include 'The Echo Maker,' winner of the National Book Award. 'The Overstory,' shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, is a case of an author's life changing a book and a book changing his life. The author was teaching at Stanford University when he began the novel, six years ago, with the idea of telling a story through non-human protagonists. For research, he visited the Smoky Mountains and was so overwhelmed he ended up moving to a home on the Tennessee side of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. 'I've been itinerant for much of my life, and this was the first time I really felt I belonged to one place,' he said. 'From here on out, I can't imagine writing anything that isn't under the spell of this book.' The Jupiter Police Department and Palm Beach County State Attorney's office are being sued by a man who visited Orchids of Asia Day Spa while the facility was under surveillance by authorities. A complaint filed in federal court on Monday by attorneys Edward Mullins of Reed Smith and Joe Tacopania of The Law Offices of Tacopina & Seigel on behalf of a John Doe, accuses authorities of violating Doe's Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, Fourteenth Amendment right to procedural due process, and constitutional right to privacy. Doe states that he was visiting the spa on January 19 for a massage that did not include any manual or oral sex act from a spa employee. The filing, which was submitted in the United states District Court for the Southern District of Florida, goes on to state that Doe had a reasonable expectation of privacy as he undressed inside the spa and then received a massage while in the nude. He is now seeking monetary, punitive and exemplary damages while demanding that no copy of any of the tapes showing men inside the spa be released to the press or public. Doe also wants those tapes, and any copies, destroyed for good. Patriot: A John Doe has filed a lawsuit against the Town of Jupiter Police, Detective Andrew Sharp and David Aronberg, the Palm Beach County State's Attorney for the sex spa sting that resulted in Robert Kraft (above) being charged with two misdemeanors High voltage: Doe claims that he was filmed both undressing and then nude by police who put hidden cameras in the Orchids of Asia Day Spa (above) on January 19 The court filing argues that should those tapes be released, innocent victims like Doe might be exposed due to interest in one of the case's high-profile defendants, billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. 'On or around January 19, 2019, Mr. Doe entered the Spa and received a massage, while undressed, in a private massage room,' reads the filing. It goes on to state that a licensed therapist provided Doe with this massage. 'On information and belief, the Jupiter Police recorded Mr. Doe while undressed and receiving a massage. Mr. Doe did not engage in any sexual or illegal activity at any time while receiving his massage at the Spa,' states the complaint. 'Upon information and belief, the Jupiter Police shared these recordings with other individuals and organizations pursuing or acting in parallel with the Investigation, including officers employed by the Jupiter Police, Aronberg and other members of the Palm Beach County States Attorney Office, and, on information and belief, the Martin County Sheriff and the Martin County DA, who were running a related investigation.' The filing then references the interest in the case because of Kraft and how that interest, combined with the realization that Doe had been filmed without his knowledge, has caused the man distress. 'The risk of public access demands is particularly acute in the present case, as certain of the defendants charged with misdemeanor solicitation of prostitution include high profile individuals, and the media has already actively sought to obtain the videos collected by the Jupiter Police at the Spa,' writes Tacopania. 'There is, therefore, a grave risk that the video will be made public absent immediate court action.' Die has 'suffered invasion ... embarrassment, loss of business opportunities, and substantial expensesincluding legal fees and court costs' reads the complaint. Damages are not the only remedy the man is seeking either, as he asks that officials be ordered ' to permanently and completely destroy, any and all video, audio, photographic, or other recordings, or any images or other records derived from or based on recordings, made inside the Spa.' TMZ was the first to report on this new lawsuit. Detective Andrew Sharp is also named in the lawsuit as a defendant for his actions on the case. 'Without probable cause and without a warrant, Sharp requested that an inspector from the Florida Department of Health perform a warrantless search of the Spa. That investigator, Karen Herzog, interviewed each of the employees present in the Spa, and took pictures of their identifications and a fridge and a freezer,' reads the complaint. 'Herzog also completed a report indicating that the Spa was not used as a place of domicile.' A lawyer for Kraft did not hold back on the same subject earlier this month, going after the Martin Circuity Sheriff's Office after it was revealed no human trafficking charges would be filed in the spa bust. 'Sheriff Will Snyder admitted that there was no human trafficking,' said attorney William Burck. 'He lied about it. His officers lied about it. I dont really know what to say. Ive never seen anything quite like that before.' Authorities had initially obtained warrants to install hidden cameras after a health inspector noted evidence that suggested women were living at the spa during a visit to one of the establishments. Sheriff Snyder then had to back off that claim, despite firmly stating that Kraft and the other men accused of soliciting were engaging ins ex acts with trafficked women. 'They are supposed to be upholding the law. They are supposed to be officers of justice, but instead he's concocting false allegations against people in order to further headlines rather than justice,' said Burck. 'Sheriff Snyder said "the monsters are the men." Sheriff Snyder is the liar.' Lisa Bloom has called for Dubai's ruler and his horse to be excluded from the Kentucky Derby this year in protest over him allegedly holding his adult daughter captive. Bloom announced on Monday that she had filed a complaint demanding that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum not be allowed to enter his horse Royal Marine in this year's race. In 2018, his 33-year-old daughter, Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, tried to escape Dubai on a boat but was captured days later and has been being held, allegedly against her will, in the UAE ever since. She has not been seen publicly since the incident but her family has released photographs of her which they say prove she is living happily and healthily. Scroll down for video Lisa Bloom announced on Monday that she had filed a complaint demanding that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum (right) and his horse be excluded from the Kentucky Derby Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, 33, has not been seen publicly since trying to escape Dubai last March and being brought back to her family Bloom maintains that she is being held against her will. On Monday, she said the US should exclude Sheikh Mohammed in protest and as a sign that it cares about women's rights. 'For over a year, the monarch of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, has brazenly and openly held hostage his adult daughter, Princess Latifa, whose only crime was her attempt to escape him and live life on her own terms,' Bloom said in a press release. 'It is time to end business as usual in the United States for Sheikh Mohammed. He operates horseracing farms in Kentucky, called Godolphin. He has had ten horses race in the Kentucky Derby, and his horse Royal Marine may run in this years May 4 race. He also has a filly slated to run in the Oaks on May 3. 'It is time to ban Sheikh Mohammed, everyone associated with him, and Royal Marine from the Derby, the 'Oaks and all horseracing events in Kentucky. Bloom says there is a chance that the Sheikh's horse, Royal Marine, may compete in this year's Kentucky Derby but that it should not be allowed to 'Surely as a country that believes in womens rights and the sovereignty of the American flag that is the very least we can do,' she said. She filed her complaint against him and against the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission. In March 2018, Latifa recorded a nearly 40 minute-long video where she explained why she wanted to escape. She said that in Dubai, women's lives were 'disposable'. She also claimed that she spent years as a teenager being tortured and held in solitary confinement after a failed escape attempt. The video surfaced after she was recaptured last year and was released by a friend who had tried to help her get out. The pair were found on-board a boat off the coast of India with French former spy Herve Jaubert. These photographs show Latifa with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, in December in proof of her life. There were allegations she had been killed Many, including Bloom, say the photographs do not prove that Princess Latifa is not being held against her will Latifa's Instagram page has now been shut down and she has not spoken publicly When they were stopped by Emirati and Indian forces on the boat, Latifa reportedly said she would rather have been killed than go back to live with her strict family. A documentary was made about the rescue attempt in which both the friend who tried to escape with her and Jaubert were interviewed. Latifa's family in Dubai slammed it as 'regrettable' and said that she was put in a position of vulnerability by the pair. Last year, they invited UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Mary Robinson to their home to prove that she was safe. Robinson later gave an interview describing Latifa as 'troubled'. She was criticized for seeming to repeat the family's version of events without challenging it. After she was taken back to her family, Latifa's social media accounts were shut down. Advertisement Nearly two-thirds of Americans (63 percent) believe the government spends too little on drug rehabilitation an attitude increasingly embraced by white Americans as addiction becomes viewed more as a disease and less as a personal failing that primarily affects minorities, according to new survey data. It represents a 50 percent increase since 2012 when just 42 percent of Americans felt that way, according to an exclusive DailyMail.com analysis of the General Social Survey - a comprehensive poll that has tracked American attitudes and beliefs since 1972. The shift in attitudes is 'encouraging,' said Michael Botticelli, executive director of the Grayken Center for Addiction at Boston Medical Center, and former director of National Drug Control Policy at the White House under former President Obama. 'It's also heart-breaking at the same time that it took this level of addiction and death to change the (public) opinion here,' he told DailyMail.com. 'It's particularly tragic that we didn't see this kind of response where previous epidemics largely affected people of color.' This graph illustrates the share of all Americans who believe the government spends too little on drug rehabilitation. Source: General Social Survey The share of all Americans who would like to see more spending on rehabilitation is now approaching the peak of 1990 during the height of the crack epidemic when 65 percent said the government spent too little on rehabilitation. Overall support for increased funding fell steadily from 1990 through 2012, just as the opiate crisis was about to take hold and capture media attention. 'The coverage of the opioid epidemic has gotten greater attention than anything in the drug arena over the last 30, 40 years,' said Peter Provet, CEO of the New York City-based Odyssey House rehabilitation center. Black and white Americans have historically been sharply divided on this issue, with African Americans significantly more likely to be in support of more funding for drug rehab than their white counterparts with calls for more spending ranging from 60 percent to more than 80 percent over the past three decades. This support peaked among African Americans in 1990 (again, during the height of the crack epidemic, which disproportionately affected black people), when 83 percent said more funding was needed compared to an all-time peak of 62 percent of white Americans that year. This graph illustrates the share of black and white Americans who believe the government spends too little on drug rehabilitation. Source: General Social Survey White attitudes tied that peak in 2018, with 62 percent in favor of more spending on rehabilitation - a 63 percent increase since 2012 when just 38 percent felt that way. It's still significantly less than the 71 percent of African Americans in 2018 who said they would like to see more funding dedicated to helping people recover from drug addiction. The change in attitudes is a good sign, because the general public and politicians have 'never adequately seen the drug issue as a big enough concern,' Provet told DailyMail.com. 'The historical demographic (of drug addiction) has been the poor, primarily black or person of color, inner city addict and that demographic has not gotten the general public's concern and attention,' he added. 'This current opioid epidemic has struck far more into the middle class of America.' Opinions on rehabilitation spending also split along partisan lines, with 74 percent of Democrats saying it's underfunded in 2018, compared to 53 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of Independents. Among Democrats, 2018 marks a record high in public opinion in favor of more funding for those suffering from addiction, while Republicans saw a peak in 1990 at 60 percent, and Independents in 1989 at 66 percent. This graph illustrates the share of Americans of different political parties who believe the government spends too little on drug rehabilitation. Source: General Social Survey All three political parties have seen a steady uptick in support for government funding since 2012. The opioid epidemic has managed to capture more public sympathy than other drug epidemics, largely because it affects so many people and due to its reach into suburban white America, Botticelli said. 'The vast majority of people know someone who has been affected by the opioid epidemic,' he said. The result has even led to a shift in attitudes among many in law enforcement. 'You have more and more law enforcement officials saying we can't arrest and incarcerate our way out of this problem,' Botticelli said. 'If you look at where we've funded other epidemics like HIV and tobacco, not only do we need to increase the resources, but that funding needs to be sustained over time,' he added. The Department of Health and Human Services is requesting $1.9 billion in funding for substance abuse prevention and treatment in the 2020 federal budget proposal, though officials have not broken out how much of that is designated for rehabilitation. Q&A host Virginia Trioli clashed with One Nation Senate candidate Malcolm Roberts in a heated argument about gun laws on Monday night. Roberts was taken to task on his party's gun law policy three weeks after a documentary revealed One Nation leaders had visited the US to meet with the National Rifle Association. He said One Nation wants to make it harder for criminals to access weapons but easier for farmers and anyone else who may need them for a legitimate reason. Q&A host Virginia Trioli clashed with One Nation Senate candidate Malcolm Roberts in a heated argument about gun laws on Monday night 'We want to make it harder for terrorists and criminals to get guns,' he said. 'We want to make it easier and more encouraging for good responsible shooters to actually access the firearms paperwork. 'We want to make sure that people who earn a living or who use guns as part of a trade such as culling feral animals, they are able to do it more safely.' Trioli said many voters would feel this was a watering down of gun laws. 'That's not the case,' Mr Roberts replied. 'I'm making it clear there's no watering down. We're making it harder for people to access guns if they're criminals.' 'But not for sporting shooters and others?' asked Trioli. 'Correct,' said Roberts. 'So, some watering down,' Trioli insisted, drawing laughs from the audience. The host then moved the debate on by asking why One Nation media advisor James Ashby and Queensland leader Steve Dickson went to the US, where they were secretly filmed discussing getting donations from the NRA. Roberts was taken to task on his party's gun law policy three weeks after a documentary revealed One Nation leaders had visited the US to meet with the National Rifle Association 'They did not seek any funding,' said Roberts before Trioli interrupted: 'We saw them seek funding.' Roberts then told her: 'You're interrupting me again,' and Trioli replied: 'I'm the host of the programme.' Trying to talk over rapturous laughter from the audience, Roberts said: 'I'm a guest. I'm a guest.' Trioli then stared at Roberts, prompting him to say: 'You can look at me any way you want. I'm a guest.' 'I'm the host... It's my task to keep you on task,' Trioli said. The Archbishop of Canterbury has joined Theresa May and other political leaders in expressing devastation at the destruction of Notre Dame cathedral The Archbishop of Canterbury has joined Theresa May and other political leaders in expressing devastation at the destruction of Notre Dame cathedral. The cathedral, Europe's most-visited monument, has been engulfed by flames since earlier this afternoon. A spokesman for the cathedral said the entire wooden frame of the cathedral would likely come down, and that the vault of the edifice could be threatened too. 'Everything is burning, nothing will remain from the frame,' Notre Dame spokesman Andre Finot said. Archbishop Justin Welby said he was praying for 'everyone in France and beyond who watches and weeps' as the blaze rages on. He tweeted: 'Tonight we pray for the firefighters tackling the tragic Notre Dame fire - and for everyone in France and beyond who watches and weeps for this beautiful, sacred place where millions have met with Jesus Christ.' Notre Dame has been engulfed by flames since earlier this afternoon. The fire saw its spire collapse and 400 firefighters have been mobilised to help tackle the blaze World leaders have expressed their devastation at the destruction of the 850-year-old cathedral with the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby saying: 'Tonight we pray for the firefighters tackling the tragic Notre Dame fire - and for everyone in France and beyond who watches and weeps for this beautiful, sacred place where millions have met with Jesus Christ' Prime Minister Theresa May joined other politicians on Twitter who lamented over the flames engulfing the cathedral Theresa May has said her 'thoughts are with the people of France tonight' while Notre Dame continues to be engulfed by a raging inferno. The Prime Minister took to Twitter to say: 'My thoughts are with the people of France tonight and with the emergency services who are fighting the terrible blaze at Notre Dame cathedral'. Home Secretary Sajid Javid showed his sorrow by simply saying: 'Heartbreaking'. Labour MP Yvette Cooper said she was in Paris and saw the spire fall, but 'can't bear to watch any more'. She tweeted to say: 'Fearful for anyone close to the flames, and aghast that centuries of history & beauty could disappear into smoke so fast'. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan tweeted to show the support he and London are giving to Paris while Notre Dame goes up in flames. He said: 'London stands in sorrow with Paris today, and in friendship always'. Prime Minister Theresa May took to Twitter to say: 'My thoughts are with the people of France tonight and with the emergency services who are fighting the terrible blaze at Notre Dame cathedral' Home Secretary Sajid Javid expressed his sorrow at the raging fire at Notre Dame by simply saying 'Heartbreaking' Westminster Abbey in central London said on its official Twitter account that it was 'devastated'. 'Devastated for our friends at Notre Dame and for the people of France,' it tweeted. 'You are in our thoughts and prayers tonight.' French President Emmanuel Macron said he was 'sad to see this part of us burn' as he responded to the fire, which looks likely to have destroyed the entire wooden interior of the historic building, according to officials. In French, Mr Macron wrote on Twitter: 'Our Lady of Paris (Notre Dame de Paris) in flames. Emotion of a whole nation. Thought for all Catholics and for all French. 'Like all our countrymen, I'm sad tonight to see this part of us burn.' US President Donald Trump said: 'So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!' Mr Trump's vice president Mike Pence said it was 'heartbreaking to see a house of God in flames', describing the cathedral as 'an iconic symbol of faith to people all over the world'. Former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Notre Dame showed that humans could 'unite for a higher purpose'. 'My heart goes out to Paris,' she tweeted. London Mayor Sadiq Khan tweeted to say: 'London stands in sorrow with Paris today, and in friendship always' French President Emmanuel Macron said he was 'sad to see this part of us burn' Macron tweeted in French to say: 'Our Lady of Paris (Notre Dame de Paris) in flames. Emotion of a whole nation. Thought for all Catholics and for all French. 'Like all our countrymen, I'm sad tonight to see this part of us burn' 'Notre Dame is a symbol of our ability as human beings to unite for a higher purpose - to build breathtaking spaces for worship that no one person could have built on their own. 'I wish France strength and shared purpose as they grieve and rebuild.' Leaders of the European Union shared thoughts on the news, with European Council president Donald Tusk tweeting: 'We are all with Paris today.' President of the European Commissioner Jean-Claude Juncker described the fire as a 'horror'. In a press release written in French, Mr Juncker said: 'I am minute by minute the fire of which Notre-Dame de Paris is the prey. 'Our Lady of Paris belongs to the whole of mankind. What a sad spectacle. What a horror. 'I share the emotion of the French nation which is also ours.' European Council president Donald Tusk tweeting: 'We are all with Paris today' European Commissioner Jean-Claude Juncker described the fire as a 'horror' European Parliament Brexit official Guy Verhofstadt said he was 'so sad' to see 'a masterpiece of European gothic is at risk'. 'I hope that the Paris fire brigade will get the fire under control as soon as possible,' tweeted Mr Verhofstadt. 'My thoughts are with the people of France as a masterpiece of European gothic is at risk of being destroyed.' TV historian Dan Snow cited other damaging fires on monuments as evidence that Notre Dame 'will rise again'. He tweeted: 'It's overwhelming but remember that York Minster and Hampton Court burned in the 80s, Windsor Castle in the 90s and Cutty Sark in the 00s. Dresden's Frauenkirche, the Catherine Palace... 'What we build, we can rebuild. Their essence endures. 'Notre Dame will rise again.' A row erupted last night after the Mail revealed Shamima Begum will get legal aid to help fund her fight to return to Britain. The families of IRA victims, who had to battle for years to get taxpayer help with their legal bills, said it was an 'outrage' that the jihadi bride was in line for public funding. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt admitted he was 'very uncomfortable' with the idea of Begum receiving public funds to fight Sajid Javid's decision to remove her British citizenship. Judith Jenkins (pictured) the widow of Hyde Park bombing victim Jeffrey Young, said it was an outrage that the former London schoolgirl Shamima Begum would get her legal costs funded [File photo] However, ministers insisted the decision was a matter for the Independent Legal Aid Agency (LAA) and they could not intervene while Jeremy Corbyn defended Begum's right to get funding. It is thought the Government is facing a string of other legal challenges to citizenship deprivation orders, which could ultimately land the taxpayer with a substantial bill if all are granted legal aid. Dozens of other people have been stripped of their British citizenship in the past few years. The Mail broke the news yesterday that Begum, who was just 15 when she left her family in east London to join Islamic State, was in line for legal aid. Whitehall sources last night said that while the paperwork had yet to be formally signed off, there was 'no doubt' Begum's request would be granted by the LAA because she had no means to pay for the legal action. Shamima Begum is said to be destitute and living in a refugee camp in Syria, having lost three of her children she had with her Dutch jihadi husband. She will get legal aid to help fund her fight to return to Britain [File photo] The 19-year-old is said to be destitute and living in a refugee camp in Syria, having lost three of her children she had with her Dutch jihadi husband. Yesterday her brother-in-law said he understood taxpayers' fury that their money would be used to pay for her legal challenge. Dal Babu, a former Met Police chief superintendent and a friend of the Begum family, said legal aid was necessary to ensure the correct process was followed. Judith Jenkins, the widow of Hyde Park bombing victim Jeffrey Young, said it was an 'outrage' that the former London schoolgirl would get her legal costs funded. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt (pictured) admitted he was 'very uncomfortable' with the idea of Begum receiving public funds to fight Sajid Javid's decision to remove her British citizenship [File photo] Mr Corbyn said Mr Javid's decision in February to remove her citizenship was 'very questionable', adding: 'She is a British national and, therefore, she has that right, like any of us do, to apply for legal aid if she has a problem. 'She has legal rights, just like anybody else does' [File photo] The families of the four soldiers killed in the 1982 atrocity were denied legal aid to sue IRA terrorist John Downey, whose trial for the murders collapsed due to blunders by police and civil servants. Relatives seeking a civil action against Downey had their requests for legal aid rejected five times before the LAA decided to grant the cash. Mrs Jenkins said: 'It's outrageous she can have it when people within this country can't get it. She has joined a terrorist organisation and left the country and she gets legal aid.' Mark Tipper, whose brother Trooper Simon Tipper, 19, was killed as he rode through Hyde Park, said: 'If this woman is entitled to legal aid, it stinks. 'This woman left this country and joined a terrorist organisation. Now she wants to come back again and regain her UK citizenship, how come she is entitled to legal aid when we families had to spend years fighting for it?' Julie Hambleton, spokesman for the families of the victims of the Birmingham pub bombings, said they also had to battle for legal aid and had received only a fraction of the funding they hoped for. Her sister Maxine was among 21 people who died when bombs exploded in two pubs in 1974. She said: 'The legal aid system needs to be made fairer in terms of how it funds those who require it. It's fundamentally flawed.' But Mr Corbyn said Mr Javid's decision in February to remove her citizenship was 'very questionable', adding: 'She is a British national and, therefore, she has that right, like any of us do, to apply for legal aid if she has a problem. 'She has legal rights, just like anybody else does.' Mr Hunt told the BBC: 'It makes me very uncomfortable because she made a series of choices and she knew the choices she was making, so I think we made decisions about her future based on those choices. Dal Babu, a former Met Police chief superintendent and a friend of the Begum family, said legal aid was necessary to ensure the correct process was followed [File photo] 'However, we are a country that believes that people with limited means should have access to the resources of the state if they want to challenge the decisions the state has made about them and, for obvious reasons, those decisions are made independent from politicians.' Begum's brother-in-law Muhammad Rahman, 36, said of the public outrage: 'I understand that view and people are entitled to it. But I personally don't care about those comments and they will not affect the legal proceedings.' The landmark case due to be held by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission could pave the way for other jihadis barred from returning to Britain to apply for legal aid. Immigration lawyer Fahad Ansari, who has successfully defended two Islamists whose UK passports were revoked, confirmed he was representing three clients who are challenging deprivation of citizenship orders. Mr Javid said he was aware of other individuals who had received legal aid after being stripped of their citizenship for security reasons. Corey Stoughton, of civil rights group Liberty, said: 'Stripping someone of their citizenship is among the most severe punishments a government can exercise, and the evidence that this decision will render Shamima Begum effectively stateless presents a powerful argument for subjecting this case to rigorous scrutiny in court.' The LAA said: 'We are unable to comment on individual cases.' The Begum family, who live in Bethnal Green, east London, were not available for comment. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning had reason to believe that leaking U.S. military reports 'would cause injury' to the country, federal prosecutors alleged in a newly unsealed court filing on Monday. In the affidavit submitted to federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, prosecutors said U.S. military reports from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq included information about the 'identity and significance of local supporters of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan.' When U.S. forces raided the compound in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden was hiding out, for example, they found a letter that showed the Al Qaeda leader was interested in copies of Pentagon documents published on WikiLeaks, the prosecutors said. Assange (pictured) and Manning had reason to believe that leaks 'would cause injury' to the country, prosecutors alleged in a newly unsealed court filing on Monday Just hours after Assanges arrest, U.S. prosecutors announced charges against him for conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, pictured, to gain access to a government computer According to prosecutors, leaked reports on the Afghan war included information on militants' improvised explosive device designs and attacks, including details of U.S. and coalition countermeasures against such home-made explosive devices and their limitations. The prosecution's affidavit is dated Dec. 21, 2017, but was made public on Monday. It follows the unsealing last week of a U.S. indictment charging Assange with conspiring with Manning to gain access to a government computer as part of one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history. Lawyers for Assange could not be immediately reached for comment on Monday. They have previously said Assange may be at risk for torture and his life would be in danger if he were to be extradited to the United States to face charges. Assange's father John Shipton has urged the Australian government to intervene and bring him back to his home country. Assange is charged with conspiring to gain access to a government computer in one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history Assange was thrown out of his Ecuador embassy bolthole in London where he had been given refuge since 2012 British police arrested Assange at Washington's request after Ecuador revoked his seven-year asylum on Thursday. He took refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in June 2012 to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where authorities wanted to question him as part of a preliminary sexual assault investigation. He was dragged out of the embassy in London and is being held in prison while he faces extradition to the United States. His seven-year stay at the embassy in London cost the South American country 5million, Ecuador's government said. The U.S. indictment, originally issued in secret by an Alexandria, Virginia-based grand jury in March 2018, said Assange in March 2010 engaged in a conspiracy to help Manning crack a password for a classified U.S. government network. In the unsealed affidavit, prosecutors said Manning also had access to other U.S. government databases, including one relating to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and a State Department database containing military cables. Julian Assange arrives at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London on Thursday The United States wants Assange for one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history. Manning, formerly Bradley Manning, was jailed on March 8 after being held in contempt by a judge in Virginia for refusing to testify before a grand jury in what is widely believed to be related to the Assange investigation. She was convicted by court-martial in 2013 of espionage and other offences for furnishing more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to WikiLeaks while an intelligence analyst in Iraq. Former President Barack Obama commuted the final 28 years of Mannings 35-year sentence. Assange hauled before Westminster Magistrate's on Thursday where he was found guilty of failing to surrender to the court. He could face up to 12 months in a UK prison when he is sentenced at Southwark Crown Court, but is wanted in the US for the hacking charges and in Sweden for sexual assault offences. But he is set to challenge any extradition attempts in the Supreme Court with an army of top-shot barristers. His arrest came after the Ecuadorian government ended his asylum status, saying it was tired of his 'discourteous' behaviour and poor personal hygiene, which reportedly included smearing faeces on the walls of the country's London embassy. Security footage that has come to light over the weekend has show Assange skateboarding through the embassy. Unable to exercise outside, Assange reportedly caused mayhem with his skateboard, left dirty dishes out and blasted loud music. Julian Assange was captured skateboarding through the Ecuadorian embassy wearing in shorts in security footage President Donald Trump and former President Jimmy Carter had a weekend phone call about trade negotiations in China, the White House revealed on Monday. 'President Jimmy Carter wrote President Trump a beautiful letter about the current negotiations with China and on Saturday they had a very good telephone conversation about President Trumps stance on trade with China and numerous other topics,' the White House said in a statement. Trump has not had the best relationships with his predecessors, which was on prominent public display during the late President George H.W. Bush's funeral when the Trumps, Obamas, and Clintons sat stone-faced next to each other in the front pew. President Donald Trump and former President Jimmy Carter had a weekend phone call about trade negotiations in China President Jimmy Carter wrote President Trump a beautiful letter about the current negotiations with China,' the White House said But the White House pointed out Trump has 'always liked' the Carters. 'The President has always liked President Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter, and extended his best wishes to them on behalf of the American people,' the statement said. Trump was not asked to speak at the senior Bush's funeral following his public feuds with that family. He's also been critical of the Clintons and former President Obama. Carter, who became the oldest living president last month, disclosed the call during one of the biweekly Sunday school classes he teaches in his hometown of Plains, Ga., local reports indicated. Carter, 94, said he understands why President Trump is worried that China could surpass the United States as the world's top economic power. "I don't really fear that time, but it bothers President Trump, and I don't know why. I'm not criticizing him - this morning," Carter said, according to WABE. President Trump, first lady Melania Trump, President Obama, former first lady Michelle Obama, President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Carter at the late President George H.W. Bush's funeral in May During his one term in the White House, Carter oversaw the normalization of U.S.-China relations. Trump, in September of 2013, tweeted Carter must be happy he was no longer the 'worst president' in history - a jab at then President Obama. 'Former President Jimmy Carter is so happy that he is no longer considered the worst President in the history of the United States!,' he wrote. A mother accused of murdering her two children for money has also been charged with trying to fraudulently claim a $300,000 superannuation payout while in jail. Gold Coast woman Maree Mavis Crabtree was charged with killing her children Jonathan, 26, and Erin, 18, in January 2018 and staging their deaths as suicides. Crabtree was accused of dishonestly obtaining welfare payments, as well as two counts of fraud and attempted fraud. Gold Coast woman Maree Mavis Crabtree (pictured) was charged with killing her children Jonathan, 26, and Erin, 18, in January 2018 and staging their deaths as suicides Crabtree was charged with eight further offences on Monday. She is accused of dishonestly obtaining disability payments between 2010 and 2016, the Courier-Mail reported. Crabtree also allegedly claimed a superannuation benefit of $300,000 between December and January. She is also accused of trying to dishonestly claim an insurance payout in 2015. Crabtree allegedly used medication to keep her children in bed and then claimed disability payments on their behalf that she kept. She then allegedly killed both of her children and framed the deaths as suicide in order to claim superannuation benefits. Police have alleged Crabtree slowly poisoned her children Erin (left) and Jonathan (right) over an 'extended period' Jonathan's body was found at an Upper Coomera home in July 2017, while Erin died at a Maudsland home in September 2012, where Crabtree was living at the time. Police have alleged Crabtree slowly poisoned her children over an 'extended period'. Crabtree's former lawyer said she would defend the charges, but her case is now being handled by Legal Aid. The case is next due back before the Brisbane Magistrates Court in July. Joel Benjamin, 71, was arrested Saturday in a bizarre incident where he allegedly attacked a woman with a water gun filled with his own urine A senior citizen accused of shooting a water gun full of urine multiple times at a woman walking her dog told police he would 'do it again'. Joel Benjamin, 71, allegedly pulled out the pee-filed water pistol on the 50-year-old victim who was with her dog in in Gulfport, Florida on Saturday night, according to The Smoking Gun. The complaint affidavit shows Benjamin admitted to police that he did indeed squirt the victim with his own urine several times. Showing no remorse, he added that he would 'do it again' when interrogated. Benjamin lived in a different apartment complex from the victim, and it was unclear as to what his motive was for attacking the woman in this way. The water-gun wielding attacker might have been reacting to area residents not curbing their dogs, The Smoking Gun reported. File photo of a water pistol. Joel Benjamin was charged with misdemeanor battery for squirting a woman with a water gun loaded with his own urine, and he apparently told police he would do it again The filed complaint notes that because Benjamin used bodily fluids in the incident, he would not be eligible for an adult pre-arrest diversion program. Benjamin was charged with misdemeanor battery charge and booked into the Pinellas County jail. The 71-year old was released on $500 bond after spending 18 hours in custody. Former Massachusetts governor William Weld became the only Republican candidate challenging President Donald Trump for the party's nomination in 2020. 'It is time for patriotic men and women across our great nation to stand and plant a flag. It is time to return to the principles of Lincoln equality, dignity, and opportunity for all. There is no greater cause on earth than to preserve what truly makes America great,' Weld said in a statement Monday, 'I am ready to lead that fight.' Weld's campaign released a video on Sunday that outlined his accomplishments and made the case for why American needs Weld to challenge Trump. 'Today we need Bill Weld more than ever,' it says in the three-and-a-half minute video. Former Massachusetts governor and vice presidential candidate William Weld announced Monday that he will be challenging President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2020 Weld ran for vice president in 2016 as a libertarian and said back in February that he was launching a committee to explore a Republican run against Trump. When announcing his consideration of a run, he said that Trump was 'too unstable to carry out the duties of the highest office the land.' 'I'm here because I think our country is in grave peril,' Weld told an audience in the early primary state of New Hampshire. 'And I cannot sit quietly on the sidelines any longer.' 'We cannot sit passively as our precious democracy slips quietly into darkness. Congress must do its duty and citizens we must do ours.' Weld's entry into the race marks the first direct head-on challenge to Trump. Weld, wearing work boots with a suit, declared in February he was considering running against Trump next year Weld believes Trump is 'too unstable' to continue in office for another six years Campaign manger for Trump's 2016 campaign, Corey Lewandowski, said that Weld is a 'loser' and a 'clown.' 'Republican Bill Weld makes it official: He's challenging Trump for GOP presidential nomination. This guy is a total loser. He hasn't been elected in 25 years. Clown!' Lewandowski tweeted Monday, shortly after Weld announced. 'He has virtually spat on the idea that we should have freedom of the press,' Weld said at the time he announced launching an exploratory committee. 'He has failed to call out and denounce appalling instances of racism.' 'We have a president whose priorities are skewed toward promotion of himself rather than toward the good of the country.' Weld, 73, served as governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997. He was Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson's vice presidential running mate in the 2016 presidential election, criticizing Trump at every turn. He switched his affiliation back to Republican in March a month before announcing. In the past, Weld noted that four of the last nine incumbent presidents to run for second terms faced primary battles within their own parties. All four lost re-election. Weld ran for vice president in 2016 as a libertarian, but came back around and is part of the Republican Party again Weld unveiled his intentions and his campaign logo in February, telling Americans it was time to 'stand and plant a flag' Weld says President Trump is oriented toward promoting his own interests and shouldn't be allowed to remain president for another four years Weld wouldn't say whether he would support Trump in 2020, should the president win renomination at the GOP's convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. 'I find the current incumbent a difficult act to swallow. I'm not sure,' he said in February, predicting that other Republicans might want to join the race and challenge Trump now that he did. It does not appear that there are any other obvious Republicans that would take on Trump. Even though former Ohio governor John Kasich said he's 'considering it.' It's 'important that the incumbent be challenged, even confronted,' Weld said. The Democratic filed is already crowded, with 18 candidates vying for the nomination. Kristie Higgs, 43, was a pastoral assistant at a Gloucestershire academy. She had worked at the secondary school for six years with an unblemished record A school has sacked a Christian member of staff after she posted online protests against transgender teaching at her son's primary. Kristie Higgs, 43, was a pastoral assistant at a Gloucestershire academy but a disciplinary panel there decided that she had used language which demeaned its gay, lesbian and transgender pupils. The mother-of-two, who had worked at the secondary school for six years with an unblemished record, posted objections on her personal Facebook page to the use of two children's books at her son's Church of England primary. She also invited her Facebook followers to sign a petition against compulsory sex education in primary schools, which is to be introduced next year. Mrs Higgs' sacking from Farmor's School, in Fairford, Gloucestershire, came after a sole anonymous email complaint which accused her of 'posting homophobic and prejudiced views'. A disciplinary panel found she was guilty of gross misconduct because there was 'potential' for the school's reputation to be harmed, though the panel admitted 'there was no actual evidence' that this had happened. This is the post that led to Kristie Higgs being sacked from the academy in Gloucestershire The assistant has been sacked from Farmor's School (pictured) in Gloucestershire following her Facebook post Mrs Higgs said her Christian views on sex education were 'shared by hundreds of thousands' of parents. 'As soon as the investigation began I was repeatedly told 'This is nothing to do with your religion'. That was clearly a legal tactic and of course it has everything to do with my religion.' She is to take her case to an employment tribunal. The primary school attended by Mrs Higgs' son attracted her disapproval after it adopted 'No Outsiders' teaching about sexual minorities. The same programme has generated a row between schools and Muslim parents in Birmingham. The primary school attended by Mrs Higgs' son attracted her disapproval after it adopted 'No Outsiders' teaching about sexual minorities Books given to the children included involved stories about a boy who wants to wear a dress and a red crayon that discovers it is really blue. Mrs Higgs had said on her Facebook page: 'They are brainwashing our children! We say again, this is a vicious form of totalitarianism aimed at suppressing Christianity.' A disciplinary panel said Mrs Higgs had used language which 'could be deemed offensive'. It also found that her posts 'had caused offence to the complainant'. The Christian Legal Centre, which is backing Mrs Higgs' case said: 'This is all about the freedom of a Christian to hold biblical views.' An engaged couple from Brockton, Massachusetts, was in their car heading to their own wedding when the bride and groom were picked up on drug charges. Daniel Zapata de los Santos, 34, and Angelixs Martinez-Zayas, 20, wearing her wedding dress were charged on Thursday of selling drugs from their apartment, according to the Boston Herald. De los Santos and his fiancee were approached by police while they were traveling to get married at 11am on Wednesday during a traffic stop. Prosecutors said undercover officers had already made five drug buys from the pair between March 22 and April 8, twice making purchases in the presence of children. Angelixs Martinez-Zayas, 20, left, wearing denim over her wedding dress, and Daniel Zapata De Los Santos, 34, are arraigned at Brockton Municipal Court on drug charges on April 11 in Brockton, Massachusetts Police confiscated 105 grams of Fentanyl and more than 50 grams of crack cocaine from a bathroom shelf, and seized a digital scale and an ID for Daniel Zapata de los Santos Martinez-Zayas, is also a mother of three young children aged 1, 3 and 5, and pregnant with a fourth. She Officers notified the couple that they had a search warrant and the two were about to be taken into custody on drug charges. 'Police searched an apartment on the third floor and confiscated 105 grams of Fentanyl and more than 50 grams of crack cocaine from a bathroom shelf,' the authorities said. Along with the drugs valued at nearly $15,000, police found a digital scale and an ID for de los Santos. Angelixs Martinez-Zayas, left, and Daniel Zapata de los Santos, right, seen here in their booking photos Martinez-Zayas was brought to tears Thursday during her arraignment Zapata De Los Santos listened to his arraignment proceeding through an interpreter De Los Santos is a suspected undocumented immigrant from the Dominican Republic who authorities believe was using the identity of a U.S. citizen. 'Daniel Zapata de los Santos is the name of the male suspect who we believe forged a Puerto Rico driver's license and other documents in the name of William Ramirez-Castillo,' police spokesman Darren Duarte said according to the Rockland Standard. De Los Santos and Martinez-Zayas were charged with five counts of distribution of a Class A drug, two counts of trafficking fentanyl, trafficking cocaine, and conspiracy to violate drug law. Martinez-Zayas and Zapata De Los Santos pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges that include trafficking in and distribution of fentanyl, trafficking in cocaine and reckless endangerment of a child Additionally, the would-be groom received charges of forging a Registry of Motor Vehicles document, possessing a false Registry of Motor Vehicle document, identity fraud and conspiracy to violate the drug law. De los Santos is being held on $100,000 bail while Martinez-Zayas would have to wear a GPS-monitoring bracelet if she posts a $2,500 bail. Martinez-Zayas is also charged with reckless endangerment of a child. A career conman who was bedding an accused Russian operative that was half his age is alleged to have swindled $2.3 million from a number of high-powered Republicans using a variety of fraudulent schemes. A previously sealed search warrant reveals that Paul Erickson, 57, pocketed money from former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford and Parents Television Council founder Leo Brent Bozell III by promising big returns on a number of bogus businesses. The first was a real estate development in North Dakota's newly cash flush Bakken region, the second was a chin of retirement facilities and the third was a wheelchair that allowed the individual using the device to access toilets without having to get off the chair. A portion of this money was then used to wine and dine and educate Maria Butina, his 30-year-old lover and a Kremlin special agent who pleaded guilty this December to charges stemming from her attempts to infiltrate conservative political groups. Erickson has now been charged with one count of money fraud and 10 counts of money laundering for these alleged scams, with his trial set to start this summer. Scroll down for video Throuple trouble: Paul Erickson (above with Maria Butina) is set to face trial for one count of mail fraud and 10 counts of money laundering Deep undercover: He then used the money to wine, dine and put his Kremlin agent paramour Maria Butina through college That wheelchair scheme, called Investing with Dignity, was in fact the very real invention of Reverend Greg Johnson, a Lutheran minister who had at one point contracted Erickson to seek out venture capital firms that might be keen to invest in his creation. This was just one of the notable jobs that Erickson had held over the years. He spent some time working as a manager for accused rapist John Wayne Bobbitt, was a high-ranking staff member on one of Pat Buchanan's briefly assembled campaign teams, joined up with Jack Abramoff's DC firm on an anti-Communist action film, and also did work lobbying on behalf of Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. Reverend Johnson said he cut ties with Erickson around 2012, but unbeknownst to him the former capital-seeking freelancer kept all his literature from then job and began touting the invention as his own to investors. He then managed to draw in a number of investors by claiming that the philandering Sanford was an early investor in the wheelchair. That was a false claim according to Sanford, who claimed to have invested in another scheme. Sanford said that he put money into the Bakken development, and Erickson made sure that he actually got his initial investment and a sizable return according to court papers. It as also the Bakken scam that managed to initially alert authorities to his dealings. 'Paul Erickson came to the attention of the FBI in 2016 when Joan Sammon reported a fraud by Erickson,' states the affidavit. 'Sammon was selling parcels of land in Williston, North Dakota, in the Bakken region for residential development. In about 2015, Erickson contacted Sammon and wanted paperwork to evaluate the possibility of investing in Sammon's land.' Erickson got the paperwork but made no investment, running a scam that in many ays mirrored the one he had success with previously when he pitched Investing with Dignity. 'Sammon emailed him paperwork related to the property but Erickson did not invest. Later, however, Sammon was contacted by a group of investors who indicated they had paid Erickson $100,000 for an investment in the same land,' reads the court filing that was submitted in April of last year. 'Because Erickson did not have an interest in the land (which was owned by Sammon), Sammon believed the investors had been defrauded.' The third scheme was called Compass Care, 'a company Erickson said he is involved in building and or managing retirement homes.' One man invested $500,000 after being told he would make a 50 percent return over five years accord inf to the request fro a search warrant. Another woman was given forged documents, including on that stated: 'Compass senior operations team oversaw 27,000 nursing homes, assisted living and apartment beds in 26 states. No other assisted living company boasts that experience.' Singapore has seized a record haul of pangolin scales worth $77 million, an indication that the shy, nocturnal anteater is on the brink of extinction. The pangolin, also known as the scaly anteater, is said to be the most widely trafficked mammal in the world. More than 26 tons (23 tonnes) of pangolin scales belonging to around 38,000 of the endangered mammals have been seized over the past week. The scales, which were found in shipping containers, have been linked to four species of pangolins native to Africa. Pangolin scales are made of keratin, the same material in human fingernails. Its scales are in high demand in Asia for use in traditional Chinese medicine and their meat is also considered a delicacy in China and other Asian countries. Scroll down for video Singapore has seized more than 28 tons (25.4 tonnes) of pangolin scales belonging to around 38,000 of the endangered mammals over the past week. The global record has spurred calls for more protection for pangolins Animal protection agencies say the cargo is the potential result of the killings of more than 40,000 of the endangered animals. Officials found 14.2 tons (12.88 tonnes) of the scales hidden among packets of frozen beef last Wednesday. Five days later, they found 14 more tons (12.7 tonnes) in 474 bags in another container. The authorities said in a statement that the shipments, which were on route from Nigeria to Vietnam, were declared as cassia seeds. 'It was estimated that on average 20 tons of scales were being smuggled each year,' Crawford Allan, senior director at TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring network jointly set up by WWF and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, said in an email to Bloomberg. 'Already, in 2019 we have seen nearly twice that being detected and seized. And those are just the shipments that get detected.' 'The sheer size of these two latest seizures is unprecedented and will undoubtedly prove a major setback to the traffickers concerned,' said Richard Thomas, of monitoring network Traffic. He warned that the seizures themselves will not put the traffickers out of business. 'The quantities of pangolins involved point to sourcing, processing and distribution on an industrial scale,' he added. Wildlife groups are concerned that the busts point to a jump in poaching of pangolins. The pangolin is said to be the most widely trafficked mammal in the world. The scales, which were found in shipping containers, have been linked to four species of pangolins native to Africa 'The World Health Organisation recently endorsed traditional medicine and the industry appears keen to grow this market, outside of China, Vietnam and beyond,' said Neil D'Cruze, global wildlife adviser at World Animal Protection. 'This is an alarming move for some wildlife species such as pangolins, as it poses a real conservation and animal welfare threat.' Pangolins are an extremely lucrative catch, he said. In rural communities where they are hunted, poachers can make up to the equivalent of a full year's salary from catching just one pangolin. Feeding 'the insatiable demand' are middlemen traffickers who also profit from the trade that is reaching more remote communities to hunt the animal, he added. Paul Thomson, an official at the Pangolin Specialist Group, said it looks like the pangolin poaching has increased but figures were difficult to ascertain. Officials found a record 14.2 tons (12.88 tonnes) of the scales hidden among packets of frozen beef last Wednesday. Five days later, they found 14 more tons (12.7 tonnes) in 474 bags in another container 'The illegal trade in pangolin parts has been going on for decades. However, pangolins have typically been overlooked in terms of concerted conservation attention and action,' Mr Thomson said. 'This is changing thanks to growing awareness of pangolins. And this awareness has partly been driven by the high volumes of trafficking seen today.' In February, Malaysian officials seized 30 tons (27.2 tonnes) of pangolin and pangolin products. This included live and frozen pangolins and 361kg (795lbs) of their scales. Earlier that month, Hong Kong said it had seized ivory tusks and 8.3 tons (7.5 tonnes) of pangolin scales belonging to as many as 13,000 pangolins. The shipment, which originated in Nigeria, was bound for Vietnam. Singapore made two markedly smaller pangolin scale busts in 2015 and 2016 amounting to 440kg (970lbs). Those found to have illegally imported, exported or re-exported wildlife, including their parts, face a maximum punishment of two years in prison and a fine of 500,000 Singapore dollars (282,000). 'There has never been a more opportune moment for full and thorough international investigations and collaborations to take place to find out who has perpetrated these criminal acts and bring those behind them to face justice,' Mr Thomas said. Three pairs of North Atlantic right whale mothers and calves have been sighted this month in Massachusetts' Cape Cod Bay, US researchers report. US authorities report that the total number of new calves seen so far this year currently sits at seven - a promising sign after none were seen in 2018. While still an improvement, the number of calves seen so far this year is not high enough to indicate that the endangered whale population is successfully recovering, the researchers say. Scroll down for video Three pairs of North Atlantic right whale mothers and calves have been sighted this month in Massachusetts' Cape Cod Bay, US researchers report. Pictured: whale #3317 and her calf The two most recent North Atlantic right whale calf sightings in Cape Cod Bay were made by an aerial survey team from the Provincetown Centre for Coastal Studies The two most recent North Atlantic right whale calf sightings in Cape Cod Bay were made by an aerial survey team from the Provincetown Centre for Coastal Studies. The team identified the two mothers from previous sightings - they are known as right whales #3317 and #4180. A third new calf had previously been spotted with its mother - #1024 - in the bay on April 7. This calf is #1024's ninth.and the mother is thought to be at least 38 years old. No North Atlantic right whale calves were seen at all in 2018 - leading to concerns that the species' extinction might be looming closer. These three mothercalf pairs - along with four more - were also spotted earlier this year in the calving ground off of the southeastern US coast, report researchers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. #4810 and her calf were seen in February by a Florida park ranger standing on the nearby shore. #4180 was first spotted back in 2010, and was last seen in April 2018. Unfortunately, #4180 appears to have suffered entanglement wounds from fishing gear on her back and peduncle since she was last seen. The sighting of the pair enabled the researchers to confirm #4180 is female for the first time. #4810 and her calf were seen in February by a Florida park ranger standing on the nearby shore. #4180 was first spotted back in 2010, and was last seen in April 2018 Although researchers are excited by the sightings, the numbers of new young are still painting a worrying picture of the North Atlantic right whale's future. North Atlantic right whales are among the world's most endangered whale species. Only around 450 are believed to be alive presently. 'The signs are better than they were last year or the year before, but we're not out of the woods yet,' New England Aquarium research scientist Philip Hamilton told The Scientist back in March. Media coverage of new calf sightings can create the misleading impression that the whale population is successfully recovering, he explained - when this is in fact not the reality. 'We need an average calf count of 17 each year to build the population,' he said. That many calves has not been seen since 2015. And since 2017, there have been 20 recorded deaths versus 12 known births. 'We haven't even broken even on number of dead whales with new births, and that is what the last decade or so has been trending towards,' said biologist Jen Jakush, from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. 'The population is definitely in decline,' she adds. It is thought that climate change may be disrupting the whales' feeding grounds, causing ill health and reducing the number of young born. Based on present trends, the North American right whale could become extinct in under two decades. A record of recent sightings of North Atlantic right whales - both calves and adults - are maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service, and can be explored on the interactive map on their website. A third new calf had previously been spotted with its mother, right whale #1204, in Cape Cod Bay on April 7. This calf is #1024's ninth. The mother is at least 38 years old North Atlantic right whales give birth in winter, off of the coasts of Florida and Georgia, before migrating with their young up to the east cost of the US in the spring. Their high blubber content, docile nature and tendency to stay both near the sea surface and close to coastlines has traditionally made North Atlantic rights a prime target for whalers. The mammals were hunted to the brink of extinction in the early 1890s, and have been on the endangered species list since 1970. In the eastern side of the Atlantic, North Atlantic right whales are all but extinct, with population numbers thought to be down in the low teens. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has made it illegal for any individual to come within 500 yards (457 metres) of North Atlantic right whale unless they carry a Federal Research Permit. Right whales are also at particular risk of being accidentally struck by ocean-going vessels - both because of their near-surface feeding habits, but also thanks to the fact that they have no fins on their backs, like killer whales or sharks do. This makes them more difficult to spot from the sea surface. For this reason, all boats longer than 65 feet (20 metres) are required to sail at under 10 knots within Cape Cod Bay and off of the coast of the nearby Race Point. Unfortunately, their calving grounds around Florida and Georgia lie in high-traffic areas of the ocean. Together, vessel strikes and entanglement within fishing gear are believed to have accounted for around half of the mortalities of North Atlantic right whales since the 1970s. Two other species of right whale exist. The Southern right whale, as its name suggests, can be found living across the oceans of the southern hemisphere, with its population thought to number into the thousands. However, the number of North Pacific right whales is even smaller than their North Atlantic counterpart - with fewer than 200 remaining, report US authorities. The coldest city on Earth may unleash vast prehistoric stores of anthrax and other ancient diseases as the permafrost trapping its deadly spores slowly thaws out thanks to global warming. Yakutsk, in north-east Russia, is completely frozen for 12 months a year but is currently being subjected to soaring global temperatures. It is also home to ancient permafrost which has entombed and trapped prehistoric animals such as the now extinct species of wild horses and woolly mammoths. These animals may have died from anthrax and other hideous prehistoric diseases and some scientists fear these the spores may be lying dormant, waiting for warmer temperatures to melt the ice and release them into the 21st century. A disease outbreak in 2016 killed thousands of reindeer and hundreds of people were hospitalised due to the 'revival' of ancient anthrax spores in the region. Scroll down for video The city of Yakutsk pictured) in the region of Yakutia in Siberia, known as the coldest city on earth where temperatures can reach below -60C in the winter. It may be revealing its long-frozen secrets due to warming Arctic temperatures that could risk an epidemic being unleashed Around two-thirds of Russia is made up of permafrost - including almost all of the area known as Yakutia. As permafrost continues to thaw, more ancient bacteria could be released. Permafrost is able to preserve for hundreds of thousands of years - possibly even a million. Boris Kershengolts, a Yakutsk biologist told the Telegraph: 'Anthrax spores can stay alive in the permafrost for up to 2,500 years. That's scary given the thawing of animal burial grounds from the 19th century. 'When they are taken out of the permafrost and put into our temperatures, they revive.' He added: 'It would be a disaster not just for the Arctic. 'The catastrophe could exceed Chernobyl.' The ice in the Siberian region can be hundreds of feet deep and the top layer is known as the 'active layer' which freezes and refreezes throughout the year. In recent years, researchers have found that this layer is not only thawing earlier in the year, it is also melting to greater depth, causing scientists to be concerned of potential collapses. Increased snow precipitation experienced by most of the region in the last few decades also insulates the ground permafrost which is then a higher temperature than air temperature. Current levels of permafrost shrinkage in the region is at the scale of up to two inches (5cm) a year. The threat of epidemic is real, as a 2016 outbreak of Anthrax - the first outbreak for 70 years - in the Arctic in Yamal in Northwest Sibera was linked to thawing permafrost. Scientists managed to isolate the Anthrax strains Bacillus anthracis and had independently isolated the strain in Yakutia in 2015, although no outbreak occurred there. Scientists have compared a potential epidemic to being more 'catastrophic' than the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl. Ancient Siberian permafrost burying mass animal graves and a former Anthrax lab in the coldest city on Earth Yakutsk, could throw up dormant viral spores if it continues to melt WHAT IS ANTHRAX? Anthrax is the name of the potentially-deadly disease caused by the spores of bacteria Bacillus anthracis. As the disease can survive in harsh climates, Anthrax spores have been weaponised by at least five countries: Britain, Japan, the United States, Russia and Iraq. The disease can be contracted by touching, inhaling or swallowing spores, which can lie dormant in water and soil for years. It is most deadly, however, when the spores are inhaled, which is why the threat of a letter containing the disease is taken very seriously by authorities. About 80 per cent of people who inhale the spores will die, in some cases even with immediate medical intervention. Sources: NHS and US Centers for Disease Control Advertisement Thawing permafrost is worsened by the presence of so-called 'methane bombs' underground. They release large volumes of the natural gases which speeds up the melting of the permanently frozen land. This creates vast crater-like structures which can trigger explosions and release heat. Methane contains 30 times more energy than carbon dioxide and is a key greenhouse gas. Permafrost - ground that has been frozen for at least two years - covers 25 per cent of the Northern Hemisphere, keeping ancient bacteria, viruses and carbon preserved and locked away, much like a freezer does. Pictured is a map of permafrost extent across Arctic region 'Methane bombs' found locally could further aggravate the problem with by accelerating temperature rises and therefore the spread of disease. After the explosion they lead to the formation of bizarre Arctic craters. Pictured is a crater formed by a recent permafrost explosion in the Russian arctic Data harvested by Google on the location of its users is being used by police to find new leads in cases that have gone cold. Law enforcement agents in the US have been trawling information taken from the search giant's Sensorvault database to help them in criminal cases. This information is meant to be used to target ads to individual users as well as to check how well such targeted ads are working. Experts are concerned over this new type of digital 'dragnet', where people are considered suspects by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Police make a general request through the courts to get their hands on data for a specific location, known as geo-fencing, during a set period of time. Once they have narrowed down the results to devices they believe could actually be relevant to the case, Google then gives them the names of their owners. Police say they won't act on location details alone when making an arrest, but the practice has already seen innocent people detained for crimes they didn't commit. The technique is currently only being used in the US, as Google is based in the country and subjects to its laws. The US has Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs) with more than 60 countries around the world, including the UK, setting out rules on cooperation between nations' law enforcement agencies. This can involve a long and complicated process and there has been increasing pressure for tech firms to provide quicker access to their data internationally. The case of 13-year-old Lucy McHugh found stabbed to death in 2018 after leaving her house in Southampton has added pressure to these calls. Facebook refused to handover the password to the prime suspect in the case's account. Scroll down for video Data harvested by Google on the location of its users is being used by police to find new leads in cases that have gone cold. Law enforcement agents have been trawling information taken from the search giant's Sensorvault database to help them in criminal cases (stock image) HOW DOES A POLICE LOCATION DATA REQUEST WORK? Police in the US can make a general request through the courts to get Google to provide data for a specific location, known as geo-fencing. This is a record of all of the devices that were active in a specific area during a given period of time. Law enforcement officials narrow down this list of active devices to gadgets they believe could actually be relevant to the case. That includes those belonging to witnesses to a crime or potential suspects. Google then gives them the names of the owners of this smaller list of devices. Advertisement Red flags over the practice were raised in an in-depth report for the New York Times. Google's database, dubbed Sensorvault, contains records of the locations of hundreds of millions of smartphone and other devices around the world. Law enforcement officials have been requesting access to records stored in the Sensorvault to identify devices that were active in an area at the time a crime was committed. To do so, they must apply for a court order granting them access to the data with the intention of finding witnesses and possible suspects. The information provided is anonymous, but police can use other details in a case to narrow down their selection to handsets and other gadgets they believe may be relevant to the case. Google will then reveal more specific data about its owner, including their name. 'We vigorously protect the privacy of our users while supporting the important work of law enforcement,' Richard Salgado, Google's director of law enforcement and information security, said in a statement. 'We have created a new process for these specific requests designed to honor our legal obligations while narrowing the scope of data disclosed and only producing information that identifies specific users where legally required.' Experts are concerned over this new type of digital 'dragnet', where people are considered suspects by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A dragnet is a coordinated attempt by enforcement to try and catch a criminal (file photo) WHAT IS A POLICE DRAGNET? A dragnet is a coordinated attempt by enforcement to try and catch a criminal. The term refers to the practice used by fishermen to ensnare marine animals in a body of water. A police dragnet can be made up of a physical presence, such as when a city block is closed off after a crime, or when protesters are 'kettled' following the outbreak of violence. More recently, DNA 'dragnetting' has seen police ask to volunteer blood or saliva samples to aid in investigations where genetic evidence has been collected from a crime scene but no known suspect has been identified. Data dragnetting is a new approach that uses information gathered by companies and others on people's digital lives to the same effect. Advertisement Requests for access to Sensorvault data by US police forces have increased dramatically in the past six months, the report warns, with 180 requests received by Google in just one week. Police already request information from tech firms to help them in their investigations but experts are particularly concerned about the use of Sensorvault. The NYT spoke to one man who has already been arrested for a crime he was later exonerated of, after his location data landed him on law enforcement's radar. Jorge Molina's smartphone was linked to a location where a man had been shot nine months earlier. The shots were fired from a car similar to the one owned by Mr Molina, who was arrested and spent a week in jail. It later emerged that his mothers ex-boyfriend, who often borrowed his car, had committed the crime. This is not the first time that Google has faced criticism for its use of tracking data. In August 2018, researchers from Princeton University revealed that the firm stores users' location data even after they've turned 'Location History' off. Despite the setting purportedly preventing data collection, researchers discovered Google had kept records of Dr Gunes Acar Acar's train commute on two trips to New York and visits to the High Line park, Chelsea Market, Hell's Kitchen, Central Park and Harlem. Police say they won't act on Google location details alone when making an arrest, but the practice has already seen innocent people detained for crimes they didn't commit (stock image) Researchers then plotted the locations on a map. They found that Google keeps track of your current location each time you open Google Maps. The daily weather updates on Android phones also provided another way to track movement. There has also been increased pressure on firms like Google to give police around the world that are investigating crimes information on their users. MLATs set out how countries will work together to provide information about crimes that are being investigated. However, this can be a long and complicated procedure and some experts believe the system needs reform. In April 2017, the European Union announced proposed laws to force technology companies such as Google, Microsoft and Facebook to hand over users data to European law enforcement officials even when it is stored on servers outside the bloc. The law would allow European prosecutors to force companies to turn over data such as emails, text messages and pictures stored online in another country, within 10 days or as little as six hours in urgent cases. The European Union executive says the proposed law, which would apply to data stored inside and outside the bloc, is necessary because current legal procedures between countries to obtain such electronic evidence can drag on for months. The case of 13-year-old Lucy McHugh (left) found stabbed to death in 2018 after leaving her house in Southampton has added pressure to these calls. Facebook refused to handover the password to the account of the prime suspect in the case - Stephen Nicholson, 24, (right) More recently, the mother of murdered schoolgirl Lucy McHugh condemned Facebook in September 2018 over its failure to hand over the prime suspect's password. Stacey White accused the social media giant of denying her justice after police were forced to apply to American judges for a court order demanding that it hand over the information. Detectives investigating 13-year-old Lucy's murder were desperate to access Facebook accounts belonging to tattoo artist Stephen Nicholson, who was jailed for 14 months for refusing to reveal his password to police. Because Facebook is based in America, officers from Hampshire Police were forced to apply to the US justice department for the password. Society is shaped by humans' unique capacity to take on another person's perspective - which might be the reason why modern societies have such extraordinary levels of cooperation. Writing for the Conversation, Arunas L. Radzvilavicius, a Postdoctoral Researcher of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Pennsylvania explains that social norms can shed light on why people display altruistic behaviour. Humans are far more likely to be kind to individuals they see as 'good', than they are to people of 'bad' reputation. But, he says, if everyone agrees that being altruistic toward other cooperators earns you a good reputation, cooperation will persist. A person who appears 'good' to someone might seem like a bad individual from another person's perspective. This opinion might be based on a different social norm or a different observation which is why reputations in real societies are relative. Human societies are so prosperous mostly because of how altruistic we are. Unlike other animals, people cooperate even with complete strangers. We share knowledge on Wikipedia, we show up to vote, and we work together to responsibly manage natural resources. But where do these cooperative skills come from and why don't our selfish instincts overwhelm them? Using a branch of mathematics called evolutionary game theory to explore this feature of human societies, my collaborators and I found that empathy a uniquely human capacity to take another person's perspective might be responsible for sustaining such extraordinarily high levels of cooperation in modern societies. Social rules of cooperation The researcher asks where cooperative skills come from and why don't our selfish instincts overwhelm them. Using a branch of mathematics called evolutionary game theory to explore this feature of human societies, my collaborators and I found that empathy For decades scholars have thought that social norms and reputation can explain much altruistic behavior. Humans are far more likely to be kind to individuals they see as 'good,' than they are to people of 'bad' reputation. If everyone agrees that being altruistic toward other cooperators earns you a good reputation, cooperation will persist. This universal understanding of whom we see as morally good and worthy of cooperation is a form of social norm an invisible rule that guides social behavior and promotes cooperation. A common norm in human societies called 'stern judging,' for instance, rewards cooperators who refuse to help bad people, but many other norms are possible. This idea that you help one person and someone else helps you is called the theory of indirect reciprocity. However, it's been built assuming that people always agree on each others' reputations as they change over time. Moral reputations were presumed to be fully objective and publicly known. Imagine, for instance, an all-seeing institution monitoring people's behavior and assigning reputations, like China's social credit system, in which people will be rewarded or sanctioned based on 'social scores' calculated by the government. But in most real-life communities, people often disagree about each others' reputations. A person who appears good to me might seem like a bad individual from my friend's perspective. My friend's judgment might be based on a different social norm or a different observation than mine. This is why reputations in real societies are relative people have different opinions about what is good or bad. Using biology-inspired evolutionary models, I set out to investigate what happens in a more realistic setting. Human societies are so prosperous mostly because of how altruistic we are. Unlike other animals, people cooperate even with complete strangers. We share knowledge on Wikipedia, we show up to vote, and we work together to responsibly manage natural resources Can cooperation evolve when there are disagreements about what is considered good or bad? To answer this question, I first worked with mathematical descriptions of large societies, in which people could choose between various types of cooperative and selfish behaviors based on how beneficial they were. Later I used computer models to simulate social interactions in much smaller societies that more closely resemble human communities. The results of my modeling work were not encouraging: Overall, moral relativity made societies less altruistic. Cooperation almost vanished under most social norms. This meant that most of what was known about social norms promoting human cooperation may have been false. Evolution of empathy To find out what was missing from the dominant theory of altruism, I teamed up with Joshua Plotkin, a theoretical biologist at the University of Pennsylvania, and Alex Stewart at the University of Houston, both experts in game theoretical approaches to human behavior. We agreed that my pessimistic findings went against our intuition most people do care about reputations and about the moral value of others' actions. But we also knew that humans have a remarkable ability to empathetically include other people's views when deciding that a certain behavior is morally good or bad. On some occasions, for instance, you might be tempted to judge an uncooperative person harshly, when you really shouldn't if from their own perspective, cooperation was not the right thing to do. This is when my colleagues and I decided to modify our models to give individuals the capacity for empathy that is, the ability to make their moral evaluations from the perspective of another person. We also wanted individuals in our model to be able to learn how to be empathetic, simply by observing and copying personality traits of more successful people. When we incorporated this type of empathetic perspective-taking into our equations, cooperation rates skyrocketed; once again we observed altruism winning over selfish behavior. Even initially uncooperative societies in which everyone judged each other based mostly on their own selfish perspectives, eventually discovered empathy it became socially contagious and spread throughout the population. Empathy made our model societies altruistic again. More empathy, more cooperation Moral psychologists have long suggested that empathy can act as social glue, increasing cohesiveness and cooperation of human societies. Empathetic perspective-taking starts developing in infancy, and at least some aspects of empathy are learned from parents and other members of the child's social network. But how humans evolved empathy in the first place remained a mystery. It is incredibly difficult to build rigorous theories about concepts of moral psychology as complex as empathy or trust. Our study offers a new way of thinking about empathy, by incorporating it into the well-studied framework of evolutionary game theory. Other moral emotions like guilt and shame can potentially be studied in the same way. I hope that the link between empathy and human cooperation we discovered can soon be tested experimentally. Perspective-taking skills are most important in communities where many different backgrounds, cultures and norms intersect; this is where different individuals will have diverging views on what actions are morally good or bad. If the effect of empathy is as strong as our theory suggests, there could be ways to use our findings to promote large-scale cooperation in the long term for instance, by designing nudges, interventions and policies that promote development of perspective-taking skills or at least encourage considering the views of those who are different. The article was originally published in The Conversation. Small meteors which crash into the moon are cause it to leak water buried just three inches (8cm) below the lunar surface, according to NASA scientists. They suggest that the subsurface moisture that is being released has been retained since the Moon formed, or soon after. The researchers estimate that meteorite impacts on the Moon cause the loss of as much as 200 tonnes (220 tons) of water per year. The impacts hit soil which is dry 3 inches (8cm) deep underneath which is a layer with about 0.05 per cent water content which is spewed out on impact. Scroll down for video The researchers estimate that meteorite impacts on the Moon cause the loss of as much as 200 tonnes of water per year. The impacts hit soil which is dry 3 inches (8cm) deep underneath which is a layer with about 0.05% water content which is spewed out on impact Following the early analysis of lunar samples from the Apollo and Luna missions, the surface was generally accepted to be anhydrous, or contained no water But a decade ago, trace amounts were found on the surface of the Moon, and not only in polar ice deposits as previously thought. Researchers say the water originated on the moon due to a combination of solar wind and meteor tires bringing it to the barren surface. However, the source and extent of these water traces have been debated. When a speck of space debris strikes the moon it vaporises on impact, creating a shock wave that resonates through the lunar soil. For a sufficiently large impactor, this shock wave can breach the soil's dry upper layer and release water molecules from a hydrated layer below. Using an instrument on aboard NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), planetary scientist Doctor Mehdi Benna said that it picked up 'high anomalously high and episodic amounts of water in the lunar atmosphere'. 'There was so much that the instrument on the spacecraft acted like a sponge, soaking up the water that was moving through the atmosphere,' said Dr Benna. The LADEE detects these water molecules as they enter the lunar atmosphere, with peaks in the water signal correlating to known meteor showers on Earth. The craft orbited the Moon from October 2013 to April 2014 and its detections coincided with 29 meteor streams. These findings may lay the groundwork for future investigation into the origin and fate of water on the Moon. The researchers estimate that meteorite impacts on the Moon cause the loss of as much as 200 tonnes of water per year (stock) Dr Benna and his team studied the amount of water released by meteor streams of different sizes. They were then able to determine that the uppermost layer of lunar soil is dehydrated. Below this, they calculate that water is uniformly present at concentrations up to about 0.05 per cent. The team said that the discovery may lay the groundwork for future investigation into the origin and fate of water on the Moon and improve our understanding of the moon's geologic past and its continued evolution. The full findings were published in Nature Geoscience. An architectural feat that led Pariss famous Notre Dame Cathedral to be known as The Forest is now a major contributor in its destruction, after a fire ripped through its all-wood frame. A fire broke out at the 12th century cathedral around 6 p.m. GMT (2 p.m. EDT) Monday and quickly grew to engulf the entire wooden interior; the spire collapsed not long after the blaze began, and officials said the frame would be completely destroyed. The entire frame of the 850-year-old building is made from timber, with an estimated 1,300 trees used for the construction of its beams. Scroll down for video An architectural feat that led Pariss famous Notre Dame Cathedral to be known as The Forest is now likely a major contributor in its destruction, as a fire rips through its all-wood frame Everything is burning, nothing will remain from the frame, Notre Dame spokesman Andre Finot told French media, according to the Associated Press. According to the official website for the Notre Dame Cathedral, the frame includes roughly 52 acres of wood in total. These timber beams make up its entire interior frame, and serves as the foundation for its 115-foot-high roof. Officials now say there is nothing left of the roof and expect the entire frame to be lost to the fire. It makes sense that it would be incredibly flammable, notes Notre Dame contributor Daniel Christian on the website for the landmark, which was posting updates as the fire raged on. Notre Dames aging wooden foundation has been a topic of concern for some time, and a $6.8 million renovation project was underway to address some of the many issues at the historic building. Statues overlooking the cathedral were removed just last week ahead of work on the famous spire that stood more than 300 feet above the ground. Some parts have been closed off for upwards of a year, the website notes. The frame includes roughly 52 acres of wood in total. These timber beams make up its entire interior frame, and serves as the foundation for its 115-foot-high roof The inside is crumbling wood and gargoyles have been known to have fallen off the roof as of late, according to the website. Construction on the Cathedral of Notre Dame began around the year 1160 CE and lasted until about 1245, when the main body was completed. There were several waves of construction which ultimately shaped it to be a monument of exceptional historic and artistic importance, writes historian Caroline Bruzelius in a 1987 paper on the building. And, it redefined the genre of Gothic architecture. Taller, longer, and wider than any Gothic church before it, Notre Dame incorporated numerous technical and structural advances, Bruzelius explained. There we find the earliest example of the gigantism that was to become characteristic of Gothic architecture in the following generation of cathedrals. The four-story elevation with oculi in the third story was unique at the time of its design. In addition, the flying buttresses of the nave of Notre Dame have been considered the first in Gothic architecture, the result of the utilization of thin-wall construction, which necessitated additional exterior support. There were several waves of construction which ultimately shaped it to be a monument of exceptional historic and artistic importance, writes historian Caroline Bruzelius in a 1987 paper on the building. And, it redefined the genre of Gothic architecture It makes sense that it would be incredibly flammable, notes Notre-Dame contributor Daniel Christian on the website for the landmark, which was posting updates as the fire raged on. The building's entire interior frame is made of wood The plan for the Cathedral, made by Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, is pictured. The nave sits to the left, choir in the center, and apse and ambulatory to the right. Construction Notre Dame began around the year 1160 CE and lasted until about 1245, when the main body was completed After the foundation stone was laid in 1163 by Pope Alexander III, the high alter, choir, western facade, and nave followed. These were completed by the year 1250. Work continued at the cathedral for the next 100 years, giving rise to additional porches, chapels, and other features. The flying buttresses or the high, arching beams were not originally a part of the design. These were added after construction began to provide more support for the thin walls. Over the centuries, the cathedral has suffered extensive damage, particularly in the 16th century when both the Huguenots and the French king vandalized and changed a lot of the cathedrals contents, according to the cathedrals official website. The flying buttresses or the high, arching beams seen in the view above (left of center) were not originally a part of the design. These were added after construction began to provide more support for the thin walls Notre Dames aging wooden foundation has been a topic of concern for some time, and a $6.8 million renovation project was underway to address some of the many issues at the historic building A lot of the features on the cathedrals exterior were removed because they were considered to be idolatrous, and tombs and stained glass windows were destroyed in the name of modernization, the post continues. A fire broke out at the 12th century cathedral around 6 p.m. GMT (2 p.m. EDT) Mon and grew to engulf the entire wooden interior The cathedral was converted into a storage warehouse for food, during the French Revolution, and the heads of many of Notre Dames statues were removed. The first restoration attempts began between 1845 and 1870, when much of the damage at the building was repaired and new features added And, modern restorers have been working since the early 1990s to fix up the facade and sculptures. While the most recent efforts aimed to focus on the spire, this feature has now been completely destroyed by the blaze after it collapsed through the center. As the first started 'in the center near the spire, where the scaffolding is,' there have been suggestions that it may have been sparked by the renovation work. But, officials have not yet determined if this was the case. Mourners from all around the world have expressed sadness over the destruction of the centuries-old building, which has been hailed 'the most religiously and architecturally significant cathedral on Earth.' Like any self-respecting castle, the 14th Century stronghold of Sir Thomas de Lucy has a ghost. The sobbing Grey Lady, who glides along its corridors, is said to be Sir Thomass daughter Maud she flung herself from the highest window when her husband was killed in the Battle of Shrewsbury. Despite this, Langley Castle is the North East England Hotel of the Year, a title it has won six times, and theres nothing ethereal about its excellent hospitality. Northumberlands only castle hotel, a mile outside the village of Haydon Bridge, is picture-perfect. When I arrived, peacocks were strutting in the grounds and, over one of the towers, the red and gold flag of Northumberland was snapping in the wind. Stronghold: The 14th century home of Thomas de Lucy Inside, the decor is medieval redoubt. There are tapestries on the walls, suits of armour on the staircases and iron chandeliers. The guest rooms have all the modern amenities you would expect from a four-star hotel. Although not the grandest, the Tower Room, in the top of a turret, is one of the most popular. From the battlements theres a tour every morning you can see Hadrians Wall, the fortified boundary built by the Romans 2,000 years ago. Its a short drive to Newcastle and the castle borders Reiver country, the lawless land between Scotland and England where feuding families ruled the roost for centuries. The hotel is old-school without being stuffy. At Langley, they think hipster is something a reiver keeps his dagger in. For example, you dont have to have a drink in the grand drawing room before dinner but they sort of like it if you do. And as for the Grey Lady, the barman in the small cocktail bar at first insisted he didnt believe in her but then went on to tell me about that one time late at night on the main staircase Pictured is one of the castle bedrooms. There are nine in total and they have all the mod cons The USP: Allows you to indulge your fantasies of being king or queen of the castle. The rooms: There are nine in the castle and a further 18 in buildings in the grounds. The food: Posh and delicious. The dinner menu is heavy with meat and game but I had a crab starter followed by a wonderful slab of halibut. Three courses cost 44.95. Advertisement This is the female pilot who has propelled herself to Instagram fame after sharing pictures of her globetrotting adventures. First officer Emilie Christine, 31, from Toronto, Canada, has over 38,000 followers on social media. She got her commercial pilot's licence in 2012 and now works for Canadian airline WestJet. Canadian pilot Emilie Christine, who has over 38,000 followers on Instagram after sharing pictures of her globetrotting Emilie has been a pilot for eight years after getting her licence in 2011. She got her commercial pilot's licence in 2012 Emilie shares pictures of her travels around the world. She is pictured posing on the beach in Antigua, left, and on rocks in Croatia, right Emilie only decided in her mid-20s that she was going to pursue a career in flying. She is pictured here canoeing in Croatia, one of the latest of the 35 countries she has visited One of the things Emilie loves most about her career is the travel opportunities. She is pictured in Rwanda, left, and in Australia right Emilie says she loves everything about her career, from the travel opportunities to meeting different people in the industry. And although she doesn't feel like she has been discriminated against due to her gender, Emilie says she feels like she has to work harder to prove herself in the workplace. She said: 'I absolutely love exploring and traveling and being able to reach the entire world makes me feel so free. 'The feeling of flying is almost priceless. It seems like your problems or worries are smaller. Things are simpler. I appreciate the greater and bigger things in life. It's a sense of freedom for me. Emelie said: 'I absolutely love exploring and traveling and being able to reach the entire world makes me feel so free' On her latest trip, Emilie visited Croatia, which she says is one of her favourite countries. She is pictured left and right at two sites in the country So far, Emilie has visited countries including Iceland, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Peru, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Republic of the Congo, Australia and the Bahamas 'It feels very empowering to know that I've made it this far in this industry, but it is thanks to all the women ahead who have paved the path for all of us. I studied and did the work required, just like everyone else, but hopefully as more women get into aviation, it will get less daunting, less intimidating and possibly less challenging for more to get into flying. 'I hope to help more women achieve those dreams and hopefully I can look back and see I've made even the smallest difference. 'I can't say I've explicitly ran into problems myself due to my gender, but I know that I have been treated differently due to it. As an example, I know the feeling all too well of being the only woman in the room. 'Whether it be in ground school working towards my initial pilot licences or being one of two ladies in my initial ground school with my current employer. That in itself doesn't seem like much, but as a woman who is still working on her confidence and self-esteem, it can be very challenging to stick out that way. Emilie flies a Dash 8-Q400 plane and has anywhere between 12 and 16 flights each week. Talking about her career, Emilie said: 'It feels very empowering to know that I've made it this far in this industry, but it is thanks to all the women ahead who have paved the path for all of us' Emilie had been working as a massage therapist but then decided to become a pilot. She is pictured next to a flight simulator, left, and in her pilot uniform, right Emilie flies a Dash 8-Q400 plane and has anywhere between 12 and 16 flights each week. She works for Canadian airline WestJet When it comes to being a pilot, Emilie says: 'It may seem overwhelming, like you can't see the end or like it's too challenging, but if you keep going, every single day, you'll be amazed at how far you've come when you look back' So far, Emilie has visited countries including Iceland, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Peru, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Republic of the Congo, Australia and the Bahamas. Her favourite trip so far was to Croatia last year and she is planning to explore Tanzania and hike Kilimanjaro later this year. She added: 'I recognise that yes, becoming a pilot is an expensive undertaking, but I prioritise traveling for myself as a learning tool and opportunity to grow, so as to better serve my current and future co-workers, our guests, my partner and family, as well as nowadays, my community and followers. 'As for women, or anyone, trying to get into this industry just don't give up. Failure will happen, but failure is only true failure if you don't get back up. I've "failed" numerous times (flight tests, written exams), but continuously try and get back to it, as that is true success in my eyes. 'It may seem overwhelming, like you can't see the end or like it's too challenging, but if you keep going, every single day, you'll be amazed at how far you've come when you look back.' They were one of Married At First Sight's strongest couples, but it looks like Martha Kalifatidis and Michael Brunelli are about to split. According to Woman's Day on Monday, the reality TV lovebirds have grown apart lately after Martha, 30, was portrayed as a 'villain' on the show. The magazine also published photos of the pair looking strained at a cafe in Sydney's Chatswood last Tuesday, the day after the MAFS finale aired. 'Things have gone from bad to worse': Married At First Sight's Martha Kalifatidis and Michael Brunelli are 'on the verge of a SPLIT', according to Woman's Day on Monday Woman's Day quoted a source as saying that Martha was 'blindsided' by the public backlash she faced in recent weeks. Apparently this onslaught of 'trolling and criticism' has taken a toll on her relationship with Michael, 28, and it's only matter of time before they call it quits. 'They both looked really uncomfortable and stressed,' said an onlooker who saw the couple at Chatswood. 'The chemistry you see on TV just wasn't there.' Public backlash: A source close to Martha claimed she is 'struggling' with the fact she was portrayed as a pot-stirrer and 'mean girl' on Married At First Sight. Pictured on Friday, April 5 Meanwhile, a source close to Martha claimed she is 'struggling' with the fact she was edited as a pot-stirrer and 'mean girl' on Married At First Sight. 'Things have gone from bad to worse [for Martha and Michael] since the finale,' they said. 'She is in a really bad place... and has struggled with all the criticism.' Martha's financial situation has also reportedly put a strain on their romance, after she revealed last week she has been unable to work as a freelance makeup artist due to concerns for her safety. Under pressure: Martha's financial situation has also reportedly put a strain on her relationship - after she revealed last week she has been unable to work due to concerns for her safety An insider claimed she has been 'depending on Michael', adding: 'Their relationship has taken a major hit with the pressures from the show. I don't think they'll be able to sustain this at all.' Michael and Martha agreed to stay together during their final vows on MAFS, despite having doubts about getting involved in a long-distance relationship. Martha is based in Bondi Beach, Sydney while Michael worked as a schoolteacher in Melbourne until recently. She has been making the most of her time in Australia since arriving last week for a whirlwind promotional tour. But Denise Richards took a day off on Sunday to meet some of the country's native animals at Wild Life Sydney Zoo. The Real Housewives star, 48, swapped her usual glamour for a laid-back look as she she enjoyed an up-close experience with a koala. Animal magic! Denise Richards took a day off on Sunday to meet some of Australia's native animals at Wild Life Sydney Zoo Denise dressed casually for the occasion in faded denim overalls, a black sleeveless top and sneakers. The Wild Things star styled her blonde hair in loose waves and clutched her iPhone as she gazed at the lively animals. In addition to meeting a koala, she also said 'g'day' to wombats and wallabies at the Sydney wildlife park. G'day! Denise dressed casually for the occasion in faded denim overalls, a black sleeveless top and sneakers. Pictured meeting a family of wallabies Denise is in Australia to promote The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, which is available on FOXTEL and reality TV streaming platform hayu. On Thursday, she spoke about her family life during an appearance on Channel Seven's breakfast show Sunrise. When asked about her ex-husband Charlie Sheen, who has publicly battled drug addiction in the past, Denise emphasised that he is still 'a big part of [her] life'. Hands-on experience: Denise is in Australia to promote The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, which is available on FOXTEL and reality TV streaming platform hayu. Pictured with a wombat 'He is the father of my kids, he always will be a big part of my life. You know, even though we are divorced we are still a family with our girls,' she said. Denise explained that she and Charlie, 53, still have regular family dinners with their children and have 'gone on vacation in the past together'. After marrying in 2002, Denise and Charlie divorced in 2006. They share two daughters: Lola, 13, and Sam, 15. Lindsay Lohan's mom Dina Lohan was not planning on meeting her online beau Jesse Nadler, an insider has claimed. They recently split. Sources close to the 56-year-old Long Island native told People that 'there was no meeting scheduled' between the two after Nadler claimed to TMZ that the pair had planned on seeing one another in person for the first time during their five-year courtship. 'Dina was already suspicious that he was media-hungry and she is in talks about doing several new shows, including a dating show,' a source said. 'This guy wants his 15 minutes of fame - he just proved her suspicions correct.' Scroll below for video The latest: Lindsay Lohan's mom Dina Lohan, 56, and her former online beau Jesse Nadler were NOT planning on meeting in the near future, an insider said, as Dina harbored suspicions over Nadler's intentions as the relationship went along A source subsequently told TMZ, 'This is a storm in a tea cup,' adding, 'Bottom line is its a non-story.' The pair - after five years of online dating without ever having met in person - called it quits this week. Nadler told The Blast on Saturday that he broke it off with Lohan after a dispute over a Facebook photo. Lohan 'went off' on Nadler over an image on a friend's book, which she thought was 'about a woman' and caused her to get 'upset.' While Lohan tried to call Nadler and apologize - since the book wasn't actually about a woman - Nadler said he'd had enough, and ended the relationship over the phone. Split: Lohan seen here in 2016 at an event in New York City First meet: The split comes just a week before Lohan and Nadler were supposed to meet in person for the first time, with Lohan set to fly up to Tiburon, California The split comes just a week before Nadler said he and Lohan were supposed to meet in person for the first time, with Lohan set to fly up to Tiburon, California. He was planning on spending some time with Lohan in Tiburon before driving her to Carmel to propose with an engagement ring and a pair of vintage Tiffany earrings he had already bought her. Lohan first spoke about the relationship on an episode of Celebrity Big Brother in February, where she told housemate Kandi Burruss that she's been talking to this guy on the phone every day for the past five years. She said, 'I feel like I know him,' adding that they have never even video chatted before but she still swore, 'Im going to marry him.' Reveal: Lohan first spoke about the relationship on an episode of Celebrity Big Brother in February Exes: While Lohan's ex-husband Michael Lohan was originally worried about Nadler being a 'stalker,' he later told The Blast that they texted and spoke on the phone While Lohan's ex-husband Michael Lohan was originally worried about Nadler being a 'stalker,' he later told ET that they texted for and spoke on the phone. 'Actually, he's a really nice guy, with a good heart, and I like him and if he makes Dina happy - I'm happy for them,' he said. 'Dina needs somebody in her life she can trust and quite honestly, after my communication with him and knowing her, they are perfect for each other. Finally, there might be someone to fill in my shoes!' He originally told The Blast, 'How she thinks hes a boyfriend is beyond me, but hey, stranger things have happened with Dina.' 'I just hope shes not putting herself in a dangerous position with this guy,' Michael added, before he spoke with Jesse himself. While Jesse admitted their relationship was 'unorthodox,' he said he was in love with her before this abrupt split. Dangerous: 'I just hope shes not putting herself in a dangerous position with this guy,' Michael added, before he spoke with Jesse himself She is set to appear in the new Sky Atlantic and HBO drama Catherine The Great. And Helen Mirren appeared in high spirits as she attended the BFI & Radio Times Television Festival at London's Southbank to take a look at some of the costumes from her upcoming drama on Saturday. The 73-year-old actress oozed style and elegance as she posed with the incredible regal gallery of outfits in the capital. Regal: Actress Helen Mirren, 73, oozed style and elegance as she attended the BFI & Radio Times Television Festival at London's Southbank Helen donned a full-length navy blue dress patterned with red polka dots as she walked through the fascinating exhibition. Looking as radiant as ever, the British icon defined her features with a touch of rouge on her cheeks, a swipe of mascara to her lashes and pink lipstick. She completed her look with a pair of Le Monde Beryl red satin shoes, ruby red earrings and a dab of red nail polish. Thrilled to be among the outfits she had worn during her filming of the Sky Atlantic drama, Helen stood gracefully alongside the 18th century inspired outfits which included Catherine's golden ceremonial gown stitched with elaborate beading. Glamourous: The British icon posed with some of the 18th century inspired outfits from her upcoming drama Strike a pose: Helen donned a navy blue dress patterned with red dots as she stood next to the outfits from her upcoming drama Royal: The Hollywood star looked as radiant as ever as she took a look at the regal dresses at the exhibition Also among the stunning outfits was the green military riding suit Helen sported as she led a charge of troops through Russia during the period drama. The stunning outfits, which were created by costume designer Maja Meschede, were on display at the exhibition from April 12-14. The actress's appearance comes ahead of the airing of her new four-part Sky drama Catherine The Great which tells the story of the Russian Queen following the assassination of her husband Emperor Peter III in 1762. The series, which was written by Nigel Williams and directed by Philip Martin, will follow Catherine's relationship with Russian statesman Grigory Potemkin, played by Jason Clarke. Looking good: The actress defined her features with a touch of rouge on her cheeks, a swipe of mascara to her lashes and pink lipstick Take my hand: Helen looked as elegant as ever as she walked through the gallery of regal outfits Fierce: The actress completed her look with a pair of red shoes, ruby red earings and a dab of red nail polish Say cheese! Helen (right) and chief executive of the British Film Institute, Amanda Neville (left) posed for the cameras as the attended a photocall during the festival The drama, which is set to air this Autumn, will be Helen's first major television role since she starred as Queen Elizabeth I in the Channel 4 miniseries. Speaking at the BFI & Radio Times Television Festival, the veteran actress said: 'I made the mistake when I was doing an interview and someone said, 'what would you like to do next?' Maybe it was after Elizabeth. 'I said, 'Well, I'd quite like to play Catherine the Great, actually. That would be an interesting character'. 'People heard that, producers David Thompson, who was involved in Elizabeth, and Charlie Pattinson - and they went off and raised the money. 'It's really bad. I was, 'oh no, that's a terrible mistake'. But then I was committed. I couldn't wriggle out of it.' Catherine the Great: The Sky Atlantic drama, which is set to air this Autumn, will follow the Russian Queen's journey after the assassination of her husband Emperor Peter III In September 2017, she filed a $1 million lawsuit accusing her ex-boyfriend Ryan Phillippe of beating her up the previous July 4. And on Sunday, according to TheBlast.com, Elsie Hewitt is seeking all information held by the Los Angeles Police Department regarding past domestic violence accusations made against the actor. Court documents reveal that Hewitt, 22, wants any records relating to restraining orders and police reports including any accusations made by 44-year-old Phillippe's former fiance Pauling Slagter, TheBlast.com reports. Elsie Hewitt, left, filed a $1 million lawsuit against actor Ryan Phillippe, right, in September 2017 and on Sunday, TheBlast.com reported Hewitt is seeking all information held by the LAPD regarding past domestic violence accusations made against the actor Phillippe and Slagter were together for almost six years when they split in November 2016 just 10 months after getting engaged. For his part Phillippe is insisting that Hewitt has no right to access any records involving him. Hewitt wants the judge in the case to allow her to obtain the LAPD records and is asking for Phillippe to be sanctioned $5,560. Hewitt wants any records relating to restraining orders and police reports including any accusations made by Phillippe's former fiance Pauling Slagter, pictured with the actor in 2015 It's the latest development in the ongoing litigation which saw the judge impose a $790 penalty on the actor for missing December 28 deadline to turn over all communications relevant to Hewitt's lawsuit. Back in October, he was also sanctioned $1,580 for not handing over all relevant text messages between himself and his ex-wife Reese Witherspoon, according to The Blast. Phillipp and Witherspoon, who starred together in the 1999 movie Cruel Intentions, were married for eight years before divorcing in 2007. They share two children - daughter Ava, 19, and son Deacon, 15. The Big Little Lies star has since remarried to talent agent Jim Toth with whom she has a six-year-old son Tennessee. Back in 2017, Hewitt claimed Phillippe was 'extremely drunk' and assaulted her when she went to pick up some things from his home leaving her with chest pain, bruising and abrasions. However, sources close to Phillippe told DailyMail.com at the time that it was Hewitt who instigated the incident, showing up to the actor's home 'under the influence' and physically attacking the star. Sources close to Phillippe told DailyMail.com that it was Hewitt who instigated the July 4, 2017, incident, showing up to the actor's home 'under the influence' and physically attacking him In the original legal filing, Hewitt, who has posed for Playboy, alleged Phillippe uses a variety of drugs including cocaine, ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms and steroids. She claimed that during her visit to his house on Independence Day 2017, he attacked her and violently threw her down some stairs. She alleged the actor continued to assault her, and threw her down stairs for a second time, TheBlast.com reported. He then allegedly screamed at her: 'Get the f*** out of my house you crazy c***.' She went to a hospital and reported the assault to police who took a report and issued a temporary protective order. However, sources close to Phillippe insist that the model was the one who physically attacked Ryan, caused a scene and refused to leave his home after he dumped her. The insider told DailyMail.com the injuries occurred when she fell and hurt herself as she was being escorted off the premises, and said the accusations of domestic violence are false and the lawsuit is all about revenge and fame. In addition, Phillippe isn't facing any charges relating to the incident. She can always be expected to turn heads at any event she attends. And Love Island's Georgia Harrison didn't disappoint on Sunday evening as she donned a slinky metallic bronze dress to attend her pal Jordan Baker's birthday party at The Megaro Hotel in Kings Cross, London. Ensuring she took centre stage at the bash, the reality star, 24, channelled old Hollywood glamour in the plunging gown, which she teamed with a furry grey jacket. Wow! Georgia Harrison, 24, donned a slinky metallic bronze dress to attend her pal Jordan Baker's birthday party at The Megaro Hotel in Kings Cross, London, on Sunday evening Georgia displayed her toned pins in the wrap-over style frock, adding height to her frame in a par of black barely-there stilettos. The television personality toted her belongings in a a jewel-embellished black handbag with a long silver chain strap. Georgia accessorised with a smattering of bracelets and an eye-catching pair of statement earrings. She styled her long blonde locks into loose tumbling curls, and she finished off her flawless make-up look with a bold, pillar-box red lip. Work it: Ensuring she took centre stage at the bash, the reality star channelled old Hollywood glamour in the plunging gown, which she teamed with a furry grey jacket Glam: She styled her long blonde locks into loose tumbling curls, and she finished off her flawless make-up look with a bold, pillar-box red lip Stunning: Georgia displayed her toned pins in the wrap-over style frock, adding height to her frame in a par of black barely-there stilettos Fancy friend: Georgia posed for pictures with American reality star Mattie Lynn-Breaux Birthday boy Jordan is the millionaire CEO of Sanity Marketing, who's worked with the likes of Joan Collins, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Strictly Come Dancing. Georgia recently sparked outrage among fans after she took to Instagram to post a sexy bikini-clad snap, with an impassioned message about mental health. The post came following the death of Love Island co-star Mike Thalassitis earlier this month, the caption read: 'Everyone sees the darkness in the world sometimes, even when they seem to be the brightest spark in the room... 'Take a deep breathe count to 10 and ask yourself am I happy? If the answer is no, speak to a friend, professional, colleague, even a stranger. For underage sufferers The Mix is always there if you need anyone to speak today was bitter sweet.' Finishing touches: The television personality toted her belongings in a a jewel-embellished black handbag with a long silver chain strap Posing up a storm: Georgia couldn't resist striking a sultry pose for a photograph with a car Looking good: Mattie joined Georgia for the impromptu photoshoot Good times: The ladies strutted their stuff as they made their way to the red-carpet bash In good company: Birthday boy Jordan (centre) is the millionaire CEO of Sanity Marketing, who's worked with the likes of Joan Collins, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan Despite her sweet message, some cruel trolls hit out at the choice to post the shot, with users penning: 'Theres a special place in hell for people who use a mental health and suicide prevention speech to caption a bikini photo on social media the day after a personal friend is found hanged in a park... 'Was the bikini pic necessary for this speech??? everyone else is posting genuine messages about recent events yet you use this as a reason to post a picture of yourself in a bikini??!! 'This photo has nothing to do with the message you are trying to send. Shallow. And unfollow!' MailOnline contacted representatives for Georgia for comment. She filmed back-to-back reality shows last year, first appearing on The Bachelor and then Bachelor in Paradise. But Alisha Aitken-Radburn has returned to her day job as a Labor Party staffer, and was pictured organising a volunteer rally in Burwood, Sydney on Sunday. Alisha, who works as Director of Events and Fundraising at NSW Labor, was seen 'helping elderly constituents to their seats', according to The Australian. Back to reality! Bachelor in Paradise's Alisha Aitken-Radburn has returned to her day job as a Labor Party staffer, and was seen organising a volunteer rally in Burwood, Sydney on Sunday Apparently, some of the Labor volunteers were a little 'star struck' when they saw Alisha organising the event. She was seen at the rally dressed in a red Labor Party T-shirt and black jeans while standing in front of a crowd of activists. Alisha, who is a University of Sydney graduate, worked as an 'advancer' in Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's office prior to her debut on The Bachelor in 2018. A helping hand! Alisha, who works as Director of Events and Fundraising at NSW Labor, was seen 'helping elderly constituents to their seats', according to The Australian Political career: Alisha, who is a University of Sydney graduate, worked as an 'advancer' in Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's office prior to her debut on The Bachelor in 2018 Despite being warned she may lose her career by taking part in the show, she quit her role in Canberra for a shot at Nick Cummins' heart. Things didn't go to plan, however, and Alisha was left single and jobless after being rejected by the rugby union star mid-way through the series. She later admitted she struggled to find a job in politics after the series aired, describing that period of her life as a 'bumpy road' in an interview with Honi Soit. Dumped: Alisha debuted on Nick Cummins' (pictured) season of The Bachelor last year. She later went on to appear in the spin-off series Bachelor in Paradise High achiever: Alisha is pictured on the day she graduated from the University of Sydney However, Alisha eventually landed on her feet in the events and fundraising department of NSW Labor. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph last August, Alisha said that Australian politics and The Bachelor 'have more in common than people think.' She explained: 'Working in the halls of Parliament House was good preparation for some of the drama that goes on in the mansion.' Alisha filmed Bachelor in Paradise late last year and the Fiji-based spin off is currently airing on Channel 10. Hilaria Baldwin is back to exercising just days after her miscarriage. The Majorca, Spain-born beauty, 35, took to Instagram on Sunday with a clip of herself at home going through a sequence of yoga poses for the first time in more than a week since she suffered a miscarriage. In the clip, Hilaria - who was in the first trimester of her fifth pregnancy - wore a grey top with black pants as she used a storage bench next to her bed for support, stretching herself into a variety of poses. Scroll below for video Moving forward: Hilaria Baldwin, 35, took to Instagram on Sunday with a clip of herself at home going through a sequence of yoga poses after she suffered a miscarriage amid the first trimester of her fifth pregnancy earlier this month Limber: Hilaria wore a grey top with black pants as she used a storage bench next to her bed for support, stretching herself into a variety of poses Hilaria, who's been married to Alec Baldwin for more than six years, said she's been ramping things up at a gradual pace amid the physical and emotional distress she's been under amid the health issue. 'Im being super gentle with my body right now, considering what it has just been through,' the 5ft4 yogi said, 'but I start getting stiff and uncomfortable due to lack of my typical movement.' She continued: 'Here are some light stretches I turned to today that have helped me, while sticking with my recovery. They feel good and I think you may like them too #letsmove2019. The mom-of-four - to daughter Carmen, five, and sons Rafael, three, Leonardo, two, and Romeo, 10 months, added that 'Carmen likes to peek' as her mom perfects her craft of yoga. Taking things slow: Hilaria said she was 'being super gentle' with her body right now, 'considering what it has just been through' Flexible: Baldwin has regularly shown extended yoga clips over her social media accounts Hilaria has documented her miscarriage via social media, saying in an April 4 post that she was 'most likely experiencing a miscarriage' and was opening up about it 'to be a part of the effort to normalize miscarriage and remove the stigma from it.' She added, 'I have always been so open with you all about my family, fitness, pregnancies...and I dont want to keep this from you, just because it isnt as positive and shiny as the rest.' Last week, she confirmed that a doctor visit revealed 'no heartbeat,' sending 'much love and appreciation' to her followers who supported her amid the challenging time. 'Thank you all for listening, for your support, and for sharing your own personal stories,' she said. 'We are stronger together...I hope this conversation continues to grow and that we stick together through both the beautiful and challenging moments in life.' Grateful: Baldwin sent 'much love and appreciation' to her followers who supported her amid the challenging time Precise: The limber Hilaria twisted herself into a number of positions She's a busy working mom but she still finds the time to do her own grocery shopping. On Sunday, Eva Longoria, 44, looked completely relaxed as she stocked up on items at a store in LA. The former Desperate Housewives star kept cool in a loose-fitting black maxi dress with spaghetti straps. Errands: She's a busy working mom who still finds the time to do her own grocery shopping. And Sunday, Eva Longoria looked completely relaxed as she stocked up on items at a store Longoria wore her long hair up in a messy bun and paired her summery dress with flip flops. She sported a pair of large black-framed sunglasses and accessorized with a silver necklace. The actress loaded up two shopping carts with purchases and got some help from a store clerk to load it into her vehicle. She's got a full house this weekend after sharing with her social media followers that her mom Ella Mireles is visiting her and husband Jose Baston and their nine-month-old son Santiago. Stylish: The former Desperate Housewives star, 44, kept cool in a loose-fitting black maxi dress with spaghetti straps. She wore her hair in a messy bun and stepped out in flip flops 'Grandma's here': She's got a full house this weekend after sharing on Instagram that her mom Ella Mireles is visiting her and husband Jose Baston and their nine-month-old son Santiago Little man: Longoria shared several photos of her mother with Santiago who has an adorable smile with two lower teeth On Thursday, Longoria had announced 'Grandma is here!!!' on her Instagram alongside several photos of her mother with her baby grandson. Santiago is the only child of the Texas native who gave birth to him last June, two years after tying the knot for the third time with Mexican businessman Baston. Meanwhile, Longoria had lent her support a few days ago to a fundraising cocktail party in Beverly Hills in aid of the Farrah Fawcett Foundation. She joined Alana Stewart and Melanie Griffith for the bash held at Barneys New York on Thursday. Stewart, 73, was best friends with the late Charlie's Angels star who died in 2009 from cancer and who had set up the nonprofit two years before her passing to promote awareness and provide assistance to cancer patients. She once claimed Married At First Sight's Elizabeth Sobinoff 'inspired' her style choices. But on Friday, Lauren Huntriss took a swipe at the store manager's glossy pout, igniting a war of words between the reality stars. After Elizabeth, 27 shared a glam selfie showing off her dramatic dark locks, Lauren commented: 'Smillleeeee gf!! Dont be another duck lips!' 'Don't be another duck lips!' Married At First Sight's Elizabeth Sobinoff hit back at co-star Lauren Huntriss on social media over an insensitive jibe about her pout Taking umbrage, Sam Ball's ex snapped back: 'Boo, Im going to do what I feel like doing.' Immediately backing down, Lauren wrote: 'Fair enough babe. You are beautiful either way.' It's an unusually frosty exchange between the pair, who have appeared to be on friendly terms since their time on the popular Nine series. Frosty: After Elizabeth shared a glam selfie showing off her dramatic dark locks, Lauren commented, 'Smillleeeee gf!! Dont be another duck lips!' Back in February, the 31-year-old makeup artist, who was 'married' to ex-virgin Matthew Bennett, unveiled her dark locks on social media. It came shortly after Elizabeth had wowed fans with her famous brunette transformation. Lauren tagged Elizabeth in the post, writing: 'Girl you inspired me to make the change to the dark side.' Dark side! Back in February, Lauren showed off her brunette locks, which she said were inspired by Elizabeth's recent hair transformation Meanwhile, Lauren - who's back to blonde - recently raised eyebrows when she was pictured locking lips with MAFS co-star Billy Vincent last week. The PDA took place at Cyrell Paule's 30th birthday bash in Sydney on Saturday. The affectionate display came not long after Billy confirmed to Daily Mail Australia that they had secretly 'hooked up' in February. Brie Larson donned an unusual apparel while promoting her latest film Avengers: Endgame in Seoul, South Korea on Sunday. Chatting about the movie with her co-stars Jeremy Renner and Robert Downey Jr. the actress, 29, was all smiles. She wore a black cape as she added her thoughts to the panel discussion. On tour: Brie Larson, 29, donned an unusual apparel while promoting her latest film Avengers Endgame in Seoul, South Korea on Sunday Taking the stage: Chatting about the movie with her co-stars Jeremy Renner and Robert Downey Jr. the actress, 29, was all smiles During the Asian press conference, Larson slicked her platinum blonde locks back and wore natural makeup. A black leather cape hung down her back, falling over a graphic dress showing a red dragon amidst an otherwise black and white backdrop. Remaining modest, she paired the dress with black tights and boots. Threes a crowd: Pumping up crowds with her were Robert, in a colorful suit and Jeremy in simple jeans and a jacket Pumping up crowds with her were Robert, 54, and Jeremy, 48. Downey Jr. wore a orange-ish brown suit with a matching polka dotted tie. He looked sophisticated in dimmed glasses. Renner went more casual in jeans, a white collared shirt and grey coat. Both men spiked their hair into a point at the front. Downey stole the show as he danced around the stage, twisted and twirling about. Let's chat Avengers: Getting into the conversation, the Iron Man actor talked with his hands while his fellow actors smiled with him Gangs all here: And joining in the fun were director brothers Anthony and Joe Russo Getting into the conversation, the Iron Man actor talked with his hands while his fellow actors smiled with him. And joining in the fun were director brothers Anthony and Joe Russo. They all stood for applause while holding up patches with the Avengers icon stamped on them in purple. Marvel-ous: They all stood for applause while holding up patches with the Avengers icon stamped on them in purple The Infinity Saga phase of the MCU that started in 2008 will conclude with Avengers: Endgame scheduled for release on April 26. It has been revealed the final installment with run for three hours. The Walt Disney Company that owns Marvel Studios in a $71.3 billion deal finalized in March acquired assets from 21st Century Fox that included the film rights to Marvel Comics characters Deadpool, X-Men and the Fantastic Four. Not long to go: The Infinity Saga phase of the MCU that started in 2008 will conclude with Avengers: Endgame scheduled for release on April 26 Brie just starred in Captain Marvel, marking Marvel's first female superhero. Coming up, she can be seen in Just Mercy, which stars Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx. The movie follows the story of a famous civil rights defense attorney Bryan Stevenson as he recounts his experience defending a death row prisoner. She hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live for the fourth time on Saturday night. And after another successful hosting gig, Emma Stone headed to the skit show's after-party in New York City. The actress, 30, showed off her legs in a shimmery black mini dress with white horizontal stripes. In the spotlight: She hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live for the fourth time on Saturday night. And after another successful hosting gig, Emma Stone headed to the show's after party in NYC Stone's thigh-skimming mini had long sleeves and a round neckline. She added white stiletto heels that had black ankle straps and carried a brown and black leather shoulder purse. Her shoulder-length red hair was loose and she accessorized with diamond earrings. She was accompanied to the party by her boyfriend, SNL segment producer Dave McCary, 33, and her mother Krista. Stylish: The actress, 30, showed off her legs in a shimmery black mini dress with white horizontal stripes Lovely: Stone's thigh-skimming mini had long sleeves and she added white stiletto heels with black ankle straps. Her shoulder-length red hair was loose and she added diamond earrings Party time: Stone, who won an Oscar for 2016's La La Land, carried a brown and black leather shoulder purse Romance: Stone's boyfriend Dave McCary, right, was seen arriving separately at the party. McCary, a segment producer at SNl, is believed to have been dating the actress since late 2017 Mom: Stone's mother Krista also attended the bash wearing a silky black pantsuit decorated with white floral motifs Stone is one of the most in demand stars in Hollywood. She received another Academy Award nomination this year for her performance in The Favourite opposite Rachel Weisz and Olivia Colman. She also starred with Jonah Hill in the Netflix series Maniac. Next on the big screen she'll be seen in Zombieland: Double Tap with Woody Harrelson, Zoey Deutch and Jesse Eisenberg that's due for release in theatres in October. Stone is set to star opposite Ralph Fiennes in Alexander Payne's The Menu and is attached to star as a young Cruella de Vil in a live action movie for Disney. Richard Madeley swore again on Good Morning Britain on Monday - having already turned the air blue twice on air last week. And if that wasn't enough, he went on to shock viewers with a very saucy confession that he always goes commando and worries that he might flash his manhood by mistake. The fill-in GMB presenter, 62 - who said 's**t' and 'd**k' on air last week, and was forced to apologise because of it - kicked Monday off by referencing his epic fake tan fail - another talking point from last week's shows. At it again: Richard Madeley swore again on Good Morning Britain on Monday - having already turned the air blue twice on air last week. And if that wasn't enough, he went on to shock viewers with a very saucy confession that he always goes commando and worries that he might flash his manhood by mistake 'So, this morning youre going to stay the same colour all morning?' Kate Garraway teased him, referring to the fact that his tan seemed to progressively get darker over the course of one episode. 'I bloody hope so!' he said, before covering his face and saying: 'Oh no! He's sworn again!' 'It's five minutes past six and you're off already,' Charlotte Hawkins joked, as Richard Arnold added: 'If all I had to do was open the show with expletives and put fake tan on to get the amount of coverage you got, I'd have started it years ago.' Richard - a veteran daytime TV presenter - left viewers in hysterics and had them comparing him to Alan Partidge as he made a series of blunders whilst stepping in for regular host Piers Morgan last Monday on the show. Potty-mouth! Richard appeared to forget the golden rule of hosting daytime television as he swore not just once, but twice, hosting Good Morning Britain on Monday... and then did it again a week later Richard first turned the air blue at 7.30am when he told London Mayer Sadiq Khan that there was 'no point d***ing about', during a discussion about air pollution. An hour later, the former This Morning host struck again, as he said 's**t' during an interview with The Voice judge Olly Murs and winning contestant Molly Hocking. Asking Molly about her victory, Richard mused: 'How does it feel when you think "oh s**t", I've won it!' Whilst his co-host Charlotte gamely soldiered on, Molly and Olly smirked, with Richard apologising at the end of the chat. 'Apparently I may have said the word starting with s beginning with t then, I didn't think I had, but if I did, I do apologise.' It seemed Richard wanted to outdo himself this week, however, also admitting on Monday that he couldn't remember the last time he wore pants. He said: 'I have been [commando] forever. I can't remember the last time I wore pants.' 'I have been commando forever!' Richard Madeley, 62, revealed on GMB on Monday that he always goes commando and worries that one day he will accidentally flash his manhood Co-host Charlotte Hawkins questioned: 'Are you not worried you might split your trousers when you're out and about?' Richard quipped it would be 'seriously embarrassing' if he had his flies undone because he goes without his underwear. He said: 'I could have walked around with my flies undone. That could have been seriously embarrassing.' Shock: Richard quipped it would be 'seriously embarrassing' if he had his flies undone because he goes without his underwear Fans expressed the television journalist had shared 'far too much information' with his commando confession. 'Richard madeley goes commando - FAR TOO MUCH INFO FOR 6.09 @gmb.' One fan wrote, leading the troops. Another added: 'I am still numb from the Richard Madeley going commando article....hot, sweet tea needed.' Oops! The television sensation remarked his fake tan disaster on Good Morning Britain was his most embarrassing moment in his long-standing career 'Richard Madeley going commando.....WTF?' '@GMB are your presenters high this morning??? Richard Madeley fake tan and going commando... theres something I never want to think about... ever...' The television sensation remarked his fake tan disaster on Good Morning Britain was his most embarrassing moment in his long-standing career. He said: 'Do not adjust your sets, your colour setting is absolutely perfect this morning...' Funny: The Good Morning Britain presenter admitted he couldn't remember the last time he wore pants during Monday's breakfast show In his humour, Richard joked he looked like Ross from friends, a turkey coming out of the oven and like he had a timeshare in Chernobyl. The GMB presenter laughed off the terrible make-up blunder when he recounted how he lathered his wife Judy or daughter Chloe's aftershave balm. Richard insisted he doesn't usually use fake tan and that it was a genuine mistake because he was getting ready in the kitchen to ensure he didn't wake Judy up. He said:'I have been told off for having stubble so I had a dry shave in the kitchen... 'I was running short of time, I reached into the cupboard, got what I thought was aftershave balm out...squirted it on. As I was driving in, I thought it smelt a bit funny a bit woody. 'Anyway, when I got home on Wednesday, I went to the cupboard and it wasnt aftershave balm, it was Chloe or Judys fake tan. I can just apologise.' Australia's new Bachelorette, Angie Kent, recently revealed that producers are still on the hunt for eligible suitors. And former Married At First Sight contestant, Ryan Gallagher, is putting his hat into the ring, according to a report in New Idea on Monday. 'He's hassling producers every day,' a source told the magazine. 'He's hassling producers every day': Former Married At First Sight star Ryan Gallagher is 'desperate' to get onto The Bachelorette and date Angie Kent The 30-year-old shot to fame as the foul-mouthed larrikin 'husband' of 'cheating bride' Davina Rankin, who cheated on him with co-star Dean Wells. Ryan and Angie allegedly swapped numbers after meeting at a party earlier this year. 'Angie liked him, but clearly not as much as he liked her,' the source said. Is the feeling mutual? Ryan and Angie allegedly swapped numbers after meeting at a party earlier this year. 'Angie liked him, but clearly not as much as he liked her,' the source said Ryan's friends told the magazine that Ryan has never forgotten the time when Angie and her co-star, Yvie Jones, slated his 'ex-wife' Davina on Gogglebox last year. At the time, the funny duo tweeted that Davina was 'the biggest s**t-stirring, attention seeking, home wrecking, narcissist, real life character' they had ever seen on television. Daily Mail Australia has contacted Ryan for comment. Makeover? The news comes as Ryan has been spotted steadily changing his appearance over the last few months The news comes as Ryan has been spotted steadily changing his appearance over the last few months. Perhaps getting ready for his comeback to reality television, Ryan has been spotted out in public with a slew of new tattoos over his body. He has since added a large farm design on his stomach, which includes a windmill and horse, a pair of strange skulls to his shoulders and a crown on his chest. In September, the former tradie also received a smile makeover with a set of porcelain veneers. Jed Mercurio is famous for his eye for detail in Line of Duty. So, a massive spelling blunder during the third episode of series five on Sunday night left fans of the BBC drama scratching their heads. During a scene showing undercover cop John Corbett communicating with the mysterious boss of the organised crime gang he is undercover with, the word 'definitely' was misspelled on screen. Error: Jed Mercurio is famous for his eye for detail in Line of Duty. So, a massive spelling blunder on Sunday night left fans of the BBC drama scratching their heads As Corbett got instructions on his gang's plan to raid the police's Eastfield Depot, the unknown boss typed a message back on the computer screen, telling him: 'Eastfield Depot is definately high risk.' Viewers were quick to pick up on the typo, with one tweeting: 'Definately'????? Really line of duty ur gonna hit me w a spelling error like that.' Others though were convinced it was a deliberate error from the show's creator Mercurio, a clue as to the identity of the series' super villain 'H'. Typo: During a scene showing undercover cop John Corbett communicating with the boss of the organised crime gang he is undercover with, the word 'definitely' was misspelled on screen '#LineOfDuty Ya see that spelling mistake? 'Definately' from 'Unknown caller' - that's going to identify someone later on.' As the police anti-corruption unit AC12 tries to unravel who the 'bent copper' is at the head of the OCG, many fans were left even more convinced 'H' is AC-12 boss Ted Hastings. Fans begged AC-12 investigators Fleming and Arnott to look closer at their boss' spelling, with one fan tweeting: Oops: Viewers were quick to pick up on the typo, with one tweeting: 'Definately'????? Really line of duty ur gonna hit me w a spelling error like that' 'Can anyone get in touch with Arnott, ASAP and suggest he put together a spelling test for Hastings? #LineofDuty.' 'Does anyone know what Hastings spelling is like? #LineOfDuty,' asked another. 'H cant spell definitely and thats a) really annoying and b) very significant. Will now be watching out for Hastings spelling prowess.. #LineOfDuty @Line_of_duty #definitelynotdefinately,' declared another. Corrupt? As the police anti-corruption unit AC12 tries to unravel who the 'bent copper' is at the head of the OCG, many fans were left even more convinced 'H' is AC-12 boss Ted Hastings Test him! Fans of the show begged AC-12 investigators Fleming and Arnott to look closer at their boss' spelling One fan though pointed out that the error could point to another Line of Duty villain- Rox Huntley from series four, who was played by Thandie Newton. 'It was a very, very slight spelling mistake but Roz (H)untley mislabelled the blood samples?! clasping at straws really so it can't be Ted #LineOfDuty,' the fan said, pointing to Huntley's mistake from the previous series. Episode three of the fifth series providing plenty more jaw-dropping moments as AC-12 discovered one of their own, Hargreaves, was in on the Eastfield Depot raid. Significant: Viewers were convinced it was a deliberate error from the show's creator Mercurio, a clue as to the identity of the series' super villain 'H' He was the figure in the balaclava who helped the gang escape, but not before Corbett gunned him down. As he lay on the ground bleeding out DI Kate Fleming unmasked Hargreaves. But while another corrupt cop was unmasked, Hastings was also arousing suspicion from his team as he got rid of his laptop and looked increasingly uncomfortable as the investigation unravelled. Line of Duty continues on BBC One on Sunday at 9pm. Victoria's Nell Hudson confessed she was in 'floods of tears' after she filmed Nancy's death devastating sequence. Fans were devastated after Nancy's Happy Ever After with her new husband Francatelli (Ferdinand Kingsley) was cut short following a cholera outbreak. During Monday on Lorraine, Nell said she cried after wrapping up filming with co-star Jenna Coleman but TV bosses got her to re-shoot the death the following week. 'It was crazy': Victoria's Nell Hudson admitted she was in 'floods of tears' after she filmed Nancy's tragic death TWICE during Lorraine on Monday She said: 'It was crazy, we had a few false starts. We filmed a scene, I was in floods of tears and the show were like come in next week. It was emotional.' In heartbreaking scenes on Sunday night, Nancy fell ill after drinking a tonic for morning sickness that had been made from the contaminated water pump. Nancy had been expecting a baby with her new husband Francatelli and the couple were days away from opening a hotel. In a heartbreaking sequence, she died hours after she was reunited with the Queen who had previously ignored her letter. Shock: Fans were devastated after Nancy's Happy Ever After with her new husband Francatelli (Ferdinand Kingsley) was cut short following a cholera outbreak Jenna gifted her close friend and co-star Nell a Victorian hairpiece because Nancy was initially a hairdresser to Victoria. Nell said: 'She gave me a lovely parting gift. She gave me a Victorian hairpiece.' The actress gushed over the leading star as she enthused she was 'very focused' when she discussed her co-star. 'She's very much in it. She's very focused.' Nell said. 'You have to be when you are number one and on every day. She has to do, piano lessons and horse riding. It's very full on, she has to be totally [immersed in the Victoria world].' Devastating: Nell said she cried after wrapping up filming with her co-star Jenna Coleman but TV bosses got her to re-shoot the death the following week Even though she knew Nancy was going to die six months before filming the emotional scene, the actress found it hard to part ways with her on-screen role. She said: 'It was difficult [to film] because we knew it was coming up. I knew six months before what was going to happen to Nancy. 'It wasn't until this episode that I read the script [and it hit me].' Tough: Even though she knew Nancy was going to die six months before filming the emotional scene, the actress found it hard to part ways with her on-screen role Exciting: Nell chatted candidly to Christine Lampard while on Lorraine But Nell didn't leave the set empty handed as she stole a candlestick and cutlery from the show as a memento. She admitted: 'I wanted something to remember both worlds. I took a candlestick from upstairs and I took some cutlery. People compliment those when they come to my house.' Ferdi hosted a 'lovely' intimate dinner party for Nell and her partner to watch the episode of Victoria. Cheeky! But Nell didn't leave the set empty handed as she stole a candlestick and cutlery from the show as a memento Dreams: The actress also turned her hand at producing the darkly comedic film which she revealed had a feminist agenda Worlds away from the royal circles of Victoria, Nell has been working on a new project which she likened to Jordan Peele's Us. The actress also turned her hand at producing the darkly comedic film which she revealed had a feminist agenda. In Victoria on Sunday night, the shock death helped the royal couple reconcile following an explosive domestic feud. After days of furious exchanges in what could be only described as the 19th Century version of a Twitter feud, it took the tragedy of a cholera outbreak to bring the couple back together. Reconciled: A shock death helped the royal couple reconcile following an explosive domestic feud But it was the death of fan favourite character Nancy that left fans of the period drama reeling, not long after she had married her love. The episode began with Victoria and Albert barely on speaking terms following their Isle Of Wight clash, exchanging fiercely written words around the issue of Berties schooling. The couple struggled to even muster a greeting as they finally met to greet the visiting foreign ambassadors, before once again arguing on the issue of Alberts decision to travel to Cambridge. In a dramatic scene Victoria tried to display her authority over her husband with another blazing row but to no avail. Illness: London is rocked by the news of a cholera outbreak in Soho, and little-known physician Dr Jon Snow is desperate to find the cause, despite little acknowledgement from his peers After the Queen is informed of the cholera outbreak, she demands to visit a hospital and meet those who are suffering. In a dark scene, Victoria struggles to make her way through the ward but she was offered some reassurance from a sprightly nurse with a pet owl. Eventually Dr Snow discovered it is a contaminated water pump that is causing the cholera, following the ''a-ha'' that men have been immune as they drink nothing but beer. It took the tragedy of Nancy's death to finally clear Victorias anger towards her husband and the couple reconcile following his return from Cambridge. Victoria continues on Sunday 21st April at 9pm on ITV. Horrendous: Nancy is found to be dangerously ill the next day, after drinking a tonic for morning sickness that had been made from the contaminated water pump They recently welcomed their new addition into their family - a new Cavoodle pup named Lilo. And on Monday, Osher Gunsberg, 44, revealed his excitement at meeting his unborn child with wife, Audrey Griffent. Taking to Instagram, the proud father-to-be shared a tender photo of Audrey cradling her growing bump alongside a heartwarming caption. Oh baby! Osher Gunsberg's pregnant wife Audrey Griffen cradles her growing bump as The Bachelor host reveals he's 'excited' to meet the bub 'There's glowing, and then there's GLOWING,' he wrote. '@audreygriffen was being positively radiant today. (Even when she's dealing with a puppy who's figuring out what 'peeing outside' means). 'I am so looking forward to us all getting to know the new tiny human that's coming to live in our home.' Baby joy! Audrey and Osher first announced their pregnancy through social media on February 10 The makeup artist looked stunning in a baby blue maternity, while clutching Lilo in one hand. Osher and Audrey announced they are expecting on February 10. The Bachelor In Paradise host revealed the thrilling news in an Instagram post, with an ultrasound scan of his unborn baby. Special: The Bachelor In Paradise host shared an ultrasound scan of his unborn baby 'We are very happy to introduce you to the newest member of our family, joining us late August 2019,' he wrote. Osher is already a stepfather to Audrey's 14-year-old daughter, Georgia. 'All of us are over the moon and looking forward to meeting this wonderful young human,' he captioned the ultrasound photo. Love at first sight: Osher and Audrey met in 2015, while filming season four of The Bachelor Australia, where the TV star worked as a host and Audrey was a stylist 'For me, meeting Audrey saved my life... Meeting Georgia gave my life a purpose and direction that I never expected. 'These two wonderful women have given me so much already, they've helped me heal and grow - and now to have the chance to share with them the experience of bringing up a child together is just incredible.' Osher and Audrey met in 2015, while filming season four of The Bachelor Australia, where the TV star worked as a host and Audrey was a stylist. Their baby is due in August. She's known for her incredible acting skills and gym-honed body, And Spanish actress Elsa Pataky flaunted her sensational figure in a racy black swimsuit during a beach workout on Monday. The 42-year-old showed off her impressive exercises with fans in a video clip shared to Instagram. She's a goddess! Elsa Pataky (pictured) flaunted her sensational figure in this racy swimsuit while performing an impressive exercise routine on the beach Clad in a one-piece swimsuit, Elsa's plunging ensemble read 'Gypsy' in cursive font. She teamed up the look with a collection of dainty golden necklaces and kept her blonde locks tied back into a low ponytail. In the video, Elsa began her workout by doing a set of walking lunges before moving onto a crawling exercise - using her hands and feet to propel herself forward on the sand. Wow! In the video, Elsa began by doing this set of walking lunges, using the sand for added resistance Fitspo! She then moved onto this crawling exercise, using her hands and feet to propel herself forward on the sand Work it! Elsa looked incredible in this one-piece swimsuit during her beach workout She then performed a set of cross over leg kicks and ended the routine with squats, which she performed whilst standing in the shallow end of the water. Elsa captioned the post: 'Sundog and I went for a walk and decided to add a little workout on the beach at the same time!' and added: 'Follow along on @centrfit.' It appeared the stunner was promoting husband Chris Hemsworth's fitness app and program, Centr. That's different! She then performed this set of these cross over leg kicks Namaste: Elsa ended with squats whilst standing in the shallow end of the water 'Sundog and I went for a walk and decided to add a little workout on the beach at the same time!' she captioned the video, adding: 'Follow along on @centrfit' Meanwhile, Elsa and Chris, 35, swapped the bright lights of Hollywood for a more relaxed life in Byron Bay, on Australia's east coast, five years ago. The Hollywood couple have been married for nine years, and have called Byron Bay home since 2014. Elsa, who previously lived in Los Angeles with her husband, recently said she enjoys the more laid-back lifestyle of Australia. 'We did the move three years ago and I'm so happy with it,' she revealed to Women's Health magazine in April 2017. He's a committed co-parent with his actress ex Naomi Watts, 50. And Liev Schreiber enjoyed some quality time with his son Sasha, 11, and another relative at a screening of Disneynature's Penguins at AMC Lincoln Square Theater in New York on Sunday. The actor, 51, appeared to be in good spirits as he hit the blue carpet with his family members. Having fun: Liev Schreiber enjoyed some family time as he took son Sasha, 11, and another relative, to a screening of Penguins at AMC Lincoln Square Theater in New York on Sunday The X-Men Origins: Wolverine star dressed down for the occasion, sporting a black trucker hat, a blue shirt and tan trousers. The family were all smiles as they posed for photographs at the event, which was attended by other stars including actor Josh Lucas. Liev was also seen greeting fellow screen stars Ed Helms and Beth Stern. A lovely time: The actor, 51, looked every inch the proud shares son Sasha with his actress ex, Naomi Watts, 50 Keeping it casual: The X-Men Origins: Wolverine star dressed down for the occasion, sporting a black trucker hat, a blue shirt and tan trousers Nature documentary Penguins, is a coming-of-age tale about Steve, an Adelie penguin, who is on a mission to build a nest, find a partner and start a family. The film, produced by Disneynature, is set for release on April 17th - just in time for Earth Day. Liev split with Gypsy actress Naomi in 2016 after 11 years together. Despite the break-up, the pair proved they were still on great terms as they greeted each other with a friendly hug at the Tribeca Ball at the New York Academy of Art last week. Hello: The family were all smiles as they posed for photographs at the event, which was attended by other stars including actors Josh Lucas and Ed Helms (pictured) Family day out: The second family member is thought to be Naomi Watt's niece, Ruby Liev has been linked to beauty queen Taylor Neison, 26, since 2017. The actor been pictured hanging out with the former Miss South Dakota and his kids in New York several times. The duo looked like they were getting along swimmingly last February while spotted vacationing on the beaches of San Jose, Costa Rica with Liev's sons. Naomi began dating actor Billy Cradup, 50, in June 2017. Amicable: Despite the break-up, Liev and Naomi proved they were still on great terms as they greeted each other with a friendly hug at the Tribeca Ball last week He's known for his constant banter on social media with his actress wife. Yet, Ryan Reynolds swapped his usual humour for gratitude as he shared a rare Instagram snap with wife Blake Lively alongside a number of behind-the-scenes photo from Aviation Gin's latest advert shoot. The Deadpool actor, 42, took a break from filming The Hitman Wife's Bodyguard to shoot the advert in Croatia and took to the photo-sharing platform to give his fans a sneak peek of the project. Cosy: Ryan Reynolds shared a rare shot with other half Blake Lively on instagram Amongst his thank yous, Ryan shared a rare shot with Blake, 31, as they cuddled up together inbetween takes of the shoot. Wearing an oversized khaki-coloured jacket, the Gossip Girl star wrapped her arms tightly around her man and closed her eyes for the embrace as Ryan reciprocated the same amount of emotion. Blake showcased her natural beauty in the shot as she accentuated her radiant complexion with little make-up and left her honey-hued tresses loose in a tousled style. While Ryan donned a white T-shirt with a tan-coloured apron and goggles as an empty bottle of his Aviation Gin lay infront of him on a distressed work bench. Shoot: Ryan donned a white T-shirt with a tan-coloured apron as an empty bottle of his Aviation Gin stood infront of him on a distressed work bench Man at work: The Proposal actor shared another another shot of him clad in his craftsman costume and what appeared to be a glass blower In another shot, The Proposal actor shared another two shots of him clad in his craftsman costume and what appeared to be a glass blower alongside another picture with the ad's entire crew. He captioned the post: Shooting latest spot for @AviationGin in Croatia. Picture by: @blakelively. Giant thanks to our incredible local crew... And last but never least, our friend and collaborator, @rowlandbb #MaximumEffort . 'Now back to #HitmansBodyguard2'. Blake and Ryan have been married since 2012 after first meeting on 2011's Green Lantern and are parents to James, 4, and Inez, 2, while both juggling busy careers. Helping hand: He also shared a shot of his crew for the shoot Meanwhile, Ryan has been in Croatia since March filming the sequel to The Hitman's Bodyguard alongside Salma Hayek, 52, Samuel L. Jackson, 70, Morgan Freeman, 81, and Richard E. Grant, 61. The first film, directed by Patrick Hughes, revolves around bodyguard Michel Bryce, played by Ryan, who must deliver hitman Darius Kincaid, Samuel, from London to the Hague for trial. The pair have just 24 hours to get from the U.K. to The Hague, the seat of the government in The Netherlands, and the only thing standing in their way is a villainous Eastern European dictator, played by Gary Oldman. Back together again: Ryan has been in Croatia since March filming the sequel to The Hitman's Bodyguard alongside Salma Hayek, 52 and Samuel L. Jackson, 70 The film received mixed reviews, with critics praising Reynolds and Jackson's chemistry but criticizing the cliched plot and execution. This time Michael is enlisted by Jackson and Hayek's character's to join them on a mission along the Amalfi Coast. Filming will take place in Italy, Croatia, Bulgaria and United Kingdom. Whether he's stripping off for charity on The Real Full Monty or she's landing face-first on the rink for Dancing On Ice, James 'Arg' Argent and Gemma Collins are always looking for ways to break broadcasting boundaries. And it was no different on Monday as they appeared as guests on Heart FM's Breakfast Show on FaceTime. In Bed. Naked! The TOWIE power couple appeared on a giant screen behind Kelly Brook, who was hosting from the studio, lounging in their very red-lit bedroom. Keeping you up? James 'Arg' Argent and Gemma Collins appeared as guests on Heart FM's Breakfast Show on FaceTime. In Bed. Naked Covering up with the bed linens - without anything on underneath - the pair joked with Kelly that they have specialty sheets jetted in from Milan, so that 'Queen Of Essex' Gemma's tastes are satisfied. Kelly's co-host, JK, said to the pair: 'This is incredible you look so comfortable. What colour sheets are we talking here I cant quite see?' 'They are exclusive. They were flown in from Milan just for me,' Gemma bragged. 'Ooh lovely. I bet theyre Frette!' Kelly gushed. 'Yeah. Hand sewn,' was Gemma's response. Live and in HD: The TOWIE power couple appeared on a giant screen behind Kelly Brook, who was hosting from the studio, lounging in their very red-lit bedroom Expensive taste: Covering up with the bed linens - without anything on underneath - the pair joked with Kelly that they have specialty sheets jetted in from Milan, so that 'Queen Of Essex' Gemma's tastes are satisfied 'High thread count?' asked Kelly. Gemma replied: 'Yes. Thousands of thread count, perfect for the Queen of Essex.' Kelly then warned, 'Arg we dont want your fake tan ruining that,' to which Gemma snapped: 'No definitely not. Absolutely not!' Arg showed a lot more of himself off when he took part in The Real Full Monty last year, for charity. Kelly brought this up: 'Last year I watched you on the Full Monty where you did something for raising awareness for prostate cancer which was amazing. Would you do anything like that again? You were so nervous.' Gemma said: 'I get to celebrate this body on a daily basis so I was happy for everyone to have a little sneaky look for two minutes' Stripped: Arg showed a lot more of himself off when he took part in The Real Full Monty last year, for charity 'I was extremely extremely nervous but I can honestly say I think it was one of the best things Ive ever taken part in,' he insisted. 'All the boys were petrified but once we did it we were so proud of ourselves. 'And the feedback we got, I was worried about the trolls and stuff like that, but even the trolls got behind and said, "you know what fair play respect, like that took a lot to do that," do you know what I mean?' He asked Kelly whether watching him take part had 'scarred her for life', to which she replied: 'No youve got a lovely body, you should celebrate your body.' Gemma said: 'I get to celebrate this body on a daily basis so I was happy for everyone to have a little sneaky look for two minutes.' Arg will be doing the first male version of Race For Life next, for which he will be keeping his clothes on. Tune in to JK and Kelly Brook (in for Jamie and Lucy), weekdays from 6am - 9am. Arg will be taking part in Race for Life this summer, which is now open to men She recently confessed she had no plans to start a family. And Kelly Brook was spotted leaving the Global Radio studios in London on Friday, rocking a stylish red coat as she strolled along. The star, 39, looked lovely as ever in her scarlet jacket, worn layered over a bright blue floral dress. Smart: Kelly Brook was spotted leaving the Global Radio studios in London on Friday, rocking a stylish red coat as she strolled along Kelly teased a hint of cleavage thanks to her retro, 50s inspired dress' low-cut neckline. The former glamour model completed her look with a pair of nude stilettos and a matching bag. Brunette beauty Kelly wore her hair down loose and kept her make-up fresh and natural. Chic: The star, 39, looked lovely as ever in her scarlet jacket, worn layered over a bright blue floral dress Elegant: Kelly teased a hint of cleavage thanks to her retro, 50s inspired dress' low-cut neckline Her outing comes after she recently spoke about starting a family with her partner, Jeremy Parisi. In an interview with Fabulous magazine, she admitted: 'I've sat down and asked myself: 'Do I really want to have children? Is this something I really want to do?' 'And I've realised that actually it's not something I've always wanted and I'm fine with it,' adding that there is an unkind stigma to being child-free. Stepping out in style: The former glamour model completed her look with a pair of nude stilettos and a matching bag 'It's not anyone else's business how you live your life. I'm actually quite a selfish person. 'I can barely get myself out the front door, let alone go and do a school run.' Kelly recently celebrated her fourth anniversary with the French-Italian martial arts instructor with a holiday in Portugal. Cat Henesey-Smith has revealed she doesn't need a reality show to find love. After failing to receive a single rose and sensationally quitting Bachelor In Paradise last week, the 'villain' debuted new boyfriend Todd Burguez on Monday. Taking to Instagram, the 25-year-old shared two loved-up photographs with the Brisbane landscaper during a remote getaway. Officially off the market! Bachelor In Paradise's Cat Henesey-Smith shared her first loved-up snaps with new boyfriend Todd Burguez on Monday after quitting the reality show In one picture, a windswept Cat is seen kissing her new beau while enjoying a fishing trip together under a rainbow. 'Another day in Paradise,' captioned Cat, in a possible nod to her failed stint on the tropical reality show, which was filmed in Fiji in November. Cat shared another photograph cuddling into Todd as the sun set behind them, both holding a glass of wine each. 'I've actually met a guy who is incredible': Last week, Cat, 25, first revealed she had found love with Brisbane landscaper Todd - but has only now shared pictures together with her fans The brunette first revealed she'd found love during an interview with 9Honey on Thursday, after leaving the reality show. 'I've actually met a guy who is incredible and I've moved on,' said Cat, who first found fame on Nick Cummins' series of The Bachelor last year. '[Filming for Paradise] was so long ago now and I wasn't in a good place and now I feel so differently about life. 'I've settled back in, I'm near my friends and family, I've met an awesome dude and life's good!' '[Filming for Paradise] was so long ago now and I wasn't in a good place': Cat also revealed last week that she is in a much happier place now after filming the show in November Last week, viewers watched the controversial brunette storm off the Fijian set of the Ten reality series. After failing to receive a single rose, Cat took refuge in a toilet with Alisha Aitken-Radburn where she expressed her shock over being ousted on the first night. 'I don't know what it is but I just feel like I can never meet anyone,' she sobbed. After her tearful meltdown, the jewellery designer refused to return to the rose ceremony, instead opting to exit the show on her own terms. Home time! Last week, viewers watched the controversial brunette storm off the Fijian set of Bachelor In Paradise after failing to receive a single rose Married At First Sight's Cyrell Paule has revealed she was robbed during her 30th birthday party on Saturday. The reality TV star posted an emotional video to Instagram on Sunday, blasting the culprit who she said 'ruined her night'. 'Some dirty dog - you stupid animal I friggin' hate you - decides to go steal my clutch with my money in there and my car key,' she fumed. 'You stupid animal, I hate you!' MAFS' Cyrell Paule reveals she was ROBBED during her 30th birthday party in Sydney after a thief stole her purse, cash and car keys 'Thanks to everyone that legit took the time to greet me happy birthday, like s***, blushing - well not so much with me as I've got dark skin. 'Except for that person that ruined my night and stole my clutch, I hope that when you use my money you end up s****ing diarrhea for the next two weeks. 'And you vomit it out of your mouth, I don't know.' Ruined her night: Cyrell began the night in high spirits but was left in tears after being robbed. Pictured L-R; Eden Dally, Cyrell, Ning Surasiang, Billy Vincent, Elizabeth Sobinoff, Heidi Latcham, Bronson Norrish, Melissa Lucarelli, Jules Robinson and Cameron Merchant on Saturday night Cyrell said the thief took off with her purse, which contained money and her car keys. She had to call a locksmith on Sunday to replace her keys. Cyrell kicked her birthday celebrations off at boyfriend Eden Dally's apartment in Drummoyne on Saturday afternoon with her Married At First Sight co-stars. 'I hope that when you use my money you end up s***ing diarrhea': On Sunday, Cyrell shared several clips to her Instagram Story venting her frustration Party time! Cyrell kicked her birthday celebrations off at boyfriend Eden Dally's apartment in Drummoyne on Saturday afternoon She was joined by Elizabeth Sobinoff, Jules Robinson, Cameron Merchant, Heidi Latcham, Billy Vincent, Bronson Norrish, Melissa Lucarelli and Ning Surasiang. The group later headed to hotspot Flamingo Lounge in Kings Cross, where Cyrell claims the incident occurred. Daily Mail Australia has contacted Flamingo Lounge for comment. Explosive EastEnders trailer offered the first look at Sean Slater's comeback to Albert Square after 10 years. The heartthrob (Robert Kazinsky) will return after receiving a frantic phone call from his beloved sister Stacey about their mum Jean's ovarian cancer diagnosis. Although Sean had been in touch with Stacey (Lacey Turner), it has been a decade since the former resident has been in touch with his mother (Gillian Wright). He's back! EastEnders trailer's first look at Sean Slater's return to Albert Square after 10 YEARS as his mum Jean receives ovarian cancer diagnosis In closing scenes, the Albert Square hunk could be seen looking into the mirror of his car. Drama ensues when Kat (Jessie Wallace) unearthed the letter confirming Jean had ovarian cancer, as seen in the new trailer. In the trailer, Jean said: 'I don't want chemo. I don't want hospitals. I don't want prodding. I don't want people feeling sorry for me. I don't want to be sick. 'I don't want people telling me what to do. I want to be normal.' Longtime coming: Although Sean had been in touch with Stacey (Lacey Turner), it has been 10 years since the former resident has been in touch with his mother (Gillian Wright) The character of Sean was first introduced to the soap in December 2005 but Rob didn't make his first appearance in the show until August 2006. He made a brief exit from the soap for two months in March 2007 but he was back in the May and he didn't leave Albert Square until May 2008. EastEnders boss Kate Oates unveiled the reason behind Sean's return has a lot to do with Jean's harrowing exit cancer storyline. She told Digital Spy earlier this year: 'It's a lot to do with Jean's story. I talked before about looking at Jean's mental health through the lens of her physical health. Obviously we know that Stacey has been in touch with Sean...' She's out: EastEnders boss Kate Oates unveiled the reason behind Sean's return has a lot to do with Jean's harrowing exit cancer storyline The TV boss explained she had to talk to Rob quite a lot before she was able to convince him to make a comeback to Albert Square. She said: 'Rob has had a great deal of input in his return story. We spoke quite a lot before I convinced him to come back and he was giving me ideas and I was able to bring them back to the team. 'They were really strong and really thoughtful. He's a very considered actor and he thinks a lot about that character, and that's why I'm really excited to work with him.' According to the NHS, Ovarian cancer is one of the most common types of cancer which affects women across the country. The site pinpointed cancer of the ovaries mainly affects women who have been through the menopause but it does affect a minority of younger females. Old colleagues: Gillian has played Jean Slater for eight years. Seen here with her on-screen daughter Stacey Slater (Lacey Turner) Off set, Gillian shared it was an 'honour and a huge responsibility' to be part of a storyline tackling an 'enormous issue' that affects so many families. Recently, she told The Radio Times: 'Its an honour and a huge responsibility to be taking on such an enormous issue, affecting so many women and their families. 'Im aware of the impact such stories can have. Its important we treat the issue of cancer diagnosis and treatment with huge sensitivity, dignity and respect. 'I hope the storyline helps awareness of the disease and is supportive to those that are affected.' Months after her divorce from TV presenter Ant McPartlin, Lisa Armstrong has liked a tweet about people 'finding their way back' to each other. The make-up artist, 42, who was granted a divorce from the Britain's Got Talent presenter in October last year, seemed to hint at a change in heart at her situation as she took to social media on Sunday. Lisa, who has previously used Twitter to share her voice about her former husband, was married to the TV presenter for 11 years before the pair announced their split from each other last year. A change in heart: Make-up artist Lisa Armstrong, 42, seemed to hint at a change in heart as she took to social media on Sunday The tweet, posted by the user 'Epic Woman', read: 'People who are meant to be together find their way back, they may take a few detours, but they're never lost.' After 'liking' the cryptic message, users were immediately left speculating what it implied. MailOnline has contacted a representative for Lisa Armstrong for comment. Despite never publicly speaking out about her divorce, Lisa has often made hints about her feelings on Twitter. Like: Lisa took to Twitter to like a tweet which read: 'People who are meant to be together find their way back, they may take a few detours, but they're never lost' Candid posts: Despite never publicly speaking out about her divorce, Lisa has often made hints about her feelings on Twitter In November Lisa again sparked intrigue after responding to a tweet posted by actress Sheridan Smith. The tweet read: 'I seriously wonder how some people sleep at night'. Responding to the message at the time Lisa wrote: 'I hear ya babe xx' Former flame: The pair were married for 11 years before announcing their split from each other last year The former flames, who were granted a divorce during a 30-second hearing at the Central Family Court in October, first met in Newcastle in 1994 before exchanging vows at a stunning country house in Buckinghamshire, in 2006. Following their split, it was revealed that Ant was dating former PA and mother-of-two Anne-Marie Corbett, 42. Speaking at the time about his new relationship Ant told The Sun: 'Anne-Marie honestly is the fundamental reason for the great change in my life. 'She's been my rock. She's a beautiful soul. We're very happy.' At lightning speed and with little resistance, New Zealand MPs are set to vote through gun laws prompted by the Christchurch mosque shootings. The country's parliament is expected on Wednesday to hold the final reading of a bill banning military-style semi-automatic rifles and dangerous modifications, in the hope of preventing another terror attack like the one that killed 50 people last month. It will become law before the weekend. The bill passed a second reading on Tuesday with the backing of all but one of the 120 members of parliament. "We are hurt with weapons ... but we are not seeking revenge. We are seeking safety," Police Minister Stuart Nash told the House. Standing alone in opposition was libertarian Act party leader and sole MP David Seymour who argued that, with a stopgap halt on gun sales in place since the laws were announced, there was no need to rush the changes. His position echoed that of the small but vocal gun lobby, which has warned of potential unintended consequences from quickly-drafted rules and unfair restrictions on law-abiding gun owners. Farmers have also become irked they've not been extended an exemption given to pest-controllers under the law. Nonetheless, widespread public support has swept the changes through. The bill - the first major gun reform in New Zealand since 1992 - was introduced to parliament last Monday, having been promised only six days after the March 15 shooting. A parliamentary committee considering public input held a single day of oral hearings before reporting back this week. Officials had just days to consider 13,000 submissions. Among the submission was one from Mustafa Farouk, president of the New Zealand Federation of Islamic Associations, who made an impassioned plea for change on behalf of the country's Muslim community. "I'm not here today to be an expert on weapons," he said. "I'm here to represent some of those people who are not able to be here because they are dead." The brief consultation process changed little beyond minor exemptions, such as for collectors. The new law also permits certain semi-automatics with smaller ammo capacity. Owners have until September to hand over now-illegal weapons. But even before the final vote, New Zealand's government has begun considering further proposals, including a possible gun register and tighter licensing laws. It's estimated there are 1.5 million firearms in New Zealand - roughly one for every three citizens and more than double the rate in Australia - but a lack of comprehensive weapons registration means it's unclear how many weapons are about to be taken off the streets. The details of a promised buyback scheme are also yet to be announced. A draft environmental impact statement for the Warragamba Dam project confirms the sides of the wall will be raised 17 metres to allow for future expansion, putting at risk heritage listed forest in the Blue Mountains. The coalition government has repeatedly said the wall will be raised 14 metres to help prevent flooding of the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley below the world-famous Blue Mountains. But AAP revealed in March the Berejiklian government was actually going to raise each end of the wall - the dam abutments - by 17m so it could easily be modified in the future to hold back additional water. The secret documents revealed the wall would be "structurally" raised 17m but "operational" at 14m. Now the draft EIS, seen by AAP, confirms the plan involves "raising the wall by 14m with abutments for 17m". The statement - which is due to be made public later this year - isn't assessing the impact of raising the wall 17m despite the fact this would inundate a much larger upstream area of the heritage-listed Blue Mountains. Critics say the plan would put at risk threatened flora and fauna that could be inundated by dammed water. Premier Gladys Berejiklian was quizzed about the proposed height of the dam wall in mid-March. "I ask you to rely on what's in the public domain - that's what we've announced (and) that's what's happening," she told reporters at the time. The federal government in September 2017 told the UNESCO World Heritage Committee the wall would be raised 14m. Members of the Give a Dam community group are this week travelling to UNESCO headquarters in Paris to brief the committee of the project's potential negative impacts. "If the Australian government allows the NSW government to continue down their destructive path of raising the dam wall, UNESCO will rightfully come down on Australia like a tonne of bricks," campaign director Harry Burkitt told AAP in a statement. Infrastructure NSW on Tuesday was asked if the government was planning to raise the wall 17m in the future. The agency replied that "the NSW secretary of the Department of Planning and Environment has required the project to be designed, constructed and operated to be resilient to the future impacts of climate change". Environmental approvals needed before Adani can start to dig a coalmine in central Queensland will be considered by the state government against its own standards. The company's groundwater management plan for its project in the Galilee Basin has been approved by federal Environment Minister Melissa Price after science agencies said it stacked up. It is now up to Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk's government to sign off on two of the nine outstanding approvals before construction can begin. They are the groundwater plan and another to manage the tiny and endangered black-throated finch. Queensland Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch says her department will consider whether the groundwater plan identifies the Doongmabulla Springs Complex as water source, among other things. Once construction starts, a number of other approvals are needed before mining can begin. Adani Mining chief executive Lucas Dow welcomed the Morrison government's decision, while environmentalists and the Greens are appalled. Environmental lobby group Lock the Gate Alliance wants the decision to be investigated. Scott Morrison is moving closer to an election date call as Labor launches its election advertising focusing on health and a crackdown on tax dodgers. The prime minister is expected within days to announce the federal poll, most likely to be held on May 18. His Liberal-National coalition continues to lag behind Labor on a two-party preferred basis but senior government figures remain confident it can be clawed back. Mr Morrison has framed the campaign around the government's job creation record and balancing the budget. "Australia is the best place to live and raise a family but our future depends on ensuring we build our economy to secure our future and guarantee the essential services Australians rely on," he told reporters in Tasmania on Tuesday. Labor leader Bill Shorten appeared in an election ad on Tuesday night, spruiking his health and education policies. "As a dad of three, I know Labor's Fair Go Plan is good for families," Mr Shorten says. He promises to upgrade hospitals, help meet cancer treatment costs, improve schools and fight climate change, while closing tax loopholes and making banks and multinationals pay their share of tax. An Essential poll released on Tuesday found the coalition behind 48 per cent to 52 on the two-party preferred vote. But it also found the federal budget was well-received, with 51 per cent of voters approving and 27 per cent disapproving. The coalition is banking on approving the controversial Adani coal mine to help win over voters in Queensland, but it might cost votes in Victoria. Environment Minister Melissa Price on Tuesday approved the Carmichael mine's groundwater plan, meaning the mine is a step closer to construction. "I welcome the fact Mr Shorten has said he will be supporting the decision ... let's see if he says that in Victoria," Mr Morrison said. Labor climate spokesman Mark Butler said the Adani decision was made by a minister under pressure from Nationals colleagues. "People will not have much confidence in the decision made in the wake of such extraordinary bullying and division," he said. Mr Shorten said a Labor government would not reverse any federal approvals for Adani. Mr Morrison promised the coalition would not run ads on Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Anzac Day during the campaign. The House of Representatives is scheduled to return on Monday for four days of sittings but this is not expected to go ahead. If the election is called in the next two days it will also bring an early end to Senate estimates hearings which are due to run until Friday. Australian Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers said the possible fall of the Easter long weekend and Anzac Day during the election period would require some changes to operations. Mr Rogers also said the commission would be keeping a close eye on social media and websites, with new powers and penalties to detect and prevent foreign interference. The federal government will commit $70 million to various initiatives arising from the recommendations of a panel into the fish kills in the lower Darling River. Two massive fish kills in December and January prompted the government to commission an independent assessment, with the final report released on Wednesday. "I think all Australians who saw footage of these fish deaths were deeply saddened," Agriculture and Water Resources Minister David Littleproud said in a statement. "The federal government accepts and will address each recommendation made to it, and will work with states on others." Mr Littleproud said his ministry will work with the states, in particular the NSW government, on the recommendations, adding the government strongly supports the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. The independent assessment was carried out by a panel of distinguished water scientists led by Professor Rob Vertessy. Consumers are ramping up the pressure on fashion brands to ethically make clothes, resulting in a slow but significant shift across the industry, a report has revealed. More than a third of brands have improved their rating since last year, according to the latest Baptist World Aid report. But paying a living wage to workers continues to be a huge challenge for retailers, with only five per cent of companies proving they were doing so at their final stages of production. The sixth Ethical Fashion Report, released on Wednesday, graded 130 apparel companies, including 480 brands, from A+ to F on their policies, transparency, worker rights and environmental management. The 2019 report revealed Australia's best and worst performers alongside international brands, with Etiko, Outland Denim, Kookai, Cotton On and Country Road among those handed an A- or above. Poor Australian performers included the Noni B Group, which owns brands such as Katies and Miller, swimwear company Tigerlily and discount clothing store Lowes. Baptist World Aid CEO John Hickey says overall fashion companies have felt the pressure from consumers since the first report was released in 2013. "People want to know they're not doing harm in what they're purchasing," he told AAP. Last year there were 50,000 downloads of the organisation's ethical shopping guide, and thousands of others viewed the website and printed versions. This year, the guide will be available through an app for the first time. Governments are also turning up the heat through legislation. Mr Hickey said the Modern Slavery Act, introduced on January 1, would make "waves" across the Australian fashion industry, which was worth close to $23.5 billion last year. "The beginning of the supply chain is where the risk of child labour, forced labour and exploitation is most prevalent," he said. The report revealed fashion brands rated most poorly on "worker empowerment", with a median D grade for this section of the report. Nearly half of companies (48 per cent) had started to develop a living wage methodology, while 14 per cent of companies have projects to improve wages in the majority of factories, the report said. Tanya Deans, Brand Manager at BONDS and its owner Hanesbrands, says working with third parties in the supply chain was one of the biggest challenges when aiming for ethics and sustainability. Ms Deans said the company had scored an A partly because it owned a significant proportion of its manufacturing. "If we own it, we can control workers rights in that process," she said. While the company admits it's not perfect, Ms Deans said it was making a genuine effort to improve. Some changes have come faster than others, with the company making big inroads in environmental sustainability by reducing greenhouse gases and water use, saving $10 million and reinvesting in local communities, Ms Deans said. A man is to be extradited from the US over the murder of a Thai national Wachria "Mario" Phetmang, whose body was found bound and gagged on the side of a Sydney road. Mr Phetmang, 33, was last seen alive on May 25 at a South Hurstville service station on May 25 last year. His body was found bound, gagged, wrapped in plastic and covered in a mattress protector on the side of Homebush Bay Drive on June 6. NSW Police launched a search for his car, which is believed to have produced new leads. Australian authorities issued an arrest warrant for Alex Dion over Mr Phetmang's death, according to a federal search warrant filed by the FBI on Friday, The Associated Press reports. Dion, who was already in custody in San Diego on a domestic violence charge, is expected to be extradied to Australia on Friday. Supporters of Julian Assange are calling on the Australian government to do more to help the WikiLeaks founder after he was taken into custody in the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday said Assange's high profile would get him no special treatment from the government, which he said was providing consular assistance to the 47-year-old. "Julian Assange will get the same consular support and assistance that any other Australian would receive," Mr Morrison told reporters. Australian officials were expected to visit the WikiLeaks founder in a London jail on Friday after he was carried out of the Ecuadorian embassy, almost seven years after taking refuge there. Former Greens Senator Scott Ludlam called for Mr Morrison and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to step in. "The moment for pretending that this is just a regular consular matter and standing on the sidelines is well and truly over," Mr Ludlam told ABC News. About 50 supporters of Assange gathered at a rally outside the State Library in Melbourne, while a small group gathered at the UK consulate in Sydney chanting "bring Julian home". A driver whose car struck three pedestrians in Brisbane was allegedly four times over the legal alcohol limit, police say. The 28-year-old man's car struck three 18-year-olds crossing Adelaide St into King George Square about 12.45am on Saturday. The Redbank Plains man was detained by officers and returned a blood alcohol concentration of 0.234, more than four times the legal limit, police said. The two women and man who were hit were taken to the Royal Brisbane and Women's hospital for injuries that were not life-threatening. The driver is due to face the Brisbane Magistrates Court on April 26 charged with drink driving and unlicensed driving. Labor's hopes of picking up the Western Australia seat of Curtin from the Coalition have suffered a blow after their star candidate Melissa Parke withdrew from the race. Ms Parke, a former minister for international development in the Rudd government, stepped aside on Friday after reports emerged about comments she had made about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen told the ABC on Saturday that Ms Parke had "done the right thing in standing aside". "Her views didn't represent the Labor Party views," he said. The blue-ribbon seat of Curtin, previously held by retiring Liberal Julie Bishop, is understood to have been one of the electorates Labor was targeting in WA. Save the Children has written an open letter to the future prime minister calling for both major parties to commit to bringing the children of foreign fighters from Syria to Australia. The full-page letter from the aid organisation, published in The Saturday Paper, calls for a stop to "the war on children". "Australia has the power to repatriate these children and support their recovery; their reintegration into society." Chief executive Paul Ronalds said Australians needed to know where Mr Morrison and Mr Shorten stand and "if they will act on their word if elected on 18 May". "The shift in rhetoric from the leaders of both major political parties is encouraging, but words alone will not bring these children home," said Mr Ronalds, who wrote the letter. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has compared Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek to former NSW Labor Michael Daley for her views raising questions over Adani's Indian owners being able to create jobs. Mr Daley infamously accused Asians of taking Australian jobs during the recent NSW state election, comments that cost him the premiership. Ms Plibersek said on Friday that the job numbers that the Adani mine is expected to generate are overstated. "We can't rely on an Indian mining company to bring jobs to central and north Queensland," she told ABC radio. The prime minister jumped on the remarks, saying NSW Labor has form on these matters. He noted it took Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to condemn Mr Daley's Asian comments and only when he lost the state election. "Now we've got Tanya Plibersek, the would-be deputy prime minister of the country, saying that Indians can't create jobs," he told reporters in Sydney. Left-wing lobby group GetUp! will continue campaigning for the May 18 federal election during the Easter holidays even though Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his Labor rival Bill Shorten have agreed not to. Mr Morrison said there shouldn't be political advertising on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. "Bill and I agree about that," Mr Morrison told reporters in Sydney on Saturday. "Will Bill tell his mates in the union movement to pull their heads in and do the same? It's fine for Bill to say he won't do it. It makes his commitment to this quite hollow." Mr Shorten said he had written to the prime minister that Easter should be respected and that Anzac Day is also sacred to the nation. But on the question of GetUp! campaigning, he said it is a "free country". "I can't make everyone else do things ... they're independent," he told reporters on the Central Coast, NSW. Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the Liberals are "doing the due diligence" after the party lost three candidates in Victoria because of their eligibility to sit in parliament. Section 44 has claimed its first victims from a potential new parliament with the trio withdrawing from the race. Kate Oski, the candidate for Lalor, and Vaishali Ghosh, the candidate for Wills have pulled out over dual citizenship issues. Meanwhile, Helen Jackson, the candidate for Cooper is likely to be dumped because she is an employee of Australia Post. Mr Morrison told a press conference that Section 44 was still "complicated", but said the three candidates were not running in "highly contested seats". "What this demonstrates is just the party doing its job," he told reporters in Sydney. "They identified the problem and they fixed it. And I'm pleased they have done it before the close of rolls." Bill Shorten said the Labor party had policies in place to prevent a repeat of the citizenship saga. "I can guarantee my party is doing everything it can to eliminate any doubt about constitutional requirements," he told reporters on the NSW Central Coast. Speaking in Melbourne, Greens leader Richard Di Natale also said the party had done what they could to ensure their candidates "go through a very thorough process to make sure they're eligible to stand". This is the first election in which candidates are required by the Australian Electoral Commission to submit a qualification checklist relating to section 44 of the Constitution after the 45th parliament was plagued by disqualification issues. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has apologised for comments he made about Labor opponent Ali France, in which he accused her of using her disability as an excuse for not moving into his Brisbane seat of Dickson. "I apologise to Ms France for my comments yesterday," Mr Dutton tweeted on Saturday afternoon. "My argument with the Labor candidate is about how our respective policies would affect the people of Dickson." His apology comes after disability advocates condemned Mr Dutton's comments as "bizarre" and "offensive". Speaking to reporters on the NSW Central Coast Labor senator Kristina Keneally called Mr Dutton "a thug" and "the most toxic man in the Liberal party". Ms France, who had her leg amputated after she was hit by a car protecting her child in 2011, said she had been unable to find an accessible home in the seat of Dickson, but would buy a house and modify it if she won. But Mr Dutton had said there were plenty of people living with a disability, and voters in his seat were angry that Ms France was using her disability as an "excuse" for not moving into the electorate. A UK tourist has been charged over a violent robbery at Bondi Beach less than 24 hours after arriving in Australia. The 35-year-old man allegedly assaulted and threatened a 59-year-old man in the early hours of Saturday and continued to assault him as he attempted to run away, stealing his phone before a pedestrian alerted police. The victim was treated by paramedics and taken to hospital in a serious but stable condition. Police arrested the younger man at the scene and later charged him with aggravated robbery involving wounding/grievous bodily harm and choking a person with the intent to commit an indictable offence. The UK national was refused bail and is due to face Parramatta Bail Court on Saturday. With a pork dumpling, green tea cake and a healthy main course of selfies, Scott Morrison sauntered down a sun-drenched Sydney street. The prime minister picked multicultural Strathfield, in Sydney's inner-west, to mingle with the public for the first time during the election campaign. "Ni hao," he offered one woman, who politely told him she was Korean. While his slice of green tea cake was being packed, Mr Morrison nipped out to the kitchen, meeting staff and customers on the way. After spending his first full day of campaigning in enemy territory, the mission switched to defence in the Liberal-held seat of Reid. "Without it, I don't think we'll form government," departing MP Craig Laundy said. The incumbent's departure is expected to hurt the government's chances of holding the seat despite a 4.7 per cent buffer. Mr Morrison, his wife Jenny, Mr Laundy and Liberal candidate Fiona Martin were followed by a cluster of media as they dipped in and out of mostly Korean businesses. "The circus has come to town, I'm sorry sweetie," one man in a restaurant told his daughter as Mr Morrison ordered a pork dumpling. A young woman loudly wondered how long Mr Morrison would remain in his job, a nod to the chaos engulfing Canberra during the past 10 years. Jerome Rugaruza shook the prime minister's hand to thank Australia for giving him asylum a decade ago after 15 years in refugee camps. The refugee from the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo wants the government to improve settlement services and raise the humanitarian intake for people fleeing their home countries. "I wish Australia to open the gate and increase the number," Mr Rugaruza told AAP. He's keeping his voting intention private, but believes unskilled refugees should be paired with farm work to kickstart their lives in Australia. "The cows don't need English to milk them," he said with a smile. After walking the streets, the Morrison campaign galloped to Randwick ahead of champion mare Winx's final start. WHAT THEY SAID ON DAY 3 OF THE ELECTION CAMPAIGN THE BEST LINE "Mr Dutton, after all, is a thug. Mr Dutton is the most toxic man in the Liberal Party." - Labor senator Kirstina Keneally lets loose on her thoughts on Peter Dutton accusing his Labor rival Ali France of using her disability as an excuse for not living in Dickson. THE BEST LINE (FINALLY) ""I apologise to Ms France for my comments yesterday. My argument with the Labor candidate is about how our respective policies would affect the people of Dickson." - tweet from Peter Dutton. PRIME MINISTER SCOTT MORRISON "I can think of no greater and more important responsibility that we have, to ensure our young people grow up healthy, both in the mind, and in body." - on the government's extra $42 million in funding for mental health for young and indigenous Australians, if it wins the election. LABOR LEADER BILL SHORTEN "We don't have to be the skin cancer capital of the world. It's up to us to prevent it." - on Labor's pledging to spend $8.6 million renewing the successful Slip, Slop, Slap campaign in hope of curbing the number of Australians who experience sun cancer. REAL PEOPLE ""I'm Korean." - A response from an Asian voter in Strathfield plaza after Scott Morrison greeted her by saying "ni hao". THE SUPPORT CAST - "Curtin wasn't a seat, while we fight for every vote and seat, wasn't a seat we were expecting to win." - Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen on star candidate Melissa Parke stepping down from the fight for the Western Australian seat of Curtin because of her stance on Palestine. The battle for Wentworth is getting heated with incumbent MP Dr Kerryn Phelps and Liberal candidate Dave Sharma alleging their posters have been stolen. On Saturday Dr Phelps tweeted: "Up to their dirty tricks again. Hundreds of our posters were stolen within a week of them being put up around the electorate." "@LiberalAUs posters strangely remain in place. Desperate tactics. Here we go again." Mr Sharma has denied he had any involvement with the removal of Dr Phelps' posters and said some of his posters had been stolen overnight, according to the ABC. "I completely reject Dr Phelps' intimation that me or my team had anything to do with the removal of posters," he said in a statement. "It's nothing more than an unfounded and baseless allegation." Wentworth, in eastern Sydney, is held by Dr Phelps on a margin of one per cent after she won it from the Liberals in a by-election following Malcolm Turnbull's exit. Australia ended years of tough negotiations with its recent signing of an historic trade deal with Jakarta last month, but its ratification and final implementation could hinge on Indonesian elections next Wednesday, in a country politically capable of throwing up unexpected results. At stake is the opening-up of the Indonesian economy to goods and services from Australia ranging from education and steel to health care and beef. It suffered an embarrassing setback when Prime Minister Scott Morrison suggested he might move the Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Smooth ratification of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) depends on the re-election of President Joko Widodo. His chief nemesis Probowo Subianto is backed by hardline Islamic clerics, a religious card he is adept at playing along with his country's support for the Palestinian territories. Nasya Bahfen, a researcher with La Trobe University in Melbourne, said the deal faced an unlikely combination of almost simultaneous elections being held in both Australia, on May 18, and here on April 17. "We're in unchartered waters as we've not faced a situation where an FTA has been inked but not ratified by Jakarta, and then Indonesia or Australia sees a change in government," he said in regards to the prospect of Labor leader Bill Shorten defeating Morrison. "While I can't see a potential Shorten Labor government changing the terms of the deal, Indonesia's main opposition vice presidential candidate Sandiaga Uno has already signaled changes to the FTA should he and Prabowo win," Bhafen said. Subianto had trailed Jokowi by up to 20 per cent in the opinion polls but that number is narrowing as election day draws nearer. A survey by the Indonesian Newspaper Kompas, found the electability of Subianto and Uno increased by 4.7 per cent within the last six months to 37.4 per cent while Jokowi and his running mate Ma'ruf Amin, suffered a 3.4 per cent fall to 49.2 per cent. "Subianto's supporters appear to sense this reality, and have recently changed their tactics from highlighting issues related to religion and ethnicity to questioning the impartiality of the poll's organisers, alleging that voter fraud may undermine the vote," Elliott said. The prospect of shifting the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, currently on hold, prompted a scathing attack from Uno who demanded its cancellation when it was first raised in October last year. On the hustings, Uno- who has promised to double GDP growth from a current five per cent - repeated that claim adding "we need to ensure that the trade benefits both sides" saying he would abolish quotas for Australian beef, a move that would please the local cattle industry. However, as potentially the next economic planning minister in Subianto's administration he said any renegotiations would be swift. It could also form a major plank in an overhaul of multilateral trade relations with the former general attempting to pry open new "non-traditional" markets. Bushfire-affected communities across Tasmania will get an almost $10 million recovery package to help deal with the aftermath of the summer blazes. The $9.9 million package includes funding to promote tourism, support businesses and repair damaged facilities, the federal emergency management minister Linda Reynolds announced on Saturday. "The bushfires struck during Tasmania's peak summer tourism season which had an immediate impact on tourism and the local economy," Ms Reynolds said. Tasmanian premier Will Hodgman said the funding would be welcome news for those impacted by the fires. "This assistance package will play an important role in social and economic recovery, which is crucial to the health and wellbeing of the Tasmanian community," The package is being funded through the joint Commonwealth State Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangement. Cody Walker might back his instincts more often after revealing his fourth and match-winning try had already played out in his head a week earlier against Manly. The South Sydney five-eighth bagged a quartet of four-pointers in Saturday's 28-24 comeback defeat of the Warriors, with two in the last seven minutes capping his day of domination on the Sunshine Coast. Walker planted the match-winner in the left corner with three minutes to play, making the call to run to the blindside rather than infield and set up a field goal attempt. Talking through the moment post-game, Walker admitted to a sense of deja vu. "I saw I had a middle forward in front of me (on Saturday) and last week when Reyno (Adam Reynolds) went for the field goal we sort of had them down the short side as well," he said. "I wasn't as dominant as I was today, so sort of pulled off (and didn't call the play last weekend)." The Sea Eagles went on to win that game 13-12 but Walker ensured there was no repeat in what was the Sunshine Coast's first NRL game and his first NRL four-try haul. The Rabbitohs are now 4-1 despite the absence of Greg Inglis (shoulder) and Braidon Burns (hamstring). Bennett said post-game that he expected Inglis to report to training on Monday after travelling to the Sunshine Coast as a spectator. Walker said Kyle Turner's ability to plug a gap in the centres had been crucial, while Bennett lauded Cook's more direct play for helping them home on Saturday. A baby sleeper that has been linked to more than 30 infant deaths in the US has been recalled in Australia. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will work with Mattel's Fisher Price to recall the company's Rock 'n Play baby sleepers, an ACCC spokeswoman said on Saturday afternoon. The announcement came after the US Consumer Product Safety Commission said it would recall 4.7 million Fisher-Price Rock 'N Play sleepers and advised parents to immediately stop using the product. "Mattel has confirmed to the ACCC today that it will conduct a voluntary recall of the Fisher Price Rock n play in Australia," the consumer watchdog said in a statement. "The ACCC will work with Mattel to publish the recall as soon as possible." A recent investigation found 32 infants had died while using the sleeper since the product was introduced in 2009. "Infant fatalities have occurred in Rock 'N Play Sleepers after the infants rolled from their back to their stomach or side, while unrestrained or under other circumstances," the US consumer safety agency said. Australia's safe sleep guidelines state a baby should be placed on their back to sleep on a firm, clean and flat mattress with no loose bedding or other items nearby. A teenage boy has been charged over the sexual assault of a woman who was walking home from a train station in Logan, south of Brisbane. The 17-year-old boy allegedly followed the woman as she left Kingston station in December before he ran up behind her, sexually assaulted her and ran away. The woman continued walking when he allegedly confronted her again and assaulted her before she managed to break free and seek help at a nearby house. The teenager has been arrested and charged with three counts of sexual assault on Saturday following a public appeal earlier in the week. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 16) The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) said Monday 53 drivers and bus conductors nationwide tested positive for illegal drug use. The anti-drug agency conducted drug tests in 18 Metro Manila bus terminals as well as in terminals near their regional offices. PDEA Spokesperson Derrick Carreon, however, said these surprise tests are just initial findings and those who will test positive for drug use will still undergo confirmatory testing. "They will all be subjected to confirmatory tests. Meanwhile, 'yun pong mga nag-initial or presumptive positive na ito, kahit screening test man lang siya, we will not run the risk na sila ay magba-biyahe," Carreon told CNN Philippines. [Translation: They will all be subjected to confirmatory tests. Meanwhile, those who tested positive initially or presumptive positive, even if it is just a screening teat, we will not run the risk that they will be plying their routes.] Carreon said they have coordinated with the Land Transportation Office and the Department of Health to provide intervention programs for those drivers and bus conductors who tested positive. The Anti-Drunk and Drugged Driving Act of 2013 prohibits driving under the influence of illegal drugs. Carreon added the bus operators may also be held liable. "This is without prejudice to any sanctions imposed by the company if they have an internal policy governing or attending to drug use among their employees," he explained. Today's Birthday April 14: American actress Abigail Breslin ( 1996 - ) Abigail Breslin credits her avoidance of the dreaded curse of being a child star to one thing - her mum. The actress says her mother Kim always taught her to stand up for herself and worked hard to make her feel like a normal child - despite the fact she was nominated for an Oscar by the time she was 10. Born on April 14 1996 in New York City, Breslin starred in her first commercial at just three years old. She graduated to the silver screen at the age of six when she landed a role as Mel Gibson's daughter in the science fiction film Signs. From there she starred in Raising Helen and scored a cameo in The Princess Diaries 2. But it was her role as aspiring beauty pageant contestant Olive Hoover in the 2006 critically acclaimed Little Miss Sunshine that shot her to stardom and earned her an Academy Award nomination. While she missed out on the Oscar, she did take home a Critics Choice award for her performance. The next year she made her stage debut alongside Cate Blanchett and Natalie Portman in the play Right You Are (If You Think You Are) in New York. She followed it up with a performance in Definitely Maybe opposite Ryan Reynolds. In 2008 a role in Nim's Island with Jodie Foster continued her career while her 2009 performance in My Sister's Keeper garnered positive reviews. A slew of other roles followed, culminating in her 2013 role in August: Osage County alongside Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts. In more recent years Breslin has worked in television in the show Scream Queens and in the made-for-TV remake of Dirty Dancing in 2017. She's also dedicated her time to be an advocate for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence after revealing she herself was once in a violent relationship. "I'm a domestic violence and sexual assault survivor. While I now am no longer with my abuser, in the aftermath of what happened to me I developed complex PTSD," she once revealed in an emotional post to Instagram. "Never feel like you are less than because you have a condition that you didn't cause. You are still beautiful, you are still important, you are still WORTHY." More than six million flu shots will be free for Australians aged over 65, indigenous people, pregnant women and those at a greater medical risk of contracting the virus. Health Minister Greg Hunt on Sunday announced a nationwide distribution of the influenza vaccine, available for eligible people at no cost through the federal government-funded National Immunisation Program. Mr Hunt said it's important Australians get vaccinated each year as the virus changes from year to year. "Clinical experts have advised that optimal protection against influenza occurs within the first three to four months following vaccination," he said. "Getting vaccinated from mid-April allows protection during the peak influenza transmission period, from around June to September in most parts of Australia." Pregnant women can receive their free vaccine at any stage of their pregnancy to protect themselves and their unborn baby or babies. An enhanced vaccine will again be made available for people aged 65 or over, given 75 per cent of influenza-associated deaths in 2018 occurred within that age bracket, according to government figures. The NIP provides free vaccines for eligible people against 17 vaccine-preventable diseases including influenza, hepatitis B, whooping cough, measles and the recent addition of meningococcal ACWY for adolescents. The immunisation rate for five-year-old Aussies is 94.67 per cent, nearing the herd immunity rate of 95 per cent, Mr Hunt said. He encouraged those over the age of six months to get vaccinated for the 2019 flu season. A record 11 million Aussies got a flu jab in 2018. AUSTRALIANS ELIGIBLE FOR THE FREE 2019 INFLUENZA VACCINE - People aged 65 years and over (enhanced vaccine) - Pregnant women - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged six months and older - People aged six months or older with certain medical conditions which put them at risk of severe influenza Bill Shorten is promising states he'll guarantee them more health funding, putting in an extra $2.8 billion above what the coalition will do. Labor argues the coalition has ripped up the 50/50 funding agreement, meaning public hospitals will lose $2.8 billion from now until 2025. Mr Shorten is promising to put all that money back in. "As part of the Better Hospitals Fund, Labor will negotiate a new agreement with the states and territories to deliver more funding for public hospitals," Mr Shorten said on Sunday. "Under the Liberals and Nationals, one in four Australians who present to an emergency department are not seen on time." Mr Shorten will address a NSW volunteer rally in Burwood on Sunday, in the Liberal-held seat of Reid. The Labor leader has visited Reid several times already, as Labor bids to win the seat from retiring MP Craig Laundy. The rally will hear from Mr Shorten and deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek about their plans to lift wages, tackle power prices and deal with climate change. "Come along and hear Bill Shorten's vision for Australia, a fair go for Australia, not just the top end of town," the rally's website says. Both Mr Morrison and Mr Shorten lost candidates on Saturday, with three Liberals in safe Labor seats dropping out due to constitutional eligibility concerns. Labor candidate for Curtin, pro-Palestine campaigner Melissa Parke, quit after it was reported she said she saw a pregnant refugee forced to drink bleach at a Gaza checkpoint. "(This is) it's about a candidate who has decided she doesn't want to be a distraction," Mr Shorten told reporters. Protesters will gather at US embassies and consulates around the world to protest the extradition of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange. Australian-born Assange was arrested on Thursday after Ecuador withdrew his asylum and he is now in British custody. He is facing an extradition request from the United States on charges of conspiring to break into a Pentagon computer system. Protesters in Melbourne will gather at the US consulate on St Kilda Road on Sunday. Activists are also expected to gather at consular offices and embassies in Sydney, Auckland, Wellington, Dublin and Toronto. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to focus on creating jobs for young people as he hits the campaign trail in Queensland. Mr Morrison is set to start his day in Brisbane on Sunday, five weeks ahead of Australians going to the polls on May 18. Earlier in the month, the government promised to create up to 80,000 new apprenticeships through a $525 million skills package Labor has pledged $1 billion for TAFE and apprentices, ensuring 150,000 Australians will go to TAFE with no upfront fees, and an additional 100,000 apprenticeships. Mr Morrison spent the opening days of the campaign in his home city of Sydney, looking for votes in both Liberal and Labor-held seats. He watched champion mare Winx's swan song at Randwick on Saturday after greeting people in Strathfield, which is in the electorate of Reid. Mr Morrison also announced his plan to give a $42 million boost to mental health services for young and indigenous people. Now the prime minister will turn his attention to Queensland, considered a crucial battleground in the election. The coalition is desperate to hold on in about 10 marginal seats. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has a 1.7 per cent margin in Dickson, which looms as one of the most high-profile contests. The failed prime ministerial challenger apologised on Saturday for accusing his Labor opponent Ali France of using her disability as an excuse not to live in the electorate. "I apologise to Ms France for my comments yesterday," he tweeted after a fierce backlash, led by the opposition. Scott Morrison is campaigning in Queensland where he needs to save a collection of marginal seats, while Bill Shorten is rallying the troops in Sydney. The prime minister flew into Brisbane on Saturday night as he bids to save the coalition's 21 seats out of 30 available in the northern state. That includes Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton's seat of Dickson, which has a margin of about 1.6 per cent. Mr Dutton apologised on Saturday for accusing his Labor opponent Ali France of using her disability "as an excuse" for not moving into the electorate. Ms France lost her leg protecting her son from a car crash and spent more than $100,000 making her home, which is just outside Dickson, wheelchair accessible. Mr Morrison and Mr Shorten have spent the past two days in Sydney campaigning, but will be in different states for day four. Labor leader Mr Shorten will address a NSW volunteer rally in Burwood on Sunday, in the Liberal-held seat of Reid. Mr Shorten has visited Reid several times already, as Labor attempts to win the seat after Liberal MP Craig Laundy retired. The rally will hear from Mr Shorten and deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek about their plans to lift wages, tackle power prices and deal with climate change. It's also expected that Mr Shorten will promise more health funding, restoring the money public hospitals lost when the 50/50 funding agreement with states ended. Both Mr Morrison and Mr Shorten lost candidates on Saturday, with three Liberals in safe Labor seats dropping out due to constitutional eligibility concerns. "There's a much higher awareness of section 44 issues," Mr Morrison told reporters on Saturday. "I think what this demonstrates is just the party doing its job of proper further vets and checks before we get to close of nominations." Labor candidate for Curtin pro-Palestine campaigner Melissa Parke, quit after it was reported she said she saw a pregnant refugee forced to drink bleach at a Gaza checkpoint. "(This is) it's about a candidate who has decided she doesn't want to be a distraction," Mr Shorten told reporters. Labor has rejected the coalition's claim that its promise to improve Medicare's coverage of cancer services is missing $6 billion in funding. "That claim is so wrong it's scary," shadow treasurer Chris Bowen told ABC Radio National on Monday. Labor has pledged to spend $2.3 billion on its cancer plan if it wins the election, which includes making a new fully bulk-billed Medicare item available for cancer treatments. But Health Minister Greg Hunt says Labor has not offered enough to cover the fees of many cancer specialists, based on the charges recommended by the Australian Medical Association. "What they seem not to understand is that would represent a 90 per cent cut in some cases for the fees that specialists would receive," he told ABC Radio National. "There is not a provider in Australia that would accept that." Ensuring specialists get the fees recommended would add $6.8 billion to Labor's plan, the minister said. But Mr Bowen says Labor has a rigorous costing process. "All our policies, as always, are costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office, independent of the opposition, and then go through a panel of eminent Australians to make sure the methodology is correct." He said oncologists were welcome to make a judgment about what services they provide and how they charge for them. But Australians were also entitled to ask oncologists whether the patients would have out-of-pocket costs and find another doctor if they do. Labor would set up a new, bulk-billing only Medicare item, which is not currently available. The two major parties are also at odds about hospital funding, as healthcare shapes up as a key battleground for the May 18 poll. Mr Hunt maintains the government has increased the money it has provided to hospitals every year it has been in office. But Labor says those increases are due to the country's growing population and argues the government has cut hospital funding by not following a 10-year plan laid out by the Gillard government. On a less contentious front, the government has revealed some Australians will no longer need to travel overseas and shell out up to $500,000 to receive a novel cancer treatment that helps the body's own immune system fight the disease. CAR-T therapy Kymriah will be made available to Australian children and young adults with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia following a recommendation by the Medical Services Advisory Committee. It will be exclusively offered through public hospitals, meaning it will be funded through the National Health Reform Agreement. Protests against South Korea's abortion laws have become increasingly vocal in recent years More than a quarter of a century after the first of her three abortions -- illegal in South Korea -- Lim is still haunted by her sense of shame. She was 24 and had a boyfriend, but neither was ready to wed. And it was 1993, when sex before marriage was still very much a taboo in the conservative country. Keeping the baby would have meant living with stigma, even if the couple married after the birth, so she chose an illegal abortion. The country's constitutional court is due to rule Thursday on the legality of the ban, which campaigners say is unfairly applied and targets mostly young, unwed women. "I still remember the disgusted look on the doctor's face -- he kept on clicking his tongue and shook his head," Lim told AFP. "When I told him it hurt when he inserted a medication, he said it shouldn't hurt me because I was a woman who had already 'done everything'. It was humiliating." Lim chose an illegal abortion when she became pregnant in 1993 when sex before marriage was still very much a taboo in conservative South Korea Fast forward 26 years, and South Korea remains one of the few developed economies that still bans abortions except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother's health is in danger. Women who undergo the procedure can be jailed for a year and fined, while doctors who carry out terminations can be given two years in prison. The law is widely flouted and rarely results in prosecutions, but campaigners say it leaves young women facing being unable to pay for terminations, unsafe procedures, and social isolation. When Lim had her second and third abortions -- as a married woman with two children -- she says her experience was dramatically different, with pleasant medical staff and her mother even accompanying her to the clinic. "All I had to say was that my husband and I already had two kids," she said. "The doctor was suddenly very caring -- he said to me: 'Of course, we totally understand'." Statistics show that as recently as 2011, most South Korean women who had abortions were married, but rights groups say the majority of those charged for undergoing the procedure have been unmarried, including teenagers. Statistics show that as recently as 2011, most South Korean women who had abortions were married, but rights groups say the majority of those charged for undergoing the procedure have been unmarried, including teenagers They also say many women whose relationships are breaking up fear their husbands or partners could report their past terminations to authorities. In 2017, a high school student told a rally in Seoul she had been forced to end her education after having an abortion. "My teacher told me if I don't leave school, he'd report me to the legal authorities," she said. "He said I'd committed a sin because I fell pregnant as a student." South Korea comes near the bottom of many OECD gender equality tables and Ryu Min-hee, the lead counsel on the constitutional court case, said that as long as women cannot make their own choices about pregnancy and parenthood, the country "won't be able to establish an equal society in its true sense". - Secrets and stigma - The day she had her abortion in 1993, Lim -- who asked for her forename not to be used to protect her anonymity -- stayed in a cheap motel room by herself. She rested there as long as she could and then headed home to her parents, acting as if nothing had ever happened. To this day, aside from her husband, no one in Lim's life knows about it. South Korea's constitutional court is due to rule Thursday on the legality of the ban, which campaigners say is unfairly applied and targets mostly young, unwed women "I didn't dare to share it with anyone," she said. "My parents would have been very ashamed of me. "This was an era where people would count the (pregnancy) months when a baby was born to figure out whether the baby was conceived before or after the wedding -- and call the mother promiscuous if the child was born too fast." Religious belief is widespread in South Korea, and some of its evangelical mega-churches are among those leading the charge against overturning the ban. "There is nothing in the world that comes before the life of a human being," a group of mostly Catholic professors said in a statement last year. But Lim says her own experience demonstrates how South Korea's pro-lifers have been selective about which lives matter. "If the goal of this abortion law is really to protect all lives, then I should have been shamed for undergoing my second and third abortions, as well as my first," she said. "I just hope no one has to go through what I had to go through in that motel room." Algerian security forces used water cannon against students protesting in Algiers Algerian lawmakers appointed a regime stalwart as interim president Tuesday, dismaying protesters seeking sweeping change after the resignation of Abdelaziz Bouteflika who ruled the country for two decades. The selection of upper house speaker Abdelkader Bensalah as Algeria's first new president in 20 years followed constitutional rules but went against the demands of demonstrators pushing for him and other top politicians to stand down. Bensalah, a trusted ally of Bouteflika, later pledged to organise a "transparent" presidential election within 90 days as laid out by the constitution. "We -- citizens, the political class and state institutions -- must work to ensure the conditions, all conditions, are right for a transparent and regular presidential poll," Bensalah, 77, said in a televised address. Opposition parties refused to back the appointment of the establishment insider and boycotted the session, as thousands of students protested against him in Algiers. "They haven't heard us, we will continue to march!" they shouted, clutching hand-written placards and Algerian flags. Algeria's interim president, upper house speaker Abdelkader Bensalah, is an establishment insider For the first time in seven weeks police in the capital fired tear gas to try to disperse the protest by students, who were also hit with water cannon. "Peaceful, peaceful," they chanted, raising their arms in the air as they were surrounded by police. The students were echoing calls made Friday -- in the first weekly mass protest since Bouteflika announced his departure after losing the military's support -- when Algerians demanded regime insiders be excluded from the political transition. "Bensalah, Bouteflika, it's the same thing!" said 20-year-old Roumaissa, an Algerian flag draped around her shoulders during Tuesday's student protest. Ahead of Bensalah's appointment, an editorial in pro-government daily El Moudjahid suggested he should step aside from the presidential post. He is "not tolerated by the citizen movement, which demands his immediate departure," or by the opposition and various political groups in both houses of parliament, the newspaper said. - 'Wealth of Algeria' - Algerian students, draped in national flags, protest Abdelkader Bensalah's appointment as interim president Three men in particular have drawn demonstrators' ire: Bensalah, the head of the constitutional council Tayeb Belaiz and prime minister Noureddine Bedoui. The protest movement is calling for a new transitional framework that is committed to deep reforms and organising free elections. Human Rights Watch said Bouteflika's departure is "at most a first step in ending autocratic rule." "During any transitional phase, authorities should fully respect the rights of Algerians to speak, assemble and associate with one another," the watchdog said in a statement. Algerians of all ages have rallied since late February against Bouteflika, who resigned a week ago after efforts to appease demonstrators proved fruitless. Facing endemic unemployment, young Algerians hope the protest movement can ultimately improve their prospects. "It must change. Today, young people in Algeria are without a future," said Yassine, a 21-year-old studying technology. Although Bouteflika's resignation was celebrated by demonstrators, they have remained firm in pushing for a wider overhaul of the political system. Rabea, a physics teacher, said the country's youth are "the wealth of Algeria". "It's them who will make the future of the country, they must be listened to," she said. Attorney General Bill Barr appears before Congressional panel amid storm over summary of Mueller report US President Donald Trump's justice chief said Tuesday his review of the two-year Russian meddling investigation is on schedule and a redacted version of the report could be released by next week. Attorney General Bill Barr repeated his refusal however to give Congress the full, unaltered report -- including crucial secret testimony -- despite the threat of a subpoena. In his first public remarks since declaring President Donald Trump cleared of conspiracy to collude with Russia and obstruction of justice, Barr said his office was still editing out sensitive materials in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's final report. Barr said Mueller and his team did not review his March 24 summary of the long-awaited report's conclusions, which allowed Trump to declare "complete and total exoneration." Since then US media has reported that some of Mueller's staff took issue with Barr's conclusions clearing Trump. Barr has come under heavy pressure to hand over the entire 400-page report to Congress, where Democrats are seeking to find if there was evidence of impeachable wrongdoing by the president. "Within a week I will be in a position to release the report to the public," Barr told the House Appropriations Committee. He made clear though that he was not prepared to release the entire report to either the public or Congress. "I don't intend at this stage to send the full unredacted report to the committee," he said, referring to the House Judiciary Committee, which last week threatened the attorney general with a subpoena. - Potentially damning - Barr said his staff were in the process of editing out "sensitive" details -- grand jury testimony, intelligence, information involving ongoing investigations and information on "peripheral" subjects of the investigation who have not been charged. That includes the most crucial and potentially damning information Democrats seek: testimony and documents from Mueller's grand jury, a panel of citizens convened to develop and hear the evidence and depose key witnesses behind closed doors. Grand jury evidence is usually kept secret unless a prosecutor ultimately decides to level charges in the case, and Barr has maintained that the law prevents him from releasing it. Special Counsel Robert Mueller walks in Washington after attending church on March 24, 2019, only days after he delivered his report on Russian influence in the 2016 US presidential election to the Attorney General William Barr Democrats argue that Congress, in its constitutional responsibility to enforce the law against the president, has the right to review any evidence against him of wrongdoing, even that of a grand jury. Democratic Representative Jerry Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Barr must had over the document. "Congress is -- as a matter of law -- entitled to each of the categories AG Barr proposed to redact from the Special Counsel's report," Nadler said Tuesday. "Full release of the report to Congress is consistent with both congressional intent and the interests of the American public." "We still have not heard from the attorney general," he added. - More questions - Barr's March 24 four-page summary raised as many questions as it resolved. He said that Mueller's investigation found no evidence of conspiracy by the Trump campaign to collude with Russians during the 2016 presidential election. He also said Mueller "did not draw a conclusion - one way or the other" on whether Trump's actions obstruction, ruling that the evidence was insufficient to establish that the president had committed a crime. But one quote from Mueller's conclusions that Barr revealed suggested a different view on obstruction. The special counsel wrote that "while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." Since then media reports cite unnamed Mueller staff saying that Barr downplayed the obstruction evidence they presented. Barr's own stance before he was chosen by Trump to be attorney general -- that Mueller had no legal grounds to investigate Trump for obstruction -- has also drawn questions about how he reached his conclusion. Indian Christian nuns and Muslim supporters protest in September 2018 as they demand the arrest of Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who is accused of raping a nun, outside the High Court in Kochi in the southern Indian state of Kerala Police on Tuesday charged an Indian bishop with repeatedly raping a nun at a rural convent in a case that has cast a new shadow on the Roman Catholic church's global sex abuse crisis. Franco Mulakkal was charged with raping the nun several times between 2014 and 2016, K. Subash, police deputy superintendent in the district of the southern state of Kerala where the investigation was carried out, told AFP. The bishop also faces charges of unlawful detention, unnatural sex and abuse of authority. Mulakkal -- who faces a maximum punishment of life imprisonment -- has vociferously denied the allegations. The police report backing the charges ran to more than 100 pages and contained statements from nuns, priests and other bishops, media reports said. The victim filed a complaint in June last year, but police only started formal questioning in September as fury over the case mounted. In a rare public show of dissent within the church five nuns staged days of protests with dozens of supporters to force authorities to take the allegations seriously. Mulakkal was arrested in October before being released on bail. Senior members of the church in the southern state have supported the 55-year-old bishop, however, and he was cheered when he returned to his diocese. - Truth the only weapon - Sexual abuse by clergy and the failure to take action has mired the Roman Catholic Church in scandal across the world in recent years. In February, Pope Francis publicly addressed the sexual abuse of nuns by clerics for the first time, insisting the Vatican takes seriously reports of sexual abuse and the "sexual slavery" of nuns. Mulakkal is accused of repeatedly assaulting the nun from the Missionaries of Jesus order at the St Francis Mission in Kerala. The bishop was the head of the order. Speaking to AFP, Sister Anupama Kelamangalath, one of the five nuns who protested outside Kerala's High Court, said they had sought to draw attention to Church authorities who were misusing positions of power. The sister, from the Jalandhar diocese in the state, said she was relieved and delighted at the charges. "We were able to achieve this despite stiff opposition from all sides. We had no-one on our side to fight for us, but Christ." She insisted the protests were not against the church but aimed "at certain figures who misused the holy powers vested in them," she added. "Other than truth as our weapon, we never had anything else on our side." She told how repeated approaches to senior church officials were ignored. "When they realised that we wouldn't back down, they had us transferred and then made false cases against our families," she said. These included allegations they had made death threats against the accused bishop. "We were then left with no option but to approach the police and register a case against the bishop. What else could we do?" Police say they are looking into other cases of abuse of nuns and allegations that four Kerala priests blackmailed women during confession to force them to have sex. Christians -- overwhelmingly Catholic -- are the third-largest religious group in India. Around 80 percent of the country's 1.3 billion population is Hindu, followed by a sizeable Muslim minority. Japan has deployed F-35As, each of which costs over 10 billion yen ($90 million) to replace the ageing F-4 fighter jet A Japanese F-35A stealth fighter jet with one pilot on board disappeared off the radar while on a training mission over the Pacific late Tuesday, the defence ministry said. The fighter jet went missing around 7:30 pm (1030 GMT) as it was flying some 135 kilometres (84 miles) east of Misawa, northeastern Japan, a ministry spokeswoman said. The plane lost contact about 30 minutes after taking off from Misawa Air Base with three other aircraft. It was not immediately clear if the aircraft had crashed, Defence Minister Takeshi Iwaya told reporters. "First we are trying our best to carry out search and rescue operations," Iwaya said. "And then we will do our best to probe the cause," he said, adding that Japan's 12 remaining F-35A fighters will be grounded for the time being. The fate of the pilot was also unclear, a ministry spokesman said. "A total of eight airplanes were sent to the area, but we have not received any information about the fighter," the spokesman said. "We will continue our search and rescue operations all through the night." The Self-Defence Forces and coastguard separately dispatched vessels to carry out rescue operations, he added. Japan is deploying F-35As, each of which costs more than 10 billion yen ($90 million), to replace the ageing F-4 fighter jet. An 80-member squadron of the stealth fighters was just formed last month at the base, according to Kyodo News. Standard Chartered agreed to pay $1.1 billion to settle US and British charges it processing transactions that violated US sanctions on Iran and for having weak anti-money laundering oversight Standard Chartered will pay $1.1 billion to settle charges it processed transactions that violated US sanctions on Iran and flouted anti-money laundering requirements, US and British regulators announced Tuesday. The British bank moved through hundreds of millions of dollars of US transactions from Iran and other sanctioned countries, said US Treasury officials, who were joined in the action by other federal and state agencies. Britain's Financial Conduct Authority -- which worked with the US bodies -- punished the bank for doing little to detect and counter the laundering of funds that may have come from crimes or which could have been used to finance terrorism. "Standard Chartered's oversight of its financial crime controls was narrow, slow and reactive," said FCA Director of Enforcement and Market Oversight Mark Steward, who said the fine would have been "even higher" if the bank had not cooperated with the probes. The British portion of the fine amounted to 102.2 million ($133.7 million). A statement from the bank described the violations as "historical," adding that the "vast majority" of the problems predated 2012 and that none occurred since 2014. "The circumstances that led to today's resolutions are completely unacceptable and not representative of the Standard Chartered I am proud to lead today," said Standard Chartered Group Chief Executive Bill Winters. "Fighting financial crime is central to what we do and who we are; we do not tolerate misconduct or lax controls and we will continue to root out any issues that threaten the trust we have built over more than 160 years." - Blindly accepting deposits? - The FCA listed a number of flagrant instances in which the bank's money laundering controls fell short. In one case, the Dubai branch opened an account for a customer with 3 million UAE Dirham ($815,000) in cash, apparently without investigating the source of the funds. The bank also did not sufficiently question a customer who exported a commercial product with potential military application to 75 countries, including two that had armed conflicts or where conflict was likely, the FCA said. The penalties also cover some $600 million in US transactions from 2008 to 2014 that originated at Standard Chartered's London and Dubai offices and went through its US branch, the New York State Department of Financial Services said in a statement. US regulators said a majority of the problem transactions violated US sanctions on Iran, with a smaller number involving Syria, Sudan, Cuba and Burma. The US Treasury Department said the agreement requires the bank to conduct regular risk assessments and provide ongoing sanctions compliance training. Other US bodies joining the agreement included the Federal Reserve and the Department of Justice, which extended a previously-written deferred prosecution agreement with the bank for two years. "Global financial institutions serve as the first line of defense against money laundering and the financing of terrorist activities and those that fail to foster a strong compliance culture will be held accountable," said Linda Lacewell, acting superintendent of the New York agency. UN envoy Ghassan Salame was forced to postpone a national conference aimed at holding elections in Libya after forces under commander Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive to take Tripoli The UN Security Council will hold urgent closed-door consultations on Wednesday on the crisis in Libya, where fighting has derailed UN-led efforts to prepare for elections. UN envoy Ghassan Salame will brief the council on his decision to postpone a national conference aimed at drawing up an election roadmap, diplomats said. Thousands of people have fled Tripoli after forces under the command of Khalifa Haftar, who controls part of eastern Libya, launched an offensive last week to take the capital. "We cannot ask people to take part in the conference during gunfire and air strikes," Salame said Tuesday in announcing the postponement of the conference that was due to open on Sunday. Tripoli is controlled by a UN-backed unity government, but its authority is not recognized by a rival administration in the east, allied with Haftar. Britain and Germany, which holds the council presidency, called for the meeting a day after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an immediate halt to the fighting. Oil-rich Libya has been rocked by violent power struggles between an array of armed groups since the NATO-backed overthrow of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011. Rival leaders agreed last year to hold elections before December 10, 2018 under a French plan, but that vote never materialized. The national conference, which had been scheduled for April 14-16 in the central city of Ghadames, aimed to fix dates for legislative and presidential elections, and work towards a new constitution. White House advisor Stephen Miller is driving president trump's hard-line anti-immigrtion stance Stephen Miller may have been denounced by fellow Republicans and his own family, but the White House anti-immigration ideologue has the one ear that counts: President Donald Trump's. Miller's influence was clear this week with the sweeping shakeup of the Department of Homeland Security, including the ouster of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, amid Trump's frustration at its failure to halt hundreds of thousands of Central American migrants from entering the country. The 33-year-old, self-avowed political provocateur now finds himself in charge of delivering on Trump's promise to stem uncontrolled immigration -- legal and illegal -- by whatever means available. That could entail considering legally-problematic measures like ending asylum or restarting forcible separations of migrant families, according to reports, although Trump said Tuesday he is not considering returning to the contentious practice. Equally controversially, it could also mean the eventual construction of the multi-billion-dollar southern border wall that was central to Trump's campaign, using Pentagon funds earmarked for other projects. - From liberal family to far right - Stephen Miller is one of President Donald Trump's closest White House advisors The hard-charging, consciously controversial, ever argumentative Miller has bonded closely with Trump over their shared opposition to immigration. Raised in a liberal Jewish family in cosmopolitan Los Angeles, he turned sharply against immigration and multiculturalism as a high school teen. He developed a core conviction that refugees and other immigrants threaten American culture and, as a rule, align with liberal Democrats. As a political science student at Duke University he was a polemicist and a firebrand, attacking Hispanics, Muslims, feminists and anyone tied to Democrats to spark anger and debate. He associated with leaders of the budding white supremacy movement -- though he has kept a physical, if not ideological distance from the movement. As a congressional staffer he made his mark in 2013, helping mastermind the defeat of a bipartisan Democrat-Republican immigration bill that would have, with substantial public support, opened a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants who had been in the US for years and even decades. - Presidential campaign - No caption That success made him a valuable addition to Trump's presidential campaign in 2016. Trump made shutting down the US borders a central promise of his candidacy, and Miller, as speechwriter and sometimes warmup act for Trump on the campaign trail, fell into the position of crafting the details. They were a good fit: like Trump, Miller takes pride in rhetorical bomb-throwing, trolling the left -- what he calls generating "constructive controversy." When Trump took office, Miller helped design a ban on Muslim arrivals -- a move that was ruled illegal in courts several times, until it was forcibly recast. And he provided Trump the arguments for a campaign to lock out the Guatemalans, Hondurans and Salvadorans crossing the southern border -- arguing that they are made up of rapists, murderers, human and drug traffickers and gang members. "Thousands of Americans die year after year after year because of threats crossing our southern border," Miller says. Although such arguments are often contradicted by evidence, he is an absolutist on the border. "You cannot conceive of a nation without a strong, secure border," he said in an interview earlier this year. "It is fundamental and essential to the idea of sovereignty and national survival to have control over who enters and doesn't enter the country." - Unpopular across party lines - Miller doesn't try hard to convince others of his views. He has just one audience: Trump, whom he has called a "political genius." His sway over his boss was already evident in January 2018, when he persuaded the president to renege on signing bipartisan immigration legislation. Republicans lashed out at Miller directly for killing a painstakingly-crafted deal. "As long as Stephen Miller is in charge of negotiating immigration, we are going nowhere. He's been an outlier for years," Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, has said. His stance has made the slim, prematurely balding Miller an unpopular figure in deeply liberal Washington, where he has been verbally assailed in restaurants. After one bartender made a nasty gesture at him, the Washington Post wrote, Miller threw out $80 worth of sushi takeout because he feared it had been tainted. More seriously, his stance had earned him the ire of his own family and the Jewish community. His uncle David Glosser wrote last year of "dismay and increasing horror" over Miller's immigration views, which "repudiate the very foundation of our family's life in this country." Miller is descended from refugees who arrived in the US in 1903 after fleeing violent anti-Jewish pogroms in what is now Belarus. "Honestly, Mr Miller, you've set back the Jewish contribution to making the world spiritually whole," childhood rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels said in a sermon last year, "through your arbitrary division of these desperate people." David Malpass walks to the World Bank on his first day as the new president of the global lender Newly-installed World Bank President David Malpass spent his first day at the global lender Tuesday hammering home the message that the most urgent issue facing the bank is addressing global poverty. President Donald Trump's controversial pick to lead the bank appeared eager to distance himself from his past attacks on the institution and stressed the support he has received from developing nations and from staff. The "clear mission and focus" of the World Bank is "alleviating and eliminating extreme poverty," as well as boosting "shared prosperity," he told a small group of reporters. "The mission of the bank is urgent," he said. "There are still 700 million people in extreme poverty and that's 700 million too many." In another surprise from a Trump administration official, he acknowledged that climate change represents a "key problem" that the World Bank has a role in addressing, especially since it can impact poverty in developing nations. And he said he is concerned about slowing global growth which is "a key part of meeting goals on poverty, and shared prosperity." In Trump's Treasury, Malpass has called the international financial institutions' lending practices "corrupt" and complained about financing to China and other relatively well-off countries that he says should have graduated from the institutions. And his nomination to lead the bank was roundly criticized by many economists and former officials from the sector, including one Republican who said he would be a "disastrous, toxic choice." But in the end he was the only choice, as no other World Bank member nominated a candidate. Malpass, who spoke to many developing country leaders and officials as part of the selection process, including China, told reporters he was "heartened by breadth of support for my candidacy and the World Bank mission." He met with World Bank staff early Tuesday and was surrounded by well-wishers. - Role for China - "I want to listen very much to developing countries in meeting the goals of the bank," he said. As for China, he noted that the agreement to increase funding for the World Bank, which he was instrumental in negotiating, calls for annual lending to Beijing and to other middle income countries, to decline "substantially." The country has lifted nearly a billion people out of poverty, which is a welcome example to other countries, Malpass said. And he stopped short of criticizing China's "belt and road" initiative which has raised concerns about opaque lending to developing nations that sharply increases their debt levels. He said the focus needs to be on "high quality projects," providing transparency on debt levels and clear procurement rules with guardrails against corruption. "It's all part of getting good development done." China also has a growing role as a donor to the World Bank fund that provides low-cost loans to the poorest countries. Iraqi prime minister Adel Abdul Mahdi (pictured October 2018) said he had warned Washington and its ally Riyadh that blacklisting Iran's Revolutionary Guards would have "negative repercussions" Baghdad tried to stop Washington from blacklisting Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a "terrorist organisation," Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi said Tuesday, warning that the decision could further destabilise the region. The United States declared the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a "terrorist" group on Monday, prompting Tehran to quickly slap US troops with the same designation. "We tried to stop the American decision. We reached out to all sides, to the US and the Saudis," Abdel Mahdi said during a weekly press conference on Tuesday. He said he had warned Washington and its ally Riyadh that the move would have "negative repercussions in Iraq and in the region", but stopped short of denouncing it. Any escalation, he said, "would make us all losers". The premier has repeatedly said Baghdad would seek good ties with both Tehran and Washington, and the new sanctions have forced it to walk an even tighter rope. They mark the first time Washington has branded part of a foreign government a terrorist group, meaning anyone who deals with the Revolutionary Guard could face US prison. The IRGC was integral during Iraq's years of fighting against the Islamic State group, with the head of its foreign wing Major General Qassem Suleimani coordinating fighting across various Iraqi battlefields. Since the battle against IS ended in late 2017, Suleimani has continued to meet with Iraq's top political brass. Officially, the IRGC has no presence in Iraq, and it remains unclear whether these sanctions impact Iraqi figures, institutions or military groups. Washington reimposed tough sanctions on Tehran's energy and finance industries last year, but granted Iraq several temporary waivers to continue importing Iranian gas and electricity to prop up its frail power sector. At the same time, Iraq and Iran seem to be deepening trade ties, with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visiting Baghdad in March and Abdel Mahdi returning the visit at the weekend. The premier has also said he is planning trips soon to both Riyadh and Washington, Tehran's main foes. Canada called the US tariffs on its lumber "unfair" The World Trade Organization on Tuesday partially sided with Canada in a dispute over US anti-dumping duties on lumber imports, but approved a controversial method America uses for calculating tariffs. Canadian softwood lumber has been a source of conflict in US-Canadian trade for more than three decades. Ottawa brought its latest trade dispute with the United States over the US softwood lumber tariffs to the WTO in November 2017, after the US Commerce Department slapped duties of up to 18.19 percent on the price of Canadian lumber products. The administration of US President Donald Trump said the move was warranted after concluding that Canada had unfairly subsidised and dumped the product on the US market. Canada at the time described the tariffs as "unfair, unwarranted and deeply troubling", and challenged the US use of the so-called Differential Pricing Methodology in investigating alleged dumping. A panel established by the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body to rule on the matter agreed with Canada that in using that method of calculation, the US "acted inconsistently" with an international anti-dumping agreement. But it rejected a number of Canada's other arguments, including a charge that the US use of a practice called "zeroing" violated international trade rules. - Concession for 'zeroing' - The United States has repeatedly lost cases before the WTO over its use of "zeroing", which calculates the price of imports compared to the normal value in the United States to determine predatory pricing and which usually leads to higher duties being imposed. But in its ruling Tuesday, the WTO panel "agreed with the United States that such type of zeroing is permissible" in cases where targeted dumping is suspected. The repeated rulings by the WTO appeals body especially against the use of zeroing has been one of Washington's main complaints against the global trade body. It is one of the issues mentioned by Washington to justify its blocking of appointments of new judges to the appellate branch of a WTO dispute panel, which could force it to shut down by the end of this year. - Both sides see wins - Both Ottawa and Washington were quick to declare victory after Tuesday's ruling. "The WTO rules do not prohibit 'zeroing'," US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in a statement, stressing that "the United States never agreed to any such rule in the WTO negotiations, and never would." "WTO Appellate Body reports to the contrary are wrong, and reflect overreaching by that body," he said, hailing the WTO panel "for having the courage to stand up to the undue pressure that the Appellate Body has been putting on panels for many years." Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said she was "pleased to see that the WTO has found the United States did not follow the rules in calculating anti-dumping margins." But she added she was "concerned" by the zeroing ruling, noting that the practice had in past rulings "often been condemned." "We are now looking at next steps that Canada can take to challenge this including a possible appeal," she told reporters. Both sides have up to 60 days to appeal Tuesday's ruling, which would leave it up to the Appellate Body to determine the final outcome. Washington's move against Iran's Revolutionary Guards (pictured September 2018) is the first time that the United States has branded part of a foreign government a terrorist group Turkey on Tuesday condemned the US move to designate Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards a "terrorist group", saying the decision would create "instability" in the region. Washington's move against the Revolutionary Guards was the first time that the United States has branded part of a foreign government a terrorist group. "These kinds of decisions will pave the way for instability in our region," Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters in Ankara. The decision against the "official army of Iran... was incomprehensible," he said. He also criticised previous "one-sided" American sanctions against Iran and "pressure" on other countries by Washington to adhere to them. The Revolutionary Guards are the ideological arm of the country's military and deeply embedded in Iranian political and economic life. Turkey and Iran have been working to develop pragmatic relations with each other, particularly over the Syria conflict despite being on opposing sides. Tehran supports the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while Ankara has repeatedly called for his ousting and has provided assistance to opposition fighters. Cavusoglu added Turkey had itself opposed the Revolutionary Guards' actions in Syria. There have been growing tensions with the US and Turkey over multiple issues including American support to a Syrian Kurdish militia viewed as terrorists by Ankara but whom Washington relied on to spearhead the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria. Now the NATO allies are facing further strains and Turkey itself risks US sanctions over the push to buy Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems. The April 13, 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre, in which British troops opened fire on thousands of unarmed protesters, remains an enduring scar of British colonial rule in India A British minister said Tuesday there was an "active debate" in government about apologising for the killing of hundreds of Indian civilians, as India prepared to mark the 100th anniversary of the atrocity. The April 13, 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre, in which British troops opened fire on thousands of unarmed protesters, remains an enduring scar of British colonial rule in India. Colonial-era records show about 400 people died in the northern city of Amritsar when soldiers opened fire on men, women and children in an enclosed area, but Indian figures put the toll at closer to 1,000. Former British prime minister David Cameron described it as "deeply shameful" during a visit in 2013 but stopped short of an apology. In a debate on the subject in London on Tuesday, Foreign Office Minister Mark Field said the massacre was a "shameful episode in our history and one that we deeply regret to this day." He said: "It would not be appropriate for me, in the context of this particular debate, to apologise today, but I have found many of the speeches very very compelling and I will take up with the foreign secretary and number 10 Downing Street a sense that we perhaps need to do a little more than the very deep regrets that I have set out today." He said representatives from the British High Commission would visit the site to lay a wreath and that the government would also publicly acknowledge the centenary in Britain. A ceremony was due to take place at the site of the massacre on Saturday. Earlier Bob Blackman, the Conservative MP who organised the debate, also called for the British government to say sorry, "not just explaining away what happened, but apologising for our involvement and what was done in our name". US officials say a naturalized immigrant from Trinidad inspired by Islamic State planned to emulate the July 2016 truck attack in Nice, France which killed 86 A man who US police say planned to mow down pedestrians with a truck in an Islamic State-inspired "terrorist attack" was ordered held without bail Tuesday, one day after authorities announced his arrest. A federal judge in Greenbelt, Maryland near Washington accepted prosecutors' recommendations that Rondell Henry be detained based on evidence found on his cell phone and a history of unspecified substance abuse. "The defendant was planning a terrorist attack," prosecutors said in a court filing. "The defendant has made incriminating statements which are corroborated by independent evidence including video surveillance and items found in his cell phone," they said. A computer engineer who reportedly immigrated to the US from Trinidad and Tobago, Henry, 28, was arrested on March 28 at the National Harbor casino complex south of Washington for stealing a U-Haul van. In subsequent interviews, court documents alleged, he revealed plans "to conduct a vehicular attack similar to the 2016 truck attack in Nice, France," which left 86 dead and for which the Islamic State group claimed responsibility, the Justice Department alleged. According to a court affidavit, he told investigators he wanted to create "panic and chaos," the "same as what happened in France." He told investigators he had "hatred" for non-Muslims and wanted to emulate videos he watched of Islamist attacks abroad. The affidavit says that he stole the van on March 26 and over the next day drove it to several places in the Washington area, including Dulles International Airport, allegedly searching for a target for his attack. At the time his family in Germantown, Maryland, north of the US capital, had reported him missing and expressed concern for his "physical and emotional welfare." Eventually he drove to National Harbor, a riverside casino and convention center, but allegedly found crowds too thin at the time. After breaking into a boat and sleeping there overnight he was arrested the next morning while returning to the stolen van. Court statements suggested that police only suspected Henry of planning the attack after they arrested and interrogated him. "I was just going to keep driving and driving and driving. I wasn't going to stop," he allegedly told investigators. The Justice Department has only charged him with interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle, which carries up to 10 years in prison. He was not charged with any terror-linked offense or support of a terror group, charges normally set for people accused of allying with Islamic State. Algerian authorities have expelled Aymeric Vincenot, AFP's Algiers bureau chief Agence France-Presse bureau chief Aymeric Vincenot was expelled from Algeria on Tuesday after the authorities refused to renew his press accreditation for 2019. Vincenot, 45, who has been in post in Algiers since June 2017, had to depart the country after his residency permit ran out and a final police deadline to leave expired. Fabrice Fries, chairman of AFP, condemned his expulsion as "unacceptable". Vincenot's expulsion comes amid political tensions in Algeria and weeks of unprecedented protests, which forced president Abdelaziz Bouteflika first to abandon his hopes of running for a fifth term and then to resign on April 2. First launched on February 22, and fuelled mainly by the country's burgeoning youth, the huge protest movement is continuing despite the resignation of the long-time leader. Apart from seeking the departure of Bouteflika and his entourage, demonstrators are demanding the dismantling of Algeria's whole political system, which has ruled the country since independence from France in 1962. "This decision taken under the presidency of Bouteflika is unacceptable and it is out of the question for us, in these circumstances, to appoint a successor for the time being," said Fries, in a statement. "By depriving us of our bureau chief, this decision seriously affects our presence in Algeria, which is there to provide exhaustive and rigorous coverage of the historic events that are currently underway," said Fries. Vincenot's residency permit expired on February 28 and he had been left without press accreditation since the end of 2018. His request to renew his press card for 2019, which is a key requirement in order to obtain a residency permit, received no response from the Algerian authorities, despite AFP's best efforts to obtain an explanation. AFP is one of the world's leading news agencies, covering the news across the world 24 hours a day in text, video, photo and graphics in six languages. It is present in 151 countries, and it has had a bureau in Algeria since 1962. In its last report on press freedom, Reporters without Borders ranked Algeria in 136th place out of 180 countries. Algerian authorities have expelled Aymeric Vincenot, AFP's Algiers bureau chief Agence France-Presse bureau chief Aymeric Vincenot was expelled from Algeria on Tuesday after the authorities refused to renew his press accreditation for 2019. Vincenot, 45, who has been in post in Algiers since June 2017, had to depart the country after his residency permit ran out and a final police deadline to leave expired. His expulsion comes amid political tensions in Algeria and weeks of unprecedented protests, which forced president Abdelaziz Bouteflika first to abandon hopes of running for a fifth term and then to resign on April 2. First launched on February 22, and fuelled mainly by the country's burgeoning youth, the huge protest movement is continuing despite the resignation of the long-time leader. Apart from seeking the departure of Bouteflika and his entourage, demonstrators are demanding the dismantling of Algeria's whole political system which has ruled the country since independence from France in 1962. "This decision taken under the presidency of Bouteflika is unacceptable and it is out of the question for us, in these circumstances, to appoint a successor for the time being," said AFP chairman Fabrice Fries in a statement. "By depriving us of our bureau chief, this decision seriously affects our presence in Algeria, which is there to provide exhaustive and rigorous coverage of the historic events that are currently underway." - Historic events - Fries stressed that AFP is "not giving up" on covering the events in Algeria, highlighting that the agency had been given permission to send several special envoys to the country in recent weeks. AFP would also continue to request further visas for other journalists to cover the events, Fries said. Vincenot's residency permit expired on February 28 and he had been left without press accreditation since the end of 2018. His request to renew his press card for 2019, which is a key requirement in order to obtain a residency permit, received no response from the Algerian authorities, despite AFP's best efforts to obtain an explanation. Vincenot had to leave on Tuesday when the final deadline given to him by the police ran out. Algerian authorities have never officially informed the agency of their decision nor their reasons for expelling Vincenot. They simply outlined verbally various grievances to a senior member of AFP's management, during a visit to Algiers in March. These included the AFP bureau chief's coverage of the current events and the health of Bouteflika. But they failed to provide evidence of any wrongdoing, and Vincenot was not given any right of reply. AFP is one of the world's leading news agencies, covering the news across the world 24 hours a day in text, video, photo and graphics in six languages. It is present in 151 countries, and it has maintained a bureau in Algeria since 1962. - Solidarity - In its last report on press freedom, Reporters without Borders ranked Algeria in 136th place out of 180 countries. In late March, Reuters special envoy, Tunisian journalist Tarek Amara, was expelled from Algeria where he had spent several days covering the anti-government protests. The Algerian authorities gave no explanation for his expulsion. Reuters told AFP he had been given proper accreditation as a special envoy. Several weeks earlier, about 10 journalists were arrested and held for several hours after taking part in a protest to denounce the pressures and restrictions imposed by their bosses on their coverage of the demonstrations. Reporters without Borders condemned the arrests, and "the brutal intervention of the security forces." In his statement, Fries voiced AFP's "solidarity" with "Algerian journalists, who are bravely doing their work in particularly difficult conditions". A veteran journalist, Vincenot joined AFP in 2000 and has been sent on various missions by the agency especially in Africa. He was deputy bureau chief for central Africa, based in Libreville, from 2004-2008, a special envoy in Afghanistan in 2011, and was posted in Nairobi from 2012 to 2016 covering east African nations. AFP has some 1,500 journalists, serving media clients around the world. Clashes erupt between Algerian protesters and riot police during a demonstration in Algiers, the eighth Friday in a row that protestors have taken to the streets Clashes erupted in Algiers on Friday as protestors tossed back tear gas grenades and attacked police vehicles after a huge demonstration demanding the departure of figures close to ousted leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika, AFP journalists said. For the eighth Friday in a row, vast crowds marched through the Algerian capital pressing demands for Bouteflika's entourage to step down. While the massive demonstration was largely calm, tensions were noticeably higher than at previous rallies. Violence erupted at the end of the day when on edge of the rally several hundred youths resisted as police moved to break up the crowds outside the post office in central Algiers that has become an emblematic protest site. It was the first time such severe clashes have taken place in Algiers since the marches began in February demanding an end to Bouteflika's 20-year rule. Helmeted anti-riot police, dressed in black, managed to push back the protesters with tear gas and water cannon. A masked man holding a shotgun walks past a burning police vehicle during clashes between Algerian protesters and riot police in Algiers Young demonstrators responded by throwing stones and bottles, turning over large dumpsters to use as barricades. At least one police car was set alight, while another was raided by protesters who climbed on it and smashed the windows. - 'Troublemakers' blamed - Several protestors were slightly hurt, injured by stones or in the ensuing scuffles, or suffered the effects of tear gas. The police said 83 of its personnel were wounded, including four seriously hurt. It put the violence down to "delinquents" infiltrating the crowds, and said 108 people had been arrested. Other protestors stepped in to calm the tensions, with some kneeling in the streets, raising their hands in peace. As the crowd dispersed, protestors blamed "troublemakers" for the violence, also criticising the toughening stance by police, who have reduced the area in which the demonstrations are allowed. The crowds have rejected the holding of presidential elections on July 4, despite interim leader Abdelkader Bensalah pledging "transparent" polls. An Algerian riot policeman escorts a comrade amidst clashes with protesters in Algiers But the appointment of upper house speaker Bensalah as Algeria's first new president in 20 years has failed to meet the demands of demonstrators. Although the 77-year-old is barred under the constitution from running in the upcoming election, protesters have pushed for the close Bouteflika ally to step down. - 'Why vote?' - Students and magistrates have called for renewed rallies and marches in the capital and other cities across the North African country. "I'm not going to vote. What for?" asked Walid. For the first time since the anti-Bouteflika protest movement was launched in mid-February, police vehicles and forces earlier tried to block off access to the post office. But young protesters were undeterred. An Algerian youth draped in a national flag chants slogans while kneeling before riot police "We will be out in large numbers, very large. They don't know what's coming. They won't be able to do anything against us," said Yassine, 23. For Mahrez Bouich, a philosophy professor at the University of Bejaia, east of Algiers, "the July 4 election has already been rejected by the people, which also rejects Bensalah's nomination". The demonstrators argue that elections cannot be free and fair if they are held under the same judicial framework and institutions as those of the Bouteflika regime. Bensalah has received the implicit support from the army, a key powerbrokers whose chief General Ahmed Gaid Salah withdrew his backing for Bouteflika, prompting the president's resignation on April 2. But the general has defended keeping in place Algeria's existing institutions and warned against the "unrealistic slogans" of protesters aiming to sweep away the whole ruling system. Prime Minister Noureddine Bedoui, who served as interior minister until Bouteflika appointed him premier on March 11, has promised an independent electoral commission. But he too has been a target of protesters' ire. And candidates are not rushing to take part in a system rejected by the vast majority of Algerians. The country's long-marginalised opposition parties do not appear to be gearing up for polls either, particularly if they cannot guarantee the election will be free and fair. President Trump simply backed the exposure of information during the 2016 election, not the WikiLeaks organization itself, Vice President Mike Pence said US Vice President Mike Pence on Friday defended what some say is his boss Donald Trump's puzzling position over the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Repeated past praise for WikiLeaks from Trump was not "an endorsement," Pence told CNN. Republicans generally celebrated the capture of Assange, who had been taking shelter at Ecuador's London embassy for nearly seven years until British police took him into custody Thursday. But Trump's first reaction was dismissive, telling reporters "I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing." "I know nothing really about him," he said of Assange. This raised eyebrows because during his 2016 presidential campaign Trump repeatedly lauded and encouraged the hacking and information-dumping platform, which six years earlier had caused a massive scandal by publishing thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents. "I love WikiLeaks," he said on one occasion, as the platform leaked stolen emails that proved damaging to his opponent Hillary Clinton's campaign -- even though WikiLeaks is alleged to have been working in close coordination with Russian intelligence. Pence told CNN that Trump simply backed the exposure of information during the election, not the WikiLeaks organization itself. "I think the president always, as you and the media do, always welcomes information," Pence said. "But that was in no way an endorsement of an organization that we now understand was involved in disseminating classified information by the United States of America," he said. Other Republicans appear less satisfied with Trump's position on the drama over Assange, who faces extradition to the United States. "You need to talk to the president about his comments," Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr said. Nine of the victims of the mosque shootings were of Pakistani origin and one was posthumously given an award for bravery by Pakistan Thousands of Pakistanis clad in white gathered in the central city of Jhang Friday to make a human image of Christchurch's Al Noor mosque, where 50 people were killed by a white supremacist four weeks ago. Drone images showed worshippers standing in formation, their snow-white traditional shalwar kameez and prayer caps in stark contrast to the emerald green of a public field, as a second group formed the words "Islam is peace" nearby. Huge New Zealand and Pakistani flags were also displayed along with a giant banner which read: "Solidarity with the martyrs of Christchurch from Pakistan". The tribute was organised by the Muslim Institute, a non-government organisation aimed at promoting peace and stability in the Muslim world The tribute was organised by the Muslim Institute, a non-government organisation aimed at promoting peace and stability in the Muslim world, which also released the drone footage. Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian and self-avowed white supremacist, has been charged with 50 counts of murder and 39 of attempted murder after opening fire at the Linwood and Al Noor mosques on March 15. Nine of the victims were of Pakistani origin. One, Naeem Rashid, was posthumously given an award for bravery by Pakistan after he apparently tried to tackle the gunman before being shot. Tribute organisers praised the New Zealand government after what had been a "very tough time" for Muslims in the country -- especially Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Organisers praised the New Zealand government after what had been a "very tough time" for Muslims in the country Her response "not only soothed the wounds of Muslims but also assured them that Muslims in their country are safe," Sahibzada Sultan Ahmad Ali, a religious scholar and one of the organisers, told AFP. "We worked really hard to make this model," one participant, Noor Hassan, told AFP of the tribute. "It was so pleasant that we were ready to stand like this for the whole day," he added. Protesters gather in front of soldiers during a rally demanding a civilian body to lead the transition to democracy, outside the army headquarters in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on April 12, 2019 Sudan's envoy to the United Nations said Friday that a two-year transition period to civilian rule announced by the military council that seized power in the country could be shortened as protesters kept up their demands for change. Addressing the UN Security Council, Sudan's charge d'affaires Yasir Abdelsalam offered assurances that the military council would support an inclusive civilian-led government. "The (military) council will be the guarantor of a civilian government to be formed in collaboration with political forces and stakeholders. No party will be excluded," Abdelsalam told the council. "The transitional period could be shortened depending on developments on the ground and agreements between stakeholders." The military rulers who removed president Omar al-Bashir from office on Thursday have offered dialogue with all political groups on forming a civilian government. Protesters, who took to the streets months ago to demand an end to Bashir's rule, have kept up their demonstrations, denouncing an army coup and calling for civilian rule. The United States has called on Sudan's army to bring civilians in the government, while Britain's Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said that a two-year transition "is not the answer." "We need to see a swift move to an inclusive, representative, civilian leadership," Hunt said. - Credible transition - The Sudanese envoy said the military council was committed to leading a peaceful transition to civilian government and responding "to the Sudanese people's aspiration for change." Abdelsalam also said that the political upheaval in his country was a "domestic issue," indicating that the council should not intervene. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called Thursday for a transition in Sudan that meets the "democratic aspiration" of the Sudanese people. The council met behind closed doors to discuss the dramatic developments in Sudan, but decided to hold off on a response until its African counterpart -- the African Union Peace and Security Council -- meets on Sunday. Britain, Belgium, France, Germany and Poland, which had called for the meeting along with the United States, said they were ready to meet again, possibly on Monday. "We have to come to a credible and inclusive political process that will lead to the transition that we all want," said German Ambassador Christoph Heusgen. Bashir, who swept to power in a 1989 coup, was one of Africa's longest-serving presidents. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and war crimes. In Khartoum, the head of the council's political committee, Lieutenant General Omar Zain al-Abdin, confirmed that Bashir remained in custody, but said the council will never extradite him. Car horns sounded on the streets as jubilant crowds streamed out of their homes to cheer the exit of Ibn Ouf, considered as a regime insider Crowds of Sudanese waving flags and chanting "we toppled two presidents in two days" celebrated in the capital late Friday after the country's military council chief stepped down a day after he was sworn in. "We have done it, we have done it," shouted young men and women as they drove across Khartoum after General Awad Ibn Ouf announced his resignation on state television. On Thursday, he was sworn in as the chief of a ruling military council that replaced long-time president Omar al-Bashir, who was ousted by the army following months of deadly protests. Before quitting, Ibn Ouf appointed Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan as his successor, setting off a wave of jubilation across the city. Chants like 'It fell again, it fell again' reverberated across the capital's squares and neighbourhoods, onlookers said Car horns sounded on the streets as jubilant crowds streamed out of their homes to cheer the departure of Ibn Ouf, considered a regime insider and close aide of Bashir. Chants like "It fell again, it fell again" reverberated across the capital's squares and neighbourhoods, onlookers said. "This was our second uprising, first against Bashir and then against Ibn Ouf," said Mohamed, a protester, whistling and clapping in an upscale Khartoum neighbourhood. Dozens of members of a paramilitary group stood at the sidelines, many atop pick-up vehicles loaded with machine-guns, as cheering crowds drove past, witnesses said. Protest organisers however warned Burhan that if he failed to transfer powers to a civilian transitional government he would face their fury too Protest organisers however warned Burhan that if he failed to transfer powers to a civilian transitional government he would face their fury too. They called on Burhan to reverse decisions announced by Ibn Ouf such as cancelling the suspension of the constitution and also implored him to end the state of emergency and night-time curfew. - Crowds flock to demo - Thousands of protesters have massed outside the army headquarters in the capital since April 6. Dressed in white traditional clothes, men and women headed to the military complex on Friday to join thousands of others camped there Earlier on Friday, throngs of Sudanese chanting "it will fall again, it will fall again" flocked there to hunker down for a second night defying the curfew, witnesses said. Dressed in white traditional clothes, men and women headed to the military complex to join thousands of others camped there. "We did it once, we can do it again," said a protester, who had been at the site of the demonstration since Tuesday night. Since the appointment of Ibn Ouf as military council chief, the protesters had turned their anger against him. Thousands were again flocking to the sit-in site attempting to stay for a seventh night in a row, defying an army night-time curfew "We don't want Ibn Ouf, we don't want any military government," said one protester. "This entire group is from Bashir's regime. We want a civilian leader." Several soldiers were however seen chatting and mingling with protesters at the complex on Friday, witnesses said. As the evening approached, buses full of protesters headed to the protest site with plans to defy the curfew again, a witness told AFP. - 'Reject the announcement' - A mass of people flooded two bridges that connect the capital with suburbs. At the protest site itself thousands offered Friday prayers earlier in the day. Witnesses said the entire area reverberated with the sound of singing An imam dressed in a white robe with a Sudanese flag draped over his shoulder led the weekly prayer. "This is the first time that I'm coming here in response to calls that today's prayers will be performed here," said Hussein Mohamed, an elderly man who came to the site from Omdurman, Khartoum's twin city across the Nile. Groups of Coptic Christians served food and drinks to worshippers ahead of their prayers. Many offered mats to protesters who had been camping at the site since last night. "Protesters reject the announcement, protesters reject the announcement," chanted women, raising their hands in the air, after praying under a makeshift tent at the complex. Witnesses said the entire area reverberated with the sound of singing. Thousands of protesters have massed outside the army headquarters in the capital since April 6 Protesters were chanting in circles, with one leading the song and others dancing in circles around him repeating it. Groups like this are everywhere, said one demonstrator as behind him musicians played traditional Sudanese and African tunes. Later in the night when Ibn Ouf quit, demonstrators at the complex burst into joy, many kissing photographs of those killed in protests, an onlooker said. Demonstrators chanted "What happened? It fell again," he said. Protest organisers have called on the demonstrators to continue with the sit-in until their demands are met. Chelsea Manning is being held in an Alexandria, Virginia detention center, two years after her prison sentence for leaking to WikiLeaks was commuted Nine years ago, a 23-year-old US army specialist, deeply troubled by the US war in Iraq and by her own gender identity, rocked the US government by leaking disturbing classified military records to WikiLeaks. Chelsea Manning spent years in prison for her crime before her sentence was commuted -- but on Friday was again sitting in jail for what her supporters say is an ongoing punitive political vendetta. Last month, she refused to testify in a secret grand jury investigation of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who was arrested in London on Thursday on a US indictment linked to their cooperation in 2010 on the leak of secret US records of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, her lawyers point out, the grand jury secretly issued its Assange indictment over one year ago, making Manning's testimony superfluous. But federal prosecutors have jailed her anyway, with little explanation of why. The Assange indictment "is further evidence that the government's continued imprisonment of Chelsea for her principled stance against grand jury secrecy is punitive, cruel and unnecessary," her lawyers said. - Deep divide over Manning - Transgender former soldier Chelsea Manning has tried to build a new life as a woman after being freed from prison in 2017, but she was sent back to jail in March 2019 for refusing to testify to a grand jury Manning, now 31, had worked since her release from military prison in 2017 to start a new life, as a civilian and as a woman. But the US is divided over whether what she did was heroic or traitorous. She was Bradley Manning when, in 2009, she was sent to Iraq as an army intelligence officer with access to a massive database of US war records and classified diplomatic communications. Manning was already struggling with gender dysphoria in a military officially closed to gay and transgender soldiers. Meanwhile, she grew despondent about the ongoing wars, leading her to release the hundreds of thousands of files that made Assange and WikiLeaks famous worldwide. "I began to become depressed with the situation that we found ourselves increasingly mired in year after year," she said in her 2013 trial. "If the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information... this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general." Manning was arrested within weeks after a confidant turned her in. She was thrown into a military prison and held for three years until her trial in 2013. One day after she was sentenced to 35 years in prison, she announced she was a woman and would go by the name Chelsea. But until her sentence was commuted in 2017 by president Barack Obama, she endured an ongoing crisis over her gender and attempted suicide twice in prison as she fought for gender reassignment surgery. - Finding her footing - After her release, Manning struggled to find her footing, lauded as a spokeswoman for whistleblowers and transgender people, but also spurned over her decision to leak US secrets. Strong criticism from senior intelligence officials forced Harvard University to rescind a fellowship offer, with CIA chief Mike Pompeo branding her an "American traitor." In 2018, a half-hearted attempt to run for political office in Maryland failed, but she continued to be celebrated as an important whistleblower. While everything she did with WikiLeaks in 2010 came out in her trial, in March she was nevertheless ordered to testify again in front of a grand jury, now known to have been investigating Assange. Manning, a strong critic of the secret panels often used by prosecutors in high-profile cases, said she objected "strenuously" to the subpoena. "We've seen this power abused countless times to target political speech," she said, making clear that she would be willing to testify in public. On March 8, the judge ordered her locked up in an Alexandria, Virginia detention center until she testifies or the grand jury is wound up. The indictment of Assange -- issued secretly in March 2008 -- would appear to negate the need for her testimony. But on Friday, she remained behind bars. Smoke rising from an air strike behind vehicles belonging to forces loyal to Libya's unity government, in the suburb of Wadi Rabie south of the capital Tripoli on Friday Forces answering to Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar battled units that back Tripoli's unity government on the edge of the capital Friday, days into a new round of conflict that has killed dozens and displaced thousands. Gunfire and blasts rang out and smoke rose as forces backing the fragile UN-backed government of Fayez al-Sarraj attempted to block an offensive by Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA). Dozens of people have been killed and more than 300 wounded over the last eight days, the World Health Organization said on Friday. The United Nations said the fighting had driven 8,000 people from their homes and that "displacements from areas affected by the clashes in and around Tripoli continue to surge". "Many families remain stranded inside conflict-affected areas," with supplies running short, UN spokesman Rheal Leblanc told reporters in Geneva. French authorities said Friday they were in touch with all parties to Libya's conflict. But they did not confirm a report in Italy's La Repubblica, citing a source at the French presidency, saying Haftar had sent envoys to Paris several hours before he launched his offensive on Tripoli on April 4. "Like our partners, we talk to all parties in the Libya conflict, in order to obtain a ceasefire", said Agnes von der Muhll, a spokesperson for France's foreign ministry. "We were not warned about the offensive on Tripoli, which we condemned when it was launched," she said. The Tripoli-based Government of National Accord on Friday expressed "hope" that the UN will act to halt Haftar's offensive. "We hope that the UN Security Council succeeds in stopping the force that is attacking the capital and convinces countries that are supporting it to change their positions", the GNA's foreign minister Tahar Siala told reporters on Friday. "We want a political, not a military, intervention," he added. - Air raids, black smoke - Fighters man vehicle borne guns stationed at a position held by forces loyal to Libya's the unity government in the suburb of Wadi Rabie The LNA and Haftar refuse to recognise the authority of Sarraj's Government of National Accord (GNA). Haftar, a former military commander under toppled dictator Moamer Kadhafi who later lived in the United States, has the support of key Gulf Arab states, Egypt and Russia. His forces swept from their eastern stronghold through Libya's sparsely populated desert, including parts of the south, before announcing their assault on to Tripoli. Haftar's men were fighting GNA troops in the southern suburbs of the capital Friday, particularly in Ain Zara, Wadi Rabi and al-Swani, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the city centre. AFP journalists saw an air raid in Wadi Rabi, while other witnesses reported another air strike in Tajoura, in the eastern suburbs of the capital, apparently targeting a military academy. "A column of smoke was rising from this site into the sky," witnesses said. Anti-aircraft fire was also heard in the region, near the capital's Mitiga airport which was hit by the LNA in an air strike on Tuesday. An air strike Friday targeted an "empty and unused" barracks south of Zouara, near the Tunisian border, about 100 kilometre west of Tripoli, a security source said. The strike did not cause casualties, the source said, attributing the attack to Haftar. - Migrants repatriated - The United Nations had vowed to push on with a planned national conference set to begin Sunday to draw up a roadmap to elections, but has postponed it as the fighting escalated. A fighter loyal to Libya's Government of National Accord mans a position in a building in Wadi Rabie on Friday The long-mooted polls are meant to turn the page on years of turmoil that have engulfed the north African country since Kadhafi was deposed in 2011. World powers, the UN and NATO have called for calm in Libya, but the clashes have shown no sign of abating. Libya has long been a major transit country for migrants desperate to reach Europe via the Mediterranean, with many held under abject conditions in detention centres. International aid groups have warned migrants could be used as human shields or forcibly recruited to fight. The International Organization for Migration said Friday it had flown 160 migrants to Mali -- with some destined to return to the Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso -- late Thursday. "We continue to support a safe and dignified return for migrants to their home countries," said Othman Belbeisi, IOM Libya chief of mission, in a statement. "Our teams are working around the clock to provide much needed humanitarian support in Tripoli and across Libya." Security researchers say they have discovered new activity by hackers using malware called "Triton" that can target industrial control systems including oil and gas facilities Security researchers this week confirmed that they spotted new activity by hackers using "Triton" malware capable of doing real-world damage to oil, gas or water plants. The security firm FireEye said in a blog post Wednesday that it had identified and was "responding to an additional intrusion by the attacker behind Triton at a different critical infrastructure facility." It did not disclose details regarding the target. FireEye urged oil, gas, water and other facilities with industrial control systems to ramp up defenses and vigilance for Triton activity on their networks. A study of the hackers' arsenal indicated they may have been in action since early 2014, avoiding detection for years. FireEye said that Triton hackers were refining the ability to damage industrial plants when they unintentionally caused the shutdown in 2017 that got them noticed. "The targeting of critical infrastructure to disrupt, degrade, or destroy systems is consistent with numerous attack and reconnaissance activities carried out globally by Russian, Iranian, North Korean, US, and Israeli nation state actors," FireEye said in a blog post. "Triton" tactics employ custom hacking tools to snake through plant networks to reach operating systems that control safety mechanisms, according to analysis that followed its initial discovery in late 2017 after it inadvertantly stopped processes at an oil plant in Saudi Arabia. In an update last year, FireEye expressed confidence that the Triton activity was "supported by" the Central Scientific Research Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics, which it described as a Russian government-owned institution in Moscow. FireEye described Triton as one of a limited number of publicly identified malicious software families aimed at industrial control systems. "It follows Stuxnet which was used against Iran in 2010 and Industroyer which we believe was deployed by Sandworm Team against Ukraine in 2016," FireEye said in an earlier blog post. "Triton is consistent with these attacks, in that it could prevent safety mechanisms from executing their intended function, resulting in a physical consequence." Kabul suffered horrific bloodshed in 2018, but has in recent weeks enjoyed something of a lull in violence The Taliban on Friday announced a new spring offensive, alarming the US negotiator who has been sitting with the militants to seek an end to more than 17 years of war. Operation Fath -- meaning "victory" in Arabic -- will be conducted across Afghanistan with the aim of "eradicating occupation" and "cleansing our Muslim homeland from invasion and corruption", the Taliban said in a statement. The spring offensive traditionally marks the start of the so-called fighting season, though the announcement is largely symbolic as in recent winters the Taliban have continued fighting Afghan and US forces. "Our jihadi obligation has not yet ended," the Taliban said. "Even as large parts of our homeland have been freed from the enemy," the Taliban said, "the foreign occupying forces continue exercising military and political influence in our Islamic country." Zalmay Khalilzad, the US diplomat who has held several rounds of talks with the Taliban in hopes of reaching a peace deal, called the once-routine annual announcement "reckless" and "irresponsible". "If executed, it will only yield more suffering and thousands more causalities," he tweeted. "At a time when all Afghans should come together in talks to determine a common future, a call for fighting suggests the Taliban are stuck in the ways of the past," he said. But Khalilzad said the United States still wanted dialogue -- and gave a timeline of a peace plan by the end of 2019. "The killing of Afghans must stop. All sides must end unnecessary violence, and instead engage in intra-Afghan dialogue which leads to negotiations on a political settlement and a roadmap to end the war this year," he said. Khalilzad also pressed Pakistan and Qatar, two of the countries with the closest relationships with the Taliban, to join in the condemnation. - Fears of spike in violence - Afghan men wearing prosthetics after losing their legs in landmine explosions sit at a hospital of the International Committee of the Red Cross in March 2019. Talks are underway to end Afghanistan's long-running war After suffering horrific bloodshed in 2018, Kabul has in recent weeks enjoyed something of a lull in violence. But on Monday three US Marines were killed in a Taliban blast at Bagram air base north of the city, and authorities in the capital are on high alert for new attacks. The administration of President Ashraf Ghani recently declared its own spring offensive, Operation Khalid, and the Taliban used that announcement as a justification for launching a new push. It shows "the enemy still seeks to attain its malicious objectives through the use of force", the Taliban said. Qais Mangal, a spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defence, dismissed the Taliban's spring offensive as "mere propaganda." "The Taliban will not reach their vicious goals and their operations will be defeated like previous years," Mangal said. A fresh round of talks is expected to take place later this month between Afghan political leaders, including some officials from the Kabul government, and the Taliban in the Qatari capital Doha. The Taliban have long refused to speak officially with Kabul, dubbing the government a "puppet" of the West, and the militants have insisted that government officials are attending only in a "personal capacity". - Seeking 'position of strength' - US officials led by envoy Zalmay Khalilzad meet with the Taliban and Qatari officials in Doha in February 2019 Kabul-based military analyst Ateequllah Amarkhail said violence is likely to increase even as negotiations proceed. The Taliban "want to enter the talks from the position of strength. Their operations are to challenge the government, and they want to have the upper hand," Amarkhail told AFP. He predicted "intense" fighting for 2019, with the renewed bloodshed taking a toll on civilians. In 2018, a record 10,993 civilians were wounded or killed in Afghanistan, according to UN figures, and several thousand Afghan police and soldiers are dying each year. Fed up with the $45 billion annual price tag and what his military leaders termed a "stalemate", US President Donald Trump last year decided to slash the number of American soldiers in Afghanistan. No such drawdown has happened yet and the US still has about 14,000 troops in the country, nearly 18 years after the US-led invasion to topple the Taliban. While Western forces quickly ousted the group in late 2001, the insurgents went on to regroup and over the years have reclaimed much of Afghanistan, primarily in rural areas. Many Afghans are worried that in America's push for a settlement, concerns for human rights and democracy will ultimately be cast aside and the Taliban will return to power and reimpose their extreme version of Sharia law. Police secure the perimeter of the White House after a man reportedly tried to set himself on fire outside the presidential mansion on April 12, 2019 in Washington, DC Secret Service agents rushed to secure the White House on Friday after they said a man set his jacket on fire just outside the fence. The Secret Service, which guards the president, said a man "operating an electronic wheelchair-type scooter lit his outer jacket on fire while sitting along Pennsylvania Ave. outside the North Fence Line." Officers "immediately responded, extinguished the fire and rendered first aid," the Secret Service tweeted, adding that the man had "what appears to be non-life threatening injuries." Details about what happened were scanty. It was not even immediately clear what caused the fire. In a rare sight, officers rushed to the scene and others ordered journalists usually stationed with rows of television cameras outside the White House to get inside the building. Reporters were allowed back outside a short while later. Germany's Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen speaks during a bilateral meeting with US Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan at the Pentagon German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen and Pentagon chief Patrick Shanahan discussed Friday the need to repatriate Islamic State foreign fighters from Syria or fund detention centers to hold them long-term. Washington wants European allies to take back hundreds of IS fighters from their countries who were captured in recent months in Syria. The alternative is to hold them long-term in camps or prisons in Syria or Iraq, but that would need financing. "We have assured once more that we will take care individually of every single case," von der Leyen told reporters after meeting Shanahan, the acting secretary of defense. "But we were both also convinced of the fact that the challenge consists mostly in collecting the evidence in the region as regards to the terrorist activity of the terrorist fighters," she added. Some European countries are refusing to repatriate and put on trial their nationals given the absence of any investigation on the ground in Syria showing what they might have done with Islamic State. In addition, the fighters are being held by the Syrian Democratic Forces, who do not have the status of a sovereign government. But Washington fears that if they are not repatriated, the fighters could rejoin jihadist operations. The US wants the Europeans to finance the building of detention centers, which could be in Iraq, according to the Pentagon. Baghdad has said it could put on trial the alleged jihadists, but that it would need funding to support that. That would solve the problem for their home countries, but human rights groups are uncomfortable with that path. Von der Leyen meanwhile expressed satisfaction with the assurances she received that US forces will maintain a presence in Syria "with the required number of troops," after Trump said in December that the Pentagon would pull out following the defeat of Islamic State. "The next weeks will show how everybody can bear their fair share of the burden," she said. Chilean President Sebastian Pinera shakes hands with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (R) at La Moneda Presidential palace in Santiago, April 12, 2019 US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo began a four-nation tour of Latin American allies Friday, arriving in Paraguay after talks in Santiago with Chile's President Sebastian Pinera that focused on Venezuela and the growing commercial influence of China. Pompeo arrived in Asuncion late Friday on the second leg of his trip, greeted by Paraguay's Foreign Minister Luis Castiglioni. He was to hold talks with President Mario Abdo Benitez and his counterpart Castiglioni on Saturday before heading to Peru. Earlier Friday in Santiago, Pompeo thanked Chile "for being a true leader for the Venezuelan people" in taking in around 300,000 refugees fleeing President Nicolas Maduro's embattled socialist regime. "I want also to applaud President Pinera for helping isolate Maduro and for showing compassion towards innocent people fleeing the economic and humanitarian crisis in their home country," Pompeo said in a speech. Chile's President Sebastian Pinera reiterated Chile's position that change in Caracas must occur "in a democratic and peaceful way, discarding a military intervention." The US has repeatedly warned Maduro that "all options" remain on the table to bring about a resolution to the crisis. Maduro has blasted this statement as a clear threat of military intervention. The highlight of Pompeo's trip will be a brief visit Sunday to the Colombian city of Cucuta on the Venezuelan border, where he will meet refugees. All four countries on his itinerary are led by right wing or center-right leaders favorable to Washington's uncompromising approach to Maduro. - China influence - Pompeo is greeted by Chile's Foreign Minister Roberto Ampuero (L) as he arrives at La Moneda Presidential palace in Santiago, April 12, 2019 Pompeo's visit is partly aimed at blunting trade rival China's growing reach in Latin America, where Beijing is Chile's biggest trading partner, representing 30 percent of Santiago's exports -- mainly raw materials such as copper and agricultural products. By comparison, the US accounts for only 14 percent of Santiago's exports. The US official said before landing in Chile that the current US administration had "spent a lot of time" in Latin America seeking to improve trade in a region which has turned its back in recent years on a slew of leftist governments. "This is an historic opportunity," he told reporters, referring to "a handful of countries that are truly market driven, democratic in ways that we havent had in South America for decades. And we think it creates real opportunity." Asked about China's influence at a press conference following a working lunch with his Chilean counterpart, Pompeo said: "I think the Chilean government and the United States government both share the same concerns." "China's trade activities often are deeply connected to their national security mission, their technological goals, their desire to steal intellectual property, to have forced technology transfer, to engage in activity that is not economic," he said. "And one of the things we talked about is how we could share information together so that we would know which was which, so that each country could protect its own citizens, so that each country could stay away from occasions where China was acting in malign or nefarious ways while still understanding that trade between our countries is important." - US concerns - Of concern to the US is Chile's contracts with Huawei, the Chinese tech giant which Washington has long considered a security threat. It has already severely restricted the Shenzhen-based company's presence in the United States, suspecting its products could be used to spy on Western governments. Pinera shares a joke with Pompeo at La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago While making no direct reference to Huawei, Pompeo said: "Fair, free and open trade is fine." But he added: "It is not okay to put technology systems in with latent capability to take information from citizens of Chile or any other country and transfer it back to President Xi's government. "Those are the conversations that we had today, and I am confident we have a full understanding of both the risks and the opportunities associated with China." Kim said he would wait until the end of the year "for the US to make a courageous decision" on another meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is willing meet with US President Donald Trump a third time if Washington comes to the table with the "right attitude", state media reported Saturday. Kim also said he would wait until the end of the year "for the US to make a courageous decision" on another meeting, after his most recent summit with Trump in Vietnam broke down and both sides left without agreement. Washington has blamed the February deadlock on the North's demands for sanctions relief in return for limited nuclear disarmament, but Pyongyang said it had wanted only some of the measures eased. In a speech to Pyongyang's rubber-stamp parliament Friday, Kim said the Hanoi meeting had made him question whether Washington is "genuinely interested" in improving its relations with Pyongyang. "We are willing to give another try if the US offers to have a third summit with the right attitude and mutually acceptable terms," he said, according to a report by North Korean state media outlet KCNA. Kim added that his personal relationship with Trump remained strong, adding they could "write letters to each other" whenever they wanted. "We will wait with patience until the end of the year for the US to make a courageous decision," Kim said. Trump and Kim held their first landmark summit in Singapore last June, where the pair signed a vaguely-worded agreement on the "denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula". But the failure to reach agreement at their second summit in Hanoi has raised questions over the future of the accord. Trump said Thursday he was mulling a third summit with Kim ahead of a meeting with his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in at the Oval Office -- a move supported by Seoul. "Our government will do what we can in order to maintain the current momentum for dialogue," Moon's office said in a Saturday statement. On Friday, the KCNA reported Kim was re-elected as chairman of the State Affairs Commission, the North's most important decision-making body. Rallies are taking place across South Africa ahead of national elections on May 8 With less than four weeks to go until South Africans vote in a general election, corruption scandals again threaten to tear open old rivalries within the long-governing African National Congress. After 25 years in power, widespread graft allegations have tainted the ruling party, which forced out shamed former president Jacob Zuma last year. Despite his replacement President Cyril Ramaphosa vowing to tackle corruption, new claims about the moral rot at the heart of Nelson Mandela's party have emerged. The latest in the firing line is the ANC's Secretary General Ace Magashule, a key Zuma ally. A recent book entitled "Gangster State: Unravelling Ace Magashule's Web of Capture" claims he was at the centre of a scheme to loot millions from state coffers for his own financial gain. Magashule immediately denounced the allegations as lies, stating: "I am not corrupt." The party also quickly dismissed the book as "propaganda" and part of a "vicious character assassination campaign" ahead of the May 8 election. But at a time when the ANC has faced criticism for including candidates implicated in corruption, not everyone towed the party line. "I am not prepared to simply dismiss all the allegations as lies," said Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom, a close associate of Ramaphosa. "Nor would most of my... comrades," he added. His comments, effectively breaking rank with the ANC, come as the largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), puts the fight against corruption at the heart of its campaign. "ANC corruption is now an established fact. Everyone is now convinced that ANC is rotten to its core and that it's not going to change ever," said DA leader Mmusi Maimane. - Tainted candidates - Although Ramaphosa became ANC president on a clean-up ticket, several Zuma allies associated with graft have said they will seek election for the ruling party. They include Nomvula Mokonyane, the environment minister who was recently implicated at a corruption enquiry, and Bathabile Dlamini, who was at the centre of a social welfare payments fiasco. The inclusion of discredited ANC figures on the candidate list will hand ammunition to opposition parties, say analysts. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has vowed to tackle corruption Despite the controversy, a recent survey still put the ANC on course to win more than half of the parliamentary seats. The ANC currently holds 249 seats of 400, according to the parliament website, and Ramaphosa hopes it can still snare a parliamentary majority, which would enable him to win a five-year presidential term. The key question, analysts say, is over the margin of victory for the ANC, which has won every election since the end of apartheid in 1994, which saw the scrapping of white minority rule. "We are not a dictatorship. We function in terms of the rule of law," Ramaphosa said last week. Two months ago the president set up a special tribunal to fast-track corruption prosecutions and he emphasised his commitment to the process. "If there needs to be jail time, it must be jail time. Those who did wrong will be punished," he said. The promise to take action has not convinced everyone. - 'Not about the poor'- Lumkile Mondi, senior lecturer at Wits School of Economics and Business Science, said the ANC needs to show it can successfully tackle corruption. "Most of us are sceptical, until I see one big ANC fish (in jail). It will be very positive for the country if one big fish is caught," he said. Life for most South Africans is a struggle, with sluggish economic growth, poor government management and corruption helping to ensure society remains deeply unequal. Officially, the ANC has distanced itself from the Magashule case and Ramaphosa has been careful not to make public appearances with him. ANC's Secretary General Ace Magashule has insisted he is not corrupt after claims he looted state coffers But the party faithful are worried. "He (Magashule) should resign because those allegations have an impact on the whole party," said an activist in his Free State province, Fourie Sentimile, while also pledging his support to Ramaphosa. Undaunted by the allegations against him, and concerns of ANC members, Magashule has continued to campaign as if nothing has happened. "Let's make sure we win this elections," he said Thursday. "After elections... let us sit down, let us talk, let us build the ANC proper." The next day, Magashule received a message of support from Zuma, loathed by many others in the party and the country. "Stay resolute during these times," tweeted Zuma to Magashule. Indian Punjab Police personnel light candles as they pay tribute to those who died in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of April 13, 1919 The Amritsar massacre, 100 years ago this Saturday in which British troops opened fire on thousands of unarmed protestors, remains one of the darkest hours of British colonial rule in India. Known in India as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, it is still an emotive subject with many demanding a British apology -- which so far has been unforthcoming. The number of casualties on April 13, 1919 is unclear, with colonial-era records showing 379 deaths while Indian figures put the number at closer to 1,000. - The prelude - In March 1919, the British colonial government passed the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, or the Rowlatt Act, extending repressive measures in force during World War I (1914-18). Indian school students and teachers stand in the shape of the number '100' and the Jallianwala Bagh Martyrs' Memorial These included incarceration without trial, and caused widespread anger, particularly in the northern Punjab region, with Mahatma Gandhi calling for a nationwide general strike. In Amritsar news that prominent Indian leaders had been arrested and banished from that city sparked violent protests on April 10. These saw soldiers fire upon civilians, buildings looted and burned, while angry mobs killed several foreign nationals and attacked a Christian missionary. - High walls - Brigadier General Reginald Edward Harry Dyer was tasked with ensuring order, and imposed measures including a ban on public gatherings. An Indian girl looks at a painting of the aftermath of the massacre ahead of its 100th anniversary on April 13 On the afternoon of April 13 some 10,000 people gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh, an area in Amritsar surrounded by high walls with only one exit. It was also Baisakhi, a harvest festival in northern India. The crowd included men, women, children and pilgrims who were visiting the nearby Golden Temple, one of the holiest sites in Sikhism. Some estimates put the crowd at 20,000. - Enter Dyer - Dyer, later dubbed "The Butcher of Amritsar", reached the spot with dozens of soldiers and sealed off the exit. Without warning, he ordered the soldiers to fire on the unarmed crowd. Many tried unsuccessfully to escape by scaling the walls. Others jumped into an open well at the site. Reportedly the troops fired until they ran out of ammunition, letting off hundreds of rounds into the crowd before withdrawing. The Indian Express newspaper earlier this week shared eyewitness accounts compiled by two historians. They included Mani Ram, whose 13-year-old son Madan Mohan used to play in the square with his friends. "I, with eight or nine others, had to search for about half an hour till I could pick up his corpse as it was mixed up with hundreds of dead bodies lying in heaps there," Ram said. Dyer said later that the firing was "not to disperse the meeting but to punish the Indians for disobedience." - The aftermath - The event marked a nadir in Britain's occupation of India, and served to boost Indian nationalism and harden support for independence. Reaction in Britain varied, with Dyer receiving support in the House of Lords and not least from Rudyard Kipling, who is said to have called him "the man who saved India". Winston Churchill, then secretary of state for war, called the massacre "monstrous". Former prime minister Herbert Asquith called it "one of the worst outrages in the whole of our history". "The crowd was unarmed, except with bludgeons. It was not attacking anybody or anything... (P)inned up in a narrow place considerably smaller than Trafalgar Square," said Churchill. Dyer was removed from command into enforced retirement. He died in 1927. - No apology - Demands by several past Indian leaders and politicians for Britain to apologise for the massacre have fallen on deaf ears. In 1997 the Queen laid a wreath at a site during a tour of India. But her gaffe-prone husband Prince Philip stole the headlines by reportedly saying that the Indian estimates for the death count were "vastly exaggerated". In 2013 David Cameron became the first serving British prime minister to visit Jallianwala Bagh. He described the episode as "deeply shameful" but stopped short of a public apology. "We must never forget what happened here. And in remembering we must ensure that the United Kingdom stands up for the right of peaceful protest around the world," Cameron wrote in the visitors' book. He later defended his decision not to say sorry, explaining that the massacre happened 40 years before he was born and saying: "I don't think the right thing is to reach back into history and to seek out things you can apologise for". On Wednesday, Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday told parliament that Britain "deeply regretted what happened and the suffering caused." But she too didn't say sorry. Moustapha Cisse, head of Google Artificial Intelligence (AI) centre in Ghana, wants to collaborate with local universities and start-ups An artificial intelligence research laboratory opened by Google in Ghana, the first of its kind in Africa, will take on challenges across the continent, researchers say. The US technology giant said the lab in the capital Accra would address economic, political and environmental issues. "Africa has many challenges where the use of AI could be beneficial, sometimes even more than in other places," Google's head of AI Accra, Moustapha Cisse, told AFP at the centre's official opening this week. Similar research centres have already opened in cities around the world including Tokyo, Zurich, New York and Paris. The new lab, Cisse said, would use AI to develop solutions in healthcare, education and agriculture -- such as helping to diagnose certain types of crop disease. Cisse, an expert from Senegal, said he hoped specialist engineers and AI researchers would collaborate with local organisations and policymakers. Google is working with universities and start-ups in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa to enhance AI development regionally, he said. "We just need to ensure that the right education and opportunities are in place," he said. "That is why Google is sponsoring a lot of these young people for their degrees... to help develop a new generation of AI developers." - 'Clear opportunity' - Other tech companies, including Facebook, have launched initiatives in Africa and demographics are a key factor behind the drive. Africa's population is estimated to be 1.2 billion, 60 percent of them under the age of 24. By 2050, the UN estimates the population will double to 2.4 billion. As online social networks expand, that presents a huge market for US tech giants to tap into. "There's a clear opportunity for companies like Facebook and Google to really go in and put a pole in the sand," said Daniel Ives, a technology researcher at GBH Insights in New York. "If you look at Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, where is a lot of that growth coming from? It's international," he told AFP in a recent interview. Honduran migrants gather in the north of the country at the begining of their march to the United States US President Donald Trump said Friday he is seriously considering funneling detained illegal migrants into the self-declared sanctuary cities that oppose his tough immigration policies. Trump's announcement on Twitter reversed a previous White House assurance that the idea -- criticized as political retribution against cities led by opposition Democrats -- had been dropped. "Due to the fact that Democrats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws, we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities," Trump said. "The Radical Left always seems to have an Open Borders, Open Arms policy -- so this should make them very happy!" he tweeted. The Washington Post revealed the proposal, which would mark a new flashpoint in the ever growing political divide over immigration. Trump has staked his presidency on his insistence that the United States is being overrun by migrants and asylum seekers. A group of about 30 Brazilian migrants, who had just crossed the border, sit on the ground near US Border Patrol agents in Sunland Park, New Mexico But opponents, mostly in the Democratic Party, say his push for building more walls on the Mexican border and his almost daily denunciations of migrants as dangerous criminals incite racial hatred. In comments to reporters later, Trump said that he wanted Congress, where the House of Representatives is controlled by Democrats, to tighten visas and streamline the deportation process. Otherwise, he warned, he'll order migrants to be dumped on the sanctuary cities. "If they don't agree we might as well do what they say they want.... We'll bring them to sanctuary city areas and let that particular area take care of it," he said. "We can give them an unlimited supply." And late Friday, he reiterated his call for a "merit" based immigration system. "If the Radical Left Democrats all of a sudden don't want the Illegal Migrants in their Sanctuary Cities (no more open arms), why should others be expected to take them into their communities?" he tweeted. - Human 'pawns' - Sanctuary cities are places where local authorities -- usually Democratic-run -- have refused to hand over undocumented immigrants for deportation. San Francisco Mayor London Breed dismissed Trump's proposal. "This is just another in a long line of scare tactics and half-baked ideas that are just about chasing headlines and distracting people from real issues," she tweeted. Citing homeland security officials and leaked emails, the Post said White House officials first broached the plan in November, asking several agencies whether members of a caravan of migrants could be arrested at the border and then bussed "to small- and mid-sized sanctuary cities". The White House told the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) that the plan was intended to alleviate a shortage of detention space, but would also send a message to Democrats, the Post said. The suggested policy was pushed back within ICE, with a top official saying it was rife with concerns and noting "there are PR risks as well". Migrant rights groups are seen during a vigil to protest against US President Donald Trump's crackdown on "sanctuary cities" in Los Angeles, California After the White House pressed the issue again earlier this year, ICE rebuffed it as "inappropriate." The Post said a White House official and a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said the proposal was no longer under consideration. "This was just a suggestion that was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion," a White House statement said. One of the centers targeted was the California constituency of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose office on Thursday blasted the plan. "Using human beings -- including little children -- as pawns in their warped game to perpetuate fear and demonize immigrants is despicable," said Pelosi spokeswoman Ashley Etienne. - Record high detentions - Trump's all-out fight with the Democrats over immigration comes as border agents report being overwhelmed by the number of migrants and people demanding asylum after fleeing violent Central American countries. The number of immigrant detainees in ICE custody has approached 50,000 in recent months, the Post said, an all-time high that has strained the agency's budget. Another of Trump's controversial proposals to resolve the situation has been to shut the border with Mexico temporarily. He backed off the idea after outcry over the likely damaging economic effects. In a new twist, The New York Times reported Friday that the president last week told Kevin McAleenan, the soon to be named acting secretary of homeland security, that he still wanted the border closed. According to the Times, Trump told McAleenan that if he had any legal difficulties as a result of this, he would give him a presidential pardon. Syrian air defence batteries respond to an Israeli missile strike against an alleged Iranian target near Damascus on January 21 An Israeli air strike in central Syria wounded three combatants early Saturday, the official SANA news agency reported. A Britain-based war monitor said the strike killed several Iranian fighters and wounded 17 Syrian troops and their allies. An Israeli military spokesman declined to comment on the foreign media report. "Around 2:30 am (2330 GMT Friday)... the Israeli air force carried out a strike targeting one of our military positions in the town of Misyaf," in Hama province north of Damascus, SANA quoted a military source as saying. "Our air defence batteries intercepted some of the Israeli missiles," the source said, adding that the strike "wounded three combatants and destroyed buildings". The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strike targeted a Syrian military college in the town and two buildings used by Iranian forces in nearby villages -- a development centre for medium-range missiles in Zawi and a training camp in Sheikh Ghadban. Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes in Syria against what it says are Iranian and Hezbollah targets. With the support of the US administration of President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed repeatedly to take whatever military action he deems necessary to prevent archfoe Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah establishing a continuing military presence. Late last month, Trump broke with decades of international consensus to recognise Israel's unilateral annexation of the strategic Golan Heights, seized from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967. The move was a diplomatic prize for Israel, but met with a chorus of opposition from US foes and allies alike. Iran and Hezbollah have both intervened in Syria's civil war, which erupted in 2011 to support forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. They were joined in 2015 by Russia, which supplied its S300 air defence system to Assad's forces after a Russian aircraft was downed by mistake by Syrian defence systems during an Israeli raid on September 17, killing all 15 people on board. After several months of frosty relations, Russia and Israeli resumed coordination of their military operations in Syria and Israel's bombing campaign picked up again. Water fights break out suring the new year festival that bring entire streets to a standstill Water-spraying elephants, raves and boisterous, street-blocking water fights -- Thailand's Buddhist new year arrived with a splash Saturday, a once calm festival now celebrated with a more raucous edge. Paying respects to elders and sprinkling water over figures of Buddha at local temples are some of the traditions of the three-day new year celebration -- known as Songkran -- but the holiday also has a rowdier side involving alcohol-fuelled revelry among its youth. Thais and foreigners sporting floral shirts arm themselves with colourful water pistols and protective goggles, engaging in water fights that bring entire streets to a standstill. The once calm Songkran festival has developed a more raucous side Authorities had issued warnings beforehand on modesty, saying that nudity and provocative clothing will be prohibited. There are no such restrictions however on summary drenchings. In the Bangkok tourist hotspot Khao San road, two young men dressed in school uniforms get doused by passersby wielding high-powered water pistols and buckets of water. Paying respects to elders and sprinkling water over Buddha figures at local temples are some of the traditions of the three-day new year celebration And in Ayutthaya, elephants painted in colourful floral designs lift their trunks and spray water on delighted tourists, with the town's ancient temples serving as a backdrop. As the sun sets, tens of thousands of ravers from across Asia are expected to dance into Saturday night under massive water cannons and spectacular pyrotechnics, as Bangkok's S2O Songkran festival gets underway. Some of the world's best known -- and paid -- DJs, including Tiesto, Steve Aoki and UK veteran Fatboy Slim are performing across the three-day dance music event -- Asia's largest. Neighbouring Laos and Myanmar celebrate the same festival with young and old throwing buckets of water over each other as music thuds from loudspeakers Neighbouring Laos and Myanmar celebrate the same festival with young and old throwing buckets of water over each other as music thuds from loudspeakers. In Yangon, where the festival is known as Thingyan, children blow bubbles and play with soap suds at street foam parties, while women dressed in traditional costumes perform dances near the famed Sule Pagoda. Songkran is also the most perilous time to travel in Thailand, and the week beginning from April 11 is dubbed "seven dangerous days" as millions of Thais make the journey back to their hometowns by bus, vans or motorbikes. To prevent drink driving incidents, authorities have said they will levy harsh penalties on those imbibing alcohol before getting behind the wheel. While authorities have issued warnings to festival goers, there are no restrictions on summary drenchings Somchai Wayrojpipat, 57, was charged with premeditated murder after causing a fatal accident under the influence late Thursday night in the outskirts of Bangkok, police officer Pitak Poolputtha told AFP. "This is the first case in this country where the drunk driver faced premeditated murder and the highest punishment is the death sentence," Pitak said. The Interior Ministry has recorded more than 100 deaths in the first two days preceding the festival, but that number is expected to climb. burs/dhc/tom Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, laws about cow slaughter are now applied more strictly and punishments have increased Indian police said Saturday one man was killed and three injured in an attack by a mob while they were skinning a dead ox, in the latest case of so-called cow lynching. The animal is revered by Hindus and according to Human Rights Watch, 44 people died in cow-related violence between May 2015 and December last year by Hindu vigilantes. Opponents of Prime Minister Narendra Modi say that such groups have become emboldened since his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to power in 2014. The latest incident happened in the eastern state of Jharkhand late on Thursday when men from a local Christian community were skinning the carcass of an ox in a field. "The men were armed with iron rods and sticks and attacked the group of skinners brutally," said M L Meena, a senior Jharkhand police official. The three men injured in the attack were sent to hospital. Two men have been arrested for alleged murder and five more were on the run, Meena said. It was unclear whether the accused were part of a Hindu vigilante group or acted on their own initiative, he added, saying the four men attacked were from a local tribal group and had been charged with illegal cow slaughter. Meena said the charges were based on a complaint by a Hindu villager who said he witnessed the slaughter of the ox. "So far the investigation has showed the ox died naturally. We are doing a thorough probe," he said. - Beef ban - Cow slaughter and the consumption of beef is illegal in mineral-rich Jharkhand -- and in 19 other states -- but restricted slaughter of other bovines like buffalo and ox is allowed. Modi, who is running for a second term in elections that began on Thursday and run until May 19, has condemned cow-related violence. Under his government, laws about cow slaughter are now applied more strictly and punishments have increased. In 2017 his government tried to ban the cattle trade for slaughter nationwide, only for it to be rejected by the Supreme Court. Aside from the violence, which is mostly directed at India's minority Muslim community and low-caste Dalits, the number of stray cows in India has also risen sharply. This is because the fear of prosecution or violence has led to farmers abandoning old and sick cows instead of selling them for slaughter. Last year a top minister in Modi's cabinet was criticised for celebrating eight people convicted of lynching a Muslim cattle trader after they were released on bail. Last week a Muslim man was brutally assaulted by a mob in north eastern Assam state over allegations he was selling beef. There is no prohibition on cow slaughter or beef consumption in the state. The head of Sudan's feared National Intelligence and Security Service, Salih Ghosh, oversaw a sweeping crackdown against protesters taking part in four months of mass demonstations that led to the army's ouster of veteran president Omar al-Bashir The head of Sudan's feared National Intelligence and Security Service, Salih Ghosh, has resigned from his post, the country's new military rulers said on Saturday. "The chief of the transitional military council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has accepted the resignation of... the chief of NISS," the transitional military council said. Ghosh had overseen a sweeping crackdown led by NISS agents against protesters taking part in four months of mass demonstations that led up to the toppling of veteran president Omar al-Bashir by the army on Thursday. Thousands of protesters, opposition activists and journalists were arrested in the crackdown that left dozens killed and hundreds wounded. Before Bashir's ouster, NISS agents made several bids to disperse tens of thousands of protesters who have camped outside the army headquarters in the capital since April 6 demanding Bashir's ouster. Their efforts proved abortive as troops intervened but police said on Friday that 16 protesters had been killed at the sit-in over the previous two days. Bashir had appointed Salih as NISS chief in February 2018, which was the regime insider's second stint at the post. His previous stint ended in August 2009. Salih, had worked on and off for NISS ever since the 1989 coup that brought Bashir to power, according to Sudanese media. He was credited with building NISS into one of the most important pillars of Bashir's regime before his dismissal in 2009. He was later jailed on accusations of plotting a coup but no evidence was found against him and Bashir pardoned him. Over the years NISS has overseen repeated crackdowns on government opponents and the media. Its agents frequently confiscated the entire print-runs of newspapers that criticised government policy or reported on anti-government protests. Arms and ammunition has repeatedly been delivered to warring parties in Libya in violation of an international embargo, according to a UN panel of experts The United Nations has expressed its "grave concern" over the detention in Tunisia of a UN expert tasked with investigating violations of a Libya arms embargo. "The arrest and detention by the Tunisian authorities of Moncef Kartas... while he was performing his official duties is a matter of very grave concern," the spokesman for the UN secretary-general said in a statement Friday. Tunisian Moncef Kartas was arrested in Tunis on March 26 along with a fellow national on suspicion of "spying for foreign parties", according to Tunisian authorities. Kartas was on Thursday brought before an investigative judge who "decided to continue" his detention, Stephane Dujarric said. "The continued detention is in violation of the privileges and immunities that Mr. Kartas enjoys," he added. The UN has engaged with Tunisia's government "at the highest levels", according to the spokesman, making clear its legal position through four separate legal notes. But the government had "failed to provide an adequate response", he said. Tunisia's interior ministry said last month "confidential documents containing sensitive detailed data capable of harming national security" were seized in relation to UN expert's arrest. It also alleged technical equipment for jamming and intercepting communications -- banned in Tunisia -- had been confiscated. Kartas was appointed to the panel of experts in 2016, tasked with investigating violations of an arms embargo on Libya. The panel reports to the UN sanctions committee on Libya and details its findings in an annual report. An interim report is due in June. Previous reports by the panel have found that arms and ammunition have repeatedly been delivered to warring parties in Libya in violation of the UN embargo, with the involvement of member states. A handout picture released by the Twitter account of the official Sudan News Agency shows General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan speaking with demonstrators outside the army headquarters General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the second officer to be sworn in as Sudan's new military ruler in consecutive days, is a "veteran soldier" largely unknown outside the army. On Friday, Burhan became chief of a military council that deposed Omar al-Bashir, after the president's immediate successor General Awad Ibn Ouf stepped down following little more than 24 hours in power. Protesters, determined to see a civilian government after the end of Bashir's iron-fisted three decades in power, saw Ibn Ouf as a regime insider and a close aide of the toppled leader. Ibn Ouf's exit has catapulted Burhan from the shadows to the de facto head of the country. "Burhan is a high ranking officer within the armed forces, but basically he's a veteran soldier," said an army officer, who did not want to be named. "He's never been in the limelight like Ibn Ouf or General Kamal Abdelmarouf," the officer said, referring to the army's former chief of staff. Burhan had a stint as Sudan's defence attache to Beijing. On Friday, hours before he was named as Sudan's new military ruler, he was seen talking to protesters who have camped outside the army headquarters since April 6. - 'No political leanings' - Born in 1960 in the village of Gandatu, north of Khartoum, Burhan studied in a Sudanese army college and later in Egypt and Jordan. He is married and has three children. He was commander of ground forces before Bashir made him inspector general of the army in February. Sudanese media and analysts say Burhan coordinated sending Sudanese troops to Yemen as part of a Saudi-led coalition against the Iran backed Huthi rebels. Willow Berridge, author of Civil Uprisings in Modern Sudan and lecturer in history at Newcastle University says the Yemen portfolio saw Burhan work closely with Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). It is with the support of this group that "he now appears to have come to power," said Berridge. "The role in this latest move of the Rapid Support Forces -- branded by many as a revamped version of the Janjaweed militias who committed mass atrocities in Darfur -- will make many cautious," Berridge added. She noted that the various Darfur based rebel groups, which feed into opposition coalitions, would be especially wary. The conflict in Darfur erupted in 2003 when ethnic black rebels took up arms against Khartoum's Arab dominated government, accusing it of neglecting the region economically and politically. The United Nations says about 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict, while millions have been displaced. Bashir deployed Sudanese troops to Yemen in 2015 as part of a major foreign policy shift that saw Khartoum break its decades-old ties with Shiite Iran and join the Saudi-led coalition. Sudanese soldiers and officers are fighting in Yemen, and have suffered significant casualties. While it is unclear how many Sudanese troops have been deployed in Yemen, photographs of killed or wounded soldiers on social media have regularly sparked calls for withdrawal. "Burhan doesn't have any political leanings, he is a professional soldier," the anonymous officer said. But as de facto head of the country, he will not be able to escape making difficult political decisions. Women and children from Iraq's Yazidi minority liberated from Islamic State group jihadists by Syrian Kurdish fighters prepare to board busses bound for Sinjar, Iraq's Yazidi heartland Syrian Kurds on Saturday repatriated 25 women and children from Iraq's Yazidi minority after freeing them during the final push against the Islamic State group, a local official said. The US-backed fighters say they rescued some 300 Yazidi women and children during the fight to take the jihadists' last scrap of territory in eastern Syria. "Today, we will hand over 25 people -- 10 women and 15 children -- to the Yazidi council in Sinjar," said Ziyad Rustam, an official with the Kurdish-run group Yazidi House, which reunites rescued Yazidi children with surviving relatives. "They will be sent to their families," he told AFP. At the Yazidi House headquarters in a village near the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli, women wearing colourful robes collected children scampering around the compound before boarding busses bound for Sinjar, the Yazidi heartland in Iraq. "The fate of my three sisters remains unknown... I don't know anything about them," said 17-year-old Jamila Haidar. "I hope we will be reunited soon." Iraq's Yazidis are a symbol of the suffering caused by the Islamic State (IS) group during its rein over vast swathes of Syria and Iraq. The jihadists stormed through Iraq's northwest in 2014 slaughtering thousands of men and boys and abducting women and girls to be abused as sex slaves. But they have since lost all of the once-sprawling cross-border "caliphate" to multiple offensive. Kurdish fighters say they rescued some 300 Yazidi women and children during the fight to take the Islamic State group's last scrap of territory in eastern Syria The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces last month announced the defeat of the IS proto-state after tens of thousands of people streamed out of the jihadists' last patch of territory, around the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border. Rustam said SDF had in total liberated 850 Yazidi women and children during its battles against IS since 2015. But 3,040 Yazidis are still missing, he said, adding that the search for them was ongoing. Rustam said the jihadists had "sold many of them to people inside Syria, in places like Idlib", most of which is held by a former Al-Qaeda affiliate. Some of the Yazidis extracted from IS's last sliver of territory are being held at the Kurdish-run Al-Hol camp, which also houses jihadist family members. The spring offensive traditionally marks the start of the so-called fighting season, though in reality fighting in recent winters has continued unabated The Taliban on Saturday claimed responsibility for an attack in eastern Afghanistan that the group said was part of its newly announced spring offensive. According to Afghan officials, Taliban fighters on Friday night detonated two truck bombs in the Shirzad district of Nangarhar province, east of Kabul. The assault came hours after the Taliban announced the start of Operation Fath, the name the militants have given to this year's spring offensive. "Both sides have sustained casualties," the Afghan defence ministry said. "Clashes are ongoing between (Afghan security forces) and Taliban terrorists." The Taliban, who frequently exaggerate numbers, claimed to have killed or wounded "more than 200 soldiers, police and militias". Nangarhar provincial governor spokesman Ataullah Khogyani said two Afghan troops had been killed, along with 27 Taliban fighters. Another Taliban attack was reported around the edges of the northern city of Kunduz, which the militants briefly captured in 2015. Naeem Mangal, head of the Kunduz regional hospital, told AFP at least eight people were killed and 62 wounded. In Ghor province in the west, at least seven Afghan security forces were killed in a Taliban ambush, Ghor provincial governor spokesman Abdul Hai Khatibi told AFP. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's palace on Saturday condemned "in the strongest words" the announcement of Operation Fath. "The continuation of war is no one's interest," the palace said. The spring offensive traditionally marks the start of the so-called fighting season, though in reality fighting in recent winters has continued unabated. The United States is leading a push to forge a settlement with the Taliban, after nearly 18 years of war, and has held several meetings with Taliban officials. Later this month, Taliban officials are expected to meet with Afghanistan representatives, including some officials from the Kabul government, in the Qatari capital Doha. The Taliban have long refused to speak officially with Kabul, dubbing the government a "puppet" of the West, and the militants have insisted that government officials are attending only in a "personal capacity". The United Nations last week said it had lifted travel bans for 11 Taliban delegates, including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a cofounder of the Islamist movement and its top political leader, as well as Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the Taliban's former deputy minister of foreign affairs. "The requested exemption is solely for travels required for participation in peace and reconciliation discussions," the UN Security Council said. Two members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party are under fire for appearing to use threats to gain votes Two top members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party including an estranged member of the Gandhi dynasty were in hot water Saturday for appearing to threaten people to vote for them in the ongoing mega-election. Indian politicians are often accused of using hate or intimidation to win support of the electorate. Soliciting votes on religious lines or threatening voters is prohibited. A video showed women and child welfare minister Maneka Gandhi, widow of former politician Sanjay Gandhi, warning a gathering of Muslim community members to vote for her or be shunned if she returns to power. "I am winning with the help of the people. But if my victory comes without the support of Muslims, then I will not feel good," Gandhi told a gathering during a campaign rally on Friday. "It will leave a bitter taste. And then when a Muslim comes for any work, then I will think let it be." Her comments sparked outrage online and demands for action by the opposition Congress party -- headed by her former husband's nephew Rahul Gandhi -- as local election authorities told her to explain her comments. Bollywood actor Swara Bhaskar on Twitter slammed what she said as an open "threat to Muslims and unconstitutional" and demanded criminal action against the minister. Maneka Gandhi's former husband Sanjay Gandhi was the son of former premier Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated in 1984. His brother was Rajiv Gandhi, assassinated in 1991. Sanjay was instrumental in a compulsory sterilisation programme during the 1975 to 1977 "emergency" when his mother and prime minister Indira Gandhi suspended all civil rights. More than six million men were sterilised under the programme that aimed to control India's population and was intense in Muslim areas. Sanjay was seen as the political heir to his mother but died in a plane crash in 1980. Following his death, Maneka Gandhi snapped her ties with Congress and Indira and launched her own party before joining the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), now headed by Modi, in 2004. - Hate speech - The other new incident in the current election, which runs to May 19, involved Sakshi Maharaj, a Hindu monk, who told a gathering in the northern city of Kanpur he would "curse" those who do not vote for him. "When a saint comes to beg and isnt given what he asks for, he takes away all the happiness of the family and in turn gives curse to the family," Maharaj said, adding he was quoting from sacred Hindu scriptures. Maharaj is facing 34 criminal charges against him, including alleged murder, robbery and cheating. He is running for a second term from Unnao in Uttar Pradesh state. The BJP member's previous comments include calling upon Hindus to produce four children and grow faster than the Muslim population. The powerful suicide bombing on Friday in Quetta city left 20 people died Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide blast in Pakistan's Quetta city on Friday that killed 20 people and left 48 more injured. The group released a photograph of the bomber along with his name on Saturday and said the attack targeted Shiite Muslims. On Friday, a little known faction of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast, saying it collaborated with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), which has been behind numerous bloody attacks on Shiite Muslims in Pakistan. Pakistani officials deny Islamic State group (IS) is present in the country, but the group has claimed a number of attacks in the past. Ethnic Hazara make up most of the Shiite population in Quetta, the capital of southwestern Balochistan province -- the country's largest and poorest region, rife with ethnic, sectarian and separatist insurgencies. The Hazara peoples' Central Asian features make them easily recognisable and they are a soft target for Sunni militants, who consider them heretics. They are so frequently targeted they are forced to live in two protected enclaves in the city and are given a daily police escort to the market to stock up on supplies. Dozens of people including women and children belonging to the Hazara community continued a sit in on one of the city's major roads on Saturday, demanding the arrest of those behind the bombing. Amnesty International, in a statement Friday said the blast was a "painful reminder" of the many attacks suffered by the Hazara community in Quetta over the years. It also called for the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan to give them better protection. "Each time, there are promises that more will be done to protect them, and each time those promises have failed to materialize," wrote Omar Waraich, Amnesty's deputy director for South Asia. Violence in Pakistan has dropped significantly since the country's deadliest-ever militant attack -- an assault on a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in 2014 that killed more than 150 people, most of them children. Auto tycoon Carlos Ghosn denies all allegations of financial misconduct Japan's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by lawyers for Carlos Ghosn against his detention, local media said Saturday, dashing the former Nissan boss's hopes for an early release. The 65-year-old former auto tycoon had appealed to Japan's highest court after lower court judges ruled he could be questioned for a 10-day period until Sunday over allegations of financial misconduct. But the court slapped down the appeal without explaining the ruling, Jiji Press and Kyodo News reported. Immediate confirmation of the reports was not available. On Friday, the Tokyo District Court had already further extended his detention until April 22 as prosecutors continue grilling him. Authorities must then either press formal charges, release him or re-arrest him if they believe he has additional allegations to answer. Prosecutors are looking into allegations that Ghosn siphoned off some $5 million from funds transferred from Nissan to a dealership in Oman, and spent the money on a luxury superyacht. Ghosn has not been formally charged over these allegations. But the tycoon does already face three separate charges. Two of these relate to millions of dollars in salary believed to have been concealed from shareholders. The third charge is that he sought to shift personal investment losses to company books. Ghosn denies all allegations and lashed out in a video message -- shown on April 9 -- at what he termed a "plot" by "backstabbing" Nissan executives scared of closer integration with French partner firm Renault. The case has bewitched Japan and the business world since the tycoon was arrested out of the blue at a Tokyo airport on November 19 and whisked off to the detention centre. He spent 108 days in an initial period of custody, in conditions he said he would not wish on his "worst enemy", forced to sleep with the light on and forbidden from contact with his loved ones. He then won bail, stumping up $9 million for his freedom and submitting to strict bail conditions including not using the internet or contacting anyone connected to the case. But in another twist, he was then re-arrested in a dawn raid on April 4 for more questioning. Once hailed as Nissan's saviour, Ghosn is fighting to restore his reputation after he was removed almost immediately from the head of the company and later resigned as boss of Renault as he fights the allegations. His lengthy detention has sparked some criticism of the Japanese justice system, derided by some as "hostage justice" as suspects can be held for a long time without formal charges. Several hundred employees of India's beleaguered Jet Airways held a protest at Delhi airport on Saturday demanding to be paid and calling for the company to be rescued Several hundred employees of India's beleaguered Jet Airways held a protest at Delhi airport on Saturday demanding to be paid and calling for the company to be rescued. Jet has been in a tailspin for months. All but around half a dozen of its 119 aircraft are grounded and all international flights are suspended until Monday. Once India's second-biggest airline by market share, the Mumbai-based firm has defaulted on loans and struggled to pay aircraft lessors and staff. Thousands of customers have been stranded in recent weeks after hundreds of flights were cancelled, in some cases with little or no notice. "We need the infusion of funds today, not after one week when it's too late," said Raman Sharma, a pilot at the protest. "We need to get the funds back, pay the people, get the planes in the air, make it convenient for passengers, and let's start earning revenue," he said. "Now the feeling is also of despair, frustration. Like, we want our salaries, at the same time we want to save our airlines," added Shilium S., a maintenance worker. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, for whom a collapse of Jet would be a blow as it seeks a second term in ongoing elections, convened a crisis meeting on Friday evening, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported. Close of play Friday was the deadline for prospective bidders to express an interest in acquiring a 75 percent stake in Jet, which has debts of some $1 billion. Etihad Airways, which owns a 24 percent stake, has submitted an expression of interest to buy a controlling stake of up to 75 percent, according to media reports. Naresh Goyal, who founded the airline but quit as chairman last month, has also lodged a bid, as have several private equity groups, newspapers said. Indonesian president Joko Widodo gestures as he arrives onstage for an election rally on the final day of campaigning in Jakarta About 100,000 people filled Jakarta's main stadium Saturday for a huge rally in support of Indonesian president Joko Widodo, just days ahead of the biggest-ever elections in the world's number-three democracy. Widodo is leading presidential challenger Prabowo Subianto, a former general, by double-digits in most opinion polls going into Wednesday's poll. The two men held their final televised debate Saturday evening. Earlier, the capital's already congested streets were jammed with colourful parades and peaceful demonstrations, bringing traffic to a standstill. At the main stadium, Widodo supporters waved Indonesia's red-and-white flag as they sang and danced to performances by dozens of musicians. The crowd cheered as the 57-year-old incumbent, popularly known as Jokowi, pledged his commitment to pluralism in the Muslim-majority country of more than 260 million. "Our country is a big nation of different ethnicities, religions, traditions and cultures," he said. Subianto held his last rally on Friday, which attracted tens of thousands. His vice-presidential running-mate Sandiaga Uno, a wealthy financier reported to have spent $100 million on his campaign, held a big rally Saturday in Tangerang near Jakarta. "God willing, with Prabowo and Sandi we will create a fair and prosperous Indonesia," Uno told the crowd. Subianto's team has warned it would challenge the results over voter-list irregularities if he lost -- setting up a repeat of the pair's 2014 contest, which Widodo won despite an unsuccessful court challenge to his narrow victory. Widodo campaigned on his infrastructure-driven bid to rev up Southeast Asia's largest economy, while Subianto pledged more defence spending and a review of foreign investment in the sprawling archipelago. Food vendor Ali Suhardi, 55, said he would vote for the heavy metal music-loving Widodo, but across the city, Romlah was itching for a new leader. "I want change that will make this country better," said the Subianto supporter, who goes by one name. More than 190 million Indonesians will choose their next president, parliamentarians and thousands of local officials on April 17. There are a record 245,000 candidates competing with some 800,000 polling stations across the country. US President Donald Trump usggested that Democrats in Congress should not have access to a redacted version of the Mueller report that cleared him of conspiring to collude with Russia during the 2016 election US President Donald Trump questioned Saturday whether Congressional Democrats should have access to a redacted version of the Mueller report that cleared him of conspiring to collude with Russia during the 2016 election. Attorney General Bill Barr has indicated he will hand over a restricted copy of the 400-page report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that edits out "sensitive" details sometime next week. "Why should Radical Left Democrats in Congress have a right to retry and examine the $35,000,000 (two years in the making) No Collusion Mueller Report when the crime committed was by Crooked Hillary, the DNC and Dirty Cops?" Trump tweeted. "Attorney General Barr will make the decision!" Trump had previously said the decision to release the report would be "totally up to" his attorney general, while his press secretary Sarah Sanders in March said "I don't think the president has any problem" with its publication. The president's latest comments come days after he called the probe an attempted "coup," while Barr promised to investigate FBI "spying" on Trump. Trump has described former FBI officials who initially decided to investigate him as "dirty cops." Three years on from his election victory, he is still railing against his former Democratic White House opponent Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server for government business and threatens to reopen an investigation into the matter. Fires are seen on a street following protest against the shooting by security forces of a rickshaw driver and his passenger, on April 13, 2019 in Mogadishu. Somali security forces shot dead a rickshaw driver and his passenger in the capital on Saturday and killed another four people who were protesting against the shootings, witnesses and lawmakers said At least three protesters died in Mogadishu when hundreds of auto-rickshaw taxi drivers took to the streets Saturday after an officer shot and killed a driver. The protest erupted shortly after police forces allegedly opened fire, killing one driver and a passenger at a checkpoint near the main Bakara market on the south side of the city. Mogadishu mayor Abdirahman Omar Osman called for calm after the latest in a series of similar incidents. "I condemn the killing of the rickshaw driver and the passenger. The police are currently pursuing the perpetrators so I urge the rickshaw drivers to show restraint," he said. According to witnesses, at least three people had been shot dead at Saturday's protest -- but it was not clear if police had fired on them or else security guards from a local firm caught up in the unrest. Muhidin Adan, a rickshaw driver who took part in the rally, said one officer fired two shots and killed the driver and a passenger after his three-wheeler did not heed a call to stop while looking to park. Some bystanders said the police officer involved in the shooting fled the scene. Within minutes angry protesters took to the streets, burning tyres and throwing stones as they demanded justice for the victims. "Two civilians were killed -- one of them a rickshaw driver near Holwadag intersection -- and demonstrations broke out a few minutes later," Abdkarim Hassan, a grocer, said. Some witnesses said security guards of a local telecoms company opened fire to stop protesters who tried to storm the premises. "This is happening every day and security forces go unpunished... We will continue protesting until justice is served for the victims," Rickshaw driver Mohamed Weli said. Algerian lawyers and judges gather to support the independence of the judiciary outside the Justice Ministry in Algiers on April 13, 2019. Magistrates who play a key role overseeing the country's elections, say they will boycott a July 4 presidential election Algeria's magistrates, who play a key role overseeing the country's elections, said Saturday they would boycott a July 4 presidential election in support of the protest movement. Protestors have held vast rallies calling for allies of ousted president Abdelaziz Bouteflika to step down after the veteran leader quit early this month. They have rejected the July poll, arguing that elections cannot be free and fair if they are held under the same judicial framework and institutions as those of the Bouteflika regime. Interim leader Abdelkader Bensalah has pledged a "transparent" vote but protestors have called for him to leave office too. More than 100 magistrates staged a protest outside the justice ministry on Saturday in response to a call by the Magistrates' Club -- a nascent group set up as an alternative to the regime's National Magistrates' Syndicate (SNM). "The Magistrates' Club has decided to boycott the task of supervising the presidential election," said Saad Eddine Merzoug, a judge from El Oued in the country's southeast. Merzoug said the new club had members at every court in the country, without specifying numbers. Magistrates play a major role organising votes in Algeria. Notably, they oversee the electoral roll, a frequent source of disputes between the regime and the opposition. A revision of the register is set to take place later this month, ahead of the July election. The spring offensive traditionally marks the start of the so-called fighting season, though in reality fighting in recent winters has continued unabated A fresh round of violence gripped Afghanistan on Saturday and explosions shattered weeks of relative calm in the capital Kabul, one day after the Taliban launched their annual spring offensive. The bloodshed comes as the US pushes for a peace settlement with the Taliban, and ahead of a new round of talks expected to take place in Qatar later this month. In one assault, Taliban attackers were reported around the edges of the northern city of Kunduz, which the militants briefly captured in 2015. Naeem Mangal, head of the Kunduz regional hospital, told AFP at least eight people were killed and 62 wounded. The Taliban takeover of Kunduz in 2015 shocked observers, and marked the first time since their ouster in 2001 that they had been able to conquer a major city. Late Saturday in Kabul, a central police station came under attack in the first major incident of its kind in several weeks. Ministry of the Interior spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said at least one person was killed and six others wounded when two hand grenades were thrown at a military vehicle. No one immediately claimed responsibility. After nearly 18 years of war, the US is trying to forge a settlement with the Taliban, and President Donald Trump is impatient for some sort of resolution. US officials have already met several times with the Taliban and further talks are expected in the Qatari capital Doha later this month. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani wants to send a delegation to "exchange views" with the Taliban, but even the process of picking delegates has become bogged down with squabbling and delays. The Taliban have long refused to speak officially with Kabul, dubbing the government a "puppet" of the West, and the militants have insisted that government officials are attending only in a "personal capacity". - Ongoing clashes - In Ghor province in the west, at least seven Afghan security forces were killed in a Taliban ambush, Ghor provincial governor spokesman Abdul Hai Khatibi told AFP. And the Taliban said they had conducted a truck bomb attack in the Shirzad district of the eastern province Nangarhar late Friday, claiming to have killed or wounded "more than 200 soldiers, police and militias". The insurgents frequently exaggerate numbers. Nangarhar provincial governor spokesman Ataullah Khogyani said two Afghan troops had been killed, along with 27 Taliban fighters. The violence came hours after the Taliban announced the start of Operation Fath, the name the militants have given to this year's spring offensive. "Both sides have sustained casualties," the Afghan defence ministry said. "Clashes are ongoing between (Afghan security forces) and Taliban terrorists." Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's palace on Saturday condemned "in the strongest words" the announcement of Operation Fath. "The continuation of war is no one's interest," the palace said. The spring offensive traditionally marks the start of the so-called fighting season, though fighting nowadays continues unabated throughout the year. The Taliban blamed Ghani's government and the US for the violence, accusing them of the indiscriminate killing of civilians in a bombing campaign. "We also want to clarify that we are committed to the ongoing negotiations process and a peaceful resolution but cannot remain indifferent to the military operations and ongoing crimes of the invaders and their internal supporters," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. To facilitate travel to Doha, the United Nations has lifted travel bans for 11 Taliban delegates, including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a cofounder of the Islamist movement and its top political leader, as well as Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the Taliban's former deputy minister of foreign affairs. "The requested exemption is solely for travels required for participation in peace and reconciliation discussions," the UN Security Council said. Sudan's Omar al-Bashir may have been ousted but the military council ruling the country is packed with members of his regime The ousting of Sudan president Omar al-Bashir by the army brought the curtain down on 30 years of iron-fisted rule in the northeastern African nation but failed to quell the anger of protesters who remain encamped outside army headquarters. Few international or regional powers shed public tears over the fall of a man who presided over years of civil war, the break-up of his country and is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes in the region of Darfur. But with protesters fearing that even with Bashir gone the military takeover heralds no meaningful change, the situation remains combustible in the Red Sea state of some 43 million, which borders seven countries. How are world and regional powers viewing the takeover and what would be the consequences outside Sudan of a prolonged period of violence and instability? - African neighbours at risk - Sudan sits nestled in a hugely diverse region in northeast Africa bordered by regional powerhouse Egypt to the north, with strife-torn states like Libya and Chad to the west and key regional player Ethiopia to the south. According to the International Crisis Group, Sudan is "surrounded by neighbours facing internal difficulties of their own" and should Sudan descend into chaos, "the turmoil could spill across borders". A wary observer of events in its bigger neighbour is South Sudan, which was created in 2011 as an independent state after years of fighting under Bashir and has itself been beset by conflict. Sudan remains a guarantor of South Sudan's own peace agreement. - Export violence to Chad? - But the biggest potential flashpoint could be Chad, where the government is fighting both Libya-based rebels and Islamist Boko Haram extremists. Analysts expressed concern over the naming of Mohammad Hamdan Daglo as the deputy chief of Sudanese military council. Widely known as Himeidti, he heads the feared Rapid Support Force (RSF) that grew out of the "janjaweed" militia accused of abuses in Darfur. "If Himeidti sufficiently reinforces his power he could be tempted to destabilise Chad," said Jerome Tubiana, an independent researcher specialising in Sudan. "The RSF are heavily armed and extremely dangerous. They could also export their violence to Libya and the Central African Republic," he told AFP. - Trouble for Darfur - The changes in Khartoum come with the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region -- which broke out in 2003 when rebels took up arms against Khartoum, accusing it of neglecting the region -- still unresolved. According to Tubiana, "there has been no resolution to the Darfur question and the repression is continuing", with the local population and Sudanese security forces still at odds. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Darfur rebels were currently fighting alongside the militia of strongman Khalifa Haftar in Libya as he seeks to take Tripoli, he added. "They could be tempted to return to Sudan to remind Khartoum to take account of Darfur," said Tubiana. - Heavyweight neighbours fear Islamists - Sudan's neighbour Egypt, and Cairo's influential Gulf allies the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, have raised no objection to the fall of Bashir. Cairo last week expressed its "complete support" for the Sudanese people and, crucially, the army. The situation in Sudan has drawn some parallels with that in Algeria, where popular protests won the resignation of ailing leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika but where the existing military elite is still very much in power. Analysts say the last thing Cairo, Abu Dhabi or Riyadh want in Sudan and Algeria is any kind of popular uprising that could bring to power the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, which they vehemently oppose. "If they are offered a military and pro-Arab authority, then they are okay with that even if it uses militia and is violent," said Tubiana. - EU, US cautious - The European Union and United States have trod nearly as carefully while calling for civilians to be brought into the government. Ethiopia under prime minister Abiy Ahmed and Turkey, whose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeatedly hosted Bashir in defiance of the ICC warrant, have also kept their distance. There is also little chance Sudan's current military authorities, many of whom were themselves involved in the Darfur conflict, will hand Bashir over to the ICC in The Hague to face trial. In a possible recognition of who currently holds the cards, the US envoy to Khartoum on Sunday Steven Koutsis met key military figures in Khartoum including Himeidti. "Washington should step up its coordination with the Gulf States and regional leaders such as Prime Minister Abiy of Ethiopia to press both sides to compromise," said Judd Devermont, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. CINCINNATI (AP) - A U.S. magistrate ordered an Ohio man to remain jailed without bond Tuesday on a charge that he lied to federal agents about being a missing child from Illinois. Authorities charged Brian Michael Rini, 23, of Medina, Ohio, on Friday, a day after DNA testing proved he wasn't Timmothy Pitzen, who disappeared in 2011 at age 6. "I believe Mr. Rini poses a risk of flight," Magistrate Karen Litkovitz said during a brief hearing in which Rini stood before her in a uniform from the jail with his wrists and ankles shackled. She cited his lack of a permanent address, past mental health issues and "a lengthy criminal history" that goes back to age 13. She also noted that he had just been released on probation last month from state prison, after serving more than a year on burglary and vandalism charges. Federal authorities said he also has twice before portrayed himself to be a juvenile sex trafficking victim, as he did in this case. She scheduled an April 19 preliminary hearing for Rini, who was represented by a federal public defender. He could face up to eight years in prison if convicted of making false statements to federal agents. This undated photo provided by the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office in Cincinnati shows Brian Rini. A day of false hope has given way to questions about why Rini would claim to be an Illinois boy who disappeared eight years ago. The FBI declared Rini's story a hoax Thursday, April 4, 2019, one day after he identified himself to authorities as Timmothy Pitzen, who disappeared in 2011 at age 6. (Hamilton County Sheriff's Office via AP) The Butler County Jail where he's being held lists him as 5 feet, 9 inches (175 centimeters) tall and 145 pounds (66 kilograms). Police picked up Rini the morning of April 3 after a report that someone was wandering the streets of Newport, Kentucky. They said he told them he was Timmothy and that he had escaped two kidnappers after years of sexual abuse. Police took him to Cincinnati Children's Hospital for treatment and testing. Federal authorities have said they were skeptical, especially after he refused to be fingerprinted but didn't want to miss a chance to possibly solve the Pitzen disappearance. The FBI said DNA testing established his identity as a convicted felon. In 2017, Rini was treated at an Ohio center for people with mental health or substance abuse problems, according to court papers. Timmothy, of Aurora, Illinois, vanished after his mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen, pulled him out of kindergarten, took him on a two-day road trip to the zoo and a water park, and then killed herself at a hotel. She left a note saying that her son was safe with people who would love and care for him, and added: "You will never find him." After Rini's account was pronounced a hoax last week, Timmothy's grandmother Alana Anderson said: "It's been awful. We've been on tenterhooks, hopeful and frightened. It's just been exhausting." ___ Associated Press writer Don Babwin contributed in Chicago. ___ Follow Dan Sewell at https://www.twitter.com/dansewell U.S. Attorney Benjamin Glassman answers questions during a news conference regarding Brian Rini, at the U.S. Attorney's Office in downtown Cincinnati Friday, April 5, 2019. Rini, a 23-year-old ex-convict accused of pulling a cruel hoax by pretending to be Timmothy Pitzen, who disappeared in 2011 at age 6, was charged Friday with making false statements to authorities. (Meg Vogel/The Cincinnati Enquirer via AP) ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - A New York airman whose remains were recently identified more than 75 years after he died in World War II will likely be reburied in a family plot in a rural upstate cemetery, a relative of the fallen serviceman said. Wayne Rogers told The Associated Press on Monday that the family would like to inter the remains of his first cousin, Vincent J. Rogers Jr., in York Corners Cemetery in Willing, New York. Details of the reburial, including the date, are still being worked out with Pentagon officials, Wayne Rogers, of Menifee, California, said. Vincent Rogers, from Snyder, near Buffalo, was a 21-year-old radio operator when he and six other men were killed on Jan. 21, 1944. The men died when their B-24 bomber crashed after taking off from an airfield on the Pacific atoll of Tarawa, two months after U.S. Marines took the island from the Japanese in a bloody three-day battle. The plane nicknamed "Miss Bee Haven" crashed into a shallow lagoon. Three crewmembers survived. The bodies of the seven killed were buried on Tarawa. Three of the bodies were disinterred after the war and brought back to the U.S. for burial, but information on the whereabouts of the other four crewmembers' remains was lost. The Pentagon announced last week that Rogers' remains were the last of the missing four to be identified after they were located on Tarawa in 2017 by History Flight, a private group helping the U.S. military recover the remains of American servicemen lost in WWII. This undated photo provided by the March Field Air Museum in April 2019 shows Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. Vincent J. Rogers Jr. at his home in Snyder, N.Y. U.S. military officials say the remains of the western New York airman killed in a plane crash in the Pacific during World War II have been identified. (March Field Air Museum via the AP) In 2011, Wayne Rogers donated more than 200 of his cousin's wartime letters to the aviation museum at March Field in Southern California, where Vincent Rogers had trained with his bomber crew. Museum Director Jeff Houlihan used the letters as the basis for a popular exhibit detailing a typical Air Force recruit's experiences during WWII. Wayne Rogers said he was just 2 years old when his cousin was killed. He said other relatives who live in New York and Massachusetts plan to attend the reburial. "I'm glad he's back," Wayne Rogers said. "It kind of brings the family back together." ___ This story has been corrected to show the crash occurred in 1944, not 1943. FILE - In this 1944 photo provided by the U.S. Army, a member of the military stands near a B-24 bomber that crashed shortly after takeoff from an airfield on the Tarawa atoll in the Gilbert Islands in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. A relative of New York Airman Vincent J. Rogers Jr., whose remains were recently identified more than 75 years after he died in World War II, says his reburial will likely be in a rural upstate cemetery. (U.S. Army via AP, File) This undated photo provided by the March Field Air Museum in April 2019 shows Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. Vincent J. Rogers Jr. at his home in Snyder, N.Y. U.S. military officials say the remains of the western New York airman killed in a plane crash in the Pacific during World War II have been identified. (March Field Air Museum via the AP) BRUSSELS (AP) - Tough-guy France softened its stance Tuesday and showed willingness to accept yet another delay in the long-awaited Brexit, diminishing the chances that Britain would crash out of the European Union this week without any future plan. But British Prime Minister Theresa May still has a rough day ahead of her as she heads to an emergency summit in Brussels on Wednesday to plead for a new Brexit extension - for the second time in three weeks. Such gatherings aren't getting any friendlier. With nearly everyone fully resigned to Britain's departure from the European Union, two questions took center stage Tuesday: How - and when - to get the U.K. politely out the door. EU countries, especially France, have become increasingly exasperated with the political division and uncertainty in Britain about a way forward. The bloc's leaders have tried to help May over the past two years of negotiations, even after she missed her hand-picked Brexit departure date on March 29 because of a parliamentary revolt. After obtaining a delay until Friday, she will be asking for another postponement that lasts until June 30 at the special EU summit. On a charm offensive with key leaders, May flew first to Berlin Tuesday to plead for good terms with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and then set off for Paris for an encounter with President Emmanuel Macron, seen as her counterpart with the toughest demands. FILE - In this Nov. 24, 2017 file photo, British Prime Minister Theresa May, right, speaks with European Council President Donald Tusk, second left, as European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker looks on during a meeting in Brussels. EU leaders will confront British Prime Minister Theresa May for the second time in three weeks on her government's plans at an emergency Brexit summit on Wednesday, April 10, 2019, and such gatherings aren't getting any friendlier. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert, File) "France is really trying to play bad cop here," said Larissa Brunner, an analyst at European Policy Center, referring to French insistence that another extension to her deadline must come with strings attached and assurances from London. However, an official in Macron's office said Tuesday that France was ready to accept a new delay. While Macron still has a long list of conditions, it was a notable shift in France's tone compared to last week. The reason for the change was unclear, though concerns have been growing about how badly a hard Brexit would hit the French economy, too. France was also encouraged by May's outreach last week to Britain's political opposition to find a compromise, and Macron may have been swayed in part by a meeting with the Irish prime minister. France, which has had a love-hate relationship with Britain for about 1,000 years, is now at the forefront to get the EU to take some decisive action. "We won't be able to perpetually live with the exit of Brexit," French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said over the weekend. "At some point there is an exit." Germany thinks likewise. "There isn't an endless readiness to keep talking about delays so long as there is no substantial progress on the British side," said Michael Roth, Germany's deputy foreign minister. All eyes are now turned toward Macron, who has it in his power to force Britain to choose between a no-deal Brexit on Friday and cancelling its departure altogether. A drastic cliff-edge departure would have huge costs to businesses and trade across the English Channel and be very cumbersome to travelers as it would hit airports, ports, tariff rules and standard regulations overnight. EU rules say that any extension to the Brexit deadline needs unanimity among the 27 other member states, and even if smaller member states would be hard-pressed to do it on their own, France has never shied away from being an EU leader - even at the expense of Britain. After all, French President Charles De Gaulle twice vetoed British membership in the 1960s, and the two countries long fought tooth and nail over everything from farming to fishing rights to how much Britain should pay into the EU budget. Add to that France's long-held championing of state oversight of the economy as opposed to Britain's staunch defense of free-market liberalism, and the potential for political infighting has always been there. Among conditions France is now setting to agree to a new delay: A "credible prospect" of some kind of solution to the British political deadlock. A promise that Britain won't keep asking for more delays. And guarantees that Britain would not be involved in future EU decisions while its Brexit drama is playing out. "The longer the extension might be, the more guarantees are needed," the French official said, speaking on condition he not be named in keeping with presidential policy. Britain's Byzantine parliamentary disarray that has left Brexit in a state of a flux has added to continental annoyance. "We are in a very, very frustrating situation here," Germany's Roth said as he arrived Tuesday at an EU meeting in Luxembourg. But, he added, a disorderly Brexit would be "the worst of all options on the table." "So far absolutely nothing has changed," Roth said. "Within the European Union, there isn't an endless readiness to keep talking about delays so long as there is no substantial progress on the British side." Every British initiative to get a deal has floundered so far. Several days of talks between May's Conservative government and the main opposition Labour Party tried to find a compromise Brexit deal have failed to produce a breakthrough. Labour favors a softer Brexit than the government has proposed, and wants to retain a close economic relationship with the bloc. After further talks Tuesday over an informal lunch of sandwiches and sausage rolls, the two sides said they would resume their discussions after Wednesday's EU summit. May's Downing Street office said the talks had been "productive and wide-ranging." Labour business spokeswoman Rebecca Long-Bailey said there had not been "any fundamental shift ... but we're hopeful that progress will be made." For two years, March 29 was the date etched in law to get Brexit through. It has come and gone, and the new red line has become the May 23-26 European elections and the July 2 start of the new five-year EU legislative session. European Council President Donald Tusk has offered up the possibility of a long-term delay, a one-year "flextension." But some EU leaders worry that could have drawbacks - especially after British Brexit-backers suggested they would try to make life difficult for the EU. Conservative lawmaker Mark Francois said that if the U.K. remained in the bloc, "then in return we will become a Trojan horse within the EU, which will utterly derail all your attempts to pursue a more federal project." Little wonder EU leaders are looking for a true commitment of cooperation from May as a prerequisite for a long extension to the Brexit deadline. __ Geir Moulson in Berlin and Danica Kirka and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report. ___ Follow AP's full coverage of Brexit at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit FILE - In this Nov. 9, 2018 file photo, French President Emmanuel Macron, left, and British Prime Minister Theresa May visit the Thiepval Memorial, in Thiepval, northern France. EU leaders will confront British Prime Minister Theresa May for the second time in three weeks on her government's plans at an emergency Brexit summit on Wednesday, April 10, 2019, and such gatherings aren't getting any friendlier. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, Pool, File) German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, and British Prime Minister Theresa May, talk teach other after a meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. Prime Minister Theresa May will hold talks with the leaders of Germany and France ahead of a key Brexit summit this week. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, and British Prime Minister Theresa May, kiss goodbye after a meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. Prime Minister Theresa May will hold talks with the leaders of Germany and France ahead of a key Brexit summit this week. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) A European and British flag blow in front of the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. Prime Minister Theresa May will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel ahead of a key Brexit summit this week. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, and British Prime Minister Theresa May embrace after their meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn) German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, and British Prime Minister Theresa May leave after their meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn) FILE - In this Feb. 7, 2019 file photo, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, British Prime Minister Theresa May and European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, center, walk to their meeting at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels. EU leaders will confront British Prime Minister Theresa May for the second time in three weeks on her government's plans at an emergency Brexit summit on Wednesday, April 10, 2019, and such gatherings aren't getting any friendlier. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, File) STENI VALLA, Greece (AP) - Near the northern Greek island of Alonissos lies a remarkable ancient shipwreck: the remains of a massive cargo ship that changed archaeologists' understanding of shipbuilding in antiquity. Now this spectacular find is to become the first ancient shipwreck to be made accessible to the public in Greece, including to recreational divers. Greece's rich underwater heritage has long been hidden from view, off-limits to all but a select few, mainly archaeologists. Scuba diving was banned throughout the country except in a few specific locations until 2005, for fear that divers might loot the countless antiquities that still lie scattered on the country's seabed. Ancient shipwrecks and even many more recent ones are still off-limits. Now that seems to be gradually changing, with a new project to create underwater museums. Divers will be able to tour certain shipwrecks and non-divers will experience the sites through virtual reality in information centers on land. In this photo taken on Sunday, April 7, 2019, an archaeologists dives next ancient amphoras from a 5th Century B.C. shipwreck, the first ancient shipwreck to be opened to the public in Greece, including to recreational divers who will be able to visit the wreck itself, near the coast of Peristera, Greece. Greece's rich underwater heritage has long been hidden from view, off-limits to all but a select few, mainly archaeologists. Scuba diving was banned throughout the country except in a few specific locations until 2005, for fear that divers might loot the countless antiquities that still lie scattered on the country's seabed. Now that seems to be gradually changing, with a new project to create underwater museums. (AP Photo/Elena Becatoros) The first of these sites is the Peristera shipwreck, named for the uninhabited Greek island opposite Alonissos where it was discovered in the early 1990s. The cargo ship was laden with thousands of amphoras, or vases, probably containing wine, when it sank in the late 5th century B.C. All that survives is the cargo, the exposed parts of the wooden ship having long since rotted away. But the sight is spectacular. Thousands of ancient vases, the vast majority intact, lie in layers. Fish, sponges and other sea creatures have made the amphoras their home, adding color and life to the site. In some places, the cargo towers above divers as they pass along the perimeter of the wreck. "It is very impressive. Even I, who have been working for years in underwater archaeology, the first time I dived on this wreck I was truly impressed," said Dimitris Kourkoumelis, the lead archaeologist on the project preparing the site for visitors. "It's different to see amphoras ... individually in a museum and different to see them in such concentration." The wreck still holds mysteries. Only a small part has been excavated, and experts have yet to determine how or why it sank, or what other treasures it might have carried beneath the estimated 4,000 amphoras in its hold. There are indications a fire had broken out on board, but it's unclear whether that contributed to its sinking. "Was it a piracy act? Was it overloaded?" said Elpida Hadjidaki, the first archaeologist to excavate the site. These questions remain unanswered. The Peristera wreck is the largest ship of its time to have been found and its discovery was of major significance to historians. "Up to then, we thought that large ships that were carrying 1,500 amphoras and were up to 70 tons, they were built by the Romans in the 1st century B.C.," Hadjidaki explained. "Well, now we have a ship that was not built in the 1st century B.C., it was built in the 5th century B.C., it carried 4,000 amphoras and God knows what else and it's 126 tons." Hadjidaki said she is thrilled the wreck is being opened to visitors. "It's fantastic. Twenty-five years ago, I was the first person that proposed that and people were jumping at me, they thought I was crazy," she said. "Why should we keep it to ourselves? We have to give knowledge to people." The first test for guided tours of the wreck, which lies at a depth of about 22-28 meters (72-92 feet), was carried out last weekend with small groups of recreational and professional divers. A thorough briefing, complete with historical information and the rules of the dive, preceded the short boat ride from the tiny harbor of Steni Valla on Alonissos to the site. On the wreck itself, explanatory signs have been suspended along the perimeter. The initial feedback has been positive. "It was an amazing opportunity ... to dive at last on an ancient wreck," said Kostas Menemenoglou, a 39-year-old recreational diver from the central town of Volos. "It was a fantastic experience. It's really like diving into history." Three other shipwrecks in the Pagasitic Gulf in central Greece are also included in the project, which is part of a European Commission-funded BlueMed program, which plans to expand the project to Italy and Croatia. More test dives will be held this summer and next year, with hopes of fully opening the sites to recreational diving in early 2021. "Accessible archaeological sites are one of the most interesting projects - not just a Greek project but a worldwide project," said Kourkoumelis, who noted it has taken a long time to get to the point of allowing visitors to access an ancient wreck. "It took years. And that's logical, because underwater ancient sites and particularly ancient shipwrecks are exposed ... and fragile," he said, noting it was crucial to properly set up the project and the dive conditions, making sure the sites are protected before they can be opened to the public. "All the conditions must be ensured so that these sites remain safe in the future and for future generations," he added. ____ Follow Becatoros on https://twitter.com/ElenaBec In this photo taken on Sunday, April 7, 2019, divers visit a 5th Century B.C. shipwreck, the first ancient shipwreck to be opened to the public in Greece, including to recreational divers who will be able to visit the wreck itself, near the coast of Peristera, Greece. Greece's rich underwater heritage has long been hidden from view, off-limits to all but a select few, mainly archaeologists. Scuba diving was banned throughout the country except in a few specific locations until 2005, for fear that divers might loot the countless antiquities that still lie scattered on the country's seabed. Now that seems to be gradually changing, with a new project to create underwater museums. (AP Photo/Elena Becatoros) In this photo taken on Sunday, April 7, 2019, divers visit a 5th Century B.C. shipwreck, the first ancient shipwreck to be opened to the public in Greece, including to recreational divers who will be able to visit the wreck itself, near the coast of Peristera, Greece. Greece's rich underwater heritage has long been hidden from view, off-limits to all but a select few, mainly archaeologists. Scuba diving was banned throughout the country except in a few specific locations until 2005, for fear that divers might loot the countless antiquities that still lie scattered on the country's seabed. Now that seems to be gradually changing, with a new project to create underwater museums. (AP Photo/Elena Becatoros) CAPTION CORRECTS THE PHOTOGRAPHER - In this photo taken on Sunday, April 7, 2019, archeologists and visitors prepare to dive to a 5th Century B.C. shipwreck, the first ancient shipwreck to be opened to the public in Greece, including to recreational divers who will be able to visit the wreck itself, near the coast of Peristera, Greece. Greece's rich underwater heritage has long been hidden from view, off-limits to all but a select few, mainly archaeologists. Scuba diving was banned throughout the country except in a few specific locations until 2005, for fear that divers might loot the countless antiquities that still lie scattered on the country's seabed. Now that seems to be gradually changing, with a new project to create underwater museums. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) In this photo taken on Sunday, April 7, 2019, ancient amphoras lie at the bottom of the sea from a 5th Century B.C. shipwreck, the first ancient shipwreck to be opened to the public in Greece, including to recreational divers who will be able to visit the wreck itself, near the coast of Peristera, Greece. Greece's rich underwater heritage has long been hidden from view, off-limits to all but a select few, mainly archaeologists. Scuba diving was banned throughout the country except in a few specific locations until 2005, for fear that divers might loot the countless antiquities that still lie scattered on the country's seabed. Now that seems to be gradually changing, with a new project to create underwater museums. (AP Photo/Elena Becatoros) CAPTION CORRECTS THE PHOTOGRAPHER - In this photo taken on Sunday, April 7, 2019, lead archeologist for the project of opening wrecks to visitors Dimitris Kourkoumelis prepares to dive to a 5th Century B.C. shipwreck, the first ancient shipwreck to be opened to the public in Greece, including to recreational divers who will be able to visit the wreck itself, near the coast of Peristera, Greece. Greece's rich underwater heritage has long been hidden from view, off-limits to all but a select few, mainly archaeologists. Scuba diving was banned throughout the country except in a few specific locations until 2005, for fear that divers might loot the countless antiquities that still lie scattered on the country's seabed. Now that seems to be gradually changing, with a new project to create underwater museums. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) CAPTION CORRECTS THE PHOTOGRAPHER - In this photo taken on Sunday, April 7, 2019, lead archeologist for the project of opening wrecks to visitors Dimitris Kourkoumelis dives to a 5th Century B.C. shipwreck, the first ancient shipwreck to be opened to the public in Greece, including to recreational divers who will be able to visit the wreck itself, near the coast of Peristera, Greece. Greece's rich underwater heritage has long been hidden from view, off-limits to all but a select few, mainly archaeologists. Scuba diving was banned throughout the country except in a few specific locations until 2005, for fear that divers might loot the countless antiquities that still lie scattered on the country's seabed. Now that seems to be gradually changing, with a new project to create underwater museums. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) CAPTION CORRECTS THE PHOTOGRAPHER -M In this photo taken on Sunday, April 7, 2019, lead archeologist for the project of opening wrecks to visitors Dimitris Kourkoumelis, center, and archaeologist Elpida Hadjidaki briefs divers before the first visit to a 5th Century B.C. shipwreck, the first ancient shipwreck to be opened to the public in Greece, including to recreational divers who will be able to visit the wreck itself, near the coast of Peristera, Greece. Greece's rich underwater heritage has long been hidden from view, off-limits to all but a select few, mainly archaeologists. Scuba diving was banned throughout the country except in a few specific locations until 2005, for fear that divers might loot the countless antiquities that still lie scattered on the country's seabed. Now that seems to be gradually changing, with a new project to create underwater museums. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) In this photo taken on Sunday, April 7, 2019, ancient amphoras lie at the bottom of the sea from a 5th Century B.C. shipwreck, the first ancient shipwreck to be opened to the public in Greece, including to recreational divers who will be able to visit the wreck itself, near the coast of Peristera, Greece. Greece's rich underwater heritage has long been hidden from view, off-limits to all but a select few, mainly archaeologists. Scuba diving was banned throughout the country except in a few specific locations until 2005, for fear that divers might loot the countless antiquities that still lie scattered on the country's seabed. Now that seems to be gradually changing, with a new project to create underwater museums. (AP Photo/Elena Becatoros) CAPTION CORRECTS THE PHOTOGRAPHER - In this photo taken on Sunday, April 7, 2019, archaeologist Elpida Hadjidaki stands at the harbor of Steni Vala, with Peristera island seen in the background, in Greece. Off the coast of Peristera island is a 5th Century B.C. shipwreck, the first ancient shipwreck to be opened to the public in Greece, including to recreational divers who will be able to visit the wreck itself. Greece's rich underwater heritage has long been hidden from view, off-limits to all but a select few, mainly archaeologists. Scuba diving was banned throughout the country except in a few specific locations until 2005, for fear that divers might loot the countless antiquities that still lie scattered on the country's seabed. Now that seems to be gradually changing, with a new project to create underwater museums. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) CAPTION CORRECTS THE PHOTOGRAPHER - In this photo taken on Sunday, April 7, 2019, a photo of the 3,500 amphoras lying on the seabed by a 5th Century B.C. shipwreck, the first ancient shipwreck to be opened to the public in Greece, including to recreational divers who will be able to visit the wreck itself, is seen, near the coast of Peristera, Greece. Greece's rich underwater heritage has long been hidden from view, off-limits to all but a select few, mainly archaeologists. Scuba diving was banned throughout the country except in a few specific locations until 2005, for fear that divers might loot the countless antiquities that still lie scattered on the country's seabed. Now that seems to be gradually changing, with a new project to create underwater museums. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) CAPTION CORRECTS THE PHOTOGRAPHER - This photo taken on Friday, April 5, 2019 shows the harbor of Steni Vala with the island of Peristera on the background, in Greece. Off the coast of Peristera is a 5th Century B.C. shipwreck, the first ancient shipwreck to be opened to the public in Greece, including to recreational divers who will be able to visit the wreck itself. Greece's rich underwater heritage has long been hidden from view, off-limits to all but a select few, mainly archaeologists. Scuba diving was banned throughout the country except in a few specific locations until 2005, for fear that divers might loot the countless antiquities that still lie scattered on the country's seabed. Now that seems to be gradually changing, with a new project to create underwater museums. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) NATCHEZ, Miss. (AP) - In this city known for pre-Civil War mansions, a young mother shared a government-funded apartment with her three small children and a legion of cockroaches. They lurked in the medicine cabinet, under the refrigerator, behind a picture on the wall. The mother nudged a bedroom dresser and more roaches skittered away as her 2-year-old son stomped on them. It was home, sweet home for Destiny Johnson and her kids - until she got fed up and moved out last month. Inspectors had cited the apartment complex with urgent health and safety violations for the past three years. Yet the federal government continued to pay Johnson's rent at a property where a three-bedroom unit like hers can run $900 a month. "I'm not asking for the best," she told a reporter weeks before leaving, "but something better than this, especially for these kids." Health and safety inspection scores at taxpayer-funded apartments assigned to low-income tenants have been declining for years, typically with no serious consequences for landlords, an Associated Press analysis of federal housing data shows. In this Feb. 20, 2019 photo, Destiny Johnson shows the broken door to her oven that she uses string to hold together, in her apartment in Cedarhurst Homes, a federally subsidized, low-income apartment complex in Natchez, Miss. The complex failed a health and safety inspection in each of the past three years. Upset with conditions, Johnson moved out in late March. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) Johnson's former apartment is one of nearly 160,000 at private properties with federal contracts that have failed at least one inspection since 1999. Nationwide data show the vast majority of failing inspections involved urgent violations. They can range from electrical hazards to rampant vermin to piles of garbage. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development subsidizes rents for tenants assigned to both privately owned apartments and public housing run by state or local authorities. Many in these 2.1 million households are disabled, elderly or single parents. As the nation's biggest affordable housing provider, the federal government will spend about $18 billion this year for these two programs. Yet tenants curse heaters that don't heat, emergency exits that don't open, windows that don't close. They complain of rats, rust, holes and mold. In 2015 alone, families living in subsidized housing reported at least 155,000 more cases of childhood asthma than expected if the rate were the same as for renters in other households, according to AP's analysis of a national tenant survey. Medical studies tie asthma to mold. Federal authorities acknowledge the long slide in inspection scores, which started a decade ago in the privately owned housing. They say in recent years they have been protecting tenants by reinspecting sites with surprisingly high scores and closely monitoring repairs. "These older properties," Housing and Urban Development spokesman Brian Sullivan said, "the private owners may not have the means to do needed repairs." Conditions have deteriorated so badly in many subsidized buildings that by the government's own estimate it would take tens of billions of dollars to rehabilitate them. ___ Destiny Johnson lived with her children ages 1, 2, and 5, at Cedarhurst Homes on a dead-end street in Natchez, where Mississippi River trading and wealth built on slave plantations have yielded to inveterate poverty among a largely black population. The heater in Johnson's apartment didn't work, so she was using the oven to keep warm until a stovetop fire last year. Johnson, 21, said she tried to use her fire extinguisher, but that didn't work either, so she rushed to borrow one from a neighbor. The oven still hadn't been replaced several months later. Its door was tied closed with a bright pink cord. In late March, she said, management finally provided a letter that let her move to a nearby subsidized complex with a better inspection record. "I couldn't take it anymore," Johnson said. A former neighbor who still lives at the 30-unit Cedarhurst Homes, Whitley Williams, wanted to show a reporter and photographer her leaking water heater. The door to its closet was damp and swollen. She tried to heave it open, but the bottom scraped the floor and broke apart. Her three children prefer to stay elsewhere, with her father. Federal records list the site owner as The Columbia Property Group, which has managed or owned at least 66 federally contracted properties in Georgia, Florida and its home state of Mississippi. Company President Melanie Moe referred questions to Bryan King, an officer at Mississippi-based Triangle Development, LLC. In an emailed statement, King said his development company was acquiring Cedarhurst Homes and planned to pursue federal tax credits for a "large renovation." The property earned inspection scores of 46, 53, and 54 out of a possible 100 from 2016 through 2018, federal data show. Any score up to 60 is now considered failing. At least three other Columbia Property Group sites have failed inspections since 2011, federal records show. Federally subsidized private apartments, where tenants typically pay about a third of their income, fare worst in the South. Louisiana had the nation's highest inspection failure rate at 12%, with Mississippi second at 10%. Housing experts say landlords in poor, rural communities with low rents can have trouble amassing cash for repairs, despite federal payments. Nationally, inspection scores at privately owned complexes like Cedarhurst Homes reached a peak of 90 in 2007 during the George W. Bush administration. Scores averaged 86 during Barack Obama's two terms and 81 under President Trump as of June. AP's analysis of historical trends uses data released in January. Since then, HUD has been revising its databases and released one that isn't directly comparable and drops pertinent inspections. Federal housing officials partly attribute the recent drop in scores to their crackdown on substandard repairs and inflated inspection scores . Under Trump, 92% of inspections found a violation, up from 85% under Obama and 77% under Bush. Federal housing officials also say their new approach has driven up some scores as managers understand they must take repairs seriously. In a March report , however, the Government Accountability Office told Congress that HUD's inspection processes are outdated and need a thorough overhaul to ensure stronger oversight of building conditions. And tenants in some buildings still complain that management hides problems from inspectors, covering cracks with duct tape, mold with a quick coat of paint, or even old junk with temporary partitions. Michael Kane, executive director of the National Alliance of HUD Tenants, acknowledged the department has gotten tougher on inspections but said the decline in scores reflects continued deterioration of living conditions. "As the buildings age, they develop certain kinds of problems. They didn't have water leaks and mold at the beginning, but they sure ... did 40 years later," he said. Federal officials acknowledge they must think hard before taking enforcement action that might shutter a property. The federal government ended most of its efforts to build new affordable housing in the 1980s, and private-sector financing for new construction has long been scarce. HUD's main programs now rely on the existing, gradually aging housing stock. "We lose the affordable housing forever. You never get it back," HUD spokesman Sullivan said. Since the start of 2016, he said, the agency has terminated 36 housing contracts. There are now about 24,000. Most failing sites get what amounts to a warning and multiple chances to correct violations. "Yet what's going to save these programs is aggressive enforcement," says Linda Couch, a housing policy official at the elderly advocacy group LeadingAge. ___ Job cuts over decades have hobbled HUD's enforcement efforts from within. "You could walk around all the offices and see all the empty desks where people used to work," said Merryl Gibbs, a lawyer who enforced anti-discrimination housing law before retiring from the department in 2016. The Trump administration proposed deep cuts in department funding as recently as March, but Congress has resisted. Spending for HUD's main housing programs is expected to increase about 2% to nearly $40 billion this year, by AP's calculation. The total includes a third program that gives vouchers to another 2.2 million households, letting tenants pick a unit on the private market. Many housing advocates want more vouchers and incentives for private landlords to accept them. Others suggest increasing tax credits for construction and repairs, more federal staff and resources for better oversight, and more tenant participation in site improvements. HUD Secretary Ben Carson has acknowledged a drastic shortage of low-cost housing and stressed the federal role. A physician by training, Carson has also pointed to the connection between residential mold and asthma. That tie is supported in federal data. The share of U.S. households reporting mold was higher in subsidized rentals than other rentals, according to the latest data available from the American Housing Survey. Meanwhile, 13% of subsidized rental households reported at least one child with asthma, compared with 7% for other rentals. The differences hold even accounting for family size and poverty. Housing advocates say funding remains the bottom line. "We try and come up with solutions that don't cost anything," said Priya Jayachandran, a former senior administrator at HUD and now president of the National Housing Trust. "The answer is money." ___ On a recent visit to Baltimore's Rosemont Tower for elderly or disabled tenants, stairwells were littered with plastic caps for needles used to inject heroin. Tenants in this federally funded public housing complained of bedbugs and mice. Signs saying "mandatory fire watch" alerted residents that the sprinkler system was broken, requiring a firefighter to stand watch around the clock. A recurrent leak has sopped a prized Oriental rug and spread mold into the living room of Della Thomas. "Every time there's a real heavy rain, the ceiling gets a big bubble, and it starts to leak. They just kind of patch it up until the next time," said Thomas, 64. She pointed to a plastic trash can, saying management provided it to catch drips. Ingrid Antonio, a spokeswoman for the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, said security guards make regular rounds and pest extermination happens at least every three months. She said stairwells are cleaned daily. To increase funds for repairs, however, the building will be converted to private ownership in coming months but remain subsidized housing, she said. Inspectors gave the 200-unit high-rise a failing score of 25 in 2017. That jumped to 71 last year, according to the housing authority, though urgent violations and smoke detector problems persisted. A reinspection was planned for later this year. Of 37 Baltimore public housing sites, 22 failed their last inspection, according to data from HUD and the housing authority. "Steadily declining federal investment in public housing for more than a decade has taken a tremendous toll," the city's housing authority said in a statement. Largely due to Baltimore's blighted complexes, since 2013 Maryland had the country's highest inspection failure rate for public housing at 32%. The District of Columbia was second at 29%. The national average was 10%. Around the country, inspection scores at public housing have fallen under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Scores averaged 89 during Obama's second term, dropping to 79 under Trump through March 2018. HUD's most recent estimate, from 2010, concluded that public housing needed about $25.6 billion in large-scale repairs and at least $3.4 billion more each year. That would have added up to well over $50 billion by now. Instead, Congress has restricted repair spending to $23.5 billion. The federal government also has tried to avoid expensive takeovers. HUD knew for years of broken appliances, pests, racial discrimination and other "deplorable conditions" at buildings run by the Alexander County Housing Authority in southern Illinois, according to the agency's inspector general. It wasn't until 2016 that department officials finally took control. By then, they needed to close four complexes and relocate hundreds of residents. ___ Donn reported from Plymouth, Massachusetts. David McFadden in Baltimore contributed. ___ Reach Jeff Donn on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jadonn7 In this Feb. 20, 2019 photo, Destiny Johnson shows a nonworking fire extinguisher in her apartment in Cedarhurst Homes, a federally subsidized, low-income apartment complex in Natchez, Miss. Johnson said the complex management gave her the extinguisher which was supposed to be fully charged, only to have it fail during a kitchen fire. The complex failed a health and safety inspection in each of the past three years. Upset with conditions, Johnson moved out in late March. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) In this Feb. 20, 2019 photo, Destiny Johnson shows the section of drywall that maintenance workers gave her to patch a hole in her bedroom wall in her apartment in Cedarhurst Homes, a federally subsidized, low-income apartment complex in Natchez, Miss. The complex failed a health and safety inspection in each of the past three years. Upset with conditions, Johnson moved out in late March. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) In this Feb. 20, 2019 photo, Destiny Johnson's son, Hayden Howard, 2, steps on roaches in his mother's apartment in Cedarhurst Homes, a federally subsidized, low-income apartment complex in Natchez, Miss. The complex failed a health and safety inspection in each of the past three years. Upset with conditions, Johnson moved out in late March. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) In this Feb. 20, 2019 photo, roaches line the door jam of Destiny Johnson's apartment in Cedarhurst Homes, a federally subsidized, low-income apartment complex in Natchez, Miss. The complex received at least three failing inspection scores in recent years. Upset with conditions, Johnson moved out in late March. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) In this Feb. 20, 2019 photo, Whitley Williams demonstrates how a recently repaired window does not open easily, preventing her from using a window air conditioner to help cool her apartment in Cedarhurst Homes, a federally subsidized, low-income apartment complex in Natchez, Miss. Williams said she had complained about the central heating and another window unit not working for months, with no repairs. The complex failed a health and safety inspection in each of the past three years. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) In this Feb. 20, 2019 photo, Whitley Williams shows a piece of rotting trim from the door leading to her leaking water heater in her apartment at Cedarhurst Homes, a federally subsidized, low-income apartment complex in Natchez, Miss. Williams said she has complained about the water heater not working for months, with no repairs from maintenance. The complex failed a health and safety inspection in each of the past three years. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) In this Feb. 20, 2019 photo, Whitley Williams points out the nonworking central heater in her apartment in Cedarhurst Homes, a federally subsidized, low-income apartment complex in Natchez, Miss. Williams said she has complained about it not working for months, with no repairs. The complex failed a health and safety inspection in each of the past three years. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) In this Feb. 25, 2019 photo, dusk settles over Rosemont Tower in Baltimore. Health and safety inspectors gave the 200-unit public housing high-rise a failing score of 25 out of a possible 100 in 2017. The score improved to 71 last year, according to housing authority officials. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) In this Feb. 26, 2019 photo, Della Thomas stands with a trash can that she says management provided to catch water dripping from her ceiling during rain storms in her Rosemont Tower apartment in Baltimore. Largely due to complexes such as Rosemont Tower, since 2013 Maryland had the country's highest inspection failure rate for public housing at 32%. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) This Feb. 26, 2019, photo shows Rosemont Tower in Baltimore from a resident's balcony. Health and safety inspectors gave the 200-unit public housing high-rise a failing score of 25 out of a possible 100 in 2017 and then last year a score of 71, according to the housing authority. Largely due to complexes such as Rosemont Tower, since 2013 Maryland had the country's highest inspection failure rate for public housing at 32%. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) In this Feb. 22, 2019 photo, a sign alerts residents in Rosemont Tower in Baltimore that the fire sprinkler system is out of service, requiring a firefighter to stand watch around the clock. Largely due to complexes such as Rosemont Tower, since 2013 Maryland had the country's highest inspection failure rate for public housing at 32%. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) This Feb. 26, 2019, photo shows a sprinkler in Rosemont Tower resident Larnell Robinson's apartment in Baltimore. Signs in the building's halls alert residents that the fire sprinkler system is out of service, requiring a firefighter to stand watch around the clock. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Taliban fighters stormed army checkpoints in southern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border overnight, killing 20 troops, an official said Tuesday. Eight other security forces were also wounded in Monday night's attack in Shorabak district, Mohammad Yousof Younosi, a provincial council member in Kandahar, said. An official from the provincial governor's office, who was not authorized to speak with the media, confirmed the attack and said there were casualties among the Afghan forces, but couldn't provide exact figures. Qari Yusouf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, claimed responsibility for the attack and said the group's fighters also seized weapons and ammunition. Also on Tuesday, U.S. forces in Afghanistan revised the death toll from a Taliban attack a day earlier near the main American base in the country, saying three Marines were killed but not a contractor who was initially reported among the fatalities. In northern Sari Pul province, at least five members of the country's security forces were killed when the Taliban attacked a joint army and police base, said Zabihullah Amani, the provincial governor's spokesman. He said that seven other forces were wounded in Monday night's attack in Sangcharak district. There was no immediate comment from the Taliban. Amani said four insurgents were also killed in the ensuing clashes. In northern Samangan province, an Afghan army officer shot and killed two of his fellow soldiers and later fled to join the Taliban, said Sayed Hashim Bayan, the provincial police chief's spokesman. He said the shooter seized a Humvee and some ammunition before making his getaway around noon on Monday. The Taliban praised the soldier's actions and confirmed he joined their ranks in Dari Suf district. ___ Associated Press writer Lolita Baldor in Washington contributed. BEIRUT (AP) - Islamic militants in Syria, disguised as farmers and wearing suicide belts, attacked a military post belonging to government forces on Tuesday in the country's northwest, setting off clashes that killed three soldiers, state media reported. In a separate attack in the country's northeast, activists said a suicide bomber was killed after attempting to use a vehicle rigged with explosives to target a patrol convoy for the U.S.-led international coalition fighting the Islamic State group. No coalition members were reported killed, and the Kurdish Hawar news agency and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack took place near the town of Shaddadeh in Hasakeh province. It was not clear if the attack targeted U.S. troops or their coalition partners. The coalition, in a statement emailed to The Associated Press, said it had received reports that a coalition vehicle hit an "improvised explosive device" in Syria, which resulted in no casualties. "The incident is currently under investigation," it said. This was the first such attack known to have targeted members of the coalition since Washington's local allies, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, declared defeat over IS in its final stronghold in Syria last month. In the attack on Syrian government troops just outside Idlib province in the northwest, the state-run Ikhbariya TV quoted an unnamed military official as saying the militants advanced on the post in Tayyibat al-Imam, an area within a de-militarized zone that has been part of a truce deal sponsored by Russia and Turkey since September. An uptick in violence in recent weeks has strained the fragile truce, which had earlier averted a government offensive on Idlib and surrounding areas, the last major rebel stronghold in the country. The region is home to some 3 million people, including many displaced from other battles in the civil war. The U.N. has warned of an "alarming spike in civilian casualties and new displacement," with increased fighting and an intensification of airstrikes in the truce area. The military official who spoke to Ikhbariya TV said the Syrian soldiers clashed with the militants. Mortars, a tank and heavy machine guns were also used in the attack that killed the three soldiers. The militants blew themselves up, the official said. The Observatory also reported the attack, saying it was carried out by three militants. Both the Observatory and a media group, Idlib Correspondent, said the jihadi Ansar Tawheed group was behind the attack. The Observatory said at least six soldiers were killed in the attack. The discrepancy in the death toll could not immediately be reconciled. BERLIN (AP) - The Latest on Brexit discussions (all times local): 7:25 p.m. European Council President Donald Tusk is urging European Union leaders to grant the United Kingdom a flexible extension to its departure date from the bloc. In his invitation to Wednesday's Brussels summit to discuss Prime Minister Theresa May's request for a delay to the U.K.'s scheduled Friday departure from the EU, Tusk says "I believe we should also discuss an alternative, longer extension. One possibility would be a flexible extension, which would last only as long as necessary and no longer than one year." Tusk says such an extension would have to be conditional to allay fears Britain could stymie EU decision making if it remains a member. He says conditions would include not reopening the withdrawal agreement and the U.K. continuing to sincerely cooperate with the bloc. ___ European Council President Donald Tusk drinks during a joint news conference with China's Premier Li Keqiang and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker during an EU-China summit at the European Council headquarters in Brussels, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. EU leaders will confront May for the second time in three weeks on her government's plans at an emergency Brexit summit on Wednesday, April 10, 2019, and such gatherings aren't getting any friendlier. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) 6:30 p.m. British Prime Minister Theresa May is meeting French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris to discuss the possibility of a further delay to Brexit. Macron greeted May in the Elysee presidential palace with a hug. They both smiled for photographers. The two leaders are not scheduled to make any press statement. May earlier met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. The French presidency said all decisions on Brexit will be made on Wednesday at a summit of EU leaders in Brussels. A delay requires the unanimous support of the EU's other 27 members. If they refuse, Britain faces a sudden departure on Friday. ___ 6:20 p.m. Talks between the British government and its political opponents have failed to reach a Brexit compromise before the European Union decides whether to grant the U.K. a delay to its departure from the bloc. But the Conservative government and the Labour Party say they will resume negotiations after Wednesday's EU summit. Prime Minister Theresa May hopes to persuade the 27 other EU leaders that she has a plan to end Britain's Brexit impasse so that they will agree to postpone Britain's departure, currently scheduled for Friday. After failing three times to get her Brexit deal through Parliament, May opened negotiations with Labour, which favors a softer version of Brexit. May's office said talks Tuesday had been "productive and wide-ranging" and both parties appreciated the urgency of finding a solution. Labour business spokeswoman Rebecca Long-Bailey said there had not been "any fundamental shift ... but we're hopeful that progress will be made." ___ 6 p.m. German news agency dpa reports that Chancellor Angela Merkel has told her party's lawmakers that delaying Britain's exit from the European Union may be possible. Merkel held an hour of talks with British Prime Minister Theresa May in Berlin on Tuesday, a day before EU leaders are due to decide on London's request for another Brexit extension. The current departure date is April 12, but May has requested a delay to June 30. The dpa agency quoted unnamed participants at a closed doors meeting of Merkel's Union bloc in parliament saying the chancellor had informed them that a delay until the end of the year or early 2020 would be possible. Merkel reportedly also told participants that Britain would have to take part in European Parliament elections unless it leaves the bloc by May 22. Merkel's office declined to comment on the meeting with May. ___ 5:55 p.m. A top official at the French presidency says France is not ruling out the prospect of backing a further delay to Brexit. Just ahead of a planned meeting between Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, the official said the key point for France is to get "solid guarantees" that the U.K.'s prolonged presence would not disrupt the functioning of EU institutions. The official, who spoke anonymously ahead of sensitive talks in accordance with the French presidency's customary practice, said Macron expects from May to provide a "credible prospect" to avoid a 'no-deal' Brexit on April 12, including the possible outcome from ongoing talks between Britain's government and opposition Labour Party. EU leaders meet in Brussels on Wednesday. Any extension to the Brexit deadline requires the unanimous support of the 27 other member states. - By Sylvie Corbet in Paris. ___ 3 p.m. The British prime minister's office says Theresa May and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have agreed on "the importance of ensuring Britain's orderly withdrawal from the European Union." The two leaders held talks in Berlin as May tries to win backing from EU leaders for a further delay to Brexit. The prime minister wants the 27 other EU leaders to postpone Britain's departure until June 30, and for the U.K. to be able to leave sooner if Parliament manages to ratify an EU divorce deal. Downing Street didn't indicate Merkel's view on the best length for any extension. If EU leaders refuse to grant an extension when they meet in Brussels Wednesday, Britain faces a chaotic "no-deal" departure from the bloc on Friday. May plans to meet French President Emmanuel Macron later in Paris. ___ 1:45 p.m. British Prime Minister Theresa May has left the chancellery in Berlin after meeting for about an hour and a half with German Chancellor Angela Merkel as she seeks European leaders' approval for another delay to Brexit. May and Merkel made no comment to reporters as they left together and embraced. Merkel waved to May as her car set off. May was heading to Paris later Tuesday to meet French President Emmanuel Macron, who has appeared to take a tougher line on giving Britain more time. The prime minister is meeting all 27 leaders of the other European Union countries in Brussels on Wednesday. She needs their approval for a second extension to Britain's membership of the EU; if they refuse, Britain faces a sudden and chaotic departure Friday. ___ 1:30 p.m. Half a dozen of EU nations are seeking to meet ahead of Wednesday's summit to coordinate their approach to the request of Britain to further extend the Brexit deadline. An official, who asked not to be identified because the informal meeting was not officially announced, said leaders of France, Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Sweden and Denmark would discuss options some hours ahead of Wednesday's dinner summit. The nations involved all would be directly implicated by a cliff-edge no-deal Brexit. "It should be seen as coordinating the viewpoints," the official said. -By Raf Casert ___ 12:10 p.m. British Prime Minister Theresa May has arrived at German Chancellor Angela Merkel's office in Berlin on a quest to secure the agreement of Britain's European Union partners to a further delay to Brexit. May strode into the chancellery on a sunny Tuesday lunchtime for her meeting with Merkel, who came out to shake her hand for photographers. Merkel could be heard saying that "we ordered the best possible weather." The two leaders were not scheduled to make any remarks to reporters. May will travel to Paris later Tuesday to meet French President Emmanuel Macron. May will meet leaders of the EU's other 27 members in Brussels on Wednesday for a summit at which they will decide whether to allow Britain to delay its withdrawal beyond the current deadline, set for Friday. If they refuse, Britain faces a sudden and chaotic exit at the end of the week. ___ 10 a.m. A senior member of Theresa May's government says cross-party talks aimed at breaking the impasse over Britain's divorce from the European Union are moving forward in a "genuine and sincere" way. Justice Secretary David Gauke told the BBC that it's too early to say whether the talks between the government and opposition Labour Party will be successful but work is continuing to identify a compromise, two days before EU leaders decide whether to grant a further extension to the Brexit process. If they refuse, Britain faces a sudden and chaotic departure on Friday, the current deadline set by the EU. Gauke says people involved in the cross-party talks "are telling me that the process is being undertaken in a genuine and sincere way from both sides." ___ 9:45 a.m. France is vowing that the 27 EU nations facing the United Kingdom in Brexit divorce proceedings will remain united at Wednesday's summit, where they need to agree whether to give Prime Minister Theresa May another deadline extension. French European Affairs Minister Amelie de Montchalin said early Tuesday that the 27 will need commitments from May that the British government will continue to play a constructive role in EU decision-making if a long extension is to be granted. "We have the question what role Britain wants to play" if a long extension of the deadline is granted, possibly to the end of the year. In Britain, some have threatened that the government should seek to undermine EU policymaking as a way to get more leverage for the U.K. ___ 8:45 a.m. A senior German official is demanding "substantial steps" forward in Britain's Brexit standoff and insisting any delay must come with strict conditions, as Prime Minister Theresa May prepares to plead for more time in Berlin. Michael Roth, Germany's deputy foreign minister, said as he arrived at a European Union meeting in Luxembourg Tuesday that "so far absolutely nothing has changed" and "we are in a very, very frustrating situation here." May has asked for a new delay until June 30. The bloc's leaders are due to meet Wednesday to consider the request. May is visiting Berlin and Paris later Tuesday. Roth said that "within the European Union, there isn't an endless readiness to keep talking about delays so long as there is no substantial progress on the British side." Britain's Environment Secretary Michael Gove leaves the Cabinet Office in Westminster, after members of the Government and the Labour party held Brexit talks, in London, Tuesday April 9, 2019. With nearly everyone fully resigned to Britain's departure from the European Union, two questions took center stage Tuesday: How and when to get the U.K. politely out the door. (Yui Mok/PA via AP) German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, and British Prime Minister Theresa May, kiss goodbye after a meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. Prime Minister Theresa May will hold talks with the leaders of Germany and France ahead of a key Brexit summit this week. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, and British Prime Minister Theresa May, talk teach other after a meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. Prime Minister Theresa May will hold talks with the leaders of Germany and France ahead of a key Brexit summit this week. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) French President Emmanuel Macron attends a meeting with Urban France representatives at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. EU countries, especially France, have become increasingly frustrated and exasperated with the political division and uncertainty in Britain's Parliament about a way forward. (Ian Langsdon, Pool via AP) German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, and British Prime Minister Theresa May embrace after their meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn) German Chancellor Angela Merkel,left, welcomes British Prime Minister Theresa May prior to a meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. Prime Minister Theresa May will hold talks with the leaders of Germany and France ahead of a key Brexit summit this week. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) British Prime Minister Theresa May arrives to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. Prime Minister Theresa May will hold talks with the leaders of Germany and France Tuesday ahead of a key Brexit summit this week. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn) BRUSSELS (AP) - China and the European Union agreed Tuesday to strengthen their trade relationship, pledging to work toward making it easier for foreign investors to get access to China, the world's second biggest economy. In a joint statement, the two sides said they committed to widening market access and eliminating discriminatory requirements for foreign companies and agreed that businesses should not be forced to transfer their technology - issues that foreign investors in China have long complained about. EU leaders Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang discussed the issues at their summit before claiming a breakthrough in their trade relationship. "Negotiations have been difficult but ultimately fruitful," Tusk said." We managed to agree a joint statement which sets the direction for our partnership based on reciprocity." The stakes at the annual summit were high, with two-way trade between the EU and China worth around 575 billion euros ($648 billion) annually. The EU is China's biggest trading partner, while for the EU, only the United States is bigger. The EU and China also said they reaffirmed the "rules based multilateral trading system" with the World Trade Organization at its core and plan to intensify discussions aimed at beefing up international rules on industrial subsidies. China's Premier Li Keqiang, left, shakes hands with European Council President Donald Tusk during an EU-China summit at the European Council headquarters in Brussels, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) China wants a bigger role in the WTO and other international organizations like the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund. But China's ample financial support for state-owned companies has been the target of Western trade officials. EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom has in the past called out China for "unfair trade practices" including government subsidies intended to give its companies a competitive advantage. The summit statement shows "China is willing to make some concessions and that's important," said Mikko Huotari, deputy director of the Mercator Institute for China Studies, a Berlin-based think tank. The promises don't mean China will quickly transform from a state-led economy into a market driven one, but "it's about getting back on track with regard to reform promises and ambitions that the Chinese themselves have expressed," he said. The leaders discussed China's policy of forcing foreign companies to turn over intellectual property as a condition for access to its big and growing market - an issue that Washington has also made a centerpiece of its trade dispute with Beijing. In their closing statement, they said: "Both sides agree that there should not be forced transfer of technology." The EU in December stepped up a WTO legal challenge filed in 2018 against China's forced tech transfers, calling it a major issue affecting European companies. Li strongly denied that Beijing is behind industrial espionage, saying the government has never called on Chinese companies to infringe intellectual property rights or steal trade secrets. The EU's executive Commission said last month in a strategy report that China was a "systemic rival" which preserves its domestic markets for national champions while placing "onerous requirements" on EU companies doing business there. Li said after the summit that will change. "We will not treat EU companies, especially those registered in China, with discriminatory policy, including solely foreign-owned companies in China," he said. "And likewise Chinese companies should not be discriminated against in their operation in the European Union." The summit comes two weeks after Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed during a visit to Paris to work with European leaders to seek fairer trade rules. ____ Chan reported from London. China's Prime Minister Li Keqiang, right, arrives with European Council President Donald Tusk during an EU-China summit at the European Council headquarters in Brussels, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, left, is welcomed by European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini ahead of a meeting at the European Council buildign in Brussels, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. (Olivier Hoslet/Pool Photo via AP) China's Prime Minister Li Keqiang gestures to the media as he is welcomed by European Council President Donald Tusk during an EU-China summit at the European Council headquarters in Brussels, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) China's Premier Li Keqiang, left, shakes hands with European Council President Donald Tusk during an EU-China summit at the European Council headquarters in Brussels, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, center, is welcomed by European Council President Donald Tusk, left, and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker ahead of an EU China Summit at the European Council building in Brussels, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. (Olivier Hoslet, Pool Photo via AP) Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, center, is welcomed by European Council President Donald Tusk, left, and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker ahead of an EU China Summit at the European Council building in Brussels, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. (Olivier Hoslet, Pool Photo via AP) Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, center, is welcomed by European Council President Donald Tusk, left, and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker ahead of an EU China Summit at the European Council building in Brussels, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. (Olivier Hoslet, Pool Photo via AP) A woman wears a headband as she demonstrates for the rights of the Tibetan and Uyghur people in front of EU headquarters in Brussels ahead of an EU-China summit, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. China's prime minister is meeting top European Union officials Tuesday to discuss thorny issues including better access for European companies to Chinese markets and security concerns over high-speed 5G network technology. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo) People demonstrate for the rights of the Tibetan and Uyghur people in front of EU headquarters in Brussels ahead of an EU-China summit, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. China's prime minister is meeting top European Union officials Tuesday to discuss thorny issues including better access for European companies to Chinese markets and security concerns over high-speed 5G network technology. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo) WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Last-ditch talks to stop a teachers strike in Poland that has seen thousands of schools stay closed failed Tuesday, putting upcoming exams under threat. Following 90 minutes of discussions, Deputy Prime Minister Beata Szydlo and the heads of two main teachers' unions blamed each other for the breakdown in talks. The protest is the biggest one to afflict Polish schools since a two-week strike in 1993. Szydlo argued the government had no money this year to up its previous offer, while trade unions said their new offer for spreading increases was not even considered. They said the strike would continue. Slawomir Wittkowicz of the Trade Unions' Forum blamed "ill will" on the part of the government. Szydlo insisted Wednesday's exams would go ahead and appealed to teachers to make that possible. It was not clear if that could be achieved. A grandmother and grandson post a message in support of Polish teachers who are on strike in Warsaw, Poland, on Tuesday April 9, 2019. The orange sign says: "We support out teachers." Teachers held a second day of an open-ended strike on Tuesday demanding higher wages.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) Protesting teachers conceded to The Associated Press that their action was dramatic, but said many among them have to juggle two or three jobs at different schools to make ends meet. None of the teachers the AP spoke to wanted to reveal their names. Slawomir Broniarz, leader of the main ZNP union, has said the union wants to "put out this fire" and called early Tuesday for a mediator to help end the standoff with the government. The government responded with an offer it had previously made but which was rejected by the ZNP and the Forum. Meanwhile, school directors were asking for help from retired teachers, religion teachers and those not on strike to press ahead with the middle school exams on Wednesday. The indefinite strike started Monday after pay negotiations with the government failed. A teacher's monthly net earnings range from 1,800 zlotys to 3,000 zlotys ($470 to $780). Teachers want an immediate 30% pay increase and to back their demand, they argued that the government recently found substantial new funds for families, pensioners and businesses, in an attempt to win support ahead of May's elections to the European Parliament. The government has offered teachers that it will accelerate a planned increase of some 15% and introduce a new remuneration system, which would substantially raise salaries but also increase the number of lessons a teacher gives a week to 24 from the current 18. Broniarz said that over 74% of more than 20,000 schools nationwide were closed Monday. According to the Education Ministry it was just over 48% of schools and education centers. Critics blame the shortage of funds for teachers on the major, costly reform of the education system that the government undertook in 2017, extending primary school education and phasing out the lower middle school, a move that many call a "deform" of the education system. A grandmother and grandson post a message in support of Polish teachers who are on strike in Warsaw, Poland, on Tuesday April 9, 2019. The orange sign says: "We support out teachers." Teachers held a second day of an open-ended strike on Tuesday demanding higher wages.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) School children rally in support of Polish teachers who are on strike in Warsaw, Poland, on Tuesday April 9, 2019. Teachers held a second day of an open-ended strike on Tuesday demanding higher wages.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) School children rally in support of Polish teachers who are on strike in Warsaw, Poland, on Tuesday April 9, 2019. Teachers held a second day of an open-ended strike on Tuesday demanding higher wages.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) School children rally in support of Polish teachers who are on strike in Warsaw, Poland, on Tuesday April 9, 2019. Teachers held a second day of an open-ended strike on Tuesday demanding higher wages.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) Banners, declaring the participation at the indefinite nationwide teachers' pay strike, displayed on the fence at the Primary School number 68 in Warsaw, Poland, on Monday, April 8, 2019. Majority of Poland's school and kindergarten teachers went on strike after talks about their payment with the government failed. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) MAGARU, Mozambique (AP) - He was haunted by the thought of a small child's skull, unburied and lost in the debris of a cyclone that had claimed hundreds of lives. Stephen Fonseca stood in a field of ruined maize where a tiny spine had been found, and he wanted to find the rest of the body. But in every direction were scattered kernels and stalks bleached by the sun. At a glance, much of the landscape looked like bones. The stark scene brought home the overwhelming challenge faced by Fonseca, the only body recovery specialist to search the rural Mozambique region struck by Cyclone Idai, since he waded into the devastation nearly a month ago. If a final death toll ever emerges - it is now more than 600 in Mozambique alone - it will be strongly informed by Fonseca's work in the field, and the quest to name the missing and the dead. The storm tore apart frightened families and swept whole villages away, with floodwaters as high as treetops rushing toward the sea. Parents lost their grip on children. Exhausted people clinging to branches for days fell into the waters and drowned. For days on end, Fonseca followed the accounts of villagers who spoke of seeing the dead floating by. In this April 4, 2019, photo, Stephen Fonseca, right, inspects a small shin bone he found in a ruined maize field in Magaru, Mozambique. The bone likely belonged to a small child whose vertebrae had been found not far away. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) As the waters began to recede, he walked for miles through mud so thick it sucked boots off feet. Crocodiles, hippos and snakes posed threats but hungry dogs and pigs were a bigger concern. Fonseca needed to find the bodies before they did, and bury them well. His search was guided by smell, and animal tracks, and flies. It was uncomfortable but necessary work, as bare bones are far more difficult to find, and time was running out. "This is our one good opportunity to get as much as possible," said Fonseca, the South Africa-based forensic coordinator for Africa with the International Committee of the Red Cross. As he pushed through the rural farmland he met local people who were just as concerned about the dignity of the dead. Desperate for news of their missing family members, some communities sent out search teams. Bodies that were found were given a quick but respectful burial, even when they were strangers. Some of the dead wore the uniforms of neighboring Zimbabwe's security forces, having been swept down mountainsides some 60 miles (100 kilometers) away by the raging waters. Burials were difficult work. Shovels, like homes, had been lost. Some people dug with their bare hands, then watched the holes fill with water from the still-sodden ground. "They take the time because one day our time will come as well," Fonseca said. He found the community burials comforting, with people even pausing from handing out badly needed humanitarian aid to take turns digging. And yet he knew the burials almost certainly went unreported to authorities, meaning they would not be counted in the official death toll and families might never know their loved ones' fates. Shallow graves were precarious, too, vulnerable to animals and further floods, the possible scattering of bones. "You bury who you can but not always well," said Ibrahim Ismail, a local farm manager. "So he's helping." Fonseca offered to do exhumations and reburials but only with permission. One family that had tracked down and buried two relatives near a termite mound, a natural marker, decided to let them be. In their culture a person should not be dug up and moved, they said. "I appreciate what he's doing. It's life-saving for some of us," said Manuel Joaquim Makanije, a community member who nevertheless understood the family's decision. Relatives long for closure, but the bodies could be anywhere. Fonseca came across the corpse of a young girl tangled high in a tree. A local man scrambled up the trunk and slowly lowered her to the ground, while children watched. On another long hike Fonseca saw a boatman ferry a woman to a body found on an island. The face was missing, but the woman wept, certain it was her missing relative. With forensic methods such as DNA tests, fingerprinting and dental records almost impossible in rural Mozambique, Fonseca respects what he called "cultural identification." Clothing, location and other signs were considered in the interest of grieving relatives' peace of mind. Without a mandate from Mozambique's government to issue death certificates or compile official figures, Fonseca instead gave community leaders guidance on handling the dead. He distributed wooden grave markers, body tags, gloves. It reflected his wider work in Africa helping to strengthen forensics awareness on a continent where people increasingly seek accountability, and answers, over the dead. Fonseca's time in Mozambique was ending and he would soon head home to South Africa. The work, in very challenging conditions, takes a toll, colleague Neil Morris said. "Stephen knew when he needed to return." In one last try, Fonseca gravitated back to the maize field where nine members of a single family had died. Soon farmers would burn the fields to plant a short-term crop to help avoid months of hunger, as the cyclone had struck just before the annual harvest. The fires would further complicate identifying the dead. As people picked their way through the field salvaging maize kernels, resuming their lives, Fonseca resumed his search for what he knew were now bare bones. The farmers shouldn't have to discover them, he said. "They've been through enough trauma." He searched slowly. It took hours. "There's a little cranium somewhere here," he said, half to himself, thinking of the child. "Someone's going to find it." Finally he stopped and tied a blue latex glove to a stalk of maize, as a marker. He had found a small shin bone, not much larger than a pencil. The bone likely belonged to the same child whose spine had been found not far away. In the end, the bones would be buried together. There were no child-sized body bags. Fonseca improvised one using duct tape. "Some people think it gets easier. I think it gets harder," he said of his work. "Now I'm a parent. I start to relate to some degree how absolutely devastating it is to lose a child. But I will never say I fully understand what they are going through." He and a local chief, Moises Mukoto, went to the burial site, a short walk through tall grass. Fonseca, sweating in the hot sun, dug open a small grave as the chief wrote the time of day in a notebook, and waited. The bag with the shin bone was gently laid in the hole alongside the tiny spine, which had been buried there earlier. Then the chief quickly hoed the earth back in place. "Even one bone is important," Fonseca said. "It represents someone special." The wooden grave marker, written in permanent ink, said: "Don't touch. The body of a child." It will take months, even years, to discover the cyclone's dead, Fonseca said. Not everyone will be found. ___ Associated Press video journalist Pindai Dube and photographer Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi contributed to this report. In this April, 4, 2019 photo, Stephen Fonseca, a forensics expert who tries to find and name the dead, searches for bodies in a field in Magaru, Mozambique. As the forensic coordinator for Africa with the International Committee of the Red Cross, he was the only body recovery specialist searching the rural region struck by Cyclone Idai. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) In this April, 4, 2019 photo, Stephen Fonseca sits outside his tent as he prepares to search for bodies in Magaru, Mozambique. As the forensic coordinator for Africa with the International Committee of the Red Cross, he was the only body recovery specialist searching the rural region struck by Cyclone Idai. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) In this April 4, 2019, photo, Stephen Fonseca, a forensics expert who tries to find and name the dead, recovers a piece of clothing during a search for bodies in a field of ruined maize in Magaru, Mozambique. As the forensic coordinator for Africa with the International Committee of the Red Cross, he was the only body recovery specialist searching the rural region struck by Cyclone Idai. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) In this April 4, 2019 photo, Stephen Fonseca, right, gives a community leader guidance on handling the dead in Magaru, Mozambique. If a final death toll ever emerges for the region struck by Cyclone Idai, now above 600 in Mozambique alone, it will be strongly informed by Fonseca's work, and the quest to name the missing and the dead. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) In this April 5, 2019, photo, Stephen Fonseca, left, digs into a grave where he buried a tiny spine in Magaru, Mozambique. If a final death toll ever emerges for the region struck by Cyclone Idai, now above 600 in Mozambique alone, it will be strongly informed by Fonseca's work, and the quest to name the missing and the dead. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) In this April 4, 2019, photo, Stephen Fonseca, right, a forensics expert who tries to find and name the dead, stands with community leaders as he distributes wooden grave markers, body tags, shovels and gloves in Magaru, Mozambique. The storm tore apart frightened families and swept whole villages away, with floodwaters as high as treetops rushing toward the sea. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) In this April 5, 2019, photo, Stephen Fonseca, center, places a bag with a spine into a small grave as Chief Moses Mukoto, left, writes the time of day in a notebook in Magaru, Mozambique. If a final death toll ever emerges for the region struck by Cyclone Idai, now above 600 in Mozambique alone, it will be strongly informed by Fonseca's work, and the quest to name the missing and the dead. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) In this April 4, 2019 photo, Stephen Fonseca searches for bodies in a field of ruined maize in Magaru, Mozambique. As the forensic coordinator for Africa with the International Committee of the Red Cross, he was the only body recovery specialist searching the rural region struck by Cyclone Idai. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) In this April 4, 2019, photo, Stephen Fonseca takes a break during a search for bodies in a field of ruined maize in Magaru, Mozambique. As the forensic coordinator for Africa with the International Committee of the Red Cross, he was the only body recovery specialist searching the region after the disaster. His search was guided by smell, animal tracks and flies. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) MOSCOW (AP) - Kazakhstan's interim president on Tuesday ordered an early presidential election for June 9 following the unexpected resignation of Nursultan Nazarbayev last month. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who became the acting head of state when Nazarbayev resigned, said in a televised address to the nation that the vote will be held on June 9. Tokayev, formerly the speaker of the upper house of parliament, hasn't yet announced his intention to seek the presidency. Pundits saw him and Nazarbayev's eldest daughter as the two most likely candidates to succeed Nazarbayev. Dariga Nazarbayeva, who has been named parliament speaker after Tokayev became acting president, has remained coy about her plans. Her aide said Tuesday in remarks carried by the Tengrinews agency that she has no intention to run, but Nazarbayeva herself downplayed the statement just a few hours later. She noted that it will be up to political parties to nominate presidential candidates, but wouldn't say if she would accept an offer to run for president. Kazakhstan's interim President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, center, attends a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the Kremlin wall in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, April 4, 2019. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, Pool) Her father took the helm in Kazakhstan when it was still part of the Soviet Union and led it for three decades. The 78-year-old has retained the honorary title of "Elbasy" or "Leader of the Nation" and is expected to continue to wield considerable political power as chairman of the nation's Security Council and the head of the ruling Nur Otan party. CAIRO (AP) - Sudanese security forces tried again to break up an anti-government sit-in outside military headquarters in the capital, Khartoum, killing at least 14 people Tuesday, activists behind the demonstration said. The deaths brought the total number of fatalities in the sit-in since the weekend to 22, including five soldiers, according to the activists. The demonstration is the latest in nearly four months of anti-government protests that have plunged Sudan into its worst crisis in years. What initially erupted late last year as rallies against a spiraling economy quickly escalated into calls for an end to President Omar al-Bashir's 30-year rule. On Monday, for the first time, leaders of the protests called on the military's leadership to abandon al-Bashir and join their call for change. And on Tuesday, they invited military leaders to meet with their representatives to "discuss arrangements for a transition" in Sudan. Maj. Gen. Ahmed Khalifa al-Shami, a spokesman for the military, said the military has nothing to do with political matters and authorities ordered the protest to be broken up. "This sit-in ... could drag the country into chaos. ... All demonstrators were pushed out of the area surrounding the armed forces' headquarters and this was done smoothly without significant causalities," he said in comments broadcast on TV. A Sudanese soldier protects protesters at a demonstration near the military headquarters, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, in the capital Khartoum, Sudan. Activists behind anti-government protests in Sudan say security forces have killed at least seven people, including a military officer, in another attempt to break up the sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum. A spokeswoman for the Sudanese Professionals Association, said clashes erupted again early Tuesday between security forces and protesters who have been camping out in front of the complex in Khartoum since Saturday. (AP Photo) In a joint statement on Tuesday, Norway, the U.K. and the U.S. backed the protesters' demands, urging Sudanese authorities to "deliver a credible plan" for political transition. "Failing to do so risks causing greater instability. The Sudanese leadership has a grave responsibility to avoid such an outcome," they said. Sarah Abdel-Jaleel, spokeswoman for the Sudanese Professionals Association, said the new clashes erupted early on Tuesday between security forces and protesters who have been camping out in front of the military complex in Khartoum for the past four days. The police used tear gas, rubber bullets and live fire to try to disperse the protesters, according to Abdel-Jaleel's union, which is spearheading the demonstrations. It was the second time security forced failed to break up the sit-in protests, which has grown into one of the biggest rallies in the current wave of unrest. But a crack seemed to be emerging among the Sudanese authorities and the military as to how to handle the protests. Online video footage circulating Tuesday showed some Sudanese troops seeking to protect the protesters and guarding the entrance to the sit-in area. Heavy gunfire can be heard as protesters seek cover from the descending security forces. Other video clips show burned police vehicles used as trash dumps. The Sudan Doctors Committee, an affiliate of the union, said at least 153 people were wounded since Saturday. It said the five soldiers, including a captain, were killed while defending the protesters in the past two days. The medical group said troops guarding the military's complex, which also houses the Defense Ministry and a presidential residence, chased the security forces away, firing into the air for the second night. It said that apart from the officer, six protesters were also killed. Abdel-Jaleel, the spokeswoman, said at least 30 protesters were wounded in the violence. Amnesty International said authorities in Khartoum cut off the water supply to the area of the sit-in, and cars were being searched and seized by security forces for ferrying food and water to protesters. "The move by the authorities to try to starve protesters and deny them access to communication is a clear attempt to silence and deny protesters their human rights," said the group's director for the region, Joan Nyanyuki. A government spokesman didn't respond to calls seeking comment. The county's interior minister, Bishara Gomaa, told the parliament on Monday that at least seven people were killed in the protests since Saturday - six in Khartoum and the seventh in the Darfur region. There was no word from the army on the latest military death. A split between Sudan's militantly and its security agencies could mark a significant turning point for the protesters. Gen. Awad Mohammed Ibn Auf, the country's defense minister and vice president, denied any divisions and said the military and the security apparatus were coordinating on how to deal with the protesters. "There are parties trying to exploit the current situation to create strife between the components of the security system in the country," he told a meeting with senior officers on Monday. Despite the deaths, the mood among protesters at the sit-in on Tuesday was upbeat, with online videos showing the demonstrators singing traditional songs and shouting, "Revolution!" They also chanted, "The people want the fall of the regime," one of the main slogans from the Arab Spring uprisings that swept the Middle East and North Africa in 2011. Protesters rally at a demonstration near the military headquarters, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, in the capital Khartoum, Sudan. Activists behind anti-government protests in Sudan say security forces have killed at least seven people, including a military officer, in another attempt to break up the sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum. A spokeswoman for the Sudanese Professionals Association, said clashes erupted again early Tuesday between security forces and protesters who have been camping out in front of the complex in Khartoum since Saturday. (AP Photo) Sudanese army soldiers patrol near protesters gathered near the military headquarters, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, in the capital Khartoum, Sudan. Activists behind anti-government protests in Sudan say security forces have killed at least seven people, including a military officer, in another attempt to break up the sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum. A spokeswoman for the Sudanese Professionals Association, said clashes erupted again early Tuesday between security forces and protesters who have been camping out in front of the complex in Khartoum since Saturday. (AP Photo) Protesters rally near the military headquarters, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, in the capital Khartoum, Sudan. Activists behind anti-government protests in Sudan say security forces have killed at least seven people, including a military officer, in another attempt to break up the sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum. A spokeswoman for the Sudanese Professionals Association, said clashes erupted again early Tuesday between security forces and protesters who have been camping out in front of the complex in Khartoum since Saturday. (AP Photo) Protesters pray during a demonstration near the military headquarters, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, in the capital Khartoum, Sudan. Activists behind anti-government protests in Sudan say security forces have killed at least seven people, including a military officer, in another attempt to break up the sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum. A spokeswoman for the Sudanese Professionals Association, said clashes erupted again early Tuesday between security forces and protesters who have been camping out in front of the complex in Khartoum since Saturday. (AP Photo) A woman prepares tea for protesters near the military headquarters, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, in the capital Khartoum, Sudan. Activists behind anti-government protests in Sudan say security forces have killed at least seven people, including a military officer, in another attempt to break up the sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum. A spokeswoman for the Sudanese Professionals Association, said clashes erupted again early Tuesday between security forces and protesters who have been camping out in front of the complex in Khartoum since Saturday. (AP Photo) Protesters rally at a demonstration near the military headquarters, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, in the capital Khartoum, Sudan. Activists behind anti-government protests in Sudan say security forces have killed at least seven people, including a military officer, in another attempt to break up the sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum. A spokeswoman for the Sudanese Professionals Association, said clashes erupted again early Tuesday between security forces and protesters who have been camping out in front of the complex in Khartoum since Saturday. (AP Photo) Protesters enter a makeshift pharmacy near the military headquarters, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, in the capital Khartoum, Sudan. Activists behind anti-government protests in Sudan say security forces have killed at least seven people, including a military officer, in another attempt to break up the sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum. A spokeswoman for the Sudanese Professionals Association, said clashes erupted again early Tuesday between security forces and protesters who have been camping out in front of the complex in Khartoum since Saturday. (AP Photo) LONDON (AP) - The United States wants to tax $11.2 billion worth of EU goods - from airplanes to Gouda cheese - in what some experts say marks another attempt by the Trump administration to use tariffs to reshape global trade in its favor. The World Trade Organization ruled last year that the European Union provided illegal subsidies to plane maker Airbus. The U.S. tariff wish-list, released late Monday, reflects the Trump administration's calculation of the harm the EU subsidies have inflicted on the United States - and specifically to Boeing. A WTO arbitrator is expected to rule this summer on how much relief the U.S. is actually entitled to. Trade analysts say it isn't unusual for countries to present a tariff target list before the WTO arbitrator sets actual parameters. In the U.S. case, it allows the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to collect public comments on the potential tariffs. And it lets the EU know which European industries might be hit and perhaps encourage a settlement. Jennifer Hillman, a former U.S. trade official who also served on the WTO's appellate body, said the U.S. government typically would announce the target list quietly, perhaps through a notice in the Federal Register. Instead, she noted, the Trump administration declared its intentions "with fanfare and hoo-ha" in a press release designed to attract public attention. "You're scaring a lot of importers" who see the products they bring into the United States on the target list, said Hillman, who now teaches law at Georgetown University. "You're creating chaos in the market." FILE - In this Monday, Oct. 15, 2018 file photo, a container ship is loaded at the harbor in Hamburg, Germany. The United States is considering putting tariffs on $11 billion in EU goods per year to offset what it says are unfair European subsidies for planemaker Airbus. While the size of the potential tariffs is relatively small compared with the hundreds of billions of goods the U.S. and China are taxing in their trade war, it suggests a breakdown in talks with the EU over trade. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, file) Economists say the Trump team appears to want to use the ruling not merely to help Boeing but to heighten pressure on trading partners like Germany with which the U.S. has a trade deficit. In the end, more tariffs could further raise consumer prices in the United States and weigh on the global economy at a time when it's showing alarming signs of stress as the U.S. wages a broader trade war with China. After the U.S. Trade Representative's office issued a list of EU products it wants to tax, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to make the case. "The EU has taken advantage of the U.S. on trade for many years. It will soon stop!" Trump tweeted Tuesday. The Trump administration's list of European products to tax includes the types of helicopters and aircraft Airbus makes but also a wide range of European exports: famous cheeses like Stilton, Roquefort and Gouda, wines and oysters but also more obscure exports like ceramics, knives and pajamas. Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said it would be "a game changer" if the United States actually imposed tariffs on Airbus planes. "We've never done tariffs on airplanes before," he noted. Normally, countries use favorable WTO rulings to compel trading partners "to give up the bad stuff they were doing" and don't actually end up imposing tariffs. The Trump administration could be different. "They just like to impose tariffs," Bown said. While the size of the tariffs is small compared with the hundreds of billions the U.S. and China are taxing in their trade war, it suggests a breakdown in talks with the European Union over trade. The U.S. and EU have been negotiating since last year about how to avoid tariffs that Trump has wanted to impose, with little result. Trump in June last year imposed tariffs of 25% on steel imports and 10% on imported aluminum from the EU in a move that seems aimed at helping the U.S. industry but has also raised costs for many businesses that import these products. The EU responded with tariffs on about 2.8 billion euros' worth ($3.4 billion) of U.S. steel, agricultural and other products, from Harley Davidson bikes to orange juice. The U.S. and EU have since July been negotiating how to scale back the tariffs, with Trump holding out the bigger threat of slapping tariffs on European cars - a huge industry in the region - should the negotiations not yield a result. The EU responded Tuesday to the U.S.'s latest call for new tariffs by noting that it was based on America's own estimate, not anything it had been awarded by the WTO. Eric Schweitzer, the head of the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry, lamented the trade tensions. "There are already more than enough tariffs," he said. "Instead of the U.S. making further threats, both sides should now keep a cool head and aim for de-escalation." Whether the U.S. gets the legal right to implement the new tariffs will depend on a ruling by the WTO, an organization based in Geneva that sets the rules for global commerce and settles disputes. After 14 years of legal wrangling between the U.S. and EU, the WTO ruled in May last year that the EU had provided some illegal subsidies to Airbus, hurting Boeing. The WTO also ruled last month that Boeing received illegal tax breaks from Washington state and that the EU could seek damages. But the ruling was limited: The state tax subsidies came to only about $100 million. The U.S. attempt to tax Airbus jets comes just as Boeing is facing broad challenges over the global grounding of its 737 Max airliners amid concerns that technical problems could have contributed to two crashes in five months. Tariffs on European airplanes could in theory help Boeing and hurt Airbus, whose shares were down almost 2% on Tuesday. ___ Raf Casert in Brussels and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report. Wiseman reported from Washington. WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump had had it. The flow of migrants at the southern border was surging. Another caravan appeared to be forming. And his government had run out of holding space, forcing the release of tens of thousands of families apprehended at the border. During a meeting with senior aides on the last Thursday in March, Trump demanded drastic action to make good on the threat he'd tweeted that morning: Shut the southern border. Curbing illegal immigration was his signature issue, he railed. Why couldn't he deliver? Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen urged the president to reconsider. Her agency had already diverted hundreds of border agents away from certain crossings to process migrant families elsewhere, creating what would soon become considerable bottlenecks. Closing ports completely, she reasoned, would only encourage migrants to cross elsewhere - illegally. Trump wasn't having it. Shut the ports at El Paso, Texas, at noon tomorrow, he ordered. End of meeting. The directive set off a frantic behind-the scenes push to get Trump to change his mind, and he ultimately relented. But the episode launched a turbulent 12-day stretch that would lead to the eventual resignation of Nielsen , the potential dismissal of much of her agency's top leadership and the beginning of a new phase in which immigration hard-liners at the White House are determined to wield considerably more influence over Homeland Security. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen talks outside her home in Alexandria, Va., on Monday, April 8, 2019. Nielsen says she continues to support the president's goal of securing the border in her first public remarks since her surprise resignation. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf) This account is based on interviews with 20 administration officials, congressional aides and people familiar with the events, many of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations. ___ ON BORROWED TIME Trump and Nielsen's relationship was never especially close. Nielsen had been picked for the top Homeland Security job at the urging of her predecessor, John Kelly , who left to become Trump's White House chief of staff . Trump had always been suspicious of her, in part because she'd worked for former President George W. Bush. She had been widely expected to leave the department last fall after Kelly's departure from the White House, but she appeared to get back on Trump's good side during the government shutdown, when she served as one of the top defenders of his push to build a southern border wall. But Nielsen took the brunt of Trump's fury over rising border crossing numbers, and the situation was only getting worse. Aides spent months desperately trying to come up with new solutions, and some tried to steer Trump away from more drastic measures, including his talk of reinstating the family separation policy that prompted international outrage. While Nielsen had doubts at times, she had dutifully carried out Trump's orders, taking ownership of his most divisive policies, including the family separations, and spending months trying to broker arrangements with Central American countries and Mexico. But it also fell to Nielsen to explain to Trump the legal limits of things he wanted to do. And he didn't like it. It didn't help that Kelly had been critical of Trump in appearances since he left the White House - something Trump held against Nielsen. Or that John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser, had been pushing for Nielsen's ouster since last fall, telling Trump he didn't think her leadership or policies were effective. ___ A TRIP CUT SHORT Nielsen had just landed in Europe last week for her first time as secretary when she decided to rush back to Washington, landing early Tuesday morning. Though aides had succeeded in talking Trump down from his border closure threat the week before, he had continued to crank up his rhetoric, warning by tweet that if Mexico didn't "immediately stop ALL illegal immigration coming into the United States through our Southern Border," he would be "CLOSING" the border, or large sections of it within a week. By Wednesday, Nielsen was at the border, overseeing efforts to keep asylum seekers in Mexico and preparing for the president's Friday visit to Calexico, California. But the night before Trump's visit, a puzzling notice arrived on Capitol Hill: Trump was withdrawing his nomination of Ron Vitiello to permanently lead the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. It had to be a mistake, staffers reasoned. Why would Trump be spiking his own nominee, a well-respected and longtime border official who appeared to be cruising to confirmation? Vitiello got a call that night from senior Trump aide Stephen Miller informing him that he wouldn't be joining the president on his trip to the border the next morning. There was no explanation. Nielsen had received no heads-up. But word began to spread that his nomination was being yanked. "We want to go in a tougher direction" was all Trump told reporters as he left the White House on Friday morning. It was Step One of the plot to purge DHS leadership. Nielsen joined Trump at the border, echoing his words at a roundtable with border officers and local law enforcement and standing by Trump's side as they toured a section of newly rebuilt border fencing, introducing him to local officials. But inside she was fuming. ___ DUSTING OFF A LETTER Nielsen returned to Washington on a Coast Guard Gulfstream as Trump continued onto California and Nevada to do some fundraising. By that night, murmurs were swirling that Vitiello's removal wasn't a one-off and that Miller was orchestrating a wholesale leadership overhaul of her department. Already frustrated by what she saw as insufficient help from departments like Justice and Health and Human Services, with clear signs that White House hard-liners were on the ascent, Nielsen pulled up the resignation letter she'd written months before - just in case. She went into a Sunday White House meeting with Trump that she'd requested not sure if she'd be fired, resign or stay to fight another day. It was, by all accounts, a cordial conversation in the Yellow Oval Room of the White House residence, with acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney in attendance. Nielsen had come prepared with a list of ideas to share with the president. But the two quickly agreed the arrangement was no longer working. Trump wanted to go in a different direction. Nielsen resigned on the spot. Trump tweeted the news before she could get her letter out. ___ THE PURGE Standing outside her home in Alexandria, Virginia, on Monday, Nielsen sounded just as loyal to Trump as she had at the border. "I will continue to support all efforts to address the humanitarian and security crisis," she said, thanking the president "for the tremendous opportunity to serve this country." By the end of the day, the department she had led appeared to be on the cusp of being dismantled, with the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the department's general counsel among those expected to be pushed out. "It's time to do things a little differently," White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said on Fox News Channel. "And so the president's looking around to reshape his team so he can have the people in place to carry out his agenda." ___ Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen talks outside her home in Alexandria, Va., on Monday, April 8, 2019. Nielsen says she continues to support the president's goal of securing the border in her first public remarks since her surprise resignation. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf) Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen talks outside her home in Alexandria, Va., on Monday, April 8, 2019. Nielsen says she continues to support the president's goal of securing the border in her first public remarks since her surprise resignation. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf) Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen talks outside her home in Alexandria, Va., on Monday, April 8, 2019. Nielsen says she continues to support the president's goal of securing the border in her first public remarks since her surprise resignation. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf) MILAN (AP) - A third descendant of Benito Mussolini is entering Italy's political arena. Caio Giulio Cesare Mussolini - Mussolini's great-grandson, whose name is taken from one of ancient Rome's most famous rulers - is running as a candidate in European elections for the far-right Brothers of Italy Party. Party leader Giorgia Meloni announced Mussolini's candidacy over the weekend. His political ambitions follow that of his second cousins, Alessandra Mussolini, an EU parliamentarian for Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, and Rachele Mussolini, a Rome city council member associated with Brothers of Italy. Meloni said online protests against the latest Mussolini political debut led Facebook to cancel his profile because of his last name. Caio Mussolini said Tuesday that his profile had been restored, with apologies. Caio Mussolini, 51, was a naval officer for 15 years, then an executive in Italy's largest defense contractor Finmeccanica before turning to politics. "He is a professional, a serviceman, a patriot," Meloni said against the backdrop of the multi-arched facade of the Palace of Italian Civilization that was built by Benito Mussolini and known to modern-day Romans as the "Squared Colosseum." Standing beside Meloni, Caio Mussolini, who is running in southern Italy, called it an honor to run for Brothers of Italy, which he described as "patriotic, like I am." In an interview with the right-wing paper Libero, Caio Mussolini conceded that his name is not an easy one to carry, but that he will "never be ashamed of my family." Asked if he would define himself as a fascist, he responded: "Fascism died with Benito Mussolini." He added that he was born well after that period and that fascism was now something for "historians to study." Anyone worried about its revival, he said, "is seeing imaginary enemies." "I see other dangers. The thought police, globalism, the dictatorship of political correctness, uncontrolled immigration a few small financial groups that control everything, Islamic extremism," the newspaper quoted him as saying. Still, Caio Mussolini recognizes the strength of the family name, making #scrivimussolini, or #writeinmussolini, a campaign motto, because, he said on Twitter, "Many want to write Mussolini on the ballot." Indeed, the strength of Mussolini's rhetoric, drawing heavily on the old glory of the Roman empire, still has not lost political currency. Opinion writer Michele Serra wrote in La Repubblica that "if the great-grandson of il Duce wasn't named Caio Giulio Cesare, but Beppe, he would not be a candidate with Brothers of Italy, but with some boring party in the center." Benito Mussolini was Italy's dictator for two decades until his summary execution in 1945. Mussolini plunged Italy into World War II, allying himself with Nazi Germany's leader Adolf Hitler, and signing racial laws that led to the deportation and murders of thousands of Italian Jews. That modern-day politicians stir controversies when they praise any Mussolini accomplishment, particularly infrastructure, underlines the dictator's fraught legacy. Neo-fascist parties remained part of Italy's post-war political landscape, even though supporting or promoting fascism became a crime. Mussolini's granddaughter Alessandra has been part of Italian politics for decades, first as a member of a party founded after the war by her grandfather's supporters, then by successor movements that moderated their rhetoric before being absorbed into conservative parties. At the same time, anti-fascism became prominent in post-war Italian history, wielded against even those who weren't fascists at all. That created a political culture of rebellion against demonizing fascism, despite the damage it did. ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) - The Latest on Algerian protest (all times local): 8:50 p.m. Algeria's new interim leader has vowed to quickly put in place an independent body to lay the groundwork for elections within the 90 days of his tenure. Abdelkader Bensalah was appointed interim president Tuesday to replace longtime leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who stepped down a week ago under pressure from protesters. Bensalah was an ally of Bouteflika, and protesters want him to go, too. Bensalah must ensure presidential elections are held within 90 days, according to the constitution. In an address to the nation on national television, he announced plans to urgently create a "sovereign" body, with the help of the political class and civil society, to lay down conditions for "honest and transparent elections." Algerian police forces use a water cannon as students demonstrate in Algiers, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. Algerian police have fired tear gas and water cannon to break up a group of students protesting in the country's capital, less than an hour after the country's parliament chose an interim leader. (AP Photo/Anis Belghoul) ___ 3:15 p.m. Algeria's influential military says the country's people are entitled to a peaceful atmosphere but hasn't commented yet on the appointment of an interim president protesters are opposing. The Defense Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that the army will work to ensure "the Algerian people's legitimate right to enjoy total tranquility for the present and the future of the country." The inconclusive statement suggests the army might wait before deciding whether to take action and on which side. The statement did not specifically address Parliament's decision to appoint Abdelkader Bensalah as interim president to replace longtime leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Bensalah was an ally of the former president. Protesters immediately took to the streets to reject his appointment to the post. Military chief of staff Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah turned against Bouteflika last week and sided with the protesters, leading to the president's departure. ___ 1 p.m. Algerian police have fired pepper spray and a water cannon to break up a group of students protesting in the country's capital, less than an hour after the country's parliament chose an interim leader. An Associated Press photographer saw authorities trying to break up the student demonstration, which coincided with the parliamentary gathering to name a replacement for former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who resigned last week under pressure from a pro-democracy protest movement that won the army's backing. An array of pro-democracy protesters who drove the leader out after two decades in power had demanded the ouster of the country's entire political hierarchy, including the newly named Abdelkader Bensalah, a key ally of Bouteflika. ___ This item has been corrected to show that police fired pepper spray, not tear gas. ___ 11:15 a.m. Algeria's parliament named an interim leader Tuesday to replace former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who resigned last week under pressure from a pro-democracy protest movement that won the army's backing. But the protesters who drove the leader out after two decades in power had demanded the ouster of the country's entire political hierarchy, including the newly named Abdelkader Bensalah, a key ally of Bouteflika and the leader of parliament's upper chamber. Algerian students were in the streets already in a protest planned to coincide with the parliamentary gathering. As called for by the Algerian Constitution, Bensalah was named as interim leader for a maximum of 90 days until a new election can be organized. He can't run for the post himself. Members of the opposition abstained from Tuesday's vote. "I am required by national duty to take on this heavy responsibility of steering a transition that will allow the Algerian people to exercise its sovereignty," Bensalah said. Algeria's powerful army chief, Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah, was due to speak later Tuesday. Gaid Salah had pulled his support for Bouteflika last week, tipping the balance last week. The military chief of staff's response to Tuesday's decision was paramount to the future of the gas-rich country. Abdelkader Bensalah listens while being named interim leader to replace former Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in Algiers, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. As called for by the Algerian Constitution, Bensalah was named as interim leader for a maximum of 90 days until a new election can be organized. He can't run for the post himself. (AP Photo/Toufik Doudou) Algerian police forces face students demonstrating in Algiers, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. Algerian police have fired tear gas and water cannon to break up a group of students protesting in the country's capital, less than an hour after the country's parliament chose an interim leader. (AP Photo/Anis Belghoul) A man walks past street art that reads "liberty," supporting the current protest that has forced out longtime President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in downtown Algiers, Algeria, Monday, April 8, 2019. The pro-democracy movement has forced out Bouteflika and demanded that other top figures leave too. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy) Abdelkader Bensalah stands while being named interim leader to replace former Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in Algiers, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. As called for by the Algerian Constitution, Bensalah was named as interim leader for a maximum of 90 days until a new election can be organized. He can't run for the post himself. (AP Photo/Toufik Doudou) Algerian police forces use a water cannon as students demonstrate in Algiers, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. Algerian police have fired tear gas and water cannon to break up a group of students protesting in the country's capital, less than an hour after the country's parliament chose an interim leader. (AP Photo/Anis Belghoul) Algerian flags are displayed outside balconies, supporting the current protest movement that has forced out longtime President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in downtown Algiers, Algeria, Monday, April 8, 2019. The pro-democracy movement has forced out Bouteflika and demanded that other top figures leave too. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy) A man walks past street art that reads "liberty," supporting the current protest that has forced out longtime President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in downtown Algiers, Algeria, Monday, April 8, 2019. The pro-democracy movement has forced out Bouteflika and demanded that other top figures leave too. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy) BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) - The United Nations envoy to Libya said Tuesday that it would be impossible to hold next week's planned peace conference amid ongoing fighting between rival militias for control of the capital, Tripoli. Ghassan Salame promised to "work day and night" to de-escalate the violence. He said in a statement that the U.N. intends to convene the conference as soon as conditions permit, but that it would be impossible to hold the talks "to the backdrop of artillery shelling and air raids." The U.N. has been unable to halt the advance on Tripoli by Khalifa Hifter, a military commander based in the country's east. The push began last week and has killed 51 people, including both combatants and civilians. The capital is controlled by militias based in the country's west, which support the U.N.-backed government based there. Salame said the days of deadly clashes had squandered a "historic opportunity" for Libyans. A national conference set for mid-April was to pave the way for elections and the unification of the country's ruling administrations. Fighting for the capital has instead threatened to plunge the North African nation deeper into chaos and ignite civil war on the scale of the 2011 NATO-supported uprising, which devolved into a ruinous conflict that killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. In a video filmed by A24 News Agency, young men in mismatched garb fired machine guns and RPGs while forcing the retreat of armored vehicles - allegedly part of Hifter's forces - in a town called Ain Zara, around 15 kilometers (9 miles) southeast of Tripoli. On Monday, Tripoli's only functioning airport was closed after being hit by an airstrike, which Hifter's forces acknowledged having launched. The Mitiga airport is barely 8 kilometers (5 miles) east of the city center. The U.N. said the recent fighting has displaced some 3,400 people and blocked emergency services from reaching casualties and civilians. In New York, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi warned that combat in Tripoli was also taking a toll on refugees and migrants held in detention centers. He said U.N. workers "braving the bullets, literally, have evacuated 150 refugees from a detention center" and moved them to another center in the capital. Speaking to the Security Council and journalists on Tuesday, Grandi said both Libyans and refugees were at risk of becoming displaced if the fighting continues. Many Libyans fled west to neighboring Tunisia during the 2011 war. In a sign that the Islamic State could also be making a comeback elsewhere in Libya, an attack overnight in a small town in central Libya killed at least three people, including the mayor. IS claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place in the town of al-Fuqaha, south of the coastal city of Sirte, a former IS bastion. A resident of the town, Rabie al-Zidani, said the mayor and two other security officials were beheaded, and a lawmaker, Ismail al-Sharif, confirmed the three deaths and said militants had torched several houses. IS, which had previously attacked the town in October, said in an online statement that the strike comes in "revenge for the blessed Levant Waliya." This was an apparent reference to the defeat of IS in its final stronghold in Syria last month by the United States' local allies, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The jihadist group said militants stormed the houses of the "apostates" in reference to local municipal and security officials, killed them, burnt their homes and briefly seized control of the town before withdrawing after taking captives. After ruling Sirte for nearly a year, IS was defeated in Libya in 2016 by a U.S.-backed operation. ___ Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report. KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) - Ugandan police say they have arrested some people over the kidnapping last week of an American tourist who has since been freed. Police did not specify how many people were arrested but said they are "actively investigating" the kidnapping which took place on April 2 in a national park. The victims - Kim Endicott of Costa Mesa, California, and local driver Jean-Paul Mirenge - were freed Sunday. Police said the hunt for the kidnappers, including "raids and extensive searches," is taking place in southwestern Uganda. U.S. President Donald Trump has urged Ugandan authorities to find the perpetrators. The kidnappers had demanded a $500,000 ransom after abducting the two at gunpoint. Image released by Wild Frontiers tour company on Monday April 8, 2019, shows American tourist Kim Endicott, right, and field guide Jean-Paul Mirenge a day after they were rescued following a kidnap by unknown gunmen in Uganda's Queen Elizabeth National Park. Ugandan police said on Sunday they had rescued Endicott, an American tourist, and her guide, Mirenge, who had been kidnapped by gunmen in a national park. (Wild Frontiers via AP) Ugandan officials say no ransom was paid, but a tourism operator said that money was paid to secure Endicott's release. Image released by Wild Frontiers tour company on Monday April 8, 2019, shows American tourist Kim Endicott, center, following her rescue after being kidnapped by unknown gunmen in Uganda's Queen Elizabeth National Park. Ugandan police said on Sunday they had rescued Endicott, an American tourist, and her guide, Jean-Paul Mirenge, who had been kidnapped by gunmen in a national park. (Wild Frontiers via AP) WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on Attorney General William Barr's testimony to Congress (all times local): 11 a.m. Attorney General William Barr is defending his decision to send a letter to Congress detailing special counsel Robert Mueller's principal conclusions because the public would not have tolerated waiting weeks for information. Barr is testifying before a House appropriations subcommittee. Mueller concluded his nearly two-year Russia investigation in late March. The special counsel submitted a nearly 400-page confidential report to Barr. The attorney general sent his four-page letter to Congress two days later. Democrats have raised questions about how Barr was so quickly able to boil down Mueller's report into four pages. In his first appearance on Capitol Hill since taking office, and amid intense speculation over his review of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia report, Attorney General William Barr appears before a House Appropriations subcommittee to make his Justice Department budget request, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Barr says a redacted version of Mueller's report will be made public within a week. He says Mueller wasn't involved in preparing the letter to Congress because it was "my letter." ___ 10:20 a.m. Attorney General William Barr says he had a general sense of the Russia investigation's findings weeks before it concluded. Barr says he "had an inkling" of the findings after meeting with special counsel Robert Mueller about three weeks before Mueller turned in his final report. Barr says Mueller's thinking was "not a mystery" to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and other senior Justice Department leaders who had been supervising the probe for nearly two years. Barr is responding to questions from House Democrats about how he reviewed Mueller's nearly 400-page report and released a letter laying out its principal findings within two days. Barr says he worked closely with Rosenstein in authoring the letter. He says he expects to release a redacted version of the report "within a week." ___ 10:00 a.m. Attorney General William Barr says he will release a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on the Russia investigation within a week. Barr is testifying before a House appropriations subcommittee Tuesday. He says Mueller's report will have portions redacted but they would be color-coded to indicate why the information could not be made public. Mueller concluded his investigation in late March and submitted a nearly 400-page confidential report. Barr sent a letter to Congress with Mueller's "principal conclusions." Barr said Mueller was given the opportunity to review that letter but declined to do so. Barr says grand jury information, details that could reveal confidential intelligence sources and information that would interfere with ongoing cases will be redacted. ___ 9:50 a.m. The chairman of a House appropriations subcommittee says it would be a serious blow to democracy if special counsel Robert Mueller's full report on the Russia investigation is not fully made public. Attorney General William Barr is testifying before the subcommittee on Tuesday. Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., said he has concerns about the process Barr used to draft a four-page letter of Mueller's "principal conclusions" last month. Mueller concluded his investigation in late March and turned over a nearly 400-page report to Barr. Two days later, the attorney general then sent the four-page document to Congress. The Justice Department has said a redacted version of Mueller's report will be made public in mid-April. Serrano said Americans have been "left with many unanswered questions" about Mueller's investigation. __ 12:40 a.m. Attorney General William Barr is facing congressional lawmakers for the first time since receiving the special counsel's report on the Russia investigation. Barr appears Tuesday before a House appropriations subcommittee, where he's expected to face questions about the forthcoming release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report. The Justice Department is preparing to release within days a redacted version of Mueller's report into potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Barr said in a four-page summary of Mueller's main conclusions that Mueller didn't find a criminal conspiracy between the campaign and the Kremlin. The attorney general has also said that Mueller did not reach a conclusion on whether the president obstructed justice. Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided the evidence was insufficient to establish obstruction. In his first appearance on Capitol Hill since taking office, and amid intense speculation over his review of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia report, Attorney General William Barr arrives to appears before a House Appropriations subcommittee to make his Justice Department budget request, in Washington, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday mocked U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Kremlin interference in the 2016 presidential election, saying "a mountain gave birth to a mouse." In his first comments since Mueller finished his probe, Putin sought to cast the 22-month investigation as a failure and disregarded the special counsel's exposure of a Russian operation to put Donald Trump in the White House. "It was clear for us from the start that it would end like this," the Russian leader said as the Trump administration and Congress sparred over making Mueller's still-confidential investigation report public. Attorney General William Barr wrote in a summary of Mueller's report that the special counsel found no evidence the Trump campaign "conspired or coordinated" with the Russian government to influence the election. However, Mueller uncovered evidence of a Kremlin operation to interfere with the 2016 vote. He charged 12 Russian military intelligence officers with breaking into Democratic Party computers and the email accounts of officials with Hillary Clinton's campaign. Another indictment detailed Russia's use of phony social media accounts to spread divisive rhetoric and to undermine the U.S. political system. Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking at a plenary session of the International Arctic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky) Putin on Tuesday nevertheless repeated Moscow's across-the-board disavowals of election meddling, with or without participation from the Trump campaign. He also reiterated that the Russian government had no contact with Trump when he visited Moscow as a businessman. "We have been saying from the start that this notorious commission led by Mr. Mueller won't find anything, because no one knows better than us: Russia has not meddled in any U.S. election," Putin said while attending an Arctic forum in St. Petersburg. The Russian leader described allegations of collusion between Trump's camp and Russia as "sheer nonsense aimed at a domestic audience and used for domestic political infighting in the United States." Mueller found numerous people associated with Trump were receptive to Russia's help, but Barr's summary said the special counsel didn't find evidence of a criminal conspiracy in meetings and other contact between Russian and Trump campaign officials. Putin alleged Trump's political foes now were "searching for new pretexts" to undermine him. "Those groups which are attacking the legitimately elected president, what are they doing?" Putin said. "They disagree with the choice of the American people and seek to reduce the results to zero." Putin's rhetoric resembled Trump's statements disparaging Democrats. Asked if he agreed with Trump's description of the probe as a "witch hunt," Putin said "President Trump knows better." At the same time, he insisted he wasn't vouching for the U.S. president with his comments on Mueller's investigation. "I'm not defending President Trump. We have plenty of disagreements," Putin said. "His administration has introduced numerous sanctions against Russia, something we disagree with and will never accept." The Russian leader added that despite differences, Moscow and Washington have found some common ground on the conflict in Syria. Putin said he hoped the United States and Russia could focus on more areas of mutual interest, such as nuclear arms control, fighting terrorism and climate change. ___ Isachenkov reported from Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures during a plenary session of the International Arctic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. (Valery Sharifulin/TASS News Agency Pool Photo via AP) Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he attends a plenary session of the International Arctic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky) Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking at a plenary session of the International Arctic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky) Patient bills, competition and secrecy shared the spotlight Tuesday as pharmacy benefit managers testified before Congress about prescription drug prices. Members of a Senate Finance Committee investigating drug costs pushed the benefit managers to explain why they can't do more to control prices and to reveal the details behind the contracts they negotiate. The hearing was the committee's third so far this year focused on the high cost of prescriptions. Executives from CVS Health, UnitedHealth Group's OptumRx and Cigna testified. Here are some key points about the issue: WHO THEY ARE Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, run prescription drug coverage for employers, insurers, unions and other clients. They set up lists of covered drugs that are often broken into tiers with different pricing levels for the patient. They negotiate rebates for some drugs to help offset high initial or list prices. Three PBMs dominate the U.S. market. CVS Health's Caremark business, UnitedHealth's OptumRx and Cigna's recently acquired Express Scripts each process over a billion prescriptions annually. Prime Therapeutics Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Interim President and Chief Executive Officer Mike Kolar, right, testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, during a hearing to explore the high cost of prescription drugs. He is joined at the table by, from left, Cigna Corporation Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer Steve Miller, CVS Caremark President and CVS Health Executive Vice President Derica Rice, Humana Healthcare Services Segment President William Fleming and OptumRx Chief Executive Officer John Prince. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) The trio controlled about 76 percent of the market last year, according to the research firm Drug Channels Institute. THE DEBATE Critics see PBMs as middlemen who add costs to an already expensive system for prescription drugs. Drugmakers point to the rebates as part of the problem. They say they have to offer them to land some of their products on a PBM's list of covered drugs or a less-expensive tier, and this contributes to higher list prices. High list prices hurt patients who have to pay a big deductible when they fill a prescription. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., criticized the companies for "gouging" their customers by charging them higher drug prices than what they negotiated with drugmakers. He also said the companies guard their operations "with greater secrecy than HBO is guarding the ending of 'Game of Thrones.'" "Whether pharmacy benefit managers bring any real value to taxpayers is a mystery," Wyden said. Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, questioned whether PBMs prefer high-cost drugs that come with big rebates over cheaper drugs. PBM TAKE PBMs say they do several things to help control costs, but drugmakers are the only ones responsible for setting their initial prices. When drugmakers produce competing products to treat the same condition - like with hepatitis C drugs - PBMs use that competition to wrangle price breaks in exchange for coverage. They use the leverage that comes from all the prescriptions they process to negotiate rebates, and they urged lawmakers to make it easier for patients to get access to lower cost drugs like generic medications. "When we have competition, we can bring down drug prices," said CVS Health's Derica Rice, a former executive with the drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co. PBMs say they only offer rebates on around 8% of the prescriptions they process, and they pass along most of those discounts to payers like insurers or large employers. They said they want to offer more of those rebates directly to patients when they buy the drugs, an upfront approach to the discounts favored by President Donald Trump's administration. PBM executives also said they can't make the details of their negotiations with drugmakers public because that would hurt their leverage for getting future discounts. WHAT'S NEXT Senators have already grilled pharmaceutical leaders about prescription drug prices and heard testimony from people affected by the soaring cost of insulin for patients with diabetes. Members of the House of Representatives also are looking into drug costs. Grassley and Wyden have said they are working to look for ways to bring down high prescription drug costs Democrats want Medicare to leverage its purchasing power and directly negotiate prices with the industry, a step most Republicans oppose. Grassley has called for a greater public accounting of how drug prices are set. ___ Follow Tom Murphy on Twitter: @thpmurphy ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., shows a chart during a Senate Finance Committee hearing with pharmacy benefit managers on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, exploring the high cost of prescription drugs. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) CVS Caremark President and CVS Health Executive Vice President Derica Rice, center, flanked by Cigna Corporation Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer Steve Miller, left, and Humana Healthcare Services Segment President William Fleming, right, testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, during a hearing to explore the high cost of prescription drugs. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) Humana Healthcare Services Segment President William Fleming, second from right, testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, during a hearing to explore the high cost of prescription drugs. He is joined at the table by, from left, Cigna Corporation Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer Steve Miller, CVS Caremark President and CVS Health Executive Vice President Derica Rice, and OptumRx Chief Executive Officer John Prince. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) Senate Finance Committee ranking member Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., holds up a pharmacy authorization form during a Senate Finance Committee hearing with pharmacy benefit managers on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, exploring the high cost of prescription drugs. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Facing a newly revived wrongful death lawsuit in Connecticut over the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, gun-maker Remington is going to the U.S. Supreme Court to argue it can't be sued because of a much-debated federal law that shields firearms manufacturers from liability in most cases. The Connecticut Supreme Court issued a 4-3 ruling last month saying the Madison, North Carolina-based company can be sued under state law for how it marketed the Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle used to kill 20 first-graders and six educators at the Newtown school in 2012. The decision reinstated part of a lawsuit by some of the victims' families that had been completely dismissed by a lower court judge. The case is being watched by gun control advocates, gun rights supporters and gun manufacturers across the country, as it has the potential to provide a roadmap for victims of other mass shootings to circumvent the federal law and sue firearm makers. The federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act has been criticized by gun control advocates as being too favorable to gun-makers since it took effect in 2005, and it has been used to bar lawsuits over other mass killings. Remington's lawyers have notified the Connecticut high court that they intend to ask the nation's highest court to hear the company's appeal of last month's decision, according to a motion filed with the state court Friday. The company has until June to file papers with the U.S. Supreme Court. Lawyers for Remington, Scott Harrington and James Vogts, wrote in the recent motion that the Connecticut high court "recognized that guidance from the Supreme Court is needed by acknowledging that congressional intent to protect firearm manufacturers from litigation is not clear, and it is 'possible that Congress intended to broadly immunize firearm sellers from liability' for the conduct that Plaintiffs have alleged." In the majority opinion, Associate Justice Richard Palmer wrote that Remington can be sued under one of the few exceptions to the 2005 federal law - for claims alleging violations of laws related to the sale and marketing of firearms. FILE - In this Jan. 28, 2013, file photo, firearms training unit Detective Barbara J. Mattson, of the Connecticut State Police, holds a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle, the same make and model used by Adam Lanza in the 2012 Sandy Hook School shooting, during a hearing at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford, Conn. A divided Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that gun maker Remington can be sued over how it marketed the Bushmaster rifle used in the massacre. In court documents filed Friday, April 5, 2019, Remington notified the Connecticut Supreme Court of its plans to pursue an appeal with the Supreme Court of the United States. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File) Remington is being sued by a survivor and relatives of nine victims of the Sandy Hook shooting. The plaintiffs' lawyer, Joshua Koskoff, has accused the company of targeting younger, at-risk males through "militaristic marketing and astute product placement in violent first-person shooter games." Koskoff said Tuesday that the case "is a matter of law for the state of Connecticut." "As Connecticut's Supreme Court said, its decision to revive the case stemmed from 'the traditional authority of our legislature and our courts to protect the people of Connecticut from the pernicious practices alleged in the present case,'" Koskoff said in a statement. Democratic U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, of Connecticut, and others watching the case have said the ruling reminded them of early court victories against tobacco companies that led them to disclose damaging internal documents and later agree to billions of dollars in legal settlements over sickened smokers. The Sandy Hook shooter, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, played violent video games. The Connecticut child advocate said Lanza's severe and deteriorating mental health problems, his preoccupation with violence and access to his mother's legal weapons "proved a recipe for mass murder." Lanza killed his mother, Nancy, at their Newtown home before going to the school, where he killed himself as police arrived. WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on the House Judiciary Committee hearing on white nationalism and social media (all times local): 1:05 p.m. David Cicilline, a Democratic lawmaker from Rhode Island, grilled Facebook's Neil Potts and Google's Alexandria Walden about their companies' responsibility in the spread of white supremacy, pushing them to acknowledge that they've played a role, even if it is not intentional. "Can you answer? You agree white nationalism is enjoying a meaningful resurgence the United States?," asked the congressman, citing research from law enforcement and the ADL. "Yes I am aware of all the research," Walden responded. Potts and Walden did acknowledge that their companies have a responsibility in curbing hate. FILE - In this Dec. 17, 2018, file photo, a man using a mobile phone walks past Google offices in New York. Executives from Google and Facebook are facing Congress Tuesday, April 8, 2019, to answer questions about their role in the hate crimes and the rise of white nationalism in the U.S. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File) _____ 12:15 p.m. Conservative commentator Candace Owens tells lawmakers at a hearing about white nationalism that the country needs to talk more about what she called harassment of conservatives of color. "We're not talking enough about political hatred in this country," she tells the House Judiciary Committee. Owens, who is black, is the director of communications for conservative group Turning Point USA. A frequent public speaker, she has been an active supporter of President Donald Trump and has been trying to push African Americans to leave the Democratic Party. Owens complained to lawmakers about a "double standard" that she says allows criticism of black conservatives, Christians and Jews. "We need to condemn all types of hate speech," she says. _____ 11:30 a.m. Policy leaders from Facebook and Google are condemning hate crimes and defending their companies' policies on hate speech at a congressional hearing. "There is no place for terrorism or hate on Facebook," Facebook director of public policy Neil Potts tells the House Judiciary committee. "We remove any content that incites violence." The committee is holding a hearing on the spread of white nationalism and hate crimes, including the part social media plays in fostering extremism. Facebook and YouTube have policies in place to prohibit violent and hateful material, but many critics say they do not go far enough and hate groups use the platforms anyway. The hearing was prompted after the shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, last month where the shooter livestreamed part of his rampage on social media. _____ 11:15 a.m. The chat on a YouTube livestream of a congressional hearing on white nationalism was disabled after racist and anti-Semitic comments were posted. The chat was turned off about 30 minutes after the House Judiciary committee hearing began. The chat, which allows users to post public comments in real-time, quickly descended into targeted attacks. A YouTube spokesman said the comments were disabled because of hateful comments. The Congressional committee is holding a hearing about the spread of white nationalism and hate crimes in the U.S. Google and Facebook representatives are testifying along with human rights leaders. ____ 10:45 a.m. A congressional committee hearing on white nationalism has begun with statements criticizing the spread of hate crimes in the U.S. and social media's role in the spread. The House Judiciary committee is hearing from Facebook and Google executives, as well as human rights leaders, about the spread of hate crimes and white nationalism in the U.S. The hearing room and the hallway outside were thronged with young people, some wearing T-shirts with names of people said to have been victims of hate crimes. Mohammad Abu-Salha, whose two daughters and son-in-law were shot and killed in a hate crime in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 2015, tells lawmakers that the government must stand up against bigotry and social media companies must stop "providing platforms and safe haven" for hate groups. ___ 9:00 a.m. Executives from Google and Facebook will appear before Congress to answer questions about their role in the spread of hate crimes and the rise of white nationalism in the U.S. Neil Potts, Facebook's director of public policy and Alexandria Walden, counsel for free expression and human rights at Google, will speak Tuesday to the House Judiciary Committee along with leaders of the Anti-Defamation League, the Equal Justice Society and others. The hearing was prompted by the March shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, when a gunman killed 50 people at two mosques and livestreamed the attacks on Facebook. The suspected shooter also published a lengthy post online that espoused white supremacist views. WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on President Donald Trump's tax returns (all times local): 4:30 p.m. IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig says it's his decision - though under the supervision of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin - whether to comply with a request by Democrats to turn over President Donald Trump's tax returns. Rettig told a House panel Tuesday that the IRS is "working on" a response to last week's letter from House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal that asked for Trump's tax returns. Neal asked for the returns by Wednesday. Neither Rettig nor Mnuchin - who testified before two House panels Tuesday - would state flatly which of them would make the decision on whether to release Trump's tax filings. IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig testifies before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government during a hearing, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) __ 10:45 a.m. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says his department intends to "follow the law" and is reviewing a request by a top House Democrat to provide President Donald Trump's tax returns to lawmakers. Mnuchin told a House panel that he has not had any communications with the president or his top staff about the department's decision whether or not to provide Trump's tax returns under a nearly century-old statute that says the Treasury Department "shall furnish" them when requested. Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said in a Sunday show appearance that lawmakers will "never" see Trump's returns. Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal requested the returns last week in a letter to Mnuchin that set a deadline of Wednesday to provide them. Mnuchin says he "looks forward to responding." ___ 12:25 a.m. IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig is facing off with lawmakers on Capitol Hill for the first time since House Democrats last week asked him for President Donald Trump's tax returns. Rettig is sure to face questions from a House Appropriations Committee panel on the topic Tuesday afternoon. The White House has signaled it'll fight the request. Last week, the chairman of a different House panel asked for Trump's personal and business returns by Wednesday in a letter to Rettig, relying on a 1924 statute that says the Treasury Department "shall furnish" them when requested. The IRS is part of Treasury. Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said on "Fox News Sunday" that lawmakers will "never" see Trump's returns. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin squares off with lawmakers in the morning. IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, left, speaks with Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, during a break in a hearing, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - Hundreds of residents in the county hardest hit by Hurricane Michael faced losing a roof over their heads on Tuesday as housing vouchers allowing them to stay at hotels after the Category 4 storm expired. Around 250 households in Bay County, Florida, faced eviction from hotels since their vouchers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Transitional Sheltering Assistance program were over as of Tuesday, a day before the six-month anniversary of the hurricane's landfall in Florida's Panhandle. The state of Florida has appealed, asking for an extension of three more months. "It's unacceptable to us," Bay County Commission chairman Philip Griffitts said Tuesday. "These are not wealthy folks. These are just regular, run-of-the-mill Americans who really need help." Denying the extension will increase the risk that residents will leave Bay County, with housing still in short supply six months after the storm blew ashore, said Jared Moskowitz, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. "The availability of affordable housing and the lack of it right now is an issue," Moskowitz said in an interview. "We're just asking them to think out of the box on this." FILE - This Oct. 9, 2018, file photo shows a satellite image made available by NOAA showing Hurricane Michael, center, in the Gulf of Mexico. Hundreds of residents in the county hardest hit by Hurricane Michael are losing housing vouchers that allowed them to stay at hotels in the aftermath of the Category 4 storm. Around 250 households in Bay County, Florida, are facing eviction from hotels Tuesday, April 9, 2019 since their vouchers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Transitional Sheltering Assistance program were ending. (NOAA via AP, File) FEMA said the vouchers aren't a long-term solution for residents. "When families receive lodging assistance from FEMA, it is explained that it is a short-term sheltering option and that they are expected to develop a longer-term housing solution for their family in order to successfully transition out of the hotels," FEMA spokeswoman Kathryn Van Marter-Sanders said in a statement. FEMA said 292 families were still in hotels as of Monday, and of those, 42 families would still get vouchers to stay another two months in hotels since they had plans for long-term housing. The policy might seem paradoxical, but FEMA officials said it has encouraged most of the more than 2,000 households who used the vouchers in the past six months to find more permanent housing. In most disasters, survivors get help from case managers who help them with any needs through FEMA's Disaster Case Management program, but the program has yet to be implemented, Moskowitz said in a letter to FEMA on Monday. Also adding to the problem is the large number of apartment dwellers who lost their homes. More than two-thirds of residents whose homes were damaged lived in apartments. "Housing is not a simple situation. Repairing apartments with no roofs can't be done overnight," Griffitts said. "There's just simply no affordable housing." ___ Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico's efforts to calm critics of its newly formed National Guard received a boost Tuesday in the form of an agreement from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to assist in the force's training. High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet said that her office will offer technical assistance to ensure that Mexico's new security force respects human rights. "Experience shows us that you can't have security without full respect for human rights and you can't enjoy human rights without security," Bachelet said. U.N. human rights experts had been outspoken in their criticism of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's efforts to reform the constitution to give the military a formal role in the country's policing. He eventually agreed to place the National Guard under the civilian public safety minister, but has insisted that it will be led by an active duty military officer. Lopez Obrador said he will name the force's commander Thursday. It will initially be made up of military police from the army and navy, as well as some federal police, but recruitment is underway. Mexico is coming off its most murderous year in at least the past 20. Previous administrations used the army and marines to combat the drug cartels in many parts of the country after determining that local police forces were hopelessly corrupt. Human rights abuses ensued by soldiers not trained for police work, from torture to extrajudicial killings. Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, pose for photos after signing their agreement during a ceremony at the National Palace in Mexico City, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. Bachelet said Tuesday that her office will offer technical assistance to ensure that Mexico's newly formed National Guard respects human rights. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte) Lopez Obrador took office in December ready to scrap the Federal Police, which he said never came together as expected and replace it with the National Guard. The leftist president has lavished praise on Mexico's military, surprising some, insisting that only the military has the necessary discipline and respect of the public to get a handle on the country's internal security. "We are going to carry out this change to guarantee security without violating human rights," Lopez Obrador said. "We want Mexico to open to international observation." Bachelet sidestepped questions about the essentially militarized nature of the new National Guard, whose officers will apparently be given military training and be under military discipline. Bachelet said "the creation of the National Guard could open the opportunity to create a new civilian police force capable of fighting the overwhelming challenge of organized crime," without explaining how. Bachelet called Mexico's crime numbers "terrifying," noting "Mexico has numbers of violent deaths worthy of a nation at war; 252,538 since 2006." She also mentioned the murders of nine human rights activists and four journalists so far in 2019, coming on top of a dozen journalists murdered each year in 2018 and 2017. Bachelet said the U.N. would be willing to help Mexico integrate its forensic files on the country's 40,000 missing people, and strengthen its capacity to find clandestine graves and identify bodies. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, shake hands during a signing ceremony at the National Palace in Mexico City, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. Bachelet said Tuesday that her office will offer technical assistance to ensure that Mexico's newly formed National Guard respects human rights. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte) Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador watches as Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, signs their agreement during a ceremony at the National Palace in Mexico City, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. Bachelet said Tuesday that her office will offer technical assistance to ensure that Mexico's newly formed National Guard respects human rights. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte) Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, attends a signing ceremony at the National Palace in Mexico City, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. Mexico's efforts to calm critics of its newly formed National Guard have received a boost in the form of an agreement with Bachelet who said that her office will offer technical assistance to ensure that Mexico's new security force respects human rights. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte) RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - A Democratic North Carolina congressional candidate says he has raised more than $1.6 million in campaign funds for a special election that was forced after last year's race was voided by a ballot-collection scandal. Dan McCready's campaign said Tuesday that the 9th District candidate also ended the year's first quarter with $1.46 million in cash on hand. McCready had nearly $338,000 available at the end of 2018 after making new pleas to contributors in the midst of challenges against the November election's validity and raising more than $503,000, his campaign said last month in a Federal Elections Commission report. "This is just one more sign of the incredible energy and momentum we're seeing on the ground as we head into the special election," McCready said in a prepared statement. McCready plans to file a quarterly finance report with the FEC in the next week, campaign spokesman Aaron Simpson said. A new election was ordered in February after state officials heard evidence that a political operative working for Republican congressional candidate Mark Harris in rural Bladen County illegally collected mail-in ballots. The operative, Leslie McCrae Dowless, has since been charged with state crimes. His lawyer said he is innocent. FILE - In this Sept. 26, 2018, file photo, Democratic congressional candidate Dan McCready leans against a wallboard as he pauses during a Habitat For Humanity building event in Charlotte, N.C. The Democratic North Carolina congressional candidate says he has raised more than $1.6 million in campaign funds for a special election that was forced after last year's race was voided by a ballot-collection scandal. McCready's campaign said Tuesday, Apri 9, 2019, that the 9th District candidate also ended the year's first quarter with $1.46 million in cash on hand. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File) McCready is running unopposed in next month's Democratic primary. Ten Republicans are running to replace Harris as their party's nominee to face McCready. Meanwhile, a political stalemate is complicating the upcoming elections to fill the still-vacant congressional seat. A Republican nominated last month to the Bladen County elections board won't take his seat, leaving local oversight of voting uncertain ahead of next month's GOP primary election in the 9th District. Emery White was nominated by the state Republican Party, but his refusal leaves the five-member Bladen elections board with only two members, both of them Democrats - too few members to take actions like picking early-voting sites and counting absentee ballots. White's decision follows complaints by state Republican Party officials after the state elections board wouldn't reappoint other Bladen elections board members who served last year. State officials decided a fresh start was needed after Dowless, who has deep ties in local politics, was reported to be illegally collecting mail-in ballots for years without local or state authorities stopping him. State Republican Party Chairman Robin Hayes said that was an arbitrary decision. "If any of my nominees are implicated in any wrongdoing that occurred in Bladen County, we will be the first to call for their resignation and replacement," Hayes wrote in a letter last month. "Sweeping the office of everyone with any experience on how to run an election, with knowledge as to what issues need to be addressed, and foresight as to what warning signs to look for is a recipe for allowing outside parties to compromise the election process." Hayes last week relinquished his party activities to an interim manager until new party elections in June. He was indicted on federal charges that he tried to bribe the state's insurance commissioner on behalf of a wealthy donor and then lied to FBI agents. Gov. Roy Cooper could break the logjam by appointing a third member as chair of the Bladen elections board. Cooper is expected to act this week, spokesman Ford Porter said. In-person early voting in the congressional primaries starts April 25. Bladen County voters can cast ballots at the local elections board office during normal business hours, which is the minimum required by law. ___ Follow Emery P. Dalesio on Twitter at http://twitter.com/emerydalesio . His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/emery%20dalesio . TIRANA, Albania (AP) - Albanian police report that a man has been shot dead after a group of unidentified individuals robbed money at the country's international airport. In a statement, police said the robbery by masked and armed people took place on the tarmac at the Mother Teresa Rinasi International Airport, slightly north of the capital Tirana, on Tuesday afternoon. Details of the amount or who the money belonged to were not immediately available. One of the robbers was shot dead in an exchange of fire with police about one kilometer from the airport. Special police forces and a helicopter still are combing the area. Only one flight, to Vienna, was cancelled. PITTSBURGH (AP) - Gun rights groups sued Tuesday to block Pittsburgh from enforcing firearms legislation passed after a mass shooting at a synagogue, accusing city officials of blatantly defying the state's prohibition on municipal gun regulation. Democratic Mayor Bill Peduto signed the bills into law in a ceremony at the City-County Building, declaring the community had come together "to say enough is enough." City officials said they had to act because the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania Legislature - which is planning to hold a memorial service for the victims this week - will not. "We are going to take some action, we are going to do something positive and, yes, it is going to be everlasting," said Peduto, surrounded by gun-control advocates and members of three congregations that were targeted in the shooting rampage at Tree of Life Synagogue. "Change only happens when you challenge the status quo." Minutes later, a coalition of gun rights groups sued to get the newly minted laws overturned, calling them "patently unenforceable, unconstitutional, illegal." Shortly after that, a second lawsuit, this one backed by the National Rifle Association, declared that "Pittsburgh has violated the rights of its citizens." "Worse yet, Pittsburgh has committed this violation without any realistic prospect of diminishing the ... incidence of horrific mass shootings," said the suit, filed by four city residents. "All it will do is leave law-abiding citizens more vulnerable to attack from better-armed and more ruthless assailants." The new legislation restricts military-style assault weapons like the AR-15 rifle authorities say was used in the Oct. 27 massacre that killed 11 and wounded seven. It also bans most uses of armor-piercing ammunition and high-capacity magazines and allows the temporary seizure of guns from people who are determined to be a danger to themselves or others. The first two laws are due to take effect in 60 days, the imminent-danger law in 180 days. Daniel Leger, left, and Andrea Wedner, both survivors of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, embrace after Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto signed three gun-control bills into law, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, at the City-County Building in downtown Pittsburgh. (Steph Chambers/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP) Whether the city will be able to enforce them is an open question. State law has long prohibited municipalities from regulating the ownership or possession of guns or ammunition, and courts have thrown out other local firearms measures, including a 1990s-era assault weapons ban in Pittsburgh. But city leaders said they were eager to take on the fight, given the Legislature's traditional reluctance to pass gun legislation. "This fantasy that somehow the state is going to step up and help us is simply not going to happen," said Council President Bruce Kraus. The bill signing took place as state lawmakers prepared to come together for a memorial service for the Tree of Life victims. The unusual joint session at the Capitol in Harrisburg on Wednesday will bring together the House and Senate for prayers and speeches about the attack. Peduto's spokesman said the timing was coincidental. The Pittsburgh bills - proposed not long after the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history - were weakened ahead of City Council passage in an effort to make them more likely to survive a court challenge. While one of the bills originally included an outright ban on assault weapons, the revised measure bars the "use" of assault weapons in public places. A full ban on possession would take effect only if state lawmakers or the state Supreme Court give municipalities the right to regulate guns, which is seen as unlikely in a state where a majority of legislators are fiercely protective of gun rights. The city will be represented in court by lawyers with Everytown for Gun Safety, a group backed by billionaire Michael Bloomberg. In another legal filing Tuesday, the Allegheny County Sportsmen's League asked a judge to hold the city, Peduto and six council members who voted for the gun-control legislation in contempt of court, contending they violated a 1995 legal settlement in which city officials dropped the earlier effort to ban assault weapons and agreed to "abide by and adhere to Pennsylvania law." "It is unfortunate that ... taxpayers will be burdened by the city's elected officials believing it is acceptable - and even gloating - that they are violating the Pennsylvania Constitution and Crimes Code," Joshua Prince, a lawyer seeking to overturn the laws, wrote in a statement. ___ Rubinkam reported from northeastern Pennsylvania. Family members Tree of Life synagogue shooting victims listen to Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto after he signed three gun-control bills into law, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, at the City-County Building in downtown Pittsburgh. (Steph Chambers/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP) Leigh Stein, daughter of Tree of Life synagogue shooting victim Dan Stein, wipes away a tear as Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto signs three gun-control bills into law, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, at the City-County Building in downtown Pittsburgh. (Steph Chambers/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP) Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, surrounded by supporters and family members of Tree of Life synagogue shooting victims, signs three gun-control bills into law, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, at the City-County Building in downtown Pittsburgh. (Steph Chambers/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP) BOSTON (AP) - Wynn Resorts removed its security chief after he acknowledged spying on a former employee following allegations of sexual misconduct against company founder Steve Wynn came to light. CEO Matthew Maddox said James Stern, the executive vice president of corporate security, was informed Saturday the company would "no longer require his services," according to a lengthy legal brief to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission released Tuesday. Stern told the commission last week he'd surveilled company co-founder Elaine Wynn and three employees, including one named in The Wall Street Journal's 2018 report about the misconduct allegations. Steve Wynn has denied the sexual misconduct allegations. The gaming commission, following last week's hearings, is deliberating privately on whether Wynn Resorts is still suitable to hold a state casino license as it plans to open the $2.6 billion Encore Boston Harbor in June. A written decision is expected later. Stern, a former FBI agent, testified he'd sent undercover operatives to monitor current and former employees, including former Wynn casino stylist Jorgen Nielsen, who was a named source in the Journal's January 2018 story. It's not clear who the other two persons surveilled were, but, in its Tuesday memo, the company stressed that neither Nielsen nor the others were victims of Steve Wynn's alleged misconduct. The company also said Stern's surveillance of Elaine Wynn, the ex-wife of Steve Wynn, happened around 2012 and stemmed from an unrelated lawsuit brought by Kazuo Okada, a Japanese billionaire and fellow Wynn Resorts co-founder. FILE - In this April 27, 2018 file photo, new Wynn Resort CEO Matthew Maddox speaks to members of the media after a hearing in Boston. Maddox said executive vice president of corporate security James Stern was informed Saturday, April 6, 2019, that the company would "no longer require his services," after he acknowledged spying on employees following allegations of sexual misconduct against company founder Steve Wynn. (AP Photo/Philip Marcelo, File) Elaine Wynn told regulators last week she disclosed to company officials in 2009 a $7.5 million payout Steve Wynn made to a female employee who'd claimed he'd raped and impregnated her. Commission members last week criticized Maddox and other company officials for spending time and resources to surveil employees but not to investigate sexual misconduct claims. But the spying revelations shouldn't reflect negatively on Maddox, the company argued in its 49-page memo, which also covers other issues and concerns gaming commission members raised about what Maddox may have known or done about the misconduct allegations. Maddox, who took over as CEO last February but had been a close confidante of Steve Wynn for years, had only "minimal" and "partial" knowledge of the spying, the company maintained. And, going forward, it said surveillance work will be approved by the company's chief global compliance officer and its general counsel. ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) - A former North Carolina congressman says he had begun selling shares in a Russian bank before it lost its license. Last week, Russia's central bank accused Commercial Bank of Ivanovo of breaching anti-money laundering rules by providing incomplete or unreliable transaction information. Central bank records on Friday showed Rep. Charles Taylor owned more than 80 percent of the bank, which the Republican bought with a former KGB agent as his business partner. Taylor issued a statement to WLOS-TV and The Citizen-Times saying he bought the stock years ago but wasn't a bank officer and knew of no wrongdoing. His statement said he signed a contract to sell his shares; it didn't say whether the transaction was complete. A man who answered a phone listing for Taylor Tuesday declined to talk. SAN ANTONIO (AP) - The disruptive behavior and mental instability of an Air Force trainee and Army veteran was apparent long before he killed his commander and himself in Texas in April 2016, according to an Air Force investigative report. Tech. Sgt. Steven Bellino was armed with two hand guns, a knife and 61 rounds of ammunition when he shot and killed 39-year-old Lt. Col. William Schroeder at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, then turned the gun on himself. Bellino, who grew up in Parma, Ohio, entered the Army at 18. In 1997, a handful of years into his Army career, Bellino admitted he had destroyed property, started fires, got involved in fights and broken rules that he found disagreeable, according to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations report obtained by the San Antonio Express-News under the Freedom of Information Act. He was arrested once, for removing air from tires in a parking lot, while based at Fort Bragg. Nonetheless, Bellino fought with distinction in Afghanistan, learned Arabic and Spanish, and graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in psychology. He served as an Army Ranger, Green Beret and a military contractor in Iraq, Kosovo and Bosnia. But he struggled to settle on a career and suffered increasingly bad symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to audio recordings, military records and an Air Force psychiatric evaluation. He had a short stint as a special agent for the FBI then joined the Air Force in 2015. But he grew irritated with the highly competitive training at Lackland and returned to his parents' home in Ohio for 10 days. When he returned to Lackland, Bellino was charged with being absent without leave. On April 5, 2016, he accepted an Article 15 other-than-honorable discharge - something he had resisted because he feared it would hurt his odds of entering another branch of the military or landing a civilian security job. Three days later, he burst into Schroeder's office, accused the squadron commander from Iowa of ruining lives, then shot and killed him. Bellino's issues with Schroeder and other Air Force instructors followed a trend. According to the report, a fellow soldier in his Ohio National Guard unit said Bellino "could function in society and in his unit" but that he "had an irrational hatred for certain people in positions of authority." Two soldiers in the unit agreed Bellino needed mental health treatment but there were no means at the time to refer soldiers for psychological tests without the commission of an explicit act. The rule has since changed. Bellino "had to have somebody, an authority figure, to pit himself against," one soldier said, according to the OSI report. Responding to the report, Bellino's twin brother, Mike Bellino Jr., called him "the ultimate soldier, warrior and hero." An autopsy found that Bellino died by suicide aged 41. The Air Force investigative report indicates Bellino didn't leave a suicide note, but that he wrote a farewell note in the August before his death. "I do not like this world," he wrote, "and I do not want to be a part of it any longer." ___ Information from: San Antonio Express-News, http://www.mysanantonio.com TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - A Kansas National Guard captain has submitted her resignation out of frustration over what she perceived as a lack of concern by guard leadership after a series of people associated with the Guard took their own lives in recent months. Capt. Tara Fields, a behavioral health officer, said in her brigade two soldiers and a civilian employee took their own lives in July but her concerns have been met with complacency by guard officials, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported . Her resignation letter is expected to be final by the end of April. Maj. Gen. Lee Tafanelli said the Kansas National Guard has had nine members take their own lives in the past five years, including three in the past 18 months. Fields said the deaths of a civilian employee and a man who had just been discharged were not included in the official numbers. "This is not how we treat our soldiers," Fields said. "I'm tired of watching it happen." Fields, of Leavenworth, said she became so concerned about the guard's lack of response to her concern about a soldier in August that she "snapped" and thought of killing herself while being hospitalized for about a week. Now classified as a high-risk soldier, she said the experience made her more aware of how struggling soldiers are treated. Crystal Edwards, of Junction City, said she doesn't think the guard could have done more to prevent her husband, Kelly Edwards, taking his own life in July 2018. But she said she and her children received support only from a couple of people, including Fields. "I have not seen one face, one letter, not one knock on the door (from her husband's guard unit)," she said. Tafanelli said the guard's structure makes it challenging to address suicide because 80% of its 6,500 members are spread across the state and aren't seen every day. The guard offers several programs for struggling members, including training, medical help and chaplain services and all soldiers and airmen undergo suicide awareness training when they enter the guard, he said. "The sooner we can identify that somebody has a problem, but more importantly that they realize they have a problem and want help, I'm very confident we have programs in place that can help them and their families deal with that situation and we continually improve the programs," he said. The guard has a behavioral health working group that is part of a seven-state initiative. The pilot project, a collaboration with the Veterans Administration that includes a military-civilian team of experts, will develop plans unique to each state to address the problem, said state chaplain Terry Williams. In March, U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas introduced a bill to improve access to mental health services for guard and reservist members. Currently members undergo annual health assessments but follow-up care usually is their responsibility. "Unfortunately, many National Guardsmen and Reservists struggle to receive mental health care when they are not deployed or drilling," Moran said. "This legislation will remove existing barriers to care for National Guardsmen and Reservists by allowing them to access readjustment counseling at VA Medical Centers and through VA mental health services." Fields said she would like to see better tracking for high-risk soldiers and more support for members who are leaving the guard. She also suggests placing behavioral health officers directly in units and a review of whether existing policies are being followed. "The stakes are high," Fields said. "We can do better than this." ___ Information from: The Topeka (Kan.) Capital-Journal, http://www.cjonline.com MINSK, Belarus (AP) - Investigators in Belarus have searched the office of a leading independent satellite channel as part of a criminal probe. Tuesday's search of the Belsat office in Minsk was the latest episode in an official crackdown on independent media in the ex-Soviet nation. Belarus' state investigative agency said the search was part of a slander probe looking into a Belsat report about the arrest of corruption suspects that proved erroneous. Belsat, which broadcasts from Poland, said its computers were confiscated during the search. It said Belarusian authorities are trying to muzzle independent voices ahead of next year's presidential election. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has ruled the ex-Soviet nation of 10 million for a quarter-century, cracking down on dissent and free media and maintaining Soviet-style control over its economy. NEW YORK (AP) - Bank of America plans to raise its starting pay to $20 an hour over a two-year period, the bank said Tuesday, starting with a hike next month. The company, with more than 200,000 workers, said it is raising its minimum hourly wage to $17 on May 1 and will continue to increase pay until it hits $20 an hour in 2021. Bank of America raised its hourly minimum wage to $15 in 2017. "If you get a job at Bank of America, you'll make $41,000 per year," Chairman and CEO Brian Moynihan said during a television interview on MSNBC. The timing of Bank of America's announcement is no coincidence. Moynihan and the CEOs of JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and three other banks will appear in front of a House finance committee Wednesday in the most significant hearing on the banking industry since Democrats took control of the House earlier this year. Banks have been trying to polish up their images ahead of the hearing, well aware they had a record year in profits in 2018 thanks the tax cuts passed by Republicans in 2017. All the meanwhile the banking industry's lobbyists have been pushing Congress to further unwind the rules and regulations put into place after the 2008 financial crisis. Wells Fargo announced last week that CEO Tim Sloan would step down from his position effective immediately. In a call with analysts, Sloan mentioned the political pressure over his leadership of the scandal-plagued bank had become too much. FILE- In this Nov. 6, 2017, file photo, people walk by a branch office of Bank of America in New York. Bank of America is raising its starting pay to $20 an hour over a two-year period, starting with a hike next month. The company said Tuesday, April 9, 2019, that it is raising its minimum hourly wage to $17 on May 1 and will continue to increase the pay until it hits $20 an hour in 2021. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File) At JPMorgan Chase, CEO Jamie Dimon used his annual letter to shareholders, which is read by people both inside and outside the banking industry, to sell shareholders on the wages and benefit increases JPMorgan had made to employees last year. JPMorgan now pays its workers $15 to $18 an hour, and recently cut the deductible low-wage workers need to pay to access health care as well. "This is the right thing to do, and we now offer well above the average hourly wage for most markets," Dimon said in his letter. BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) - Doctors Without Borders says one of its health workers has been killed by an armed group in Central African Republic. The organization says assistant nurse Gaulbert Mokafe was killed on Thursday between Batangafo and Bouca while traveling by motorcycle to visit family. The medical charity demands that armed groups control their members and ensure the protection of civilians and health workers. Doctors Without Borders says it has more than 200 international staff and more than 2,000 local staff working in the country. The government and 14 rebel groups signed a fragile peace agreement in February that many hoped would be a turning point in the nation that has seen deadly communal violence since 2013. WASHINGTON (AP) - Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell said Tuesday it's time to kick off bipartisan talks on a new budget pact to fund federal agencies over the next two years. The Kentucky Republican told reporters that he spoke with President Donald Trump last week and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday morning, and that both support trying to reach an agreement on a new spending pact for both the Pentagon and domestic programs. "We've agreed to put together, at the staff level, a group to begin discussing the possibility of reaching a two-year (spending) caps deal so we can move ahead hopefully with some kind of regular appropriations process," McConnell told reporters. A new funding agreement is needed to prevent the return of spending cuts under the remnants of a failed 2011 budget and debt agreement. Trump has only reluctantly signed spending bills during his two years in office, and his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, is a budget hawk who's signaling that the White House is taking a harder line this time around. Trump's budget, submitted last month, would give a sharp increase to the Pentagon but would cut back domestic programs, a nonstarter for Democrats controlling the House. Any bipartisan agreement would renounce Trump's budget, which drew criticism from both Democrats and Republicans when it was unveiled last month. The administration gave a chilly reaction to the developments. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., arrives to speak to members of the media following a Senate policy luncheon on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) "Democrats aren't even writing a budget and are pushing for a reckless 'caps deal' that would cost taxpayers over $2 trillion and explode deficits," said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions have been private. "We've made clear to Congress that type of a wasteful spending is unacceptable." Meanwhile, a revolt by liberal Democrats against a separate budget measure backed by Pelosi, D-Calif., and other House party leaders led the leadership to cancel a vote on it that had been tentatively scheduled for Wednesday. That proposal would have increased spending for both the Pentagon and domestic agencies. The increases would ease the way for this year's round of annual congressional spending bills this spring. Progressives said the leadership-backed plan didn't contain enough money for liberal priorities. They're pushing for significantly higher spending for domestic programs, saying the Pentagon budget is bloated while domestic programs are being shortchanged. "For me the big issue is freezing defense spending," said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif. "I don't think this is an issue of divided government. This is an issue of a divided Democratic caucus on issues of defense spending. Let's go on the record and vote on whether we should be increasing defense spending or not." The guns vs. butter debate has split the Democratic caucus, pitting progressives from solidly Democratic districts against more moderate Democrats from more marginal political turf. The moderates say liberals' demands are politically unrealistic and would add too much to the deficit. Even as the leadership proposal foundered, the House on Tuesday quietly adopted a resolution that would permit the chamber to begin voting on the annual spending measures, though it didn't pick winners and losers between the defense and nondefense sides of the federal ledger. LIMA, Peru (AP) - Peru's government has restored the independence of an agency charged with combating illegal logging after facing potential U.S. sanctions. President Martin Vizcarra issued a decree published Tuesday removing the forest inspection agency from the Environment Ministry's jurisdiction. The move comes nearly four months after U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer took an initial step toward potential sanctions against Peru for allegedly violating environmental protections aimed at combatting illegal logging. Lighthizer and environmentalists expressed concern that officials were stripping the agency responsible for monitoring the logging trade of its independence by placing it under the Environment Ministry. Peruvian officials contended the agency retained full independence. The forest inspection office is required to be independent under the U.S.-Peru trade pact. The World Bank estimates 80 percent of Peru's timber exports are illegal WASHINGTON (AP) - Financial services giant Standard Chartered Bank agreed Tuesday to pay U.S. and British authorities more than $1 billion to resolve allegations that it processed transactions for customers in Iran and other countries under U.S. sanctions. The London-based bank, which previously drew scrutiny for allegedly scheming with the Iranian government to launder $250 billion, said it accepts full responsibility for the new batch of violations and for the internal lapses that allowed the illegal transactions to go unchecked. Standard Chartered processed 9,335 transactions from June 2009 until May 2014 totaling $437.6 million that involved persons or countries subject to U.S. sanctions, the Treasury Department said. In addition to Iran, the countries included Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, and Cuba. Two employees in the bank's Dubai office are accused of processing the bulk of the transactions for an Iranian businessman who allegedly set up companies registered in the United Arab Emirates as fronts for a money exchange business in Iran. Standard Chartered said it has since overhauled its compliance operation, adding mandatory training for all employees on sanctions and rooting out money laundering and corruption. It is also establishing a financial cybercrime intelligence unit in the U.S. "We are pleased to have resolved these matters and to put these historical issues behind us," the bank's group chief executive, Bill Winters, said in a statement. "The circumstances that led to today's resolutions are completely unacceptable and not representative of the Standard Chartered I am proud to lead today." FILE - In this Aug 7, 2012, file photo a man walks by Standard Chartered bank in London. British financial services giant Standard Chartered Bank will pay $1.1 billion in fines to settle allegations by U.S. and British authorities that it attempted to evade U.S. sanctions imposed on Iran, Cuba, Burma and other nations. The settlement Tuesday, April 9, 2019, was announced by the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve and other bank regulators in the U.S. and Britain. (AP Photo/Sang Tan, File) Under the agreement announced Tuesday, Standard Chartered will pay $947 million in penalties to U.S. authorities and 102 million pounds ($133 million) to the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority. Of that, about $427 million will go to agencies in New York state. "Today's resolution sends a clear message to financial institutions and their employees," Assistant U.S. Attorney General Brian Benczkowski said in a statement. "If you circumvent U.S. sanctions against rogue states like Iran - or assist those who do - you will pay a steep price." One of the Dubai employees has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and falsifying business records. An indictment charging the Iranian businessman with conspiracy was unsealed Tuesday in Washington. Standard Chartered itself was charged with conspiring to violate sanctions, but won't be tried. As part of the settlement, it extended a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Justice Department and the Manhattan District Attorney's office in New York City until April 2021. Doing business with countries under U.S. economic sanctions has cost Standard Chartered big bucks in the past. New York regulators reached a $340 million settlement with the bank in 2012 to settle allegations it schemed to launder $250 billion for Iranian entities from 2001 to 2007. A few months later, Standard Chartered agreed to pay $327 million to settle federal and New York charges it laundered money on behalf of entities in four countries - Iran, Sudan, Libya and Myanmar - that were subject to U.S. sanctions from 2001 through 2007. In 2014, Standard Chartered agreed to pay a $300 million penalty and suspend dollar exchanges through its New York branch after the bank was accused of failing to flag potentially high-risk transactions for further review, including many originating from branches in the United Arab Emirates. __ Sisak reported from New York. DALLAS (AP) - The Latest on the grounding of Boeing's 737 Max jets after two fatal crashes (all times local): 1 p.m. Orders and deliveries of Boeing's 737 Max plunged in the first quarter as the plane was grounded around the world following a second deadly crash. Boeing disclosed Tuesday that it received no new orders for the Max in March. It took 29 net orders for 737s in the first three months of the year, but it appeared that only 10 of those involved the Max, the latest version of Boeing's best-selling plane. The buyers were not identified. In the first quarter of last year, Boeing took 122 orders for 737s, including 112 for the Max, led by large orders from Southwest Airlines and Ireland's Ryanair. Boeing suspended Max deliveries in mid-March after regulators grounded the planes. First-quarter deliveries of all 737s including Max models fell to 89 from 132 in the same period last year. ___ 9:44 a.m. American Airlines is cutting a key revenue estimate partly because of canceled flights due to the grounding of its Boeing 737 Max jets. American said Tuesday that it canceled 1,200 flights during the quarter that ended March 31 because regulators grounded its 24 Max planes. Over the weekend, the airline removed the plane from its schedule through June 5 - six weeks longer than before - underlining that airlines think the Max will be parked longer than previously expected after deadly crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. American says revenue for each seat flown one mile will be flat to up 1 percent, down from its initial forecast of flat to up 2 percent. It also blames the government shutdown and 940 cancellations due to work on other Boeing planes. NEW YORK (AP) - The interrogation of a Libyan militant accused of playing an instrumental role in the 2012 Benghazi attacks was conducted lawfully and may be admitted at his trial next month, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper on Monday rejected defense attorneys' claims that the militant, Mustafa al-Imam, had been suffering from mental trauma and seasickness when he agreed to speak with American officials aboard a U.S. Navy vessel days after his 2017 abduction in Libya. In a separate ruling, Cooper recently refused to dismiss murder and terrorism charges against al-Imam, clearing the way for him to stand trial May 6 in Washington. The fiery assaults on the U.S. compounds in Benghazi killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador, and prompted a multiyear political fracas in which Republicans accused the Obama administration of a bungled response. Al-Imam is the second militant to stand trial. Ahmed Abu Khattala, the head of an Islamist extremist militia who directed the attacks, was convicted in 2017 of terrorism-related counts but acquitted of murder. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison While Khattala's case initially unfolded as a major courthouse spectacle but ended in a mixed verdict for the government, Al-Imam's trial is proceeding with minimal attention. This image provided by the FBI in a U.S. District Court filing in Washington on feb. 29, 2019, shows Mustafa al-Imam after his capture in October 2017. The interrogation of the Libyan militant accused of playing an instrumental role in the 2012 Benghazi attacks may be admitted at his trial next month, a federal judge ruled April 8, 2019. U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper rejected defense attorneys' claims that al-Imam had been suffering from mental trauma and seasickness in the days after his 2017 abduction in Libya. Al-Imam is scheduled to stand trial in May 2019 in Washington on murder and terrorism charges. (FBI via AP) Al-Imam originally faced a single count of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists resulting in death. But the Justice Department last year quietly brought a 17-count superseding indictment charging him with murder in the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens, communications specialist Sean Smith and security officers Tyrone Snowden Woods and Glen Anthony Doherty. The new charges virtually mirror those brought against Khattala, who was accused of driving to the diplomatic mission on Sept. 11, 2012, and breaching the main gate with militants who attacked with assault rifles, grenades and other weapons. The initial attack killed Stevens and Smith and set the mission ablaze. Woods and Doherty were later killed at a CIA annex. Prosecutors acknowledged they lacked evidence of Khattala actually firing any weapons, but said the violence was aimed at killing American personnel at the compound and looting the buildings of documents, maps and computers. Khattala's capture by U.S. special forces in 2014, and subsequent transport aboard a Navy ship revived the legal and political debate about how the United States government should treat foreign militants overseas. The decision to prosecute Khattala in federal court in Washington was an affirmation by the Obama administration in its faith that civilian courts could guarantee swifter and surer justice than military tribunals in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Al-Imam is being tried in a civilian court despite the Trump administration's earlier contention that such suspects are better sent to Guantanamo Bay. Al-Imam's arrest, five years after the attack, marked the first publicly known operation since President Donald Trump took office targeting those accused of involvement in Benghazi The government has revealed few details about Al-Imam's alleged role in the attacks. Prosecutors described him in court filings as a close associate of Khattala who "helped orchestrate and participated in the attacks." Al-Imam is accused of entering the U.S. mission compound in Benghazi "at the direction of Abu Khattala" and taking sensitive material that identified the location of the CIA annex about a mile away from the mission "as the evacuation point for Department of State personnel," according to the indictment. Following the initial assault on the mission, the indictment says, al-Imam returned to a camp with Khattala "and other attackers, where a large group of armed extremists began assembling for the attack on the annex." The annex was twice targeted by mortar fire hours after the attack on the mission, killing Woods and Doherty, the two CIA security contractors defending the annex from the rooftop. Al-Imam's defense attorneys declined to comment on the charges. They said in a recent court filing that the Justice Department "has the unusual advantage of having essentially tried this case once already," referring to the proceedings against Khattala. The trial, which is expected to last about a month, will focus in part on al-Imam's "demonstrated biases before the attack," as well as "admissions" he made to law enforcement aboard a U.S. naval vessel following his capture in Misrata, Libya, prosecutors said in court filings. Al-Imam gave three interviews to U.S. officials before requesting an attorney, according to court filings, acknowledging that he accompanied Khattala to the U.S. mission on the day of the attack. FBI records show al-Imam admitted stealing a phone and map from the mission "but did not want to be known as a thief." DETROIT (AP) - Ford CEO Jim Hackett says he's hoping that trade talks now marked by threats of tariffs against imported vehicles result in a framework that brings balance and stability. The chief executive of the country's No. 2 automaker said Tuesday that businesses want equilibrium on tariffs. He expressed confidence that President Donald Trump is working hard on that as his administration negotiates trade deals. Trump has threatened to slap tariffs on imported autos and parts, singling out China, Europe and recently Mexico. Auto industry experts say such tariffs, especially with Mexico, would cause havoc in the industry and raise auto prices because all vehicles built in the U.S. have parts imported from other countries. The Ford CEO told the Detroit Economic Club that trade with the U.S. is one-sided and needs to be modernized. He expects to see the matter resolved this year. "The design had not fallen in line with the way the world really has evolved," Hackett said of international trade. Hackett also said Ford will be ready for the next recession as it restructures to make its business more fit. The company is currently shifting away from sedans in the U.S., closing international factories and cutting thousands of white-collar jobs. FILE- In this Jan. 14, 2018, file photo Ford President and CEO Jim Hackett addresses the media at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Hackett is hoping for balance and stability in what is now an unstable tariff environment. Hackett said Tuesday, April 9, 2019, that businesses want equilibrium on tariffs, and President Donald Trump is working hard on that as his administration negotiates trade deals. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File) "Ford will be ready for the recession," he said, speaking of a company that narrowly avoided bankruptcy by borrowing billions to prepare for the last recession a decade ago. Ford, he said, will use vehicles connected to the internet to resolve conflicting information about when to change the oil. Currently, Hackett said, Ford owners get windshield stickers, dashboard lights and owners' manual instructions on when to change oil, all of which conflict. The company is working to change that to one dashboard light that measures oil change intervals based not just on miles, but on how hard people drive their vehicles. The car will be able to schedule oil change appointments with dealers, he said. CINCINNATI (AP) - The Latest on an Ohio man accused of impersonating a missing child (all times local): 2:05 p.m. A federal magistrate has ordered that a 23-year-old man charged with lying to federal agents about being a missing child from Illinois continue to be held without bond. U.S. Magistrate Karen Litkovitz said Tuesday she considers Brian Michael Rini (REE'-nee), of Medina (meh-DY'-nuh), Ohio, a flight risk because of a long criminal history, mental health issues and lack of a permanent address. She scheduled a preliminary hearing for April 19. Rini was charged last week after DNA tests ruled him out from being Timmothy Pitzen. The Aurora, Illinois, child disappeared in 2011 at age 6. Police picked up Rini on Wednesday morning after a report of someone wandering the streets of Newport, Kentucky. They said he told them that he was Timmothy and that he had escaped two kidnappers after years of sexual abuse. ___ 1:11 a.m. A 23-year-old man will go before a U.S. magistrate on a charge that he lied to federal agents about being a missing child from Illinois. Authorities on Friday charged Brian Michael Rini (REE'-nee) of Medina, Ohio, a day after DNA testing ruled him out as being Timmothy Pitzen, who disappeared in 2011 at age 6. Magistrate Karen Litkovitz had him held without bond pending a hearing Tuesday afternoon. A jail lists him as 5 feet, 9 inches (175 centimeters), tall and 145 pounds (65.7 kilograms). Police picked up Rini the morning of April 3 after a report of someone wandering the streets of Newport, Kentucky. They said he told them he was Timmothy and that he had escaped two kidnappers. Timmothy Pitzen disappeared around the time his mother killed herself. PITTSBURGH (AP) - The Latest on Pittsburgh's effort to restrict firearms and ammunition (all times local): 2:15 p.m. A lawsuit backed by the National Rifle Association has been filed in opposition to Pittsburgh's new gun control laws. Four Pittsburgh residents are suing the city, Mayor Bill Peduto and the City Council. The suit says the legislation Peduto signed into law Tuesday infringes on the people's right of self-defense and will do nothing to prevent mass shootings like the one that killed 11 at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue last fall. A coalition of gun rights groups filed a separate suit seeking to block the laws from taking effect. Both suits were filed in Allegheny County. Peduto and City Council members say they expected to be sued and are pledging to fight. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, surrounded by supporters and family members of Tree of Life synagogue shooting victims, signs three gun-control bills into law, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, at the City-County Building in downtown Pittsburgh. (Steph Chambers/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP) ___ 12:30 p.m. Pittsburgh's mayor has signed gun-control legislation passed by City Council in response to the synagogue massacre. Opponents immediately filed suit Tuesday to block it. Democratic Mayor Bill Peduto signed the legislation into law in a ceremony at the City-County Building. He says the community has come together "to say enough is enough." Pennsylvania law prohibits local regulation of guns and ammunition, and a coalition of gun-rights groups filed a lawsuit minutes after Peduto signed the bills. The legislation restricts military-style assault weapons like the AR-15 rifle that authorities say was used in the rampage at Tree of Life Synagogue that killed 11 and wounded seven. It also bans most uses of armor-piercing ammunition and high-capacity magazines, and allows the temporary seizure of guns from people who are determined to be a danger to themselves or others. BOSTON (AP) - A Rhode Island man charged with kidnapping a Boston woman from her birthday celebration whose body was later found in the trunk of his car has pleaded not guilty. Louis Coleman III appeared Tuesday in U.S. District Court to face a charge of kidnapping resulting in death, which carries a possible death sentence if he is convicted. He continues to be held without bail. Authorities say the 32-year-old Coleman kidnapped Jassy Correia on Feb. 24 from outside a Boston nightclub where she had been celebrating her 23rd birthday. Police say he was later captured on surveillance video carrying her body into his Providence apartment. Coleman was stopped in Delaware four days later with Correia's body in the trunk. His attorney, David Hoose, said outside court he'd "rather not comment." FILE - This March 2019 file booking photo provided by the Delaware Department of Justice shows Louis Coleman III. Coleman charged with kidnapping a Boston woman from her birthday celebration whose body was later found in the trunk of his car has pleaded not guilty. He appeared Tuesday, April 9 in U.S. District Court to face a charge of kidnapping resulting in death, which carries a possible death sentence if convicted. He continues to be held without bail. (Delaware Department of Justice via AP, File) NEW YORK (AP) - The heads of some of the U.S.' largest banks will appear in front of Congress Wednesday, for a hearing expected to produce political fireworks, but few policy changes. Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase will testify, as well as the CEOs of Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. The CEOs of State Street and Bank of New York Mellon are also slated to appear. It's the most significant hearing on banks since Democrats took control of the House earlier this year. Banks have been trying to polish up their images ahead of the hearing, aware their record profits in 2018 could be a target for Democrats. Meanwhile, the banking industry's lobbyists have been pushing Congress to further unwind the rules put into place after the 2008 financial crisis. FILE - In this June 19, 2012, file photo Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, testifies before the House Financial Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. The heads of some of the U.S.' largest banks including Dimon will appear in front of Congress on Wednesday, April 10, 2019, for a hearing. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. refugee chief is appealing to Latin American countries to "keep the doors open and diminish the restrictions imposed on Venezuelans" seeking refuge. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told the Security Council Tuesday that 3.5 million Venezuelans have left the country and about 15 countries have received them - primarily Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Brazil. He urged increased support for those countries, saying, "Our appeal for the humanitarian crisis in that region is one of the most poorly funded globally." He warned that failure "will leave those governments exposed also politically in their own countries, and under the burden of an unsustainable mass of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans." U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence will address the Security Council Wednesday on the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. ST. LOUIS (AP) - The Latest on the death of a Mexican national suspected of killing four people in Kansas and one in Missouri (all times local): 1:30 p.m. A Mexican national accused of killing four people in Kansas and one in Missouri in 2016 is dead after being found hanging from a light fixture in his St. Louis jail cell. Pablo Serrano-Vitorino was alone in his cell when he was found at 2:02 a.m. Tuesday. St. Louis Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Serrano-Vitorino had hanged himself and left a note written in Spanish. A spokesman for the city confirmed the death but declined further comment. Serrano-Vitorino used a safety razor to try and kill himself in his Montgomery County, Missouri, jail cell soon after his arrest in March 2016. Serrano-Vitorino was accused of fatally shooting four men at a home in Kansas City, Kansas, on the night of March 7, 2016. He was arrested a day later in Montgomery County, Missouri, where he was accused of killing Randy Nordman of New Florence. Serrano-Vitorino was in the U.S. illegally. He was being held in St. Louis awaiting trial in the Missouri case on a change of venue. ___ 11:25 a.m. A Mexican national accused of killing four people in Kansas and one in Missouri in 2016 is dead after being found unresponsive in his St. Louis jail cell. A spokesman for the St. Louis mayor's office says Pablo Serrano-Vitorino was found unresponsive and alone in his cell at 2:02 a.m. Tuesday. He was pronounced dead at a hospital about an hour later. No further details were released. He was 43. Serrano-Vitorino was accused of fatally shooting four men at a home in Kansas City, Kansas, on the night of March 7. He was arrested a day later in Montgomery County, Missouri, where he was accused of killing Randy Nordman of New Florence. Serrano-Vitorino was in the U.S. illegally. He was being held in St. Louis awaiting trial in the Missouri case on a change of venue. ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Turkey's military has sought to defend itself against accusations from a Greek marine conservation group that its naval exercises have been behind a recent spike in the number of dolphin deaths. The military posted on Twitter on Tuesday a video and photographs of dolphins happily accompanying vessels during naval exercises. On Monday, Greece's Archipelagos Institute said that 15 dead dolphins have washed up on Greece's Aegean coastlines since late February. While it couldn't prove any link it said the spike came in the wake of the Feb. 27-March 8 Turkish military drills that made use of sonar and practiced with live ammunition. The Turkish military said the armed forces "maintain their sensitivity to the environment even during operations" and "acted with the consciousness of protecting our friends at sea." In this photo provided by Archipelagos Institute of Marine Conservation members of Archipelagos institute carry a dead dolphin at a beach of Samos island, Aegean sea, Greece, on Saturday, Feb. 9, 2019. A Greek marine conservation group says a "very unusual" increase in Aegean Sea dolphin deaths over recent weeks may be linked with recent Turkish naval exercises in the area. A total 15 dead dolphins have washed up on the eastern island of Samos and other parts of Greece's Aegean coastline since late February, according to the Archipelagos Institute.(Bre-Anne Smith /Archipelagos via AP) SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) - A leading human rights group in North Macedonia has called on the country's authorities to prosecute the head of the country's Muslim community for alleged hate speech, over remarks he made last month during a foundation-laying ceremony for a new mosque near the capital Skopje. In a rare move, the Macedonian Helsinki Committee on Tuesday accused religious leader Sulejman Rexhepi of inciting "hatred, discord, and intolerance." It quoted him as describing Macedonians as "wild animals" due to their lack of a genuine national identity. About a third of the country's 2.1 million people are Muslims, most from the country's ethnic Albanian minority. There was no immediate reaction to the request by North Macedonia's Interior Ministry or Rexhepi's office. BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) - The Hungarian State Opera has asked the nearly all-white cast for its production of "Porgy and Bess" to self-identify as African American. The Hungarian performers were asked to sign a statement declaring that "African-American origin and identity is an inseparable part of my identity" and made being in "Porgy and Bess" ''a special joy," Hungary's index.hu news site reported. Hungarian broadcaster ATV reported Tuesday that 15 of 28 cast members signed the statement. One man in the State Opera production is from Guinea-Bissau in west Africa and another's father is from there. The State Opera's casting of the seminal folk opera set in the American south ran into trouble with George and Ira Gershwin's estates. The brothers and collaborator DuBose Heyward created "Porgy and Bess" for black performers, and the Gershwin estates say only black performers may appear in it now. The Hungarian show "is not permitted in its current form and contradicts the work's staging requirements," a statement from the rights holders says on the opera's web site. Asking cast members to identify as African American appears to be the opera's way around the dispute. Opera director Szilvester Okovacs told ATV that since Hungary doesn't record the race of individuals, he preferred to ask the cast. FILE - In this Jan. 27, 2018 file photo shows the Detective, played by Hungarian actor Artur Kalid, left, and Serena, played by his compatriot Aniko Bakonyi perform during the rehearsal of George Gershwin's opera Porgy And Bess at the Erkel Theatre in Budapest, Hungary. The Hungarian State Opera has asked the Hungarian cast members in its production of "Porgy and Bess" to self-identify as African American. The State Opera says on its website that the rights' holders of "Porgy and Bess" noted that the Hungarian "production is not permitted in its current form and contradicts the work's staging requirements." Asking cast members to identify as African American appears to be the opera's way around the dispute. (Marton Monus/MTI via AP, File) "There is no public registry of skin color in Hungary... and I can't really say about the cast if it meets or not the requirement, so I'd rather ask them," Okovacs said. The State Opera's "Porgy and Bess" premiered in Jan. 2018 and is performed in English, with Hungarian and English subtitles. Seven more performances are planned in 2019. It moves the setting from Charleston, South Carolina to a refugee camp in an airplane hangar. A commentary for the classicalhive.com website said it was "not 'Porgy and Bess.'" "It is their own narrative set to the music of 'Porgy and Bess.' Which is a mess and misses the point completely," the website said. Hop on Over to Kaiser Maximilian for Easter Specials Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - You've gotta love Mexico for how their people celebrate every possible holiday to the fullest. Every occasion is an excuse to eat, drink, decorate the town, and dance; and Semana Santa (Mexico's Easter holidays) is the biggest fiesta of them all! In the United States and Canada we just celebrate Easter, and perhaps go to church on Good Friday. In Mexico, the festivities are two weeks long! So, if you're spending the Semana Santa holidays in Puerto Vallarta and are hunting for great deals on fabulous meals, then hop over to Kaiser Maximilian for some tempting Easter specials. Through April 27, you'll enjoy special prices on everything from seafood specialties to exceptional Austrian fare. Some of the highlights include: Fish Soup with Diver Scallops, Shrimp & Vegetables Red Snapper Filet with Crab Cake, glazed pineapple and bell peppers Beef Filet Tips "Stroganoff," with mushrooms, onions, bell peppers and potato gratin These Easter specials are being served, along with the regular menu, from noon to 11 pm at Espresso Bar and from 6 to 11 pm in The Main Dining Room. Both restaurants have covered outdoor seating and interior seating with air-conditioning. Whether dining al fresco at the European-style sidewalk cafe tables, or in the intimate air-conditioned dining room, you'll enjoy the fabulous cuisine, professional service and elegant atmosphere that have made Kaiser Maximilian one of PV's favorite restaurants. TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - A major call-center operator will lay off about 800 employees from its Tucson location. Concentrix Corp. recently filed a notice with the state, saying that 785 workers would be affected by a mass layoff. The employees were informed through a WARN letter, or Notification Under the Worker Adjustment and Restraining Act of Program Closure, that their last day on the job would be April 30. The company on Monday did not respond to a request for comment. Concentrix is a subsidiary of Synnex Corp., which acquired call-center operator Convergys Corp. along with the Tucson operation in October. Since its $2.4 billion acquisition of Convergys, Concentrix has announced more than 800 layoffs at locations including Convergys' former headquarters town of Cincinnati; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Watertown, New York. WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump is wholly mispresenting the immigration detention policy he introduced that forced migrant children from their parents at the border. "President Obama had child separation," Trump said Tuesday. "I'm the one that stopped it." In fact, he stopped - or at least suspended - family separations that spiked as a result of his own "zero-tolerance" policy. A look at his remarks to reporters before meeting Egyptian President Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi: TRUMP on family separations: "President Obama had the law. We changed the law, and I think the press should accurately report it but of course they won't." THE FACTS: This is false. Trump did not achieve any change in the law. President Donald Trump pauses as he speaks during a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Operating under the same immigration laws as Barack Obama, Trump instituted a zero-tolerance policy aimed at detaining everyone who was caught crossing the border illegally and criminally prosecuting all the adults. The policy meant adults were taken to court for criminal proceedings and their children were separated and sent into the care of the Health and Human Services Department. In the face of a public uproar, Trump suspended most separations in June. About 2,400 children were taken from parents at the height of the separations. During the Obama administration and before Trump's zero-tolerance policy was introduced, migrant families caught illegally entering the U.S. were usually referred for civil deportation proceedings, not requiring separation, unless they were known to have a criminal record. Trump repeatedly but without specifics rails against a "Democrat" law that he wrongly claims to have changed. He appears to be referring to one that passed unanimously in Congress and was signed by Republican President George W. Bush. It was focused on freeing and otherwise helping children who come to the border without a parent or guardian and does not call for family separation. ___ TRUMP: "Just so you understand, President Obama separated the children." THE FACTS: Not in widespread fashion. Then and now, immigration officials may take a child from a parent in certain cases, such as serious criminal charges against a parent, concerns over the health and welfare of a child or medical concerns. The Obama administration also contended with a surge of minors who came to the border without parents and were held in short-term Border Patrol detention. It did not seek to criminally prosecute all who crossed the border illegally, without regard to whether those who were caught had committed crimes other than illegal entry. Family separations were the exception before Trump made them the rule. ___ TRUMP on family separations: "Once you don't have it, that's why you see many more people coming. They're coming like it's a picnic, because 'let's go to Disneyland.'" THE FACTS: It's not been proved that people are discouraged from coming to the U.S. when they know their children will be taken from them if they are caught. Apprehensions did fall last summer, after the June suspension of separations, but they decline most summers because of the extreme heat in much of Mexico and the border region. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials announced on Tuesday that they apprehended about 53,000 parents and children at the southern border in March. The officials declined to answer a question about whether they believed family separation was an effective deterrent. ___ Merchant contributed to this report from Houston. ___ Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck A row of trucks wait to cross the border with the United States in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. The Trump administration has reassigned so many inspectors from U.S.-Mexico border crossings that it has caused huge traffic backups for truckers who are waiting in line for hours and in some case days to get shipments to the U.S. (AP Photo/Christian Torres) FILE - In this June 25, 2018 file photo, U.S. Border Patrol agents load a migrant from Guatemala into a van after he was caught trying to enter the United States illegally in Hidalgo, Texas. The Trump administration wants up to two years to find potentially thousands of children who were separated from their parents at the border before a judge halted the practice last year. The Justice Department said in a court filing late Friday, April 5, 2019 in San Diego that it will take at least a year to review the cases of 47,000 unaccompanied children taken in custody between July 1, 2017 and June 25, 2018. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip) President Donald Trump pauses as he speaks during a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, April 9, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) MOUNT BALDY VILLAGE, Calif. (AP) - Crews were searching a mountainous area in Southern California on Tuesday for two hikers who've been missing for three days in snowy and rugged terrain. Two dozen search and rescue members were looking for 33-year-old Eric Desplinter of Chino Hills and 31-year-old Gabrielle Wallace of Rancho Cucamonga. They were believed headed toward the 8,860-foot (2,700-meter) Cucamonga Peak just northeast of Los Angeles and were expected to return by Saturday night. Searchers include a vertical-ice team from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, and the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said it was using a helicopter to assist. Video taken by a Los Angeles County team on the second day of the search showed just how vast and rugged the search area is. San Bernardino County sheriff's officials said 16 of the searchers were airlifted to the top of Cucamonga Peak on Tuesday to avoid covering ground that's already been searched. Crews have found a beanie, instructions on how to use crampons for ice-hiking, and a trekking pole, though it's unclear if they belong to Desplinter or Wallace, the sheriff's department said. This combination of undated photos provided by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department shows Eric Desplinter, left, of Chino Hills, Calif., and Gabrielle Wallace of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. Search teams and helicopter crews are continuing to look Tuesday, April 9, 2019, for the two hikers overdue on a weekend trek up a Southern California mountain. The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department says the pair were last seen in the Mount Baldy area on Saturday, April 6. (San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department via AP) Wallace's mother, Brenda Wallace, was waiting at the foot of the mountain for her daughter's safe return and told KTTV-TV that she was hoping for the best. "I thought maybe she tripped and broke or ankle or something, (and) maybe it slowed them down to a crawl and he's trying to help get her down," she said. "I know he wouldn't leave her, and I know she wouldn't leave him." She said Desplinter was an experienced hiker and that her daughter had just bought new gear for a group hike with him and friends. But Gabrielle Wallace and Desplinter, who is her boss, got separated from the group and haven't been seen since. Cucamonga Peak is part of the San Gabriel Mountains and near the range's tallest peak, Mount Baldy, where a number of hikers have fallen to their deaths in icy conditions in recent years. Nearby on Mount Wilson, part of the same range, a trail-runner fell to his death after slipping on a patch of ice in February. This undated photo provided by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department shows Eric Desplinter of Chino Hills, Calif. Search teams and helicopter crews are continuing to look Tuesday April 9, 2019, for Desplinter and Gabrielle Wallace, two hikers overdue on a weekend trek up a Southern California mountain. The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department says the pair were last seen in the Mount Baldy area on Saturday, April 6, 2019. (San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department via AP) DETROIT (AP) - A woman will spend up to 15 years in prison after an 11-month-old girl drowned in standing water and sewage after falling through a hole in an upstairs floor and into the basement of a Detroit home. Tonya Peterson was sentenced Tuesday for involuntary manslaughter. Ca'Mya Davis was unattended July 6 when she fell through the hole in a bedroom floor. Her death was ruled accidental. Peterson owns the home. Prosecutors say 27-year-old Dasiah Jordan left her daughter with the 29-year-old Peterson while she visited friends and that both women were aware of the hazard. Jordan pleaded guilty to child abuse and involuntary manslaughter. She was sentenced Monday to a year in jail and probation. ST. LOUIS (AP) - A 47-year-old St. Louis woman has admitted that she used social media to threaten to "blow up" Planned Parenthood facilities and injure staff. The U.S. Attorney's Office in St. Louis on Tuesday announced that Maria Terry pleaded guilty Tuesday to violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act and transmitting a threatening communication over the internet. In a plea agreement, Terry admitted that on Nov. 7 she posted a message on Twitter directed at Planned Parenthood Action Fund that threatened to blow up the facilities in St. Louis. Terry also admitted in her plea that her goal was to intimidate or interfere with people seeking access to, or providing, reproductive health services through Planned Parenthood. NEW YORK (AP) - Stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily on Tuesday: Boeing Co., down $5.48 to $369.04 The plane maker's deliveries tumbled in the first quarter after two deadly crashes prompted regulators to ground the 737 Max jet. American Airlines Group Inc., down 57 cents to $33.31 The airline is cutting a key revenue measure, citing the grounded Boeing 737 Max jets and the lingering impact from the government shutdown. Wynn Resorts Ltd., down $5.59 to $139.26 The casino operator pulled out of talks to buy Australia's Crown Resorts after that company disclosed negotiation details. Pentair PLC, down $6.13 to $39.13 The maker of water filters and pumps for pools and other systems slashed its profit forecast, citing bad weather. Avaya Holdings Corp., up 74 cents to $18.49 The communications software maker is preparing to auction the company, according to media reports. Lindsay Corp., down $8.98 to $85.11 The irrigation equipment maker reported a surprise fiscal second-quarter loss and revenue fell short of forecasts. Cerner Corp., up $5.88 to $62.97 The health care information technology company added $1.2 billion in stock buybacks after reaching a deal with activist investor Starboard Value L.P. Zogenix Inc., down $11.89 to $39.96 The Food and Drug Administration rejected one of the drug maker's experimental epilepsy treatments. MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (AP) - An inmate who became paralyzed after a fall at a Tennessee jail is suing the county that operates it. The Daily News Journal reports the Nicholas Parks' lawsuit says he had a history of seizures and told staff at the Rutherford County jail that he needed to sleep on the bottom bunk or floor. Instead he was ordered to sleep on a top bunk. Parks fell from the bunk overnight in January 2018 and injured his neck, causing paralysis. The complaint says jail staff was negligent and should have been familiar with Parks' health history. He is seeking $300,000 for his injuries and medical expenses. According to a court filing, Rutherford County will ask the judge to dismiss the lawsuit. ___ Information from: The Daily News Journal, http://www.dnj.com CAIRO (AP) - The Latest on the situation in Sudan (all times local): 10 p.m. Sudan's defense minister says on TV he's stepping down as transitional leader a day after ousting the country's embattled autocratic president. Gen. Awad Ibn Ouf also announced his successor, army Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, general inspector of the armed forces, as head of the transitional council. Ibn Ouf said: "I, the head of the military council, announce I am giving up the post," he said, adding he took the decision to preserve unity of the armed forces. Tens of thousands of Sudanese protesters have been rallying in front of the military headquarters in Khartoum, against the military takeover of power after ousting longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir on Thursday. Sudanese celebrate after officials said the military had forced longtime autocratic President Omar al-Bashir to step down after 30 years in power in Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, April 11, 2019. (AP Photo) ___ 9:05 p.m. The U.N. Security Council has been briefed on the situation in Sudan but has taken no action. Germany's U.N. Ambassador Christoph Heusgen, the current council president, told reporters after Friday's closed-door briefing by Assistant Secretary-General Bintou Keita that all 15 members understood the meeting "as a strong signal that the Security Council is dealing with the issue." He said members agreed to continue monitoring the situation. ___ 7:50 p.m. Sudan's acting U.N. envoy says the military council that took power after overthrowing President Omar al-Bashir "will be the guarantor of a civilian government." Charge d'affaires Yasir Abdelsalam told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that a civilian government would be "formed in collaboration with political forces and stakeholders." He said "no party will be excluded." The Sudanese protest movement has rejected the military's declaration that it has no ambitions to hold the reins of power for long. Abdelsalam said the two-year transition period announced by the military council "could be shortened depending on developments on the ground and agreements between stakeholders." He spoke at a council meeting after members voted unanimously to extend the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the disputed border region of Abyei between Sudan and South Sudan. ___ 2 p.m. The Sudanese protest movement has rejected the military's declaration that it has no ambitions to hold the reins of power for long after ousting the president of 30 years, Omar al-Bashir. In an online statement, the movement depicted the army's assurances as a "deception" and called for an immediate handover of power to a civilian transitional government. The statement came shortly after a press conference on Friday in Khartoum by the country's new military rulers. The Sudanese Professionals Association, which has spearheaded the four months of demonstrations against al-Bashir, denounced the military's statements as a "farce." It also vowed to "resist" by peaceful means all the extraordinary measures the military has imposed since Thursday's ouster of al-Bashir, including the nighttime curfew and state of emergency. ___ 1:40 p.m. U.N. human rights chief is urging the new authorities in Sudan to ensure the protection of human rights and to refrain from using violence against the peaceful protesters in the capital, Khartoum. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet in a statement Friday said "this is a very critical, volatile moment for Sudan and there is deep uncertainty and unease about the future." The statement came a day after the Sudanese military overthrew Omar al-Bashir, a president of 30 years. The army arrested al-Bashir, imposed a state of emergency that includes a nighttime curfew, suspended the constitution and closed the country's borders. Bachelet says: "The crisis in Sudan has its roots in human rights grievances - economic, social, civil and political rights. The solution must also be grounded in human rights." ___ 12:05 p.m. A Sudanese army official says the military authorities will not extradite deposed President Omar al-Bashir but will try him at home, before the nation. Col. Gen. Omar Zein Abedeen made the remarks at a press conference on Friday in the capital, Khartoum, defending the military's removal of al-Bashir from power. He says the ouster "was not a coup" but a response to the people's demands. He said that handing over al-Bashir would be "an ugly mark on Sudan ... even rebels carrying weapons, we won't extradite them." Al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court, where he faces charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide for his deadly campaign against insurgents in Darfur. ___ 11:35 a.m. The Sudanese army claims it has no ambition to hold the reins of power for long after ousting President Omar al-Bashir, saying it responded to calls from the people against his rule. Col. Gen. Omar Zein Abedeen told a press conference on Friday that the military wants to "guide the country forward" and act as a "tool for change." Zein Abedeen, a member of the transitional council that took over on Thursday after al-Bashir was arrested, tried to strike a conciliatory tone, saying: "We came for you." He says al-Bashir is in custody but declined to provide more details. He said al-Bashir's top government members, including the vice president and associates, are also under arrest but didn't elaborate. He pledged the military would stay only as long as it's needed. ___ 9:30 a.m. Sudanese pro-democracy protesters who spent four months on the streets rallying against the country's autocratic president are now defying the military leaders who overthrew Omar al-Bashir the day before. Thousands kept up their sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum overnight and into Friday morning despite a curfew imposed by the army after it arrested al-Bashir. Organizers of the demonstration say they'll keep up the campaign. It wasn't clear if the army would move against the protesters. The mood in the crowd appeared festive, with protesters playing music and chanting, "Down again" - a reference Defense Minister Awad Mohammed Ibn Ouf. Ouf, on a U.S. sanctions list for Darfur genocide, was sworn in as head of the new military transitional council that has taken charge for the next two years. This Wednesday, April 10, 2019 satellite image shows Khartoum, Sudan during massive protests. Sudan's military overthrew President Omar al-Bashir on Thursday amid increasingly bloody protests over his repressive 30-year rule and the deteriorating economy. But pro-democracy demonstrators were left angry and disappointed when the defense minister announced the armed forces will govern for the next two years.(Satellite image 2019 Maxar Technologies via AP) GENEVA (AP) - The ongoing Ebola outbreak in Congo does not yet warrant being declared a global emergency but is of "deep concern," the World Health Organization said Friday. Following a meeting of its expert committee, the U.N. health agency called for efforts to be redoubled to stop the deadly virus, noting that the recent spike in Ebola cases raises the risk of spread to other countries. The outbreak announced on Aug. 1 has become the second-deadliest in history, behind the West African one from 2014-16 that killed more than 11,300 people. Congo's health ministry on Thursday reported 1,206 confirmed and probable cases, including 764 deaths. This is the second time the expert committee has decided this outbreak is not yet a global emergency. Committee chair Robert Steffen called Friday's decision unanimous and said the experts had feared making the declaration might even hurt response efforts. He did not give details but said experts were "moderately optimistic" the outbreak could be contained within a "foreseeable time." Ahead of the WHO announcement, a top Red Cross official said he was "more concerned than I have ever been" about Ebola's possible regional spread. Emanuele Capobianco, head of health and care at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, cited Congolese health ministry data showing 40 new cases over two days this week. He called that rate unprecedented in this outbreak. FILE - In this Sunday, Sept 9, 2018 file photo, a health worker sprays disinfectant on his colleague after working at an Ebola treatment center in Beni, eastern Congo. Top Red Cross official Emanuele Capobianco said Friday April 12, 2019, that he's "more concerned than I have ever been" about the possible regional spread of the Ebola virus in Congo after a recent spike in cases. (AP Photo/Al-hadji Kudra Maliro, File) To be designated a public health emergency of international concern, a situation must be "serious, unusual or unexpected," threaten to infect other countries and require "immediate international action." Emergency declarations almost always boost global attention and donor funding. WHO has noted it is woefully short of the $148 million it says is needed to fight Ebola for the next six months. To date, the agency has only received $74 million. This outbreak, occurring close to the borders of Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan, has been like no other. Mistrust has been high in a region that had never faced an Ebola outbreak before, and insecurity caused by rebel groups has hurt aid efforts. Rebecca Katz, a global health security expert at Georgetown University, in a statement called WHO's decision disappointing, saying the U.N. agency and its experts were "taking too narrow of an interpretation" of what constitutes an international emergency. She called the difficulty of coordinating the response "deeply concerning." Ahead of the announcement, Trish Newport, Doctors Without Borders' representative in Goma, a major crossroads city close to the outbreak, said that declaring a global emergency wouldn't necessarily help stop the epidemic. "Bigger is not necessarily better," she said and called for a new approach, saying that after nine months of the same strategy "the epidemic is definitely not under control." Doctors Without Borders is calling for patients to be treated in existing health centers rather than Ebola-specific clinics: "It's very clear that people do not like or trust the Ebola centers and they are not coming to be treated." Newport said 75% of new Ebola cases have no obvious link to previous patients, meaning that officials have lost track of where the virus is spreading. WHO's Dr. Michael Ryan, who heads the emergencies program, disputed that assessment, insisting that officials are eventually able to connect most Ebola cases to a previous patient after an arduous forensic process. Previous global emergencies have been declared for the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, the emergence of Zika virus in the Americas and the international attempt to eradicate polio. WHO was criticized for not declaring the 2014 Ebola outbreak an international emergency until nearly 1,000 people had died and the disease had spilled across borders. Tariq Riebl, who is based in a current Ebola hot spot, Butembo, for the International Rescue Committee, said a major obstacle to stopping the outbreak is that officials are simply unaware of how many Ebola cases there are. "We're discovering people when it's way too late," he said, noting numerous cases were buried in secret and never reported to authorities. "Given the average number of cases we're seeing now, this is not going to be over for at least another six months or more." ___ Cheng reported from London. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa DALLAS (AP) - Southwest Airlines customers relaxing on Thursday evening got an email that may mean their summer vacation could be more stressful and expensive than they planned. Southwest, the biggest operator of Boeing jets, is removing the grounded 737 Max from its schedule until at least Aug. 5, well past the peak of the summer high season. Company President Tom Nealon wrote in his email that the airline is taking the Max out of its schedule two months longer than previously planned to reduce the need for last-minute changes during the summer travel season. The decision, he wrote, would make the schedule more reliable. Other airlines are likely to follow Southwest's example, putting pressure on Boeing to finish fixing software on an anti-stall system implicated in two deadly crashes. Last month, Boeing and federal officials said privately that the company would finish its work before the end of March. Instead, it was delayed by an unexpected problem that Boeing hasn't fully described, and the company is now aiming to complete its work by late April. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said the company's pilots have flown 96 test flights totaling 160 hours with the new software and will operate more in the coming weeks to prove that the fix works. FILE - In this March 23, 2019 file photo a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 Max aircraft lands at the Southern California Logistics Airport in the high desert town of Victorville, Calif. Southwest is removing flights with the troubled Boeing 737 Max aircraft from its schedule through Aug. 5, a period that includes the peak of the airline's busy summer travel season. The company did not specify how many flights would be cancelled because of the new schedule. (AP Photo/Matt Hartman, File) The changes must be submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration for approval. Foreign regulators including those in Europe and China will then do their own reviews - significant because foreign airlines account for about 85% of Max orders, according to analysts for financial services firm Cowen. It remains uncertain how willing passengers will be to board the Max after crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed all 346 people on board. "The general flying public seems to be asking more questions about the airplane than they have with prior fleet groundings," said Goldman Sachs analyst Noah Poponak, referring to the 2013 grounding of Boeing 787s because of overheating lithium-ion battery packs. The 787 survived and became a hit with airlines and passengers. FAA officials including acting chief Daniel Elwell met in Washington with representatives from Southwest, American and United and their pilot unions. An FAA spokesman said they went over the early findings from the two crash investigations, upcoming changes in the Max software, and pilot training for those changes. Elwell promised that the agency would be transparent about decisions to clear the plane to fly. American Airlines 737 pilot Dennis Tajer, who was in the meeting, said unions pushed for a stronger pilot-training program including troubleshooting items only indirectly related to the anti-stall software. He said FAA seemed receptive. "This will not be a minimum-training event to just get by," he said. The longer the Max planes sit on the ground, the more money airlines lose. Southwest already figures that just the first three weeks the Max had been grounded, along with other setbacks, cut the airline's first-quarter revenue by $150 million. Southwest has been canceling about 90 flights a day because its 34 Max jets have been grounded since mid-March. Spokesman Chris Mainz said the new schedule eliminates about 160 daily flights to assure customers that it will operate the flights they booked. That is 4% of Southwest's 4,000 daily flights during summer. Still, unless the airline finds replacement planes quickly - and that can be a complicated process - Southwest will scrap about 10,000 flights that could have carried nearly 1.8 million people between now and early August. American Airlines doesn't expect its 24 Max jets to be flying before June 5, and it too is canceling about 90 flights a day. United Airlines, with 14 Max planes, says it is shuffling its fleet and mostly covering flights that were scheduled with the Max in mind. Without those planes, travelers will have fewer flights to choose from, and fewer planes to carry passengers whose flights are canceled for other reasons such as bad weather. There could also be fewer fare sales. "Travelers who have not already booked their summer reservations may end up paying a slightly higher airfare," said Henry Harteveldt, a travel-industry analyst with Atmosphere Research Group, "but it's not going to be the summer from hell." Harteveldt said he expects airlines that don't have Max jets - a list that includes Delta, JetBlue, Alaska and Spirit - will court travelers with price-cutting. The cost of the Max crisis to Boeing also rises the longer the plane is grounded and jets coming off the assembly line pile up around Seattle. With aircraft orders booming, Boeing shares have soared for more than two years, although they dropped about 14% from March 1 through Friday's close. Most of Wall Street has expressed confidence that Boeing can fix the Max quickly and regain momentum. Poponak, the Goldman Sachs analyst, said however there is a risk that Boeing orders could suffer for the next few years. He said some airlines seemed to view the Airbus competitor, the A320neo series, as superior, and some aircraft-leasing companies faced a challenge to place the Max with airline customers. Since its launch in 2017, the Max had emerged as Boeing's best-selling jet. Fewer than 400 have been delivered, but about 4,600 are on order. However, the company took no new orders for the Max in March - not even before the March 10 crash in Ethiopia - and only 10 in the first three months of the year, down from 112 in the same period last year. It could be that airlines interested in the plane had already placed orders. Boeing stopped deliveries and announced last week that it was cutting production of 737s from 52 to 42 a month. Airlines in China and Norway have said they want compensation for their grounded planes. While other airlines have kept silent, analysts expect Boeing will make concessions that could total hundreds of millions of dollars. The Chicago-based company also faces a growing number of lawsuits by families of the crash victims. Boeing hasn't provided numbers on the financial impact from the Max crisis. ___ David Koenig can be reached at http://twitter.com/airlinewriter Xem them ... Tin bai cuoi cung Khong con du lieu e load RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) - Firefighters dug through rubble Friday in search of survivors after two condemned buildings collapsed in Rio de Janeiro, killing at least three people, injuring 13 and leaving another 13 missing. The collapse of the four-story buildings underscored the shoddy infrastructure that plagues Latin America's largest nation and put a spotlight on illegal militias that control large swaths of Rio, including the area where the buildings stood. A statement from the office of Rio Mayor Marcelo Crivella said the area was run by militias and the buildings did not have permits. Authorities were only able to reach the area while being accompanied by police in November, when they condemned the buildings, according to the statement. Militias, which are made up of former firefighters, police and soldiers, charge residents for basic services in areas they control. When they began forming decades ago, many saw them as a force for good because they provided security that the state could not. Today, however, such groups are full-fledged criminal organizations which are often considered the most severe security threat in Rio. In a practice called "grilagem," militias often take control of public land and build illegal housing to rent informally. Many Brazilians choose to live in the residences because the prices are cheaper than legally registered buildings, but there are no regulations or safety checks. Last year, posts on social media advertised units in the buildings that collapsed. The posts made clear that they were not legal, but said the apartments were "beautiful investments" with elevators, round-the-clock security and easy access to public transportation. Firefighters prepare to transport a child rescued from the rubble of two buildings that collapsed in the Muzema neighborhood, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, April 12, 2019. The collapse came in a western part of the city that was particularly hard hit by heavy rains this week that caused massive flooding. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) The social media posts came from users who claimed to work for a real estate company called Imobiliaria Muzema. The Brazilian real estate regulation agency CRECI told The Associated Press that it has no registration of a company with that name. An investigation last year by Brazilian news agency O Globo flagged Imobilaria Muzema as being responsible for selling properties built illegally by militias. The two buildings that collapsed Friday were in a part of the city that also was particularly hard hit by heavy rains that caused massive flooding Friday and killed at least 10 people. Mud from the flooding still lined the streets. Following a similar downpour in February, Mayor Crivella told daily TV Globo that authorities had cleared militias from the area, and the city was working to improve the drainage system. Residents told the AP Friday that militia members never left the area and were still charging for many basic services. The residents asked that their names not be used for fear of retribution. Col. Marcelo Gisler, deputy commander of Rio's Civil Defense force, said at an impromptu press conference that two people died at the scene, five people were rescued by residents before firefighters arrived, six after, and three were in the process of being pulled from the rubble. Gisler indicated they had information of 13 people potentially missing in the wreckage. "We're using every means possible to try and find survivors. Dogs are very effective in situations like this, and we are using drones and aircraft," Gisler said. A resident identified as Claudio Rodrigues, 41, was pulled from the rubble alive but died at the hospital, according to Brazilian newspaper O Dia. The identities of the other victims were not released. As the afternoon wore on, helicopters struggled to land on the rubble because of fears that the ground was unstable, and instead hovered above to load the injured. The city also rigged artificial lights and reflectors to enable firefighters to continue their search into the night, and Rio's infrastructure secretary Sebastion Bruno said the buildings surrounding the site were at risk. "Our job now is to anchor the surrounding buildings as they are at risk of collapse. The structure closest to site was hit during the event, and it is only held up because it is anchored by the building surrounding it," he said in a video released by the mayor's office. ____ Video journalist Renato Domingues in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report. Firefighters accompany an injured person who was rescued from the rubble of two buildings that collapsed in the Muzema neighborhood, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, April 12, 2019. The collapse came in a western part of the city that was particularly hard hit by heavy rains this week that caused massive flooding. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) Firefighters try to find victims amid the debris of two buildings that collapsed in Muzema neighborhood, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, April 12, 2019. The collapse came in a western part of the city that was particularly hard hit by heavy rains this week that caused massive flooding. (Jose Lucena/Futura Press via AP) Residents react with relief after learning that their relatives are survivors of the two collapsed buildings in the Muzema neighborhood, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, April 12, 2019. The collapse came in a western part of the city that was particularly hard hit by heavy rains this week that caused massive flooding. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) Firefighters search for survivors amid the debris of two buildings that collapsed in the Muzema neighborhood, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, April 12, 2019. The collapse came in a western part of the city that was particularly hard hit by heavy rains this week that caused massive flooding. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) Firefighters search for survivors in the rubble of two buildings that collapsed in the Muzema neighborhood, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, April 12, 2019. The collapse came in a western part of the city that was particularly hard hit by heavy rains this week that caused massive flooding. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) Firefighters search for survivors amid the debris of two buildings that collapsed in the Muzema neighborhood, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, April 12, 2019. The collapse came in a western part of the city that was particularly hard hit by heavy rains this week that caused massive flooding. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) An aerial view of the site where two buildings collapsed in the Muzema neighborhood, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, April 12, 2019. The collapse came in a western part of the city that was particularly hard hit by heavy rains this week that caused massive flooding. (AP Photo/Renato Spyrro) Firefighters place an injured person into a helicopter who was rescued from the rubble of two buildings that collapsed in the Muzema neighborhood, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, April 12, 2019. The collapse came in a western part of the city that was particularly hard hit by heavy rains this week that caused massive flooding. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) Firefighters remove on a stretcher a person rescued from the rubble of two buildings that collapsed in the Muzema neighborhood, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, April 12, 2019. The collapse came in a western part of the city that was particularly hard hit by heavy rains this week that caused massive flooding. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) Firefighters remove on a stretcher a woman rescued from the rubble of two buildings that collapsed in the Muzema neighborhood, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, April 12, 2019. The collapse came in a western part of the city that was particularly hard hit by heavy rains this week that caused massive flooding. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) Firefighters remove on a stretcher a woman rescued from the rubble of two buildings that collapsed in the Muzema neighborhood, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, April 12, 2019. The collapse came in a western part of the city that was particularly hard hit by heavy rains this week that caused massive flooding. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) - The Latest on the protests in Algeria (all times local): 8 p.m. Police have moved in at several points around the Algerian capital, firing intense volleys of tear gas as a massive anti-government protest is drawing to an end. Friday was the eighth straight of demonstrations against Algeria's interim leadership, and the protest was marked by a surge of violence with bottles and rocks thrown at security forces, who responded with tear gas. The protest comes over the temporary leadership put in place after Abdelaziz Bouteflika was forced to step down as president on April 2. Friday's protest had been overwhelmingly peaceful until the day drew to an end. Clashes erupted in the central post office's square after police fired tear gas in other parts of central Algiers. Two helicopters were seen flying above the acrid smoke. Tens of thousands of Algerians chant slogans during a demonstration against the country's leadership, in Algiers, Friday, April 12, 2019. Heavy police deployment and repeated volleys of water cannon didn't deter masses of Algerians from packing the streets of the capital Friday, insisting that their revolution isn't over just because the president stepped down. (AP Photo/Toufik Doudou) ___ 5 p.m. Police have moved in on a crowd in a small square in the Algerian capital, firing tear gas and what appeared to be rubber bullets after some demonstrators tossed bottles and rocks at them. Tension mounted on the eighth straight Friday of demonstrations against Algeria's interim leadership, put in place after Abdelaziz Bouteflika was forced to step down as president on April 2. Protesters have prided themselves for holding peaceful demonstrations nationwide. An AP team saw people in Audin Square, a center for weekly protests, throwing rocks and bottles at police, who responded with tear gas then what appeared to be rubber bullets, emptying the square. ___ 1:55 p.m. Algerian police are firing water cannon at protesters in the capital as tensions mount on the eighth week of protests against the country's leadership. The protest movement has been overwhelmingly peaceful but police were out in larger than usual numbers Friday. Reporters from The Associated Press saw police spraying water repeatedly on a huge crowd on Didouche Mourad Street in Algiers, on the route toward the central post office that has become a symbol of the movement. It was unclear whether something prompted the police to act. The street was packed with protesters waving Algerian flags. Protesters shouted "Authorities - Assassins!" and surrounded the water cannon truck, with some appearing to hit it. The protesters pushed out longtime President Abdelaziz Bouteflika last week but now want other top officials to step down too. ___ 10:05 a.m. Police are deployed around Algeria's capital to deter protesters arriving for an eighth straight Friday of demonstrations against the country's leadership. Protest organizers are encouraging Algerians to come out in Algiers or other cities to show that they're not satisfied with the departure of longtime President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and want wholesale political change. Anger is mounting over military chief Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah, who was instrumental in Bouteflika's departure but then threw his support behind interim President Abdelkader Bensalah, seen as part of the old regime. Bensalah was named interim president this week and announced new elections for July 4. Protest appeals online call for both Bensalah and the military chief to step down. Police are lining plazas and checking all vehicles entering Algiers. People face police officers as they protest against the country's leadership, in Algiers, Friday, April 12, 2019. The protest movement has been overwhelmingly peaceful but police were out in larger than usual numbers Friday and the atmosphere was strained. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) Tens of thousands of Algerians chant slogans during a demonstration against the country's leadership, in Algiers, Friday, April 12, 2019. Heavy police deployment and repeated volleys of water cannon didn't deter masses of Algerians from packing the streets of the capital Friday, insisting that their revolution isn't over just because the president stepped down. (AP Photo/Toufik Doudou) People attend a demonstration against the country's leadership, in Algiers, Friday, April 12, 2019. Heavy police deployment and repeated volleys of water cannon didn't deter masses of Algerians from packing the streets of the capital Friday, insisting that their revolution isn't over just because the president stepped down. (AP Photo/Toufik Doudou) Protestors stand in a tree during a demonstration against the country's leadership, in Algiers, Friday, April 12, 2019. Heavy police deployment and repeated volleys of water cannon didn't deter masses of Algerians from packing the streets of the capital Friday, insisting that their revolution isn't over just because the president stepped down. (AP Photo/Toufik Doudou) A protestor wears the Algerian flag during a demonstration against the country's leadership, in Algiers, Algeria, Friday, April 12, 2019. Heavy police deployment and repeated volleys of water cannon didn't deter masses of Algerians from packing the streets of the capital Friday, insisting that their revolution isn't over just because the president stepped down. (AP Photo/Toufik Doudou) Tens of thousands of Algerians chant slogans during a demonstration against the country's leadership, in Algiers, Friday, April 12, 2019. Heavy police deployment and repeated volleys of water cannon didn't deter masses of Algerians from packing the streets of the capital Friday, insisting that their revolution isn't over just because the president stepped down. (AP Photo/Toufik Doudou) Tens of thousands of Algerians chant slogans during a demonstration against the country's leadership, in Algiers, Friday, April 12, 2019. Heavy police deployment and repeated volleys of water cannon didn't deter masses of Algerians from packing the streets of the capital Friday, insisting that their revolution isn't over just because the president stepped down. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy) Tens of thousands of Algerians chant slogans during a demonstration against the country's leadership, in Algiers, Friday, April 12, 2019. Heavy police deployment and repeated volleys of water cannon didn't deter masses of Algerians from packing the streets of the capital Friday, insisting that their revolution isn't over just because the president stepped down. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy) People holds placards reading "Get out" as they protest against the country's leadership, in Algiers, Friday, April 12, 2019. The protest movement has been overwhelmingly peaceful but police were out in larger than usual numbers Friday and the atmosphere was strained. (AP Photo/Fateh Guidoum) Tens of thousands of Algerians chant slogans during a demonstration against the country's leadership, in Algiers, Friday, April 12, 2019. Heavy police deployment and repeated volleys of water cannon didn't deter masses of Algerians from packing the streets of the capital Friday, insisting that their revolution isn't over just because the president stepped down. (AP Photo/Toufik Doudou) People chant slogans as they protest against the country's leadership, in Algiers, Friday, April 12, 2019. The protest movement has been overwhelmingly peaceful but police were out in larger than usual numbers Friday and the atmosphere was strained. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) MADISON, Wis. (AP) - U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders returned to the friendly terrain of Wisconsin on Friday, promising to build a coalition that will defeat President Donald Trump as he kicked off a swing through pivotal states that are part of the Democratic "blue wall" strategy for 2020. Sanders, speaking to a crowd of about 2,400 who braved 40-degree (4 Celsiu) temperatures with a stiff 20 mph (32 kph) wind, pledged to flip Midwestern states such as Wisconsin that Trump narrowly won in 2016. "Together, we are going to make sure that does not happen again," Sanders said to cheers. "We're going to win here in Wisconsin. We're going to win in Indiana. We're going to win in Ohio. We're going to win in Michigan. We're going to win in Pennsylvania and together we're going to win this election." Sanders spoke in a city park along the shores of a lake, just a few blocks away from the state Capitol. Those in the crowd wore ski masks, winter coats, gloves and scarves as they cheered Sanders. The independent senator from Vermont carried Wisconsin by 13 points in the Democratic primary three years ago and has been a frequent visitor since losing the nomination to Hillary Clinton. He touted his appeal to working-class and college-age voters, while fostering his network of supporters before this second run for president. "He's the real deal," said Sanders backer Lynn Glueck, 50, a teacher from Madison who wore a winter coat with the hood up for the rally. She said to win, Sanders needs to emphasize his "long term integrity." Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks to a crowd at James Madison Park in Madison, Wis., Friday, April 12, 2019. (Amber Arnold/Wisconsin State Journal via AP) "It's not like he came up with these ideas the past two years, Glueck said. "He is not somebody who is bought and sold." University of Wisconsin students Dylan Karls, 20, and Aaron Dwyer, 20, came from the nearby campus to check out the rally. They said they didn't know which Democrat they will vote for yet but liked that Sanders was forcing other candidates to take more liberal positions. "I think he cares more than a lot of other politicians," Dwyer said. "He's a candidate people can get behind because he cares." Democrats have made clear that their best chance at defeating Trump in 2020 is by winning back three states Trump narrowly captured: Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Dubbed the "blue wall" before they unexpectedly tipped to Trump, they may have supplanted Florida and Ohio as the nation's premier presidential battlegrounds. Following the Wisconsin rally, Sanders was headed to Gary, Indiana, on Saturday. He'll hold a rally at a community college in Warren, Michigan, later that day, and then head to Pennsylvania for an event Sunday near the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon campuses. Then it's off to Ohio on Monday. Trump also knows the Midwest is vital to his re-election bid. He's looking to repeat in states he won in 2016 and expand his territory. Trump was due to campaign Monday in Minnesota, a state that almost went his way in 2016 after not voting for a Republican presidential candidate since Richard Nixon in 1972. However, Democrats feel like the momentum is on their side in the Midwest. They captured governorships in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota last year. The Sanders campaign said in a memo prepared in advance of the trip that the pathway to victory runs through the Midwest. The memo said that Sanders has received donations from more than 8,000 people in Wisconsin, 14,000 in Michigan and more than 18,000 in Pennsylvania. Sanders was leading all Democratic candidates in fundraising as he tries to establish himself as the clear front-runner amid the crowded field. Sanders' appeal in Wisconsin is clear. He won 71 of the state's 72 counties in 2016, defeating Clinton by 13 points. Sanders also narrowly beat Clinton in Michigan, but lost to her in Pennsylvania. Early polling in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania has shown Sanders ahead of other Democrats. Just this week, the Marquette University Law School poll showed Sanders leading a field of 12 Democratic candidates in Wisconsin. But pollster Charles Franklin cautioned about reading too much into the numbers a full year before Wisconsin's April 2020 primary. Candidates with the best name recognition, like Sanders, typically fare better this far out compared with others mounting their first national runs for office, Franklin said. The Sanders campaign said his message on trade, unions, working families and health care resonates in Wisconsin and throughout the Midwest. Earlier this week, Sanders unveiled his latest "Medicare for All" proposal, an idea that has influenced Democratic state lawmakers in Wisconsin who are advocating for similar statewide health insurance coverage. ___ Follow Scott Bauer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbauerAP Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks to a crowd at James Madison Park in Madison, Wis., Friday, April 12, 2019. (Amber Arnold/Wisconsin State Journal via AP) Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., greets supporters after speaking at James Madison Park in Madison, Wis., Friday, April 12, 2019. (Amber Arnold/Wisconsin State Journal via AP) WASHINGTON (AP) - The newly pictured supermassive black hole is a beast with no name, at least not an official one. And what happens next could be cosmically confusing. The team of astronomers who created the image of the black hole called it M87(asterisk). (The asterisk is silent.) A language professor has given it a name from a Hawaiian chant - Powehi - meaning "the adorned fathomless dark creation." And the international group in charge of handing out astronomical names? It has never named a black hole. The black hole in question is about 53 million light years away in the center of a galaxy called Messier 87, or M87 for short. On Wednesday, scientists revealed a picture they took of it using eight radio telescopes, the first time humans had actually seen one of the dense celestial objects that suck up everything around them, even light. The International Astronomical Union usually takes care of names, but only for stuff inside our solar system and stars outside it. It doesn't have a committee set up to handle other objects, like black holes, galaxies or nebulas. The last time there was a similar situation, poor Pluto somehow got demoted to a dwarf planet, leading to public outcry, said Williams College astronomer Jay Pasachoff, a star-naming committee member. Technically, our own galaxy - the Milky Way - has never been officially named by the IAU, said Rick Fienberg, an astronomer and press officer for the American Astronomical Society. He said, "that's just a term that came down through history." This image released Wednesday, April 10, 2019, by Event Horizon Telescope shows a black hole. Scientists revealed the first image ever made of a black hole after assembling data gathered by a network of radio telescopes around the world. (Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration/Maunakea Observatories via AP) "Virtually every object in the sky has more than one designation," Fienberg said. "The constellations have their official IAU sanctioned names but in other cultures, they have other names." THE GIFT OF A NAME When it comes to the black hole we saw this week , University of Hawaii-Hilo Hawaiian professor Larry Kimura stepped up even before the photo was unveiled. Powehi (pronounced poh-veh-hee) is the black hole's Hawaiian name, not its official name, explained Jessica Dempsey, who helped capture the black hole image as deputy director of the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii's tallest mountain. Hawaii Gov. David Ige proclaimed April 10 as Powehi day, she said. "This isn't astronomers naming this," she said. "This is coming from a cultural expert and language expert. This is him coming to the table and giving us a gift of this name. It's a gift from Hawaiian culture and history, not the other way around." When asked about Kimura's idea, IAU naming committee member Pasachoff said: "That's the first I heard of it." Eric Mamajek, chairman of the IAU working group on star names, called it a "wonderful, thoughtful name." THE PLUTO SITUATION But Mamajek said his committee may not be the right one to grant the black hole a name. It only does stars. "This is exactly the Pluto situation," Pasachoff said. In 2006, astronomers at the IAU were discussing naming a large object in our solar system that eventually got called Eris. It wasn't considered a planet, so it wasn't the job of the planet committee. But some experts pointed out that it was bigger than Pluto, which added some confusion. The conference decided to reclassify planets, kicked Pluto out of the club of regular planets and made it join the newly established dwarf planets category with Eris, Pasachoff said. MORE NAMES COMING The same day the photograph of the black hole was unveiled, the IAU asked the public to choose between three names for an object astronomers call 2007 OR10. It's an icy planetesimal that circles the sun but gets 100 times further from our star than Earth does. The three proposed names are Gonggong, a Chinese water god with red hair and a serpent tail; Holle, a European winter goddess of fertility; and Vili, a Nordic deity and brother of Odin. The IAU is trying to bring in more languages and cultures into the naming game, Pasachoff and Fienberg said. And soon the IAU will ask the public to help name 100 planets outside our solar system. As astronomers gaze further into the cosmos, Pasachoff said, "we will need more names." ___ AP writer Jennifer Kelleher contributed from Honolulu. Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears . ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. BALTIMORE (AP) - Baltimore's acting leader has ordered an audit of a nonprofit's management of a city youth fund with $12 million set aside from property tax revenue after the organization was tied to embattled Mayor Catherine Pugh's hard-to-find illustrated books for children. The audit of Associated Black Charities' work and a freeze of legislation that would renew its management of the taxpayer-financed fund comes as the first-term mayor is embroiled in a scandal that threatens her political career. "I want to ensure that the fund is being well-managed and that there are no conflicts of interest," acting Mayor Bernard "Jack" Young wrote in a letter sent to the nonprofit's CEO. A longtime city councilman, Young took over Pugh's day-to-day responsibilities April 1, the same day Maryland's governor asked the state prosecutor to investigate her alleged "self-dealing" book sales. As the scandal focused on her "Healthy Holly" paperbacks escalated, Pugh went on an indefinite leave, citing deteriorating health from pneumonia. The mounting allegations have left Pugh increasingly isolated and politically vulnerable. Friday marked the 11th day of her leave as multiple investigations look into lucrative deals she negotiated since 2011 to sell copies of her self-published books to customers, including a hospital network she once helped oversee and a health plan that does business with the city. The CEO of Associated Black Charities was once a member of Pugh's transition team and inaugural committee in Baltimore, a city with a tight-knit political and civic culture. Diane Bell McKoy has not returned calls seeking comment. Through a spokesman, the ABC nonprofit said it will "cooperate fully with all official inquiries and investigations." FILE - In this June 8, 2018 file photo, Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh addresses a gathering during the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Boston. Baltimore's acting leader has ordered an audit of a local nonprofit's management of a $12 million youth fund after the organization was tied to the purchase and distribution of a portion of embattled Mayor Catherine Pugh's hard-to-find illustrated books for children. The audit of Associated Black Charities' work and a freeze of legislation that would renew its management of the taxpayer-financed fund comes as the first-term mayor is embroiled in an image-tarnishing scandal that threatens her political career. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File) In a news release issued late Thursday, Young portrayed the audit as necessary for "full transparency," while also saying he had no concern that the group's management of the taxpayer-financed Baltimore Children and Youth Fund is "related in any way to its relationship with Catherine Pugh" or her limited liability company. The $12 million youth fund was first proposed by Young after the massive unrest sparked by the 2015 death of a young, black man fatally injured in police custody. After a task force's review, Associated Black Charities was picked to manage the fund and was officially authorized by a five-member spending board controlled by the mayor and included Young in his capacity as City Council president. Associated Black Charities got about $1.2 million to manage $10.8 million in grants during the city youth fund's first year. In a statement issued early this month, Associated Black Charities disclosed that five organizations donated $87,180 to pay for "Healthy Holly" books, of which the nonprofit group kept $9,552 to use as "general support." The money collected between 2011 and 2016 to buy and distribute 10,000 copies of Pugh's books was made up of donations from entities including the CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield insurance carrier. But that's just one part of the "Healthy Holly" saga. A growing tide of investigations has been spurred by revelations that Baltimore's elected mayor was paid $800,000 over roughly eight years for tens of thousands of copies of her self-published children's books. Pugh's biggest customer, the University of Maryland Medical System, whose board of directors she sat on for nearly 20 years, paid her $500,000 for 100,000 copies. She's since stepped down from the UMMS board and returned her most recent payment of $100,000. Health care provider Kaiser Permanente also spent roughly $100,000 on Pugh's books after she became mayor, when the company was seeking a contract with the city. A financier donated some $100,000 to the mayor's initiative, insisting he didn't expect anything in return for his largesse. Numerous city and state officials have called for Pugh's immediate resignation. On Friday, the board of the Greater Baltimore Committee, an economic development group, made the latest call for her to step down, saying the recent revelations into her actions as an elected official "have undermined her moral authority" to lead the city. Her spokespeople say Pugh fully intends on returning to City Hall when her health is better. Pugh's lawyer has said she looks forward to cooperating with the state prosecutor's criminal investigation. City Solicitor Andre Davis says only a conviction can trigger a Baltimore mayor's removal from office. ___ This story has corrected the number of days the mayor has been on paid leave. ___ Follow McFadden on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dmcfadd WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. government will hold a massive auction later this year to bolster 5G service , the next generation of mobile networks. President Donald Trump showcased the announcement Friday, declaring that the race to stand up these faster, more powerful networks is a competition "America must win." "We cannot allow any other country to outcompete the United States in this powerful industry of the future," Trump said at the White House. "We are leading by so much in so many different industries of that type, and we just can't let that happen." Trump also announced a $20 billion plan to expand broadband access to rural areas currently without it, a decadelong extension of an existing program. 5G will mean faster wireless speeds and has implications for technologies like self-driving cars and augmented reality. Trump said it will transform the way people work, learn, communicate and travel, making farms more productive, manufacturers more competitive and health care better and more accessible. But experts say it's hard to know now how much life will actually change because of the much-hyped network upgrade. It will take years to roll out, and the highest data speeds and capacities may not reach rural areas at all. The rollout started last week in the U.S. and South Korea but will take years. President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks about the deployment of 5G technology in the United States during an event in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Friday, April 12, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) The Federal Communications Commission said Friday that it would hold the largest auction in U.S. history to boost wireless companies' networks. The auction is set for Dec. 10, and will be the agency's third for 5G, said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who joined Trump for the announcement. "We want Americans to be the first to benefit from this new digital revolution," Pai said. The U.S. is jockeying for position with China over 5G. It has effectively banned Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei from most U.S. networks due to concerns that it might enable Chinese government spying, which Huawei denies. The U.S. has pushed its allies to do the same, with mixed results . Huawei is the world's largest maker of such equipment. FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, criticized the agency's approach to 5G Friday. She said the U.S. has not auctioned off "midband" spectrum that is better suited to serve rural areas because of how far it can carry signals, and that the Trump administration's actions on 5G have "set us back." She cited tariffs on telecom equipment that have raised costs and said the administration has been "alienating allies" on the 5G security issue. The FCC also said Friday that it will be renewing an existing $2 billion broadband subsidy program, for 10 years. It will provide about $20.4 billion over a decade to providers, with the goal of connecting up to 4 million rural homes and small businesses to high-speed internet. The agency spent $34.5 billion on rural-broadband network subsidy programs from 2010 to 2017, according to the Government Accountability Office. It's more expensive for telecom companies to serve spread-out rural areas than cities and suburbs, so the government provides grants to encourage them to build internet networks in rural parts of the country. Some 24 million Americans lacked access to high-speed internet as of the end of 2016, by the FCC's count. ___ Arbel reported from New York. Associated Press writer Kevin Freking in Washington contributed to this report. FCC chairman Ajit Pai, right, looks on as President Donald Trump delivers remarks on the deployment of 5G technology in the United States during an event in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Friday, April 12, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) FCC chairman Ajit Pai speaks during an event with President Donald Trump on the deployment of 5G technology in the United States, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Friday, April 12, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) FILE - This Feb. 25, 2019 file photo shows a banner of the 5G network is displayed during the Mobile World Congress wireless show, in Barcelona, Spain. The U.S. communications regulator will hold a massive auction to bolster 5G service, the next generation of mobile networks, and will spend $20 billion for rural internet. 5G will mean faster wireless speeds and has implications for technologies like self-driving cars and augmented reality. The Federal Communications Commission said Friday, April 12, that it would hold the largest auction in U.S. history, of 3,400 megahertz, to boost wireless companies' networks. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez, File) NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - Wendy Williams has filed for divorce after nearly 22 years of marriage to her husband and manager. Her attorney, Mary Vidas, says the papers were filed in Essex County, New Jersey, where the talk show diva has a home. Vidas would not comment further on what she called "a private family matter." The 54-year-old Williams and 46-year-old Kevin Hunter have a 19-year-old son, Kevin Jr. A representative for the "The Wendy Williams Show" says that "Kevin is supportive of Wendy and they are working through this process together." Williams recently told her audience that she was "still very much in love" with her husband and that her wedding ring wasn't "going anywhere." She also disclosed last month she was living in a "sober house" because of addiction struggles. FILE - This March 25, 2011 file photo shows Wendy Williams and her husband Kevin Hunter at Aretha Franklin's 69th birthday party in New York. Williams has filed for divorce after nearly 22 years of marriage to her husband and manager. Her attorney, Mary Vidas, says the papers were filed in Essex County, New Jersey, where the talk show diva has a home. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes, File) WARSAW, Poland (AP) - The union leader of Poland's striking teachers says that key high-school graduation exams next month could be cancelled if government does not respond to pay demands. Slawomir Broniarz warned that the exams, scheduled for May, may not happen because the strike may prevent the qualification procedure. On Friday, teachers were on strike for the fifth day in a row as part of an indefinite action related to their 30% pay demand. The government is urging the strikers to accept an offer of half that amount. Rallies were held in Warsaw and many other cities across Poland in support of the teachers' pay demands. Friday was the last day of middle school exams, which were held in spite of the strike action. On Monday, primary school exams begin. Teachers' monthly earnings range from 1,800 zlotys to 3,000 zlotys ($470 to $780). Warsaw residents gathered in the city's Old Town to show support for the striking teachers' whose nationwide pay protest has been going for five days without any signs the government could grant their demands, in Warsaw, Poland, Friday, April 12, 2019. Similar rallies were held in some other cities.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) Warsaw residents gathered in the city's Old Town to show support for the striking teachers' whose nationwide pay protest has been going for five days without any signs the government could grant their demands, in Warsaw, Poland, Friday, April 12, 2019. Similar rallies were held in some other cities.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) Warsaw residents gathered in the city's Old Town to show support for the striking teachers' whose nationwide pay protest has been going for five days without any signs the government could grant their demands, in Warsaw, Poland, Friday, April 12, 2019. Similar rallies were held in some other cities.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) Warsaw residents gathered in the city's Old Town to show support for the striking teachers' whose nationwide pay protest has been going for five days without any signs the government could grant their demands, in Warsaw, Poland, Friday, April 12, 2019. Similar rallies were held in some other cities.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) Warsaw residents gathered in the city's Old Town to show support for the striking teachers' whose nationwide pay protest has been going for five days without any signs the government could grant their demands, in Warsaw, Poland, Friday, April 12, 2019. Similar rallies were held in some other cities.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) DETROIT (AP) - The U.S. Justice Department said a federal ban on genital mutilation should be rewritten to protect it from constitutional challenges after a judge in Detroit threw out charges against members of a Muslim sect. The government recently withdrew an appeal of a decision by U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman in the first such federal prosecution in the country. In a letter Wednesday to Congress, Solicitor General Noel Francisco called genital mutilation an "especially heinous practice" but said the law needs to be changed to mesh with U.S. Supreme Court precedent. "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that half a million women and girls in the United States have already suffered FGM or are at risk for being subjected to FGM in the future," Francisco said. Genital mutilation, also known as female circumcision or cutting, has been condemned by the United Nations. The World Health Organization says the procedure carries no health benefits and can cause health problems. Dr. Jumana Nagarwala was charged with performing it on nine girls at a suburban Detroit clinic, while others were charged with assisting her. She denies any crime and says she performed a religious custom for members of the India-based Dawoodi Bohra. The girls were from Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota. In November, Friedman said the ban was unconstitutional . He found that Congress lacked authority to attack the practice under the Commerce Clause because the procedure is not a commercial activity. The judge said states could step in with their own laws or prosecute the practice under sexual battery and abuse. FILE - In this April 21, 2017 file photo, FBI agents leave the office of Dr. Fakhruddin Attar at the Burhani Clinic in Livonia, Mich., after completing a search for documents. The U.S. Justice Department won't appeal a decision by a Detroit federal judge who threw out female genital mutilation charges against members of a Muslim sect. On Wednesday, April 11, 2019 Solicitor General Noel Francisco calls it an "especially heinous practice" but said the law needs to be changed to mesh with U.S. Supreme Court precedent. Judge Bernard Friedman in November said the law was unconstitutional because Congress didn't have power to regulate genital mutilation. (Clarence Tabb Jr. /Detroit News via AP, File) "No state offers refuge to those who harm children," Friedman wrote. Francisco said he believes the federal law can be fixed by making genital mutilation a crime if someone crosses state lines to engage in it, among other steps. Nagarwala's attorney, Shannon Smith, said she's pleased that the government's appeal has been dropped. The doctor, who was arrested in 2017, and three other people still face additional charges, including conspiracy to obstruct law enforcement. ___ Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwhiteap CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wis. (AP) - A judge has declined to dismiss charges alleging that a man accused of killing three Wisconsin Girl Scouts and a mother in a hit-and-run was high on fumes from an aerosol can at the time. Colten Treu appeared in Chippewa County court on Friday for a preliminary hearing. The 22-year-old is accused of huffing from an aerosol canister before crashing his pickup truck into members of Girl Scout Troop 3055 in November as they picked up litter along a highway in Lake Hallie. Treu's attorney said there was no evidence that Treu had been huffing, citing a blood sample that failed to detect any chemicals. Prosecutors countered that Treu left the scene so a blood draw wasn't taken until that evening. Four of the 11 counts involve the huffing allegation. Judge James Isaacson set Treu's arraignment for May 24. Colten Treu is led into Chippewa County Court for a preliminary hearing, Friday, April 12, 2019, in Chippewa Falls, Wis. The 22-year-old is accused in a hit-and-run crash that killed three Girl Scouts and a mother last November as they collected trash along a highway in Wisconsin. (Dan Reiland/The Eau Claire Leader-Telegram via AP) MADRID (AP) - Venezuela's longtime spy chief was arrested Friday in Madrid by Spanish police acting on a U.S. drug warrant a few weeks after he threw his support behind opponents of President Nicolas Maduro. The arrest of retired Maj. Gen. Hugo Carvajal, who for more than a decade advised the late leader Hugo Chavez, was celebrated by U.S. law enforcement officials who watched helplessly as the spymaster slipped from their grips five years ago when he was picked up in Aruba on the same New York indictment used to order Friday's arrest. But some analysts said his surprise detention might have a chilling effect on Venezuela's opposition. The opposition saw Carvajal's criticism of Venezuela's socialist government as a stimulus to prod other military figures to defect, but the country's armed forces have remained largely loyal to current Maduro. Prosecutors in New York alleged Carvajal used his high office to coordinate the smuggling of approximately 5,600 kilograms of cocaine from Venezuela to Mexico in 2006, according to the indictment. A spokeswoman with Spain's National Court, which handles extradition cases, said that Carvajal would testify Saturday before a judge in Madrid. He can either accept the extradition to the United States or fight it before the court, explained the official, who wasn't authorized to be identified by name in media reports. FILE - In this Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016 file photo, United Socialist Party of Venezuela lawmaker Hugo Carvajal speaks during an interview at the National Assembly administrative offices, in Caracas, Venezuela. Venezuela's longtime spy chief was arrested Friday, April 12, 2019 in Madrid by Spanish police acting on a United States warrant for the alleged trafficking of tons of cocaine. Maj. Gen. Hugo Carvajal, who for more than a decade advised Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and headed the country's security apparatus, recently became the most influential military figure to declare his loyalty to opposition leader Juan Guaido.(AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File) Carvajal, who climbed the ranks in Venezuela since he befriended Chavez in the early 1980's, is no stranger to U.S. law enforcement agencies. In previous indictments, authorities also named Carvajal as part of several high-ranking Venezuelan military and law enforcement officials who provided a haven to major drug traffickers from neighboring Colombia. The group became to be known in Venezuela as the "Cartel of the Suns" because top officers in the country wear sun insignias on their uniforms. Carvajal also allegedly provided weapons to armed FARC guerrillas in Colombia, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, and helped fund the group's activities by facilitating shipments of large amounts of U.S.-bound cocaine through Venezuela. In 2014, he became the highest-ranking Venezuelan official ever arrested on a U.S. drug warrant. But authorities in the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba, where Carvajal was serving as Venezuela's consul, refused to extradite him under intense pressure from Maduro. Carvajal, known in his country by the nickname "El Pollo (the Chicken)" eventually returned home, where Maduro received him as a hero, but soon after took a low-key presence in the country's turbulent politics. In 2017, he broke with the Venezuelan government over Maduro's plans to create a constitutional assembly that gutted what was left of the opposition-controlled congress. In mid-February, when Carvajal announced his support for opposition leader Juan Guaido in a video distributed on social media, the former spy chief said Venezuela's military was in as ramshackle a state as the nation as a whole. "We can't allow an army, in the hands of a few generals subjugated to Cuban instructions, to become the biggest collaborator of a dictatorial government that has plagued people with misery," he said at the time, asking fellow military to join him. As recently as two days ago, Carvajal remained hopeful that other former peers would follow his steps. But despite constant pleas by Guaido and the Trump administration for them to flip, the Venezuelan military remains largely behind Maduro. "I have no doubt," he wrote in his Twitter feed, that "Maduro will leave by a decision of the Armed National Force." Former American diplomat Roger Noriega said hopes in U.S. intelligence and foreign policy circles that Carvajal could serve as bridge for other top-ranking generals to defect were misguided. He said that the culture of corruption that Carvajal represented and has long plagued Venezuela is precisely what needs to be uprooted. "How did a narcogeneral from Venezuela, who has been indicted in the US, evade Interpol red notices to travel to Europe?" said Noriega, who oversaw policy toward Latin American at the State Department during the presidency of George W. Bush. "Last time he was arrested, the Obama administration let him slip away. I hope the U.S. government won't let that happen again." __ AP writers Joshua Goodman in Bogota and Luis Alonso Lugo in Washington DC contributed to this report. WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on President Donald Trump and immigration (all times local): 9:20 p.m. The Department of Homeland Security denies that President Donald Trump "indicated, asked, directed or pressured" Kevin McAleenan to do anything illegal. Last week Trump urged his soon-to-be acting homeland security secretary to seal the southern border and told McAleenan he would pardon him if he were to find himself in trouble for blocking legal asylum-seekers. That's according to two people familiar with the conversation who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private exchange. It was not clear whether the president was joking, and a Homeland Security spokesman said in a statement: "At no time has the president indicated, asked, directed or pressured the acting secretary to do anything illegal." The reported conversation came during the president's trip last week to Calexico, California. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, before boarding Marine One helicopter, Wednesday, April 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) -By Jill Colvin ___ 4:50 p.m. President Donald Trump last week urged his soon-to-be acting homeland security secretary to close the southern border - and said that he would pardon the official if he were to run afoul of the law. That's according to two people familiar with the private conversation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss what was said. The conversation with Kevin McAleenan came during the president's trip last week to Calexico, California, and a day after Trump told reporters that he was delaying his threat to close the border because Mexico appeared to be stepping up its efforts. It was not clear whether the president was joking or why McAleenan would find himself in personal legal jeopardy. A DHS spokesman says that, "At no time has the president indicated, asked, directed or pressured the acting secretary to do anything illegal." __By Jill Colvin ___ 3:10 p.m. President Donald Trump says that he is "strongly looking at" the idea of transporting migrants to so-called sanctuary cities that don't cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Trump told reporters at the White House Friday that if leaders of those districts and municipalities really want to open their arms to immigrants, "we can give them an unlimited supply." He says: "They're always saying they have open arms. Let's see if they have open arms." White House and Homeland Security officials had said as recently as Friday morning that the "sanctuary cities" idea has been discussed, but quickly dismissed, after DHS lawyers voiced opposition. Trump nonetheless revived it in a pair of tweets that took DHS officials by surprise. __ 12:50 p.m. President Donald Trump says he's "giving strong considerations" to placing "Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only." He tweeted that on Friday hours after the White House said the idea was no longer under consideration. Trump is accusing Democrats of failing to overhaul immigration laws and tweeting that, "The Radical Left always seems to have an Open Borders, Open Arms policy - so this should make them very happy!" The White House had said hours earlier that it had considered a plan to release detained immigrants into sanctuary cities but the plan had been quickly scuttled by lawyers and dropped. Sanctuary cities are places where authorities don't work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to round up those living in the country illegally. The plan was panned by critics as an effort to use migrants as pawns to go after political opponents. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (puh-LOH'-see) calls the plan "disrespectful." ___ 12:20 p.m. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (puh-LOH'-see) says rounding up immigrants and shipping them to sanctuary cities is "disrespectful" to the nation's challenges. The California Democrat was asked Friday for her thoughts on reports that the White House had considered sending immigrants to places like New York and Pelosi's San Francisco that don't cooperate with federal immigration officials. Pelosi says the idea is "just another notion that is unworthy of the president of the United States and disrespectful of the challenges we face." Three people familiar with the idea said Friday that the White House considered a plan to release detained immigrants into sanctuary cities, a plan that critics branded as an effort to use migrants as pawns to go after political opponents. The people say Department of Homeland Security lawyers quickly rejected the proposal and it was dropped. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deputy Director Matt Albence denies the White House pressured immigration officials to implement the idea. ___ 9:05 a.m. The White House considered going after political opponents by pushing U.S. immigration authorities to release detained immigrants into "sanctuary cities," three sources familiar with the idea confirmed Friday. They told The Associated Press that President Donald Trump considered the proposal amid his ongoing battling Democrats over border wall funding. A White House official said the idea was floated and rejected. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions, said when administration officials suggested it to Department of Homeland Security officials and others, they were told it was "no-go." The Washington Post said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's district in San Francisco was among the targets. Sanctuary cities are places where authorities don't work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to round up those living in the country illegally. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in her office at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, April 10, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in her office at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, April 10, 2019. House Democrats are rounding the first 100 days of their new majority taking stock of their accomplishments, noting the stumbles and marking their place as a frontline of resistance to President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A supplier of Texas' execution drugs can remain secret under a court ruling Friday that upheld risks of "physical harm" to the pharmacy, ending what state officials called a threat to the entire U.S. death penalty system. The decision by the Texas Supreme Court, where Republicans hold every seat on the bench, doesn't change operations at the nation's busiest death chamber because state lawmakers banned the disclosure of drug suppliers for executions starting in 2015. A lawsuit filed a year earlier by condemned Texas inmates argued that the supplier's identity was needed to verify the quality of the drugs and spare them from unconstitutional pain and suffering. Lower courts went on to reject Texas' claims that releasing the name would physically endanger pharmacy employees at the hands of death-penalty opponents. Now, however, the state's highest court has found the risks valid and ordered the identity of the supplier to stay under wraps. "The voters of Texas have expressed their judgment that the death penalty is necessary, and this decision preserves Texas' ability to carry out executions mandated by state law," Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. The court deciding that a "substantial" risk of harm exists appeared to largely hinge on an email sent to an Oklahoma pharmacy in which the sender suggested they enhance security and referenced the bombing of an Oklahoma City federal building in 1995. FILE - This May 27, 2008, file photo, shows the gurney in the death chamber in Huntsville, Texas. A supplier of Texas' execution drugs can remain secret under a court ruling that cited a risk of "physical harm" to the compounding pharmacy if the information became public. The Texas Supreme Court's decision Friday, April 12, 2019, ends a long-running legal battle that began in 2014 over the drugs used in the nation's busiest execution chamber. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan, File) "I'm speechless with the absurdity of them relying on that singular fact to close, to keep in secret how Texas essentially carries out its execution," said Maurie Levin, a defense attorney who helped bring the original lawsuit. The availability of execution drugs has become an issue in many death penalty states after traditional pharmaceutical makers refused to sell their products to prison agencies for execution use. Similar lawsuits about drug provider identities have been argued in other capital punishment states. Last year, Arizona's attorney general filed a brief in support of Texas, arguing that disclosing the name of the pharmacy would "bring dire consequences that ripple beyond Texas and threaten the death penalty's operation nationwide." Defense attorneys have called it a matter of transparency and say Texas' claims of potential physical harm are overblown. Texas Supreme Court Justice Paul Green seemed to agree in some respects, writing in the court's opinion that a "firestorm" of hate mail and negative media coverage directed at a Texas execution-drug supplier in 2013 did not amount to a risk of substantial harm as the state suggested. Among the hate mail Texas submitted as evidence was one that read: "Did you know you were selling drugs to the Texas Department of Corrections for 'MURDER?' Please consider 'NOT' selling anymore drugs to be used for executions/MURDER!" But Green said the court did see valid concern over the email from a professor to the pharmacy in Oklahoma that said: "I'd at least want to beef up my security now that you've been put in the spotlight." The ruling only applies to the name of the pharmacy that provided the drugs for executions in 2014, before Texas changed the law to prohibit releasing supplier identities. ___ Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber PROVO, Utah (AP) - Several hundred students at Mormon-owned Brigham Young University chanted "If God forgives me, why can't you?" during a protest Friday aimed at pushing college officials to be more compassionate with punishments for violators of rules banning things that are commonplace at other colleges - including drinking, premarital sex, beards and piercings. The demonstration was part of an informal campaign that started with an Instagram account created earlier this year by a former student who had a negative experience with the college's honor code office. That led to a flood of stories from other students claiming they had negative experiences over transgressions and punishments. People held signs such as "Stop playing God" and "Practice compassion" on the campus in Provo, south of Salt Lake City. Riley Mabry, a 21-year-old student from Memphis, Tennessee, carried one with a picture of Jesus and the words, "The only big brother I need watching me." "We shouldn't live in fear of messing up," said Mabry, who is bisexual. "That doesn't align with the teachings of the church. One of the biggest tenets is that we are capable of repentance and forgiveness." Some students want parts of the honor code changed and others want punishments reduced, saying they agreed to adhere to the code when choosing to attend BYU, which is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Nearly all students are members of the faith. Current punishments for violations range from discipline to suspension and expulsion. The "Restore Honor" group that organized the protest wants the honor code office to be more forgiving and less judgmental and more transparent, said freshman Grant Frazier. Tyler Glade and Zoe Calcote stand for a moment of silence, as the they gather on the campus of Brigham Young University, with hundreds of BYU students at a rally to oppose how the school's Honor Code Office investigates and disciplines students, Friday, April 12, 2019, in Provo, Utah. A strict set of rules at Mormon-owned Brigham Young University banning things commonplace at many campuses such as drinking, premarital sex, beards and piercings is under new scrutiny - this time from students who want their university to be more compassionate with the punishments for violators. (Rick Egan/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP) He said students who are investigated and punished by the honor code office often end up unhappy with BYU and have their spiritual growth stunted. "I love BYU and I love the gospel," said Frazier. "But we just think that our university can be doing a little better." This is the latest unwanted attention for BYU's honor code, which was criticized in 2016 by female students who spoke out against the school opening honor-code investigations of students who reported sexual abuses to police. The college changed the policy to ensure that students who report sexual abuse would no longer be investigated for honor code violations. University spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said Friday in a statement that BYU wants all students to have a positive experience and are monitoring the conversations on social media and arranging meetings with students and the director of the honor code office, Kevin Utt. The university posted a Q&A with Utt earlier this week in which he said the rules exist to "protect the interests of the community and guide those whose behavior is not in accordance with its policies." He said 10-15 students are expelled due to honor code violations each year with the rest remaining enrolled. The college has about 33,000 students. Actions taken against violators are "intended to develop students' moral and ethical decision-making," Utt said. There is no firm set of punishments, he said, because decisions are based on context, motivation, intent and openness. BYU graduate Brayden Smith said he was suspended after he turned himself for something that happened with his girlfriend, declining to provide specifics because he did not feel comfortable doing so. Smith said he was left spiritually damaged after he was required to perform 35 hours of community service each month and was banned from using social media or dating apps. "There's gigantic dark mark on my collegiate experience," said Smith. The code has a section dedicated to "homosexual behavior," which echoes the religion's belief that being gay isn't a sin, but engaging in same-sex intimacy is. It includes a clause stating that "all forms of physical intimacy that that give expression to homosexual feelings" is prohibited. Amy Jacobs, a lesbian student, said the rules should be the same for gay and heterosexual couples, who are allowed to hold hands and kiss. The senior history major said she has lived in fear that someone would report her for an innocuous hug with another woman. She held a sign that said, "Report me, I'm gay," a sarcastic nod to a common complaint among students that a culture of tattle-telling exists at the university since the honor code accepts reports of violations from other students. "I'm afraid of the honor code office," said Jacobs, 21, of Kaysville, Utah. "I kind of hate myself here." Jacobs said she has thought about transferring to another college but stayed at BYU because she had dedicated so much time to her studies toward a history degree and had good mentoring professors. "BYU is a good education and I want to love it, but I just don't," said Jacobs, who will graduate this spring. "If I stayed a BYU any longer, it would kill me." Grant Frazier leads a chant as hundreds of students on the campus of Brigham Young University gather for a rally to oppose how the school's Honor Code Office investigates and disciplines students, Friday, April 12, 2019, in Provo, Utah. A strict set of rules at Mormon-owned Brigham Young University banning things commonplace at many campuses such as drinking, premarital sex, beards and piercings is under new scrutiny - this time from students who want their university to be more compassionate with the punishments for violators. (Rick Egan/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP) Sidney Draughon gets emotional as she listens to students tell their experiences with the honor code office, at a rally on the campus of Brigham Young University Friday, April 12, 2019, in Provo, Utah. A strict set of rules at Mormon-owned Brigham Young University banning things commonplace at many campuses such as drinking, premarital sex, beards and piercings is under new scrutiny - this time from students who want their university to be more compassionate with the punishments for violators. (Rick Egan/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP) In this April 12, 2019 photo, Alex Laurenco holds a sign at a protest during a demonstration at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, about changes BYU students would like to see in how the Honor Code is enforced. A strict set of rules at Mormon-owned Brigham Young University banning things commonplace at many campuses such as drinking, premarital sex, beards and piercings is under new scrutiny - this time from students who want their university to be more compassionate with the punishments for violators. (Rick Egan/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP) Riley Mabry, from Memphis Tenn. sings a hymn along with hundreds of BYU students on the quad near the Wilkinson Center to protest the honor code on BYU Campus, Friday, April 12, 2019, in Provo, Utah. A strict set of rules at Mormon-owned Brigham Young University banning things commonplace at many campuses such as drinking, premarital sex, beards and piercings is under new scrutiny - this time from students who want their university to be more compassionate with the punishments for violators. (Rick Egan/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP) Students gather on the campus of Brigham Young University at a rally to oppose how the school's Honor Code Office investigates and disciplines students, Friday, April 12, 2019, in Provo, Utah. A strict set of rules at Mormon-owned Brigham Young University banning things commonplace at many campuses such as drinking, premarital sex, beards and piercings is under new scrutiny - this time from students who want their university to be more compassionate with the punishments for violators. (Rick Egan/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP) In this April 12, 2019 photo, Alex Laurenco holds a sign at a protest during a demonstration at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, about changes BYU students would like to see in how the Honor Code is enforced. A strict set of rules at Mormon-owned Brigham Young University banning things commonplace at many campuses such as drinking, premarital sex, beards and piercings is under new scrutiny - this time from students who want their university to be more compassionate with the punishments for violators. (Rick Egan/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP) FILE - In this Nov. 18, 2014 file photo BYU students applaud in the Marriott Center in Provo, Utah, to see former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney deliver a Forum address on campus. A strict honor code at Brigham Young University in Utah that bans drinking, premarital sex, same-sex dating, beards and piercing is under new scrutiny from students who are planning a protest Friday, April 12, 2019 calling on the university to handle punishments for violations with more compassion. (Al Hartmann/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP,File) Hundreds of students gather on the campus of Brigham Young University, for a rally to oppose how the school's Honor Code Office investigates and disciplines students, Friday, April 12, 2019, in Provo, Utah. A strict set of rules at Mormon-owned Brigham Young University banning things commonplace at many campuses such as drinking, premarital sex, beards and piercings is under new scrutiny - this time from students who want their university to be more compassionate with the punishments for violators. (Rick Egan/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP) Hundreds of students gather on the campus of Brigham Young University, for a rally to oppose how the school's Honor Code Office investigates and disciplines students, Friday, April 12, 2019, in Provo, Utah. A strict set of rules at Mormon-owned Brigham Young University banning things commonplace at many campuses such as drinking, premarital sex, beards and piercings is under new scrutiny - this time from students who want their university to be more compassionate with the punishments for violators. (Rick Egan/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP) Franchesco Lopez chants with protesters as they gather on the campus of Brigham Young University, with hundreds of BYU students at a rally to oppose how the school's Honor Code Office investigates and disciplines students, Friday, April 12, 2019, in Provo, Utah. A strict set of rules at Mormon-owned Brigham Young University banning things commonplace at many campuses such as drinking, premarital sex, beards and piercings is under new scrutiny - this time from students who want their university to be more compassionate with the punishments for violators. (Rick Egan/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP) NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The U.S. Catholic diocese where the first widely reported case of clergy sex abuse became public in the 1980s released a list Friday of 33 priests and four deacons credibly accused of sexually abusing a minor or vulnerable adult. The list released by Bishop Douglas Deshotels of Louisiana's Diocese of Lafayette identifies three priests who were convicted or pleaded guilty but did not indicate where any of the 37 was accused, let alone give details of the accusations. It gives each man's birth and ordainment year, assignments, and his status, such as whether he was removed from the clergy, resigned or both. Three were removed last year. Unlike bishops in some other dioceses, Deshotels did not release the names of people in religious orders who were accused while working in the diocese. He wrote in a pastoral letter released Wednesday that any such disclosures are up to the orders. The Lafayette diocese employed Gilbert Gauthe (goh-THAY), who pleaded guilty in 1985 to abusing 11 boys but testified that he had abused 35 youngsters while serving at four churches. Gauthe himself was named on the list as one of two priests who both resigned and were removed from the priesthood in 1983. "In 1984," Deshotels wrote, "the Diocese of Lafayette was plunged into the heart of a terrible darkness when, for the first time, publicly, the Catholic Church was confronted with the harsh reality that men consecrated for God's work had betrayed their sacred trust." This photo provided by Caddo Sheriff's Office shows former Catholic priest Gilbert Gauthe. The U.S. Catholic diocese where the first widely reported case of clergy sex abuse became public in the 1980s is releasing a list, Friday, April 12, 2019, of clergy who face credible accusations of sexual abuse. The names of 33 priests and four deacons are on the list. Other Louisiana dioceses have reported about 150 priests, deacons and other clerics. There may be some overlap, since the Lake Charles diocese was carved out of the Lafayette diocese in 1980. The Lafayette Diocese employed the first widely known abuser, Gauthe, who pleaded guilty in 1985 to abusing 11 boys and testified that he'd abused dozens while serving at four churches in the diocese. (Caddo Sheriff's Office via AP) But the list made it clear that private confrontation came much earlier. The earliest dates are for Cornelius Van Merrianboer, a priest who was born in 1898, ordained in 1924, resigned in 1933 and died in 1960. Other credibly accused priests resigned in 1968, 1973 and 1978; two died in 1970 and 1977; and two retired in 1979 and 1982. One was removed in 2016, the year Deshotels began leading the diocese, and three in 2018. At least three names also were among 12 released Thursday by the Diocese of Lake Charles, which was part of the Lafayette diocese until 1980. That apparently brings the number of credibly accused priests in Louisiana to 185. The Archdiocese of New Orleans described 57 cases in November. The Diocese of Baton Rouge has reported 41, the Diocese of Alexandria 27, and the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, 14. The Times of Shreveport reported in February that 17 names on the Alexandria list had ties to north Louisiana, but the Shreveport diocese had not received any allegations of abuse by a bishop, priest or deacon since being carved out of the Diocese of Alexandria in 1986. Deshotels' letter noted that some people who have accused priests or deacons may not find those names on the list. "Be assured that your report was treated with the utmost seriousness and respect, but the standard for establishing credibility may not yet have been met," he wrote. "If you, or anyone, has further knowledge which would establish credibility, we implore you to please come forward to civil authorities" and then the diocese. "We have come to believe that involving law enforcement at the outset of an allegation is the prudent thing to do," Deshotels wrote. He also encouraged anyone who has been abused as a minor or vulnerable adult but has not reported it to come forward. WASHINGTON (AP) - On the campaign trail, Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg blasts Vice President Mike Pence's cultural and religious conservatism. But as the mayor of Indiana's fourth largest city, his tone toward the state's Republican former governor was more muted. During the four years in which they overlapped in Indiana politics, Buttigieg, the South Bend mayor, had a cordial relationship with Pence. The two collaborated on economic development issues . Buttigieg presented Pence with a South Bend promotional T-shirt that said "I (heart) SB." And at ceremonial events, Pence would lavish Buttigieg with praise. The relationship between the two men has come under scrutiny as Buttigieg's campaign becomes a surprise hit, raking in $7 million during the first quarter. As he formally launches his White House campaign on Sunday, the gay mayor has emerged as a celebrated voice for LGBT equality and religious tolerance. And Buttigieg has hardened his rhetoric toward Pence, using President Donald Trump's vice president as a foil representing an oppressive opposition. At a recent LGBT event, Buttigieg spoke of the importance of his marriage to his husband, Chasten, and framed his sexuality in religious terms. "If me being gay was a choice, it was a choice that was made far, far above my pay grade," Buttigieg said. "And that's the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand: that if you've got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator." He has previously called Pence's religious conservatism a "fanatical" ideology. FILE - In this May 1, 2015, file photo, then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, right, talks with South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg during a visit to recap the legislative session that ends in South Bend. Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg blasts Vice President Mike Pence's religious conservatism. But as the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, his tone toward the state's former governor was more muted. The two once had a cordial relationship. (Robert Franklin/South Bend Tribune via AP) By Buttigieg's own admission in his campaign memoir, his relationship with Pence is "complicated." In an interview with CNBC that aired on Thursday, Pence said they had a "great working relationship" and criticized the mayor's characterization of his religious beliefs. "He knows better," Pence said. "He knows me." The complex dynamic between Buttigieg and Pence reflects a connection born of political necessity between two men on the cusp of unlikely political and personal paths. And to some fellow Indiana Democrats, it was frustrating. In a state with few influential Democrats, some hoped to tap into Buttigieg's burgeoning political celebrity to help them rebut Pence and his policies, according to two party strategists who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive internal debate. But they found he was often reluctant to take on the then-governor directly or forcefully. In early 2015, Pence was grappling with an HIV outbreak in southern Indiana and facing calls from political leaders, including some fellow Republicans, to respond by approving a needle exchange program. Buttigieg, who was months away from publicly coming out as gay, was largely absent from that debate. Pence caused a national uproar that year by signing a "religious freedom" law criticized as anti-LGBT. Republicans including the mayor of Indianapolis demanded that the governor and the GOP legislature "fix this law" and "do so immediately." Buttigieg criticized Statehouse politicians for the "most embarrassing incident" and tweeted he was "disappointed" Pence signed the bill. But several weeks later, as the controversy raged, Buttigieg attended a Pence event in South Bend. The mayor told the South Bend Tribune, "I'm focused on how we can work together across city limits and across the aisle." "With respect to Pence's worst blunder, his most difficult controversy, Mayor Pete was not leading the charge against him," said Robert Dion, a political science professor at the University of Evansville in southern Indiana. "If you're a Democratic mayor in a Republican state and you rely on friendly relations with the General Assembly, you don't necessarily want to be lobbing bombs all the time. But that should not preclude someone from speaking out forcefully on a pressing civil rights issue." Buttigieg publicly came out as gay about three months after Pence signed the "religious freedom" law. In his book, Buttigieg acknowledged that he passed up the chance to urge Pence in person to veto the measure. "I wish I could say I made a good effort to talk him out of it, but it was clear from the look in his eyes that he had made up his mind," he wrote, referring to a meeting in which Pence told Buttigieg and other mayors he planned to sign the legislation. As mayor, Buttigieg's allies argue he had to maintain a cordial relationship with a governor who held sway over money sorely needed in South Bend. "It doesn't help your city if you have an adversarial relationship with the sitting governor, and Mayor Buttigieg recognized that," said Greg Goodnight, the Democratic mayor of Kokomo, Indiana, who supports Buttigieg's White House ambitions. For example, one of Pence's last major policy achievements as governor was a program that awarded funding to several regions for redevelopment, including $42 million for the greater South Bend area . During a ceremonial 2016 groundbreaking at a long-shuttered Studebaker factory, Buttigieg and Pence stood side by side and shook hands after scooping dirt with their shovels. "Where they agreed on issues, like economic development, the mayor worked with then-Gov. Pence for the good of his constituents and his city," Buttigieg spokeswoman Lis Smith said. "Where they disagreed, the mayor stood up to him, like when Pence embarrassed the state of Indiana with anti-LGBTQ laws, or when he wanted to turn away refugees from the state, or when Pence's policies hurt South Bend's workers." Still, some wish Buttigieg would play it less safe, particularly now that he's on a national stage. Tony Flora, president of the North Central Indiana AFL-CIO chapter, said the mayor says the right things but should expend more political capital. "I would look to Pete Buttigieg to be a louder voice and be more forceful," Flora said. "He came to our rallies, signed petitions and did make public remarks, but he could have been a bit more substantive instead of just making speeches - taking some action and being more supportive." Former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who is a lesbian, said she sympathized with the complicated situation Buttigieg was in as mayor, especially when he dealt with Pence. "The answer that I came to, and I'm assuming Pete did as well, is that first and foremost, you are the mayor," said Parker, who is now the president and CEO of Victory Fund, a group that works to elect LGBT candidates. "You are not an activist. You are the mayor. And every time you speak, it has an impact on your city - for good or ill. And it's something you have to navigate." ___ Smith reported from Providence, Rhode Island. FILE - IN this July 3, 2013, file photo, then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, center, talks with South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg, right, as they cross the Jefferson Boulevard bridge during a fitness walk along the St. Joseph River in downtown South Bend, Ind. Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg blasts Vice President Mike Pence's religious conservatism. But as the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, his tone toward the state's former governor was more muted. The two once had a cordial relationship. (James Brosher/South Bend Tribune via AP) Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, South Bend, Ind. mayor, address the National Action Network (NAN) convention, Thursday April 4, 2019, in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) FILE - In this March 23, 2019, file photo, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg arrives to speak about his presidential run during the Democratic monthly breakfast at the Circle of Friends Community Center in Greenville, S.C. Financial support from the LGBT community has helped Buttigieg's 2020 presidential campaign defy expectations by raking in more than $7 million in just over two months. The money has come from grassroots supporters and big-dollar Hollywood donors who hope Buttigieg will make history _ or at least the summer debate stage. (AP Photo/Richard Shiro, File) Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, South Bend, Ind. mayor, listen during a news briefing after addressing the National Action Network (NAN), Thursday April 4, 2019, in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) Vice President Mike Pence speaks along the border with Mexico while meeting with border patrol agents, Thursday, April 11, 2019, in Nogales, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York) Vice President Mike Pence speaks along the International border while meeting with border patrol agents, Thursday, April 11, 2019, in Nogales, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York) UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday to completely end its peacekeeping operations in Haiti on Oct. 15 and establish a political mission to support government efforts to promote order and development in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country. U.N. military peacekeepers had already left the country on Oct. 15, 2017, but a stabilization group stayed behind to train national police, help the government strengthen judicial and legal institutions and monitor human rights. The resolution approved Friday gives a final six-month period for such operations and asks Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to plan a political mission. Haiti's leaders had asked the U.N. to allow government authorities to fully assume responsibility for security. The Security Cuncil resolution acknowledged Guterres' recent report citing "the increased capacity, leadership, and crime prevention operations" of Haiti's police. But the council also said that "Haiti continues to face significant challenges," and said progress in its social, economic and political development "is crucial to achieving lasting stability." A gas station attendant collects money and gives back change during a two-week-long fuel shortage as customers buy fuel in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, April 10, 2019. Haiti's government, which subsidizes fuel, plans to open the gasoline market to the private sector in order to ease the shortage, according to Haiti's Director General of the Office of Monetization and Development Assistance Program Ignace Saint-Fleur, speaking to a local radio station on Monday. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) Haitian President Juvenal Moise's administration set off deadly protests last July when officials abruptly announced double-digit increases in the prices for gasoline, diesel and kerosene as part of an agreement with the International Monetary Fund to eliminate fuel subsidies and boost government revenue. Since then, Haiti's largest opposition groups have united in a campaign of protests to push Moise, who is backed by the United States, from office. Along with the deteriorating economy and political instability, overall security in Haiti has been shaken by increasing gang violence, and the Haitian police force's inability to control large swathes of poor neighborhoods around the capital. In Friday's resolution, the Security Council expressed concern at the recent rise in gang violence and underlined the need to address its root causes, "including through strengthened rule of law, political and socio-economic measures, violence reduction programs and weapons and ammunition management." Acting U.S. Ambassador Jonathan Cohen welcomed the resolution, saying it "will mean a significant handover of responsibility back into the hands of the Haitian government and its people." "Now is the time for the government of Haiti to step up and assume this responsibility," he said. "In the immediate future, we call on all Haitian actors to continue efforts toward a constructive and inclusive dialogue that aims to find lasting solutions to the current political and economic challenges," Cohen said. "We are convinced that genuine dialogue and compromise, leading to a transparent and accountable government, can best serve the needs and aspirations of the Haitian people." CHICAGO (AP) - Federal authorities have accused a real estate developer of steering legal work to a powerful, embattled Chicago alderman in exchange for a permit and financing for a redevelopment project. Charles Cui, 48, is charged with bribery, official misconduct and making a false statement to the FBI, according to an indictment made public Friday. The indictment doesn't refer to Alderman Ed Burke by name, but it describes him by his titles, the Chicago Tribune reported. Burke, 75, was indicted this year on charges alleging that he tried to shake down a restaurant owner who wanted to build in his ward. He denies wrongdoing and is free on a $10,000 bond. It's unclear if Burke will also face charges pertaining to the case against Cui. Neither Burke's lawyer, Charles Sklarsky, nor a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago immediately replied to messages seeking comment left Friday by The Associated Press. When reached by the Chicago Sun-Times, Cui referred a reporter to his attorney but hung up after being asked who that was. Cui is a managing partner of a company that owned property on Chicago's northwest side. Burke, who was re-elected in February, has been on the council for 50 years and for three decades has chaired its finance committee, which makes key decisions about how the city's budget is spent. The Democrat's law firm, Klafter & Burke, specializes in private property tax law. Authorities allege that Cui moved to shift property tax appeal work to Burke's law firm after the city denied a permit for a sign for a retailer at Cui's project. The permit was important to Cui because a tenant would either cancel its lease or decrease rent payments without the sign, officials say. PHOENIX (AP) - The Latest on the killing of four people in Phoenix (all times local): 4 p.m. Police have identified the 30-year-old Phoenix man arrested in the killings of his wife, two of their young children and a man he apparently thought was romantically involved with his wife. Sgt. Tommy Thompson said Friday that Austin Smith was booked on suspicion of four counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated assault. Smith was arrested Thursday evening after officers responding to a shooting at an apartment found the body of 46-year-old Ron Freeman. Two other people were wounded there. Officers who went to Smith's home later Thursday found his wife, 29-year-old Dasia Patterson, and their 5-year-old daughter, Nasha Smith, dead from gunshot wounds. Their 7-year-old daughter, Mayan Smith, died from apparent blunt-force trauma, and the couple's 3-year-old daughter was uninjured. ___ 10:15 a.m. Phoenix police say a man has been arrested on suspicion of killing his wife, his two young daughters and a man who the suspect thought was romantically involved with his wife. Sgt. Tommy Thompson said Friday that authorities found the daughters ages 5 and 7 dead at the family's home Thursday night. A 3-year-old daughter was unharmed. Thompson says the suspect was arrested while driving away from an apartment complex where the man had been shot dead and two others were shot and wounded. The suspect and the victims were not identified. __ This version corrects the name of the officer in the 3rd paragraph, Thompson not Thomson. ___ 7:20 a.m. Phoenix police say one person was killed and two others wounded in near-simultaneous shootings in an apartment complex and that police quickly detained one person as a possible suspect. Police said officers responding to one shooting Thursday night heard gunshots in the area and found some of the victims during a search. According to police, the possible suspect was taken into custody during a traffic stop shortly after the shootings occurred and a vehicle was seen leaving the area. The dead person was described as a man and those wounded as a man and a woman, and Detective Luis Samudio said it wasn't immediately known whether the possible suspect knew the victims. Details of the circumstances of the incident weren't immediately available and no identities were released. CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) - Leukemia killed a Missouri jail inmate whose health deteriorated before he was found dead in his cell, according to a medical examiner's report. Lamar Catchings, who was 20, wasn't diagnosed until after he died on March 1 in the St. Louis County jail, where he had been incarcerated for 11 months on assault and armed criminal action charges, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. A medical examiner report obtained through a public record request says he most likely had an aggressive form of leukemia in which too many immature blood-forming cells, called promyelocytes, accumulate in the blood and bone marrow. Blood tests can be used to diagnose the condition, which is considered the most curable form of adult leukemia, according to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. "I would have given anything just to hold him and help him through his pain," his mother, Tashonda Troupe, said in a statement. "They ignored him and left him to die an inhumane death, which to me is criminally negligent." Catchings was the third inmate to die in the county jail this year. The County Council has scheduled an inquiry into jail procedures starting with a hearing on Tuesday. "We want to know what process and procedures are in place for assisting an inmate who is having obvious health issues," Rochelle Walton Gray, chairwoman of the County Council's Justice, Health and Welfare Committee, said in a statement Thursday. "Were these protocols being followed? If not, what needs to change?" The medical examiner, Dr. Mary Case, declined in an interview to say whether leukemia should have been diagnosed. But she added that a person suffering from acute promyelocytic leukemia would usually be "desperately ill" and seek medical attention. In a jailhouse interview last month with a Post-Dispatch reporter, Desean Pitts, an inmate in an adjacent cell, said Catchings appeared to be extremely sick and weak for at least two weeks before he died. Pitts said Catchings had told him his eyes and ears hurt, that he could not hear out of one ear, and that he had pain on one side of his body. Catchings had been able to walk into a St. Louis County courtroom on Jan. 25, but at his next court appearance on Feb. 22, he was in a wheelchair. Courtroom video obtained by the Post-Dispatch through a public record request showed that Catchings struggled to rise when the judge entered the courtroom, and he frequently held his head in his hands. The medical examiner's report said a nurse working at the jail reported that Catchings had been acting "weird" in the days before his death. Asked to elaborate, she told an investigator that he had complained of headache, nausea and vomiting on Feb. 18 and Feb. 22, and of weakness, dizziness and a burning feeling in his chest on Feb. 26. Catchings may have died several hours before he was discovered, the report said. The medical examiner found a jail guard did not follow protocol by having Catchings stand in his cell when checking on inmates at 10 p.m. the night before. Instead, the guard looked through his cell door window and saw Catchings lying on his back in bed in the same position in which he was later discovered dead. Julia Childrey, the county's interim justice services director, did not respond to a request for comment from the Post-Dispatch or The Associated Press. ___ Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com HOUSTON (AP) - The actor who has become something of a sex symbol as the scruffy-faced, somewhat rumpled star of ads for the travel booking site Trivago has been arrested in Texas on a misdemeanor driving while intoxicated charge. Court records show 52-year-old Timothy Williams was arrested Wednesday afternoon in Houston and freed on $100 bond. Houston police spokeswoman Jodi Silva said Friday that Williams was stopped in traffic and passed out with his foot on the brake. Silva says Williams, who's from Houston, failed a field sobriety test and agreed to having blood drawn for alcohol testing. Results weren't immediately available. A Trivago statement Friday says the company didn't have full details on the situation but treats such incidents very seriously and strongly condemns drinking and driving as a risk to others and against the Trivago culture. Court records didn't list an attorney representing Williams. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Shutting down a Kentucky coal-fired power plant is the right decision, the new head of the Tennessee Valley Authority said Friday. President Donald Trump and the U.S. Senate majority leader who hails from Kentucky had previously criticized the move. Jeff Lyash took over as president and CEO of the nation's largest public utility on Monday. In an interview with The Associated Press, Lyash said the Paradise Fossil Plant is at the end of its life and no longer cost effective to operate. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had joined Trump in the plea to keep Paradise up and running, but TVA's board still voted days later in February to retire the remaining coal-fired unit there by December 2020. The board also voted to close the Bull Run Fossil Plant near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, by December 2023. "These coal plants were 'the' technology when they were built," Lyash said Friday. But he added that technology has changed along with customer demands. "And that's what leads to decisions like retirements on Paradise and Bull Run. For me it has little to do with a 'war on coal' or anything else. It has to do with deciding what's best for the Tennessee Valley," he said. And as for Trump, Lyash said with a laugh, "One of my objectives is to never be on either end, good or bad, of a presidential tweet." FILE - In a June 3, 2014, photo, the Paradise Fossil Plant stands in Drakesboro Ky. The new head of the Tennessee Valley Authority says a decision to shut down the Kentucky coal-fired power plant, which drew a critical tweet from President Trump, was the right one. Jeff Lyash took over as president and CEO of the nation's largest public utility on Monday, April 8, 2019. In an interview with The Associated Press on Friday, Lyash said the Paradise Fossil Plant is at the end of its life and was no longer cost effective to operate. (AP Photo/Dylan Lovan, File) Lyash did not signal any big changes for the utility with the change in leadership. Outgoing CEO Bill Johnson is taking over at San Francisco-based PG&E later this month. Asked about groundwater pollution from TVA's coal ash dumps, Lyash said monitoring wells have shown the pollution is "fairly contained around the ash sites." At the shuttered Allen coal plant in Memphis, high levels of arsenic and other toxins were found in monitoring wells in 2017, spurring fears that an aquifer that supplies Memphis' drinking water could become tainted. Testing has since deemed the public water supply unaffected, but a report last spring by the utility showed a connection between the shallow aquifer where toxins were found and the deeper Memphis Sand Aquifer that provides the city's drinking water. Lyash said the utility is going through the permitting process in order to move the ash offsite to a "lined, permitted facility." As for ash dumps at other facilities, Lyash said, "TVA is going to do the right thing." He didn't elaborate other than to say the utility will work with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to determine the right course of action. TVA provides power to more than 10 million people in parts of seven Southern states. SAN DIEGO (AP) - A federal appeals court put a judge's order on hold Friday shortly before it would have stopped the Trump administration from forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases move through U.S. courts. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked the lower court ruling from taking effect. The three-judge panel set a Tuesday deadline for civil liberties groups to submit arguments on why the asylum policy should be on hold and a Wednesday deadline for the government to argue why it should remain in place. Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco ruled Monday to halt the unprecedented change to the U.S. asylum system while the groups' lawsuit moves forward. He said the policy violates U.S. law by failing to evaluate dangers migrants face in Mexico. The government called the ruling erroneous and said it endangers the public during a humanitarian crisis at the southern border. It wants the 9th Circuit to keep the policy in place while the lawsuit is litigated, which is expected to take months and possibly years. Immigration attorneys argued that the policy was putting the lives of asylum seekers at risk by forcing them to wait in violence-plagued Mexico and said Seeborg's ruling was already having an effect. Since the judge issued his order, immigration officials stopped returning asylum seekers south of the border after they attended their hearings in the United States, lawyers said. A girl from the Mexican state of Guerrero passes rows of tents as her family waits at a shelter of mostly Mexican and Central American migrants to begin the process of applying for asylum Friday, April 12, 2019, in Tijuana, Mexico. The Trump administration is asking an appeals court to let it continue returning asylum seekers to Mexico hours before a U.S. judge's order was set to go into effect Friday afternoon reversing the unprecedented change to the U.S. asylum process. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) "I haven't heard of anyone who's been sent back since the judge's order on Monday," American Civil Liberties Union attorney Judy Rabinovitz said. She added later that she was hopeful Seeborg's ruling will go into effect in the end. The order marked another defeat to President Donald Trump's intent to radically alter U.S. immigration policies. Families seeking asylum typically have been released in the U.S. with notices to appear in court. The new policy started in January at the nation's busiest border crossing in San Diego and the government was starting to expand it. At a Wednesday hearing in El Paso, Texas, Nicolas Palazzo, an attorney for Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, told a judge that his Salvadoran client feared returning to Mexico. The man was allowed to remain in the United States, signaling a change in the practice. The Mexican government says more than 1,300 people were returned to Mexico under the program. A lawsuit by 11 Central Americans and legal advocacy groups argues that the policy puts the lives of asylum seekers at risk by forcing them to stay in Mexico, where crime and drug violence are prevalent. The Trump administration says the policy responds to a crisis at the southern border that has overwhelmed the ability of immigration officials to detain migrants. Growing numbers of families are fleeing poverty and gang violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. ___ Melley reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writer Elliot Spagat in El Paso contributed to this report. A woman from Guatemala, who did not give her name, waits at a shelter of mostly Mexican and Central American migrants to begin the process of applying for asylum Friday, April 12, 2019, in Tijuana, Mexico. The Trump administration is asking an appeals court to let it continue returning asylum seekers to Mexico hours before a U.S. judge's order was set to go into effect Friday afternoon reversing the unprecedented change to the U.S. asylum process. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump says he is strongly considering releasing "Illegal Immigrants" into Democratic strongholds to punish congressional foes for inaction on the border- just hours after White House and Homeland Security officials insisted the idea had been rejected as fast as it had been proposed. "Due to the fact that Democrats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws, we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only," Trump tweeted Friday. He added that, "The Radical Left always seems to have an Open Borders, Open Arms policy - so this should make them very happy!" The reversal, which appeared to catch officials at the Department of Homeland Security off guard, came as critics were blasting Trump for the supposedly-rejected idea, accusing him of turning migrants into pawns to go after his political opponents. It comes as Trump has grown increasingly exasperated by a surge of Central American migrant families crossing the southern border and is looking for new ways to pressure congressional Democrats to change laws that he insists are making the problem worse. Indeed, last week Trump urged his soon-to-be acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan to seal the southern border and told McAleenan he would pardon him if he were to find himself in trouble for blocking legal asylum-seekers, according to two people familiar with the conversation who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private exchange. It was not clear whether the president was joking, and a Homeland Security spokesman said in a statement: "At no time has the president indicated, asked, directed or pressured the acting secretary to do anything illegal. " The reported conversation came during the president's trip last week to Calexico, California, a day after he announced he was delaying his threat to close the border because Mexico appeared to be stepping up its enforcement efforts. Before Trump's tweets on Friday, both the Department of Homeland Security and a White House official had insisted in nearly identical statements that the sanctuary-cities plan had been floated but then flatly rejected. In this April 5, 2019 photo, President Donald Trump participates in a roundtable on immigration and border security at the U.S. Border Patrol Calexico Station in Calexico, Calif. Trump said Friday he is considering sending "Illegal Immigrants" to Democratic strongholds to punish them for inaction- just hours after White House and Homeland Security officials insisted the idea was dead on arrival. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) But not, apparently, by the president, who emphatically revived the idea. Asked about it by reporters, he said he was "strongly looking at" releasing migrant families into those communities. "They're always saying they have open arms. Let's see if they have open arms," he said. There were no indications, however, that officials were taking any steps to move forward with the idea or considered the president's words anything more than bluster. "Sanctuary cities" are places where local authorities do not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, denying information or resources that would help ICE round up for deportation people living in the country illegally. They include New York City and San Francisco, home city of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who on Friday called the idea "unworthy of the presidency of the United States and disrespectful of the challenges that we face as a country, as a people, to address who we are - a nation of immigrants." Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who chairs the House Homeland Security committee, said it "serves as a reminder that the Trump administration's reckless immigration agenda is not about keeping the country safe, but about partisan politics and wantonly inflicting cruelty. " The idea of pressing immigration authorities to embrace the plan was discussed in November and then again in February as the Trump administration struggled with a surge of migrants at the border, according to three people who spoke on condition of anonymity to outline private conversations. Homeland Security and ICE lawyers quickly rejected the proposal, according to the people, on the grounds that it was complicated, too expensive and a misuse of funds, two of the people said. The plan, which was first reported by The Washington Post, is one of a litany of ideas being tossed around by an increasingly anxious White House in recent months. Officials say they are running out of options, and have proposed and recycled numerous ideas that have never come to fruition. Trump in recent weeks, for instance, has discussed the idea of renewing his administration's controversial family separation policy - even as he's publicly declared he won't do that - and has threatened to completely seal the border despite opposition from many in his administration. There have been at least two versions of the sanctuary city plan discussed: One to move people who have already been detained to places with Democratic opponents of the president, the other to transport migrants apprehended at the border directly to San Francisco, New York City, Chicago and other spots. ICE arrests people in the U.S. illegally and also manages migrants who present themselves at border crossings and ask for asylum. The surge of migrant families at the border has been taxing the system, and ICE says it no longer has the resourced to handle immigrants processed by the Border Patrol. As a result, more than 125,000 people have been released as they await court hearings - a practice Trump has derided as "catch and release." With immigrant processing and holding centers overwhelmed, the administration has already been busing people hundreds of miles inland and releasing them at Greyhound stations and churches in cities such as Albuquerque, San Antonio and Phoenix. Transporting large groups of immigrants to distant cities would be even more expensive for an agency already strapped for cash. Flights chartered by ICE cost about $7,785 per flight hour, according to the agency, and require multiple staffers, including an in-flight medical professional. The agency also uses commercial flights but requires that migrants to pay for those. At the same time, many "sanctuary" communities would likely welcome the immigrants in question. Some of these cities have robust networks of nonprofit legal groups that could help them strengthen their legal cases to stay. The Department of Health and Human Services said this week it had started scouting vacant properties that could be turned into facilities for holding migrant children in several cities, including Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, and San Antonio. Those facilities would be licensed by each state and likely take several months to be approved and opened, separating them from the rapidly expanding emergency shelter at Homestead, Florida, and the now-closed tent facility at Tornillo, Texas. The Defense Department has also been reviewing a number of military bases to find a location that can house up to 5,000 unaccompanied migrant children as the U.S. braces for a surge of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border this spring. Under the Trump administration, ICE has significantly stepped up arrests, including of people who have no U.S. criminal records. In response, some cities have banished ICE from jails where agents could easily pick up immigration violators. Police in New York, Baltimore and Seattle rarely, if ever, disclose information about when suspected criminals in the U.S. illegally will be released from custody. Democrats have said they will tackle immigration bills, possibly as soon as they return from their spring recess, and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has indicated an interest. ___ Associated Press writers Nomaan Merchant in Houston, Astrid Galvan in Phoenix and Lisa Mascaro and Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this report. BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (AP) - The Latest on a 5-year-old child injured in an apparent attack at Minnesota's Mall of America (all times local): 5 p.m. Court records show a 24-year-old Minneapolis man suspected of throwing or pushing a 5-year-old boy from a balcony at the Mall of America was charged in two previous incidents at the mall. Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda was arrested on July 4, 2015, after police said he matched the description of a man throwing things off the upper level of the mall to the lower level. Police say Aranda refused to give his name and resisted arrest. Aranda also was accused of walking into a mall store and sweeping his hand across a display table, breaking glasses. In October 2015, Aranda was accused of throwing glasses in Twin Cities Grill in the mall. The complaint says Aranda approached a woman who was waiting for the restaurant to open and asked her to buy him something. The woman refused, and Aranda allegedly threw a glass of water in her face and a glass of tea that struck her leg. Aranda was under a trespass notice at the time banning him from the mall until July 4, 2016. Aranda was chased and arrested Friday after the boy was thrown or pushed from a third-floor balcony and landed on the first floor at the mall. The boy suffered life-threatening injuries. ___ 4:30 p.m. A 24-year-old Minneapolis man is being held on suspicion of attempted homicide in an apparent attack in which a 5-year-old boy was pushed or thrown from a third-floor balcony at the Mall of America. Police identified Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda as the man who was chased and arrested after Friday morning's incident at the megamall in suburban Minneapolis. The child suffered life-threatening injuries and is being treated at a hospital. Details of his condition weren't immediately available. Aranda's criminal record includes two convictions in 2015 for obstruction of the legal process/interfering with a peace officer, as well as convictions for fifth-degree assault, trespassing and damage to property. ___ 4:15 p.m. Police in Minnesota say a 5-year-old boy suffered life-threatening injuries when he was pushed or thrown from a third-floor balcony at the Mall of America. Witnesses say the boy's mother was screaming and asking others to pray for her son. Tina Hailey of Burnsville, Minnesota, tells the Star Tribune she was walking with her husband on the mall's first floor when she heard screams. Hailey says the mother appeared to be in shock and "didn't know what to do," and that "Nobody was helping her." Witnesses say a suspect ran away and was arrested at the mall's transit station. The 24-year-old man from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area is being held at the Bloomington Police Department. The boy was taken to a hospital. His condition is unknown. Police say the suspect apparently does not know the victim or the victim's family. ___ Corrects Hailey's first name to 'Tina' instead of 'Tiny.' ___ 2:15 p.m. A witness says a woman screamed that her child was thrown from a balcony at the Mall of America in Minnesota. Brian Johnson told WCCO-TV the woman was screaming, "Everybody pray, everybody pray. Oh my God, my baby, someone threw him over the edge." Johnson says the woman was screaming that her child was thrown from a third-floor balcony at the Bloomington, Minnesota, mall. The child landed on the first floor on Friday morning. Police say the child is 5 years old. The police chief says the child suffered "significant injuries" and was taken to a hospital. A suspect was arrested at the mall. Police don't think there is any relationship between the man and the child or the child's family. Authorities don't know a motive. ___ 12:55 p.m. Police in Minnesota say they've arrested a 24-year-old man in an incident in which a child may have been pushed or thrown from a balcony at the Mall of America. Bloomington Police Chief Jeffrey Potts says witnesses told police that the child may have fallen from the mall's third level to the first floor on Friday morning. Potts says officers gave first aid but the 5-year-old child suffered "significant injuries" and had been taken to a hospital. Potts says the suspect took off running right after the incident but was quickly found and arrested at the mall. He says police don't think there is any relationship between the man and the child or the child's family. He says police don't have an idea about possible motive. ___ 12:46 p.m. Police in Minnesota say they're investigating an incident at the Mall of America in which a child was reportedly thrown from a third-floor balcony. Police in Bloomington tweeted that a 5-year-old child suffered injuries and was being treated at a hospital Friday. Police didn't immediately respond to a message seeking details about the incident. The Star Tribune reports that the child was being treated at Children's Hospital in Minneapolis. MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - A 5-year-old boy plummeted three floors Friday after being pushed or thrown from a balcony at the Mall of America, according to witnesses, and a 24-year-old man with a history of causing disturbances at the mall was in custody. Bloomington Police Chief Jeffrey Potts said police don't think there is any relationship between the man and the family of the child, who suffered life-threatening injuries. He was being treated at a hospital, but no details on his condition were immediately available. Witnesses told police that the child may have been pushed or thrown from the mall's third level to the first floor, Potts said. He said the suspect immediately took off running but was quickly found and arrested at the mall. A witness said a woman screamed that her child was thrown from the balcony. Brian Johnson told WCCO-TV the woman was screaming, "Everybody pray, everybody pray. Oh my God, my baby, someone threw him over the edge." Police said Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda, of Minneapolis, was being held on suspicion of attempted homicide. This undated photo provided by the Bloomington, Minn., Police Department, shows Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda, who was arrested in connection with an incident at the Mall of America where a 5-year-old boy plummeted three floors Friday, April 12, 2019, after being pushed or thrown from a balcony. (Bloomington Police Department via AP) Aranda's criminal record includes two convictions in 2015 for obstruction of the legal process/interfering with a peace officer, as well as convictions for fifth-degree assault, trespassing and damage to property. Court records show Aranda was arrested on July 4, 2015, after police said he matched the description of a man throwing things off the upper level of the Mall of America to the lower level. Police say Aranda refused to give his name and resisted arrest. Aranda also was accused of walking into a mall store and sweeping his hand across a display table, breaking glasses. In October 2015, Aranda was accused of throwing glasses in Twin Cities Grill in the mall. The complaint says Aranda approached a woman who was waiting for the restaurant to open and asked her to buy him something. The woman refused, and Aranda allegedly threw a glass of water in her face and a glass of tea that struck her leg. Aranda was under a trespass notice at the time banning him from the mall until July 4, 2016. It wasn't immediately clear if Aranda had an attorney. Police don't have an idea about possible motive, Potts said. "At this point we believe this is an isolated incident," the chief said. "We're actively trying to figure out why this occurred." No details were immediately available about the child's condition. The 4.2-million-square-foot Mall of America is in Bloomington, about 10 miles south of Minneapolis. The mall, which opened in 1992, has more than 520 stores and is visited by 40 million visitors annually, according to its website . Attractions include Nickelodeon Universe indoor amusement park and Sea Life Minnesota Aquarium . It has occasionally been the scene of crimes or disruptive protests, and the mall's website touts extensive security training for its officers. In 2015, the al-Shabab extremist group called for an attack on the Mall of America and other shopping centers in a video. Al-Shabab fighters attacked an upscale Kenyan mall in 2013 in a siege that left 67 people dead. In response, the Mall of America said it was tightening security, and that some of the extra precautions would be noticeable to guests and others would not be. A Minneapolis man was sentenced to 15 years in prison last year for attacking two brothers at the Macy's department store at the mall. The man said he was inspired by the Islamic State when he stabbed the brothers in a dressing room area in November 2017. A teenage brawl erupted at the mall the day after Christmas in 2011. The melee was caught on YouTube, but police concluded the brawl - the worst case of violence at the mall in more than 15 years - was not organized through social media as initially feared. Ten people were arrested for disorderly conduct, including four juveniles. ___ Associated Press writers Amy Forliti and Doug Glass contributed. News researcher Jennifer Farrar contributed to this report from New York. RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro believes the crimes of the Holocaust can be forgiven, but shouldn't be forgotten. The far-right leader made the comments Thursday night at a meeting with evangelical pastors in Rio de Janeiro. He was applauded by those who attended. "We can forgive, but we cannot forget. That quote is mine. Those who forget their past are sentenced not to have a future," Bolsonaro said, adding that actions are needed for the Holocaust not to be repeated. On April 2, Bolsonaro visited the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During that visit, the Brazilian leader labelled Nazism a leftist ideology, a claim rejected by historians. More than 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust. Bolsonaro has ups and downs in his relationship with Brazil's Jewish community. Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro speaks during the swearing-in ceremony of his newly-named education Minister at the Planalto Presidential Palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. Abraham Weintraub replaces Ricardo Velez Rodriguez. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) In 1998, as federal deputy in Brazil's Congress, he defended students at a military school in the southern city of Porto Alegre who voted for Adolf Hitler, among other figures, as the historic character they admired the most. "They have to choose those who knew, in one way or another, how to impose order and discipline," Bolsonaro said at the time, adding that he did not agree with the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime. Official figures estimate the number of Jews in the South American country in about 120,000, corresponding to 0.06% of the population. Also Friday, New York's American Museum of Natural History said it was considering its options after discovering a function booked to take place there would honor Bolsonaro. The museum is the venue for an annual party organized by the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce, in which Bolsonaro will be one of the honorees this year. "We are deeply concerned," the museum said on Twitter. The Brazilian president has taken a series of measures criticized by environmentalists, including several that transfer environment ministry attributions to the country's agriculture ministry. NEW ORLEANS (AP) - In a story April 12 about Bryde's whales in the Gulf of Mexico being listed as endangered, The Associated Press erroneously identified the Natural Resources Defense Council as the National Resources Defense Council, and its attorney as Zac Smith rather than Zak Smith. A corrected version of the story is below: NOAA: Bryde's whales in Gulf of Mexico are endangered Federal scientists say a tiny group of whales in the Gulf of Mexico is endangered, with threats including oil and gas exploration and development By JANET McCONNAUGHEY Associated Press NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Federal scientists say a tiny group of Bryde's whales in the Gulf of Mexico is endangered, facing threats including oil and gas exploration and development. "They're the only year-round baleen whales that make their home in Gulf of Mexico, and (they) have a unique and very important role in the ecosystem," said Laura Engleby, a marine mammal biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries' service. Two other subspecies are found in tropical waters around the world, but this one is so genetically different it may even be a different species, Engleby said. The filter-feeding whales known as baleen whales can be hard to tell apart by sight, she said. "That makes it even more challenging to study them, in some ways," she said. A Republican congressman from Florida and a marine mammal scientist in Massachusetts applauded the decision to protect the whales. There probably are about 33 of them in a deepwater area called the DeSoto Canyon, Engleby said. If there are any in the southern Gulf, she said, the total including the known population is probably less than 100. "Although belated, this designation will help to protect this vulnerable species and aid in its recovery," U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan said in an emailed statement. Buchanan and Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Florida, had pushed for the designation, Buchanan spokesman Anthony Cruz wrote. "I think it's a great thing to declare them endangered. It's been coming for a while," said Scott Kraus, chief marine mammal scientist at the New England Aquarium's Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life. However, "It's absolutely not too late" to save the whale, said Zak Smith, attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that sued the government in 2014 to get the endangered listing. "This species now has a fighting chance for survival and to rebound from the brink of extinction." Engleby said the next step is to work out ways to help the whales recover, including consulting with other agencies and considering whether to designate critical habitat. Such a designation would require NOAA Fisheries consultation about any federal contracts, which include oil and gas leases in federal waters. Threats include noise from seismic surveys for oil and gas and ship traffic, which interfere with their subsonic communication. Oil and gas companies agreed in 2013 not to use seismic surveys in an area including the DeSoto Canyon. That agreement, originally for 2 years, has been extended and will remain in effect until 2022, NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman Kim Amendola said. A study released in 2015 estimated the whales' numbers at 26. It said the BP offshore oil spill in 2010 overlapped nearly half their habitat and might have killed up to 22 percent of the population. Other threats include fishing nets, oil and gas development, pollution, and even being hit by ships - a whale was hit and killed by a ship in 2009. It arrived in Tampa, Florida, "on the bow of a ship," Engleby said. Since it was lactating, she noted, the calf probably died, too. The name is pronounced "BROO-duhs" because they were named after the 19th century Norwegian whaler Johan Bryde. Whalers' records dating back to the 1700s show they once swam in the central and northern gulf, according to NOAA Fisheries. They eat crustaceans, fish and cephalopods, which they filter through baleen plates and bristles. Because they were confined to the Gulf of Mexico, they probably never were as numerous as some other species, said Smith. Engleby said, "We don't really know much about this species." She said a study funded with money from penalties that energy giant BP PLC and others paid after the oil spill is using visual surveys, passive acoustic monitoring and tagging to learn more, including their part in the ecosystem. MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Foxconn Technology Group announced Friday it was buying a six-story office building across the street from Wisconsin's state Capitol to house an off-campus research center it will run as part of a partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The purchase is the latest in a string of buildings Foxconn has acquired in Racine, Green Bay, Milwaukee and Eau Claire as it expands its reach across Wisconsin beyond its massive campus in the southeast part of the state. The Taiwanese-based company is the world's largest electronics provider, with Apple, Google and Amazon all as customers. Foxconn has said it will build a manufacturing facility in Wisconsin to make liquid crystal display screens for cellphones, tablets, televisions and other devices. Foxconn has said that campus will employ 13,000 people and cost $10 billion, which would net the company about $4.5 billion in state and local tax credits. Construction of the manufacturing facility was to begin this year and is scheduled to be operational by the end of 2020. But critics of the deal, struck with the help of President Donald Trump who came for a groundbreaking ceremony, have questioned whether Foxconn will follow through as promised. Speaking to an audience that included officials with Gov. Tony Evers' administration, the president of the University of Wisconsin System and other business and government leaders in Wisconsin, Foxconn's Alan Yeung addressed concerns about its plans for the Madison building. Foxconn Technology Group announced Friday, April 12, 2019, that it will soon buy a six-story office building, center, at 1 W. Main St. on the Capitol square in Madison, Wis. It will serve as one of the company's statewide "innovation centers" and link the Taiwanese electronics firm to UW-Madison. (Steve Apps/Wisconsin State Journal via AP) "Foxconn will be a good neighbor and I can also assure you that building will not be an empty building," Yeung said to a smattering of nervous laughs. Yeung, a UW graduate and Foxconn's director of U.S. strategic initiatives, later told reporters the buildings have to be "adequate and well-equipped" before workers move in. "We don't actually make an effort to acquire buildings to leave them empty," he said. "We do have a plan." Yeung would not say how many people he expected would be working at the Madison office, dubbed Foxconn Place, but said it would be "sizable." He said Foxconn would have employees there by the end of the year. Foxconn and UW-Madison last summer announced a collaboration under which Foxconn promised to invest $100 million in engineering and innovation research, if the university came up with an equal amount. Part of that deal including constructing a new College of Engineering building and also having an off-campus site, which would be the building across from the Capitol. Foxconn said UW-Madison students along with staff, faculty and researchers would collaborate to support research and development initiatives in various areas, including medicine and computer and data sciences. BMO Harris Bank owns the six-story building Foxconn was buying and operates a branch on the main level that will remain along with its roughly 100 employees. Yeung and BMO Harris U.S. CEO David Casper declined to discuss terms of the sale, including how much Foxconn paid and how much space in the 55,000-square-foot building it would occupy. City records put the value of the property at about $5 million. The sale has not closed yet, but Yeung and Casper both said it was imminent. Foxconn has also purchased a building in Milwaukee for its North American headquarters and buildings in Green Bay, Eau Claire and Racine for innovation centers. ___ Follow Scott Bauer on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sbauerAP WASHINGTON (AP) - One of the European officials in charge of a tough data privacy law says legislation now poised to emerge in the U.S. won't be a copy of the EU's regime and will reflect American cultural values. Vera Jourova, the European Union's consumer commissioner, also said Friday she assured U.S. tech industry executives during a visit to Washington that the EU's sweeping "privacy shield" law will be "future-proof" and won't hinder innovations such as the development of artificial intelligence. Jourova met with Trump administration officials and U.S. lawmakers, making the case that now that Europe has acted, the U.S. must move to protect the privacy of consumers' data. "I would like to see the law in the United States as soon as possible," she told reporters. She is modestly optimistic that legislation will be enacted by Congress and signed into law, Jourova said. Her visit came as momentum is building in Washington for a national privacy law that could sharply rein in the ability of the largest tech companies to collect and make money from people's personal data. A federal law, the first of its kind in the U.S., could allow people to see or prohibit the use of their data. Companies would need permission to release such information. At the same time, technology is galloping ahead. At a White House event Friday, President Donald Trump said the race to build 5G high-speed wireless networks is one the U.S. must win. The Federal Communications Commission said it will hold a massive auction to bolster 5G service, the next generation of mobile networks, with the government planning to spend $20 billion to expand broadband access in rural areas. The U.S. is jockeying for position with China over 5G. Behind the drive for a national privacy law is rising concern over the compromise of private data held by Facebook, Google and other tech giants that have reaped riches by aggregating consumer information. Jourova had discussions with key senators working on privacy legislation, tech industry executives and the head of the Federal Trade Commission, Joseph Simons. "We are fully at the disposal of the American legislators to give this feedback and experience" with the 10-month-old EU privacy law, she said Friday. "I fully recognize that the federal law, if there will be one, will not be copy-and-paste. This is another culture, another society; the citizens may want to see different solutions. It's fully in the hands of the American legislators." Jourova said questions came from senators and industry officials regarding the impact of the EU law on small and startup businesses, on citizens' ability to exercise their new privacy rights and on whether it will hinder innovation. "Our answer to this is (the EU law) tries to be future-proof and cover the new situations in the world of technologies which consume citizens' data," she said. "We have the principle that the data can be used for research and business and artificial intelligence" after they are made anonymous. Earlier this week, after discussions with European officials, Facebook changed the fine print in its terms of service to clearly explain to users that it makes money by using their data. The social media giant modified its terms and conditions to better inform users what they are signing up for, clearly explaining how it uses the data it collects on users to develop profiling activities and target advertising to score profits. The EU regulators stepped up scrutiny of Facebook's terms after the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal, in which data on 87 million Facebook users was allegedly improperly harvested. The regulators also want tech companies to bring their terms in line with European consumer law. Asked for her assessment of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's recent call for tighter regulations to protect consumer data, Jourova said Friday that "whatever strong declarations, whatever commitments and declarations, ... we need to see real action." "This can only be done by checking whether they are investigating the complaints of the people, following the cases, and this is the job of the data-protection authorities in the EU," she said. RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - A worker calmly says, "We have hit a gas service" in an emergency call before the deadly gas explosion that leveled a North Carolina building, according to a recording released Friday. The 911 recording posted online by Durham officials offers more details about what led to the explosion Wednesday that killed one person and injured 25. The Durham Police Department has said a contractor boring along a sidewalk hit the gas line, and permits show that fiber-optic cables were being installed underground. It's not clear what made the gas ignite. "The emergency is: We have hit a gas service ... probably need a little police presence until the gas company can get here to shut the leak off," the worker says. Referring to the leaking line, the caller says: "I don't think it's completely in two, but we can smell it." During the call about 30 minutes before the explosion, the worker gives the location as the address for the building that eventually collapsed. The recording doesn't reveal the name of the worker or the contractor. City spokeswoman Amy Blalock said the 911 call is the only one expected to be posted Friday, but more could be released in coming days. Charred remains are piled in a heap of rubble, Thursday, April 11, 2019, in Durham, N.C., the day after an explosion and building fire caused by a gas leak killed one person and injured more than two dozen, including nine firefighters. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome) Deputy City Manager Bo Ferguson said Thursday that the permit to do work on a fiber-optic network was held by a subsidiary of communications company Crown Castle. A copy of the permit shows the work included cutting into sidewalks to install fiber cable underground. A related document shows the path of the cable as a red dotted line through the sidewalk on the block where the explosion happened. The diagram indicates they were boring to a depth of 4 feet (1.2 meters) in some places. Crown Castle issued a statement Thursday saying its subsidiary Fibertech Networks had hired a contractor that was installing fiber in the area prior to the explosion. Asked about the 911 call, Crown Castle spokesman Harris Vaughn said Friday that he couldn't comment further because of the ongoing investigation. The blast leveled one building and damaged others , including some that have since been condemned. Twenty-five injured people were seen at hospitals, including nine firefighters. Police said Kaffeinate coffee shop owner Kong Lee, 61, was the only person killed in the blast. The fire chief said that firefighters safely evacuated customers from the coffee shop and also told Lee to leave , but he lingered and was last seen in the doorway of the shop. Lee's son Raymond and daughter Diana issued a statement on the shop's Instagram page thanking emergency workers and remembering their father for having "the biggest, purest heart out of anyone we know." They said the last time they spoke to their father, he called to say he was closing because of the gas leak. "He was going to close up and make a sign to put on our door in case anybody came by later," they said. They said he worked hard to provide for the family: "That means he often worked 12-13 hour days doing jobs no one else wanted to do." ___ Follow Drew at www.twitter.com/JonathanLDrew Emergency personnel work at the scene, Thursday, April 11, 2019, in Durham, N.C., the day after an explosion and building fire caused by a gas leak killed one person and injured more than two dozen, including nine firefighters. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome) UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United Nations on Friday urgently appealed for the release and evacuation of more than 1,500 detained refugees and migrants caught in the crossfire of escalating fighting sparked by a self-styled Libyan army commander's military campaign to take the capital. The U.N. refugee agency said the refugees and migrants are believed to be trapped in detention centers where hostilities are ranging. The oil-rich North African country is now governed by rival administrations - a U.N.-backed government in the capital Tripoli and the west, and the self-styled Libyan National Army in the east led by Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter who launched the major offensive earlier this month. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said fighting continued Friday on the outskirts of Tripoli, with reports of increased use of heavy artillery. He said U.N. humanitarian officials report that almost 10,000 people have fled their homes in areas affected by the ongoing fighting. "We are concerned about the impact of these clashes on the already difficult living conditions of ordinary Libyans," he said. Dujarric said local evacuation teams have received requests to move some 3,800 people to safer areas, "but only 550 people have been evacuated so far due to access restrictions caused by hostilities." U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said the refugees and migrants in detention centers are "in the most vulnerable and dangerous of circumstances." "They have fled conflict or persecution in their own countries only to be trapped as conflict engulfs them again," he said in a statement. "The risks to their lives are growing by the hour. They must be urgently brought to safety. Simply put, this is a matter of life or death." UNHCR said detention centers in proximity to the fighting include the Ain Zara, Qasr Bin Ghasheer and the Abu Sleim facilities, all located south of Tripoli. Because of security and access issues, UNHCR said it has only been able to relocate 150 refugees from the Ain Zara center. UNHCR said it tried to relocate all 728 refugees and migrants detained in the Qasr Bin Ghasheer facility to the Zintan detention center away from the clashes on Thursday but they refused, asking instead to be evacuated out of Libya. But the refugee agency said currently, evacuation possibilities from Libya are extremely limited. "We call upon the international community to advocate with all parties to the conflict to respect international legal obligations and to support measures to put an end to detention, while also providing solutions for people trapped in Libya, including humanitarian corridors to evacuate those most vulnerable out of the country," UNHCR said in the statement. Dujarric said U.N. envoy Ghassan Salame met with mayors from conflict-affected areas on Friday to discuss the humanitarian situation, including ways to help trapped civilians. Libya slid into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and later killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. Elections were held shortly after Gadhafi's demise, but failed to bring stability. In addition to being governed by rival administrations, Libya has also become a haven for armed groups, including several from neighboring countries and a major conduit for African migrants hoping to reach Europe. Hifter's offensive has led to clashes with rival militias that support the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli. The escalation has threatened to plunge the fractured nation deeper into chaos. A spokesman for Hifter's Libyan National Army said that ousted Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir and his associates had been supplying the U.N.-backed militias with arms and fighters. Ahmed al-Mesmari said in a televised statement late Friday that two military planes took off from Sudan's capital Khartoum on March 28 carrying insurgents, "weapons and ammunition" and landed at Tripoli's Matiga air base controlled by the militias. Al-Mesmari expressed support for the Sudanese military, which detained al-Bashir in a military coup and took power. SAO PAULO (AP) - Stock prices of Brazil's state oil company have dropped after its decision to reverse an announced 5.7% increase in diesel prices. The reversal was announced Thursday night after President Jair Bolsonaro met with the head of Petrobras, Roberto Castello Branco. Local media reported the decision to stop the price hike raised fears among investors of government interference in Petrobras. Friday afternoon trading in Sao Paulo saw the price of Petrobras' preferred shares dropping 7.6%, while its ordinary shares fell 7.8 percent. SANAA, Yemen (AP) - Yemeni government officials say President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has returned home from Saudi Arabia to attend a rare session of parliament and elect a speaker. The officials say Hadi's presidential plane departed from Riyadh and landed in the eastern Yemeni city of Sayoun on Friday, where the House of Representatives is due to convene on Saturday for the first time since the war started. The war pits Houthi rebels against Hadi's government, backed by a Saudi-led coalition. Parliament has been divided into three blocs: One with Houthis, a second with Hadi, and a third in opposition to the two. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the press. The 301-member parliament was last elected in 2009. It's six-year term has already expired. NEW YORK (AP) - Health officials are investigating a doctor they say branded women under unsafe conditions at the behest of the spiritual leader of a secretive self-help group based in upstate New York, according to court documents about the accusations. The papers containing the revelations stem from a legal fight pitting the state Department of Health against women it says have refused to answer questions about Dr. Danielle Roberts. The Times Union of Albany first reported the investigation Friday. Officials launched the inquiry into suspected professional misconduct by Roberts in response to a 2017 complaint alleging "the physician participated in the initiation ceremony for a secret society, which involved the branding of female initiates with a cautery pen without anesthesia and under duress," according to a ruling last year by Acting Supreme Court Justice Kimberly O'Connor. The judge allowed the administrative investigation to go forward, rejecting arguments by lawyers for eight women - identified only as "Jane Does" - that they could defy subpoenas demanding answers because "the branding was a voluntary free expression of personal beliefs that they engaged in as a manifestation of their right to private association." Roberts hasn't been charged with a crime. But the court documents made clear she is under investigation on suspicion of violating state standards for doctors by branding several women with the symbols representing the initials of Keith Raniere, the onetime leader of the group called NXIVM. Email messages seeking comment were left Friday with lawyers representing Roberts and the women, who haven't been identified. Health officials declined to comment on the status of her case. Details of the inquiry surfaced as Raniere nears trial on charges he used his cultlike organization to form a subgroup of sex slaves at his command. The legal dispute also demonstrates the sharp divide between followers who have refused to betray someone known within NXIVM as "Vanguard" and those who have admitted to enabling his alleged dark side. On Monday, TV actress Allison Mack pleaded guilty to charges she helped recruit and manipulate women to serve Raniere against their will. Mack, best known for her role as a young Superman's close friend on the series "Smallville," admitted she obtained compromising information and images of two unidentified women - called "collateral" within the group - that she threatened to make public if they didn't perform "so-called acts of love." Another woman charged in the alleged conspiracy, Lauren Salzman, admitted in a guilty plea that she held a woman from Mexico hostage in an upstate home for more than two years under threat of having her deported "if she did not complete labor requested by myself and others." Raniere is due to go on trial early next month with heiress Clare Bronfman, a NXIVM benefactor who is a daughter of the late billionaire Seagram chairman Edgar Bronfman Sr., and another group member, Kathy Russell. All have pleaded not guilty and denied the charges. ___ Klepper reported from Albany. LOS ANGELES (AP) - Authorities on Friday recaptured a 15-year-old boy who is charged with killing his mother and managed to escape a Southern California juvenile facility. A "very good lead" led authorities to a McDonald's restaurant in Anaheim, where Ike Souzer was taken peacefully into custody on Friday night, Orange County sheriff's Capt. Mike Peters said. The teenager was given medical treatment for puncture wounds on his leg that might have come from his escape, Peters said. Ike Souzer escaped the Orange County Juvenile Hall, somehow got onto a roof and then jumped a perimeter fence just after midnight Friday, said Steve Sentman, chief probation officer for the county. Jail staff spotted Souzer on the roof, then turned on a facility-wide alarm and called the sheriff's office, he said. Peters said deputies were "very quick" to respond, but Souzer was able to elude capture. The sheriff's office released surveillance footage showing Souzer tending to an apparent wound on his leg shortly after escaping and then walking seemingly casually away from the facility. The 6-foot, 200-pound teen was wearing red pants and a white shirt. This undated photo released by the Orange County Sheriff's Department shows Ike Souzer, a 15-year-old accused of killing his mother who has escaped a Southern California jail. Probation officials say Souzer escaped from the Orange County Juvenile Hall and jumped a perimeter fence just after midnight, Friday April 12, 2019. The 6-foot-tall, 200-pound teen was wearing red pants and a white shirt and may have an injured leg. (Orange County Sheriff's Department via AP) Dozens of law enforcement personnel, including FBI agents and federal marshals, searched for the boy. Sentman said it was the first escape from the 434-bed facility in at least two decades and that an investigation is underway into how it happened. Souzer has been in custody since he was 13, when he was arrested on suspicion of fatally stabbing his mother, 48-year-old Barbra Scheuer-Souzer. His escape came in the middle of Souzer's trial on a murder charge in juvenile court, said Kimberly Edds, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office. Souzer's public defender, David Hammond, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday. A Gofundme page for Scheuer-Souzer says she was so good at helping her son with autism that she went back to school to help others with the condition and was about to graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles. "Through her unconditional love and commitment, she helped her son go from non-verbal to verbal status," according to the page. "Her whole goal was to help her son and the autistic community by giving back and serving the needs of others." Scheuer-Souzer had three other grown children and three grandchildren. MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - A former Minneapolis second-grade teacher accused of spanking and slapping his students has been banned from teaching in Minnesota. The Star Tribune reports that the Minnesota Professional Educator and Licensing Standard Board voted Friday to revoke Hernandez Cortez Evans' teaching license. He had taught briefly at Bethune Community School in north Minneapolis in 2017 A teacher and principal and other witnesses testified at an earlier administrative law hearing that students reported Evans "hitting, spanking, slapping and grabbing" them. He also was accused of lifting students, carrying them into the hall and locking them out of the classroom unsupervised. Evans said the case against him amounted to "institutional racism" against a "nurturing, loving black man." He admitted he had restrained students by holding their wrists and by using "basket holds," but denied abuse. WASHINGTON (AP) - The decision to seek the extradition of Julian Assange marked a dramatic new approach to the founder of WikiLeaks by the U.S. government, a shift that was signaled in the early days of the Trump administration. President Barack Obama's Justice Department had extensive internal debates about whether to charge Assange amid concerns the case might not hold up in court and would be viewed as an attack on journalism by an administration already taking heat for leak prosecutions. But senior Trump administration officials seemed to make it clear early on that they held a different view, dialing up the rhetoric on the anti-secrecy organization shortly after it made damaging disclosures about the CIA's cyberespionage tools. "WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service," former CIA Director Mike Pompeo said in April 2017 in his first public speech as head of the agency. "Assange and his ilk," Pompeo said, seek "personal self-aggrandizement through the destruction of Western values." A week after the CIA director's speech, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the arrest of Assange was a priority, part of a broader Justice Department crackdown on leakers. FILE - In this Feb. 24, 2011, file photo, the founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange speaks to the media after his extradition hearing at Belmarsh Magistrates' Court in London. The arrest of Assange reignites a debate with no easy answer: Is the former computer hacker and founder of WikiLeaks a journalist or not? His lawyers are quick to characterize the case against him as a threat to all journalists. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File) "We've already begun to step up our efforts, and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail," he said. Pompeo, now secretary of state, declined Friday to discuss the issue, citing the now-active legal pursuit of Assange following his removal a day earlier by British authorities from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. The administration won't say why they decided now to charge Assange with a single count of computer intrusion conspiracy that dates to 2010. Back then, WikiLeaks is alleged to have helped Chelsea Manning, then a U.S. Army intelligence analyst, crack a password that gave her higher-level access to classified computer networks. Nor will they say whether the Obama administration had the same evidence that forms the basis of the indictment, or whether Assange will face additional counts if he is extradited to the United States. But a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal and legal matters, traced the genesis of the indictment to what's known as the "Vault 7 leak" in 2017, when WikiLeaks released thousands of pages of documents revealing details about CIA tools for breaking into targeted computers, cellphones and consumer electronics. A former CIA software engineer was charged with violating the Espionage Act by providing the information to WikiLeaks and is to go on trial later this year in New York. And the leak was a tipping point in deciding to pursue Assange, the official said. "Vault 7 was the nail in the coffin, so to speak," the official said. It ended years of ambivalence about what to do about Assange, who was hailed by many when WikiLeaks published hundreds of thousands of State Department cables and U.S. military documents, including many that revealed previously unknown facts about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the detainees held at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Even today, Assange and WikiLeaks have supporters around the world, amid a debate over whether the dissemination of raw, unfiltered documents and data counts as journalism. Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst behind the famed leak of the secret history of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers, called the charging of Assange an "ominous" effort to criminalize a necessary component of journalism. "The charges are based on facts that were known throughout the Obama administration, which chose not to indict because of the obvious challenge to the First Amendment that would involve," Ellsberg said in an Associated Press interview. A former Justice Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions, said there was an extensive debate within the government over the feasibility of charging Assange with the publication of stolen, classified materials. But prosecutors grew concerned that such a case would not hold up in court. Even though officials did not agree with Assange's self-characterization as a journalist, the former official said, there was concern that it would be hard to justify charging him with actions that more conventional journalists take. The former official said the department at the time was more amenable to bringing a case like the one ultimately brought - a narrower prosecution centered on a hacking conspiracy. It focuses on an entirely different violation that may obviate any First Amendment or press freedom concern. "This is just charging a journalist with conspiracy to hack into computer systems, which is no different than breaking into a building or breaking into a classified safe," said Mary McCord, a senior Justice Department national security official in the Obama administration. "And that's not First Amendment protected activity." That is a widely held view in government, even among people generally sympathetic to the mission of the media. "This was deliberate and malicious effort to cause harm to us, to U.S. national security interests and I think it would be good if there is some accountability at last," said David Pearce, who was U.S. Ambassador to Algeria in 2010 when WikiLeaks released hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables. "So far there hasn't been any accountability for Mr. Assange." _____ Associated Press writers Susannah George, Matthew Lee and Ned Barker contributed to this report. FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) - A judge has sentenced an Indiana woman to 30 years in prison for placing a plastic bag over her ex-husband's head and beating him with a hammer. Forty-one-year-old Shannon D. Labrosse of Fort Wayne was sentenced Friday. She pleaded guilty to attempted murder for the February 2017 attack on Thomas Labrosse, who has multiple sclerosis. He suffered broken ribs, cuts to his head and other injuries when attacked while sitting in a recliner at his home. During the Friday sentencing hearing in Allen Superior Court, Shannon Labrosse was asked if she had anything she wanted to say. She turned to her ex-husband in the courtroom and said, "Tom, I'm sorry." She earlier pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery for striking him repeatedly with a hammer in 2011 when they were still married. JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - Officials at a Missouri nonprofit organization accused of bribing Arkansas lawmakers also illegally used the charity's money to funnel campaign contributions to Missouri politicians, according to a federal indictment. Three former Republican Missouri lawmakers confirmed Friday to The Associated Press that they had participated in fundraisers and received campaign donations from people affiliated with the Springfield-based nonprofit Alternative Opportunities Inc., a provider of mental health and substance abuse services that has since merged with Preferred Family Healthcare Inc. But former state Sen. Ryan Silvey, former state Sen. Bob Dixon and former state Rep. Ward Franz each said they didn't know the nonprofit's resources may have been used for the political fundraising, as alleged in the federal indictment released Thursday. None of the Missouri lawmakers are accused of wrongdoing in the indictment, which targets former nonprofit executives Tom and Bontiea Goss and former Arkansas state Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, who is the nephew of Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson. The Gosses and Hutchinson have pleaded not guilty. The indictment is the latest in a long-running investigation involving the U.S. attorney's office in southern Missouri that already has resulted in several guilty pleas and convictions of former nonprofit officials and Arkansas lawmakers. The details of the nonprofit's involvement in Missouri politics are included in the indictment's list of acts constituting an alleged conspiracy. Federal law prohibits charitable organizations such as Alternative Opportunities from making contributions to or participating in political campaigns for candidates. FILE - In this April 9, 2009 file photo, Rep. Ryan Silvey, R-Kansas City, checks his wireless device during House debate, in Jefferson City, Mo. A federal indictment alleges a Missouri nonprofit illegally funneled money to Missouri politicians. Former Republican Sens. Ryan Silvey and Bob Dixon and former Rep. Ward Franz confirmed to The Associated Press they had participated in fundraisers involving officials from Springfield-based Alternative Opportunities Inc. But they said they were unaware that charity resources may have been used for their campaigns. The indictment did not accuse the lawmakers of wrongdoing. (AP Photo/Kelley McCall File) The indictment alleges that between 2013 and 2015, Alternative Opportunities illegally funneled $40,000 in contributions to the campaign of "Missouri Senator A" by passing the money through the Cranford Coalition, a lobbying firm affiliated with former charity executive Rusty Cranford. It also alleges that the charity paid for catering and other expenses for a Feb. 16, 2012, fundraiser for the same state senator. The dates and dollar amounts mentioned in the indictment are similar to those listed in Silvey's campaign finance reports. Silvey told the AP that Tom Goss is his cousin and confirmed that Goss had helped raise tens of thousands of dollars for Silvey's political campaigns over the years. But "I did not know that charity funds were being funneled to me," Silvey said. "Tom and Bontiea Goss did host a fundraiser for me, but I had no idea they were diverting charitable funds to do it. That's not something that I would have signed off on." Silvey, who now is chairman of the Missouri Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, said Goss never asked him to do anything in exchange for the contributions. Silvey declined to comment about whether officials from the FBI or U.S. attorney's office had spoken with him as part of the investigation. The indictment also alleges that Alternative Opportunities paid the expenses for a fundraising reception held for "Missouri Senator B" on Sept. 7, 2010. Campaign finance reports indicate that Dixon received donations from Goss and Alternative Opportunities executive Marilyn Nolan around that same time. Dixon, who now is the Greene County presiding commissioner, confirmed to the AP that officials from Alternative Opportunities hosted a political fundraiser for his previous Senate campaign. But "I would be very surprised to learn that they were using charity funds," Dixon said. He added: "They always seemed to be very upstanding people, and I never had any inclination that there was a quid pro quo of any kind." Dixon said he has not spoken with federal authorities as part of the investigation involving Alternative Opportunities. The indictment also said that the charity's board of directors held a meeting on March 15, 2012, in conjunction with a fundraiser for "Missouri Representative A, who was then a candidate for the Missouri State Senate." Campaign finance reports show that Franz, who was running for the state Senate, received contributions from Bontiea Goss and Nolan around that same time. Franz confirmed to the AP that Alternative Opportunities officials hosted a fundraiser for him and that he had served on the nonprofit's board of directors. An Alternative Opportunities filing with the Missouri secretary of state's office in March 2014 lists Franz as a board member, with an "Franzforsenate" email address. Franz, who now is director of Missouri's tourism division, said he didn't think any charity resources were used for his political fundraiser and didn't recall any discussions among Alternative Opportunities officials about reimbursing people for contributions to political candidates. Franz said he hasn't spoken with federal authorities as part of the investigation. ___ Follow David A. Lieb at: https://twitter.com/DavidALieb FILE - In this Nov. 3, 2015 file photo, Missouri Republican gubernatorial candidate, state Sen. Bob Dixon, participates in a forum in Jefferson City, Mo. A federal indictment alleges a Missouri nonprofit illegally funneled money to Missouri politicians. Former Republican Sens. Ryan Silvey and Bob Dixon and former Rep. Ward Franz confirmed to The Associated Press they had participated in fundraisers involving officials from Springfield-based Alternative Opportunities Inc. But they said they were unaware that charity resources may have been used for their campaigns. The indictment did not accuse the lawmakers of wrongdoing. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File) FILE - In this Friday, May 13, 2011 file photo, Rep. Ward Franz, R-West Plains, discusses legislation in the Missouri House Chamber in Jefferson City, Mo. A federal indictment alleges a Missouri nonprofit illegally funneled money to Missouri politicians. Former Republican Sens. Ryan Silvey and Bob Dixon and former Rep. Ward Franz confirmed to The Associated Press they had participated in fundraisers involving officials from Springfield-based Alternative Opportunities Inc. But they said they were unaware that charity resources may have been used for their campaigns. The indictment did not accuse the lawmakers of wrongdoing. (AP Photo/Kelley McCall, File) BOSTON (AP) - The Boston school system has been sued by a former student who was shot in the head by a dean at a high school who had recruited him to deal drugs. WGBH-FM reported Thursday that Luis Angel Rodriguez is asking for $5 million. The federal suit says the district's negligence led to "severe emotional distress, psychiatric injury, facial scarring, facial paralysis, hearing loss and other injuries." Rodriguez was shot in 2015 by Shaun Harrison, a dean of English High School. Prosecutors say Harrison recruited Rodriguez to sell pot, but was apparently upset over poor sales. Harrison was convicted in June of assault with intent to murder and other charges and sentenced to as many as 26 years in prison. A schools spokesman says the district does not comment on pending litigation. ___ Information from: WGBH-FM, http://www.wgbh.org NEW LONDON, Conn. (AP) - The Coast Guard has turned over more than 1,000 pages of documents in response to a congressional inquiry of how the service has handled complaints of harassment and bullying at the Coast Guard Academy. The Day of New London, Connecticut, reports that the heads of two House committees and other congressional lawmakers had indicated they were prepared to issue a subpoena if the documents weren't produced by Tuesday. The Coast Guard complied with the deadline. The request for documents dates to last summer when members of Congress sent a letter to the Coast Guard commandant. They were troubled by an institutional assessment showing disparities for minority students at the New London academy and the removal of a department head for bullying. The academy has about 1,000 students. ___ Information from: The Day, http://www.theday.com OPELOUSAS, La. (AP) - The Latest on the arrest of a suspect in recent arson fires at black churches in Louisiana (all times local): 3 p.m. A bond hearing has been set for the suspect in three recent arson fires at African American churches in Louisiana. The clerk of court's office in St. Landry Parish says the bond hearing for 21-year-old Holden Matthews is set for 9 a.m. Monday before Judge James Doherty. Matthews is the son of a St. Landry sheriff's deputy. He was arrested Wednesday on charges of arson of a religious building. Authorities suspect him of torching three black churches in 10 days. His attorney did not return a call for comment Friday. ___ This booking image released by the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal shows Holden Matthews, 21, who was arrested Thursday, April 11, 2019, in connection with suspicious fires at three historic black churches in southern Louisiana. Matthews faces three counts of simple arson of a religious building on the state charges. Federal investigators also were looking into whether hate motivated the fires. (Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal via AP) 6 a.m. No known criminal record. No known history of violence. One friend called him an introverted animal lover. Another said he was a "very sweet guy" with a racially diverse group of friends. But 21-year-old Holden Matthews is now the lone suspect in the torching of three African American churches in and around Opelousas, Louisiana. The arrest of the son of a local sheriff's deputy shocked two friends who spoke to The Associated Press. Meanwhile, pastors of the churches expressed relief that the mystery had apparently been solved. ___ McGill reported from New Orleans and Opelousas. Associated Press writers Stacey Plaisance in Opelousas, and Michael Kunzelman in College Park, Maryland, contributed to this report. Huddled at a home in Ecuador's capital, President Lenin Moreno's aides anxiously awaited word in the middle of the night on an operation that would soon make headlines around the world: the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange inside the country's London embassy. Over the course of nearly seven years, the Australian hacker had all but worn out his welcome at the embassy with antics that included late-night skateboarding, harassing the staff and smearing his feces on the walls, according to Ecuadorian officials. Moreno had finally decided to kick Assange out after getting wind of a WikiLeaks plot to blackmail him by publishing compromising documents, according to a senior government official who wasn't authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. An incensed Moreno gave British authorities 36 hours to execute the raid Assange's critics had long been demanding. Now, the president's aides looked nervously at their watches. Most of Ecuador, including Moreno himself, was asleep. As Moreno's 4 a.m. deadline approached, they heard nothing. "We were waiting and waiting and thought, 'Wow, something's wrong,'" said the official. "Then we got the call." Assange had been dragged without incident from the embassy to face hacking charges in the U.S. FILE - In this Dec. 16, 2010, file photo, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen outside the High Court in central London. The arrest of Assange reignites a debate with no easy answer: Is the former computer hacker and founder of WikiLeaks a journalist or not? His lawyers are quick to characterize the case against him as a threat to all journalists. (Stefan Wermuth/Pool Photo, File) "We've ended the asylum of this spoiled brat," Moreno crowed later in the day Thursday in a fiery speech. The move to extract one of the world's most high-profile fugitives came about relatively quickly after years of what officials portrayed as obnoxious and ungracious behavior by their houseguest. Moreno, a 66-year-old who uses a wheelchair after being shot and paralyzed from the waist down in a 1998 robbery, is usually a jovial figure. But the still-under-investigation blackmail plot marked one more in a string of escalating personal attacks against him. Days before, Moreno had accused WikiLeaks of spreading damaging personal documents and photos, including several that showed him eating lobster in bed. "The president is a very calm person," said the senior official, who was involved in the raid's coordination. "But when he gets angry he can be very determined." Ecuador gave Assange asylum inside the embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over sex-crime accusations. On a summer day, Assange moved into the compound near London's upscale Harrods department store for what most thought would be a short stay. Instead, the cramped quarters, where a small office was converted into a bedroom, became a permanent address. Some regarded it as essentially a jail. Former President Rafael Correa, whose government granted Assange refuge, had been a fierce supporter of the silver-haired computer expert. Correa saw him as a digital-age Robin Hood taking on big government and corporations. But Assange got off to a bad start with Moreno after he won the presidency in 2017, angering the chief of state with comments on Twitter ridiculing a losing candidate who had threatened to expel him. Over the years, one high-ranking official said, Assange's room at the embassy had become a "sovereign territory within a sovereign territory" that none of the staff at No. 3 Hans Crescent could enter. Embassy staff complained he smelled bad from going weeks without a shower. He also played loud music at all hours, walked around in his underwear and verbally abused the staff, officials said. Feeding and sheltering him cost an estimated $1 million a year, authorities said. After making his decision Tuesday afternoon, Moreno ordered his top aides to coordinate with Britain's ambassador to Ecuador, Katherine Ward, to carry out a raid within 36 hours. While his British counterparts requested more time, Moreno insisted on executing Assange's expulsion swiftly. He didn't want word of the operation to leak or to rouse suspicions of U.S. involvement, the senior official said. Before dawn Thursday, a group of five close aides to Moreno gathered at a Quito home to await word. The appointed hour came and went without any news. Finally, shortly thereafter, Ecuador's ambassador to Britain, Jaime Marchan, called to say that Assange was in British custody. The aides quietly celebrated and then called to wake up the president. According to the official, the operation went off without a hitch. The Ecuadorian ambassador asked Assange to come to his office, and Assange was read a government statement announcing his expulsion. Unarmed British police officers then hauled the bearded and shouting Assange out of the embassy. At that point, WikiLeaks' editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson's cellphone rang. An aide to Assange who had witnessed the raid was calling to inform Hrafnsson. "It's horrible news," Hrafnsson said later. The only worry Ecuadorian officials had at the time of the raid was a vague threat by Assange several months earlier that he would activate a device that would cause major consequences to the embassy if they ever tried to expel him. It was never clear if the device, described as a button, was real and capable of actual physical damage, or simply metaphorical. British intelligence was made aware of the threat and made sure Assange wasn't allowed to return to his room once the raid began. In the U.S., the Justice Department promptly announced charges accusing Assange of conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack into a Pentagon computer. Assange's critics and authorities in Britain and the United States praised Moreno for a decision they said will ensure he is held accountable for both jumping bail in the sex-crime case and publishing a trove of confidential U.S. government documents. Others, including Moreno's one-time ally, Correa, assailed him, saying that even though Assange may have violated the terms of his asylum and was a costly burden, "that's no excuse for throwing him to the lions." Moreno stood firm. "From now on we'll be more careful in giving asylum to people who are really worth it," he said. "And not miserable hackers whose only goal is to destabilize governments." ___ Associated Press writer Gregory Katz in London contributed to this report. MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico's lower house of Congress has approved a labor law reform aimed at ensuring workers can freely vote for their union representation and contracts. The changes are needed to win approval of the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, which was negotiated to replace the old NAFTA accord. Mexico's labor movement has long been stymied, and wages kept low, by pro-government unions that sign contracts and organize plants behind workers' backs. The bill approved late Thursday now goes to the Senate. It requires secret-ballot union votes and proof of workers' consent for contracts. President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka tweeted Friday: "Mexican lawmakers passed a landmark labor reform bill clearing the way for the new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) to replace the job killing NAFTA." For decades, unions - many of whose leaders were members of the old ruling party - were so secretive that employees often didn't know that a union even existed at their workplace. Pro-company unions would sign labor contracts with companies before they even opened plants in Mexico. Labor Secretary Luisa Maria Alcalde said that with the new law, "we want to change the outmoded model we have had in this country." Since President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office on Dec. 1, there have been dozens of strikes in the northern border city of Matamoros, sparked in part by Lopez Obrador's decision to double the minimum wage in border areas. "The labor model has regained a place at center stage that it never should have lost," said Alcalde. Business groups did not get some of the safeguards they wanted in the law, like a 'right-to work' clause that would allow workers not to belong to any union. "There are still issues that should be corrected by the Senate," wrote the head of the Mexican employers' federation, Gustavo de Hoyos. WASHINGTON (AP) - National security adviser John Bolton said Friday that he will travel to Miami next week to outline steps the administration is taking to confront what he says are threats from the "troika of tyranny," Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. John Bolton said in a tweet that he is delivering a speech on Wednesday, the 58th anniversary of the United States' failed attempt to overthrow the Cuban government in the 1961 "Bay of Pigs" invasion. His speech will be at the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association, which endorsed Trump for president. Miami is home to thousands of exiles from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. In a speech there last year, Bolton discussed newly released sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba and promised additional penalties against Nicaragua as he laid out the administration's hardline policy toward the three countries. Bolton called them the "troika of tyranny" and said they represented destructive forces of "oppression, socialism and totalitarianism." Also on Wednesday, the administration is expected to announce its decision on whether to allow lawsuits against companies that profit from U.S.-linked properties confiscated after Cuba's 1959 socialist revolution. The Helms-Burton Act lets Americans use U.S. courts to sue non-American companies that use property that was seized after Fidel Castro's revolution. Every president has suspended the law since it was passed in 1996. But in a move against Cuba, the Trump administration announced last month that such suits could be filed. It was seen as a largely symbolic move. The announcement limited lawsuits to about 200 Cuban businesses and government agencies that are already subject to U.S. sanctions because of their ties to Cuban military and intelligence ministries. DETROIT (AP) - A 23-year-old sculptor is shaping the memory of a Detroit civil rights activist who was slain in Alabama during a 1965 voting rights march. Austen Brantley is preparing to unveil a statue of Viola Liuzzo this July, the Detroit Free Press reported. Brantley was commissioned by a nonprofit to memorialize the white activist for a northwest Detroit park that was renovated and dedicated in Liuzzo's name last year. Liuzzo, a 39-year-old mother of five, drove from Detroit to Alabama to join 25,000 others in support of a march led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. She was driving fellow activists between Montgomery and Selma when she was fatally shot by Ku Klux Klan members in another car. Liuzzo is known as the only white woman to have been killed in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Brantley, a black self-taught artist who was born in Detroit, only learned of Liuzzo's story when he started researching to create a proposal for the statue project. He said he found Liuzzo's moral compass captivating, weighing leaving her children against knowing the brutality marchers were suffering in the south. In this March 20, 2019 photo, Austen Brantley, 23, a self-taught clay sculptor, works in his studio in Royal Oak, Mich. Brantley was commissioned to make a statue of Detroit Civil Rights activist Viola Liuzzo for a park, he was captivated by her story. "I could never make a piece as beautiful as Viola," says Brantley. (Kimberly P. Mitchell/Detroit Free Press via AP) "I can never create something as beautiful as Viola," he said. "I can only try to make something that tells a story about her." Liuzzo's family said Brantley, who tackles race and identity issues in his artwork, understood the activist's complex legacy. Liuzzo's daughter, Mary Liuzzo Lilleboe, said she appreciates that Brantley recognizes the parallels between Liuzzo and Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old civil rights activist who was killed at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. Liuzzo's grandson, Josh Liuzzo, said he's excited that youth will be able to form a bond with his grandmother through Brantley's statue. "The story keeps getting further and further in the past, but yet it keeps becoming more relevant to today. Isn't that so interesting?" Liuzzo said. "The more that young people can understand my grandmother's story, the more inspired the next generation can become by someone who crossed all barriers of race." ___ Information from: Detroit Free Press, http://www.freep.com In this March 20, 2019 photo, Austen Brantley, 23, a self-taught clay sculptor, works in his studio in Royal Oak, Mich. Brantley was commissioned to make a statue of Detroit Civil Rights activist Viola Liuzzo for a park, he was captivated by her story. "I could never make a piece as beautiful as Viola," says Brantley. (Kimberly P. Mitchell/Detroit Free Press via AP) ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (AP) - The parents of a Missouri man with autism who was shocked several times with a Taser during a confrontation that began when he stopped to tie his shoe lost their lawsuit over how his arrest was conducted. A federal grand jury on Thursday did not award damages to Ernest and Ellas Kramer, who sued the city of Maryville and two police officers after their son, Christopher, was arrested in Maryville in 2016. They sought $2 million in damages for wrongful detention and excessive use of force. The Kramers' attorney, Arthur Benson, said he was considering filing a motion for a new trial, Kansas City radio station KCUR reported. In closing arguments Wednesday, Benson said police had no reason to detain Christopher, who was 18 at the time, even after he ran from them. "It's not criminal to go on someone's lawn, to be in someone's yard," Benson said. "There was no criminal activity whatsoever." The officers' attorney, David S. Baker, acknowledged Kramer ran and tried to avoid arrest because of his autism. "But it's also not the officers' fault because they didn't know about his disability," he said. The lawsuit alleged that Kramer was walking home from school when he stopped on the edge of Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper Jim David Farmer's yard to tie his shoelace. Farmer approached Kramer, who ran away. Farmer then called Maryville police because he said Kramer was walking toward his front door. Two officers arrived and began chasing Kramer. A third officer then arrived and tackled Kramer. Police body cam video introduced during the trial showed two officers ordering Kramer to stop resisting as he wailed and screamed that he wanted to go home. Kramer was shot with the Taser several times and one of the officers struck him with a baton as he continued to struggle and cry. A fourth officer arrived and stunned Kramer two more times before he was subdued and handcuffed. The lawsuit originally named all four officers, but the two officers who arrived on the scene later were dismissed from the case. U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. instructed the jury not to consider the parents' claims against the city of Maryville, but he did not explain why he did so. ___ Information from: KCUR-FM, http://www.kcur.org NEW YORK (AP) - The arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has made a book of interviews with Gore Vidal an unexpected best-seller. Assange was carrying a copy of "Gore Vidal: History of the National Security State & Vidal on America" when he was arrested Thursday at the Ecuadoran embassy in London. By Friday afternoon, the 2014 publication was No. 35 on Amazon.com. "Gore Vidal" features conservations between the author-playwright and Paul Jay, founder of The Real News Network, a nonprofit with a stated mission of "independent, verifiable, fact-based journalism." Vidal, who died in 2012 at age 86, had a longtime aversion to U.S. military force and surveillance. Assange hadn't left the embassy since 2012 for fear of arrest and extradition to the U.S. for publishing thousands of classified military and diplomatic cables. WASHINGTON (AP) - The international community is providing a $31.5 million grant to help Colombia accommodate Venezuelan migrants and refugees as well as the communities that host them. The funds provided by the Global Concessional Financing Facility - a platform launched in 2016 by the World Bank, the United Nations and the Islamic Development Bank- will be part of a $750 million development policy operation being prepared by the World Bank to support Colombia. The World Bank said in a press release that the annual cost of hosting more than 1.2 million migrants and refugees from Venezuela is currently estimated at around 0.4% of Colombia's economic output. The announcement came during the spring meeting held this week by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of the House oversight committee said Friday he intends to subpoena President Donald Trump's accountant for his financial records. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., told committee members in a letter that Mazars USA wouldn't turn over records for Trump, his company and related entities without a subpoena. Cummings said he expected to issue the subpoena Monday for statements of financial condition, independent auditor's reports, annual statements and other documents spanning from 2011 to 2018. Mazars said it "will respect the legal process and fully comply with its legal obligations." The firm said it does not comment to the media about its work for clients. A message seeking comment was left with Trump's company, the Trump Organization. Cummings' announcement that he intends to subpoena Trump's financial records came two days after the Treasury Department missed a deadline to deliver Trump's tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee chairman. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told that committee's chairman, Richard Neal, D-Mass., in a letter Wednesday that the department hasn't decided whether to comply. Neal asked for Trump's returns a week ago. Cummings said his request was prompted by ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's testimony in February that Trump overstated his wealth before becoming president. Cohen gave the committee copies of financial statements that he says Trump provided to Deutsche Bank during a 2014 attempt to buy the Buffalo Bills. The documents showed Trump's net worth soared from $4.55 billion in 2012 to $8.66 billion in 2013 because of the addition of a line item for $4 billion worth of "brand value"- essentially the value Trump placed on his name. The oversight committee sent a letter to Mazars on March 20 requesting information on how those financial statements and other disclosure documents were prepared. Mazars responded March 27 that it could not provide the records without a Congressional subpoena. The same day, the committee's top Republican sent a letter to Mazars claiming that Cummings' request exceeded the committee's legislative authority. The request "does not appear to have a valid legislative purpose and instead seems to seek information to embarrass a private individual," Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote. Cummings criticized Jordan in his letter Friday, calling his actions "troubling" and saying that they worked to undermine the committee's authority and impair its investigations. Jordan shot back in a statement, saying Cummings could've held a vote on the subpoena this week but instead waited until committee members left Washington for the Easter break to seek their input. He called the move to subpoena financial records from Trump's accountant "an astonishing abuse" of the committee's authority and a "disgraceful departure" from fair and legitimate oversight. MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's anti-terrorism agency says two supporters of the Islamic State group have been killed in a shootout with security forces in the Siberian city of Tyumen. In a statement reported by Russian news agencies, the National Anti-terrorism Committee said officers of the Federal Security Service on Friday received information about two armed people in a private residence who were planning a terrorist attack. The suspects refused orders to surrender, began shooting at the officers and were killed in the return fire, the committee said. Tyumen is about 1700 kilometers (1100 miles) east of Moscow. BEIRUT (AP) - It's Arab Spring, season II, and he's one of the few holdovers. The last man standing among a crop of Arab autocrats, after a new wave of protests forced the removal of the Algerian and Sudanese leaders from the posts they held for decades. Syria's President Bashar Assad has survived an uprising, a years-long ruinous war and an Islamic "caliphate" established over parts of his broken country. As the Syrian conflict enters its ninth year, the 53-year-old leader appears more secure and confident than at any time since the revolt against his rule began in 2011. But the war for Syria is not over yet, and the path ahead is strewn with difficulties. The back-to-back ouster of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika after two decades of rule and Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir after three, has been dubbed a "second Arab Spring," after the 2011 wave of protests that shook the Middle East and deposed longtime dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Social media has been filled with pictures of leaders at past Arab summits, noting almost all of them were now deposed except for Assad. Some pointed out ironically that al-Bashir's last trip outside of Sudan in December was to Damascus, where he met with the Syrian leader. In most countries of the Arab Spring, the faces of the old order were removed, but either the ruling elite that had been behind them stayed in place or chaos ensued. FILE - In this file photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA on Dec. 16, 2018, Syrian President Bashar Assad, right, meets with Sudan's President Omar Bashir in Damascus, Syria. Assad is the last man standing among a crop of Arab dictators after the fall of the Sudanese and Algerian leaders. He's survived an 8-year war to topple him and an Islamic caliphate over part of his broken country. But Bashar Assad's path is strewn with difficulties and the war for Syria is far from over. (SANA via AP, File) In Syria, Assad and his inner circle have kept their lock on power and managed to survive eight bloody years of chaos. That resilience may keep him in power for years to come even with a multitude of challenges, including a rapidly degenerating economy and a persisting insurgency in the northwest. ___ WHAT IS ASSAD'S STAYING POWER? Assad has survived through a mix of factors unique to him. His is a minority rule, and he has benefited from a strong support base and the unwavering loyalty of his Alawite sect, which fears for its future should he be deposed. That support stretched beyond his base to other minority sects in Syria and some middle- and upper-class Sunnis who regard his family rule as a bulwark of stability in the face of Islamic radicals. Despite significant defections early in the conflict, the security services and military have not shown significant cracks. Loyal militias grew and became a power of their own. Even as vast parts of his country fell from his control or turned into killing fields, Assad kept his core regime in place. Perhaps Assad's largest asset is Syria's position as a geographic linchpin on the Mediterranean and in the heart of the Arab world. That attracted foreign intervention, particularly from Russia and Iran, whose crucial political and military assistance propped up Assad and turned the tide of the war in his favor. The unwavering backing from powerful friends is in sharp contrast to the muddled response by the U.S. administration, and something none of the other Arab leaders benefited from in their own struggle against their opponents. Is he completely out of the woods? For now, Assad appears to be secure. With the help of Russia and Iran, he has restored control over key parts of the country, and the world appears to have accepted his continued rule, at least until presidential elections scheduled for 2021. Gulf countries reopened embassies after years of boycott. Delegations from Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan have visited in recent months, discussing restarting trade, resuming commercial agreements and releasing prisoners. Although the Arab League said it was not yet time to restore Syria's membership to the 22-member organization, the issue was discussed at their annual summit for the first time since the country was deprived of its seat eight years ago. Much of what happens next depends on Assad's ability to keep a lid on rising discontent as living standards deteriorate, and whether he is able to preserve Russia and Iran's support. ___ AN ECONOMY IN SHAMBLES After years of war and ever-tightening U.S. sanctions, Syria's economic pinch is becoming more painful. The government's coffers are reeling from lack of resources, and the U.N. estimates that eight out 10 people live below poverty line. Gas and fuel shortages were rampant in Damascus, Latakia and Aleppo this winter. Social media groups held competitions over which city had the longest lines at gas stations, forcing the issue to be debated in parliament. This week, the government imposed gas rationing, limiting motorists to 20 liters every 48 hours. The crisis was worsened when reports spread about an impending price hike, prompting lines of hundreds of cars to stretch for miles outside gas stations. Oil Minister Ali Ghanem denied plans for a hike, warning of a "war of rumors that is more severe than the political war." The government's inability to cope with rising needs has fueled criticism and anger even among its support base. Still, it's unlikely the discontent will set off another wave of protests. Most Syrians by now will put up with anything to avoid another slide back to violence. Still, the United Nations describes the level of need in the country as "staggering," with 11.7 million Syrians requiring assistance, nearly 65 percent of the estimated 18 million people who remain in the country, millions of whom are displaced from their homes. Another more than 5 million fled abroad during the war. ___ GOING FULL CIRCLE? Demonstrations reminiscent of the early years of the conflict have resurfaced. In Daraa, where the revolt started, hundreds took to the streets recently, offended by the government's plan to erect a statue of the president's father, the late Hafez Assad. Further protests took place in some former opposition areas recaptured by the government after authorities moved to enforce military conscription there despite promises to hold off. Arrests and detentions continue to be reported in recaptured areas, fueling fear that so-called reconciliation deals between authorities and residents of former opposition areas are only facades for continued repression and exclusion. In eastern Ghouta, which the government recaptured last year after a siege, the government has been arresting former protest leaders and anti-government groups despite reconciliation deals, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Militarily, the defeat of the Islamic State group's "caliphate" last month closed one brutal chapter of the war but opens the door to an array of potential other conflicts. The militant group's defeat sets the stage for President Donald Trump to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from northern Syria, a drawdown that's expected to set off a race to fill the vacuum. The focus also pivots to Idlib, the last remaining rebel bastion in Syria where an estimated 3 million people live, under control of al-Qaida-linked militants. FILE - In this Saturday, March 29, 2008 file photo, Front, from left, Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, Syrian President Bashar Assad, Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, stand during the opening session of the Arab Summit in Damascus, Syria. Assad is the last man standing among a crop of Arab dictators after the fall of the Sudanese and Algerian leaders. He's survived an 8-year war to topple him and an Islamic caliphate over part of his broken country. But Bashar Assad's path is strewn with difficulties and the war for Syria is far from over. (AP Photo/Adel Hana, File) FILE - In this March 29, 2008, file photo, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, left, speaks with Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, center, and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, right, during the opening session of the Arab Summit in Damascus, Syria. Assad is the last man standing among a crop of Arab dictators after the fall of the Sudanese and Algerian leaders. He's survived an 8-year war to topple him and an Islamic caliphate over part of his broken country. But Bashar Assad's path is strewn with difficulties and the war for Syria is far from over. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File) FILE - In this May 17, 2018, file photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, shakes hands with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during their meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia. Assad is the last man standing among a crop of Arab dictators after the fall of the Sudanese and Algerian leaders. He's survived an 8-year war to topple him and an Islamic caliphate over part of his broken country. But Bashar Assad's path is strewn with difficulties and the war for Syria is far from over. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File) In this February 25, 2019 file photo, picture released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, welcomes Syrian President Bashar Assad in Tehran, Iran. Assad is the last man standing among a crop of Arab dictators after the fall of the Sudanese and Algerian leaders. He's survived an 8-year war to topple him and an Islamic caliphate over part of his broken country. But Bashar Assad's path is strewn with difficulties and the war for Syria is far from over. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP, File) CHICAGO (AP) - Democratic lawmakers in Illinois want to expand a statewide embargo on private prisons to include detention centers with federal contracts to hold immigrants facing deportation. The proposed measure comes in response to a vote by community leaders that approved a plan for a privately run immigration detention center in the village of Dwight, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) southwest of Chicago. The Illinois House passed the proposed revision to the Private Correctional Facility Moratorium Act Wednesday, the Chicago Tribune reported. The act would forbid local government from contracting with a private provider for "community correctional supervision." U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is accepting bids for contracts to run detention facilities that can hold 1,000 immigrants within 80 miles (130 kilometers) of Chicago. State Rep. Kelly Cassidy, of Chicago, filed the bill in February. Cassidy said she hopes it will halt the Dwight plan because "profiting off putting people in cages is morally bankrupt and not something that the state of Illinois should be supporting." The measure also aims to prevent similar facilities from being built elsewhere, said Celina Villanueva, co-sponsor of the bill. "My concern isn't just Dwight. My concern is the entire state of Illinois," Villanueva said. Jared Anderson, the Dwight village board president, said officials are watching the progress of the bill and trying to figure out what it would mean for the contract the village has already entered into with Immigration Centers of America, the Virginia-based company behind the immigration detention center plan. "We are not going to make a comment on anything until the state does what it wants to do," Anderson noted. John Truscott, a spokesman for Immigration Centers of American, said the company is moving ahead with efforts to secure a federal contract to operate in Illinois, and that the language of the bill will determine whether it can build the Dwight facility. "We will continue making progress until it's just not feasible or we don't get awarded the facility on the federal level," Truscott said. An ICE official declined to comment. ___ Information from: Chicago Tribune, http://www.chicagotribune.com DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Iowa Democratic Rep. Dave Loebsack announced Friday he won't seek re-election when his current term ends, a move that likely will lead to a wide-open race in a district both parties see as winnable. Loebsack was elected seven times to represent southeast Iowa's 2nd Congressional District, but Republican Donald Trump won the district in 2016. Given Iowa's nonpartisan process for drawing congressional district lines, Loebsack's decision means the race to replace him likely will be competitive. Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 20,000 in the district, but Trump carried the district by four percentage points. Republicans believe they have a real shot at capturing the seat as they try to retake the House majority in next year's elections. Chris Pack, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the GOP's campaign arm, said Loebsack's decision means the district "immediately becomes a top tier pickup opportunity for Republicans in 2020." Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois, who leads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and whose district borders Loebsacks', said Democrats will mount "an aggressive effort" to protect the party's House majority. Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price said the announcement caught him by surprise. "Obviously, we're absorbing this information and this news just like everyone else but I'll say that we're going to keep that district blue in 2020," Price said. FILE - In this April 26, 2018 file photo, Rep. David Loebsack, D-Iowa, speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Loebsack announced Friday, April 12, 2019 he won't seek re-election when his current term ends. Loebsack was elected seven times to represent southeast Iowa's 2nd Congressional District. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais File) Loebsack was first elected in 2006, when he beat 15-term Republican Jim Leach in a race still recalled for its civility. "I have enjoyed beyond my expectations serving the people of Iowa's Second District for the past 13 years," Loebsack said. "Having grown up in poverty, I never would have imagined having the honor of serving as the voice of Iowans in the U.S. House of Representatives." The district includes 24 counties stretching from central Iowa to the Mississippi River. Major cities include Burlington, Davenport and Iowa City. Before being elected to Congress, Loebsack was a political science professor at Cornell College in Mount Vernon. Loebsack, 66, said he intended to serve no more than 12 years but decided to seek re-election after Donald Trump was elected president. "After Donald Trump assumed the presidency, it became apparent that I needed to run for at least one more term in the hopes that I could provide a check on his worst impulses," Loebsack said. Since his first election, Loebsack has had a reputation as a low-key member of Congress who typically would easily win re-election but was little known outside his district. He focused on improving the rural economy, health care and veterans, and for many years he sought federal funding to assist in recovery efforts after flooding devastated parts of his district in 2008. Minutes after Loebsack announced his decision, Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley tweeted about Loebsack's decision, saying he "has represented the 2nd district of Iowa well in Congress by working hard & keeping in touch back home. I consider him a friend & wish him well." Former Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett said vigilance during the region's recovery after historic floods in 2008 is among Loebsack's most lasting legacies. "Dave and his staff were outstanding in trying to help out in Cedar Rapids, but also Iowa City, which were heavily damaged in 2008," said Corbett, a Republican. Loebsack's district included Cedar Rapids and Iowa City from 2007 through 2011. But Cedar Rapids was moved into Iowa's 1st District in redistricting after the 2010 Census. ___ Associated Press writers Thomas Beaumont and David Pitt contributed to this story from Des Moines, and writer Alan Fram contributed from Washington. NEW YORK (AP) - Fisher-Price recalled nearly 5 million infant sleepers on Friday after more than 30 babies died in them over a 10-year period. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said anyone who bought a Fisher-Price Rock 'n Play sleeper should stop using it right away and contact Fisher-Price for a refund or voucher. The sleepers, which are used to put babies to sleep, are soft padded cradles that vibrate. Fisher-Price and the CPSC said the deaths occurred after infants rolled over from their backs to their stomachs or sides while unrestrained, but did not specify how they died. In an article this week, Consumer Reports found that some of the infants died from suffocation. A safety warning was issued last week, but The American Academy of Pediatrics urged Fisher-Price and the CPSC to recall the sleepers, calling them "deadly." In a statement Friday, Fisher-Price said that it stood by the safety of its products and said it issued the voluntary recall "due to reported incidents in which the product was used contrary to the safety warnings and instructions." The recall covers about 4.7 million sleepers, which sold for between $40 and $149 since 2009. NEW HOPE, Pa. (AP) - A Pennsylvania police officer who mistakenly pulled his weapon rather than his stun gun won't face charges for shooting a man in police custody. Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub says last month's shooting was an accident. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports the officer, who retired Wednesday and whose name was not released, shot 38-year-old Brian Riling during a scuffle inside a holding cell at the New Hope Police Department on March 3. Weintraub says as the officer struggled with Riling, he yelled "Taser!" as a warning, but mistakenly drew his gun and shot him in the stomach. Riling was in critical condition but has been released from the hospital. Riling was in police custody after an arrest earlier that day on intimidation charges. His attorney Richard Fink says he has no comment. ___ Information from: The Philadelphia Inquirer, http://www.inquirer.com POINT COMFORT, Texas (AP) - A Texas court has dismissed a local newspaper's lawsuit claiming a state port authority broke a public meetings law when it hired a former congressman who left the House of Representatives last year amid sexual harassment allegations. An appeals court ruled Thursday that the Victoria Advocate's suit against the Calhoun Port Authority was rendered moot when Blake Farenthold quit his lucrative lobbying job with the port in January. The paper claimed the port authority did not give proper public notice of the Republican politician's hiring. An attorney for the Victoria paper, John Griffin, says it views Farenthold's resignation from lobbying as a win, but would have liked the court to address the alleged open meetings violation. The port authority's director and lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) - A Montana judge sentenced a man and a woman Friday to life in prison after they pleaded guilty to stabbing two people to death, including a teenager, and trying to dissolve their bodies in tubs filled with chemicals. District Judge James Wheelis gave both Augustus Standingrock and Tiffanie Pierce life terms with the possibility of parole for the 2017 deaths of Jackson Wiles, 24, and Marilyn Pickett, 15. The sentences are in line with the recommendations prosecutors made in plea agreements. Standingrock pleaded guilty to deliberate homicide and accountability to deliberate homicide, while Pierce pleaded guilty to attempted deliberate homicide and accountability to deliberate homicide. Pierce's plea to attempted deliberate homicide was from a separate attack in which she entered a Missoula home and stabbed a woman eight times, injuring her. Pierce wept and Standingrock sat silently as relatives and friends of Wiles and Pickett testified for about 90 minutes about the pain they suffered after the killings, Missoula news station KGVO-AM reported . Pierce's former roommate told police he was awakened by a woman's screams in their Missoula home in August 2017, according to court records. He said he found Pierce and Standingrock in the bathroom washing off blood and that Pierce told him there was a dead woman in the basement. FILE - In this Oct. 4, 2017, file photo, Augustus Standingrock appears in Missoula District Court in Missoula, Mont. Standingrock and Tiffanie Pierce were sentenced to life in prison on Friday, April 12, 2019, after pleading guilty to stabbing two people to death and trying to dissolve their bodies in chemical-filled tubs. (Tom Bauer/The Missoulian via AP, File) Police found Wiles' and Pickett's bodies dismembered and partially dissolved in the basement. Prosecutors previously said Standingrock believed Wiles had sexually abused a young girl close to him. Given the chance to speak in court, Standingrock said: "I apologize. There's nothing I can say or do to bring anything back," he said. The roommate told investigators that Pierce said Standingrock brought over a couple of people and that he took them to the basement and attacked one while Pierce attacked the other. Pierce said she never intended to cause anyone's death. "Especially someone so young and beautiful and with as much potential as Marilyn," she said. "There is not a day that goes by that I don't wish I could trade places with her." ___ Information from: KGVO-AM, http://www.kgvo1290.com PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - A former state senator has been sentenced to two years in federal prison on bank fraud and tax charges. Rhode Island's U.S. Attorney, Aaron Weisman, says 47-year-old James Doyle, of Pawtucket, was sentenced Friday. Weisman says Doyle engaged in a $74 million dollar check-kiting scheme in which he wrote tens of thousands of worthless checks and failed to report more than $1 million dollars in income and pay taxes. Doyle was charged with 31 counts of bank fraud, one court of filing a false tax return and one count of failing to file a tax return. Prosecutors say he wrote checks from a bank account despite not having sufficient funds, deposited them in other banks and withdrew the funds. The Democrat resigned from the Senate last year, citing struggles with alcohol. NEW YORK (AP) - A second federal judge has blocked the Department of Homeland Security from forcing tens of thousands of Haitians to return to their native country. U.S. District Judge William F. Kuntz in New York issued a nationwide injunction Thursday preventing the department from terminating Temporary Protected Status for Haitians. Kuntz ruled on a lawsuit filed by Haitians in Florida and New York that challenged the Trump administration's decision to end the status granted to Haiti after its 2010 earthquake. The trial in federal court in Brooklyn stemmed from one of seven lawsuits filed by immigrants and advocates over the 2017 move to end the program. The program has allowed about 300,000 people from Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Sudan and other countries to stay in the U.S. for years following natural disasters or violence in their home countries. In October, a California judge hearing another of the lawsuits temporarily blocked the changes covering people from those four countries, forcing the administration to maintain their protected status for now. But the Brooklyn case, which covered only Haitians, was the first time the administration's move to end the program had been put on trial. Kuntz said the plaintiffs offered persuasive evidence that the policy change was motivated by "a discriminatory purpose of removing non-white immigrants to the country." His 145-page ruling cited evidence that officials from Homeland Security and other federal agencies "reverse engineered the TPS review process to achieve the desired political outcome: the termination of Haiti's TPS." A spokesperson for Homeland Security said in an email the department is "complying with intervening orders" but additional change is needed. "What is often not reported is that the Trump Administration has forcefully advocated for Congressional action to provide legal status for long-standing TPS beneficiaries in good standing: a change to the law is needed, not judicial intervention," the spokesperson. The government is expected to appeal the ruling. In response to the ruling in California, the Justice Department denied the administration had done anything improper and said the ruling "usurps the role of the executive branch." An attorney for the plaintiffs, Per Sejal Zota of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, said the ruling "vindicates the brave struggle of Haitian TPS holders who challenged Trump, because the law was on their side." CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - An ace Swedish programmer who was an early, ardent supporter of WikiLeaks has been arrested in Ecuador in an alleged plot to blackmail the country's president over his abandonment of Julian Assange. But friends of Ola Bini say the soft-spoken encryption expert is being unfairly targeted for his activism on behalf of digital privacy. On Saturday, prosecutors said they intend to charge Bini for hacking-related crimes and had him ordered detained for up to 90 days while they compile evidence. The 36-year-old was arrested Thursday at the airport in the Ecuadorian capital of Quito as he prepared to board a flight to Japan. The arrest came just hours after Assange was evicted from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Bini was carrying at least 30 electronic storage devices. His lawyers said they have not been notified whether he's been charged. Authorities said the plot hatched with two unidentified Russian hackers living in Ecuador involved threatening to release compromising documents about President Lenin Moreno as he toughened his stance against the WikiLeaks founder. "It's up to the justice system to determine if he committed a crime," Interior Minister Maria Paula Romo said Friday. "But we can't allow Ecuador to become a center for piracy and spying. That period in our history is over." This Friday, April 12, 2019 handout photo provided by the State Attorney General's Office, shows items confiscated from the Ecuadorian residence of Swedish programmer Ola Bini, who was arrested Thursday, April 11, 2019, at the airport in Quito, Ecuador, while preparing to board a flight to Japan. (State Attorney General's Office via AP) Romo said Bini had traveled at least 12 times to meet with Assange at the London embassy. She said he was also in Venezuela earlier this year around the same time as a close aide to Moreno's ex-mentor turned arch enemy, Rafael Correa. The former president granted Assange asylum in 2012 and has been leading a campaign cheered on by WikiLeaks to expose alleged corruption by Moreno that has included the release of damaging personal documents and photos, including several that showed him eating lobster in bed. While the extent of Bini's relationship with Assange is unclear, the Swede has defended the WikiLeaks founder's free speech rights in an online blog he's kept over the years. "Any official who has called for Assange to be treated as a terrorist or enemy combatant should be seriously considering stepping down from office," he wrote in December 2010. In the same blog, Bini condemned Amazon for knocking WikiLeaks off its hosting services and credit card companies and PayPal for refusing to process payments to the secret-spilling site. He also described working on a January 2011 panel about WikiLeaks put on by his then-employer, global software firm Thoughtworks, and including Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame. An expert on secure communications, Bini arrived in Quito in 2013 after being transferred from Chicago to the Ecuador office of Thoughtworks, which has guiding principles that stress social activism. Around the same time, he started to rethink his online habits and at one point gave up his Gmail account in favor of self-hosted email. "I am not a huge fan of having all my electronic life hosted under the auspices of U.S. legislation, especially not in light of recent events," he wrote in a 2013 post. Friends and loved ones describe Bini as a computer geek who felt most at ease solving complex programming problem for days at a time. At the time of his arrest, he was traveling to Japan, his former wife Malin Sandell told The Associated Press, for two weeks of jujitsu training - one of the few hobbies he indulged in outside of his all-consuming work as a code developer. His Ecuadorian girlfriend said that she did not recall Bini ever expressing strong support for Assange despite the fact that the WikiLeaks founder has deep ties in Sweden and would have been an obvious topic of conversation in the small Ecuadorian programming circles. "Ola is not a hacker, if by that you mean a criminal, but he is someone trying to understand how computers work and protect people's privacy," Sofia Ramos said in an interview from Brussels. Ramos worked with Bini on a project at the Center for Digital Autonomy for creating a more secure instant-messaging encryption protocol. In its statement Friday, the center said Computerworld had ranked him in 2010 as Sweden's No. 6 developer. The center is a small nonprofit incorporated in Ecuador and Spain dedicated to private, secure and anonymous communication. Its website says it has contributed to well-known projects including Enigmail and the Tor privacy browser. In the hours before he went to the airport Thursday, Bini sent a tweet warning of a "witch hunt" by Ecuadorian authorities mopping up after Assange's forced departure from the embassy. Now his friends say that prophecy appears to have been true. "I didn't realize that knowing somebody is a crime," said Vijay Prashad, who runs a Marxist publishing house in India and last saw Bini a few months ago in Sao Paulo, Brazil. "He's the last person who would ever be involved in an attempt to overthrow a government." ___ Associated Press writers Raphael Satter in London and Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Ecuador, contributed to this report. ___ Follow Goodman on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APjoshgoodman . Follow Bajak at https://twitter.com/fbajak ___ Follow AP's coverage of the arrest of WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange here: https://www.apnews.com/WikiLeaks This frame grab image made from APTN footage provided by Teleamazonas, shows a tweet by Swedish software developer Ola Bini, who was arrested preparing to board a flight to Japan, in Quito, Ecuador, Thursday, April 11, 2019. (APTN via AP) Ecuador's President Lenin Moreno speaks during the inauguration of the "Agua Para Todos" or "Water for Everyone" government program, in Latacunga, Ecuador, Thursday, April 11, 2019. Moreno said in a video posted on Twitter Thursday that he revoked the political asylum for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange due to "repeated violations to international conventions and daily-life protocols." (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa) Ecuador's President Lenin Moreno rests his face in his hands during the inauguration of the "Agua Para Todos" or "Water for Everyone" government program, in Latacunga, Ecuador, Thursday, April 11, 2019. Moreno said in a video posted on Twitter Thursday that he revoked the political asylum for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange due to "repeated violations to international conventions and daily-life protocols." (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa) FILE - In this Dec. 16, 2010, file photo, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen outside the High Court in central London. The arrest of Assange reignites a debate with no easy answer: Is the former computer hacker and founder of WikiLeaks a journalist or not? His lawyers are quick to characterize the case against him as a threat to all journalists. (Stefan Wermuth/Pool Photo, File) This Friday, April 12, 2019 handout photo provided by the State Attorney General's Office, shows police entering the apartment building where Swedish programmer Ola Bini was residing in Quito, Ecuador. The 36-year-old Swedish programmer was arrested Thursday in an alleged plot to blackmail the country's president over his abandonment of Julian Assange. (State Attorney General's Office via AP) Ola Bini's lawyer Carlos Soria, right center, arrives to the Flagrant Crimes Unit where his Swedish client is being held in Quito, Ecuador, Friday, April 12, 2019. The 36-year-old Swedish programmer was arrested Thursday in an alleged plot to blackmail the country's president over his abandonment of Julian Assange. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa) A cordon of police stand guard outside the Flagrant Crimes Unit where Swedish citizen Ola Bini is being held in Quito, Ecuador, Friday, April 12, 2019. The 36-year-old Swedish programmer was arrested Thursday in an alleged plot to blackmail the country's president over his abandonment of Julian Assange. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa) WASHINGTON (AP) - The decision to seek the extradition of Julian Assange marked a dramatic new approach to the founder of WikiLeaks by the U.S. government, a shift that was signaled in the early days of the Trump administration. President Barack Obama's Justice Department had extensive internal debates about whether to charge Assange amid concerns the case might not hold up in court and would be viewed as an attack on journalism by an administration already taking heat for leak prosecutions. But senior Trump administration officials seemed to make clear early on that they held a different view, dialing up the rhetoric on the anti-secrecy organization shortly after it made damaging disclosures about the CIA's cyberespionage tools. "WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service," former CIA Director Mike Pompeo said in April 2017 in his first public speech as head of the agency. "Assange and his ilk," Pompeo said, seek "personal self-aggrandizement through the destruction of Western values." A week after the CIA director's speech, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the arrest of Assange was a priority, part of a broader Justice Department crackdown on leakers. FILE - In this Feb. 24, 2011, file photo, the founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange speaks to the media after his extradition hearing at Belmarsh Magistrates' Court in London. The arrest of Assange reignites a debate with no easy answer: Is the former computer hacker and founder of WikiLeaks a journalist or not? His lawyers are quick to characterize the case against him as a threat to all journalists. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File) "We've already begun to step up our efforts, and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail," he said. Pompeo, now secretary of state, declined Friday to discuss the issue, citing the now-active legal pursuit of Assange following his removal a day earlier by British authorities from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. The administration won't say why they decided now to charge Assange with a single count of computer intrusion conspiracy that dates to 2010. Back then, WikiLeaks is alleged to have helped Chelsea Manning, then a U.S. Army intelligence analyst, crack a password that gave her higher-level access to classified computer networks. Nor will they say whether the Obama administration had the same evidence that forms the basis of the indictment, or whether Assange will face additional counts if he is extradited to the United States. But a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal and legal matters, traced the genesis of the indictment to what's known as the "Vault 7 leak" in 2017, when WikiLeaks released thousands of pages of documents revealing details about CIA tools for breaking into targeted computers, cellphones and consumer electronics. A former CIA software engineer was charged with violating the Espionage Act by providing the information to WikiLeaks and is to go on trial later this year in New York. And the leak was a tipping point in deciding to pursue Assange, the official said. "Vault 7 was the nail in the coffin, so to speak," the official said. It ended years of ambivalence about what to do about Assange, who was hailed by many when WikiLeaks published hundreds of thousands of State Department cables and U.S. military documents, including many that revealed previously unknown facts about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the detainees held at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Even today, Assange and WikiLeaks have supporters around the world, amid a debate over whether the dissemination of raw, unfiltered documents and data counts as journalism. Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst behind the famed leak of the secret history of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers, called the charging of Assange an "ominous" effort to criminalize a necessary component of journalism. "The charges are based on facts that were known throughout the Obama administration, which chose not to indict because of the obvious challenge to the First Amendment that would involve," Ellsberg said in an Associated Press interview. A former Justice Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions, said there was an extensive debate within the government over the feasibility of charging Assange with the publication of stolen, classified materials. But prosecutors grew concerned that such a case would not hold up in court. Even though officials did not agree with Assange's self-characterization as a journalist, the former official said, there was concern that it would be hard to justify charging him with actions that more conventional journalists take. The former official said the department at the time was more amenable to bringing a case like the one ultimately brought - a narrower prosecution centered on a hacking conspiracy. It focuses on an entirely different violation that may obviate any First Amendment or press freedom concern. "This is just charging a journalist with conspiracy to hack into computer systems, which is no different than breaking into a building or breaking into a classified safe," said Mary McCord, a senior Justice Department national security official in the Obama administration. "And that's not First Amendment protected activity." That is a widely held view in government, even among people generally sympathetic to the mission of the media. "This was deliberate and malicious effort to cause harm to us, to U.S. national security interests, and I think it would be good if there is some accountability at last," said David Pearce, who was U.S. ambassador to Algeria in 2010 when WikiLeaks released hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables. "So far there hasn't been any accountability for Mr. Assange." _____ Associated Press writers Susannah George, Matthew Lee and Ned Barker contributed to this report. MADISON, Wis. (AP) - A federal investigation into alleged civil rights violations at Wisconsin's troubled youth prison has ended without charges, prosecutors announced Friday. The U.S. attorney's office in Madison said an investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division found insufficient evidence that staff members at Lincoln Hills School had used unreasonable force against inmates repeatedly. The attorney's office said in a statement that prosecutors faced a heavy burden in proving that staff members willfully used more force than necessary. "Federal prosecutors must not only prove that the force was excessive, but must also prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the staff member acted with the deliberate and specific intent to do something the law forbids," the statement said. "In this instance, there was insufficient evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt a violation of the federal criminal civil rights statutes." Problems at the youth prison outside Irma in northern Wisconsin have been building for years. Workers say conditions got worse in 2011 when two juvenile prisons near Milwaukee closed and teens were consolidated at the facility. The FBI launched the probe in 2015. The prison also has been the subject of multiple lawsuits, including one that resulted in a federal judge ordering sweeping reductions in the use of pepper spray, solitary confinement and shackles on juveniles. Valerie Landowski, a spokeswoman for American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 6, which represents guards at the prison, said the union is satisfied with the a decision not to prosecute anyone. She said conditions at the prison have been deteriorating because former Gov.-Scott Walker's signature law stripping public workers of their collective bargaining rights has prevented the guards from negotiating to improve morale and safety, leaving them overworked. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers tells reporters that the Republican Senate leader is "huffing and puffing" for saying confirmation of Evers' Cabinet secretaries is in jeopardy because of an ongoing legal fight over a lame-duck legislative session on Tuesday, April 9, 2019, in Madison, Wisconsin. (AP Photo/Scott Bauer) "Whether or not they're exonerated in this particular case, we'll let the investigation speak for itself," Landowski said. Walker signed a bill last year that requires the Department of Corrections to close the prison by 2021 and allows the agency to borrow up to $40 million to build smaller regional facilities to house serious juvenile offenders and expand the Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center in Dane County. Current Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has said the closure timeline is too aggressive. He wants to keep the prison open indefinitely until replacement facilities are built. The corrections department announced last month that it plans to build two new facilities in Milwaukee and Outagamie counties to house serious juvenile offenders. Republican state Rep. Michael Schraa, chairman of the Assembly's corrections committee and one of the bill's chief sponsors, said he was pleased to hear the federal investigation had ended without turning up enough evidence to prosecute anyone. "It was a black cloud hanging over the (Department of Corrections) for a long time," he said. "When we visited the (youth prison) two years ago, that was one of the things they said, they felt like they were walking on eggshells. They didn't know when the hammer was going to fall. Now that it is concluded and there's no indication excessive force was used, I think the anxiety level for the (guards) will go down. That makes a better environment." Sen. Lena Taylor, a Milwaukee Democrat who sits on the Senate judiciary committee, said in a statement that she doesn't have "a ton of confidence" in the information provided to investigators. "We know that something was very wrong at Lincoln Hills," she said. "There are lawsuits, injured youth and records of excessive use of pepper spray and solitary confinement to support that belief." Evers' spokeswoman, Melissa Baldauff, issued a statement saying the governor looks forward to working to get juvenile inmates the support they need in settings closer to home. Cass Bowers, the communications director for the Wisconsin chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit resulting in the reduction in the use of pepper spray and solitary confinement. He said in an email that the investigation doesn't affect their case but a decision not to file charges "doesn't amount to an endorsement of the practices that allegedly took place back before 2015." ___ Follow Todd Richmond on Twitter at https://Twitter.com/trichmond1 MADISON, Wis. (AP) - The Latest on Sen. Bernie Sanders rally in Wisconsin (all times local): 5:45 p.m. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is telling Wisconsin voters he will build a coalition in the Midwest that will defeat President Donald Trump. Sanders spoke in Madison as he kicked off a swing through pivotal states that are part of the Democratic "blue wall" strategy for 2020. Sanders spoke to a crowd of about 2,400 who braved 40-degree (4 Celsiu) temperatures with a stiff 20 mph (32 kph) wind. He is visiting Midwest states Trump narrowly won and Sanders says "Together, we are going to make sure that does not happen again." His weekend swing is taking him to Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. FILE - In this Monday, April 8, 2019 file photo, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks at a convention of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, in Las Vegas. Sanders is heading back to the friendly turf of Wisconsin for a rally that kicks off a swing through states that are key to the Democratic "blue wall" strategy for 2020. Sanders' event Friday, April 12, in Madison will be followed by weekend stops in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/John Locher, File) Sanders spoke in a city park along the shores of a lake, just a few blocks away from the state Capitol. Those in the crowd wore ski masks, winter coats, gloves and scarves as they cheered Sanders. ___ 12:01 a.m. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is heading back to the friendly turf of Wisconsin for a rally that kicks off a swing through states that are key to the Democratic "blue wall" strategy for 2020. Sanders' event Friday in Madison will be followed by weekend stops in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Trump also knows the Midwest is vital to his re-election bid. He will campaign Monday in Minnesota, a state he lost by less than 2 percentage points in 2015. However, Democrats feel like the momentum is on their side in the Midwest. Sanders supporter and Milwaukee labor organizer Peter Rickman says the senator from Vermont is the best chance Democrats have to defeat Trump. SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A Northern California man has been sentenced to 90 days in jail after pleading guilty to killing more than 150 protected birds and other wildlife. State prosecutors said Friday that 68-year-old Richard Parker also agreed to pay $75,000 in fines after pleading guilty to crimes related to poaching. Wildlife officers began investigating Parker last March after receiving a tip by someone who saw a man kill a hawk near the town of Standish, 135 miles northeast of Sacramento. When they searched Parker's property, officers found 159 dead animals, most of them red-tailed hawks but also two bobcats and a mountain lion. OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - The Nebraska Republican Party wants a Jesuit college in Omaha to rescind its invitation asking former U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey to speak at its commencement, citing his position in favor of the right to abortion. The state party's executive director, Ryan Hamilton, released a statement Thursday saying Creighton University should find a different commencement speaker and "take a stand for their pro-life values." The university declined to comment. "Creighton is a Jesuit institution formally affiliated with the Catholic Church, one of the country's most consistent and reliable advocates for pro-life causes," Hamilton said. "Nebraska is a pro-life state and Republicans are a pro-life party." He said Kerrey voted against banning late-term abortions while in the Senate, calling him a "pro-abortion advocate." Kerrey, who also formerly served as Nebraska's governor, said he supports Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. FILE - In this March 8, 2012 file photo, Nebraska Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, Bob Kerrey speaks in Omaha, Neb. The Nebraska Republican Party says a Jesuit college in Omaha should rescind its invitation asking former Sen. Kerrey to speak at its commencement, citing his position on abortion. The state party's executive director, Ryan Hamilton, released a statement Thursday, April 11, 2019, saying that Creighton University should find a different commencement speaker and "take a stand for their pro-life values."(AP Photo/Nati Harnik,File) "That doesn't make you pro-abortion," he said. "That makes you pro-civil rights." Kerrey said he won't speak at the May 18 commencement if his presence would be a distraction. "I don't want this to be about me," Kerrey said. "It's about the students." Nebraska Democratic Party Chairwoman Jane Kleeb accused Republicans of demanding protection for freedom of speech on college campuses while pressuring a private university to cancel Kerrey's speech "because they do not agree with Sen. Kerrey's words." Kleeb also questioned the GOP attack on Kerrey, a Vietnam veteran who lost part of a leg in combat and was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism during his service. "Sen. Kerrey put his life on the line to defend our American values," Kleeb said. KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - A University of Missouri-Kansas City student is facing charges after he sprayed a substance toward conservative political commentator Michael Knowles during an anti-transgender speech. Knowles was giving a speech titled "Men are Not Women" on the Missouri-Kansas City campus Thursday when protesters disrupted the event. Authorities said that during the disruption, student Gerard Dabu used a water gun to spray a substance at Knowles, who was not injured. Police tackled and subdued Dabu with a stun gun near the stage. Chancellor Mauli Agrawal said in a letter to the campus Friday that police reacted that way because they didn't know if the substance was dangerous. Tests later determined it was lavender oil and other non-toxic household liquids. Dabu was charged Friday in municipal court in Kansas City with assault and other violations. Knowles is a conservative contributor to The Daily Wire and published a book titled "Reasons to Vote For Democrats" with blank pages. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A Tennessee man who has been called a hero for his intervention in a Waffle House shooting has been honored again. The U.S. Justice Department says in a news release that James Shaw Jr. received the Special Courage Award at the National Crime Victims' Service Awards in Washington on Friday. Shaw was dining at a Waffle House in Nashville on April 22, 2018, when a gunman wearing only a jacket opened fire outside with an AR-15 rifle before storming the restaurant. Four people were killed. Shaw and three others were injured. Shaw has been hailed as a hero for wrestling the rifle away and throwing it over a counter. He was honored at a Nashville Predators game, spoke with President Donald Trump, and was praised by Vice President Mike Pence. SAN DIEGO (AP) - The Latest on a court ruling that would have prevented the Trump administration from returning asylum seekers to Mexico to await court hearings (all times local): 4:45 p.m. A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked a judge's order that would have stopped the Trump administration from returning asylum seekers to Mexico. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary stay Friday. A three-judge panel set a Tuesday deadline for civil liberties groups to submit arguments why the order blocking the Trump administration should take effect. It set a Wednesday deadline for the government to argue why the policy should remain in place. Judge Richard Seeborg ruled Monday in favor of civil liberties groups who want to halt the practice while their lawsuit moves forward challenging the policy. His order had been set to take effect Friday afternoon. A girl from the Mexican state of Guerrero passes rows of tents as her family waits at a shelter of mostly Mexican and Central American migrants to begin the process of applying for asylum Friday, April 12, 2019, in Tijuana, Mexico. The Trump administration is asking an appeals court to let it continue returning asylum seekers to Mexico hours before a U.S. judge's order was set to go into effect Friday afternoon reversing the unprecedented change to the U.S. asylum process. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) Seeborg said the policy violates U.S. law by failing to evaluate dangers migrants face in Mexico. The government says Seeborg's order is erroneous and endangers the public during a humanitarian crisis at the border. ___ 10:54 a.m. The Trump administration is asking an appeals court to let it continue returning asylum seekers to Mexico to await court hearings while it challenges a San Francisco judge's order that would block the policy. The government requested a stay with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to prevent the lower court order from taking effect Friday afternoon. Judge Richard Seeborg ruled Monday in favor of civil liberties groups to halt the practice while their lawsuit moves forward challenging the policy. His order will take effect at 5 p.m. Friday unless a stay is issued. Seeborg said the policy violates U.S. law by failing to adequately evaluate dangers migrants face in Mexico. The government says Seeborg's order is erroneous and endangers the public during a humanitarian crisis at the border. A woman from Guatemala, who did not give her name, waits at a shelter of mostly Mexican and Central American migrants to begin the process of applying for asylum Friday, April 12, 2019, in Tijuana, Mexico. The Trump administration is asking an appeals court to let it continue returning asylum seekers to Mexico hours before a U.S. judge's order was set to go into effect Friday afternoon reversing the unprecedented change to the U.S. asylum process. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - A Mississippi man has pleaded guilty to a charge involving the burning of a cross near the homes of African American residents. The U.S. Department of Justice, in a news release Friday, said 37-year-old Louie Bernard Revette entered the plea to one count each of interference with housing rights, a federal civil rights violation, and using fire during the commission of a federal felony. Revette acknowledged recruiting someone to help him build a cross to burn near the home of a juvenile victim in a predominantly black area of Seminary, Mississippi. He also admitted building the cross to threaten, frighten and intimidate the residents because of their race. Revette faces up to 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine on the two charges. Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 20. SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) - A barred owl caught a lucky break when a snorkeler banded with wildlife officials to rescue the bird from a fishing line tangled in trees above the James River in Missouri. Bill Hulsebus was visiting the Springfield Conservation Nature Center last week when he came across the injured owl, dangling by its right wing more than 20 feet (6 meters) above the river. Hulsebus told the Springfield News-Leader that firefighters attempted to release the owl from the line, but their equipment couldn't reach the bird. He said conservation officials had fastened a tree trimmer to a long pole and were considering anchoring someone in a canoe to get closer to the bird when a snorkeler nearby realized he could help. "Out of nowhere, Jonathan Knapp shows up with a wetsuit," Hulsebus said. Knapp, who often snorkels in the Ozarks waters, waded into the cold river and used the pole to cut the line, freeing the owl on his second try. "The owl miraculously landed right in his hand," Huslebus said of Knapp's rescue. In this April 6, 2019 photo provided by Bill Hulsebus a barred owl is seen caught in fishing line in a tree at the Springfield Conservation Nature Center in Springfield, Mo. The owl caught a lucky break when a snorkeler banded with wildlife officials to rescue the bird from the fishing line tangled in trees above the James River. (Bill Hulsebus via AP) "The owl was upside down but kind of flapped its wings on the way down," Knapp said. "Both feet landed on one hand. I couldn't believe it!" Volunteers then took the owl to Dickerson Park Zoo's Raptor Rehabilitation Center, where the bird was given a feather transplant to repair its damaged wing. "The owl will have a few days to rest and let glue set. After that, it will go into the flight cage and be monitored to see how it is flying," said Joey Powell, a zoo spokesman. "It should be released in about a week and a half if all goes as expected." ___ Information from: Springfield News-Leader, http://www.news-leader.com In this April 6, 2019 photo provided by Bill Hulsebus, a snorkeler, Jonathan Knapp hands over a barred owl that was caught in fishing line in a tree at the Springfield Conservation Nature Center in Springfield, Mo. The owl caught a lucky break when a Knapp banded with wildlife officials to rescue the bird from the fishing line tangled in trees above the James River. (Bill Hulsebus via AP) MONROEVILLE, Pa. (AP) - Authorities said a fight between two groups at a Pennsylvania mall led to a shooting outside the building and an evacuation. The Pittsburg Post-Gazette reported Monroeville police said the brawl Friday between two groups of four to five males began about 8 p.m. for some unknown reason. The fight spilled outside the mall through a Macy's department store entrance. Police said one of the males pulled out a gun and fired about 10 shots. There were no reports of injuries and no arrests have been made. The mall was placed on lockdown and was later evacuated. The mall is about 17 miles (27.36 kilometers) east of Pittsburg. The lockdown was lifted about 9 p.m. Responding to a call of shots fired, a Monroeville Police officer patrols the Monroeville Mall, Friday, April 12, 2019, in Monroeville, Pa. (Alexandra Wimley/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP) Authorities found bullet holes in the glass doors of a Macy's entrance and evidence markers were placed in a roped off area outside the department store. Monroeville Mall officials tweeted that they were aware of the incident and police cleared "the mall out of an abundance of caution." PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he is open to a third summit with President Donald Trump, but set the year's end as a deadline for Washington to offer mutually acceptable terms for an agreement to salvage the high-stakes nuclear diplomacy, the North's state-run media said Saturday. Kim made the comments during a speech Friday at a session of North Korea's rubber stamp parliament, which made a slew of personnel changes that bolstered his diplomatic lineup amid stalemated negotiations with the United States. His speech came hours after Trump and visiting South Korean President Moon Jae-in met in Washington and agreed on the importance of nuclear talks with North Korea. "We of course place importance on resolving problems through dialogue and negotiations. But U.S.-style dialogue of unilaterally pushing its demands doesn't fit us, and we have no interest in it," Kim said during the speech. According to the Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, Kim blamed the collapse of his summit with Trump in February on what he described as unilateral demands by the United States, which he said raised questions over whether Washington has genuine willingness to improve relations. But Kim said his personal relationship with Trump remains good and that they could exchange letters at "any time." Trump responded to the remarks by saying he agreed with Kim about their relationship, and also expressed a desire for another summit. "I agree with Kim Jong Un of North Korea that our personal relationship remains very good, perhaps the term excellent would be even more accurate, and that a third Summit would be good in that we fully understand where we each stand," Trump wrote on Twitter. In this image made from a video taken on Friday, April 12, 2019, by North Korean broadcaster KRT, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivers his speech at parliament in Pyongyang, North Korea. Kim said he is open to a third summit with President Donald Trump, but set the year's end as a deadline for Washington to offer mutually acceptable terms for an agreement to salvage the high-stakes nuclear diplomacy, the state-run media said Saturday. (KRT via AP) "North Korea has tremendous potential for ... extraordinary growth, economic success and riches under the leadership of Chairman Kim. I look forward to the day, which could be soon, when Nuclear Weapons and Sanctions can be removed, and then watching North Korea become one of the most successful nations of the World!" he tweeted. In his speech, Kim repeated earlier claims that North Korea's crippled economy would persevere through heavy international sanctions imposed over its nuclear weapons program and that he wouldn't "obsess over summitry with the United States out of thirst for sanctions relief." The United States has said the summit in Vietnam broke down because of the North's excessive demands for sanctions relief in return for limited disarmament measures. In their first summit last June in Singapore, Trump and Kim issued a vague statement calling for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without describing when or how it would occur. Kim said the United States has been refusing to withdraw what the North perceives as "hostile policies" while sticking to "mistaken judgment that we would succumb to maximum pressure." He said the North would not compromise on the "fundamental interests of our country and people, even by a speck," and blamed the United States for arriving in Hanoi with "completely unrealizable plans." "If the United States approaches us with the right manner and offers to hold a third North Korea-U.S. leaders' summit on the condition of finding solutions we could mutually accept, then we do have a willingness to give it one more try," Kim added. "We will wait with patience until the end of the year for the United States to come up with a courageous decision. But it will clearly be difficult for a good opportunity like last time to come up." Kim also during the speech made a nationalistic call for South Korea to support the North's positions more strongly and criticized Seoul for acting like an "overstepping mediator" between Washington and Pyongyang. Kim held three summits last year with Moon, who lobbied hard to revive the nuclear talks between the United States and North Korea. Following the collapse of the Trump-Kim summit, the North had been urging the South to break away from Washington and proceed with inter-Korean economic projects that are currently held back by U.S.-led sanctions against the North. "The South should not act as an 'overstepping mediator' or a 'facilitator' and should rather get its mind straight as a member of the (Korean) nation and boldly speak up for the interest of the nation," Kim said. When asked about Kim's comments, South Korea's presidential office said Seoul is committed toward keeping the atmosphere of dialogue alive and helping negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang resume at an early date. On Friday, KCNA reported that Kim was reelected as chairman of the State Affairs Commission, the nation's most important decision-making body, during a session of the Supreme People's Assembly that praised his "outstanding ideological and theoretical wisdom and experienced and seasoned leadership." Experts say the new appointments may be a sign of Kim's desire to keep recent months of up-and-down nuclear diplomacy alive rather than returning to the threats and weapons tests that characterized 2017, when many feared war on the Korean Peninsula. But the lack of substantial disarmament commitments from the North and the deepening impasse in nuclear negotiations have fueled doubts over whether Kim would ever voluntarily relinquish an arsenal he may see as his strongest guarantee of survival. Some experts say it's becoming clear the North intends to turn the talks with the United States into a bilateral arms reduction negotiation between two nuclear states, rather than a unilateral process of surrendering its arsenal. Kim has signed vague statements calling for the "complete denuclearization" of the peninsula in his meetings with Trump and Moon. But North Korea for decades has been pushing a concept of denuclearization that bears no resemblance to the American definition, with Pyongyang vowing to pursue nuclear development until the United States removes its troops and the nuclear umbrella defending South Korea and Japan. ___ Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report. In this image made from a video taken on Friday, April 12, 2019, by North Korean broadcaster KRT, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un clap hands as he stands to deliver his speech at parliament in Pyongyang, North Korea. Kim said he is open to a third summit with President Donald Trump, but set the year's end as a deadline for Washington to offer mutually acceptable terms for an agreement to salvage the high-stakes nuclear diplomacy, the state-run media said Saturday. (KRT via AP) In this image made from a video taken on Friday, April 12, 2019, by North Korean broadcaster KRT, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gestures to applauding audience after his speech at parliament in Pyongyang, North Korea. Kim said he is open to a third summit with President Donald Trump, but set the year's end as a deadline for Washington to offer mutually acceptable terms for an agreement to salvage the high-stakes nuclear diplomacy, the state-run media said Saturday. (KRT via AP) In this image made from a video taken on Friday, April 12, 2019, by North Korean broadcaster KRT, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivers his speech at parliament in Pyongyang, North Korea. Kim said he is open to a third summit with President Donald Trump, but set the year's end as a deadline for Washington to offer mutually acceptable terms for an agreement to salvage the high-stakes nuclear diplomacy, the state-run media said Saturday. (KRT via AP) In this Friday, April 12, 2019, photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, front center, poses with the newly-elected members of the leadership bodies of the Workers' Party of Korea and state in Pyongyang, North Korea. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: "KCNA" which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP) In this Friday, April 12, 2019, photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivers his speech during a parliament session in Pyongyang. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: "KCNA" which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP) People watch a TV news program reporting about North Korea with the footage of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, April 13, 2019. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he is open to a third summit with President Donald Trump, but set the year's end as a deadline for Washington to offer mutually acceptable terms for an agreement to salvage the high-stakes nuclear diplomacy, the state-run media said Saturday. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man) People watch a TV news program reporting about North Korea with file footage of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, April 13, 2019. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he is open to a third summit with President Donald Trump, but set the year's end as a deadline for Washington to offer mutually acceptable terms for an agreement to salvage the high-stakes nuclear diplomacy, the state-run media said Saturday. The letters read at the top, "Good relationship with Trump." (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man) FILE - In this Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019, file photo, President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un take a walk after their first meeting at the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi hotel, in Hanoi. Kim says he's open to having a third summit with Trump if the United States could offer mutually-acceptable terms for an agreement by the end of the year. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File) DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - An Israeli airstrike on a military position in central Syria early Saturday wounded six soldiers and destroyed several buildings, Syria's state news agency SANA reported. SANA quoted an unnamed military official as saying the airstrike near the town of Masyaf, in Hama province, hit a military academy widely known as the Accounting School. It said Israeli warplanes fired missiles toward Syria from Lebanon's airspace and that Syrian air defenses shot down some of the missiles. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Israeli airstrikes hit three targets, wounding 17 Syrian soldiers. It said there were also deaths, but it was not immediately clear how many were killed and whether they were Iranians or Iran-sponsored fighters. It said the strikes targeted the Accounting School as well as a missile development center in a village near Masyaf and a nearby military base run by Iran-backed fighters. The Israeli military declined to comment. Israel does not usually comment on reports concerning its airstrikes in neighboring Syria, though it has recently acknowledged striking Iranian targets there. The last such strikes that Israel announced were in late March. Iran is a close ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad and has sent military advisers, as well as thousands of fighters from across the region, to help his forces in the eight-year conflict. Israel considers Iran its biggest threat and has said it will not tolerate an Iranian military presence on its borders. The most serious wave of airstrikes on Syria this year occurred in January, when the Israeli military hit several Iranian targets, saying it was responding to an Iranian missile attack a day earlier. The Iranian launch followed a rare Israeli daylight air raid near the Damascus International Airport. ___ Mroue reported from Beirut. KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The Taliban launched a new assault early Saturday on the northern city of Kunduz, which briefly fell to the insurgents in 2015 and has come under attack several times since then. Mohammad Yusouf Ayubi, head of the provincial council in Kunduz, said at least six people were killed and more than 50 were wounded as the insurgents attacked from multiple directions just after midnight. He said hundreds of people fled their homes as the sound of gunfire and explosions echoed from the city's outskirts. The northern city lies at a strategic crossroads in the heart of a major agricultural region, with easy access to much of northern Afghanistan as well as the capital, Kabul. The Taliban seized Kunduz for around two weeks in 2015 before withdrawing in the face of a NATO-backed Afghan offensive. The insurgents pushed into the city center a year later, briefly raising their flag before gradually being pushed out. The insurgents effectively control nearly half of Afghanistan and have continued to launch daily attacks on security forces despite holding several rounds of peace talks with the United States in recent months. The Taliban declared the start of their annual spring offensive on Friday, but the announcement has little meaning as the insurgents have managed to keep up a steady tempo of attacks even during the harsh winter months in recent years. In the western Ghor province, the Taliban ambushed a police convoy on Friday afternoon, killing seven security forces and igniting a battle that raged for several hours, said Abdul Hai Khateby, the governor's spokesman. Among those killed was Faqir Ahmad Noori, the head of operations for the provincial police. Another two police and a civilian were wounded, Khateby said. Injured men receive treatment at a hospital, after a clash between Taliban and security forces in Kunduz province north of Afghanistan, Saturday, April 13, 2019. An Afghan official says the Taliban fighters have launch attacks on Afghan security forces in northern Kunduz city, killing six people and so far more than 50 others were wounded. (AP Photo/Bashir Khan Safi) In the northern Baghlan province, the Taliban killed seven police and wounded eight in an attack on checkpoints late Friday, said Safder Mohsini, head of the provincial council. The insurgents also attacked a district headquarters in the eastern Nangarhar province late Friday, killing two police, said Attahullah Khogyani, the governor's spokesman. Nangarhar Gov. Shahmahmood Miakhel said Afghan forces repelled the attack after reinforcements arrived. NEW DELHI (AP) - The British envoy to India said Saturday that his country regrets a massacre of hundreds of Indians by British colonial forces in the northwest city of Amritsar 100 years ago and "will continue to do so." He spoke at a memorial marking the centenary of the attack at Jallianwala Bagh by British colonial troops against unarmed Indians attending a peaceful rally calling for independence. More than 300 Indians were killed and 1,200 injured during the massacre, which galvanized the national independence movement. "The revulsion that we felt at the time is still strong today," British High Commissioner Dominic Asquith said as he paid tribute at the Jallianwala Bagh memorial in Amritsar. "I would just ask you to respect what I came here to do, which was to commemorate those who died 100 years ago, to express the sorrow of the British government and of the British people," Asquith said. "But I would repeat what I said; both governments are committed to building a very strong relationship." British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday called the killings a "shameful scar" in British-Indian history but stopped short of formally apologizing. British High Commissioner to India Dominic Asquith, second left, pays homage to commemorate century of the Jallianwala Bagh incident, in Amritsar, India, Saturday, April 13, 2019. On April 13, 1919, hundreds were killed and more than 1,200 injured after British troops led by Reginald Dyer opened fire on a peaceful gathering at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar. (AP Photo/Prabhjot Gill) VALLETTA, Malta (AP) - Ending another European standoff over immigration, Malta on Saturday announced a deal to distribute 64 migrants rescued at sea off Libya 10 days ago among four European Union nations. The migrants, who will be distributed among Germany, France, Portugal and Luxembourg, were transferred to Maltese army boats from the ship that saved them and were brought into Valletta's port on Saturday afternoon. However, Malta said the German-flagged aid ship carrying them, the Alan Kurdi, would still not be allowed to enter its ports and none of the migrants will remain permanently in Malta. "Once again, the smallest member of the European Union was put under unnecessary pressure being asked to resolve a case which was neither its responsibility nor its remit," the government said. "A solution was found in order not to let the situation deteriorate further while making it clear Malta cannot keep shouldering this burden." Malta has argued it cannot open its ports to humanitarian rescue ships because their activities off the coast of lawless Libya have encouraged human traffickers. The German aid group Sea-Eye, which had rescued the 64 migrants, had complained for days about worsening conditions on the Alan Kurdi, which was not designed to handle so many people. Two migrants were evacuated due to health issues. Migrants disembark after being transferred to Maltese army boats at sea and brought to Valletta harbor, Malta, Saturday, April 13, 2019. Malta has announced a deal that see four European Union nations taking in the 64 migrants rescued at sea off Libya 10 days ago. Malta announced Saturday that the migrants will be distributed among Germany, France, Portugal and Luxembourg. (AP Photo/Jonathan Borg) Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who has repeatedly rejected calls to let the ship enter Italian ports, hailed the deal. "Excellent news!" he tweeted after the deal was announced. He praised Malta for "doing the right thing by denouncing the dangerous and undue pressures exerted by the NGOs." Salvini, leader of Italy's far-right League party, is sticking to a hard-line approach to migration, insisting that Italian ports should be closed to migrants rescued by aid groups in the Mediterranean Sea in a bid to force other EU states to take them in. The 64 migrants were originally rescued off the Libyan coast, so Italy and Malta claimed that Libya should have taken them in. However, parts of Libya have seen escalating fighting in the last week as one military faction seeks to take over the capital of Tripoli. A total of 356 people have died or gone missing while crossing the Mediterranean to Europe this year, according to the International Organization for Migration. Migrants on a rubber dinghy are approached by Sea-Watch rescue ship's staffers in the waters off Libya Wednesday, April 3, 2019. The German humanitarian group Sea-Watch says the ship it operates in the central Mediterranean Sea has rescued 64 migrants in waters off Libya. Sea-Watch wrote Wednesday on Twitter that the people brought to safety from a rubber dinghy included 10 women, five children and a newborn baby. The group said it carried out the rescue off the coast of Zuwarah after Libyan authorities couldn't be reached. Sea-Watch is asking Italy or Malta to open a port to the rescue ship, the Alan Kurdi. (Fabian Heinz/Sea-eye.org via AP) A man is carried on the dock of the Sea-Watch rescue ship in the waters off Libya Wednesday, April 3, 2019. The German humanitarian group Sea-Watch says the ship it operates in the central Mediterranean Sea has rescued 64 migrants in waters off Libya. Sea-Watch wrote Wednesday on Twitter that the people brought to safety from a rubber dinghy included 10 women, five children and a newborn baby. The group said it carried out the rescue off the coast of Zuwarah after Libyan authorities couldn't be reached. Sea-Watch is asking Italy or Malta to open a port to the rescue ship, the Alan Kurdi. (Fabian Heinz/Sea-eye.org via AP) HELSINKI (AP) - Finns will be voting Sunday to fill the country's 200-seat Eduskunta parliament after a campaign that saw debates over the country's generous welfare model, its rapidly aging population and how far to go to fight climate change. Here's a look at the key issues and the main players in the election: JUST THE FACTS Some 4.5 million people are eligible to vote in Sunday's parliamentary election in Finland and will be choosing between 19 political parties and movements. Early voting is popular. Over 1.5 million people, or 36% of eligible voters, have already cast their ballots in advance. The results of that early vote will be published as soon the polls have closed Sunday at 1700 GMT (1 p.m. EDT), and fuller preliminary results are expected a few hours later. ___ Different parties campaigning for parliamentary elections on the Narinkkatori Square in Helsinki, Finland, on Friday, April 12, 2019. The election day of the Finnish parliamentary elections is on Sunday, April 14, 2019. (Markku Ulander/Lehtikuva via AP) CLIMATE CHANGE TENSIONS Tackling climate change is a priority in a Nordic country that has one-third of its territory above the Arctic Circle, but there are clear tensions over what path to choose. Finland is boosting its nuclear energy production by launching a new plant next year and lawmakers last month voted to completely phase out burning coal by 2029. Many parties back actions to fight global warming, include boosting the number of electric vehicles, cutting meat consumption through taxes or switching to more vegetarian food in public places like schools. The populist Finns Party, however, has broadened its support by appealing to those who reject such sacrifices in the name of climate change. ___ QUALITY OF LIFE AND OTHER ELECTION TOPICS Finnish voters have also been debating how best to preserve the country's health and social system, which for years has topped global quality-of-life and happiness rankings and created a world-renowned education system. There are some divisions over proposed reforms, which are getting more urgent since the country's population of 5.5 million is rapidly aging. One plan aims to improve efficiency and reduce public spending by offering Finnish municipalities more freedom to choose between public and private providers for social needs and health care. ___ FINLAND'S MAIN CONTENDERS Finland's center-left Social Democratic Party tops a recent poll with 19% support, according to a poll this week commissioned by Finnish public broadcaster YLE. The party would still need to find coalition partners if it ended up trying to form the next government. Led by Antti Rinne, a former finance minister, the Social Democrats plan to raise taxes and increase spending to preserve a welfare system that is under huge strain. The party has also vowed to continue the country's pro-European Union stance. Other key parties include the populist Finns Party led by Jussi Halla-aho, which is focusing on voters angry at urban global elites, and the National Coalition Party led by Petteri Orpo. Those parties took second and third places in the poll with 16.3% and 15.9% support, respectively. They are trailed by the Center Party and the Greens, who have strong urban support and back moves to fight climate change. Finland's outgoing center-right coalition government, led by Prime Minister Juha Sipila of the Center Party, pushed through an austerity package that has helped Finland return to growth after a three-year recession. ___ FINLAND'S OTHER BIG POLITICAL JOB Finland will take over the rotating six-month presidency of the European Union on July 1. JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Tens of thousands of Indonesians flocked to presidential campaign rallies Saturday ahead of a final debate between the two candidates, four days before the country heads to the polls. Supporters of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo filled a stadium in central Jakarta, while the vice presidential running mate of challenger Prabowo Subianto held a rally in a satellite city. Speaking to a crowd of more than 100,000, Widodo emphasized the importance of his big ticket infrastructure policy and education for the country's future development. He said pluralism is non-negotiable in Muslim-majority Indonesia, addressing supporters' fears about the aims of a conservative Islamic movement that backs Subianto. "People in a developing nation must be optimistic because we still have big jobs to do and face big challenges," Widodo said. Widodo and Subianto appeared in the final of five televised debates between the presidential and vice presidential candidates on Saturday evening. Indonesian women cheer during the campaign rally of Indonesian President Joko Widodo at Gelora Bung Karno Stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia, Saturday, April 13, 2019. Indonesians flocked to presidential campaign rallies ahead of a final debate between incumbent Joko Widodo and his challenger former special forces general Prabowo Subianto. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara) About 193 million Indonesians are eligible to vote Wednesday in presidential and legislative elections. Widodo, who narrowly defeated Subianto in the 2014 election, is Indonesia's first president from outside the Jakarta elite. Subianto is an establishment figure from a wealthy family who was a special forces general during the Suharto dictatorship that ended amid social and economic chaos in 1998. Subianto's running mate, Sandiaga Uno, told a crowd of thousands in Tangerang that a government led by them would focus on ensuring Indonesians had good jobs and a lower cost of living. "We will be able to unite the country and make this country very strong," said Uno, a businessman who has spent more than $100 million on the campaign. Subianto supporter Akhirudin Konsi said he wants a "president who will fight for our rights and stand behind people, who will lower prices, especially education, fuel and basic needs." Polls show Widodo has maintained a big lead over Subianto for months, but some analysts say the race is tighter than it appears. Businessman Sahala Panjaitan said he and four family members came to Jakarta for Widodo's rally from Pontianak in West Kalimantan province on the island of Borneo. "We came from across the island because we want to show that Jokowi's support was far greater," Panjaitan said. "He is the nation's best son." The image of Indonesian President Joko Widodo is projected on a large screens as he delivers a speech during a campaign rally at Gelora Bung Karno Stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia, Saturday, April 13, 2019. Indonesians flocked to presidential campaign rallies ahead of a final debate between incumbent Joko Widodo and his challenger former special forces general Prabowo Subianto. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara) Indonesian President Joko Widodo delivers a speech during his campaign rally at Gelora Bung Karno Stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia, Saturday, April 13, 2019. Tens of thousands Indonesians flocked to presidential campaign rallies ahead of a final debate between incumbent Joko Widodo and his challenger former special forces general Prabowo Subianto. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara) Indonesian electoral volunteers prepare ballot boxes to be distributed to polling stations in Bali, Indonesia, Saturday, April 13, 2019. The world's third-largest democracy is gearing up to hold its legislative and presidential elections on April 17. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati) Indonesian electoral workers prepare ballot boxes to be distributed to polling stations in Bali, Indonesia, Saturday, April 13, 2019. The world's third-largest democracy is gearing up to hold its legislative and presidential elections on April 17. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati) JUBA, South Sudan (AP) - Seated in a stifling hallway in South Sudan's main hospital, the midwife recounted the day she watched a young mother bleed to death after giving birth. "She died while holding my hand," said Aber Evaline, hanging her head. Her patient was one of more than 40 women who died in Juba's Teaching Hospital in 2016 in a country with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. For every 100,000 live births in South Sudan an estimated 789 mothers die, according to 2015 statistics from the United Nations and the World Bank. Recently, however, despite a civil war that killed almost 400,000 people, South Sudan's maternal health has shown improvement. By last year deaths in Juba's Teaching Hospital, regarded as the best in the country, had dropped to 21, said Evaline, one of four midwives there. The decline is attributed to a concerted effort by South Sudan's government and partners that began before the civil war erupted in 2013. It has dramatically increased the number of trained midwives from less than 10 when the program started seven years ago to more than 700 today. The project provides scholarships, training and other support for clinics and schools across the country of some 12 million people. The initiative has made "sexual and reproductive health and rights closer to reality for the women of South Sudan," Mary Otieno, the United Nations Population Fund's country chief, told The Associated Press. The effects are seen outside the capital as well. For three consecutive years clinics serving the displaced persons' site in Mingkaman registered zero maternal deaths, while the clinic in the U.N.'s civilian protection site in Wau has had zero deaths since it opened in 2016, the U.N. fund said. In this photo taken Monday, March 11, 2019, Aber Evaline, left, and another midwife, right, hold up a woman in labor and help her walk through the halls of the Juba Teaching Hospital, in the capital Juba, South Sudan. The country has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world but recently, despite a civil war that killed almost 400,000 people, maternal health has shown improvement after a concerted effort by the government and partners to dramatically increase the number of trained midwives. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick) Immense challenges remain. While 15% of the government's budget is meant to be allocated for overall health care, less than 2% is being received, said Felix Lado Johnson, the minister of health for the capital, Juba. The government estimates that it needs 10 times the number of trained midwives across the country to further reduce the number of deaths. Trained midwives rarely find government jobs, however, leading many to work with international aid groups. State-run hospitals need the midwives' expertise but often cannot pay them. Zeitun Abdallah, head midwife at Juba's Teaching Hospital, said she has not been paid since November. Compounding the problem is the health care system itself, which already was weak before the civil war. About 40% of health care facilities remain functional, according to the U.N., and the clinics that do work are poorly equipped. Juba's Teaching Hospital has 13 beds in its delivery ward yet about 25 women give birth there daily, according to staff. Mothers and newborns who are meant to be monitored for 24 to 48 hours after birth are discharged after two hours due to a lack of space, staffers said. At least five babies have died in the past three years from being sent home before they were well enough to leave, according to the hospital's midwives. Electricity at the hospital is limited. When the AP visited earlier this month, it had not had power in a week due to broken generators and not enough money to fuel the ones that worked. The only ward with consistent power is the one for premature babies, where solar panels provide electricity for the machines that supply oxygen. The United Nations Population Fund has appealed for more than $18 million for South Sudan, estimating that 42,000 pregnant women will endure complications during childbirth this year. As South Sudan faces the next phase of a fragile peace deal signed in September, female leaders are calling for women's health to be a central issue for the country. "In this day and age, for you to be producing babies to die and for mothers to die in birth, it's not acceptable," Angelina Teny, wife of opposition leader and incoming vice president Riek Machar, told the AP. It is detrimental not only to the women but to the nation, she said. Cradling her 3-day-old baby girl, Sonia Joyce said she kept her midwife close when giving birth in Juba's Teaching Hospital last month because she was scared she might die. She named her daughter, born two months early, Tabu, which means "tired" in Arabic. "I named her that because she disturbed me a lot," she said but looked lovingly at the child in her arms. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa In this photo taken Monday, March 11, 2019, a pregnant woman lies on a bed in the maternity ward of the Juba Teaching Hospital, in the capital Juba, South Sudan. The country has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world but recently, despite a civil war that killed almost 400,000 people, maternal health has shown improvement after a concerted effort by the government and partners to dramatically increase the number of trained midwives. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick) In this photo taken Monday, March 11, 2019, Sonia Joyce cradles her 3-day-old baby girl Tabu, who was born two months premature, in the Juba Teaching Hospital, in the capital Juba, South Sudan. The country has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world but recently, despite a civil war that killed almost 400,000 people, maternal health has shown improvement after a concerted effort by the government and partners to dramatically increase the number of trained midwives. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick) In this photo taken Monday, March 11, 2019, midwife Aber Evaline smiles as she stands beside newborn babies in the ward for premature babies at the Juba Teaching Hospital, in the capital Juba, South Sudan. The country has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world but recently, despite a civil war that killed almost 400,000 people, maternal health has shown improvement after a concerted effort by the government and partners to dramatically increase the number of trained midwives. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick) In this photo taken Monday, March 11, 2019, a newborn yawns in his crib in the ward for premature babies at the Juba Teaching Hospital, in the capital Juba, South Sudan. The country has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world but recently, despite a civil war that killed almost 400,000 people, maternal health has shown improvement after a concerted effort by the government and partners to dramatically increase the number of trained midwives. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick) BANGKOK (AP) - Three American volunteers for a U.S.-based Christian evangelical organization have been detained in the Southeast Asian nation of Laos, the group said. Vision Beyond Borders, based in Casper, Wyoming, said in a statement late Friday that the three, whom it identified only by the names Wayne, Autumn and Joseph, were detained by police while visiting villages in the northwestern province of Luang Namtha. Eric Blievernicht, the missionary group's operations manager, said in an email Saturday that the three carried Gospel tracts and MP3 players with Scripture and other Christian material to share with villagers. Laotian authorities could not immediately be contacted on Saturday, as celebrations of the extended traditional New Year's holiday began. An emailed inquiry to the U.S. Embassy in Laos was not immediately answered. Christians in Laos, especially those carrying out proselytizing work, face pressure from two quarters. The country's rigid old-style communist government is suspicious of outsiders and seeks to regulate all religions. The mostly Buddhist country's animist community, usually found in rural areas, also is often hostile. The current situation of the three volunteers was unclear. The website of the U.S.-government funded Radio Free Asia cited an unnamed Luang Namtha police official saying that the three had been arrested but were not detained. "What we know about these three individuals is that they are not detained," it quoted him saying. "Their passports have just been confiscated." The RFA website also quoted an unnamed U.S. State Department official as saying: "We can confirm the temporary detention and subsequent release of three U.S. citizens in Luang Namtha, Laos. We take seriously our responsibility to assist U.S. citizens abroad and are providing all appropriate consular services." The statement from Vision Beyond Borders said the three volunteers "were not in any legitimate sense a threat to the people or government of Laos; rather theirs was a mission of love and concern for people who might otherwise never hear of God's love for them." Vision Beyond Borders is one of a number of missionary groups that do semi-covert missionary work in countries whose governments are often hostile to Christianity, and are best known for actions like smuggling Bibles into places such as China. The group says it also helps support poor and orphaned children, provides safe houses for women who have escaped sex trafficking, and has sent refugee relief supplies to the Middle East. The U.S. State Department's 2017 International Religious Freedom Report said about Laos that "Reports continued of authorities, especially in isolated villages, arresting, detaining, and exiling followers of minority religions, particularly Christians." The U.K.-based religious freedom group Christian Solidarity Worldwide expressed concern in 2012 about "a pattern of religious oppression in Luang Namtha province," saying Christians in at least 15 villages there reported cases of harassment by the authorities. Reports of harassment and violence have come from other parts of Laos as well over a period of years. Luang Namtha is best known as a waystation for backpackers travelling between Laos and China. WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump knew WikiLeaks until he didn't. With his government seeking to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Trump is drawing a blank on a hacking organization he praised to the rafters during the 2016 campaign because of the discomfort it caused his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. It was among a number of factual faux pas and flips in his rhetoric over the past week. A few months after asserting a need for legal immigrants, Trump declared the country "full" and he also seemed to change the grounds upon which he is refusing to release his taxes: It's not because he can't, but because he doesn't want to. And with the release of more of the special counsel's report imminent, Trump kept up his refrain that Robert Mueller exonerated him despite Mueller's explicit statement that he did not. A review: In this April 11, 2019, photo, President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) WIKILEAKS TRUMP, asked if he still "loves" WikiLeaks: "I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing." - remarks Thursday with South Korea's president. THE FACTS: WikiLeaks was very much Trump's thing in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, when candidate Trump showered praise on the anti-secrecy organization night after night. On the same October day that the "Access Hollywood" tape emerged, revealing that Trump had bragged in 2005 about groping women, WikiLeaks began releasing damaging emails from Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta. Trump and his allies seized on the dumps and weaponized them. "WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks," Trump said in Pennsylvania. "This WikiLeaks is like a treasure trove," Trump said in Michigan. "Boy, I love reading WikiLeaks," Trump said in Ohio. All told, Trump extolled WikiLeaks more than 100 times, and a poster of Assange hung backstage at the Republican's debate war room. At no point from a rally stage did Trump express any misgivings about how WikiLeaks obtained the emails from the Clinton campaign or about the accusations of stealing sensitive U.S. government information, which led to the charges against Assange on Thursday. The U.S. is seeking Assange's extradition from Britain. ___ TAX RETURNS TRUMP: "As you know, I got elected last time with this same issue. ... I would love to give them, but I'm not going to do it while I'm under audit." - remarks Wednesday to reporters at the White House. THE FACTS: Nothing's preventing Trump from releasing his tax returns. Being under audit is no legal bar to anyone releasing his or her returns. Asked repeatedly at a House hearing Tuesday whether any regulation prohibited a taxpayer from disclosing returns when under audit, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig responded "no." Trump declined to provide his tax information as a candidate in 2016 and as president, something party nominees have traditionally done in the name of the transparency. By withholding his tax returns, Trump has not followed the standard followed by presidents since Richard Nixon started the practice in 1969. During the campaign, Trump said he wanted to release his returns but because he was under a routine audit, "I can't." After the November midterm elections, Trump claimed at a news conference that the filings are too complex for people to understand. ___ JOB APPROVAL TRUMP, tweeting a Fox Business Network graphic showing his "soaring approval" at 55% overall: "Great news! #MAGA" - tweet Thursday. THE FACTS: The graphic on the Georgetown University poll was incorrect: The poll found 55% disapproval of Trump's performance, not approval. Fox Business issued an on-air correction but Trump's tweet remains. ___ CLIMATE CHANGE TRUMP: "We withdrew the United States from the one-sided Paris climate accord, where you don't do any more drilling for oil and gas. That was going to cost us a lot of money. No more oil and gas with the Paris accord. That's good for Paris, but that's not good for us. Right?" - remarks Wednesday at a ceremony for the signing of executive orders meant to accelerate pipeline construction. THE FACTS: Wrong. The Paris accord does not ban any form of energy development. It does not impose emission caps on signatory countries. The accord is a set of voluntary targets determined by individual nations. ___ RUSSIA INVESTIGATION TRUMP: "I've been totally exonerated. No collusion. No obstruction." - remarks Wednesday at the White House. TRUMP: "I'm not concerned about anything, because frankly there was no collusion and there was no obstruction." - remarks Thursday with South Korea's president. THE FACTS: Attorney General William Barr's four-page summary of Mueller's nearly 400-page report did not "totally" exonerate Trump. Mueller specifically states in the report, as quoted by Barr: "While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." The summary of principal conclusions by Barr notes Mueller did not "draw a conclusion - one way or the other - as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction," but rather set out evidence for both sides, leaving the question unanswered of whether Trump obstructed justice. Barr said ultimately he decided as attorney general that the evidence developed by Mueller was "not sufficient" to establish, for the purposes of prosecution, that Trump committed obstruction. In Senate testimony Wednesday, Barr acknowledged that Mueller did not ask him to draw a conclusion on the obstruction question, nor did he know whether Mueller agreed with him. Barr said he would be able to explain more fully after releasing a public version of Mueller's report in coming days. ___ IMMIGRATION TRUMP: "Mexico must apprehend all illegals and not let them make the long march up to the United States, or we will have no other choice than to Close the Border and/or institute Tariffs. Our Country is FULL!" - tweet Sunday. THE FACTS: Despite the overwhelmed southern border, there's plenty of room in the United States. Dozens of countries have greater population density. It's only full in terms of the people Trump doesn't want. His claim of a U.S. with no vacancies for more immigrants is at odds with his own statement two months ago that encouraged "the largest" influx of legal immigrants ever. It also belies a U.S. reality of aging baby boomers and falling birth rates, which make immigrants increasingly important to sustain a level of population growth for the U.S. economy to keep expanding. The nation's population growth is at its lowest since 1937, with the 18-and-under population declining both nationally and in 29 states, according to William H. Frey of the Brookings Institution. Economists say that restricting immigration would probably weaken economic growth. A shrinking labor force could also harm the health and stability of safety net programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Trump himself seemed to acknowledge the realities during his State of the Union address in February, declaring, "I want people to come into our country, in the largest numbers ever, but they have to come in legally." He's now describing a U.S. bursting at the seams, unable to take any immigrants, including those seeking legal asylum. Immigrants as a whole make up a greater percentage of the total U.S. population than they did back in 1970, having grown from less than 5 percent of the population to more than 13 percent now. In 2030, it's projected that immigrants will become the primary driver for U.S. population growth, overtaking U.S. births. ___ TRUMP on separating migrant children from their parents when caught crossing into the U.S. illegally: "I'm the one that stopped it. President Obama had child separation." - remarks to reporters Tuesday. THE FACTS: No, he's the one who started it on a broad scale. He instituted a "zero tolerance" policy aimed at criminally prosecuting all adults caught crossing into the U.S. illegally. That meant detention for adults and the removal of their children while their parents were in custody. During the Obama administration and the early Trump administration, such family separations were the exception. They became the rule under his policy. He suspended the practice in June because of a public uproar. ___ TRUMP on the family separations: "President Obama had the law. We changed the law, and I think the press should accurately report it but of course they won't." - remarks to reporters Tuesday. THE FACTS: This is false. Trump did not achieve any change in the law. Trump's zero-tolerance policy was of his own making. His administration is operating under the same immigration laws as Obama's. During the Obama administration and before Trump's zero-tolerance policy was introduced, migrant families caught illegally entering the U.S. were usually referred for civil deportation proceedings, not requiring separation, unless they were known to have a criminal record. Then and now, immigration officials may take a child from a parent in certain cases, such as serious criminal charges against a parent, concerns over the health and welfare of a child or medical concerns. ___ ENERGY and ENVIRONMENT TRUMP: "We have the cleanest air and water, they say, in the world. We are the best."- remarks Wednesday at the signing of orders on pipelines. THE FACTS: Not true about air. U.S. drinking water is among the best by one leading measure. Trump's own Environmental Protection Agency data show that in 2017, among 35 major U.S. cities, there were 729 cases of "unhealthy days for ozone and fine particle pollution." That's up 22 percent from 2014 and the worst year since 2012. Findings for 2018 are incomplete. The State of Global Air 2019 report by the Health Effects Institute rated the U.S. as having the eighth cleanest air for particle pollution - which kills 85,000 Americans each year - behind Canada, Scandinavian countries and others. The U.S. ranks poorly on smog pollution, which kills 24,000 Americans per year. On a scale from the cleanest to the dirtiest, the U.S. is at 123 out of 195 countries measured. On water, Yale University's global Environmental Performance Index finds 10 countries tied for the cleanest drinking water, the U.S. among them. On environmental quality overall, the U.S. was 27th, behind a variety of European countries, Canada, Japan, Australia and more. Switzerland was No. 1. ___ TRUMP: "With the help of the incredible workers in this room, the United States is now the No. 1 producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world, anywhere on the planet. Not even close. Made a lot of progress in the last two and a half years, haven't we? Huh? Took down a lot of barriers." - signing ceremony. THE FACTS: As he's done many times before, Trump is crediting himself with things that happened under Obama. Here's what the government's U.S. Energy Information Administration says: "The United States has been the world's top producer of natural gas since 2009, when U.S. natural gas production surpassed that of Russia, and the world's top producer of petroleum hydrocarbons since 2013, when U.S. production exceeded Saudi Arabia's." As for crude oil specifically, the information agency says the U.S. became the world's top crude oil producer last year. That is largely attributed to the shale oil boom that began during the Obama administration, which has sent production from the Permian Basin in the southwest surging. ___ TRUMP: "Under this administration, we have ended the war on American energy like never before." - signing ceremony. THE FACTS: It wasn't much of a war. U.S. petroleum and natural gas production has increased by nearly 60% since 2008, according to the Energy Information Administration, achieving pre-eminence during the Obama administration. That said, the Trump administration is more closely aligned with fossil fuel interests as it works to restrain environmental obstacles and the power of states to stand in the way of pipelines and other energy development. ___ Associated Press writers Jonathan Lemire, Ellen Knickmeyer, Seth Borenstein and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington and Nomaan Merchant in Houston contributed to this report. ___ Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, before boarding Marine One helicopter, Wednesday, April 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - When an unarmed white woman who called 911 to report a crime was fatally shot by a black, Somali American police officer in Minneapolis, the racial dynamic seen in many police shooting cases in the U.S. was flipped on its head, and a different narrative emerged. Justine Ruszczyk Damond was immediately portrayed as the innocent victim she was, a peaceful woman who was trying to help someone else by calling 911 to report a possible rape in the alley behind her home. The officer, Mohamed Noor, was sharply criticized by the then-police chief, while others wrongly alleged he was a fast-track affirmative action hire for a city trying to diversify its police department. Noor, 33, was charged - a rarity when an on-duty officer shoots someone - and is now on trial for murder and manslaughter in the July 2017 death of Damond, a 40-year-old dual Australian American citizen. While Minneapolis police spokesman John Elder said race is never a factor in the department's personnel decisions or internal investigations, some activists say it's been part of the equation from the start - from the public portrayals of Damond and Noor, to the fact that Noor was charged and fired from the police force. When the shooting happened, Somali Americans felt singled out because then-Chief Janee Harteau spoke out against Noor's actions instead of reserving judgment, and the police union was largely silent. "Race and affluence has played a role in terms of how this case is being handled," said Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and former president of the Minneapolis NAACP. Noor shot Damond as she approached his police SUV. While prosecutors say there's no evidence of any threat to justify deadly force, Noor's attorneys argue that he heard a loud bang and feared he and his partner were being ambushed. FILE - In this July 20, 2017, file photo, Don Damond, the fiance of Justine Damond, is comforted outside his home by Valerie Castile, the mother of Philando Castile, as demonstrators march by Damond's home in honor of Justine Damond, in Minneapolis. Both Philando Castile and Justine Damond were shot and killed by Minneapolis police officers. The fatal shooting of Justine Damond, an unarmed white woman, by a Somali-American police officer has flipped the racial narrative seen in most police shootings, and some activists say there wouldn't have been charges if the victim had been black and the officer had been white. (Aaron Lavinsky/Star Tribune via AP, File) A spokesman for the prosecutor's office had no comment on the role of race in the case. But potential jurors were asked questions such as whether they've had negative experiences with Somalis and about their potential biases. The jury of 16 people, four of whom are alternates, includes six people of color. While each police shooting is different, with no two victims the same and officers facing different real or perceived threats in every situation, activists note that while Damond is seen as an innocent victim, black people shot by police are often made to look like villains. "We want black and Latino and native victims of police violence to be treated like her," said Shaun King, a Black Lives Matter activist and writer. "You can have the sweetest person ever killed, but if they are black, poor, and in a particular zip code, the portrayal is nothing like the portrayal that she received in this case. I felt like from day one she was treated the way every victim of police violence should be treated." Attorney S. Lee Merritt has represented families of multiple black people killed by police. One was Botham Jean, who was shot in his own Dallas apartment by an off-duty officer who has said she mistook his door for her own. After the shooting, police sought a search warrant that resulted in the discovery of marijuana in Jean's apartment - something Merritt says was an attempt to smear the 26-year-old victim. Dallas police have not responded to that criticism; the white officer who killed Jean awaits trial. Convictions for police officers are rare. But Merritt, who also represents the family of Antwon Rose II, an unarmed black 17-year-old who was killed last year while running from an officer, believes Noor will be convicted. The white former East Pittsburgh officer who shot Rose was acquitted last month after saying he perceived a threat, which is the legal standard. King also said he wouldn't be surprised if Noor were convicted, saying that it's hard for a jury to identify with an immigrant, Muslim, black man. He said the defense of fearing for one's life can work for white officers, but he has a hard time believing it will work for Noor. Many activists say they're not advocating for leniency for Noor, but for equity - and for overall changes to policing in the U.S. The problem, Levy Armstrong says, is in the systemic nature of police violence and the public's willingness to rubber stamp it, as long as an officer says he or she was fearful. And while she and others want Noor to be held accountable, "I don't want to see a Somali, black, Muslim officer be scapegoated when the rest of the system remains intact." In the days after Damond's death, activists in Black Lives Matter and other groups came out in strong support of her family and friends. They marched in the streets and called for then-Mayor Betsy Hodges to resign. Among them was the mother of Philando Castile, a black man who was shot during a traffic stop in Minnesota in 2016 after he informed a police officer he had a firearm. The officer, who is Latino, was acquitted in 2017. Valerie Castile said listening to the officer's defense team try to make her son sound like a horrible person because he had marijuana in his system was "heartbreaking." "No life is any different than the other. It's a tragedy that we lost our loved ones to someone who is supposed to protect and serve," she said. "But it's so unfortunate in our country people are treated differently." ___ Follow Amy Forliti on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/amyforliti ___ Check out the AP's complete coverage of Mohamed Noor's trial. FILE - In this July 20, 2017, file photo, Betsy Custis, right, and others attend a march in honor of Justine Damond at Beard's Plaissance Park, in Minneapolis. Damond, of Australia, was shot and killed by a Minneapolis police officer. The fatal shooting of Damond, an unarmed white woman, by a Somali-American police officer has flipped the racial narrative seen in most police shootings, and some activists say there wouldn't have been charges if the victim had been black and the officer had been white. (Aaron Lavinsky/Star Tribune via AP, File) SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - A Bosnian Serb leader has wrongly called the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, where over 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb troops, "a fabricated myth." The comments defy international court rulings that say genocide was committed in the eastern Bosnian enclave. Both the International Court of Justice and the U.N. war crimes court for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands, have ruled that the killings in Srebrenica were genocide. The Bosnian Serb wartime political and military leaders, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, have been sentenced to life in prison for the Srebrenica genocide and other war crimes during Bosnia's 1992-95 war, which killed over 100,000 people and made millions homeless. But Milorad Dodik, who now heads Bosnia's multi-ethnic joint presidency, has told a conference discussing war crimes during the Bosnian conflict that the Srebrenica massacre was "something that does not exist." "(Bosnian Muslims) did not have a myth, so they decided to construct one around Srebrenica," Dodik said Friday. Dodik has repeatedly downplayed the Srebrenica massacre, along with other Bosnian Serb politicians and the authorities in neighboring Serbia, who deny that genocide was committed. Bosnian Serbs have also announced a special commission tasked with establishing the "truth" on Srebrenica. FILE - A Monday, July 11, 2016 file photo of Bosnian people saying prayers in front of coffins during a funeral ceremony for the 127 victims at the Potocari memorial complex near Srebrenica, 150 kilometers (94 miles) northeast of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. A Bosnian Serb leader has wrongly called the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, where over 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb troops, "a fabricated myth." Milorad Dodik, head of Bosnia's multi-ethnic joint presidency, spoke during a conference discussing war crimes. His comments defy international court rulings that said genocide was committed in the eastern Bosnian enclave and have angered Bosnian Muslims. (AP Photo/Amel Emric, File) Dodik's comments have drawn condemnation from Muslims in Bosnia. "Srebrenica is a court-proven fact, just as is a court-proven fact that the military and political leadership of the Bosnian Serbs have been convicted of a joint criminal enterprise and genocide," said Ramiz Salkic, a Bosnian Muslim official. "Those are historic facts, not a myth. And that is what Dodik should tell his people," said Salkic. The Srebrenica massacre was one of the bloodiest slaughters in Europe since World War II. Some 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed and their bodies dumped in numerous mass graves in the days after Bosnian Serb forces captured the eastern town of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995. Over 6,600 Srebrenica victims have been identified but experts are still excavating the victims' bodies from hidden mass graves. Many of the remains were torn apart. Experts have used DNA analysis to put bodies back together from bones found in locations miles from each other after the perpetrators tried to hide their war crimes. WASHINGTON (AP) - Eager to jump-start the stalled Keystone XL oil pipeline and other energy projects, President Donald Trump has acted to assert executive power over pipelines and such infrastructure. He issued a new permit for Keystone XL and insisted this exercise of presidential authority was not subject to judicial review. Then he signed an executive order clarifying that the president alone has the power to grant permits for cross-border projects such as pipelines. A separate order makes it harder for states to block pipelines and other energy projects on the basis of environmental concerns. Taken together, the actions amount to a broad assertion of power that reverses more than 50 years of precedent that delegated decision-making on energy projects to individual agencies. Trump has shown a willingness to override his own agencies to accomplish his aims. His actions, if upheld by the courts, could consolidate power over energy projects at the White House, increasing the influence of the president's political advisers and potentially cutting out experts and career officials throughout the government. "Too often badly needed energy infrastructure is being held back by special interest groups, entrenched bureaucracies and radical activists," Trump said Wednesday before signing the executive orders at an event in Texas. Pipeline opponents say Trump acted illegally. They have asked a federal court to block the new Keystone permit, arguing that it is an effort to get around an earlier court ruling. FILE - In this Aug. 6, 2017 file photo, demonstrators against the Keystone XL pipeline listen to speakers in Lincoln, Neb. Eager to jump-start the stalled Keystone XL oil pipeline and other energy projects, President Donald Trump has moved to assert presidential power over pipelines and other infrastructure. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File) But one legal expert said Trump's approach might succeed. "He has now created a whole new decision-making structure" for cross-border pipelines, said Richard Pierce, a law professor at George Washington University. If the courts follow a 1992 Supreme Court ruling, they may find that action taken by the State Department in approving or rejecting the pipeline "is nonreviewable, because it doesn't qualify as final agency action," Pierce said. Further, Trump's decision would not be subject to review because of a separate law that declares the president is not an agency and therefore is not bound by rules that apply to agency actions. "That's a very clever approach that might well work," Pierce said. Trump's actions are "typical of this presidency," said Holly Doremus, an environmental law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. She said Trump frequently seeks to stretch the limits of his power, and she cited Trump's declaration of an emergency that he says allows him to shift more money to construction of a promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. In the case of Keystone, Trump appears to be arguing that the new presidential permit, issued March 29, gets around restrictions under the National Environmental Policy Act or other laws, because the statutes apply to executive-branch agencies but not to the president, Doremus said. "If the president is the only discretionary decision maker, NEPA simply does not apply," she said. While Trump's theory is plausible, it is unclear who is the ultimate decision-maker on Keystone XL, Doremus said. The pipeline would ship crude oil from the tar sands of western Canada to U.S. refineries along the Gulf of Mexico. Both a 2015 rejection of the project by the Obama administration and a 2017 approval by Trump were issued by the State Department under terms of a 2004 executive order that delegated presidential authority for cross-border projects to that agency. Trump's executive order revokes the 2004 order, issued by President George W. Bush. Bush's action extended an executive order first issued by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. "It's surprising that the president would come in and single-handedly try to circumvent 50 years of precedent for these types of projects by just issuing a permit himself," said Doug Hayes, a Sierra Club attorney who has sued to block the Keystone project in court. In November, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris in Montana ruled that the Trump administration did not fully consider potential oil spills and other impacts when it approved the pipeline in 2017. Morris ordered a new environmental review of the pipeline. The White House said the new permit issued by Trump "dispels any uncertainty" about the long-delayed project, which was first proposed a decade ago by Calgary-based TransCanada. Trump's move on Keystone XL reinforces the idea that "the presidential permit is indeed an exercise of presidential authority that is not subject to judicial review," according to the White House. Under the new order, federal officials still would conduct environmental reviews of the project, but they would be carried out by agencies other than the State Department, the White House said. TransCanada spokesman Matthew John said the administration's action "clearly demonstrates to the courts that the permit is (the) product of presidential decision-making and should not be subject to additional environmental review." Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said it was "strange" that Trump issued the executive order after granting the new permit. "The White House is making the argument supposedly that he has untrammeled authority and doesn't have to obey the laws of Congress" in approving a cross-border pipeline, Tobias said. "I'm dubious and I think a number of other people are, too." Kathryn Watts, a law professor at the University of Washington, said it's unclear what happens next. Trump's permit wades into "uncharted, unsettled" legal territory, she said. ___ Associated Press writer Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, contributed to this report. President Donald Trump speaks in front of pipeline workers at the International Union of Operating Engineers International Training and Education Center Wednesday, April 10, 2019, in Crosby, Texas. (AP Photo/Juan DeLeon) ISLAMABAD (AP) - The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at an open-air market in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta a day earlier that killed twenty people. The Sunni militant group, which has repeatedly targeted Pakistan's minority Shiites, said in a statement posted on an IS-affiliated website Saturday that it targeted Shiites and elements of the Pakistani army. Police said a suicide bomber hit the market Friday, killing eight Shiites, a paramilitary soldier and others. Four paramilitary troops guarding the market were among the 40 wounded. Protests by dozens of angry Shiite youth from the Hazara community continued Saturday in Quetta for a second day, demanding greater security protection. The community has been targeted many times in recent years by Sunni militant groups. Pakistani Shiite youth from Hazara community burn tires to block a main road during a protest to condemn Friday's suicide bombing, in Quetta, Pakistan, Saturday, April 13, 2019. A suicide bomber targeted an open-air market in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Friday, killing many people and wounding dozens of others, police and hospital officials said. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt) NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Hundreds of Kenyans have marched in the streets of the capital to call for the ban of international wildlife markets that specialize in endangered species. The march comes ahead of a global meeting on international trade in endangered species next month in Sri Lanka. Kenya's cabinet secretary for tourism, Najib Balala, says the march is meant to campaign for the proposals that the country hopes to present at the CITES conference. Wildlife tourism is a major contributor to Kenya's economy. The CEO of WildlifeDirect, Paula Kahumbu, asserts that the use of endangered species to make medications in some parts of Asia is contributing to their extinction. Demonstrators walk through the streets of Nairobi, in Kenya Saturday, April 13, 2019. Demonstrators walked through the streets of Nairobi to participate in a Global March to support wildlife Elephants and Rhinos. Kenya is a leading wildlife safari destination that has been grappling with declining wildlife numbers.(AP Photo/Khalil Senosi) Demonstrators walk through the streets of Nairobi, in Kenya Saturday, April 13, 2019. Demonstrators walked through the streets of Nairobi to participate in a Global March to support wildlife Elephants and Rhinos. Kenya is a leading wildlife safari destination that has been grappling with declining wildlife numbers.(AP Photo/Khalil Senosi) Demonstrators walk through the streets of Nairobi, in Kenya Saturday, April 13, 2019. Demonstrators walked through the streets of Nairobi to participate in a Global March to support wildlife Elephants and Rhinos. Kenya is a leading wildlife safari destination that has been grappling with declining wildlife numbers. (AP Photo/Khalil Senosi) Demonstrators walk through the streets of Nairobi, in Kenya Saturday, April 13, 2019. Demonstrators walked through the streets of Nairobi to participate in a Global March to support wildlife Elephants and Rhinos. Kenya is a leading wildlife safari destination that has been grappling with declining wildlife numbers.(AP Photo/Khalil Senosi) Demonstrators walk through the streets of Nairobi, in Kenya Saturday, April 13, 2019. Demonstrators walked through the streets of Nairobi to participate in a Global March to support wildlife Elephants and Rhinos. Kenya is a leading wildlife safari destination that has been grappling with declining wildlife numbers.(AP Photo/Khalil Senosi) Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife Hon. Najib Balala waves a Kenyan flag during a mach in Nairobi, Kenya, Saturday, April 13, 2019. Demonstrators walked through the streets of Nairobi to participate in a Global March to support wildlife Elephants and Rhinos. Kenya is a leading wildlife safari destination that has been grappling with declining wildlife numbers. (AP Photo/Khalil Senosi) Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife Hon. Najib Balala, center, marches with others in Nairobi, Kenya Saturday, April 13, 2019. Demonstrators walked through the streets of Nairobi to participate in a Global March to support wildlife Elephants and Rhinos. Kenya is a leading wildlife safari destination that has been grappling with declining wildlife numbers.(AP Photo/Khalil Senosi) JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - A Florida man has been convicted of the 1993 murder of his wife, which was witnessed by their then-toddler son who found his mother's buried body 21 years later. The Florida Times-Union reports that a jury found Michael Haim guilty of second-degree murder Friday for killing 23-year-old Bonnie Haim. Their 3-year-old son Aaron told police his father had shot his missing mother, but no body was found and Michael Haim was not charged. Now known as Aaron Fraser after his adopted family, he later won a wrongful death lawsuit against his 53-year-old biological father and got his home. Fraser was removing the pool in 2014 when he found his mother's remains. Haim was soon arrested. Haim could get seven years, but prosecutors want a life sentence at next month's hearing. PHOENIX (AP) - Yousuf Abdelfatah already knows the answer he'll give about his race on the 2020 census questionnaire will be wrong. He's an Arab American, but the only race options on the census are white, black, Asian and categories for American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander. Reluctantly, Abdelfatah will mark white. "If you look at me, my skin is darker, I'm visibly not white," said the 22-year-old research assistant. "I've lived my life as a person of color, but I'm categorized as white." With the census going to printing presses later this year, Arab Americans are again feeling left out of a process that helps draw the nation's political map and provide an accurate population count, which in turn can determine how much federal funding minority groups get for government programs and medical research. Organizations have long been pushing for a separate Middle Eastern or North African category but realize it's probably too late for 2020 with questionnaires ready to be printed. "The census is in our Constitution and it's meant to count everyone," said Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institution. In this April 8, 2019 photo, Naia Al-Anbar stands on a street in the Glendale section of Los Angeles. Anbar, who generally supports the idea of a new category, on the 2020 census said. "The truth is we aren't ever going to be white in their eyes and we will still be discriminated against." Al-Anbar, who has a Saudi Arabian father, would mark "other" on the census if a more precise category isn't offered. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel) According to census estimates, the Arab American population is measured at just over 2 million people. The Arab American Institute, however, says that number is closer to 3.6 million. Underreporting from the census has come amid a rapid growth of the community, which advocates say has increased by more than 72% between 2000 and 2010. Population data is a key factor in political redistricting, researching human rights, monitoring government programs and antidiscrimination laws, meaning Arab Americans are subject to a lack of representation and health and social services. "Right now we have that 'white' designation on paper but we don't benefit from it," said 24-year-old activist and organizer Naia Al-Anbar. "The truth is we aren't ever going to be white in their eyes and we will still be discriminated against." Al-Anbar, who generally supports the idea of a new category, has a Saudi Arabian father and would mark "other" on the census if a more precise category isn't offered. The Arab American Institute considers 22 countries to consist of Arabs, spanning Africa and Asia, meaning Arab Americans can fall into several categories provided in the survey. This creates an odd decision during the census for Arab Americans. Does someone from Egypt, for example, check the African American box because their home country is in Africa? Would someone from Iraq be expected to mark that they are Asian? "As an Egyptian, I considered marking 'African American' but I'm not black," 24-year-old Nashville resident Dina El-Rifai said. "However, marking 'white' doesn't reflect who I am or the diversity I bring." In another complicating factor, the Trump administration wants to ask people whether they are American citizens on the census - an issue that is supposed to be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court this summer before the forms are printed. Some fear that will stifle participation among various immigrant groups, especially in the aftermath of the administration's travel ban from Muslim countries that spread fear among Arab Americans. This question would discourage 30% of Arab Americans from taking the survey, a study by the American-Arab Anti-Defamation Committee found. The Arab American Institute and other groups have worked on getting an Arab category introduced in the census for decades but have always been met with opposition. That was until 2009, when the Census Bureau concluded that it would introduce a Middle Eastern and North African category for the next cycle after years of trials and tests. Test results found that the vast majority of Arab Americans supported the issue and would mark the new option on the census. But the momentum came to a halt when a new executive government was voted in to power. "After all that work, and all the millions spent, the Trump administration came in for what we believe are political reasons to put an end to it," said Samer Khalaf, president of the American-Arab Anti-Defamation Committee. "Their reasoning was that additional testing would be required." The Census Bureau did not comment about the Middle Eastern category, but pointed to previous news conferences where policy leaders discussed how more research was needed to include a Middle Eastern/North African category not as a race, but as an ethnicity. "We do feel that more research and testing is needed before we can proceed to implement or propose to implement a separate Middle Eastern or North African category," Census Bureau chief of Population Karen Battle said at a program review in January 2018. That would be a step in the right direction for many Arab Americans, as it could lead to a better count and more research and federal funding to benefit their communities. "The most important thing is that we are on the cusp of getting the Census Bureau to finally get the category that would help identify our community," Khalaf said. "If we were able to get data, we can work on civil rights, and maybe they'll know whether or not we have a higher rate of diabetes or heart disease." An endangered species of whale is experiencing a mini-baby boom in New England waters, researchers on Cape Cod have said. The North Atlantic right whale is one of the rarest species of whale on the planet, numbering only about 411. But the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Massachusetts, said Friday its aerial survey team spotted two mom and calf pairs in Cape Cod Bay a day earlier. That brings the number seen in New England waters alone this year to three. That's big news because the whale's population has been falling, and no calves were seen last year. In all, seven right whale calves have been seen so far this year. The whales give birth off Georgia and Florida in the winter and travel to feeding grounds off New England in the early spring, including the Gulf of Maine, a body of water that touches Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Canada. Cape Cod Bay is part of the Gulf of Maine and is a critically important feeding ground. The animals often feed close to shore, providing watchers on land "unbeatable views of one of the rarest of marine mammals," the Center for Coastal Studies said in a statement. It's illegal to get within 1,500 feet (457 meters) of the animals without a federal research permit, so boaters are discouraged from attempting to get close to the whales. BARCELONA, Spain (AP) - A spokesman for a Spanish court says Venezuela's former spy chief has refused to be extradited to the United States on a drug warrant. The spokesman, who isn't authorized to be identified by name in the media, says retired Venezuelan Maj. Gen. Hugo Carvajal on Saturday denied links to drug trafficking when he appeared before a Spanish judge in Madrid. The judge ruled that Carvajal should be kept in custody while a U.S. extradition request for him is considered by a court. Prosecutors in New York allege in an indictment that Carvajal used his high office to coordinate the smuggling of some 5,600 kilograms of cocaine from Venezuela to Mexico in 2006. A Guardia Civil van believed to be taking Venezuelan Maj. Gen. Hugo Carvajal to prison leaves the National Court in Madrid, Spain, Saturday, April 13, 2019 after an extradition hearing. Venezuela's longtime spy chief has been arrested in Madrid by Spanish police acting on a United States warrant for allegedly trafficking tons of cocaine. Maj. Gen. Hugo Carvajal, who for more than a decade advised late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and headed the country's security apparatus, recently became the most influential military figure to declare his loyalty to opposition leader Juan Guaido. (AP Photo/Paul White) WASHINGTON (AP) - Rep. Ilhan Omar says she's faced increased death threats since President Donald Trump spread around a video that purports to show her being dismissive of the 2001 terrorist attacks. "This is endangering lives," she said, accusing Trump of fomenting right-wing extremism. "It has to stop." Her statement late Sunday followed an announcement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that she has taken steps to ensure the safety of the Minnesota Democrat and the speaker's call for Trump to take down the video. Soon after Pelosi's statement, the video disappeared as a pinned tweet at the top of Trump's Twitter feed, but it was not deleted. And Trump further escalated the standoff Monday morning, tweeting that, "Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made" "She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy!" Trump added. Pelosi was among Democrats who had criticized Trump over the tweet , with some accusing him of trying to incite violence against the Muslim lawmaker. An upstate New York man recently was charged with making death threats against her. FILE - In this March 6, 2019, file photo, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., sits with fellow Democrats on the House Education and Labor Committee during a bill markup, on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Donald Trump is weighing in on the most recent controversy involving Omar, retweeting video edited to suggest that the Minnesota congresswoman was dismissive of the significance of the Sept. 11 attacks. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) White House press secretary Sarah Sanders defended Trump earlier Sunday, saying the president has a duty to highlight Omar's history of making comments that others deem anti-Semitic or otherwise offensive and that he wished no "ill will" upon the first-term lawmaker. But Omar said that since Trump retweeted the video Friday night, she's received many threats on her life that referred or replied to the posted video. "Violent crimes and other acts of hate by right-wing extremists and white nationalists are on the rise in this country and around the world," she said. "We can no longer ignore that they are being encouraged by the occupant of the highest office in the land." She said: "We are all Americans." Earlier, Pelosi issued a statement while traveling in London saying she had spoken with congressional authorities "to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff." Pelosi said officials will continue to monitor and assess threats against Omar and called on Trump to discourage such behavior. "The President's words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger," Pelosi said. "President Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video." The video in Trump's tweet included a snippet from a recent speech Omar gave to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in which she described the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center as "some people did something," along with news footage of the hijacked airplanes hitting the Twin Towers. Trump captioned his tweet with: "WE WILL NEVER FORGET!" Critics accuse Omar of being flippant in describing the perpetrators of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. She later sought to defend herself by tweeting a quote from President George W. Bush, in which the Republican president referred to the attackers as "people" just days after 9/11. Neither Trump's tweet nor the video included Omar's full quote or the context of her comments, which were about Muslims feeling that their civil liberties had eroded after the attacks. The tweet was posted atop Trump's Twitter feed for much of Sunday, with more than 9 million views. It remained lower in the feed after Pelosi requested that the video be pulled. Sanders questioned why Democrats weren't following Trump's example and calling out Omar, too. Democrats who criticized the president over the tweet defended Omar, with some noting their past disagreements with her. "Certainly the president is wishing no ill will and certainly not violence towards anyone, but the president is absolutely and should be calling out the congresswoman for her - not only one time - but history of anti-Semitic comments," Sanders said. "The bigger question is why aren't Democrats doing the same thing? It's absolutely abhorrent the comments that she continues to make and has made and they look the other way." Omar repeatedly has pushed fellow Democrats into uncomfortable territory with comments about Israel and the strength of the Jewish state's influence in Washington. She apologized for suggesting that lawmakers support Israel for pay and said she isn't criticizing Jews. But she refused to take back a tweet in which she suggested American supporters of Israel "pledge allegiance" to a foreign country. Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat who represents Manhattan's financial district, which was targeted on 9/11, said he had no issues with Omar's characterization of the attack. "I have had some problems with some of her other remarks, but not - but not with that one," he said. Sanders commented on "Fox News Sunday" and ABC's "This Week." Nadler appeared on CNN's "State of the Union. ___ Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervillap ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) - During a visit to Addis Ababa, Ivanka Trump has honored victims of the Ethiopian Airlines crash that occurred soon after takeoff last month. The president's daughter and senior adviser visited Holy Trinity Cathedral Monday, where she met with religious leaders and laid a wreath to mourn the dead. A total of 21 United Nations staffers and 12 aid workers were killed last month when the Boeing 737 Max crashed minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa en route to Nairobi. All 157 people on board died. Airlines and countries around the world have grounded Boeing 737 Max jets or banned them from their airspace following the crash. A similar crash involving that Boeing model plane crashed into the waters off Indonesia in October, killing all 189 on board. White House senior adviser Ivanka Trump, right, is greeted as she arrives for a ceremony at Holy Trinity Cathedral honoring the victims of the Ethiopian Airlines crash, Monday April 15, 2019, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) White House senior adviser Ivanka Trump, center, arrives for a ceremony at Holy Trinity Cathedral honoring the victims of the Ethiopia Airlines crash, Monday April 15, 2019, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) A man who was arrested on suspicion of the murder of Belfast man Jim Donegan has been released. Police Service of Northern Ireland detectives investigating the shooting in Glen Road on December 4 last year arrested the 32-year-old man in the Springfield Road area of west Belfast on Tuesday. A 32 year old man arrested earlier today by detectives investigating the murder of Jim Donegan has been released unconditionally. Police Service NI (@PoliceServiceNI) April 9, 2019 The man was held on suspicion of murder and suspicion of membership of a proscribed organisation, before being released unconditionally a few hours later. Detectives from the Major Investigation Team investigating the murder of Jim Donegan on the Glen Road, Belfast on 4 December 18 have arrested a 32 year old man in the Springfield Road area of West Belfast, earlier today. (1/2) Police Service NI (@PoliceServiceNI) April 9, 2019 The man was arrested on suspicion of the murder of Jim and on suspicion of membership of a proscribed organisation. He is currently in custody at Musgrave Serious Crime Suite where he is being questioned by detectives. (2/2) Police Service NI (@PoliceServiceNI) April 9, 2019 Mr Donegan was shot in front of children and parents as he waited to collect his 13-year-old son from St Marys Christian Brothers Grammar School in west Belfast. MSPs have written to John Swinney calling for action to be taken to address concerns around additional support needs (ASN) in schools. Holyroods Education and Skills Committee has been scrutinising how much progress has been made by the Scottish Government to address issues around ASN that were highlighted in its 2017 report on the matter. The review has involved a range of evidence sessions and engagement work, including MSPs hearing from parents, carers, teachers and school staff to consider their views. On Wednesday, Prof Sheila Riddell told @Ross_Greer and the Committee about the use of co-ordinated support plans (CSPs) for children with #ASN - we return to the topic at next week's meeting. pic.twitter.com/twR2GTLSPy Education, Children and Young People Committee (@SP_ECYP) March 1, 2019 In its letter to the Education Secretary, the committee noted many issues raised in the 2017 inquiry still remain relevant. The letter stated: In light of the evidence received on seclusion and restraint, part-time timetabling, unlawful exclusions and home-schooling as a last resort, the committee considers that the Scottish Government should consider ways of improving data gathering on these approaches, be it through random sampling of schools or a wider approach. In one part of the letter, the committee indicated that a statement it made in 2017 suggesting a policy of inclusion was having the opposite effect in some circumstances due to a lack of resources could still be considered to be relevant. The letter to Mr Swinney said many concerns raised in 2017 remain relevant (Jane Barlow/PA) It also stated it would welcome the Scottish Governments perspective on a suggestion made by one contributor to the inquiry that the definition of what constitutes an additional support need under existing legislation could be reviewed. Monitoring staffing levels was also highlighted as an area that should be further considered. The letter read: As previously raised with you, in order to allow for a meaningful assessment of trends in staffing levels it is vital to have statistics that reflect the number of support staff with a specialism in supporting those with additional support needs. Work to standardise the nomenclature used by local authorities is a starting point for making progress in this area. In another section of the letter, the committee outlined the experiences of parents and highlighted that a number of parents consider that they need to actively and vigorously pursue adequate support for their children. The letter stated: The committee reiterates its analysis from 2017 on the need for increased awareness-raising and support for parents, including the recommendation that the Scottish Government should increase the provision of advocacy services and look at how these could be best targeted at raising awareness and supporting parents from areas of deprivation. A Scottish Government spokesman said: We welcome the recommendations from the Scottish Parliaments Education and Skills Committee and will consider these carefully. All young people deserve the same opportunity to succeed and reach their full potential, and the Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all children and young people receive the support that they need to reach their learning potential. We have recently published revised guidance on the presumption to mainstream education, alongside online resources to support school staff in their delivery of support to pupils. A doctor who received a suspended jail sentence over the death of a six-year-old boy can practise again, a medical tribunal has ruled. Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba has not worked since November 2015 when a jury convicted her of gross negligence manslaughter in her treatment of Jack Adcock who developed sepsis and died of cardiac arrest at Leicester Royal Infirmary in February 2011. Among her failures were making an incorrect diagnosis of gastro-enteritis on initial examination of the youngster who had Downs Syndrome and a heart condition and not acting on a clinical reading which ought to have been a clear indicator of sepsis, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) hearing was told. Subsequently she was sentenced in December 2015 at Nottingham Crown Court to two years in jail, suspended for the same period. Jack Adcock, who died at Leicester Royal Infirmary in 2011 (Family handout/Leicestershire Police/PA) Lawyers told that hearing the career of Dr Bawa-Garba who had wanted to be a doctor since the age of 13 was over in light of the conviction. She was later barred from practise for 12 months before the General Medical Council (GMC) took the case to the High Court to appeal against the sanction, saying it was not sufficient and Dr Bawa-Garba was struck off in January 2018. But last August the Court of Appeal ruled her name should be restored to the medical register and her case be sent back to the MPTS. On Tuesday, a tribunal determined that a raft of conditions be imposed on her registration for 24 months from the end of July when her 12-month suspension ends. The conditions include that Dr Bawa-Garba must be closely supervised by a clinical supervisor, she must have an educational supervisor and she must allow the GMC to exchange information with any person involved in monitoring her compliance with her conditions. The tribunal directed a review of Dr Bawa-Garbas case take place shortly before the end of the period of conditional registration in which the doctor will be expected to show she has made a successful return to clinical practice and her skills and knowledge are up-to-date. Dr Bawa-Garba told the tribunal: This case will live with me for the rest of my life. Tribunal chairwoman Claire Sharp said the risk of Dr Bawa-Garba putting another patient at unwarranted risk of harm was low and the evidence showed she had undertaken a significant amount of remediation. Mrs Sharp said: Given the remediation Dr Bawa-Garba has already undertaken and the full insight she has developed into her shortcomings, the tribunal was satisfied that Dr Bawa-Garba has the potential to respond positively to remediation, retraining, and to her work being supervised. From the evidence before it the tribunal was also satisfied that Dr Bawa-Garba remains fully committed to keeping her skills and knowledge up-to-date and that she has made substantial progress in doing so, despite not being in clinical practice. Dr Bawa-Garba was on the cusp of becoming a consultant prior to the incident as a specialist registrar but plans to take a step back in grade some years when she returns to work in February 2020 following maternity leave, the hearing in Manchester was told. She will undergo a national recruitment process where all paediatric trainees are reassessed in which, according to her barrister Michael Hayton QC, would put her to the test quite literally to show she is capable of performing at an adequate level. Arguing for conditions, Mr Hayton conceded there was a series of failures on her part that led to her performing far below acceptable standards in 2011 but added these failings stand in isolation in her career. Simon Jackson QC, for the GMC, agreed that the appropriate and proportionate sanction in this case was now a period of conditional registration. Jacks parents Nicky, 45, and Victor, 53, from Glen Parva, Leicestershire, fiercely opposed the doctor being allowed to practise again. Giving evidence on Monday via videolink from her home after recently giving birth to her fourth child, Dr Bawa-Garba told the tribunal: This case will live with me for the rest of my life. The actions of the GMC to appeal the original suspension angered many doctors who said important issues raised by the case including dangerous levels of understaffing, failures of IT systems and staff working in inappropriate conditions had been ignored. Following the hearing, teaching assistant Mrs Adcock said: She made over 21 mistakes with my son that day. Her human errors, nothing to do with the system. If I got in a car, and I know its different, and I hit a child and I killed that child then I would lose my licence and I would go to prison. I would probably never want to get in that car again but all she has done is to try and fight us. She doesnt care about anybody else. All she cares about is herself..Her career is more important than the life of my son. That day all she had to was ask for help all she had to do was phone intensive care, phone the consultant who would have took one look at Jack and got him in intensive care. Mrs Adcock said she was gobsmacked when Dr Bawa-Garba was originally handed a 12-month suspension but then welcomed the GMCs successful appeal to the High Court to strike her off. That is the best thing that could have happened and she should have stayed erased, said Mrs Adcock. Theres a question Id like to ask: If she goes back to work and the same thing happens again, and she contributes to someones death, whose head is on the block for that? Is it the MPTS? Is it the GMC? Is it the consultant? Is she (Bawa-Garba) going to say Its not my fault and blame everyone else again? I dont think she should ever be allowed in a hospital again. A GMC spokeswoman said: We would like to acknowledge how difficult this process has been for the Adcock family and our thoughts are with them. The GMC and Dr Bawa-Garbas representatives both submitted to the medical practitioners tribunal that her fitness to practise remains impaired due to the length of time she has been out of practice. It is important the doctors return to practise is safely managed. The tribunal agreed, making a finding of impairment, and they have imposed conditions on Dr Bawa-Garbas registration for two years in order to allow her to return safely to practise. Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden, chair of The Doctors Association UK said: Todays verdict, whilst welcome, is no cause of celebration. There are no winners in this desperately sad case. However, restoring Dr Bawa-Garba to the medical register is the right outcome and will go some way in addressing the current climate of fear and blame in the NHS which is so toxic to patient safety. I have no doubt that Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba will now be the safest doctor in the hospital, and as a doctor and a mother I would have no hesitation in allowing her to treat my child. Solicitor Tim Johnson, who represents Dr Bawa-Garba, said: This case has caused enormous controversy. Doctors across the world are concerned that they may too be convicted of manslaughter and struck off if they make a mistake in diagnosis as Dr Bawa-Garba did. Dr Bawa-Garba was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter but she was not the only person held responsible for the death of the patient and the hospital systems broke down that day which contributed to the mistakes that were made. In 2017 the (MPTS) tribunal found that Dr Bawa-Garba was no more likely than any other doctor to cause the death of a patient in future but before allowing her to resume practice a disciplinary tribunal wanted to be shown that she had insight into the consequences of her actions. The tribunal heard evidence from her yesterday and has accepted that she has an insight. A Barnsley dinner lady who scooped 1 million on the EuroMillions draw has finally told her sons about her new fortune after keeping it a secret for five weeks. Paula Williamson, a 59-year-old mother and grandmother, won the huge UK Millionaire Maker prize on March 1, but was oblivious to the win until a week later. Mrs Williamson decided that, as one of her sons, Jack, was on holiday in Australia, she would not tell him or her other son, Ian, about her winnings until the whole family was back in the UK. Despite living in the same house as Ian, she was able to keep the news between just herself and her husband, Geoff, 68, only revealing the news to her children on Tuesday. The emotional moment when Mrs Williamson finally unveiled the huge, 1 million cheque to her sons was captured on video, with the pair looking stunned at their mothers new wealth. Speaking on Tuesday, she said: There is no way we could have celebrated without our two sons being with us. I did tell Geoff, because that would have been so hard to keep the winning news from him, but we both decided we wanted to tell Jack and Ian at the same time. Mrs Williamson has said she now hopes to buy each of her sons a new house (Camelot/PA) It was tough being in the same house as Ian and keeping it from him but we did it. She added: Celebrating the winning moment is something we wanted to ensure we would remember forever. Mrs Williamson, who has worked as a dinner lady for 20 years and has no intention of retiring, hopes to use the money to buy a house each for her sons, and is also hoping to get her hands on a new three piece suite. Having bought the ticket from a branch of Morrisons, she walked around with it in her purse for a week after the draw, unaware that it was in fact worth 1 million. Mrs Williamson was unaware she had won the vast sum for a week (Camelot/PA) She said: I always buy a EuroMillions ticket when I do my weekly shopping and at the same time check my ticket from the previous week. When I got to the till to check my ticket the machine made a noise and the shop assistant said I had won more than 500 so she couldnt pay out. Mrs Williamson said she initially thought she had won around 550, but said she couldnt believe it when she realised the scale of the jackpot. The lucky winner added: I keep having to pinch myself and tell myself that I really am a millionaire. Mr Williamson, a retired long distance lorry driver, and Mrs Williamson, who have five grandchildren between them, have said they are not going to rush into anything and intend to take time to think about what to do with the money. Italian premier Giuseppe Conte has inaugurated the twisting 44-storey Generali Tower designed by late Iraqi-British architect Dame Zaha Hadid. The 190-metre (623ft) tower, which will serve as a headquarters for the Italian insurance company Generali, was dedicated on the first day of the annual Milan Furniture Fair that celebrates design. The Generali Tower is one of three skyscrapers that punctuate CityLife, a redevelopment project of the old fairgrounds that incorporates parks, apartments, offices and a vast shopping area. The Generali Tower (Luca Bruno/AP) The other towers were designed by Daniel Libeskind and Arata Isozaki. Dame Zahas tower twists as it rises, with the upper floors facing Milans centrepiece Duomo cathedral in the centre of the city. Generali chairman Gabriele Galateri called the tower a true element of development for Milan, with a focus on sustainability. Theresa May has been overwhelmingly backed by MPs to seek to delay Brexit to June 30, amid Tory warnings over the impact of holding European Parliament elections. The Commons approved a Government motion on the extension request by 420 votes to 110, majority 310. Those opposed to the plan included 97 Conservative rebels, with former Brexit secretaries David Davis and Dominic Raab among them, while a further two acted as tellers to enable the vote. The Prime Minister was forced to bring forward the motion under legislation pushed by Labour former minister Yvette Cooper, as part of a parliamentary bid to prevent a no-deal Brexit on April 12 although any extension is subject to the decision of the EU. (PA Graphics) Solicitor General Robert Buckland told MPs they must find a way to find a plan for the way forward to leave the EU with a deal and outlined how the UK would be legally required to take part in European Parliament elections if it remains a member state on May 23. But he suggested British MEPs may not have to take their seats even if they are elected should Westminster agree a deal in the coming weeks. Mr Buckland said: The new European Parliament does not meet until early July and therefore it is important for us to distinguish the need to have elections and then the requirement for British MEPs to have to actually sit in the European Parliament if we are indeed to leave the European Union before early July. Conservative former leader Iain Duncan Smith said Mr Buckland had suggested the UK may fight the European elections then not to allow its MEPs to take their seats. The House of Commons approve the motion seeking an extension of #Article50 until 30 June 2019 by 420 votes to 110. Find out how your MP voted: https://t.co/mlhOKqZdTB UK House of Commons (@HouseofCommons) April 9, 2019 Mr Buckland replied: I think were obliged to, as a matter of law, prepare for European elections but if we have left and exited the European Union by the end of June then we are no longer members, were third countries and therefore the requirement to take our seats in the European Parliament would have ended. Conservative former attorney general Dominic Grieve said the UK cannot go on lurching from one cliff-edge crisis to another and outlined his desire for a longer extension to allow MPs to make some decisions without the pressures. But Conservative former minister Tim Loughton, making an appeal to French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Angela Merkel, said: Please, put us out of our misery now, as this House and this Government appear incapable of doing. At tomorrows EU Council, please vote against any further extensions to Article 50 and oblige the UK to leave the EU on Friday on WTO terms, as you previously said you would only honour any application for an extension if there was a credible reason so to do. That credible reason does not not exist. Mr Loughton added: If the EU elections go ahead, it is highly likely the UK will elect an army of Nigel Farage mini-mes, who I am afraid will wreak havoc with the European Parliament and wreck your calculations about the balance of power within the EU. Labour former minister Kate Hoey also said: It does seem really humiliating for this country to have our Prime Minister going over to the European union to literally beg for an extension. What is this saying about our country? Tory MP Anne Main (St Albans) noted: I think we are becoming a laughing stock, and I dont know why anyone would turn up for any future referendum or even elections when they can not believe a word that goes on in here. For Labour, shadow Brexit minister Matthew Pennycook said the Government should be mortified that they have to ask once again for this Houses approval to seek an extension to the Article 50 process. He said the fact one is required is a damning indictment of the Governments mishandling of the negotiations, and its failure to secure a deal that could command the confidence of the Commons. Mr Pennycook also confirmed his party wholeheartedly supported the Governments efforts to secure an extension to Article 50, and said Labour expects them to agree to any reasonable extension beyond June 30. The estranged wife of a wealthy German businessman has told a divorce court judge how she cannot find a very good hairdresser in England despite moving to London nearly two years ago. Clarissa Pierburg said she still sometimes visited a hairdresser nearly 300 miles away in Dusseldorf, Germany. She outlined her problem to Mr Justice Moor after being embroiled in a dispute with Jurgen Pierburg following the breakdown of their 35-year marriage. Mr and Mrs Pierburg are fighting about where they should divorce. Mr Justice Moor is overseeing a trial in the Family Division of the High Court in London and is expected to finish analysing evidence and legal argument later this week. Clarissa Pierburg leaves the Royal Courts of Justice (NIck Ansell/PA) He has heard that both Mr and Mrs Pierburg are German and had lived in Switzerland. Mrs Pierburg, who is in her 60s, says she now lives in London and wants to divorce in England. Mr Pierburg, who is in his 70s, wants to divorce in Germany. The judge has heard that the marriage broke down after Mr Pierburg admitted having an affair in late 2016. He was told that the Pierburgs had lived in a chateau about an hour from Geneva. Mrs Pierburg said, when living in Switzerland, she had been in the habit of flying to Dusseldorf to get her hair done. She said she would visit her mother at the same time. Mrs Pierburg said she still made trips from London to see her hairdresser in Dusseldorf. I am still searching for a very good one (in England), she told Mr Justice Moor. When I am visiting my mother, and there is time, I like to see my hairdresser (in Dusseldorf). She said she stopped living in Germany nearly 20 years ago. London is the city of things I am interested in, she said. There is nothing for me to go back to Germany for. There is, for me, no culture. There is culture but not for me. She added: There is nothing for me now to go back to in Germany. Mr Pierburg, an art collector, told the judge on Tuesday that he and his estranged wife were tied to Germany. German businessman Jurgen Pierburg (Nick Ansell/PA) Our main connection, like an umbilical cord, to Germany has never been broken, he said. We were living in Switzerland but our hearts were still beating in Germany. He told Mr Justice Moor he had been fortunate to inherit a lot of assets. Lewis Marks QC, who is leading Mr Pierburgs legal team, questioned whether Mrs Pierburg was really resident in England. He suggested that the four-bedroom house she had in London was not big enough. These are people who at home have a staff of eight or nine people looking after them, he said. They have a chef. He added: It is hard to imagine Frau Pierburg rustling up some scrambled eggs and toast. Maybe she does. Mr Marks said Mrs Pierburg had been married for 35 years to an incredibly tax sensitive, wealthy man. He said their life was a life of socialising, going to the opera and having dinner out. Eight years ago a newspaper and magazine reported that Mr Pierburg had been invited to Prince William and Kate Middletons wedding breakfast by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. European Council president Donald Tusk has suggested EU leaders grant the UK a longer extension to Brexit than Theresa May has requested. The Prime Minister, who spent the day holding talks with French president Emmanuel Macron in Paris and German chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, has been making the case for a delay until June 30. But Mr Tusk, in a letter to the heads of the 27 remaining member states ahead of a crunch summit on Wednesday, said there was little reason to believe that the ratification of Mrs Mays beleaguered Brexit deal could be completed by the end of June. He called for the European Council to discuss an alternative, longer extension, such as a flexible extension lasting as long as necessary and no longer than one year. Mr Tusk wrote: The flexibility would allow to terminate the extension automatically, as soon as both sides have ratified the Withdrawal Agreement. The UK would be free to leave whenever it is ready. And the EU27 would avoid repeated Brexit summits. Importantly, a long extension would provide more certainty and predictability by removing the threat of constantly shifting cliff-edge dates. There are times when you need to give time time. My letter to EU leaders ahead of tomorrows #EUCO: https://t.co/bAsz4Qx36s#Brexit Charles Michel (@eucopresident) April 9, 2019 Furthermore, in the event of a continued stalemate, such a longer extension would allow the UK to rethink its Brexit strategy. He suggested that the EU would grant an extension rather than allowing Britain to leave without a deal on Friday, saying that, given the risks posed for those on both sides of the English Channel, I trust that we will continue to do our utmost to avoid this scenario. Mr Tusks letter came after the PM arrived in Paris for talks with Mr Macron, who in recent days has warned that an extension to the Article 50 withdrawal process is not guaranteed. Earlier over a working lunch, Mrs May and Ms Merkel had agreed on the importance of an orderly withdrawal from the EU, Downing Street said. Angela Merkel and Theresa May embrace after their meeting at the chancellery in Berlin (Michael Sohn/AP) The unanimous agreement of all 27 remaining EU states is needed to avoid a no-deal Brexit on the scheduled date of April 12. DUP Westminster leader Nigel Dodds branded the talks humiliating and embarrassing for the UK, and claimed Britain was effectively holding out a begging bowl to European leaders. The visits came as the EUs chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said Brussels could amend the Political Declaration on future relations with the UK within a few hours or days to incorporate the customs union arrangement being discussed in cross-party talks between the Government and Labour. But there were signs of resistance in Mrs Mays Cabinet to compromise with Labour, with International Trade Secretary Liam Fox warning that a customs union would leave the UK stuck in the worst of both worlds. Labour MPs leave the Cabinet Office after Brexit talks with members of the Government (Yui Mok/PA) Mrs May has asked for the date of Brexit to be delayed until June 30 at Wednesdays summit, with the possibility of an earlier departure if the UKs withdrawal deal is ratified. MPs backed her call in a Commons vote on Tuesday afternoon as they approved a Government motion for Mrs May to seek an extension to June 30 by 420 votes to 110, majority 310. However 97 Conservatives rebelled by opposing the plan including former Brexit secretaries David Davis and Dominic Raab. A breakdown of the result of the House of Commons vote authorising Theresa Mays request for extending Article 50 (PA Graphics) Meanwhile the cross-party talks seeking to break the Brexit impasse will resume on Thursday, with Labour saying the Government had not yet made a clear shift in its position. A party spokeswoman said: We had further detailed and wide-ranging talks with Cabinet ministers and officials today. We have yet to see the clear shift in the Governments position that is needed to secure a compromise agreement. The House of Commons approve the motion seeking an extension of #Article50 until 30 June 2019 by 420 votes to 110. Find out how your MP voted: https://t.co/mlhOKqZdTB UK House of Commons (@HouseofCommons) April 9, 2019 We have agreed to hold further talks on Thursday in an effort to break the Brexit deadlock, and find a compromise that can win support in Parliament and bring the country together. A Downing Street spokesman said the talks were productive and wide-ranging, adding: We remain completely committed to delivering on Brexit, with both sides working hard to agreeing a way forward, appreciating the urgency in order to avoid European elections. Families who lost their homes in the Grenfell Tower fire nearly two years ago are still living in temporary accommodation, the Government has said. Housing minister Kit Malthouse said more than 180 households had been placed in permanent accommodation after the fire, which destroyed the West London tower block and claimed 72 lives in June 2017. Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Malthouse added that 15 remain in temporary accommodation, which includes hotels and serviced apartments. He said: As well as feeling more secure, nothing is more important than people being safe in their homes, so we will also be implementing a new regulatory framework for building safety. It is no small task, but it is the debt we owe to those who suffered so terribly at Grenfell fire. During a General Debate on Housing the minister was also accused of staggering complacency about homelessness by a Birmingham MP, who said the city should have a memorial to those who have died on its streets as a permanent reminder of those we have failed. John Healey MP said the Government was `on go-slow when it came to action on re-housing (Dominic Lipinski/PA) On Grenfell, Mr Malthouse admitted that, while the Government is very close to being able to rehouse everyone who lost their home a small number of people were yet to be found new permanent accommodation. Shadow housing secretary John Healey said: Nearly two years on from that shocking national tragedy, the Government action is still on go-slow. Mr Healey said one in ten of those from the tower, and one in three from those in the wider estate involved in the Grenfell Tower fire have still not got permanent new homes. He added that eight out of ten buildings with similar cladding had still not had it removed and replaced. Mr Malthouse responded: We have been putting enormous effort into the rehousing of the 202 households from Grenfell Tower and Grenfell Walk which require rehousing. Every one has accepted an offer of either high quality temporary accommodation or permanent accommodation. A hundred and ninety six have moved in. A hundred and eighty one have moved into their permanent home, and 15 remain in temporary accommodation. Six whole households remain in emergency accommodation, only two in hotels, and three in serviced apartments, and one is living with family or friends. Mr Malthouse said the Government is dealing with the situation slowly and sensitively, and noted no one can be compelled to do anything they dont want to do. Mr Healey said he was doing the survivors a disservice by telling a story which is at odds with the experience of those people affected by the fire. Labours Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill) said he was staggered to hear the ministers complacency about homelessness, saying that in his region under a Tory Mayor it was up by 333%. He said people are dying at the rate of one a fortnight, and read out the names of everyone who had died in the last 15 months on the streets of Birmingham. Mr Byrne, a former minister, said he has seen people living in subways in their hospital gowns and those suffering from rat bites, fighting and fearing sepsis. He said the names were a roll call of shame, and called for the building of a permanent memorial (so) we are confronted every day with the names of those who died and the names of those we have failed. He added: But the best memorial would be to end this scandal for good, and sweep the disgrace of homelessness into the history books once more. The Democratic Unionists have branded Theresa Mays bid for a Brexit extension as humiliating and embarrassing. Party leader Arlene Foster and Westminster leader Nigel Dodds both accused Mrs May of begging European leaders for help to break the impasse. The senior figures in the Governments confidence and supply partners did not hold back in their criticism of the Prime Ministers handling of the process as she spent the day holding talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron. The talks between the Prime Minister and the leaders of France and Germany is humiliating and embarrassing for the United Kingdom, Mr Dodds said on Tuesday evening. The problems the Prime Minister is attempting to solve were not created by the decision to leave the European Union, rather the ineffective negotiations by the Prime Minister to implement that decision. A solution was put forward by the House of Commons on 29th January through the Brady amendment which could have charted a course by which Parliament could have supported a deal. Instead of treating this proposal seriously, the Prime Minister has effectively accepted the backstop and opted not to stand up to Brussels. Nearly three years after the referendum the UK is today effectively holding out a begging bowl to European leaders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, and Prime Minister Theresa May, kiss goodbye (Markus Schreiber/AP) Earlier, Mrs Foster questioned Mrs Mays leadership qualities. She needed to be strong, she needed to show leadership, and Im sorry to say that hasnt been evident in these past couple of months, she told the BBC. Mrs Foster said the Prime Minister had found herself pleading to stay in the EU to resolve issues that should have been already settled. I find it quite painful to watch whats going on at this present moment in time, it is rather humiliating that we are having to go and beg so that we can leave, she said. Ecuador has reminded WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange once again that he cannot stay indefinitely in the nations London embassy. The countrys foreign minister Jose Valencia told Teleamazonas that a permanent stay would not be good for Mr Assanges state of mind, his health. He said that if Mr Assange were to appear before the British justice system he would be guaranteed a fair trial and right to a defence. Julian Assange (Dominic Lipinski/PA) Londons Metropolitan Police force said last week that officers would be obliged to execute an active warrant for Mr Assanges arrest if he were to leave. Mr Assange also fears the possibility of extradition to the US for publishing thousands of classified military and diplomatic cables through WikiLeaks. Mr Assange has lived in Ecuadors embassy for over six years and relations with his host country have grown increasingly tense. Historic abuse victims in Northern Ireland have accused the Government of ignoring its moral duty after a legal bid to secure stalled compensation payouts failed. A judge at Belfast High Court ruled that Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradleys ongoing refusal to intervene and implement a redress scheme was not unlawful. Compensation payments of up to 100,000 recommended by a state inquiry more than two years ago have not been distributed to victims due to the collapse of the powersharing executive in Belfast. Solicitor for JR80 - the abuse victim who took the case - @MckeeganClaire says its positive that the judge has not made a final order and has left open option of further hearing if Karen Bradley does not act on draft legislation prepared by @HeadNICS pic.twitter.com/Y8m5r482G7 David Young (@DavidYoungPA) April 12, 2019 A judicial review taken by an abuse survivor in an attempt to compel Mrs Bradley to establish the scheme, and call an Assembly election to address the political impasse, was rejected by Judge Bernard McCloskey on Friday. While the judge said Mrs Bradleys current stance was not unlawful he did not issue a final order in the case, instead leaving the door open for a potential further challenge. The head of Northern Irelands Civil Service, David Sterling, is in the final stages of drawing up draft legislation that would give effect to the redress scheme. He intends to present this to Mrs Bradley and ask her to take it through Westminster. Kate McCausland speaks outside court (Liam McBurney/PA) Justice McCloskey indicated to lawyers for the anonymous victim, known as JR80, that he would be prepared to hear the case again if Mrs Bradley does not act on the draft legislation. The intervention of the court in this case has occurred at a fixed point in time, he said. Certain imminent events of unmistakable significance, involving the Secretary of State in particular, are awaited. After the hearing, Jon McCourt, chairman of the Survivors North West group, expressed his anger outside court. Palpable anger and raw emotion outside Belfast High Court as abuse victims fail in bid to force NI Secretary to pay stalled compensation recommended by HIA inquiry. Say she has moral duty to act, regardless of court ruling. Victim redress scheme a casualty of Stormont collapse. pic.twitter.com/JZYl1HByxv David Young (@DavidYoungPA) April 12, 2019 We are angry, we are disappointed, we are frustrated and I dont know what this is going to do to people who had actually put their hopes on the justice system starting to work on behalf of justice for victims and survivors of historical institutional abuse, he said. Theres something wrong with this system when it doesnt prioritise the needs of the most vulnerable people in its society. He said the spotlight was now on Mrs Bradley and what she would do with the draft legislation. Lets see what she does, lets see if she has a moral conscience, he said. Lets see whether shes prepared at some point to take into consideration the harm, the damage, the pain and the trauma thats been caused to victims and survivors of historical institutional abuse. Its about time stuff was sorted it needs to be done now. Kate McCausland, whose 88-year-old mother Una Irvine was abused in a home run by the Sisters of Nazareth religious order in Belfast, wept as she described her mothers current battle with Alzheimers. The time has passed for her to have the satisfaction of knowing that justice was done, she said. Two years ago she may have been able to enjoy the practical help that compensation would have afforded her, but there are so many like her and I think its an absolute disgrace thats shes been let down. They were helpless in the home. She was four when she was put in and she spent 10 years there and they were helpless, they had nowhere to run then, and theyve been let down again by those in authority. Mrs McCausland, from Ballygowan, Co Down, said her mothers two younger sisters, who were also put in Nazareth House, died before the HIA inquiry was set up. It was her wish that the compensation be shared with their families, she said. The applicant JR80 is a member of the lobby group Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse (SAVIA). The groups solicitor, Claire McKeegan, said the order was unique. The court has not abandoned these proceedings, there has been no final order, she said. Todays order suggests that JR80 has an opportunity to revisit these proceedings should there be a situation where the Secretary of State refuses to take the legislation through Parliament once David Sterling has it completed. We believe that this is a positive and the court has exercised a supervisory role over what should happen next. She said the legal team would study the judgment in full before deciding whether there were grounds for appeal. A member of SAVIA, called Shauneen, urged Northern Ireland politicians to put aside their differences as she spoke on behalf of the group outside court. The victims and survivors are devastated by todays verdict, she said. We have waited a lifetime for justice and once more we have been cast aside. It is clear that our local politicians can fix this and deliver it for us. If ever there was a reason for our politicians to get back to work this is it. They have a responsibility to stand up for victims and survivors, we are calling for them to put their differences aside for the sake of victims and survivors. We deserve more. If a legal duty hasnt been established a moral one certainly has. People are dying here. We cant wait any longer. Mr McCourt recalled a meeting at Stormont with former first minister Peter Robinson and former deputy first minister, the late Martin McGuinness, on the abuse issue. They made us a promise in that room we will not let you down, he said. We have been let down at every turn, every turn we have been let down. Mrs McCausland said her mother now only retained memories from her childhood the time she was kept in the home. Shell say to me when she wakes up what is your number? or we better run, we are going to get beaten. Or shell look at me, she doesnt know Im her daughter, shell look at me in fear and say dont you throw wee children across the floor and kick them. And that happened. Delivering his ruling in Belfast High Court, Justice McCloskey said the current political vacuum was unsatisfactory but it was not unconstitutional. The plight of victims and survivors of historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland illustrates graphically just how damaging this is for certain sections of society, he said. The proposals put forward by the HIA inquiry, chaired by retired judge Sir Anthony Hart, are mired in uncertainty due to the Stormont impasse. They were published just as the DUP/Sinn Fein-led executive was imploding in January 2017, so no elected local ministers have been able to take action. A public consultation on the proposed shape of the compensation scheme closed last month, but the plans cannot be implemented without intervention by the UK Government. The HIA inquiry studied allegations of abuse in 22 homes and other residential institutions between 1922 and 1995. There were 76 homes that operated during that time and abuse victims from all of them would be eligible to apply for compensation. The facilities were run by the state, local authorities, the Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland and childrens charity Barnardos. The inquiry recommended compensation payouts ranging from 7,500 to 100,000 for victims. An estimated 5,000 people are eligible for the payments. Members of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee at Westminster have written to Mrs Bradley urging her to intervene and legislate for compensation. A UK Government spokeswoman said: It is vital that action is taken to ensure victims and survivors of historical institutional abuse get the redress they deserve. The Executive Office is currently analysing the responses to the consultation (public consultation on the draft legislation) in order to prepare a written report for ministerial consideration. The aim is for this to be completed shortly. This marks a significant step forward. An interim advocate will also be appointed to provide support and assistance to victims and survivors until a statutory commissioner can be appointed. The UK Governments priority continues to be the restoration of the NI Executive at the earliest opportunity. If there is not an Executive in place by the time the consultation analysis and report are finalised, the UK Government will consider next steps in the absence of ministers. JJ Abrams has said Carrie Fishers Leia will live on in Star Wars: Episode IX which has been called Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker. The director said he was able to integrate unused scenes of Leia from The Force Awakens into the story. Speaking at the Star Wars Celebration event in Chicago, Abrams said having a CG character, recasting or just having her disappear were not options. Fisher died in December 2016, after shooting had finished on The Last Jedi, and her character is alive in the last shot of the film. It has been a lingering question as to how the final instalment in the new trilogy would handle Fishers passing. JJ Abrams participates in the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker event (Rob Grabowski/Invision/AP) Abrams said that Leia lives in the film in a way that is mind-blowing to him. You cant just recast and you cant just have her disappear, Abrams said. The idea of having a CG character wasnt even an option. He said he is currently in the process of editing and adding visual effects to the film which will hit cinemas on December 20 and said that despite Fishers death were working with her every day. Princess Leia lives in this film in way that is mind-blowing to me, he said. It feels impossible, but today wrapped photography on Episode IX. There is no adequate way to thank this truly magical crew and cast. Im forever indebted to you all. pic.twitter.com/138AprtFuZ JJ Abrams (@jjabrams) February 15, 2019 The director also said Star Wars Episode IX does not pick up immediately after the events of The Last Jedi. He said some time has gone by since the events of the last film and teased that it will be an adventure that the group goes on together. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy also reiterated that Episode IX will close out the newest trilogy and the nine-film Skywalker saga that began in 1977. Donald Trump has said he is considering releasing illegal immigrants in Democratic strongholds to punish his opponents for inaction on border security. The Presidents remarks came just hours after White House and Homeland Security officials insisted the idea had been rejected as fast as it had been proposed. Due to the fact that Democrats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws, we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only, Mr Trump tweeted. He added: The Radical Left always seems to have an Open Borders, Open Arms policy so this should make them very happy! He told reporters later on Friday he was strongly looking at the idea. Theyre always saying they have open arms. Lets see if they have open arms, he said. President Donald Trump has come under fire for his comments on migrants (Evan Vucci/AP) His comments, which appeared to catch officials at the Department of Homeland Security off guard, came as critics condemned news that the White House had at least twice considered a plan to release detained immigrants into so-called sanctuary cities as an effort to use migrants as pawns to go after political opponents. Sanctuary cities are places where local authorities do not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, denying information or resources that would help ICE round up for deportation people living in the country illegally. They include New York City and San Francisco, home city of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who on Friday called the idea unworthy of the presidency of the United States and disrespectful of the challenges that we face as a country, as a people, to address who we are a nation of immigrants. The idea of pressing immigration authorities to embrace the plan was discussed in November and then again in February as the Trump administration struggled with a surge of migrants at the border, according to sources. Homeland Security and ICE lawyers quickly rejected the proposal, the sources said, and it was dropped on the grounds that it was complicated, too expensive and a misuse of funds. Earlier on Friday, both the Department of Homeland Security and a White House official insisted, in nearly identical statements, that the plan was dead on arrival. This was just a suggestion that was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion, the White House official said. The plan, which was first reported by the Washington Post, is one of many ideas considered by an increasingly frustrated White House in recent months as Mr Trump has railed against the growing number of Central American migrant families crossing the southern border. Officials say they are running out of options, and have proposed and recycled numerous ideas that have never come to fruition. Mr Trump in recent weeks has discussed the idea of renewing his administrations controversial family separation policy. And he and aides are weighing forcing asylum-seeking families to choose between being detained together as their cases make their way through the courts or sending their children to government-run shelters. Sudans defence minister has announced he is stepping down as transitional leader a day after ousting the countrys autocratic president. In a TV address, General Awad Ibn Ouf also announced his successor, General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, general inspector of the armed forces, as head of the transitional council. Mr Ibn Ouf said: I, the head of the military council, announce I am giving up the post, adding he took the decision to preserve the unity of the armed forces. General Awad Ibn Ouf announced he is stepping down (Fethi Belaid/AP) Tens of thousands of Sudanese protesters have been rallying in front of the military headquarters in Khartoum against the military takeover of power after the ousting of long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir on Thursday. The Sudanese military has rejected calls that it hand over al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court where he faces genocide charges for his deadly campaign in the western Darfur region and said he would be put on trial at home. The developments point to the sensitivity of the case of the Darfur conflict for the military council that has taken power after removing and arresting al-Bashir amid mounting protests against his 30-year rule. Mr Ibn Ouf was head of military intelligence during the brutal campaign to suppress the Darfur insurgency in the 2000s. The United States has imposed sanctions on him since 2007, saying he armed and directed pro-government militias known as the Janjaweed, accused of widespread atrocities against civilians and rapes during the conflict. Demonstrators want an end to military rule (AP) Earlier on Friday, another top general Omar Zein Abedeen said that al-Bashir would not be extradited to the International Criminal Court based in The Hague, saying doing so would be an ugly mark on Sudan. Even rebels carrying weapons, we dont extradite them, he told reporters at a news conference in Khartoum. Mr Zein Abedeen said Sudanese courts would hold al-Bashir accountable, but did not specify what charges he could be prosecuted on. In ousting the president, the military denounced him and his government for corruption, maladministration and lack of justice. Meanwhile, Mr Zein Abedeen sought to reassure protesters who, while celebrating al-Bashirs removal, oppose the militarys seizure of power in his wake. After ousting the president, the military announced it would rule the country for two years through a transitional council. It also suspended the constitution, dissolved the government, declared a three-month state of emergency and imposed a night-time curfew. Protest organisers have vowed not to end their street action until a civilian transitional council is formed, saying rule by military commanders who for years were al-Bashir loyalists is just an extension of his regime. The curfew and state of emergency have raised fears the military could eventually disperse the sit-in by force. But at least initially, it appears to be trying to persuade protest organisers to end the campaign. Speaking at a news conference aired live on state TV and flanked by other uniformed officers, Mr Zein Abedeen who is tasked with leading dialogue with Sudans political factions insisted the army has no ambition to hold the reins of power for long. If within a month, Sudan became able to run itself without chaos, we are ready to leave even after a month. The maximum is two years, he said. Anthony Limbombes late free-kick secured a 2-1 win for lowly Nantes against third-placed Lyon in Ligue 1. Kalifa Coulibaly fired hosts Nantes into an 11th-minute lead when he latched on to a through ball from Majeed Waris and finished past Lyon keeper Anthony Lopes. But Lyon equalised four minutes before half-time when Martin Terrier collected the ball from Moussa Dembele and fired low into the corner of the goal from the edge of the area. Terrier had a chance to fire Lyon ahead at the start of the second half but his shot was saved by Ciprian Tatarusanu. Instead, it was Nantes who snatched the points seven minutes from time when Tanguy Ndombele fouled Majeed Waris and Limbombe dispatched the free-kick into the top left corner. The win moved Nantes up to 15th place in the table and nine points clear of the relegation zone. A vulture which flew hundreds of miles from its home on a Serbian nature reserve has been flown home from Turkey by plane. The one-year-old female griffon vulture named Dobrila from the nature reserve of Uvac was returned home in a joint effort by Serbia and Turkey. It is not clear why Dobrila wandered so far away but officials say she was apparently unable to come back home. There are about 500 griffon vultures in the Uvac reserve. The birds are considered a protected species in Serbia. This is a very important moment for us, said Serbian environment minister Goran Trivan. The most important thing is that she is well. Turkeys ambassador in Serbia Tanju Bilgic explained that Turkish soldiers first found Dobrila in late 2018 near the Syrian border when it was treated by vets and set free. Griffon vultures are a protected species in Serbia (Andrew Milligan/PA) But he said shepherds soon after found the bird suffering from cold, about 72 miles) away, when it became clear she was unable to fly back. I am very happy to witness that our operation has been very successful, he said. Theresa May will stay Prime Minister until she has taken Britain out of the EU, Chancellor Philip Hammond has insisted. The Chancellors comments came as cross-party negotiations to try to break the Brexit deadlock continued after the UKs exit date from the EU was delayed until October 31. Mr Hammond told Bloomberg: The Prime Minister has said that she will leave once she has done the deal and taken us out of the European Union. But, as far as I know, she doesnt have any intention of leaving until that deal is done. So, she is a person with a strong sense of duty. She feels that she has got a duty, and an obligation to the British people to deliver Brexit and she will certainly want to make good on that obligation. Asked about the implications of a Tory leadership contest, Mr Hammond said: Lets be honest, we have already got people jockeying for position to succeed her, but thats just one of those things. The Chancellor said Labour was not clear on whether it wanted a new Brexit referendum. Mr Hammond said: The Labour Party itself isnt really clear yet whether it wants to argue for a second confirmatory referendum. Some people in Labour do, some people in Labour are very strongly opposed to it. So, they have got to decide whether its an ask yet in these discussions. And then if they did, what that would mean would be some kind of process by which the House of Commons was invited to decide on this issue. Now, some people in the Commons are very keen on a second referendum, but some are strongly against. So, I think this is a very open question at the moment whether they are going to ask for it, and if they do, what would actually happen when it is voted on in the Commons. Mr Hammond said fighting the European Parliament elections would feel like a pointless exercise. He said: Clearly nobody wants to fight the European elections it feels like a pointless exercise. The only way we can avoid that is by getting a deal agreed and done quickly and if we can do that by May 22 then of course we can avoid fighting European parliamentary elections. But in any case we want to ensure any British MEPs that are elected never have to take their seats. The Prime Minister has made clear she intends to bring her Brexit deal back to the Commons for a fourth time after EU leaders agreed to extend the Article 50 withdrawal process to October 31. Chancellor Philip Hammond (Dominic Lipinski/PA) No 10 is still hoping they can get a deal through Parliament in time to avoid the need for Britain to vote in elections to the European Parliament on May 23. The UK is now formally on track to hold elections, having informed the European authorities ahead of Fridays deadline that it would be taking part in the ballots occurring across the continent from May 23-26. However, it is possible for the vote to be cancelled right up to the day before polling if a withdrawal deal is agreed by MPs. Preparations for the polls were stepping up a gear, as Nigel Farage launching his new Brexit Party in Coventry. The former Ukip leader said the existing parties should fear the electorate who feel betrayed by the failure to deliver EU withdrawal almost three years after the 2016 referendum. Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph reported that Home Secretary Sajid Javid drew up a detailed technological plan to do away with the Irish backstop, but it was stopped by the Treasury. The equivalent of one police car a day breaks down while on patrol in Scotland, Scottish Labour has claimed. According to statistics obtained under a freedom of information (FOI) request by the party, 349 police cars broke down last year a rise of 100 on 2017. The highest number of breakdowns occurred in February, with 44 recorded. September was the month with the lowest number of breakdowns last year, with 10 recorded. An FOI by the Scottish Liberal Democrats last month revealed more than 250 cars in Police Scotlands fleet are over a decade old. Scottish Labour justice spokesman Daniel Johnson said: No wonder criminals fancy their chances in Sturgeons Scotland when the police are driving clapped-out bangers. A police car is breaking down patrolling Scotlands streets almost every day and it is a problem that is getting worse. Police Scotland is getting nowhere near the level of funding it needs to maintain a modern fleet. You cant keep communities safe on the cheap and in government Labour will give our police the resources they need to look for criminals, not the nearest mechanic. Speaking in the Scottish Parliament earlier this month, Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf accused opposition MSPs of crying crocodile tears over police funding, having voted against the budget that was agreed earlier this year. Mr Yousaf said funding for the annual policing budget would rise to more than 1.2 billion in 2019/20 and a 100 million resource protection would be provided up until 2021. Calum Steele, general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, said: The only thing that is surprising in these official figures is that they are so low. The condition of much of the police vehicle fleet is nothing short of a disgrace, breakdowns are commonplace and officers routinely highlight that more vehicles are off the road than on it. In the past few weeks we have seen a police van catch fire, another needed a continual hand on the gear stick to ensure it didnt jump out of gear whilst in motion, and both were incapable of keeping the rain out. This is a matter that ought to embarrass both the Government and the Scottish Police Authority. The derisory capital funding for the police service gives little hope things will improve anytime soon. We risk a farcical reality that those charged with keeping unsafe vehicles off our roads will be increasingly asked to do so from vehicles which are barely road legal in themselves. Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf has outlined that the police resource budget will be protected (Andrew Cowan/PA) A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: While the allocation of resources is for the Chief Constable and SPA to determine, we are protecting the police resource budget in real terms in every year of the current Parliament, delivering a boost of 100 million by 2021. Total Scottish Government funding for the SPA in 2019-20 is increasing by 42.3 million, bringing the annual policing budget to more than 1.2 billion. This includes a 52% increase to the capital budget providing 12 million more which will fund essential investment in IT infrastructure and support mobile working for officers, allowing them to access information remotely and spend more time in communities. We continue to press the UK Government for a refund of the 125 million paid by Police Scotland in VAT between 2013 and 2018. Brexit appears to take a backseat in Saturdays papers with the latest on Julian Assange and a fine for a parenting club making headlines. The Times leads with questions over the authenticity of the worlds most expensive painting, Salvator Mundi, which is said to be the sole work of Leonardo da Vinci and sold for 450 million dollars (345 million) in 2017. The Daily Telegraph reports that Home Secretary Sajid Javid drew up a detailed technological plan to remove the Irish backstop but was stopped by the Treasury. Saturdays TELEGRAPH: Javids plan to fix the Irish border problem #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/AjFHWk8ckE Helen Miller (@MsHelicat) April 12, 2019 The Guardian leads on Assange, with the Home Secretary being urged to prioritise action which would see the WikiLeaks founder extradited to Sweden. The Guardian front page, Saturday 13 April 2019: Give priority to Assange rape claim, Javid urged pic.twitter.com/OZ3YeFP7sw The Guardian (@guardian) April 12, 2019 The i says that Assange is facing a tug of war between Sweden and the United States as Stockholm considers re-opening the case against the 47-year-old. THE i WEEKEND: Assange faces tug of war between US and Sweden #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/MGm4YFeBtF Helen Miller (@MsHelicat) April 12, 2019 The Daily Mail writes that a woman who is alleged to have been sexually assaulted by Assange said treating the WikiLeaks founder as a political victim was not helping the cause. What the papers say - April 13 (PA) The Financial Times carries a story on the 400,000 fine for parenting club Bounty for selling users data. Just published: front page of the Financial Times UK edition Saturday April 13 https://t.co/FuJ2YXfsJL pic.twitter.com/yRzERYjNjS Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) April 12, 2019 The Independent reports that hundreds of children who have sought refuge in the UK are being sent into danger when they turn 18. Saturdays INDEPENDENT: The child refugees sent back into danger by UK #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/YfWp827bZd Helen Miller (@MsHelicat) April 12, 2019 The Daily Mirror says that former Crimewatch host Nick Ross said police made blunders which hindered the investigation into Jill Dandos death. The Daily Express leads on a campaign to give soldiers more help to cope with the trauma of combat experiences. Tomorrow's @Daily_Express front page - Time to protect our heroes: Coroner urges Government to help traumatised troops - Plug is pulled on Queen going green - Free brilliant 7-day TV guide - 2-for-1 wristbands at Blackpool @Pleasure_Beach #Tomorrowspaperstoday #Tomorrowspapers pic.twitter.com/c4xdLuvWPT Daily Express (@Daily_Express) April 12, 2019 And the Daily Star writes that EastEnders actor Jake Wood and his famliy were almost eaten alive by an alligator in Florida. More than 70 Parliamentarians have signed a letter urging the Government to ensure Julian Assange faces Swedish authorities if they request his extradition. Labour and Co-op MP Stella Creasy shared a copy of the note on social media which has been sent to Home Secretary Sajid Javid. WikiLeaks founder Assange, 47, is facing rape and sexual assault allegations in Sweden. Tonight over 70 parliamentarians stand with victims of sexual violence, and are calling on both the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Sec to urge them both to be champions of action to ensure Julian Assange faces Swedish authorities and is extradited there if they so request: pic.twitter.com/uaJMM984Cc stellacreasy (@stellacreasy) April 12, 2019 The message, shared on Twitter, reads: We are writing to request that you do everything you can to champion action that will ensure Julian Assange can be extradited to Sweden in the event Sweden make an extradition request. This would be so the formal investigation into an allegation of rape can be concluded and, if appropriate, a charge can be made and any trial can take place. We do not presume guilt, of course, but we believe due process should be followed and the complainant should see justice be done. We urge you to stand with the victims of sexual violence and seek to ensure the case against Mr Assange can now be properly investigated. The rape allegation has a limitation period which expires in August 2020, it adds. Assange had been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for nearly seven years (Rebecca Brown/PA) Assange spent almost seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he sought political asylum in 2012 after failing in his legal battle against extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted over two separate allegations, one of rape and one of molestation. In May 2017, Swedens top prosecutor dropped the long-running inquiry into a rape claim against Assange, which he has always denied. But his arrest prompted the lawyer for a Swedish woman who alleged she was raped by Assange during a visit to Stockholm in 2010 to say they wanted the case reopened. Prosecutors in Sweden have since confirmed that, while the investigation has not been resumed, they are looking into the case. Labour MP Stephen Kinnock told the BBC: Mr Assange is accused of rape and sexual violence in Sweden and its vital that that doesnt get airbrushed out of the conversation because of all the other issues to do with WikiLeaks. I think the top priority, as we say in our letter, is to ensure that if the Swedish authorities wish to have him extradited there to face those charges, they must take priority above all else. Former Home Secretary Lord Blunkett said people giving Assange unqualified support were being extremely unwise. Writing in The Times, the former Labour MP said: It is indeed important that any extradition hearing should be fair and take into account the mitigation of genuine revelations of wrongdoing made in 2010. However, supporting a fair hearing is not the same as a political demand that he should be treated as some kind of hero; he remained in the Ecuadorean embassy to avoid previous extradition hearings concerning claims of rape and abuse in Sweden. A kneejerk response that presumes that hacking is acceptable if the perpetrators can claim that their motives were journalistic is particularly dangerous when it emanates from those aspiring to become prime minister or home secretary, such as Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott. His predecessor as home secretary Jack Straw also wrote in the paper, saying: There is no higher duty on any government than to protect a nations security, including its critical IT. If Corbyn were prime minister, would hackers who compromised the UKs security be allowed a free pass? Labour former lord chancellor Lord Falconer told BBC Radio 4: I think this is really a matter for the courts to decide, isnt it? Referring to Mr Assange, Lord Falconer said: I dont think politicians should be saying he should or should not be extradited. Tory former Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt told the BBC: The minimising of the issues in relation to sexual assault are really quite disturbing. You read the testimony and concerns of the women who have been involved, I have no view on the matter because it must come before a court, but it seems essential to me that he should face justice for what he has been accused of. Either to acquit him, or to see him appropriately convicted. Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry tweeted: Why werent Swedish authorities told in advance of Assanges ejection from Ecuadorian embassy, as the US clearly was? Our priority should be the 2 alleged victims of sexual violence in Sweden & not a ruse to get him extradited to the US as a whistleblower. Police investigating the murder of Crimewatch host Jill Dando had a scattergun approach and a foolish view it was linked to the show, former co-host Nick Ross has claimed. Miss Dando, then one of the BBCs highest-profile stars, was shot outside her home in Fulham, west London, nearly 20 years ago. Mr Ross, who left Crimewatch in 2007 after 23 years, told the Daily Mirror he did not believe Miss Dando was targeted due to her role. Former Crimewatch presenter Nick Ross (Toby Melville/PA) He told the paper: The thing is, and not so much the fault of the senior investigating officer, but top brass, they had this intuitive and, we thought, rather foolish view, it would be to do with Crimewatch. In modern times, there has never been a judge attacked for sending someone down, a prosecuting solicitor, or anybody. Its just not the way it happens here. And when I contacted colleagues in the States, it was as rare as hens teeth there. Barry George was cleared of murdering TV presenter Jill Dando (Lewis Whyld/PA) He added that appeals were frustrating when police had a scattergun approach. Barry George was arrested on suspicion of murder in 2000, one year after Miss Dando was killed. Mr George was convicted and imprisoned for eight years, then acquitted and released after a retrial. A British man who had been in Australia for less than 24 hours has been charged after an alleged violent assault near Sydneys Bondi Beach. The 35-year-old, who has not been named, approached another man in the early hours of Saturday and assaulted and threatened him, New South Wales Police said. Officers said the 59-year-old victim attempted to run away, when the man continued to assault him and stole his mobile phone. A man who has been in Australia less than 24-hours will appear in court today after an alleged violent assault on another man in #BondiBeach https://t.co/bpDAZeyeVY NSW Police Force (@nswpolice) April 13, 2019 The victim was taken to St Vincents Hospital in a serious but stable condition. A pedestrian alerted police to the incident on Campbell Parade at around 1.30am and the British national was charged with aggravated robbery with wounding and grievous bodily harm. He was refused bail and is due in court in Parramatta, in the west of Sydney, on Saturday. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he is open to a third summit with US president Donald Trump. But Mr Kim set a deadline of the end of 2019 for Washington to offer mutually acceptable terms for an agreement to salvage the high-stakes nuclear diplomacy, the countrys state-run media said Saturday. He made the comments during a speech on Friday at a session of the North Koreas parliament, which made a slew of personnel changes that bolstered his diplomatic lineup amid stalemated negotiations with the United States. People watch a TV screen showing an image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (Ahn Young-Joon/AP) His speech came hours after Mr Trump and visiting South Korean president Moon Jae-in met in Washington and agreed on the importance of nuclear talks with North Korea. We of course place importance on resolving problems through dialogue and negotiations. But US-style dialogue of unilaterally pushing its demands doesnt fit us, and we have no interest in it, Mr Kim said during the speech. According to the Korean Central News Agency, he blamed the collapse of his summit with Mr Trump in February on what he described as unilateral demands by the United States, which he said raised questions over whether Washington has genuine willingness to improve relations. But he said his personal relationship with the American president remains good and that they could exchange letters at any time. Mr Kim repeated earlier claims that North Koreas crippled economy would persevere through heavy international sanctions imposed over its nuclear weapons program and that he wouldnt obsess over summitry with the United States out of thirst for sanctions relief. The United States has said the summit in Vietnam broke down because of the Norths excessive demands for sanctions relief in return for limited disarmament measures. A man reads a newspaper showing photos of the US, South Korean and North Korean leaders (Ahn Young-Joon/AP) In their first summit last June in Singapore, Mr Trump and Mr Kim issued a vague statement calling for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without describing when and how it would occur. Mr Kim said the United States has been refusing to withdraw what the North perceives as hostile policies while sticking to mistaken judgment that we would succumb to maximum pressure. He said the North would not compromise on the fundamental interests of our country and people, even by a speck, and blamed the United States for arriving in Hanoi with completely unrealisable plans. US president Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met in Hanoi (Evan Vucci/AP) If the United States approaches us with the right manner and offers to hold a third North Korea-US leaders summit on the condition of finding solutions we could mutually accept, then we do have a willingness to give it one more try, he added. We will wait with patience until the end of the year for the United States to come up with a courageous decision. But it will clearly be difficult for a good opportunity like last time to come up. When asked about Mr Kims comments, South Koreas presidential office said Seoul is committed toward keeping the atmosphere of dialogue alive and helping negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang resume at an early date. US president Donald Trump has weighed in on the most recent controversy involving Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar, retweeting a video edited to suggest she was dismissive of the significance of the September 11 attacks. The video shows a snippet of Ms Omars speech last month to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in which she described the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre as some people did something, spliced with news footage of the hijacked planes hitting the twin towers. Mr Trump tweeted: WE WILL NEVER FORGET! Ms Omars remark has drawn criticism from political opponents and conservatives who say the congresswoman, one of the first Muslim women to serve in congress, offered a flippant description of the assailants and the attacks in New York City that killed nearly 3,000 people and placed the US on the path to war. Neither Mr Trumps tweet nor the video includes her full quote or the context of the Minnesota representatives comments. The people and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon! President George W. Bush Was Bush downplaying the terrorist attack? What if he was a Muslim https://t.co/XMazssoD49 Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) April 12, 2019 Ms Omar told CAIR in Los Angeles that many Muslims saw their civil liberties being eroded after the attacks, and she advocated for activism. She said in the speech delivered on March 23: For far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, Im tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it. CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognised that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties. CAIR was founded in 1994, according to its website, but its membership increased dramatically after the 2001 attacks. Donald Trump criticised the Democratic congresswoman (AP) Many Republicans and conservative outlets expressed outrage at Ms Omars remarks. Texas representative Dan Crenshaw, a retired Navy SEAL who lost his right eye in 2012 in an explosion in Afghanistan, tweeted: First Member of Congress to ever describe terrorists who killed thousands of Americans on 9/11 as some people who did something.' Heres your something, the New York Post blared on its cover, beneath a photograph of the flaming towers. US house speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she wants to hear from Ms Omar about the comment, but the Minnesota Democrat does not seem to be backing down. Ms Omar tweeted a quote from former president George W Bush shortly after the attacks, when he said: The people and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon! Ms Omar tweeted: Was Bush downplaying the terrorist attack? What if he was a Muslim. Ilhan Omar is a leader with strength and courage. She won't back down to Trump's racism and hate, and neither will we. The disgusting and dangerous attacks against her must end. Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 13, 2019 Two 2020 Democratic presidential candidates waded into the debate to condemn Mr Trumps tweet and to stand with Ms Omar. Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted of his party colleague: She wont back down to Trumps racism and hate, and neither will we. Elizabeth Warren also tweeted: The president is inciting violence against a sitting congresswoman and an entire group of Americans based on their religion. The President is inciting violence against a sitting Congresswomanand an entire group of Americans based on their religion. It's disgusting. It's shameful. And any elected leader who refuses to condemn it shares responsibility for it. Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) April 13, 2019 Ms Omar has repeatedly pushed fellow Democrats into uncomfortable territory over Israel and the power of the Jewish states influence in Washington. She apologised for suggesting members of congress support Israel for pay and said she is not criticising Jews. But she refused to take back a tweet in which she suggested that American supporters of Israel pledge allegiance to a foreign country. Her comments sparked an ugly episode among House Democrats when they responded with a resolution condemning anti-Semitism which became a broader declaration against all forms of bigotry. The UK envoy to India has said his country regrets a massacre of hundreds of Indians by British colonial forces in the north-west city of Amritsar 100 years ago, and will continue to do so. Saturday marks the centenary of the attack at Jallianwala Bagh by British colonial troops on unarmed Indians attending a peaceful rally calling for independence. More than 300 Indians were killed and 1,200 injured during the massacre, which galvanised the national independence movement. A ceremony marked the 100th anniversary of the massacre (AP) British High Commissioner Dominic Asquith said the revulsion that we felt at the time is still strong today, as he paid tributes at the Jallianwala Bagh memorial in Amritsar. He added: I would just ask you to respect what I came here to do, which was to commemorate those who died 100 years ago, to express the sorrow of the British Government and of the British people. But I would repeat what I said: both governments are committed to building a very strong relationship. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Theresa May called the killings a shameful scar in British-Indian history, but stopped short of formally apologising. Anthony Crolla emerged from a conclusive fourth-round stoppage by Vasyl Lomachenko with his health and pride intact, according to promoter Eddie Hearn. Crollas challenge for the WBA and WBO lightweight titles held by Lomachenko ended in brutally one-sided fashion in the early hours of Saturday morning at Los Angeles Staples Center. The former world champion from Manchester survived a standing eight-count in the third but the fight was over a round later. Vasiliy Lomachenko, right, was too good for Anthony Crolla (Damian Dovarganes/AP) Anthonys fine. Obviously it was a heavy knockout a temple shot he didnt see, Hearn told Sky Sports. After he was counted out he got up and was fine. But hes devastated. He said: Im just so gutted for the team because of the work they did. Im like: Dont worry about the team, you just fought pound for pound number one. Everybody said to him (promoter) Bob Arum, every fighter at ringside Theres no disgrace in that, mate. Tough night for @ant_crolla. Gave it everything, as always, but came up against one of the best boxers Ive ever seen in @VasylLomachenko. No shame in losing to such a great champion. Proud of you, Anthony. #LomaCrolla @EddieHearn pic.twitter.com/vUeKkk6BWD Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) April 13, 2019 Youre mandatory challenger, what else are you going to do? You get a shot at Lomachenko, youve got to take it. But he was just too good. The third round was a weird one because he was sitting on the ropes. I thought it was a poor stoppage because although he wasnt particularly in the fight, it was a poor stoppage. Unfortunately in the fourth round Crolla knew he had to do something and go for it. When you do that against Lomachenko, you leave yourself wide open with gaps. Lomachenko was too good for Anthony. Vasiliy Lomachenko celebrates his victory (Damian Dovarganes/AP) This shot came against the head, you cant not take this opportunity. Losing to Lomachenko is never a disgrace. He can have zero regrets because he prepared the best he could, its just about levels. Who is going to beat Lomachenko? Lomachenko, a two-time Olympic champion, justified his overwhelming favourite status with a clinical 13th win of his professional career. I want Mikey Garcia. I want to unify titles. Thats my goal. I want historic fights, Lomachenko said. A man will appear in court in Belfast on Saturday charged with a number of terrorism offences. The 52-year-old was arrested on the Stewartstown Road in the west of the city on Thursday. A 52yr man charged with membership of proscribed organisation,collecting & possessing information likely to be of use to terrorists & possession of firearm & imitation firearm. To appear at Belfast MC tomorrow, following a vehicle stop on Stewartstown Rd, west Belfast on Thursday Police Service NI (@PoliceServiceNI) April 12, 2019 He has been charged with membership of a proscribed organisation, collecting and possessing information likely to be of use to terrorists and possession of a firearm and imitation firearm. A man suffered serious facial injuries after an apparent unprovoked attack by a group of men in Glasgow. The incident happened between 11pm and 11.30pm on Sunday March 31 on Dalmarnock Road at its junction with Queen Mary Street. A 33-year-old man was out walking with a friend when he was approached and attacked by six men, causing him to fall to the ground. The victim and his friend managed to escape and flee in a taxi to Glasgow Royal Infirmary. He then contacted police to report the incident. Detective Constable John Boyd said: A young man has been left with serious facial injuries and its imperative we trace whoever is responsible. Police have been reviewing CCTV (Andrew MIlligan/PA) There does not appear to be a motive for the attack and I am appealing to anyone who was in the area at the time or anyone who may have seen or heard the disturbance to contact us. Any small piece of information could prove vital in helping us identify those responsible. If you have any information, please do pass it on. Police Scotland enquiries so far have show there was a disturbance involving several people just prior to the assault at the junction of Queen Mary Street and Baltic Place. Officers have been reviewing CCTV images and carrying out door-to-door enquiries. It is believed it is possible the victim may have got caught up in this disturbance. One of the male suspects is described as white, around 5ft 4ins, slim, between 18 and 20, and wearing a dark hooded top. A second suspect is white, between 18 and 20, with dark hair and wearing a white t-shirt. The face of a dog discovered in a tomb in Orkney has been revealed for the first time in more than 4,000 years. Forensic artist Amy Thornton used a 3D print from a CT scan of the creatures skull to create a model of its head, building up muscle, skin and hair. Radiocarbon dating of the dog bones unearthed at Cuween has shown canines were placed in the chamber more than 500 years after the passage tomb was built, suggesting they were ritually buried. The project was commissioned by Historic Environment Scotland (HES). The Cuween Dog has similar features to that of a European grey wolf (HES) Steve Farrar, interpretation manager at HES, said: Just as theyre treasured pets today, dogs clearly had an important place in Neolithic Orkney, as they were kept and trained as pets and guards and perhaps used by farmers to help tend sheep. But the remains discovered at Cuween Hill suggest that dogs had a particularly special significance for the farmers who lived around and used the tomb about 4,500 years ago. Maybe dogs were their symbol or totem, perhaps they thought of themselves as the dog people. While reconstructions have previously been made of people from the Neolithic era, we do not know of any previous attempt to forensically reconstruct an animal from this time. Looking at this dog helps us better relate to the people who cared for and venerated these animals, people whose ingenuity and sophistication made Orkney such an important place in the Neolithic and who have left us with such a rich legacy of monuments today. The Cuween Dog was about the size of a large collie and had features similar to those of a European grey wolf. Historians believe it can reveal information about ceremonial practices and the symbolic significance of canines in Late Neolithic Orkney as well as the appearance of domestic dogs in the third millennium BC. Last year, HES published 3D digital models of the chambered cairns to better reveal the sophisticated structure of the monuments to the public. This process involves taking hundreds of overlapping images which are then combined to create a 3D model, enabling users from anywhere in the world to explore the sites in detail online. The canine reconstruction is part of this wider project to use cutting-edge technology to share the stories of Orkneys Neolithic chambered tombs with visitors. The latest work was originally created in clay using traditional methods, with a 3D print of the Cuween Hill skull as the base to build the anatomy on to. It was then cast in silicone and finished with the fur coat resembling a European grey wolf, as advised by experts. HES said the work will go on display in Orkney this year. Experts say Cuween chambered cairn provides evidence there was a belief in the afterlife during the Neoltihic period (HES) Ms Thornton, who trained in facial reconstruction methods at the University of Dundee, said: This reconstruction has been a particularly interesting project to be involved in, as it marks the first time Ive employed forensic methods that would usually be used for a human facial reconstruction and applied these to an animal skull. This brought its own set of challenges, as there is much less existing data relating to average tissue depths in canine skulls compared to humans. Cuween Hill chambered cairn built between 3000 and 2400 BC is an example of a Neolithic chamber tomb. It has four cells opening off a central chamber, which is accessed down a passage. The structure suggests there was a belief in an afterlife 5,000 years ago, with evidence of complex burial rites. In all, 24 dog bones and skulls were discovered when the Neolithic site was excavated in 1901, as well as the remains of eight humans. Sinn Fein has confirmed that its current MEP in Northern Ireland will run again for her seat. Elections to the European Parliament are going ahead in May despite the United Kingdoms imminent exit from the European Union. Martina Anderson, who has been one of Northern Irelands three MEPs since 2012, said she is honoured to be selected by her party to run to defend her seat. I have been proud to be the head of a Sinn Fein EU Team of dedicated MEPs and activists in defending the interests of the people of Ireland. @M_AndersonSF speaking after being selected as the partys EU candidate #Fighting4You #SF2019 pic.twitter.com/mq72r0aHWB Sinn Fein (@sinnfeinireland) April 13, 2019 She described the poll as an opportunity to send a message to Brussels, London and Dublin that the people of Ireland will not be left behind. We are facing into an election the British government didnt want to happen, she told the Sinn Fein selection convention at the Balmoral Hotel in Belfast. The DUP didnt want EU elections either. Their Brexit involves stripping people of their rights including the right to vote. Martina Anderson is selected as Sinn Feins Northern Ireland candidate for the European elections (Niall Carson/PA) Not only do they refuse rights that everyone else in Britain and Ireland enjoy, they also want to remove EU rights too. Martina Anderson just got nominated to stand again for Sinn Fein in the upcoming European Election. No better activist to do it. The right person, in the right place, at the right time to represent Irish interests in the continuing Brexit chaos. pic.twitter.com/HmpCByjhB9 Gerry Kelly (@GerryKellyMLA) April 13, 2019 We have continually fought against Brexit and made sure the voice of the people of the north has been heard and the interests of the people of Ireland have taken centre stage. We have stood up for all our citizens from right across the community in full confidence challenging and confronting all that is wrong with the EU and supporting and advancing all that is right for Ireland. The Withdrawal Agreement and the backstop we have today is not perfect but it is contains the bare minimum protections that we require. But without our work there would be no backstop. This election offers an opportunity to send a message to Brussels, London and Dublin that we will not be left behind again. Sinn Fein has questioned the direction of the EU as it confirmed that its current MEP in Northern Ireland will run again for her seat. Party president Mary-Lou McDonald insisted Sinn Fein is euro-critical, but that leaving is not the answer. There are fundamental questions to be asked about the direction of the EU, she told the Sinn Fein selection convention at the Balmoral Hotel in Belfast. The north leaving is not the answer. Leaving was never the answer. Sinn Fein Leader Mary Lou McDonald (right) congratulates Martina Anderson as she is selected as the Partys Northern Ireland candidate for the European Elections at a selection convention in Belfast (Niall Carson/PA) All of Ireland should be in the EU, leading a fair and social Europe, opposing federalisation and the creation of an EU army. Elections to the European Parliament are going ahead in May despite the United Kingdoms imminent exit from the European Union. Martina Anderson, who has been one of Northern Irelands three MEPs since 2012, said she is honoured to be selected by her party to run to defend her seat. Sinn Feins Martina Anderson(centre) is selected as the Partys Northern Ireland candidate for the European Elections at a selection convention in Belfast (Niall Carson/PA) Ms McDonald reiterated her opposition to Brexit, pointing out that a majority in Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU, and criticised the Conservative Party and Democratic Unionists for dragging it out. This election is an opportunity to say clearly to the Tories and DUP Your time is over. Your Brexit is over, she said. Brexit demonstrates the undemocratic nature of partition. It also demonstrates the power that we have to shape change. Let us continue to be a strong, unyielding voice in the Europe. Ms Anderson described the poll as an opportunity to send a message to Brussels, London and Dublin that the people of Ireland will not be left behind. We are facing into an election the British government didnt want to happen, she said. The DUP didnt want EU elections either. Their Brexit involves stripping people of their rights including the right to vote. Not only do they refuse rights that everyone else in Britain and Ireland enjoy, they also want to remove EU rights too. Martina Anderson just got nominated to stand again for Sinn Fein in the upcoming European Election. No better activist to do it. The right person, in the right place, at the right time to represent Irish interests in the continuing Brexit chaos. pic.twitter.com/HmpCByjhB9 Gerry Kelly (@GerryKellyMLA) April 13, 2019 We have continually fought against Brexit and made sure the voice of the people of the north has been heard and the interests of the people of Ireland have taken centre stage. We have stood up for all our citizens from right across the community in full confidence challenging and confronting all that is wrong with the EU and supporting and advancing all that is right for Ireland. This election offers an opportunity to send a message to Brussels, London and Dublin that we will not be left behind again. A man has been arrested in Belfast over indecent images of a child. The 57-year-old man was arrested following the search of a property on College Avenue in the south of the city. The Police Service of Northern Ireland described the operation as a planned search. The man was arrested on suspicion of possessing indecent images of a child and distributing indecent images of a child. He remained in custody on Saturday evening. British Steel is seeking a 100 million Government loan after failure to pass a Brexit deal left it out of an EU-wide carbon trading scheme, according to reports. The company is in talks with Whitehall about securing the funding, Sky News said. British Steel is understood to be seeking the loan because of the EUs decision not to allocate UK-based companies their usual permits under its carbon emissions trading system, according to reports. A Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Department spokesperson said: As the business department, we are in regular conversation with a wide range of sectors and companies. A 13-year-old boy who died after being found unconscious in a park has been named locally as Carson Price. The teenager was found close to a rugby pitch at about 7.20pm in Ystrad Mynach Park, Caerphilly Road, Ystrad Mynach. He was taken to University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, where he was pronounced dead. On Saturday afternoon, the boys mother Tatum Price and father Brian Price were seen consoling each other metres away from the parks rugby field, where a section of grass behind its rugby posts was cordoned off. Earlier in the day, the mother posted on Facebook: My life is ruined my baby gone. Officers remained at the scene during the late afternoon while young teenagers gathered in groups on the grass adjacent to a childrens play area. Police searching Ystrad Mynach Park in South Wales where a 13-year-old boy died after being found unconscious on Friday evening (Ben Birchall/PA) Christopher Parry, head teacher at Lewis School Pengam where the boy attended, said the school was devastated by his death. Mr Parry said: Its with immense sadness that today I heard the news that one of our pupils has passed away. We are all devastated by this tragic loss. We will providing support for pupils in the weeks ahead, but in the meantime my thoughts and prayers are with the family. There are no words. Gwent Police said an investigation is under way and that it is treating the boys death as unexplained. Detective Chief Inspector Sam Payne, who is leading the investigation, said: At this time enquiries are ongoing and the investigation into this young boys death are still in the early stages. Specialists are working to determine the exact cause of death and our thoughts are with his family and friends at this time. Id like to appeal to anyone who can assist with our investigation. If you have information that could help, please call us on 101 quoting log 523 12/4/19 or you can call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. Alternatively, you can send a direct message with information via our Gwent Police Facebook or Twitter social media pages. An Ulster Unionist outgoing MEP has ruled out running in next months elections. Jim Nicholson represented the party in Brussels for 30 years. He said: I said a few weeks ago that it was time to hand the baton on and that is still my belief. Therefore I wont be putting my name forward to seek selection as the Ulster Unionist Partys candidate in the forthcoming European elections. It has been an enormous honour to represent Northern Ireland in the European Parliament for the last 30 years as an Ulster Unionist MEP. It has been an enormous honour to represent Northern Ireland in the European Parliament for the last 30 years as the Ulster Unionist Party MEP. I sincerely hope I have represented you all with distinction. @uuponline Jim Nicholson (@JNicholsonMEP) April 15, 2019 He said he had always endeavoured to do what was right for all, no matter their background. Jim Nicholson represented the party in Brussels for 30 years (UUP/PA) I worked with Ian Paisley and John Hume to secure peace funding from Europe and its something of which I am enormously proud. I want to wish all the best to whoever is nominated as the Ulster Unionist Partys candidate. Danny Kennedy, a former UUP minister in Stormonts powersharing administration, said he would seek his partys nomination to run for MEP. Mr Kennedy was a high-profile Assembly member but lost his seat in 2017 while Mike Nesbitt was party leader. SOFIA, April 15 (Reuters) - These are some of the main stories in Bulgarian newspapers on Monday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. -- Korneliya Ninova, the leader of the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party, has failed in her attempt to exclude Party of European Socialists president Sergei Stanishev from the BSP list of candidates for Bulgarias May 26 2019 European Parliament elections (24 Chasa, Trud, Monitor, Sega, Duma) -- Bulgarian minority extra-parliamentary party DOST's leader Lyutvi Mestan has been named as the driver of one of the cars involved in a collision on Sunday in which a six-month-old baby died and others were seriously injured (Trud, Monitor) -- Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov and World Bank Group Chief Administrative Officer Shaolin Yang signed in Washington an agreement regarding the provision of support for the establishment and operation of a World Bank office for shared services and other functions in Sofia (Trud, 24 Chasa, Monitor) By David Milliken WASHINGTON, April 14 (Reuters) - British finance minister Philip Hammond has fired the starting gun for the race to succeed Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, but concerns about Brexit may keep some potential contestants on the sidelines. Britain is unusual in throwing open the invitation to run its central bank to candidates from around the world. Yet Carney's tenure - the first for a foreigner at the BoE - has been seen as a success for the country's financial diplomacy, and the government is keen to promote what it calls a "global Britain" after the country leaves the European Union. The chances are high that the Canadian's successor was somewhere among the thousands of delegates at the International Monetary Fund's half-yearly meeting last week, where Hammond told media the process for finding a new governor was "getting underway". Attendees included all four of the BoE's current deputy governors, the head of Britain's market regulator as well as central bankers, academics and other policymakers from across the globe. The role becomes vacant on Feb. 1 next year when Carney leaves after over six years on the job. This followed five years as governor of the Bank of Canada - during which he was courted by Hammond's predecessor, George Osborne, when they met at international meetings in 2012. But the next BoE governor will have to reckon with a sharply divided political backdrop on top of the obvious challenges that Brexit poses as regards short-term growth and longer-term regulatory relations with the EU. "There may be some candidates who might be deterred from an application because of the political debate around Brexit, which inevitably the governor of the Bank of England can't avoid being part of," Hammond said in Washington. Carney has been criticised by members of a hardline pro-Brexit faction of the Conservative Party. Jacob Rees-Mogg last year labelled Carney a "wailing banshee" and a "failed second-tier politician" who gave unfairly negative forecasts of the economic impact of Brexit. Boris Johnson, when foreign secretary, was dismissive of BoE predictions of Brexit damage. Shortly after coming to power, Prime Minister Theresa May said in a speech that the BoE's quantitative easing had damaging side-effects. Brexit has certainly put off many other job-seekers. Recruitment agencies report falling numbers of job searches from overseas and net immigration to Britain by EU nationals fell to the lowest since 2009 last year - though non-EU immigration rose strongly. INTERNATIONAL ROLE Since starting at the BoE in July 2013, Carney delayed his departure twice - in October 2016 and September 2018 - to help prepare for Brexit. The second time, the hunt for a successor had already started and Hammond had said explicitly he was open to another foreign governor. This time, Carney has said he has no intention of staying longer at the BoE, even after the latest delay to Brexit that sees Britain's departure potentially postponed until Oct. 31. A formal job advert is likely to appear before long, and one key criterion is to be able to effectively represent Britain in international forums like the IMF. Someone already well-known on the international stage - such as former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan, who publicly debated with Carney and other central bankers on stage at the IMF - may have an edge. Rajan declined to comment when asked by Reuters whether he would consider a return to active policymaking. Last year he said he would not apply for the role, but was slightly more equivocal about what he would do if approached directly, as Carney was. A lack of in-depth knowledge about the details of Britain's economy and more domestically-focused financial institutions is not necessarily a stumbling block. The BoE's structure - with four deputy governors and a chief economist responsible for different areas of monetary policy and regulation - can potentially fill in gaps. Nonetheless, there is a question over how far afield Hammond can go with his choice - which must formally be approved by May and ultimately Queen Elizabeth. Carney had strong existing ties to Britain before his appointment to Britain. He had previously studied, worked and met his wife in the United Kingdom, and as a Canadian already shared the queen as head of state. He also promised to apply for British citizenship once he met residence requirements. As well as representing Britain internationally, the BoE under Carney has placed increased emphasis on communication with the British public. Carney speaks regularly on British television and radio after major decisions. With Britain in the throes of Brexit, an EU national could be a tough sell as the face of the central bank -- though the BoE has plenty of staff from continental Europe. There is also domestic competition. Andrew Bailey, a former BoE deputy governor who now heads Britain's Financial Conduct Authority, is widely seen as a strong contender given the governor's job involves at least as much supervision of London's financial centre as it does monetary policy. Current deputy governors and the BoE's chief economist, Andy Haldane, are potential contenders too. Either way, Hammond expects applicants will have a greater idea about what form of Brexit they will have to handle before a final decision is made. "I hope we get it resolved before we get to the shortlisting stage," he said. (Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Angus MacSwan) PARIS, April 15 (Reuters) - Dry conditions in Spain and southeast Europe have hurt yield prospects there for this year's grain harvest, the European Union's crop monitoring service said on Monday. After flagging dryness in southern Europe as a risk last month, the MARS said a persistent lack of moisture had led it to lower its yield projections for crops in Spain, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece. The stress to crops in these parts of southern Europe contrasted with generally decent crop conditions in the EU due to mild weather that has boosted plant growth, MARS said in its April report. At EU level, the crop monitor slightly lowered its forecast of the average soft wheat yield in 2019 to 6.01 tonnes per hectare (t/ha) from an initial estimate of 6.04 t/ha last month. That would be up 6.8 percent from a drought-hit 2018 level and 1.2 percent above the average of the past five years. The EU's 2019 barley yield was projected at 4.95 t/ha, up 7.4 percent from last year. That included an expected winter barley yield of 6.00 t/ha, revised down slightly from 6.02 t/ha last month, and a first spring barley yield forecast at 4.16 t/ha. MARS kept unchanged its forecast of the 2019 EU rapeseed yield at 3.19 t/ha, up 12 percent versus last year's poor harvest but 1.3 percent below the five-year average. Mild weather since winter had helped sowing of crops like spring barley and maize (corn), and substantial rainfall forecast for this week in southeast Europe should help the emergence of young crops there, MARS said. However, such precipitation may only allow a limited recovery of winter crops like wheat in Romania, it said. In Spain, the return of rainfall may also help parched fields, although low reservoir levels could pose a problem for summer irrigation of maize, MARS added. In France, the EU's biggest grain producer, rain last month boosted winter cereals, but conditions remain fragile in shallow soils in some regions like Burgundy, it said. The yield potential of French rapeseed has been affected in some areas by drought during sowing last year and strong insect pressure since, it said, echoing comments of other crop observers. Maize planting in France may be slowed by delays in the main southwestern growing belt, where rain so far this month has followed cool temperatures in late March, MARS added. (Reporting by Gus Trompiz and Valerie Parent; Editing by Sybille de La Hamaide and Jan Harvey) It is not an uncommon sight anymore at Barasat in North 24 Parganas district in West Bengal. A group of people wearing green checked lungis huddling together and breaking bread with a bhar (small clay cups) of chai in the early hours of the day. They speak a distinctly different dialect of Bengali and don't make any particular attempt to mingle with the local Hindu population. Once their breakfast is done, they hop on to their Toto (a specially made mechanised rickshaw) and go about their day's work. In border towns like Basarat, locals say that the immigrants have a well-known process to settle down in India after illegally entering the country from Bangladesh. "We all know that most of the Totos in this area here are driven by illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. When a new Bangladeshi immigrant comes, he first looks for a place to stay in Mathpara (a Hindu-dominated area) or Kazipara (a Muslim-dominated area). Then, they buy the manual 'van rickshaw' and earn their daily wages. After three months, most are able to collect around Rs 10k. They use that money to make a down payment and go for a Toto that usually costs about Rs 1.08 lakh (on loan). In a Toto, they can carry more passengers, hence they start earning more. As months roll by, some of them manage to procure a voter card, Pan card and ration card within the next one year," says a native of Barasat, on condition of anonymity. Drive to freedom: Illegal immigrants from Bangladesh follow a few established steps to become Indians. (Photo: Writer) The above statement is not any sort of secret at all though! It is the same way thousands of illegal Bangladeshis have made Barasat their home over the past four decades and apparently at least half of them are now Indian citizens. Barasat is just a case in point. The process might be different but the situation is the same in most border towns of West Bengal, Assam and North Eastern states lying close to Bangladesh. In case you are wondering how such immigrants are getting into the country in the first place, here is how. There are miles and miles of unmanned border areas along the Indo-Bangladesh borders. Here's a Headlines Today investigation about how Bangladeshis use the porous and unmanned borders to infiltrate into India sometimes by paying as less as Rs 100. The below visuals are four years old but the situation at the borders haven't seen any drastic improvement. The infiltration goes on unabated even today. So, what happens when you have miles of fenced borders which are practically unmanned for the better part of the day? Well, this is what happens next. Not only do these people get through the porous borders, but their livestock is also transported as well. The Government of India, in a written reply at the Rajya Sabha (January 2018), admitted that porous borders and unmanned areas remain a cause of concern for the government of India. This below video has been uploaded in 2017. The ground situation remains fairly the same. Once you are in India, the demography of the local area does the rest of the work. You travel to the area where you are most likely to blend in, get a local source of income (usually a rickshaw at first) and then scourge for documents to regularise your stay, or procure fake Aadhaar cards. This unabated infiltration has now become a national problem. The Bangladesh-India corridor last year emerged as the second-most frequently used corridor for migration (attached graph), according to the World Migration Report 2018. Innocent poor people migrating into India wouldn't have been the cause of much concern, had there been a filtration process or checks of some kind. As happens with unchecked processes though, the basket is getting filled with bad apples as well. Some of these are poisonous. Two years ago, Bangladesh told India that their Jihadi elements were choosing India to get away from law enforcement. Analysts also pointed out that West Bengal is fast emerging as one of the major routes of terror infiltration not only Bangladeshi terrorists but Rohingyas are also using the soil of Bengal to infiltrate into the North Eastern states. Terrorism is a global threat, but there are local issues that cannot be unseen anymore. One of the biggest threats to Indian demography is the swelling illegal migrant population that has grown at such a scale, it will soon become an issue that no government can handle anymore. In 2016, the home minister of India estimated that there were about 20 million illegal Bangladeshi migrants staying in India. That was two years ago. We are still waiting for fresh numbers of illegal Bangladeshi migrants. As the ground realities refuse to change, the unchecked, unfiltered inflow of migrants is now threatening to change the entire demography of the border lying areas as well as the bigger metropolis of India like Mumbai and Delhi. Recently, a new concept of Jihad emerged in West Bengal, which is termed Land Jihad. Allegations have emerged that native poor Hindus are being forced out of their lands by illegal immigrants who manage to make money. Narcotics and cow smuggling across the borders has become a huge menace. (Photo: Reuters) That is not all Bengal led the list at the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), both in 2015 and 2016, in the category of crimes committed by foreigners, where it was acknowledged that Bengal is a hotbed of criminal activities by Bangladeshi elements who commit a crime and then quickly seek refuge in Bangladesh. The 2015 report said that Bengal accounts for more than half of such crimes (57.6% in the category of foreigners committing crimes) in the country. The opposite scenario, where a criminal from Bangladesh takes refuge in Bengal while evading the law in Bangladesh, also appears to be true. Ask any policeman in West Bengal and they will describe to you how criminal gangs operating from Bangladesh, and then running away, is a fairly routine occurrence in the criminal landscape of the state. Narcotics and cow smuggling across the borders can only be described as a menace. This is why we need the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in West Bengal. For decades, the Indian government has been trying to check the porous borders with Bangladesh. It has been somewhat successful. But if the NRC is implemented, then it will be the first strong step towards correcting the process that has been going wrong for decades. The NRC will ensure that the people who illegally migrated to India are identified and marked. Going forward, illegal immigrants will find it tougher to regularise themselves illegally and will have to go through the proper process of seeking Indian citizenship after immigration. But, most importantly, it will act as a deterrent for bad elements from getting inside our fences. The immigrants who have illegally procured forged documents will be identified and in the process, this will be the first check and balance in the flawed system that never saw one in the first place. It is the government's decision on how they want to implement the NRC and what they want to do with illegal immigrants. But it is a question of your safety it is a question of the safety of millions of natives who inhabit our land. Our hearts may certainly bleed for illegal immigrants and the conditions back home that they are fleeing, but that is no reason to endanger the life or property of our fellow Indian citizens. Rigorous implementation of the NRC is the only solution in West Bengal. Also Read: Why NRC should be extended across all of India Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan is apparently so very busy building a naya Pakistan that he has no time to find out what is happening world over not even in friendly neighbouring country China. So, when a journalist from the Financial Times recently asked him about the atrocities being perpetrated on Uyghur Muslims in China, Khan said, Frankly, I don't know much about that. When pressed, he said the Muslim world was going through its worst phase but demurred on Beijing's crackdown in Xinjiang. If I had enough knowledge I would speak about it. It is not so much in the papers, Khan said. Imran Khan hasnt heard about #Uyghur Muslims in China pic.twitter.com/lERKxKTkdI Ismail Royer (@IsmailRoyer) March 28, 2019 Maybe Khan is so busy fixing a country which has been run for decades by military generals and corrupt politicians that he doesnt find time to read the newspapers, look up the internet or watch TV news, all of which have been reporting intensively about the issue. Yes, Khan is a preoccupied man but it is baffling to think how Khan is not even aware of what Chinese men are apparently doing to young girls and women of his own country girls as young as 13 years of age, reportedly. Numerous reports have recently surfaced that draw attention to such human smuggling from Pakistan. Chinese men are abducting, selling, then forcibly marrying Pakistani girls as young as 13 year old. Will the Pakistan government dare to take up the issue of girl-smuggling with 'good friend' China? pic.twitter.com/A0LmuKYqDY Naila Inayat (@nailainayat) April 13, 2019 In February, a Chinese man was even caught at the Islamabad airport for smuggling a Pakistani girl. According to media reports, while checking into a China-bound private flight, a woman told immigration officials there that she was being trafficked to China and pleaded for their help. Upon her request, she, and the Chinese man who accompanied her, were taken to an investigation office. There, the woman told the officers that her father had sold her to the Chinese man for Rs 4,00,000 and added that he had previously sold a man as well to him. Will Imran Khan now dare to take up this issue with China? The answer is a near-certain no because the moment Khan questions China about why Pakistani women are reportedly thus going beyond the Great Wall, the Chinese cover offered to terrorists, such as Maulana Masood Azhar, at international forums, such as the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), could be sharply withdrawn. Azhars handlers in the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Pakistan army will not take kindly to this thereby risking Khans own chances of becoming the first Pakistani PM to complete a full term in office. The cost to maintain the status quo on the quid pro quo, meanwhile, has to be paid by young Pakistani girls and vulnerable women. Applauding a shocking silence? Imran Khan's seeming ignorance of human trafficking doesn't bode well for the women of Pakistan. (Source: AP) One of the world's largest Muslim nations, Pakistan has been a longtime friend and trading partner of Beijing their relationship is often described by Chinese diplomats as an "all-weather friendship." Pakistan has also benefited greatly from Chinese infrastructure spending, as part of President Xi Jinping's global Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and it is one of Beijing's biggest arms buyers between 2008 and 2017, Islamabad purchased more than $6 billion of Chinese weaponry, according to the think-tank CSIS. The fate of these young women thus counts for very little apparently in the backdrop of this mega-scenario. Imran Khans bid to remain friends with China even at the cost of the lives of young Pakistani girls is tragic. In a country where civil society is often silenced through arrests, jailing, even killings for speaking up for the voiceless, the situation remains grim. And looks set to only grow grimmer. Also read: Why Imran Khans 'naya Pakistan' is no country for Hindu women American Consumer News, LLC dba MarketBeat 2010-2021. All rights reserved. 326 E 8th St #105, Sioux Falls, SD 57103 | U.S. Based Support Team at [email protected] | (844) 978-6257 MarketBeat does not provide personalized financial advice and does not issue recommendations or offers to buy stock or sell any security. Our Accessibility Statement | Terms of Service | Do Not Sell My Information 2021 Market data provided is at least 10-minutes delayed and hosted by Barchart Solutions. Information is provided 'as-is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice, and is delayed. To see all exchange delays and terms of use please see disclaimer. Fundamental company data provided by Zacks Investment Research. The following companies are subsidiares of Sysco: 2234829 Alberta ULC, 2234842 Alberta ULC, A. M. Briggs Inc., A.M. 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KNOWING OUR FAITH: A Guide for Believers, Seekers, and Christian Communities. By Justo L. Gonz alez. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, Company, 2019. Xiv + 156 pages. By Justo L. Gonz Augustine and Anselm, among others, spoke of faith or belief seeking understanding. That is, we first believe and then over time we deepen that belief through study and experience in the Christian life. In recent years, it seems that this premise has lost its shine. There seems to be a growing aversion to doctrine and dogma. We speak of orthopraxis instead of orthodoxy. Im all for orthopraxis. What we do as Christians demonstrates the truth and depth of our confession of faith in God. But, unless we pursue a rather anti-intellectualist version of our religion, it will be important to know our faith. We neednt agree on every point of doctrine, but it is helpful to a healthy Christian life to know a bit about what we profess. Although I hear stories of those who first understood and then believed, Ive not met them. So, most of start with a profession of faith and then hopefully move toward understanding. a lez, who is a well-regarded church historian/historical theologian. He is also very committed to orthopraxis, but as a historian and theologian, it is to be expected that he would deem it wise to put some meat on the bones of faith. One who believes that the move faith toward understanding is important is Justo Gonzlez, who is a well-regarded church historian/historical theologian. He is also very committed to orthopraxis, but as a historian and theologian, it is to be expected that he would deem it wise to put some meat on the bones of faith. KnowingOur Faith was originally written at the behest of the churches in Puerto Rico. Gonz a lez was asked to write a primer on the Christian faith to be used in the churches by lay persons (not clergy). It emerged out of conversations sponsored by the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico and the Association for Hispanic Theological Education. It was prepared in partnership with a number of denominations, including the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Puerto Rico. I note this because I am Disciple and we are a non-creedal tradition. That the Puerto Rican Disciples participated in the project is telling, and maybe it could serve as a witness to their sisters and brothers in the Disciples community in the United States and Canada as to the importance of deepening ones theological understanding. While Gonzalez is himself United Methodist, he consulted each of these Puerto Rican churches as to the content of the document. In other words, this is not just Gonzalez's vision, this is one embraced by a community of traditions. It was also originally written in Spanish for a Spanish-speaking audience. was originally written at the behest of the churches in Puerto Rico. Gonzlez was asked to write a primer on the Christian faith to be used in the churches by lay persons (not clergy). It emerged out of conversations sponsored by the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico and the Association for Hispanic Theological Education. It was prepared in partnership with a number of denominations, including the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Puerto Rico. I note this because I am Disciple and we are a non-creedal tradition. That the Puerto Rican Disciples participated in the project is telling, and maybe it could serve as a witness to their sisters and brothers in the Disciples community in the United States and Canada as to the importance of deepening ones theological understanding. While Gonzalez is himself United Methodist, he consulted each of these Puerto Rican churches as to the content of the document. In other words, this is not just Gonzalez's vision, this is one embraced by a community of traditions. It was also originally written in Spanish for a Spanish-speaking audience. a lez translated (and adapted at points) the book into English for use in English-speaking congregations. He tells us that he adapted the original text where necessary for use in English-speaking congregations, but he notes that he tried to stay as close to the original as possible. He offers it not only as his own work, but more importantly as a "gift from the church in Puerto Rico to the rest of the church in other parts of the world" (p. x). Although originally written in Spanish, Gonzlez translated (and adapted at points) the book into English for use in English-speaking congregations. He tells us that he adapted the original text where necessary for use in English-speaking congregations, but he notes that he tried to stay as close to the original as possible. He offers it not only as his own work, but more importantly as a "gift from the church in Puerto Rico to the rest of the church in other parts of the world" (p. x). In an open letter to the reader, Gonzalez first admits that one need not understand the faith in order to believe. However, if one truly believes, belief will lead to a desire to move toward understanding. He also affirms that the Christian faith "is always lived in community," and thus he assumes this book will be used in community. Therefore, he provides questions for reflection and discussion at the end of each chapter. In his introduction, Gonzalez takes note of the changing nature of our world. One of these changes involves the fact that people increasingly "have little or no idea of what Christianity is," beyond perhaps "preserving morality and gaining access to heaven" (p. 2). He notes that it is likely that when we join a church, we will be taught more about the polity (church government) of the church than the basic elements of the Christian faith. He also notes that in these changing times churches are "constantly bombarded by strange doctrines and supposed 'discoveries' regard the Bible and its message" (p. 3). In other words, the options are many, but understanding is limited. It is easy to follow trajectories that are less than helpful theologically to ones faith. Since the culture no longer teaches or reinforces the faith, churches must reclaim their calling to teach the faith. When it comes to the idea of doctrine, which is a dirty word to some, our author distinguishes between believing in and believing that. This distinction is related to the difference between faith, which is trust in God, and doctrines, which are the teachings that one affirms. He writes "faith saves; doctrines do not." (p. 11). That is a good word for a Disciple to hear. While this is true, doctrine its place. Here is how describes that place. He uses the analogy of a "high, wide, fertile plain." That's where we live out our faith. We freedom to move about. We may prefer one portion of the plain to another, but again there is freedom. Doctrines come into play at the edges of the plateau. If we draw to close to the edge, it might give way and we might fall of the cliff. When something like that happens, a fence is put up warning of danger. The fence he says doesn't limit freedom; it simply warns us to stay from danger. That's the function of doctrines. They don't tell us what to believe (tests of fellowship), but they warn us that "some of the tenets and beliefs that may well be like cliffs that take us beyond the safe limits of the plateau of faith" (p. 12). I personally like that definition. With this foundation having been laid, we move through the basic doctrines of the faith, beginning with Revelation. This includes, of course, Scripture, which is the primary/normative story of the faith. While this is true revelation can come to us through nature and history (tradition). With Scripture as the foundational form or Revelation, we move to the "Triune Creator God." This isn't an in-depth look at the nature of God, but it is a start. The focus here is on God as Creator. The description of the Trinity is brief. He notes that it is rooted in Scripture, but not fully developed. He finds Augustines definition satisfactory. I might want a fuller description, but for the purpose of this book this might be sufficient. Interestingly he moves to humankind next, before moving to redemption in Christ and the establishment of a New Creation. From there, he moves to the Holy Spirit, whom he speaks of in terms of being the Spirit of Holinessas a good Methodist would. From there it's the church, worship, sacraments, and finally the Christian hope and last days. A final chapter summarizes what has been explored in terms of the Christian life. It is brief, and thoughtful. It is what a small group looking to lay some foundations for the journey of faith could handle. Knowing Our Faith includes a set of discussion questions that are designed to encourage conversation. They're not simply content oriented; they also have practical elements, so that our understanding of the faith, as it grows and develops, might lead to action. Again, Gonzalez may be a historian and theologian, but he understands that faith is of little value if it does not transform ones life and lead to action in the world. The book is written for use by congregations to help members better understand their faith. The book is not in-depth but its not shallow either. If you have studied theology you won't find much that is new, but it is an excellent introductory work, that is the product of a hand who knows the history of the church and has experienced the life of the church as well. For that reason, this book though small should prove valuable to the Christian community. Thus, we receive this gift from the churches in Puerto Rico with gratitude. As noted earlier, each chapter ofincludes a set of discussion questions that are designed to encourage conversation. They're not simply content oriented; they also have practical elements, so that our understanding of the faith, as it grows and develops, might lead to action. Again, Gonzalez may be a historian and theologian, but he understands that faith is of little value if it does not transform ones life and lead to action in the world. The book is written for use by congregations to help members better understand their faith. The book is not in-depth but its not shallow either. If you have studied theology you won't find much that is new, but it is an excellent introductory work, that is the product of a hand who knows the history of the church and has experienced the life of the church as well. For that reason, this book though small should prove valuable to the Christian community. Thus, we receive this gift from the churches in Puerto Rico with gratitude. The following companies are subsidiares of AON: 6824625 Canada Ltd., 7193599 Canada Inc., A.B. 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Corredores de Reaseguros, Aon Re Canada Holdings SARL, Aon Real Estate B.V., Aon Realty Services Inc., Aon Reed Stenhouse Inc., Aon Retirement Plan Advisors LLC, Aon Retirement Solutions Limited, Aon Risiko & Unternehmensberatungs GmbH, Aon Risk & Asset Management Pty Ltd, Aon Risk Consultants Inc., Aon Risk Insurance Services West Inc., Aon Risk Management (Pty) Ltd, Aon Risk Services (Chile) Corredores de Seguros Limitada, Aon Risk Services (Holdings) of Latin America Inc., Aon Risk Services (Holdings) of the Americas Inc., Aon Risk Services (NI) Limited, Aon Risk Services (PNG) Ltd., Aon Risk Services (Thailand) Limited, Aon Risk Services Argentina S.A., Aon Risk Services Australia Limited, Aon Risk Services Canada Inc., Aon Risk Services Central Inc., Aon Risk Services Colombia SA Corredores de Seguros, Aon Risk Services Companies Inc., Aon Risk Services EMEA B.V., Aon Risk Services Ecuador S.A. Agencia Asesora Productora de Seguros, Aon Risk Services Holdings (Chile ) Ltda., Aon Risk Services Inc. of Florida, Aon Risk Services Inc. of Hawaii, Aon Risk Services Inc. of Maryland, Aon Risk Services Inc. of Washington D.C., Aon Risk Services Northeast Inc., Aon Risk Services South Inc., Aon Risk Services Southwest Inc., Aon Risk Services Venezuela Corretaje de Seguros C.A., Aon Risk Solutions (Cayman) Ltd., Aon Risk Solutions Agente de Seguros y de Fianzas SA de CV, Aon Risk Solutions of Puerto Rico Inc., Aon Riskminder A/S, Aon Romania Broker de Asigurare - Reasigurare SRL, Aon Rus Insurance Brokers LLC, Aon Rus LLC, Aon S.p.A. Insurance & Reinsurance Brokers, Aon Saver Limited, Aon Securities (Hong Kong) Limited, Aon Securities Investment Management Inc., Aon Securities LLC, Aon Securities Limited, Aon Service Corporation, Aon Services (Guernsey) Ltd, Aon Services (Malta) Ltd, Aon Services Group Inc., Aon Services Hong Kong Limited, Aon Services Pty Ltd., Aon Sigorta ve Reasurans Brokerligi ve A.S., Aon Soluciones S.A., Aon Soluciones S.A.C., Aon Southern Europe UK Limited, Aon Sp. z o.o., Aon Special Risk Resources Inc., Aon Superannuation (PNG) Limited, Aon Superannuation Pty Limited, Aon TC Holdings Inc., Aon Taiwan Ltd., Aon Treasury Ireland Limited, Aon Trust Company LLC, Aon Trust Corporation Limited, Aon Trust Services B.V., Aon UK Group Limited, Aon UK Holdings Intermediaries Limited, Aon UK Limited, Aon UK Trustees Limited, Aon US & International Holdings Limited, Aon US Holdings 2 Inc., Aon US Holdings Inc., Aon Ukraine LLC, Aon Underwriting Agencies (HK) Limited, Aon Underwriting Managers (Bermuda) Ltd., Aon Underwriting Managers Inc., Aon Versicherungsberatungs GmbH, Aon Versicherungsmakler Deutschland GmbH, Aon Vietnam Limited, Aon Ward Financial Corporation, Aon-COFCO Insurance Brokers Co. Ltd., Aon/Albert G. Ruben Insurance Services Inc., Asevasa Argentina S.A., Asevasa Caricam S.A., Asevasa Chile Peritaciones e Ingenieria de Riesgos S.A., Asevasa Mexico S.A. de C.V., Asevasa Panama S.A., Asian Reinsurance Underwriters Limited, Asscom Insurance Brokers S.r.l., Association of Rural and Small Town Americans, Associacao Instituto Aon, Assurance Licensing Services Inc., B E P International Corp., B.V. Assurantiekantoor Langeveldt-Schroder, BMS Insurance Agency L.L.C., Bacon & Woodrow Partnerships (Ireland) Limited, Bacon & Woodrow Partnerships Limited, Bain Hogg Group Limited (in liquidation), Baltolink UADBB, Bankassure Insurance Services Limited, Bayfair Insurance Centre Limited, Beaubien Finance Ireland Limited, Beaubien Finance Limited, Beaubien UK Finance Limited, Becketts (Trustees) Limited, Becketts Limited, Beech Hill Pension Trustees Ltd, Bekouw Mendes C.V., Benefit Marketing Solutions L.L.C., Benfield Advisory Inc., Benfield Corredores de Reaseguro Ltda., Benfield Finance (London) LLC, Benfield Group, Benfield Investment Holdings Limited, Benfield Juniperus Holdings Limited, Benfield do Brasil Participacoes Ltda. (dormant), Benton Finance Ireland Limited, Benton Finance Limited, Blanch Americas Inc., Bowes & Company Inc. of New York, CEREP III Secondary Manager LLC, CFSSG Real Estate Partners I LLC, CFSSG Real Estate Partners II LLC, CIF-H GP LLC, Cammack Health LLC, Cananwill Corporation, Cananwill Inc., Cardea Health Solutions Limited, Casablanca Intermediation Company Sarl, Celinvest Amsterdam B.V., Chapka Assurances SAS, Citadel Insurance Managers Inc., CoCubes, CoSec 2000 Limited, Coalition for Benefits Equality and Choice, Cocubes Technologies Private Limited, Coles Hewitt Partnership, Contingency Insurance Brokers Limited, Contractsure Limited, CoverWallet, Coverall S.r.l. Insurance and Reinsurance Underwriting Agency, Credit Insurance Brokers (Reynolds) Limited, Crion N.V., Custom Benefit Programs Inc., Cut-e, Cut-e (UK) Limited, Cut-e Assessment (Hong Kong) Limited, Cut-e Assessment Solutions Europe Limited, Cut-e Australia Pty Limited, Cut-e Consult DMCC, Cut-e Danmark A/S, Cut-e Finland Oy, Cut-e GmbH, Cut-e Ireland Limited, Cut-e Nordic AS, Cut-e Norge AS, Cytelligence, Delany Bacon & Woodrow Partnership, Dempsey Partners, Denney O'Hara (Life & Pensions) Limited, Doveland Services Limited, E. W. Blanch Holdings Limited, E. W. Blanch Investments Limited, E.W. Blanch Capital Risk Solutions Inc., E.W. Blanch International Inc., EW Blanch Limited, Elysium Digital IP Products LLC, Elysium Digital L.L.C., Ennis Knupp Secondary Market Services LLC, Essar Insurance Services Limited, Exploitatiemaatschappij Beukenlaan 68-72 B.V., Farmaseg - Solucoes Assistencia e Servicos Empresariais Ltda., Farmsure Limited [In strike-off], Finaccord Limited, Financial & Professional Risk Solutions Inc., Futurity Group Inc., GTCR/AAM Blocker Corp., Ge.f.it. S.r.l., Gefass S.r.l., Glenrand M I B (Mocambique) Corretores de Seguros Limitada, Global Safe Insurance Brokers S.r.l., Globe Events Management, Gotham Digital Science LLC, Gotham Digital Science Ltd., Grant Liddell Financial Advisor Services Pty Ltd, Grant Park Capital LLC, Groupe-Conseil Aon Inc., Grupo Innovac Sociedad de Correduria de Seguros SA, HIA Insurance Services Pty Ltd., Hall Rhodes Holdings Limited, Hall Rhodes Limited, Hamburger Gesellschaft zur Forderung des Versicherungswesens mbH, Harbourview West Lake Co-Invest (GP) LP, Health Index Advisors LLC, Healthy Paws Pet Insurance, Henderson Corporate Insurance Brokers Limited, Henderson Insurance Brokers Limited, Henderson Insurance Partnership Limited [In strike-off], Henderson Risk Management Limited, Hewitt Amalco 3 ULC, Hewitt Amalco 4 ULC, Hewitt Amalco 5 ULC, Hewitt Associates (a partnership), Hewitt Associates Administradora e Corretora de Seguros Ltda., Hewitt Associates Corp., Hewitt Associates Outsourcing Limited, Hewitt Associates Pty Ltd, Hewitt Associates S.C., Hewitt Associates SAS, Hewitt Associates Servicos de Recursos Humanos Ltda., Hewitt Beneficios Agente de Seguros y de Fianzas S.A. de C.V., Hewitt Holdings Canada Company, Hewitt Insurance Brokerage LLC, Hewitt Insurance Inc., Hewitt International Holdings LLC, Hewitt Management Ltd., Hewitt Risk Management Services Limited, Hewitt Western Management Amalco Inc., Hogg Group Limited, Hogg Robinson North America Inc., Huntington T. Block Insurance Agency Inc., I. Beck Insurance Agency (1994) Ltd., IAO Actuarial Consulting Services Canada Inc., INPOINT INC., IRM/GRC Holding Inc., Impact Forecasting L.L.C., Inspiring Benefits, Inspiring Benefits Portugal Unipessoal Lda, Insuractive Limited [In strike-off], Insurance Broker Aon Kazakhstan LLP, International Risk Management (Americas) Inc., International Risk Management Group Ltd, International Space Brokers Europe Limited, International Space Brokers France, International Space Brokers Inc., International Space Brokers Limited, Inversiones Benfield Chile Ltda., J H Minet Puerto Rico Inc., J. Allan Brown Consultants Inc., JDPT Manager LLC, Jenner Fenton Slade Limited, John Reynolds & Company (Credit Insurance) Limited, John Reynolds & Company (Insurances) Limited, John Reynolds & Company (Life & Pensions) Limited, Johnson Rooney Welch Inc., K & K Insurance Brokers Inc. Canada, K & K Insurance Group Inc., K & K Insurance Group of Florida Inc., K2 Technologies Inc., KVT GP LLC, Kloud S.a.r.l., Krumlin Hall Limited, Lake Erie Real Estate General Partner Limited, Lake Tahoe GP LLC, Lake Tahoe II GP LLC, Lake Tahoe III GP LLC, Lake Tahoe IV GP LLC, Lenzi Paolo Broker di Assicurazioni S.r.l., Lincolnshire Insurance Company PCC Limited, Linx Underwriting Solutions Inc., Lombard Trustee Company Limited, M.A. Shakeel Management Ltd. Amalco, MacDonagh Boland Crotty MacRedmond Ltd, Marinaro Dundas S.A., Marinaro Dundas SA, Mark Kelly Insurance and Financial Services PTY LTD, McLagan (Aon) Limited, McLagan Partners Asia Inc., McLagan Partners Inc., Membership Leasing Trust, Minet Consultancy Services Ltd, Minet Group, Minet Holdings Inc., Minet Inc., Minet Re North America Inc., Modern Survey Inc., Muirfield Underwriters Ltd., NBS Nominees Limited, National Insurance Office Ltd., Nauman Insurance Brokers Limited, Nexus Insurance Brokers Limited, One Underwriting Agency GmbH, One Underwriting B.V., One Underwriting Health B.V., One Underwriting Pty Ltd, Optica Agency A/S, Optimum Risk Solutions Limited, Ovatio Courtage SAS, P.G. Bradley & Co Limited, PGOF Manager 1 LLC, PRORUCK Ruckversicherungs Aktiengesellschaft, PT Aon Benfield Indonesia, PT Aon Hewitt Indonesia, PT Aon Indonesia, PWZ AG, Paragon Strategic Solutions Inc., PathWise Solutions LLC, Penn Square Manager 1 LLC, Penn Square Manager II LLC, Portus Consulting, Portus Consulting (Leamington) Limited, Portus Consulting Limited, Portus Online LLP, Praesidium S.p.A. - Soluzioni Assicurative per il Management, Premier Auto Finance Inc., Private Client Trustees Ltd., Private Equity Partnership Structures I LLC, Probabilitas N.V./SA, Protective Marketing Enterprises Inc., Randolph Finance Unlimited Company, Rasini Vigano Limited, Redwoods Dental Underwriters Inc., Richard Kiddle (Insurance Brokers) Limited, Risk Laboratories LLC, Riskikonsultatsioonide OU, Ronnie Elementary Insurance Agency Ltd, SA Special Situations General Partner LLC, SG IFFOXX Assekuranzmaklergesellschaft mbH, SLE Worldwide Limited, SN Re S.A., Salud Riesgos y Recursos Humanos Consultores Ltda. (former Aon Corporte Advisors Ltda.), SchneiderGolling IFFOXX Assekuranzmakler AG, SchneiderGolling Industrie Assekuranzmaklergesellschaft mbH, Scritch Inc., Shanghai Kayi Information Technology Co. Ltd, Sheppard Netherlands B.V., Specialty Benefits Inc., Sports Insure Limited [In strike-off], Strategic Manager-III LLC, Stroz Friedberg (Asia) Limited, Stroz Friedberg Inc., Stroz Friedberg LLC, Stroz Friedberg Limited, Stroz Friedberg Risk Management Limited, Superannuation Management Nominees Limited, Suresport Limited [In strike-off], Swire Blanch MSTC II SA, Swire Blanch MSTC SA, TTG BRPTP GP LLC, TTG Cayuga Bavaria Intermediate 2 S.a.r.l, TTG Core Plus Investments LLC, TTG German Investments I LLC, TTG Investments II LLC, TTG Irish Investments I LLC, TTG Manager LLC, Tecsefin S.A. en liquidacion, The Aon Ireland Mastertrustee Limited, The Aon MasterTrustee Limited, The John Reynolds Company Limited, The Key West Saxon Group LLC, The Townsend Group Inc, The Townsend Group LLC, Townsend Alpha Manager I LLC, Townsend Alpha Manager II LLC, Townsend Alpha Manager III LLC, Townsend Group Asia Limited, Townsend Group Europe Ltd., Townsend HWL GP Ltd., Townsend Holdings LLC, Townsend Lake Constance GP Limited, Townsend REF GP LLC, Townsend Re Global GP Limited, Townsend SO Manager I LLC, UAB One Underwriting, UADBB Aon Baltic, UK Credit Insurance Specialists Limited, UNIT Versicherungsmakler GmbH, US Underwriting Solutions S.r.l., USLP Underwriting Solutions LP, Underwriters Marine Services Inc., Unidelta AG, Unirobe Meeus Groep, UnitedPensions Deutschland AG, Univers Workplace Solutions, VERO Management AG, Ventiv Technology, WT Government Services LLC, WT Technologies LLC, Wannet Speciale Verzekeringen B.V., Wannet Sports Insurance GmbH, Ward Financial Group Inc., West Lake General Partner LLC, West Lake II GP LLC, Wexford Underwriting Managers Inc., White Rock Insurance (Americas) Ltd., White Rock Insurance (Europe) PCC Limited, White Rock Insurance (Gibraltar) PCC Ltd., White Rock Insurance (Guernsey) ICC Limited, White Rock Insurance (Netherlands) PCC Limited, White Rock Insurance (SAC) Ltd., White Rock Insurance Company PCC Ltd., White Rock Insurance PCC (Isle of Man) Limited, White Rock Services (Bermuda) Ltd., White Rock USA Ltd., Willis Towers Watson, Worldwide Integrated Services Company, Wrapid Specialty Inc., Zalba-Caldu Correduria de Seguros SA, and cut-e USA Inc.. Experian plc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a technology company. The company operates through two segments, Business-to-Business and Consumer Services. It provides data services to identify and understand their customers, as well as to manage the risks related with lending. The company also offers analytical and decision tools that enhance businesses to manage their customers, minimize the risk of fraud, comply with legal requirements, and automate decisions and processes. In addition, it provides financial education, free access to Experian credit reports and scores, online educational tools, and applications to manage their financial position, access credit offers, and protect themselves from identity fraud. The company serves customers in financial service, direct-to-consumer, health, retail, automotive, software and professional services, telecommunications and utility, insurance, media and technology, government and public, and other sectors. It operates in North America, Latin America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. Experian plc was formerly known as Experian Group Limited and changed its name to Experian plc in July 2008. Experian plc was founded in 1897 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Read More Hannover RAck SE, together with its subsidiaries, provides reinsurance products and services worldwide. It operates through Property & Casualty Reinsurance, and Life & Health Reinsurance segments. The Property & Casualty Reinsurance segment offers specialty lines comprising marine, aviation, facultative and direct business, credit, surety, and political risks reinsurance products; and treaty, catastrophe XL, and structured reinsurance, as well as insurance-linked securities. This segment also provides risk solutions for agricultural, livestock, and bloodstock businesses; aviation and space business; and marine and offshore energy business. The Life & Health Reinsurance segment offers group and individual credit life, enhanced annuities, group life and health, and Sharia-compliant Takaful reinsurance products. This segment also provides risk solutions in the areas of critical illness, disability, health, longevity, long term care, and mortality and morbidity, as well as underwriting services. In addition, it offers various financial solutions, including new-business financing; monetization of embedded value; reserve and solvency relief; and divestiture of non-core businesses. The company was formerly known as Hannover RAckversicherung AG and changed its name to Hannover RAck SE in March 2013. The company was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in Hanover, Germany. Hannover RAck SE is a subsidiary of Talanx AG. Read More FBL Financial Group, Inc., through its subsidiaries, sells individual life insurance and annuity products. The Annuity segment sells various traditional annuity products that primarily consist of fixed rate and indexed annuities, and supplementary contracts. The Life Insurance segment offers whole life, term life, and universal life policies. It also involved in the property-casualty business; and provision of wealth management, investment advisory, and marketing and distribution services for the sale of mutual funds and insurance products, as well as leasing services. The company markets its products to Farm Bureau members, and other individuals and businesses through exclusive agents and agency managers under the consumer brand name of Farm Bureau Financial Services in the Midwestern and Western sections of the United States. The company was founded in 1945 and is headquartered in West Des Moines, Iowa. Read More GRC International Group plc, through its subsidiaries, provides various products and services to address the information technology (IT) governance, risk management, and compliance requirements of organizations in the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, the United States, Australia, and internationally. The company provides instructor-led and self-paced training courses on data protection, cyber security, ISO 27001 certification, and business continuity. It also offers on-site and remote support services to design and implement cyber security, data protection and privacy policies, procedures and practices, penetration testing, payment card industry data security standard, SoC2 compliance and cyber essentials certification and consultancy, privacy by design, privacy as a service, and GDPR compliance. In addition, publishes and distributes books, toolkit documentation templates, and software; and software solutions including a range of software-as-a service products, such as e-learning, risk assessment and data flow mapping tools, data seeding, and data watermarking solutions. GRC International Group plc is headquartered in Ely, the United Kingdom. Read More Royal Dutch Shell plc operates as an energy and petrochemical company worldwide. The company operates through Integrated Gas, Upstream, Oil Products, Chemicals segments. It explores for and extracts crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids; markets and transports oil and gas; produces gas-to-liquids fuels and other products; and operates upstream and midstream infrastructure necessary to deliver gas to market. The company also markets and trades natural gas, liquefied natural gas (LNG), crude oil, electricity, carbon-emission rights; and markets and sells LNG as a fuel for heavy-duty vehicles and marine vessels. In addition, it trades in and refines crude oil and other feed stocks, such as gasoline, diesel, heating oil, aviation fuel, marine fuel, biofuel, lubricants, bitumen, and sulphur; produces and sells petrochemicals for industrial use; and manages oil sands activities. Further, the company produces base chemicals comprising ethylene, propylene, and aromatics, as well as intermediate chemicals, such as styrene monomer, propylene oxide, solvents, detergent alcohols, ethylene oxide, and ethylene glycol. Royal Dutch Shell plc was founded in 1907 and is headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands. Read More 6 hours ago 3 Reasons Why BlackBerry May be Ready to Grow on Its Own Merits The unlikely meme stock is showing investors its business strategy is starting to pay off BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) was one of the stranger companies to be part of the meme stock movement. Read Article The Most Extensive and Reliable Source of Information Related to the Mexican Drugs Cartels. You will not find this level of coverage anywhere else, join us! Send information, pictures or videos, you remain 100% anonymous. Envia fotos, videos, notas, enlaces o informacion todo 100% Anonimo. Borderland Beat? We love to have you in our team, send Sol Prendido or HEARST an email! Want to be a contributor or citizen reporter forBorderland Beat?We love to have you in our team, sendoran email! WARNING: Posts may contain strong violent material, discretion is advised. COMMENTS: We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. The following companies are subsidiares of Becton, Dickinson and: (Bard Istanbul Healthcare Limited Company), Accuri Cytometers, Accuri Cytometers Inc., Adaptec Manufacturing Singapore, Alverix, Alverix Inc., Atto Bioscience, BD Holding S. de R.L. de C.V., BD Infection Prevention BV, BD Kiestra BV, BD Kiestra Total Lab Automation, BD Rapid Diagnostic (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., BD San Luis Potosi S.A. de C.V., BD Switzerland Sarl, BD Ventures LLC, BD West Africa Limited, BDX INO LLC, Bard (Thailand) Limited, Bard ASDI Inc., Bard Access Systems Inc., Bard Acquisition Sub Inc., Bard Australia Pty. Limited, Bard Benelux N.V., Bard Brachytherapy Inc., Bard Brasil Industria e Comercio de Produtos Para a Saude Ltda., Bard Canada Inc., Bard Chile S.p.A., Bard Czech Republic s.r.o., Bard Devices Inc., Bard Dublin ITC Limited, Bard EMEA Finance Center Sp.z o.o., Bard European Distribution Center N.V., Bard Finance B.V. & Co. KG., Bard Financial Services Ltd., Bard Finland OY, Bard France S.A.S., Bard Global Holdings I LLC, Bard Global Holdings II LLC, Bard Global Holdings III LLC, Bard Healthcare Inc., Bard Healthcare Science (Shanghai) Limited, Bard Hellas S.A., Bard Holding SAS, Bard Holdings Limited, Bard Holdings Netherlands B.V., Bard Hong Kong Limited, Bard IP Holdings Inc., Bard India Healthcare Pvt. Ltd., Bard International Holdings B.V., Bard International Inc., Bard Korea Ltd., Bard Limited, Bard MRL Acquisition Corp., Bard Malaysia Healthcare Sdn. Bhd., Bard Medica SA, Bard Medical Devices (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Bard Medical R&D (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Bard Medical SA (Proprietary) Limited, Bard Mexico Realty S. de R.L. de C.V., Bard Norden AB, Bard Norway AS, Bard Pacific Health Care Company Ltd., Bard Peripheral Vascular Inc., Bard Poland Sp. z.o.o., Bard Productos Plasticos e Medicos Ltda., Bard Reynosa S.A. de C.V., Bard S.r.l., Bard Sdn. Bhd., Bard Shannon Limited, Bard Singapore Private Limited, Bard Sourcing Office Singapore Pte. Ltd., Bard Sweden AB, Bard UK Newco Limited, Bard de Espana S.A., Becton Dickinson (Gibraltar) Holdings Ltd., Becton Dickinson (Gibraltar) Limited, Becton Dickinson (Gibraltar) Management Limited, Becton Dickinson (Mauritius) Limited, Becton Dickinson (Pty) Ltd., Becton Dickinson (Thailand) Limited, Becton Dickinson A.G., Becton Dickinson A/S, Becton Dickinson Argentina S.R.L., Becton Dickinson Asia Holdings Ltd., Becton Dickinson Asia Limited, Becton Dickinson Austria GmbH, Becton Dickinson Austria Holdings GmbH, Becton Dickinson B.V., Becton Dickinson B.V. Saudi Limited Company, Becton Dickinson Benelux N.V., Becton Dickinson Biosciences Systems and Reagents Inc., Becton Dickinson Canada Inc., Becton Dickinson Caribe Ltd., Becton Dickinson Croatia d.o.o., Becton Dickinson Czechia s.r.o., Becton Dickinson Dispensing Belgium BVBA, Becton Dickinson Dispensing Denmark A/S, Becton Dickinson Dispensing France SAS, Becton Dickinson Dispensing Ireland Limited, Becton Dickinson Dispensing Norway, Becton Dickinson Dispensing Spain S.L.U., Becton Dickinson Dispensing UK Ltd., Becton Dickinson Distribution Center N.V., Becton Dickinson East Africa Ltd., Becton Dickinson Euro Finance Sarl, Becton Dickinson Europe Holdings S.A.S., Becton Dickinson France S.A.S., Becton Dickinson GSA Beteilgungs GmbH, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings I Inc., Becton Dickinson Global Holdings II LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings IV LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings V LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings VII LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings VIII LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Services Centre Sdn. Bhd, Becton Dickinson GmbH, Becton Dickinson Guatemala S.A., Becton Dickinson Hellas S.A., Becton Dickinson Holdings Limited, Becton Dickinson Holdings Ltd., Becton Dickinson Holdings Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson Hungary Kft., Becton Dickinson India Private Limited, Becton Dickinson Industrias Cirurgicas Ltda., Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy AB, Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy Holdings UK Limited, Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy Systems Inc., Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy Systems Inc. S.A. de C.V., Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy UK, Becton Dickinson Insulin Syringe Ltd., Becton Dickinson International Holdings II Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson International Holdings III Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson International Holdings Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson Israel Ltd., Becton Dickinson Italia S.p.A., Becton Dickinson Ithalat Ihracat Limited Sirketi, Becton Dickinson Korea Holding Inc., Becton Dickinson Korea Ltd., Becton Dickinson Ltd., Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Finance S.a.r.L., Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Global Holdings Sarl, Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Holdings II S.a.r.L, Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Holdings III S.a.r.L, Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Holdings V S.a.r.L., Becton Dickinson Malaysia Inc., Becton Dickinson Management GmbH & Co. KG, Becton Dickinson Matrex Holdings Inc., Becton Dickinson Medical (S) Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Devices (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Devices (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Products Pte. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Technology (Jiangsu) Co. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Netherlands Global Holdings II C.V., Becton Dickinson Netherlands Holdings B.V., Becton Dickinson Netherlands Holdings II B.V., Becton Dickinson Norway AS, Becton Dickinson O.Y., Becton Dickinson Overseas Services Ltd., Becton Dickinson Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd., Becton Dickinson Penel Limited, Becton Dickinson Philippines Inc., Becton Dickinson Polska Sp.z.o.o., Becton Dickinson Portugal Unipessoal Lda., Becton Dickinson Pty. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Research Centre Ireland Limited, Becton Dickinson Rowa Germany GmbH, Becton Dickinson Rowa Italy Srl, Becton Dickinson S.A., Becton Dickinson Sample Collection GmbH, Becton Dickinson Scot Financing L.L.P., Becton Dickinson Scot Financing L.P., Becton Dickinson Sdn. Bhd., Becton Dickinson Slovakia s.r.o., Becton Dickinson Sweden AB, Becton Dickinson Sweden Holdings AB, Becton Dickinson Switzerland Global Holdings SarL, Becton Dickinson Technology Campus India, Becton Dickinson U.K. Limited, Becton Dickinson UK Financing I Limited, Becton Dickinson UK Financing II Limited, Becton Dickinson Venezuela C.A., Becton Dickinson Venture LLC, Becton Dickinson Verwaltungs GmbH, Becton Dickinson Vostok LLC, Becton Dickinson Worldwide Investments Sa.r.L., Becton Dickinson Zambia Limited, Becton Dickinson and Company Ltd., Becton Dickinson de Colombia Ltda., Becton Dickinson de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Becton Dickinson del Uruguay S.A., Benex Ltd., Biometric Imaging, Bridger Biomed Inc., C. R. Bard, C. R. Bard (Portugal) - Produtos e Artigos Medicos e Farmaceuticos, C. R. Bard Do Brasil Productos Medicos Ltda., C. R. Bard GmbH, C. R. Bard Inc., C. R. Bard Netherlands Sales B.V., CME America LLC, CME Ltd., CME Medical (UK) Limited, CME UK (Holdings) Limited, CRISI Medical Systems, CRISI Medical Systems Inc., Caesarea Medical Electronics, Cardal II LLC, Care Fusion Development Private Limited, CareFusion, CareFusion (Barbados) SrL, CareFusion (Shanghai) Commercial and Trading Co. Limited, CareFusion 213 LLC, CareFusion 2200 Inc., CareFusion 2201 Inc., CareFusion 302 LLC, CareFusion 303 Inc., CareFusion Asia (HK) Limited, CareFusion BH 335 d.o.o. Cazin, CareFusion Corporation, CareFusion D.R. 203 Ltd., CareFusion France 309 S.A.S., CareFusion Israel 330 Ltd., CareFusion Italy 312 S.p.A., CareFusion Manufacturing LLC, CareFusion Mexico 215 S.A. de C.V., CareFusion Netherlands 328 B.V., CareFusion Netherlands 503 B.V., CareFusion Netherlands 504 B.V., CareFusion Netherlands Financing 283 C.V., CareFusion Resources LLC, CareFusion S.A. 319 (Proprietary) Limited, CareFusion Solutions LLC, CareFusion U.K. 244 Limited, CareFusion U.K. 305 Limited, CareFusion U.K. 306 Limited, Carmel Pharma AB, Carmel Pharma Inc, Cato Software Solutions, Cell Analysis Systems Inc, Cellular Research, Cellular Research Inc., Clearstream Technologies Group Limited, Clearstream Technologies Limited, Clontech Laboratories Inc, Corporativo BD de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Cubex, Cytopeia, DLD (Bermuda) Ltd., DVL Acquisition Sub Inc., Davol Inc., Davol International Limited, Davol Surgical Innovations S.A. de C.V., Difco Laboratories Incorporated, Distribuidora BD Mexico S.A. de C.V., Dutch American Manufacturers (D.A.M.) B.V., Dymax Corporation, Embo Medical Limited, Enturia de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Enturican Inc., FJ International Inc., FlowCardia Inc., FlowCardia LLC, FlowJo LLC, Franklin Lakes Enterprises L.L.C., GSL Solutions, Gamer Lasertechnik GmbH, GenCell Biosystems, GenCell Biosystems Ltd., GeneOhm Sciences, GeneOhm Sciences Canada ULC, Gentest Corporation, Gesco International Inc., Gesco International LLC, HandyLab Inc, HandyLab Inc., IBD Holdings LLC, Iontophoretics Corporation, JoHome LLC, Kabushiki Kaisha Medicon (Medicon Inc.), Liberator Health and Education Services Inc., Liberator Health and Wellness Inc., Liberator Medical Holdings Inc., Liberator Medical Supply Inc., LifeBond, Limited Liability Company Bard Rus, Loma Vista Medical Inc., Loma Vista Medical LLC, Lutonix Inc., Med-Design Corporation, Med-Design Investment Holdings Inc., Med-Safe Systems Inc., MedChem Products Inc., Medafor Inc., Medegen LLC, Medinservice.com Inc., Medivance Inc., NAT Diagnostics, NAT Diagnostics Inc., NOW Medical Distribution Inc., NOW Medical Distribution LLC, Navarre Biomedical LLC, Navarre Biomedical Ltd., Neomend Inc., Nippon Becton Dickinson Company Ltd., Omega Biosystems Incorporated, P.R.C. (Isialys) Societe a responsabilitie limitee (Societe a associe unique), PT Becton Dickinson Indonesia, PharMingen, PreAnalytiX GmbH, Pristine Access Technologies Inc., ProSeed Inc., Procesos para Esterilizacion S.A. de C.V., Productos Bard de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Productos Para el Cuidado de la Salud S.A. de C.V., Puls Medical Devices AS LC, PureWick Corporation, Roberts Laboratories Inc., Rochester Medical Corporation, Rochester Medical Ltd., Saf-T-Med, Safety Syringes, Safety Syringes Inc., Sendal S.L.U., SenoRx Inc., SenoRx LLC, Shield Healthcare Centers Inc., Sirigen, Sirigen II Limited, Sirigen Inc., Sistemas Medicos ALARIS S.A. de C.V., Specialized Cooperative Corporation, Specialized Health Products Inc., Specialized Health Products International Inc., Specialized Health Products International LLC, Staged Diabetes Management LLC, Straub Medical, Straub Medical AG, Surgical Site Solutions Inc., TVA Medical, TVA Medical Inc., Tepha, Tepha Inc., Tri-County Medical & Ostomy Supplies Inc., TriPath Imaging, TriPath Imaging Inc., Vas-Cath Incorporated, Vascular Pathways Inc., Velano Vascular, Velano Vascular Inc., Venetec International Inc., Venetec International LLC, Y-Med Inc., Y-Med LLC, and ZebraSci Inc.. The following companies are subsidiares of Accenture: (Accenture Endustriyel Yazlm Cozumleri Limited Sirketi), 2nd Road, ?What If!, ?What If! China Holdings Limited, ?What If! Holdings Limited, ?What If! Limited, ACN Consulting Co Ltd, AD.Dialeto (Digital Agency acquired by Accenture), AGS Business and Technology Services Limited, AIG Shared Services Business Processing Inc, ASM Research Inc., ASM Research LLC, ATAN, Accenture (Botswana) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (China) Co. Ltd., Accenture (Shenzhen) Technology Co. Ltd., Accenture (South Africa) Pty Ltd, Accenture (UK) Limited, Accenture 2 Business Process Services S.A., Accenture 2 LLC, Accenture A/S, Accenture AB, Accenture AG, Accenture AS, Accenture Africa Pty Ltd, Accenture Agencia Interativa Ltda, Accenture Australia Holding B.V., Accenture Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture B.V., Accenture BPM Operations Support Services S.A., Accenture BPM S.C.R.L., Accenture BPS Services S.p. z o.o., Accenture Branch Holdings B.V., Accenture Bulgaria EOOD, Accenture Business Services for Utilities Inc, Accenture Business Services of British Columbia Limited Partnership, Accenture Business and Technology Services LLC, Accenture C.A., Accenture Canada Holdings Inc, Accenture Capital Designated Activity Company, Accenture Capital Inc, Accenture Central Europe B.V., Accenture Chile Asesorias y Servicios Ltda, Accenture Cloud Services GmbH, Accenture Cloud Software Solutions Limited, Accenture Cloud Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions LLC, Accenture Cloud Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd, Accenture Co. Ltd, Accenture Communications Infrastructure Solutions Ltd, Accenture Company Ltd, Accenture Consulting Pty Ltd, Accenture Consulting Services Ltd Tanzania, Accenture Consultores de Gestao S.A., Accenture Consultoria de Industria e Consumo Ltda, Accenture Consultoria de Recursos Naturais Ltda, Accenture Credit Services LLC, Accenture Customer Services Distribution SASU, Accenture Customer Services Ltd, Accenture Danismanlik Limited Sirketi, Accenture Defined Benefit Pension Plan Trustees Limited, Accenture Defined Contribution Pension Plan Trustees Limited, Accenture Delivery Poland S.p. z o.o., Accenture Dienstleistungen GmbH, Accenture Digital Holdings GmbH, Accenture East Africa Limited, Accenture Ecuador S.A., Accenture Egypt LLC, Accenture Enterprise Development (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Accenture Federal Services LLC, Accenture Finance II Limited, Accenture Finance Limited, Accenture Finance and Accounting BPO Services S.p.A., Accenture Finance and Accounting Services S.r.l., Accenture Financial Advanced Solution & Technology S.r.l., Accenture Flex LLC, Accenture GP LLC, Accenture Global Capital Designated Activity Company, Accenture Global Engagements Limited, Accenture Global Holdings Limited, Accenture Global Services Limited, Accenture Global Solutions Limited, Accenture GmbH, Accenture HR Services S.p.A., Accenture Healthcare Processing Inc, Accenture Holding Brasil Ltda, Accenture Holding GmbH & Co. KG, Accenture Holdings (Iberia) S.L., Accenture Holdings B.V., Accenture Holdings France SASU, Accenture Hungary Holdings Kft, Accenture Inc, Accenture Industrial Software Limited Liability Company, Accenture Industrial Software Solutions Kft, Accenture Industrial Software Solutions SA, Accenture Insurance Services B.V., Accenture Insurance Services LLC, Accenture International B.V., Accenture International LLC, Accenture International Limited, Accenture Japan Ltd, Accenture Korea B.V., Accenture LLC, Accenture LLP, Accenture Lanka (Private) Ltd, Accenture Limited, Accenture Lithuania UAB, Accenture Ltd, Accenture Ltda, Accenture Maghreb S.a.r.l., Accenture Managed Services SRL, Accenture Management GmbH, Accenture Marketing Services LLC, Accenture Marketing Services Limited, Accenture Middle East B.V., Accenture Minority I B.V., Accenture Mozambique Limitada, Accenture Mzansi Pty Ltd, Accenture NV/SA, Accenture NZ Limited, Accenture Nova Scotia Unlimited Liability Co., Accenture OOO, Accenture Operations GmbH, Accenture Operations S.p. z o.o., Accenture Operations Services Private Limited, Accenture Operations Services Sdn Bhd, Accenture Outsourcing S.r.l., Accenture Outsourcing Services S.A., Accenture Oy, Accenture Panama Inc, Accenture Participations B.V., Accenture Participations II Limited, Accenture Peru SRL, Accenture Post Trade Processing SASU, Accenture Post-Trade Processing Limited, Accenture Process (Mauritius) Ltd, Accenture Pte Ltd, Accenture Puerto Rico LLC, Accenture Qiyun Technology (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd, Accenture S.C., Accenture S.L., Accenture S.R.L., Accenture S.p. z o.o., Accenture S.p.A., Accenture SASU, Accenture SG Services Pte Ltd, Accenture SRL, Accenture Saudi Arabia Limited, Accenture Sdn Bhd, Accenture Service Center SRL, Accenture Services (Mauritius) Ltd, Accenture Services AB, Accenture Services AG, Accenture Services AS, Accenture Services GmbH, Accenture Services Morocco SA, Accenture Services Oy, Accenture Services Pty Ltd, Accenture Services S.p. z o.o., Accenture Services SRL, Accenture Services and Technology S.r.l., Accenture Services s.r.o., Accenture Single Member S.A. Organization Information Technology & Business Development, Accenture Solutions Co. Ltd, Accenture Solutions Private Limited, Accenture Solutions Pte Ltd, Accenture Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Solutions S.p. z o.o, Accenture Solutions Sdn Bhd, Accenture State Healthcare Services LLC, Accenture Sub II Inc, Accenture Sub III Inc, Accenture Sub LLC, Accenture Systems Integration Limited, Accenture Sarl, Accenture Tanacsado Kolatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Accenture Technology Solutions (Dalian) Co. Ltd., Accenture Technology Solutions (HK) Co. Ltd., Accenture Technology Solutions (Thailand) Co. Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions - Solucoes Informaticas Integradas S.A., Accenture Technology Solutions GmbH, Accenture Technology Solutions Oy, Accenture Technology Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions S.A. de C.V., Accenture Technology Solutions S.r.l., Accenture Technology Solutions SASU, Accenture Technology Solutions SRL, Accenture Technology Solutions Sdn Bhd, Accenture Technology Solutions Slovakia s.r.o., Accenture Technology Ventures B.V., Accenture Technology Ventures SPRL, Accenture Tecnologia Consultoria y Outsourcing S.A., Accenture Uruguay SRL, Accenture Vietnam Co. Limited, Accenture Zambia Limited, Accenture do Brasil Ltda, Accenture plc, Accenture s.r.o., Acceria, Acquity Group, Adaptly LLC, Adaptly UK Limited, AddVal Technology, Adqptly, Advantium Inc., Advoco, Agilex Technologies Inc., Allen International, AlphaBeta Advisors, Altevie Technologies S.r.l., Altima, Altima (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Altima Asia Ltd, Altitude, Altitude LLC, Altius Consulting Limited, Altius Data Solutions Private Limited, Analytics 8 LP, Analytics 8 Pty Ltd, Analytics8, Aorui Advertising (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Apis, Apis Group Pty Ltd, Appaloosa Technology SASU, AppsPro, Arca, Arca Ingenieros y Consultoria S.L., Arca Telecom S.L., Ariba - BPO, Arismore, Artio People (Payroll) Pty Ltd, Artio People Pty Ltd, Aspiro Solutions (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Automation Partners Pty Ltd, Avanade (Guangzhou) Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd., Avanade Asia Pte Ltd, Avanade Australia Pty Ltd, Avanade Belgium SPRL, Avanade Canada Inc, Avanade Consulting Poland S.p. z o.o., Avanade Denmark A/S, Avanade Deutschland GmbH, Avanade Europe Holdings Limited, Avanade Europe Services Limited, Avanade Finland Oy, Avanade France SASU, Avanade Holdings LLC, Avanade Hong Kong Ltd, Avanade Inc, Avanade International Corporation, Avanade Ireland Limited, Avanade Italy S.r.l., Avanade Japan KK, Avanade Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avanade Middle East Limited, Avanade Netherlands B.V., Avanade Norway AS, Avanade Poland S.p. z o.o., Avanade Schweiz GmbH, Avanade South Africa Pty Ltd, Avanade Spain S.L., Avanade Sweden AB, Avanade UK Limited, Avanade do Brasil Ltda, Avanade Osterreich GmbH, Avenai, Axia Ltd., BABCN LLC, BCS Consulting, BCT Solutions, BCT Solutions Pty Ltd, BENEXT, BPO Servicos Administrativos Ltda, BRIDGE Energy Group, Beacon Consulting Group Inc., Beijing Genesis Interactive Technology Co. Ltd., Beijing Zhidao Future Consulting Co. Ltd, Benext, Berico Technologies LLC, Bionic, Bionic Solution LLC, Blue Horseshoe, Boomerang Pharmaceutical Communications, Bow & Arrow, Bow & Arrow Limited, Brand Learning, Brand Learning Group Limited, Brightstep AB, Byte Prophecy, Byte Prophecy Private Limited, CAS, CRMWaypoint, CS Technology (Australia) Pty Ltd, CS Technology (UK) Limited, CS Technology Group LLC, CS Technology LLC, CadenceQuest Inc., Callisto Integration Europe B.V., Callisto Integration Europe Limited, Callisto Integration LLC, Callisto Integration Ltd, Capgemini - North American health practice, Capital Consultancy Services Inc, Certus Solutions Consulting Services Limited, Certus Solutions Ltd, ChangeTrack Research Pty Ltd., Chaotic Moon Studios, Chengdu Mensa Advertising Co. Ltd., Cimation, Cirrus Connect Australia Pty Ltd, Cirrus Connect Limited, Cirruseo, Clarity Insights, Clearhead, Clearhead Group LLC, ClientHouse GmbH, Cloud Sherpas, Cloud Sherpas (GA) LLC, Cloud Sherpas Japan G.K., Cloud Sherpas New Zealand Limited, Cloudeasier SAS, Cloudpoint Limited, Cloudsherpas Inc, Cloudworks, Cloudworks Consulting Services Inc, Cloudworks Technology LLC, Computer Research and Telecommunications LLC, Concrete Desenvolvimento de Sistemas Ltda, Concrete Solutions, Concrete Solutions Ltda, Context Information Security, Context Information Security LLC, Context Information Security Limited, CoreCompete LLC, CoreCompete Limited, CoreCompete Private Limited, Corliant Inc., Creative Drive LLC, Creative Drive US LLC, CreativeDrive, CreativeDrive Digital Content Services (Shenzhen) Co Ltd., CreativeDrive EMEA Limited, CreativeDrive Singapore Pte Ltd, CreativeDrive UK Group Limited, Cutting Edge Solutions Limited, Cygni AB, Cygni Norrsken AB, Cygni Stockholm AB, Cygni Syd AB, Cygni Vast AB, Cygni Ost AB, Cygni Ostersund AB, DAZ Systems Inc, DAZ Systems LLC, DAZSI Systems (India) Pvt. Limited, DI Futures Corporation, Data Essential SARL, Davies Consulting, DayNine Consulting, DayNine Consulting (New Zealand) Limited, DayNine Consulting LLC, Declarative Holdings LLC, Decora Marketplace LLC, Decorado Marketplace Ltda-EPP, Defense Point Security, Deja vu Security, Design Strategy and Research de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Designaffairs LLC, Digiplug S.A.S., Digital Results Group LLC, Double Digit Limitada, Double Digit Pty SA, Droga5, Droga5 LLC, Droga5 Studios LLC, Droga5 UK Limited, Duck Creek Technologies, ESR Labs, ESR Labs AG, EdenOne Solutions Limited, Edenhouse ERP Holdings Limited, Edenhouse Solutions Limited, Enaxis Consulting, Enaxis Consulting LP, End to End Analytics LLC, End-to-End Analytics, Endorphin Medici (M) Sdn Bhd, Energuia Web S.A., Energy Management Brokers Limited, EnergyQuote JHA, Enimbos, Enimbos Global Services S.L., Enkitec, Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions LLC, Enterprise System Partners, Enterprise System Partners B.V., Enterprise System Partners Bilisim Danismanlik Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, Enterprise System Partners Global Corporation, Enterprise System Partners Limited, Enthusian Pty Ltd, Entropia, Entropia (M) Sdn Bhd, Entropia Holdings Pte Ltd, Entropia Intercraft Sdn Bhd, Epylon, Espedia S.r.l., Ethica Consulting Group, Ethica Consulting S.p.A., Evopro Group, Exactside Limited, Experity, Exton Consulting, Exton Consulting Spain Strategy&Management S.L., Exton Germany GmbH, Exton International SAS, Exton Italia S.r.l., Exton SAS, FGM LLC, Fairway Technologies Inc, Farah BidCo Limited, Farah MidCo Limited, Farah Topco Limited, Filmproduction ApS, First Annapolis Consulting Inc., First Annapolis Consulting LLC, Fjord, Focus Group Europe, Formicary, Fruendo S.r.l., FusionX, Future State Consulting LLC, FutureMove (Beijing) Automotive Technology Co. Ltd., FutureMove Automotive, FutureMove Automotive Co. Ltd., GRA Supply Chain Pty Ltd, Gagel Group S de R.L. de C.V., Gapso Servicos de Informatica Ltda, Gapso Servicos de Informatica Ltda., Genfour, George Group Consulting L.P., Gestalt LLC, Gevity, Gren utvikling AS, H.B. Maynard and Co. Inc., HRC Retail Advisory, Hagberg Consulting Group, Hahntel Ltda, Halo Partners LLC, Hamilton Holding Company S.A, Hangzhou Aiyunzhe Technology Co. Ltd., Happen, Happen GP Limited, Happen Limited, Hjaltelin Stahl, Hjaltelin Stahl A/S, Hjaltelin Stahl K/S, Hytracc Consulting AS, Hytracc Consulting Malaysia Sdn Bhd, IBB Consulting, ICM.S S.r.l., IMJ Corp, IMJ Corporation, INSITUM, IQSP Consulting LLC, IT One Company Limited, ITBS Servicios Bancarios de Tecnologia de la Informacion SL, Icon Integration, Icon Integration (NZ) Limited, Icon Integration Pty Ltd, Imagine Broadband (USA) Limited, Imagine Broadband USA LLC, Imaginea Inc, Imaginea Technologies LLC, Industrie IT (Hong Kong) Ltd, Industrie IT (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Industrie IT Group Pty Ltd, Industrie IT Pty Ltd, Industrie&Co, Infinity Works Consulting Limited, Infinity Works Holdings Limited, Infinity Works Management Limited, Infinity Works Midco Limited, Informatica de Euskadi S.L., Innotec International EAD, Innotec International S.p. z.o.o., Innotec Marketing GmbH, Innotec Marketing International Ireland Limited, Innotec- Marketing Spain S.L, Insitum Consultoria Argentina SRL, Insitum Consultoria S.A. de C.V., International Biometric Group LLC, International Biometric Group UK Limited, Intrepid, Intrepid Futureworks Sdn Bhd, Intrigo Systems Inc, Intrigo Systems India Pvt. Limited, Intrigo Systems LLC, Inventor Technology Ltd, InvestTech, Investtech Systems Consulting LLC, ItSafer Continuity Services S.L., JKD Consulting LLC, Javelin Group, K Comms Group Limited, KSC Studio LLC, Kaper Communications Limited, Karma Communications Debtco Limited, Karma Communications Group Limited, Karma Communications Holdings Limited, Karmarama, Karmarama Comms Limited, Karmarama Limited, Knowledge Rules Inc., Knowledgent, Knowledgent Group LLC, Kogentix, Kogentix LLC, Kogentix Limited, Kogentix Singapore Pte Ltd, Kogentix Technologies Private Limited, Kolle Rebbe, Kolle Rebbe GmbH, Kream Comms Limited, Kunstmaan, Kurt Salmon, Kurt Salmon Canada LTD, Kurt Salmon US LLC, LEXTA, LINKBYNET, LINKBYNET Indian Ocean (L.I.O) Ltd, LabAnswer, Lexta GmbH, Lexta UK Limited, Lien par le reseau Inc, Lien par le reseau infrastructures Inc, Lin Bo (Shanghai) Network Technology Co. Ltd., Link By Net SAS, Link By Net SRL, Link By Net Vietnam Company Limited, Linkbynet East Asia Ltd, Linkbynet Singapore Pte Ltd., Loud & Clear Creative Pty Ltd, Lumenup S.A., MAXIM Systems Inc., MCG US Holdings LLC, Mackevision CG Technology and Service (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Mackevision Japan Co. Ltd., Mackevision Korea Ltd, Mackevision Medien Design, Mackevision Medien Design GmbH, Mackevision Singapore Pte Ltd, Mackevision UK Limited, Maglan, Maglan Information Defense Technologies Research Ltd, Maihiro, Matter, Maud Corp Pty Ltd, Maxamine International, Measuretek LLC, Media Audits Ltd., Media Hive, Mediasenz Pty Ltd., Meredith Specialty LLC, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing LLC, Meridian Informed Purchasing Ltd., Mindtribe, Mistral Wind Operations Servicos Empresariais Unipessoal Lda., MobGen, Mortgage Cadence LLC, Mortgage Cadence an Accenture Company, Most Champion Ltd, Mudano, Mudano Limited, Myrtle Consulting Group LLC, N3 (Dalian) Business Consulting Co. Ltd., N3 Brazil Consultoria em Marketing Ltda, N3 Germany GmbH, N3 LLC, N3 North America LLC, N3 Results Australia Pty Ltd, N3 Results Ireland Limited, N3 Results Japan G.K., N3 Results Limited, N3 Results Malaysia Sdn Bhd, N3 Results Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., N3 Results S.A.S., N3 Results Singapore Pte Ltd, N3 Results Unipessoal Lda, NYTEC, Nanjing Demeng Advertising Co. Ltd., Nashco Consulting, NaviSys Inc., Nell'Armonia Israel Ltd, Nell'Armonia SAS, Nell'Participation SAS, NellArmonia, Neo Metrics Analytics S.L., Neo Metrics Chile S.A., New Content, New Content Editora e Produtora Ltda, New Energy Group, News Imaging LLC, NewsPage, NewsPage (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, NewsPage Pte Ltd, Northstream, Novetta Holdings LLC, Novetta LLC, Novetta Solutions LLC, Novetta Topco LLC, OCTO Technology, OPS Rules Management Consultants, Octagon Research Solutions Inc., Octo Technology Pty Ltd, Octo Technology SA, Odgaard ApS, Olikka, Olikka Pty Ltd, Openmind, Openmind S.r..l., Openminded, Openminded SAS, Operaciones Accenture S.A. de C.V., OpusLine, Orbium, Orbium AG, Orbium Consulting Limited, Orbium Inc., Orbium Ltd, Orbium Pte Ltd, Orbium Pty Ltd, Origin Digital, PCO Innovation, PLM Systems S.r.l, PRION GmbH, PT Accenture, PT Asta Catur Indra, PT Kogentix Teknologi Indonesia, PacificLink Group, Paja Finanssipalvelut Oy, Parker Fitzgerald Inc, Parker Fitzgerald International Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Limited, Parker Fitzgerald PTY Ltd, Parker Fitzgerald Services Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Solutions Limited, Pecaso Ltd., Pegasus Production A/S, Pegasus Production K/S, Phase One Consulting Group, Pillar Technology, Pollux, Pollux Automation Mexico S.A. de C.V., Pollux Canada Inc, Pollux S.A.S., Pollux USA LLC, Pragsis Bidoop, Pragsis Bidoop UK Limited, Pramati Technologies Europe Limited, Pramati Technologies Private Limited, Presence of IT Workforce Management North America LLC, PrimeQ, PrimeQ Australia Pty Ltd, PrimeQ Ltd, PrimeQ NZ Pty Limited, Procurian Inc., Prof. Homburg GmbH, Proquire LLC, PureApps Ltd., Qi Jie Beijing Information Technologies Co. Ltd., RBCP Fund 1-A Vapor Blocker LLC, RBCP Platform Vapor Blocker I LLC, REPL Consulting LLC, REPL Consulting Limited, REPL Digital Limited, REPL Group K.K., REPL Group Pty Ltd, REPL Group Worldwide Limited, REPL Pte Ltd, REPL Software Limited, REPL Technology Limited, Radiant Services LLC, Random Walk Computing Inc., Reactive Media Pty Ltd., Real Protect, Realworld OO Systems Ltd., Redcore, Redcore (New Zealand) Limited, Redcore Group Holdings Pty Ltd, Redcore Pty Ltd, Revolutionary Security, RiskControl, Root LLC, Rothco, Rothco Limited, S3 TV Technology Ltd., SALT Solutions GmbH, SEC Servizi, SOPIA Corp., Sagacious Consultants, Salt Solutions, Sandbox Studio LLC, Sapling Bidco Limited, Sapling Midco Limited, Sapling Topco Limited, Schlumberger Business Consulting, Seabury Aviation & Aerospace (UK) Limited, Seabury Consulting, Seabury Corporate Advisors LLC, Seabury Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Search Technologies BPO Inc, Search Technologies International LLC, Search Technologies LLC, Search Technologies Limited, Securiview SAS, Sentelis, Sentor Managed Secuirty Services AB, Servicios Tecnicos de Programacion Accenture S.C., Seven Seas Business Ventures LLC, Shackleton, Shackleton Chile S.A., Shackleton S.L.U., Shanghai Baiyue Advertising Co. Ltd., Shun Zhe Technology Development Co. Ltd., SigInt Technologies LLC, Silveo, Silveo Consulting India Private Limited, Simian Pty Ltd, SinnerSchrader, SinnerSchrader AG, SinnerSchrader Content GmbH, SinnerSchrader Deutschland GmbH, Sirvart S.A., Sistemes Consulting S.L., Skylink SAS, Soltians Limited, Solutions IQ LLC, SolutionsIQ, SolutionsIQ India Consulting Services Private Limited, Somers Ventures Ireland Limited, Somers Ventures LLC, Spacelink SAS, Storm Digital, Structure Consulting Group LLC, Sutter Mills, Synership LLC, Systor AG, TXF LLC, TargetST8, Tech - Avanade Portugal Unipessoal Lda, Tecnilogica Ecosistemas S.A., Tecnilogica, The Brand Learning Partners Limited, The Callisto Integration Corporation, The Monkeys, The Monkeys Pty Ltd, The Myrtle Group, Total Logistics, Tquila, Trivadis, Trivadis Austria GmbH, Trivadis Denmark AS, Trivadis Germany GmbH, Trivadis Holding AG, Trivadis Partner AG, Trivadis Services AG, Trivadis Services SRL, Troop Studios Pty Ltd, VanBerlo, Vector Acquisition Company LLC, Vector Topco LLC, Verax Solutions, Vertical Retail Consulting (Shanghai) Ltd, Vertical Retail Consulting Ltd, Vivere Brasil Servicos e Solucoes SA, Vivere Brasil Solucoes De Credito Ltda., Wabion GmbH, WaveStrike LLC, White Cliffs Consulting LLC, Wire Stone, Wire Stone LLC, Wise Partners SAS, Wolox, Wolox Colombia S.A.S, Wolox LLC, Wolox Mexico S.R.L de C.V., Wolox S.A., Wolox SpA, Workforce Insight, Workforce Insight LLC, Yesler, Yesler LLC, Yesler Limited, Yesler Singapore Pte Ltd, Zag, Zag Australia Pty Ltd, Zag Limited, Zag USA LLC, Zebra Worldwide Australia Pty Ltd, Zebra Worldwide Group Limited, Zebra Worldwide Media Pty Ltd, Zenta, Zenta Global Philippines Inc, Zenta Mortgage Services LLC, Zenta Recoveries Inc, Zenta US Holdings Inc, Zielpuls, Zielpuls (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Zielpuls GmbH, avVenta, designaffairs, designaffairs Business Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., designaffairs GmbH, designaffairs group China Co. Ltd., dgroup, i4C Analytics, iDefense, solid-serVision.com GmbH, and umlaut. The Boeing Co. is an aerospace company, which engages in the manufacture of commercial jetliners and defense, space and security systems. It operates through the following segments: Commercial Airplanes; Defense, Space and Security; Global Services; and Boeing Capital. The Commercial Airplanes segment includes the development, production, and market of commercial jet aircraft and provides fleet support services, principally to the commercial airline industry worldwide. The Defense, Space and Security segment refers to the research, development, production and modification of manned and unmanned military aircraft and weapons systems for global strike, including fighter and combat rotorcraft aircraft and missile systems; global mobility, including tanker, rotorcraft and tilt-rotor aircraft; and airborne surveillance and reconnaissance, including command and control, battle management and airborne anti-submarine aircraft. The Global Services segment provides services to commercial and defense customers. The Boeing Capital segment seeks to ensure that Boeing customers have the financing they need to buy and take delivery of their Boeing product and manages overall financing exposure. T Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Eaton: ADF Systems SARL, Abeiron III Limited, Aeroquip (UK) Limited, Aeroquip Financial Ltd., Aeroquip Iberica S.L., Aeroquip International Inc., Aeroquip Limited, Aeroquip do Brasil Ltda., Aeroquip-Vickers, Aeroquip-Vickers Canada Inc., Aeroquip-Vickers International S.a.r.L., Aphel Technologies, Argo-Tech, Arrow Hose & Tubing, Arrow-Hart S. de R.L. de C.V., Azonix Corporation, Babco Electric Group, Beijing Internormen-Filter Ltd. Co., Beijing Yoosung Shinhwa Automobile Parts Co. Ltd., Blinda Industria e Comercio Ltda., Bussmann International Holdings LLC, Bussmann International Inc., Bussmann S. de R.L. de C.V., Bussmann do Brasil Ltda., CBE Services Inc., CEAG Notlichtsysteme GmbH, CI ESI de Colombia, CTI-VIENNA Gesellschaft zur Prufung elektrotechnischer Industrieprodukte GmbH, Cambridge International Insurance Company Ltd., Cannon Technologies Inc., Centralion Industrial Inc., Chagrin Highlands III Limited, Cobham, Componentes de Iluminacion S. de R.L. de C.V., Cooper (China) Co. Ltd., Cooper (Ningbo) Electric Co. Ltd., Cooper B-Line Inc., Cooper Bermuda Investments Ltd., Cooper Bussmann (U.K.) Limited, Cooper Bussmann Hungaria Kft., Cooper Bussmann LLC, Cooper Capri S.A.S., Cooper Colombia Investments Ltd., Cooper Controls (Watford) Limited, Cooper Controls Limited, Cooper Crouse-Hinds (LLC), Cooper Crouse-Hinds (UK) Ltd., Cooper Crouse-Hinds AS, Cooper Crouse-Hinds B.V., Cooper Crouse-Hinds GmbH, Cooper Crouse-Hinds LLC, Cooper Crouse-Hinds MTL Inc., Cooper Crouse-Hinds Pte. Ltd., Cooper Crouse-Hinds S. de R.L. de C.V., Cooper Crouse-Hinds S.A., Cooper Csa Srl, Cooper Edison (Pingdingshan) Electronic Technologies Co. Ltd., Cooper Electric (Changzhou) Co. Ltd., Cooper Electrical Australia Pty. Limited, Cooper Electrical International LLC, Cooper Electronic Technologies (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Cooper Enterprises LLC, Cooper Finance (Canada) L.P., Cooper Finance Group Ltd., Cooper Finance USA Inc., Cooper Germany Holdings GmbH, Cooper India Private Limited, Cooper Industrials, Cooper Industries (Canada) Inc., Cooper Industries (Electrical) Inc., Cooper Industries Colombia S.A.S., Cooper Industries FZE, Cooper Industries Finance B.V., Cooper Industries Finanzierungs-GbR, Cooper Industries Global B.V., Cooper Industries Holdings (Canada) Inc., Cooper Industries Holdings GmbH, Cooper Industries International LLC, Cooper Industries Japan K.K., Cooper Industries LLC, Cooper Industries Malaysia SDN BHD, Cooper Industries Middle East LLC, Cooper Industries Poland LLC, Cooper Industries Romania SRL, Cooper Industries Russia LLC, Cooper Industries Trading Limited, Cooper Industries UK Subco Limited, Cooper Industries Unlimited Company, Cooper Industries Vietnam LLC, Cooper Interconnect, Cooper International Holdings S.a.r.l., Cooper Investment Group Ltd., Cooper Investment Group S a.r.l., Cooper Investments Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Cooper Korea Ltd., Cooper Lighting LLC, Cooper Lighting de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Cooper Menvier France SARL, Cooper Mexico Distribucion S. de R.L. de C.V., Cooper Netherlands Investments Ltd., Cooper Notification Inc., Cooper Offshore Holdings S.a.r.l., Cooper Power Systems LLC, Cooper Power Systems do Brasil Ltda., Cooper Pretronica Lda., Cooper Safety B.V., Cooper Securite S.A.S., Cooper Security Limited, Cooper Shanghai Power Capacitor Co. Ltd., Cooper Switzerland Investments Ltd., Cooper Technologies Company, Cooper Univel S.A., Cooper Wheelock Inc., Cooper Wiring Devices Inc., Cooper Wiring Devices Manufacturing S. de R.L. de C.V., Cooper Wiring Devices de Mexico S.A de C.V., Cooper Xi'an Fusegear Co. Ltd., Cooper Yuhua (Changzhou) Electric Equipment Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Copperlogic, Cutler-Hammer Electrical Company, Cutler-Hammer Industries Ltd., Cutler-Hammer SRL, Cyme International T & D Inc., D.P. Eaton Electric, Digital Lighting (Dong Guan) Co. Ltd., Digital Lighting Co. Limited, Digital Lighting Holdings Limited, Dongguan Cooper Electronics Co. Ltd., Dongguan Fu Li An Electronics Co. Ltd., Dongguan Wiring Devices Electronics Co. Ltd., E. Begerow, E.A. Pedersen Co., EIC Holding GP I, EIC Holding GP II, EIC Holding GP III, EIC Holding GP IV, EIC Holding I LLC, EIC Holding II LLC, EIC Holding III LLC, EIC Holding IV LLC, EIC Holding V LLC, EIC Holding VI LLC, ETN Asia International Limited, ETN Holding 1 Limited, ETN Holding 2 Limited, ETN Holding 3 Limited, EX Innovations Limited, Eaton (China) Investments Co. Ltd., Eaton Aeroquip, Eaton Aerospace LLC, Eaton Ann Arbor LLC, Eaton Asia Investments Corporation, Eaton Automation G.m.b.H, Eaton Automation Holding G.m.b.H., Eaton Automotive Components Spolka z.o.o., Eaton Automotive Spolka z.o.o., Eaton Automotive Systems Spolka z.o.o., Eaton B.V., Eaton C.V., Eaton CHB LLC, Eaton Capital Unlimited Co., Eaton Controls (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Eaton Controls (UK) Limited, Eaton Controls S. de R.L. de C.V., Eaton Corporation, Eaton ETN Offshore Company, Eaton ETN Offshore II Company, Eaton Electric, Eaton Electric & Engineering Services Limited, Eaton Electric (Japan) Ltd., Eaton Electric (South Africa) Pty Ltd., Eaton Electric (Thailand) Ltd., Eaton Electric AS, Eaton Electric ApS, Eaton Electric Company Ltd., Eaton Electric G.m.b.H., Eaton Electric Holdings LLC, Eaton Electric Limited, Eaton Electric Manufacturing Middle East LLC, Eaton Electric S.I.A., Eaton Electric S.a.r.l., Eaton Electric S.r.l., Eaton Electric SPRL, Eaton Electric Sales Ltd., Eaton Electric Spolka z.o.o., Eaton Electric d.o.o., Eaton Electric s.r.o., Eaton Electric s.r.o. (Slovak Republic), Eaton Electrical (Zhongshan) Co. Ltd., Eaton Electrical Equipment Co. Ltd., Eaton Electrical IP G.m.b.H. & Co. KG, Eaton Electrical Ltd., Eaton Electrical Products Limited, Eaton Electrical S.A., Eaton Electrical S.A. (Venezuela), Eaton Electrical Systems Limited, Eaton Electro Productie S.r.l., Eaton Elektrik Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Eaton Elektrotechnika s.r.o., Eaton Energy Solutions Inc., Eaton Enterprises (Hungary) Kft., Eaton Enterprises Limited, Eaton Enterprises S. de R.L. de C.V., Eaton FZE, Eaton Filtration, Eaton Filtration (Denmark) ApS, Eaton Filtration (Italy) S.r.l., Eaton Filtration (Poland) Sp. z.o.o., Eaton Filtration (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Eaton Filtration BVBA, Eaton Finance (Ireland) Limited, Eaton Finance S.a.r.l., Eaton Fluid Power (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Eaton Fluid Power Limited, Eaton Fluid Power S.r.l., Eaton France Holding S.A.S., Eaton Germany G.m.b.H., Eaton GmbH & Co. KG, Eaton Holding (Austria) G.m.b.H., Eaton Holding (Netherlands) B.V., Eaton Holding (UK) II Limited, Eaton Holding G.m.b.H., Eaton Holding I B.V., Eaton Holding I Limited, Eaton Holding II LLC, Eaton Holding II Limited, Eaton Holding II S.a.r.l., Eaton Holding III B.V., Eaton Holding III Limited, Eaton Holding III S.a.r.l., Eaton Holding IV S.a.r.l., Eaton Holding IX S.a.r.l., Eaton Holding International LLC, Eaton Holding LLC, Eaton Holding Limited, Eaton Holding S.a.r.l., Eaton Holding SE & Co. KG, Eaton Holding SRL, Eaton Holding V B.V., Eaton Holding V S.a.r.l., Eaton Holding VI B.V., Eaton Holding VI S.a.r.l., Eaton Holding VII B.V., Eaton Holding VIII S.a.r.l., Eaton Holding X S.a.r.l., Eaton Holding XII B.V./S.a.r.l., Eaton Holec AB, Eaton Holec OY, Eaton Hydraulics (Luzhou) Co. Ltd., Eaton Hydraulics (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., Eaton Hydraulics (Proprietary) Limited, Eaton Hydraulics LLC, Eaton Hydraulics Systems (Jining) Co. Ltd., Eaton I Spolka z.o.o., Eaton II LP, Eaton III LP, Eaton IV LP, Eaton India Innovation Center LLP, Eaton Industrial Clutches and Brakes (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Eaton Industrial Corporation, Eaton Industrial IP G.m.b.H. & Co. KG, Eaton Industrial Systems Private Limited, Eaton Industries (Argentina) S.A., Eaton Industries (Austria) G.m.b.H., Eaton Industries (Belgium) BVBA, Eaton Industries (Canada) Company, Eaton Industries (Chile) S.p.A., Eaton Industries (Colombia) S.A.S., Eaton Industries (Egypt) LLC, Eaton Industries (England) Limited, Eaton Industries (France) S.A.S., Eaton Industries (Ireland) Ltimited, Eaton Industries (Israel) Ltd., Eaton Industries (Italy) S.r.l., Eaton Industries (Japan) Ltd., Eaton Industries (Jining) Co. Ltd, Eaton Industries (Korea) Limited, Eaton Industries (Luxembourg) B.V./S.a.r.l., Eaton Industries (Morocco) LLC, Eaton Industries (Netherlands) B.V., Eaton Industries (Philippines) LLC, Eaton Industries (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Eaton Industries (Spain) S.L., Eaton Industries (Thailand) Ltd., Eaton Industries (U.K.) Limited, Eaton Industries (Wuxi) Co. Ltd., Eaton Industries Company, Eaton Industries EOOD, Eaton Industries G.m.b.H., Eaton Industries Holding G.m.b.H., Eaton Industries Holdings Ltd., Eaton Industries II G.m.b.H., Eaton Industries KFT, Eaton Industries LP, Eaton Industries Manufacturing G.m.b.H., Eaton Industries Panama S.A., Eaton Industries Pte. Ltd., Eaton Industries Pty. Ltd., Eaton Industries S. de R.L. de C.V., Eaton Industries SAC, Eaton Industries Sdn. Bhd., Eaton Industries s.r.o., Eaton International B.V., Eaton International Corporation, Eaton International Industries Nigeria Limited, Eaton Japan Co. Ltd., Eaton LLC, Eaton LP, Eaton Leasing Corporation, Eaton Ltda., Eaton MEDC Limited, Eaton Madeira SGPS Lda., Eaton Manufacturing G.m.b.H., Eaton Manufacturing II G.m.b.H., Eaton Manufacturing III G.m.b.H., Eaton Manufacturing LP, Eaton Middle East LLC, Eaton Moeller B.V., Eaton Moeller S.a.r.l., Eaton Phoenixtec MMPL Co. Ltd., Eaton Power Quality (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Eaton Power Quality AB, Eaton Power Quality Limited, Eaton Power Quality OY (Finland), Eaton Power Quality Private Limited, Eaton Power Quality S.A.S., Eaton Power Solution Ltda., Eaton Production International G.m.b.H., Eaton Protection Systems IP G.m.b.H. & Co. KG, Eaton S.A.S., Eaton S.r.l., Eaton SAMC (Shanghai) Aircraft Conveyance System, Eaton SE, Eaton Safety IP G.m.b.H. & Co. KG, Eaton Safety Limited, Eaton Senstar Automotive Fluid Connector (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Eaton Services S.a.r.l., Eaton Solutions S. de R.L. de C.V., Eaton Switzerland Holding I GmbH, Eaton Switzerland Holding II GmbH, Eaton Technologies (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Eaton Technologies G.m.b.H., Eaton Technologies IP G.m.b.H. & Co. KG, Eaton Technologies Private Limited, Eaton Technologies S. de R.L. de C.V., Eaton Technologies S.A., Eaton Trading Company S. de R.L. de C.V., Eaton Truck Components (Proprietary) Ltd., Eaton Truck Components S. de R.L. de C.V., Eaton Truck Components Spolka z.o.o., Eaton Truck and Bus Components (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Eaton US Holdings Inc., Eaton Worldwide LLC, Eaton-Powerware, Electromanufacturas S de R.L. de C.V., Electrum Group Ltd., Elpro Technologies Pty. Limited, Ephesus Lighting, Ephesus Lighting Inc., FHF Bergbautechnik GmbH & Co. KG, FHF Funke+Huster Fernsig GmbH, FHF New World GmbH, Fast Eaton (Xi'an) Drivetrain Company Ltd., Fifth Light Technology Ltd., Funke+Huster (Tianjin) Electronics Co. Ltd., Funke+Huster GmbH, GeCma Components electronic GmbH, Georgetown Financial Services Ltd., Gitiesse Asia Pte. Ltd., Gitiesse S.r.l., Green Holding Company, Green Motion, Guangzhou Nittan Valve Co. Ltd., Hein Moeller Stiftung G.m.b.H., Hernis Scan System do Brasil Comercio E Servicos LTDA, Hernis Scan Systems - Asia Pte. Ltd., Hernis Scan Systems A/S, IE Power, Illumination Management Solutions Inc., Iluminacion Cooper de las Californias S de R.L. de C.V., Innovative Switchgear Solutions Inc, Institute for International Product Safety G.m.b.H., Integrated Hydraulics, Integrated Partial Discharge Diagnostics, Intelligent Switchgear Organization LLC, Internormen Filters Private Limited, Internormen Technology, Jeil Hydraulics, Kaicheng Funke+Huster (Tangshan) Mining Electrical Co. Ltd., Lian Zheng Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., MP Group SAS, MTL Instruments (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, MTL Instruments B.V., MTL Instruments GmbH, MTL Instruments LLC, MTL Instruments Private Limited, MTL Instruments SARL, MTL Italia Srl, MTL Partners II Inc., MTL Partners Inc., Marina Power and Lighting, Martek Power F SAS, Martek Power GmbH, Martek Power Limited, Martek Power Limited (UK), Martek Power S.A. de C.V., Martek Power SA, McGraw-Edison Development Corporation, Measurement Technology Limited, Menvier Overseas Holdings Limited, Micro Innovation Holding, Moeller Electric (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Moeller Electric Ltda., Moeller Electrical Equipment (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Moeller Holding Gmbh & Co. KG, Moeller Industria de electro-electronicos do Amazonas Ltda., Morestana, Nittan BVI Co. Ltd., Nittan Euro Tech Spolka z o.o., Nittan Global Tech Co. Ltd., Nittan Valve Co. Ltd., Norex AS, Ocean Technical Systems Limited, Oxalis Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, Oxalis Group, Oxalis Group Limited, PKL LLC, PT. Eaton Industries, PT. Fluid Sciences Batam, PerkinElmer - aerospace division, Phoenixtec Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Phoenixtec International Corp., Phoenixtec Power, Pigozzi, Polaron Components Limited, Polimer Hortum Teknolojileri Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Polimer Kaucuk Sanayi Ve Pazarlama, Polimer Kaucuk Sanayi ve Pazarlama A.S., Power Distribution, Pringle Electrical Manufacturing, Productos Eaton Livia S.L., Pulizzi Engineering, RTE Far East Corporation, RTK Instruments Limited, Riseson International Limited, Rizhao Yoosung Shinhwa Automobile Parts Co. Ltd., Rolec Comercial e Industrial, SOURIAU, Santak Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Santak Electronics Company Limited, Saturn Insurance Company Ltd., Scantronic Benelux B.V., Schreder-Hazemeyer, Scoremax Limited, Sefelec GmbH, Sefelec SAS, Semelec SAS, Senyuan International Holdings Limited, Senyuan International Investments Limited, Shinhwa Precision Co. Ltd., Shinhwa Takahashi Precision Co. Ltd., Silver Light International Limited, Silver Victory Hong Kong Limited, Standard Automation & Control LP, Sure Power Inc., TGM Automotiva, TT (Ireland) Acquisition Limited, Tai Ah Electrical Ltd., Taiwan Nittan Industrial Co. Ltd., Telkom Kenya, The MTL Instruments Group Limited, The Oxalis Protection Technology India Private Limited, Tractech, Tractech (Ireland) Limited, Tractech Industries (Ireland) Limted, Tripp Lite, Turlock B.V., Tuthill Coupling Group, U.S. Engine Valve Company, UPE Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Ultronics, Ultronics Nordic Sales AB, Ulusoy, Vickers International Inc., Vickers Systems Limited, Viking Electronics Inc., WPI-Boston Division Inc., Winner Hydraulics Ltd., Wireless Power and Communications AS, Wright Line, Wright Line Holding Inc., Wright Line LLC, and Zhenjiang Daqo Eaton Electrical Systems Co. Ltd.. The following companies are subsidiares of Cummins: Anvl, Apollo FC Holdings Ltd., Atlantis Acquisitionco Canada Corporation, Atlantis Holdco UK Limited, Brammo, CIFC Worldwide Partner C.V., CMI Africa Holdings BV, CMI CGT Holdings LLC, CMI Canada Financing Ltd., CMI Canada LP, CMI Foreign Holdings B.V., CMI Global Equity Holdings B.V., CMI Global Equity Holdings C.V., CMI Global Holdings B.V., CMI Global Partner 2 C.V., CMI Global Partners B.V., CMI Group Holdings B.V., CMI Group Holdings Cooperatief U.A., CMI International Finance Partner 1 LLC, CMI International Finance Partner 2 LLC, CMI International Finance Partner 3 LLC, CMI International Finance Partner 4 LLC, CMI International Finance Partner 5 LLC, CMI Mexico LLC, CMI Netherlands Holdings B.V., CMI PGI Holdings LLC, CMI PGI International Holdings LLC, CMI Turkish Holdings B.V., CMI UK Finance LP, CMI UK Financing LP, Cherry Island Renewable Energy LLC, Consolidated Diesel Company, Consolidated Diesel Inc., Consolidated Diesel of North Carolina Inc., Cummins (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Cummins (Xiangyang) Machining Co. Ltd., Cummins Africa Middle East (Pty) Ltd., Cummins Afrique de l'Ouest, Cummins Americas Inc., Cummins Angola Lda., Cummins Argentina-Servicios Mineros S.A., Cummins Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Cummins Aust Technologies Pty. Ltd., Cummins BLR LLC, Cummins Battery Systems North America LLC, Cummins Belgium N.V., Cummins Botswana (Pty.) Ltd., Cummins Brasil Ltda., Cummins Burkina Faso SARL, Cummins CDC Holding Inc., Cummins CV Member LLC, Cummins Canada ULC, Cummins Caribbean LLC, Cummins Center of Excellence Singapore Pte. Ltd., Cummins Centroamerica Holding S.de R.L., Cummins Child Development Center Inc., Cummins Colombia S.A.S., Cummins Comercializadora S. de R.L. de C.V., Cummins Corporation, Cummins Cote d'Ivoire SARL, Cummins Czech Republic s.r.o., Cummins Deutschland GmbH, Cummins Diesel International Ltd., Cummins Distribution Holdco Inc., Cummins EMEA Holdings Limited, Cummins East Asia Research & Development Co. Ltd., Cummins Eastern Marine Inc., Cummins Electrified Power Europe Ltd., Cummins Electrified Power NA Inc., Cummins Emission Solutions (China) Co. Ltd., Cummins Emission Solutions Inc., Cummins Empresas Filantropicas, Cummins Energetica Ltda., Cummins Engine (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Cummins Engine (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Cummins Engine (Shanghai) Trading & Services Co. Ltd., Cummins Engine Holding Company Inc., Cummins Engine IP Inc., Cummins Engine Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Cummins Engine Venture Corporation, Cummins Enterprise LLC, Cummins Filtration (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Cummins Filtration GmbH, Cummins Filtration IP Inc., Cummins Filtration Inc., Cummins Filtration International Corp., Cummins Filtration Ltd., Cummins Filtration SARL, Cummins Filtration Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Cummins Filtros Ltda., Cummins Franchise Holdco LLC, Cummins Fuel Systems (Wuhan) Co. Ltd., Cummins Generator Technologies (China) Co. Ltd., Cummins Generator Technologies Americas Inc., Cummins Generator Technologies Germany GmbH, Cummins Generator Technologies India Private Ltd., Cummins Generator Technologies Italy SRL, Cummins Generator Technologies Limited, Cummins Generator Technologies Romania S.A., Cummins Generator Technologies Singapore Pte Ltd., Cummins Ghana Limited, Cummins Ghana Mining Limited, Cummins Global Financing LP, Cummins Global Technologies LLP, Cummins Grupo Comercial Y. de Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Cummins Grupo Industrial S. de R.L. de C.V., Cummins Holland B.V., Cummins Hong Kong Ltd., Cummins India Ltd., Cummins Intellectual Property Inc., Cummins International Finance LLC, Cummins International Holdings Cooperatief U.A., Cummins International Holdings LLC, Cummins Italia S.P.A., Cummins Japan Ltd., Cummins Korea Co. Ltd., Cummins LLC Member Inc., Cummins Ltd., Cummins Maroc SARL, Cummins Middle East FZE, Cummins Mining Services S. de R.L. de C.V., Cummins Mobility Services Inc., Cummins Mongolia Investment LLC, Cummins Mozambique Ltda., Cummins NV, Cummins Namibia Engine Sales and Service PTY LTD, Cummins Natural Gas Engines Inc., Cummins New Zealand Limited, Cummins Nigeria Ltd., Cummins Norte de Colombia S.A.S., Cummins North Africa Regional Office SARL, Cummins Norway AS, Cummins PGI Holdings Ltd., Cummins Power Generation (China) Co. Ltd., Cummins Power Generation (S) Pte. Ltd., Cummins Power Generation (U.K.) Limited, Cummins Power Generation Deutschland GmbH, Cummins Power Generation Inc., Cummins Power Generation Limited, Cummins PowerGen IP Inc., Cummins Research and Technology India Private Ltd., Cummins Romania Srl, Cummins S. de R.L. de C.V., Cummins Sales and Service Korea Co. Ltd., Cummins Sales and Service Philippines Inc., Cummins Sales and Service Private Limited, Cummins Sales and Service Sdn. Bhd., Cummins Sales and Service Singapore Pte. Ltd., Cummins Sinai ve Otomotiv Urunleri Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Cummins South Africa (Pty.) Ltd., Cummins South Pacific Pty. Limited, Cummins Southern Plains LLC, Cummins Spain S.L., Cummins Sweden AB, Cummins Technologies India, Cummins Trade Receivables LLC, Cummins Turbo Technologies Limited, Cummins Turkey Motor Guc Sistemleri Sats Servis Limited Sirketi, Cummins U.K. Holdings Ltd., Cummins U.K. Pension Plan Trustee Ltd., Cummins UK Global Holdings Ltd., Cummins UK Holdings LLC, Cummins Vendas e Servicos de Motores e Geradores Ltda., Cummins Venture Corporation, Cummins West Africa Limited, Cummins West Balkans d.o.o. Nova Pasova, Cummins XBorder Operations (Pty) Ltd, Cummins Zambia Ltd., Cummins Zimbabwe Pvt. Ltd., Distribuidora Cummins Centroamerica Costa Rica S.de R.L., Distribuidora Cummins Centroamerica El Salvador S.de R.L., Distribuidora Cummins Centroamerica Guatemala Ltda., Distribuidora Cummins Centroamerica Honduras S.de R.L., Distribuidora Cummins S.A., Distribuidora Cummins Sucursal Paraguay SRL, Distribuidora Cummins de Panama S. de R.L., Dynamo Insurance Company Inc., Efficient Drivetrains, Efficient Drivetrains (Beijing) New Power Technology Co. Ltd., Efficient Drivetrains (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Hilite International, Hydrogenics, Hydrogenics Corporation, Hydrogenics Europe N.V., Hydrogenics GmbH, Hydrogenics Holding GmbH, Hydrogenics USA Inc., Markon Engineering Company Ltd., Nelson Burgess Ltd., Nelson Industries, Newage Engineers GmbH, Newage Ltd. (U.K.), Newage Machine Tools Ltd., OOO Cummins, Petbow Limited, Power Group International (Overseas Holdings) B.V., Power Group International (Overseas Holdings) Ltd., Power Group International Ltd., Quickstart Energy Projects SpA, Shanghai Cummins Trade Co. Ltd., TOO Cummins, Taiwan Cummins Sales & Services Co. Ltd., Worldwide Partner CV Member LLC, Wuxi Cummins Turbo Technologies Co. Ltd., Wuxi New Energy Automotive Technologies Co. Ltd., and ZED Connect Inc.. The following companies are subsidiares of Danaher: AB SCIEX, AB Sciex Germany GmbH, AB Sciex LLC, AB Sciex LP, AB Sciex Pte Ltd., Accu-Sort Systems, Acme Cleveland Corporation, Advanced Vision Technology, American Precision Industries, Applied Biosystems, Applitek NV, Aquatic Infomatics ULC, Aquatic Informatics, Armstrong Tools, BC Distribution BV, Beckman Coulter, Beckman Coulter Australia Pty Ltd, Beckman Coulter Biotechnology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Beckman Coulter Biyomedikal Urunler Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited [irketi], Beckman Coulter Canada LP, Beckman Coulter Commercial Enterprise (China) Co. Ltd., Beckman Coulter France S.A.S., Beckman Coulter G.m.b.H., Beckman Coulter Genomics Inc., Beckman Coulter Hong Kong Limited, Beckman Coulter Inc., Beckman Coulter India Private Limited, Beckman Coulter International SA, Beckman Coulter International Shanghai Trading Co., Beckman Coulter Ireland Inc., Beckman Coulter K.K., Beckman Coulter Korea Ltd., Beckman Coulter Laboratory Systems (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Beckman Coulter Limited Liability Company, Beckman Coulter Mishima KK, Beckman Coulter Nederland B.V., Beckman Coulter Nippon GK, Beckman Coulter S.L.U., Beckman Coulter Saudi Arabia Co.Ltd., Beckman Coulter Srl, Beckman Coulter Taiwan Inc., Beckman Coulter United Kingdom Limited, Beckman Coulter de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Beckman Coulter do Brasil Ltda., Beckman Finance ApS, Beckman Holdings Ltd., BioTector Analytical Systems Ltd, Biosafe S.A., Blue Software LLC, Cepheid, Cepheid AB, Cepheid Europe SAS, Cepheid GmbH, Cepheid HBDC SAS, Cepheid UK Ltd., ChemTreat, ChemTreat Inc., ChemTreat International Inc., Cispus Hong Kong Holding Limited, Cytiva, Cytiva BioProcess R&D AB, Cytiva Biotechnology (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd., Cytiva Biotechnology (Hang Zhou) Co. Ltd., Cytiva Europe GmbH, Cytiva Sweden AB, Cytiva Sweden Holding AB, DH Europe Finance II Sarl, DH Europe Finance Sarl, DH Holding Italia SRL, DH Japan Finance Sarl, DH Life Sciences LLC, DH Netherlands BV, DH Technologies Development Pte Ltd., DHKAB Company AB, DTIL Ireland Holdings Ltd., Danaher (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., Danaher Hong Kong Limited, Danaher Medical ApS, Delta Consolidated Industries, Devicore Medical Products Inc., Easco Hand Tools, Esko, Esko BV, Esko Finance BV, Esko Graphics BV, Esko Software BV, FHAB Company AB, Fluke, G. Lufft Mess- und Regeltechnik GmbH, GE Biopharma, Gelman Sciences Inc., Gendex, Genetix Group, Gilbarco Veeder Root, Gilzoni Ltd., Global Life Sciences Solutions Austria GmbH & Co. KG, Global Life Sciences Solutions Germany GmbH, Global Life Sciences Solutions Korea Ltd., Global Life Sciences Solutions Manufacturing UK Ltd, Global Life Sciences Solutions New Zealand, Global Life Sciences Solutions Operations UK Ltd, Global Life Sciences Solutions Singapore Pte Ltd, Global Life Sciences Solutions USA LLC, Global Life Sciences Technologies (Shanghai) Co Ltd., Global Life Sciences Technologies Japan KK, Hach Company, Hach Lange Finance GmbH, Hach Lange GmbH, Hach Lange Sarl, Hach Sales & Services Canada LP, Hach Ultra Japan KK, Hach Water Quality Analytical Instru. (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., HemoCue AB, HyClone Laboratories LLC, Hybritech Incorporated, Hyclone Life Sciences Solutions India Private Limited, IDBS Group, IRIS International, Imaging Sciences International, Immunotech SAS, Immunotech Sro, Intabio LLC, Integrated DNA Technologies, Integrated DNA Technologies BVBA, Integrated DNA Technologies Inc., Integrated DNA Technologies Pte. Ltd., Iris International Inc., Joslyn Holding Company LLC, KVHG GmbH, KaVo, KaVo Kerr, Kaltenbach & Voigt, Keithley Instruments, Kipp & Zonen BV, Kollmorgen, Labcyte Inc., Laetus, Leica Biosystems Imaging Inc., Leica Biosystems Melbourne Pty Ltd, Leica Biosystems Newcastle Limited, Leica Biosystems Nussloch GmbH, Leica Biosystems Richmond Inc., Leica Instruments (Singapore) Pte Limited, Leica Microsystems, Leica Microsystems (UK) Limited, Leica Microsystems CMS GmbH, Leica Microsystems Cambridge Limited, Leica Microsystems IR GmbH, Leica Microsystems Inc., Leica Microsystems Limited, Leica Microsystems Ltd. Shanghai, Leica Mikrosysteme Vertrieb GmbH, Life Sciences Holdings France SAS*, Lifschultz Industries, Linx Printing Technologies, Linx Printing Technologies Limited, MDS Analytical Technologies, Marconi Data Systems, McCrometer Inc., Microtest, Molecular Devices, Molecular Devices (Austria) GmbH, Molecular Devices LLC, Navman Wireless, Navman Wireless OEM Solutions, Nihon Pall Ltd., Nihon Pall Manufacturing Limited, Nobel Biocare, OTT Hydromet Corp, Pall, Pall (Canada) ULC, Pall (China) Co. Ltd., Pall (Schweiz) GmbH, Pall Aeropower Corporation, Pall Artelis BVBA, Pall Asia Holdings Inc., Pall Australia Pty. Ltd., Pall Austria Filter Ges.m.b.h, Pall Corporation, Pall Europe Limited, Pall Filtersystems GmbH, Pall Filtration Pte. Ltd., Pall Filtration and Separations Group Inc., Pall France SAS, Pall GmbH, Pall India Pvt. Ltd., Pall International Sarl, Pall Italia Srl, Pall Korea Ltd., Pall Life Sciences Belgium BV, Pall Life Sciences Puerto Rico LLC, Pall Manufacturing UK Limited, Pall Medistad BV, Pall Netherlands BV Irish Branch, Pall Technology UK Limited, PaloDEX, Pantone LLC, Pelton & Crane, Phenomenex, Phenomenex Inc., Precision NanoSystems, QHC Ireland Finance Limited, Radiometer, Radiometer Basel AG, Radiometer K.K., Radiometer Medical ApS, Radiometer Medical Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Radiometer Turku Oy, Raytek, Reytek Corporation, SH Switzerland Finance Sarl, Sea-Bird Electronics Inc., SenDx Medical Inc., Shanghai AB Sciex Analytical Instrument Trading Co. Ltd., Sutron, Sybron Dental Specialties, TCIL Ireland Finance Ltd., Tektronix, Thomson Industries, Tianjin Bonna-Agela Technologies Co. Ltd., Trojan Technologies, Trojan Technologies Group ULC, VSS Monitoring, Videojet Do Brasil Comercio de Equipamentos Para Codificacao Industrial Ltda., Videojet Technologies (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Videojet Technologies Europe B.V., Videojet Technologies Inc., Viridor Waste Management Limited, Vision Systems Limited, Willett International, X-Ray Optical Systems Inc., X-Rite, X-Rite Europe GmbH, X-Rite Incorporated, X-Rite Switzerland GmbH, XOS, Yukon Hong Kong Holding Limited, and Zhuhai S.E.Z. Videojet Electronics Ltd.. American Consumer News, LLC dba MarketBeat 2010-2021. All rights reserved. 326 E 8th St #105, Sioux Falls, SD 57103 | U.S. Based Support Team at c[email protected] | (844) 978-6257 MarketBeat does not provide personalized financial advice and does not issue recommendations or offers to buy stock or sell any security. Our Accessibility Statement | Terms of Service | Do Not Sell My Information 2021 Market data provided is at least 10-minutes delayed and hosted by Barchart Solutions. Information is provided 'as-is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice, and is delayed. To see all exchange delays and terms of use please see disclaimer. Fundamental company data provided by Zacks Investment Research. Infineon Technologies AG engages in the provision of semiconductor and system solutions. It operates through the following segments: Automotive, Industrial Power Control, Power & Sensor systems, and Connected Secure Systems. The Automotive segment designs, develops, manufactures, and markets semiconductor for automotive applications. The Industrial Power Control segment involves in the design, development, manufacture, and marketing of semiconductors for the generation, transmission, and economy in the use of electrical energy. The Power & Sensor systems segment includes design, development, manufacture, and marketing of semiconductors for energy-efficient power supplies as well as for mobile devices and mobile phone network infrastructures. The Connected Secure Systems designs, develops, manufactures, and markets semiconductor-based security products for card applications and network systems. The company was founded on April 1, 1999 and is headquartered in Munich, Germany. Read More Fitbit, Inc., a technology company, provides health solutions in the United States and internationally. The company offers a line of devices, including Fitbit Charge 3, Fitbit Inspire, Fitbit Inspire HR, and Fitbit Ace 2 activity trackers; Fitbit Ionic and Fitbit Versa family of smartwatches, as well as Fitbit Flyer wireless headphones and the Fitbit Aria family of connected scales; and accessories, such as bands and frames for its devices. It also offers Fitbit online dashboard and mobile apps that sync automatically with and display real-time data from its wearable devices; and Fitbit Care, a connected health platform for health plans, employers, and health systems. In addition, the company provides Fitbit Premium, a paid subscription service that uses the data of users to deliver actionable guidance and coaching to help users achieve their health and fitness goals, as well as includes Fitbit Coach that offers exercise programs through personal trainer and yoga apps. It sells its products through consumer electronics and specialty, e-commerce, mass merchant, department store, club, and sporting goods and outdoors retailers; wireless carriers; distributors; and Fitbit.com, an online store, as well as directly to consumers. Fitbit, Inc. has a collaboration with The Scripps Research Institute and Stanford Medicine to study the role of wearables to detect, track, and contain infectious diseases, such as COVID-19.; and partnership with Solera Health to reduce risk of type 2 diabetes. The company was formerly known as Healthy Metrics Research, Inc. and changed its name to Fitbit, Inc. in October 2007. Fitbit, Inc. was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Read More Unum Group is engaged in providing financial protection benefits. It operates through the following segments: Unum US, Unum International, Colonial Life, Closed Block and Corporate. The Unum US segment comprises of group long-term and short-term disability insurance, group life and accidental death and dismemberment products, and supplemental and voluntary lines of business. The Unum International segment engages in the operations of UK business, which includes insurance for group long-term disability, group life, and supplemental lines of business that include dental, individual disability, and critical illness products; Poland business primarily includes insurance for individual and group life with accident and health riders. The Colonial Life segment includes insurance for accident, sickness, disability products, life products, and cancer and critical illness products. The Closed Block segment consists of individual disability, group and individual long-term care, and other insurance products no longer actively marketed. The Corporate segment refers to investment income on corporate assets and other corporate income and expenses not allocated to a line of business; and interest Read More Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF's stock was trading at $37.30 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus (COVID-19) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, VWO shares have increased by 31.8% and is now trading at $49.17. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. The following companies are subsidiares of Centene: APS Parent Inc., AWC of Syracuse Inc., Absolute Total Care Inc., AcariaHealth Inc., AcariaHealth Pharmacy #11 Inc., AcariaHealth Pharmacy #12 Inc., AcariaHealth Pharmacy #13 Inc., AcariaHealth Pharmacy #14 Inc., AcariaHealth Pharmacy Inc., AcariaHealth Solutions Inc., Access Medical Acquisition LLC, Access Medical Group of Florida City LLC, Access Medical Group of Hialeah LLC, Access Medical Group of Lakeland LLC, Access Medical Group of Miami LLC, Access Medical Group of North Miami Beach LLC, Access Medical Group of Opa-Locka LLC, Access Medical Group of Perrine LLC, Access Medical Group of Tampa II LLC, Access Medical Group of Tampa III LLC, Access Medical Group of Tampa LLC, Access Medical Group of Westchester LLC, Accountable Care Coalition Direct Contracting LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Chesapeake LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Community Health Centers II LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Community Health Centers LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers II LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers III LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers IV LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers V LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers VI LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers VII LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Florida Partners LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Georgia LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Maryland LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Maryland Primary Care LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Mississippi LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of New Jersey Inc., Accountable Care Coalition of North Texas LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Northeast Georgia LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Northeast Partners LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Northwest Florida LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Prime Health LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Quality Health II LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Quality Health III LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Quality Health LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Southeast Partners LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Southeast Physician Partners LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Southeast Texas Inc., Accountable Care Coalition of Southeast Wisconsin LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Tennessee LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Texas Inc., Agate Resources Inc., AirLogix, Ambetter of Magnolia Inc., Ambetter of North Carolina Inc., Ambetter of Peach State Inc., America's 1st Choice California Holdings LLC, American Progressive Life and Health Insurance Company of New York, Apixio, Apixio Inc, Arch Personalized Medicine Initiative LLC, Arkansas Health & Wellness Health Plan Inc., Arkansas Total Care Holding Company LLC, Arkansas Total Care Inc., B2B Gestion Integra S.L.U., B2B Salud S.L.U., Bankers Reserve Life Insurance Company of Wisconsin, Blackcrow Asistencia Medica S.L, Bridgeway Health Solutions LLC, Bridgeway Health Solutions of Arizona Inc., Buckeye Community Health Plan Inc., Buckeye Health Plan Community Solutions Inc., CCTX Holdings LLC, CMC Real Estate Company LLC, CT Poprad s.r.o., CT Presov s.r.o., Calibrate Acquisition Company, California Health and Wellness Plan, Cantina Laredo Clayton LP, Cardium Health Services, Care 1st Health Plan of Arizona Inc., Care1st Health Plan Administrative Services Inc., Carolina Complete Health Holding Company Partnership, Carolina Complete Health Inc., Casenet LLC, Casenet S.R.O., CeltiCare Health Plan Holdings LLC, CeltiCare Health Plan of Massachusetts Inc., Celtic Group Inc., Celtic Insurance Company, Cenpatico Behavioral Health LLC, Cenpatico Behavioral Health of Arizona LLC, Cenpatico of Arizona Inc., Centene Center I LLC, Centene Center II LLC, Centene Center LLC, Centene Company of Texas LP, Centene Europe Finance Company Limited, Centene Health Plan Holdings Inc., Centene Institute for Advanced Health Education LLC, Centene International Ventures LLC, Centene Investments LLC, Centene Management Company LLC, Centene Venture Company Alabama Health Plan Inc., Centene Venture Company Florida Inc., Centene Venture Company Illinois Inc., Centene Venture Company Indiana Inc., Centene Venture Company Kansas Inc., Centene Venture Company Michigan Inc., Centene Venture Company Tennessee Inc., Centro Inmunologocia De La Comunidad Valenciana S.L., Centurion Correctional Healthcare of New Mexico LLC, Centurion Detention Health Services LLC, Centurion LLC, Centurion of Arizona LLC, Centurion of Delaware LLC, Centurion of Florida LLC, Centurion of Kansas LLC, Centurion of Minnesota LLC, Centurion of Mississippi LLC, Centurion of New Hampshire LLC, Centurion of Pennsylvania LLC, Centurion of Tennessee LLC, Centurion of Vermont LLC, Centurion of West Virginia LLC, Centurion of Wyoming LLC, Chrysalis Medical Services LLC, Clinica Santo Domingo De Lugo S.L., Collaborative Health Systems IPA LLC, Collaborative Health Systems LLC, Collaborative Health Systems of Maryland LLC, Collaborative Health Systems of Virginia LLC, Comfort Hospice of Missouri LLC, Comfort Hospice of Texas LLC, ComfortBrook Hospice LLC, Community Medical Group, Community Medical Holdings Corporation, Comprehensive Health Management Inc., Comprehensive Reinsurance Ltd., Coordinated Care Corporation, Coordinated Care of Washington Inc., Country Style Health Care LLC, Discare CZ a.s., District Community Care Inc., Dr Magnet s.r.o., Elche-Crevillente Salud, Envolve Benefits Options Inc., Envolve Captive Insurance Company Inc., Envolve Dental IPA of New York Inc., Envolve Dental Inc., Envolve Dental of Florida Inc., Envolve Dental of Texas Inc., Envolve Health, Envolve Holdings Inc., Envolve Inc., Envolve Optical Inc., Envolve PeopleCare Inc., Envolve Pharmacy IPA LLC, Envolve Pharmacy Solutions Inc., Envolve Total Vision Inc., Envolve Vision Benefits Inc., Envolve Vision IPA of New York Inc., Envolve Vision Inc., Envolve Vision of Florida Inc., Envolve Vision of Texas Inc., Essential Care Partners LLC, Exactus Pharmacy Solutions Inc., Family Nurse Care II LLC, Family Nurse Care LLC, Family Nurse Care of Ohio LLC, Fidelis Care, Forensic Health Services LLC, Foundation Care LLC, Godgrace Asistencia Medica S.L., Golden Triangle Physician Alliance, Grace Hospice of Austin LLC, Grace Hospice of Grand Rapids LLC, Grace Hospice of Illinois LLC, Grace Hospice of Indiana LLC, Grace Hospice of San Antonio LLC, Grace Hospice of Virginia LLC, Grace Hospice of Wisconsin LLC, Granite State Health Plan Inc., Growly Asistencia Sanitaria S.L., HHS Texas Management Inc., HHS Texas Management LP, Hallmark Life Insurance Company, Harmony Behavioral Health IPA Inc., Harmony Behavioral Health Inc., Harmony Health Management Inc., Harmony Health Plan Inc., Harmony Health Systems Inc., Health Care Enterprises LLC, Health Net Access Inc., Health Net Community Solutions Inc., Health Net Community Solutions of Arizona Inc., Health Net Federal Services LLC, Health Net Health Plan of Oregon Inc., Health Net LLC, Health Net Life Insurance Company, Health Net Life Reinsurance Company, Health Net Pharmaceutical Services, Health Net of Arizona Inc., Health Net of California Inc., Health Plan Real Estate Holdings Inc., HealthSmart Benefit Solutions Inc., HealthSmart Benefits Management LLC, HealthSmart Care Management Solutions LP, HealthSmart Information Systems Inc., HealthSmart Preferred Care II LP, HealthSmart Preferred Network II Inc., HealthSmart Primary Care Clinics LP, HealthSmart Rx Solutions Inc., Healthy Louisiana Holdings LLC, Healthy Missouri Holdings Inc., Healthy Washington Holdings Inc., Heritage Health Systems Inc., Heritage Health Systems of Texas Inc., Heritage Home Hospice LLC, Heritage Physician Networks, Home State Health Plan Inc., HomeScripts.com LLC, Hospice DME Company LLC, Hospinet S.L., Hospital Polusa S.A., Hospital Povisa S.A., Hudson Accountable Care LLC, IAH of Florida LLC, Illinois Health Practice Alliance LLC, Infraestructuras y Servicios de Alzira S. L., Integrated Care Network of Florida LLC, Integrated Mental Health Management LLC, Integrated Mental Health Services, Interpreta Holdings Inc., Interpreta Inc., Iowa Total Care Inc., Kentucky Spirit Health Plan Inc., LBB Industries Inc., LifeShare Management Group LLC, LiveHealthier Inc., Louisiana Healthcare Connections Inc., MH Services International Holdings (UK) Limited, MHM, MHM Correctional Services LLC, MHM Health Professionals LLC, MHM Services Inc., MHM Services of California LLC, MHM Solutions LLC, MHN Government Services LLC, MHN Services LLC, MHS Consulting International Inc., MHS Travel & Charter Inc., MR Centrum Melnick s.r.o., MR Poprad s.r.o., MR Zilina s.r.o., Magnolia Health Plan Inc., Managed Health Network, Managed Health Network LLC, Managed Health Services Insurance Corporation, Maryland Collaborative Care LLC, Maryland Collaborative Care Transformation Organization Inc., Mauli Ola Health and Wellness Inc., Medicina NZ spol s.r.o., Meridian Health Plan of Illinois Inc., Meridian Health Plan of Michigan Inc., Meridian Management Company LLC, Meridian Network Services LLC, MeridianRx IPA LLC, MeridianRx LLC, MeridianRx of Indiana LLC, Michigan Complete Health, Mid-Atlantic Collaborative Care LLC, Nebraska Total Care Inc., Network Providers LLC, New York Quality Healthcare Corporation, Next Door Neighbors Inc., Next Door Neighbors LLC., North Florida Health Services Inc., Northern Maryland Collaborative Care LLC, Novasys Health Inc., OB Care, OB Klinika, Ohana Health Plan Inc., Oklahoma Complete Health Inc., One Care by Care 1st Health Plans of Arizona Inc, Operose Health (Group) Ltd., Operose Health (Group) UK Ltd., Operose Health Ltd., OptiCare Health Systems - Managed Vision Business, PANTHERx Rare Pharmacy, Panther Pass Co LLC, Panther Specialty Holding Co LLC, Pantherx Access Services LLC, Pantherx Specialty LLC, Parker LP LLC, Peach State Health Plan Inc., Penn Marketing America LLC, Pennsylvania Health and Wellness Inc., Phoenix Home Health Care LLC, Pinnacle Home Care LLC, Pinnacle Senior Care of Illinois LLC, Pinnacle Senior Care of Indiana LLC, Pinnacle Senior Care of Kalamazoo LLC, Pinnacle Senior Care of Missouri LLC, Pinnacle Senior Care of Wisconsin LLC, Premier Marketing Group LLC, PrimeroSalud S.L., Pro Diagnostic Group A.S., Pro Magnet CZ s.r.o., Pro Magnet s.r.o, Pro RTG s.r.o, Progress Medical A.S., Prowl Holdings LLC, QCA Healthplan Inc., Qualchoice Life and Health Insurance Company, Quincy Coverage Corporation, R&C Healthcare LLC, RMED LLC, RX Direct Inc., Rapid Respiratory Services LLC, Ribera Lab S.L.U., Ribera Salud II, Ribera Salud Proyectos S.L., Ribera Salud S.A., Ribera Salud Tecnologias S.L.U., Ribera Slaud Infraestructuras S.L.U., Ribera-Quilpro UTE, Salus Administrative Services Inc., Salus IPA LLC, Secure Capital Solutions 2000 S.L.U., SelectCare Health Plans Inc., SelectCare of Texas Inc., Seniorcorps Peninsula LLC, Servicios De Mantenimiento Prevencor S.L.U., SilverSummit Healthplan Inc., Social Health Bridge LLC, Social Health Bridge Trust, Specialty Therapeutic Care GP LLC, Specialty Therapeutic Care Holdings, Specialty Therapeutic Care Holdings LLC, Specialty Therapeutic Care LP, Sunflower State Health Plan Inc., Sunshine Health Community Solutions Inc., Sunshine Health Holding LLC, Sunshine State Health Plan Inc., Superior HealthPlan Community Solutions Inc., Superior HealthPlan Inc., The Practice Properties Limited, The WellCare Management Group Inc., Torrejon Salud S.A., Torrevieja Salud S.L.U., Torrevieja Salud UTE, Traditional Home Health Services LLC, Trillium Community Health Plan Inc., U.S. Medical Management Holdings Inc., U.S. Medical Management LLC, UAM Agent Services Corp., US Script, USMM Accountable Care Partners LLC, Universal American Corp., Universal American Financial Services Inc., Universal American Holdings LLC, WCG Health Management Inc., WellCare Health Insurance Company of America, WellCare Health Insurance Company of Kentucky Inc., WellCare Health Insurance Company of Louisiana Inc., WellCare Health Insurance Company of Nevada Inc., WellCare Health Insurance Company of New Hampshire Inc., WellCare Health Insurance Company of New Jersey Inc., WellCare Health Insurance Company of Oklahoma Inc., WellCare Health Insurance Company of Washington Inc., WellCare Health Insurance Company of Wisconsin Inc., WellCare Health Insurance of Arizona Inc., WellCare Health Insurance of Connecticut Inc., WellCare Health Insurance of Hawaii Inc., WellCare Health Insurance of New York Inc., WellCare Health Insurance of North Carolina Inc., WellCare Health Insurance of Southwest Inc., WellCare Health Insurance of Tennessee Inc., WellCare Health Plans, WellCare Health Plans of Arizona Inc., WellCare Health Plans of California Inc., WellCare Health Plans of Kentucky Inc., WellCare Health Plans of Massachusetts Inc., WellCare Health Plans of Missouri Inc., WellCare Health Plans of New Jersey Inc., WellCare Health Plans of Rhode Island Inc., WellCare Health Plans of Tennessee Inc., WellCare Health Plans of Vermont Inc., WellCare Health Plans of Wisconsin Inc., WellCare National Health Insurance Company, WellCare Pharmacy Benefits Management Inc., WellCare Prescription Insurance Inc., WellCare of Alabama Inc., WellCare of Arkansas Inc., WellCare of California Inc., WellCare of Connecticut Inc., WellCare of Florida Inc., WellCare of Georgia Inc., WellCare of Illinois Inc., WellCare of Indiana Inc., WellCare of Kansas Inc., WellCare of Maine Inc., WellCare of Michigan Holding Company, WellCare of Mississippi Inc., WellCare of Missouri Health Insurance Company Inc., WellCare of New Hampshire Inc., WellCare of New York Inc., WellCare of North Carolina Inc., WellCare of Ohio Inc., WellCare of Oklahoma Inc., WellCare of Pennsylvania Inc., WellCare of Puerto Rico Inc., WellCare of South Carolina Inc., WellCare of Texas Inc., WellCare of Virginia Inc., WellCare of Washington Inc., Wellcare Health Plans Inc., Western Sky Community Care Inc., Windsor Health Group Inc., Winning Security S.L., Worlco Management Services, and nirvanaHealth LLC. This page may be updated if the event is repeated Past Event - Sunday, June 13, 2021 This page may be updated if the event is repeated The Versailles Poultry Days Board of Directors and the Village of Versailles welcome you to the annual Poultry Days festival. The 2021 Versailles Poultry Days will be held June 11-13th Poultry Days is an annual community festival which began in 1952 to celebrate the areas history as a leading poultry-producer and is held the second full weekend in June. Arrive early to enjoy one of our World-Famous chicken dinners. Since 1952 this village of less than 3,000 people has sold 1,041,685 of these delicious dinners. Last year 29,000 dinners were sold, but arrive early as they can sell quickly. Visit our website below for more information. The scrip made a weak opening and dropped 4.56 per cent to Rs 713.70 as the trade progressed on the BSE. New Delhi: Shares of IT major Infosys fell nearly 5 per cent on Monday after the company's March 2019 quarter earnings failed to cheer investors. The scrip made a weak opening and dropped 4.56 per cent to Rs 713.70 as the trade progressed on the BSE. At the NSE, shares declined 4.70 per cent to Rs 712.60. The scrip was the major drag on both the key indices in early trade. IT major Infosys on Friday posted a 10.5 per cent rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 4,078 crore for the March 2019 quarter, and guided towards 7.5-9.5 per cent growth in revenue for FY2019-20. Infosys saw its revenues increase 19.1 per cent to Rs 21,539 crore in the March 2019 quarter from Rs 18,083 crore in the year-ago period. The country's second-largest software services firm said it expects its topline to grow 7.5-9.5 per cent in FY 2019-20 in constant currency terms. Infosys expects its operating margin in FY20 to be in the range of 21-23 per cent. Margins for FY19 stood at 22.8 per cent. Sanjeev Hota, AVP Research at Sharekhan by BNP Paribas, said Infosys has delivered mixed set of earning performance but its revenue guidance is a tad "conservative". "Deal wins remain strong and management has guided for 7.5-9.5 per cent revenues growth for FY20E (estimate), which we believe is bit conservative. "Nevertheless, company delivered strong growth on digital revenues front. On the flip side, management has lowered the margins guidance to 21-23 per cent, which was below our expectations and also attrition inched up during the quarter," he said. With more than USD 1.2 billion of bank debt, Jet is battling for survival and has yet to receive a loan of about USD 217 million as part of a March rescue deal. Mumbai: Cash-strapped Jet Airways on Sunday averted a deeper crisis after its pilots body, the National Aviatior's Guild, deferred its "no flying" call to a later date from Monday, when the management is scheduled to meet the lenders. Earlier in the day, the guild, which has around 1,100 pilots as its members, decided to stop flying from April 15 in protest against non-payment of salaries since March. However, in a late evening communication to its members, the pilots body announced postponement of its "no pay no work" call for the second time in less than two weeks, saying it wanted to give more time to the company which is struggling to survive due to severe paucity of cash. "It has come to our notice that there is a critical meeting planned tomorrow (Monday) morning with the airline management and SBI. In light of the meeting, the members have requested, through their team leaders, that the call of 'no pay no work' be deferred to give the airline a chance of survival," the Guild said in the communication. "Accordingly, as requested, the NAG Committee would like to inform all that the decision stands deferred for the time being," it said. Meanwhile, the airline extended suspension of its services to Toronto and Paris from Chennai and back, besides withdrawing services from SAARC and Asean routes for an indefinite period. It also announced the resignation of one of its independent directors, Rajshree Pathy, from the company for other commitments. In an exchange filing, the Jet Airways said, "This is to inform you that Rajshree Pathy has submitted her resignation as an Independent Director of the company with effect from April 13, owing to time constraints and on account of her other current commitments." The airline's pilots along with engineers and senior staff were last paid for December, 2018. This apart, the airline has also defaulted on the March salary of other categories of employees as well. Last month, an SBI-led consortium of lenders had taken management control of the airline post a debt-recast deal, following which the lenders had proposed to infuse as much as Rs 1,500 crore to the carrier to keep it afloat till the time it gets a investor. The Monday meeting with lenders is reportedly expected to take a final decision on the quantum of funds to be infused immediately to avert a possible shut down. A meeting between the airline management and its major lender SBI last Friday could not take a decision on the fund infusion issue. The Guild has requested its members to be present at the airline's headquarters, Siroya Centre, in Mumbai's Andheri suburb at 9.30 am on Monday in their uniforms. According to the NAG, it has also called upon other departments to join the gathering at the headquarters as a show of unity. An Open House will be called shortly as per the availability of the venue and the committee members, its communication added. The NAG had in late March called for no flying from April 1 over non-payment of salaries. However, on March 31, it deferred the agitation to April 15, saying it wanted to give additional time to the new management to settle down prior to addressing its pending salaries issue. "Jet Airways has currently suspended operations to SAARC and ASEAN destinations, as well as to Toronto and Paris from Chennai and back," the airlines said in a statement. The airline, which has been operating less than 50 flights per day with a fleet of six to seven planes, has also cancelled its long-haul, west-bound operations to and from Amsterdam, London's Heathrow and Paris till April 16. According to sources, the airline has also stopped accepting bookings for its Mumbai-Paris flight until June 10 and closed reservations for its Mumbai-London, Mumbai-Amsterdam-Mumbai and Bangalore-Amsterdam flights, up to April 18. Jet Airways confirmed stopping of bookings for these flights, saying the move is aimed at re-accommodating passengers due to interim cancellations. "As a proactive measure, Jet Airways has restricted sales on certain routes for a few days in order to re-accommodate guests who have unfortunately been inconvenienced by interim cancellations," a spokesperson of the airline said. Following complaints by passengers regarding lack of information on cancellation and non-receipt of refunds, the civil aviation secretary had Friday said the Centre has asked Jet Airways to inform passengers 48 hours in advance about flight cancellations, and take their problems into consideration. In a release on Monday, the SpiceJet said it will be the first Indian budget carrier to launch daily direct flights on the Mumbai-Colombo, Mumbai-Dhaka, Mumbai-Riyadh, Mumbai-Hong Kong and Mumbai-Kathmandu sectors. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Shares of SpiceJet zoomed nearly 9 per cent Monday amid the company announcing that it will launch direct flights from Mumbai to seven international destinations, including Colombo, Jeddah, Dhaka, Riyadh and Hong Kong. The scrip climbed 8.60 per cent to close at Rs 119.35 on the Bombay Stock Exchange. During the trade, it jumped 9.19 per cent to Rs 120. About 77 lakh shares of the company were traded on the BSE during the day. Shares of SpiceJet had zoomed 8.5 per cent on Friday after the airline announced it will induct 16 Boeing 737-800 NG aircraft, a move that will help in bringing down flight cancellations. Direct flights would also be operated from Mumbai to Bangkok and Kathmandu. The no-frills airline would start the services from the end of May. In a release on Monday, the SpiceJet said it will be the first Indian budget carrier to launch daily direct flights on the Mumbai-Colombo, Mumbai-Dhaka, Mumbai-Riyadh, Mumbai-Hong Kong and Mumbai-Kathmandu sectors. Total original cost of implementation of the 1424 projects was Rs 18,17,469.76 crore and their anticipated completion cost is likely to be Rs 21,33,649.81 crore. (Representative Image: Pexels) New Delhi: As many as 344 infrastructure projects, each worth Rs 150 crore or more, have shown cost overruns to the tune of over Rs 3.16 lakh crore owing to delays and other reasons, a report said. "Total original cost of implementation of the 1424 projects was Rs 18,17,469.76 crore and their anticipated completion cost is likely to be Rs 21,33,649.81 crore, which reflects overall cost overruns of Rs 3,16,180.05 crore (17.40% of original cost)," the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation's latest report for December 2018 said. The ministry monitors infrastructure projects worth Rs 150 crore and above. Of these 1,424 projects, 344 reported cost overruns and 384 time escalation. According to the report, the expenditure incurred on these projects till December 2018 was Rs 8,06,997.78 crore, which is 37.82 per cent of the anticipated cost of the projects. However, it said the number of delayed projects decreases to 326 if delay is calculated on the basis of latest schedule of completion. For 686 projects, neither the year of commissioning nor the tentative gestation period has been reported. Out of 384 delayed projects, 113 projects have overall delay in the range of 1 to 12 months, 61 are delayed by 13 to 24 months, 101 reflect delay of 25 to 60 months and 109 projects show 61 months and above delay. The average time overrun in these 384 delayed projects is 44.78 months. The brief reasons for time overruns, as reported by various project implementing agencies, are delays in land acquisition, forest clearance and supply of equipment. Besides, there are other reasons like fund constraints, geological surprises, geo-mining conditions, slow progress in civil works, shortage of labour, inadequate mobilisation by the contractor, Maoist problems, court cases, contractual issues, ROU/ROW (right of use/right of way) problems, law and order situation, among others, the report said. It also observed that project agencies are not reporting revised cost estimates and commissioning schedules for many projects, which suggests that time/cost overrun figures are under-reported. It has come as a rude shock for investors who considered FMPs to be a suitable alternative to bank fixed deposits. Mumbai: Financial market regulators are examining the loan against share issue in the aftermath of the recent FMP fiasco. According to sources, RBI, Sebi and Irdai are looking into exposure of NBFCs, insurance companies and mutual funds to the toxic structured debt papers backed by promoter holding. It is estimated that exposures to the tune of Rs 50,000 crore are at risk. Last week, Kotak Mahindra Mutual Fund declared that investors of its fixed maturity plans FMP Series 127 and 183 would not be able to redeem their entire amount because of its exposure to the debt papers of Essel Group. This would also apply to other FMPs coming up for redemption in the near future. Similarly, HDFC Mutual Fund also announced plans to roll over one of its FMPs due for redemption next week. HDFC FMP 1168D MF Scheme maturing on April 15 gets extended by 380 days. It has come as a rude shock for investors who considered FMPs to be a suitable alternative to bank fixed deposits. Based on the portfolios of December 2018, the overall mutual fund exposure to the Essel Group was Rs 8,000 crore, of which, Rs 1,670 crore was held in close-ended funds like FMPs. Fund houses that have FMP exposure to Essel Group include Aditya Birla Sun Life (Rs 77 crore), DHFL Pramerica (Rs 7 crore), HDFC MF (Rs 902 crore), ICICI Prudential (Rs 121 crore), Kotak MF (Rs 381 crore) and Reliance (Rs 185 crore). Given that the decision to delay the repayment of the Essel bonds has been agreed upon, asset managers should proactively inform investors well in advance about part redemptions in FMPs that hold these bonds. This will help manage investor expectations as well as help investors plan their liquidity. Going ahead, it would be prudent for asset managers to relook at how such loan against shares transactions are structured, especially by placing covenants around how much can a promoter pledge. Otherwise, in cases of over-pledged promoters, such collateral remains as paper collateral which cannot be enforced effectively when required, said Morning-star in a recent report. However, according to experts, the problem is much larger and runs deeper than what news reports have suggested about Zee, Yes Bank and lL&FS groups. Debt papers of these groups had AAA rating before default. So debt papers from other which have not yet defaulted should not be construed sound and safe, say experts. Market speculation is that besides mutual funds, even insurance companies too have significant exposure in structured debt/CLOs, or collateralised loan obligations. Together these two categories of institutions have Rs 3.5 lakh crore investmentsMFs about Rs 2.25-2.5 lakh crore and insurance about Rs 1 lakh crorein such CLOs across schemes. By the market estimates, the amount defaulted in the current round may be about Rs 50,000 crore. Experts said the layering is so well-crafted that the three playersMFs, corporates, rating agencieshave been able to exploit the situation to their advantage. MFs have gone beyond their mandate and invested in a risky instrumentloan against sharethat is not commensurate with the risk profile of FMP investors, who are typically ultra conservative. "At present, there are three categories of purity, which are allowed for hallmarking -- 14, 18 and 22 carats," Shankar Sen, vice-chairman, All India Gem and Jewellery Domestic Council (GJC), said in a statement on Monday. (Representational Image) Kolkata: Major jewellers in the country have appealed to the consumer affairs ministry for allowing standardisation in hallmarking of gold of various purity measures. "At present, there are three categories of purity, which are allowed for hallmarking -- 14, 18 and 22 carats," Shankar Sen, vice-chairman, All India Gem and Jewellery Domestic Council (GJC), said in a statement on Monday. GJC and other associations have appealed to Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan to also consider bringing 20, 23 and 24 carats in the purview of hallmarking, along with coins and bars in the 24-carat purity. Talking about the ongoing Lok Sabha polls, GJC Chairman Anantha Padmanabhan said when the the model code of conduct is in force, there is a need for a standard operating procedure (SOP) regarding the seizure of gold in transit, based on valid documents. He said the annual turnover of the gem and jewellery industry is around Rs four lakh crore, which is expected to double in the next couple of years. Shai Feldman, director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies and Brandeis professor of Politics, named president of Sapir College professor and Shai Feldman, the founding director of Brandeis Universitys Crown Center for Middle East Studies and professor of politics, has been named the next president of Sapir College, near Sderot, Israel. Effective September 1, 2019, Feldman will take a leave from Brandeis University and the Crown Center to assume this exciting and challenging role.Feldman has served as director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies since its inception in 2005. Succeeding him will be Gary Samore , the Crown Centers current senior executive director and the former executive director of Harvard Universitys Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Samore will become the Centers next Crown Family Director effective September 1, and continue to serve and teach asof the practice of Politics at Brandeis University.In addition, Naghmeh Sohrabi , the Charles (Corky) Goodman Professor of Middle East History and current associate director for research at the Crown Center, has been promoted to the new position of director for research at the Crown Center.While I will miss Shais engagement with our campus community and his leadership of the Crown Center, I am thrilled for these new opportunities for him. I look forward to working with Gary and Naghmeh as they advance the important work of the Crown Center, said Brandeis University Provost Lisa M. Lynch The Crown Center is known for its superb scholarship and commitment to recruit and encourage young academics studying the Middle East. As the new director of the Crown Center, I'm honored to have an opportunity to contribute to the critical mission of the center and build on its outstanding record of achievements." Samore said.Naghmeh Sohrabi added, Im confident that the Crown Center's new leadership team will build on the excellence that under Shai's leadership has made us a premier Middle East research center.I am very proud to have played a role in the Crown Centers amazing development over the past 14 years from an embryo to a center of excellence, producing high-quality, policy-relevant research and analyses as well as balanced and dispassionate scholarship that meets the highest academic standards, said Feldman. I am also delighted to be leaving the center in the very able hands of Gary and Naghmeh, who I know will take it to new heights.Lester Crown, whose foundational gift launched the center, said, Over 14 years, Shai Feldman has done the improbable He has taken an idea and created a world-class center for Middle East studies by gathering together some of the most respected and knowledgeable experts from all areas of the region Palestinian, Iranian, Egyptian and Israeli and brought them together to produce and teach accurate, unbiased and balanced analyses and evaluations of the Middle East. As Shai leaves to lead Sapir College, we are exceptionally fortunate to have a superb international expert, Gary Samore, to succeed Shai.I want to thank Shai Feldman for his extraordinary work in getting the Crown Center off the ground and developing it as one of the major centers of the study of the Middle East, said Henry Bienen, Chairman of the Crown Centers advisory board. I look forward to working with Gary Samore, an eminent scholarpractitioner of international relations, security studies, and U.S. foreign policy. 'Dhadak' actor Ishaan Khatter has recently gotten into trouble for breaking major traffic rule in Bandra, Mumbai. (Photo: Instagram) Mumbai: 'Dhadak' actor Ishaan Khatter has recently gotten into trouble for breaking major traffic rule in Bandra, Mumbai. On Sunday, the new age actor visited Bollywood celebrities' one of the favourite restaurants Bastian where he parked his bike right outside of the entry of restaurant. However, as per SpotboyE reported, the place turned out to be the no-parking zone for which he got punished by Mumbai traffic police. Reportedly, the cops towed his bike from the no-parking area and asked the actor to pay Rs 500 fine for breaking major traffic rule. The video of an incident went viral on social media. But Ishaan paid the fine as per law. Watch the viral video here: Not just Ishaan, earlier, Sara Ali Khan too was fined recently for riding pillion without a helmet. Meanwhile, Ishaan made his debut with Majid Majidi's Beyond The Clouds. Indian members of Team Stark left Robert Downey Jr aka Iron Man overwhelmed by their love and adulation when they assembled in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru to meet their favourite superhero early Sunday morning. Downey Jr, who has been playing the much-loved character since 2008, was in live conversation with his Indian fans from Seoul. He is currently promoting "Avengers: Endgame" in South Korea with co-stars Brie Larson, Jeremy Renner and directors Anthony and Joe Russo. The actor may be known for his witty remarks, but he was left speechless when his appearance on screen was met with deafening screams of crazy fans. Downey Jr, 54, was over the moon with the frenzy during the video conference and promised that he will visit India soon. "You guys are just amazing fans. I can't wait. I cannot believe I haven't been to India. I'm coming there so damn soon," the actor told close to 1,500 fans who gathered in the four metros to catch his glimpse. Only four lucky Marvel fanatics got the golden opportunity to ask a question to their beloved superhero and the actor was all ears to them. When one of the fans asked if he could tell some fun stories from the "Endgame'" wrap party, the actor gave an emotional response saying the film sums up all the good memories the team shared over the years. "Well, I have no memory of it so it must have been pretty good. I got to tell you honestly, we made both 'Infinity War' and 'Endgame', we basically shot them back to back and it was the time that most of the Avengers and Guardians and everyone was spending the most time together. "This 'Endgame' really represents the culmination of probably the time in our lives that we have been the closest," he said. The video conference took place in cinema halls across the four cities, which were jam-packed with Iron Man admirers holding posters, donning T-shirts and chanting 'RDJ' ever since they arrived in the theatres. Young fans, who had always seen Tony Stark on the big screen leading the Avengers in a fight against the evil, had a surreal experience while interacting with the star himself. As they waited to meet Downey Jr, they were treated with official Marvel T-shirts as a prize in a Q&A session. The over seven-minute-long live session left the fans with a memory to cherish forever and a hope to meet Downey Jr during his maiden visit to India, which he promised will happen soon. "Endgame" is slated to be released in India on April 26. The film also features Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Karen Gillan, Danai Gurira, Bradley Cooper, Tessa Thompson and Josh Brolin. Palm Sunday marks the start of Holy Week and the last week of the 40 days of Lent, and is one of the most important feast days for Christians around the world. (Photo: Representational/Pixabay) New Delhi: Christians across the country celebrated Palm Sunday to mark the beginning of the Holy Week, which culminates with Easter Sunday. Faithful in Kerala and Chennai celebrated the day with Mass, carrying palm fronds and flowers in commemoration of Christ's arrival in Jerusalem and to mark the prophecy which was fulfilled by Him. Jesus rode into the city on a donkey and people greeted their long-awaited Messiah in joyous celebration waving palm fronds. Ever since, the faithful across the world celebrate Palm Sunday in memory of the event. Today the whole church celebrates Palm Sunday which stands for paradise. Palm Sunday causes liberation from all sin and evil elements, thats why we celebrate this Sunday," Francis Sundararaj, pastor of Anthoniyar Church in Broadway, Chennai said. "People chant 'Hosanna Hosanna', which means save us Oh! Lord, for Jesus who liberated us and rode on a donkey. Today we are at the threshold of the election, people are all going in procession for one person to elect somebody as a leader, but 2000 years ago one man Jesus Christ went on procession for the whole universe, for the whole humanity that is the difference between both scenarios. said Sundararaj. Palm Sunday marks the start of Holy Week and the last week of the 40 days of Lent, and is one of the most important feast days for Christians around the world. Palm Sunday falls the week before Easter, which is on April 21. The final few days of the Holy Week includes few other crucial days - Holy Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. While offering prayers, the faithful hold palm leaves, which is considered to symbolise the victory of the good over the evil, symbol of victory, triumph, peace, and eternal life. Palm Sunday and the period preceding Easter (Lent) is the most sacred time of the year for Christians. They devote their time in fasting and penitence in commemoration of Christs 40- day fast in the desert. The Holy Week will come to an end on Easter Sunday that falls after Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Greeces president called for Britain to free the Parthenon marbles from the murky prison of its national museum. (Photo: Representational/Pixabay) Athens: Greeces president called on Monday for Britain to free the Parthenon marbles from the murky prison of its national museum, upping the rhetoric in a near 200-year-old campaign for the sculptures return. President Prokopis Pavlopoulos spoke at Athens own glass-fronted Acropolis Museum, which campaigners hope will one day house the classical reliefs and figures taken by a British diplomat in the early nineteenth century. Let the British Museum come here and make the comparison between this (Acropolis) museum of light and the murky, if I may say, prison of the British Museum where the Parthenon Marbles are held as trophies, Pavlopoulos said. There was no immediate response from the British Museum. Britains Lord Elgin removed the 2,500-year-old sculptures from the Acropolis temple in Athens during a period when Greece was under Ottoman rule. They have been placed in a gallery inside the British Museum in London, lit by a long skylight. Greece has repeatedly requested their return since its independence in 1832, and stepped up its campaign in 2009 when it opened its new museum at the foot of the Acropolis hill. That building holds the sculptures that Elgin left behind alongside plaster casts of the missing pieces, lit by the sun coming through a glass wall looking over the original site. This museum can host the Marbles, Pavlopoulos said. We are fighting a holy battle for a monument which is unique. The British Museum has refused to return the sculptures, saying they were acquired by Elgin under a legal contract with the Ottoman Empire. The museum and other British institutions have also resisted other repatriation campaigns citing legislation preventing them from breaking up collections and arguing that they can preserve items and present them to an international audience. Naveen Patnaik requested Election Commissioner to direct the Police to take strict action against the culprits. (Photo: File) Bhubaneswar: Condeming the murder of Bhartiya Janta Party's (BJP) leader in Khurda town, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik requested Election Commissioner to direct the Police to take strict action against the culprits. Reacting to Patnaik's remark, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said, ''We have to respond to his death not by bullet, but by ballot. Odisha CM Naveen Babu is shedding crocodile tears. Incident like this in a democracy is condemnable.'' Unidentified miscreants have gunned down a local BJP leader in Odishas Khurda town, triggering protest from the saffron party. The deceased has been identified as Manguli Jena, BJP's mandal president of Khurda zone-9, the police said on Monday. The incident took place on Sunday midnight when Jena was standing near the house of BJPs candidate for Khurda assembly seat, Kalu Charan Khandayat and holding discussion with workers of the saffron party. Police said bike-borne miscreants fired four rounds, two of which hit Jena. He was rushed to Khurda district headquarters hospital where the doctors declared him "brought dead". The police immediately sealed the town and started investigation into the incident. Raids were being conducted at various places in Khurda to apprehend the assailants. The motive behind the murder was not yet ascertained, police said. Meanwhile, the district unit of the BJP has called for a Khurda bandh from 8 am to 2 pm on Monday in protest against the killing. Strongly condemning the killing, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan appealed to the workers and leaders of the saffron party to keep faith in democracy and maintain peace at this time. "People will give their reply to bullet through ballot in the coming election," Pradhan said. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik also condemned the murder of the BJP leader and urged the EC to direct the police to take stringent action against the culprits. "There is no place of violence in democracy. I convey my deep condolence to the bereaved family," Patnaik tweeted. BJD candidate for Khurda assembly seat, Jitu Mitra said, "I condemn this incident. This is for the first time in my 40-year long political career that a political leader has been killed in Khurda." Khurda assembly segment, under Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat, will go for polling on April 23. Assembly elections are being held simultaneously with the parliamentary polls in Odisha. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading. Police said Praveen, who is educated in the UK, was extremely brutal in killing his mother. He had attempted to electrocute her by tying her hands and legs, gagging and stabbing her 10 times in the chest. (Representational image) Chennai: The wife of former AIADMK MP, Kulandaivelu, was found murdered at her residence in Besant Nagar here on Sunday night. Police suspect her 35-year-old son, Praveen's hand in the murder, as the deceased had made distress calls to her daughter minutes before the murder. It is said that the motive behind the murder was that Praveen wanted to sell the family's ancestral property, but his mother objected to it. Police said, the victim Rathinam (63), had made a call to her 43-year-old daughter Sudha, who is a doctor in Tirupur, before the murder alleging that her son was demanding a share in the property and wanted to kill her. However, before her daughter could tell her to take refuge in a relative's house nearby, the phone call got disconnected. Police said Praveen, who is educated in the UK, was extremely brutal in killing his mother. He had attempted to electrocute her by tying her hands and legs, gagging and stabbing her 10 times in the chest. Sources said that for almost a month, the deceased was with Sudha in Tirupur and had returned to the city only on Sunday. It is believed that she was at loggerheads with her son, who came to Chennai from London a month ago, as he pestered her to sell the family's properties in Besant Nagar and Salem. When a relative, residing in Thoraipakkam, paid the victim a visit after being informed by Sudha, she found blood stains on the door and the door locked from outside. Soon, the police were called by neighbours who had been alerted by the relative. They found the victim in a pool of blood. A hunt is on for Praveen who is absconding. Kulaindavelu was an MP from Tiruchengode constituency in 1991. Gandhi was responsible for taking Indian politics to a an resourcnew low, Javadekar said. (Photo: File) New Delhi: The Supreme Court has exposed Rahul Gandhi's "lie" on the Rafale deal, the BJP said on Monday, claiming that people want the Congress president to apologise for "defaming" Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Union minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Prakash Javadekar hit out at Gandhi at a press conference after the apex court said it had made no such observations as allegedly attributed to it by the Congress chief. The Supreme Court was hearing a contempt case filed against Gandhi by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi after the Congress president reportedly said the apex court had accepted that there was corruption in the Rafale fighter jets deal and that Modi gave away Rs 30,000 crore to industrialist Anil Ambani. "The Supreme Court has exposed Gandhi's lie. He lies daily and one of those lies has been exposed.... People are demanding that he tender an apology," Javadekar said. He accused Gandhi of using the court to defame Modi and institutions, claiming that the Congress and the Gandhi family could not accept that Modi had run such an honest government while the UPA dispensation was mired in scams and scandals. Gandhi was responsible for taking Indian politics to a new low, the Union human resource development minister said. Taking a dig at the Congress president, the BJP leader said people earlier believed that Gandhi used to make wrong statements due to his lack of understanding, but it was clear now that he was doing "deliberate mischiefs". The apex court said it will consider the petition filed by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi seeking contempt action against Gandhi for attributing some observations to the apex court which was not in the Rafale judgement. (Photo: File) New Delhi: The Supreme Court Monday made it clear that remarks made by Rahul Gandhi in the media on the Rafale case verdict were "incorrectly attributed" to the apex court and directed the Congress President to give his explanation by April 22. The apex court said it will consider the petition filed by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi seeking contempt action against Gandhi for attributing some observations to the apex court which was not in the Rafale judgement. "We make it clear that views, observations, findings attributed to this court in the alleged speeches, remarks made by Gandhi to media/public have been incorrectly attributed to this court. We also make it clear that this court had no occasion to make such observation in as much as it was deciding legal admissibility of certain documents which were objected by the attorney general," a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said. The bench also comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna said, "Having clarified the matter we deem it appropriate to seek explanation of Gandhi." The bench further said the explanation by Gandhi has to be filed on or before next Monday and the matter will be heard on April 23 (next Tuesday). Lekhi, who is a sitting Lok Sabha MP from New Delhi constituency, has in her plea alleged that Gandhi has attributed his personal remarks to the top court and tried to create prejudice. At the outset, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Lekhi, said it is a gross case of contempt committed by Gandhi who incorrectly attributed some remarks to the apex court about its judgement on Rafale case. Rohatgi said Gandhi had come out in the public to make a remark that the "Supreme Court in its judgement said "Chowkidar Narendra Modi chor hain" The bench said, "You were right to the extent we never said what has been brought in the petition. We will seek clarification". After making the remarks, the bench dictated the order. The Congress president had on April 10 claimed that the apex court has made it "clear" that Prime Minister Narendra Modi "committed a theft". He had made the statement while interacting with reporters in Amethi after filing his nomination papers where he is contesting against BJP leader and union minister Smriti Irani. Gandhi had also recalled a recent interview by the prime minister, in which Modi had said the Supreme Court had given a clean chit to his government on the Rafale deal. The apex court, which had earlier cleared the Modi government of accusations of corruption over the Rafale deal with France, on April 9 said it will hear a review petition on the basis of the new documents, referred to by petitioners. It had on April 10 allowed the plea of petitioners relying on leaked documents for seeking review of its Rafale judgement and dismissed the government's preliminary objections claiming "privilege" over them. "I am happy and I have been saying so for months that Hindustan's PM has given the air force money to (industrialist) Anil Ambani, and the SC has accepted it. The SC is going to investigate it," Gandhi had said. "I want to thank the SC. It's a very happy day. The SC has talked about justice. Justice has prevailed," he had added. The Rafale fighter is a twin-engine Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) manufactured by French aerospace company Dassault Aviation. Ahmedabad: BJP president Amit Shah appealed to voters in Gujarat to once again back Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "It is certain that Narendrabhai is going to be the Prime Minister again, but it is your responsibility to give him all 26 seats, Mr Shah told a public rally in Kodinar in Saurashtra region. This was his first public rally outside his constituency Gandhinagar in the state. Mr Shah, who is on a two-day tour of the state, Mr Shah addressed a rally at Kodinar covering Junagadh Lok Sabha in the morning. In the afternoon, he spoke at a public meeting in Deesa in North Gujarat for the Banaskantha seat. Both the seats are believed to be tough for the BJP this time. He also held a road show before attending the meeting in Deesa. In Kodinar, Mr Shah said, "The Modi government has given an AIIMS to Saurashtra. Our government has opened a new milk processing plant to ensure that the people of this area can earn more money." Hitting out at the Congress, Mr Shah added, "When our government had inaugurated Sauni Yojana for water, the Congress people were laughing. Today they are mum because water has reached your village." "Wherever I have gone, I can only hear Modi Modi Modi. Today Rahul Gandhi is talking about poverty, but let me ask him that what did his ancestors do when they ruled the country for 55 years," Mr Shah said. The Modi government has ensured safety of the people. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading. Bhopal: Union minister Uma Bharti on Monday dug in her heels over taking on Congress veteran Digvijay Singh in Bhopal in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, saying, My fight against him ended in the 2003 Assembly elections in MP when I dislodged his decade-long government. The firebrand saffron leader tweeted a series of posts reiterating her assertion not to contest the upcoming parliamentary elections. Ms Bharti, who is currently fighting a defamation case filed against her by Mr Singh around 15 years ago for calling him a corrupt chief minister, however, said she was not afraid of a contest against the septuagenarian leader as she could defeat him easily in the polls. My role was over when the BJP led by me crushed Congress led by Mr Singh in 2003 Assembly elections in MP with a three-fourths majority. This time, people are desperate to defeat him, Ms Bharti said. She recounted how former chief ministers such as Kailash Nath Katju, P.C. Sethi and Arjun Singh were defeated by BJP leaders and said, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, a CM for 13 years, can easily defeat Mr Singh. Even leaders like sitting Bhopal MP Alok Sanjar, Alok Sharma, Rameswar Sharma, Krishna Gaur, Bhagwandass Sabnani, Shailendra Sharma and Viswas Sarang can also defeat him without putting much effort. She, however, added that the party would take the final call on the candidate for Bhopal. Sources, however, said the BJP leadership was still persuading Ms Bharti to withdraw her decision to back out of the upcoming LS polls and take on Mr Singh in Bhopal. She has been sulking ever since she was removed from post of chief minister of MP in 2004 following a court case and was not reinstated in the office even after the case was settled in her favour. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading. Congressman Joe Kennedy III visits Brandeis Photo/Tarah Llewelyn Massachusetts Congressman Joe Kennedy III (right) with professor Yehudah Mirsky Massachusetts Congressman Joe Kennedy III visited Brandeis University on April 12 to discuss American politics and the U.S.-Israel relationship. Kennedy, who has represented Massachusetts fourth congressional district since 2013, accepted an invitation to campus from the Brandeis Israel Public Affairs Committee (BIPAC). In an hour-long discussion with near eastern and Judaic studies professor Yehudah Mirsky, who also previously served in the state department under President Bill Clinton, Kennedy stressed that the United States strong ties to the State of Israel will always out-weigh any policy disagreements that may arise between leaders in both countries. He also discussed the Iran deal, Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS), working with the Trump administration, and the Democratic Party's tactics heading into the 2020 campaigns. Ahmedabad: Congress president Rahul Gandhi used his first election rally in Gujarat for the April 23 Lok Sabha elections to hardsell the NYAY, the manifesto highlight. Through NYAY, we are going to deposit Rs 72,000 into the bank accounts of poor families. This is a historical scheme and it will change the economy. You will see that NYAY will work like magic, Mr Gandhi said at Mahuva on Monday. Mr Gandhi said, Today the country is seeing the highest unemployment in 45 years. Demonetisation and Gabbar Singh Tax (GST) has destroyed the economy. Only a few rich have benefited under Modis rule but poor and farmers have suffered. NYAY will do nyay (justice) to them. We will bring money from the accounts of chors (thieves). Attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mr Gandhi said, The people had trusted him five years ago. You gave him all 26 seats from the state but all your hopes went into vain. Rs 15 lakh has not been deposited. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading. The state-of-the-art missile, which can be deployed from multiple platforms, was test-fired at 11.44 am from launch complex-3 of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur near here, sources in Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) said. (Representational Image) New Delhi: India on Monday successfully test-fired its own version of Americas famous Tomahawk missile, Nirbhay from the Integrated Test Range, Chandipur Odisha. Nirbhay, designed and developed indigenously by Defence Research and Development Organisati-on (DRDO), is long range sub-sonic cruise missile which can strike a target upto 1,000 km. It is capable of carrying nuclear warheads and can be deployed from multiple platforms. Nirbhay can fly at a low level to escape detection by radars and is highly manoeuvrable. DRDO said that Mondays test was the sixth development flight trial with objective to prove the repeatability of boost phase, cruise phase using way point navigation at very low altitudes. The missile took off vertically turning horizontally into desired direction, booster separated, wing deployed, engine started, cruised all the intended waypoints, said DRDO. The missile demonstrated its sea-skimming capability to cruise at very low altitudes, it said. The entire flight was fully tracked by a chain of electro optical tracking systems, radars and ground telemetry systems deployed all along the sea coast. All the mission objectives were met, it said. India developed a supersonic cruise missile Brahmos in association with Russia, which has a range under 500 kilometres. The last successful trial of Nirbhay cruise missile was conducted on November 7, 2017. New Delhi: A livid Supreme Court on Monday pulled up the Election Commission (EC) for sleeping over violations of model code of conduct by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and BSP chief Mayawati while delivering hate speeches and seeking votes in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls on the basis of religion earlier this month. The tongue-lashing by the top court sent the poll panel into a hyperactive mode as it banned both the Uttar Pradesh leaders from campaigning for three and two days respectively within minutes of the court hearing. By late evening, the EC also banned Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan and Union Maneka Gandhi from campaigning for similar offence. Azam Khan and Maneka Gandhi were banned from campaigning for 72 hours and 48 hours respectively, starting from April 16, 10 am. While expressing displeasure over the EC not taking quick action against hate speeches, a bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi gave the poll panel time till Tuesday to explain its lawyers submissions that the EC is largely powerless and toothless in such matters. The court also decided to examine the ambit of the ECs powers, asking if the poll panel is even aware of its powers to force errant political leaders to fall in line. Just after the apex court decided to examine the ECs powers, both Mr Adityanath and Ms Mayawati were restrained from participating in election meetings for three and two days respectively. The two were banned from campaigning in an uncommon censure under Article 324 of the Constitution that deals with power of the EC to conduct national and Assembly elections. The EC acted against Mr Adityanath for his Ali and Bajrang Bali remarks while addressing a rally in Meerut on April 9. Ms Mayawati courted controversy over her speech in Deoband on April 7 asking Muslims not to vote for the Congress as this could help the BJP. Reacting to EC action against her, Mayawati said, The ban on me will always be viewed as a blot on the ECs history. The hurried nature of the action shows that it was taken under pressure. New Delhi: A day after a fake letter critical of the BJP leadership and Lok Sabha poll prospects circulated in his name on the social media, party veteran M.M. Joshi on Monday sought an inquiry by the Election Commission into the fake letter. The fake letter was addressed to another party veteran L K Advani. Both Mr Advani and Dr Joshi have been denied a ticket to contest the parliamentary polls due to the unoffocial age bar of 75 years. Interestingly, a message in the social media regading a press conference to be addressed by the BJP veterans also turned out to be fake. Demanding an investigation by the poll panel, Dr Joshi has written to Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora that he has not written any such letter. My friends in media called me up and told me that since yesterday a letter addressed by me to L.K. Advani Ji has been circulated on social media. I have read the contents of it and I am attaching them with this letter. I have not sent any such letter to Advani Ji, Dr Joshi wrote. indly, immediately look into the matter and find the source of the letter, through which it came to social media, Dr Joshi said. Both Dr Joshi and Mr Adavani, who are among the founders of the party, had won last Lok Sabha elections in 2014 from Kanpur and Gandhi-nagar, respectively, but they have not got the party tickets to fight polls this time. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu addresses the media conference and shows the Democracy at Risk book by G.V.L. Narasimha Rao, at Praja Vedika on Monday. (DC) Vijayawada: TD supremo and Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of carrying money in the chopper he was travelling in, violating the model code of conduct. Indirectly referring to the mysterious black trunk carried by Modis staff in one of his choppers that was pointed out by the Congress, Mr Naidu said Modi was carrying money in it. He asked if the model code was not applicable to Modi. He made these comments in the press conference on Monday while referring to the flow of money in the recently concluded polls. He said loads of money was distributed by the opposition party and questioned where they had got such reserves. New Delhi: A livid Supreme Court on Monday pulled up the Election Commission (EC) for sleeping over violations of model code of conduct by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and BSP chief Mayawati while delivering hate speeches and seeking votes in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls on the basis of religion earlier this month. During a rally in Rampur on April 14, Mr Khan had targeted BJP candidate Jaya Prada, without naming her, saying that it took the people 17 years to understand her reality but I could recognise it in 17 days that she wears a khaki underwear. An FIR was registered against him for his remarks. Rampur district magistrate Kumar Singh said the FIR was registered under Section 509 of the IPC (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and Representation of People's Act. Ms Prada said, He has crossed the lakshman rekhaa this time. He is no longer a brother to me. I tolerated everything, but now I cannot tolerate (this). Maneka Gandhi, at a rally in Sultanpur on April 14, had tried to coerce Muslims to voter for her saying that if they do not support her she would not do their works after her election. All four Uttar Pradesh leaders will miss the last day of campaigning ahead of the second phase of elections on April 18. Earlier, expressing displeasure over the ECs inaction, CJI Gogoi said, The Election Commission says we are toothless. They issue a notice if someone violates model code... or uses religion or caste for votes... then an advisory, if they dont follow notice... We would like to examine the matter, we want a representative of the EC who is conversant with the details to appear. At one stage, CJI Gogoi warned the counsel for EC that they may summon Chief Election Commiss-ioner Sunil Arora. At the outset, the bench, also comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna, asked the ECs counsel about the action taken so far against the two top leaders of Uttar Pradesh. Tell us what are you doing... Tell us what actions you have taken, said the bench, hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Harpreet Mansukhani, an NRI yoga teacher based in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (UAE), seeking a direction to the EC to take strict action against political parties if their leaders make remarks based on caste and religion. EC counsel said, The power of the ECI in this behalf is very limited... we can issue notice and seek reply but we cant de-recognise a party or disqualify a candidate. Mayawati was required to file her explanation to the Commissions notice by April 12 but it was not done. We can only issue advisories and in case of a repeat offence, register a complaint. Senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, appearing for the petitioner, said that the ECs powers under Article 324 of the Constitution are quite extensive and it can initiate action against leaders who spew hate. From the ECs submissions the court found out that it has issued notices for hate speeches in only three cases so far in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The two cases include that of Mr Adityanath and Ms Mayawati. Appealing to caste or communal feelings to secure votes is not allowed under the model code, which is a series of dos and donts for political parties ahead of elections. Urdu-speaking parents who are forced to admit their wards in English medium schools in urban areas due to lack of quality education in Urdu, desire that their children should be able to read and write in Urdu. Hyderabad: Exploiting the thrust to learn Urdu language, the Telangana State Urdu Academy has designed a summer crash course to teach Urdu to students of English and Telugu medium during the vacations. The duration of the course will be one month. The Urdu Academy is collaborating with NGOs and educational organizations to run the classes in various parts of the city and Telangana. In Hyderabad, it plans to open more than 50 centres while three centres will be opened in each district. The Academy will provide educational aid kits to the students. Tutors will be awarded Rs 10,000 honorarium. Urdu-speaking parents who are forced to admit their wards in English medium schools in urban areas due to lack of quality education in Urdu, desire that their children should be able to read and write in Urdu. The Muslims are worried that their children studying in English medium are uninformed about the basics of their religion because religious cognitive content is largely available in Urdu language, while scanty material is available in English and Telugu. Mr Syed Sajjad Ali of Red Hills said that all his children are studying in English medium. He said there is a provision to teach Urdu as a second language, but most school managements do not provide a teacher to teach the language, resulting in the children opting for Hindi. He said that if the academy arranges summer camps, our children will be able to learn Urdu. President of the Urdu Academy Raheemuddin Ansari said this initiative will help children learn Urdu. If elders show interest in learning Urdu, we are ready to dedicate an exclusive camp for them too. The Academy will provide a kit to every participant consisting of a basic book of Urdu learning, a note book, pencil and eraser. Visakhapatnam: The fishing harbour in Visakhapatnam is turning into a hub for illegal activities. Apart from becoming a den for people drinking alcohol and toddy, incidences of theft are increasing in the harbour, especially during nights. The fishermen say that their attempts to lodge complaints with the police are yielding no result. Workers in the harbour say that some local gangs have been threatening people with knives during nights, demanding money while some are looting fish from the boats that dock at the harbour at night. The boat owners demand the police control the menace of drunkards within the premises, pointing to the numerous empty liquor bottles and discarded playing cards lying around. There are several issues in the fishing harbour. At night, many of the boats turn into pubs. However, no one is bothered about it. This can only stop if the police does rounds of the harbour at night. There have been incidents of gangs looting the people by threatening them with knives and some times, the days catch of fish goes missing. We want the police to take action, said Ch. Guruvulu a vendor in the fishing harbour. Visakha Dolphin Boat Operators Welfare Association vice-president Gangaraju said, There is a need to set up lights and CCTV cameras. It is a fact that several thefts are coming to light. The lack of security has led to gangs looting people. Visakhapatnam I-Town inspector Umakanth said that no one has lodged a complaint regarding the said irregularities. He said that the police is alert and on the job, safeguarding the areas in it limits of the police station. However, another official on condition of anonymity said that the fishermen themselves have formed gangs and their target their rivals. They lodge a complaint and later withdraw it saying that the people they accuse are known to them. This has happened several times. Anyhow, the department will not tolerate such things, he said. Mysuru: BJP State President B.S. Yeddyurappa has made a sensational allegation that the JD(S) is transferring money in police vans for distribution prior to the polls with Rs 5 lakh earmarked for each polling booth in Mandya Lok Sabha constituency where the CM son Nikhil Kumaraswamy is facing a tough challenge from Independent candidate Sumalatha Ambareesh. They are spending Rs 150 crores in total there (Mandya). Local contractors are providing this money. I will be lodging a complaint in this regard with the Election Commission which should investigate the matter, he said while speaking to media persons at Kollegal on Sunday. The BJP leader said, "the JD(S) is conspiring to prevent the victory of Ms Sumalatha whom we are supporting. Mr H.D. Kumaraswamy is conspiring to save his CM position." On JD(S) supremo Mr H.D. Deve Gowda's statement that the BJP will not cross single digits in its seat tally in Karnataka, he said, "Let Mr Deve Gowda and his grandsons win first, they can then speak about the BJP." The former CM offered prayers at Mahadeswara Swamy temple at Male Mahadeswara Hills and said that he had prayed for the BJPs victory in 300 seats. Mr Yeddyurappa also campaigned for Chamamrajnagar BJP candidate Mr V Srinivasprasad in all eight assembly seats of the constituency. At a meeting of BJP leaders in Mysuru, Mr Yeddyurappa said, "Mr Kumaraswamy thinks he can win this election using money and power which is not possible. There is a conspiracy to divide the Veerashaiva Lingayat community." Meanwhile at a public meeting in Chamarajanagar Mr V Srinivasprasad said that the Constitution is not a school textbook to be changed, it can only be amended and the amendments only add to its virtue. He appealed to voters to elect him and make the election memorable for him. On PWD Minister Mr H.D. Revannas declaration that he would retire from politics if Modi becomes Prime Minister again, Mr Srinivasprasad quipped, Your father(Deve Gowda) said the same thing during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, did he do it? Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading. 'Trinamool Congress will win all 42 seats in West Bengal by defeating this deadly combine,' said Banerjee in a rally in Beldanga/Bhagwangola: West Bengal Chief Minister Monday accused Congress of taking help from RSS to win elections and urged to the people to defeat the "deadly" combination of the Congress, BJP and the Left. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo recalled former president Pranab Mukherjee's participation in an event of the RSS in its headquarters in Nagpur in 2018 and alleged that the organisation is campaigning for his son, Abhijit Mukherjee who is a Congress candidate. "Don't force me to open the Pandora's box. The entire gameplan of the Congress will be exposed," she told an election rally at Beldanga in Muslim-dominated Murshidabad district. "Baharampore Congress candidate Adhir Chowdhury's tactics to win election with the help of the Left and BJP will not be successful this time...People should not vote for such a party with a dubious character," Banerjee said. TMC candidate for Baharampore Apurba Sarkar (David), who is contesting against Chowdhury, had defected from the Congress and joined her party. "RSS is campaigning for Abhijit Mukherjee at Jangipur and Adhir Chowdhury at Baharampore, while the CPI(M) has already sold out to BJP," Banerjee alleged. "This tactics of the Congress-Left-BJP combine will be given a fitting reply by the people of Bengal. The Trinamool Congress will win all 42 seats in West Bengal by defeating this deadly combine," she claimed. Addressing another rally at Bhagwangola in the same district, Banerjee hit out at BJP for trying to gain political mileage by playing the religion card. "The BJP is trying to divide the people in the name of religion. They are using it as a tool to divide the masses in Bengal ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. The culture of Bengal never supports the politics of violence," she said. The TMC supremo also cautioned people against RSS alleged bid to bribe the voters. Referring to BJP's stand on implementing NRC in the country, Banerjee said she would not allow it in West Bengal. "We are confident that we will foil this misadventure in the state," she said. She also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for doing politics by taking the name of the army. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analysis et all. Happy reading. NEWTOWN BOROUGH >> The Newtown Borough Police Department is alerting the community that someone claiming to be Detective Brian Webb with the Newtown Borough Police Department and assigned to the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force is attempting to scam local residents. The phone call appears to come from the borough's police department phone number. "This is a scam," said... New Delhi: Amid a huge row for an alliance between Congress and Aam Aadmi party (AAP) for the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, Rahul Gandhi came forward for the first time on Monday in speaking about the seat-sharing deal that would rout the ruling party. Rahul Gandhi tweeted, "An alliance between the Congress & AAP in Delhi would mean the rout of the BJP. The Congress is willing to give up 4 Delhi seats to the AAP to ensure this. But, Mr Kejriwal has done yet another U turn! Our doors are still open, but the clock is running out". An alliance between the Congress & AAP in Delhi would mean the rout of the BJP. The Congress is willing to give up 4 Delhi seats to the AAP to ensure this. But, Mr Kejriwal has done yet another U turn! Our doors are still open, but the clock is running out. #AbAAPkiBaari Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) April 15, 2019 Hitting out at Gandhi on Twitter, Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal said, "What U-turn. The talks are still on." Your tweet shows that an alliance is not your desire but only a pretension. I am pained that you are giving mere statements," he said. "Today, the foremost issue is to save the country from the threat of Modi-Shah. Unfortunately, you are helping Modi by dividing anti-Modi votes in Uttar Pradesh and in some other states," Kejriwal tweeted in Hindi. U-? - UP https://t.co/9jnYXJFA0S Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) April 15, 2019 The seat-sharing arrangement of four for AAP and three for Congress has been arrived at on the basis of the vote share of both parties in 2017 civic polls here, they said. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. On Sunday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had said his party will do anything to "save the country" from Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. The AAP supremo was addressing a press conference here after a meeting of opposition parties to discuss the issue of EVM malfunctioning in the ongoing parliamentary election. "The country is in danger. We will do anything to save it. Our effort to save the country from Narendra Modi and Amit Shah will continue," Kejriwal said. Congress leaders and senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who were also present on the occasion, however, dodged questions on an alliance with the AAP and threw the ball in Kejriwal's court saying, "He knows better". "You ask him about the alliance. He knows better than us," Sibal said, even as Congress leader and senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, "You know the stand of Congress. The alliance was almost done in Delhi but linking it with other states is not right." The uncertainty over an alliance between the AAP and the Congress has been continuing for some time now. The talks between the two sides derailed after they failed to reach an agreement over seat-sharing in Delhi and Haryana. Congress' in-charge for Delhi P C Chacko had said on Friday that the Congress would go it alone in Delhi since the AAP had taken an "impractical stand". AAP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia although said on Saturday that his party was ready to form an alliance with the Congress in Delhi, Haryana and Chandigarh but it would not agree for a tie-up just in the national capital. (With inputs from agencies) Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. The two have also been 'censured'. (Photo: File) New Delhi: The Election Commission of India on Monday barred Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati from campaigning for two days and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for three days for their communal remarks. The two have also been "censured". In its order, the poll body said the two can't address any public meeting, campaigns or address the media from 6 am tomorrow. Mayawati was issued the notice for her speech in Deoband appealing to Muslims to not vote for a particular party. The BSP chief had prima facie violated the model code of conduct, the poll panel found. Adityanath was served the notice for his "Ali" and "Bajrang Bali" remarks while addressing a rally in Meerut. He compared the Lok Sabha elections to a contest between 'Ali', a revered figure in Islam, and Bajrang Bali, the Hindu god Hanuman. (With PTI inputs) Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analysis etc all. Happy reading PDP president Mehbooba Mufti on Monday accused the BJP of creating a fear psychosis under the guise of national security to prepare for another Balakot-like strike in desperation to win Lok Sabha elections. (Photo: File) Srinagar: PDP president Mehbooba Mufti's motorcade came under stone-pelting in Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir on Monday while she was returning from a shrine there, officials said. Mehbooba had gone to a shrine at Khirram in Anantnag district to pay her obeisance and was returning to Bijbehara when the incident took place, they added. One of the spare vehicles in the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister's motorcade was damaged in the stone-pelting and the driver was hurt, the officials said. Others in the entourage, including the PDP president, escaped unhurt. Mehbooba is contesting the ongoing Lok Sabha election from the Anantnag seat, which she had won in 2014. The south Kashmir constituency, spread over the four districts of Anantnag, Kulgam, Pulwama and Shopian, is going to the polls in three phases from April 29 to May 6. Mehbooba Mufti also accused the BJP of creating a fear psychosis under the guise of national security to prepare for another Balakot-like strike in desperation to win Lok Sabha elections. "In its desperation to win this election, seems like misappropriation of our jawans sacrifices & polarising the electorate hasn't helped BJP. Now they are creating fear psychosis by using national security as a guise to prepare ground for another Balakot-like strike," Mehbooba, who was an ally of BJP in Jammu and Kashmir from 2015 to 2018, said in a tweet. In its desperation to win this election, seems like misappropriation of our jawans sacrifices & polarising the electorate hasnt helped BJP. Now they are creating fear psychosis by using national security as a guise to prepare ground for another Balakot like strike. https://t.co/ktrykBBiXO Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) April 15, 2019 She was reacting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's reference to Pulwama attack and the consequent air strike inside Pakistani territory by India Air Force. "When they made their second mistake in Pulwama, we entered their home and conducted airstrike. Udhar walon ko bhi samajh mein aa gaya hai ki agar teesri galti ki toh lene ke dene pad jaenge (They also know that if they commit another mistake, they will be in real trouble)," the Prime Minister said at a rally at Moradabad in UP. In another tweet the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, while reacting to Modi's speech at Kathua rally, said Kashmir belonged to Kashmiris and was not anybody's heirloom to inherit. "Kashmir belongs to Kashmiris. Not anybody's heirloom to inherit. Self seeking politics is intentionally blurring lines between self & country, exploiting armed forces to grab power, fuelling communal politics & dividing the country in the name of religion. Kuch yaad aaya (do you remember anything)?" she said. Kashmir belongs to Kashmiris. Not anybodys heirloom to inherit. Self seeking politics is intentionally blurring lines between self & country, exploiting armed forces to grab power, fuelling communal politics & dividing the country in the name of religion. Kuch yaad aaya? https://t.co/AJtTMsJI3L Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) April 14, 2019 At Kathua, Modi accused NC and PDP leadership of causing destruction in Jammu and Kashmir and said the key for the state's brighter future lay in removing these two families from power. "I want to tell those who have occupied the seat of power for the last three generations, including Abdullahs and Muftis, that it is 'Modi jo na bikta hai, na darta hai aur na jukta hai' (Modi is not for sale, is not afraid and not ready to bow). "Bring all your family members on field and abuse Modi as much you want but you will not be able to disintegrate the country. Shyama Prasad's ideology is 'wachan patra' (agreement) for us and it is carved in stone which cannot be removed by anyone," he added. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. Veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Murli Manohar Joshi has written a letter to Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, requesting him to launch an immediate probe on the fake letter being circulated on social media in his name. (Photo: ANI) New Delhi: Veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Murli Manohar Joshi has written a letter to Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, requesting him to launch an immediate probe on the fake letter being circulated on social media in his name. Joshi, in his letter to the CEC, has stated that the letter was brought to his notice by some friends from the media. A lot of friends from media have told me that a letter is doing rounds on social media which is being presented as that written by me to Lal Krishna Advani, he said. Asserting that he has not written any such letter, Joshi requested Arora to initiate an investigation to inquire about the origin of the letter without any delay. Joshi, a sitting MP from Kanpur has been replaced by Satyadev Pachauri to contest from the seat in the ensuing polls. He has also not figured in the list of star campaigners announced by BJP so far. The Lok Sabha polls, which began on April 11, will go on till May 19. Counting of votes will take place on May 23. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. The three businessmen mentioned by Gandhi, are wanted in India for fraud and money laundering. (Photo:AP) Mahuva: Congress president Rahul Gandhi Monday said funds for his party's 'Nyay' minimum income guarantee scheme will come from the pockets of fugitives like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. The Congress, in its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections, has said Nyay assures up to Rs 72,000 a year or Rs 6,000 a month income to 20 per cent of India's poorest families if the party is voted to power. The three businessmen mentioned by Gandhi, are wanted in India for fraud and money laundering. "I was inspired by Narendra Modi's false promise of giving Rs 15 lakh to every Indian," Gandhi said at a poll rally here, while speaking about the scheme, which the Congress has described as a "surgical strike" on poverty. Arun Jaitely further said dynasts are also subject to the Supreme Court and while truth holds together, falsehood falls apart. (Photo: File) New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Monday accused Congress President Rahul Gandhi of manufacturing Supreme Court order on Rafale deal for political propaganda and said 'right to free speech' is not 'right to falsehood'. The minister was commenting on the Supreme Court order which said that the remarks made by Gandhi on its April 10 Rafale case verdict were "incorrectly attributed" to the apex court and directed the Congress President to give his explanation by April 22. In a series of tweets, Jaitley said, "In Rahul Gandhi's politics, the Right to Free Speech includes the Right to Falsehood". He further said dynasts are also subject to the Supreme Court and while truth holds together, falsehood falls apart. "Indian democracy does not permit them (dynasts) to rewrite Court orders... To manufacture a Court order for a political propaganda is a new low for Rahul Gandhi. The lower he sinks, the higher we rise," Jaitley said. BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi in her plea before the Supreme Court alleged that Gandhi has attributed his personal remarks to the top court and tried to create prejudice. The Congress president on April 10 claimed that the apex court has made it "clear" that Prime Minister Narendra Modi "committed a theft". The Supreme Court on April 10 allowed the plea of petitioners relying on leaked documents for seeking review of its Rafale judgement and dismissed the government's preliminary objections claiming "privilege" over them. "I am happy and I have been saying so for months that Hindustan's PM has given the air force money to (industrialist) Anil Ambani, and the SC has accepted it. The SC is going to investigate it," Gandhi had said. "I want to thank the SC. It's a very happy day. The SC has talked about justice. Justice has prevailed," he had added. The Rafale fighter is a twin-engine Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) manufactured by French aerospace company Dassault Aviation. Nellore: Leaders of Telugu Nadu Students Federation (TNSF), the youth wing of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on Sunday vandalised YSR Congress Party's (YSRCP) party office here after their district president Tirumala Naidu was allegedly attacked with iron rods. TNSF leaders and workers went to YSRCP's Nellore rural party office and staged a protest. They also tore down the YSRCP party boards and flexies of party chief Jaganmohan Reddy. TNSF alleged that YSRCP MLA Sridhar Reddy is responsible for the attack on Naidu. Later, the police reached the spot and detained TNSF leaders. Naidu is currently in the hospital and is undergoing treatment after suffering "critical injuries" on his head and hand. Earlier on April 11 polling in Andhra Pradesh was marred with violence, as multiple clashes broke out between workers of Telugu Desam Party and YSRCP across the state. Polling was held on April 11 for 25 Lok Sabha and 175 Assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analysis etc all. Happy reading Chennai: A medical college with a hospital attached to it is the highest priority for A. Raja, the DMK candidate for the Nilgiris parliament seat. There is a very urgent need for healthcare in the hills to improve. The current system in the public as well as private sector is not adequate for the people of Nilgiris, says Raja in an interview to DC in the course of his campaign for the April 18 elections. Convinced that there is an anti-Modi and anti-Edapaddi wave in Tamil Nadu, Raja asserts that a change is in the wind. There is a noticeable wave against the rulers, both in Delhi and in the State capital. People are even more angry with the Central government, basically against Narendra Modi. People know that the alliance between BJP and AIADMK is only for corruption. This is an unholy alliance and I am convinced that the DMK will bring in an administration that will serve the people in Tamil Nadu and Congress alliance at the Centre. The former MP from Nilgiris (2009-2014) makes a point about his constituency receiving the highest rainfall in the State annually and yet suffers a water crisis every summer. There is very good rainfall in the Nilgiris but no system to store the water and use it in summer. I will make water management schemes a high priority when I return as MP, says the legislator who had also headed the Union Environment ministry. Healthcare and water management, most of all proper water regulation, are two major issues for which I have plans to help. Besides, farmers want seeds and other help in growing vegetables in the hills and I promise that proper schemes will be floated to take care of this, says Mr Raja. Kalaignar was our great leader and the legacy he has left behind is being taken care of by my leader Stalin. We are travelling on the path of public service that Kalaignar trod. Asked to speak about the difficult times he faced when charged in the 2G spectrum case, Mr Raja was forthcoming and said the court ruling in his favour was always on the cards. It was expected. I offered myself for interrogation for 14 days. From day one I was convinced that there was no case at all. In fact, the policies were such that the people were very happy with the communications and the cost at which they were subscribing to mobile phone connections. The telecom system was empowered by policies during my tenure and people were benefiting from it, says the former Union Telecommunications minister who was charged with being the initiator of a big corporate scandal. Blaming the former CAG Vinod Rai squarely for seeing a scandal where there was none, Mr Raja says that he always knew he would prove himself innocent. I spent 15 months in jail but always confident of my innocence being proved in court. I have written in detail in my book about the political conspiracy hatched and how Vinod Rai was the gun. The court has upheld my innocence and people know the truth now. People are aware it was a foisted case and the court acquittal only confirmed it further. Asked about Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami now threatening to order investigation into the death of Sadiq Batcha in the light of the complaints made by his widow, Raja said the CM was trying to slap a false case against my leader Stalin as a tit-for-tat because Stalin raised the Kodanad murders. Edappadis ploy will not work. The Central agencies are under the BJP and the Edappadi Government has the Crime Branch CID under it; so why cant they go ahead and investigate Sadiq Batchas death? I was in Tihar jail when he died. Are they going to say I came out of jail, killed him and went back into the jail? That is all well behind us now. We are only looking forward to serving the people, says the four-time MP who was first elected as MP from the Perambalur constituency in 1996 and reelected twice more from there (1999 and 2004) before switching to Nilgiris in 2009. Bengaluru: Union Social Justice Minister and Republican Party of India(A) president Ramdas Athawale Monday said the Congress-JD(S) coalition government will not last long and asked Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy to join hands with BJP for the state's welfare. Terming the Congress as casteist, the Dalit leader said that party president Rahul Gandhi should not dream about becoming Prime Minister. ...Kumaraswamy is upset, I request him-why are you behind Congress when the BJP-JD(S) coalition government can be formed? Athawale told reporters here. Stating that there was such a proposal earlier, he said Congress was clever, they supported Kumaraswamy and made him CM, but Kumaraswamy is crying, he is not happy with Congress people. So I feel that this government will not last long. Kumaraswamy has to come back to the BJP and if Karnatakas development has to happen...Kumaraswamy has to leave Congress and come back. Staying with BJP will benefit as Modi ji government is coming (to power) with NDA securing over 350 seats, he added. In 2006, Kumaraswamy had joined hands with BJP to form the coalition government, overthrowing the Dharm Singh led Congress-JD(S) government, that lasted about 20 months. Asking Kumaraswamy to join hands with BJP for the benefit of the state, he said You will become the Deputy Chief Minister... He (Kumaraswamy) is not happy with the Congress... as Deputy Chief Minister he will be happier than now(as Chief Minister). Asked if he would mediate between BJP and JD(S) leaders, he said after the Lok Sabha elections, We can try, because if Modi government comes, then I doubt that Kumaraswamy will be safe (as Chief Minister)." Athawale said eradication of poverty was something only Modi could do and not Rahul Gandhi and the Congress president should not dream about becoming Prime Minister. Eradication of poverty is Narendra Modis work, not Rahul Gandhis it is not something he can do. Rahul Gandhi should not dream about becoming Prime Minister, he said. As long as there is a Narendra Modi wave in the country, how can Rahul Gandhi become the prime minister? he added. Hyderabad: For the local body elections, TRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Raos has come up with a fresh number: 32. He wants the party to win all the 32 zilla parishads and secure the chairpersons posts. In the recent Lok Sabha elections, Mr Rao had set a target of 16 seats from the state to pursue his Federal Front dream. Before that, he had wanted the TRS to win 100 seats in the Assembly. Mr Rao on Monday chaired a meeting of the partys extended executive committee which comprises ministers, MPs, MLAs, MLCs, party office-bearers and others and discussed the ensuing local body elections. Mr Rao told the meeting that the party would win all the 16 seats it contested in the Lok Sabha elections. He said he had received 10 reports all of which stated that the TRS would win all 16 Lok Sabha seats. Mr Rao said that after the Lok Sabha elections, the TRS will play a key role in national politics. Regarding the local body elections, Mr Rao said the TRS should win all the 32 zilla parishads in the state. He said that the MLAs would select the ZPTC and MPTC candidates in their constituencies. He asked ministers to coordinate with all the leaders to sweep the elections. Mr Rao pointed out that the TRS has 100 MLAs and would win 16 Lok Sabha seats. In the local body elections, all 32 ZPs should belong to the TRS. To win 535 ZPTC, 5,857 MPTCs and 32 ZPs, Mr Rao appointed ministers, MLCs and MPs to act as coordinators. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading. It is unreasonable to expect Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and outgoing Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Maneka Gandhi not to indulge in sabre-rattling because that is the image that the leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party have created for themselves. They play true to their character on the political stage. So we see Mr Modi wagging a finger against Pakistan, or Mr Shah threatening to drive out the infiltrators or illegal immigrants in the manner one would remove termites, Mr Singh threatening action against anti-nationals, without defining who is an anti-national, or Ms Gandhi warning Muslims in her constituency that if they do not vote for her, then they should not come to her seeking help. All this is par for the course. Then there is the trivia about the educational qualifications of outgoing Union textiles minister Smriti Irani and the brickbats flying hither and thither in the social media on the issue, with cameo roles for Mr Modi as well as Congress president Rahul Gandhi. Mr Modi has set the tone for aggression and that is the BJPs calling card, as the party believes that aggression is a sign of strength. It would be futile to discuss the merits and demerits of this approach in the middle of an election. Those who decry the unrestrained belligerence of the BJP leaders should continue to raise their voices, though it will possibly have no impact on the ruling party, which will not give up its war dance and war cries. It would be premature to talk of a scenario when Mr Modi will have a second term after May 23, when the results are announced. It will be futile to tell Mr Modi and his associates that they must become sober and leave behind their josh of poll invective to govern the country for the next five years. As a matter of fact, many of the ardent followers of Mr Modi want him to continue to ride his war horse because he has managed to create a paranoia of power and glory among a section of the educated middle class. Mr Modi then is trapped in the image he has created himself of a leader who will go out to war and throw out all opponents. Going by precedent, Mr Modi adopts a mellow position after victory, though he retains the high on victory night, which is natural. His first speech in Parliament in 2014 as Prime Minister was quite different from his stump speeches. It should indeed be the case that he will strike a sober note after May 23 in case he and his party emerge as victors. In contrast, Messrs Rahul Gandhi, Mayawati, Akhilesh Yadav, Mamata Banerjee and N. Chandrababu Naidu have not been sufficiently belligerent against the policies of Mr Modi. They give the impression of being too polite, despite Mr Gandhis refrain of chowkidar chor hai, which has not become the buzz as did gali gali mein shor hai... Rajiv Gandhi chor hai in the fraudulent allegations made in la affaire Bofors in the run-up to the 1989 general election led by Vishwanath Pratap Singh and ably supported by the BJP, the Communists and the right-wing media led by Mr Arun Shourie, who was then editor of the Indian Express. Rafale has not attained the stinging edge that Bofors did, and it cannot be argued that there was evident corruption in the Bofors deal and none in the case of Rafale. The Opposition and the media have failed to probe the Rafale fighter jet deal with the same zeal that they did in the case of Bofors from 1987 onwards. It should not be assumed that the Opposition and the so-called liberal media have become polite. They have just failed in the propaganda warfare and Mr Modi has managed to get away. The exaggerated claims which amount to lies made by the leaders of the ruling side about the governments economic performance and its social schemes have not been energetically nailed by the Opposition and the media. They appear to have been distracted by the personality of Mr Modi, and they felt compelled to attack him instead of exposing the chinks in the governments performance. While the BJP have shown all the ugly josh, the Opposition failed in its duty to make its point to the people. The Opposition is not just a divided house, but it has also shown no purpose and energy. The rules of the political game dictate the victory of the strong and the defeat of the weak. The logic of the scenario demands that the BJP wins and the Opposition gets defeated. But the outcome is neither simple nor predictable. The story of unequal rivals, a militant BJP on the one side and a supine Opposition on the other, is not yet over. The end remains unpredictable. The determined and loud chorus of the Modi cheerleaders and the sniffling and snorting Opposition with its band of wimpy liberals cannot really dictate the script. The voters, it seems, are indeed weighing all their options. It is this factor of undecidedness on the part of the people that is driving the virile BJP into a frenzy, which is reflected in the vituperative rhetoric of Mr Modi and his associates. The voter is playing poker, and he or she is not revealing all their cards. That puts politicians on tenterhooks, and this drives them into bouts of irrational exuberance on the one hand and clinical depression on the other. The voter is no sadist, but someone grappling with the complexities and frustrations of quotidian reality, and he or she judges the politician from Ground Zero. The voter is also no infallible judge, and he or she does not pretend to be a Solomon. But it is the voter who takes the most difficult decision of choosing the representative to whom is given the keys of power for the next five years. The past three general elections of 2014, 2009 and 2004 were centred on the internal dynamics, national health and expected fate of the nation. The 2004 election was posited as a virtual referendum for the presumed economic feel good factor of the BJP-led NDA government that was encapsulated in its failed India Shining campaign. By 2009, the central electoral theme had evolved to the resilience of the incumbent Congress-led UPA government, with its campaign focused on rural India and on the underprivileged sections of society. The 2014 election was a brilliantly conducted campaign by the victorious NDA coalition against the perceived inertia, corruption and indecisiveness of the UPA government till then. While the security situation remained tense during that period of 15 years with the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, the Northeasts insurgencies, the Maoist violence, etc, and with the continuing impasse in the state of Jammu and Kashmir Pakistan had still not arrived as the predominant theme that could galvanise the masses towards electoral gratification, as it was always the more daily-felt and impacted socio-economic urgencies of the mainstream that dominated all political battles. What started as the early green shoots of the uber-nationalistic discourse in the 2014 general election has over the past five years assumed a gargantuan and all-pervasive resonance and justification, with Pakistan at the epicentre of the entire narrative. The juxtaposition of Pakistan as the principal supporter of the terror industry is rightfully aimed at Islamabads continued and incorrigible dalliances with terror, in both, erstwhile Pakistan, as also in the so-called Naya Pakistan. However, beyond the deserved condemnation for its nefarious and historical terror support, Pakistan has been contextualised creatively to retrofit into virtually every possible argument concerning administrative decisions or indecisions. From arguing for or against issues like demonetisation, award-wapsi to questioning civil liberties the Damocles sword of a potential threat to banish to Pakistan has become a ready riposte. Even the main Opposition partys manifesto has been described as a planning document of Pa kistans conspiracy. The parallel linking of the morale of our forces, along with the metaphor of Pakistan, further nails the muscularity, efficacy and stridency of the political pitch that naturally evokes passionate traction from the electorate, when conjoined. So, in the midst and throes of the ensuing electoral frenzy and counter-accusations, Pakistan has emerged as a powerful and pithy symbol of political galvanisation that is beyond questioning. While our bloody and unsettled history with Pakistan is both a reality and a threat in terms of our future security concerns and geopolitical and geostrategic implications, the expanded societal context of Pakistan as the preferred destination, idyll or idea for all those who disagree with partisan thought, however unrelated to Pakistan, is a great disservice to the democratic traditions, liberality and intellect of debate in India. This simplistic and instinctive threat has evolved to a level where Pakistan is auto-evoked at the drop of a hat, in case of any contrarian opinion to the ruling side of the day. The threats are particularly severe for any dissenting voices from the minority community as co-religiosity becomes the insidious rationale for accusations sadly ignoring the fact that the proud Indian Musl im had vehemently rejected the flawed idea of Pakistan in 1947 and chose to repose their faith in the idea, profundity and secularity of Mahatma Gandhis India. Pakistan also has immense distractive value, as indeed unifying abilities as the sentiments against the said country justifiably cut across the length and breadth of the country, especially after the Pulwama attack and the Balakot airstrikes. Electoral speeches across the country are not focusing on the enormity of the debilitating agrarian crisis, nor the crippling aftereffects of the job losses, nor about the dangerously escalating polarisation levels in society it is only referencing the constituents towards Pakistan, along with all its implied and extended allusions. In the face of its obviously emotive powers, the Opposition is falling short of connecting with constituents with its proposed agenda of socio-economic transformation, without the crucial hook of an enemy. Postured revisionism is a powerful tactic during the electoral heat and any talk like reforms by repealing the sedition law or Afspa the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, in force in J&K and parts of the Northeast is easy fodder for right-wing strategists who can position the same as an abject surrender, never mind the fact that Afspa has actually been withdrawn from multiple states in the Northeast by the present government itself. The shallowest instincts of political honesty are at play during the run-up to the elections herein the truth is usually the first casualty, and anything goes, as long as the overall narrative is able to seduce the required number of votes towards a partisan purpose. Pakistan was, is and will, unfortunately, remain an enemy state in all likelihood that needs to be accounted into our sovereign calculus however the proportion, tenor and context that we attribute to it will reflect our own political maturity, sobriety and morality. The toxic winner-takes-it-all approach may warrant a hate campaign for electoral purposes, but it also diminishes the national profundity and constitutionality that has been maintained from the Nehruvian times till the era of Inder Kumar Gujral, Atal Behari Vajpayee and Dr Manmohan Singh, where the balance, irrespective of electoral temptations, was never lost. Former Prime Minister Vajpayee had famously written in the visitors book at the Minar-e-Pakistan: A strong and stable Pakistan is in Indias best interest, along with wishing it the best. Vajpayees visionary statesmanship and balanced conduct had elevated the high moral ground for India, as suggested in the reciprocal accolade from a former Pakistani minister, Mushahid Hussain, who noted: While other Indian leaders have talked of peace, but only Vajpayee had the vision, will and moral courage to walk the talk; he realised that after the 1998 nuclear tests both Pakistan and India needed a fresh start based on new ground realities, including paying homage at the Minar-e-Pakistan. Decency, decorum and dignity were natural instincts for someone like Vajpayee, who incidentally was also behind the success of the Kargil War and the 1998 nuclear tests, without any unnecessary sabre-rattling or name-calling that lowers the discourse. The writer is a retired lieutenant-general and a former lieutenant-governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry Tokyo: Japan's Supreme Court has turned down an appeal by the lawyers for Nissan's former Chairman Carlos Ghosn to end his detention following his arrest for the fourth time on financial misconduct allegations. The court decision came Friday, and was relayed to foreign media on Monday. Ghosn was arrested in November and released on bail last month, but was arrested again on April 4. He's been charged with falsifying financial documents in under-reporting his retirement compensation and with breach of trust in dubious payments. He says he's innocent, noting that the compensation was never decided and claiming the payments were legitimate. His detention has been approved through April 22, but can be extended. It's unclear when his trial will start. Long detentions and multiple arrests are routine in Japan, but rearresting a person who cleared bail, as Ghosn did, is unusual. Ghosn led Nissan for two decades, rescuing it from the brink of bankruptcy. Shareholders voted him off the company's board last week. In a video released by his lawyers before his latest arrest, Ghosn said some executives plotted against him in what he called a "conspiracy" over unfounded fears about losing Nissan's autonomy to alliance partner Renault SA of France. This undated photo released by International Committee of the Red Cross, the organization's New Zealand nurse Louisa Akavi. (Photo:AP) Geneva: A New Zealand nurse believed abducted with two drivers by ISIS terrorists in Syria in 2013 may still be alive, the International Committee of the Red Cross has revealed for the first time in an appeal for news of her whereabouts. Louisa Akavi was snatched along with Syrian drivers Alaa Rajab and Nabil Bakdounes while travelling in a Red Cross convoy delivering supplies to Idlib, in the northwest of the country. Armed men stopped their convoy on October 13, 2013, and abducted seven people, four of whom were released the following day. The ICRC said it believed they were abducted by ISIS. "Our latest credible information indicates that Louisa was alive in late 2018," the group said Sunday in a statement from Geneva. "The ICRC has never been able to learn more details about Alaa and Nabil, and their fate is not known." New Zealand said it disagreed with making the abduction public but did confirm it had dispatched a special forces unit to Syria to search for Akavi. "This has involved members of the NZDF (New Zealand defence force) drawn from the Special Operations Force, and personnel have visited Syria from time to time as required," New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters said Monday. "This non-combat team was specifically focused on locating Louisa and identifying opportunities to recover her. "The efforts to locate and recover Louisa are ongoing, and there are a number of operational or intelligence matters the government won't be commenting on," he said. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expressed disappointment at the information released by the ICRC and refused to answer questions at her weekly press conference on Monday. "It absolutely remains the government's view that it would be preferable if this case was not in the public domain," she said. Peters said information about the kidnapping had not been previously released for fear that any publicity would place the hostages at greater risk, and New Zealand media outlets which knew Akavi had been taken hostage agreed not to publish the story. "In these situations the priority must be the safety of the hostage and we received clear advice that any publicity would place Louisa at even greater risk," Peters said. "The government is very grateful for the cooperation of media outlets over many years in respecting this advice and undertaking not to publish ... and we thank them for their principled approach." ICRC operations director Dominik Stillhart said it was an "extremely difficult time" for the families of the three. "Louisa is a true and compassionate humanitarian. Alaa and Nabil were committed colleagues and an integral part of our aid deliveries. "We call on anyone with information to please come forward. If our colleagues are still being held, we call for their immediate and unconditional release." Akavi had carried out 17 field missions with the ICRC and the New Zealand Red Cross, the statement said. Rajab and Bakdounes were "dedicated husbands and caring fathers", it added. A spokesman for Akavi's family, Tuaine Robati, said she knew the dangers she faced. "She's been through tough times in her job before but she's stuck at it because she loves it," he said. "Louisa is an incredibly experienced nurse and aid worker who knew the risks of her job. Our family misses her very much and is concerned for her safety." The war in Syria, which began in 2011, has claimed more than 370,000 lives and forced millions of people to flee their homes. The Kurdish-led SDF, backed by a US-led coalition, captured the last IS bastion in eastern Syria on March 23, and had detained thousands of suspected IS fighters. But this could make it more difficult to find Akavi. The New York Times has reported the Red Cross has reason to believe she is alive, because at least two people described seeing her in December at a clinic in Sousa, one of the final villages to be held by IS jihadists. "We are speaking out today to publicly honour and acknowledge Louisa's, Alaa's, and Nabil's hardship and suffering," the ICRC statement said. The organisation has 98 foreign workers and 580 Syrians working in the country. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights accuses IS of abducting thousands of people since 2014. Investigation has also revealed that Himansky had been arrested in his own country in 2000 for a paedophilia-related crime. (Representational Photo) Kathmandu: A 69-year-old French national has been arrested here for allegedly sexually abusing two teenage boys by luring them in the pretext of offering money, police said. Acting on a tip-off, the police arrested Georges Igor Himansky with his victims, aged 14 and 15, from Kathmandu's Thamel area on Friday. "The police has filed a case on unnatural sex and child sex abuse against the French man at Kathmandu District Court," a statement issued by the Nepal police said. Himansky had been feeding his perverse fantasies involving young boys for years by presenting himself as a benevolent foreigner who helped children from the street and from poor economic background, an investigator was quoted as saying by the Kathmandu Post. Investigation has also revealed that Himansky had been arrested in his own country in 2000 for a paedophilia-related crime. Himansky is the third French paedophile arrested in Nepal this year. Police had arrested two French men for sexually abusing children from Kathmandu in July, the paper reported. Traveller and explorer Josh Gates thirst for adventure has taken him across the globe. He has been a part of some of the worlds most deadliest adventures. Josh has now embarked on an archaeological journey in Expedition Unknown: Egypt Live to uncover a 2,000-year-old cemetery and open a sarcophagus in Egypt. Airing on Discovery Channel and Discovery HD World, this show, will take viewers across the world to the ancient necropolis of Minya and into some of Earths greatest mysteries. Josh talks to Metrolife about the series, how it all began and more. Which was your most adventurous trail in this series and why? Some of our biggest adventures have been the most difficult. In our upcoming season were going to take a trip to the wilderness of Siberia, and travelling to Siberia in the winter is really challenging. It is more challenging when you bring television cameras along. We are also heading to the Middle East doing an expedition, looking for dead sea squirrels. We have done some big dives this season looking for lost World War II piolets of the coast of California and looking for a missing shipwreck in the Great Lakes and a lot of those trips require a lot of technology. What made you choose a cemetery for exploration? Egypt is the place to go to if you hold a deep interest in archaeology and exploration. Ancient Egypt is one of the grandest and longest empires in history. I think it has an incredible culture incredible art and literature. This is the golden age of archaeology in Egypt with all sorts of science, so this was really the perfect place for a live show and for expedition unknown because its a place where real discoveries are being made right now. What was the most startling revelation in Egypt? One of the great things about a live show is that its truly unpredictable and you dont know whats going to happen there yet. Ive done other shows in Egypt before and whats so startling to me is that there is so much left to find. How did your trekking and scuba diving experience help in covering this series? Its been a huge help. Obviously, the shows can be very difficult. We have to go to remote places. To have a background of trekking and hiking and being outdoor is usually helpful. It is the same with scuba diving because some of the real discoveries in archeology that are being done now are found worlds ocean. What is the driving force behind your challenging expeditions? My real passion is to take our viewers around the world to expose them to adventure explorations and give them a peek into history. The live show will be an expression of that. Having people along with us for the ride in the ancient Egyptian tomb is really exciting. I think its going to make them really feel like they are the part of the expedition. Has your childhood helped in fuelling your adventurous spirit? My father was a deep-sea diver. He was always working in faraway places and coming home from exotic locations. My mother is British, so we would travel a lot to England. From an early age, I was very excited about the idea that the world is a big dynamic place. So from an early age to be able to travel as much as I did and to be able to have a perception of a bigger world out there, fuelled my imagination and got me excited about the idea of exploration from an early age. Terming Prime Minister Narendra Modi a tyrannical ruler regional National Conference leader and former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah Monday said if his family wanted to break India, there would have been no India. Even if Modi tries his best, he will not be able to break India. I want to tell him from here today that you will break, but India will not. You accuse the Abdullahs of trying to break India, if we wanted to break India, there would have been no India then, he said while addressing an election rally at Sher-e-Kashmir park, near city center Lal Chowk, here. Abdullah was responding to Modi Sunday speech where he accused Abdullahs and Muftis were trying to break the country, saying the two families ruined three generations of Jammu and Kashmir and he will not allow them to divide India. Hitting back at the prime minister, the NC chief said, Modi should remember that it was him (Abdullah) who held the country's flag when no one wanted to fight elections in the state in 1996. There was no one here then, but now you scream. Two days back, Abdullah had alleged Modi was behaving like German dictator Adolf Hitler. Referring to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's statement that the Centre would make a stronger sedition law, the former CM said, We will see what you will do but Modi and the BJP cannot win the hearts of Kashmiris. Modi has been parroting that Kashmir is the Atoot Ang (integral part) of the country, then why didnt he address any public meet here in Kashmir? What barred him from doing that? Abdullah asked. On one hand, he parrots about winning hearts and minds of Kashmiri, but there is a world of difference between his actions and statements. How can the heart be won by banning highways? This is not the way to won hearts, he added Abdullah, also a three-time former CM of J&K, alleged that Modi and BJP president Amit Shah were destroying the country. Which leader fought the British when General Dyer killed people at Jalianwala Bagh? He was Saifuddin Kitchloo, a Kashmiri from Baramulla. And hundreds of those killed there were from Kashmir, he said. The National Investigation Agency (NIA), probing terror funding to Kashmiri separatists and militants, has issued a second notice to Naeem Geelani elder son of Hurriyat hawk Syed Ali Geelani asking him to attend the agencys Delhi headquarters for questioning. This is the second time in a week that junior Geelani has been summoned by the NIA to Delhi. Earlier, he had been asked to appear before the probe agency on 9 in Delhi. He has been summoned again on April 22 in case no. NIA crime no. RC- 10/2017/NIA/DLI. Naeem, a doctor by profession, is presently posted at JLNM hospital Srinagar and is under the NIA scanner for alleged terror funding. He along with his wife and two children came back from Pakistan in November 2010 after living in the neighbouring country for nearly 10 years. He had reportedly suffered a massive heart attack in 2009 and was operated upon in Islamabad. Geelanis younger son Naseem, who works at an agricultural university in Srinagar, has also been questioned by the NIA several times in the terror funding case. Both the brothers are on the NIA radar in connection with the premier probe agency's 30 May 2017 case registered against Kashmiri separatists for allegedly conniving with Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, and others to raise and receive funds to create unrest in the valley. The anti-terror probe agency is investigating a case related to terror funding in Kashmir through hawala channels. The agency carried out a series of raids on separatists in February. The agency claimed to have recovered several incriminating documents, including letterheads of different terrorist organisations as well as high-end communication systems, during the raids. The NIA has arrested nearly a dozen people, including seven separatist leaders, a high-profile businessman and a son of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir based Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief Syed Salah-Ud-Din. The separatists while responding to NIA raids, allege New Delhi is frustrated to the extent that they frame and arrest the pro-freedom leaders and activists on the pre-planned psychological crackdown so that they surrender and stop voicing the sentiments of their nation. They claimed that the raids being conducted by NIA and the hype and sensationalism around it just goes on to show the desperate attempt by the government of India to vilify and discredit the leadership and in turn discredit the people's freedom movement. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party chief N Chandrababu Naidu said the Election Commission has to answer voters on the doubts raised against the functioning of EVMs. He said Opposition parties are going to prepare an action plan to launch a people's agitation against the attitude of Election Commission. Terming it a democratic compulsion, the chief minister wanted to know the objection of the Election Commission to count 50% of VVPAT slips. Speaking to journalists in Amaravati on Monday after returning from New Delhi, Naidu said when he raised doubts over the functioning of EVMs, some people alleged that he launched the protest fearing defeat. "There is an undercurrent and the TDP will win 150 seats. People came forward to exercise their franchise to protect the democratic system," Naidu said, brushing aside apprehensions that he might lose the elections. He said he is going to visit all the states and address meetings over the failure of EVMs and Election commission. He asked whether the Model Code of Conduct doesn't apply to Narendra Modi. Naidu said he holds no grudge against the Election Commission and is objecting to the way the elections are being conducted. He said that out of 191 countries, only 18 countries have adopted EVMs for polls. He said EVMs can be manipulated by several means as the technology has not been updated. He said there is no provision for any audit of EVMs either for the software or the hardware. "25 lakh voters were deleted online from the voter list in Telangana; the state Chief Electoral Officer said sorry after reports of mismatch between votes polled and votes counted in Telangana," Naidu said. He said the Andhra Pradesh CEO himself has failed to exercise his franchise due to the non-functioning of EVMs. The EC deprived voters of their right to vote due to the deletion of votes in Andhra Pradesh, he said. The chief minister said the Supreme Court passed a judgment in April 2019 on the counting of VVPAT slips, asking if the number of machines which are subjected to the verification of paper trial can be increased to a reasonable number. He said that during the recent Lok Sabha polls, VVPAT slips were shown only for 3 seconds instead of 7 seconds, as instructed by the Election commission. Union minister Maneka Gandhis remarks about her future relationship with her electors are not only a violation of the model code of conduct but a reflection of the true nature of politics imagined and practised by her and many other politicians. Usually, candidates request voters to support and vote for them. But Maneka has resorted to threatening them, that too clearly targeting voters of one religion. She has warned Muslims that not voting for her would have consequences for them. She is the BJPs candidate from the Sultanpur constituency in UP, which her son Varun Gandhi has represented till now. She made the controversial remarks at a meeting of Muslim voters in the constituency. Varun Gandhi had also made some extremely hateful and vicious comments against Muslims some years ago during his election campaign. With her remarks, Maneka has shown that she is not different from many other leaders in her party who thrive on making minorities in the country feel like lesser citizens and unsafe. The Election Commission has issued her a notice for violation of the model code of conduct. The minister indeed seemed to be intimidating voters. She said that she would win the election in any case, but it would not feel good if the victory came without Muslims support. But if they dont vote for her, she told them, she would not be inclined to help them after the election if they approached her with a request. She made that very clear: Ill think, let it (any Muslim request) be, how does it matter? Its all give and take. This is a warning made from a public platform by a public servant who has taken an oath of office to discharge her duties without fear or favour and not to discriminate between citizens. She has violated not only the election code but also her oath of office. She should be debarred from election. Maneka Gandhi has made it as plain and simple as it can be. When she said she would win with the support of the people but that she wants Muslims also to support her, the implication is that Muslims are different from the people, and are other than them. Society for her consists of the people and then the Muslims. Her idea of politics is transactional. She will help those who vote for her and will not consider herself as the representative of all voters in her constituency, which is the democratic norm. She is not Gandhis child, and does not believe in living by the Mahatma principles, she said. This is an insult to Gandhi, from a person sharing that surname by dint of circumstance. A man who is a native of Surathkal has deserted his well-paid job at Sydney Airport for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Sudheendra Hebbar, 41, is a great follower of Modi. An MBA degree-holder, Hebbar was serving as screening officer at the airport. He had taken leave from April 5 to 12 to visit his native place. The Lok Sabha election in Dakshina Kannada constituency will be held on April 18. As he could not extend his leave, Hebbar has resigned from his job. Hebbar explained, I had left for Australia after exercising my franchise on April 17, 2014. I wished to exercise my franchise this year as well. My name, however, had been deleted from the electoral list. Hence, I had visited my native place, availing of leave for 21 days in January to register my name in the voters list. Further, he said, I had received leave between April 5 and 12. Owing to Easter and Ramzan, my leave was not extended. When my leave was not sanctioned, I sent my resignation letter. Had I asked for leave to exercise my franchise, I would have been granted leave, but I also wanted to be a part of the Vijayotsava after the election. Hebbar said, It is not difficult to search for another job. Hebbar has been a part of the BJPs campaign in Mangaluru. He has been engaged in publicity-related activities at the BJP election office as well. Modi has increased the image of India across the world. I wish Modi to be re-elected as prime minister of India, he said. Hebbars wife is a resident of Fiji. MEDIA COURTHOUSE Two people identifying as Moorish American Nationals have been held over for trial on charges including risking a catastrophe for allegedly powering an Upper Darby twin home with a generator, propane tank and car batteries. Sharon Gale, also known as Sharon Tracey Gale Bey, 43, the former homeowner of the residence, and Decorey Pitts, also known as Decorey Pitts El, 41, represented themselves at a preliminary hearing before Magisterial District Judge Ann Berardocco Friday. Attorney Taylor Dunn said both had declined representation from the Delaware County Public Defenders office. Gale and Pitts were arrested March 25 as part of an eviction action carried out by Delaware County sheriffs deputies and Upper Darby police. Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said Friday that Pitts and Gale each had five traffic citations that they failed to pay or appear in court for, which served as the initial warrant. While searching the house, Chitwood said the batteries, propane tank and generator were discovered. A fully loaded 12-gauge shotgun was also recovered from the bedroom where the defendants were found, according to Chief Deputy Sheriff Michael Donohue. Three minors a teenager and two younger children were also removed from the house by CYS and taken to a hospital before being placed with family members, Chitwood said. According to a release from Delaware County Sheriff Jerry L. Sanders Jr., Gale defaulted on her home loan and the property was sold back to the bank at a Sheriffs sale in September 2017. At that time, Gale and Pitts became unlawful occupants, according to the release. The bank started an initial eviction process in January 2018, but that was stayed after an investment company paid off the bank loan, according to the release. The investment company started its own eviction process in December 2018 and an eviction was due to take place in January. After Gale and Pitts were denied an emergency stay, Gale allegedly used social media to rally approximately 30 supporters to the house on the scheduled eviction date to thwart deputies from entering the premises, the release states. The Sheriffs office and Upper Darby Police Department agreed that it was best to postpone the eviction to avoid a conflict. When deputies and police returned early March 25, said they came with a SWAT team, fire department, emergency medical services, and Children and Youth Services. Pitts and Gale were taken into custody on the traffic warrants and later charged with the more serious offenses after officers discovered the allegedly dangerous electrical engineering inside the house. Neither of the defendants recognized the authority or jurisdiction of the court Friday and repeatedly demanded that the charges be dismissed. Gale also refused multiple times to be addressed by any name other than Sharon Tracey Gale Bey and was unresponsive to many of the judges questions during the hearing. Im not Sharon Gale, Im Sharon Tracey Gale Bey, Moorish American National, and Im not under the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or the Upper Darby Police Department, she said. Im an heir. I am a Moorish American National heir to the estate and youre an immigrant from Great Britain. Assistant District Attorney Heather Hayes solicited testimony from Chitwood, Donohue and Upper Darby Deputy Fire Chief James Johnson, who identified several potentially dangerous scenarios involving wiring in the North Harwood Avenue home. Johnson said an electrical panel cover had been removed, exposing an area that could cause electrocution if touched. There were also a number of batteries throughout the house hooked together in tandem with power inverters to supply electricity, he said, and what appeared to be gallon milk jugs full of gasoline in the garage. Donohue also noted Pitts is a convicted felon, having pleaded guilty to robbery in 2004, and is therefore ineligible to possess a firearm. Berardocco held Bey on all 14 charges against her, including felony counts of endangering the lives of children, risking a catastrophe and conspiracy. Pitts was also held on 14 similar charges, as well as one count of possessing a firearm prohibited. Bail for Gale remained at 10 percent of $50,000, while Pitts has monetary bail of $250,000. The judge denied motions from both defendants to alter bail and included release conditions that they must provide a confirmed address and stay one block from the former residence. Formal arraignment is scheduled for May 8. CHESTER On Friday, a group of male students at Widener University found out what most women already know. Its not so easy to walk in high-heeled shoes. A group of 75 students took part in Walk-a-Mile in Her Shoes, an international mens march aimed at highlighting the causes, effects and remediation to mens sexualized violence against women. The event hopes to raise awareness about the seriousness of rape, sexual assault and gender violence. This is the fourth year students took part in the program which encourages men to have an impact, while walking or hobbling around the campus in high-heeled shoes, something women do everyday. One of the speakers was Erica Webster, a former MP in the U.S. Army and founder and CEO of Dub Fitness, a womens fitness center in King of Prussia. She expressed her sympathy for the men as they prepared for the walk. I wont make you stand there in those heels, women feel that pain every day, Webster said. I was a former MP and when they had incidents of sexual assault, what the woman was wearing was not important. Im proud to be represented by someone like you that will help diminish the stigma of sexual asset and harassment, Webster said. Webster sits on the board of directors of the Greater Philadelphia Veterans Network and consults with local businesses on employee health and wellness, womens empowerment in the workplace, and leadership development. She called to on students to find empathy for women issues and to recruit more people to be aware of these concerns. Im having trouble on uneven pavement. I have to think about every step,what foot goes where, said Mark Simunov, a sophomore from Glen Mills who was one of those taking part. I cant imagine going out in them at night. Simunov said he was proud that the all male organizations on the Widener campus were taking part in the walk. One passing student, not taking part in the walk commented that the group sounded like a stable of horses. Im not used to the pressure on my toes and calves, said sophomore Joe Caromano of Collegeville as he limped along using a rail to steady him. It hurts. The Interfraternity Council, in collaboration with the Office of Student Life, Pride Recreation Center, College Panhellenic Council, Intercultural Greek Council, Club Sports, and the Title IX Office, hosted the annual walk. SALT LAKE CITY For Utahns who aren't already involved in party politics, it's easy to miss the heated races underway for the leadership of both the state Republican and Democratic parties. It's party delegates, not voters, who'll determine the direction of Utah's two major political parties heading into a presidential election year by choosing among candidates for chairman and other top leadership spots. Those decisions will be made at the upcoming annual state party conventions, on May 4 at Utah Valley University for Republicans, and on June 22 at Park City High School for Democrats. Utah GOP Chairman Rob Anderson is not seeking a second term after two years of bitter intraparty fighting over a controversial law known as SB54 that allows candidates a signature-gathering alternative to the traditional nomination process. Democrats have their own issues, with Utah Democratic Party Chairwoman Daisy Thomas running for a second term but no longer being paid as of last Tuesday while another candidate dropped out of the race. The internal splits in both parties is affecting everything from fundraising to candidate recruiting just as Utah voters are beginning to start focusing on the 2020 elections driven by an already contentious presidential race. It remains to be seen whether the results of the party chairman elections will resolve the problems plaguing both Republicans and Democrats in Utah or just reinforce the differences among activists on the right and left. In the Utah GOP, even after a vocal faction lost a bid earlier this year to get the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their challenge to SB54, they censured Anderson for not agreeing with a directive to bar some Republicans from taking that alternative. Now, Phill Wright, a leader of the effort against the law as a member of the powerful State Central Committee, is running to replace Anderson after losing the chairman's race to him two years ago. So is former state lawmaker Derek Brown, who has served as Sen. Mike Lee's deputy chief of staff and is now an attorney for technology companies on issues involving the government. Wright, vice president of government affairs for Entrata, a Lehi technology company, is campaigning on his experience in party leadership, including as head of the state's delegation to the 2016 Republican National Convention. The Utah GOP has relied on Entrata CEO Dave Bateman to cover the costs of the SB54 lawsuit, but Wright said if he is elected chairman, he would turn to the party's grassroots for support. "I have nothing to apologize for," Wright said of the SB54 fight that helped drive the party into debt, describing it as being about "defending the constitutional rights of our party, defending our delegates" and the Utahns who choose them. Brown is seen as the favorite of party insiders and said he's heard from hundreds of people who "question why in the world a sane person would do it and then they follow up by asking what they can do to help." He said this is the time for the Utah Republican Party to come together and focus on strengthening the traditional caucus and convention system for nominating candidates and leave any changes up to the Legislature. "I acknowledge that SB54 is obviously the current law, but I think as a party it's important in light of where that is now to look forward not backward. I believe that's what the party needs to do," Brown said. He said among Republicans, "there's been a lot of talk through the years about uniting, but we're at a critical crossroads in the party right now that requires a chairman who can bring the differing factions together." Wright said he believes the Utah GOP is already strong. "Every deliberative body has disagreement and discussion. That's healthy," he said. "It does not mean that the party is fractured. I reject the idea that the party's fractured. I think our party is very united." Brown said delegates are telling him that with the SB54 lawsuit over, it's time to pull the party together and win elections. "I think the days of us winning based on our sheer numbers are about to come to an end," Brown said, as they have in other Western states once dominated by the GOP. "That's fundamentally what I want Republicans to think about." Besides Wright and Brown, who briefly considered a run for party chairman in 2017, the other candidates for Utah Republican Party chairman are Chadwick H. Fairbanks III and Sylvia Miera-Fisk. There are six candidates for the Utah Democratic Party chairmanship, including Thomas, after Salt Lake County Democratic Party Chairman Q. Dang left the race Thursday. "I just think the timing is wrong for me," Dang said. He cited the need for "a new set of fresh eyes" to deal with the state party's debt and its leaders no longer being paid. Thomas declined to discuss her salary being cut off but said she believes "the Utah Democratic Party stands firm that people should be fairly compensated for their labor." She said she's running again "mostly because we are in the middle of planning for 2020. There's just so much work that needs to happen this year" to help Democrats win in the next general election. The Legislature's decision to fund a presidential primary election on Super Tuesday means "rainbows and unicorns" for Democrats, Thomas has said, because it'll boost enthusiasm in a party that holds only limited elected offices in the state. Wayne Holland, a three-term Utah Democratic Party chairman from 2005 to 2011, said he decided to get in the race because "it's been hard to watch what's happening in the party." Now the western political director for the United Steel Workers union, Holland said he's ready to bring back the "blue collar folk" who've strayed from the party to vote for President Donald Trump and other Republicans. Holland describes himself as a "pragmatic progressive" and was a superdelegate for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential race. Sanders, a Democratic socialist, was the big winner in Utah's presidential caucus vote that year. Thomas, a top Sanders organizer in Utah, said she doesn't believe the party is as divided as it once was, between progressive and more centrist Democrats. What's needed, she said, is to raise the public's comfort level with the party. Especially in rural parts of Utah, "people don't want to claim to be Democrats. They don't feel they can affiliate with the Democratic Party for any reason," Thomas said. "That's a sad reality. There's no reason to be ashamed of being a Democrat." In addition to Thomas and Holland, Robert Comstock, Kathie Darby, Jeff Merchant and Becky Moss are competing at the state convention for the Democratic Party chairman post. Rob Miller, who served as party vice chairman under Holland, briefly campaigned. In 2017, Miller withdrew from the chairman's race and left the Democratic Party amid allegations of sexual misconduct that he denied. PARADISE, Calif. The sky was turning orange and the embers were flying from the Camp Fire when Oney and Donna Carrell and Donna's father sped away from their Paradise home. "I thought, 'Oh, well, the house is done,'" Oney Carrell said. A few days later, they learned otherwise. The Carrells' home survived the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history with a couple of warped window frames, a partially charred down spout and a stubborn smoky smell inside. Most of their neighborhood was destroyed. A guest house in their backyard, where Donna's father lived, was reduced to ashes, along with a couple of sheds. Yet their beautifully restored 1940 Studebaker sat untouched in the garage. The arc of destruction the Camp Fire carved through Paradise was seemingly random: Why were some houses saved and others incinerated? As millions of Californians brace for another wildfire season, a McClatchy analysis of fire and property records shows the answer might be found in something as simple as the roofs over their heads and the year their house was built. A landmark 2008 building code designed for California's fire-prone regions requiring fire-resistant roofs, siding and other safeguards appears to have protected the Carrells' home and dozens of others like it from the Camp Fire. That year marks a pivotal moment in the state's deadly and expensive history of destructive natural disasters. All told, about 51 percent of the 350 single-family homes built after 2008 in the path of the Camp Fire were undamaged, according to McClatchy's analysis of Cal Fire data and Butte County property records. By contrast, only 18 percent of the 12,100 homes built prior to 2008 escaped damage. Those figures don't include mobile homes, which burned in nearly equal measure regardless of age. "These are great standards; they work," said senior engineer Robert Raymer of the California Building Industry Association, who consulted with state officials on the building code. Yet despite this lesson, California may end up falling short in its effort to protect homes from the next wildfire. Mushrooming cities such as Folsom, where an 11,000-home development is springing up, have the ability to bypass the state's safety standards in spite of considerable fire risks. The state, which offers cash incentives to bolster old homes against earthquakes, so far has done nothing to get Californians to retrofit homes built before 2008 for fire safety. It hasn't helped that housing construction went into a deep dive in 2008 and has been slow to recover. Raymer said only 860,000 homes and apartments have been built statewide since the code went into effect. That's just 6 percent of the state's housing stock. According to Cal Fire, as many as 3 million homes lie within the various "fire hazard severity zones" around the state. Dave Sapsis, a Cal Fire wildland fire scientist, said there's no way to know definitively how many of those homes were built before 2008, but he believes "it's the preponderance of them, the majority." The situation is worse in rural California, where housing construction lags but the fire hazards are among the worst in the state, Raymer said. Fewer than 3 percent of the homes in the path of the Camp Fire were built after 2008. "Most of our inventory that was here prior to the fire was (built) between the '40s and the '70s," said Paradise Town Councilman Michael Zuccolillo, a real estate agent. "The average home here was from the '70s." That leaves thousands of homes at risk from the next inferno across California, their wood-shake shingles waiting to ignite. "What are we going to do about the existing housing stock that's been built in these places?" said Max Moritz, a wildfire specialist at UC Santa Barbara. "For the existing housing stock that's out there, that isn't built to these codes, we have a massive retrofitting issue on our hands. They have structure ignition vulnerabilities that are built into the situation, they're baked into the problem." 'The weakest link' The Carrells, now living in a rental in Roseville, designed their Paradise home and did much of the interior work themselves; they knew that home was built with fire safety in mind. "I knew we were in the middle of the forest," Oney Carrell said during a recent visit to Paradise. "Why wouldn't you do everything you could to make it last?" But even he's amazed that their home made it. Stepping over a blackened patio drain just a few feet from the back of the house, he wondered aloud: "I don't know why it stopped here." It's almost impossible to say for certain why some homes are still standing in Paradise, while others were ruined. Landscaping surely played a role ; fire experts say homes buffered by so-called "defensible space" probably did better than those wrapped in shrubs. Luck was a big factor, too, as homes were no doubt spared by last-second shifts in the winds. Nevertheless, experts say, McClatchy's analysis reinforces their belief that California's fire-safe building code can make a difference in an era of increasing vulnerability. Daniel Gorham, a former firefighter and U.S. Forest Service researcher who works for the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety in South Carolina, said the California code is becoming a model for other fire-prone states. "California is leaps and bounds ahead of other parts of the country," Gorham said. "California is on the forefront." Advocates say fire-resistant building materials aren't particularly expensive. A study last fall by Headwater Economics, a consulting firm in Bozeman, Mont., found that "a new home built to wildfire-resistant codes can be constructed for roughly the same cost as a typical home." But getting Californians to retrofit homes built before 2008 is an enormous task. The state requires property owners in fire zones who replace at least half their roof to install "fire-retardant" materials on the entire roof. Other than that, however, there's nothing forcing Californians to safeguard their existing homes against fire hazards. A few California cities have taken matters into their own hands. In 2008, the City Council in Big Bear Lake, a community of 5,200 in San Bernardino County, passed an ordinance declaring wood shake shingle roofs "a severe fire hazard and danger" and ordered homeowners to replace them by 2012. Armed with state and federal grants, it offered cash incentives of up to $4,500 apiece for new roofs. Although the grant program has run out, "I can't think of the last time I saw a shake roof in Big Bear," said Patrick Johnston, the city's chief building official. Most Californians, however, are on their own when it comes to spending the tens of thousands of dollars needed to replace a roof or install fire-resistant siding. The state offers no financial incentives for fire safety the way it does, say, for earthquakes homeowners in quake zones can get up to $3,000 apiece from the state to gird their homes against seismic disaster. There are signs, however, that the state is beginning to get more serious about retrofitting homes for fire safety. A law signed last year by former Gov. Jerry Brown requires the state fire marshal to develop a suggested list of "low-cost retrofits" by January 2020. The state would then promote these retrofits in its education and outreach efforts. California also might start throwing cash at the problem. A new bill, AB 38, introduced earlier this year by Democratic Assemblyman Jim Wood of Santa Rosa, would create a $1 billion "fire hardened homes revolving loan fund" to help homeowners retrofit their properties. The issue is personal for Wood, a dentist who spent weeks helping identify victims from the Camp Fire and the wine country fires of October 2017. Although eligibility terms haven't been spelled out, the bill would offer low-interest and no-interest loans to help those who otherwise couldn't pay for new roofs or other safeguards. "A lot of these small towns are not as well off financially," he said. "We need to find a way to help them, especially if they're poorer." The fund might not be nearly enough to go around not with hundreds of thousands of homes in need of retrofits, and a new roof alone costing $10,000 or more. "The $1 billion, indeed, that's not enough to rehab every home," said the Building Industry Association's Raymer. But he said it's "an absolutely excellent way to kick things off." Wood said state officials would have to figure out a plan for parceling out the money to where it's needed most probably starting with lower-income areas near forests. "Obviously we want to affect the areas with the highest risk first," the assemblyman said. "A lot of these small towns are not as well off financially. We need to find a way to help them, especially if they're poorer." Mapping dangers The fire-safe building code had its origins in two significant fires from a generation ago the Panorama Fire of 1980, which spilled out of the mountains into the city of San Bernardino; and the monstrous Oakland Hills Fire of 1991, which wiped out 2,500 homes and killed 25 people. In response, the Legislature ordered the Department of Fire Protection and Forestry to start mapping major fire risks in California, in the hinterlands as well as urban areas. The result was a collection of maps of the state's "fire hazard severity zones," encompassing more than one-third of California's land mass. Based on factors such as terrain, vegetation and weather patterns, the zones represent Cal Fire's attempt to predict the probability of a fire starting and the likelihood that it could become significant, said Cal Fire's Sapsis. The maps spawned tighter building standards. The Legislature mandated fire-resistant roofs in these fire-prone areas. Then in 2008 the state laid out a more comprehensive scheme. The California Building Standards Commission rolled out a suite of regulations, known as Chapter 7A, that set strict rules for roofing materials, siding, windows, decks and other elements of a home built in 2008 or later right down to the minimum specs for the wire mesh that must be installed on attic vents to keep embers out (no more than a quarter-inch of space between the wires). Experts said the regulations seem to be particularly effective at protecting structures from the types of wildfires that are increasingly common in California, where wind gusts can blow embers a mile or two ahead of the main wall of flames and do some of the worst damage. "A window breaks, a vent breaks, the fire gets into your home and you've got an interior structure fire," said Joe Poire, the city of Santa Barbara's fire marshal. Enforcement of the building code carries a few wrinkles. In the mainly rural areas where Cal Fire is in charge of fire protection, the Chapter 7A code is automatically enforced in any region that Cal Fire has designated as a "severity zone" moderate, high or very high. In urban areas that have their own fire departments, the code is generally used only in spots where Cal Fire says the threat is very high. Local governments have the discretion of rejecting the Cal Fire designation, and Sapsis said some city councils have been squeamish about the state's maps because of fears that the Chapter 7A code will inflate construction costs, or for other reasons. Yet interviews with local officials throughout California by McClatchy indicate that the vast majority of cities and towns go along with Cal Fire's recommendations. Santa Barbara city officials extended the building code to coastal areas that had been overlooked by Cal Fire's mappers. The map omits small portions of Paradise, but the building code is enforced across the entire town, said Paradise public information officer Colette Curtis. Other zones Nevertheless, there are places where local officials are reluctant to impose strict building codes even where fire has caused catastrophe. Before Paradise exploded, Santa Rosa's Coffey Park was the poster child for recent California wildfire disasters: Five people died and 1,321 homes were destroyed by the Tubbs Fire in October 2017. Coffey Park wasn't subject to California's Chapter 7A building code. It still isn't. Unlike some areas of Santa Rosa, the neighborhood hasn't been designated a "very high fire hazard" zone by Cal Fire. City officials are OK with that. Although developers rebuilding Coffey Park are being urged to consider fire-resistant materials, city spokeswoman Adriane Mertens said the city doesn't see any reason to impose the 7A code in the neighborhood. "There were very, very high winds that night," Mertens said. "There were embers that were blown across the (Highway 101) freeway, across six lanes of freeway, into Coffey Park." Jack Cohen, a fire scientist in Montana who helped develop the 7A code, said he thinks Santa Rosa is committing "an error in judgment" by rebuilding without the safeguards. In any event, Cal Fire is updating its fire hazard maps over the next year or so, taking into account more sophisticated data on wind and other climate factors, and Sapsis said spots such as Coffey Park could wind up designated as high-risk areas. Once the maps are done, any region placed inside Cal Fire's "very high fire" zone will have no choice but to comply, under a bill signed into law by Brown last year. But there will still be ways for cities to skirt the state building code. Look at Folsom, widely considered one of the most vulnerable places in greater Sacramento to fire. The county's hazard mitigation plan says 44,000 residents of Folsom are already at "moderate or higher wildfire risk." Now the suburb is building a development called Folsom Ranch, eventually to be home to 25,000 people, on a parcel south of Highway 50. The development is on land that used to be subject to the strict state building code. Now it isn't. How did that happen? Years ago, the land was outside Folsom's city limits and Cal Fire was responsible for its safety. Cal Fire's maps put the land in the "moderate" risk zone a threat level high enough that, under the state's regulations, the fire-safe building code took effect. As it happened, no construction took place during that time, city officials say. The situation changed when the city annexed the land to forge ahead with Folsom Ranch. Because the land has never been in the state's "very high" risk zone, the city feels comfortable letting Folsom Ranch develop without the Chapter 7A building code. Fire Chief Felipe Rodriguez said Folsom officials are still open to "the possibility of strengthening, hardening, our future homes." But for now, the city is only requiring homeowners' associations to implement a "vegetation management" plan and install fire-resistant fencing around properties that abut open space areas, Rodriguez said. Is Folsom courting danger? Rodriguez doesn't think so. The city will build two fire stations in the development and will "be able to suppress a fire during its early stages," he said. 'Sticks in a fireplace' The hundreds of thousands of older homes in fire zones aren't just more vulnerable in their own right. Experts say they spread danger to new homes built to stricter standards. "One little house built to a new standard, surrounded by a bunch of older stuff, is likely to get swamped," Sapsis said. Paradise provided a grim reminder of that problem. The Camp Fire destroyed more than 80 percent of the 4,100 mobile homes in its path, whether they were built to the new code or not, according to McClatchy's data analysis. That isn't surprising, Sapsis said, given that many of Paradise's mobile homes were jammed alongside one another in mobile home parks. "They're stacked so close together, they're like sticks in a fireplace," Sapsis said. Sapsis and others say the lesson is that strong building codes aren't enough. In particular, experts say communities must pay more attention to how they lay out their neighborhoods, allowing for firebreaks and enough space between houses. "In the name of affordable housing, we're moving housing closer and closer to one another," said Chris Dicus, a forestry and fire expert at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. "That serves to have house-to-house-to-house ignition." The problem isn't limited to densely-packed urban areas. "I live in a rural community, and I have got six feet basically separating me from my neighbor," said Dicus, who lives outside of Morro Bay. In addition, experts say California is struggling to enforce the state law regarding "defensible space" around properties. The law requires that property owners maintain as much as 100 feet of defensible space around homes and other buildings in and around "a mountainous area, forest-covered lands, brush-covered lands, grass-covered lands, or land that is covered with flammable material." That means keeping trees and shrubs pruned and spaced far apart. Within five feet of the building, property owners are supposed to remove anything that could catch fire: mulch, plants, woodpiles and so on. In practice, however, enforcement of the defensible space law has been spotty at best. Raymer, of the California Building Industry Association, said most property owners don't understand how to maintain their yards. The state doesn't impose penalties for non-compliance, and only a few local governments have chosen to do so, Raymer said. Legislation could change that. SB 190, by Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, would require the state fire marshal to develop a "model defensible space program," including penalties, that local governments could adopt. The problem extends beyond homeowners' property lines. Gov. Gavin Newsom, finding some rare common ground with the Trump administration, is advocating for more aggressive management of forested lands. A thinned forest northeast of Paradise provided one of the rare victories of the Camp Fire. As the fire raged out of the tiny community of Pulga, it essentially spared the northern part of Magalia. The reason was a series of forest-thinning projects conducted in recent years and overseen by the U.S. Forest Service, Sierra Pacific Industries and the volunteer Butte County Fire Safe Council. The council also worked diligently with area residents to clear brush from their property. All that work "did exactly what we hoped it would do," said Calli-Jane DeAnda, executive director of the council, which secured $1 million in grants to remove fuels from forested areas. "This investment of public money is so worth the effort." 'Paradise expirement' The rebuilding of Paradise means thousands of homes are going to be constructed in the coming years to the stricter standards promulgated by the state in 2008. It represents the single largest test of the effectiveness of the building code. "That is an absolute lab experiment for us," Sapsis said. On the streets of Paradise, though, community leaders are taking a more measured view. Zuccolillo, the town councilman, said asphalt roofs and stucco siding might "give us more of a chance" but he doubts they will guarantee Paradise's safety. "I saw metal buildings, metal and stucco buildings, burn to the ground," he said. Still, there's plenty of evidence, all over Paradise, that the state's building code can protect property. The other day, Sean Herr pulled into his driveway on the west side of Paradise, where he and his wife Dawn were raising their two young children. The first thing he did was bring out the ultimate symbol of resiliency: an American flag, the same one that flew on his front porch the day of the Camp Fire. Like the flag, the house is still standing. The Herrs' home, built in 2010, suffered a bit of scorching and some interior smoke damage the smoke is bad enough that they're still temporarily living in Chico and aren't certain they'll move back. Still, they marvel at what a close call they had. A Ford Excursion and a boat parked in the front yard, just a few feet from their porch, were destroyed. Five motorcycles locked in a shed behind the house got ruined. Most of their neighborhood is gone. The Herrs believe their attention to defensible space the house is mostly encircled in gravel and the strictness of the building code probably made the difference. "Our yard and the construction of the house saved it for sure," Dawn Herr said, gesturing to a small scorch mark by the side of the house. "You can see it tried to catch on fire." SALT LAKE CITY Russell Moore has been asking tough questions about technology for years. Who should control human cloning? What's the definition of a human? Are sex robots sinful? The problem is people think he's joking. "Whenever I raise some of the most pressing questions, they seem, to most people, to be like science fiction," said Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, America's most prominent evangelical Christian denomination. He doesn't mean the questions that way. To Moore, sex robots, artificial intelligence and other technological developments are serious business. "This is whats been keeping me awake at night for years," he said. So he's trading questions for statements. This week, Moore's organization released "Artificial Intelligence: An Evangelical Statement of Principles," a declaration he hopes will help guide humanity through overwhelming technological and scientific change. Developed through dialogue with medical, legal, political, technological and ethical experts, it urges caution as well as creativity. "As part of our God-given creative nature, human beings should develop and harness technology in ways that lead to greater flourishing and the alleviation of human suffering," the document explains. The statement is designed to spark better conversations in homes, churches, Silicon Valley offices and the halls of Congress, Moore said. Too often, ethical concerns emerge long after new technologies are released. "We're moving toward vast technological change. If there is not consideration beforehand of the spiritual and moral implications, we're not going to be ready," he said. And we can't count on Silicon Valley developers to pump the brakes themselves, said Ronald Cole-Turner, a theology and ethics professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. "Nobody ever made money gambling on slowness in Silicon Valley," he said. 'OK, Google' The problem with telling a story about your virtual assistant is she's always listening. Moore realized that recently as he tried to avoid saying "Alexa," the name used to get an Amazon Echo's attention, so as not to wake his device while telling a story about it. "If you had told me a few years ago Id be spelling the name of a robot so I wouldnt wake her up, that would have seemed bizarre, ridiculous and creepy," Moore said. That's what makes debating artificial intelligence and other technological advancements difficult, he noted. You feel a bit absurd brainstorming the ethical ramifications of replacing factory workers with robots or baptizing cyborgs, even if the conversation might be very helpful in the future. "The way technology works is it seems to be ridiculous until its ubiquitous," Moore said. And once it's ubiquitous, you've lost your chance to rein it in. That was the case for online pornography, he noted. Evangelical Christians didn't see it coming, so they were still debating access to theaters and magazines while the pornography industry shifted to the web. Evangelicals "didn't recognize that right around the corner was a digital revolution," Moore said. Today, people may recognize that virtual assistants or digital navigation systems are changing their habits, but they rarely see how technological advancements stand to reshape entire industries, Cole-Turner said. Artificial intelligence shifts how countries go to war, fight disease, manufacture products and approach any number of other projects. "It's affecting just about everything already, and it will continue to affect wider and wider terrains of human existence," Cole-Turner said. And that's theologically significant, he added. Artificial intelligence is like a new type of creation, made by humans but potentially more powerful and advanced than them. "God is supreme intelligence. Human beings are embodied intelligence. But artificial intelligence? Where does that fit?" Cole-Turner said. Someday, computer systems and robots could easily pass as human. Clones of your brother or daughter or boss could be walking around. People need to sort out what that will mean for humanity, Moore said. "All Christians (should) start really thinking through what it means to be human, the proper goals and limits of technology and how we are being changed unintentionally by the technology we have now," he said. New statement The new statement on artificial intelligence, which is signed by nearly 70 evangelical Christian leaders, aims to inspire that kind of reflection, Moore said. Using biblical citations and theological language, it casts a vision of a better path forward. "We desire to equip the church to proactively engage the field of (artificial intelligence), rather than responding to these issues after they have already affected our communities," reads the statement, which consists of a preamble and 12 articles, each two paragraphs long. Just because we should do something doesn't mean we don't have a long process of sorting through how to do it well. Russell Moore Although it does not explore specific ethical dilemmas, the document outlines key aspects of technological advancement in need of Christians' attention. It urges readers to think about how artificial intelligence affects privacy, sexuality, work and medicine, as well as the temptation to treat technology like a God. "While technology can be created with a moral use in view, it is not a moral agent. Humans alone bear the responsibility for moral decision making," the statement explains. Moore hopes the document will do more than inspire better conversations in faith communities. He wants it to lead to better relationships between religious leaders and technology developers and to remind lawmakers that they, too, should be paying close attention to what's happening in Silicon Valley. "Just because we should do something doesn't mean we don't have a long process of sorting through how to do it well," he said. Micah Redding, executive director of the Christian Transhumanist Association, a group for people who believe were called by God to use technology to transform human life, said he's glad that the statement celebrates possibilities created by artificial intelligence even as it advocates for better ethical debates. It's wrong to be so consumed by anxiety that you try to shut down technological advancement all together, he said. "Ultimately, you have to meet concerns with hopefulness," Redding said. The statement tries to find a middle ground between overwhelming fear and unbridled optimism, Moore noted. "What were trying to work against is both reflexive negativity against any technology but also a reflexive naivete that sees all technology as morally neutral," he said. Potential reception Cole-Turner celebrates the work that went into the new statement, arguing that faith groups can and should play a bigger role in technological and scientific advancements. However, he's still a bit skeptical about how Silicon Valley insiders will receive this message. "If I were an IT guy, Id say, 'Really? Do you expect me to take you seriously?'" he said. Religious belief is often seen as hostile to science, Cole-Turner added. Some evangelical Christians reject research on climate change and vaccines. Similarly, Redding believes it will take more than a statement to establish stronger connections between the technology industry and religious organizations. People of faith need to develop a track record of thoughtful engagement and acknowledge what they don't know or understand. "In order to be able to offer ethical guidance and critique the development of new technologies, you have to be involved in conversations and willing to accept challenges from other people involved," Redding said. Christians wont be welcomed if theyre merely "bystanders with moral opinions." What frightens me most is not the technology, but our human incapacity to reflect critically and to guide its development. Ronald Cole-Turner, a theology and ethics professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Artificial intelligence experts do seem interested in outside input on the ethics of their work, he added. But it has to be the right kind of input. "I dont think many secular people (working on artificial intelligence) will be interested in just our opinions of what the Bible has to say. But they will be interested if we can offer a cohesive ethical vision thats positive and good for the whole world," Redding said. Moore is hopeful about the kinds of conversations that will be possible moving forward. As he's researched artificial intelligence and helped prepare the new statement, he's been pleased with the technology industry's response. "The technology industry, including unbelievers, have welcomed moral conversations around these topics in ways that I dont think most people would expect," Moore said. Even if Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg don't meet with religious leaders anytime soon, the new statement is a step in the right direction, Cole-Turner said. The more people are paying attention to what Facebook, Amazon and other companies are up to, the better. "What frightens me most is not the technology, but our human incapacity to reflect critically and to guide its development," he said. BAGHDAD After decades of conflict, Iraq is seeking to reclaim a leadership role and status in the Arab world with a centrist policy and a determination among the country's top leaders to maintain good relations with both Iran and the United States. A flurry of recent diplomatic activity and high-profile visits to the Iraqi capital, including this month's re-opening of a Saudi Consulate in Baghdad for the first time in nearly 30 years points to a new era of openness as the nation sheds its war image and re-engages with the world. "Iraq is coming back to the neighborhood," President Barham Salih told The Associated Press in a nearly hour-long interview last month. The veteran politician laid out a vision centered on an "Iraq First" policy, saying his country can no longer afford to be caught in regional disputes. "For almost four decades Iraq was the domain in which everybody pursued their agenda at the expense of the Iraqi people. It's time we say we need a new political order ... in which Iraq must be an important pillar," Salih said. Iraq has emerged from a ruinous three-year war against the Islamic State group and faces the mammoth task of reconciling, rebuilding and returning tens of thousands of displaced to their homes. And while the extremists' territorial "caliphate" has been defeated in Iraq and Syria, the militants have now shifted to an insurgency campaign of targeted assassinations, car bombings, and suicide attacks. The issue of Iran-backed Shiite militias who fought IS alongside Iraqi security forces poses a challenge to the government's central authority, and the country's oil-based economy is suffering from wide-scale corruption. "Iraq's path to reclaiming a leadership role in the Arab world will depend on how successful its leaders are in tackling security and economic challenges at home," Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute wrote recently. Amid rapidly escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran, Iraq also needs to maintain a delicate balance with the two as Baghdad has strong ties with both countries. The dynamics are complex. The Shiite-majority country lies on the fault line between Shiite Iran and the mostly Sunni Arab world, led by powerhouse Saudi Arabia, and has long been a theater in which Saudi-Iran rivalry for regional supremacy played out. Relations have been particularly frosty with Riyadh, which broke relations with Baghdad following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and never really warmed much as Iraq was increasingly pulled into Iran's orbit in later years. Iraq needs much help and investment to rebuild its cities something it can only get from oil- and gas-rich Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia. But it can also ill afford to alienate Iran, which holds enormous political and military sway in Iraq through powerful militias and pro-Iran politicians. "We have 1,400 kilometers of borders with Iran, we simply cannot ignore that reality," Salih said, adding that it's in Iraq's national interest to nurture good relations with Iran, with which Iraq fought an eight-year war in the '80s. He said Iraq, however, was also keen on good relations with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other regional countries. Mindful of the need to counter Iran's growing influence in the region in the post-IS order, Saudi officials have sought closer ties with Iraq, and last week sent a high-level delegation to Baghdad where the kingdom's consulate was inaugurated. The Saudi delegation's visit followed a trip to Baghdad last month by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during which the two sides signed several agreement designed to boost bilateral relations. It's a stark contrast from past years when Baghdad was shunned and isolated, first because of international sanctions after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of neighboring Kuwait, and later, after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled him, when Iraq sank into cycles of sectarian bloodletting. Amid the violence, international dignitaries avoided visits to the Iraqi capital, and when they did, made them brief and unannounced for security considerations. In 2007, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon famously ducked behind the podium during a live press conference with the prime minister at the time, Nouri al-Malki, as a rocket slammed outside the building. Now, Iraqi leaders say their country is not part of any regional conflict. Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi in his first foreign trip last month traveled to Cairo to meet with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. They were joined by Jordanian King Abdullah II for a tripartite summit on measures to strengthen economic cooperation. On Tuesday, Abdul-Mahdi announced he will soon be visiting Saudi Arabia to sign several agreements. Some are even suggesting that Iraq could play a mediating role between regional foes. Lebanon's parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, on a visit to Baghdad earlier this month, said Iraq is a unique position to play an important regional role "in the reconciliation between the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran." Watheq al-Hashemi, an Iraqi political analyst, said it's an opportunity for Iraq to again become an important regional player. But for that to happen, Iraqi politicians "need to put country before sect and act as statesmen," something he says they've had trouble doing for a long time. SALT LAKE CITY Utah State veterinarian Barry Pitman is warning horse owners to take protective action to ward off a potentially fatal outbreak of equine herpes. Fears of an outbreak reaching Utah prompted the cancellation of multiple high school rodeos as owners try to prevent the spread of the virus, which caused more than 160 horses to be euthanized in 2011-12. "First and foremost, there have been no confirmed cases of EHV-1 or EHM in the state of Utah," Pittman said. "However, considering the cases in surrounding states, the nature of the virus and the commingling and stress levels of horses in event circuits, we are certainly susceptible to future cases." As of March, the Equine Disease Communication Center reported three premises, two in New York and one in Washington, impacted by the equine herpes virus. Seven premises logged cases of the mutant strain of the virus as of March in Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, California and Nevada. The mutant strain is called equine herpes virus myeloencephalopathy, which impacts the central nervous system. In April there have been sporadic cases in additional states as well as Canada. Although nearly all horses are infected with the virus at a young age and are carriers with no symptoms, the virus can be reactivated under stress in events that include strenuous exercise, long-distant transport or at weaning, Pittman said. "This means there will never be an 'all clear, no further risk,' as long as horses are brought together from multiple geographic locations," Pittman said. He urged horse owners across the state to seek information from reliable sources, contact managers of events they plan to enter, increase health checks of their animals and stay at home if they don't feel comfortable traveling with their horses. Pittman, who works for the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, credits biosecurity measures by organizers at Utah events, the postponement or cancellation of some events and voluntary withdrawal from some events as multiple factors that have kept the contagious virus out of the state thus far. Equine herpes is not a sexually transmitted disease and is passed through nose contact among infected horses, mules or burros. It is also spread through contaminated equipment, such blankets or buckets. Humans can't catch it. Symptoms include fever, decreased coordination, nasal discharge, loss of tail tone, hind limb weakness and leaning against a fence or wall to maintain balance. Animals become lethargic and my be unable to rise from the ground. Pittman said a horse from southern Utah had competed at a stallion futurity in Las Vegas, was possibly exposed and had to be euthanized. The veterinarian doing the testing on that animal ruled out the mutant strain of the herpes and West Nile virus as well, so additional testing is being done. Pittman said student athletes building competitive points or trying for scholarships on the rodeo circuit are being the most negatively impacted. In Nevada, Steve Stallworth, general manager of the South Point Arena and Equestrian Center, said they will "exercise extreme caution" but will continue to host upcoming events as scheduled. "Safety and security are a priority," Stallworth said in a statement. "We are working closely with the state veterinarian and our own in-house veterinarian to ensure all precautions and necessary disinfecting measures have been made to the entire facility." Additional information is available online at the Equine Disease Communication Center. Contributing: Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY In 2017 more than 1,700 children died across the nation as a result of child abuse. Monday, in honor of Child Abuse Prevention Month, 1,720 blue-and-white pinwheels were "planted" at Primary Children's Hospital to represent each of those children. "Children are hurt by people in their circle of trust every single day across the United States and in our community," said Dr. Antoinette Laskey, division chief at the Center for Safe and Healthy Families at the University of Utah. "We have an important role as adults to make a difference and say something when we have a concern about child abuse or neglect." The pinwheels, chosen as the national symbol for child abuse prevention because they represent the carefree and innocent childhood all children deserve, will stay up for the remainder of April. According to Prevent Child Abuse Utah, 1 in 5 children, both nationally and in Utah, will be sexually assaulted before the age of 18. The number of children who die from child abuse each year is about the same as children who die from cancer, said Gwen Knight, executive director of the nonprofit. "Cancer isn't fully curable or preventable yet, but child abuse is," she said. "We have the responsibility to help children have safe and healthy lives. Our message today is one of hope and we all unite in this effort to improve the outcomes of children and families in our state." In 2018, more than 10,600 Utah children were substantiated victims of child abuse, according to Division of Child and Family Services. Investing in other issues facing the community helps prevent child abuse, said Diane Moore, director of the division. "When our community addresses issues like social isolation, intergenerational poverty, substance use disorder, homelessness, violence and the trauma history of those caring for children, we do more to prevent child abuse and neglect," she said. "It's the best way to show that no more children will be abused and neglected. It is worth the investment." Jason Wilde, board chairman with Utah Association of Family Support Centers, called child abuse "insidious, intentional and evil." He said in a lot of child abuse cases, the parents are "overstressed and undersupported," which is where support centers can step in and help families provide a safe environment for children. Tracey Tabet, administrator with the Children's Justice Center Program through the Utah Attorney General's Office, said she was planting a pinwheel for the 6,714 children served at the program's centers in 2018. She said she wanted to tell each of those children she celebrates "their courage and their resiliency." Tabet said many agencies, the justice center included, long for the day when their services are no longer needed. "But until that day we also want to affirm our commitment to support each and every child on their path to healing and justice towards a brighter tomorrow," she said. Dr. Brooks Keeshin, child abuse pediatrician and child psychiatrist with the hospital, said a call to action is necessary to address the issue. "As we know, child abuse can kill. Child abuse can lead to sick adults. Child abuse can rob children of their childhood. However, there is hope," he said. "We can prevent child abuse, we can treat the consequences of child abuse so that kids don't grow up to be sick adults. We can, with early intervention, give children and families their childhood back." But he said one person, one group or even one system can't effectively solve this problem alone. However, he noted that Utah's made great strides in addressing child abuse. "We are so fortunate to live in a state where people don't avert their eyes, they don't cower in fear, they stand up and say 'How do we fix this together?'" he said. "Communities around the state are educating their parents and teachers on the impact of adverse childhood experiences and empowering their schools to be the front line when it comes to preventing child abuse and identifying and responding to abused children in their families." Granite School District addressed education on the subject earlier this month when it announced that all 63 elementary schools in the district will receive child abuse prevention education training. As an ICU nurse, Katy Welkie, now CEO of Primary Children's Hospital, said she saw the "most severe and tragic forms of abuse" on a regular basis. "And I saw the pain in children and it was reflected in the families, in those who were caring for them," she said. "And it is preventable it's preventable if we all take the responsibility to report child abuse and the suspicion of child abuse in its very earliest phases." The Division of Child and Family Services' 24/7 child abuse hotline is 1-855-323-3237. Anyone with information about child abuse or potential child abuse is encouraged to call. PROVO Three Utah County men are facing criminal charges for allegedly trapping a buck deer in a backyard and killing it. Jace T. Zeeman, 29, of American Fork; Joshua Douglas Mooney, 28, of Pleasant Grove; and Tanner Cole Zeeman, 24, of American Fork, were each charged Monday in 4th District Court with wanton destruction of protected wildlife, a third-degree felony. Mooney was also charged with possession of a weapon by a restricted person, a third-degree felony; obstructing justice, a third-degree felony; and drug possession and possession of drug paraphernalia, both class B misdemeanors. On Jan. 13, investigators from the Division of Wildlife Resources received information that a buck deer valued at more than $8,000 was killed in Mooney's backyard, according to charging documents. "(Tanner) Zeeman sent photos to a few friends of the deer. One individual received an image of the deer deceased in the bathtub," the charges state. "Officers later discovered through text messages that (Tanner) Zeeman helped trap and keep the deer in the backyard so that Mooney could kill the deer." Division of Wildlife Resources investigators arrived at the house to find "a fresh blood trail from the backyard to the neighbor's yard. There were blood marks on the door as well," the charges state. Mooney refused to answer the door, according to charging documents, "and attempted to hide and clean up evidence in the home." After obtaining a search warrant, officials from the division entered the house and found a "deer head was located under blankets and clothing in a closet. Deer meat was packaged in moving boxes and put in a separate closet. The boxes were sprayed with cologne to hide the smell. The bathroom was cleaned with bleach but deer hair and ticks were found," the charges state. A bow authorities say was used to kill the deer was also recovered and the arrow allegedly used was found hanging on a the kitchen wall, according to charging documents. Jace Zeeman allegedly helped carry the deer through the backdoor into the house, the charges state. Zeeman also currently faces a charge of murder in a separate case. He is accused of assaulting his stepfather, Brandon Bourgeois, 47, on Aug. 27, 2017, causing fatal injuries. Zeeman was originally charged with manslaughter, but that was later increased to murder, a first-degree felony. Prosecutors contend that even though Zeeman may have been trying to protect his mother, he took the altercation too far. Zeeman contends he acted in self-defense and did what was necessary based on Bourgeois' history of domestic violence. The next hearing in that case was scheduled for May 16. SALT LAKE CITY A man who was arrested in January and then got into more trouble once he was taken to jail for allegedly threatening to "blow this place up" has been charged again. Jeremy Adam Ohm, 30, who is listed as homeless, was charged in two separate cases in 3rd District Court on Monday. He was charged with drug possession, a class A misdemeanor, possession of drug paraphernalia, a class B misdemeanor, and interfering with an arrested officer, a class B misdemeanor, for an incident that allegedly happened on Dec. 4, according to charging documents. Ohm was also charged Monday with making a terroristic threat, a second-degree felony. On Jan. 25, while incarcerated at the Salt Lake County Jail, Ohm attempted to break the overhead sprinkler in his cell but fell off a table, the charges state. Deputies took Ohm to be checked out by medical personnel, but he became agitated and "threatened to blow them away, kill them, and 'Blow this place up and this place would die,'" according to charging documents. "Later, Ohm repeated the threats to blow the place up, kill the cops, and he was going to kill the president as well," the charges state. The charges come on the heels of a similar case filed March 20. Ohm was charged with making a terroristic threat for a comment he made on Jan. 6 while incarcerated, when he again threatened to blow up the jail, according to charging documents. On April 8, Ohm was convicted of failing to stop for law enforcement and sentenced to a year at the Utah State Prison. Ohm, who has a lengthy criminal history, also made headlines in 2013 when he got into a car that was left running and drove off with two children, ages 2 and 3, asleep in the back seat. He hit another car as he drove off and initially did not pull over for police once he was spotted. He was eventually arrested and the children were not harmed. Later that year, he pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted child kidnapping that were amended to third-degree felonies, according to court records, and was sentenced to up to five years in the Utah State Prison. When a nation includes a lot of remote islands, conventional fibre or mobile connectivity are not always going to be the sole sources of telecommunications operations, as a recent satellite deal in Tonga makes clear. The announcement that Tonga Satellite Limited, a Tongan government company, has signed a fifteen-year agreement with next-generation broadband satellite operator Kacific Broadband Satellites Group, offers an interesting echo of our recent story about satellite-led development initiatives from Amazon and Facebook, notably through its likely impact on connectivity in rural and remote areas. Kacific will provide high-speed broadband to the Pacific Island nation using bandwidth supplied by its high-throughput satellite, Kacific1, which will be used to connect communities in 89 remote outer islands with high-quality internet. In the case of a fibre cable outage the satellite bandwidth can be redistributed and shared with Tongas main centres. This isnt just theory. In January this year, the international fibre cable that connects Tongas capital Nukualofa to high speed internet was severed and satellite took over. The bandwidth supplied by Kacific will, says the company, be focused on government infrastructure such as hospitals, health clinics and dispensaries, primary and secondary schools, police stations and post offices. The bandwidth will also be used to support local businesses and foster the creation of new platforms for economic development. An equally significant but perhaps more spectacular satellite story hit the news just before the Tongan announcement, with the launch late last week of the Arabsat-6A satellite on SpaceXs Falcon Heavy rocket. On Thursday, April 11 Falcon Heavy launched the Arabsat-6A satellite from Launch Complex 39A at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The satellite was deployed approximately 34 minutes after lift-off. Built by Lockheed Martin as its largest and most powerful commercial satellite to date, Arabsat-6A will provide high-capacity telecommunications, delivering television, radio, internet, and mobile communications to customers in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. The satellite uses advanced Ka-spot beam capabilities and Ku and Ka-band coverage, along with other frequency bands. Hon. Joseph Banadzem Lukong Archives The remains of late leader of the SDF parliamentary group, Hon. Banadazem Joseph Lukong, will be laid to rest on Saturday 27th, April in his native village Kumbo, despite earlier threats from armed separatists, not to. According to family members, his corpse will be removed from the Yaounde General Hospital on Friday, where he would receive last respect from the National Assembly. A wake keep without corpse is expected to hold same Friday evening at his Njavnyuy residence in Kumbo, Bui Division of the North West region. He would later be buried on Saturday, after a funeral service, at the Kumbo Cathedral. This burial programme, comes to counteract earlier suggestions that the parliamentarian of the Social Democratic Front(SDF) party, wouldn't be buried in his village due to threats from so-called Amba Boys, asking that he be buried in Yaounde, for disobeying their requests. Armed Separatists or Amba Boys had made a call for Anglophone Parliamentarians to boycott all activities of the National Assembly and resign, as they struggle to build a new country, after they seize independence from Cameroon. Only one parliamentarian, heeded to their call. The MP for Jakiri subdivision, also in Bui, Hon. Wirba Joseph. Their continuous attendance of parliamentary sessions, despite these MP's role to push government and the international community to help solve the ongoing unrest in Anglophone regions, it doesn't seem sufficient for armed separatists. Hon. Joseph Banadzem , the SDF parliamentarian for Bui Centre, in the North West region, died on March 30, at the Yaounde General Hospital, after suffering from a long illness. The National Chairman of the Social Democratic front, Ni John Fru Ndi, had expressed regrets over his passing, stating it is a great loss for the party. The parliamentarian was also a lecturer of history at ENS Bambili. He obtained his master degree at a University in France. He was one of those who raised an alarm at the assembly over an alleged warrant issued on another SDF MP, Hon. Wirba Joseph, who was accused of instigating the population, on the heels of the ongoing Anglophone crisis. He led a protest at the assembly against House speaker , Cavaye Yeguie Djibril's dictatorial ways in Parliament in 2017, blasting the assembly's lukewarm attitude, on the arrest warrant issued on the SDF parliamentarian. However, hopes are high that these separatists, will give a chance, for their own, to be buried at home, despite all odds. Many families as a result of this crisis, have buried their love ones in strange towns, while others didn't go back to bury their close relatives , due to the increasing insecurity threats in the English speaking regions . When you find yourself typing is it safe to inject botox into your scrotum into Google, you know its been a long, droopy day. But while gender stereotypes would have you assume women and highly-strung celebrities are the only ones getting cosmetic surgery, with Tinder increasing our competition for dates and Instagram dialling up our vanity to crazy levels, men are now getting in on the action too. Although high rollers like Gianluca Vacchi can afford to (allegedly) buy themselves a new head of hair, there is now a more economical option to impress your date: scrotox injections. Sure: men have flirted with this Cinderella style operation in the past, but its popularity has recently spiked in Australian men who are either looking to improve their fertility, relax tight testicles or impress their dates. As Kylie Mathews today reported for News.com.au, A minority of men harbour such deep insecurities about their wrinkly scrotums theyre willing to invest substantially in their beautification. So, how does the $1,000 procedure work? According to Nicole Montgomery, a NSW-based cosmetic surgery nurse and founder of Trusted Surgeons website and directory, its simple. Essentially, botox is injected into the muscle under the skin of the ball sack (not all the way inside it), relaxing all the skin of the scrotum, which, Creates a smooth-like appearance, making it appear larger and even making the testicles hang lower, Ms Montgomery told AusDoc. While some men get scrotoxed for cosmetic reasons, Dr Jayson Oates, medical director of CALIBRE Clinic, a specialty practice dedicated to medical male enhancement procedures, told News.com.au the bulk of his patients get it done because they have too-tight testicles. The relaxation of the scrotum helps the testes to hang a bit lower and offers some relief. However, from as early as 2016 this has been a popular (if not widespread), vanity project, with even the most earnest ABC reporters urging Australian men to give wrinkly scrotums the sack. The experience of a man called Sean*, however, although ostensibly positive, highlights why the trend has been slow to gain momentum. Generously donating his time (and testicles) to News.com.au, Sean, whose name has been changed for fairly obvious reasons, got scrotoxed for journalism. This is how it went down. After having Sean apply some numbing cream to his jiggly bits, News.com.au reports, Dr Oates proceeded to inject Seans scrotum 55 times with the muscle relaxant. I think I felt maybe two little pinches Before I knew it, it was over. Afterwards, Sean felt a little numb down there for a couple of daysbut overall, not too bad. Then, a week later: It was less wrinkly and red fuller and smoother, (News.com.au). More importantly, when Sean took his shiny new scrotum out on the town, he reportedly received very positive feedback from a female acquaintance, leading him to make the following comments. Going forward, Im hoping the word will spread far and wide throughout the land and my phone will start buzzing from adventurous females who want to see. But although Sean dealt with the ordeal experience like a champion (and got a bunch of positive feedback), we doubt many guys will sign up to get needled 55 times in the scrotum, especially when you take into account that the positive effects are only temporary. Unfortunately, there is a reason the surgery is Cinderella-esque; when the clock strikes 12or when the Scrotox wears off (at around the nine-month mark)Seans plump pumpkins will turn back into dried prunes. Also: anyone considering the procedure should understand the safety implications of what theyre getting themselves into. As Gotham Plastic Surgery surgeon Dr. Douglas S. Steinbrech told Metro last year, these types of procedures rarely go wrong. But if they do, the Botox could travel throughout your body, potentially leading to difficulty swallowing, a change in your voice, drooping of the eyelids and even respiratory problems. But heyif youre willing to risk ityou could boost your chances of a second date. Read Next Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi Archives Public Works Minister, Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi has declared that nothing will stop government from executing road and other construction projects earmarked for the security troubled North West and South West regions this year. The Public Works boss made the declaration last April 9, 2019 at his cabinet in Yaounde during separate audiences he granted Parliamentarians from these two regions burdened by socio-political crisis for close to three years now. During the separate audiences equally witnessed by the Secretary of State to the Minister of Public Works, Armand Ndjodom, Minister Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi reassured the Senators and Members of the National Assembly that Government stands with the population of the North West and South West regions so, nothing will stop us from realizing the road projects earmarked for these regions. He added that government has taken special security measures to protect contractors and their equipments on the field after noticing that some of their equipments were burnt down and workers kidnapped in these two regions while at work. The Minister reiterated that there are more than 10,000km of road to be constructed in the NW out of, which about 8,000km are rural roads. Speaking to reporters after the audience with Parliamentarians from the South West region, Senator Mbella Moki Charles and Hon Etombi Gladys of Fako East Constituency said they are happy that the South West region was very topical on governments development agenda. We reassured the Minister that they can count on us as we continue to rely on government and expect a lot from them especially in bringing lasting solutions to the crisis so that, development can take over in our region. Senator Mbella Moki explained. Being the first to take the floor at the NW Parliamentarians audience, CPDM MP, Hon Banmi Emmanuel of the Balikumbat Special Constituency decried that Some farm to market roads are better than the Babadjou-Bamenda stretch of road. Insisting that road has no political coulour, the CPDM MP told the Minister that, To rebuild confidence in the people of the NW region, completion of the ring-road project promised by the President of the Republic, Paul Biya to personally supervise its execution for more than 20 years now is primordial. Hon his part, SDF MP for Mezam North, Santa Constituency, Hon Chief Paul Tumasang said it is commonly said that wherever road passes, development follows but in the NW region, roads are passing with difficulties. The problem of inland roads (farms to markets roads) is a serious issue in our region so much so that, I wish to see rural roads development taken from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and given back to the Ministry of Public Works. SDF MP for Ndu Constituency, Hon Esther Ngala expressed the wish for MPs to be equipped with technical details on road construction so that they can follow up to make sure that contractors respect their engagements. Just like other separate audiences with Parliamentarians from the other eight regions, Minister Nganou Djoumessi listened to them, took down notes and promised to speedily look into concerns raised. India's cotton textile exports to China up over 68% at $1.55 billion Export of cotton textiles from the country to China rose over 68 per cent to hit $1.55 billion between April and February during the 2018-19 financial year, according to data available with the Cotton Textile Export Promotion Council. Indias cotton textile exports to major consuming countries got a boost with the recent government move to reimburse all state and central levies on such shipments. Reports quoting chairman of Cotton Textile Export Promotion Council K V Srinivasan said cotton textile exports from the country still suffers a 3.5-10 per cent tariff disadvantage compared to exports from countries such as Vietnam, Pakistan and Indonesia. An increase in cotton textiles while helping to narrow Indias trade deficit with China by a very low margin, India still imports goods worth over $65 billon from China against exports of $15 billion to that country. Much will depend on India gaining a long-term price advantage in textile production over China and other major producers. Indias trade deficit with China declined to $50.13 billion in FY19 from $63 billion in FY18. India, however, is losing its hold on cotton export market to countries like Brazil due to a sharp increase in the fibre prices, according to the Cotton association of India (CAI). Cotton shipments from India have become uncompetitive in world markets with cotton prices of select varieties jumping to as much as 10 per cent against a decline in production. Apart from rising domestic cotton prices, the appreciating rupee has made actual realisation lower than the depreciating Brazilian real. Indian cotton has become uncompetitive in the world market. The largest importer, China, has started importing cotton from Brazil as it has become a cheaper substitute, said M B Lal, former chairman of the Cotton Corporation of India. Indias shipment of nearly 400,000 500,000 bales of cotton is under serious threat of delivery default as Indian exporters face higher procurement prices than contracted for cotton exports. The CAI in its latest report estimated the cotton crop for 2018-19 at 32.1 million bales of 170 kg each which is lower by 0.7 million bales than its previous estimate of 32.8 million bales made in March. Meanwhile, Srinivasan has urged the government to emphasise the need to boost exports of textile products not only to compensate the decline in cotton exports, but also to narrow the trade deficit with China. Jet Airways' pilots defer strike ahead of Monday's lenders' meeting Beleaguered Jet Airways got some respite after its pilots deferred a planned strike, after the airline held back salaries since January to a section of its staff, including pilots, engineers and general managers. In a written communique, National Aviators Guild (NAG), representing three-fourths of all Jet Airways pilots, told its members that its decision on not flying stands deferred for the time being. About 1,100 of the airlines 1,500 pilots are NAG members. That leaves only 400 pilots at Jets disposal in case of a strike. The NAG, on Sunday evening, told its members to stop flying from midnight, after the management failed to pay salary dues as promised, only to rescind its decision hours later. It has come to our notice that there is a critical meeting planned tomorrow morning with the airline management and SBI. In light of the meeting, the members have been requested, through their team leaders, that the call of `No Pay No Work be deferred to give the airline a chance of survival," NAG said. The guild, however, asked pilots to be present at the companys headquarters on Monday morning. An Open House will be called shortly as per the availability of the venue and the committee members. We urge our members to be present in large numbers," it added. With a skeleton fleet and oil companies denying fuel supplies, Jet Airways halted all international services and operated a mere 40 domestic flights using six to seven planes. Jet pilots had, last week, threatened legal action against the management for non-payment of salaries for the last three months while other employees said on Friday they will file a first information report against the airlines management for delaying salaries. Jet Airways has held back salaries since January to a section of its staff, including pilots, engineers and general managers. In addition, it has deferred March salaries to all its employees, as it continues to battle financial woes. The airline has also deferred interest payments to banks, and dues to fuel suppliers, oil marketing companies (OMCs) and aircraft lessors. Last week, Indian Oil Corp. Ltd (IOCL) had twice stopped supplying fuel to Jet Airways before resuming supply. Jets financial woes only worsened after an SBI-led lenders consortium took control of Jet Airways in late March, promising an auction that is expected to be completed in the current quarter. Lenders have, however, failed to find a suitable investor willing to pump money into the loss-making carrier. Those who showed interest in acquiring stake in Jet Airways so far include buy-out firms TPG Capital and Indigo Partners and National Investment and Infrastructure Fund Ltd (NIIF) besides promoters Etihad Airways PJSC, and founder Naresh Goyal, among others. With Jet Airways in a financial muddle, infusion of fresh funds by a new investor is now crucial to save the airline from potential bankruptcy. Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content. Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist. If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider subscribing to our ePaper and/or free daily Newsletter . Support our mission and join our community now. European news station Euronews chose The Glyde Inn, Annagassan, as one of five businesses in five EU countries to represent their citizens views in a series of programmes in the run up to the EU elections in May to represent Ireland. The series of programmes is entitled Sleepovers. The presenter, Stuart Oats, spends 24 hours with his host to discover what the EU means to them and those around them. Stuart arrived for his sleepover last Thursday and was greeted with a fabulous traditional music session in the Glyde Inn courtesy of Lannleire Scoriocht. On Friday morning the manager of the Glyde Inn, Conor ONeill, took his guest on a tour of some local producers calling, first, to ONeills Bakery for some delicious freshly baked bread. Here Stuart had the opportunity to talk to John ONeill about his views on the potential difficulties that Brexit might bring. Conor then brought Stuart to visit Coastguard Seafoods in Annagassan to stock up on Terry Butterlys famous lobster and smoked salmon. Terry spoke to Stuart about how EU bureaucracy and legislation was making life difficult for SMEs. Next the pair headed to Clogherhead where they called on Noel Matthews in Dunany Crab and to fishmonger, Seamus Dunne before stopping at Oriel Sea Salt where John Delany talked about the importance of the EU with regards to trade, climate and sustainability. On the way back to Annagassan, Conor took Stuart to Salterstown Pier for a spot of sea kale foraging. It didnt take much convincing on the part of Conor to get the Euronews host to brave a quick dip in the waters at the pier! That evening Stuart made himself useful pulling pints at the Glyde Inn where he later hosted an EU quiz for the locals. To find out how they fared you will have to tune in to Euronews in three weeks time to see the show. Louth county councillor Colm Markey has called on the President of Dundalk Institute of Technology to move without delay to find a partner institute or institutes with which to apply for Technological University (TU) status "before it is too late". According to Cllr Markey, the Dublin Institute of Technology, Blanchardstown IT and IT Tallaght have already come together to form Technological University Dublin (TUD), Irelands first TU. Other clusters of Institutes of Technology (ITs) are at advanced stages of negotiations to join up and seek TU status, while DkIT is currently putting efforts into going a different direction by creating a cross-border Higher Education Institute with Southern Regional College, a further education college in Newry. Fine Gael Cllr Markey says he believes this move has some merits as regards a cross-border link, but will leave DkIT below standard in comparison with its neighbouring IT counterparts, as a link with a further education college would not give DkIT anything like the status afforded by Technological University status. It is clearly set out in the legislation that no IT can achieve TU status on its own without a partner institute, said Cllr Markey. If DkIT does not identify a partner institute among Irelands ITs very soon it will be forced to accept whatever terms it can get, slotting into an existing partnership between other ITs. He added: DkIT has a central role in the educational landscape of the North East and we must do everything we can to ensure its future success. Markey said that he understands that lecturers of DkIT are strongly in favour of moving immediately to seek TU status with IT partners, and the TUI, which represents the academic staff of DkIT unanimously passed a motion on February 5 calling on DkIT to move to apply to become a Technological University under the March, 2018 TU Act. The pressure is now on Dr. Micheal Mulvey, DkIT president to put this issue firmly back at the top of the agenda as its clear that achieving TU status has to be the absolute priority for DkIT if it is to remain a driving force for education and enterprise in the North East. Markey concluded: Staff in the college are very concerned about the situation and fearful that the institutes current direction will damage its potential and its future, with consequent damage to the North East as a whole. DkIT needs to get on board the TU train before it has left the station. Dieudonne Ivaha Diboua, Gouverneur de la Region du Littoral Archives The crowded streets, pupils in Uniforms, school buses, loud hooting of vehicles as early as 6:30 am this Monday, April 15, announced the resumption of the shortest term in Cameroons academic year. Officials of the primary and secondary education sector, say the third term is the shortest and most decisive of the school year. For secondary education, most end-of-course examinations fall within the third term period so it leaves tiny room for effective teaching and learning for the other classes. Most classrooms are occupied during end-of-course exams, so there is need to close early and have more space for exams. It is same thing for Primary school children ,who have to sit in for the Common Entrance examinations, and First School Leaving Certificate(FSLC). It is also worth mentioning that the third term is just about six weeks with many public holidays, so the need for this rush. Although most parents were fighting to send their children to school this morning, there was no rush for education and administrative officials in the Littoral region, who rather focused on the security of these children, than an early rush. They were all dispatched across various schools in the region, with Littoral governor, Samuel Ivaha Diboua, taking the lead to schools as from 7am, to monitor a secured and safe back-to-school for these pupils. The recent killing of a student at Government Bilingual High School Deido, amongst other security challenges in most schools in Douala, has being a cause or concern, as government is stepping up efforts to ensure schools remain safe. Reports say major schools in Douala are invaded by former students or hoodlums, who get into campus to attack or loot. The case of GBHS Deido is one amongst numerous incidents that happen in the school and at other schools in Douala. The need to step up security in schools was also raised by the Minister of Secondary Education, Nalova Lyonga, in Douala last week, when she paid a consolatory visit to the family of the deceased student of GBHS Deido, as well as to the campus of the school, where his murder took place. The challenge of securing bank finance is seeing a growing number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) turn to online lenders. One in four SMEs have been knocked back for bank finance Among SMEs rejected by a bank, one in three have turned to family/friends or a credit card for funding Of those SMEs that have secured bank finance, 29% of SMEs have had their business negatively impacted by the time taken to organise funding One in four SMEs plan to apply for finance in the future Research commissioned by OnDeck, a leading online SME lender, highlights the problems that small businesses face trying to secure finance. Two out of five SMEs surveyed have sought finance in the past. However, almost one in four (23%) have been knocked back by their bank. Rejection rates rise to 37% among businesses that have been in operation for less than five years. Mr Noah Breslow, Global CEO of OnDeck, says, What is particularly concerning, is that one in three SMEs rejected for bank finance have had to reach out to family or friends for funding, or have simply resorted to using a credit card. OnDecks study confirms that bank finance can be a time-consuming source of funding for SMEs, often bringing with it the burden of a lengthy application and approval process. Close to one-third (30%) of SMEs that have applied for bank finance say their business was negatively impacted by the experience. The chief impacts reported by SMEs include: 57% normal business activities were slowed or halted 42% had to delay the delivery of products/services 40% were forced to delay debt payments 39% had to delay buying new equipment 12% were forced to postpone hiring new staff Mr Breslow says, For SMEs time is money, and the number of hoops that SMEs need to jump through to secure bank finance is clearly adding to the cost, and stress, of gaining much-needed funds. As an online lender, OnDeck streamlines the finance process for SMEs, requesting far less information, and expediting the application and approval process by allowing key documents such as bank statements, to be uploaded directly to OnDeck online. One in four SMEs will seek finance in the future One in four (25%) SMEs plan to seek additional business finance in the future, a figure that rises to 39% of SMEs with 6-10 employees, and 56% of those with 11-49 employees. Clearly, there is strong demand for finance among the SME community. This offers a strong business opportunity for brokers to diversify their revenue base by expanding into SME lending, noted Mr Breslow. Growing numbers of SMEs turn to online lenders Among those SMEs likely to seek finance in the future, 65% would still try their luck with a bank; 27% would dip into their personal funds. There is growing awareness of online lenders as a source of finance, especially among those businesses that have had a poor experience with mainstream banks. One in five (22%) SME owners would consider an online lender, with the level of interest in online lenders rising to 42% for SMEs that have previously had an application for finance rejected by a bank. Commenting on the findings, Mr Breslow notes, Large numbers of Australians SMEs may not be reaching their full potential either because they cannot secure bank finance, or because an inefficient and lengthy lending process is adding to the cost burden. It is important for SME owners to realise that more efficient funding options are available through online lenders. Even SMEs that meet bank lending criteria can benefit from the speed and convenience of an online lender. I encourage the broking profession to engage with online lenders and diversify their revenue base to include SME lending. By helping SMEs access the finance they need, this would be a win-win for brokers and the small business community, concluded Mr Breslow. Noah Breslow is Global CEO of OnDeck, a leading online SME lender. Employees who work from home to look after family, a sick child, to manage long commutes or to juggle other commitments is fairly common practice but that could be about to change. If employees work frequently from home, there are certain measures that need to be taken in accordance with the law to prevent serious health and safety and financial consequences. An employees home environment becomes an extension of the workplace of which employers hold accountability for. A recent risk assessment has highlighted it may not be safe to allow parents to work from home when they are the primary carer of a small child, said Kelly Brown, Founder and Director of Recovery Partners, a leading workplace safety organisation. The Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) requires employers must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the health and safety of other people is not put at risk from or while work is being carried out, said Mrs Brown. When assessing risk, we look at everything that could go wrong and when there is a small child at home, they need to be closely supervised by their parent as our concern is something may happen to the child while a parent is working. This may be breaching the employers duty of care. Recently a tyre dealer was fined almost $150,000 after a two year old child was crushed to death by a 90 kilogram tyre that had been leaning upright against a wall in an area hed been playing. The fine and conviction is a timely reminder businesses have a responsibility for the health and safety of not only staff but people entering the workplace. The home is seen as extension of the workplace when staff commit to working from there rather than heading into the office, with the onus then falling on to the employer to ensure a safe working environment. Working smoke detectors, an emergency response plan, firm start and finish processes, and sound ergonomics are needed to ensure employers are doing their due diligence when staff work from home but many arent doing this, rather they are relying on self-assessments that can be largely inadequate said Mrs Brown. Just last month a company director in Queensland was jailed for not providing a safe workplace the first charge of reckless conduct successfully prosecuted at trial in any Australian State or Territory operating under comparable work health and safety legislation making all companies sit up and take notice. Employers are starting to err on the side of caution realising there are gaps in their workplace safety and one of those gaps is when staff work from home instead of in the office. One in three Australians work from home but we could start to see a drop in that number as employers realise the real risk they are putting themselves at. Mrs Brown said employers can be proactive to enable staff to work from home and have peace of mind by working through the below tips. 1. Conduct an independent onsite risk assessment. Looking at whether shelves and storage units are fixed to the walls and if smoke detectors are working. 2. Specify how often employees should check in from home. 3. Ensure staff keep up to date with OHS training and dont miss out on it simply because they are working from home. 4. Establish a process for identifying and reporting hazards and injuries. 5. Review working from home arrangements regularly. 6. Consider limitations on where employees can work for example can they also work at the local park or at cafes or elsewhere outside the home. Kelly Brown founded Recovery Partners in 2004 which specialises in safety, injury management and corporate health in the workplace. She is a finalist in the Telstra Womens Business Awards. One of Cameroon's Main Hydroelectric projects Facebook Cameroonian authorities have revealed that the Memveele electricity plant in the Ntem Valley division of the South region, is completed and set to start functioning, on Tuesday. The powering up of the plant comes as part of a working visit paid to the area by the Minister of Water and Energy, GastonEloundou, where he is expected to monitor and evaluate the Mekim hydroelectric dam. In prelude to commissioning the dam, a communique issued by the minister,stated that he will supervise the powering up of the hydro- electric dam on April 16, with 80MW to be generated from the project. The power acquired, is expected to be directed to the South Interconnected Grid. This increase, it is believed, will go a long way to improve power supply in regions connected to the grid. "With the powering up of Memve'ele dam operation, the South Interconnected Network (RIS) serving the Centre, Littoral, West, South, South West and North West regions will experience a significant improvement in energy supply , the statement stated. This supply, it went on, will mitigate the current difficulties of the population served by this grid. The signing of the work execution contract for the Memveele hydroelectric dam, it should be recalled, was signed April 2012. The contract for the construction of the dam estimated at FCFA 365 billion was handed to Chinese civil engineering Construction Company, Synohydro, noted for constructing the Three Gorges dam in China, the worlds largest hydroelectric power station. Last year the Ministry of Water and Energy, as part of its seven-year assessment, stated that between January and July, Cameroon increased energy supply by about 550MW while the installed capacity grew from 900MW to 1442MW. This increase, in installed capacity was achieved thanks to the construction of several energy facilities including the Lom Pangar hydroelectric dam with a 6Billion m3 water reservoir. By the end of the seven year period, Cameroon also improved the population's access to electricity, connecting 400,000 more people (800,000 to 1,200,000), representing an increase by 50%. les refugies -Cameroun Photo HCR-Cameroun The plight of refugees and some Internally Displaced Persons would soon be attended to, as the World Bank donates over 190 million US dollars to the government of Cameroon for the The plight of refugees and some Internally Displaced Persons would soon be attended to, as the World Bank donates over 190 million US dollars to the government of Cameroon for the The plight of refugees and some Internally Displaced Persons(IDPs), would soon be attended to, as the World Bank donates over 190 million US dollars to the government of Cameroon for the said purpose. The amount worth about 100.7 million Cameroonian Francs CFA, is the part of an effort, to help Cameroonian government, complete ongoing projects that are aimed at reducing the difficulties, faced by those seeking refuge in Cameroon and displaced persons of the Ongoing sociopolitical unrest in Anglophone regions, who are now living in most French-speaking zones of the country. The agreements to these were signed in Washington D.C., Thursday April 11, on the sidelines of the annual meeting of officials of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, IMF with representatives of needy governments across the globe.The agreements consist of financing two projects, which includes one to improve access to education for these persons, considered to be, not only amongst the most vulnerable but are in a category they refer to as the poorest of the poor.The other is to create social networks to recruit manpower for the execution of labour intensive projects that require the use of both unskilled and highly skilled manpower. In an official statement sent to the press on the subject, government specified that the development projects were financed in the ratio of 60 million dollars for the social network project and 130 for the education reform project. The former will reinforce ongoing projects that aim at putting in place pilot programmes for money transfer to improve livelihoods of the most vulnerable and poorest of the poor already identified in some localities across the country. It added that councils where such persons have been spotted; including communities hosting the mass of refugee influx and internally displaced persons would henceforth have money transferred directly to their accounts to enable them take care of these categories of persons. The document made known that there were presently not less than 372,542 refugees being hosted by Cameroonian communities. They plan to provide funds, through money transfer to councils for them to execute such jobs. It equally announced that some 23,000 persons were already employed for this project, with 8,500 of the hands being refugees and or internally displaced persons. For the second project which targets the education sector, they revealed that it aims at improving equity in the accessibility of basic education to the vulnerable and poorest of the poor. They stressed that such access must also aim at making sure that the type of education given to the disadvantaged is of good quality. Consequently, the donors promised to embark on the recruitment of more teachers to beef up basic education for refugee children and children of the internally displaced. The Banks projects reflect the range and depth of our commitment The EBRD is getting ready for its 2019 Annual Meeting in Sarajevo in May. The conference is expected to bring together around 2,000 delegates from government, business and civil society and will provide Bosnia and Herzegovina with a platform to present itself and the Western Balkans region as an attractive investment destination that is open for business. As a long-standing partner of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the EBRD has been supporting the countrys sound and sustainable growth through a combination of investment and assistance for policy reforms. Since the country became a shareholder of the Bank in June 1996 and operations began, we have invested 2.3 billion in around 160 projects. Last year alone we invested some 200 million and we are planning to expand our activities further this year. Donors play a particularly important role in Bosnia and Herzegovina as the international community remains committed to the reconstruction and development of the country and the region. For example, Bosnia and Herzegovina is benefitting from the European Western Balkans Joint Fund, a multi-donor fund managed by the EBRD and the EIB under the Western Balkans Investment Framework. The country also enjoys the support of the EU and many bilateral donor countries such as Austria and Sweden. Our goal is to contribute to the creation of an economy that allows its people especially the young to deploy their talents and reap the benefits of their efforts in their own country. Below we are illustrating in 10 examples the range and depth of the EBRDs engagement in the country: Financial Stability Deposit Insurance Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina When the global financial crisis of 2007/08 also threatened to affect Bosnia and Herzegovina, the EBRD provided much-needed stability with a 50 million standby credit line to the Deposit Insurance Agency that enable the institution to more than double its coverage. This was a key measure to reassure both private depositors and the banking sector. New Horizons Corridor Vc Connectivity is the big challenge for the Western Balkans and Bosnia and Herzegovina. It includes soft connectivity such as creating the legal and institutional framework for regional and trans-European integration as well as building the physical infrastructure to make this happen. The transport Corridor Vc will cross Bosnia and Herzegovina from the port of Ploce in the south to the border with Croatia in the north, following earlier investments in Republika Srpska. To date, the EBRD has already committed 550 million to the project which is jointly financed with the EIB and has also received an 11.8 million investment grant from the European Union and the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF). Warm Homes Banja Luka District Heating An 8.3 million loan was provided by the EBRD in 2017 to support the construction of a 49 MW district heating boiler plant fired by wood biomass in Banja Luka, in order to reduce the dependence on heavily polluting oil in the capital of Republika Srpska. Banja Luka has joined EBRD Green Cities with support from Austria. The programme promotes green solutions in infrastructure, transport and urban development in cities across the EBRD regions. Local Champions Bingo Promoting a local champion and helping it becoming a regional player, the EBRD has provided the local supermarket chain Bingo with a series of loans since the first financing of 6.5 million in 2010. Established in the central Bosnian city of Tuzla in 1993 as a private company, Bingo has since grown to become the largest retailer in the country. Bingos successful expansion offers local producers a unique opportunity to introduce their goods on the local and national market. New Technology United Group/Telemach Bosnia United Group was established in 2000 as a small cable company offering new telecommunications platforms and media. In 2011, the EBRD arranged a 25 million syndicated loan for its subsidiary Telemach Bosnia. The company brought modern, high quality telecoms services to the country and became a leading cable TV and broadband internet provider. Over the years, United Group expanded through organic growth and acquisitions and in September 2018 was valued at 2.6 billion. Clean Water Bijeljina Wastewater Access to clean water and the safe disposal of wastewater is a fundamental human need. A 7.0 million credit from the EBRD in 2007 to the city of Bijeljina in the north of the country was the first in a series of loans for the construction of a wastewater treatment plant, a wastewater collection network and an expansion of the network supplying clean water. Each had a direct, positive impact that improved the quality of life for the local population of more than 100,000 inhabitants. The EU and Sweden co-financed the investment with 6.5 and 4 million, respectively. Industrial Potential ArcelorMittal Zenica When the largest steel producer in the world, ArcelorMittal, considered expanding to Bosnia and Herzegovina they turned to the EBRD. In 2005, the EBRD provided a 25 million loan in support of energy efficiency investments at the plant in the Zenica-Doboj canton, with TaiwanICDF providing 5 million in concessional financing. Today ArcelorMittal employs over 2,400 staff at Zenica and indirectly supports around 10,000 jobs throughout the country. Building on the success of the cooperation, in March 2019 the EBRD arranged a 46 million loan package, supported by TaiwanICDF, financing a new combined heat and power plant supplying the plant and the city with cleaner and more efficient energy. Clean Air Zenica Hospital For many years the local hospital in Zenica, built in 1959, had been one of the worst polluters in a city already suffering from severe environmental problems. A 10 million EBRD loan together with 1 million from the EU/WBIF-supported Regional Energy Efficiency Programme was signed in 2018 for investments to reduce CO 2 emissions and increase energy efficiency. The refurbishment will provide cleaner energy and lead to significant savings, combining economic and environmental benefits. Save Pensions European Pension Fund The EBRD was a pioneer in the development of private pension management in Bosnia and Herzegovina . Its investment in an equity stake in the European Voluntary Pension Fund Management Company allowed the firm to become the first provider of voluntary pension services in Republika Srpska. The investment offered private customers and investors a wider choice in how to prepare for their financial future and was a milestone in the development of the local capital market. Pulp Fiction Natron Hayat The EBRD has helped rebuild Bosnias industrial base with credits in support of a pulp and paper mill in the central Bosnian town of Maglaj owned by the Turkish company Natron Hayat. A first loan in 2006 allowed the plant to restart the production of pulp and financed the renovation on an integrated pulp and paper mill. The plant draws on an ample supply of local natural resources and has set new standards in the forestry sector for the whole country. In 2012, the cooperation continued with a new EBRD loan for the construction of a new biomass-fired power plant that cut carbon emissions and reduced the environmental impact of waste from the installation. *Ian Brown is EBRDs Head of Office in Sarajevo Ethics working with integrity Ethics drives us to make the right choices even in face of challenges or under pressure. It is the basis for public trust and ultimately for the ECBs credibility. Our high-level officials and staff members perform their duties impartially and with integrity and behave in a manner befitting the character of the ECB as an institution of the European Union. What do ethics mean at the ECB? Here at the ECB our conduct is governed by ethical principles and rules, which are set out in the Ethics Framework for all staff and the Code of Conduct for high-level ECB officials. Conflicts of interest Managing conflicts of interest properly is arguably the most important principle of ethical conduct. It relates directly to our value of integrity and underpins many other elements of our ethical rules. These rules outline principles and standards of conduct for avoiding situations that give or may be perceived to give rise to conflicts of interest. All ECB high-level officials and staff members must perform their professional duties impartially and objectively. Gifts and hospitality In order to avoid even the appearance of conflicts of interest, staff members are generally not permitted to accept any advantage connected with their employment at the ECB. This rule is particularly relevant when staff members are interacting with the private sector, supervised banks or current or potential suppliers. It is a restriction that applies to all benefits regardless of nature, including gifts and hospitality. High-level officials are also required to respect the principles of independence and impartiality, and to avoid conflicts of interest related to accepting advantages. Owing to their prominent role and function, however, they may accept certain hospitality and gifts of minor value. External activities Staff members are required to request authorisation before engaging in any external activity that is of an occupational nature, or that goes beyond what can reasonably be considered a leisure activity. This is to ensure that the activity in question does not create a conflict of interest. Every year, high-level officials report on any activities that they performed in an official or personal capacity as part of their declarations of interests. After leaving the ECB High-level officials and staff members leaving the ECB may be subject to a cooling-off period. They may be required to wait for a certain period of time before taking up new employment, depending on their function at the ECB, to avoid the situation of revolving doors. Such restrictions apply in particular to management and staff working in banking supervision, who may be subject to cooling-off periods of up to two years. In addition to this measure, high-level officials and staff members continue to be bound by their professional secrecy obligations even after they have stopped working for the ECB. They may not disclose any non-public information that they could have come into contact with while carrying out their duties. High-level officials and staff members remain subject to compliance monitoring exercises associated with their private financial transactions for a defined period of time after leaving the ECB. Procurement Staff members have to conduct procurement procedures in accordance with specific rules and provisions, and maintain objectivity, neutrality, transparency and fairness. They are also expected to avoid and report conflicts of interest. To this end, staff members involved in procurement procedures are required to complete a certification form to confirm that they have understood the rules surrounding conflicts of interest and have no such conflicts with potential bidders. Recruitment Our recruitment procedures include an assessment of conflicts of interest related to the candidates previous jobs and their personal relationships with current ECB staff members. Interacting with third parties Staff members and high-level officials are required to be cautious and transparent about whom they meet, when they meet and what they say. High-level officials and staff are expected to follow guiding principles and specific house rules with respect to speaking engagements and attending meetings. The meeting diaries of the members of the ECBs Governing Council, Executive Board and Supervisory Board are published regularly, in the interests of transparency and accountability. The diaries of the remaining Governing Council and Supervisory Board members can be found on the respective national central banks or national supervisors websites. Private financial activities Staff members and high-level officials are expressly prohibited from taking advantage of inside information to carry out any private financial transaction or to recommend or advise against such transactions. The ECB has in place strict and detailed rules concerning private financial transactions. The rules include guidelines for declaring account details and for reporting on and authorising financial transactions. Compliance with these rules is monitored rigorously. 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However, only 8 per cent of participants are currently in full compliance of the initiative as outlined by the AGT assessment framework. The findings, which are published today in the AGT annual report, says the initiative has now gained a much clearer picture of textile production sites serving the Dutch market as well as more clarity on what materials are being used by these companies. It also details specific actions taken in 2018 to change their operational management in a way that makes them better able to tackle abuses in their supply chains. Yet the head of the Dutch initiative also acknowledges progress has not been as quick as was first thought. Change is slower than we would wish it to be in view of our enthusiasm and commitment, said Pierre Hupperts, chair of Dutch Agreement on Sustainable Garments and Textiles. It takes time to arrive at the right approach and to change the organisation and processes within companies. This makes it essential to set clearly defined priorities and to focus our attention and efforts on activities that can really make a difference. Launched in July 2016, the Dutch Agreement on Sustainable Garments and Textile runs for five years and aims to improve the working conditions, prevent pollution and to promote animal welfare in regions that supply textile and apparel to the Dutch retail market through year-on-year improvements. The center left Social Democrats secured a narrow victory Sunday in a Finnish election dominated by the question of climate change. In Finland, one-third of which sits above the Arctic Circle, most parties campaigned on taking greater climate action, while the nationalist Finns party argued against climate policy that it said required sacrifices from the populace. "Never before has climate and the limits of planet Earth been discussed with such seriousness in Finland," Greenpeace Finland said, as the Associated Press reported. The group called it "the climate election." However, that climate focus could have helped the Finns Party come in a close second, some analysts said. "Well-meaning people wanted to make these elections climate elections, but they only set the table for an election victory for the Finns Party," Helsingin Sanomat columnist Saska Saarikoski tweeted ahead of the election, as The New York Times reported. "Could we learn something from this?" In the final tally, the winning Social Democrats took 17.7 percent of the votes, while the Finns Party won 17.5 percent. The center-right National Coalition won 17 percent and the current Prime Minister's Centre Party took 13.8 percent, making this the first Finnish general election in one-hundred years in which no party has claimed more than 20 percent of the vote, Reuters reported. During the election, eight of the nine parties offered plans to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, such as taxing meat or airfare or limiting logging. The Finns Party, meanwhile, presented these proposals as sacrifices imposed on ordinary voters by an urban elite. "Climate hysteria wrecks the Finnish economy and industry, and it destroys the fruits of decades of work by citizens," Finns Party chairman Jussi Halla-aho said in a video blog reported by The New York Times. The Finnish election broke a trend in northern European elections by seeing climate displace immigration as the right's favorite hot-button issue. Project manager at climate think-tank Adelphi Stella Schaller told The New York Times that the right could begin to exploit climate across Europe. "They use identity-laden frames, such as national independence, the homeland, our nature and environment," Schaller said. "They make it an emotional issue by fueling fears of rising energy prices and higher consumer costs. The way they communicate about this is dramatic and personal." Whether you live on the beach or in a landlocked city, all water eventually makes its way to the ocean, which is why it's so important to use reef-safe sunscreen. Traditional sunscreens can be toxic both to your body and to our important ocean environments, but there are plenty of safe options available. At its most basic, reef-safe sunscreen is sunscreen that only uses mineral-based UV-blocking ingredients. However, there's no regulation on using the term "reef-safe," so it's important to thoroughly vet the ingredients of any product you're considering purchasing. To save you some time and effort, we've done the research for you, and in this article, we'll break down the six best reef-safe sunscreens on the market today. Why Switch to Reef-Safe Sunscreen? Some places, like Hawaii, have banned many reef-harming sunscreens, but most Americans still have the choice to stick with traditional sunblocks or go the ocean-friendly route. Why switch to reef-safe sunscreen? There are a number of reasons, including: According to National Geographic, there are as many as 82,000 kinds of chemicals from personal care products (including sunscreen) in the ocean, and in 2015 alone, around 14,000 tons of sunscreen ended up on coral reefs globally. Even if you aren't near the ocean, when you shower after applying sunscreen, much of it goes down the drain, entering the wastewater stream and eventually ending up in the sea. Ingredients found in commercially made sunscreens such as oxybenzone, octinoxate, nano titanium dioxide and nano zinc oxide are toxic not only for reefs, but also for sea urchins, fish, marine mammals and other ocean creatures. Oxybenzone can be absorbed by humans and has even shown up in urine and breast milk. The 7 Best Reef-Safe Sunscreens Now that you've got a few reasons to choose an ocean-friendly sunblock over an ocean-polluting one, here are our recommendations for the best reef-safe sunscreens on the market. Each product featured here has been independently selected by the writer. If you make a purchase using the links included, we may earn commission. Best Overall: Thinksport SPF 50 Sunscreen Thinksport SPF 50 Sunscreen is our overall first choice for reef-safe sunscreen. Once applied, the full-spectrum protection begins instantly and the formula won't leave your skin feeling greasy or sticky. This sunscreen has the highest water resistance per the FDA and can offer protection in water for up to 80 minutes, after which it should be reapplied. Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars with over 3,800 Amazon ratings Why Buy: This sunscreen doesn't contain any parabens, phthalates, BPA, oxybenzone, avobenzone, petroleum, gluten, dairy or toxic chemicals. Its one active ingredient is non-nano zinc oxide, and it is not tested on animals. Shop Now at Amazon Best Tinted Sunscreen: Olita Tinted Mineral Sunstick Olita If you're worried about mineral sunscreen leaving a white sheen on your face, we recommend trying Olita's Tinted Mineral Sunstick. The SPF 30 formula comes in two shades Coco Bronze and Light Tan and its compact size makes it easy to toss in your beach bag or makeup bag. Its made with moisturizing ingredients like shea butter and aloe and is free of chemicals or fragrances. Customer Rating: 4.2 out of 5 stars with about 100 Amazon ratings Why Buy: Olita's tinted sunscreen goes on like a foundation and lasts about two hours before reapplication is needed. All of the company's products are verified by the Environmental Working Group, and Olita donates 10% of all sales to the Coral Reef Alliance to further reef protection. Shop Now at Amazon Best Organic Sunscreen: Badger Clear Zinc SPF 40 Sunscreen Another product we love is Badger Clear Zinc SPF 40 Sunscreen. This reef-safe, broad-spectrum formula only has four ingredients: zinc oxide, sunflower oil, beeswax and vitamin E. It is water-resistant for up to 80 minutes and is fragrance-free. Customer Rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars with about 200 Amazon ratings Why Buy: This sunscreen is SPF 40 and doesn't use any fragrances, allergens, Shop Now at Amazon This sunscreen is SPF 40 and doesn't use any fragrances, allergens, GMOs , parabens, dyes or artificial ingredients. Badger is a women-run B Corporation, and its sunscreen lotions meet the strict safety guidelines of the Environmental Working Group and Protect Land + Sea. Best for Sensitive Skin: Babo Botanicals Clear Zinc Sunscreen Lotion The SPF 30 formulation of Babo Botanicals Clear Zinc Sunscreen is made for people with very sensitive skin. It uses a 100% non-nano zinc and mineral-based formula that has an 80-minute water resistance before needing to be reapplied. It also includes natural ingredients like soothing organic sunflower oil, jojoba oil, shea butter and avocado. Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars with over 1,400 Amazon ratings Why Buy: Babo Botanicals is a certified B Corp. Its sunscreen doesn't contain any added fragrances and is a PETA-certified cruelty-free product. It's also approved by the Environment Working Group. Shop Now at Amazon Babo Botanicals is a certified B Corp. Its sunscreen doesn't contain any added fragrances and is a PETA-certified cruelty-free product. It's also approved by the Environment Working Group. Best for Kids: Earth Mama Uber-Sensitive Mineral Sunscreen Lotion This SPF 40 water-resistant product is pediatrician- and dermatologist-tested for irritants, making it a good choice for children. Earth Mama sunscreen is made from a non-nano zinc formula that sits on top of the skin instead of absorbing into the skin, so it can effectively deflect UV rays and offer maximum sun protection. Customer Rating: 4.2 out of 5 stars with over 450 Amazon ratings Why Buy: Earth Mama's kid-friendly sunscreen doesn't use chemicals or artificial fragrances. Using natural ingredients like shea butter and organic colloidal oatmeal helps kids who may get rashes on their skin. It is water-resistant for up to 40 minutes and has UVA/UVB protection. Shop Now at Amazon Earth Mama's kid-friendly sunscreen doesn't use chemicals or artificial fragrances. Using natural ingredients like shea butter and organic colloidal oatmeal helps kids who may get rashes on their skin. It is water-resistant for up to 40 minutes and has UVA/UVB protection. Best for Activity: Stream2Sea Sport Sunscreen Unlike typical chemical sunscreens, Stream2Sea uses organic, mineral-based ingredients to shield against UV rays. It sits on your skin rather than being absorbed into your pores, so it's safer for your health while also being safe for marine life. It's water-resistant for up to 80 minutes and holds up to sweat, so it's great for outdoor activities. Customer Rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars with over 440 Amazon ratings Why Buy: This sunscreen's formula is eco-conscious and is free of parabens and sulfates. The packaging is also environmentally friendly, as it's made from sugarcane resin and recycled plastic milk jugs. Shop Now at Amazon Best Face Sunscreen: REN Clean Screen Mineral SPF 30 Mattifying Face Sunscreen This mattifying sunscreen is made with 22% non-nano, naturally derived zinc oxide for broad-spectrum UVA, UVB and blue-light protection. Its mattifying effect helps to reduce the visibility of pores, making it great for everyday use. Customer Rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars with over 180 Amazon ratings Why Buy: This product is silicone-free, cruelty-free and vegan. The packaging is made with recycled plastic and can be recycled again when the tube is empty. It uses ingredients such as yellow passionfruit and rice extract and is non-comedogenic, meaning it won't clog your pores. Shop Now at Amazon This product is silicone-free, cruelty-free and vegan. The packaging is made with recycled plastic and can be recycled again when the tube is empty. It uses ingredients such as yellow passionfruit and rice extract and is non-comedogenic, meaning it won't clog your pores. FAQ: Reef-Safe Sunscreen Which sunscreen is safe for coral reefs? There are many sunscreens that are safe for coral reefs. We recommend Thinksport SPF 50 Sunscreen and the Olita Tinted Mineral Sunstick as two of the best options on the market. How do I know if sunscreen is reef safe? The claim "reef-safe" is not regulated, so the only way to know if a sunscreen is safe for coral reefs is to check the ingredients list for yourself. What sunscreen ingredients are not reef safe? According to Save the Reef, when looking for reef-safe sunscreen products, the ingredients you should avoid include: oxybenzone, octinoxate, octocrylene, homosalate, 4-methylbenzylidene camphor, PABA, parabens and triclosan. Additionally, avoid any forms of microplastics, like "exfoliating beads" as well as nanoparticles of zinc or titanium. Do I need to wear reef-safe sunscreen? You should wear sunscreen every day to protect your skin and help prevent skin cancer. Whether it's reef-friendly sunscreen is up to you, but we highly recommend it for both your own health and the health of the ocean ecosystem. By Tara Lohan We have a big job ahead of us. The perils of climate change will require that we craft new policies, fund robust scientific research and dramatically rethink most of the infrastructure we rely on everything from energy to food to transportation. Supporters of a Green New Deal have insisted that we need a World War II-scale mobilization to put the brakes on a fossil-fueled economy. All of this may conjure the work of engineers, urban planners, designers, scientists and policymakers. But that's not all. We'll also need more storytellers, says Jeff Biggers. Biggers, a journalist, playwright and historian, has written hundreds of articles and eight books, including Resistance: Reclaiming an American Tradition and Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland. He's spent decades deeply entrenched in movements for environmental protection and justice, but says he still felt we were falling short on inspiring the change needed to meet the scale of the problem. So in 2014 he started the Climate Narrative Project, which works with high schools, universities and communities across the country to fuse science and art into new narratives about climate change and solutions that cut across disciplines and media. We spoke with Biggers about his work helping to train climate storytellers and how it's changing communities. Jeff Biggers reads from his book, Resistance. Photo courtesy of the author What led you to start the Climate Narrative Project? I feel like we have a climate communication crisis as much as a climate crisis. We're not just up against a formidable lobby of oil, gas and coal, but somehow we need to rise above the noise, the distractions and the globalization of indifference to injustice in daily life. While the majority of Americans recognize the growing problem of climate change, surveys have found that most people rarely discuss it or know how to engage in real action. I'd seen this for years decades as a long-time organizer and environmental justice chronicler in coal country. We had often failed at communicating the right story to galvanize enough support to change destructive policies or hold outlaw coal companies and their bankrolled politicos accountable. What do you hope the project will achieve? Returning to my roots as a storyteller, I felt we needed to bring together science, humanities and the arts to come up with new climate narratives that could galvanize action and envision ways for regenerative solutions: in effect, to train a new generation of climate storytellers as community organizers. Based in Iowa, I've worked with campuses, community groups and planners in towns and cities across the country, from Appalachia to the steel mills of Gary, Indiana, to rural Arizona to cities in Silicon Valley. I train with artists in all forms of storytelling dance, theatre, film, spoken word and creative writing, visual arts and radio in order to rethink our ways in regards to energy, food, waste, urban design and transportation, and our connection to our local history and nature. Then we envision a roadmap through stories in how we can transition toward creating carbon neutral regenerative cities and campuses ways in which we don't simply "do less harm," but actively repair the environmental destruction and replenish our natural resources. A mural from the "Ecopolis" project in Gary, Indiana. Photo by Jeff Biggers What has been one of your favorite stories that has been told through the project? In one of my Climate Narrative Project cadres an art student in Iowa stunned her audience by displaying a beautiful painting she had done of the prairies, spoke about her interviews at Standing Rock and then poured black oil all over it to demonstrate the impact of pipeline bursts. What kind of effects have you seen on audiences or in the communities where these projects have been created? On a community level, I was blown away by the "Ecopolis" stories composed by a group of urban farmers, rappers, educators, jazz musicians and artists in Gary, Indiana, who brought together an unusually diverse coalition mainstream environmental groups, churches, teachers and students, business people, city administrators with their vision of the famous steel city as a carbon neutral regenerative city, walking us through a decade of transitions to green-enterprise zones and circular economies, soil mitigation and local food, rewilding and reconnecting to the extraordinary and biodiverse Indiana dunes. After the multimedia theater event at a solar-powered church, the local groups sat down for a lunch hosted by urban farmers and began the process of making this vision a reality. On a campus level, I've been amazed by the Climate Stories Collaborative at Appalachian State University, which followed up our Climate Narrative Project training as an initiative to bring together 23 different academic units and departments to engage students and faculty with story-driven climate actions. As climate impacts increase and this issue hits home for more and more people, do you think art and culture will play a bigger role in how we understand the problem and craft the solutions we want to see? If we're serious about engaging communities for climate action and environmental justice, storytelling and all the arts must play a key role in our initiatives. I tell every organization, community and interfaith group, school and university, and especially town and city councils: Don't waste your resources on bureaucrats, task forces and commissioning studies that no one reads invest in the arts, storytellers, writers, playwrights and farmers. Every organization, campus and city should have a climate storyteller-in-residence, a climate artist-in-residence, a farmer-in-residence, etc. If we are to meet the urgency of climate action, we must be training brigades of climate storytellers to astonish, inspire and organize our communities. Reposted with permission from our media associate The Revelator. The last known female Yangtze giant softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei) has died, putting the critically endangered species at risk for extinction. There are now only three left in the world. "Sadly the female Rafetus did not wake up and after 24 hours died," conservation group the Asian Turtle Program (ATP) wrote in a Facebook Post. The turtle lived at Suzhou Zoo in China, where researchers attempted to artificially inseminate her Friday, according to the Suzhou Daily, as CNN reported . In an earlier post, before the death was confirmed, ATP lamented what it would mean. "As she was the only captive female globally this would be a tragic loss for such a rare species," the group wrote. Researchers said that the turtle was in good health before the procedure, and that the procedure appeared to go smoothly, the Associated Press reported. They will conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of death. This was the fifth time that the more-than 90 year old turtle had been artificially inseminated. Researchers said they would store ovarian tissue samples "for future use," according to CNN. There are now three of the turtles remaining, one male at the same Suzhou Zoo and two in the wild in Vietnam. One lives in a lake called Dong Mo and is estimated to be around 40 or 50 years old. The other was just discovered last April in Xuan Khanh lake, offering a rare bit of hope for the species, The New Yorker reported in December of 2018. The genders of the Vietnamese turtles are unknown, but plans are underway to change that, The New Yorker explained: Last year, a paper published in Scientific Reports showed that, contrary to prior understanding, softshell turtles possess sex chromosomes, which means that they can be sexed using DNA analysis. Minh Le, an evolutionary biologist at Vietnam National University and a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History, told me that preparations were already being made for a test on the Dong Mo turtle. (DNA samples were procured during its escape and capture in 2008.) Assuming things go smoothly, they should have results early next year. The Yangtze giant softshell turtle is the largest freshwater turtle in the world, AFP reported. It can grow to be as much as 39 inches long and weigh as much as 220 pounds. It has been driven to the brink by a combination of hunting, pollution, shipping traffic and the building of dams. In the New Yorker article, Brent Crane explained what it was like to see one in the wild during a visit to Vietnam. "The head, coconut-size and with giant flared nostrils, was painted in squiggles of lime and pine green," Crane wrote. "Its bottom jaw was yellow. Sparkling in the sunshine was the long, thin bulge of the turtle's carapace. We watched it floating there for several minutes, passing the binoculars back and forth, keeping quiet. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone." Cameroon rapper, Valsero archives Amnesty International has called for the "immediate and unconditional" release of Cameroonian rapper, Valsero who declared his support for Cameroon's opposition CRM party ahead of the countrys October 7, 2018 presidential elections. On January 26, 2019, the rapper, Valsero was arrested alongside several other demonstrators, during a protest march organized by the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM), the political party of Maurice Kamto. Since that day, the latter has continued to make return trips between the central prison of Yaounde and the court of instance, to respond to accusations of assembly, insurrection, rebellion in groups, hostility against the fatherland, disturbance of public order, incitement to insurrection, association of criminals and complicity. Amnesty International says Valsero's detention is illegal and has launched a petition to demand the rapper's release. The non-governmental organization recently issued a statement urging Internet users to sign a petition for the release of Valsero. In his misfortune, his fellow rappers gave him a little nuanced support. Many of them asked for his release but regretted his commitment to the CRM. The rapper Izmo with whom he signed the song "Life is beautiful" even reminded him that "A rapper commits himself by writing combat texts, but we do not line up behind a camp." But since March 12, 2019, Valsero can count on new support, that of Amnesty International. The non-governmental organization has launched a petition to demand the release of the rapper. "Valsero is a Cameroonian musician and political activist. He is one of more than 130 people who were arrested for demonstrating peacefully against the government. Valsero now risks the death penalty, only for expressing himself. Tell Cameroon to stop repressing dissent," a statement from Amnesty International said. Amnesty International warned that the arrest of Kamto and his aides signals an escalating crackdown on opposition leaders, human rights defenders and activists in Cameroon". "The authorities must immediately and unconditionally release them, as well as peaceful protesters detained at the weekend simply for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly," said Amnesty's West and Central Africa director Samira Daoud. President Paul Biya, who has ruled Cameroon for 36 years, won a seventh consecutive term in October's presidential election but Maurice Kamto and his CRM has insisted he was the rightful winner. Official results gave 86-year-old Biya 71% of the vote, compared with 14 percent for Kamto, and the party has since staged a series of sporadic protests. Communications Minister Rene Emmanuel Sadi accuses Kamto and the CRM of trying to "destabilise" the government, and following several CRM demonstrations, Paul Atanga Nji, minister for territorial administration, said the party had "crossed the red line" and has threatened to ban it. He has however banned all CRM organized protest, which decision is being challenged in the administrative courts by Kamto loyalists. Whats more important to a superintendent: a math program shown to give a bigger boost to students math skills in the next two years or one that gives a smaller improvement but fits the districts budget for five years? Questions like that have become steadily more common as school leaders grapple with years of shrinking budgets. Still, it can be difficult to understand the expenses that lie beneath an interventions sticker price or the resources that may mean the difference between a promising intervention working on paper and working in the classroom. Thats why foundations, policymakers, and even the U.S. Department of Educations research agency are pushing for more tools and research to help educators understand the costs of education programs. Its a sea change that we have people saying we need to be cost-effective, not just effective, said Lori Taylor, an education researcher with Texas A&M University. Taylor studies cost for the Texas Smart Schools Initiative, which provides tools for school leaders and parents to analyze academic returns to different spending approaches. In earlier research, it was seen as kind of sufficient to know that this intervention was working, without really digging down into the numbers to ask, Well yeah, but ... how expensive is it and is it going to work better than the other things that also work? Taylor said. Putting the Field on Notice Beginning this grant cycle, the federal Institute of Education Sciences formally required all future evaluation studies to analyze the costs to implement an intervention, including staff, training, equipment and materials, and other expenses, both at the start of and to maintain the programs over time. Institute of Education Sciences Director Mark Schneider said he was putting the field on notice"half of the proposed intervention studies this year were disqualified because for lack of adequate cost analyses. As a field, we have been way, way behind the curve in terms of telling people how much things cost, Schneider said. We understand this is a challenge for the field, so were working on that. The rising interest in cost-effectiveness is partly due to economic necessity. More than half the states still provide less money for schools than they did before the 2008 recession, and in 19 states, local funding for schools fell at the same time, according to the latest analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. As schools across the country wrestle with years of belt tightening, leaders increasingly struggle to balance the effectiveness of research-based programs with the cost to put them into practice. But researchers are also discovering that these bottom-line analyses, while being of more practical use to policymakers and practitioners, can begin to answer a question that has bedeviled researchers and educators alike for decades: Why does an intervention that shows great results with students in one district fall flat with a seemingly similar group of students elsewhere? Accounting for Supports For example, in an upcoming study, New York University doctoral researcher Jill Gandhi evaluated an inexpensive writing intervention designed to spur a positive academic mindset in low-income Chicago teenagers. Prior studies had found significant, lasting benefits for students who became motivated to learn to make an impact on the world. But in Chicago, the intervention had no effect or even hurt motivation. Why? Gandhi suggested the problem may lie not in the cost of the intervention but the lack of subsequent supports, such as access to challenging classes or college planning. Activating students motivation for learning and growth mindset with no other support might make students frustrated, she said at a recent discussion of the research. Thats not uncommon, said A. Brooks Bowden, a cost-effectiveness researcher and assistant education professor at North Carolina State University. We often say, heres the cost to buy a textbook, and heres the cost to use a new curriculum, without really considering the contrast between that curriculum and what was in place previously, or any other changes and services used to produce [effects on student achievement], she said. And if one program helps students, it may also change the mix of supports those students need in the future. If we understand the resources needed in the programs we are delivering, someone in another state or district has a road map of what they need and what to do ... rather than just a budget figure, she said. The Language of Money Proposed new research priorities for the Institute of Education Sciences call for more studies of cost in education research. But different kinds of cost-related measures can provide different information for education leaders and policymakers, such as: Cost Ingredients': These include all resources needed for an intervention, including teachers, volunteers, class space, materials and other items. Regardless of how theyre paid for, they must be known to recreate a program elsewhere. Cost-Effectiveness: This kind of study compares the total cost of resources needed to get a particular resultsuch as improving the math skills of 3rd gradersto the total cost of other approaches that get equal results. This might be used, for example, by a superintendent trying to decide whether the district should invest in a new math curriculum or instead pay for a new teacher-training program for the existing curriculum. Cost-Benefit: This kind of study compares costs of implementing a program to the return on the educational investment over time; it requires more data and analysis than a cost-effectiveness study and often looks at longer-term effects. This might be used by a policymaker trying to decide whether the cost of early-childhood education will be returned to society in higher adult taxable income or lower incarceration costs for the children who participated. Many programs already have administrative data on the different materials and training needed to implement a particular program, but researchers need to include that information from the start to get an accurate picture of the costs of a program. For example, one district may be able to use parent volunteers as reading tutors, and so may not calculate the cost of hiring and training tutorsbut those expenses have to be included for a principal in a school with fewer volunteers to decide whether she can use the program. That can be complicated, and it is one reason many education researchers have been slow to include cost in their evaluations or implementation studies of interventions. Anybody who does policy research understands that cost is important to policymakers. You cant leave it out of the equation, said Larry Hedges, an education professor at Northwestern University. Yet, he added, there has been very little human capital in the education research world to assess costs in a meaningful way. ... If you asked people, should we be worrying about costs, the answer would have been yes, but when you ask them, Well, how are you going to do that?, they have thrown their hands up very rapidly, Hedges said. The Center for Benefit-Cost Studies in Education, at Teachers College, Columbia University, looked at intervention studies supported by IES. In 2014, only two of 18 research evaluations planned to analyze the costs of their interventions. Two years later, that was up to seven of 22 funded studies, but they included few details. The Education Departments research agency has trained more than 150 researchers in how to measure cost-benefits and cost-effectiveness in the past five years. But the field has been relatively slow to take up costs. The benefit-cost studies center has been building an online tool and database of more than 700 prices of educational resourcesincluding 70 teacher-salary levels pulled from federal and state datato help researchers and school leaders estimate program costs. I think there have been misconceptions about the work that goes into identifying and quantifying resources, Bowden said. Im not doing this work because Im ... interested in finance. I want to understand how we can better serve our students, whats working for them, how we make sure theyre getting the resources that are effective. And this is a critical piece of that. To build the largest and most complete Amateur Radio community site on the Internet - a "portal" that hams think of as the first place to go for information, to exchange ideas, and be part of whats happening with ham radio on the Internet. eHam.net provides recognition and enjoyment to the people who use, contribute, and build the site. This project involves a management team of volunteers who each take a topic of interest and manage it with passion. The site will stand above all other ham radio sites by employing the latest technology and professional design/programming standards, developed by a team of community programmers who contribute their skills to the effort. The site will be something of which everyone involved can be proud to say they were a part. We welcome your comments. The eHam.net Team, Revision 07/2020. Some Pregnant IDPs Pose With Gifts Twitter The Center for Advocacy in Gender Equality and Action for Development (CAGEAD), a nongovernmental organisation (NGO) in Cameroon , has assisted pregnant Internally Displaced Women(IDPs), with delivery kits. The ongoing sociopolitical crisis in the North West region has seen many pregnant women, running to bushes and other towns for safety. Some of them have lost their partners and families, hence need immediate help. CAGEAD, who has been reaching out to internally displaced persons, thought it wise to help these pregnant women. They were in Tubah subdivision, in the North West this week, where they handed other useful items after child birth, as well as these delivery kits. More pregnant women affected by the ongoing Anglophone crisis, are in need of such assistance. A case of an IDP is reported in Bonaberi, where a young girl of 18, expecting twins, hasnt done antenatal since she got pregnant because she lost touch with her partner, and her mother cant afford it. The family made a call over a Douala-based TV station, for persons of good will to assist them. As the crisis ensues, cases of maternal mortality have been reported in remote areas, because they didnt have access to health care, or possibilities to move to another area. Clotilda Andiensa is the founder and coordinator of CAGEAD Cameroon, who says having being exposed to leadership skills, her role is to inspire young women to take charge of their lives and positively co tribute to Cameroons development agenda. CAGEAD is a registered non governmental, non-political and non-religious organization based in the Northwest region of Cameroon. They are dedicated to upholding the rights of women and youth through education, awareness building and advocacy. It seeks to be a leading organization for promoting human equality and development by building and promoting a culture of accountability in behaviour in communities. Apart from supporting IDPs, the NGO, has carried out sexual reproductive health activities, where they trained about 150 teenagers from 111 subdivisions, on how to curb unintended pregnancies and the spread of HIV/AIDS and other related diseases amongst teenagers in schools. Applied Materials is currently the largest equipment manufacturer in the world and supplies most semiconductor manufacturers with machines without which they could not produce. Applied Materials has stopped all deliveries and services to the largest Chinese LED manufacturer. The company had been blacklisted by the US government. Xiamen Sanan Optoelectronics is one of at least three Chinese customers of Applied Materials mentioned in the black list, reports Nikkei Asian Review. Although the US government does not impose direct embargoes on the companies mentioned in the list, American suppliers should treat these companies with caution. The American equipment manufacturers can no longer rely on licences already granted for the supply of machines or for maintenance work, but have to apply for new licences. Apparently Applied Materials has already withdrawn its own service teams and instructed its suppliers to do the same. The CEO of Applied Materials, Gary Dickerson, had only visited SEMICON China at the end of March and explained that the trade tensions between the USA and China could endanger "decades of growth". If both countries failed to resolve their conflicts, they would find themselves in a "Loose Loose" situation. Applied Materials currently generates around 26 percent of its sales in China. Appeal for Manx National Rally volunteers Organisers of next month's Manx National Rally are looking for volunteers. Marshals, radio operators and timekeepers are needed for the event which takes place on May 10th and 11th. Signing on events will be held the TT Grandstand and the cafe at Ramsey Swimming Pool. Those interested are being asked bring photo ID or their 2019 Motorsport UK Marshal registration card. Police working to identify body Copyright Mike Faherty and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence. Police on the Isle of Man are working with UK forces to identify a body washed up on a beach. The body of a man was found by a member of the public on Dog Mills Beach last Wednesday. Investigating officers are working with UK officers to identify him. Peter Mafany Musongue Archives Members of the National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism, some 30 renowned experts in peace building and conflict resolution and other stakeholders have forwarded to the President of the Republic, Paul Biya, recommendations on how the concept of living together can foster national unity in Cameroon. The recommendations were arrived at last April 11, 2019 at the end of a Brainstorming Day on the concept of Living Together in Cameroon organized at the Yaounde Mont Febe Hotel by the Working Group on Living Together of the National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism, (NCPBM). Opening the forum in the presence of Ministers Pierre Ismael Bidoung Mkpatt of Arts and Culture and Georges Elanga Obam of Decentralization and Local Development, the President of the Commission, Peter Mafany Musonge explained that the aim of the brainstorming exercise was to dig deep into the concept of living together because: It is not an easy one as it varies from place to place. We will like to have a living together which is Cameroonian, which follows African tradition-brotherliness, sisterhood, peace, tolerance and understanding.Also, in this particular moment, we have a lot of negative actions which are ongoing especially with the social media. We think that those issues have to be addressed. Peter Mafany Musonge frowned at the increasing use of hate language on the social media as people are being stigmatised through appellations like sardinard or tontinard. We are all Cameroonians, we belong here, the Senior Statesman reiterated. He went on that as you are already aware, our country, for some time now, has been bedeviled by complex and diverse social unrest and security issues, which are increasingly knocking at its doors. Let me cite these examples which you all know: the terrorist attacks carried out since 2014 in the northern part of the country by the Islamic sect Boko Haram and its accomplices; the ramification of trade union claims by some teachers and lawyers of the North West and South West regions which have been transformed into secessionist and terrorist movements, or better still, the predominance of ethnic inclinations in our daily activities and the upsurge of hate speech in our society. "These upheavals have disastrous effects on the peace and stability, are so dear to the country. In the face of these major concerns, the Head of State, H.E Paul Biya has undertaken suitable measures to maintain peace and stability in Cameroon. The brainstorming was opened by a presentation from Professor Kisito Forbi on living together; definition, political, legal and institutional framing. Other presentations were delivered by Professors Mpoche Kisitus and Charly Gabriel Mbock which gave way for intense brainstorming and recommendations. Arab League backs Sudan military council's political transition plan Arab League has expressed its support for the important steps announced by Sudan's transitional military council to reach a political transition in the country. The Arab League on Sunday voiced its support for the steps taken by Sudans transitional military council following the ouster of long-serving President Omar al-Bashir. "WE SUPPORT THE NEW LEADER" In a statement, the league welcomed the efforts that have been taken so far by Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, the head of the ruling military council. The Cairo-based group also called on the international community to support all the efforts that will bring stability and consensus to the country. On Thursday, the Sudanese army ousted longtime al-Bashir, who ruled Sudan since 1989, following months of popular protests against his rule. The army also established a military council to run the country for a transitional period of two years. On Saturday, Burhan pledged large-scale political and economic reforms. In a televised speech, Burhan said the country's two-year transitional period will end with free and fair elections and vowed to put on trial those involved in the killing of the protesters as well as corruption under the old regime. Meanwhile, thousands of Sudanese protesters continued their sit-in on Sunday at front of the military headquarters in the capital Khartoum to demand the transfer of power to a civilian government. Former European officials condemn Trumps Palestinian policy In a letter, former high-ranking politicians call on Europe to reject any US plan if not fair for Palestinians. A letter by former European politicians condemned the Donald Trumps one-sided policy in Israel-Palestine conflict. A CALL TO REFUSE A PEACE PLAN Signed by two former NATO secretary-generals, six former prime ministers, and 25 former ministers, the letter called on Europe to reject any American peace plan if it is not fair for Palestinians. It is time for Europe to stand by our principled parameters for peace in Israel-Palestine, read the letter sent to the EU and European governments as well as British newspaper The Guardian calling for a two-state solution in the conflict. Europe should reject any plan that does not create a Palestinian state alongside Israel with Jerusalem as the capital for both countries, the letter said, according to the newspaper, which revealed the letter in an exclusive piece. Unfortunately, the current US administration has departed from longstanding US policy, the letter said and criticized Trumps recognition of only one sides claims to Jerusalem. The letter said the US also demonstrated a disturbing indifference to Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank and cut hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Palestinians, gambling with the security and stability of various countries located at Europes doorstep. Former prime ministers of France, Sweden, Poland, Italy, Belgium and Romania, Jean Marc Ayrault, Carl Bildt, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, Massimo DAlema, Guy Verhofstadt, and Dacian Ciolos, respectively, are among the signatories of the letter. Former NATO secretary generals Willy Claes and Javier Solana, as well as former Irish President Mary Robinson and former UK Foreign Secretaries David Miliband and Jack Straw also signed the letter. We are convinced that a plan that reduces Palestinian statehood to an entity devoid of sovereignty, territorial contiguity and economic viability would severely compound the failure of previous peacemaking efforts, accelerate the demise of the two-state option and fatally damage the cause of a durable peace for Palestinians and Israelis alike, the letter said. If that was not possible, Europe must pursue its own course of action, the letter urged. Haftar jets shoots down by Tripoli government Jet came from forces of Khalifa Haftar, who on April 4 launched the campaign to capture Tripoli from UN-backed government. Libyas UN-backed government announced on Sunday that they shot down a fighter jet belonging to eastern Libyan-based forces waging an offensive on the capital Tripoli. PILOTS SITUATION IS UNKNOWN The war jet of commander Khalifa Haftars forces was shot down in the ar-Rabi Valley, south of Tripoli, the Government of National Accord (GNA) said on social media. The statement said nothing of the jets pilot, and Haftars forces have yet to comment. On April 4 Haftar launched a campaign to capture Tripoli, where Libyas UN-backed government is based. Since the 2011 ouster of late Muammar Gaddafi, two seats of power have emerged in Libya: one in eastern Libya, and another in Tripoli, which enjoys UN support. Iran sends ultimatum to US on oil prices Irans oil minister said the US should make a choice between oil prices and themselves. Irans oil minister said on Sunday that US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela and tensions in Libya have made the supply-demand balance in the global oil market fragile, and warned of consequences for increasing pressures on Tehran. WARNING TO THE UNITED STATES Oil prices have risen more than 30 percent this year on the back of supply cuts led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and US sanctions on oil exporters Iran and Venezuela, plus escalating conflict in OPEC member Libya. Oil prices are increasing every day. That shows the market is worried, Bijan Zanganeh was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency. Venezuela is in trouble. Russia is also under sanctions. Libya is in turmoil. Part of US oil production has stopped. These show the supply-demand balance is very fragile, Zanganeh said. If they (the Americans) decide to increase pressures on Iran, the fragility will increase in an unpredictable way, he added. Zanganeh said one of the consequences of pressure on Iran was a rise in fuel prices in the United States. Mr. Trump should choose whether to add more pressure on Iran or keep fuel prices low at gas stations in America, Zanganeh was quoted as saying by the oil ministrys news agency SHANA. The US reimposed sanctions on Iran in November after pulling out of a 2015 nuclear accord between it and six world powers. The sanctions have already halved Iranian oil exports. Donald Trump eventually aims to halt Iranian oil exports, choking off Tehrans main source of revenue. Washington is pressuring Iran to curtail its nuclear program and stop backing militant proxies across the Middle East. NATO hails Turkey's hospitality to refugees Hospitality Turkey showed to refugees is a huge lesson in humanity, says NATO Parliamentary Assembly head Madeleine Moon. Top NATO leader, Madeleine Moon, on Sunday praised Turkeys hospitality in taking in and protecting war victims and Syrian refugees. TURKEY HOSTS 4 MILLION REFUGEES "The level of hospitality Turkey demonstrated to refugees, that is a huge lesson in humanity," Madeleine Moon, president of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (PA), said on the last day of a NATO meeting in Antalya on the Turkish Mediterranean. Turkey currently hosts almost 4 million registered refugees -- including nearly 3.6 million Syrians, more than any other country in the world. "This was a most amazing evening organized by @OA_Bak so much fun for everyone your generosity towards the children was outstanding #NATOPA #Syrian #refugechildren #sportunitesus #semantalya," Moon wrote on Twitter. Pelosi asks Capitol Police to provide security for Omar House Speaker Pelosi said she talked with the House official in charge of security, about the safety of Rep. Ilhan Omar. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday said she contacted Capitol Hill security to safeguard Ilhan Omar, the Democratic congresswoman targeted by Donald Trump with a video on Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. "TRUMP MUST TAKE DOWN HIS DISRESPECTFUL AND DANGEROUS VIDEO" "Following the Trump's tweet, I spoke with the Sergeant-at-Arms to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff," said Pelosi in a statement. "They will continue to monitor and address the threats she faces," she wrote. On Friday, Trump tweeted "WE WILL NEVER FORGET!" with the 43-second video that featured Omar's remarks at an address to the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) last month, the country's largest Muslim advocacy organization. In her address, Omar had said the CAIR "was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something, and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties." CAIR was founded in 1994. Her office said Omar misspoke and "meant to refer to the fact that the organization had doubled in size after the Sept. 11 attacks." Her critics, however, focused on her use of the phrase "some people did something," suggesting that she downplayed the attacks. Pelosi also called on Trump to take down the video, which she described "disrespectful" and "dangerous". "The Trump's words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger. Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video," she said. In response to Trump's tweet, Omar on Saturday said: "No one person no matter how corrupt, inept, or vicious can threaten my unwavering love for America." "I stand undeterred to continue fighting for equal opportunity in our pursuit of happiness for all Americans," she said. Omar, a Democrat representing Minnesota's 5th district, is one of the first two Muslim lawmakers to be elected into US Congress, alongside Tlaib of Michigan. Omar has faced a slew of attacks and death threats in recent weeks, along with ongoing criticisms since she made scathing comments against Israel, and now with comments she made on the Sept. 11 attacks. Last Friday, a man in New York was charged with threatening to assault and kill Omar, after he reportedly said "she's a [expletive] terrorist. I'll put a bullet in her [obscenity] skull." Last month, a bomb threat was called into a hotel in which she was scheduled to speak, celebrity news site the Blast reported. A woman called the hotel saying that Omar was a danger to society and threatened to blow up the building if they continued with the event. YPG/PKK continues digging tunnels in northern Syria The excavation efforts continue in Tal Abyad, Ras al-Ayn, Qamishli and Al-Malikiyah cities along Syrias border with Turkey. The terrorist group YPG/PKK continues to dig tunnels in northern Syria, a new Anadolu Agency footage revealed on Monday. TUNNEL EXCAVATIONS CONTINUE In December, Anadolu Agency captured a footage showing the excavation of the terror group in the Manbij and Ayn al-Arab districts in northern Syria. The most-recent footage recorded the ongoing efforts of the YPG/PKK in digging up tunnels to extend those existing as well as excavating new tunnels. The YPG/PKK is gearing for any possible military action of Turkey east of the Euphrates River. After the liberation of Afrin from the YPG/PKK with the Operation Olive Branch, it was revealed that the organization dug pits at many points in order not to lose the terror zones in these districts. The PKK listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU has waged a terror campaign against Turkey for more than 30 years, resulting in the deaths of nearly 40,000 people. The YPG is the Syrian branch of the terror group. In the last two years, Turkeys Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations liberated the region from YPG/PKK and Daesh terrorists, allowing hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians to return to their homes. The hommles in tal well as thw ras n terminial order waterr in the 1. Low scam awareness in old age may be an early sign of impending cognitive decline and dementia Abstract: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/M18-2711 Editorial: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/M19-0907 Free Summary for Patients: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/P19-0003 URLs go live when the embargo lifts Low scam awareness in older people is associated with risk for developing Alzheimer dementia or mild cognitive impairment in the future. These findings suggest that changes in social judgment occur before changes in thinking or memory are recognizable. Findings from a prospective cohort study are published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Identifying predictors of dementia and mild cognitive impairment is critically important, but which aspects of behavior to target remains unclear. Older adults frequently are targeted by con-artists and are highly vulnerable to scams and fraud, particularly those that are financial in nature. However, little is known about whether scam awareness predicts transitions from normality to mild cognitive impairment and dementia. Researchers from Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center in Chicago asked 935 older persons to complete a "scam awareness questionnaire" when all were free from dementia to ascertain a scam awareness score. Over an average of 6 years of follow up, participants also completed traditional neuropsychological tests every year, and the 264 participants who died had an autopsy of the brain to look for the hallmarks of Alzheimer disease. The researchers found that low scam awareness was a harbinger of adverse cognitive outcomes. Low scam awareness was also associated with Alzheimer disease pathology in the brain. According to the researchers, these findings suggest that low scam awareness is an early sign of impending mild cognitive impairment and dementia. Further, they conclude that evaluation of behaviors such as scam awareness may help to identify individuals at risk for dementia before cognitive symptoms manifest. According to the author of an accompanying editorial, this study provides new information about social cognition as it relates to aging. The author provides an example of a patient who was scammed out of the majority of his life savings by a slick fraudster who tricked him into thinking he had won the lottery. Diminished financial capacity, financial abuse, and exploitation are major economic and public health problems. An older adult who is defrauded may end up unable to pay for medications, food, and long-term care, the author wrote. As such, the findings from this study should be a call to action for health care systems, the financial services industry, and their regulators to protect the health and wealth of our aging population. Media contact: For an embargoed PDF, please contact Angela Collom at acollom@acponline.org or 215-351-2653. To speak with the lead author, Patricia A. Boyle, PhD, please contact Deb Song at deb_song@rush.edu or Nancy DiFiore at Nancy_DiFiore@rush.edu. 2. ACP offers recommendations to improve the ACA, patient care Abstract: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/M18-3401 URLs go live when the embargo lifts A new position paper from the American College of Physicians (ACP) examines ways to improve the Affordable Care Act (ACA), thus improving patient care. "Improving the Affordable Care Act's Insurance Coverage Provisions" provides a set of recommendations to strengthen the ACA and lay the foundation for health care reforms that will lead to universal coverage for all Americans. ACP's position paper is published in Annals of Internal Medicine. ACP is committed to supporting policies that work to achieve universal health care coverage, and supported the passage of the ACA in 2010. However, while the ACA has made health care more accessible and affordable for millions of Americans, especially patients with pre-existing conditions, many still remain uninsured or face significant gaps in coverage. ACP's policy paper explores common-sense approaches to improve the ACA as internists continue to advocate for universal health care for all patients and consumers. All seven of ACP's recommendations are detailed in the policy paper. At the top of the list is making sure that all patients have access to quality care. As such, ACP's paper calls for efforts to bolster the ACA, including stabilizing the health insurance market, expanding Medicaid, increasing competition in the marketplace, and amplifying awareness about how the ACA works to help patients and how to enroll in coverage plans. Additionally, ACP recommends that Congress enact legislation to develop a public insurance plan to ensure consumers have access to a variety of coverage options in their areas. The College also supports federal and state-led auto-enrollment programs to help make sure all individuals can successfully enroll in health care plans. According to ACP's president, Robert McLean, MD, FACP, making these suggested changes could improve coverage for all Americans. He urges congressional leaders and the administration, as well as governments at the state level, to embrace patient-centered health care reform and take concrete action to ensure that the ACA continues to protect patients. Media contact: For an embargoed PDF or to speak with an expert from ACP, please contact Jacquelyn Blaser at jblaser@acponline.org. 3. Nearly a quarter of older adults store firearms unlocked and loaded, regardless of suicide risk factors or memory loss Abstract: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/M18-3698 URLs go live when the embargo lifts Older adults may not consider age-related risk factors for firearm-related injury or death when making decisions about how to store their guns. Nearly a quarter of older adults surveyed stored their guns unlocked and loaded, regardless of memory loss or suicide risk. A brief research report is published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Firearm access poses a danger to older persons with cognitive impairment and to those around them, as those with dementia may shoot others because of confusion or increased agitation and aggression. In addition, given that 91 percent of firearm deaths among older U.S. adults in 2017 were self-inflicted, the well-established relationship between cognitive impairment and depression is particularly concerning among this population. Researchers from the University of Washington surveyed more than 4,400 older adults residing in firearm-owning households to characterize their gun storage practices with regard to self-reported sociodemographic features, suicide risk factors, and confusion or memory loss. They found that less than a third of respondents stored their firearms locked and unloaded, even when risk factors for harm were present. The prevalence of diagnosed depression and frequent mental distress was 17.4 percent and 6.9 percent, respectively. Memory loss in the previous year was reported by 12.2 percent of the participants and 5.6 percent reported discussing their memory loss with a clinician. According to the researchers, these findings suggest that conversations about firearm storage could be crucial to prevent injuries and save lives. Media contact: For an embargoed PDF, please contact Angela Collom at acollom@acponline.org. To interview the lead author, Erin R. Morgan, MS, please contact Laura East at eastl@uw.edu. ### In a major medical breakthrough, Tel Aviv University researchers have "printed" the world's first 3D vascularised engineered heart using a patient's own cells and biological materials. Their findings were published on April 15 in a study in Advanced Science. Until now, scientists in regenerative medicine -- a field positioned at the crossroads of biology and technology -- have been successful in printing only simple tissues without blood vessels. "This is the first time anyone anywhere has successfully engineered and printed an entire heart replete with cells, blood vessels, ventricles and chambers," says Prof. Tal Dvir of TAU's School of Molecular Cell Biology and Biotechnology, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology and Sagol Center for Regenerative Biotechnology, who led the research for the study. Heart disease is the leading cause of death among both men and women in the United States. Heart transplantation is currently the only treatment available to patients with end-stage heart failure. Given the dire shortage of heart donors, the need to develop new approaches to regenerate the diseased heart is urgent. "This heart is made from human cells and patient-specific biological materials. In our process these materials serve as the bioinks, substances made of sugars and proteins that can be used for 3D printing of complex tissue models," Prof. Dvir says. "People have managed to 3D-print the structure of a heart in the past, but not with cells or with blood vessels. Our results demonstrate the potential of our approach for engineering personalized tissue and organ replacement in the future." Research for the study was conducted jointly by Prof. Dvir, Dr. Assaf Shapira of TAU's Faculty of Life Sciences and Nadav Moor, a doctoral student in Prof. Dvir's lab. "At this stage, our 3D heart is small, the size of a rabbit's heart," explains Prof. Dvir. "But larger human hearts require the same technology." For the research, a biopsy of fatty tissue was taken from patients. The cellular and a-cellular materials of the tissue were then separated. While the cells were reprogrammed to become pluripotent stem cells, the extracellular matrix (ECM), a three-dimensional network of extracellular macromolecules such as collagen and glycoproteins, were processed into a personalized hydrogel that served as the printing "ink." After being mixed with the hydrogel, the cells were efficiently differentiated to cardiac or endothelial cells to create patient-specific, immune-compatible cardiac patches with blood vessels and, subsequently, an entire heart. According to Prof. Dvir, the use of "native" patient-specific materials is crucial to successfully engineering tissues and organs. "The biocompatibility of engineered materials is crucial to eliminating the risk of implant rejection, which jeopardizes the success of such treatments," Prof. Dvir says. "Ideally, the biomaterial should possess the same biochemical, mechanical and topographical properties of the patient's own tissues. Here, we can report a simple approach to 3D-printed thick, vascularized and perfusable cardiac tissues that completely match the immunological, cellular, biochemical and anatomical properties of the patient." The researchers are now planning on culturing the printed hearts in the lab and "teaching them to behave" like hearts, Prof. Dvir says. They then plan to transplant the 3D-printed heart in animal models. "We need to develop the printed heart further," he concludes. "The cells need to form a pumping ability; they can currently contract, but we need them to work together. Our hope is that we will succeed and prove our method's efficacy and usefulness. "Maybe, in ten years, there will be organ printers in the finest hospitals around the world, and these procedures will be conducted routinely." ### American Friends of Tel Aviv University supports Israel's most influential, comprehensive and sought-after center of higher learning, Tel Aviv University (TAU). TAU is recognized and celebrated internationally for creating an innovative, entrepreneurial culture on campus that generates inventions, startups and economic development in Israel. TAU is ranked ninth in the world, and first in Israel, for producing start-up founders of billion-dollar companies, an achievement that surpassed several Ivy League universities. To date, 2,500 US patents have been filed by Tel Aviv University researchers -- ranking TAU #1 in Israel, #10 outside of the US and #43 in the world. Chinese farmers are facing worsening problems with jointed goatgrass (Aegilops tauschii) - a close relative to wheat - growing in their wheat fields. Currently, mesosulfuron is the only wheat-registered foliar-applied herbicide that provides control of jointed goatgrass in China, but it often damages the wheat. Non-transgenic wheat varieties tolerant to imidazolinone (IMI) herbicides can solve these problems by allowing the use of IMI to control goatgrass. However, IMI herbicides persist in the soil and severely damage sensitive crops planted months and even years later. Therefore, non-transgenic crops with herbicide tolerance traits, coupled with low-risk herbicides, are badly needed by millions of multi-cropping farmers in their battle against weeds. Recently, a research team led by Profs. GAO Caixia and LI Jiayang at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGDB, CAS), together with Associate Prof. JIANG Linjian at China Agricultural University (CAU), generated several herbicide-tolerant wheat germplasms using base editing to facilitate weed control in wheat fields. The researchers generated wheat germplasms harboring herbicide tolerance mutations that confer tolerance to sulfonylurea-, imidazolinone- and aryloxyphenoxy propionate-type herbicides by base editing the acetolactate synthase (ALS) and acetyl-coenzyme A carboxylase genes of commercial wheat cultivar Kenong199. The mutations at wheat ALS P174 codon (TaALS-P174) endow tolerance to nicosulfuron, a sulfonylurea herbicide with a relatively low risk to subsequently planted crops, indicating great application value in field production. The mutations at both the TaALS-P174 and TaALS-G631 positions conferred tolerance to imazapic, an IMI herbicide, at three times and even five times the field-recommended rate. The researchers also obtained quizalofop-tolerant wheat by editing TaACCase-A1992. Moreover, they found that base editing at TaALS-P174 endowed wheat with sufficient resistance to nicosulfuron herbicide in MS growth medium to allow selection. When the TaALS-P174 editor was coupled with editors for other targets of interest, co-editing occurred in the nicosulfuron-resistant plants, and selection for resistance in growth medium enriched the frequency of coupled targets by several-fold. As TaALS-P174 is conserved across plant species, similar selectable co-editing systems could be readily established to facilitate base editing in other plant species. ### The paper, entitled "Generation of herbicide tolerance traits and a new selectable marker in wheat using base editing," will be published online in Nature Plants on April 15, 2019. The work was supported by grants from the National Key Research and Development Program of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology. Pasadena, CA--A nearby system hosts the first Earth-sized planet discovered by NASA's Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite, as well as a warm sub-Neptune-sized world, according to a new paper from a team of astronomers that includes Carnegie's Johanna Teske, Paul Butler, Steve Shectman, Jeff Crane, and Sharon Wang. Their work is published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. "It's so exciting that TESS, which launched just about a year ago, is already a game-changer in the planet-hunting business," said Teske, who is second author on the paper. "The spacecraft surveys the sky and we collaborate with the TESS follow-up community to flag potentially interesting targets for additional observations using ground-based telescopes and instruments." One such tool, the Planet Finder Spectrograph on the Magellan II telescope at Carnegie's Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, was a crucial component of this effort. It helped confirm the planetary nature of the TESS signal, and to measure the mass of the newly discovered sub-Neptune. The PFS--built by Shectman and Crane using a method pioneered by Butler and his collaborators--works using a technique called the radial velocity method, which is currently the only way for astronomers to measure the masses of individual planets. Without known masses, it is very challenging to determine a planet's density or its general chemical composition. This method takes advantage of that fact that not only does a star's gravity influence the planet orbiting it, but the planet's gravity also affects the star in turn. The PFS enables astronomers to detect these tiny wobbles that the planet's gravity induces in the star's orbit. "PFS is one of the only instruments in the Southern Hemisphere that can do these types of measurements," Teske added. "So, it will be a very important part of further characterizing the planets found by the TESS mission." With an orbit that takes about 36 days to complete, the sub-Neptune, HD 21749b, has the longest period of any of the TESS discoveries published so far. Because of the technique that TESS employs, it is predicted that most of the planets the mission finds will have orbital periods of fewer than 10 days, so HD 21749b is unusual in this regard. In fact, this also made the detection of the planet in the TESS data an extra challenge. "There was quite some detective work involved, and the right people were there at the right time," said lead author Diana Dragomir of MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. "But we were lucky, and we caught the signals, and they were really clear." Its host star has about 80 percent of the mass of our Sun and is found about 53 light-years distant from Earth. HD 21749b has about 23 times Earth's mass and a radius of about 2.7 times Earth's. Its density indicates the planet has substantial atmosphere but is not rocky, so it could potentially help astronomers understand the composition and evolution of cooler sub-Neptune planet atmospheres. Excitingly, the longer period sub-Neptune planet in this system is not alone. It has a sibling planet, HD 21749c, which takes about eight days to orbit the host star and is much smaller--similar in size to Earth. "Measuring the exact mass and composition of such a small planet will be challenging, but important for comparing HD 21749c to Earth," said Wang. "Carnegie's PFS team is continuing to collect data on this object with this goal in mind." Thanks to TESS, astronomers will be able to measure the masses, atmospheric compositions, and other properties of many smaller exoplanets for the first time. Although small exoplanets are common in our galaxy, there is still much to learn about their diversity and about how they compare to the planets in our own Solar System. "For stars that are very close by and very bright, we expected to find up to a couple dozen Earth-sized planets," said Dragomir. "And here we are--this would be our first one, and it's a milestone for TESS. It sets the path for finding smaller planets around even smaller stars, and those planets may potentially be habitable." ### Support for this research was provided by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grants, by MITs Kavli Institute through Torres postdoctoral fellowships, by NASA through the Sagan Fellowship Program executed by the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute, by the Harvard Future Faculty Leaders Postdoctoral fellowship, and by the Branco Weiss Fellowship-Society in Science. The Carnegie Institution for Science (carnegiescience.edu) is a private, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with six research departments throughout the U.S. Since its founding in 1902, the Carnegie Institution has been a pioneering force in basic scientific research. Carnegie scientists are leaders in plant biology, developmental biology, astronomy, materials science, global ecology, and Earth and planetary science. A new theory derived from classical physics allows scientists to predict how economies worldwide respond to major disturbances such as the 2008 Great Recession or Trump tariffs [Vienna, April 2019] A shock pushes economies out of a state of equilibrium. Modern macroeconomics are still based on the assumption of equilibria. That makes them fail when dealing with economies in times of crises. Researchers from the Complexity Science Hub Vienna (CSH) are now proposing a novel method borrowed from physics that makes the effects of major events on out-of-equilibrium economies computable for the first time. Their article was published in the current issue of Nature Communications. The new method adds to current economic models in several ways. Calculating resilience "First, we can determine the resilience of an economy," says Peter Klimek, first author of the paper. Each country has different industries, and depends on various imports and exports. "We see all these interdependencies in newly available data sets. From these data we can calculate how susceptible a country and its different production sectors are to disturbances." The scientists see, for instance, which parts of an economy are particularly vulnerable to a shock, such as a trade war. Modeling outputs "We can further quantify how much a shock in one corner of the world affects the production of a given sector far across the globe," says co-author Stefan Thurner. Modeling responses to shocks helps answer questions like why it took economies so long to recover from the 2008 recession. "A shock does not evaporate," explains Peter Klimek. Just like a rock that is thrown into a still pond, a shock produces waves. "The shock waves will run through the whole system, following each of its interdependent connections." The researchers found that it typically takes six to ten years before all sectors of an economy have fully digested a shock. Testable predictions Another line of progress resulting from the new method is that testable predictions can be made. The authors took the input-output data of 56 industrial sectors in 43 OECD countries from the years 2000 to 2014. With this large dataset they tested the accuracy of different economic projections that were dealing with the aftermaths of 2008. "Our method clearly outperformed all standard econometric forecasting methods--most of them substantially," the authors state. They also estimated the effects of Donald Trump's new tariffs on EU steel and aluminum, imposed in June 2018. The model finds winners and losers. In Germany, for instance, the output of the automotive industry increases, as do legal activities or wholesale trade. On the other hand, electricity production, warehousing or land transport show a decline. "Interestingly, the production output in most of the EU countries rises so much that it can partly compensate the losses due to the tariffs," says Thurner. As soon as statistics for 2018 and 2019 are available, the team will test its prediction with real-world data. "Our vision is to eventually be able to calculate global effects of all kinds of shock scenarios that can happen anywhere," the complexity scientist adds. A concept from physics The concept for the new model is inspired by classical physics: Linear response theory (LRT) explains, for example, how electric or magnetic substances react to strong electrical or magnetic fields. This is known as susceptibility. It can be measured with special devices, but also be mathematically derived from properties of the material. "We show that LRT applies just as well to input-output economics," says Peter Klimek. "Instead of material properties, we use economic networks; instead of electrical resistance, we determine the susceptibility of economies, their response to shocks." Visualizing economies To make it intuitively understandable how economies work, scientists at the CSH employ an interactive visualization tool. It will be constantly fed with new data until the final version should represent the whole world economy. The tool visualizes the various dependencies of countries and production sectors. "Users can change all kinds of parameters and immediately see the effects across countries and sectors," says Stefan Thurner. A preliminary version, showing Trump tariff effects on Europe, can be seen at https://csh.ac.at/ecores/ ### Peter Klimek, Sebastian Poledna, Stefan Thurner, Economic resilience from input-output susceptibility improves predictions of economic growth and recovery, Nature Communications (2019) doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-09357-w About the Complexity Science Hub Vienna (CSH): The mission of CSH Vienna is to host, educate, and inspire complex systems scientists dedicated to making sense of Big Data to boost science and society. Scientists at the Hub develop methods for the scientific, quantitative, and predictive understanding of complex systems. Focal areas include the resilience and efficiency of socio-economic and ecological systems, network medicine, the dynamics of innovation, and the science of cities. The Hub is a joint initiative of the Medical University of Vienna, the TU Wien, the Vienna University of Economics and Business, the Graz University of Technology, the Danube University Krems, the IIASA International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, and Austrian Economic Chambers (WKO). http://www.csh.ac.at Ottawa, ON, and Ithaca, NY-- A new paper published today in the journal Nature Communications shows a blueprint for conserving enough habitat to protect the populations of almost one-third of the warblers, orioles, tanagers, and other birds that migrate among the Americas throughout the year. For the research, an international team of scientists used the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's global citizen science database, eBird, to calculate how to sufficiently conserve habitat across the Western Hemisphere for all the habitats these birds use throughout their annual cycle of breeding, migration, and overwintering. The study provides planners with guidance on the locations and amounts of land that must be conserved for 30 percent of the global populations for each of 117 Neotropical migratory bird species. More than a third of Neotropical migratory birds are suffering population declines, yet a 2015 global assessment found that only 9 percent of migratory bird species have adequate habitat protection across their yearly ranges to protect their populations. Conservation of migratory birds has historically been difficult, partly because they require habitat across continents and conservation efforts have been challenged by limited knowledge of their abundance and distribution over their vast ranges and throughout the year. "We are excited to be the first to use a data-driven approach that identifies the most critical places for bird conservation across breeding, overwintering, and migratory stopover areas throughout the Western Hemisphere. In doing so, we provide guidance on where, when, and what type of habitat should be conserved to sustain populations," said Richard Schuster, Liber Ero Postdoctoral Fellow at Carleton University, and lead author on the Nature Communications paper. "This is a vital step if conservationists are to make the best use of limited resources and address the most critical problems at a hemispheric scale." The team's analysis found that conservation strategies were most efficient when they incorporated working lands, such as agriculture or forestry, rather than exclusively focusing on areas with limited human impacts (i.e., intact or undisturbed landscapes). The importance of shared-use or working landscapes to migratory birds underscores how strategic conservation can accommodate both human livelihoods and biodiversity. The research also found that efficiency was greatest--requiring 56 percent less land area--when planning across the entire year in full, rather than separately by week. "Efforts to conserve migratory species have traditionally focused on single species and emphasized breeding grounds. Our results show that planning for multiple species across the entire year represents a far more efficient approach to land use planning," said Scott Wilson, Environment and Climate Change Canada research scientist and co-author on the paper. "This study illustrates how globally crowd-sourced data can facilitate strategic planning to achieve the best return on conservation investments. No other data source could have achieved anything close to this level of detail and efficiency in spatial planning over such a vast area," said Cornell Lab senior conservation science director and co-author Amanda Rodewald. "Prioritizing sites in which to invest our conservation dollars will dramatically improve our returns on the roughly $1 billion spent annually on the conservation of birds by government and nonprofit organizations, often in the absence of spatially explicit information on year-round abundance or geographical representation," said Peter Arcese, co-author and FRBC Chair in Applied Conservation Biology at University of British Columbia. ### This international team was comprised of scientists from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Carleton University, University of British Columbia, and Environment and Climate Change Canada. Reference: Schuster Richard, Wilson, Scott, Rodewald, Amanda D., Arcese, Peter, Fink, Daniel, Auer, Tom, Bennett, Joseph. R. (2019) Optimizing the conservation of migratory species over their full annual cycle. Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09723-8 Vaccine-preventable diseases have not just returned, but surged in crisis hit Venezuela, according to new research presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Amsterdam, Netherlands (13-16 April). The study is by Dr Adriana Tami (University Medical Center Groningen, Netherlands and University of Carabobo, Venezuela) and Dr Alberto Paniz-Mondolfi (IDB Biomedical Research Institute, Barquisimeto, Venezuela), and colleagues. Venezuela has plunged into a humanitarian, economic and health crisis of extraordinary proportions. This complex situation has progressed into a general collapse of Venezuela's health system, the dismantling of structures at the institutional, social and economic level affecting the life and wellbeing of the entire population. Some two thirds of the Venezuelan population currently live in extreme poverty, amid escalating violence. The country's crumbling healthcare infrastructure is now more typical of conflict zones or war-torn nations. More than 280,000 children are now perceived to be at risk of death from severe malnutrition. In response, an ongoing exodus towards neighbouring countries has ensued. Emigrating individuals with infectious diseases may be unwillingly causing a spill-over of diseases beyond Venezuela's boundaries. This study provides new data on the resurgence and ongoing epidemics of measles and diphtheria and their disproportionate impact on indigenous populations. The authors note that, since October 2014, there is a dire shortage of official epidemiological information in Venezuela; thus they did an active search of published and unpublished data. Data from the Americas were sourced from PAHO and from Venezuelan Health Observatory. Brazilian and Colombian data were accessed via their respective Ministries of Health. In Venezuela, circulation of wild measles and diphtheria had not been reported since 2007 and 1992, respectively. Both diseases have recently re-emerged after a progressive interruption of the national immunisation program. Transmission is now present in most of the country. However, vulnerable indigenous populations such as the Yanomami inhabiting the Amazon region at the Venezuelan-Brazilian border, are mostly affected. There have been at least 100 cases and several deaths in this small population of 15.000 people, reported by a non-governmental agency that works with this vulnerable group. "High morbidity and mortality rates are expected because these populations are immunologically naive to measles," explains Dr Tami who has worked with these indigenous people in the Amazon forest. "Measles is presumed to have entered the Yanomami communities from Brazil after imported cases from Venezuela brought the disease to border populations of Brazil, before spreading back to Yanomami communities in Venezuela. Further spread of this epidemic wave could devastate the Yanomami people living in the Orinoco highlands of the Amazon, given that humanitarian aid to affected sites is limited or hard to deliver because of the seminomadic characteristics of these indigenous populations and the remoteness of the Yanomami territory." The report provides data taken over a 16-month period (June 2017-October 2018) during which time a total of 7,524 suspected measles cases have been reported in Venezuela. Of these, 5,525 were confirmed representing 68% (5,525/8,091) of measles cases in the Americas reported, and also the most deaths from measles (73/85). The national coverage rate for the second dose of the measles vaccine was estimated at 52% according to the last reports from the Venezuela Ministry of Health. This estimate ranks Venezuela toward the bottom of vaccination coverage in the region, and estimates show measles vaccination is falling in all parts of the country. Measles cases from Venezuela have been reported in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Genetic analysis has confirmed that these cases have spread to these countries from Venezuela. Of all cases reported by Brazil's Ministry of Health in the state of Roraima (which borders Venezuela) through May 2018, a total of 68% corresponded to refugees from Venezuela, and 52.7% were in Warao Amerindians. The Colombia Ministry of Health has also reported 25 measles cases imported from Venezuela. Most cases were reported from bordering states that received a considerable migratory influx in 2018 and that also had received most of the 600,000 immigrants from Venezuela in 2017. From January 2016 to October 2018, a total of 2,170 diphtheria cases have been reported to date with a lethality rate of 22%. In 2018, 96% (806/838) of diphtheria cases in the Americas region originate from Venezuela. Coverage of the minimum recommend 3 doses (although 4 is preferred) of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine has fallen from 84% in 2016 to 60% in 2017, and may not have reached 50% in 2018. Estimates suggest this could mean 3 million vulnerable Venezuelan children are now-exposed to this disease that should long have been consigned to the past. Diptheria cases have also been reported in states of other countries that border Venezuela, and have been assumed to be transmitted from the many cases now occurring in Venezuela, though hard data to confirm this is not available at this time. Although polio has not yet been reported in Venezuela, it is estimated that vaccination rates are now well below 80% and the authors believe it is only a matter of time before this disease, eliminated from the Americas in 1971, will make a comeback. The authors say: "The current reality in Venezuela is a conflux of plummeting vaccination coverages and ongoing outbreaks of other vaccine-preventable diseases. Combined with the weakening of surveillance programs, forced migrations, and a prolonged political, economic, and food crisis without foreseeable resolution, these factors have set the stage for potential re-emergence of poliomyelitis." They conclude: "Action to halt the spread of vaccine-preventable diseases within Venezuela is a matter of urgency for the country and region. Global and regional health authorities should urge the Venezuelan government to allow establishing a humanitarian channel to bring relief efforts and adequate supplies for mass vaccination. Failure of timely action may bring a tsunami of new cases, not only in Venezuela but also other countries in the Americas." ### HRL Laboratories, LLC, is commercializing its additively manufactured (3D-printed) high-strength aluminum, which has obtained the first ever registration of an additive alloy from the Aluminum Association. HRL will be granted registration number 7A77.50 for the aluminum powder used to additively manufacture the alloy, and number 7A77.60L for the printed alloy. The Aluminum Association oversees alloy registration and product standards used throughout industry. The association's new additive alloy registration system was launched in February 2019 in response to a growing number of additively manufactured alloys. The first to be registered was HRL Laboratories' high-strength aluminum, the first alloy of its kind to be printable. (This breakthrough discovery was published in the journal Nature in September 2017.) "Essentially, this will connect us to this particular alloy composition forever," said Hunter Martin, the lead scientist on the HRL team that created the alloy. "These alloy numbers will always be trackable back to HRL, like a DNA signature. When I first contacted the Aluminum Association about registering our alloy, they did not have a way to register alloys printed from powders, so they decided to create a new system for registration of additively manufactured materials - a first in the materials space." Zak Eckel, another HRL team member said, "We're in the process of commercializing this material, which is already in high demand. As we scale up to commercial levels, AA registration validates our product. Companies who want the powder for their 3D printers can ask for its specific number, and it becomes a true commercial alloy." As the aluminum industry's leading voice in the United States, the Aluminum Association provides global standards, statistics, and expert knowledge to manufacturers and policy makers. Alloy and temper designations, chemical composition limits, and registered properties in North America adhere to those standards. The association also provides business intelligence, sustainability research, and industry expertise and is committed to environmental considerations while advancing aluminum as the sustainable material of choice around the world. ### HRL Laboratories, LLC, Malibu, California is a corporate research-and-development laboratory owned by The Boeing Company and General Motors specializing in research into sensors and electronics, information and systems sciences, materials and microsystems, and microfabrication technology. HRL provides custom research and development and performs additional R&D contract services for its LLC member companies, the U.S. government, and other commercial companies. About The Aluminum Association The Aluminum Association represents aluminum production and jobs in the United States, ranging from primary production to value added products to recycling, as well as suppliers to the industry. The Association is the industry's leading voice, providing global standards, business intelligence, sustainability research and industry expertise to member companies, policymakers and the general public. The aluminum industry helps manufacturers produce sustainable and innovative products, including more fuel-efficient vehicles, recyclable packaging, greener buildings and modern electronics. In the U.S., the aluminum industry supports $174 billion in economic activity and nearly 700,000 jobs. For more information visit https://www.aluminum.org, on Twitter @AluminumNews or at Facebook.com/AluminumAssociation. Working with human colon cancer cells and mice, researchers led by experts at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center say they have successfully blocked the activity of portions of a protein known as UHRF1 and restored the function of hundreds of cancer-fighting genes that became "misregulated" by the disease. In a report on the research, published online, April 4, 2019, in Cancer Cell, the investigators say the findings could lead to an entirely new strategy to fight a broad range of cancers. Researchers have long known that gene mutations can cause cancers. However, it recently became clear that faulty gene regulation can also prompt and maintain cancers, explains study leader Stephen Baylin, M.D., Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research and professor of oncology and medicine. This second phenomenon can occur through a process known as epigenetics, in which chemical tags settle onto genes to turn them on or off. One type of chemical tag, called a methyl group, typically silences the function of genes once it's clipped on by cells. Cancers harness this type of epigenetic regulation, using it to broadly turn off genes that cells normally use to fight the onset or growth of cancer. Researchers have attempted to adapt this strategy to the treatment of cancer by developing drugs that knock off methyl groups to turn cancer-fighting genes back on. However, Baylin says, it's been a challenge to develop drugs that robustly penetrate solid tumors and effectively remove methyl groups simultaneously. Consequently, drugs such as 5-azacytidine and entinostat haven't yet been as effective as researchers had hoped, particularly in solid tumors. Looking for a new way to influence cancer epigenetics, Baylin and collaborators from the Van Andel Research Institute and Tongji Medical College in China turned to UHRF1. Although this protein was known to be responsible for adding and maintaining methyl groups, Baylin says it has never been fully explored as a way to block methylation and make it a potential drug target. To better understand how UHRF1 operates, the researchers devised an experiment that allowed them to block discrete parts of this protein in human colon cancer cells with established abnormal methylation patterns. Their results showed that two distinct segments of the protein were pivotal in helping cells maintain these abnormal patterns: one called plant homeodomain (PHD) and another called SET and RING-associated domain (SRA). When the researchers blocked these domains by inserting mutations in key regions, tests of how abnormal DNA methylation and gene expression were affected showed that hundreds of cancer-associated genes became demethylated, returning to normal levels of protective activity. As a result, Baylin says cells with blocked PHD and SRA were significantly impaired in their ability to divide and migrate, processes that are hallmarks of cancer. Similarly, working with mice in which human colon cancer cells were implanted and grown, the researchers found that blocking PHD and SRA or the function of the entire protein consistently caused established tumors to shrink and blunted metastasis, the process by which cancer cells spread throughout the body. Finally, to get a sense of how UHRF1 operates in people, the researchers looked at levels of this protein and the activity of genes that this protein suppresses through methylation in samples of human colon cancers obtained by the Chinese collaborators from more than 300 patients at the time of surgery. They found that tumors with higher levels of UHRF1 had lower levels of activity in cancer-fighting genes and vice versa. Clinical records of the patients showed that the more UHRF1 is present at increased levels, the worse patients' outcomes were overall. That is, in over 150 patients whose tumors had high UHRF1--levels four to 10 times above levels in normal tissue--recurrence of tumors after surgery occurred 20 months earlier and led to an average of two years shorter overall survival compared with those with lower levels of this protein. Together, Baylin says, the findings suggest that repressing those two key domains could offer a new way of controlling cancers. He and his team are working with a company to develop a drug to accomplish this goal, either alone or in combination with existing drugs. Because methylation patterns go awry nearly universally in cancer, he adds, such a drug could help fight a wide range of cancer types. "By harnessing the power of UHRF1 we could fight cancers in a whole new way," says senior first author Xiangqian Kong, Ph.D. ### Other Johns Hopkins researchers who participated in this study include Wenbing Xie, Stephen M. Brown, Yi Cai, Srinivasan Yegnasubramanian, Yong Tao, Ray-Whay Chiu Yen, Michael J. Topper, Cynthia A. Zahnow and Hariharan Easwaran. This work was supported by grants from the National Key Research and Development Program of China 2018YFC1312103, the National Natural Science Foundation of China 81522031 and 81772623, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Institutes of Health RO1ES011858, National Institutes of Health R35GM124736, the Commonwealth Foundation and the American Cancer Society PF1624501DMC. Co-led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, the Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine Impact Study estimated that continuing the vaccine beyond 2022 would prevent - in the first ten years - more than 100,000 children and adults from contracting pneumococcal disease and save the lives of 14,000 children and adults who would otherwise have died. The cost per year of healthy life saved (US $153) was considerably less than Kenya's annual gross domestic product (GDP) per person (US $1,790 in 2018), which meets - and far exceeds - the World Health Organization (WHO) GDP-related threshold for 'very cost-effective' health interventions. The researchers say this study offers important evidence for policymakers at what is a crucial time for countries that have to decide whether to continue vaccine programmes that have benefited from Gavi's subsidy of the cost of vaccines once their economies grow and Gavi support diminishes. Lead author Dr. John Ojal, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, said: "If the Kenyan government decides not to continue the vaccine beyond January 2022, and children born after this time are no longer vaccinated with PCV, the incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease will rebound to that experienced before the vaccine was introduced. This is because there will be a growing pool of children who are not directly protected by vaccination and also not indirectly protected by vaccination of individuals around them." PCV was introduced in Kenya in 2011 in order to protect children from pneumonia - one of the leading causes of death in children under five. Recent research has shown that PCV has reduced hospital admissions due to pneumonia by over a quarter. At present, Kenya contributes just US $0.21 to the full cost of the vaccine, thanks to support from Gavi. By 2022, Kenya will enter an 'accelerated transition' phase, which will see the Gavi subsidy reduce rapidly until 2027, at which point Kenya will pay the full Gavi-negotiated price the country is eligible for. At US $3.05 per dose, this is a fraction of the per-dose cost of US $180 in the USA, but 15 times more than what Kenya is paying now. To estimate the cost-effectiveness of continuing PCV after 2022, researchers combined data from ongoing detailed health surveillance in Kilifi, Kenya with mathematical modelling and health economics in order to determine the cost-effectiveness of continuing the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine programme beyond 2022. Anthony Scott, Professor of Vaccine Studies at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Principal Investigator of the Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine Impact Study said: "Many low-income countries that receive Gavi support - including Kenya - will soon have to make vital decisions about whether to continue PCV use at full costs as they transition away from Gavi support. Studies like these are crucial so that policy makers can make evidence-based decisions that will impact on the health of their populations." Researchers estimated that continuing PCV beyond 2022 will cost Kenya US $15.8 million per year - more than double the current total vaccine budget. After transition away from Gavi support, Kenya's financial contribution to other Gavi-supported childhood vaccines, such the pentavalent vaccine and those for yellow fever and rotavirus, will also have to increase. John Ojal said: "This puts further stress on Kenya's health budget, so while our findings support an expansion of the vaccine budget, affordability may be a concern." Work is ongoing to reduce the cost and improve the cost-effectiveness of the PCV programme: development of a cheaper vaccine, trials to reduce the number of required doses, and research by the KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine to assess the effectiveness of smaller vaccine doses. The authors acknowledge the limitations of the study, including that no local information was available about the proportion of children among non-hospitalised pneumonia patients who were treated as outpatients, and that the cost-effectiveness analysis is largely based on the assumption that reduction in disease will translate to reduction in mortality. ### The study was funded by the Wellcome Trust and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. ANNAPOLIS, MD.--Education of children is one of the ambitious goals for sustainable development as a way to alleviate poverty and reduce vulnerability to climate change and natural disasters. Yet, a new study by a University of Maryland researcher published in the April 15, 2019, issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concludes that exposure to extreme heat and precipitation in prenatal and early childhood years in countries of the global tropics could make it harder for children to attain secondary school education, even for better-off households. University of Maryland researcher Heather Randell, lead author who conducted the synthesis study as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, and co-author Clark Gray, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, found that climatic conditions affect education attainment adversely in multiple ways. In Southeast Asia, which historically has high heat and humidity, exposure to higher-than-average temperatures during prenatal and early childhood has a harmful effect on schooling and is associated with fewer years of attending school. In West and Central Africa, and Southeast Asia, greater rainfall in early life is associated with higher levels of education. In Central America and the Caribbean, children who experienced more than typical rainfall had the lowest predicted education. Surprisingly, children from the most educated households were not cushioned from the climate effects, and they experienced the greatest penalties when they felt hotter and drier conditions in early life. In the study, Randell and Gray investigated the links between extreme temperature and precipitation in early life and educational attainment in 29 countries in the global tropics. The research has implications for determining vulnerability to climate change and development trajectories. "If climate change undermines educational attainment, this may have a compounding effect on underdevelopment that over time magnifies the direct impacts of climate change," the authors write. "As the effects of climate change intensify, children in the tropics will face additional barriers to education." The authors expected that children from better educated households would fare better, but found instead that climate change could erode the development and education gains in the tropics, even for better-off households, who have the most to lose as their advantages wear away. Randell explained that as children in the tropics feel the intensifying effects of climate change, they will face additional barriers to education and this is more evidence of the varied social impacts of climate change. Policies to safeguard children in these exposed populations, for example making sure pregnant women and young children can get relief from high heat and humidity, or providing heat or drought tolerant crop varieties, could limit long term impacts of climate change, Randell explained. "While these results may not be directly related to schools, they are important factors in early life that affect a kid's school trajectory," said Randell. "People rarely think about how kids' education is directly linked to climate. But this is really important given the extent that climate change is impacting extreme weather events. We need to better understand what gains in education are possible, and how climate change can act as a barrier to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. We have to take climate into account, plan for it, and design policies to create more resilient populations given that we know climate impacts are going to be worse in the next decade." Randell and Gray's PNAS paper builds on their earlier study published in 2016 in Global Environmental Change that found how climate variability competes with schooling in Ethiopia and could lower adaptive capacity for generations. ### Scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have developed a portable device, inspired by the ability of the human body, to detect trace levels of heavy metals in drinking water in just five minutes. The secret lies in an organic substance within the circulating human bloodstream, called a chelating agent, which can detect and bind to heavy metal ions. After binding, it prevents the heavy metal ions from interacting with other molecules and enzymes in the body, and marks it for excretion from the body. Combining a chelating agent with an optical measurement system, Associate Professor Yong Ken-Tye and Professor Tjin Swee Chuan from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering developed a device that generates test results quickly without needing to bring samples back, making the device convenient for on-site water testing. It could also be integrated into appliances for domestic use, such as water filtration systems. Drinking water quality is typically monitored via laboratory tests as heavy metals cannot be identified by colour, taste, or odour, unless present at high levels. Lab tests, while highly accurate, take at least a day to complete. There are some portable devices on the market that can detect heavy metal contaminants quickly, but may require the additional step of mixing the water sample with a buffer solution before the test can be performed. The sensor for such kits also has to be used within 30 minutes after it is exposed to air, as the effectiveness of the sensor can be affected by air, heat, or humidity. Other mobile alternatives include those that use metal electrodes such as mercury as a sensing probe, which could introduce heavy metal contaminants back into the environment, and test strips that change in colour when they come into contact with heavy metals but leads to results that rely on subjective readings of the strip. The NTU invention reported in a paper published in the scientific journal ACS Sensors works in the field and requires just a few drops of a water sample into a disposable sensor cartridge to detect heavy metals at parts-per-billion precision. This level of sensitivity is in line with the safety limit requirements in Singapore that falls within the World Health Organisation's standards. For instance, the device can detect lead levels of 5 parts per billion, which is lower than the 10 parts per billion limit stipulated by the Environmental Public Health Act in Singapore. The sensitivity of the sensor in the NTU handheld device is also not limited by exposure to air, and remains effective up to a temperature of 40C. Assoc Prof Yong Ken-Tye, holder of the NTU Provost's Chair in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, said, "Our device is capable of conducting on-site water quality tests quickly and can detect up to 24 types of metal contaminants, which is double the capacity of other commercially available water sensors. "Using a chelating agent in the device ensures that its sensor is as sensitive in detecting heavy metals as the body's natural defence mechanism against metal intoxication." Inspired by body's metal sensing mechanism The device comprises an optical fibre sensor modified with a chelating agent, and a laser that shines through it. This sensor is connected to a processing unit that displays the results of the water quality test (See image below). In a water sample contaminated by heavy metals, the metal ions will bind to the chelating agent on the optical fibre sensor. This induces a shift in the output light spectrum, from which the device's processing unit then calculates the concentration of heavy metals in the sample. The process takes about five minutes. Professor Tjin Swee Chuan, who is also NTU's Associate Provost (Graduate Education & Lifelong Learning), said, "The device can easily be integrated into any existing in-line water treatment plant. While our product is competitive enough to penetrate the market, we are still working to enhance and expand our water sensor product line. For instance, we are exploring ways to translate this technology for domestic use, such as in domestic water filtration systems and electric water kettles." After filing two patents, the NTU team has now successfully incorporated a spin-off, Waterply. It is now working with other local companies to collect more data through their invention to improve the accuracy of the device. ### Waterply is also collaborating with a state-owned company in China to develop next-generation water sensors that can tackle water pollution. The research project was supported by NTU's Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute (NEWRI), and NTUitive, NTU's innovation and enterprise company. Media contact: Foo Jie Ying Manager, Corporate Communications Office Nanyang Technological University Email: jieying@ntu.edu.sg About Nanyang Technological University, Singapore A research-intensive public university, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has 33,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the Engineering, Business, Science, Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences, and Graduate colleges. It also has a medical school, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, set up jointly with Imperial College London. NTU is also home to world-class autonomous institutes - the National Institute of Education, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Earth Observatory of Singapore, and Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering - and various leading research centres such as the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI) and Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N). Ranked 12th in the world, NTU has been placed the world's top young university for the past five years. The University's main campus is frequently listed among the Top 15 most beautiful university campuses in the world and it has 57 Green Mark-certified (equivalent to LEED-certified) building projects comprising more than 230 buildings, of which 95% are certified Green Mark Platinum. Apart from its main campus, NTU also has a campus in Singapore's healthcare district. For more information, visit http://www.ntu.edu.sg. The FDA's plan to ban menthol cigarettes has the potential to save lives but could be delayed New Brunswick, NJ - A proposed ban of menthol combustible tobacco products by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will likely be upheld in court, albeit a lengthy legal process, a Rutgers paper found. The paper appears in Public Health Reports. The 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act provided the FDA with broad authority to regulate the manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of tobacco products, including banning flavored cigarettes, to protect public health. However, the Act did not ban menthol cigarettes, which are used disproportionately by adolescents, women, LGBT populations and racial/ethnic minority groups, particularly African Americans. The research, conducted by the Rutgers School of Public Health Center for Tobacco Studies, anticipates arguments the tobacco industry is likely to use in a lawsuit challenging the FDA's authority to ban menthol cigarettes. It then weighs the strength of the scientific evidence justifying a menthol ban. Finally, it considers the potential for illicit trade to undermine the effectiveness of a menthol ban. Considering those factors, this paper concludes that an FDA rule banning menthol cigarettes is likely to survive a lawsuit. The FDA has sought public comments on menthol two previous times this decade without following through. In late 2018, then FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb showed commitment to a menthol ban late in 2018 that had not been displayed by the FDA before. There is no indication that his surprise resignation in March 2019 will alter the FDA's course or priorities. "All cigarettes are deadly. Menthol cigarettes are particularly nefarious because the tobacco industry designed them as 'starter products' that mask the harshness of smoking, leading to more smokers overall. Additionally, menthol cigarettes are even harder to quit than nonmenthol cigarettes," said lead author Kevin Schroth, member of the Rutgers Center for Tobacco Studies. "This paper shows that right now the FDA has the scientific evidence and legal power to pull these deadly products from the market, saving thousands of lives, especially in communities that have been targeted historically by menthol marketing," continued Schroth, who is also a faculty member at the Rutgers School of Public Health. Even if the FDA proceeds expeditiously, the rulemaking process may take at least two years without including potential litigation delays. In the meanwhile, local jurisdictions like San Francisco have banned the sale of menthol and other flavored tobacco products. "New Jersey should not wait for FDA action and move forward with proposed legislation which was approved by the state Assembly's Health and Senior Services Committee," said co-author Cristine Delnevo, and Director of Rutgers Center for Tobacco Studies. "New Jersey has led nationally on sound tobacco control policies to protect vulnerable populations and should continue to lead and become the first state to ban menthol cigarettes." A New Jersey law would be justified by the same scientific evidence that supports an FDA rule. Even though the legal analysis differs for a state law, similar laws in other jurisdictions have been upheld consistently. ### Andrea Villanti, co-author and member of the Vermont Center on Behavior and Health, will be discussing menthol cigarettes in an upcoming seminar at the Rutgers School of Public Health. Male and female rats whose mother experienced a simulated viral infection during pregnancy display autism- and schizophrenia-like behaviors, according to a new follow-up study published in eNeuro. The researchers extended findings of their previous study of male animals to their female siblings. Maternal immune activation (MIA) is a risk factor for human psychiatric disorders that manifest differently in men and women. Preclinical MIA research has historically been conducted mainly in males, which may contribute to conflicting results in this research area. John Howland and colleagues at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada revisited their 2018 eNeuro study in which they observed behavioral abnormalities in the male offspring of rats who experienced an inflammatory event during pregnancy. The researchers report similar findings in their new study of these animals' female littermates. This similarity highlights the limitations of this model for investigating the neural underpinnings of documented sex differences in mental illness. ### Manuscript title: Maternal Immune Activation During Pregnancy Alters the Behavior Profile of Female Offspring of Sprague-Dawley Rats Please contact media@sfn.org for full-text PDF and to join SfN's journals media list. About JNeurosci JNeurosci, the Society for Neuroscience's first journal, was launched in 1981 as a means to communicate the findings of the highest quality neuroscience research to the growing field. Today, the journal remains committed to publishing cutting-edge neuroscience that will have an immediate and lasting scientific impact, while responding to authors' changing publishing needs, representing breadth of the field and diversity in authorship. About The Society for Neuroscience The Society for Neuroscience is the world's largest organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system. The nonprofit organization, founded in 1969, now has nearly 37,000 members in more than 90 countries and over 130 chapters worldwide. An international team including researchers from the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia at the Institute of Space Sciences (Spanish National Research Council-CSIC) has discovered a pristine comet fragment inside a meteorite. This finding demonstrates that the class of meteorites known as carbonaceous chondrites contains clues to the composition of more fragile objects that formed in regions distant from the Sun, more than 4,560 million years ago. The results are published in the journal Nature Astronomy. After a three-year study of the carbonaceous chondrite La-Paz 02342, from NASA's Antarctic collection, researchers have come to the conclusion that the comet fragment, of about one hundred microns, is composed of an unusual mixture of organic materials, amorphous and crystalline silicates, sodium sulphates, sulphides, and presolar grains; the latter synthesised in stars that enriched the original materials of our Solar System. Among other instruments, a secondary ion mass spectrometer (nano-SIMS) of the Carnegie Institution for Science (USA) has been used for its analysis, has been used for its analysis, which allows studying at a nanometric scale the composition of the meteorite at an isotopic and elemental level. "This fragment, technically known as xenolith, has unusual characteristics that we think were produced from the incorporation of primitive materials embedded in ice", says IEEC-CSIC researcher Josep Maria Trigo-Rodriguez, who works at ICE and co-leads the study. "Many objects in the Solar System have a very different composition than the meteorites available in terrestrial collections. Carbonaceous chondrites, such as La Paz 02342, constitute a fossil legacy of the creation of the planetesimals in their interior and are capable of preserving unique samples of other objects much richer in organic and volatile matter, known as comets", explains Trigo-Rodriguez. As the researcher points out: "The asteroid progenitor of this carbonaceous chondrite underwent aqueous alteration, but fortunately, it was neither extensive nor homogeneous. This led to the preservation of the unique properties of this cometary dust speck, among which the richness in tiny mineral grains formed in stars of the same environment in which the Sun was born." The most primitive meteorites Carbonaceous chondrites come from transitional bodies, a category falling between asteroids and comets. Given their sizes typically smaller than a few hundred kilometres, such bodies never melted or suffered internal chemical differentiation as occurred to the planets. The materials that make up these objects are usually fragile and do not usually survive the transit of tens of millions of years that transport them from their parent bodies to the Earth orbit. In case they do, they fragment and volatilise when entering into the atmosphere at hypersonic velocities. Precisely because of this reason, ultracarbonaceous materials such as those discovered are extremely rare and have only been identified as micrometeorites. The search for primordial materials among the most primitive meteorites can be carried out at ICE, given that it is the only international repository of NASA's Antarctic meteorites in Spain. The samples studied by the IEEC-CSIC scientific team come from NASA's Johnson Space Center. Hence, researchers have access to unique specimens, being able to select those that have not undergone thermal metamorphism or extreme aqueous alteration. ### This discovery is part of the National Astronomy and Astrophysics Plan project (AYA-2015-67175-P) for the study of primitive materials preserved in meteorites led by Josep M. Trigo-Rodriguez. Carles E. Moyano-Cambero and Safoura Tanbakouei, from IEEC at ICE (CSIC), have also participated. The international cooperation has been led by Larry Nittler from the Carnegie Institution for Science, in collaboration with his Carnegie colleagues at Conel Alexander and Jemma Davidson, as well as Rhonda Stroud and Bradley De Gregorio of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. Studying organic matter in sediments helps shed light on the distant past. What was the climate like? What organisms populated the Earth? What conditions did they live in? Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, and the University of Lyon, France, have examined the sediments in the Dead Sea, where the salinity is without compare, making it one of the most hostile environments on the planet. The geologists drilled a 400-metre hole in the core of the Dead Sea before analysing each layer of sediment and the traces of a strategy that enables bacteria to survive by feeding on the remains of other organisms. This discovery, to be read about in the journal Geology, will further our understanding of how life can develop even in the most severe conditions. It also provides vital research leads for detecting life on other planets. The study of the deep biosphere - microbial presence in sediments - helps us understand the various aspects of the evolution of the Earth and the manifold climatic changes that it has been subjected to. "t's about studying bacteria and archaea - the oldest forms of life on Earth - that live in the sediments, and analysing the transformation processes that result from their presence, and that's called diagenesis," explains Daniel Ariztegui, a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences in UNIGE Faculty of Sciences. An international team worked on reconstructing the climate of the Dead Sea over the last 200,000 years. Although the surface area of the lake and its depth are roughly equivalent to those of Lake Geneva, the Dead Sea loses a metre a year, which explains its ever-increasing salinity: 275 grams of salt per litre compared to 20 to 40 grams per litre in the oceans. Nevertheless, microbial life subsists in this extreme environment. But is it possible that a form of life has managed to adapt to the sediments in the Dead Sea - a particularly hostile environment that is isolated from the surface without any light, oxygen or frequent food intake? The scientists drilled a hole 400 metres deep and 10 centimetres in diameter in the heart of the Dead Sea in an attempt to find traces of microbial presence in the sediments, analysing sediment samples for each metre that was dug. Necrophilous bacteria "We started by freezing the collected samples to preserve any genetic material that might degrade at room temperature," explains Dr Camille Thomas, a researcher in UNIGE Department of Earth Sciences. "Then we used different techniques, including scanning electron microscopy, which can identify at very high resolution the remains of microbes that could have changed the original composition of the sediments." The aim was also to extract the organic compounds trapped in the salt, such as DNA or lipids. "This enables us to identify the organisms that live or have lived in the sediment, and helps us understand how they manage to survive under these conditions," continues professor Ariztegui. Earlier research had shown that archaea could be found in the most saline environments in the Dead Sea. "But here we uncovered molecules known as isoprenoid wax esters that can't be produced by archaea but only by bacteria from fragments of archaea," says Dr Thomas. This proves that a form of life other than archaea developed that is potentially still present in these sediments: bacteria. "Archaea have the capacity to withstand the Dead Sea's very high levels of salinity. Until now, they were the only ones that had been identified in the deep waters of the Dead Sea. But it turns out that another population can overcome these intense conditions by feeding on the corpses of archaea: bacteria - which we thought were not so well adapted." In becoming "necrophages", these bacteria have been able to acclimatise to one of the most severe environments on our planet. Furthermore, they have contributed to the chemical changes found in the sediments of the Dead Sea. Geomicrobiology represents the future for searching for life in space The study, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), lies on the boundaries between geology and microbiology - a field known as geomicrobiology, which seeks to understand the mechanisms behind the formation of life and the Earth, no matter how hostile the environmental conditions are. "Establishing how life adapts in the most hostile conditions also opens up important avenues of research for discovering life on other planets," enthuses professor Ariztegui. "And that gives us an idea not only of what we should be looking for but also helps develop increasingly sophisticated microbial techniques." ### An international philanthropic trust has awarded significant funding to aid scientists' understanding of the currently incurable condition known as Crohn's disease. The 1.8 million award to the University of Edinburgh will help improve how experts monitor and determine outcomes for the inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that affects some 120,000 people in the UK. The disease leads to painful inflammation and ulcers forming on the lining of the gut, with many patients having to undergo multiple operations during their lifetime. Funding comes from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust - a US-based charity committed to improving lives. Helmsley's Crohn's Disease Program aims to find a cure for the disease and to enhance patients' quality of life. The Helmsley Charitable Trust typically does not accept unsolicited applications and instead identifies research worldwide of exceptionally high standard. This is one of the first projects in Scotland to be funded by Helmsley. Research will be focused on finding out more about mitochondria - tiny parts of our cells that are key to providing our bodies with energy. Mitochondria are believed to have evolved from bacteria around 2-3 billion years ago. In IBD, mitochondria have been found to give off 'danger signals' that immune cells confuse with bacteria, leading them to trigger an unintended and harmful inflammatory responses. The project aims to find out if these danger signals could be used to develop a simple, non-invasive test, using blood or stool, which can show if the inflamed bowel wall has healed after treatment. Currently, the only way to determine healing is by using invasive colonoscopy. Researchers will investigate if this simple non-invasive test could allow doctors and patients to forecast how patients' are progressing, which could speed the search for new therapies. It could also help doctors spot different forms of Crohn's and develop personalised treatments. Dr Gwo-Tzer Ho, of the University of Edinburgh's Centre for Inflammation Research, who is leading the study, said: "I am honoured to receive this award, which is a reflection on the team's efforts to understand the role of mitochondria in IBD. We are very hopeful that our work will lead to better tools to predict how the disease affects patients, which could ultimately lead to improvements in their treatment and quality of life." Dr Garabet Yeretssian, Director of the Helmsley Charitable Trust's Crohn's Disease Program said: "Addressing the unmet medical needs of people with Crohn's disease is at the centre of our Program's mission. The team at Edinburgh has a tremendous opportunity to create simple diagnostic tools necessary to transform the standard of care for Crohn's disease patients." ### The University of Edinburgh's DNA sequencing facility has received an internationally-recognised accreditation to mark the quality of its genome analysis services. The facility, called Edinburgh Genomics, employs advanced technologies that can decode the entire genetic make-up of a human or any other species in a matter of days. The accreditation is for whole genome sequencing at Edinburgh Genomics' Clinical Facility, which means it can now provide these services to organisations who are required to adhere to tighter regulations, such as the NHS. It is the first laboratory of its kind in Scotland to achieve the UK government-recognised quality mark, which confirms its services meet an international standard - called ISO 17025:2005. Accreditation involves an external assessment process by the UK's National Accreditation Services (UKAS), which ensures compliance with quality standards for testing laboratories. Joel Fearnley, Edinburgh Genomics' Chief Operating Officer, said: "This is an important quality milestone and provides reassurance for our customers from clinical research to agriculture - as well as pharmaceutical companies and the NHS - that the services we provide are of the highest standard." Edinburgh Genomics is part of the Scottish Genomes Partnership, a collaborative research programme studying genomes from healthy and sick people in Scotland with a view to improving patient care. Professor Tim Aitman, Co-Director of the Scottish Genomes Partnership and Clinical Director of Edinburgh Genomics, said: "This accreditation will be increasingly important in the next two to three years as whole genome sequencing is implemented in the NHS in Scotland." In addition to clinical services, Edinburgh Genomics provides cutting-edge sequencing facilities to agritech companies and animal breeding researchers. Professor Mick Watson, Head of Genetics and Genomics at the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute, said: "ISO accreditation provides us with additional assurance that samples are handled consistently and within a robust framework that ensures quality and delivery at scale, enabling us to have absolute confidence in the results and drive forward innovation in livestock genetics and breeding." ### Numerous studies have reported on the association between long work shifts and an increased risk of getting injured on the job. Fatigue, fewer breaks and psychomotor impairments resulting from long hours are believed to play a major role in the increased risk of injury for people who work shifts longer than 9 hours. Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago examined how and why long work shifts increase the risk for injury among miners of all kinds. They found that injured miners who worked shifts longer than 9 hours tended to have irregular schedules or less than two years on the job. They also found that miners were more likely to be killed or involved in incidents affecting two or more workers when working 9 hours or more on a shift. They report their findings in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine. "While the mining industry has seen some improvements in injury rates among workers in recent decades, its workers tend to work longer hours than the average worker. Because studies on how longer shifts impact mining injuries are inconclusive, we thought it was important to take a closer look at this," said Lee Friedman, associate professor in the UIC School of Public Health and lead author on the paper. Friedman said that miners often work 47 or 48 hours per week, clocking multiple 10- to 12-hour shifts, which is above the national average for workers, which is about 38 hours per week. Friedman and his colleagues examined data from the U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration "Part 50" reports, from 1983 through 2015. These are reports that are required to be filed with the government when a miner is injured on the job. Of the 545,537 Part 50 injury reports filed, 52,206 or 9.6% occurred among workers who were working shifts of 9 hours or more. The researchers found that injuries occurring among long-shift miners increased three-fold in this period. "This is somewhat in-line with there being more and more 9-hour and longer shifts among miners over this same time period, but that alone isn't enough to account for the increase in injuries we saw," Friedman said. The factors associated with injuries occurring during longer shifts included irregular scheduling, starting shifts at different times each week, being a temporary or contract worker and being on the job for less than two years. The researchers also found that working a shift longer than 9 hours was associated with a 32% increased risk of an injury resulting in death and a 73% increased risk that an incident would cause injuries in two or more workers. "Our findings are alarming given the shift towards hiring more contract workers and the adoption of more extended-hour workdays in the mining industry," Friedman said. "Our study should serve policy makers and industry leaders who need to consider the effects of longer shifts on things like fatigue and nutrition, and the potential of fixed schedules to alleviate some of the risks with longer shifts." ### Dr. Robert Cohen and Kirsten Almberg of the UIC School of Public Health are co-authors on the study. This research was supported in part by funding from The Alpha Foundation for the Improvement of Mining Safety and Health, Inc. and a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health State Surveillance grant. PITTSBURGH, April 15, 2019 - Responsive neurostimulation (RNS) treats epilepsy by detecting seizures and intervening with a jolt of electric current. Over time, most patients find their seizures become fewer and further between. Now, for the first time, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC have a better understanding of why this happens. As reported today in JAMA Neurology, new evidence suggests RNS can remodel the brain to be less susceptible to seizures. Using patients' brain signatures as a guide, the researchers hope to rapidly optimize the use of neurostimulation to help more people achieve seizure reduction. "Right now, in epilepsy patients treated with responsive neurostimulation, you just have to wait and see whether their seizure frequency goes down," said Mark Richardson, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of neurological surgery at Pitt's School of Medicine and director of epilepsy and movement disorders surgery at UPMC. "We don't have a great way to predict who will respond. But there's so much more data recorded on these RNS devices than we currently have the ability to analyze." In patients implanted with the RNS system, baseline brain activity is recorded for a month to characterize a person's individual seizure patterns. This information is then used to train the stimulator to automatically respond to a seizure as it's happening. What no one has done before, Richardson said, is to analyze each individual recording of seizure activity captured by the device over time to see what is different about the brain activity of patients who experience a reduction in seizure frequency as a result of neurostimulation. "I was expecting to find what was traditionally assumed--that the electric pulse acutely stops the seizure," said lead author Vasileios Kokkinos, Ph.D., a neurosurgery research instructor at Pitt. "I realized this was not what was happening. I saw some examples of acute stopping of the seizures, but that only accounted for 5% of all seizures. It couldn't explain the 60-70% of patients who responded to treatment." The researchers' theory is that stimulation changes brain networks--the web of linkages between neurons--so that electrical rumblings at the neural epicenter can't spread into a full-blown seizure. "In epilepsy, brain networks get recruited to fire hyper-synchronously," Richardson said. "What we think we're doing when we stimulate is to desynchronize, over time, making it harder for the whole seizure network to come online." To test that hypothesis, Kokkinos and other members of Richardson's Brain Modulation Laboratory compiled electrical brain activity data recorded on the RNS system in 11 patients with focal epilepsy treated at the University of Pittsburgh Comprehensive Epilepsy Center (UPCEC), an accredited level 4 epilepsy center. These patients started RNS therapy between 2015 and 2017 and were followed for up to two years. Kokkinos found that people who ultimately experienced fewer seizures after starting neurostimulation treatment showed progressive reductions in spontaneous hyper-synchronous brain activity, starting as early as two months after the stimulator was first turned on. Richardson contrasted the faster, objective onset of these brain activity changes against the slower, subjective process of waiting to see symptom improvement in a patient's self-reported diary of seizure activity. "This study justifies my inherent enthusiasm for the RNS's diagnostic potential beyond its proven therapeutic potential," said Anto Bagi?, M.D., Ph.D., chief of UPMC's Epilepsy Division, director of the UPCEC and professor of neurology at Pitt's School of Medicine. He was not part of the study. "It appears increasingly likely that this exquisite way of monitoring brain activity through a therapeutic tool will enable us to assess even a response to seizure medications without prolonged waiting and suffering for patients." Richardson hopes this kind of brain activity analysis will provide quicker feedback during the trial-and-error process of parameter adjustment, so that patients can see the long-term benefits of responsive neurostimulation sooner. "Our next move is to incorporate what we've learned into a formal pipeline for analysis that might allow us in the future to predict which patients are responding before they're able to report that to us clinically," Richardson said. ### Additional authors on the study include Nathaniel Sisterson and Thomas Wozny, M.D., both from Pitt. This research was funded by the Walter L. Copeland Fund of the Pittsburgh Foundation and National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke grant R01 NS110424. To read this release online or share it, visit http://www.upmc.com/media/news/041519-epilepsy-ecog [when embargo lifts]. About the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences The University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences include the schools of Medicine, Nursing, Dental Medicine, Pharmacy, Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and the Graduate School of Public Health. The schools serve as the academic partner to the UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center). Together, their combined mission is to train tomorrow's health care specialists and biomedical scientists, engage in groundbreaking research that will advance understanding of the causes and treatments of disease and participate in the delivery of outstanding patient care. Since 1998, Pitt and its affiliated university faculty have ranked among the top 10 educational institutions in grant support from the National Institutes of Health. For additional information about the Schools of the Health Sciences, please visit http://www.health.pitt.edu. About UPMC A $19 billion world-renowned health care provider and insurer, Pittsburgh-based UPMC is inventing new models of patient-centered, cost-effective, accountable care. UPMC provides more than $900 million a year in benefits to its communities, including more care to the region's most vulnerable citizens than any other health care institution. The largest nongovernmental employer in Pennsylvania, UPMC integrates 87,000 employees, 40 hospitals, 700 doctors' offices and outpatient sites, and a 3.5 million-member Insurance Services Division, the largest medical insurer in western Pennsylvania. As UPMC works in close collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences, U.S. News & World Report consistently ranks UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside on its annual Honor Roll of America's Best Hospitals. UPMC Enterprises functions as the innovation and commercialization arm of UPMC, and UPMC International provides hands-on health care and management services with partners around the world. For more information, go to UPMC.com. http://www.upmc.com/media Contact: Erin Hare Office: 412-864-7194 Mobile: 412-738-1097 E-mail: HareE@upmc.edu Contact: Arvind Suresh Office: 412-647-9966 Mobile: 412-509-8207 E-mail: SureshA2@upmc.edu Economists from the University of Sydney and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) have co-authored a new study that challenges conventional thinking about auctions and is applicable to real-life bidding situations including property auctions. The study suggested that the more bidders there are in an auction, the lower each individual bidder perceives their probability of winning, which has demotivating effect on their desire to win the auction. "This is a counterintuitive finding because usually auctioneers would assume that the more bidders there are in an auction, the more money they will make - the logic being that that the more bidders there are, the more likely it is that there is a bidder with a high willingness to pay for the good," said co-author Associate Professor Agnieszka Tymula from the University of Sydney's School of Economics. "However, it turns out that there is also a downside to having more bidders - most people bid less." The researchers' conclusions were drawn from an experiment where they asked nearly 100 adults to bid on items of varying value - including clothing, movie tickets, Bluetooth speakers, and more. On average, the participants bid less in auctions as the number of other bidders increased. More than half of the participants changed their bids in response to an increase in the number of rivals. "For most of the items, when the number of bidders increased from three to 12, the average bid declined by around 7%," said co-author Dr Antonio Rosato from UTS Business School. "Our findings are consistent with 'loss aversion' - the idea that people dislike losses more than they like equal-size gains. When the number of bidders increase, participants experience this lower chance of winning as a loss and this reduces their willingness to pay." Associate Professor Tymula said their findings could be applicable to many real-life auction situations, including property market auctions. "In real-life, the auctions that attract many bidders are usually those auctions for better properties - and they will therefore generate higher bids just because the property is of higher quality," she said. "Many real estate agents infer from this that more people at an auction, the higher the final bid is going to be, so they try to get as many people as possible to their auction. However, our results suggest that this actually plays against them because seeing many competitors at an auction makes bidders submit lower bids on average." ### Associate Professor Tymula and Dr Rosato's findings are published in the latest issue of Games and Economic Behavior. More than a decade's worth of research has revealed how politicians manipulate highly emotional incidents like shark bites to influence public sentiment and protect their own interests. University of Sydney public policy expert, Dr Christopher Pepin-Neff has spent the past 10 years investigating public attitudes to sharks and how emotions are pitted against evidence-based policymaking in the wake of incidents where sharks bite humans. The rise of shark "attack" discourse In his new book, Flaws: Shark Bites and Emotional Public Policymaking, Dr Pepin-Neff argues that fear of a shark "attack" is a perfect example of the way politics works against the public. "Shark bites can have tragic outcomes that directly affect sections of the public. However, from an objective evidence-based analysis, what we are seeing is not a reasonable response but a theatrical political process, whereby an isolated and individual human tragedy is made worse when these incidents are politicised and sensationalised by the media," he said. "The saying 'if it bleeds, it leads' is certainly true of the media frenzy over shark incidents - when the media headlines read "shark attack" and convey a very serious or fatal human-shark interaction, regardless of the details and even if there is no injury to report." How emotions influence policymaking Dr Pepin-Neff's analysis of policy responses to shark bite incidents in Australia, South Africa and the US found a "worrying style of policymaking" where public interest and scientific evidence often came second to political motivations. "For example, I found that in Florida and New South Wales, sharks had been portrayed as 'the enemy', shark bites were seen as intentional, and policy responses appear to be based on 'public safety'," he said. "However, this is not reflective of what the scientific evidence tells us - that shark bites are ungovernable accidents of nature, and that we are 'in the way, not on the menu'. "This shows how policymakers manipulate these highly emotional situations to make it appear like they are protecting the public and doing 'good' work. This is a scam to defraud the public for mere political gain. The real 'sharks' of this story are the politicians." Little public support for killing sharks Having examined the use of lethal shark control measures - including shark nets in New South Wales, drum lines in Queensland, and shark hunts in Western Australia - Dr Pepin-Neff said he could find no greater purpose for them than political opportunism. "One of the worst kept secrets in Australia is that lethal shark control programs are a scam," he said. "My research has shown that the public knows this - for years I have looked across Australia for public sentiment to match the political dialogue that supports lethal nets, culls, hunts, and drum lines but the reality is that these options are now out of touch with the public." What needs to change Dr Pepin-Neff said that politicians need to "dial back the rhetoric" following highly emotional events. Specifically, he said the New South Wales and Queensland governments should end all lethal shark control programmes, and instead work with the Federal Government to invest in better education about shark behaviour and human behaviour. "I have spent two decades working in politics - the public deserves better following tragedies than politicians trying to protect themselves. The time has come for our policymakers to do better and to stop providing a false sense of security," he said. He also urged the Australian media to to stop referring to all shark-related incidents as "attacks". "As far back as 2013, my colleague shark scientist Dr Robert Hueter and I proposed new options: 'shark sightings', 'shark encounters', 'shark bites' and 'fatal shark bites'. At worst, media should rely on our academic categories, at best they should wait a few days after an incident and ask those involved to tell their story in the terms they want to," he said. ### Flaws: Shark Bites and Emotional Public Policymaking will be launched at the SEA LIFE Sydney Aquarium on Tuesday 16 April. This event is sponsored by the Sydney Environment Institute at the University of Sydney, the Department of Government and International Relations, School of Social and Political Sciences, and the SEA LIFE Trust. A new federally funded research project at The University of Texas at Dallas aims to identify the most effective strategies for ending the deadliest type of war: civil conflicts that involve other countries. Dr. Paul Diehl, Ashbel Smith Professor of political science in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, recently received a grant from the U.S. Institute of Peace to study methods for reducing violence in internationalized civil wars, such as those in Yemen, Syria and Ukraine. Interventions in these conflicts often focus on either the civil or the international aspects of conflict, Diehl said. He added that research rarely addresses the dual challenges of internationalized civil wars. The new project, which also involves researchers from the University of Notre Dame and the University of Georgia, aims to understand how to manage both at the same time. "We'd like to identify pathways to transform hostile relations into peaceful ones. Realistically, that's not going to happen in all or even most conflicts, but if you can find ways that ameliorate the situation and reduce the frequency or severity of confrontations, that's progress," Diehl said. Internationalized civil conflicts have the most fatalities, last the longest and are the most difficult to resolve because of the challenges involved in reducing violence within a nation as well as between rival states, Diehl said. Civil conflicts often spill over into other states with refugees flowing across borders and other countries taking sides. Diehl said only 13 percent of efforts to reach compromises are successful in internationalized civil wars. The study will examine what efforts have worked in order to determine the best approaches and timing for a series of conflict management approaches, including interventions, sanctions, negotiation/mediation and peacekeeping. Diehl, associate provost and director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at UT Dallas, has written extensively about the causes of war and conflict management between countries. "You can't really look at these separately," he said. "Do you try to solve the civil war? Or do you try to work on the interstate level and hope that mitigates the civil war? Or, do you work on both at the same time?" The team began work on the project in January and expects to complete the research phase by mid-2020. Researchers have four main goals: Identify models for successful conflict management, particularly ones that can reduce hostility and violence simultaneously in internal and interstate disputes. Create a barometer that can measure changes in civil conflict levels, serve as an early warning indicator and assess the impact of conflict-management attempts. Provide conflict-management data that will be available to scholars and policymakers. Make policy recommendations for resolving internationalized civil wars. The grant will support research assistants at each of the participating universities. At UT Dallas, Yahve Gallegos, a political science PhD student, will analyze case studies and collect data for the project. "My own research focuses on varying types of civil conflict in authoritarian regimes," Gallegos said. "My primary reason for choosing UT Dallas for graduate school is its strong emphasis on research and the possibility of working on a wide range of research projects like this one. Having the ability to work with someone like Dr. Diehl is a nice bonus." The U.S. Institute of Peace, created by Congress in 1984, is dedicated to the proposition that a world without violent conflict is possible, practical and essential for U.S. and global security. Congress appropriates the institute's funding -- $37.8 million in 2018 -- to ensure that it remains nonpartisan and independent of outside influence. The institute has a bipartisan board of directors that includes the secretary of defense, the secretary of state and the president of the National Defense University. ### New Medicare reimbursement rules provide some relief to safety-net hospitals, shifting the burden of financial penalties toward hospitals serving wealthier patient populations, according to a new study led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The new rules also reduce the burden of such penalties on hospitals in states that have more generous Medicaid programs. The study, conducted by researchers at Washington University, the Missouri Hospital Association and the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, is published April 15 in JAMA Internal Medicine. In an effort to reduce health-care costs, Medicare issues financial penalties via the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) to hospitals with higher than expected readmission rates. The program -- which can cut a hospital's Medicare reimbursements by up to 3 percent -- has been criticized for unfairly penalizing so-called safety-net hospitals that serve the poorest patients, who are more likely to be readmitted for reasons beyond the hospital's control. Rather than comparing all hospitals directly, the new rules divide hospitals into five groups according to the proportion of their Medicare patients who are also enrolled in Medicaid, a program intended to help the poorest patients. Hospitals are then only compared to their peers that treat similar proportions of disadvantaged patients. Across the five groups of hospitals, the average proportion of patients dually enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid ranged from a low of 9.5 percent to a high of almost 45 percent. "The new rules recognize the reality that it is harder to prevent readmissions when people don't have stable housing or social support," said Washington University cardiologist Karen Joynt Maddox, MD, the study's first author and an assistant professor of medicine. "If you have patients who struggle to put food on the table, it's going to be tougher for them to manage their end-stage heart failure. The old system took money away from hospitals that serve the most vulnerable patients. It created a significant disincentive to provide health care to poor people, and that's the last thing we want." Looking at the most recent data published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the researchers calculated and compared the penalties under the old and new reimbursement rules for just over 3,000 hospitals nationwide. Using the published data, the researchers projected how the penalties will shift by comparing projected penalties under the new rules to what they would have been under the old rules. Under the new rules, penalties for the hospitals serving the fewest poor patients are projected to increase more than $12 million in total. Meanwhile, penalties for the hospitals serving the highest proportion of poor patients are projected to decrease by more than $22 million in total. On an individual hospital level, the changes are projected to range from an increase in penalties of $225,000, to a decrease of $436,000. Large hospitals and teaching hospitals are the most likely to see reduced penalties. The researchers also found reduced penalties among hospitals serving patients from the most disadvantaged neighborhoods and those serving the most patients with disabilities. Hospitals in states with more generous Medicaid enrollment also fare better than those in states with fewer poor patients enrolled in the Medicaid program. "States differ widely in the percentage of people living in poverty who are able to enroll in Medicaid," Joynt Maddox said. "Since the new rules, as written by Congress, only give credit to hospitals for treating patients on Medicaid and not poor patients in general, the states with more people enrolled in Medicaid are going to benefit more from the new system." According to Joynt Maddox, the researchers were surprised at the magnitude of the state and regional differences in the shift in penalties, with more penalties for hospitals in the South and Midwest and fewer penalties for hospitals in the West and Northeast. California, which has generous Medicaid enrollment, had the most reduced penalties. Meanwhile, South Dakota and Florida, two states with fewer poor patients enrolled in Medicaid, had the greatest increases. Overall, much of the shift in penalties between states could be explained by differences in state Medicaid enrollment. "This was a positive change for the HRRP," Joynt Maddox said. "Making the program more fair doesn't take away from its goal, which is to use financial incentives to make hospitals think differently about care beyond their walls. Hospitals are increasingly working to provide a soft landing, including discharge planning and communication with outpatient-care providers." Still, Joynt Maddox said there is work to be done, even if the new rules more fairly consider the socioeconomic reality of hospitals' patient populations. "There are still marked disparities in readmissions related to social determinants of health," she said. "We need to find innovative solutions to improve outcomes for our most vulnerable patients after they leave the hospital." ### Joynt Maddox reports intermittent contract work for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), grant numbers R01MD010243 and RF1AG057784; and by the Washington University School of Medicine Office of Medical Student Research Dean's Fellowship. Joynt Maddox KE, Reidhead M, Qi AC, Nerenz DR. Association of stratification by dual enrollment status with financial penalties in the hospital readmission reduction program. JAMA Internal Medicine. April 15, 2019. Washington University School of Medicine's 1,500 faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is a leader in medical research, teaching and patient care, ranking among the top 10 medical schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare. MORGANTOWN, W.Va.--If heroin is coffee, fentanyl is espresso. Just as a miniscule cup of espresso can hype you up more than a whole mug of coffee, a single exposure to fentanyl can get a user vastly higher than injecting the same volume of heroin. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin. In a recent study funded by the National Institutes of Health, West Virginia University researchers Gordon Smith, Marie Abate and Zheng Dai found that fentanyl-related deaths are on the rise in West Virginia, even as deaths related to prescription opioids decline. By analyzing all drug-related deaths in the state from 2005 to 2017, the research team--which included medical examiners from the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources--discovered that between 2015 and 2017, deaths from fentanyl were 122 percent of what they were between 2005 and 2014. In contrast, prescription opioids played a role in 75 percent fewer deaths between 2015 and 2017 than over the previous 10 years. Why did fentanyl-related deaths skyrocket in 2015? One factor was a surge in illegal fentanyl imports from China. "Up until then, people who were shifting from legal prescription drugs to illegal drugs were shifting to heroin and opioids coming in from Mexico and other places. But then people started manufacturing fentanyl in China, setting up clandestine labs, staying one step ahead of drug-enforcement agencies," said Smith, an epidemiologist in the School of Public Health. "The big thing about fentanyl--and now carfentanil, a fentanyl analog that's a thousand times stronger than morphine and heroin--is that it's very easy to export. Instead of having to smuggle truckloads of heroin in, someone can send small packages through the mail," he said. Another contributor is fentanyl's potency itself. Smith explained, "You might need to take--let's say--200 Tylenol before you get into some serious trouble, but with some other pain reliever, you might only need four of them because it's so much stronger." Drug users may take fentanyl or one or more of these potent fentanyl analogs without meaning to. Unbeknownst to them, it can be sold as counterfeit "prescription opioids" or blended into the heroin they buy, even from a dealer they've used without issue before. Accidentally drinking four ounces of espresso instead of drip coffee can make you jittery. Taking a fentanyl/heroin mix instead of unadulterated heroin can kill you. Another problem is that the amount of fentanyl in any sample sold on the street can vary widely. For example, dealers may mix fentanyl with adulterants at the local level on their kitchen tables. If they improperly mix their product, a spoonful in one small bag may have much more fentanyl that another, even in the same batch. In addition, illegal labs in the United States can make chemical modifications to fentanyl fairly readily to produce other very potent analogs. West Virginia's increase is fentanyl-related deaths is part of a national trend. As the CDC reported, deaths from fentanyl overdoses spiked across the United States in 2015 and, as of 2017, continued to climb. West Virginia, however, leads the nation in fentanyl-related deaths. It also has the highest per capita rate of overdose deaths overall. Yet West Virginia is exceptional for a more optimistic reason: its medical examiners pinpoint the cause of every drug-related death, and the relevant facts populate a statewide forensic drug database maintained at the WVU Health Sciences Center. The database includes such information as the decedent's demographic information, cause of death, toxicology testing results, other medical conditions present and recent prescriptions for controlled substances. This database gives scientists, healthcare providers and law enforcement officers insight into drug-misuse trends as they unfold. Abate, who directs the School of Pharmacy's West Virginia Center for Drug and Health Information, established the database in collaboration with the West Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in 2005. "The extent of decedent information found in this database is unique nationwide," said Abate, who--along with Smith--received prior funding from the West Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute, the WVU Injury Control Research Center and the National Institute on Drug Abuse for research into drug misuse. The database can help direct public-health resources to where they can do the most good--and promptly enough that they're worthwhile. For instance, the data may suggest which towns need greater access to naloxone to treat a preponderance of overdoses. They may even help scientists decipher the chemical makeup of brand-new fentanyl analogs as soon as they hit the street. "One of the proven ways to reduce overdoses is to decrease the number of people who are addicted and using. But with fentanyl, you could halve the number of addicts in West Virginia, and the overdose rate could still go up because the strength of the drug coming in is so much stronger and can vary widely from one day to the next," Smith said. "This is an absolute quandary." He recommends more widespread naloxone distribution, including to both injection drug users and their families. It's also important to make sure first responders--such as paramedics, firefighters and police--have adequate supplies of naloxone as usage has increased dramatically in recent years. "Multiple doses may be needed to reverse opioids toxicity," he said, "especially if more potent or long-acting opioids are involved." ### Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institutes of Health under Award Numbers 1R21DA040187 and 1UG3DA044825, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under Award Number R49CE002109 and the West Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute. WVCTSI is funded by an IDeA Clinical and Translational grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, under Award Number U54GM104942, to support the mission of building clinical and translational research infrastructure and capacity to impact health disparities in West Virginia this news is not available Journal of Private Equity published Article of Interest by John M. Collard, turnaround specialist, interim executive, outside independent director, capital finder, and private equity advisor. www.StrategicMgtPartners.com www.StrategicMgtPartners.com/jpe-dira.pdf Formatted Version Article-of-Interest: Why Hire Outside Directors When Private Companies Don't Have To? Change! Break the Status Quo. Rejuvenate. By John M. Collard Article You need these guys to increase cash flow and provide valuable guidance, contacts, growth, and credibility. Outside directors are generally hired based on their experience, effectiveness, connections, and access to capital, which can be very beneficial to a company. Companies that are committed to going through significant business change (turnaround, transition into new markets, increased cash flow and corporate growth, generational ownership transfer), are anticipating a major liquidity event, or have shareholders who are not active or business savvy need guidance. An outside director is a member of the board of directors or advisors who is not part of the executive team. Outside directors are advantageous because they are experienced experts who rarely have conflict of interest and they often see the big picture differently than insiders. Traditionally, companies invited friendly advisors to join their board. Now, there is more risk to directors as a result of legislation (Sarbanes-Oxley). Whereas there is formality (reporting, responsibility, risk), liability, and more expense (e.g. D&O insurance) to a board of directors, there is a budget-friendly alternative in the form of a "board of advisors" that is beholden only to management. The main difference is in where the fiduciary duty lies: to the shareholders or to management. Trusted outside directors can provide guidance for the business to produce value for the business. Why add outsiders? 1. Outside directors increase cash flow/business growth. A Forbes/Lodestone Global survey shows 97% of companies reporting increased revenues and earnings, with increases of 56% since adding a board with outside directors. 2. Outside directors can be a valuable resource. They bring a new set of skills and ideas, while you maintain control. 3. Outside directors provide an external source of accountability, which is key for businesses to move forward. 4. Outside directors are on the side of owners, shareholders, and managers, these advisors answer only to you. 5. Outside directors add credibility. When it comes time for a liquidity-seeking event, they send a message that your company has leadership and guidance. With a board of directors, your company immediately gains legitimacy and a panel with expertise that you probably do not have in house. Although the role of board members is to direct accountability, develop strategy, protect assets, and oversee implementation, they are often adept at guiding major decisions, serving as a resource, and being a confidant to the CEO. Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, discovered that he was the only person on stage that didn't make a sound. He realized that his job was to create great things out of the individual talents of the musicians in front of him. This is very much like the role of an outside director: to bring out the very best in the company's inside talent, to guide the company to meet its goals. Management makes decisions and maintains control, based on guidance and information. Outside directors bring an independent perspective, develop strategic thinking and planning, use their experience and objectivity, provide their Rolodex of contacts, find capital, and guide transaction activity (Exhibit 1). Many of these benefits are absent in companies, so outside influence should be used to your benefit. After all, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by considering their advice when you make decisions. Exhibit 1 Benefits of Outside Directors Action/Skill Benefit Independent perspective Unbiased advice Challenge management Sounding board for CEO Objective, Mediate conflicts Strategic thinking and planning New directions, Transitions Incentive-based compensation Experience and objectivity New knowledge Been there, done that Oversee performance and risk Accountability, Credibility Contacts Networks Investors, Lenders, Resources Partners, Customers, Suppliers Capital infusion Raise Money, Restructure Guide offering process Find capital Transactions Prepare company for sale Locate interested parties Negotiate a deal Create a culture and structure that will withstand third-party accountability to add value to your business. Start thinking as a serious, growing company and prepare for a future life as a public company or for increased scrutiny of investors. Independent Perspective The CEO needs unbiased advice and diversity of opinion from outside directors who care about the company's success, but who can view things from a distance and a different perspective. CEOs will be well served by adding board members who can challenge them and decisions they are about to make. Strategic Thinking & Planning Outside directors should constructively challenge and contribute to strategy development, implementation, and infrastructure. Outside directors can be particularly adept at guiding the company into new markets or changing direction when trouble occurs. Because these outsiders have experienced these situations and guided other companies through the pitfalls, they can certainly guide you to success with less trepidation. Experience & Objectivity The very nature of growth implies that a company is going to new opportunities. It is refreshing to make that journey with the help of an advisor who has been there, and done that, before. This objectivity can help you through the obstacles. Contacts Every company needs help when it wants to grow, prosper, or turn around. Outside directors can extend the company's reach by using their own contact network, including colleagues that can get involved to provide guidance and resources. Capital Infusion Outside directors often have a database of contacts who can supply capital, both in the form of equity (investors) and debt (lenders). Some have more extensive and higher quality databases than others. This means that you can get in front of many financing resources quickly once an expression of interest package is ready. Present your opportunity in terms the investor or lender wants to see. Your company is the product. Transactions Prepare for that liquidity event. The best time to sell a company is when a buyer wants to buy and has cash, which could come when you least expect it. Be prepared and work toward ultimate valuation throughout the process of growth. Do not be surprised when you come to the realization that the company is not attractive to investors or lenders. This means that you have the opportunity to rebuild the company, or parts of it, so that it can be considered a good deal. Build a company in which investors want to invest. What Buyers and Investors Look For Businesses that create value: Consistency. High probability of future cash flows: Promise of cash. Market-oriented management team: Generate revenue. Ability to sell and compete; develop, produce and distribute products; thrive and grow: Track record. Fair entry valuation: Realistic return potential. Exit options: Investors want ROI multiples. Outside directors are adept at negotiating deals. They elevate you (management/board) to the decision-making role. Hire that outside director. They bring about change. View entire article at: JPE: https://jpe.iijournals.com/content/22/1/36 Or SMP: http://www.StrategicMgtPartners.com/jpe-dir.pdf ### About the Author: John M. Collard John is Chairman of Strategic Management Partners, Inc. (410-263-9100, www.StrategicMgtPartners.com ) in Annapolis, Maryland. John is a Certified Turnaround Professional (CTP), and a Certified International Turnaround Manager (CITM), who brings over 35 years senior operating leadership, $85M+ asset and investment recovery, 45+ transactions worth $1.2B, and $80M fund management expertise to run troubled companies, serve on and advise company boards of directors, and raise capital. John has parachuted in as the Interim CEO, CRO or senior executive to turn around troubled entities, and serves as an outside director. John is inducted into the Turnaround Management, Restructuring, and Distressed Investing Industry Hall Of Fame. John is Past Chairman of the Turnaround Management Association (TMA), Past Chairman of the Association of Interim Executives (AIE), and a Senior Fellow of the Turnaround Management Society. John is a Founder of TMA. John is Prince George's Business Leader of the Year. John is honored with the Interim Management Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Interim Executives. John is honored as Most Admired CEO in Maryland by Daily Record. John is honored with SmartCEO Distinguished Leadership Award. About the Firm: Strategic Management Partners, Inc. ( www.StrategicMgtPartners.com 410-263-9100) is a turnaround management firm specializing in interim management and executive CEO leadership, asset and investment recovery, board and private equity advisory, raising money, and investing in and rebuilding underperforming distressed troubled companies. The firm has been advisor to Presidents Bush (41 & 43), Clinton, Reagan, and Yeltsin, World Bank, EBRD, Company Boards, and Equity Capital Investors on leadership, rebuilding troubled companies, investment recovery, turnaround management and equity investing. SMP is celebrating 25 years of service to its clients. SMP was named Maryland's Small Business of the Year, and received the Governor's Citation, Governor Martin J. O'Malley, The State of Maryland as a special tribute to honor work in the areas of turning around troubled companies and saving jobs in Maryland. Turnarounds & Workouts Magazine has twice named SMP among the 'Top Outstanding Turnaround Management Firms'. American Business Journals named SMP among the Most Active Turnaround Management and Consulting Firms in Baltimore, Washington, and the Mid-Atlantic Region. Global M&A Network Turnaround Atlas Awards named SMP as Boutique Turnaround Consulting Firm of the Year. Strategic Management Partners, Inc.: turnaround managers ready to run troubled companies, recover assets from investments gone bad, advise boards of directors and investors on company viability in distressed situations. We provide strong interim and operational leadership, strategic planning, financial, defense conversion, sales and marketing acumen developed building organizations in large and small companies, including President of public & private middle-market companies providing solutions to Commercial, Federal Government, International markets. Enterprises range from start-up to $100+mil. Industry expertise: Manufacturing; Job Shop; Engineering Services; Computer Processing/Services/Software/Integration; Communications; Defense Electronics; Aerospace; Federal Government Contracting; Systems Integration; High-Tech; Finance; Marine Services; Real Estate Development; Construction; Fabrication; and Printing. End ### Reference: www.StrategicMgtPartners.com Turnaround Managers www.StrategistLibrary.com or www.StrategicMgtPartners.com/library/libindx.html Why Hire Outside Directors When Private Companies Don't Have To? article at: www.StrategicMgtPartners.com/jpe-dira.pdf> https://jpe.iijournals.com/content/22/1/36 Fixer-Uppers: Rebuilding Value article Raising Money article Is Your Company in Trouble? Published by Corporate Board Magazine Managing Turnarounds in Times of Crisis Published by NACD Directorship Magazine Managing Turnarounds Phases and Actions Published by RMA Journal Social Media: John M. Collard on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/JohnMCollard John M. Collard on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/JohnMCollard John M. Collard on Twitter at http://twitter.com/JohnCollard Collard on NewsReleaseWire Firm: www.StrategicMgtPartners.com Turnaround Management Experts End ### For the urban tourists bound from Marfa to the Chinati Hot Springs, the desert canyon is mute as to the human dramas that played out here over the last century. Tucked into a remote corner of the Big Bend, Pinto Canyon is a bleak and almost forgotten place, albeit one with a rich and colorful history. Its story is now eloquently told by archeologist David Kellers In the Shadow of the Chinatis, a deeply researched historical and cultural narrative that was a decade in the works. For any serious student of the Big Bend, this book is a treasure. It opens with the geological birthing of Pinto Canyon 33 million years ago with a volcanic eruption that left 6,000 square miles covered in ash. It also created the spectacular landscape so admired today. The modern human chapter began late in the 19th century when Mexican immigrants Jose Prieto and his teenage wife Juanita Barrera became the first to settle in the canyon. Keller serves the reader well by using Jose Prieto as the books main character, mining a rich trove of family records, photos and anecdotes to tell the tale. More Information 'In the Shadow of the Chinatis' By David W. Keller Texas A&M University Press 352 pp. $35 See More Collapse The author also acquaints the reader with other pioneering canyon families, who, because of the isolation, were sometimes much closer than neighbors. Over more than seven decades in the canyon, the Prietos, who had nine children, amassed significant acreage while raising sheep and goats on the rocky pastures. Tragedy also came their way with the murders of two sons, one by a local Texas lawman, another in Mexico in an ambush. Resourceful and determined, the Prietos survived the Great Depression of the 1930s and the seven-year drought of the 1950s that forced other pioneers to leave. Jose lived to 96, and his death in 1963 came just a few years before conflicts among his children led to the sale of much of their family land. Keller paints canyon life with a broad and colorful brush, including sheep shearing crews, candelilla wax mills, bootleg sotol distilleries and Apache Adams, who single-handedly wrangled wild bulls out of the thorny brush. He also explores the larger political and social dynamics of the milieu, when Anglos were dominant and wiley Mexican rebels such as Chico Cano led the U.S. Cavalry on many a wild chase. But canyon life also led to a rare intimacy between Mexicans and Americans who lived and worked together. Sometimes things got a bit confusing, such as when the federal agents arrived at the Shely Ranch looking for undocumented Mexican workers. On rare occasions when the Border Patrol showed up and the (Serrano) men scattered, the (Shely) kids scattered with them, sensing the urgency if not fully understanding the reason for their flight, Keller writes. During the Great Depression, he notes, holdup men were such a menace in West Texas that the reward signs posted by Big Bend banks offered hard cash for dead bank robbers, not one cent for live ones. Overgrazing, drought, predators and a slump in wool and mohair prices eventually made it impossible for canyon ranchers to survive. The last to leave were the Shelys, who in 1982 sold out to a rich Houstonian who wanted the land for hunting. One of his first acts was to bulldoze roads through the fragile desert. Most of the canyon and surrounding Chinati high peaks are now in the hands of preservation-minded owners, including the state of Texas, leaving it much as Jose and Juanita Prieto found it a more than a century ago. With Kellers book, the long-silent rocks and ruins of Pinto Canyon have finally been given voice. John MacCormack 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. | JMacCormack@express-news.net | Twitter: @JohnMacCormack San Antonio has good reason to wish chef Pieter Sypesteyn a huge congratulazioni. The chef and co-owner, along with his wife, Susan Kaars-Sypesteyn, of Cookhouse, NOLA Brunch & Beignets and Buds Southern Rotisserie, has earned the title of International Chef of UNESCO Creative Cities following a winning performance at a cooking competition April 11 in Parma, Italy. The goal of the competition was to create a forward-looking dish that paid tribute to the food, culture and history of Parma. Sypesteyn, one of three chefs selected to compete, bested his fellow challengers with a smoked fish manicotti filled with sustainably sourced bycatch along with fresh seasonal herbs and vegetables. I wasnt expecting to come home with an an award on that one, Sypesteyn said of the stiff competition. It feels really great. It was kind of a dream come true to be able to travel for what I love doing and represent Texas and San Antonio all in the same atmosphere. I feel really blessed to be able to come back with a win like this. Sypesteyn will return to Italy in June to present his winning dish at the XIII UNESCO Creative City Annual Conference in Fabriano. In the meantime, San Antonians will have a chance to taste the winning dish at Cookhouse starting next week. Sypesteyn is busy rolling out a new menu at the restaurant, which earned three stars from Express-News dining critic Mike Sutter in December. The manicotti will make an appearance as a special for a couple weeks, Sypesteyn said. Exact dates and details about the dishs availability will be announced on Cookhouses Facebook page in the coming days. On ExpressNews.com: San Antonios UNESCO City of Gastronomy title could be big business UNESCO granted San Antonio the designation of Creative City of Gastronomy in 2017 following a successful application highlighting the areas long history of culinary innovation stemming from waves of migration dating back more than 10,000 years. Paul Stephen is a food and drink reporter and restaurant critic 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 Cayley Mandadis friends knew that her boyfriend had abused her before, according to an arrest warrant affidavit, and one of them was concerned enough to call San Antonio police on a fall night in 2017 after seeing them argue at the Mala Luna Music Festival and leave together. It wasnt enough of a tip for police to search for the couple. Mandadis mother, Allison Steele, believes that the Trinity University student might be alive today if an alert could have been issued immediately, the way Amber and Silver alerts light up Texans phones. Instead, the boyfriend, Mark Howerton, then 22, brought Steeles daughter to an emergency room in Luling, badly beaten and unconscious, on the night of Oct. 29, 2017. Mandadi, 19, never regained consciousness and was taken off life support days later at a hospital in Kyle. Howerton is awaiting trial on a murder charge. Steele, who lives in League City, now is pushing lawmakers to create a statewide emergency alert for adults reported held against their will or in imminent danger, to help law enforcement locate victims of kidnapping, domestic violence and other crimes. It became obvious to me that there was a huge gap in our system, both legislatively and functionally, Steele said. House Bill 1769, authored by Rep. Greg Bonnen, R-Friendswood, and four Dallas and Houston-area representatives, would fill that gap by giving officials the discretion to issue an alert for any missing adult believed to be in imminent danger or whose disappearance is believed to be involuntary. One of the bills joint authors, Rep. Toni Rose, D-Dallas, authored a similar bill in 2017. It passed out of committee but did not make it to a House vote. The technology exists. This system is already up and functioning, Bonnen said last week at a hearing of the Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee. It does have the opportunity to save the lives of Texans. The Department of Public Safety State Operations Center issues Amber Alerts for abducted children, Silver Alerts for missing senior citizens with documented mental conditions, Blue Alerts for suspects accused of killing or seriously injuring a law enforcement officer, and Endangered Missing Persons Alerts for people with documented intellectual disabilities or developmental disorders. The proposed new category would be issued using the same process. John Jones, chief of the DPS Intelligence and Counter Terrorism Division told lawmakers that criteria for the new alert would need to be developed but that the department already has the capability to execute it. The Cayleys of the world deserve whatever we can do to hopefully prevent a tragedy, said Andy Kahan, director of Victim Services and Advocacy for Crimestoppers of Houston, who Steele has worked with on the bill. Howerton told investigators that Mandadi, a sophomore communications major and cheerleader at Trinity, became unresponsive as they drove to Houston after stopping at a Valero gas station in Bexar County to have sex. He was charged five months later. A grand jury in Bexar County re-indicted him last month, and a trial is set for May. Mandadi was covered from head to toe with red marks, bruises and scratches, and she had injuries that indicated a physical and violent sexual assault, the warrant said. An autopsy found that she had numerous blunt force injuries to her head, face and mouth, along with a subdural hematoma on her brain that caused swelling and herniation. On ExpressNews.com: Trinity officials say they didnt know student was repeatedly abused Steele, who has made five trips to Austin to urge legislators to support the bill, first approached Bonnen about it last June. She said the alert could help in responding to abductions that have a known suspect or vehicle. The very fact that we have no adult alert implies that adults dont really get kidnapped, Steele told legislators last week. It suggests that something, maybe magical, happens around age 18 that suddenly eliminates or at least reduces that risk. And of course, that simply isnt true. Kahan, who has been working in victim advocacy for 27 years, said it just makes total common sense to give law enforcement the discretion to activate an alert and enlist the publics help. Beth Alberts, CEO of Texas Center for the Missing, dismissed concerns that the alert would be overused or that it would dilute the strength of existing alerts. I have always been against anything that kind of waters down the Amber Alert, she said, but only six Amber Alerts were issued in the Houston area in the past year, and an adult alert would be used just as judiciously, she said. Kahan said Mandadi may be the catalyst case needed to help get the law enacted, adding, Sometimes it takes a tragedy for good, common-sense public policy. Steele said she really started to falter a few months into her efforts, then heard of another teenager allegedly killed by her boyfriend: Erin Castro, 19, who was stabbed and run over on Camp Bullis Road on Sept. 2. The boyfriend, Josh Garcia, has been charged with murder. On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio mother speaks out about daughters death, allegedly at the hands of abusive boyfriend Like Mandadi, Castro was in a car with the boyfriend, her mother told police. Steele said the story went through me like an electric shock like God tapping me on the shoulder, telling me, You need to get off your butt, get off the couch and do something. HB 1769 was recommended last week to the Local & Consent Calendars Committee, which typically sets the agenda for uncontested bills. LTeitz@express-news.net More than a century before the famed 1836 battle that established the Alamo as a revered American icon, the site was developed as San Antonios oldest Spanish mission, where settlers and Native Americans lived and where some died. As the city and state prepare to remake the site in a $450 million public-private project, it also will be designated, in some fashion, as a historic cemetery. The Texas General Land Office seeks the designation just for the church itself. Native American groups disagree and have asked for a broader study that would include burial sites in and around the plaza. We think this is an incredible and critical part of the storytelling that we will be doing at the Alamo with this project, said Councilman Roberto Trevino, who sits on a six-member Management Committee making key decisions for the project. He said the city supports both proposals. The Texas Historical Commission will discuss the Land Office proposal next month. The Land Office is partnering with the city and a nonprofit foundation on a major overhaul of Alamo Plaza and construction of a museum. Officials on both sides of the controversy have said neither historic cemetery proposal would halt the planned project. But a recent report prepared by Austin-based GTI Environmental for one of the tribal groups said a cemetery designation with a provisional boundary should be made before ground is broken, possibly as early as 2020. The project is set for completion by 2024. On ExpressNews.com: Dueling cemetery proposals may shape Alamo plan Trevino does not foresee a cemetery designation in the plaza hurting the project, which includes lowering the ground within the historic mission-era footprint of the plaza by 18 inches to its historic level. The work will be done in full compliance with the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and other laws, he said. I think its one of the most important pieces of this entire project, because its about our history, and most importantly, its about people, real people, who lived and died there. We will continue to honor that, and do it in a way that is respectful and thoughtful, Trevino said. The Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation, one of the groups seeking a cemetery listing for the plaza, included the church in its application. But it has asked the commission to defer action on the Land Offices proposal until studies of the plaza are completed. The groups application says 1,377 graves, including those of at least 13 prominent figures Native American chiefs and Spanish military leaders listed by name are beneath the church, plaza and surrounding areas within a local and national historic district. Once these studies are completed by professional qualified individuals, then we respectfully ask that the commission mandate all parties to work together to develop the appropriate boundaries for this significant historical cemetery, Raymond Hernandez, a Tap Pilam tribal council member, wrote in an April 7 letter to the commission. Jo Anne Gonzalez Murphy, president of the 1718 San Antonio Founding Families and Descendants, a group formed two years ago to promote awareness of early Spanish explorers and colonizers of Texas, said she supports Tap Pilams efforts and is worried that the story of Mission San Antonio de Valero will be overshadowed by a focus on the 1836 siege and Battle of the Alamo. The forefathers of Texas are buried there, she said. Its undignified what theyre trying to do. The Alamo project has a set of vision statements and guiding principles that seek to interpret the sites entire 300-year recorded history, even though many Alamo traditionalists argue that the 13-day siege and battle should dominate the sites interpretation. One bill filed this year in the Legislature would require that exhibits within the Alamos historic footprint focus on the 1836 events. The Alamos origin as a cultural site dates to 1724, when it became the third and final location of San Antonios oldest mission. It operated as a mission until 1793, then was used as a Spanish and Mexican military fort before it gained fame with the siege and battle for Texas independence from Mexico. After the battle, its ruins were used as a U.S. Army supply depot. The site then became engulfed in the commercial development of a growing city. Murphy said acknowledgment of burial sites in the plaza would give more depth to the site and help retain visitors longer without detracting from the 1836 battle immortalized in American history and folklore through newspaper accounts, almanacs, books and movies. More is more. Were not limited in telling the story, she said. People in San Antonio want to hear about their history. More than 2,100 Historic Texas Cemeteries are designated statewide, including 24 in Bexar County, according to the historical commission website. Local historic cemeteries range in size from three graves at Fromme Cemetery near Fair Oaks Ranch and Benko Family Cemetery on the Northwest Side to 2,500 burials at Eastview Cemetery on the Southeast Side. Land Commissioner George P. Bush has said a historic cemetery designation for the Alamo church would help ensure that the site is treated reverently. Land Office officials have not said whether they would seek a state historical marker if the proposal is approved. On ExpressNews.com: Todays Alamo plan has what 94 plan lacked An application by the Land Office for historic cemetery status cites mission burial records identifying a Canary Island settler and a Native American man and woman buried in the church. It lists five instances, from 1849 to 1995, of human remains found in the structure, now visited each year by about 1.6 million people. Today, a plaque on the floor near the middle of the church memorializes three adults and one child whose remains were found during installation of pavers in 1936, then reburied in a metal-lined cement vault below the floor. There also was a skull found within a wall of the Monks Burial Room, one of two north chambers in the church, in the 1980s, and human bones were unearthed in its south transept in 1995. The application acknowledges records listing names and dates of certain individuals buried at the former mission, but does not elaborate on where cemeteries existed outside the church. The other historic cemetery application, submitted by Tap Pilam, attempts to pinpoint burials in the plaza, citing newspaper archives, church records, archaeological reports and other documents or online resources. An archaeology map produced by Pape-Dawson Engineers, consultant on the Alamo project, and included in GTI Environmentals report, shows areas at the Alamo with a high potential for human remains being found below ground. The map highlights three large areas where burials occurred: at the plazas north end, below and near the 1930s Hipolito F. Garcia Federal Building; in and all around the church; and below and around the former DRT Library and Alamo Hall on the state-owned Alamo grounds. Scott Huddleston covers Bexar County government and the Alamo for the San Antonio Express-News. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | shuddleston@express-news.net | Twitter: @shuddlestonSA WASHINGTON Democrats plan to open a regional headquarters in Austin this spring and dispatch organizers to Texas suburbs in an unusual early step to prepare challenges against Republican members of Congress believed to be vulnerable because of rapid demographic change. The moves by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are intended to back up House Speaker Nancy Pelosis vow to secure House victories in the 2020 election by this November a year ahead of the actual vote. The effort focuses on Texas districts that have been unwinnable for Democats for years. New polling in several Texas districts coupled with a surge in minorities on voter rolls have House Democrats believing that Texas offers some of the most fertile ground in the country for Democratic pick-ups in 2020. For example, since 2010 the Democrats have charted an increase of 38,000 residents who are Latino, African American or Asian American in the 21st Congressional District that stretches from the northern reaches of San Antonio to Austin and includes Hill Country to the north. Its a district that has been held by the GOP for more than 30 years. First and foremost, its not lost on a lot of people that demographics are changing in Texas, especially the suburban areas around key cities, San Antonio, Austin, Houston and Dallas, said Allison Jaslow, executive director the DCCC, the House Democrats political arm. When people step back, theyre surprised that they didnt pick off more Republicans down there, she said. Republicans express no immediate concern. They offered a barbed response likely to be used frequently to depict Democratic presidential hopefuls and a cadre of House freshmen as embracing policies outside the political mainstream. "If the socialist Democrats were serious about competing in Texas, they wouldnt have spent the past three months pushing far-left policies like the oil-and-gas-killing Green New Deal and banning private health insurance. Texans will reject the socialist Democrats and their zany ideas in 2020, said Bob Salera, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. Texas Take: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox Democrats, who took control of the House in Novembers midterm election, have history on their side as far as keeping their new majority: House control hasnt changed in consecutive elections since 1954. Aside from fending off the socialism refrain, Democrats biggest task likely will be protecting their two dozen first-term members who won in November by five percent or less. The DCCC in February announced its so-called Frontline Program with 44 potentially vulnerable members, among them Lizzie Fletcher in Houston and Colin Allred of Dallas, the Texans who ousted Republicans last year. Republicans contend that Democrats will need to devote so much attention and money to protecting new members that theyll have little left to spend on unseating Republicans strong enough to withstand last years blue wave. Nonetheless, Pelosi portrayed as a villain in tens of thousands of GOP ads last cycle - asserted boldly in a recent Washington Post interview that Democrats will secure their new House majority long before people vote in 2020. Part of her strategy in Texas and elsewhere is attempting to goad Republicans into retirement, noting their lack of opportunity serving in the minority. For subscribers: Former GOP leader warns: Texas now a swing state She remarked that some Republican veterans may want to teach at a university. The GOPs Salera responded: If she thinks shes going to scare Texas Republicans, then she doesnt know the delegation. Democrats target six Texas races Bluster or not, Democrats are moving swiftly. Weeks after taking control of the House for the first time in eight years, the DCCC presented a 2020 battleground plan that featured six Texas Republicans, more than any other state. A San Antonio-area district, represented by Republican Will Hurd, was no surprise. The districts nearly 50-50 partisan split has kept it a biennial battleground this millennium. Gina Ortiz Jones, who came within 926 votes of unseating Hurd last year, is expected to declare plans shortly for another candidacy. Democrats takedown list also includes: GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Dripping Springs; Houston-area Reps. Michael McCaul and Pete Olson; John Carter of Round Rock; and Kenny Marchant of Coppell. For subscribers: Freshman Rep. Chip Roy keeps his promise to go against the grain in Washington Of the six, the nonpartisan Cook Political Reports David Wasserman last month ranked Hurds and Marchants seats as toss-ups and the others lean Republican. Democrats acknowledged that they are pressing Mary Jennings MJ Hegar, the former Afghanistan war rescue pilot, to run again against Carter, 77, after coming within three percentage points last year of unseating the nine-term veteran. But Hegar also has said shes seriously considering running for the Democratic nomination to challenge GOP Sen. John Cornyn. Last week, Democrats in Washington released polling and voter data that they say buttresses their belief that Roy, McCaul and Marchant are vulnerable. The DCCC contended that internal polling of likely voters showed that the three of them are known by fewer than half the people in the district. Democrats also are banking on the changing nature of those districts, particularly increases in the Latino populations. Citing census data, the DCCC said that the population of Latinos, African-Americans and Asian-Americans has grown markedly in those districts since 2010 in McCauls district by 51,500, in Marchants district by nearly 40,000 and in Roys district by 38,000. Roy is seeking to parlay the Democratic offensive into campaign cash, inviting supporters to help finance what he is calling a Save Texas Response Plan. House Democrats have now opened a new office in our backyard, and because several of us are standing up for conservative principles in Congress we have a large target on our back, he said in a fundraising appeal on Monday. They're not going away and they won't stop attacking until they think they've done everything possible to turn Texas blue, Roy wrote. Democrats say the Austin headquarters, which they intend to open in early May, will include eight senior staffers from around the country. Democrats declared earlier they will station organizers in suburban Houston, San Antonio, Austin and Dallas, hoping to take advantage of the erosion of GOP support for President Donald Trump reflected in a host of polls. That may be a wise move considering Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnells frank appraisal last week of what befell his fellow Republicans in 2018. We all know why it happened, said McConnell, speaking with reporters. We got crushed in the suburbs. We lost college graduates and women in the suburbs, which led in the House to losses in suburban Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Charleston, South Carolina, Philadelphia. WASHINGTON Republicans are challenging the authority of a U.S. House panel to investigate the Texas effort to purge thousands of suspected non-citizens from voter rolls, contending in letters Monday that a recent request for documents has no valid legislative purpose. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Dripping Springs, and three other Republican members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee asked the committee to halt its investigations in Texas and related efforts in Georgia and Kansas. Your letters rely in large part on unverified media articles to suggest misfeasance or malfeasance in administering various state election laws and elections held in each of the three states, the letter reads. In separate letters to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Texas Secretary of State David Whitley, the Republican congressmen suggest that Texas doesnt need to comply with a request for documents because the inquiry does not appear to have a valid legislative purpose and instead seeks confidential communications among state officials. Texas Take: Get the latest news on Texas politics sent directly to your inbox every weekday Paxton told the Democratic-run committee last week that Texas would not meet an April 11 deadline for producing the materials, asserting that the committee lacks jurisdiction. The committee did not back down, saying that it expects full compliance and noting that Congress is charged with protecting and defending the Constitution. The Oversight Committee, which has broad powers, on April 1 began an investigation into the voter purge in Texas that was halted in February by a federal judge who declared it a mess and said it intimidated naturalized citizens. After taking over control of the House in January, Democrats said they intend to make addressing voter suppression a priority in the new Congress. For subscribers: Texas Attorney General denies U.S. House request for voter purge documents Up to now, the committee has simply asked for a host of emails, including communications between Whitley and Gov. Greg Abbott. But like other committee chairs, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who heads the Oversight panel, has subpoena power that could be invoked to demand the documents. The Republicans letter to Cummings and Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin, who heads the panels Civil Rights and Civil Liberties subcommittee, argues that the investigations violate states rights. By seeking voluminous records related to election administration of sovereign states, your investigation offends state-federal comity. In fact, the respective states are already working to resolve any issue with their election administration, the Republicans wrote. In addition to Roy, the letter is signed by Reps. Michael Cloud, R-Corpus Christi; Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the committees ranking Republican; and Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga. Raskin, a law professor before he ran for Congress, asserted that Congress has the power and obligation to enforce voting rights under five separate constitutional amendments. He said indignant Republicans might want to review letters written by the GOP-led Oversight Committee to states investigating the Affordable Care Act. It would be best if our GOP colleagues joined us in protecting voting rights, but at the very least they should stop trying to prevent us from doing our constitutionally mandated work, he said in a statement. Far from raising the federalism concerns of Reps. Jordan, Hice, Cloud and Roy, this is serious federalism in action. Our colleagues should get used to it. As another Tax Day passes, we have new insight into the dueling partisan visions for the U.S. tax system. We already knew that the GOPs 2017 tax law mostly benefited corporations and the wealthy; thats old news. But Thursday, we got some illustrative examples, courtesy of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The organization found that at least 60 profitable Fortune 500 firms paid no federal income tax in 2018, about twice as many as in the years leading up to the laws passage. In fact, most of these companies got a federal tax rebate. For context, Americans top complaint about the tax system remains the feeling that some corporations dont pay their fair share, according to a March poll from the Pew Research Center. Now lets consider what Democrats have on tap. A lot of competing plans have piled up. Many 2020 presidential contenders have released proposals, covering everything from forcing big companies to report the same income to the tax man that they report to their shareholders (Elizabeth Warren); to using higher estate and inheritance taxes to pay for government-funded baby bonds savings accounts (Cory Booker); to something just shy of universal basic income administered through the tax code (Kamala Harris). Some of these ideas are better thought through legally, fiscally, politically than others. But the general theme is this: Forget (or reverse) those tax cuts for the rich. Focus on cutting taxes for low- and middle-income families instead. Last week, we saw Democratic senators coalesce around a specific iteration of that theme. In new legislation, they offered the clearest blueprint yet for what they would do if they regained unified control of government. Its called the Working Families Tax Relief Act. Already, nearly every Democratic senator has signed up to co-sponsor it including every senator now running for president. The bill, introduced by Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Michael F. Bennet (Colorado), Richard J. Durbin (Illinois) and Ron Wyden (Oregon), focuses on expanding the earned-income tax credit, or EITC, and the child tax credit. For those unfamiliar, the EITC is a tax credit that incentivizes work by topping off workers wages. Given the EITCs record of lifting living standards and job growth, it has long enjoyed bipartisan appeal; Republican and Democratic presidents alike have presided over successive expansions. If passed, this new bill would boost the credit for families who have children and massively expand it for childless adults (which includes noncustodial parents), who are currently eligible for little support. What about the child tax credit? The new bill would make the existing child tax credit available to all children by making it fully refundable. That is, poor families whose income taxes are less than the credit could receive the entire balance as a refund. It would also create an entirely new, fully refundable Young Child Tax Credit available to families with children younger than 6. Together, these changes would increase the child tax credits maximum value to $3,000 per preschool-age child. That would surely be a welcome increase in living standards for families struggling with child care and other expenses. The bills beneficiaries would be widespread raising incomes for households of an estimated 114 million people and putting a significant dent in the child-poverty rate, according to an analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. No cost estimate is available yet, but it appears less expensive than other ambitious proposals Democrats have put forward. It also has the virtue of building on ideas that have traditionally had bipartisan support without undermining that support, as some other rival Democratic proposals risk doing. An alternative plan that Brown introduced, for instance, would expand eligibility for the EITC to include those performing nonmarket work, such as full-time caregivers. But opening up something called an earned income credit to people without dollar earnings virtually guarantees Republican opposition. There are other tools available to help hardworking populations not eligible for the EITC including, of course, expanding the child tax credit. All told, for all the criticism of Democrats as a politically tone-deaf party devoid of any message other than Not Trump, theyve worked hard to craft an economically efficient, politically formidable plan. Family-values-and-job-growth-supporting Republicans should take note. crampell@washpost.com FuelCell Energy laid off 135 employees on Friday, with the company stating it will save $11.5 million annually as a result. FuelCell disclosed the job cuts Monday in a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, stating the action follows completion of a new power plant on Triangle Street in Danbury that aligns fuel cells differently to increase the efficiency of the hydrogen used for their fuel. FuelCell also announced the retirement of Anthony Rauseo as chief operating officer, who held the role since 2010 and received $830,000 in compensation last year. Under CEO Chip Bottone, FuelCell has its main factory in Torrington where it produces fuel cells that generate electricity through a chemical process. The job cuts were split largely between Danbury and Torrington, according to Tom Gelston, head of investor relations, with the company having 420 employees between the two locations as of March and 60 elsewhere. We dont undertake these actions lightly, and we remain focused on executing in the near-term on the (80-plus) megawatts in backlog of projects we have already won, Gelston stated in an email response to a Hearst Connecticut query on Monday. These actions should not impact our commercial ability to deliver on these projects. Torrington Mayor Elinor Carbone said she got a phone call Friday telling her about the layoffs, adding They said it was financial circumstances. There are so many talented Torrington residents, she said. Carbone said in a later email that she was very disappointed to learn of the layoffs here in Torrington and Danbury. Fuel Cell recently reached out to my office to invite us to celebrate their 50th anniversary and less than 2 weeks later, they called to inform me of the reductions being made to their workforce. I sincerely hope this is a temporary measure that will afford them to restructure and rebuild. In January, FuelCell reworked the terms of a $10 million loan first issued in 2015 by the state, with the company required to have a Connecticut workforce numbering nearly 540 people by 2022. FuelCell would receive a $2 million loan forgiveness credit if it does so. If it falls short, it would be required to pay $18,600 for each promised job it failed to maintain for a period of two years. Gelston did not state immediately whether FuelCell has sought any new adjustment to the terms of the deal. FuelCell reported a $33 million loss in the first quarter of its fiscal year covering November through January the largest it ever reported for a single, three-month period with revenue down by more than half to $17.8 million. After a $62 million loss in its 2018 fiscal year, FuelCell has gone 20 years now without a profit. The companys assets totaled $346 million entering February, including $27.7 million in cash unrestricted by any contractual requirements. Contributing to FuelCells recent losses have been dividends it has paid out to investors for preferred stock as a means to raise cash to fund operations, with FuelCells common stock trading at 27 cents a share Monday. The company faces a late May deadline to lift the price above $1 or see its stock delisted from the Nasdaq exchange on which its shares trade. FuelCell reported having a record, $1.3 billion backlog as of January, with orders for power plants in Connecticut and New York taking up some of the slack from declining business in South Korea. The company is now in a legal dispute with a power company there that had long been its largest customer. Weve seen both utility companies in the state Avangrid and Eversource recognize the benefits of our projects, Bottone said last month during a conference call with investors. The same dynamics that took shape in South Korea and in Connecticut are now playing out in New York. The (Long Island Power Authority) projects ... (put) plants right where the power is needed, and again giving us a leadership position. The company recently completed a design for a solid-oxide fuel cell that generates less than a megawatt of electricity, with its mainstay carbonate fuel cell technology having larger capacity. JoAnn Ryan, president and CEO of the Northwest Connecticut Chamber of Commerce, said the organization has the resources to help the employees who have been laid off. We have a rapid response team ready. There a number of jobs in the area. I know of one company (in the area) thats adding a second shift, she said. Ryan said she heard it was an entire shift of workers at FuelCell who were laid off. She said the chamber would work with the state Department of Labor to make sure we can help. Its not easy for either the employees or the employers. Asked about the impact of the layoffs, she said that a lot of people didnt sleep well over the weekend. Leslie Hutchison contributed to this story. Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman GREENWICH When a team of young women united together to make an impact, they werent just offering up words. Generation Impact, a group of high school students, last week awarded a $10,000 grant to the Building One Community, The Center for Immigrant Opportunity where it will be used for an after-school program that helps students learn STEM skills. The gift represented the level of support that the Greenwich-based group hoped to to make since forming in 2017. All of the finalists we looked at were incredible, said Isabel Allard, a member of Generation Impact and an 11th-grader at Greenwich Academy. It was such a hard decision. But what stood out about Building One Community is the passion they have for what they do. And they had the data to show there has been a real impact on people from the work theyve been doing. Generation Impact is made up of young women, most of whom live in or attend school in Greenwich. Allard, a town resident, developed the initial plan for the group and has been chair of its leadership committee since it was launched 16 months ago. Generation Impact members reviewed dozens of grant applications and researched agencies before they voted. The grant will allow Building One Community to increase the number of times the after-school program done in partnership with The Bruce Museum can meet, from once a month to four times a month. This inspiring group of high school girls dedicated considerable time and effort to understanding the needs of the most vulnerable in our community and recognized that they too, at a young age, can have a significant impact on the future generation of students who reside in their local community, said Catalina Horak, Building One Communitys executive director. The other three finalists, Childrens Learning Centers, Domus Kids Inc. and Open Door Shelter, were all given $1,000 grants. The money was raised by Generation Impact members. To join girls had to give $100, money that was pooled together to be used for the grants. Outside donors covered the amount for some who could not afford it. We want to be a group that is very inclusive, Allard said. We dont want to deny people the opportunity to get involved. Members are striving to make Generation Impact a lasting group in town, with the help of adult advisors Sara Allard, Ellen Reid and Melissa Price, all Greenwich residents. Allard and Reid are members of Impact Fairfield County, a womens-only giving circle in which members give $1,000 apiece and vote on where the grant money will go. Impact Fairfield Countys founders, Greenwich residents Wendy Block and Vicki Craver, also have advised members of Generation Impact. We want to teach the girls about the needs in our community and the amazing organizations working to meet those needs, Reid said. This program also teaches about giving. how to give thoughtfully, whether through volunteer time effort or money, and how to work together to make an impact. Allard said leaders are encouraging all members to do volunteer work at one of the four finalists. She will be working over the summer at Building One Community helping kids with their homework. We want this to be so much more than just writing a check, Allard said. We want to be partners. They also want to last, and are bringing in younger partners who can take over after current leaders graduate and head to college. We hope that this is something that is going to last for a very long time, Allard said. We want to get the next generation ready after us. kborsuk@greenwichtime.com Google maps DERBY - Two men have been arrested following an assault near the River Rock Tavern on Friday night. Lt. Salvatore F. Frosceno said police were called to a Bank Street address Friday night on a report that someone was being assaulted. The Hershey Co. engages in the manufacture and market of chocolate and sugar confectionery products. The firm operates through the following geographical segments: North America; and International and Other. The North America segment is responsible for the traditional chocolate and non-chocolate confectionery market position of the company, as well as its grocery and snacks market positions, in the United States and Canada. The International and Other segment is the combination of all other operating segments which are not individually material, including those geographic regions where the company operates outside of North America. Its brands include Hershey's, Reese's, and Kisses. The company was founded by Milton S. Hershey in 1894 and is headquartered in Hershey, PA. Read More 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. 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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. Hickok Incorporated, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the commercial air handling, test and measurement, and industrial hose businesses in the United States. Its Test and Measurement segment primarily offers electronic testing products for the automotive and trucking industries. The segment offers automotive diagnostic products to original equipment manufacturers; and aircraft instruments to manufacturers of commercial, military, and personal airplanes, as well as indicators and gauges to manufacturers and servicers of railroad equipment and locomotives. The company's Industrial Hose segment manufactures flexible interlocking metal hoses; and distributes silicone hoses. It sells its metal hoses to heavy-duty truck manufacturers, as well as to agricultural, industrial, and petrochemical markets; and silicone hoses to agriculture and general industrial markets. Its Commercial Air Handling segment designs, manufactures, and installs commercial, institutional, and industrial custom air handling solutions under the FactoryBilt and SiteBilt brand names. It serves health care, education, pharmaceutical, and industrial manufacturing markets customers through sales representatives. The company also exports its products to Australia, Canada, England, Mexico, and internationally. Hickok Incorporated was founded in 1910 and is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. Read More Farmers have highlighted their concerns over the transport of raw milk from Northern Ireland to the Republic in the event of a 'no-deal' Brexit. It comes as the UK is granted a third country status, meaning it has met the necessary animal health and biosecurity assurances required to export live animals and animal products to the EU, allowing most agricultural trade to continue if a no-deal Brexit scenario were to happen. However, the agreement does not cover raw milk collected from farms in Northern Ireland, which is then transported directly to facilities in the Republic of Ireland. The Ulster Farmers Union (UFU) president Ivor Ferguson said: It is encouraging trade would be able to continue in a no deal situation, however, as a third country it would be far from frictionless. Undoubtedly, farmers will have additional paperwork, bureaucracy, frustration and cost. Northern Ireland dairy farmers, in particular, will face major barriers to trade. However, Mr Ferguson says questions remain about the transport of raw milk. It is our understanding the agreement does not cover raw milk collected from farms in Northern Ireland, which is then transported directly to facilities in the Republic of Ireland. This would pose major logistical and financial problems on dairy farms here. We are seeking urgent clarity on this issue, he said. It comes as the UK was recently granted an extension to Article 50 and the new date for leaving the EU is set for 31st October. But Mr Ferguson said it is 'crucial' that a no deal Brexit is 'avoided at all cost' as it will have 'catastrophic consequences' for farm businesses in Northern Ireland. The extension gives politicians more time to agree a Brexit deal. It also gives milk processors time to prepare no deal contingency plans, ensuring milk continues to flow freely and there is minimal disruption in the supply chain, he said. The European Parliaments PEST Committee reached the 'wrong conclusions' and 'disregarded key evidence' over the renewal of pesticides, a new report says. The 'alternative report', by British MEP and Conservative agricultural spokesman, Anthea McIntyre, looks to set the 'record straight' and 'offer balance' to the committees proposals for the future of pesticides regulation in a report released last year. The European Parliament voted in January on the EU's temporary committee on pesticides (PEST) proposals to boost transparency in the approval procedure of pesticides through the introduction of new regulations. Plans include the public to be granted access to studies used in the authorisation procedure and the promotion of 'low-risk pesticides'. But Miss McIntyre said the voice of 'rational, science-based reasoning' needs to be heard, and to support farmers 'who are the ones that will inevitably bear the brunt of further burdensome regulation'. Her new report says: Regrettably...rather than offer a balanced, thoughtful reflection on the legislative framework the PEST report purposefully vilifies those involved, from EFSA (the European Food Safety Agency) to national competent authorities, and underplays (their) effectiveness... The MEP for West Midlands had tabled a raft of amendments to the original PEST proposals when it went before the European Parliament in January, but they were unsuccessful. According to Miss McIntyre, PEST chairman Eric Andrieu subsequently launched a personal attack her at a press conference. She said about the committee's report: Despite hearing from a range of experts and authorities, the report was prepared in a very selective manner, with many of these experts contributions being completely disregarded. She added: The report was extremely disappointing and reflected poorly on the work of European Parliament. Miss Mcintyre said it is not flaws in the legislation that needed to be addressed, but improvements in its implementation. This report should have struck a balance and reflected the breadth of expert testimony it heard, she said. However, Belgian Greens deputy Bart Staes defended the committee. He said: The special committee brought to light serious shortcomings in the authorisation of pesticides and the report demands big improvements. The overwhelming support for reform of the pesticide authorisation procedure through more transparency and independent research is a wake-up call for EU governments and the European Commission, as well as a way forward to restore citizens trust in EU decision making. Latest figures show a major increase in UK cheese and butter exports for the first two months of 2019. UK cheese exports in February 2019 totalled 18,033 tonnes, an increase of nearly 30 percent from the same month last year. The latest data also shows that the UK exported 4,028 tonnes of butter in February, which is 1,382 tonnes (52%) more than the same month last year. During the January and February 2019 period, cheddar exports to EU destinations grew by 16% to total 14,093 tonnes for the year to date, while exports to non-EU destinations fell by 3% to 3,479 tonnes. Exports of territorial cheeses were down 17% on the year at 370 tonnes, while exports of other cheese varieties grew by 20%, amounting to an additional 3,017 tonnes. UK exports of butter January and February 2019 were 8,915 tonnes, 3,666 tonnes (70%) more than a year earlier. Total exports to the EU were were 4,310 tonnes (104%) higher than in the same period last year. Exports of both packet and bulk butter to the EU were up, with 77% of the additional tonnage being bulk butter. However, exports of both packet and bulk butter to non-EU destinations were down on the year; in total 643 tonnes (59%) It comes as figures show that UK dairy exports were up in 2018 for butter, cheese and raw milk, with most of it going to the UK's main export destination, the EU. The Luka Chuppi actor Kartik Aaryan is a rising star in the country and the Election Commission in Madhya Pradesh has tapped his star power to reach out to the youth in the state to create voter awareness for the Lok Sabha elections 2019. The actor is all out doing his bit and encouraging responsible citizens of the state to head to their respective voting booths which will be held on April 29, 2019. "Common campaigns and processions don't connect with the youth so much. But, a rising star like Kartik can make young minds understand the importance of voting and their role in the nation's development. Since Kartik has an immense following amidst men and women, it's a smart move to make him the face of such a campaign," a source said to DNA. Kartik Aaryan is a perfect choice for Madhya Pradesh as he was born and brought up in the city of Gwalior. His recent hit movie alongside Kriti Sanon was also shot in Gwalior and he revealed that he and Kriti Sanon went out in the night to eat street food and they totally enjoyed it. The actor also hoisted the Indian flag on Independence Day in Gwalior at his alma mater, St Paul's High School. So without a doubt, Kartik Aaryan is the best choice to create voter awareness among the people of Madhya Pradesh as he connects well with the people of the state. Also, the Lok Sabha 2019 elections are currently ongoing and the results will be announced on May 23, 2019. Please do head out and cast your vote! A Fan Threw Her Bra At Nick Jonas In Front Of Priyanka Chopra & Her Reaction Is UNEXPECTED! PeeCee On #MeToo "We always had a voice. Just nobody heard us. Now because of the support we are giving each other, nobody can shut us down. And that's an incredibly powerful thing to see. Now if I have a story I don't feel I am alone anymore - and I am not ashamed of it." PeeCee Has Gone Through The Same When PeeCee was categorically asked if she has ever faced it, she said, "Everybody in this room has probably faced one because it had become a norm with women." Priyanka Also Spoke About South Asian Actors Being Stereotyped "I am Indian. I don't need my parts to justify why I can be an actor. And it would take me doing that to become mainstream enough now to actually play parts where I am my own ethnicity. And I will not be considered as a niche actor, or an actor who can only do that." Priyanka's Work Front On the professional front, Priyanka Chopra will be next seen in The Sky Is Pink. The film also casts Farhan Akhtar and Zaira Wasim in the lead roles. Sanjay Dutt On His Screen Reunion With Madhuri Dixit Sanjay Dutt was all praises and admitted that he was a little nervous working with her. The actor told the tabloid, "It was great to work with her again. I was a little nervous, but she made things easy. She's got terrific command as an actor." This Is How They Bonded On The Sets He further added, "We spoke about our kids. In fact, I made my children [Shahraan and Iqra] meet her when they dropped by on the sets." 'It Was Pleasure To Share Screen Space With Her' Earlier in yet another interview, Dutt had mentioned, "It's a pleasure to share screen space with her after so many years. So much has gone past, people have matured. She herself comes across as such a matured actor." 'It Was Fate', Says Madhuri On the other hand, at the trailer launch of Kalank, Madhuri mentioned, "It was fate. We were meant to work together. All these actors are great at what they do. Sanjay sir has always been great. These characters are really grounded and have great back stories. The kind of experiences they have had and the way the lives of all these characters are intertwined is really interesting." Sanjay Has Become Careful With His Films Post Failures In his interview with Mid-day, Sanjay Dutt further said, "I can't take my work for granted. I have to start taking onus of my characters; earlier, I would leave it on the directors. [Having said that] I will still surrender myself to Bhatt saab [Mahesh Bhatt] for Sadak 2, which we start soon." 'People Want To See Me As Baba Again' "People want to see me as Baba again, and I will give them that. In my next few films, you will see a lot of action and comedy. So, I am confident that it will be a good journey ahead," the actor further told the tabloid. Kannada actor Darshan who has been actively involved in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections has been targeted. Today, around 10 am, election officials raided his farmhouse. While talking to the media, the actor himself stated that four officers along with a police constable raided his house. He also revealed that they arrived at his residence suspecting storage of money and other items which are used to buy the voters. Apparently, the officers raided the actor's house based on a tip-off, and they did find a list of things. When the media asked the actor what are the things they found at his farmhouse, he laughed as he said, "Cattle feed, cow dung, fresh milk was all that was there at my house. That's what the officials found." He further added, "They might have acted based on a tip-off. I have no qualms as they are only doing their duty." He also spoke about the recent Sandalwood IT raid and said, "I have been a dedicated taxpayer. From GST to other taxes, I pay them all. Therefore, there is nothing against me to worry about Income Tax raid." Darshan & Yash Planning On Doing A Movie Together? Mandya Election Has Brought These Stars Together! Seems like this is just another factor that has added to the existing political drama in Mandya. Despite the recent raid, Darshan continues to campaign for Sumalatha Ambareesh. Along with him seen campaigning is the KGF actor Yash. Agreement?Supports Liberty?Mutual's?Goal of Becoming?a Top 3 Global Commercial (re)insurer? BOSTON, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Liberty Mutual Insurance announced today it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the?global?surety and credit reinsurance operations?of?AmTrust Financial Services, Inc. (AmTrust),?a multinational property and casualty insurer specializing in coverage for small to midsized businesses.? Upon closing, Liberty Mutual will?acquire four AmTrust?businesses:? AmTrust?Surety , previously managed by Insco Dico, which provides contract, commercial, and subdivision bonds primarily in the Western U.S.? , previously managed by Insco Dico, which provides contract, commercial, and subdivision bonds primarily in the Western U.S.? AmTrust?Insurance Spain ?which?offers surety bonds in Spain and Latin America. ?which?offers surety bonds in and Latin America. Nationale ?Borg which provides surety, worker disability, and home purchase bonds in the Netherlands and Belgium. which provides surety, worker disability, and home purchase bonds in and Belgium. Nationale Borg Reinsurance (NBRe), a?global provider of surety, trade credit and political risk reinsurance.? The AmTrust Surety portion of the acquisition is expected to close in Q2 of 2019, and the AmTrust Insurance Spain, Nationale Borg, and NBRe portion is expected to close in the second half of 2019, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.? "The transaction?will further enhance?our?strong?global surety and reinsurance expertise, market leadership, and geographic footprint,"?notes Dennis?Langwell, President, Global Risk Solutions, Liberty Mutual, which offers a broad range of primary, excess, specialty, and reinsurance products in the U.S. and globally.?"Once the transaction closes, we'll integrate the acquired operations into our?current?structure."? The agreement?reinforces?Liberty Mutual's global?surety market position.?"We believe this transaction will strengthen our best-in-class operation, allowing us to better serve our valued agents, brokers, and customers,"?notes?Tim?Mikolajewski, President,?Global Surety.?"The added scale and key talent aligns well with our model and goals in the U.S., and will provide a platform for broader global development through AmTrust Insurance Spain, Nationale?Borg, and?Nationale Borg Reinsurance." The agreement is an important step in the?AmTrust?Forward strategic plan to position the company for long-term success.?"Earlier this year, we announced our plan to become a leading specialty commercial P&C insurer by focusing on local markets and niche products where we can add significant value," said Barry?Zyskind, Chairman and CEO of?AmTrust. "The agreement with Liberty Mutual enables us to focus our resources in areas where we can differentiate ourselves through the value we bring to distribution partners and buyers."? Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP acted as legal advisor to Liberty Mutual Insurance in the transaction. Bank of America Merrill Lynch served as financial advisor to AmTrust in connection with the transaction, and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP was legal counsel. About Liberty Mutual Insurance? Liberty?Mutual's?purpose is to help people embrace today and confidently pursue tomorrow.?The promise we make to our customers throughout the world is to provide protection for the unexpected, delivered with care.? In business since 1912, and headquartered in Boston,?Massachusetts, today we are the fifth largest global property and casualty insurer based on 2017 gross written premium. We also rank 68th on the Fortune?100 list of largest corporations in the U.S. based on 2017 revenue.?As of Dec. 31, 2018, we had $41.6 billion in annual consolidated revenue.? We employ nearly 50,000 people in 30 countries and economies around the world. We offer a wide range of insurance products and services, including personal automobile, homeowners, specialty lines, reinsurance, commercial multiple-peril, workers compensation, commercial automobile, general liability, surety, and commercial property.?? You can learn more about us by visiting? www.libertymutualinsurance.com . About?AmTrust?Financial Services, Inc.? AmTrust?Financial Services, Inc., a multinational insurance holding company headquartered in New York, offers specialty property and casualty insurance products, including workers' compensation, commercial automobile, general liability and extended service?and warranty coverage through its primary insurance subsidiaries rated "A-" (Excellent) by A.M. Best.?? AmTrust?is included in the Fortune 500 list of largest companies. For more information about?AmTrust?visit? www.amtrustfinancial.com . - Contact: Richard Angevine Liberty Mutual (office) 671-574-6638 (cell) 617-833-0926 Richard.angevine@libertymutual.com Hunter Hoffmann AmTrust 646-870-1949 hunter.hoffmann@amtrustgroup.com Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/348048/liberty_mutual_logo.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/871698/AmTrust_Financial.jpg Sudbury, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - April 15, 2019) - Transition Metals Corp. (TSXV: XTM) ("Transition" or "the Company"), is pleased to announce that it has closed the Purchase & Sale Agreement with Legendary Ore Mining Corporation ("Legendary") whereby Legendary has purchased 100% interest in the Dundonald nickel-copper-platinum group metals project located near Iroquois Falls, Ontario. Legendary is a wholly owned subsidiary of Vanicom Limited ("Vanicom"), an Australian corporation. On August 28, 2018 the Company announced that it had entered into a Binding Letter of Intent with Vanicom to sell Dundonald to it. The purchase terms include a payment of CDN$50,000 to the Company on signing Letter of Intent with a further payment of CDN$100,000 to the Company in cash on closing of the definitive Purchase Agreement. In addition, VaniCom will issue the Company shares with a value of CDN$350,000. Transition will receive a 2.5% Net Smelter Return Royalty on any future production from the Property. Legendary must incur expenditures of at least CDN$750,000 on exploration and development on the Property over a 36-month period or at its option, Transition can purchase back the property for one dollar. Company CEO and President, Scott McLean commented, "The project was purchased by the Company as part of a bundle of three properties secured through the bankruptcy auction of First Nickel Inc. assets. We have now been able to leverage two of the properties through sale arrangements while preserving access to the upside of the projects for our shareholders. We are hopeful that we will be able to further leverage the acquisitions with the sale of the third Ni-Cu-PGM project going forward." About Transition Metals Corp Transition Metals Corp. (TSXV: XTM) is a Canadian-based, multi-commodity project generator that specializes in converting new exploration ideas into Canadian discoveries. The award-winning team of geoscientists has extensive exploration experience in established, emerging and historic mining camps and actively develops and tests new ideas for discovering mineralization in places that others have not looked, which often allows the company to acquire properties inexpensively. The team is rigorous in its fieldwork and combines traditional techniques with newer ones to help unearth compelling prospects and drill targets. Transition uses the project generator business model to acquire and advance multiple exploration projects simultaneously, thereby maximizing shareholder exposure to discovery and capital gain. Joint venture partners earn an interest in the projects by funding a portion of higher-risk drilling and exploration, allowing Transition to conserve capital and minimize shareholder's equity dilution. The Company has an expanding portfolio that currently includes more than 25 gold, copper, nickel and platinum projects primarily in Ontario, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Information Except for statements of historical fact contained herein, the information in this news release constitutes "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities law. Such forward-looking information may be identified by words such as "plans", "proposes", "estimates", "intends", "expects", "believes", "may", "will" and include without limitation, statements regarding estimated capital and operating costs, expected production timeline, benefits of updated development plans, foreign exchange assumptions and regulatory approvals. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate; actual results and future events could differ materially from such statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, among others, metal prices, competition, risks inherent in the mining industry, and regulatory risks. Most of these factors are outside the control of the Company. Investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking information. Except as otherwise required by applicable securities statutes or regulation, the Company expressly disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. 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. Further information is available at www.transitionmetalscorp.com or by contacting: Scott McLean President and CEO Transition Metals Corp. Tel: (705) 669-0590 To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/44079 The APRIL group announces that the publication of its sales for the first quarter of 2019 will take place on Wednesday 24 April 2019, after market close. Emmanuel Maillet, Deputy CEO of the group, will be holding a conference call for financial analysts, investors and the press on the evening of the publication at 6.00 p.m. (French time). UPCOMING RELEASES Q1 2019 sales: 24 April 2019 after market close Shareholders' Annual General Meeting: 25 April 2019, in Lyon 2019 Half-year results: 5 September 2019 after market close CONTACTS Analysts and investors Guillaume Cerezo: +33 (0)4 72 36 49 31 / +33 (0)6 20 26 06 24 - guillaume.cerezo@april.com Press Samantha Druon: +33 (0)7 64 01 74 35 - samantha.druon@insign.fr This release contains forward-looking statements that are based on assessments or assumptions that were reasonable at the date of the release, and which may change or be altered due, in particular, to random events or uncertainties and risks relating to the economic, financial, regulatory and competitive environment, the risks set out in the 2017 Registration Document, and any risks that are unknown or non-material to date that may subsequently occur. The Company undertakes to publish or disclose any adjustments or updates to this information as part of the periodic and permanent information obligation to which all listed companies are subject. In case of discrepancy between the French and English versions of this document, only the French version shall prevail. About APRIL Founded in 1988, APRIL is an international insurance services group operating in 28 countries, whose primary goal is to offer its clients a simpler and more accessible insurance experience. Its 3,900 staff members design, distribute and manage specialised insurance solutions (Health & Personal Protection, Property & Casualty, Mobility and Legal Protection) and assistance services for its partners and customers, including private individuals, professionals and businesses. Listed on Euronext Paris (Compartment B), the group posted sales of 997.2m in 2018. Full regulated information is available on our website at www.april.com (Investors section). Attachment Opens new office with the aim to fortify communication with EU stakeholders on the benefits of citizenship-by-investment and introduces "Global Citizen Tax" to raise 1 billion for the integration of refugees MONTREAL, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Arton Capital opened its newest office near the European Parliament in Brussels, bringing its expertise right at the heart of European policy. While representing the citizenship industry and navigating between different member states and European institutions, Arton aims to facilitate communication with European decision makers and share its wealth of expertise and industry knowledge to a proposed Expert Group composed of EU Member State representatives. "With estimated US$20 billion a year, the Global citizenship is a movement that is gaining popularity throughout the world," said Armand Arton, Founder and President of Arton Capital. "Investors gain a second citizenship through these programs that offer increased mobility, access to higher standards of living, improved security for the next generation, and overall freedom for the whole family. In exchange, countries gain billions of euros, which can be invested in creating jobs and sustaining economies." Following the European Commission's Report on Investor Citizenship and Residence Schemes in the European Union, adopted on January 23, 2019, Arton Capital has reinforced its efforts to make the industry more transparent, with improved policy making, and greater due diligence. Overall, the Commission's report concluded that the best way to guard against the concerns associated with residency or citizenship schemes is to ensure clarity in procedures and responsibilities as well as transparency through regular monitoring and reporting. The Commission also announced its plan to set up an Expert Group, primarily from the ministries of justice, to look at potential risks and work on ways to improve transparency and governance. In a series of meetings ahead of the first reunion of the expert group on Friday, April 5, Armand Arton and Lora Georgieva, Chief Operating Officer of Arton Capital, together with Steven Corcoran, Advisor of European Affairs, met with different stakeholders, permanent representatives and other interested parties in Brussels. This includes the office of the EU Commissioner for Taxation and Economic Affairs, the permanent representations of Finland, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, and the missions of USA and Montenegro to Brussels. Alongside sharing best practices on program management, data exchange, independent screening of candidates, and reporting, Arton Capital is putting forward the introduction of a 'Global Citizen Tax'- a contribution levied on wealthy migrants to help cope with the challenges of hosting and integrating refugees in Europe. Though this concept can be embraced at an EU level, it can only be implemented nationally. Arton estimates that such contribution could potentially raise more than 1 billion over five years. Following a positive response, a second meeting with the Expert Group is scheduled for the beginning of July. "We firmly believe that the global residence and citizenship industry should be a part of the solution for coping with the refugee crisis, joining with partners in business, government, and international organizations," said Mr. Arton. "European countries that are accepting refugees are also running residence and citizenship programs. The link is obvious, and our research shows that wealthy people seeking such investment solutions are eager to contribute to help those who are less fortunate," he added. Arton Capital takes its leadership position in the global citizenship movement with great responsibility. As a trusted partner and expert to more than 11 countries around the world, including the Governments of Quebec (Canada), United States, Antigua and Barbuda, Portugal, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Montenegro, Arton has helped attract more than US$4 billion in foreign direct investment in the last five years. "We are convinced that our industry is a force for good and has a positive benefit for the European society and economy," said Arton. "However, many of these benefits are not immediately understood or made available to the public." About Arton Capital Arton Capital is a leading government advisory firm focused on attracting foreign direct investments to countries by designing and implementing investor programs for residency and citizenship. Arton empowers individuals and families to become Global Citizens by investing in second residence and citizenship through a bespoke service experience which simplifies complexity and is built on confidentiality and trust. Founder of the Global Citizen Forum and the Global Citizen Foundation , Arton Capital is a member of The Arton Group , whose mission centers around products and services tailored to the needs of Global Citizens. Arton is registered with the EU Transparency Register under #157988534103-89. For further information go to www.artoncapital.com or contact: Mr. Rupert Wright, Chairman, Ashbright, +44 7557 371908, rw@ashbright.com VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Atico Mining Corporation (the "Company" or "Atico") (TSX.V: ATY | OTC: ATCMF) announces its operating results for the three months ended March 31, 2019 from its El Roble mine. Production for the quarter totaled 2.36 million pounds of copper and 1,552 ounces of gold in concentrates, a decrease of -57% and -45% for copper and gold, respectively, over the same period in 2018. "The strike at the El Roble mine has had a significant impact on the Company's ability to meet operational objectives in the first quarter. The mine has not operated for over fifty days during this period and this is directly reflected in this quarter's results," said Fernando E. Ganoza, CEO. "Once the operation resumes and for the remainder of the year, the Company will make its best effort to minimize the impact of lost production." First Quarter Operational Highlights Production of 2.36 million pounds of copper contained in concentrates; a decrease of 57% over Q1 2018. Production of 1,552 ounces of gold contained in concentrates; a decrease of 45% over Q1 2018. Average processed tonnes per day of 885, an increase of 9% over Q1 2018. Copper head grade of 3.29%, a decrease of 13% over Q1 2018. Gold head grade of 2.24 grams per tonne; an increase of 10% over Q1 2018. Copper and gold recovery of 91.1% and 60.6%; a decrease of 3% for copper and 5% for gold respectively over Q1 2018. Union Negotiations During the quarter the Company entered into its biennial union negotiations with the miners as reported in the news release published on February 13, 2019 . These negotiations led to a strike which has stopped almost all Company's activity at the mine for the remainder of the quarter. Friday April 12, 2019 marked the sixtieth day of the strike after which, dictated by Colombian law, a legal mechanism to end the strike with an arbitrage process began. According to Colombian Labor Code the process of assembling the arbitrator's council is anticipated for the 8th working day proceeding April 12, 2019, after which operations should resume within 3 working days. Despite 20 meetings and 8 complete proposals by the Company to solve the negotiations amicably, the strike has lasted longer than anticipated due to unacceptable terms requested by the union. The arbitration process contemplated in the Colombian Law will now be the solution to the labor dispute, three arbitrators will decide in the coming months the labor conditions for the unionized workers. The Company believes this is a sustainable solution for all stakeholders and sets an important precedent for future negotiations. First Quarter Operational Details Q1 2019 Total Q1 2018 Total % Change Production (Contained in Concentrates) Copper (000s pounds) 2,362 5,476 -57% Gold (ounces) 1,552 2,825 -45% Mine Tonnes of ore mined 34,796 67,022 -48% Mill Tonnes processed 35,581 69,499 -49% Tonnes processed per day 885 812 9% Copper grade (%) 3.29 3.80 -13% Gold grade (g/t) 2.24 2.03 10% Recoveries Copper (%) 91.6 94.0 -3% Gold (%) 60.6 62.8 -4% Concentrates Copper and Gold Concentrates (dmt) 4,921 11,474 -57% Payable copper produced (000s lbs) 2,244 5,202 -57% Note: Metal production figures are subject to adjustments based on final settlement. 2019 Operational Guidance The 2019 projections stated below and in January 29, 2019 News Release will be negatively affected by the ongoing strike at the El Roble mine and will be adjusted by the Company once operations resume. The Company set the following objectives for 2019 at the El Roble mine: Process between 280,000 and 290,000 tonnes. Maintain copper recovery above 93% and 62% for gold. Maintain an average copper head grade between 3.4% and 3.6% Maintain an average gold head grade between 1.8 g/t and 2.0 g/t Increase production between 43,000 and 45,000 dry tonnes of concentrate. Maintain production between 9,000 and 9,500 tonnes of copper. Maintain production between 10,200 and 10,700 ounces of gold. Mantain the mill mechanical availability to 95% with 345 days worked. Continue increasing the safety and environmental standards. El Roble Mine The The El Roble mine is a high grade, underground copper and gold mine with nominal processing plant capacity of 850 tonnes per day, located in the Department of Choco in Colombia. Its commercial product is a copper-gold concentrate. Since obtaining control of the mine on November 22, 2013, Atico has upgraded the operation from a historical nominal capacity of 400 tonnes per day. El Roble has Proven and Probable reserves of 1.47 million tonnes grading 3.40% copper and 1.88 g/t gold, at a cut-off grade of 1.93% copper equivalent as of June 30th, 2018. Mineralization is open at depth and along strike and the Company plans to further test the limits of the deposit. On the larger land package, the Company has identified a prospective stratigraphic contact between volcanic rocks and black and grey pelagic sediments and cherts that has been traced by Atico geologists for ten kilometers. This contact has been determined to be an important control on VMS mineralization on which Atico has identified numerous target areas prospective for VMS type mineralization occurrence, which is the focus of the current surface drill program at El Roble. Qualified Person Mr. Thomas Kelly (SME Registered Member 1696580), advisor to the Company and a qualified person under National Instrument 43-101 standards, is responsible for ensuring that the technical information contained in this news release is an accurate summary of the original reports and data provided to or developed by Atico. About Atico Mining Corporation Atico is a growth-oriented Company, focused on exploring, developing and mining copper and gold projects in Latin America. The Company operates the El Roble mine and is pursuing additional acquisition opportunities. For more information, please visit www.aticomining.com. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD Fernando E. Ganoza CEO Atico Mining Corporation Trading symbols: TSX.V: ATY | OTC: ATCMF Investor Relations Igor Dutina Tel: +1.604.633.9022 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. No securities regulatory authority has either approved or disapproved of the contents of this news release. The securities being offered have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act", or any state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States, or to, or for the account or benefit of, a "U.S. person" (as defined in Regulation S of the U.S. Securities Act) unless pursuant to an exemption therefrom. This press release is for information purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities of the Company in any jurisdiction. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements This announcement includes certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, without limitation the use of net proceeds, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve various risks and uncertainties and are based on certain factors and assumptions. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include uncertainties relating to interpretation of drill results and the geology, continuity and grade of mineral deposits; uncertainty of estimates of capital and operating costs; the need to obtain additional financing to maintain its interest in and/or explore and develop the Company's mineral projects; uncertainty of meeting anticipated program milestones for the Company's mineral projects; and other risks and uncertainties disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" in the prospectus of the Company dated March 2, 2012 filed with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com Non-GAAP Financial Measures The items marked with a "(1)" are alternative performance measures and readers should refer to Non-GAAP Financial Measures in the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 as filed on SEDAR and as available on the Company's website for further details. State-owned Bank of Baroda (BoB) is likely to complete the process of merger of Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with it in two years, said a senior official of BoB New Delhi: State-owned Bank of Baroda (BoB) is likely to complete the process of merger of Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with it in two years, said a senior official of BoB. The merger of Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with BoB became effective from 1 April. Information technology platform integration alone will take about 12 months and other processes and systems may take another year or so, the official said. The process has been designed to ensure that there is minimum disruption of the customers during the transition period, the official said adding that the branding of the three entities will be retained in the interim period and will be transitioned to the new brand in a phased manner to ensure minimum disruption to existing operations. As far as capital is concerned, the official said, the government has infused Rs 5,042 crore in the bank taking care of additional expenses and maintaining minimum regulatory capital requirement. There would be pressure on the balance sheet of the bank during the first quarter when the maximum impact of the merger will play out and, subsequently, the impact will moderate, the official added. The maiden three-way amalgamation is the first step in the consolidation of the public sector banking industry recommended in 1991 by the Narasimham Committee report. Through this merger, the government has created an institution of global scale and size, thereby providing significant benefit to all stakeholders. The consolidated entity started the operation with a business mix of over Rs 15 lakh crore on the balance sheet, with deposits and advances of Rs 8.75 lakh crore and Rs 6.25 lakh crore, respectively. BoB, the second-largest public sector lender after State Bank of India, now has over 9,500 branches, 13,400 ATMs, and 85,000 employees to serve 12 crore customers. The announcement of the three-way merger was among several reforms initiatives undertaken by Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Kumar to make public sector banks (PSBs) healthy, robust and globally competitive. As part of the reform process, the government had also announced the transfer of majority 51 percent stake to Life Insurance Corporation in IDBI Bank in August last year to transform the Mumbai-based lender. Besides, the Department of Financial Services made a record capital infusion of Rs 1.06 lakh crore in the PSBs in 2018-19. As a result, five PSBs, including Bank of India, Corporation Bank and Allahabad Bank, were out of the prompt corrective action framework of the RBI earlier this year. Non-performing assets showed a negative trend in 2018-19 and reduced by Rs 23,860 crore between April 2018 and September 2018. Following the merger, the number of PSBs has come down to 18. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) seeks to provide market-determined resolution for stressed assets in a time-bound manner New Delhi: Nearly half of their total admitted claims worth over Rs 1.42 lakh crore have been recovered by financial and operational creditors from as many as 88 debt-ridden companies under the insolvency law, according to official data. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) seeks to provide market-determined resolution for stressed assets in a time-bound manner. Claims totalling a little over Rs 1.42 lakh crore were admitted in 88 cases under the IBC till 28 February, data collected by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) showed. Of the total admitted claims, financial creditors sought to recover dues worth Rs 1.36 lakh crore and operational creditors Rs 6,469 crore. Financial creditors recovered 48.24 percent of their admitted claims and operational creditors got 48.41 percent of their admitted claims. The figures are with respect to 88 cases, including those where resolution has been completed, for the period till 28 February. Creditors realised Rs 68,766 crore of the total admitted claims in those 88 cases. The share of financial creditors and operational creditors stood at Rs 65,635 crore and Rs 3,131 crore, respectively, as per data. The IBBI, a key institution set up under the IBC, provided the figures in an affidavit submitted to the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) last week. On 27 March, the tribunal directed the IBBI to file an affidavit, with details about average percentage of distribution of realised amount between financial creditors and operational creditors subsequent to the insolvency resolution process. According to the affidavit, the realised amount was more than 100 percent in some cases. In the 88 cases, financial creditors got 100 percent realisation of admitted claims in 11 resolution plans, while operational creditors got only full realisation in only 6 cases. In three cases, financial creditors got more than 100 percent realisation of admitted claims. Among the 88 cases were big-ticket takeovers, including Tata Steel acquiring over Bhushan Steel and Vedanta's acquisition of Electrosteel. In the Bhushan Steel matter, total admitted claims of operational and financial creditors amounted to Rs 57,505.05 crore. Of this, financial creditors received 63.49 per cent of claims, while the operational creditors' realisation stood at 80.94 percent. With regard to Electrosteel, total admitted claims for both financial and operational creditors were Rs 13,958 crore. In this resolution process, in which Vedanta group got control of the company, financial creditors got 40.38 percent of admitted claims, while the operational creditors' share was nil. In the matter of Monnet Ispat & Energey, total admitted claims were Rs 11,478.08 crore, of which financial creditors got 26.26 percent and operational creditors received 5.40 percent. The NCLAT had asked IBBI to give data in the resolution process of Essar Steel, where operational creditors and some financial creditors are opposing the resolution plan approved by the Committee of Creditors (CoC) and are seeking a higher share. As per the resolution plan approved by CoC, ArcelorMittal, the successful resolution applicant, would pay Essar Steel lenders Rs 41,987 crore for their total dues of Rs 49,395 crore. Operational creditors would get only Rs 214 crore against their outstanding of Rs 4,976 crore. The guild, which has around 1,100 pilots as its members, decided to stop flying from 15 April in protest against non-payment of salaries since March Mumbai: Cash-strapped Jet Airways Sunday averted a deeper crisis after its pilots body, the National Aviatior's Guild, deferred its "no flying" call to a later date from Monday, when the management is scheduled to meet the lenders. Earlier in the day, the guild, which has around 1,100 pilots as its members, decided to stop flying from 15 April in protest against non-payment of salaries since March. However, in a late evening communication to its members, the pilots body announced postponement of its "no pay no work" call for the second time in less than two weeks, saying it wanted to give more time to the company which is struggling to survive due to a severe paucity of cash. "It has come to our notice that there is a critical meeting planned tomorrow (Monday) morning with the airline management and SBI. In light of the meeting, the members have requested, through their team leaders, that the call of 'no pay no work' be deferred to give the airline a chance of survival," the Guild said in the communication. "Accordingly, as requested, the NAG Committee would like to inform all that the decision stands deferred for the time being," it said. Meanwhile, the airline extended the suspension of its services to Toronto and Paris from Chennai and back, besides withdrawing services from SAARC and ASEAN routes for an indefinite period. It also announced the resignation of one of its independent directors, Rajshree Pathy, from the company for other commitments. In an exchange filing, the Jet Airways said, "This is to inform you that Rajshree Pathy has submitted her resignation as an Independent Director of the company with effect from 13 April, owing to time constraints and on account of her other current commitments." The airline's pilots along with engineers and senior staff were last paid for December, 2018. This apart, the airline has also defaulted on the March salary of other categories of employees as well. Last month, an SBI-led consortium of lenders had taken management control of the airline post a debt-recast deal, following which the lenders had proposed to infuse as much as Rs 1,500 crore to the carrier to keep it afloat till the time it gets an investor. The Monday meeting with lenders is reportedly expected to take a final decision on the quantum of funds to be infused immediately to avert a possible shut down. A meeting between the airline management and its major lender SBI last Friday could not take a decision on the fund infusion issue. The Guild has requested its members to be present at the airline's headquarters, Siroya Centre, in Mumbai's Andheri suburb at 9.30 am on Monday in their uniforms. According to the NAG, it has also called upon other departments to join the gathering at the headquarters as a show of unity. An Open House will be called shortly as per the availability of the venue and the committee members, its communication added. The NAG had in late March called for no flying from April 1 over non-payment of salaries. However, on 31 March, it deferred the agitation to April 15, saying it wanted to give additional time to the new management to settle down prior to addressing its pending salaries issue. "Jet Airways has currently suspended operations to SAARC and ASEAN destinations, as well as to Toronto and Paris from Chennai and back," the airlines said in a statement. The airline, which has been operating less than 50 flights per day with a fleet of six to seven planes, has also cancelled its long-haul, west-bound operations to and from Amsterdam, London's Heathrow and Paris till 16 April. According to sources, the airline has also stopped accepting bookings for its Mumbai-Paris flight until 10 June and closed reservations for its Mumbai-London, Mumbai-Amsterdam-Mumbai and Bangalore-Amsterdam flights, up to 18 April. Jet Airways confirmed stopping of bookings for these flights, saying the move is aimed at re-accommodating passengers due to interim cancellations. "As a proactive measure, Jet Airways has restricted sales on certain routes for a few days in order to re-accommodate guests who have unfortunately been inconvenienced by interim cancellations," a spokesperson of the airline said. Following complaints by passengers regarding lack of information on cancellation and non-receipt of refunds, the civil aviation secretary had Friday said the Centre has asked Jet Airways to inform passengers 48 hours in advance about flight cancellations and take their problems into consideration. L&T recently made a hostile takeover bid for mid-sized IT services firm Mindtree. However, the company's founders have resisted the unsolicited acquisition bid New Delhi: Infrastructure giant Larsen & Toubro (L&T) plans to hire 1,500 people this year, the same as in previous years, a top company official said. "The company's manpower strength stood at 42,924 as on 31 March, 2018 as compared to 41,466 as at 31 March, 2017. On an average, we hire close to 1,500 people across functions every year and we see no discontinuity in this practice unless business dynamics change drastically," Yogi Sriram, Senior Vice President - Corporate HR, Larsen & Toubro, told PTI. Sriram added that L&T's employee attrition rate of around 5 percent was among the lowest in the industry. L&T recently made a hostile takeover bid for mid-sized IT services firm Mindtree. However, the company's founders have resisted the unsolicited acquisition bid, citing differences in corporate culture and other factors. Elaborating on L&T's HR practices, Sriram said: "We are putting a greater emphasis on ensuring wider participation of women and frame policies to enable their career growth." Women employees are not just deployed in IT and finance roles, but are also present in core engineering jobs like heavy engineering shops, construction projects and defence engineering projects, he said. Asked whether there will be job cuts as the company opts for digitisation, Sriram said, "There have been no lay-offs and the exits were limited to reasons of non-performance." The company's Leadership Development Academy (LDA) at Lonavala has been set up for learning interventions, he said, adding that an artificial intelligence-driven digitalised platform, called ATLNext, caters to the learning needs of its workforce. Business magazine Forbes had listed L&T among the 'World's Best Employers' for 2018. The list, based on Forbes' Global 2000 rankings of publicly traded companies in 60 countries, placed L&T at number 22, making it the highest-ranked Indian firm across all sectors. L&T has acquired Cafe Coffee Day owner VG Siddhartha's 20.32 percent stake in Mindtree and has also placed an order with brokers to pick up another 15 percent shares from the open market. Besides, an open offer has been made to buy over 5.13 crore shares, amounting to about 31 percent stake. Another report said that lenders to Jet Airways may not consider an initial bid from Goyal to regain control of the troubled airline as he did not fulfil certain conditions set by them while submitting the EoI on Friday. A consortium of US firm and Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal's Jetair has reportedly submitted the expression of interest (EoI) for acquiring a stake in the ailing airline with the backing of a London company. However, lenders, who will decide about emergency funding for the crisis-hit Jet Airways on Monday, are not keen to allow him to enter the board again, said media reports. Goyal's general sales agency Jetair has reportedly gained support for its offer for Jet Airways stake acquisition from Future Trend Capital, a firm based in US' Delaware, according to The Economic Times. The report said that the bid from the Future Trend-Jetair consortium reached at 6:08 pm, eight minutes after the deadline for submitting the EoIs. The newspaper added that Adi Partners, a London-based firm, is also associated with the group of Jetair and Future Trend. Another report said that lenders to Jet Airways may not consider an initial bid from Goyal to regain control of the troubled airline as he did not fulfil certain conditions set by them while submitting the EoI on Friday. The consortium of lenders that prepared the rescue deal for the debt-laden Jet Airways permitted Goyal was allowed to submit an EoI on the condition that he bid as part of a consortium with other investors where he would hold a minority stake, said a report in Mint quoting people in the know of the matter. However, Goyal had not met those conditions in his bid submitted on Friday, the sources said adding a final decision on the bid would be conveyed to him after considering legal opinion. Meanwhile, the management of Jet Airways will meet lenders of the airline on Monday with a fresh plan to seek the interim funding of Rs 1,500 crore that they had promised earlier as part of the rescue deal, according to a report in The Times of India. Any move like refusal or delay in the release the fund on the part of the lenders will totally ground the beleaguered Jet Airways immediately, said the report. Pilots defer no flying call The cash-strapped Jet Airways on Sunday averted a deeper crisis after its pilots body, the National Aviatior's Guild (NAG), deferred its "no flying" call to a later date from Monday, when the management is scheduled to meet the lenders, said a PTI report. Earlier in the day, the guild, which has around 1,100 pilots as its members, decided to stop flying from 15 April in protest against non-payment of salaries since March. However, in a communication to its members, the pilots body announced postponement of its "no pay no work" call for the second time in less than two weeks, saying it wanted to give more time to the company which is struggling to survive due to a severe paucity of cash. The airline's pilots along with engineers and senior staff were last paid for December, 2018. This apart, the airline has also defaulted on the March salary of other categories of employees as well. Jet suspends services to Toronto, Paris Meanwhile, the airline extended the suspension of its services to Toronto and Paris from Chennai and back, besides withdrawing services from SAARC and ASEAN routes for an indefinite period. It also announced the resignation of one of its independent directors, Rajshree Pathy, from the company for other commitments. In an exchange filing, the Jet Airways said, "This is to inform you that Rajshree Pathy has submitted her resignation as an Independent Director of the company with effect from April 13, owing to time constraints and on account of her other current commitments." With PTI inputs TCS had acquired two entities -- W12 and BridgePoint Group -- last year and both of them have been integrated well with the Mumbai-based firm, said COO New Delhi: India's largest IT services firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is "hungry" for acquisitions and is scouting for assets that can bring in intellectual property and widen market reach to further accelerate growth. Speaking to PTI, Chief Operating Officer N Ganapathy Subramaniam said TCS had acquired two entities -- W12 and BridgePoint Group -- last year and both of them have been integrated well with the Mumbai-based firm. "We continue to remain open and hungry for acquisitions. We have one of the best track records in terms of acquiring companies and integrating them... the approach is that clearly, we are in the market looking for the right asset which will add a certain amount of IP (intellectual property), market reach or client addition," he said. TCS, which had acquired French SAP service provider acquire Alti SA for 75 million euros (about Rs 533 crore) in 2013, has been focussing on organic growth even as its global and domestic rivals went on an acquisition spree. Infosys acquired consumer insights agency WongDoody for $75 million last year. Wipro's investment in the digital space includes entities like Designit and Cooper. TCS, in November last year, announced the acquisition of W12 Studios (for an undisclosed amount). A digital design studio based in London, the acquisition of W12 was part of TCS' efforts to bolster its digital and creative design capabilities. In the same month, TCS acquired the business of BridgePoint Group, LLC, a US management consulting firm (for an undisclosed sum). Asked about the opportunities in the market, Subramaniam said there are options, especially among startups. "Some of the startups are doing very well, blockchain is an area where a lot of firms have come up. There are many who are working on future of financial services, future of cash, future of payments... so we continue to watch closely some of those technologies and startup firms, how their business models are emerging," he said. Subramaniam asserted that if TCS found the right framework, it "will not hesitate" to make an offer. "It has to make sense in terms of both value and the combined value of TCS and the asset that we are acquiring should really be great," he added. The Mumbai-based company, which reported a 17.7 percent growth in profits at Rs 8,162 crore and 18.5 percent rise in March 2019 quarter revenues to Rs 38,010 crore, continues to remain bullish about growth this fiscal. TCS CEO Rajesh Gopinathan on Friday described the fiscal as "picture perfect year" and stated that despite macro uncertainties ahead, strong exit (from FY19 positions the company very well for the new fiscal. By David Milliken WASHINGTON (Reuters) - British finance minister Philip Hammond has fired the starting gun for the race to succeed Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, but concerns about Brexit may keep some potential contestants on the sidelines. Britain is unusual in throwing open the invitation to run its central bank to candidates from around the world. Yet Carney's tenure - the first for a foreigner at the BoE - has been seen as a success for the country's financial diplomacy, and the government is keen to promote what it calls a 'global Britain' after the country leaves the European Union. By David Milliken WASHINGTON (Reuters) - British finance minister Philip Hammond has fired the starting gun for the race to succeed Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, but concerns about Brexit may keep some potential contestants on the sidelines. Britain is unusual in throwing open the invitation to run its central bank to candidates from around the world. Yet Carney's tenure - the first for a foreigner at the BoE - has been seen as a success for the country's financial diplomacy, and the government is keen to promote what it calls a "global Britain" after the country leaves the European Union. The chances are high that the Canadian's successor was somewhere among the thousands of delegates at the International Monetary Fund's half-yearly meeting last week, where Hammond told media the process for finding a new governor was "getting underway". Attendees included all four of the BoE's current deputy governors, the head of Britain's market regulator as well as central bankers, academics and other policymakers from across the globe. The role becomes vacant on Feb. 1 next year when Carney leaves after over six years on the job. This followed five years as governor of the Bank of Canada - during which he was courted by Hammond's predecessor, George Osborne, when they met at international meetings in 2012. But the next BoE governor will have to reckon with a sharply divided political backdrop on top of the obvious challenges that Brexit poses as regards short-term growth and longer-term regulatory relations with the EU. "There may be some candidates who might be deterred from an application because of the political debate around Brexit, which inevitably the governor of the Bank of England can't avoid being part of," Hammond said in Washington. Carney has been criticised by members of hardline pro-Brexit faction of the Conservative Party. Jacob Rees-Mogg last year labelled Carney a "wailing banshee" and a "failed second-tier politician" who gave unfairly negative forecasts of the economic impact of Brexit. Boris Johnson, when foreign secretary, was dismissive of BoE predictions of Brexit damage. Shortly after coming to power, Prime Minister Theresa May said in a speech that the BoE's quantitative easing had damaging side-effects. Brexit has certainly put off many other job-seekers. Recruitment agencies report falling numbers of job searches from overseas and net immigration to Britain by EU nationals fell to the lowest since 2009 last year - though non-EU immigration rose strongly. INTERNATIONAL ROLE Since starting at the BoE in July 2013, Carney delayed his departure twice - in October 2016 and September 2018 - to help prepare for Brexit. The second time, the hunt for a successor had already started and Hammond had said explicitly he was open to another foreign governor. This time, Carney has said he has no intention of staying longer at the BoE, even after the latest delay to Brexit that sees Britain's departure potentially postponed until Oct. 31. A formal job advert is likely to appear before long, and one key criterion is to be able to effectively represent Britain in international forums like the IMF. Someone already well-known on the international stage - such as former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan, who publicly debated with Carney and other central bankers on stage at the IMF - may have an edge. Rajan declined to comment when asked by Reuters whether he would consider a return to active policymaking. Last year he said he would not apply for the role, but was slightly more equivocal about what he would do if approached directly, as Carney was. A lack of in-depth knowledge about the details of Britain's economy and more domestically-focused financial institutions is not necessarily a stumbling block. The BoE's structure - with four deputy governors and a chief economist responsible for different areas of monetary policy and regulation - can potentially fill in gaps. Nonetheless, there is a question over how far afield Hammond can go with his choice - which must formally be approved by May and ultimately Queen Elizabeth. Carney had strong existing ties to Britain before his appointment to Britain. He had previously studied, worked and met his wife in the United Kingdom, and as a Canadian already shared the queen as head of state. He also promised to apply for British citizenship once he met residence requirements. As well as representing Britain internationally, the BoE under Carney has placed increased emphasis on communication with the British public. Carney speaks regularly on British television and radio after major decisions. With Britain in the throes of Brexit, an EU national could be a tough sell as the face of the central bank -- though the BoE has plenty of staff from continental Europe. There is also domestic competition. Andrew Bailey, a former BoE deputy governor who now heads Britain's Financial Conduct Authority, is widely seen as a strong contender given the governor's job involves at least as much supervision of London's financial centre as it does monetary policy. Current deputy governors and the BoE's chief economist, Andy Haldane, are potential contenders too. Either way, Hammond expects applicants will have a greater idea about what form of Brexit they will have to handle before a final decision is made. "I hope we get it resolved before we get to the shortlisting stage," he said. (Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Angus MacSwan) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. APPSC Panchayat Secretary exam is conducted to recruit Panchayat Secretary (Grade IV) in Andhra Pradesh Panchayat Raj Subordinate Service. The Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) is expected to release the APPSC Group 3 hall ticket for the recruitment of Panchayat Secretary today (15 April, 2019). The board will release the admit card on its official website: psc.ap.gov.in Candidates who have registered for the screening test of APPSC Panchayat Secretary 2019 will be able to download the admit card from the site after entering their candidate ID/reference ID and date of birth. According to a report in The Times of India, the screening test for recruitment for the post of APPSC Panchayat Secretary will be held on 21 April,2019 . The main examinations for the same are scheduled to be conducted on 2 August, 2019. Steps to download the APPSC Panchayat Secretary Screening Test Hall Ticket 2019: Step 1: Visit the official website : psc.ap.gov.in Step 2: Click on the link that reads 'Download Admit Card /Hall ticket for APPSC Panchayat Secretary Screening Test Hall Ticket 2019' Step 3: Once a new window opens, enter candidate ID/reference ID and date of birth and click 'Submit' to proceed. Step 4: Your admit card will appear on the screen. Step 5: Take a print of your admit card for future use. The hall ticket can be downloaded till the day of examination. APPSC Panchayat Secretary hall ticket will carry details like registration number, details of exam centre, date and time of exam, fathers name, date of birth, name, date, time of the exam, gender, community, qualification and details of exam centre. Candidates must ensure that all the details furnished in the admit card are correct. Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission conducts APPSC Panchayat Secretary exam to recruit Panchayat Secretary (Grade IV) in Andhra Pradesh Panchayat Raj Subordinate Service. At the outset, questions may be raised against the move by army veterans seeking President Ram Nath Kovind's attention. What the was the pressing need to involve the Constitutional head into the murky political affairs? Ahead of elections, signature campaigns against the BJP and Narendra Modi, in particular, are nothing new. As detailed in a previous Firstpost piece, this tactic seems to have become quite popular as the prime minister seeks a return mandate in 2019. The effectiveness of this signature campaign in terms of swaying voter mindset isnt proven. The "open-letter" campaign, however, still retains popularity ostensibly because it gives Congress a plausible deniability, ensures discomfiting headlines for Modi during election season and it isnt very difficult to get Modi critics from different sections of civil society to sign a letter urging the electorate to oust the man who according to them is a singular threat to their 'idea of India'. These exercises in futility from a few writers, filmmakers, artists, economists and even superannuated bureaucrats and technocrats cause little blip beyond the media radar but a worrying trend has emerged of late that deserves better attention. If this nudge-and-wink tactic involved only the civil society, apart from inducing mirth at the delusion of "liberals" and their sense of exaggerated influence, little harm would have been caused. However, now that some former soldiers have been roped into this exercise and even the office of the President the highest in the land has been dragged into the mud of partisan politics, this campaign deserves closer scrutiny. At the outset, questions may be raised against the move by army veterans seeking President Ram Nath Kovind's attention. What the was the pressing need to involve the Constitutional head into the murky political affairs? If the 150-odd army veterans were protesting politicisation of the army and their aim was to prevent such an occurrence, was their cause helped or hindered by the spectacle that followed the release of such a letter in public domain? There could be only one reason why presidential attention was sought (at least via media) on this issue. Addressing the letter to the president instead of an amorphous group called "public" ensures gravitas and instant media attention. When retired soldiers step into the political ring to voice their displeasure about the way Modi government is "politicising the armed forces" and send a letter to the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, then the political campaign against Modi gets credibility and legitimacy that is otherwise hard to come by. It is inconceivable that veterans from the armed forces would be unaware of the protocol while seeking the attention of the President over an issue which concerns them. Was Kovind's approval obtained before he was made an inadvertent part of the signature campaign? Why wasnt an appointment sought to meet Indias Constitutional head? As army veteran Major General Dhruv Katoch, in a Facebook post, addressing the signatories of the letter, writes, "Would it not have been appropriate to take a delegation with prior appointment to meet the President, apprise the Supreme Commander of the concerns, and then hand over such letter personally to the President? Or do you hold that your Supreme Commander does not warrant such courtesies?" Interestingly, while the letter, ostensibly signed by 156 retired soldiers, was addressed to the President, it found its way into media, social media and even the Opposition made it into a poll plank, but it apparently never reached the President. The missive, which carried the names of three former army chiefs, four navy chiefs and a retired air chief and other veterans and condemned Yogi Adityanaths Modiji ki sena remark, requested the President to step in. Rashtrapati Bhavan said it has received no such letters. Even as the Presidents office issued a denial, the letter was widely quoted in social media, mainstream media and the Congress used it to target the BJP. More questions arise. Were the veteran soldiers unaware that this could lead to further politicization of the army prevention of which was their primary motive since it targets only one political dispensation? As an apolitical unit, the armed forces have always maintained an arms length from politics. By jumping into the fray on poll-eve, creating a splash about addressing the President and making available the contents of the letter to media and Opposition before it reaches the Constitutional head of India to whom it was addressed to, were the retired soldiers preventing politicization, or aiding it? Moreover, at least three signatories have later confirmed to the media that they never gave their consent. Former Army Chief General Sunith Francis Rodrigues called it a classic manifestation of fake news. He told ANI: I do not know what it is all about. All my life, we have been apolitical. After 42 years as an officer, it is a little late to change. We have always put India first. I do not know who these people are and it (the letter with names of officers) is a classic manifestation of fake news. Gen SF Rodrigues: Dont know what it(purported letter written by armed forces veterans to Pres)is all about.All my life,we've been apolitical.Aftr,42 yrs as officer,it's a little late to change.Always put India first.Dont know who these ppl are,classic manifestation of fake news pic.twitter.com/Cgpo57sVhq ANI (@ANI) April 12, 2019 Former Air Chief Marshal NC Suri levelled a more serious charge while talking to ANI: "This is not Admiral Ramdass letter (purported letter written by armed forces veterans to President) & it has been done by some Major Chaudhary. He has written this & it was coming on WhatsApp & emails (sic)." The former Air Chief added: "My consent has not been taken for any such letter. I dont agree with whatever has been written in that letter. We have been misquoted. 2/2." Air Chief Marshal NC Suri to ANI: To put an end to it,I wrote that armed forces are apolitical&support the politically elected govt. And no, my consent has not been taken for any such letter. I dont agree with whatever has been written in that letter. We have been misquoted. 2/2 https://t.co/pAU6L6CZ54 ANI (@ANI) April 12, 2019 ANI also quoted former Army Vice Chief Lt General ML Naidu (as 20th in the list) as saying that his consent wasnt taken. If the much-publicised letter carries names of some retired soldiers without their consent, it is clear that entire exercise is guilty of the same crime politicisation of the army against which ironically it takes a moral stand. Who gave a few veterans the right to represent others on an issue of this seriousness without their express consent? Why were various representative bodies, that retired soldiers are a part of, kept outside the loop? Do 150 retired soldiers represent the will of all army veterans and reserve the right to set the political narrative? Finally, this letter is different from civil society missives in a significant way. It pits the armed forces against the elected government of the day, creates a binary and asks the President to act as the umpire. This may set a dangerous precedence for dissent, disobedience and damage the integrity of Indian Army that has always acted as the sword arm of the civilian government of the day, not the other way round as in Pakistan. The Election Commission on Monday issued a notice to state-owned DD News over 'disproportionate' coverage time given to political parties since the Lok Sabha election dates were announced and the Model Code of Conduct came into force on 10 March. The Election Commission on Monday issued a notice to national broadcaster Doordarshan over "disproportionate" coverage time given to political parties since the Lok Sabha election dates were announced and the Model Code of Conduct came into force on 10 March. Less than a week ago, the poll panel had directed the state-owned broadcaster to "desist" from extending preferential coverage in favour of any particular party. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) got around 160 hours of airtime coverage on DD News and its regional channels, while the Congress got only half, The Indian Express reported, citing a report shared by the network with the EC. On 9 April, in a strongly-worded letter to the Secretary of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, the EC said, "Would like you (secretary) to direct the DD News channel to desist from extending any preferential or disproportionate airtime coverage in favour of any party and extend commensurate and balanced coverage of the activities of all recognised political parties..." The EC had recently issued a show cause notice to DD News for showing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Main Bhi Chowkidar' programme for nearly one hour after Opposition parties complained that the national broadcaster was being biased. In its reply, DD News had reportedly said the BJP gets maximum time on its news slot, followed by the Congress since the Lok Sabha polls were announced. "It was noted from the report that the airtime coverage given to various political parties is disproportionate and not balanced, which is not in accordance with the principle of maintaining neutrality and a level playing field, especially in the context of the provisions of MCC," the EC said. On 1 April, a Congress delegation led by Kapil Sibal approached the EC alleging misuse of television channels by the BJP to broadcast its speeches. We have submitted three representations to the Election Commission. Two representations were made in connection with the misuse of Doordarshan and other television channels by BJP to broadcast its speeches, stated Sibal while talking to media, adding that a particular channel has also come up with a logo of NAMO. Despite all that the Election Commission has done, it needs a lot more to discipline a prime minister, especially someone like Narendra Modi. Over the years, the Election Commission has been tightening the noose on political parties to ensure that they honour the Model Code of Conduct for free and fair elections. The code itself has become more rigorous and its enforcement, stricter. Gone are the days when political parties could organise command performances to produce opinion polls that provided the results they desired so that they could influence the voting pattern midway through an election. Surveys and opinion polls, including exit polls, are now banned until the last vote has been cast, plugging a loophole that was widely abused. The Election Commission has further tightened the rules for the 2019 Lok Sabha election in a bid to curb misuse of social media and fake news, which was threatening to derail the whole process of free and fair elections. The latest in the series is the clampdown on "surrogate publicity", a relatively new trend of using artistic creativity to project political parties and personalities in a certain way that will help them win admiration and, in turn, votes. In a clear case of proaction, the polling watchdog disallowed the release of the film PM Narendra Modi, a biopic on Prime Minister Narendra Modi readied in perfect timing with the election, on the ground that it was in "furtherance of electoral gains". The film was meant to be released on 11 April, the first day of polling in the seven-phase Lok Sabha election. While stalling the release till after the election, the commission also referred to similar biopics, such as Lakshmi's NTR and Udyama Simham, which eulogises Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao. The Modi biopic had secured clearance from the Central Board of Film Certification, while the Supreme Court had refused to stop its release saying it had no time for such "non-issues". It is in this context that the commission's intervention is considered decisive, especially since the conventional regulations were found inadequate to deal with a concerted increase in the use of new media, including movies, television channels and social media platforms, for election campaigns. The mysterious NaMo TV channel was also denied permission to air pro-Modi content for the same concerns. The Election Commission said it was "prohibiting the display in electronic media, including cinematograph of any biopic material in the nature of biography/hagiography, sub-serving the purposes of any political entity or any individual entity connected to it." The poll panel held that such "creative content are a kind of surrogate publicity by the candidate or the political party during the period of MCC (Model Code of Conduct). Though the display materials claim to be part of creative content, it is contended that these have the propensity and potential to affect the level playing field, which is not in consonance with the provisions of the MCC." By bringing up "the level-playing field", the commission may be getting into a totally uncharted territory. It has prevented the Modi biopic from doing the objectionable, but Modi himself is hopping around the country as the prime minister and campaigning for his party with aplomb. And there are situations where the line separating his official work and active campaigning is hardly discernible. There has already been controversy aplenty over his reference to the Balakot air strikes in political speeches and his appeal to first-time voters to exercise their right to vote keeping in mind the supreme sacrifices of the armed forces for the security of the country. These are classic instances of the two roles of the prime minister getting mixed up. Punjab chief minister Amrinder Singh called Modi's reference to Balakot in political speeches as "shockingly disgraceful" and moved the Election Commission against what he called "a clear case of violation of the code of conduct, which constitutes the bedrock of free and fair election". In a country where millions can't tell the difference between the national flag and the Congress tricolour, the identities of Modi as prime minister and as a BJP leader are inseparably twined, giving him an undue advantage. Maybe someone will challenge this some day, just as it was done in the case of the Modi biopic, which forced the commission to act. Veteran public relations specialist Dilip Cherian of Perfect Relations said the movie has achieved its objective even before reaching cinemas. "By occupying the conversational space, the film has already done what it was supposed to do: it has created a positive vibe around Modi. When the movie actually hits the screens, there could be all kinds of views about the quality, content, etc," said Cherian, whose agency has handled many a high-profile PR event for prestigious clients. "As for the channel, it was basically meant for die-hard Modi fans to reinforce their support and not to attract new 'clients'. So it doesn't matter much," he added in typical PR terms. On Modi getting an advantage unavailable to others in the field, Cherian pointed out that the US presidential election also sees the same situation, wherein the incumbent campaigns against the challenger as the president. Consulting editor of The Economic Times TK Arun also sees nothing wrong in Modi claiming credit for what his government has done and using that to canvass support for his party. "It's a privilege available to the incumbents in office, and that's how the system has been all these years. There is nothing new in it," he argues. Once the Model Code of Conduct comes into force, all official events are mandated by the Election Commission, as a result of which it can exercise control over what is happening. Numerous complaints have already been filed with the poll panel over alleged poll code violations by political leaders and parties. Both arguments are right in their own way. But in a country that has the world's largest adult illiterate population, the subtleties between an official function and a political event are completely lost. Also, comparison with western democracies is fraught with risks. Worship of power and admiration for those who wield it are integral to the Indian culture, and a level-playing field with an incumbent prime minister for the Opposition will be a game-changing proposition. Despite all that the Election Commission has done so far to ensure a free and fair election, it requires a lot more gumption to discipline a prime minister, least of all someone with the personality of Narendra Modi. India's defence ministry has said that the French media report linking a tax exemption given to a Reliance subsidiary and the Rafale fighter jet deal between the countries was inaccurate. New Delhi: India on Saturday said a French media report linking a tax exemption given to a French subsidiary of Reliance Group and an $8.7 billion fighter jet deal between the two countries was totally inaccurate. French newspaper Le Monde reported on Saturday that France waived a tax demand of 143.7 million euros on a French subsidiary of Reliance Communications in 2015 when it was negotiating to sell the jets to India. The longstanding tax dispute was resolved between February and October that year, Le Monde said. Indias Ministry of Defence said on Saturday the report was drawing a conjectural connection between the tax relief and the jet deal. Neither the period of the tax concession nor the subject matter of the concession relate even remotely to the Rafale procurement concluded during the tenure of the present government, the ministry said in a statement. Any connections drawn between the tax issue and the Rafale matter is totally inaccurate, tendentious and is a mischievous attempt to disinform. Alexandre Ziegler, Frances ambassador to India, said a global settlement was reached between French authorities and Reliance FLAG in a tax dispute. This settlement was conducted in full adherence with the legislative and regulatory framework governing this common practice of the tax administration, he said on Twitter late on Saturday. It was not subject to any political interference whatsoever. Indias main Opposition party, Congress, has for months accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of corruption in choosing Reliance Defence as a domestic partner in the deal to buy 36 Rafale planes from Frances Dassault Aviation. Congress has made it a major issue in Indias 39-day national election. The allegations have repeatedly been denied by both Modi and Mumbai-based Reliance, controlled by industrialist Anil Ambani. Reliance said in a statement on Saturday that Reliance FLAG, which runs a cable network and telecom infrastructure business in France, mutually agreed with the French authorities to pay Rs 560 million ($8 million) as tax for the period between 2008 and 2012 instead of the initial demand of 11 billion rupees. It said that during that period Reliance FLAG business had an operating loss of 2.7 million euros ($3 million). Reliance denies any favouritism or gain from the settlement, it said in the statement. Reliance Flag settled tax disputes as per legal framework in France available to all companies operating in France. Indias Supreme Court said this week it would hear a request for an investigation into the Rafale jet deal. Under Indias defence procurement rules, any company selling equipment must invest at least 30 percent of the contract in India as part of an offset clause to help build a domestic manufacturing base and reduce the countrys dependence on imports. Dassault has said it picked Reliance Defence as a partner on its own. Only with the coming of the Sangh and its projects like 'Hindu Samajautsav' and 'Ittiga pooja' were these spaces revived to operate as another space from where the Sangh could further expand their base. Editor's note: This is the eleventh reported piece in an 18-part series on the contemporary history of Hindutva in coastal Karnataka. The series features interviews, videos, archival material and oral histories gathered over a period of four months. Read other articles of the series here *** "The CPI(M) and other groups have been trying to organise movements around reforming religious practices lately. They organised a protest against pankti bedha (eating arrangement segregated on basis of caste) in Udupi and mada snana (a practice followed in Kukke Subramanya temple by the lowered caste where after the Brahmins are done eating, the lowered caste roll over their used plantain leaves) in Subramanya. It wasn't really a people's movement, it was just another organised protest. Participation in most of these protests are usually low," said Mahabal. Krishanappa Salian is quick to retort, "Don't' you think the effort needs to be appreciated? We need to start somewhere." "All their gods are in our house. They don't worship our gods let alone approve of them their presence has become more important than our practices. Why is the CPI(M) doing these activities now? Looks like they are just trying to be politically relevant. Political parties will do anything to be politically relevant." counters Mahabal. The atmosphere in Kunajanna's shop turned tense. The veteran communist leader seemed to have annoyed the young communist, who was voicing his criticism against old timers. Bystanders kept joining the conversation, listening intently and chipping in as somebody or the other from their families seemed to have something to do with the trade union movement past or present. Just opposite the shop is one of the oldest tile factories of the district, which has seen its share of strikes and lockouts. Mahabal is the "disillusioned young communist" who is supported by his uncle and an old-timer trade unionist Kunjanna. On the other side is Krishnappa Salian, senior activist and district committee member of CPI(M). Munnuru, where Kunjanna's tailoring shop is located is in Ullal, which previously was a communist stronghold. The beedi workers union, tile workers union and the farmer's movement saw the strongest mobilisations from this region. Ullal and Bantwal are the only two taluks from where CPI(M) has won MLA elections. The topic of discussion at Kunjanna's shop is: why did other political organisations fail in stopping the post-Independence growth of the Sangh in Coastal Karnataka? There seems to be no verdict. Krishnappa Salian reiterated that his party has been working towards the betterment of the material conditions of the oppressed. In the case of Ullal, he says he is referring to the beedi workers, landless peasants, tenants, farmers and workers at cashew and garment factories. This doesn't seem to sit well with anybody in the room. "When I worked at a tile industry, was I just a worker? Is a farmer just a farmer? Are landless labourers just peasants? Are the factory owners just ruling class?" asks Kunjanna and adds, "Identities aren't this simple. This is why just the language of oppressor-oppressed isn't sufficient." Mahabal's grouch is that while communist parties tried to unionise and mobilise workers based on the industry, it did not encourage consistent leadership from among their midst nor did it move beyond using this language of the oppressor-oppressed which Krishnappa Salian brought up quite a few times. He believes that the Sangh was successful because they were able to appeal to the cultural and religious sentiments of the people. "These identities are important for people as it is personal. No wonder when the RSS walked in with a new identity, everybody embraced it like a long-lost relative though everything connected with this identity was new for us", chips in Kunjanna. Kunjanna is the oldest in the room. He has seen it all. He believes that no political force had tried to appeal to the cultural consciousness of the people. They didn't think of anything new, like the CPI(M) for instance, just used the textbook language of bandawala (capital) and badathana (poverty). "These youth clubs used to be the centre of all activities back then. Congress used these spaces to work. So did the CPI(M). Slowly these spaces turned form and some have now become Bhajana Mandirs. Nobody had a plan, unlike the Sangh". "Especially in our context, we had a practise which had minimal interference of the ruling castes back then like 'Deiva Aradhane'. They didn't even pretend to care about them as they do now. These non-Vedic practises are followed by all Tulu-speaking communities. This could've been used as a base, isn't it?" asks Mahabal. Krishnappa Salian outrightly rejects the proposition saying while the practice may involve different communities, he is doubtful if the practice will work to bring people together. "The practise is also divided along the lines of caste. Will Poojaris treat Devadigas equally? Will Bunts consider Poojaris as their counterparts? Will Kulals treat castes lower than them like equals?" he asked Kunjanna and Mahabal, both of whom belonged to the Kulal community. "Anyway, how is deva worship and deiva worship different?" he asks. Kunjanna says that this is the fundamental problem of these groups and maybe this reluctance to understand the cultural practices of a region is where the failure lies. "I agree, there might be problems in these practises too. Like Deiva Aradhane is located in a feudal caste-based society, but practices can evolve. If we were proud of it, we would have stuck onto this practice instead of adapting another one so easily. Reformed it. But here, we've just jumped to something totally different." He recollects that deiva aradhane wasn't celebrated as much in the 70s and the 80s compared to now, especially since it was a time of financial downslide. "None of us also realised its importance. We've a share in the blame," adds Kunjanna. To an extent, the practice was associated with a sense of shame. It was ridiculed by many as 'demon worship' and as something 'unclean' by Brahmins as serving meat was part of the celebrations. Only with the coming of the Sangh and its projects like 'Hindu Samajautsav' and 'Ittiga pooja' were these spaces revived to operate as another space from where the Sangh could further expand their base. Deivas (also referred to as Bhuta, meaning past) are a deified form of departed ancestors worshipped by Tulu-speaking communities who comprise more than three-fourths of the population of the region. The stories of the Deivas are told through Paddanas, which are oral narratives sung by men during the annual ritual called kola (interaction with the Deiva) and by women, while they work on the fields. In the course of narrating the story of the Deiva, the Paddana would describe the agricultural character of the Tulu nation while also narrating the hierarchical caste driven existence of these communities. Deiva aradhane is a practise followed by all communities, where each caste is allotted roles in the worship. Some of the Paddanas acknowledge those from other religions, like Bearys, who were also a part of agrarian Tulu nadu. As the Paddanas elicit, agrarian land was central to existence in the region. While the land was subject to regular changes in ownership under different rules, the tenancy was primarily in practice. From the 1920s, there had been elaborate agitations seeking 'land for tenant'. Migrations had started by then with many moving to urban cities in search of jobs. In 1974, the Karnataka Land Reforms (Amendment) Act broke traditional landholding patterns but only to the extent that smaller landholders emerged. This brought in a small inflow of money strengthening smaller communities but opportunities in the area remained marginal. Many continued to migrate in search of employment opportunities. The agrarian nature of the region was hit badly. This also meant that the Deiva Aradene, in which everybody from the village took part, saw a lull. Deiva sanas (also referred to as stana) became desolate as the 70s saw a drop in the cash flow. A vacuum was created in the region with no clear political direction and a sense of cultural identity-crisis prevailed among the masses. The 80s saw a re-imagination of the Tulu-speaking castes in coastal Karnataka, steered by the slowly emerging Sangh. One of the most successful methods employed was to capture spaces common to them, Deiva Sanas (where the Deiva resides), for instance. It followed that the usurping of physical spaces be extended to dominion over narrative traditions; a far easier task, considering much of the region's history was handed down orally, a tradition that stood little chance of withstanding the strength of the printed word. Brahmin priests supplanted local preachers. Bhutas became incarnations of Shiva and Vishnu. National gods became primary, local deities secondary. A babel of communities were syncretised as political Hindus. "The story of Koraga Thaniya also suffered the same fate", says Mahabal. Koraga Thaniya is an Adivasi deity. He was killed for entering into a temple as those belonging to the Koraga community were considered as untouchable. Following this, he was deified and worshipped by Tulu speaking communities, either out of fear or out of repentance. Now Koraga Thaniya has been remodelled as 'Swami Koragajja' and is called a reincarnation of Shiva. After playing a bhajan on 'Swami Koragajja' which is making the rounds in Dakshin Kannada, Mahabal talks about how his community is preserving one of the few 'Koraga Thaniya' deiva sana's which haven't been substituted by Vedic narratives or brahmanical practises as yet. "Every day after 6 pm, there is a kola without lights, like it used to be before these changes started happening. Cars have to dim their lights when they pass by. Photography is not allowed. The manner in which we run this place has evolved but the devotion we show to this deiva remains central. This is our small attempt to fix something which is out of our hands already", says Mahabal, still grimacing about the Swami Koragajja bhajan. Mahabal adds that unlike before, there are hardly any leaders. "Parties like CPI(M) cannot win elections. The Unions might be full but who do you think those in the Union vote for? Or, which organisation do you think the children of old timers have joined?" asks Mahabal. Since the topic turned to leadership, none of the men recollected any significant women leaders from the movement when asked. But incidentally, a firebrand leader who emerged in 1982, when she was part of a militant struggle demanding share of profits for workers from Beedi industries such as Ganesh Beedis, Bharat Beedis and PVS Beedis, lived just a few 100 meters away from Kunjanna's shop. "None of them will remember the names of the women, why will they?" laughs Padmavathi, who is 82. Padmavathi joined the Beedi Workers Union in 1957 and went on to become its General Secretary. The struggles she took part in, from demands for bonus to better wage, were at a peak around the same time that VHP was organising Hindu Samajautsavs in Dakshin Kannada. "The way things have changed now is astonishing", she says, adding that she didn't expect the near total consolidation of the Sangh in Dakshin Kannada. She narrates how when communal riots broke out in Kuttar Junction in 2006, RSS leaders spread door-to-door messages saying Hindu residents should no longer visit Muslim shops. "They said if we were true Hindus, we should do this," recollects Padmavathi. "I confronted a bunch of them and drove them out of my area. Who did they think they are, going around deciding what we should do?" she questions. While her daughters are divided about their political ideology, her nephew is part of the RSS. "What has also happened is that there are a very few young people in Munnuru who've joined the trade union movement or want to align with the Left. Majority of the children of the older generation of Trade unionists, be it from the Rhytha Sanghas, the Beedi workers or the Tile Workers Unions, have mostly joined some or the other wing of the Sangh," says Sukumar, who runs a country liquor store in Thokottu, a few kilometres away from Munnuru. He has served in various positions in the CPI(M). Sukumar also notes that organisations of the Sangh such as Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad are particularly strong, considering Ullal is a common spot for communal altercations. Brushing past the questions of defection and women leadership, Krishnappa Salian insists that the most important question is about survival. The question of 'Badathana'. At this point, as the conversation finishes a full circle, there is a loud collective sigh from Kunjanna's shop. Mahabal on his part stays put on his position. "Cultural practises like Deiva Aradhane, with a little reform, were the easiest method to give the masses that were part of the Trade Union movements a sense of identity," he says reiterating that this, in all likelihood, could've prevented the Sangh from capturing the region and the minds of its people with so much ease. "Well, we'll never know if this could've been possible or not", finishes Kunjanna, as he gets back to work. It was a question of taking the first step with huge risk to occupy a glaciated wasteland which many continue to the day to call a monumental waste of resources and precious human lives. Thirty-five years ago in April 1984 India flew a helicopter-borne task force to the Siachen Glacier and set foot the first soldiers who would shortly thereafter spread out into the inhospitable glaciated terrain and occupy heights up to 21,000 feet to firmly plant the Indian Tricolour on the adjacent Saltoro Ridge. Before that Pakistan had already commenced its attempts to assimilate the territory as its own by sending mountaineering expeditions and patrols into the icy wasteland; India discovered that only in 1978. The arduous wait of six years was prompted by uncertainty about the ability of the Indian Army to hold its own operationally and logistically at a scale of heights which would soon classify Siachen as the highest battlefield in the world. It was a question of taking the first step with huge risk to occupy a glaciated wasteland which many continue to the day to call a monumental waste of resources and precious human lives. Over the last five years, I have managed to sneak in a PowerPoint slide or two about Siachen Glacier wherever I have been asked to speak about the Indian Army. In fact when a particular corporate house wanted me to speak on a most fascinating yet challenging subject How does the Indian Army convert Mission Impossible to Mission Possible I chose the theme of Siachen to highlight the subject for it. It left the audience enthralled, so little being known about the highest battlefield in the world. Before getting to understand a few issues of the basic background the why and the how it may be motivating for the Indian public to know a few things about Siachen. First, every Pakistani general claims that the Pakistan Army is also at Siachen; they have even made a few documentaries about their presence there and spread the word around among the international community and the Pakistan media and public too. However, such Pakistani generals scurry away when they are confronted by people like me who have lived and commanded in Siachen. The stark truth is that the biggest hoax of our times is the manner in which the Pakistan Army has spread disinformation that it too is in the occupation of Siachen Glacier and that they would agree to a mutual withdrawal if India agrees to it too. Pakistans public and media do not realise that when the Indian Army beat their army to the occupation of the risk-laden and challenging terrain, the entire Saltoro Ridge which runs on the western and southern flank was also occupied. The Pakistan Army made repeated attempts from 1984 till 2003 (declaration of the ceasefire) to dislodge the Indian Army from the Saltoro to obtain a small toehold but it never succeeded. What took time for the Indian Government also to realise is the fact that any so-called mutual withdrawal from the Siachen Glacier would, in reality, mean the withdrawal of only one army, the Indian Army. If then the Pakistan Army repeated what it did in Kargil in May 1999 i.e. the occupation of vacant heights in winter it could cost the Indian Army more than 5,000 lives to regain just partial control again. So how did it all begin and what was the strategic importance of the frigid zone then and what is it now that we have the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) flowing not too far from where the Siachen Glacier exists. Very briefly the storyline commences from 1972 when the erstwhile ceasefire line (CFL) of 1949 was being converted to the Line of Control (LoC), with delineation and demarcation under the Shimla Agreement. On the map, the delineation was done till NJ 9842, a map coordinate north of which existed the glaciated zone perceived as uninhabitable. The signed agreement stated that the LoC would thereafter run north to the glaciers; four words which came back to haunt India Pakistan relations. Only in 1978 did India realise that Pakistan was laying claim to the area west of the line joining NJ 9842 to the Karakoram (KK) Pass (see map); patrolling activity and expeditions indicated this. Indias own claim thereafter follows international norms of aligning along a watershed which is what the Saltoro Range is. The triangle formed by NJ 9842, Indira Col and KK Pass is the ground in contention and it is currently entirely under Indian occupation. The Siachen Glacier, 75 km in length, is a river of snow/ice, many hundreds of feet deep. Its snout is where the original base camp of the Indian Army was (now shifted slightly due to shooting stones). It is not really flat but compared to the high mountains on its flanks it is almost like a table top. The Indian Army occupies the glacier with its bases, smaller camps, headquarters and artillery gun positions. We are at a major advantage over the Pakistan Army since we also occupy the western ridge of high mountains along the Saltoro Ridge and therefore deny Pakistan Army any peep on to the Siachen Glacier. However, that makes the task of deployment far more difficult as much as it affects the logistics of maintenance. For Pakistan Army, by comparison, its a cake walk because of much lower deployment the other side of Saltoro Ridge; it even has motorable roads coming up to some of its deployment areas, unlike our side where the logistics and the approach are entirely on foot or by helicopter. Much can be written about the challenges of deployment, operations, survival and logistics in Siachen. Coming down from the Saltoro Ridge towards the main glacier are a number of sub glaciers; these facilitate the routes and camps which support the deployment of the Indian Army at Saltoro. The latter deployment is on razor-sharp peaks and ridges where construction of any shelters becomes near impossible. The final ascent to the deployment areas is sometimes by use of ropes over vertical ice walls. As few as two to six men could be deployed at a post; there isnt space for more. Snow caves are used in some cases. There are small snow-beaten helipads in the main glacier and at logistics hubs at the sub glaciers (example Bila Fond La) but the helipads which need to be seen to be believed are tucked away at the Saltoro Ridge in nooks and corners. Helicopters are the lifeline because they transport radio batteries, kerosene oil, tinned food and special rations besides letters from home. The takeaway for the reader should be a lesson on the strategic significance of the occupation of Siachen; how a Rs 4 crore per day expenditure remains justified. It needs to be noted that the strategic significance has only enhanced over time. It commenced with the possibility of full Pakistani occupation of the triangle which would bring the Pakistan Army to the edge of the Saltoro Ridge, affording it domination over the crucial Nubra Valley drained by the River Nubra which emanates from the snout of Siachen. That would do three things for Pakistan. First, it would broaden the China Pakistan link into a larger contact zone to afford operations against Indian deployment in Nubra Valley. Second, it would make Indian deployment at the Karakoram (KK) Range relatively untenable if the Nubra Valley were to fall to China Pakistan combine. The extreme high altitude area of the KK Range around Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) and stretching into Eastern Ladakh would be threatened. Third, the potential threat to Nubra would entail the defence of Leh (capital of Ladakh) being based upon a single range the Ladakh Range, not the most prudent operational way of defending the core centre of the Ladakh region. With the construction of the CPEC Indias northernmost deployment which can threaten it remains the Siachen area. What has rarely been spoken about is the fact that for China the ultimate salvation lies in making the CPEC a maze of old world Silk Route alignments through the Ladakh region into Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, making Ladakh that much more strategic for India. The defence of Ladakh without holding Siachen would make the task of the Indian Army far more challenging than it already is. Technology was on India's side in the Balakot air strikes, Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa said, asserting that the results would have been further tilted in the country's favour if Rafale jets were inducted in time New Delhi: Technology was on India's side in the Balakot air strikes, Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa said on Monday, asserting that the results would have been further tilted in the country's favour if Rafale jets were inducted in time. The Indian Air Force chief was addressing a gathering at a seminar on aerospace power of the future and the impact of technology. "In the Balakot operation, we had technology on our side, and we could launch precision stand of weapons with great accuracy. In the subsequent engagements, we came out better because we upgraded our MiG-21s, Bisons, and Mirage-2000 aircraft," he said. "The results would have been further skewed in our favour had we inducted the Rafale aircraft in time," Dhanoa said. The Air Force struck a Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist training camp in Pakistan's Balakot area on 26 February, in response to the 14 February Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed. The Pakistan Air Force retaliated the next day by unsuccessfully targeting various military installations in Jammu and Kashmir. Dhanoa said in his speech, "In the proposed induction of the Rafale and S-400 surface-to-air missile system, in the next two-four years, once again the technological balance will shift in our favour, like it was in 2002 during Operation Parakaram during the last stand-off." India inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September 2016 for the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore. The delivery of the jets - capable of carrying a range of potent weapons and missiles - is scheduled to begin from September. In October last year, India and Russia signed a multi-billion dollar deal for S-400 'Triumf' long-range air defence missile systems. It has the capability to destroy incoming hostile aircraft, missiles and even drones at ranges of up to 400 km. The seminar on 'Aerospace power in the 2040s: Impact of Technology' was held at Subroto Park here to mark the birth centenary of the late Marshal of the IAF Arjan Singh. The event was hosted by the IAF along with the Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS), an autonomous defence research and analysis body. "Among all arms of the military, technology affects us the most. Land forces mainly fight with men, naval and air force officers operate machines and in the Air Force this technology has to be packed in smaller machines and subject to extreme temperature and pressure conditions," the IAF chief said. And, air power is more sensitive to technological change, he said. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last week complimented the IAF for its "flawless execution" of the 26 February Balakot operation and subsequent thwarting of the Pakistani response while addressing top IAF commanders here. At the event on 11 April, Dhanoa emphasised on further enhancing the IAF's capability in the field of space, cyber, artificial intelligence and drone technology to further boost its overall combat capability. Various IAF veterans, at the seminar paid tribute to Singh, who led the Indian Air Force during the 1965 India-Pakistan war, died in September 2017 at the age of 98. An icon in the country's military history, Singh led a fledgling IAF in the 1965 Indo-Pak war when he was just 44 years old. Born on April 15, 1919, in Lyallpur in Punjab in undivided India, his father, grandfather and great grandfather had served in the cavalry. "This event is a fitting tribute to IAF Marshal Arjan Singh," Dhanoa said. The Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board (KSEEM) will declare the 2nd Pre-University Examination 2019 results on Monday. The results are expected by noon. Karnataka 2nd PUC Result 2019 | The Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board (KSEEM) will declare the 2nd Pre-University Examination 2019 results on Monday, 15 April. The results are expected to be announced by noon. Students who appeared for the 2nd PUC exams, held between 1 March and 18 March, can check their scores on the official websites karresults.nic.in, kseeb.kar.nic.in and pue.kar.nic.in. The link for the scores will be activated once the board declares the results. Candidates need to submit their registration number to check their marks. Over 6 lakh students had registered for the 2nd PUC exam this year, while 8 lakh students had appeared for the SSLC exam. Candidates need to secure an aggregate of 35 percent to clear the PUC exam. Last year, the Karnataka board had declared the results for Class 12 students on 30 April. To check the Karnataka 2nd PUC Results, students can follow these steps: Step 1: Visit the official websites karresults.nic.in or kseeb.kar.nic.in Step 2: Click on 'Karnataka PUC Result 2019' on the home page Step 3: Enter your credentials, such as your registration number, and click 'Submit' Step 4: Your results will appear on the window that opens Step 5: Download your results and take a print out for future reference 'India uses the participation of people in elections to show that all is well in Kashmir. And it is our responsibility to educate people about these sinister designs,' claims a local. Karimabad: On Sunday, a group of youngsters huddled outside a shopfront in Karimabad, one of the most volatile villages in the restive Pulwama district. With elections to the Anantnag Lok Sabha seat approaching, the debate is not about how many people will go out to cast their votes, but who will vote. As the discussion veered from the recent bloodbath in this south Kashmir district, the sweeping arrests made by authorities in recent weeks and months and the candidates who are in the polling fray, one of the youngsters stood up. "Those who cast their votes will be trading the blood of our martyrs. India uses the participation of people in elections to show that all is well in Kashmir. And it is our responsibility to educate people about these sinister designs," Munawar Mir, a resident of Karimabad said. Everyone nodded in agreement. It was a rainy Sunday morning and the air in Karimabad was filled with tension after a group of boys confronted a mainstream political worker who had asked some youngsters to attend a political rally. "We are not ready to sell the blood of our brothers," one young boy told a local PDP leader. In the interiors of Karimabad and adjoining villages, many streets and houses have large pictures of militants pasted on their walls and electricity poles. Most of these militants are locals and all of them are dead. The young, restless boys here claim they want India to vote Prime Minister Narendra Modi to power again. "He is good for Kashmir," said college-going Munawar in a sarcastic tone. "More repression and human rights abuse means more debate about Kashmir. And where there is more debate, it will create more awareness about Kashmir in the world. In the end, Modi will leave a fragmented India and politically-awakened children in Kashmir," he added. One of the most difficult tasks for government forces in Jammu and Kashmir is to carry out the Lok Sabha elections for the Anantnag parliamentary constituency. The by-polls to this parliamentary seat, necessitated by the vacation of the seat by PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti in 2016, were delayed on two occasions. Due to the volatile situation in south Kashmir the epicentre of the new insurgency in the state, the Election Commission has now divided polling for this Lok Sabha seat into three phases. In December last year, seven people, including a Class 8 student, were killed during intense clashes with security forces following the killing of three militants in an encounter in nearby village. Residents alleged that the forces fired on civilians while retreating from the encounter site. One youth was killed while he tried to bring water for the injured. Like in much of the south Kashmir, residents here are seething with anger against the government and the policies of the BJP-led Centre. They say there is no difference between local politicians and "Delhi's governor" Satya Pal Malik. "Those people who go to attend the political rallies will have to answer for the blood of teenagers who have been killed by security forces on the day of judgment," Nadeem Kanjwal, 25, a student of Pulwama Degree College said. "There is no difference between Mehbooba and Ghulam Ahmad Mir (state Congress chief who is in the polling fray for Anantnag). They can't represent the true aspirations of Kashmir. They represent only themselves," he said. The Anantnag constituency comprises Anantnag, Kulgam, Pulwama and Shopian districts where the polling will be held in three phases on 23 and 29 April, and 6 May. The Muftis do hold their grip on the Anantnag Lok Sabha seat, which was once considered a Congress bastion. Its candidate Mohammad Shafi Qureshi won the seat thrice 1967, 1971 and 1977. Much of the credit for it is being given to PDP founder and father of Mehbooba, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, who created the base for the Congress there. However, Mufti's rival National Conference did manage to register three consecutive wins Ghulam Rasool Kochak in 1980, Begum Akbar Jahan Abdullah in 1984 and PL Handoo in 1989 before it was finally won by Mufti, then a veteran Congressman, in 1998. After Mufti resigned to float the PDP, the National Conference's Ali Mohammed Naik won it back in the 1999 by-elections. Barring 2009, when Mirza Mehboob Beg won it for the National Conference, Mehbooba twice registered wins from the seat 2004 and 2014. Anantnag has recorded the highest incidents of militancy since the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in 2016. Mehbooba will take on the National Conference's Hasnain Masoodi, a former judge and a new entrant into politics, and the BJP's Muslim face, Sofi Yousuf, who is also a legislator in the state's Upper House. Political pundits are predicting a nail-biting contest on the seat with the entry of Congress' Mir dampening the prospects of Mehbooba whose party won 11 of 16 Assembly seats in the 2014 Assembly polls in south Kashmir. "The PDP's credibility has been badly hit in south Kashmir due to the alliance with the BJP. The party is being blamed for all that is wrong in Kashmir today. It will be difficult, if not impossible, for Mehbooba to win the seat again," Aijaz Ahmad Wani, a political commentator based in Srinagar, said. What happens when you combine the world's largest democratic exercise with the world's largest migrant population? The second phase of polling in 2019 Lok Sabha elections are a few days away, but a significant number of Indian voters who will be excluded from this process are the migrants. What happens when you combine the world's largest democratic exercise with the world's largest migrant population? The second phase of polling in 2019 Lok Sabha elections are a few days away, but a significant number of Indian voters who will be excluded from this process are the migrants. While democracy is in retreat world over, it is thriving more than ever before in India. The universal adult franchise, i.e. the ability of each and every eligible citizen to vote in elections (right down to the local level), and have a say in choosing their government, is one of the key pillars of Indian society. Despite these achievements, India has systematically dis-enfranchised an increasing proportion of its population from elections. Both, internal migrants (Indian citizens migrating within Indian borders) and international migrants (Indian citizens migrating to destinations outside India) have the right to vote. So, the issue is not of rights and legality, but of facility, implementation and political will. Why migrants votes matter? With over 400 million migrants, India has the world's largest migrant population. A significant number of these migrants are seasonal and temporary migrants. In fact, the key characteristic of out-migration from India is semi-permanence wherein migrants move back and forth between their home and destination regions throughout their working lives. In the 2014 elections, there were 834 million registered voters out of which 280 million did not vote a larger voter base than any other democracy in the world. While some chose not to vote, there were many who could not vote because they were not present in their registered constituency. Section 20 of the Representation of the People Act says a person can be registered as a voter in any constituency where s/he is "ordinarily resident". However, most Indian migrants are seasonal and temporary migrants for whom enrolling at a destination is not an attractive option as they return home often. At the same time, the cost they incur while travelling to their registered constituencies is too high and thus miss out on voting in their home regions altogether. At destinations, the process of enrolment in a new constituency requires adequate proof of new residence, which is rarely possible given the informal nature of migrant housing. For many of the urban poor, the act of enrolment itself is a difficult endeavour given the casual nature and piece-rate daily wage nature of the work they do. In fact, poor urban migrants have the lowest recorded voter turnouts. Furthermore, for many states, such as Uttar Pradesh, the question is also one of the disenfranchisement of minorities given the large proportions of their Muslim and Dalit migrant populations. It not surprising that studies have found that states with higher rates of migration are associated with lower voter turnouts. State and Panchayat/Municipal Elections Electoral exclusion of migrants is not limited to Lok Sabha elections. While the participation rate of migrants in their home state and panchayat is higher, a significant number of them miss out on voting in these elections, which in many ways is worse, given the importance of state and local governments. There is a perception that many migrants choose to vote in local elections over general elections because it has a more direct perceivable impact on their lives and families (and often involves voting for a family member or friend). A state-wise comparative study by the India Migration Now of inter-state migrant integration, comparing all the major Indian destination states, Inter-State Migrant Policy Index (IMPEX) reveals a systematic lack of attention paid to the question of political participation in panchayat/municipal elections. The IMPEX average for the seven major migrant-receiving states Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Gujarat, and Delhi is a mere 26 out of 100. Some states, such as Gujarat and Kerala, have scored as low as 0 and 17. This is because all states require voters and potential candidates to be present on the constituency's electoral rolls, which is often not possible due to state-level residency restrictions for non-natives. Consequently, the sub-policy area of 'Electoral Rights' has an average IMPEX score of 36 with both Gujarat and Maharashtra scoring 0 due to these residency restrictions. Political Participation and Welfare Lives of Indian migrants are characterised by extreme vulnerabilities and widespread socio-economic exclusion in their destinations. India Migration Now's Inter-State Migrant Policy Index (IMPEX) reveals widespread socio-economic exclusion and discrimination of migrants by state-level policies. Many migrants struggle to integrate into destination cities, facing severe hurdles to accessing adequate housing, as well as essential public goods and services such as healthcare and education. A key explanation for these difficulties lies in unequal political representation. A 2016 field experiment in multiple major Indian cities, conducted by Gaikwad and Nellis, concluded that the belief system among the political class that they can ignore requests of a migrant during local elections (due to their low participation) is because politicians foresee no electoral returns to providing assistance to these migrants. Many migrants try to find a way to vote because the act of voting is itself a way to verify one's identity: being on electoral rolls year after year helps migrants establish residency and tenure in a particular place, and this record is often enough to serve as a proof of address, which can in turn help migrants obtain ration cards. Voting is a way of establishing eligibility for other basic rights of citizenship, such as housing and education. But the ability to vote is itself an expression of citizenship rights. The major difficulty for most migrants is finding a point of entry into this cycle. NRIs versus internal migrants The demand for an electoral framework catering to the needs of Indian citizens living abroad has gained tremendous momentum in the past decade. Prior to 2011, non-resident Indians (NRIs) could not exercise their franchise because the law required citizens to physically reside within their constituency before they could register as voters. Consequently, the Representation of People Act, 1950 was amended in 2011 to permit overseas citizens to register in the constituency which was mentioned in their passports, effectively giving NRIs voting rights. A total of 11,846 NRIs were registered as overseas electors in the 2014 elections. As the chart shows, 97% of them were registered in Kerala whereas other states witnessed negligible participation. Policy makers soon realised the need for alternatives because the requirement of physically participating in the voting process was discouraging NRI participation. The Indian diaspora also exerted pressure by filing a slew of writ petitions in the Supreme Court demanding the introduction of flexible voting mechanisms. The Election Commission set up the Committee for Exploring Feasibility of Alternative Options for Voting by Overseas Electors in 2014 to address the issue. The Report ruled out personal voting at diplomatic missions and internet voting on account of the logistical difficulties involved. Instead the Committee favoured the e-postal ballot system while also recommending proxy voting as a possible alternative. Despite the Committee's clear preference for e-postal ballots, the government zeroed in on proxy voting by enacting the Representation of the People (Amendment) Bill, 2017. This bill, which has been passed by the Lok Sabha, allows NRIs to vote in their registered constituencies with the help of a proxy. The government hopes that the move will increase NRI participation because voters no longer have to travel back to India to cast their vote. However, the Bill has faced resistance from the Election Commission which argues that proxy voting is antithetical to the secret ballot principle because it requires voters to disclose their preference to another individual who votes on their behalf. Proxy voting is also highly susceptible to fraud because there is no way to guarantee that the proxy will vote in accordance with the elector's preferences. More importantly, the Bill only provides proxy voting rights to emigrants while denying similar rights to internal migrants. This increases the likelihood of the Bill facing a constitutionality challenge in the courts. Since there is no logical reason to treat emigrants and internal migrants differently, the Bill is likely to be struck down if passed by the Rajya Sabha. Migrant voting will increasingly come from minority backgrounds One of the abiding characteristics of post 1991 India is the easy availability of cheap and (largely) informal migrant labour. These migrants have built the urban infrastructure powering the Indian economy, worked for below minimum wages in abysmal conditions to keep the domestic industries competitive and investment friendly, and provided flexible and cheap services to keep the urban affluent classes, affluent. In the absence of a migrant labour workforce, the Indian economy would come to a standstill. Indian migrants are only going to increase in numbers as India moves towards middle income status, they will also increasingly come from minority and disfranchised backgrounds and their destinations both within and abroad are going to diversify. We already see a significant increase in migration to South India from the North and North Eastern states, and both regional and national political parties are taking notice. Without electoral inclusion, effective integration of migrants is not possible. And integration of migrants is essential if we are make the most of our demographic dividend and also for the prevention of inter ethnic tensions between natives and migrants. The scale of electoral exclusion is staggering and unprecedented. Facilitating the participation of migrants in the country is of utmost importance if elections are to become truly inclusive in India. The author is the founder and lead at India Migration Now, a Mumbai-based migration data, research and media agency. Follow their work here: @nowmigration Former NITI Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya said the Narendra Modi government has achieved 'major successes' in social sector programmes like the Ayushman Bharat, PM-Kisan and rural electrification. New Delhi: Former NITI Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya has said that the Modi government has achieved "major successes" in social sector programmes like the Ayushman Bharat, PM-Kisan and rural electrification. Besides, this government has made "unprecedented progress" in tackling corruption, he added. On the reforms undertaken by the Narendra Modi-led NDA government, he said the three major areas of initiatives were the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) and direct benefit transfer (DBT). In an interview to PTI, the eminent economist said "...Ayushman Bharat, PM-Kisan, cooking gas, rural roads and rural electrification represent major successes of the Modi government. Unprecedented progress has also been made in combating corruption." Talking about infrastructure sector, he said the government has managed to greatly accelerate outcomes in sectors like roads, railways, waterways, civil aviation and digitisation. On questioning the credibility of statistical data by over 100 economists and social scientists, Panagariya said unless such critics identify precisely what part of the CSO/MOSPI methodology, described in detail in a 40-page document, they find problematic, their statements only amount to assertions. "None of the international institutions, including the World Bank, IMF and the United Nations, have expressed any doubt in the integrity of our statistical institutions or the numbers these institutions generate. Nor have I seen any objective evidence that the institutions have tried to fudge their data on their own or at the behest of any other government departments," he asserted. The Columbia University professor also noted that revision of GDP estimates is nothing new and this has been a well-established practice. Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan recently had expressed doubts over Indian economy growing 7 percent when not enough jobs were created and said the current cloud over the GDP numbers must be cleared by appointing an impartial look at the data. Besides, expressing concern over political interference in influencing statistical data in India, as many as 108 economists and social scientists had called for restoration of institutional independence and integrity to the statistical organisations. Panagariya served as the first vice-chairman of NITI Aayog for two years from 2015 to 2017. Urmila Matondkar was granted police protection after a group of 'BJP supporters' clashed with Congress workers during her poll campaign in north Mumbai Mumbai: Actor-turned-politician Urmila Matondkar was Monday granted police protection after a group of "BJP supporters" clashed with Congress workers during her poll campaign in north Mumbai. The scuffle took place near Borivali railway station where Matondkar, the Congress candidate from the Mumbai North Lok Sabha constituency, was canvassing, police said. An onlooker said some BJP workers shouted 'Modi, Modi' as they confronted the Congress workers outside the railway station. The BJP has fielded sitting MP Gopal Shetty from the constituency. Matondkar told reporters that she lodged a police complaint "after some BJP workers barged into her rally". "We received an application from Matondkar and granted her protection till the elections get over," said Sangramsinh Nishandar, DCP, Zone XI. Asked if those involved in the scuffle were supporters of the BJP as claimed by Matondkar, the DCP said police do not have any such proof at this moment. "What we can say is that those involved in the incident were commuters," he added. In her complaint, Matondkar also demanded strict action against the "BJP supporters" for violating the model code of conduct. Meanwhile, Shetty suggested that those who clashed with Congress workers were not BJP activists, but some local train commuters who admired the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Matondkar stated that the supporters of the BJP tried to thwart her interaction with the people, which was organised after procuring requisite permissions from the authorities concerned. Around 25 "supporters" of the BJP carrying the party flags chanted "Modi, Modi", she alleged. Matondkar also said she was shocked by the "blatant violation" of the model code of conduct by the workers of the ruling party, and blamed the BJP for "creating fear". "This is just the beginning and may take a violent turn. I have asked for police protection as there is a threat to my life. I have filed a police complaint," she said. Matondkar also said that those who "barged" into the rally were not common people, but activists of the BJP. The common people will not behave in "violent ways" like these persons, she added. "Those who confronted our rally indulged in vulgar dancing and used abusive language. May be they wanted to scare the women who were walking near us," she said, adding that the BJP supporters also made indecent gestures towards women and started dancing after beating up few of her supporters including women. I am mentally disturbed and I am in shock due to the incident," the actor said in the complaint. Matondkar said she was contemplating approaching the Election Commission on the issue. Taking to Twitter, she also said, "Shocked at the blatant violation of code of conduct and hostile acts by BJP workers.. I was constrained to lodge police complaint for my own safety and to save the dignity of my female supporters." Matondkar tweeted that she will face with strength and courage those who would try to push her to the wall. Later, in a video message posted on the micro-blogging website, she said she won't get scared by such acts. "I come from Shivaji Maharaj's holy land, where respecting women is considered the most important thing. In such a situation, I will not step back," she said. Shetty said that some commuters raised slogans hailing the prime minister. "As the Congress and the BJP enjoy the right to campaign, so does the people. What can we do if people who admire Modi raise slogans in his name?" he asked. Mumbai goes to polls on 29 April in the fourth phase of the general election. Rajasthan must bring in more skilled and well-meaning women into public service and hand them actual power to work for change. Chhavi Rajawat holds an MBA, rides horses in her free time and flies to New York to speak at conventions of the United Nations. A decade ago, she gave up a career in the private sector and became the sarpanch of her ancestral village Soda in Rajasthan's Tonk district. Passionate about grassroots governance, Chhavi neither files nomination for successive Vidhan Sabha elections nor is she eyeing a Lok Sabha ticket. Why haven't either of the two big national parties been able to woo the Lady Shri Ram College graduate who has headed a non-partisan panchayat system in the village since 2010? In the seven Lok Sabha elections held between 1952 and 1989, merely six women contested in Rajasthan. The highest number of female candidates, 31, were fielded in 2009. In the 2013 Vidhan Sabha elections, 28 women were given tickets, and in 2019, the figure dropped to 21. Chhavi told Firstpost that the existing feudal hierarchies in mainstream politics, which are designed around ideologies and personalities, can feel threatened by a basic, skill-driven approach to grassroots governance. "Voices on the ground must be heard. Be it the construction of farm ponds in a state that is still dependent on rain-fed architecture, or the conversion of faeces from dry pit toilets into manure, projects need to be closely monitored," she explained, adding that the vision must be carried forward at the local level, which she said is the point of a political leadership. Parties prefer to give tickets to leaders who have larger-than-life personalities in their respective areas, or to those with money or dynastic history. Another reason that deters parties from fielding women as candidates is the lack of acceptance of a woman's authority among party cadres and the lack of faith voters might have in her. For instance, Suman Sharma, president of the BJP Mahila Morcha, had sought a ticket from Sanganer or Malviya Nagar in Jaipur City, but the party didn't field her despite her closeness with former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje. The BJP chose former cabinet minister Devi Singh Bhati's daughter-in-law Poonam Kanwar over her from Kolayat in Bikaner district. While this is another reminder that women in public service can be forced to become rubber stamps in a patriarchy, it also raises doubts over whether they can ever be independently powerful. Another example that raises doubts on the intent of parties towards bringing gender equality in politics is Shakuntala Rawat, former president of Mahila Congress who won from Alwar district's Bansur in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Why wasn't she made a minister despite her popularity? Local bodies in Rajasthan have 33 percent reservation for women, which has widened their participation in grassroots governance. However, bureaucracy builds a glass ceiling on that power. The 73rd constitutional amendment grants panchayats control over 29 state subjects, including primary health, electricity, sanitation and agriculture, but gram panchayats are toothless before the bureaucracy and have to keep waiting for approvals and release of funds. From Chhavi to barely-educated women in panchayats across Rajasthan, this is what deters women from assuming a greater role in state politics. "There's no check on how much time government engineers take to approve projects and finance departments to sanction funds. Sometimes, the funding comes after the monsoon, and we lose an entire year on agricultural projects," Chhavi said, explaining that for her, the drive to create a model village overrides the frustration. Shyama Devi, who has served as the pradhan of Kotkhawada village in Rajasthan's Chaksu tehsil, believes that reservation was initially only symbolic to check the quota box. But over time, it has empowered women to come forward and assert authority. An example of this is the disappearance of ghoonghat-clad women. Shyama Devi couldn't become a sarpanch herself because she is not educated, but she assists Santosh Devi, who is the village sarpanch. Both have actively promoted the Swacch Bharat Mission on the ground and say they supervised the construction of toilets in a region where the concept of a personal toilet was fairly new. Chanda Devi Sharma, the ward panch from Rampura, said that the power of the panchayat falls flat before government secretaries who reject their proposals. She also questioned why these secretaries are mostly male. Indira Kanwar, upa sarpanch from Bapu village, said secretaries prefer talking only to men in the village even when women are in power. Even if women fight battles against patriarchy and make all efforts to rise up the ladder, outsiders' assumption that this empowerment is a farce has a damaging effect on the morale of women, she said. Civil society groups in Rajasthan advocate that unless political parties trust women, nothing much will change. Sunita, ward panch from Nimodia village, said she wanted to work on the Narendra Modi government's policies on women and protection of children be it the Ujjwala Yojana or the Swachh Bharat Mission but she does not have money or connections to contest the Vidhan Sabha or Lok Sabha elections. Representatives at the Centre for Community Economics and Development Consultants Society work on the mindset of women in panchayats. Its members in Chaksu village in West Rajasthan believe that reservation for women in the Lok Sabha election is a good idea, and both Congress and BJP should follow the examples set by the Biju Janata Dal and Trinamool Congress in fielding women for the polls. Virendra Shrimali, who runs programmes to increase women's participation in local politics for The Hunger Project, feels that after 50 percent reservation was offered to women in 2008, nearly 27 percent came to power in local bodies. "People are treating politics less as seva and more as a career. And a large contingent of women is now ready to contest on both block and district levels," he said. It isn't easy for women from non-political families to come up on their own in urban politics. Jyoti Khandelwal, former mayor of Jaipur, is contesting on a Congress ticket in the Lok Sabha election. This is the first time in the history of Independent India that a woman is contesting the parliamentary election from Jaipur. "The struggle is real. I had won the parshad elections and then become the mayor. It was a long struggle to get here," she said, adding that the Congress has field four women, while the BJP, which did not name a single woman in its second list, added two names later under pressure. Saveeta Meena, contesting from Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot's native Dausa, is one of the women the Congress has fielded. When asked about the issues she is focussing on, she said she is going to make efforts to spread the Congress ideology. Meena said she was still familiarising herself with the issues and had only started touring villages after her ticket was confirmed. The desert state, which battles a high maternal mortality rate and is struggling to improve its ranking in the female literacy index, must bring in more skilled and well-meaning women into public service and hand them actual power to work for change. Hitting out at senior SP leader Azam Khan for his derogatory remarks on her, BJP's Rampur Lok Sabha seat candidate Jaya Prada said he has transgressed the 'lakshman rekha' and is no longer her brother Lucknow: Hitting out at senior SP leader Azam Khan for his derogatory remarks on her, BJP's Rampur Lok Sabha seat candidate Jaya Prada, Monday said he has transgressed the 'lakshman rekha' and is no longer her brother. Khan, without taking names, on Sunday had said it took "you 17 years to understand her reality" but, "I could recognise it in 17 days that she wears a khaki underwear". The BJP claimed that the comment was made against Jaya Prada, who is fighting the Lok Sabha polls against the Samajwadi Party (SP) leader. "(He has) crossed the lakshman rekhaa (his limits) this time. He is no longer a brother to me. I had considered him as my brother and tolerated everything, but now I cannot tolerate (this)," she told reporters in Rampur. The actor-turned-politician also said the people will give an answer as people respect women. "What is this man doing? Does he have the right to contest polls? I appeal to the Election Commission that he should not be allowed to contest the polls, he is not eligible to contest the polls," she said. Khan had told an election rally in Rampur, "... you got represented (by her) for 10 years." "People of Rampur, people of Uttar Pradesh and people of India, it took you 17 years to understand her reality. But, I could recognise it in 17 days that she wears a khaki underwear, he had said. The video of Khan's purported speech was also doing the rounds on various social media platform. Seeking an answer from SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, Jaya Prada said, "I am asking Akhilesh, whether you will allow such a person to contest the polls. Shame. He (Khan) should be expelled." Rampur goes to polls in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections on 23 April. Jaya Prada also cited a Sanskrit shloka and said that "a family in which women are revered or given due respect, that family is blessed with divine qualities, divine food and children, and a family in which women are not revered, all their work bears no result". Taking note of news reports, the National Commission for Women Monday strongly condemned the "extremely derogatory" remarks made by SP leader Khan against Jaya Prada and issued a show cause notice to him. The Congress, BJP and others reacted strongly after Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan made derogatory remarks against his Rampur opponent Jaya Prada. Strong reactions have come in from both the Congress and the BJP after Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan made derogatory and sexist remarks against his Rampur opponent and BJP candidate Jaya Prada at an election rally on Sunday. "I brought her (Jaya Prada) to Rampur. You are a witness that I did not allow anyone to touch her body. It took you 17 years to identify her real face, but I got to know in 17 days that she wears khaki underpants," Khan purportedly said. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and other senior leaders were also present on the stage when Khan made the statement in Rampur. In response to his remarks, Jaya Prada on Monday said she was "habituated to such behaviour and comments", and that people won't forgive Khan for making such disrespectful comments against women. She also called to have the Samajwadi Party leader disallowed from contesting the elections. "He shouldn't be allowed to contest the elections because if this man wins, what will happen to democracy? There'll be no place for women in society. Where will we go? Should I die, then you'll be satisfied? You think that I'll get scared and leave Rampur? I won't leave," Jaya Prada said. An FIR has been registered Khan under Section 509 of the Indian Penal Code for "outraging the modesty" of a woman. Meanwhile, taking suo motu cognisance of Khan's behaviour, the National Commission for Women (NCW) has sent him a notice. The women's rights body also wrote to Election Commission, calling for strict action against Khan. NCW chairperson Rekha Sharma said the Samajwadi Party leader has a history of making derogatory remarks against women, and it is high time that action is initiated against him. "He's always talking dirty about women, and during this election, this is the second remark he made against woman politicians. The NCW has taken suo-motu cognisance, and we're sending him a notice," she said. "We are also writing to EC to take strict action against him because he has to learn this lesson now. It's high time; he has to stop this. Women are not sex objects. I think, women should vote against such kind of people who treat women in such a way." @NCWIndia strongly condemns the sexist comments made by Azam Khan on a lady politician which were extremely derogatory and disrespectful to the dignity of women and has taken Suo Moto cognizance of the matter. pic.twitter.com/QsCpOnsPr1 NCW (@NCWIndia) April 15, 2019 Delhi Commission for Women chairperson Swati Maliwal also slammed Khan, calling his remarks "crass, distasteful and pathetic". Shame on Azam Khan. What a crass, distasteful and pathetic statement! Wonder if he would say the same for his own daughter or sister? A big time low in our politics. FIR should be filed against him and he should be put behind bars! https://t.co/Dz7b3cPVZd Swati Maliwal (@SwatiJaiHind) April 15, 2019 Union minister Sushma Swaraj urged Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav to take action against Khan. Drawing a reference to the Mahabharata and comparing Khan's comments against Jaya Prada to "Draupadi's cheerharan", she said: - . . . @yadavakhilesh Smt.Jaya Bhaduri, Mrs.Dimple Yadav.pic.twitter.com/FNO5fM4Hkc Chowkidar Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) April 15, 2019 BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramaniam Swamy said Khan's language reflected "Islamic State mentality", referring to the terrorist group's violence against women. Swamy urged Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath to take immediate action against Khan. Yogi Adityanath, meanwhile, said Khan's remarks showed the Samajwadi Party's "thinking and culture", and that it was surprising that ally BSP's chief Mayawati was silent on the issue despite being a woman. UP CM Yogi Adityanath on Azam Khan's remark: This shows the thinking & culture of Samajwadi Party. The silence of SP chief & his ally Mayawati, who is also a woman, is surprising. This is very unfortunate...Azam Khan's statement is extremely disrespectful, shows his cheap mindset pic.twitter.com/corLRj8XfP ANI (@ANI) April 15, 2019 Union minister Smriti Irani told ANI, "Derogatory comments are being made on a woman and Samajwadi Party leaders are sitting silently." She added that politicians should not forgo respect for women. Congress leaders, too, condemned Khan's remarks, with party national spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi saying it "represents ugly and cheap standards". "Unequivocally condemn the statement of Azam Khan against Jaya Prada. Politics has no place for those who cannot maintain a decent discourse while criticising an opponent," he tweeted. Statement of #AzamKhan on #Jayaprada represents ugly and cheap standards. Such statements are derogatory for the health of a vibrant democracy. Hope that the ECI and @yadavakhilesh would take cognizance of the statement and ensure action against it. Abhishek Singhvi (@DrAMSinghvi) April 15, 2019 Another Congress national spokesperson, Priyanka Chaturvedi, called Khan out for his remarks. The comment made on Jaya Prada by Azam Khan is absolutely unbecoming & this kind of filth in discourse needs to be condemned by all. Fight on issues, BJP has given us enough& more reasons to defeat them but do not lower the discourse to sexist/misogynistic comments on opponents. Priyanka Chaturvedi (@priyankac19) April 15, 2019 Senior Congress leader and Delhi unit chief Sheila Dikshit said Khan should be ashamed of his statement and apologise to all the women of the nation. Earlier on Monday, Khan had tried to clarify his remarks, claiming that he did not make any objectionable remarks against Jaya Prada. Asserting that he did not name anyone, the former MP said he would withdraw his candidature from the ongoing polls if proven guilty. "I said that people took time to know a real face in reference to a man from Delhi, who once said he brought 150 rifles with him, and if he sees Azam, he would have shot him dead. My leaders also made a mistake. Now, it has been revealed that he has an RSS pant on his body. Shorts are worn by men," Khan told ANI. "I was a nine-time MLA from Rampur and have been a minister. I know what to say. "If anyone proves that I have named anyone and insulted anyone by name, I will step back from the elections." Photo: CTV News Residents of a nine-storey building in Chinatown held a protest Saturday over an elevator thats been broken for months. CTV News reports Solheim Place houses 86 subsidized units. The building has two elevators one only goes up to the sixth floor, while the other has been out of service since Sept. 26, 2018. Tenants on the upper floors of the building have been left to use the stairs despite mobility issues and old age. Things boiled over Saturday with a protest demanding the landlord fix the elevator immediately. "This would never happen in a market building; this would never happen in a luxury condo building. It's because many of the tenants, theyve said themselves, that it's because we're disabled, we're poor, we're seniors that they think they can take advantage of us," one of the rally organizers Nat Lowe told CTV. The building is owned and operated by nonprofit S.U.C.C.E.S.S., which has an agreement with BC Housing. The group said in a statement the elevator broke down because of old age and wear. The landlord says it has extended staff shifted to 11 p.m. to help carry items up and down the stairs and is working with BC Housing to find new housing for tenants of the upper floors. "S.U.C.C.E.S.S. cares about the well-being of all tenants and we remain committed to working with all relevant parties to repair the elevator at Solheim Place in the timeliest manner possible," it said in the statement. The protestors say they recently learned it could be at least another year before the elevator is fixed. with files from CTV Vancouver Dharmendra Pradhan also accused the state police of working on the orders of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Bhubaneswar: Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday accused Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik of shedding crocodile tears over the killing of BJP worker Manguli Jena in Khordha district and said that the party will respond to it by ballot and not bullet. Jena was allegedly shot dead by two unidentified bike-borne miscreants near his party office on Sunday evening, the police said. Condemning the murder of Khordha Mandal president Manguli Jena, Pradhan said, "We have to respond to his death not by the bullet, but by ballot. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen babu is shedding crocodile tears. The incident like this in a democracy is condemnable." The BJP leader's reaction came after Patnaik, condemning the incident, said: "I strongly condemn the heinous murder that has taken place in Khordha and requested the Election Commissioner to direct the police to take strict action against those involved." "Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Odisha on 16 April. We were making arrangements for it. I took all the details from Manguli Jena. But unfortunately, assailants shot him dead late last night," Pradhan said while addressing the media. He also accused the state police of working on the orders of the Chief Minister. "Constitutional arrangements in Odisha have completely vanished. The police officers are working on the orders of Naveen Babu. Police are not supporting fairness but supporting the goons," Pradhan said. "The election process should be completed with fairness. The ruling party cannot misuse its power for the sake of ending the election process," he added. The Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in Odisha are scheduled to be held simultaneously in four phases. The remaining three phases will be held on 18, 23 and 29 April. The counting of votes will take place on 23 May. Addressing a press conference, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal asked the Income Tax department to act on the 'Yeddyurappa diary' which has been in its custody since 2012, soon after the BJP leader relinquished the charge of the chief minister of Karnataka. New Delhi: The Congress on Monday demanded a Lokpal probe into former Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa's 'diary' and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to answer whether its contents were correct, else put the former chief minister behind the bars. Addressing a press conference, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal asked the Income Tax department to act on the "Yeddyurappa diary" which has been in its custody since 2012, soon after the BJP leader relinquished the charge of the chief minister of Karnataka. "The I-T and Enforcement Directorate officials should question the ministers whose names are written in the diaries and the money trail of this black money should be found out," Sibal said. He alleged that if the contents of the diary are correct, the top BJP leadership is involved in allegedly accepting bribes to the tune of over Rs 1,800 crore, as written in the diary. Sibal also played a video of the "original diary" of Yeddyurappa showing the names of BJP leaders and others in the diary's contents written in Kannada. He, however, did not take any responsibility for the contents of the video. "We had demanded a probe and since the Lokpal has been constituted, this should be the first probe by it," Sibal told reporters, adding the Lokpal has powers to take cognisance of the matter suo motu under the act. "We want that the prime minister should publicly tell if this is correct or not... The prime minister should answer. If the prime minister says Yeddyurappa is speaking a lie, then why should he not be arrested. If this (contents of the diary) is true, then it is a very serious issue, and why should Yeddyurappa not be arrested? There should be a thorough probe," he said. Sibal said no one can hide the truth which will come out once there is an independent and thorough probe into the entire matter and asked the Income Tax Department and the Enforcement Directorate to start investigation. He also demanded that the witnesses in the matter be questioned. Taking a swipe at the BJP, the former Union minister said had the names of the Opposition leaders been written in the diary and had it been recovered from an Opposition leader, the BJP would have gone all out to attack them and a probe would have been ordered. "They make money to the tune of crores through note ban and they should make us stand in the dock instead. What kind of politics is this?" he asked. The Congress leader also alleged that Modi's claim of a scam-free government had fallen flat and a number of scams had taken place during his tenure. Lack of alternative to Narendra Modi and consistent efforts to rectify complex GST norms seem to have helped the BJP find favour with traders in Rajasthan's Jaipur City The desert state of Rajasthan has a population of 7 crore and sends 25 MPs to the Lok Sabha. In the Vidhan Sabha election that took place in December 2018, the state voted out the Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government to bring the Congress to power. The BJP won 163 seats in the Assembly in 2013. But, in 2018, there was a dip of 93 seats and the partys tally fell to a dismal 70. Five months on, traders in the state seem reluctant about electing Congress MPs in the ongoing Lok Sabha election. Although frustrated with the inconvenience caused by demonetisation and the initial difficulty in comprehending GST procedures, traders in pink city Jaipur see no alternative to Narendra Modi at the Centre. Firstpost hit ground zero to find out the mood of the trader voters in the state. KL Jain, who represents the Rajasthan Chamber of Commerce, an apex body with three lakh members explained that the recent decision of the central government to double the limit of exemption from payment of GST to Rs 40 lakh and the setting up a higher turnover cap of Rs 1.5 crore for availing composition scheme of paying 1 percent, has brought relief to traders. State and national issues are different. In this election, the main focus is on Narendra Modi and nationalism precedes all other concerns, he predicted a bold 18-5 win in favour of the BJP in the state. Suresh Agarwal, president of the Federation of Rajasthan Trade and Industry (FORTI), a trade body based in Jaipur, said the two main industries in the pink city that were adversely affected by demonetisation were real estate and gemstones. "Given the meteoric rise in property rates from 2005 to 2008, scores of traders had entered into the business such that they now form nearly 20 percent of the trader community in the state, said Agarwal. He said that the disruption in cash flow has shrunk the market, and traders in the property sector havent been able to regain confidence. But the impact of this on vote share isnt a given. From a vote bank perspective, traders arent a consolidated group. For instance, gemstone is one of the sectors and the nature of the business is that gems are imported, carved and embellished in India, and the finished product is exported. The GST's entry tax on imported goods is a big concern for those in the sector which is also suffering a blow due to the slump in the international market. I have been in the gemstone trade since 1983 and never have I been taxed multiple times in the making of the same product. The trade is down to 30 percent of what it used to be and artisans who were once skilled can now be spotted peddling rickshaws for a living, said gemstone trader Suresh Kumar. In the Sitapur industrial area in Jaipur, this reporter ran into Azzu bhai. He has spent half a century working in gemstone workshops and says the impact of knee-jerk economic reforms is hardest on people at the bottom because if traders take time to comprehend and adapt to new rules, they slow down their intake of orders and workers who survive on daily wages fall out of work. He cited the example of Tanzania, which imposed a ban on the export of rough tanzanite more than 1 gram to encourage local beneficiation, as an indicator of how countries are closing their doors to safeguard the interests of their own workers. Strict GST rules, like the one that imposes penalties on technicalities, are a cause of fear and frustration in the gemstone trade which directly engages a couple of lakh people in Rajasthan. Nirmal Bardiya, who runs a jewellery business on Jaipur's MI road, feels GST has brought order and transparency to the way business is done. To verify this claim, Firstpost interacted with big and small traders at Jaipurs busy markets Bapu Bazar and Johari Bazar. Mukund Bihari Kalundia, a textile trader said theres no difficulty in filing a three-month return. Rakesh Khandelwal, who mans a silver shop said that GST has made transactions cashless and a lot more transparent. Kishore Kumar Jain, who transports edible goods across the state, said trucks dont load goods until they see the transport bill. At the Chandpole Market, the vice-president of a market association, Ashok, predicted 17-8 seat ratio for BJP. Theres no alternative to Modi. The traders voted out Vasundhara Raje because of her stubborn stand on several issues and her lack of acceptance of opinions of stakeholders. But, people here have nothing against Modis policies," he explained that the distinction between the Centre and the state is quite distinct in the mind of the local voter. The BJP has enjoyed a stronghold over Jaipur. The late Girdhari Lal Bhargav of the BJP was elected six consecutive times and had defeated the late Maharaja of Jaipur Bhawani Singh by nearly one lakh votes in 1989. The party sidelined him and made a dent in old loyalties after which the Congress gained traction. During the Modi wave of 2014, BJPs Ramcharan Bohara won by over 5.39 lakh votes, the largest ever in the state. He brought the saffron party firmly back in the saddle and the contest is now tight. Congress has fielded Jyoti Khandelwal from the city keeping the traders in mind and Bohara will contest on the BJP ticket who is expected to seal the Brahmin vote. Ashok Parmani, who was Rajasthans BJP chief until the partys 2018 Assembly Election defeat, told Firstpost that former chief minister Vasundhara Raje held several meetings that reassured traders and the central governments schemes like the Mudra Yojana that grants loans up to 10 lakh and schemes like Stand Up India and Make in India have also had an impact. Meanwhile, Giriraj Garg of the Congress party said that the central government is making modifications to the tax and that shows how ill-planned the execution of GST actually was. "In Ajmer, Congress has fielded Rijju Jhunjhunwala from the Agrawal community and Jyoti Khandelwal from the Baniya community in Jaipur City. The trader vote, which has traditionally stood behind the BJP, will also back the Congress, he expressed. The lack of alternative in the Centre and consistent efforts to rectify complex GST norms is whats keeping the trader vote in favour of the BJP in Rajasthan, where voters had backed Congress in the Assembly election less than six months ago. EC barred Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan and Union minister Maneka Gandhi from campaigning ahead of the second phase of the Lok Sabha polls The Election Commission (EC) hardened its stance towards politicians violating the model code of conducting, barring Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan and Union Minister Maneka Gandhi from campaigning ahead of the second phase of the Lok Sabha polls. Khan was barred from campaigning for 72 hours over his insensitive remarks allegedly aimed at Jaya Prada, BJPs Lok Sabha candidate from Rampur. While addressing a rally in Rampur on Sunday, he had said, "People of Rampur, people of Uttar Pradesh and people of India, it took you 17 years to understand her reality. But, I could recognise it in 17 days that she wears a khaki underwear," he had said. The video of Khan's speech went viral on social media platforms. An FIR was registered Monday against Khan for his remarks under the Indian Penal Code's Section 509 and provisions of the Representation of the People Act. Jaya Prada said, "(He has) crossed the lakshman rekhaa (his limits) this time. He is no longer a brother to me. I had considered him as my brother and tolerated everything, but now I cannot tolerate (this)." BJP leader Maneka was barred for campaigning for 48 hours for telling Muslims at a rally in Sultanpur last week to vote for her as they will need her once the Lok Sabha elections are over. "I am winning because of the help and love of the people. But if my victory is without the Muslims, I will not feel very good. If Muslims come for some work after this, I will think why bother, what difference will it make. We are not Mahatma Gandhi's children to keep giving without getting anything in return," she had said, inviting the ire of the Opposition. The Election Commissions decision to bar Khan and Maneka from campaigning came hours after imposing simlar bans on Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath for 48 hours and 72 hours, respectively. While Mayawati faced this punitive action for passing communal remarks at a Deoband rally, Adityanath was pulled up for his controversial 'Ali Bajrang Bali' statement. The bans on campaigning by Khan and Maneka will come into effect at 10 am on Tuesday. While Rampur will vote on 23 May, Sultanpur will vote on 12 May. The model code of conduct came into effect on 10 March. Similarly, another ban was imposed by the poll panel on Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati from campaigning for 48 hours for making 'objectionable' statements in political speeches. The Election Commission of India on Monday banned Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adiyanath from campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls for 72 hours and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati for 48 hours, starting 6 am on Tuesday. The poll panel barred both from campaigning for making "objectionable" statements in political speeches, and thereby violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). Election Commission bans UP CM Yogi Adityanath and BSP chief Mayawati from election campaigning for 72 hours & 48 hours respectively, starting from 6 am tomorrow, for violating Model Code of Conduct by making objectionable statements in their speeches. #LokSabhaElections2019 pic.twitter.com/j1cYzMY8Mr ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 15, 2019 At a BJP rally on 9 April, Adityanath had said that "if Ali is with the BSP-SP-RLD alliance, then Bajrangbali is with the BJP". Ali is a revered figure in Islam and Hanuman is often called Bajrangbali. Mayawati made the "objectionable" comments during her speech in Deoband in which she allegedly appealed to Muslims not to vote for the Congress. The Election Commission issued two separate orders against Adityanath and Mayawati, which came hours after the Supreme Court, on Monday, took cognisance of the "hate speeches" made by the two leaders during campaigning. The court sought to know from the Election Commission what action it had initiated against them. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi summoned a representative of the poll panel on Tuesday, while agreeing to examine its contention that it has limited legal power to deal with hate speeches of politicians during electioneering. The bench referred to submissions of the Election Commission that they can issue notices, then an advisory and finally lodge a complaint against an errant politician for violating the Model Code of Conduct for giving hate speeches during campaigns by invoking caste and religion. "The Election Commission says it is toothless," the bench said, adding that it would examine the aspect relating to the poll panel's power to deal with hate speeches during poll campaign. During the hearing, the counsel for the Election Commission said the poll panel had already issued notices to the two politicians. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Tuesday. The bench made the observations while hearing a petition filed by an NRI yoga teacher based in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), seeking a direction to the Election Commission to take "strict action" against political parties if their spokespersons make remarks based on caste and religion in the media during elections. With inputs from PTI Goa BJP has complained to the Election Commission (EC) against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) by propagating fear-mongering among Christian and Muslim community at a public meeting. Kejriwal was in Goa on 13 April to address a public meeting at Margao in south Goa. Panaji: Goa BJP has complained to the Election Commission (EC) against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) by propagating fear-mongering among Christian and Muslim community at a public meeting. Kejriwal was in Goa on 13 April to address a public meeting at Margao in south Goa. "Arvind Kejriwal has blatantly violated MCC by way of inciting religious sentiments in his speech," read the letter. "Arvind Kejriwal has been reported to have made utterances such as 'Mob lynching taking place in the country under the guise of cattle theft is actually organised murder," said the complaint. Goa's BJP unit has also attached news report with their complaint to validate their contentions. "He also tried to propagate fear-mongering among the Christian and Muslim community by his utterance that 'Christian and Muslim will be driven into the sea under the guise of infiltrators," it read. BJP has also complained to the Chief Electoral Officer against a Roman Catholic priest for the violation of MCC. The said priest reportedly made a speech with communal overtones and allegedly said that late former Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar suffered cancer because of the anger of God. "I seek to draw your attention to a video clip doing rounds on various social media platforms (CD annexed along with). The said video clip depicts a religious priest addressing people within the building of a religious institution and creating an atmosphere of hate and fear against a particular political party and a specific religion," stated Goa BJP unit in its complaint. BJP has also complained against Congress spokesperson Sunil Kauthankar for allegedly violating MCC "while addressing a press conference, wherein he has grossly misinterpreted the statement of BJP national president Amit Shah and has tried to spread lies." Goa will vote for its two Lok Sabha constituencies in the third phase of elections on 23 April. BJP commands the loyalty of a section of Nair and Brahmin voters in Thiruvananthapuram, and it must ensure the lion's share of their voters if it wants to win the Lok Sabha seat in Kerala The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has been wooing minority votes by projecting itself as the biggest opposer of the Sangh Parivar. Therefore, the win of a BJP candidate from the Lok Sabha seats in Kerala will be a big political setback for the party. Congress candidate Shashi Tharoor, who was found trailing behind Kummanam Rajashekharan of BJP in many opinion poll surveys, is pinning his hope on cross voting by the CPM to ensure his win in the constituency. Babu Jose, a member of a Congress think tank in Thiruvananthapuram believes it wont be difficult for CPM to transfer its votes to Tharoor since its ally was way behind the front runners. Moreover, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidate C Divakaran belongs to the Communist Party of India (CPI), which has won only two of the ten elections it contested as its ally in the constituency so far. One was in 2004, when the LDF swept the state by winning 18 of the 20 seats. The other victory was in 1996 with a small margin. Senior CPI leaders have pooh-poohed speculations doing rounds in the media regarding cross voting. "The pre-poll surveys predicting an upper hand to the BJP is fabricated by the media. The fight in Thiruvananthapuram is actually between the LDF and the UDF. We are clearly ahead of the UDF candidate this time," claimed Pradeep Kumar, a CPI leader at Pattom in the capital city. He said that the voters in the constituency want a representative to be among them. The Congress candidate, he said, was a rare visitor of the constituency. Divakaran, on the other hand, is a very popular trade union leader involved in waging struggles for the rights of the working class. Thiruvananthapuram has been a Congress bastion for the last five decades. The party was defeated only twice since 1971. However, the political equations in the district started changing in the last few years. Congress candidate Tharoor felt the heat of the saffron surge in the 2014 election when BJP candidate O Rajagopal inched close to victory by polling 32 percent votes. Tharoor scraped through with a margin of 15,470 votes with the help of lead he secured from the three minority-dominated Assembly segments Parassala, Neyyattinkara and Kovalam. Rajagopal got the lead in Thiruvananthapuram, Vattiyoorkavu, Nemom and Kazhakkottam segments, where the majority community hold the sway. However, the BJPs growth in Thiruvananthapuram has not been steady. P Ashok Kumar could poll only 56,046 votes when the party entered the fray for the first time in 1989. O Rajagopal increased the tally to 80,566 in 1991 but came down to 74,904 votes in 1996 when K Raman Pillai came to the scene. In Kerala, Varma Raja took it to 94,303 in 1998. Rajagopal raised the vote share of the BJP by 155,221 votes in 1999 and bettered his own record in 2004 with 228,052 votes. BJP's choice flopped in 2009 as party candidate PK Krishna Das polled only 84,094 votes. Rajagopal came back in 2014 to raise it to 282,336 votes, which was just 15,470 votes short of victory. In short, the BJP owes its formidable presence in the constituency to Rajagopal who opened the saffron account in the Kerala state Assembly a year later by winning the Nemom Assembly constituency by an impressive margin. The calculation in the BJP camp is that their candidate Kummanam Rajashekharan can easily win the seat if he is able to pool maximum votes from the four segments where Rajagopal secured majority in 2014. The BJP does not consider it difficult since they feel that the Hindu faithful, who are angry with the stand taken by both the LDF and the Congress on the Sabarimala issue, will lend their weight behind them this time. However, political analysts are doubtful whether Kummanam will be able to secure the votes polled by Rajagopal since the stellar performance came at the height of the Modi wave, which is no more discernible in the state now. Moreover, Rajagopal had a wider appeal among all section of voters as a moderate leader. This is not the case with Kummanam, who is perceived as a hardcore RSS man who does not enjoy the support even across the BJP. The ambivalent stand adopted by the two major Hindu organisations in Kerala over Sabarimala issue has also raised concern in the BJP camp. While the Nair Service Society (NSS), which champions the cause of the upper caste Nair community, has announced equidistant stand with all political parties, the SNDP of the lower caste Ezhava is also toeing a middle line. The denial of an audience to Kummanam, who quit as Mizoram governor to contest the election, by NSS general secretary G Sukumaran Nair has further dampened the spirit in the Kummanam camp. The BJP was expecting the full backing of the NSS since it (BJP) was the only political party to lend open support to the protests spearheaded by them (NSS) against the 28 September Supreme Court verdict permitting women of all ages to enter the Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala. However, BJP leaders are hopeful that the members of the community would defy the diktat of the leadership and vote for the BJP. A campaign committee member of Kummanam claimed that many NSS workers have been covertly canvassing votes for the BJP nominee. He said that the party was hopeful that all those who stand for faith and belief will support the BJP since it has made lot of sacrifices for defending the traditions and customs in Sabarimala. The Congress camp is also worried about the NSS' equidistant stand in the polls. Though the NSS chief has given his blessings to the diplomat-turned politician (Kummanam), who belongs to the community, his camp feels that the stand declared by Nair will lead to confusion among the members. Tharoor's complaint regarding non-cooperation from many local Congress units dominated by NSS workers is a reflection of the confusion in the NSS rank and file. The Congress candidate has heaved a sigh of relief after the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) deputed leader of opposition Ramesh Chennithala, a blue-eyed boy of NSS, to monitor the campaign in the constituency and Nana Patrola, AICC general secretary from Maharashtra as the high command observer. Tharoor, who had pressed into action his personal squads to canvas votes for him, said he was happy after the intervention by the KPCC. "I am happy the way the party is supporting me. I am getting the full support of the party. I am satisfied with the campaign, he said. What saved Tharoor last time was a lesser challenge from the Left Front. The CPI's decision to field a member of the Nadar community as an Independent candidate led to the shift of a sizeable chunk of traditional LDF votes to Tharoor and Rajagopal. The pre-poll surveys predicting an upper hand for Kummanam has invigorated both the UDF and LDF camps to work more steadfastly against the BJP. The survey prediction has not made the saffron party complacent though. On the contrary, it has adopted an extra guard against possible cross voting by either of the traditional rivals to deny the BJP a victory in Kerala. The BJP commands the loyalty of a section of Nair and Brahmin voters in the city who used to vote for the party even before Modi's rise to power. The party has to ensure the support of a lion's share of Nair voters if it wants to win the seat. BJP's poll managers hope that the Sabarimala issue would bring this additional vote and Kummanam would give the much-needed electoral breakthrough to the party this time. However, with three high profile candidates in the fray, the outcome in the constituency is unpredictable. In the midst of an ongoing controversy over stray cattle ruining farmers' crops in western Uttar Pradesh and apparently causing resentment against the government, Mathura offers a model of protecting cows from slaughter in a way that is perfectly in sync with peoples religious sentiments for the sacred animal Shailja Kant Mishra, a 1977 batch IPS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre, was a tough cop and spelled terror among the powerful mafias of western Uttar Pradesh in the early 1990s. He won several awards and honours for his service, but his curriculum vitae would be incomplete if his dedication to the cause of cow protection is not mentioned. As a young superintendent of police in Mathura in the late 1980s, he created a veritable impregnable zone that cattle smugglers could not breach. As a result, each police station in Mathura ended up housing hundreds of cows saved from slaughterhouses. Mishra was often snubbed for what was then perceived as his idiosyncrasy arising out of his deep faith in a revered saint, Devraha Baba. As a police officer, he was guided by the law and the Constitution that directs citizens to protect cows. And he chose not to look the other way when cattle smugglers herded animals in trucks destined for slaughterhouses. Mishra took voluntary retirement long before the time for superannuation and was living in Jabalpur for a decade when he got a call from Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for a unique assignment. He was tasked to develop the entire Mathura and Vrindavan region as a model tourist destination and lead a body called Uttar Pradesh Braj Tirtha Vikas Parishad (UP Braj Pilgrimage Development Board) as vice-chairman with the chief minister as chairman. His task was no doubt multi-fold. But the closest to his heart was cow protection in the birthplace of Lord Krishna. In the midst of an ongoing controversy over stray cattle ruining farmers' crops in western Uttar Pradesh and apparently causing resentment against the government, Mathura offers a model of protecting cows from slaughter in a way that is perfectly in sync with peoples religious sentiments for the sacred animal. The Tirtha board has also instituted a private-public partnership to develop a cow shelter in Raal village of Vihar area. In Mathura and Vrindavan, mythologies abound. Lord Krishna was believed to be roaming around these forests, known simply as 'van', along with cows. The administration tapped into this accrued capital of popular sentiments to mobilise villagers to create shelters in villages to host stray cattle on the government land. At Raal, a large tract of government land was transferred to the Tirtha board which also persuaded some businessmen to come forward and build facilities for cows. As of now, nearly 400-odd cows are sheltered in Raal where gram pradhan Ishwar Dayal along with a devout cow-worshiper, Ashok, are working round the clock to provide fodder and shelter to the cattle. Rajesh Agarwal, a prominent Delhi-based businessman, has chipped in to build the most modern cow shelters that will strive to make the unit economically viable too. "But more than economics, we are trying to create a perfect synergy among three agencies the government, people's sentiment and private entrepreneurs," says Mishra. A few kilometres from Raal is the famed village of Barsana where a seer named Ramesh Baba runs a gaushala (cowshed) that shelters nearly 45,000 cows. The manner in which this shelter runs is nothing short of a miracle. Baba does not have even a bank account and relies on people's munificence to feed cattle. There are umpteen stories about how people come to support his cause whenever the seer falls short of resources. As the election campaign picked up in western Uttar Pradesh, the narrative of the "cattle menace" to farmers and the resultant social resentment was created to highlight the deleterious effects of pursuing a militant Hindutva agenda. No doubt the running of illegal abattoirs all around the state and cattle smuggling formed a huge economy running into thousands of crores and involved a large number of people. The fact is that the crackdown on cattle smuggling and cow slaughter have undoubtedly upended the underworld economy. The difference between Adityanath and his predecessors is too obvious to be ignored. Given his spiritual training as a monk, his religious dogma of protecting cows is aligned with his constitutional responsibility as the chief minister. Since cow slaughter in Uttar Pradesh is banned by law, he is giving no space to enforcement agencies to be lenient on this count. His predecessors however took a pragmatic approach of allowing cattle smuggling to flourish and ignoring the growing underworld economy which employed thousands over the years. Adityanath seems too obstinate to adhere to the rule of law as for him, the cow is an article of faith. As chief minister, he is determined to invoke the strength of society and its deep religiosity to evolve a model of cow protection aligned with Hindu traditions and respectful of society's spiritual yearning. To a modernist, he appears to be a quaint and anachronistic personality. Yogi has been devising a way out of this dilemma by evolving Mathura as a role model of development in the entire state. That he chose an equally headstrong Shailja Kant Mishra to lead this project speaks plenty about his conviction of moving ahead on this path. Lok Sabha Election 2019; Model Code of Conduct Watch: The Election Commission (EC) has issued a notice to BJP's Chandigarh candidate Kirron Kher, seeking a reply after she shared a video on Twitter in which children were seen campaigning for her. Auto refresh feeds However, Sharma deleted the post later, but said that he did not understand why was the poll body was so "allergic" to a person cheering the heroic act of its soldiers and rejoicing over an act of national honour. "The Election Commission is biased against nationalist leaders like me," he said. The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday issued a show-cause notice to Delhi BJP MLA Om Prakash Sharma for putting up two posters featuring him, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and IAF Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman on Facebook. The Commission asked him to take down the post and give a reply by Thursday. Bahujan Samaj Party's (BSP) Pratapgarh Lok Sabha constituency in-charge Ashok Tripathi was among 68 booked for poll code violation on Wednesday. A case was registered against Tripathi, divisional president Ajay Pasi, Kamlesh Verma and 65 unnamed people at Lalganj Kotwali on Wednesday evening, police said. On Saturday, sector magistrate Pradip Kumar reached Verma Nagar crossing where an election meeting was going on without permission. The organisers failed to produce any document to establish they had permission for the meeting, the police said According to UT administration, a complaint was received on the C-vigil app on Wednesday, following which the Assistant Returning Officer (ARO) took cognizance and thereafter issued notices for convening the election meetings at government properties Community Center in Sector 29, Ram Darbar in community centre at Sector 37, Chandigarh. Show cause notices were issued to BJP's Chandigarh chief Sanjay Tandon , four BJP councillors, two nominated councillors and three officials of the Municipal Corporation Chandigarh on Wednesday for violating the model code of conduct. The notice asked the officials to reply within 24 hours as to why disciplinary action may not be taken against them. The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday asked the Election Commission to take action against Congress President Rahul Gandhi for allegedly violating the Model Code of Conduct by making unverified allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ANI reported . Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, We have requested the EC to take action against Rahul Gandhi for levelling unverified allegations against Narendra Modi on Wednesday in Ahmedabad, when the Model Code of Conduct is already in effect." Congress registered it's first complaint MCC violation complaint with the Election Commission on Thursday. In Maharashtra, the party gave a written complaint to the chief electoral officer against government advertisements still displayed outside state transport buses, bus stops and petrol pumps. Congress general secretary and spokesperson Sachin Sawant said that despite the MCC coming into force, ST buses, bus stops and petrol pumps among other public places were displaying government advertisements. He said that the commission should ask the government about it and register a case of violation, and wrote a letter to the Maharashtra chief electoral officer (CEO) Ashwani Kumar for the same. In a letter, the Goa NSUI president has said, The NSUI, Goa writes to you demanding: ban of the movie in theatres in states during the 'election silence' period that is two days prior to the day of voting and ban of the movie in the Lok Sabha Constituency where the prime minister would be contesting. The NSUI demands a ban on the movie 48 hours prior to voting which is known as election silence where a party is not allowed to promote or campaign. The National Students' Union of India Goa, the Congress party's student wing, on Friday urged the Election Commission to ban the release of the Narendra Modi biopic, alleging that the movie was propaganda by the BJP to influence voters during the Lok Sabha elections. Das's photographs allegedly appear on posters of schemes like the mid-day meal. The party also told the newspaper that tablets distributed to teachers under the Gyansetu initiative have Das's photograph on display and alleged that this too was a violation of the model code of conduct. The Aam Aadmi Party's East Singhbhum wing) has written to the deputy commissioner of the Election Commission, alleging that posters of Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das were seen inside school campuses in the district, reported Times of India . The notice also stated that comments on other political parties had been visible on boards put up along the sides of the e-rickshaw. The notice issued to her states she had displayed her name in a poster on an e-rickshaw on which she travelled across city, on 14 March, reported ANI. An assistant returning officer of Vidhan Sabha constituency 25, Jagdish Lal, has issued a notice for violation of the Model Code of Conduct on the mayor of Haridwar Municipal Corporation, Anita Sharma, reported Daily Pioneer. It is the duty of the EC to conduct a fair election and protect democracy. The threatening by Delhi Police is still continuing even after MCC has come into force. The Delhi Police is acting like BJPs goons. We have asked that it should be stopped, he added. They (call centre) are not doing something proxy. AAP has hired them. AAP has an agreement with them, Sisodia clarified. An AAP delegation lead by Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia met EC officials urging them to suspend three Delhi Police officials whom he accused of working on behalf of BJP As per BJPs directions, names of 24 lakh voters were stuck off voter list. We launched a campaign to get their name re-registered in the voter list. Delhi Police acting on behest of BJP has been raiding the call centre with whose help we did this campaign, Sisodia said. Delhi police is threatening the owner of the call centre that if you work for AAP, we will make you fall in line, Sisodia claimed. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday complained about the alleged harassment of the owner of a call centre by the Delhi Police on the "behest of BJP." The call centre was alleged to be hired by AAP to "help people whose names were allegedly stuck off the voters' list," ANI reported. On 17 March, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera had told ANI: "Whenever farmers of this country and unemployed youths ask tough questions to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he hides behind terrorists and Pakistans intelligence agency ISI." On 16 March, Khera had said that 'Modi' stood for 'Masood, Osama, Dawood and ISI' during a television debate, a comment which the Congress leader is facing flak for. BJP has appealed to the Election Commission to take appropriate action under penal laws and election laws, for allegedly violating the MCC. Calling it a blatant violation of the MCC, the BJP in its letter said: "Such speech amounts to a violation of the MCC. The MCC Manual 2019 under Chapter 4 Clause 4.4 prescribes no criticism of other parties or their workers on the basis of unverified allegations or on distortions." The BJP in its letter to the Chief Electoral officer has asserted that 'comparing Prime Minister Narendra Modi with dreaded terrorists is not only unparliamentary but defamatory and deplorable.' The BJP in its complaint has claimed that Khera, during a news channel's event, had stated that 'Modi stands for Masood Azhar, Osama, Dawood and ISI.' Since the Model Code of Conduct came into effect on 10 March, the Delhi Police has also seized 82 unlicensed weapons, 2,113 live cartridges, 16,495 litres of illicit liquor and 94.337 kilograms of drugs. Also, four FIRs have been registered against political parties , including two against AAP and one against the BJP, for violating the Model Code of Conduct. Chief Electoral Office of Delhi Ranbir Singh said 90,937 posters, hoardings and banners had been removed from across the city on Monday. He added that 235 FIRs had been registered under the Excise Act and 242 people had been arrested for violating the Act. "In order to secure votes, Chief Minister Rao has used illegal means and made statements against the Hindus of this country. He tried his level best to flare up religious tension and instigate the people of other religions against Hindus," claimed the VHP in its memorandum. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad has approached Telangana Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar for action against Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao for allegedly violating the Model Code of Conduct by "defaming" Hindus during a public meeting. The group has handed over a memorandum to Kumar, in which it has claimed that KCR had made many derogatory and defamatory statements against Hindus and tried to flare up "religious tension". Opposition parties in Tamil Nadu on Monday accused Palladam AIADMK MLA A Natarajan of violating the Model Code of Conduct by inspecting a number of developmental projects in his constituency. They raised the issue at the all-party meeting organised by the district administration at the collectorate in Tirupur. CPM Tirupur district executive member N Gopalakrishnan also presented photos as evidence at the meeting. The District Revenue Office said it has yet to recieve a complaint. The Ranchi district administration on Monday filed a poll code violation case against Union minister Jayant Sinha, who is an MP from Hazaribag. The case was filed on a complaint by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha that wrote to Jharkhand Chief Electoral Officer L Khiangte, claiming that Sinha has used the convocation ceremony at IIM-Ranchi to publicise the BJP government's achievements, in gross violation of the Model Code of Conduct. In order to put a check on the poll irregularities and other malfunctions ahead and during the Lok Sabha elections, a 24x7 control room was opened at the office of the Chief Electoral Officer in Bhubaneswar on Friday. The control room would monitor activities like poll irregularities, model code of conduct (MCC) violation, and other violations such as the distribution of illegal inducements, black money and hate speech. The CEO office has issued a number 0674-2395015 for this purpose. Based on these complaints, the control room will direct the concerned authorities which will then spring into action to check the violation, reports said. However, state BJP president Jitu Vaghani dismissed the complaint and said that there was no violation of the code of conduct. "The chief minister has certain rights. Election campaigns are not allowed (from government buildings), but it is his residence. Chief Minister's security... everything has to be considered. We are meeting and having discussions at the CM residence. Campaign or speeches are not being done," he said, according to a DNA report . "The CM's official residence is a government building. Political activities are not allowed there when the model code of conduct is in force. BJP's meetings of 17 and 18 March for selection of candidates (for Lok Sabha elections) at the chief minister's residence are a violation of the code of conduct," Balubhai Patel, chairman of Gujarat Congress' election coordination committee, said in a complaint to the state's Chief Electoral Officer S Murali Krishna. Following the complaint, the CEO office directed the Gandhinagar collector to look into the matter and to submit a report. The Gujarat Congress on Monday complained to the election authorities that BJP had violated the model code of conduct by holding meetings of its parliamentary panels at the Chief Minister Vijay Rupani's official residence. The highest number of 85 complaints were received from Pune, followed by Thane (61), Solapur (44), Mumbai suburban (40), Mumbai city (39) and Nagpur (26). Most of the complaints pertained to banners being put up without permission, the official said. The Maharashtra Chief Electoral Office has received as many as 400 complaints of MCC violations through its cVIGIL app, an official said Wednesday. "The local team gets an alert once the complaint is lodged, and our people reach the spot and verify the details. If the complaint is valid, we record the details and initiate an inquiry," the official added. "The very title of the book and its display on the election poster is an open declaration by the candidate that he is Hindu. This is a subtle attempt aimed at exploiting Hindu religious sentiments. This is a gross violation of election rules and the Model Code of Conduct. Significantly, the poster was published and publicised after the election notification," the BJP's complaint read. The Kerala BJP on Tuesday complained to the Chief Electoral Officer in Thiruvananthapuram, claiming that the posters put up by the Congress related to MP Shashi Tharoor's book Why Am I A Hindu violated the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The saffron party claimed APP had burned the manifestos to attack the BJP on the issue of full statehood to Delhi. "AAP leaders violated the MCC by either not seeking permission for such events from the Election Commission, or they sought permission for election meetings from the EC and misused this permission to violate the MCC by burning BJP's manifesto," read the letter written by SN Verma, co-convener of Delhi BJP's legal department. The Delhi BJP on Tuesday filed a complaint with the Chief Electoral Office in the city, seeking action against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for allegedly "indulging in violent acts" and violating the MCC. The BJP claimed AAP leaders, including Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, had burned copies of its 2014 manifesto on 13 March. The BJP leader claimed he had not made the music video, and that media houses had covered it while he was recording of the song, WION reported. West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer Sanjay Basu said, ''We are keeping a close watch on media and through the surveillance, we came to know of the election campaign song of Babul Supriyo... This is a violation of the Model Code of Conduct. We have issued a showcause notice to Babul Supriyo. He has to reply to the notice within 48 hours." The Election Commission on Tuesday issued a showcause notice to BJP leader and Union minister Babul Supriyo for violating the MCC. The notice is related to a campaign song, which Supriyo allegedly promoted on electronic media and social media sites without a media certification from the EC. The Trinamool Congress had also registered a complaint against the song with the EC He said that they did so "by publicising materials in a bid to appeal to religious sentiments of voters." Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday wrote to the chief electoral officer (CEO) or Kerala in order to "file a complaint in relation to the malicious attempt by BJP and the Sabarimala Karma Samithi to vitiate free and fair polls in Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency." Earlier in March, a BJP delegation comprising Ravi Shankar Prasad, JP Nadda and others had urged the EC to declare Bengal as a super sensitive zone while expressing apprehensions that the ruling TMC government might not allow free and fair elections to be held in West Bengal. A Trinamool Congress (TMC) delegation comprising Derek O'Brien, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, and Chandan Mitra approached the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday to lodge a complaint against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regarding an alleged violation of the Model Code of Conduct. The TMC claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modis photo was being published on railway tickets as part of a government scheme, which, the party said, was in violation of the MCC. It urged the poll body to ensure that the pictures were taken off rail tickets. The Cubbon Park police have booked Praveen, Abhilash and Raj under various sections of the Representation of People's Act and also under the Karnataka Police Act. In a complaint to the police on 19 March, a flying squad official for the 163 Vidhana Sabha constituency, stated that actor-turned-politician Prakash Raj had used a mike and campaigned for elections at a public rally held at the Mahatma Gandhi Circle near MG Road on 12 March. The rally was organised by one Praveen K and Abhilash CS under the banner Media and Freedom of Expression and it was a non-political programme. Several writers, artists and activists attended the programme where Prakash Raj used the mike and began to canvass seeking votes, Murthy stated in his complaint. A whatsapp video footage as evidence of Raj speaking on the mike was handed over to police. However, by the time the flying squad reached the spot, the programme was over and people had dispersed. Permission was taken to conduct a non-political programme but Raj used it as a platform canvassing for the election. This amounts to violation of the model code of conduct, Murthy said in his complaint. Twenty-nine FIRs have been registered against various political parties in Delhi so far, including three each against the AAP and the BJP, for violating the model code of conduct, Delhi's chief electoral officer said on Wednesday. Special CEO Satnam Singh said that the poll body has also removed more than 1.8 lakh hoardings, banners and posters since the enforcement of model code of conduct. Of the three FIRs registered against the AAP, one is related to using auto rickshaw for election campaign, Singh said. In most of the 29 cases, FIRs were registered against political parties for defacing public property, he said. Singh said 91 FIRs have been registered and 112 people arrested under the Arms Act since March 12 while police have seized 99 unlicensed weapons from them. As many as 296 FIRs have been registered and 302 violators arrested under the Excise Act, PTI reported. 21 March, Thursday | Three FIRs each against AAP, BJP so far for violating MCC in Delhi; 29 against all political parties Mallikarjun Utture, the Expenditure Observer appointed by the Central Election Commission for the Udupi-Chikkamagaluru parliamentary seat , said on Wednesday that government officers should immediately suo motu register a case if there was any violation of the Model Code of Conduct. Utture said that the officers should act in such cases without waiting for the public to lodge a complaint. The officers should maintain a tight vigil to see that there was no violation of the Model Code of Conduct during campaigning by political parties. The different teams and squads appointed for election purposes should ensure that there was no effort being made to induce or influence the voters. The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday said that Congress president Rahul Gandhis interaction with students of a womens college in Chennai did not violate the model code of conduct (MCC), though it has sought a report on his speech. Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Satyabrata Sahoo said local election officials have reported that there was no violation in terms of permission obtained by Stella Maris College for Women to host the interaction on 13 March. He said the District Electoral Officer (DEO) had informed him that there was permission for Rahul's event. So, there is no violation of the MCC. However, Sahoo sought further information on Rahul's speech. Have sought further information on what kind of speech was given... have asked the DEO to give a report based on the speech content, he said. Speaking to reporters after a Congress delegation met the Election Commission on Monday, Kapil Sibal said, "We represented to the EC that there is a film being made on Narendra Modi, to be released just a few days before election. It's purpose is political. Three producers and actor belong to BJP; the director is involved in 'Vibrant Gujarat' (investors' summit). This is violative of all norms." Earlier Banerjee had filed a complaint against Supriyo on 20 March for the circulation of false, unverified and distorted news criticising his family members. On 24 March, Supriyo made another defamatory statement in public, Banerjee cited in the letter. In a letter to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Banerjee said that Supriyo has maligned his image by levelling false and unverified allegations against him. Banerjee alleged that Supriyo on 24 March made a public statement against him which was "vindictive, libelous, and defamatory." The Election Commission of India (ECI) has written to the Ministry of Railways and Ministry of Civil Aviation , asking them why the pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi were not removed from rail tickets and Air India boarding passes even after the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) came into effect. They've been asked to submit a reply within three days to the commission. The Odisha Congress on Monday filed a complaint with Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of the state against BJP's Lok Sabha candidate from Puri Sambit Patra alleging violation of Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The Odisha Pradesh Congress in its complaint said that Patra violated MCC by holding the idol of Lord Jagannath in his hand during an election rally. The Election Commission (EC) on Wednesday sent a notice to four producers of the upcoming film ' PM Narendra Modi '. Congress and the CPM had complained to the commission about the film's release, saying it's being done with political intent. EC had earlier sent notices to two newspapers on 20 March over publishing 'PM Narendra Modi' film's poster for promotions Bollywood actor Vivek Oberoi and producer of film 'PM Narendra Modi', Sandeep Singh arrived at the Election Commission in Delhi on Thursday after complaints were filed over the release of the movie and ban of its trailer in light of the Model Code of Code (MCC) being in force ahead of the Lok Sabha election. The EC committee headed by Deputy Election Commissioner in charge of the MCC division Sandeep Saxena came to the conclusion that Modi's speech did not violate the guidelines because "he did not mention the BJP, nor did he appeal for votes" in the duration of his address. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech on 'Mission Shakti' did not violate the Model Code of Conduct, the Election Commission announced on Friday, even as the Opposition had accused the prime minister of violations and "publicity mongering". Cups sporting Main Bhi Chowkidar ads, the prime minister's pet campaign unveiled just before elections, were spotted at a Shatapdi train today. Tea was served in these paper cups but these were later withdrawn after some passengers brought this to the notice of railway officials and pictures of it became viral on social media. Ministry of Railways reacted to the controversy over tea being served in Shatabdi train in 'Main bhi Chowkidar' cups. The railway officials said that the incident happened today but the cups were immediately withdrawn. The ministry said that these are not procured from any political party and penal action will be taken against the contractor, and the railways supervisor. The office of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has shot off a letter to head of departments, saying the projects that actually started on the ground after obtaining all necessary permission, before the poll code came into force, can be continued. The Delhi poll body has received several complaints about the AAP government departments and BJP-ruled MCDs starting work on projects before the model code of conduct came into force, but seeking formal approvals later. He said as per the FIR, based on the complaint of Mansur Chak Block Development Officer-cum-flying squad magistrate Shatrughan Rajak, Kanhaiya had addressed a public meeting in a village on Thursday without obtaining prior permission for the same from the authorities. PTI The case was lodged at Mansur Chak police station of the district under relevant sections of the Representation of People Act, SHO Arvind Kumar said. Former JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who is contesting the Lok Sabha polls in Bihar's Begusarai as a CPI candidate, was booked for violation of Model Code of Conduct. "Jokes apart, Sanjaykaka Patil has done a good job here in Miraj by getting funds for development of roads, highways, railways and other infrastructure," he added. - PTI When someone from the crowd asked what would he give them if they got Patil re-elected, he said, "You will get five lakh rupees or even more." Addressing a joint gathering of the BJP, Shiv Sena and RPI (A) workers Wednesday, Deshmukh purportedly said it was not going to be easy to retain the Sangli Lok Sabha seat, where the BJP has fielded sitting MP Sanjaykaka Patil. "After ascertaining the facts, a complaint was registered at Miraj and Bhilwadi police stations," the CEO's office said in a release. The Election Commission had received a complaint about the comments made by Deshmukh in Miraj on 27 March, it said. A case has been registered against Prithviraj Deshmukh, Sangli district unit chief of the BJP, for allegedly violating the Model Code of Conduct, the office of Maharashtra's Chief Electoral Officer said Saturday. According to Babu, the chief minister has moved a civil suit in the high court in connection with the issue and has obtained an injunction against certain people from making such statements.- PTI He alleged that Stalin and the DMK with an intention to cause disrepute, to defame, and damage the name and reputation of Chief Minister K Palaniswami has been circulating video clips, making allegations linking the chief minister to the Kodanad Estate murder and robbery case. RM Babu Murugavel submitted that the code of conduct prohibits levelling false statements by any candidate or his agent or any other person in public domain. A spokesperson of the ruling AIADMK has approached the Madras High Court seeking a direction to the State Chief Electoral Officer for taking action on a complaint against DMK chief M K Stalin for alleged violation of the Model Code of Conduct. This comes after the BJP leader (Choubey) was caught on camera while having a verbal altercation with Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) KK Upadhyay after the official had stopped his convoy for allegedly violating MCC. Giving clarifications over the incident, Choubey said, "I abide by the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), as I'm not the kind of guy who goes against the rules. But, I would like to mention that these people are stopping me from doing 'Chowkidari'. I will keep on raising my voice against them." Following a verbal altercation between Union Minister Ashwini Choubey and a government official over alleged violation of Model Code of Conduct, an FIR has been lodged against 150 people including Choubey. The FIR also names BJP leader Rana Pratap Singh and various other leaders. The said 150 accused have been booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) including 'assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty'. Singh courted controversy last week when he told reporters in Aligarh on 23 March that everyone wants Modi to win and that its necessary for the country. Hum sabhi log BJP ke karyakarta hai aur iss naatey se hum zaroor chahengey ke BJP vijai ho. Sab chahengey ek baar phir sey kendra mein Modiji pradhanmantri banein. Modiji ka pradhanmantri banna ye desh ke liye avashyak hai, samaaj ke liye avashyak hai (We are all BJP workers, so we will want the BJP to win. Everyone will want Modi to become PM again. Modi becoming PM is necessary for the nation and society), he had said. The Election Commission has found Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singhs remark that Narendra Modi should be re-elected as the Prime Minister violative of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) and the commission will write to President Ram Nath Kovind to bring it to his notice, The Indian Express reported. "Congress ke log aatankwadiyon ko biryani khilate they aur Modi ji ki sena aatankwadiyon ko goli aur gola deti hai (Congress would feed biryani to terrorists, while Modi's army gives them bullets and bombs). This is the difference. The Congress people use 'ji' to refer to Masood Azhar to encourage terrorism," Adityanath had said at an election rally in Ghaziabad on Sunday. The Election Commission on Monday took cognizance of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yodi Adityanath referring to the Indian Army as 'Modi ji ki sena'. The district magistrate of Ghaziabad has been asked to furnish a report in this regard, a functionary said. The report will be submitted to the office of chief electoral officer of Uttar Pradesh which has sought the details after taking cognizance of media reports in this regard. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) filed a Model Code of Conduct (MCC) violation complaint against BJP accusing it of advertising on commercial taxis in the run-up to the general elections. AAP has alleged that some public service vehicles are being used for political advertisement by BJP and were spotted plying in Delhi. It also mentioned that such advertisement was in violation of the Delhi Transport Policy. Delhi Transport policy also forbids political advertisement through any vehicle which is being used for transporting passengers, the letter reads. In its letter, AAP has also given the number and image of a car which it claims was spotted on 2 April, carrying an advertisement of the BJP in Delhi. Meanwhile, the producers of PM Narendra Modi, which is slated for release on Friday, have already replied to the poll panel's notice to them on the Oppositions' complaint against the film. Earlier, Opposition parties had alleged "political intent" in the release of the Vivek Oberoi-starrer and had complained to the poll watchdog, claiming that 'PM Narendra Modi' would serve as an advertisement for the BJP. Till Tuesday, the Election Commission had been awaiting the BJP's reply to a plea by Opposition parties seeking to prevent its screening amid the ongoing poll process. Since the complaint to the commission had mentioned BJP in it, its copy was sent to the party for its reply. The Election Commission has given its approval for the release of the biopic on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, reports said . News18 reported sources as saying that the Election Commission has asked the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to decide on whether to allow the release of 'PM Narendra Modi'. CEO Krishna said he has directed collectors of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar to inquire into the matter. "I have received that complaint. I have directed collectors of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar districts to conduct an inquiry into the matter," he said. On Saturday, Shah had addressed a gathering near Sardar Patel's statue in Naranpura area of Ahmedabad before participating in a 4 km-long road show from Naranpura to Ghatlodia. He then left for Gandhinagar to file his nomination papers. In its complaint, the Congress alleged that despite knowing that three big hospitals with emergency and trauma care are situated close to the Sardar Patel statue, loudspeakers were used during Shah's rally at the venue. Such use of the loud speakers near the hospitals is a clear violation of the model code of conduct, the party said. The Gujarat Congress on Tuesday lodged a complaint of model code violation against BJP chief and party's Gandhinagar nominee Amit Shah's rally cum roadshow on 30 March alleging that loudspeakers were used near hospitals. In its complaint sent to Gujarat Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) S Murali Krishna through fax, the Opposition party demanded necessary action against Shah for "violating" the poll code. The Election Commission had sought a response from the ministry on the 24-hour TV channel 'NaMo TV' based on a complaint filed by the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). In its reply, the information and broadcasting ministry told the polling watchdog that NaMo TV is not a licensed channel but a direct-to-home (DTH) advertisement platform, reported India Today. Hema, who is re-contesting elections from Mathura, held a public rally in the premises of a government school in Chaumuha on Tuesday. Mathura DM SR Mishra told ANI that permission was granted to BJP MP Hema Malini to hold a public meeting but not at a govt school premises. He said that if a violation of model code of conduct is found, a FIR will be registered against the concerned persons and appropriate action will be taken. 4 April, Thursday | Hema Malini did not have permission to conduct public meeting at govt school, action will be taken: Mathura DM The Congress had questioned the decision to run the address in full. EC had asked DD News for complete information on coverage of various political parties and prominent leaders to assess whether there was any truth in Congress allegations of preferential treatment to the ruling party. In response to a notice from the Election Commission of India, DD News is learnt to have defended its decision to run Prime Minister Narendra Modis 1.24-hour public address Main Bhi Chowkidar in full on 31 March on the grounds of its high news value". According to The Economic Times' report , DD News, in its response, has said that that various other private TV channels also ran the address in its entirety due to the same reason. When contacted for his reaction, Joshi said "it is for the Election Commission to decide on the matter." He alleged that the report was deliberately released at this point of time just to benefit the ruling TRS. In a complaint to the EC on 6 April, G Niranjan, Convener,Election Commission Coordination Committee of state Congress, said Chief Secretary S K Joshi and other officials released the report on 5 April, "just five days before the elections, which is against the Model Code of Conduct (MCC)." The Congress in Telangana has requested the Election Commission to take action against the Chief Secretary and government officials for allegedly violating the model code of conduct for the 11 April Lok Sabha polls by releasing a report on the governments achievements. Singh had filed his nomination earlier on Monday in the presence of former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Jabalpur. The district administration also registered a First Information Report report against eight people in this regard. Madhya Pradesh BJP chief and Jabalpur candidate Rakesh Singh has been issued a show-cause notice for allegedly violating the Model Code of Conduct. The notice was issued to Singh for allegedly taking more than five people to the returning officer's room while filing nomination. Baghel, who also holds the post of state Congress president, reached the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Subrat Sahoo along with senior party leaders and handed over the written complaint. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel Monday lodged a complaint of alleged poll code violation against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making statements about the Army and surgical strikes during his public meeting held in Balod district of the state on 6 April. 9 April | Addressing first-time voters, Narendra Modi invokes Pulwama attack, Balakot air strikes at Latur rally Prime Minister Narendra Modi violated the Model Code of Conduct on Tuesday, by appealing to first-time voters in Maharashtras Latur to vote for the BJP government for carrying out the Balakot air strikes against Pakistan reportedly as a response to Pulwama terror attack that killed over 40 CRPF soldiers in February. Addressing a rally in Latur, where he shared the stage with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, Modi urged first-time voters to exercise their franchise carefully. You will remember you first vote for all of your life. Would you dedicate your first vote to the brave soldiers who conducted the Balakot air strikes in Pakistan? Would your first vote honour the CRPF soldiers who lost their lives in the Pulwama attack? Modi said. Through a notification dated 9 March, the Election Commission (EC) had asked political parties to not use the armed forces for political advertisements or campaigns. The Armed Forces of a nation are the guardian of its frontiers, security and political system. They are apolitical and neutral stakeholders in a modern democracy. It is therefore necessary that political parties and leaders exercise great caution while making any reference to the armed forces in their political campaigns. The Commission is of the view that photographs of Chief of Army Staff or any other Defence personnel and photographs of functions of Defence Forces should not be associated with or used in any manner in advertisement/propaganda/campaigning or in any other manner in connection with elections by political parties and candidates, the EC had said in the notification. The prime minister had allegedly violated the MCC last month as well while addressing the nation after the successful completion of the A-SAT test by the DRDO. The Meerut District Magistrate is expected to file a report on the matter by 11 am on Wednesday. The BJP leader said Dalit-Muslim unity is impossible, and in Bareilly, he accused Mayawati of hurting Dalit sentiments with her call to Muslim voters at a rally in Saharanpur's Deoband. "Agar Congress, SP (Samajwadi Party), BSP ko Ali par vishwaas hai, toh humein bhi Bajrangbali par vishwaas hai (If the Congress, the SP and the BSP have faith in Ali, then we too have faith in Bajrang Bali)," the BJP leader said at an election meeting in Meerut. Attacking Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati for recently appealing to Muslims to vote for the Opposition alliance in Uttar Pradesh, Adityanath said now the Hindus have no option but to vote for the BJP. The Election Commission has taken cognisance of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath's remarks at Meerut on Tuesday, with which he seemed to suggest that Hindu and Muslim voters were in an Ali-Bajrangbali contest. The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday sent a notice to Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao for violation of Model Code of Conduct over his derogatory remark against Hindus at a public rally in Karimnagar on 17 March, PTI reported. The Commission has produced his remarks in Telugu but did not give English translation of the same. "... the Commission is, prima facie, of the opinion that by making the aforesaid statement which has the potential of disturbing the harmony and aggravating existing differences between social and religious communities, and appealing to communal feelings, you have violated the ... the Model Code of Conduct," the notice served Tuesday said. The Election Commission of India (ECI) is learned to have directed the Chief Electoral Officer of Delhi to ensure that the contents of NaMo TV are pre-certified by the local media certification and monitoring committee. The EC has also asked the CEO to inform whether the political contents were at any time cleared by the certification committee. The commission has ruled that the channel which touted as BJPs purported advertising portal carried by DTH operators, should be subjected to content certification regime, like all other political advertisements during the poll code period. The Election Commission of India on Wednesday stalled the release of PM Narendra Modi, a day before it was set to hit theatres. The election watchdog has ruled that no biopics can be released during elections as the political content in such movies "threaten level playing field". District poll authorities issued her with a show cause notice. The Election Commission in Delhi is also examining the transcript of the minister's speech, which was condemned by the Congress. In a controversial remark, Union minister Maneka Gandhi has told Muslims to vote for her as they will need her once the Lok Sabha elections are over. We are not Mahatma Gandhi's children that we keep giving and not get anything in return, she said in Sultanpur's Muslim-dominated Turabkhani area on Thursday. A case registered against her under the 171-D and 171-F of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in the Kopar Khairane police station. 58-year-old Mhatre had won the Belapur assembly seat on BJP ticket in the 2014 assembly election in Maharashtra. A case was registered against BJP MLA Manda Mhatre for allegedly violating MCC. Mhatre was accused of flouting Election Commission's norms by requesting voters to cast their ballots twice in favour of Rajan Baburao Vichare, a sitting Member of Parliament (MP) from Thane Lok Sabha constituency, while campaigning for him on 13 April. BJP also complained against Congress spokesperson Sunil Kauthankar for allegedly violating MCC "while addressing a press conference, wherein he has grossly misinterpreted the statement of BJP national president Amit Shah and has tried to spread lies." Goa BJP complained to the Election Commission (EC) against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) by propagating fear-mongering among Christian and Muslim community at a public meeting. Kejriwal was in Goa on 13 April to address a public meeting at Margao in south Goa. "Arvind Kejriwal has blatantly violated MCC by way of inciting religious sentiments in his speech," read the letter. "Arvind Kejriwal has been reported to have made utterances such as 'Mob lynching taking place in the country under the guise of cattle theft is actually organised murder," said the complaint. "He also tried to propagate fear-mongering among the Christian and Muslim community by his utterance that 'Christian and Muslim will be driven into the sea under the guise of infiltrators," it read. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath was seen visiting a temple on Tuesday morning, a day after the Election Commission citing Article 324 of the Constitution barred him from holding any public meetings, public processions, public rallies, road shows and interviews, public utterances in media (electronic, print and social media) in connection with the ongoing Lok Sabha election. He was handed a 72-hour ban for delivering a communal or hate speech during one of his rallies. Though the BJP leader did not defy the ban by participating in a poll campaign, he did violate the spirit of election by making a public visit to the temple. A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from Gujarat Ramesh Katara on Tuesday reportedly told villagers at a rally in Dahod constituency that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has installed cameras in polling booths and he will come to know who votes for whom in the Lok Sabha elections. Katara has been served a show-cause notice by the Dahod collector and district election officer VL Kharadi for his remarks and also notice by the Election Commission (EC) for violation of MCC. The Jammu and Kashmir unit of the BJP has written to the Election Commission demanding an FIR against Ghulam Nabi Azad, Vikramaditya Singh and Waqar Rasool Wani for allegedly violating the model code of conduct, ANI reported. The Election Commission has taken cognisance of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur's remarks that former Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare, who died during the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, met his untimely death due to bad karma, and ordered an enquiry into the same. Thakur on Friday had said that the former ATS met his unfortunate fate because he had "tortured" her during the investigation of the 2008 Malegaon blast case. A complaint was filed against the BJP candidate from Bhopal with the Madhya Pradesh EC hours after she made the controversial statement. The poll panel pointed out that an FIR has already been lodged against him in Bihar's Kathiar under some sections of the penal code and section 123 of the Representation of the People Act. The Punjab minister has been asked to respond within 24 hours, failing which the EC will take a decision without further reference to him. The EC said prima facie he has violated provisions of the model code of conduct, election law and a Supreme Court direction asking politicians not to mix religion with political discourse while electioneering. The Election Commission on Saturday issued a showcause notice to Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu for his remarks in which he allegedly warned the Muslim community that efforts were on to divide their votes in Bihar. Singhvi alleged the EC hesitates in taking action against one-two persons sitting on top posts. He said: "The EC listens to us. They act on our request. It is, however, unfortunate that the EC hesitates in taking action against one-two people sitting on tops posts of the country." He also expressed his disappointment over the ECIs inaction on another complaint earlier submitted by the Congress against Modi for allegedly violating the MCC by citing the services at a rally in Maharashtra on 9 April. "It is very distressing and sad that the very credibility of an independent police force of the elections is at stake. We showed the EC a video of Modis campaigning. We have demanded a ban on him for 48 to 72 hours from campaigning, and also on Shah," he said. A Congress delegation led by Abhishek Manu Singhvi met the Election Commission officials and sought action against Modi for holding a procession after casting his vote on Tuesday in Ahmedabad. They also requested the EC to act against Shah for repeatedly citing the services of armed forces in his election rallies. "The Prime Minister is violating the Model Code Conduct (MCC) shamelessly and advertently. He made political statements, held a procession after casting his votes today," Singhvi told reporters. The Congress spokesman said: "On Monday we had filed a written complaint to the EC that Modi would violate the Model Code of Conduct by holding a procession after casting his vote." Singhvi termed Modi as a "habitual, egregious and completely uncaring offender". The Congress party on Tuesday sought to impose 48 to 72 hours ban on campaigning by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah for allegedly violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The party has requested the ECI and Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Jammu and Kashmir Shailendra Kumar to take appropriate action against the three leaders under the rules and regulations governing MCC and relevant provisions of Representation of the People Act, 1951. BJP has further requested the ECI to debar Azad from campaigning for Congress in the country. The BJP, in a complaint filed on Thursday, accused Waqar Rasool Wani, who was campaigning for Congress' candidate from Udhampur-Doda parliamentary constituency Vikramaditya Singh, of violating MCC by campaigning on polling day and requesting voters of a particular religion to vote for their party. In the audio clip, a copy of which has been sent to the ECI, Wani could be heard saying that Ghulam Nabi Azad, who is currently campaigning in Kerala, called him up and directed him to appeal to the voters of the erstwhile Doda region belonging to particular community to cast their votes on communal lines, BJP claimed. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has moved the Election Commission of India (ECI) demanding FIR against Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Vikramaditya Singh and an ex-MLA of Banihal town for allegedly violating Model Code of Conduct (MCC) during the ongoing Lok Sabha polls in the state. The Election Commission has taken cognisance of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur's remarks that former Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare, who died during the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, met his untimely death due to bad karma, and ordered an enquiry into the same. Thakur on Friday had said that the former ATS met his unfortunate fate because he had "tortured" her during the investigation of the 2008 Malegaon blast case. A complaint was filed against the BJP candidate from Bhopal with the Madhya Pradesh EC hours after she made the controversial statement. The poll panel pointed out that an FIR has already been lodged against him in Bihar's Kathiar under some sections of the penal code and section 123 of the Representation of the People Act. The Punjab minister has been asked to respond within 24 hours, failing which the EC will take a decision without further reference to him. The EC said prima facie he has violated provisions of the model code of conduct, election law and a Supreme Court direction asking politicians not to mix religion with political discourse while electioneering. The Election Commission on Saturday issued a showcause notice to Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu for his remarks in which he allegedly warned the Muslim community that efforts were on to divide their votes in Bihar. While addressing a rally in Jalna on Sunday, BJP leader Pankaja Munde said: "We did surgical strike after cowardly attack on our soldiers (by Jaish-e-Mohammed in Pulwama). Some peole ask what was surgical strike and what's the evidence? I say we should've attached a bomb to Rahul Gandhi and should have sent him to another country. Then they would have understood." The Election Commission found Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu guilty of violating model code of conduct for appealing for Muslim votes. It has banned him from campaigning for 72 hours. Singhvi alleged the EC hesitates in taking action against one-two persons sitting on top posts. He said: "The EC listens to us. They act on our request. It is, however, unfortunate that the EC hesitates in taking action against one-two people sitting on tops posts of the country." He also expressed his disappointment over the ECIs inaction on another complaint earlier submitted by the Congress against Modi for allegedly violating the MCC by citing the services at a rally in Maharashtra on 9 April. "It is very distressing and sad that the very credibility of an independent police force of the elections is at stake. We showed the EC a video of Modis campaigning. We have demanded a ban on him for 48 to 72 hours from campaigning, and also on Shah," he said. A Congress delegation led by Abhishek Manu Singhvi met the Election Commission officials and sought action against Modi for holding a procession after casting his vote on Tuesday in Ahmedabad. They also requested the EC to act against Shah for repeatedly citing the services of armed forces in his election rallies. "The Prime Minister is violating the Model Code Conduct (MCC) shamelessly and advertently. He made political statements, held a procession after casting his votes today," Singhvi told reporters. The Congress spokesman said: "On Monday we had filed a written complaint to the EC that Modi would violate the Model Code of Conduct by holding a procession after casting his vote." Singhvi termed Modi as a "habitual, egregious and completely uncaring offender". The Congress party on Tuesday sought to impose 48 to 72 hours ban on campaigning by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah for allegedly violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). Taking a jibe at the poll panel, he said the Congress is saddened to say that it seems that from the second word of Election Commission, 'C' has been dropped, and it has become "Election Omission" for the Modi-Shah duo. "We have a right to approach the courts seeking action over model code violations... we can exercise that option... the mega policeman has turned a blind eye," Singhvi said, adding that silence can be construed as approval. The two leaders have "cheated" on the issue of level playing field for all parties during elections and questioned the "silence of mega policeman" Election Commission (EC), Senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi alleged at a press conference. Alleging that the Model Code of Conduct has become "Modi code of conduct", the Congress on Saturday questioned the EC's "silence" over poll code "violations" by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah, and said it may approach courts to seek action against the duo. Satti said that the alleged speech was circulated on social and print media by the Congress party workers who intended to malign and rapture of his image. In his reply to Mandi District Electoral Officer, he said, "I was not having any political vendetta or intention against any of the workers or leaders of any of the political party/opponents. I never made any false, derogatory or inciting remarks, as alleged in the notice under reply. Moreover, the wording of my speech was taken otherwise by press correspondents," he added. "Our leaders are sitting on the dais. If anyone dares to raise their finger, we would chop their hands off. We are not nincompoops. We are not a group of stupid people," Satti had said addressing a rally in Mandi on Wednesday. Himachal Pradesh BJP president Satpal Singh Satti on Saturday replied to the Election Commission's notice over his "will chop off hands of those who point fingers at BJP leaders" remark and denied making any false, inciting or derogatory remark. Kejriwal said even Pakistan wants to divide India and accused BJP of fulfilling Pakistans agenda. "The BJP is fulfilling Pakistan's agenda of dividing India," he added. "Can it be done, is it possible. At least 20-25 crore people come from these religions. So I want to ask Amit Shah what is your plan. Are you going to throw all these people, throw them in the Pacific Ocean or would they be mob lynched? What will be done with all these people," Kejriwal had asked. Quoting Shah's tweet, Kejriwal said this means the BJP's plan is to remove all religions except Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs from the country. "He has made the highly provocative speech which has the tone and tenor to aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred between different religious communities, and thus violative of provisions of MCC. That such statements that have the undertone and propensity to polarize the elections" the BJP's letter to the EC said. "Arvind Kejriwal with the sole intention of creating panic and mutual hatred between the communities made a deliberate and false statement. Kejriwal is trying to mislead the people of India by saying that BJP considers Muslims, Christians, Jains, Parsis and other minorities in India as infiltrators..," read the complaint. Shah had in his tweet had said: "We will remove every single infiltrator from the country except Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs". The BJP has written to Election Commission of India (EC) alleging that Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener Arvind Kejriwal had violated the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) with his statement related to a tweet by BJP president Amit Shah. Kher later said she has sent her reply to the EC. The EC had subsequently instructed that it should be ensured by all political parties and election officials that children are not involved in any election-related activity, as per the notice. In the notice, it was mentioned that the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights in January, 2017 had requested the EC to ensure that children are not involved in any form with election-related activities, by either election officials or political parties. "You have shared a video on your Twitter account which shows that children are being used for election campaign in your favour through slogan 'Vote for Kirron Kher' and 'Ab Ki Baar Modi Sarkar'," the notice issued on 3 May said. However, in her reply, Kher said it was done "unintentionally", acknowledging that it was "wrong". The Election Commission (EC) has issued a notice to BJP's Chandigarh candidate Kirron Kher, seeking a reply after she shared a video on Twitter in which children were seen campaigning for her. Lok Sabha Election 2019; Model Code of Conduct Watch: The Election Commission (EC) has issued a notice to BJP's Chandigarh candidate Kirron Kher, seeking a reply after she shared a video on Twitter in which children were seen campaigning for her. However, in her reply, Kher said it was done "unintentionally", acknowledging that it was "wrong". The poll panel had asked the actor-turned-politician to reply within 24 hours. "You have shared a video on your Twitter account which shows that children are being used for election campaign in your favour through slogan 'Vote for Kirron Kher' and 'Ab Ki Baar Modi Sarkar'," the notice issued on 3 May said. Alleging that the Model Code of Conduct has become "Modi code of conduct", the Congress on Saturday questioned the EC's "silence" over poll code "violations" by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah, and said it may approach courts to seek action against the duo. The two leaders have "cheated" on the issue of level playing field for all parties during elections and questioned the "silence of mega policeman" Election Commission (EC), Senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi alleged at a press conference. The Congress party on Tuesday sought to impose 48 to 72 hours ban on campaigning by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah for allegedly violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). A Congress delegation led by Abhishek Manu Singhvi met the Election Commission officials and sought action against Modi for holding a procession after casting his vote on Tuesday in Ahmedabad. They also requested the EC to act against Shah for repeatedly citing the services of armed forces in his election rallies. The Election Commission found Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu guilty of violating model code of conduct for appealing for Muslim votes. It has banned him from campaigning for 72 hours from 10 am on Tuesday. BJP leader Pankaja Munde said on Monday that a bomb should be tied around Congress president Rahul Gandhi and sent to the neighbouring country for questioning surgical strikes. While addressing a rally in Jalna on Sunday, Munde said: "We did surgical strike after cowardly attack on our soldiers (by Jaish-e-Mohammed in Pulwama). Some peole ask what was surgical strike and what's the evidence? I say we should've attached a bomb to Rahul Gandhi and should have sent him to another country. Then they would have understood." The Election Commission on Saturday issued a showcause notice to Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu for his remarks in which he allegedly warned the Muslim community that efforts were on to divide their votes in Bihar. The Election Commission has taken cognisance of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur's remarks that former Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare, who died during the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, met his untimely death due to bad karma, and ordered an enquiry into the same. Thakur on Friday had said that the former ATS met his unfortunate fate because he had "tortured" her during the investigation of the 2008 Malegaon blast case Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has moved the Election Commission of India (ECI) demanding FIR against Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Vikramaditya Singh and an ex-MLA of Banihal town for allegedly violating Model Code of Conduct (MCC) during the ongoing Lok Sabha polls in the state. The BJP, in a complaint filed on Thursday, accused Waqar Rasool Wani, who was campaigning for Congress' candidate from Udhampur-Doda parliamentary constituency Vikramaditya Singh, of violating MCC by campaigning on polling day and requesting voters of a particular religion to vote for their party. A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from Gujarat Ramesh Katara on Tuesday reportedly told villagers at a rally in Dahod constituency that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has installed cameras in polling booths and he will come to know who votes for whom in the Lok Sabha elections. Katara has been served a show-cause notice by the Dahod collector and district election officer VL Kharadi for his remarks and also notice by the Election Commission (EC) for violation of MCC. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath was seen visiting a temple on Tuesday morning, a day after the Election Commission citing Article 324 of the Constitution barred him from holding any public meetings, public processions, public rallies, road shows and interviews, public utterances in media (electronic, print and social media) in connection with the ongoing Lok Sabha election. He was handed a 72-hour ban for delivering a communal or hate speech during one of his rallies. Though the BJP leader did not defy the ban by participating in a poll campaign, he did violate the spirit of election by making a public visit to the temple. Goa BJP complained to the Election Commission (EC) against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) by propagating fear-mongering among Christian and Muslim community at a public meeting. Kejriwal was in Goa on 13 April to address a public meeting at Margao in south Goa, where, BJP alleged, the AAP leader said that "Christian and Muslim will be driven into the sea under the guise of infiltrators". The Goa Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) ordered an inquiry into an alleged hate speech given by a Christian priest against the BJP following a complaint from the party. A video of the priest from South Goa addressing some people inside a church had gone viral in which the priest, speaking in Konkani, is seen criticising the BJP, party president Amit Shah, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and late Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar. A case was registered against BJP MLA Manda Mhatre for allegedly violating MCC. Mhatre was accused of flouting Election Commission's norms by requesting voters to cast their ballots twice in favour of Rajan Baburao Vichare, a sitting Member of Parliament (MP) from Thane Lok Sabha constituency, while campaigning for him on 13 April. In a controversial remark, Union minister Maneka Gandhi has told Muslims to vote for her as they will need her once the Lok Sabha elections are over. We are not Mahatma Gandhi's children that we keep giving and not get anything in return, she said in Sultanpur's Muslim-dominated Turabkhani area on Thursday. District poll authorities issued her with a show cause notice. The Election Commission in Delhi is also examining the transcript of the minister's speech, which was condemned by the Congress. The Election Commission of India on Wednesday stalled the release of PM Narendra Modi, a day before it was set to hit theatres. The election watchdog has ruled that no biopics can be released during elections as the political content in such movies "threaten level playing field". Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh wrote to the Election Commission over the 'shockingly disgraceful' invocation of the Balakot air strikes and Pulwama terror attack during his speech in Maharashtra's Latur on 9 April. The Election Commission of India (ECI) is learned to have directed the Chief Electoral Officer of Delhi to ensure that the contents of NaMo TV are pre-certified by the local media certification and monitoring committee. The EC has also asked the CEO to inform whether the political contents were at any time cleared by the certification committee. The commission has ruled that the channel which touted as BJPs purported advertising portal carried by DTH operators, should be subjected to content certification regime, like all other political advertisements during the poll code period. The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday sent a notice to Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao for violation of Model Code of Conduct over his derogatory remark against Hindus at a public rally in Karimnagar on 17 March, ANI reported. The commission also issued show cause notices to producers of two TV serials following allegations that the shows were violating the Model Code of Conduct by promoting various government schemes. The Election Commission has taken cognizance of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath's remarks at Meerut on Tuesday, with which he seemed to suggest that Hindu and Muslim voters were in an "Ali-Bajrangbali" contest. "If the Congress, the SP and the BSP have faith in Ali, then we too have faith in Bajrang Bali," the BJP leader said at an election meeting. The Meerut District Magistrate is expected to file a report on the matter by 11 am on Wednesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi violated the Model Code of Conduct on Tuesday, by appealing to first-time voters in Maharashtras Latur to vote for the BJP government for carrying out the Balakot air strikes against Pakistan reportedly as a response to Pulwama terror attack that killed over 40 CRPF soldiers. Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel Monday lodged a complaint of alleged poll code violation against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making statements about the Army and surgical strikes during his public meeting held in Balod district of the state on 6 April. The Madhya Pradesh BJP chief and Jabalpur candidate Rakesh Singh has been issued a show cause notice for allegedly violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The notice was for allegedly taking more than five people to the returning officer's room while filing his nomination. The Tripura unit of the Congress has lodged a complaint with the Election Commission (EC), seeking the immediate arrest of Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb for allegedly spreading communal hatred in the state. A case was registered against BSP leader Omar Ali Khan and his supporters for violation of Model Code of Conduct (MCC) as they carried out a procession on the road without permission and misbehaved with the SDM. In response to a notice from the Election Commission of India, DD News is learnt to have defended its decision to run Prime Minister Narendra Modis 1.24-hour public address Main Bhi Chowkidar in full on 31 March on the grounds of its high news value". Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh chairperson and grandson of BR Ambedkar, Prakash Ambedkar, on Thursday threatened to take action against the Election Commission of India (ECI) if his party is voted to power. While addressing a public gathering at Yavatmal, Ambedkar called the Election Commission biased and slammed the organisation for directing political parties to not talk about the terror attack in Pulwama. The Congress had questioned the decision to run the address in full. EC had asked DD News for complete information on coverage of various political parties and prominent leaders to assess whether there was any truth in Congress allegations of preferential treatment to the ruling party. The District Magistrate of Mathura has said that BJP MP Hema Malini did not have permission to conduct a public meeting at a government school and appropriate action would be taken in the matter if MCC violation is found. Hema, who is re-contesting elections from Mathura, held a public rally in the premises of a government school in Chaumuha on Tuesday. In its reply to the Election Commission, the information and broadcasting ministry told the polling watchdog that NaMo TV is not a licensed channel but a direct-to-home (DTH) advertisement platform, reported India Today. The Election Commission has sought a response from the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry on the 24-hour TV channel 'NaMo TV' based on a complaint filed by the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The Madhya Pradesh Election Commission has sent a notice to Congress for using the Rafale issue in poll advertisements as the matter is sub-judice. EC has ordered Congress to take down the six advertisements using Rafale issue as a campaign plank of the party, India Today reporte The Gujarat Congress on Tuesday lodged a complaint of model code violation against BJP chief and party's Gandhinagar nominee Amit Shah's rally cum roadshow on 30 March alleging that loudspeakers were used near hospitals. In its complaint sent to Gujarat Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) S Murali Krishna through fax, the Opposition party demanded necessary action against Shah for "violating" the poll code. The Election Commission (EC) has given its approval for the release of the biopic on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, reports said. News18 reported sources as saying that the Election Commission has asked the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to decide on whether to allow the release of 'PM Narendra Modi'. Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar on Tuesday told the Election Commission that his comment son Congress' Nyay scheme were made in his personal capacity as an economist and should not be interpreted as Niti Aayogs stand on the Congress announcement. The Election Commission had pulled up Kumar for targeting Congress's minimum income guarantee scheme, NYAY during a media interview. Speaking to India Today, Kumar had said that the Congress has made the announcement only for the sake of winning the elections. "This is the worst kind of vote politics," he said. BJP MP from Mathura Hema Malini, who is re-contesting elections from the seat, may face a case of MCC violation for holding a public rally in the premises of a government school in Chaumuha on Tuesday, The Times of India reported. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) filed a Model Code of Conduct (MCC) violation complaint against BJP accusing it of advertising on commercial taxis in the run-up to the general elections. AAP alleged that some public service vehicles are being used for political advertisement by BJP and were spotted plying in Delhi. The Election Commission took cognizance of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yodi Adityanath referring to the Indian Army as 'Modi ji ki sena'. The district magistrate of Ghaziabad has been asked to furnish a report in this regard, a functionary said. The report will be submitted to the office of the chief electoral officer of Uttar Pradesh which has sought the details after taking cognizance of media reports in this regard. A case was registered against Samajwadi Party's Badaun candidate Dharmendra Yadav and three others for allegedly violating the model code of conduct. Yadav had apparently used a convoy of cars for campaigning. A video of the incident had also gone viral on social media. A case was registered and the matter is being investigated further. The Election Commission found Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singhs remark that Narendra Modi should be re-elected as the Prime Minister violative of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The commission will write to President Ram Nath Kovind to bring it to his notice, The Indian Express reported. Singh had courted controversy last week when he told reporters in Aligarh that everyone wants Modi to win and that its necessary for the country that he is re-elected. Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut was also served a notice by the Election Commission on Monday for his editorial in Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamana in which he made reference to tampering of EVMs in Begusarai. Raut has been asked to give a clarification by 3 April to the notice issued by Mumbai District Election Officer Shivaji Jondhale. Meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) wrote to the Election Commission on Monday complaining against the recently-launched "NaMo TV", asking the poll panel if political parties having TV channels was in adherence to the Model Code of Conduct. The Arvind Kejriwal-led party asked the EC if the BJP had sought approval for the launch of the channel, which has Prime Minister Narendra Modi's photograph on its logo and runs all his speeches. Following a verbal altercation between Union Minister Ashwini Choubey and a government official over alleged violation of Model Code of Conduct, an FIR has been lodged against 150 people including Choubey. The FIR also names BJP leader Rana Pratap Singh and various other leaders. The said 150 accused have been booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) including 'assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty'. A video had surfaced on Sunday purportedly showing Choubey, on the front seat of a vehicle, furiously reacting to the official who attempted to apprise the Union minister about Election Commission's order. Former JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who is contesting the Lok Sabha polls in Bihar's Begusarai as a CPI candidate, was booked for violation of Model Code of Conduct. Ministry of Railways reacted to the controversy over tea being served in Shatabdi train in 'Main bhi Chowkidar' cups. The railway officials said that the incident happened today but the cups were immediately withdrawn. The ministry said that these are not procured from any political party and penal action will be taken against the contractor, and the railways supervisor. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech on 'Mission Shakti' did not violate the Model Code of Conduct, the Election Commission announced on Friday, even as the Opposition had accused the prime minister of violations and "publicity mongering". Bollywood actor Vivek Oberoi and producer of film 'PM Narendra Modi', Sandeep Singh arrived at the Election Commission in Delhi on Thursday after complaints were filed over the release of the movie and ban of its trailer in light of the Model Code of Code (MCC) being in force ahead of the Lok Sabha election. The Election Commission (EC) on Wednesday sent a notice to four producers of the upcoming film 'PM Narendra Modi'. Congress and the CPM had complained to the commission about the film's release, saying it's being done with political intent. EC had earlier sent notices to two newspapers on 20 March over publishing 'PM Narendra Modi' film's poster for promotions. The Odisha Congress on Monday filed a complaint with Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of the state against BJP's Lok Sabha candidate from Puri Sambit Patra alleging a violation of Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The Odisha Pradesh Congress in its complaint said that Patra violated MCC by holding the idol of Lord Jagannath in his hand during an election rally. The Election Commission of India (ECI) has written to the Ministry of Railways and Ministry of Civil Aviation, asking them why the pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi were not removed from rail tickets and Air India boarding passes even after the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) came into effect. They've been asked to submit a reply within three days to the commission. After a Congress delegation met the Election Commission on Monday, Kapil Sibal told reporters, "We represented to the Election Commission that there is a film being made on Narendra Modi, to be released just a few days before election. It's purpose is political. Three producers and actor belong to BJP; the director is involved in 'Vibrant Gujarat' (investors' summit). This is violative of all norms." Karnataka Congress has asked the Election Commission to allow political parties to pre-view the biopic on Narendra Modi. The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday said that Congress president Rahul Gandhis interaction with students of a womens college in Chennai did not violate the model code of conduct (MCC), though it has sought a report on his speech. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab, led by Leader of Opposition Harpal Singh Cheema, filed a complaint with the Chief Electoral Officer against cabinet minister Vijay Inder Singla for allegedly influencing voters of Sangrur by misusing his official position. Cheema alleged Singla had violated the model code of conduct by trying to induce voters by sanctioning funds worth crores for the repair of government schools. Actor-turned-politician Prakash Raj was booked by the Cubbon Park Police for violating the Model Code of Conduct as he was accused of using a mike and campaigning for elections at a public rally held at the Mahatma Gandhi Circle in Bangalore on 12 March. A Trinamool Congress (TMC) delegation comprising Derek O'Brien, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, and Chandan Mitra approached the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday to lodge a complaint against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modis photo was being published on railway tickets as part of a government scheme, which, the party said, was in violation of the MCC. Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday wrote to the chief electoral officer (CEO) or Kerala in order to "file a complaint in relation to the malicious attempt by BJP and the Sabarimala Karma Samithi to vitiate free and fair polls in Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency." He said that they did so "by publicising materials in a bid to appeal to religious sentiments of voters." The Delhi BJP on Tuesday filed a complaint with the Chief Electoral Office in the city, seeking action against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for allegedly "indulging in violent acts" and violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The BJP claimed AAP leaders, including Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, had burned copies of its 2014 manifesto on 13 March. Meanwhile, the Election Commission of India issued a showcause notice to BJP leader and Union minister Babul Supriyo for violating the MCC. The notice is related to a campaign song, which Supriyo allegedly promoted on electronic media and social media sites without a media certification from the EC. The Trinamool Congress had also registered a complaint against the song with the EC. In Kerala, the BJP complained to the Chief Electoral Officer in Thiruvananthapuram, claiming that the posters put up by the Congress related to MP Shashi Tharoor's book Why Am I A Hindu violated the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). Tharoor, however, claimed they were not election posters. Gujarat Chief Electoral Officer S Murali Krishna has ordered an inquiry after the Congress, on Monday, filed a complaint alleging that the BJP had violated the MCC by holding a meeting of the party's state parliamentary board at Chief Minister Vijay Rupani's official residence. The Congress pointed out that the chief minister's official residence in Gandhinagar is a government property, and no political activity is permitted from a government premises when the poll code is in force. meanwhile, the Deputy Commissioner of Baramulla (Jammu and Kashmir) on Monday rescinded transfers ordered by the districts assistant commissioner in violation of the model code of conduct, after the state government questioned the reshuffle affected despite standing directions. On the other hand, after last week's takedown notification to Facebook, the EC called all social media platforms including Google, Twitter, Whatsapp, ShareChat and Tiktok for a meet to discuss over their violative social media content, ad policy and response time over complaints on Tuesday. The meet comes in wake of confusion over ECs first takedown notice to Facebook regarding a Model Code of Conduct (MCC) violation on 13 March. A delegation led by Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) Election Commission Coordination Committee convenor G Niranjan complained to the CEO on MCC violation by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao for inviting Congress leader and former home minister Sabitha Indra Reddy and her sons to his camp office on 13 March for deliberations and reportedly influencing them to joins TRS. BJD accused BJP of violating the Model Code of Conduct by allegedly shifting the Railway Electrification Board unit from Bhubaneswar to Bengaluru on 13 March after the announcement of the Lok Sabha election dates. Whereas, in order to put a check on the poll irregularities and other malfunctions ahead and during the Lok Sabha elections, a 24x7 control room was opened at the office of the Chief Electoral Officer in Bhubaneswar on Friday. BJPs Delhi unit wrote to the Election Commission to appoint special observers in mosques to prevent religion from influencing electoral outcomes. The BJP has squarely blamed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for polarising the voters on religious and caste lines and has stated that it is Arvind Kejriwal who has been delivering many inflammatory and baseless statements to polarise votes, especially in Muslim dominant areas. The Ranchi district administration on Monday filed a case of Model Code of Conduct (MCC) violation against Union minister Jayant Sinha on a complaint by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. In its complaint to Jharkhand Chief Electoral Officer L Khiangte, the party claimed that Sinha had used the convocation ceremony at IIM-Ranchi to publicise the BJP government's achievements, violating the poll code. Meanwhile, the BJP on Monday filed a complaint against Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera for allegedly violating the MCC. In its complaint, the party claimed that Khera, during a news channel's event, had stated that 'Modi stands for Masood Azhar, Osama, Dawood and ISI.' The Congress registered its first Model Code of Conduct violation complaint with the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday. In Maharashtra, the party gave a written complaint to the chief electoral officer against government advertisements still being displayed outside state transport buses, bus stops and petrol pumps. Show cause notices were issued to BJP's Chandigarh chief Sanjay Tandon, four BJP councillors, two nominated councillors and three officials of the Municipal Corporation Chandigarh on Wednesday for violating the model code of conduct. The notice asked the officials to reply within 24 hours as to why disciplinary action may not be taken against them. In Arunachal Pradesh, the Nirjuli police under the supervision of Capital Complex Superintendent of Police Tumme Amo on Tuesday night seized Rs 15.6 lakh from undisclosed people for violation of the model code of conduct. Bahujan Samaj Party's (BSP) Pratapgarh Lok Sabha constituency in-charge Ashok Tripathi was among 68 booked for poll code violation on Wednesday. The ECI on Wednesday issued a notice to BJP's Jaipur MP Ramcharan Bohra and Rajasthan Congress' General Secretary Sunil Sharma for putting up posters in different locations across Jaipur depicting various operations done by the Indian Armed forces along with their own photos. It also asked both the politicians to file a reply within three days. The Commission on Wednesday issued a show-cause notice to Delhi BJP MLA Om Prakash Sharma for putting up two posters featuring him, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and IAF Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman on Facebook. The Commission asked him to take down the post and give a reply by Thursday. The Election Commission has asked all political parties to refrain from making reference to the armed forces during their campaign. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, hoardings and banners containing the photographs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi were removed from petrol pumps in New Delhi on Tuesday following the enforcement of the Model Code of Conduct for Lok Sabha elections. ECI on 10 March, 2019 announced the dates of the seven-phase upcoming Lok Sabha election scheduled to begin on 11 April. The results will be announced on 23 May. The last polling date is 19 May. With the announcement of the schedule, the Model Code of Conduct kicked in the very same day. The ECI referred to its December 2013 letter in which it had "called upon all political parties to advise their candidates and leaders to desist from displaying photographs of defence personnel or photographs functions involving defence personnel in advertisements". More than 820 million citizens will cast their votes across India this year. The number of eligible voters has gone up by more than five times since the first General Election. Voter turnout has also increased from 46 percent in 1951-52 to 66 percent in 2014. In the last election held in 2014, there were roughly 815 million, but just 550 million exercised their right to vote. Lok Sabha Election 2019 will see over 1.5 crore first-time voters. These voters in the age group of 18-19 years constitute 1.66 percent of the total electorate. Two-thirds of Indians are under 35 years of age. Photo: CTV News A man who was arrested in Edmonton with the help of a citizen after allegedly lighting vehicles on fire now faces charges. Police say no one was injured in the Friday evening incident near Whyte Avenue, but 13 vehicles were damaged. They say officers responded to multiple calls about a man who was reported to be walking around pouring fuel on vehicles and setting them on fire. In one instance, people with fire extinguishers rushed to aid a driver after liquid was poured on the hood of a vehicle from a jerry can and ignited. A suspect was arrested after he was chased and tackled by another man inside a coffee shop. Malice Sutton, who is 22, is facing various arson charges, possession of an incendiary material and assault with a weapon. Ross Lockwood, who was skateboarding with a friend in Edmonton's Whyte Avenue bar and restaurant district, said he pulled out his camera and began recording when he overheard someone exclaim that a person had just set another car on fire. "There was a man wearing dark clothing carrying a jerry can full of gasoline. He was pouring the gasoline onto and by cars parked cars but more worrying, he poured it onto the hood of an occupied vehicle," said Lockwood, who posted his video of the incident on Reddit. "The vehicle caught on fire." In the video, the man appears to hold the jerry can towards people on the sidewalk, who kept their distance. "I think a lot of people recognized just how dangerous it is to try to intervene with someone who's got a full can of gas and a lighter, and no one took real action until it was safe to do so, and that's exactly what happened," Lockwood said. The video appears to show the man walking across the street, raising his arms and throwing the jerry can into the air as his backpack falls to the pavement. He then appears to continue walking, apparently waving at pedestrians. The video then shows a person wearing a Hawaiian shirt and jeans running after the man, following him into a Starbucks, trailed by someone carrying what appeared to be a plank. "A man in a red Hawaiian shirt brought him to the ground, and after that, several others stepped in to aid the man in the red shirt and they held him until police arrived," Lockwood said. Police said in an email that they responded to a report of a male pouring fuel onto multiple vehicles and setting them on fire on Friday night. With the help of a citizen, the email said, a male suspect was taken into custody and charges are pending. Police said 13 vehicles were damaged but no one was hurt. Social media reacted to video with accolades for the man in the Hawaiian shirt. Some posts compared him to Magnum P.I. One Batman-themed meme had a picture of a spotlight shining into the air, but instead of showing a bat symbol, it had a Hawaiian shirt. Lockwood has no idea who the man was. "I have no background for the man in the red shirt, but I just want to say thank you for the actions that you took on Friday night," said Lockwood, who has turned over his video to police. Election Commission, citing Article 324 of the Constitution, has barred both Mayawati and Yogi Adityanath from holding any public meetings, public processions, public rallies, road shows and interviews, public utterances in media (electronic, print and social media) in connection with the ongoing elections. Lucknow: BSP chief Mayawati on Monday alleged that the Election Commission of India was acting under pressure with hidden agenda, to enforce an "unconstitutional" 48-hour poll campaigning ban on her, which prevented her from appealing to voters to dethrone the BJP in Uttar Pradesh by voting for the SP-BSP alliance. The unconstitutional decision of Election Commission appears to have been taken under pressure. The hidden intention behind the decision is not to let me appeal to the people of Bahujan Samaj to vote against the BJP in elections and dethrone it, said Mayawati in a press conference in Lucknow. The poll panel had earlier on Monday imposed a bar on the BSP supremo beginning Tuesday 6 am for her alleged controversial remarks. Mayawati said, The Election Commission doesnt want me to make an appeal to the people not to vote for the BJP. Had it not been the case, then it should have barred me from campaigning not from tomorrow (Tuesday) but from a day after." She also said that in the showcase notice issued on 11 April the commission had nowhere alleged that she delivered inciting speech and had also not provided her with the recording of her speech. Nowhere in the show cause notice was it alleged that I have delivered an inciting speech. It only alleged that I was asking vote in name of one community. Neither did Election Commission provide me with the CD of my speech, said Mayawati. The Election Commission has given a one-sided decision. I have been denied the fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression. This day will be known as a black day in the history of Election Commission, said Mayawati. Responding on the almost similar such ban over Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, she said that the two cannot be compared since he is not the party chief, whereas she is. It doesnt make any difference to BJP as Adityanath is not their party president, but I am the chief of my party. Meanwhile, Election Commission has given full freedom to BJP president Amit Shah and other BJP leaders, said Mayawati. The BSP supremo also said, If we get a chance of forming the government at the Centre, then we will pay it back with interest. Taking note of their alleged objectionable statements in speeches, the Election Commission on Monday barred Adityanath and Mayawati from election campaigning for 72 hours and 48 hours respectively, for violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). Election Commission, citing Article 324 of the Constitution, has barred both Mayawati and Yogi Adityanath from holding any public meetings, public processions, public rallies, road shows and interviews, public utterances in media (electronic, print and social media) in connection with the ongoing elections. The commission observed: Mayawati in her impugned speech, has appealed to secure votes on religious lines that tantamount to violation of provisions of General Conduct of Model Code of Conduct, for the guidance of political parties and candidates. Mayawati made the alleged objectionable statements during the public rally on 7 April at Deoband, Saharanpur. SP, BSP and RLD are fighting the Lok Sabha elections in alliance in Uttar Pradesh, which witnessed first phase of polling on 11 April for its eight seats. Remaining of the 80 seats will go to polls in the rest of the six phases and counting will take place on 23 May. The MNS is not contesting the Lok Sabha elections, but Thackeray has been addressing rallies in support of Congress-NCP-led alliance candidates, Mumbai: MNS chief Raj Thackeray on Monday appealed to people to ensure "disappearance" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah from the political scene of the country for spreading "lies" and "causing" communal disharmony. Addressing a poll rally in Solapur district of Maharashtra, he called the prime minister "shameless" for seeking votes in the name of jawans without acknowledging their sacrifice. In controversial remarks, he asked the people gathered at the rally to accept money if offered to them by those who are "looting" the country. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) is not contesting the Lok Sabha elections, but Thackeray has been addressing rallies in support of Congress-NCP-led alliance candidates, who are pitted against the BJP-Shiv Sena combine. "I am here to wake all of you up against the tactics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah. The kind of lies they have spread and caused communal disharmony, you should ensure they both get disappeared from the political horizons of this country," he said. In a veiled attack on the Shiv Sena, he said, "Those who are helping Modi-Shah should also not be spared. You should not vote for those who help Modi-Shah stay in power." Thackeray, however, did not mention the Shiv Sena, his former party, or any of its leaders in his speech. After showing a video of Modi, where he purportedly claims a trader takes more risk than a jawan, Thackeray said, "The prime minister seeks votes from people in the name of jawans, but makes such remarks about their sacrifice. I have so far not seen a more 'shameless' prime minister than him." "They are trying to fool you by raising non-issues ahead of elections. If they distribute money, accept it. This is the right time to loot them...You cannot imagine the way our country is being looted by these people, but accept their money and do not look back," Thackeray said. He claimed Modi and Shah are pushing the country on path of authoritarianism like the current regime in Russia where power is concentrated in the hands of 7-8 people. Thackeray also exposed the Maharashtra government's claim of a village in Amravati district - Harisal - being the first digital village in the country. However, a video procured by MNS workers shows no digital services such as Internet connection and card swapping for financial transaction, among others, are operational in the village, he said. "What Adolf Hitler did to Germany in 1930s is going to be replicated in India if Modi and Shah return to power," Thackeray warned. Solapur will vote on 18 April. Ravi Shankar Prasad urged the EC to take serious cognizance of the Congress chiefs statements after the Supreme Courts verdict on the Rafale review petition Accusing Rahul Gandhi of hitting new lows during his Lok Sabha campaigns, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad urged the Election Commission (EC) to take serious cognisance of the Congress chiefs statements after the Supreme Courts verdict on the Rafale review petition on 10 April. A video of Rahuls statement after the verdict that came after the apex court decided that the admissibility of stolen Rafale documents as evidence will be decided on merit was played at the press conference held at BJPs headquarters in Delhi. He was seen saying that the Supreme Court has admitted that chowkidar chor hai and that the Rafale deal is scam-riddled. Rahul targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi by making false allegations and spreading lies. He twisted the courts facts, Prasad said. He further said, This statement was made after the Model Code of Conduct was in force. To not make false accusations with the intention to vilify and not use names of constitutional bodies for political campaign are conditions of the MCC. To wrongfully quote Supreme Court and modify its statements is a violation of the poll code. Prasad said that he had no comments to offer as far as the Courts judgment was concerned, but questioned why Rahul attributed his lies to the apex court. He (Rahul) is where he is thanks to legacy. When will he stop his shamelessness and stop abusing our leader (Modi)? He first questioned the EC and Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) earlier. Why does he continue to denigrate the sanctity of constitutional and statutory bodies? the Law Minister said. Rahul, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and his friends have made a joke of democracy, he said, adding that the Congress leaders are desperate in the face of imminent defeat. Democracy reveals the face of lies. But we ask him (Rahul) to apologise to the country? he asked. The Supreme Court on Monday observed that Rahuls comments were incorrectly attributed to the apex court and sought an explanation from him by 22 April. In its order, the Supreme Court said that SC its observations or views should not be used in political rallies unless it is on record. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last week had accused Rahul of committing contempt of court. The SC order seeking explanation from Rahul Gandhi over his Rafale comments involving Prime Minister Narendra Modi further degrades the trust in the Congress chief and makes it difficult for the electorate to take even legit charges seriously The Supreme Court has asked Rahul Gandhi to give an explanation over his remarks on the Rafale case. Though not formal but a notice has been sent to the Congress president seeking his explanation on or before 22 April with the matter set for hearing a day after. The apex court has been irked by the cavalier way in which Rahul seemingly distorted its views and sought to put a political spin to the courts decision to admit three sets of fresh documents in the Rafale review petition. In as much as the top courts ruling goes against the Narendra Modi governments objections to the admissibility of those documents relied upon by the review petitioners, it is a setback to the Centre. The government had objected to the citation of these documents by initially calling it "stolen", threatened to invoke Official Secrets Act against The Hindu (and other publication that had brought the contents into public domain) and subsequently, Attorney General KK Venugopal argued before the court that the papers were leaked, unauthorisedly photocopied, and that they are sensitive to National Security which relates to war capacity of combat aircraft. By admitting these documents and rejecting the governments objection, the Supreme Court gave fresh impetus to the Rafale case bang in the middle of the Lok Sabha election. However, the apex courts decision was technical and by no means a judgment on the larger Rafale case. Unfortunately, Rahul showed yet again his very limited gasp of politics. His enthusiasm to bring the development on to sharp focus during campaign season is understandable, but by seeking to make a political capital out of it, the Congress president has now invited court rebuke that will be used by the BJP to further raise questions against the credibility of the Rafale scam. Rahul's interpretation of the Supreme Court's decision that the apex court has validated his accusation against the prime minister having stolen money from the air force and given it to his friend Anil Ambani was slammed by the BJP. Union defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman had accused Rahul of "perpetrating lies", a complaint was lodged with the Election Commission and BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi took the Congress chief to court, filing a contempt petition and requesting the apex court to take criminal action against him. Lekhis petition read the words used and attributed by him (Gandhi) to the Supreme Court in the Rafale case has been made to appear something else. He is replacing his personal statement as Supreme Courts order and trying to create prejudice. The Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna orally observerd that the "remarks made by Rahul to media/public have been incorrectly attributed to this court..." and ...having clarified the matter we deem it proper to ask the respondent [Gandhi] for his explanation". The bench, in its order said that the court "had no occasion to record any such views or make observations in as much as what was decided by this court was the legal admissibility of certain document to which objections were raised". The order also said that "no views, observations or findings should be attributed to the Court in political address to the media and in public speeches, unless such views, observations or findings are recorded by the court". The court observations may not mean much in terms of criminal proceedings against the Congress president, but it doesnt need to. The damage to Rahuls reputation has been done. The Congress presidents repeated flippant and cavalier behaviour calls into question his maturity as a politician at a time when Congress is projecting him as Modis only competitor. In a presidential mode of election in which mould the 2019 Lok Sabha polls have been cast into the credibility of the candidates carries great significance. While Modi is consistently shown as a trusted figure among the electorate in various surveys, Rahul has failed to live up to his role as a challenger. What the court rebuke does is further degrade that trust factor and makes it difficult for the electorate to take Rahuls even legit charges seriously. The Congress president must ask himself whether he needs to take a pause and mull over the way he is conducting his politics. Wins and losses are inevitable in elections, but the person who aspires for the top job must show himself to be responsible in his words and actions for it. This is not the first time Rahul has failed in that role. No high-octane PR campaign may undo the damage. Abhijit Dey Hardware manufacturer Gigabyte showcased its latest lineup of gaming products under its AORUS gaming brand in Mumbai. The company displayed a long list of gaming products including the AORUS AD27QD monitor, C621 AORUS Xtreme motherboard, Z390 AORUS Xtreme Waterforce 5G Premium Edition Bundle with Intel Core i9-9900K, AORUS RTX 2080 Ti Xtreme series graphics card and AORUS RGB AIC NVMe SSD. The AORUS AD27QD gaming monitor was one of the highlights of the event, dubbed as the worlds first tactical monitor by Gigabyte. It has a 27-inch display with a resolution of 2560x1440 and is running at a maximum refresh rate of 144 Hz. The monitor has an IPS panel with a colour space of 95 percent DCI-P3 (for reference, an iMac is at 100 percent and an iPhone at about 110 percent) and a response time of 1 ms. For video input, it has two HDMI 2.0 and one DisplayPort 1.2 ports. It also has two USB ports and audio ports. Interestingly, the monitor supports Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) using a couple of microphones and an IC embedded in the monitor itself. A 'GameAssist' feature will allow gamers to enable timers right on the screen controlled by customisable hotkeys. This can be incredibly useful in MOBAs to monitor cooldown periods or in battle royale games to monitor the closing circles duration. It consists of a Dashboard as well that will display several bits of system information including temperatures, resource usage, mouse DPI, etc. The OSD Sidekick feature is probably the most useful among the set of features that allows gamers to control the on-screen displays functions using a mouse and keyboard. Say goodbye to spending a painful time trying to navigate through the monitors OSD settings using buttons. Along with all these features, crosshair overlay, black equaliser and aim stabiliser collectively will be helpful for gamers. However, the crosshair overlay might be considered cheating in some games, so use it cautiously. Gigabyte has implemented RGB lighting on the rear of the display that can be controlled using software. The AORUS AD27QD is priced at Rs 56,500. Coming to the AORUS Xtreme Waterforce 5G Premium Edition Bundle, liquid cooling enthusiasts and extreme performance fanatics are in for a treat. Falling in their flagship lineup, the motherboard has implemented better heat dissipation and a single monoblock to cool the CPU, VRM and chipset. The motherboard comes bundled with a pre-tested Intel Core i9-9900K that can hit 5.1 GHz on all cores. Apart from these two products, Gigabyte also showcased its AORUS RTX 2080 Ti Xtreme 11G graphics cards. The highlighted features include Gigabyte's unique WINDFORCE 3x 100 mm stacked RGB fan design, RGB ring-light effects on the fans and a staggering seven video output ports, out of which five can be active simultaneously. It has a base clock frequency of 1,770 MHz with 11 GB of GDDR6 memory. Gigabyte also displayed the AORUS RGB AIC NVMe SSD that comes in two storage capacities including 256 GB and 512 GB. It comes with RGB-lighting enabled and it can sync with all the other RGB-illuminated products using Gigabytes RGB Fusion 2.0. Gigabyte said that all the showcased products are already selling in India. tech2 News Staff Starting from this year, Foxconn technology will be starting the mass production of Apples iPhones in India. Until now, the majority of the production was conducted in China. Terry Gou, group chairman of the Taiwanese manufacturing company said that the company is going to play a very important role in Indias smartphone industry. Based on a report by Bloomberg, Foxconn is ready for a trial production of the latest iPhones. While the older iPhones were produced at a plant in Bangalore for the past several years, the full-scale assembly factory will be situated outside Chennai. Terry Gou also announced that he will be stepping back from his role. Although this he isnt leaving the company, Terrys focus will shift to the broader strategy of the company. According to Karn Chauhan, analyst at Counterpoint Research, the labour costs in China are three times that of the same in India. Currently in talks with the government about investment, Terry plans on increasing software professionals in the company from a dozen to 600. Foxconn will be investing $300 million initially to set up the production lines for Apple and eventually grow as the capacity increases. Apart from Apple, Foxconn has two assembly lines in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu for Xiaomi and Nokia devices. Ameya Dalvi A few days ago we published a list of the top 5 Samsung flagship phones worth buying that were shortlisted from a dozen handsets spanning three generations. Today, we take a look at what the company has to offer in the sub-Rs 30,000 segments. The decision gets harder as there are dozens of handsets to choose from. Mind you, this article is specifically for the brand-loyal Samsung fans who refuse to touch smartphones from any other manufacturer. If you arent one of those, you might as well check out our list of best smartphones under Rs 30,000 from various brands. Best Samsung phones under Rs 30,000 If you are still here, you probably are looking for a Samsung smartphone. So lets continue. The company is yet to release anything worthwhile close to Rs 30,000 in India in 2019. However, the following two handsets released in the second half of 2018 are the best that you can get from the brand in this price range currently. Samsung Galaxy A9 Remember the smartphone with FOUR rear cameras that Samsung launched late last year? Yes, thats the Galaxy A9. The phone comes with a combination of 24 MP wide-angle lens with PDAF, 8 MP Ultra-wide angle lens, 10 MP telephoto lens that facilitates 2x optical zoom and a 5 MP lens for depth sensing. Though this is pretty much everything one would need for mobile photography, ironically, the picture quality isnt the strong suit of this phone. The camera performance is average at best as quantity doesnt add up to quality. If you can live with that, the phone does a good job with everything else. Hey, you can at least flaunt the four cameras. The design is quite attractive with a glass and metal body and the phone is 7.8 mm thin. The 6.3-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED display is sharp and vivid and leaves little room for complaint. The phone is powered by the reliable Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 SoC and comes with 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage that can be expanded further. The 3,800 mAh battery gets through the day comfortably. The phone now sells well under 30k and is a decent buy for the overall package, barring camera. In fact, its quite strange to see a Samsung smartphone let down by its camera. Well, hype is a double-edged sword! If you want a much better camera phone in this range, you might as well spend a couple of thousands more and pick a Galaxy S8 that now sells for 31k. You get a 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage variant for that price but its still a formidable package. Samsung Galaxy A9 price in India: Rs 28,990 for 6 GB RAM/128 GB storage Samsung Galaxy A8 Star Take away the extravagant camera setup of the Galaxy A9, replace it with robust 16 MP + 24 MP dual cameras and what you get is a Samsung Galaxy A8 Star. It is powered by the same Snapdragon 660 SoC and comes with 6 GB RAM and 64 GB storage (expandable). It also has the same, sharp 6.3-inch Super AMOLED Full HD+ display. Whats more, the A8 Star is 2 mm slimmer and a good Rs 5,000 cheaper. Both phones run Android Oreo. Samsung Galaxy A8 Star price in India: Rs 23,990 for 6 GB RAM/64 GB storage Best Samsung phones under Rs 20,000 Four months ago, I wouldnt have bothered looking up Samsungs catalogue to find a decent phone in this budget. Most of the Samsung handsets in this segment back then were predominantly underpowered and overpriced. This has undergone a massive transformation in 2019. Credit to the competition or to the company for reacting strongly to it, but there are now a bunch of Samsung phones genuinely worth buying in this segment. Again, if you are looking for options beyond Samsung, here are our best phones under 20k. Samsung Galaxy A50 One of the recent launches from Samsung, the Galaxy A50 (review) is a solid mid-range phone in terms of display, design, features and performance. You get one of the best displays in this budget with the 6.4-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED screen with a tiny drop notch or Infinity U display as the company likes to call it. Its not just sharp but the colour accuracy is excellent too. The phone is powered by Samsungs new mid-range Exynos 9610 SoC, which is comparable to a Snapdragon 660, and you get 4 GB RAM and 64 GB (expandable) storage. The 4,000 mAh battery easily gets you through a day of moderate usage. You get the latest Android Pie OS with Samsungs new OneUI on top, which is a big improvement over its predecessor, Experience UI. The Galaxy A50 boasts of a triple-camera setup that includes a 25 MP primary sensor, an 8 MP ultra-wide lens and a 5 MP depth sensor. The ultra-wide lens on the phone offers a 123-degree field of view. The camera output is pretty good for the segment but it would be foolish to expect flagship S-series level performance in this budget. All things considered, the Galaxy A50 is a solid offering from Samsung under Rs 20,000. Samsung Galaxy A50 price in India: Rs 19,990 for 4 GB RAM/64 GB storage I considered including the Galaxy A30 (review) in this list, and I would have too had there not been one Galaxy M30 from the same company that offers similar specifications for a couple of thousand Rupees less. However, the A30 comes with latest Android Pie OS with the newer OneUI and a slimmer design, making it a reasonable choice even for the price difference. If those things dont matter to you, lets move on. Best Samsung phones under Rs 15,000 There are other great options too in the sub-15K budget beyond Samsung. You can find them here (yes, shameless self-plug) Samsung Galaxy M30 The Samsung Galaxy M30 (review) is similar to the Galaxy A50 in many ways. This too has a best in class 6.4-inch Super AMOLED Full HD+ display with a drop notch, something extremely rare in sub-15k budget. Triple cameras are also present, with 13 MP + 5 MP (ultra-wide) + 5 MP sensors manning the photography department. The photos come out sharp in good lighting conditions and the low light performance is acceptable for this budget. The portrait shots are quite impressive too and so are the selfies clicked from its 16 MP front shooter. The Samsung Galaxy M30 doesnt have a similar processing muscle as on the phones above. It comes with a lower mid-range Exynos 7904 SoC which is comparable to a Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 or a Mediatek P60. It is accompanied by 4 GB RAM and 64 GB of internal storage that can be expanded further using a microSD card. Its 5,000 mAh battery is another talking point as it can last for two days of moderate usage. Lastly, like all M series phones currently, it runs Android Oreo 8.1 OS with Experience UI layer on top. Samsung Galaxy M30 price in India: Rs 14,990 for 4 GB RAM/64 GB storage Samsung Galaxy M20 Replace the Super AMOLED display of the M30 with a 6.3-inch PLS TFT screen of the same resolution, the 16 MP selfie camera with an 8 MP, and drop the third camera at the rear and you get the Samsung Galaxy M20. This phone too is powered by the same Exynos 7904 SoC and has 4 GB RAM, 64 GB (expandable) storage and a 5,000 mAh battery. And lastly, it is Rs 2,000 cheaper. So if you are on a tighter budget, this is a good alternative to the Galaxy M30. Samsung Galaxy M20 price in India: Rs 12,990 for 4 GB RAM/64 GB storage Best Samsung phone under Rs 10,000 Samsung Galaxy M10 The Samsung Galaxy M10 is the best option from the company currently under Rs 10,000. Despite its aggressive price tag, it offers a 6.22-inch display with a drop notch, but with an HD+ resolution. You also get a 13 MP + 5 MP dual camera setup at the back and a 5 MP selfie camera up front. It is powered by an older Exynos 7870 octa-core chip which is perfectly acceptable for this segment. You get 3 GB RAM and 32 GB storage here that can be expanded to 512 GB with a microSD card. It's a more than decent package for the price considering the brand. Samsung Galaxy M10 price in India: Rs 8,990 for 3 GB RAM/32 GB storage And of course, there are other good options too under Rs 10,000 that you can check out here. You saw that coming, didnt you? Reuters The chairman of Taiwans Foxconn, an assembler of Apple Incs iPhones, said on Monday he plans to step down in the coming months to pave the way for younger talent to move up the companys ranks. A change in leadership would come at a delicate time for the worlds largest contract manufacturer, which is trying to reinvent itself to cut its reliance on Apple as smartphone sales plateau and as the iPhone maker diversifies its supplier base. It would mark another top-level change at a tech firm in Greater China. Jack Ma, co-founder of Chinas Alibaba Group, said in September he will step down as chairman in a year to allow for younger management. And Morris Chang, founder and chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), another Apple supplier, retired last year. Terry Gou, speaking on the sidelines of an event in Taipei, said that while he planned to resign as Foxconn chairman, he hoped to remain involved in strategic decisions regarding the companys business. When asked by Reuters if he would quit as chairman, Gou said he was moving in that direction, although any decision needed to be discussed with the companys board. I dont know where you got the information from. But I have to say, basically, Im working toward that direction - to walk back to the second line, or retire, Gou said. I will be involved in the major direction of the company, but not involved in daily operations. Im already 69 years old. I can pass down my 45 years of experience. Thats the goal I set up - to let young people learn sooner and take over sooner and to replace my position sooner. Gou said his plans would be discussed with the board of Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, in the coming months and shareholders would be told at the AGM in June. A source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that Lu Sung-Ching, the chairman of Foxconn Interconnect Technology Ltd, the electronic and optoelectronic connectors unit of Foxconn, was among the possible candidates to take over from Gou. It doesnt mean he will just be gone. He will remove himself to the second line and he would not be involved in the daily operations, the source said. Shares Climb Shares of Foxconn, which has a market value of $40 billion, rose after the news and closed 3.2 percent higher on Monday. The news comes as tech companies are seeking to diversify their customer base and move into emerging industries such as artificial intelligence and autonomous driving. Foxconn, which celebrated 30 years of doing business in China last year, has far-flung businesses that include autonomous car startups and investments in cancer research. In January, the Nikkei reported that Foxconn had let go around 50,000 contract workers in China since October. Foxconn acquired control of Japans Sharp Corp in 2016 to try to boost the Taiwanese companys advanced screen technology. Founded in 1974, the Foxconn group has grown to become the worlds biggest contract manufacturer with T$5.2 trillion ($168.52 billion) in annual revenue, assembling goods for Apple, SoftBank Group Corp and other global tech firms. It relies on Apple for more than half of annual revenue, according to analysts. Gou, who owns 9.4 percent of Foxconn as its top shareholder, is Taiwans richest person with a net worth of $7.6 billion, according to Forbes. Last month, Foxconn reported a smaller than expected fall in quarterly profit, despite warning signs from key customers including Apple that demand for tech electronics was softening. The news comes three months after Reuters reported Foxconn was reconsidering plans to make advanced liquid crystal display panels at a $10 billion Wisconsin campus. Foxconn later reiterated it would still build a factory in Wisconsin after Gou spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump. tech2 News Staff Oppo has already announced one of its most premium devices in the mid-range segment called the Oppo F11 Pro (Review). At the time of launch, the phone was only announced in a single variant 6 GB RAM + 64 GB storage. Now the company is ready to offer an upgraded version of the device. The Oppo F11 Pro Avengers Edition, which is being announced to celebrate the imminent release of Avengers: Endgame, is now available with 128 GB internal storage starting from 24 April onwards. The device will make its way to Malaysia as of now, and for India, the date could likely be 26 April, as this is the day when Avengers will release in the country. This will be a limited edition device. This new F11 Pro has a changed exterior with a navy blue finish and the half of the 'A' symbol of Avengers stretched across the back. No doubt the phone will also have custom Avengers theme and wallpapers on the inside. The price of this device is as of yet unknown. The Oppo F11 Pro has a 6.4-inch IPS LCD display and Oppo touts a 90.8 percent screen-to-body ratio thanks to the pop-out front camera. The phone has a MediaTek Helio P70 SoC and it is paired with 6 GB RAM and 64 GB storage. he phone houses a 48 MP Sony IMX 586 sensor + 5 MP depth sensor on the rear. tech2 News Staff After staunch criticism from buyers over its reliability, Samsung has now begun rolling out an 'urgent' update for the Galaxy S10s fingerprint scanner. A report recently revealed that the in-display scanner on the Galaxy S10 could be fooled using 3D fingerprints, which, obviously, did not go down well with those who spent a lot on buying the phone. The latest update is marked as a security update but doesnt come with any update notes. According to GizmoChina, however, the latest update features what is being termed as a 'biometrics security patch' which is intended to make the in-display fingerprint scanner more secure. We're still waiting on confirmation on whether this update actually helps. Another report by Neowin states that the update makes the fingerprint scanner work a tad bit faster and also more reliable. The size of the update is 6.9 MB and if you have a Galaxy S10, it will arrive as a pop-up notification from the Galaxy Store app. The Korean company announced its latest Galaxy S10 series back in February and the Galaxy S10 happens to be Samsungs first device with an in-display fingerprint scanner. Interestingly enough, the Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus also happen to be the first phones to feature an ultrasonic in-display scanner which was intended to be faster (which certainly wasn't the case when we reviewed the phone) and more secure than existing optical in-display scanners. Photo: The Canadian Press Attorney General William Barr leaves his home in McLean, Va., on Monday, April 15, 2019. The Justice Department expects to make a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on the Trump-Russia investigation public Thursday morning, a spokeswoman said Monday. The redacted report would be sent to Congress and also made available to the public, Kerri Kupec said. Special counsel Robert Mueller officially concluded his investigation late last month and submitted a nearly 400-page confidential report to Attorney General William Barr. The attorney general then sent Congress a four-page letter that detailed Mueller's "principal conclusions." In his letter, Barr said the special counsel did not find a criminal conspiracy between Russia and Donald Trump's associates during the campaign, but Mueller did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice. Instead, Mueller presented evidence on both sides of the obstruction question. Barr said he did not believe the evidence was sufficient to prove that Trump had obstructed justice. Democrats have questioned how Barr could boil down Mueller's full report so quickly and allege that it may have been written in a favourable way for the president. Over the past several weeks, a small group of Justice Department officials has been scouring the document to redact grand jury information and details relating to pending investigations, among other materials. tech2 News Staff With the dramatic rise of mobile internet users and availability of low-cost data plans in India, it was natural to witness the tremendous rise in viewership on YouTube. According to the video broadcasting platform, watch-time of Indias authoritative news sources has more than tripled over the past two years. To cater to this growing audience, YouTube is implementing a few updates and features. Easy access to authoritative sources When it comes to reading news or watching them live, users will always prefer authoritative news sources. YouTube claims to be have been working on new features to make such sources appear more frequently across its platform. A Top News shelf will highlights videos from authoritative news sources in the search results. The regular search results will be listed below this shelf. YouTube is also adding a Breaking News shelf on the homepage that will list down videos around a current global or local event. Fact checking Fake news is a problem and all major tech companies are working to fight against it. YouTube has introduced fact checking panels by eligible publishers from India. Fact checking is limited to English and Hindi for now. Google follows the open source Schema.org ClaimReview markup process to vet the credibility of news. From now onwards, eligible publishers posting fact checking articles will be listed in YouTube as well. Information panels YouTube is rolling out an extra information panel to be displayed in on the watch page of all the video on channels. This panel will contain details about the channels owner, for example, whether the news publisher is funded by a government or not. A Wikipedia page link will also be added to this panel that will allow viewers to learn more about the publisher. This will give them more clarity on the sources of the news that they will be consuming. Apart from rolling out these helpful features for viewers, YouTube is take measures to support the news industry. It has already committed $25 million and theres a broader $300 million investment done by the Google News initiative. Last year in December, it had announced that 87 news projects from 23 countries were funded to push better and newer video formats. 10 of these projects were from India. The company is also supporting news partners and publishers for training with the technical integrations of the platform. Agence France-Presse The Greek mother of the first baby born using DNA from three people on Friday praised the revolutionary technique that helped her conceive and thanked the mystery woman who donated her egg. Under the terms of the treatment, she was not allowed to meet the donor, said 32-year-old Matina Karavokyri. But she had a message for the woman whose egg donation allowed her to finally have a child by in vitro fertilisation (IVF). "I would like to thank her very much," she told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA). "She is one of the many people that helped to make me happy. I will never be able to forget her, even though I do not know her. I wish her all the best." A team of Greek and Spanish doctors helped her give birth to a baby boy Tuesday using a new IVF technique they call the Maternal Spindle Transfer method, at the Institute of Life, in Athens. The team used an egg from the infertile mother, the father's sperm and another woman's egg to conceive the baby boy, transferring genetic material with chromosomes from the mother to the egg of a donor whose own genetic material had been removed. A similar DNA-switching technique was used in Mexico in 2016 to avoid transmission of a mother's hereditary illness to her child. This new technique was developed to help mothers who had failed multiple times to conceive through IVF treatment because of genetic disorders or other problems. Karavokyri said she had made four unsuccessful attempts at IVF fertilisation when they were offered the new technique. "Then I was given the choice to try this new method and I did not think twice," she said. And the new technique meant she could keep her genetic material. "It does not contain anything from a third person. It's ours a hundred percent," Karavokyri added. "We finally managed to become parents and acquire a healthy and biological child, thanks to a great scientific advancement that will enable many women to have the child they tried for with IVF treatments for so long and who think they cannot succeed," she said. Greek embryologist Panagiotis Psathas led the team who pioneered the approach, working with Spain's Dr Nuno Costa-Borges. Some specialists in the field however, have raised ethical reservations. "I'm concerned that there's no proven need for the patient to have her genetic material removed from her eggs and transferred into the eggs of a donor," said Tim Child, Oxford University professor and medical director of the Fertility Partnership. "The risks of the technique aren't entirely known, though may be considered acceptable if being used to treat mitochondrial disease, but not in this situation," he said in a statement. By Anne Kauranen and Tarmo Virki HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finland's leftist Social Democrats won a parliamentary election on Sunday by a slight margin with 18.9 percent of votes, partial results showed, amid mounting concern among voters over the future of the country's expensive welfare system. The centre-right National Coalition of outgoing Finance Minister Petteri Orpo came in second, with 16.7 percent of the advance votes, after 47 percent of ballots were counted. The Centre Party of Prime Minister Juha Sipila scored third, with 15.5 percent By Anne Kauranen and Tarmo Virki HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finland's leftist Social Democrats won a parliamentary election on Sunday by a slight margin with 18.9 percent of votes, partial results showed, amid mounting concern among voters over the future of the country's expensive welfare system. The centre-right National Coalition of outgoing Finance Minister Petteri Orpo came in second, with 16.7 percent of the advance votes, after 47 percent of ballots were counted. The Centre Party of Prime Minister Juha Sipila scored third, with 15.5 percent. If final results confirm the outcome, Social Democrat leader Antti Rinne could become Finland's first leftist prime minister in two decades. But the process of putting together a coalition could be drawn out because a fragmented parliament. Public broadcaster Yle is expected to publish its forecast of the final election result at 1830 GMT. "For the first time in a long time, Social Democrats are the largest party," Rinne, a 56-year-old former union leader, told reporters. With the top contenders running close, the final results could still show another group winning and getting the first shot at forming a government. A relatively strong showing by the nationalist Finns Party, which scored 15.4 percent, could further complicate coalition talks, with most party leaders ruling out any cooperation with them. At the stake in the election is the future shape of Finland's welfare system, a pillar of the Nordic social model, which the leftists want to preserve through tax hikes and the centre-right wants to see streamlined because of rising costs. WAY OF LIFE The eurosceptic Finns call for limits on environmental policies, arguing the nation has gone too far in addressing issues such as climate change at its own expense, as well as a revamp of its immigration stance. "Finland isn't capable of saving the world," Jussi Halla-aho, 47, said at one of the party's news conferences. "We have already done our part," he said. The Finns' stance on environmental policies, which includes an opposition to a proposed tax on meat consumption, appeals to rural voters in particular who fear soaring fuel costs and resent any efforts to change what they see as the traditional Finnish way of life. With the European Parliament election less than two months away, the Finnish ballot is also being watched in Brussels. A strong result for the Finns Party could bolster a nationalist bloc threatening to shake up EU policy-making. The success of the Social Democrats would mark a departure for Finland and the region, where leftist parties have struggled in recent years, yielding some of their hold on the working class vote as nationalist parties have emerged. In Sweden, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven has clung to power after his Social Democrats suffered their worst parliamentary election result in more than a century last autumn, enlisting the support of two liberal parties with a pledge to enact some right-wing policies. In Denmark, which holds an election in June, the Social Democrats are gaining ground, in part after espousing the populists' anti-immigrant rhetoric. Underscoring the growing confidence among far-right politicians in Europe, anti-immigration parties have announced plans to join forces following the May 26 EU election, in a move that could give them major say in how the continent is run. (Reporting by Anne Kauranen, Justyna Pawlak and Tarmo Virki; Additional reporting by Attila Cser and Ilze Filks in Helsinki, Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Copenhagen and Niklas Pollard in Stockholm; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Angus MacSwan) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. The flames and smoke plumed from the spire and roof of the gothic cathedral, visited by millions of people a year. A spokesman for the cathedral said that the wooden structure supporting the roof was being gutted by the blaze. Paris: A huge fire swept through the roof of the famed Notre-Dame cathedral in central Paris on Monday evening, sending flames and huge clouds of grey smoke billowing into the sky. The flames and smoke plumed from the spire and roof of the gothic cathedral, visited by millions of people a year. A spokesman for the cathedral said that the wooden structure supporting the roof was being gutted by the blaze. The fire service said the blaze could be "potentially linked" to ongoing renovations. President Emmanuel Macron cancelled a major televised policy speech he was due to give on Monday evening over the "terrible fire ravaging Notre-Dame." Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo in a tweet described it as a "terrible fire". "The Paris fire service is trying to control the flames," she wrote on Twitter, asking residents to respect the security cordon thrown up around the site. A spokesperson for the cathedral said the fire, which comes as French Catholics prepare to celebrate Easter, broke out at around 1650 GMT. Fire trucks could be seen speeding through Paris towards the scene on the Ile de la Cite an island in the Seine at the heart of Paris. The Paris police department in a tweet called on residents to avoid the area and to "make way for rescue vehicles". US president Donald Trump in a tweet said: "So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!" Hundreds of people gathered on the bridges of Paris downriver to witness the scene, some filming the images with their smartphones, an AFP reporter said. A burning smell filled the air. By Krisztina Fenyo BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Thousands of Hungarians attended the annual March of the Living in Budapest on Sunday to commemorate victims of the Holocaust, including Jane Haining, a Scottish missionary who refused to abandon her Jewish charges during World War Two. Israel's Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem estimates that 565,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in the Holocaust, most of them deported to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland between May and July 1944. Haining, who had taught Christian and Jewish girls at a boarding school of the Church of Scotland's Mission in Budapest, was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 and later died in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. By Krisztina Fenyo BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Thousands of Hungarians attended the annual March of the Living in Budapest on Sunday to commemorate victims of the Holocaust, including Jane Haining, a Scottish missionary who refused to abandon her Jewish charges during World War Two. Israel's Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem estimates that 565,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in the Holocaust, most of them deported to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland between May and July 1944. Haining, who had taught Christian and Jewish girls at a boarding school of the Church of Scotland's Mission in Budapest, was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 and later died in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. "From April 5, we had to put on the yellow star. Miss Haining called in the children and she cried with us," said 83-year-old Agnes Rostas, one of Haining's former Jewish pupils, who was eight at the time of the Scottish missionary's arrest. "Miss Haining was a very warm-hearted human being. I have never met anyone like her all my life." Within half an hour of Haining's arrest, the remaining teachers packed up the children and shuttled them off to their parents, Rostas said. Haining was born in 1897 into a poor farming family in southwestern Scotland. She did well in school and went on to business college in Glasgow. She was among the generation of women who were able to join the workforce due to World War One, according to Mary Miller, the author of a new biography of Haining's life. She decided to pursue working with children, influenced by her experience teaching Sunday school in Glasgow. She was the only British person at the school when the Nazis occupied Hungary in March 1944. The Gestapo arrested Haining the following month on charges including political activity and espionage, which she denied. Reverend Aaron Stevens, the head of the Scottish mission to Budapest, said Sunday's march remembering Haining presented an opportunity to speak up against prejudice, intolerance or fearmongering. "Sometimes when we look at the messages people are promoting today about foreigners, it is not that different from the messages that were being spread about Jews some 75 years ago," Stevens said. "(Haining's) example is a reminder to us to not become complacent or lazy," he said. "We also need to speak up and stand up in solidarity with those who might be victims of prejudice." (Reporting by Krisztina Fenyo and Lewis Macdonald, Writing by Gergely Szakacs; Editing by Angus MacSwan) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Aziz El Yaakoubi DUBAI (Reuters) - A delegation from Israel that was due to attend a conference in Bahrain this week has pulled out due to security concerns, the organisers said on Sunday, after Bahrainis held an extensive campaign against the visit. By Aziz El Yaakoubi DUBAI (Reuters) - A delegation from Israel that was due to attend a conference in Bahrain this week has pulled out due to security concerns, the organisers said on Sunday, after Bahrainis held an extensive campaign against the visit. A spokeswoman for Israel's Economy Minister Eli Cohen said his planned visit to Bahrain this week had been "delayed because of political issues". Another Israeli cabinet minister said this referred to coalition talks after Israel's election last week. Israel and the Gulf Arab countries are in the midst of a diplomatic push aimed at forging an alliance against their common enemy Iran. Their efforts have become increasingly public after years of mostly covert contact due to strong opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. The group of around 30 Israeli business executives and government officials was scheduled to participate in a congress organised by the U.S.- based Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) in Bahrain on April 15-18. This prompted an outcry in Bahrain, with parliament joining calls on social media for the visit to be cancelled and some minor street protests held in Manama. "While we advised the Israeli delegation they would be welcome, they decided this morning not to come due to security concerns and a wish not to cause disruption for the other 180 nations participating," Jonathan Ortmans, GEN president, said in a statement. A source close to the matter told Reuters that three Israeli speakers had cancelled because they were unable to obtain visas while the rest of the delegation had "decided not to go." The Bahraini government said the delegation had been invited at the sole initiative of the Global Entrepreneurship Network. "Our responsibility is to ensure a safe and supportive environment for the attending delegations," the government said in a statement. However, acting Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who also holds the intelligence portfolio, denied that the cancellation of Cohen's trip was due to security concerns. "The head of the delegation is busy with political matters right now," Katz told Israel's Reshet 13 TV, referring to talks on a new coalition government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who won reelection in the April 9 ballot. "Cohen had to choose between travelling to Bahrain - a very important trip - and exploiting the election gains." Last week a group of Bahraini lawyers tried unsuccessfully to get a court to stop immigration authorities from issuing visas to the delegation, while parliament condemned the visit. "Bahrain's parliament announces that the people of Bahrain rejects any Israeli presence on its territory and its lands and any decision allowing this presence is unacceptable," lawmakers said in a statement. Israel has formal diplomatic relations with only two Arab states, neighbouring Egypt and Jordan. But an Israeli cabinet minister visited Abu Dhabi's Grand Mosque last year and fellow Gulf state Oman hosted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a surprise trip, the first time an Israeli leader had visited the Sultanate in 22 years. (Reporting By Aziz El Yaakoubi; Additional reporting by Tova Cohen in Tel Aviv and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ivanka Trump began a four-day tour of Africa on Sunday to promote a $50 million United States initiative aimed at encouraging women's employment in developing countries. 'Fundamentally we believe that investing in women is a smart development policy and it is a smart business,' White House adviser Trump said after drinking coffee and inhaling incense at a traditional Ethiopian ceremony in Addis Ababa. ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ivanka Trump began a four-day tour of Africa on Sunday to promote a $50 million United States initiative aimed at encouraging women's employment in developing countries. "Fundamentally we believe that investing in women is a smart development policy and it is a smart business," White House adviser Trump said after drinking coffee and inhaling incense at a traditional Ethiopian ceremony in Addis Ababa. The Women's Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) initiative aims to economically empower 50 million women by 2025. President Donald Trump, Ivanka's father, has directed USAID to allocate an initial $50 million to the fund. Ivanka Trump is due to take part in a World Bank policy summit and then visit Ivory Coast to promote female entrepreneurs in the country's cocoa industry. (Reporting by Kumerra Gemechu; Writing by Hereward Holland; Editing by Alexander Smith) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Julian Assange will cooperate with Swedish authorities if they reopen a rape case against him but will continue to resist any bid to extradite him to the United States, his lawyer said on Sunday. London: Julian Assange will cooperate with Swedish authorities if they reopen a rape case against him but will continue to resist any bid to extradite him to the United States, his lawyer said on Sunday. "We are absolutely happy to answer those queries if and when they come up," Jennifer Robinson told Sky News television about the rape claims. "The key issue at the moment is US extradition, which we have warned about for many years," she added. The WikiLeaks founder is in custody in London awaiting sentencing for breaching his British bail conditions in 2012 by seeking refuge in Ecuador's London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden. He was arrested at the embassy on Thursday after Ecuador gave him up, and is now also fighting a US extradition warrant relating to the release by WikiLeaks of a huge cache of official documents. Assange has always denied the claims of sexual assault and rape in Sweden. The first expired in 2015 and the other was dropped in 2017, but the alleged rape victim has now asked for the case to be reopened. If Stockholm makes a formal extradition request, the British government will have to decide whether to consider it before or after that of the United States. Robinson said Assange would seek assurances from Sweden that he would not be sent on to America, saying: "That is the same assurance we were seeking in 2010 and the refusal to give that is why he sought asylum." She added: "He's not above the law. Julian has never been concerned about facing British justice or indeed Swedish justice. This case is and has always been about his concern about being sent to face American injustice." The US indictment charges Assange with "conspiracy" for working with former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to crack a password stored on Department of Defence computers in March 2010. He faces up to five years in jail. Manning passed hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, exposing US military wrongdoing in the Iraq war and diplomatic secrets about scores of countries around the world. The conspiracy charge against Assange seems intended to sidestep limits on prosecution potentially arising from the US Constitution's First Amendment guarantee of press freedom. But Robinson insisted: "This indictment clearly engages newsgathering activities and the kinds of communications that journalists have with sources all the time." The lawyer condemned as "outrageous" claims made by Ecuador about Assange's behaviour in the embassy, including that he smeared his faeces on the wall, saying: "That's not true." Quito also accused him of failing to care for his cat. WikiLeaks said Assange had asked his lawyers to "rescue him (the cat) from embassy threats" in October, adding: "They will be reunited in freedom." Assange's father, John Shipton, on Sunday urged Australia to bring his son home. By Barbara Goldberg (Reuters) - Deadly tornadoes twisted through the U.S. South, killing at least two children as a massive storm pressed east on Sunday, threatening to drench communities from New York to Atlanta and snarl the start of the workweek. More than 100 million people from the middle of the United States to the East Coast were at risk of extreme weather, facing warnings of heavy thunderstorms and another round of tornadoes, said meteorologist Bob Oravec of the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center. By Barbara Goldberg (Reuters) - Deadly tornadoes twisted through the U.S. South, killing at least two children as a massive storm pressed east on Sunday, threatening to drench communities from New York to Atlanta and snarl the start of the workweek. More than 100 million people from the middle of the United States to the East Coast were at risk of extreme weather, facing warnings of heavy thunderstorms and another round of tornadoes, said meteorologist Bob Oravec of the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center. "So much of the Eastern United States faces the risk of severe weather today, and that includes major cities," Oravec said. Nearly 2,000 U.S. flights were canceled or delayed with most of the trouble at airports in Dallas, Charlotte and Chicago, according to FlightAware.com. Snow was falling in Chicago on Sunday, with 1-3 inches reported in central Illinois, as a result of the storm's cold front. A total of 17 tornadoes were reported across the south from Texas to Alabama on Saturday and Sunday, Oravec said. Two children, siblings aged 3 and 8, were killed when a tree fell on the car in which they were sitting in Pollok, Texas, said a spokeswoman for the Angelina County Sheriff's Department. ABC News reported two more deaths after a tornado ripped through Hamilton, Mississippi. A spokeswoman for the Monroe County Sheriff's Office said authorities were in Hamilton and could not be reached for confirmation. Tornado warnings remained in effect on Sunday for southeastern Alabama's Barbour and Russell counties, Oravec said. "It's still a pretty impactful day today. This morning there is a lot of heavy rain moving through Alabama, into Georgia and eastern Tennessee. There are a few tornado warnings and heavy thunderstorm warnings," Oravec said. Soaking rains could snarl Monday morning's commute on the East Coast before the storm moves off to sea. "The biggest impact rush hour-wise probably will be Boston, around 7 to 8 o'clock in the morning and around New York City around 5 or 6 o'clock, before sunrise," Oravec said. (Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Humeyra Pamuk WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House adviser Kellyanne Conway On Sunday said she did not believe President Donald Trump had advance knowledge that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was going to be arrested by the British police and charged by U.S. prosecutors. 'Not to my knowledge,' Conway told NBC's 'Meet the Press' show, when asked if Trump knew ahead of time about Assange, who last Thursday was hauled out of the Ecuador's embassy in London where he had taken refuge since 2012 to avoid extradition. By Humeyra Pamuk WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House adviser Kellyanne Conway On Sunday said she did not believe President Donald Trump had advance knowledge that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was going to be arrested by the British police and charged by U.S. prosecutors. "Not to my knowledge," Conway told NBC's "Meet the Press" show, when asked if Trump knew ahead of time about Assange, who last Thursday was hauled out of the Ecuador's embassy in London where he had taken refuge since 2012 to avoid extradition. U.S. prosecutors subsequently announced charges on Thursday and accused Assange of conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to gain access to a government computer as part of one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history. The Justice Department said Assange was arrested under an extradition treaty between the United States and Britain. Lawyers for Assange said he may risk torture and his life would be in danger if he were to be extradited to the United States. They have also suggested the charges could chill press freedom. Conway said she believed Trump did not have any knowledge of what was going to happen to Assange but added that based on her numerous conversations with him on the issue, he is against releasing such classified information. "The President believes that those who publish classified information should not do that," she said. "...So anybody who's publishing classified information, in our view, should think thrice before they do that because you can imperil folks." Trump in 2016 said "I love WikiLeaks" after the website released emails that U.S. authorities have said were hacked by Russia to harm his election opponent Hillary Clinton. On Friday, he told reporters he had no opinion on the charges against Assange. "I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing," Trump said. Assange's U.S. indictment arose from a long-running criminal investigation dating back to the administration of President Barack Obama. It was triggered in part by WikiLeaks' publication in 2010 of U.S. military reports about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the diplomatic communications - disclosures that embarrassed the United States and strained relations with allies. (Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Nick Zieminski) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Photo: The Canadian Press Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley visits an oil and gas pipe fabrication plant in Calgary, Alta., Monday, April 15, 2019. Alberta's NDP leader spent the final day of the provincial election campaign casting herself as the best person to get the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion past the finish line. Rachel Notley donned a hard hat and work boots as she toured a pipe fabrication yard in Calgary, a key battleground in Tuesday's election. She says she's expecting a federal green light next month for the stalled Trans Mountain expansion, which would move oilsands crude to the west coast for export. Notley says through patience and determination her government has built a national consensus on the need for pipelines including in British Columbia. Her chief opponent, United Conservative Leader Jason Kenney, has spent the campaign criticizing Notley for what he says is her dithering on pipelines and collaborating with Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on energy and climate policy. Notley says Kenney's plan to aggressively go after pipeline critics and file legal battles if he becomes premier would put Trans Mountain at risk. "I will win the pipeline fight, not by shouting at our fellow Canadians, but by continuing to build support," she said. For 2019, Samsung went all out and launched 3 new flagship devices S10, S10e and the S10+. The S10+ is the most impressive device from the line up, and we check out in this Galaxy S10 Plus review if the new Samsung flagship is worth your money. We got our hands on the Indian version of the device SM-G975F/DS which is a Dual SIM version powered by Samsungs Exynos chipset. Box Contents The retail version of the S10+ ships with the following contents. The phone ships with a factory installed screen protector in India. Device Data Cable Travel Adapter Ejection Pin USB Connector (OTG) Earphones sound by AKG Quick Start Guide Clear Cover Protective Film Design The front is dominated by the gorgeous 6.4-inch Quad HD+ Dynamic AMOLED display. Samsung decided to go with an interesting design for the notch for the front facing cameras. When I first saw the initial photos of the device, I really didnt like this approach and I thought it will create some unpleasant feeling while the device is being used. After spending some quality time with the device, I can say that the Infinity-O display isnt too bad after all. While I personally prefer water drop notches for the symmetry, this approach makes dual front cameras possible Going over to the back, the main story is about the triple camera setup. Next to the camera sensors you have the LED flash and the hear rate sensor. Despite the large battery and the in-screen fingerprint sensor, the phone is only about 7.8mm thick. The phone weighs 175g but thanks to the large area, doesnt feel heavy in the hand. On the left side you have the volume rocker and the bixby button. On the right side you have the power button. On the bottom you have the 3.5mm headphone jack, type-C port, microphone and the speaker grill. On the top you have the sim card tray and another microphone. This uses a hybrid SIM slot that accepts two nano SIMs or a nano SIM and a microSD. Display If you need one reason to buy the Galaxy S10+ it has to be the breathtaking display which proves Samsungs lead in the display business. The display has been rated as one of the best ever in a smartphone by folks at DisplayMate. Camera It has a standard 12MP Dual Pixel F1.5/F2.4 variable aperture 77 wide-angle main sensor with OIS, 12MP secondary camera with PDAF, F2.4 aperture, OIS and 45 wide-angle sensor and an 16-megapixel fixed-focus F2.2 123 ultra-wide sensor. It offers 0.5X/2X loss-less zoom and up to 10X digital zoom. The camera is one of the big upgrades on the S10+ from the S9+, and while the camera does produce impressive results in day light, the low light performance is not as good as the competition. The wide-angle mode is something I personally love using and it lets you capture and amazing amount of detail in a single shot. Check out the camera samples (Click the image to view the full resolution sample.) Day Light Wide Angle in action Low Light Front Camera You can get wider selfies or narrower ones pretty easily along with a beauty filter if you wish to lighten the skin tone. There is a 10MP Dual Pixel AF F1.9 (80) front camera paired with a 8MP F2.2 (90) depth camera. The camera has several modes including Pro, Food, Pano and Live Focus. There is even an Instagram mode integrated into the Camera. Video supports Dual OIS and slow-mo, super slow-mo and hyperlapse modes. Battery It packs a 4100mAh battery and charges faster over wired and wireless charging.The new Wireless PowerShare feature lets you charge other devices which is a nice touch. It achieved One Charge rating of 17 hours and 51 minutes. Since it comes with adaptive fast charging, it can charge from 0 to 50% in 34 minutes, and 0 to 100% takes about one and half hours. Performance The S10+ is no slouch in terms of performance and comes fully loaded in the specs department. The S10+ ships with 8GB RAM out of the box. Samsung ships a Snapdragon 855 powered device in certain markets and an Exynos 9820 powered device in most markets. As always, India gets the Exynos version. There is 128GB of built-in storage out of which 100GB is user accessible. You can expand the store up to 512GB with a microSD card. The company also sells 512GB and 1TB Ceramic Editions in India. Software The UI has been improved tremendously and there is little or no lag. With the Android 9.0 (Pie), Samsung has introduced One UI that is aimed at making the navigation much easier and designed around how we use our phones in the day-to-day. The phone runs One UI 1.1, which replaces the Experience UI from the older Samsung phones running Android Oreo. This also brings improvements to Always On Display, reorganized settings menu to make settings easier to find, new Biby features and lots more. You can also remap the Bixby button finally. Samsung Pay One of my favourite features on the Galaxy S series has been Samsung Pay which lets you store your credit cards from a number of banks on your phone and use your phone like a wallet. AMEX, Citi, Axis, HDFC, ICICI, SBI, SCB, DBS, Indus Ind, Kotak Mahindra and YesBank are supported. UPI and wallets are also supported. With Samsung Pay you can pay using your phone at any Point of Sale terminal without any special tricks. This is one feature which makes the Galaxy S10+ and other Galaxy S series phones stand out of the competition. In fact there is no competition to Samsung Pay as it uses a proprietary solution MST (Magnetic Secure Transmission) to simulate the swiping of a card. So Should you buy the Galaxy S10 Plus ? You can get it for the display, camera, overall performance. It is one of the best devices launched by Samsung till date. Look at other options if you want frequent Android software updates and better low light camera performance. Conclusion, Competition I would recommend the S10+ over the S10 as you are getting more value The S10e though is a great lower priced alternative. Pros Best mobile display you can get right now in the market Improved cleaner UI Samsung Pay is very convenient to have IP68 rated for water and dust resistance Headphone jack Cons Low light camera performance could be better In-screen fingerprint sensor seems sluggish and 3rd party screen protectors wont work With Inputs from Srivatsan and Photography by Siraj OPPO introduced F11 Pro smartphone last month. Now the company has announced that it will introduce Marvels Avengers Limited Edition in partnership with Marvel in Malaysia on April 24th, ahead of the movie release next week. This comes with Blue and Red colors along with Avengers logo on the back similar to Captain America logo. It will also come with 128GB storage compared to 64GB in the standard version. Other specifications are similar, including a 6.5-inch FHD+ Panaromic screen without a notch, has 90.9% screen-to-body ratio, MediaTek Helio P70 12nm processor with 6GB of RAM, Android 9.0 (Pie) with ColorOS 6.0 on top, 48-megapixel rear camera along with a 5-megapixel secondary rear camera, 16-megapixel rising front camera and a 4000mAh battery with VOOC flash charge 3.0. We should know the price when it goes official next Wednesday. Via Concho Resources' (NYSE:CXO) bread-and-butter business is drilling wells into the prolific Permian Basin. However, in addition to spending money to boost its oil and gas output, the company has also invested in building out the necessary midstream infrastructure to move its production from wells toward market hubs. These investments have turned out to be very lucrative. The company has already cashed in on two midstream developments. That success is leading Concho to invest in another infrastructure start-up, in hopes of cashing in once again. Building out Beta to connect crude to market centers Concho Resources is forming a 50-50 joint venture with Frontier Midstream Solutions to build a crude-oil gathering, transportation, and storage services business. The partnership will support Concho's operations in the Northern Midland Basin, which is on the eastern side of the Permian. The Beta Crude Connector (BCC) will consist of a 100-mile gathering system and 250,000 barrels of crude storage facilities as well as truck terminals. The pipeline system will transport 150,000 barrels per day (BPD) to downstream pipelines, where it can flow to local refineries as well as market centers. Concho signed a long-term contract to supply the system with crude oil from wells drilled in the area. However, the partners are also soliciting interest from other producers for capacity. They expect to start construction after seeking additional commitments to the project, and aim to begin transporting oil by midyear. Following a successful model BCC is the second midstream partnership between Concho and Frontier; the two companies also formed a joint venture to develop the Alpha Crude Connector (ACC) system in 2014. They built ACC to support Concho's growing oil production in the northern Delaware Basin, on the western side of the Permian. Through the end of 2016, Concho invested $130 million in building the 515-mile system. The partners went on to sell ACC to Plains All American Pipeline (NASDAQ:PAA) in early 2017, for $1.215 billion. Concho received roughly $800 million in cash for its 50% stake. That sale not only provided Concho with a huge cash windfall, but also transferred future investment spending on the system to Plains All American. Concho also made an investment in the Oryx I oil gathering and transportation system in 2015. It held a 23.75% stake in that entity, which focused on gathering oil from wells in the southern part of the Delaware Basin. The company invested about $45 million into Oryx to support its growth. Concho received a $157 million cash disbursement from Oryx last year as a result of a recapitalization of that entity. It's set to collect another $300 million after the company and its partners agreed to sell the entire system to a private equity fund earlier this month. That brings the total proceeds up to $457 million, which is more than 10 times its original capital investment in Oryx. These midstream investments have provided Concho with significant cash windfalls. It has used those funds to firm up its already strong balance sheet, putting it in position to start returning some of its free cash flow to shareholders. It did that by initiating a dividend late last year; it could send back additional cash by following its peers and authorizing a stock repurchase program. Going back for a third helping Concho Resources has successfully cashed in on two midstream infrastructure developments in the Permian Basin. It's now potentially setting itself up for another big payday by developing BCC. These high-return investments have given the company the money to fortify its balance sheet. That's boosted its financial flexibility, so it can continue expanding production while returning some of its growing stream of excess cash to shareholders. Those factors help position the company to continue generating market-crushing returns, as it's done since its formation more than a decade ago. Excellence in Derivatives Award winner says no matter what you accomplish, there's always more to learn and always more to do. Galveston, TX (77553) Today Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 78F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight A few clouds. Low around 70F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph. Tomb Raiders mixed reception and the fact that the video game series, with Shadow of the Tomb Raider, has come to the end of the young Lara Crofts journey seemed to be hinting at the fate of the movie franchise. Instead, from what Deadline has learned, it looks like theres yet another Tomb Raider movie already in the making. MGM and Warner Bros. have indeed hired Amy Jump to write the script for the sequel, says the well-informed website. Among Amy Jumps works, we can find Free Fire, the action drama with Brie Larson, Cillian Murphy and Armie Hammer. Her other credits, were told, include the Wheatley-directed Kill List, A Field In England, Sightseers, and High-Rise. Sources said Vikander liked what she was in Jumps scripting, so it seems there wont be any issue in making the process to the shooting as smooth as possible. Directed by Roar Uthaug, the original Tomb Raider movie grossed $274 million worldwide, which has apparently granted it a sequel. As we reported last week, Eidos Montreal would be extremely surprised not to see more games based on the Tomb Raider brand in the future. Source A new Overwatch PvE event called Rising Storm is headed to the live servers, starting tomorrow on April 16. To help celebrate the occasion and the new mission, Blizzard released a brand new story trailer highlighting it. You can check it out below. The story centers around the criminal character we see during the videos introduction, Maximilien. The Overwatch team has been sent out to take him down before the infamous Talon crook can get away. Maximilien is attempting to use an upcoming storm to mask his escape, giving the protagonist team a single shot to obtain him before he gets away. The event takes place in Havana, Cuba, where players are going to rush through the beautiful streets to take down their prey. Overwatchs Rising Storm event features Tracer, Winston, Genji, and Mercy. Theyre going to face down waves of enemies, escorts of armored vehicles, and plenty of terrain changes as they rush through the streets in hot pursuit of their query. During the teaser, we see Tracer riding a motorcycle, which may hint to a new mechanic weve yet to see in previous events. Blizzard did not go into details about how this would work, or what players could expect to do to catch the illusive Maximilien. Players can also expect Blizzard to release a handful of new cosmetic appearance items, as theyve done in the past for other story-related events. The Rising Storm event starts tomorrow, on April 16, and goes until May 6. Supreme Court refuses to impose ban on Tik Tok: Report News oi-Karan Sharma Super Court refuses to put a ban on Chinese video sharing app Tik Tok. All you need to know about the ban. Video sharing app Tik Tok is in the news headline since last few weeks. Madras High Court has also asked central to impose a ban on the app by the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011. However, on Monday the Supreme court refuses the Madras High court's appeal of banning the app. The Supreme Court has posted the Tik Tok issue for the next hearing which is scheduled on April 22. Moreover, the case is coming up in the Madras High Court on April 16. "As per the proceedings in the Supreme Court today, the Madras High Court will hear the matter on ex parte ad interim order. The Supreme Court has listed the matter again for April 22, 2019, to be apprised of the outcome of the hearing on the April 16th, 2019 before the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court...In line with this, we have been stepping up efforts to take down objectionable content. To date, we have removed over 6 million videos that violated our terms of use and community guidelines, following an exhaustive review of the content generated by our users in India," the Economic Times quoted the company statement. Earlier, the Madras High Court asked the center to impose a ban on the app on by giving a reason for children getting addicted to the app. Let's see whether the app is really going to be ban in India or not. Source Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Samsung Galaxy A2 Core officially launched for Rs 5290: Android Go Edition News oi-Vivek Samsung Galaxy A2 Core is powered by the Exynos 7870 SoC Samsung has officially launched the Samsung Galaxy A2 Core in India, which is the most affordable A series smartphone in India, which is likely to compete against the likes of the Redmi Go, the first Android Go smartphone from Xioami. Here are the complete details on the Samsung Galaxy A2 Core, the latest Android Go smartphone from South Korean smartphone giant. Android Go is a custom Android OS from Google for entry-level smartphones with minimal specifications with tailor-made apps from Google, which require minimal resources (CPU, GPU, memory) compared to the standard apps. Price and availability The Samsung Galaxy A2 Core will be available exclusively on offline retails stores for Rs. 5290, in black and white colors. As of now, there is no information on the online availability of the Samsung Galaxy A2 Core. Samsung Galaxy A2 Core specifications The Samsung Galaxy A2 Core has a 5-inch qHD TFT display with 960 x 540p resolution, protected by 2.5D curved tempered glass. The Exynos 7870 Octa-core SoC powers the Galaxy A2 Core with a clock speed of 1.6GHz, coupled with 1 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage. The smartphone does feature a dedicated microSD card slot for additional storage expansion. The smartphone has dual SIM card slots with support for 4G LTE and VoLTE on both the slots with support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. On to the optics, the Samsung Galaxy A2 Core comes with a 5 MP auto-focus primary camera with an f/1.9 aperture and a 5 MP fixed-focus selfie camera. The Galaxy A2 Core features a 2600 mAh Li-ion battery with a micro USB port for charging and data syncing with a dedicated 3.5mm headphone jack. Lastly, the smartphone runs on Android 9 Pie Go Edition with custom Samsung skin on top. At Rs 5290, the Samsung Galaxy A2 Core is aimed to offer all the smart-features, a full-blown smartphone offers, but at a fraction of cost. Stay tuned to GizBot to know everything about the most affordable Samsung smartphone from 2019. Source Best Mobiles in India Samsung Galaxy A70, Galaxy A80 India launch and price details are out News oi-Abhinaya Prabhu Samsung to launch Galaxy A80 in India in May under Rs. 50,000. Samsung hosted an event last week to launch new smartphones in the Galaxy A series. Soon after the launch of these devices, the Galaxy A70's India launch was teased by the microsite listing on the official website. Now, a fresh IANS report sheds light on the pricing and availability details of the Galaxy A80 and Galaxy A70 by a top Samsung official. As per the report, Ranjivjit Singh, the Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President at Samsung India stated that the Galaxy A70 will be priced between Rs. 25,000 and Rs. 30,000. And, the Galaxy A80 will be priced between Rs. 45,000 and Rs. 50,000. He further stated that the Galaxy A70 will be launched in the country next week while the Galaxy A80 will be launched in May. Galaxy A70 and Galaxy A80 highlights Samsung has started focusing on the Galaxy A series smartphones that will replace the Galaxy J series devices those were affordable offerings. These new smartphones will be priced between Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 50,000 in the country. The increased focus on this lineup shows that the company will give a tough competition to its Chinese counterparts in the near future. The Galaxy A70 features an Infinity-U display measuring 6.7 inches and gets the power from a 4500mAh battery with support for 25W Super Charging technology. There is a triple camera setup at the rear of this smartphone. On the other hand, the more premium Galaxy A80 launched on April 10 features a pop-up rotating camera module. This way, the triple cameras at the rear of this smartphone featuring a 48MP primary sensor, an 8MP secondary sensor and a 3D depth camera sensor can be rotated to take selfies. Technically, this smartphone becomes the first one to enable users click selfies using a 48MP sensor. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Samsung Galaxy M40 passes Wi-Fi Alliance certification with Android Pie OS News oi-Sandeep Sarkar The Samsung Galaxy M40 has been listed with a model number SM_M405F/DS on the Wi-FI certification website. Samsung introduced a new Galaxy M smartphone series earlier this year in India. The South Korean tech giant's new budget smartphone lineup was announced to take on the Chinese counterparts in the affordable smartphone segment including Xiaomi, Realme, and Honor, etc. Samsung had first launched the Galaxy M10 and Galaxy M20 which was followed with the launch of Galaxy M30. Now, Samsung is working on extending the Galaxy M series with the launch of Galaxy M40. The upcoming Samsung Galaxy M40 has made it to the web indicating a new Galaxy M smartphone in development. The Samsung Galaxy M40 has recently cleared its certification from Wi-Fi Alliance. This is a certification agency from the US. The Samsung Galaxy M40 has been listed with a model number SM_M405F/DS on the Wi-FI certification website. The listing does not reveal the specifications of the Galaxy M40 completely, however, it does hint at the software of the device. The Galaxy M40 will be a high-end variant in the Galaxy M smartphone lineup. Going by the listing, the Galaxy M40 is tipped to ship with Android 9 Pie OS. This is unlike the previous Galaxy M smartphones which shipped with older Android 8 Oreo OS. While there are no specific hardware details out yet, the previous leaks point at an improved processor and a tall display as compared to the Galaxy M30. Besides, Samsung will keep the pricing of the Galaxy M40 slightly higher than the Galaxy M30 smartphone. As of now, Samsung has not revealed any specifics on the Galaxy M40 smartphones and we are still expecting some more information to be available on the device. In addition to the Galaxy M series, Samsung has also introduced Galaxy A series to make a comeback in the budget smartphone segment. The Galaxy A smartphone lineup has already got a bunch of smartphones including Galaxy A10, Galaxy 30, Galaxy A50, Galaxy A20, and Galaxy A80, etc. With all the recent launches, it seems that Samsung is working hard to give a tough competition to the affordable Chinese smartphone brands. We will keep you updated with all the latest developments on upcoming Samsung smartphones, so, stay tuned with us. via Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Smartphones won't be allowed inside polling booths in Karnataka: Reports News oi-Karan Sharma This time you will not be able to carry your smartphone inside the polling booth in Karnataka election. All you need to know. Elections are around the corners and all that sates have declared holiday on that particular day. Karnataka Election Board has announced that the electorate will not be allowed to carry smartphones, mobile phone or any gadgets in the polling booth. This basically prevents voters from taking pictures, selfies and making videos. "They will have to leave it at home or deposit it with the police personnel before entering the booth," Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer Sanjiv Kumar told IANS. According to reports, the ban on smartphones and mobile phones are since 2008, but it was not implemented strictly in the previous elections. But this time it seems that the enforcement will be strict and people will not able able to carry their smartphone in the polling station during the vote. Now the majority of voters have smartphones with a camera, and during the May 2018 Assembly election, there were many cases where voters were caught taking selfies while casting their votes and also capturing videos inside the booth. According to Sanjiv Kumar, this time the security personals are trained and they will restrict everyone from carrying phones inside the booth. He also added that voters can leave their smartphone with the party members who were sitting outside the booth with the voter list, and collect it after casting their vote. While talking about the numbers, Karnataka as a whole have 5.11 crore voters, which includes 2.5 crore female, 2.6 crore male and 4,661 others. The quantity of pooling booths in 28 seats over the state has expanded by 7 percent from 54,265 in the 2014 decisions to 58,186 in 2019. Source Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Kingdom affirms its support for the brotherly Sudanese people's views on their future; declares support for steps announced by Transitional Military Council and standing by the Sudanese people; Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques orders package of humanitarian aid Saudi Press Agency Saturday 1440/8/8 - 2019/04/13 Riyadh, April 13, 2019, SPA -- The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia followed the developments in the brotherly Republic of Sudan and the statement issued by the President of the Transitional Military Council and based on the historical ties between the two countries and the two brotherly peoples, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia expresses its support for the brotherly Sudanese people's views on their future and the measures taken by the Transitional Military Council in the interest of the brotherly Sudanese people. The Kingdom declares its support for the steps announced by the Council in preserving the lives and property, and stands by the Sudanese people, and hopes that this will achieve security and stability for brotherly Sudan. It calls on the Sudanese people of all categories and directions to give priority to the national interest to achieve their aspirations and hopes for development and prosperity. In order to alleviate the suffering of the brotherly Sudanese people, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques issued directives to the concerned authorities in the Kingdom to provide a package of humanitarian aid, including petroleum products, wheat and medicines. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as it declares this, asks Allah to grant the brotherly Republic of Sudan and its dear people security and stability and overcome all circumstances and difficulties. --SPA 23:51 LOCAL TIME 20:51 GMT 0014 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Cholera surges, children in urgent need one month after Cyclone Idai slammed southern Africa UNICEF 13 April 2019 - One month after Cyclone Idai devastated parts of Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) appealed to the international community to help some 1.6 million children still reeling from its impact. "Children living in crowded shelters or away from their homes are at risk of diseases, exploitation and abuse," said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director, who visited Mozambique's busy port city of Beira immediately after the cyclone hit. Citing one million children in Mozambique, followed by more than 443,000 in Malawi and 130,000 in Zimbabwe, UNICEF said that the needs of children remain "massive", including for healthcare, nutrition, education and water assistance. Since the cyclone hit Mozambique, cholera has surged in to 4,600 cases and malaria to 7,500 cases. UNICEF said that any prolonged interruption to essential services could lead to disease outbreaks and spikes in malnutrition where children are especially vulnerable. "The road to recovery will be long", asserted Ms. Fore. "It is imperative that humanitarian partners are there every step of the way". According to the UN Children's Fund, over 200,000 homes were destroyed in Mozambique alone and because the storm demolished crops just weeks before the harvest, food security is precarious. Meanwhile, as thousands of people remain in evacuation camps, UNICEF expressed particular concern over the more than 130,000 displaced children, mostly in Mozambique and Malawi. "We need to help children and families survive and then get back on their feet", stressed the UNICEF chief. To support its humanitarian response for children and families affected by the storm and its aftermath in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi over the next nine months, UNICEF has launched an appeal for $122 million. UNICEF response actions to date include: - Mozambique: Providing vaccines to immunize 900,000 people against cholera; distributing 500,000 mosquito nets to protect against malaria; and helping to restore Beira's water supply for 500,000 people. - Malawi: Providing safe water to more than 53,000 people and toilets to over 51,000 people; in evacuation centres, provided child friendly spaces, water trucks, toilets, medicines, recreation kits and volunteer teachers. - Zimbabwe: Providing over 60,000 people with information to prevent waterborne diseases; distributing hygiene kits; rehabilitating water systems; restoring sanitation facilities; providing vital health and nutrition supplies; and, with partners, delivering psychosocial support to vulnerable children in child-friendly spaces. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Impact of high debt levels on least developed countries 'cannot be overstated', says UN 13 April 2019 - The impact of high levels of debt on development efforts "cannot be overstated", the head of the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP) told a Ministerial Breakfast Meeting on least development countries (LDCs) on Saturday. "While debt financing remains an important source for achieving positive development outcomes in LDCs, the recent trends are a cause for concern" UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said at the meeting on strengthening resilience to LDCs' debt vulnerability. He mentioned that some countries, such as Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi where Cyclone Idai wreaked havoc last month, faced intersecting development threats. "Cyclone Idai not only demonstrates the devasting effects of a climactic shock, it also amplifies other vulnerabilities that we need to pay close attention to in order to build resilience within countries to maintain their sustainable development", said Mr. Steiner. He elaborated on how global stock debts have risen to levels not seen since the 1980s deb crisis and called even "more concerning" the LDCs debt build-up after being written off in the 1990s and early 2000s. Attributing this to "increased public investments" and "a shift from traditional sources to commercial sources of financing", Mr. Stiner said: "This has presented new and significant challenges in debt management at the country-level". According to the most recent International Monetary Fund (IMF)-World Bank debt sustainability analyses, 40 per cent of LDCs and low-income countries are either in or at high risk of debt distress, while 164 others are at extreme risk. "The trends are particularly unsettling for Sub-Saharan Africa", he asserted. On a positive note, most LDCs have used government borrowing to finance public investments significantly improving human development outcomes. As an example, the UNDP chief said that between 1990 and 2017, the human development index of LDCs as a group increased more than twice the global annual average of 0.7 per cent. Collective efforts needed "Our collective efforts and continued support" remain "of critical importance" stressed Mr. Stiner, pointing out that not only do debt obligations compete with other public expenditure for resources, but that many economies also lack resilience to economic or environmental shocks. He highlighted that LDCs need "comprehensive policy and programmatic support" to ensure enhanced debt management, sound macroeconomic policies and development financing to scale. "UNDP is supporting countries to expand their fiscal space through domestic resource mobilization efforts, amongst other instruments" he said. "I would like to reaffirm UNDP's continued strong commitment to work with Governments, international financial institutions, other UN agencies, the private sector and other stakeholders in order to bring development financing to scale in order to ease the debt burden in LDCs", concluded the UNDP Administrator. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sudanese opposition alliance demands involvement of civilians in joint presidential council People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 09:50, April 14, 2019 KHARTOUM, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Sudan's opposition Freedom and Change Alliance on Saturday demanded the transitional military council involve civilians in a joint presidential council. The alliance made the call during its meeting with Abdel-Fattah Al-Burhan, chairman of Sudan's Transitional Military Council. "We demanded the participation of civilians in the transitional presidential council in addition to a civilian government," Omer Al-Digair, a member of the alliance, told reporters. The alliance will present a list to the chairman of the military council on Sunday, he added. Al-Digair also said the alliance asked the council to restructure the security body and bring all people involved in corruption and killing of protesters to fair trial. Earlier in the day, Al-Burhan voiced in a statement his commitment to forming a two-year transitional civilian government. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US military campaign in Somalia could take seven more years to complete: Report Iran Press TV Sun Apr 14, 2019 03:54PM US defense officials estimate that Washington's military campaign in Somalia could take seven years to complete, a new report has revealed, days after President Donald Trump extended the Pentagon's mission for allegedly combating terrorism in the horn of Africa nation. US Africa Command (AFRICOM) has been carrying out periodic airstrikes in Somalia to allegedly support the UN-backed government there, which has been making efforts over the years to uproot the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab terrorist group spread across the country. The militant outfit has recently grown more powerful in central Somalia, carrying out attacks against government, military, and civilian targets in the capital, Mogadishu, as well as regional towns. The Pentagon has about 500 to 600 personnel as part of its purported counter-terrorism mission in Somalia , according to AFRICOM. "We think it's going to take approximately seven years for the Somalis to absorb all of these forces," an unnamed defense official familiar with the US counter-terrorism strategy in Somalia told CNN on Saturday. "If everything works out and however many miracles line up to make this happen it could go faster, and it could go slower," the source added. Other officials at the US Department of Defense have also told CNN that the US mission is "likely to not be completed until 2026." Trump signed an executive order this week to extend a presidential declaration of a national emergency concerning Somalia for another year, denouncing the rising militancy in the African country as an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to the US. In March 2017, Trump authorized the military to carry out precision strikes targeting al-Shabab militants. The campaign has on many occasions led to civilian casualties but American officials waited until earlier this month to confirm that they had indeed killed civilians in their air raids. AFRICOM admitted last Friday that an internal review of the previous airstrikes had found hints at civilian casualties in April last year. "During a commander-directed review of airstrikes conducted in Somalia since 2017, US Africa Command learned an April 1, 2018, airstrike killed two civilians," read the statement. Amnesty International has blasted US airstrikes as "unlawful killings," saying they could well amount to "war crimes." The London-based rights group also believes that AFRICOM's civilian death report understate the real numbers recorded by investigators. Last month, Amnesty reported that 14 civilians had been killed in only five US airstrikes that they had examined out of a total 110 missile strikes. Earlier this week, Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire traveled to Washington to discuss military cooperation and a wide range of issues with US National Security Adviser John Bolton and other senior American officials, including Under Secretary for Defense David Norquist and David Hale, the Under Secretary for Political Affairs. Besides the ongoing US military campaign in his country, Khaire said on his twitter account that "economic recovery" and "progress on security sector reform" were among other important issues discussed. The Somali PM ended his trip on Sunday. The Pentagon has stepped up airstrikes against alleged positions of al-Shabab militants in the country in the wake of Trump's approval in 2017 of expanded military operations there. Al-Shabab, which has long sought to topple Somalia's Western-backed government, was forced out of Mogadishu with the help of African Union forces in 2011. Despite being ousted from large parts of the south and central Somalia, the al-Qaeda-linked militant outfit, continues deadly attacks across the country, which has been ravaged by decades of war and poverty. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Saudi Arabia backs new Sudan ruler and ex-Yemen war czar Iran Press TV Sun Apr 14, 2019 10:38AM Saudi Arabia, gloating over the fall of Sudan's longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir, has expressed support for measures taken by the Sudanese transitional military council following his ouster. "The Kingdom declares its support for the steps announced by the Council in preserving the lives and property, and stands by the Sudanese people, and hopes that this will achieve security and stability for brotherly Sudan," the Saudi official news agency SPA said late Saturday. The agency added that Riyadh had also announced a humanitarian aid package to Sudan, including wheat, petroleum products, and medicine. The Sudanese military on Thursday deposed Bashir, who had ruled Sudan since 1989, following months of popular protests against his government. The military also established a military council to run the African country for a transitional period of two years. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) also welcomed on Saturday the new head of Sudan's transitional military council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan Abdelrahman, state news agency (WAM) said. "UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has directed to communicate with Sudan's transitional military council to explore the prospects of accelerating aid for the brotherly people of Sudan," said WAM. A report by London-based Middle East Eye last month said the head of Israel's Mossad had met with his Sudanese counterpart in Germany as part of a secret plan by Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates to oust Bashir. In another report in January, Bashir lamented that he had fallen for advice from unknown parties to normalize ties with Israel in order to ensure stability in his country, but had seen the situation spiral out of hand. Bashir, 75, who ruled over 30 years, took power in a coup in 1989. He had said that he would only move aside for another army officer or at the ballot box. The protests against Bashir initially erupted on December 19, 2018, in the face of a government decision to triple the price of bread. The demonstrations quickly turned into a mass movement across the country against the president, and finally led to his ouster. Sudanese media and analysts say Burhan coordinated sending Sudanese troops to Yemen to participate in the Saudi war on the impoverished country. Willow Berridge, author of Civil Uprisings in Modern Sudan and lecturer in history at Newcastle University, says the Yemen portfolio saw Burhan work closely with Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). It is with the support of this group that "he now appears to have come to power," said Berridge. "The role in this latest move of the Rapid Support Forces -- branded by many as a revamped version of the Janjaweed militias who committed mass atrocities in Darfur -- will make many cautious," Berridge added. Sudan's protest organizers push for civilian rule On Saturday, protest organizers in Sudan submitted a list of demands to the military during talks held after a transitional military council was sworn in as thousands of people held a sit-in outside the army headquarters in the capital Khartoum. In a statement, the organizers said they have called for the formation of a fully civilian government. They also pledged to continue their protests until all their demands were met. Earlier in the day, the new head of the ruling military council, in an address, pledged a civilian government in Sudan. In a statement aired live on official Sudan TV, Burhan announced the cancellation of the curfew and the release of all people tried by the emergency law. He also declared the dismissal of all states' military governors and the assignments of commanders of the military to areas in the states. Burhan further vowed to "uproot" Bashir's regime and release protesters, in a bid to placate demonstrators demanding civilian rule. "I announce the restructuring of state institutions according to the law and pledge to fight corruption and uproot the regime and its symbols," he said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hamas: Abbas' new government will ease way for US 'deal of century' Iran Press TV Sun Apr 14, 2019 05:23AM The Hamas resistance movement has criticized the formation of the new Palestinian government dominated by the Fatah party, saying such a government will ease the way for the imposition of the United States' yet-to-be-unveiled proposal on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas swore in the new government headed by a loyalist from his Fatah party, Mohammad Shtayyeh. The 21-member cabinet only includes ministers from factions affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), primarily Fatah, but excludes Hamas and the Islamic Jihad movement. In a statement issued on Saturday shortly after the government was sworn in, Hamas, which runs Gaza, warned that the new West Bank-based administration would further divide Palestinians. The Shtayyeh-led government, the statement read, "resorts to unilateralism and monopoly of power. This move widens the Palestinian division at the expense of the Palestinian people's interests." "The Fatah-formed separatist government lacks legal and constitutional legitimacy and it separates the Gaza Strip from the West Bank, which is a move in line with the 'deal of the century,'" it added. The so-called deal of the century, drawn up by the administration of US President Donald Trump to address the conflict, is said to be hugely in favor of the Israeli regime. Hamas underlined the need to form an inclusive national unity government, which serves all Palestinian people and puts an end to the oppression they have been enduring. The new government should invite Palestinian leaders to agree upon a national strategy to fight off all challenges facing the Palestine issue, the resistance group noted. Shtayyeh is seen as a critic of Hamas and a proponent of Israeli-Palestinian talks as well as the so-called two-state solution. UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Maldenov has welcomed the formation of the new Palestinian government, saying he was looking forward to cooperating with the team. "At a time of significant financial and political challenges to the Palestinian national project, all must support the government's efforts and work to overcome internal divisions. Unity is essential to advancing the goal of a lasting peace," he said in a statement. He further expressed the UN's commitment "to working with the Palestinian leadership and people in ending the occupation and advancing their legitimate national aspirations for statehood based on UN resolutions." The Palestinian leadership has been divided between Fatah and Hamas since 2006, when the latter scored a landslide victory in parliamentary elections in Gaza. Ever since, Hamas has been running the coastal enclave, while Fatah has been based in the autonomous parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Abdullah Says Won't Attend Afghanistan's Planned Peace Loya Jirga By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan April 14, 2019 KABUL -- Afghanistan's Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah says he will boycott a planned meeting of nearly 2,500 Afghan politicians and tribal, ethnic, and religious leaders aimed at discussing negotiations with the Taliban. Abdullah made the announcement on April 14, about two weeks before the gathering, known as a consultative Loya Jirga, is set to be held in Kabul on April 29. The United States has pushed for a peace settlement with the Taliban, with a new round of talks scheduled later this month in Qatar. However, the Taliban has long refused to speak officially with Kabul, calling the government a "puppet" of the West. Washington's push for a peace settlement comes ahead of Afghanistan's presidential poll scheduled for September. In his statement, Abdullah said that the Stability and Partnership electoral ticket he is leading had "not been involved in any consultation neither at political parties and individual levels nor at the government level." He also said that he did not see the gathering "helpful to overcome the current challenges in the country." With reporting by Tolo News Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/abdullah-says-won-t-attend-afghanistan-s -planned-peace-loya-jirga/29880163.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Armenian, Azeri Foreign Ministers To Discuss Nagorno-Karabakh 'Settlement' In Moscow By RFE/RL April 14, 2019 Moscow is set to host the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers on April 15 for talks on the conflict over Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that the talks between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts, Zohrab Mnatsakanian and Elmar Mammadyarov, will be "devoted to issues concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement." The Russian, U.S., and French co-chairs of the OSCE's Minsk Group set up to mediate a solution to the conflict will take part in the discussions, it said. Nagorno-Karabakh, which is populated mainly by ethnic Armenians, declared independence from Azerbaijan amid a 1988-94 war that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Since 1994, it has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces that Baku says include troops supplied by Armenia. The region's claim to independence has not been recognized by any country. Internationally mediated negotiations involving the Minsk Group helped forge a cease-fire in the region that is not always honored. There has been a significant decrease in cease-fire violations around Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in recent months. However, the negotiations have failed to produce a lasting settlement of the conflict so far. On March 29 in Vienna, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held their first meeting under the auspices of the Minsk Group. Yerevan and Baku described the talks as "positive" and "constructive," saying the sides had agreed to strengthen the cease-fire regime in the conflict zone and continue their dialogue. The summit was Pashinian's and Aliyev's fourth face-to-face encounter in six months. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/armenian-azeri-foreign -ministers-to-discuss-nagorno-karabakh- settlement-in-moscow/29880374.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemeni Prime Minister Lauds Saudi Support in Defeating the Coup and Restoring State Institutions Saudi Press Agency Sunday 1440/8/9 - 2019/04/14 Seiyun, Yemen, April 14, 2019, SPA -- Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik affirmed that the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen under leadership of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia supports the battle of defeating the coup and restoring the state's institutions in Yemen. This came during his participation in the Yemeni House of Representatives meeting designed to discuss a draft state fiscal budget for the current year. --SPA 20:24 LOCAL TIME 17:24 GMT 0019 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UAE welcomes appointment of Al-Burhan new head of Sudan's transitional military council Saudi Press Agency Sunday 1440/8/9 - 2019/04/14 ABU DHABI, April 13, 2019, SPA -- The UAE has welcomed the appointment of Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan Abdelrahman as the new head of Sudan's transitional military council. In a statement this evening, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation described the development as a "step forward reflecting the ambitions of the brotherly people of Sudan towards security, stability and development." "The UAE is following with a great interest this defining moment in Sudan's modern history and reiterates full trust in the ability of the Sudanese people and their national army to survive the challenges in a way that ensures stability, prosperity and development for the nation," added the statement. "The UAE reaffirms its support for the steps taken by Sudan's transitional military council to protect people and property, wishing these steps would ensure security and stability for the sisterly country." The statement adds that the UAE wishes all political, factional, popular and military leaders in the Republic of Sudan will work for protecting legitimacy and ensuring a peaceful transfer of power, a better future for the nation and national unity for the people of Sudan. --SPA 03:36 LOCAL TIME 00:36 GMT 0018 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Bahrain's King affirms support for Sudan Saudi Press Agency Sunday 1440/8/9 - 2019/04/14 Manama, April 14, 2019, SPA --King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Kingdom of Bahrain has affirmed his country's solidarity with and support for Sudan and expressed his appreciation of the tremendous efforts being exerted by General Abdulfattah AlBurhan, Chairman of the Military Transitional Council, to boost the security, peace and prosperity of the Sudanese people. The King praised the strong fraternal stances of Sudan and its permanent keenness on the joint Arab work and on supporting security and stability in the region. King Hamad, the Supreme Commander, expressed during a visit to the Bahrain Defence Force (BDF)'s General Command, appreciation of the Sudanese Armed Forces and their participation in the Arab Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen, wishing Sudan steady progress within the tolerance and fraternity prevailing among the components of its people. --SPA 13:29 LOCAL TIME 10:29 GMT 0008 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Philippines 'Never Shelved' Anti-China UN Ruling on S China Sea Sputnik News 18:55 14.04.2019 Previously, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte admitted that the disputed South China Sea is essentially "in possession" of Beijing and called for all nations to avoid creating frictions with China over it. At the same time, he warned Beijing against "touching" the Manila-controlled Pag-asa Island in the disputed region. The spokesman for Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has denied claims that Manila has abandoned the UN arbitral tribunal's decision that rejected the Chinese nine-dash line territorial claims in the South China Sea. He stated that the Philippines had "never shelved" the decision, which he called "irreversible", but noted that at the moment, the ruling can't be enforced. Panelo indicated that if Manilla were to decide to enforce it on its own, the conflict with China would be disastrous for it, reiterating earlier Philippine statements. "It only remains unenforceable because no foreign force seems persuaded to help us enforce it, and neither do we have the capability of enforcing it alone by force [] armed acts of enforcement could only trigger a bloody war that could cost the lives of our countrymen and destruction of properties in our land", he said. Earlier, former Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert Del Rosario called on President Duterte to "unshelve" the UN tribunal's decision regarding sovereignty over the South China Sea islands. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte previously admitted that China controls most of the South China Sea, despite the 2016 ruling, and urged every state, including those outside the region, to avoid creating tensions with Beijing. At the same time, he later warned Beijing against aggressive actions against Pag-asa, also known as Thitu Island, Manila-controlled territory of the Spratly Islands in South China Sea. Duterte has vowed to send his soldiers on "suicide missions" in case of aggressive moves. His words came after around 100 Chinese vessels were spotted around the island. At the same time, Duterte's spokesman warned Beijing against "irritant" acts in the region that threaten the countries' improving bilateral relations. His comments came in light of a Chinese call on "non-littoral states" that are active in the disputed sea to cease "stirring up trouble" days after US naval ships participated in joint drills alongside Manila's forces. The Philippines initiated an arbitration against China's territorial claim on the "nine-dash line", covering most of the South China Sea. Beijing has refused to participate in the arbitration. Its final ruling stated that China had no historic rights to claim "nine-dash line" territory. Beijing refused to acknowledge the tribunal's decision and to withdraw its forces from the region. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sudan's Military Council Retires Defence Chief, Envoys to US and Switzerland Sputnik News 14:47 14.04.2019(updated 22:03 14.04.2019) Sudan's military council announced a number of measures in reforming the country after the Sudanese army ousted President Omar Bashir, who had ruled the country for 30 years, amid months-long anti-government protests. Sudan's military council announced a number of measures for reforming the country. In particular, they stated that they would form a committee to take over the former governing party's assets. The council has also promised to release all army and police officers who participated in the protests. Moreover, the council has refused to participate in the country's transitional government, explaining that they should wait for elections. They have also declared that they have restructured the country's intelligence and security service, appointing General Abu Bakr as the new intelligence head. Apart from this, the council stated that they had retired the country's Defence Minister Awad Ibn Auf, as well as the ambassadors to Washington and Geneva. Earlier in the day, the Central Bank of Sudan on Sunday froze accounts of all government bodies, dissolved by the country's newly established ruling transitional military council, the bank said in a statement. "Based on the decision of the military council, we decided to freeze all accounts of government bodies dissolved by the council [the parliament, presidential office, state authorities and so on]" the statement obtained by Sputnik said. Prior to that, the deputy head of the Sudanese transitional military council, Mohamed Hamdan Daqlu, held a meeting with US charge d'affaires ad interim in Khartoum Steven Koutsis at the presidential palace, according to the council's statement, obtained by Sputnik. During the meeting, Daqlu briefed the US diplomat on the situation in the country and the reasons for the establishment of the transitional council. The deputy head of the council also discussed with Koutsis what steps could be taken to ensure security and stability in Sudan. "The charge d'affaires ad interim, in turn, has welcomed the role of the military council in establishing stability and assured [the council's deputy head] of the need to continue cooperation between the two parties", the statement added. The transitional council was established on Thursday for a period of up to two years, after the Sudanese military removed President Omar Bashir, who had ruled the country for 30 years, from power amid months-long anti-government protests. The council cancelled night-time curfew and vowed to hand over the power to a civil government in two years. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Afghan Forces Kill 128 Taliban Militants in Country's North, Northeast, East Sputnik News 13:37 14.04.2019(updated 19:04 14.04.2019) MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Afghan security forces have killed a total of 128 members of the Taliban movement and wounded 40 more in the north, northeast and east of the country, the Afghan Defense Ministry, Interior Ministry and the National Directorate of Security said on Sunday. "Last night [April 13], Afghan National and Security Forces with the support of Afghan Air Forces defeated the enemy in Char Dara, Khan Abad and Capital of [northern] Kunduz province. As a result: 40 Taliban terrorists were killed, 12 were injured and 13 hideouts and enemy positions were destroyed," the bodies said in a joint press release, published by the Defense Ministry on Twitter. A total of 35 Taliban militants were killed as part of three separate raids across the central-eastern Ghazni province. "As a result: Gelan district: 30 terrorists were killed Taweed Abad: Afghan Security Forces killed 5 Taliban terrorists and wounded 6 others," the joint press release added. Another 25 militants were killed by the security forces and 12 more suffered wounds in the northeastern Afghan province of Badakhshan, the Defense Ministry said in a separate press release. "Yesterday [April 13], around 7pm [14:30 GMT] a group of Taliban attacked Afghan National Defense and Security Forces checkpoints in Jurm district of Badakhshan province In this conflict 25 Taliban terrorists including 4 foreign citizens were killed, 12 were injured," the press release said. Twenty-eight Taliban fighters were eliminated by the security forces and 10 more were wounded in clearance operations in the eastern Nangarhar province, the Defense Ministry added. Earlier in the day, a local security official said, as cited by Khaama Press that the Afghan security forces killed nine members of the Taliban movement in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar late on Friday after the militants tried to overrun a security checkpoint. The Khaama Press News Agency cited the official as saying that the clash erupted at the Takhtapul district. "There was a clash between the #Taliban and #ANDSF [Afghan National Defense and Security Forces] at the #Takhtapul district CP [checkpoint] in #Kandahar which caused the death of 9 insurgents. The Taliban claim it was overrun, but that is not true," the official tweeted as quoted by the Khaama Press News Agency. The security official added that the Afghan forces maintained control over the checkpoint but one police officer had died during the clashes. The armed confrontation between Kabul and the Taliban has been dragging on for years, with the insurgents perpetrating regular attacks across the country, and the government conducting anti-terrorist raids with support from the United States. Most recently, the Taliban announced the launch of their annual spring offensive, warning that the fighting will continue as long as foreign forces remained in Afghanistan. This comes as the US and the Taliban concluded 16 days of talks in the Qatari capital Doha last month. The negotiations resulted in a draft agreement on a troop pull-out timeline and counterterrorism guarantees. Nevertheless, the group has so far refused to engage directly with the Afghan government or commit to a ceasefire. Peace talks with the Taliban kicked off last year, as US President Donald Trump vowed to reduce the number of US troops in Afghanistan. Trump has previously been on record expressing his wish to end the war that hit the Central Asian nation in 2001 and transformed into one of the most prolonged conflicts in US history. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Airstrike Kills Deputy Leader of IS in Somalia By Harun Maruf April 14, 2019 The deputy leader of the Islamic State group in Somalia has been killed in an airstrike, a Somali regional minister told VOA. Abdisamad Mohamed Gallan, security Minister of the Puntland region, told VOA Somali the airstrike that killed Abdihakim Mohamed Ibrahim, known as Dhoqob, took place Sunday between the villages of Hol Anod and Hiriro. Gallan said the strike hit the vehicle Dhoqob and another passenger were travelling in. He said both men were killed but the other person has not yet been identified. "The vehicle was burned," said a witness who didn't want to be named. IS Somalia is led by Sheikh Abdulkadir Mumin, a former scholar for al-Shabab. In October 2015 he defected from the group and pledged his allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Dhoqob was Mumin's right-hand-man and has appeared in videos produced by the group. Mumin himself survived another airstrike in his mountainous hideout in Bari region in November 2017. "Killing one of their top leaders will speed up their eradication," Gallan said. Puntland officials have not commented on who carried out the attack but the U.S. military in Africa has been conducting relentless strikes against militants in Somalia. This year alone, U.S. has carried out more than 30 airstrikes, all of them against al-Shabab. IS has 200-300 men in Somalia according to experts. Al-Shabab and IS have recently been fighting in the eastern mountainous areas since December last year. Al-Shabab has vowed to eliminate its rival IS, accusing it of "dividing the jihadists." Security officials told VOA Somali that IS has lost some of its territory to al-Shabab. Fadumo Yasin contributed to this report from Bosaso in Puntland. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sudan Protest Group Calls for Civilian Government By VOA News April 14, 2019 Sudan's main protest organizers have called for the immediate handover of power to a civilian government in the wake of the military coup that ousted President Omar al-Bashir last week. On Sunday, the military council said it would name a civilian prime minister and Cabinet to help run the country but would not name a civilian to the office of the president. A military spokesman also said the council would not stop the demonstrations that are continuing. It remains to be seen if the announcement will satisfy the protesters who have demanded the council "immediately and unconditionally'' transfer power to a civilian government. The Sudanese Professionals Association, which has led calls for a civilian government, has urged more demonstrations until its demands are met. The demonstrations against longtime leader al-Bashir led to his removal by the military last week. The protests began December 19, with demonstrators accusing al-Bashir's government of economic mismanagement that has sparked skyrocketing food prices, and fuel and foreign currency shortages. Sudan's defense minister, Awad Mohamed Ahmed Ibn Auf, said a transitional military council will run the government for the next two years. The leader of that council, Lieutenant General Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan, said Saturday he is committed to transferring power to a civilian government within two years. He also ordered the release of all prisoners jailed under emergency laws ordered by the ousted president. Al-Bashir, who came to power in an Islamist coup in 1989, imposed a nationwide state of emergency February 22 in an attempt to suppress the protests after an initial crackdown failed. The government said weeks ago that 31 people had been killed, but the group Physicians for Human Rights estimates the death toll is at least 60. Al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in connection with atrocities in the western region of Darfur. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pompeo: Venezuelan People Won't Tolerate Maduro Much Longer April 14, 2019 U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he does not think the Venezuelan people will tolerate the Maduro regime much longer. "The devastation wrought by Nicolas Maruro, the tragedy of the humanitarian situation there bought out solely by Maduro making the choice to bring in the Cubans, to allow Russians to intervene in the country -- those are things that are destroying the lives of young people in Venezuela," Pompeo told Peru's El Comercio newspaper Sunday. Pompeo was on the last day of a four-nation tour of South America, where the economic and political calamity in Venezuela was among the top concerns during talks in Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Colombia. "This is not something that has happened in the last weeks or months. This is devastation wrought by the Cubans, the Russians and Maduro over the last years. ... I'm very hopeful that it'll come to its conclusion quickly," he said. Pompeo again said all options are on the table when it comes to U.S. involvement in Venezuela. But the Trump administration has not said under what circumstances it would use military action. The U.S. has already imposed a number of sanctions against some Venezuelan officials and the country's oil sector. Pompeo's stop in Colombia will include a visit to the border city of Cucuta, which is separated from Venezuela by a bridge. Tons of U.S. food, medicine and other relief supplies are sitting in warehouses in Cucuta, waiting to be delivered. Maduro has refused to let U.S. aid into the country, calling it the vanguard of a U.S. invasion. Pompeo said the Trump administration wants to be deeply engaged in Central and South America, noting that great democracies, free market economies and transparency have not always flourished in the region. "There were many communist countries in Latin America for many years, but that's the great thing that's changed. This idea of the totalitarian Orwellian state of communism is being rejected by the people of South America. It's glorious," the secretary said. But while Pompeo said the U.S. welcomes Chinese private enterprises bringing goods and services to Latin America, competing with what the U.S. has to offer, he said Latin countries must be aware that Chinese companies may come instead for "malign activities." "State-owned enterprises, companies deeply connected to the Chinese government that want to put infrastructure, telecommunications infrastructure inside of your country ... we want to make sure everyone has their eyes wide open," Pompeo said. The United States has accused Chinese computer and telecommunications firms, including Huawei, of installing spyware in its products charges the companies deny. Pompeo told the Peruvian newspaper that if the country uses Chinese technology, its information would be "in the hands of President Xi (Jinping) and the People's Liberation Army." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Promises State Aid to Second Moon Mission Sputnik News 15:48 14.04.2019 TEL AVIV (Sputnik) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised on Sunday that the national government would help send a second lunar lander to the Moon. "We plan to launch Beresheet 2. The State of Israel took part in the first launch and will do it again. I hope this time we will succeed", he said at a cabinet meeting. Morris Kahn, a billionaire who founded Israeli firm SpaceIL, announced Saturday that preparations for the mission would begin this weekend. The Beresheet 2 spacecraft will try to achieve what its predecessor could not after an engine failure caused it to crash on the lunar surface. If successful, Israel will become the fourth nation after the Soviet Union, the United States and China to put a spacecraft on the Moon. It will also be the first privately built craft to do so. The first Beresheet ("Genesis" in Hebrew) spacecraft, which had been launched by Israel in late February, crashed on the moon due to technical problems during its final descent to the surface. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Why Belt and Road Initiative is anything but debt trap People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 09:17, April 14, 2019 NAIROBI, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Almost six years after Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the grand vision for promoting common development through better connectivity among countries and regions has been morphing into a solution for speeding up global cooperation for greater prosperity. This is evidenced by the fact that 125 countries and 29 international organizations have so far signed cooperation agreements with China on jointly building the Belt and Road, according to data published in March on China's official Belt and Road web portal. But as global enthusiasm for and confidence in the BRI grow, some noises ensue, often with ill intentions to discourage its wide adoption and send misleading messages to nations who seek to benefit from BRI participation. One such message claims that the BRI pushes some countries into a "debt trap." PALE NOISES The situation on the ground, however, has shown that such noises are ill-founded. Researchers, economists, and policymakers in Africa, a region that has been warned to be wary of a so-called "debt trap" for participating in the BRI, regard such claims as mere negative speculations that seek to undermine the initiative, saying these claims should not be taken seriously. Firstly, developing countries apparently aspire to improve their dilapidated infrastructure and the BRI well meets such needs. Taking transport as a key example, Prof. Damian Gabagambi, managing director of Tanzania's National Development Corporation, said the BRI is highly strategic because transport networks in a country are like blood vessels in a human body. "If the blood vessels are blocked, the whole body would paralyze. Likewise, without an efficient transport network, the economy paralyzes," he said. "Development of transport network contributes to lower cost of distribution of goods and services among regions and increase in productivity through the availability of access to a diversified set of resources," he said. In Ethiopia, a new Chinese-built and funded terminal at its capital airport was inaugurated in January this year with an annual capacity to serve about 22 million passengers. It tripled the airport's capacity, contributing to Ethiopia's efforts to become a key aviation hub of the African continent. In Kenya, the Chinese-built and funded Nairobi-Mombasa railway has ferried more than 2.5 million passengers and nearly 3.9 million tons of cargo since its launch in May 2017. In his State of the Nation Address on April 4, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta praised the grand project, saying it has been listed among the top 13 most magnificent railway tours for 2019. Developing countries need these, and if China is willing to provide support, it should be a welcomed move, Gabagambi said. "Accusation by some Western countries of China letting some countries fall into a debt trap due to their cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative is a matter of perception," he added. Secondly, the so-called debt trap diplomacy language is highly questionable. In fact, taking Africa for instance, its debts owed to China only make up a small share of the total, and such language was highly likely coined by some Western countries that seek to rein in China's growing global role. Zitto Kabwe, an economics analyst in Tanzania, said between 2000 and 2016, Africa owed China 115 billion U.S. dollars which were only 2 percent of loans that Africa owed other foreign countries. "Why is the world making noise to China with such a minimal amount of debt?" he said. "It should be remembered that the construction of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway in the 1970s by China was protested by the World Bank and other Western countries. Some quarters claimed that Chinese were invading Tanzania, but to date, we don't see Chinese invading Tanzania," he said. "I believe that Tanzania and Africa in general should define how their cooperation with China should be. Western countries should stop dictating to Africa how the continent should collaborate with China. This amounts to insulting African countries and it's a continuation of colonial mentality," he said. Gabagambi said that it is normal for countries to become indebted because countries borrow to finance different development projects. "Fortunately, African countries are not in the list of most indebted countries in the world," he said. Noting that blaming China for the BRI is unfair, Gabagambi said: "In my opinion, Western countries are envious of Chinese success in transforming the economies of developing countries in a big way that they and their Bretton Woods institutions have failed to achieve for decades." Benard Ayieko, a Kenya-based economist wrote an article earlier this year, describing the so-called China debt trap rhetoric as "farcical." Ayieko said that the saying that Chinese loans are the largest component in the debt matrix of borrowing countries is a misconception. "What Chinese loans have done is to diversify these countries' loan portfolios to avert any risk associated with overreliance on one borrower," he said. Thirdly, BRI cooperation follows the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits, which demonstrates BRI cooperation is based on negotiations among parties and is never unilateral. Hence, the "debt trap" rhetoric is highly unfair. Zambia-based economist Kampamba Shula said China was not trying to dupe participating countries into a debt trap because China does not force itself on any country. "To insinuate that African countries were being duped into a debt trap is not to be taken seriously," he said. Leonard Munyandamutsa, a Rwanda-based trade and investment policy expert who specializes in emerging markets investment and trade negotiation, said: "We cannot simply blame China for the increasing debts of some countries because the loans are negotiated by African representatives and given on mutually agreed terms." Ladislas Ngendahimana, a political analyst and the secretary general of the Rwanda Association of Local Government Authorities, said that business, trade and investments are neutral. The so-called debt trap is more a matter of accountable and responsible leadership on the part of the recipient countries, but China is doing a good thing for Africa. Ngendahimana said the BRI contributes to economic cooperation and economic development, which is the best way to prevent conflicts and a driver of modern international relations as well. KEEPING POPULARITY AMID ATTACKS Despite accusations by detractors, the BRI has remained popular, which once again proves the "debt trap" labeling is wrong. During President Xi's visit to Italy in March, China and Italy inked a memorandum of understanding on jointly advancing the Belt and Road construction. Rome's endorsement of the BRI makes Italy the first G7 member to do so. In a joint communique issued by the two countries, Beijing and Rome agreed that the BRI boasts huge potential in promoting infrastructure connectivity. There is nothing sinister about China giving out loans to other countries, said Isaac Mwaipopo, executive director of the Center for Trade Policy and Dialogue in Zambia, adding what matters is that recipient countries ensure that the loans are used for the intended purpose of uplifting the welfare of citizens. "There is no doubt that the initiative has left an indelible mark of impact on the participating countries as reflected in various infrastructure projects such as schools and hospitals which have not only helped improve social service delivery but resulted in economic development as well," he said. Mwaipopo looks forward to the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation scheduled to be held in China later this month and anticipates that the forum would highlight the BRI's progress in achieving certain objectives, while allowing countries to further consolidate their cooperation and understanding. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Premier Li proposes multiple measures for future China-CEEC cooperation People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 09:09, April 14, 2019 DUBROVNIK, Croatia, April 12 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday proposed a series of measures to promote cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs). Li made the proposal when addressing the eighth China-CEEC leaders' meeting in the Croatian city of Dubrovnik. Li noted that Chinese President Xi Jinping recently made successful visits to three European countries, injecting new impetus into deepening development of the China-European Union (EU) comprehensive strategic partnership. As part of the China-EU relations, the China-CEEC cooperation mechanism has been conducive to promoting European integration process and advancing the China-EU ties, the premier said. Members of the mechanism stick to the principles of mutual respect and equal treatment, uphold the spirit of openness and inclusiveness, follow international rules and EU laws and regulations, and respect the responsibilities and obligations that EU members among the 16 CEECs need to fulfill, Li said. The cooperation mechanism attaches equal importance to trade and investment, and combines economic cooperation with people-to-people exchanges, having not only promoted common development but also facilitated Europe's balanced development, said Li. The mechanism has become a major pillar for China-EU comprehensive cooperation, he added. Noting that the leaders' meeting takes "Building new bridges through openness, innovation and partnership" as its theme, Li called for making the bridge of openness broader, the bridge of innovation clearer, and the bridge of partnership more solid. On future development of the China-CEEC cooperation, Li called for jointly defending multilateral trade system, upholding such basic principle as openness, transparency, inclusiveness and non-discrimination, and sticking to the direction of trade liberalization. On expanding trade volume, Li said China is willing to import more high-quality agricultural products from the CEECs and make it easier for such products to be exported to China. Calling for joint efforts to build the Belt and Road, the premier said China is willing to enhance the alignment between its development strategies and those of the CEECs, stick to the principles of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, and better draw on complementary advantages, so as to achieve win-win results and common prosperity. Urging greater efforts to boost innovation cooperation, Li said China is willing to work with the 16 countries to conduct joint research, expand scientific and technological exchanges, and cultivate growth points through innovation cooperation. The premier also stressed the importance of jointly safeguarding a fair, just and non-discriminatory market environment. Li also called for continued efforts to promote cooperation in the fields of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and industrial park building, adding that China and the CEECs have held cross-border matching events of SMEs, and launched a website for the SMEs coordination mechanism. Calling for stepped-up efforts to conduct people-to-people exchanges, Li said China and the CEECs should take the Year of Education and Youth Exchange as an opportunity to enhance exchanges and cooperation among universities and colleges and promote mutual understanding and friendship between young people. Announcing that China will host the ninth China-CEEC leaders' meeting in 2020, Li said he expects CEEC leaders to attend the meeting and jointly sketch out a new blueprint for the China-CEEC cooperation. On their part, CEEC leaders said, after the launch of the cooperation mechanism, the CEECs and China have seen their pragmatic cooperation bearing remarkable fruits, political mutual trust continuously strengthened, trade and investment rapidly growing, and cooperation in fields including education, tourism and culture continuously deepened. The cooperation mechanism has continuously shown new vigor and vitality and become an important cross-region cooperation platform featuring openness, inclusiveness, mutual benefits and win-win results, they said. The mechanism has not only boosted economic growth of each country and enhanced the wellbeing of their people, but also effectively promoted the overall EU-China relations, they said. All sides are ready to take this meeting as an opportunity to fully support the implementation of CEEC-China cooperation projects, further promote connectivity and infrastructure building, actively participate in the joint building of the Belt and Road, continuously expand trade volume, jointly safeguard multilateralism and free trade, increase personnel exchanges, and expand exchanges and cooperation at local levels and in fields including tourism, health, sports, and think tanks, the CEEC leaders said. After the meeting, China and the CEECs jointly published The Dubrovnik Guidelines for Cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries, and the leaders witnessed the signing of more than 10 cooperation agreements. Greece was accepted as a full member of the China-CEEC cooperation mechanism, according to a decision made by the meeting. Later on Friday, Li and Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic met the press after the leaders' meeting. Both leaders spoke highly of the new progress made in the China-CEEC cooperation and called the meeting efficient, pragmatic, fruitful and successful. Speaking to reporters, Li said, faced with the current complicated international situations, all sides should work to safeguard multilateralism and free trade. As a cross-regional cooperation platform, the China-CEEC cooperation mechanism now serves as an important part of and a beneficial supplement to the China-EU cooperation, Li said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address India confident US cannot impose sanctions over S-400 Iran Press TV Sun Apr 14, 2019 09:05AM India says it is confident it will avoid US sanctions over its purchase of Russia's S-400 missile system, which has become a lightning rod in American dispute with China and Turkey. India's Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stressed in an interview with AFP that her country needed arms from Russia to remain strong. The US has warned of sanctions on countries buying Russian military equipment. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, however, defied the warning in October when he signed a deal worth more than $5 billion on the delivery of S-400 anti-aircraft missiles with President Vladimir Putin. Sitharaman said India has presented its reasons for the purchase to the US and expects Washington to accept them and avoid imposing sanctions on New Delhi. "In the case of S-400 we have explained ourselves well. That has been heard and understood. They have appreciated the point of view put forward," AFP quoted her as saying. Asked if she was confident that India would avoid sanctions, Sitharaman said: "Yes I hope so." US President Donald Trump's administration imposed sanctions on China's military in 2018 over Beijing's purchase of the S-400 and other military hardware from Russia. The US is currently embroiled in a brewing dispute with Turkey and has warned the NATO member of sanctions for buying the S-400 after suspending Ankara's participation in the stealth F-35 jet program. Washington has already cast scorn on New Delhi's efforts to obtain a waiver from the US Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) which monitors the S-400 system with a particular focus. American officials have indicated that the US government is still hopeful to persuade India to forego the agreement. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Randall Schriver told a hearing in March that Washington wanted to "work through" the problem given that India's contract with Russia had not been completed yet. Schriver said the US was "very keen to see (India) make an alternative choice (to the S-400) and we are working with them to provide potential alternatives." The US government, however, is not in a position to play hardball with India because Washington needs to keep the Asian giant on its side in order to counter China's growing power. The United States is specially in a tricky position in the face of efforts by China and India to patch up relations which went into sharp decline in 2017 when they had a military standoff over a Himalayan plateau. In her interview, Sitharaman stressed the two sides' determination to sort out their differences. "Sometimes there are differences and you have a face-off", but "our attempt has been that these differences... cannot be allowed to become disputes." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address India Called 'Nuke-Armed' Pak's Bluff With Balakot Air Strikes Modi Sputnik News 20:11 14.04.2019(updated 20:12 14.04.2019) While the parliamentary poll is in full swing in India, PM Narendra Modi has addressed an audience at an election rally detailing why he prioritises security issues in his policies, as well as pondering on the soured ties with Pakistan. India has called Pakistan's nuclear capacity bluff in recent cross-border air strikes, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Sunday, adding that one country cannot have two prime ministers. Referring to the air strikes by the Indian Air Force (IAF) at Balakot, Modi addressed an election rally: "Pakistan and its supporters have been threatening us for long with its nuclear capability but the IAF called its bluff with its strikes", The Economic Times India quoted him as saying. "Those days are gone when India would give in to threats. This is a new India and it will strike terrorists well inside their hideouts across the border", he warned. Modi also called out the National Conference, a political party in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, the Congress Party and the People's Democratic Party (PDP.) He found fault with the Congress, for instance, for criticizing him over his attention to India's security issues, saying: "They do so because they never fully trusted the country's defence forces", Modi said, before going on: "The Congress always restricted our Army from going all out against terrorists". He specified that the Congress has used the defence forces only "to generate income, be it Bofors [Swedish arms manufacturer] or helicopter deals", adding that the Congress and its allies "keep politics above the security of the country". He also made a reference to their attitude to him as the head of the government: "Some people are so involved in anti-Modi tirade that they have forgotten the security of the country". Modi then went on to knock the locally operating National Conference and PDP for supporting separatism, arguing that they threaten India with a separate prime minister and exclusion of the state of Jammu and Kashmir from the county, while stressing that the state is integral to India and will remain so. He separately addressed the family rule in the state: "The people of J&K are not the slaves of the Abdullahs and the Muftis whose three generations have ruled this state". He thundered that "these corrupt families of J&K must know that Modi will stand like a wall against their attempts to continue their family rule in the state. They may keep abusing me but they will not succeed in dividing this country". "One country cannot have two Prime Ministers, two flags and two constitutions. That commitment made by Bharatiya Jana Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mookerjee is our firm resolve", news agency PTI quoted him as saying. Modi vowed that India would not give up its claim to Kashmir, the country's only Muslim-dominated state, which has been divided between two countries and been the subject of two wars between the neighbours since their independence in 1947. India has, meanwhile, entered full election mode as voting for members of a new lower house of parliament kicked off on 11 April, and the last ballot is expected to be cast five weeks later on 19 May. Opposition parties accuse Modi of exploiting unrest in Kashmir to woo Hindu voters in the election. A new twist in the India-Pakistan conflict occurred when Indian fighter jets conducted "pre-emptive non-military" strikes against alleged Jaish-e-Mohammad terror camps based in Balakot in Pakistan on 26 February in response to the 14 February Pulwama terror incident in which more than 40 Indian paramilitary troops were killed. The Pak-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammad has claimed responsibility for the attack. Shortly afterwards, Pakistani jets were reported to have headed into Indian airspace, prompting India to respond. A dogfight ensued, in which a MiG-21 Bison fighter jet was shot down by Pakistan. India claims that before going down, the Indian MiG-21 had also downed an F-16 from the Pakistani air force, while Pakistan denies it. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address FM: Iran announces setting up institutes parallel to INSTEX IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, April 14, IRNA -- Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that Iran has informed the European Union (EU) of establishing institutions parallel to the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX). Addressing a meeting with Chairman of the Italian Senate's Foreign Policy Commission Vito Rosario Petrocelli, Zarif referred to strong ties between two countries over the past 40 years. He expressed the hope for incumbent Italian government to continue good economic relations with Iran. Meanwhile, Petrocelli pointed to long-standing relations between Iran and Italy, and called for preserving and reinforcing ties. He added that Iran-Italy parliamentary friendship group has been established in Italian Senate. Elsewhere in his remarks, Petrocelli sympathized with Iranian government and people over the recent deadly floods. He also promised sending humanitarian aid to flood-stricken people. During the meeting both sides discussed international development, regional issues and development in North Africa. On May 8, 2018, Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, but his move was condemned by other parties to the 2015 agreement. INSTEX was adopted by foreign ministers of the European trio on the sidelines of a European Union summit in the Romanian capital of Bucharest on January 1. INSTEX has been registered at the address of France's Economy and Finance Ministry in Paris. German banker Per Fischer has been chosen for a period of six months to run it. Also, a senior UK diplomat is expected to head the Supervisory Board. Earlier, INSTEX president Per Fischer visited Iran to hold talks with Iranian stakeholders in a bid to work out details of the payment channel. Trump's choice has faced opposition of the international community; namely Russia, China, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the European Union Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini. Director General of the IAEA Yukiya Amano underlined the fact that Iran has complied with its commitments under the nuclear deal. Emphasizing the fact that the agency will continue to verify the non-diversion of nuclear material declared by Iran under its NPT Safeguards Agreement, the IAEA chief said, 'The implementation in Iran of the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement, Additional Protocol, and additional transparency measures under the JCPOA amounts to the most robust verification system in existence any here in the world.' 9376**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Europe has no excuse to delay INSTEX: Zarif IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, April 14, IRNA -- Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Sunday criticized the European states for delay in functioning the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEXT). 'To implement the mechanism, Iran needed to launch a corresponding representative, which started last week; now the Europeans have no pretext for futher delay,' he said on the sidelines of unveiling the online economic diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Talking to the reporters, Zarif said that after the US withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCOPA) last May, Europe committed itself to launch a mechanism to ease trade with Iran. Now they need to try hard to fulfill their commitments; they are very slow and they should not assume that Iran will wait for them forever, said Zarif. 'Iran has good ties with its neighbors and has launched similar mechanisms with them, working well,' said Zarif, adding, 'We have no idea how much time the Europeans need to launch a rudimentary mechanism.' Regarding US move on April 8 to announce the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist entity, Iran's foreign minister said that the first retaliatory move Tehran made was that the Supreme National Security Council issued a statement and named the American forces in West Asia, known as the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) a terrorist group and the US a state sponsor of terrorism. He said that Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Majlis (the Iranian Parliament) are consulting about other reactions and some proposals have been made for the purpose. Zarif added that he has written letters to the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the UN Security Council about the US wrongful act in breach of the international law and Washington's very wrong policies in the Middle East. He said that today, on which US' decision will be implemented, Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs will send a letter to foreign ministers of all the countries in the world to remind them that it is necessary to take a stance against the US unprecedented and dangerous move. 9417**1416 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Floods' damage reaches $2.5 billion: Iran's Interior Minister ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency Sun / 14 April 2019 / 16:26 Tehran (ISNA) Recent floods in Iran have left nearly $2.5 billion damage and hit 25 provinces and more than 4400 villages across the country, Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said on Sunday. "The floods were unprecedented and caused many problems in all the 25 provinces, including the devastation of houses, farms, bridges and roads," he added. He also suggested that by considering preventive measures as the first priority and transferring population of more than 250 villages and some cities, deaths and injuries following floods would be reduced. Fazli said the floods had caused around 350 trillion rials ($2.5 billion) worth of damage. The flooding, which began on March 19, has killed 76 people, forced more than 220,000 people into emergency shelters, and left aid agencies struggling to cope. The armed forces have been deployed to help those affected. Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami said 14,000 kilometers (8,700 miles) of road had been damaged and more than 700 bridges completely destroyed by landslides and flood water. The government has said it will pay compensation to all those who have incurred losses, especially farmers. Morteza Shahidzadeh, head of Iran's sovereign wealth fund, said President Hassan Rouhani had asked permission from the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to withdraw $2 billion from the fund for reconstruction in flood-hit areas. End Item NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran's FM Zarif criticizes Europe for delaying INSTEX launch Iran Press TV Sun Apr 14, 2019 10:25AM Iran has once again complained about a delay by European partners in the 2015 nuclear deal to make operational a non-dollar direct payment channel with Tehran, saying they now have "no excuse" for further postponement of the project. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif made the remarks on the sidelines of a ceremony to launch the ministry's Economic Diplomacy website in Tehran on Sunday. The Europeans, Zarif said, introduced the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchange (INSTEX) as "a preliminary measure" - as part of their multiple commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) - following Washington's withdrawal from the nuclear accord. In order to begin honoring their commitments, the Europeans were required to set up INSTEX, he explained. An Iranian structure parallel to INSTEX, called the Special Trade and Finance Institute (STFI), was launched just last week, Zarif said, noting that the European signatories have no longer any excuse to delay the start of their job. He also stressed that the European partners are "lagging behind" in fulfilling their commitments and "should not believe that the Islamic Republic will [continue to wait] for them." The top diplomat further hailed mechanisms similar to INSTEX that were launched with Iran's neighbors and were operating in an optimum manner. "I wonder how much time do the Europeans need [to set up] a preliminary mechanism?" Zarif exclaimed. In late January, Iran's European partners in the JCPOA unveiled INSTEX with the aim of protecting their companies against US sanctions and enabling them to continue trade with Iran. In its initial stage, INSTEX will facilitate trade of humanitarian goods such as medicine, food and medical devices, but it will later be expanded to cover other areas of trade, including Iran's oil sales. American sanctions were re-imposed against Iran last year following Washington's unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA. Zarif urges countries to adopt stance on IRGC blacklisting Elsewhere in his remarks, Zarif touched on Washington's recent blacklisting of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC). The Iranian foreign minister said that he had personally written letters to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Security Council about Washington's latest illegal move as well as other erroneous policies adopted in the region. |Zarif noted that he would soon send messages to foreign ministries of all countries, urging them to adopt a stance against the "unprecedented" US move targeting the IRGC and its "dangerous consequences." On April 8, the White House labeled Iran "a state sponsor of terrorism" and the IRGC a "foreign terrorist organization," claiming that the elite force "actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft." Iran swiftly retaliated, with the Supreme National Security Council designating the US government a supporter of terrorism and its West Asia force, known as the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), a terrorist organization. 'US committing crimes by blocking aid to Iran' Zarif also said Iran has collected documents that prove Washington's active contribution to measures that can amount to crimes against humanity by hindering international humanitarian aid to flood-hit Iranians. Iran would soon release the documents that show banks - even European ones - are refusing to accept cash aid offered by Iranians abroad due to their fear of US measures, he added. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 5 Iran provinces remain under flood warning as death toll reaches 76 Iran Press TV Sun Apr 14, 2019 09:20AM Iranian officials are warning that even though floodwaters have been receding in most parts of the country, several provinces remain under a flood warning due to renewed heavy precipitation. Vast expanses of the country are experiencing a new spell of rainfall, Ahad Vazifeh, an official with Iran's Meteorological Organization, was quoted by Tasnim News Agency as saying on Sunday. Five provinces at risk There is a possibility that flash floods could still affect the southern provinces of Fars, Hormozgan, Sistan and Baluchestan as well as the northeastern South Khorasan and Khorasan Razavi provinces, which remain in a state of emergency, he added. Rainfall is also expected to intensify in the southwestern Province of Khuzestan, the official cautioned. Massive downpours began sweeping the country on March 19, with raging currents of water battering houses, washing away cars and killing people in a few provinces. The intense rainfalls eventually caused rivers to burst their banks, and dams to overflow, triggering the worst flooding in decades in 25 of the country's 31 provinces. Death toll rises Also on Sunday, the country's Forensic Medicine Organization increased the death toll from the ongoing floods to 76. Most recently, the organization said, flooding claimed the lives of five people in Khuzestan Province and left a sixth person dead in the western Province of Ilam. On Sunday, several ministers of President Hassan Rouhani's cabinet went to the Parliament to brief the lawmakers on the disaster response and relief operations in flood-hit cities and villages. Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami said around 14,000 kilometers of national roads had been damaged by the floods. Eastern rivers could swell Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian, warned of the possibility of rivers in eastern parts of the country overflowing their banks as a result of fresh downpours. Ardakanian said precipitation levels this year had reached as high as 57 millimeters, up from 19 millimeters last year. This amount, he said, was unprecedented over the past 50 years, showing a 174 percent increase compared to last year. Talking to parliamentarians, Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani-Fazli explained that minimizing human losses had been the primary goal of relief operations. He cited the evacuation of 250 villages and a number of urban districts as part of preventative measures employed to that end. Ardakanian gave assurances that the dams were in good condition and subject to constant supervision in terms of flood control capacity. He praised the many successful dam building projects implemented since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and noted, "Had it not been for these dams, Khuzestan Province would have been [entirely] inundated [by the ongoing floodwaters]." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iraqi resistance groups express solidarity with Iran's IRGC amid US blacklisting Iran Press TV Sun Apr 14, 2019 07:32AM Iraqi resistance groups, which have been a major partner in the national army's sweeping counter-terrorism operations, have thrown their weight behind Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in the face of the US blacklisting of the elite military force. Visiting the residence of the Iranian consul general in the holy city of Najaf on Saturday, representatives of the Iraqi resistance groups delivered a statement in which they rejected Washington's latest move to target the IRGC and expressed their solidarity with the Iranian force. They recalled the IRGC's contribution to Iraqi forces' years-long anti-terror drive and commended its role in preventing several Iraqi states from falling into the hands of the Takfiri terrorist group Daesh. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Badr Organization -- part of the Popular Mobilization Units or Hashd al-Sha'abi, which had a prominent role in flushing Daesh out of the areas they had occupied -- denounced Washington's move against the IRGC as "laughable" given that it was "coming from the number one sponsor of terrorism, America." Similarly, a spokesman for the Fatah (Conquest) alliance denounced the US designation, saying, "We reject this action from America and say we have honor to be in the Islamic resistance that fought and beat terrorism." On April 8, the White House labeled Iran "a State Sponsor of Terrorism" and the IRGC a "foreign terrorist organization," claiming that the elite force "actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft." Iran swiftly retaliated, with the Supreme National Security Council designating the US government a supporter of terrorism and its West Asia force, known as the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), a terrorist organization. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi noted that Iraq had in fact tried to stop the US blacklisting of the IRGC. He also warned of the measure's "negative impacts on Iraq and the entire region." Separately, Shia military groups such as Kata'ib Hezbollah and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba have condemned the US hostile move against the IRGC, with the latter stressing that the designation will in no way affect the approach of Iraq's Islamic resistance groups towards neighboring Iran. In 2014, when Daesh unleashed its campaign of terror in Iraq, Iranian military advisors rushed to the aid of Iraqi Armed Forces on Baghdad's request, helping them reverse Daesh's gains and ultimately liberate the entire country from the clutches of the terror outfit some three years later. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran Says Floods Killed 76, Caused $2.2 Billion In Damage By RFE/RL's Radio Farda April 14, 2019 Floods caused by heavy rain across Iran have killed 76 people and caused more than $2.2 billion in damage over the past several weeks, officials say. "With the death of five people in the [southwestern] Khuzestan Province flood and another person in [western] Ilam Province, the death toll has now reached 76" since March 19, a statement published online on April 14 by the coroner's office said. The two provinces are the latest affected by floods that first hit the northeast of the usually arid Iran, forcing hundreds of thousands to evacuate from cities and villages. The floods have caused immense damage to buildings, roads, infrastructure, and agriculture. "Twenty-five [out of 31] provinces and more than 4,400 villages across the country were hit by the floods," Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani-Fazli told parliament, the official IRNA news agency reported. He said the damages amount to between 300 and 350 trillion rials -- between $2.2 and $2.6 billion at the free-market rate. Transport Minister Mohammad Eslami, meanwhile, told lawmakers that 725 bridges were destroyed and more than 14,000 kilometers of roads suffered damage from floodwaters and landslides. President Hassan Rohani has promised compensation to all those affected by the floods, but Iran's state budget is already stretched as U.S. sanctions have badly hit the Iranian economy. Morteza Shahidzadeh, the head of Iran's sovereign wealth fund, said that the president had asked permission from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to withdraw $2 billion from the fund for reconstruction in flood-hit areas. Iran has received aid from neighboring countries and further afield, with France on April 13 donating 210 tents and 114 pumps. On April 14, the Tasnim news agency, which is linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), reported that a convoy of 50 vehicles carried members of Iraqi Shi'ite militia into western Iran to help with flood relief. Earlier, Iran's ambassador in Baghdad, Iraj Masjedi, said that hundreds of Iraqi militiamen had been deployed to Khuzestan and Lorestan provinces. The floods have prompted angry demonstrations by Iranians over the government's response to the crisis. Iran's hard-liners have also accused Rohani's government of not doing enough to tackle the disaster. With reporting by AFP and IRNA Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-says-floods-killed- 76-caused-2-2-billion-in-damage/29880049.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pompeo: 'Iranian Money Remains In Latin America' By RFE/RL April 14, 2019 U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says there is "no doubt" that Iran has a financial presence in South America and that Tehran remains a "global threat." "Iranian money remains in South America being used for malign purposes, supporting Hizballah, supporting transnational criminal organizations, supporting efforts at terrorism throughout the region," Pompeo said on April 13 in an interview with Voice of America during a visit to the region. Pompeo noted that an airline had begun direct flights last week from Tehran to Caracas. The carrier, Mahan Air, has been sanctioned by Washington for allegedly transporting military equipment to Middle East war zones. "This is Iran intervening in South America. That's not in the best interests of the South American people, and the United States stands ready. "We see Iran for what it is: the world's largest state sponsor of terror. That's a global threat," he added. Pompeo spoke during a stop in Paraguay on a trip that Washington has said will focus on developments in Venezuela, where embattled socialist President Nicolas Maduro is struggling to hold power amid street protests and a political battle with self-declared interim President Juan Guaido. Russia, Iran, China, and Cuba are among the countries supporting Maduro, while the United States, much of Europe, and other countries back Guaido. Maduro, who took office in 2013 after the death of Hugo Chavez, was sworn in for a second term in January following elections in May 2018 that were marred by an opposition boycott and claims of vote-rigging, leading to mass street protests. Pompeo, who called the election a "sham," said that "Maduro and his henchmen have destroyed this nation." He added that Maduro's missteps were the reason Guaido had been entrusted with the power to "truly deliver...democracy and prosperity." With reporting by Voice of America and Fox News Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/pompeo- says-iran-has-financial-presence-in-south -america/29879669.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran Summons French Envoy Over Tweet on Sanctions Re-imposition - Reports Sputnik News 17:37 14.04.2019(updated 18:25 14.04.2019) The summoning came in light of a recent tweet by the French ambassador to the US, who stated that sanctions, lifted under JCPOA, could be re-imposed once the deal expires. France's Ambassador to Iran Philippe Thiebaud was summoned to the country's Foreign Ministry on 14 April over recent statements by his colleague in the US regarding the possible reintroduction of sanctions against the Islamic Republic, ISNA news agency reported. The ministry has called the statements "unacceptable", accusing the ambassador of an "open violation" of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The French ambassador to the US, Gerard Araud, reportedly tweeted that the sanctions regime against Iran, previously lifted by the JCPOA, could be re-imposed once the accord expires in 2025. He argued that since Russia is supplying Tehran with enriched uranium, the latter won't really need to have its own massive enrichment operation after the end of the agreement. The JCPOA, also known as the Iran Nuclear deal, was struck in 2015 by Iran, the United States, Russia, France, China, the UK, Germany, and the EU. In line with its provisions, Tehran severely limited its enrichment capacities and opened its sites to invasive inspections by the IAEA in exchange for international sanctions against the country being lifted. The accord's existence was put into question after the US announced its withdrawal from the deal on 8 May 2018. Washington has re-introduced sanctions against several sectors of Iran's economy, including its oil and banking industries. The remaining signatories have slammed the US decision and vowed to make every effort to salvage the deal. Despite this, Tehran has recently been critical of the EU's attempts to ensure the agreement's fulfilment. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iranian FM Warns About Consequences of US Labeling IRGC as Terror Entity Sputnik News 14:15 14.04.2019 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The labelling of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation by the United States will entail consequences and Tehran is going to warn all foreign ministers about them through letters, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has stated. "Letters will be sent today to the foreign ministers of all countries about these actions [the United States' designation of the IRGC], which will warn them about consequences of unprecedented and dangerous US actions as well as about stances that they will need to take in this context", Zarif was quoted as saying by the IRNA news agency. On 8 April, US President Donald Trump designated the IRGC as a terrorist entity, which marked the first time ever since the United States named a part of a foreign government a terrorist organisation. In response to Washington's decision, the Iranian Supreme National Security Council accused the US government of supporting terrorism and recognized the US Central Command as a terrorist organisation itself. The US move was welcomed by Saudi Arabia, which cut off its diplomatic ties with Tehran in 2016, and Bahrain, which has repeatedly accused the IRGC of destabilising the situation in the region. IRGC is a branch of Iran's Armed Forces that was founded in 1979 in order to struggle against left-wing opposition groups. Today IRGC has a wide range of responsibilities such as domestic security; overseeing the activities of political, social, and non-governmental organizations, private companies and firms; preventing foreign interference; and controlling Islamic norms of life and morality. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pompeo Claims Iranian Money Remains in South America Sputnik News 11:48 14.04.2019(updated 12:12 14.04.2019) Over the last week, the US secretary of state has toured Latin America, building a coalition for Washington's policy against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and slamming China and Russia for backing him. The trip will culminate with his visit to the Columbian city of Cucuta on the Venezuelan border. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of supporting terrorism in Latin America in an interview with the Voice of America while touring the continent. "There's no doubt. Iranian money remains in South America supporting Hezbollah, supporting transnational criminal organizations, supporting efforts at terrorism throughout the region," the top US diplomat said when he was asked if Tehran is present in the region. He also branded the Islamic Republic "the world's largest state sponsor of terror", noting: "That's a global threat". He also took aim at Venezuela's elected president, Nicolas Maduro, claiming that he and "his henchmen have destroyed this nation". He slammed the current leader for cooperating with Russia and Cuba. "He's handed over all his power to the Cubans and to the Russians", Pompeo said. The US secretary of state, at the same time, downplayed his recent invective against China's presence in Venezuela when he claimed that their "financial interventions have helped destroy the country" and blamed China for injecting "corrosive capital into the economic bloodstream, giving life to corruption". "We want China to thrive and prosper. Here's what we don't want, especially in South America. We don't want China to just show up with bags full of money and bribe officials. we don't want corrupt activity", he said in the VoA interview. On Sunday, Pompeo is to visit the Columbian city of Cucuta on the Venezuelan border, where the US humanitarian cargo for Venezuela was stalled, and will reportedly meet refugees there. During his tour across South America, he has already visited Peru, Paraguay and Chile, lashing out at Venezuelan President Maduro and Russia and China's presence in the region. Since January 23, the US has been a vocal and material supporter of Juan Guaido, who proclaimed himself Venezuela's interim president. However, Guaido's attempt to oust Maduro has fizzled so far. While the US and a number of Western states and South American countries denounced Maduro's administration as undemocratic and called for Maduro's ouster, Russia, China, and Turkey have supported the constitutionally elected president and refused to recognize Guaido. Maduro himself has called Guaido a US puppet and accused Washington of attempting to orchestrate a coup to overthrow Venezuela's legitimate government. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iraqi forces destroy 18 ISIS hideouts in Al-Anbar IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Baghdad, April 14, IRNA -- The Iraqi security forces have discovered and destroyed 18 hideouts belonging to ISIS (Daesh) terrorists in Al-Anbar Province western Iraq. According to Iraqi Prime Minister Office media center, during the conflict two suicide bombers wearing explosive belt were killed. It added that the operation has been conducted by Iraqi air forces in north of the international road. The Iraqi forces also discovered six cars and two explosive packages. Meanwhile, Saladin Province operation committee in cooperation with Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) conducted a clean-up operation against Tikrit insurgency. Some wanted individuals were arrested on terrorism charges. In the meantime, Iraqi Intelligence Agency announced that one the ISIS forces in air force Ayad Sikhoy was arrested in near Mosul. This is while the Iraqi military group 'Saraya Al Salam' which is in charge of safeguarding Samarra has discovered and foiled a penetration operation in eastern Samarra. Despite the fact that Al Anbar Province has been liberated from Daesh terrorists, terrorist operations are reported against civilians and security forces. On November 4, an extensive military operation started by the Iraqi army in the desert areas in western country to chase the remaining Daesh (ISIS) terrorists elements hiding in the region. The special operations were conducted in Iraq's vast western desert area which is located between Saladin, Nineveh, and al-Anbar governorates and has many deep hidden tunnels. 9376**1424 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Libya's UN-backed govt. says downed Haftar warplane Iran Press TV Sun Apr 14, 2019 05:19PM Libya's UN-backed government says its military has shot down a fighter jet belonging to the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA), led by strongman Khalifa Haftar, whose forces are fighting for the control of the capital Tripoli. The country has been divided between two rival governments, the House of Representatives, based in the eastern city of Tobruk, and the internationally-recognized government of Fayez al-Serraj, or the Tripoli-based unity Government of National Accord (GNA). Haftar is presumably loyal to the one in the east. "The forces of the Libyan army shot down an enemy plane that was preparing to conduct air raids in the Wadi al-Rabie area," some 30 kilometers south of the capital, GNA spokesman Mohamed Gnounou said on Sunday. The downing of an LNA warplane came just three days after Haftar's forces announced that they had shot down a GNA Aero L-39 Albatros plane, a Czech-made training jet often used in a ground attack role, that had took off from Misrata, a mostly pro-GNA port city. A self-styled general, Haftar, who enjoys the loyalty of a group of armed militia and backing from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt, has taken it upon himself to protect the government in Tobruk. And while he participated in reconciliation talks with the GNA, he has recently ordered his LNA forces to invade and conquer Tripoli, the seat of GNA. Armed forces and militia loyal to the GNA have been fighting back. Haftar meets with Egypt's Sisi Additionally on Sunday, Haftar met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, an ardent supporter of the LNA, at the presidential palace in the capital Cairo, and according to state newspaper al-Ahram, they were "discussing the latest developments in Libya," Egypt has provided funding and arms to Haftar's forces and regards him as a bulwark against Takfiri militants in Libya, with which it has some 1,200 kilometers of shared border to the west. A patchwork of militant groups based in the east of the country has resisted United Nations efforts to establish a government of national unity. Haftar, who has modeled his political style of authoritarian leadership after Sisi, has so far defied frequent international calls to stop his battle to oust the GNA. Earlier this month, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres voiced deep concern regarding the outcome of the soaring conflicts for the African nation, strongly urging Haftar to halt the advancement toward the capital, but all to no avail. Libya has been the scene of increasing violence since 2011, when former dictator Muammar Gaddafi was toppled from power after an uprising and a NATO military intervention. His ouster created a huge power vacuum, leading to chaos and the emergence of numerous militant outfits, including the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address In fight for Libyan capital, 120 have been killed: WHO Iran Press TV Sun Apr 14, 2019 02:11PM On April 4, the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) launched a major military offensive against the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA). Now the World Health Organization says more than 120 people have been killed due to the clashes ever since. The conflict goes on near the capital Tripoli. While the LNA comprises forces loyal to renegade field marshal Khalifa Haftar, the GNA is administered by Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj. Over 560 people have also been injured, the WHO said Sunday, denouncing "repeated attacks on health care workers, vehicles." On Saturday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported the displacement of more than 13,500 people. Over 900 residents are living in shelters. "Three medical personnel have been killed and five ambulances have been incapacitated by shrapnel," said an OCHA statement. Libya has been beset by violence since the overthrow of long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. NATO had intervened before Gaddafi was captured and killed. A patchwork of militant groups based in the east of the country has resisted United Nations efforts to establish a government of national unity. Washington and major powers in Europe have supported the Tripoli-based government. But there have also been meetings between Western representatives and Haftar on several occasions. France, which has oil assets in eastern Libya, recently blocked a European Union statement that called on Haftar to halt the LNA offensive. On the other hand, Italy, a big player in Libya's oil sector, has supported UN-backed Serraj. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Haftar's Army Blames Tripoli Forces for Attacking Civilian Targets Spokesman Sputnik News 18:53 14.04.2019 BENGHAZI (Sputnik) - A spokesman for the Libyan National Army of Marshal Khalifa Haftar on Sunday blamed the forces loyal to the rival administration in Tripoli for attacking residential areas in the capital. "Terrorist warplanes attacked homes, state and private buildings in Qaser Bin Ghashir and Ain Zara to the south and southeast of the capital Tripoli," the army's spokesman, Ahmed Mismari, said in a statement. He claimed that the planes launched airstrikes from Misrata Airport and attacked a company office in Qaser Bin Ghashir, killing four people. The accusations have been voiced as a military aircraft belonging to Haftar's forces reportedly crashed south of Tripoli. At the same time, AFP reported, citing the GNA, that the military jet had been downed. On the same day, Haftar met with Egyptian President Al-Sisi, with the latter promising to support counterterrorism efforts in Libya. Haftar's army has besieged Tripoli in an attempt to take it from the UN-backed Government of National Accord. The UN mission in Libya has warned the two against targeting civilian infrastructure. The World Health Organization estimates 120 people have been killed over the past 10 days. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Libyan Haftar's Army Confirms Loss of Jet, Suspects GNA in Downing - Statement Sputnik News 00:52 15.04.2019(updated 01:19 15.04.2019) MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Libyan National Army (LNA) headed by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar has confirmed the loss of its warplane, noting that the aircraft could have been downed by the rival Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA). "We have lost one of our MiG-21 fighters [NATO reporting name: Fishbed] after the pilot lost control of the aircraft. Perhaps the plane was hit by a rocket, however there was no direct hit", LNA spokesman Ahmed Mismari said at a press conference late on Sunday. On Sunday, GNA military spokesman Mohammed Ghnounou told Sputnik that forces loyal to the GNA leadership had downed a warplane belonging to Haftar's army. "We confirm that we shot down a military plane that attacked our forces in Wadi Rabie [south of Tripoli]", Mohammed Ghnounou said. LNA launched a campaign last week to retake the Libyan capital from what it described as terrorists. The UN-backed government in Tripoli vowed to fight back. The United Nations has demanded that both forces refrain from attacking civilian targets. The fighting has already claimed 120 lives, according to the World Health Organization. For years, Libya has been split between two governments: the eastern part of the country is controlled by the parliament elected in 2014 and backed by the Libyan National Army (LNA) headed by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, while the UN-backed Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) governs Libya's western parts. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pakistan's Hazara Muslims keep sit-in going after Quetta bombing Iran Press TV Sun Apr 14, 2019 04:58PM Hazara Shia Muslims have held the third straight day of a sit-in in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta to demand better security in the wake of a terrorist attack that killed two dozen people at a market there. Police in the capital of Baluchistan province said there were about 200 protesters in Sunday rally, blocking the key arterial Western Bypass leading into the city. The mourners include women and children. They have set up camps and burn wood to keep warm at night. "We've lost hundreds of our loved ones in the last 10 years," said Tahir Hazara, the sit-in organizer. "The government failed to protect our community." "Terrorists are free to target us." "Stop killing Hazaras." And "Down with terrorism and sectarianism." Those were the slogans the sit-inners chanted. In the southern port city of Karachi, dozens of Hazara Muslims demonstrated similarly, with some of them holding signs that read, "Shia lives matter." A rally was held by human rights activists in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore to condemn the violence against Hazaras. The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) terrorist group, which has targeted the Hazara community in the past, claimed responsibility for the April 12 attack in Quetta. The bloodshed occurred two days after authorities freed Ramzan Mengal, a top leader of the banned Takfiri terrorist group. Shia Muslims of the Hazara minority frequently come under attack by terrorists active in Baluchistan. In 2013, three separate bombings killed more than 200 people in different Hazara neighborhoods. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 'Down With Terrorism': Pakistan's Minority Hazara Protest For Third Day After Attack By RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal April 14, 2019 QUETTA, Pakistan -- Members of Pakistan's Shi'ite ethnic Hazara minority have held a sit-in protest in the southwestern city of Quetta for a third consecutive day, following a deadly suicide bombing that appeared to target the community. Reports said that about 200 people on April 14 blocked traffic in a key artery leading into Quetta, the capital of Balochistan Province, chanting slogans such as "Stop killing Hazara" and "Down with terrorism and sectarianism." Dozens of Hazara also gathered in the southern city of Karachi, some holding signs reading, "Shi'ite lives matter." At least 20 people were killed and 48 others wounded on April 12, when a suicide bomb exploded in an outdoor market in Quetta in an attack claimed by both an affiliate of the Pakistani Taliban and the Islamic State group. Eight Hazara were among those killed, according to police. Hazara have been frequently targeted by Sunni Muslim militant groups in both Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan. The protesters in Quetta have refused to call off their sit-in until their demands were met, including the arrests of those behind the attack and stepped-up measures to protect their community. A team comprising senior officials of the Counterterrorism Department (CTD) has been set up to investigate the blast, the Dawn newspaper reported. Hazara make up about 500,000 of Quetta's 2.3 million people. Amnesty International said the April 12 blast was a "painful reminder" of the many attacks suffered by the Hazara community in the city over the years. The resource-rich Balochistan Province, which borders Afghanistan, has been plagued by sectarian violence, Islamist militant attacks, and a separatist insurgency that has led to thousands of casualties since 2004. With reporting by Reuters and Dawn Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/down-with-terrorism- pakistan-s-minority-hazara-protest-for-third-day -after-attack/29880241.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia Will React 'Accordingly' to NATO Activity in Black Sea Deputy FM Sputnik News 05:19 14.04.2019(updated 07:15 14.04.2019) Earlier in April, NATO announced a decision to increase its naval presence and conduct military drills in the Black Sea. Increased NATO activity in the Black Sea undermines regional stability and Moscow will act "accordingly", the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister told journalists on Saturday. Speaking on the sidelines of a Council on Foreign and Defence Policy meeting, Alexander Grushko said that Russia treats increased NATO activity "unambiguously negatively", "We, of course, will take all the necessary measures to neutralise threats connected to increased NATO activity in this region", he said. "We watch very carefully at how the Alliance's plans to increase its presence in the region unfold and we will react accordingly". He pointed out that the Russian Foreign Ministry believes that security in the Black Sea should be based on the cooperation of coastal countries. "All required ingredients for this are present. It's Organisation of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation and in the military sphere Document on trust-building measures in the Black Sea", Grushko added. The deputy minister expressed hope that the Black Sea Naval Cooperation Task Group, also known as BLACKSEAFOR, will resume operations. The naval cooperation programme includes six coastal nations: Bulgaria, Georgia, Russia, Romania, Turkey, and Ukraine. The group's activities effectively ended following the 2014 Ukraine crisis and Russia suspended its participation after Turkish forces shot down a Russian military airplane in 2015. Earlier in April, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that NATO had "increased its naval presence in the Black Sea, with NATO's maritime groups taking part in exercises and also conducting several port visits" including recent junkets in Georgia and Ukraine. He called on Russia to "respect international law" so as to "make the waters of the Black Sea more secure", according to a CaucasusWatch.de report. Russia has repeatedly expressed its concern regarding an increased NATO military presence in Europe. The Kremlin has repeatedly underscored that Russia poses no threat to other nations, but will not ignore actions endangering its interests. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address At least 6 civilians killed in terrorist rocket attack on Syria's Aleppo Iran Press TV Sun Apr 14, 2019 05:58PM At least six civilians have lost their lives after a barrage of rockets fired by terrorists hit some neighborhoods of Syria's northwestern city of Aleppo. Syria's official news agency SANA reported that the rocket attack, launched by "terrorist groups", also wounded at least seven others on Sunday. The Aleppo province is situated next to Idlib, a province still held in most parts by terror groups, the most prominent of them is called the Takfiri Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). According to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the attack, composed of at least 20 rockets, was conducted mainly by HTS terrorists against several neighborhoods of the city. Since the Syrian government troops regained control of Aleppo at the end of 2016, the city has been targeted intermittently by an array of terror outfits. Foreign-backed militancy, supported by the United States and many of its Western and regional allies, erupted in Syria in 2011.The militants and Takfiri terrorists overran large swathes of Syria's territory before government forces retook almost all of them with help from its allies. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN envoy, Syria FM hold 'substantial' political process talks Iran Press TV Sun Apr 14, 2019 05:35PM United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen says he has held "detailed substantial" talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem on efforts to find a political solution to the country's eight-year-long war. "We have had very detailed substantial discussions," Pedersen told reporters after the meeting in Damascus on Sunday. "We are now addressing all the issues so all the issues are at the table," the Norwegian diplomat added without giving more information. The UN envoy pointed to his planned talks with other Syrian officials later in the day and said, "Let's see how we are able to proceed later this afternoon." Meanwhile, Syria's official news agency SANA reported that the UN diplomat and Syrian foreign minister exchanged views on the ongoing efforts to advance and complete the political process in Syria, including moves to set up a committee tasked with drawing up a post-war constitution. It added that the two sides spoke about Pedersen's diplomatic activities since his last visit to Damascus last month. Pedersen arrived in Damascus at the head of a delegation on Saturday, in his third official visit to the war-ravaged country since assuming his post in January. He became the fourth UN negotiator aiming to settle the Syrian conflict following the resignation of his predecessor Staffan de Mistura due to family reasons. During their meeting in March, the Syrian foreign minister and deputy prime minister told Pedersen that his country's constitution is a "purely sovereign affair" and emphasized that Damascus would allow no foreign interference in that area. "The constitution and all matters related to it are a sovereign issue that should be decided by Syrians themselves without any foreign interference," Muallem said. Writing a new constitution for a post-war Syria is part of a potential political solution to end the eight-year crisis in the Arab country. To that end, an agreement was made in the Russian city of Sochi last year for a UN-backed Constitutional Committee to be formed composed of 50 members from the incumbent Damascus government, 50 opposition members, and another 50 independent figures chosen by the world body. In a joint statement issued back in December, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Russia and Turkey agreed to step up efforts aimed at convening the first session of a UN-sponsored Syrian Constitutional Committee early next year in a bid to begin a viable peace process to the country's seven-year-old conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, reading out the joint statement after meeting with his Iranian and Turkish counterparts, Mohammad Javad Zarif and Mevlut Cavusoglu, and outgoing UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura in Geneva, said the work of the new body "should be governed by a sense of compromise and constructive engagement." In an address to an Arab League summit in the Tunisian capital of Tunis late in March, Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres stressed the importance of guaranteeing Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity in any resolution on the conflict in the Arab country. "Any resolution of the Syrian conflict must guarantee the unity, [and] the territorial integrity of Syria, including the occupied Golan," he said. Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The Syrian government says the Israeli regime and its Western and regional allies are aiding Takfiri terrorist groups wreaking havoc in the country. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Shocking economics [Vienna, April 2019] A shock pushes economies out of a state of equilibrium. Modern macroeconomics are still based on the assumption of equilibria. That makes them fail when dealing with economies in times of crises. Researchers from the Complexity Science Hub Vienna (CSH) are now proposing a novel method borrowed from physics that makes the effects of major events on out-of-equilibrium economies computable for the first time. Their article was published in the current issue of Nature Communications. The new method adds to current economic models in several ways. Calculating resilience "First, we can determine the resilience of an economy," says Peter Klimek, first author of the paper. Each country has different industries, and depends on various imports and exports. "We see all these interdependencies in newly available data sets. From these data we can calculate how susceptible a country and its different production sectors are to disturbances." The scientists see, for instance, which parts of an economy are particularly vulnerable to a shock, such as a trade war. Modeling outputs "We can further quantify how much a shock in one corner of the world affects the production of a given sector far across the globe," says co-author Stefan Thurner. Modeling responses to shocks helps answer questions like why it took economies so long to recover from the 2008 recession. "A shock does not evaporate," explains Peter Klimek. Just like a rock that is thrown into a still pond, a shock produces waves. "The shock waves will run through the whole system, following each of its interdependent connections." The researchers found that it typically takes six to ten years before all sectors of an economy have fully digested a shock. Testable predictions Another line of progress resulting from the new method is that testable predictions can be made. The authors took the input-output data of 56 industrial sectors in 43 OECD countries from the years 2000 to 2014. With this large dataset they tested the accuracy of different economic projections that were dealing with the aftermaths of 2008. "Our method clearly outperformed all standard econometric forecasting methods--most of them substantially," the authors state. They also estimated the effects of Donald Trump's new tariffs on EU steel and aluminum, imposed in June 2018. The model finds winners and losers. In Germany, for instance, the output of the automotive industry increases, as do legal activities or wholesale trade. On the other hand, electricity production, warehousing or land transport show a decline. "Interestingly, the production output in most of the EU countries rises so much that it can partly compensate the losses due to the tariffs," says Thurner. As soon as statistics for 2018 and 2019 are available, the team will test its prediction with real-world data. "Our vision is to eventually be able to calculate global effects of all kinds of shock scenarios that can happen anywhere," the complexity scientist adds. A concept from physics The concept for the new model is inspired by classical physics: Linear response theory (LRT) explains, for example, how electric or magnetic substances react to strong electrical or magnetic fields. This is known as susceptibility. It can be measured with special devices, but also be mathematically derived from properties of the material. "We show that LRT applies just as well to input-output economics," says Peter Klimek. "Instead of material properties, we use economic networks; instead of electrical resistance, we determine the susceptibility of economies, their response to shocks." Visualizing economies To make it intuitively understandable how economies work, scientists at the CSH employ an interactive visualization tool. It will be constantly fed with new data until the final version should represent the whole world economy. The tool visualizes the various dependencies of countries and production sectors. "Users can change all kinds of parameters and immediately see the effects across countries and sectors," says Stefan Thurner. A preliminary version, showing Trump tariff effects on Europe, can be seen at https:/ / csh. ac. at/ ecores/ ### Peter Klimek, Sebastian Poledna, Stefan Thurner, Economic resilience from input-output susceptibility improves predictions of economic growth and recovery, Nature Communications (2019) doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-09357-w About the Complexity Science Hub Vienna (CSH): The mission of CSH Vienna is to host, educate, and inspire complex systems scientists dedicated to making sense of Big Data to boost science and society. Scientists at the Hub develop methods for the scientific, quantitative, and predictive understanding of complex systems. Focal areas include the resilience and efficiency of socio-economic and ecological systems, network medicine, the dynamics of innovation, and the science of cities. The Hub is a joint initiative of the Medical University of Vienna, the TU Wien, the Vienna University of Economics and Business, the Graz University of Technology, the Danube University Krems, the IIASA International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, and Austrian Economic Chambers (WKO). http://www. csh. ac. at This story has been published on: 2019-04-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Advertorial Bringing the kids out to the mall can be a difficult task these days, especially since there are so many malls to choose from AND spending a day out at the mall isn't exactly cheap these days. Which is why I am always on the lookout for good (and cheap) deals that shopping malls offer... and I think Marina Square might just be the mall that I am looking for! WHY? Thats because from now to 31 May 2019, you can redeem Marina Square app-exclusive $5-off and $10-off deals, as well as earn 20% cashback (capped at $10) when you pay with FavePay at participating stores All by just downloading the new Marina Square app. Let's just say the monkies went cray-cray inside the shop! BUT WAIT, there is actually MORE SAVINGS that I enjoyed! here. From now until 31 May 2019, pay with FavePay to enjoy 20% cashback from over 60 Marina Square stores. You can view the participating stores Some of the other eDeals I spied while I was at Marina Square include the one at Levi's, #02-155A. Other than enjoying savings while shopping at Marina Square, the app also allows you to earn SQUARES! Simply scan receipts using the Scan function within the app. Every $1 spent (min. $20 receipt required) gives you 1 SQUARE and you get to redeem your SQUARES for parking rewards - Every 100 SQUARES gives you $2 off parking. Don't own a car? Save your SQUARES to redeem for more rewards which will be launching in June 2019! And from now till 31 May 2019, the more SQUARES you earn, the higher the chance for you to win a staycation with the family! To participate, redeem any Marina Square app eDeal and be one of top ten SQUARES earners to win a Marina Mandarin Hotel staycation & more! 1st Prize: $300 Marina Mandarin vouchers + 10,000 SQUARES + $200 FAVE credits 2nd Prize: $200 Marina Mandarin vouchers + 5,000 SQUARES + $100 FAVE credits 3rd Prize: $100 Marina Mandarin vouchers + 3,000 SQUARES + $50 FAVE credits 7 Consolation Prizes: 1,000 SQUARES each Well, it seems like I have to head down to Marina Square more often in order for me to snag that staycation then! Although I have to say my savings were pretty substantial for a night out with the monkies. This was my total savings: Total purchase value: $141.20 Marina Square app deal: $20 off FAVEpay cashback earned: $22.60 Total savings: $42.60 Looks like my savings of $42.60 is enough for me to have another Italian meal! For the 20% cashback via FavePay, the cashback earn period is from now to 31 May 2019 while the cashback usage period is from now to 30 June 2019. The cashback amount is capped at $10 per transaction. For more information, visit Marina Square's website For the 20% cashback via FavePay, the cashback earn period is from now to 31 May 2019 while the cashback usage period is from now to 30 June 2019. The cashback amount is capped at $10 per transaction. Did I mention that you can redeem free parking too? But more on that later.To get started, simply download the ap for free from Google Play or App Store . Tap on 'Deals' at the lower bar and you can scroll through the various eDeals that some of the stores are offering.The eDeals range from a $5 or $10 off with a minimum spend to a 10% or 20% discount off purchases.The deals sure looked good on the app but will the savings be substantial? There is only one way to find out, which is to take the monkies to Marina Square for a day out at the mall.Our first stop?, #03-130A.Midtown Mart is set up by a Japanese supermarket in Japan, known as Daikoku. Daikoku started out as a humble store in 1988 with the vision of providing affordable price for its customers. And true to its vision, Midtown Mart imports mainly Japanese products at affordable prices, with over 1000 different products ranging from confectionery to household items.They practically wanted to buy everything! Fortunately, I had the eDeal from the Marina Square App - a $5 discount with a minimum spend of $20.The discount isn't too shabby, no? It's a 25% discount if I stick to the minimum $20 spend... which was exactly what I did.Well, sort of. My total bill came up to about $25 so I saved $5 in the end!Next, Ale needed to buy a lunchbox for school as she deemed her current one to be *ahem* too childish. (It's a Dora the Explorer design ) So we ended up at, #03-156.Did you know that Bumwear was started by a former resident of Bali who is now staying in Singapore? Its range includes babywear and children's wear that are exclusively designed for newborn babies and children. They also sell a host of kids' products, including plenty of tokidoki products!As you can tell, Ale was momentarily distracted by the tokidoki merchandise. Luckily, I managed to make her refocus and she picked her spanking new lunchbox and snackbox.Bumwear is offering a $10 off with a minimum spend of $50 so all I had to do is to fire up the Marna Square app, search for the eDeal and scan the QR code in the shop. Like this.Super easy! My total purchase came up to $53 and after utilising the $10 eDeal, this was what I had to pay.So what this means is all I had to do was to pay for my Bumwear purchase with FavePay and I get to enjoy 20% cashback which I can use to offset for my future purchases at over 60 Marina Square stores before 30 June 2019! (Do note that the cashback is capped at $10 per transaction)So this was the amount I saved:All those shopping made the monkies really hungry so I decided to make a stop at, #02-100A/B.Pasta e Formaggio serves Italian cuisine from pasta, pizza, risotto and tapas. They use only fresh ingredients and food is only prepared upon ordering.To top everything off, the prices are relatively affordable. Pizzas start from $10 while pastas start from $10.90, and the servings are pretty decent.More importantly, everything tasted so good! Well, an empty plate is always a good sign! LOL.Pasta e Formaggio's eDeal on the Marina Square app is a $5 off with a minimum spend of $20.And as usual, redeeming it was a breeze.But wait, there is still that 20% cashback to be enjoyed when I use FavePay to pay for my meal.And this was the amount I saved in the end:Have young kids? Then I think a visit to, #02-29 to 31is in order too.The 11,000 square feet indoor edutainment playground integrates a train ride, indoor playground attractions, educational classes, mini parades, character meet-and-greets and sing-along shows featuring Pororo and friends.The eDeal on the Marina Square App currently offers a 20% discount off the Savers Pass ($189)... which means you pay $151.20 for 7 visits. Pay using FavePay and you get a $10 cashback! This works out to about $20 per entry compared to the usual $29.90 entry fee. PLUS, you can share the 7 visits among friends too!Can you make out the deal on the display screen in the above photo? It says '$25 off with $100 regular-priced spend'.But if you have the Marina Square App, you are in for MORE savings:You only need to spend $50 on regular-priced items to enjoy $25 off! No-brainer, right? Another great eDeal I spotted is at,#03-140/141, a store that is famed for its ergonomic furniture.Chairs, study tables, school bags - you name it, they have it and it's all in the name of ensuring good posture for kids.Study posture is important, but sleep posture is equally paramount too. And Marina Square App users will be able to purchase the Dual Plus Perfect Sleep Pillow at $188/pc (U.P.$229) with a FREE extra piece of Original Pillow Case worth $69 thrown in too!I think I know what the monkies can get for me for Father's Day. Heh. Fate of Middle East must only be decided by its people: Syria's Assad Iran Press TV Sun Apr 14, 2019 03:07PM Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says the fate of the Middle East must only be determined by regional nations rather than outsiders, no matter how grave the crises they are grappling with might be. "The fate of the region must only be determined by the peoples of the region no matter how big the challenges become," Assad said during a meeting with visiting Iraqi National Security Adviser Faleh al-Fayad in Damascus on Sunday. The Syrian leader then emphasized that the promotion of bilateral relations between Syria and Iraq will serve the interests of the two brotherly nations, and will help the complete annihilation of terrorism. The Syrian president further emphasized that Damascus and Baghdad must preserve their sovereignty and independence in the face of regional and international developments as well as divisive schemes being hatched by outsiders. Fayad, for his part, stated that Iraq regards Syria's might and victory over terrorism as its own, and that any Iraqi military achievement will be in the best interest of Syria's stability. Iraq and Syria have been lately discussing the opening of border crossings between the two countries as well as the efforts made to hunt down remnants of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in border areas. Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The Syrian government says the Israeli regime and its Western and regional allies are aiding Takfiri terrorist groups wreaking havoc in the country. Former Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, declared the end of military operations against Daesh in the country on December 9, 2017. On July 10 that year, he had formally declared victory over Daesh in the strategic northern city of Mosul, which served as the terrorists' main urban stronghold in Iraq. In the run-up to Mosul's liberation, Iraqi army soldiers and volunteer fighters from the pro-government Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) better known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Sha'abi had made sweeping gains against Daesh. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Militants Shell Settlements in 3 Syrian Provinces in Past 24 Hours Russian MoD Sputnik News 04:12 15.04.2019 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Militants have breached truce regime in Syrian provinces of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia over the past 24 hours, head of the Russian Defence Ministry's Centre for Syrian Reconciliation Maj. Gen. Viktor Kupchishin said. "During the day, militants have shelled the settlements of Achan, Mgire in Hama province, Ruaset-Iskander (three times) in Latakia province, Tel Hamra and Amaraz in Aleppo province", Kupchishin said at a press briefing late on Sunday. As of Saturday, a total of 57,545 people have been granted amnesty by the Syrian authorities over evading military service, the center's head added. Syria has been devastated by years of violent civil war that has prompted millions to flee hostilities to other locations within the country or abroad. The international community has taken efforts to settle the conflict by conducting political settlement talks in Geneva. The Astana talks have been also an important part of international efforts aimed to settle the conflict in Syria. It is during the Astana talks that the memorandum on the creation of de-escalation zones in Syria was signed in 2017. Russia, alongside Turkey and Iran, is a guarantor of the ceasefire regime in Syria. Moscow has also been assisting Damascus through supporting the struggle against terrorist groups, providing humanitarian aid to local residents and facilitating the return of refugees. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia Hails Turkey's Stance on S-400 Systems Despite US Pressure - Kremlin Sputnik News 17:13 14.04.2019 PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY (Sputnik) - Moscow welcomes Turkey's uncompromising position with regard to the purchase of S-400 air defence systems from Russia in spite of the pressure applied by the United States, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stated. "In fact, there is not a lot of countries that act independently. Russia and Turkey are among such countries. The pressure that is being applied is unprecedented. We welcome this a rather rigid and uncompromising position taken by [Turkish] President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan", Peskov said in the "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin" program aired by the Rossiya-1 TV channel. The statement comes after Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko slammed earlier in April Washington for applying pressure on Ankara over the S-400 purchase, stressing that the United States was using any possible way to influence its partners. The minister has commented the recent move of the US when they halted the delivery of equipment related to the F-35 fighter aircraft to Turkey. Last month, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the agreement to purchase Russian S-400 air defence systems was a "done deal". The Russian-Turkish cooperation on S-400 deliveries has been criticized by NATO and the United States, which have cited security concerns and the inability of integration between S-400 and NATO's air defence systems. Ankara, in its turn, has said that purchase of military equipment is its sovereign affair and ruled out the possibility of abandoning its plans. The first shipment of S-400 air defence systems is expected to be delivered to Ankara in July. In December 2017, Russia and Turkey signed a loan agreement for the delivery of S-400 air defence systems to Ankara. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address BoE governor weighs up cost of managed no-deal Brexit against crashing out of EU People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 13:24, April 14, 2019 LONDON, April 12 (Xinhua) -- Despite the UK entering into the European Union (EU) exit process more than two years ago, no plan has yet achieved consensus, and all the various options from a no-deal Brexit to no Brexit could still happen. With its two deadlines, the first on March 29 and the second on April 12, being rolled back, Brexit is now scheduled to take place by Oct. 31. This delay of slightly more than six months gives an opportunity for a variety of events to happen, including more discussions between various UK political leaders and a possible general election in the UK. The prospect of a no-deal Brexit, one where the UK leaves the EU without a deal and moves to a trading arrangement with the EU under the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, has already been rejected by British House of Commons. However, governor of the Bank of England (BoE) Mark Carney on Thursday on the fringes of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) spring meetings in Washington outlined that the UK could still choose to go for a no-deal Brexit. Carney argued that a Brexit on March 29 or on April 12 without a deal agreed would have been an accident, leaving "financial markets... not positioned for the chance of no deal so there would have been quite a substantial repricing." "It's different to decide to move to WTO terms in an orderly fashion, as well prepared as possible -- we can debate the advisability of doing that -- but to stumble into something accidentally, particularly when financial markets aren't positioned for it... would have been substantial," the Financial Times quoted Carney as saying. While Carney was careful not to endorse a particular Brexit ending, his evaluation that a managed no-deal Brexit would be less costly for the UK than crashing out of the EU, will be welcomed by pro-Brexit supporters. Dr Alan Wager, a research associate at King's College London, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview that Carney's assessment came against a six-month period in which UK politicians could evaluate how they wanted Brexit to play out and to remould the political landscape, and his statement was a nod to one of many possible future directions. "Although the Bank of England which Carney runs is independent, it is also a branch of government," he added, "his position is based on the fact that he has to balance all the competing interests." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ukrainian President Arrives For Debate In Kyiv, Challenger Doesn't By RFE/RL April 14, 2019 Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko went to Kyiv's Olimpiyskiy Stadium for a presidential election debate, but his challenger didn't show up after a disagreement about the timing. Poroshenko is to face Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Ukraine's presidential runoff on April 21. Zelenskiy won the first round earlier this month by a large margin, and most, if not all, opinion polls put him well out in front of the incumbent ahead of the final vote. Both candidates have agreed to hold a debate, but disagreed on the date, with Zelenskiy insisting that it should take place on April 19. Poroshenko, accompanied by his wife and children, walked inside a glass-encased room sandwiched between the stadium and the adjacent hotel where dozens of journalists were waiting. He took to the stage, with the moderator off to the side. They welcomed Zelenskiy as well but noted his absence. "It was not me who proposed the site of the event, it was a certain man," Poroshenko told the audience, standing next to an empty lectern bearing Zelenskiy's name. He then addressed Zelenskiy, saying, "I know you're watching," and added, ironically, that Zelenskiy must be having a rest after his trip to Paris where he met French President Emmanuel Macron. Poroshenko also called on Zelenskiy to show up at the stadium, saying that otherwise he would invite him to a televised debate every day. "Don't be afraid. A debate is nothing horrible," he said. Asked by a reporter if he would cooperate with Zelenskiy if the latter won the presidency, Poroshenko replied, "If, God forbid, he were to be elected, that would still be the choice of the Ukrainian people and I would respect that choice." About 2,000 people stood outside the stadium to listen to a broadcast of Poroshenko's statements and his answering of journalists' questions. The president later led them into the stadium where they sang the national anthem. Poroshenko hugged supporters, posed for selfies, and roused the crowd with chants including "Glory to Ukraine." Speaking to RFE/RL, his spokesman, Svyatoslav Tseholko, described the gathering inside the stadium as impromptu and the president's idea. Security officers said they did not expect Poroshenko's move to lead his supporters into the stadium. The stadium has confirmed it also received a request to hold a debate on April 19, leaving open the possibility that Zelenskiy will show up on his preferred date and speak to supporters alone. The campaign has been marked by theatrics on both sides, including public moves by both candidates to be tested for drugs and alcohol. On April 12, Poroshenko traveled to Berlin and Paris to seek international support ahead of the April 21 runoff. Zelenskiy traveled only to Paris, where he met French President Emmanuel Macron, who separately met with Poroshenko as well. In Berlin, Poroshenko met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who praised the "very close relations" her country has built with Ukraine in recent years. At a joint news conference, Merkel deflected a question about the impression that she favors Poroshenko in the election. She said that she was in "permanent contact" with the incumbent. Her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said a meeting with Zelenskiy "is not planned at present." Germany, France, and Ukraine are part of the so-called Normandy Format of countries seeking a resolution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists are fighting against government forces. Russia is the fourth country in the format, which has not held talks in two years. Poroshenko said he would be prepared to hold a summit "immediately after the election." He later met Macron in Paris. Macron first hosted Zelenskiy, who told journalists that his meeting with the French president was held in a "very nice, warm atmosphere." Zelenskiy won the first round by a wide margin over Poroshenko, but he did not receive enough support to avoid the runoff. An independent poll released on April 11 suggests that Zelenskiy enjoys a commanding lead ahead of next week's runoff, but Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Ukraine's deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, told RFE/RL that Poroshenko's "readiness to talk to people, to go out and deliver his vision, answer difficult questions, make painful decisions for himself, admitting his mistakes" could allow Poroshenko to correct the situation. The Sociological Group "Rating" said its polling early this month points to 51 percent popular support for sitcom star Zelenskiy, who appeared on the political scene late last year, versus 21 percent for Poroshenko. The race was even more lopsided in Zelenskiy's favor among respondents who intend to vote in the second round of the election -- 61 percent to 24 percent. With reporting by Christopher Miller in Kyiv, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, AP, AFP, and Reuters Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukrainian-president-poroshenko -debate-at-stadium/29879831.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ukraine to Hold Referendum to Join EU After Applying for Membership - President Sputnik News 16:48 14.04.2019(updated 20:17 14.04.2019) KIEV (Sputnik) - Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Sunday that he is not opposed to a referendum on the country's accession to the European Union provided it takes place after applying for membership in the bloc. "And I want to inform you that a referendum will take place. It will take place when we put the issue in detail. Because joining the European Union is impossible without a referendum. First, an application for entry is submitted when we meet criteria. A referendum is held not on joining or not joining [the European Union], as the people had already decided The question at the referendum will be whether the Ukrainian people are ready to delegate some of the powers to a supranational body, as 27 or 28 EU members did", Poroshenko said. The president added that accession to the European Union and NATO would strengthen independence guarantees for Ukraine. The Ukrainian President has also touched upon Donbass, saying that he would start a political process in the eastern regions if he wins a second term next week. "Peace is the first thing I want to bring after winning the presidential election. It is the start of a political process in Donbas, while our country preserves its unitary nature and restores its territorial integrity," Poroshenko told Ukraina channel. Speaking about the upcoming runoff in Ukraine, Poroshenko said that if his rival, presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy, won the presidential election, he would respect this outcome, as this would be the Ukrainian people's choice. "If God forbid, he is elected, it will be the choice of the Ukrainian people, and I will respect any choice because we are a democratic state", Poroshenko stressed. The first round of the Ukrainian presidential election was held on March 31 and resulted in none of the candidates gaining the absolute majority needed to win the race. Zelenskiy led with 30.24 percent of the vote, while Poroshenko came second with 15.95 percent and will, therefore, confront Zelenskiy in the runoff. Ukraine relinquished its status of non-affiliation with any blocs in 2014 and has since then been striving to join the European Union and NATO. The president signed on February 19 a law enshrining these aspirations in the Ukrainian constitution. Ukrainian membership in the European Union and NATO is the key message of Poroshenko's election program, titled the "Great State of Free and Happy People". Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., April 11, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rundo International Pharmaceutical Research & Development Co., Ltd. (Rundo), a prominent, Shanghai-headquartered contract research organization (CRO) has selected eClinical solutions from OmniComm Systems, Inc. (OTCQX: OMCM), a leading global provider of clinical data management technology. Under the terms of two separate agreements, Rundo will use OmniComms TrialMaster EDC and TrialOne for research. Rundos customers in China include domestic and multinational companies, with research ranging from Phase I through IV clinical trials. After comprehensive evaluations, Rundo selected OmniComms eClinical solutions for multiple reasons, including the availability of mature and validated systems, multiple therapeutic areas of experience, support of industry standards and competitive pricing. Additionally, OmniComms eClinical solutions provide market-leading technology for early phase research and Phase II-IV studies. As a system that is compliant with global industry standards, TrialMaster allows user organizations to ensure the quality and integrity of data collected and managed during an entire set of studies. TrialMaster also enables users to comply with Chinas FDA (NMPA) regulations and approval process for new drugs, and comply with regulations from the U.S. FDA and the EMA. TrialOne reduces timelines and costs through faster and more directed volunteer recruitment, easy-to-build schedule-based workflows, real-time Bedside Data Collection (BDC), direct data capture from devices, and automated processing of laboratory samples. These factors enhanced the confidence of Rundo to set up the industry-leading early phase clinics and deliver top service to the customers. About OmniComm Systems, Inc. OmniComm Systems, Inc. is a leading strategic software solutions provider to the life sciences industry, offering eClinical solutions for clinical research with an extensive global experience from more than 6,000 clinical trials. For more information, visit www.omnicomm.com About Rundo Rundo International Pharmaceutical Research & Development Co., Ltd. (Rundo), founded in 2004, is one of the top CROs in China, specialized in providing professional clinical research outsourcing services to domestic and multi-national clients. Rundo is headquartered in Shanghai with offices located in Beijing, Guangzhou, and a few other cities in China. Rundo has expanded its services and established subsidiaries including a biometrics service center in Jiangsu Province, a Site Management Organization company providing services nationwide in China, Phase I clinics in Hunan Province and a Japan subsidiary. Please visit http://www.rundo-cro.com/ for more information. English French Fleet operator continues to confirm orders after signing letter of intent for multiple Global 6500 and Global 7500 aircraft in May 2018 HK Bellawings Jet Limited will become operator managing Chinas largest fleet of Global 6500 and Global 7500 aircraft Flagship Global 7500 business jet making its airshow debut at ABACE Long-range, large-cabin Global 5500 and Global 6500 aircraft on track to enter service this year MONTREAL, April 14, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bombardier is pleased to announce that Hong Kong aircraft management company HK Bellawings Jet Limited firmed up an order for four Global 7500 business jets. This news comes as the flagship Global 7500 aircraft arrives at the Asian Business Aviation Conference & Exhibition (ABACE), its first airshow since entering service. We are proud to announce this firm order as the Global 7500 aircraft makes its public debut at ABACE, one of the worlds most important aerospace exhibitions, said Khader Mattar, Vice President of Sales for the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and China, Bombardier Business Aircraft. Our flagship jet has been causing a sensation since entering service less than four months ago, and this order underscores that this aircraft, with its unparalleled range and four true living spaces, is ideal for the Greater China region. HK Bellawings first announced their intent to purchase up to 18 Global 6500 and Global 7500 aircraft, for a potential value of $1.14 billion US, in May 2018 at the European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (EBACE) in Geneva. Hours earlier, Bombardier had stunned the industry by launching two new long-range, large-cabin business jets, the Global 5500 and Global 6500 aircraft. In September 2018, HK Bellawings firmed up its order of four Global 6500 and two Global 7500 business jets, for an approximate value of $370 million US, based on current list prices for typically equipped aircraft. Today, HK Bellawings and Bombardier are pleased to confirm that four more Global 7500 aircraft are now part of that firm purchase, bringing the total of firm aircraft orders to 10. This latest announcement represents a value of approximately $291 million US, based on current list prices. We are thrilled to offer our customers access to the unparalleled Global 7500 aircraft as part of our unmatched fleet, said HK Bellawings President Mr. YJ Zhang. The Global 6500 and Global 7500 aircraft align with HK Bellawings rapid development to be a one-stop business aviation solution. As the operator that will manage one of the worlds largest fleet of Global 6500 and Global 7500 aircraft, HK Bellawings Jet will further expand our business scope and continuously pursue higher goals. The Global 7500 aircrafts range of 7,700 nautical miles is the longest in business aviation. This business jet can connect the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong non-stop to the cities of New York, London or Milan, and also fly nonstop from Singapore to Vancouver.* Established in 2014, HK Bellawings Jet Limited is a distinguished business jet management company dedicated to providing a diverse array of professional, highly efficient and comprehensive business aviation services and solutions, which include business jet management, aircraft maintenance, travel concierge service, aircraft acquisition service, and business aviation consultancy. They operate a fleet of Challenger and Global business aircraft. About Bombardier With over 68,000 employees across four business segments, Bombardier is a global leader in the transportation industry, creating innovative and game-changing planes and trains. Our products and services provide world-class transportation experiences that set new standards in passenger comfort, energy efficiency, reliability and safety. Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, Bombardier has production and engineering sites in 28 countries across the segments of Transportation, Business Aircraft, Commercial Aircraft and Aerostructures and Engineering Services. Bombardier shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (BBD). In the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018, Bombardier posted revenues of $16.2 billion. News and information are available at bombardier.com or follow us on Twitter @Bombardier . Notes to Editors Visit the Bombardier Business Aircraft website for more information on our industry-leading products and services. Follow @Bombardierjets on Twitter to receive the latest news and updates from Bombardier Business Aircraft. To receive our press releases, please visit the RSS Feed section. Bombardier, Challenger, Global, Global 5500, Global 6500 and Global 7500 are registered or unregistered trademarks of Bombardier Inc. or its subsidiaries. *Under certain operating conditions Mexico City, Mexico, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- More and more travellers are relying on travel clubs to do the vacation-planning legwork for them. From finding that perfect destination to accommodations and transport, being a vacation club member has an endless list of benefits for frequent travellers. While there are numerous vacation clubs in the industry to choose from, not all are created equal. Royal Holiday Vacation Club has received an impressive list of awards and accolades designating it as one of the top travel clubs with a premier level of customer service and satisfaction. A membership with Royal Holiday Vacation Club means having all your vacation dreams made into a reality. About Royal Holiday Vacation Club With more than 30 years of experience in the travel industry, Royal Holiday Vacation club has earned a reputation for one of the best vacation clubs. With more than 100,000 members throughout the world, these members have access to the club's affiliated hotels, cruises, and RCI resort exchanges in every continent. In addition to the club, Royal Holiday has their Park Royal chain made up of hotels in the best 10 Mexican beaches, Puerto Rico, and Buenos Aires. Royal Holiday Vacation Club Services Royal Holiday Vacation club provides their members with premium-quality customer service. With access to more than 180 holiday destinations in 52 countries, Royal Holiday club members enjoy fully customizable vacations that meet all their needs and expectations. A Royal Holiday club membership is an investment, and the club protects your investment by freezing your vacation fee. If your membership stays active, you don't have to worry about increasing fees for services provided. You will enjoy the same level of service for the same affordable rates as long as you are a member, and this is a perk not offered by all vacation clubs. So whether it's gazing upon the Eiffel Tower in Paris or taking in the skyline from the London Eye, travelling to Orlando, Madrid, New York, the Bahamas, or Buenos Aires, Royal Holiday vacation club members can have any and all vacation types and choices at their fingertips. Travel Club Awards and Accolades Travel club awards and accolades help people decide which travel club to choose a membership with, and they also help monitor and regulate the level of service that these clubs are providing. With an impressive list of awards and recognitions, Royal Holiday vacation club has a solid foundation based upon premium-quality vacation destination, accommodations, and customer service. From Expansion Magazine's placement of Royal Holiday vacation club as one of the top 500 best companies in Mexico to receiving the American Association of Developments and Resorts (ARDA) ARDY award for best architecture and interior design in the Park Royal Cozumel, to RCI's Gold Crown, and the Palmera de Oro award by AMDETUR, the Royal Holiday vacation club has earned their reputation as a premier vacation club choice and service. The current pace of life in this digital age is a hectic one for many, which is why more people than ever before are turning to vacation clubs to take over their vacation planning. Planning a vacation is a pleasurable experience, but it can also be very time consuming and stressful. Investing in an exclusive vacation club membership means not only benefiting from the destination packages, resorts, cruises, and accommodations that the club is affiliated with, but also benefiting from the experience and knowledge of the vacation specialists and their ability to account for any and all pertinent vacation-planning details. Becoming a member of Royal Holiday Vacation Club means that you will benefit from the knowledge and experience of vacation planners who are 100-percent committed to turning your holiday dreams into an affordable reality. NOT FOR DIRECT OR INDIRECT RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, INTO OR IN THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, SOUTH AFRICA, JAPAN, THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA OR THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION IN WHICH OFFERS OR SALES WOULD BE PROHIBITED BY APPLICABLE LAW. PLEASE SEE THE IMPORTANT NOTICE AT THE END OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT. United Kingdom, 15 April 2019 Buyback Offer RAK Petroleum plc, the Oslo-listed oil and gas investment company (the Company), announces its intent to repurchase such number of its class A shares with ISIN GB00BRGBL804 (the "Shares") at the Repurchase Price (as defined below) up to a maximum aggregate consideration of US$ 15 million in accordance with the authorization provided at its Annual General Meeting on 1 June 2018 (the "AGM"). The Company and SpareBank 1 Markets AS (the "Manager") have entered into a repurchase contract in the form approved by the AGM (the Repurchase Contract), pursuant to which the Manager is initiating a reverse tender offer (the "Buyback Offer") to holders of beneficial interests in the Shares. The Manager will then settle the Share repurchase as principal and for its own account, following which the Manager has an obligation to sell the Shares to the Company, which has an obligation to purchase them from the Manager. The Company has decided to ask the Manager to launch the Buyback Offer at this time because, among other things, (i) its available funds exceed the near-term cash needs of its business, (ii) relatively low liquidity in the market for its shares may be hindering the ability of some shareholders to sell, and (iii) the Company believes its shares are undervalued relative to their intrinsic value. Thus, the Buyback Offer may be seen as providing an opportunity for some shareholders to sell their Shares. The Buyback Offer will commence on 15 April 2019 at 8:00 CET and will expire on 26 April 2019 at 14:00 CET, unless extended at the sole discretion of the Company (the "Buyback Offer Period"). The Company, by way of instruction to the Manager, shall be entitled in its complete discretion to waive, amend, extend, accelerate, terminate or withdraw the Buyback Offer at any time before expiry of the Buyback Offer Period. Information regarding any such amendments will be published under the Company's ticker "RAKP" on www.newsweb.no. The number of Shares to be repurchased, if any, and the price per Share will be determined through a reverse bookbuilding process in which Eligible Shareholders (as defined below) may offer to tender to the Manager all or a portion of their Shares at prices they set. The Buyback Offer is not conditional on any minimum number of Shares being tendered. It is proposed that the Company repurchase such number of Shares at the Repurchase Price (as defined below) up to a maximum aggregate consideration of US$ 15 million (the "Cap"), subject to any amendments by the Company of the Buyback Offer in accordance with the below. Shares repurchased will be cancelled and result in a reduction of the Companys registered share capital. If the Company elects to acquire Shares pursuant to the Buyback Offer, it will select one price to be paid for all the Shares validly offered for tender at and below that price (the "Repurchase Price"), but it may in its sole discretion direct the Manager to accept all, or a pro-rata portion of, any offers to tender Shares which are tendered at a price equal to or below the Repurchase Price. Any acceptances of Offers will be subject to the Cap. Shareholders offering to sell their Shares at prices lower than the Repurchase Price selected by the Company will receive the higher Repurchase Price for their Shares. Offers to sell Shares at prices higher than the Repurchase Price selected by the Company will not be accepted and will not result in a Share sale. Subject to any amendments of the Buyback Offer Period, the Company expects to announce the results of the Buyback Offer on 26 April 2019 under the Company's ticker "RAKP" on www.newsweb.no. The Company will then announce whether it will buy back any Shares and, if so, the number of Shares to be repurchased and their Repurchase Price. Shareholders who do not intend to offer to sell any of their Shares in the Buyback Offer do not need to do anything in response to the Buyback Offer or this announcement. Eligible Shareholders who wish to offer for sale all or a portion of their Shares must complete and sign the tender form available on the Companys website at http://www.rakpetroleum.uk (the "Tender Form") and submit it by e-mail to the Manager at offering@sb1markets.no before expiry of the Buyback Offer Period. Offers to sell Shares are binding on the shareholder and irrevocable until expiry of the Buyback Offer Period and may until such time not be withdrawn, modified or altered. All Eligible Shareholders who may want to participate in the Buyback Offer must be registered clients of the Manager. If a Shareholder is not a current client of the Manager, it must complete the Manager's client registration process, including applicable know-your-customer and anti-money laundering requirements, as set out in Appendix 1 to the Tender Form. Eligible Shareholders who may wish to tender Shares in the Buyback Offer should immediately begin the client registration process by completing Appendix 1 to the Tender Form and submitting the relevant documents to the Manager by 19 April 2019. However, the Manager will use reasonable efforts to process the client registration also for any such documents submitted after 19 April 2019 on a first-come, first-serve basis, but no assurance can be given that any documents submitted after 19 April 2019 will be processed prior to expiry of the Buyback Offer Period. Even if the documents are completed and submitted to the Manager by 19 April 2019, there can be no assurance that the Manager will be able to complete the client registration process to its satisfaction prior to the end of the Buyback Offer Period due to follow-up requests which, in the Manager's sole discretion, are not met, the Manager's internal policies relating to registration of new clients or otherwise. Fulfilling the Managers client registration requirements does not obligate a Shareholder to submit a Tender Form or to participate in the Buyback Offer. If the Eligible Shareholder does not complete the client registration process before the end of the Buyback Offer Period, its Tender Form will not be accepted. If an Eligible Shareholder holds Shares registered in the name of and through a financial intermediary (including a special purpose vehicle) and intends to tender its Shares in the Buyback Offer, it must contact the financial intermediary and instruct it accordingly. The Company suggests that such shareholders begin that process immediately as well. Cash settlement for the Shares acquired in the Buyback Offer is expected to be on or about 3 May 2019, unless settlement is delayed due to technical and/or administrative reasons, by way of transfer to the bank account registered on the respective Eligible Shareholders' VPS account for dividend payments. Restricted class A shares with ISIN GB00BWWCMD47 (the "Restricted A Shares") cannot be offered for sale in the Buyback Offer. However, holders of Restricted A Shares may submit an exchange request to redesignate the Restricted A Shares to Shares and the Company will act on that request expeditiously. A redesignation request is irrevocable and will result in the transfer and cancellation of the Class B Shares (and their votes) associated with those Restricted A Shares. There is no assurance that any redesignated Shares will be sold in the Buyback Offer. In order for the Company to act on a redesignation request in time for redesignated Restricted A Shares to participate in the Buyback Offer, a Shareholder holding Restricted A Shares must submit a Redesignation Request to the Company no later than 14:00 CET on 23 April 2019. To effect the redesignation in the VPS the shareholder must also contact the operator of its VPS account and have that VPS account operator contact the VPS Registrar, DNB Bank ASA, no later than 10:00 CET on 25 April 2019. The form of the redesignation requests will be available on the Companys website and from ir@rakpetroleum.uk . For U.K. Companies Act 2006 (the "Act") reasons, the Company can only purchase its Shares using the "off-market" purchase provisions pursuant to the Act. The Company and the Manager entered into the Repurchase Contract to comply with the specific procedures governing such "off-market purchases. The Buyback Offer is not being made, directly or indirectly, in, into or from, by use of the mails of, or by any other means or instrumentality (including, without limitation, electronic mail, facsimile transmission, telex, telephone, internet or other forms of electronic communication) of foreign or interstate commerce of, or any facilities of a national, state or other securities exchange of, any jurisdiction where to do so is prohibited by applicable law, or where local laws or regulations may result in a significant risk of civil, regulatory or criminal exposure if information concerning the Buyback Offer is sent to shareholders in that jurisdiction, including, but not limited to, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates (each a "Restricted Jurisdiction"), and shall not be capable of acceptance by any such use, means, instrumentality or facility or from or within any Restricted Jurisdiction (save in compliance with local laws or regulations). Upon request, the Manager may make the Buyback Offer documentation available to certain Shareholders and may accept offers made by certain Shareholders, in accordance with the Offer and Distribution Restrictions in the Tender Form. The Manager will only accept offers from a shareholder or beneficial owner of Shares (or any person acting as agent, custodian, fiduciary or in another intermediary capacity for such shareholder or beneficial owner) who (i) is not a U.S. person (as such term is defined pursuant to Regulation S under the US Securities Act of 1933, as amended), or is not located or resident in the United States, or (ii) is not ordinarily resident in, does not have a registered address in or is not a citizen of a Restricted Jurisdiction where such residency, registered address or citizenship prohibits acceptance of the Buyback Offer, or (iii) is not located in any other jurisdiction where acceptance of the Buyback Offer is prohibited ("Eligible Shareholders"). The Tender Form will be published on the Companys website at rakpetroleum.uk or can be obtained by contacting SpareBank 1 Markets AS on +47 24 14 74 70 or offering@sb1markets.no , subject to certain restrictions relating to persons resident in any Restricted Jurisdiction. Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules The Company notes that, if the Buyback Offer is consummated and cancellation of the Shares occurs, the loss of voting rights associated with the Shares will reduce the total voting rights of the Company. This will automatically increase the percentage of voting rights held by any existing shareholder that has not otherwise altered its shareholdings. In accordance with the Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules of the UK Financial Conduct Authority and the Articles of Association of the Company, this diminution of the total voting rights of the Company may trigger an obligation on the part of a shareholder to notify the Company because its interest in the Company reaches, exceeds, or falls below the respective thresholds of 3 percent and each 1 percent threshold thereafter up to 100 percent. Shareholders holding significant interests in the Company should immediately monitor their compliance with these requirements. UK Takeover Code requirements As a company incorporated under the laws of England and Wales with its registered office in the United Kingdom whose securities are admitted to trading on a regulated market in Norway only (on the Oslo Stock Exchange), the Company is subject to the shared jurisdiction of the United Kingdom and Norway in takeover matters under the Directive on Takeover Bids (2004/25/EC) (the "Takeover Directive"). As a shared jurisdiction company, the Takeover Directive provides that matters relating to the employees of the offeree company and matters relating to company law, in particular the percentage of voting rights conferring control and any derogation from the obligation to launch a bid, as well as the conditions under which the board of the offeree company may undertake any action which might result in frustration of the bid, shall be determined by the UK City Code on Takeovers and Mergers (the "UK Takeover Code"). Under Rule 9 of the UK Takeover Code, if an acquisition of an interest in shares were to increase the aggregate holding of the acquirer and its concert parties to an interest in shares carrying 30 percent or more of the voting rights in the Company, the acquirer and its concert parties, would be required (except with the consent of the Panel on Takeovers and Mergers (the "UK Takeover Panel")) to make a cash offer for the outstanding shares in the Company at a price not less than the highest price paid for interests in shares by the acquirer or its concert parties during the previous 12 months (a "mandatory offer"). This requirement would also normally be triggered by any acquisition of an interest in shares by a person who (together with its concert parties) is interested in shares which in aggregate carry not less than 30 percent of the voting rights in the Company but does not hold more than 50 percent of such voting rights in the Company, if the effect of such acquisition were to increase that persons percentage of voting rights in the Company. Rule 37 of the UK Takeover Code extends this principle so that when a company redeems or purchases its own voting shares, any resulting increase in the percentage of shares carrying voting rights in which a person or group of persons acting in concert is interested will be treated as an acquisition for the purposes of Rule 9 of the UK Takeover Code. Rule 37 of the UK Takeover Code provides that, subject to prior consultation, the UK Takeover Panel will normally waive any resulting obligation to make a general offer if there is a vote of independent shareholders and a procedure along the lines of that set out in Appendix 1 to the UK Takeover Code is followed. Appendix 1 to the UK Takeover Code sets out the procedure which should be followed in obtaining the consent of independent shareholders. Under Note 1 on Rule 37 of the UK Takeover Code, a person who comes to exceed the limits in Rule 9.1 in consequence of a companys purchase of its own shares will not normally incur an obligation to make a mandatory offer unless that person is a director, or the relationship of the person with any one or more of the directors is such that the person is, or is presumed to be, a concert party with any of the directors of that company. Persons acting in concert comprise persons who, pursuant to an agreement or understanding (whether formal or informal), co-operate to obtain or consolidate control of a company or to frustrate the successful outcome of an offer for a company. Certain categories of people will be presumed to be acting in concert with each other unless the contrary is established. The UK Takeover Panel has confirmed to the Company that it would treat the Companys Executive Chairman, Mr. Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani, as acting in concert with DNO ASA, of which he is also Executive Chairman. Mr. Mossavar-Rahmani's interest in the total voting rights of the Company is currently 36.88 percent and DNO ASA's is 7.71 percent, resulting in an aggregate 44.59 percent. The UK Takeover Panel has confirmed that if prior to, or simultaneously with, the cancellation of Repurchased Shares, on Mr. Mossavar-Rahmani's and DNO ASA's respective instructions, the Company redesignates such number of their respective Restricted A Shares as Shares and cancels the equivalent number of their respective associated Class B Shares, such that Mr. Mossavar-Rahmani's total voting rights aggregated with those of DNO ASA do not increase beyond 44.59 percent, no mandatory bid would be triggered under Rule 9 of the UK Takeover Code, as result of the cancellation. Mr. Mossavar-Rahmani has confirmed that he does not intend to offer any of his Shares for sale in the Buyback Offer. Mr. Mossavar-Rahmani has also provided the Company with an irrevocable undertaking, conditional on the Company announcing that it intends to repurchase Shares pursuant to the Buyback Offer, whereby Mr. Mossavar-Rahmani undertakes to request (i) such number of his Restricted A Shares be redesignated as Shares, and (ii) the equivalent number of his associated Class B Shares be cancelled, such that his voting rights in the Company aggregated with his concert party's voting rights, do not increase beyond the existing level of 44.59 percent. In addition, DNO ASA, has confirmed that it does not intend to offer any of its Shares for sale in the Buyback Offer and has also provided the Company with an irrevocable undertaking, conditional on the Company announcing that it intends to repurchase Shares pursuant to the Buyback Offer, whereby it undertakes to request (i) such number of its Restricted A Shares be redesignated as Shares, and (ii) the equivalent number of its associated Class B Shares be cancelled, such that its voting rights do not increase beyond its existing level of 7.71 percent. For further queries, please contact: SpareBank 1 Markets AS Email: offering@sb1markets.no Phone: +47 24 14 74 70 IMPORTANT NOTICE This announcement is not for publication, distribution or release, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, in or into the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates or any other jurisdiction where such an announcement would be unlawful. The distribution of this announcement may be restricted by law in certain jurisdictions and persons who come into possession of this announcement or any related document or other information referred to herein should inform themselves about and observe any such restrictions. The Buyback Offer is not being made, directly or indirectly, in, into or from, by use of the mails of, or by any other means or instrumentality (including, without limitation, electronic mail, facsimile transmission, telex, telephone, internet or other forms of electronic communication) of foreign or interstate commerce of, or any facilities of a national, state or other securities exchange of, any Restricted Jurisdiction, and shall not be capable of acceptance by any such use, means, instrumentality or facility or from or within any Restricted Jurisdiction (save in compliance with local laws or regulations). Accordingly, copies of this announcement or the Tender Form are not being and must not be, directly or indirectly mailed, transmitted or otherwise forwarded, distributed, sent or otherwise made available (including, without limitation, by agents, custodians, nominees or trustees) in, into or from a Restricted Jurisdiction, and persons receiving this announcement and/or the Tender Form and/or any related documents (including, without limitation, agents, custodians, nominees and trustees) should observe these restrictions and must not mail or otherwise forward, distribute, send or otherwise make them available in, into or from such Restricted Jurisdiction. Doing so may render any purported acceptance of the Buyback Offer invalid. If, in connection with making the Buyback Offer, notwithstanding the restrictions described above, any person (including, without limitation, custodians, nominees and trustees), whether pursuant to a contractual or legal obligation or otherwise, forwards this announcement or the Tender Form or any related documents in, into or from a Restricted Jurisdiction or uses the mails of, or any means or instrumentality (including, without limitation, electronic mail, facsimile transmission, telex, telephone, internet or other forms of electronic communication) of foreign or interstate commerce of, or any facilities of a national, state or other securities exchange of, a Restricted Jurisdiction in connection with such forwarding, such persons should (a) inform the recipient of such fact; (b) explain to the recipient that such action may invalidate any purported acceptance by the recipient; and (c) draw the attention of the recipient to this paragraph. Any failure to comply with these restrictions may constitute a violation of the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. Any person (including, without limitation, trustees, nominees or custodians) who would or otherwise intends to, or who may have a contractual or legal obligation to, forward this announcement or the Tender Form to a Restricted Jurisdiction should seek appropriate independent advice before taking any action. No action has been taken that would permit participation in the Buyback Offer or possession or distribution of this announcement in any jurisdiction where action for that purpose is required. The Buyback Offer is only open to Eligible Shareholders. This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act. Newcastles space at Randolph and Peoria streets is expected to get a boost from nearby hotels bringing foot traffic to the area, including the Soho House, the recently opened Hoxton and the Nobu hotel and restaurant expected to open this summer. Nobu is in the final stages of construction directly across the street. English French Vienna, 15 April 2019 08h00 Coface strengthens its market position in the Adriatic region by acquiring SID - PKZ, the leading credit insurance company in Slovenia Coface announces today the acquisition of SID - PKZ, the market leader in credit insurance in Slovenia with a high market share. As Coface has acquired all SID - PKZ shares, the business will operate under the new brand name Coface PKZ. The acquisition supports Cofaces strategy of profitable growth in Central & Eastern Europe region. Founded by SID Bank in 2005, SID - PKZ recorded EUR 14.3 m of gross written premium in 2018. The transaction will have a neutral impact on Cofaces solvency ratio. With this strategic step, Coface strengthens its market position in the Adriatic region. Offering a broad range of services and a vast international network, Coface will enhance the support of Slovenian exporters thus adding value to its clients and contributing to the economic development of the country. Coface PKZ will be integrated into the Central and Eastern Europe region under the leadership of regional CEO Declan Daly. Xavier Durand, CEO of Coface added: The acquisition of SID - PKZ marks the first external growth initiative of Coface in more than 10 years. It will reinforce our presence in this important part of the world and it is perfectly in line with the objectives of our Fit to Win strategic plan. Through this acquisition, Coface is proud to contribute to enhancing the Slovenian Economy and excited to welcome a very experienced and highly recognised team of 74 experts from SID PKZ. At the conclusion of the sales process, Sibil Silvan, President of the Board of SID Bank, stated: "We believe that the new strategic owner of SID - PKZ can provide opportunities for development and for a further expansion of the companys operations. This will enable SID - PKZ to access a wider spectrum of foreign markets, which will undoubtedly help the Slovenian economy. This will also have a positive impact on a more competitive insurance and reinsurance of non-marketable risks, which we will continue to implement in SID Bank. We believe that this will further stimulate Slovenian exports and sustainable economic development in Slovenia." Sergej Simoniti, President of the Management Board SID PKZ, added: We are delighted to become part of the Coface family. As part of SID Bank group, we have served the Slovenian economy in its expansion for the past 27 years. We are very proud that Coface has acknowledged our achievements and recognised our value. We are convinced that being part of Coface group will enable us to offer our clients an even better service. We believe that together with Coface we will strengthen our position as market leader and trade credit insurer of choice in the Adriatic region. CONTACTS MEDIA RELATIONS Verena SCHWARZ T. +43 (0)1 515 54-540 verena.schwarz@coface.com Maria KRELLENSTEIN T. +33 (0)1 49 02 16 29 maria.krellenstein@coface.com ANALYSTS / INVESTORS Thomas JACQUET T. +33 (0)1 49 02 12 58 thomas.jacquet@coface.com Benoit CHASTEL T. +33 (0)1 49 02 22 28 benoit.chastel@coface.com FINANCIAL CALENDAR 2019 (subject to change) Q1-2019 results: 24 April 2019 (after market close) Annual General Shareholders Meeting 2018: 16 May 2019 H1-2019 results: 25 July 2019 (after market close) 9M-2019 results: 23 October 2019 (after market close) FINANCIAL INFORMATION This press release, as well as COFACE SAs integral regulatory information, can be found on the Groups website: http://www.coface.com/Investors For regulated information on Alternative Performance Measures (APM) please refer to our Interim Financial Report for S1-2018 and our 2018 Registration Document. Coface: for trade - Building business together 70 years of experience and the most finely meshed international network have made Coface a reference in credit insurance, risk management and the global economy. With the ambition to become the most agile, global trade credit insurance partner in the industry, Cofaces experts work to the beat of the world economy, supporting 50,000 clients in building successful, growing and dynamic businesses. The Groups services and solutions protect and help companies take credit decisions to improve their ability to sell on both their domestic and export markets. In 2018, Coface employed ~4,100 people and registered turnover of 1.4 billion. www,coface,com COFACE SA is quoted in Compartment A of Euronext Paris Code ISIN : FR0010667147 / Mnemonique : COFA DISCLAIMER - Certain declarations featured in this press release may contain forecasts that notably relate to future events, trends, projects or targets. By nature, these forecasts include identified or unidentified risks and uncertainties, and may be affected by many factors likely to give rise to a significant discrepancy between the real results and those stated in these declarations. Please refer to chapter 5 Main risk factors and their management within the Group of the Coface Group's 2018 Registration Document filed with AMF on 3 April 2019 under the number No. D.19-0261 in order to obtain a description of certain major factors, risks and uncertainties likely to influence the Coface Group's businesses. The Coface Group disclaims any intention or obligation to publish an update of these forecasts, or provide new information on future events or any other circumstance. Attachment English Italian RECORDATI TO MEET WITH THE FINANCIAL COMMUNITY Milan, 15 April 2019 Recordati S.p.A. will be hosting a meeting with the financial community on: Thursday 9 May at 10:30 am GMT (Registration at 9:30 am GMT) London Stock Exchange 10 Paternoster Square, London Recordatis first quarter 2019 results and the Groups development strategy and objectives for the period 2019-2021 will be presented at this meeting. The meeting will be held in English. Anyone wishing to attend must register by completing the form accessible from the homepage of the companys website www.recordati.com or directly on page www.recordati.com/en/?marketsday Participants should be prepared to present a photo ID upon request. Schedule 9:30 Registration and refreshments 10:30 Presentation of first quarter 2019 results Fritz Squindo, CFO Presentation of the 2019-2021 Business Plan Andrea Recordati, CEO For those who are unable to attend, the proceedings followed by a Q&A session will be available via conference call. Dial-in numbers are: Italy +39 02 8058811, toll free 800 213 858 UK +44 1 212818003, toll free 800 0156384 USA +1 718 7058794, toll free 855 2656959 France +33 170918703 Germany +49 69 255114451 Callers are invited to dial-in 10 minutes before conference time. If conference operator assistance is required during the connection, please digit * followed by 0. A set of slides, which will be referred to during the meeting, will be available on our website www.recordati.com under Investors/Company Presentations. A recording of the proceedings will be subsequently placed on the website www.recordati.com . Recordati, established in 1926, is an international pharmaceutical group, listed on the Italian Stock Exchange (Reuters RECI.MI, Bloomberg REC IM, ISIN IT 0003828271), with a total staff of more than 4,100, dedicated to the research, development, manufacturing and marketing of pharmaceuticals. Headquartered in Milan, Italy, Recordati has operations throughout the whole of Europe, including Russia, Turkey, North Africa, the United States of America, Canada, Mexico, some South American countries, Japan and Australia. An efficient field force of medical representatives promotes a wide range of innovative pharmaceuticals, both proprietary and under license, in a number of therapeutic areas including a specialized business dedicated to treatments for rare diseases. Recordati is a partner of choice for new product licenses for its territories. Recordati is committed to the research and development of new specialties with a focus on treatments for rare diseases. Consolidated revenue for 2018 was 1,352.2 million, operating income was 442.2 million and net income was 312.4 million. For further information: Recordati website: www.recordati.com Investor Relations Media Relations Marianne Tatschke Studio Noris Morano (39)0248787393 (39)0276004736, (39)0276004745 e-mail: investorelations@recordati.it e-mail: norismorano@studionorismorano.com Statements contained in this release, other than historical facts, are "forward-looking statements" (as such term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995). These statements are based on currently available information, on current best estimates, and on assumptions believed to be reasonable. This information, these estimates and assumptions may prove to be incomplete or erroneous, and involve numerous risks and uncertainties, beyond the Companys control. Hence, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. All mentions and descriptions of Recordati products are intended solely as information on the general nature of the companys activities and are not intended to indicate the advisability of administering any product in any particular instance. Attachment VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- American Pacific Mining Corp (CSE: USGD / FWB: 1QC / OTCPK: USGDF) (APM or the Company) is pleased to announce that it has entered into an earn-in agreement in respect of APMs Tuscarora Gold Project with OceanaGold U.S. Holdings Inc., a US subsidiary of OceanaGold Corp. (TSX: OGC) (ASX: OGC). OceanaGold is an Australian-based, mid-tier mining company with numerous producing assets, including the largest producing gold mine in New Zealand, the Macraes Goldfield Mine. Warwick Smith, CEO of APM, commented: We are very pleased to partner with OceanaGold at Tuscarora. The companys management and Board of Directors extend a warm welcome to the OceanaGold team as both sides work to add value to the project and define further drill targets across the large and historic land package. This announcement adds excitement to the project and the company as we enter a new exploration season. OceanaGold is the perfect partner in our eyes, especially with the success they have had at Waihi in New Zealanda similar high-grade epithermal system. For a company of our size, this transaction is a big milestone. Eric Saderholm, President of APM commented: A joint venture with a mid-tier producer, such as OceanaGold, adds to the merit of this high-grade, epithermal gold project. Nevada is the top investor-friendly jurisdiction for mining, and I look forward to working alongside the OceanaGold team as we move this gold discovery ahead at Tuscarora. Key Points of the Agreement OceanaGold can earn up to 51% of the Tuscarora Gold Project by investing USD$4 million over the next four years (Phase 1) OceanaGold will have sixty (60) days thereafter to exercise an option to earn an additional 24% by investing a further USD$6 million over the following four years (Phase 2) OceanaGold will make an initial cash payment of USD$50,000 to American Pacific and, upon OceanaGold earning a 51-per-cent interest in the property, a second payment of USD$200,000 in cash or shares at Oceana's option OceanaGold will also make all payments to holders of underlying property interests and pay claim fees OceanaGold will be the operator and, upon earning-in an interest, a joint venture management committee will be formed About OceanaGold Corp. OceanaGold Corporation is a mid-tier, high-margin, multinational gold producer with assets located in the Philippines, New Zealand and the United States. The Companys assets encompass the Didipio Gold-Copper Mine located on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. On the North Island of New Zealand, the Company operates the high-grade Waihi Gold Mine while on the South Island of New Zealand, the Company operates the largest gold mine in the country at the Macraes Goldfield which is made up of a series of open pit mines and the Frasers underground mine. In the United States, the Company operates the Haile Gold Mine, a top-tier, long-life, high-margin asset located in South Carolina. OceanaGold also has a significant pipeline of organic growth and exploration opportunities in the Americas and Asia-Pacific regions. OceanaGold has operated sustainably since 1990 with a proven track-record for environmental management and community and social engagement. The Company has a strong social license to operate and works collaboratively with its valued stakeholders to identify and invest in social programs that are designed to build capacity and not dependency. In 2019, the Company expects to produce between 500,000 to 550,000 ounces of gold and 14,000 to 15,000 tonnes of copper at All-In Sustaining Costs ranging between $850 and $900 per ounce sold. Other News The Company has entered into an arm's-length agreement with Future Money Trends, LLC and affiliates (FMT). FMT is headed by Kenneth Ameduri, a media specialist in the natural resources sector. The agreement is for a three year term. The Company paid US$250,000 and issued a total of 2,800,000 of its common shares in consideration for the consulting services. The Company also entered into an arm's-length agreement with Capital Pearl Investments Inc. The agreement is for a 1 year term. The Company paid US$40,000 and issued a total of 1,000,000 of its common shares in consideration for the consulting services. All of the above-noted consultant shares are subject to a four month hold period expiring on July 23, 2019. The company has also granted stock options to purchase an aggregate of 1 million common shares at an exercise price of $0.28 per share for a five year term. The stock options, which were granted to consultants and directors of APM, are subject to the necessary regulatory approvals. About Us American Pacific Mining Corp. is a gold explorer focused on precious metal opportunities in the Western United States. Tuscarora is a high-grade, early stage gold project located in a prime precious metal district in Nevada, only 35km northeast of the Carlin trend, 20km southwest of the Jerritt Canyon deposit, and 50km east-northeast of the Midas deposit. American Pacific is Eyeing a Gold Discovery amidst golds next bull market. On Behalf of the Board of American Pacific Mining Corp. "Warwick Smith" CEO & Director Corporate Office: Suite 910 510 Burrard Street Vancouver, BC, V6C 3A8 Canada Investor Relations: investor@americanpacific.ca Phone: 1-866-646-5389 Forward-looking Information Some statements in this news release contain forward-looking information (within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation) including, without limitation, statements as to planned exploration activities and the expected timing of the receipt of results. These statements address future events and conditions and, as such, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the statements. Such factors include, without limitation, customary risks of the mineral resource industry as well as the performance of services by third parties. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts; they are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "aims," "potential," "goal," "objective," "prospective," and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "can," "could" or "should" occur, or are those statements, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions that Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made and they involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. The CSE has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. Neither the CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/7847e8fa-ade8-43c1-b4b5-d331d66bf05b First Quarter 2019 highlights: Contained metal production of 23.4 million ZnEq 1 lbs, up 9% from Q1 2018 Grade of 6.7% ZnEq, up 10% from Q1 2018 Milled throughput of 192,922 tonnes up 3% over Q1 2018 with new access ramp to Esperanza commissioned Completion of Esperanza drift provides significant exploration opportunity TORONTO, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ascendant Resources Inc. (TSX: ASND) (OTCQX: ASDRF; FRA: 2D9) ("Ascendant" or the "Company) is pleased to release first quarter 2019 production results highlighted by operational improvements across the board positioning the Company for a solid operating year ahead. Contained metal production for the first quarter 2019 was 23.4 million pounds of zinc equivalent (ZnEq) metal, comprised of 15.2 million pounds of zinc, 6.0 million pounds of lead and 293 thousand ounces of silver. This represents a 9% improvement in contained metal production over Q1 2018 due to higher lead and silver grades combined with a slight increase in throughput over the previous strong operating quarter. Milled throughput of 192,922 tonnes also demonstrated improvements over Q1 2018 of 3% and Q4 2018 of 4%, reflecting the benefits of the newly completed production ramp which provides for more direct and efficient access from Esperanza to the underground crusher. The average head grade of 6.7% ZnEq for the quarter represented an increase of 10% over Q1 2018 as the Company focused throughout 2018 on grade control and mining the average historical reserve grade. While 4% lower than Q4 2018 due to mine sequencing, zinc equivalent grade was above expectations based on the current mine plan. Zinc processing recoveries of 84.2% in Q1 2019 was 6% lower than those of Q1 2018 due to the continued challenges of treating metallurgically complex ore at Esperanza. This was offset by the higher mill throughput and higher lead and silver head grades, which in turn resulted in a 4% increase in lead and a 1% increase in silver recovery at 79.5% and 79.0% respectively. Zinc recoveries were in line with Q4 2018, while lead and silver recoveries were up 2% and 3% respectively as a result of steps made to improve reagent conditioning for the lead float. Prior to the first quarter results, the Company had anticipated reduced metal production during the first half of the 2019, with stronger performance in the second half of the year due to higher grades. First quarter results have exceeded expectations and the mine remains well positioned for strong performance in 2019. President and CEO Chris Buncic stated: We have had a great start to 2019 at El Mochito in terms of production and grade as the mine delivered higher than planned results. With the benefits of shorter haul distances to Esperanza and higher grades being mined, we are on a solid path to deliver our strongest performance since our acquisition of the mine. He continued, The Company remains focused on progressing the expansion project funding for El Mochito, with the goal of commencing construction in the second half of this year. Operational performance for Q1 2019 is provided in the table below (numbers may not match due to rounding): 2019 2018 Units Q1 Q4 Q3 Q2 Q1 Ore Milled tonnes 192,922 184,913 191,738 192,428 186,955 Average Head Grade Zinc % 4.2 % 4.2 % 4.5 % 4.3 % 4.2 % Lead % 1.8 % 1.9 % 1.7 % 1.5 % 1.6 % Silver g/t 62 77 45 48 46 ZnEq % 6.7 % 7.0 % 6.7 % 6.3 % 6.1 % Average Recoveries Zinc % 84.2 % 84.1 % 87.8 % 89.7 % 89.3 % Lead % 79.5 % 77.6 % 78.9 % 79.1 % 76.7 % Silver % 79.0 % 76.6 % 77.8 % 79.4 % 78.3 % Contained Metal Production Zinc 000's lbs 15,162 14,435 16,579 16,343 15,301 Lead 000's lbs 5,955 6,023 5,552 5,109 5,125 Silver ozs 293,287 347,251 209,622 229,043 215,599 ZnEq 000's lbs 23,370 23,173 23,919 22,926 21,412 First Quarter 2019 Conference Call Ascendant plans to release first quarter 2019 financial results after market close on May 8, 2019. A conference call will be held on May 9, 2019, at 10:00am EDT to discuss first quarter 2019 operational and financial results. Conference Call Details: Date of Call: Thursday, May 9, 2019 Time of Call: 10:00am EDT Conference ID: 1092554 Dial-In Numbers: North American Toll-Free: 1-833-696-8362 International: 1-612-979-9908 Technical Disclosure/Qualified Person All technical information contained herein has been reviewed and approved by Robert A. Campbell, M.Sc, P.Geo, a director of the Company. Mr. Campbell is a "qualified person" as defined by NI 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (NI 43-101). About Ascendant Resources Inc. Ascendant is a Toronto-based mining company focused on its 100%-owned producing El Mochito zinc, lead and silver mine in west-central Honduras and its high-grade polymetallic Lagoa Salgada VMS Project located in the prolific Iberian Pyrite Belt in Portugal. After acquiring the El Mochito mine in December 2016, Ascendant spent 2017 and 2018 implementing a rigorous and successful optimization program restoring the historic potential of El Mochito, a mine in production since 1948, to deliver record levels of production with profitability restored. The Company now remains focused on cost reduction and further operational improvements to drive profitability in 2019 and beyond. With a significant land package of approximately 11,000 hectares in Honduras and an abundance of historical data, there are several near-mine and regional targets providing longer term exploration upside which could lead to further Mineral Resource growth. Ascendant holds an interest in the high-grade polymetallic Lagoa Salgada VMS Project located in the prolific Iberian Pyrite Belt in Portugal. The Company is engaged in exploration of the Project with the goal of expanding the already-substantial defined Mineral Resources and testing additional known targets. The Companys acquisition of its interest in the Lagoa Salgada Project offers a low-cost entry point to a potentially significant exploration and development opportunity. The Company holds an additional option to increase its interest in the Project upon completion of certain milestones. Ascendant Resources is engaged in the ongoing evaluation of producing and development stage mineral resource opportunities, on an ongoing basis. The Company's common shares are principally listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "ASND". For more information on Ascendant Resources, please visit our website at www.ascendantresources.com. Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. For further information please contact: Katherine Pryde Director, Communications & Investor Relations Tel: 888-723-7413 info@ascendantresources.com Forward Looking Information This news release contains "forward-looking statements" and "forward-looking information" (collectively, "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All information contained in this news release, other than statements of current and historical fact, is forward-looking information. Often, but not always, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "budget", "guidance", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "strategy", "target", "intends", "objective", "goal", "understands", "anticipates" and "believes" (and variations of these or similar words) and statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "should", "might" "occur" or "be achieved" or "will be taken" (and variations of these or similar expressions). Forward-looking information is also identifiable in statements of currently occurring matters which may continue in the future, such as "providing the Company with", "is currently", "allows/allowing for", "will advance" or "continues to" or other statements that may be stated in the present tense with future implications. All of the forward-looking information in this news release is qualified by this cautionary note. Forward-looking information in this news release includes, but is not limited to, statements regarding production growth, the consistency of processing recovery levels, improvements of grades increase in contained metal production, maintenance of production rates, increase of mill feed grades, reduction of costs, the ability to fully fund planned development, exploration and capital expenditures, the undertaking of the expansion program at El Mochito Mine, and the achievement of the 2019 production, cost and capital expenditures guidance. Forward-looking information is not, and cannot be, a guarantee of future results or events. Forward-looking information is based on, among other things, opinions, assumptions, estimates and analyses that, while considered reasonable by Ascendant at the date the forward-looking information is provided, inherently are subject to significant risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors that may cause actual results and events to be materially different from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. The material factors or assumptions that Ascendant identified and were applied by Ascendant in drawing conclusions or making forecasts or projections set out in the forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, the ability of the Company to grow production, to maintain the consistency of processing recovery levels, to improve grades, increase contained metal production, increase mill feed grades, reduce costs, fully fund planned development, exploration and capital expenditures, undertake the expansion project at El Mochito Mine, the ability to achieve the 2019 production, cost and capital expenditures guidance, and other events that may affect Ascendant's ability to develop its project; and no significant and continuing adverse changes in general economic conditions or conditions in the financial markets. The risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information may include, but are not limited to, risks generally associated with the mining industry, such as economic factors (including future commodity prices, currency fluctuations, energy prices and general cost escalation), uncertainties related to the development and operation of Ascendant's projects, dependence on key personnel and employee and union relations, risks related to political or social unrest or change, rights and title claims, operational risks and hazards, including unanticipated environmental, industrial and geological events and developments and the inability to insure against all risks, failure of plant, equipment, processes, transportation and other infrastructure to operate as anticipated, compliance with government and environmental regulations, including permitting requirements and anti-bribery legislation, volatile financial markets that may affect Ascendant's ability to obtain additional financing on acceptable terms, the failure to obtain required approvals or clearances from government authorities on a timely basis, uncertainties related to the geology, continuity, grade and estimates of mineral reserves and resources, and the potential for variations in grade and recovery rates, uncertain costs of reclamation activities, tax refunds, hedging transactions, as well as the risks discussed in Ascendant's most recent Annual Information Form on file with the Canadian provincial securities regulatory authorities and available at www.sedar.com. Should one or more risk, uncertainty, contingency, or other factor materialize, or should any factor or assumption prove incorrect, actual results could vary materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. Accordingly, the reader should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Ascendant does not assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information after the date of this news release or to explain any material difference between subsequent actual events and any forward-looking information, except as required by applicable law. 1 ZnEq lbs and grades in ZnEq % represent zinc metal considered together with the lead and silver expressed in zinc equivalent terms of zinc using average spot metal prices and monthly production ratios. TORONTO, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kerr Mines Inc. ( TSX: KER , OTC: KERMF, FRA: 7AZ1) (Kerr or the Company) is very pleased to announce that Mr. Giulio T. Bonifacio has assumed the position of Chief Executive Officer in addition to his current role as Director. As part of this transition, Mr. Claudio Ciavarella will assume the role of Executive Vice Chairman and will work closely with Mr. Bonifacio to advance the Companys Copperstone Mine project to production. Mr. Bonifacio was the Founder, President and Director of Nevada Copper since its inception in 2005 until his retirement in 2018. Over this 13-year period, he led and directed efforts at every stage of Nevada Coppers development which included resource expansion, feasibility studies, successful permitting of both the underground and open pit deposits and the initial construction phase at the Pumpkin Hollow project located in Nevada. Pumpkin Hollow is currently targeted to commence production in Q4 2019. Over his 30 years of experience in senior executive roles in the mining industry, Mr. Bonifacio has raised directly over US$500 million in capital through equity and project debt financings for projects of merit as well as being involved in corporate transactions aggregating in excess of US$1 billion. Mr. Bonifacio is a Chartered Professional Accountant with extensive experience and knowledge of operations, project finance, capital markets and mergers and acquisitions. Giulio T. Bonifacio, Chief Executive Officer stated: I look forward to working with the Board and Management to advance Copperstone to commercial production in the near term. Copperstone is well advanced with permits, 14,000 feet of underground development, an existing 600 ton/day mill and infrastructure, all of which will lead to very manageable capital requirements while also allowing for a shortened construction period. I am also very excited about the multi-million ounce exploration potential of the project which has not been fully tested and explored. Fahad al Tamimi, Chairman stated I would like to welcome the appointment of Mr. Bonifacio as our Chief Executive Officer. Giulio has the knowledge, experience and belief in this project to lead us forward and take the next important steps to achieving our strategic objectives. I would like to thank Mr. Ciavarella for his dedication to advancing the Company over the past two years, the Company has taken great strides during this time. We look forward to Claudios continued involvement as a Board member and major shareholder of the Company. Private Placement The Company has completed a non-brokered private placement offering of 3,350,000 units of the Company (Units) at a price of CDN$0.14 per Unit for gross proceeds of CDN$469,000 (the Offering). Mr. Bonifacio subscribed for 3,000,000 Units of the Offering and Peter Damouni, a director of the Company, subscribed for 350,000 Units of the Offering. Each Unit consists of one common share of the Company (a Common Share) and one Common Share purchase warrant (a Warrant). Each Warrant entitles the holder thereof to purchase one Common Share at a price of CDN$0.21 per Common Share until April 15, 2021 provided that if, at any time the Common Shares trade on a stock exchange at a volume weighted average trading price of CDN$0.30, or greater, per Common Share for a period of 20 consecutive trading days, the Company may accelerate the expiry date of the Warrants by giving notice to the holders thereof and in such case the Warrants will expire on the 30th day after the date on which such notice is given by the Company. The securities issued and issuable pursuant to the Offering will be subject to a four month and one day statutory hold period. The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the Offering for continued mineral exploration and development and for general working capital purposes. The securities offered have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the U.S. Securities Act), or applicable state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold to persons in the United States absent registration or an exemption from such registration requirements. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The issuance and sale of Units under the Offering to Mr. Bonifacio and Mr. Damouni, as insiders of the Company, constituted related party transactions within the meaning of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions (MI 61-101). The Company is relying on the exemptions from the valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 contained in sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101, as the fair market value of the participation in the Offering by each insider will not exceed 25% of the market capitalization of the Company, as determined in accordance with MI 61-101. The Company did not file a material change report in respect of the related party transaction at least 21 days before the closing of the Offering, which the Company deems reasonable in the circumstances so as to be able to avail itself of the proceeds of the Offering in an expeditious manner. About Kerr Mines Inc. Kerr Mines is an Emerging American Gold Producer currently advancing the 100% owned, fully permitted past-producing Copperston e Mine project to production. Copperstone is a high-grade gold project located along a detachment fault mineral belt in mining-friendly Arizona. This gold project in Arizona demonstrates tremendous exploration potential targeting multi-million ounce targets within a 50 square kilometer (12,260 acres) land package. For further information contact: Claudio Ciavarella Executive Vice Chairman cciavarella@kerrmines.com 416-855-9305 TREVOSE, Pa., April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- StoneMor Partners L.P. (NYSE: STON) (StoneMor or the Partnership), a leading owner and operator of cemeteries and funeral homes, is pleased to announce that Garry P. Herdler has been appointed Senior Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer, effective April 15, 2019. Mr. Herdler will succeed Mark Miller, who is retiring from the Partnership. Mr. Herdler joins StoneMor with more than 25 years combined experience as CFO, private equity management consultant, investment banker, and as a KPMG CPA/CA and tax advisor. He has been a CFO of six private equity owned firms, a global real estate firm, and a NYSE-listed firm. He has a broad background as CFO in many situations and sectors, including multi-channel retail, consumer and health services, homebuilding, real estate, manufacturing, and media. Most recently, Mr. Herdler was the Chief Financial Officer of QuadReal Property Group, a real estate investment, development and management company headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, where he led the financial integration of four firms with a C$27 billion portfolio across 17 countries. Prior to his CFO role at QuadReal, Mr. Herdler was a Senior Director in the Private Equity Performance Improvement Group of Alvarez & Marsal Consultants in New York. Previously, Mr. Herdler acted as a financial consultant and CFO for various private equity-owned companies, responsible for operational improvements, business integration and turnarounds. He also has nearly ten years of investment banking experience in leveraged finance and equities with Deutsche Bank Securities/Bankers Trust and CIBC World Markets, primarily in New York, where he completed transactions in several industries, including deathcare. Our company is very fortunate to have someone of Garrys caliber and operational experience join our team, said Joe Redling, StoneMors President and Chief Executive Officer. We look forward to utilizing his broad experience assisting companies through periods of high change, operational improvement, integration and turnaround. His experience in leveraged debt capital markets and equities, as well as his previous deathcare experience with the $850 million credit facility and notes offering to refinance Stewart Enterprises, will be especially valuable as we navigate the refinancing of our own credit facility, added Redling. We are also grateful to outgoing CFO, Mark Miller, for his efforts during his time at StoneMor, and we wish him all the best in his retirement, said Redling. I am looking forward to partner with Joe, the StoneMor team, and the Board to achieve the Partnerships objectives, said Mr. Herdler. Our goal is to focus on cash flow, capital structure, strategic balance sheet/portfolio review, and performance improvements from cost reduction and revenue enhancements. Most importantly, I respect the sensitive and important nature of the care StoneMor provides, and ultimately this is also about improving the services we bring to the families and people that we serve. Im very pleased with the management team we now have in place, Redling said. In combination with the recent actions weve taken to drive efficiencies and improve profitability, Im confident that we are putting in place the necessary foundation to better position StoneMor for future opportunities. About StoneMor Partners L.P. StoneMor Partners L.P., headquartered in Trevose, Pennsylvania, is an owner and operator of cemeteries and funeral homes in the United States, with 322 cemeteries and 90 funeral homes in 27 states and Puerto Rico. StoneMor is the only publicly traded death care company structured as a partnership. StoneMors cemetery products and services, which are sold on both a pre-need (before death) and at-need (at death) basis, include: burial lots, lawn and mausoleum crypts, burial vaults, caskets, memorials, and all services which provide for the installation of this merchandise. For additional information about StoneMor Partners L.P., please visit StoneMors website, and the investors section, at http://www.stonemor.com . Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements contained in this press release, including, but not limited to, information regarding the expected timing of Mr. Herdlers start date and Mr. Millers retirement, are forward-looking statements. Generally, the words believe, may, will, estimate, continue, anticipate, intend, project, expect, predict, focus, review, cash flow, confident and similar expressions identify these forward-looking statements. These statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are based on managements current expectations and estimates. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees and are made subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results stated or implied in this press release. StoneMors major risks are related to our substantial secured and unsecured indebtedness, our ability to refinance our secured indebtedness in the near term, uncertainties associated with the cash flow from pre-need and at-need sales, trusts and financings, which may impact StoneMors ability to meet its financial projections, service its debt and resume paying distributions, as well as with StoneMors ability to maintain an effective system of internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures. When considering forward-looking statements, you should keep in mind the risk factors and other cautionary statements set forth in StoneMors Annual Report on Form 10-K and the other reports that StoneMor files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, from time to time. Except as required under applicable law, StoneMor assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements made herein or any other forward-looking statements made by it, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. CONTACT: John McNamara Director - Investor Relations StoneMor Partners L.P. (215) 826-2945 English French MONTREAL, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Terranueva Corporation (CSE: TEQ) ("Terranueva" or the "Corporation") is pleased to announce that, following the issuance of culture, transformation and sale (medical) licenses issued by Health Canada on February 22, the Company pursued its development plan by securing contingent options to purchase over 280,000 square feet of land adjacent to its state-of-the-art plant located in L'Assomption, Quebec (the 'Options'). This means that the Company now has more than 410,000 sq. ft. of land to expand its activities. Thanks to these Options, Terranueva will be able to optimize its future production and provide it with attractive operational synergies. The Company estimates that, in the long term and subject to the exercise of these Options, it can add approximately 32 metric tons of medical and recreational cannabis per year to its total production. Terranueva recently started cannabis production at its plant in L'Assomption, Quebec. In addition, as announced on February 25, Terranueva is well on its way to completing Phase 2 of its business plan to design and build the first modular production units on its 130,000 sq. ft. lot. The start of construction of the first two modular production units is planned for this summer. "Now that we have started the culture of a hybrid strain to our full satisfaction and have completed our tender for the construction of our first modular units, it was time to optimize the land area that will allow us to take full advantage of expansion required for our activities over the next few years." said Pierre Ayotte, CEO of Terranueva. Terranueva plans to generate revenue in 2019. The company's business plan aims to multiply these revenues quickly by adding modular production units over the next three years. About Terranueva : Terranueva relies on research and development and operational efficiency to become a key player in the emerging cannabis industry. It aims to provide the Canadian and international markets with first-rate medicinal and recreational cannabis. Terranueva Pharma Corporation, its wholly owned subsidiary, holds the necessary licenses from Health Canada to meet its mission. Operating in L'Assomption (Quebec), its mission is to produce cannabis with the highest standards in terms of efficiency, quality and stability. To achieve its goal, Terranueva Pharma is implementing a modular production approach, integrating the latest advances and innovations in process automation. Learn more about Terranueva at www.terranueva.ca CSE nor its services providers (as that terms defined in the policies) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release. For further information, please contact: TORONTO, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nutritional High International Inc. ("Nutritional High" or the "Company") (CSE: EAT, OTCQB: SPLIF, FRANKFURT: 2NU) is pleased to announce that it has retained Oak Hill Financial Inc. ("Oak Hill") to provide investor relations services to the Company in compliance with regulatory guidelines. Oak Hill is a Toronto-based firm which develops strategic platforms for its clients that are utilized to gain exposure and recognition to the capital markets. Oak Hill provides asset management, capital market and investor relations services. Its team has marketed corporate issuers ranging in market cap from $10M to $1B in a variety of different sectors to the Canadian retail brokerage channel, family offices and institutional networks. Oak Hills team of has experience across equity capital markets, equity research, portfolio management, institutional equity sales, and traditional investor relations resulting in tailored and highly collaborative solutions. Oak Hill is located at 181 Bay Street, Suite 1030 in Toronto. Oak Hill will work closely with Nutritional High to develop and deploy a comprehensive capital markets strategy and campaign. Activities will include providing an investor relations program catering to the retail brokerage channel and institutional investors, marketing services and an ongoing client services program. The Company and Oak Hill act at arm's length, and Oak Hill has no present interest, directly or indirectly, in the Company or its securities. Oak Hill has been engaged on a monthly basis and the Company will pay Oak Hill a fee of CAD $9,500 per month plus HST commencing immediately. The agreement with Oak Hill may be terminated by the Company or Oak Hill at any time by providing a 5 days' notice. The Company also announces that its board of directors has approved the grant of 250,000 stock options to Oak Hill at an exercise price of $0.30 per common share expiring on October 12, 2021 and vesting immediately. The options may be cancelled by the Company after 60 days of terminating the agreement with Oak Hill. About Nutritional High International Inc. Nutritional High is focused on developing, manufacturing and distributing products under recognized brands in the cannabis products industry, with a specific focus on edibles and oil extracts for medical and adult recreational use. The Company works exclusively with licensed facilities in jurisdictions where such activity is permitted and regulated by state law. The Company follows a vertically integrated model with a fully developed strategy for acquisitions in extraction, production, sales, and distribution sectors of the cannabis industry. Nutritional High has brought its flagship FLI edibles and extracts product line from production to market through its wholly owned subsidiaries in California and Oregon, as well as Colorado where its FLI products are manufactured by a third-party licensed producer. In California, the Company distributes its products and products manufactured by other leading producers through its wholly owned distributor Calyx Brands Inc. and is entering the Nevada, Washington State and Canadian markets in the near future. For updates on the Company's activities and highlights of the Company's press releases and other media coverage, please follow Nutritional High on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and Google+ or visit www.nutritionalhigh.com . For further information, please contact: David Posner Co-Chairman of the Board Nutritional High International Inc. 647-985-6727 Email: dposner@nutritionalhigh.com Ethan Karayannopoulos Director, Investor Relations Nutritional High International Inc. 416-777-6175 Email: ethan@nutritionalhigh.com NEITHER THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR OTC MARKETS GROUP INC., NOR THEIR REGULATIONS SERVICES PROVIDERS HAVE REVIEWED OR ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. This news release may contain forward-looking statements and information based on current expectations. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. Risks that may have an impact on the ability for these events to be achieved include completion of due diligence, negotiation of definitive agreements and receipt of applicable approvals. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that such assumptions will prove to be correct. We assume no responsibility to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. The Company's securities have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or applicable state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold to, or for the account or benefit of, persons in the United States or "U.S. Persons", as such term is defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act, absent registration or an applicable exemption from such registration requirements. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in the United States or any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. Additionally, there are known and unknown risk factors which could cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information contained herein. All forward-looking information herein is qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement, and the Company disclaims any obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking information or to publicly announce the result of any revisions to any of the forward-looking information contained herein to reflect future results, events or developments, except as required by law. Some of the risks and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking information expressed in this press release include, but are not limited to: obtaining and maintaining regulatory approvals including acquiring and renewing U.S. state, local or other licenses, the uncertainty of existing protection from U.S. federal or other prosecution, regulatory or political change such as changes in applicable laws and regulations, including U.S. state-law legalization, market and general economic conditions of the cannabis sector or otherwise. Dublin, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Europe Cannabis Testing Market to 2025 - Regional Analysis and Forecasts by Type; Services; End User and Country" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The Europe cannabis testing market is expected to reach US$ 807.9 Mn in 2025 from US$ 361.6 Mn in 2017. The market is estimated to grow with a CAGR of 10.8% from 2018-2025. The growth of the cannabis testing market is primarily attributed to the European government is funding cannabis education for doctors, and increasing demand for research activities for cannabis quality. However, cannabis used as a street drug and trouble with CBD oil are likely to pose a negative impact on the market growth. On the other hand, cannabinoid testing in Europe is likely to have a positive impact on the growth of the Europe cannabis testing market in the coming years. The growing number of countries are adopting medical cannabis laws but the governmental officials are rare that encouraging healthcare professionals to become educated about cannabis plant medicines. On the use of cannabis in clinical practice, to instruct local healthcare providers, various cannabis experts were invited to Macedonia, in 2016. The program was held in Skopje and was supported and funded by the Macedonian Ministry of Health. Cannabis provides the unique opportunities in Macedonia, where the medical system is in a stage of evolution and modernization. Local medical specialists are now able to prescribe cannabis in the country. Considering this, Macedonian cannabis promoters worked with local governments and created the medical cannabis training program in an effort to support doctors and their patients. Currently, the impetus of the Macedonian medical cannabis movement is moving quickly, and the public opinion on cannabis has also changed dramatically in the region. The medical marijuana resolution in the region urges the Commission and member states to address regulatory, financial and cultural barriers which burden scientific research and invite them to fund research. Thus, due to the above advancements, the cannabis testing market is expected to grow at a rapid pace during the forecast period. In 2017, the product segment held a largest market share of 73.7% of the cannabis testing market, by type. This segment is also expected to dominate the market in 2025 owing diverse portfolio of cannabis testing products to the healthcare industry for innovations in the technologies. Moreover, the same segment is also expected to witness the highest CAGR in the market accounting to 11.1% in 2018 to 2015 owing to increasing analytical services and medicinal cannabis services in testing cannabis. Europe cannabis testing market, based on services was segmented into potency testing, microbial analysis, residual solvent screening, heavy metal testing, pesticide screening, terpene profiling, and genetic testing. The potency testing segment is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 11.8% during the forecast period. The testing laboratory segment held a largest market share of 49.2% of the cannabis testing market, by end user. This segment is also expected to dominate the market in 2025 owing to increasing number of diagnostic testing performed in the reference labs for the numerous diseases. Some of the major primary and secondary sources for cannabis testing included in the report are Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risk (COFEPRIS) Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) German Research Foundation (DFG) European Research Area (ERA) Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act (MMRSA) Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), National Science Foundation (NSF) Key Topics Covered: Part 1. Introduction 1.1 Scope of the Study 1.2 Report Guidance Part 2. Europe Cannabis Testing Market - Key Takeaways Part 3. Europe Cannabis Testing Market - Market Landscape 3.1 Overview 3.2 Market Segmentation 3.3 Pest Analysis Part 4. Europe Cannabis Testing Market - Key Market Dynamics 4.1 Key Market Drivers 4.1.1 European Government Is Funding Cannabis Education For Doctors 4.1.2 Increasing Demand For Research Activities For Cannabis Quality 4.2 Key Market Restraints 4.2.1 Cannabis Used As a Street Drug 4.2.2 Trouble With Cbd Oil 4.3 Key Market Opportunities 4.3.1 Cannabinoid Testing In Europe 4.4 Future Trends 4.4.1 Advances In Cannabis Testing Equipments 4.5 Impact Analysis Part 5. Cannabis Market - Europe Analysis 5.1 Europe Cannabis Market Revenue Forecasts and Analysis 5.2 Market Positioning 5.3 Performance of Key Players 5.4 Expert Opinions Part 6. Europe Cannabis Market Analysis - by Type 6.1 Overview 6.2 Europe Cannabis Market, by Type, 2017 & 2025 (%) 6.3 Europe Cannabis Market Revenue and Forecasts To 2025, by Type (US$ Mn) 6.4 Product Market 6.4.1 Overview 6.4.2 Europe Product Market Revenue and Forecasts To 2025 (US$ Mn) 6.4.3 Analytical Instruments Market 6.4.3.1 Overview 6.4.3.2 Europe Analytical Instruments Market Revenue and Forecasts To 2025 (US$ Mn) 6.4.3.3 Chromatography Instruments Market 6.4.3.3.1 Overview 6.4.3.3.2 Europe Chromatography Instruments Market Revenue and Forecasts To 2025 (US$ Mn) 6.4.3.3.3 Liquid Chromatography Market 6.4.3.3.4 Gas Chromatography Market 6.4.3.4 Spectroscopy Market 6.4.3.4.3 Mass Spectrometry Market 6.4.3.4.4 Atomic Spectrometry Market 6.4.4 Consumables Market 6.4.4.1 Overview 6.4.4.2 Europe Consumables Market Revenue and Forecasts To 2025 (US$ Mn) 6.4.4.3 Chromatography Columns Market 6.4.4.4 Standard & CRMS Market 6.4.4.5 Supplies and Accessories Market 6.4.5 Software Market Part 7. Europe Cannabis Testing Market Analysis - by Service 7.1 Overview 7.2 Europe Cannabis Market, by Service, 2017 & 2025 (%) 7.3 Europe Cannabis Market Revenue and Forecasts To 2025, by Service (US$ Mn) 7.4 Potency Testing Market 7.5 Terpene Profiling Testing Market 7.6 Pesticide Screening Market 7.7 Residual Solvent Testing Market 7.9 Microbial Analysis Market 7.10 Genetic Testing Market Part 8. Europe Cannabis Testing Market Analysis - by End User 8.1 Overview 8.2 Europe Cannabis Market, by End User, 2017 & 2025 (%) 8.3 Europe Cannabis Market Revenue and Forecasts To 2025, by End User (US$ Mn) 8.4 Testing Laboratories Market 8.5 Drug Manufacturers Market 8.6 Research Institutes Market Part 9. Europe Cannabis Testing Market Revenue and Forecasts To 2025 Part 10. Cannabis Testing Market -Industry Landscape 10.1 Overview 10.2 Growth Strategies In the Cannabis Testing Market, 2016-2018 10.3 Organic Developments 10.4 Organic Growth Strategies In the Cannabis Testing Market, 2016-2018 10.5 Product Launch 10.6 Product Approval 10.7 Others 10.8 Inorganic Developments 10.9 Inorganic Growth Strategies In the Cannabis Testing Market, 2016-2018 10.10 Acquisitions 10.11 Agreements 10.12 Collaborations Part 11. Cannabis Market-Key Company Profiles Agilent Technologies PerkinElmer, Inc. Shimadzu Corporation SCIEX Merck KGaA Restek Corporation Waters CannaSafe Analytics Accelerated Technology Laboratories, Inc. Digipath Labs. For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/i5yhii Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CUV Ventures Corp. (TSX-V: CUV) (the Company) is pleased to announce that it has it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with PHILLGUS DE CENTROAMERICA S.R.L. operating as EasyPay Costa Rica, on April 10th 2019. The MOU, signed by CUV CEO, Steve Marshall and, Gustavo A. Reyes, CEO of EasyPay, outlines a mutual desire to study the technical requirements for RevoluPAY e-Wallet family remittances and, cash advances for visiting tourists, to be collected at over 50 agencies controlled by EasyPay www.phillgusca.com in Costa Rica. The parties have agreed to work on a Definitive Agreement (DA) concerning bilateral commissions, the technical linking of payments settlement systems and, the mechanism for the instant delivery of worldwide remittances and, tourism focused cash-advances, in Costa Rica. The parties anticipate arriving at a mutually agreeable arrangement very soon. The Company would also like to thank Advisor, Emilio Morales, for his assistance in forging this potentially valuable relationship with EasyPAY. About EasyPagos EasyPay, headquartered in San Jose, Costa Rica, currently provides logistical payment deliveries for many of the worlds largest remittance companies. EasyPAY manages over 50 physical delivery bureaus across the length and, breadth of Costa Rica, servicing: major cities, smaller towns and, villages. Remittance and Tourism Data for Costa Rica Costa Rica is estimated to receive over $562 Million USD annually through international remittances. Additionally, Costa Rica is one of few South American nations that is also an originator (sender) of significant remittances. Approximately $900 million USD are sent from Costa Rica to, predominantly, Nicaragua, China and Colombia. Furthermore, Costa Rica remains a popular South American tourism hotspot, with approximately 2.8 million visitors annually. The Companys RevoluVIP platform (page 17) will offer specific offers to Costa Rica on the VIP country website therefore, the proposed agreement with EasyPAY will allow visiting tourists easy access to local currency through their RevoluPAY app. About RevoluPAY The Companys flagship technology is RevoluPAY, the Apple and Android multinational payment app. Built entirely in-house, RevoluPAY features proprietary, sector specific, technology of which, the resulting source code is the property of the Company. RevoluPAYs built-in features include: Leisure payments, travel payments, retail and hospitality payments, remittance payments, real estate payments, pay-as-you-go phone top-ups, Utility Bill payments, etc. RevoluPAY is powered by blockchain protocols, and, is squarely aimed at the worldwide multi-billion dollar leisure sector and, + $595 billion family remittance market. RevoluPAY is operated by the European wholly owned subsidiary RevoluPAY S.L located in Barcelona. RevoluPAY S.L operates under European E-money - Directive 2009/110/EC through a licensed electronic money institution or EDE Banking Licensed entity. RevoluPAY Presentation About CUV Ventures Corp.: CUV Ventures Corp. is a multi-asset, multidivisional publicly traded Canadian company deploying advanced technologies in the; Online Travel, Vacation Resort, Mobile Apps, Money Remittance, Mobile phone top-ups, Invoice factoring, Blockchain Systems, and Fintech app sectors. Our flagship technology is RevoluPAY, the Apple and Android multinational leisure payments and remittance app, powered by blockchain protocols, and aimed at the worldwide + $595 billion family remittance market. Click here to read more. For further information on CUV Ventures Corp. (TSX-V: CUV) visit the Companys website at www.cuvventures.com. The Company has approximately 134,115,000 shares issued and outstanding. CUV VENTURES CORP. Steve Marshall ______________________ STEVE MARSHALL CEO For further information contact: Don Mosher CUV Ventures Corp. Telephone: (604) 685-6465 Toll Free: 800-567-8181 Facsimile: 604-687-3119 Email: info@cuvventures.com NEITHER THE 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. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Glance Technologies Inc. (Glance or the Company) (CSE:GET) (OTCQB:GLNNF) (FKT:GJT) today announced it is participating as an exhibitor at the Northwest Food Show held in Portland, Oregon, April 14th and 15th. The Northwest Food Show is the largest and most established in the Northwest and draws an eclectic and broad range of food-related vendors, distributors, and representatives from across the United States, with a large percentage of attendees being restaurants, bars and hotels. Glance has engaged with both the Washington Hospitality Association and the Oregon Restaurants and Lodging Association, as an allied member, to provide a mobile payment solution to their restaurant and hospitality members located in the Pacific Northwest region. According to the National Restaurant Association, Washington and Oregon combined have a total of more than 26,000 eating and drinking locations and had estimated annual restaurant sales of $23.2 billion in 2018. The cities of Seattle and Portland are great opportunities for Glances expansion: both cities have burgeoning restaurant scenes that are experiencing rising rents, increased competition, a tight labor market and rising labor costs due to minimum wage hikes. Glances Real-Time BillTM and upcoming Order from TableTM features present the perfect solution for restaurants looking to leverage in-restaurant technology to reduce their expenses and increase revenue. We see the western U.S. region as a great opportunity due to multiple trends coalescing such as rising labor costs, a tight labor market, and the increasing adoption of restaurant technology, says Desmond Griffin Glance Technologies CEO, We think apps such as Uber, Starbucks, and PayByPhone have primed consumers for technologies such as Glance in these markets. About Glance Technologies Inc. Glance Technologies is the owner of Glance Pay and Glance PayMe , a pair of complementary smartphone payment applications that enable merchants to provide their customers with quick secure payments, digital rewards, and better experiences. Glance offers targeted in-app marketing, geo-targeted digital coupons, customer feedback, in-merchant messaging, custom rewards programs, digital receipts, and digital deals. For more information about Glance, please go to www.glance.tech . Desmond Griffin, CEO Investor questions: (833) 338-0299 investors@glancepay.com Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking information or forward-looking statements (collectively "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information is typically identified by words such as: may, "believe", thinks, "expect", exploring, expand, could, "anticipate", "intend", "estimate", plan, pursue, "potentially", projected, should, will and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. These forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties, relate to, among other things, the discussion of Glances business strategies and its expectations concerning future operations, that Glances Real-Time Bill and upcoming Order from Table feature presents the perfect solution for restaurants looking to leverage technology to reduce their expenses and increase revenue, and that this the perfect time for the expansion of Glance Pay. Although Glance considers these forward-looking statements to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect, and the forward-looking statements in this release are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. Such risk factors include, among other things, risks that Glances software and applications may contain security problems, security vulnerabilities, or defects in design or manufacture, including bugs and other problems that could interfere with the intended operation of its software, risks related to the volatility of customer demand for Glances products, and the possibility that the expected benefits from the launch of new features will not be realized. The forward-looking information in this press release is also based on certain estimates, forecasts and projections, as well as expectations, beliefs and assumptions, including, among other things, that Glance will be able to achieve its business and technology development objectives. For additional information with respect to these and other factors and assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements in this press release, see the section entitled Risk Factors in the most recent Annual Information Form and Prospectus of Glance, which may be accessed through Glance's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Glance cautions investors that any forward-looking information provided by Glance is not a guarantee of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Undue reliance should not be placed on such forward-looking information, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are based will occur. English Lithuanian AB Energijos skirstymo operatorius (hereinafter the Company or ESO), identification code 304151376, registered office placed at Aguonu str. 24, Vilnius, Republic of Lithuania. The total number of registered ordinary shares issued by company is 894 630 333; ISIN code LT0000130023. The Management Board of the Company convenes the Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders, to be held on 30 April 2019. The Ordinary General Meeting of shareholders of the Company will take place at the premises of ESO (Aguonu str. 24, second floor, 207 hall, Vilnius). The meeting will start at 10.00 a.m. on 30 April 2019. Start of registration of shareholders at 9.30 a.m. End of registration of shareholders at 9.55 a.m. 23 April 2019 is the day of identification of shareholders for the purposes of the Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders of the Company. Only those persons who are shareholders of the Company as of the end of the said identification date are entitled to attend and vote at the Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders of the Company. The agenda and the proposed draft resolution of the Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders of the Company: Regarding the approval of the Annual Report of AB Energijos skirstymo operatorius for the year 2018. Approve the Annual Report of AB Energijos skirstymo operatorius for the year 2018 (enclosed). Regarding the approval of the audited Annual Financial Statements of AB Energijos skirstymo operatorius for the year 2018. Approve the audited Annual Financial Statements of AB Energijos skirstymo operatorius for the year 2018 (enclosed). Regarding the allocation of profit (loss) of AB Energijos skirstymo operatorius for the year 2018. To allocate the profit (loss) of AB Energijos skirstymo operatorius for the year 2018 (enclosed). The Board of the Company on 15 April 2019 has adopted the decision to supplement the agenda of the Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders of the Company as following: Regarding the approval of the new version of the Articles of Association of AB Energijos skirstymo operatorius. 1. Approve a new version of the Articles of Association of AB Energijos skirstymo operatorius (enclosed). 2. Authorize the General Director of AB Energijos skirstymo operatorius to sign the amended Articles of Association of AB Energijos skirstymo operatorius and personally or through his authorized persons carry out all actions to implement this decision. The Company also informs that on 4 April, 2019 the Supervisory Board of AB Energijos skirstymo operatorius adopted the following decisions: 1. Approve the Annual Report of AB Energijos skirstymo operatorius for the year 2018; 2. Approve the Annual Financial Statements of AB Energijos skirstymo operatorius for the year 2018 audited by the audit company PricewaterhouseCoopers UAB; 3. Approve the profit (loss) allocation of AB Energijos skirstymo operatorius of the year 2018; 4. Submit this review to the Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders of AB Energijos skirstymo operatorius to be held on 30 April 2019. Shareholders participating in the General Meeting of Shareholders of ESO shall produce an identity document. Shareholders shall be granted pecuniary and non-pecuniary rights provided for by laws and other legal acts of the Republic of Lithuania. Shareholders entitled to participate in the aforementioned shareholder meeting shall have the right to authorize, in writing, a natural or legal person to participate and vote on their behalf at the General Meetings of Shareholders indicated in this notice. Such a written authorization shall be approved in accordance with the procedure laid down in legal acts and shall be delivered to Aguonu str. 24, Vilnius no later than by the end of shareholder registration for a relevant General Meeting. Shareholders entitled to participate in the General Meeting of Shareholders of ESO shall also have the right to authorize, by electronic means of communication, a natural or legal person to participate and vote on their behalf at the General Meeting of Shareholders. An authorization issued by electronic means of communication shall be recognized as valid provided that the security of the information transferred is ensured and it is possible to identify the shareholder. Shareholders shall report the issuance of an authorization by electronic means of communication by sending it by e-mail to info@eso.lt not later than by the end of the working day on 29 April 2019 (16:30 p.m.). The authorized person shall have an identity document and shall enjoy the same rights at the General Meeting as the shareholder represented by him would enjoy (unless the issued authorization or laws provide for narrower rights of the authorized person). The shareholders right to participate in the General Meeting of Shareholders shall also include the right to ask. ESO has not approved any special authorization form of the abovementioned General Meeting of Shareholders. The agenda of the General Meeting of Shareholders of ESO may be supplemented on the initiative of shareholders of company whose shares held in company carry at least 1/20 of all votes at the General Meeting of Shareholders of ESO. The proposal to supplement the agenda of the respective General Meeting of Shareholders shall be accompanied by draft decisions or, where no decisions have to be taken, by explanations on each proposed agenda item of the Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders. The agenda shall be supplemented if the proposal is received no later than 14 before the respective General Meeting of Shareholders. Shareholders whose shares held in ESO carry at least 1/20 of all votes at the General Meeting of Shareholders of company shall have the right to propose, at any time before the General Meeting of Shareholders of ESO, new draft decisions on issues that are included or will be included in the agendas of the General Meeting of Shareholders of ESO. Proposals on the supplementation of the respective agenda or relevant draft decisions shall be submitted in writing to ESO, Aguonu str. 24, Vilnius, or by e-mail to info@eso.lt. Shareholders of ESO shall have the right to present questions related to the agenda of the General Meeting of Shareholders of company. Questions may be presented by e-mail to info@eso.lt or delivered to ESO to Aguonu str. 24, Vilnius, no later than 3 working days before the General Meeting of Shareholders. Shareholders will be able to vote on the agenda items of the General Meeting of Shareholders of ESO in writing by filling in ballot papers. At the request of a shareholder, ESO shall send, free of charge, a ballot paper to the shareholder by registered post or deliver it by hand against signature no later than 10 days before the General Meeting of Shareholders of ESO. A completed ballot paper shall be signed by the shareholder or a person authorized by the shareholder. Where a person authorized by the shareholder casts a vote, a document certifying the right to vote shall be attached to the completed ballot paper. Filled and signed general ballot paper and the document confirming the voting right can be sent to the company by registered mail or delivered at Aguonu str. 24, Vilnius, no later before the General Meeting of Shareholders. The company retains the right not to recognize the advance vote of the shareholder or his/her authorized representative, if his/her submitted general ballot paper does not meet the requirements of Paragraphs 3 and 4 of Article 30 of the Law on Companies of the Republic of Lithuania, was received to late or is filled so that the true will of the shareholder on an individual matter cannot be determined. Electronic means of communication shall not be used for participation and voting at either of the abovementioned General Meeting of Shareholders. Shareholders can familiarize themselves with documents related to the agenda of the General Meeting of Shareholders of ESO, draft decisions on the agenda, documents to be submitted to General Meeting of Shareholders and other information related to the implementation of the rights of shareholders specified in this notice on the website of ESO at www.eso.lt from the date of this notice as well as on the premises of ESO (Aguonu str. 24, Vilnius) during working hours (7.3011.30 a.m. and 12.154.30 p.m.; 7.3011.30 a.m. and 12.153.15 p.m. on Fridays). For more information: Tomas Kavaliauskas, spokesman, tel. +370 617 51616 Attachments NASHUA, N.H., April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dresner Advisory Services today announced the updated roster of speakers and sponsors for the 2019 Real Business Intelligence conference. The annual conference is the first industry event for business and IT communities focused completely on real world best practices and proven methods. The theme of the third annual event is Hyper-Decisiveness A key competency of the Digital Enterprise and a means of future-proofing BI initiatives. Digital enterprises must be hyper-decisive - instantly processing all relevant data and information and delivering insights at the point of decision or action. This is a defining characteristic and a main purpose of the digital enterprise. Attendees will join faculty in exploring the essentials of culture, technology, and process; leveraging and evolving current investments to emerge as successful, future-ready, and hyper-decisive enterprises. Newly announced sessions: Allison Ryder, Senior Project Editor at MITs Sloan Management Review, will moderate a panel discussion of expert end users in the financial services, logistics, higher education, and telecommunications industries. Panelists include: Robin Chhetri - American International Distribution Corporation, Matt Childs GCI Communications, Kelly Crevier - First Bank & Trust, and Gwen Pechan - University of Pittsburgh. Industry panel moderated by Jim Ericson, Vice President and Research Director at Dresner Advisory Services, featuring Marge Breya, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, MicroStrategy; Michael Corcoran, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Information Builders; and Adriana Gil-Miner, Senior Vice President, Brand Communications & Events, Tableau Software Roundtable discussions have been added to both days of the conference to enable attendees to explore and assess hyper-decisiveness within their own organization These sessions augment a unique, high-level and thought provoking agenda comprised of renowned industry authors and professionals, including: Bill Aulet Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship and Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management, conducting 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, presenting on the organizations 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, discussing 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, sharing 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 Wixom Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Center for Information Systems Research, presenting 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, exploring 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, exploring 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, discussing 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, exploring 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, discussing 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 Our mission is to offer an impressive array of speakers not found at other industry events, providing unique perspectives and stimulating discussions around strategies critical to ongoing success of BI, analytics, information management, and performance management initiatives, said Howard Dresner, founder of Dresner Advisory Services and co-chair of the 2019 Real BI Conference. New Sponsors: Salesforce is the Diamond Sponsor of the 2019 Real Business Intelligence Conference. Tableau and MicroStrategy have joined as Platinum sponsors, in addition to Information Builders. Gold Sponsors include Alation and Prophix. 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. To register for this premier event 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 including information management, performance management and advanced analytics. DALLAS, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via OTC PR WIRE -- Alternet Systems, Inc. (USOTC: ALYI) (ALYI) has scheduled an online presentation this Thursday, April 18th, 2019 to provide details on the companys plan to create over $50 million in value from its African strategy. The $50 million in value will be a combination of revenue generation and asset value. Management spent all last week in Kenya working on a combination of business agreements that are all part of one strategy to advance the companys electric vehicle business in Africa. The company announced on Friday last week, the execution of a Letter of Intent (LOI) for a ReVolt Electric Motorcycle assembly plant in Kenya that includes an initial $20 million order of 2,000 ReVolt Electric Motorcycles. The company also announced a second LOI agreement that leads to a potential contract where ALYI secures a leadership role in a global electric vehicle institution that is expected to contribute substantially to the ongoing advance of electric vehicle technology worldwide. The second LOI would also lead to substantial revenue generation in addition to the $20 million order for 2,000 ReVolt Electric Motorcycles. Check back Thursday, April 18th to learn more about how the two LOIs fit into ALYIs overall plan to create over $50 million in value from its African strategy. ALYI is focused on offering varied, environmentally sustainable, energy storage solutions for targeted markets, including consumer electric vehicles and military applications. The first product category is lithium battery-powered motorcycles, to be followed by motorbikes. ALYI also has an ongoing hemp energy storage initiative leading its current efforts to introduce an alternative to lithium batteries. Disclaimer/Safe Harbor: This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Litigation Reform Act. The statements reflect the Company's current views with respect to future events that involve risks and uncertainties. Among others, these risks include the expectation that any of the companies mentioned herein will achieve significant sales, the failure to meet schedule or performance requirements of the companies' contracts, the companies' liquidity position, the companies' ability to obtain new contracts, the emergence of competitors with greater financial resources and the impact of competitive pricing. In the light of these uncertainties, the forward-looking events referred to in this release might not occur. For more information, please visit: http://www.alternetsystemsinc.com Alternet Systems, Inc. Contact: Randell Torno info@lithiumip.com +1-800-713-0297 WPP TOKEN is poised to be accepted as a payment method to purchase BioPower Stock Geneva Switzerland, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WPP Energy GmbH, a private Swiss Company (WPP) announced today that its Board of Directors has approved, and that the Company has entered into a Binding Memorandum Of Understanding with BioPower Operations Corporation, a Nevada corporation, to acquire a 90% interest in the BioPower, OTCMKTS Symbol BOPO. Pursuant to the MOU the parties agreed to negotiate and enter into a definitive agreement to set the terms of the Transaction in accordance with the MOU. WPP is interested in licensing to BioPower its technologies, for the purpose of BioPower becoming the manufacturer of the technology units, distributor and providing the necessary Operations and Maintenance as required. WPP is also interested in licensing its Blockchain technology and deploying WPP TOKEN to restart the Entrade Exchanges, first introduced at Exelon in 1997 by Robert Kohn, President of WPPs Green Energy Rebate Program. WPPs Blockchain technology will significantly enhance the capabilities of each exchange as it comes online. The new Exchange(s) will use business know-how of on-line and off-line commercial trade desks and strategies that were developed at Entrade. The exchanges will license to governments and government agencies and major corporations to sell products and services to business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets across the globe. WPP intends for WPP Token to be accepted by these exchanges in the form of credit against purchases. WPP also intends for the BioPower subsidiary to launch World Small Business for businesses with less than 100 employees across the Globe and Professionals. WPP Token will be accepted by this exchange for products and services used every day in small businesses such as office supplies, computer supplies, shipping, etc. ABOUT WPP Headquartered in Geneva Switzerland, WPP is seeking to be a repository for disruptive green energy technologies, aiming to make electricity available at lower costs and to reduce landfill waste by up to 97%. WPP intends to build, own, license, operate and maintain these advanced technologies and enters into strategic joint venture partnerships for the purpose of accelerating the deployment of important environmentally friendly technologies for the benefit of the entire world. WPP intends to transmit its energy and biofuel production, and that of its partners, into WPPs upcoming Global Green Energy Futures Contract Trading Platform using Blockchain Technology. For more information on WPP Energy visit https://wppenergy.com For more information about WPP TOKEN visit: https://wppenergy.io For more information on BioPower please visit https://biopowercorp.com Forward-looking Statements This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, which can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as estimates, believes, anticipates, intends, expects and similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to be materially different from those described herein as anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. These forward-looking statements are based on the Companys current expectations and beliefs concerning future developments. There can be no assurance that future developments affecting the Company will be those anticipated by the Company. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties (some of which are beyond the control of the Company) or other assumptions that may cause actual results or performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws. FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: WPP Energy GmbH TEL: +41 91 756 6945 info@wppenergy.com www.wppenergy.com NEW YORK, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Greystone, a leading commercial real estate lending, investment, and advisory company, announced that it has provided a $17,665,500 HUD-insured loan to finance the new construction of 409 on Nine, a 127-unit Green-certified mixed-use property located on Nine Mile Road in Ferndale, Michigan. The FHA construction-to-perm loan was originated by Lisa M. Fischman of Greystone on behalf of Michael Dowdle and Dale Inman of Wolf River Development Company. The HUD-insured financing for the property located at 371-475 Nine Mile Road is a ground-up construction loan that converts to a 40-year permanent, fixed-rate, non-recourse fully amortizing loan after completion and stabilization. HUD insured $6 billion in new construction / substantial rehabilitation (NC/SR) loans in FY2018, of its total $14.7 billion in multifamily initial endorsements. This represents a 62% increase since 2016, when NC/SR volume was just $3.7 billion. In addition to the planned multifamily component, 409 on Nine will include 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. The four-story loft-style property will also include amenities such as covered parking, a rooftop terrace, dog run, picnic area, and a fitness center, and is situated just two blocks from the Woodward Avenue commerce district with abundant restaurants, nightclubs and retail offerings. Greystones knowledge and experience in the HUD finance world is unparalleled, and we are thrilled to have had their guidance on our first HUD transaction, said Mr. Inman. Its certainly worth pursuing the benefits of long-term HUD financing if you have a trusted, knowledgeable partner to help navigate you through the process. For a developer with such a solid reputation of providing quality housing to resurging neighborhoods in Michigan as Wolf River, the HUD new construction financing is an ideal execution, said Ms. Fischman. I am both proud and thrilled to be their finance partner on this transaction. About Greystone Greystone is a real estate lending, investment, and advisory company with an established reputation as a leader in multifamily and healthcare finance, having ranked as a top FHA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac lender in these sectors. Our range of services includes commercial lending across a variety of platforms such as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, CMBS, FHA, USDA, bridge and proprietary loan products. Loans are offered through Greystone Servicing Company LLC, Greystone Funding Company LLC and/or other Greystone affiliates. For more information, visit www.greyco.com . PRESS CONTACT: Karen Marotta Greystone 212-896-9149 Karen.Marotta@greyco.com CHARLESTON, S.C., April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) has received a $3.6 million primary award for the SPROUT-CTSA Collaborative Telehealth Research Network. This five-year grant is focused on supporting the development of telehealth research efforts, metric development, identification of best practices and the development of collaborative policy and advocacy materials across the country. It builds on work underway as part of the SPROUT (Supporting Pediatric Research on Outcomes and Utilization of Telehealth) collaborative, an established network of institutions and pediatric providers operating within the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is a sub awardee of the grant. The other sub-awarded institutions are the University of Colorado Childrens Hospital Colorado, Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and Mercy Clinic in St. Louis, Missouri. This is a huge step forward in the development of safe and impactful telehealth programs across the country, said primary investigator for the grant S. David McSwain, M.D., MUSC Childrens Health physician and MUSC associate professor of pediatric critical care and chief medical information officer. Academic research into the real impact of telehealth services is a critical component of developing and growing programs with the greatest potential to improve our health care system. Many physicians and other health care providers are hesitant about incorporating telehealth into their practices because its difficult to separate the theoretical benefits from the real value. In 2015, McSwain collaborated with a small group of pediatric physicians across the country to form SPROUT, which has since completed and published the nations first broad assessment of pediatric telehealth infrastructure across the country. That was a critical starting point, said John Chuo, M.D., associate professor of clinical pediatrics at CHOP, co-chair of SPROUT and site primary investigator. When we started SPROUT, we realized that we couldnt conduct studies on pediatric telehealth unless we actually knew which institutions were providing which types of services. That information wasnt readily available, so we made it our first investigation. While much anecdotal or small-scale evidence exists about the benefits of telehealth, including cost reduction, improved quality of care in some patient populations and improved access to care for some rural and underserved populations, barriers to fully demonstrating the gains made via telehealth care delivery persist. For example, there are few best practices in existence for conducting multisite telehealth research involving patient care outcomes, limited access to research trials for rural populations and limitations to care access for special populations such as children or the elderly. At the national level, there is no academic authority currently spearheading multicenter telehealth research studies, said Christina Olson, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics and site primary investigator at the University of Colorado Childrens Hospital Colorado. We have piecemeal efforts happening in terms of research, national policy development and payer guidelines. This network will provide tools, resources and guidance to accelerate the development of telehealth studies across the country. We will support champions of telehealth to become champions of research as well. The grant is a Collaborative Innovation award through the National Center for the Advancement of Translational Science (NCATS). The program will operate in collaboration with CTSA (Clinical and Translational Science Award) sites across the country to facilitate research development and support current and future telehealth researchers to develop projects and apply for funding. As opposed to supporting a specific clinical research study, this grant seeks to establish an easily accessible support structure around telehealth research: tools, resources, guidance, collaboration, education and advocacy materials that will be valuable to anyone across the country who wants to study telehealth programs. We expect this network to become the preeminent source for evidence-based policy and outcomes data, said Brooke Yeager McSwain, M.Sc., R.R.T, health policy consultant for the project and manager of the South Carolina Childrens Telehealth Collaborative. Our national and state legislators have seen the benefits of telehealth for certain populations and regions. We have to demonstrate to them that this works across the country and has the potential to dramatically impact health care delivery models, particularly in value-based care. Alison Curfman, M.D., medical director of pediatrics at Mercy Virtual and a co-investigator of the grant, spends much of her time thinking about better ways to partner with children and their families for overall better health. We have to ensure that children have access to every type of care that they need at the right time, no matter where they live. The technology is here. The commitment of the early-adopters is here. Our next frontier is proving to other pediatric providers across the health care spectrum that telehealth is about so much more than convenience. ### About MUSC Childrens Health At MUSC Childrens Health, we are imagining whats possible for each and every child by providing the pediatric expertise your child deserves and needs. From promoting healthy lifestyles to offering life-saving treatments, we deliver comprehensive and compassionate care to children throughout South Carolina and beyond. Our integrated health care system consists of a 186-bed pediatric hospital, providing the most advanced care possible in more than 26 specialty areas. We also provide the same depth and breadth of expertise in multiple neighborhood locations throughout the Lowcountry, offering primary, urgent and specialty care. As a Level 1 trauma center, our pediatric emergency department specializes in providing emergency care for any serious injury or illness your child may experience at home, at school or at play. Working collaboratively with pediatricians throughout the community, MUSC Childrens Health also provides after-hours care to children from birth to seventeen years of age in three different locations on weeknights, weekends and holidays. In addition to the clinical care MUSC Childrens Health provides, we are a major pediatric clinical research center conducting significant and ongoing research efforts through the Charles P. Darby Research Institute. This involvement allows us to enhance our ability to provide the highest level of care to children by translating laboratory advances to bedside, developing new technologies and providing clinical trials. Lithuanian English Correction: The special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology (hereinafter the Company) informs that in the English version of the notification on the convocation of the Ordinary General Shareholders Meeting of INVL Technology and draft resolutions on 5th April 2019, the mistake in naming the company in a few places in the text was made. The Company hereby announces the amended notification on the convocation of the Ordinary General Shareholders Meeting of INVL Technology and draft resolutions. On the initiative and decision of the Management company of INVL Technology the Ordinary General Shareholders Meeting of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology (identification code 300893533, the registered address Gyneju str. 14 Vilnius, Lithuania) is to be held on 26 April 2019 at 08:30 a.m. in the premises located in Gyneju str. 14, Vilnius). Registration of the shareholders will start at 8:00 a.m. The total amount of the shares of the Company and the amount of shares granting voting rights during the Ordinary General Shareholders Meeting is the same and amounts to 12,175,321. ISIN code of the shares of the Company is LT0000128860. Persons who are shareholders of the Company at the end of the General Shareholders Meeting accounting day, i.e. 18 April 2019, will have a right to participate and vote at the General Shareholders Meeting personally or by proxy, or to be represented by the person with whom an agreement on the transfer of voting rights is concluded. The day of accounting of rights is 13 May 2019. The agenda of the Ordinary General Shareholders Meeting of INVL Technology includes: Presentation of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology annual report for 2018 Presentation of the independent auditor's report on the financial statements and consolidated annual report of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology Approval of financial statements for 2018 of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology Resolution regarding profit distribution of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology Resolution regarding the change of the Articles of Association and approval of the new wording of the Articles of Association of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology Resolution regarding purchase of own shares of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology The draft resolutions of the Ordinary General Shareholders Meeting of INVL Technology: 1. Presentation of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology annual report for 2018 Shareholders of INVL Technology are presented with the annual report of the Company for 2018 (there is no voting on this issue of agenda). 2. Presentation of the independent auditor's report on the financial statements and consolidated annual report of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology Shareholders of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology are presented with the independent auditor's report on the financial statements and consolidated annual report of the Company (there is no voting on this issue of agenda). 3. Approval of financial statements for 2018 of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology To approve the financial statements for 2018 of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology. 4. Resolution regarding profit distribution of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology To distribute profit of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology as follows: Article (thousand EUR) 1. Retained earnings (loss) at the beginning of the financial year of the reporting period; 1,859 2. Net profit (loss) for the financial year; 4,213 3. Profit (loss) not recognized in the income statement of the reporting financial year; - 4. Transfers from reserves; - 5. Shareholders contribution to cover loss - 6. Distributable profit (loss) in total at the end of the reporting period; 6,072 7. Profit distribution: - 7.1 Profit transfers to the legal reserves; - 7.2 Profit transfers to the reserves for own shares acquisition - 7.3. Profit transfers to other reserves; - 7.4. Profit to be paid as dividends; - 7.5. Profit to be paid as annual payments (bonus) and for other purposes; - 8. Retained earnings (loss) at the end of the financial year, transfered to the next financial year 6,072 5. Resolution regarding the change of the Articles of Association and approval of the new wording of the Articles of Association of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology 5.1. In accordance with the Law on Companies of the Republic of Lithuania, the Law of the Republic of Lithuania on Collective Investment Undertakings, to approve the new wording of Articles of Association of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology (attached), replacing the entire text of the Articles of Association (without separately approving the amendment of each clause of the Articles of Association). 5.2. Taking into account that provisions of a part 5 of the Article 76 of the Law of the Republic of Lithuania on Collective Investment Undertakings permits to register the amendments to the Articles of Association of the closed-end investment companies at the Register of Legal Entities only after they are approved by the supervisory authority, to instruct the management company to apply to the Bank of Lithuania in accordance with the procedure established by legal acts for approval of the amendments to the Articles of Association of the Company. In case the Bank of Lithuania does not approve a part of the amendments made in the Articles of Association of the Company, to instruct the Management Company to amend the wording of the Articles of Association approved by the decision of this General Shareholders Meeting, leaving both the provisions of the old version of the Articles of Association in force, the approval of which wasnt received by the Bank of Lithuania, and provisions of the new wording that has been approved by the Bank of Lithuania. 5.3.To authorise Kazimieras Tonkunas to sign the new wording of the Articles of Association or the Management Companys amended version of the Articles of Association of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology. 6. Resolution regarding purchase of own shares of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology Until the day of the General Shareholders meeting the reserve for the purchase of own shares which is equal to EUR 9,800 thousand is not used. To authorise the Management Company to use the formed reserve (or the part of it) for the purchase of own shares and to purchase shares in the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology by the rules mentioned below: The goal for the purchase of own shares - discount reduction between the net asset value and the market share price of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology and the possibility to sell its shares to the shareholders; The maximum number of shares to be acquired could not exceed 1/10 of the authorised capital of of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology or 1,217,532 units of shares in the Company; The period during which the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology may purchase its own shares is 18 months from the day of this resolution; The maximum and minimal shares acquisition price of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology: the maximum one share acquisition price the last announced net asset value per share, the minimal one share acquisition price - EUR 0.50; The conditions of the selling of the purchased shares and minimal sale price: the acquired own shares may be annulled by the decision of the General Shareholders Meeting or sold by the decision of the Management Company on condition the minimum sale price of own shares shall be equal to the price at which they were acquired and the procedure of selling the shares shall ensure equal opportunities for all shareholders to acquire the said shares; The Management Company is delegated on the basis of this resolution and the Law on Companies of the Republic of Lithuania to organise purchase and sale of own shares, to organise purchase and selling procedure of own shares and to determine an order and timing for purchase and sale of own shares as well as the amount of shares and shares price, and to complete all other actions related with purchase and sale procedure of own shares. The Board of UAB INVL Asset Management, the Management Company of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology, based on the 100th and 101st clauses of the current version of the Articles of Association of the special closed-ended type private equity investment company INVL Technology, confirms that changes made in the Company's founding documents submitted for this General Shareholders Meeting are not essential (enclosed). The Investment Committee of the special closed-ended type private capital investment company INVL Technology, acting on behalf of the Management Company, in accordance with Clause 119 of the Company's Articles of Association, presents its recommendations and indicates the consequences of the respective decision to the General Shareholders Meeting (enclosed). The documents related to the agenda, draft resolutions on every item of agenda, documents what have to be submitted to the General Shareholders Meeting and other information related to realization of shareholders rights are published on the Companys website www.invltechnology.lt section For investors, also available in the office of Invalda INVL (Gyneju str. 14, Vilnius) during working hours. Phone for information +370 5 279 0601. The shareholders are entitled: (i) to propose to supplement the agenda of the General Shareholders Meeting submitting draft resolution on every additional item of agenda or, then there is no need to make a decision - explanation of the shareholder (this right is granted to shareholders who hold shares carrying at least 1/20 of all the votes). Proposal to supplement the agenda is submitted in writing sending the proposal by registered mail to the Company at Gyneju str. 14, Vilnius, Lithuania, or delivered in person to the representative of the Company or by sending proposal to the Company by email info@invltechnology.lt. The agenda is supplemented if the proposal is received no later than 14 days before the General Shareholders Meeting; (ii) to propose draft resolutions on the issues already included or to be included in the agenda of the General Shareholders Meeting at any time prior to the date of the General Shareholders meeting (in writing, sending the proposal by registered mail to the Company at Gyneju str. 14, Vilnius, Lithuania, or delivered in person to the representative of the Company or by sending proposal to the Company by email info@invltechnology.lt) or in writing during the General Shareholders Meeting (this right is granted to shareholders who hold shares carrying at least 1/20 of all the votes); (iii) to submit questions to the Company related to the issues of agenda of the General Shareholders Meeting in advance but no later than 3 business days prior to the General Shareholders Meeting in writing sending the proposal by registered mail to the Company at Gyneju str. 14, Vilnius, Lithuania, or delivered in person to the representative of the Company or by sending proposal to the Company by email info@invltechnology.lt. The company reserves the right to answer to those shareholders of the Company who can be identified and whose questions are not related to the company's confidential information or commercial secrets. Shareholder participating at the General Shareholders Meeting and having the right to vote, must submit documents confirming personal identity. Each shareholder may authorize either a natural or a legal person to participate and to vote on the shareholder's behalf at the General Shareholders Meeting. A power of attorney issued by a natural person must be certified by a notary. The representative has the same rights as his represented shareholder at the General Shareholders Meeting. The authorized persons must have documents confirming their personal identity and power of attorney approved in the manner specified by law which must be submitted to the Company no later than before the commencement of registration for the General Shareholders Meeting. A power of attorney issued in a foreign state must be translated into Lithuanian and legalised in the manner established by law. The Company does not establish special form of power of attorney. Shareholder is entitled to issue power of attorney by means of electronic communications for legal or natural persons to participate and to vote on its behalf at the General Shareholders Meeting. No notarisation of such authorization is required. The power of attorney issued through electronic communication means must be confirmed by the shareholder with a safe electronic signature developed by safe signature equipment and approved by a qualified certificate effective in the Republic of Lithuania. The shareholder shall inform the Company on the power of attorney issued through the means of electronic communication by e-mail info@invltechnology.lt not later than on the last business day before the General Shareholders Meeting. The power of attorney and notification must be issued in writing and could be sent to the Company by electronic communication means, if the transmitted information is secured and the shareholder's identity can be identified. The Company is not providing the possibility to attend and vote at the General Shareholders Meeting through electronic means of communication. Shareholder or its representative may vote in writing by filling general voting bulletin, in such a case the requirement to deliver a personal identity document does not apply. The form of general voting bulletin is presented at the Company's webpage www.invltechnology.lt section For Investors. If shareholder requests, the Company shall send the general voting bulletin to the requesting shareholder by registered mail or shall deliver it in person against signature no later than 10 days prior to the General Shareholders Meeting free of charge. The filled general voting bulletin must be signed by the shareholder or its authorized representative. Document confirming the right to vote must be added to the general voting bulletin if an authorized person is voting. The filled general voting bulletin must be sent by the registered mail to the Company at Gyneju str. 14, Vilnius, Lithuania, or delivered in person to the representative of the Company no later than the day before of the General Shareholders Meeting. The person authorized to provide additional information: Kazimieras Tonkunas INVL Technology Managing Partner E-mail k.tonkunas@invltechnology.lt Attachments English French HiPay Group : Annual Report Availability Levallois-Perret, April 15th, 2019 : HiPay Group informs its shareholders of the availability of its 2018 Annual Report. The document is available and can be downloaded from the companys website (www.hipay.com, investors information) as well as the AFMs website ( www.amf-france.org ). The document is also available free of charge on written demand to the company : HiPay Group 94 rue de Villiers Levallois-Perret, France. Next financial communication : July 25th, 2019 S1 2019 Revenue. __________________________________________________________________________ About HiPay Group HiPay is a global payment provider. We believe that payment goes beyond the processing of transactions. Thanks to a unique and flexible platform, we allow our merchants to get more value from their payment data, whatever the sales channel. We help our clients to optimize their conversion rate, increase their revenue and create unique purchasing experience. More information on hipay.com Find us on Twitter and LinkedIn HiPay Group is listed on the Euronext Paris Compartment C (ISIN code: FR0012821916/Mnemo: HIPAY). __________________________________________________________________________ Press Contact Pierre Delaunay : +33 (0)6 12 30 19 19 pdelaunay@hipay.com This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy HiPay Group shares. If you wish to obtain more information about HiPay Group, please refer to our website hipay.com, under the Investors heading. This press release may contain some forward-looking statements. Although HiPay Group considers that these statements are based on reasonable statements on the publication date of this release, they are by their very nature subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ from those indicated or projected in these statements. HiPay Group operates in a continually changing environment and new risks could potentially emerge. HiPay Group assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, whether to reflect new information, future events or other circumstances. Attachment NEW ORLEANS, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC (KSF) and KSF partner, former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors of pending deadlines in the following securities class action lawsuits: Conagra Brands, Inc. (CAG) Class Period: 6/27/2018 - 12/19/2018; shares issued either in or after the October 2018 public offering. Lead Plaintiff Motion Deadline: April 23, 2019 SECURITIES FRAUD, MISLEADING PROSPECTUS To learn more, visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nyse-cag/. Weight Watchers International, Inc. (WTW) Class Period: 5/4/2018 - 2/26/2019 Lead Plaintiff Motion Deadline: May 3, 2019 SECURITIES FRAUD To learn more, visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nasdaqgs-wtw/ . The Kraft Heinz Company (KHC) Class Period: 7/6/2015 - 2/21/2019 Lead Plaintiff Motion Deadline: April 25, 2019 SECURITIES FRAUD To learn more, visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nasdaqgs-khc/ . Bridgepoint Education, Inc. (BPI) Class Period: 3/8/2016 - 3/7/2019 Lead Plaintiff Motion Deadline: May 10, 2019 SECURITIES FRAUD To learn more, visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nyse-bpi/ . If you purchased shares of the above companies and would like to discuss your legal rights 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, via email (Lewis.Kahn@KSFcounsel.com), or via the case links above. If you wish to serve as a Lead Plaintiff in the class action, you must petition the Court on or before the Lead Plaintiff Motion deadline. About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC, whose partners include the 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 . Contact: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC Omaha, NE, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Immanuel Communities Lakeside Village campus celebrated mission, innovation, and active retirement last week with the grand opening celebration of Thrive by Immanuel Wellness Center and Day Spa, three chef-inspired restaurants and Nebraskas first retirement community designed for the young, active retiree, Lakeside Lofts. The celebrations, held on March 28, welcomed community members and leaders as well as senior residents who inspired the new amenities. A State of Nebraska Proclamation and Mayoral Proclamation were presented, declaring the day Innovation in Retirement and Active Seniors Day. This was a celebration of mission at Lakeside Village, said Eric Gurley, Immanuel president and CEO. Our not-for-profit mission calls us to continually reinvest in our communities to provide the best possible experience for residents. These changes are innovation in action, a reinvention of retirement, and a promise to continue leading and reinvesting in the places seniors call home. Thrive by Immanuel Wellness Center and Day Spa allows residents a renewed focus on health and wellness, with enhanced programming that uplifts, connects, and encourages residents to live their best lives. Expert wellness staff help residents achieve goals to help them reinvent the retirement they want - whether thats making new social connections, managing a health condition, or getting ready for a trip. The Thrive day spa was designed with tranquility in mind, offering full salon services as well as relaxing and therapeutic massage treatments like aromatherapy and Hawaiian hot stones. With chef-inspired menus and local ingredients, three new restaurants on the Lakeside Village campus are revolutionizing senior dining. Bistro1887 honors the founding year of Immanuel and offers an upscale, urban-feel casual bistro. At the Cast Iron Grille, youll find burgers, steaks and potatoes, as well as a place for residents to gather together and share conversation over familiar food. The Reserve on Frances Street is the communitys new intimate, upscale restaurant offering a rotating four-course menu offers chef inspired, fine dining options like crab beignet, roasted game hen, and salted caramel creme brulee. The cornerstone celebration of the event is Nebraskas first first-stage retirement community. Lakeside Lofts opened last fall and bring a larger, upscale, luxury apartment to the campus and features thoughtful architecture, open concepts, floor to ceiling windows, and beautiful lake views. Since 1887 Immanuel has been providing Christ-Centered Service to Seniors, Each Other, and the Community. As a not-for-profit, serving arm of the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) Immanuels house of brands includes: Immanuel Communities,Immanuel Pathways, Immanuel Community Foundation and The Immanuel Vision Foundation. More about Immanuels brands: Immanuel Communities owns and operates 14independent living, assisted living and long-term care retirement communities on eightcampuses; Immanuel Pathways operates three PACE Centers in Iowa and Neb.; the Immanuel Community Foundation, a Resident Assistance Fund provides financial assistance to independent living residents; and the Immanuel Vision Foundation extends financial support to non-profit, charitable 501(c)(3) organizations that share purposes in alignment with Immanuels service centered mission. __________________________________________________ MEDIA CONTACT: Jennifer Knecht Vice President Marketing and Communications Immanuel 1044 N 115th Street, Suite 500, Omaha, NE 68154 Telephone: (402) 829-2929 JKnecht@Immanuel.com END ### Attachments Spotsylvania, VA, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SPOTSYLVANIA, VA The Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors has approved three special use permits for sPowers proposed 500 megawatt (MW) solar project. The project will be built in phases over the next two years and will ultimately generate over $20 million in new tax revenue for Spotsylvania County. The project will create approximately 800 construction jobs and 35 full-time jobs. sPower CEO, Ryan Creamer commented, sPower is beyond excited to get this final vote of approval. We are pleased with how hard our staff and the County Supervisors have worked to create what will be a world class project that will be a source of pride for everyone in the County. Mr. Creamer went on to say, We are also proud to be able to generate enough power with this project to supply the equivalent of approximately 111,000 homes and offset 340,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year. This is a landmark project for sPower, Spotsylvania and the Commonwealth of Virginia, which will bring hundreds of new jobs and new tech investment to the area, said Daniel Menahem, Director, Solar Development for sPower. Over the last year we have worked closely with County staff, officials and citizens to ensure that this project fits well with the character and community of Spotsylvania. I feel confident the Board of Supervisors has addressed all the issues involving this project and that it is safe, said Supervisor Greg Benton. I believe ultimately this project will be very beneficial to Spotsylvania County and look forward to seeing the sPower project come to fruition and being a success. This is going to be a long-term partnership for both sPower and Spotsylvania County and will hopefully be prosperous and beneficial for us both. To help fill the jobs this project will create, sPower will hold local career fairs and job training programs. Additionally, sPower is a proud supporter of the men and women who serve this country and is committed to outreach that facilitates hiring veterans. About sPower: sPower, an AES and AIMCo company, is the largest private owner of operating solar assets in the United States. sPower owns and operates a portfolio of solar and wind assets greater than 1.5 GW and has a development pipeline of more than 10 GW. sPower is owned by a joint venture partnership between The AES Corporation (NYSE: AES), a worldwide energy company headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, and the Alberta Investment Management Corporation, one of Canadas largest and most diversified institutional investment fund managers. ### CALGARY, Alberta, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Badger Daylighting Ltd. (Badger) is pleased to announce its April 2019 cash dividend and upcoming events. April 2019 Cash Dividend Badger today announced that the directors of Badger declared a cash dividend for the month of April 2019 of $0.0475 per share, which equates to $0.57 per share on an annualized basis. Payment will be made on or about May 15, 2019 to shareholders of record on April 30, 2019. Badger expects that the dividend will be an eligible dividend for Canadian income tax purposes and thus qualify for the enhanced gross-up and tax credit regime for certain shareholders. Upcoming Release of 2019 First Quarter Results and Conference Call Badger expects to release its 2019 First Quarter results on Monday, May 13, 2019 after the close of trading. A conference call and webcast for investors, analysts, brokers and media representatives to discuss the 2019 First Quarter results is scheduled for 9:00 a.m. MT on Tuesday, May 14, 2019. Internet users can view or listen to the call live, or as an archived call, on Badgers website at: www.badgerinc.com under the Investor Relations menu and Events, Presentations and Webcasts. To participate in the call, dial: 1-844-740-2014 and enter passcode 5946759. A playback of the call will be available until 11:59 p.m. ET on Tuesday, May 28, 2019. To access the playback, dial: 1-855-859-2056 and enter passcode 5946759. Annual General Meeting Badger will be holding its Annual General Meeting of shareholders on May 14, 2019 at 1:30 p.m. MT at the offices of Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP: Suite 3700, 400 3rd Avenue SW, Calgary, Alberta T2P 4H2. About Badger Daylighting Ltd. Badger Daylighting Ltd. (TSX:BAD) is North Americas largest provider of non-destructive excavating services. Badger traditionally works for contractors and facility owners in a broad range of infrastructure industries. The Companys key technology is the Badger Hydrovac, which is used primarily for safe digging in congested grounds and challenging conditions. The Badger Hydrovac uses a pressurized water stream to liquefy the soil cover, which is then removed with a powerful vacuum system and deposited into a storage tank. Badger manufactures its truck-mounted hydrovac units. For further information: Paul Vanderberg, President and CEO Gerald Schiefelbein, Vice President, Finance and CFO Jay Bachman, Vice President, Financial Operations and Investor Relations Badger Corporate Office ATCO Centre Suite 400, 919 11th Avenue SW Calgary, Alberta T2R 1P3 Telephone (403) 264-8500 Fax (403) 228-9773 Source: Badger Daylighting Ltd. TORONTO, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Itafos (TSX VENTURE: IFOS) (the Company) announced today the appointment of Wynand van Dyk as Vice President of Operations, effective May 1, 2019. Dr. van Dyk, who has been providing consulting services to the Company since August 2018, has over 25 years of experience in Minerals Processing, Metals Refining, Risk Management, Process Optimization and Project Management. Prior to joining Itafos, Dr. van Dyk worked as a consultant for Arete Consultants in South Africa, providing strategic management consulting services to a long list of clients including Anglo American, African Rainbow Minerals, AngloGold Ashanti and De Beers, among others. Prior to joining Arete Consultants, Dr. van Dyk worked for Lonmin Platinum Ltd. in various positions including Senior Technical Manager Process Division, Senior Manager Base Metal Refinery, Senior Manager 6 Sigma, and Metallurgical Project Manager. Dr. van Dyk has a bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering and a PhD in Extractive Metallurgical Engineering. We have been pleased with Wynands contributions to Itafos in a consulting role and are now pleased to welcome him to the Itafos management team. He has extensive knowledge of phosphate processing, engineering and minerals plant operations, and a demonstrated track-record in process optimization and project management, commented Brian Zatarain, Itafos Chief Executive Officer. About Itafos Itafos is a vertically integrated phosphate fertilizers and specialty products company with an attractive portfolio of long-term strategic businesses and projects located in key fertilizer markets worldwide. Itafos is managed by an experienced and diverse team with extensive operations, commercial and financial expertise. Itafos owns and operates Itafos Conda, a vertically integrated phosphate fertilizer business with production and sales capacity of approximately 550kt per year of monoammonium phosphate (MAP), superphosphoric acid (SPA), merchant grade phosphoric acid (MGA) and specialty products including ammonium polyphosphate (APP) located in Idaho, US, and Itafos Arraias, a vertically integrated phosphate fertilizer business with production and sales capacity of approximately 500kt per year of single superphosphate (SSP) and SSP with micronutrients (SSP+) and approximately 40,000 t per year of excess sulfuric acid located in Tocantins, Brazil. Itafos owns and is developing Itafos Paris Hills, a high-grade phosphate mine project located in Idaho, US, Itafos Farim, a high-grade phosphate mine project located in Farim, Guinea-Bissau, Itafos Santana, a vertically integrated high-grade phosphate fertilizer project located in Para, Brazil, Itafos Araxa, a vertically integrated phosphate and rare earth oxide mine project located in Minas Gerais, Brazil and Itafos Mantaro, a high-grade phosphate mine project located in Junin, Peru. For more information, please visit the Companys website, www.itafos.com. Forward Looking Information Certain information contained in this news release constitutes forward looking information. All information other than information of historical fact is forward looking information. The use of any of the words intend, anticipate, plan, continue, estimate, expect, may, will, project, should, would, believe, predict and potential and similar expressions are intended to identify forward looking information. This information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward looking information. No assurance can be given that this information will prove to be correct and such forward looking information included in this news release should not be unduly relied upon. Forward looking information is subject to a number of risks and other factors that could cause actual results and events to vary materially from that anticipated by such forward looking information. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expected results described in forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those risk factors set out in the Companys Management Discussion and Analysis and other disclosure documents available under the Companys profile at www.sedar.com . Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of risks, uncertainties and assumptions are not exhaustive. The forward looking information included in this news release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement and is made as of the date of this news release. Itafos undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward looking information except as required by 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. For further information, please contact: TORONTO, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Barrick Gold Corporation (NYSE:GOLD)(TSX:ABX) (Barrick) will release its First Quarter 2019 Results on May 8, 2019. President and CEO Mark Bristow will host a live presentation on the results at 11:00 a.m. EDT at Barricks corporate office in Toronto on that day. The presentation will be linked to a webcast and conference call. Preliminary production and sales information for the first quarter will be released on April 18, before market open. Release of Q1 preliminary production and sales information April 18, 07:00 EDT / 12:00 BST / 13:00 CEST Q1 results release May 8, 07:00 EDT / 12:00 BST / 13:00 CEST Toronto results presentation May 8, 11:00 EDT / 16:00 BST / 17:00 CEST Barrick corporate office TD Canada Trust Tower 161 Bay Street, 37th Floor Toronto Conference call and webcast linked to presentation May 8, 11:00 EDT / 16:00 BST / 17:00 CEST U.S. and Canada, 1-800-319-4610 UK, 0808 101 2791 International, +1 416 915-3239 If you wish to attend the presentation in Toronto, please contact Deni Nicoski at investor@barrick.com . The Q1 2019 presentation materials will be available on Barricks website at www.barrick.com . The webcast will remain on the website for later viewing, and the conference call will be available for replay by telephone at 1-855-669-9658 (U.S. and Canada) and +1 604 674-8052 (international), access code 3107. Enquiries: Investor and Media Relations Kathy du Plessis +44 20 7557 7738 Email: barrick@dpapr.com Senior Vice-President, Investor Relations Deni Nicoski +1 416 307-7410 Email: DNicoski@barrick.com Falls Church, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Capital Caring is charting a new course to broaden its services and provide a greater level of care and support to patients and families. Eric DeJonge, M.D., one of the nations most renowned physicians specializing in geriatrics, will lead Capital Carings new Geriatrics service as Chief of Geriatrics, and he will help the organization build an array of health services for elders with advanced illness, including Home-Based Primary Care (HBPC), Social Services, and other needed senior health services. Dr. DeJonge will begin his new role with Capital Caring July 1, 2019. Capital Caring Geriatrics will help fill a vast unmet need for thousands of people in the Mid-Atlantic region by providing primary care and social services to seniors and families dealing with advanced illness. This will include elders who are not yet eligible for hospice care; however, these individuals need intensive primary care and social services for serious chronic illness to help them age in place. Dr. DeJonge currently serves as Executive Director of the MedStar House Call Program and Director of Geriatrics at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. He also serves as President of the American Academy of Home Care Medicine (AAHCM) and is Co-Chair of the AAHCM Public Policy Committee. In 2003, he was named National House Call Physician of the Year by the AAHCM. In 2007, Dr. DeJonge helped develop and advocate for a Medicare reform law called Independence at Home (IAH), to advance the field of home care medicine and reduce Medicare costs. The IAH demonstration began in 2012 and Dr. DeJonge has directed a successful IAH site at MedStar Health for seven years. A native of Chicago, Illinois, Dr. DeJonge graduated with honors from Stanford University and from the Yale School of Medicine. He trained in primary care internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Bayview and completed fellowships in health policy at Georgetown and Geriatrics at Johns Hopkins. He is on the teaching faculty at Georgetown School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins Medicine. About Capital Caring Capital Carings mission is to provide the highest quality advanced illness care with dignity, respect and compassion. Since our founding in 1977, we have grown into one of the largest and most experienced nonprofit providers of hospice care, palliative care and bereavement counseling services in the nation. In 2017 alone, we served nearly 7,000 hospice patients and provided more than $3 million in charity care to those who had nowhere else to turn. Capital Caring serves families and patients throughout Northern Virginia, as far south as Fredericksburg and Richmond, as well as Prince Georges County, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. Attachment NEW YORK, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Labaton Sucharow LLP (Labaton Sucharow) announces that on April 15, 2019 it filed a securities class action lawsuit, captioned Houston Municipal Employees Pension System v. Conagra Brands, Inc. No. 19-cv-02550 (N.D. Ill.) (the Action), on behalf of its client Houston Municipal Employees Pension System (Houston Municipal) against Conagra Brands, Inc. (NYSE: CAG) (Conagra or the Company), and certain officers and directors (collectively, Defendants). The Action, which asserts claims under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the Exchange Act), and SEC Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder, expands the class definition for Exchange Act claims asserted in the previously filed action captioned West Palm Beach Firefighters Pension Fund v. Conagra Brands, Inc., No. 19-cv-01323 (N.D. Ill.), brought on behalf of all persons or entities who purchased or otherwise acquired Conagra common stock from June 27, 2018 through December 19, 2018, inclusive (the Class Period), to specifically include legacy Pinnacle Foods, Inc. (Pinnacle) common stock holders who received Conagra common stock in exchange for their Pinnacle shares on October 26, 2018 upon completion of the Companys acquisition of Pinnacle (the Class Period). Conagra, based in Chicago, Illinois, manufactures and markets packaged foods for retail consumers, restaurants and institutions. The Company has a portfolio of well-known food brands including Reddi-wip, Hunts, Healthy Choice, Slim Jim and Orville Redenbachers. On June 27, 2018, Conagra announced the acquisition of Pinnacle, in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $10.9 billion (the Transaction). Pursuant to the terms of the Transaction, Conagra was to pay approximately $5.1 billion in cash and issue approximately 77.45 million Company shares out of the Companys treasury to former holders of Pinnacle common stock. Upon closing of the Transaction on October 26, 2018, Pinnacle common stock holders received $43.11 in cash and 0.6494 shares of Conagra common stock in exchange for each share of Pinnacle held. The implied consideration price for each share of Pinnacle was valued at $68.00 per share. At the time of the Transaction and throughout the Class Period, Conagra represented the merger as a combination of two growing portfolios that would enhance Conagras multi-year transformation plan and expand its presence and capabilities in its most strategic categories, including frozen foods and snacks. Conagra highlighted their due diligence of the deal, the similar cultures and work ethics of the two companies, and the tremendous synergies of the deal. Unbeknownst to shareholders, however, Conagra and its management were aware or recklessly disregarded that the Transaction would not result in anywhere near the sort of benefits that Defendants had publicly represented. Just a few weeks after the closing of the merger, on December 20, 2018, Conagra stunned the market by releasing its third quarter 2018 results, as well as an update on the performance of the newly merged company, which revealed that Pinnacles performance had been much worse than Defendants had previously represented. In addition, Defendants revealed that Pinnacles three leading brands had suffered sales and distribution losses in 2018, and accounted for the vast majority of Pinnacles current challenges due to self-inflicted subpar innovation and executional missteps. As a result of the disclosure, on December 20, 2018, Conagras stock price fell $4.81 per share to $24.28, or nearly 17%, wiping out over $2.3 billion in Conagras market capitalization, continuing to fall precipitously over the following two trading days for a total decline of approximately 30%. If you purchased or otherwise acquired Conagra common stock during the Class Period and were damaged thereby, you are a member of the Class and may be able to seek appointment as Lead Plaintiff. Lead Plaintiff motion papers must be filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois no later than April 23, 2019. The Lead Plaintiff is a court-appointed representative for absent members of the Class. You do not need to seek appointment as Lead Plaintiff to share in any Class recovery in the Action. If you are a Class member and there is a recovery for the Class, you can share in that recovery as an absent Class member. You may retain counsel of your choice to represent you in the Action. If you would like to consider serving as Lead Plaintiff or have any questions about this lawsuit, you may contact Francis P. McConville, Esq. of Labaton Sucharow, at (800) 321-0476, or via email at fmcconville@labaton.com . Houston Municipal is represented by Labaton Sucharow, which represents many of the largest pension funds in the United States and internationally with combined assets under management of more than $2 trillion. Labaton Sucharow has been recognized for its excellence by the courts and peers, and it is consistently ranked in leading industry publications. Offices are located in New York, NY, Wilmington, DE, and Washington, D.C. More information about Labaton Sucharow is available at www.labaton.com . Not for release to US wire services or distribution in the United States PERTH, Western Australia, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Perseus Mining Limited (Perseus or the Company) (TSX & ASX: PRU) reports on its activities for the three month period ended March 31, 2019 (the Quarter). An executive summary is provided below. However, full details of activities in the March Quarter, including reconciled production and all-in site cash costs, are included in the Companys March 2019 Quarterly Activity Report released to the market on April 16, 2019. The full report is available for download from www.perseusmining.com, www.asx.com.au and www.sedar.com. Consistently strong operating performance at Edikan and Sissingue March 2019 quarter gold production, all in site costs (AISC) and sales were: Parameter Unit Edikan Sissingue Perseus Group Gold produced Ounces 44,680 22,464 67,144 Total All-In Site Cost (AISC) US$/ounce 900 753 851 Gold sales Ounces 42,528 21,310 63,838 Average sales price US$/ounce 1,283 1,285 1,284 Gold production of 67,144 ounces was within 1.5% of the December 2018 quarters gold production of 68,078 ounces; At US$851 per ounce, quarterly AISC were 19% less than the December 2018 quarters AISC and 15% less than the AISC in the December 2018 half year; Group gold production is on target to achieve June 2019 half year production guidance of 130-150,000 ounces and AISCs are also on track to achieve cost guidance of US$850-US$1,000 per ounce; and Perseuss weighted average cash margin of US$433 per ounce during the quarter generated notional cashflow of US$29.1 million, more than double that of the prior quarter. Development of Yaoure, Perseuss 3rd gold mine, remains on track An offer by a banking syndicate to provide a US$150 million cash advance facility to partially fund the development of Yaoure has been accepted; Yaoures financing plan will be fully funded by debt, existing cash and bullion of US$81 million, material future cash inflows from operations and proceeds from the exercise or underwriting of Perseus warrants; The Yaoure Exploitation Permit (EP) was not granted by the Ivorian government as expected during the quarter. With all pre-conditions satisfied, imminent granting of the EP appears highly probable; Engineering and supply contractor, Lycopodium, and Perseuss in-house construction team are ready to begin development activities upon the granting of the EP; and Subject to no further delays in permitting, Perseus is targeting pouring its first gold at Yaoure in December 2020. Continued strengthening of the Perseus Groups Balance Sheet US$29.1 million of notional cashflow generated by operations for the quarter, an increase of 116%; US$80.8 million of cash and bullion on hand at March 31, 2019, up 24%; Existing bank debt reduced by US$4 million to US$44.5 million during the quarter; and Net cash and bullion (i.e. cash and bullion less bank debt) of US$36.3 million at quarter-end is US$19.9 million or 121% more than the net balance of US$16.4 million at December 31, 2018. . PROGRAM FOR THE JUNE 2019 QUARTER Edikan Produce gold at a total all-in site cost is in line with June 2019 Half Year guidance; Continue implementing planned Continuous Improvement initiatives aimed at increasing gold production and reducing AISC; and Commence drilling of conceptual granite-hosted mineralisation north of the Esuajah North pit at Wampam West. Sissingue Produce gold at a total all-in site cost in line with June 2019 Half Year guidance; Continue implementing planned Continuous Improvement initiatives aimed at increasing gold production and reducing AISC; and Complete implementing operational measures to mitigate and minimise future wet weather-related impacts on operations; and Continue auger, AC and RC drilling at the Papara-Tiongoli, Zanikan and other prospects within trucking distance of Sissingue, with the aim of identifying the potential for additional Mineral Resources that can be processed at the Sissingue processing facility. Commence RC drilling of the Fimbiasso South and other targets on the Mahale permit. Yaoure Subject to the granting of an Exploitation Permit, and formal Board approval implement a programme of early work to establish the project site as a precursor to commencing full scale construction later in the quarter; Subject also to the granting of an Exploitation Permit, commence negotiation of a Mining Convention for the mine; Commence auger drilling over the Degbezere soil anomaly on the Yaoure West permit. Corporate Finalise documentation for the US$150 million corporate cash advance facility; Arrange for the underwriting of unexercised Perseus warrants that mature on April 19, 2019; Continue implementation of measures aimed at embedding agreed corporate values throughout the organisation. Jeff Quartermaine Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer April 16, 2019 To discuss any aspect of this announcement, please contact: Managing Director: Jeff Quartermaine at telephone +61 8 6144 1700 or email jeff.quartermaine@perseusmining.com; General Manager BD & IR: Andrew Grove at telephone +61 8 6144 1700 or email andrew.grove@perseusmining.com Media Relations: Nathan Ryan at telephone +61 4 20 582 887 or email nathan.ryan@nwrcommunications.com.au (Melbourne) Competent Person Statement: All production targets for Edikan, Sissingue and Yaoure referred to in this report are underpinned by estimated Ore Reserves which have been prepared by competent persons in accordance with the requirements of the JORC Code. The information in this report that relates to the Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve estimates for the EGM deposits was first reported by the Company in compliance with the JORC Code 2012 and NI43-101 in a market announcement released on 29 August 2018. The Company confirms that it is not aware of any new information or data that materially affect the information in that market release and that all material assumptions underpinning those estimates and the production targets, or the forecast financial information derived therefrom, continue to apply and have not materially changed. The Company further confirms that material assumptions underpinning the estimates of Ore Reserves described in Technical Report Central Ashanti Gold Project, Ghana dated 30 May 2011 continue to apply. The information in this report that relates to Mineral Resources for Sissingue was first reported by the Company in compliance with the JORC Code 2012 and NI43-101 in a market announcement released on 15 December 2016 and includes an update for depletion as at 30 June 2018 as well as an adjustment of the model constrained to a US$1,800/oz pit shell which were reported in a market announcement on 29 August 2018. The information in this report that relates to Mineral Resources for Fimbiasso was first reported by the Company in compliance with the JORC Code 2012 and NI43-101 in a market announcement released on 20 February 2017 and includes an adjustment of the model constrained to a US$1,800/oz pit shell which was reported in a market announcement on 29 August 2018. The information in this report that relates to Ore Reserves for Sissingue and Fimbiasso was first reported by the Company in compliance with the JORC Code 2012 and NI43-101 in a market announcement released on 31 March 2017 and includes an update for depletion as at 30 June 2018 which was reported in a market announcement on 29 August 2018. The Company confirms that it is not aware of any new information or data that materially affect the information in these market releases and that all material assumptions underpinning those estimates and the production targets, or the forecast financial information derived therefrom, continue to apply and have not materially changed. The Company further confirms that material assumptions underpinning the estimates of Ore Reserves described in Technical Report Sissingue Gold Project, Cote dIvoire dated 29 May 2015 continue to apply. The information in this report in relation to Yaoure Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve estimates was first reported by the Company in compliance with the JORC Code 2012 and NI43-101 in a market announcement on 3 November 2017. The Company confirms that all material assumptions underpinning those estimates and the production targets, or the forecast financial information derived therefrom, in that market release continue to apply and have not materially changed. The Company further confirms that material assumptions underpinning the estimates of Ore Reserves described in Technical Report Yaoure Gold Project, Cote dIvoire dated 18 December 2017 continue to apply. Caution Regarding Forward Looking Information: This report contains forward-looking information which is based on the assumptions, estimates, analysis and opinions of management made in light of its experience and its perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors that management of the Company believes to be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances at the date that such statements are made, but which may prove to be incorrect. Assumptions have been made by the Company regarding, among other things: the price of gold, continuing commercial production at the Edikan Gold Mine and the Sissingue Gold Mine without any major disruption, development of a mine at Yaoure, the receipt of required governmental approvals, the accuracy of capital and operating cost estimates, the ability of the Company to operate in a safe, efficient and effective manner and the ability of the Company to obtain financing as and when required and on reasonable terms. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list is not exhaustive of all factors and assumptions which may have been used by the Company. Although management believes that the assumptions made by the Company and the expectations represented by such information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that the forward-looking information will prove to be accurate. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any anticipated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, among others, the actual market price of gold, the actual results of current exploration, the actual results of future exploration, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be evaluated, as well as those factors disclosed in the Company's publicly filed documents. The Company believes that the assumptions and expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things, the Companys ability to carry on its exploration and development activities, the timely receipt of required approvals, the price of gold, the ability of the Company to operate in a safe, efficient and effective manner and the ability of the Company to obtain financing as and when required and on reasonable terms. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Perseus does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. TORONTO, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gravitas Financial Inc. (CSE: GFI) (Gravitas) announced today that it is undertaking, in conjunction with the majority holder of its secured bonds, a strategic review of its investment holdings with a view to streamlining and strengthening its core holdings. This could involve dispositions, new investors and other restructurings. As part of this exercise, for a period ending April 30, 2019, Gravitas was exempted from making the interest payment due on March 31, 2019. Gravitas is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Yongbiao Ding, also known as Winfield, as an independent board member and the chair of the audit committee. Mr. Ding has been CFO and director for a number of public companies in Canada and US. He is a seasoned senior finance executive with over twenty years of finance and operations experience. A former audit manager and currently a self-practitioner, he worked in audit, taxation and advisory across a wide range of industries with a focus on public issuers financial reporting and advising Asian investors doing business in Canada. He has been an Independent Director and Audit Committee Chairman of CF Energy Corp. (TSXV: CFY) since March 10, 2015. ABOUT GRAVITAS FINANCIAL INC. Gravitas Financial Inc. is a platform company that creates businesses in key traditional and emerging sectors with strong industry partners. Our industry focus includes financial services, fintech, and Sino-Canadian mining. We leverage our unique platform to develop a continuous pipeline of new ventures with significant blue-sky potential. Our platform is complimented by strong investment research and digital investment media groups. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. For further information, please contact: Whether your mother currently keeps a journal or has always wanted to, this simple guided journal offers an easy way to make a few quick reflections on the day. Its unique design gives you an interesting look at five years of your life once the journal is complete since you can compare the answers from one year to answers from another. You could also give this gift to yourself and complete it alongside your mother, keeping each other motivated throughout the process. ZUG, Switzerland, April 15, 2019 - Katanga Mining Ltd. (TSX: KAT) ("Katanga" or the "Company") today announces that its 75%-owned DRC subsidiary Kamoto Copper Company ("KCC") has resumed the export and sale of a limited quantity of cobalt that complies with both international and local Democratic Republic of Congo ("DRC") transport regulations with respect to the levels of uranium (the "Applicable Regulations"). In Q4 2018, the Company announced that KCC had temporarily suspended the export and sale of cobalt due to the presence of uranium detected in the cobalt hydroxide at levels that exceed the acceptable limit allowed for export of the product through main African ports to customers. The low levels of radioactivity detected in the uranium to date do not present a health and safety risk. While KCC, together with the Company and KCC's 25% shareholder, DRC state-owned La Generale des Carrieres et des Mines ("Gecamines"), have been working with the DRC government's Ministry of Mines and the Congolese Atomic Energy Agency (CGEA) on a long-term technical solution in the form of an ion exchange plant (the "Ion Exchange Plant"), KCC has also been exploring various alternative interim solutions, both operational and regulatory, to recommence the export and sale of cobalt. Through interim operational solutions, KCC has produced approximately 930 tonnes of contained cobalt that complies with Applicable Regulations since January 2019. This represents approximately 22.5 percent of the total production of contained cobalt since January 2019. As confirmed by the competent DRC authorities, KCC will resume the export of its cobalt hydroxide complying with the Applicable Regulations with immediate effect. Such resumption of exports remains subject to the regular DRC export procedures, which include the continued monitoring by CGEA and by the relevant mining authorities. KCC will continue to focus on implementing the interim operational solutions while it processes the Ion Exchange Plant. About Katanga Mining Limited Katanga Mining Ltd. operates a major mine complex in the Democratic Republic of Congo producing refined copper and cobalt. The Company has the potential to become Africa's largest copper producer and the world's largest cobalt producer. Katanga is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol KAT. Forward Looking Statements This press release may contain forward-looking statements. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or describes a "goal", or variation 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. All forward-looking statements reflect the Company's beliefs and assumptions based on information available at the time the statements were made. Actual results or events may differ from those predicted in these forward-looking statements. All of the Company's forward-looking statements are qualified by the assumptions that are stated or inherent in such forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that these assumptions are reasonable, these assumptions are not exhaustive of factors that may affect any of the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, future events, conditions, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, prediction, projection, forecast, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Although Katanga has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. 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, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. SOURCE Katanga Mining Ltd. No. 6: Pain au chocolat at Somerset. $5. Chocolate pastry with chocolate filling, topped with chocolate drizzle and cacao nibs, available weekends only. Pain au chocolat, here or even in France and Japan, usually means butter croissant dough rolled around a bar or two of chocolate. Even armchair bakers who only follow The Great British Baking Show know that chocolate dough can be hard to work with, since you cant go by color to know when its done. But chocolate in the croissant dough itself is a sign of a superior baker. At Somerset in the Near North neighborhood, thats not only pastry chef Meg Galus, but her impressive team. The mesmerizing whorl beats that first black hole photo because here on Earth your notions of the heights that chocolate can achieve will be shattered. Do note that the online menu is not current. The print menu offers a pastry board ($10) with your choice of three pastries, which is a deal. I highly recommend ordering the trio of croissants, butter (available daily breakfast and weekend brunch), chocolate and almond (the latter two available weekend brunch only). Preorders possible and recommended because they do sell out. 1112 N. State St., 312-586-2150, somersetchicago.com The new anti-abortion tilt of the U.S. Supreme Court has inspired some states to further restrict the procedure during the first trimester of pregnancy and move to outlaw abortion entirely if Roe v. Wade ever falls. But the rush to regulate has exposed division among groups and lawmakers who consider themselves staunch abortion opponents.On Thursday, Ohio became the latest state to ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. For a long time, Ohio Right to Life supported a more gradual approach to restrict the procedure and deemed what's come to be called a "heartbeat bill" too radical until this year. Restricting abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected basically bans the procedure after six weeks' gestation before many women know they're pregnant."We see the Court as being much more favorable to pro-life legislation than it has been in a generation," spokeswoman Jamieson Gordon says. "So we figured this would be a good time to pursue the heartbeat bill as the next step in our incremental approach to end abortion-on-demand."The Ohio law contains no exception for pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest; it does have an exception for the life of the mother.Some say the rush to pass these bills is about lawmakers competing to get their particular state's law before the Supreme Court. The state that helps overturn Roe v. Wade would go down in history.More than 250 bills restricting abortions have been filed in 41 states this year, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research and advocacy group. Its traditional for state legislators to reach for Congress or statewide office as their next rung up the ladder. But now some of them are deciding they can accomplish more in local office. This year, sitting state legislators are running for mayor in Dallas, Indianapolis and Nashville, among other cities.Being mayor of a big city always holds a certain appeal. Generally, the mayor takes home a good salary, unlike most part-time state legislators. And, after years crafting budgets and policy at the state capitol, its a nice change to execute and manage programs, says Jane Campbell, a former Ohio legislator who later served as mayor of Cleveland. After a period of time saying this is what they should do, youre ready to carry things out, she says.These days, running for mayor may hold an added appeal that federal office doesnt, suggests Michael Berkman, a Penn State political scientist. Polarization and gridlock in Congress are increasingly frustrating the ambitions of individual lawmakers who want to chart a productive policy course. Most cities, by contrast, are healthier economically than they were a generation ago, and theyve proven to be a hotbed for policy innovations in recent years, particularly among progressives. Theres a pull toward cities right now because you can do things in a way that you couldnt before, Berkman says, while theres a push away from Congress, in that its not very interesting or fun.Most big cities are under Democratic control now, which is one reason they appeal to Democrats who find themselves trapped in seemingly unending minority status in red state legislatures. One example is Eric Johnson, a Texas state representative who is leaving that job to run for mayor of Dallas. Its unlikely that his party is going to get back in the majority in the Texas House anytime soon, says Rice University political scientist Mark P. Jones. As mayor, he would have a very nice platform from which to propose initiatives and impact public policy.Not all legislators eyeing city hall are seeking to escape minority status. Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh was majority leader of the Maryland Senate when she ran for her current post. (Pugh is embroiled in controversy regarding interest groups spending thousands of dollars on her self-published book. She has taken a leave of absence, citing pneumonia, but intends to return as mayor.) Jim Merritt hasnt served in the minority during his entire 28-year career in the Indiana Senate -- hes now part of a 40-10 GOP majority -- but hes giving up his power and seniority to run for mayor of Indianapolis.Merritt recognizes he faces an uphill climb in his race against Joe Hogsett, a well-funded incumbent in an increasingly Democratic city, but he says he feels something of a duty to try. The city has broken its record for homicides four years in a row. I grew up in Indianapolis, he says. Thats not the city I grew up in.The idea of becoming mayor of your own hometown has a pull even for politicians who already hold positions that on paper, at least, appear more powerful. Paul Brodeur chairs the Joint Labor Committee in the Massachusetts House, but hes preparing a run for mayor of Melrose, a city outside Boston with a population of just 27,000. Brodeur, who says he didnt necessarily have a huge ambition to make a career in politics, has nonetheless done just that. He started out on the Melrose Board of Aldermen before winning a seat in the legislature in 2010. Now, hes ready to come back to city hall. Echoing Berkmans observation, Brodeur says hes found his visits to Washington stultifying, with the partisanship getting a little unproductive. The former governor of Maine pardoned two people in his last days in office without going through the traditional process of consulting the clemency board and holding a public hearing, according to the states corrections department.Maines Constitution says the governor has the sole power to grant reprieves, pardons and commutations, so former Gov. Paul LePage did not break the law in pardoning his late mentors grandson, Jeremy Mills, and a former GOP lawmaker, Jeff Pierce.But he broke with tradition: Leonard Sharon, who served as chairman of the Governors Board of Executive Clemency until June, said he never saw a governor grant a pardon without a board recommendation and a public hearing during his 27-year tenure, which ended in mid-2018.The process is very open and the pardon board carefully weighs applications and holds hearings when we feel there are substantial circumstances, Sharon said.Sharon said the hearings give people a chance to speak against pardons. President Donald Trump is threatening to send detained immigrants to sanctuary cities across America, and many mayors have the same response: Well take 'em.What President Trump fails to understand is that America is a sanctuary country, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a statement . Small, medium and large cities across the nation are suddenly and rapidly identifying as sanctuary cities because of the abandonment of Americans' values, ideals and cultural destiny under President Trumps watch.Emanuel added that Chicago would welcome these migrants with open arms, just as we welcomed Syrian refugees, just as we welcomed Puerto Ricans displaced by Hurricane Maria and just as we welcome Rohingya refugees fleeing genocide in Myanmar.At least a dozen other mayors offered similar public reactions after Trump tweeted on Friday: Due to the fact that Democrats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws, we are giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities.The tweet followed reports by revealing that Trump officials tried to convince U.S. immigration authorities to release immigrant detainees in cities that oppose the president's immigration policies. The idea was rejected in November and again in February. Homeland Security officials denied late last week that it's up for discussion again. But White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Sunday that the plan is once again being reviewed.Amid the communication chaos, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said his city would be prepared to welcome these immigrants. Oakland, Calif., Mayor Libby Schaaf echoed that statement and told CNN the presidents plan was an outrageous abuse of power and public resources. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan wrote a Washington Post op-ed declaring that if this president wants to send immigrants and refugees to Seattle and other welcoming cities, let me be clear: We will do what we have always done, and we will be stronger for it.Many critics have interpreted Trumps threat as less of a serious policy pronouncement than a way to cajole Democrats who oppose his hard-line immigration agenda.This isnt governing. Its trolling, wrote columnist Max Boot.It remains to be seen whether the president will follow through on his proposal. Mayor Miro Weinberger of Burlington, Vt. tweeted that Trump has failed to make good on many of his past threats but made clear that, if he follows through, Burlington will come together as a community to welcome these new neighbors.Mayors have generally taken a different tack than Trump on immigration, emphasizing diversity and inclusion. In January, at a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C., a bipartisan group of border-state leaders criticized the presidents signature campaign promise "We need to protect our borders, Republican Mayor Dee Margo of El Paso, Texas, said. But this whole idea of focusing on a wall -- $1.3 billion or $5.7 billion -- is a bunch of malarkey. That's not dealing with the issue. Almost a year after the deadliest U.S. prison riot in a quarter century took the lives of seven South Carolina inmates, the investigation into what happened at Lee Correctional Institution has wrapped up, prison officials say.Investigators at the S.C. Department of Corrections will send their findings to the state Attorney General's Office and the local solicitor in the next week, prisons Director Bryan Stirling said in an interview with The State Wednesday.The Attorney General's office will be receiving the investigative report Friday, spokesman Robert Kittle said. The report itself will not be made public, but details may be released later, he said, though there is no timeline for that.Officials at the 3rd Circuit Solicitors office -- who prosecutes cases in Lee County -- could not be reached for comment.In the year since Eddie Gaskins, Joshua Jenkins, Michael Milledge, Cornelius McClary, Damonte Rivera, Raymond Scott and Corey Scott were killed at the Bishopville prison, questions have swirled around what exactly caused the riot. No one has been charged yet in their deaths.Some, including the former warden of the maximum security prison, have claimed that in the days before the riot, a massive transfer of inmates from McCormick Correctional Institution exacerbated tensions at the prison and caused the deadly incident.The warden was transferred soon after the riot and is now suing the department for using him as a "scapegoat" for the incident, he said."We were having issues at McCormick Correctional, ... so the decision was made to transfer some folks here," Stirling said in the interview, conducted inside interview inside Lee Correctional.Stirling would not comment on whether the inmates from McCormick were involved in the hours-long skirmish that began April 15 and ended early the next morning."I can't comment on an ongoing investigation, however, if we get more leads, then we will investigate those leads," Stirling said.While some claim a transfer of unruly prisoners is to blame for the riot, in the hours following the incident, Stirling and S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster blamed gangs, who were using cellphones to communicate and to continue to run illegal operations outside of prison walls.Since, Stirling has joined corrections and criminal justice officials across the country in a push for technology to jam cellphone signals in state prisons, something currently prohibited by the federal law.Reports commissioned by the department have outlined several other issues Lee Correctional was facing shortly before the riot. After a November 2017 inspection of the facility, corrections expert and former prison administrator Tom Roth said the corrections department's staffing crisis left the prison "operating at extremely deficient levels."The report was delivered to officials at the Department of Corrections a month before the riot.While the corrections department continues to battle a chronic vacancy issue, Stirling said he has been working hard to combat it, including advocating for officer raises and doling out other incentives. As of February, the department had 685 security vacancies, 85 more than that time last year."I think our officers are doing a lot and are asked to do a lot. They're stretched thin," Stirling said. "We have one officer in the dorm, which is not what we want."One of his ideas for combating the staffing issue is creating a team of officers based in Columbia that could help fill in at any facility that needed them."We're working on improvements," Stirling said. "We still have staffing issues at the Department of Corrections, and it's been something that has been here for a long time."Meanwhile, inmates across the state spent the majority of the last year on lockdown, spending up to 24 hours a day in their cells for months on end. As of Wednesday, two dorms at Lee Correctional are still on the restrictive schedule. IRS warns of new phone scam using Taxpayer Advocate Service numbers IRS: Dont be victim to a ghost tax return preparer IRS warns of Tax Transcript email scam; dangers to business networks IRS warns of scams related to natural disasters IRS, Security Summit Partners warn of new twist on phone scam; crooks direct taxpayers to IRS.gov to verify calls IRS-Impersonation Telephone Scams To report tax-related illegal activities, refer to our chart explaining the types of activity and the appropriate forms or other methods to use. You should also report instances of IRS-related phishing attempts and fraud to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 800-366-4484. Taxpayers who experience tax-related identity theft may wonder when they should file a Form 14039, Identity Theft Affidavit. When to file a Form 14039, Identity Theft Affidavit. W-2s and 1040s are available on the dark web at relatively low cost, ranging from $1.04 to $52. Names, social security numbers and birthdates can be obtained for a price ranging from $0.19 to $62 For $1K, a relatively inexperienced hacker can purchase authenticated access to a U.S.-based bank account, file a false tax return, claim the IRS refund and cash out via a cryptocurrency exchange for a 100+% return on investment. How-to guides for cashing out other peoples tax returns are available for around $5 but one offer, claiming to be the most comprehensive guide for tax refund cash out, was listed for $70 A hacker can now provide stolen/purchased identity information (Name, DOB, SSN, etc.) and receive an original image of some person holding a forged passport with matching picture/information and scans of the forged identity documents As Americans rushed to get their taxes submitted over the past month, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued consumer alerts about a long list of tax scams . Here are just some of the scams that are described in detail at their website:The IRS website also describes how to report tax-related schemes, scams, identity theft and fraud.Just this past week, a startling new report was released on the growing problems associated with tax-related fraud online. Heres an introduction from the extensive Carbon Black report Research into various marketplaces on the dark web found W-2 forms, 1040 forms and how-to guides for illicitly cashing out tax returns available. W-2s and 1040s are available on the dark web at relatively low cost, ranging from $1.04 to $52. Names, Social Security Numbers (SSNs) and birthdates can be obtained for a price ranging from $0.19 to $62.For a more comprehensive investment (around $1,000) a relatively inexperienced hacker can purchase authenticated access to a U.S.-based bank account, file a false tax return, claim the IRS refund and cash out via a cryptocurrency exchange for a 100+% return on investment. In a summary of the findings Carbon Black found these scary statistics with specific numbers showing the low cost to get sensitive data:In a related article from Bleeping Computer , this summary was provided:Financial and social security identity theft services are becoming more and more affordable every year on the dark web, leading to a drop in the skill level required for tax fraud schemes.This means that even the most inexperienced cybercriminals can now quickly whip up a whole new identity with just a couple of mouse clicks, without even having to bother making a call or meeting with an identity fraud "provider" face to face.More to the point, it is just as easy for a crook to get his hands on the documents and credentials needed for running a successful tax identity theft campaign these days as is for someone to order a pizza using a food delivery service.So what can we learn from this new report? Here are some thoughts from Tom Kellermann , chief cybersecurity officer at Carbon Black:The dark web has matured into a robust economy of scale where seasoned cybercriminals are selling products and services to entry-level hackers at a significant profit. This evolution were seeing further illustrates the migration of traditional crime to online crime.Consumers, businesses and governments should all be concerned about the dark web. As our research found, consumers are not the only targets when it comes to dark web crimes. Beyond tax fraud and identity theft, we found bank credentials as well as financial-focused malware for sale. For consumers, locking your credit and practicing good cyberhygiene are paramount. For businesses, understanding where security vulnerabilities exists is key. So is having visibility into everything thats occurring on the enterprise.There have been numerous media stories about criminals filing fake tax returns. In one case earlier this year , four defendants pleaded guilty to a scheme defrauding the IRS by using stolen identities to file tax returns and obtain refunds.In another study from IBM X-Force , researchers recently discovered several of these ongoing tax-themed campaigns, three of which affect businesses as well as consumers. Attackers attempt to trick victims with messages appearing to be from major accounting, tax, and payroll services, including ADP and Paychex. Malicious Microsoft Excel attachments packed Trickbot, a common banking Trojan that infects devices to steal data and follow up with wire fraud from the owner's account.While the IRS is taking meaningful steps to identify and stop tax fraud, the amount of personally identifiable information (PII) available on the dark web is simply staggering. The low cost of our sensitive data is another indication that our identity theft problem is not going away anytime soon, and is likely getting worse.Nevertheless, in the midst of these challenges, I am reminded of an inspirational quote by Anne Lamott: "Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: You don't give up."Let's apply that hope and persistent action to our battle against online crime. Whats in the bill (TNS) As businesses and municipalities become more reliant on the Internet and connectivity, public officials are working to make sure rural and underserved urban communities arent left out.After a Racine resident raised the issue of broadband access to Gov. Tony Evers, Evers included some initiatives in his proposed 2019-21 biennial budget.Evers is proposing increasing the states broadband grant program to $39.3 million. He also wants the Department of Administration to conduct a comprehensive broadband report on emerging broadband technologies, recommendations on how to provide incentives to telecommunications providers to serve unserved or underserved areas of Wisconsin and proposals on how existing state resources can be leveraged to serve those areas.Now the issue of broadband access has garnered bipartisan support at the federal level.Normally Wisconsins two U.S. senators dont agree on much, but both Democrat Tammy Baldwin and Republican Ron Johnson have helped introduce the Access Broadband Act which hopes to boost resources for business and communities in rural and underserved urban communities.Baldwin said having access to reliable high-speed broadband is critical to strengthening small businesses and communities throughout rural Wisconsin.Our bipartisan legislation will better marshal our federal resources to help bring broadband access for all, no matter where you live in Wisconsin, Baldwin said.Johnson said this issue is particularly important to farmers, rural doctors and schools looking to connect their students to the world.While the federal government has numerous programs dedicated to bridging the urban-rural digital divide, the bureaucracy can be confusing and create barriers for broadband providers, communities, and small businesses who need access to these resources, Johnson said. This bill will streamline management of federal resources to ensure Wisconsinites have easier access to these critical resources, reduce government waste, and ultimately connect more Wisconsinites in todays digital world.The bill, sponsored by U.S Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-N.M., and co-sponsored by Baldwin and Johnson, has been introduced in the Senate and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Both Johnson and Baldwin are members of that committee.If the bill is passed it would establish an Office of Internet Connectivity and Growth at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.According to the bill, the office plans to connect communities with high-speed Internet and improved digital inclusion efforts through various forms of outreach and communication techniques.The office also plans to track federal funds that were used to construct any broadband infrastructure and develop a program to streamline and standardize the application process for grants and provide a report to congressional committees on the work that has been done. One of the most surprising signs here at Everest is that we have a clientele that is very young compared to a number of years ago, said chef/proprietor Jean Joho. I think the younger customers are getting tired of noisy restaurants with no personality, where you dont remember what you had and you never had a conversation. A restaurant doesnt have to be stuffy, but it has to have class. Today, more and more, people want to be recognized; its nice to hear, Nice to see you again. For example, the Coin du bassin, a large canvas of more than four feet tall and three feet wide, has not been seen in public since 1960, she said. And the nature of such auctions, Kim acknowledged, is that many of the works are likely to go back into private hands, making the Chicago viewing opportunity exceptional. The Craft was all about sort of like female empowerment. It wasnt about getting the guy, and it was so unusual for the time. Im so happy that its sort of become this seminal kind of movie. Im happy theyre rebooting it because I think they want to make something thats different. Theyre not going to just like remake the same movie. I think they want to do it justice, and I think thats amazing. Its like the ultimate compliment. Chevron Corporation entered into a definitive agreement with Anadarko Petroleum Corporation to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Anadarko in a stock and cash transaction valued at $33 billion, or $65 per share. Chevron said that its acquisition of Anadarko will significantly enhance its upstream portfolio and further strengthen its leading positions in large, attractive shale, deepwater and natural gas resource basins. Based on Chevrons closing price on 11 April 2019 and under the terms of the agreement, Anadarko shareholders will receive 0.3869 shares of Chevron and $16.25 in cash for each Anadarko share. The total enterprise value of the transaction is $50 billion. Furthermore, Western Midstream Partners, LP is a successful midstream company whose assets are well aligned with the combined companies upstream positions, which should further enhance their economics and execution capabilities. This transaction builds strength on strength for Chevron. The combination of Anadarkos premier, high-quality assets with our advantaged portfolio strengthens our leading position in the Permian, builds on our deepwater Gulf of Mexico capabilities and will grow our LNG business. It creates attractive growth opportunities in areas that play to Chevrons operational strengths and underscores our commitment to short-cycle, higher-return investments. Chevrons Chairman and CEO Michael Wirth Anadarkos assets will enhance Chevrons portfolio across a diverse set of asset classes, including: Shale & Tight The combination of the two companies will create a 75-mile-wide corridor across the most attractive acreage in the Delaware basin, extending Chevrons leading position as a producer in the Permian. Deepwater The combination will enhance Chevrons existing high-margin position in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM), where it is already a leading producer, and extend its deepwater infrastructure network. LNG Chevron will gain another world-class resource base in Mozambique to support growing LNG demand. Area 1 is a very cost-competitive and well-prepared greenfield project close to major markets. The transaction is expected to achieve run-rate cost synergies of $1 billion before tax and capital spending reductions of $1 billion within a year of closing. Upon closing, the Company will continue be led by Michael Wirth as Chairman and CEO. Chevron will remain headquartered in San Ramon, California. UPDATE: 7:23 AM Eversource outages grow to 1,493. Towns affected include Middletown with 155 and 91 in Newtown. UIs outages have been reduced to just five in Woodbridge. UPDATE: 7:11 AM West Haven Police, along with the Fire Department and agents from the UI are addressing a downed power line which has resulted in the closing of the Boston Post Road from Farwell Street to Tuthill Street. Police ask drivers to avoid traveling in this area during the morning hours as delays are expected. UPDATE: 6:25 AM Eversource is now reporting 1,066 outages, including 218 in New Milford. 102 in Sharon and 36 in Middletown. UIs outage count remains the same. EARLIER STORY A strong line of thunderstorms is causing scattered power outages across Connecticut. Around 5:30 a.m., Eversource was reporting more than 750 outages. Nearly 300 of those outages are in West Hartford. Other outages are reported in Sharon, Sherman and Killingworth. For Eversource updates, click here. United Illuminating is reporting 50 outages with most of them in Shelton. For UI updates, click here Most rich Americans went to Paris to get their clothes, said Heaven, but the majority of people had no idea about this. This is the Depression era, so even though there is 40 percent unemployment in Chicago, there are still a lot of people with a lot of money. These are those people. Former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld officially announced Monday that he will challenge President Donald Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination, after several months of mulling a long-shot bid that would appeal to traditional GOP voters. Weld made the announcement in an appearance on CNN's "The Lead With Jake Tapper" in which he described himself as "a Republican who works across the aisle and gets things done." "Donald Trump is not an economic conservative. He doesn't even pretend to be. The country deserves to have some fiscal constraint and conservatism," he said. Weld, 73, will face a steep climb against Trump, an incumbent who is deeply popular with Republican voters. Weld last won an election in 1994 and has drifted politically in recent years, even serving as the vice presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party in 2016. But he is now determined to offer the GOP a moderate alternative. Weld filed official papers with Federal Election Commission on April 1, according to his campaign. Weld's entry comes as the Trump political team has touted the president's standing, both financially and politically. Trump's reelection campaign raised more than $30 million in the first three months of the year, the campaign said Monday. "The President is in a vastly stronger position at this point than any previous incumbent president running for reelection, and only continues to build momentum," Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement. Still, if Weld's campaign did somehow get traction, it could present a headache to the Trump operation, and recent history has demonstrated the effect of such challenges. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush faced a troublesome run from the right from commentator Patrick Buchanan, who embarrassed the incumbent by winning 37 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary and fighting Bush until the national convention. The weakened president lost to Democrat Bill Clinton. Similarly, President Gerald Ford had to fend off a Republican challenge from Ronald Reagan in 1976 before losing in the general election to Democrat Jimmy Carter. A White House official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, dismissed Weld on Monday as a "relic" and someone who "is a big liberal" on climate change and drug issues. Weld has called climate change a dire threat to the nation and backed the use of medical marijuana for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. "Republican voters don't want what he's selling," the official said. "They want to support the president." Weld has previously defended his decision to challenge Trump, saying in February that "Republicans in Washington want to have no election." His team acknowledges he faces an uphill climb but maintains that GOP voters deserve a choice in 2020. "It is a long shot. But it's certainly less of a long shot than Donald Trump was when he announced and no one thought he was serious," Stuart Stevens, Weld's strategist and adviser since the 1980s, said in an interview. "Tonally, he's going to run a very different campaign. He's not mad at the world. He's not a victim." Weld has been a fierce critic of Trump's nationalism and called it an outgrowth of movements of hate groups in Europe and elsewhere. He told the New Yorker in a recent interview that Trump uses a "dog whistle loud and clear" to win support from white supremacists and others. Stevens, the former chief strategist for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, said he has left his longtime firm, Strategic Partners Media, to work for Weld. His former partner at that firm, Russ Schriefer, is an adviser to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan who is a Republican and also considering his own presidential bid against Trump. "I believe competition is good and Governor Hogan would make a terrific candidate," Stevens said, when asked about Hogan's possible candidacy. "A robust Republican primary would be a great thing." Hogan, 62, who in November became the second GOP governor in history to win reelection in liberal Maryland, is one of several names that have been floated by Trump critics over the past year. That list also includes former Ohio governor John Kasich, who conceded recently that, at least in today's party, he could not beat Trump in a primary. Hogan said in an interview last month that he often thinks of his father, the late Maryland congressman Lawrence Hogan Sr., as he contemplates his political future. Hogan Sr. was famously the first GOP member of the House Judiciary Committee to call for President Richard Nixon's impeachment in 1974. But he has not yet made a decision. Leading Trump critics welcomed Weld on Monday, but said they are waiting to see how the Republican race unfolds before they make any endorsement. "It's great he's the first one in, breaking the ice," said William Kristol, a conservative commentator who has encouraged top Republicans to run against Trump. "But there are others looking at it. He's jumping in a somewhat chilly pool that could get warmer in the coming months if the president is vulnerable." Weld's campaign will put a major emphasis on the New Hampshire primary, aides said, since the state has a history of embracing maverick, more centrist Republicans such as the late Arizona senator John McCain - and believing a victory or strong showing there could catapult Weld's candidacy. "New Hampshire likes to surprise," Stevens said. "The history of New Hampshire is to give candidates a really serious look. Any insurgent campaign has to do well in New Hampshire. History shows us that." Jennifer Horn, a former chair of the New Hampshire Republican Party, will serve as Weld's campaign manager, Stevens said, underscoring the campaign's strategy. Weld is scheduled to visit New Hampshire on Tuesday for meetings. In the coming days, Weld's campaign will circulate a video that plays up the Harvard-trained lawyer's time as U.S. attorney who was appointed by Ronald Reagan. The clip will cast him as someone who "made his bones breaking up a corrupt political machine" in Massachusetts and could do the same for Trump's Washington, Stevens said. In a memo released to reporters Monday, Weld's campaign touted him as a Reagan Republican rather than a moderate, noting that he was once "ranked the most fiscally conservative governor in the country by the Cato Institute and the Wall Street Journal." - - - The Washington Post's Annie Linskey, Felicia Sonmez and David Weigel contributed to this report. No one is going to turn down $100 million. That made this months announcement by the founder of the worlds largest hedge fund of a massive donation to Connecticuts public schools a major event. But it was not unprecedented. It wasnt long ago that another multibillionaire appeared with leaders of a densely populated Northeastern state to pledge a $100 million gift to public schools. As to how that one worked, the best that can be said is Connecticut can try to learn how to do things better this time around. In 2010, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg came on Oprah Winfreys talk show with Chris Christie, at the time the governor of New Jersey, and Cory Booker, then the mayor of that states largest city, to discuss a $100 million gift Zuckerbergs foundation planned for the Newark public school system. The five-year plan was matched by the same amount from other donors, making for a massive infusion aimed at making over a troubled system. Zuckerberg, Winfrey, Christie and Booker, who as a group could almost make up their own Jeopardy category of People Who Will Never Be President, lavished praise on one another as they talked about what promised to be a transformative gift, with Newarks plan to serve as a national model for reform. It didnt quite work out as planned, and nearly a decade later its not clear what $200 million over five years accomplished. There were some improvements, but also some backsliding. Some measures got better, but many stayed about the same. A troubled school system then, Newark is still in a tough spot. Included in the program were millions of dollars spent on consultants drawing up plans in a boardroom that had little to do with what was happening in the classroom. That makes the specifics of plans for the Connecticut money specifics which do not seem to exist at this point so crucial. Bookers successor as mayor last year mostly dismissed the project on those grounds. You cant just cobble up a bunch of money and drop it in the middle of the street and say, This is going to fix everything, he said. Then as now, the eye-catching numbers looked smaller compared to actual education spending, adding up to about 4 percent of what went into Newark schools on an annual basis. And the Facebook money was going to one city, not spread over many in Connecticut. In this state, the occasion this month was one of those Greenwich-themed get-togethers our governor loves so much, with Ned Lamont and his wife joined on stage at East Hartford High School by Ray and Barbara Dalio, he the founder of the hedge fund Bridgewater and she the operator of the familys charitable foundation. In addition to their $100 million, the plan calls for the same amount of state money plus a further $100 million from other philanthropic sources. A lot has changed in the past decade on the education reform front. Bookers philosophy in Newark of charter schools first, last and always has fallen a bit out of favor, and most of what passed for reform has been exposed as anti-union privatization efforts. Barbara Dalio, in her telling, had in the past directed her education philanthropy in a charter school-friendly direction. To her credit, shes moved on. I realized charter schools have their place and are doing great work, but it really doesnt solve the problem, she said recently, probably overstating on the great work but at least acknowledging the shortfalls of such an approach. For now, the Connecticut plan involves jargon like promises to help advance positive outcomes as quickly and sustainably as possible and to utilize practices with demonstrated positive impact, whatever that means. Already jockeying is underway to ensure that everyone in the state gets a share of whats coming. Under a best-case scenario, this should be thought of as a welcome gift, but not anything more than that. An infusion, even a large one, is not a solution. The plans purported focus on students who are losing touch with school sounds sensible. The best idea is something the governor hinted at this year before quickly backing down as the Wiltons of the world erupted. Education in the state would be best-served by a wholesale makeover of the kind that is never going to happen for political reasons. Maybe some of the $300 million could go toward selling rich towns on that whole regionalization thing? Hugh Bailey is editorial page editor of The New Haven Register and the Connecticut Post. He can be reached at hbailey@hearstmediact.com. Motorola is looking to revamp its brand portfolio with the upcoming Razr 2019 and One Vision pphones. The Razr series rose to prominence with the unique V3 handset from the early 2000s. With the introduction of foldable phones, it looks like the company is ready to revive it with a very modern twist - foldable display. Last month, reports brought more light on the devices key specs such as its 6.2-inch foldable screen and Snapdragon 710 SoC. Today, the device codenamed Voyager received its certification from Bluetooth SIG, suggesting an official announcement is just around the corner. From the certification description, we can clearly see the device will be a Verizon exclusive for the US while it remains to be seen if well see it on the global stage. We also see that the upcoming phone will feature Bluetooth 5.0 support. Rumors point to a $1,500 launch price which will make the device more competitive in the foldable segment compared to the $2000 Samsung Galaxy Fold and $2,600 Huawei Mate X. Alongside the Razr 2019, the Motorola One Vision also received its Bluetooth certification. Four variants of the device equipped with Bluetooth 5.0 appeared on SIG's site. From its Geekbench listing, we know the device will feature a Samsung Exynos 9610 SoC paired with 3GB or 4GB RAM and storage in the 32GB-128GB range. The phonewill be part of the Android One program and will run Android 9 Pie out of the box. It will feature a 6.2-inch FHD+ punchhole display with a dual 48MP + 12MP rear camera. Source 1 | Source 2 | Via Sony WH-1000XM3 review - the best noise-cancelling in town MOSS POINT, Miss. -- Family, friends and former students of Moss Points Willie C. Williams will have to wait until October until they see the man who allegedly killed him stand trial. According to Assistant District Attorney Cherie Wade, Lee Andrew Gipson, 25, trial has been moved once more to accommodate the defense. Judge Robert Krebs set Apr. 15, 2019 as the date for Gipsons trial at his Feb. 11 hearing because the defense had another trial to prepare for in August, but Krebs pushed the trial back to Oct. 7, 2019 according to the state. Gipson was initially set for trial in Jan. 2018. When and if he stands trial in October, he will have been jailed more than three years before standing trial. He allegedly killed 64-year-old Willie Williams in a robbery attempt, stabbing him more than 50 times according to the Jackson County Coroners Office. Williams was found dead in his home on Aug. 19, 2016 at the corner of Frederick and Charles Street after a friend placed multiple calls to Williams that went unanswered. A week after the stabbing, Gipson was arrested and was jailed without bond in the Mississippi Department of Corrections until he was placed in the custody of the Jackson County Adult Detention Center. Williams was known as a friend, mentor, leader, and peacemaker to those he encountered. Known for being a staple in the community, Williams graduated from Magnolia High School in Moss Point and completed his higher education at the University of Southern Mississippi. He served as principal, assistant superintendent, and interim superintendent during his time in the Moss Point School District. He was known as a stern, loving educator able to help students and staff members reach their full potential. Gipson is charged with capital murder and is being held without bond. MOSS POINT, Miss. -- A homicide investigation is underway in Moss Point after a body was found on Sunday, Deputy Chief Jim Roe said. According to Roe, officers responded to a call after citizens discovered a body in a wooded area on Molden Street. When officers arrived on the scene, the found what Roe described as human remains. The remains were collected and were sent to the state crime lab for autopsy. There has been speculation regarding the body and who it may be, but according to Roe, the department will let the state crime lab do its job. We dont know who and it wouldnt be right for anyones family for us to speculate who it may or may not be, so the medical examiners office will do their job and let us know once their investigation is completed, Roe said. Police are working the case as a homicide according to Roe. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Moss Point Police Department at 228-475-1711, Crime Stoppers at 800-787-5898 or visit the Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers website at mscoastcrimestoppers.com. The overseas Vietnamese present at the meeting expressed their joy at the recent socio-economic development in the home country, and proposed that the Vietnamese Government bolster cultural exchanges with Romania, and crated favourable conditions in terms of legal framework for economic and cultural cooperation between the two countries. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (left) meets with overseas Vietnamese in Romania (Photo: VNA) They reported that the Vietnamese community in Romania numbers about 500, and the community show strong solidarity and mutual support in their daily life and integration into the host society. PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc affirmed that overseas Vietnamese, including those in Romania, are an integral part and an important resource of Vietnam. He informed that the Vietnamese Government has implemented many programmes to help the OVs preserve their cultural characteristics including the mother tongue, and called on the community to continue support their homeland in national construction and defence. The PM said he plans to hold talks with his Romanian counterpart and meet with several Romanian leaders, during which he will ask Romania, in the capacity as the rotary chair of the EU in the first six months of 2019, to advocate the early signing of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EV FTA). PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc is making an official visit to Romania at the invitation of Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila./. But as Americans, we have reached a point where we must ask ourselves some important questions. How much are we willing to compromise democracy for Trump? How many of the values that we hold dear in America are we willing to throw away on a man who provides us with so little value in return? Haiti - Agriculture : Towards increased cooperation with Morocco On the sidelines of the 161st meeting of the Council of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome (8-12 April 2019), Jobert C. Angrand, the outgoing Minister of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development, met with the Ambassador of Morocco accredited in Italy and former Minister of Agriculture, Hassand Abouyoub. The objective was to follow up on the talks initiated during the recent mission on cooperation between the Kingdom of Morocco and Haiti, especially in the field of agriculture. In particular, there was talk of training Haitian executives in agricultural credit in which Morocco has developed good expertise. At the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 10 Haitian executives will participate in training to learn from the experience of Morocco which was able, through strategies ensure national coverage in terms of agricultural credit to meet the demands of farmers. At the request of the Minister Angrand, he also made proposals for the purchase of fertilizer from Morocco. Modalities will be submitted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Foreign Trade of Morocco via the Embassy of Haiti in Italy. Jobert C. Angrand explained that it was imperative that Haiti buys sufficient quality fertilizer for the coming crop years. Ambassador Hassand Abouyoub believes that this partnership will be beneficial for both countries. HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Environment : D-11, preparations accelerate around the project of reforestation via schools An important working meeting was held between the officials of the Ministry of National Education and those of the Ministry of the Environment; at the origin of the national reforestation project through the schools https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-27287-haiti-environment-soon-start-of-the-reforestation-project-through-schools.html Presided by Sonia Orisme, the Departmental Director of the West of the Environment, the main objective of this meeting was to define the best strategy to achieve the success of this program of reforestation that is permanent, through the students. The finalization of the ongoing process for the planting strategy in the sites identified at the level of the targeted communes and the measures to be taken to carry out this program and the planning of preparatory activities for the organization of the three days of national mobilization planned for planting seedlings on April 25-26-27 (produced in Plant Propagation Centers https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25224-haiti-environment-inauguration-of-the-3rd-plant-propagation-center.html ) were at the center of the exchanges. All agree to move in the same direction in this citizen action, which is part of the dynamics of environmental education. It was agreed that on the 16th of April, field meetings will be held to finalize and identify the seedlings to be planted in each of the already selected areas and to evaluate the number of schools and students mobilized. From April 22, the days leading up to the April 25 beginning of the national activity, will be dedicated to the mobilization of students and teachers on the merits of this joint program initiated by the Ministry of Environment and Education, supported by other the ministries (Agriculture, Public Works and Interior among others). Remember that the first day of national mobilization of planting will be Thursday, April 25, 2019 instead of Monday, April 22, originally scheduled after Easter Sunday, to take into account cultural and religious activities that could have a negative impact about the mobilization and success of the event. See also https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-27287-haiti-environment-soon-start-of-the-reforestation-project-through-schools.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-24627-haiti-environment-towards-compulsory-reforestation-in-schools.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23424-haiti-education-the-minister-cadet-provides-an-update-on-the-major-issues-of-his-ministry.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25224-haiti-environment-inauguration-of-the-3rd-plant-propagation-center.html HL/ HaitiLibre Published on 2019/04/15 | Source Police will seek an arrest warrant for Seungri of boy band Big Bang after discovering evidence that he paid prostitutes to have sex with clients when he threw a huge party in Palawan, the Philippines in December 2017. Advertisement That was even before he opened the controversial Burning Sun nightclub in the swanky Gangnam area, which is said to have been a hotbed of drug abuse and sexual impropriety. Police obtained testimony that Seungri invited eight Gangnam bar hostesses to the party in a resort villa in Palawan, and some of them had sex with male guests at the party. But the women told police the sex was consensual and did not involve any money. Seungri told police that he paid for the trips of all the invited guests, not just the women. But a police source said, "We discovered that Seungri sent money to the bank accounts of the bars that employed the women". The source added that the amount was too large to cover just airfare and lodging and "could be viewed as payment for sexual services". Police are also investigating where Seungri got the money to finance the lavish party. Seungri (29) and his 34-year-old business partner, identified only by his surname Yoo, are already being investigated for pimping in Korea. They are accused of setting up potential investors with prostitutes in another Gangnam nightclub. Police also suspect them of embezzlement, tax evasion, illegally videotaping women and violating a range of regulations in connection with their nightclub. Christian Sewing is the chief executive officer of the Deutsche Bank he is responsible for managing the institution since 2018. Hier geht es zur deutschen Version des Essays. It is wise to think carefully before describing anything as fateful, but when we look at the year ahead and what it will bring for Europe, fateful is just what it is in terms of politics and in terms of the economy. Wherever we look there are sources of uncertainty. In my opinion the biggest risk is not posed by either the trade disputes or Brexit, nor by a repeat of the European debt crisis. Instead, there is one phenomenon that is ultimately at the root of all these developments: a pervasive new nationalism that is spreading throughout the US and many European countries. It is making the world more susceptible to economic shocks. After all, as things currently stand it is very difficult to imagine a repeat of the kind of concerted political action that reined in the financial crisis of 2008. The rules-based world order arguably the greatest political achievement of the 20th century is now under threat. Top-Jobs des Tages Jetzt die besten Jobs finden und per E-Mail benachrichtigt werden. Standort erkennen It was not perfect and it is not now but we do at least have rules, and this world order was constantly being developed. Especially following the fall of the Berlin Wall, virtually the whole world seemed to be on an irreversible course towards greater cooperation, democracy, the market economy and freedom. In the meantime there has been a hiatus in this trend at the very least. Important institutions such as NATO, the World Trade Organisation and the European Union (EU) are ailing and even those within their own ranks are questioning their purpose. This must be alarming for committed Europeans in particular: the new economic nationalism casts doubt on the European project, our political order and our values. This article is an extract from the book: Sven Afhuppe, Thomas Sigmund (Hg.): Europa kann es besser Wie unser Kontinent zu neuer Starke findet. Ein Weckruf der Wirtschaft Herder publishing house 2019, 240 pages, 20 euros ISBN 978-3-451-39360-0 Published on 15. April 2019 Order the book on amazon. Greater integration in Europe This means that it is particularly important now for Europe to be united in developing a shared view on freedom, democracy and economic progress. We need more European integration, not less. We must not allow ourselves to become divided. And even though it may be less popular at the moment, we should all feel proud of the European project, a peace project. And we have to remind ourselves of what binds us together: in Europe we have the world's second-largest single market soon to comprise 27 countries that are home to some 450 million people. That is a tremendous achievement. This union is our only means of matching the economic and power political clout of the US and China. For me this also means that we not only have to continue developing Europe, but that we also reinvent it to a certain degree. After all our competitors are not letting up; their investments in next-generation technologies and defence appear to be far more joined-up than ours. The EU is however poorly equipped for a reincarnation. This is largely due to its decision-making mechanisms. In a nutshell, Europe has a serious governance problem. The Parliament, Commission and Council of Ministers are often subject to very different influences. And as soon as landmark decisions are on the agenda, every Member State has a veto. It takes just one troublemaker to bring Europe to a standstill. What will become of Europe if more and more of its elected national governments are not only Eurosceptic but are Europhobic? If more and more Europhobes are voted into the Parliament? Democracy and the division of powers must of course be absolutely non-negotiable, but the European project will only survive if Europe works better, faster and more effectively. A single regional development policy for Europe This is also particularly true of a single regional development policy. We in Europe have to invest more again. Germany in particular offers considerable scope for investment not only in the public sector, but also for private-sector investment. On the one hand, there is the much-discussed expenditure on bridges, roads and railways. However, we must also invest in education and digital infrastructure, broadband and mobile networks and in research and development. There is a close correlation between the volume of investment in new technologies and the success of the resulting companies. Assessing the current situation is sobering: when it comes to platform companies and artificial intelligence China and the US threaten to leave us trailing. The consequences are already grave: the most valuable companies in the world nearly all come from the tech sector. And none of them come from Europe. At the end of January 2019 not a single one of the 15 most valuable firms in the world in terms of market capitalisation was European. Nestle was the highest ranked European company in 16th place. And not only that: we Europeans are only invested in the worlds biggest companies to a tiny extent. We dont even own two percent of these firms. While our trade surplus is regularly a topic of conversation and we Germans are even reproached because of this, experts estimate Germanys annual digital trade deficit is already some 30 billion euros and rising fast. The course is currently being set here the course in a world where artificial intelligence, data and digital infrastructure are among the factors that decide whether entire economies succeed or fail. And about what shapes our society. The average German surfs the internet for around four and a half hours every day, while young people spend a great deal longer online. Google guides us along roads, Amazon influences what we decide to buy and where. Algorithms that dictate an increasing large part of our daily lives are hosted in distant lands. We are losing the sovereignty over the truth, as the venture capitalist Klaus Hommels so aptly put it. Are we prepared to settle for that? Or shouldnt we do our utmost to populate as many areas of the economy as possible with our own digital platforms? We must understand, though, what an enormous effort this will require from us. Whether its Facebook, Amazon or Google: all the big platforms initially received billions in investment and investors accepted many years of lossmaking. Once a platform has finally prevailed, though, it grows extremely fast, possibly as we see it to even become one of the global oligopolists. So we must act and invest faster. This is not just the job of the public sector; we corporates also need to do more purely out of self-interest. Otherwise we will gamble away our future. Europe would have to release greater financial resources for this purpose. Insurers and pension funds, for example, should be permitted to take on more risk in order to invest in companies and growth technologies as is the case in the US. Strong banks in Europe We at Deutsche Bank also have an obligation to play our part in raising and allocating capital for investment. We have already made huge investments in platforms not only alone but also together with other firms. A strong Europe needs strong banks. They play a crucial part in a strong and healthy economy. In this respect, the initiation of Banking Union in Europe is a major success. It is not complete, however, and progress must be made towards supplementing it with a capital markets union. It is simply unacceptable that an international investor wishing to buy bonds issued in Spain, France or Germany has to scrutinise three completely different sets of securities and insolvency rules. We need a genuine single market for financial services. Fragmentation makes it hard for European banks to develop the strength needed at home in order to keep pace with major banks in the US and rapidly growing banks in Asia. The question is: do we really want to make ourselves largely dependent on foreign countries for capital and financing over the long term? It must not come to this. The result would be a long-term shortage of capital and funding options, as well as ignorance of the latest developments in the global capital markets. We should not forget how quickly many foreign banks pulled out during the 2008 financial crisis, while domestic banks largely continued lending. However, it is not just a question of crisis situations, rather of the fundamental infrastructure of Germany and of Europe. We face a year of change. The geopolitical environment has become tougher and economic pressure is mounting. At the same time new faces will be appointed to key positions in Europe this year: the European Commission, European Council and European Central Bank will see their presidents replaced. And last but not least European voters will elect a new parliament. So it is a fateful year politically speaking, too. We all have an important part to play: to make sure that this year marks the start of a renaissance for the European project and not the beginning of its end. 2010 Baumann was appointed CFO of Bayer. In 2014 he became a chairmen, in charge of strategy and portfolio management. In 2016 he became CEO. Hier geht es zur deutschen Version des Essays. As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it. Europe should take this astute statement by the writer Antoine de Saint Exupery to heart. Instead, in the European Union, we too often adopt an attitude that does not enable the future, but hinders it. An attitude that views globalization and competition not as catalysts and drivers of prosperity, but as threats. That seeks to defend past achievements rather than pursue new opportunities. An attitude that asks What could go wrong? instead of What can we achieve with this? This kind of climate does not help innovation thrive and inventors flourish. And as it also poses a risk to our prosperity in Europe, it burdens and challenges our continent. We need a prosperous Europe and we must not jeopardize the successes of European unity. Jetzt die besten Jobs finden und per E-Mail benachrichtigt werden. Europe is deeply skeptical of technological advances. In the Technik-Radar 2018 survey undertaken in Germany, only one quarter of those surveyed held the opinion that technology solves more problems than it creates. That helps explain why, more than anywhere else in the world, Europeans have reservations about vaccines, a technology that has contributed enormously to global health. In some European countries, one third of the population doubts the safety of vaccines. On the other end of the spectrum, countries like Bangladesh are home to virtually no vaccination skeptics. This contrast suggests that Europeans have become so accustomed to the blessings of progress that they are less and less appreciative of them. About the person Early years Werner Baumann was born in Krefeld, Germany, on October 6, 1962. After studying economics at RWTH Aachen University and the University of Cologne, he joined Bayer in 1988. His first duties were in the Corporate Finance Department in Leverkusen. In 1991 he transferred to Bayer Hispania Comercial in Barcelona, Spain, to take up a position as controller, becoming assistant to the managing director in 1995.One year later, he moved to Bayer Corporation in Tarrytown, New York, latterly heading up the global Business Planning & Administration organization of the Diagnostics Business Group. The Manager In July 2002, Baumann returned to Germany to become a member of the Executive Committee and Head of Central Administration & Organization at Bayer Health Care. In October 2003, he was appointed a member of the Board of Management of the newly formed subgroup Bayer Health Care AG, also serving as that companys Labor Director. As a member of the Board of Management and Labor Director of Bayer Schering Pharma AG, Berlin, Germany, from 2006 through September 2009, he actively participated in this companys integration into the former Health Care subgroup. The CSO Effective January 1, 2010, Baumann was Chief Financial Officer of Bayer AG. From October 1, 2014, until his appointment as Chairman of the Board of Management, he was Chief Strategy and Portfolio Officer and also responsible for the Europe, Middle East and Africa Region. Between April and the end of December 2015,Baumann was additionally Chairman of the Board of Management of Bayer Health Care AG. Thats why people feel they can afford to reject genetic engineering inagriculture. Nearly 70 percent of Germans consider the targeted genetic modification of crops to be risky although genetically modified plants are verifiably safe for people and the environment. As a result of this skepticism about technology, Europe is losing ground as a center of innovation and conceding technological progress to others. Make no mistake: The digital future is being written in California. When it comes to artificial intelligence, the next great leap for digitalization, Europe is being left behind by the United States and China. The situation is no better in another groundbreaking field: CRISPR/Cas andother new breeding technologies. With the help of this advancement, conventional breeding can be supplemented and in some cases replaced bymuch faster and more precise methods with identical results. We could breed plants that produce a higher yield, are more resilient in drought conditions, have more valuable nutrients or do not contain certain allergens. These technologies could help feed our growing population and make more efficient use of natural resources. And because the technology is relatively simple and cheap, it would be a valuable asset for mid-sized seed companiesand smaller research institutes. Europe is well-positioned to play a leading role in this field but a recent decision by the European Court of Justice stands in the way. Last year the court decided that CRISPR/Cas and similar methods must be classified asgenetic engineering and regulated according to the same stringent standards. With the stroke of a pen, this promising technology is at risk of being driven abroad. In some cases, its already happening. There is no objective reason to so stringently regulate plants bred this way. They do not contain any foreign genes and are no different from traditionally bred plants. The ball is now in the politicians court. It is their task to advance social discourse and create the legal framework that makes it possible to further develop this technology in Europe. Otherwise the message to the rest of the world will once again be that we have no ambitions of playing a role. When it comes to CRISPR/Cas and new breeding methods, others will assume the task of solving future problems. The successful products, growth and jobs of tomorrow will be created elsewhere. So what needs to happen to ensure that Europe once again becomes aleading, competitive center of innovation? The to-do list ranges from rapidly expanding the digital infrastructure to better financing of childrens daycare, schools and universities. But three things should be at the very top of the agenda. Dieser Gastbeitrag stammt aus diesem Buch: Sven Afhuppe, Thomas Sigmund (Hg.): Europa kann es besser Wie unser Kontinent zu neuer Starke findet. Ein Weckruf der Wirtschaft Herder Verlag 2019, 240 Seiten, 20 Euro ISBN 978-3-451-39360-0 Erschienen am 15. April 2019 Das Buch bei Amazon bestellen. First: Brexit. The United Kingdoms withdrawal from the European Union is amajor setback for the EUs innovation capability. After all, the United Kingdomis one of Europes most innovative countries, with outstanding universities and research institutes. Among major EU countries, it performs the best in most innovation rankings. The EU needs to strive to achieve the closest possible integration with the United Kingdom in the post-Brexit future not just economically, but also in science and research. Second: venture capital. The United States has shown everyone how its done. Venture capital is extremely important when it comes to turning scientific findings and ideas into successful companies. Other regions, including Europe, are catching up but the gap remains significant. Venture capital investment totaled 63.8 billion in the United States in 2017 in Europe it was 15.6 billion, less than one quarter of that figure. Germany spent only about 1.1 billion in this area. According to one study, 21 of the 50 cities that invest most heavily in start-ups are located in the United States, while 15 are found in Asia and only eight in Europe. Theres only one conclusion to be drawn from these numbers: Europe must do more to ensure that the implementation of promising ideas doesnt fail for lack of money. Thats why the underlying conditions for raising venture capital in Europe urgently need to be improved. Through venture capital investment, innovation is generated decentrally fromthe bottom up and can drive much more progress than governmental efforts.Programs such as Europe 2020, the EU growth strategy, and the follow-upprogram Horizon Europe can certainly act as valuable stimuli if they arecleverly designed. But thats not enough. The speed of innovation found in places like Silicon Valley cannot be orchestrated from Brussels or any other capital city. Third, and this is the most important point: What Europe needs most is a cultural transformation and a change in mindset. We need to abandon our discouraging fixation on potential risks and move toward a courageous, purposeful culture of opportunities and possibilities. Of course, it is good and right for technological progress to be accompanied by a comprehensive and critical public debate. And it is important that this debate is reflected in a regulatory framework for technological development that accounts for potential concerns and where necessary establishes guidelines. Yet it is crucial that this public debate is conducted objectively and that regulatory decisions are taken on the basis of sound scientific findings. Unfortunately, we are currently a long way from this ideal in the EU. Debates are emotionally charged and often have little to do with the current state of expertise. This stokes fear. That fear is reflected in restrictive regulations thatdo not help, but rather hinder, technological advances. An over emphasis on the precautionary principle smothers the greatest opportunities from the outset. The most important achievement of humanity over the past decades and centuries would likely never have been possible with this attitude. We have escaped from misery. In contrast to the widespread perception that everything is getting worse, today we live in the best world there has ever been. In 1800, average global life expectancy was 31 years today it is 72. Back then 44 percent of children died before their fifth birthday. Today the figure is just 4 percent. In 1970, 28 percent of the population still suffered from hunger. Today this number is just 11 percent, despite the fact that the worlds population has since increased by more than 3.8 billion. These statistics could go on and on. They paint a clear picture: That life has improved, and not worsened, in practically all areas. This is a triumph of the Enlightenment, an idea that originally arose in Europe. It placed the potential of people and science on center stage. Europe should orient itself on this idea and maintain this tradition: a Europe of science and technology, a Europe of inventors, a creative experimental laboratory that gave the world the printing press and the piano, the microscope and the steam engine, antibiotics andc ars, the airbag and the mp3 player, where the worlds first computer was built. These figures are not just proof of progress they also show how much is yetto be done. Wouldnt it be tremendous to finally achieve victory over diseases such as cancer or Alzheimers just as we did with smallpox, which was eradicated in 1977? Or to eliminate hunger, which still plagues 800 million people around the world? We dont know whether we will ever be successful in this endeavor because we cannot predict the future. But we can enable it for more and more people. Hier geht es zur deutschen Version des Essays. The best case is that the stone exterior walls and vaults remain, said John Stamper, associate dean and professor of architecture at the University of Notre Dame. Theyll have to restore those vaults. There will be burn damage on them. Thats better than having to rebuild the stonework. Theyll rebuild the roof and theyll have to rebuild the spire over the crossing. Havre Daily News staff Gov. Steve Bullock announced Friday he appointed Patricia Quisno of Harlem to the state Department of Agricultures Board of Livestock Loss. Quisno is a member actively involved in the livestock industry who has knowledge and experience in wildlife. The boards page on the Department of Agriculture websites says the Montana Livestock Loss Board was established by the Legislature in 2007 to address economic losses due to wolf predation and to create incentives for producers to take proactive, preventative steps to decrease the risk of loss. The purpose of the Montana Livestock Loss Program is to acknowledge the importance of economic viability and sustainability of individual livestock operators in Montana who are negatively affected by wolves, grizzly bears or mountain lions. Eagle Staff carrier Clinton Bird Hat is surrounded by dancers during the final Grand Entry of the Sweetgrass Society Powwow Saturday at the Armory Gymnasium in Havre. The Powwow is an annual tradition put on by Montana State University-Northern's Sweetgrass Society. Traditional culture came together on the Montana State University-Northern campus Friday and Saturday when Northern's Sweetgrass Society held its annual powwow in the Armory Gymnasium. Sweetgrass Society President Jonathan Nepoose said the event went well and he was glad to see people from different areas all come together to celebrate the event. "It's important," he said. "I think it's (our) duty to keep it going." He said that the powwow is a celebration of American Indian culture and is important because, in the past, powwows were fought against and many different tribes were unable to celebrate their cultures. Devan Kicknosway, who danced at the Sweetgrass powwow, said powwows are great for the community because they introduce the culture to non-Native people and makes a younger generation aware of traditions that they may have not been able to be exposed to. The country has many issues surrounding Native American communities, he said, such as the growing issue of missing and murdered indigenous women, and too often people are unaware of them. "Native people have been stripped of everything and it is a way to try to keep (the culture) alive, to keep it going, to let people know we still exist," he said. Nepoose said that the Sweetgrass Society begins planning for the powwow at the beginning of the school year and starts fundraising right after the previous year's powwow. He added that often the society leaves some funds from the previous year to help kickstart the next year's celebration. Nepoose said that he is Chippewa Cree from Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation, but the powwow is not only for local tribes. "Everybody is from different areas around our region and coming to celebrate with one another," he said. Senior Miss Sweetgrass Society Royalty Tanille Standing Rock, 14, said that she was enjoying the event and was enjoying the opportunity to meet new people. "I enjoy being around everybody just the whole thing of it," she said. Standing Rock said that she is an Old Style Jingle Dancer and learned from growing up around her family. She said her grandmother Harriet Standing Rock was a major influence for her, making her regalia and teaching her how to dance. She added that she was excited about being the senior miss and getting the opportunity to travel on the powwow trail. She said that to be part of the royalty she had to apply and be selected by a committee and had to fundraise. Standing Rock said that she was able to raise $938 for the powwow. "It's fun I get to meet new people everywhere," she said. Nepoose said that about 20 members of the society have different assignments before and during the event, such as working security, organizing dancers and organizing fundraisers. It was his first year as president of the society, he said, after serving as vice president last year. He said he has been in the society for four years. He said that his involvement over the years helped him get experience in organizing the powwow this year. Nepoose added that having the societies advisor, Erica McKeon-Hanson, available to help was a great resource to this year's success, as well. He added that the powwow would have not been possible without the commitment of the club members and the community. "Thank you to our supporters. We couldn't have done it without them," he said. "Thank you to our club members for coming and putting it together." Sweetgrass Society Inter Organizational Council Representative John Healy said that he was working as security at the event, making sure people were not doing something they weren't supposed to. He added that he enjoys powwows and how it makes a strong community bond with people who may have never met each other before. "How it brings everyone together, how you feel when you're out there, it feels pretty good," he said. Healy said that he is a first-year member of the society but is enjoying it very much. "I like it, they help me out a lot and I do my best to help them a lot," he said. He said that he moved to Havre from Fort Belknap to enroll at Northern after he graduated from Aaniiih Nakoda College. The Sweetgrass Society helped him find an apartment, he said. Healy added that his mother, father and aunt have also been members of the Sweetgrass Society, and he was happy to follow. He said he also wanted to join because be wanted to get to know more people around campus. "It's a really good club," Healy said. "People think that it's just for Natives, but it's not. Anybody can come and join. I really like being a part of it." Kicknosway said that he is originally from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and is a Mohawk Ojibway. He said he first started participating in powwows when he was 19 years old after he quit drinking and taught himself how to make regalia and his dancing techniques. He added that he is a personal trainer and nutritionist and he can tie his culture into his profession. Some of the regalia he makes in birch bark quilled, where he has to peel the bark of a tree and create a design, which can take years to make, he said. He added that it takes patience. He also makes the regalia for his family, his kids having the opportunity to wear whatever regalia and dance however they choose. Havre Daily News/Ryan Berry The Montana Cree drum circle plays a song during the annual Sweetgrass Society Powwow Saturday at the Armory Gymnasium in Havre. He and his wife live at Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation and have traveled all over the country and parts of Canada for powwow events. He said that his culture is part of who he is and is a part of his and his family's lives. "A big part of this for me is family," he said. "It keeps us all tied" Nepoose said that this year was also special to him because Friday at the powwow he and his girlfriend, Mia LameBull, got engaged. He said that they were doing a private owl dance and afterward he proposed. LameBull said that the proposal came as a surprise to her. Nepoose added that it was a great experience and he was happy to have been able to share it with the community. "It was pretty cool," he said. Friday's Havre legislative teleconference from Helena to Havre was canceled because no legislators were able to attend, but Rep. Jacob Bachmeier, D-Havre, and Sen. Russ Tempel, R-Chester, both gave comment Sunday on the past week of the Legislature including on the proposal to continue the state's Medicaid expansion. House Bill 658 introduced by Rep. Edward Buttrey, R-Great Falls, stalled last week in the Senate, with Tempel voting on several amendments to the bill Thursday, voting for some and against others, with the legislative website reporting six amendments passed and four failed. Tempel voted against putting the bill on the agenda for a vote Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Some senators, including Tom Richmond, R-Billings, and Duane Ankney, R-Colstrip, said they voted against the Medicaid expansion bill - Richmond and Ankney are listed as Senate co-sponsors of the bill - because they want support for a bill allowing NorthWestern Energy to purchase increased energy of the coal-fired generators at Colstrip. Tempel did not say anything about the Colstrip bill Sunday, but said the Medicaid bill has major issues. "I can't vote for it the way it was going because we didn't fully understand the thing," Tempel said. "So unless you understand it you probably shouldn't be voting for it." Tempel added that, last week, 18 amendments were sitting on his desk, with some introduced into the bill and others not. Tempel is also listed as one of the co-sponsors for the medicaid bill. Thursday the state Senate voted 25-25 on HB 658, stalling it for its second reading. Friday and Saturday motions to place HB 658 on the agenda for second reading were voted down 24-26 each day. Bachmeier said Sunday in a statement to The Havre Daily News that the bill was voted down in the Senate due to senators playing politics with the bill. "Beyond how reprehensible it is to play politics with health care, the Senate must understand that Medicaid Expansion has kept our rural hospitals open, added over 5,000 jobs to our economy and has circulated hundreds of millions of new money into our state economy," Bachmeier said. He added that he encourages people to reach out to their local senators and urge them to vote for the continuation of Medicaid. "A lot of hard work, negotiations and compromises on both sides of the aisle have gone into the efforts to reauthorize Medicaid Expansion," he said. "... I am very disappointed and disheartened to see the Senate playing politics with the health care of nearly 100,000 of Montana's most vulnerable low-income and disabled citizens." Tempel said that the bill will appear again in the senate today and at that point and time he will see what amendments are written in the bill. He added that the amendments will determine his support for the bill. "Right now I can't vote for it until I find out what is going on with the amendments," he said. He said that one of his big concerns is the lack sunset policy in the bill. Tempel said that in the beginning of the year he told both Rep. Mary Caferro, D-Helena, and Buttrey if the bill has no sunset included he could not support the bill. Tempel said he has been receiving a number of phone calls from constituents supporting both sides of the bill. One of the biggest questions he has heard is a confusion on how the bill is supposed to work. Many of these question are if the bill will include a copay, work requirement, income verification and asset evaluations, he said. These have been the majority of the calls, he said, and for some of their questions he doesn't have an answer. Tempel added that even if the bill was passed, no one has a way of foreseeing how it would come together, with the department in charge of implementing the bill and lawyers sorting through the bill and determining what can be implemented. "After we are done here, that's when the work starts, trying to figure out just what the bills say," he said. He said some people may be concerned about a work requirement, but a work requirement would exclude caregivers. People who are taking care of family members who are incapable to work will be covered, Tempel said. "I'm thinking that stuff is covered," he said. Tempel said that after Thursday the Legislature has been in an uproar and he is trying to figure out exactly what is going to end up happening with the bill. "It's getting close to where I can vote for it," he said, "but if the sunset goes away I'm not going to vote for it." Other bills in the Legislature Bachmeier said that the House Bill 21, Hanna's Act, introduced by Rep. Rae Peppers, D-Lame Deer, is moving onto its third reading in the Senate. He added that the Senate Finance and Claims Committee has also added $205,000 back into the bill for the Department of Justice to hire a coordinator for missing persons cases and to operate an office for the department to coordinate on missing persons cases. "This is a critical step toward increasing collaboration between the Department of Justice and our reservations to find missing American Indians," Bachmeier said. He said that Senate Bill 160, introduced by Sen. Nate McConnell, D-Missoula, has also passed out of the Senate and is moving forward for enrolling and the final preparation process. The bill will provide workers' compensation for presumptive diseases of firefighters, he added that Montana is one of five states does not have a presumptive care bill and SB 160 is critical to helping firefighters receive compensation for work-related illnesses. "SB 160 is a major step forward for firefighters in Montana," Bachmeier said. "Firefighters are exposed to many dangerous hazards and chemicals on the job. ... I want to extend a big thank you to our service people who put their lives on the line everyday. It's time to invest in their health and safety." Tempel said that in the past week one of the interesting bills that came through the Legislature was House Bill 773, introduced by Rep. Matt Regier, R-Columbia Falls. The bill would have had the state take local government funding to use for funding the office of the state public defenders. The bill was voted down, Tempel said. Temple voted against it. "It was going to cost county tax payers both ways passed," he said. In 2001, a previous bill was passed which helped the state fund the public defenders' offices through state taxes, Tempel said. Having the counties pay a share of the cost it would mean that people would be taxed twice. Bachmeier said that Havreite and business owner Keeley Wilson "wowed" the Senate Agriculture Committee last week after telling her story and expressing the need for House Bill 607, a bill to reduce licensing expenses for small pet snack businesses, which he introduced. He said that the committee passed the bill with the bill going to second reading in the Senate Monday, third reading Tuesday and then the governor's office. He added that he is also working with the governor's office to the bill signing in Havre, potentially at the Infinity Bake Shoppe operated by Wilson's mother, Dottie, and where she operates Lady Bug Bites. Although the bill may have started with Wilson's story, Bachmeier expects that it will impact approximately 300 small businesses in the state, he said. "Keeley's story goes to show that our laws are not always drafted with small businesses in mind," he said. "Montana must do better to look after local businesses." Another bill which was started by a Havreite was House Bill 726, introduced by Caferro, which would extend child support for children with disabilities into adulthood. Jacob Bachmeier Bachmeier, a co-sponsor of the bill, said the initiative for the bill was started by Andrea Melle, who is the mother of adult two children with autism. HB 726 is a common-sense approach, Bachmeier said, adding that the bill would allow single parents who take care of their children with severe disabilities to petition the court for child support payments for their children into adulthood. The bill has recently been passed through the Senate Health, Welfare and Safety Committee with a 10-0 vote, he said. He added that if the bill is passed he hopes to set up another bill signing ceremony in Havre with the governor and Andrea Melle and her family. "Many single parents with children who have severe disabilities are forgotten about and struggle to make ends meet," he said. "... I want to thank Rep. Caferro for all of her work on this bill. I am proud to be a co-sponsor." STORY NADIA KRIGE. PHOTO CIELL, WIKIMEDIA A breakthrough study conducted by Professor Keertan Dheda and Dr Michele Tomasicchio, at the University of Cape Towns (UCT) Centre for Lung Infection and Immunity, has revealed that one of South Africas most commonly-used injectable contraceptives could increase womens chances of contracting tuberculosis (TB). Injectable contraceptives are widely used across sub-Saharan Africa, being the birth control of choice for about 16.5 million women in the region. The World Health Organization (WHO) cites their effectiveness, their simple re-injection schedule [every two or three months, depending on the brand] and their suitability for discreet use as some of the main reasons for their popularity. Now however, in the case of Depo-Provera one of the most commonly-used injectable contraceptives some serious risk factors have cast a shadow over the advantages. A recent meta-analysis of clinical observational data suggested that Depo-Provera may increase womens chances of contracting HIV by up to 40%. This is because the injection contains the synthetic hormone medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA), which acts as an immunosuppressant. Putting TB under the spotlight Considering the prevalence of TB in sub-Saharan Africa, and the fact that it remains the top infectious disease killer globally, Tomasicchio said he realised the necessity of investigating whether the use of Depo-Provera could also increase the risk of TB infection. [We found that] Depo-Provera actually down-regulates immune function genes that are associated with protection against TB, and also up-regulates certain cell types that suppress your immune system. We looked at two different injectable contraceptives that are commonly used in South Africa Depo-Provera and norethisterone enanthate (NET-EN). Our data showed that Depo-Provera increases TB pathogenesis, while NET does not. To conduct the study, Tomasicchio and his team recruited healthy HIV-negative female patients who were not on a contraceptive prior to being enrolled in the study. Various assays were then used to determine if the two injectable contraceptives increase TB pathogenesis. [We found that] Depo-Provera actually down-regulates immune function genes that are associated with protection against TB, and also up-regulates certain cell types that suppress your immune system, he explained. While similar studies had previously examined the effects of MPA on mycobacterium TB in animal models, this was the first time that researchers investigated the potential effects in humans. Making international waves The groundbreaking findings were published online by the respected Journal of Infectious Diseaseslate last year. Coupled with the previous findings on HIV pathogenesis, the fact that Depo-Provera can also increase womens chances of contracting TB makes it something of a double-edged sword. Its an important topic from a womens healthcare point of view, especially considering the fact that Depo-Provera is still extensively administered in clinics throughout South Africa, Tomasicchio said. On average, injectables are the contraceptive of choice in 25% of cases. However, in rural KwaZulu-Natal, it is used in up to 85% of clinics. Tomasicchio would like to see the study results, along with those of future studies, drive a change in policy surrounding Depo-Provera usage in South Africa. My ultimate aim is to make sure that women are aware of the dangers of using [Depo-Provera], particularly in the context of sub-Saharan Africa, he said. What should happen is government clinics in South Africa and elsewhere should move over to NET, because it simply is the safer choice. What should happen is government clinics in South Africa and elsewhere should move over to NET, because it simply is the safer choice. Despite the fact that Depo-Provera has been proven to increase womens chances of contracting HIV and now also TB, the government is reluctant to change policies. Safer option The reason for this is two-fold: Depo-Provera is cheaper to manufacture and to maintain, as it works on a three-monthly reinjection schedule while NET-EN must be administered every two months. Tomasicchio said he plans to pursue this study further, to gain a better understanding of why and how MPA actually drives TB pathogenesis. Theres a lot of mechanistic, laboratory-based studies that can still be done, he said. And, I think moving from here, there can be clever ways to look at MPA in a clinical context. Ultimately, he hopes that the mounting evidence showing that Depo-Provera is not the safest choice will be taken to heart by the South African government and that policy changes will be made sooner rather than later. University of Cape Town Notre Dame de Paris Our Lady of Paris defines the city it occupies. Its essential to the identity of Parisians and of special importance to Catholics. And yet perhaps more than any other building in the world, it belongs to all of us. Its a piece of our collective past, a building that since its construction in the 12th and 13th centuries has survived wars and plagues, riots and revolution and Nazis, all the chaos of life on this planet. It symbolizes that survival. Tennessee man sentenced to 58 years in child sex case A Henderson County jury deliberated last week for two hours before finding a 25-year-old Tennessee man guilty of two counts of statutory rape. Kenneth Whitehead, of Bristol, Tennessee, was sentenced on Thursday by Superior Court Judge William Coward to consecutive sentences totally 699 months in prison, or 58 years and 3 months. He will be eligible for parole after serving a minimum of 482 months, or 40 years, in prison. The jury heard the testimony of the female child victim in the case, who was 13 years old at the time of the crimes in 2016. The child and the defendant were camping at the North Mills River Campground when they asked another camper for food. The 13-year-old said that she was 18 and gave a false name. The defendant also gave a false name. They told the camper that they were hungry and had no money. The camper helped the couple and in talking to them he followed up on information they provided in casual conversation. Contact was subsequently made with the Henderson County Sheriffs office who found that the girl was actually 13 and had been reported missing from the state of Missouri. The defendant has a criminal record of both felonies and misdemeanors in at least 3 states. In a statement given to the Sheriffs office and presented at trial, the defendant admitted to having sex with the child at least twice. He was arrested and has been in jail ever since. The child was taken in the custody of the Henderson County Department of Social Services until she was released to her mother and taken back to her home in Missouri. The states case was presented by Assistant District Attorneys Beth Dierauf and Jason Hayes. I am very pleased with the verdict and most satisfied with the sentence imposed by Judge Coward, District Attorney Greg Newman said. The defendant apparently met the 13 year old through a mutual friend in Tennessee. He claimed to be helping her deal with a troubled home situation, but the truth is that he saw a vulnerable teen and he used her for his own sexual gratification. "In addition to the obvious immorality of his acts, it was also dangerous to this child, whose mother was sick with worry hundreds of miles away in the Midwest," Newman added. "This defendant, and others just like him, who are looking to take advantage of the most vulnerable in our communities the young, the elderly, the poor, mentally challenged, etc. are dangerous people and need to be dealt with in the most serious and severe terms." I appreciate the efforts of my lawyers, Ms. Dierauf and Mr. Hayes, law enforcement, and the local man who met the girl and defendant at the campground and had enough concern and suspicion to question the situation," he said. "His contribution to this case cannot be understated and it speaks well of him and our community at large." TWO home stylists are combating the uncertainty around Brexit by backing British business. Tracy Head and Sarah Nelson run Vintage Barn Interiors in Shiplake and try to source their products as locally as possible. They say that if shoppers across the UK did the same then independent retailers and artisans would thrive and communities divided by politics could be reunited. Their business offers an interior styling service and the women can source furniture and give advice on everything from paint colours to curtains and soft furnishings. They also supply bespoke reclaimed wood tables made in Henley with timber sourced in the UK. Mrs Head, 49, of Reading Road, Shiplake, has been an interior designer and stylist for more than 10 years, having previously worked in banking. She has renovated several properties, including two previous homes in Derby Road and Grosvenor Road, Caversham. She is married to Steve, a marketing director, and they have two sons, Toby, 17, a student in Southampton, and Max, 14, who attends the Reading Blue Coat School in Sonning. Mrs Nelson, 50, from Chalkhouse Green, previously worked as a medical rep and in recruitment but has always been interested in interior design. She took a curtain-making course and now has more than 20 years experience in curtains, blinds and soft furnishings. Her husband Mark works in finance and the couple have two children, Daniel, 23, a tree surgeon, and Chloe, 21, who is at St Marys University in Twickenham. The women admit that they dont know how Brexit will affect the import of products but say UK businesses should be supported to minimise any impact. Mrs Head says: With Brexit, there is still the whole uncertainty. Bringing things in from Europe, we have no control over the products or the pricing and there is uncertainty over whether we will be able to source products from some European countries. Weve been focusing on using our UK suppliers rather than overseas with a view to minimising any Brexit impact. It has been so satisfying knowing that our furniture is made from timbers sourced within the UK and made by a small Henley company. Weve also established a number of other UK suppliers and artisans for our home accessory items, such as cushions and art, and it has been wonderful to support them too. We feel there is enough choice from the UK and in Henley and the local area, where there are some really talented artisans. We also want people to support us rather than just going to somewhere like John Lewis and asking them for a designer room scheme. We feel that we should be supporting local businesses as much as possible and if people did this nationally I dont see any reason why we cant be better off. It would create a better place where we are all supporting each other and that has got to be a positive thing. Mrs Nelson says that supporting local businesses has other benefits. She explains: One is if there is a problem with, say, a table leg or the design of a piece of furniture we can go to the carpenter and find a solution that we are all happy with. Even when we get flooring in, we try to make sure the company we use is a local as possible. We try to build a rapport with the suppliers because I think our business works better when you know the faces of the people you are working with. Some of the companies from whom we source our furniture comes from Europe and I dont know how Brexit will affect that. With the fabrics we use, I love using British companies as we have got a lot of talent here. Mrs Head is originally from Harrogate in North Yorkshire and she and her husband moved to Caversham about 18 years ago. After the arrival of her second child, she started to sell gifts and interior accessories under her company name Little Red Heart through an online retailer. The company traded well but she felt lonely and struck up a friendship with Mrs Nelson, whom she had met on housing projects, and felt the same way. Mrs Head recalls: I met Sarah when I had my first house in Caversham. She was making curtains for the builder who I had bought it from. We got talking and we just clicked as our skills complemented each other. We soon realised that we had a shared passion. Both of us felt that while we were both established, we wanted to work with someone else so we could bounce ideas of each other. Both women live in barn-style homes and love all things vintage, which is what inspired the name of their company, which was launched in June 2016. Mrs Head says: We can supply anything for your home. We can do modern schemes as well as traditional. When we meet clients we both go into the meetings, even if the requirement is just for curtains or just for furniture, so we can both offer different ideas. When we style a room we tend to go from the ground up. We start with the flooring and then do the furniture and the rest of the room like lamps and light fittings and then we soften it up with curtains and other soft furnishings. We need to know what the room is used for, whether its for everyday use or for best and what their likes and dislikes are. Thats not to say we wouldnt introduce something they disliked as we can turn people around. Often they may have that opinion because it is something that hasnt been used or presented in the right way previously. We make our rooms robust and beautiful. We dont create rooms that are showrooms they are to be used and lived in. If its a living room, I like there to be a big coffee table because it brings a room to life. I also love a big comfy sofa. We go away to our suppliers and see what is available. They may have something that they can adapt or be repainted or have made. Mrs Head says it is important to know everything about the products they are selling by working closely with their suppliers. She explains: We know a Henley man who can make and reclaim pieces because we dont want people coming into our studio and saying that we have bought that or that from a place, we want them to see something that is bespoke, unique, that you cant buy anywhere. We have a really great relationship with our suppliers and pass that on to our customers as we want them to know exactly where the products and materials come from. I love knowing where my furniture comes from and the history behind it. There is a man in Essex who makes clocks. He works unsociable hours and puts in lots of hard, physical work, but it is great to get an amazing product from him and then give him some fantastic feedback from the client. You can see the joy in his face when we tell him. Mrs Head admits that some clients requests are more difficult to deliver than others. She says: We were asked to find a piece of art that needed to have a fun element and the client loved music. We were able to get a huge oversized piece which featured photographs of album spines, which was amazing. For a property in Nottingham we imported an old European shop counter and we used a local courier to fetch it and it came here from Hungary. When it comes to their own homes, the women practice what they preach. Mrs Head moved from Caversham to Shiplake about seven years ago with the intention of renovating a timber-framed bungalow. However, this would have been too expensive, so she and her husband decided to knock it down and build a barn of one-and-a-half storeys with five bedrooms on the existing footprint. The property is a dream come true. Mrs Head says: It is quite open plan with lots of rustic materials and oak and lots of natural light. Everything we sourced for the property we have used for clients as well. The shutters are from a supplier in Henley. The bricks are from Gibbs & Dandy in Henley and the flooring from Henley and Peppard. Every part of the build we have tried to keep as local as possible, which also helped to reduce our carbon footprint. The Heads hire out their property for photo shoots. Last July, Next used it to shoot its Christmas campaign in what was 30C heat so fake snow had to be used. The women say they had no expectations about how their joint venture would do but things have gone well. Mrs Head says: We love the challenge of creating and we want to carry on serving Henley and working within this community. Mrs Nelson adds: Looking ahead, I would love to expand a bit more, although we are already very busy, but we want to continue to be the faces of the business. A CANDIDATE in the Henley Town Council elections was told off for giving a political speech at the annual town meeting. Michelle Thomas, who is standing for Henley Residents Group, began calling for a public protest over government funding for Gillotts School. But Mrs Thomas, whose 12-year-old son Tom attends the secondary school, was cut off and ordered to stop by town clerk Janet Wheeler and Mayor Glen Lambert, who said it was not an appropriate occasion for campaigning. She stood up during the meeting at the town hall on Thursday last week during a section in which local clubs, societies and charities could discuss issues affecting the community. She introduced herself to the audience of about 60 people as an HRG candidate and then said: Henleys schools are facing a serious funding cut and weve noticed that a lot of parents organisations want to do something about it. We will do two things: firstly, we will get a date in the diary to march through the streets of Henley to raise awareness and funds for the school. Mrs Wheeler interrupted, saying the council was under pre-election restrictions known as purdah in which political statements are forbidden on its premises. She said: This is not the right forum and some town and parish councils across the UK have cancelled their annual meetings for this very reason. Weve decided to let this go ahead but cant let it become a platform for electoral and political issues. Several onlookers shouted comments of support for Mrs Thomas, who replied: Does anyone here disagree with me? I dont know what purdah is but please support us. Councillor Lambert, who is a member of Henley Residents Group, said: I dont want to hear any more political comment. Louise Pegley, who also has children at the Gillotts Lane school, raised the issue when individuals could speak later in the meeting. She said: As a concerned parent, it was my idea to suggest some kind of demonstration because I feel that headteachers are shielding us from the reality of the situation. We were all shocked to read what was actually going on and I would like us to get together so that the Government does something about it. If we dont, I dont believe anything will get done. Afterwards, Mrs Thomas, of Belle Vue Road, Henley, said she would organise a public meeting after the Easter holidays to set a date for the protest. She said: I was contacted by a parent who remembered the marches that took place in Henley for Townlands Hospital and had seen school funding protests happening up and down the country, with teachers and parents marching together. Most people at the town meeting expressed an interest and came up to me afterwards saying they would like to be involved in some way. Theres a lot of concern about this issue. Its unfortunate that I spoke up in the wrong section but I think I had the room on my side. Id have been criticised for not revealing my party allegiance so I couldnt win either way. I think honesty was the best policy and I was really speaking first and foremost as a parent. Gillotts headteacher Catharine Darnton recently revealed she was having to spend money earmarked for education on basic repairs at the academy school. She says one of her classrooms is now unusable due to smells from failing pipework and she had to spend thousands unclogging and lining a pipe to prevent a sewage leak. Over the past decade, Ms Darnton has repeatedly called on the Government to increase education funding. Henley MP John Howell has promised to take the issue up with ministers and says now is a good time for her to raise concerns as the Government is conducting a spending review. The Department for Education says it is reviewing the condition of state schools across England to decide where to target funding. What I got from that presentation is that its only going to be here for a year, what about the other years? she said during public comments. In the presentation they said that those students make a lot of money. Well, what about the students who have a passion for auto body? I feel that when people have a passion for something, it doesnt matter how much money they make. Level of child poverty here is unacceptable, report says Around 230,000 children are living in poverty in Ireland, new statistics have shown. Social Justice Ireland, which has just published its Poverty Focus 2019, is calling for working parents to be paid fairly. The think-tank said better pay for parents, increased benefits and better social welfare could end child poverty, which affects one in five children. "The scale of child poverty is alarming and is unacceptable in a country as wealthy as ours," said the group's director, Sean Healy. "Despite good intentions, child poverty is an issue society and public policy has made little progress in addressing for a long time. "Eliminating child poverty should be a top priority for the Government. It can be done, but it requires action now." The report said one in four children are experiencing deprivation of two or more basic necessities. It said 110,000 children are living in consistent poverty in households with incomes below the poverty line. Education Social Justice Ireland said the figures cast a shadow on the future of these children, their success in the education system and job prospects and for the nation's long-term prosperity. The group's research and policy analyst, Michelle Murphy, said: "Government can support low income families by prioritising adequate adult welfare rates, decent pay and conditions for working parents, increased child benefit and access to quality services." Access to quality childcare, housing and healthcare are major considerations on where policy changes must take place, the group said. Making tax credits refund- able is an "efficient and cost- effective solution" to help working families on low earnings. In 2017, a Central Statistics Office (CSO) survey found that one in six people in Ireland, or 15.7pc of the population, live in poverty on less than 252.11 a week. Social Justice Ireland said that a family of two adults and two children were at risk of poverty if they were earning 30,520 a year, or 584.90 a week. Business leaders have said any further delay to the regeneration of Phibsboro Shopping Centre would be "a mortal sin". Some business owners and residents complained they have been waiting decades to see the 1960s "eyesore" revamped. Many were disappointed after it emerged last week that the regeneration plans were hanging in the balance because of a disagreement between developers MM Capital and Tesco. Footfall Local businessman Myles Balfe, of Myles Balfe Ltd car repairs, said the potential end of the plans, which have been several years in the making, would be "a mortal sin". "To see them not sitting down and working something out, it's just not right," he said. Expand Close Phibsboro Shopping Centre / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Phibsboro Shopping Centre "The best way forward is for both parties to come to an agreement in the interests of business and for the comm- unity. "Obviously, development will draw more footfall, so the best thing is for the development to go ahead." Joe Scully, who owns Commercial Hygiene, close to the centre, said anything that was set to improve Phibsboro was "for the better of the community." "I feel the developers and Tesco will need to sit down," he said. Expand Close Dalymount Park / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Dalymount Park "Someone in authority has to make a decision and sort this out." Dorothy Smith, of voluntary group Phizzfest Reimagining Phibsboro, said: "The shopping centre has been declining rapidly for a decade or so. "It was great that the developers bought it and they plan to develop it. "Some parts of the plan we aren't happy with, but overall it's an important project for Phibsboro and the greater area. "It's a significant site along one quarter of the village and the public realm round it is sub-standard - it's an eyesore. "It drags down the feel of the village. The Celtic Tiger never came near Phibsboro. It's only in the last two years we've seen a slight turnaround. "It's dragged down the mood of the place. There's less hope and ambition due to the look of the place. "That has a big impact on how you feel." Bohemian FC, which has already called for the redevelopment of Dalymount Park to go ahead, has been joined by rivals Shelbourne FC, which will share the grounds. A statement from Shelbourne said: "We have been advised by Dublin City Council that the planned redevelopment of Dalymount Park will go ahead irrespective of whether the redevelopment of Phibsboro Shopping Centre proceeds. "Ideally, both redevelopments would proceed in parallel and deliver a major rejuvenation to the Phibsboro area as well as to Dalymount Park. "We endorse the views expressed over the past few days by our colleagues in Bohemian FC asking that the various parties involved in the redevelopment of the shopping centre reach an agreement which will allow the original redevelopment plan to proceed. Determined "Both Shelbourne FC and Bohe- mian FC remain determined to see through the redevelopment of Dalymount Park into a state-of-the-art football stadium which encompasses civic and community facilities." MM Capital has accused Tesco of preventing the progress of the 50m plans, but Tesco said the proposals would impede on the store's deliveries. A law student who went berserk in a courthouse cell, swallowing a battery before biting a garda and spitting blood, has avoided jail. David Usher (33) had been sentenced for motoring offences when he endangered his own life in the cell by gulping down the battery then became violent as gardai and paramedics tended to him. He was put on a six-month probation bond and ordered to undertake an anger management course. Father-of-four Usher, of Millrace Drive, Saggart, pleaded guilty to assaulting a garda in the custody area of Blanchardstown District Court on March 8 last year. The case had been heard previously and came before Judge Anthony Halpin at Dublin District Court for a probation report. The judge said he would act on the report's recommendations and put Usher on the supervisory bond. Previously, the court heard Usher's "bizarre " and "extreme" reaction came from the shock of being put into custody. Unresponsive Sgt Maria Callaghan said Usher had been given a three-month sentence and was taken to a cell to await transport to Mountjoy Prison. When checked on, he was lying on the floor, apparently unresponsive. A Dublin Fire Brigade paramedic deemed him not to be in a serious state, but an ambulance was called to take him to hospital. While waiting, Gda Alex McDermott helped the paramedic in lifting Usher into a sitting position. He bit down on Gda McDermott's hand, leaving a red mark but not breaking the skin. When the ambulance arrived, Usher was in an aggressive state, had bitten his own lip and spat blood at the gardai and paramedics. Sgt Callaghan called in the public order unit to extract him from the cell. He was deemed unfit to be put in the ambulance and was taken to Connolly Hospital in a garda van. Sgt Callaghan said the incident went on for two-and-a-half hours, and the paramedics' and officers' time was "totally wasted". The sister of an Irish businessman murdered in North Carolina has revealed members of her family participated in a major US network documentary on the crime because of "scurrilous" attempts by his killers to destroy his reputation. Tracey Corbett Lynch warned the killers of her brother, Jason Corbett (39), that they will never cease their campaign to see justice done for the father-of-two - and to defend his good name and reputation. Molly Martens (35) and Tom Martens (68) were convicted in August 2017 of the second-degree murder of the Limerick-born businessman, who was beaten to death as he slept in bed in August 2015. The Tennessee father and daughter are now serving 20-25 years in North Carolina prisons but have appealed their convictions. Episode Now, US network CBS is to devote a full episode of its documentary 48 Hours to the Jason Corbett murder at 8pm EST on Saturday. Expand Close Killer Molly Martens / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Killer Molly Martens Members of both families have been interviewed for the programme. Tracey explained that the decision to participate in the CBS programme was made on the basis of allegations levelled by Tom and Molly Martens in a US TV interview recorded before their murder convictions two years ago - and broadcast just 24 hours after their imprisonment. "Tom and Molly Martens did not seek just to kill my brother - they also sought to destroy his good name and reputation," she said. "Even before their 2017 trial, they had given an interview to a US TV channel in which they levelled unfounded and scurrilous allegations against Jason." Molly had claimed, in a graphic interview, that she was afraid of her husband. However, she declined to give evidence in her own defence at the trial - and no such allegations were ever entered into evidence. Tom Martens, a retired FBI agent, acknowledged in his own trial evidence he had never seen or heard the Limerick father-of-two ever threaten or abuse his daughter. "We will never falter in our campaign to ensure that Tom and Molly Martens serve the full sentence handed down by a North Carolina court for their terrible crime," said Tracey. "We will also never tire of defending the good name and honourable reputation of a dearly loved father, brother, son, uncle, friend, as well as a proud Limerick native." Tracey said she had made three vows to her brother - to see justice done, to protect his two children, Jack and Sarah, by his late first wife and to defend his good name. She paid tribute to Davidson County prosecutors and "the good people of North Carolina". Tracey also said Tom and Molly Martens had never apologised for what they had done. "They have never shown one ounce of remorse for beating a helpless father to death as he slept," she said. "We felt the allegations levelled by Tom and Molly Martens needed to be publicly challenged in the US - and that is the reason for our involvement with the CBS programme." Last month, Tom Martens and his wife, Sharon, settled a wrongful death lawsuit taken against them by the estate of Jason Corbett. Insurance Molly Martens was dismissed as a party to the wrongful death lawsuit and settlement - but agreed to void her right to any insurance policy payments due on her husband's life. She was the sole named beneficiary of her husband's 500,000 insurance policy at his death in August 2015. However, the policy, which included his children as beneficiaries, was mysteriously changed online before Mr Corbett's murder to ensure she was the sole named party to benefit. The 160,000 settlement was tabled by Tom Martens and his wife, Sharon. The Martens' insurance firm will pay a further 17,500 as part of the settlement. Gardai at the scene of the shooting on Cappagh Drive A close associate of Kinahan cartel-aligned criminal 'Mr Flashy' is believed to have been the target of a shooting at a house in Finglas on Saturday night. The incident happened at Cappagh Drive, in what is believed to have been a warning to local associates of 'Mr Flashy' and his cohorts who control drug supply in the north Dublin suburb. A number of shots were fired at the house at 10.50pm while there were people inside. There were no reports of injuries and sources say gardai found no one who could give an account of what happened when they arrived to investigate. They believe it is not related to an earlier incident during which a masked man ran into a nearby pub with a gun before running out. Murder Expand Close Bullet holes in a window / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Bullet holes in a window There was panic in the Cappagh area on Saturday evening when the would-be killer ran into the public house and searched it intently before fleeing. Gardai think the gunman was about to murder someone but ran off when the intended target was not there. This incident followed a row in the pub earlier the same evening. While the owner of the house on Cappagh Drive is not involved in criminality, a man close to 'Mr Flashy' was in the vicinity at the time the shooting took place. The scene was later sealed off by gardai pending a forensic examination by specialist officers. While the exact motive for Saturday night's shooting is not clear, investigators believe it is connected to drug supply in north Dublin. 'Mr Flashy' controls drug supply in the area and is aligned to the Kinahan cartel. He is one of the main protagonists in a bitter Finglas feud which has eased in recent months after an unsteady truce was reached. There have been numerous arson attacks, assaults and several firearms have been recovered, while one man has been shot and another escaped with his life after gunmen burst into his home when he wasn't there, as part of the ugly and violent feud. The Kinahan-backed drug dealer was the main target for rival mobsters and the only criminal involved in the warfare to be officially warned by gardai about an active threat against his life. Some associates of 'Mr Flashy' are believed to be hitmen for hire and are suspected by gardai of being involved in at least one murder and another attempted murder. A safehouse in Finglas was shot at and firebombed as the feud escalated last year, before a supposed truce was called because the local dispute was bringing a lot of garda attention to the area and affecting the lucrative drug distribution business. Reports at the weekend said a safehouse used by 'Mr Flashy' had been trashed by gardai as they searched for a man who they think was involved in the stabbing of a man outside Finglas Garda Station last week. Intensity The man who was attacked is innocent but is a relative of a gang member involved in another feud in Corduff, west Dublin, which has flared up with violent intensity in recent months. Gardai believe 'Mr Flashy' is helping one side of the Corduff feud, whose hoods carried out the stabbing at Finglas Garda Station. The injured man was forced to take shelter in the garda station after being slashed with a machete. He was taken to hospital from the blood-soaked scene. Tensions have been high in Finglas since the attack, and gardai fear a sudden flash of violence could erupt if tempers reach boiling point. An elderly woman who died after she was struck by a motorcycle last week had dedicated her life to helping people with Asperger's Syndrome. Tressa McKernan (75), from Kilmacud, Co Dublin, had just stepped off a bus and was attempting to cross the road on Ballinteer Avenue last Monday when the collision occurred. It's understood she was on her way to spend time with her son who has Asperger's. She was pronounced dead this weekend at Beaumont Hospital. The motorcyclist, a man in his 30s, was taken to St Vincent's Hospital where he was treated for minor injuries. Neighbours of Ms McKernan have credited her as being one of the first people in Ireland to raise awareness of Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism. In the mid-90s, Ms McKernan and her husband Des were founding members of 'Aspire', a charity that supports people with the condition. "She has done so much for hundreds of families throughout the country," said Ms McKernan's neighbour. "Before her and Des started Aspire, very few people knew what Asperger's syndrome was. Their son Colm inspired them to dedicate their lives helping people with the condition. "It's so heartbreaking to hear what happened, but Tressa left behind a wonderful legacy," she said, while another neighbour described the 75-year-old as a 'warm and loving' individual. "Her husband died a few years ago, which hit her hard, but nevertheless she always had time to say hello and have a chat," they said. "She was so devoted to her son and was always visiting him throughout the week. "He couldn't have had a better mum. "I feel so sorry for him, but I'm sure he'll get the support he needs during this very sad time." Gardai are continuing to investigate the incident. A garda spokeswoman said: "Gardai in Dundrum are investigating a serious road traffic collision that occurred on Ballinteer Avenue, on April 8, 2019, at approximately 7.50pm. "Anyone with information is asked to contact Dundrum Garda Station on 01-6665600 or the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111." Leo Varadkar put his best bare feet forward yesterday when he visited Dublin's only Sikh temple with his father, Ashok. With his head covered and shoes and socks off, the Taois- each clearly enjoyed the occasion. Accompanying him were Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy and Fine Gael TD Frances Fitzgerald. They were there to mark the Sikh religious festival of Vaisakhi, which is celebrated around the world. The event was held at the Sikh temple, or gurdwara, in Serpentine Avenue. Vaisakhi marks the inauguration of the Khalsa, a term used for Sikhs who have been initiated into the faith. Expand Close Frances Fitzgerald / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Frances Fitzgerald It is one of the most significant events in the Sikh calendar. Mr Varadkar was taken on a tour of the temple before making a short speech. Chapati Hindu and Muslim members of the Indian community also attended the event. While there, Mr Varadkar enjoyed a meal of dhal and chapati. After the visit, Ms Fitzgerald took to Twitter to write: "I have always maintained a close relationship with members of many religious communities throughout my political career. "Thank you for allowing me to play a small role today - and thank you for your friendship." Vaisakhi, also known as Baisakhi, is also a harvest festival in the Punjab region of northwest India that neighbours Pakistan. The Sikh celebration is held every year on either April 13 or 14. When will your credit card be charged? That depends on the platform and the type of crowdfunding. Kickstarter, for example, allows users to raise money only through an all-or-nothing model, meaning creators have to set a fundraising goal, and they only get to keep the money if that threshold is met. A donors credit card is charged only if the project is fully funded after a one-month fundraising period. On Indiegogo, however, charges are put through right away. Creators can use the all-or-nothing method, or they can opt to keep the money even if they dont meet their goal. As a result, charges on Indiegogo are refunded only if an all-or-nothing campaign is not successful. Kickstarter and Indiegogo impose fees on creators based on the total money raised; GoFundMe does not. If I had just seen it on the news and not heard from her I would have been incredibly panicked, Walsh said. She added the trip is scheduled to go on and said parents of the students had been notified. Why Gov. Tom Wolf says he has no plans to issue new mask mandates news Lipinski, 52, a conservative Democrat from Western Springs who was first elected in 2004 to the seat long held by his father, garnered 51 percent of the vote in the 2018 primary to Newmans 49 percent. He easily won re-election in November, defeating Republican candidate Arthur J. Jones of Lyons, a Holocaust denier with neo-Nazi ties, in a district that stretches from the Southwest Side to the south and southwest suburbs. The cathedral was built in the 12th and 13th centuries and is the most famous of the Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages. It is famous for its many gargoyles and its iconic flying buttresses and was immortalized by Victor Hugo's 1831 novel "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." It is home to priceless works of art and holy objects inside, much of which firefighters were able to save. The problem is getting the treatment to those who need and want it. That requires education and training of medical professionals so they can provide this sort of care. But legal restrictions on the provision of these medications can make it hard to deliver services. The NAS notes that methadone can be provided only in specialized facilities, not through doctors offices. Many residential treatment centers dont offer medication. Letting users know what is available and encouraging them to use it is a constant challenge. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, addressing Trumps idea, released this statement: What President Trump fails to understand is that America is a sanctuary country. Small, medium and large cities across the nation are suddenly and rapidly identifying as sanctuary cities because of the abandonment of Americans values, ideals and cultural destiny under President Trumps watch. Not only does hate have no home in Chicago, but, as a welcoming city, we would welcome these migrants with open arms, just as we welcomed Syrian refugees, just as we welcomed Puerto Ricans displaced by Hurricane Maria and just as we welcome Rohingya refugees fleeing genocide in Myanmar. I spent the last week in sunny Arizona and wore this Madewell outfit from their 2019 spring collection, which I adore seriously, every piece is amazing from the muted color palettes to the natural fabrics. If youre in Seattle, Ill be hosting a shopping event at the Madewell in University Village on Sunday 4/28 from 6-8pm! Come by anytime with your girlfriends to hangout, eat bites and sip rose, and get 20% off purchases over $125! Madewell fringe cardigan (on sale!), tie tank top (size down Im wearing XXS), and linen striped pants (c/o), Oliver Peoples x The Row Parquet sunglasses (c/o), Free People earrings (sold out shop similar wooden earrings), Staud croc-embossed bucket bag, Hermes Oran sandals (shop affordable version) I love linen cropped pants for warm vacations they usually have a stretchy waistband and the breathable fabric makes them easy to sport all day. I wore these linen striped pants around Page, Arizona and on our 4.5-hour drive from there to Las Vegas, so theyre tried and true for comfort! In addition to everything Im wearing, there are so many other great pieces at Madewell right now. If youre in Seattle, come to my shopping event at the Madewell in University Village! When: Sunday 4/28 from 6-8pm Who: Anyone can feel free to swing by What: Get 20% off and sip rose as you shop! Shop similar items from this post: Capital Markets Our access to global capital combined with our financing expertise, renowned property insight and integrated research will give you the confidence to see the opportunities that others overlook. Nguyen Thi Thu Trang, Director of the WTO Integration Centre under the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), made the statement at a conference on Australias market potential from the CPTPP perspectives in Hanoi on April 12th. According to the centre, Australia is one of the 20 largest economies in the world, with outstanding potential in science and technology, mineral exploitation, high-quality services and agricultural products. Australia is also a market with high purchasing power and stability. Vietnam and Australia are both members of CPTPP, which will help promote trade and expand the scale of investment and cooperation between the two sides in the future. A recent circular issued by the Central University of Kerala suggesting research at PhD level to be in accordance with national priorities has anguished sections of the academic community and the press. It also intended to discourage research in irrelevant areas. But the move has been condemned primarily on assumption of the governments motive, and the human resource development ministrys clarification that it has not issued any such directive has made little impact. As its election season, such a chorus of protests, characterised by binaries of us versus them and left-of-the-centre versus right-of-the-centre narratives, seems inevitable. The main criticisms of the circular, however, are: it is anti-intellectual and against the spirit of free enquiry; the guiding motive is political; it would saffronise the campuses and incalculably damage Indias knowledge ecosystem; and policing of research will dictate ideas, and go against critical thinking that engages with plurality of ideas. In other words, the purported action will be grossly against national interest. However, the criticisms, often arising out of exaggerated fear and suspicion, cannot be dismissed as completely invalid. Any restriction goes against the spirit of enquiry and freedom. But in a democratic country, in which government has to allocate scarce resources to competing demands, isnt it entitled to make reasonable restrictions? Can the State be a helpless witness to the abysmal quality of research that many of our universities produce? While academic freedom has to be valued and defended, should it be allowed to degenerate into a system of zero accountability in which attempts to deviate from the past norms are scoffed at? Regarding the first charge that it is anti-intellectual in spirit, it is time we analyse the quality of research in the humanities, social sciences, and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) that the country produces. How many papers are published each year in the acclaimed international journals? It is time our academicians do some introspection instead of blaming the State and others for all ills plaguing this sector. Second, suspecting a political motive is understandable. Any neutral person would be able to observe the dominance of the left-of-the-centre academicians, especially in the social sciences, and more so in Kolkata and Delhi. Within the constitutional framework, it would be natural for its opponents to expand their domain. While the views of the other should be relentlessly questioned, they should be tolerated as well. I hope this conflict helps bring about a more nuanced course that allows space for both the sections. Third, to safeguard against the government pushing its agenda of monoculture and policing research, the system has to be transparent and accessible to all, and civil society must remain vigilant. Has the government done anything to inspire such confidence? With the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) as the implementing agency for the Impactful Policy Research in Social Science (IMPRESS), 11 broad thematic areas, from State and democracy to growth, and macro trade and economic policy, have been identified for research by central, state and private institutions through a transparent process. Does it amount to policing of research and restriction of freedom? The Shodhganga initiative, a reservoir of Indian PhD theses, allows the research to be deposited electronically, making them accessible to all. Its a huge databank that helps you examine the quality of research outputs. The Impacting Research Innovation and Technology (IMPRINT) India initiative brings the Indian Institute of Science, Indian Institutes of Technology and central ministries to work together in key areas for research to enable, empower and embolden the nation for inclusive growth and self-reliance (IMPRINT overview). How do such initiatives militate against free enquiry? Antipathy towards the government should not be so virulent that terms like national priority evoke derision. Can the academic community afford to ignore the flourishing of private agencies and individuals running shops to manufacture so-called theses? Unethical businesses of what is known as thesis making and thesis guidance at affordable costs have sprouted at many locations. The government is seized with this problem and the Balaram Committee has reportedly submitted recommendations to amend PhD regulations to improve the quality of research. One only hopes that open-minded intellectuals and academicians will take proactive action to persuade the government to develop an atmosphere of trust in which public funds are optimally utilised to generate useful knowledge in cross-cutting areas. Amitabha Bhattacharya is a retired IAS officer The views expressed are personal The issue of blocking of websites and online services in India has gained much deserved traction after internet users reported that popular services like Reddit and Telegram were inaccessible on certain Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The befuddlement of users calls for a look into the mechanisms that allow the government and ISPs to carry out online censorship without accountability. Among other things, Section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, which regulates takedown and blocking of online content, allows both government departments and courts to issue directions to ISPs to block websites. Since court orders are in the public domain, it is possible to know this set of blocked websites and URLs. However, the process is much more opaque when it comes to government orders. The Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009, issued under the Act, detail a process entirely driven through decisions made by executive-appointed officers. Although some scrutiny of such orders is required normally, it can be waived in cases of emergencies. The process does not require judicial sanction, and does not present an opportunity of a fair hearing to the website owner. Notably, the rules also mandate ISPs to maintain all such government requests as confidential, thus making the process and complete list of blocked websites unavailable to the general public. In the absence of transparency, we have to rely on a mix of user reports and media reports that carry leaked government documents to get a glimpse into what websites the government is blocking. Civil society efforts to get the entire list of blocked websites have repeatedly failed. In response to the Right to Information (RTI) request filed by the Software Freedom Law Centre India in August 2017, the Ministry of Electronics and IT refused to provide the entire of list of blocked websites citing national security and public order, but only revealed the number of blocked websites: 11,422. Unsurprisingly, ISPs do not share this information because of the confidentiality provision in the rules. A 2017 study by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) found all five ISPs surveyed refused to share information about website blocking requests. In July 2018, the Bharat Sanchar Nagam Limited rejected the RTI request by CIS which asked for the list of blocked websites. The lack of transparency, clear guidelines, and a monitoring mechanism means that there are various forms of arbitrary behaviour by ISPs. First and most importantly, there is no way to ascertain whether a website block has legal backing through a government order because of the aforementioned confidentiality clause. Second, the rules define no technical method for the ISPs to follow to block the website. This results in some ISPs suppressing Domain Name System queries (which translate human-parseable addresses like example.com to their network address, 93.184.216.34), or using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) headers to block requests. Third, as has been made clear with recent user reports, users in different regions and telecom circles, but serviced by the same ISP, may be facing a different list of blocked websites. Fourth, when blocking orders are rescinded, there is no way to make sure that ISPs have unblocked the websites. These factors mean that two Indians can have wildly different experiences with online censorship. Organisations like the Internet Freedom Foundation have also been pointing out how, if ISPs block websites in a non-transparent way (for example, when there is no information page mentioning a government order presented to users when they attempt to access a blocked website), it constitutes a violation of the net neutrality rules that ISPs are bound to since July 2018. While the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the rules in 2015 in Shreya Singhal vs. Union of India, recent events highlight how the opaque processes can have arbitrary and unfair outcomes for users and website owners. The right to access to information and freedom of expression are essential to a liberal democratic order. To preserve these freedoms online, there is a need to amend the rules under the IT Act to replace the current regime with a transparent and fair process that makes the government accountable for its decisions that aim to censor speech on the internet. Gurshabad Grover is senior policy officer, the Centre for Internet and Society The views expressed are personal Actor Shahid Kapoor and Mira Rajput are currently vacationing in London and are spending their time savouring good food and strolling through the streets. Shahid recently shared a loved-up picture of the two in his Instagram stories. The couple can be seen staring at their reflection in a window pane on a lonely street in London. Mira also shared a picture of herself on her Instagram account posing in front of a graffiti that says You can be as naughty as you want. Just dont get caught. She captioned it, Its a way of life. She had also shared a selfie and some more glimpses of the city on her Instagram stories. Shahid Kapoor and Mira Rajput click a selfie in London. Mira Rajput shared these pics on her Instagram stories. Shahid just saw the teaser release of his upcoming film Kabir Singh in which he plays the title role. The actor plays an alcoholic and drug addict surgeon who takes to drug after an ugly breakup. The actor can be seen drinking like a fish and snorting cocaine in the teaser. The actor had told Mumbai Mirror, I dont endorse smoking at all. However, the role required it, as the protagonist uses it to channel his angst and rage. It wasnt easy, and it came to a point where I smoked almost 20 cigarettes a day. It would take me close to two hours to shower and get rid of the smells before I could return home to my children. Also read: Priyanka Chopra meets Jacqueline Fernandez in New York, showers her with tonnes of love. See pics Shahid has shot for the film in Delhi, Mumbai and Mussoorie. It has been directed by Sandeep Vanga, who also directed the Telugu original. The film stars Kiara Advani as the female lead which was played by Shalini Pandey in the Telugu version. Follow @htshowbiz for more Actor Priyanka Chopra is currently in New York meeting friends and attending work meetings. The actor, who recently made headlines for meeting Hollywood actor Mindy Kaling in the Big Apple, met Bollywood actor Jacqueline Fernandez on her US visit. And the pictures are proof, the two had a lot of fun. Jacqueline shared a picture with Priyanka in her Instagram stories with the caption, New York with Queen P! The latter also shared the same picture along with her reply, So good to c u love. So much fun! While Priyanka is seen dressed in a blue jumpsuit, Jacqueline is in a black and white short dress. The actor also shared a picture from her time with her friends baby Shireen Shiva Rose. Priyanka Chopra with Jacqueline Fernandez and her friends baby in New York. Priyanka also cheered her sister-in-law to be Sophie Turner ahead of the arrival of the eighth season of her popular television show Game of Thrones. Good luck @sophiet you are a boss babe. And are very loved.. #jsister #gameofthrones tonight. While Sophie can be seen seated on the iron throne in all her glory, Priyankas pet Diana can be seen sitting beside her on a smaller chair as the Hand of the Queen. The show premiered in India on April 15. Priyanka has just been confirmed to feature in a Hollywood film, to be reportedly produced and directed by Mindy. According to Deadline Hollywood, the film has been billed as Crazy Rich Asians meets My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Also read: Priyanka Chopra seats Sophie Turner on iron throne, appoints pet Diana as Hand of the Queen. See pic Priyanka had confirmed the same on her Instagram account with a screenshot of a media report along with the caption, Two women with a passion for telling good stories, just got the green light to THEIR story THEIR way. So proud of this incredible partnership with @mindykaling and #dangoor! We are about to show you what it means to be modern, global, and Indian. See you at the cinema! The actor has already completed the shooting of her next Bollywood film, The Sky Is Pink. Starring Farhan Akhtar and Zaira Wasim, the film is set to release on October 11 this year. Follow @htshowbiz for more Actor Shah Rukh Khans daughter Suhana Khan may be years away from making her Bollywood debut but she sure enjoys star status. Every time the star kid is seen in a new photo, it goes viral within minutes. As a new photo featuring Suhana with a friend on social media emerged on Sunday and it was soon being shared widely. Suhana is seen wearing an off-shoulder top in the photo with her hair left open. The photo simply says, Sunday. While Suhana has made her acting aspirations clear, her actor father has said that she has to first finish her education. I am a big believer in education, so they (his kids) have to finish studying first The minimum requirement is to graduate, he had said earlier. Suhana is pursuing her education in London in a private boarding school. She shuttled between the UK and her home in Mumbai where she is seen with her best friends, Student of the Year 2 actor Ananya Panday and actor Sanjay Kapoors daughter Shanaya. She also spoke about moving away from home at 16 and said, Moving away at age 16 was the best decision of my life. Living in a different environment and meeting so many new people helped me gain a lot of confidence. Its about being able to do the little things, like walk on the street or take the trainstuff that was so hard to do in Mumbai. But living away also made me appreciate home so much more. The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has filed a FIR against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alleging that the latter has deceived the 4.5 crore people of the state on the issue of giving special status to Odisha. This BJD tactic has raised some questions. Its true that the BJP had promised to grant special status to Odisha in its manifesto for the 2014 Vidhan Sabha elections. But if criminal cases are filed on the basis of manifestos, then many of the prominent leaders of major political parties will be in jail. Has Naveen Patnaik himself been able to fulfil all the promises he made during the last four elections? If Naveen Patnaik was so unhappy with the BJP, then why did his party MPs stage a walk-out when there was a no-confidence motion against the present government in the Lok Sabha? Not only this, earlier too, in nominating the Rajya Sabha deputy speaker and the president, the BJD was supported the BJP. Doesnt this policy of changing colours according to convenience amount to fooling voters? If you look at the history of coalition politics, you cannot anticipate when old and strong friends turn into enemies or when an old enmity mysteriously transforms into friendship! Andhra Pradesh neighbours Odisha. Chandrababu Naidu is the chief minister in Andhra Pradesh. In 2014, his Telegu Desam Party (TDP) contested the Lok Sabha elections in alliance with the BJP. By winning 18 out of 25 seats, this alliance had proved that the people had accepted it. About a year ago, Naidu was considered close to the BJP. He had even invited the prime minister to lay the foundation stone for Andhras new capital Amaravati. The TDP supported the BJP in the election of the president and the Vice President. But on March 17, 2018, he also broke away from the NDA on the issue of granting special status to the state. Naidu has alleged that he visited New Delhi 29 times to convince the central government on this issue but the Centre did not pay attention. Last November, Chandrababu Naidu contested the Telangana assembly elections in alliance with the Congress and both parties lost. Now the Congress and TDP are fighting the Lok Sabha elections separately. The present leaders of the BJD and Telugu Desam are the heirs to political history. But even the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) which has revolutionary roots has not been left untouched by this. Praful Kumar Mahanta had contested the last Assam assembly election in coalition with the BJP. He was an ally in the NDA too. But in January he walked out of the alliance protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Bill. It seemed as if Prafuls old aggressive attitude was returning, but this was not so. As Lok Sabha elections drew nearer, the BJP high command wooed him and he became an NDAs ally again. While breaking or making a coalition, why do our regional leaders forget that they have some responsibility towards the voters too? Like the AGP, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) also came to power in Delhi with the promise of alternative politics. At that time, the Modi wave had swept the country and Kejriwals victory came like a breath of fresh air to those who favoured a new brand of politics. But after four years, this euphoria is fading. Of course, the AAP has done some public welfare work in Delhi but its political thought has now become like any other regional political party. It is now talking of an alliance with the Congress, the very party opposing which Kejriwal built his political career on. Doesnt this prove that this alternative politics is also shallow and meaningless? The second question arisesdoes our democracy not allow ideals to survive and mature? One thing is certain, Indian political leaders have undermined political standards. Today, whether it is the NDA or the UPA, many of their allies periodically raise the banner of revolt against them. These coalitions built with the bricks of personal ambition and political self-interest are fragile and cannot fulfil their responsibilities towards the common man. This is the reason why the practice of using NOTA is gradually increasing. Four months ago, elections in Madhya Pradesh had opened the eyes of political parties. Here, 5.42 lakh out of 5.05 crore voters had used the NOTA option. Had these many votes been cast in favour of the BJPs Shivraj Singh Chouhan , he would have become chief minister for the fourth time. And had the Congress got these votes, it would definitely have won an absolute majority, because the difference between defeat and victory was less than 5,000 votes in 44 seats. Dont you think that this democratic resistance of people against existing political parties, leaders and coalitions is getting stronger? If this continues in the Lok Sabha elections as well, then the results could well be shocking. Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, Hindustan The views expressed are personal Deterrence theorists have long underscored that a deterrents credibility is in the eye of the beholder namely, is the target of deterrence (the potential aggressor) sufficiently convinced that the other side has both the capability and the will to act so as to make aggression not worth the risk? Whether a foe is deterred is thus a function of its understanding of the deterrers strengths and intentions. Pakistan has waged a protracted proxy war by terror against the much stronger India since the 1980s because it has repeatedly tested the will of successive Indian governments and found it wanting. No prime minister after Indira Gandhi has been willing to impose sufficient costs on Pakistan to dissuade it from continuing to inflict upon India death by a thousand cuts. The February 26 Balakot airstrike was a potential game changer. It revived bitter Pakistani memories of the 2011 US raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Even before India said a word, Pakistan admitted Indian warplanes struck at Balakot without being interdicted or challenged. That India struck a target in the Pakistani heartland with impunity was momentous. The extent of damage or the death toll was immaterial. However, boastful toll-related claims, starting with the foreign secretarys statement that a very large number of terrorists were eliminated, generated partisan controversy that undercut the chilling message that the Indian Air Force (IAF) delivered to Pakistans terror masters the military generals. Worse still, India has allowed a defining moment to slip away by failing to hit back after Pakistans aerial blitz. Pakistans military regards its terrorist surrogates as de facto special operations forces, employing them cost effectively as a force multiplier against India. So, Indias contention that it struck a non-military target at Balakot did not wash with the Pakistani generals, who responded barely 30 hours later with a daring, daytime aerial onslaught, in which India lost a MiG-21 and, in perhaps friendly fire, a Mi-17 helicopter. The F-16 downing issue has not only detracted from Balakots main message but also obscured the absence of Indian retribution for the Pakistani blitz. The IAF is sure it shot down a Pakistani F-16. Yet, remarkably, a short, sketchy April 4 US news report, which quoted anonymous sources to claim a US inventory probe found none of Pakistans F-16s missing, attracted front-page Indian press coverage and was quickly seized upon by Prime Minister Narendra Modis critics at home and abroad until the Pentagon said we werent aware of any investigation like that. The intruding Pakistani warplanes brazenly tried to bomb Indian military sites. Although no significant damage was caused, according to the Indian military, Pakistans transborder targeting of army formations opened a long-sought opportunity for the Indian armed forces to wreak massive punishment. Underscoring this opportunity is the fact that a near-bankrupt Pakistan cannot afford a military conflict. Indeed, such is Pakistans vulnerability to a punitive attack that, as this newspaper reported, only one Pakistani submarine currently is operational that too partially. Yet, Indias political leadership held back the armed forces from retaliating. New Delhi chose to defer to Washingtons assurances on Pakistan. Consequently, it was US President Donald Trump who signalled de-escalation, saying the tensions were going to be coming to an end. Hours after Trumps announcement, an overcautious India finally allowed its armed forces to brief the media. But by then, parts of Pakistani propaganda had already taken hold internationally. Modi has oddly relied on the ministry of external affairs (MEA) to issue statements about a military crisis. Naturally, MEA has been out of its depth in that role, as was illustrated during the Doklam crisis, when India had no answer to Chinas full-throttle information warfare. In the Balakot saga, MEAs tardy, unforthcoming briefings ceded perception management to a mendacious Pakistani military, whose claim of downing two Indian warplanes dominated international news for days. Indeed, MEAs February 26 statement inexcusably failed to identify where Balakot is located. This led the international media to wrongly assume it is in Pakistan-held Kashmir and to spotlight the Kashmir dispute. Despite Modi letting go the opportunity to wreak vengeance on Pakistan, the threshold-breaching Balakot strike after years of Indian inaction has helped sharpen his image as a strong leader at election time. Pakistan, however, still fears Indian reprisals to its blitz, which explains why its airspace remains closed to most commercial overflights. It has reopened just one of its 11 airways for flights between Asia and Europe that too a marginal route through Balochistan to Iran. Meanwhile, international pressure on Pakistan to take concrete, verifiable actions to root out terrorist groups is gradually easing. The US lists North Korea, Iran, Sudan and Syria as state sponsors of terrorism but not the main sponsors Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Its latest action in designating Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as terrorist but not the biggest terror-exporting force Pakistans military highlights the increasing politicisation of the war on terror. India, alas, has yet to build a reputation for resolve, which, as the social scientist and Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling wrote, is a prerequisite for deterrence. All the weapons India is frenetically importing can offer no effective deterrence in the absence of political will. India failed to capitalise on the Balakot strike to compel the Pakistani generals to start cleaning up their terror act. Far from imposing deterrent costs to prevent further terrorist attacks, India reinforced the Pakistani generals belief that its bark is worse than its bite. This is why the present lull is likely to prove only an interlude. Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist The views expressed are personal Authorities in Delhi are planning to use drones to check illegal dumping of waste and sources of pollution in drains which run through industrial areas of the national Capital. The plan is to deploy drones in two industrial areas of Delhi on a pilot basis. Officials said if the results are encouraging then all industrial areas of the city would be monitored with drones in the future. We are exploring the feasibility to deploy drones over industrial areas. Preliminary discussions have been held with at least four to five agencies for this, which have made presentations, a senior official of the Delhi Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (DSIIDC), who did not wish to be named, said. The issue was also discussed in a meeting held in March between the two-member National Green Tribunal (NGT)-appointed Yamuna pollution monitoring committee, the DSIIDC, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). The Delhi Police said that even though the use of drones is prohibited, they would examine the proposal if a government agency wanted to use them for official purposes. Under Section 144 of the CrPC, drones are not allowed for hobbies. However if a government agency wants to use drones for some other purpose, we would have to examine the proposal. We have not received any such proposal yet from the DSIIDC, Madhur Verma, Delhi Polices deputy commissioner and spokesperson, said. The issue of dumping industrial waste, which is often hazardous, illegally in drains running through industrial zones of the national Capital becomes all the more important as these toxic substances ultimately reach the river Yamuna. While on one hand, the drones could come handy in detecting illegal dumping of waste, we are more concerned with the pollution in drains as these drains empty into the Yamuna. As drones have not been deployed in the country, especially to detect industrial pollution, we are examining the feasibility, the DSIIDC official said. There are 33 industrial clusters in Delhi, of which at least three do not use water and hence do not trigger any water pollution. The rest 30 industrial estates are clubbed into 28 industrial clusters and need to be monitored for water pollution. Out of these 29 clusters, only 17 are connected to Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs). Joint teams, comprising DSIIDC and DPCC officials, have inspected at least 13,000 industrial units in 12 clusters till March 25. Out of these, around 1,130 were found to be causing water pollution. The polluting units are being imposed with environment compensation of at least 50,000. The survey of the remaining five clusters would be completed by May, said a DPCC official, involved in the survey. Both air and water pollution being triggered from industrial areas in Delhi has become a major concern. In October, 2018, NASA satellites had detected red dots in some industrial areas of the NCR, including Narela and Bawana, which indicated open burning of industrial waste. HT had earlier reported that at least nine out of the 11 CETPs in Delhi were working below permissible standards. Delhis deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Sunday said the state government will initiate an inquiry against its own officials who allegedly by-passed the environment minister and enabled concerned authorities to conduct a sealing drive at west Delhis Mayapuri industrial area on Saturday, which left 14 persons injured. He said officials found guilty could even face suspension. We (AAP government) shall initiate an inquiry against Delhi government officials who by-passed the environment minister (Imran Hussain) and helped other agencies such as the municipal corporation of Delhi for the sealing drive, ordered by the National Green Tribunal (NGT), Sisodia told media persons. How could they (the officials) do so without the ministers approval? Those found guilty will face suspension, he said. The BJP;s Pravesh Verma, the MP from west Delhi, however, said the municipal corporations were not involved. The entire process was started by the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), which is under the Delhi government, said Verma at a separate press briefing on Sunday, where the mayor of the South MCD was also present. Mayapuri falls under the SDMCs jurisdiction. The allegation is baseless. In the last interim order, the NGT had not said anything about allocation of land for relocation of the scrap industry, said a senior official of DDA, who did not wish to be identified. The official further said, Only the chief secretary of Delhi and the DPCC can take calls on the matter in adherence to NGT orders. If they ask for land, we will follow procedures to allot land. I am not aware of any request pertaining to allocation of land for this purpose received from the Delhi government. Delhi BJP chief, however, Manoj Tiwari called the incident pre-scripted. When the court has already granted time to submit a report by May 3, why was there a need to take direct action on April 13? It clearly shows that the intentions of (Delhi chief minister) Arvind Kejriwal are not good. The subdivisional magistrate (SDM) executing the sealing was pressurised into it. We have learnt that he was told if he did not comply, he would have to resign, Tiwari said. SDM Ritesh Junaija, did not respond to repeated calls and texts till this report was filed. The Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board (KSEEB) on Monday declared the results of pre-university (PUC) exams. Students can check the PUC 2nd Year Results 2019 at the official websites. Students who appeared for the 2nd PUC exams can check their results on the official websites karresults.nic.in, kseeb.kar.nic.in and pue.kar.nic.in. The examination was held between March 1 and 18, 2019. Here is the direct link to check KSEEB board 2nd PUC results 2019 A total of 6.71 lakh students appeared in the exam this year, out of which 4.14 lakh passed. The pass percentage is 61.73%. The pass percentage in Arts was 50.53% in Commerce it was 66.39% and in science the pass percentage was 66.58%. The pass percentage for boys was 55.29% and for girls it was 68.24%. The pass percentage in urban area was 61.38% and in rural area it was 62.88%. The pass percentage for SC community candidates was 51.97% for ST it was 53.34% and for General category candidates it was 68.01. The medium wise pass percentagewas was 55.08% for Kannada and 66.90% for English. Udupi district had the highest pass percentage of 92.20%, while Chitradurga had the lowest pass percentage of 51.42%. Karnataka 2nd PUC result 2019: How to check Visit the official website of Department of Pre-University Education, Karnataka at pue.kar.nic.in Click on the link for results on the top Nav bar Click on the link for PUC results announced on 15/04/2019 Key in your registration number and submit Your results will be displayed on the screen Take a printout and save it on your computer for future reference Visit the Department of Pre-University Education, Karnataka for latest news and updates. (With inputs from Vikram Gopal in Bangalore) The Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board (KSEEB) on Monday declared the results of pre-University (PUC) exams. Students can check the PUC 2nd Year Results 2019 at the official websites. Students who appeared for the Karnataka 2nd PUC exams can check their results on the official websites karresults.nic.in, kseeb.kar.nic.in and pue.kar.nic.in. Here is the direct link to check Karnataka PUC results 2019 The Karnataka 2nd PUC exam was held between March 1 and 18, 2019. A total of 6.71 lakh students appeared in the exam this year, out of which 4.14 lakh passed. The pass percentage is 61.73%. The pass percentage in Arts was 50.53% in Commerce it was 66.39% and in science the pass percentage was 66.58%. The pass percentage for boys was 55.29% and for girls it was 68.24%. The pass percentage in urban area was 61.38% and in rural area it was 62.88%. The pass percentage for SC community candidates was 51.97% for ST it was 53.34% and for General category candidates it was 68.01. The medium wise pass percentagewas was 55.08% for Kannada and 66.90% for English. Udupi district had the highest pass percentage of 92.20%, while Chitradurga had the lowest pass percentage of 51.42%. Students need to secure 35 per cent marks to clear the PUC exam. Candidates will need to score a minimum of 70 marks in the language papers and 30 marks each in individual subjects for a total of 210 out of 600 marks to be declared pass. Steps to check Karnataka 2nd PUC result 2019 The results will be uploaded on the website karresults.nic.in How to check Karnataka PUC result 2019: Visit the official website of Karnataka PUC result at karresults.nic.in Click on the link that reads Karnataka 2019 PUC result. Key in your login credentials Click on submit. Your result will be displayed on screen Download and take its print out for future reference. (With inputs from Vikram Gopal in Bangalore) SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Skirt suits are making a comeback and how. This iconic and chic outfit was seen during the 80s and 90s a number of times on Princess Diana and it made quite the trend at that time. The outfit again made headlines when it was worn in the movie Clueless by the character of Cher. In the recent times, skirt suits have emerged as the ultimate girl boss outfit and have been seen time and again on global icons like Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey and the female members of the royal family. Bollywood actors also seem to pick up this trend as Priyanka Chopra and Sonam Kapoor were seen in their own rendition of this timeless outfit. Priyanka Chopra wore a tweed grey skirt suit with an asymmetrical neckline during an outing across New York City. She wore the outfit with clear PVC heels with metal embellishes and carried a metallic Fendi handbag. The Isnt It Romantic star completed her look with black miniature sunglasses and a pair of Chopard earrings. Priyanka Chopra has worn this outfit on a number of occasions and here are some looks you can definitely steal from the desi girls wardrobe. Sonam Kapoor recently attended an event in Delhi in a white skirt and shirt combination sans a jacket. However, she has been seen in a number of skirt suits over the past months. She definitely likes to experiment with classic pieces and hence has been seen in offbeat styles of this outfit, especially with long skirts. Janhvi Kapoor also appeared in a co-ord outfit resembling a skirt suit when she styled a plaid skirt and jacket with a white crop top. The young actor seemed to have taken inspiration from supermodel Bella Hadid who loves to wear skirt suits. Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter A local BJP leader was shot dead by unidentified men outside the partys office in Khurda late on Sunday night, a day ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to the eastern state for an election rally. This is the second instance of poll violence in the state ahead of the Lok Sabha election 2019 in less than three weeks. An Independent candidate, about to join the ruling BJD, was hacked to death in Odishas Keonjhar district by unknown men on March 26. Police said the murder of the BJPs Khurda mandal president Manguli Jena was linked to him edging out a fellow villager and a BJD leader over the leasing of a village pond recently. The Biju Janata Dal leader was sore with losing his income from the pond after Jena took over, they said. Jena was talking to Kalu Khandayatray, the Bharatiya Janata Partys candidate for Khurda assembly seat, at 11.45pm on Sunday when two men in a scooter pulled up at the party office in Nabeenabag. One of the miscreants pulled out his gun and fired three rounds, two of which hit Jena. He died on the spot, inspector general (central range) Soumendra Priyadarshi said. They were wearing helmets and could not be identified immediately. Khandayatray said the attack was over in less than 15 seconds. He (Jena) and I were discussing about campaigning when two people riding a scoot came and shot two rounds of bullets at him and also opened fire another round of bullet at me. I still cant believe that Jena is no more with us, said Khandayatray. The BJP immediately called a shutdown of Khurda after the incident and party leader Sudipta Ray sat before the local police station demanding the arrest of the accused. Police said a special team has been formed to nab the accused. The murder has come a day before Prime Minister Modis visit to state capital Bhubaneswar for a public meeting and a roadshow. Condemning the incident, Union petroleum and natural gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan said there is no place for violence in a democracy as it is battle of ballots not bullets. I urge party leaders and workers to have faith in democracy and keep peace at this time, Pradhan tweeted. In a separate incident, violence erupted in Bolangir district late Saturday night as a BJD worker sustained critical injuries after being allegedly attacked by Congress activists. Some Congress workers allegedly barged into the BJDs office at Chandanbhati village under Sadar Police Station in the district and attacked Prafulla Meher. Meher, who reportedly sustained grievous injuries in the attack, has been admitted to the Bolangir District Headquarters Hospital. BJP MLA candidate from Bolangir assembly constituency Ananta Das along with his supporters surrounded the office of the district superintendent of police demanding the immediate arrest of those involved in the attack. Odisha is simultaneously polling for the Lok Sabha and assembly elections in four phases. The votes will be counted on May 23. A recent civil aviation audit ordered by the government has revealed that the limits for some aircraft performance parameters were modified by operators in order to reduce the number of reported violations and improve safety records, according to Union minister Suresh Prabhu. The Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) installed in aircraft is used to gather statistics from a host of sensors that help in monitoring and reviewing flights. Airline operators have to mandatorily report the breach of safety limits to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), which also reviews the DFDR records of commercial airlines on an annual basis. According to the special audit of airlines and airports conducted between September and December last year some DFDR parameter limits in aircraft were found to be set at values that were inflated or lower than manufacturer settings in order to avoid red flags. While Prabhu did not elaborate on the nature of values that were tweaked, experts said airlines are known to have changed criteria that determine hard landings and stabilised approach in flights. Maintaining a stable speed, descent rate and glide path before landing is commonly referred to as stabilised approach. DGCA mandates that any significant deviation should be announced by the operators. In the Air India Express crash in Mangalore, it was noticed that hard landing criteria set by Boeing was changed by the airline. Ideally, the minimum criteria set by manufacturer should not be changed, but airlines do that to keep the number of cases of violation low. Airlines can change the rate of descend, change in stabilised approach, speed limit, and many other things, said Captain Mohan Ranganathan, an aviation safety expert. The Air India Express jet crashed outside Karnatakas Mangalore airport in 2010, killing 158 people. In its report on the incident, the DGCA said the aircraft was involved in a hard landing in the preceding 12 months. Air India did not respond to repeated phone calls. Another violation that the airport operators are known to avoid by changing DFDR values is runway friction. Exceeding limit can potentially lead to jets skidding on runways, according to experts. If the runway friction value is low, then it is unsafe to operate during monsoon, he said. In response to an email query by Hindustan Times, the civil aviation minister said most of the issues raised in the audit and flagged to operators have been addressed since the report was prepared. Most of the significant findings made during the audit have been closed. These areas are also regularly monitored by DGCA through surveillance inspections and regulatory audits as per the annual surveillance plan to keep the aircraft operations safe, Prabhu said. He added that DGCA carries out regulatory audits and surveillance inspections of various operations scheduled airlines, non-scheduled operators, aerodromes and flying training institutes under its annual review. In September, additional special audits were ordered in the main areas like scheduled airlines, aerodrome operator, maintenance organisations and flying training institutes. Special audit of 11 scheduled airlines, 10 aerodromes, 11 approved maintenance organisation and 15 flying training organisations was carried out during the period September to December 2018. The findings were communicated to the operators, the minister said. While DGCA said preventive maintenance programmes were unavailable at many aerodromes, it pointed out that adequacy of equipments/calibrated tools are not ensured for undertaking the task and inadequate manpower is available at maintenance organisations. National Conference leader Omar Abdullah and the Congress party tweeted their sorrow over the fire that ravaged the Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on Monday. Omar hoped that the fire could be put before it consumes the entire building. This blaze looks terrible. I hope they are able to put it out before it completely guts this historic building. #NotreDame #Paris https://t.co/8pqggHrdiw Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) April 15, 2019 The Congress party in its tweet said it hoped there were no casualties. Heart-breaking news of the fire at the iconic Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. We hope there are no casualties & the Holy Cathedral can be salvaged. https://t.co/A3jHwfEuDl Congress (@INCIndia) April 15, 2019 Flames that began in the early evening burst through the roof of the centuries-old cathedral and engulfed the spire, which collapsed, quickly followed by the entire roof. A huge plume of smoke wafted across the city and ash fell over a large area. Parisians watched on, many of them lost for words. Firefighters tried to contain the blaze with water hoses and cleared the area around Notre-Dame, which sits on an island in the River Seine and marks the very centre of Paris (With inputs from Reuters) China on Monday said the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) does not involve territorial disputes and is transparent, dismissing New Delhis concerns that a part of the connectivity project violates Indias sovereignty as it passes through Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK). India is likely to be a high-profile absentee at the upcoming Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which Beijing has touted to be the biggest event of the year for China. India has consistently kept away from BRI a project to connect China with Asia and Europe because the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is a part of it, passes through PoK. The BRI does not respect Indias concerns of sovereignty and territorial integrity, the Indian envoy to China, Vikram Mistri, told Chinese state media last month. As for the Indian comments on not participating in the BRI for various reasons, Id like to say that the BRI is an open and inclusive economic cooperation initiative. It does not involve territorial and maritime disputes, said Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang at the regular briefing on Monday. Lu was answering a question on Indias participation in the forum. Whether the Indian side will participate in the Belt and Road Forum, I think you need to ask the Indian side for a more specific answer. But here Id like to re-emphasise that the BRI is proposed by China but it is already an international public good, Lu said. The belt and road cooperation since it was first proposed has been an open and inclusive initiative for all countries and organisations interested in this. But of course, if the relevant side would like to wait and see, we do not oppose that. And as for more international organisations in the second BRF meaning that some countries will lose opportunities, you may need to ask the countries themselves which do not participate in the BRF, Lu said. The opposition Congress in Kerala Sunday attacked the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Sabarimala issue, saying people would not tolerate the drama being played by the saffron party in the name of Lord Ayyappa and that the devotees have been cheated. Hitting out at Modi and the BJP, AICC General Secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal alleged that the party had cheated the devotees and are sincere to Sabarimala only when it comes to election and voting. The senior Congress leader alleged that the Centre and the state were hand-in-glove for having worsened the Sabarimala issue. Why is the Prime Minister playing a drama over Sabarimala? I had brought up the matter in Parliament on January 4. I had sought legislative intervention to protect the rights of the believers. Has the Prime Minister or his minister ever uttered a single word on the issue in Parliament?, Venugopal asked. Recalling that the NDA had brought forward an ordinance to validate the lapsed Bill on Triple Talaq, he sought to know why the same enthusiasm was lacking in the case of Sabarimala. An ordinance would have been enough. The Centre could have intervened in the name of faith. But they didnt. Modi said his party and government will approach the Supreme Court, explaining the traditions of Sabarimala. They couldve have done this long ago. But they didnt. People will tolerate all kinds of drama, but using the name of Swami Ayyappa for election drama is beyond limits, Venugopal said at a meet the press programme here. The Congress has officially asked in Parliament for legislative intervention on the Sabarimala matter, he said. Attacking the Left government in the state, he said it could have sought time to implement the Supreme Court verdict, but did not do so. The RSS/sangh parivar tried to disrupt the peace an tranquillity at the hilltop shrine. Sincere devotees were denied their right to pray. Both the state and the centre governments were hand-in-glove in making the situation worsen. Both the governments were responsible for worsening the Sabarimala issue, Venugopal alleged. Venugopal said the AICC decision to appoint a special observer in Thiruvananthapuram was to monitor the poll activities in the major constituencies. Senior leader Nana Patole has been appointed as observer in Thiruvananthapuram constituency, where the high profile candidate Shashi Tharoor is contesting for the party. Referring to certain media reports that Tharoor had complained to AICC about local level leaders not campaigning for him in the constituency, Venugopal said Those were just rumours. Tharoor has never given any complaint. The whole country knows the Parliamentary intervention of Tharoor. Who else is there to compete with the stature of Tharoor in Thiruvananthapuram ?, Venugopal asked. The observers were appointed as the BJP was using all its machinery to fight this poll. Referring to a purported video clipping of two SPG men carrying two big boxes into a car which was not part of the Prime Ministers convoy at Chitradurga in Karnataka, which had gone viral, Venugopal said the party had complained to the Election Commission. So the BJP thinks they can capture the seat from us. We decided to fight back and appointed observers, he said. Venugopal also raked up the issue of the alleged fake degreeof union Minister Smriti Irani, who is contesting against Congress chief Rahul Gandhi in Amethi, and said she had given four different statements in four elections. In 2004, she says she passed BA.In 2009, it became B.Com from Delhi university. Another one in 2014. Now, in 2019 she says she has not passed B.Com. What credibility does that candidate have ?, Venugopal asked. Those who allege that Rahul Gandhi ran away from Amethi have fielded someone with a fake degree. Four times, four statements. What credibility does she have? You are giving the affidavit on your own educational qualification, Venugopal said. The Union government plans to offer cash incentives or discounts to consumers who seek bills for purchases of goods and services from dealers, as part of attempts to expand the Goods and Services Tax (GST) base and increase compliance, according to two officials familiar with the matter. Better compliance, leading to enhanced collections, is being seen as the way forward for the indirect tax regime that was introduced in July 2017, and the proposed move is in line with that, the officials added. No major policy announcement is expected immediately due to the ongoing general elections. But the GST-related proposals are being processed in advance so that the new government can take a view expeditiously after the counting of votes on May 23. One of the officials cited above said that under the proposed move, consumers may be offered discounts amounting to a certain percentage of the total value of the invoice. This will give consumers an incentive to ask for bills. The quantum of incentives is yet to be determined, said the official who asked not to be named. The second official said that the discounts may also be offered upfront or get credited into the accounts of the consumers if the payments are made through digital modes, including debit and credit cards. This will also encourage digital payments, and have a ripple effect on business units outside the GST net, he added. The government has been promoting digital payments after banning high-value currency notes in November 2016 as part of efforts to curb black economy. The Union finance ministry and the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) did not respond to an email with queries about the proposed incentives. This will lead to a further formalisation of the unorganised sectors as they will need to report their purchases also in order to make a taxable sale invoice, said MS Mani, partner at professional services firm Deloitte India. In addition to an incentive/discount for invoice documented sales, tax authorities could also explore fixing a low threshold beyond which cash sales cannot be made, he added. Pratik Jain, partner and leader, indirect tax, PwC India, said the proposed move is in the right direction. Cases of tax evasion are rampant, particularly in the B2C [business-to-consumer] segment. Incentives to consumers help in better compliance. The room for increasing taxes on goods and services are limited and enhanced tax targets can be met only through enhanced consumer awareness and incentives to pay tax, he said. The GST collection target for 2019-20 is about 20% higher than about ~11.7 lakh crore collected in the last financial year. The GST collection for March 2019 was a record ~1,06,577 crore. It marked a 15.6% jump over ~92,167 crore collected in March 2018 mainly because of better compliance and widening of tax net even as the government slashed rates on several items. The monthly average of GST revenue during 2018-19 is ~98,114 crore 9.2% higher than 2017-18. These figures indicate that the revenue growth has been picking up in recent months, despite various rate rationalization measures, the Union finance ministry said in a statement on April 1. The finance ministry data also shows that the GST net has been widening gradually. The number of returns filed up to March 31 for the previous month has been 75.95 lakh, 3.36% up from 73.48 lakh until February 28. In March, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley told an industry delegation that the thrust of the government was to lower the rate and increase the tax base and keep the revenue collections moving up. India Ratings & Research chief economist Devendra Kumar Pant said despite monthly fluctuations, GST collections since August 2018 had been gradually increasing. A higher GST collection would reduce pressure on the central government emanating from compensation paid to states for any revenue loss. Any surplus in the compensation cess account would be a bonus, both for the central and state governments, he said. The industry has demanded that the GST regime be made simpler and efficient. Bimal Jain, chairman, indirect taxes committee, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said on the export front, the process for refund disbursement has smoothened, but on input tax credit front lot more needs to be done. Speaking at a GST conclave on Friday, he proposed a simple and hassle-free two-page GST form so that trade and businessmen are able to fill in the respective information with ease and it also becomes convenient for the bureaucracy to assess the details filled in the forms with equal ease. The BJPs Jaya Prada on Monday made a sharp comeback after her former colleague and Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan made a derogatory comment against her during an election rally. The veteran SP leader had stoked a controversy with an underwear jibe against Jaya Prada, who is fighting the Lok Sabha election 2019 from Uttar Pradeshs Rampur parliamentary constituency against him. I brought her (Jaya Prada) to Rampur. You are a witness that I did not allow anyone to touch her body. It took you 17 years to identify her real face but I got to know in 17 days that she wears khaki underwear, Khan had said while addressing a campaign rally in Rampur on Sunday. The leader, known for his contoversial comments in the past, was referring to the colour associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJPs ideological mentor. Khan, however, asserted that he did not name anyone and said would withdraw his candidature from the ongoing election if proven guilty. The senior leader also accused the media of misinterpreting his comments. Actor-turned-politician Jaya Prada said Khan should not be allowed to contest the election. Also read: Azam Khans offensive remark against Jaya Prada sparks outrage, FIR filed It isnt new for me. You might remember that I was a candidate from his party in 2009 when no one supported me after he made comments against me. Im a woman and I cant even repeat what he said. I dont know what I did to him that he is saying such things, Jaya Prada was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. He shouldnt be allowed to contest elections. Because if this man wins, what will happen to democracy? Therell be no place for women in society. Where will we go? Should I die, then youll be satisfied? Do you think Ill get scared and leave Rampur? But I wont leave, she said. The Bharatiya Janata Party has demanded that the Election Commission should take cognisance of Khans disgraceful and offensive comments against Jayaprada, who was twice elected MP from Rampur on Samajwadi Party ticket. Senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj also sought SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadavs response on Khans comment against Jaya Prada. Sushma Swaraj referred to the scene from the epic Mahabharata in which Draupadi is disrobed by Kaurava prince Duryodhana after the Pandavas lost a bet to their usurping cousins as she appealed to Mulayam to speak up. Mulayam Bhai - You are the father figure of Samajwadi Party. In front of you, Draupadi is being disrobed in Rampur. Do not make the mistake of being silent like Bhishma@yadavakhilesh Smt. Jaya Bhaduri, Mrs.Dimple Yadav, she tweeted in Hindi. The National Commission for Women (NCW) has taken cognisance of Khans offensive and derogatory remarks and decided to send a show-cause notice to him. Absolutely disgraceful ... we will request election commission to bar him from contesting elections, the commissions chairperson Rekha Sharma tweeted. Rampur goes to polls on April 23 along with 115 constituencies across 15 states in the third phase of the elections. Eight seats in the politically-crucial state of Uttar Pradesh went to polls in the first phase on April 11. The final phase of voting will take place on May 19 and votes will be counted on May 23. Also read | NCW issues notice to Azam Khan over his remarks against Jaya Prada The villages sewer replacement along Campbell Street is intended to alleviate flooding in front of Metropolis and area businesses on the first floor of his building. Hes lived in the village for five years and also suggested to officials they consider flashing stop signs to make the village more pedestrian- and bike-friendly.I just dont know why theyre doing it all at the same time but its going to be interesting to see how sidewalks and traffic patterns work, said Gregory. Bhopal Madhya Pradeshs Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on Sunday registered a First Information Report (FIR) against former Makhan Lal University of Journalism and Mass Communications vice-chancellor (V-C), B K Kuthiala, and 19 others for alleged administrative and financial irregularities. Kuthiala was the V-C of the Bhopal-based varsity from 2010 to 2018. The charges against him relate to appointments and expenditure in violation of rules. An EOW press release referred to charges mentioned in the FIR and said they also related to university funds spent on certain institutes affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliate, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). The FIR is based on a report submitted by a committee, which was constituted by the state government to look into the charges of irregularities at the university. Now, the investigation will go on to collect the evidence. Arrests will be made subject to the outcome of the investigation, said EOW director general KN Tiwari. Kuthiala could not be reached for his comments. He did not take calls and respond to text messages. The press release said Kuthiala released 21 lakh rupees to various organisations, including ABVP, and thus caused a loss to the varsity. RSSs regional publicity in-charge, Narendra Jain, refused to comment on the charges and the FIR. ABVP national executive member, Bunty Chauhan, accused Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath of vendetta. Separately, the EOW on Sunday arrested an officer of Madhya Pradesh State Economic Development Corporation in connection with the alleged 3,000 crore e-tendering scam. Nandkumar Brahme is the first government official to be arrested in connection with the scam The BJP in Goa has approached the Election Commission seeking action against a Catholic priest, who reportedly said former chief minister Manohar Parrikars cancer was a punishment from god as he ignored complaints against coal pollution in a town in the coastal state. Manohar Parrikar died on March 17 after losing his year-long battle with pancreatic cancer. Parrikar was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer in February last year and was repeatedly admitted to hospitals in India and the US. An undated recording surfaced on social media in which Father Conceicao da Silva is purportedly heard saying that those who earn the wrath of god are always punished. Referring to the allegedly unheeded protests against coal dust at Goas port town of Vasco da Gama over the last two years, the priest said that the decision to continue coal handling led to Parrikars suffering. People protested, held meetings, but Parrikar did not pay heed. His pockets were filled. Therefore, God gave him cancer. He died in suffering. Pancreatic cancer is the worst cancer. He troubled a lot of people, da Silva is heard saying. In a communication to the poll body, the Bharatiya Janata Partys Panaji block general secretary Vishnu Naik said that da Silva was creating an atmosphere of hate and fear against a particular political party and a specific religion. This matter needs a thorough investigation and the said priest must be booked for spreading hate and destabilising religious harmony, Naik said in the complaint. Secretary to the archbishop Fr Joaquim Loiola Pereira said that the archbishops office knew about the issue. I am aware of the video and the people at the Bishops House have been informed about it. We have ceased pursuing the matter, Fr Loiola Pereira said. The church in Goa earlier this month asked voters, especially Catholics, in a letter to vote for the government that will preserve constitutional values, importantly secularism and democracy, warning that the future of our nation hangs on every vote. A former student of Allahabad University who was also a history-sheeter, was shot dead in a hostel of the university in the early hours of Monday, police said. The deceased identified as Rohit Shukla was shot dead in the PCB hostel after a tiff with one Adarsh Tripathi who had contested the students union elections earlier. Earlier his month, Shukla had been named in a list of illegal inmates of the hostel. Authorities deployed heavy police force to prevent any retaliatory violence. An FIR has been lodged against Adarsh and some others and a hunt has been launched for the accused, police said. The motive for the murder of Rohit Shukla could not be ascertained immediately. An FIR had been lodged against Adarsh Tripathi, Abhishek Yadav, Navneet Yadav and other unidentified persons on the complaint of Rohits family, said superintendent of police (city) Brajesh Kumar Srivastava. Adarsh and Abhishek are boarders of PCB hostel. Primary investigations reveal that Rohit often used to visit the hostel. Teams have been formed to ensure the early arrest of the accused. Heavy force has been deployed near the university to avert any untoward incident, Srivastava said. A police officer familiar with the developments said Rohit and his associates reached PCB hostel at around 2 am to meet someone when he had a tiff with Adarsh and his aides over some issue. Circle officer, Colonelganj, Shreesh Chandra said, Preliminary reports suggest that Adarsh opened fire on Rohit with a country-made firearm near the lavatory after a heated argument and then fled the hostel with his friends. Rohit was rushed to SRN Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. A native of Bara Tehsil in trans-Yamuna area, Rohit was living with his family in Georgetown area. He was active in student union politics and was known among the students as Betu Shukla. People familiar with the events said Sundays murder may be related to the killing of student leader Achyutanand alias Sumit Shukla who was gunned down at the same hostel in November 2018. Rohit was close to Achyutanand and was also a witness in the latters murder case. Rohit was close to Achyutanand and we are looking into the possibilities of a connection between both the murders, the circle officer said. Chandra said around half-a-dozen cases, including that of murder, were lodged against Rohit at Colonelganj police station. A warrant was also issued against Rohit in a loot case. Some of the Rohits associates claim that he was pursuing LLB from the Allahabad University but their claims are yet to be verified, he said. On April 12, proctor RS Dubey had sent a letter to senior police officials demanding action against illegal inmates and miscreants at the PCB Hostel. The list of miscreants included the name of Rohit Shukla. This is the second incident of violence on a university campus in Uttar Pradesh this month. On April 2, Gaurav Singh, a second-year student of MCA at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU), was talking to his friends when unidentified men opened fire on him. Villagers in Bihar killed a leopard after it attacked and injured eight people at Telhara village in Muzaffarpur district of Patna state, here on Monday. The leopard attacked a farmer, Rajender Sahni, who suffered multiple injuries on his upper limbs and back. He was admitted to the critical care ward of the Darbhanga Medical College Hospital (DMCH) in adjoining Darbhanga district. Sahnis condition is stable, said Dr. Baleshwar Sagar, deputy medical superintendent, DMCH. The other seven injured Ganesh Sahni, Sunni Kumar, Dinesh Sahni, Amarjit Sahni, Jitan Sahni, Rajiya Devi and Putul Kumari had reportedly fled on way to DMCH, fearing police action. District forest officer Sudhir Kumar Karn said, a police complaint would be lodged against the villagers who killed the leopard. Killing a leopard is an offence under the Wildlife Protection Act. The fear of incurring the wrath of the police had prompted the villagers to abandon the village. Earlier, armed villagers chased the leopard and cornered the animal around a local pond and killed it. Later a team of forest officials took the leopards body into custody and conducted a postmortem examination. Officials believed that the leopard had strayed into the village from adjoining Singhwara block of Darbhanga district, close to the foothills of Himalayan nation Nepal, in the wee hours of Monday. Senior superintendent of police Manoj Kumar said that the incident had sparked off panic at Katra and Gaighat blocks of the district, having borders with Darbhanga. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday accused the Congress of taking help of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to defeat Trinamool Congress in Bengal. In a no-holds-barred attack on Congress candidates Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary and Abhijit Banerjee (son of former president Pranab Mukherjee), Mamata Banerjee said both of them were getting support of the RSS. Speaking at an election rally in Baharampur Lok Sabha constituency, Mamata also mentioned that Pranab Mukherjee had visited the RSS office and RSS pracharaks are working for them (Abhijit and Adhir). Chaudhary is contesting from Baharampur and Mukerjee from Jangipur. Both of them are sitting MPs. The Baharampur MP engages in a lot of tall talk. But in the morning, he is with the BJP, in the afternoon he is with the Congress and in the evening, he follows the Communist Party of India (Marixst). I want to emphasise that both he and the Congress candidate from Jangipur are getting support from the RSS, she said. Describing her comments as infantile, Chowdhury said he would not comment at all. Abhijit Mukherjee could not be reached as his phone was switched off. How can Mamata Banerjee, who paved the way for the rise of the RSS and BJP in Bengal by allying with them after setting up the TMC, comment against Abhijit and Adhir? She likes imagining many things. The heat is also searing, and she must have lost her mind, shot back Congress legislator and leader of the opposition in Bengal assembly Abdul Mannan. Mamata Banerjee also said if the TMC had not broken away from the Congress they would not have been able to uproot the Left from Bengal. We (TMC leaders) were all in Congress. If we had not quit the Congress to form TMC in 1998, the people of the state would not have become free from the misrule of the Left Front. Congress would have never launched a movement to unseat the Left, she said. The Left Front ruled Bengal for 34 years from 1977 to 2011, when, led by Mamata Banerjee, the TMC stormed to power. Veteran BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi has sought an inquiry by the Election Commission into a fake letter being circulated in his name on social media and critical of the partys leadership and Lok Sabha poll prospects. The fake letter, addressed to another party veteran L K Advani, has been in circulation for last few days. Demanding an investigation by the poll panel, Joshi has written to Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora that he has not written any such letter. My friends in media called me up and told me that since yesterday a letter addressed by me to L K Advani Ji has been circulated on social media. I have read the contents of it and I am attaching them with this letter. I have not sent any such letter to Advani Ji. Kindly, immediately look into the matter and find the source of the letter, through which it came to social media, Joshi said. Both Joshi and Adavani, who are among the founders of the party, had won last Lok Sabha elections in 2014 from Kanpur and Gandhinagar, respectively, but they have not got the party tickets to fight polls this time. Joshi, the partys third president, had said after being denied ticket from Kanpur that the BJP general secretary (organisation), Ram Lal, a Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) appointee, had conveyed him the party leaderships decision that he should not be contesting the polls. Advani, who has been replaced by the BJP president Amit Shah in the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat, said earlier this month that his party has never regarded those who disagreed with it politically as anti-nationals or enemies but only as adversaries, remarks which came at a time when top BJP leaders have used anti-national barbs against political rivals on the issue of national security. Earlier in 2015, Advani and Joshi were among some senior BJP leaders who had strongly criticised the partys leadership after the setback in the Bihar Assembly polls. National security and terrorism are the most important issues that concern India in the long run, as all other challenges are capable of early resolution, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley said. In a facebook post on Monday, the finance minister said conventional election issues related to poverty alleviation, employment generation, improving growth rates, the quality of life of Indians, provision for quality healthcare and education, besides creating a world class infrastructure, and improving the quality of rural infrastructure. While the other above mentioned issues are all capable of resolution, where does India stand on the issue of national security and terror? he asked. The issue of Jammu and Kashmir and terror remained the biggest challenge before India, he said, adding that it relates to the countrys sovereignty, integrity and security. Jaitley wrote the most important issue that confronts India in the short, medium and long term is how it handles J&K and terrorism emanating from Pakistan and from within. How can Jammu and Kashmir, the attitude of Pakistan and terrorism not be important issues in India?, he said. Three suspected Maoists and a soldier of the seventh battalion of CRPF were killed in an encounter between security personnel and the CPI (Maoists) at Bhatakta village under Bhelwa Ghati police station limits in Giridih district on Monday morning. Confirming the encounter, CRPF inspector general, Sanjay A Lathkar said while three Maoists were killed in the encounter a soldier was also martyred in the exchange of fire. Sources said that the encounter took place on Monday morning when the security forces were patrolling the area as part of anti-Maoist operations ahead of the elections. The election for the Giridih Lok Sabha seat, over 150 km north of state capital Ranchi, is scheduled for May 12. CPI (Maoists) have called for a boycott in different parts of the state over the past few days, besides resorting to minor incidents of violence. Last week, suspected Maoists blew up the forest departments under-construction building in Chaibasa. One AK 47 rifle along with 2 magazines of AK 47 rifles besides two bikes were recovered from the site. The inventory of the seized items is being prepared and the identities of the slain Maoists are being established, a police official from Giridih said. CRPF officials said that the martyred soldier was identified as Vishwajit Chauhan from Assam. The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) failed to achieve its objective when it launched a counter-attack on February 27 through the Nowshera sector in Jammu, Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa said on Monday, addressing a seminar in New Delhi organised to mark the birth centenary of Marshal of Air Force Arjan Singh. On February 26, Indian Air Force fighters struck a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) training camp in Balakot deep inside Pakistan, killing an unspecified number of terrorists. We had technology on our side, we could launch precision standoff weapons with great accuracy, Dhanoa said. In the February 27 PAF counter-attack, the IAF lost a MiG-21 fighter jet and Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was taken captive by Pakistan after his plane was shot down over the Line of Control (LoC). In the aerial dogfight, Varthaman shot down an F-16 of the PAF. Varthaman was released on March 1. We came out better because we had upgraded our MiG-21 Bisons and Mirage-2000 aircraft. Imagine fighting with the MiG-21 Bis. The results would have been further skewed in our favour had we inducted our Rafale aircraft in time, the Air Chief said. He added that Pakistan could not hit the military targets it wanted to. The Rafale jets and the S-400 Surface-to-Air-Missile system likely to be inducted in the next two-four years would once again tilt the technological balance in our favour like it was in 2002 during Op Parakaram, he said, referring to the 2001-2002 standoff between India and Pakistan. By the end of 2030, more than 50% of the IAF fleet would be made in India, he said. India is looking to induct more than 120 India-made Light Combat Aircraft Tejas. Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who campaigned in Fatehpur Sikri on Monday took to Twitter to thank a woman pilot who ferried her in a helicopter. So proud to be flown by a lady today, that too in a chopper! pic.twitter.com/PAkAuxAcgm Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) April 15, 2019 Priyanka did not name the pilot as she posted a picture of both of them in the tweet. The Congress has been wooing women voters with promises like 33 per cent reservation in Parliament. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi also promised reservation for women in jobs and education, and said he is committed to pass the womens reservation bill in the Lok Sabha. Priyanka Gandhi who has faced quite a few sexist comments since she was named a Congress general secretary in January, has also accused the BJP of neglecting women in her election rallies. At her election rally where she campaigned for UP Congress chief Raj Babbar, she took on the BJP, accusing the ruling party of deviating from the path of truth. The Congress secretary general in-charge for Uttar Pradesh (East) also said the BJP instead of speaking about India and what it had done for its youth was talking about Pakistan. They talk about Pakistan. If BJP is patriotic then do not talk about Pakistan but tell us what you are doing for India, she said. 521 Roslyn Road, Kenilworth: $5,750,000 | Listed: Nov. 12, 2021 This eight-bedroom home has five full bathrooms, three half-baths, carved marble fireplaces and a three-season porch. The kitchen is equipped with a double oven, hardwood floors and granite counters and is located next to the butlers pantry and breakfast room. The dining and living rooms have coffered ceilings, hardwood floors and leaded windows, and the office offers views of the private yard. The primary bedroom suite has a separate dressing room, a walk-in closet and a bathroom. The remaining bedrooms have custom moldings and millwork. A mudroom and a two-bedroom, two-bathroom coach house with a four-car garage complete this home. Agent: Amy Rowe, Engel & Volkers, 847-372-6389 *Some listing photos are virtually staged, meaning they have been digitally altered to represent different furnishing or decorating options. To feature your luxury listing of $800,000 or more in Chicago Tribunes Dream Homes, send listing information and high-res photos to ctc-realestate@chicagotribune.com. Join our Chicago Dream Homes Facebook group for more luxury listings and real estate news. Congress president Rahul Gandhi has been told by the Supreme Court to explain his remarks during the Lok Sabha campaign where he attributed comments to the top court which had ruled on the admissibility of three sets of documents in the Rafale review petition. The bench said Gandhi had incorrectly attributed views, observations and findings in the Rafale case to the top court. Gandhi has been given till next Monday to come up with his explanation. The court, however, has not issued a formal notice to him yet. We also make it clear that this court had no occasion to record any such views or make observations in as much as what was decided by this court was the legal admissibility of certain document to which objections were raised, the bench headed by Chief Justice of India Rajan Gogoi said. BJP lawmaker Meenakshi Lekhi had last week filed a contempt petition against the Congress president for his attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi that she said, replaced his personal statement as Supreme Courts order and tried to create prejudice. Watch: Explained: Why Rahul Gandhi is in the Supreme Courts crosshairs Gandhi, who was in Amethi to file his nomination papers, had reacted to this setback to the government, saying: Now the Supreme Court has made it clear that chowkidarji (watchman) has committed a theft I want to directly challenge that the Supreme Court has stated that you have indulged in corruption. The BJP and its top leaders had taken umbrage at the Congress presidents remarks, accusing him of wildly exaggerating and misquoting the courts observations and the context. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said Rahul Gandhis statement was contempt of contempt of court and was the Congresss attempt to perpetrate their own lies. Her party later filed a formal complaint against Gandhi with the Election Commission, charging him of lying. The Congress party wants to perpetrate their own lies. She further added that Gandhis comments are not based on the facts. In her petition before the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Lekhi had complained that the words used and attributed by him (Gandhi) to the Supreme Court in the Rafale case has been made to appear something else. He is replacing his personal statement as Supreme Courts order and trying to create prejudice. The governments April 2015 decision to buy 36 Rafale warplanes has been at the heart of the Congress-led opposition campaign against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling BJP-led national coalition. The $8.7 billion government-to-government deal 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 (HAL). The deal has become controversial with the Opposition, led by the Congress, claiming that the price at which India is buying Rafale aircraft now is Rs 1,670 crore for each, three times the Rs 526 crore, the initial bid by the company when the UPA was trying to buy the aircraft. It has also claimed the previous deal included a technology transfer agreement with HAL. The NDA has not disclosed details of the price. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a leading US think tank on foreign policy, has graded President Donald Trumps handling of ties with India as one of his successes, along with his dealings with China and Saudi Arabia, and his efforts to normalize relations with North Korea. The Trump administration has maintained the success story of US-India relations initiated by George W. Bush, the report authored for CFR by Robert Blackwill, said, comparing this administration to Bushs, which is often cited as a watershed term in bilateral ties on account of the India-US civil nuclear deal, which ended Indias nuclear isolation. The report released Monday graded Trump B+ for India, the highest the president scored, as he did also for China, Saudi. Afghanistan and Syria; C for Iran and trade, his pet project; D for European security; and tanked with F for climate change, US alliances, Russia, policy processes and character. The report, Trumps Foreign Policies Are Better Than They Seem, argued that the Presidents action may seem rash, ignorant and chaotic, and he may seem determined to both dominate the world and withdraw from it, but some of his individual foreign policies are substantially better than his opponents assert. President Trump got high marks for India for, one, his South Asia Policy that accords primacy to India; two, clearing the sale of advance weapons systems such as unmanned aerial vehicles; and, third, and finally, for his decision to treat India on par with NATO allies where strategic technology release is concerned. Blackwill, a former US ambassador to India, also noted,New Delhi has, accordingly, responded with bold initiatives of its own. For instance, he argued that while India had not not entirely endorsed Trump administrations Indo-Pacific strategy, it has has applauded the strategys declared vision or a free and open Indo-Pacific region, a concept first laid out by Japans Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The former diplomat also noted that India was quietlyand sometimes not so quietly begun to cooperate militarily with the United States in significant ways even in peacetime. The report also cited the signing of the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (OMCASA) last September after the inaugural 2+2 ministerial engagement, which the Obama administration had failed to finalize. Differences persist between the two countries, the report pointed out, on issues such as Russia, Iran and H-1B visas. And on trade. It cited the Trump administrations intention to terminate duty-free import of certain Indian goods. In conclusion, however, Blackwill said, The President deserves credit for promoting strategic ties with India in a sustained manner. The Election Commission of India (ECI) was asked by the Supreme Court on Monday to re-examine its earlier order that banned the screening of biopic on Prime Minister Narendra Modi after watching the full movie. A bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said the poll watchdog should take an informed decision on films exhibition after viewing it by April 19 and should place the same before the court in a sealed cover. SC would hear the matter again on April 22. The film producers have moved the top court against the ban imposed on the release of the movie by the EC. If the petitioners pray for an audience before the Election Commission or its authorised representative the Election Commission would consider the same and grant such an audience, the bench ordered. Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, said the poll panel has taken the decision based just on watching the promo, not the entire movie. He suggested his clients were willing to hold a special screening for the poll panel or its committee on Tuesday or Wednesday. Let them take an informed decision by Friday, he said. When enquired the court was told by EC counsel Amit Sharma that EC had not seen the movie. He submitted the movie was not available. Rohatgi told the bench that EC gave its final opinion on the basis of the two-minute promo of the movie. This was done after the top court had refused to entertain a PIL filed by a Congress worker against the release of the movie. Last week SC had left it to the ECs wisdom to take a call as it said a judicial verdict cannot be given in the absence of a censor board certificate and also on the basis of just a two-minute trailer. EC had on April 10 stalled the release of the film during the Lok Sabha elections, asserting that any biopic material with the potential to disturb the level-playing field during elections should not be displayed. The Commission, in a separate order, also directed the producers not to exhibit the film titled PM Narendra Modi till further orders. The film was earlier set to release on April 11. EC order came on complaints of political parties, including the Congress. Any poster or publicity material concerning any such certified content, which either depicts a candidate (including prospective) for the furtherance (or purported to further) of electoral prospects, directly or indirectly, shall not be put on display in electronic media in the area when Model Code of Conduct is in force, EC had said. With Dalit votes likely to be divided during the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, the 128th birth anniversary of Dr BR Ambedkar on Sunday saw parties trying to woo Dalit voters. While Prakash Ambedkar, the grandson of the architect of the Constitution, floated the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) by taking All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) on board, another key Dalit leader and union minister Ramdas Athawale stood firm by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Smaller factions of the Republican Party of India (RPI) have joined hands with the Congress-NCP. The Congress-NCP combine is believed to be most affected by the formation of the VBA, which is contesting all 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state. On Sunday, apart from the Congress and NCP, the ruling saffron parties too paid tribute to Ambedkar, revered among Dalits for his pivotal role in their emancipation. The BJP candidate from Mumbai North East Manoj Kotak paid tribute to Ambedkar at Chaityabhoomi in Dadar, where his ashes were interred. Top Congress-NCP leaders like Milind Deora, Eknath Gaikwad and Sachin Ahir visited Chaityabhoomi. Eknath Gaikwad went to Indu Mills, where the proposed Ambedkar memorial is being built. He accused the BJP-led government of delaying the project. There is absolutely no movement on the project and the BJP government is just fooling the people, accused Gaikwad. This was countered by Athawale, who said the project is being implemented in the right way. We have appointed the best firms to execute the project and it will be ready by the end of 2020. I am taking periodic reviews , said Athawale. The Congress has alleged that Athawale and Prakash were misleading Dalits for their political gains. On Friday, Congress MP Bhalchandra Mungekar said there was a large section of Dalits, which would vote for the Congress. Prakash is deliberately fighting on all 48 seats to split Dalit votes and help the BJP-led alliance. Despite sincere attempts for the tie-up by the Congress, Prakash did not respond. Similary, Athawale has been going with the BJP just to secure the Rajya Sabha seat and the union ministership, he added. According to political expert Pratap Asbe, The Congress wants to stop the split of votes and hence will exploit every occasion to win back the Dalits. Since campaigning is going on, this is also part of it. Athawale said, I demanded the seat and ministership as an ally and there is nothing wrong in it. Meanwhile, the RPI (A) announced it will contest 76 seats to help BJP win more seats. It will contest 15 seats in Uttar Pradesh followed by 7 each in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Other states where RPI will contest include Rajasthan, Assam, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and West Bengal. Income Tax authorities on Monday issued summons to Tamil Nadu Revenue Minister, RB Udayakumar following a joint raid Sunday night with the Election Commissions flying squad on his room at the MLA hostel in the city following a tip off that huge amount of cash was being kept there for distribution among voters. The raid followed information sent by the Chennais Commissioner of Police to the Assistant Returning Officer that cash was stacked in the room of Udayakumar at the MLA hostel, said an Income Tax official. But the raid drew a blank. A team of IT personnel accompanied by the flying squad rushed to the place and searched the room. They could secure only empty bags with some slips and recorded a statement from a policeman in the security detail of the Minister. The IT official added that the policemans statement was not of much help. Now, the IT authorities have issued summons to Udayakumar for recording his statement on Tuesday. The IT department has been facing criticism that it was targeting only those belonging to the opposition parties, leaving politicians from the ruling party untouched. Now, the IT sleuths have searched a Ministers premise that too on a tip off from the citys top cop. Last week saw a series of raids across the state on the premises of people who have secured lucrative contracts from the Public Works Department (PWD). At the office premises of PSK Engineering Constructions, a major contractor with PWD, Rs 14.18 crore unaccounted cash was seized. A recent media report had claimed that the AIADMK had spent over Rs 641 Crore to bribe voters in the 2016 Assembly elections. Congress candidate from Keralas Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency Shashi Tharoor received head injuries on Monday in a freak accident at a temple. As part of Thulabharam -- a religious ritual where offering equivalent to ones weight is made to the deity -- the Congress candidate was sitting on weighing scales at a temple in Thiruvananthapuram when it collapsed injuring his head. Click here for full coverage of Lok Sabha elections 2019 The Thiruvananthapuram MP was rushed to a general hospital where he received six stitches on his head. Doctors said his condition was stable but he was advised rest. Tharoor is seeking a third term from Thiruvananthapuram, which goes to polls on April 23. Kerala is celebrating its new year Vishu today and devotees often visit temples to offer prayers and Thulabharam on this day. Thulabaram is usually done against fruits, ghee, rice, sugar, jaggery etc. Tharoor, locked in a keen contest with BJP candidate and former Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan, courted controversy recently with his tweet after a visit to a fish market in his constituency. Posting photos of his interaction with fisherwomen, Tharoor had tweeted: Found a lot of enthusiasm at the fish market, even for a squeamishly vegetarian MP!. This triggererd a lot of criticism with the ruling CPI(M) and BJP alleging he had insulted the fishermen community and demanded an apology. The Election Commission (EC) issued a flurry of orders on Monday, barring Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, Union minister Maneka Gandhi, and Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan from campaigning for varying periods of time for their intemperate utterances on the campaign trail. ECs actions came shortly after it was pulled up by the Supreme Court. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi took a dim view of its submission that it didnt have much powers and wasnt in a position to take any action other than issuing advisories. Mr Election Commission, you have to act very promptly. You cannot drag matters like this. Get into action immediately, the CJI said. Soon after, EC?issued its orders barring Adityanath and Mayawati. It barred the former from campaigning for three days, and the latter, two days, both beginning at 6am Tuesday, for flouting the model code of conduct by referring to religion and caste in their speeches. This is the first such punishment meted out to any leader this political season. Interestingly, the court reviewed the five notices issued till Monday morning by EC. It noted that two were to Adityanath and one to Mayawati and that neither leader had responded. What have you done since they have not responded? CJI Gogoi asked ECs counsel, who had no answer. The SC was hearing a PIL filed by an NRI yoga teacher based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), seeking a direction to the EC to take strict action against political parties if their spokespersons made remarks based on caste and religion lines ahead of this summers Lok Sabha elections. Late in the evening, EC also barred Khan from campaigning for 72 hours, and Gandhi, for 48 hours, starting 10am on Tuesday. While the action against Adityanath, Mayawati, and Gandhi were prompted by violations related to the use of religion while canvassing for votes a breach of both the Model Code of Conduct as well as an earlier Supreme Court order that against Khan was prompted by his obscene comments targeted at BJP leader Jaya Prada, who is contesting against him in Uttar Pradeshs Rampur constituency. An FIR has been lodged against Khan over the remarks. The National Commission of Women has also issued a notice to the SP leader. The leaders have been instructed not to appear in road shows, rallies, public meetings, processions, give interviews or comments to electronic and print media (or on social media). The second phase of voting in UP is on April 18, and the silent period when parties and candidates cannot canvass in constituencies going to polls, sets in on April 16. After the ECs order, the leaders cannot canvass anywhere in the country. According to an EC official asking not to be named, this is the first time a gag order has been issued against a CM; and also the first time that a pan-India ban has been imposed on canvassing. In the past, Azam Khan and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah were banned from canvassing only in UP in 2014; Giriraj Singh was banned from campaigning in Bihar, the official added. On Tuesday, the last day for campaigning in seats going to polls for the second phase on April 18, Mayawati was scheduled to address a rally in Agra and Adityanath had campaign events in Nagina and Fatehpur Sikri. The UP chief minister also had rallies planned for some West UP regions going to polls in the third phase the following day, BJP officials said, but gave no specific dates. Khans and Gandhis campaign plans werent immediately available. Since the UP CM has been found guilty of two violations, he has been barred from campaigning for three days; and Mayawati with one offence has been barred for two days, an election commission official said on condition of anonymity. The EC order on Khan suggests he has been barred from campaigning for three days because he is a repeat offender. Another EC official, while speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Khans recent remarks on getting bureaucrats to polish his shoes were also being investigated. The election watchdog issued a notice to Mayawati for violation of the MCC and Representation of the People Act, 1951, by making objectionable statements during a public rally on April 7 in Deoband, Saharanpur. In her reply to the commission, Mayawati accepted that in her speech, a special mention was made to the minority community of Muslims to vote in a consolidated manner in favour of the candidate of coalition of the BSP, SP and RLD. The Commission has again seen the video recording of her impugned speech and is convinced that she has made highly provocative speech which has the tone and tenor to aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred between different religious communities the order stated. While barring her from canvassing for two days, the commission has said the BSP chief should have desisted from making statements that have the undertone and propensity to polarise the election. Reacting over the ban, Mayawati said: The Election Commission has given a one-sided decision. I have been denied the fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression. This day will be known as a black day in the history of EC. In the case of the UP CM, the poll panel noted that he violated the code of conduct by making some objectionable statements during a public rally on April 9 in Meerut. In his reply to the EC notice issued to him, he accepted using the reference hara vius (green virus) to speak about the Muslim League; he was also rapped on his knuckles for referring to religion when he said: If the Congress, SP and BSP have faith in Ali, we have faith in Bajrang Bali, the followers of Bajrang Bali will not tolerate them. Previously, on April 5, the poll panel already asked him to be careful with his public utterances after he referred to the army as Modi ji ki Sena. Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey said Adityanath merely took the name of God. The BJP is a disciplined political party and we respect the decision of the Election Commission. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath did not in any way provoke religious sentiments, nor did he make any statement which could spread communal unrest. He only took the name of God, he said, adding that EC should reconsider its decision. Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi led his partys delegation complaining about Adityanath and Mayawatis utterances. According to him, he argued that the poll body must do something to stop the use of such language in political campaigns. He added that he told them (the EC) that mere censure is not enough as one can take a bagful of censure but the next day the person can go back to his or her old style of campaign. One should be allowed to take advantage of this situation. Commenting on the poll bodys order, he said: This is the first time [this election season], the EC took such a step. The Congress has another pending complaint against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for invoking the army during his speech in Maharashtra. We have trust in EC that it will take a decision on this issue as well, Singhvi said. Another EC official who asked not to be named said the matter of the PM referring to the Balakot strikes is yet to be put up before the commission and the issue is being assessed. Gandhi asked Muslims to vote for her or risk having her do nothing for them. While she explained her speech to the commission as just one that was meant to introduce myself and the work I have done for people in my earlier constituency, EC said in its order that the video recording of her speech made it very clear that she had violated provisions of the model code of conduct. As for Khan, who made derogatory remarks of a personal nature against BJP candidate Jaya Prada, EC noted that an FIR has already been registered against him for his comments, and that his comments were indecent derogatory, and totally uncalled for. The EC?order recalled the 2014 action taken by the commission against him that he has not changed his way of campaigning and is using very objectionable language. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav defended Khan and said his comments were not directed at Prada. Speaking about the EC ban, Khan said: I have not said anything demeaning against the BJP candidate. I will send a written explanation to the Election commission and National Commission for Women regarding my statement. Reacting to the EC order, Maneka Gandhi said, I am shocked and surprised. I have never made a provocative speech in my life. In fact, I have always, in Pilibhit, taken the minorities along and I expect to do the same in Sultanpur. Either the EC hasnt seen the speech or they have gone by bias or by media reports which have mistranslated my speech. Or they have overreacted to pressure from someone else. The Election Commission on Monday finally acted against hate speeches in the run up to the national election and barred Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from campaigning for 72 hours and Mayawati, for 48 hours starting tomorrow morning. The commissions orders came hours after the Supreme Court told the panel that it could not drag its feet and had to act promptly against poll code violations. The court had given the poll panel time till tomorrow to report on the action taken against the two prominent politicians for their controversial speeches. The commission, which has been criticised by political parties across the spectrum for either turning a blind eye to poll code violations or being too slow, issued the gag orders soon after. In separate orders, the Election Commission also condemned the two speeches and censured the politicians. In a speech at a rally in Saharanpurs Deoband on April 7, Mayawati had appealed to Muslims to vote for the alliance and not divide their vote by supporting another political party. Also read:Cant drag cases: Supreme Court nudges EC to act promptly on hate speech Two days later, according to the Election Commission, Yogi Adityanath told a rally in Meerut about Mayawatis speech and said: If the Congress, SP and BSP have faith in Ali, we have faith in Bajrang Bali, the followers of Bajrang Bali will not tolerate them. The Commission, under Article 324 of the Constitution of India and all other powers enabling in this behalf, bars him from holding any public meetings, public processions, public rallies, road shows and interviews, public utterances (electronic, print, social media) etc in connection with ongoing elections for 72 hours from 6 am on 16 April 2019, the panel said. This is the first time in the 2019 election campaign that the election commission has invoked its powers under the Constitution. But there is a clear precedent from 2014 Lok Sabha elections when BJPs Amit Shah and Samajwadi Partys Azam Khan were barred from campaigning for the remaining duration of the election after they failed to stick to the model code of conduct. Yogi Adityanaths gag order is for a longer duration because this is his second code violation. The Election Commission noted that it had already advised the chief minister to be more careful about his public statements on 5 April after his controversial speech that allegedly politicised the army action. The commission also observed that Yogi Adityanath, as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, had the added responsibility to not only uphold basic tenets including secularism but also to display the same in his public statements and meetings. The 2019 Lok Sabha results will be announced only on May 23, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi, confident that he will return, has already asked the Prime Ministers Office (PMO), Niti Aayog and the Principal Scientific Adviser to prepare the agenda for the first 100 days of the next government, with a focus on double-digit GDP growth in the next five years. According to three top officials in the Modi government, in the midst of hectic election campaigning, the PM has tasked his office, Vice Chairman Niti Aayog and Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) Prof K Vijayraghavan to chalk out an agenda on the scale of Swacch Bharat with sweeping economic and bureaucratic reforms. The focus is on freeing the key sectors oil and gas, minerals, infrastructure and education of red tape so that the foundation for India becoming a developed country in 2047 is laid in the coming 100 days. We believe that by removing red tape in core sectors we can easily boost the GDP growth by 2.5%, said one of the three officials who asked not to be named. Also Watch - BJP will get triple seats than Congress this time: PM Modi in Kathua While the entire country is focused on Lok Sabha elections, the PMO, Niti Aayog and the PSAs office are locked in meetings through weekends to build the agenda which has a connect with the public and is for larger good like waste to wealth mission and enhanced health care benefits in rural areas. Also read | Well support whoever is committed to Odisha, says CM Naveen Patnaik The 100 days plan focuses on high growth sectors, learning outcome sectors and job creation sectors. High growth sectors include mining, coal, power and energy. Learning outcome sectors are education and primary health centres. Job creation sectors include tourism and MSME. Drinking water and inter-linking of rivers will be one of the topmost priorities if PM Modi is voted back to power, the officials added. The basic idea is to build a network of dams and linkages so that India is not exposed to threat of China building dams on upstream Brahmputra as well as optimum utilization of the rivers under India in the Indus Water Treaty. Prime Minister Modi is aware that the only way to deliver water to South India particularly Tamil Nadu is by inter-linking of rivers and ensuring that rivers are not just allowed to flow into sea during monsoon season by building upstream storage areas, said the first official. The other priority areas are roads, airports and ports infrastructure to promote tourism all over the country. The plan is already ready for showcasing Indias vast historical heritage by creating a network of hotels along with airports so that the international tourist has better access to these sites, said a senior Niti Aayog official who asked not to be named. Also read | In a direct contest, Congress can defeat BJP, says Sachin Pilot Prodded by the Supreme Court to take prompt action against political leaders who cross the line, the Election Commission on Monday banned Samajwadi Partys Azam Khan from campaigning for 72 hours. Union Minister Maneka Gandhi has also been barred from campaigning for 48 hours. The commission, which had hours earlier prohibited Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and BSP chief Mayawati from campaigning, formally reprimanded Azam Khan and Maneka Gandhi for their controversial remarks. Azam Khan has triggered a huge row over his underwear jibe at Jaya Prada who is fighting the Lok Sabha election 2019 from Uttar Pradeshs Rampur parliamentary constituency against him. I brought her (Jaya Prada) to Rampur. You are a witness that I did not allow anyone to touch her body. It took you 17 years to identify her real face but I got to know in 17 days that she wears khaki underwear, Khan had said while addressing a campaign rally in Rampur. The Election Commission said the comment was not only indecent but also derogatory and totally uncalled for. It also recalled that the poll panel had earlier banned him from campaigning in Uttar Pradesh during the 2014 national elections. But he is still indulging in using very objectionable language in election campaigning, the panel said in its order. Union Minister Maneka Gandhi got into trouble with the Election Commission over her speech in Sultanpur where she was, according to a widely-circulated video clip, asked Muslims to vote for her. I will not feel good about a victory without the support of Muslims. My feelings will get hurt. If Muslims then come to me asking for work, then I will think let it be, how does it matter? Dil khatta ho jayega (my heart will turn sour). Sultanpur is one of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh and will vote in the sixth phase of elections. Maneka swapped her Pilibhit seat with son Varun Gandhis Sultanpur. In her defence, Maneka Gandhi did tell the commission that she was only trying to introduce herself and her work in her earlier constituency, Pilibhit, to the electorate in Sultanpur. The Election Commission, however, wasnt convinced and punished her with a 48-hour gag order that kicks in from 10 am Tuesday morning. The commission said her speech had violated provisions on bribery and corrupt practices in elections including the Supreme Court verdict that banned politicians from seeking votes on caste and communal lines. But, the judge said, he was required to consider other mitigating evidence, including Ruvira-Garcias lack of a criminal record, and the testimony of friends and her employer, who attested to her character. Brennan also said he considered the effect a prison sentence would have on Ruvira-Garcias two teenaged daughters. Rajasthan Congress president and deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot spoke to Aurangzeb Naqshbandi about the partys chances in the state, a possible United Progressive Alliance (UPA) 3 government at the Centre this May, the difference between real and emotive issues, and the impact of the Congresss Nyay scheme. Edited excerpts: Rajasthan is a state where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) says it is confident of a clean sweep again. What is your assessment? I think it is a very misplaced theory that the BJP is propagating because it has just lost the assembly elections. Dont forget it had 165 out of 200 legislators. It was reduced to 70, which means it lost 95 legislators. We only had 21 legislators five years ago, and we have increased our tally five times. We are now 101. History will tell you that the incumbent party usually gets the windfall of the Lok Sabha seats. So, we are working towards our Mission 25 and I am absolutely confident that the Congress party will do as well as the people expected us to do. The BJP in Rajasthan is leaderless. Vasundhara ji [former CM Vasundhara Raje] has been moved to the Centre. I dont think there is anyone that commands acceptability within the state. They have dropped one minister, which shows nervousness in that camp. In 2008, we were a minority government and still we got 20 out of the 25 seats. There is no reason why today, with a full majority government, we cant do better than that. You talked about leaderless BJP but is your own house in order after the tussle we saw over chief ministership after the assembly elections? It is all a media creation. There was absolutely no tussle. All of us, after winning the elections, authorised Congress president to decide who leads the legislature party and when the decision was made I was a part of that. There is no confusion or any pulls and pressures. We are working seamlessly. The party and the government are working together to deliver the best results for the people of Rajasthan. In the last three months, we have executed all the promises that we made in our manifesto - farm loan waivers, pension for aged people, unemployment allowances. We have actually delivered on the ground. People have received that very well. We have worked very hard and right from the booth level the Congress partys structure is fully entrenched to take on the BJP. We have 51,000 booths and we have used IT platform to create a network for a two-way correspondence between the leaders and workers. We have 17 or 18 new ministers. There is a lot of energy and enthusiasm at the top level. We are working tirelessly to ensure that we win maximum seats. Do you think the Pulwama terror attack and the Balakot air strike will have some impact on these elections since Rajasthan is a border state? Whenever there is a challenge to our national security or our borders, it could be any government, any party or any Prime Minister, a same befitting reply will be given to anyone who looks at India with a crooked eye. The valour and sacrifice of our armed forces is something we all deeply respect. The men in uniform are a symbol of our faith and honour that we have for our country and they belong to every single person. But is it right to hide behind the sacrifice and valour of our armed personnel and hide the incompetencies of your government in the last five years? Five years ago, the phrases mob lynching and cow vigilantes were not in our dictionary. It is because of the BJPs politics that we are hearing such things. They have created certain divisions that our society had never experienced. If the Supreme Court is forced to say that dont use religion and the army in the political discourse, it tells you that there are certain shortcomings in the governance structures of the current government. To rely on emotive issues such as Ram Mandir, Pakistan, Hindu-Muslim, and the action on borders, shows they have failed to disclose what they havent been able to do. Today, unemployment is at a 45-year high, a gas cylinder costs ~1,000, there are farmers suicides, agrarian distress, the economy is in shambles and demonetisation has crippled the rural economy. I think the elections will be fought in the farm lands of our country, villages and towns, and there it will be bread and butter issues what will matter and not the kind of narrative that the BJP wants to set. But BJP says only a strong government led by Narendra Modi could give that befitting reply? Dont forget that we took one lakh Pakistani soldiers as prisoners and we were instrumental in creating Bangladesh when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister. So far, our armed forces have remained de-politicised and thats really a good thing. In the entire subcontinent, it is only in India where the armed forces are segregated from the political leadership. We are proud of our armed forces and there is absolutely no debate over that. Questioning that is really mocking our history of 70 years. The questions to be asked are has black money come back from overseas, are ~15 lakh in everybodys bank accounts, have two crore jobs been created every year, how has economy gained by demonetization. They [BJP] are not answering those questions and not talking about the real bread-and-butter issues. When it comes to bread-and-butter issues, do you think your party has done enough after taking over in Rajasthan? It has only been three months, but we have set our house in order. We first have tried to salvage and save the farming community from the critical crisis they were facing. We have announced a farm loan waiver of ~18,000 crore and that was needed to stop this heinous cycle of farmers suicides. We have given unemployment allowances of ~3,500 a month to educated girls and ~3,000 for men. You can see the intent and working of the government in the first impressions. There we have done a very good job of setting the agenda. We have made our manifesto a government document. In the first three months of our government, we have done what Vasundhara ji could not do in her entire tenure of five years. Do you think the Nyay scheme will have an impact? Its a game-changer. Here is Mr [PM Narendra] Modi who has promised to give Rs 6,000 per year to the farming community. Here is the Congress party promising Rs 6,000 every month to the 20% poorest families of the country. When we launched MGNREGA [rural employee guarantee scheme], people in the BJP mocked us. Even the current government used to make fun of the scheme but did not have the political will to end that programme. It is a superbly successful poverty alleviation programme. Similarly, Nyay is a game-changer and it took one year for us to figure out how much and how to do it. We have the technology, platform, and bank accounts, and it is easy to execute and we would ensure that the money comes to the woman of the house. The BJP has no answer to it. You spoke of real issues and emotive issues. What do you think people are eventually going to vote for? People vote for jobs, for their security and well-being so that they can progress as a family and as individuals. Every time there are elections, BJP talks about the temple issue and forgets it for five years. Why should a UP chief minister, instead of talking about his governments performance in last two years, say I believe in Bajrangbali and they believe in Ali. It suits the BJP to have that kind of discourse. But it is unbecoming of people who hold high offices to say such things. It is a desperate and deliberate attempt by the BJP to clutch on at straws. When you won your election in Rajasthan what are the things that worked for you? We won the assembly elections because we started work on the ground for years before that. It was sustained and consistent hard work. We also focussed on small elections - municipal polls, dairy elections and if you do well in those grassroots elections you can do well in assembly elections. So, you are convinced those factors will work for you in national elections? Vasundhara ji and Modi ji - both are BJP. You cant segregate the two. It is not possible. They have been voted out and now it is the BJP government at the Centre that is seeking re-election but that is not possible because in three bipolar and Hindi heartland states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, where they felt they were strong and we won all of them. In a bipolar contest, the Congress can defeat the BJP and defeat it comprehensively despite all the misuse of money, power and bureaucracy. And we will defeat them again in the parliamentary elections. Do you see Congress crossing 100 seats in these elections? I wont give the numbers but I can tell you that UPA 3 is a reality. On May 23, you will have a new government and a new Prime Minister. Congress president Rahul Gandhi hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, saying the latter was the chowkidar (guard) for select industrialists and claimed the opposition partys flagship poll promise of an assured monthly income of Rs 6,000 for the poorest sections could be implemented without denting the economy. Speaking at a rally in western Maharashtras Nanded, Gandhi kept up his attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the Rafale defence deal and said challenged the PM to a debate. Tell me one thing...Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Narendra Modi...how come they all have Modi as common name. How come all the thieves have Modi as common name? Gandhi asked. Nirav Modi is a fugitive diamantiare who is accused in a multi-crore bad debt case while Lalit Modi is a former Indian Premier League administrator who is accused of financial irregularities. Gandhi also said the Nyay (Nyuntam Aay Yojana) scheme was a fitting reply to the anyay (injustice) by Modi. The scheme will help revive the Indian economy which has become sluggish due to demonetisation and the Goods and Service Tax (GST). Demonetisation and GST have taken away money from the pockets of the poor and small traders. Congresss NYAY scheme will ensure Rs 72, 000 per annum or Rs 3.60 lakh in five years in the accounts of five crore families in the country. Rajasthan BJP chief Madan Lal Saini Monday termed Gandhis remark undignified and claimed that it was an insult to a particular section of society. The Congresss Maharashtra unit president Ashok Chavan is contesting from Nanded, one of 10 Lok Sabha constituencies that are going to polls in the second phase on April 18. This was the only rally addressed in Maharashtra by Gandhi for the second phase. In a rally in the city last week, Modi had alleged the Congress wanted to burden the middle class to woo the poor. Addressing a rally in Agra in Uttar Pradesh, Gandhi accused PM Modi of giving away public money to industrialists. Narendra Modi is stealing public money and giving it to industrialists, he said. Claiming that the PM had lied to the people of the country while campaigning for the 2014 Lok Sabha election, when he promised to give every Indian Rs 15 lakh of black money, he said, The Prime Minister promised that Rs 15 lakh will be deposited in everyones bank account but not one person got a single penny. The Congress president also attacked Modi for wasting public money on promoting himself. Chiku would have turned two years of age on April 7 and would have spent his birthday at home, speculates Selvi Shekhar, his maternal grandmother, on what would have been. Shekhars daughter, Shivani (25), her son-in-law Prem Ravi (31), a tailor, and Chiku were on board a fishing boat that had left from Keralas Munambam harbour for New Zealand on January 12. The boat, which had several undocumented immigrants from Delhi, mysteriously disappeared soon after leaving the harbour and has not been traced till date. We never heard from them or of them (those on the boat) again after they called us for the last time from Kerala on the day they were about to depart (January 12). They never mentioned clearly which country they were leaving for, said Shekhar, a resident of South Delhis Madangir area. The boat was reportedly ferrying emigrants, most likely through the straits between Indonesia and Australia where the seas are rough and storms common. In late January, the police estimated that around 50 people from Madangir were on that boat. With Delhi slated to go to polls on May 12, and with electioneering picking up pace, several families from Madangir, including Shekhar, have approached the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for help, prompting senior party leader Gopal Rai to write to the Delhi Police commissioner and the Union ministry of external affairs urging them to help these families. Rai confirmed the development and said he wrote two letters on Thursday and Friday. Most of these families are poor and they cannot afford to go to Kerala to enquire about their relatives. They need the help of Delhi Police. But they also do not understand that Delhi Police does not come under the elected government in the city, Rai said. Read | Lack of jobs in India drove migrants on to boat for New Zealand, say relatives Most Madangir residents, spotted in the AAP office in Central Delhi on Thursday, said they had assumed that their relatives had left for Australia for there was one such trend. In the past 10 years, many from Madangir have migrated to Australia in a similar fashion with the help of local touts. This, however, was the first emigration to New Zealand as far as the locals had heard of, Binny Mathews, a Madangir resident who had escorted the other families to the AAP office, said. The reasons for undertaking the perilous journey are always the same better jobs, more money and a better life. Shivani and Ravi were no exception, Shekhar and the others said, adding that a tout had instructed them to leave behind all their identity documents and to mislead authorities by identifying themselves as Sri Lankans in the event they were caught. Shekhar and the other Madangir residents told Hindustan Times that they have not received any update on the case from the local police. Deputy Commissioner of Police (South Delhi) Vijay Kumar said, The case is registered in Kerala and the police there have prepared a list of over 200 persons, including many from Madangir, who could be on the boat or have acted as touts in the illegal emigration. We have sent a letter to Kerala Police for updates. They said they will respond by Tuesday. If the response is not found to be satisfactory, we will send a two-member team to Kerala with a local representative from the area. Lok Sabha election 2019: Delhi will see a fight amongst AAP, BJP and Congress Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Monday hit out at the Election Commission for imposing a 48-hour gag order and alleged there was a hidden agenda behind the decision. I am sure people will understand the hidden agenda behind ECs order. The order is unconstitutional and anti- democratic. I appeal to people to turn up in large number and be my voice, she said at a press conference in Lucknow. Earlier the day, the Election Commission barred Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from campaigning for 72 hours and Mayawati, for 48 hours starting Tuesday morning for controversial speeches. Mayawati said the ECs decision hurriedly taken and was influenced. It will be remembered as a black day. The order could have been implemented a day after the end of the campaign for the second phase of polling. The order has prevented me from making an appeal to voters to vote for the alliance. The BSP chief also denied violating the election code of conduct. It could have been considered violation of code of conduct had those rival candidates were from two different castes or religions. I ask EC to reconsider its decision or else the people will reply to it in due course of time to BJP too. She attacked the EC for what she said its lack of courage to act against the Prime Minister. The EC is not able to gather courage to act against Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has been asking votes in the name of martyrs. Mayawati warned she will get even if she gets a chance. If we get a chance of forming the government at the Centre then we will pay it back with interest. In a statement that could stir a controversy, Union Minister Maneka Gandhi has said that she categorises different villages as per the votes registered in her favour and prioritises development accordingly. Addressing a poll gathering in the parliamentary constituency that she currently represents, Maneka said, We win in Pilibhit every time, so what is the parameter that we work more for one village and less for the other. The parameter is that we segregate all villages as A, B, C, and D. The village where we get 80 per cent votes is A, the village in which we get 60 per cent is B, the village in which we get 50 per cent is C and the village where we get less than 50 per cent is D. The development work first happens in all A category villages. After work at A category regions is done, then comes B and only after work in B is done, we start with C. So this is up to you whether you make it to A, B or C and no one should come in D because we all have come here to do good work, the Union Minister added. Maneka Gandhi had recently courted controversy after she had said that her win from Sultanpur Lok Sabha constituency is certain with or without the support of Muslims. She had also said the community should realise it since they will need to get their work done once the BJP is in power. Following her previous remarks, the Election Commission had issued a show-cause notice to her. Manekas son Varun Gandhi, who is an incumbent MP from Sultanpur constituency, is contesting the ongoing Lok Sabha polls from the Pilibhit constituency, whereas Maneka is contesting from Sultanpur. Pilibhit will be going to polls in the third phase of Lok Sabha elections on April 23. Counting of votes will take place on May 23. (This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.) The Supreme Court has asked the Election Commission to watch the PM Narendra Modi, a biopic on the prime minister, and review its decision to put the movie on hold. We are informed that EC had no occasion to watch the movie or substantial part of it. The order passed on viewing the short trailer. We are not commenting on the merits of the order but we direct the EC to view the movie either by itself or authorised body and thereafter to give a thought to what petitioners have to say and then consider the matter for public viewing of the movie, said the Supreme Court. The poll panel has been told to finalise the decision by Friday and submit it to the court in a sealed cover. The EC will also give a hearing to the representatives of the producer of the biopic. Also read: Makers of Narendra Modi biopic move Supreme Court against stalling of film Last Wednesday, the Election Commission had told the producers to not release the biopic on PM Modi in view of the Lok Sabha elections. You are directed not to exhibit the film till further orders, the EC had said. The producers of the film approached the Supreme Court against the Election Commission order. Acting on the complaints of political parties, including the Congress, the poll panel had asserted that any biopic material with the potential to disturb the level playing field should not be displayed in the area where Model Code of Conduct was in force. The producers of the film approached the Supreme Court against the Election Commission order. The EC order had specifically stated that in view of the admitted acts and material available on record, this film being a biopic on Narendra Modi, prime minister and a political leader and a prospective candidate in the current general elections can not be exhibited in view of Commissions order. The EC order came after the apex court disposed of the petition filed by a Congress activist seeking stay on the release of the biopic, saying the poll panel was the right forum to decide the issue. The Modi biopic, starring Vivek Oberoi and directed by Omung Kumar, tells the story of PM Modis rise to power from his humble beginnings. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has accused the ruling BJP of spreading lies through its poll campaign. Priyanka, who was campaigning for Congress candidate Raj Babbar in Uttar Pradeshs Fatehpur Sikri on Monday, said the government is trying to silence those who are asking questions. They talk about Pakistan. If BJP is patriotic then do not talk about Pakistan but tell us what you are doing for India, she said. Priyanka Gandhi, the Congress general secretary in charge of eastern UP, said the BJP government is running a campaign on development but the said development is not visible on the ground. I have travelled across the state, youth are unemployed, farmers are worried and indebted because there is no profit, she said. Also read: On Ambedkars birth anniversary, Priyanka Gandhis caution on Constitution She said the Congress is trying to reach out to the people through its Nyay scheme of minimum income guarantee while the BJP is trying to silence the voices of the masses. Anybody raising questions are branded anti-national. If they are patriots why didnt BJP leaders meet farmers when thousands of them protested on the streets. Why dont they meet families of those who are lynched, said Priyanka Gandhi. A fire broke out at Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) early on Sunday morning. No casualties were reported, according to fire officials. The blaze, which broke out around 6.20am, occurred because the garbage caught fire owing to the rise in temperature. However it was doused in 10-15 minutes, the officials said. Shashikant Kale, chief fire official, Thane fire brigade, said, With the temperature rising day by day, such fire incidents are bound to happen. The forest has become dry. However, the fire only spread to a few metres.We have alerted our officials regarding the same so that no fire breaks out again. A Thane forest range officer said, In no time we alerted the fire department and there was no major loss. We are in discussion with higher officials to avoid such fires in the future. On April 5, a major fire broke out in the evening in Yeoor forest range at Manpada area in Thane. No casualty was reported. Nishant Bangera, a 27-year-old resident of Manpada, said, Since the forest has become dry, there are greater chances of forest fire now. More than four years ago, 3,410 residents from 48 buildings in the heart of south Mumbai, Abhyudaya Nagar in Kalachowki near Parel, opted for cluster redevelopment, in the hope of getting bigger homes. They appointed a developer and carried out all formalities. However, for the past two years, the project is stuck in limbo, with no explanation from the developer on the reason for the delay, claim residents. The developer alleges the problem is the unviable stamp duty of 150 crore he is being forced to pay. South Mumbai is dotted with old buildings that will benefit from cluster redevelopment, especially in areas of Parel, Lalbaug, Girgaum, Grant Road, Chira Bazaar, and Bhendi Bazaar. Consequently, the issue is featuring in the campaign of political parties for the Mumbai South constituency. Mhada built the three- and four-storey buildings in Abhyudaya Nagar, spread across 33 acres, 60 years ago for industrial employees on a tenancy basis. Some homes were handed to government employees. However, after 1985, the government transferred ownership to the tenants. The residents formed a cooperative society, and picked a developer, Rustomjee Developers, by popular vote in 2015. They agreed on a certain amount to be paid towards a corpus for maintenance of the housing society once the redevelopment was completed. One year ago, we signed an agreement with the builder. But he asked for an extension of one year to challenge the stamp duty for the project. This deadline was crossed on March 31, 2019. We havent heard from the developer yet. We had to resort to an RTI with the collector of stamp duty to find out what documents have been submitted by the developer, said Nandakumar Katkar, 59, president of Abhyudaya Nagar Sahakari Gruhanirman Sansthancha Sangha Limited, a committee of 14 people elected by the residents to represent them. Chandresh Mehta, director of Abhyudaya Nagar company, a Rustomjee Group company undertaking the redevelopment project, said, The draft of development agreement has been put up for adjudication. The interim order has ascertained a stamp duty of around 150 crore which, in our opinion, is very high. We have given our submission with facts to the authorities, which is under consideration and final revised orders are awaited. We shall move ahead on our future course after receiving this. In any case, the redevelopment cant proceed till the development agreement is stamped and registered. Katkar said, More than 2,900 residents held a meeting with Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant, BJPs Mumbai president and MLA Ashish Shelar and local Sena MLA Ajay Chowdhary. They all gave us assurances, but nothing progressed. Three incidents of theft have been registered on Sunday, one each at Shivajinagar, Deccan and Kondhwa police stations, respectively. What is baffling the police, however, is that in all three break-ins, nothing has been stolen. In the first case, Shweta Patil (29), filed a complaint that unidentified thieves struck at Ramkrushna Apartments on Ghole road, breaking open the locks on the doors, on Friday. However, nothing was stolen. Similarly, Amol Kumbhar, lodged a complaint with the Deccan Police, that an unidentified person(s) gained entry into his residence on Apte Road in Deccan, on Saturday. Here too, nothing has been reported stolen, police said. In the third case, Priya Holkar (34), a resident of Chintamani nagar in Bibwewadi lodged a complaint with the Kondhwa police stating that thieves attempted to burgle his flat by breaking open the doors of his residence in Barsana Anagan society, Kondhwa Budruk. No valubales or cash were stolen, police said. The sanitary system in the two water basins flows to Fox Metro's Waubonsie interceptor, which roughly follows Waubonsie Creek. There is significant water seepage into the creek and the interceptor in the two basins, which are at the northern end upstream. The makers released the preview to the second episode of Game of Thrones season eight after the first episode went on air on Sunday. In the new trailer, things dont look good for Jaime Lannister who is being judged in Daenerys Targaryens court in Winterfell. The preview begins with Jaime standing in front of Daenerys (the new Queen in the North) in the Great Hall of Winterfell. She tells Jaime how her brother (Viscerys) would tell her bedtime stories about the man who murdered their father, Mad King Aerys Targareyn, and the things they would imagine doing to that man. Jaime is known as the Kingslayer for murdering the Mad King. Bran, whom Jaime pushed off a tower in season one, is also seen witnessing the trial. Jaime had left Cersei in the Kings Landing to join the fight against the Night Kings army in the last season. Daenerys and Sansa arent good friends but the second scene shows Daenerys telling Sansa, He never should have trusted Cersei, perhaps talking about Tyrion. Sansa replies, You never should have either. The preview also shows preparation for the great battle against the army of the dead. Weapons are being built of dragon glass and Arya is also seen practising are bow and arrow skills. Some scenes of Daenerys meeting Jon in the crypt and Grey Worm sharing a kiss with Missandei are also shown. A quick glimpse of Tormund arriving in Winterfell can also be seen. Jon asks him how far away the Night King is and we heard Davos say, Before the sun comes up tomorrow. Also read: Game of Thrones season 8 episode 1 Winterfell review: Bran wins the episode, Jon Snow and Arya Starks reunion fades out Game of Thrones is worlds most popular television show. The second episode is reported to be 58 minutes long. The show stars Emilia Clarke as Daenerys, Sophie Turner as Sansa, Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau as Jaime, Kit Harington as Jon Snow, Peter Dinklage as Tyrion and others. Follow @htshowbiz for more Some Notre Dame treasures saved by French firefighters Around 400 French firefighters faced a rapidly spreading fire at Notre Dame as they arrived on the scene Monday evening, but appeared to have prevented the complete destruction of the cathedral and managed to rescue some of its priceless artifacts by rushing inside, officials said. Some other heritage sites damaged by fire On July 9, 1984, a fire believed to have been triggered by a lightning strike caused severe damage to Britains imposing York Minster. Overnight September 2-3, 2018, Brazils National Museum, north of Rio de Janeiro, was ravaged by a massive fire. In 1996 Venices celebrated opera house La Fenice was gutted by fire and in 1994 the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelonas world-famous opera house was gutted. Cause of Notre Dame fire not know The exact cause of the blaze was not known, but French media quoted the Paris fire brigade as saying the fire is potentially linked to a 6 million-euro ($6.8 million) renovation project on the churchs spire and its 250 tons of lead. Parts of UNESCO world heritage landmark gutted The inferno destroyed the roof of the 850-year-old UNESCO world heritage landmark, whose spectacular Gothic spire collapsed as orange flames and clouds of grey smoke billowed into the sky. The blaze then spread to one of its landmark rectangular towers. The 12th-century cathedral is home to incalculable works of art and is one of the worlds most famous tourist attractions, immortalized by Victor Hugos 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Notre Dame blaze under control after nine hours of firefighting The fire is completely under control. It is partially extinguished, there are residual fires to put out. Paris firefighters have spent hours battling the devastating blaze at Notre Dame, saving the main structure of the Gothic cathedral from total destruction :AFP "The fire is completely under control. It is partially extinguished, there are residual fires to put out." Paris firefighters have spent hours battling the devastating blaze at Notre-Dame, saving the main structure of the Gothic cathedral from total destruction pic.twitter.com/YlhhbZjbP9 AFP news agency (@AFP) April 16, 2019 What Notre Dame Cathedral means to France Floor plan, factfile and history of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The Cathedral receives 12 to 14 million visitors every year. :AFP AFP floor plan, factfile and history of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris@AFPgraphics pic.twitter.com/rrDUwrhGJO AFP news agency (@AFP) April 16, 2019 French President Emmanuel Macron pledges a fundraising campaign French President Emmanuel Macron pledged to start a fundraising campaign to rebuild the Notre Dame Cathedral after the huge fire engulfed Frances one of the most visited place. :AFP French President Emmanuel Macron pledges fundraising campaign to rebuild the Notre-Dame Cathedral after fire https://t.co/rxrkZj8A1l Bloomberg (@business) April 16, 2019 Notre Dame de Paris stood the test of time for over 850 years Over 850 years, Notre Dame de Paris had survived the French Revolution, two world wars, terror threats and pollution. Photos of Notre Dame in 1944 and 1945. Its massive bell announced the liberation of the Paris from Nazi control on August 24, 1944. : AFP Over 850 years, Notre-Dame de Paris survived the French Revolution, two world wars, terror threats and pollution. Notre-Dame in 1944 and 1945. Its massive bell announced the liberation of the Paris from Nazi control on August 24, 1944 pic.twitter.com/986OePSG9q AFP news agency (@AFP) April 16, 2019 French billionaire pledges 100 million euros to help rebuild Notre Dame French billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault pledged 100 million euros ($113 million) on Monday towards the rebuilding of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, which was partly gutted by a devastating fire. In a statement sent to AFP the CEO of the Kering group, which owns Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent fashion houses, said the money towards the effort necessary to completely rebuild Notre Dame would be paid by the Pinault familys investment firm Artemis, reports news agency AFP. Stands at Frances side to save and restore this priceless heritage: UNESCO The UN cultural agency stands at Frances side to save and restore this priceless heritage, says UNESCO secretary general Audrey Azoulay United Nations extends support to Paris Horrified by the pictures coming from Paris with the fire engulfing Notre Dame Cathedral -- a unique example of world heritage that has stood tall since the 14th century. My thoughts are with the people and government of France., says United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, reports news agency AFP We will rebuild Notre Dame, says French President Emmanuel Macron We will rebuild Notre Dame, an emotional French President Emmanuel Macron vowed on Monday evening as he visited the famed Paris cathedral which was partly ravaged by fire. With tears in his eyes Macron said that the worst has been avoided thanks to the work of firefighters who saved the cathedrals two towers and facade and vowed to draw on the best talent to rebuild the rest. #BREAKING 'We will rebuild Notre-Dame", says French President Macron pic.twitter.com/2sUZRqkBLX AFP news agency (@AFP) April 15, 2019 Worst has been avoided: French prez on Notre Dame Cathedral fire French President says worst has been avoided reagrding Notre Dame Cathedral fire Notre Dames main structure saved and preserved: Paris fire official The main structure of Notre Dame cathedral in central Paris has been saved after hours of fire-fighting to put out a devastating blaze, the citys top fire official said late Monday. We can consider that the main structure of Notre Dame has been saved and preserved, Paris fire brigade chief Jean-Claude Gallet told reporters outside the cathedral, adding it appeared that the two main towers of the building had now been saved, reports news agency AFP. Paris prosecutors office opens investigation for the damage caused at Notre Dam Cathedral Paris prosecutors office says it has opened investigation for damage caused accidentally at fire at Pariss Notre Dame Cathedral. Firefighters optimistic Firefighters optimistic they can salvage Notre Dames main towers from flames, said Paris mayor as quoted by news agency AP. Those living close to Notre Dame have been evacuated Those living close to Notre Dame have been evacuated in case of a possible collapse of the cathedral, said Paris mayor as quoted by news agency AP. 400 firefighters at spot Around 400 firefighters were attempting to stop the destruction of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris on Monday evening, describing the blaze as difficult to handle, reported news agency AFP. Parisians gathered to say prayers and sing hymns Parisians have gathered to say prayers and sing hymns In front of the nearby Saint Julien Les Pauvres church as the massive blaze at Notre Dame Cathedral burns only a few hundred meters away. Flames and smoke rose in the sky behind the singers. A couple hundred people kneeling in prayer at the center of a larger group, who are standing around the edge and joining in the hymns between the prayers. Paris archbishop Michel Aupetit is inviting priests across France to ring the bells of their churches in a call for prayers for Notre Dame. Aupetit is at the cathedral and will meet with French President Emmanuel Macron later Monday night. Shock, prayers around the world for Notre Dame Cathedral The world reacted with shock, horror and prayers to the massive fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, reported news agency AP. As the flames tore through the 12th-century cathedral, Spains prime minister offered France the help of his country in the recovery. The fire is a catastrophe for France, for Spain and for Europe, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez tweeted, adding that the flames are destroying 850 years of history, architecture, painting and sculpture. Where millions have met with Jesus: Archbishop of Canterbury Tonight we pray for the firefighters tackling the tragic #NotreDame fire - and for everyone in France and beyond who watches and weeps for this beautiful, sacred place where millions have met with Jesus Christ. Nous sommes avec vous, tweeted Archbishop of Canterbury. Tonight we pray for the firefighters tackling the tragic #NotreDame fire - and for everyone in France and beyond who watches and weeps for this beautiful, sacred place where millions have met with Jesus Christ. Nous sommes avec vous. Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) April 15, 2019 Fire chief unsure Notre Dame fire wont advance The fire chief in Paris says its unclear if city firefighters will be able to keep a fire at Notre Dame from spreading and causing more destruction, reported news agency Associated Press. Fire Chief Jean-Claude Gallet said outside the iconic cathedral as his crews battled the blaze from both the exterior and interior: We are not sure we are capable of stopping the spreading to Notre Dames second tower and belfry. Gallet said: If it collapses, you can imagine how important the damage will be. Flames already have reached one of Notre Dames towers and brought down the church spire that extended 96-meters-high (315-feet). International sorrow as fire ravages Notre Dame International leaders voiced their sorrow and solidarity with the French people as fire ravaged the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Monday. One year ago when only the sun was burning #NotreDame #sadnews pic.twitter.com/fjZgemnf9Q Bruna Carvalho (@bru_scarv) April 15, 2019 This is heartbreaking. More than 700 years of history and art gone. Paris without #NotreDame isnt the same. I pay that at least some things can be recovered but it will never be the same again pic.twitter.com/GQCZLQNGPW olesya (@velvetskydreams) April 15, 2019 American tourists shocked at Notre Dame fire A group of Americans from Maine had just finished visiting Notre Dame Cathedral and were in a nearby park when they heard it was on fire. Freeport resident Lucy Soule, 22, said it was weird having been in the church right before this happened. Now you can smell it burning. Soule and her father, Win Soule, 58, and Libby Heselton, 53, are on a weeklong trip to Paris where they planned to see all the sights and had just finished their visit to Notre Dame. They had been in the cathedral at 5:30 p.m., about an hour before the fire. Win told The Associated Press Now I feel sorry for the people tomorrow. They wont be able to see it. He says its incredible. Im not religious, but this is clearly very important to a lot of people. All efforts directed at preventing collapse of northern tower of cathedral: Firefighters Firefighter at scene says all efforts are being directed at preventing collapse of northern tower of Pariss Notre-Dame cathedral, reported news agency Reuters. Church in Holy Land prays for Notre Dame cathedral The Catholic Church in the Holy Land said it is praying the fire that ripped through the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris on Monday was not intentional while expressing solidarity with the church in France. We pray that there will be no injuries, for the fire not to be intentional and for least possible damage to the Church, a statement released in Jerusalem said. We express our solidarity with (the) Church in France, the statement added. Vatican expresses shock and sadness The fire that devastated Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris has caused shock and sadness in the Holy See, the Vatican spokesman said on Monday. The terrible news of the fire that has devastated the cathedral of Notre Dame, symbol of Christianity in France and in the world, was received in the Holy See with shock and sadness, Alessandro Gisotti said in a statement. We express our closeness to French Catholics and to the people of Paris and we assure our prayers for the fire fighters and all those who are doing everything possible deal with this dramatic situation, he said. Firefighters say may not be able to save Notre Dame Cathedral: Official French Interior Ministry official says firefighters might not be able to save Notre Dame Cathedral YouTube Flags Notre-Dame Fire as 9/11 Conspiracy, Says System Made Wrong Call Soon after a fire engulfed Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris on Monday, news outlets began streaming live broadcasts on YouTube. Below several of the clips was an odd box of text: A snippet from Encyclopedia Britannica about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. YouTube, a division of Alphabet Inc.s Google, introduced this text box feature last year to combat the spread of conspiracy theories, including those that question the 9/11 attacks. On Monday, YouTubes software mistakenly labeled the plumes of smoke in Paris as footage from 2001, triggering the panel below the video. We are deeply saddened by the ongoing fire at the Notre-Dame cathedral, said a YouTube spokesman. These panels are triggered algorithmically and our systems sometimes make the wrong call. We are disabling these panels for live streams related to the fire. Water-drops deemed unsuitable for Notre Dame Frances civil security agency says all means except for water-dropping aircraft were deployed to tackle the blaze. The defense agency said those were unsuitable for fires like the one at Notre Dame because dumping water on the building could cause the whole structure to collapse. Heart-breaking, tweets Congress Heart-breaking news of the fire at the iconic Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. We hope there are no casualties & the Holy Cathedral can be salvaged. https://t.co/A3jHwfEuDl Congress (@INCIndia) April 15, 2019 Blaze looks terrible, tweets Omar Abdullah This blaze looks terrible. I hope they are able to put it out before it completely guts this historic building. #NotreDame #Paris https://t.co/8pqggHrdiw Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) April 15, 2019 Sad to see this part of all of us burn, says Macron Like all our compatriots, I am sad this evening to see this part of all of us burn, President Emmanuel Macron tweeted. Evening sky in Paris lights up bright orange Evening sky in Paris lights up bright orange as massive fire causes the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral to collapse. Cause of the fire was yet not known The cause of the fire was yet not known, but officials say it could be linked to renovation work at the 850-year-old heritage structure, the BBC reported. A major operation is under way to tackle the blaze, which broke out in the afternoon, and an area surrounding the building in central Paris has been cleared, it quoted officials as saying. London stands in sorrow with Paris: British capitals Mayor London stands in sorrow with Paris over the devastating Notre-Dame Cathedral fire, the British capitals Mayor Sadiq Khan said Monday. Heartbreaking scenes of Notre Dame cathedral in flames, Khan tweeted. London stands in sorrow with Paris today, and in friendship always. Emotion of a whole nation: French president Macron tweeted emotion of a whole nation on seeing Notre-Dame ablaze. The French president cancelled speech to nation, and rushed to the fire scene. No injures reported No injured have been reported so far, authorities are still examining the cause of the fire, said junior interior minister Nunez. Spire of Notre Dame cathedral collapses The spire of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris collapsed on Monday as a huge fire ravaged the roof of the famed gothic monument, deputy Paris mayor Emmanuel Gregoire told BFM TV, describing colossal damage. Must act quickly: Donald Trump So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!, tweeted US president Donald Trump. Fire breaks out at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris Notre-Dame Cathedral went up in flames on Monday in a roaring blaze that devastated the Parisian landmark, one of Frances most visited places. Flames burst through the roof of the centuries-old cathedral and quickly engulfed the spire, which collapsed. Irans parliament approved the outlines of a bill to retaliate for the US designation of the Revolutionary Guards Corp as a terrorist organization, Ali Najafi-Khoshroudi, spokesman for parliaments National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, was cited as saying by the official Islamic Republic News Agency. The bill declares that US Central Command forces in West Asia and any organizations or bodies working under them against Iran are terrorists. It further states that any financial, technical and training support, services and supplies to these forces will be regarded as engaging in an act of terrorism. The Wall Street Journal on April 6 cited unidentified US officials as saying that the terrorism designation of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards was planned, backed by National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The Central Intelligence Agency and Pentagon warned against it, the Journal reported. A designation would be the latest in a salvo of offensive measures taken by the Trump administration against Iran as it seeks to isolate and weaken a country it says is destabilizing the Middle East. The US last year withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on the oil-rich Persian Gulf states economy with a vow to wipe out its crude exports. The legislation in Iran lets the government take decisive and retaliatory measures against actions by the US and other forces that jeopardize the Islamic Republics interests. The bill also requires limits on the access of US and other forces to facilities, equipment, financial resources and other potential assistance from other countries. The full parliament will discuss the measure on Monday after the national security and foreign policy commissions first review. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) appealed on Sunday for information on the whereabouts of three employees abducted in Syria more than five years ago and last known to have been held by Islamic State. Breaking its silence on the case, the independent aid agency identified the three as Louisa Akavi, a nurse from New Zealand, and Syrian drivers Alaa Rajab and Nabil Bakdounes. U.S.-backed forces proclaimed the capture of Islamic States last territory in Syria last month, eliminating its rule over a caliphate which it had proclaimed in Iraq and Syria in 2014. We call on anyone with information to please come forward. If our colleagues are still being held, we call for their immediate and unconditional release, the ICRC said in a statement. Our latest credible information indicates that Louisa was alive in late 2018. The ICRC has never been able to learn more details about Alaa and Nabil, and their fate is not known. The three were travelling in a Red Cross convoy delivering supplies to medical facilities in Idlib, northwestern Syria, when it was stopped by armed men on October 13, 2013. Four other people abducted with them were released the next day. Following the fall of the last territory held by Islamic State group, we fear there is an extra risk of losing track of Louisa, though we remain hopeful this period will instead open new opportunities for us to learn more about her whereabouts and well-being, the ICRC said. Akavi, now 62, joined the ICRC in 1988 and worked in hotspots including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Somalia and Sri Lanka. She has been held longer than anyone in ICRCs 156-year history, said Dominik Stillhart, ICRC director of operations worldwide. New Zealands government said it was searching for Akavi, who successive administrations had previously asked media not to name as they feared it would put her at greater risk. Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the government had deployed a non-combat team based in Iraq of around twelve people that included special operations personnel. This non-combat team was specifically focused on locating Louisa and identifying opportunities to recover her, Peters said in an emailed statement. Unfortunately the current whereabouts of Louisa is unknown. However, the New Zealand Government continues to work tirelessly to locate her and bring her to safety. After being moved by IS forces to Raqqa in 2017, Akavi was seen in Al-Bukamal in late 2018, close to the Syrian-Iraqi border near the Euphrates River, the last concrete information on her whereabouts, he said. What we actually know is that Louisa has been working as a nurse during her abduction which shows her dedication and commitment to the mission and mandate of the Red Cross - caring for people affected by conflict, he said. The hardline separatist group, Sikhs for Justice or SFJ, has accused the Pakistan government of betrayal in banning its activists from conducting registration activity among visiting devotees from India at a historic gurdwara in Hassan Abdal during Baisakhi celebrations, which also marks the birth of the Khalsa Panth. The SFJ claimed that it was prevented from posting Khalistan banners and conducting a registration drive at the Gurdwara Panja Sahib in Pakistan despite having been invited there by president of the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee on behalf of the government there. It said activists from North America and Europe had arrived there to launch the registration drive among visiting Indian devotees for referendum campaign that SFJ has been leading. SFJs legal adviser Gurpatwant Singh Pannun accused Pakistans Prime Minister Imran Khan of deceptively claiming to be the messiah of the Sikh community . A sking prices in Greater London have fallen year-on-year for the 20th month in a row as political turmoil continues to grip the capitals housing market. This record spell dwarfs the previous run of negative annual asking price growth which lasted for 14 months from the start of June in 2008 to the end of July 2009, which was caused by the global banking collapse and the house price crash that followed. The current affordability crisis combined with the prolonged period of Brexit negotiations which are now due to rumble on until the new deadline of October 31 has quashed demand for new homes. Affordability limits and the uncertain political backdrop continue to hold back the market, reports Rightmove in the latest housing price index for in April. Monthly house price data tends to be volatile, however several different annual indicators tell the same story: asking prices were 2.2 per cent below this time last year, taking the average asking price across Greater London to 614,250. The number of properties coming to market is down by 12 per cent, while the number of sales agreed has dropped by 5.6 per cent. The report revealed the same pattern in inner London, where asking prices fell 1.3 per cent to 757,773 over the last 12 months, and a drop of three per cent from April-to-April to 512,726 in outer London. However, with average prices bursting through the 500,000 threshold, this shows that the affordability crisis has now spread to what was deemed to be the affordable periphery of the capital. This also coincides with a new report from the property group CBRE, published only last week, which ranked London the eighth most expensive city for house prices, behind New York, Barcelona and Hong Kong. Meanwhile, while prices jumped across Britain by 1.1 per cent in a month, the average asking price across the UK dipped very slightly over 12 months to April by 0.1 per cent to 305,449. Referring to the extension to the UKs exit from the European Union, Shipside says: There are no doubt more twists and turns to come but this extension could give hesitating home movers encouragement that there is now a window of relative certainty in these uncertain times. UK house prices: how does your region compare? (April 2019) 1 /17 UK house prices: how does your region compare? (April 2019) Alamy Stock Photo UK Average price: 305,449 Annual change: -0.1% Rightmove HPI, April 2019 Shutterstock Scotland Average price: 155,356 Annual change: 1.0% Shutterstock Wales Average price: 196,254 Annual change: 3.6% Shutterstock London Average price: 614,250 Annual change: -2.2% Shutterstock East of England Average price: 351,759 Annual change: -0.5% Shutterstock South East Average price: 405,009 Annual change: -0.9% Shutterstock South West Average price: 305,911 Annual change: 0.7% Shutterstock West Midlands Average price: 228,151 Annual change: 3.8% Shutterstock East Midlands Average price: 227,093 Annual change: 2.6% Shutterstock North East Average price: 151,469 Annual change: 0.8% Shutterstock North West Average price: 197,073 Annual change: 1.7% Shutterstock Yorkshire and The Humber Average price: 193,725 Annual change: 3.0% Shutterstock Early signs of spring boost in central London The new data did show that the average asking price had nudged up slightly by 1.1 per cent (or 6,694) from March this year to April across Greater London the biggest month-on-month uplift seen at this time of year since 2015. Rightmove analyst Miles Shipside puts this down to the spring selling season getting underway in London's most central zones. The rise in new seller asking prices reflects a stronger inner London performance. More sellers of expensive homes are coming to market in time for the traditional Easter pick-up, and there are tentative signs of market recovery after some large price re-adjustments in prime central locations, says Shipside. Becky Fatemi, founder of Rokstone Properties in Marylebone, says there are green shoots or a glimmer of hope in these inner London areas despite political or economic storm clouds. I have noticed an increase in demand in Marylebone and Notting Hill from international investors taking advantage of the weak pound. But remember that spring is always the busiest market. Recent research from estate agent Benham & Reeves shows that the postcode of W1T Marylebone, Fitzrovia and Soho has seen the largest increase in demand with transactions up a staggering 315 per cent between 2017 and 2018, albeit from a very low base. Large family houses see biggest drop in asking prices The average asking price for large family homes in London has fallen nearly eight per cent to 1,331,227 over the last 12 months, according to Rightmove. The stamp duty burden, combined with prolonged Brexit uncertainty as the new deadline to leave the EU is pushed to the autumn, has quashed activity at the top of the mainstream housing market. There are more improvers than movers in the upper echelons as the cost of buying a new house, paying agent fees and tax makes buying that forever home an expensive endeavour, says Marc Von Grundherr, managing director of estate agency Benham and Reeves. Homeowners are adding a basement or extension in order to maximise their space rather than buying that bigger aspirational property, agrees Richard Angel, boss of interior design firm Angel ODonnell. The Rightmove data showed the greatest year-on-year fall in asking prices was at the top of the market, defined by the property portal as homes with five or more bedrooms. For us this is a potentially $4 million relationship, she said. The idea that we have to unwind that for $100 is kind of nuts. When you think about the time it takes for the food service vendor to learn a district and get the process down, none of that currently is given any consideration in the process. I did this because I know I am not the only one who is thinking about the effects that these issues will have on this generation later in life, said Grace Comerford. Arroyo was wearing a T-shirt that said, Yo no creo en fronteras, which means, I dont believe in borders. People applauded when Arroyo translated it, but he said the message also refers to borders of the mind. The ethnic fair is about the importance of reaching out and connecting, Arroyo said. Industry Update Appointment 15 April 2019 Carla Simpson Appointed Director of Finance At Universals Endless Summer Resort Surfside Inn and Suites in Orlando - FL, USA Carla Simpson is Director of Finance. She has held various financial leadership roles since joining the company in 2013 at Loews Vanderbilt Hotel and Loews Annapolis Hotel, and was most recently Associate Director of Finance for Loews Hotels at Universal Orlando. Prior to joining Loews Hotels & Co, Carla was the Assistant General Manager of Homewood Suites by Hilton Nashville Airport. Loews Hotels & Co Headquartered in New York City, Loews Hotels & Co is a hospitality company rooted in deep heritage in the hotel industry and excellence in service. The hospitality group encompasses branded independent Loews Hotels, and a solid mix of partner-brand hotels. more information Recent Appointments at Loews Charly Houegban - Executive Chef 22 October 2021 Loews Vanderbilt Hotel is pleased to announce the appointment of Charly Houegban to Executive Chef. In his new role, Chef Houegban will spearhead all culinary aspects of the beloved Nashville enclave. read more Reggie Dominique - Managing Director 14 October 2020 In Los Angeles, CA hospitality veteran, Reggie Dominique has been named managing director at Loews Hollywood Hotel. Dominique's 25 years of hospitality experience includes a diverse leadership background in hotel operations and sales, having spent the majority of his career with The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC. read more Industry Update Appointment 15 April 2019 Robert Laurie Named Executive Chef At Endless Summer Resort Surfside Inn and Suites in Orlando - FL, USA Robert Laurie has been named Executive Chef. He joined Loews Hotels at Universal Orlando in 2015 as Sous Chef for Universal's Cabana Bay Beach Resort. Prior to this, he spent 14 years working for various Disney Resorts and was most recently Executive Chef for Disney's Vero Beach Resort. Laurie is a recipient of the Loews Legacy award, one of the company's highest honors. Loews Hotels & Co Headquartered in New York City, Loews Hotels & Co is a hospitality company rooted in deep heritage in the hotel industry and excellence in service. The hospitality group encompasses branded independent Loews Hotels, and a solid mix of partner-brand hotels. more information Recent Appointments at Loews Charly Houegban - Executive Chef 22 October 2021 Loews Vanderbilt Hotel is pleased to announce the appointment of Charly Houegban to Executive Chef. In his new role, Chef Houegban will spearhead all culinary aspects of the beloved Nashville enclave. read more Reggie Dominique - Managing Director 14 October 2020 In Los Angeles, CA hospitality veteran, Reggie Dominique has been named managing director at Loews Hollywood Hotel. Dominique's 25 years of hospitality experience includes a diverse leadership background in hotel operations and sales, having spent the majority of his career with The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC. read more Appointment 15 April 2019 The AC Hotel Los Angeles South Bay, a design-led European lifestyle Marriott brand hotel slated to open in early summer, announces the appointment of Ahmed Elassy as General Manager. Located in the growing South Bay region of Los Angeles County, the new-build property will be a new social hub for locals as well as a central starting point for visitors exploring this bustling destination. With 20 years of hospitality industry experience, Ahmed Elassy joins the AC Hotel Los Angeles South Bay as General Manager by way of the Los Angeles Marriott Burbank Airport, where he served as the Director of Operations for both the Hotel and Convention Center since 2015. During this tenure, he was also an interim general manager for various Marriott properties, including the Cincinnati Marriott at RiverCenter and Seattle Airport Marriott. Prior to joining Marriott, Elassy spent a decade serving Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, where he acquired a diverse background in various positions in hotels around the world. In 2008, he was handpicked from the Four Seasons Hotel Cairo in his native country to relocate and oversee front office operations during a $40 million dollar renovation at the only 5-Star, 5-Diamond hotel in Washington D.C. Based on Elassy's successful track record in D.C., he was sent to manage another renovation at The Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills before moving on to utilizing his strengths for the Marriott brand. In his new role at AC Hotel Los Angeles South Bay, Elassy will oversee all aspects of the 180-room property, including the rooftop restaurant and bar, and ensure overall guest satisfaction. Event Join us in New York City on Friday, April 19, 2019 for the Fourth Annual Titans of Real Estate, hosted by the Center for Real Estate and Finance and Baker Program in Real Estate at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. Richard Baker '88 of Hudson's Bay Company will step out from behind the podium this year to participate as a panelist with Kenneth Himmel '70 of Related Urban and Matt Bronfman of Jamestown, L.P. to share their perspective on mixed-use properties and redevelopment. Audience members will be treated to a rare look inside the planning, design and construction elements of these self-sustaining cities within metropolitan areas around the globe. Marty Burger, P '17 and P '20, CEO of Silverstein Properties, Inc. will moderate this much-anticipated event. Fourth Annual Titans of Real Estate is organized by Press Release 15 April 2019 The hospitality industry, benefiting from surging tourism worldwide, is scrambling to keep up with demand while remaining aware of the potential pitfalls from the deluge of tourists. Advertisements According to the World Travel & Tourism Council, tourism and travel spending grew 3.9 percent in 2018, compared to global economic growth of 3.2 percent. The sector generated US$8.8 trillion in revenue in 2018 and accounted for 10.4 percent of global economic activity. "Budget airlines, new technology promoting destinations, and a greater disposable income among a rising global middle class in countries like China and India have led to a travel boom," says Pitinut Pupatwibul, senior vice president, JLL Hotels and Hospitality APAC. Hotel construction has responded. In Australia, nearly 300 hotels in the works to cope with greater numbers of tourists. In China, the hotel pipeline is at an all-time high. "More tourists means more rooms are needed. And it's not just in the cities," says Pupatwibul. "Travelers are exploring beyond the usual spots thanks to a mix of social media and government campaigns promoting them." "When left unchecked by authorities, it causes overtourism," she says. Curbing tourist numbers The phenomenon of overtourism has led cities and rural locales around South East Asia, Japan and Europe struggling with the deluge of travellers. From Dubronik and Venice in Europe to Phuket and Kyoto in Asia, beautiful destinations are caught between the resultant economic spoils and the social costs. While hordes of travelers keep the hotels busy, the longer-term fallout from overtourism can hurt business. The island of Boracay in the Philippines was closed to tourists fox six months last year, as authorities said they sought to clean up the damage caused by tourism. The shutdown cost the island US$1 billion in lost tourism revenue. Hotels that failed to meet standards were not allowed to operate. As of December, new guidelines limit the daily number of tourists arriving to 6,400. In Iceland, new hotel construction was banned in downtown Reykjavik last April, following similar steps taken by Barcelona, which passed an accommodation law in 2017 to stop hotels from being built in the city centre. "New rules will be put in place to combat overtourism. I foresee more of such laws as well as authorities taking a tougher stand on hotels to ensure compliance to minimize environmental damage," says Pupatwibul. Globally, more destinations are starting to implement measures to control tourism. Bali is among the latest to announce it will be charging a US$10 levy on foreign tourists to fund efforts to preserve the environment. But the gold standard of "high value-low impact" tourism can be seen in Bhutan. Visitors to the Himalayan kingdom need to book with a government accredited travel agency and pay US$250 a night to cover basic accommodation, a local guide, food and transportation. The way forward Some hotels are banding together to combat the effects of overtourism. Phuket's Hotel Association and its members have rallied together to reduce plastic use, pledging to phase out plastic water bottles and straws by this year. Pupatwibul suggests hotels can demonstrate more responsibility by screening tour operators and agents they partner with, curating external services provided to ensure standards and safety and educate guests about travelling more sustainably. "As it's impossible to stop the flow of tourists, there is more urgency than ever in managing tourist numbers and planning ahead," she says. "All stakeholders - hotels, travel operators and authorities - can work together to create more sustainable travel." The drownings have brought new attention to the low-head dam, which was built in the 1930s for recreational purposes but which also has been the scene of other tragedies over the years. Though the concrete and limestone dam is only about 4 feet above the riverbed, authorities have stressed the dangers of the dam, noting that the boil that churns below it can suck people back into the water and is very difficult to get out of, even for strong swimmers. Press Release 15 April 2019 New York - The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) is delighted to announce the 2019 leaders in sustainable tourism at the Tourism for Tomorrow Awards ceremony. The Awards, now in their 15th year, took place on April 3-4 at a special ceremony during the WTTC Global Summit in Seville, Spain, to celebrate inspirational, world-changing tourism initiatives from around the globe. Advertisements Photo: WTTC The 2019 WTTC Tourism for Tomorrow Award Winners are highly commended and recognised for business practices of the highest standards that balance the needs of 'people, planet and profits' within the Travel & Tourism sector. Our 2019 Winners promote inclusive growth and illustrate a strong commitment to supporting change and transformation in business practices and consumer behaviour towards a more environmentally conscious sector. The Winners of the 2019 Tourism for Tomorrow Awards are: Climate Action Award - Bucuti & Tara Beach Resort, Aruba - Bucuti & Tara Beach Resort, Aruba Investing in People Award - Lemon Tree Hotels Limited, India - Lemon Tree Hotels Limited, India Destination Stewardship Award - St. Kitts Sustainable Destination Council, St. Kitts and Nevis - St. Kitts Sustainable Destination Council, St. Kitts and Nevis Social Impact Award - Awamaki, Peru - Awamaki, Peru Changemakers Award - SEE Turtles, USA The Awards are judged by a panel of independent experts, led by Prof. Graham Miller, Executive Dean, Professor of Sustainability in Business, University of Surrey. The panel included academics, business leaders, NGO and governmental representatives who narrowed down the list of 183 applications to just fifteen finalists. The three-stage judging process included a thorough review of all applications, followed by on-site evaluations of the Finalists and their initiative. The Winner of each category was determined by the WTTC Tourism for Tomorrow Awards 2019 Winners' Selection Committee, chaired by Fiona Jeffery OBE, Founder & Chairman, Just a Drop, and composed of Wolfgang M. Neumann, Non-Executive Director and Strategic Advisory, Global Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Sector; John Spengler, Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; and Louise Twining-Ward, Senior Private Sector Specialist, Global Tourism Team, World Bank. WTTC represents the global private sector of Travel & Tourism. Its Global Summit is the most important event in the sector worldwide each year. Full list of Winners and Finalists: Climate Action Award, for organisations undertaking significant and measurable work to reduce the scale and impact of climate change: WINNER : Bucuti & Tara Beach Resort, Aruba : Bucuti & Tara Beach Resort, Aruba FINALIST: The Brando, Tetiaroa Private Island, French Polynesia FINALIST: Tourism Holdings Limited, New Zealand Investing in People Award, for organisations demonstrating leadership in becoming an exciting, attractive, and equitable employer in the sector: WINNER : Lemon Tree Hotels Limited, India : Lemon Tree Hotels Limited, India FINALIST: Reserva do Ibitipoca, Brazil FINALIST: Shanga by Elewana Collection, Tanzania Destination Stewardship Award, for organisations helping a place to thrive and bring forward its unique identity for the benefit of its residents and tourists: WINNER : St. Kitts Sustainable Destination Council, St. Kitts and Nevis : St. Kitts Sustainable Destination Council, St. Kitts and Nevis FINALIST: Grupo Rio da Prata, Jardim and Bonito, Brazil FINALIST: Masungi Georeserve, Philippines Social Impact Award, for organisations working to improve the people and places where they operate: WINNER : Awamaki, Peru : Awamaki, Peru FINALIST: Intrepid Group, Australia FINALIST: Nikoi Island, Indonesia Changemakers Award, this year focused on organisations fighting the illegal wildlife trade through sustainable tourism: WINNER : SEE Turtles, USA : SEE Turtles, USA FINALIST: Kelompok Peduli Lingkungan Belitung (KPLB), Indonesia FINALIST: The Cardamom Tented Camp, Cambodia About the Tourism for Tomorrow Awards: More details on the Awards and the Finalists can be found at http://wttc.org/T4TAwards The 2019 Awards programme has five categories: Climate Action Award - recognises organisations undertaking significant and measurable work to reduce the scale and impacts of climate change. Investing in People Award - recognises organisations demonstrating leadership in becoming an exciting, attractive and equitable employer in the sector. Destination Stewardship Award - recognises destinations which help a place to thrive and bring forward its unique identity for the benefit of its resident and tourists. Social Impact Award - recognises organisations that are working to improve the people and places where they operate. Changemakers Award - recognises organisations that have made real, positive and impactful change in a specific area of focus defined by WTTC. This focus will change each year, and in 2019 will focus on fighting the illegal wildlife trade through sustainable tourism. Finalists and Winners receive complimentary flights and accommodation and recognition during an Awards ceremony which took place as part of the WTTC Global Summit in Seville, Spain on 3-4 April 2019. Finalists and Winners get to meet the Travel & Tourism industry's top Chief Executives, leading journalists, renowned experts and government officials attending the Summit. Tourism for Tomorrow Award Partners: Press Release 15 April 2019 HTNG proudly crowns GuestMagic.AI by InnSpire the 2019 HTNG TechOvation Award Winner at the HT-NEXT Awards Program in New Orleans, LA. Advertisements GuestMagic.AI is an online AI-driven platform for hoteliers that uses machine learning to anticipate the next step of the guests to deliver the right service at the right time. It's device agnostic from smart-phone to tablet, to TV, to voice, and beyond. Using the digital guest journey as a footprint to enhance every technical touch-point in the guest's path, the result is to have the experience flow like magic. "I am extremely pleased that the industry sees the value in what we are trying to create; a fully customized and personal guest experience, that engages the guest from when they book until they book again - while using automation and AI to scale that experience," said Martin Chevalley, CEO & Co-founder of InnSpire. "Combined with easy to use, relevant, proven and innovative technologies, our partner hotels are utilizing the digital guest journey, big data, social media, and their hotel CRM systems to ensure that what they are offering is personal, relevant and instantly accessible." Data Laundry by dailypoint was a finalist in this year's TechOvation Award. The patent-pending and fully automated cleaning method, Data Laundry, reviews key data points collected by dailypoint, merges duplicates, corrects mistakes from human errors and ultimately creates a single profile for each guest. The clean data is then pushed back to the PMS and stored in dailypoint so all data is up-to-date across sources, allowing hotels to have a single source of truth for all guest data. TraknProtect's Safety Button was also a finalist in this year's TechOvation Award. This safety button is designed to protect guest room attendants in the hospitality industry, where instances of sexual harassment and assault have become too common. When feeling threatened or uncomfortable, a housekeeper can press the safety button. Once pressed, designated security personnel are alerted and given a precise location in order to provide immediate assistance in a situation where every second counts. Supplier News 15 April 2019 It's the perfect digital storm. Over the past few years, technologies such as smartphone cameras, image recognition software, and machine learning tools have all rapidly improved at the same time, leading to the emergence of something truly transformative: visual search. What exactly is visual search? Why is it such a big deal? How is it being used? What can brands do to capitalize on its potential? Photo: MDG Advertising What Is Visual Search? Visual search replaces the traditional input for searching for things onlinetextwith images. Essentially, instead of typing "tulip" into a box, a user submits a photo of a tulip to the platform. It starts with a visual that can come from anywhere, including: A image/stream taken in real time by a camera on a device An image that's already in a device's photo library An image pulled from somewhere (website, email, etc.) Next, the platform must identify and interpret, which involves: Recognizing what the image is Determining what the searcher wants Delivering the most relevant results Why Is Visual Search Suddenly a Thing? Using visual search feels like magic: simply share a photo and the search engine quickly figures out what it is and what you want. This ease masks the fact that the task is immensely complex. The technology is just becoming a thing because up until recently, it wasn't possible to execute well. To make visual search as powerful and accurate as text search, these elements had to come together: The image: The widespread of adoption of smartphones with good cameras and speedy Internet access has made it possible to consistently capture and share high-quality images. The data: Search platforms need to be able to recognize what is in an image, which requires accessing and processing huge libraries over time. The intelligence: For visual search to work, the machines must be be smart. Advancements in AI and machine learning have made it possible for platforms to learn more quickly and accurately. What's So Great About Visual Search? Visual search matches what we see with the vast amount of information available on the Internet. That makes it possible to do a number of useful things, including: Answering questions that can't be asked via text: Sometimes we can't type in a search query because we don't know how to describe what we're looking at. Visual search is great for answering questions such as: What is this? What looks good with this? Where can I buy this? Linking the physical and digital: Often there's a disconnect between what people see in the real world and all the information available online. Visual search can bridge this by: Enabling consumers to match products they see with online information/purchasing Utilizing barcodes and QR codes to link products and services with digital content Making shopping experiences truly interactive with visual cues and prompts What Does Visual Search Look Like in Action? Although visual search is relatively new, it's already been integrated into quite a few products. In particular, a number of the major online platforms have focused on the technology: Google Lens: This extension of the search platform enables users to point their device's camera at any range of thingsfrom a hat to a monumentand get relevant results. Pinterest Lens: Share a photo of something with the platform, such as a necklace or cake decoration, and this tool will deliver Pinterest Pins of similar products. Amazon Rekognition: This platform powers a number of visual search tools, including Snapchat's, and connects images with products. Find It On eBay: Share an image from social media with eBay and the company's mobile app will find listings on the service for similar products. How Popular Is Visual Search? Are consumers actually using visual search? Is the technology part of the mainstream? The data shows that it hasn't made it there yet, but that adoption is quickly accelerating. Most people still don't know what visual search is: Only 27% of US Internet users are aware of the technology It currently accounts for just a fraction of all searches: Less than 1% of all searches are currently visual based But its use is on the rise: The number of monthly visual searches on Pinterest jumped from 250 million in 2017 to more than 600 million in 2018 What Can Marketers Do to Optimize for Visual Search? While visual search is still gaining in popularity, there are some things marketers can do now to optimize for the technology: Invest in images: If you want visual search engines to recognize your offerings, then it's necessary to have a robust library of images that can be accessed. Connect and catalog: Ensure that your images link to the correct product/service pages and that your site is structured in an easily crawlable way. Think of the physical and digital as intertwined: Consider how you can structure things like in-store displays to cater to those who may use visual search. Finally, keep in mind that this is only the beginning. Consumers are just becoming familiar with the approach and the underlying technologies are still improving. Expect visual search to become much more popular and much more powerful in the near future. External Article 15 April 2019 For almost a decade, the Germany-based company SkyTender has promised airlines they can revolutionize how they serve drinks by dropping canned sodas and watery coffee and adding special trolleys that dispense fountain-style sodas and specialty coffees, such as cappuccinos and espressos. Each year, in April, SkyTender brings its contraptions to the World Travel Catering & Onboard Services Expo in Hamburg, where food and drink companies set up elaborate booths in two gigantic halls, hoping to sway airlines. Some, like SkyTender, seek to persuade airlines to invest in new technology. Others hawk speciality jams, artisan cookies, champagne, craft beer, and cider that airlines can sell or give away on board. Some vendors view it as a make-or-break event. They are typically firms like SkyTender selling technology without an obvious market beyond transportation. Food producers may see it differently they can sell to retailers but they still may hope an airline contract will raise their profile, or boost profits. External Article 15 April 2019 Marriott International President and CEO Arne Sorenson testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee in early March, providing some insight into the data breach of the Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide legacy reservation system. In his testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in March, Sorenson laid out the timeline of the discovery of the breach and how his company responded. Opinion Article 13 April 2019 Bigger is better, right? That's why there are more hotel mergers and acquisitions in recent years; there are also many hotel chains are building larger loyalty programs to pull in more travelers. Besides hotels, Airbnb and OTAs (online travel agents) also want to get bigger through acquisitions. Advertisements When it comes to product development, however, investors seem to favor the small and boutique concept over the big ones. Here are a few examples. New stores called Sears Home & Life will open on Memorial Day weekend As Sears is getting through bankruptcy and closed hundreds of stores, the company plans to open three smaller stores --- Sears Home & Life on the Memorial Day weekend, which will only focus on the appliance, mattresses, and home services. The size of these smaller and specialized Sears stores ranges from 10,000 to 15,000 square feet, less than one-tenth of an average Sears store (155,000 square feet). It is uncertain, however, whether Sears is trying today will help the company turn around its business, with some critiques saying that Sears opening smaller and specialized stores is "a very old strategy" that will amount to "zilch." At least, Sears is making efforts to fight back with other specialized stores like the Home Depot and Lowe's. citizenM, a microhotel brand gets a cash boost citizenM, a microhotel brand that positions itself as a place for "affordable luxury" received a cash boost last month from a giant Singapore government-run fund for 25% stake of the business. Similar to other popular microhotel brands in the market, such as The Pod Hotel, Yotel, and Arlo, citizenM offers smaller (or "micro") guestrooms with open space for social activities, including a "living room," a canteen, and a cocktail/coffee bar. Marriott debuted the Moxy Hotels brand in 2013, where guestrooms are small but with urban and functional designs. The brand is also known for its "flexible" functional space. Wyndham recently revealed the prototype of its new hotel brand --- Microtel. This award-winning economy hotel brand targets travelers who usually stay in the economy and midscale hotels. Other examples include the Motto by Hilton and Avid by InterContinental. Both are new but with many in the pipeline. Along the line of promoting social interactions among travelers, JO&JOE by Accor Hotels is another affordable hostel-like brand that tailors to travelers with a budget. Why investors want to go big by focusing on small For the most part, the shifting customer base and their new preference drive the development of new brands and concepts. Gen Zers, for example, are more likely to accept automatic services; they also expect new designs for better use of the space. Microhotels that are usually built with smaller guestrooms but flexible multi-functional space for social activities can meet the demands from younger travelers. Consumers may also find it easier to build an intimate personal relationship with the mom-and-pop-type small hotels or retails stores than with the big corporate brands, which helps promote customer loyalty. Meanwhile, building smaller, instead of mega hotels or retail stores can be a better option for developers, including: Lowering the building or startup costs Establishing a clearer brand identity with a more focused product and target customers Easier to adopt the modular construction technique Faster and easier for housekeepers to clean a guestroom due to the smaller space and newly designed furniture; or easier to up-keep the retail space with similar products Easier and cheaper to test new business ideas in a smaller establishment Easier to convert an existing building (e.g., an office or a warehouse) into a microhotel or a micro retail store due to the flexibility of these product types More efficient and possibly more effective in managing the business' human capitals with a narrow focus on a few specific products/services Is that all? What other reasons that drive the growth of microhotels and smaller retail stores? Is this another example of how business can win big by acting small? The report, issued by Dan Bucks, former director of the Montana Revenue Department and previous executive director of the Multistate Tax Commission says the decision last year provides the legal framework and incentive to tax Airbnb like every other U.S. online business now. A new report released today on National Tax Day underscores why the Supreme Courts Wayfair vs. South Dakota decision eliminates the need for states and localities to enter into voluntary tax agreements with Airbnb. The report, issued by Dan Bucks, former director of the Montana Revenue Department and previous executive director of the Multistate Tax Commission says the decision last year provides the legal framework and incentive to tax Airbnb like every other U.S. online business now. Airbnb no longer qualifiesif it ever didfor privileged treatment by tax agencies as a voluntary collector, states Bucks in the report. This treatment gives Airbnb an unfair advantage in the marketplace by creating a tax and regulatory haven for Airbnb lodging operators. Post-Wayfair, Airbnbs voluntary agreements are now a relic of a past legal premise that no longer exists. Bucks urges government leaders to begin the process of terminating existing executive agreements with Airbnb in coordination with state adoption of general marketplace provider legislation. Bucks went on to say that disparities between the tax treatment of Airbnb and other online businesses pose a legal risk to states and localities. The report released on behalf of AHLA calls on state and local government leaders to reject Airbnbs future pursuit of voluntary collection agreements (VCAs) and look to the Wayfair decision as a pathway to cancel current VCA agreements and bring Airbnb up to code with current industry tax standards and regulations. Airbnb has been making back-room deals and strong-arming state and local jurisdictions into voluntary tax deals with no transparency, oversight or auditing capability for years, stated Chip Rogers, President and CEO at AHLA. Airbnb, and other short term rental platforms need to abide by the same rules as all other law-abiding, tax-paying businesses in the industry. AHLA urges state and local government leaders to terminate Airbnbs voluntary tax deals and instead institute a tax policy that will collect taxes from Airbnb and its operators to ensure an even playing field and transparency for taxpayers. In San Francisco, home of Airbnbs corporate headquarters, the company agreed to pay back taxes and collect city taxes from its hosts. AHLA urges other states and localities to follow suit. Airbnbs secret tax agreements are hurting communities across America by shortchanging their schools, infrastructure, and other public services stated Rogers. Airbnbs special treatment needs to end. Click here ( Adobe Acrobat PDF file) to download the report. Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest Hotel industry news and trends. Subscribe 2021 Hotel News Resource Over the last several years, weve seen Google become a major player in the travel industry. In the last six months in particular, Google has gone from search engine to booking engine, causing more than a few worried glances among those who rely on direct online bookings for revenue. Google had previously been an ally in bringing qualified visitors to hotel websites but has now become your biggest competitor. Our Senior Manager of Search Marketing Services, Trish Leighton, dives into hoteliers new biggest competition for direct bookings; Google. Over the last several years, weve seen Google become a major player in the travel industry. In the last six months in particular, Google has gone from search engine to booking engine, causing more than a few worried glances among those who rely on direct online bookings for revenue. Google had previously been an ally in bringing qualified visitors to hotel websites but has now become your biggest competitor. In October 2018, Google rolled out a desktop treatment for hotel booking that aligned with the mobile experience that had been live for several months. It allows the searcher to filter by location, dates, number of guests, budget, and preferred amenities. No one can argue that it isnt a great way to find what youre looking for. However, its what happens after you narrow down your search results that is having an impact on direct bookings. Google provides a handful of ways to book that room, with the eye-catching photos, hotel information tabs, reduced rate messaging, reviews, and nearby competitor rates far more appealing than the little Website button that actually takes you to the hotel website. Weve seen a distinct reduction in website traffic from Google in response to this approach already, and it appears Google has recently taken it a step further and integrated hotel results in their incredibly popular flight search tool. In a quiet non-announcement of sorts, Richard Holden, Googles VP of Product Management for Travel published a blog post in March highlighting the new features and capability of their new travel insights tool. With an impressive list of features, like the Deals filter that uses machine learning to highlight hotels where one or more of our partners offer rates that are significantly lower than the usual price for that hotel or similar hotels nearby and a Packages tab to show flight and hotel bundle rates, and even non-hotel vacation rentals in the area of interest, the tool itself is a powerful search engine for travelers. The problem is that Google is keeping all of that browsing and booking traffic on Google, and away from hotel websites. Industry chatter regarding the tool is that Google is trying to compete with, and take business away from, OTAs. But for hotels already elbowing their way to the front of the room to capture direct bookings, this is another obstacle in the way of that valuable revenue channel. I was recently looking up flight and hotel options for a trip and wanted to see how Googles search experience on mobile has changed and if it would impact my own booking decisions. Since I was logged into my own Google account, I got the added bonus of rate reduction offers as a Google One member, with a lower rate shown than I could find elsewhere for the property. After browsing a few hotels, I noticed how difficult it was to get to the hotel website directly and how much effort was placed into directing clicks to the Hotel Ads. In the Prices tab, the ads are the only option for rates and more information, and if you go to any other tabs to get further location info or read reviews, there is a clear CTA to View Prices at the bottom of the screen that takes you back to you guessed it the ads. While Googles nudge toward ad clicks that bring them so much annual revenue is nothing new, this brazen and blatant push without organic options is surprising. I wanted to see what else I could do with the tool and checked out the Packages tab (previously labeled Flights + Hotels). It had the same great filters, map view, date and price range, and amenity selection. But what happened once I clicked on a hotel to see the package price is noteworthy you cant actually book a package. The CTA at the bottom includes a bright button with the total price of the package, and you assume that clicking it will take you to where you can book everything together as, you know, a package. But when you click it, you get a pop-up saying you have to book the hotel and flight separately, and the only option for each is via an ad with an OTA. The CTA was labelled as an ad, but I searched for other opportunities to make the booking directly, and none existed. It appears the entire Packages tab is one big ad for OTAs. So, after falling down the rabbit hole of Googles travel tool, the one thing I was getting further away from with every click was the hotels website. Also, at no time did I consider checking organic results to see what came up in my searches. Considering the OTAs tend to dominate organic results, its clear how Google is impacting their traffic with their entrance into the booking world. But after all the time and money hotels spend on being visible in organic results, it seems that Googles moves are making their own results pages obsolete for travel. Clicking on a hotel in the local pack brings you to a variety of ways to get you to click on an ad and keep that cash register ringing over at Google headquarters. How this will translate for your website is a reduction in organic traffic year over year, especially for non-branded searches, even as search trends for hotels in your city remain steady or grow. Google is investing a lot to develop ways to keep people searching and also converting on Google, with the lucrative travel industry becoming their bread and butter. It seems weve been ushered into a new era where the friend you relied upon has become the foe. For more information about how to keep your hotel website relevant & not lose out on direct booking traffic, contact the experts at Vizergy. About Vizergy Digital Marketing: Vizergy serves the worlds hospitality industry with stunning website design and fiercely competitive tools to maximize revenue. Our formula for success includes cutting-edge technologies, proven digital marketing programs and the best professionals in the industry. At Vizergy, hospitality marketing is not only our mission, its our sole focus. For more than 20 years, Vizergy has relentlessly developed and deployed the best technologies and talent to serve thousands of hospitality clients with excellence. We deliver best-in-class solutions and the most meaningful results for our clients" bottom lines. From complete responsive website design and development, to proven awardwinning digital marketing programs, strategies, and media campaigns, Vizergy deploys turnkey online marketing solutions to empower clients to win in todays complex and competitive hospitality industry. For more information, please visit www.vizergy.com Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest Hotel industry news and trends. Subscribe 2021 Hotel News Resource This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Air Jordan 4. It released back in 1989 with four OG colorways: "Military Blue," "White Cement," "Fire Red," and last but certainly not least, "Bred." The "Bred" colorway simply stands for "black and red" which is exactly what this shoe looks like. The sneaker was made to match the Chicago Bulls jersey which, of course, was worn by Michael Jordan. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the shoe, Jordan Brand is coming out with the OG version of the Air Jordan 4 "Bred," which has sneakerheads chomping at the bit. The release date for the shoe has been confirmed for May 4th of this year, with the price being $200 USD. OG sneakerheads are extremely happy as the shoe comes with the original "Nike Air" branding on the back, as opposed to the Jumpman logo that JB has used in the past. The Nike Air branding is important as it makes this a true OG release. For some more detailed pictures of the shoe, check out the images below, courtesy of Sneaker News. Are these a must cop for you? Image via Sneaker News Image via Sneaker News Image via Sneaker News Image via Sneaker News Image via Sneaker News Derek King's latest is the epitome of a cut bound to the potential for massive success by today's standards, and his long list of work as a hitmaker behind-the-scenes only further proves the point. With his latest "Play," King is previewing his More Vibes project and introduces us an instant bop that's likely to keep us going all summer long. Play came about from me being in the studio and talking to my producer on how we can re-shake up the world with another follow-up after my latest single Tetris, Derek King tell Hypebeast. We wanted to bring the same type of vibe but in a different way, so we came up with flipping I Need a Girl Part 2. My producer T Kelley did the beat and sent it over, and as soon as I heard the beat I had that melody in my head so I put it down. Im happy the way it came out! More Vibes and the More Vibes tour coming soon! Listen to "Play" down below. Quotable Lyrics Leave your number, baby girl, let me call you You ain't never had a n-gga come and spoil you Anytime, let me know, Imma fall through Imma be there like a real n-gga supposed to The working session between the Dutch delegation and Ba Ria-Vung Tau officials on April 12th (Photo: baria-vungtau.gov.vn) The Dutch delegation accompanied Prime Minister Mark Rutte during his official visit to Vietnam on April 9th. Pauline Eizema, deputy head of mission at the Embassy of the Netherlands in Vietnam, introduced the service supply chain for developing offshore wind energy in her country. During the delegations working sessions with the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Vietnam Electricity group, the two sides proposed orientations for offshore wind energy development, she said, noting the Dutch sides evaluation that Ba Ria-Vung Tau has potential for developing wind power projects. Vice Chairman of the provincial Peoples Committee Le Tuan Quoc said Ba Ria-Vung Tau encourages capable and experienced investors with modern and environmentally friendly technologies to invest in renewable energy projects, especially wind power ones. Cooperation between Vietnam and the Netherlands is flourishing with the recent establishment of a comprehensive partnership which is hoped to further intensify bilateral relations. Ba Ria-Vung Tau believes that it is time for the Netherlands to invest in wind power projects, as well as enhancing ties in logistics, trade, customs, agriculture and natural resources-environment in the province, Quoc noted. Although the province hasnt zoned areas for offshore wind power development, it is ready to provide the best possible support for investors who want to make investment, he said, adding that a plan on this field will be built soon./. The wait is over for Game of Thrones' much-anticipated 8th and final season. With it comes the exception that a few central plot points work paly out in a disorderly fashion. Now's the time to get the correct subscription plan in order, you don't want to be doing this last minute. I know the feel. https://twitter.com/_/status/1117200794984402944 When and Where to watch it. Season 8's premiere airs at 9 pm in North America (eastern time) for HBO subscribers in North America - whereas the UK broadcast will be simulcast on the Sky Atlantic network at 2 am. As you can see, the American network gave its domestic the benefit of a more reasonable start time. That's just how the cookie crumbles sometimes. What the trailer tells us about the general direction of Season 8. The trailer could very well contain false flags for all we know. Based on the two-minute clip that's been offered to us, we can deduce a few things of note. For starters, the series looks to be headed for a bloody conclusion on the battlefield. An injured Arya Stark hobbles out of the picture frame clutching her battle gear, only to find herself in the possession of a deadly dragonglass dagger. Alternately, Tormund and Beric appeared to be alive and well in the trailer, don't they? We also get a glimpse at Daenerys and Jon visitation Drogon and Rhaegal, the two remaining dragons in the Targaryen arsenal in case you lost count. The Articles of War The following weapons or items all appeared in GOT teasers and promo reels leading up to this point. Every last one of these "articles of faith" is designed with the purpose of snatching bodies from their hereditary lines. A battle to end all battles seems like the only option here. https://twitter.com/_/status/1070795722906316800 There's a growing sentiment that a coalition of macabre White Walkers will reign supreme by the time episode 73 comes around. Tyrions Hand of the Queen pin, Aryas sword Needle, Lyanna's feather, Brans wheelchair, Jaimes golden hand, Daenerys dragon chain, and Jons sword Longclaw all figure in the plans. Let the escapism begin! For a more comprehensive FAQ check out our "Game of Thrones: The Ultimate Pre-Season Recap." My colleague didn't miss a beat. https://www.instagram.com/p/BvUMXU8hL2C [Via] Actor Ian McShane spoke to Collider the other day with two exciting projects on the table": the much anticipated big screen debut of HBO's Deadwood, for which he plays fan favorite Ellis Alfred Swearengen. The second thing he sat down to discuss the premiere of John Wick: Chapter 3 Parabellum, after a year of buildup by the producorial staff and star Keanu Reaves, who to his credit kept his lips sealed for the most part. Bobby Bank/GC Images/Getty Images Ian McShane's press run coincides with the busy month that lay ahead in May. John Wick: Chapter 3 Parabellum arrives in theatres on May 17, the Deadwood motion picture a mere two week's later on the 31st. When it comes to the former (franchise) McShane understands his importance to the storyline, but won't openly commit to staying the course, with retirement looming in the horizon whenever he wants to take it. But rest assured, McShane is only speaking for himself in that regard. When it comes to Keanu and John Wick's overall longevity, he sees the fun lasting another decade or so. "Probably in 10 years, John Wick would still be going," McShane said after the Collider asked him to predict the lasting outcome. "You never know, Keanu might be running the [Continental] hotel and everything by then." At this point, the conversation veered towards Keanu's character completely, with McShane implying that John Wick fans will learn a lot more about his backstory in the upcoming installment. [Via] According to a new policy rolled out by the New York City Council, most employers will no longer be able to make job applicants take drug tests for marijuana use. Drug policy experts, per the New York Times, note that any record of similar laws does not exist, even in states where marijuana use is legalized. In Maine, where recreation use is approved, laws prevent employers from discriminating against applicants who use marijuana, but does not regulate their ability drug test or not. This new bill will be applied to both private and public employers in NYC, even companies with headquarters that are somewhere else. Ethan Miller/Getty Images "Im proud that the city has taken action where the federal and the state government have stalled [...] If we want to be a progressive city, we have to really put these things into action, said Jumaane D. Williams, the citys public advocate and the bills sponsor, adding that it is not yet clear exactly how many employers in the city will be affected. In addition, the city also passed a bill that will prevent the city from requiring marijuana testing for people on probation. Both bills are awaiting an official signature from Mayor Bill de Blasio. A spokesperson for the mayor's office says that de Blasio is in full support of the employment bill, which would take effect one year after it is signed into law. Q: We hired an attorney and paid a retainer of $6,000 for legal services. The attorney made little progress on the case, so we fired him. The balance on the retainer is now $5,136. Because this lawyer will not do further work on the case, I want to get back my unused retainer. How should I proceed in this matter? A: You should start by emailing your lawyer to ask for a return of the unused retainer. It is a fairly routine matter for an attorney to return unearned client funds. There is a very good chance that no other action on your part will be needed. A retainer from a client is supposed to be held in the law firms trust account, called an IOLTA (Interest on Lawyer Trust Account). Interest on money held in these accounts is used to pay for legal services for persons who are unable to afford an attorney. Your $5,136 should be sitting in such an account, and it should be a simple exercise for your former lawyer to send you a check. But if no money is forthcoming, or if your attorney returns less than you think you are owed, or worse, if your lawyer refuses to respond to your email, your next step is to call the State Bars Client Attorney Assistance Program at 800-932-1900. They will help you figure out the best course of action, as a number of different options are available. They might recommend that you utilize your local bar associations fee dispute services. (Not all local bar associations have this service.) The Houston Bar Association offers a service where attorneys and non-attorneys sit on panels and arbitrate disputes between lawyers and their clients. More information about the Houston Bar Associations program can be found at www.hba.org. Click on Need Legal Assistance and then on Fee Dispute. Note though, the fee dispute process is entirely voluntary. Your attorney is not required to participate in any of the discussions or meetings. Ultimately, if all of your efforts fail, and especially if your attempts at communication go unanswered, the last option to consider is filing a grievance against your attorney with the State Bar of Texas. You can file a grievance online at www.texasbar.com. You dont need a lawyer to file a grievance. A grievance will not work to resolve a fee dispute, but if the filing of your grievance is justified, it will certainly get your attorneys attention. Be sure to review the fee agreement you signed when you hired the attorney as it may contain provisions regarding the method of resolving a fee dispute. The information in this column is intended to provide a general understanding of the law, not legal advice. Readers with legal problems, including those whose questions are addressed here, should consult attorneys for advice on their particular circumstances. Ronald Lipman of the Houston law firm Lipman & Associates is board-certified in estate planning and probate law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Email questions to stateyourcase@lipmanpc.com. Does the world need another Carmen? Spanish choreographer Marcos Morau apparently didnt think so when he created a spectacular, controversial, contemporary, evening-length dance for the Royal Danish Ballet last year. Only the George Bizets popular score was familiar. Morau made his ballet about Spanish identity and culture, even ditching Carmen, Jose and the bullfighter as primary characters. His setting depicted a 1930s-era film stage, complete with booms and camera tracks between the audience and the dancers. The action played out both on the stage, with a few scenes in open dressing rooms, and on a huge screen. After the September premiere in Copenhagen, critics and some audience members recoiled at the surreal narrative. People either loved it, seeing it as a creative masterpiece, or hated it, said Dance Salad Festival founder and curator Nancy Henderek. She loved it, perhaps because she had watched rehearsals and seen the otherworldly costumes coming together in the Royal Danishs wardrobe shop. Even before Morau was finished, Henderek asked him if he might craft a shorter version for her now 24-year old Easter weekend festival at the Wortham Theater Center. Dance Salad Festival When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday Where: Wortham Theater Center, 501 Texas Details: $25-$59; 832-487-7041, dancesalad.org See More Collapse She often collaborates with choreographers to make curations of their work, partly for practical reasons. She crams a lot of wonderful dance into three nights, with overlaps, so no one piece can be too long. This years festival features eight groups of performers, including several international superstars, as is Hendereks custom. Curations also give her something unique, capturing the essence of a longer piece that might never be seen the same way anywhere else. Surprisingly, many choreographers relish the chance to tinker and re-think aspects of their work. Morau, who brought his own company to Dance Salad several years ago with another curation, was on board. The movie decor was out of the question, but Henderek started with a wish-list based on costumes. She and Morau could only request a few of the Royal Danishs dancers in the midst of the companys spring season, so he linked several pas de deus, pas de trois and solos small but meaty parts to capture the essence of the full ballet. Then he decided he wanted to have this big, beautiful black dress with a hat as the opening scene, Henderek said. The dress arrived last week, the only costume the company dared to ship overseas. So I know I have at least one costume, Henderek said. The rest of the Carmen outfits, for safekeeping, will travel with the dancers. The Royal Danish dancers also will perform Kristian Levers Unravel during the festival. Henderek is equally excited to host: Cambodian-born phenom Sokvannara Sar of Carolina Ballet; New York City Ballets Ashley Bouder and the recently retired Joaquin De Luz; Russian ballerina Maria Kochetkova; Danish choreographer/dancer Sebastian Kloborg; Romes Spellbound Contemporary Ballet; Helsinkis Susanna Leinonen Company and Berlins Donlon Dance. Works by Benjamin Millepied, William Forsythe, Alexander Ekman, Victor Ullate, Mauro Astolfi, Susanna Leinonen and Marguerite Donlon are in the mix. She sounded calm in spite of her customary last-minute scramble to organize everything from visas, daily classes and accommodations for the dancers and musicians to stage preparations and several free public talks that include films 7:15 p.m. Tuesday at Houston Ballet and 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. By now, Henderek has got this down. molly.glentzer@chron.com For Manal al-Sharif, a spontaneous act of defiance in 2011 changed everything: She decided to go for a drive. It was completely unplanned, she said. I dont know what came over me. I think I was just tired of being harassed. In many places around the world, driving around the block wouldnt be so remarkable. But al-Sharif was living in Saudi Arabia, where women were forbidden from driving anywhere without a mans permission. On Thursday, al-Sharif, who lives in Australia with her family, will share her experiences the changes they have helped bring and the work that still needs to be done with an audience in Houston. Asia Society is hosting the event, which is part of a speaking tour al-Sharif is on. The talk, organized by the New York-based Human Rights Foundation, is a perfect fit for the Asia Societys goal of hosting events that feature speakers people wouldnt normally be able to hear from, said Saleena Jafry, director of business and policy for the Asia Society. She has an extremely powerful story, she said. She took that step to actually go out and defy the laws and start driving, and as soon as she did that, it inspired a lot of women out there to follow in her footsteps. Driving might not seem like it would have such a big impact on the way people lived, but transportation is a key to freedom and independence, al-Sharif said. Without being able to drive, women had to rely on their husbands and private drivers for anything they might need outside of their homes. For al-Sharif, a single mother at the time, the law was a huge obstacle. What if there was a medical emergency and I needed to take my son to the hospital? she said. I couldnt even go to the airport. In Saudi Arabia, women spend a big percent of their salaries on private drivers, and it holds them back. And if they dont have the money, they have to resort to dangerous alternatives. Al-Sharif had purchased the car while working overseas in New Hampshire in 2009 where she had also learned to drive and was introduced to other liberal elements of Western culture and it didnt seem right that she wasnt able to drive it. That, along with the fact that the region was in the midst of the Arab Spring uprisings, which saw protests break out across the Middle East, inspired al-Sharif to get in the drivers seat and have a friend film the experience for YouTube. It changed everything for me, she said. The move, which brought international attention and landed al-Sharif in a Saudi womens prison for a time, would ultimately help spark a movement of women filming themselves driving that led to Saudi Arabia in 2017 rescinding its ban on women driving. It would also put al-Sharif, named as one of TIME Magazines 100 most influential people in the world, on a path of activism, challenging Saudi customs and laws that al-Sharif said oppress women. She wrote a book, Daring to Drive: A Saudi Womans Awakening, about her newfound political consciousness, and redirected her life to helping women in Saudi Arabia overcome the challenges they face there. Daring to Drive: The Story of Manal al-Sharif When: 6:15-7:30 p.m. Thursday Where: 1370 Southmore Tickets: $10 members, $20 nonmembers Information: 713.496.9901; asiasociety.org See More Collapse Saudi Arabia is rated the No. 5 most dangerous country in the world for women, she said. Thats how terrible it is. Al-Sharif said the Thursday event, which will mark her first trip to Houston, is part of a larger trip around the United States that shes taking to bring attention to the oppression and danger women face in Saudi Arabia. It was a trip she had originally planned for Saudi Arabia, but she said after the news of the torture of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in 2018, she couldnt go back. I asked, What if I took my trip in the United States instead? al-Sharif said. The world needs to know whats happening to women there. Going to prom aint cheap. Theres the dress, the shoes, the makeup with lashes, the accessories and thats just for the girls. According to a 2015 national survey from Visa, the average cost of prom, including the promposal, is $919. But going to prom doesnt have to be so pricey with options like Charlottes Closet, an online shopping site for renting items for prom, graduation, homecoming and other special occasions. Think Rent the Runway for teens. Jen Forman, the companys CEO and founder, launched the site in 2016. Its named for her daughter, Charlotte, now 16, who at the time was making the social circuit and needed a dress for each event. As a working parent, I never saw the need to buy a dress for everything. But I realized that this Generation Z (ages 12-21) wants the experience of the dress, then they take a photo and move on, Forman said. Charlottes Closet has some 500 dress styles from 30 brands and come in sizes 00 to 24. Based in New York, the company also has a storefront there and hosted a pop-up shop in Houston in March. Teens can select three dresses for $30 plus $12 shipping to try on for 24-48 hours. After they pick their dress, rentals range from $29 to $200, with most less than $100. When it comes to trends, Forman said lace gowns, particularly in sapphire blue, have been the most popular. There are also metallic hues, cut-outs and bold color. At Macys, glitter and sequins are in season for prom. Color trends include cool blues, metals like rose gold, gold and ivory and different hues of pink from pastels to fuchsia. Macys also offers a free personal stylist service, which lets promgoers and their parents arrange a consultation with a Macys style expert to help find that perfect look for prom. Consultants can be scheduled online or in-store at many Houston area locations. When it comes to guys, a simple tux for prom just wont do. Seventeen magazine suggests guys step up their game, with more pizzazz this prom season. Trends are inspired from the Hollywood red carpet, with crushed-velvet suits or trendy printed blazers. The classic tux, in a bold color or even a leopard velvet tuxedo jacket (theblacktux.com), is also a young, fun statement. For the super-confident date, theres the skinny black and cream sequin tuxedo suit or the pink floral print skinny suit, both from Asos.com After all, you only go to prom once, or twice. Models pulled on flowing pants, floor-length dresses, capes, turbans and headscarves backstage at the Houston Event Venue Sunday afternoon. All of pieces were examples of what the fashion shows host, Nadeen Mustafa, said was often missing in retailers: modest fashion. Who else has experienced that? she asked an audience of over 150 women who nodded and raised their hands. Thats why were all here. The show, Beyond the Veil, was organized by the Muslimat Collective, a group founded to meet Muslim womens needs, which in fashion can include head coverings and high necklines. Houston is home to the fifth-largest Muslim population in the country, according to the U.S. Religion Census, and that population is quickly growing in 2010, there were an estimated 158,000 Muslims in Houston, up from 54,000 in 2000. Beyond the Veil was designed to cater to the portion of that growing population that chooses to dress modestly. And, with a set list that included Punjabi, Beyonce and traditional Nigerian drumming, it set out to prove that high-coverage fashion can be fun. Habiba Muya from Houston called the show inspiring. She was selling a laundry detergent made by a Muslim-owned business, True, and said that before attending, she hadnt realized how many Muslim-owned businesses are in Houston. Seeing events like this gives you hope despite everything going on in the world and all the backlash, she said. It empowers me. Haniyyah Juneja, also from Houston, said the event showed that Muslims can be business owners, designers and models. It helps overcome the stereotypes, she said. Meanwhile, 15-year-old Naimah Ocana from Orlando helped models ready for the show backstage. Ocana grew up making dresses for her siblings and watching Project Runway. She has always known she wanted to be a designer and believes her religion brings something to the table that many other designers overlook. A lot of people dont tap into modesty, because when a lot of people think modest, they think boring, covered up, Ocana said. Her clothing includes wide-legged pants printed with iridescent florals and a white silk dress paired with a cropped pastel jacquard jacket modest elements that people wont necessarily notice at first, she explained. Some clothing, like Ocanas, were sleek and contemporary; others drew from different cultures from around the world, including African, Arabic and South Asian fashions. The diversity appealed to the model Sadia Jalati of Houston, who said each culture had found a way to fuse beauty with Muslim beliefs. This could be straight out of my own closet, Jalati said, gesturing at dress she wore pink, with silvery gray embroidery. Its Pakistani; Im Pakistani. But later in the show, Im in a Moroccan kaftan. She said Beyond the Veil, which she first took part in last year, had helped her make friends with people of different backgrounds. Theres not a lot of things like this, she said of the show. I think a lot of stereotypes about Muslim women are drab, dull and the fashion that were showcasing shows thats not true. Tayler Middleton of Atlanta agreed that the looks on display were far from dull. While she is not Muslim, she found the elegant silhouettes and bold patterns take, for example, a yellow-and-black houndstooth cape with matching pants and headscarf captivating. To me, its not a religious thing, she explained. Its a classy thing. After one designers show, she eagerly tapped her family members sitting a row before her. I saw three things that I want, she whispered. rebecca.schuetz@chron.com; twitter.com/raschuetz Four chefs studying at the Art Institute of Houston zested limes, sliced fruit and meticulously arranged dishes on tiny plates Sunday morning as they competed for a spot on The Palm Houstons menu. Outside the kitchen, brunch patrons enjoyed a swanky buffet and breakfast cocktails, waiting for the competition to begin and watching the chefs prepare their dishes on three large TVs with live feed from the kitchen. Stephanie Kesler, restaurant manager at The Palm, created the Making the Menu competition. It just kind of clicked that I wanted to work with up-and-coming chefs, so I immediately got with the Culinary Institute of Houston, said Kesler. The student chefs, Brandon Jolley-Samples, Leurisa Watson, Matthew Lowell, and Tabitha Lima, were recommended by their instructors to compete. Each student was asked to create an amuse-bouche, appetizer and entree, all with an Italian flair. Judging the competition were Josh Hairthorne, regional director of operations for The Palm, Vanessa Garner, chef and instructor at the Art Institute of Houstons Culinary Arts School and Steve Griffin, head of the Art Institute of Houstons Culinary Arts School. Matthew Lowell, 22, who won the competition, has been cooking professionally for a year and a half. I had no idea where to start so I researched Italy and the first thing I was looking for was the entree, I wanted the entree to be the centerpiece, said Lowell. As the first-place winner, Lowell, who served a duck prosciutto bruschetta for his amuse bouche, tempurified cherry tomato risotto as his appetizer, and a chicken saltimbocca for his entree, won a $500 gift card to The Palm in addition to a spot on the menu. Lowell said he wants to blend his passion for cooking with his interest in storytelling. To do that I feel like it needs to be a more personalized experience, so I want to do something a little bit tighter. I want to do something a little more intimate, said Lowell. Lowell added that he ultimately wants to work as a chef. Telling the story as were making the dish right in front of [customers]. Each ingredient has a story element. The stories Lowell creates are inspired by his personal life as well as his interests. I write slice-of-life fiction or Ill do a little supernatural twist on it, Lowell said. Storytelling with cooking just adds a new challenge to it. A woman opening up a northeast Houston convenience store was robbed in a matter of seconds, video shows. The employee was opening the gate to the Mini Mart in the 12100 block of Homestead Road, near Winfield Road, around 8:20 a.m. March 22 when a man ran up to her, according to the Houston Police Department. As she had her back turned to the parking lot, the man rushed her, snatched her purse and ran off within seconds, surveillance video shows. The woman tried to chase the robber but could not keep up, police said. Now Playing: A woman opening up a northeast Houston convenience store was robbed in a matter of seconds, video shows. Video: Houston Police Department Robbery Division She traced her phone to a nearby ditch, but her purse and the suspect were nowhere to be seen, police said. The robber is only described as a tall, skinny male wearing a black hoodie, a black mask and black pants, detectives said. Anyone with information is urged to call Houston Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS (8477). 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 claim: Nearly half of public school teachers in Texas are working a second or a third job, not for kicks, not for extra spending cash, but just to make ends meet. Democratic presidential candidate Beto ORourke, campaigning in Keokuk, Iowa. On the first day of his campaign for president, March 14, ORourke made the statement in response to a man who said teachers in his district are struggling and paying out-of-pocket for school supplies. Politifact ruling: While it is true that Texas teachers are paid less than the national average, the survey ORourke relied upon did not delve into their reasons for seeking secondary employment. Researchers say there is limited information on why teachers take extra jobs. ORourkes statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details. Half True. Discussion: ORourkes campaign said he was referring to information from the Texas State Teachers Association, which conducted a voluntary internet survey of 974 teachers in August 2018. The group said about 39 percent of the respondents said they needed second jobs during the school year to supplement their salaries; 56 percent said they had summer jobs when school is not in session. More Information About PolitiFact PolitiFact is a fact-checking project to help you sort out fact from fiction in politics. Truth-O-Meter ratings are determined by a panel of three editors. The burden of proof is on the speaker, and PolitiFact rates statements based on the information known at the time the statement is made. See More Collapse The teachers organization, an affiliate of the National Education Association labor union, said the teachers indicated they took extra jobs outside the classroom to meet family expenses. Teacher pay in Texas has been subpar for a long time, and the financial plight of teachers has worsened in recent years because of rising health insurance costs, Clay Robison, spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association, told PolitiFact. Texas teachers on average got paid $53,167 for the 2017-2018 school year. Nationwide, teachers that school year got paid an average of $60,483. There is no data on why specifically teachers took additional jobs, but it would seem that the overriding reason is to make ends meet, said Dr. Robert Maninger, an associate professor in the School of Teaching and Learning at Sam Houston State University. Hes one of the researchers who conducted the Texas survey. The majority of moonlighting jobs center around the teaching profession, such as tutoring, Maninger said. Dick Startz, an economics professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara, also said he doesnt think there is much data available on why teachers in general take extra jobs; whether its to make ends meet or for extras for the family. He also said he suspected that the Texas survey results might not be representative of all state teachers because those who responded were likely selective. Texas has about 350,000 public school teachers. Reflective of all would be impossible, I would think, Maninger said. Could I generalize our results across the population of teachers in Texas? I think so. Sam Houston State University has been surveying teachers about their pay since 1980, Maninger noted. Over the last decade the number of yes answers to moonlighting has been 31 to 44 percent, he said. More broadly at a national level, 18 percent of regular, full-time public school teachers reported having a job outside the school system to supplement their income, the U.S. Department of Education said in a June 2018 report that draws from the 2015-16 National Teacher and Principal Survey. For more on the research and the conclusion, visit Politifact Texas, www.politifact.com/texas/. Texas Republicans say Facebook routinely muzzles Christians and conservatives by banning them, shutting down their pages and preventing them from promoting posts. Those claims of bias are now headed to the state Senate as lawmakers debate a bill that threatens social media companies with lawsuits if they censor users based on their viewpoint. It appears that certain speech that Facebook doesnt like gets treated differently than speech that they do like, said state Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, whose Senate Bill 2373 was approved 7-0 by the State Affairs committee on Monday. State Sen. Judith Zaffirini, of Laredo, abstained. Hughes said he filed the bill after Facebook did not let him pay to promote a post containing a Bible verse. He said he has also heard from a Baptist church in Allen that was not allowed to promote a Facebook post about Easter services. And members of the Texas Senate Republican Caucus were rebuffed by Facebook when they tried to promote an ad for anti-abortion legislation, he said. Similar complaints prompted a Congressional hearing last week, when Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz grilled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the platforms content decisions. There are a great many Americans who I think are concerned Facebook and other tech companies are engaged in a pervasive pattern of bias and political censorship, Cruz said. Texas Take: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox Zuckerberg said he is dedicated to making sure Facebook is a platform for all ideas. This is actually a concern that I have, and that I try to root out in the company, is making sure that we don't have any bias in the work that we do, and I think it is a fair concern that people would at least wonder about. At the same time, after Facebook flagged the page of two conservative bloggers known as Diamond and Silk as unsafe to the community, Zuckerberg admitted our team made an enforcement error, and we have already gotten in touch with them to reverse it. Hughes bill would provide consumer protection penalties to social media companies if they market themselves as viewpoint neutral but restrict users speech based on its content. Under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, companies found in violation of the new law could be sued by the Texas Attorney Generals office. If you publicly say, We are content neutral. We do not censor based on religious or political speech, we are going to hold you to that, Hughes said. For subscribers: State troopers intercept gun-rights activist at House Speaker Dennis Bonnens home Last year, in an effort to be more transparent, Facebook published its rules for moderating posts, which were once kept secret, and introduced an appeals process for users who believe their content was taken down unfairly. Andy Stone, policy communications manager for Facebook, said he was unable to comment on the posts Hughes mentioned. CJ Grisham, founder of Open Carry Texas, testified in support of SB 2373 on Monday. He said Facebook has repeatedly censored his organization even though it adheres to the platforms terms of service. Weve lost 16 Facebook groups that have been shut down arbitrarily by Facebook, Grisham said. We dont allow hate speech we dont say anything violent, we dont encourage violence, yet myself and our organization is routinely targeted. Representatives of the technology industry testified against the bill, raising concerns that the legislations vague language could bring about unnecessary lawsuits and burden Texas courts with policing social media. Companies review millions of pieces of content every week, and while they dont and cant always get it right, they work to ensure there is no bias in content decisions and take equal steps to improve their processes, testified Sarah Matz, director of state government affairs for The Computing Technology Industry Association in Texas. Were concerned this bill would create, unintentionally, an onslaught of frivolous lawsuits and this doesnt seem like the Texas thing to do. Texas state agencies are beginning to divest nearly $72 million worth of stock in a company said to be boycotting Israel the first financial move after a year-old law that bars Texas agencies from investing in such companies. Two major state pension funds the Employees Retirement System of Texas and Texas Permanent School Fund own $68 million and about $4 million, respectively, worth of stock in DNB ASA, a Norwegian financial services company, officials said, though the company has denied it boycotts Israel. The 2017 law was touted by Republicans, including Gov. Greg Abbott, as a way to show solidarity with the country, and prohibits state agencies from investing in companies that boycott Israel, or giving them government contracts. With bipartisan support, it passed unanimously in the House and with little opposition in the Senate. Texas is one of more than two dozen states to pass such a law in response to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against Israel. Launched in 2005 by Palestinian groups, the initiative aims to use economic pressure to push the country to put an end to settlement in Palestinian territories, among other goals. Texas Take: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox The legislation made national headlines this year after Airbnb announced it was pulling rental listings from the West Bank, territory whose ownership is disputed by Palestinians, leading the Texas Comptrollers office to blacklist the company. Airbnb announced Tuesday it would reverse that decision. The Comptrollers office said its considering lifting the ban on the vacation rental company. Opponents of the Texas law, including plaintiffs in two federal lawsuits filed against the state, say it unconstitutionally infringes on the free speech rights of businesses and individuals who do contract work with the state government. But until now, the legislation has been largely symbolic. The Comptrollers office, upon the advice of two contracted consulting groups, identified four companies as having boycotted Israel, though all of them deny that they engage in any punitive ban. Employees Retirement System spokeswoman Mary Jane Wardlow said the fund began divesting March 1, 2018, when it had about $68 million invested in DNB, and as of early April had divested about half that amount. Divestment should be complete by June, Wardlow said. The Texas Permanent School Fund did not respond to a request for information on its divestment. The state has no direct holdings in any of the other three companies on its divestment list, according to notifications to the state obtained by Hearst Newspapers. For subscribers: Texas ban on business with anti-Israel companies largely symbolic Two of the six state agencies affected by the law Texas County and District Retirement System and Texas Municipal Retirement System had indirect investments in DNB, records show. And three of the six state agencies affected by the law the Employees Retirement System of Texas, Texas Municipal Retirement System and Teacher Retirement System of Texas had indirect investments in Airbnb. (The only agency to disclose how much, ERS, had about $460,000-worth.) But the law doesnt require state governmental entities to divest from indirect holdings. It only requires them to send letters to the managers of the investment fund in question and request that they remove blacklisted companies from the fund or create a similar fund without those companies. If the manager cant come up with a fund with substantially the same management fees and same level of investment risk and anticipated return, the law requires no further action. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, who sponsored the 2017 legislation in the Senate, said the statement the bill made in showing Texas commitment to stand with Israel is more important to him than any monetary impact. The numbers may not add up in the aggregate to be something that others may consider to be this kind of statement that may be worthy of policy, but it certainly is to Israel and it certainly is to me, Creighton said. Because we will never know how those numbers could balloon if the policy was not in place. Creighton said Airbnbs move Tuesday signaled that the law is having a positive effect. For subscribers: Airbnb, banned by Texas agencies for boycotting Israel, may get reprieve Even Westerveld, spokesman for DNB, said the company is not boycotting Israel nor any other country and invests in many Israeli companies. DNB entertains no political opinion regarding the situation in Israel or the Palestinian conflict, Westerveld said in an email. After two federal lawsuits cropped up following the passage of the law, Creighton and Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, who first filed the 2017 legislation in the House, are seeking to amend the law so it only applies to companies with at least 10 employees and contracts of $100,000 or more. In a federal lawsuit filed this December, a Round Rock-based speech pathologist Bahia Amawi sued the state and Pflugerville Independent School District, saying the law violates her First Amendment right to free speech. Days later, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas filed a suit in Austin district court arguing the same on behalf of four government contractors who say they were forced to sign a pledge promising they wouldnt boycott Israel. Creighton and King say they never intended the law to target individuals, just companies. This was intended to deal with enterprise-level investments and large company transactions, King said in a committee hearing earlier this year. However, Tommy Buser-Clancy, staff attorney for the ACLU of Texas, said the proposed bills do not cure the laws fundamental constitutional defect. The law still discriminates against companies that engage in political consumer boycotts of Israel, which is a right protected by the First Amendment, Buser-Clancy said. An unconstitutional law cannot be salvaged merely by making it apply to fewer people. Part of a group of about 30 students from Oak Forest and Hillcrest high schools, Griffin and her fellow volunteers soon learned the day would involve some hard work, but it would also be a good time. Facing a bank of TV cameras and plenty of wrath from the Houston police union, special prosecutor John Raley held a press conference in March to declare Alfred Dewayne Brown actually innocent under the law. The conclusion, following Raleys exhaustive 10-month investigation, was expected to finally pave the way for Brown to qualify for state compensation for the 12 years he spent behind bars, including nine on death row, in the 2003 murder of veteran Houston Police Officer Charles R. Clark. That was 44 days ago. Brown still hasnt been paid. In fact, the judge has yet to sign off on Harris County District Attorney Kim Oggs motion to declare Brown actually innocent. No one with standing opposes the motion, but one obstacle has emerged that could thwart Browns long-awaited path to compensation. While Raley contends the judges signature is merely a ministerial duty, others including police union officials and some in Oggs own ranks arent sure the judge has legal jurisdiction to sign the motion. State District Judge George Powell is scheduled to hear arguments Monday. At this point, we havent heard any good reason why Oggs motion shouldnt be honored or why Brown should be deprived, yet again, of justice. Browns conviction in a bloody three-man robbery of a check-cashing place, in which clerk Alfredia Jones was also slain, was overturned in 2014 after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals determined the state withheld evidence, a phone record, that supported his alibi. Raleys investigation found that prosecutor Dan Rizzo not only hid the phone record, a copy of which later turned up in a detectives garage, but abusively manipulated witnesses to supply evidence for a chosen narrative. Oggs decision to appoint Raley is a rare one. Its not every day that a district attorney spends precious resources and her own political capital to investigate a wrongful conviction. Her predecessor, Devon Anderson, took the easy way out in 2015. She dismissed the capital murder charge against Brown, saying there wasnt enough evidence to retry him leaving Brown to languish without the magic words actual innocence that the comptroller says are required to pay him. Now all that stands between Brown and fair compensation is a technicality. Ogg is asking the judge to let her amend her predecessors 2015 dismissal motion to add the words actual innocence. But an attorney for the Houston Police Officers Union, which still contends Brown is guilty, filed a friend-of-the-court brief Friday in opposition. Citing a nearly 40-year-old ruling by Texas highest criminal court, it argues that once a judge signs an order dismissing a criminal case, as occurred with Brown in 2015, the case is closed and the judge no longer has authority to issue orders. The case police cite, Garcia v. Dial, involves very different circumstances and was decided before the passage of the Tim Cole Act, which ensures compensation for people granted relief on the basis of actual innocence. In fact, the principal author of the Tim Cole Act, former Sen. Rodney Ellis, wrote his own amicus brief. I can attest that it was written precisely for people like Alfred Dewayne Brown, who suffered one of the most grotesque miscarriages of justice to ever occur in Harris County, he wrote in an op-ed submission to the Chronicle. Rare though it is, Oggs motion is not unprecedented. In Nueces County, Hannah Overton, mother of five, was wrongly convicted of killing a child she planned to adopt. Evidence later showed the child likely ingested a lethal amount of salt on his own. The DA dismissed the case in 2015, citing only prosecutorial discretion, but two years later, another DA filed an amended motion to declare her actually innocent. If the police union is right to reject this clear precedent, and theres no relief after dismissal, whats to keep an unscrupulous prosecutor from thwarting the Tim Cole Act, and blocking the compensation of a wrongfully convicted person by simply omitting actual innocence from the dismissal motion? The union argues the Overton case and a similar one involving a dismissal that was amended after the fact, have never been reviewed by an appellate court. But thats likely because no one opposed their actual innocence declarations. Browns bar appears to be higher because he was convicted of killing a cop. It shouldnt be. The murder of a law enforcement officer is a tragedy. It is no reason to deny Brown the same rights extended to others deemed actually innocent under Texas law. Judge Powell should sign Oggs motion. Not doing so would set a harmful precedent for Brown, for Texas exonerees, and for the public interest which is not served by double standards. Some folks in the Republican Party have given up. They are out of ideas, void of policy and lacking the enthusiasm needed to attract new voters. If demography is destiny, they seem to be content eking out marginal victories for a few more years by clinging to a dwindling base. How else do you explain their push to win elections through exclusion? Why else do they pin their hopes of power on disenfranchisement? Their latest attempt, one of Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patricks priorities for this years Legislature, is Senate Bill 9. While it contains a welcome measure to guarantee that all electronic voting machines can produce a paper record, it also includes provisions that put up obstacles targeting vulnerable populations. SB9, poised to pass the Senate, makes it more difficult for people who need assistance at the polls, such as seniors and the disabled. It gives partisan poll watchers the right to be in the voting booth when a volunteer is helping someone, a clear encroachment on the secret ballot. It also imposes new hoops to jump through for election volunteers, including those who drive voters to the polls. The most troubling provisions, though, are those that threaten jail time for certain election-related infractions even in instances involving an honest mistake when registering. The bill increases the penalty from a misdemeanor to a felony on certain election-related offenses, and removes the requirement for a court to consider intent. It also allows law enforcement to violate election law during an investigation or a prosecution, clearing the way for undercover sting operations that could have a chilling effect on legitimate voter registration efforts and potentially entrap the unwitting. Though we may want to believe that no one would be prosecuted for unintentionally violating election laws, recent cases show that overzealous Texas officials should not be trusted. Rosa Ortega, a legal immigrant with a sixth-grade education, was sentenced to eight years in prison for voting illegally in Tarrant County. This was a disproportionately harsh penalty for someone who mistakenly believed she could vote and who, as the facts of the case revealed, could have been informed of her ineligibility by the officials who accepted her registration. In another case, also in Tarrant County, Crystal Mason, a black woman, was sentenced to five years in prison for filling out a provisional ballot without knowing she was ineligible due to a felony conviction. Officials have also shown a cavalier attitude when leveling unsubstantiated accusations. A clear example was the list of 95,000 registered voters that was handed over to the attorney general under claims these were immigrants ineligible to vote. The list quickly fell apart under scrutiny, and the investigation was put on hold, but only after it had been trumpeted by Republicans including President Trump as evidence of the GOPs massive voter-fraud bogeyman. Bills such as SB9 are voter suppression efforts, pure and simple. A way to intimidate the growing number of potential voters, including minorities and young people, that overall tend to support Democrats. That these attempts come under the guise of protecting the electoral process is particularly galling, since in-person, deliberate voter fraud is virtually nonexistent. When the restrictive 2011 Texas Voter ID law was taken to court, the judge noted that in the decade before the law was passed, there had been two convictions out of 20 million votes cast in the state. Texas already ranks among the states with the lowest voter turnout, so participation by qualified voters should be made easier, not harder. Practical solutions include doing away with early registration deadlines and allowing online registration and address updates and automatic voter registration when obtaining a state ID. Those are the types of measures, widely endorsed by nonpartisan voter-rights organizations, that should take up lawmakers time. Citizens have a fundamental right to vote, and the government must have a compelling reason if it wants to interfere with that right. SB 9 falls far short. Voter suppression efforts such as this one deserve our scorn, not the Legislatures support. Zip it, Mitt. As the junior senator from Utah the area previously known as Northern Mexico you may feel that the debate over immigrants and refugees needs your perspective. It does not. Its not that you Mitt Romney dont have anything to offer. In the past, youve been a moderate on the prickly question of what to do with people who show up uninvited at the back door. During the 2012 presidential campaign, when nativists which were once a radical wing of the GOP, but now seemingly make up the whole bird tried to get you, as the Republican nominee, to take a hardline stance on immigration, you refused. The furthest you were willing to go was to suggest that illegal immigrants self-deport. In fact, during that campaign, I was in the room when you while speaking to Hispanic Republicans in Miami endorsed the idea of letting the undocumented stay in the United States as long as the border was secured. In 2014, you told Univision that Congress needed to pass legislation that would make more transparent the process by which illegal immigrants could obtain legal residency. You were attacked by right-wing radio hosts who accused you of supporting amnesty and pushing for an open border. Welcome to my world, Senator, where what you actually say comes in a distant second to what people hear or what they want to believe. That was then. Now, youve joined the rest of the Republican sheeple in backing President Trumps ill-conceived crusade to shut out immigrants and refugees from countries that he deems inferior. During a recent appearance on NBCs Meet the Press, just two days after Trump traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border and declared the country is full, you backed his play and said that Central Americans seeking asylum are overwhelming our system. Weighing in on Trumps crackdown, you declared that it was a winning issue for Americans to say we have to have the sovereignty of our nation. You also credited him with tapping into something which the people feel very deeply. Look, Senator, if you want to cozy up to a man who publicly humiliated you by dangling the job of secretary of state before offering the post to another poor fellow and humiliating him instead thats between you and your therapist. Youre certainly entitled to your opinion. And the rest of us are obliged to ignore it. Of all people, youre in no position to talk about how the United States should pull up the drawbridge and keep out foreigners. On that topic, youve been compromised by your own lineage. Time to break out the family photo album. The Romneys know all about immigrants and refugees because thats what they were in the 1880s. Your great-grandparents were Mormon refugees, escaping intolerance and discrimination in the Midwest. At the time, the region was largely Protestant and not especially welcoming of those who werent. It wasnt just that Mormons couldnt get a job. The threat of violence was real. The elected officials, and local law enforcement, were of no help. Either they shared the anti-Mormon prejudices of the mob, or maybe they were merely tapping into how did you put it? something which the people feel very deeply. Either way, your great-grandparents needed a safe haven. Refresh my memory. What was the name of the country that graciously took in your family and offered them refuge? Why, what do you know? Its the same country that today bears the brunt of Trumps anti-immigrant zealotry: Mexico. As you know but rarely discuss, your great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, fled the United States and crossed into Mexico in 1885 without an invitation. He helped build the Mormon enclave of Colonia Juarez in Chihuahua, where he lived with his son, Gaskell your grandfather. During the Mexican Revolution, which lasted from 1910 to 1920, Gaskell returned to the United States again without an invitation. And he brought with him his family, which included his son, George your father. Fun fact: Your father (future Michigan governor and 1968 presidential candidate) was born in Chihuahua, and so was my grandfather (future farmworker) who also came to the United States during the revolution. Why the short memory, Senator? You do realize that if Trump had been running U.S. immigration policy at the beginning of the 20th century your grandpa and mine could well have been kept out and forced to stay in Mexico. And wed be having this conversation in Spanish. Navarrette writes a syndicated column for the Washington Post. The plan recently unveiled by Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., for the largest federal investment in teacher salaries in U.S. history to solve the perennial teacher shortage has particular relevance for Texas. With some 80,000 new students entering the public school system each year, the state is hard pressed to find enough teachers to staff its classrooms. To recruit teachers, Texas allows for-profit companies not affiliated with higher education institutions to offer certification. Alternative certification certainly creates a faster route into the classroom, taking between three months to two years and costing about $4,000, but its debatable if the policy will achieve its goal. When combined with the government investing $3 for every $1 a state contributes to increasing teacher pay, Harriss proposal at first glance seems like the solution to recruiting and retaining college graduates to make the classroom their lifetime career. But theres another side of the story that warrants a closer look. Harris assumes that the teacher pay gap, which the Economic Policy Institute says is 11.1 percent less than comparable workers in other professions even when benefits are factored in, is the No. 1 reason that teachers either shun the classroom entirely or depart after a few years. If that is so, then why do exit surveys show that teachers often take jobs paying even lower salaries? And why has combat pay failed to entice teachers to inner-city schools? The truth is far more nuanced, because teachers are neither mercenaries nor missionaries. Of course, they want higher salaries, but they want greater respect even more. Its doubtful that exempting teachers from state income tax or other financial measures will help much either. For example, New York has long had that policy and yet still has trouble finding enough teachers for troubled schools. Texas has no personal income tax, which makes such a proposal irrelevant. At the heart of the problem is the loss of autonomy created first by No Child Left Behind and then by Every Student Succeeds. These acts have undermined their morale. Making matters worse is unrelenting scapegoating. Its not surprising, therefore, that a survey by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities found that teaching is seen in negative terms. California serves as a case in point. Enrollment in teacher-preparation programs plummeted by 53 percent between 2008-09 and 2012-13. According to the California Commission on Teaching Credentials, the state lost some 22,000 teacher candidates. Other states report declines as well. In the first 10 months of last year, for example, public-school educators quit at an average rate of 83 per 10,000 a month, according to the Labor Department. It is the highest rate since such records began in 2001. Critics of higher pay for teachers like to point to Assessing the Compensation of Public-School Teachers by the Heritage Foundation. It concluded that total compensation for teachers when benefits are included is roughly 50 percent higher than in private-sector employment. Nevertheless, voter support for higher teacher salaries is strong. A survey conducted for The New York Times by the online polling firm SurveyMonkey found that nearly three in four adults considered teacher pay too low. Only 6 percent felt it was too high. Two-thirds said they supported increasing salaries even if it meant raising taxes. In the final analysis, however, its unlikely that paying teachers more will help states achieve their goals of recruiting and retaining the best and the brightest college graduates to a lifetime career in the classroom. Too many other factors come into play and are given too little weight. Gardner blogs about education at theedhed.com. At a forum in Iowa last weekend, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts gave what has become a standard answer for Democrats on the question of felon disenfranchisement. Once someone pays their debt to society, theyre out there expected to pay taxes, expected to abide by the law, theyre expected to support themselves and their families, she said. I think that means theyve got a right to vote. Most Americans agree with her. Nearly two-thirds of respondents in a March 2018 poll by HuffPost and YouGov said former felons should have the right to vote. Voters and lawmakers across the country have begun to roll back the laws and procedures that, according to the Sentencing Project, kept an estimated 6.1 million citizens from the ballot box in the 2016 presidential election. Last year, for example, a supermajority of voters in Florida endorsed a state constitutional amendment to end the draconian policy of permanent disenfranchisement (barring a pardon from the governor). As of 2018, 15 states and the District of Columbia restore voting rights to felons upon release from prison. Likewise, Alabama repealed a clause that denied rights for the vague offense of moral turpitude, which reportedly had disenfranchised thousands of former convicts. But the growing tide against felon disenfranchisement raises a related question: Why disenfranchise felons at all? Why not let prisoners vote and give the franchise to the roughly 1.5 million people sitting in federal and state prisons? Why must supposedly universal adult suffrage exclude people convicted of crimes? There is precedent for this idea. California allows voting for those in county jails (with limited exceptions). Colorado does, too. New York recently allowed those on parole or probation to vote. And two states, Maine and Vermont, already let prisoners vote. In fact, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., affirmed his support for voting rights in prison the same week Warren backed automatic enfranchisement for former felons. In my state, what we do is separate. Youre paying a price, you committed a crime, youre in jail. Thats bad, Sanders said, responding to a question at a town hall. But youre still living in American society and you have a right to vote. I believe in that, yes, I do. Warren was also asked to weigh on this question, but deferred it, saying only that its something we can have more conversation about. We ought to have that conversation now. Americans may see it as common sense that you lose your right to vote when youre imprisoned, but in many democracies prisoners retain the right to vote. When that right is revoked, its only for particular crimes (in Germany, its for targeting the democratic order), and often there is a good deal of judicial discretion. Mandatory disenfranchisement is unusual, and permanent disenfranchisement is even rarer. Mandatory disenfranchisement is constitutional the 14th Amendment allows the government to restrict the right to vote because of participation in rebellion, or other crime but there are few good reasons for the practice. The best argument, outside of the case from custom and tradition, is that committing a serious crime voids your right to have a say in the political process. You lose your liberty your place in civil society and the freedoms that come with it. But doing it that way subjecting prisoners to a kind of social death is in conflict with the idea of inalienable rights that cannot be curtailed. As it stands, incarcerated people retain a variety of rights, some of which touch on the political rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Prisoners have freedom of worship. They can protest mistreatment and poor conditions. They can exercise some free speech rights, like writing for newspapers, magazines and other publications. To that point, there is a rich literature of work by incarcerated people tackling complex social and political issues. Voting would be a natural extension of these activities. An obvious objection is that criminal transgressions render prisoners unfit for participation in democratic society. But theres nothing about committing a crime, even a serious one, that renders someone incapable of making a considered political choice. Losing your liberty doesnt mean youve lost your capacity to reason. Prisoners are neither more nor less rational than anyone else who is allowed to vote. If anything, the political system needs the perspectives of prisoners, with their intimate experience of this otherwise opaque part of the state. Their votes might force lawmakers to take a closer look at what happens in these institutions before they spiral into unaccountable violence and abuse. There are practical benefits as well. Racial disparities in criminal enforcement and sentencing means disenfranchisement falls heaviest on black communities. This is not just a direct blow to prisoners electoral power; it also ripples outward, depressing political participation among their friends, families and acquaintances. On the other end, suffrage in prison may help incarcerated people maintain valuable links to their communities, which might smooth the transition process once theyre released. Citizenship is not a right that expires upon misbehavior, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for the majority in Trop v. Dulles, a 1958 case dealing with the rights of a military deserter. And, he continued, citizenship is not lost every time a duty of citizenship is shirked. Yes, prisoners have committed crimes, and yes, some of those are egregious. But depriving any citizen of the right to vote should be the grave exception, not a routine part of national life. Universal suffrage means universal suffrage. Bouie is a New York Times columnist. Every hour of every day, as dawn breaks in new parts of the world, Americans wake up in foreign lands and go to work on behalf of all of us back home. They are Americas diplomats, and they work among the approximately 75,000 team members of the U.S. Department of State. We may never know their names or see their faces on TV, but every day we feel the impact of their work in our lives. Later this year, the State Department will celebrate its 230th birthday, making it the oldest federal cabinet agency. It has a storied history, yet the scope of its work and its importance to America is often unrecognized. Diplomacy is so much more than handshakes between foreign leaders. It is everyday Americans working to empower young entrepreneurs in Uruguay, open markets for U.S. oil in Croatia or screen visa applicants in Ghana. We feel its impact in the price we pay when gassing up our cars, in the millions of American jobs created by exporting products overseas and in the relief of reading that 100 percent of the ISIS territorial caliphate has been destroyed in the Middle East. The women and men of the State Department come from diverse backgrounds, but they all serve a common mission. They are engineers and event planners, cybersecurity experts and doctors, pilots and scientists. They master difficult languages and tackle harrowing tasks in lonely places. If you feel the noble calling to serve your country, the State Department is hiring and a career in diplomacy could be the opportunity of a lifetime. For one, its a chance to protect national security. Our diplomats preempt conflict and solve challenges before our troops are sent into harms way. They galvanize powerful partnerships, as they did in the case of the Defeat-ISIS coalition of 79 nations. They coordinate with foreign law enforcement to cut off drug flows at the source, before fentanyl or other deadly poison is pouring into our communities. And they work to ensure that no one with criminal or terrorist intentions obtains a U.S. visa or passport. A career in diplomacy is also a chance to boost our economy. What happens abroad affects our bottom line at home, now more than ever in our globalized economy. In Texas alone, businesses earn $260 billion per year selling their products and services overseas. Diplomats help make it possible. They open new markets and eliminate trade barriers. They guard American intellectual property from foreign theft, attract foreign investment back to our shores and answer questions for U.S. businesses looking to expand in other countries. Often the call to serve ones country comes from a sense that America is a beacon of light in a dark world, and that we need to ensure our light keeps shining. Diplomats do this, too. They are ambassadors for the American way the belief that freedom, democracy and human dignity are matters of universal importance. State Department diplomats host exchange programs that promote the pillars of strong societies, including education, free speech and entrepreneurship. They facilitate economic assistance for countries that align with our values and interests, helping turn struggling nations into strong and capable partners. They also make it possible for Americans to give children a second chance. Last year, 396 international children were adopted by Texas families. It was the State Department that issued their visas. This month marks one year since Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was sworn in to lead the State Department. He will visit Texas A&M to make the case to students that a career in diplomacy is a rewarding and powerful way to serve America. Its a message that all Texans and all Americans should keep in mind. Skinner is director of policy planning at the U.S. Department of State. As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content. When you click get started below it will walk you through creating an online account to attach your print subscription number to. After your account is created it will ask you to either add a subscription for online access or click on the print subscriber button. Click the print subscriber button header and it will open a dropdown, now click on get started. The page will reload and you will be prompted to enter an account number and a zip code. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE THE NUMBER OFF OF THE MOST RECENT ISSUE OR ANYTHING AFTER JANUARY 28, 2019 TO GAIN ACCESS! OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those. Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print. Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition. If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create. Preliminary March data for Sydney's hotel market shows occupancy declined 1.3% for the month. STRs preliminary March 2019 data for hotels in Sydney indicates lower performance. Based on daily data from March, Sydney reported the following in year-over-year comparisons: Supply: +2.7% Demand: +1.3% Occupancy: -1.3% to 87.2% Average daily rate (ADR): -6.8% to AUD230.94 Revenue per available room (RevPAR): -8.0% to AUD201.36 The absolute occupancy level would be the lowest for a March in Sydney since 2014. The decrease in ADR marks the first year-over-year decline in the metric for any March since 2009. STR analysts partially attribute the lower performance levels to a steady rise in supply and shifts in demand to lower average rate properties in submarkets of Sydney. Additionally, the year-over-year comparison was impacted by a high ADR event on 14-16 March 2018, when Sydney hosted the Australian-ASEAN Business Summit. STR will release full March results later this month. STR provides clients from multiple market sectors with premium, global data benchmarking, analytics and marketplace insights. Founded in 1985, STR maintains a presence in 10 countries around the world with a corporate North American headquarters in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and an international headquarters in London, England. For more information, please visit str.com. Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest all industry news and trends. Subscribe 2021 Hospitality Trends Some predict that by the end of this year, the amount of IoT devices will surpass mobile devices . So its unsurprising that this same technology has found its way into city development. IoT tech makes it possible to see where people travel in the city and spend their timemaking it easier for city planners to gain insight on citizen experiences. Smart cities can also help improve the health of residents by tracking diseases, fighting pollution, and making healthcare more accessible. And IoT parking systems reduce time to find parking and improve traffic flow. However, while advances in IoT will make cities even smarter, safer, cleaner, and more efficient, IoT can also potentially make cities increasingly complicatedand possibly less secure. Before we see sustainable growth in smart city technology around the world, we must consider the laws and policies needed to protect cities and their citizens in the new digital world. Data Protection and Usage Smart cities are fueled by gathering data from IoT-connected devices and online platforms. And when smart cities are fully developed, the amount of data gathered on a city, its citizens, and its environment will be astounding. This data will be the lifeblood of all smart cities; but as city operators gather those massive amounts of data, they will also have a tremendous responsibility to protect that data and use it judiciously. Governments need to decide what data they intend to collect, use, and distribute. Regulations and laws should detail how consent for gathering data should occur, as well as strict policies that govern how that data can be used and shared. Privacy and Personal Right Protections Smart cities will also face challenges as they strive to balance innovation with personal privacy. Private data use is essential for some functions of smart cities to work properly. For example, a smart parking system could help citizens find parking downtown, but that would require location and destination information in order to effectively guide someone to an open parking space. And as other common municipal items such as trash cans or traffic lights become increasingly connected, privacy could become more limited. Privacy concerns around technology will always exist, so cities need to be well equipped to handle them. Just as companies like Facebook, Google, and Apple have had to figure out how to balance consumer privacy (sometimes figuring it out the hard way) with innovation, cities will also need to establish laws and regulations that determine how the privacy of its citizens will be protected. These laws need to outline the extent to which residents can be monitored and analyzed. Information Security Surprisingly, the security of many IoT devices is subpar. This is due, in part, to the fact that IoT devices are changing the architecture of networking as we know it. As these devices and their networks become more complex, so does the task of securing them. Governments and business alike will need to be held accountable for implementing strict security measures that protect smart devices and data, and regulation should ensure both high standards of cybersecurity and restitution for damages incurred by security breaches. Reliability and Liability The lack of reliability of technology is another challenge that will become more prevalent as IoT devices become commonplace in smart cities. According to a study conducted by software intelligence company Dynatrace, 64 percent of people using IoT devices experience performance issues. Defective tech could cause IoT devices to malfunction or stop working altogether, and these malfunctions can cause substantial problems, such as the malfunction of a driverless car that killed a pedestrian in Arizona earlier this year. Laws will need to determine exactly who is liable for damages incurred by malfunctions in IoT technology, as well as standards that outline how reliable an IoT device must be in order to be implemented in a smart city. Public Companies in the Government Sector & Conflicts of Interest The emergence of smart cities presents a new, lucrative market for businesses. Businesses will provide governments with the hardware, software, and maintenance of IoT devices and networks that will support smart cities. Ultimately, these businesses need regulation. Policies will need to be put in place to monitor the relationship and contracts between government and businesses. So while regulation shouldnt be so strict as to curb real innovation, smart-city developers should start considering what adaptable policies and regulations might look like. In the words of Jay Carpenter, founder of Desert Blockchain and adjunct professor at UAT, Law historically is something that emerges after the fact, but smart cities are an exploration of what is possible. We need space to experiment with innovation. Providing limited areas for controlled experiments and watching for ways to provide legal safeguards is a step in a workable direction to balance innovation with policy. Smart cities can help us be more efficient, safer, and live in a cleaner environment, as long as certain policies are in placeor can be developedto protect our data and rights and ensure security. And in the interim, we can look to those cities that are blazing a trail with the IoT to see just what does or doesnt work. Source: https://www.technative.io/why-smart-cities-need-smart-policies/ The EU Council of Ministers today approved the Copyright Directive, which includes the controversial Article 17 (formerly 13). The legislation was voted through by a majority of EU ministers despite opposition from Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Finland, and Sweden. When we reported on March 26th, 2019 that the EU Copyright Directive had been approved by the European Parliament, there was a glimmer of hope that it would be stopped at this final stage. To pass into law required a majority of 55% of Member States, representing 65% of the population and campaigners continued to voice their concerns with the hash tag #SaveOurInternet. This included a blackout of Wikipedia in four of its European sites. In the crucial vote on April 15th, 19 of the 28 states, representing 71.26% of the population were in favor and only 6 were against with 3 abstentions: European Member States now have two years to incorporate the directive into their national; legislation. The EU Copyright Directive was intended to protect Europe's creative industries, which employ 11.7 million people and the European Commision's Press Release welcomes the result, stating: Today the Council of the European Union gave its green light to the new Copyright Directive which will bring concrete benefits to citizens, the creative sectors, the press, researchers, educators, and cultural heritage institutions. The reform will adapt copyright rules to today's world, where music streaming services, video-on-demand platforms, news aggregators and user-uploaded-content platforms have become the main gateways to access creative works and press articles. European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker stated: With today's agreement, we are making copyright rules fit for the digital age. Europe will now have clear rules that guarantee fair remuneration for creators, strong rights for users and responsibility for platforms. When it comes to completing Europe's digital single market, the copyright reform is the missing piece of the puzzle. According to the press release there is no reason for concern at all. It maintains: The new Directive will boost high-quality journalism in the EU and offer better protection for European authors and performers. Users will benefit from the new rules, which will allow them to upload copyright protected content on platforms legally. Moreover, they will benefit from enhanced safeguards linked to the freedom of expression when they upload videos that contain rights holders' content, i.e. in memes or parodies. Critics of the legislation remain adamant that Article 17 (formerly Article 13) which puts the onus on websites to ensure that content uploaded by users has permission from rights holders, will result in upload filters and censorship. They point out that while large sites such as YouTube will be largely unaffected, it will threaten the existence of smaller sites. The other controversial clause, the Link Tax, Article 15 in the final directive although formerly Article 11, may cause news aggregation sites to withdraw from Europe rather than face the uncertainty of lawsuites. Google has already carried out experiments to explore impact of Article 11, which indicated a 45 percent reduction in traffic to news publishers which would be particularly bad for smaller and emerging sites. Julia Reda, the MEP who has campaigned vociferously against the EU Copyright Directive isn't giving up the fight as one of her tweets today indicates: One possible way to defeat the legislation would be to have it overturned by the European Court of Justice. Reda thinks that while this might be possible . it would be slow and difficult and says that: voting for MEPs who respect our digital rights is more likely to bring change! European Parliament elections take place next month so this advice is timely. It isn't just Europe that will feel the impact of this ill-conceived legislation. One of the the Internet's strengths is being global and not restricted by borders. The unintended consequences of today's vote may affect us all in the future. More Information EC Press Release Copyright reform clears final hurdle #Save Your Internet Julia Reda's website Related Articles EU Copyright Directive Approved - Without Amendments EU Copyright Directive Article 13 Now Worse Than Ever Final EU Copyright Directive Spells Disaster EU Copyright Directive Stalled Catastrophic EU Copyright Directive Approved Threat To Internet Staved Off Until September Why Article 13 Must Be Stopped Save Code Share - Urgent Action Needed Before the Blue COP April 13,2019 | Source: IISD Organized by the Because the Ocean Initiative, the Technical Workshop Before the Blue COP was held from 10-11 April 2019, at the Headquarters of the Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transitions Fundacion Biodiversidad, in Madrid, Spain. The conference brought together 50 participants from government and the scientific community. They discussed examples of ocean action that can contribute to mitigating and adapting to climate change, improving the resilience of coastal communities, and increasing the conservation of marine ecosystems. The workshop featured sessions and roundtables that addressed, among other issues: the state of knowledge concerning climate and ocean change; synergies and gaps in climate and ocean actions; and national perspectives on the ocean-climate nexus. The main takeaways from the workshop will be compiled with those emerging from other regional workshops, such as one held in 2018 in Santiago, Chile, and another to be held in May 2019 in Suva, Fiji. Overall recommendations from the Because the Ocean workshops series will be brought to the attention of the 51st session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the 2019 UN Climate Summit, and the 25th session of the UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 25). Theme(s): Fisheries Development and Aquaculture. I was calling all over and no one could help me, Kompan said. When I called here, a very nice lady found the socks and had them waiting in a bag when I arrived. She really went out of her way to help me out. WTO upholds South Korean ban on Fukushima seafood by KIM TONG-HYUNG AND MARI YAMAGUCHI April 12,2019 | Source: AP The World Trade Organization has upheld South Korea's import ban on Japanese seafood from areas affected by the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, overturning a ruling by a lower panel last year that said Seoul was unfairly discriminating against Japanese products. The decision is a setback for Japan, which has promoted Fukushima's recovery from the nuclear disaster and the safety of its agricultural and fisheries products ahead of next year's Summer Olympics in Tokyo. South Korea on Friday welcomed the decision and said it will continue to block all fishery products from Fukushima and seven neighboring prefectures to ensure "only foods that are confirmed as safe are put on the table." Japan said the WTO ruling was "extremely regrettable" and vowed to get the import ban reversed through bilateral talks with South Korea. Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono summoned South Korean Ambassador Lee Su-hoon to convey Tokyo's displeasure. "The government will continue to maintain and strengthen our quarantine sovereignty and safety net," said Yoon Chang-yul, an official from South Korea's Office for Government Policy Coordination. Yoon said the WTO ruling allows Seoul to maintain the ban "indefinitely" until it views the safety concerns as fully resolved. When asked about the possibility of the seafood ban fueling larger trade and diplomatic disputes, he said that "hopefully, that won't happen." South Korea broadened initial import restrictions to a blanket ban covering all seafood products from the eight prefectures in 2013, after the Tokyo Electric Power Company revealed that highly contaminated water leaked from a storage tank at a crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima that was submerged by a massive tsunami in 2011. Japan launched a complaint with the WTO over the ban in 2015, saying that the radioactive levels of seafood from the areas were safe. The ruling by WTO's appellate body reversed key points of a verdict by a lower dispute panel last year that supported Japanese claims that the South Korean measures excessively restricted trade and were "arbitrarily or unjustifiably discriminating" against Japanese food products. The appellate body said the panel failed to consider whether the methods of contamination testing proposed by Japan would fully satisfy South Korean protection standards. The Fukushima plant has now been significantly stabilized and radiation has come down to levels considered safe in most areas. Still, more than 20 countries and areas keep their import ban or restrictions on Japanese fisheries and agricultural products, although the number had come down from 54 soon after the disaster. The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pushed agricultural exports as a main part of its economic growth strategy. South Korea's imports of Japanese seafood have declined significantly since the 2013 ban. South Korea imported about 20,000 tons to 30,000 tons of pollack and mackerel from Japan in 2010, but the volume dropped below 3,000 tons in 2018 with the country continuing to buy more fish from alternative sources like Russia and Norway, Yoon said. "Easing and lifting of import restrictions related to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant accident is an extremely important issue," said Yoshihide Suga, Japan's chief Cabinet secretary. He added that all Japanese agricultural and fishery exports are tested safe under Japan's own standards that are set stricter than international ones. "We will patiently continue our effort to negotiate with South Korea and other countries to achieve easing or lifting of their import restrictions based on science," Suga said. 2019 Gettysburg Times Theme(s): Others. Indian space agency to develop mobile app & centralized portal for marine fisheries by Chander Mohan April 13,2019 | Source: krishijagran The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), Kochi has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Space Applications Centre (SAC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) at SAC Main Campus in Ahmedabad. The MoU was signed between Shri Nilesh Desai, Associate Director, SAC and Dr P.U. Zacharia, Principal Scientist and Principal Investigator, NICRA Project of ICAR-CMFRI. As per the requirement of ICAR-CMFRI, the SAC will develop the web portal and mobile app. As per the MoU, a mobile app and a centralized portal with a complete database of more than 5 lakhs small wetlands across the country will be developed aimed at the real-time monitor and further conserve the wetlands. The move was a part to find the ways for mitigating the impact of climate change on fisheries and wetlands by the National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) project of ICAR-CMFRI. Recently, the CMFRI developed a national framework for fisheries and wetlands under the NICRA project. The common national portal and mobile app is for acquisition and integration of wetland data into a common digital repository, helping the stakeholders and the public for obtaining the time-to-time information on wetlands. The ICAR-CMFRI will further strengthen the already developed geospatial wetland database of ISRO with the field level inputs of physical, chemical and biological parameters of the wetlands. The ICAR-CMFRI along with the support of other fisheries research institutions; will play the lead role to generate the periodic field level wetland datasets, such as, water quality, sediment quality, biodiversity and species health for helping the farmers to utilize the wetlands for the sustainable aquaculture as a part of restoring the degraded wetlands in the country. The collaborative initiative will help in developing a comprehensive wetland information system that could facilitate the village level wetland advisories to the local people by the scientific communities. The data generated will be stored in the SAC server with access to the authorized scientific communities and the ICAR-CMFRI will act as the nodal centre to approve the latest data updates on the wetlands submitted by the collaborating fisheries institutions and stakeholders. This is the first national instance that a fisheries institute is collaborating with the ISRO for developing a comprehensive climate resilient framework for the fisheries and wetlands. The real-time wetland advisories could enhance the climatic resilience of the small wetlands in the country. 2019 Krishi Jagran Media Group Theme(s): Others. The reaction of some in the community to the proposed subdivisions in 1959 resulted in Deerfield being labeled racist by the national media, according to a written history compiled by the park district. A book, But Not Next Door, was published in 1962 about the events. [UPDATED ON APRIL 15, 2019] Slovak journalists are demanding for action in the murder investigation of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova, which after six months has not given any results [this release was originally published in August 2018]. In an open letter, signed by over 300 Slovak colleagues, journalists call for not forgetting the murder and ensuring the independent investigation. International and European Federations of Journalists stand in support with their Slovak colleagues in asking the state authorities to ensure the continuation of a thorough and effective investigation without further delays. Slovak journalists are raising concerns on the actual independence of the current investigation of the murder, concerning the Kuciaks own findings on mafia connections reaching to the top levels of the government in Slovakia. The main questions who and why murdered the journalist still have no answer from the authorities. Jan Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova were shot dead in February 2018 in their home in Velka Maca, Slovakia. Kuciak worked as a reporter for a news website Aktuality.sk, investigating tax frauds and corruption. The journalists last investigation was uncovering ties between Slovak government officials and an Italian mafia syndicate, who were supposedly collaborating to commit fraud of EU subsidy funds, as well as a separate story on Eastern European drug cartels. The Slovak state prosecutor said, that the investigation on corruption might have been the main reason of Kuciaks murder. [UPDATE] According to various Slovakian media, a man has confessed the killing of Jan Kuciak. His name is Miroslav Marcek and he is a former soldier. This is an important breakthrough in the investigation, yet justice must continue to do its job until both the killer and the masterminds are brought to court. For more information, please contact IFJ on + 32 2 235 22 16 The IFJ represents more than 600,000 journalists in 146 countries Follow the IFJ on Twitter and Facebook Subscribe to IFJ News Imperial Valley News Center President Trump in Meeting with World War II Veterans Washington, DC - Remarks by President Trump in Meeting with World War II Veterans: THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. This is a special moment. I spoke with Allen Jones about a year ago. And Allen now is 95 years old. Great World War II hero. And when I spoke to him, I said, Come on up to the White House sometime and Ill see you. And guess what? He called and he said, Hey, you promised. And I deliver, right? I deliver. We dont play games. And its an honor to see you, Allen. And Allen is with some of his friends Sidney Walton, World War II veteran. Great gentleman. A great hero. And hes 100 years old. And I want to be like you someday. (Laughter.) I want to be like all of you guys someday. Thats great 100. And thank you very much. Thanks, Sidney. Thats fantastic. Thank you. And Floyd Wright and Floyd Wigfield. And Paul wheres Paul? Paul Kriner is fantastic. Paul is lets see, 103. He doesnt look a day over 90. (Laughter.) A hundred and three. You look fantastic. Congratulations. Congratulations. War here. And Floyd Wigfield, who is 101, and you are amazing. Look at you, huh. Look at you. Look at you. So fantastic. Im glad you took me up on the offer. And surrounded by their family very good genes in this family. Youre going to live a long time, right? Youre proud of the folks. MS. ELLIE WALTON: Absolutely. THE PRESIDENT: Do you have anything to say about him? MS. ELLIE WALTON: Oh, our dad is the most wonderful dad in the world. He always has been. THE PRESIDENT: And right here, right? Very good. Thats great. MS. ELLIE WALTON: This is our dad, right here. Yeah. THE PRESIDENT: The most wonderful dad. MS. ELLIE WALTON: The most wonderful dad you could ever imagine. MR. PAUL WALTON: What hes doing, Mr. President, is incredible. Hes traveling the whole country all 50 governors, and now meeting the President hes spreading the word of how few World War II veterans there are left. And THE PRESIDENT: Do you know how many actually? Do you know? Is there a number? MR. PAUL WALTON: Its really what Ive been told, its just a handful. THE PRESIDENT: Wow. Isnt that incredible. MR. PAUL WALTON: And hes on a year-and-a-half tour meeting all not only all the governors, but hes meeting hundreds of thousands of people along the way. THE PRESIDENT: Thats fantastic. Wow. Congratulations on having a great gentleman. That is you know, Im a big believer in having good genes, and you have the best genes you could have, right? MS. JUDY WALTON: Thank you. Luck of the draw. THE PRESIDENT: So you travel a little bit with him, do you? Do you travel? MR. PAUL WALTON: Yes. Im with him all the time. THE PRESIDENT: Thats fantastic. Thats fantastic. Let me see what that says. Sidney, 100-year-old Wow. MS. ELLIE WALTON: No Regrets Tour. THE PRESIDENT: No regrets. MS. ELLIE WALTON: Because he regretted not meeting a Civil War veteran when he had the chance. (Laughter.) And he doesnt want anyone to regret not meeting a World War II veteran. THE PRESIDENT: Thats really nice. No, I dont think anybody does. That was a great victory. That was a great victory. We knew how to win wars. That was a tremendous victory. So tell me, how you talk to me the way we spoke, we had the greatest conversation. Tell them what we said. MR. JONES: Yes. THE PRESIDENT: Allen. MR. JONES: I expressed to the President at the convention last year he asked me to come on the stage. It was awesome. I was afraid that the Secret Service was going to grab me when I put my arm around you. THE PRESIDENT: He just wrapped his arm around me. (Laughter.) MR. JONES: And I had a picture with me and I asked the President if he would sign it for me. He said he sure would. And I said to him that I was going to be 95 today, Mr. President, on April 11. And I said, Well, Id like to bring my family to the White House and be in the Oval Office, because somebody told me that I would never get in the Oval Office. And I really appreciate, Mr. President, for you allowing us to come to be with you today. And I just wish you the best in all of your endeavors. THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. MR. JONES: I got a young man back home, Mr. President I told you to not let me speak (laughter) THE PRESIDENT: Thats okay. No, he speaks well. He speaks very well. MR. JONES: I got a young man back home that comes to my church Sunday school class almost every Sunday, and your name is mentioned by him. And Ive got to get a picture to take back for him. THE PRESIDENT: Well do that. MR. JONES: (Inaudible.) THE PRESIDENT: Well do that. MR. JONES: Hell be one who (inaudible). I want to ask you one other question. THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead. MR. JONES: When youre in Pittsburgh, Id like to be on the stage with you. THE PRESIDENT: Okay. We can do that which will be soon. Well do that. MR. JONES: If you can arrange that, Id appreciate that. THE PRESIDENT: A hundred percent. Thats why hes successful, because hes very aggressive. (Laughter.) Hes an aggressive hes an aggressive, great guy. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. MR. JONES: And Ive got one more picture for you to sign. THE PRESIDENT: Let me have it. Let me have it. Let me see. MR. JONES: Well, I dont want to give there you are. Thats the one we took it on the stage. THE PRESIDENT: Whoa, thats the one we took. See? Im going to sign this one, right? Yes? Ill sign this one for you? MR. JONES: Yes. THE PRESIDENT: Okay. Im going to sign this one. And Paul, how about you? Tell me. Youre feeling good? MR. KRINER: I was in a combat outfit. It was rumored we were second longest in combat. We had the 517 days of combat. THE PRESIDENT: Wow. MR. KRINER: And, well, I started out in Africa, and Italy, France, and Germany. And I was in the Alps mountain area when the war ended. Our last position was at Fussen, southern Germany, in an Alps mountain area. We were pulled out and went into Schongau. It was a German army camp where they trained Air Force identification people. THE PRESIDENT: Right. MR. KRINER: And we processed 14,000 prisoners there in two weeks. THE PRESIDENT: Wow. MR. KRINER: And THE PRESIDENT: Thats pretty amazing, right? So do you remember those days perfectly? MR. KRINER: Yes, sir. THE PRESIDENT: Thats really something. MR. KRINER: I was also in the Korean War, too. THE PRESIDENT: Pretty good warrior, isnt he? Huh? MR. KRINER: Twenty-six months in (inaudible). THE PRESIDENT: A hundred and three. Well, youre going to be around a long time. You look fantastic. You look fantastic. And I really appreciate you being in the White House and the Oval Office. Tell us something about the man. MS. KNIGHT: Were his THE PRESIDENT: Tell us. Tell us. Go ahead. MS. KNIGHT: Hes not shy. You nailed it perfectly. THE PRESIDENT: No, hes not shy. (Laughter.) MS. KNIGHT: Not at all. THE PRESIDENT: Hes not shy at all. MS. KNIGHT: Im just like him. And this is my brother. THE PRESIDENT: Good. Congratulations. MR. CHARLES JONES: Were very proud of dad. Dad was one of five brothers that went off to World War II. And his mom was a Gold Star mother. One of them didnt return. THE PRESIDENT: Oh, wow. MR. CHARLES JONES: So, dad is very proud to be a World War II veteran. And his family and (inaudible) THE PRESIDENT: Well, were proud of him. Proud of all of you. Floyd? How about yourself? MR. WIGFIELD: I was with the 4th Division. And we went in on Utah Beach in June 20 in June of 44. And we made the (inaudible). I was on the my major (inaudible) was on the third wave and THE PRESIDENT: And that was pretty brutal, Utah. And it was pretty that was a pretty brutal area at the time, wasnt it? MR. WIGFIELD: Yeah. I was there about a half a month before I got wounded. Night and day on the battlefield. And THE PRESIDENT: How badly wounded out there? Were you badly wounded? MR. WIGFIELD: Yeah, well, I was all summer there, getting me back out of the hospital. They sent me back up, and I went back up into West Germany somewhere. Then another shell. (Laughs.) THE PRESIDENT: You got wounded again. MR. WIGFIELD: Back in France, back in England again. And that time, they sent me home. THE PRESIDENT: Fantastic job. Are you together? Huh? MR. DAVIS: Paul and Floyd are both with the Greatest Generations Foundation. As you know, we return combat veterans back to where they fought and served. And we look forward to hosting you in Normandy this coming June for the 75th. THE PRESIDENT: Yep. Ill be there. Ill be there. MR. DAVIS: Probably a good opportunity. This gentleman wants to fly back with you on Air Force One. (Laughter.) THE PRESIDENT: Where are you flying back to? Are you flying back to Washington? To Washington? MR. DAVIS: Once were done in Europe THE PRESIDENT: Well do that. Well work that out. Is that okay? Well work that out. Youll like Air Force One. Well, I want to thank all of you. Great heroes. Great warriors. Highly respected. And you folks do a fantastic job. I want to thank you. And congratulations to everybody. Yes, please. MR. PAUL WALTON: President Trump, my father just wanted to say a couple things, if he may. Dad, please tell the President the reason why you joined the Army. MR. SIDNEY WALTON: I joined the Army to fight Hitler. MR. PAUL WALTON: Thats the reason he joined. THE PRESIDENT: That was good reason. MR. PAUL WALTON: And its called now the No Regrets Tour. You regret not meeting the Civil War veterans, right? MR. SIDNEY WALTON: Yes. I regret not meeting any Civil War veterans. MR. PAUL WALTON: And thats why hes allowing people that want to meet a World War II veteran before its too late to meet him. THE PRESIDENT: Thats great. MR. PAUL WALTON: And he brought a gift for you. THE PRESIDENT: Good. MR. PAUL WALTON: And we have the gift back there. I think youll like it. Its a very special gift that my dad has carried from San Diego THE PRESIDENT: Do you want to bring it up? MR. PAUL WALTON: from San Diego, just for you. THE PRESIDENT: Great. MR. PAUL WALTON: Here, Dad. The President is going to open the gift that you got him. THE PRESIDENT: From San Diego, where we just built a wall. (Laughter.) And they were very happy that I built it. (The President opens a gift.) Oh, thats beautiful. Thats beautiful. Thats fantastic. Thank you very much. MR. PAUL WALTON: And all my dad asks is, if you happen to know how to tweet, if you want to tweet that out, youre welcome to. THE PRESIDENT: I dont tweet too much. (Laughter.) MR. PAUL WALTON: It would be an honor if you do. THE PRESIDENT: Ill do something. I will. Well have a little fun with it. MR. PAUL WALTON: Right, Dad? MR. SIDNEY WALTON: Yes. MR. PAUL WALTON: Yes? MR. SIDNEY WALTON: Yes. MR. PAUL WALTON: Is this one of the best days of your life? MR. SIDNEY WALTON: Yes. THE PRESIDENT: Thats great. Thats really nice. MR. SIDNEY WALTON: Yes. Yes, indeed. THE PRESIDENT: You have a great family. You have a great family. Well, I want to thank everybody. These are just terrific people. We werent going to do this with the media. But, frankly, when I saw you, I said, We have to. And thank you. Great job. Go ahead, please. MR. JONES: Mr. President, I want you to meet my wife. Weve been married 69 years. THE PRESIDENT: Whoa. (Applause.) MR. JONES: And she probably can tell you more about me than I can tell myself. THE PRESIDENT: Give us just the good stuff, not the bad stuff. (Laughter.) MRS. JONES: Well, is there much to say, then? (Laughter.) Its all been good. THE PRESIDENT: Thats great. MRS. JONES: Couldnt be any better. THE PRESIDENT: Thats really nice. I can see that in your face. I can see that. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Its a great honor. Thank you all very much. Q Mr. President, do you consider WikiLeaks a hostile intelligence service, like Mike Pompeo said? THE PRESIDENT: I really dont know much about them. Q Do you regret praising WikiLeaks? THE PRESIDENT: I dont know much about them. Thank you very much. Imperial Valley News Center Vice President Pence After Touring the U.S.-Mexico Border Nogales, Arizona - Remarks by Vice President Pence After Touring the U.S.-Mexico Border: THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Chief. CHIEF VILLAREAL: Thanks for coming out. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, were delighted. And I want to thank the Deputy Commissioner for being here. I want to thank the Chief. I want to thank all the extraordinary men and women of Border Patrol. Thank you for your service. PARTICIPANT: Thank you, sir. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Were with you. The President has made it clear that were going to continue to stand with you to give you the resources, to give you the physical barriers you need to do your job. Were going to continue to call on the Congress, particularly call on the Democrats in Congress, to step up and recognize what you all deal with every day: that these are the men and women that are putting their lives on the line every day in the midst of this unprecedented crisis on our southern border. I want you all to know that we understand it, we appreciate it. The American people are grateful for what you do each and every day. But its time for Democrats in Congress to step up, work with Republicans, close the loopholes in our border that are driving this crisis this humanitarian and security crisis that you all are dealing with each and every day. I just want to pledge to each and every one of you that were going to take the message back from the border. Were going to carry it back. That its time for Congress to act. We know you do your job every day and the American people are grateful. The President and I are rolling our sleeves up every day to make sure that you have the resources you need, and the barriers you need, and the support that you need. Were calling on the Democrats in Congress to recognize that we have an absolute crisis at our southern border. The time has come to work with Republicans to close the loopholes and end the incredible flow of illegal immigration that is burdening our system today. And it is not just a crisis of illegal immigration; it is a crisis of national security. Because as the Chief explained to me, as all of you know as you deploy to deal with people coming across the border in large groups, here and all across our southern border, more than 4,000 this last Tuesday the reality is that drug cartels, criminal organizations use the vulnerability of our border and the deployment of our personnel as a way to bring dangerous individuals and drugs into our country. So I just want you to know we get it, and were here to say its time that Congress got it. Its time that Congress got to work and did their job. Now, we wouldnt be able to do this without what you do every day, but I have to tell you the President and I couldnt be more grateful for state leaders like Governor Doug Ducey. And, Governor, I want to thank you for the way that youve stood up for border security. I want to thank you for the way youve been a partner with this administration. And these are your constituents here in the Tucson Sector and the Yuma Sector. And I want to thank you for your strong stand and welcome you to make it work. GOVERNOR DUCEY: Well, I want to say thank you, Mr. Vice President, for coming to Arizona, for coming to the border and seeing the situation thats happening on the ground. I want to say thanks to the President for his commitment to border security and helping people understand that this is national security. I also want to say thank you to the brave women and women of our Customs and Border Patrol, our border agents. Chief, thank you for the briefing today. CHIEF VILLAREAL: Yes, sir. GOVERNOR DUCEY: And we all need to call on Congress to close these loopholes. This is not a partisan issue. Its not a Republican or Democrat issue. This is an issue of public safety, border security, and national security, and not just for Arizona, but for the entire country. The drug cartels, the human smuggling, the child sex trafficking, the drug epidemic thats happening with fentanyl and heroin and methamphetamine. Im proud of so much of whats happening in Arizona. Im not proud that this dangerous poison is coming across our southern border. So I join you and the President in calling on Congress to quit playing games, to close these loopholes, and to act. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Governor. Thank you so much for your support. And thats our message. But I want you to know that your courage and your example every day is recognized by the American people. From the President all across this country, we appreciate what you do. We appreciate what your families do. Thats why the President took the strong stand in the month of January to get you the resources you need to build a wall. And we know that walls work. You all know that better than anybody else. You got your additional resources to deal with the ports of entry and other infrastructure and support for additional personnel. But while we heard on many on Capitol Hill say that this was a manufactured crisis over the last six months, the reality is, today, that literally tens of thousands are making their way from Central America and putting an unprecedented burden on our system that represents both a humanitarian and a security crisis. And I want to promise all of you were going to go back, were going to report about your work here today, but were going to say that youre doing your job; the President is doing his job. Its time the Democrats in Congress did their job and came together with Republicans, closed the loopholes that are driving this humanitarian and security crisis at our border. And thats my promise to each and every one of you. Okay? Any questions? (Applause.) PARTICIPANT: Thank you. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) Press, got any questions? Q I have a question. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Go ahead. Q In the last week, theres been some talk about restarting family separations at the border. Could you help clarify whats happening with that? THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think that President Trump made it clear that were not considering restarting family separation. What were doing is calling on Congress to do their job. Whats happening today and these Border Patrol agents see it every day is that drug cartels and human traffickers, principally in Central America, are taking cash in exchange for taking vulnerable families a vast majority of which is now this migration crisis vulnerable families up the peninsula, the long and dangerous journey to enter our country illegally. Theyre doing it because of our porous border and because of the loopholes in our laws. And the reality is the numbers speak for themselves. Literally hundreds of thousands more than 100,000 in the month of March are coming across our border illegally. I was told, along the southern border, 4,300 people came into our country illegally just this last Tuesday. That is an unprecedented number. They are predominantly families and unaccompanied minors. Our system was never designed to deal with that. These men and women are here to protect the American people and enforce our laws, enforce our borders. But this enormous flow, this humanitarian crisis being driven by human traffickers, has got to stop. So what weve got to do, we got to continue to build a wall, we got to continue to give these courageous men and women the resources they need to do their job. But Congress has got to act to close the loopholes that human traffickers use to entice people to make the long and dangerous journey north. And thats what were going to continue to fight for. Q Can you be more specific about the loopholes which loopholes youd like to close? Or are you talking about actually changing laws? THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, human traffickers use catch and release, broadly, as a promise to people in Central America that, if they come here, if they can make their way through too often porous borders to come into our country, that they can stay. The reality is, our asylum system today allows people to be apprehended, detained for a short period of time. The court date is set, and more than 90 percent of the people never show up for their court date. So catch and release has to end. We also have to have the capacity to amend court decisions that essentially require us to release minors in a set period of time. And we dont want to do family separation, but amending the Flores decision the Flores Agreement through the legislative process to give our border agents and Customs and Border Patrol more time for detention to be able to process people through our system will make a difference. And lastly, we need to make it possible for us to return individuals, who are apprehended from Central American countries, back to those countries the way we can with Mexico today. And the truth is that were able to apprehend individuals from Mexico, process them, and return them to Mexico. But individuals that come from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala we cant return them to their countries without a change in the law. Those are all the kinds of things. But Congress knows what needs to be done. Its just Democrats in Congress have got to step up and be willing to do it. And it all begins by recognizing that we have a crisis on our southern border. And so were going to go back, were going to continue to work, but with members of both political parties and leaders of both political parties, until we close these loopholes and end the ability of human traffickers to entice people with the promise of coming into our country illegally and vanishing into the United States. Thats the system we have today. Thats a broken system, and its whats driving the crisis at our border. And make no mistake about it: As these families migrate north what the Deputy Commissioner said, what the Chief said, what Border Patrol agents point out to me is as these agents deploy to a section of the border to deal with caravans coming north, or families and unaccompanied minors in other areas of the border, we have dangerous individuals and more drugs that are pouring into the United States. So this is humanitarian crisis but its also a national security crisis. And the President and I are absolutely determined, with the tenacity that President Trump showed this last January to stand firm until this Congress closes the loopholes and ends the magnet of our broken asylum system in this country for human traffickers to exploit and take advantage of families. Thank you. Imperial Valley News Center President Donald J. Trump Is Taking Action to Ensure that America Wins the Race to 5G Washington, DC - "My Administration is embracing a new spirit of innovation that will make life better for all Americans." ~ President Donald J. Trump A GLOBAL 5G LEADER: Thanks to President Donald J. Trump, America is now leading the global race to deploy secure and reliable 5G. The United States is a world leader in global 5G readiness. The United States now leads the world with by far the most secure and reliable commercial 5G deployments, with 5G trials in multiple cities. America also leads the world in availability of critical high- and low-band spectrum for wireless, allowing for high-speed and high-capacity applications. We must build on these advantages through innovation and investment in Americas mid-band spectrum and wireless cell site infrastructure. EMPOWERING THE WIRELESS INDUSTRY: President Trumps policies empower the wireless industry to innovate and invest in Americas 5G capabilities, further bolstering our economy and creating millions of jobs. President Trumps historic tax cuts and deregulatory actions have created incentives for the wireless industry to invest in 5G technology. According to a recent study, Americas wireless industry plans to invest $275 billion to deploy 5G networks, creating 3 million new jobs and adding $500 billion to our economy. Since November 2018, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has auctioned 1,550 megahertz of spectrum to be used by commercial wireless providers for 5G. A third spectrum auction set for December will be the largest in American history, offering 3,400 megahertz of spectrum to wireless providers for 5G. The American private sector is leading the way on deployment of secure and reliable 5G through commercial trials. The Trump Administration is lowering regulatory barriers to deployment, resulting in increased investment in 5G infrastructure. The President is committed to efficient spectrum use and spurring private-sector investment in 5G. AMERICA FIRST TO 5G: President Trump is ensuring that America wins the global race to 5G and remains the world leader in information and communications technology. Support For President Donald J. Trumps Executive Orders On Energy Infrastructure Development Washington, DC - Support For President Donald J. Trumps Executive Orders On Energy Infrastructure Development: Governors Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R-AK): State of Alaska is thankful for @realDonaldTrump EOs recognizing need for robust energy infrastructure, regulatory reform, and unleashing Americas vast energy resources. Gov. Brad Little (R-ID): Thank you @realDonaldTrump for your leadership in promoting and streamlining efficient energy infrastructure development. #IDpol @WhiteHouse Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND): Grateful for action by @realDonaldTrump to streamline permitting of essential energy infrastructure and ensure market access, allowing export states like ND to support U.S. energy dominance while protecting our clean air, water and land. Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX): @POTUS executive action announced today in Crosby, TX will speed up oil and gas production and bring more jobs to Texas. Gov. Mark Gordon (R-WY): I applaud @realDonaldTrump for his Executive Order directing the EPA to modernize guidance on the application of section 401 of the Clean Water Act. I stand with governors across the land in asserting states rights to access markets, as well as to protect the environment. Advocacy Organizations and Industry American Chemistry Council: New energy #infrastructure can help get #natgas to U.S. manufacturers who will use it to create jobs. American Council for Capital Formation Executive Vice President George David Banks: Today, the President took an important step to strengthen the energy security of the United States and its allies and further economic prosperity. American Energy Alliance President Tom Pyle: For America to operate from a position of strength, we must have the critical energy infrastructure to deliver affordable energy to power our lives. Todays Executive Orders are an attempt to make necessary changes to ensure federal statute is properly interpreted and followed, and make certain that politically motivated delays blocking pipeline infrastructure come to an end. American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers: The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) supports President Trumps Executive Orders that will create clear pathways for the permitting process and support energy infrastructure development. American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers President and CEO Chet Thompson: AFPMs members are committed to protecting our nations water and air. By clarifying the roles of federal and state agencies in permitting decisions, todays order will help promote investment in critical energy infrastructure development and associated good-paying jobs, while maintaining important environmental protections. American Gas Association: The American Gas Association (AGA) applauds todays executive orders aimed at speeding up the approval, permitting and construction of pipelines and other energy infrastructure. American Gas Association President and CEO Karen Harbert: Todays executive orders clear the way for development of new natural gas pipelines, enabling greater access to natural gas thereby benefitting American families and our environment. American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Mike Sommers: We applaud the Administration for their commitment to building Americas pipeline infrastructure, enabling the safe delivery of energy and creating the jobs that working families and businesses rely on each and every day. Associated Petroleum Industries of Minnesota Executive Director Erin Roth: Were pleased that the Administration has made American infrastructure a priority, as pipelines are critical to ensuring that Minnesotas consumers have the reliable and affordable energy they need, as well as being one of the most environmentally friendly ways to transport energy. Associated Petroleum Industries of New York Executive Director Karen Moreau: Were pleased the Administration is taking steps to put an end to the blockade on infrastructure projects in our state, while maintaining a robust and necessary environmental review process. Associated Petroleum Industries of Ohio Executive Director Chris Zeigler: Were pleased the Administration has taken steps to ensure the benefits of our states plentiful natural gas and oil resources can be enjoyed by Ohios consumers due to the construction of new and necessary pipelines. Associated Petroleum Industries of Pennsylvania Executive Director Catarino Wissman: As pipelines are one of the most environmentally friendly ways to transport energy, this Executive Order will help the rest of the country enjoy the abundant, clean natural gas that has provided countless benefits, like more affordable electricity, to Pennsylvanians. Association of American Railroads President and CEO Ian Jefferies: The private freight rail industry welcomes efforts by the Trump administration to enhance U.S. energy security and reduce infrastructure inefficiencies. Association of Oil Pipe Lines President and CEO Andy Black: The President knows pipelines are good for the American economy, create good-paying jobs and help consumers. Duke Energy: Duke Energy is committed to addressing the important issue of climate change. Doing so requires us to make substantial investments in critical infrastructure including natural gas pipelines and electricity transmission lines to connect renewable energy to consumers. We applaud the Presidents recognition of the need for change now. Edison Electric Institute: EEI and its member companies thank President Trump for his commitment to achieving meaningful progress with our nations energy priorities. Energy Equipment and Infrastructure Alliance President and CEO Toby Mack: The President understands the importance of adequate energy infrastructure to American consumers and businesses who need affordable and reliable energy, and especially to the men and women who build energy projects and support their families and communities with the great jobs these projects sustain. GPA Midstream Association President and CEO Mark Sutton: I applaud this administration for taking a stand against this type of invalid action. Too often we see bureaucracies stopping growth; its great to see an administration promoting a pro-growth and pro-jobs agenda for the midstream industry. The Heartland Institute President Tim Huelskamp: This executive order by President Donald Trump is just what is needed to create thousands more high-paying jobs in the energy industry, protect U.S. national security, and enhance the reliability and affordability of Americas energy supply. International Union of Operating Engineers: [President Trumps] executive orders today provide a clear pathway to building more energy infrastructure and creating thousands of new jobs. This is welcome news to the Operating Engineers who train and represent the most highly skilled pipeline construction workers in the world. Interstate Natural Gas Association of America: We are pleased that the administration is building upon earlier actions to streamline the permitting and review process for critical energy infrastructure projects. Ensuring that our abundant domestic supply of natural gas can safely reach end users is critical if we are to fully realize the benefits of this clean-burning, job-creating resource and natural gas infrastructure is the foundation of that vision. LNG Allies President and CEO Fred H. Hutchison: The Trump Administration has been a strong partner with the U.S. LNG industry and todays order is further evidence that business, government, and labor can and will continue to work together to take advantage of Americas abundant energy resources. Marcellus Shale Coalition, President David Spigelmyer: President Trumps executive order will help ensure the energy infrastructure that delivers clean, abundant American natural gas is there when consumers, small businesses, hospitals, and manufacturers need it. We thank the President for taking action directly aimed at lifting the Cuomos administrations energy blockade that has left the northeast starved for natural gas. National Association of Manufactures: Together, these two executive orders will promote badly-needed development of infrastructure to meet U.S. energy demand, create and support jobs for U.S. manufacturing workers, and provide reliable and affordable energy to U.S. consumers. National Association of Manufactures, President and CEO Jay Timmons: The Presidents executive action to accelerate the energy infrastructure permitting process will boost job creation, energy security, the growth of U.S. exports and the expansion of manufacturing in America. National Hydropower Association, CEO Linda Church Ciocci: The National Hydropower Association (NHA) applauds and supports President Trumps executive order today At its core, President Trump has sent a clear message today that it is no longer acceptable for our nations vital hydropower projects to linger in uncertainty for years at times, a decade or more without resolution. National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, CEO Jim Matheson: Todays announcement paves the way for electric co-ops to enhance system reliability and reduce wildfire risk by improving access to maintain and upgrade electric systems located on federal lands.. By reducing bureaucratic red tape, todays announcement helps prevent permitting delays and promotes the safety and reliability of our power supply. Natural Gas Supply Association, President and CEO Dena Wiggins: We applaud this Executive Order, which takes important steps toward fixing broken parts of the state water certification process for pipelines without compromising on environmental standardsThis order takes politics out of the process and allows states and federal authorities to do their jobs. North Americas Building Trades Union, President Sean McGarvey: We appreciate this administration working to ease permitting delays on vitally important projects that create good jobs and ensure clean, safe and affordable energy for communities across this great nation. U.S. Chamber of Commerces Global Energy Institute, Acting President Christopher Guith: Todays actions represent meaningful progress to address some of the most pressing issues that commonly result in permitting delays, and we applaud the Trump Administration for tackling this problem. Vice President Pence After Aerial Tour of Flood Damage Pacific Junction, Iowa - Remarks by Vice President Pence After Aerial Tour of Flood Damage: MR. DENNIS LINCOLN: All right, Id like to welcome everybody here to the Lincoln family farm. Weve been on this farm for almost 110 years. Our patriarch is Dean Lincoln, standing right here. And my two brothers and all of our families are here today. Wed like to welcome Vice President Pence and everyone else thats here. Thank you for coming. I want to turn it over to the Governor. Thank you. GOVERNOR REYNOLDS: Well, thank you. I appreciate it very much. And thank you so much for hosting the Vice President and Acting FEMA Director Gaynor, as well as the two senators. I just want to start by saying how grateful I am to have the Vice President down here. We were able to do a flyover so we could see the scope and the expansion and the amount of water thats still standing. And then to be able to have him drive down here and see firsthand the impact to the communities, the farmers, and the ag land. And I want to give a shout-out again to our first responders, our emergency managers. They have done a herculean effort in really getting the numbers and the data, and taking care of the people on the ground in the interim. And just been very grateful to all that theyve been able to do. Thank you so much for the residential emergency declaration. That was a the turnaround time on that was amazing. Again, just a very coordinated effort with the people that are gathered here today. And were going to continue to work with you to streamline the process and make sure that we can take care of those impacted. So thank you, Mr. Vice President, for being here. We so appreciate it. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you, Governor. Thank you very much. (Applause.) Well, to the Lincoln family, thank you for thank you for giving us this welcome. And Im here on the Presidents behalf to say to this family and all the families across Iowa that were with you, were going to stay with you. Were going to work with your Governor and work with your senators until we rebuild Iowa bigger and better than ever before. (Applause.) I want to thank Governor Reynolds for the incredible work that shes done. Weve seen the way her administration leaned into this effort. The fastest disaster assistance request in Iowa history. The fastest approval GOVERNOR REYNOLDS: Yeah. THE VICE PRESIDENT: of disaster assistance in Iowa history. And, Governor, thank you. (Applause.) And weve very grateful, especially, for your two senators, Senator Grassley and Senator Ernst, who are with us today who have been great champions, who have been telling Iowas story. Its remarkable to think that a month has gone by several weeks since I had the opportunity to be in the area and to see, frankly, how much water is still here and how much devastation still exists. And Ill carry that back, as your senators will, to leaders on Capitol Hill and call on them to come together and approve a disaster assistance bill for Iowa and Nebraska, and do it now. (Applause.) In Iowa alone, theres estimates according to the Governors Office and according to our great team at FEMA, with our Acting Administrator, Pete Gaynor, here theres damages in excess of $1.6 billion. And thanks to your two senators and to Senator Richard Shelby on the Appropriations Committee, those funds were actually added to a disaster assistance bill that was considered on April the 1st. Unfortunately, it was blocked by Democrats in the United States Senate. But hopefully, today, by coming here and helping to tell the story again of not what happened in Iowa, but was is still happening in Iowa, well see people set politics aside and come together and give Iowa, Nebraska, and the Midwest and all of the states across this country the support and disaster assistance that you deserve. (Applause.) I would say to each and every one of you, you know, Iowa is an important place, and every time theres a presidential election coming up. (Laughter.) So if you see Senator Elizabeth Warren, if you see Senator Amy Klobuchar, if you see Senator Cory Booker and others come to Iowa asking for your vote, you ought to ask them why they voted against disaster assistance for Iowa. Okay? Because its time to there will be plenty of time for politics when 2020 comes around. Right now, Iowa needs disaster assistance, and its time for Congress to act. (Applause.) Let me close by just offering a word of admiration, first and foremost, to the first responders. I know weve got Homeland Security personnel here, but law enforcement, public safety, fire, your National Guard, it is remarkable to think, as the floodwaters rose, the winds blew and beat against the house five feet of water in the Lincoln home an unprecedented, historic flood that there was so little loss of life. That is a testament to extraordinary first responders in Iowa. And they have our thanks and admiration. (Applause.) Its also a testament, I know, to the generous support of a charitable community. I know here, at the Lincoln Farm, the Convey of Hope was here to help you empty out your home and begin to lay a foundation to rebuild. And so, for all the church organizations and volunteer organizations that have come alongside the people of Iowa and people impacted by these floods, I just express the admiration of our President and of all the American people for everything youve done. And finally, I just want to I want to commend the people of Iowa. I mean, to see the smiles on your faces, one month after this incident, to have flown over and see how much devastation there still is on the ground, but to see that strong, resilience of the people of Iowa, this truly is the heart of the Heartland. And you have all demonstrated it in the midst of this storm. So let me again, I want to thank Governor Reynolds, I want to thank the Lincoln family, and I want to thank your two senators for being such tenacious champions for Iowa on Capitol Hill. I want to make you a promise that, on behalf of the President of the United States, your governor, your two senators, were going to get the support that Iowa needs, and we are going to rebuild all these communities and families and homes and farms bigger and better than ever before. Thats a promise. (Applause.) So, thank you very much. God bless you all. WikiLeaks Founder Charged in Computer Hacking Conspiracy Washington, DC - Julian P. Assange, 47, the founder of WikiLeaks, was arrested Thursday in the United Kingdom pursuant to the U.S./UK Extradition Treaty, in connection with a federal charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified U.S. government computer. According to court documents unsealed, the charge relates to Assanges alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States. The indictment alleges that in March 2010, Assange engaged in a conspiracy with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army, to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on U.S. Department of Defense computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network (SIPRNet), a U.S. government network used for classified documents and communications. Manning, who had access to the computers in connection with her duties as an intelligence analyst, was using the computers to download classified records to transmit to WikiLeaks. Cracking the password would have allowed Manning to log on to the computers under a username that did not belong to her. Such a deceptive measure would have made it more difficult for investigators to determine the source of the illegal disclosures. During the conspiracy, Manning and Assange engaged in real-time discussions regarding Mannings transmission of classified records to Assange. The discussions also reflect Assange actively encouraging Manning to provide more information. During an exchange, Manning told Assange that after this upload, thats all I really have got left. To which Assange replied, curious eyes never run dry in my experience. Assange is charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion and is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison if convicted. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after taking into account the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney G. Zachary Terwilliger for the Eastern District of Virginia and Assistant Director in Charge Nancy McNamara of the FBIs Washington Field Office made the announcement after the charges were unsealed. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Doherty-McCormick, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kellen S. Dwyer, Thomas W. Traxler and Gordon D. Kromberg, and Trial Attorneys Matthew R. Walczewski and Nicholas O. Hunter of the Justice Departments National Security Division are prosecuting the case. The extradition will be handled by the Department of Justices Office of International Affairs. An indictment contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed to be innocent until and unless proven guilty in court. Washington-Based Lawyer Indicted on Charge of Making False Statements to the Department of Justice Washington, DC - A federal grand jury today returned an indictment charging Gregory B. Craig, a Washington-based lawyer, with making false statements and concealing material information about his activities on behalf of Ukraine from the Department of Justice, National Security Divisions Foreign Agents Registration Act Unit (FARA Unit). The announcement was made by Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu for the District of Columbia, and Assistant Director in Charge William F. Sweeney, Jr. of the FBIs New York Field Office. Craig, 74, of Washington, D.C., was indicted by a grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for willfully falsifying and concealing material facts from the FARA Unit, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001(a)(1), and for making false and misleading statements to the FARA Unit, in violation Title 22, United States Code, Section 618(a)(2). An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed a violation of criminal laws and is not evidence of guilt. Every defendant is presumed innocent until, and unless, proven guilty. The maximum penalties for the charged offenses are, respectively, five years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine, and five years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine. The maximum statutory sentence for federal offenses is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes. The sentencing will be determined by the court based on the advisory Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. Craig is to be arraigned at a date to be scheduled by the Court. This case is being investigated by the FBIs New York Field Office. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Fernando Campoamor-Sanchez and Molly Gaston of the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia and Trial Attorney Jason McCullough of the Justice Departments National Security Division. Romanian Cybercriminals Convicted of All 21 Counts Relating to Infecting Over 400,000 Victim Computers with Malware Toledo, Ohio - A federal jury Thursday convicted two Bucharest, Romania, residents of 21 counts related to their scheme to infect victim computers with malware in order to steal credit card and other information to sell on dark market websites, mine cryptocurrency and engage in online auction fraud, announced Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Departments Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Justin E. Herdman of the Northern District of Ohio. Bogdan Nicolescu, 36, and Radu Miclaus, 37, were convicted after a 12-day trial of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit service marks, aggravated identity theft, conspiracy to commit money laundering and 12 counts each of wire fraud. Sentencing has been set for Aug. 14, 2019 before Chief Judge Patricia A. Gaughan of the Northern District of Ohio. According to testimony at trial and court documents, Nicolescu, Miclaus, and a co-conspirator who pleaded guilty, collectively operated a criminal conspiracy from Bucharest, Romania. It began in 2007 with the development of proprietary malware, which they disseminated through malicious emails purporting to be legitimate from such entities as Western Union, Norton AntiVirus and the IRS. When recipients clicked on an attached file, the malware was surreptitiously installed onto their computer. This malware harvested email addresses from the infected computer, such as from contact lists or email accounts, and then sent malicious emails to these harvested email addresses. The defendants infected and controlled more than 400,000 individual computers, primarily in the United States. Controlling these computers allowed the defendants to harvest personal information, such as credit card information, user names and passwords. They disabled victims malware protection and blocked the victims access to websites associated with law enforcement. Controlling the computers also allowed the defendants to use the processing power of the computer to solve complex algorithms for the financial benefit of the group, a process known as cryptocurrency mining. The defendants used stolen email credentials to copy a victims email contacts. They also activated files that forced infected computers to register email accounts with AOL. The defendants registered more than 100,000 email accounts using this method. They then sent malicious emails from these addresses to the compromised contact lists. Through this method, they sent tens of millions of malicious emails. When victims with infected computers visited websites such as Facebook, PayPal, eBay or others, the defendants would intercept the request and redirect the computer to a nearly identical website they had created. The defendants would then steal account credentials. They used the stolen credit card information to fund their criminal infrastructure, including renting server space, registering domain names using fictitious identities and paying for Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) which further concealed their identities. The defendants were also able to inject fake pages into legitimate websites, such as eBay, to make victims believe they were receiving and following instructions from legitimate websites, when they were actually following the instructions of the defendants. They placed more than 1,000 fraudulent listings for automobiles, motorcycles and other high-priced goods on eBay and similar auction sites. Photos of the items were infected with malware, which redirected computers that clicked on the image to fictitious webpages designed by the defendants to resemble legitimate eBay pages. These fictitious webpages prompted users to pay for their goods through a nonexistent eBay Escrow Agent who was simply a person hired by the defendants. Users paid for the goods to the fraudulent escrow agents, who in turn wired the money to others in Eastern Europe, who in turn gave it to the defendants. The payers/victims never received the items and never got their money back. This resulted in a loss of millions of dollars. The Bayrob group laundered this money by hiring money transfer agents and created fictitious companies with fraudulent websites designed to give the impression they were actual businesses engaged in legitimate financial transactions. Money stolen from victims was wired to these fraudulent companies and then in turn wired to Western Union or Money Gram offices in Romania. European money mules used fake identity documents to collect the money and deliver it to the defendants. The FBI investigated the case, with assistance from the Romanian National Police. Senior Counsel Brian Levine of the Criminal Divisions Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Duncan T. Brown and Brian McDonough of the Northern District of Ohio prosecuted the case. The Office of International Affairs also provided assistance in this case. President Donald J. Trump Announces Nominations of Individuals to Key Administration Posts Washington, DC - President Donald J. Trump Announces Nominations of Individuals to Key Administration Posts: Friday, President Donald J. Trump announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key positions in his Administration: James Byrne of Virginia, to be Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs. James M. Byrne currently serves as General Counsel, Performing the Duties of the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Previously, Mr. Byrne served as an executive with Lockheed Martin Corporation. Before joining Lockheed Martin, Mr. Byrne served in career Senior Executive Service positions at the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction and the United States Office of the Special Counsel. Mr. Byrne has over 25 years of experience in the public sector, including service as a deployed Marine infantry officer and Department of Justice international narcotics prosecutor. Mr. Byrne earned his J.D. from Stetson University College of Law and is a Distinguished Graduate of the United States Naval Academy, where he received an engineering degree. President Donald J. Trump nominated the following individuals to key positions in his Administration: Nazak Nikakhtar of Maryland, to be Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry & Security. Ms. Nikakhtar serves as Assistant Secretary of Commerce (Industry and Analysis), where she is the Departments primary liaison with United States industry and trade associations. Previously, Ms. Nikakhtar served as a partner at the international trade law firm of Cassidy Levy Kent, LLP. Ms. Nikakhtar also served as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center and worked for the Honorable Ronald S.W. Lew in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. Ms. Nikakhtar received her J.D. and Master of Economics degrees from Syracuse University and Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. Jonathan R. Cohen of California, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Arab Republic of Egypt. Jonathan Cohen, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor, currently serves as Acting United States Representative to the United Nations and Acting United States Representative to the United Nations Security Council. He was the Deputy United States Representative from June 2018 to December 2018 and was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs from 2016 to 2018. His other assignments included service as Deputy Chief of Mission at the United States Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, Acting Deputy Chief of Mission at the United States Embassy in Paris, France, Minister Counselor for Political Affairs at the United States Embassy in Paris, France, and Deputy Chief of Mission at the United States Embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus. Mr. Cohen earned his A.B. at Princeton University. He was the recipient of the United States Department of the Army Commanders Award for Civilian Service, the State Departments Distinguished Honor Award, and the James Clement Dunn Award for Excellence. He speaks French, Swedish, and Italian. Secretary of State Pompeo's Visit to Cucuta, Colombia Cucuta, Colombia - On Sunday, Secretary Pompeo traveled to Cucuta, Colombia. During this visit, he met with organizations supporting Venezuelans fleeing the oppressive Maduro regime, and assessed the challenges of delivering humanitarian aid into Venezuela itself, given the regimes closure of the Venezuela-Colombia border. The United States remains committed to supporting the people of Venezuela as they demand the restoration of their democracy. Not long ago, I wrote about the new, radically different strategy that Ikea had just announced. And I made a little joke: "Pretty much everything is going to change. Except maybe the meatballs." It turns out I was wrong. Even the meatballs are affected. Exhibit A is the brand new Ikea store opening today at 10 a.m. in New York City, at 999 Third Avenue. That's about four blocks east of the southwest corner of Central Park, in the middle of some of the most expensive real estate in the United States. So, you might well be asking yourself: How did Ikea manage to find a massive, 200,000-square-foot retail location plus parking there? It's by far the most densely packed real estate in the United States. Ah, there's the first sign of what's different. This is an Ikea like no Ikea you've ever been in before: tinier, more nondescript, and with a slightly different name ("Ikea Planning Studio"). As the real estate website Curbed reports: Customers will be able to browse popular products and lines while also having access to IKEA experts (by online appointment) for help with designing spaces and planning projects. The best part for shoppers? All purchases made at the IKEA Planning Studio will be conveniently delivered (for a cost) to the customer's home. The whole shift reflects Ikea's worldwide understanding that the way its customers shop is changing fast. For one thing, Ikea is far more popular in urban areas than less urban ones, but its just-outside-the-city retail location strategy has never been particularly convenient. Given the sheer number of Zipcars and Ubers at these giant blue box stores, I feel like I could have explained this to Ikea when I was outfitting my first apartment in Washington, D.C. nearly two decades ago. But here we are. This new New York City store is the first of 30 similar ones planned in big U.S. cities. San Francisco and Washington are apparently next on the list, and it's all based on a model the company has tried in London and Moscow already. Among the other big differences between this new Ikea store of the future and the big box stores you've come to know and (maybe, sometimes) love: Far fewer products on display. Lots more space devoted to living space mockups. For example, the New York store has mock apartments with the same (tiny) dimensions as many nearby apartments. Lots of on-site consultants whose job is to help guide customers to design their apartments and pick the right stuff. A heavy emphasis on delivery. "[Customers] don't have to worry about taking the product on the train or walking out with lots of bags, because we can deliver it for them," Ikea COO Leontyne Green Sykes told Business Insider. Encouragement to hire folks from TaskRabbit (now owned by Ikea) to come and assemble whatever needs assembling. No meatballs. No cafeteria at all, actually. Oh, and the number of jobs. That's a bit complicated. On the one hand, when Ikea announced these plans last year, it immediately cut 7,500 positions worldwide. But on the other hand, opening new locations does mean hiring at least some new workers. This small New York store will have about 25 employees, half of them new hires and half coming from other stores. It's not exactly going to replace the Amazon HQ2 project, of course. But new jobs are new jobs. At one point, Ikea apparently toyed with the idea of just selling all its products on Amazon. But this seems like a medium strategy--and frankly a better thought out one: changing the stores, but also changing the way Ikea's best and most likely customers think about them worldwide. Fluidity is a necessity in the modern day workplace. A flexible office design is key to facilitating a company's ability to pivot in a new direction. Businesses that change with the economy--not just the market economy, but the economy of employee satisfaction and retention--will prioritize flexibility and come out on top. Workplace Flexibility--the Office Is Where the Laptop Connects First, what is workplace flexibility in terms of office design? It's the ability to reconfigure your physical office space to meet the needs of your employees, enabling better productivity, functionality, and comfort. Connectivity breeds mobility, with laptops, tablets, and smartphones bringing unprecedented levels of flexibility to your workforce. As long as they have a network connection and a device on which to work, it doesn't really matter where employees sit. The work is where the laptop is. Think about it. Not every company has a massive headquarters or the budget for top-of-the-line architectural and design firms to renovate their space. In this case, a flexible workspace is ideal. Cubicles are great for everyone to have their own fiefdom and knickknacks, but if your workers leave their desk frequently to meet with their team, consult with clients, or conduct other business, it's a waste of space. Even the smallest spaces can be flexible. In fact, the architectural firm Unispace showcased a flexible workplace in just 2,700 square feet in Los Angeles. The Boon to the Budget The cost-savings of a flexible workspace are worth it. Flexible office spaces give business owners access to only the square footage they need, with the fluidity to turn that space into everything their employees need. This is one of the reasons co-working spaces have taken off. Employers don't tie themselves down to a long-term lease and most co-working spaces furnish the essentials in office equipment for them. Traditional office spaces cost money. Whether you're renting co-working space or have a smaller building footprint, spaces that fulfill multiple purposes cost less. If your company's cafeteria can double as a meeting room, or the conference room has audiovisual equipment to use for creating marketing videos for your brand, you're already in a position to save money. Furthermore, overhead reduction is possible with well-placed and well-considered furniture for those companies that do have a more permanent location. When Cisco Systems studied the movement and working habits of their employees, they found meeting rooms in short supply because their workers used them more than their cubicles. The cubicles sat empty 65 percent of the time. The results of a flexible redesign that increased public space and decreased the number of desks saved Cisco money on rent (37 percent), utilities and maintenance (37 percent), furniture (50 percent), and IT capital spend (40 percent). Flexibility is just good business. The How-To of Flexibility Exactly how, though, do you make your office design more flexible? It's a shift in perspective. Don't consider the trappings of office "essentials" so much as you consider your people. Everyone works differently, and even the same people will work differently for different tasks they perform. By reconsidering your office space with the transient worker in mind, you'll have more of an idea of how to proceed. Adjusting the Environment to Fit the Employees Not only will each employee need customizable furniture solutions for wherever they sit--such as sit-stand desks, ergonomically adjustable chairs, and even portable barriers--they'll need the infrastructure that allows them to connect wherever they are. Consider: Movable walls Ample power outlets and other connectivity infrastructure to the network Adjustable and mobile furniture Unassigned workstations Movable storage units or cloud-based storage for all but the essential storage of paperwork Adjustable lighting and ventilation control Each of these gives employees the ability to choose where and how they work, all while reducing your reliance on the more expensive and intractable office structure. Large meeting rooms can be broken into smaller spaces by moving walls, allowing for the rapid relocation of people and providing a touchstone for visiting or contract employees. Data lines with frequent ports of connectivity, or better yet, wireless connectivity, make a less constrained environment. Furniture on wheels--including cubicle walls, whiteboards, and even desks--give employees unlimited ability to reorganize their space as needed. Employees are more comfortable, less likely to suffer repetitive ergonomic injury, and their surroundings even save money by reconfiguring to meet their needs without a major renovation or construction refit. No company could exhibit movability and flexibility quite like Lego, which is set to open new headquarters in 2020 in Denmark. After all, the very concept of Lego blocks is the definition of flexibility to create any design. With more sofas than desks, a place for out-of-town employees to call home during their visit, and an eye on getting people face-to-face rather than computer-to-computer, this flexible concept is second nature to Lego. The e-commerce company Gilt is also getting in on the mobility action, with common areas bearing a variety of seating choices, from long, farm-style tables, cafe settings, and individual seating incorporating considerations for both acoustics and flexibility with their rolling, semi-private chairs. The cubicle farm didn't work. The open plan office hasn't worked either. The hybrid office, with its multi-purpose areas providing both collaborative and quiet spaces, seems to be a better solution than either of the previous iterations of office design. Could the addition of flexibility spell the beginning of sustained, employee-centric office design for decades to come? When a prominent politician quits Facebook, everyone takes note. When that politician is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, you really have to wonder. The U.S. Representative for New York is wildly popular and quite vocal, especially on Twitter. Yet she recently announced she would suspend her personal use of Facebook. She said the social-media network is a public health risk, and cited five reasons for that. She spoke on the Yahoo News Skullduggery podcast about it, and here's the full quote: "I actually think that social media poses a public health risk to everybody," she says. "There are amplified impacts for young people, particularly children under the age of three, with screen time. But I think it has a lot of effects on older people. I think it has effects on everybody. Increased isolation, depression, anxiety, addiction, escapism." I'm not in favor of quitting all social media, but I do agree that constant use is a danger. I've tackled each of the reasons she gave and provided a solution to help deal with each one. Isolation It's odd to think that social media could cause isolation, but I do see this as a serious problem. We're supposed to be connecting with one another, and social media does provide new avenues for that. Yet sitting alone scanning through feeds can make you feel lonely, mostly because--physically speaking--you are still alone. Solution: Other than using social media sparingly throughout the day, it's a good idea to avoid using it in social situations when real people are around--yes, even in the grocery line. Teach yourself to interact with people and not go into a bubble of social media. Depression Social media can make you feel depressed, mostly because you are seeing the best moments of everyone else. (Few of us post about our low points in life.) Baby photos are just the beginning. Your best friend's wedding, a work party--you might compare your own life to what you see online, even if you know it's a false representation of reality. Solution: If you start feeling depressed and play the comparison game, my advice is to take a break, even for just an hour or two. (Some suggest a few days or even a month, but that might be excessive.) The problem is that we tend to consume social media for long stretches of time; the secret is to scan, glance, consume, and move on. Anxiety Another curious problem that occurs when you use social media is that it can make you feel anxious. Why is that? Scientists know that many factors play into our sense of stress, but for me the real culprit has to do with a fear of missing out. We want to know who is commenting and liking, who has messaged us, and what the latest trending topics are for the day. It causes stress because it takes time to scan through all of our digital feeds. Solution: I'm not going to suggest quitting all social media to deal with the anxiety factor, but it does make sense to throttle back and even decide that you won't use social at specific times. Ocasio-Cortez says she won't use social on weekends, and that's not a bad plan. Taking a break gives you control over how much you check for trends. Addiction I've written about this problem before, but it is worth repeating. It's well-established that social media is feeding our brains with dopamine. We like seeing Likes on our posts, comments, and retweets--it's a human desire for feedback. But social-media feedback is not the same as real feedback. It's purely digital, even if your brain thinks the feedback is real. Solution: Part of the solution here is to realize how this feedback loop even works. Each time you are checking social media, remember that your brain is giving you micro-rewards. Take them with a grain of salt, and avoid spending too much time seeking those rewards. Control your usage, take breaks, but most importantly--see Likes as minor blips. Escapism Similar to the problem of feeling isolated, we often use social media as an escape from reality. The problem is that we're using a digital solution to a physical problem. We're not really escaping, in the way a trip to Cancun is an escape. We're still living in the present, and social media only helps us tune out of the problems in life for short times. Coffee executive Clifton Taulbert's professional foray into the coffee world wasn't exactly the plan from the start. This author of 14 books and Harvard University guest lecturer had minimal experience with coffee growing up -- the only experience he had with it involved going to the store in the Mississippi Delta as a kid to retrieve his great aunt's monthly supply of Maxwell drip coffee. So, what was the key ingredient that turned Taulbert into a coffee entrepreneur? According to this Pulitzer-nominated author, it all came down to one thing. Imagination. Known for his international conversations around the power of community, ?Taulbert believes imagination is a necessary sidekick for anyone who wants to travel the path of innovation. Imagination is what led Taulbert to discover what was possible for himself, has helped him envision a better future for others, and it has bolstered his place as president and CEO of an entrepreneurial venture with heart. After the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Taulbert and his founding partner were completely taken with the stories of the tragedy's survivors. Thus, African Bean Company LLC was born, becoming the home of the Roots Java coffee brand. The company is changing the world with its specialty Rwandan coffee beans. Seven years later, Taulbert, writer, lecturer, and former field worker is performing somewhat like a coffee guru -- with a small "g." African Bean Company LLC is now one of very few minority-owned national coffee supply companies in the United States, and it is making a difference in lives across the Atlantic while generating a solid customer base at home. African Bean Company's success is in part due to Taulbert's imagination. After imagining what his involvement could mean for the lives and livelihood of others, Taulbert made the decision to enter the coffee industry in a big way, despite previously having little coffee experience or expertise. Taulbert says with a smile, "I actually now know the difference between an espresso and a hot cup of decaf." But Clifton Taulbert will quickly tell anyone who asks that he first imagined what could be, and then he embraced the learning and effort needed in order to bring his vision to life. JJ Abrams has revealed why Star Wars Episode IX has been called The Rise of Skywalker, explaining how the title fulfils the weird responsibility of bringing the entire franchise to an end. The director spoke to ET Live at the Star Wars Celebration convention in Chicago, where the films trailer and title were both unveiled. The title feels like its the right title for this movie and I know that its provocative and asks a bunch of questions, but I think when you see the movie, youll see how its intended and what it means, Abrams told the network. But in the flow of titles, this movie had a very weird responsibility. It had to be the end of not just three movies, but nine movies, and the idea of having to incorporate the stories that have come before, strangely, is the story of the movie, which is to say its the characters in the film inheriting everything thats come before in previous generations, whether its sins of the father, whether its the wisdom theyve acquired, and the question is can this new generation... are they up to the task? Can they stand up to what they have to? Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Show all 13 1 /13 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Who are you, Rey? It seems extremely likely (some might even say crystal clear) that The Rise of Skywalker will shed light on Rey's origins namely her possible Skywalker heritage. It is unknown exactly how this will play out, though. Is Rey a Skywalker by blood, or by spirit? YouTube / Star Wars Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer shot-by-shot breakdown The return of the lightsaber Rey still has the blue lightsaber she inherited from Luke! And it works! YouTube / Star Wars Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer shot-by-shot breakdown This fighter means trouble It definitely looks like the fighter Rey is about to jump over (and presumably damage with her lightsaber) is Kylo Ren's. YouTube / Star Wars Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Dark warrior Speaking of Kylo Ren, what is he up to? Well, he's definitely up to no good. And he's accompanied by a Stromtrooper, which rarely means good news. YouTube / Star Wars Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer shot-by-shot breakdown On the mend Kylo Ren's helmet is shown getting re-forged. YouTube / Star Wars Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Duo In case any one had doubt: Poe and Finn are back. YouTube / Star Wars Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer shot-by-shot breakdown A new friend Looks like BB-8 has a new droid buddy! Very cute. YouTube / Star Wars Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Co-pilot Look at Chewbacca flying the Millenium Falcon with Lando Calrissian! YouTube / Star Wars Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Big reveal Speaking of Lando, the trailer marks the return of Billy Dee Williams, who last played the character in Return of the Jedi 36 years ago. YouTube / Star Wars Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Wait a minute Eagle-eyed viewers have pointed out on Twitter that this medal is extremely similar to the ones Luke and Han Solo receive from Leia during a ceremony at the end of A New Hope. YouTube / Star Wars Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Leia's return Carrie Fisher's Leia can be seen in the trailer giving Rey a heartfelt hug. Deleted scenes from The Force Awakens were used in order to feature Fisher, who died in December 2016, without resorting to CGI. YouTube / Star Wars Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Wreckage It looks like Rey is staring at the Death Star II here, possibly on Endor. YouTube / Star Wars Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Listen Yes, this is a dark screen. At the end of the trailer, the screen goes black, and Palpatine's cackling laugh can distinctly be heard a surprise that few saw coming. YouTube / Star Wars He added: So in a way I feel like we, coming into this movie, have inherited a lot, and the question is can we do enough? [thats the] question we ask ourselves every day. Abrams declined to say more on Reys parental heritage, which many fans expect to be one of the central themes of the film. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Click here to read our live coverage of the Star Wars Celebration. During the final moments of Game of Throness seventh season, viewers learnt Jon Snows real name: Aegon Targaryen. That name should sound familiar as the Targaryen family has a long history of naming their sons Aegon. Aegon I Targaryen was the first Targaryen king of Westeros and became better known as Aegon the Conqueror, the Unifier of the Seven Kingdoms. With such ancestry, many of his descendants named their children after him including Jon Snows parents Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark (read more about them here). While Jon Snow takes on the name of one of the most powerful Targaryens to have ever lived, there is also a more immediate family connection that has a bittersweet resonance. Game of Thrones characters - ranked Show all 70 1 /70 Game of Thrones characters - ranked Game of Thrones characters - ranked 70. Rickon Stark Played by: Art Parkinson : Art Parkinson Easily the most annoying Stark child an impressive feat next to Bran Rickon was at least handed one hell of a death scene: taken out by an arrow courtesy of Ramsay Bolton. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 69. Robin Arryn Played by: Lino Facioli : Lino Facioli Robin Arryn is remembered by most Thrones fans as being the 10-year-old breastfed by his mother (still weird). That's about it. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 68. Renly Baratheon Played by: Gethin Anthony : Gethin Anthony The Rickon of the Baratheon brothers. His claim to the Iron Throne was tenuous, considering his older brother, Stannis, was still alive. When Stannis's shadow monster came to kill him, it was only good news for the show. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 67. Leaf Played by: Kae Alexander : Kae Alexander A lot of mystery may surround Leaf, one of the show's mythical Children of the Forest, but her noble sacrifice to save Bran, Meera and Hodor from a horde of wights robbed her of any worth. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 66. Tommen Baratheon Played by: Dean-Charles Chapman : Dean-Charles Chapman Another boring younger brother. Whereas Joffrey was pure evil, Tommen was innocent and, inevitably, very boring. His cat, Ser Pounce, was an asset to the show. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 65. Lysa Arryn Played by: Kate Dickie : Kate Dickie Lysa, the creepy sister to Catelyn Stark, was first seen with Robin Arryn, her 10-year-old son, latched to her breast. Her death being pushed through the Moon Door couldn't have come sooner. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 64. Benjen Stark Played by: Joseph Mawle/Matteo Elezi : Joseph Mawle/Matteo Elezi Having gone missing in season one, Benjen returned during season six to save his nephew, Bran. The moment was a surprise to TV watchers book readers, however, had long speculated that Coldhands was an undead version of the Stark. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 63. Syrio Forel Played by: Miltos Yerolemou : Miltos Yerolemou The ill-fated Syrio's appearance way back in season one was a formative experience for one Arya Stark (Maisie Williams); he's the one who helped her on her way to becoming the vengeful assassin fans know and love today. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 62. Jeor Mormont Played by: James Cosmo : James Cosmo Father of Jorah Mormont, Jeor was an honourable leader of the Night's Watch perhaps to a fault. After giving Jon Snow the sword Longclaw, Mormont inadvertently showed the Stark bastard that Valerian steel can cut through White Walkers. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 61. Roose Bolton Played by: Michael McElhatton : Michael McElhatton Let's be honest: it's hard to really like as scheming a character as Roose Bolton, the man who orchestrated the violent Red Wedding the most infamous scene in the show's six-year history that saw the death of Robb, Catelyn and Talisa. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 60. Ellaria Sand Played by: Indira Varma : Indira Varma Ellaria Sand may have been a more enticing creation on the page, but in the series, her screen time regrettably amounts to reacting to loved ones being killed off in increasingly awful ways. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 59. Grand Maester Pycell Played by: Julian Glover : Julian Glover The secretly sprightly Pycell had seen a lot of things in his time, but there's an element of "unfulfilled potential" surrounding Glover's character whose late betrayal of Cersei Lannister saw a grisly end to his life of luxury at King's Landing. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 58. Three-Eyed Raven Played by: Max von Sydow : Max von Sydow Perhaps it was the casting of Max von Sydow that heightened anticipation for the Three-Eyed Raven in the series, but the half-hearted story arc left a lot to be desired. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 57. Gilly Played by: Hannah Murray : Hannah Murray Gilly's long journey from Craster's Keep to Winterfell sounds exciting on paper. But, unfortunately, she has been merely a passenger on Sam's journey for far too long. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 56. Daario Naharis Played by: Michael Huisman : Michael Huisman The man who won the heart of Daenerys Targaryen, only to be left behind in Essos. Ed Skrein originally played the character, but was soon replaced after the actor landed a role in Deadpool. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 55. Shae Played by: Sibel Kekilli : Sibel Kekilli Oh Shea. Her ill-fated betrayal sleeping with Tywin (Charles Dance) was a slap in the face not just for lover Tyrion, but the viewer also. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 54. Grey Worm Played by: Jacob Anderson : Jacob Anderson Leader of the Usullied, Grey Worm remains unmoved at all times unless around Missandei. While their romance can be heartwarming, it's hard to invest in two characters who are so wooden. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 53. Talisa Maegyr Played by: Oona Chaplin : Oona Chaplin To be fair to Robb Stark's wife Talisa, should she have avoided being murdered in arguably the most horrific way during the Red Wedding, she would most likely have been higher on this list. Alas. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 52. Shireen Baratheon Played by: Kerry Ingram : Kerry Ingram All the Greyscale-suffering Shireen ever wanted to do was read stories in her chamber, but due to her impressionable power-hungry father, Stannis, she was tragically reduced to ashes after being sacrificed to the Lord of Light. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 51. Viserys Targaryen Played by: Harry Lloyd : Harry Lloyd Viserys wanted the Iron Throne at any cost, giving away his own sister in exchange for an army. Dany, though, had other plans. Her new husband, Khal Drogo, covering Viserys in molten gold made for one of the show's most memorable death scenes. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 50. Maester Luwin Played by: Donald Sumpter : Donald Sumpter The kindly Maester Luwin was one of the nicest characters in the first few seasons, becoming a stand-in father for Bran and Rickon while the Starks endured horrors elsewhere. He was eventually killed when Ramsay Bolton took over Winterfell. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 49. Thoros of Myr Played by: Paul Kaye : Paul Kaye Thoros spent the majority of his time on the show resurrecting Beric and was most recently seen wielding his flaming sword alongside Jon Snow beyond the wall. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 48. Mance Rayder Played by: Ciaran Hinds : Ciaran Hinds Ciaran Hinds brought an intensity to Mance Rayder, a character who would otherwise have got lost in the crowd. As a result, his death at the hands of Melisandre was unexpectedly affecting. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 47. Podrick Payne Played by: Daniel Portman : Daniel Portman Ever loyal, Podrick Payne has become a fan favourite for being surprisingly brave in the face of adversity. He and Brienne of Tarth make an excellent duo. HBO/Helen Sloan Game of Thrones characters - ranked 46. Euron Greyjoy Played by: Pilou Asbk : Pilou Asbk While Euron Greyjoy may have only joined the show in season six, his presence was immediately felt. A wildcard character, Greyjoy's cut-throat, power-hungry nature has proven exciting to watch. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 45. Jaqen H'ghar Played by: Tom Wlaschiha : Tom Wlaschiha Jaqen H'ghar one of the Faceless Men of Braavos had such promise, but ultimately ended up being the one responsible for sapping Arya's story of the energy she'd had seasons before, alongside The Hound (Rory McCann). HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 44. Missandei Played by: Nathalie Emmanuel : Nathalie Emmanuel Missandei has somehow managed to come up trumps within the new world order, being an advisor to Dany. However, her stilted nature can make for some awkward encounters but at least she and Grey Worm are happy together. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 43. Ygritte Played by: Rose Leslie : Rose Leslie Ygritte the Wildling lover of Jon Snow will go down in Thrones lore for providing the series the with oft-quoted famous line: "You know nothing, Jon Snow." Spoken with a northern accent, obviously. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 42. Hot Pie Played by: Ben Hawkey : Ben Hawkey Has an actor ever been more suited to a role? Ben Hawkey, after all, has gone on to run a bakery of his own, even selling Thrones-themed goods. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 41. Walder Frey Played by: David Bradley : David Bradley One of the orchestrators of the Red Wedding, Walder Frey was a lurching, terrifying villain. When Arya unmasks herself and kills the old man, it's a sweet, sweet moment of revenge. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 40. Gendry Baratheon Played by: Joe Dempsie : Joe Dempsie The true heir to the Iron Throne. Gendry may have spent a few seasons rowing out at sea, but his return hints at big things to come for the Baratheon bastard. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 39. Robert Baratheon Played by: Mark Addy : Mark Addy Mark Addy brought a certain gravitas to Robert Baratheon, making him a believably world-weary king. Despite only having a few scenes, his character's presence is still felt on the show thanks to Gendry. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 38. Barristan Selmy Played by: Ian McElhinney : Ian McElhinney After being fired by the Lannisters, Selmy pledged allegiance to Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), bridging the gap between two of the show's key characters. He was also a bloody good warrior. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 37. Yara Greyjoy Played by: Gemma Whelan : Gemma Whelan Lily Allen was initially wanted for the role of Theon's sister. However, she declined: 'I felt uncomfortable because I would have had to go on a horse and he would have touched me up and s***.' Seeing as Allen's brother, Alfie, had already been cast as Theon, it was probably for the best. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 36. Margaery Tyrell Played by: Natalie Dormer : Natalie Dormer Margaery Tyrell was one of Game of Thrones's biggest players, wheedling her way into the Lannister family politics and actually becoming Queen for a spell. Her number was up the moment she made an enemy of Cersei, and her fiery death, while underwhelming, was a huge moment. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 35. Samwell Tarly Played by: John Bradley : John Bradley There's a theory going around that Samwell Tarly, who trains as a maester, is actually the author of the Song of Ice and Fire AKA the book series. In other words, Sam is George RR Martin. Go figure. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 34. Osha Played by: Natalia Tena : Natalia Tena The underused Osha was our very first wildling, an unpredictable knife-wielding danger to the characters we loved. Her subsequent evolution into Stark servant was interestingly played, which made the fact she was sidelined for multiple seasons, before being brought back just to be unceremoniously offed, a travesty. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 33. Ramsay Bolton Played by: Iwan Rheon : Iwan Rheon Ramsey cut off Theon's penis and sent it to the Greyjoy's father. He imprisoned and raped Sansa Stark. He killed Rickon Stark in front of his brother. And Ramsay eventually died by being fed to his own dogs. A terrifying death for a terrible human. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 32. Night King Played by: Richard Brake, Vladimir Furdik : Richard Brake, Vladimir Furdik The embodiment of evil. Why, exactly, the Night King marches South to destroy mankind remains somewhat a mystery. But, whatever the reason, he's a terrifying foe. Winter has, as the Starks say, finally come. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 31. Beric Dondarrion Played by: Richard Dormer : Richard Dormer Beric danced on the outskirts of the series until its third season when he surfaced as the leader of the Brotherhood Without Banners. His introduction paved the way for the Lord of Light's ability to resurrect the dead, a mystical sub-plot that would become very important for Jon Snow. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 30. Bran Stark Played by: Isaac Hempstead Wright : Isaac Hempstead Wright It says a lot that Bran Stark has become marginally more interesting since he sacrificed his personality in favour of becoming the spiritualistic heart of the series. His role in the final season looks set to be a huge one what with the long-standing theory that he could become the fearsome Night King. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 29. Theon Greyjoy Played by: Alfie Allen : Alfie Allen While Theon starts as a cocky kid, after being neutered by Ramsay he becomes the annoyingly weak Reek. Thankfully, Theon comes back around again in the later seasons, but not without us still hating his guts for not saving Sansa sooner. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 28. The High Sparrow Played by: Jonathan Pryce : Jonathan Pryce While at first a seemingly wise old man, the High Sparrow quickly becomes a tactical villain, using his newfound powers under King Tommen to turn King's Landing into his own domain. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 27. The Mountain Played by: Hafor Julius Bjornsson : Hafor Julius Bjornsson The hulking Clegane brother known as The Mountain now a zombie-esque servant to Cersei may not have come face-to-face with lots of characters in the series, but his presence is known by all in Westeros. His biggest moment? Battering poor Oberyn's head into mush. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 26. Khal Drogo Played by: Jason Momoa : Jason Momoa To the world he's now Aquaman, but for a brief time, Jason Momoa was Khal Drogo, the beloved Dothraki husband of his Khaleesi, Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke). HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 25. Jon Snow Played by: Kit Harington : Kit Harington Every show needs a hero, and they do not come more obvious than Jon Snow. Rising from discarded bastard to King of the North, his climb has been one of the show's best storylines. A shame, then, that Snow can be such a bland person, doing only what is right and seemingly having no faults. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 24. Stannis Baratheon Played by: Stephen Dillane : Stephen Dillane With his propensity to make tough decisions for the greater good, Stannis could have been a heroic warrior. However, the Baratheon brother's continual fall from grace including sacrificing his own daughter and murdering his own brother were horrendous decisions that eventually doomed him. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 23. Hodor Played by: Kristian Nairn : Kristian Nairn Once you get over the fact that Kristian Nairn was essentially getting paid to repeat the word "Hodor" over and over, it's hard to deny that Bran Stark's protector was a heartwarming addition to the show. His death the breathtaking "Hold the Door" sequence will go down as one of the show's most memorable moments. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 22. Tywin Lannister Played by: Charles Dance : Charles Dance Stannis was a horrible father. His two favourite children became incestuous lovers, and he blamed his youngest for the death of his wife. Without Tywin, though, the Lannister family would not be nearly as riveting as they are to watch. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 21. Tormund Giantsbane Played by: Kristofer Hivju : Kristofer Hivju Tormund has some of the best lines in the series, particularly when expressing his admiration for Brienne. Here's one of the least explicit: "I want to make babies with her. Think of it. Great big monsters. They'll conquer the world!" HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 20. Daenerys Targaryen Played by: Emilia Clarke : Emilia Clarke "Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons." Every time Dany meets someone new, she forces Missandei to read out her entire CV. I guess everyone would if theirs was as impressive. Dany really has had a great journey to the top a shame she could not have come to Westeros slightly earlier. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 19. Olenna Tyrell Played by: Dianna Rigg : Dianna Rigg Olenna's scenes were always ones to cherish. The Queen of Thorns was as cunning as the best of them and seemed like she could worm her way out of any situation, all from the comfort of her own chair. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 18. Jorah Mormont Played by: Iain Glen : Iain Glen Poor Ser Jorah. Dany may be 25 years younger than him, but that never stopped the disgraced warrior from loving her. He even fought off Grey Scale to fight by her side. If that's not true love, then what is? HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 17. Davos Seaworth Played by: Liam Cunningham : Liam Cunningham Liam Cunningham's performance as the curt Davos Seaworth has quietly been one of the best things about the series since his introduction. As Jon Snow's kingly advisor, he's recently seen himself thrust into the heart of the series and, simply put, Game of Thrones would be a less enjoyable show without him. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 16. Melisandre Played by: Carice van Houten : Carice van Houten Lest we forget that Melisandre is actually a shrivelled old witch who has been manipulating men for hundreds of years. Her faith in the Lord of Light, though, could very well be misplaced. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 15. Oberyn Played by: Pedro Pascal : Pedro Pascal Few shows can bring in characters midway through their run that have such an impact as Oberyn. The Viper quickly became a fan favourite, and his death remains one of the show's most squirm-inducing moments. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 14. Eddard "Ned" Stark Played by: Sean Bean : Sean Bean Killing off a main character during a show's first season was practically unheard of before Game of Thrones. Yet, as dictated by George RR Martin's books, they cut off Sean Bean's head without a second thought, setting the tone for everything to come. No death has impacted the Thrones quite as much since. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 13. Varys Played by: Conleth Hill : Conleth Hill Early on in the series, it was hard to pin down Varys, a slippery eel of a character who has "little birds" fluttering around Westeros, feeding back crucial information. Going into the final season, his true intentions are clear: he's all for Daenerys taking the Iron Throne, even if he doesn't live to see the day (I have to die in this strange country, just like you," Melisandre prophesied last season). HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 12. Bronn Played by: Jerome Flynn : Jerome Flynn Perhaps the show's best wise-cracking side-kick, Bronn only has one loyalty: money. Paired with either of the Lannister lads, Tyrion or Jaime, Bronn makes for excellent company. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 11. Robb Stark Played by: Richard Madden : Richard Madden Before Bodyguard, Richard Madden was the extremely temporary king of Westeros. Robb was a man of honour, trying to bring light to the Thrones universe. He was a likeable presence who ruled with his heart, an act that ultimately saw him die during the infamous Red Wedding in season three. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 10. Brienne of Tarth Played by: Gwendoline Christie : Gwendoline Christie Brienne is a reassuring force of good in a world filled with scheming layabouts. She's also one of the most deadly. Her time on the series has been spent protecting the likes of Renly Baratheon, Catelyn Stark and Jaime Lannister, the latter of which made for an interesting turn as it put her at odds with her loyalty. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 9. Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish Played by: Aidan Gillen : Aidan Gillen There would be no Game of Thrones without Littlefinger. The silver-tongued manipulator had Jon Arryn killed, setting off a snowball that turned into an avalanche. As smart as he may have been, Littlefinger was finally outplayed by his own pupil, Sansa Stark. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 8. Sansa Stark Played by: Sophie Turner : Sophie Turner Sansa has perhaps had the most interesting story arc of any character on Thrones. Beginning as a cliched annoying teenager, she gradually became a stone-cold killer, capable of holding Winterfell and outsmarting even Littlefinger. With any luck, she could sit upon the Iron Throne when the war is over. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 7. Arya Stark Played by: Maisie Williams : Maisie Williams Arya Stark, arguably the greatest character of the first few seasons, was one of the biggest victims of the series overtaking George RR Martin's source material. Her limited screen time, due to being away from the central action, robbed us of classic moments that we're grateful she's been a part of in an otherwise lacklustre season eight. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 6. Sandor "The Hound" Clegane Played by: Rory McCann : Rory McCann From his regular delivery of the phrase"F** the king" to that chicken scene, The Hound is a reckless creation whose high ranking on this list can be attributed to the searing performance from Rory McCann. Most effective when paired with Arya Stark. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 5. Joffrey Baratheon Played by: Jack Gleeson : Jack Gleeson No character has been as hated by the fandom as Joffrey. His wicked ways and disgusting behaviour haunted the show's first four seasons. You never knew what was going to come next: whether he was about to behead your favourite character or start crying to his mother. It made for thrilling television. But, as The Hound says, "F**k the King". HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 4. Catelyn Stark Played by: Michelle Fairley : Michelle Fairley The lady of Winterfell, Catelyn Stark, became the show's honorary lead after the untimely beheading of her husband, Ned (Sean Bean) at the end of season one. As she tried to take control of spiralling events in the second and third run, Thrones was handed its most resilient character. Michelle Fairley's guttural cry of anguish before meeting her tragic end during the Red Wedding will always be the show's most horrific moment. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 3. Jaime Lannister Played by: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau : Nikolaj Coster-Waldau If the characters above Jaime in this list are the show's greatest characters, Jaime is the show's most disarming. The Lannister brother the Kingslayer started the series as a long-haired bad guy of the tallest order, but his humbling over the past few seasons have seen him inch his way into the hearts of viewers. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 2. Tyrion Lannister Played by: Peter Dinklage : Peter Dinklage Blamed for the death of his mother and hated for being a dwarf, Tyrion turned to drink and prostitutes to numb the pain. However, Tyrion has a fierce intellect, capable of outsmarting the toughest enemies (and offering cutting lines that George RR Martin says often take weeks to write). More importantly, despite being betrayed and cast away time and time again, Tyrion selflessly only wants the best for the people of Westeros. A true hero. HBO Game of Thrones characters - ranked 1. Cersei Lannister Played by: Lena Headey : Lena Headey The Mad Queen, alone on the Iron Throne. Cersei has, over the course of seven seasons, seen her three children die, driven her lover/brother away, blown up a church with a half dozen major characters inside, arranged the death of her husband (King Robert) and attempted to have her other brother (Tyrion) killed multiple times. Yet, thanks to Lena Headey's empathetic performance, you still feel sorry for the terrifying Queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. As one of the most complicated character to have ever reached television screens, there's no denying her place as the best Thrones character to date. HBO Jons older half-brother (the son of Rhaegar and his former spouse Elia Martell) was also named Aegon. However, Aegon and Elia were brutally murdered by Ser Gregor The Mountain Clegane during the Sack of Kings Landing. One of the possible reasons Rhaegar named both his sons Aegon could be to do with the Prince That Was Promised/Azor Ahai prophesy. In the books, Rhaegar was obsessed with prophecies and may have been convinced this prince was called Aegon. Had the first Aegon lived and ascended to the Iron Throne, he would have ruled as Aegon VI. Jon Snow could also use this title as he, we now know, has a better claim to the Iron Throne that his aunt/romantic partner Daenerys. Being both male and the son of the Mad Kings firstborn, Jon (Aegon) has a better claim to the Iron Throne. During season seven, we discovered that Rhaegar and Lyannas were married, therefore legitimising Jons claim. However, Robert Baratheons son, Gendry, arguably has an even stronger case. Access unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up How exactly this will pan out during season eight is anyones guess. You can read more about Jon Snows parents and his claim to the throne here. The Iron Throne contenders Game of Thrones Show all 7 1 /7 The Iron Throne contenders Game of Thrones The Iron Throne contenders Game of Thrones Jon Snow The big reveal of Game of Thrones penultimate season (a twist that fan communities had seen coming from before the television adaptation even aired) was the truth of Jon Snows parentage, namely that he is not the bastard son of Ned Stark but the legitimate spawn of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryan. Whilst most viewers were preoccupied with the ickiness of this revelation being juxtaposed against the image of him rolling around in bed with Daenerys (now revealed to be his aunt), the fact is that he now has the most legitimate claim to the Iron Throne. Certainly he has a better claim than his dads sister, to whom hes just sworn fealty (not to mention done things that would make the Pitcairn Islanders blush). Jons biggest issue is that he still doesnt know how hot his stock is, and the only two characters who do are his pal Sam Tarly and his irritating younger brother Bran. Can such an undynamic duo get this crucial information to Jon before its too late? HBO The Iron Throne contenders Game of Thrones Daenerys Targaryan Up until the end of the last series (and provided you hadnt been reading any fan theories) it seemed like Daenerys was fated to end up ruling the Seven Kingdoms. George R. R. Martins series is, after all, called A Song of Ice and Fire, and where the chilly element of that could apply equally to Jon Snow or the horde of frigid zombies, its long been apparent that Dany brings the titular heat. She spent a frustrating amount of time in Essos, honing her military and governance skills (both of which seem to rely on oppressive use of dragon fire) and arrived in Westeros on a seemingly unstoppable quest for the crown. Her claim has been weakened by the discovery that her nephew Jon is the true Targaryen heir, but its also quite clear that she wears the dragon-riding slacks in their relationship. HBO The Iron Throne contenders Game of Thrones Cersei Lannister Cersei is the only villain to survive from episode one to the final season, so credit to her for that. She has already lost her more pragmatic siblings Tyrion and Jaime to the anti-apocalypse cause, and her plan for the endgame seems to involve double-crossing the alliance heading to deal with the zombie threat. It simply cannot end well for her, because any damage wrought against the Targaryens will only pave the way for the Night Kings army, and hes not a man(?) who looks like hed care much about the Lannisters credit rating. Truly the Cnut of the series, shes already on borrowed time. HBO The Iron Throne contenders Game of Thrones Arya Stark/Sansa Stark/Bran Stark The survival of the younger Stark children makes you feel all the more sorry for poor Rickon (why oh why didnt he zigzag?!), who suffered the indignity of never even getting to be a real character before he was dispatched. The reality is that none of the Starks really fancy taking the crown and moving to Kings Landing. They love the North, where you get to wear long fur coats and growl ominous warnings at soft southerners. The best case scenario for Bran is that he gets to live in a castle, not a tree (or the Night Kings body, see fan theories for further details), and, for Sansa, that bizarrely coveted wardenship of the North looks increasingly like it has her name on it. Arya is something of an agent of chaos, and its hard to know what, undoubtedly pivotal, role she will yet play, but and do prove me wrong Arya its hard to see her chatting finance with the Small Council. HBO The Iron Throne contenders Game of Thrones The Night King Could the Night King be the strong leader that Westeros so desperately needs? It would be fitting for a series that has so willingly taken beloved characters and decapitated them/stabbed them in the heart/slit their throat, to go out with the nihilistic bang of the Night King, astride undead Viserion, perched on the Red Keep. Hes the man to watch if the showrunners decide that they want to go full metaphor. HBO The Iron Throne contenders Game of Thrones Dark Horses There are some characters Varys, Jorah, Theon and Yara Greyjoy who will probably play a significant role in the climactic drama, but without any chance of ending up in the hot seat. A better bet might be Gendry, aka the hot ironmonger from Skins, who has the strongest Baratheon claim to the throne. Other major characters like Brienne, Bronn, Davos and Grey Worm will be knocking about (provided theyre given the screentime in this truncated series) but are subjects, not rulers. Euron Greyjoy has to meet a sticky end at some point, because hes fully evil and also very misjudged as a character. My outside bet, for the connoisseurs, is Beric Dondarrion, the priest of the Lord of Light, who has seemingly survived the breach of the wall at Eastwatch and whose ability to both conjure fire and come back from the dead might be quite useful against the ice zombies. The Iron Throne contenders Game of Thrones Verdict Unless they pull off in a wild, unexpected direction and full credit if they do its going to be Jon and Dany ruling together, and the final shot of the series will, mark my words, be a slow track backwards through the throne room, showing the newly married couple, side-by-side, in a slightly less uncomfortable pair of matching thrones. Incest apologism at its most heart-warming. For my own part, Id like to see a Ministry of All the Talents in Kings Landing, with Arya bossing the Kingsguard, Yara on naval duty, Davos in charge of law and order (justice, Flea Bottom style), Bronn overseeing the treasury (who better than a sellsword?), and Varys back as spymaster. If Robert, Joffrey and Tommen the Baratheon kings have taught us anything, its that its possible to be in office but not in power. When the ice thaws, I hope to see Game of Thrones multifaceted characters given their dues if they make it out alive, that is. Home Box Office Game of Thrones returns to TV screens 14 April. The show will be available on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV in the UK. Read everything you need to know about the forthcoming season here. Environmental activists today aim to mobilise thousands of protesters to shut down some of central Londons busiest streets, in an escalation of a campaign aiming to force the government to address rampant climate change. Extinction Rebellion (XR), which generated headlines earlier this month when activists protested naked in Parliament, has more than 2,000 volunteers signed up to take part in the UK element of what organisers hope will be an international week of protest. XR will block traffic at Marble Arch, Oxford Circus, Waterloo Bridge, Parliament Square and Piccadilly Circus from 11am on Monday. It aims to continue occupying the roads around-the-clock for at least 72 hours. Many activists say they are willing to be arrested. We will peacefully block traffic around the clock. This will be a full-scale festival of creative resistance, with peoples assemblies, art actions, stage performances, talks, workshops, food and family spaces, the group says on its website. Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Show all 45 1 /45 Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion protestors block a road outside the Tate Gallery where Burberry held a show to protest impact of the fashion industry on the environment. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion co-founder Clare Farrell told The Independent: The industry has a greenhouse gas footprint the size of Russia. "Young people protesting recently are not going to thank grown ups for using up that carbon budget on throwaway clothing. We can change things as seen by industries during WW1 when factories making one product, within months, making arms instead. But were not here to tell everyone what to do. Extinction Rebellion is an alarm. Were here to say it cant go on, or well drive ourselves into extinction for the sake of an economic model we think we cant question and because we say we cant change it. Well I think that we can. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW LFW fans poses for a photograph on Sunday 19 February 2019, at The Strand, London, where Extinction Rebellion activists staged a road block demonstration in protest of the fashion industry's impact on the environment. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Climate change activists block the road as part of an Extinction Rebellion protest outside a London Fashion Week event at Tate Britain in London, calling on the fashion industry to use its influence to help to create a sustainable world. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW A LFW fan poses for a photograph on Sunday 19 February 2019, at The Strand, London, where Extinction Rebellion activists staged a road block demonstration in protest of the fashion industry's impact on the environment. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion activists gathered for a break at a small green space near Temple underground station on 19 February 2019 Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW A LFW fan poses for a photograph on Sunday 19 February 2019, at The Strand, London, where Extinction Rebellion activists staged a road block demonstration in protest of the fashion industry's impact on the environment. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion activists gathered for a break at a small green space near Temple underground station on 19 February 2019 Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW A LFW fan poses for a photograph on Sunday 19 February 2019, at The Strand, London, where Extinction Rebellion activists staged a road block demonstration in protest of the fashion industry's impact on the environment. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW A LFW fan poses for a photograph on Sunday 19 February 2019, at The Strand, London, where Extinction Rebellion activists staged a road block demonstration in protest of the fashion industry's impact on the environment. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW An Extinction Rebellion activist models a coat made of real grass during a protest against the fashion industry's impact on the environment during LFW on 19 February 2019. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW A LFW fan poses for a photograph during a protest by Extinction Rebellion activists. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion protestors block a road outside the Tate Gallery where Burberry held a show to protest impact of the fashion industry on the environment. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW LFW fans poses for a photograph on Sunday 19 February 2019, at The Strand, London, where Extinction Rebellion activists staged a road block demonstration in protest of the fashion industry's impact on the environment. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion activists model a coat made of real grass during a road block to protest the impact of the fashion industry on the environment on 19 February 2019 during LFW. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion co-founder Clare Farrell told The Independent: The industry has a greenhouse gas footprint the size of Russia. "Young people protesting recently are not going to thank grown ups for using up that carbon budget on throwaway clothing. We can change things as seen by industries during WW1 when factories making one product, within months, making arms instead. But were not here to tell everyone what to do. Extinction Rebellion is an alarm. Were here to say it cant go on, or well drive ourselves into extinction for the sake of an economic model we think we cant question and because we say we cant change it. Well I think that we can. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW LFW fans poses for a photograph on Sunday 19 February 2019, at The Strand, London, where Extinction Rebellion activists staged a road block demonstration in protest of the fashion industry's impact on the environment. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellon astvists converge outside the Tate during LFW. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW LFW fans poses for a photograph on Sunday 19 February 2019, at The Strand, London, where Extinction Rebellion activists staged a road block demonstration in protest of the fashion industry's impact on the environment. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion activists model a coat made of real grass during a road block to protest the impact of the fashion industry on the environment on 19 February 2019 during LFW. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW An Extinction Rebellion activist holds up a sign as LFW fans pose for a photograph on Sunday 19 February 2019. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Student and artist Sabrina Zahoe, 19, from Atlanta, Georgia, who studies in New York is a London Fashion Week fan. She said: Im very supportive of what the protestors are doing today. I say fuck fast fashion, so any kind of green fashion, I support tremendously. We do need to start thinking about fashion more consciously. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW An Extinction Rebellion activist holds up a sign during a road block outside the Tate Gallery to protest the impact of the fashion industry on the environment on 19 February 2019 during LFW. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Ella OBrien, 17 (left) and Raffy Parsons, 16 (right) said they love London Fashion Week but are conscious of its footprint on the environment. Ella, who said she wants to make her own line of sustainable fashion in the future, told The Independent: think its improtant for people to be aware of how much theyre confusing and look into more sustainable options and be more mindful in terms of where their clothing is coming from, how its being produced. It is getting better but theres a long way to go. Raffy added: Stopping getting new clothes when you could just recycle is really important. Were both vegan so were trying our best. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion activists enroute to The Tate Modern to orchestrate another road block stop to adorn a statue with Extinction Distinction flags on Sunday 19 February 2019. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Vegan LFW fan Raffy Parsons, 16, said he is conscious about the impact of fast fashion. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion activists enroute to The Tate Modern to orchestrate another road block stop to adorn a statue with Extinction Distinction flags on Sunday 19 February 2019. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion activist, Becky Boey, told The Independent: The fashion industry promotes a culture of unsustainable need for the next new fashion, and once its over, people want to buy the next new thing. "Consumerism has gone out of control. We have to make some real changes to the way we think about our climate and wasteful society. "The fashion industry in this respect is significant because it has a huge influence on young minds. "But were a society thats run on capital. Were so focused on the economy, but economic growth is not in line with having a sustainable planet to live on." Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion activists march to The Tate Modern to orchestrate another road block while before a Burberry catwalk show takes place on Sunday 19 February 2019. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion activists gathered for a break at a small green space near Temple underground station on 19 February 2019 Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion activists gathered for a break at a small green space near Temple underground station on 19 February 2019 Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion co-founder Clare Farrell told The Independent: The industry has a greenhouse gas footprint the size of Russia. "Young people protesting recently are not going to thank grown ups for using up that carbon budget on throwaway clothing. We can change things as seen by industries during WW1 when factories making one product, within months, making arms instead. But were not here to tell everyone what to do. Extinction Rebellion is an alarm. Were here to say it cant go on, or well drive ourselves into extinction for the sake of an economic model we think we cant question and because we say we cant change it. Well I think that we can. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion activists take a break at a small green space next to Temple station during LFW on Sunday 19 February 2019. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion co-founder Tamsin Omond speaks to a crowd of activists about the impact of the action and the media coverage received. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion activists gathered for a break at a small green space near Temple underground station on 19 February 2019 Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion activists gathered for a break at a small green space near Temple underground station on 19 February 2019 Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion activists gathered for a break at a small green space near Temple underground station on 19 February 2019 Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion activists are followed down the street by members of the press during LFW on Sunday 19 February 2019. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion protestors converge outside LFW, at The Strand, London, Sunday 17 February 2019. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion protestors block traffic at a road outside Temple underground station during LFW on Sunday 19 February 2019 to protest against the carbon footprint of the fashion industry on Sunday 17 February 2019. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW A disgruntled motorist stands next to his motorbike during a road block protest by Extinction Rebellion activist, staged to demonstrate against the fashion industry's carbon footprint near Temple underground station during LFW on Sunday 19 February 2019. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW An Extinction Rebellion protestor who joined activists to block traffic at a road outside Temple underground station during LFW on Sunday 19 February 2019 to demonstrate against the carbon footprint of the fashion industry on Sunday 17 February 2019. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW Extinction Rebellion protestors block traffic at a road outside Temple underground station during LFW on Sunday 19 February 2019 to protest against the carbon footprint of the fashion industry on Sunday 17 February 2019. Anu Shukla Extinction Rebellion swarm LFW An Extinction Rebellion protestor who joined activists to block traffic at a road outside Temple underground station during LFW on Sunday 19 February 2019 to demonstrate against the carbon footprint of the fashion industry on Sunday 17 February 2019. Anu Shukla The protests, which XR describes as non-violent civil disobedience, follows similar action last November when thousands of protesters occupied five central London bridges. Police arrested 85 people that day, and XR expects further arrests this week. Participants, who have travelled from across the country to join the protests including a five-week Earth March from Cornwall were encouraged to camp overnight in Hyde Park. In the face of unprecedented climate breakdown scientists have warned we have 12 years to stop runaway global warming XR has three demands it hopes its acts of disobedience will help bring about. It is demanding the UK government declare a climate and ecological emergency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025, and create a so-called Citizens Assembly made up of members of the public, which will lead on decisions to address climate and ecological breakdown. An XR spokesperson said: When government and the law fail to provide any assurance of adequate protection, as well as security for its peoples well-being and the nations future, it becomes the right of its citizens to seek redress in order to restore dutiful democracy and to secure the solutions needed to avert catastrophe and protect the future. Extinction Rebellion activists chant whilst semi-naked during Brexit debate in attempt 'to get politicians to act on Climate and Ecological Crisis' It becomes not only our right, it becomes our sacred duty to rebel. Scotland Yard said they have "appropriate policing plans" in place for the demonstrations and that officers will be used from across the force "to support the public order operation during the coming weeks". Police advised people travelling around London in the coming days to allow extra time for their journey in the event of road closures and general disruption. Michelle Obama has honoured British fashion by wearing a custom Stella McCartney jumpsuit while in London for her Becoming book tour. Last night, the former US first lady upped the fashion stakes by wearing a custom, black beaded jumpsuit by British fashion designer McCartney. Mrs Obama accessorised with large gold hoops by Jennifer Fisher jewellery, and finished off her look with a pair of classic, black Jimmy Choo heels. Throughout the international tour for her best-selling memoir, the former US first lady has made a point of championing designers from different countries. While in Copenhagen last week, Mrs Obama wore a bespoke hand-embellished pink power suit by Danish designer Stine Goya. Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes Show all 10 1 /10 Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On the key to a successful marriage In our house we dont take ourselves too seriously, and laughter is the best form of unity, I think, in a marriage. On Live with Regis and Kelly in February 2011. Getty Images Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On not underestimating yourself "You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world's problems at once but don't ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own." In a speech to schoolgirls at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School in North London in April 2009. Getty Images Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On inspiring young people I want our young people to know that they matter, that they belong, so dont be afraid. You hear me? Young people, dont be afraid. Be focused, be determined, be hopeful, be empowered Lead by example with hope, never fear, and know that I will be with you, rooting for you and working to support you for the rest of my life. In her final White House address in January 2017. Getty Images Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On double standards regarding parenting When a father puts in long hours at work, hes praised for being dedicated and ambitious. But when a mother stays late at the office, shes sometimes accused of being selfish, neglecting her kids. At the "Let Girls Learn Event" in Madrid, Spain in June 2016. Getty Images Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On the importance of diversity in film and TV For so many people, television and movies may be the only way they understand people who arent like them I come across many little black girls who come up to me over the course of this 7 years with tears in their eyes, and they say: Thank you for being a role model for me. I dont see educated black women on TV, and the fact that youre first lady validates who I am.' In an interview with Variety in August 2016. AFP/Getty Images Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On maintaining hopeful following the election of Donald Trump See, now we are feeling what not having hope feels like, you know. Hope is necessary. It is a necessary concept. What do you give your kids if you cant give them hope? In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in December 2016. Getty Images Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On motherhood "My most important title is 'mom-in-chief'. My daughters are still the heart of my heart and the centre of my world." At the Democratic National Convention in September 2012. AFP/Getty Images Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On championing women's education Men in every country need to look into their hearts and souls and ask themselves whether they truly view and treat women as their equals. And then when you all encounter men in your lives who answer no to that question, then you need to take them to task. You need to tell them that any man who uses his strength to oppress women is a coward, and he is holding back the progress of his family and his country. In a speech at the summit of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, July 2014. Getty Images Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On dealing with bullies When someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you dont stoop to their level. No, our motto is, when they go low, we go high. At the Democratic convention, July 2016. Getty Images Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On the meaning of success "Success isnt about how your life looks to others. Its about how it feels to you. We realised that being successful isnt about being impressive, its about being inspired." In a speech at the Oregon State University commencement, June 2012. Getty Images The former first lady's ensemble for the London leg of her book tour was put together by her long-time stylist Meredith Koop. Ms Koop has spoken in the past about the importance of perfecting every element of Mrs Obama's looks, in order to anticipate whether or not they may receive a positive or negative reaction. You have to celebrate fashion but also be aware of the message people are going to take away, Ms Koop told the New York Times in 2018. Fashion can bolster communications in the best-case scenario, or be a silent partner, or actually distract. Mrs Obama was joined on stage at London's O2 arena by American comedian Stephen Colbert to discuss her life and the concept of "becoming". During the evening, the author spoke to the audience about being "more sceptical about social media and the Internet". Dont read about your neighbours on Twitter. Somebody can talk into your ear about the person living next to you and they can feed you lies and misperceptions," the 55-year-old said. Put down the phone and start knocking on doors. People can never be as mean to you to your face as they would be online. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The former first lady also detailed her first impression of Barack Obama when she met him at law firm Sidley and Austin in Chicago in 1989. He was the talk of the firm; this kid who wasnt even a lawyer who hadnt finished law school and was a first-year associate," she stated. "He was coming in already with this sort of sense of wonderfulness. For all the latest on Michelle Obama, click here. A popular social media account that regularly calls out traditional gender stereotypes has released a range of t-shirts that satirically reimagines the roles typically assigned to men and women. Man Who Has It All started as a parody Twitter account and has since expanded its social commentary into an online store, where it is selling shirts emblazoned with such things as Scientist and Male Scientist. The patronising remarks are ones typically dealt with by women, who often see their gender preface their careers. In addition to offering shirts that emphasise a person is a male engineer, programmer, or guitarist, rather than a female as is commonly done in the media and by society, the store also sells t-shirts that mock other gender bias. Crazy cat gentleman, one satirical shirt for men reads, while another says: Im too handsome to do maths. The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine Show all 24 1 /24 The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine HongMei Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine HongMei Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine Charubala Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine Charubala and Thomas Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine Aiden Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine Aubrey and Aiden with Thomas Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine Ashima Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine AnAn Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine Aiden Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine ZiLong Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine YongBao Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine Tamika Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine Shankar Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine Shane Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine Rebecca Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine Rebecca Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine Rebecca Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine Rajiv Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine NoorJehan Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine Nia Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine Main Nia Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine Isla Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine Isla Fusion Studio The new gender-balanced, multi-cultural cast of Thomas the Tank Engine HongMei and Thomas Fusion Studio In the womens section, t-shirts are emblazoned with phrases such as: A mothers place is in politics and Dont forget to SMILE boys! Another jumper reads: Women and men are equal but different. Eg men are naturally better at smiling & knowing when to clean the bathroom & we should absolutely celebrate that. On Facebook, where the site describes itself as a satirical page that exposes the absurdity of the patriarchy by turning the tables, the t-shirts have been met with amusement and praise. Can you please make Male Attorney shirts someday? one woman asked. Im so proud of my husband for achieving his dream of becoming a lawyer despite all of the obstacles men face in the workplace. Would love to buy him a shirt so he can show the world how strong and tenacious he is. Another said: My man will love this. He loves to copy me and play science! Its so cute! He always smiles when he does and I love how positive it makes him seem! Someone else mocked the gender gap when it comes to clothing, as traditionally items for women cost more than nearly identical products marketed towards men. This line of clothing, however, comes in universal fit and mens. I dont understand how the mens styles are the same price as the normal one? Doing specialist fits surely costs more to produce. If they dont like it they can just buy the universal fit, one person wrote. Man Who Has It All first became popular on Twitter, where they have more than 220,000 followers. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events One tweet, which has been liked more than 36,000 times, says: My friend is a history teacher. Shes compiling a list of great historical figures and she needs a male to add to the list. Suggestions? Gordon Ramsay's new Asian restaurant has sparked a cultural appropriation row after a food critic described the eatery as a "kitchen nightmare". Last week, Ramsay and his head chef Ben Orpwood hosted a preview event for the restaurant, which is due to open this June in Mayfair, London. One of the journalists who attended the event was Angela Hui, a freelance writer for London-based food publication Eater. In her review of the Lucky Cat restaurant, Ms Hui described it as a "real-life Ramsay kitchen nightmare". The food journalist also remarked that she was the "only east Asian person in a room full of 30 to 40 journalists and chefs" at the event. Ms Hui shared snippets from the preview event on her Instagram story throughout the evening, in posts that she included in her review of the restaurant. In one of the posts, which showed her drinking wine, she wrote the caption: "I can only drink thru the pain that this is an 'Asian' restaurant [sic]." In another post, the journalist sardonically wrote: "Japanese? Chinese? It's all Asian who cares." Under: Inside Europe's first underwater restaurant Show all 13 1 /13 Under: Inside Europe's first underwater restaurant Under: Inside Europe's first underwater restaurant Under, Europe's first underwater restaurant, opened on 20 March. AFP/Getty Images Under: Inside Europe's first underwater restaurant Located on Norway's southern tip, the unique dining space is submerged in the North Sea. REUTERS Under: Inside Europe's first underwater restaurant The dining room is sparsely furnished, dominated by a huge glass window at the back. REUTERS Under: Inside Europe's first underwater restaurant The building was designed by Snoehetta, the Norwegian architecture firm behind the September 11 Memorial Museum in New York. AFP/Getty Images Under: Inside Europe's first underwater restaurant The big window exposes the underwater not like an aquarium, its the real thing, said Snoehettas founder Kjetil Traedal Thorsen. REUTERS Under: Inside Europe's first underwater restaurant The exterior, a sloping wood and concrete cuboid that slants into the ocean, has a modern aesthetic, and is accessible via a steel bridge. REUTERS Under: Inside Europe's first underwater restaurant The full 18-course tasting menu with drinks costs up to 3,700 krone (330) per person. REUTERS Under: Inside Europe's first underwater restaurant Some 7,000 diners are already booked in for this bucket list experience. REUTERS Under: Inside Europe's first underwater restaurant Designers said the building is built to withstand extreme weather, including the wave of the century. AFP/Getty Images Under: Inside Europe's first underwater restaurant Under is owned by the two Ubostad brothers who also have a nearby hotel. AFP/Getty Images Under: Inside Europe's first underwater restaurant Co-owner Gaute Ubostad said they expect to attract around 12,000 diners each year. AFP/Getty Images Under: Inside Europe's first underwater restaurant Theres room for around 40 guests in the underwater dining space. AFP/Getty Images Under: Inside Europe's first underwater restaurant Although doors opened on 20 March to friends and family of the owners, paying guests will gain access from April. AFP/Getty Images Ramsay responded on Instagram to the criticism he was subjected to in Ms Hui's review of his restaurant, writing: "Despite the very positive feedback from guests, there was, regrettably, one offensive response from the night which I have to call out." The chef stated that while it's important that critics and reviewers have "freedom of speech", the "slew of derogatory and offensive social media posts that appeared on Angela Hui's social channels, were not professional". Ramsay also referenced comments Ms Hui made about Mr Orpwood's wife, in which the journalist described her as a "token Asian wife". "It is fine to not like my food, but prejudice and insults are not welcome," Ramsay said. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events "Gordon Ramsay Restaurants do not discriminate based on gender, race or beliefs and we dont expect anyone else to." The Independent has contacted Gordon Ramsay and Angela Hui for comment. Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp have gone down around the world, with thousands of users reporting technical problems. UK users were among those unable to access the social media platforms on Sunday. The monitoring website Down Detector also reported issues across Europe, the US, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Brazil. More than 6,000 Facebook users worldwide logged problems, with many reporting a "total blackout" and others unable to log in. The reports began to spike at about 11am. More than 4,000 Instagram outages and 6,000 WhatsApp issues - mostly connection problems - have also been reported to Down Detector. The apps are both owned by Facebook. Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Show all 15 1 /15 Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Facebook is born On 4 Feb, 2004, 19-year-old Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg launched a website called 'TheFacebook' from his dorm. Within 24 hours the college social network had more than 1,000 users Wikimedia Commons Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Winklevoss twins sue Zuckerberg Within one week of launching, fellow Harvard students Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra accused Zuckerberg of stealing their idea. It would be four years later when the resulting lawsuit was finally settled Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Open for business The social network finally opened it platform to everyone on 26 September, 2006. The move proved the catalyst in supercharging the site's already explosive growth PA Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Billion-dollar bid Yahoo offered $1 billion to buy Facebook in September 2006 but Zuckerberg turned it down. 'I dont know what I could do with the money,' Zuckerberg reportedly said. 'Id just start another social networking site' Reuters Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network In the money In September 2009, almost five years since the site launched, Facebook turned a profit for the first time Getty Images/iStockphoto Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Taking the lead Facebook overtook MySpace in 2010 to become the worlds most popular social network Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Taking on the tech giants In 2011, Google launched its own social network that it hoped would knock Facebook from its perch. Despite its initial success, Google+ ultimately failed and will be shut down completely in 2019 Getty Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Facebook goes public On 18 May, 2012, Facebook went public. The initial public offering raised $16 billion the third largest in US history Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Gobbling up the competition Facebook acquired Instagram in April 2012 for $1 billion, consolidating its position as the world's leading social network Reuters Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network One billion users On 4 October, 2012, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook had hit 1 billion users. 'If youre reading this: thank you for giving me and my little team the honour of serving you,' he wrote in a blog post Getty Images Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Expanding its empire In February 2014 Facebook acquired the messaging app WhatsApp for $19.3 billion REUTERS/Dado Ruvic Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Two billion users In June 2017, Facebook passed the 2 billion user milestone REUTERS/Dado Ruvic Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Privacy scandal On 17 March 2018, news broke that UK firm Cambridge Analytica had harvested data from around 87 million Facebook users for the purpose of political profiling in the build up to the 2016 US presidential elections Shutterstock Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Record profits Despite the scandals and subsequent #DeleteFacebook campaign, Facebook posted record profits just before its 15th anniversary, the equivalent of $7.37 from each of its 2.32 billions users iStock/Independent Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Unhappy users A study found that people are happier when they dont use Facebook, adding to mounting evidence surrounding the impact social media has on mental health Rex Features Many users complained about the issues on Twitter, where #FacebookDown and #InstagramDown were among the trending topics. A Facebook spokesman said: "Earlier today, some people may have experienced trouble connecting to the family of apps. The issue has since been resolved. We're sorry for any inconvenience. The coop would need to be at least 10 feet from both the owners residence and the property line, under the proposed rules, which the city council could consider as early as May 13. Model Joyce Prado has been stripped of her Miss Santa Cruz and Miss Bolivia crowns days before confirming that she's pregnant. Ms Prado represented her country at the 2018 Miss Universe pageant in Bangkok, Thailand in December 2018, having been named Miss Bolivia six months prior. Despite her achievements, modelling agency Promociones Gloria, with whom the 22-year-old is signed, announced on Facebook on Friday that the model has had her most recent titles removed due to a "breach of contract". Promociones Gloria organises both the Miss Santa Cruz and Miss Bolivia pageants. Over the weekend, Ms Prado revealed on Instagram that she and her boyfriend, model Rodrigo Gimenez, are expecting their first child together. "I want to share with you that I am the happiest woman in the world because my life is full of love, because together with the man of my dreams we are beginning to live the most beautiful stage of our lives," she wrote in the caption. In the statement released by Promociones Gloria on Facebook, the modelling agency states that it maintains "cordial relations" with Ms Prado. The company did not explicitly state that Ms Prado's pregnancy is the reason why her titles have been removed. However, following the announcement of the "breach of contract", Promociones Gloria shared a clipping of a newspaper article on Instagram, with the headline: "Joyce Prado is left without a crown because of her pregnancy." In the article, published by El Dia Digital, Promociones Gloria general manager Tatiana Limpas says that Prado has a five-year contract with the agency. "She will remain in the ranks of the agency as a model," Ms Limpas states. Meghan Markle's best pregnancy looks Show all 11 1 /11 Meghan Markle's best pregnancy looks Meghan Markle's best pregnancy looks 14 January 2019 In an unusual style choice for the Duchess, who traditionally favours neutral hues, this ensemble offers a vibrant twist on the colour-blocking trend with a red Sentaler coat, matching heels and a bright purple Aritzia dress. It was a playful choice for the royal couple's visit to Birkenhead Town Hall. Getty Images Meghan Markle's best pregnancy looks 30 January 2019 The Duchess wore head-to-toe blush for her visit to the National Theatre, where she is now a patron. The ensemble is by US designer Brandon Maxwell but the suede shoes are Aquazurra. Getty Images Meghan Markle's best pregnancy looks 1 February 2019 Oscar de la Renta can do no wrong when it comes to flirty patterned dresses. This theatrical bird and rose-covered number was an apt choice for the Duchess; visit to Bristol Old Vic. AFP/Getty Images Meghan Markle's best pregnancy looks 7 February 2019 This Givenchy skirt offers some pizzazz thanks to its knee-high slit and its flattering waistline. Markle paired the look Aquazzura mules and a white collared shirt. Getty Images Meghan Markle's best pregnancy looks 12 February 2019 Who said you couldn't wear all-white everything? Markle paired her turtleneck Calvin Klein dress with an Amanda Wakeley coat for a gala performance at the Natural History Museum. Getty Images Meghan Markle's best pregnancy looks 23 February 2019 The Duchess was a lady in red for her visit to Casablanca, Morocco in this bespoke Valentino midi-dress, which she paired with nude court heels and a matching clutch. Getty Images Meghan Markle's best pregnancy looks 24 February 2019 Markle arrived at a reception hosted by the British Ambassador to Morocco in this full-coverage caped gown by Dior, which came in an opulent shade of champagne. Getty Images Meghan Markle's best pregnancy looks 25 February 2019 This billowing Carolina Herrera dress was the perfect choice for the Duchess' outing to brace the balmy climes of Rabat, Morocco, where she'd been visiting King Mohammed VI of Morocco with Prince Harry. This hypnotic sea blue gown was a custom-made number, obviously. Getty Images Meghan Markle's best pregnancy looks 8 March 2019 Proving that maternity hemlines needn't be restricted to one's ankles, Markle stepped out in this 1960s-inspired shift dress by high street label, Reiss. Paired with a black blazer and a pair of matching Manolo Blahnik pumps, it was a classic but delightfully retro look. AFP/Getty Images Meghan Markle's best pregnancy looks 11 March 2019 The Duchess has a penchant for rich emerald green hues, and this ensemble exemplifies just how suited the shade is to her complexion. The outfit was designed by Erdem, which was a symbolic choice given she wore the Canadian designer's pieces to a Commonwealth Day Youth Event at Canada House in London. Getty Images Meghan Markle's best pregnancy looks 11 March 2019 For the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey, the Duchess wore a cream chain-print dress by Victoria Beckham, which made its runway debut just a few weeks ago at London Fashion Week. The look was topped off with a matching pillbox hat, emerald green stilettos and a satin clutch. Getty Images According to the Miss Universe website, contestants are not allowed to be pregnant or be married in order to compete. They must also "remain unmarried throughout their reign", the organisation states. In December 2018, Spanish model Angela Ponce made history as the first transgender model to compete in the Miss Universe competition. While many praised the model for representing the transgender community on a global platform, the annual pageant was also criticised by those who condemned it for its continual objectification of women. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The Independent has contacted Promociones Global and Joyce Prado for comment. It was 1974 when the French writer Annie Ernaux published her first book, Les Armoires Vides (Cleaned Out). It is a fictionalised account of her illegal abortion 10 years earlier, as a student gradually moving away from a working-class upbringing in Normandy. The book came out 25 years after Simone de Beauvoirs landmark feminist text The Second Sex, yet French society remained judgemental and often hypocritical about womens reproductive rights. Cleaned Out acknowledged the many working-class women who had to resort to clandestine, often life-threatening procedures before the laws were changed in 1975. From the beginning, Ernauxs stark prose helped establish her as an uncompromisingly honest writer. In the 1980s and 1990s, she would rise to greater prominence through autobiographical works such as La Place (A Mans Place), an account of her fathers life, which won her the Renaudot Prize in 1984. She is now seen as one of Frances major writers and her texts are widely taught in schools and universities. But until very recently, she was unknown to most of the English-speaking world. That is changing thanks to two recent translations. Les Annees (The Years, 2008) is a collective autobiography spanning six decades of personal and collective history, and has been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. In LEvenement (Happening, 2000), Ernaux returns to the subject of illegal abortion, but this time tells her own non-fictionalised story. Two memoirs The Years gained almost unanimous recognition when it was published. It sits at the junction between autobiography, sociology and collective memoir, highlighting the profound sociocultural changes that Ernaux witnessed from her childhood in the 1940s to the end of the century. The book was praised for its original narrative form, using she or we instead of I to tell Ernauxs story. Recommended The National Theatre snubs us all by ignoring famous female creatives To trace the inescapable passing of time, The Years draws in everything from popular phrases to songs to advertisements, from iconic objects to historical events to personal anecdotes. Along the way, the book tells the evolution of womens place in French society and their fights for sexual freedom and independence. When Happening was published in 2000, the French media reacted much more cautiously. It is likely that some critics were not comfortable with the subject matter and the raw style of writing. Heres an extract, for example, about the woman carrying out the abortion: Only now can I visualise the room. It defies analysis. All I can do is sink into it. I feel that the woman who is busying herself between my legs, inserting the speculum, is giving birth to me. At that point I killed my own mother inside me. Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Show all 7 1 /7 Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Derry Girls cast members Siobhan McSweeney and Nicola Coughlan (right) join MPS and women impacted by Northern Ireland's strict abortion laws PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Heidi Allen (second right) joins the protest PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster A luggage tag on a suitcase, symbolising the women who travel from Northern Ireland to England for terminations PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster The campaigners march across Westminster Bridge PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Counter-protesters Rebecca Morgan (left) and her daughter Helen, one, demonstrate in favour of Northern Ireland's current laws Getty Images Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Protesters supporting Northern Ireland's abortion laws at Parliament Square Getty Images Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Demonstrators pull suitcases to symbolise the women who travel from Northern Ireland to England for a termination AFP/Getty Images Ernaux has said that part of her intention with the book was to lift the lid on what the French abortion laws had meant in practice: Although abortion was mentioned in many novels, no details were given about what actually took place. There was a sort of void between the moment the girl learns she is pregnant and the moment its all over. With precision, but without pathos, Happening details the prevailing atmosphere of moral judgement of 1960s France and Ernauxs isolation and despair at a time when the word abortion had no place in language. She describes the gruesome conditions in which she nearly died: after finally finding a back-street abortionist, Ernaux had a probe inserted and was told it would cause her to miscarry in a few days. This then happened at her student residence and she was taken to hospital with a haemorrhage. Happening is not only an account of this intrinsically physical, traumatic and personal experience. It is also about societys attitudes to women at the time particularly working-class women explored through the reactions of various men to her predicament. The father of the unborn child, a middle-class student at the Sciences Po university in Bordeaux, leaves her to her own devices. Doctors show her little sympathy for fear of the laws of the time. Male students that she talks to are fascinated by her condition, and one even tries to take advantage in the knowledge that theres no danger of getting her pregnant. Having been admitted to hospital, Ernaux is humiliated by a junior doctor, who on seeing her bleeding shouts that hes no plumber. When he discovers that she is a university student, he becomes much more sympathetic. Nearly 20 years after it was originally published, Happening has come to be seen as a landmark piece of writing about abortion. The text is now often mentioned during debates on the subject. Last year, for instance, on the day of the Irish abortion referendum, the radio station France Culture devoted a feature to Ernaux. Distasteful truths Ernaux acknowledges in Happening that this account may exasperate or repel some readers; it may also be branded as distasteful. The same could be said of much of her other work. Ernaux has written from the same direct perspective about numerous issues not deemed literary, including sex, stains, illness, the ageing body, dementia and drunkenness. Writing is for Ernaux a matter of making lived experience visible, especially that of women and not taking their rights for granted. As she writes in Happening: If I failed to go through with this undertaking, I would be guilty of silencing the lives of women and condoning a world governed by the patriarchy. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Giving a voice to those being silenced lies at the heart of Ernauxs writings. She spoke of her support for the #MeToo movement in a recent interview, but has also expressed affinity with the gilets jaunes, which she sees as a manifestation of deep social injustice and the elites contempt towards the working class and unemployed. This makes her arrival in the English-speaking world particularly timely at the age of 78. When French politician Simone Veil died in 2017, many merci Simone tags were left on walls, not least for the crucial role she played in shaping the countrys modern abortion laws. Many readers have written to Ernaux to say merci Annie in acknowledgement of her feminist writings. She deserves to be recognised in the international canon of great French writers, and hopefully we are now finally seeing this starting to take place. Elise Hugueny-Leger is a senior lecturer in the School of Modern Languages at the University of St Andrews. This article originally appeared on The Conversation Michelle Obama has warned about the pitfalls of social media while speaking on her book tour. In conversation with American comedian Stephen Colbert, at Londons O2 Arena, the former first lady said: We have to be a lot more sceptical about social media and the internet we have to do a lot more work and be willing to be a lot more vulnerable with one another. The 55-year-old relayed the importance of face-to-face contact, urging the 15,000-strong audience: Dont read about your neighbours on Twitter. Somebody can talk into your ear about the person living next to you and they can feed you lies and misperceptions. Put down the phone and start knocking on doors, she added. People can never be as mean to you to your face as they would be online. Ms Obama was sure to mention the positive powers of social media, too, saying it was opening up the world to young people. Theyre seeing and experiencing a diversity and clarity that we cant take away, she added. Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes Show all 10 1 /10 Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On the key to a successful marriage In our house we dont take ourselves too seriously, and laughter is the best form of unity, I think, in a marriage. On Live with Regis and Kelly in February 2011. Getty Images Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On not underestimating yourself "You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world's problems at once but don't ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own." In a speech to schoolgirls at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School in North London in April 2009. Getty Images Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On inspiring young people I want our young people to know that they matter, that they belong, so dont be afraid. You hear me? Young people, dont be afraid. Be focused, be determined, be hopeful, be empowered Lead by example with hope, never fear, and know that I will be with you, rooting for you and working to support you for the rest of my life. In her final White House address in January 2017. Getty Images Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On double standards regarding parenting When a father puts in long hours at work, hes praised for being dedicated and ambitious. But when a mother stays late at the office, shes sometimes accused of being selfish, neglecting her kids. At the "Let Girls Learn Event" in Madrid, Spain in June 2016. Getty Images Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On the importance of diversity in film and TV For so many people, television and movies may be the only way they understand people who arent like them I come across many little black girls who come up to me over the course of this 7 years with tears in their eyes, and they say: Thank you for being a role model for me. I dont see educated black women on TV, and the fact that youre first lady validates who I am.' In an interview with Variety in August 2016. AFP/Getty Images Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On maintaining hopeful following the election of Donald Trump See, now we are feeling what not having hope feels like, you know. Hope is necessary. It is a necessary concept. What do you give your kids if you cant give them hope? In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in December 2016. Getty Images Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On motherhood "My most important title is 'mom-in-chief'. My daughters are still the heart of my heart and the centre of my world." At the Democratic National Convention in September 2012. AFP/Getty Images Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On championing women's education Men in every country need to look into their hearts and souls and ask themselves whether they truly view and treat women as their equals. And then when you all encounter men in your lives who answer no to that question, then you need to take them to task. You need to tell them that any man who uses his strength to oppress women is a coward, and he is holding back the progress of his family and his country. In a speech at the summit of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, July 2014. Getty Images Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On dealing with bullies When someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you dont stoop to their level. No, our motto is, when they go low, we go high. At the Democratic convention, July 2016. Getty Images Michelle Obama's most empowering quotes On the meaning of success "Success isnt about how your life looks to others. Its about how it feels to you. We realised that being successful isnt about being impressive, its about being inspired." In a speech at the Oregon State University commencement, June 2012. Getty Images Over the hour-and-a-half discussion, she spoke to the audience about the struggles of adapting to life in the White House, of growing up on the south side of Chicago and of the first time she met her husband at the law firm Sidley and Austin - admitting that it was a phone call that first changed her impression of him. My impression of Barack started before I met him, she said. He was the talk of the firm; this kid who wasnt even a lawyer who hadnt finished law school and was a first-year associate. He was coming in already with this sort of sense of wonderfulness. Obama admitted to being initially sceptical about his talents. When youre used to white people underestimating black people and being surprised when they can talk straight, you become sceptical of what their idea of fabulous is, she said to rapturous laughter. She admitted to being pleasantly surprised when she first spoke to the future president of the United States, saying: So imagine if you have this picture of this nerdy guy who the white partners think is fabulous. I had to call to give him directions. And he answers the phone in his Barack Obama voice like hello its Barack Obama. And ladies that voice is pretty sexy. That voice didnt go with the picture it was smouldering. I could tell he had more flavour than I thought. But Ms Obama says that it was the way in which her future husband treated people that most endeared her to him: I fell in love with him the way he treated people. Not just the partners in the firm, but I was impressed with the way he spoke with everyone. He was funny, he was self-deprecating, he was the first attorney or somebody in law school that wasnt thinking about how much money he could make as the partner of a firm, he was literally thinking about how he could use that degree to help others. When her father died at the age of 55, Barack became her rock. Describing a moment the pair were watching Father of the Bride a year before their marriage at the age of 28, she said: At the end Steve Martin has this moment with his daughter and I literally cried for hours - sobbed, wept - and Barack was there the whole time and he didnt say a word; he just let my cry on his shoulder. Barack Obama jokes about Michelle leaving him One moment that received much press during the Obama presidency was the couples rejection of stiff-lipped protocol, in particular when the former first lady met the Queen, leaning in to hug Her Majesty instead of taking the traditional curtsey. Telling Colbert about her impressions of the Queen, Ms Obama said: Shes wonderfully warm and funny. Shes elegant and kind and considerate in really interesting ways. That was my experience, that kind of warmth and graciousness, that intelligence and wit. I like her. Speaking of when she put her arm around the Queen, Colbert asked: Would you do anything differently now? To which Obama replied: You know what is true among world leaders is that there are people who follow protocol. To me, in that moment, [the hug] was the right thing to do because it was the human thing to do. Recommended Barack Obama reveals his favourite books of 2018 Throughout the Becoming tour, much of the reporting has concerned Ms Obamas wardrobe something she spoke about with author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at a sell-out event at Londons Royal Festival Hall in December, saying: All the reports would start with what I was wearing, and we were doing substantive things ... Its incredibly irritating when actually youre trying to get some stuff done. Becoming was first published in November 2018 and has since sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, putting it on-track to become the most popular memoir in history. According to the publishers, the book sold more than seven million copies across all formats in the six weeks to the end of 2018. It also became the best-selling book of 2018, 15 days after it was published, according to NPD BookScan data. In addition, the audiobook, read by Ms Obama, become the fastest-ever seller released by Penguin Random House. When asked how she managed to keep going during the hardest times of her husbands role as the 44th president of the United States, Ms Obama said: Every step of the way there was always someone telling me that I was talking too loud, dreaming too big. And I had to learn that I could either succumb to that and wither away or I could say, Ill show you. When asked about her favourite thing since leaving the White House, Obama said: I miss the spontaneity of life. I try to explain to people what its like to lose your anonymity. All I wanna do is walk down the street and sit in a cafe and have a cup of coffee. As she walked off stage, the entire capacity of the O2 rewarded the author with a standing ovation. Restaurateur Prue Leith has opened up about her experience with a former head chef at the Savoy, describing him as a "complete idiot". The Great British Bake Off judge explained that Silvino Trompetto, who held the position of maitre-chef at the hotel from 1965 to 1980, had an odd superstition about menstruating women in his kitchen. "The once head-chef at the Savoy told me, 'At zheir time of ze month, women curdle ze mayonnaise', so he wouldnt let women into his kitchen [sic]," Leith told The Guardian. "I thought he was a complete idiot, although I didnt say that exactly." Leith added that she thought Trompetto, who was the first British head chef at the Savoy, was "very pompous and full of himself". "He believed that if women went into the sheds at their time of the month theyd prevent mushroom spores germinating," Leith stated. "It was quite a common belief back in medieval times, but I didnt expect to find this in the centre of London in the 1970s." The 79-year-old added that Trompetto "pretended" to be a foreign chef, despite hailing from London's East End. Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Show all 10 1 /10 Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon PA Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Channel 4 Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Channel 4 Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Channel 4 Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Channel 4 Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Channel 4 Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Channel 4 Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Channel 4 Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Channel 4 Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Channel 4 In 1975, Leith approached Trompetto to ask whether a female graduate from her School of Food and Wine could take part in a two-week trial in his kitchen. However, Trompetto refused, citing his strange belief in the impact of the menstrual cycle on mayonnaise. In September last year, Leith made a startling revelation about how she feels about baking. Despite starring as a judge on The Great British Bake Off, Leith stated that she is "more interested in savoury cooking than baking". Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events For all the latest on The Great British Bake Off, click here. A global resurgence of measles showed no sign of slowing down as preliminary data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) revealed the number of cases quadrupled in the first three months of 2019 in comparison to the same period last year. Initial figures show 112,163 cases of the highly infectious disease were reported across 170 countries by April, compared to 28,124 in the same period in 2018. The WHO said this indicates a clear trend with many countries experiencing sizeable outbreaks, and every region it monitors seeing an increase in cases of the potentially deadly disease. There has been a 300 per cent rise in cases reported in Europe which last year saw the highest number of cases for a decade and a nearly 700 per cent rise across Africa, the WHO said. Outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Myanmar, the Philippines, Sudan, Thailand and Ukraine, are causing many deaths mostly among young children, it added. The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Show all 7 1 /7 The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Charlie Sheen Sheen fought a legal battle against ex-wife Denise Richards to try and block her from vaccinating their children. Richards of course won and Sheen was reportedly so bitter that he paid the paediatrician bill entirely in nickels Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Gwyneth Paltrow Paltrow's "health and wellness" company Goop hosted a notorious anti-vaccine speaker at their 2018 Goop Summit Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Rob Schneider Schneider demanded the freedom to decline vaccination Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Jenny McCarthy McCarthy has claimed that "people are dying from vaccinations", believes that her son caught autism from a vaccine and has pushed her opinions on the topic publicly for many years AFP/Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Bill Maher Maher has long spoken against vaccines sating on Larry King live that "a flu shot is the worst thing you can do." His stance appears to stem from a distrust of government AFP/Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Alicia Silverstone In Silverstone's book The Kind Mama, she wrote that "there is increasing anecdotal evidence from doctors who have gotten distressed phone calls from parents claiming their child was never the same after receiving a vaccine." Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Andrew Wakefield Godfather of the anti-vax movement, disgraced doctor Andrew Wakefield famously published a report in the medical journal Lancet claiming a link between the MMR vaccine and autism in 1998. The Lancet retracted the report in 2010 and Wakefield was struck off the medical register PA The WHO has previously warned a rising tide of vaccine scepticism, increasingly propagated by false claims on social media, has contributed to the resurgence of measles in many areas where it was virtually eradicated. Spikes in case numbers have also occurred in countries with high overall vaccination coverage, including the United States of America as well as Israel, Thailand, and Tunisia, as the disease has spread fast among clusters of unvaccinated people, the WHO added. The disease is one of the most contagious in the world, and caused close to 110,000 deaths in 2017. Even in high-income countries around a quarter of cases end up in hospital because of complications, which can cause life-long disability, brain damage, deafness and blindness. The failure to adequately fund vaccination programmes and health awareness schemes in developing countries is another major driver of outbreaks. There have been more than 115,000 cases and 1,200 deaths in Madagascar since September, sparking an emergency vaccination programme which aimed to reach 7 million children under the age of nine. The figures show new measles cases and deaths in the country are starting to decline. Official measles data is released by the WHO annually in July, but it warned figures are likely to underestimate the true scale of the problem as less than 10 per cent of infections are reported. Measles is almost entirely preventable with two vaccination doses, but global coverage has stalled. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Much of the modern anti-vaccination movement can be traced back to a 1998 paper from disgraced researcher Andrew Wakefield who claimed the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccination increases the risk of autism. Mr Wakefield has since been stripped of his medical license and the paper, which has never been replicated, withdrawn. However he remains a driving figure of the anti-vaxxer movement in America. Snailfish use their soft skeleton and partially open skull to survive intense crushing pressure in some of the deepest areas of the ocean, according to a study. Researchers caught several snailfishes to study how they had adapted to the deep sea and compared them to closely-related species living in shallow waters. Snailfish live in some of the deepest areas of the ocean, known as the hadal zone, between six and 11km below the surface. The zone is thought to be among the most hostile areas on earth, due to high pressure, darkness, cold temperatures and scarce food resources. Despite these problems, snailfishes are top predators in the hadal zones food web and are the most common and dominant fish family in the area. Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef Show all 20 1 /20 Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef Months after scientists warned that it is at greater risk than ever, the Great Barrier Reef is facing a new challenge: dirty water. AFP/Getty Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef Run-off from the recent floods in Australia is spreading out from the coast with the potential to smother the fragile reef. Matt Curnock / Reuters Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef The floodwater is thick with sediment from the shore and scientists fear that this may block out the sun, preventing photosynthesis for the algae that the coral relies on to survive. AFP/Getty Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef Dr Frederieke Koon from the Australian Institute of Marine Science however, has told the BBC that the floodwater contains nutrients that have boosted algae growth in some areas, turning the water "a thick blanket of green". Matt Curnock / Reuters Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef Despite such benefits in some areas, the fear is that the floodwater will contain pesticides that could prove extremely damaging and due to a lack of wind, it isn't dispersing. Matt Curnock / Reuters Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef Dr Koon added that "a bit of wind and wave action can break the plumes up quite quickly, but we have literally had no wind so they're just sitting there hanging". Matt Curnock / Reuters Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef Fears over the future of the reef have been building in recent years, with the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration forecasting in October 2018 that the entire 130,000 miles square system is at high risk of bleaching. Matt Curnock / Reuters Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef These aerial photos show the murky water spreading across the reef. Matt Curnock / Reuters Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef AFP/Getty Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef Reuters Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef Matt Curnock / Reuters Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef Matt Curnock / Reuters Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef Matt Curnock / Reuters Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef AFP/Getty Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef Matt Curnock / Reuters Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef Matt Curnock / Reuters Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef Matt Curnock / Reuters Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef Matt Curnock / Reuters Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef Matt Curnock / Reuters Dirty water threatens the Great Barrier Reef Matt Curnock / Reuters Lead researcher Wen Wang and colleagues found snailfishes caught in the Mariana Trench had transparent skin, an inflated stomach, soft bones and incompletely-closed skulls, unlike similar shallow sea species. The research team found osteocalcin, a gene that regulates tissue mineralisation and skeletal development, is cut off in the hadal snailfish. The truncated gene may contribute to the species unusually soft skeleton by preventing bones from mineralising. Snailfish species incompletely-closed skull is believed to protect the brain by making sure crushing pressure does not push it out. The study also found multiple copies of genes which make cell membranes more fluid, which researchers believed could help cells function at extreme pressures in the deep sea, and the loss of several photoreceptor genes, resulting in snailfishes poor vision in light. Researchers said the extensive internal and external adaptations by deep sea snailfish has helped them to endure the immense pressures and challenges from living in the deep sea. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events They concluded that the paper, which was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, could help to shed light on how species can adapt to extreme environments. A former soldier is to be prosecuted over the murder of a teenage boy, who was shot twice in the head in Derry in 1972. Identified as Soldier B, he will face the charge of murdering 15-year-old Daniel Hegarty, Northern Irelands Public Prosecution Service (PPS) has announced. Daniel was shot and killed by a member of an army patrol on duty in the Creggan area of Derry on 31 July 1972, during what was known as Operation Motorman. Soldier B will also be charged with wounding with intent after Daniels cousin Christopher Hegarty, then aged 17, was also shot and injured in the incident. Last year the Hegarty family won the right to seek the prosecution of the soldier after the High Court quashed a PPS decision not to bring criminal charges against him. Remembering The Troubles in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Remembering The Troubles in pictures Remembering The Troubles in pictures A British soldier attacks a protester in Derry on Bloody Sunday Getty Remembering The Troubles in pictures The Northern Ireland Civil Rights movement marches in London in 1968 to demand the same voting rights afforded to the rest of Britain Getty Remembering The Troubles in pictures The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association marching on the streets of Derry in 1968 BBC Remembering The Troubles in pictures The Battle of the Bogside in Derry in August 1969 was among the first violent episodes of the Troubles The Battle of the Bogside in Derry in August 1969 was among the first violent episodes of the Troubles Getty Remembering The Troubles in pictures British soldiers take cover behind their armoured cars as they use CS gas to disperse rioters in Derry on Bloody Sunday PA Remembering The Troubles in pictures Hugh Gilmore (third left) clutches his stomach after being shot by a British soldier on Bloody Sunday. Gilmore was one of 14 to be shot dead on 30 January 1972 PA Remembering The Troubles in pictures A man receives attention after being shot on Bloody Sunday in Derry PA Remembering The Troubles in pictures A young man is led away by paramedics after being injured on Bloody Sunday PA Remembering The Troubles in pictures The British Embassy at Merrion Square in Dublin is bombed following a march to protest three days after the Bloody Sunday shootings Getty Remembering The Troubles in pictures Independent MO for Mid-Ulster Bernadette Devlin talks to the press after she hit Home Secretary Reginald Maudling for lying about the Bloody Sunday shootings in his statement to the House of Commons the day after the incident. Devlin had been in Derry at the time of the shootings and was moved to strike the Home Secretary after he claimed that British soldiers had only fired at protesters in defence Getty Remembering The Troubles in pictures Members of a Catholic community in Newry stage a protest against the Bloody Sunday shootings AFP/Getty Remembering The Troubles in pictures Relatives mourn over the coffin of a victim of Bloody Sunday on 1 April 1972 Getty Remembering The Troubles in pictures Thousands attend the annual Bloody Sunday memorial march in Derry on 30 January 1995 PA Remembering The Troubles in pictures UK prime minister Tony Blair and the Irish taoiseach Bertie Ahern sign the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 PA Remembering The Troubles in pictures A view over residential Derry in 2019 shows a mural on Rossville Street, where soldiers opened fire on Bloody Sunday Getty Director of the PPS Stephen Herron met with members of the Hegarty family to inform them of the decision at a private meeting in Derry on Monday. Mr Herron said: Following the ruling of the divisional court last year I conducted a review of this case. I have given careful consideration to all of the available evidence. This has included material obtained in the course of the initial investigation, by a later investigation carried out by the historical enquiries team, material generated by inquest proceedings and a number of expert forensic reports, the most recent of which was provided after the court ruling in 2018. I have concluded that the evidence which can be presented at court is sufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction and that the evidential test for prosecution is met. Recommended One former soldier to be prosecuted over Bloody Sunday As with all cases, I have also carefully considered whether the public interest requires prosecution through the courts. Particular consideration was given to Soldier Bs ill health, regarding which an updated medical report was obtained. In line with our code for prosecutors, I have concluded, given the seriousness of the charges, that the public interest test for prosecution is also met. I have therefore taken the decision to prosecute an individual identified as Soldier B for the offence of murder in relation to the death of Daniel Hegarty and for the wounding of Christopher Hegarty. This decision has been reached following an objective and impartial application of the test for prosecution which was conducted in accordance with the code for prosecutors and with the benefit of advice from senior counsel. Recommended How the Ballymurphy Massacre unfolded A statement from the Hegarty family, released by their solicitor, said: This has been a long journey. We have lost our parents along the way and recently, our sister Philomena. It has taken 47 years to finally get the state to do the right thing. We understand that the criminal process must now be allowed to take its own course. We will respect that in the same way we have respected the legal process that has brought us to this day. We offer our support to other families seeking justice. Stick with it. Difficult as it is, engage with your solicitor and follow the legal route in a patient and dignified way in the memory of the loved one you seek justice for. What is the alternative? No system of justice is perfect. We urge anyone fighting for justice to never give up. Even during those dark days. We know that further patience and resilience is going to be required moving forward but we are here now, for Daniel, for our mother and father, and our sister, Philomena. We wish Soldier B no ill will. We have not, and do not, seek revenge or retribution. We just want the criminal trial process to begin. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events We have waited long enough for this day of justice, for Daniel. We know from the support of others, that it is never too late for justice not only being seen to be done, but being seen to be believed. We remember Daniel today and his short time on this earth. A government spokeswoman said: We note todays decision taken by the Northern Ireland Public Prosecution Service, and we will offer full legal and pastoral support to the individual affected. Shamima Begum has been granted legal aid to appeal the Home Offices decision to strip her of her citizenship, according to reports. The family of the 19-year-old Isis bride have reportedly hired human rights lawyer Gareth Pierce, who once represented the radical Islamic preacher Abu Qatada, to represent her. According to a report in The Daily Mail, Ms Begum has been awarded legal aid to appeal against home secretary Sajid Javids decision to revoke her citizenship after an application was made on 19 March. It is estimated that the legal bill could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds, according to the newspaper. Although lawyers have not been able to speak to Ms Begum at the refugee camp she is staying at in Syria, the Legal Aid Agency has reportedly accepted that her family can initiate an appeal and apply for funding on her behalf. Timeline of the Isis caliphate Show all 19 1 /19 Timeline of the Isis caliphate Timeline of the Isis caliphate ISIS began as a group by the merging of extremist organisations ISI and al-Nusra in 2013. Following clashes, Syrian rebels captured the ISIS headquarters in Aleppo in January 2014 (pictured) AFP/Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi declared the creation of a caliphate in Mosul on 27 June 2014 Timeline of the Isis caliphate Isis conquered the Kurdish towns of Sinjar and Zumar in August 2014, forcing thousands of civilians to flee their homes. Pictured are a group of Yazidi Kurds who have fled Rex Timeline of the Isis caliphate On September 2 2014 Isis released a video depicting the beheading of US journalist Steven Sotloff. On September 13 they released another video showing the execution of British aid worker David Haines Timeline of the Isis caliphate The US launched its first airstrikes against Isis in Syria on 23 September 2014. Here Lt Gen William C Mayville Jnr speaks about the bombing campaign in the wake of the first strikes Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Isis militants sit atop a hill planted with their flag in the Syrian town of Kobani on 6 October 2014. They had been advancing on Kobani since mid-September and by now was in control of the citys entrance and exit points AFP/Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Residents of the border village of Alizar keep guard day and night as they wait in fear of mortar fire from Isis who have occupied the nearby city of Kobani Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Smoke rises following a US airstrike on Kobani, 28 October 2014 AFP/Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate YPG fighters raise a flag as they reclaim Kobani on 26 January 2015 VOA Timeline of the Isis caliphate Isis seized the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra on 20 May 2015. This image show the city from above days after its capture by Isis Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Kurdish forces are stationed on a hill above the town of Sinjar as smoke rises following US airstrikes on 12 November 2015 AFP/Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Kurdish forces enter Sinjar after seizing it from Isis control on 13 November 2015 AFP/Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Iraqi government forces make the victory sign as they retake the city of Fallujah from ISIS on 26 June 2016 Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Iraqi forces battle with Isis for the city of Mosul on 30 June 2017 AFP/Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Members of the Iraqi federal police raise flags in Mosul on 8 July 2017. On the following day, Iraqi prime minister Haider Al Abadi declares victory over Isis in Mosul Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Members of Syrian Democratic Forces celebrate in Al-Naim square after taking back the city of Raqqa from Isis. US-backed Syrian forces declare victory over Isis in Raqqa on 20 October 2017 after a four-month long campaign Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Female fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces celebrate in Al-Naim Square after taking back the city of Raqqa from Isis. US-backed Syrian forces declare victory over Isis in Raqqa on 20 October 2017 after a four-month long campaign AFP/Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Trucks full of women and children arrive from the last Isis-held areas in Deir ez-Zor, Syria in January 2019 They were among the last civilians to be living in the ISIS caliphate, by this time reduced to just two small villages in Syrias Deir ez-Zor Richard Hall/The Independent Timeline of the Isis caliphate Zikia Ibrahim, 28, with her two-year-old son and 8-month-old daughter, after fleeing the Isis caliphate, on Saturday 26 January 2019 Richard Hall/The Independent Legal aid rules state that even though Ms Begum is no longer a British citizen, funding should be available if the case is held in a British court and plaintiff has no means to pay. Tasnime Akunjee, a lawyer who has represented the Begum family since 2015, was quoted in report confirming that legal aid had been granted to Ms Begum. Mr Akunjee said that he passed on the case to Gareth Pierce after authorities at the al-Roj refugee camp where Ms Begum is staying would not let him see her. Ms Begum's case will now be heard by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, although she will not be present at any hearing because she has been banned from returning to the UK. The Home Office told The Daily Mail: "We do not comment on individual cases, but any decisions to deprive individuals of their citizenship are based on all available evidence and not taken lightly." A Legal Aid Agency spokesperson said they were unable to comment on individual cases, adding: Anybody applying for legal aid in a Special Immigration Appeal Commission case is subject to strict eligibility tests. It comes after reports that Ms Begum was a member of the Isis morality police, a feared group which enforced the terror organisations strict interpretation of Islamic law. The claims are in contrast to Ms Begums claim that she was only a housewife during her time living with the group in Syria. But according to a report in The Sunday Telegraph, she played a much more active role in the organisations reign of terror as a member of the hisba, which punishes those found flouting Isis laws on how to dress and behave. Mr Begum was reportedly seen holding an automatic weapon and shouting at Syrian women in the city of Raqqa for wearing brightly coloured shoes. Ms Begum has been stuck in a displacement camp in Syria for months after being detained while leaving Isis territory. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The teenager fled her home in Bethnal Green four years ago with two other schoolgirls to join the Isis caliphate in Syria. She arrived heavily pregnant at al-Hol camp earlier this year, and gave birth shortly after. But her newborn son, named Jarrah, died from a lung infection last month. It was her third child to have died during her time living in the caliphate. Sajid Javid stripped Ms Begum of her citizenship in February and pledged to block British citizens suspected of joining Isis from returning to the UK where possible. The attention on her case has sparked a debate over how the UK should deal with British citizens who went to join Isis. Only one in 10 of around 400 jihadis who returned from Syria and Iraq have been prosecuted, and the government has increasingly resorted to citizenship deprivation as a means to prevent their return. Theresa May startled motorists when she stopped off at a service station on her way to Wales for her Easter holidays. The prime minister was spotted dashing through the Welcome Break on the M54 at Shifnal in Shropshire on Saturday. Witnesses said the women's toilets were declared out-of-bounds to the public during Ms Mays visit. The event was captured on camera by 23-year-old Jake Garbett, who told the Shropshire Star: I saw this woman and thought is that the Prime Minister? Then I noticed about four blokes with her and one was talking into his collar. That was a giveaway that it was Theresa May. Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Show all 9 1 /9 Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Boris Johnson Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson has long been hopeful, he previously stood in the leadership contest that followed the Brexit vote and has at many times since been thought to be maneuvering himself towards the goal. He remains a darling of the party's right wing, particularly those in the ERG, and is the most popular choice among Tory voters but his leadership bid would be fiercely opposed by many MPs PA Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Michael Gove Environment secretary Michael Gove is another member who has long wanted to be leader. He has lately been known for rousing his party in the commons, his recent speeches on the Brexit deal and Labour's no confidence motion have overshadowed the Prime Minister's. He has been loyal to the Prime Minister, partly to shed his reputation as a backstabber who abandoned Boris Johnson to stand against him in the 2016 leadership election Getty Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Dominic Raab Former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab has emerged as a favourite to be the Brexiteer candidate in a contest to succeed to Ms May. He displayed a grip on detail in his role as Brexit secretary. When asked recently if he would like to become prime minister he replied "never say never" Getty Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Rory Stewart International development secretary Rory Stewart is pitching himself as the sensible candidate, promising to rule out both a second referendum and a no-deal Brexit. He was only recently promoted to the cabinet, previously serving as prisons minister, where he caught headlines with a pledge to resign if he could not reduce levels of violence within a year PA Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Esther McVey The former work and pensions secretary announced that she will be standing for the leadership when May leaves. McVey is the first to explicitly state that she intends to stand. She resigned from the cabinet in protest over May's Brexit deal AFP/Getty Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Sajid Javid Home secretary Sajid Javid is said to have a plan in place for a leadership race. He made headlines over Christmas when he declared that people smuggling over the English channel was a "major incident" and more recently when he revoked the citizenship of ISIS bride Shamima Begum. Son of a bus driver, he wants the Conservatives to be seen as the party of social mobility PA Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Jeremy Hunt Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt was recently thought to be the favourite in the event of a leadership race as he could sell himself as the man to unite the party. Critics worry that his long stint as health secretary could return to haunt him at a general election. He has reportedly been holding meetings with Tory MPs over breakfast to promote his leadership PA Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Andrea Leadsom Following the Prime Minister's second defeat over her Brexit deal, Leader of the house Andrea Leadsom hosted a dinner party at which "leadership was the only topic of conversation", The Times heard. Leadsom ran against Theresa May in the 2016 leadership election before dropping out, allowing May to become Prime Minister AFP/Getty Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Priti Patel Former international development secretary Priti Patel is thought to be positioning herself as a contender. One MP told The Independent "she knows she's from the right of the party, the part which is going to choose the next leader, so she's reminding everyone she's there." Patel left the government late in 2017 after it emerged that she had held undisclosed meetings with Israeli officials PA Footage shows the prime minister chatting to her husband as they pass fellow travellers and a doughnut display. They were then seen heading to a waiting Jaguar before driving off. It is believed Ms May and her husband were driving to Wales for their annual walking holiday. The prime minister notoriously made the decision to call a snap election while walking in the Dolgellau area in Easter 2017. With several more defections to Nigel Farages Brexit Party, Ukip has been left with just five MEPs ahead of the European parliament elections at the end of May, in which the new party will also stand. Heres everything you need to know about it. It is two-and-a-half years since Farage quit as Ukip leader, though he remained by far the most prominent member of the party. However, he chose not to rejoin in his fight for Brexit at these elections. The countys health department has also been reaching out to health care providers family doctors, internists and emergency department physicians to make sure they have measles on their radars and know what to do if they suspect a case, she said. Former prime minister Tony Blair and former Irish taoiseach Bertie Ahern have called for a second Brexit referendum, in a joint editorial emphasising the importance of the Good Friday Agreement. Writing in The Irish Times, the co-signatories of the 1998 accord which brought peace and power-sharing to Northern Ireland, warn that Brexit is the most serious threat to the Belfast Agreement since it was created and to the union in our lifetime". Mr Blair and Mr Ahern stress that alongside the principle of consent on Northern Irelands constitutional status, the agreement acknowledged a nationalist aspiration to have an open border between North and South, which Brexit now threatens. It is precisely because of such issues as the Border that there should be a confirmatory vote on whatever now emerges from the Brexit process in parliament," they write. The Irish Border question is a metaphor for the entire negotiation. It is not possible for the UK to have frictionless trade with the EU if it remains outside the single market, so the question is how much friction is compatible with the Belfast Agreement. 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 The two statesmen also issued a warning on what they see as strained relations between their two countries, noting that there is no variation of Brexit that can strengthen the relationship between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland". They also warn that the political crisis is weakening the union, and strengthening the argument for Irish reunification. You cannot walk around the island of Ireland without being asked about the future of a united Ireland and that has resulted from the position on the Border taken by Brexiteers. Pointing out that any Brexit agreement is now unlikely to be what the public voted for, the former prime ministers call on Theresa May to give the people of the UK the final say. Mr Blair has been a fervent advocate for a second referendum on Brexit, which he called on Ms May to implement as a solution to the impasse in December 2018. Mr Ahern, who served as Irish taoiseach from 1997 to 2008 was today appointed an honorary professor in peace studies by Queens University in Belfast. The Good Friday Agreement was ratified by two referendums held on 22 May 1998, in which 94 per cent of people in the Republic of Ireland, and 71 per cent of people in Northern Ireland voted Yes. The 11 day Easter break being enjoyed by MPs might look like a long one to the public but it feels like a short one to the MPs themselves. Their traditional two week Easter recess was cut short as another Brexit day deadline loomed last Friday. Exhausted MPs were relieved to escape Westminster for the first time since the new year; their scheduled week-long break in February was also a casualty of Brexit. A working holiday Political life goes on when the Commons is not sitting, but at a slower pace. With Theresa May away on a walking holiday in Wales, the cabinet will not meet. Downing Street holds just one weekly briefing for Westminster journalists, instead of twice a day. Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well Show all 18 1 /18 Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well These billboards were plastered by campaign group Led By Donkeys @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well PA Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Contrary to tabloid myth, not every MP will be lying on a beach. Many will be working in their constituencies, while also making up for lost time with their families. For some politicians, there is no escape from Brexit. Negotiations, between ministers and their Labour opposite numbers, aimed at finding a compromise are due to continue at the Cabinet Office at 70 Whitehall, next to Downing Street. Working groups on security, the environment and workers rights have been set up. But the wheels are turning slowly and no one is expecting a dramatic breakthrough this week on the two thorniest issues a customs union and a Final Say referendum. Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn will probably review progress or the lack of it after the Commons resumes on 23 April. Parliaments absence helped ministers garner some positive headlines for policies that might otherwise have been overshadowed by the Brexit crisis, such as the governments plan to help Generation Rent by ending no-fault evictions. Away from Brexit Nigel Farage managed to fill the news vacuum almost single-handedly when he launched his new Brexit Partys campaign for the European parliament elections, which will go ahead on 23 May if the Commons has not passed a Brexit agreement by then. Ms Mays pledge to stand down once a deal is finally approved has encouraged potential successors to burnish their leadership credentials. Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, did a round of media interviews during a visit to Japan. Sajid Javid, the home secretary, made a highly personal speech on violent crime in which he deployed his strongest card his back story, saying he could have ended up in a life of crime rather than in the cabinet. Theresa May spotted in service station on way to walking holiday in Wales The prime minister, while pretending to switch off, will doubtless be monitoring how the mice play while the cat is way. She will also be mulling over how she can take the wind out of Mr Farages sails by securing a Commons majority for her Brexit deal, so the European elections can be cancelled. Sajid Javid said he fears his own children could become victims of the recent spate of knife crime and claimed he could have had a life of crime himself. The home secretary said he did not feel secure on Britains streets and did not think they were safe for his children, adding that he could not help but see the faces of his own children in the pictures of stabbing victims. In an unusually personal speech, Mr Javid admitted that he had stayed up late at night many times waiting for his teenage children to return home. He has three daughters and one son. The home secretary, who is seen as one of the frontrunners to succeed Theresa May as prime minister, said violent crime should be treated as a national emergency as he admitted: Something has gone terribly wrong. The number of fatal stabbings hit record highs last year, with 285 recorded across England and Wales in 2017-18. Speaking in east London, Mr Javid said it was his duty as home secretary to protect the public but added: What affects me more is my job as a father. He continued: Like everyone else I see the reports of young people feeling the need to carry weapons. It makes me worry about my own teenage children: will they be hurt if theyre out in the wrong place at the wrong time? What if they get into an argument that then escalates? I may be the home secretary but Im not ashamed to confess that I have stayed up late at night many times waiting for the key to turn in the front door and only then going to bed safe in the knowledge that my children are home. He added: Like any other dad, when I watch the news and I see the faces of all those young victims of knife crime, I despair at the waste of those lives. Many of those lost are a similar age to my own children and so sometimes I cannot help but see the faces of my own children in the pictures of those many victims. I find it hard to detach the personal from the policy, so I know that if I dont feel safe on the streets, if I dont feel the streets feel safe enough for my own children, or if we see our communities being torn apart by crime, then something has gone terribly wrong. Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Show all 9 1 /9 Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Boris Johnson Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson has long been hopeful, he previously stood in the leadership contest that followed the Brexit vote and has at many times since been thought to be maneuvering himself towards the goal. He remains a darling of the party's right wing, particularly those in the ERG, and is the most popular choice among Tory voters but his leadership bid would be fiercely opposed by many MPs PA Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Michael Gove Environment secretary Michael Gove is another member who has long wanted to be leader. He has lately been known for rousing his party in the commons, his recent speeches on the Brexit deal and Labour's no confidence motion have overshadowed the Prime Minister's. He has been loyal to the Prime Minister, partly to shed his reputation as a backstabber who abandoned Boris Johnson to stand against him in the 2016 leadership election Getty Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Dominic Raab Former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab has emerged as a favourite to be the Brexiteer candidate in a contest to succeed to Ms May. He displayed a grip on detail in his role as Brexit secretary. When asked recently if he would like to become prime minister he replied "never say never" Getty Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Rory Stewart International development secretary Rory Stewart is pitching himself as the sensible candidate, promising to rule out both a second referendum and a no-deal Brexit. He was only recently promoted to the cabinet, previously serving as prisons minister, where he caught headlines with a pledge to resign if he could not reduce levels of violence within a year PA Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Esther McVey The former work and pensions secretary announced that she will be standing for the leadership when May leaves. McVey is the first to explicitly state that she intends to stand. She resigned from the cabinet in protest over May's Brexit deal AFP/Getty Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Sajid Javid Home secretary Sajid Javid is said to have a plan in place for a leadership race. He made headlines over Christmas when he declared that people smuggling over the English channel was a "major incident" and more recently when he revoked the citizenship of ISIS bride Shamima Begum. Son of a bus driver, he wants the Conservatives to be seen as the party of social mobility PA Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Jeremy Hunt Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt was recently thought to be the favourite in the event of a leadership race as he could sell himself as the man to unite the party. Critics worry that his long stint as health secretary could return to haunt him at a general election. He has reportedly been holding meetings with Tory MPs over breakfast to promote his leadership PA Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Andrea Leadsom Following the Prime Minister's second defeat over her Brexit deal, Leader of the house Andrea Leadsom hosted a dinner party at which "leadership was the only topic of conversation", The Times heard. Leadsom ran against Theresa May in the 2016 leadership election before dropping out, allowing May to become Prime Minister AFP/Getty Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Priti Patel Former international development secretary Priti Patel is thought to be positioning herself as a contender. One MP told The Independent "she knows she's from the right of the party, the part which is going to choose the next leader, so she's reminding everyone she's there." Patel left the government late in 2017 after it emerged that she had held undisclosed meetings with Israeli officials PA Mr Javid insisted the government was trying to tackle violent crime with a number of measures, including the allocation of more funding for police officers and the tightening of laws on the sale of knives and dangerous acids. He also defended the use of controversial stop-and-search powers, saying the policy has saved lives. Explaining the governments decision to give police officers more freedom to use the searches, he said: I know that this is not universally welcome there is concern that in enforcing these powers, Bame communities will be affected disproportionately. But we must also acknowledge that the violence disproportionately impacts Bame communities too, and if stop-and-search rates drop too low, it does then perhaps create a culture of immunity among those who wish to carry knives. Stop and search saves lives. There are people who are alive today because of stop and search and I cannot say this clearly enough. Home Secretary Sajid Javid announces new stop and search powers to combat knife crime Mr Javid, the son of a bus driver, said he could have been lured into a life of crime were it not for his parents and teachers. He said: I grew up in what one tabloid dubbed Britains most dangerous street. Its not so difficult to see how, instead of being in the cabinet, I could have actually turned out to have a life of crime myself. There were pupils at my school who shoplifted and they asked me if I wanted to help. There were drug addicts who stood near my school gates and told me that if I joined in, I too could make some easy money. But I was lucky: I had loving and supporting parents who despite their own circumstances, gave me the security that I needed. I had some brilliant teachers who motivated me and took me much further than I think even they expected. Jeremy Hunt has defended the decision to give Shamima Begum taxpayers money to help her fight the governments decision to strip her of her British citizenship. The foreign secretary admitted he was very uncomfortable with Ms Begum having access to legal aid but said the UK was a country that believed people should have full access to legal representation. Ms Begum fled to join Isis in 2015, when she was 15, but has since said she wants to return to the UK. Her citizenship was removed by Sajid Javid, the home secretary, in February. She has successfully applied to the Legal Aid Agency for funding to help her appeal against the decision, according to reports. Mr Hunt said Ms Begum knew the choices she was making when she joined the militant group but suggested it was right that she be considered for legal aid. He told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: On a personal level, it makes me very uncomfortable because she made a series of choices and she knew the choices she was making, so I think we made decisions about her future based on those choices. However, we are a country that believes that people with limited means should have access to the resources of the state if they want to challenge the decisions the state has made about them and, for obvious reasons, those decisions are made independent from politicians. He added: The decision to deprive her of her citizenship was taken by a politician. Obviously the decision about whether she accesses legal aid or not has to be done independently. The foreign secretary was speaking from Japan after meeting Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, and holding talks about a future trade deal between the two countries. He warned of the impact that the paralysis over Brexit was having on the UKs international standing, saying other countries feared Britain would be submerged in the mire of Brexit indecision. He said: It is absolutely clear that Brexit paralysis, if it continues for a long time, will be highly damaging to our international standing. Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Show all 30 1 /30 Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Pro-Brexit leave the European Union supporters attend a rally in Parliament Square after the final leg of the "March to Leave" in London AP Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit The protest march which started on March 16 in Sunderland, north east England, finished on what was the original date for Brexit to happen before the recent extension Reuters Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit AP Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Reuters Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit PA Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Reuters Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit EPA Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A Brexit supporter sips a can of Stella in protests outside of the Houses of Parliament AFP/Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Dedicated anti-Brexit campaigner Steve Bray and likewise pro-Brexit campaigner Joseph Afrane go head to head near the Houses of Parliament AFP/Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A pro-Brexit marching band in Parliament Square Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Remain supporters wave EU flags from a bus in Parliament Square PA Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A Brexit supporter shouts slogans outside parliament EPA Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A Brexit supporter protests outside parliament Reuters Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A Brexit supporter protests outside of the Houses of Parliament Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Brexit supporters protest outside of the Houses of Parliament REUTERS Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A pro-Brexit flag is waved in Parliament Square AP Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit The March to Leave nears the Houses of Parliament Reuters Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A Brexit protester holds a sign outside parliament EPA Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Brexit supporters carry the coffin of democracy AFP/Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Brexit supporters march outside parliament AFP/Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Brexit supporters take part in the March to Leave protest in London PA Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Brexit supporters protest outside parliament AFP/Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A Brexit supporter holds a sign outside the Houses of Parliament Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A man holds satirical paintings of politicians Reuters Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit An pro-Brexit float on the March to Leave march in London Reuters Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Far-right activist Tommy Robinson addresses protesters outside the Houses of Parliament Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A Brexit supporter outside the Houses of Parliament Reuters Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A Tommy Robinson supporter arrives at the Houses of Parliament Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A jogger gestures rudely at a Brexit supporter outside of the Houses of Parliament AFP/Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A Brexit supporter outside the Houses of Parliament PA Talks between the government and Labour are due to continue this week as the two parties attempt to find a compromise solution to the Brexit crisis. Mr Hunt said the negotiations so far had been more constructive than many expected and that people should not rule out the possibility of getting some agreement across the Commons. He added: This is the total focus of not just Theresa May, but the whole cabinet as well. It is time to put our shoulders into it and really make this happen. But he admitted that the discussions could fail and that the Tories might be forced to once again try to win over their Commons partners in the DUP. He said: We dont know if they are going to work and it may be that we need to find a way to rebuild the Conservative-DUP coalition. An outbreak of measles has killed more than 1,200 people on the island of Madagascar. The country is facing its largest measles outbreak in history, with the number of recorded cases growing beyond 115,000. Measles cases are rising in the US and elsewhere, with New York City battling to halt an outbreak by ordering mandatory vaccinations in one Brooklyn neighbourhood. But unlike in other parts of the world where misguided concerns about vaccinating children have led to a rise in cases, Madagascars outbreak stems in part from a lack of resources. The epidemic unfortunately continues to expand in size, though at a slower pace than a month ago, said Dr Dossou Vincent Sodjinou, a World Health Organisation (WHO) epidemiologist in Madagascar. The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Show all 7 1 /7 The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Charlie Sheen Sheen fought a legal battle against ex-wife Denise Richards to try and block her from vaccinating their children. Richards of course won and Sheen was reportedly so bitter that he paid the paediatrician bill entirely in nickels Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Gwyneth Paltrow Paltrow's "health and wellness" company Goop hosted a notorious anti-vaccine speaker at their 2018 Goop Summit Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Rob Schneider Schneider demanded the freedom to decline vaccination Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Jenny McCarthy McCarthy has claimed that "people are dying from vaccinations", believes that her son caught autism from a vaccine and has pushed her opinions on the topic publicly for many years AFP/Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Bill Maher Maher has long spoken against vaccines sating on Larry King live that "a flu shot is the worst thing you can do." His stance appears to stem from a distrust of government AFP/Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Alicia Silverstone In Silverstone's book The Kind Mama, she wrote that "there is increasing anecdotal evidence from doctors who have gotten distressed phone calls from parents claiming their child was never the same after receiving a vaccine." Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Andrew Wakefield Godfather of the anti-vax movement, disgraced doctor Andrew Wakefield famously published a report in the medical journal Lancet claiming a link between the MMR vaccine and autism in 1998. The Lancet retracted the report in 2010 and Wakefield was struck off the medical register PA Only 58 per cent of people on the main island of Madagascar have been vaccinated against measles, a major factor in the outbreaks spread. The outbreak has killed mostly children under 15 since it began in September, according to the WHO. By mid-March, 117,075 cases had been reported by the health ministry, affecting all regions of the country. The outbreak has been complicated due to the fact nearly 50 per cent of children in Madagascar are malnourished. Malnutrition is the bed of measles, Dr Sodjinou said. Many parents are often unaware vaccines in the country are free, due to a lack of information about health issues. Some cases of resistance exist because of the influence of religion or traditional health practitioners, but they are isolated cases, Dr Sodjinou added. Measles outbreak in New York Measles is a highly infectious disease spread by coughing, sneezing, close contact or infected surfaces. Madagascars health ministry has sent free medication intended to treat the symptoms of the disease to regions most affected by the outbreak. Late last month the WHO started a third mass vaccination campaign in Madagascar with the overall goal of reaching 7.2 million children aged six months to nine years. Additional reporting by Associated Press At nighttime on Saturday, the shadowy regime enforcers emerged from their crevices. They moved against protesters at an anti-regime sit-in near the Engineering College in Khartoum. They opened fire on the unarmed civilians, injuring several in moments of chaos captured on video. But the demonstrators stood their ground. Rather than disperse, they treated the wounded at a nearby mosque and kept control over the street. On Sunday, the security forces came with tractors, attempting to push the demonstrators out from in front of the ministry of defence headquarters. Protesters, many of them children, locked hands and formed a ring to prevent them from moving in, chanting freedom and revolution in dramatic moments captured on video. We are not there yet, says Jihan el-Tahir, among the hundreds of thousands of protesters taking part in Sudans popular uprising. We are still hanging in. And we are not going back until real change happens. Sudanese protesters stunned the world last Thursday by triggering the downfall of the countrys longtime dictator, Omar al-Bashir. They ousted his successor, a greying general named Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf, 24 hours later, and the regimes intelligence chief, known as Salah Gosh, a day after that. Theyre now negotiating with Lt Gen Abdel Fattah Burhan, head of the countrys ruling military council and de facto head of state, for a roadmap towards a possible democracy. Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Show all 20 1 /20 Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Protesters rally outside the military headquarters in Khartoum to demand that President Omar al-Bashir step down Reuters Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Alaa Salah leads the protest against President Omar al-Bashir Lana Haroun/Twitter Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Protesters run from tear gas deployed by security forces as they take part in a demonstration to demand the departure of the Sudanese government EPA Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Sudanese protesters rally outside the military headquarters in Khartoum on April 8 Sudan Congress Party Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Sudanese protesters rally outside the military headquarters in Khartoum on April 10 Reuters Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Alaa Salah, a Sudanese woman propelled to internet fame earlier this week after clips went viral of her leading powerful protest chants against President Omar al-Bashir, addresses protesters outside of the military headquarters in Khartoum AFP/Getty Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Sudanese protesters march on the military headquarters in Khartoum on April 8 AFP/Getty Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Reuters Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Sudanese protesters pray as they rally outside the military headquarters in Khartoum AFP/Getty Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Sudanese protesters chant slogans as they march in protest against President Omar al-Bashir Reuters Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Sudanese protesters rally outside the military headquarters in Khartoum on April 8 AFP/Getty Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Sudanese protesters rally outside the military headquarters in Khartoum on April 8 AFP/Getty Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Sudanese protesters climb onto a military vehicle beside soldiers during protests in Khartoum AFP/Getty Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Security forces deploy tear gas to disperse protesters against the Sudanese government Reuters Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Sudanese protesters rally outside the military headquarters in Khartoum on April 8 AFP/Getty Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan A wounded protester rests during a demonstration in front of the military headquarters in Khartoum AFP/Getty Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan A Sudanese protester shows bullet cartridges as protesters gather in Khartoum AFP/Getty Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Protesters march on the military headquarters in Khartoum Sudan Congress Party Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan Sudanese protesters march on the defence ministry in Khartoum to demand that President Omar al-Bashir step down Reuters Military HQ occupied by anti-government protesters in Sudan A Sudanese protester picks up waste during a demonstration in front of the military headquarters in Khartoum AFP/Getty But the protesters also vow to stay in the street until their demands for a civilian-led transitional government and a path towards democratic rule are fulfilled. The Sudanese Professionals Association, an activist network that includes doctors, teachers and jurists, has taken the lead in presenting the demonstrators demands, urging protesters to stay the course. They want a dissolution of the National Intelligence and Security Service, the dreaded secret police, as well as a dismantling of the pro-regime shadow militias Bashir used in his ethnic wars and against protesters over the decades. The want a ban on Bashirs National Congress Party and a transfer of its properties to the state, as well as the release of all political detainees, judicial reform and press freedoms. They have also demanded accountability for the allegedly dirty deals the regime cut using public resources and funds. We hope that everyone will head immediately to the areas of the sit-in to protect your revolution and your accomplishments, the organisation announced in a statement. Were aiming to change the regime and were aiming to uproot this system and were not going back until this happens Jihan el-Tahir, protester Activists have repeatedly noted that they closely watched what happened in Egypt and other countries in the aftermath of the 2011 uprisings, and hope to avoid their mistakes. We are not going to be fooled by this kind of superficial change of regime, says Ms Tahir. The regime hasnt changed yet and we are fully aware of this. All these past experiences have shown us. And now people really do know what to do, and that is one thing: to be on the street until the regime falls. This round of protests began a week ago but Sudanese have been assertively agitating for change since December. Now the summer is coming, and the Muslim month of Ramadan, a time of fasting and family, begins in early May. Some worry the momentum may be fading. Recommended Sudan and Algeria are part of a new wave of peaceful regime change Some of the youth are really tired, says Sara Soliman, 33, a UK-educated Sudanese activist in Khartoum. People come early in the mornings and switch places with those that slept overnight. They dont want to empty the space because then the military will take over. But standing in the protesters way are not only the armed forces and Bashirs shock troops, but reactionary Arab states including neighbouring Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which rolled back democratic gains during the Arab uprisings of 2011 and now back Khartoums junta. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain all staunch western allies issued statements of support for the ruling military council and called for stability and security in the Nile River and Red Sea country of 41 million. Arabian Peninsula states have large investments in Sudanese agriculture. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi also rely on Sudanese fighters to pursue their controversial years-long war in Yemen. They just dont want Sudan to take the military from Yemen, says Ms Soliman. They dont care about the lives of the Sudanese people. That puts the western-backed Arab states at odds with those on the street. General Burhan has offered a two-year transitional period overseen by a civilian prime minister but with the military as the ultimate power a scenario protesters consider too similar to the military-guided transition that followed the 2011 Egyptian uprising, which was ultimately crushed. This coup detat was not part of our plan, and its not going to be satisfactory to what weve been aiming for, says Ms Tahir. Were aiming to change the regime and were aiming to uproot this system and were not going back until this happens. Ms Tahir vowed to remain at the protest sit-in site until this regime really falls. She spends nights at the protest site, always on guard for attacks by regime gunmen. I was there during the attacks, she says. It was horrible, traumatising. There were really down moments. But we are many. We managed to keep the momentum. A four-year-old boy in the US nearly died when he accidentally shot himself in the head the fifth victim of guns in his family. Navaun Jackson suffered permanent, irreversible brain damage, doctors told his family while he was on life support in an induced coma. The toddler had found a loaded firearm under a pillow at the home of a family friend in California, it was reported. His family feared he would be the fifth close relative to be shot dead. Navauns father, Nathan Jackson, lost three siblings to guns, and his mother, Brijjanna Price, lost her brother that way. Police said Navaun found the unlocked gun last month at Terrence Wilsons home in East Oakland while he was watching television in a bedroom alone. Court documents show that Ms Price and Mr Wilson heard a gunshot, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Protests call for stricter gun-control laws in Washington DC Show all 12 1 /12 Protests call for stricter gun-control laws in Washington DC Protests call for stricter gun-control laws in Washington DC Protesters hold up signs and flags to show solidarity with House Democrats after they staged a sit in over gun-control laws on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on June 23. 2016. Andrew Caballero/AFP/Getty Images Protests call for stricter gun-control laws in Washington DC A lone protester wears tape printed with the U.S. flag on her mouth while attending an open hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence where intelligence chiefs, including Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, testified at the U.S. Capitol February 25, 2016 in Washington, DC. Clapper said that the group known as the Islamic State, or ISIS, has become a greater global threat than al-Qaida ever was. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Protests call for stricter gun-control laws in Washington DC U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) waves to supporters along with House Democrats after their sit-in over gun-control law on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 23, 2016. Yuri Gripas/Reuters Protests call for stricter gun-control laws in Washington DC Supporters of House Democrats taking part in a sit-in on the House Chamber shout encouragement from outside the U.S. Capitol on June 22, 2016 in Washington, DC. Led by civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) Democrats, have maintained control of the House chamber since this morning demanding a vote on gun control legislation. Pete Marovich/Getty Protests call for stricter gun-control laws in Washington DC U.S. House Democrats walk out on the East Front on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., after their sit-in over gun-control law, June 23, 2016. Yuri Gripas/Reuters Protests call for stricter gun-control laws in Washington DC A poster for the gun-control law support is left on the ground on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 23, 2016. Yuri Gripas/Reuters Protests call for stricter gun-control laws in Washington DC U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (R) applauds as Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) (L) waves to supporters along with House Democrats after their sit-in over gun-control law on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 23, 2016. Yuri Gripas/Reuters Protests call for stricter gun-control laws in Washington DC Supporters of House Democrats taking part in a sit-in on the House Chamber shout encouragement from outside the U.S. Capitol on June 22, 2016 in Washington, DC. Led by civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) Democrats have maintained control of the House chamber since this morning demanding a vote on gun control legislation. Pete Marovich/Getty Protests call for stricter gun-control laws in Washington DC U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (R) and Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) (L) walk out with House Democrats on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., after their sit-in over gun-control law, June 23, 2016. Yuri Gripas/Reuters Protests call for stricter gun-control laws in Washington DC U.S. House Democrats walk out on the East Front on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., after their sit-in over gun-control law, June 23, 2016. Yuri Gripas/Reuters Protests call for stricter gun-control laws in Washington DC U.S. House Democrats walk out on the East Front on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., after their sit-in over gun-control law, June 23, 2016. Yuri Gripas/Reuters Protests call for stricter gun-control laws in Washington DC Protesters hold up signs and flags to show solidarity with House Democrats after they staged a sit in over gun-control laws on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on June 23. 2016. Andrew Caballero/AFP/Getty Images Mr Wilson, 37, who is banned from owning a firearm, told police he had forgotten the gun was under his pillow, according to the paper. The boy was rushed to hospital after the accident, and spent a week in intensive care, fighting for his life. Doctors said he was probably brain-dead and would be unable to walk, according to Jamilia Land, Navauns aunt, the Chronicle reported. Ms Land said the family were overjoyed when he awoke. His condition is now said to be stable. Hes alive, which we feel like is a miracle. Hes had all the odds against him. He shot himself right in the middle of his forehead between his eyes, she said. Police have charged Mr Wilson with criminal possession of a firearm, endangering a child and receiving stolen property, according to the Chronicle. He was banned from owning firearms after convictions in 2003 for second-degree robbery, grand theft and conspiracy, according to court records, it said. Ms Land said the extent of Navauns brain damage is not known. We maintain our faith and pray that things will turn out and he will leave [hospital], but with the extent of his injuries, hell never be the same, she added. She said guns were an epidemic. We have these killings in our communities all the time, in the African-American community and oftentimes its not talked about. We cant seem to escape it. Ms Prices father, Ramon, said: It was real irresponsible. And unfortunately it was my grandson who got to pay the ultimate price. He attributed the citys gun problems to a lack of education and irresponsible behaviour. Theres more people carrying guns than books, he said. We need more preventive measures, [people should know] how to properly store guns and keep guns and the importance of having a gun, he said. Guns are supposed to be used for protection and if you think you need a loaded gun in your house, then theres something wrong. Success! read the subject line of the email. The text, in imperfect English, began: Good News! The women is pregnant, the genome editing success! The sender was He Jiankui, an ambitious, young Chinese scientist. The recipient was his former academic adviser, Stephen Quake, a star Stanford bioengineer and inventor. Wow, thats quite an achievement! Professor Quake wrote back. Hopefully she will carry to term... Months later, the world learned the outcome of that pregnancy: twins born from genetically engineered embryos, the first gene-altered babies. 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 Reaction was fierce. Many scientists and ethicists condemned the experiment as unethical and unsafe, fearing that it could inspire rogue or frivolous attempts to create permanent genetic changes using unproved and unregulated methods. A Chinese government investigation concluded in January that Prof He had seriously violated ethics, scientific research integrity and relevant state regulations. Questions about other American scientists knowledge of Prof Hes plans and their failure to sound a loud alarm have been an issue since Prof He revealed his work in November. But now, Prof Quake is facing a Stanford investigation into his interaction with Prof He. That inquiry began after the president of Prof Hes Chinese university wrote to Stanfords president alleging that Prof Quake had helped Prof He. Recommended Genome editing could change the blueprint of human existence Prof Stephen Quake provided instructions to the preparation and implementation of the experiment, the publication of papers, the promotion and news release, and the strategies to react after the news release, he alleged in letters obtained by The New York Times. Prof Quakes actions, he asserted, violated the internationally recognised academic ethics and codes of conduct, and must be condemned. Prof Quake denied the allegations in a lengthy interview, saying his interaction with Prof He, who was a postdoctoral student in his lab eight years ago, had been misinterpreted. I had nothing to do with this and I wasnt involved, Prof Quake said. I hold myself to high ethical standards. Prof Quake showed The New York Times what he said were the last few years of his email communication with Prof He. The correspondence provides a revealing window into the informal way researchers navigate a fast-moving, ethically controversial field. Scientists find pensioner with mutant gene who feels no pain and heals without scarring The emails show that Prof He, 35, informed Prof Quake, 49, of milestones, including that the woman became pregnant and gave birth. They show that Prof Quake advised Prof He to obtain ethical approval from Chinese institutions and submit the results for vetting by peer-reviewed journals, and that he agreed to Prof Hes requests to discuss issues like when to present his research publicly. None of the notes suggest Prof Quake was involved in the work himself. They do contain expressions of polite encouragement like good luck! Though Prof Quake said he urged Prof He not to pursue the project during an August 2016 meeting, the emails, mostly sent in 2017 and 2018, dont tell him to stop. As global institutions like the World Health Organisation work to create a system to keep cowboy scientists from charging into the Wild West of embryo editing, Prof Quakes interactions with Prof He reflect issues that leading scientific institutions are now grappling with. When and where should scientists report controversial research ideas that colleagues share with them in confidence? Have scientists acted inappropriately if they provide conventional research advice to someone conducting an unorthodox experiment? A lot of people wish that those who knew or suspected would have made more noise, said R. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who co-led a 2017 national committee on human embryo editing. But she said scientists were not necessarily complicit if instead of trying to stop rogue experimenters, they advised them to follow ethical and research standards in hopes that institutions would intervene. Rice University has been investigating Michael Deem, Prof Hes PhD adviser, because of allegations that he was actively involved in the project; he had said publicly that he had been present during parts of it. Prof Deems lawyers issued a statement strongly denying the allegations. The correspondence Prof Quake shared provides new details about Prof Hes project, also called germline editing, including indications that the twin girls were quite premature and remained hospitalised for several weeks. They were born in October, contrary to previous reports. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Prof Quake is an entrepreneur whose inventions include blood tests to detect Down syndrome in pregnancy and to avoid organ transplant rejection. He is co-president of an institute funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr Priscilla Chan. He does not do gene editing and said he was surprised when Prof He told him during a 2016 visit to Stanford that he wanted to be the first to create gene-edited babies. I said, Thats a terrible idea. Why would you want to do that? Prof Quake recalled. He kind of pushed back and it was clear that he wasnt listening to me. Prof Quake changed tack. I said, All right, if youre not going to be convinced that I think this is a bad idea and you want to go down this path, then you need to do it properly and with proper respect for the people who are involved, and the field. That meant obtaining ethical approval from the equivalent of US institutional review boards (known as IRBs), Quake advised, as well as getting informed consent from the couples participating and only editing genes to address a serious medical need. I didnt think it was something he would seriously do, said Prof Quake, adding that he assumed if Prof He sought ethical approval and was rebuffed, presumably hed stop. Soon afterwards, Prof He emailed: I will take your suggestion that we will get a local ethic approve before we move on to the first genetic edited human baby. Please keep it in confidential. In June 2017, Prof He, nicknamed JK, emailed a document saying a hospital ethics committee had approved his proposal, in which he boasted that his plan could be compared to Nobel-winning research. It was good to see that he had engaged with his IRB-equivalent there and had approval to do his research, and Im thinking its their responsibility to manage this, Prof Quake said in the interview. If in my interactions with JK I had any hint of misconduct, I would have handled it completely differently. And I think I would have been very aggressive about telling people about that. In Prof Hes 2017 correspondence, he said he would be editing a gene called CCR5, altering a mutation that allows people to become infected with HIV. Henry Moore: Invasion of the genetic mutants Show all 4 1 /4 Henry Moore: Invasion of the genetic mutants Henry Moore: Invasion of the genetic mutants 326487.bin Henry Moore Foundation Henry Moore: Invasion of the genetic mutants 326490.bin Henry Moore Foundation Henry Moore: Invasion of the genetic mutants 326488.bin Henry Moore Foundation Henry Moore: Invasion of the genetic mutants 326489.bin Henry Moore Foundation Many scientists have since argued it was medically unnecessary because babies of HIV-positive parents can be protected other ways. Prof Quake said he believed there was not scientific consensus about that. In early April 2018, Prof Hes Success! email said the embryo with CCR5 gene edited was transplanted to the women 10 days ago, and today the pregnancy is confirmed! Quake did not reply immediately. Instead, he forwarded the email to someone he described as a senior gene-editing expert who I felt could give me advice. He redacted the name of the expert. FYI this is probably the first human germ line editing, Quake wrote. I strongly urged him to get IRB approval, and it is my understanding that he did. His goal is to help HIV positive parents conceive. Its a bit early for him to celebrate but if she carries to term its going to be big news I suspect. The expert replied: I was only telling someone last week that my assumption was that this had already happened. It will definitely be news ... Prof Quake considered that response very blase, he said. Hes not surprised at all. And hes not saying, Oh my god, you got to notify the mythical science police. Six months later, in mid-October, Prof He emailed again: Great news! the baby is born (please keep it in confidential). He asked to meet on a planned visit to San Francisco, saying, I want get help from you on how to announce the result, PR and ethics. Prof Quake replied, Lets definitely meet up. In that meeting, Quake recalled, Prof He walked him through what he had done. And I pressed him on the ethical approval, and I said this is going to get an enormous amount of attention, its going to be very closely scrutinised. Are you sure youve done everything correctly? Hes response unsettled him, he said. The little corner-cutting thing came up again: Well, there were actually two hospitals involved and you know, we had approval from one and we did work at both hospitals. And I said, Well you better make sure you have that straightened out. Recommended Why the debate around genetically testing human embryos is so heated Back in China, Prof He wrote: Good news, the hospital which conducted the clinical trial approved the ethic letter, adding, They signed to acknowledge the ethic letters from another hospital. Prof Quake replied, Great news, thanks for the update. About a week later, Prof Hes publicist, Ryan Ferrell, contacted Quake, worried that Prof He presenting the project publicly so soon could cause severe and permanent harms to his reputation and the field. And, the twins are still in the hospital, so no positive imagery. Prof Quake, in Hong Kong for other commitments at the same time as a genome-editing conference, met He and Mr Ferrell, telling them, youre going to be held to a very high standard, he said. Peoples first response is going to be youre faking it. He advised Prof He to submit the research to a peer-reviewed journal, and He did so. Then, because journal review takes time, Prof Quake said he advised He not to go public in Hong Kong, but to speak privately with key experts there so they can get socialised to whats coming and will be more likely to comment favourably on your work. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events But Prof He was not persuaded. I do not want to wait for 6 months or longer to announce the results, otherwise, people will say a Chinese scientist secretly hide the baby for 6 months. Prof Quake pushed back: It is prudent to let the peer review process follow its course. But Prof He went forward with his Hong Kong talk. Two days before it, after news of the twins broke, Quake emailed, Good luck with your upcoming presentation! But he added, please remove my name from the slide acknowledging people who had helped. He was spinning up this huge press thing around it, Prof Quake explained in the interview. It was going to go well or poorly, I didnt really know. But it wasnt something I was involved in and I didnt want my name on it. The New York Times A police chief for a major city in the US rebuked the deportation of an 11-year-old child without her family, invoking references to the Nazi regime on Twitter. Houstons Police Chief Art Acevedo slammed Donald Trumps administration over its hard-line immigration policies along the nations southern border after it was reported Laura Maradiaga would be sent back to El Salvador. Immigration groups argued her home had become a death trap when a family member testified against a member of a violent gang. The child the US-Mexico border with her family earlier in October of last year, as a record number of Central American migrants fled starvation and violence. Records indicate she was not present at a 12 March immigration hearing she was required to attend, leading to her deportation though it remains unclear whether the family was provided incorrect information or if the records are inaccurate. The Nazis enforced their laws as well, the police chief wrote on Friday. You dont separate children from their families! Ever! Youd have to kill me to take my child from me simply because I was trying to get them to a better place for a better tomorrow, he continued, adding, I am glad to be on the right side of history. Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Show all 23 1 /23 Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border A group of migrants climb the US border fence in Tijuana AFP/Getty Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border A group of migrants cross the dried up Tijuana river AFP/Getty Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Mexico police emerge from a cloud of tear gas Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Mexico police work to keep migrants from getting over the border with the US AP Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border US border patrol agents stand guard as migrant seek to cross the border at Tijuana Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Adults help a child over the US border fence AFP/Getty Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Migrants near the US border in Tijuana Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Migrants climb the US border fence in Tijuana AFP/Getty Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Migrants clash with riot police as they near the US border in Tijuana Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border A migrant is detained by US border patrol officers after illegally crossing the border Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border A group of migrants cross the dried up Tijuana river Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Tear gas is deployed at the border Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border A group of migrants make their way to the US border fence Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border A migrant man wears a homemade gas mask Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Migrants stand on the banks of the Tijuana river opposite the US border fence Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border A group of migrants cross the Tijuana river Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Migrants gather at the border crossing in Tijuana AP Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Tear gas is fired by border police to deter migrants EPA Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border A migrant covers his face as tear gas surrounds him Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Migrant families seek to cross the US border at Tijuana Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Mexico police try to stop migrants from crossing Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Migrants force their way through the border fence at Tijuana Reuters Migrants clash with authorities as they seek to cross the US border Reuters Immigration courts have been inundated due to the surge in migrant crossing and asylum proceedings. Meanwhile, the familys lawyer, Silvia Mintz, has described the deportation notice as an error. This mistake done by the immigration court has put this family in jeopardy, she told the Houston Chronicle. They will be separated if this is not stopped. Immigration attorneys are typically provided nearly 30 days to request the re-opening of a case. The family plans to file motions for a re-opening of the case, the Houston Chronicle reported. According to the newspaper, the 11-year-olds mother, Dora Alvarado, was told by court translators to arrive for the 12 March appearance with her 15-year-old, though her younger daughter was not listed on the court docket for the day. Mr Acevedo described the matter as heart-wrenching in another tweet, encouraging people of faith to speak out about the childs possible deportation. A Go Fund Me has been established to support of the child and her family. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The family has reportedly complied with court orders and attended their appearance dates after being allowed to pursue their asylum cases while remaining in the US. An Indiana judge will soon decide whether to release secretly recorded tapes that led Pete Buttigieg to demote the first black police chief of South Bend. The small citys local police office and its mayor who has become one of the unlikely 2020 frontrunners for the White House have found themselves at the heart of a controversy dating back to 2011, which spurred an FBI investigation and accusations of criminal misconduct on the part of multiple police officers. The 29-year-old mayor was just beginning his first term when a veteran at the South Bend Police Department told Police Chief Darryl Boykins that a phone line for one of his detectives was being secretly recorded. Mr Boykins, who was invited by Mr Buttigieg after his election to remain in his post, reportedly confronted multiple officers at the department after several recordings purported to include racist statements and discussions of a possible criminal conspiracy. The officers responded by claiming the recordings were produced illegally and issued complaints that prompted an FBI investigation. Mr Buttigieg asked the police chief to step down a year later when he was first contacted by the FBI and alerted to the agencys investigation. His reasoning for Mr Boykins resignation reportedly included that the police chief did not inform him of the ongoing probe. Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Show all 23 1 /23 Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Joe Biden The former vice president - poised to be a frontrunner - has announced his run. He recently faced scrutiny for inappropriate touching of women, but was thought to deal with the criticism well AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Bernie Sanders The 2016 runner-up has announced that he will be running again in 2020 Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Hillary Clinton The 2016 Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State says she is still considering whether she will run again. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Pete Buttigieg The Indiana mayor and war veteran will be running for president. If elected, he would be the first openly LGBT+ president in American history. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Kamala Harris The former California attorney general will be running for president in 2020. Introduced to the national stage during Jeff Sessions testimony, she has endorsed Medicare-for-all and proposed a major tax-credit for the middle class. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Elizabeth Warren The Massachusetts Senator has formally launched her bid for president in 2020. A progressive Democrat, she is a major supporter of regulating Wall Street. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Beto ORourke The former Texas congressman told Oprah Winfrey that he has been thinking about running for presidency, but stopped short of formally announcing his bid to run in 2020. AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Wayne Messam Mayor of the city of Miramar in the Miami metropolitan area, Wayne Messam has announced his bid. He intends to run on a progressive platform against the "broken" federal government. He favours gun regulations and was a signatory to a letter from some 400 mayors condemning President Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord. Vice News Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Kirsten Gillibrand The New York Senator formally announced her presidential bid in January, saying that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Cory Booker The New Jersey Senator has announced that he will be running for the presidency in 2020. If he secures the nomination he said finding a female vice president would be a priority. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? John Delaney The Maryland congressman was the first to launch his bid for presidency, making the announcement in 2017. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Julian Castro The former San Antonio mayor announced his candidacy in January and said that his running has a special meaning for the Latino community in the US. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Tulsi Gabbard The Hawaii congresswoman announced her candidacy in January, but is likely to face tough questions on her past comments on LGBT+ rights and her stance on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Andrew Yang The entrepreneur has announced his presidential candidacy, and has pledged that he would introduce a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every American over the age of 18. AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Marianne Williamson The author and spiritual advisor has announced her intention to run for president. She had previously run for congress as an independent in 2014 but was unsuccessful. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? John Kerry The former secretary of state has said he is still thinking about whether to run. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Michael Bloomberg The entrepreneur and former New York mayor with a net worth of around $50bn has said he will decide by the end of February whether to seek the presidency. AFP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Howard Schultz Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has not yet ruled out running for president in 2020, despite criticism that his bid could help re-elect Mr Trump by dividing the Democrat vote. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Eric Holder The former attorney general has said he will decide in the next month or so whether to run as a 2020 presidential candidate. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Eric Swalwell The California congressman said he is ready to do this and will decide before April whether to run. MSNBC Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Terry McAuliffe The former Virginia governor, who worked to elect Democratic governors during 2018 midterms, said there was a 50 per cent chance he would run. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Sherrod Brown The Ohio senator is still undecided about whether to run for president in 2020. Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Mitch Landrieu The former New Orleans mayor said he doesnt think he will run for president, but never say never. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin After some back and forth, Mr Boykins was eventually demoted to a captain at the department. His lawyer claimed the ex-chief previously complied with a decision to resign under the false pretence that the Mayor was being directed into this course of action by the US Attorneys office. Mr Boykins then sued the city of South Bend, claiming racial discrimination and noting the recording policies had previously existed under multiple white police chiefs. The supposed difference under Mr Boykins, however, is that the detective whose line was being recorded was not aware it was happening at the time. Previously, a detective had requested the phone line to be recorded so as not to miss as tip, whereas the new detective, Brian Young, was not informed. The City Council subpoenaed the tapes, The Hill reported, with one Democratic lawmaker expressing frustration at the mayors office not to immediately release the tapes. Theres a level of frustration, Karen White, a Democratic city councilwoman, told the outlet. We want this issue to be brought to closure to ensure this issue does not polarize our community further. We have a right to know [whats on the tapes], as do our citizens. Mr Buttigieg is reportedly willing to release the tapes but wanted to first ensure their release did not violate any state or federal laws. His campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The mayor also decided to fire Karen DePaepe, the veteran at the police department who informed Mr Boykin of the tapes and the resulting controversies, reportedly under the notion that she had intentionally listened in on the officers calls. He also fought the subpoenas in court, saying that its up to a judge to determine who can hear the recordings, rather than the mayors office. Ms DePaepe has claimed in court filings she inadvertently stumbled on the controversial elements of the recordings. Mr Boykins and Ms DePaepe have both since settled lawsuits with the city. US Attorneys declined to pursue the case of a potential criminal conspiracy among the officers. Shipments to Japan, the countrys largest export market in the bloc followed by Canada and Mexico, have reached USD2.9 billion so far this year, up from USD2.6 billion from the same period last year. As many as 269 certificates of origin have been issued in the CPTPP since the pact took effect in January 2019. These figures were unveiled by Ngo Chung Khanh, deputy director of the MoITs Multilateral Trade Policy Department, in a recent press meeting on industrial manufacturing and trade activities. Up to 219 of the 269 certificates of origin were issued to Canada, demonstrating that Vietnamese exporters were utilizing the CPTPP to penetrate Canada, one of the three countries that Vietnam has not signed free trade agreement with, Khanh said, adding that 14 certificates of origin had been issued to Mexico and eight to Peru. Vietnam's exports to several CPTPP member countries have increased this year. (Source: vietnamexport.com) Vietnam has yet to sign free trade agreements (FTAs) with three of the 11 CPTPP member countries - Canada, Mexico and Peru. With less than a year to the next primary election season, Republicans statewide have their work cut out for them. More so in Lake County, where the lethargic party had to deal with a president many socially moderate Illinois Republicans dislike, a GOP governor who was loathed by the partys conservative wing and a winning Democratic organization that keeps rolling up election victories. Robert Muellers report into Russias interference in the US election and alleged possible collusion with campaign of Donald will be made public on Thursday, the US government has said. In an announcement set to make 18 April one of the most hotly anticipated days in Washington DC for several years, the department of justice said a version of the 400-page report would be provided to the congress and the public on Thursday morning. Justice department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec did not specify a time, and provided no insight into how much of the special prosecutors report will have been redacted by the time congress and members of the public have a chance to read it. The Mueller Report, which was written by 18 Angry Democrats who also happen to be Trump Haters (and Clinton Supporters), should have focused on the people who SPIED on my 2016 Campaign, and others who fabricated the whole Russia Hoax. That is, never forget, the crime, Mr Trump tweeted after the news emerged. The president who is due to deliver a speech in Minnesota, the home state of congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who he has controversially criticised over the way she described the events of 9/11 said: Since there was no collusion, why was there an investigation in the first place! Answer dirty cops, Dems and Crooked Hillary! Mueller investigation: The key figures Show all 12 1 /12 Mueller investigation: The key figures Mueller investigation: The key figures Robert Mueller is the special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election, and potential obstruction of justice by the president. Mr Mueller has a pristine reputation in Washington, where he was previously in charge of the FBI. Throughout his investigation, he and his team have been notoriously tight lipped about what they know and where their investigation has led. REUTERS Mueller investigation: The key figures Former FBI director James Comey was the catalyst that led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. Mr Comey was fired by the president after Mr Trump reportedly asked him to drop his own Russia investigation. Mr Trump has long maintained that the investigation is a "witch hunt". AFP/Getty Images Mueller investigation: The key figures Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein had authority over the special counsel investigation for much of the two years it has been active. Mr Rosenstein found himself with that responsibility after then-attorney general Jeff Sessions recused himself from that oversight. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures Attorney general Jeff Sessions's decision to recuse himself from oversight of the special counsel investigation may have cost him his job in the end. Mr Sessions resigned last year, after weathering a contentious relationship with Donald Trump who vocally criticised his attorney general for taking a step back. Mr Sessions recused himself from the oversight citing longstanding Justice Department rules to not be involved in investigations overseeing campaigns that officials were apart of. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures Attorney General William Barr is currently responsible for oversight of the special counsel investigation. Mr Barr's office will be the first to receive the Mueller report when it is finished. His office will then determine what portion or version of that report should be delivered to Congress, and also made public. EPA Mueller investigation: The key figures Michal Cohn is the president's former personal lawyer, who has been helping the special counsel investigation as a part of a plea deal over financial crimes, and campaign finance crimes, he has pleaded guilty to. Among those crimes, Cohen admitted to facilitating $130,000 in hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign. Cohen has said he did so at the direction of Mr Trump. Cohen has also admitted that he maintained contacts with Russian officials about a potential Trump real estate project in Moscow for months longer than Mr Trump and others admitted. The talks continued well into 2016 during the campaign, he has said. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures Stormy Daniels has alleged that she had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006, soon after Melania Trump gave birth to Baron Trump. The accusation is of particular importance as a result of the $130,000 hush money payment she received to keep quiet about the affair during the 2016 campaign. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures Paul Manafort was Donald Trump's former campaign chairman. Manafort was charged alongside Rick Gates for a slew of financial crimes, and was convicted on several counts in a Virginia court. He then pleaded guilty to separate charges filed in a Washington court. Manafort has been sentenced to just 7.5 years in prison for his crimes in spite of recommendations from the special counsel's office for a much harsher sentence. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures George Papadopoulos was one of the first individuals associated with the Trump campaign to be charged by the Mueller probe. He ultimately received a 14 day prison sentence for lying to investigators about contacts he had with Russian officials. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures Roger Stone is a well known political fixer and operative, who has made a name for himself for some dirty tactics. He has been charged by the Mueller probe earlier this year, and he has been said to have had prior knowledge that WikiLeaks planned on publishing stolen emails from the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016. Getty Images Mueller investigation: The key figures Rick Gates was charged alongside former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for a range of crimes. Gates, who worked alongside Manafort for a pro-Russia Ukrainian political party. The two were charged with conspiracy and financial crimes. Gates pleaded guilty. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was one of the first casualties of the Russia scandal, and was forced out of his position in the White House weeks after Donald Trump took office. Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to "willfully" making fraudulent statements about contacts he had with Russian officials including former Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Flynn then lied to Vice President Mike Pence about that contact. REUTERS Mr Mueller, a former director of the FBI, concluded the nearly two-year investigation last month and sent his findings to attorney general William Barr. Mr Barr then released his own four-page synopsis, saying Mr Mueller found no evidence the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. He said Mr Mueller did not exonerate Mr Trump on the question of whether he obstructed justice, but rather laid out evidence both for and against in relation to several incidents. In turn, Mr Barr and his deputy made a determination the president had not committed any offence that merited prosecution. Democrats and others demanded to see the full details of the report which Mr Barr agreed to, saying that the department would first oversee a series of redactions to protect sensitive information, or data relating to ongoing investigations. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Several Democrats have suggested Mr Barr will go too far with this redactions, give the constitutional and legal elasticity he has on this issue. In his synopsis, Mr Barr wrote that Mr Mueller had employed 19 lawyers who were assisted by a team of approximately 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts and forensic accountants. He said the special counsel issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communication records, issued almost 50 orders authorising use of pen registers, made 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence, and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses. The report states The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities, Mr Barr said. On the issue of obstruction of justice, Mr Barr said the report set out evidence on both sides of the question. The special counsels report states that while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him, he said. The attorney general said that he and his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, reviewed the evidence and concluded the evidence developed during the special counsels investigation was not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction-of-justice offence. Mr Trump claimed the investigation exonerated him on both counts, something that was not true. He also pressed Mr Barr to launch an investigation into what the FBI began its probe of members of his campaign team, claiming he was the victim of an attempted coup. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has dismissed the influence of congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on her party, describing the socialist wing of Democrats in the House of Representatives as like, five people. Ms Pelosi has previously rejected the rising stars policy proposals including the Green New Deal plan to tackle climate change and the expansion of Medicare for all Americans. In a new interview, the speaker of the House insisted there was only a very small group of left-wing Democrats who subscribed to Ms Ocasio-Cortezs ideas. Asked by 60 Minutes interviewer Lesley Stahl about AOC and her group, Ms Pelosi replied: Thats, like, five people. When Ms Stahl suggested the progressive group is more than five, the California Democrat was careful not to give up on the broad label she applied to a large swathe of the House caucus. Well, the progressive ... Im a progressive, she said. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez greets fellow lawmakers ahead of the State of the Union address Getty Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez participates in an event with Democratic members of Congress EPA Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures The Democrat senator speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol January 30, 2019 Getty Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and fellow Democrat Rashida Tlaib AP Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the Senate chamber to watch two votes on January 24, 2019 Getty Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez arrives with Chellie Pingree at a House Democratic Caucus meeting Getty Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Ocasio-Cortez during Donald Trump's State of the Union address Reuters Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures New York State Assembly member Catalina Cruz with Ocasio-Cortez AFP/Getty Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Nydia Velazquez talks with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Reuters Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Ocasio-Cortez casts her vote for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House EPA Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez poses with a campaign worker during a whistle stop in the Queens borough of New York Reuters Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Ocasio-Cortez outside the US Capitol AFP/Getty Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Ocasio-Cortez after casting her ballot in the 2018 midterm general election at a polling site in New York EPA Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez looks on during a march organised by the Women's March Alliance in Manhattan Reuters Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Ocasio Cortez looks on at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 16, 2019 AFP/Getty The 79-year-old, who began her second speakership in January following the Democrats victory at the midterms, maintained that her party was not divided between radicals and moderates. By and large, whatever orientation they came to Congress with, they know that we have to hold the centre, she said. That we have to go down the mainstream. She also addressed the idea of improving upon President Obamas Affordable Care Act by expanding Medicare, a plan supported by Ms Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and other left-wing Democrats. Well [the] Affordable Care Act is better than Medicare, theres no question about that. The Affordable Care Act benefits are better. Medicare doesnt have a catastrophic plan. So if you want Medicare for all, youre going to have to change Medicare and lets take a look at that. Ms Pelosi met Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Sunday at the beginning of her trip to the UK and Republic of Ireland. She said she had a candid discussion with the opposition leader about Brexit and antisemitism, among other subjects. The powerful Democrat has previously made subtle criticisms about politicians who depend on social media for public support. Ms Ocasio-Cortez, incidentally, has almost four million followers on Twitter. While there are people who have a large number of Twitter followers, whats important is that we have large numbers of votes on the floor of the House, Ms Pelosi said last week. In a February interview, the speaker of the House brushed off the idea of picking up Ms Ocasio-Cortezs Green New Deal proposal. It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive, Ms Pelosi said. The green dream, or whatever they call it nobody knows what it is, but theyre for it, right? Donald Trump has claimed he could fix the Boeing 737 MAX after the aircraft was involved in two fatal crashes. In a tweet posted at 6.29am, the president said: What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!), but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name. No product has suffered like this one. But again, what the hell do I know? Mr Trump is understood not to be an aviation safety expert and he did not clarify how he proposed to remedy technical problems that have beset the aircraft, leaving it grounded by authorities worldwide. The Boeing 737 Max was grounded in March after a second fatal accident killed 157 people in Ethiopia. Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home Show all 20 1 /20 Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home Donald Trump sits in the living room at Mar-a-Lago in 1993. The following pictures show the interior of the Mar-a-Lago estate. Many of them are from before Trump bought the property in 1985 but, as the newer pictures show, he hasn't done much with the place Rex Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home The dining room at Mar-a-Lago under Trump. The following pictures show the interior of the Mar-a-Lago estate. Many of them are from before Trump bought the property in 1985 but, as the newer pictures show, he hasn't done much with the place Rex Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home The dining room at Mar-a-Lago in 1967. The following pictures show the interior of the Mar-a-Lago estate. Many of them are from before Trump bought the property in 1985 but, as the newer pictures show, he hasn't done much with the place US National Park Service Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home The dining room at Mar-a-Lago under Trump in 2015 The Washington Post/Getty Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home Function room at Mar-a-Lago in 1967 US National Park Service Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home Donald Trump sits in the living room at Mar-a-Lago in 1993. Rex Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home The living room in Mar-a-Lago in 1967 US National Park Service Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home Master bedroom at Mar-a-Lago in 1967 US National Park Service Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home Library at Mar-a-Lago in 1967 US National Park Service Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home Cloister at Mar-a-Lago in 1967 US National Park Service Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home Entrance hall at Mar-a-Lago in 1967 US National Park Service Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home Spiral staircase at Mar-a-Lago in 1967 US National Park Service Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home The dining room at Mar-a-Lago in 1967 US National Park Service Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home Patio at Mar-a-Lago in 1928 US National Park Service Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home Cloister at Mar-a-Lago in 1967 US National Park Service Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home Mar-a-Lago in 2018 Getty Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home Mar-a-Lago in 2018 Getty Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home Mar-a-Lago in 2018 Getty Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home Mar-a-Lago in 2018 Getty Inside Mar-a-Lago - Trump's holiday home Mar-a-Lago in 2018 AFP/Getty The plane plunged into the ground shortly after take-off from Addis Ababa airport on 10 March 2019. An anti-stall system known as MCAS has been implicated. The official report into the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 revealed a struggle between the two pilots and the technology installed on one of the worlds most modern aircraft. It was the second such plane to crash in five months; in October 2018 a Lion Air aircraft was lost in similar circumstances soon after it left Jakarta airport in Indonesia, with 189 deaths. The presidents unanticipated intervention comes amid fresh scrutiny of Boeings relationship with the US governments Federal Aviation Administration. Airlines and aviation authorities have raised serious concerns over the closeness of the relationship. The Senate Commerce Committee is investigating whistleblower complaints that the FAA failed to give its safety inspectors adequate training to assess the Boeing 737 Max jets. Mr Trump was due to use Tax Day on Monday to visit Minnesota, an erstwhile Democratic stronghold he hopes to flip in 2020 after nearly winning it in 2016. Questions remain, however, about just how much he is politically benefiting from his signature legislative accomplishment. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Minnesota, which gave the country Democratic Vice Presidents Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, has not given its 10 electoral votes to a Republican since Richard Nixon in 1972. Mr Trump came within 1.5 percentage points of carrying the state in 2016 thanks to his strength among rural voters. The states Democrats saw a huge overall resurgence during the anti-Trump backlash of 2018, notably in traditionally Republican suburbs of Minneapolis and St Paul. Giving the president hope is the memory that his popularity outside the Twin Cities area helped the GOP flip two Democratic US House seats last year. Im glad hes coming to Minnesota, said state Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, the top Republican in state government. I think he realises Minnesotas in play. A former top FBI official has said special prosecutor Robert Muellers report could offer enough evidence to allow Congress to launch impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. Attorney General William Barr who hopes to release Mr Muellers nearly 400-page report this week said last month the special counsel investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government. Yet Frank Montoya, a former senior agency official with experience in counterintelligence, said the words did not establish are commonly used in national security cases as language merely ruling out a chargeable criminal offence. It doesnt mean a subject is innocent. It means investigators didnt find enough evidence to charge a crime, he told Reuters. Mr Montoya said it should fall to Congress to decide whether conduct discovered by Mr Muellers team warranted an effort to remove the president from office. History suggests the impeachment process does not rely on establishing wrongdoing beyond a reasonable doubt, he said. Mueller investigation: The key figures Show all 12 1 /12 Mueller investigation: The key figures Mueller investigation: The key figures Robert Mueller is the special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election, and potential obstruction of justice by the president. Mr Mueller has a pristine reputation in Washington, where he was previously in charge of the FBI. Throughout his investigation, he and his team have been notoriously tight lipped about what they know and where their investigation has led. REUTERS Mueller investigation: The key figures Former FBI director James Comey was the catalyst that led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. Mr Comey was fired by the president after Mr Trump reportedly asked him to drop his own Russia investigation. Mr Trump has long maintained that the investigation is a "witch hunt". AFP/Getty Images Mueller investigation: The key figures Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein had authority over the special counsel investigation for much of the two years it has been active. Mr Rosenstein found himself with that responsibility after then-attorney general Jeff Sessions recused himself from that oversight. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures Attorney general Jeff Sessions's decision to recuse himself from oversight of the special counsel investigation may have cost him his job in the end. Mr Sessions resigned last year, after weathering a contentious relationship with Donald Trump who vocally criticised his attorney general for taking a step back. Mr Sessions recused himself from the oversight citing longstanding Justice Department rules to not be involved in investigations overseeing campaigns that officials were apart of. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures Attorney General William Barr is currently responsible for oversight of the special counsel investigation. Mr Barr's office will be the first to receive the Mueller report when it is finished. His office will then determine what portion or version of that report should be delivered to Congress, and also made public. EPA Mueller investigation: The key figures Michal Cohn is the president's former personal lawyer, who has been helping the special counsel investigation as a part of a plea deal over financial crimes, and campaign finance crimes, he has pleaded guilty to. Among those crimes, Cohen admitted to facilitating $130,000 in hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign. Cohen has said he did so at the direction of Mr Trump. Cohen has also admitted that he maintained contacts with Russian officials about a potential Trump real estate project in Moscow for months longer than Mr Trump and others admitted. The talks continued well into 2016 during the campaign, he has said. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures Stormy Daniels has alleged that she had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006, soon after Melania Trump gave birth to Baron Trump. The accusation is of particular importance as a result of the $130,000 hush money payment she received to keep quiet about the affair during the 2016 campaign. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures Paul Manafort was Donald Trump's former campaign chairman. Manafort was charged alongside Rick Gates for a slew of financial crimes, and was convicted on several counts in a Virginia court. He then pleaded guilty to separate charges filed in a Washington court. Manafort has been sentenced to just 7.5 years in prison for his crimes in spite of recommendations from the special counsel's office for a much harsher sentence. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures George Papadopoulos was one of the first individuals associated with the Trump campaign to be charged by the Mueller probe. He ultimately received a 14 day prison sentence for lying to investigators about contacts he had with Russian officials. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures Roger Stone is a well known political fixer and operative, who has made a name for himself for some dirty tactics. He has been charged by the Mueller probe earlier this year, and he has been said to have had prior knowledge that WikiLeaks planned on publishing stolen emails from the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016. Getty Images Mueller investigation: The key figures Rick Gates was charged alongside former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for a range of crimes. Gates, who worked alongside Manafort for a pro-Russia Ukrainian political party. The two were charged with conspiracy and financial crimes. Gates pleaded guilty. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was one of the first casualties of the Russia scandal, and was forced out of his position in the White House weeks after Donald Trump took office. Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to "willfully" making fraudulent statements about contacts he had with Russian officials including former Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Flynn then lied to Vice President Mike Pence about that contact. REUTERS According to the attorney generals summary, no criminal conspiracy between Moscow and the Trump campaign was established. Yet court statements by members of by the special counsels team and evidence disclosed in various prosecutions by his office suggest lawmakers could yet reach a different conclusion. On Sunday Jerrold Nadler, the chairman of the House judiciary committee, claimed the full report may still reveal proof of very bad deeds. The Democrat said we should see and judge for ourselves. The most recent indication that the special counsel might document a possible conspiracy came during a closed-door court hearing in Washington DC on 4 February. Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said Mr Mueller was still investigating interactions between former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his Russian business partner Konstantin Kilimnik as critical to the inquiry. Trump says he has not seen or read the Mueller report This goes to the larger view of what we think is going on, and what we think the motive here is, said Mr Weissmann, according to a transcript released days later that indicated Mr Mueller might be on the verge of discovering new evidence. This goes, I think, very much to the heart of what the special counsels office is investigating. Mr Muellers team initially claimed Manafort shared political polling data from the campaign with Mr Kilimnik, who the special counsel has said had ties to Russian intelligence. However, three weeks after Mr Weissmann made his comments, Muellers office backtracked and said it needed to correct its assertions about Manaforts interactions with Mr Kilimnik. Partially redacted court filings indicated the correction may relate to the polling data. The special counsels full report is expected to be released later this week, with parts redacted by Barr to protect certain sensitive information. Mr Mueller has charged 34 people and three Russian entities. He convicted or secured guilty pleas from a series of Trump aides including Manafort, Flynn, Cohen and Papadopoulos, and has also charged Russian intelligence officers. Additional reporting by agencies Donald Trump reportedly yells at cable news during White House lunches with Mike Pence in which they dine on plates of chicken and cheeseburgers. According to The Atlantic, Mr Trump has ditched a longstanding presidential tradition of holding one-on-one meals with his vice-president. Instead, the billionaire allegedly invites both his and Mr Pences aides to the lunches, which are held in a small dining room off the Oval Office. There he keeps a big screen TV tuned into cable news. Aides told the magazine they have walked in on lunches to see Mr Trump yelling at the TV as he sits with Pence and their deputies over plates of chicken and cheeseburgers. When he sees something on the TV he disapproves of, sources said Mr Trump would sometimes interrupt the lunch to summon advisers to discuss a response. 'WITCH HUNT!' Trump cashes in on Mueller report with merchandise range Show all 6 1 /6 'WITCH HUNT!' Trump cashes in on Mueller report with merchandise range 'WITCH HUNT!' Trump cashes in on Mueller report with merchandise range The mug 'WITCH HUNT!' Trump cashes in on Mueller report with merchandise range The tee 'WITCH HUNT!' Trump cashes in on Mueller report with merchandise range The tee 'WITCH HUNT!' Trump cashes in on Mueller report with merchandise range The can cooler 'WITCH HUNT!' Trump cashes in on Mueller report with merchandise range The tee 'WITCH HUNT!' Trump cashes in on Mueller report with merchandise range The can cooler Mr Trumps cable news habit, even over lunch, comes amid an apparent escalation in recent weeks of his attacks on US media outlets, who he baselessly accused over the weekend of being corrupt and getting worse. On Sunday, he claimed without evidence New York Times journalists lie and cheat anyway possible, and on Friday complained about the newspapers choice of page for a negative story about a lawyer who served in the Obama White House. The White House has been contacted for comment. A senior Indian politician has been accused of disrespecting women after he appeared to suggest that the shade of a female opponents underwear showed her true political colours. The comments, described as absolutely disgraceful by the chair of the National Commission for Women, were made by a leader in the left-wing Samajwadi Party (SP), one of the major opposition parties in the countrys ongoing general election. Azam Khan was speaking at a rally in the bellwether state of Uttar Pradesh when he made a statement widely seen as referring to his rival Jaya Prada, an actor-turned-politician who is fighting to represent the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the seat of Rampur. The two were formerly colleagues together in the SP before Ms Prada defected to the BJP, a history Mr Khan appeared to allude to when he said he brought this person to Rampur, I made her familiar with the streets of Rampur ... and you made this person your representative for 10 years. Addressing the crowd, he said: It took you 17 years to understand the persons real face. I realised in 17 days that the underwear beneath is a khaki colour. Khaki is the colour associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the right-wing Hindu nationalist movement that is seen as the ideological parent organisation of the BJP. It might seem mild compared to the sort of statements made by western leaders who have gone on to be elected, but in conservative India the reference to underwear has led to a vociferous backlash. A criminal complaint has been lodged against Mr Khan at a station in Uttar Pradeshs Shahabad, police said, while the Election Commission of India has been called upon to judge whether the comments breached its model code of conduct, a set of rules governing how politicians, parties and the media must behave during election season. After reviewing video of the SP rally that was being widely shared on social media, Ms Prada said it was not the first time Mr Khan had made comments against me. He shouldnt be allowed to contest elections, she told the ANI news agency. Because if this man wins, what will happen to democracy? Therell be no place for women in society. Mr Khans comments were offensive, unethical and show disrespect towards dignity of women, said the National Commission for Women in a statement. Sushma Swaraj, a senior minister in Narendra Modis BJP government, called on the SP leadership not to make the mistake of staying silent on the matter. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, was reportedly present on the stage on Sunday when Mr Khan made the remarks. 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 Even the main opposition Congress party, which is allied to the SP in some states, criticised Mr Khans conduct. Priyanka Chaturvedi, Congresss national spokesperson, said the comment was absolutely unbecoming and this kind of filth in discourse needs to be condemned by all. The BJP, she said, had provided more than enough reasons to be critical without the need to lower the discourse to sexist/misogynistic comments. Mr Khan, responding to the furore on Monday, denied that his remarks had been directed at Ms Prada. He claimed the underwear comment was the continuation of an anecdote about a man who once issued him with a death threat. Shorts are worn by men [too], he said. I have been a minister, he told ANI. I know what to say. If anyone proves that I have named anyone and insulted anyone by name ... if it is proved, I will step back from the elections. Voting began in Indias mammoth six-week election on 11 April. The next phase will see voting held across 15 states on 18 April, while the seat of Rampur will go to the polls on 23 April. The election will conclude after seven phases in all and counting of the results will take place on 23 May. The last known female of one of the worlds rarest species of turtles has died, a zoo in southern China has said. The animal was one of only four Yangtze giant softshell turtles known to remain in the world. Suzhou Zoo, where the female turtle lived, is also the home to a male Yangtze giant softshell turtle. The other two live in Vietnam, though their genders are unknown. The female turtle died on Saturday afternoon, the Suzhou city government said in a statement citing the zoo. It said experts have already used technology to collect the turtles ovarian tissue for future research. Where not to visit if you love animals Show all 9 1 /9 Where not to visit if you love animals Where not to visit if you love animals Monkey shows Chimpanzees are forced to perform demeaning tricks on leashes and are often subject to cruel training techniques. Animals who are confined to small, barren enclosures and forced to perform unsurprisingly show symptoms of stress and depression. Chimpanzees have been documented rocking back and forth, sucking their lips, salivating and swaying against enclosure perimeters in distress. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Marine parks Some parks confine orcas to concrete tanks and force them to perform meaningless tricks for food - many die in captivity. Orcas are highly intelligent and social mammals who may suffer immensely, both physically and mentally, when they're held in captivity. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Tiger shows Tigers are forced to live in an unnatural and barren environment and have to endure interactions with a constant stream of tourists. Since tigers never lose their wild instincts, across the world they are reportedly drugged, mutilated and restrained in order to make them safe for the public. However, every year, incidents of tiger maulings are reported at this type of tourist attraction. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Donkey rides Sunning on the beach is great for humans we can take a quick dip or catch a bite to eat when we get too hot or hungry. But it's pure hell for donkeys who are confined to the beach and forced to cart children around on the hot sand. Some donkey-ride operators at beach resorts in the UK even keep the animals chained together at all times. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Swimming with dolphins Some marine parks use bottlenose dolphins in performances and offer visitors the opportunity to swim with dolphins. Unfortunately, people are often unaware that these animals are captured in the wild and torn from their families or traded between different parks around the world. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Canned hunting Lions are confined to fenced areas so that they can easily be cornered, with no chance of escape. Most of them will have been bred in captivity and then taken from their mothers to be hand-reared by the cub-petting industry. When they get too big, they may be drugged before they are released into a "hunting" enclosure. Because these animals are usually kept in fenced enclosures (ranging in size from just a few square yards to thousands of acres), they never stand a chance of surviving. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Running of the Bulls Every year, tourists travel to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls. The bulls who are forced to slip and slide down the town's narrow cobblestone streets are chased straight into the bullring. They are then taunted, stabbed repeatedly and finally killed by the matador in front of a jeering crowd. The majority of Spaniards reject bullfighting, but tourists are keeping the cruel industry on its last legs. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Horse-drawn carriages City streets are no place for horses. The animals toil in all weather extremes, suffering from respiratory distress from breathing in exhaust fumes as well as numerous hoof, leg and back problems from walking on pavement all day long. As easily spooked prey animals, horses subjected to the loud noises and unexpected sounds of city streets are likely to be involved in accidents, even deadly ones. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Zoos The zoo community regards the animals it keeps as commodities, and animals are regularly bought, sold, borrowed and traded without any regard for established relationships. Zoos breed animals because the presence of babies draws visitors and boosts revenue, yet often, there's nowhere to put the offspring as they grow, and they are killed, as we saw with Marius the giraffe in Denmark. Some zoos have introduced evening events with loud music and alcohol which disrupt the incarcerated animals even further. EPA The turtle was more than 90 years old and had undergone a fifth attempt at artificial insemination shortly before it died, the state-run Peoples Daily reported. A medical examination found the turtle to be in good health before the procedure, the paper said, and the artificial insemination appeared to go smoothly. But the turtle died the following day. Endangered turtle returns to beach to lay its eggs only to find runway has been built Yangtze giant softshell turtles originated in China, making their homes in the Yangtze river and Taihu lake, according to the Peoples Daily. The species is the largest known living freshwater turtle, and is often referred to as the most endangered turtle in the world. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Chinese and foreign experts are investigating the cause of the turtles death, the Suzhou city government said. The Kremlin has confirmed preparations are underway for a historic first summit between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un. On Sunday, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported the North Korean leader would travel to Vladivostok as early as next week. The Russian president is due in Beijing for high-level meetings in 26-27 April, and followed that a summit could happen in the days immediately before. The reports fell in line with earlier comments made by a group of Russian parliamentarians, who had intimated such a visit was planned in the spring. Speaking at his daily conference with journalists, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to name a date and time for the meeting but did confirm that the presidential administration was actively preparing for such a scenario. As soon as there is complete clarity over the timelines and place of the meeting, we will inform you, Mr Peskov said. North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits Show all 16 1 /16 North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea, portraits of former supreme leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are required by law to be hung in the home, the classroom, the factory and all manner of other private and public places Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the classroom AFP/Getty North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the living room AFP/Getty North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the maternity ward of the hospital Alamy North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits On board the ship Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits At the ballot box Mannen av bord North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the office AFP/Getty North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits On the bridegroom Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits On the Pyongyang subway Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits On a government building Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the teacher training facility AFP/Getty North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the home AFP/Getty North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits At the military parade Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the hall Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits At the Chinese border AFP/Getty With negotiations about sanctions relief at an impasse between North Korea and the US, the Kremlin hopes Kim is ready to pivot its way. But it remains to be seen whether Moscow has the leverage to deliver on what the North Korean leader needs. Kim wants gradual sanctions relief in exchange for limited denuclearisation moves, said the former diplomat and foreign relations expert Vladimir Frolov. 'Sometimes you have to walk' President Trump addresses media as talks with Kim Jong Un break down with no deal And here Vladimir Putin is more than happy to step in and present himself as the worlds elder statesman. But if there isnt major progress, Kim may well change tack and start doing bad stuff. A meeting between the two leaders has long been touted. Some had speculated it would happen at Russias flagship Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok last September. Then the meeting did not materialise, and instead Kim stayed in Pyongyang, some 500m from the Russian port city, for national Foundation Day celebrations. Aerial photos of wine-making regions across France and Germany show vineyards lit up by candles to save crops from succumbing to sharp spring frosts. Winemakers spent the weekend fighting the plummeting temperatures affecting the already well-developed grape shoots in the Chablis and Cote d'Or regions in eastern France, and the Weinboehla region in eastern Germany. Hundreds of people also reportedly helped to ward off the frost by lighting small grass fires and burning braziers across the winemaking regions. The cold snap comes after unusually warm spring temperatures, which mean many vineyards are weeks ahead in growth. Now wine growers fear a late cold snap could cause greater damage to their crops. In 2016, Chablis lost about half of its harvest to frost, hail and mildew. And in 2017, the region only picked about two thirds of its usual crop due to adverse weather. Across France as a whole, a mixture of hail, frost and mildew resulted in one of the countrys smallest wine harvests for 30 years in 2016. Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Show all 26 1 /26 Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Two winegrowers control small fires at the early morning in their vineyard in Weinboehla, Germany, Thursday, April 11, 2019. The fires protect the sensitive vines from frost. AP Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Autumn colored vineyard is pictured in Quinsac near Bordeaux, France, November 19, 2018. REUTERS Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Winegrowers observe anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards A winegrower lights anti-frost candles in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards A winegrower lights anti-frost candles in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards A winegrower lights anti-frost candles in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards A winegrower lights anti-frost candles in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Winegrower Alexander Thau checks soil temperature as anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards A winegrower observes anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards A winegrower observes anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards A winegrower lights anti-frost candles in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards A winegrower observes anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Winegrowers observe anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Winegrowers observe anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards A winegrower observes anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA Germans burn anti frost candles to protect Vineyards Anti-frost candles burn in a vineyard, during a cold spring night in the Weinboehla near Dresden, Germany, early 15 April 2019. Due to unusually low temperatures wine growers from vineyards of Schloss Wackerbarth try to protect their grape shoots with anti-frost candles. This year spring was hit by unusually warm temperatures and then the late frost can destroy the harvest. EPA France is the worlds top wine exporter by value, accounting for 29 per cent of the market at $10.3bn in 2017. Germany is the eight largest wine exporter by value, accounting for 3.2 per cent of the market at $1.1bn in 2017. Wine importer Great Domaines, which sources wines from Burgundy in eastern France, wrote in a tweet: Unusually low temperatures for this time of the year have seen many growers fighting frost with fire. 100s of people have been mobilised to light and monitor straw fires, to create smoke screens before sunrise & to burn braziers to help raise the temperature to protect the buds. Additional reporting by agencies The person or people who launched a drone attack at Gatwick in the week before Christmas had inside knowledge of the airport, a leading executive has said. Chris Woodroofe, chief operating officer at Gatwick, told BBCs Panorama: It was clear that the drone operators had a link into what was going on at the airport. Aircraft cannot operate in an area where an unmanned aerial vehicle is flying. The drone attack closed the worlds most intensively used runway for 33 hours during the busiest week of the winter. Between the evening of Wednesday 19 December and Friday 21 December, around 1,000 flights were cancelled at Gatwick. The closure wrecked the travel plans of around 150,000 passengers and cost the airlines and airport at least 50m; easyJet alone lost 15m. The world's healthiest and happiest airports Show all 8 1 /8 The world's healthiest and happiest airports The world's healthiest and happiest airports Therapy dogs at Vancouver International Airport Vancouver International Airport employs therapy dogs to assist with anxious and stressed passengers Vancouver International Airport The world's healthiest and happiest airports The rooftop swimming pool at Changi Airport, Singapore This airport also includes its own cinema Changi Airport, Singapore The world's healthiest and happiest airports Green space at Vancouver International Airport Vancouver International Airport scored top marks for outdoor and green space Vancouver International Airport The world's healthiest and happiest airports The outdoor terrace at San Francisco International Airport San Francisco International Airport is the seventh busiest airport in the US San Francisco International Airport The world's healthiest and happiest airports Fancy a dip? A pool at Dubai International Airport, the world's busiest airport and number three in the ranking Dubai International Airport The world's healthiest and happiest airports Frankfurt Airport With an open-air roof terrace, dedicated silent chairs, a quiet room and peaceful leisure facilities, Frankfurt International Airport came top in the ranking Frankfurt Airport The world's healthiest and happiest airports Work out The transit lounge gym facilities at Changi Airport's Terminal 2 Changi Airport, Singapore The world's healthiest and happiest airports The spa at Vancouver International Airport Vancouver International Airport came seventh in the ranking Vancouver International Airport In the BBC One programme, Mr Woodroofe said whoever was operating the drone seemed to be able to see what was happening on the runway. It was clear that the drone operators had a link into what was going on at the airport, he said. They had specifically selected a type of drone that was invisible to a drone-detection system that Gatwick was testing at the time. In addition, they may have been watching activity on the airfield and listening in to radio traffic as the airport prepared on several occasions to re-open the runway. Each time, the drone reappeared. Eventually, after military technology was deployed at the Sussex airport, the runway re-opened. But with 25 December only four days away, many of the disrupted passengers were unable to reach their Christmas destination. Sussex Police is treating the possibility that an airport insider was involved as a credible line of inquiry. A couple from Crawley were wrongly arrested for the drone attack. Paul Gait and Elaine Kirk were released without charge. Mr Woodroofe, who led Gatwicks response as gold commander, said: There is absolutely nothing that I would do differently when I look back at the incident. "Ultimately, my number one priority has to be to maintain the safety of our passengers, and that's what we did. Landing soon? Even after Gatwick's runway re-opened, operations were disrupted (Simon Calder) Reports that there was actually no drone are rejected by Sussex Police in the programme. They recorded 130 separate credible drone sightings, almost all of which were by aviation or security professionals. Mr Woodroofe described them as: People I have worked with for a decade, people who have worked for 30 years on the airfield, who fully understand the implications of reporting a drone sighting. They knew they'd seen a drone. I know they saw a drone. We appropriately closed the airport. One witness described the drone as not something you could pop into Argos for. This is in response to the Look in the Mirror opinion: First of all, where do you get the idea that Obama was the Great Divider and not Trump? Could it be that Obama was black? That is the only reason I can think you could come up with as he was a smart, kind and thoughtful president who was a great example for everyone in this country to emulate, unlike Trump. Trump has the character and intelligence of a seventh-grade bully. His actions, comments and tweets are a true example of an aggressive, mean, petty person who is exactly the opposite of what a leader of this country should have. You are delusional and you scare me also. Heathrow airport has announced increased passenger numbers for the 29th month in a row but traffic to and from Asia dropped by 2 per cent, and to the Middle East by 11 per cent. More than 6.5 million passengers passed through the UKs busiest airport in March, an average of 210,000 per day. The increase was 0.5 per cent compared with the same month in 2018, representing an additional 1,000 passengers per day. The airport said: The performance is especially strong considering that Easter is taking place later this year. While flights to Africa saw an increase of 6 per cent, passenger numbers to the Middle East were badly hit by Qantas turning its Melbourne service into a nonstop and changing the refuelling stop for Sydney services to Singapore. Royal Brunei dropping its refuelling stop in Dubai. But even with the reintroduction of Qantas flights to Singapore, numbers to Asia dropped representing 18,000 fewer passengers. The 10 most beautiful airport landings in the world for 2019 Show all 10 1 /10 The 10 most beautiful airport landings in the world for 2019 The 10 most beautiful airport landings in the world for 2019 Donegal airport in Ireland grabbed the top spot for the second year running in PrivateFly's 2019 poll of the most scenic landings in the world. Owen Clarke The 10 most beautiful airport landings in the world for 2019 The Outer Hebrides' Barra airport in Scotland claimed second place. Ewen Weatherspoon The 10 most beautiful airport landings in the world for 2019 Nice, France, took third place. The 10 most beautiful airport landings in the world for 2019 Orlando Melbourne in the US came fourth. The 10 most beautiful airport landings in the world for 2019 St Maarten in the Caribbean ranked fifth thanks to a dramatic approach. The 10 most beautiful airport landings in the world for 2019 Saba in the Caribbean swings into sixth position. The 10 most beautiful airport landings in the world for 2019 Queenstown, New Zealand, is seventh most scenic. The 10 most beautiful airport landings in the world for 2019 Canada's Toronto Billy Bishop was voted eighth most beautiful. The 10 most beautiful airport landings in the world for 2019 The UK gets a second spot in the top 10 with London City airport, which claims ninth place. The 10 most beautiful airport landings in the world for 2019 Aosta in Italy bags 10th place with its mountain views. They will be further hit in the April 2019 figures because of the cancellation of many Jet Airways services at Heathrow. They would normally be bringing 2,000 passengers a day to and from India. New domestic links began on the last day of March, with four flights a day to and from Newquay and a daily return flight to Guernsey. Heathrows chief executive, John Holland-Kaye said: Despite Brexit uncertainty, Heathrow remains a bright light for the UK, with the role we play in keeping people and products moving evident. Our new domestic connections will be pivotal in linking more regions and nations to global opportunities, benefiting all corners of this great country and we look forward to announcing many more of these as part of the expansion programme. Heathrows rival, Stansted, reported 6 per cent more passengers for March 2019 compared with a year earlier. A spokesperson for MAG, which owns the Essex airport as well as Manchester and East Midlands, criticised uncertainty about the UK laving the European Union, saying: It is clear that the best outcome for British people and businesses is for the UK to secure a deal that commands support of parliament and guarantees an orderly Brexit in due course. Continued uncertainty about these issues will ultimately be a drag on the economy and damage consumer confidence. Gatwick has yet to report its numbers. Meanwhile a national work-to-rule by French customs officials since 4 March has resulted in an estimated loss of 110,000 Eurostar passengers according to Getlink, which operates the Channel Tunnel. To Bibi or not to Bibi that was the joke floating around social media last week. The knife-edge elections, which took place on Tuesday, were more of a referendum on Benjamin Netanyahus 10-year right-wing rule than anything else. The Israeli prime minister was chasing the record of being longest-serving premier in Israeli history, but along the way was also hurtling towards the more inglorious title of being Israels first serving PM to be indicted. Despite the threat of a graft trial hanging above his head, and the swirling allegations of yet more corruption in the form of dodgy submarine sales, the final election results show he secured his greatest ever victory in terms of seat numbers. His right-wing Likud party swept 36 of the 120-seat Knesset, the highest number Likud has won under Bibi. Trump backs Israels annexation of Golan Heights Show all 7 1 /7 Trump backs Israels annexation of Golan Heights Trump backs Israels annexation of Golan Heights An Israeli soldier stands next to signs pointing out distances to different cities on Mount Bental, an observation post in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights Reuters Trump backs Israels annexation of Golan Heights Druze people take part in a rally in Majdal Shams near the ceasefire line between Israel and Syria Reuters Trump backs Israels annexation of Golan Heights Israeli Druzes sit together watching the Syrian side of the Israel-Syria border on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights Reuters Trump backs Israels annexation of Golan Heights A European member of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) using binoculars to look towards the Syrian side of the Golan Heights AFP/Getty Trump backs Israels annexation of Golan Heights A file photo taken on October 19, 1973 shows Israeli Defence Minister General Moshe Dayan (R) looking towards the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, four days after the beginning of the Yom Kippur War AFP/Getty Trump backs Israels annexation of Golan Heights A file photo taken on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on September 5, 2014 shows members of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force Zone (UNDOF) using binoculars to look towards the Syrian side of the Golan Heights AFP/Getty Trump backs Israels annexation of Golan Heights Members of the United Nations peacekeepers standing on a watch tower during a visit by the Israeli Defence Minister in 2018 AFP/Getty On the night of the vote, supporters at the Likud headquarters, draped in Israeli flags and wielding banners that read Trump, chanted magician at their leader. Flanked by towers of fireworks and bedecked with glittering confetti, Netanyahu passionately embraced his wife and declared that night to be a tremendous victory. The slight hitch was that about 500 metres away, Benny Gantz, Israels popular ex-army chief, had just delivered a similarly stirring acceptance speech but with (literally) less fireworks. Initial exit polls showed Gantzs Blue and White, an alliance of three ex-generals and centrist opposition leader Yair Laid, had just nudged past Likud in seat numbers. In the end Blue and White won 35 seats to Likuds 36. And they conceded defeat. But despite this, Netanyahus win was not the resounding victory he proclaimed it was. Blue and White performed surprisingly well. It is a feat that a political newcomer Gantz with an unknown hodgepodge party that was vaguely centre-right on some issues, had managed to win so many seats. Their success was not so much grounded in their political prowess, but their position as the only viable alternative to Netanyahu. It is an indication of how bitterly divided Israel is a tricky inheritance that Netanyahu and Likud will have to navigate. And that worrying polarisation will only widen in the coming months when Netanyahu faces a pre-trial hearing, after which the attorney general will decide whether to send him to trial. According to Israeli analysts and media the top prosecutor is very likely to push ahead with an indictment in three corruption cases. Although there is nothing in Israeli law that stops a prime minister serving while standing trial, will Bibis coalition partners stick with him through that? If not, would that trigger fresh elections? These elections also brought to the surface some other worrying indicators about the future of the country and the region. The success of the Blue and White alliance was in part due to it pilfering votes from the left, which has all but collapsed in Israel. All in all, the left really only secured 10 seats: Labor, the successor to the party of Israels founding father David Ben Gurion, won just six. The Arab-dominated parties also suffered losing three seats in total after an election alliance formed in 2015 split in two amid one of the lowest Arab turnouts in years. Many Arab boycotters cited a controversial Nation State Law, which Netanyahus government pushed through last year and defines national self-determination as the unique right of the Jewish people. Netanyahu is likely to build his most right-wing government yet, and will be under pressure to pander to coalition partners demands, to keep them on board amid the impending threat of indictment. Without a noisy left or a strong representation of Arab parties in parliament you could argue that would pave the way for him to fulfil his most controversial pre-election promises, such as the unilateral annexation of parts of the West Bank, which is a demand of the right but illegal under international law. That obviously does not bode well for the prospect of peace with the Palestinians. Particularly since there is a little hope among Palestinians in the deal of the century peace plan US president Donald Trump is expected to deliver in the coming months. In the lead-up to the elections, Trump controversially recognised Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in 1967. It boosted Bibis popularity but sparked fears similar actions could be taken over the West Bank. Trump had already moved the US embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognising the contested city as Israels capital, and slashed aid to the UNs Palestinian refugee agency. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events His last pre-election gift (or at least it was framed that way by Netanyahu in a tweet in Hebrew) was designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation. Just hours before polling stations opened, Netanyahu said Trump was answering a request he had made. Although not directly related to Israel/Palestine, its indication of their shared plan for the region and alignment of interests. Given all of this, how little would Trump object to, say, the whole or partial annexation of the West Bank? Whatever happens, Israel is entering a new phase of polarisation, with a leader who has been at the countrys helm for the longest in its history and who will likely be distracted by a complex corruption trial against him. All while a fraught peace process is supposed to be under way. 2019 will be a watershed year. Parliament has voted against leaving the EU with the Brexit deal weve negotiated. Parliament has voted against leaving the EU without a deal. Parliament has voted against having a second referendum. Parliament has voted against simply stopping Brexit by revoking Article 50. Plenty of attention has been on the idea of a softer Brexit. Among these options: a Norway-type deal, branded Common Market 2.0. Norway, outside of the EU, nevertheless seems to thrive in Europe. Nigel Farage may deny it now but he used to be a passionate defender of the UK getting a Norway-style deal. That was before he got the result he wanted in 2016. But in the indicative votes process, our politicians werent scrutinising the options ahead of them properly. So we at Our Futre Our Choice decided to do it ourselves. When we went to Oslo, we spoke to journalists, business leaders and politicians: all of them told us that the Norway deal, membership of the European Economic Area (EEA), is utterly essential to Norways economy. It gives them membership of the single market, meaning anything made legally in Norway is automatically legal to sell across the EU, and vice versa, because regulations are the same. That lowers prices for businesses, which in turn lowers prices for consumers. Agriculture and fisheries are excluded from that, but Norway still follows many of the regulations set by the EU in those areas in order to avoid costly border friction. Pete Buttigieg has finally announced that hes running for president. Since forming his presidential exploratory committee earlier this year, the mayor from South Bend, Indiana has created major buzz accompanied by substantial donations. But now, joined on stage by his husband Chasten, Buttigieg has formally entered the race. Launching his campaign, he told supporters: You and I have the chance to usher in a new American spring. Despite being a relative newbie to national-level politics and one from the rust belt, to boot Buttigieg has already proved himself to be a shrewd political operator. He seems to understand that much of campaigning on the big stage is about knowing which fights to pick the political battles that youre likely to win that cast you in a positive light. Buttigiegs early dispute with vice president Mike Pence is a perfect example. The mayor has been engaging in a war of words with the vice president in recent weeks over their starkly different interpretations of Christianity and homosexuality. Buttigieg, a Christian himself, first said that if Pence has a problem with his sexual orientation, then his problem is with God. He said: "Thats the thing that I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand. That if you have a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator. Pence, a man beloved by evangelical Christians on the American right, has a history of opposing LGBT+ discrimination protections and same-sex marriage. He has also been blamed for allowing an HIV outbreak to spread in Indiana while he was the states governor and he has previously supported the widely debunked practice of gay conversion therapy. Recently Pences wife Karen faced criticism for taking a teaching job at a religious school that bans openly LGBT+ students and teachers. This feud plays well for Buttigieg because it allows him to position himself as a different type of Christian to Pence. The young mayor has spoken openly about why Americas right should not have a monopoly on Christian values. He cites generosity towards the poor as Christian teachings which align more closely with left-wing policies than those of his right-wing opponents. This message is winning him fans. USA Today wrote that Mayor Pete Buttigieg's countercultural approach to Christianity is what America needs now. The Washington Posts Jennifer Rubin said that faith, not sexual orientation, is whats most interesting about Buttigieg. Cleverly, Buttigiegs feud with Pence highlights his own Christianity his most conventional characteristic while also positioning his modern approach to it as a key differentiator. His homosexuality his most unconventional characteristic in the political arena is also underlined, allowing him to present as both radical and conventional at the same time. Though what makes this feud even more fascinating is the fact that Pence also benefits from it. Responding to the young mayors comments, Pence said that Buttigieg was bringing attacks on his faith. His response echoes his response to criticism of his wifes new job as deeply offensive. This a major play to the conservative gallery, who see gay people demanding tolerance from them as a form of bigotry and Democrats supporting such views as an attempt to police their minds. Buttigieg then pivoted the issue onto policy, specifically LGBT+ discrimination protections, telling Ellen: I dont have a problem with religion. Im religious, too. I have a problem with religion being used as a justification to harm people and especially in the LGBTQ community. The fact that these two men, both from Indiana, have decided to put faith on the election frontline is yet another symptom of the culture war that currently rages throughout American society. Born and raised in the same state, these two men couldnt be more different, from politics to age and even the gender of their spouses. Yet religion the one thing they appeared to have in common has become a battleground. This is precisely how they want it to be. It benefits both to cast themselves as the polar opposite to each other on the big stage. One hopes to represent a vision for a new America of liberal values where faith influences progressive socio-economic policies, while another claims to defend the supposed values of the past with a worldview underpinned by economic and social conservatism. Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Show all 23 1 /23 Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Joe Biden The former vice president - poised to be a frontrunner - has announced his run. He recently faced scrutiny for inappropriate touching of women, but was thought to deal with the criticism well AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Bernie Sanders The 2016 runner-up has announced that he will be running again in 2020 Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Hillary Clinton The 2016 Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State says she is still considering whether she will run again. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Pete Buttigieg The Indiana mayor and war veteran will be running for president. If elected, he would be the first openly LGBT+ president in American history. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Kamala Harris The former California attorney general will be running for president in 2020. Introduced to the national stage during Jeff Sessions testimony, she has endorsed Medicare-for-all and proposed a major tax-credit for the middle class. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Elizabeth Warren The Massachusetts Senator has formally launched her bid for president in 2020. A progressive Democrat, she is a major supporter of regulating Wall Street. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Beto ORourke The former Texas congressman told Oprah Winfrey that he has been thinking about running for presidency, but stopped short of formally announcing his bid to run in 2020. AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Wayne Messam Mayor of the city of Miramar in the Miami metropolitan area, Wayne Messam has announced his bid. He intends to run on a progressive platform against the "broken" federal government. He favours gun regulations and was a signatory to a letter from some 400 mayors condemning President Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord. Vice News Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Kirsten Gillibrand The New York Senator formally announced her presidential bid in January, saying that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Cory Booker The New Jersey Senator has announced that he will be running for the presidency in 2020. If he secures the nomination he said finding a female vice president would be a priority. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? John Delaney The Maryland congressman was the first to launch his bid for presidency, making the announcement in 2017. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Julian Castro The former San Antonio mayor announced his candidacy in January and said that his running has a special meaning for the Latino community in the US. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Tulsi Gabbard The Hawaii congresswoman announced her candidacy in January, but is likely to face tough questions on her past comments on LGBT+ rights and her stance on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Andrew Yang The entrepreneur has announced his presidential candidacy, and has pledged that he would introduce a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every American over the age of 18. AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Marianne Williamson The author and spiritual advisor has announced her intention to run for president. She had previously run for congress as an independent in 2014 but was unsuccessful. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? John Kerry The former secretary of state has said he is still thinking about whether to run. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Michael Bloomberg The entrepreneur and former New York mayor with a net worth of around $50bn has said he will decide by the end of February whether to seek the presidency. AFP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Howard Schultz Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has not yet ruled out running for president in 2020, despite criticism that his bid could help re-elect Mr Trump by dividing the Democrat vote. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Eric Holder The former attorney general has said he will decide in the next month or so whether to run as a 2020 presidential candidate. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Eric Swalwell The California congressman said he is ready to do this and will decide before April whether to run. MSNBC Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Terry McAuliffe The former Virginia governor, who worked to elect Democratic governors during 2018 midterms, said there was a 50 per cent chance he would run. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Sherrod Brown The Ohio senator is still undecided about whether to run for president in 2020. Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Mitch Landrieu The former New Orleans mayor said he doesnt think he will run for president, but never say never. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin Launching his campaign, Buttigieg said: The horror show in Washington is mesmerizing. Its all-consuming. But starting today, were going to change the channel. Ironically Trump, the man behind the horror show whose job Buttigieg is after, is sickeningly good at picking his own feuds. Trump has a disturbing ability to identify people or organisations his core base of supporters will loathe and then to turn them into public enemy number one. He positions himself as the only one who can defeat them, and gets supporters to chant to that effect at rallies. Its a strategy which is working. At an extremely early stage in the campaign, Buttigieg has made interventions into topical disputes in order to ingratiate himself with supporters from Trumps tweets against Ilhan Omar to the actions of the Israeli government. Taking public stances during such high-profile rows has so far been an effective method for casting himself as the off switch to Trumps horror show. But his fight with Pence is his first instigation of a feud of his own (though its likely Buttigieg would argue Pence actually threw the first metaphorical punch). We know theres no perfect politician, president or political campaign. But in Buttigieg vs Pence weve found such a thing as the perfect feud. Dont expect this mutually beneficial arrangement to end any time soon. If this intelligent concoction is a sign of things to come, then were going to be seeing a lot more of Buttigieg. For most people in the UK, Brussels is all about the ongoing Brexit delays. What hasnt made the news is the other important issues being discussed in the European Parliament. In March, I stood in front of a thousand people in the Belgian capital, including world leaders and delegates from 56 countries. I was there to tell them how the Syria crisis has affected my life. I am not a refugee, but a member of a community which suddenly found a million and a half refugees in our midst. When the war in Syria broke out eight years ago, I was barely a teenager. Almost overnight, my small home country of Lebanon, with a population of only five million, saw a huge influx of people fleeing violence, terror and persecution. Most needed urgent humanitarian assistance. Now around one in four people in Lebanon is a refugee. Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year Show all 17 1 /17 Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year Nagan, 12, is one of 180,000 Syrian refugee children Unicef has identified as OOSC (Out Of School Children) who have been forced into work in Lebanon Paddy Dowling Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year The majestic snow capped mountains overlooking al-Wafa refugee camp in Arsal, Lebanon. It is home to 700 refugees who fled their homes at the outbreak of civil war in 2012 Paddy Dowling Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year Fuda al-Bareesh, 92, spends her days in solitude at Alsalam 2 camp in Arsal, Lebanon. She made the journey from Syria across the mountains alone on a donkey Paddy Dowling Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year Kareemah, 21, mother of two from Chebaa, southern Lebanon. She is unsure how her family will be able to afford basics like food and fuel if aid is cut off Paddy Dowling Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year Exercising patience in the cold, men and women wait to collect winter fuel at Alsalam camp, Arsal. Gifted by Muslim Aid UK donors, each family receives 20 litres enough for two days of continuous heat Paddy Dowling Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year The view to the snow covered mountains through the cracked pane of glass at al-Wafa camp Paddy Dowling Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year At al-Wafa refugee camp in Arsal, Abdul Al Moamen, 10, sits in tears Paddy Dowling Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year Ahmed, 3, helps his eldest brother to move the empty plastic jerry cans along the line as they get refilled at a fuel distribution centre Paddy Dowling Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year Qaram, 8, was orphaned when her father was killed by Isis. She is in desperate need of an operation to save her sight. Instead of going to school, she works eight-hour shifts each day on a nearby farm Paddy Dowling Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year Ahmed Fawzi, Lebanon country director for Muslim Aid, comforts Abdul al-Moamen Paddy Dowling Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year Bisan, 5, plays with friends in among puddles of rainwater from recent storms Norma and Miriam Paddy Dowling Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year Amina Safadi is a beneficiary of the Primary Healthcare Centre in Chebaa, Lebanon. The ICRC-accredited facility welcomes the most marginalised Lebanese residents as well as Syrian refugees. Safadi says she has no idea what she would do if the service was unavailable Paddy Dowling Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year The queue for fuel at a fuel distribution centre in Arsal Paddy Dowling Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year Hadi, 6, waits with aid workers whilst his mother collects heating fuel for the familys stove Paddy Dowling Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year Fuel bowser delivers aid to the 700 residents at al-Wafa camp Paddy Dowling Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year The child workers of Lebanon. Unicef says 180,000 children are working on farms and in factories Paddy Dowling Return to Lebanon: Syrian refugee crisis in its eighth year Ahmed Slabi and his five children. What are my choices now for me and my family? It's bad here or worse in Syria. He feels dependent on international aid, a social pariah and beggar in a country that is not his own Paddy Dowling Even before the Syrian crisis, the Lebanese economy was suffering. When the Syrians came, it created additional pressure. Youth unemployment is at an all-time high, and the proportion of Lebanese nationals living below the poverty line has just topped 30 per cent. When I was invited to address the Brussels conference, titled Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region, I chose not speak about the problems the Syrian crisis has brought to neighbouring countries. Instead, I told them about the solutions, the opportunities, that have arisen from this dire situation. Five years ago, I started volunteering to help the hundreds of thousands of refugees who were arriving. I wanted to help because they needed so much, and the Lebanese government could not do everything. At first, my parents were not happy. Nor were my friends. Our culture has strict rules when it comes to young girls socialising, participating in activities, volunteering and joining youth groups. And many people in Lebanon blame the refugees for our problems especially economic problems. I began taking part in an EU MADAD trust fund Youth Resolve project close to my home. It was run by UK aid agency CAFOD and Caritas Lebanon. Its main objective is to bring Syrian and Lebanese youth together. Now I have many Syrian friends and have begun to understand the difficulties and hardships that refugees face. I learned that you can never really judge somebody when you dont know what their life is like. I want to convince people that no matter where you come from, we are all humans, with the same wants and needs. We have been able to change some of the perspectives on both sides among Lebanese people and refugees and it inspired me to do more. People around me have started to understand that the Syrians did not come here by choice; they were forced to come here, and if they could go home, most of them would. These are all steps on the path to equal treatment. And when I stood up to speak in Brussels, in front of the people who can bring about material change, I was excited that this recognition might help us to take more of those steps. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Young people can affect the older generations opinion and should take the chance to do so. We will be the ones raising the next generation, and we dont need to do that based on opinions from another time. In the future, I hope to create a youth council back in Lebanon, where young people can share their views and be represented. I will never forget the struggles I faced when I tried to create a change, but when I spoke out I was able to succeed. This is only the beginning. Aer Lingus aircraft loaders at Dublin Airport are to ballot for industrial action after fears arose over outsourcing. The move comes after staff accused management of bringing in outside trainers from Manchester to train Dublin-based workers on aircraft push-backs rather than using its own locally based training department, according to well-placed sources. Tensions were also heightened at the airline's Cork base after an independent review of staff relations there raised "significant concerns". In Dublin, loaders agreed to the ballot and decided that in the meantime they would turn down any extra duties such as overtime, said the sources. "Aer Lingus has not received any formal notification in relation to any such ballot. Aer Lingus is engaged in a process with Siptu on a number of operational matters and both parties have agreed to accept an invite to the WRC," said an Aer Lingus spokeswoman, responding to a query from the Sunday Independent about the ballot and the outsourcing fears. A union committee meeting on Tuesday is expected to ratify the process and make arrangements for a ballot. Siptu said it had no comment to make. Meanwhile, a review of industrial relations practice in Cork raised serious concerns about "a high level of mistrust and polarisation" among Aer Lingus ground staff following a row over holidays. An official from the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) conducted a series of individual interviews with ramp staff and managers and raised "significant concerns", according to a letter sent to senior Siptu officials by Aer Lingus management. The review followed a dispute between the airline and some staff at the airport about annual leave entitlements. Siptu had requested that the WRC conduct a review of industrial relations practice and procedure in January. Aer Lingus wrote to Siptu expressing serious concerns about the WRC report and the situation at Cork, which it said continues to deteriorate. A high level of polarisation and mistrust prevails and what is striking from an industrial relations context is that the mistrust is essentially an issue with the staff group itself, said the WRC report. This mistrust extends to poor union representation which is divided on partisan lines. I would describe union representation as in effect broken down. The WRC official wrote that there is a fundamental inability by the union group to develop cohesive and agreed positions of relevance to all if not most members essential to engaging realistically and credibly with management on practically any issue. This is evidenced by the situation regarding annual leave issue which in any other workplace would be resolved by agreement and taking on board to the maximum extent the concerns and interest of all. In the letter to Siptu, Aer Lingus employee relations manager Sharon Morris said staff in Cork had questioned the companys decision to continue to engage with the current [trade union] committee in circumstances where they maintain the current committee do not in their opinion represent the entire operative section in Cork and do not have a mandate for the changes proposed. The airline said it had repeatedly sought to encourage this group of staff to continue to engage with the process and in particular to engage with Siptu to address their concerns. A Siptu spokesman declined to comment. An Aer Lingus spokeswoman said an annual leave arrangement had been put in place and it continues to engage with local representatives and union officials on a broad range of issues related to a limited number of staff. Petrol and forecourt specialist Applegreen is taking aim at the lucrative 400m aviation fuel market at rapidly growing Dublin Airport. Ireland's second-largest service station operator delivered its first batch of jet fuel in recent days with plans to take on the two incumbents who have the market to themselves - Shell Aviation and Texaco Valero. Publicly quoted Applegreen has partnered with World Fuel Services, a major global supplier of jet fuel. Close to a thousand kilo tonnes of jet fuel are used in Ireland annually, accounting for 18pc of the fuel market. "We made our first deliveries last week," Applegreen chief operating officer and co-founder Joe Barrett told the Sunday Independent. "The airport is expanding rapidly and there were only two players there and one of the things we wanted to do was to introduce more competition into the market in the same way we did with service stations. "It is a small part of our business at the moment because we are only learning the business but as an innovative company we are constantly looking to evolve." Theresa May's leadership has come under renewed pressure with calls on her to quit before the end of June. Onslaughts on the embattled prime minister come as the Conservatives and Labour resume discussions on a compromise deal aimed at delivering an early and orderly Brexit. But few observers have confidence in these talks and note that the UK Labour Party is also deeply divided on the issue. At the same time, two of the architects of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, have combined to pen a strong message to both the Conservative and Labour leaders. The pair have warned that the 1998 agreement is under threat, but also offer a solution to the crux - while they also endorse a second Brexit referendum before the latest extension expires on October 31 next. "Following the Good Friday Agreement, there were two referendums. The referendum in Northern Ireland, on the agreement, based on facts not promises, clarity not ambiguity, received a 71pc yes result," the two former leaders write in 'The Guardian' newspaper. "The related referendum in the Republic of Ireland achieved a 94pc yes. There is now time for a confirmatory referendum given the EU has expanded the Brexit deadline to 31 October. It is this that must be pursued, and May should take the lead in that process," Mr Ahern and Mr Blair add. In London, former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith said Mrs May must step down as prime minister by the end of June. He warned that taking part in European Parliament elections on May 23 would be a "disaster" for the party. The former leader said that the Conservatives were facing a "grassroots revolt" from activists over being asked to campaign for the Euro elections. Mr Duncan Smith told Sky's 'Sophy Ridge on Sunday' that part of the problem was Mrs May herself. These comments came as a new opinion poll showed the Conservatives at 29pc, down six points from a poll on March 28, and seven points behind Labour. An analysis of polls since the original intended March 29 exit day, published in the 'Sunday Telegraph', showed the Conservatives would lose 59 parliamentary seats if an election was held now. Mr Duncan Smith said polling on the party was worrying and he blamed the drop on the delay to Brexit. "It was on the 29th when we didn't leave, that's when this has all gone wrong. Up until then people were prepared to give Theresa May the benefit of the doubt," he said. Mrs May's de facto deputy, David Lidington, confirmed that the Conservative-Labour talks would resume this week and focus on the environment and workers' rights. But he said the process must speed up. Labour Party MPs are becoming increasingly irked by their party leader Jeremy Corbyn's continued opposition to holding a second referendum. They are increasing pressure for him to cave in. Prominent Labour MP David Lammy has defended comparing some Tory Brexiteers to Nazis. The high-profile campaigner for a new Brexit referendum hit out at members of the European Research Group (ERG) of Tory MPs who have urged UK Prime Minister Theresa May to take a tougher stance on EU withdrawal. Mr Lammy defended his views when asked on BBC's 'The Andrew Marr Show' whether a comparison he previously made between the ERG and the Nazi Party and South African racists was unacceptable. "I would say that that wasn't strong enough. "In 1938 there were allies who hatched a plan for Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia, and Churchill said no, and he stood alone," the Tottenham MP replied. "We must not appease. We're in a situation now, and let me just be clear, I'm an ethnic minority. "We have, in the ERG, in Jacob Rees-Mogg, someone who is happy to put on to his web pages the horrible, racist AfD [Alternative for Germany] party, a party that's Islamophobic and on the far right. "They're happy to use the phrase 'grand wizard'. KKK is what it evokes to me when I think of that phrase and the Deep South. "I'm sorry, but very, very seriously, of course we should not appease that, of course we should not appease that." The AfD was founded in 2013 as a Eurosceptic party in Germany, and has since campaigned for tougher immigration laws. Mr Rees-Mogg has previously denied supporting the party. Warehousing supply is now a major issue, says Thomas Burke of Retail Ireland Brexit looks like it has been pushed back until Halloween, but some numbers from first-quarter Exchequer figures indicate that some businesses have already been scared (somewhat) into action by the UK's plans for an exit from the EU. According to first-quarter Exchequer returns published earlier this month, Vat figures were up 6.6pc, which may come as a surprise given that some other indicators have suggested that consumer confidence is quite muted. Figures from KBC Bank and the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), for example, showed that Irish consumer sentiment fell sharply in February. Are consumers splurging nonetheless? Or are the higher Vat numbers evidence of stockpiling among Irish businesses? Chartered Accountants Ireland (CAI) believe that the Vat numbers, which relate to returns for January and February, may indeed reflect the fact that businesses based here started off 2019 by increasing their stock levels. Crona Clohisey, CAI's manager of Tax and Public Policy, told me stockpiling is certainly a live issue among its accountants, who are seeing Brexit-related business issues up close. "We have talked to members a lot and we have heard there is a lot of stockpiling out there, particularly in industries such as pharmaceuticals. A lot of people are buying in bulk," she said. She believes the Vat figures are puzzling. "There seems to be a lot more transactions in the market. Of course, that could be just consumer spending - as Vat is the biggest indicator of consumer spending - but from looking at different economic research done since the start of year, it has been suggested that consumer sentiment is down. "The amount of Vat reclaimed is up as well, which would add to the argument that perhaps there is something going on in terms of stockpiling." There may be other explanations, including the fact that Vat was increased in the Budget for the hospitality sector. But there is other evidence of stockpiling in the economy. The manufacturing sector has been Brexit-related stockpiling for several months. According to AIB's purchasing managers' index (PMI) in March, the manufacturing sector increased its holdings of pre-production inventories at its fastest rate in almost 21 years. Stocks had risen in 11 of the past 12 months as the sector attempts to avoid potential disruption from Brexit. Other sectors have been pre-empting shortages, it seems. Anecdotally, Clohisey has heard that warehousing space is at a premium. Not only has warehouse space gone up, logistics firms are now in a position to demand longer commitments from customers, business owners say. Thomas Burke, of Retail Ireland, part of Ibec, said warehousing shortages is a live topic with his members. "Obviously it's Brexit-related," he told me, "But it's also related to what's been happening to the supply chain over the last number of years. "The 'just in time' nature of the supply chain means there hasn't been banks of warehousing available. "When Brexit became a reality and people became concerned about cliff edges and wanted to look at stock inventories and wanted to increase those inventories it meant the amount of available space was limited." He is not a fan of the word stockpiling, but said many companies want to ensure they have a few more days of comfort in their supply chain. Other are planning for more significant disruption to their supply chains. One large communications company told me recently that it has brought in significant amounts of hardware to insulate it from the effects of Brexit, with several months' worth of supply now in place in Ireland. This company also bemoaned the rising costs of warehouse space. Even with the most benevolent Brexit outcome, there are very likely going to be some supply-chain problems, at least in the immediate aftermath of the exit when it does eventually happen. So prudent planning will require a cushion in the supply chain for a vast array of businesses. After last week's political developments, immediate concerns over shortages and supply chain interruption can be put to rest - for now. But given the many twists and turns of the past six months, it is very likely that it is only a matter of time before stockpiling becomes a very live issue. Everyone needs to be there promptly at noon, for the countdown to the hunt for 14,000 plastic eggs, said Caputo, recreation director for the village of Lake Zurich. The bunny is out there. You have the DJ and the tunes. Within seconds, theyre all gone. Stars in their eyes: Anti-Brexit protesters outside the UK Houses of Parliament. Photo: REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes Taoiseach Leo Varadkar revealed the Government is negotiating a multi-million-euro support package with Brussels for Irish exporters and the agri-food sector even if the UK does not leave the EU over the coming months. Mr Varadkar stressed the support package, while not to the order of the measures prepared for a no-deal Brexit scenario, would still be substantial enough to help offset some Brexit-related losses suffered by major elements of the Irish economy. The Taoiseach did not reveal the scale of the support package. However, sources indicated that the package will be worth more than 100m initially - and could be dramatically increased in scale if Brexit- related market disturbance continues. The package negotiated with the EU to help Ireland in the event of a no-deal Brexit with the UK crashing out of the EU was, in contrast, reported to be worth 500m-plus. Agriculture Minister Michael Creed had warned that, in the event of a no deal, Ireland would need "mega money" to offset the short-term hit on the agri-food sector and, in particular, the beef and dairy markets. Speaking at a Midleton Chamber of Commerce event, Mr Varadkar said the Government was negotiating with the EU for a support package, even if Brexit does not happen over the coming months. "We are also engaging with the European Commission on assistance that might be required in a no-deal scenario for our agri-food sector and our exporters," he said. "We have a very substantial package in place that will be ready for the agri-food sector, especially the beef sector, if we find ourselves in a no-deal scenario. "Indeed, I am in discussion with EU Commissioner (Phil) Hogan and Agriculture Minister Creed to see if we can do a package anyway - recognising that there has been a market disturbance just because of the threat of Brexit without it even happening," he added. "I think that is a real possibility - it would not be on the scale of what we would have to do in the case of a no-deal Brexit but I think it would be helpful and welcome to the industry nonetheless." The Taoiseach acknowledged that the Irish tourism, agri-food and general exporters sectors have been hit by mounting uncertainty over Brexit and the fluctuations of sterling against the euro. "The most exposed sectors (are) those in the agri-food industry, in meat in particular, and of course in tourism. "Even though Brexit hasn't happened yet I know that some people and some businesses are already seeing the effects because of the effect the fall in the value of sterling has had on tourism and the impact of (market) uncertainty on beef prices. "People and our businesses want reassurance and want security," he added. Mr Varadkar said Ireland was doing everything possible to tackle such issues here - while negotiating with the EU and UK for the best possible Brexit. "There is no good Brexit - and a no-deal Brexit would be very bad for Ireland. "But we have put in place many of the things that we needed to so we can soften the fall if it happens. "One thing we have been doing is preparing for the past two years for any eventuality where we have assistance for businesses with low-cost loans, we put together a comprehensive contingency action plan which is now in place. "The legislation which has not been passed in the UK has now been passed in Ireland, it was signed by the President on St Patrick's Day. "Legislation that protects the common travel area, that protects student grants, welfare pensions - all of those things will be protected no matter what else happens as a consequence of Brexit. "And also there is a real focus on citizens' rights, contingency put in place for air connectivity and road haulage. "For those of you involved in business, it is important for me to ask - once again - that you prepare for all possibilities," he added. Artists impression of Fibonacci Square, which Johnny Ronans RGRE will develop as part of Facebooks new EMEA headquarters in Ballsbridge, Dublin Allied Real Estate Group, a company controlled by developers Adrian Langan and Cathal McGinley, is offering 69.3m for all 90 apartments at Ballsbridge Court in Dublin with a view to levelling them and building 300 or more build-to-rent units on the site. Ballsbridge Court backs on to AIB headquarters, which will eventually be home to Facebook's new European base. Facebook opened its first office in Ireland a decade ago and now employs about 4,000 people across a number of city centre sites. The Facebook headquarters on the AIB campus, which is being developed by Johnny Ronan, is expected to be home to 5,000 of the US company's employees when it's completed in about 2022. AIB is moving its corporate headquarters to Molesworth Street in the city centre. The arrival of Facebook in the Ballsbridge area could prove a boon for landlords if well-heeled staff seek out accommodation in the area. The build-to-rent scheme planned by Allied Real Estate Group on the 1.85-acre site behind the AIB campus would most likely be progressed as a strategic housing development. That means permission for the scheme would be determined by An Bord Pleanala rather than by Dublin City Council. It's believed that the process of acquiring the 90 apartments at the Ballsbridge Court complex - which includes one and two-bedroom units - is almost complete, with most apartments having already been agreed for sale to Allied Real Estate. It is thought that two-bedroom apartments are being acquired for more than 800,000. It's not known yet from where the funding for the acquisitions has been secured. Mr Langan is also a director of Barina Construction, a building company that was caught up in the downturn. It's now under the control of a Nama-appointed receiver. Barina Construction's ultimate parent company is Barina Property Group Ltd, which has never been listed as being in receivership. Mr McGinley has in the past been involved in marketing apartments in Manhattan to Irish buyers, and has been involved with Mr Langan on a number of projects. Earlier this year, their Allied Real Estate Group vehicle acquired the Royal Liver Retail Park on the Naas Road in west Dublin for 25m. A recent report from Investec cited industry sources as saying that there is 7bn of institutional capital seeking build-to-rent assets in Ireland, primarily in Dublin. Investec chief economist Philip O'Sullivan said that the Dublin market has a "chronic lack of accommodation", which is raising rents and ensuring occupancy rates remain high. Last week, a company connected to developer Bernard McNamara secured permission for 110 build-to-rent apartments at a site in Santry, on the capital's northside. An artists impression of the Clerys Quarter project, which will feature the citys largest rooftop restaurant and aims to become a destination development, with a mix of retail, office, hotel and food; below, Dublin Town chief executive Richard Guiney Two years ago a batch of top US architects and designers huddled around a boardroom table in a small office on the north side of Dublin city. The walls of the room were plastered with maps, designs, sketches and heat maps, each filled with information about the city centre. The American Institute of Architects had been tasked with delivering a new future for Dublin 1, an area facing "civic schizophrenia - a split personality". What they devised was a plan for a more welcoming north inner city. A plan that would not only increase footfall along the streets but also lengthen the average stay in the area bounded by Capel Street and Parnell Street, stretching down as far as the IFSC. The institute recommended that the storage and disposal of rubbish should be taken off the streets, that the use of shutters should be ended, and that the area be populated with more communal meeting areas and green spaces. It also laid out proposals for how to brighten and improve the city's alleyways and laneways. It was all sparked off by a proposal from Dublin Town, a business lobby group, which has for some time believed in the potential of an area that sits just 700m from Grafton Street. "We're looking to create a more district feel to an area that hasn't had a significant upgrade for the last 30 to 35 years," Dublin Town chief executive Richard Guiney says. "At the moment, footfall after 5pm on the north side nosedives, but a better night-time economy can be created to keep that steady throughout the day. There is absolutely an appetite for good quality cafes and restaurants and bars. If we can get the social element right it'll also help the retail end of things." Dublin City Council also has its own plans for the district, including budgeting for an upgraded Wolfe Tone Square, work on which is due to start this summer. Other projects that have received backing are the pedestrianisation of Lower Mary Street and the upgrade, and potential pedestrianisation, of Liffey Street. The council has also committed to hoisting Dublin 1's laneways into the 21st century through various means, including improved lighting and surfacing as well as encouraging business activity in them. The efforts being made to transform Dublin 1 into a hub of economic activity is encouraging. Take boom-era developer Noel Smyth's planned hotel on middle Abbey Street. The facade of the building will be dragged back under a canopy so that someone standing at one end of the south side of the Ha'penny Bridge can see right into Henry Street for the first time. A simple but very effective pull. Private developers such as Smyth have identified the north inner city as a growth market. His hotel is one of six proposed in a 250m radius. Real estate investment firm Tetrarch Capital is in the process of building the 157-bed Moxy Hotel in Sackville Place while Pat Crean's Marlet Property Group has secured permission to build a 239-room aparthotel on Abbey Street Upper. "If you got in a time capsule and got out in 2025, you would be witnessing a very different area," Guiney says. The Dublin Town chief is also a big believer of above-the-shop housing, a concept once synonymous with city living. It's true that moving people wholesale above shops would unlock thousands of units across the city but every time it's been touted the take-up has been muted. Why? Guiney says it is due to an impasse between those trying to preserve the history of the city and those tasked with upholding fire safety standards. Widespread take-up of such a scheme could drastically improve on the mere 3,000 people living in the area at present. Outside of hotels, Hammerson has already engaged architects for its massive development along O'Connell Street. While official plans have yet to be lodged, a mixed-use development - including high-end residential and retail - are likely to adorn the site that will centre around a Metro line stop. Across the road is Core Capital's Clerys. Since the former department store was sold it has sat, like a ghost of days gone by, in one of the most prominent locations in Dublin. Not for long, however. "Our view is that this is something we have to create a destination out of, it's not going to be somewhere that someone is going to head in because they're heading past the front door, we have to create a destination development," says Core MD Derek McGrath. "We will have the largest rooftop restaurant in the city, there's not many of them, but we'll have the largest of them regardless. It's our view that people will walk out of their office on Dawson Street and they'll hop on a Luas for an evening in the rooftop bar or in the market behind. That idea would have been laughed at 10 years ago." Core partnered with Europa Capital, a division of New York real estate firm Rockefeller Group, and Paddy McKillen Jnr's Press Up Group on the 63m deal. The building will be a mix of retail, office, hotel, and restaurants. McGrath's optimism for the area is rooted in the numbers. "We're opportunity investors and we're very comfortable in terms of the market and the point of where we're at in the cycle," he says. "We generally tend to stay on the south side of the river, so this was a new foray for us to go into something north side of the river, outside of the likes of Dublin Landings and that sort of area. "We had a look at the location, which would historically be considered to be a fringe location in terms of office. In terms of retail it's not Henry Street, it's not Grafton Street, but it is O'Connell Street - and that should be Dublin's premier thoroughfare in theory." Tot up the amount of private money that will and has recently been invested in Dublin 1 and it doesn't take long to blast past the 2bn mark. "There's a lot of money changing hands at the moment," McGrath says. "There's new owners coming in, and they're buying sites and buildings which need to be transformed and are looking for the next chapter of their existence. For us, that's very encouraging because everything that's changing hands at the moment needs a new breath of life put into it - needs to be re-energised, reinvented, and recreated." The Core Capital chief feels that the mood around the north inner city is far different to what it was before the crash. McGrath believes the money that's coming in now is far more "stable", originating from pension funds eyeing a more long-term play. The introduction of Press Up to O'Connell Street has been described as a "game-changer" for the area. McKillen Jnr has captured a sizeable portion of Dublin's nightlife in recent years. He's added the Stella Cinema and Cocktail Club in Rathmines, the Devlin Hotel in Ranelagh, the Lucky Duck pub on Aungier Street, and the Grayson restaurant on Stephen's Green, to his stable of locations. His involvement in the project has injected further optimism to the idea of making Dublin 1 a home for nightlife. "There is a huge appetite between developers in the area, which nobody wanted to invest in for years," says Lorcan O'Connor, MD of the Carroll's Property Group. "There's also the huge potential of the market that will hopefully come on stream as a result of the investment." O'Connor's group has 50 sites dotted across the D1 postcode, most of which are small and likely to be joined up with others to form larger developments. The company has built up its land bank over 30 years and has decided now is the time for significant development. O'Connor is looking to tie up a number of joint ventures with companies that have a better understanding of the development game. "I have never seen the appetite that we've seen for the Dublin 1 area," O'Connor says. "We missed the last Celtic Tiger, but definitely at this stage we're inundated with people looking for investment opportunities. A lot more international investors are looking at Henry Street as one of the busiest shopping streets. They're looking, in particular, at the north side." For years O'Connell Street has been tipped as offering immense potential, often seen as a street that should be much more than it is. Now, a tram runs along it, making it more accessible than ever and soon, if plans go ahead, an underground Metro. The broad thoroughfare, which is steeped in the country's history, may finally be on the cusp of achieving that potential. THREE SCHEMES TO WATCH 1: Once due to be the jewel in the crown of Joe OReillys Chartered Land portfolio, the six-acre site was down to be an ambitious mixed-used scheme before the banking crisis hit. Now, new owners Hammerson have employed architects to devise a new vision. 2: Boom-era developer Noel Smyth has been given the go-ahead to build a 55m hotel on Middle Abbey Street in the city centre. Construction has already begun on the 310-bed development, which is set to be finished within 18 months. 3: Private equity group Tetrarch is behind the construction of the boutique Moxy Hotel, which will run on Sackville Street. The 158-bed hotel received planning permission in 2016. A new facade, as well as offices in the building will give the street a new lease of life. Billions, starring Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis, is one of the shows that Sky has used to carve out market share Sky Ireland will tell the Department of Communications that new regulations for online content should ensure that video-sharing platforms, such as YouTube, will become as accountable as traditional broadcasters. It is understood that Sky's submission to a consultation will claim it is illogical that services with the potential to cause the most harm are the least regulated. Sky will be one of a number of broadcasters and technology groups making submissions in a consultation on the revised EU Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) directive. The directive will have a significant impact on social media sites such as Facebook as well as on-demand services such as Netflix. As first revealed by the Sunday Independent last year, Ireland will have a central role in the policing of these new rules given that a number of new media organisations have their EMEA headquarters in Dublin. Facebook has already met the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) to discuss the new rules. The department is holding a consultation on the new directive, which covers a wide range of topics including the type of regulator which will be needed to police the new rules. It is understood that Sky Ireland will also argue the VSPs are competing for the same advertising revenue as traditional broadcasters and on-demand services which means they should also be subject to the same commercial restrictions. Sky, which airs popular shows such as Billions and Game of Thrones, will also argue that it makes no sense to make traditional stations adhere to rules on content if viewers can get easily access the non-regulated material on online services. The position of Sky Ireland is in line with comments made in the UK recently by Group CEO Jeremy Darroch: "Given the harm caused by online platforms, particularly to children, we welcome the (UK) Government's move toward introducing oversight, accountability and sanctions." He described a white paper there as "important step toward creating a regulator with sharp teeth". PEOPLE slept in cars overnight as first-time buyers with young families competed to buy one of 27 properties at the weekend - with all properties selling out within an hour. Buyers queued in their cars overnight on Friday in a bid to secure properties at the new Heathfield estate in Ballincollig, just outside Cork city. The houses - priced at 325,000 for a three-bed and 375,000 for a four-bed semi - sold out within in an hour. The scenes were described as 'like the Hunger Games for housing' by the Labour Party on social media. Its like The Hunger Games for housing. This shouldnt be the route we have to go down. We used to queue for concert tickets; now we are queueing for our homes. @CiaraSKennedy https://t.co/zf6nW2I5j9 The Labour Party (@labour) April 15, 2019 And Savills agent, Catherine McAuliffe, said shed never witnessed anything like this in Co Cork before. Ms McAuliffe, director of residential sales in Cork, said: We didnt expect the turnout ourselves, certainly not people queuing overnight. But its about location - this is Ballincollig, on the edge of city, with access to the ring round round the city, so basically thats access to everywhere quickly. All 27 properties sold out in an hour on Saturday. Demand is obviously driven potentially by the fact the Help to Buy Scheme is coming to an end. We dont have may first-time buyer houses in Cork city, or close to city, so I think this was really driven by demand. A lot of people are loan approved and are just waiting for that type of product to come along, especially in that particular area. I havent seen it before - I have heard of a couple of sites who had two or three cars (queuing overnight) but nothing like what weve seen this weekend, to be honest. People took to social networks to criticise the site of cars parking overnight in Cork - something extremely unusual outside Dublin. Woody Manning took to Facebook to write: This is absolutely shocking. How do people with young families have a chance? Alan ONeill wrote: People are working mental hours, sacrificing their lives just to pay back some bank mortgage. Who can afford a 350,000 for a house...why are people bowing to the demands of society and the economy, feeling the need to sleep in their cars, to view a house? While Aisling Doyle wrote: The Celtic Tiger is back againimagine being in your car (overnight) sitting in the dark, in cold weather, not being able to move out of fear of losing your place in the queue. Im sorry for anyone sitting in their car (overnight)...working the hours they do, to save to buy a home...this genuinely goes against Irish culture. Its not funny, its not to be taken lightly...where will we be in five years. Ms McAuliffe said she felt the houses were a good price. You can certainly buy cheaper than that but I think it was the location thats really driven it, she added. They are very nice houses, Ballincollig is its own town, in its own right, on the edge of the city, with good access to everywhere. A lot of buyers are living locally. The buyers were young families, first-time buyers, probably 70 pc were first time buyers. The next release of houses (in this development) will be in the Summer this year but the houses selling now wont be ready til next year. Fine Gael councillor for Ballincollig, Derry Canty, said: I saw the cars there myself. Buyers wouldn't be on the site (overnight) unless they were able to afford the properties, so its fair enough. Ballincollig is a growing town, were near Cork city and theres good schools and amenities and great city access. Theres four housing schemes going on in Ballincollig at the moment. I wish whoever bought the houses well and hopefully theyll be happy and settle down in Ballincollig. The Help to Buy scheme is available until December 31 this year. Last year Independent.ie reported that the Government initiative which offers tax breaks of up to 20,000 had been blamed for inflating property prices during the housing crisis. Critics also said the scheme was benefiting only house buyers at the higher end of the market. The History of Irish Book Publishing is a beautifully-produced book, that manages to be both celebratory and scholarly. Published posthumously, the book is testament to Tony Farmars vast knowledge of the world of Irish writing, and his enthusiasm for publishing history. It includes small and large publishing houses, and champions independent publishing in Ireland. Men and women publishers are equally noted, from the early giants such as Michael Gill, to Lisa Coen and Sarah Davis-Goff who have had outstanding recent achievements with Tramp Press. Indeed, Farmar reminds us that it was Tramp Press that helped to expose contradictions in the Man Booker Prize rules. When Tramp published Mike McCormacks Solar Bones in 2016, it was deemed ineligible for the Booker. The following year, when Tramp sold the rights to a UK publisher, Solar Bones appeared on the Booker longlist. Tramp Press publicised the discrepancy in Booker policy to great effect. This drew attention to ongoing negotiations between the committee of the Man Booker, Publishing Ireland, and the Royal Irish Academy. From January 2018, Irish publishers became eligible to nominate titles for consideration. Packed with nuggets of publishing information, the book is divided into two parts. Part one comprises a thoroughly-researched history of Irish publishing, from the 19th to the 21st centuries. Part two is described as a chronicle. It is a year-by-year summary of key events and people in Irish publishing. Each entry is concise, yet factual, and the inclusion of the chronicle allows the author to display his knowledge with panache. But the main body of the book comprises the 10 chapters in part one, that survey the field and leave no stone unturned. Farmars impetus for writing this book was his concern that people tend to view publishing as merely as the method by which literary texts get into the hands of readers. He wanted people to know about the physicality of books, and how they are designed and constructed. He also wanted to lay bare the processes of book distribution, sale, and usage. He revels in the world of publishing, explaining in detail how it is both a business and a profession. Some Irish publishers have played a crucial role in encouraging authors, and have invested their technical expertise and capital in manuscripts that they believe have literary quality. However, literary masterpieces are rarely bestsellers. Farmar reminds us that most publishers stay afloat by having a balanced portfolio of books. He notes that Dublin firms such as Gill, Duffy and Talbot, balanced their literary output with education, religion and politics. Stanley Unwin, a distinguished British publisher, said that the first duty of a publisher was to remain solvent: a bankrupt publisher was of use to neither writers nor readers. Successful Irish publishers have managed to respond to the literary swings of fashion, while also bringing out a steady amount of law, science, education and theology. The Hodges family, which had several firms and partners over many decades, became successful in the 19th Century, having become official booksellers to Trinity College Dublin and to the Queens Colleges of Cork and Galway. Another firm which built up a robust list of factual and educational publications was Alex Thom, who secured the Post Office printing contract. From 1844, Thom began publishing directories, educational titles and legal reference books. Video of the Day Michael Henry Gill also became a prominent Irish publisher in the 19th Century, and like Hodges ran a university press alongside commercial publishing ventures. Gill would became an Irish publishing success story, settling into a premises on Sackville Street in 1876, where it remained for 100 years. Irelands early success in the export of books is also examined. School textbooks, published by the Irish Commissioners of National Education, were exported in their thousands to English and colonial schools in the mid-19th Century. The success of this export business caused premier British publishers, including both Longman and Murray, to complain to the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, about unfair competition from Ireland. Lord John did little to mollify the two publishing giants. Farmars skill as a social historian is evident throughout the book, and his discussion of the impact of 19th Century circulating libraries, and the popularity of British three-decker novels, is lively. Three-volume novels, which compelled avid readers to buy each volume, soon became bloated and poor in quality. By the end of the century, libraries refused to stock them. In Ireland, publishers avoided them, favouring shorter novels that sold well in bookshops. The growing appetite for amusing fiction in the 20th Century is explored well by Farmar, who reminds readers of Augustine Birrells comment that half a dozen really popular novels will put their authors in possession of a sum of money more than equalling the slow accumulations of a laborious professional life. The publication of popular periodicals is also surveyed. Almost everyone had a try, Farmar tells us. Somerville and Ross, Yeats, Joyce, George Moore, and Oscar Wilde were all published in periodicals. Farmar is particularly knowledgeable about how books were produced, offering a clear account of developments in mechanisation and printing. He is also at home in discussing the social world of 20th Century Irish publishing, and clearly knew almost every writer and publisher in this country during his own professional life. This volume will be cherished by book lovers, and will become a valued reference tool. Indeed, it is unlikely that anyone will attempt to revisit the theme any time soon: Farmars work will become the definitive study of Irish book publishing for decades. Pat Byrne Celebrates winning the the Voice of Ireland Final in The HelixKOBPIX NO FEE Ever wondered what happened to the first person crowned winner of RTE's The Voice Of Ireland? Seven years later, Carlow man Pat Byrne is taking the Texas music scene by storm. Named as artist of the month in The Austin American-Statesman, Pat (30), from the village of Borris, has been winning over new fans with his own songs and adaptations of Texas classics. Speaking from Austin, the state capital, Byrne said: "I'm so honoured and thrilled to be named artist of the month. Expand Close The Voice of Ireland Winner Pat Byrne. Photo: Kyran O'Brien / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Voice of Ireland Winner Pat Byrne. Photo: Kyran O'Brien "The last few years have been very challenging; but even more rewarding. "I would love to get to the stage where it's possible to sign with a big label. But I'm not chasing it. I just want to be able to make music, and for people to want to hear it." US music critic Peter Blackstock hailed Byrne as the next big thing stateside. "The guess here is that he'll be playing far larger rooms before long; he's too good... to not reach his level," he wrote. Part-time music teacher Pat added that money is not his motivation. "I've always found it fulfilling and rewarding to create music, and to follow the high that I get from performing," he said. The Beatles pause to look at the huge crowds after their return from the US in 1964 (PA) New York Police Department log books for the officers given the task of protecting The Beatles from hoards of screaming fans as they conquered America have gone on show. The little piece of Beatles memorabilia shows the NYPD officers given the job of keeping the worlds hottest property from thousands of their adoring fans for their first visit to the US and their historic performance on the Ed Sullivan show on February 9, 1964. Detailed as the visit of Beatles singing group, the handwritten police blotter lists Sergeants OShea, Jones and McAuliffe, with officers Delgado, De Angelo, Lucarelli and Madden among the detachment looking after the four visitors from Liverpool. Expand Close NYPD log book of officers detailed to look after The Beatles on their first visit to the US. (PA/Magical Beatles Museum, Liverpool) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp NYPD log book of officers detailed to look after The Beatles on their first visit to the US. (PA/Magical Beatles Museum, Liverpool) The logs were saved from destruction by NYPD officer Patrick Cassidy, whose father was one of the officers on the detail and who in January donated them to the Magical Beatles Museum in Liverpool. Expand Close NYPD officer Patrick Cassidy who saved the log books from the scrap heap. (PA/Magical Beatles Museum, Liverpool) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp NYPD officer Patrick Cassidy who saved the log books from the scrap heap. (PA/Magical Beatles Museum, Liverpool) Mr Cassidy said: The Ed Sullivan theatre is in the confines of my precinct, so one day in 2013 I went into the storage area that holds these books. After 50 years they clean out and destroy them, so I looked up February 64 and found the book, which would have been destroyed the following year. His father told his son he found the four lads from Liverpool well dressed and well behaved, and that they unassumingly thought that the crowds outside the hotel were for someone else. Expand Close Edward Cassidy, Patricks father, an NYPD officer who looked after The Beatles on their visit to New York. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Edward Cassidy, Patricks father, an NYPD officer who looked after The Beatles on their visit to New York. Video of the Day The log further records The Beatles first visit to Carnegie Hall and also an incident on February 12 1964 when an officer who was attempting to restrain the surging crowd was knocked off balance and sustained an injury outside the Plaza Hotel. Expand Close NYPD blotter detailing the officers assigned to look after The Beatles for the visit in February 1964. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp NYPD blotter detailing the officers assigned to look after The Beatles for the visit in February 1964. The Beatles had already hit number one in the US charts and the anticipation surrounding their arrival from England had not been seen since Elvis Presley in the 1950s as Beatlemania crossed the Atlantic. Hoards of screaming youngsters and reporters shadowed the bands every move, with police on alert for fans posing as hotel guests to get close to them. Their first live TV performance in the US was watched by a then record 73 million people, with 60% of the TVs in the US tuned to the show. The police log books are now on display at the Magical Beatles Museum, Liverpool. After almost two years in the dark, fans of the hit HBO series Game of Thrones will finally get their burning questions answered. **WARNING: SPOILERS FOR SEASON 8 EPISODE 1 AHEAD** At the Belfast premiere on Friday, the voice of Sansa Stark introduced the first episode of the final season: Welcome to the beginning of the end. And thats exactly what it feels like. The creators of the Emmy award-winning show gave fans a season premiere packed with one-liners, reunions and big plot moments. Season seven revealed the truth about Jon Snows Targaryen lineage and the final season begins with he and Daenerys Targaryen riding side-by-side into Winterfell. Sansa Stark doesnt warm to her new queen and neither does the feisty Lyanna Mormont, who reminds Jon Snow that the houses in the North chose him as their king. The episode is filled with a number of moments which may spark trouble ahead for the relationship between Jon and Daenerys. Sam Tarly learns how she executed his father and brother after they refused to bend the knee and reveals this to Jon, just before dropping the bombshell about who he really is Aegon Targaryen, rightful heir to the Iron Throne. Daenerys has always seen herself as the deserved ruler of the seven kingdoms so her reaction will be a defining moment in the fate of Westeros. Game of Thrones is not renowned for its comedy but in between the serious exchanges there were a number of laugh-out-loud moments. This is perhaps a tactic by directors to soften the horror of the inevitable violence and deaths that will follow in the remaining episodes. David Nutter, who directed 'The Rains of Castamere' episode, was recently asked if there was a scene as shocking as the infamous Red Wedding in store in the final season. The short answer is yes, he said. There wasnt much blood shed in this opener as it was an episode heavily focused on reunions. Sansa and Tyrion Lannister, whose fateful marriage in season three was not to be, meet for the first time since Tyrion was wrongly accused of murdering his nephew Joffrey. Video of the Day And while many of the reconciliations were heartwarming (Arya and Jon; Arya and Robert Baratheons bastard son Gendry; and Theon Greyjoy rescuing his sister Yara), the most intriguing reunion came right at the very end. Jaime Lannister, who fled Kings Landing after learning his sister Cersei had no intention of fulfilling the temporary truce by helping the other houses fight the White Walkers, rides into Winterfell under hooded cloak. As he dismounts his horse, his facial expression soon turns to one of shock as he sees Bran Stark the boy he tried to kill in season one after he witnessed Jaime and Cerseis incestuous relationship in action staring right at him. Jaime Lannisters character is one which evolved a lot throughout the previous seven seasons. He has gone from a would-be murderer of a young boy to one of the shows most redeeming characters, so this ending teed up episode two nicely. And while we didnt see anything of the Night King, we know that the dead are heading straight for Winterfell. We waited so long for winter to come, and now that its here, its a very bittersweet feeling. Game of Thrones season 8 episode 1 will air again on Sky Atlantic on Monday night at 9pm. A 78-year-old man forced to travel to Belfast for a cataract operation having waited two years for treatment via the HSE is among the people featured in a new RTE documentary series about a Kerry Credit Union. Thomas, who is already unable to see via his left eye due to the condition, is seeking a loan of 2,000 from Cara Credit Union in Tralee to cover the cost of the treatment, which he will later be refunded by the HSE. The pensioner was told it would be six months before he would receive an appointment on the public system and a further six months before he would receive the treatment, by which stage he fears his eye would be further damaged. Its a scandal in a way, isnt it? says Thomas in the first episode of The Borrowers, which airs on RTE One at 8.30pm tomorrow night. But hopefully this now the fact Im going north will help to highlight the situation too. Expand Close Thomas needs private surgery to save his sight and applies for a Credit Union Loan in episode 1 of The Borrowers. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Thomas needs private surgery to save his sight and applies for a Credit Union Loan in episode 1 of The Borrowers. Cara Credit Union Loan Officer, Maurice ODonoghue, feels for Thomas plight. Its very frustrating to see that, he says. We hear it in the news and we read it in the papers and then when you meet someone whos going through it it suddenly drives it home. It drives it home. As good as this country is lads, theres a lot of improvement needed. Expand Close The Borrowers, RTE One (LtoR) Kevin, Noranne, Maurice, Derry, Michael and Thomas / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Borrowers, RTE One (LtoR) Kevin, Noranne, Maurice, Derry, Michael and Thomas Thomas is travelling to Northern Ireland with other patients on a bus organised by local TDs, the Healy Raes, having seen an advertisement in the Tralee Advertiser. Its "never a surprise to hear the Healy Raes are involved, says Maurice. How could that be a surprise? The Healy Raes are keeping this country going, grins Maurice (who, earlier in the episode, also reveals he's a big fan of novelty socks). Expand Close The Borrowers, RTE One. Gary and his dad Eugene / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Borrowers, RTE One. Gary and his dad Eugene Its not all bad news for Thomas, however, as his trip to Belfast will mark a major milestone. I was never out of the country before, never out of the 26 counties. Thats an achievement in itself I suppose, to be able to stay at home! he laughs. Video of the Day Id prefer to go to Ballyheigue or somewhere, or Ballybunion, somewhere locally in west Kerry. Im looking forward to a day in Belfast to see how other people live and see their culture and enjoy the situation. The Borrowers explores the very human stories behind their customers loan applications, whether they need cash for a wedding, christening, car or something a little more unexpected, like cosmetic surgery. We also meet the loan officers who assess - and either approve, or reject - their applications. Among the latter is Derry Fleming, who will be recognisable to many as Bat Dad, who went viral in 2017 along with his family (even appearing on Jimmy Kimmels show) after a bat flew into their kitchen and the mayhem was captured on camera. In the first episode Derry meets Michael, a musician hoping to travel to Nashville and Memphis where, he reveals, he will be meeting a lady who offered to show him around. Was there a spark like? Derry asks Michael, who seems a bit taken aback by the enquiry. Im just worried about getting the loan back! Derry assures him. Fellow Loan officer Colette Dolan, meanwhile, meets Gary (25), who is has been driven to the credit union by his father Eugene to apply for a loan to pay Eugene back 9,000 which he shelled out on his credit card for a car and insurance for Gary, who is still learning to drive. You would see a lot of the parent coming in and guiding the child how to get the loan, Colette tells the camera. The Borrowers airs Tuesdays at 8.30pm on RTE One THE leader of the association representing 2,200 garda supervisors has said it will support its member at the centre of allegations of being involved in security consultancy work, contrary to the force's regulations. Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors general secretary John Jacob said any member facing an investigation into allegations in the past had been given its backing and he expected that would also happen on this occasion. Two high ranking members of the association have opted to stay away from its annual conference, which began in Ballyconnell, Co Cavan this afternoon, because they were not satisfied at the way the allegations were being handled. Vice president Paul Wallace and deputy general secretary Antoinette Cunningham both decided not to attend the three-day event as a rift within the leadership widened following the controversy becoming a public issue at the weekend. The issue totally dominated a four-hour meeting of the association's national executive on Sunday evening where most members agreed that the conference should be held, as planned. Mr Jacob said this afternoon that he did not agree that the controversy had cast a cloud or a shadow over the conference. He said he was not sure that it had been clearly articulated by those, who had stayed away, whether their absence was related to that specific issue and he was not able to speak on their behalf. But there were 140 delegates attending to listen to the debates and outside presentations. "The delegates that have spoken to me are not concerned about those allegations and they want to get on with the agenda", Mr Jacob added. "The person at the centre of the allegations should be entitled to the anonymity that is given to anybody else facing other allegations. "Due process should be allowed to take its course and Garda management allowed to investigate these allegations", he said. "In the past the association has supported any of its members facing allegations and that will happen on this occasion, too". Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan is due to address the conference this evening. Two high-ranking members of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) are staying away from its annual conference, due to get under way today, as a result of allegations that another member is under internal investigation. The member is alleged to have been involved in security consultancy work, which is contrary to the force's regulations. The AGSI confirmed last night that the allegations had been reported to the Garda authorities through protective disclosures and said it would not be commenting further as it was important that due process take its course. However, association vice president Paul Wallace and deputy general secretary Antoinette Cunningham have both opted not to attend the conference. The allegations have resulted in a big rift in the AGSI's leadership, but the three-day conference is to go ahead as planned. The association's national executive met for almost four hours last night in Ballyconnell, Co Cavan, where the conference is being held. This meeting is held annually on the eve of the conference, but last night's agenda was dominated by discussions on the allegations, which became public at the weekend, and how to deal with them. Some members felt that their colleague at the centre of the allegations should not be involved in the association, pending the outcome of the Garda investigation. However, this was not the majority viewpoint on the executive. Most of the executive were adamant last night that the conference should go ahead today and be addressed, as planned, by Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan this evening and Garda Commissioner Drew Harris tomorrow. It is alleged that the AGSI member at the centre of the allegations was involved in security consultancy work for Coolmore thoroughbred racing stud in Co Tipperary in 2016 and 2017. Private employment in the security industry is one of the areas prohibited for gardai. Leo Varadkar during a visit to the Sikh temple in Serpentine Road, Dublin. Photos: Gareth Chaney Collins Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had no qualms about wearing his party's colours at a celebration in Dublin marking the Sikh festival of Vaisakhi. While celebrations of the religious festival traditionally take place in northern India, it is also commemorated by Sikhs around the world, including Ireland. Yesterday's ceremony at the Sikh temple (Gurdwara) in Ballsbridge also saw dozens of Hindu and Muslim members of the Indian community attend the event. While there were a multitude of head scarves to choose from, Mr Varadkar, Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy and former Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald appropriately opted for the bright blue ones. "I am very glad they are blue because it's a Fine Gael colour," Mr Murphy said as he addressed the guests. While a Gurdwara is a place of worship in Sikhism, people of all faiths and backgrounds are welcome to enter the temple. This year also marks the 100th anniversary of the Amritsar massacre, an incident which involved the deaths of 379 Sikhs at the hands of British Indian soldiers during a religious festival. Earlier this week, British Prime Minister Theresa May in the house of Commons described the massacre as a "shameful scar on British-Indian history". On trial: Patrick Quirke at court with his wife Imelda as the murder trial reaches its closing stages. Photo: Courtpix Patrick Quirke has pleaded not guilty to the murder of part-time DJ Bobby Ryan A portion of Mary Lowrys evidence against accused Patrick Quirke has been described as devious, devious poison by a defence barrister at the Tipperary murder trial. Bernard Condon SC claimed Ms Lowry changed her account of seeing Mr Quirke on the morning his love rival Bobby Ryan went missing, casting him in suspicious light. Mr Quirke (50), of Breanshamore, Co Tipperary, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Ryan (52), a part-time DJ known as Mr Moonlight, on a date between June 3, 2011, and April 2013. Continuing his closing argument to the jury, Mr Condon said a portion of her evidence as very worrying. Expand Close Bobby Ryan / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Bobby Ryan Mr Ryan had stayed the night of June 2, 2011 with Ms Lowry, his girlfriend, but left before she got up to take her children to school. He was missing until his body was discovered in an underground tank on her farm almost two years later. Mr Condon said that in a statement given six days after his disappearance, Ms Lowry said she saw Mr Quirke, who was leasing the farm, at work in the farmyard around 8.30am. At the time she said she believed he was doing some work early in the day as he was heading away with his family for the weekend. The barrister said that after the body was found, Ms Lowry introduced a new detail into her account, that Mr Quirke was hot, sweaty and bothered looking when she saw him that morning. Mr Condon said that in court, Ms Lowry said there was something odd about Mr Quirke being there at 8.30am. This was a piece of the most devious, devious poison that has been delivered across the face of the Central Criminal Court for many a year. Expand Close Patrick Quirke has pleaded not guilty to the murder of part-time DJ Bobby Ryan / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Patrick Quirke has pleaded not guilty to the murder of part-time DJ Bobby Ryan The defence barrister spent much of Monday, the second day of his closing statement, discussing the merits of Ms Lowrys evidence. He claimed Ms Lowrys was manipulative and that her evidence about Patrick Quirke contained lies and should not be believed. Ms Lowry was a person prepared not to tell the truth when it suits her, the barrister said. He claimed she was able to bald faced sit here and say black is white. He also said Ms Lowry had engaged in revisionism and there was a very significant worry she presented her evidence in a way that was manipulative. Mr Condon also attacked the prosecution case against his client, saying it was a forensically barren wasteland. He told the jury is should not look at the quantity of the evidence, but the quality of it, and that a lot of the inferences they were being asked to draw had nothing to do with the murder. The defence barrister said there was uncertainty over the events of June 2 and 3, 2011. When you have uncertainty over those events, then you have a difficulty, he told the jury. The trial has heard Mr Quirke leased Ms Lowry's 60-acre farm at Fawnagowan, Co Tipperary and had an affair with Ms Lowry, which she described as sordid and sleazy. However, she was in a relationship with Mr Ryan when he disappeared in June 2011. Mr Condon highlighted a number of aspects of Ms Lowrys evidence where he said she was prepared to revise history. He said it was suggested Mr Quirke was not a good friend of Ms Lowrys late husband Martin Lowry. Mr Condon said all of the evidence would not support that. He also focused on her evidence about a night away she and Mr Ryan spent in Bundoran, Co Donegal just days before his disappearance. The trial heard she was annoyed when she found Mr Ryan dancing with another woman and that she gave out to him for five hours on the journey home. Mr Condon said that in fact what happened was that they broke up on the journey home. The trial heard they reconciled two day later. Mr Condon said Ms Lowry subsequently told gardai Mr Ryan was dancing with a woman in Bundoran he met the night before. But when she was quizzed in the witness box, she said this was a woman Mr Ryan had known years before and they were just catching up on old times. Mr Condon also said Ms Lowry had invented a claim she asked Mr Ryan if it was okay for her to dance with another man on the same weekend away. Mr Condon said the jury had to be careful about placing undue weight on Ms Lowrys evidence. He said that while the visit to Bundoran was not of consequence to the case, what was of consequence for the jury was whether it could take her evidence as gold standard and something I can take to the bank. Mr Condon said Ms Lowry had told gardai very negative things about Mr Quirke. He said the jury had to look at the person who this evidence was coming from and see what they said in other areas where, perhaps, the stakes werent so high. Can you accept the evidence of this person beyond reasonable doubt, he asked the jury. He described her evidence on the Bundoran visit as a worrying sign. It is a red flag or a red light, he said. Mr Condon said raging and fuming by Ms Lowry over what happened in Bundoran had been played down by her in her evidence. He said she was a person who is prepared not to tell the truth when it suits her. The barrister said there was an unreliability about Ms Lowry and the gardai have attached themselves to her. The jury was also told it was being asked to accept that Mr Quirke assaulted Ms Lowry in her kitchen either at the end of 2010 or in early 2011. But scant detail was given of the alleged incident, Mr Condon said. If you make that sort of allegation, it behoves you to provide some sort of detail, he said. Mr Condon also raised Ms Lowrys evidence about a supposed trip with Mr Quirke to the Cliff House Hotel in Ardmore, Co Waterford in September 2011, a few months after Mr Ryans disappearance. The barrister said even though a credit card statement suggested she was there, Ms Lowry had issued a whole series of cant remembers in the witness box. He said this was a very strange presentation and that the jury should favour Mr Quirkes account that they did go away together. In her evidence, Ms Lowry said her relationship with Mr Quirke became a sexual one in January 2008. She claimed he crossed the line, that she found him overpowering and that she was very vulnerable at the time. But Mr Condon told the jury a suggestion by gardai that Mr Quirke wanted sex and money on demand was not true. There is no suggestion of demands for sex, he said. This was a consensual adult relationship. The barrister also warned the jury to be careful when it came to talk of Mr Quirke having depression. He said that although this had been mentioned by Ms Lowry and in a letter allegedly written by Mr Quirke to an agony aunt, a doctor had found the accused did not have a proper depression at all. He was not diagnosed with depression and he was not referred to a psychiatrist, said Mr Condon. The barrister said someone might make the leap of thinking a depressed person might well kill somebody. I caution you, I ask you with the greatest of earnestness I can summon, not to make that leap, he said. Niall Sweeney was drinking for the first time in ten years A PUB-GOER who bit a gardas hand as he was being arrested in a melee displayed incredible strength during the violent struggle, a court has heard. One garda said Niall Sweeney (31) showed a level of strength he did not think was possible for a man of his build, while pepper spray had no effect on him. Earlier, Sweeney had threatened to shoot a bouncer when he and friends were asked to leave. It had been his first night out drinking in 10 years. Judge John Hughes jailed him for three months and suspended another two. Sweeney, a truck driver and father-of-two from Co Donegal, had admitted the threat to kill but pleaded not guilty to assault causing harm to Garda Kevin Meaney, as well as public order offences. He was found guilty on all counts. Dublin District Court heard the incident happened at The Temple Bar pub in the early hours of November 30, 2017. The doorman had asked Sweeney and friends to leave when the accused pushed him out of the door, made a finger gesture at him like a gun and said he would shoot him. Garda John Paul Keohane said that when he arrived, Sweeney told him to f**k off and refused to leave. When escorted out, Sweeney became very violent, struggling and kicking as he was carried. The level of violence shown to myself and Gda Meaney was the most I have seen in my career, Gda Keohane said. He was showing a level of strength that I didnt think was possible for a man of his build. Sweeney was taken to Pearse Street Garda Station where he had cuts to his face and was spitting blood. Gda Keohane believed he received the injuries while thrashing on the ground. Sweeney was taken to hospital for treatment. Gda Meaney said as he tried to bring Sweeneys arms behind his back, the accused resisted and his strength was incredible. He bent down his head and bit me on my left hand. I felt a sharp pain, Gda Meaney said. I could feel his teeth digging into my skin. He pulled his hand away and a protective glove he was wearing had been torn off in the struggle. I remember drops of sweat dripping off my nose. I was absolutely exhausted, he said. He had to use all his force to stop Sweeney kicking him. Afterwards, the gardas hand was throbbing with pain and had teeth marks but the skin was not broken. The accused did not go into evidence. As well as being jailed, Sweeney was ordered to pay 1,000 compensation. Bail terms were set in the event of an appeal. Meanwhile, a co-accused, Anthony Gallagher (26), a builder of Aboligan, Dungloe, Co Donegal, admitted assaulting the doorman by pushing him over. The court heard the group had gone out drinking after work and things got out of hand. He was fined 500 after paying 150 compensation. On average 136,000 vehicles use the tolled section of the M50 every day. Photo: Arthur Carron A Dublin woman has been fined 22,000 for unpaid M50 tolls. Nicole Spellman, with an address at Kilcarrig Green, Fettercairn, Tallaght, had 446 unpaid M50 tolls, Dublin District Court heard today. Judge Anthony Halpin was told some 1,300 letters were sent to Ms Spellman in relation to the tolls. No payments were made. Ms Spellman was one of ten motorists accused of dodging M50 tolls. Another motorist who allegedly used Irelands busiest motorway 800 times without paying had a bench warrant issued for his arrest after he failed to turn up to for his trial. He is contesting his case and has instructed a solicitor to defend him. In all the prosecutions which resulted in the 97,000 in fines imposed earlier today, none of the motorists who had been summonsed came to court. Cases against them went ahead in their absence. Judge Halpin imposed smaller fines on some motorists who made efforts to pay their tolls but said: The people who disregard it totally are fined heaviest, they have no regard whatsoever. In one case he adjourned he granted legal aid and said this was due to the seriousness of the offence. The barrier-free toll motorway is operated by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII). Judge Halpin said the authority was in charge of maintaining the roads and he warned, If people want to use certain roads they have to pay; if they dont, the penalties are quite high. Each case finalised featured five sample counts and photo evidence of how many times the defendants vehicles had been detected using the motorway without paying the charge. The court heard the prosecution evidence showed the passage of the vehicles, mostly private cars, on the motorway on dates in May, August, October and November 2018, as well as proof of vehicle ownership at the time. Vehicle owners were given six months to pay the fines as well up to 350 in prosecution costs. Prosecuting counsel Thomas Rice BL said a TII official had certificates of ownership as well as images of the vehicles passing the toll gantry on the M50. The court can impose fines of up to 5,000 per charge as well as a sentence of up to six months. The court had heard it was TIIs policy to negotiate with defendants and some cases on the list were adjourned. The registered owner of a vehicle is responsible even if they were not driving the vehicle. The standard M50 toll for an unregistered private car is 3.10 must be paid before 8pm the following day or else there is a 3.00 penalty for having missed the deadline. Motorists have 14 days from the date of issue to pay for the journey and the initial penalty; otherwise a further penalty of 41 is applied. After a further 56 days there is an additional penalty charge of 103 and if it remains unpaid legal proceedings follow with the possibility of a court fine of up to 5,000 as well as a jail term of six-months, or both, per offence. Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin has hit out at the "alarmist" claims made about the proposed divestment of schools in north Dublin, warning there was "a danger of a new polarisation" between schools of different religious ethos. He said different schools must learn what is good about each other. Speaking about inclusion in Irish society and the Catholic Church, Dr Martin told the Irish Independent: "We don't need to have a Catholic school and a non-religious school which are in opposition to one another or that teach disrespect or disregard for each other. "If we are going to have a system which is worthwhile, in which there are Catholic schools and schools for others of other philosophies, we must learn what is good in each other. That is something that is not stressed often enough." He added that there was "a danger of a new polarisation". The archbishop, who is patron of around 90pc of primary schools in Dublin, stressed that inclusion is about a society in which people come to "know and respect difference and allow difference to flourish". Recently it emerged that a vote on the future patronage of Catholic primary schools in north Co Dublin was postponed after parents and staff at two of the eight schools raised concerns about a possible transfer of patronage to other patron bodies. The Episcopal Vicar for Education for the Archdiocese of Dublin, Monsignor Dan O'Connor, wrote to the schools informing them of the decision to postpone the vote and cited "confusion and misinformation" among parents, pupils and the schools over the divestment process. At a Mass to mark the Society of St Vincent de Paul's (SVP) 175th anniversary in Ireland, Dr Martin warned that a society that "fosters and perpetuates exclusion and marginalisation is to that extent a God-less society". Similarly a Church that fosters and perpetuates exclusion and marginalisation is to that extent "a God-less Church". He told up to 1,000 volunteers of the SVP gathered in the Convention Centre in Dublin for a conference to mark the anniversary that homelessness and poverty are "truly an indignity and affront to the dignity" of those who live in poverty and an "affront to the dignity of the society in which we live". He recalled that as a young boy witnessing "a poor Dublin", he would never have imagined that in the 21st century "we would be facing new expressions of poverty such as the current crisis of housing and the fact that thousands of children live the indignity of homelessness in our country". He also expressed concern for the people of north inner-city Dublin. He said the area had been "marked by so much tragedy and poverty" and "so much exploitation by unscrupulous drug barons". The Boundary Agreement, which expires in six years, limits development of the of the Stancliff property to 80 single family homes. The Prairie View area plan, which Bragg said is part of the Comprehensive Plan update for the entire village, suggests the property could have as many as 73 single houses and 58 row or town homes. The agreement can be extended. Painting a picture: Enrolments rose in all of the four Dublin areas at primary level as the figures show the growing divide of where families are settling. Stock picture Pupil numbers in primary schools in several rural counties have fallen this year while pressure for places is piling up in the Greater Dublin Area. The growing divide in where young families are settling comes into sharp focus in a Department of Education analysis of year-on-year changes in primary and post-primary enrolments, broken down by 31 local authority/administrative areas. When account is taken of both sectors, as well as the Dublin region, the strongest growth in enrolments shows up mainly around Cork, Limerick and Galway, all university cities, with associated high concentrations of industry and business. If the trend continues, it threatens the viability of more rural primary schools along the Atlantic corridor, while at the same time the school building programme is playing catch-up on the burgeoning populations elsewhere. Already, the population flight from rural Ireland has seen a 10pc decline in the number of small primary schools over the past decade. The urban-rural gap raises wider questions about the effectiveness of Government policies for regional and rural development. It was previously reported that between September 2017 and September 2018, primary pupil numbers grew by 0.8pc nationally, with a 1.5pc increase at post-primary. But the department's latest bulletin illustrates the uneven nature of year-on-year change, particularly at primary level, with falling enrolments in six counties or administrative areas, predominantly on the western seaboard, while Leitrim was static. The biggest decline was in Co Clare, down 80 pupils - from 13,682 to 13,602 - followed by Kerry (-37), Mayo (-29), Donegal (-27). There was also a dip in Carlow (-26) and Cork city (-11). In contrast, enrolments rose in 24 areas, including in all of the four Dublin local authority zones, and particularly in Fingal and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, each of which had increases of 1.5pc-2pc. In Fingal, more than four in 10 (41pc) primary schools saw an increase in pupils, while enrolments grew in 37pc of schools in Dublin city. Fingal also has the largest primary schools, at an average 415 pupils. Meanwhile, Roscommon, Sligo and Galway city bucked the downward slide west of the Shannon, with an overall rise in pupil numbers running at twice the national figure. Although Roscommon's 2pc rise was the largest percentage increase, the county has the smallest schools, at an average 86 pupils each. Cork county, Cavan and Laois also experienced above-average rises in primary enrolments, followed by Galway county, Louth, Meath, Monaghan and Kilkenny. The picture is somewhat different in the second-level sector, which is now feeling the effects of the baby boom in the first decade of the 21st century. Post-primary pupil numbers are up everywhere this year except Dublin city and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, with Fingal and Louth both showing the biggest increases, which at 3.3pc each are more than double the average. Cork county is also ahead of the average, with a 1.8pc pupil rise. Other counties with a significant increase in post-primary enrolments were Meath, Kildare, South Dublin, Galway county, Kilkenny and Limerick. While Dublin city schools suffered an overall drop of 15 pupils, in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, which covers a swathe of south Dublin, the decline was a more remarkable 104, well against the national trend. There is no obvious reason for this, but it may be linked, in part at least, to a reported flow of students to so-called "grind schools", which are not included in Department of Education statistics. Stormy weather: High winds drive the sea over the sea wall on Roonagh Pier near Westport, Co Mayo. Photo: Paul Mealey Wet and windy: A couple struggle with their umbrella in Westport, Co Mayo. Photo: Paul Mealey Batten down the hatches today - but also prepare to dust off the barbecue because we are in for a rollercoaster week ahead. With no fewer than four weather warnings in place for today, motorists have been urged to slow down and watch out for possible flooding. However, by the end of the week we could be basking in Easter temperatures of up to 23C. Met Eireann has issued a Status Orange rainfall warning for counties Cork and Waterford, warning of hazardous driving conditions, until 6pm today. Meanwhile, a Status Yellow rainfall warning, which also runs until 6pm, is in place for Kilkenny, Wexford, Kerry, Limerick and Tipperary. Two Status Yellow wind warnings have also been issued. The first covers counties Donegal, Galway, Mayo, Cork and Kerry, until 7pm today, and warns of gusts up to 110kmh. The second covers Dublin, Carlow, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Wexford, Offaly, Leitrim, Roscommon, Sligo, Clare, Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford - with gusts reaching up to 100kmh. This alert is in place until 5pm. Met Eireann forecaster Liz Walsh said: "A lot of people are on Easter holidays, so they could see some tree branches down due to the winds. "Our most prescient warning is for Cork and Waterford and there are concerns about possible flooding and hazardous driving conditions. Heavy rainfall, especially on the motorway, can be dangerous." However, the weather will see a major turnaround as the week progresses. "By this evening we are all done [with the poor weather]," Ms Walsh told the Irish Independent. "As we progress into the week, it's going to start getting warmer. By Easter weekend, we could see temperatures of up to 23C - a much better outlook for the holiday weekend. "So we just have to get through this period and the weather should be warm and settled." Tonight, rain will gradually become confined to eastern coastal areas and the strong winds will ease. Temperatures will drop to as low as 4C. Tomorrow, there will be patchy rain or showers in parts, but conditions will be dry overall with the west of the country seeing the best of the brighter spells. Temperatures will reach 10C in the afternoon in eastern areas and up to 15C in the west. Tomorrow night will be cold with some mist or patchy fog and frost possibly developing. For the rest of the week, apart from a few light showers, it's set to be mainly dry with sunny spells. Temperatures on Good Friday are expected to reach from 15C along exposed coasts, but will be as high as 20C elsewhere. A British soldier is to face a murder trail over the death of teenager in Northern Ireland in 1972. The Public Prosecution Service said the former soldier, identified as Soldier B, is also accused of wounding with intent in respect of a second youth. Daniel Hegarty was 15 when he was shot and killed by a member of an Army patrol on duty in the Creggan area of Derry on 31 July 1972, during what was known as Operation Motorman. He died after being shot twice in the head by Soldier B. His cousin Christopher Hegarty, then aged 17, was also shot and injured in the incident. The Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland, Stephen Herron, met with members of the Hegarty family to inform them of the decision at a private meeting in Derry on Monday April 15. Expand Close Daniel Hegarty and his sister Kathleen / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Daniel Hegarty and his sister Kathleen Speaking afterwards, Mr Herron said: I have given careful consideration to all of the available evidence. This has included material obtained in the course of the initial investigation; by a later investigation carried out by the Historical Enquiries Team; material generated by Inquest proceedings and a number of expert forensic reports, the most recent of which was provided after the Court ruling in 2018. I have concluded that the evidence which can be presented at court is sufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction and that the Evidential Test for Prosecution is met. As with all cases, I have also carefully considered whether the public interest requires prosecution through the courts. Particular consideration was given to Soldier Bs ill health, regarding which an updated medical report was obtained. In line with our Code for Prosecutors, I have concluded, given the seriousness of the charges, that the Public Interest Test for Prosecution is also met. I have therefore taken the decision to prosecute an individual identified as Soldier B for the offence of murder in relation to the death of Daniel Hegarty and for the wounding of Christopher Hegarty," said Mr Herron. This decision has been reached following an objective and impartial application of the Test for Prosecution which was conducted in accordance with the Code for Prosecutors and with the benefit of advice from Senior Counsel. UP to 17,000 staff at 36 hospitals including health care assistants, chefs, laboratory aides and theatre staff are set to ballot for strike action. Siptu has announced that workers in support grades in areas including patient transport, catering, housekeeping, porter services, and security will vote from Monday. The union is balloting all members in these grades in a dispute over the implementation of a job evaluation scheme that has been stalled. It wants the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to allow members to move onto a higher pay grade. A union spokesperson said the first phase of an independent review found that 7,000 of its members were entitled to move to higher grades. Separately, the union is demanding that 1,000 chefs who are classified as general operatives shift to a higher craft workers pay scale. Siptu Health Division Organiser Paul Bell said his members confidence in the public service pay deal has been severely undermined. The move to extend the ballot for strike action from selected hospitals to include all members in support grades follows a meeting of the Siptu Health Support Sector Committee on Thursday, said Mr Bell. He said tensions have been heightened by a recent HSE decision to introduce an overtime ban and three month recruitment embargo. Our members have played by the rules and waited since 2015 for the Government to honour, in full, a job evaluation process that was negotiated as part of the Lansdowne Road Agreement, he said. The result of the ballot will be announced on May 16. The Sunday Independent headline caused a sensation in Ireland and it reverberated around the world. It was arguably the biggest international news story to come out of Ireland since Eamon de Valera had extended condolences to the German diplomatic representative in Dublin upon the death of Hitler. The byline on the story that appeared on the front page of the Sunday Independent on September 5, 1948 read "By Our Political Correspondent" - but the undisputed author was Hector Legge. Legge was a giant of Irish journalism. He had become editor of the Sunday Independent in August 1940, a few months prior to his 40th birthday. It was a position that he would thrive in for three decades. In the post-war period, he would transform the Sunday Independent into the nation's largest circulation newspaper. His style of journalism was crusading and campaigning. For the story that would become the greatest scoop of his long career, Legge chose a simple but dramatic banner headline - EXTERNAL RELATIONS ACT TO GO. Legge's headline deliberately left no room for a question mark and this increased the pressure on the Government to confirm the substance of the story. The External Relations Act was legislation rushed through the Oireachtas by Eamon de Valera in December 1936 to take advantage of the abdication crisis in Britain, which occurred when Edward VIII vacated the throne to marry an American divorcee. The King's abdication provided de Valera with what his authorised biographers described as an "unrivalled opportunity" to remove all references to the British Crown from the Irish Free State Constitution, a position that remained intact when de Valera introduced a new constitution, Bunreacht na hEireann, the following year. The External Relations Act downgraded the British monarch's position in Ireland to merely that of "a statutory agent" authorised to act solely in matters regarding the appointment of diplomatic and consular representatives on the advice of the Irish Government. The complexities and ambiguities tied up in this arrangement were deliberately so. The External Relations Act allowed de Valera to signal to his republican base Fianna Fail's success in diluting the influence of British imperialism on Ireland's constitutional order. At the same time, the Act did not completely sever bonds with the Crown. Thus, de Valera could cryptically remark of the British Commonwealth that Ireland was "in it" but was not "of it". De Valera's acquiescence in maintaining a tenuous link with the Commonwealth was motivated by partition. The leader of Fianna Fail: The Republican Party was not prepared to unilaterally declare an Irish republic or wholly exit the British Commonwealth because, in de Valera's own words, he wanted to leave "a bridge" for the future, "in the hope that by it, it would be possible to bring about the unity of our country, [and] that we were going to meet the sentiment of the [Unionist] minority" on the island. De Valera's political opponents in the Dail believed that the ambiguities of the External Relations Act undermined the status of the State. When Fianna Fail was surprisingly removed from office after the General Election in February 1948, the new Inter-Party Government contained a number of prominent figures who had made a parliamentary sport out of berating de Valera for the External Relations Act over many years. As an opposition TD in June 1946, Patrick McGilligan, the Minister for Finance in the Inter-Party Government, had referred to the External Relations Act as a "living lie". In the same debate, the Labour leader Bill Norton described the workings of the External Relations Act as an "anachronism," while the Independent TD James Dillon said it was "a disgusting, fraudulent, dishonest attempt to blind our people". The change of Government in 1948 brought these vehement critics of the External Relations Act to the cabinet table, but it was in no way inevitable that the External Relations Act would actually go. The Inter-Party Government agreed on very little ideologically or policy wise, except that they were anti-de Valera. The biggest component of the coalition, Fine Gael, had traditionally been labelled the Commonwealth Party in Irish politics. Indeed, the former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald wrote in his memoir about canvassing as a young man in the 1948 General Election on the basis that Fine Gael supported Commonwealth membership and he remembered "reassuring the inhabitants of Waterloo Road" on this point. In contrast, Clann na Poblachta's 1948 campaign had included a pledge to abolish the External Relations Act. The appointment of its party leader, Sean MacBride, a former IRA Chief of Staff, as Minister for External Affairs was to give momentum to Ireland's departure from the Commonwealth. Clann na Poblachta saw itself as being in direct competition with Fianna Fail for mainstream republican votes. The publicity generated in Ireland in the summer of 1948 by an anti-partition world tour led by Eamon de Valera, in the aftermath of Fianna Fail losing its first general election in 16 years, may have given MacBride further incentive to begin the process of dismantling the External Relations Act. In July 1948, at MacBride's behest and with the consent of President Sean T O'Kelly, the procedures of the External Relations Act were deliberately bypassed during the course of the appointment of the Argentine Minister to Ireland, Jose Bessone, with his letter of diplomatic credence being addressed to the President of Ireland and not to King George VI. Not surprisingly, diplomatic manoeuvrings surrounding the appointment of a representative of the Government of Argentina to Dublin hardly captured public attention. The Sunday Independent revelation in early September 1948 that the External Relations Act was to be repealed, thus, emerged as a bolt from the blue, especially as the Taoiseach, John A Costello, was abroad. Noel Browne, the Minister for Health, subsequently claimed that there had been no formal cabinet discussions on this matter prior to the Sunday Independent story, but this was hotly disputed by other Ministers in that administration. Official cabinet records from this period are sketchy as Maurice Moynihan, the Secretary to the Government, was often excluded from cabinet meetings, as Sean MacBride did not trust him, arising from Moynihan's long-standing, prior working relationship with de Valera. The available evidence suggests that before Costello left for Canada, the cabinet had agreed, at least informally, to repeal the External Relations Act, but there was no question of any such announcement being made abroad. The Sunday Independent story forced the Taoiseach's hand. Two days after it, in reply to a query at an Ottawa press conference, Costello confirmed that it was his Government's intention to "ditch" the External Relations Act. That Costello had been bounced into this pronouncement by Legge's exclusive was clear from an explanatory letter he wrote to Norton, his Tanaiste, in which he referred to "Ottawa of all places". In the same letter, Costello noted: "It was really the article in the Sunday Independent that decided me." The Taoiseach's Canadian confirmation that Ireland would depart the Commonwealth created shockwaves at home because, at the time, it appeared as if a major national decision had been taken in a haphazard manner thousands of miles away. As a result, President O'Kelly remonstrated with Costello privately (though he later indiscreetly shared accounts of this conversation with a number of foreign diplomats) that "whatever the merits of the decision might be, Canada was the wrong place to make the announcement". Though Legge claimed that his story was the result of his own political intuition, Costello suspected a deliberate cabinet leak. The historian Eithne MacDermott has recorded that Costello maintained that "an article penned with such 'apparent authority' could not have been written on the basis of 'intelligent anticipation'," as the Sunday Independent editor had claimed. Legge had a wide range of political contacts, but a livid Costello blamed James Dillon for the leak, given the latter's personal friendship with the Sunday Independent editor. In 1999, Louie O'Brien, Sean MacBride's secretary, confirmed that her boss was the source of the information. Taking advantage of the Taoiseach's absence, MacBride's strategic leak was designed to ensure that the Government would not backtrack on the decision to repeal the External Relations Act and that progress would be fast-tracked. Costello gave a number of varying accounts for his decision to declare the Republic in the incongruous setting of Canada. On his return home, he complained to a disapproving President O'Kelly that his decision had been influenced by Canadian slights. Costello felt that Lord Alexander of Tunis and Errigal, the Canadian Governor-General, had "cold-shouldered" him and the wife throughout their visit. Alexander came from a staunch Unionist family from Caledon, Co Tyrone. Before attending a formal dinner hosted in his honour by Lord Alexander on September 4, Costello checked with John Hearne, the Irish High Commissioner in Ottawa, that the toast to the President of Ireland would be proposed in reply to the royal toast. The only toast made was "the King". Costello told O'Kelly that "this upset me". Costello also told O'Kelly that he was upset that in a "very pointed way" a silver ornamental replica of Roaring Meg, the cannon used in 1689 against the forces of King James in the siege of Derry and a symbol of Unionist strength, was the chief table decoration. He told the President that he viewed this as a reminder of "the guns used against our people". Costello told O'Kelly that "there seemed to me to be no proper appreciation of our status. I was getting sore about things... I made the decision to cut through all this and I made the statement which brought on the repeal of the External Relations Act." Nearly 20 years later, in an interview with The Irish Times, Costello denied that what he termed as the "ill-befitting behaviour" of his Canadian hosts had any influence on his action. Both he and his key adviser, Patrick Lynch, maintained the line in retirement that the reason for the Taoiseach's announcement was an anxiety to ensure the Government would not be seen to be reacting to a pending private members' motion from an Independent TD and had nothing to do with "real or imaginary Canadian affronts". However, in a personal memorandum, Costello admitted that the Sunday Independent story was decisive. He wrote that after hearing of the headline, he was faced with a number of choices: "(1) to say no comment; (2) to deny the truth of the report; (3) to admit its accuracy; (4) to say the matter would be dealt with on the re-assembly of the Dail". Having deliberated on his options for two days, Costello decided it would not be proper to deny the report in his Ottawa press conference. Prior to this press conference, MacBride spoke to the Taoiseach on the telephone, encouraging him to confirm the story, which Costello ultimately did. The Republic of Ireland Act, which gave legal basis to the new Republic, came into effect on Easter Monday, April 18, 1949. Fianna Fail believed that the Fine Gael-led Government's conversion to republicanism was motivated solely by a desire to steal their clothes. De Valera declined an invitation extended to him by Costello to attend the official ceremonies to mark the State's new status on the basis that the new Republic was not an all-Ireland entity. De Valera wrote: "Celebrations such as those now proposed ought to be reserved until the national task which we have set ourselves is accomplished. We still believe that public demonstrations and rejoicings are out of place and are likely to be misunderstood so long as that task remains uncompleted and our country partitioned." Despite Fianna Fail's refusal to participate, on Easter Sunday 1949, the Sunday Independent previewed a day of ceremony that would encompass "nationwide rejoicing, with all the pomp and pageantry the country can muster", but the celebratory atmosphere did not last long. On May 3, 1949, Prime Minister Clement Attlee introduced the Ireland Bill in the House of Commons, which included a strong guarantee of the constitutional position of Northern Ireland. As John A Murphy has pointed out, this was seen in Ireland as "slamming the door on Irish unity and the reaction was a great deal of sound and fury". Fianna Fail was not slow to attribute blame to Costello and Lemass claimed that what had been lacking was the "wise leadership of de Valera". John A Costello said his decision to declare a republic would take the gun out of Irish politics, but it is hard to disagree with the assessment of his biographer, Dr David McCullagh, that his "actions had arguably helped plant the seeds for the [IRA] Border Campaign of the 1950s." Dr Brian Murphy lectures in History at Technological University Dublin More than six out of 10 people in the Republic would vote in favour of a united Ireland in a referendum arising out of the current Brexit crux, a new survey shows. The opinion poll finds that 62pc of people favour a united Ireland, with 28pc against and 10pc saying they would not vote in such a referendum. Once abstentions are factored in, the ratio in favour of ending partition in Ireland rises to 2:1. Support for a united Ireland is spread fairly evenly, with 60pc saying "yes" in Dublin, the rest of Leinster and Munster. But that figure rises to 70pc in Connacht-Ulster, which also spans the Border counties. Support is also evenly spread between men and women. Younger people, in the 18-24 age group, are most in favour with 77pc. The backing slightly tails off in the older age groups. People over-65 are least enthusiastic about reunification, but even here support is more than 50pc. Research was conducted online with a sample of more than 1,000 people chosen from all age groups, social class and regions. The survey was commissioned by the firm Lottoland, which offers bets on lotteries in more than 30 different countries. The fieldwork, by Empathy Research, was done between March 25 and April 1. The margin of error is put at plus or minus 3.1pc. Only one in 10 people surveyed said they would not vote in such a poll. The question was framed in terms of unity in the aftermath of Brexit. The prospect of a united Ireland has been mentioned from time to time since the UK voted to leave the EU on June 23, 2016. The overall vote was 52pc in favour of Leave against 48pc for Remain. But the vote in Northern Ireland favoured staying with the EU by 56pc to 44pc. The Democratic Unionist Party was the only one to back Leave in that referendum. Sinn Fein has called for a "Border poll" on reunification as provided for in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. But the Irish Government has rejected this as adding another problem to an already complex situation. UK Prime Minister Theresa May has warned a no-deal Brexit could mean Irish unity. Dublin Mother Yvonne Shannon shares her four-year-old daughter Ruby's journey in Crumlin Hospital when she was diagnosed with a brain tumour Dublin mother Yvonne Shannon has spoken about 'the worst news she has ever had' - that her daughter Ruby was diagnosed with a brain tumour aged just two-and-a-half. Yvonne, from Pimlico, has shared her child's cancer treatment journey at Crumlin Children's Hospital and has called for more awareness and investment into research. Expand Close Dublin Mother Yvonne Shannon shares her four-year-old daughter Ruby's journey in Crumlin Hospital when she was diagnosed with a brain tumour / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Dublin Mother Yvonne Shannon shares her four-year-old daughter Ruby's journey in Crumlin Hospital when she was diagnosed with a brain tumour Yvonne said that the first time she realised something was wrong was when Ruby vomited up her bottle of milk one morning. I took her to the GP and we thought it was a viral infection. She didnt get any better after a couple of days so I took her to the Dub Doc at the weekend," she said. "I thought there was something wrong with her because she just wasnt herself - even her eyes looked dull. "Ruby has big brown eyes and I knew they were off." Expand Close Dublin Mother Yvonne Shannon shares her four-year-old daughter Ruby's journey in Crumlin Hospital when she was diagnosed with a brain tumour / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Dublin Mother Yvonne Shannon shares her four-year-old daughter Ruby's journey in Crumlin Hospital when she was diagnosed with a brain tumour The doctor examined her and sent Ruby and her mother to Crumlin Hospital with suspected meningitis, but the tests came back negative. "Ruby had started complaining of a pain in her head at this point, but that can be part of having a virus," she said. "We went home and after three days of staying in the house I picked her up off the couch and she started having a seizure. "Her whole body was shaking. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she was unresponsive. I panicked so much. It was terrifying. We called an ambulance and rushed into Crumlin." The next morning Ruby was still complaining about the pain in her head. Yvonne said that she was very vocal and saying there was still a huge pain in her head. "Ruby would say Mammy, theres an ouchy in my head!" Yvonne said. Expand Close Ruby Shannon / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Ruby Shannon "She was taken for a CT scan and thats when they told me the worst news I have ever heard: my little girl had a brain tumour. On the 14th of February, Valentines Day, Ruby went for surgery to remove the tumour, in Temple Street Hospital on February 14 at the national paediatric centre for neurosurgery, to get the tumour removed. She was in surgery for more than eight hours. The surgery team believed that they had removed the entire tumour, but needed to do a MRI scan to confirm this. "I had the best news of my whole life when they sat down and told me they had removed the entire tumour - the greatest Valentines gift anyone could ever get!" Yvonne said. "After the surgery, Ruby had to learn how to walk again, sit up again, everything. "I brought her home for a couple of days after surgery before we returned to Crumlin Hospital to start chemotherapy. "Ruby had her Hickman line put in her chest and we did about seven months of chemo. Even though the tumour had been entirely removed and Ruby was cancer free, because it was a grade four tumour she needed to follow through with the plan to complete her chemotherapy course." The little two-and-a-half year old had five days of chemo and then a break, but they couldn't stay too long at home because her immune system was so low. She received treatment at Crumlin for seven months. After she completed her chemo, Yvonne took Ruby home until her first scan. It was clear. Every scan Ruby has had since then has been clear. "Ruby is the toughest little girl and Im so proud of her," Yvonne said. "It was such a terrible year but she fought her way through it. "The amount of family and friends that prayed for her and supported us was incredible. Shes got scars from her journey, but if you met her youd never know what shes been through. Shes a little trooper! "Its a very hard and lonely place to be when youre looking at your sick child. Its soul-destroying. "Every time a doctor took her away all I wanted was to take her back because I couldnt breathe without her." Yvonne has called for more awareness about the incredible work carried out by doctors, nurses and research staff at Crumlin Children's Hospital. "When people go out and do something big or small to support the hospital and its research, it makes a huge difference for people like me and Ruby. "If I could say one thing to the incredible fundraisers it would simply be thank you. I dont think you can say thank you enough." Ruby now goes for scans every four months. "Her consultant takes such good care of us," Yvonne said. "People worry about silly things. We all do it. Its only when youre faced with a situation like this that you forget everything else. "The only thing that matters in the world is making sure your child gets well. I hope she lives a long and healthy life. "I dont care what she wants to be when she grows up. I just want her to be healthy and happy. Thats all that matters. "At the moment shes four-years-old and thinking of being an astronaut when shes older, so well see how that goes! Hayden (9) is now a regular columnist for Astronomy Ireland and dreams of visiting space himself (Photo: Facebook/Astronomy Ireland) He could be one of the world's youngest space columnists - and his dream is to report from the moon. Hayden Geraghty (9), from Limavady, Derry, has autism and didn't speak his first words until he was three. Mum Caroline had no idea her son was interested in space until he reacted to the television broadcast of British astronaut Tim Peake launching into space. Hayden is now a regular columnist for Astronomy Ireland and dreams of visiting space himself. "The magazine approached us about three years ago about using a photograph. They couldnt believe how intelligent he is and his knowledge of space," Caroline, who also writes for the magazine, told Independent.ie. "Sometimes kids will send in a picture and Hayden will describe it. If we went and did something to do with space, Hayden might come and join me at report on it. "The feedback hes been getting is so good. Its going really, really well. We get letters from families who are interested in where hes going to go next. Hes really inspiring other people too. "He would love to go to the moon or mars. He said to me the other day, I could go to space and I could still report for the magazine, Mam'." Hayden hit headlines last year after he became the inspiration for the world's first doll with autism. "Hayden always wears ear defenders [for noise sensitivity] and his signature space suit, so the doll is wearing that and its going to be released in around 30 countries around the world," Caroline said. "Autism isnt always visible and different children are different on the spectrum, the Lottie doll teaches this to the kids. Its inspired by Hayden, his journey and his story." The nine-year-old is now sparking attention worldwide for his knowledge of space and recently visited the European Space Agency in Madrid. "Hayden started taking a real passionate interest in asteroids and space rocks. He is fascinated learning about the different space agencies. "We went to Madrid for four days. They gave Hayden a tour around of all of the operations and showed him what was going on there. Hayden was absolutely fascinated. You could just see the passion his eyes. He was asking them all of these questions. "They were so impressed with his passion and his knowledge and his want to inspire others that they gave him the award planetary defence ambassador in Madrid." He has also been invited to Luxembourg in June for World Asteroid Day. "Its fascinating to see a wee boy, the great potential he has," Caroline said. "Weve just found this one thing and it has led to an incredible, incredible journey. "Before he started to speak, he learned, thats the moon, thats Jupiter, thats mars; but its really changed him knowing whats going on. "Hayden was diagnosed with as being autistic aged five. He was virtually non-verbal until the astronaut Tim Peak launched to space in December 2015," she continued. "He was always trying to communicate and hed say the odd word but we relied on communication cards to interact with him. "It was always very frustrating for him. He was always trying to connect. He had an interest in space before, but for Peake's launch, he was so absorbed just watching the broadcast. "In the build-up, he just started doing this countdown and he shouted blast-off at the television. It just took that one wee thing. I could not believe it. "I always describe it as a light bulb switching on. It just took that one thing to spark that connection. Throughout the day he kept saying it over and over and over." His mum said; "It was very hard up until then to understand what he was even all about. What he was even interested in, because we were always trying to guess, and then we saw this and it just grew and grew and grew. "Ever since then hes talked non-stop. His love of space has just grown and increased since then. Hes developed a really intense passion for space exploration and astronomy." The event was due to take place as part of a summer series at the library on June 26. (stock photo) A STORY time event for children presented by drag performers has been cancelled after receiving backlash from the public. Performance group Glitter Hole, a "DIY drag collective", were scheduled to deliver a story telling event for children aged between 3 and 7 at Deansgrange Library in Dublin 18. The event, which said it would provide families with "glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models", was due to take place as part of a summer series at the library on June 26. However the event was scrutinised on social media, with users calling for a review on the "age appropriateness" of the event. "Glitter Hole" (@GlitterHoleDub), "unabashedly queer role models" in Drag, are seeking an audience of 3 to 7+ year old children for a reading event at Deansgrange Library (@DLR_Libraries) in June. Have @DLR_Libraries reviewed this event to ensure that it will be age appropriate? pic.twitter.com/jqsFrxw0et Emma Murphy (@EmmaMurphy12150) April 12, 2019 The drag group, who said they have performed the children's event three times before with an "entirely positive" response, said they were disappointed to hear of the cancellation this morning. "It is with a heavy heart that I have to announce that our upcoming Drag Story Time event has been cancelled," a spokesperson for Glitter Hole said. "We were contacted by DLR last month and asked to put on one of our drag storytelling performances to celebrate Pride and I wasnt aware that it had been announced by them yet." The spokesperson said they were subject to "extremely violent homophobia" as a result, but that they were determined to continue presenting the event. "Over the weekend we have been inundated with extremely violent homophobia from a frighteningly large group of bigots who believe that a few drag queens reading books to children amounts to child abuse. "The library decided that the event was a safety risk, which we accepted given the scale and gravity of the vitriol that was being spewed on twitter. However, the statement issued by DLR last night cites age appropriateness as their reason for cancellation. Expand Close The drag group said they have performed the children's event three times before. Photo; Glitter Hole / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The drag group said they have performed the children's event three times before. Photo; Glitter Hole "The implication here is that the content of our drag shows for adults has deemed us inappropriate childrens storytellers. There is no mention in this statement of the safety concerns for the performers and audience of the event due to the ongoing abuse were receiving online." Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown (DLR) Library Service posted a cancellation notice of the event on their website last night, citing a review of the age criteria as the reason behind the cancellation. However they have since clarified that the cancellation was due to "significant concern at the high level of degrading, inappropriate comments on social media about the performers and library staff." A spokesperson said: "dlr Libraries object to homophobia in all its forms and, as per our social media guidelines, we reserve the right to remove content or comments that may be considered offensive, abusive or defamatory. "Health and Safety is always at the forefront of our concerns. We would like to reassure the public that this event is age-appropriate and family-friendly. "dlr Libraries remains safe, inclusive and welcoming places for all and offer a diverse, cultural programme. The original statement posted by council staff said that "following a review in terms of age appropriateness, this event will not now go ahead at this time, and may be rescheduled as part of a future Book Festival lineup." The event received mixed reactions on social media, with some users claiming that not enough research was put into the event's age group. But many others described it as "a shame" that the session was cancelled. "I don't think there was anything wrong with this event to begin with," one user said. "Children learn prejudice from those around them. The event would have undoubtedly been enjoyed by all who attended." Tesco has suspended its online delivery service to customers in West Tallaght in Dublin due to a recent spate of attacks on its drivers. A Tesco spokesperson this evening confirmed that it is curtailing deliveries in a small number of areas in West Tallaght due to anti-social behaviour in the area. The move comes amid reports that a handful of drivers have been subjected to intimidation, robbery and even shot at in recent weeks by local youths. Earlier this month an online delivery driver was shot at with a pellet gun as he was making deliveries in the Killnarden Hill area of Tallaght. Fortunately the driver did not suffer serious injuries. However, the incident was not isolated, according to a Tesco driver who rang RTE Radio Ones Liveline programme yesterday. The driver, who lives in Tallaght himself, told the phone-in show that there have been around five or six attacks on drivers in the area in which drivers have been swarmed by teenagers as they were making deliveries and targeted for stock. The driver said the move is no reflection on its customers in the area, for whom he has nothing but praise. We as drivers are very upset this has come about , he told Liveline. But its not safe for us to go and deliver to our lovely customers. It is not clear whether the curtailment of service will be temporary or permanent. However, in a statement, the company said: From time to time we may curtail services in an area for a period of time due to incidents of anti-social behaviour in order to protect our colleagues and our customers. "At present following several incidents, we are curtailing deliveries in a small number of areas in West Tallaght with an alternative collection option open to customers at Clondalkin and Naas. While we appreciate the inconvenience caused, the safety of our colleagues and customers is of paramount importance. But to some customers, the loss of the service, even on a temporary basis, is a major blow. A woman named Pauline who is confined to a wheelchair following treatment for cancer said she relied on the home delivery service as she has no family or friends nearby who can deliver her groceries to her home. While she said she has nothing but sympathy for the drivers, she said the situation has left her very angry. I can understand what the drivers are doing what theyre doing, she told Liveline today. Im absolutely shocked at the extent and nature of attacks on the delivery men, she said. Someone like me suffers because of a handful of gurriers. Its so unfair. A lot of people (using the service) are ill or elderly. Its absolutely vital for me. I dont know what Im going to do without it. Local retiree Tom Durkan, who kindly rang the programme offering to deliver Paulines groceries himself, said he is appalled by what has happened. Its beyond belief that this carry-on is going on, he told Liveline. Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Age Action said it is typically the elderly who are the most affected by anti-social behaviour in their neighbourhoods. Anti-social behaviour impacts on all the community, but particularly the elderly, she told Independent.ie. She said Tescos free home delivery to over- 65s is a vital service for seniors, especially those who may have mobility issues or dont have access to transportation. It's not something I'm proud of, but I must confess that a fair amount of alcohol had been consumed the night I went to see the Blessed Virgin dance. Taking a few weeks' break in Kinsale that summer of '85, I was contentedly playing darts in The Bulman pub when a local fisherman rushed in with the announcement: "She's moving out in Ballinspittle." On that quiet July 22 evening with not a whole lot else going on, the possibility that a statue had taken leave of its concrete was enough of a distracting notion to rouse all in the pub, myself included, on the road to investigate. We weren't the only ones on such a Monday mission - discovering all tracks within two miles of the Ballinspittle grotto already jammed solid with abandoned tractors, vans, sheep trailers and cars to witness something otherworldly on Mary Magdalene's feast day. Mind you, this early gridlock was but a drop in the ocean compared to the tidal wave of humanity that would follow in the months ahead. Was it a trick of the light, a bit of local mischief-making or something of a glorious celestial nature - nobody could say for sure as we strained, squinted and scrutinised the saintly statue. Some swore they saw tears on the stone face, as the piles of gloves, hats, scarves and rosary beads grew larger at its base. It seemed peculiarly ironic that in the time that Madonna released 'Like A Virgin', the shimmering of a Virgin Mary sculpture in a small Cork town would echo around the world - talk about your life imitating art. Debate grew from local crossroads tattle to a global media torrent as the curiosity begun in Ballinspittle quickly spread across Cork, Munster and out into the wider world. Within days there were hundreds coming, and then thousands. As we gazed in wonder from cafes along the Kinsale seafront, the traffic chaos outdid legendary, with crowds one particular hot August night topping the 25,000 mark. In that Irish summer of murky weather, factory closures and pipe dreams of winning the Donnelly Green Card lottery, this 'miracle' in the misty south was a wagon the whole world wanted to attach itself to. "It seemed at first as if she was breathing, then slight motions of the head and the hands," one of the first witnesses, Catherine O'Mahoney, told me. "None of us that first night had any mind to make too much of what we saw maybe because we didn't understand what was happening - we thought it might just pass." But it didn't. News outlets grabbed the story and ran with it - the 'New York Times', the 'Wall Street Journal', the 'Australian' and the 'Hindustan Times'. Even the orthodox 'Time Magazine' weighed in: "Mass hysteria or clever tourist promotion? Scientists examined the statue and pronounced the entire effect an optical illusion. The finding has had little effect on the believers." Bejabers, we thought, Cork might be banjaxed from the Ford and Dunlop factory closures, but the Rebel County is still front page news around the world. On the strange summer of '85, sightings of religious apparitions went global - Oliveto, Italy; Naju, Korea; Vassula, Switzerland; Cleveland, USA; and Ohlau, Poland. In Ireland too, at Asdee, Carns, Dunkitt, Enniscorthy and Foynes, and all with the same essential message - inexplicable occurrences experienced by normal folk at odds to understand. Was it a miracle in that small Cork village? Well, if a miracle is something that can't be explained, then maybe it wouldn't be wrong to call it that. Regardless of what belief you subscribe to, the fact remains that something extraordinary happened in Ballinspittle that summer of '85. 'Moving Statues - The Summer of 1985', RTE 1, Tonight 9.35pm Signs abound on many rural roads inviting enrolments to local primary schools next September, providing an inkling even to passing motorists that the pools of pupils that have kept the roll books going for decades are drying up. The challenge facing these schools is, most likely, what is showing up in the latest Department of Education figures. While maintaining numbers for one and two-teacher schools is one issue, there is growing anecdotal evidence of struggles further up the line, with some principals battling to retain enough pupils to hold on to their third teacher. Small primary schools, generally in rural areas and particularly in the west, are a distinctive feature of Ireland and, like the Garda station, post office and pub, are highly valued by communities as a sign that their heart is still beating. About 23pc of primary schools - 708 - have 60 or fewer pupils enrolled this year, but they represent only 4pc of enrolments. The number of such schools has dropped 10pc since 2010, with their enrolments down by an even greater 15pc over the same period. There is no Government policy to close small schools, but an enrolments slide can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. High birth rates since the late 1990s brought a national upswing in primary pupil numbers, but that demographic bubble has moved through to post-primary. Nationally, enrolments in primary schools have peaked; demand continues to rise in communities where populations are growing, elsewhere some schools are seeing numbers fall or at risk of falling. This is no surprise to anyone watching trends in population or other key indicators. According to the 2016 Census, 80pc of population growth since 2011 was in urban areas, while the largest increase in rural population was in Cork county. Evidence of both trends is borne out in the latest enrolments breakdown, because population growth usually translates as young families who very quickly need primary school places for their children. The recent 'Graduate Outcomes' survey from the Higher Education Authority (HEA) also provides evidence of an urban-rural divide - most starkly east-west - in its presentation of where the class of 2017 was working nine months after leaving college. Some 43pc of honours graduates were employed in Dublin, compared with 2pc each in Kerry, Clare and Mayo, 1pc in Donegal and 0pc in Leitrim. The graduates, and others of their generation, follow the jobs; they are the parents of the future but, increasingly, are leaving for college and not returning to their rural home. Project 2040 is the latest State policy aimed at creating a sustainable future for all. Its ambitions include strengthening rural economies and communities and managing urban growth. It promises ongoing investment in education, including school places, but it seems unlikely that it will stop the trend of small school closures. The instant I saw the dress, I knew that I had to try it on. The cut was exactly my style: no frills, just clean lines, in a heavy crepe that fell to a couple of inches above my knee. It had sleeves (why are they so frustratingly hard to find on dresses?) at three-quarter length, meaning that I could wear it before summer without the need for a cardigan or second layer. And it was a holy grail dress, with two subtle but large pockets at the sides. In the fitting room, the shape of the dress was a winner but I still dithered over committing to the purchase. The colour was a striking tangerine - a little out of the comfort zone, even for someone who is happy to stray beyond an all-black sartorial palette. It was the sale price that sealed it; I surmised that the bright colour had contributed to the substantial discount. A ray of sunshine and a bargain - I went home happy. Since that day, I've worn the dress twice, to semi-formal occasions where the hue certainly stood out in rooms of more muted tones. It was colourful and comfortable, and felt dressy without being restrictive. I loved it and was intending on giving it lots more wear - until this week, that is, when I spotted that same dress on television. On an 85-year-old woman. If life is a journey of self-realisation, I've just made a huge and rather discomfiting discovery: I am a fashion ageist. The OAP in question was Joan Bakewell, writer, Labour Peer and host of Sky's Artist of the Year programmes. She may be the woman for whom the phrase "the thinking man's crumpet" was originally coined, but still I can't pretend that I was anything less than crestfallen to see my dress - my young, vibrant dress - on an octogenarian. What's worse is that Joan wore the dress exactly as I had, with thick black tights and black shoes (although with a heel height more suited to her age than my towering black boots). She finished the look with on-trend hooped earrings in tortoise-shell resin - exactly like a pair I'd been intending to buy. The dress, the earrings and the television show are now officially ruined for me. Admittedly, I was already aware that watching Portrait Artist of the Year is a decidedly senior pursuit. At 37, my TV tastes are tending more and more towards gentle, 'nice' programming: for every Russian Doll I watch, there's a Room to Improve. For every Game of Thrones, there's a Dancing With The Stars. But while I may be comfortable settling into middle age, I'm nowhere near ready to start dressing like a woman who is older than my granny. The experience has made me look at my wardrobe in a whole new light. Are my clean lines ageing? Are my sleeves dowdy? Are my florals appealingly retro or just plain old-fashioned? Who else is eyeing up Holly Willoughby's denim dress at Marks & Spencer? When Irish designer Joanne Hynes released her fifth collection for Dunnes Stores last autumn, I applauded as her mother Josephine came down the catwalk wearing a sequinned dress identical to one worn by a teenage model, complete with clompy shoes and bare legs. I think that I may have tweeted about how empowering it was to see a woman of advanced age not being bound by the rules of 'sensible', 'age-appropriate' dressing. While I stand by that sentiment, at the time I didn't stop to consider how a younger woman wearing the same dress might feel. The answer, it seems, is lamb dressed as mutton. I'm aware - and somewhat ashamed - that I sound like an intolerant ageist but I'd wager that, in our youth-obsessed culture, no one else wants to feel old before their time either. And who among us hasn't spotted something attractive on a clothing rail, only to be put off when someone elderly stepped in and picked it up first? I'm aware, too, that my real problem is not that I might look old, but that I might actually be old. No doubt the leggy teen in the same dress as Mrs Hynes thought that cross-generational twinning was fun. It's middle-aged me, clinging to the last hemlines of my youth, who has a problem with being seen in the same outfit as Joan Bakewell. My ageism, fashion or otherwise, is really directed at myself. Training doctors is expensive. We rightly invest massively in those who will care for us. But more and more of these medical graduates are upping sticks and taking the qualifications they have gained at the Irish taxpayers' expense abroad. The Medical Council reports a surge in the number of doctors with a right to practise in Ireland choosing to leave the register. The regulatory body's latest Workforce Intelligence Report found more than 2,800 doctors withdrew voluntarily from the register between 2015 and 2017. Doctors who left the register also pointed to a lack of employer support, workplace understaffing and working hours. Most of these planned to practise in Australia, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and the USA. Young doctors now comprise an ever-larger proportion of those seeking work overseas. Some 53pc of doctors leaving the register are under 35. Some say it's time we demanded doctors trained at our expense work a set number of years in the HSE before going abroad - the cost of educating every doctor is so high (a massive 300,000), the State should get some return on its investment. Shouldn't doctors feel obliged to care for the people who paid for their degree? No. We can't trap doctors in Ireland until they have offset the cost off their education. Doctors aren't the only ones in search of a better life overseas - we have a long tradition of exporting our young, educated and best graduates. Now, there are at least 6,000 Irish graduates teaching abroad too, mostly in the Gulf states. There were 56,300 people who emigrated from Ireland in the year to April 2018, and 28,300 are estimated to be Irish nationals. It was a decrease of 8.1pc on the year before, when 30,800 Irish nationals jetted off in search of employment and a different kind of life. But we shouldn't be complacent. Log on to a social networking site and there they are, grinning manically as they throw shrimps on the barbie, raving about the beaches and laid-back living. We're jealous, of course. Jealous, cold and trying to survive the Irish problems of housing, a creaky health system and the implications of increased longevity and falling birth rates. Not everyone wants to be an emigrant, and it's not all about money. Lots of us have pledged allegiance to the Liffey a million times over, and stayed firmly put through the economic crash-and-burn. But Ireland's attractions are not as compelling as the Government might hope. Our homes are pokey and expensive, and the Government takes an eye-watering chunk of our incomes every month. Our cost of living is high, our climate middling and our health system seems to be coming apart at the seams. It's bad that scores of doctors, whose education we subsidised, are moving to Brisbane, but it's what happens when a country can't offer a decent life to its citizens. As young people bore the brunt of austerity, we are more vulnerable to these than most. When we came out of college, there weren't any jobs, so we took whatever job we could get, and started on a lower salary than we would have otherwise done. The 'Graduate Salary & Graduate Recruitment Trends Survey 2016' revealed the national average for starting salaries is currently 28,461, while the average starting salary in Dublin is 24,000, a job that in the US will pay $40,000 to $56,000 (49,400), Canada $45,000+, the UK 35,000 and so on. The lowest starting salaries are retail and sales (24,000), accountancy and financial management (20,000) and marketing/advertising/media (20,000). While someone could have previously expected to start on 30,000, we did it for at least 5,000 less and you don't make up that gap again. At the same time, the government upped taxes with the USC, and house prices and rents started running away from us. Rent and house prices soared by up to 54pc in towns in the Dublin commuter belt over the last five years. Dublin has overtaken Paris for the first time to become the fifth most expensive place to rent a home in Europe. Last weekend we learned Dublin house prices are more than nine times the average salary. Our health system has inequalities. Far too many mental health and community services are stretched to capacity. The sickest people are waiting for hours and days in busy hospital corridors. The number of public patients waiting to see a specialist has climbed to another high, with 546,630 on outpatient lists. A government that claims it is committed to women's rights has done little to create a society in which balancing childrearing with a career is manageable. We're all dealt a different hand in life, but we must, despite this disparity, ensure we are a country that cares about its young people. Doctors are right. They are not paid or valued enough here and until we are able to properly reform our health service, the gap between what we can afford to pay medical professionals and what they would earn overseas in more sensible health systems is likely to grow. At some point even doctors from less well-off nations won't want to come here: their countries are becoming richer, and other medical systems will become ever-more attractive. Meanwhile, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the Middle East are waiting to welcome all kinds of Irish graduates with fat pay packs, to fill skills shortages in their hospitals, construction sites, schools and oil fields. Our Government needs to remember we young Irish people have the whole world at our feet. Former United States first lady Michelle Obama shared a touching text from her older brother on Instagram, who thanked her for the memories of their late father. Mrs Obama, who posted the text message on Instagram as she continued her book tour in London for memoir Becoming, said it was one of the best texts she has ever received. The text from her older brother Craig Robinson read: As I sit listening to the words of your book for the third time albeit this time by audiobook, it occurred to me that I havent thanked you for all your memories. I realised I have blocked out everything regarding dads death. I was here crying and laughing at the sadness of the story and the comfort of your voice all I can think of is how much I love my little sister. Mrs Obama posted the message alongside a caption speaking about her father, Fraser Robinson III, who died in 1991. She wrote: My father gave us absolutely everything. The laughs and lessons, the hugs, the heartache from losing him, theyre all still there with me, every minute. Each of us has our own perspectives and emotions; our own journeys in the moment and in the years since. Video of the Day Its so important to share our stories with each other, not just to remember, but to connect. Even an ocean away. Mrs Obamas memoir, Becoming, has sold over 10 million copies globally since its release in November 2018. Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi yesterday met in Cairo with Khalifa Haftar, the commander of eastern-based Libyan forces, who is under international pressure to halt an advance on the capital Tripoli. Egypt has close ties with Mr Haftar, whose Libyan National Army (LNA) controls the east and swept through the mainly desert south earlier this year before moving to Tripoli 10 days ago in a major escalation of the conflict. His move is the latest in a cycle of conflict and anarchy since the 2011 toppling of dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Mr Haftar has projected himself as the scourge of Islamist militants and of the militias that grew powerful after the uprising. His rivals say he has fuelled conflict and risks returning Libya to authoritarian rule. Egypt and the UAE publicly support UN-led peace efforts in Libya, while being seen as Mr Haftar's closest allies. Mr Sisi has led a far-reaching crackdown on Islamists in Egypt and has blamed Libya-based militants for some cross-border attacks. A statement from Mr Sisi's office "confirmed Egypt's support for efforts to combat terrorism and extremist groups and militias in order to achieve security and stability for the Libyan citizen". Mr Haftar, a former general in Gaddafi's army who later turned against him, had long talked of a move on Tripoli, in Libya's west, where an internationally recognised government sits. His campaign has disrupted efforts by the UN to bring rival eastern and western administrations to the negotiating table to end the turmoil. "Our position will not change," UN envoy Ghassan Salame tweeted. "No matter how obstinate one becomes, there is no solution except a political one." Weaving: White House senior adviser Ivanka Trump, left, reacts as she tries her hand at a traditional weaving loom at Moya, a manufacturing centre of textile and traditional crafts, with Moya founder Sara Abera, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Photo: AP/Jacquelyn Martin FAR from the din of Washington, Ivanka Trump toured businesses run by women in Ethiopia while promoting a White House global economic programme for women. US President Donald Trump's daughter and senior adviser visited a coffee shop and textile company in Addis Ababa. It was her first stop in Africa on a four-day trip to Ethiopia and Ivory Coast on behalf of a White House project intended to boost 50 million women in developing countries by 2025. Aiming to offer assistance and learn about the struggles of women in business, she took part in a traditional coffee ceremony, visited with weavers and announced new financial support for businesses. "Investing in women is smart development policy and it's smart business," Ms Trump said, sitting in Dumerso Coffee, a dimly lighted space with a woven ceiling, tile floor and colourful paintings. Alongside were women who work in the industry. This is Ms Trump's first visit to Africa since the president launched the Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative. It's a programme she hopes will outlast an administration better known for "America First" isolationism. She has drawn praise for taking on this project and for making the trip. But thousands of miles from Washington, she is sure to be shadowed by her father's efforts to cut international aid, as well as his past disparaging comments about Africa. The park district is also hosting a flashlight Easter egg hunt on Thursday, April 18, from 7:30 to 8:45 p.m. at Maine Park, 2701 W. Sibley Ave. Participants should bring a flashlight and a bag or basket to collect their eggs, the park district said. Cocaine use is becoming an issue for local GAA clubs Seven sailors have been expelled from a British navy submarine after testing positive for cocaine. Crew members from HMS Talent, which is armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, were removed from the submarine after the Class A drug was found in their system while on duty last week. The sailors failed a compulsory drugs test the morning after they attended a drug-fuelled party, as the 5,300-tonne submarine was preparing for a sensitive mission to track Russian submarine movements in the North Sea and the Arctic Circle. Senior navy officers ordered that the sailors be handed over to military police after navy doctors had confirmed the results. The Ministry of Defence confirmed the incident, describing the soldiers' actions as "incompatible" with military service because it "reduces operational effectiveness". "This is a major embarrassment for top brass. It takes years to train submariners to perform highly skilled and highly sensitive roles at sea and the navy has just lost seven guys due to one night of stupidity," a navy source told the 'Mail on Sunday'. HMS Talent had been due to sail from Devonport on Friday, but the 280ft-long boat was still at the Plymouth base over the weekend. The submarine is designed to attack surface ships and performs a surveillance role. Smoke billows from the Notre Dame Cathedral after a fire broke out, in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Julie Carriat Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Lori Hinant) Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Lori Hinant) Smoke billows from Notre Dame Cathedral after a fire broke out, in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Charles Platiau A still image taken from a video shows flames and thick smoke billowing from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS TV/via REUTERS Smokes ascends as flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on April 15, 2019 afternoon, potentially involving renovation works being carried out at the site, the fire service said. (Photo by FRANCOIS GUILLOT / AFP)FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty Images People watch as fire fighters douse flames of the burning Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Charles Platiau Paris Fire brigade members spray water to extinguish flames as the Notre Dame Cathedral burns in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer A Paris Fire brigade member is seen in a doorway as he looks into the Notre Dame Cathedral as a fire continues to burn in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer Paris Fire brigade members spray water to extinguish flames as the Notre Dame Cathedral burns in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer Paris Fire brigade members spray water to extinguish flames as the Notre Dame Cathedral burns in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer Sparks fill the air as Paris Fire brigade members spray water to extinguish flames as the Notre Dame Cathedral burns in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer Paris Fire brigade members spray water to extinguish flames as the Notre Dame Cathedral burns in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer Sparks fill the air as Paris Fire brigade members spray water to extinguish flames as the Notre Dame Cathedral burns in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer Sparks and flames are seen through a destroyed stained glass window as the Notre Dame Cathedral burns in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer Sparks fill the air as Paris Fire brigade members spray water to extinguish flames as the Notre Dame Cathedral burns in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer Sparks fill the air as Paris Fire brigade members spray water to extinguish flames as the Notre Dame Cathedral burns in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer TOPSHOT - Smokes ascends as flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on April 15, 2019 afternoon, potentially involving renovation works being carried out at the site, the fire service said. (Photo by FRANCOIS GUILLOT / AFP)FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty Images TOPSHOT - Smokes ascends as flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on April 15, 2019 afternoon, potentially involving renovation works being carried out at the site, the fire service said. (Photo by FRANCOIS GUILLOT / AFP)FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty Images Flames and smoke are seen billowing from the roof at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on April 15, 2019.PIERRE GALEY/AFP/Getty Images Smokes ascends as flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on April 15, 2019. FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty Images Smoke billows as fire engulfs the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier Sparks and flames are seen through a destroyed stained glass window as the Notre Dame Cathedral burns in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer The Notre Dame Cathedral spire collapses during a fire in Paris, France April 15, 2019 in this still image taken from social media video. Twitter/@H_MISER via REUTERS Paris Fire brigade members are seen at an entrance that looks into the Notre Dame Cathedral as a fire continues to burn in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer Smoke billows as fire engulfs the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier Firefighters tackle the blaze as flames and smoke rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) Flames illuminate the night sky as Notre Dame cathedral burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) Flames and smoke rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) A fire fighter uses a hose as Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. A catastrophic fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris' soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) Flames and smoke rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) A fire fighter uses a hose as Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. A catastrophic fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris' soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) Firefighters use hoses as Notre Dame cathedral burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. A catastrophic fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris' soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) Firefighters tackle the blaze as flames and smoke rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler) Firefighters use hoses as Notre Dame cathedral burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. A catastrophic fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris' soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) People watch as fire fighters douse flames of the burning Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier Paris Fire brigade members are seen at an entrance that shows a cross inside the Notre Dame Cathedral as a fire continues to burn in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer A still image taken from a video shows flames at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS TV/via REUTERS People pray as Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. A catastrophic fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris' soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) People pray as Notre Dame cathedral burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) Smoke billows as fire engulfs the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier 'The catastrophic fire which enveloped Notre-Dame not only made world headlines, it was striking how many people in so many places were personally upset by the sight of this inferno.' Photo: Getty Images The steeple of the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral collapses as the cathedral is engulfed in flames in central Paris on April 15, 2019. A massive fire consumed Notre-Dame Cathedral on Monday, gutting and destroying the roof of the Paris landmark and stunning France and the world, but firefighters said they had saved the shell of the stone structure from collapse. Flames that began in the early evening burst rapidly through the roof of the centuries-old cathedral and engulfed the spire, which toppled, quickly followed by the entire roof. As it burned into the evening, firefighters battled to prevent one of the main bell towers from collapsing. One firefighter was seriously injured - the only reported casualty. "We now believe that the two towers of Notre-Dame have been saved," Paris fire chief Jean-Claude Gallet told reporters at the scene. "We now consider that the main structure of Notre-Dame has been saved and preserved." There was still a risk that some of the interior structures could collapse, and firefighters would work overnight to cool them down, he said. Expand Close Smoke billows as fire engulfs the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Smoke billows as fire engulfs the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier Distraught Parisians and stunned tourists gazed in disbelief as the inferno raged at the cathedral, which sits on the Ile de la Cite, an island in the River Seine and marks the very centre of Paris. Thousands of onlookers lined bridges over Seine and along its embankments, held at a distance by a police cordon. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close French President Emmanuel Macron walks near the Notre Dame Cathedral as its burns in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Rafael Yaghobzadeh) Smoke billows as fire engulfs the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier The Notre Dame Cathedral spire collapses during a fire in Paris, France April 15, 2019 in this still image taken from social media video. Twitter/@H_MISER via REUTERS Smoke billows as fire engulfs the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Lori Hinant) Handout video grab taken from the Twitter feed of @leistomania93 of smoke and flames coming from the roof of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. @leistomania93/PA Wire Smoke billows as fire engulfs the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier Smoke billows from the Notre Dame Cathedral after a fire broke out, in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Julie Carriat Handout video grab taken from the Twitter feed of @AshhHuntington of smoke and flames coming from the roof of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Ashley Huntington/Mercedes Girona/PA Wire Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Lori Hinant) A still image taken from a video shows flames and thick smoke billowing from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS TV/via REUTERS Smoke billows from Notre Dame Cathedral after a fire broke out, in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Charles Platiau A still image taken from a video shows flames and thick smoke billowing from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France April 15, 2019. REUTERS TV/via REUTERS Smokes ascends as flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on April 15, 2019 afternoon, potentially involving renovation works being carried out at the site, the fire service said. (Photo by FRANCOIS GUILLOT / AFP)FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty Images TOPSHOT - Smokes ascends as flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on April 15, 2019 afternoon, potentially involving renovation works being carried out at the site, the fire service said. (Photo by FRANCOIS GUILLOT / AFP)FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty Images TOPSHOT - Smokes ascends as flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on April 15, 2019 afternoon, potentially involving renovation works being carried out at the site, the fire service said. (Photo by FRANCOIS GUILLOT / AFP)FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty Images Flames and smoke are seen billowing from the roof at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on April 15, 2019.PIERRE GALEY/AFP/Getty Images Smokes ascends as flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on April 15, 2019. FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp French President Emmanuel Macron walks near the Notre Dame Cathedral as its burns in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer World leaders expressed shock and sent condolences to the French people. President Emmanuel Macron said the whole nation was distressed. "Like all our compatriots, I am sad this evening to see this part of all of us burn," he tweeted. Macron also pledged to rebuild Notre-Dame cathedral. "Notre-Dame is our history, our literature, part of our psyche, the place of all our great events, our epidemics, our wars, our liberations, the epicentre of our lives," Macron told reporters in front of the still burning Paris landmark. "Notre-Dame is burning, and I know the sadness, and this tremor felt by so many fellow French people. But tonight, I'd like to speak of hope too," he said, announcing the launch of an fundraising campaign. "Let's be proud, because we built this cathedral more than 800 years ago, we've built it and, throughout the centuries, let it grow and improved it. So I solemnly say tonight: we will rebuild it together," he added. A huge plume of smoke wafted across the city and ash fell over a large area. People watching gasped as the spire folded over onto itself and fell into the inferno. Firefighters battled smoke and falling drops of molten lead to salvage priceless artworks and relics. A centuries-old crown of thorns made from reeds and gold and the tunic worn by Saint Louis, a 13th century king of France, were saved, Notre-Dame's top administrative cleric, Monsignor Patrick Chauvet said. But firefighters had struggled to take down some of the large paintings in time, he said. Expand Close Sparks and flames are seen through a destroyed stained glass window as the Notre Dame Cathedral burns in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sparks and flames are seen through a destroyed stained glass window as the Notre Dame Cathedral burns in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer The Paris prosecutor's office said it had launched an inquiry into the fire. Several police sources said that they were working on the assumption for now that it was accidental. "Everything is collapsing," a police officer near the scene said as the cathedral continued to burn. Macron, who cancelled an address to the nation that he had been due to give on Monday evening, went to the scene of the blaze and talked to officials trying to contain it. The French Civil Security service, possibly responding to U.S. President Donald Trump's suggestion that firefighters "act quickly" and employ flying water tankers, said that was not an option as it might destroy the entire building. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the cathedral a "symbol of France and our European culture". British Prime Minister Theresa May said her thoughts were with the French people and emergency services fighting the "terrible blaze". nL5N21X5L6] The Vatican said the fire at the "symbol of Christianity in France and in the world" had caused shock and sadness and said it was praying for the firefighters. Expand Close Smokes ascends as flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on April 15, 2019 afternoon, potentially involving renovation works being carried out at the site, the fire service said. (Photo by FRANCOIS GUILLOT / AFP)FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Smokes ascends as flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on April 15, 2019 afternoon, potentially involving renovation works being carried out at the site, the fire service said. (Photo by FRANCOIS GUILLOT / AFP)FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty Images SYMBOL OF PARIS The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, said at the scene that some of many artworks that were in the cathedral had been taken out and were being put in safe storage. The cathedral, which dates back to the 12th century, features in Victor Hugo's classic novel "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame". It is a UNESCO World Heritage site that attracts millions of tourists every year. It is a focal point for French Roman Catholics who like Christians around the world are celebrating Holy Week, marking the death and resurrection of Jesus. The archbishop of Paris called on all priests in Paris to ring church bells as a gesture of solidarity for Notre-Dame. "I have a lot of friends who live abroad and every time they come I tell them to go to Notre-Dame," said witness Samantha Silva, with tears in her eyes. "I've visited it so many times, but it will never be the same. It's a real symbol of Paris." The cathedral was in the midst of renovations, with some sections under scaffolding, and bronze statues were removed last week for works. Built over a century starting in 1163, Notre-Dame is considered to be among the finest examples of French Gothic cathedral architecture. It is renowned for its rib vaulting, flying buttresses and stunning stained glass windows, as well as its many carved stone gargoyles. Its 100-metre-long (330-foot) roof, of which a large section was consumed in the first hour of the blaze, was one of the oldest such structures in Paris, according to the cathedrals website. A centre of Roman Catholic faith, over the centuries Notre-Dame has also been a target of political upheaval. It was ransacked by rioting Protestant Huguenots in the 16th century, pillaged again during the French Revolution of the 1790s and left in a state of semi-neglect. Hugos 1831 work led to revived interest in the cathedral and a major partly botched restoration that began in 1844. The wood-and-lead spire was built during that restoration, according to the cathedral's website. "Notre-Dame belonged to all humanity. What a tragic spectacle," tweeted Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Union's executive Commission. "What horror. I share the French nation's sadness." Pictures of Notre Dame Cathedral before the fire here: Stepping back: German Chancellor Angela Merkel has told her partys new leader that she will not take part in any future political campaigning, even though it is facing key state elections later in the year. Photo: Adam Berry/Getty Images Angela Merkel has upset the new leader of her Christian Democratic Party (CDU) by cancelling a key hustings for the European elections. The issue has resulted in speculation that the two leading figures in German politics may have fallen out over the party's new identity. Ms Merkel informed Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer at the 11th hour that she would not travel to Munster to open the CDU campaign for May's European elections with her, 'Welt am Sonntag' newspaper reported yesterday. The last-minute snub is a major embarrassment to Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer, who had already informed party colleagues that the chancellor was to appear, and ordered corresponding security measures to be taken. It is just the latest in a string of rebuffs from Ms Merkel to the woman once labelled "mini-Merkel" who succeeded her as party leader at the end of last year. The chancellor has reportedly informed her heir apparent that she will not take part in any future political campaigning, even as the party faces key state elections in the autumn. She has also turned down invitations to a series of policy workshops that Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer organised in a push to reconnect the party with its grass roots. Party insiders insist that Ms Merkel made it clear months ago that she would step back from party engagements in order to allow her successor to grow her public profile. But Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer is said to be bitterly disappointed at the latest snub, fearing it sends a signal that Ms Merkel is disgruntled with her more conservative style. Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer has steered the party to the right on issues such as asylum and gay rights since taking over as chairman. She has also courted the chancellor's long-time rival Friedrich Merz, a pro-business conservative to whom she has reportedly offered a ministerial role in the post-Merkel era. Ralf Stegner, the Social Democrats deputy leader, claimed on Twitter that Ms Merkel's disappearing act is down to "disputes over political direction and party personnel". The chancellor is set to appear at the final hustings for the European elections in Munich in May. Frances Marine Le Pen, one of the leading voices of the far right in the European Union, is throwing her political weight behind Italian hardline minister Matteo Salvini to set up a major populist group in the EU legislature after next months elections. The head of Frances National Rally party said we have mandated Matteo Salvini to try to build this very big group of the Defence of European Nations in the European parliament. Even though far-right populist parties sometimes have widely diverging stances on some issues, Ms Le Pen says there is more that unites them than divides them. Currently, populist parties are spread across different groups in the legislature, such as Christian Democrat and Socialist groupings. Some, like Ms Le Pens party, have long stood alone in the parliament. Expand Close Matteo Salvini (Luca Bruno/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Matteo Salvini (Luca Bruno/AP) Far-right figures have often made plenty of noise in the legislature but have been sidelined when it came to wielding parliamentary power. In recent years, populist and far-right parties have made inroads in several EU nations, from Mr Salvinis Italy to the Hungary of prime minister Viktor Orban and the rise of the right in last Sundays Finnish elections. Ms Le Pen was the presidential challenger to Emmanuel Macron in the final round two years ago but lost heavily. The populist parties hope that by uniting they will make their voice count in the 28-nation EU for the first time. They are going their own way in the election campaign but hope to stand together afterwards. We want to go further and get the (parliamentary) group which is the biggest, the strongest possible, Ms Le Pen said. With Britain possibly being forced to take part in the May 23-26 elections despite the countrys plans to split from the EU by October 31, Ms Le Pen also held out a hand to Nigel Farage. He is welcome if he wants to join. Even if it might be just for a moment, she said. US President Donald Trump wants to explore a twice-rejected proposal to send migrants to "sanctuary cities", but that is not the preferred solution to fix the straining immigration system, the White House said yesterday. Press secretary Sarah Sanders said it was one of many options, though she hoped Congress would work with the president on a comprehensive immigration overhaul. The Trump administration is dealing with an ever-increasing number of Central American migrants crossing the US-Mexico border, an influx that has pushed the immigration system to breaking point. Laws make it hard to quickly return Central Americans, and many of them spend years in the US waiting for their immigration cases to play out. Others claim asylum and wait just as long - living and working in the US as they wait. "Sanctuary cities" are mostly left-leaning places such as New York and San Francisco where laws prohibit police and correction officers from working with immigration officials to help arrest and deport people living in the US illegally. Mr Trump seized on reports last week of the proposal that sought to send migrants already detained to Democratic locations or transport migrants that have just crossed the US-Mexico border to sanctuary cities. Ms Sanders said the idea would be to spread out the number of migrants so the strain would not be on "one or two border communities". "The president likes the idea and Democrats have said they want these individuals into their communities so let's see if it works and everybody gets a win out of it," Ms Sanders said. "Again, this is not the ideal situation." Mr Trump tweeted on Saturday evening that the US had the "absolute legal right to have apprehended illegal immigrants transferred to Sanctuary Cities". Yujing Zhang (L), charged with bluffing her way into President Donald Trump's Florida resort, appears at her hearing at the U.S. federal court in this courtroom sketch, in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Daniel Pontet A Chinese woman charged with bluffing her way into U.S. President Donald Trump's Florida resort last month was denied bail on Monday by a federal judge who said he believed she was "up to something nefarious." Yujing Zhang, who was carrying four cell phones and a laptop computer when arrested, pleaded not guilty at her arraignment and detention hearing on Monday at the federal courthouse in West Palm Beach, Florida. Zhang (33) was formally indicted on Friday on charges of making false statements to a federal officer and entering or remaining in a restricted area. The charges carry a sentence of up to five years in prison. During the hearing, a federal prosecutor said Zhang could face more charges and Magistrate Judge William Matthewman denied her request for bond. Judge Matthewman said he was concerned Zhang told U.S. Secret Service agents she was at Mar-a-Lago to attend a charity event that prosecutors allege she knew was cancelled. He was also troubled by the number of electronic devices she was carrying when arrested by the U.S. Secret Service. Expand Close Donald Trump (Evan Vucci/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Donald Trump (Evan Vucci/AP) It does appear to the court that Ms. Zhang was up to something nefarious when she unlawfully attempted to gain access to Mar-a-Lago," Judge Matthewman said. "The fact she was within arm's reach of a computer at Mar-a-Lago is also extremely concerning." Zhang has not been indicted on espionage charges. The FBI is examining whether she has links to intelligence agencies in China or political influence operations, two U.S. government sources have told Reuters. Zhang was arrested on March 30 after giving conflicting reasons for being at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach during one of Trump's weekend visits, an incident that renewed concerns about security at the club. Trump was not on the premises at the time. Zhang was briefly allowed onto the property after staff mistakenly thought she might be the daughter of a club member. She aroused suspicions by variously telling Secret Service agents and Mar-a-Lago reception staff that she wanted to use the pool and that she was there for an event that did not appear on the day's schedule, according to prosecutors. Federal public defender Kristy Militello said there were "genuine misunderstandings" in the case and Zhang, who works in investment finance in China, was not a serious flight risk. One of America's first Muslim congresswomen has vowed not to be silenced after President Donald Trump led an attack on her for controversial remarks she made about 9/11. Ilhan Omar, of Minnesota, sparked a row by saying "some people did something" in reference to the atrocity in a speech last month to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. On Friday, Mr Trump posted a video on Twitter tagged "We will never forget", that featured footage of the Twin Towers in flames interspersed with Ms Omar's comments. Hours later, a man was arrested for threatening to kill Ms Omar, who came to the US from Somalia as a child refugee. Undeterred, the 37-year-old wrote on Twitter at the weekend: "I did not run for Congress to be silent [or] to sit on the sidelines. I ran because I believed it was time to restore moral clarity and courage to Congress. To fight and to defend our democracy." While most fellow members of the Democratic Party leapt to her defence, rounding on Mr Trump for pushing anti-Muslim rhetoric and inciting racial hatred, Nancy Pelosi, the most senior Democrat in the House of Representative, was notably measured. While admonishing the president, her response has also been read as chastising the new congresswoman. "The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground and any discussion of it must be done with reverence," she wrote on Twitter on Saturday. "The president shouldn't use the painful images of 9/11 for a political attack." Cory Booker, who on Saturday became the 18th Democrat to announce that he is running for the presidency, said yesterday: "To see the president use images of 9/11 in a vicious, crass, disgusting way - that is so objectionable. This is what I mean about moral vandalism in our country." Elizabeth Warren, another presidential contender, said: "The president is inciting violence against a sitting congresswoman - and an entire group of Americans, based on their religion." In February, Ms Omar was forced to apologise after she made remarks regarding America's close relationship with Israel, which she implied was down to money. Mr Trump called on her to resign. When asked abut the controversy yesterday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders condemned Ms Omar. Ms Sanders also said Congress was "not smart" enough to understand Mr Trump's tax returns as pressure to release them heightened, with today marking Tax Day in the US. ( Daily Telegraph London) Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021] The cost of the addition and secured vestibule is nearly $677,000 more than administration officials initially expected, in part because the city of Park Ridge will require the district to spend $150,000 on stormwater management. In addition, the plan calls for the district to spend $60,000 on lunchroom tables for the new multipurpose room, which was not in the original plan. The Sudanese protest movement has welcomed positive steps taken by the ruling military council which held talks with opposition leaders over the weekend and released some political prisoners. The praise came despite a brief incident on Monday when activists said soldiers attempted to disperse the protest sit-in outside the military headquarters in the capital Khartoum, but eventually backed off. Last week, Sudans military ousted long-time President Omar al-Bashir following four months of street protests against his rule, then appointed a military council that it says will rule for two years or less while elections are organised. Demonstrators fear that the army, dominated by al-Bashir appointees, will cling to power or select one of its own to succeed him. Expand Close Demonstrators gather in Sudans capital (AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Demonstrators gather in Sudans capital (AP) The Sudanese Professionals Association, which is behind the protests, repeated its key demand at a press conference in Khartoum: The military must immediately give power to a transitional civilian government that would rule for four years. The trust is in the street, said prominent activist Mohammed Naji al-Asam, referring to the ongoing sit-in. The SPA also called on the international community to support civilian rule. The African Union gave Sudans military 15 days to hand over power to a civilian-led political authority or face suspension from the unions activities. It said a civilian authority should hold elections as quickly as possible. Earlier in the day, the SPA urged people into the streets, saying: There is an attempt to break up the sit-in. We appeal to everyone to head to the area to protect your revolution and gains. There were no clashes and no one was hurt in the attempted dispersal, but the incident set off concerns that the military could renege on its promises not to use force against the peaceful demonstrators. Previous attempts to break up the sit-in before al-Bashirs removal last Thursday killed dozens of people. Videos circulated online showing hundreds of troops outside the military compound in Khartoum. In the footage, an officer is heard saying they came to open roads, clean the area and remove the barricades set up by the protesters to protect their gathering. Some protesters are then seen in the footage sitting down on the ground in front of the soldiers who subsequently move away. This really is a Montana debate: Support coal or else forget Medicaid Sen. Jason Small, Northern Cheyenne, is a Republican, and the sponsor of the Medicaid legislation. He calls the impact of Medicaid incredible. Indian Country Today This is really a debate in 2019: Conservative legislators in Montana are demanding that the coal industry get state support or else they will not support a renewal of Medicaid expansion. And the deadline for a resolution of the nonsensical linking of the two issues is Monday. The outcome of this debate is significant to the Indian health system. One recent study found that at least 15,495 eligible American Indians have been insured through Medicaid expansion. Not only does this have the potential to help close the staggering American Indian health disparities gap, it brings much needed health care dollars into the Indian health system, according to the Montana Budget and Policy Center And, as the center points out, Additionally, any service provided through the Indian Health system and its providers qualify for 100 percent federal reimbursement and therefore are provided at no cost to the state Medicaid program. Medicaid is a partisan debate that is being played out across the country. Republicans are eager to roll back Medicaid while Democrats are eager to expand the public health insurance program. We have only hours to save healthcare coverage for over 100,000 Montanans. Find out how to make a difference below! Yesterday, House Bill 658, which would have continued Medicaid expansion, stalled in the MT Senate on a tie vote. You can make a difference by contacting these Senators as soon as possible at (406) 444-4800 or leave a web message at leg.mt.gov/web-messaging: Sen. Ankney Sen. Hoven Sen. Richmond Sen. Tempel Sen. Welborn Sen. Thomas LETS GET THE PHONES RINGING. PHONES OPEN AT 7:30 AM 4/12 Thank you Jason Small for carrying HB 658 and fighting for healthcare for 1 in 10 Montanans! Posted by Western Native Voice on Friday, April 12, 2019 Western Native Voice: 'We have only hours to save healthcare coverage for over 100,000 Montanans' Medicaid is a state-federal partnership. So the states set the rules. But the Indian health system is stuck in the middle. The federal government pays the bills for eligible American Indian patients under a 100 percent federal match. So when states walk away from Medicaid, it costs the Indian health system funding. Officially the Indian Health Service receives $1.19 billion from third party billing, mostly Medicaid. But the number for the entire system is much larger because tribal, urban and nonprofit providers are not included in the IHS budget. The Medicaid debate in Montana was complicated when voters rejected a measure to codify the expansion and pay for the insurance programs with tobacco taxes. The vote was 52 percent against. Last month the state House reached a compromise on Medicaid, reauthorizing the program, but adding the work rules that Republicans demanded. But the Senate could not reach a deal. The measure failed by a single vote, a tie of 25 for and 25 against. As the Helen Independent Record reports there is now a trade-off demand: If you want public health insurance, save the state's coal industry. The headline: "Montana's Medicaid expansion hangs on Colstrip deal." Sen. Tom Richmond, a Republican from Billings, had signed onto the Medicaid expansion bill but is voting no. He told the Helena Independent Record: We have some issues with one of my bills and we'll see what thats going to be a little later on. The issues, the Record says, was "one of his bills is to let NorthWestern Energy, the state's monopoly utility company , buy 150 megawatts of interest in the Colstrip Power Plant while prohibiting the state's Public Service Commission from oversight of the $75 million in increased costs the move would mean for ratepayers. MUST SEE: Senate Majority Leader Fred Thomas (R-Stevensville) gives an update on #MedicaidExpansion and reaffirms his commitment to defeating it. #MTPol #MTLeg #NotAGame pic.twitter.com/SYwLshQhZV Montana Senate GOP (@MTSenateGOP) April 12, 2019 Tribal leaders have spoken out in favor of reauthorizing the legislation. Medicaid expansion is critical for improving American Indian health and health care delivery systems in Indian country, President Andrew Werk Jr. of the Fort Belknap Assiniboine, Nakoda, and Gros Ventre, Aaniiih, Tribes said in the State of Tribal Nations in February. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock tweeted that governing is not a game . He said in a statement that the nearly one hundred thousand people who rely on the Medicaid expansion cannot trade votes. The only choice they have is whether they get the health care they need or whether they can put food on the table for their families. Senators again debated Medicaid on Saturday, but could not reach a deal. Sen. Jason Small, Northern Cheyenne, is a Republican, and the sponsor of the Medicaid legislation. He said in a video interview on Facebook with Western Native Voice that the impact of Medicaid is incredible. He said Montana could lose out on about $300 million a year in personal income. We'll be losing the rural hospitals, rural clinics. They're going to be losing out. It's going to be very difficult to keep them funded and going, he said. And the Indian Health Service for the first time in a hundred years it's been working, right? So we're going to lose that too, that we'll be back down to life or limb at some point. It's pretty much all of Montana, he said. "There are 18,000 businesses and 57 percent of those actually have an employee on Medicaid expansion. So it's a pretty unbelievable number. (Small also supports the coal legislation, but does not tie the two together as an either, or.) It is heartbreaking to know that some of our legislators are putting special interest and partisan politics before the lives of 1 in 10 Montanans, said Marci McLean-Pollock, executive director of Western Native Voice said in a news release . It is shameful that these senators are reinforcing the belief that the lives of working Montanans can be used as political pawns and that they are putting corporate profits before the lives of their constituents. As if fleecing captive ratepayers wasn't bad enough, now these guys want to hold Montana's most vulnerable families captive to their corporate welfare scheme, said Beth Kaeding, a member of Northern Plains Resource Council who testified in opposition to SB 331 earlier this week. This small band of legislators is holding healthcare hostage for 90,000 Montanans unless their demands are met to funnel 75 million dollars to NorthWestern Energy, an out-of-state monopoly utility. It's a naked display of corruption reminiscent of the days when the Copper Kings ruled the state. The Montana Senate has a deadline. Monday is the last day that legislation can be enacted without requiring a supermajority from at least one house. serving in its state legislature , including three in the Senate, two Democrats and one Republican. All three support the Medicaid expansion legislation. Medicaid expansion is scheduled to expire June 30 in Montana unless the legislature re-authorizes it. Governing is not a game. The healthcare of 10% of our states population is on the line with the reauthorization of Medicaid expansion, and its time to stop playing politics.https://t.co/JkIKs9flrn Steve Bullock (@GovernorBullock) April 14, 2019 There is absolutely no reason for Montanans to have to suffer and lose their access to health care all because of political games. Contact your state senator at 406-444-4800 and tell them to pass Medicaid expansion. #mtleg #NotAGame https://t.co/vuzabW2l3R Mike Cooney (@LtGovMikeCooney) April 14, 2019 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 on April 14, 2019. Join the Conversation Caddo Culture Days was happening when they were hit by a tornado. This is what's left of the Caddo Mounds Museum. Many people were hurt and had to wait for roads to be cleared before getting help. pic.twitter.com/sc1lDlVAaP Authorities in Texas have shut down the Caddo Mounds State Historic Site after a tornado struck during a Native festival on Saturday, resulting in the death of one person. Citizens of the Caddo Nation and others were at the site to celebrate Caddo Culture Day when the storm hit. A woman who suffered an injury during the event died on Sunday, KETK reported. Other injuries were also reported and the site itself suffered significant damage, according to photos shared online Our Caddo Mounds State Historic Site has been impacted by severe weather. The site is closed until further notice. We will provide an update as soon as we have more information. Please keep the community of Alto in your thoughts, along with all others affected by this disaster. pic.twitter.com/QhMyhHEV0s Texas Historical Commission (@TxHistComm) April 14, 2019 "Please keep the community of Alto in your thoughts, along with all others affected by this disaster," the site said in a post on social media The site is home to a historic Caddo village that dates back more than 1,200 years. It's located outside of the town of Alto in east central Texas. The Caddo Nation once lived on a reservation in Texas but was forced to move to present-day Oklahoma in the late 1800s. Read More on the Story Join the Conversation A Native woman who stood up to voter suppression in North Dakota -- and won an election in the process -- will be sharing her experiences at a Congressional field hearing on Tuesday. In November, Ruth Buffalo made history by becoming the first Native woman Democrat elected to the North Dakota Legislature. She did so by challenging the Republican male legislator who sponsored a voter identification law widely seen as an attempt to stifle turnout in Indian Country "Thank you, Representative Ruth Buffalo, for running and winning your seat," Rep. Deb Haaland (D-New Mexico), who herself is one of the first two Native women in the U.S. Congress , said at a hearing in the nation's capital last month that focuses on the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women "You were meant to serve," Haaland told Buffalo , fighting back tears. "I'm inspired by the vast amount of work you've already done since you've been in your seat." North Dakota Rep. Ruth Buffalo (D) testifies before the House Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples in March 14, 2019. Photo courtesy Natural Resources Democrats Buffalo's efforts will be shared at the field hearing, which is being hosted by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe at its headquarters in Fort Yates. Native leaders and advocates from North Dakota and South Dakota will tell the Committee on House Administration about the need to strengthen the voices of the first Americans. "Voter access is a human right," Buffalo wrote on social media last Thursday in reference to the hearing. "Its important to continue working against voter suppression to strengthen all families and all communities in our great state of North Dakota," added Buffalo , who is a citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation. "We must do better." Witnesses from the South Dakota side include O.J. Semans , a citizen of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe who serves as co-director of Four Directions, a group that advocates for Native "equality" at the ballot box.. He plans to testify about the need to place polling locations in Indian Country. The hearing will take place at 10am Central Time on Tuesday. It is being webcast by the committee North Dakota Panel: Jacqueline De Leon, Staff Attorney, Native American Rights Fund Prairie Rose Seminole, Community Organizer Ruth Buffalo, North Dakota State Representative, District 27 South Dakota Panel: OJ Semans, Sr., Co-Executive Director, Four Directions Donita Loudner, former Buffalo County Commissioner Witnesses include: Committee on House Administration Notice Join the Conversation Alia Bhatt wouldnt be voting in the current Lok Sabha elections because she cannot. During the promotions of Kalank, her upcoming movie, when Alia Bhatt was asked if she was going to vote, to which she said, I can't vote. When asked about the reason for the same, she told India Today, Passport. Twitter For the uninitiated, Alia Bhatt doesnt hold an Indian passport. She is a British citizen and so is her mother Soni Razdan. So, to be able to vote, she will have to give up her British citizenship because according to Indian rules, no person can hold dual passports. Twitter Soni Razdans recent tweet about Junaid Khan didnt go down well with people on social media who trolled her left, right and centre. Not only that, she also faced the heat from Kangana Ranauts sister Rangoli Chandel. Twitter These non Indians who are living off this land, using and abusing its people and its resources, lying about intolerance and spreading hatred, time to think about their agenda and not to get carried away with their provocations, wrote Rangoli Chandel attack Soni Razdan over her British passport. These non Indians who are living off this land, using and abusing its people and its resources, lying about intolerance and spreading hatred, time to think about their agenda and not to get carried away with their provocations. https://t.co/FAwHChqopC Rangoli Chandel (@Rangoli_A) April 14, 2019 For the uninitiated, Soni Razdan had posted a picture of Junaid Khan, the boy who was stabbed to death on a train near Ballabhgarh in Haryana in June 2017. I am Junaid Khan, Muslim boy, age 15. I was killed by a mob on a train for being a Muslim. Remember me when you vote, she wrote. Twitter While some slammed her for spreading fake news, others countered her pointing out cases of Hindus being killed in violence across country. There were others who reminded her that Punjab and Haryana High court had said that the fight was over seat and not on the basis of religion. Jim Sarbh is the current heartthrob of the internet, thanks to Made In Heaven. His performance has made him won accolades and he totally deserves it. Instagram Indiatimes had a chat with the actor where we first asked him if he ever thought Made in Heaven would be so successful, to which he had a straightforward answer and that is, YES. Thats Jim Sarbh for you. Moving on he said, the writing, the directors, the cast attracted him to do the show and he was totally right. Talking about the best compliment he received for Made In Heaven, Jim says, People seem to like the show, the dichotomies the show explores, and the richly expressed characters that are all trying their best in this strange tough world. Twitter Jim has smartly taken decision in his career, from making a debut with Neerja to Made In Heaven, his choices are damn impressive, we asked if he has taken a conscious decision to do such different characters every time to stay relevant, he says, I dont really believe any decision is conscious: the way you mean it. Twitter Made In Heaven was groundbreaking in every way, especially the gay consensual scenes, those were liberating and welcoming, but Jim feels otherwise, I guess we just have different standards. I consider the depiction, the norm, based on international literature, art, and cinema. The fact that it is groundbreaking is very confusing and strange for me. Twitter Jim who is riding high on success, when asked if he fears losing it, he had the most cheeky reply to it, I am too overwhelmed with my fear of dying and/or peanut butter getting stuck to the roof of my mouth to give this much thought. Twitter Defining whats success for him Jim says, Just now Im sitting by the pool in a hotel in Delhi with the afternoon off from shooting a film, answering an interview about a web series I shot while staying in the exact same hotel; I am reading a book whos author wants to cast me as the protagonist, and I just landed this morning from Calcutta where I performed a play to a houseful audience. When we asked him how he deals with failures, pat came the reply, Suffer. No other actor has been blunt in accepting failure like Jim. When asked would he say yes to a film without liking the script because his favourite director is filming it, he said, If I didnt like the script, but I loved the director, I would wonder why this director is making this particular film, and then I would try to see it from his or her perspective. If perhaps, he/she sees something I dont, I would try to understand it and work with her/him. If perhaps, I see something she/he doesnt, I would try to explain it to her/him and work to change the script. Twitter Lastly, we concluded by asking whats his dream role, to which he said, If I knew, Id make it. Twitter Jim is the one actor who believes in talking less and expressing more. With several classes already being taught art and music in their homeroom by a teacher who moves from class to class with supplies on a cart, there is no room left to add additional classrooms in order to keep the sizes of the class below the districts guidelines of 24 students in first grade and 26 students in fourth grade, Principal Stephanie Daly told the board. Taking serious note of the 'communal' comments made by Yogi Adityanath and BSP supremo Mayawati the Election Commission has barred the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister from campaigning for the next three days. Mayawati too was found to be violating the Model Code of Conduct and has been barred from the campaign for 48 hours. The two have also been "censured". Read more BJP MLA Who Called Old Hyderabad 'Mini Pakistan' Copies Pak Army's Song To Praise Indian Jawans Controversial BJP MLA from Hyderabad, Raja Singh, who is notorious for his off the cuff comments, is back in the news - this time for an even strange reason. Singh, the lone BJP MLA from Telangana is accused of plagiarising a song by Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) the media wing of the Pakistan Army to for his song which praises the Indian Army. Read more China Has Developed World's First Amphibious Drone Boat And It's Called Marine Lizard China has successfully tested the world's first armed amphibious drone boat which the Chinese military analysts claimed could be used in land assault operations and is capable of forming a combat triad with aerial drones and other drone ships, according to a media report. Built by Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group under China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC), the drone ship, named Marine Lizard, successfully passed delivery checks and left the factory on April 8 in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei Province. Read more Astronomers Want People's Suggestion To Name Dwarf Planet Found In 2007 A minor planet discovered in 2007 till now was known with the name (225088) 2007, OR10 but now astronomers want a cooler name for this dwarf planet in our solar system and asked people to suggest names. People can suggest their choice of names until May 10. Whenever planets are discovered, they are usually named with the help of the different combination of alphabets and numbers. Read more Journey Of Election Officials: Sail Boats, Hill Trekking And Carrying EVMs, It's Not Easy With over 900 million voters which are roughly thrice the population of the USA and more than the population of entire Europe, the general election in the world largest democracy has many countless facets which make it perhaps the great fest of free will and right to choose across the world. Imagine the amount of workforce whether those who conduct elections or those who maintain the law and order required to conduct the election in worlds seventh largest country in terms of area with snow clad Himalayas, plains, deserts, swamps, jungles and island scattered in the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. Read more 926 Assaults On Women Take Place Every Day In India And These 10 States Record Most Crimes The official government data has revealed that as many as 926 crimes against women take place every day in India. This includes at least 106 cases of brutal sexual assault on women. In just a few words, here is the story of women security in India. Every politician vows to make cities safer for women, every incumbent representative promises security to 'sisters and daughters'. Read more The Rafale jet controversy hasnt only put some embarrassing questions before the government, but an entire is now stand embarrassed because of the Rafale deal being in news for corruption charges and now the villagers want to change name of the village. The resident of Rafel, Mahsamund constituency of Chhattisgarh which is going to vote in second phase of the general election on April 18 has 200 odd families. divyabhaskar "People of other villages make fun of us, saying we will be subjected to investigation if the Congress comes to power. We even went to the chief minister's office with a request to change the name of our village but could not meet him," 83-year-old Dharam Singh, the eldest in the village, told PTI over phone. "The name only attracts negative ire because of the Rafale controversy but no one cares about our village. Outside the state, not many people know about the village," he said. The villager as explained by Singh lacks basic facilities such as water and sanitation. Rain is still the main source of irrigating the crops which means if there is no or less rain, the families practising agriculture face a difficult time. "Politicians have adopted so many villages across the country but no one even visits our village. Two weeks ago, a few BJP workers came but they were also ground level people. Whoever wins the elections and comes to power, our request will be to change the name," he said. Singh, however, knows nothing about why his village is called Rafel and what does the name mean. "I don't know but this has been the name for decades, even before Chhattisgarh was formed in 2000. I don't know the logic behind the name," he said. Bharatiya Janata Party's Chandulal Sahu is the sitting member of Parliament from Mahasamund and is contesting again from the constituency. He is up against Congress' Dhanendra Sahu and Bahujan Samaj Party's Dhansing Kosariya. There's a reason no one with the slightest tech inclination uses Internet Explorer anymore. Not only is Microsoft's old browser slow and outdated, it's also incredibly insecure. But it turns out you don't even need to use it for it to compromise your data to hackers. Cybersecurity researcher John Page has just published a report revealing an unpatched exploit in the way Internet Explorer handles MHT files, the browser's web archive format. Using this, hackers can access your IE browser to both spy on your system as well as steal your local data. Even worse, Windows uses Internet explorer to open MHT files by default. That means you don;t even need to be using the browser, you just need to click on the email or chat attachment with the file to open it. And this exploit can affect WIndows 7, WIndows 10, and Windows Server 2012 R2. The problem is, Page informed Microsoft of the exploit but they reportedly decline to release an emergency fix for it. Shortly after, he published documentation of the flaw, meaning it's no public knowledge. Microsoft has since said it will "consider" a fix in a future release, meaning it may or may not decide to patch the flaw at all. And until then, it leaves millions of people with IE on their systems vulnerable to attack, at least until they disable the default option for how MHT files are opened. Apple fans in India, you have something to rejoice about as iPhones might be about to get a lot cheaper for you to buy. That's because Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn says iPhones will go into mass production in India sometime this year, according to a new report. Foxconn Technology Group Chairman Terry Gou said in an interview with Bloomberg that they will begin mass-producing the iPhone in the country. They're the largest assembler of Apple products and have, for the longest time, had the major portion of their activities focused in China. Gou mentioned that PM Narendra Modi has invited him to India as part of their plans to expand here. To clarify, Foxconn does have a facility in Bangalore that produces iPhones, but only for older models. This move will have the latest devices also being produced in India. The company will likely carry out production tests here before beginning full scale assembly at its factory outside Chennai. "In the future we will play a very important role in India's smartphone industry," Gou said at an event in Taiwan. "We have moved our production lines there." There's good reason for this too. For years now, China has provided a cheap source of labour for smartphone manufacturing, as well as a large market for sales. In recent years however, the Chinese smartphone market has stagnated in recent years, especially where iPhones are concerned. Not only are people keeping their iPhones for longer before upgrading, many of them are also opting for cheaper and equally capable Androids that are locally produced. That makes India now the fastest-growing smartphone market in the world. Of course, Apple still doesn't have a large piece of the pie, largely because of its exceptionally high prices. Local manufacturing could help to offset this however, making Apple a more competitive player in our price-conscious market. "For Foxconn, the China market for iPhones is saturated, and labor costs are three times higher compared with India," Karn Chauhan, a Gurgaon-based analyst at Counterpoint Research, told Bloomberg "India is still an emerging smartphone market, it has a lot of potential domestically and could serve as an export hub for the region." Based on comments, Foxconn plans to invest about $300 million on manufacturing for Apple in India, with more cash infusions to ramp up as their capacity expands. The company is also reportedly in talks with the Indian government regarding investments and subsidies. Additionally, if Apple meets a 30 percent local sourcing quota, they'll be allowed to open their own stores in India. Indian Vice President Venkaiah Naidu (center) releases a commemorative coin of 100 Rupees on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre at the Jallianwala Bagh martyrs memorial, in Amritsar on April 13, 2019. (Narinder Nanu/AFP/Getty Images) 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... Gonzales said there are similarities between the two Cortez Rogers that should be noted. Both of the men are between the ages of 18 and 26, live in Illinois and share the same middle initial, he said. The heights of the two men are one inch apart, and their weights differ by about 10 pounds, according to Gonzales. Ethical Corp. talks to ING head of Sustainability Leon Wijnands about how his team developed the Terra approach, with a ground-breaking methodology he hopes all banks will adopt to steer climate-friendly lending. (Republished here with permission.) ING head of Sustainability Leon Wijnands Leon Wijnands likes to tell people he lives 3.8 meters below sea level. Then he tells them that his home town of Almere was, until not so long ago, actually under water. I say this so people understand that I have a personal interest in the effects of climate change, says the 54-year-old Dutchman. The relevance of increasing temperatures and rising sea levels hasnt always preoccupied Wijnands. Indeed, when his bosses at the Netherlands-based bank ING first sounded him out about his current role as head of sustainability, he figured it was something you do alongside a real job. In late 2015 came the Paris Agreement and the whole landscape for banking changed It didnt take him long to change his view. When he took up the post back in October 2013, INGs energy-related loan book weighed heavily in favour of oil, gas and coal, a point highlighted by Oxfam and Greenpeace in a 2017 complaint to the OECD. But moves were afoot to change. Talk of climate-related liabilities and stranded assets were already taking hold inside ING, one of the big four in the Dutch banking sector. Then, in late 2015, came the Paris Agreement and the whole landscape for banking changed. Article C of the landmark agreement calls on banks to ensure finance flows in line with the two-degree pathway agreed by world leaders. In light of this key clause, Wijnands sat down with his internal team of a dozen or so sustainability experts to assess the carbon footprint of INGs existing loan portfolio. It didnt take long before they ran into hurdles. The first centred on the availability of data. Company reporting on carbon emissions and related risks remains sketchy at best. Wijnandss team werent alone in their hunt for hard, comparable numbers. It was precisely the same scramble in the dark that led G20 leaders to set up the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures four years ago. Then came what Wijnands defines as the attribution challenge, by which he means the proportion of a companys emissions that land at INGs door. For investors, its relatively easy. You have a 2% share in a company, he says, you accept 2% of that companys emissions as yours. But in lending, if you deal with a syndicate of 10 banks, plus an export facility for six months, say, what part of the footprint do you allocate to that lending product? And if next to that product you have a revolving corporate facility with that client, how do you avoid double counting? Wijnands was assigned 'a hipster, a hacker and a hustler' to resolve what a Paris-aligned financing strategy should look like It was a Houston-we-have-a-problem moment, he recalls. Stumped on both fronts, Wijnands went looking for help. But rather than turn to an external consultancy, he put in a call to an internal team within ING that deals with just such knotty innovation challenges. The way it works in ING is that a call goes out to the banks 54,000 employees laying out the challenge. Anyone interested in having a crack at it is invited to apply for a short secondment. Thats how, towards the end of 2017, Wijnands ended up being assigned a hipster, a hacker and a hustler (read: someone from the IT, finance, and wholesale banking divisions, respectively). Their task: to resolve what a Paris-aligned financing strategy should actually look like. INGs sustainability director gave the trouble-shooting trio carte blanche, something he almost immediately regretted, he recalls laughingly. They questioned everything, absolutely everything. Nothing we had developed was good enough, it seemed . . . over and over again, they would ask why this, why that? They were really quite annoying and irritating people [but] thus is really what you need if you want radical change. Such tensions are par for the course. The methodology encouraged by INGs internal innovation office actively encourages team members to diverge. This applies equally to individual members of the team, as it does any and all previously accepted assumptions, norms and ideas. The chief conclusion of the in-house, problem-solving effort was the idea that there is 'not one road to Paris' In this way, the banks appointed team of innovators are able to avoid tunnel vision, Wijnands explains. The idea is, of course, that they all eventually re-converge. And, when they do, both problem and solution are that much clearer. For all his tongue-in-cheek complaints, Wijnands insists that the eight-month process, which resulted in the publication of INGs Terra approach last year, was worth all the personal and professional frustration. The chief conclusion of the in-house, problem-solving effort was the idea that there is not one road to Paris, as Wijnands puts it. Every country, every industry sector, every individual business, needs to determine its own route to limiting global temperatures to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. For ING going forward, this means a more sectoral approach to analysing its climate-related portfolio risks and opportunities. Its chief focus will be given to corporate lending both past and future in carbon-intensive industries: namely energy, automotive, shipping and aviation, steel, cement, residential mortgages, and commercial real estate. Another insight incorporated into INGs new Terra approach is the crucial role of technology in the low-carbon transition. Helping to steer tomorrows technology mix is where banks come in, says Wijnands. ING has been developing a suite of new evaluation tools to support its new lending strategy, including a recently launched energy robot. This web-based tool shows the banks real estate clients what technologies will help ensure their individual properties meet required eco-efficiency ratings. Banks should focus most on where they can make a positive difference, not on where they can avoid the most harm One implication of this focus on technology is that banks should, perhaps, sweat a little less about the precise ecological footprint of their loan portfolios. Thats not to say that they shouldnt continue trying to calculate their direct and indirect carbon emissions. Nor does it imply stopping the environmental screening of future clients. Both are steps that ING remains deeply committed to, Wijnands insists. His point, instead, is one of prioritisation. Banks, he says, should focus most on where they can make the most positive difference, not on where they can avoid the most harm. Society is not going to change as a result of what we dont finance, his basic logic runs. Society is only going to change as a result of what we do finance. ING, needless to say, is not a technology company. For its approach to be successful, its clients need to join it in pushing forward technological solutions to climate mitigation and adaption. As well as robots and the like, ING has also been exploring product innovations that might incentivise such a shift. Wijnands cites a sustainability improvement loan developed by the banks wholesale division. A first for the syndicated loan market, the product essentially promises a lower credit rate to companies that improve their sustainability performance. He is characteristically candid about the relationship between the Terra approach developed by his team and the suite of product innovations and measurement tools created by other sections of the bank. Bringing all the various initiatives that are already developed or still under development under the same umbrella gives us a much more coherent approach. But it would be too much to say, Well, this is how we designed it three years ago and then this is how we set everything up. No, it's been a more organic, incremental way of thinking than that. What it means for a bank to follow a 'two-degree pathway' is still, in large part, anyones guess Such candidness is not only refreshing, but instructive. What it means for a bank to follow a two-degree pathway is still, in large part, anyones guess. Despite a slew of industry initiatives, as many questions remain as answers. Wijnands acknowledges this. Not having a background in sustainability (sales and customer services account for the bulk of his career) he makes no bones about not having all the answers. Hence his willingness to turn to others for help. He asked the 2 Investing Initiative (2ii), a non-profit thinktank, for assistance with the data challenges highlighted above. Not only does 2ii already have tools in place for collecting and analysing climate-related data for corporate assets and services, it also specialises in measuring the potential financial risks of financial portfolios. In the same spirit of partnership, Wijnands hopes the Terra approach will become a market standard. That means working with other banks to co-create (one of his favourite words) solutions to both the technical and strategic challenges associated with climate-friendly lending. To that end, ING went public with a charcoal draft version of its Terra approach last September, at the Global Climate Action Summit in California. It was an unusual step, he admits. Normally, banks dont publish anything until its completely finished, triple checked and has the blessing of the Pope. Going public without all the Is dotted was essential to getting other banks on board, he says. Creating a market standard from the Terra approach is only possible if it is seen as a working document open to the input of others: If it's already seen as an ING approach, then other banks will say, We will go and develop something on our own because apparently all the decisions are already made. What makes Wijnands stand out is his willingness to listen to others and collaborate ING has already joined with four other banks BBVA, BNP Paribas, Societe General and Standard Chartered to determine common protocols for aligning their lending with the Paris goals. Wijnands is confident other major banks will soon also sign up to the Katowice Commitment, a reference to the Polish city that hosted the latest UN climate summit and the setting for the alliances announcement. Disruptors are often cast as folk who buck the trend. INGs sustainability head certainly has no problem saying what he thinks and carving his own path. But what really makes him stand out is his willingness to listen to others and collaborate. Reclaiming land from the sea to create towns like Almere took collective effort. As Wijnands points out, orientating the world of finance onto a climate-friendly footing will require precisely the same. Original article posted on website of Ethical Corp. YouTube star MrBeast rethinks old notions of philanthropy AP - 4 minutes ago NEW YORK (AP) The line of cars started forming at dawn. It was early November in Greenville, North Carolina, and drivers waited in a line that stretched for miles to pick up Thanksgiving turkeys ... $SPX : 4,709.85 (+1.63%) $DOWI : 35,927.43 (+1.08%) $IUXX : 16,289.59 (+2.35%) US jobless claims rise to a still-low 206,000 AP - 21 minutes ago WASHINGTON (AP) The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose last week despite signs that the U.S. labor market is rebounding from last year's coronavirus recession. $SPX : 4,709.85 (+1.63%) $DOWI : 35,927.43 (+1.08%) $IUXX : 16,289.59 (+2.35%) Hogs Lower Despite Mixed Cash Picture Barchart - 38 minutes ago Lean hog trading through the midweek session left the board 70 to 95 cents weaker on Wednesday. CMEs 12/13 Lean Hog Index was 8 cents weaker at $72.10. USDAs National Average Base hog price for Wednesday... HEG22 : 79.325s (-0.94%) HEK22 : 89.425s (-0.86%) KMG22 : 90.050s (-1.45%) European Central Bank to taper pandemic stimulus, but gently AP - 45 minutes ago FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) The European Central Bank decided Thursday not to abruptly pull back pandemic support for the economy as the new omicron variant of COVID-19 stirs uncertainty about the recovery,... $SPX : 4,709.85 (+1.63%) $DOWI : 35,927.43 (+1.08%) $IUXX : 16,289.59 (+2.35%) Ousted McDonald's CEO returns $105M after misconduct AP - 55 minutes ago Former McDonalds CEO Steve Easterbrook has paid back more than $105 million in equity awards and cash to the burger giant after it learned that he had lied about the extent of his misconduct while he... $SPX : 4,709.85 (+1.63%) $DOWI : 35,927.43 (+1.08%) $IUXX : 16,289.59 (+2.35%) At the dialogue (Photo: VNA) The Vietnamese and US delegations emphasised the centrality of energy security to sustained economic development in light of rising energy demands. Both sides affirmed the importance of improving the transparency and predictability of Vietnams energy sector investment climate through private sector-led development and regulatory reforms. US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources (ENR) Francis R. Fannon Fannon offered continued technical assistance to support efforts to enhance the regulatory capacity of the Electricity Regulatory Authority of Vietnam (ERAV). Specifically, ENR will support ERAV with developing a competitive power market; smart grid and demand response programmes; and the regulatory tools necessary for competitive wholesale and retail electricity markets. ENR will continue to work closely with partners in the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) and the Directorate for Standards, Metrology, and Quality (STOMAQ) to increase energy efficiency in the region through technical engagements, and will seek ASEAN endorsement for voluntary best practices. The two sides further recognised the urgency for improving energy efficiency, particularly given that air conditioning comprises up to 50 percent of peak electricity demand in ASEAN countries and has a significant impact on energy security. MoIT Deputy Minister Dang Hoang An said the energy security dialogue mechanism between his ministry and the US Department of State was established two years ago, with the first meeting held in Hanoi in March 2018. This is the first energy security dialogue mechanism between ministries of two countries, he said, noting that it has created conditions for Vietnamese and US businesses to establish relations and accelerate joint projects. Through the dialogue, the two sides shared the views that energy is a potential sector that would help deepen the bilateral comprehensive ties, for interests of the two countries, and for peace and stability in the region and the world at large. The official suggested Vietnam and the US set up more official dialogue mechanisms in other spheres in order to push ahead with the implementation of specific cooperation projects between businesses of the two countries. Regarding renewable energy, Vietnam representatives discussed their pilot programme for Direct Power Purchase Agreements (DPPAs) that allows US corporations with 100 percent renewable energy targets to directly purchase electricity generated from renewable energy sources for their production facilities in Vietnam. In addition, the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) demonstrated its support for enhancing Vietnams storage capacity by funding a joint Electricity Vietnam (EVN)-GE Power study on the use of advanced energy storage technologies to reduce power shortages in Southern Vietnam. During the Dialogue, EVN and GE power signed an agreement to carry out that study. In the sphere of liquefied national gas (LNG), both delegations highlighted the US-Vietnam LNG workshop in Ho Chi Minh City in December 2018, which promoted securing stable LNG supplies for power generation and expediting investments in the LNG sector. The two sides discussed AES Corporations proposal to invest in the Son My 2 LNG-to-power project. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) highlighted its support for cooperating with MoIT on power sector reforms, increasing Vietnams renewable energy and storage capacity, promoting natural gas imports, and enhancing energy efficiency. The US and Vietnam delegations committed to continued cooperation in all of the areas discussed in the dialogue and to review progress at the third Vietnam-US Energy Security Dialogue to be held in Vietnam in 2020./. Her oldest daughter is 11 her mini -- and (Flores) left the night of her birthday, she said I told her she went on a trip and that when she comes back, shell make it up to her. Her daughter said, She better, and that was that. But we cant bear to tell them anything until we know for sure. A scholarship ceremony and multicultural afternoon tea was held at Allianz headquarters in Sydney to acknowledge and celebrate the success of the recipients of the 2019 SSI Allianz Refugee Scholarships. The event was led by Richard Feledy, Allianz Australias managing director, and SSI CEO Violet Roumeliotis. More than $84,000 including $50,000 from Allianz has been allocated this year to scholarship recipients across the education system: secondary school, vocational education and training, university, and skills and qualifications recognition. A good quality education can provide people with the opportunity to change their lives and those of their families and communities, and we are thrilled to support the recipients of the Allianz SSI Scholarships for the third consecutive year, Feledy said. The SSI organisation, these scholarships, and our Allianz refugee employment programs all aim to provide these strong individuals with ongoing education and career opportunities, so they can fulfil their personal and professional goals, and we are proud to be a part of this important initiative. To date, 130 refugee education scholarships have been awarded, with a combined value of $264,000, and 21 refugees have been supported into permanent employment with Allianz in a variety of skilled roles. A further 20 refugee youths have been supported through pre-employment workshops. Now Argo, which has since slammed the claims, has not only filed definitive proxy materials with the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with its upcoming annual general meeting but also mailed to shareholders a more than 3,000-word long letter from its boards independent directors. Were asking for your support for our board at this years meeting, wrote the directors in the letter seen by Insurance Business. Your vote will be critical to ensuring that Argo continues on its path to success and delivering long-term value to you, our shareholders. We invite you to attend Argos 2019 annual meeting on May 24, 2019 and ask you to vote the WHITE proxy card to end Voce Capitals destructive and distracting campaign. The document, which pointed to what Argo described as Voces countless false and misleading statements, read: The Argo board that you know and have seen in action has overseen strong underwriting results, prudent company spending, investments that drive growth, and opportunities that drive efficiency each step of the way. Signed by the likes of board chair Gary V. Woods, the letter added: We urge you to discard any and all blue proxy cards sent to you by Voce. If you have already returned a blue proxy card, you can change your vote by signing, dating, and returning the WHITE proxy card. Only your latest-dated proxy card will be counted. Meanwhile Voce, the beneficial owner of approximately 5.8% of Argos shares, has not issued a new statement following the insurance groups definitive proxy filing. First, GMHD.ie had to determine the cost of rebuilding the three-acre fortress and its surrounding structures. With the help of engineers, GMHD.ie was able to reach the approximate amount of over 895 million (about AU$1.4 billion). Contents, meanwhile, were estimated to be worth 50 million (about AU$79 million). Considerations for the insurance premium included the increased risk of frozen pipes due to winter as well as the castles geographical location and proximity to attacks. Also taken into account was the age of the property, which is at least 8,000 years old. Discounts, however, were provided given the premises level of security thanks to the castles 24-hour manned gates and moat, in-house dragons, and archers on its walls. The resulting annual premium, as calculated by the Killarney-based broker, is more than 6 million (about AU$9.5 million). Jon Snows not known for his smarts but he could do worse than take us up on our offer of insurance considering the potential hazards hell face over the coming weeks, said GMHD.ie director Simon Gallivan. Admittedly its a chunky quote but if his credit rating is anything like that of the Lannisters well happily arrange a payment plan. Meanwhile the make-believe policy stipulates that all cover will cease with immediate effect if Winterfell Castle is captured by any army from the south. It also has a White Walkers exclusion. The above quotation excludes all losses as a result of conflict with White Walkers, read the document from GMHD.ie. The inevitable invasion has been determined as uninsurable. Haigh started his career in the finance industry, as a chartered accountant. He eventually worked his way up to being a finance director, but it was when working at an advertising company that he realised he liked the ad side of the business better than playing with numbers. As such, he switched careers, and then after working with brand valuation something clicked. Haigh set up Brand Finance, and more than two decades later hasnt looked back. While brand valuation is a topic that is highly respected now, when he started the company people looked on it as something that wasnt based in any kind of science, and it took some convincing to get organisations to understand the worth of it. Brand Finance set up 23 years ago. In that time so much has changed in the world of brand valuation, Haigh explained. When I started way back with Interbrand it was considered to be a bit of a flimsy subject, mumbo jumbo, fairy dust and all that sort of thing. But nowadays its considered to be a fairly mainstream subject, all the big accountancy firms take it seriously, even actuaries take it seriously. Brand valuation is now well established. How it works, the CEO explained, is that Brand Finance looks at a company or brand not just based on its numbers (although they are important), but also on how people see the company and how it could grow. Take Dove for example. Its branded business value is about 5 billion, and then our job is either to evaluate how good branding and marketing will make that grow from 5 billion to lets say 10 billion, he said. And then were doing strategic work to try and help customers understand how to grow their business. That might be improving their brand presentation with their visual identity. It might be improving some aspect of their service, spending more money on marketing. Were always looking at different ways via branding and marketing that they can increase the value of their businesses. One of the annual reports Brand Finance does is the Top 100 Insurance Companies. Last year Chinese giant Ping An topped the list for the second time, after Allianz had previously been top of the list for 2014, 2015, and 2016. But branding isnt just important for insurance companies, Haigh says, its also important for brokers. Not only are insurance companies brands, but also the broking companies are brands and so theres a fierce fight between the different broking companies, Haigh said. Recently theres been a little bit of consolidation. What that says is size and sophistication in the broking market is important. The CEO says that branding is essential in many ways for insurance companies because it can make a difference to if brokers choose to present them to clients, and choose to work with them. Brokers become absolutely instrumental, and its quite interesting how branding works. Because when the brokers are going to their clients, they are acting as gatekeepers and obviously there are hundreds of options that they can put forward to their risk management clients, he explained. So the first obstacle that a lot of insurance companies have to face is to overcome the gatekeeper role of the broker to even get on the list that is presented to the clients. Weve seen this several times that organisations that might have very good cover and very good policies and so on, but they are unheard of, struggle to get on to the shortlist that is presented to the brokers by their clients. The reason for that is no broker wants to look like an idiot because hes presenting some dodgy brand that no-one has heard of. This is why some brands spend lots of money on advertising, Haigh said, to try and convince brokers to work with them. Its actually quite interesting how branding makes a big difference to get into the shortlist so the broker is prepared to present to the end customer, he said. And normally you find that those brokers, youre never being fired for hiring IBM is an old phrase - the same sort of thing is true, you never get fired for putting Aviva or AXA or Allianz on the list of potential insurance providers. The trouble that some of the others have is even getting into the consideration. Thats why for example QBE spend a lot of money on rugby sponsorship, to increase the knowledge of their brand. The big question now is who will top the list for the valuable insurance brands 2019? He began his insurance career as a claims examiner with Commonwealth Insurance in Vancouver in 2005. In this role, he handled a portfolio of claims which included complex property losses in the multi-million dollar range. He later joined QBE in London, England, where he managed a global portfolio of third-party administrators and coverholders. Owen will be instrumental to the growth of our operations in BC. I look forward to working with him to deliver industry leading claims solutions, said Kernaghan Adjusters president and CEO Patti Kernaghan in a statement. Kernaghan Adjusters has been in business for more than 65 years. Clients of the insurance adjusting firm include AMA, BFL Canada, FedEx, Hub International, Premier Group of Companies, and ENMAX Corporation. Some of the things that they can do is [implementing] innovative technology, whether thats a way to deliver the product to their client, whether thats automating applications, or figuring out a way to [improve] the ease of doing business, said Tracy Bernard (pictured), SVP of strategy and program development at Tangram Insurance Services, and a speaker at the Leadership Exchange Summit Chicago on June 06. She added that building specialty expertise is likewise important in this challenging marketplace. If youre operating in a specialty class, find a spot where theres specialty expertise thats needed and then develop that as a retail broker [by] understanding the coverages that niche industry needs. For example, when you look at winery programs, there are very specific coverages that a vineyard needs, and really understanding what those coverages are and why they need them, and being able to compare various carriers coverages to make sure that the clients are getting what they need in those niche segments even though the line of business might be general, like general liability or commercial auto I think thats a really important way that a retail broker can continue to prove their value in the supply chain. Beyond technology and niche knowledge, brokers can also demonstrate their risk management capabilities by cultivating a preferred network of partners that can act as vital resources for insureds, so that theyre more than just a point of contact for purchasing insurance. Its so important to have more than one touch point in a policy period. A lot of retail agents talk to their insureds a couple months out of the year around the date that their insurance policy renews, said Bernard. Finding ways to touch the insured on a more regular basis, whether thats person to person, or even if its automated through email, but figuring out a way to have the retail agency insert itself more than just at renewal is important. Building out their services and finding the right partners can be time-consuming for leaders in insurance. Tangram helps brokers develop the resources they can offer their insureds, without them having to do a lot of that legwork themselves. In the meantime, before new business even comes through the door, brokers can craft an effective pitch to prospects that focuses on the additional value they bring to the table. When youre designing a pitch to differentiate yourself from other clients, make sure that youre not selling the carrier or the insurance product youre really selling yourself and the service partners that you work with, said Bernard. Tracy Bernard will be sharing insights on this topic and more at the upcoming Leadership Exchange Summit Chicago on June 06. See further information or book your ticket here. One sector to be hit hard by the power outages is Venezuelas grocery and food retail business. Supermarkets and restaurants are experiencing huge problems around food spoilage and ultimate loss of revenue. While such power outages as a result of potential political dispute are unlikely in the US, the country is vulnerable to extreme weather, with hurricanes, floods and wildfires all causing various localized blackouts in recent years. Rooney Gleason, president of Argo Groups US grocery and retail division, spoke to Insurance Business about what supermarkets and restaurants can do to mitigate their exposures to power outages. Its important for supermarkets and restaurants to have an alternative fuel generator that they can attach to cold storage warehouses, reserve fridges or refrigerated trailers to keep food from spoiling. Its all about contingency planning, he said. There are all sorts of rules and regulations in the US that are driven by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the state authorities and the local health authorities that have responsibility for food safety. The US has been through enough natural disasters so that pretty much all medium and larger sized chains have produced disaster and business contingency plans. Theyve identified redundancies in their cold storage and have plans in place to limit damages should an extreme weather event occur. Theres nothing more motivating to getting a disaster recovery plan right than going through a disaster. As well as retrofitting supermarkets and restaurants with alternative power generators, Gleason and the team at Argo advise all clients to invest in sensor-based monitoring technology. In recent years, Argos US grocery and retail division has shifted away from smaller clientele who could not make the necessary investment into technology. Everything is sensor-based these days, Gleason commented. Whether youre talking third party retroactively fitted sensors, or sensors built into the overall store monitoring system, there are lots of alarms that can alert store operators to even the slightest temperature changes within cold storage. Everybody is moving in the direction of sensor-based monitoring, particularly when it comes to food temperature. At Argo, we actually deploy technology in the insurance transaction. Our clients have to commit to using a platform that weve developed called Argo Risk Tech, which is a platform of sensors, inspection software, temperature monitoring, and other tools like that to help them mitigate and manage their exposures. Argo made the move to provide clients with insurtech tools to differentiate their offering in what Gleason described as a highly commoditized marketplace. He said not only did the unit have to be price competitive, but they also had to provide unique solutions to clients that were meaningful to their everyday operation. His team are now working with the brokerage community to ensure they understand Argos unique stance. Were really uninterested in talking about premium right out of the gate, Gleason told Insurance Business. What we want to talk about with brokers is what risk mitigation solutions they have in place today and what solutions we can help them with. In this marketplace today, everyone can get to price. The coverage documents are all very similar, so the way that we differentiate ourselves is by asking brokers to qualify their clients for our program. Were starting to find pockets of people in the brokerage community who are really impressed by our offering and how were using technology to reduce the total cost of risk for clients in a way that no other carriers can. Hiding in Their D&O Policies Many private companies believe that procuring a directors and officers liability (D&O) policy ensures that their executives are covered. But, does the D&O policy really protect their C-Suites? The answer to that question often depends on the presence of the so-called contract exclusion contained in many D&O policies, how insurance carriers apply the contract exclusion, and how courts interpret the contract exclusion. While procuring a D&O policy is a critical part of a company protecting its officers, it is equally important that companies, and their agents or brokers, understand the risks associated with exclusions contained in the policy. It is well established that D&O policies do not cover breach of contract claims because parties entering into contracts voluntarily undertake the associated risk and potential for liability. To address this principle, D&O policies routinely contain exclusions, for example, the insurer shall not pay loss in connection with any claim based upon, arising from, or in any way related to any actual or alleged liability under any contract or agreement, provided that this exclusion shall not apply to the extent that liability would have been incurred in the absence of such contract or agreement. Recently, insurers have applied an increasingly broad reading of this language to deny coverage for claims that many businesses reasonably expect to be covered. The critical language contained in the contract exclusion that creates uncertainty is arising from, or in any way related to . Recently, insurers have applied an increasingly broad reading of this language to deny coverage for claims that many businesses reasonably expect to be covered. As an example, here is an excerpt from a recent coverage disclaimer from a large insurer: An exclusion precluding insurance coverage for claims arising from a contract not only applies to claims sounding directly in contract but also to claims sounding in tort as long as they flowed from or had their origins in the breach of the contract. The insurer in that particular case drew support for this position from an Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion applying Missouri law, Spirtas Co. v. Federal Ins. Co. The Spirtas court determined that the contract exclusion barred coverage for the tort claims of conversion and unjust enrichment, rationalizing that those claims were arising from contractual liability. Insurers rely on the Spirtas decision as a basis for disclaiming coverage for a wide variety of tort claims, such as tortious interference with a contract, negligent misrepresentation and fraud based on the Eighth Circuits statement that, the term arising from is construed broadly such that an exclusion precluding insurance coverage for claims arising from a contract not only applies to claims sounding directly in contract but also to claims sounding in tort as long as they flowed from or had their origins in the breach of the contract.' Several other courts have taken a similarly broad view of the contract exclusion to uphold coverage denials. There is, however, a growing body of authority providing that the contract exclusion does not apply to pre-contract wrongful acts. Courts have held that the contract exclusion does not exclude coverage for the tort claim of intentional misrepresentation where the misrepresentation was made before the transaction and the transaction was generated by and was a consequence of the misrepresentation. Determining when the claim arises in these cases is a critical aspect of distinguishing between tort and contract claims for coverage analysis. The contract exclusion can render a D&O policy illusory, leaving the companys c-suite at significant risk of facing liability with no coverage. Understanding the danger presented by the seemingly benign words arising from, or in any way related to is imperative to evaluating the risk. It is best to procure a D&O policy that does not contain this expansive language. If a D&O policy does contain this type of language, the company should push to modify the language of the contract exclusion to eliminate arising from, or in any way related to and replace it with based upon any actual or alleged liability under any contract or agreement. If a business repeatedly utilizes the same form contract, the business should consider including specific language in its D&O policy providing coverage for liability arising from that specific contract. In any circumstance, careful review of the D&O policy is necessary before a claim arises. Consultation with legal counsel and/or the insurance broker regarding the scope of the contract exclusion in the D&O policy is helpful. As with all insurance issues, the time to review the policy is before the claim. Topics Claims If Floridas Stephens Were Not a Broker, Hed Find Another Job in Insurance Being a young insurance broker in Florida is never boring for Patrick Stephens, who started in the industry three years ago. Floridas penchant for storms keeps the commercial lines broker for Hull & Co. in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, occupied. He says while there isnt much he dislikes about insurance, the thing he enjoys least is handling claims after big loss events. Insurance exists to make people whole again, but suffering a loss is never a good time, he said. He also is accustomed to responding to customers requests for coverage as a hurricane approaches the state. I have seen many variations of What do you mean I cant buy insurance now? when we are under a hurricane warning with 48 hours until projected landfall, he said. Stephens finds it so rewarding to be in the industry that if he werent an agent, he says he would still be part of the insurance world in some capacity, either with a carrier or in enterprise risk management. I love the industry and proudly wear the title of being a nerd for insurance, he said. Stephens majored in risk management and insurance and went from college to working full time as a wholesale broker. He knows not everyone feels as positively as he does about the industry and some peoples eyes glaze over when he talks about what he does. He also hears stories from people having a claim denied or other trouble they have had with the industry. But my favorite reactions are when I am having a night out or traveling and meeting someone else that is in the industry, he said. It is always a good time to make an industry connection and swap stories. He said he wishes people better understood insurance. I believe a lot of the dissatisfaction with the insurance industry comes from insureds having an incorrect idea of how insurance is supposed to work and making incorrect assumptions about the claims process because of it, he said. He thinks young agents are bringing change to the industry, particularly with technology. As the market continues to evolve and insurtech continues to grow, I believe a familiarity with technology is going to become more important moving forward, he said. Also, technology is allowing younger entrepreneurs and business owners, and young agents are working to make insurance and risk management more accessible to them all the time. Topics Agencies Florida Becoming the chief insurance regulator of a large and populous state with the second largest insurance market in the country was never in Kent Sullivans game plan. But when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott asked Sullivan to step up to the plate and take over as commissioner of the Texas Department of Insurance, he willingly did so. His predecessor, David Mattax had passed away while in office in April 2017 and Sullivan took over in September 2017 just after Hurricane Harvey struck the state to devastating effect in late August of that year. Harveys aftermath obviously presented definite challenges for the new commissioner. Dealing with the exigent circumstances surrounding recovery from the hurricane took some time, Sullivan said. After that, with a little bit of time to breathe and survey the situation, one of the things I found was that we really had a need to modernize the agency, to evaluate our practices in light of best practices and to upgrade. That was what we decided to do. Its been a priority. The initiatives the department is working on are pretty significant and will change the way we do business, Sullivan said. However, he thinks the effort to modernize the agencys processes will allow it to both do a better job of protecting consumers and make it easier to work with from an industry standpoint. Automating Policy Review Review of policy forms submitted by insurance carriers is one of the agencys major responsibilities and a process that Sullivan saw was in serious need of reform. To that extent, TDI already has begun working on a project that will enable the agency to utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to automate policy form reviews, with the aim of creating a more accurate, efficient and timely process. In reviewing policies, there is a commitment to try and do it on a particular time table, no surprise there. What I found was that our policy review was largely one that was a number of years old. While its not entirely manual, I think by modern, cutting edge, standards someone might describe it as a disproportionately manual system. It simply wasnt the sort of system that we wanted either for speed, for efficiency of resource allocation, or for regulatory consistency purposes, Sullivan said. The AI system being developed is intended to monitor for regulatory consistency both vertically and horizontally, he said. Vertical in the sense that youre able to immediately determine the extent to which youve already reviewed and approved, or for that matter, disapproved, certain policy provisions that have been reviewed in the state of Texas, historically. It also allows you to compare that to what other states have done. Thats the horizontal approach, so that you can see what else is out there, which can be particularly useful if, for some reason, youre visiting an issue for the first time, which comes up sometimes. You can at least see whether other states have addressed a particular issue that is raised by a policy provision. There are instances, as well, when a filing that has been previously addressed by regulators is re-submitted with the carrier arguing in favor of some new interpretation. Again, its useful to see what other states have done. You can measure the extent to which youre in the mainstream or perhaps not, he said. Texas is working on its own AI system in partnership with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Other states also are partnering with the NAIC on similar, but different projects. While the approaches to the problem are varied, all are aimed at streamlining and creating efficiencies in the policy form review process. Some states are working with outside vendors. Connecticut Insurance Commissioner Katherine L. Wade, for example, announced in late December 2018 that her department is working on a pilot with RiskGenius, a Kansas-based tech company. The purpose of that project is to test a web-based platform that applies machine learning to determine if it improves the regulatory reviews of insurance company filings and ultimately moves approved products more quickly to the market for greater consumer choice, according to the Connecticut Insurance Department. In a sense, the states are playing catch up with the industry, which already is using sophisticated AI tools in a variety of ways, Sullivan said. Ultimately, as the various processes being tested are finely tuned, regulators will have multiple alternative AI form review options from which to choose. As for the Texas project, he said TDI anticipates a proof of concept here just in the next couple of months. Then we hope to be able to implement it within a reasonable time frame and its something that probably will be ultimately available across the country. In addition to the benefits of efficiency and accuracy, Sullivan sees a consumer protection aspect to using artificial intelligence in the policy form review process. You make better regulatory decisions when you have access to the maximum amount of information. Thats what were really trying to do with the AI project, is to ensure that youre delivering consistent decisions about issues raised by policy forms and also have access to what other states are doing, he said. Topics Texas Legislation InsurTech Data Driven The driver of the Buick was pinned inside the car and had to be extricated, Wojas said. The drivers injuries were too severe and they were pronounced dead at the scene by a deputy coroner with Lake County. A worker was crushed to death Saturday when a crane counterweight fell on him at a lower Manhattan construction site, the third time in less than a week that a New York City construction worker was killed on the job. Saturdays fatal accident happened at around 3:15 a.m. at a building site on Varick and Broome streets near the Holland Tunnel. The counterweight fell on 34-year-old Gregory Echevarria as he and other workers were setting up the crane, authorities said. Echevarria was pronounced dead at the scene. Two other workers sustained minor injuries, police said. The tragedy capped a deadly week for New York Citys construction industry. Nelson Salinas, 51, was killed by falling debris last Monday as he was working on facade repairs at an apartment building on Manhattans East Side. Erik Mendoza, 23, was working on the roof of a 13-story building in Brooklyn when he fell to his death on Wednesday. No building is worth a life, Buildings Department spokesman Andrew Rudansky said. Every worker who leaves for the job site in the morning deserves to come home safely at night. Rudansky said the department is investigating all three deaths and will hold accountable anyone in the construction industry who endangers workers or the public. Saturdays accident happened at a 25-story residential building under construction. The general contractor, Brooklyn-based KSK Construction Group, did not return an email seeking comment. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics New York Construction Many job-seekers would no longer face tests for marijuana use under legislation that New York City is likely to enact, taking a novel step as lawmakers and employers around the U.S. grapple with workplace policies about pot. The Democrat-led City Council passed a measure Tuesday that would ban pre-employment testing for the drug, with certain exceptions. Supporters say the measure, which if enacted may be the first of its breadth, would knock down a barrier that blocks people from jobs because of private behavior, not professional ability. And they note that marijuana can show up on a drug test days, or sometimes longer, after the high wears off. If you ingest weed in whatever manner a month ago, Im not sure how that prevents you from doing your job now, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, a Democrat who sponsored the proposal, told the council. But some council members and business groups object to what they see as municipal meddling with a valid employment concern. Private businesses should have the power to determine their own hiring practices not just in deciding what skills and experience are relevant to certain positions, but also whether the use of a specific drug could have an adverse impact on a prospective employees ability to perform, Council Republican Leader Steven Matteo said in a statement. The measure is awaiting action from Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat. A spokeswoman told The New York Times that City Hall supports the legislation; The Associated Press sent an inquiry Friday seeking to confirm the mayors position. Drug-testing job applicants became common in the U.S. in the late 1980s, but marijuana screening is getting some reconsideration as the drug has gained legal ground. Most states, including New York, now have legal medicinal marijuana programs, and 10 states and the District of Columbia allow recreational pot use. New York is considering it. Medical marijuana users in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island have won lawsuits in recent years against companies that rescinded job offers or fired workers because of positive tests for pot. A number of businesses around the country have simply stopped marijuana-testing applicants . In this environment where unemployment is pretty low and where marijuana is becoming ever more socially acceptableemployers are either philosophically or practically having to take a long, hard look at whether theyre even going to screen for pot, said Michael Clarkson, a Boston-based employment lawyer who specializes in drug-testing issues. Some officials also have taken a look at whether businesses should do so. Washington, D.C. prohibits marijuana testing before a job offer is extended (some states apply this standard to all drug testing). Lawmakers in Nevada, where recreational marijuana use is legal, have been considering a proposal that would ban companies from disqualifying job candidates for testing positive for pot. The New York City measure appears to go further by barring businesses from making applicants take marijuana tests at any point before hiring. There are exceptions for police, construction workers, commercial drivers, child care workers and certain others. It doesnt stop employers from testing current workers, or from firing them if they fail. Some civil rights advocates suggest the legislation is too narrow but still commend it. Overall, it was a good start for prospective employees, said Anthony Posada of the Legal Aid Societys Community Justice Unit. Major testing lab Quest Diagnostics says a small proportion of workforce tests nationally come back positive for marijuana or any other drugs, but the number has been growing in recent years. Including job applicants and hired workers, the positive-test rate for marijuana was 2.8% last year, up from 2.4% in 2014, the Secaucus, New Jersey-based company said Thursday. Information from: The New York Times Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Legislation Talent New York Cannabis Drugs The International Monetary Fund warned governments not to rock the boat with trade wars and other disruptions at a time when the global economy is already sailing through choppy waters. We see downside risk and that means one has to be very careful, IMF First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton told Bloomberg Television on Friday. With trade tensions, not knowing where monetary policy is going to go, not knowing how Chinese growth will turn out, its time to make sure policymakers do no harm. He urged the U.S. and other nations to resolve their trade conflicts a key downside risk the IMF has repeatedly warned about since President Donald Trump began imposing tariffs last year. The last thing we want is another downturn, Lipton said, on the sidelines of the funds spring meetings in Washington. The threat of political missteps is looming over the global economy amid a backlash against free trade that has fueled the rise of populist governments around the world. The IMF this week downgraded its outlook for world growth in 2019 to the lowest since the financial crisis a decade ago, as conditions worsened in most major advanced economies. Trade Wars The U.S. and China are locked in tense negotiations aimed at ending their nine-month trade war. Even if they do come to an agreement, a trade deal between the worlds two biggest economies could have unintended consequences if China commits to purchases of U.S. goods that crowds out imports from other countries in Asia, the head of the IMFs Asia-Pacific department Changyong Rhee said Friday. Theres also a risk of new fronts breaking out in the trade war. The European Union is considering hitting 10.2 billion euros ($11.5 billion) of U.S. goods with retaliatory tariffs over subsidies to Boeing Co., according to a draft list seen by Bloomberg News. The plan follows a U.S. threat to seek $11 billion in damages through duties on European goods ranging from helicopters to cheeses to counter state aid to Airbus SE. Both moves stem from parallel, 14-year-old, disputes at the World Trade Organization over market-distorting support for aircraft makers. Asked about trans-Atlantic trade tensions, European Commissioner of economic affairs Pierre Moscovici said its time for the EU and U.S. to cool down and steer clear of a trade war. Its absurd for the U.S. to consider the EU a threat like China, he said in a Bloomberg TV interview. In Europe, weakness has been particularly pronounced in Germany and Italy, though the baseline is for a gradual recovery, IMF European Director Poul Thomsen said at briefing in Washington on Friday. Brexit Woes Meanwhile, Britains departure from the EU continues to drag. The U.K. was due to leave the EU on March 29, but has twice had to ask the blocs other 27 leaders for an extension. The latest plan, agreed this week at a summit in Brussels, is for the U.K. to depart the bloc by Oct. 31. Mays government is holding talks with the opposition Labour Party to see if they can agree a compromise deal that would be supported by Parliament. This is not an economic debate, Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond told Bloomberg TV. Bluntly, if we were only driven by economics, the British people would have decided to stay in the European Union. The reason for voting to come out were not economic reasons, they were emotional reasons, political reasons. The challenge is to find a way of delivering on that political decision of the British people in a way that protects our economy, protects British jobs and British prosperity, he said. EM Markets In emerging markets, investors were reminded of the perils of government meddling in the economy when Brazils President Jair Bolsonaro ordered state-owned Petrobras to refrain from increasing diesel prices on Thursday. The hastily-made decision revived fears of interventionist policies that plagued Latin Americas largest economy under previous governments. To be sure, there are signs that the global economy may be turning the corner. The IMF is stopping short of predicting a recession. Growth will recover in the second half of the year, said Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, noting that Chinas stimulus measures are having an effect. Its true that there are large downside risks, said Kuroda. However, I expect global growth will increase in the second half of the year. An accommodative monetary environment will continue, while the supportive Chinese policy effects should slowly start emerging. Copyright 2021 Bloomberg. Topics USA Europe China Uk A U.S. judge ordered Bayer AG to pursue mediation with plaintiffs claiming that its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer, asking the company to try to settle lawsuits that have wreaked havoc on its share price. More than 11,200 people have sued Bayer over Roundup in U.S. state and federal courts, and the company has lost two consecutive trials so far. The judge in San Francisco handling the federal suits initiated confidential talks as he canceled a third trial scheduled for May 20 that would have followed an $80 million verdict against Bayer last month. The parties should propose a mediator, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria wrote in an order Thursday. If they cannot agree, the court will appoint someone. Chhabria said in lieu of the May trial, resources are better spent organizing the cases collected in the multidistrict litigation before him. That means determining which of those lawsuits should be dismissed, which should be sent to state courts, and sending other cases back to where they were originally filed for trials in federal court. Bayer rose as much as 1 percent in Frankfurt on Friday, after an early dip. The legal fight over Roundup, and its main ingredient glyphosate, has wiped more than 30 billion euros ($34 billion) off the German companys market value since the first trial loss last August. Thomas G. Rohback, a trial lawyer at Axinn in New York, said in an email that Chhabrias order requiring mediation isnt unusual, and cautioned against reading too much into it leading to a settlement anytime soon. But he also pointed to the privacy of mediation, and how that could permit Bayer to resolve the litigation without the multimillion-dollar headlines the trials have produced. Analysts predict a settlement could top $5 billion. The confidentiality which is also quite common could help Bayer pay a settlement amount without making that public, Rohback said. Of course, the key is whether the parties can reach an agreement. Good Faith Chris Loder, a spokesman for Bayer, said the company will comply with the courts order for mediation in good faith. As this litigation is still in the early stages with only two verdicts and no cases that have run their course through appeal we will also remain focused on defending the safety of glyphosate-based herbicides in court, Bayer said in an e-mailed statement on Friday. In addition to the March verdict in Chhabrias court, Bayer lost the first Roundup trial last summer in state court and was ordered to pay $78.6 million in damages. Another state court trial is under way in Oakland, California. The judge set a May 22 hearing to discuss mediation efforts and possibly set a new date for the canceled trial. Michael Baum, a lawyer representing plaintiffs in the cases before Chhabria, said in an email that itd be prudent and responsible for Bayer to settle the litigation. Though the company is outwardly denying the evidence against it, internally it may be more accurately assessing Roundups risks and shareholder pressure, he said. The case is In re: Roundup Products Liability Litigation, MDL 2741, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco). Copyright 2021 Bloomberg. Topics Lawsuits Legislation USA Uber Technologies Inc., on its way to an initial public offering that some media reports say could raise $10 billion, might not be in the position it is in without insurance. Our business depends heavily on insurance coverage for drivers and on other types of insurance for additional risks related to our business, the ridesharing pioneer notes in its recent filing. Uber faces many potential liabilities, some that come with the field of transportation and others that come with forging a new industry. There are traffic accidents and injuries, assaults on passengers, even e-scooters left on sidewalks. Like every business, Uber faces cyber risks. It also faces challenges to how it classifies and treats its independent contractor drivers. Then there the risks to its brand and reputation from all of the negative publicity stemming from what it calls its workplace culture and forward-leaning approach to operations, compliance and personnel under previous management. Given that risks abound, its no surprise that Uber depends and spends heavily on insurance. If insurance carriers change the terms of such insurance in a manner not favorable to drivers or to us, if we are required to purchase additional insurance for other aspects of our business, or if we fail to comply with regulations governing insurance coverage, our business could be harmed, the firm noted. At the end of last year, Uber had insurance reserves of close to $3 billion set aside, according to the regulatory filings made in preparation for its planned IPO. That was a big jump from 2017, when it had $2 billion in reserves. The 2017 reserve figure was itself a similar jump over 2016. (In its filings, Uber disclosed that it had a $3 billion operating loss last year on revenue of $11.3 billion. Over the past three years, its operating losses have topped $10 billion. The company achieved net income of $997 million for 2018, but that came primarily as a result of selling some foreign assets and a boost in the stock it owns in Chinas ridesharing company. The company said it expects its operating costs to increase significantly in the future and it may not achieve profitability.) Insurance Needs Ubers insurance reserves are just estimates of its potential losses and related expenses. The company acknowledges that its estimates are subject to inherent variability due in part to its limited historical experience as a startup in a new industry. That can mean there are risks that traditional insurers are not yet ready to assume. For some of their insurance needs, Uber and its drivers rely on traditional insurers. Insurance for Ubers ridesharing operations include third-party automobile liability, automobile comprehensive and collision, physical damage, and uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. Allstate provides Uber with commercial auto insurance in some states. Uber has partnered with Allstate, Farmers, James River Insurance, Progressive and other carriers to develop coverage for its drivers that supplements their personal auto policies that do not cover commercial use. Various other insurers including Geico, Slice, State Farm, American Family, Liberty Mutual, Mapfre, Mercury, Erie, Travelers and MetLife have come out with their own insurance policies for drivers. In addition to insurance related to its ridesharing products, Uber carries other automobile insurance coverage for owned vehicles and employee activity, as well as insurance coverage for non-automotive corporate risks including general liability, workers compensation, property, cyber liability, and director and officers liability. Traditional insurers arent handling everything. Uber also has a captive insurance subsidiary to cover for certain risks including auto liability, uninsured and underinsured motorist, auto physical damage, general liability and workers compensation. Its Hawaiian captive company, called Aleka Insurance Inc., is managed by Aon. Its smaller rival Lyft also has a Hawaii captive insurer, Pacific Valley Insurance Co. Lyft, Uber Shift Some Risk to Captive Insurers As heavily dependent upon insurance as Uber is, the company has said it is not interested in entering the insurance business. Rather, the global transportation firm is content to focus on being an intelligent purchaser of insurance, continuing to work with insurance carriers and brokers. No, to be honest, were trying to get out of the insurance business, Curtis Scott, global head of insurance for Uber, said at the Insuretech Connect Conference (ITC) last October. Citing reports of other tech firms including Amazon showing an interest in insurance, he said Uber is not among them. I can tell you that Uber doesnt have a desire to. We are good at being a tech company thats in logistics and we want to do that. Thats what were strong at, he said. Insurance companies are good at being insurance companies and thats hard to do, he added. Relax, Ubers Not Interested in Entering Insurance Business Going forward, insurance is bound to remain an important focus for Uber. There are the liabilities that will arise as it continues expanding into freight handling (Uber Freight), fast food delivery (Uber Eats), e-scooters rentals (Jump) and autonomous vehicles (Advanced Technologies Group). In addition, Uber says service providers and business customers of Uber Freight and Uber for Business may require higher limits of coverage as a condition for contracting with them. Uber also recognizes that its insurance will be affected if lawmakers change insurance requirements for ridesharing or if municipalities mandate certain levels of insurance for dockless e-bikes and e-scooters. Big Worry While Uber worries about insurance requirements, thats not its biggest concern. Its biggest worry is if its drivers have to be classified as employees instead of independent contractors. The status of its drivers as independent contractors continues to be challenged in courts in the U.S. and abroad. The firm notes in its regulatory filing that it is involved in numerous legal proceedings globally, including putative class and collective class action lawsuits, demands for arbitration, charges and claims before administrative agencies, and investigations or audits by labor, social security, and tax authorities that claim that drivers should be treated as our employees (or as workers or quasi-employees where those statuses exist), rather than as independent contractors. Uber holds to its belief that its drivers are independent contractors because, among other things, they can choose whether, when, and where to provide services on our platform, are free to provide services on our competitors platforms, and provide a vehicle to perform services on our platform. However, it recognizes it may not win this argument everywhere. For example, in March, Uber agreed to pay $20 million to settle California and Massachusetts lawsuits challenging the companys classification of drivers as independent contractors, and not employees. The settlement is subject to a final approval hearing in July. According to Uber, more than 60,000 of its drivers have filed or expressed an intention to file arbitration demands against it asserting similar claims. The company is closely watching various court cases and legislative proposals here and abroad that could establish new rules for determining employee or independent contractor status. Uber says that if it is required to reclassify its drivers, not only would it incur considerable additional costs but any such reclassification would require it to fundamentally change its business model, and would have an adverse effect on its business and financial condition. Topics Carriers Legislation Auto Contractors Sharing Economy Ridesharing Exxon Mobil Corp. is the latest company to raise concerns that a stockpile of U.S. government crude is tainted with poisonous gas. The American energy giant said some of the oil it purchased last year from the Energy Departments Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR, contained extremely high levels of hydrogen sulfide, according to emails obtained by Bloomberg under the Freedom of Information Act. In some cases, the gas level was 250 times higher than government safety standards allow. The Department of Energy takes safety, security and environmental impacts involving SPR activities very seriously, agency spokeswoman Jess Szymanski said. Last fall, an SPR cargo received by Exxon Mobil was found to contain higher-than-expected levels of hydrogen sulfide. Since then, the Department has worked with Exxon to resolve this concern, and find alternate options for the cargos delivery. Spurious Claims? Analysts have pointed to the stockpile as a safeguard against tightening crude supplies after U.S. sanctions on Iran and Venezuela curbed their oil exports. But Exxons discovery, which follows complaints by Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Macquarie Group Ltd. and PetroChina Co., suggest that the reserve may not offer refiners as much insurance against diminishing volumes of higher sulfur, or sour, crude as previously thought. The Energy Department disputed claims that it repeatedly sold tainted crude, saying that some companies high hydrogen sulfide readings were spurious or the result of contamination during shipping. In PetroChinas case, however, the agency acknowledged spending around $1 million to clean up a contaminated cargo. The prospect of tainted crude in the reserve complicates future sales of U.S. oil, a key tool for funding government programs. A 5 million-barrel sale is planned for 2019, and 221 million barrels of oil are planned for sale from 2020 to 2027. Safety Risks While hydrogen sulfide occurs naturally in crude, producers often take pains to remove it because it can put workers at risk and corrode pipelines and refineries. Many pipelines have capped the permitted amount of hydrogen sulfide, or H2S, at 10 parts per million (ppm). Refineries dont want high H2S in their plants for safety reasons, especially with personnel having to access storage tanks where the oil is stored, said John Auers, executive vice president at energy consultant Turner Mason & Co. Exxon was one of five companies that purchased oil in an Energy Department sale in August. Exxon took 1.5 million barrels of Bryan Mound sour crude a high sulfur oil thats recently become more expensive as global supply shrink by pipeline to Texas City. There, the company discovered hydrogen sulfide levels that were at 5,000 ppm, according to emails sent to the department in November by Mattias Bruno, a lead oil trader at Exxon Mobil. The exposure limit set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is 20 ppm. Exposure at 500-700 ppm could cause a person to collapse in five minutes and die within an hour. After discovering high levels of the gas, Exxon launched an investigation, according to the emails. The Energy Department in a statement suggested that Exxons readings were possibly erroneous, noting that the facility where the contamination was discovered was not H2S qualified. Oil was delivered through other facilities without incident, the agency said. An Exxon spokesman declined to comment. Other Complaints Shell, Macquarie and PetroChina have also complained about hydrogen sulfide levels in government crude. In those cases, the oil was pumped from Bryan Mound to the Freeport, Texas, terminal owned by Seaway Crude Pipeline LLC a joint venture between Enterprise Products Partners LP, the operator, and Enbridge Inc. before being loaded onto vessels. In a statement to Bloomberg, the Energy Department dismissed Shells complaint as spurious and attributed the Macquarie incident to a paperwork error. No payment was made to either company. However, the agency verified PetroChinas concerns and paid to clean up the contaminated oil at a cost of around $1 million. Macquarie declined comment. Representatives from Shell and PetroChina did not respond to requests for comment. Enterprise did not immediately respond to a request for comment. If the stockpiles are contaminated, the elevated levels of hydrogen sulfide could be the result of a high-sulfur oil put into the reserve years ago thats blended with newer oil, according to chemical engineers and testing experts. It could also be the result of a naturally occurring bacteria that reduces sulfur to hydrogen sulfide, which could have grown in the caverns over decades. Price Questions So far, the quality concerns raised by companies havent affected bid prices for SPR oil, according to the Energy Department. But if crude quality issues persist, that could have implications for the future sales of oil from the SPR, which is about 60 percent sour crude. The Congressional Budget Office might conceivably set a lower price deck for future sales to account for discounts associated with crude quality, said Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners LLC. Copyright 2021 Bloomberg. Topics USA Energy Oil Gas Pollution Liberty Mutual Insurance said it has agreed to acquire the global surety and credit reinsurance operations of property/casualty insurer AmTrust Financial Services. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Upon closing, Liberty Mutual will acquire four AmTrust businesses: AmTrust Surety, previously managed by Insco Dico, which provides contract, commercial, and subdivision bonds primarily in the western U.S.; AmTrust Insurance Spain which offers surety bonds in Spain and Latin America; Nationale Borg which provides surety, worker disability, and home purchase bonds in the Netherlands and Belgium; and Nationale Borg Reinsurance, a global provider of surety, trade credit and political risk reinsurance. AmTrust said the sale is part of its plan to focus on local markets, while Liberty Mutual said it is looking to grow its business in the U.S. and globally. The transaction will further enhance our strong global surety and reinsurance expertise, market leadership, and geographic footprint, stated Dennis Langwell, president, Global Risk Solutions, Liberty Mutual, which offers primary, excess, specialty, and reinsurance products in the U.S. and globally. Once the transaction closes, well integrate the acquired operations into our current structure. Liberty Mutual said the agreement reinforces its global surety market position. According to Tim Mikolajewski, president, Global Surety, the added scale and key talent aligns well with our model and goals in the U.S., and will provide a platform for broader global development through AmTrust Insurance Spain, Nationale Borg, and Nationale Borg Reinsurance. The AmTrust Surety portion of the acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of 2019, while the AmTrust Insurance Spain, Nationale Borg, and NBRe portion is expected to close in the second half of 2019, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Last year AmTrust completed the process of becoming a private company in a deal that valued it at $2.95 billion. An entity managed by Stone Point Capital along with Barry D. Zyskind, chairman and CEO of AmTrust, and shareholders George Karfunkel and Leah Karfunkel, acquired the shares the families of Karfunkel-Zyskind did not already own. AmTrust CEO Zyskind said the Liberty Mutual deal is an important step in its AmTrust Forward strategic plan announced in January to become a leading specialty commercial property/casualty insurer by focusing on local markets and niche products where we can add significant value. AmTrust offers small commercial property/casualty insurance including workers compensation, specialty risk and extended warranty in the U.S. and internationally. Source: Liberty Mutual Related: Topics Mergers USA Reinsurance Property Casualty Powerful storms that rolled across the South over the weekend spawned tornadoes, damaged homes and killed at least four in Texas, including two children, authorities said. The Angelina County Sheriffs Office said an 8-year-old and a 3-year-old died when strong winds toppled a tree onto the back of their familys car in Lufkin while it was in motion. Capt. Alton Lenderman said the parents, who were in the front seats, were not injured. Accuweather reported that two more people were confirmed dead in Texas on Sunday one after a tornado ripped through Caddo Mound State Historical site and one in the Houston County town of Weches. A tornado also swept through Alto, Texas, injuring more than a dozen people and damaging several structures, according to Accuweather. Lufkin is about 115 miles (185 kilometers) northeast of Houston. Additional information was not immediately available. In Central Texas, Robertson County Sheriff Gerald Yezak told The Associated Press a tornado hit the small city of Franklin, overturning mobile homes and damaging other residences. Franklin is located about 125 miles (200 kilometers) south of Dallas. The National Weather Service said preliminary information showed an EF-3 tornado touched down with winds of 140 mph (225.3 kph). Crews will continue to survey the damage over the next few days. Two people were hospitalized for injuries not thought to be life-threatening, while others were treated at the scene for minor injuries, Yezak said. Some people had to be extricated from their homes. Weather service meteorologist Monique Sellers said theyve received reports of downed trees, as well as damage to buildings and a transmission tower. The storms are part of a large system moving through the southern United States, knocking out power to thousands and causing some flash flooding. The weather service said the system is expected to shift to the Ohio Valley and the Southeast on Sunday. More than 140,000 customers remained without power in Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas late Saturday. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Texas Windstorm The U.S. Catholic diocese where the first widely reported case of clergy sex abuse became public in the 1980s released a list Friday of 33 priests and four deacons credibly accused of sexually abusing a minor or vulnerable adult. The list released by Bishop Douglas Deshotels of Louisianas Diocese of Lafayette identifies three priests who were convicted or pleaded guilty but did not indicate where any of the 37 was accused, let alone give details of the accusations. It gives each mans birth and ordainment year, assignments, and his status, such as whether he was removed from the clergy, resigned or both. Three were removed last year. Unlike bishops in some other dioceses, Deshotels did not release the names of people in religious orders who were accused while working in the diocese. He wrote in a pastoral letter released Wednesday that any such disclosures are up to the orders. The Lafayette diocese employed Gilbert Gauthe (goh-THAY), who pleaded guilty in 1985 to abusing 11 boys but testified that he had abused 35 youngsters while serving at four churches. Gauthe himself was named on the list as one of two priests who both resigned and were removed from the priesthood in 1983. In 1984, Deshotels wrote, the Diocese of Lafayette was plunged into the heart of a terrible darkness when, for the first time, publicly, the Catholic Church was confronted with the harsh reality that men consecrated for Gods work had betrayed their sacred trust. But the list made it clear that private confrontation came much earlier. The earliest dates are for Cornelius Van Merrianboer, a priest who was born in 1898, ordained in 1924, resigned in 1933 and died in 1960. Other credibly accused priests resigned in 1968, 1973 and 1978; two died in 1970 and 1977; and two retired in 1979 and 1982. One was removed in 2016, the year Deshotels began leading the diocese, and three in 2018. At least three names also were among 12 released Thursday by the Diocese of Lake Charles, which was part of the Lafayette diocese until 1980. That apparently brings the number of credibly accused priests in Louisiana to 185. The Archdiocese of New Orleans described 57 cases in November. The Diocese of Baton Rouge has reported 41, the Diocese of Alexandria 27, and the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, 14. The Times of Shreveport reported in February that 17 names on the Alexandria list had ties to north Louisiana, but the Shreveport diocese had not received any allegations of abuse by a bishop, priest or deacon since being carved out of the Diocese of Alexandria in 1986. Deshotels letter noted that some people who have accused priests or deacons may not find those names on the list. Be assured that your report was treated with the utmost seriousness and respect, but the standard for establishing credibility may not yet have been met, he wrote. If you, or anyone, has further knowledge which would establish credibility, we implore you to please come forward to civil authorities and then the diocese. We have come to believe that involving law enforcement at the outset of an allegation is the prudent thing to do, Deshotels wrote. He also encouraged anyone who has been abused as a minor or vulnerable adult but has not reported it to come forward. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Louisiana Abuse Molestation Texas Driver Responsibility Program (DRP) would be repealed under a bill considered by the Senate Finance Committee, the state Senate reported. The program has been heavily criticized for the financial burden it places on those affected, according to the Senates media release. The program, known as the points system, adds compounding penalties to drivers as they are convicted of traffic violations. A driver who commits a moving violation can get two points on their drivers license, and three if the violation results in a car crash. Points stay on a license for three years and if a license accrues six points, the driver is assessed a $100 surcharge at the end of the year. That fine goes up $25 for every additional point above six. There are additional surcharges for more serious violations: $1000 for a drivers first intoxicated driving conviction and increasing for each subsequent conviction. Driving with a suspended license or without insurance incurs $250 surcharges. This program has been widely condemned for many sessions by citizens and lawmakers alike for putting unreasonable financial burdens on drivers, who can lose their license until they pay off all their DRP fines. Over the course of 15 years, the Legislature has made various attempts to repeal the program, but the problem is that it helps to pay for trauma care at Texas hospitals, some $300 million per biennium. How to replace that money that helps finance the care of 130,000 people every year who need critical trauma services in the state, has been the sticking point. Houston Senator Joan Huffman has offered a bill that will end the DRP while covering nearly all of the loss in revenue to the state trauma fund. SB 918, would repeal the program, remove existing points, and restore any licenses suspended solely due to non-payment. It would address the funding gap by creating additional one-time fines and fees for traffic offenses, rather than the compounding fine structure of the DRP. The state base traffic violation fee would rise from $30 to $50 and it doubles the fee that insurers add to each individual auto policy, from $2 to $4. Fines for DWI convictions would also go up, from $1000 to $3000 for a first offense, up to $6000 for driving with a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit. Huffman says these new fines and fees will cover all but about $30 million of current DRP revenue. Huffman says she intends to hold her bill and wait for the House version, authored by Richmond Representative John Zerwas, to make its way to the Senate. In the meantime, she pledged to work with Senators to address any concerns. Source: Texas Senate Topics Texas Personal Auto The threat was discovered by the teens parents, who reported it to police, police said in a release, adding the threat has not been substantiated but police continue to investigate. The coffee shop owner killed in a North Carolina gas line explosion was last seen in the doorway of his business after firefighters evacuated his customers and told him to leave, the fire chief said Thursday, as city officials gave new details about fiber network construction that preceded the blast. Communications company Crown Castle said a contractor was doing fiber-optic work in the area where police have said a gas line was hit and began leaking shortly before the explosion. Meanwhile, authorities raised the toll of people injured to 25, including nine firefighters. Police said Kaffeinate coffee shop owner Kong Lee, 61, was the only person killed in the blast that leveled the century-old building and damaged others. A gas leak had been reported about a half-hour before the blast Wednesday morning, and firefighters were working to get people out of nearby buildings when the explosion occurred. In the hours after the blast, Durham police spokesman Wil Glenn said a contractor boring along a sidewalk hit a gas line and caused the leak, while Deputy City Manager Bo Ferguson said work to install a fiber optic communications network appeared to be involved. Its still not clear what made the gas ignite. On Thursday, Ferguson said the permit to do the work was held by a subsidiary of Crown Castle, and that Charlotte-based engineering company Utilis was overseeing the construction. Ferguson said its also possible that another subcontractor was involved in the work. Crown Castle later issued a statement saying its subsidiary Fibertech Networks had hired a contractor that was installing fiber in the area prior to the explosion. It declined to answer further questions, citing the ongoing investigation. We are devastated by this tragic event and its impact on the Durham community, said the statement attributed to Crown Castle area president Cathy Piche. We grieve the loss of life and our continued prayers go out to the people who were injured and their families. Two officials with Utilis didnt immediately return messages seeking comment. Fire Chief Bob Zoldos said Thursday that firefighters told people to evacuate the coffee shop that occupied a storefront in the building and got about 10 customers out, but Lee declined to leave. He was last seen in the doorway as a firefighter went to find a police officer to force him to evacuate. All the people in the business did evacuate, other than the owner. The owner decided that he did not want to evacuate, he said at an afternoon news conference, elaborating on earlier comments. Our engine captain went to find a police officer to enforce that evacuation order, and thats when the building exploded and collapsed. Zoldos said some of his firefighters continued to work the scene after suffering cuts from flying debris or other injuries from the concussion of the blast wave. A man who answered the door at a Raleigh home address for Lee told a reporter Thursday he didnt have anything to say. Durham Deputy Fire Chief Chris Iannuzzi said at least 15 buildings were damaged by the blast in a downtown shopping district made of converted tobacco warehouses and other industrial buildings. Some windows were shattered blocks away. Zoldos said several buildings have been condemned, and others are being evaluated. Authorities say no one else was believed to be trapped or unaccounted for, but a search of the rubble was continuing as a precaution. Several dozen firefighters, state agents and other authorities could be seen at the site of the explosion Thursday morning, including one officer leading a search dog in and out of the rubble pile. The destroyed building also housed offices for Prescient Co., a technology company focused on the building industry. Company officials said their employees were able to safely evacuate shortly before the explosion. Associated Press writer Emery P. Dalesio in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Law Enforcement North Carolina California regulators have proposed regulations that would allow vehicle manufacturers to test or deploy small self-driving delivery trucks on public roads, the states Department of Motor Vehicles said in a statement. Manufacturers will be allowed to test autonomous delivery vehicles weighing less than 10,001 pounds with an approved permit from the regulator, the DMV said. It was not clear if these delivery vehicles will be required to have a safety driver while testing, as is required for passenger cars. The regulator will hold a public hearing at its Sacramento headquarters on May 30 to gather inputs on the proposed regulations. Currently, 62 companies have valid permits to test autonomous vehicles with a safety driver on California public roadways. (Reporting by Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta) Topics California Personal Auto Autonomous Vehicles Californias State Compensation Insurance Fund reported an increase of net income and written premium in its just-released annual report for 2018. Financial highlights of the 2018 annual report include: Net income of $187 million, up from $40 million the previous year; Earned net premiums of $1.33 billion, up slightly from $1.31 billion a year earlier; Combined ratio of 134.7 percentroughly 15 points lower than the previous year. State Funds financial position remained strong in 2018, allowing us to continue to deliver on our purposeproviding fairly priced workers compensation insurance, helping keep workplaces safe, and restoring injured workers, Vern Steiner, president & CEO of State Fund, said in statement. State Fund last week announced a partnership with Kura MD, a provider of telehealth services, to offer health services to injured workers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. State Fund is a workers comp insurer originally created as a public enterprise fund by California. Topics California Trends Workers' Compensation Profit Loss April 15, 2019 (Investorideas.com Newswire) The details and implications of the deal are discussed in a Canaccord Genuity report. In an April 9 research note, Canaccord Genuity analyst Eric Zaunscherb reported that eCobalt Solutions Inc. (ECS:TSX; ECSIF:OTCQX; ECO:FSE) agreed to merge with Jervois Mining. "The arrangement is positive from the perspective of the eCobalt shareholder, gaining exposure to multiple cobalt projects in relatively low-risk jurisdictions, strengthened management depth and exposure to nickel." Zaunscherb described premerger Jervois Mining. It wholly owns the Nico Young nickel-cobalt laterite project in New South Wales, Australia. It has a Joint Ore Reserves Committee compliant Inferred resource of 167.8 million tons averaging 0.06% cobalt and 0.59% nickel. A prefeasibility study for a 3 million ton per annum heap-leach facility at Nico Young is in progress, the results of which are expected by mid-year. Jervois also has a highly prospective land package in Uganda, which it gained through its merger with M2 Cobalt earlier in 2019. Per the agreement with eCobalt Solutions, Zaunscherb explained, Jervois will acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of eCobalt that it does not already own. Each eCobalt share will be exchanged for 1.65 Jervois shares, at CA$0.36 per eCobalt share based on the price of Jervois' shares at the close on March 29, 2019. "Some eCobalt shareholders have expressed dismay at the lack of premium in the offer," he pointed out. The combined entity will be owned by shareholders of Jervois, 40%; of eCobalt, 47%; and of M2 Cobalt, 11%. It will have a portfolio of cobalt and nickel-cobalt projects, in various development stages and in diverse, relatively low-risk locales, which the board and management team have the experience to advance. "At the end of the day, we are appreciative of the outlook for the new Jervois," Zaunscherb highlighted. Canaccord Genuity has a Speculative Buy rating and a CA$0.90 target price on eCobalt Solutions, whose current share price is around CA$0.34. Disclosure: 1) Doresa Banning compiled this article for Streetwise Reports LLC and provides services to Streetwise reports as an independent contractor. She or members of her household own securities of the following companies mentioned in the article: None. She or members of her household are paid by the following companies mentioned in this article: None. 2) The following companies mentioned in this article are billboard sponsors of Streetwise Reports: eCobalt Solutions. Click here for important disclosures about sponsor fees. 3) Comments and opinions expressed are those of the specific experts and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. 4) The article does not constitute investment advice. 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Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article until three business days after the publication of the interview or article. The foregoing prohibition does not apply to articles that in substance only restate previously published company releases. Disclosures from Canaccord Genuity, eCobalt Solutions Inc., Flash Update, April 9, 2019 Analyst Certification: Each authoring analyst of Canaccord Genuity whose name appears on the front page of this research hereby certifies that (i) the recommendations and opinions expressed in this research accurately reflect the authoring analysts personal, independent and objective views about any and all of the designated investments or relevant issuers discussed herein that are within such authoring analysts coverage universe and (ii) no part of the authoring analysts compensation was, is, or will be, directly or indirectly, related to the specific recommendations or views expressed by the authoring analyst in the research. Analysts employed outside the US are not registered as research analysts with FINRA. These analysts may not be associated persons of Canaccord Genuity Inc. and therefore may not be subject to the FINRA Rule 2241 and NYSE Rule 472 restrictions on communications with a subject company, public appearances and trading securities held by a research analyst account. Required Company-Specific Disclosures (as of date of this publication): Canaccord Genuity or one or more of its affiliated companies intend to seek or expect to receive compensation for Investment Banking services from eCobalt Solutions Inc. in the next three months. The authoring analysts who are responsible for the preparation of this research have received (or will receive) compensation based upon (among other factors) the Investment Banking revenues and general profits of Canaccord Genuity. 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Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp The return of Norwegian Air flights from Cork and Shannon to the US east coast this summer remain in doubt as various US airlines signalled the Boeing 737 Max aircraft will not fly until at least mid-August. Norwegian Air International, which flies to Providence, Rhode Island from Cork and Shannon, said passengers booked would continue to be "re-routed via Dublin until further notice" because of the worldwide grounding of the 737 Max following two fatal accidents in Indonesia and Ethiopia. American Airlines told its employees it was pulling the 737 Max from its summer schedule until August 19, following discussions with Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). It follows Southwest, which removed the jet from its schedules until August 5. Shares in Boeing fell almost 1% after American's announcement. The FAA is working with Boeing on a software fix for the 737 Max as well as extra training for pilots on the new aircraft. Norwegian, which has 18 of the aircraft in its fleet, was supposed to return to its summer routes from Cork and Shannon to Providence this month, but instead transferred passengers to Dublin by bus as it failed to locate alternative aircraft for the 737 Max. Passengers have complained that Norwegian emailed saying their May flights from Cork and Shannon have been cancelled and rerouted via Dublin, but that the reroute is to New York Stewart Airport, which is a three-hour drive from Providence. The passengers have said they are being told buses are no longer being organised to and from Dublin and New York Stewart Airports. They have said they were instructed to organise their own public transport and keep the receipt in order to process a refund. A spokesman for Norwegian said: Customers travelling to and from Cork and Shannon are being re-accommodated on to different aircraft types between Dublin, New York and Providence to ensure travel plans can continue with minimal disruption. Cork Airport declined to comment but a spokesman for Shannon Airport said it was having a disruptive impact on its Norwegian and Air Canada schedules. "The worldwide grounding of the 737 Max aircraft is having serious implications for passengers and the aviation industry alike. "From Shannons perspective, it is resulting in further delays to the return of the Norwegian and Air Canada services forced on the airlines. It also impacts on the airport by way of passenger throughput and resultant business as we build towards what is otherwise a busy summer season. We will, however, continue to work with the airlines to assist them in every way we can to aid the return of the services in due course. Shannon confirmed Providence services will be rerouted until at least July 31. Norwegian, which has been beset by money woes after a spending splurge in recent years, this month postponed the delivery of a number of Airbus A320neo and A321LR aircraft in order to accommodate what it called its "changed focus from growth to profitability". The postponement will allow it to save $570m (504m) in capital expenditure this year and next year, it said. US President Donald Trump weighed in on the crisis yesterday, urging Boeing to ditch the 737 Max name and "rebrand". A business information company has said that its latest figures show that Irelands economy is flourishing despite ongoing Brexit uncertainty. The data from business and credit risk analyst, CRIF Vision-net, show an average of almost 71 new companies were formed every day in the first quarter of 2019, while the number of insolvencies remained consistent for the same period. In total, 6,413 new companies were formed in Ireland in the first quarter of 2019, the best Q1 figures in the past 13 years, up almost 14% on the previously record-breaking Q1, 2018. Professional services was the biggest contributor to new start-ups in the quarter which saw 1,448 new start-ups representing a 22% increase on this time last year. Social and personal services grew by 50% with 945 new companies, while the third largest sector was financial services which, however, fell by 1% to 708 new start-up companies (compared to 715 in Q1 2018). Construction saw a modest 1% growth during this time. In total, 12 counties recorded double-digit growth in start-ups in Quarter One with Dublin recording the highest number, 3,089, amounting to almost 50% of the total number of start-ups established. Cork followed with 690 new companies in the first quarter, up 13.3%, with Galway coming in third with 236 new start-ups, down by just 1.2% on the first quarter of 2018. Limerick saw 210 new start-ups created, representing a 7.7% increase on the same period last year. The growth in company start-ups wasnt limited to the counties with the largest urban populations. Louth (up 21%), Donegal (up 16.5%), Kerry (up 7%), Wicklow (up 14%) and Wexford (up 38%) all saw significant increases in new company start-ups. 2018 saw an almost 26% year-on-year drop in insolvencies when compared to 2017 and in the first quarter of this year, insolvencies have remained relatively low at 192, equating to an average of two a day. It compares to a total of 186 in the same period for 2018. Wholesale and retail was the most insolvent sector in the first three months of 2019 with 31 recorded insolvencies, up 34.8% on the Q1 figures for 2018. It was equalled by professional services also with 31 recorded insolvencies, up 10.7% on the first quarter of 2018 and was followed by the construction sector with 25 recorded insolvencies, down by 13.8% on Q1 2018. Dublin was the most insolvent county for the period (84, up 9%), followed by Galway (14, up 133%) and Cork (13, down 43.5%). However, counties Clare, Carlow Mayo, Westmeath, Waterford, Kilkenny, Tipperary and Laois all recorded fewer than five insolvencies in the first quarter of this year and the number of insolvencies in counties Sligo and Offaly went down by 100% when compared to the same period in 2018. Christine Cullen, Managing Director of CRIF Vision-net, said: The buoyant entrepreneurial spirit in Ireland continues to weather the continued uncertainty across the water. The first quarter of 2019 has been the best in 13 years for start-ups in Ireland. Industries including professional services and social and personal services saw significant growth. Meanwhile, much talked about sectors such construction and finance have again recorded strong numbers. Inevitably, Brexit remains the greatest challenge of 2019 and sits at the very top of all business agendas amongst companies big and small. This concern is particularly acute for companies vulnerable to supply chain disruption, costly tariffs and border checks potentially on the horizon. Businesses continue to do what they can to ready themselves for the unknown and potentially messy teething period. In the meantime, it is critical that the Irish Government continue to provide assistance to safeguard the economy from the worst effects of a no-deal Brexit. LoveMoChuisleAnnaDobson140419_large.jpg Amid a slow fashion trend, traditional and handwoven clothing is seeing a revival. Tweed startup Love Mo Chuisle is putting a modern spin on the classic Irish fabric with its range of handmade clothing for men, women, and children. Designer Anna Dobson studied fashion textiles at the University of Ulster and worked in the industry for 15 years before moving back to her home town of Avoca in Co Wicklow with her three sons in 2015. In late 2017, she started Love Mo Chuisle. Tweed still has connotations of horse riding and waistcoats, Ms Dobson says, but she wanted to bring tweed into the 21st century with a look thats more fashion than heritage. Moving away from traditional grey and navy herringbone and plaids, she introduced colours such as mustards and raspberries to brighten up the kids range. She says the market for kids tweed clothing is completely untapped in Ireland and her raspberry cape for girls is a best-seller. The girls range comprises capes, coats, dresses and matching accessories in traditional patterns as well as bright colours. The mens and boys ranges include a mini-me collection with matching bow-ties and waistcoats for boys and their dads, while the womens range offers fitted blazers, dresses, waistcoats, and coats in traditional patterns and modern styles and colours priced from 129 to 389. While there are several competitors in the Irish market, such as established tweed brands like Magee, she believes there is still room for more companies. The brand is popular with tourists, Ms Dobson says, and the accessories, in particular, are easy to transport and make an affordable handmade gift from Ireland. Sustainability is the buzzword in the fashion industry these days. Ms Dobson buys her tweed from Donegal where it is woven from locally sourced wool. Working with an accessible and natural, durable material like wool on high quality and timeless design offers a more sustainable product, and she believes that returning to traditional fabrics is a way to move away from throwaway trends. The business has grown quickly. Following her win in the Arts category of the Network Ireland Wicklow Businesswoman of the Year 2018, she launched the website in September 2018 for direct sales. Love Mo Chuisle exhibited at Showcase Ireland in January. The creative expo of fashion, jewellery, and gifts, held over three days at Dublins RDS was attended by around 5,000 buyers from more than 20 countries. Ms Dobsons stand on the balcony alongside other Local Enterprise Ireland-supported startups, received lots of interest from international buyers, and as a result of the exhibit, she secured stockists in the US, Germany, and France, while wholesalers in Italy, Belgium and Canada place forward orders. Meanwhile, stockists across Ireland include The Design Loft at Powerscourt Estate, Kilkenny Design Centre, Shannon Airport Duty Free, the gift shop at Bunratty Castle, and outlets in the North. Currently working with two others on production, Ms Dobson says it has taken time to build the team and get the right fit. One of her biggest challenges has been to find seamstresses because of the lack of local manufacturers. She has availed of assistance with business planning through the Acorns programme for rural-based early-stage female entrepreneurs. Her Local Enterprise Office in Wicklow has provided mentoring, training and funding, including a priming grant and financial support with capital expenses and marketing and website costs. Ms Dobson has recently moved the companys production from her home to a premises in Avoca village. She plans to open a retail unit at the front of the building next month. Locals have been very supportive, she says, and neighbours are knocking on her door enquiring when the shop Tweed in the Valley will be up and running. She plans this year to build out the website to push sales in the US and other countries. She hopes to showcase at one of two big tradeshows in Boston or Chicago in the near future. IFA grain chairman, Mark Browne, said that Irish tillage farmers are furious about the continued failure of many animal feed merchants to use local barley. He cited Eurostat figures, showing Ireland imported 157,000 tonnes of non-EU maize in January alone, with Canada, Ukraine, and Russia as the main sources. A national map of outdoor mobile phone coverage for 2G, 3G and 4G services for a range of providers has been published by ComReg, the Commission for Communications Regulation, which regulates the electronic communications and postal sectors. With many mobile phone coverage blackspots identified nationwide especially in rural areas the map is designed to help consumers find out what phone services are available in their areas. Earlier this year, 17 local authorities reported to the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, that they had found nearly 400 mobile reception blackspots. In 2017, all local authorities were asked to submit data, but 14 did not return data. Of the local authorities that responded, some of the worst problems were in Co Longford with 84 blackspots, Galway City and County with 64, Kerry with 56, Limerick with 36, Carlow with 36, and Tipperary with 29. In Munster, data was also returned from Waterford, indicating four blackspots. But the new ComReg map showing the quality and prevalence of mobile phone coverage across the country for each provider is now the best source of information. If one is buying a phone, one can look at the map first to see whether a phone will work in that area. What is the Mobile Coverage Map? The map shows ComRegs predicted mobile outdoor coverage across Ireland and at specific addresses and/or Eircodes selected by consumers for mobile service providers (48, Eir, Lycamobile, Postmobile, Three, Tesco Mobile, Virgin Media and Vodafone). Why does my Eircode not show any result? Please check if you have entered your Eircode as shown on https://finder.eircode.ie/#/ What if my address is not shown in the drop down? If your address is not shown you can type in the known area and then move the pin to the exact location where you want to check coverage. What do the technology types 2G, 3G and 4G mean? 2G is for voice calls and text messages; 3G is for voice calls, text messages and data; 4G is for using your smartphone for data and voice. What do the maps coverage indications of very good, good, fair and fringe mean? Very Good or Good means a strong signal with very good or good connections for 2G, or a strong signal with maximum or good data speeds for 3G and 4G. Fair means a fair 2G signal may be attained, but disconnections may occur. For 3G and 4G, it means fast and reliable data speeds may be attained, but marginal data with drop-outs is possible. Fringe means disconnections are likely to occur with 2G, 3G, or 4G. The map says I have very good/good/fair/fringe/no coverage but I disagree. What can I do about this? Contact your service provider to confirm what coverage you can expect at your address. Does the map pick up my location if I check from a mobile? No. This is something that may be available in future releases of the map. How much of my mobile data does the Coverage Map use? Normal usage, for example, one location search, would typically consume somewhere between 1.5MB to 2MB. Heavy usage, for example, several searches or switching from one city to another, may consume in the region of 3MB. Most of the data you will typically use is in respect of Google maps. Does this map show broadband coverage? No. This map is for outdoor mobile coverage only. How has ComReg prepared the Coverage Map? ComReg periodically receives accurate datasets of network architecture from each network operator. A radio network planning tool is then used to process data and generate coverage predictions in tandem with a Digital Terrain Model provided by Ordinance Survey Ireland, along with clutter data from various service providers. Can I make a complaint to ComReg about my mobile coverage? Service providers obligations for mobile coverage are limited to their licence conditions. However, changes in your experience should be raised with your service provider. Some service providers offer the option to test coverage at your location, with a cooling off period. If you made a complaint to your service provider and allowed them 10 working days to resolve your issue, you can contact ComRegs Consumer Line. Five years after the completion of a 1.3m residential centre for adults with autism, the Co Kerry facility remains unoccupied. The Irish Society for Autism (ISA) was supported by Kerry County Council and organisers of various charity events in developing a purpose-built single-story home for eight people at Dromavalla, Ballyseedy, near Tralee. The centre, modelled on a Co Meath project, remains closed. The ISA has called on the HSE to secure a replacement service provider for an autism-specific service in Kerry. However, the health executive said the centre was not a planned HSE or Cork-Kerry Community Healthcare project and funding was never promised. We have not committed any funding to this project and we have no funding available in 2019 for this project or similar projects, the HSE said. However, we would be happy with any suitable service provider in making the case to Government for funding for services to meet the critical unmet need in the area, which we are very aware of. County Hall in Tralee, along with charities, donated several hundred thousand euro. The Ring of Kerry annual charity cycle event alone contributed 200,000. Local families have spoken of their disappointment that disability services for Kerry were not a priority. Jimmy Adams and his wife Patricia been fundraising and campaigning for a centre for over two decades. Their adult son, James aged 28, has autism. Mr Adams believes the HSE has a role in providing funding to the centre. He told Radio Kerry: Its all games. We are like pawns in the middle of all of this. No-one gives a toss. Meanwhile, meetings between the ISA and the HSEs Cork Kerry Community Health Services are to take place to appoint a service provider, but Mr Adams said discussions could continue for months. The ISA said it had been disappointed to learn, over a year ago, that the HSE and a service provider approved by the Health Information and Quality Authority had experienced difficulties. The Irish Society for Autism is urging the HSE to secure an alternative service provider as soon as possible, the society said. Supports for adults with autism are few and far between in provincial areas. ISA deputy executive director Tara Matthews said: Autism-specific supports can be sparse, particularly in rural Ireland. This purpose-built home can offer much-needed support to those living with autism and their families. The completed centre was built adjacent to a small farm which would help provide activity as well as produce for its residents. An open day was held in April 2014 but a lack of funding and likely red tape remain stumbling blocks to the centre being utilised. A young mother and her three children have been evicted into homelessness from the home she rented for nine years. It will now cost the state an estimated 3,500 to house them in emergency B&B accommodation in south Cork for the next two to three weeks alone. Where they will stay beyond that is uncertain. The family's plight led to renewed calls for legislation to prevent evictions into homelessness. Sinn Fein Cllr in Cork city, Thomas Gould, who has been working on the woman's case, also called for housing body, Threshold, to be given increased powers amid fears that this family is not an isolated case. He said this family's plight proves that the government's focus on protecting the rights of landlords is exposing some families to homelessness. "This woman was renting this house for the last nine years and there was never a problem. It's where her children were raised," he said. But she had to tell her children last Thursday that they now have nowhere to live. He said the landlord served the woman with a notice to quit last August, giving her the required notice. He said the landlord followed procedure and did everything by the book. The woman linked with Threshold who liaised with the landlord, resulting in an offer to increase her monthly rental payment to just over 1,100. But the landlord rejected the offer and advised the woman to leave the property, on the southside of Cork city, by last Thursday or face possible legal action which could result in her facing legal costs. The woman and her family had no option but to spend the weekend in the city's Family Hub on Western Rd. But their space in the Hub was pledged to someone else from yesterday and the family has now had to relocate to a B&B nearly 20km away. Mr Gould said the woman, who works in the city, is now at risk of not being able to continue working. "And all this is happening at a time when we have over 103 derelict properties in the city, and when the former St Mary's Hospital site is still lying idle," he said. He is still working with the family in a bid to resolve their situation. The Attorney General expressed serious concerns about the Governments decision to delay a review of the local property tax (LPT), a highly confidential Cabinet memorandum reveals. In the April 2 memo, seen by the Irish Examiner, Seamus Woulfe warned ministers explicitly that the Government is leaving itself open to a potential legal challenge because up to 80,000 homes built since 2012 are exempt from the LPT. The way that the 2012 act is constructed is that there is a significant number of properties that attract an exemption from liability for one reason or another, said Mr Woulfe. Arguably, this could create an appearance of arbitrariness that could give rise to a challenge from a disgruntled liable person. Mr Woulfe also raised the possibility that a deferral is not consistent with the Constitution. Attorney General Seamus Woulfe The memorandum was prepared by Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe for the Cabinet meeting on April 2, at which it was decided by ministers not to proceed with a new LPT rate from later this year. Mr Donohoe brought the memo in defence of his decision to defer implementing a new LPT charging regime, despite his own expert review group recommending he do so from this November. Included in Mr Donohoes memo are Mr Woulfes advices in which he spells out a number of dangers with the proposal to defer the LPT rate change. The memo reveals Mr Woulfe argued that it would be necessary to justify this system of exemptions with clear policy reasons and it is possible that the whole act could come under scrutiny, including the maintenance of the artificially low valuations of properties. Ultimately, he said it is a matter for the minister to decide whether to alter the valuation date, notwithstanding a degree of risk about the constitutionality of the deferral. Mr Woulfe said that, in his opinion, it is somewhat unclear whether a deferral of the valuation date can be done via ministerial order under section 13(3). The starting point, of course, is that prima facie the act permits such an order, and the presumption of constitutionality applies to the section and the exercise of the power under that provision, he said. The real question is whether the absence of principles and policies renders the section invalid, having regard to Article 15 of the Constitution. The answer to this appears to me not entirely clear. On the more substantive point, Woulfe, according to the memo, said: I appreciate also that it is difficult to envisage who would object to 2013 valuation levels being maintained. Ministers decided to defer the review of the LPT, even though they were told it would cost up to 250m a year in lost taxes, the confidential Cabinet memorandum also reveals. The memorandum outlines clearly the cost in terms of revenue forgone by the decision to extend the current system by 12 months. The yield from LPT if revaluation was allowed to go ahead on the 1st November 2019 with no change in the rate of the tax would be approximately 729m, the memo states. This compares with the yield in 2018 of 482m. This indicates that the revenue lost to the local authorities as a result of not proceeding with revaluations on 1st November 2019 on a no policy change basis would be in the region of 247m annually. It also warns that the postponement of the revaluation date to November 1, 2020, through secondary legislation means that it will not be possible to bring into the LPT base for 2020 certain residential properties that are currently exempt. These properties include new properties purchased between 2013 and 2019, says the memorandum. The estimated annual yield that these properties would generate if they were subject to LPT is estimated to be in the order of 42m. Mr Donohoe makes it clear in his memo that simplicity was a key part of the LPTs success on its introduction in 2013 and states he is conscious of the importance of maintaining simplicity in the operation of the LPT. Looking ahead, in an interview with the Irish Examiner, Mr Donohoe said the final solution will involve a lowering of the rate applied, and a widening of the valuation bands at which point the rate will apply. I think what is very likely to happen is that the way in which we will get agreement on this will be on the basis of rate-lowering and band-widening, he said. What is very likely is that we can get agreement on LPT reform that values at current market value level and is combined with band-widening and a change in the rate. If we do that and continue to allow councils have discretion in relation to the local authority variation factor, we can come up with a LPT that will maintain support for it. We need the LPT and we need a reformed LPT but I am conscious of the work I need in the Dail to achieve that. Directly elected mayors in Cork, Limerick and Waterford will give the cities extra clout when it comes to securing government funding, according to the Taoiseach. Leo Varadkar also said he believes there is enough time over the next six weeks to convince voters in these areas to vote yes in the government's plebiscite for directly elected mayors on May 24 - the same day as the local and European elections and the referendum on the regulation of divorce. The committee to oversee the plebiscite public information campaign, chaired by former judge of the High Court, Henry Abbott, launches its campaign tomorrow. In an interview with the Irish Examiner ahead of Fine Gael's launch of its 'yes campaign', the Taoiseach defended the government's delay in publishing information about the role and powers of directly elected mayors. "There are six weeks between now and May 24 and we think that is enough time for people to be informed about the proposal - because its not complicated. Its not like a European treaty or something like that. Its a very simple proposition," he said. Under the Governments proposal, people in Cork city, Limerick and Waterford will be asked on May 24 if they want directly elected mayors to assume some or all of the functions now performed by council chief executives (CE). The first elections will take place in 2021, with the first mayor getting a two-and-a-half year term, five years from 2024. The mayor would be paid 130,000, and have the right to appoint two advisers. The cost of the office could be up to 450,000 a year in each of the three areas. Mr Varadkar said: "This is a big change. It means that if people want it, they will get to elect their own mayor and that mayor will be accountable to the public," he said. "And if that mayor doesnt do a good job, well, you can boot them out at the next election. "That person will have a big mandate - Cork is a big city: the person elected is probably going to have 50,000 or 60,000 votes. They will carry weight when they represent the city around the world, but also when they come to central government looking for things to be done around housing and transport and investment. "Its going to be much harder for central government not to listen to that person, not to do something," he added. Mr Varadkar said a directly elected mayor would be good for Cork city specifically because of the government's ambitions for it over the next 20-years. "We want Cork to develop to become a real competitor and counterbalance to Dublin," he said. We want the city to have its population increase by 50% by 2040 and to get that right we need all the investment in transport infrastructure and housing that are needed and having a person with a real mandate, with real status to drive that forward means its going to happen. And much more likely to happen. The Taoiseach insisted that the historic title and ceremonial status of the 800-year-old office of Cork's Lord Mayor will be retained and protected in law. He also rejected criticism of the decision to give the first directly elected mayors just over two years in office. "It is quite common in other countries - the mayor of London is directly elected, the mayor of Paris, the mayor of New York. Its the norm in America and like with any big change I think you have to phase it in," he said. "The first person doing the first job in many ways will be setting it up, as powers are transferred and as functions are transferred, and the idea is to start it off with a short-term and then have a full term at the same time as as the local elections in 2024. "It also means if it doesnt work out there is an opportunity to make changes." Directly elected mayors in Cork, Limerick, and Waterford will give the cities extra clout in securing State funding, said the Taoiseach. Leo Varadkar also said there is time over the next six weeks to convince people in these areas to vote yes on May 24 in the plebiscite for directly elected mayors, the same day as the local and European elections and the referendum on the regulation of divorce. The committee to oversee the plebiscite public information campaign, chaired by a former judge of the High Court, Henry Abbott, launches its campaign today. In an interview with the Irish Examiner ahead of the launch of Fine Gaels yes campaign today, Mr Varadkar defended the Governments delay in publishing information about the role and powers of the mayors. There are six weeks between now and May 24 and we think that is enough time for people to be informed about the proposal, because its not complicated, he said. Its not like a European treaty, or something like that. Its a very simple proposition. Under the proposal, people in Cork, Limerick, and Waterford will be asked if they want directly elected mayors to assume some or all of the functions now performed by council chief executives. The first elections will take place in 2021, with the first mayor getting a two-and-a-half-year term, and five years from 2024. The mayor would be paid 130,000, and have the right to appoint two advisers. The cost of the office could be up to 450,000 a year in each of the three areas. Mr Varadkar said: This is a big change. It means that if people want it, they will get to elect their own mayor and that mayor will be accountable to the public. And if that mayor doesnt do a good job, well, you can boot them out at the next election. So, essentially, its giving more power to an elected person over an official and its giving the people of Cork the power to elect a person who will represent the city. That person will have a big mandate; Cork is a big city. The person elected is probably going to have 50,000 or 60,000 votes. They will carry weight when they represent the city around the world, but also when they come to central government, looking for things to be done around housing and transport and investment. Its going to be much harder for central government not to listen to that person, not to do something. Mr Varadkar said that a directly elected mayor would be good for Cork City. We want Cork to develop to become a real competitor and counterbalance to Dublin, he said. We want the city to have its population increase by 50% by 2040 and to get that right we need investment in transport infrastructure and housing, and having a person with a real mandate, with real status to drive that forward means its going to happen. And much more likely to happen. The Taoiseach added that the historic title and ceremonial status of the 800-year-old office of Corks Lord Mayor will be retained and protected in law. By Juno McEnroe and Eoin English A further delay in agreeing a broadband solution for more than half a million homes and premises has been deemed another blow for rural Ireland. Communications Minister Richard Bruton confirmed that proposals for the national Broadband Plan will not go before Cabinet today - despite a pledge by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to decide on plans this week. The longer the delays on agreeing a contract to roll out the high-speed broadband for rural areas, the higher the costs for the plan will go, Fianna Fail's Timmy Dooley insisted last night. But amid criticism, Mr Bruton refused to explain why Government agreement on the plan is further delayed: We are close to completion on that, both with our own department which has prime responsibility, but also the department of public expenditure. "They have an input into this. And I believe we will shortly be in a position to bring recommendations to Government. Clearly, there are a lot of issues at the moment which are demanding Government concentration and this is one, it is a very significant decision. "It will need the time and space to reach that decision. I know that the Taoiseach is determined that time and space be provided. Mr Bruton said there are other affairs that are happening simultaneously in government, that the Department of Public Expenditure needs to also have input and that there is a determination to reach a decision in a timely way. He added: It has been acknowledged that this isn't a cheap investment and Government has to make a decision that this is an investment which we are willing to make. The latest stumbling block comes after Taoiseach Leo Varadkar committed in February to making a decision on the plan before Easter. This came after a previous commitment last November to agree a plan within weeks. After five bidders were involved in 2015, just one company is now left in the process to deliver high-speed broadband to 540,000 homes and premises, mainly in rural Ireland. It has been suggested that the cost of the project could reach 3bn. Fianna Fail argues that the Government should have intervened more than a year ago and that the ESB also has the skills to roll out the broadband facilities. Mr Dooley said: The longer this goes on and the more delay, costs will keep rising. The opposition communications spokesman added: I believe this is a disgraceful betrayal of the people who have been waiting for so long and who depend on this rollout. "Hundreds of thousands of households and businesses in the country are waiting for the Minister and the Government to get their act together on this long overdue project. Tanaiste, Simon Coveney, said a final decision on the plan will be made within weeks, not months: Its not on the long finger. There is not going to be a long delay here. "There is some more work to do before Minister Bruton can bring the proposals to the cabinet but were not talking about months here - were talking about weeks." Meanwhile, recommendations on the concerns of former residents of mother and baby homes will be examined by the Government. A Garda trying to get into a pub to carry out a late-night inspection heard loud 'shushing' from inside the pub as he was left standing outside the locked premises. Patricia OLeary, 57, of Cork Arms, MacCurtain Street pleaded guilty to a charge that she did fail to admit a member of An Garda Siochana in the execution of his duty demanding entry to the licensed premises. Sergeant John Kelleher said the same publican had 11 previous convictions for various breaches of the Intoxicating Liquor Act, including counts related to having people on the premises after closing time and failing to admit gardai. Judge Olann Kelleher convicted and fined her 750 on this occasion but warned: She is putting her licence at risk. Justin Condon, solicitor, said the publican accepted responsibility for not allowing the guards in on the night but he added: She is adamant she did not hear anything (from the guard trying to get in). She was downstairs. She had works going on in the toilets." Judge Olann Kelleher was told that the Garda had called at 1am. Mr Condon said the man doing the work on the toilets was from Meath and staying nearby: He came in and had a pint and went down to finish the work putting on some knobs or something of that nature. Sergeant Kelleher said that Garda Eric Stafford called to the Cork Arms on MacCurtain Street on July 18, 2018 at 1 am: Garda Stafford attempted to conduct an inspection of the Cork Arms public house. He could quite clearly hear talking from inside the bar. Garda Stafford began knocking loudly on the front door and the noise came to an abrupt stop. "He could hear persons inside the premises shushing other patrons. Garda Stafford loudly identified himself as a member of An Garda Siochana but was not permitted entry." On Sept 15 Garda Stafford interviewed Patricia OLeary. "She stated that on the night in question she was getting work done on the toilets and did not hear gardai knocking. "Garda Stafford refutes this, stating that he could clearly hear persons inside the premises shushing other patrons, Sgt Kelleher said. Degrading and inappropriate comments on social media are being blamed for the cancellation of a Drag Story Time event in Dublin. It was due to be held at Deansgrange library as part of Dublin Pride, but Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council says that following online comments it is not safe to do so. The local authority has clarified why the event has been cancelled, after initially saying it was not age appropriate or family-friendly. In a statement released today, the council said: "With regard to the cancellation of the Drag Story Time event in June, we wish to clarify that the cancellation was due to our significant concern at the high level of degrading, inappropriate comments on social media about the performers and library staff. dlr Libraries object to homophobia in all its forms and as per our social media guidelines, we reserve the right to remove content or comments that may be considered offensive, abusive or defamatory. It added: "We would like to reassure the public that this event was age-appropriate and family-friendly." The initial statement from the council advising the cancellation of the event had said: "This event was programmed as an age appropriate, family-friendly story time session. "However, following a review in terms of age appropriateness, this event will not now go ahead at this time, and may be rescheduled as part of a future Book Festival lineup." Local Councillor Dave O'Keefe says the group of drag queens involved have taken part in the educational events before. "The wording of the original statement seems to indicate that the group themselves were somehow at fault which happily has been rectified by the latest press release which seems to be a complete retraction of the initial post," said Cllr O'Keefe. Mary Lowry is manipulative and her evidence about Patrick Quirke contained lies and should not be believed, defence lawyers have told a jury at the Central Criminal Court love rival trial. On day two of the defence closing speech, Bernard Condon SC went through the evidence of Ms Lowry, detailing what he told the six men and six women is evidence of her attempts to rewrite history. Mr Quirke (aged 50) of Breanshamore, Co Tipperary has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Bobby Ryan, a part-time DJ known as Mr Moonlight. Mr Ryan went missing on June 3, 2011, after leaving his girlfriend Mary Lowry's home at about 6.30am. His body was found in an underground run-off tank on the farm owned by Ms Lowry and leased by the accused at Fawnagown, Tipperary 22 months later in April 2013. The prosecution has claimed Mr Quirke murdered Mr Ryan so he could rekindle an affair with Ms Lowry (aged 52). Mr Condon opened by telling the jury to consider the quality, not the quantity of the evidence they have heard. Much of it, he said, relied on Mary Lowry and even if proven true, would say nothing about murder but suggest she was in a relationship with Pat Quirke that was at different times good, bad, and indifferent. The end of the relationship was bitter and petty, like many relationships when they break up, he said. Ms Lowry's first attempt to revise history, he said, was when she said that the accused was not good friends with her late husband Martin Lowry. All the evidence, he said, states otherwise. In the witness box, she described her affair with Mr Quirke as "sordid", but Mr Condon asked if this was just her talking with hindsight, looking back on something she now regrets and trying to put herself in the best light possible. She had also said that she was "controlled" by Mr Quirke but, Mr Condon said, this is based only on Ms Lowry's unsupported evidence. He asked them to consider the statement made to gardai by her brother Eddie Quigley in which he said he told Pat Quirke: "Mary will make up her own mind and you and me won't change that." That, Mr Condon said, is a very different view of Mary Lowry to the "naive or vulnerable person she seeks to put across". She was, counsel said, "about the business of manipulation. She was manipulative." He further asked whether the episode - when she gave out to Bobby Ryan for five hours travelling back from Bundoran because he had spent the previous night dancing and talking to another woman - was evidence that Ms Lowry was controlled or controlling. Patrick Quirke. File image. She had made light of it, Mr Condon said, telling the jury that his ear must have been "reddened". But Mr Condon reminded them that Bobby Ryan's response was to suggest that they end the relationship. She lied in her account of what happened in Bundoran, Mr Condon said. Firstly, she told gardai that Bobby wasn't feeling well and didn't want to dance. When he went to the toilet she started dancing with another man and when she came back Bobby was dancing with another woman and spent hours chatting to her. In her evidence to the jury, Mr Condon said, she said she asked Bobby's permission to dance with another man and he said it was fine. This, he said, was an "out and out lie". She had also changed her story, counsel said, from saying that Bobby had met the woman the night before to saying this was a woman he knew from years ago and they were just chatting about old times and therefore there was no problem. If she can't give a coherent story about this incident, Mr Condon asked the jury how they can believe what she says about Patrick Quirke. Mr Condon is continuing this afternoon in front of Justice Eileen Creedon. In a throwback to the kind of scenes witnessed at the height of the Celtic Tiger housing bubble, wanna-be homeowners queued overnight in a Cork city suburb for a chance to buy a home. According to eye-witnesses, as many as 35 people slept in their cars outside the newly-developed Heathfield Estate, in Ballincollig, last Friday night, for an opportunity to buy into the scheme, as part of a third release of homes. Units released under the first two phases sold out and this third release, of 24 homes, included the unveiling of the estate showhouse. The Irish Examiner reported recently that the development had attracted considerable interest, with 700 names registered on its website, and 40 sales already secured by the first week of April. The 210 homes, by developers Murnane & OShea, are a medium-density scheme of three-and four-bed homes, most of them semi-detached, with prices from 325,000 to 375,000 to 515,000. The demand is against the backdrop of the latest Daft.ie sales report for the first quarter of 2019, which showed that average house prices in Cork are now 60% higher than they were at their lowest point, in 2013. The report showed that the average asking price for houses in the county had increased by 3% since the start of the year. By the end of March, the average asking price in Cork stood at 226,728, up from 220,174 at the end of December. Cork City remains, by some distance, the most expensive place to buy in Munster, where house prices have risen by a whopping 72.1% from their lowest point (or trough), in 2013, with the average price now 282,518. Cork is not the only county to see the return of queues for homes. The scramble to buy at a number of housing developments in Dublin over the past 12 months has also seen overnight queues forming. The demand for housing has built up over a number of years, as supplies dwindled after the economy crashed. A report by the CSO in 2017, based on Census 2016, found that the country increased its housing supply by just 0.4% in the five-year period 2011 to 2016. This is in stark contrast to the change in Irelands housing stock during the peak of the Celtic Tiger, between 2002 and 2006, when the number of units grew by 21.2%. The number of people homeless exceeded 10,000 for the first time ever this year. The recent 52nd WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival in Houston, in the US state of Texas, paid a great deal of attention to Chinese movies and moviemakers. And it drew praise from movie industry insiders for this shift in focus. Speaking about the change, Megan Botha, who is responsible for international business development in Z Lab USA LLC, a Houston-based global marketing firm, says: "I grew up with American movies, obviously Western movies ... was really, really excited to see what Chinese movies are like." One of the two opening-night movies of the festival was The Star and the Sea, co-directed by Li Qiankuan and Xiao Guiyun, and first screened in China in 2011. It is a moving drama about the impoverished childhood of one of China's most famous composers, Xian Xinghai. His Yellow River Cantata was the most inspiring piece of music during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) in World War II. Li and Xiao, both honorary life chairpersons of WorldFest-Houston, say that diversity of arts and cultures is one of the highlights of the festival, and cultural activities are very helpful in improving understanding between China and the United States. As part of the film festival, the WorldFest Focus on China had screenings of 15 Chinese feature films and several Chinese shorts. Separately, the mayor of Houston Sylvester Turner mentioned in his message for the festival that 200 filmmakers from China were present at the WorldFest Focus on China, and this is "the largest such gathering in the US". "I am confident that this momentous occasion will enrich our city culturally and continue to be a remarkable showcase of talent and dedication," Turner adds. WorldFest-Houston chairman Hunter Todd considers the World-Fest Focus on China as a platform to provide opportunities for emerging Chinese directors and a window to China. "I love the realism of Chinese films, and the independent Chinese films are especially good, because they reflect the spirit and personalities of China, and I love China," he says. At the festival, there were 10 major categories of competition, and over 60 new independent feature films and 108 award-winning shorts as well as documentaries and student projects from around the globe were screened. Zhou Jie, a prominent Chinese actress, dancer and educator, hailed the festival for its diversity and inclusion of various cultures. "I believe that through the window of demonstrating China's history and culture, the American people will understand more about China as well as Chinese culture. I'm confident that they will be fascinated by Chinese culture," Zhou said at the opening ceremony. Zhou stars in the film Princess of Yang, which was screened at the festival as one of the five Chinese masterpieces. The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, as well as other officials, sent messages for the festival's success. Zhang Ling, the executive chairperson and head of Asia for the festival, says: "I'll try my best to help filmmakers from Asia, in particular from China, to promote their productions here." WorldFest was founded over 52 years ago as Cinema Arts, an International Film Society, in August 1961, and has since evolved into the third competitive international film festival in North America, following the San Francisco and the New York film festivals. As one of the oldest independent film and video festivals in the world, WorldFest has discovered a long list of famous film personalities such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Ang Lee. A total of 59 candidates have declared they will contest next month's European parliament elections including ex-ministers, former presidential candidates, farmers and academics among others. With just over five weeks until polling day, candidates for the three European constituencies have lodged their nominations as campaigning heats up in the coming days. The latest figures to confirm they will seek an MEP seat were Independents Mick Wallace and Clare Daly, who will run in Ireland South and Dublin. Both could do well if those two constituencies are enlarged to five and four-seat areas respectively. This will only happen if Britain agrees to leave the EU next month - freeing up its seats for other EU member states, including Ireland. A number of former ministers will seek seats in Europe, including Fine Gael's Frances Fitzgerald in Dublin, Fianna Fail's Billy Kelleher in Ireland South and Labour's Dominic Hannigan in the Midlands-North-West constituency. Junior agriculture minister Andrew Doyle is also running in Ireland South. In general, the European elections are complicated by the fact that there will be two counts in Dublin and Ireland South. The first will be if both constituencies are enlarged, as envisaged with Brexit. A second count will allow for if there is no Brexit and both areas revert to being three and four-seaters. As of this evening, there were 23 candidates listed on the returning officer's website for Ireland South, while Dublin had 19 contenders named and the vast Midlands-North-West constituency had 14 people identified as nominated to compete in the May 24 poll. Another three candidates for that constituency have been named elsewhere. With several TDs running in the election, the outcome could trigger a number of by-elections which would likely be held in the autumn. In Ireland South, Deirdre Clune (FG), Sean Kelly (FG) and Liadh Ni Riada (SF) will defend seats while in Dublin Lynn Boylan (SF) is the only MEP looking to be returned after a decision by Brian Hayes (FG) and Nessa Childers (Independent) not to seek re-election. Sean Kelly kisses Deirdre Clune after they were both elected in 2014 Other significant figures contesting a seat in Dublin include Senator Alice Mary Higgins, an Independent and daughter of President Michael D Higgins, as well as former Labour minister Alex White. In Midlands-North-West, sitting MEPs who are running again are Luke Ming Flanagan (Ind), Mairead McGuinness (FG) and Matt Carthy (SF). Ireland South candidates Direct Democracy Ireland: Jan Van De Ven, Co Wexford, Entrepreneur Non Party: Diarmuid Patrick OFlynn, Co Cork, European Parliament Accredited Parliamentary Assistant Fianna Fail: Billy Kelleher, Co Cork, TD Fianna Fail: Malcolm Byrne, Co Wexford, Head of Communications, HEA Fine Gael: Deirdre Clune, Cork, MEP Sinn Fein: Liadh Ni Riada, Co Chorcai, MEP Green Party: Grace OSullivan, Co Waterford, Senator Solidarity - People Before Profit: Adrienne Wallace,Co Carlow, Office Administrator Fine Gael: Sean Kelly,Co Kerry, MEP Non Party: Paddy Fitzgerald, Co Tipperary, Retired Farmer Fine Gael: Andrew Doyle, Co Wicklow, TD Non Party: Walter Ryan-Purcell, Co Kerry, Tour Operator Identity Ireland: Peter OLoughlin, Cork,Teacher Non Party: Liam Minehan, Co Tipperary, Farmer Non Party: Theresa Heaney, Co Cork, Homemaker Non Party: Dolores J Cahill, Co Tipperary, Professor Non Party: Maurice Joseph Sexton, Cork City, Scientist Independents 4 Change: Mick Wallace, Co Wexford, TD Non Party: Breda Patricia Gardner, Co Kilkenny, Complementary Health Therapist Non Party: Allan J Brennan, Co Wicklow, Project Manager Labour: Sheila Nunan, Kilternan, Dublin 18, Teacher Non Party: Colleen Worthington, Cork, Homemaker Non Party: Peter Madden, Co Tipperary, Environmental Educator One in five children in Ireland some 230,000 of the countrys population is living in a family with income below the poverty line, an issue that needs to be addressed by policy changes, according to an independent social justice think tank. Social Justice Ireland has today published Poverty Focus 2019, in which it calls on the Government to address child poverty by acting on issues such as adequate adult welfare rates, decent pay and conditions for working parents, and an increase in child benefit and access to quality services. Social Justice Ireland says child benefit remains a key route to tackling child poverty, and that decent rates of pay and conditions are extremely important to support working parents. The think-tank says individuals working full time should be able to earn enough income to provide a decent standard of living for their families, but that many working families on low earnings struggle to achieve a basic standard of living. It said making tax credits refundable is an efficient and cost-effective solution to help working families on low earnings. Sean Healy, director of Social Justice Ireland, said the scale of child poverty here in Ireland is alarming and is simply unacceptable in a country as wealthy as ours. Children are one of the most vulnerable groups in society, he said. Despite good intentions, child poverty is an issue that Irish society and public policy has made little progress in addressing for a long time. Eliminating child poverty should be a top priority for Government. It can be done, but it requires action now. More equality is better for everybody, including the economy, he said. Michelle Murphy, research and policy analyst with Social Justice Ireland, said child poverty is essentially an issue of families struggling to survive on low incomes. Children cannot be lifted out of poverty unless their families are lifted out of poverty, she said. Child poverty presents very serious policy challenges for us. Government can support low-income families by prioritising adequate adult welfare rates, decent pay and conditions for working parents, increased child benefit, and access to quality services, said Ms Murphy. The United Nations has called on Ireland to boost staffing at the Garda Anti-Corruption Unit, saying there are only three members attached to it. UN authorities also want a special inter-agency body to coordinate efforts to combat corruption. It has also called for the establishment of a Judicial Council, saying there was no code of conduct for judges. The UN did commend Irelands strong anti-money laundering legislation, its whistleblower laws and the Criminal Assets Bureau. The findings come from an evaluation of Irelands compliance with the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. The Government published an executive summary of the teams findings, saying it identified both Irelands successes and good practices however, it also identified challenges Ireland faces. Coinciding with the publication, and in advance of the full report next month, the Department of Justice announced a public consultation in relation to its review of anti-fraud and anti-corruption structures. In relation to the gardai, the UN report said: Ireland has recently established a dedicated anti-corruption unit within An Garda Siochana to investigate and prevent corruption. Currently, however, the unit has only three staff and its corruption prevention mandate is not sufficiently clear. The unit was established in 2017 and in September 2018 it launched a confidential line for reporting bribery and corruption. Regarding judges, the review team said: There is no code of conduct for members of the judiciary and the adoption of such a code would be facilitated by the establishment of a judicial council. It said there was no formal courses on ethics for new judges and that they are not required to declare any interests at present. It said Ireland had a robust and mature regime for combating money laundering and had established the Anti-Money-Laundering Steering Committee to develop Irelands money laundering and counter-terrorist financing policy. It said Irish successes and good practices on preventing corruption included: whistleblower legislation where the motive of the discloser is irrelevant; the freedom of information disclosure log; and the money laundering committee. But it recommended that Ireland: Ensure adequate resourcing and staffing of preventative authorities, particularly of the Anti-Corruption Unit within An Garda Siochana, and clarify their tasks with regard to prevention; Set up an anti-corruption inter-agency steering committee, similar to the one on money-laundering Consider lowering the limits in relation to gifts to public officials; Establish a Judicial Council with a mandate to adopt a code of conduct for judges; Consider establishing a unified anti-money-laundering supervisory authority. The team said Ireland had a comprehensive legislative and policy framework for asset recovery and that successes and good practices included the establishment of CAB. In a statement, Garda HQ said: An Garda Siochana has established an anti-corruption unit and late last year, as part of its work, it established a confidential anti-corruption reporting line. It said the force had invested significant time and resources in investigating and prosecuting former senior managers in financial institutions, such as David Drumm, an investigation that took nine years and a trial lasting six months. It said they would take on board the UN report. In the Governments public consultation, it is seeking submissions on structures within the Gardai and other agencies to target fraud and corruption; whether or not there should be a stand-alone agency; adequacy of the legal basis for sharing information between relevant bodies; and the resources and expertise needed in relevant agencies. Eileen Madden has run Pro Musica since 1982 when she took over from McCullough Pigott, after they decided to let their Cork operation go. There were 11 music shops in Cork when Madden started in the business. Most of them have since closed their doors. Despite floods and challenging trading conditions, Maddens music emporium spread over three floors at the premises on Oliver Plunkett St continues to open its doors to musicians from all layers of Cork citys diverse music scene. No trip to Cork city is complete for music lovers without a peep into this cornucopia of music and Eileens cheery greeting when you step through the doors remains a reassuring constant in a changing retail landscape. How did you get into the business? I worked here part time while I was a student at the School of Music when it was McCullough Pigott. When I graduated in 1980, I started working here fulltime but I had my visas sorted to go to South Africa and I had two jobs lined up there. Boosey and Hawkes had their main publishing house in Johannesburg and I also had a position as cellist in the Radio Symphony Orchestra. When the manager left , I was next in line so I stepped up to manage. At that time business was not good. This end of Oliver Plunkett St. was dead. There was a one arm bandit shop two doors up and it was a red light area. Then there was a flood. In the end, McCullough Pigott decided to pull out at the start of 1982. I approached them to rent me the ground floor. My rent was 12,000 a year. Two years later, I bought the premises outright. How has the business changed? It was tough at the start but it is much tougher now. Expenses are shooting up and profit margins have shrunk. We have to sell three times the amount of stock and have three times the amount of storage hence we had to go to the expense of taking on a big warehouse in Carrigaline. You have to have it in stock, you have to match the online price and you have to have the staff. We have an online shop on our website and we post a lot of books all over the world. Business in Cork is being killed by our city fathers in the way the city council has enforced the car ban. You have to be out now by three o clock. From the first week of January, Ive noticed that at ten to three business literally stops. What has helped you stay in business? It is the customer service and the repeat business, that is what we hang on to. You might come in for a book and come back later and buy a cello. Then you might trade it in for a bigger or better cello. That and the fact that we sell everything. We do repairs. If we were just selling guitars and keyboards-Forget it! Being in business for so long, I have built up a huge rapport with all the big name like Fender, Martin Taylor. They are not dealing with anybody new now. I go to a lot of teachers conferences. It is a big part of the business. They are the young blood and it does pay off to make those connections. It helps that I own the premises. If I was paying rent of 40 or 50 grand, I wouldnt be making the cut. I have a great staff of 13 people and my son Luke has followed me into the business. Eileen Dennehy has been working with since I started in 1984. Give us a tour Downstairs we have our books and accessories. These are our big sellers. Upstairs on the first floor, we have our rock shop. We carry the high end guitar brands They tend to be weekend sales. We also have our drums, keyboards and synths and amplifiers. On the top floor we have all our string instruments, brass and wind instruments. We are one of the largest stockists of brass and woodwind in Ireland. Celebrity Customers? I was coming in to work one day and my door was blocked by these heavy guys who looked like bodyguards. I thought there had been an accident or something. They said You cant go in. Bono is in there buying a harmonica. Has it been rewarding? I love it! I love the people. It is a great business and every day is a different day. I meet a lot of stone mad people. A lot of musicians are eccentric and a lot of eccentrics are musicians. You get up in the morning ready to start all over again. There is no room for depression in this business. Kerryman Aidan OCarroll blogs to promote his website design abilities. I blog as much as possible to bring traffic to our site and gain a wider reach online to further the Avalanche brand, he said. It is also a satisfying way of talking about issues that are close to my heart and hearing other opinions on the matter to grow and improve. He focuses on real-world experiences in his blog rather than boring business-related articles. The typical method for bloggers in our scene is to talk about How GDPR affects your website, etc, but I found I was bored writing these articles so I realised pretty quickly nobody would want to read them. Given the demographic of the people who follow us, it made much more sense to post about real-world items that are affecting me/my generation "The main draw of our blog though is our posts about what it is like being a Millennial in Ireland, hacking, being a young person starting a business and how technology/content is impacting us. Aidan uses social media daily but finds pressure to be online constantly to be unsustainable. It has usurped traditional methods of contact between friends, so it is no surprise they are the most used apps by most people. In terms of business, we try to create content that is going to get engagement while at the same time showcases what we are all about, whether that is blog posts or imagery through Instagram. With Instagram/Snapchat now being semi-live with stories, there is almost a pressure to upload daily which is unsustainable. But Aidan credits social media for helping his brand to grow when it was first established. I can confidently say if it werent for social media, my business would not have grown to the level that it has "In 2012, Facebook was where we primarily advertised as we did not have the budget for any traditional marketing, it allowed us to build an online personality for Avalanche which has filtered through to the rest of our social media platforms. Our blog and social media are intrinsically linked, and one could not grow without the other being active. Aidan says he most enjoys the social side of social media. Having a discussion with people is my favourite aspect of blogging, sometimes people will challenge your opinion and I really enjoy the back and forth. It sounds obvious but it is the purity of social media that is my favourite part. It all helps to grow our brand and I get to meet some very talented people. A hundred years ago, the Limerick soviet provided a challenge to British occupation, and left playwright Mike Finn wondering how Ireland would have turned out if their ideas held sway through the struggle, writes Marjorie Brennan. It is almost 100 years to the day since 14,000 workers in Limerick went on strike in protest at the British army imposing martial law in the city following the death of an IRA member in police custody. Known as the Limerick Soviet, after the Russian equivalent, in the space of a fortnight, the workers were printing their own newspaper, controlling food prices and had established their own currency. Playwright Mike Finn revisits this little-known chapter of Irish history in Bread Not Profits, an ambitious large-scale site-specific production taking place in the former Cleeves factory site in Limerick, one of the places where the British required workers to have a permit to gain entry. The workers argued correctly that they had the right to go to and from their employment without hindrance by the military, particularly a foreign military, says Finn. Its about ordinary people standing up to an army He worked on the project while artist-in-residence at the citys Belltable arts centre. It was a subject that had fascinated the Limerick native for years and as the centenary approached, the time was ripe to delve deeper. Limerick people are becoming curious about it. There were quite a few soviets around Ireland from 1919 to the early 1920s [including in Cork and Waterford] but theyve been written out of history. They say history is written by the winners and after independence we became very conservative, very Catholic, very republican so the republican narrative was the only one in our history. Mike Finn DIFFERENT PATH The play also led Finn to reflect on the direction the country would have taken if the workers movement had not lost its most prominent and charismatic leader. What would have happened if James Connolly hadnt been executed after the 1916 rising? Something special was lost there because he was an extraordinary man, with extraordinary loyalty from the left. Connolly barely gets mentioned now, even though over a quarter of those who took part in the Easter Rising were in the Citizens Army. They had a very different view of what they were fighting for compared to McDonagh and Pearse, who just wanted to get rid of the British. Connolly and the Citizens Army also wanted social and economic change in the country, they were essentially looking for a workers republic Finn points to the efforts of people like the late Limerick Labour politician Jim Kemmy in keeping the memory of the soviet alive, and also author Liam Cahill, who 30 years ago wrote the book Forgotten Revolution about the Limerick soviet, an updated version of which is being published this year. Finn says the current political turmoil has also led to a renewed interest in such events. Theres an interest now in alternative politics especially since the crash and austerity. People may be looking at capitalism and seeing its not such a great idea, or that there may be alternatives worth looking at. Thats what the Limerick soviet was all about, workers taking control of something in the face of an entire empire. FAMILY MEMORIES Memories of the soviet were also passed down in Finns own family. My grandmother was part of a protest on the Easter Sunday, when a load of workers walked out of the city, without permits, to a hurling match in Caherdavin. They marched back in, up to the barricades and demanded to be left back in. They werent and they marched around in a circle and stayed in friends houses in Thomondgate that night. The next morning they got on a train just outside the city and got in that way. In Bread Not Profits, Finn blends fiction and reality to portray the larger picture. I ventilate some of the big political arguments through small domestic scenes. In one case, the arguments for and against the strike are made by two fictional characters, a baker and his wife. Hes worried about the strike closing his business down but his wife is more enthusiastic and then someone from the strike committee comes in and orders him to open the bakery. This was the second day of the strike, when the strike committee realised it was fine to shut the city down but how did you feed the people? They started to organise food distribution by giving permits to bakers and butchers to open. A quirk of fate also meant the soviet became the centre of international media attention. A transatlantic air race that scheduled to leave from Bawnmore in Co Limerick was cancelled and the journalists present instead focused their attention on the story of the soviet. The interesting intersection of socialism and religion could be seen in one media report. An American journalist Ruth Russell [Chicago Tribune] gave a very colourful account of workers chatting to her about politics until the Angelus bells rang, and then they excused themselves, says Finn. They were probably never going to abandon their Catholicism, but when they set up the soviet they didnt consult the church, which was unusual. Local clergy were probably put out by that because most things, even in politics, at that time usually got the local bishop on board. MODERN RELEVANCE Finn says the play also has resonances for workers today, in an Ireland where flexible contracts and precarious work conditions have taken hold virtually unopposed. What impresses me about the men and women [in the soviet] is their confidence, I find that remarkable. I wish the left and the working class could regain some of that confidence. They might have been struggling but they were heavily unionised and politicised. Its something I addressed in a previous play, Pigtown the transformation of Limerick in the late 20th century, when we had bacon factories, clothing factories, a lot of manufacturing. There were a lot of ordinary men and women who didnt have great educations but who were able to make a good living in these factories. That all disappeared, for various reasons, and I wonder about what has replaced it. Shiny computer factories and call centres are not for the likes of the people who worked in the bacon factories. Their sons and daughters have been cast adrift to a certain extent, theyre now unemployed or being sucked into gang warfare and drugs, because something their grandparents did, getting up every morning to work hard for a decent wage, thats been taken away from them and hasnt been replaced with anything substantial. One thing that worries me is the demise of the trade union movement. I would hope that the centenary of the soviet and the play will bring back the idea of the union. According to Finn, the soviets failure also ultimately contributed to a lack of plurality in Irish politics. In his book, Liam Cahill says socialism suffered a defeat as a result and nationalism remained in the ascendancy. We were left with two Civil War parties which are practically indistinguishable from each other. All my life one of thems been in power and the others been in opposition. Finn hopes the play, directed by Terry ODonovan, will lead people to discover more about workers rights and the history of protest in Ireland. I came across a quote recently thats been on my mind historians tell us what happened but artists tell us how it felt. So I guess my job is to tell people how it felt to be around that time. Id like people to see the play and then want to find out more. Bread Not Profits runs Tues-Sat from Apr 16-27, at Cleeves factory, Limerick. www.limetreetheatre.ie; 061-953400 Finance Minister Paschal Donohoes decision to defer valuation by a year, to November 2020, has been branded electioneering by the opposition, writes Daniel McConnell Finance Minister Paschal Donohoes deferral of the much-anticipated review of the local property tax (LPT) had barely been announced when the cries of electioneering came from the opposition. Fianna Fail leader, Micheal Martin, said the decision by Mr Donohoe smacked of party politics. It is clear they did not want to do anything before the local and European elections and, possibly, a general election. There was an electoral context to that decision. Even cabinet ministers, speaking privately, acknowledged the political dimension to the decision. Politically, it was impossible to move ahead, given the instability of the Government and the looming local and European elections, they said. In addition to those, we all know there is a high chance of a general election this year, so it was a case of no way, Jose, one minister said. It was approved at an extraordinary Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, April 2, when Donohoe brought his memorandum under the arm, to limit the chance of it leaking out. A stickler for rules, Donohoe has been burnt before: a major economic announcement, which was due to go to Cabinet on a Tuesday in 2017, ended up as the lead story in a Sunday newspaper two days before. But, also, Donohoe realises there is a great deal of sensitivity about the LPT, given this minority Governments vulnerability to collapse. An expert review group had been considering what to do with the LPT when the current period ended, in November. It produced its report for Donohoe and recommended he press ahead with the change in rates later this year. It set out five scenarios for him, but Donohoe felt unable to pick any of them. The text of Donohoes confidential memo is today published here and reveals a number of frailties in what he has decided to do. The minister is conscious of the importance of maintaining simplicity in the operation of the LPT, which was considered one of the critical success factors in its introduction. Having considered the matter, the minister has decided to defer the valuation date from November 1, 2019 to November 1, 2020. This should give sufficient time for the Oireachtas Budgetary Oversight Committee (BOC) to consider the review report in the context of the committees recommendations in its report of March 21, 2018, the memo states. But of most interest in the memorandum are the concerns expressed by Attorney General Seamus Woulfe, who is the Governments legal adviser. Woulfe sits at Cabinet and is called upon to advise on new policy matters and major government decisions. The memo reveals that Woulfe had a number of explicit concerns about delaying the review of the LPT. Firstly, Woulfe said, it is somewhat unclear whether deferral of the valuation date can be done via ministerial order under section 13(3). The starting point, of course, is that prima facie s.l3(3) permits such an order and the presumption of constitutionality applies to the section and the exercise of the power under that provision. The real question is whether the absence of principles and policies renders the section invalid, having regard to Article 15 of the Constitution. The answer to this appears to me not entirely clear, he warned. The power to fix dates, or rates of interest, for example, has been provided for by legislation over the years, with arguably minimal principles and policies, he warned ministers. On one view, which I am inclined towards, on balance, the power to defer the date could be seen as a narrow area of delegation, on the basis that the outcome might be more easily adjusted within the scope left to the subordinate, in the light of changing circumstances. I accept there is an alternative view, which some judges might adopt, that the deferral power is, in fact, a wider delegation, which does require principles and policies in the parent legislation, he said. On the more substantive point, Woulfe, according to the memo, said: I appreciate, also, that it is difficult to envisage who would object to 2013 valuation levels being maintained. He warned that the Government was leaving itself open to a potential legal challenge, because of the inequality of how the tax is now operating, with up to 80,000 homes built since 2012 exempt from the LPT. However, the way that the 2012 Act is constructed is that there is a significant number of properties that attract an exemption from liability, for one reason or another. Arguably, this could create an appearance of arbitrariness that could give rise to a challenge from a disgruntled liable person. Woulfe argued that it would be necessary to justify this system of exemptions with clear policy reasons and it is possible that the whole act could come under scrutiny, including the maintenance of the artificially low valuations of properties. Ultimately, he said it is a matter for the minister to decide whether to utilise section 13(3) to alter the valuation date, having regard to the points outlined above, in particular the presumption of constitutionality applying to section 13(3), notwithstanding a degree of risk about the constitutionality of the deferral. Mr Donohoes memo also reveals that the AG advised, on the permissibility of opposition legislative amendments, to reduce or eliminate tax liabilities. In summary, the advice is that an amendment to a bill that reduces tax liabilities can be tabled by the opposition and that an amendment imposing a charge on the public (imposing a tax) cannot be tabled by the opposition. The advice notes that the interpretation of the relevant standing order (no. 178) is within the domain and remit of the Ceann Comhairle. The advice also notes that there is no authority to suggest that a reduction in tax requires a money message under Article 17.2, since it is not the appropriation of revenue. Also, a financial resolution is not required for such a reduction, since the LPT was previously considered not to be a money bill by the Ceann Comhairle, the memo states. So, it is clear that Donohoe, no doubt with the approval of his Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, and his Cabinet colleagues, deferred the LPT review, despite some stark warnings, about its viability, from their own top legal adviser. Scenario 1 Description A central LPT rate (0.114%) applies to all properties such that the total yield following the valuation increases is brought back down to 500m. Advantages Local authorities with greater shares of properties between 100k and 200k to show smaller or decreases. Properties in these cases move to higher valuation bands but this is cancelled out by reduced rates so the LPT average charge is lessened. Disadvantages Local authorities with greater shares of properties under 100k in 2013 tend to show larger average increases. For these homes, the step-up in LPT charge is larger than a movement between higher bands (50,000 intervals). This impacts more on rural local authorities. Scenario 2 Description Each local authority has a yield target equal to its expected yield under current LPT 2018 without a local adjustment factor and the rate in each local authority is adjusted to meet these targets following valuation increases. Advantages Local authorities with greater shares of properties worth between 100k and 200k tend to show smaller increases or decreases. Properties in these cases move to higher valuation bands but this is cancelled out by reduced rates so the LPT average charge is lessened. Disadvantages Too complex as it applies a different rate to each local authority area, which combined with potentially31 different local variations (LAF), results in 31 different rates. Would involve a reduction in LPT liability applying to homes under 100k. Fixes LPT yields for local authority areas at historical values where the population of homes may have grown significantly leading to a loss of potential yield. Scenario 3 Description A different LPT rate (ranging from 0.108% to 0.126%) is applied in each valuation band (increasing by 0.001% in each band), and is set to collectthe overall target of 500m (with no local authority variation or adjustments). Advantages Relatively progressive impact on households, whereby those in the lowest income deciles can be expected to experience the largest increases in their disposable income compared to the highest income deciles (compared to benchmark). Disadvantages Also still too complex as it applies a different rate to all 20 valuation bands, which in isolation could have potential, but which combined with potentially 31 different local variations (LAF) may result in 620 different rates. Depending on the extent to which local authorities exercise LAF powers, this could be very challenging for Revenue to implement and for property owners to understand. Scenario 4 Description As in scenario 3, except that all properties in the first valuation band pay 90 (the current rate for that band), in effect putting a floor. Advantages Generates additional 13m which when included in the 500m target leads to greater reductions for rates other than the first band. Ensures that no-one pays less than the current band 1 rate of 90. Disadvantages Applies a different rate to all 20 valuation bands, which in isolation could have potential but which combined with potentially 31 different local variations (LAF) may result in 620 different rates. Could be very challenging for Revenue to implement. Scenario 5 Description All valuation band thresholds are increased by 80%. Advantages Simple to communicate/ administer. 82.1% of properties remain in their corresponding band at the new thresholds. Disadvantages 40% of people in Dublin move up one band Resulting in 90 increase. For homes in Band 7 (630K to 720K) 48% move to the next band paying+ 90. In Band 8 (720K to 810k) this increases to 58%. This is deemed as regressive for homes between 100k and 150k where increase is large in proportion to property price and as compared to higher values with increases of just 90 In Amazons warehouses in the UK, ambulances were called, not 60 times, but 600 times, writes Terry Prone Never mind his sex life, although, truth be told, its quite difficult to ignore his sex life, since its just cost him several billion dollars. You will remember that Jeff Bezos announced his own marital infidelity the day before American supermarket tabloid National Enquirer did it. Thus ensuring that particular edition of what Donald Trump might truthfully call a failing publication positively leaped off the shelves that particular week. Not that Trump would ever say anything bad about the Enquirer. He may describe The New York Times as failing, but hes not going to draw attention to the declining fortunes of the product of one of his pals, especially when that pal buys up stinker stories about the president in order to kill them dead. But back to Bezos, whos up there with The Donald when it comes to respect for women. As in, he has none. Particularly for his wife, mother of his children, career partner, who got a double whammy of his public confession plus the scummy details of it, including the transmitted photographs of his genitalia, which seem almost de rigueur among sexual scumbags these days. Bezos handed over a goodly portion of their shared fortune to his wife and moved on. Its what he moved on TO that should drive us all nuts, but so far hasnt. He moved on to paying his warehouse workers $15 an hour, although at the same time he cut benefits so that some of them ended up worse off. That had to be rectified. Once it was, within an indecently short time, he was believe it or not up on the high moral ground, pipsqeaking away, demanding that his competitors do likewise. Today I challenge our top retail competitors (you know who you are!) to match our employee benefits and our $15 minimum wage, Bezos wrote in his annual report to Amazon shareholders. Do it! Better yet, go to $16 and throw the gauntlet back at us. Its a kind of competition that will benefit everyone. Of course it will. It might move people who work on the front line of corporations such as Walmart from relying on foodstamps to stay alive to actually managing to stay above starvation on their own. One of the great leaps forward for humanity, that would be, you have to agree. Although maybe not for Walmart as a corporate entity. Walmart is already under competitive pressure from Amazon. Now, its coming under moral pressure. When Greek meets Greek It is, however, especially ludicrous for Amazon, qua employer, to lecture any other company about employee benefits, and not just because, until recently, according to a study by an advocacy group in the US, their warehouse people were paid 15% less, on average, than their peers in businesses requiring warehouses. When Bezos decided to split his corporations headquarters between two American cities and trailed his coat at New York, those who talk of people like him creating jobs might have expected the NY borough involved to practically take Bezos arm off at the elbow, so enthusiastic might they have been at the prospect of such a company landing in their midst. That didnt happen. While the business development people in the local administration were prepared to find literally billions in tax incentives to bring him to their neighbourhood, all sorts of other people vocal folk from all sides of the social spectrum told him where to stick it. At the time, one writer described the possibility of Amazon settling in New York as akin to offering a diabetic a bonus dose of influenza. In particular, trade unions were less than enthusiastic about Amazon jobs. Which might, of course, have been because this was before Bezos announced that the company was going to pay minimum wage to those it employs. But its much more likely to have resulted from Amazons woeful global record as an employer responsible for stressful, ghastly conditions in warehouses. Last year, someone gave Bezos an award for something in Berlin, which resulted in the unusual spectacle of protesters against him receiving it, those protesters mostly made up of members of his German workforce, with a trade union spokesman not putting a tooth in how his members saw our friend Jeff. We have an American boss who wants to Americanise work relationships and take us back to the 19th century, was how he put it. Before any Examiner reader decides this is a clear exaggeration worthy of dismissal, they might consider other evidence of Amazon the employer, courtesy, this time, not of an advocacy group, but of a bit of record-keeping by another trade union, this time a British one. Just 10 months ago, they reported on a metric nobody up to now has suggested might be a good way to measure the employee-centredness of an employer: Ambulance call-outs. Some companies take noisy pride in the fact that they rarely if ever have to summon an ambulance. They even put it up on signs readable by visitors, announcing that, in the past X days, they have had nary an accident on site. The visitors feel better and safer. The employees feel better and safer. The bosses feel deservedly smug. Its a win/win. A win/win that doesnt seem to apply in Amazons warehouses in the United Kingdom, where, over the course of three years, ambulances were called, not sixty times, but six hundred times. The BBC noted that one Staffordshire warehouse, in a town named Rugeley, generated 115 of those ambulance calls for major trauma, pregnancy-related issues, strokes, and electric shocks. Two out of those four are directly workplace-related and pregnancy isnt made easier by having to stand for 10 hours. Local union officials condemn Rugeley as one of the most dangerous places to work in Britain. Yet, bizarrely, when you go on their website, it offers tours of the place and does a tsk tsk at being called a warehouse at all. Its a fulfillment centre. Not surprisingly, as soon as any better job comes up, Amazon warehouse employees scarper, giving it one of the worst talent-retention records around. Some of those employees, before they get scarpering-rights, end up living on the side of the road. Literally. In tents. In Scotland. Their homes are 50km away. Amazon provides a bus. But the bus has a cost attached and, for some desperate workers, the best option is a tent on the side of a highway. Maybe Bezos reckons that eventually Amazon will operate without human beings, at least in its warehouses, so there is no sense in treating them well today, suggests Dan Lyons, who, in his best-selling book, Lab Rats, pulls together some of the international examples of Amazon treating its employees like muck. Frequent online buyers of anything from books to dresses might try to avoid purchases that would reach them courtesy of Amazon. Because billionaire Bezos makes some nineteenth century industrialists look positively saintly by comparison with him. It would indeed be ironic if a Brexit Britain were to be an early casualty of an imploding global trade order but institutions like the WTO have also served Ireland well, writes Kyran Fitzgerald Europes leaders have given the UK until the end of October to put together an EU departure deal and for now, we can breathe a sigh of relief, as the prospect of Britain crashing out of the EU diminishes. While the Brexit soap opera continues to soak up much of the political and business oxygen in these islands, elsewhere, global trade tensions continue to mount. Last week, Donald Trump ramped up the rhetoric on Twitter against the EU describing it as a brutal trading partner. The US administration has targeted Airbus and the financial support it receives from EU governments, in particular. The move heightened nerves across the eurozone where economic growth has slowed to a crawl. The IMF has downgraded its global economic forecasts, and trade figures out of China point to both a sharp slowdown in imports and rise in exports which threatens to add fuel to the flames of conflict between the two economic superpowers. Hardline Tory europhobes have taken comfort in the idea that they can switch almost seamlessly to a trading regime based on World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. Yet, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the WTO is faced with a serious perhaps even an existential crisis of its own. The international trading order as we have known it since the WTO was set up 1995 is in retreat. Writing in The Spectator magazine, academic David Collins, suggested breezily that there would be nothing to fear for Britain from a no-deal Brexit, as a viable alternative to an EU trade deal is ready and waiting. The doom-mongers fail to understand the protections that will remain in place for the UK under international law, he wrote. The protector he has in mind is the World Trade Organisation. Those who scoff at the WTO option, he wrote, ignore the huge progress this body has made in promoting world trade over the past two decades. This sunny vision, however, does not find favour with Edward Alden and James McBride of the US Council on Foreign Relations think tank. Both warn that the future of the WTO as the principal forum for setting the rules of world trade is now in doubt. Mr McBride looks back over the achievements of a body which has reduced barriers to trade in both goods and services but also warns that negotiations over a comprehensive development agenda are foundering on the back of disputes over agricultural subsidies and intellectual property rights. None of this is good news for Irelands economy, one of the worlds most open economies. For his part, Mr Alden singles out Mr Trump for, in effect, sidelining the organisation. His administration has applied tariffs to Chinese steel by using a little known national security law while bypassing the WTO. Trade turbulence has spread into the investment arena as the US cracks down on Chinese investment on grounds of national security. This, in turn, has cast on the prospect of US firms operating in China. In Mr Aldens view, the WTO has been dying a slow death for a long time. China never accepted its norms, while the failure of the so-called Doha Round negotiations in 2001 has stymied attempts to update the rules. All of which is a great pity as in many respects the WTO like the EU in essence involves brave attempts at fostering international cooperation in the global trade arena. One feature of the organisation has been the attempt to ensure that smaller countries are protected from bullying at the hands of larger players. The WTOs predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT, emerged as part of a network of international bodies after World War Two. It set out ground rules, but the WTO with the help of former Attorney General & EU Commissioner Peter Sutherland put in place binding dispute mechanisms. WTO courts were established to resolve disputes. But even its advocates accept that the system lacked flexibility when it came to responding to changed political and economic circumstances. In too many communities where jobs disappeared on a large scale, free trade was conflated with technological transformation. The populists found a way of making sure that free trade copped the blame. Some of the critics have had a point. WTO rules have often protected industry incumbents in areas such as patent law. Clever lawyers have had a field day. On occasions, national laws aimed at protecting the environment or labour rights have been overridden. But the achievements have more than compensated for the setbacks. Back in 1942, US secretary of state, Cordell Hull, in President Franklin Roosevelts administration, suggested that freeing up trade flows would boost chances for peace. What followed were measures such as the Marshall Plan under which aid flowed to put a battered continent of Europe back on its feet. Bodies such as the IMF and World Bank emerged in the process, soon to be followed by the European Economic Community, in 1957. International bodies like the EU and WTO now find themselves on the back foot. Populist eurosceptics are gathering for an assault on the European project, while leaders like Mr Trump and Chinas leader Xi Jinping seem determined to promote narrow interests at the expense of a common purpose. Mr Trump has talked of a US departure from the WTO as part of a new focus on bilateral approaches to trade negotiation. It would indeed be ironic if a Brexit Britain were to be an early casualty of an imploding global trade order. But the tide could turn as far as the WTO is concerned. Last month, its deputy director Alan Wolff pointed to continued rises in world trade and to the fact that not one of its 164 members has opted to leave the body. Indeed, over 20 countries outside have applied to join. The WTO has moved into new areas such as environmental co-operation and the development of a rule book for global IT. Regions such as Africa are enjoying rapid economic growth and there are signs of political modernisation in leading countries such as Ethiopia. We will never return to the imperial world that existed before 1914 but much of the international world order of the post-1945 era may well endure and indeed consolidate itself. If that turns out to be the case we Irish national, or Brexit Briton will have good reason for gratitude. Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi co-chairs the fifth high-level economic dialogue between China and Japan with visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono in Beijing, capital of China, April 14, 2019. [Photo/Xinhua] Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Sunday co-chaired the fifth high-level economic dialogue between China and Japan with visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono in Beijing. Hailing that China-Japan relations has returned to the right track and yielded new achievements by the joint efforts of the two countries' leaders and people of all social circles, Wang said the fourth high-level economic dialogue, which was restarted after an eight-year hiatus last April, facilitated policy communication and pragmatic cooperation effectively. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, while Japan will enter the new era "Reiwa", Wang said, adding that the two countries should uphold the major consensus reached by the two countries' leaders and jointly construct bilateral economic relations to meet the needs of the new era. The two sides should make steady headway in promoting bilateral investments and trade cooperation, jointly build the Belt and Road, and actively explore third party market cooperation as well as local cooperation, Wang said. He also called for consolidating the cooperation results in such areas as energy conservation and environment protection, science and technology innovation, high-end manufacturing, finance, sharing economy, medical care and elderly care industries. Wang said that China and Japan should make joint efforts to promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, uphold a business environment of fairness, justice and non-discrimination, speed up negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and China-Japan-ROK free trade agreement, and safeguard multilateralism and free trade regime. Kono said that economic cooperation has been an important foundation and driving force for Japan-China relations. Facing a global situation of intense uncertainty, the two sides should jointly safeguard the multilateral trade mechanism based on rules, he said. During the dialogue, senior foreign affairs and economic officials of both countries exchanged views and achieved a series of consensus on macroeconomic policies, bilateral economic cooperation and exchanges, regional economic integration, and global economic governance. Before the dialogue, Wang and Kono jointly attended the opening ceremony of the "China-Japan Youth Exchange Promotion Year." Monday, April 15th, 2019 (10:34 am) - Score 1,656 Alternative rural network ISP Wessex Internet appears to be making good use of the UK Governments Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS) and are using the investment to help grow their Gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network into more villages around Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire. The provider tends to operate both a 1Gbps capable full fibre network and a fibre optic fuelled superfast Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) network when serving rural homes and businesses, although lately theyve become much more focused upon the fibre side of things. Overall Wessex Internet is currently home to over 500km of cable buried across the Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire (plus a little of Hampshire) countryside, which is used to both connect up some 150 wireless masts and to serve over 300 customers with direct FTTP. Some of the latest areas to go live on full fibre have included the hamlets of Cripplestyle, Broxhill, Crendell and surrounding areas (East Dorset). Meanwhile a number of GBVS linked deployments are also currently taking place to cover Lytchett Matravers (Dorset), Alvediston (Wiltshire) and Cucklington (Somerset). After that it looks like the ISP also has a plan to reach Southmarsh (Somerset) and, if enough demand can be found, then they may deploy into South Cheselbourne (Dorset) and Pen Selwood (Somerset). Wessex Internets Website Statement Our community fibre schemes are designed for villages, hamlets and areas where traditional copper cables (provided by Openreach) perform poorly due to the long distances from BTs green cabinets or where our wireless broadband proves difficult to implement due to a lack of line of sight. The governments Department of Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) are currently providing grants to small businesses and their surrounding residents to fund installations of fibre to the home in the form of a Gigabit Voucher. As a preferred partner, Wessex Internet are implementing schemes to provide ultrafast, future proofed fibre optic broadband to many areas across our coverage region. If youre stuck with broadband that feels more like dial-up from the 1990s and live within our coverage area, please register your interest by clicking here and filling out a short form. As usual the roll-out wont end with this and we understand that the provider is actively trying to gauge demand for similar deployments into Pentridge, Barrow, Mappowder, Ibberton, Lasham, Lower Chicksgrove, Herriard, Southrope & Bagmore. Long may it continue. Prices for their full fibre service typically start at 35 per month for a 100Mbps (10Mbps upload) tier, although this only comes with a 100GB data allowance and youll have to pay 59 for unlimited usage and faster uploads. The top home plan currently goes up to 75 for a download speed of 350Mbps but the network itself is Gigabit capable. Chinese vendor Huawei says it is willing to sell its 5G processors to Apple, in what appears to be a change of policy. Huawei founder and chief executive Ren Zhengfei told CNBC in an interview earlier today that his company would consider selling its 5G chips to other companies, including Apple. Huawei is the world's biggest telecommunications equipment vendor and has been in the consumer market for a short time but is already the third biggest smartphone vendor by market share. Apple is facing problems with its 5G chip suppliers, and court battle against long-time supplier Qualcomm is set to begin on Monday US time. In the meantime, Apple has begun using chips from Intel. But this has delayed its manufacturing of a 5G-enabled iPhone. While Qualcomm has a modem that can support 5G, Intel's product is expected to only become available in 2020. Ren spoke to CNBC in Mandarin and his words were translated by an official translator. "We are open to Apple in this regard," he said when asked about selling Huawei's 5G chips to other smartphone makers. In January, Huawei unveiled a 5G multi-mode chipset and the first commercial 5G device powered by it. The company claimed at the time that the Balong 5000 chipset and the Huawei 5G CPE Pro would "provide the world's fastest wireless connections for your smartphone, your home, the office, and on the go". Last year, Huawei's consumer business grew by leaps and bounds to become the division earning the most revenue for the company. The Hackett Foundation has donated $100,000 to Airborne Research Australia, a not-for-profit Australian research institute that conducts measurements of climate change. The Adelaide-based Airborne Research Australia, with its world-leading research, operates two purpose-designed single-engine Diamond aircraft equipped with globally unique self-developed or adapted environmental measurement equipment. This years donation is the latest support from the Hackett Foundation, which in 2017 donated more than $1 million to enable ARA to become a Commonwealth-approved not-for-profit entity. The Hackett Foundation says with climate change a growing concern globally, and ongoing debate about human contribution to it, precise environmental measurements are vital for a deeper understanding and better-informed policy. ARA also currently measures methane plumes emitted from Australian fracking gas extraction facilities in south east Queensland and, soon, in north west WA. Methane, a greenhouse gas which can last in the atmosphere for as long as 100 years, is 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide. According to the Foundation, ARA is one of few organisations globally with the operational ability to measure from an airplane how much carbon dioxide is absorbed by growing plants - called carbon dioxide sequestration. Typically, this eddy covariance flux measurement is taken from a tower, which limits its reach to within about 100 metres of the tower, whereas ARA can perform it over hundreds of kilometres nearly anywhere in Australia. ARA also currently measures methane plumes emitted from Australian fracking gas extraction facilities in south east Queensland and, soon, in north west WA. Methane, a greenhouse gas which can last in the atmosphere for as long as 100 years, is 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide. ARA was established more than 30 years ago at Flinders University as a unique, national and international research group for airborne research. Now independent of Flinders University, ARA maintains strong links with university-based research and education. Hackett Foundation principal Simon Hackett said ARAs environmental measurements provided reliable real-world observations of Australias changing climate on local, regional and even continental scales. This recent donation demonstrates our support for ARAs work as it continues on the path to self-sufficiency, he said. Although climate change measurements are just one part of its expertise, these activities make a valuable contribution to informing the debate about how best to respond to the climate challenge. ARA has seven employees, including founder and chief scientist Professor Jorg Hacker and recently appointed director Dr Andrew McGrath. Andrew McGrath said ARA was globally unique in its combination of dedicated resources and environmental focus. We do everything from measuring volcanic ash in the air for airline safety to investigating how ultrafine particles released by modern coal-fired power plants can push rain out to sea, he said. While weve had the ability to measure carbon sequestration and emissions from our airplanes for 20 years, today this feels like an extraordinarily valuable resource in the current carbon-aware environment, which we fear is substantially under-utilised. While climate change measurements are a small part of what we do, it is growing in importance: For example, we are working with local governments and state government agencies to identify how increasing temperatures from climate change may make cities less liveable and to develop appropriate responses. The CSIRO had launched a new data portal to track residential energy efficiency progress to support the next wave of sustainable homes. The new Australian Housing Data Portal, has launched as part of the national science agencys centralising of a vast amount of energy efficiency data that will underpin key decision making, training and awareness. The CSIRO says around 11.4% of Australia's emissions can be attributed to households, and with construction continuing at a steady pace, the AHD Portal can pinpoint where energy efficiency efforts are on track, and where they may need increased focus. The agency says the AHD Portal will be an important tool in tracking and supporting the progress of the national plan agreed by COAG Energy Ministers that sets a trajectory towards zero energy (and carbon) homes in Australia. 195,000 new homes were built in Australia in the past year; There is steady progress in building of high-performance homes, especially in Tasmania and the ACT; Overall, Australian homes are increasing in size, with an average floor area of 132 m2 (this includes houses and apartments); Average dwellings were most likely to have a metal roof, brick veneer walls, and a concrete floor; and The average newly-constructed home had an energy rating of 6.2 stars. This is an improvement since the introduction of star ratings in 2001, when the average home was estimated at 1.8. This translates to an annual saving of approximately $560 in energy bills and 2.3 tonnes of CO2 equivalent (tCO2-e) in greenhouse emissions per house. Key findings drawn from the data (based on apartments and houses) includes: Data is chiefly sourced from the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS), a measurement and compliance system for energy efficiency administered by the Australian Government. CSIRO Grids and Energy Efficiency research director Dr Stephen White said the data showed steady progress in residential sustainability efforts. "In order to meet national challenges of sustainable energy and resilient cities, it's vital that we track progress. As an independent research agency driving innovation in energy, particularly residential energy rating, CSIRO is well placed to do this," Dr White said. "Tracking these changes is an important step to ensure emissions goals are met, while seeing where more attention is needed across the industry." The CSIRO says the portal contains data across states and climate zones and can be further broken down by design (e.g. dwelling class and floor area), construction (e.g. type of walls and roofing) and fixtures and appliances (e.g. solar PV and heating/cooling systems). The construction of homes varies somewhat from state to state, reflecting the flexibility of the NatHERS software to meet both the variations in climate and product availability in each jurisdiction. CSIRO will update dashboards within the AHD Portal monthly, ensuring it is a relevant and accessible tool for the benefit of residential energy efficiency stakeholders, nationally. The market regulatory authority in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, has urged a local Mercedes-Benz dealer to give a customer a refund after she claimed the new car's engine was defective on the day she bought it. The woman, who had signed a contract with the dealer Xi'an Lizhixing Co on Feb 25 to buy an imported Mercedes-Benz CLS300 vehicle through installment payments, claimed the engine developed problems after she picked up the car on March 27, according to a statement released by the Xi'an Internet Information Office on Sunday. The woman, who was not named, then asked the company for either a refund or exchange for another car but failed. On April 9, she filed complaints with the Shaanxi provincial market regulatory administration and Xi'an municipal government through telephone calls, asking for a refund. The market regulatory administration in Xi'an's Gaoxin districtwhere the company is locatedalso urged the company on the same day to handle the complaint according to the law. The market regulatory administration in Gaoxin has opened an investigation of the dealer for suspected quality problems, and has authorized a testing institute to examine the car in this case. The administration received eight new requests from the woman on Saturday, and had arranged a face-to-face negotiation between the woman and the dealership's person in charge on the same day, during which an immediate refund was offered, and the company agreed to take legal responsibility. The woman then refused the refund and said she would wait for the results of the investigation. The administration said it will verify the evidence provided by the customer. It will also handle the case in a fair manner to protect the interests of consumers and to maintain a favorable business climate. The woman said she saw the engine's malfunction indicator turn red after she had driven about 10 kilometers from the dealer, the administration told local media earlier. She paid about 660,000 yuan ($98,440) for the car, including additional costs and service charges for loans. The woman spoke with the dealer after finding the engine was leaking oil, according to previous media reports, and she demanded a refund. However, the dealer only agreed to a free replacement of the engine. A video showing the woman sitting on top of the engine cover of a red Mercedes-Benz at the dealership and complaining went viral online in the past few days. The woman's eight requests on Saturday included demands for an investigation into the history of the car, an independent inspection of the vehicle, a formal apology from the Mercedes-Benz company and compensation for her psychological damage, according to a report by Shaanxi Broadcasting Co. The woman said that apart from other fees, she also paid a "financial service fee" of 15,000 yuan to an employee at the dealership when she bought the car. However, she was not sure what it was for and also demanded an investigation into the fee, according to a voice recording of the negotiation between her and the dealership representative. On Saturday, the Beijing Mercedes-Benz Sales Service Co issued a statement saying it was deeply sorry for the customer's experience. It said it had launched an investigation and dispatched a special team to Xi'an to negotiate with the woman. In another statement on Sunday, the Mercedes-Benz Financial Services said that Mercedes-Benz charges no such financial service fee to dealers or customers, and have repeatedly required its dealers to abide by the law and guarantee customers' rights. Chinese telecommunications equipment vendor Huawei Technologies will not be shut out from Germany's 5G networks, with Berlin's telecommunications regulator signalling that the firm would not be kept out despite US pressure. The president of the federal network agency, Bundesnetzagentur, Jochen Homann, told London's Financial Times that the position the agency took was that no supplier, including Huawei, should be specifically excluded. Last month, it was reported that the American envoy to Germany, Richard Grenell, had written to German Economy Minister Peter Altmeier, saying that if any Chinese vendors were allowed to supply equipment for the 5G networks in Germany, then the US would cut down on its intelligence co-operation with Berlin. Also in March, Germany said it had tightened security criteria for all vendors who supply telecommunications equipment to the country's telcos. Equipment for all critical communications networks should be vetted by the country's cyber security watchdog, the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), and undergo security checks by a BSI-approved testing body, the Bundesnetzagentur said. Though the US has been repeating claims that Huawei's technology poses a security risk, Homann said the Bundesnetzagentur had yet to see any evidence to back up these claims. The Bundesnetzagentur has not received any concrete indications against Huawei. Nor are we aware of any other body in Germany that has received any reliable indications," he told the FT. In February, it was reported that a small group of German ministries had reached preliminary agreement on Huawei, with a decision to snub the US. The auction of 5G spectrum in Germany began in March and four operators are competing for licences Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, Telefonica and Drillisch. Another factor mentioned by Homann was the fact that telcos were already using Huawei technology in their systems. Added to this, the fact that the Chinese behemoth held a large number of 5G patents would delay the roll out of 5G in Germany. Only Australia and New Zealand have fallen in line with Washington's dictates to ban Huawei, but even Wellington has indicated that the initial refusal for telco Spark to use Huawei gear is not the end of the matter. That stance was reiterated by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during a one-day China visit in April. Huawei sued the US on 7 March, seeking to be reinstated as a telco supplier in the country. The security firm Deep Instinct claims to have found a third variant of the ServHelper Windows malware that is being distributed by the threat actor TA505 and uses an Excel 4.0 macro Dropper, a legacy mechanism still supported by Microsoft Office, to spread. In January, another company, Proofpoint, had said it had found two strains of this Windows pestilence, one directed at remote desktop functions and the second which is primarily a downloader for a remote access trojan known as FlawedGrace. TA505 has also been associated with spreading other malware like Dridex, and also the Locky ransomware. ServHelper appears to be used for targeting banks, retail businesses and restaurants. Deep Instinct malware and cyber intelligence specialist Shaul Vilkomir-Preisman told iTWire that TA505 was not associated with any specific country, but there were indications that it was from an Eastern European nation. "Functionally, ServHelper is a fairly classic backdoor. It establishes a foothold, enables access, and carries out reconnaissance it checks if an infected machine is part of a domain, if the user has admin privileges, gathers lists of domain admins and all other users in the domain and reports this back and awaits further instruction these include: execute a command on the system, download additional malware, establish persistency on the infected machine," he said. Vilkomir-Preisman said the malware used a certificate from Thawte to get past the defences of an infected machine. "We have contacted DigiCert (who operate Thawte, the issuing CA) and reported this. They were thankful for the report and revoked the certificate," he added. Asked why threats of this kind appeared to affect only Windows systems, Vilkomir-Preisman said it was not only Windows systems there were at danger from this threat. "In recent years malware for non-Windows system has seen a significant rise, and is expected to be on the rise with the ever increasing popularity of IoT devices which tend to be very vulnerable to attack in their off-the-shelf configuration," he said. "Additionally, once an attacker has a foot in the door, and starts to move laterally, he can just as easily target non-Windows machines which are found on the network." He said the new ServHelper variant looked to be aimed at establishing a long-term presence on a network. "This malware is actively gathering lists of users on domains, and finding out who the domain admins are, and unlike most malware does not establish persistency by default. This is very targeted behaviour, aimed at establishing a long term presence on a network." Vilkomir-Preisman said Deep Instinct had observed that countries in North America and south-east Asia appeared to be the main targets of this malware. A court battle between chip maker Qualcomm and Apple will begin in San Diego on Monday, with the Cupertino giant accusing its one-time supplier of engaging in patent licensing practices that amounted to double-dipping. Apple is seeking up to US$27 billion in damages from Qualcomm; the chip manufacturer has alleged that Apple forced some of its business partners to stop paying royalties and wants US$15 billion as damages. The lawsuit was filed by Apple in 2017, according to Reuters, with Qualcomm having spent the last two years counter-suing the iPhone maker and winning bans on the sale of some iPhone models in some markets for patent violations. In March, for example, Qualcomm was awarded US$31 million by a jury in the US District Court for the Southern District of California, which found that the iPhone 7, 7 Plus, 8, 8 Plus and X infringed two patents, and the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X infringed a third. Qualcomm charges its customers for the chips themselves and also adds on patent licensing charges. It asks customers to sign an agreement before supplying any products. Apple has termed this "no licence, no chips" policy a way of charging twice for the same thing. Along with its business partners, Apple is seeking an end to this practice and a refund of something in the region of US$9 billion. This amount could be tripled if the jury comes to the conclusion that Apple's anti-trust allegations against Qualcomm are correct. Apple claims Qualcomm's practices kept rivals like Intel from whom Apple is now sourcing chips from competing in this sector for a long time. Companies that are on contract with Apple, like Foxconn, have paid the royalties to Qualcomm and been reimbursed by Apple. But Apple has pushed some of these firms to violate their contracts and deprive Qualcomm of about US$7 billion in royalties, the chip producer claims. A victory for Apple will not mean much in terms of money but it would destroy a business model that Qualcomm has used with great success for many years. While the names are similar Chrome and Chromium the labels represent two different web browsers. But they are related. One leads to the other. One is open-source, the other is not not really. One dominates the world's browser landscape, like a single huskie dominates a team of Chihuahuas on the Iditarod. The other is used by less than 0.03 percent of all those who ran a browser last month. Computerworld has put Chrome and Chromium and Microsoft's new Edge, too under the magnifying glass to better understand what Chromium does and how it figures into the development of its offspring. Here's what you need to know to better understand them both. What is the Chromium browser? Chromium is not only the name of a browser, but also of the open-source project that generates the source code used by Chrome, Edge and others. Google is the primary backer of Chromium it kicked off the project when it launched Chrome in September 2008 but because the code is open-source, others, including people not employed by Google, contribute to the Chromium project. Microsoft, for example, started providing serious input into Chromium in 2019 and regularly boasts about how many "commits" its engineers have contributed to Chromium. In October 2020, the Redmond, Wash. company said its commits changes made to the source code had reached 3,700. The browser compiled from the current Chromium source code is called, not surprisingly, Chromium. Chrome and Edge, on the other hand, begin with Chromium but do not end with it. Instead, Google and Microsoft add their own proprietary code to Chromium that build services like the browser's automated update mechanism and features such as its tab user experience (UX), to create the actual Chrome and Edge. Think of Chromium as an ancestor of Chrome and Edge and not necessarily a close one that shares its DNA with the polished browsers. How does Chromium differ from Chrome? Chromium is a subset of Chrome and of Edge, since Google and Microsoft bolt on other components and features to the former to craft their wares. Everything in Chromium is in Chrome and in Edge, but not everything in Chrome or Edge is in Chromium. The obvious differences lie in accompanying services that Google provides like the automatic update mechanism or built-in support for technologies such as digital rights management (DRM) components that let Chrome and Edge play copyrighted content. But the biggest difference is not in the length of the two browsers' feature or support lists, but in their inherent stability (or instability). Chromium is rough, and not just around the edges. In practical terms, the latest version of the Chromium browser will be far buggier, much more prone to crashes, than even the rawest version of Chrome or Edge. Google says so, in fact. "It may be tremendously buggy," warns the Chromium download page. Even the least polished of the four "builds" that Google maintains for Chrome and Microsoft for Edge both label that "Canary" is substantially more stable than Chromium. A second difference, and one that many have relied on when they've chosen Chromium over Chrome or Edge, is that the former collects and transfers less information to Google than either of the latter. Chrome and Edge can send crash reports and usage statistics to Google and Microsoft, while Chromium cannot. In Chrome, that collection and transmission is off by default. (They can be enabled from the browser's settings panel.) In Edge, such data harvesting may be on or off, depending on the operating system. Windows 10 by far the most-used platform for Edge has its own settings that are also applied to Edge. Most instances of Windows 10 will have diagnostic data enabled, so Edge reports to Microsoft. On other OSes, such as macOS, collection is off by default, like Chrome, but can be turned on from the preferences pain. (See this explanation for more information.) Chromium, on the other hand, lacks this data gathering-and-reporting feature entirely. Where do I download Chromium? The most convenient place to get a copy of Chromium is from this download page. That page should automatically recognize which operating system you're running and offer the appropriate edition of Chromium. If it doesn't, select from the list at the bottom of the page: Windows x86, Windows x64, Mac, Linux x86, Linux x64 and Android. Google Chromium project The Chromium browser can be downloaded like other browers. This version is for macOS. The site also identifies the current build number, and its age, with the latter usually in minutes. That's how fast a version of Chromium turns over. For more information about downloading Chromium, including how to find and get a specific version of the browser to use for testing and debugging, for example refer to this page on the project's website. Can I run Chromium and Chrome (or Edge) on the same system? In short, yes, Chromium can be run at the same time, and on the same system, as Chrome or Edge. There is no need to, say, uninstall Chrome to add Chromium to the machine. This is identical to the way that the various "channels" of Chrome and Edge work on a single Windows PC. One can, for example, run the "Canary" build of Chrome for Windows alongside the "Stable" version of the browser. The same goes for Edge. Do browsers besides Chrome rely on Chromium? Not surprisingly, other browsers have hitched a ride on Chromium's coattails, using the open-source project's source code to bootstrap themselves into an application without all the messy work of building the foundational functionality. Many are niche let's be nice and call them boutique while others have been important in years past but have since faded in popularity. They include: Opera. The former Norwegian browser now owned by a Chinese collective dropped its proprietary Presto rendering engine in 2013 for Blink, the Chromium-created engine on which Chrome and Edge are based. According to analytics vendor Net Applications, Opera had a 0.70% share in October, just half what it controlled a year earlier. Download Opera here for Windows, macOS and Linux. Blink, the Chromium-created engine on which Chrome and Edge are based. According to analytics vendor Net Applications, Opera had a 0.70% share in October, just half what it controlled a year earlier. Download Opera here for Windows, macOS and Linux. Vivaldi. Built by a team largely composed of former Opera engineers, Vivaldi debuted in 2016 and was billed by its CEO as a "throwback" to days when browsers didn't sport minimalistic user interfaces (UIs). In October, Vivaldi's share registered as zero, or too small for measurement. Download Vivaldi here for Windows, macOS and Linux. Built by a team largely composed of former Opera engineers, Vivaldi debuted in 2016 and was billed by its CEO as a "throwback" to days when browsers didn't sport minimalistic user interfaces (UIs). In October, Vivaldi's share registered as zero, or too small for measurement. Download Vivaldi here for Windows, macOS and Linux. Brave. Founded by a former executive of Mozilla the developer of Firefox Brave is best known for stripping out all in-page advertisements and replacing them with its own. Brave claims that it splits revenue with users, who receive a form of crypto-backed currency. Those users may, if they feel like it, shunt all or some of their currency to one or more websites. Like Vivaldi, Brave did not register in Net Applications' share measuring. Download Brave here for Windows, macOS and Linux. Other browsers that leverage Chromium include made-in-China options such as QQ and Qihoo 360 Secure Browser, as well as Epic and Comodo Dragon. What does Chromium lack that Chrome has? Among the familiar Chrome and/or Edge features and functionality missing from the Chromium browser are: Chrome's and Edge's update service, the in-browser mechanism that automatically refreshes the application whenever a security update or feature upgrade is pushed to users. (Those updates, whether security- or feature-related, ultimately originate with Chromium, of course.) Chromium does not update automatically, so when, say, fixes are issued for flaws, the browser doesn't get them unless the user takes the time to download a newer version. Support for the Widevine digital rights management (DRM) module. Chromium can thus not play Netflix content, as that service relies on Widevine to stymie content copying. Are there security issues with Chromium? Vulnerabilities found by Google's and Microsoft's own engineers, as well as those rooted out by independent security researchers, are regularly patched in Chromium, so it's just as secure (or depending on one's perspective, just as insecure) as Chrome or Edge. On the micro level, it's unclear when during Chromium's ongoing, unfolding development engineers add security fixes. Chrome's Stable channel is refreshed with patches about every two or three weeks Edge usually follows suit two days later so the Chromium browser must be updated at least that frequently. But because bug fixes hit the more unstable channels of Chrome and Edge like the flakiest build, "Canary" before they do Stable, it follows that the source code maintained by the Chromium Project, and thus the Chromium browser, must be altered before being spun out into "Canary." But because Chromium lacks an update mechanism, any security patches applied to the source code will not be reflected in a user's copy of Chromium unless that user manually downloads a later version. The omission of an update service is the single greatest security threat to Chromium. More explicit, and the reason this question regularly comes up, is the fact that criminals have piggybacked malware onto Chromium or distributed modified versions of the browser to include attack code. (For more, see below.) How do I get rid of Chromium? If the browser is legitimate the user or an IT administrator installed it (though it's doubtful the latter would do so) Chromium can be removed the same way any application is dumped. In Windows 10, for example, type uninstall into the desktop search field, then when "Add or remove programs" pops up in the results, select that. Click on the Chromium entry, click the Uninstall button, and in the ensuing dialog box, confirm the action by clicking the Uninstall button there. On macOS, select the Applications folder in the Finder, locate and right-click Chromium, and choose "Move to Trash." The chore becomes more involved if Chromium represents malware or a purposefully-infected browser. Criminals have hijacked the browser's name to disguise their attack code, and in some cases bundled the browser with other malicious software or used the source code to rig a browser so that it floods screens with pop-up ads and steals site credentials. (Bogus Chromiums are almost exclusively found on Windows.) That final bunch is the most pernicious. They're often part of a larger freeware download, typically but not always found on sketchy websites, and like other unwanted software can be difficult to pry out of a system. Because of the wide variety of malware that masquerades as Chromium, or accompanies a custom-built version of its source code, no single set of removal instructions will do. Computerworld's best advice: Take a tour through the Internet, searching for "how to remove XX" where XX is the name of the Chromium-based browser refusing to leave. Finally, sic a reputable security package to scan for, and identify the malware, then remove it in its entirety. If the security software doesn't delete the Chromium knock-off browser as part of its scrubbing, uninstall it manually using "Add or remove programs." What are the alternatives to Chromium? For those who want an early look at the results of the Chromium project, but don't care to live dangerously by running a possibly-unstable browser, the best alternative for Windows or macOS is the "Canary" channel. Unlike Chromium, Canary is updated automatically and includes the full suite of Chrome or Edge features and ancillary services, such as device-to-device browser synchronization. Like Chromium, Canary is frequently refreshed each workday so it represents a look into the future of Chrome's or Edge's "Stable" channel, the one most users run. Google Google's Canary browser is more stable alternative to Chromium, though can still be rough around the edges. "Get on the bleeding edge of the web. Be warned: Canary can be unstable," Google states on its website. Canary builds of Chrome can be downloaded here. Microsoft also wards off the cautious from trying Canary. "Want to see what we were working on yesterday? Canary will be released automatically almost every night to keep you up to date on our progress," the company says on its site. Canary builds of Edge can be downloaded here. Neither Google nor Microsoft offer a Linux Canary. Instead, users can run the "Dev" channel build of Chrome or Edge. Chromium rules the web waves Although Chromium specifically, in Chrome form has been the world's most popular browser since at least April 2016, Microsoft's abandonment of its own technologies for Edge and the adoption of Google's as their replacement was a major tipping point. January 2020, when Edge returned in Chromium clothes, marked the month when, broadly speaking, only two different browser engines remained: Chromium's Blink and Firefox's Gecko. (Apple's Safari uses WebKit, a predecessor from which Blink was forked.) There's a distinct possibility that Chromium will be the sole survivor; Firefox has struggled to retain its meager market share around 7% in October and its parent company, Mozilla, has been under serious financial stress. If Mozilla goes belly up and Firefox disappears, Chromium will be it on the desktop. (Apple's WebKit-powered Safari has a very small share on personal computers, but a more respectable 17% on mobile.) Microsoft explained its decision to go Chromium in an announcement almost two years ago. "We're announcing that we intend to adopt the Chromium open-source project in the development of Microsoft Edge on the desktop to create better web compatibility for our customers and less fragmentation of the web for all web developers," said then-executive Joe Belfiore, in a Dec. 6, 2018, blog post. In other words, Microsoft admitted that Chromium won the war and that it was defecting to the former enemy to be, if not exactly an ally, then a Vichy-esque collaborator. At this moment, the power of Chromium knows no bounds. This Week in Review A weekly review of the best and most popular stories published in the Imperial Valley Press. Also, featured upcoming events, new movies at local theaters, the week in photos and much more. China is willing to deepen its cooperation with the World Bank on lending programs and knowledge sharing, Chinese Finance Minister Liu Kun said in a meeting with World Bank President David Malpass. The meeting was held on the sidelines of the 99th Meeting of the Development Committee launched by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on Friday and Saturday in Washington, DC. There is great potential for China, the world's largest developing country and an important partner of the World Bank, to cooperate with the international lender in the future, Liu said, according to a statement released by the Chinese Ministry of Finance on Saturday. Liu said he hopes other developing countries can learn from China's experience in successfully alleviating poverty. China expects to work with the World Bank on improving the innovativeness of lending programs and added value, he added In addition, China also looks forward to cooperating with the World Bank in such areas as improving the business environment and establishing a high-standard multilateral financing cooperation center, the minister said. Malpass said the World Bank and China share a great responsibility in combating poverty and spurring global development, noting China's achievements in alleviating poverty, the experience of which is worth sharing. The World Bank, Malpass said, is also willing to work with China on pollution prevention and control, green development, as well as coping with climate change. You are here: Business Chinese commercial conglomerate Wanda Group plans to invest about 45 billion yuan (about US$6.7 billion) in northwest China's Gansu province in the next three years, as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) boosts local consumption. The new investment will mainly flow to cultural tourism and modern services in the form of a mega cultural tourism project, five Wanda Plazas and three five-star hotels, according to Wanda board chairman Wang Jianlin. The Wanda Cultural Tourism City in the province's capital city Lanzhou, with an estimated investment of 30 billion yuan, is the company's first super project on the Silk Road Economic Belt. The commercial property and services giant has invested about 18 billion yuan in Gansu since it inked a strategic cooperation agreement with the province in 2017, creating about 30,000 local jobs. Wang attributed Wanda's heavy investment in Gansu to the province's unique and rich history and culture as well as its advantageous geographical position on the Silk Road Economic Belt. "Investing in Gansu is a move to seize the BRI's historical opportunities, which will expand enterprise growth space," Wang said. You are here: China The 17th Conference on International Exchange of Professionals (CIEP) opened in south China's tech hub Shenzhen on Sunday. The two-day event, featuring a series of forums and recruitment fairs, attracted more than 4,000 professional institutions and organizations as well as over 40,000 government officials, experts and high-end talents from more than 50 countries and regions. Over 1,500 enterprises will provide 30,000 jobs at the recruitment fairs. A variety of activities were held in Britain, the guest of honor of this year's CIEP, before the conference's opening to attract more innovative overseas talent to start their business in China. Created in 2001, CIEP has become one of China's top events for international talent exchange. SASKATOON, Saskatchewan, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UEX Corporation (UEX:TSX) (UEX or the Company) is pleased to announce the fourth tranche of assay results have been received for twenty-three additional holes from the winter drilling program expanding the West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit (the Deposit) on the 100% owned West Bear Property, located in the eastern Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan. The drilling program commenced in early January and field activities concluded for the spring thaw at the end of March. The Company completed 126 holes totaling 11,412.5 metres during the winter drill program. To date, assay results have been received for seventy-nine drill holes. UEX announced assay results from the first fifty-six holes in the Companys news releases dated February 7, 2019, March 18, 2019 and April 1, 2019, available at www.sedar.com or UEXs website at www.uex-corporation.com. Assay results from twenty-one of the twenty-three holes received in the fourth tranche returned composite grades that exceed the cobalt equivalent (CoEq) grade of 0.023% CoEq, the same cut-off grade used in UEXs maiden resource estimate for the West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit announced on July 10, 2018 available at www.sedar.com or UEXs website at www.uex-corporation.com. Five holes returned composite grades exceeding 0.25% CoEq. All five of these holes confirm that cobalt and nickel mineralization extends down-dip below the West Bear Uranium Deposit. Highlights from these five holes include WBC-104A, which intersected 3.0 m averaging 0.38% Co and 0.54% Ni from 42.0 m to 45.0 m, WBC-111 which assayed 0.30% Co and 0.53% Ni over 3.0 m from 33.5 m to 36.5 m, and WBC-117 which returned 4.0 m of 0.31% Co and 0.28% Ni from 34.5 m to 38.5 m (see Tables 1, 2 and Figure 1). The fourth tranche results included assays from three holes targeting a parallel structure approximately 100 m southeast of the West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit. These three holes followed up existing cobalt-nickel mineralization in historical holes WBE-103 and WBE-108. WBE-103 contained 1.16% Co and 0.89% Ni over 0.32 m in a single isolated sample between 22.03 m and 22.35 m and WBE-108 averaged 0.24% Co and 0.18% Ni over 0.9 m from 24.3 m to 25.2 m. Hole WBC-114 drilled down dip of WBE-108 assayed 0.18% Co and 0.16% Ni over 6.0 m from 29.5 m to 35.5 m. The Company has also collected and submitted to the laboratory an additional 757 samples from 60 historical sonic drill holes and 12 historical diamond drill holes identified as containing previously unsampled intervals considered favourable for hosting cobalt-nickel mineralization. UEX is still awaiting the results from these drill holes. Sample Collection and Compositing Samples are selected using a portable X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) Spectrometer to aid in the identification of mineralized intervals. Selected drill core is then split in half sections on site and one half is collected for analysis with the other half core remaining on site for reference. Where possible, samples are collected at a standardized 0.5 m interval through zones of mineralization but respect geological units and intervals. The samples were shipped to the Geoanalytical Laboratory at the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Analysis at the SRC laboratory for Cobalt and Nickel was completed using the ICP-OES method with an Aqua Regia digestion. The SRC Geoanalytical Laboratory is an ISO/IEC 17025:2005 accredited facility (#537) by the Standards Council of Canada. Assay intervals were composited using a cut-off grade of 0.023% Cobalt equivalent (CoEq) using the equation CoEq = Co + (Ni x 0.2). All depth measurements and sample intervals reported are down-hole measurements from drill core. About the West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit The West Bear Property is an advanced exploration project located in the eastern Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan, Canada that contains both the West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit and the West Bear Uranium Deposit. The Property is approximately 740 kilometres north of Saskatoon, west of Wollaston Lake and measures approximately 7,983 hectares comprising of 24 contiguous areas to which UEX has 100% ownership, with the exception of Mineral Lease 5424 in which UEX owns a 77.575% interest. The Deposit is located within an area of the Athabasca Basin that has excellent infrastructure and is situated within 10 km of an existing all-weather road and power lines that service Cameco Corporations nearby Cigar Lake Mine and Rabbit Lake Operation, as well as Oranos McClean Lake Operation. The West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit currently has a strike length of over 600 m and a dip length of over 100 m. On July 10, 2018, the Company announced a maiden inferred resource estimate for the Deposit of 390,000 tonnes grading 0.37% cobalt and 0.22% nickel, which equates to 3,172,000 pounds of cobalt and 1,928,000 pounds of nickel. The West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit mineral resources were determined using a cut-off grade of 0.023 percent cobalt equivalent (CoEq), using the equation CoEq = Co + (Ni x 0.2). Only mineralization located within a conceptual open pit was included in the final resource estimate. Qualified Persons and Data Acquisition The technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Roger Lemaitre, P.Eng., P.Geo., UEXs President and CEO and Trevor Perkins, P.Geo., UEXs Exploration Manager, who are each considered to be a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. About UEX UEX (TSX:UEX, OTC:UEXCF.PK, UXO.F) is a Canadian uranium exploration and development company involved in nineteen uranium projects, including eight that are 100% owned and operated by UEX, one joint venture with Orano Canada Inc. (Orano) and ALX Uranium Corp. (ALX) that is 50.1% owned by UEX and is under option to and operated by ALX, as well as eight joint ventures with Orano, one joint venture with Orano and JCU (Canada) Exploration Company Limited, which are operated by Orano, and one project (Christie Lake), that is 60% owned by UEX with JCU (Canada) Exploration Company Limited which is operated by UEX. The company is also involved in one cobalt-nickel exploration project located in the Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan. The West Bear Project was formerly part of UEXs Hidden Bay Project and contains the West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit and the West Bear Uranium Deposit. The nineteen projects are located in the eastern, western and northern perimeters of the Athabasca Basin, the world's richest uranium belt, which in 2017 accounted for approximately 22% of the global primary uranium production. UEX is currently advancing several uranium deposits in the Athabasca Basin which include the Christie Lake deposits, the Kianna, Anne, Colette and 58B deposits at its currently 49.1%-owned Shea Creek Project (located 50 km north of Fissions Triple R Deposit and Patterson Lake South Project, and NexGens Arrow Deposit) the Horseshoe and Raven deposits located on its 100%-owned Horseshoe-Raven Development Project and the West Bear Uranium Deposit located at its 100%-owned West Bear Project. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT Laurie Thomas Vice President, Corporate Relations (306) 979-3849 Forward-Looking Information This news release contains statements that constitute "forward-looking information" for the purposes of Canadian securities laws. Such statements are based on UEX's current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections. Such forward-looking information includes statements regarding the West Bear Co-Ni Deposit drill program, UEX's drill hole results, uranium, cobalt and nickel prices, outlook for our future operations, plans and timing for exploration activities, and other expectations, intentions and plans that are not historical fact. Such forward-looking information is based on certain factors and assumptions and is subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from UEX's expectations include uncertainties relating to the, interpretation of drill results and geology, assay confirmation, additional drilling results, continuity and grade of deposits, fluctuations in uranium, cobalt and nickel prices and currency exchange rates, changes in environmental and other laws affecting uranium, cobalt and nickel exploration and mining, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in UEX's Annual Information Form and other filings with the applicable Canadian securities commissions on SEDAR. Many of these factors are beyond the control of UEX. Consequently, all forward-looking information contained in this news release is qualified by this cautionary statement and there can be no assurance that actual results or developments anticipated by UEX will be realized. For the reasons set forth above, investors should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking information. Except as required by applicable law, UEX disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Otis Gold Corp. (Otis or the Company) (TSX-V: OOO) (OTC: OGLDF) is pleased to announce that metallurgical work conducted at Kilgore on the lower volcanic stratigraphy, referred to as the Sill Domain, has returned favourable simulated heap leach gold recovery results of 83.5% on 38mm (1.5) crush material. Additionally, final gold grades from column leach tests on crushed core show a 59% increase in gold grade. The results continue to demonstrate very favourable metallurgy at Kilgore, and the increase in recovered gold grade confirm that gold grades in the existing resource are potentially under-reported. Highlights of the metallurgical testing results are as follows: Bottle roll leach tests on Sill Domain material achieved gold extractions averaging 86.4% at 10 mesh, and 93.0% at 200 mesh; Column leach test results from Sill Domain material show 74.8% gold recovery from 12.5mm (0.5) crushed core, and 83.5% gold recovery from 38mm (1.5) crushed core. The 38mm crushed core leached slower but has higher overall gold extraction; and Final gold test grades from Sill Domain material show a 59% increase, with calculated final grades returning up to 1.42 g/t Au from initial head assay test grades of 0.89 g/t Au. Metallurgical Testing - 2019 Otis submitted approximately 1,400 kg of whole PQ core from drill hole 17OKC-379 for metallurgical testing; the hole is a twin of 17OKC-356 that returned 129.6 metres(m) averaging 1.66 g/t Au from 155.4 to 285.0m, including 24.4m averaging 3.45 g/t Au from 157.0 to 181.4m (true widths are estimated between 80% and 100% of the drilled interval). These drill results come from a package of lithologies including Tertiary volcanic and Cretaceous sedimentary rocks. Further details of the metallurgical test work can be found on the Otis website under the Kilgore metallurgy tab at www.otisgold.com. Results from the metallurgical testing are summarized as follows: Bottle roll leach tests on Sill Domain material achieved gold extractions averaging 86.4% at 10 mesh, and 93.0% at 200 mesh; silver extraction during bottle roll leach tests average 57%; Column leach test results from Sill Domain material gave 74.8% gold recovery from 12.5mm (0.5) crushed core, and 83.5% recovery from 38mm (1.5) crushed core; Final gold test grades from Sill Domain material show a 59% increase, with calculated final grades of up to 1.42 g/t Au returned from initial head assay test grades of 0.89 g/t Au; Optical mineralogy combined with whole rock and rare earth element analysis confirms that the Sill Domain material are porphyritic andesite flows; and Aspen formation rocks have been confirmed as quartz-adularia altered, arkosic, turbidite sediments. Metallurgical testing at Kilgore is ongoing, with current work comprising a suite of tests on PQ core from near surface volcanic rocks. Testing will include the addition of 76mm (3) column leach tests to better simulate run-of-mine open pit heap leaching (ROM-OPHL). Historic Metallurgy Throughout the history of the Kilgore project, metallurgical studies have been ongoing. The following represents a summary of this metallurgical testing. It is important to note that tests conducted before the introduction of NI 43-101 do not meet current reporting requirements and are provided for reference only. For full details on metallurgical testing, please refer to NI 43-101 Technical reports dated August 14, 2018 and July 31, 2012; which can be found on SEDAR or the Otis website. Echo Bay 1995/1996 Metallurgical Testing Echo Bay Mines submitted drill core and reverse circulation cuttings for metallurgical testing in 1995 and 1996, in anticipation of starting up a small-scale open pit heap leach mining operation on the Kilgore deposit. The material submitted was divided into three classes: oxide, sulfide and mixed material. Highlights of 1995 and 1996 metallurgical testing were: Bottle roll test gold extractions varied from 82.9% to 94.8% for the three material types; Column leach tests on oxide material of 12.5mm (0.5) crushed core returned gold extraction up to 94.3%; Column leach tests on mixed material of 25mm (1) crushed core returned gold extraction up to 85.5% after 75 days; and An independent study in 1996 concluded that there is no sulfide mineralization and that variation in gold extractions over time is due to porosity, therefore longer leach times would favor increased gold extractions. Further details of the Echo Bays metallurgical test work can be found on the Otis website under the Kilgore metallurgy tab at www.otisgold.com. Otis Gold 2010/2011 Metallurgical Testing In 2010, Otis Gold submitted four composite samples to McClelland Laboratories Inc. of Reno, Nevada. The composites comprised three principal host rock types identified at that time from the Kilgore deposit: Aspen sandstone, lithic tuff, and felsic dike and were derived from four drill holes: 09OKC-195, -197, -205 and -206. The calculated head grades are illustrated in the table below. Rock type Gold grade g/t Silver Grade g/t Lithic tuff_1 0.55 3.77 Lithic tuff_2 0.69 5.82 Felsic Dike 1.47 7.54 Aspen Sandstone 1.44 3.77 McClelland stated in conclusion that: The Kilgore drill core composites were amenable to simulated heap leach cyanidation treatment, at an 80% passing 12.5mm (0.5) feed size; Gold recovery rates generally were fairly slow. Column test gold extractions ranged from 70% to 85%, after 80 to 109 days of leaching; and Gold recoveries from bottle roll tests obtained after 96 hours ranged from 50.0% to 78.9%. Otis Gold - 2012 Metallurgical Testing Three drill core composites were submitted to McClelland Laboratories Inc. for metallurgical testing with the objective of determining heap leach amenability of the composites to comparative feed sizes. The three composites came from whole PQ core from drill holes 11OKC-285 and -287, twin holes of 11OKC-258 and 10OKC-228 respectively. The composites comprised 38m (124.5 ft) of oxidized lithic tuff with an average grade of 0.46 g/t Au; 38.1 m (125.0 ft) of oxidized felsic dike, and 32.9m (108 ft) of unoxidized felsic dike with an average grade of 1.15 g/t Au (true widths are estimated between 80% - 100% of the drilled interval). McClelland stated in conclusion that: All three core composites were amenable to simulated heap leach cyanidation treatment at 80% passing both -38mm (1.5) and 12.5mm (0.5) feed sizes; 38mm (1.5) feed size gave gold extractions from 71% to 85%; 12.5mm (0.5) feed size gave gold extractions ranging from 74.5% to 85.5%; Oxidized lithic tuff did not show feed size sensitivity to gold extraction; Oxidized felsic dike gold extraction increased with decreasing feed size; and Unoxidized felsic dike required a longer leach cycle than the other two composites. Alan Roberts, MSc, CPG, Vice President of Exploration, serves as the Qualified Person for this news release and has reviewed and approved the technical content contained herein. About the Kilgore Project The Kilgore project lies on the north-eastern margin of the Miocene-Pliocene Kilgore Caldera complex in the Eastern Snake River Plain, Idaho. The Kilgore project includes the Kilgore deposit with a current NI 43-101 resource comprising: Indicated Resource of 825,000 ounces Au in 44.6 million tonnes at a grade of 0.58 g/t Au and an Inferred Resource of 136,000 ounces Au in 9.4 million tonnes at a grade of 0.45 g/t Au (see 2018 Kilgore Project NI 43-101 Technical Report and Mineral Resource Estimate dated August 14, 2018). The Kilgore deposit is a low-sulphidation, gold bearing, quartz-adularia epithermal system hosted in Tertiary volcanic rocks, local Tertiary intrusive rocks, and basement Late Cretaceous, Aspen Formation sedimentary rocks. About the Company Otis is a resource company focused on the acquisition, exploration, and development of precious metal deposits in Idaho, USA. Otis is currently developing its flagship property, the Kilgore project, located in Clark County, Idaho and the Oakley project, located in Cassia County, Idaho. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD Craig T. Lindsay President & CEO For additional information, please contact: Mr. Tony Perri Corporate Development Tel: (604) 424-8100 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. HALIFAX, April 15, 2019 /CNW/ - Zephyr Minerals Ltd. ("Zephyr" or the "Company") (TSX-V: ZFR) (OTC: ZPHYF) is pleased to announce its exploration plans for 2019 at its Dawson-Green Mountain property in Colorado, U.S.A. With the additional land acquisition in the fall of 2018 and a newly leased 259 hectare (640 acre) parcel from the State of Colorado, Zephyr now controls a mineralized trend that is over 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) long. Zephyr's new geological model developed with the assistance of Dr. Spry suggests that the genesis of the mineralization at Dawson-Green Mountain is similar to the Broken Hill-type lead-zinc-silver deposits. This model was developed from the Broken Hill ore body in Australia. Broken Hill was one of the largest ore bodies ever discovered. It contains approximately 280 million tonnes of high grade lead and zinc (approximately 18% combined) plus silver credits. Broken Hill is only used as a deposit model and is not necessarily reflective of the mineralization that may be hosted on Dawson-Green Mountain property. Zephyr is planning an airborne geophysical program consisting of magnetic and electromagnetic surveys. Broken Hill-type deposits are highly magnetic while the surrounding rocks have a low magnetic susceptibility. This makes a magnetic survey an ideal instrument for exploration of this deposit type. Historic drill holes from 1979 and 1981 contain mineralization that is highly magnetic. There were four historic drill holes drilled in the Grape Creek area and all intercepted high grade mineralization. It should be noted that the silver to lead ratios are 50 to 1 in these historic drill holes. This is at the very high end for silver to lead ratios in Broken Hill-type deposits. The silver is a driver to boost the value and economics in these deposits. The results of these holes are presented in the table below. DDH# From (m) To (m) Interval Zinc Zn (%) Lead Pb (%) Copper Cu (%) Gold Au (g/t) Silver Ag (g/t) (ft) (m) GC-1 83.42 83.57 0.5 0.15 2.10 0.04 5.90 0.16 6.8 GC-2 55.23 55.96 2.4 0.73 14.00 Nil 0.14 0.04 0.8 GC-8 44.99 45.41 1.4 0.42 12.40 0.02 0.20 0.05 5.7 and 55.65 57.76 6.9 2.11 0.04 2.06 0.38 1.31 142.0 GC-9 55.62 58.09 8.1 2.47 6.90 0.03 0.57 0.17 6.0 and 61.29 63.82 8.3 2.53 10.20 0.03 0.36 0.24 5.9 and 75.98 77.75 5.8 1.77 0.02 1.08 0.20 0.32 53.5 and 85.82 86.47 2.1 0.65 0.02 2.61 0.45 1.20 179.0 1) This information is historic in nature and is based on drilling results reported by US Borax Ltd. 2) The company believes this information is reliable and relevant as it was completed by reputable companies that use industry standard drilling and sampling practices. 3) The company or its qualified person has not done sufficient work to verify this information. Very large Broken Hill-type deposits are found in structurally folded rocks where the mineralization is thickened by the folding. The structure of the mineralization in the Grape Creek area strikes near east-west and dips south at 60 degrees, whereas at the Green Mountain area the mineralization strikes north-east and the dip is near vertical. This suggests there is possible folding to reconcile the differences in the structural trend between the Grape Creek area and the Green Mountain area. The goal of the airborne geophysical survey is to assess structural thickening at depth below the thin high grade mineralization defined by the four historic drill holes. Concurrent with the airborne geophysical program the Company plans to geologically map the Green Mountain area. This is an area where a rock grab sample with only minor sulphides was located that contained 13.6 g/t gold. This rock type is similar to the rocks that contain the Dawson Gold Deposit in the Dawson area on the east side of the property. The geological mapping will help define the rocks types, define any structural features in the area, as well as explore for gold showing at surface. Loren Komperdo, President & CEO stated, "This summer will be incredibly exciting. We know that Broken Hill type deposits are defined by their strong magnetic anomalies. We believe that the planned airborne geophysical survey has the potential to discover such an anomaly, and in the event of success would result in a highly prospective drill target. To the best of our knowledge, other than the recent discovery by Cantex in the Yukon, this project represents the only active Broken Hill-type exploration target in North America. Simultaneously we are continuing to expand our gold exploration program at Green Mountain in the western portion of our holdings where there is excellent potential to discover another gold deposit similar to the Dawson Gold Deposit in the east." About Zephyr Minerals Ltd. Zephyr Minerals Ltd. continues to advance its 100% owned high grade Dawson-Green Mountain Project in Colorado, USA. After expanding its land package to 1,388 hectares (3,430 acres) the company plans to explore the entire 12.2 kilometer (7.5 mile) mineralized trend using the Broken Hill-type deposit as an exploration model. To be included in the Zephyr email database for Company updates please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , or visit our website www.zephyrminerals.com for more information. Mr. Mark Graves, P.Geo. registered with the Association of Professional Geoscientists of Nova Scotia (APGNS), has prepared the scientific and technical information in this news release. CAUTIONARY STATEMENT: 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. This press release contains forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this document are based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by the Company. The forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company undertakes no obligation 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. First Quarter 2019 highlights: Contained metal production of 23.4 million ZnEq 1 lbs, up 9% from Q1 2018 Grade of 6.7% ZnEq, up 10% from Q1 2018 Milled throughput of 192,922 tonnes up 3% over Q1 2018 with new access ramp to Esperanza commissioned Completion of Esperanza drift provides significant exploration opportunity TORONTO, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ascendant Resources Inc. (TSX: ASND) (OTCQX: ASDRF; FRA: 2D9) ("Ascendant" or the "Company) is pleased to release first quarter 2019 production results highlighted by operational improvements across the board positioning the Company for a solid operating year ahead. Contained metal production for the first quarter 2019 was 23.4 million pounds of zinc equivalent (ZnEq) metal, comprised of 15.2 million pounds of zinc, 6.0 million pounds of lead and 293 thousand ounces of silver. This represents a 9% improvement in contained metal production over Q1 2018 due to higher lead and silver grades combined with a slight increase in throughput over the previous strong operating quarter. Milled throughput of 192,922 tonnes also demonstrated improvements over Q1 2018 of 3% and Q4 2018 of 4%, reflecting the benefits of the newly completed production ramp which provides for more direct and efficient access from Esperanza to the underground crusher. The average head grade of 6.7% ZnEq for the quarter represented an increase of 10% over Q1 2018 as the Company focused throughout 2018 on grade control and mining the average historical reserve grade. While 4% lower than Q4 2018 due to mine sequencing, zinc equivalent grade was above expectations based on the current mine plan. Zinc processing recoveries of 84.2% in Q1 2019 was 6% lower than those of Q1 2018 due to the continued challenges of treating metallurgically complex ore at Esperanza. This was offset by the higher mill throughput and higher lead and silver head grades, which in turn resulted in a 4% increase in lead and a 1% increase in silver recovery at 79.5% and 79.0% respectively. Zinc recoveries were in line with Q4 2018, while lead and silver recoveries were up 2% and 3% respectively as a result of steps made to improve reagent conditioning for the lead float. Prior to the first quarter results, the Company had anticipated reduced metal production during the first half of the 2019, with stronger performance in the second half of the year due to higher grades. First quarter results have exceeded expectations and the mine remains well positioned for strong performance in 2019. President and CEO Chris Buncic stated: We have had a great start to 2019 at El Mochito in terms of production and grade as the mine delivered higher than planned results. With the benefits of shorter haul distances to Esperanza and higher grades being mined, we are on a solid path to deliver our strongest performance since our acquisition of the mine. He continued, The Company remains focused on progressing the expansion project funding for El Mochito, with the goal of commencing construction in the second half of this year. Operational performance for Q1 2019 is provided in the table below (numbers may not match due to rounding): 2019 2018 Units Q1 Q4 Q3 Q2 Q1 Ore Milled tonnes 192,922 184,913 191,738 192,428 186,955 Average Head Grade Zinc % 4.2 % 4.2 % 4.5 % 4.3 % 4.2 % Lead % 1.8 % 1.9 % 1.7 % 1.5 % 1.6 % Silver g/t 62 77 45 48 46 ZnEq % 6.7 % 7.0 % 6.7 % 6.3 % 6.1 % Average Recoveries Zinc % 84.2 % 84.1 % 87.8 % 89.7 % 89.3 % Lead % 79.5 % 77.6 % 78.9 % 79.1 % 76.7 % Silver % 79.0 % 76.6 % 77.8 % 79.4 % 78.3 % Contained Metal Production Zinc 000's lbs 15,162 14,435 16,579 16,343 15,301 Lead 000's lbs 5,955 6,023 5,552 5,109 5,125 Silver ozs 293,287 347,251 209,622 229,043 215,599 ZnEq 000's lbs 23,370 23,173 23,919 22,926 21,412 First Quarter 2019 Conference Call Ascendant plans to release first quarter 2019 financial results after market close on May 8, 2019. A conference call will be held on May 9, 2019, at 10:00am EDT to discuss first quarter 2019 operational and financial results. Conference Call Details: Date of Call: Thursday, May 9, 2019 Time of Call: 10:00am EDT Conference ID: 1092554 Dial-In Numbers: North American Toll-Free: 1-833-696-8362 International: 1-612-979-9908 Technical Disclosure/Qualified Person All technical information contained herein has been reviewed and approved by Robert A. Campbell, M.Sc, P.Geo, a director of the Company. Mr. Campbell is a "qualified person" as defined by NI 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (NI 43-101). About Ascendant Resources Inc. Ascendant is a Toronto-based mining company focused on its 100%-owned producing El Mochito zinc, lead and silver mine in west-central Honduras and its high-grade polymetallic Lagoa Salgada VMS Project located in the prolific Iberian Pyrite Belt in Portugal. After acquiring the El Mochito mine in December 2016, Ascendant spent 2017 and 2018 implementing a rigorous and successful optimization program restoring the historic potential of El Mochito, a mine in production since 1948, to deliver record levels of production with profitability restored. The Company now remains focused on cost reduction and further operational improvements to drive profitability in 2019 and beyond. With a significant land package of approximately 11,000 hectares in Honduras and an abundance of historical data, there are several near-mine and regional targets providing longer term exploration upside which could lead to further Mineral Resource growth. Ascendant holds an interest in the high-grade polymetallic Lagoa Salgada VMS Project located in the prolific Iberian Pyrite Belt in Portugal. The Company is engaged in exploration of the Project with the goal of expanding the already-substantial defined Mineral Resources and testing additional known targets. The Companys acquisition of its interest in the Lagoa Salgada Project offers a low-cost entry point to a potentially significant exploration and development opportunity. The Company holds an additional option to increase its interest in the Project upon completion of certain milestones. Ascendant Resources is engaged in the ongoing evaluation of producing and development stage mineral resource opportunities, on an ongoing basis. The Company's common shares are principally listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "ASND". For more information on Ascendant Resources, please visit our website at www.ascendantresources.com. Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. For further information please contact: Katherine Pryde Director, Communications & Investor Relations Tel: 888-723-7413 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Forward Looking Information This news release contains "forward-looking statements" and "forward-looking information" (collectively, "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All information contained in this news release, other than statements of current and historical fact, is forward-looking information. Often, but not always, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "budget", "guidance", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "strategy", "target", "intends", "objective", "goal", "understands", "anticipates" and "believes" (and variations of these or similar words) and statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "should", "might" "occur" or "be achieved" or "will be taken" (and variations of these or similar expressions). Forward-looking information is also identifiable in statements of currently occurring matters which may continue in the future, such as "providing the Company with", "is currently", "allows/allowing for", "will advance" or "continues to" or other statements that may be stated in the present tense with future implications. All of the forward-looking information in this news release is qualified by this cautionary note. Forward-looking information in this news release includes, but is not limited to, statements regarding production growth, the consistency of processing recovery levels, improvements of grades increase in contained metal production, maintenance of production rates, increase of mill feed grades, reduction of costs, the ability to fully fund planned development, exploration and capital expenditures, the undertaking of the expansion program at El Mochito Mine, and the achievement of the 2019 production, cost and capital expenditures guidance. Forward-looking information is not, and cannot be, a guarantee of future results or events. Forward-looking information is based on, among other things, opinions, assumptions, estimates and analyses that, while considered reasonable by Ascendant at the date the forward-looking information is provided, inherently are subject to significant risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors that may cause actual results and events to be materially different from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. The material factors or assumptions that Ascendant identified and were applied by Ascendant in drawing conclusions or making forecasts or projections set out in the forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, the ability of the Company to grow production, to maintain the consistency of processing recovery levels, to improve grades, increase contained metal production, increase mill feed grades, reduce costs, fully fund planned development, exploration and capital expenditures, undertake the expansion project at El Mochito Mine, the ability to achieve the 2019 production, cost and capital expenditures guidance, and other events that may affect Ascendant's ability to develop its project; and no significant and continuing adverse changes in general economic conditions or conditions in the financial markets. The risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information may include, but are not limited to, risks generally associated with the mining industry, such as economic factors (including future commodity prices, currency fluctuations, energy prices and general cost escalation), uncertainties related to the development and operation of Ascendant's projects, dependence on key personnel and employee and union relations, risks related to political or social unrest or change, rights and title claims, operational risks and hazards, including unanticipated environmental, industrial and geological events and developments and the inability to insure against all risks, failure of plant, equipment, processes, transportation and other infrastructure to operate as anticipated, compliance with government and environmental regulations, including permitting requirements and anti-bribery legislation, volatile financial markets that may affect Ascendant's ability to obtain additional financing on acceptable terms, the failure to obtain required approvals or clearances from government authorities on a timely basis, uncertainties related to the geology, continuity, grade and estimates of mineral reserves and resources, and the potential for variations in grade and recovery rates, uncertain costs of reclamation activities, tax refunds, hedging transactions, as well as the risks discussed in Ascendant's most recent Annual Information Form on file with the Canadian provincial securities regulatory authorities and available at www.sedar.com. Should one or more risk, uncertainty, contingency, or other factor materialize, or should any factor or assumption prove incorrect, actual results could vary materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. Accordingly, the reader should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Ascendant does not assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information after the date of this news release or to explain any material difference between subsequent actual events and any forward-looking information, except as required by applicable law. 1 ZnEq lbs and grades in ZnEq % represent zinc metal considered together with the lead and silver expressed in zinc equivalent terms of zinc using average spot metal prices and monthly production ratios. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - April 15, 2019) - Bayhorse Silver Inc., (TSXV: BHS) ("Bayhorse" or the "Company"), has received final results from the comprehensive metallurgical testing, setup, and processing/refining program conducted by Mineral Solutions LLC ("Minerals") of Coeur d Alene, Idaho, USA, on silver concentrates from its Bayhorse Silver Mine, Oregon, USA. This final exhaustive metallurgical testing was conducted to ensure that both Bayhorse concentration equipment, and the Minerals processing facility, are attuned for optimum processing/refining recovery of silver from the Bayhorse mineralization. Dr. Mike Irish of Minerals oversaw the final set up at the Bayhorse Silver Mine to ensure the Bayhorse silver concentrate met their parameters for leaching/refining using their wet chemical process for sulphide minerals processing. Minerals had already tested the Bayhorse highgrade mineralization, at 300 - 350 oz/ton Ag, (9,310 - 10,866 g/t) and compared the results to lower grade mined mineralization. Fresh mineralization in a lower grade section of the mine, in the range of 6 oz/ton to 20 oz/ton, (186.6 - 622 g/t) Ag was extracted from a new crosscut for this comparison. The silver mineralization, with a calculated head grade of 8.12 oz/t (252.5 g/t) Ag, was first processed through the ore-sorter. As determined using mass balance calculations, ore-sorter upgrading to 31.22 oz/t (971 g/t) Ag was achieved, with rejects grading 0.6 oz/t (18.66 g/t) Ag.The subsequent gravity concentrate, assaying 209.8 oz/t Ag (6,525.5 g/t), was processed and refined by Minerals with 95% recovery, with the tails grading 3.22 oz/t (100.15g/t) Ag. With the final testing and equipment array set ups complete at both Minerals and the Bayhorse Silver Mine, the Company is proceeding with concentrating and shipping fresh sulphide concentrate to Minerals for processing and refining into .9999 fine silver. Dr Michael Irish and Miner Jon Farrell reviewing ball mill oversize material Bayhorse CEO Graeme O'Neill comments: "We are very pleased with the excellent final metallurgical results and silver recoveries by Minerals. Our decision to collaborate with Minerals, utilizing newly developed in America technological processes, in advancing our Bayhorse Silver Mine, instead of directly shipping concentrates overseas for smelting and refining, was the right decision and well worth the extra time it has taken to get things right." The analytical method used for the silver analysis consists of 1 Assay Ton (AT) samples subjected to fire assay with gravimetric finish. Assays were conducted by Christopherson Umpire Assayers of Osburn, Idaho. The Company is planning, in collaboration with Minerals, a second, modular containerized processing and refining facility in Canada for testing sulphide concentrates at the new Brandywine project, and for processing and refining other available, identified, sulphide concentrates. The Company is not basing any decision to produce on a feasibility study of mineral reserves demonstrating economic and technical viability, and also advises there is an increased uncertainty and specific economic and technical risk of failure with any production decision. These risks include, but are not limited to, a drop in price of commodities produced, namely silver, copper, lead and zinc, from the pricing used to make a production decision. Failure of grades of the produced material to fall within the parameters used to make the production decision and increase in mining costs due to changes within the mine during development and mining procedures. There are also metallurgical recovery changes that cannot be anticipated at the time of production. This News Release has been prepared on behalf of the Bayhorse Silver Inc. Board of Directors, which accepts full responsibility for its contents. Dr. Stewart Jackson, P.Geo., a Qualified Person and Consultant to the Company has prepared, supervised the preparation of, and approved the technical content of this press release. On Behalf of the Board. Graeme O'Neill, CEO 604-684-3394 Bayhorse Silver Inc., a junior exploration company, has earned 100% interest in the historic Bayhorse Silver Mine Oregon, USA. and has optioned the Brandywine, precious metals rich, volcanogenic massive sulphide property located in BC, Canada. The Company has an experienced management and technical team with extensive exploration and mining expertise. 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. The 3Q Project achieves a major milestone by submitting the project Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to the Catamarca Mining and Environmental Authority, after more than 2 years of preparation. Final construction permitting process has now begun and approval is expected to be obtained in 2019 The 3Q Project will provide significant economic and social benefits for the Catamarca Province, the Tinogasta Department and Fiambala Municipality. The Company has started formalizing its social responsibility practices following E3plus and Sustainable mining standards TORONTO, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Neo Lithium Corp. (Neo Lithium or the Company) (TSXV:NLC; OTCQX:NTTHF; FSE:NE2) is pleased to announce the submission of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for its wholly-owned Tres Quebradas lithium brine project ("3QProject") in Catamarca Province, Argentina. The EIA presented to Catamarca Environmental and Mining Authorities was prepared by GT Ingenieria SA (Argentina), a company specialized in environmental studies with deep experience in the mining and industrial sectors. The EIA included work with local professionals from University of Catamarca, Tucuman and Mendoza as well as the IHLLA Research center in Buenos Aires, specialized in Hydrogeology. The EIA includes a hydrological model that allows the authorities to understand the impact of exploitation in brine water table in the salar, and surrounding lithium brine lakes. The EIA was prepared following the lineaments of the pre-feasibility report announced on March 21, 2019, which outlined the production of 20,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate per year. The Company obtained its initial environmental permit (DIA in Spanish) in 2016, which was subsequently renewed in 2018 and approved in 2019 for exploration, geophysics, drilling, pond, and camp construction. That renewal allowed the development of further infill drilling for the final feasibility study, production wells, monitoring wells and further drilling in the high-grade zone (currently ongoing). The Company is also running a fully operational lithium carbonate pilot plant in Fiambala. In October 2018, the Company completed and presented to the environmental authorities the environmental baseline study (EBS), with two years of data for flora, fauna, social studies, water studies, air studies, soil studies, archeology, limnology and complete overview of the environmental issues of the region. The EBS included an analysis of the Ramsar site (wetlands environmental awareness zone) and the measures taken to assure that there will be no adverse impact on flora or fauna in the area. The EBS confirms that significant nesting grounds are only found well outside of the proposed mining and operations area of influence. The hydrological models also demonstrate that the proposed mining operations would have no influence on areas to the south, where limited nesting grounds are found. The EBS showed that the 3Q Project can be developed with minimal impact in the ecosystems and identified areas outside the tenements that are environmentally sensitive, proposing to the authorities a special treatment of those sectors. "This is a very important milestone that de-risks the 3Q Project and demonstrate our commitment to the environment and the people of the Catamarca Province, said Waldo Perez, President and CEO of Neo Lithium. We expect prompt treatment of or our EIA submission since we are now in the final stages of making the 3Q Project a reality to the Province and our shareholders as we continue or pathway and progress towards our development and production objectives. The Company has also been working extensively on its social community program for three years with a full-time team of five professionals at its offices in Fiambala. The team carried on the 2018 program that included: A total of 16 training courses for the community so far (including bakery, ceramics, health, pastry, mechanics, safety, leather works among others) that were attended by over 600 people More than 15 presentations of the project in schools, municipality, local, service providers and training courses attended by approximate 800 people Over 100 Visits of the local community to the 3Q Project Over 250 written consultations answered in the Fiambala office Sponsorship in sports, arts and religious affairs Over 70% local employment Priority to local service providers and suppliers Strong support on the project based on local survey in town Neo Lithium continues to adhere to international standards of social responsibility practices. As the 3Q Project is in the final stages of exploration and development, the Company expects to reach the construction and production stage in the foreseeable future, its approach contains elements of both e3 Plus a Framework for Responsible Exploration of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada and of Towards Sustainable Mining of the Mining Association of Canada. In addition, it includes a sociology component based on the Ph. D. studies of Dr. Jan Boon. Dr. Boon was a member of the CSR Committee of the PDAC and was involved in the development of e3 Plus. His sociology Ph. D. thesis dealt with social responsibility in mineral exploration. Dr. Boon is providing guidance together with Lic. Pablo Lumerman, an expert in dialogue and a member of the Plataforma de Dialogo de la Republica Argentina and of the Grupo de Dialogo Latinoamericano. Employees are participating in capacity building exercises and have taken part in a survey aimed at establishing a sociological baseline. About Neo Lithium Corp. Neo Lithium Corp. has quickly become a prominent new name in lithium brine exploration by virtue of its high quality 3Q Project and experienced team. Already well capitalized, Neo Lithium is rapidly advancing its recently discovered 3Q Project - a unique high-grade lithium brine lake and salar complex in Latin Americas Lithium Triangle. The 3Q Project is located in the Province of Catamarca, the largest lithium producing area in Argentina. The project covers approximately 35,000 ha and the salar complex within this area is approximately 16,000 ha. The technical team that has discovered the 3Q Project characterized this unique salar complex as one of the most experienced in lithium salars. For example, this team discovered and led the technical work, including resource definition and full feasibility study, that established the Cauchari lithium salar as one of the largest lithium brine resources in the world. Additional information regarding Neo Lithium Corp. is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com under the Company's profile and at its website at www.neolithium.ca, including various pictures of ongoing work at the project. For further information, please contact: Neo Lithium Corp. Carlos Vicens This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The TSX Venture Exchange Inc. has in no way approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements - Certain information set forth in this news release may contain forward-looking statements. Such statements include but are not limited to, statements as to lithium brine grades at depth being consistent with surface results, the potential for resource expansion at depth, the potential of the northern salar sediments, and deeper sediments, for hosting brine, the ability to proceed to scoping studies quickly, proceeding with continued work for additional economic studies the potential for production expansion in the Companys assessment of the economic potential of the 3Q Project, that test results are indicative of future results, and the additional of additional independent directors. Generally, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as plans, expects or is expected, scheduled, estimates intends, anticipates, believes, or variations of such words and phrases, or statements that certain actions, events or results can, may, could, would, should, might or will, occur or be achieved, or the negative connotations thereof. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the control of the Company, which could cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from the future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. These risks include, without limitation, risks related to failure to obtain adequate financing on a timely basis and on acceptable terms, political and regulatory risks associated with mining and exploration activities, including environmental regulation, risks and uncertainties relating to the interpretation of drill and sample results, risks related to the uncertainty of cost and time estimation and the potential for unexpected delays, costs and expenses, risks related to metal price fluctuations, the market for lithium products, competition for experienced directors in the junior mineral exploration and development sector, and other risks and uncertainties related to the Company's prospects, properties and business detailed elsewhere in the Companys disclosure record. Although the Company believes its expectations are based upon reasonable assumptions and has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended and undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. The Czech governments website vlada.cz reported that Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis will chair an official welcome ceremony for his Vietnamese counterpart on April 17th. One of the key contents of the talks between the two PMs will be the enhancement of bilateral economic cooperation, it said, adding that the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) will help promote bilateral trade. The two leaders will open the Czech-Vietnam business and investment forum, according to the website. This will be the second meeting between the two PMs after their meeting on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2019, it added. The Czech-Vietnam Friendship Association also highlighted PM Nguyen Xuan Phucs upcoming trip to the Czech Republic on its website www.cvs-praha, saying the associations Honorary President Marcel Winter and President Milos Kusy are glad to meet the Vietnamese leader. The Parliament of the Czech Republic posted on its website parlamentnilisty.cz an article titled Potential to boost economic cooperation between Czech and Vietnam, emphasising on the bilateral long-standing friendly cooperative relations and potential collaboration in economy, trade, and investment. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (L) meets with Prime Minister Andrej Babis on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2019. (Photo: VNA) The article said the bilateral cooperative relations have been stepped up in recent years, particularly through the visit to Vietnam by Czech President Milos Zeman in June 2017 and the visit to Czech by Vietnamese National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan in April 2017. The sound political ties between the two countries have created a momentum for the development of the bilateral cooperation, including economy and trade, it said. The Czech Republic considers Vietnam a traditional and potential trade partner and a bridge to export its products to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Notably, in the Czech Republics national export strategy for 2012-2020, Vietnam was listed as the only country in ASEAN in its 12 prioritised markets. Two-way trade enjoyed an annual growth of over 15 percent to reach USD1.2 billion in 2018, doubling that of 2013, according to the article. Vietnam exported coffee, pepper, fruits, tea, rubber, aquaculture, footwear, garment-textile, and fine art products to the Czech Republic while importing electronics, machinery, chemicals, dairy products, and pharmaceutical products from the market. As a member of the European Union, the Czech Republic is willing to cooperate with Vietnam in the fields of machine manufacturing, mining, food processing technology, agriculture and beer production, the article said. The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) will create opportunities for Vietnam and the Czech Republic to access to each others market effectively and increase trade flows in agriculture and food, it added. The article concluded that the Czech Republic always attaches great importance to the traditional friendship and cooperation with Vietnam and considers the Southeast Asian country an important partner and a gateway to boost cooperation with the ASEAN./. China will further open up and strengthen international cooperation in technology to promote a favorable environment for global talent, Wang Zhigang, minister of science and technology, said on Sunday. Talent is the starting point for technological innovation, Wang said. The Chinese government considers technology the key driver of economic and social development and attaches high importance to exchange and cooperation among international technological talent, he said. "China is a participant in and a beneficiary of technological globalization. It is also a contributor and a leader in promoting broader innovation and cooperation," Wang said at the opening ceremony of the two-day 17th Conference on International Exchange of Professionals in Shenzhen on Sunday. "We will move faster to build a group of international cooperative platforms for technological innovation, create more favorable conditions to facilitate project cooperation and personnel and academic exchange, and we will safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of foreign talent working and living in China according to the law." China has been making great efforts to strengthen international exchanges on technology over the past years. So far, it has established relations with 160 countries on technological cooperation and has signed 114 intergovernmental cooperative agreements and 346 talent exchange agreements. As part of this year's conference, the global entrepreneurial event Pitch@Palace held its China region final competition in Shenzhen on Sunday. Forty-one teams presented to the audience their entrepreneurial projects, in fields including artificial intelligence, robotics and virtual reality. Incus Co, set up by a group of Hong Kong university graduates, won the top prize. The company in Shenzhen specializes in audio processing technology that can be used in hearing-aids, telecommunication devices, voice recognition and a number of other areas. Pitch@Palace, founded in 2014 by Prince Andrew, Duke of York, serves as a platform for global entrepreneurs to build connectivity around the world by gaining access to potential investors, mentors and business partners. So far, it has provided support for nearly 2,000 startups worldwide. Pitch@Palace not only fits in with Britain's vision of building a "global Britain" and its industrial strategy, but is also in line with China's Belt and Road Initiative, Prince Andrew said. He hoped the project would contribute to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind and would help improve people's well-being. Meeting with Prince Andrew in May 2018, President Xi Jinping stressed that closer scientific and technological cooperation between China and the United Kingdom would help create mutual benefits in the "golden era" of Sino-UK relationship. As a platform on which international professionals and talent gather to exchange ideas and explore development opportunities, this year's conference is expected to attract more than 40,000 government officials, experts and professionals from over 50 countries and regions. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - April 15, 2019) - Ridgestone Mining Inc. (TSXV: RMI) (OTCQB: RIGMF) ("Ridgestone Mining"), is pleased to announce that it has completed its previously announced private placement financing of units for gross proceeds of $1,120,000 (the "Financing"). An aggregate of 8,000,000 units (each, a "Unit"), each Unit comprised of one common share of Ridgestone Mining (each, a "Unit Share") and one half of one common share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a "Warrant"), were issued at a price of $0.14 per Unit. Each Warrant is exercisable for one additional common share (each, a "Warrant Share") at a price of $0.25 until October 13, 2021. The expiry of the Warrants may be accelerated by Ridgestone Mining at any time following the date that is four months and one day from closing of the Financing (the "Closing Date"), and prior to the expiry date of the Warrants if, at any time following the Closing Date, the closing price of Ridgestone Mining's common shares on the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSX-V") is equal to or exceeds $0.50 for any 10 consecutive trading days. In such event, Ridgestone Mining may accelerate the expiry date of the Warrants by giving notice to holders of Warrants and issuing a news release announcing the reduced Warrant term whereupon the Warrants will expire on the 10th calendar day after the date of such news release. Ridgestone Mining paid finder's fees of 6% cash and 6% compensation warrants (the "Compensation Warrants") comprised of a cash commission of $43,260 and a total of 309,000 Compensation Warrants. The Compensation Warrants have substantially the same terms as the Warrants but are not transferable. Ridgestone Mining has also received TSX-V approval for the issuance of 72,222 bonus shares ("Bonus Shares") to a director of Ridgestone Mining in connection with a $65,000 loan to Ridgestone Mining under a loan agreement dated February 28, 2019. Ridgestone Mining has issued the Bonus Shares as of April 12, 2019. The Unit Shares, Warrants and Compensation Warrants are subject to a hold period until August 13, 2019. The Bonus Shares are also subject to a four month hold period expiring August 13, 2019. The Financing remains subject to final acceptance of the TSX-V. Following closing of the Financing and the issuance of the Bonus Shares, an aggregate of 32,198,161 common shares of Ridgestone Mining are issued and outstanding. The net proceeds from the Financing will be used for ongoing working capital requirements relating to the Rebeico gold-copper project in Sonora, Mexico. The securities referred to herein will not be or have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from registration requirements. About Ridgestone Mining Inc. Ridgestone is a TSX Venture Exchange-listed junior mineral exploration company with offices in Taipei and Vancouver, B.C. The Company's focus is on precious metals and copper in Sonora, Mexico, and specifically the Rebeico Gold-Copper project. For further information, please contact: Erwin Wong, Director Ridgestone Mining Inc. Telephone: 604-377-8758 This news release contains forward-looking statements or information (collectively referred to herein as "forward-looking statements"). Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance or developments to differ materially from those contained in the statements and are not guarantees of future performance of the Company. In this news release such statements include but are not limited to the expected use of net proceeds from the Financing. No assurance can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will occur or, if they do occur, what benefits the Company will obtain from them. These forward-looking statements reflect management's current views and are based on certain expectations, estimates and assumptions which may prove to be incorrect. A number of risks and uncertainties could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including those described in the Company's Prospectus dated February 9, 2018 available on www.sedar.com. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should any of the Company's assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary in material respects from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of risks, uncertainties and other factors is not exhaustive. Unpredictable or unknown factors not discussed could also have material adverse effects on forward-looking statements. The impact of any one factor on a particular forward-looking statement is not determinable with certainty as such factors are dependent on other factors, and the Company's course of action would depend on its assessment of the future considering all information then available. All forward-looking statements in this news release are expressly qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements. Except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements should circumstances or management's estimates or opinions change. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Western Copper and Gold Corporation (Western or the Company) (TSX: WRN; NYSE American: WRN) is pleased to announce that Mr. Kenneth Williamson has been appointed to Westerns Board of Directors, effective April 15, 2019. Mr. Williamson is a professional director with over 40 years of experience in natural resources and investment banking, where his focus has been on capital markets and mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Williamson worked in the oil and gas sector before transitioning into investment banking at Midland Walwyn/Merrill Lynch Canada Inc. where he was Vice-Chairman of Investment Banking until 1998. Mr. Williamson has held various positions on Boards throughout his career, including Eicon Technology Corporation, Glamis Gold Ltd., BioteQ Environmental Technologies Inc., Uranium One Inc., BlackRock Ventures Inc., Quadra FNX Mining Ltd., Tahoe Resources Inc. and Goldcorp Inc. Mr. Williamson is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD) and the Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO). Mr. Williamson has a Bachelor of Applied Sciences degree from University of Toronto and an MBA from University of Western Ontario. As previously announced, Mr. Julien Francois has resigned from his position as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for Western effective April 30, 2019. The company is currently reviewing qualified applicants, and until a new CFO is appointed, Varun Prasad, Senior Accountant for Western will act as interim CFO, effective May 1, 2019. ABOUT WESTERN COPPER AND GOLD CORPORATION Western Copper and Gold Corporation is developing the Casino Project, Canadas premier copper-gold mine in the Yukon Territory and one of the most economic greenfield copper-gold mining projects in the world. For more information, visit www.westerncopperandgold.com. On behalf of the board, Paul West-Sells Dr. Paul West-Sells President & CEO For more information, please contact: Chris Donaldson Director, Corporate Development 604.638.2520 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. PERTH, Western Australia, April 14, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Perseus Mining Limited (Perseus or the Company) (TSX & ASX: PRU) ) is pleased to announce that it has entered into an underwriting agreement (Agreement) with Canaccord Genuity (Australia) Limited (Canaccord) and Hartleys Limited (Hartleys) to jointly underwrite the exercise of 102,538,227 Perseus warrants expiring on April 19, 2019 and exercisable at A$0.44 each. In April 2016, Perseus issued 143,050,770 warrants exercisable at $0.44 per warrant at any time within a period of three years to the shareholders of Amara Mining plc as part consideration for their shares in that company. Since that date, approximately 40.5 million warrants have either been or are in the process of being exercised by holders. Under the arrangement, Canaccord and Hartleys (acting as Joint Lead Managers) guarantee the exercise of any of the outstanding 102,538,227 warrants that are not exercised by the warrant owners prior to their expiry. The total amount that could potentially be raised from the exercise of the underwritten warrants is approximately A$45 million (before expenses). Canaccord and Hartleys, who acted as joint lead managers, joint underwriters and joint bookrunners to the underwriting, received significant demand from large international and domestic institutional investors, including several existing Perseus shareholders, to sub-underwriter the exercise of the warrants. Funding from the warrants strengthens Perseuss balance sheet, and together with the recently announced US$150 million corporate debt facility, existing cash and future cash flows, ensures that Perseus is well positioned to fund the development of its third gold mine, the Yaoure Gold Mine in Cote dIvoire, as well as further exploration activities and other growth initiatives. Underwriting Details Settlement of the shares to be issued under this underwriting Agreement is expected to occur on or about April 30, 2019. The Agreement contains standard termination provisions for an agreement of this nature, including that an underwriter may terminate the Agreement if the US$ gold price, the ASX/S&P 300 Metals and Mining Index or the ASX S&P/ASX Small Resources Index, is at close of trading on ASX for two consecutive business days before the Shortfall Settlement Date, at a level which is 10% or more below its respective level as at close of trading on April 10, 2019. Canaccord and Hartleys are collectively entitled to receive a management and selling fee of 0.67% of the Gross Amount and an underwriting fee of 2.7% of the Gross Amount, with such fees being apportioned equally between Canaccord and Hartleys.1 Perseuss Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Mr Jeff Quartermaine, commented: The proceeds from the warrant underwriting add to Perseuss financial capacity as the Company embarks on the next phase of growth involving amongst other things, the development of our third mine, Yaoure. The significant demand from investors to sub-underwrite the warrant exercise pursuant to this underwriting arrangement, demonstrates the strong support for the Companys strategic plan to produce over 500,000 ounces of gold per year at an all-in site cost of less than US$850 per ounce from 2022. To discuss any aspect of this announcement, please contact: Managing Director: Jeff Quartermaine at telephone +61 8 6144 1700 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. General Manager BD & IR: Andrew Grove at telephone +61 8 6144 1700 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Media Relations: Nathan Ryan at telephone +61 4 20 582 887 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Summary Information The following disclaimer applies to this announcement and any information contained in it (the Information). The Information in this announcement is of general background and does not purport to be complete. It should be read in conjunction with Perseus's other periodic and continuous disclosure announcements lodged with ASX Limited, which are available at www.asx.com.au. You are advised to read this disclaimer carefully before reading or making any other use of this announcement or any Information contained in this announcement. In accepting this announcement, you agree to be bound by the following terms and conditions including any modifications to them. Competent Person Statement All production targets for Edikan, Sissingue and Yaoure referred to in this report are underpinned by estimated Ore Reserves which have been prepared by competent persons in accordance with the requirements of the JORC Code. The information in this report that relates to the Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve estimates for the EGM deposits was first reported by the Company in compliance with the JORC Code 2012 and NI43-101 in a market announcement released on 29 August 2018. The Company confirms that it is not aware of any new information or data that materially affect the information in that market release and that all material assumptions underpinning those estimates and the production targets, or the forecast financial information derived therefrom, continue to apply and have not materially changed. The Company further confirms that material assumptions underpinning the estimates of Ore Reserves described in Technical Report Central Ashanti Gold Project, Ghana dated 30 May 2011 continue to apply. The information in this report that relates to Mineral Resources for Sissingue was first reported by the Company in compliance with the JORC Code 2012 and NI43-101 in a market announcement released on 15 December 2016 and includes an update for depletion as at 30 June 2018 as well as an adjustment of the model constrained to a US$1,800/oz pit shell which were reported in a market announcement on 29 August 2018. The information in this report that relates to Mineral Resources for Fimbiasso was first reported by the Company in compliance with the JORC Code 2012 and NI43-101 in a market announcement released on 20 February 2017 and includes an adjustment of the model constrained to a US$1,800/oz pit shell which was reported in a market announcement on 29 August 2018. The information in this report that relates to Ore Reserves for Sissingue and Fimbiasso was first reported by the Company in compliance with the JORC Code 2012 and NI43-101 in a market announcement released on 31 March 2017 and includes an update for depletion as at 30 June 2018 which was reported in a market announcement on 29 August 2018. The Company confirms that it is not aware of any new information or data that materially affect the information in these market releases and that all material assumptions underpinning those estimates and the production targets, or the forecast financial information derived therefrom, continue to apply and have not materially changed. The Company further confirms that material assumptions underpinning the estimates of Ore Reserves described in Technical Report Sissingue Gold Project, Cote dIvoire dated 29 May 2015 continue to apply. The information in this report in relation to Yaoure Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve estimates was first reported by the Company in compliance with the JORC Code 2012 and NI43-101 in a market announcement on 3 November 2017. The Company confirms that all material assumptions underpinning those estimates and the production targets, or the forecast financial information derived therefrom, in that market release continue to apply and have not materially changed. The Company further confirms that material assumptions underpinning the estimates of Ore Reserves described in Technical Report Yaoure Gold Project, Cote dIvoire dated 18 December 2017 continue to apply. Forward Looking Statements This announcement may include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on Perseuss expectations and beliefs concerning future events. Forward looking statements are necessarily subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside the control of Perseus, which could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements. Perseus makes no undertaking to subsequently update or revise the forward-looking statements made in this announcement, to reflect the circumstances or events after the date of this announcement. Not for release to US wire services or distribution in the United States This announcement has been prepared for publication in Australia and may not be released to US wire services or distributed in the United States. This announcement does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, securities in the United States or any other jurisdiction. Any securities described in this announcement have not been, and will not be, registered under the US Securities Act of 1933 and may not be offered or sold in the United States except in transactions exempt from, or not subject to, the registration requirements of the US Securities Act and applicable US state securities laws. 1 The Gross Amount is calculated as the total number of warrants not exercised at the date of the Agreement, multiplied by the exercise price of A$0.44 per warrant, being A$45,116,820. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Almaden Minerals Ltd. and its 100% owned Mexican subsidiary (Almaden or the Company; TSX: AMM; NYSE American: AAU) has learned that a lower court in Puebla State has ruled that Mexicos mineral title system is unconstitutional because consultation is not required before the granting of mineral title. The lawsuit was filed against the Mexican government regarding claims originally held by Almaden which covered a large area including the Ixtaca deposit. This ruling can be appealed by both the Government of Mexico and Almaden. The Company believes that this lawsuit is part of a broad effort by special interest groups to change the mining law and there are other similar actions active across Mexico. Almadens original mineral claims, which totalled approximately 14,000 hectares and are the subject of this lawsuit, were granted many years ago in full compliance with Mexican law. The lower court has ruled that the Mexican mineral title system is unconstitutional and as a result these original mineral claims should be held exclusively for Almaden until such time as consultation can be completed. However, these original claims were already voluntarily cancelled by the Company and Almadens current claims covering the Ixtaca deposit, which total approximately 7,200 hectares, are not the subject of this court decision. No communities within the area of the Companys current claims or within the area of influence of the Ixtaca project are party to this lawsuit. It is important to note following: This ruling is not a commentary on the well-documented community consultation which Almaden has been engaged in for the last 18 years (see press release of March 19, 2019). This ruling suggests that consultation must be conducted by the Government of Mexico prior to the granting of mineral title; The Company submitted its environmental permit for the Ixtaca project earlier this year and continues to advance Ixtaca towards production. Almadens intention is to build a mine which reflects the best available technology and best applicable practice both socially and technically. About Almaden Almaden Minerals Ltd. owns 100% of the Ixtaca project in Puebla State, Mexico, subject to a 2.0% NSR royalty held by Almadex Minerals Ltd. The Ixtaca Gold-Silver Deposit was discovered by Almaden in 2010. On Behalf of the Board of Directors Morgan Poliquin Morgan J. Poliquin, Ph.D., P.Eng. President, CEO and Director Almaden Minerals Ltd. Forward Looking Statements Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) nor the NYSE American have reviewed or accepted responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the contents of this news release which has been prepared by management. Statements contained in this news release that are not historical facts are forward-looking information or forward-looking statements (collectively, Forward-Looking Information) within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation and the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward Looking Information includes, but is not limited to, disclosure regarding an appeal of the court ruling, possible cancellation of mineral titles, retroactively of the court ruling and the Ixtaca project environmental permitting and are based on assumptions about future economic conditions and courses of action; the timing and costs of future activities on the Companys properties, including but not limited to development and operating costs in the event that a production decision is made; success of exploration, development and environmental protection and remediation activities; permitting time lines and requirements; requirements for additional capital; the potential effect of proposed notices of environmental conditions relating to mineral claims; planned exploration and development of properties and the results thereof; planned expenditures and budgets and the execution thereof. In certain cases, In preparing the Forward-Looking Information in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including, but not limited to, that the Government of Mexico will continue to take the same positions with respect to mineral tenure in any appeal as it did before the lower court, any additional financing needed will be available on reasonable terms; the exchange rates for the U.S., Canadian, and Mexican currencies will be consistent with the Companys expectations; the taxation policies which will apply to the Ixtaca Project will be consistent with the Companys expectations, that the current exploration, development, environmental and other objectives concerning the Ixtaca Project can be achieved and that its other corporate activities will proceed as expected; that the current price and demand for gold and silver will be sustained or will improve; that general business and economic conditions will not change in a materially adverse manner, that third party contractors and equipment, including the Rock Creek mill, will be available and operate as anticipated, and that all necessary governmental approvals for the planned exploration, development and environmental protection activities on the Ixtaca Project will be obtained in a timely manner and on acceptable terms; the continuity of the price of gold and silver, economic and political conditions and operations. Forward-Looking Information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the Forward-Looking Information. Such risks and other factors include, among others, risks related to the availability of financing on commercially reasonable terms and the expected use of proceeds; operations and contractual obligations; changes in exploration programs based upon results of exploration; changes in estimated mineral reserves or mineral resources; future prices of metals; availability of third party contractors; availability of equipment; failure of equipment to operate as anticipated; failure of the Rock Creek Mill to arrive on site or operate as expected; accidents, effects of weather and other natural phenomena and other risks associated with the mineral exploration industry; environmental risks, including environmental matters under Mexican rules and regulations; impact of environmental impact assessment requirements on the Companys planned exploration and development activities on the Ixtaca Project; certainty of mineral title; community relations; delays in obtaining governmental approvals or financing; fluctuations in mineral prices; the Companys dependence on one mineral project; the nature of mineral exploration and mining and the uncertain commercial viability of certain mineral deposits; the Companys lack of operating revenues; governmental regulations and the ability to obtain necessary licences and permits; risks related to mineral properties being subject to prior unregistered agreements, transfers or claims and other defects in title; currency fluctuations; changes in environmental laws and regulations and changes in the application of standards pursuant to existing laws and regulations which may increase costs of doing business and restrict operations; risks related to dependence on key personnel; estimates used in financial statements proving to be incorrect; as well as those factors discussed the section entitled "Risk Factors" in Almaden's Annual Information Form and Almaden's latest Form 20-F on file with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could affect the Company and may cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in Forward-Looking Information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that Forward-Looking 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. Except as required by law, the Company does not assume any obligation to release publicly any revisions to Forward-Looking Information contained in this news release to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Contact Information: Almaden Minerals Ltd. Tel. 604.689.7644 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. http://www.almadenminerals.com/ A member of Sudans governing military council said on Monday the countrys next civilian government would decide whether to hand veteran president Omar al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Bashir was first indicted by the Hague-based ICC in 2009 on war crimes charges over a long-running conflict in Darfur in western Sudan, but has escaped arrest. Bashirs 30 years in power ended last week when the military ousted him after months-long protests that left dozens of demonstrators dead in clashes with security forces. The decision whether to extradite [Bashir] to ICC will be made by a popularly elected government and not the transitional military council, military council member Jalaluddin Sheikh told journalists during a visit to the Ethiopian capital. The council has pledged a two-year transition period and also said it would not send Bashir or any other Sudanese citizen to the ICC. The ICC charges against Bashir, which include a genocide allegation added in 2010, stem from a rebellion launched in Darfur in 2003. His governments decision to unleash the armed forces and allied militia against the rebels brought him further international criticism. The UN says more than 300,000 people have been killed in the Darfur conflict, and more than two million displaced. Bashir was the first sitting president of a country to be wanted by the ICC, and the first person to be charged with genocide. Without a police force, the ICC relies on member states to carry out arrest warrants against suspects. Despite two warrants against Bashir, he continued to travel with impunity to various countries in Africa and the rest of the world. This included to ICC member states South Africa and Jordan, which under the courts founding Rome Statute had an obligation to arrest him. In the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Monday, thousands of demonstrators remained camped outside the army headquarters, calling for a return to civilian government. Sudanese protest organisers on Monday demanded the new military council be scrapped, as demonstrators kept up calls for a civilian government at a sit-in outside army headquarters. Thousands of demonstrators have continued to rally in support of demands for civilian rule, despite an apparent attempt to disperse them following the ouster last week of veteran president Omar al-Bashir. We want the military council to be dissolved and be replaced by a civilian council having representatives of the army, said Mohamed Naji, a senior leader of the Sudanese Professionals Association. The organisation which spearheaded months of protests leading to Bashirs fall also demanded the sacking of the countrys judiciary chief and prosecutor general. The SPAs latest demands came as the military council faced mounting public and diplomatic pressure to hand over power to a civilian administration. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a rapid transfer of power to a civilian transitional government, in a phone call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. This must be followed by a credible, inclusive political process that meets the expectations of the Sudanese people with regard to economic and political reforms, her office said in a statement. Sisi meanwhile reiterated Egypts support for the brotherly Sudanese peoples will and said Cairo would not interfere in its internal affairs, according to a presidential statement. And the 55-member African Union threatened to suspend Sudan if the military fails to hand power over to civilians within 15 days, saying a military-led transition would be completely contrary to the aspirations of the people of Sudan. Their comments come a day after the Khartoum embassies of Britain, the United States and Norway issued a joint statement calling for inclusive dialogue to effect a transition to civilian rule. We are not moving Outside army headquarters crowds remained camped outside the complex, despite SPA warnings of an attempt to disperse the sit-in. We call on our people to come immediately to the sit-in area to protect our revolution, the SPA said in a statement, without saying who was responsible. Witnesses said several army vehicles had surrounded the area and that troops were seen removing the barricades which demonstrators had put up as a security measure. I felt frustrated when they tried to break the sit-in, but I still trust the army because its not possible that they would give up on protesters, said demonstrator Mohamed al-Fatih. Portraits of people killed in the months of rallies covered the facades of several buildings in the area. Until we see tangible results, we are not moving from here, said protester Abdulhadi Hajj Ahmed. A 10-member delegation representing the protesters delivered a list of demands during talks with the council late Saturday, according to a statement by the Alliance for Freedom and Change umbrella group. But in a news conference, the councils spokesman did not respond to the protesters demands. Shake-up at the top The military council however met with political parties on Sunday, urging them to agree on an independent figure to be prime minister, an AFP correspondent at the meeting said. We want to set up a civilian state based on freedom, justice and democracy, a council member, Lieutenant General Yasser al-Ata, told members of several political parties. The foreign ministry said military council head General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan was committed to having a complete civilian government and urged other nations to back the council in order to achieve the Sudanese goal of democratic transition. Burhan has pledged that individuals implicated in killing protesters would be held to account and that demonstrators detained under a state of emergency imposed by the president during his final weeks in power would be freed. The SPA says Bashir must also face justice, along with officials from his feared National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) whose chief Salih Ghosh resigned on Saturday. As part of the shake-up at the top, a new NISS head and army chief of staff have been appointed. Bashir ruled Sudan with an iron fist for 30 years before he was deposed last week following mass protests that have rocked the country since December. A member of the military council said Sudans next civilian government would decide whether to hand Bashir over to the Hague-based International Criminal Court where he has been wanted since 2009 on war crimes charges over the long-running conflict in Darfur in western Sudan. The decision whether to extradite (Bashir) to ICC will be made by a popularly elected government and not the transitional military council, Jalaluddin Sheikh told journalists on Monday during a visit to Ethiopia. Fourteen people have been killed during clashes in a camp for displaced in Sudans conflict-wracked region of Darfur, the official news agency SUNA reported on Monday. The clashes occurred on Saturday in South Darfurs camp Kalma, one of the biggest facilities housing thousands of people displaced by the war in the region. Fourteen people have been killed in clashes inside camp Kalma the day before yesterday, South Darfurs acting governor General Hashim Khalid said, quoted by SUNA. He did not say what triggered the violence or reveal details about the groups that clashed, but said the camp has lot of weapons and groups that disturb the states security. He said camp Kalma also had many rebels from the Sudan Liberation Army-Abdul Wahid (SLA-AW) group, one of the groups fighting with Khartoums forces for years in the region. The conflict in Darfur erupted in 2003 when black ethnic rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated government of now ousted president Omar al-Bashir, accusing it of marginalising the region economically and politically. Khartoum cracked down on rebels and since then insurgent groups have fragmented, with fighting punctuated by periods of relative calm. Sudan restricts international media access to Darfur, an area about the size of France, so it is not possible to independently verify the details of fighting there. In recent years the level of violence has significantly dropped across Darfur, with Khartoum insisting the conflict has ended in the region. The United Nations says about 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur since 2003 and another 2.5 million people displaced. Tens of thousands of people continue to live in sprawling camps like Kalma. Bashir is wanted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and genocide charges in Darfur. He denies the charges. Fourteen people have been killed during clashes in a camp for displaced people in Sudans conflict-wracked Darfur region, the official SUNA news agency said on Monday. The violence erupted on Saturday in South Darfurs Kalma camp, one of the biggest facilities housing thousands of people displaced by war. Fourteen people have been killed in clashes inside camp Kalma the day before yesterday, South Darfurs acting governor General Hashim Khalid said, quoted by SUNA. He did not say what triggered the violence or reveal details about the groups that clashed, but said the camp has lot of weapons and groups that disturb the states security. He said camp Kalma also had many rebels from the Sudan Liberation Army-Abdul Wahid (SLA-AW), one of the groups fighting with Khartoum for years. Darfur, a region the size of France, has been awash with weapons since 2003, when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against ousted leader Omar al-Bashirs Arab-dominated government, accusing it of economic and political discrimination. Khartoum cracked down on rebels and insurgent groups have fragmented, with fighting punctuated by periods of relative calm. During the initial years of the conflict, Arab militias fought alongside government forces against the African rebels. The most feared government-allied militia was the Arab Janjaweed gunmen on horseback who swept through Darfur marauding villagers and fighting rebels. Sudan restricts international media access to Darfur, so it is not possible to independently verify the details of fighting there. In recent years the level of violence has significantly dropped, with Khartoum insisting the conflict has ended. The United Nations says about 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur since 2003 and another 2.5 million people displaced. Tens of thousands of people continue to live in sprawling camps like Kalma. Bashir is wanted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and genocide in Darfur. He denies the charges. A permanent peace between Khartoum and the Drafur rebels has proved elusive. With truth commissions what comes to mind is voluntary testimony. Witnesses may appear to tell their stories and the rest of the world will take their word for it until the investigation uncovers anything to the contrary. Well, before Gambias Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission (TRRC) it is not a choice to appear or not if the Commission needs you and it is not a choice to lie either. Since its start on January 7, 2019, three people have learned the cost of lying before the 11 commissioners and its sometimes combative lead counsel Essa Faal. Gambias Truth Commission is the most followed program on television, radio and online in the country. Testimonies are not just keenly followed by people. Witnesses who appear to be lying or sound unconvincing are subject of continued bullying online. A Gambian human rights activist and country representative for Westminster Foundation Madi Jobarteh told JusticeInfo.Net that encouraging people to be truthful before the Commission is crucial to its success. In principle I believe that if one lies to the TRRC, he or she must be held liable because the very rationale of the TRRC is truth telling and we must not allow individuals to face the Commission only to pour lies. Then what is the value of the commission? he said. Authorities now find themselves under pressure as people would call for some witnesses arrest. My nickname is The Assassin First it was John Charles Mendy. The former soldier was recounted by several witnesses to have been involved in the execution of several soldiers on November 11, 1994. However, Mendy flatly denied involvement in two executions, admitted only one, and denied involvement in eight tortures, admitting only one. Following his public appearance before the TRRC, the Ministry of Justice requested his arrest and he was charged with murder. Lamin Senghore is another soldier who was named in many incidents. An officer with the countrys antinarcotic agency, he appeared before the Commission on April 8. As a junior soldier in 1994 he was involved in the military takeover that brought Yahya Jammeh to power in July that year. He was also among the forty soldiers who were mobilized by the coup leaders to attack Fajara and Yundum Barracks on November 11, 1994. That day close to two dozen soldiers accused of planning a counter-coup were captured and executed at various locations. Though Senghore was among the attackers who overran the two military encampments, he claimed he just returned to the State House with some soldiers thereafter. However, according to the evidence before the Commission, said lead counsel Faal, Senghore was among those who returned to Yundum to execute the captured soldiers. You want to see no evil, hear no evil and do no evil, isnt that the case? You are trying to extricate yourself from any responsibility, Faal said, questioning the witnesss truthfulness. As Senghore told his story, it seemed to only get better. He claimed he won his nickname in the army The Assassin because he is a fast learner, and that he was subsequently recruited as a Jungler. Jungler is the unofficial name of a paramilitary hit squad that reportedly operated on the orders of former President Jammeh to kill and torture his enemies, perceived or real. Yet Senghore a.k.a The Assassin saw no evil, did no evil, not even slapping anyone. From the Commission to social platforms to the police He also served as an agent of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). The NIA was synonymous with fear in Gambia under Jammeh. There are numerous reports of people being put to torture in its premises. Senghore served the NIA but he tortured no one, no one was tortured in his presence nor did he witness anyone participating in any killing. Then he was moved to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, an institution he admitted was also torturing people. He nevertheless remained completely innocent of any wrong doing. At this point, the small conference hall where the Commission holds its sessions went cold. Slowly the voice of Faal and Senghore were disappearing into the foot stamp noise of an exhausted audience of about 30 people. Senghore sat starring at Faal with his bloodshot eyes, not blinking. And as his testimony was drawing to an end, so was Faals patience. I just remind you that you have lied all through your testimony and you are warned that lying before the Commission has consequences. You have a chance to rectify this testimony. My opinion is that you are not being truthful, said Faal. Senghore adjusted himself in his sitting position et looked at Faal as the session ended. Following his testimony, as for John Mendy, social platforms went wild with people calling him out for being untruthful. And barely two hours after his testimony, Senghore was called to the Kairaba Police Station and charged with perjury. Suspensions or dismissals? Then came the turn of Lamin Colley, a witness of the November 11 killing who admitted earlier on before the Commission that he had killed Sgt Fafa Nyang but claimed it was an accident. Several witnesses said Colley deliberately shot and killed Nyang but he claimed he was trying to help him when his AK-47 rifle accidently fired a shot putting a bullet in his left jaw, shattering Nyangs skull. Last week, nearly three weeks after his testimony, Colley was given his dismissal letter from the army. The spokesperson of the Gambian army Major Lamin Sanyang told JusticeInfo.Net that the recommendation for Colleys sacking came from the Justice Ministry. But the measure was effected by the army through its commander in chief, President Adama Barrow, who is also the Defense Minister. (The Justice Ministry has also recommended the termination of employment of Mendy from Gambias Civil Aviation Authority where he works as a chief security.) By keeping perpetrators in office we do not only undermine the reconciliation process but we also put a challenge in the process of system change. Perpetrators will always seek to cover their violations and this will not help us move forward. By their presence in office they would generate displeasure around which will also affect staff morale, said human rights activist Jobarteh. However he thinks dismissals are a bit too early and would suggest suspension instead. I think serving civil and security personnel who confess to torture should be interdicted pending the end of the TRRC and the submission of its report so as to determine the fate of those individuals, he said. New agreement between Kansas State University's art department, Flint Hills Technical College focuses on printmaking program Monday, April 15, 2019 Kansas State University printmaking students screen print posters for Living Democracy in Print, a collaborative exhibition celebrating diversity, in the Kemper Gallery for KSUnite 2018 . | Download this photo. MANHATTAN The art department in Kansas State University's College of Arts and Sciences has developed an articulation agreement with Flint Hills Technical College that will allow students who graduate from the technical school with an associate degree in graphic arts technology to seamlessly transfer into the art department's printmaking program. The agreement takes effect for the fall 2019 semester. It allows Flint Hills Technical College students, who learn the technical side of printing and design in the college's graphic arts technology program, to take their knowledge and use it to develop their own creative visions in the Kansas State University printmaking program. "At K-State, students master traditional print processes while also pushing the boundaries and expanding the field through digital technology and scientific innovation," said Jason Scuilla, professor of art and area coordinator of printmaking. "This articulation with Flint Hills Technical College is a great fit and amazing opportunity for students. The professional portfolio combined with the commercial skill set they'll graduate with will give them an advantage as creative professionals." Flint Hills Technical College is the only technical college in Kansas that teaches offset commercial printing. The college's program features digital, offset and screen printing presses, in addition to finishing and bindery equipment. Students who have graduated from the program also will have completed courses in graphic design. The technical college added courses to its requirements in order to make the transition to Kansas State University's printmaking program as easy and seamless for students as possible. As a result, when students transfer from Flint Hills Technical College to Kansas State University, they will be able to go directly into the printmaking program. Kansas State University printmaking is built upon a rich history of traditional processes and state-of-the-art print technology. Acid etching and engraving, wood block printing, lithography, photographic silkscreen, digital, CNC, 3D, and laser-engraving print processes are open for exploration to undergraduate and graduate researchers. Graduates of the program have gone on to build successful careers as gallery-represented fine artists, commercial illustrators, creative directors, small business owners, teachers and museum specialists. Greg LeValley, customer service specialist with University Printing, has visited Flint Hills Technical College to promote the agreement and shared with students the opportunities to work in University Printing while studying printmaking at Kansas State University. "These students will come to K-State with the technical training required to use the machinery and be able to use it to express their own ideas in our printmaking program," Scuilla said. "This agreement is on the cutting edge of synergy between commercial printing and creative printmaking." Global governance is facing new challenges amidst a growing backlash against economic globalization and the resurgence of unilateralism and protectionism. "We are just at the beginning of globalization 4.0, and are significantly underprepared for the magnitude of change we are facing," warned Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum last November. Speakers at the 5th China & Globalization Forum held in Beijing on Sunday shared their views on the changes taking place in today's world and the action needed to meet the challenges in the era of globalization 4.0. Former Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming said that setbacks are normal along the path to globalization, which is an inevitable trend in human development. He said that the most urgent challenge facing globalization now is to improve multilateral rules, and the decisive factor for the improvement is a new type of relations between major countries. "Updating the rules are impossible if major countries always run in opposite directions." "When participating in global governance, we need to uphold multilateralism and bear in mind that our country still and will long remain in the primary stage of socialism," Chen added. Gao Anming, vice president of China International Publishing Group (CIPG), also emphasized the importance of multilateralism, saying that all participants need to break the hold of egocentric mindsets and jointly establish a feasible and sustainable global governance system. He said that in the era of globalization, different countries and organizations are increasingly interdependent. And with their participation in global governance becoming more interactive, he added that they need to take concerted action to address issues concerning the common development of mankind. Nicholas Rosellini, the United Nations (U.N.) resident coordinator in China, said that globalization 4.0 undoubtedly brings opportunities, but also brings with it risks, which, if not properly managed, will widen inequality and leave a lot of people behind. He said that the unprecedented pace of technology in the Fourth Industrial Revolution is fundamentally transforming the means and systems of education, health, production, etc., thereby presenting opportunities but also risks of growing inequality. "The response to the challenges is not nationalism or protectionism. Globalization 4.0 is an unstoppable force. Global challenges require global solutions and business as usual is not enough," Rosellini said. He said that managing the risks of globalization 4.0 requires a complete overhaul of the approach to economics, rethinking education, health and production systems to ensure no one is left behind. "Changes must take place at the national and international levels." Rosellini said that the U.N., which has been a cornerstone of multilateral governance, now finds itself unable to meet the challenges of globalization 4.0. He added that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has therefore introduced the most ambitious reform of its organizational systems to elevate the voices of the underrepresented, better realize the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and respond to the challenges of globalization 4.0. Rosellini made reference to another positive development - that China has emerged as a strong proponent of multilateralism and international cooperation. He said the Belt and Road Initiative, which is committed to connecting countries and peoples, enhancing infrastructure connectivity, and promoting trade and investment, is a new platform for globalization with potential to accelerate the benefits of globalization 4.0 and contribute positively to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Chen Jian, former Chinese vice minister of commerce, said that it is necessary to reform the rules-based multilateral trading system, which is not inclusive, equitable or reasonable enough to meet the challenges facing globalization. But he noted that the reform should be a process rather than a rapid correction. "The best choice is to constantly improve global governance while safeguarding the existing rules. We must not resort to destruction without construction." The forum was jointly organized by the Center for China and Globalization, the China Association for International Economic Cooperation, U.N. China, in partnership with the Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies at CIPG. Presented by the Center for Asian Philanthropy and Society (CAPS) and the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), the report launch and roundtable discussion featuring "Giving Back to the Future: Scholarships for Higher Education" was held in Beijing on April 13, 2019. The CAPS' report stands out as the very first piece of research done on the impact of scholarships for higher education in Asia, with a special focus on the status quo as well as the possible trend of philanthropy scholarship. Through statistical analysis of massive data as well as drawing on specific case studies, the report evaluated the contribution that scholarships have made to the student, the community and the country, suggesting possible pathways to maximize the benefit of social investment in Asia. Experiences of scholarship winners from China, India and Philippines and stories of renowned philanthropists in Asia were also included in the report. Ms. Mehvesh Mumtaz Ahmed, director of research at CPAS, explained the significance of philanthropy scholarship during the roundtable discussion, saying that, according to the report, every set of scholarships is capable of improving the lives of 26 people. The scholarship obtained by each student can translate to not only the enhanced individual ability to bring a better future for a family, but also the willingness to volunteer and to give back to society through civic engagement. "In addition, the report also provides a tool kit to help Asian philanthropists improve the efficiency of educational investment and the influence of scholarships projects," added Dr. Ruth A. Shapiro, founder and chief executive of CPAS. Several renowned Chinese philanthropists in the discussion also presented a glimpse of the development of philanthropy scholarship in China. Mr. Ronnie C. Chan, chairman of Hang Lung Properties and CCG co-chair, pointed out the traditional standing of philanthropy scholarship in China. "Nine out of ten of the wealthiest billionaires have dedicated and contributed to scholarship programs," he mentioned. Other philanthropists on the roundtable also shared their practices in furthering philanthropy scholarship with Chinese characteristics. Li Yinuo, chief representative of Beijing for The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, focused on primary school education, while Wang Guangfa, chairman of Beijing for Fazheng Group and president of the Beijing Royal School, spoke about the training of Chinese personnel in the fields of pharmacy, pharmaceutics and pharmacology in Ivy League schools. Michael Kuan, founder and CEO of Kuan Capital, on the other hand said he believes that scholarships for students at prestigious universities could sometimes be the icing on the cake. "We prefer to help students at comparatively less elite universities or students with special majors." Kuan also suggested developing a form of philanthropist scholarship with Chinese characteristics instead of copying the American model. After the roundtable discussion, several entrepreneurs and experts were also honored with philanthropy awards in recognition of their devotion and dedication in this field. EU leaders have agreed to a new extension of the Brexit deadline to Oct. 31, which incidentally, and perhaps befittingly, falls on Halloween. In doing so, EU leaders refused to accept Prime Minister Theresa May's plea for a June 30 deadline, in the hope that by perhaps granting extra time, Britain will not come back again to request for yet another extension. However, there is little reason to assume that Brexit will be resolved by October either. Nearly three years after a majority of British nationals voted to leave the EU in the Brexit referendum, no one has yet a clue when, or even if, Britain will actually leave. The Oct. 31 deadline is the second extension of Britain's departure date. It was required because Theresa May's own Conservative Party MPs rejected the deal she agreed with EU leaders on three occasions. Following that, MPs from all parties attempted to break the deadlock by usurping the government's executive powers to determine the agenda of the parliamentary debate only to finally reject all their own alternative scenarios. Meanwhile, outside Parliament, a strange pageant has developed. Everyday, pro-Brexit and pro-EU protestors draped in British and EU flags shout slogans at each other and at passing politicians. When the world's media outlets conduct interviews at their permanent encampment on College Green, in front of the House of Lords, protestors with megaphones yell their demands in the hope that their slogans will be audible during the broadcasts. Once revered around the world as the "Mother of Parliaments", Westminster today resembles a bizarre and surreal circus. On Mar. 23, the so-called People's Vote campaign organized a demonstration involving hundreds of thousands of people to demand a second referendum. They did this in the hopes of overturning the result of the first referendum, and remaining in the EU. This protest was further reinforced by an online petition signed by more than 6 million people. Other protests, against the "betrayal" of Brexit, were held on the initial departure date of Mar. 29. On that day, two rallies attracted about 30,000 people who marched on Westminster. In normal times, a general election would be called to break the deadlock. But with Jeremy Corbyn at the helm of the opposition Labour Party, and therefore, the most likely candidate to become Prime Minister, Conservative Party MPs are unwilling to entertain the possibility of an election. However, in the last two weeks, Theresa May has been discussing the Brexit issue with Corbyn and is hoping to find some sort of compromise that can command a parliamentary majority. So far, it seems that discussions are going around in circles with little movement, primarily because, no matter what Theresa May might like to do, she is embedded in a party that is increasingly dominated by the views of the belligerent European Research Group (ERG) faction. Their leading spokesperson, Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, regards cross-party talks with Jeremy Corbyn as the ultimate treachery, both to Brexit and to conservatism itself. Rees-Mogg denounces Corbyn as a Marxist and believes that Theresa May is legitimating Corbyn by negotiating with him and his team. The ERG faction is strongly opposed to Theresa May's deal with the EU and would prefer to leave the EU without any deal. In their view, adopting a militant negotiating posture with the EU is more likely to win concessions. They also feel that Theresa May's discussions with Corbyn have undermined the ERG's influence over the government. Consequently, Rees-Mogg has suggested that any new Conservative leader who replaces May, should engage in guerrilla warfare tactics to sabotage the EU from the inside, thereby forcing them to submit to British demands. He hopes that such an open battle with the EU could salvage the Conservative party's honor. In truth, the ruling Conservative Party is on the verge of disintegration. Its crisis is exacerbated by the fact that Theresa May has promised her MPs that she will resign as soon as Parliament agrees on a way forward with the EU. When this eventually happens, the ensuing leadership contest will almost certainly see the election of a candidate like Boris Johnson, an ardent Brexiteer, who reflects the views of the party's grass roots, who are in turn fervent opponents of the EU. It is a legal requirement of the latest extension to Britain's EU departure date that elections to the European Parliament be held between May 23-26. This will certainly produce a disastrous result for the Conservative Party, and will reveal a rise in support for the most vociferous proponents of the Leave and Remain camps, as both sides exploit the vote to vent their anger and frustration. Thus, the polarization and recrimination on Brexit is set only to continue and escalate. A truly Halloween-esque Brexit is now on the horizon. But interestingly, the word "horizon" is defined as an invisible line between the earth's surface and the sky each step closer towards it, only ensures that it moves a step further away. Heiko Khoo is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://china.org.cn/opinion/heikokhoo.htm Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn. If you would like to contribute, please contact us at opinion@china.org.cn. British Prime Minister Teresa May has succeeded in getting a six-month extension from the EU to firm up the process for a smooth divorce. She has until Oct. 31 to accomplish this difficult and intricate task. The last-minute relief came after hectic summit-level diplomatic efforts, including May's crucial meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron. The two apparently played a role in delaying the Brexit date. The extension has saved the U.K. from a disgraceful exit on the current deadline of April 12. Now Prime Minister May can sit back for a moment and restart her engines to generate meaningful dialogue and build a bipartisan policy seeking separation from the EU. The wrangling in the Commons over the last months in the run up to March 29 the original Brexit deadline showed that the entire Brexit project was increasingly becoming untenable. The more rival politicians pulled punches over the text of the agreement, the huskier they sounded. The poor voters who supported the idea of Brexit in the June 2016 referendum must be looking over their shoulders in utter disbelief at the confusion of their elected leaders. Even the hardline supporters appear empty-headed in terms of offering any result-oriented solution. In hindsight, it can be said that the "yes" vote to the original referendum unleashed unprecedented chaos in British political life. The nation was hardly prepared for it, and the totality of its wisdom has been at loss as to negotiating an honorable divorce. If everything had gone normally, Britain and the EU would have peacefully parted ways on March 29. But the politicians, stuck on the details, lost sight of the ultimate objective. They forgot that the people mandated that they exit the country from the union within a given time frame. The failure of British Parliament has been obvious. There were several votes over draft agreements but all went down the drains. Ultimately, PM May had to request extension after extension. She scrambled for a longer break so that the political parties could revisit their positions and forge an agreement. Her political future is at stake, as while trying to restore the sovereignty of Great Britain, May has further compromised the nation's decision-making prerogative. Thus, the U.K. has become more dependent on the 27-member EU than ever before, as it needs goodwill of all members, including those with little political clout, to secure agreement to leave the Union without courting chaos. The ball is in the court of British lawmakers, who should immediately start intra-party talks to resolve the stickiest points that have held the process hostage. Whether it is a custom union or border management with Ireland, a time-bound process should be started to tackle the issues. May is aware of the enormity of the task. She clearly hinted this in a tweet: "The choices we now face are stark and the timetable is clear. So we must now press on at pace with our efforts to reach a consensus on a deal that is in the national interest." But it is not easy. May has lost her control over the party, as well as over the political process. There is mounting challenge from within the Conservative Party that she call it a day and make room for a new leader to head the talks and the process of ratifying the withdrawal agreement. The EU, while granting an extension, has also asked Britain to organize elections of the European Parliament, and in the case of failure to do so, the U.K. will be crashing out of the EU on June 1. The elections will create a huge distraction when politicians should be solely focused on Brexit agreement. The EU has further hamstringed British bargaining power by saying that the withdrawal agreement was final, and that there would be no more talks to reopen it to further adjustments. It shows that the EU is not ready to give more concessions. Britain has to either go ahead and ratify the agreement after minor fine-tuning or prepare to leave the union without any formal agreement. The last option could be to revisit Brexit by seeking another referendum. What looked so near three years ago when the initial referendum was decided, has lately become a never-ending enterprise. 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. If you would like to contribute, please contact us at opinion@china.org.cn. MEDFORD, Ore. Authorities temporarily shut down Interstate-5 on Monday morning as they attempted to help a man in the midst of a mental health crisis, according to the Medford Police Department (MPD). Officers responded to the call around 6:30 a.m. The man had climbed over fencing on the Garfield Street overpass above I-5 and was "preparing to jump," MPD said. Meanwhile, officers from the Phoenix Police Department and Oregon State Police shut down the freeway as firefighters from Medford Fire-Rescue staged to assist. MPD officers opened up a dialogue with the man until someone from Jackson County Mental Health arrived to assist. "The subject was eventually talked off the fence and was provided needed services," MPD said. The freeway was closed for about 15 minutes during the incident. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, you are not alone. Help from a professional is available at the numbers and websites below, where live crisis counselors are connect you with resources 24/7: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline / 1-800-273-8255 American Foundation for Suicide Prevention CASTLE ROCK, Colo. A man wanted for multiple sex crimes perpetrated on teenage girls in Jackson County is now in law enforcement custody in Colorado, according to the Jackson County Sheriff's Office (JCSO). Detectives believe 21-year-old Isaac James Bergstrom may have more local victims who have yet to come forward. JCSO detectives began their investigation in December of 2018 after receiving reports that Bergstrom had sexual contact with girls in their early teens between 2015 and 2017. The detectives believe that Bergstrom met the victims through school, activities, and acquaintances both during and after his time as a student at Phoenix High School. Detectives say Bergstrom contacted the victims in person in both the Phoenix and Medford areas, as well as through texting and mobile apps. Bergstrom was indicted by a Jackson County grand jury on Thursday, April 11, 2019, on charges involving four victims. The indictment included charges of sodomy in the first degree, sodomy in the second degree, sexual abuse in the first degree, sexual abuse in the third degree (two counts), sexual harassment, and attempted sexual abuse in the third degree. Following the indictment, a circuit court judge issued an arrest warrant for Bergstrom. U.S. Marshals and local law enforcement officers in Colorado arrested Bergstrom on Monday, April 15. He is currently being held in the Douglas County (Colo.) Sheriffs Office Detention Facility on $140,000 bond, pending an extradition process. Anyone with additional information is asked to call the JCSO tip line at (541) 774-8333. Refer to case #18-26172. WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - A Chinese woman charged with lying to briefly enter President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club is expected to learn whether she will be granted bail, although that likely doesn't matter. Federal Magistrate Judge William Matthewman is scheduled to decide Monday whether Yujing Zhang can be released on bail on charges of lying to federal agents and illegal entry. Her visa has been revoked, however, meaning immigration officials would likely detain her if the 32-year-old posts bail. Zhang was arrested March 30 after Secret Service agents say falsely told agents she is a member of the Florida club. Agents say she told a clerk inside she was there for a nonexistent Chinese American event. She was arrested after agents found her carrying four cellphones, an external hard drive and a thumb drive containing computer malware. Flash French President Emmanuel Macron will address the nation on Monday evening to unveil measures to ease social tension and respond to "yellow vest" complaints, state-run France Info radio reported on Sunday. Macron will give a televised speech at 1800 GMT "to announce the priority action projects and ... the first concrete measures in response to the concerns raised in the framework of the Great National Debate," the radio said, citing the president's office. The response to weekly protests staged by the spontaneous moment would include "a new act and changes in depth," according to the report. In a rare move, the 41-year-old head of state will also open the Elysee doors to journalists on April 17 to justify his policy during a press conference, a meeting that he has avoided since he was elected in May 2017. The "yellow vest" movement, a nationwide protest against weak economic performance and stagnant income increase under President Macron, started as a campaign against surge in fuel prices in November 2018. It had since turned into a social rebellion demanding Macron to step down, despite his reversal of tax hike and measures worth 10 billion euros (11.3 billion U.S. dollars) to bolster purchasing power. To further defuse anger, Macron launched in January a series of public debates that he promised would lead to concrete measures. "I intend to transform anger to solution," said Macron in an open letter to the nation when he launched the consultations. Three months later, scepticism overshadowed expectations with the majority of the French see little to come out from the national consultations, according the country's pollsters. "(Macron) won't get a second chance... the announcements can not be only cosmetic or purely institutional," Senate President Gerard Larcher told Le Figaro newspaper on Saturday. Flash Britain's main opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn would win the keys to 10 Downing Street in a snap general election, a major polling analysis revealed Sunday. Prime Minister Theresa May's governing Conservatives would lose 59 seats in the House of Commons, paving the way for left-wing politician Corbyn to become prime minister, showed the poll published by the Sunday Telegraph. Labour would increase its number of MPs by 34, making them the largest party in the British parliament. Conservative supporters blamed their falling support on May's failure to deliver on her promise to take Britain out of the European Union (EU) by March 29. Election and polling expert Prof. John Curtice from Strathcylde University, who is also president of the British Polling Council, said supporters who backed leaving the EU had been drawn back to either the euro-sceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP) or the newly launched Brexit party, created by UKIP co-founder Nigel Farage. An Electoral Calculus poll of polls of 8,561 people surveyed after May's intended exit date found that following an immediate general election, Labour would become the largest party in the Commons. It would win 296 seats of the 650 parliamentary seats, against 259 for the Conservatives. Corbyn could then lead a government propped up by the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) which is also expected to make gains in a general election. Martin Baxter from Electoral Calculus told the Sunday Telegraph: "Theresa May is discovering why David Cameron really held the referendum. It wasn't to placate his own Eurosceptic MPs, instead it was to stop Conservative voters defecting to pro-Brexit parties. That process seems to have restarted and the Conservatives are beginning to suffer." The Observer newspaper in London reported Sunday that the latest Opinium poll suggested the Conservatives have dropped six points over the past fortnight, giving Labour a seven-point lead. The support is the lowest May's party has scored since the European elections in May 2014, according to the pollster. May told MPs last month that she would stand down once she had secured the UK's exit from the EU. The Telegraph commented that May now faces mounting calls by MPs and senior grassroots figures to name a date for her departure as it appeared Britain would have to participate next month in elections to the European Parliament. Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith called Sunday on May to resign as prime minister next month. He told Sky News the timetable for her departure should still stand despite her failure to pass a withdrawal agreement. "What the Prime Minister has to do is aim everything now towards departure before the European elections which would then allow her to step away having done what she said she would do, getting the UK out of the European Union one way or the other and then we can have another leadership election and pick a new leader," he told Sky. In a television interview on Sunday, May's de facto deputy prime minister, the Cabinet Minister David Lidington said he did not think talks between the government and the Labour party, looking for a consensus Brexit deal, could be allowed to drag out for much longer. He said he had not set a deadline for the talks to produce a result, but the public wanted parliament to resolve their differences over Brexit quickly. The Conservative government and Labour are continuing talks over the coming week to test each other's ideas in a bid to break the Brexit deadlock. Lidington said while there was no deadline, both sides would take stock in 10 days. The two parties have set up a series of working groups in key areas, such as environmental standards, security and workers' rights, to try and find common ground. Labour is pushing for a deal that keeps Britain allied to the EU's customs union and single market, but the current deal agreed by May would see Britain leaving both. Last week the European Council extended Britain's membership of the bloc until Oct. 31 to give more time for the British parliament to agree on a withdrawal deal. Flash Leaders from both the DPRK and the United States said they won't rule out the possibility of meeting again, but analysts warned to have cautious expectations of a third summit as it could fail again if the decades of mistrust between the two continue. According to a Saturday report from KCNA, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's official news agency, the country's top leader Kim Jong-un said he is still open to a third summit with U.S. President Donald Trump if the US "rectifies its attitude". Kim made the comments during a policy speech on Friday. Blaming the U.S. for only considering its own interests during the second DPRK-U.S. summit in Vietnam's capital Hanoi this February, Kim said it had led the DPRK to question Trump's willingness to improve relations with the DPRK. Noting that he does not accept "the U.S. style of dialogue" which imposes Washington's unilateral demands upon its dialogue partner, Kim said he will "be patient and wait until the end of this year for U.S.' courageous decision, but it will be hard to get as good a chance as last time." Kim's remarks signaled that he wouldn't cling to talks with the U.S. forever, said Kim Dong-yup, a researcher at Kyungnam University's Institute for Far Eastern Studies in the Republic of Korea. "That indicates that Pyongyang is triggering plans to diversify its diplomatic relations with other countries," he said. In response to the latest remarks of Kim, Trump on Saturday highlighted the progress made after the Hanoi summit while also expressed cautious expectation of a third one. Trump tweeted on Saturday that, "I agree with Kim Jong-un of North Korea (the DPRK) that our personal relationship remains very good, perhaps the term excellent would be even more accurate, and that a third Summit would be good in that we fully understand where we each stand." Trump said earlier that the third summit with Kim could happen "step by step" but would not be "a fast process". According to Xinhua News Agency, Trump also left the possibility open for a three-way summit with Kim and the ROK President Moon Jae-in, but admitted that would "largely depend on Kim". Talks on denuclearization have stalled ever since the Hanoi summit, which ended abruptly without an agreement. As many analysts believe the breakdown was attributed to a gap between U.S. demands for complete denuclearization and the DPRK demands for significant sanctions relief, some said a third summit won't yield any results if the two sides refuse to make concessions on some core issues. Zheng Jiyong, director of the Korea Research Center at Fudan University, said "no matter how many summits are held, the denuclearization will hit an 'endless deadlock' if they cannot get an agreement on the end goal." Zheng said the two sides could envision a way to square Pyongyang's incremental approach with Washington's "all or never" proposal. "Pyongyang could offer to dismantle its main Yongbyon nuclear complex, along with a freeze on its program, in return for limited sanctions relief. The two sides could then agree on a road map that would lead to Pyongyang complete denuclearization and the full lifting of sanctions," he added. Earlier on Wednesday, Wu Haitao, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, said for dialogue to continue and make headway, the key is to address the legitimate concerns of the parties concerned in a balanced manner, and advance denuclearization and the establishment of a peace mechanism for the peninsula by following a phased approach with synchronized steps as a package solution. OFTEC, the organisation that represents the liquid fuel heating industry in Ireland, is encouraging households in Kilkenny to spring into action this National Home Improvement Month. With almost half of households across Leinster (47%) using oil as their main heating source, homeowners are being urged to spring clean their heating system to avoid missing out on potential savings to their fuel bills. Following a cold start to the year, many homes still have their heating set to cope with freezing conditions. However, by making a few simple adjustments and routine checks, households in Kilkenny can reduce their energy usage and potentially enjoy cheaper fuel bills. National Home Improvement Month calls for homeowners to love the home they live in. Recognising that the internal workings of your house help to make it a home, OFTEC has produced a spring cleaning guide which outlines the key home heating improvements to make: Adjust your heating timers: If you made changes to your timers over winter, its a good idea to check the heating still only comes on when you need it to. Regularly review and adjust these settings to potentially make additional savings. Turn off individual radiators: Make sure youre not wasting money on heating rooms that you dont use on a regular basis. Also, check the radiator temperatures in your main rooms if these were set higher during the colder months. Make sure you have enough heating oil: If you have used your heating regularly over the winter period, check how much oil you have left in your tank and top up early to avoid any last-minute emergencies. Have your boiler serviced: An annual boiler service carried out by an OFTEC registered technician is a must do. Not only will it save you money in the long term, but it will improve the efficiency of your boiler and the heat in your home. If it is below par, you can upgrade to a modern condensing appliance for better comfort and cost savings. Check your oil tank: Whilst oil tanks have a very strong safety record, its important to check they are suitable to store your liquid fuel. Ask your technician to tick the tank off your list and make sure its fit for purpose. Your technician can advise you on tank upgrades should this be needed. Add Controls: Add controls to your heating system including thermostatic radiators valves, a room thermostat and a separate zone for hot water if you dont have it. All these changes will reduce your home heating costs and payback is very quick. Grants for heating controls are available from SEAI. For more information and advice, visit www.oftec.ie Flash South Korea's unification ministry said Monday that it will consult with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on sending equipment for video reunions of Korean families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. Lee Eugene, deputy spokesperson of South Korea's unification ministry, told a press briefing that South Korea has recently completed the purchase of supporting equipment for video reunions. The deputy spokesperson said the ministry had planned to consult with the DPRK side on how and when to deliver the equipment, such as camcorders and other display devices, to Pyongyang. South Korea recently started renovation works for 13 video reunion centers across the country, planning to end the works by the end of this month and test-operate the centers for the next two weeks. The country has secured sanctions waivers from the UN Security council to send the video reunion equipment to the DPRK's reunion center in Pyongyang. South Korean President Moon Jae-in and top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un agreed in their third summit in Pyongyang in September last year to hold video reunions and exchange video letters for the separated families. People from the two Koreas have been banned from meeting and contacting each other since the three-year Korean War ended with armistice, not peace treaty. Since the first-ever inter-Korean summit was held in 2000, South Korea and the DPRK have held 21 rounds of face-to-face family reunions, including the latest one in August last year. The video reunions were held seven times from 2005 to 2007. The deputy spokesperson told reporters that South Korea is making efforts to hold Red Cross talks with the DPRK for another round of face-to-face reunion of the divided families who were severely of old age. You often spend more time at the office with co-workers than you spend at home with your spouse. So, what can happen? You know the answer; having an office affair. We hear a lot of buzz about this, but how often does it really happen? The Other Me Too Important Note: Im not writing about sexual harassment in this article. Im writing about consensual office romances. Sexual harassment is a legal matter covered under Title VII of the Federal Civil Rights Act, as well as state laws. The law deals with unwelcome sexual advances and sexual favors and also applies to retaliation if a person files a compliant. Romance in the workplace is common, with about 40% of workers reporting that theyve been in an office relationship at one point or another, according to a 2018 Harvard Business Review study. Whos dating whom? Job search engine SimplyHired surveyed 482 people who have been in an office relationship to find out. Results showed that women (21%) had a tendency to date up on the corporate ladder, vs. only 8% of men who date up. (Thats not surprising, the researchers noted, considering women hold fewer positions of power at corporations.) Conversely, men (18%) are more likely to engage with someone in a lower position than their own, vs. only 6% of women. But they did note that, The grand majority of office romancers (78% of men and 70% of women) dated a co-worker at the same level as their own. While the majority of the romances did not involve cheating, a much greater proportion of women (31%) than men (23%) involved in office relationships reported that they were cheating on their significant others. Before you start shaking your fingers at these philandering women, according to the Women in the Workplace 2018 study conducted by McKinsey in partnership with LeanIn.Org, women remain underrepresented in the workplace, especially in senior management levels. So, with a lower base, the statistical percentages increase. The other interesting finding from SimplyHired was that the most likely person to have an affair was the higher-level employee, to the tune of 23%. Get Behind the Stats Who knows the real results? Are most people who are having an affair likely to really answer a survey? I think, not. According career expert Vaults 2019 Office Romance Survey, those polled indicated that only 19% of people have engaged in an affair with a colleague beyond their committed relationship. However, More than half of respondents have engaged in an office romance (that was consensual). This would include unmarried folks. What was interesting is that the proportion of those having office relationships appears to grow with age. While 30% of respondents ages 18-21 reported having participated in an office romance, Vault found that number jumps to 72% of respondents over 50. Which Profession Cheats the Most? This was a surprise to me. I was counting on the notorious world of banking and finance to lead the way. I had been in that industry for almost two decades and had started my book, Boardroom/Bedroom, but was afraid to get it published! Nope, according to the SimplyHired survey, the winner in office affairs is the field of education, leading the pack at 33%. Finance and insurance came in at No. 2 with 30%. Pink Roses or Pink Slips? Office romances are not just for the regular worker. There have been lots of famous work affairs. Some end with proposals, but many end in disaster. Some of the most famous are: Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky (resulted in impeachment proceedings in 1998); Barack and Michelle Obama (dating while at the same law firm later resulted in marriage in 1992); Bill and Melinda Gates (resulted in marriage in 1994); Gov. Jim McGreevey and male aide Golan Cipel (resulted in McGreevey stepping down as governor of New Jersey in 2004); Harry Stonecipher, CEO of Boeing, and Debra Peabody, VP of Operations (resulted in Stonecipher resigning in 2005); John Edwards and campaign videographer Rielle Hunter (resulting in him stepping out of a presidential campaign in 2008); and the most recent work relationship between Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez (the verdict is still out). By the way, he and his wife, MacKenzie, started as a work relationship (resulted in her quitting and them getting married.) Job Security? Its murky territory about job security if there is an affair. Certainly, it is awkward, at best. Many companies have rules in place to try to avoid this. And, under the employment-at-will doctrine, an employer can generally fire an employee for any reason or for no reason at all, according to AllLaw.com. There are notable exceptions to this, for instance, in California, you cannot be fired solely for dating a co-worker. Im not a Puritan; life happens and so do relationships. But, if you enter into close relationship at work, know that you may and probably will have to dodge land mines. There are lots of issues that can pop up: How about favoritism and conflict of interest? How about jealousy among other workers? How about if the relationship turns sour and as a result, there can be unfair treatment to a co-worker or subordinate? If the employer has a policy against dating subordinates, for instance, because they want to avoid conflicts of interest, you could be fired. The relationship can also turn into sexual harassment, which it really could have been all along. The moral of the story is that it is never easy. Im an Executive in Residence at Columbia Graduate School of Business, where I mentor our next generation of business leaders. The students spend lots of time telling me how things are different and how the workplace is so much more collegial today than in my day. Ill give them that, but the issues of gender parity, dating and sexual harassment have not, unfortunately, kept up with the pace of change. My advice? Just be aware of what you are doing and where it can lead. Keep this fun fact in mind: When office romances go sour, they end in termination for at least one person 33% of the time, according to a study by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Finally, I found this quote by George Bernard Shaw, who lived way before the world of texting; The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post. Of course, he also didnt know about hacking! Ely Gold's Three Charms An innovative business model, a one-of-a-kind database and deep roots in the world's best mining jurisdiction are Ely Gold's three advantages. Ely Gold Royalties (ELY:TSX.V; ELYGF:OTCQB) is an emerging-royalty company with development assets focused in Nevada and the Western U.S. Its portfolio of 31 deeded royalties and 19 optioned properties, ranging from ranges from fully permitted mines to projects that are being permitted for mine construction, are generating significant revenue. Why Sun Metals' Stardust Project Is Disruptive Sun Metals' deep talent pool is set to do great things in British Columbia. Late last fall, Sun Metals announced that its exploration program at its Stardust project in northcentral B.C. returned a spectacular drill result. How to Build the Leading Base Metal Mining Company in Canada Osisko Metals (TSXV:OM) controls two of Canada's premier zinc mining camp. With the ramp up of global infrastructure projects underway while the world's supply of zinc shrinks, Osisko Metals will be in an enviable position to meet future demand. Ely Gold's Three Charms An innovative business model, a one-of-a-kind database and deep roots in the worlds best mining jurisdiction are Ely Golds three advantages, says CEO Trey Wasser. Wasser spoke to Kitco Mining at the Metals Investors Forum in Toronto this month. Ely Gold Royalties (ELY:TSX.V; ELYGF:OTCQB) is an emerging-royalty company with development assets focused in Nevada and the Western U.S. Its portfolio of 31 deeded royalties and 19 optioned properties, ranging from ranges from fully permitted mines to projects that are being permitted for mine construction, are generating significant revenue. Ely Gold's innovative option/royalty model allows the company to sell 100% of its projects in an outright sale or on a four-year option contract. On every property Ely Gold retains a royalty on future production. All portfolio properties are sold or optioned on a 100% basis, while the company retains net smelter royalty interests. Wasser says the advantage to his model is that onerous work commitments are not placed on the company so the business can keep growing. And the model has also allowed Ely Gold to put more money to work. "With the cash flow from the option portfolio last year we went out and bought two near-term producing royalties," says Wasser. One of the projects was the Fenelon project in Quebec. "The Fenelon is a very exciting project. It has unbelievable grades. They are doing a bulk mining project, which is improving the infrastructure quite a bit." Ely Golds database gives it a leg up in Nevada. The company maximizes value through claim consolidation and advancement using its extensive, proprietary data base. The company can analyze missed development opportunities by uncovering overlapping ownership claims. "The title issues can be very tough to clean up, and that is what we specialize in," says Wasser. Nevada is a mining state, and this year it was ranked the worlds best mining jurisdiction in the world by the Fraser Institute. Ely Gold also got a stamp of approval from a heavy-hitter Sprott Resource Holdings, which now holds 9 %. "While we really didnt need the capital, one of our goals for 2108 was more institutional ownership, so we couldnt have asked for a better institution than Sprott," says Wasser. Why Sun Metals' Stardust Project Is Disruptive Sun Metals' deep talent pool is set to do great things in British Columbia, says CEO Steve Robertson who spoke to Kitco Mining at the Metal Investors Forum in Toronto this month. Late last fall, Sun Metals announced that its exploration program at its Stardust project in northcentral B.C. returned a spectacular drill result: Diamond drill hole 18-SD-421 returned a total 100-metre intersection grading 2.51% copper (Cu), 3.03 grams per tonne (g/t) gold (Au) and 52.5 g/t silver (Ag) for a 4.99% copper equivalent (CuEq), including, 36.5 metres of mineralization, grading 3.89% copper (Cu), 4.47 g/t gold (Au) and 84.6 g/t silver (Ag). The 100-metre intersect also includes 22.8 metres of mineralized skarn alteration in the hanging wall of the massive sulphide that averages more than 1% copper equivalent. The mineralized interval in diamond drill hole 18-SD-421 is in a newly identified mineralized area, outside of the current 43-101 resource estimate. "I don't think anyone was expecting us to go out and hit the type of result we did," says Robertson. "That is why we are considering this to be a disruptive discovery." To move the project forward, Sun Metals has assembled a who's who of mining in B.C. Sun Metals director Mark O'Dea is a seasoned geologist and deal maker who runs Oxygen Capital. O'Dea's Aurora Energy Resources sold to Paladin Energy for $260M, and his Fronteer Gold was picked up by Newmont Mining for $2.3B. Robertson himself is an executive at Imperial Metals. His team took Red Chris project, located in northwest B.C., from discovery to mine. Red Chris was recently bought by Newcrest for $1.1B. "This business is a lot about people," says Robertson. "We really do have a star-studded cast." Robertson says Sun Metals is using a science driven approach to analyzing opportunities. It is attracted to data-rich projects with the greatest potential for big discoveries that will grow value for shareholders and communities alike. "No one was expecting Eskay Creekthe highest-grade gold mine in the worldto be found in Northern B.C. because there was nothing else around it at the time," says Robertson, alluding to some of Canada's top discoveries. "Nobody was expecting Chuck Fipke to come up with diamonds in the Northwest Territories." "These things get found and we clearly have a very strong system on our hands." How to Build the Leading Base Metal Mining Company in Canada Osisko Metals (TSXV:OM) controls two of Canada's premier zinc mining camps, says executive VP Paul Dumas who spoke with Kitco Mining at the Metal Investors Forum in Toronto earlier this month. With the ramp up of global infrastructure projects underway while the world's supply of zinc shrinks, Osisko Metals will be in an enviable position to meet future demand. "Zinc is an under-valued commodity right now," says Dumas noting zinc mine depletions and closures. "The underlying value of our assets should eventually be reflected in the price of our equity." Osisko Metals' flagship Pine Point Mining Camp is located in the Northwest Territories and has an inferred mineral resource of 38.4 Mt grading 4.58% zinc and 1.85% lead. The property has tremendous upside potential as it has never been explored using modern-day technologies and has never seen any drilling deeper than approximately 100 metres. It is a brownfield site, once a large-scale mine operated by Cominco. The mine closed in 1987. The project is located on the south shore of Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories, and is accessible directly and year-round by an all-weather highway from Hay River, the economic "Hub of the North". The project is comprised of mineral claims and mineral leases covering an area of 22,213 hectares containing key stratigraphy that hosts zinc and lead mineralization. The center of the property is located 96 km east of Hay River that has rail transportation and loadout options as well as other available services. On-site infrastructure consists of approximately 100km of intact 25-metre wide haulage roads that link the mineralized zones and an active electrical substation located in the middle of the property that previously serviced mine and mill operations. The second property is the Key Anacon project, located 20 km south of the town of Bathurst, New Brunswick. A maiden resource estimate released last month to convert historical resources to compliant NI43-101 found 249.1 mil (million) lbs zinc, 102.6 mil lbs lead, 9.3 mil lbs copper, and 4.3 mil oz of silver and Inferred: 453 mil lbs zinc, 126.4 mil lbs lead, 27.0 mil lbs copper, and 5.9 mil oz of silver. The camp has good infrastructure and is located beside major forestry roads. Like Pine Point, Key Anacon has not seen any use of modern-day exploration techniques and only very sporadic drilling , due to the fact that the project was privately owned for the last 60 years or so, prior to Osisko Metals acquiring it. In 2018, the Company began a drill program and was successful at extending the project's Main and Titan Zones at depth and along strike,and both remain open. Work will continue into 2019. With Pine Point and Key Anacon, Osisko Metals is being propelled to become to the leading base metals mining company in Canada. Editor's Note: Get caught up in minutes with our speedy summary of today's must-read news stories and expert opinions that moved the precious metals and financial markets. Sign up here! Historically, Australian gold stocks have traded at a discount to their North American peers. Its been an odd phenomenon considering Australia is a safe, mining-friendly jurisdiction with a currency like Canadas. I have written extensively over the last 12 months about the Commonwealth takeover. Ive explained before how the Australian miners, buoyed by a weak Australian dollar and mining-friendly regulations, have been cash flow machines for the last 12 months. Now these Australian miners are sitting on big cash positions and high share prices. And when youve got a lot of cash and a high share price, its time to go shopping for a new asset. So lets take a look at who wants to go shopping Big Gold Producers and the Australian Interest The chart below shows the production profiles for the worlds major gold producers. The Barrick-Randgold merger followed by the Newmont-Goldcorp merger are leaving the rest of the senior producers in the dust. The chart below compares the newly formed Barrick Group versus a completed Newmont-Goldcorp and Newcrest Mining. It is evident that Newcrest is going to need to pick up the slack. Newcrest needs to increase its production, and I dont think they do that by merging with Agnico-Eagle or Kinross. The most cost-efficient way for Newcrest to increase production and reserves is to leverage its high share price in Australia and use it to buy a North American listed mid-tier producer like Pretium Resources (PVG:TSX) or perhaps even Detour Gold (DGC:TSX). From a strategic standpoint, Newcrest should be looking at earlier stage non-producing assets such as GT Gold (GTT:TSX-V) in British Columbia, Canada which is close to their recent investment in Imperial Metals Red Chris Mine. But Newcrest Mining isnt the only Australian gold company looking for new gold assets I believe there are two other large Australian gold producers who are looking for new assets. The two other companies, both of which I met with at the recent conference in Toronto, are Northern Star Mining (NST:ASX) and Evolution Mining (EVN:ASX). Northern Star recently acquired the giant Pogo deposit in Alaska. The management team of Northern Star are a group you want to pay attention to. Smart, young and aggressive, they are the future of mining. I met with the original Japanese owners of the deposit, and they believe there is no further exploration upside. However, if I had to bet on who will get the better of that transaction, my money is on Northern Star. If Northern Star is right, they paid an incredibly cheap price. But, if they dont find any new ounces, they paid a fair market price for the remaining years of production from Sumitomo (a Japanese metals company). Overall a smart strategy by the team at Northern Star. The chart below shows the fundamentals for Newcrest, Northern Star and Evolution Mining. And below, youll find a chart which shows the reserves and the resources for the same three companies: I believe the figures in the chart above are very understated. The Aussies use lower gold prices to value reserves in the ground than their North American peers do. Think about it this way: If gold is $2,000 per ounce, lower grade ore can be mined economically because you need less gold extracted per tonne of rock to cover your costs. The opposite can be said if gold is $1,000. Many engineers use $1,300 gold to design the optimal mine scenario. Which means that if gold is $1,200, the pit is designed incorrectly and material which should really be classified as low-grade or waste ore is actually sent to the processing facility. This is inefficient and leads to higher costs and less gold production than expected. It also causes mine lives to appear to be longer than they really are. The flip side of this is precisely what I think is happening in Australia. Lets take Northern Star as an example. They use a gold price of $1,071 to value their reserves. Evolution Mining uses an even lower price $964 per ounce. This means their reserves and resources are underestimated. Their mine lives are longer than they appear, and their operations will be more efficient and lower cost as well. The Aussies are under promising and over delivering. The North Americans are over promising and under delivering. That is a key reason why I became a significant shareholder in Newmarket Gold in 2015, which is now Kirkland Lake. Their crown jewel is the Fosterville gold mine. I noticed that the company was valuing its reserves using a gold price of $1,175 per ounce. Everyone thought the mine life was going to be very short, but mathematically, it was underestimated. Because of the success of Fosterville, the price of Newmarket stock went from under CAD$1.00 per share when I first wrote it up in mid-2015 to Katusa subscribers to the present share price of CAD$42.20 per share. Over the next 18 months there will be many asset sales, and these Aussie producers are going to be very active. All three will also be active in taking equity positions in non-producers or at least I would be, if I were them. If I was an advisor to Newcrest, I would tell them to buy Lundin Gold now. Id also tell them to buy 19% of GT Gold. Based on all of this, Ive been actively looking for the best gold companies to put my money into. And Ive narrowed the list down to 4 gold stocks that I see as prime takeover targets. Subscribers to Katusas Resource Opportunities know exactly which companies Im talking about. These are the ones Ive put not only countless hours of my life into researching, but also millions of my own dollars into. If you want to see which gold companies Im holding in my personal portfolio and fund, consider signing up. Regards, WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Turkeys purchase of a Russian air defense missile system should not trigger U.S. sanctions because Ankara is not an adversary of Washington and remains committed to the NATO alliance, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Monday. Speaking at a U.S.-Turkey conference in Washington amid rising tensions between the two NATO allies over Ankaras plan to buy the Russian S-400 missile system, Akar adopted a relatively conciliatory tone and urged to resolve issues via dialogue. Turkey is clearly not an adversary of the United States, Akar said and added that therefore its procurement of the S-400 system should not be considered within the scope of U.S. sanctions designed to target Americas enemies. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that Washington had told Ankara it could face retribution for buying the S-400s under a sanctions law known as Countering Americas Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CATSAA). This procurement decision does not signify a change in Turkeys course. Id like to reiterate strongly that there is no change in Turkeys commitment to NATO, Akar said. The disagreement over the F-35 is the latest of a series of diplomatic disputes between the United States and Turkey including Turkish demands that the United States extradite Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, differences over Middle East policy and the war in Syria, and sanctions on Iran. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has refused to back down from Ankaras planned purchase of a Russian S-400 missile defense system that the United States has said would compromise the security of F-35 aircraft, made by Lockheed Martin Corp . Turkey has said it will take delivery of the S-400s in July. In early April, the United States halted delivery of equipment related to the stealthy F-35 fighter aircraft to Turkey, marking the first concrete U.S. step to potentially blocking the delivery of the jet to the NATO ally. Akar said Turkey was puzzled by the move and expected U.S. and other partners in the program to fulfill their obligations. We firmly believe that linking the S-400 to the F-35 project is unfortunate ... We are one of the investors and partners and not just a buyer. We have invested over $1 billion ... and fulfilled all our obligations, he said. Akar repeated Turkeys offer to hold technical talks with the United States to address technical concerns over the S-400 purchase. Turkey is also assessing a renewed offer from the United States to buy Patriot missile defense systems, Akar added. Recently we received the restated offer for the Patriots. This offer is now on the table, we are studying it carefully, he said. May made the comment in an internal note to staff. The European Union last week delayed Brexit until the end of October, averting, for now at least, the risk of an abrupt British departure from the bloc which investors fear would hurt the economy. May's spokesman also told reporters on Monday that the prime minister was not thinking about calling an early national election as a way to break the Brexit impasse in parliament. (Reporting by William James; Writing by William Schomberg; editing by Guy Faulconbridge) * FTSE 100 ends flat; FTSE 250 up 0.5 pct* Miners, oil stocks biggest drags* IWG jumps on sale of Japan business, CS rating hike* Indivior surges on hopes of a lower U.S. fine(Adds company news items, updates to closing prices) By Muvija M April 15 (Reuters) - Britain's FTSE 100 was at a loss for direction on Monday as a dip in miners and oil majors offset gains in bank stocks, while office group IWG pushed midcaps higher after announcing an asset sale. The blue-chip index ended a lacklustre session about flat, lagging its European peers, while the FTSE 250 held on to its six-month high with a 0.5 percent rise as a stronger pound also aided. The pound's gains followed upbeat comments from Britain's foreign minister Jeremy Hunt on talks between the government and the opposition Labour Party to find a consensus over Brexit. Miners , which last week scaled seven-year highs, handed back some of those gains with a 1.5 percent fall, despite a rise in copper prices as data from China showed higher unwrought copper imports in March. Supply concerns and hopes of a U.S.-China trade resolution also supported metal prices. CMC Markets analyst David Madden said there did not appear to be any major shift in sentiment and investors seemed to take their profits out of metal stocks. Shell and BP extended losses following a dip in oil prices. Financial stocks jumped to a six-month high, bolstered by a read-across from last week's upbeat results from U.S. bellwethers JP Morgan and Wells Fargo , and strong bank loan data from China. But the sectoral index pared some gains as quarterly revenues reported by U.S. big banks Goldman Sachs and Citigroup fell below Wall Street expectations on Monday. "Traders will be keeping a close eye on ... whether the strong start (to U.S. earnings) is able to continue beyond the banking sector ... right now this is looking unlikely," London Capital Group analyst Jasper Lawler said. Compass Group , the world's biggest catering firm, slipped 2.2 percent on its worst day in six months after a Barclays rating cut. Midcaps saw some strong news-related moves. Serviced office space provider IWG surged 21.1 percent to a two-year high after plans to sell its Japanese operations for 320 million pounds and a double upgrade from Credit Suisse on the stock. After being pummelled last week on U.S. charges over opioid prescriptions, drugmaker Indivior enjoyed its best day in three years as brokerage Bernstein suggested that the $3 billion headline fine had the potential to be reduced. Shares in Indivior jumped 19.1 percent on the prospect. Mediterranean-focused Energean Oil & Gas jumped 8.5 percent to a record high after announcing a new gas discovery at the Karish North exploration well. Builder Kier added nearly 8 percent as it said its newly appointed CEO planned to cut debt and respond to problems affecting the outsourcing industry. (Reporting by Yadarisa Shabong and Muvija M in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Samantha Machado; Editing by Robin Pomeroy) UK hot stocks: [HOT and GB] Wall Street: Gilts report: Euro bond report Pan European stock report: Tokyo stocks: HK stocks: Sterling report: Dollar report:* For company prices, click on -* Company directory: By sector:* For pan-European market data, click on -* European Equities speed guide................ FTSE Eurotop 300 index........................... DJ STOXX index................................... Top 10 STOXX sectors........................ Top 10 EUROSTOXX sectors................... Top 10 Eurotop 300 sectors.................. Top 25 European pct gainers.................... Top 25 European pct losers..................... )) The NY Times reports: For months, employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross have made weekly visits to a detention camp in northern Syria bearing a photograph of a petite woman in her early 60s. They show the image to camp officials, comparing it with pictures of tens of thousands of other people in the camps database. All of them are escapees from the Islamic States last stretch of territory, which fellto American-backed forces last month. The woman in the photo is Louisa Akavi, 62, a New Zealand nurse and midwife who was abducted in late 2013 in the northwest Syrian city of Idlib. She is one of the last links to the group of at least 23 Western hostages held by ISIS, a majority of whom were released for ransom while others were killed in widely publicized beheadings. For more than five years, her employer and her government imposed an especially strict media blackout, warning that any mention not only of her identity, but even of her nationality, could endanger her. But now that ISIS caliphate has collapsed, the aid group has broken its silence in hopes that the public can help find her and two Red Cross drivers, both Syrians, kidnapped alongside her. I know Louisa slightly one of the nicest kindest people around. I worked in the 1990s for the head office of the NZ Red Cross. The absolute highlight of working there was meeting the delegates when they returned home, who had worked overseas in war zones and disaster areas. They did amazing things and make a huge difference helping those most in need. Nurses would save lives, sanitation engineers would provide safe drinking water to tens of thousands etc. The delegates would live in rough conditions, often in risky areas, and for very modest pay. They did it because they were motivated to make a difference. Louisa was the recipient of the rare and prestigious Florence Nightingale award for her exceptional courage and devotion to victims. The Red Cross is strictly neutral in all armed conflicts and most warring parties will never deliberately harm someone who is under the red cross (or red crescent). But the barbarians of ISIS are the sad exceptions. Hopefully someone out there has some information on where Louisa is, or what has happened to her. Thoughts are with her family, friends and colleagues who have had to endure her absence for the last five and a half years. Share this: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reddit WhatsApp More Pinterest Print Tumblr Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi co-chairs the fifth high-level economic dialogue between China and Japan with visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono in Beijing, capital of China, April 14, 2019. (Xinhua/Li Tao) BEIJING, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Sunday co-chaired the fifth high-level economic dialogue between China and Japan with visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono in Beijing. Hailing that China-Japan relations has returned to the right track and yielded new achievements by the joint efforts of the two countries' leaders and people of all social circles, Wang said the fourth high-level economic dialogue, which was restarted after an eight-year hiatus last April, facilitated policy communication and pragmatic cooperation effectively. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, while Japan will enter the new era "Reiwa", Wang said, adding that the two countries should uphold the major consensus reached by the two countries' leaders and jointly construct bilateral economic relations to meet the needs of the new era. The two sides should make steady headway in promoting bilateral investments and trade cooperation, jointly build the Belt and Road, and actively explore third party market cooperation as well as local cooperation, Wang said. He also called for consolidating the cooperation results in such areas as energy conservation and environment protection, science and technology innovation, high-end manufacturing, finance, sharing economy, medical care and elderly care industries. Wang said that China and Japan should make joint efforts to promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, uphold a business environment of fairness, justice and non-discrimination, speed up negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and China-Japan-ROK free trade agreement, and safeguard multilateralism and free trade regime. Kono said that economic cooperation has been an important foundation and driving force for Japan-China relations. Facing a global situation of intense uncertainty, the two sides should jointly safeguard the multilateral trade mechanism based on rules, he said. During the dialogue, senior foreign affairs and economic officials of both countries exchanged views and achieved a series of consensus on macroeconomic policies, bilateral economic cooperation and exchanges, regional economic integration, and global economic governance. Before the dialogue, Wang and Kono jointly attended the opening ceremony of the "China-Japan Youth Exchange Promotion Year." 2 1 [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] Steve Garbacz is editor of The News Sun. He and his wife went through a miscarriage at about the six-week mark of her first pregnancy in 2018. Had they not have been actively pregnancy testing at the time, they probably wouldnt have even known they conceived. Email him at sgarbacz@kpcmedia.com. Photo taken on April 12, 2019 shows foreign experts at a tree planting activity at Cuihu Lake Wetland Park of Haidian District in Beijing, capital of China. The activity was jointly held by State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of China, the Information Office of Beijing Municipality and the Publicity Department of Haidian District to celebrate the 55th anniversary of the establishment of China-France diplomatic relations and show the achievements of Beijings green development as well as Beijing traditional culture. (Photo by Sun Yunqing/ Guangming Picture) 6 1 [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] As part of the rebuilding of the Los Angeles Times, Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine, Deputy Managing Editor Sewell Chan and Audience Engagement Director Samantha Melbourneweaver made the following announcement. We are pleased to announce two moves within our Audience team. Rachel Schnalzer, a key contributor to the brilliant relaunch of the Food section, will shift her attention to Foreign/National and Technology/Business, bringing her editorial smarts to these two vital areas of coverage. Rachel takes a beyond-the-headline approach to social media, says our food editor, Peter Meehan. She works to balance the intention and tone of the story with the internets insatiable thirst. Its the sort of characteristic that makes you comfortable she wont be flippant in a way that might rack up likes at the expense of the reader, subject or writer. Rachel, who grew up in Pennsylvania and graduated in 2015 from Johns Hopkins University, joined us earlier this year from BuzzFeed. She will use social media, SEO strategies and data to deepen readers engagement with our coverage of crucial subjects like automation, energy, transportation and U.S. relations with China and Mexico. Lauren Lee, whose tweets about French fries became something of an internet sensation, is joining the audience team full-time as an engagement editor. Since she started at The Times in November, Lauren has helped the food team develop a hipper, edgier and more conversational voice. She has a wide slate of technical capabilities and a passion for short-form online video. Lauren received a degree last year from the Rhode Island School of Design, where she studied film, animation and video with a concentration in video art. Lauren is a native of Los Angeles and a graduate of the Harvard-Westlake School. Following Laurens viral posts around our French fry rankings, our colleague Matt Pearce and others asked on Twitter, Can we please hire the intern? We have taken his suggestion to heart. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster dominated headlines after the Soviet reactor exploded on April 25, 1986. But theres more to the story. Author Adam Higginbotham goes beyond the oft-told narrative in his latest book, Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the Worlds Greatest Nuclear Disaster. In a Times video interview from the Festival of Books, Higginbotham explained how the book helps draw parallels to another historic man-made tragedy. I think its an eternal story, he shared. Its like the Titanic disaster. It represents a cross-section of, in this, case Soviet society, and exposes the kind of cowardice and bravery of individual human beings. The Interior Departments office of inspector general disclosed Monday that it has opened a formal investigation into alleged ethical conflicts by Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for natural resources industries who won Senate confirmation to his post just four days ago. The disclosure came in separate letters, one to Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, and another to Ron Wyden of Oregon. All had called for the investigation. In the letters, Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall said her office had received seven complaints, including those from the Senators, from a wide assortment of complainants. She continued, We are continuing to gather pertinent information about the complaints and have opened an investigation to address them. She said the office would conduct the review as expeditiously and thoroughly as practicable. We now have an Interior Secretary who has been on the job for one full business day and is already under investigation. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. Advertisement The inspector generals action has the air of locking the barn door after the horse has escaped. Allegations that Bernhardt has been acting in his official capacity to advance the interests of his former clients have been rife since his appointment as Deputy Secretary in 2017; he was appointed acting secretary to replace former Secretary Ryan Zinke, who left office under an ethical cloud, in January. Bernhardt was confirmed as secretary by the Senate on April 11, almost entirely along party lines, with all Republicans and three Democrats in support. Wyden noted in a statement Monday that he earlier had called for Bernhardts confirmation to be delayed until the ethics allegations had been thoroughly investigated. We now have an Interior Secretary who has been on the job for one full business day and is already under investigation, Wyden said in the emailed and tweeted statement. With Bernhardts track record and the number of allegations against him, its no surprise. Added Warren, Its about time that the Department of the Interior opened an investigation into Secretary David Bernhardts conflicts of interest...He should have never been confirmed to lead the department with these outstanding ethics complaints. A spokeswoman for Bernhardt said Monday that he is in complete compliance with his ethics agreement and all applicable laws, rules, and regulations. The spokeswoman, Faith Vander Voort, observed that Interiors ethics office already had cleared Bernhardt of many of the accusations. Secretary Bernhardt is hopeful the Inspector General will expeditiously complete a review of the facts associated with the questions, which she attributed to Democratic Members of Congress and DC political organizations. As my colleague Bettina Boxall and I reported earlier, Bernhardt has pursued policies and taken actions at Interior that would manifestly deliver direct benefits to former clients at the law form of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, which has represented companies in the oil, gas, mining and agriculture industries. Among those clients is the giant Westlands Water District in Californias Central Valley. Bernhardt has played a role in reconsidering policies and biological assessments that have constrained water supplies to Westlands from the federal Central Valley Project (CVP). He also has agitated for changes in the Endangered Species Act, the basis for many biological findings limiting those water supplies. Upon taking office as deputy in 2017, Bernhardt pledged to recuse himself for as long as two years, or until mid-August this year, on decisions involving 22 firms and individuals with which he had a former business connection. They included Westlands and the notorious Cadiz water project, a widely derided plan to drain water from under the Mojave Desert that has been opposed by numerous California state agencies but has mysteriously won the favor of the Trump administration. Interiors ethics officers, as weve reported, cleared Bernhardt of ethical conflicts related to Westlands by arguing that the policies and administrative rules in which he played a role involved issues broader than merely the delivery of water to Westlands and other CVP water customers. As a result, they could not technically be considered particular matters on which he was obligated to be recused. Environmental law groups and the senators questioned that conclusion, noting that the decisions aided a discrete and identifiable class of beneficiaries namely the CVPs 270 water customers and therefore should have been out of bounds for Bernhardt. Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com. Return to Michael Hiltziks blog. Apple Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. have spent two years fighting around the globe over how much the chipmaker can charge Apple for iPhones using its patented technology. Neither has landed a decisive blow. That could change with a trial that began Monday in San Diego. For the first time, a federal jury will decide if Qualcomms business model is legal and whether Apple had the right to stop paying royalties for the technology. An out-and-out victory for either side could force the loser into concessions to settle the conflict that has spawned dozens of lawsuits on three continents. The outcome of the trial is so important that Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook is expected to be called to defend the companys business strategy and explain its relationship with Qualcomm, in what would be his first public appearance in a courtroom to discuss the issues underlying the fight. Apple, which has roughly $245 billion in cash, would be able to shrug off any damages awarded. On the other hand, if Qualcomms hometown jury finds that the chipmaker has abused its market dominance to demand excessive royalties from phone makers, Qualcomm may be forced to abandon a licensing model that has allowed it to grab as much as 5% of the net selling price of every smartphone sold. Advertisement From an investor perspective, theres going to be a bigger focus on the Qualcomm side because a big part of their business is royalties, Shannon Cross of Cross Research said. From an Apple perspective, investors just want to know Apple has access to the latest technologies. Looming beyond the trial is the global race to develop smartphones and other devices that can connect to up-and-coming 5G networks the successor to the current top-of-the-line mobile network that promise to usher in a world of innovation. Over the next year, 5G will expand across the United States major carriers into more areas, enabling faster internet speeds. The problem for Apple is that Qualcomm is the market leader in 5G modem technology, and Intel Corp., Apples current supplier for 4G chips, wont have 5G modems on the market until next year. Sorting out the issues with Qualcomm could help Apple bring 5G devices to the market more quickly than it otherwise could. Longer term, it would also enable Apple to source the key component from more than one supplier, a practice Apple has said it prefers. If Apple and Qualcomm come to some sort of resolution, Apple would be able to get a second source for modems and have 5G technology along with everyone else, Cross said. Apple typically is somewhat a follower in technology because they dont want to launch something first that doesnt work properly. Jury selection started Monday in San Diego for a trial thats scheduled to last about five weeks. Qualcomm had already lost about $7 billion in revenue as of October because Apples Asian manufacturers, including Foxconn Technology Group, stopped making royalty payments in 2017 for iPhones and iPads they assemble. Apple doesnt have a direct licensing agreement with Qualcomm it hasnt paid Qualcomm directly and instead reimburses its manufacturers, which pay Qualcomm through separate contracts. The group of manufacturers also includes Compal Electronics Inc., Pegatron Corp. and Wistron Corp. Qualcomm will try to convince the jury that the Asian manufacturers are liable for breach of contract and that Apple is liable for maliciously interfering with their contracts. That could entitle Qualcomm to punitive damages on top of billions of dollars in compensation for unpaid royalties. Apple and its suppliers will argue that the contracts are unenforceable because they violate antitrust law as well as Qualcomms obligation to provide licenses on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms, known as FRAND terms. Such terms apply to standard essential patents for technology that is widely adopted to ensure compatibility among, for example, wireless devices and networks. Qualcomm enters trial needing to win on both the antitrust issue and on the issue of whether it complies with its commitment to license standard essential patents on FRAND terms, said Tamlin Bason, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. A loss on either could dent its licensing model, while a win on both would likely bring Apple to the negotiating table. In addition, Qualcomm faces as much as $9 billion in possible damages from the Asian manufacturers, who claim that for years they were forced to overpay for their licenses. Those damages can be tripled by the judge under antitrust law. Apples arguments echo those of the Federal Trade Commission and other antitrust regulators in Asia and Europe: that Qualcomm uses its dominant market position as a supplier of baseband chips which enable mobile phones to connect to telecom networks to demand excessive payments for the use of the patented technology. Qualcomm is awaiting a ruling on the FTCs antitrust allegations after a bench trial in San Jose in January before U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh. Apple and its manufacturers have said that if Koh rules against Qualcomm in the FTC case, they will try to use that in the San Diego trial. As part of a series of agreements that made Qualcomm the exclusive supplier of baseband chips for the iPhone, Apple negotiated a $7.50 royalty rate per phone. The manufacturers paid Qualcomm a much higher rate under their contracts. Qualcomm then made quarterly payments to Apple to make up the difference. Qualcomm has disputed Apples description of those payments as rebates. Qualcomm cut off the quarterly payments to Apple in 2016. The chipmaker alleged Apple had breached their agreements by instigating government antitrust investigations of Qualcomm including in Korea, where it was hit with an $853-million fine that year. Apple, meanwhile, has switched over to Intel as its supplier of baseband chips. Among the anti-competitive claims Apple and its manufacturers have made against Qualcomm are that the chipmaker refuses to sell its chips without a license to use its technology. This, they allege, means that the manufacturers have no choice but to pay top dollar for a broad portfolio of patented technology, whether or not that technology is used in the phones they make. Since Qualcomm is the biggest maker of CDMA and premium LTE modem chips, the manufacturers have had to acquiesce to its licensing demands, they say. Qualcomm argues that its contracts with phone makers are negotiated in good faith and that it has signed more than 300 such licensing agreements. Many of the agreements include tens of thousands of patents covering video and audio playback technology that isnt subject to FRAND terms. Competitors such as Intel arent required to take licenses, meaning that theres no double fee if they choose to get their chips elsewhere, it said. Aretha Franklin received a posthumous special citation from the Pulitzer Prize committee on Monday, placing the soul titan in a prestigious class of musicians previously recognized, including Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Hank Williams, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and Bob Dylan. Franklin, who died in August at age 76, was recognized for her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades. Franklins recognition coincides with the nationwide rollout of Amazing Grace, the long-shelved film document of her 1972 recording session that yielded the bestselling gospel album of all time. The film is scheduled to screen in 1,000 theaters nationally over Easter weekend. This years music recipient of the Pulitzer is composer Ellen Reid for prism, an operatic work exploring the trauma of sexual assault that received its world premiere in November by the Los Angeles Opera. Times music critic Mark Swed lauded it as ineffably moving. Advertisement Special citations have been awarded 45 times since the Pulitzers began in 1918, with Franklins award coming as the 15th presented to a musician. Many have been awarded posthumously, as in the case of ragtime composer Scott Joplin, recognized in 1976 during the nations bicentennial; composer Gershwin in 1998; jazz composer and bandleader Ellington the following year; jazz saxophonist Coltrane in 2007 and country music giant Williams in 2010. Dylan was given his Pulitzer special citation in 2008. Among other Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and the arts announced Monday, the Los Angeles Times won the Investigative Reporting award for a series of articles on a USC gynecologist who was accused of sexual misconduct with young patients over more than a quarter-century. randy.lewis@latimes.com Follow @RandyLewis2 on Twitter.com For Classic Rock coverage, join us on Facebook 216: The number of escargots ordered at both Petit Trois French bistros daily. Thats individual snails, six per plate, which are imported from chef Ludo Lefebvres native Burgundy. Lefebvre gets large cans of cooked snail meat and separate packages of empty shells, making it easier to assemble the dish. The chef and his crew pack the empty shells with compound butter made with shallots, garlic, white wine, parsley, nutmeg, salt and pepper and copious amounts of French butter, add the escargots and more butter, then cook them in a 500-degree oven for four minutes. Advertisement The key to old-school escargot is to fry them, Lefebvre said. The escargot recipe is from his grandmother, who made them often for special occasions. Vinny told me not to put escargot on the menu, Lefebvre said of co-owner Vinny Dotolo, before pointing out that the buttery-garlicky dish is among his top three sellers. Im from Burgundy I know escargot, he said. I can eat 6 dozen easy. Young, sincere and raised on the edge of poverty, Sukhi Samra has a mother who worked two minimum-wage jobs when she was a kid days at a gas station and nights at a Subway. Her father is disabled. She knows what an extra $500 a month would have bought her family. I spent a lot of 5th and 6th grade just, like, in those tables at Subway so that I could keep my mom some company and spend some time with her, Samra said. Five hundred a month would have meant that my mom spent a couple more hours at home with us every night. At 23, Samra is now head of the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, a pilot program to test a universal basic income. For the next year and a half, 130 residents of this struggling Central Valley city will get $500 every month, with no strings such as employment or sobriety requirements attached, in a social experiment that is as much public relations as rigorous research. Although its organizers have promised transparency, so far, much of the program has been a closely guarded secret. The identities of the recipients have remained confidential while organizers plan a media strategy. Multiple requests by The Times to conduct interviews were denied. Advertisement Still, what happens in Stockton is likely to inform the national political conversation in the years ahead. Universal basic income also called guaranteed income has become an unexpected topic among presidential candidates, as economic anxiety and income inequality continue to plague voters on both sides of the political spectrum. The pilot program also could create a road map for implementing future basic income policies in other cities or on a national scale. We are in a moment where big ideas are important and politically people are ready for them, said Natalie Foster, co-chair of The Economic Security Project, a Silicon-Valley organization that provided $1 million in initial funding for the $3.1 million program. The stories coming out of Stockton will put a real name and a face on what that economic insecurity looks like and what it looks like to make a different political decision. Even though it is early in the campaign, almost every Democratic presidential candidate has been asked about basic income and about reparations compensation paid to African Americans for the generational effects of slavery. Sen. Kamala Harris, the front-runner from California, has tiptoed up to the edge of basic income with a livable incomes proposal that would target working families making up to $100,000 with a monthly cash grant. Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of a college town in Indiana, called universal basic income an idea worth taking seriously. Longshot candidate Andrew Yang has made it the centerpiece of his run. Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs said he has had many touch points with Harris since the inception of the Stockton program. He said he has also been in contact with Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, N.J., and Ameya Pawar, an alderman in Chicago, both cities that are exploring their own experiments with guaranteed income. Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs at City Hall. (Max Whittaker / For The Times) Im really happy to have other people lifting this up, Tubbs said. My hope was it would start a national conversation. The idea of a universal basic income has been floated alongside the equally controversial notion of reparations. Reparations would be different from basic income because it would involve an explicit acknowledgment of harm alongside government payments. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and former Rep. Beto ORouke of Texas, both Democrats who are running for president, have vowed to back legislation forming a committee to study reparations. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey last week announced he would introduce legislation to do just that. The Stockton program doesnt involve reparations, but it could provide insight on that, too. While the overall poverty rate is about 22% in Stockton, the poverty rate among blacks is 35%. Dorian Warren, who co-founded the Economic Security Project with Foster and Facebook founder Chris Hughes, called basic income and reparations the two least popular ideas in American politics. But if it expands the sense of whats possible, Warren said, then indirectly, sure, it could lead to a different conversation about reparations because they are both ideas that seem so out there and crazy and not American. The first universal basic income payments in Stockton were distributed on debit cards in February. By the end of April, Samra expects to share tales from recipients, maybe similar to her own, of how that no-strings-attached cash was spent by a carefully selected group who have been dubbed storytellers for the program. Final research results wont be available for a couple of years, but by taking the unusual approach of asking some recipients to regularly chronicle their experiences for the public, backers hope to quickly demonstrate what a guaranteed income can do. They are betting personal stories will resonate more than statistics and graphs. We have a real opportunity to rethink how we talk abut the safety net, what it means to get by, and we want to take advantage of that, said Amy Castro Baker, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the principal researchers. I would argue that research is always informed by something that you would like to see happen or not happen in the world, and we are owning that. Castro Baker said storytelling is absolutely not part of a regular research study. She said the experiences of the 25 storytellers might not be included in the final report if the data gathered from them seems skewed, and that the researchers are not involved in the effort to gather anecdotes. Samra said the storytellers were selected based on a review of interviews with the recipients by a panel that included her, members of the Economic Security Project and others. Data from another 100 recipients, whose identities will remain confidential, will make up the bulk of the research. Five other participants are backups in case others drop out over a catastrophic illness, otherwise known as medical attrition, Castro Baker said. The final report will likely come in 2021, she said, though some information will be released as early as this fall and on an ongoing basis via an online dashboard that will provide information requested by Stockton residents. A mural in downtown Stockton, Calif. (Max Whittaker / For The Times) For Tubbs, his support of basic income is as much personal as political. Although the pilot program is often described as a city effort, its actually a collaboration between Tubbs and private partners with the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration. Samra worked for Tubbs before sliding over to run the project. Tubbs grew up poor in Stockton, and lived in many of the same neighborhoods where the program is being rolled out places where the median household income is below $46,033, more than $20,000 less than the state average, according to census figures. The city was decimated by the housing crisis in 2008 and has struggled to recover. I know what its like to be hungry or to see your mom struggling. Everyone in my neighborhood was always outside playing because their parents were working. And they werent at home waiting for the government to save them, the mayor said. I think I have a special responsibility to elevate policy and solutions that can deal with these issues, but also to change these caricatures we have of people who are no different than anyone else. Who happen to work in jobs that dont pay well. Though controversial, the support for basic income spans the political spectrum. On the right, its a way to streamline the welfare state. On the left, its a way to address economic inequity. Silicon Valley has its own hotbed of believers, born, in part, out of technocratic guilt or foresight, depending on who is answering the question. They see basic income as a way to keep society from collapsing if the robots they are building and the artificial intelligence they are coding eventually combine to take over most jobs now performed by humans. Many in organized labor see that particular reasoning as detrimental for average people, potentially causing the very societal breakdown proponents of basic income say they are trying to avert. This concept of universal basic income is a surrender to a kind of grim Dickensian view of the future, frankly, in which people are robbed on the dignity of work, said Barry Broad, chair of the Californias Employment Training Panel, which supports job creation and retention. Its naive to think universal basic income is going to pay the bills. Its going to at best give people a poverty wage. Steve Smith, spokesman for the California Labor Federation, said unions are skeptical of the motives behind programs such as the one in Stockton. He called it disturbing that the storytellers have been screened. We view these pilot experiments like Stockton as a public relations mechanism for the concept of universal basic income, nothing more, Smith said. When you are talking about giving people free money and then measuring what happens in their lives, I think its common sense that their lives are going to get better. Smith and Broad both said the focus should be on universal health care, making college affordable and other equity issues. I just think we can do better, a lot better, said Broad. What is societys responsibility to creating productive lives? The Stockton program wont provide a complete answer to that question, but the stories from it likely will help Americans put themselves in the shoes of a basic income recipient. I was moved by the amount of relief folks felt from getting the additional $500 dollars, Samra said, recounting initial stories from recipients. It all goes back to my mother. Dr. George Tyndall arrived on the USC campus in the summer of 1989. The university had advertised for a full-time gynecologist for the student health center, and Tyndall, then 42, was an enthusiastic candidate. My mission will be to do everything I can to help Trojan women avoid the many preventable catastrophes that I have seen, Tyndall declared during the job interview, according to a written account he provided to The Times. And I will do so for as long as I am mentally and physically able, hopefully well into my 80s. USC offered a salary that was a fraction of what Tyndalls peers elsewhere earned, but he saw rewards beyond money. The job, he would later say, allowed him to shepherd female students safely to womanhood, steering them around sexually transmitted diseases, unplanned pregnancies and other hazards. The way I saw patients at USC I would think to myself, This is my chance. She hasnt made any mistakes yet, Tyndall said in an interview this spring. Advertisement Many who encountered the physician, however, saw him as less a voice of medical authority than as an eccentric who bewildered and, over time, ultimately alarmed those around him. The 71-year-old physicians life is now under intense scrutiny as detectives probe allegations that Tyndall sexually abused hundreds of patients over nearly three decades at USC, part of the largest-ever L.A. Police Department sex crimes investigation with a single suspect. Investigators are grilling his co-workers and poring over his possessions, including hard drives seized from his cluttered home and photos of unclothed patients found in a rented storage unit. Tyndall has denied all wrongdoing. These days a team of lawyers speaks for the doctor, who was removed from the clinic in 2016. But before the allegations became public this spring, Tyndall met with Times reporters several times at a city park in L.A. and shared details about his life and career. I was controversial from Day One, he said of his time at USCs student health clinic. FULL COVERAGE: USC former gynecologist Dr. George Tyndall accused of inappropriate behavior The interviews with him and more than two dozen associates paint a portrait of a man of obvious intelligence who excelled in college, medical school and the U.S. Navy, but struck many as socially awkward and sometimes overbearing. He spoke to co-workers and patients like a lecturing professor. He labeled himself as a germaphobe, though his office was an unsanitary jumble of medical waste and boxes. To find a wife, he went to the Philippines repeatedly, and ultimately married a Filipina 25 years his junior. Perhaps his most long-term and significant bond was with USC, where he worked for 27 years. Although he never attended or taught at the university, Tyndall reveled in its academic reputation and prodded patients to respect their school as the center of the world. He could recite the contributions of university presidents and provosts as if they were figures in a U.S. history textbook. Even after hundreds of alumnae came forward with allegations against Tyndall, USC remained central to his identity. In a May letter to The Times criticizing its coverage, he promised that when the true story came out, most Trojans are going to be very proud of this particular member of the Trojan Family. George Tyndall with his wife, Daisy Patricio, at their wedding in Corona. Patricio was in her late teens or early 20s and he was in his 40s, records show. The couple obtained a confidential marriage license, and the date of the ceremony is not clear. (Handout) A love for the Philippines When he arrived at USC, Tyndall had just finished his residency after a roundabout way to medicine. Born and raised in Plattsburgh, a city in upstate New York near the Canadian border, he was one of five children. He enrolled at the State University of New York Plattsburgh but dropped out in 1967 to enlist in the Navy. Signing up allowed Tyndall to avoid the Vietnam War draft and a possible infantry assignment. The Navy sent him to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey to study Vietnamese, then in high demand for American intelligence efforts. He graduated with honors and was stationed in Manila where he worked as a crypto-linguist. His time in the Philippines sparked a lifelong love for the country and its people. Tyndall said in interviews that he felt as if he had been Filipino in a past life and recalled that learning Tagalog was like rediscovering a language he already knew. Honorably discharged from the Navy in 1971, Tyndall returned to SUNY and graduated summa cum laude. He joined the U.S. Customs Service as an enforcement officer at Los Angeles International Airport but made it clear to colleagues that it was only a stop off before medical school in the Philippines. He talked about working every overtime assignment he could...because he was going to take his money over there and get his doctors certificate, said retired customs officer Terry Kennedy, who often chatted with Tyndall as they waited for delayed planes. In 1980, Tyndall began medical school at the University of the East, Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center in the Philippines. Classes were conducted in English and other Americans also attended. Fellow medical student Rainier Umali said Tyndall stood out among their classmates for his age and his height. He stands well over 6 feet. Umali, now a psychiatrist in Manila, described Tyndall as exceptionally smart and friendly. He said Tyndall seemed taken with Filipinos emphasis on family. He recalled one conversation in which his classmate marveled at how local families lived together in one room. He said, in case he gets married, hell raise his children like Filipinos do, Umali said. An undated Vietnamese language classroom at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., where George Tyndall studied when he was in the U.S. Navy. (Handout) After three years, Tyndall transferred to the Medical College of Pennsylvania, now Drexel University College of Medicine. Tyndall said that while his classmates caroused, he was in his room studying. At graduation, he won a prize for excellence in psychiatry and was elected to a national honor medical society, Alpha Omega Alpha. He went on to an obstetrics and gynecology residency at Kaisers Sunset Boulevard hospital, a program he said admitted just five physicians out of more than 500 applicants. At Kaiser, he delivered babies, performed hysterectomies and treated cancer patients. In the end, he found much of the work depressing, he said. Patients were often old and suffering from cancer, sexually transmitted diseases and other illnesses that might have been avoided with better medical care. When he wished aloud for a career where he could focus on preventative care, a colleague responded, Student health, Tyndall recalled in an interview. Soon after, he said he saw a classified ad for the job at USC. At the university clinic, he was given one of the largest offices, complete with a private bathroom, access to a rear stairwell and a beautiful view of the campus. The office assignment rankled colleagues, Tyndall said in the interviews. Tyndall was the first and only full-time gynecologist at the clinic. He made it clear to doctors, nurses and patients that he considered himself an authority on womens health and sometimes referred to his medical school honor society as evidence of his expertise. But some colleagues noted that he was not board certified, a standard step for many gynecologists. A creepy feeling, a sideways glance patients of accused former USC gynecologist share their stories One reason USC hired Tyndall, he said in an interview, was his ability to perform colposcopies, a procedure that looks for disease on the cervix or vagina. Some of these exams were photographed, and his use of cameras led to some of the first complaints against him by colleagues and patients. An undergraduate reported him in 1991 for improperly photographing her, according to a sworn affidavit provided by her attorney. The woman, identified only as Jane Doe, said Tyndall initially took close-up photos of her genitals, but as he walked away from the exam table, she wrote, the doctor began taking full body pictures and of my private area She said she complained to the clinics medical director who forced Tyndall to destroy the images, she wrote. Tyndall has said through his attorney that he only photographed patients with their consent and for legitimate medical reasons. In these early years at USC, Tyndall was a newlywed and his wife occasionally visited the clinic. They had met through a matchmaking service Tyndall had used to find a Filipina bride, said Sharyn Bruno, whose late husband grew up with Tyndall. He traveled to the Philippines often and eventually proposed to Daisy Patricio, a young woman from the southern island of Mindanao. Public records indicate that when they married, she was in her late teens or early 20s. He was in his 40s. The two wed at Brunos Corona home in front of 20 or so guests, who dined on cake and Chinese food, Bruno said. The couple obtained a confidential marriage license, an option in California that prevents anyone other than the spouses from viewing the document, and the date of the ceremony is not clear. No family members attended, Bruno said. Tyndall had a photography hobby and he snapped so many photos that day that neighbors phoned police, fearing the noise from the flash was gunfire, according to Bruno and another wedding guest. Patricio spoke English fluently and seemed to adjust well to married life in the U.S., Bruno said. She and Tyndall lived in an apartment he had purchased near Lafayette Park in Westlake. The couple rode on his motorcycle, took trips to Disneyland and enjoyed eating out with Bruno and her husband, Bruno said. They returned to the Philippines to visit her relatives and, according to property records, purchased a single-family home in Davao City, Mindanaos capital, about a decade ago. In her visits to the clinic, Patricio spoke little, but Tyndall talked about their relationship often to both patients and staff, former co-workers said. After the 1992 riots reached the edge of Westlake, Tyndall told colleagues that Patricio did not feel comfortable venturing out in the neighborhood alone. Many days he left work to bring her lunch, the former colleagues said. Tyndall spoke openly about the apartments cluttered state. He said there were so many boxes, books and papers in his home that he and his wife could not use the living room and had to eat dinner on their bed. When nursing supervisor Cindy Gilbert complained about the cluttered state of his office, she said, Tyndall replied, This is nothing. You should see our house. He told her his storage unit was filled to capacity and the car he parked in the USC lot was also stuffed with papers and boxes. The only open area was the drivers seat, two colleagues recalled. Dr. Howard Mandel, a Westside gynecologist who worked part-time at USC, said Tyndall seemed to admire the art of filmmaking. He sometimes talked about film and TV or screenwriting, Mandel added. Another colleague recalled Tyndall saying that he and Patricio enjoyed filming skits in their bedroom. Tyndall and his wife embarked on a photography business in 1992, according to public records. In ads in the Yellow Pages, Glamourlight Photography offered traditional services, such as acting headshots and family portraits, along with boudoir shots intimate and erotic images of women in lingerie. Patricio worked as Glamourlights makeup artist, according to a later bankruptcy filing. Dr. George Tyndalls photography business regularly advertised in the Yellow Pages and in directories for Hollywood actors. (Los Angeles Times) Tyndall pitched his business to at least one patient, according to a woman who graduated in 1993 and is now suing the doctor and USC. The alumna alleged in a lawsuit that during an appointment in her freshman year, Tyndall pulled out a photo of a scantily clad Asian woman. Would you consider doing something like this? the former patient, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, recounted Tyndall asking. The woman, who is Chinese American, said in an interview, When I caught his drift, I realized it was a proposition and left in a hurry. Dr. Tyndall adamantly denies that any patient of his was asked to pose for boudoir photography, his criminal defense attorney, Leonard Levine, said in a statement. He and Patricio declared bankruptcy in 1997. At the time, Tyndalls annual salary at USC was $110,000. In court records, the couple listed Tyndalls outstanding student loans and credit card bills among their debts. Glamourlight continued listing in the Yellow Pages until 2008. The current state of the business is unclear. When police raided Tyndalls storage unit in June, detectives found a mountain of pornographic videos and photographs, some showing the doctor having sex with women. Alongside them was a smaller set of images showing patients naked during exams. Levine, his attorney, has said the photos were taken with patient consent for medical reasons. The physician moved the photos to the storage unit in 2013 when the student health center relocated to a new building on campus, Levine said in a statement. The photos were never shown to, or viewed by anyone, including Dr. Tyndall, after they were originally taken, decades ago, Levine said. Hundreds of alumnae who visited the USC student clinic, right, have come forward to accuse Dr. George Tyndall of sexual misconduct allegations that he has denied. (Los Angeles Times) A doctor with an eccentric style From the moment patients entered Tyndalls office, they could tell he was different. His wardrobe was a rotation of stretched-out slacks, clogs and long embroidered shirts known in the Philippines as barongs. If a student tried to shake his hand, he offered a business card instead, professing to be a germaphobe. If I get sick, I wont be able to treat Trojan women, he explained. He carried a hand towel to open doors, press elevator buttons and turn off faucets. The state of his office often seemed at odds with his sanitary concerns. Colleagues said it was often foul-smelling and littered with soda cups, take-out containers and an overflowing bin of medical waste. He examined yeast infection specimens at the same desk where he ate lunch and counseled young women, they said. Tyndall took his time with patients -- even when the waiting room was full. An appointment for birth control often turned into a lengthy science lesson with the physician proffering diagrams of the female anatomy and laminated sheets listing various prophylactic options. Some people valued this approach and asked for him again and again. Michelle Ward saw Tyndall regularly from 1998 to 2004, when she was getting her doctorate in clinical neuroscience. She said she was initially disconcerted by what she called his homeless appearance, but he soon won her over with deeply researched explanations and advice. She recommended him to other women. I never felt anything perverted, not for an instant. [It was] the opposite of that. It just felt like I was in there with a professor, a quirky, nerdy, unusual, reclusive, eccentric professor, said Ward, a jury consultant for an L.A. firm. She said, however, that she takes the accusations of abuse seriously and believes the allegations should be thoroughly investigated. By his own account, Tyndall took a particular interest in treating international students, especially those from China. Tyndall said he attempted to empathize with his foreign patients and visualized himself in their shoes. I try to imagine Im from China, Tyndall said in an interview. In falsetto, he imitated a potential patient: Im 5-foot-2. My English is not good. Maybe Im scared by the tall man. Tyndall acknowledged that his colleagues were suspicious of his solicitousness of Asian patients. In their mind, Im a pervert but clients are signing up and begging to be seen by me, he said. It caused jealousy among medical assistants. Tyndall sometimes spoke to clinic colleagues about racial issues and shared his political opinions. In his hours away from the USC student clinic, he tapped out letters to newspaper editors. Publications including The Times printed more than 30 letters in the 1990s and 2000s. Many were critical of illegal immigration. In a 1993 letter to the New York Times, he bemoaned laws that welcomed individuals who because of language problems and lack of skills have almost no chance of achieving the American dream. On a few occasions, he was accused of making racist remarks in the clinic. Undergraduate Shernae Hughes said she complained in 2016 after she saw him for birth control. I shared that I was interested in opening businesses in low-income black communities, Hughes, who graduated in May, testified at a June state Senate hearing. Dr. Tyndall responded, You should open up more clinics so they can stop having so many babies. Attorney Gloria Allred, seated center, with a few women who have accused of Dr. George Tyndall of sexual abuse. (Los Angeles Times) Questions turn to alarm at USC In Tyndalls final years at USC, Daisy Patricio was rarely seen at the clinic, but the physician continued displaying her smiling photo on his desk. He often showed it to patients and talked to many of them about their relationship, sometimes sharing intimate details, according to former co-workers and patients. Selamawit Mulugeta, who saw Tyndall for a pelvic exam in 2014, said he brought up his wife and how she never had a father figure and that he served as a father figure as well as a husband. Patients and colleagues had no inkling that the couple appeared to be separated. Patricio had returned to her hometown in the Philippines and opened a medical billing firm in Davao City with a local businessman, according to an archived website for the company. Since 2012, photos on her social media accounts have shown her embracing the man, who an associate said referred to Patricio as his wife. She did not respond to numerous requests for interviews and the man pictured with her online declined comment. A medical assistant who worked with Tyndall for years, said that she asked him in 2016 why Patricio never visited anymore. She was in an accident and shes scared of driving, she recalled him answering. In interviews, Tyndall referred to Patricio as his wife and shared details about her upbringing and relatives. LAPD Capt. Billy Hayes, who is overseeing the criminal investigation into Tyndall, said detectives want to interview Patricio. Tyndall also told colleagues and at least one patient that he was sponsoring the education of a young Filipina. Former patient Viva Symanski said that during a 2014 appointment, Tyndall showed pictures of Patricio and the younger woman and said he and his wife were underwriting the womans business degree. She recalled him expressing ambivalence about the younger woman, saying at one point that she disappoints me lately. He did not elaborate, she said. Colleagues also noticed Tyndall was spending increasing amounts of time in his office. He was there late at night and on weekends, even though he didnt see patients then. Some said he appeared to be working on his computer. In an interview, he mentioned that he brought an external hard drive to his office each day for personal stuff. He did not elaborate. Tyndall frequently received shipments from Amazon at the clinic, former colleagues said. He reviewed gynecology books as well as electronics and photography equipment on the Amazon website, including hard drives, a hidden camera and drone landing pad. Of a mini-digital camera touted as the smallest video camera in the world, Tyndall commented that the quality of the video is insufficient for my needs. Investigators are aware of the reviews and LAPD computer experts are performing a forensic examination on Tyndalls hard drives, Hayes said. Tyndalls defense attorney said the doctor never sold, traded or shared any images of patients. In 2016, Gilbert, the nursing supervisor, went to USCs rape crisis center and told the executive director that Tyndall was inappropriately touching students. USC put Tyndall on administrative leave while the claims were investigated. About three weeks later, he sent a text to a clinic colleague, Dr. Dennis Kelly, seeking help finding another job. Kelly, a mens healthcare specialist who works part time at Cal State Northridge, said Tyndall asked whether there were any positions open in CSUNs student clinic. I knew I wouldnt recommend him, Kelly said. So I told him there was no availability. USC administrators reached a secret deal with Tyndall last year that allowed him to leave the university with a financial settlement and a clean record with the medical board. He told The Times that he regretted signing the deal and had sent letters to USCs president and provost begging to be reinstated. After The Times revealed Tyndalls troubled history in May, he defended himself in a letter to the papers editor. He suggested that he was victimized by fabricated allegations and an institutional cover-up. Suffice to say, if ever the time comes that my fellow Trojans are aware of the details, many are likely going to be not only angry but also embarrassed, he wrote. So far USC has committed to paying nearly a quarter-billion dollars to settle lawsuits filed by Tyndalls former patients. The total price tag for settlements is expected to rise. Times staff writers Paul Pringle, Richard Winton, Melissa Etehad and Sarah Parvini in Los Angeles and special correspondents Ana Santos and Johnny Urbina in Davao City, Philippines, contributed to this report. matt.hamilton@latimes.com Twitter: @MattHjourno harriet.ryan@latimes.com Twitter: @latimesharriet A man armed with a shotgun was shot and killed by police near a downtown Metro station Sunday afternoon, according to officials. Two officers were involved in the shooting, which occurred at 2:15 p.m. after they spotted a man in his late 40s armed with a shotgun inside the 7th Street/Metro Center station, according to Los Angeles Police Sgt. Meghan Aguilar. The officers chased the man from inside the station and onto the street. A block away from the station at 7th and Hope streets, at least one of the officers fired multiple bullets at the man, Aguilar said. The man, who has not been identified, was pronounced dead at the scene. Advertisement Detectives believe the mans shotgun which is now in police custody, along with an unknown amount of ammunition was loaded, Aguilar said. The officers were on assigned duty at the Metro station at the time of the shooting, officials said. Their names have not been released. The man was probably not homeless, Aguilar said. The area near 7th and Hope streets will likely be closed until at least 10 p.m. as detectives investigate the incident, Aguilar said. laura.newberry@latimes.com | Twitter: @LauraMNewberry A man who authorities say was involved in a gun battle with police and injured an officer has been charged with attempted murder, the Los Angeles County district attorneys office announced Monday. James Louis Boyd III, 37, of Oceanside, was charged with 10 felony counts, including four each of attempted murder and assault on a peace officer with a semiautomatic firearm. He also is charged with shooting at an occupied motor vehicle and discharging a firearm with gross negligence, prosecutors said. Boyd was arrested April 7 after a shootout with officers near a Manhattan Beach shopping center. Authorities said Boyd had been involved in a domestic dispute with his girlfriend at a Hawthorne hotel when he fired a rifle into the air. Advertisement Police responded at 9:30 a.m. to a Marriott hotel near Rosecrans Avenue and Aviation Boulevard. A man dressed in military fatigues and carrying a handgun was reported chasing a woman in the hotel. Boyd ran into the Manhattan Gateway shopping centers parking lot, where he fired at officers, shattering a patrol vehicles window, according to police and prosecutors. Hawthorne Police Chief Michael Ishii told reporters that Boyd was using a high-capacity weapon to shoot at officers. During the gun battle, a 15-year veteran of the Hawthorne police force was shot in the leg, Ishii said. Boyd eventually surrendered and received treatment for his own injury at a hospital. His arraignment was scheduled for Monday. If convicted, he faces life in prison. alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com Twitter: @r_valejandra On Monday, the Los Angeles Times won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for articles that exposed Dr. George Tyndall, the USC gynecologist accused of sexually abusing hundreds of students. Below are excerpts from the entry The Times submitted for consideration. How did the story come to light? In early February 2018, investigative reporter Harriet Ryan received a call from a blocked number. The caller told Ryan, who had worked with colleagues on USC investigations, to look into Dr. George Tyndall, a gynecologist who had retired recently after many years at the student health clinic. The caller refused to provide a name, specific details about Tyndall or even a callback number. Intrigued, Ryan and another reporter, Matt Hamilton, began searching public records for information suggesting Tyndall was a problem doctor. They found nothing. George Tyndall, the former campus gynecologist at USC Advertisement Undaunted, they compiled a list of current and former clinic employees using LinkedIn and archived staff directories. Then they started knocking on doors and asking about Tyndall. It became clear that many people had troubling information about the gynecologist and that most of them were too afraid of losing their jobs to share it. The truth wont matter anyway, the reporters were told repeatedly. USC will just cover it up. Ryan, Hamilton and a third colleague, Paul Pringle, kept knocking on doors, and over a period of months, they persuaded more than 20 current and former USC employees and a handful of former patients to talk on an anonymous basis. The story they told was jaw-dropping. In his 27 years at the clinic, Tyndall had been accused repeatedly of misconduct toward female students, including photographing their genitals during appointments, performing inappropriate pelvic exams and making suggestive remarks about their bodies. It wasnt until 2016, when a frustrated nurse went to the rape crisis center, that administrators forced Tyndall out. Even then, USC lawyers provided him with a secret exit package that allowed him to depart quietly with a financial payout and a clean record from the Medical Board of California. Armed with the anonymous accounts, Ryan and Hamilton confronted first Tyndall, who sat for 10 hours of interviews, and then USC administrators. What obstacles, if any, were overcome in this work? USC is a private institution and not beholden to public-records laws, posing a challenge to reporters trying to uncover its internal affairs. Persuading employees to speak to reporters was also a significant obstacle, with many clinic employees and administrators citing potential retaliation and even job loss. As an employer, USC offers an exceptional retirement and health insurance package, and employees are eligible to secure free tuition for themselves and their children perks that few want to jeopardize. The university does not have labor unions among its workforce. To identify key employees to approach as sources, reporters used archives of employee directories, LinkedIn and a roster obtained from USCs internal human resources platform. Approaching current and former staff at the university or their current job was ruled out as too risky. Instead, reporters visited their homes during evenings and weekends and traveled across the state to engage key sources in person. Uncovering specific details about Tyndalls alleged misconduct was also complicated by confidentiality statutes. Complaints lodged with the state medical board are not subject to public-records laws. In addition, the concerns reported to and discussed by the campus clinics peer review body were shielded by confidentiality agreements. Further, the experiences of patients at USCs clinic and their identities were also protected by the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act which presented another layer of risk to sources and a barrier to obtaining accurate information. How is this work distinguished from previous or competing reporting on this subject? Unlike similar stories about sexual abuse, our investigation did not have the benefit of police records, court filings or other public documents because none existed. It was based almost exclusively on interviews. What has been the impact of the stories? USC is the most important private institution in Los Angeles, responsible for more than 53,000 jobs and exercising significant influence in the regions politics, healthcare and economic development. How the university is run is critically important to the public, and The Times investigation resulted in profound improvements to the institutions ethics. It triggered local, state and federal investigations and allowed hundreds of women to seek justice and financial compensation for sexual abuse they say they suffered at USC. A task force of a dozen police detectives interviewed alumnae around the country, part of the largest-ever LAPD sex crimes investigation with a single suspect. Detectives subsequently referred more than 100 cases to the district attorney. A grand jury is currently hearing evidence. The state medical board launched an investigation and is trying to strip Tyndall of his license to practice. The U.S. Department of Education opened a probe into whether USC concealed evidence from regulators during a prior federal inquiry into the universitys handling of Title IX complaints. More than 650 women filed suit against USC, alleging the university failed to protect them from sexual abuse. In October 2018, USC agreed to pay $215 million to resolve a federal class-action suit, which will have to be approved in court. That would be the first in what is expected to be a wave of settlements. USCs president resigned, and trustees pledged a wholesale reboot of what they described as a broken culture at the institution. They named a woman as interim president and held listening sessions to understand what students want in a new president. USCs long docile faculty has been reborn as a feisty group dedicated to holding administrators accountable. This summer, the university alerted federal prosecutors to a suspicious money transfer involving a dean and a powerful local politician, a move USC said was motivated by its new commitment to transparency and ethics. Were there any substantive challenges to the accuracy or fairness of the work? Tyndall and his attorneys have denied that the physician abused or sexually harassed patients during his career, and their comments were included in our stories. Tyndall told the newspaper, in a letter criticizing the coverage, that patients sometimes fabricate stories. The Times quoted extensively from his letter in our published stories. No corrections or clarifications were published in connection with any of the work. Dr. George Tyndall, the longtime campus gynecologist at USC, faces the loss of his medical license after state regulators formally accused him of negligence and sexual misconduct with several patients. The charges brought by the Medical Board of California come as Tyndall and USC face hundreds of civil claims from women who allege sexual abuse and harassment. On Friday, USC announced that it had agreed to pay $215 million to settle a federal class-action lawsuit brought by several former patients. The universitys total legal costs for the scandal are expected to be significantly higher. The medical boards accusation outlines a series of appointments with five patients in which Tyndall allegedly made lewd remarks, performed non-clinical breast and pelvic exams, and in one case, mocked the injuries of a patient after she told him she had recently been sexually assaulted. According to the 13-page accusation, Tyndall locked the door when meeting with a graduate medical student in 2012, watched her disrobe and repeatedly inserted his fingers in her while complimenting her body, asking if she worked as a model and wondering about her mothers beauty. Advertisement While performing a vaginal exam on an undergraduate student in 2016, Tyndall allegedly said her boyfriend was a lucky guy. Another patient said he used both hands to grope her breasts, a departure from standard exams, according to the Sept. 26 filing, which has not been previously reported. Tyndall, 71, has repeatedly insisted that his care aligned with medical norms, and in a series of interviews with The Times earlier this year, he defended his frank discussions about sex as a way to counsel and connect with his mostly younger patients. In August, he voluntarily agreed to surrender his license in order to focus on his defense, and he now has a team of lawyers to handle criminal, civil and regulatory matters. He has denied any wrongdoing while working at USC. COMPLETE COVERAGE: USC former gynecologist Dr. George Tyndall accused of inappropriate behavior The attorney representing him before the medical board, Peter R. Osinoff, declined to comment. An investigation by the Los Angeles Times first revealed that Tyndall was accused repeatedly of misconduct by patients and staff but was allowed to continue treating students until 2016. The Times reported that an internal investigation concluded Tyndalls behavior during pelvic exams was outside the scope of current medical practice and amounted to sexual harassment of patients. Tyndall was allowed to resign quietly with an undisclosed financial settlement, and USC did not notify the medical board until March months after his departure. Tyndall began working at USC in 1989, but the boards accusation contains the accounts of patients who saw him during his final decade at the university. In 2009, he allegedly showed a graduate student a provocative photograph of his wife, inquired about her sex life and later gave her prescriptions for the morning after pill, even though she did not seek the medication, according to the filing. In the 2012 appointment with the graduate medical student, Tyndall asked where she was from in China and then proceeded with the pelvic exam. He inserted his fingers into her and moved his fingers in and out, back and forth, repeatedly, for several minutes. After she asked him to stop, Tyndall said it would conclude in a few minutes and that she should just relax, according to the filing. At one point, Tyndall put his face within a couple of inches of her vagina and she heard him breathing heavily, according to the filing. Tyndall also allegedly encouraged her to take birth control so that her boyfriend could enjoy unprotected sex, the filing states. The board alleged the exam was unprofessional and amounted to sexual misconduct. In the wake of The Times reporting, scores of former patients shared accounts of Tyndalls behavior. The accounts detailed in the medical boards filing dovetail with the allegations of more than 460 former patients who have filed lawsuits against USC, alleging sexual abuse and harassment at the student health center. A criminal investigation by the L.A. Police Department is ongoing. Detectives so far have presented 64 cases to the Los Angeles County district attorneys sex crimes unit. Prosecutors are evaluating the cases, and no charges have been filed against the physician. The medical boards high-profile case against Tyndall follows the agencys decision this summer to revoke the license of former USC medical school dean, Dr. Carmen Puliafito. The board accused Puliafito of using methamphetamine and heroin and providing drugs to criminals and addicts while running the Keck School of Medicine, part of a hard-partying double life that The Times exposed in 2017. The allegations played out this spring in a downtown L.A. courtroom, where Puliafitos attorneys denied that the Harvard-trained ophthalmologist provided drugs to others and said the former dean suffered from bipolar disorder. An administrative law judge ultimately determined Puliafito showed an appalling lack of judgment while leading the nationally ranked medical school and recommended he should not be allowed to practice again in the state. Puliafito is appealing. In September, his attorney filed a petition in Los Angeles County Superior Court asking a judge to set aside the medical boards decision. His attorney argued that the medical board violated disability laws and treated his client differently than other physicians suffering from substance abuse. The Board improperly imposed a moral judgment on Dr. Puliafitos conduct, penalizing him for his mental illness, without even being willing to evaluate his present safety to practice, the petition stated. Times staff writer Harriet Ryan contributed to this article. matt.hamilton@latimes.com Twitter: @MattHjourno President Trumps NAFTA 2.0 trade accord the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement is in trouble. Trump carries part of the blame; after all, how does Congress ratify a major trade agreement that includes Mexico even as the U.S. president is threatening to completely shut down the border? With fingers crossed in hopes that Trumps anti-Mexico rants will diminish, Republicans are pushing for a summer vote on the USMCA. But the trade agreements risk of stalling or rejection in Congress is high and if that happens, its the American people who stand to lose most. Democrats are digging in their heels. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insists there will be no vote until Mexico changes worker protection laws, and her Democratic majority would relish dealing the White House a humiliating blow. Making matters worse, some Republicans have serious concerns about the USMCAs trade restrictions. The GOP congressional caucus has recently been increasingly emboldened to challenge the White House on foreign-related issues, such as Syria, North Korea and NATO. The trade agreements risk of stalling or rejection in Congress is high and if that happens, its the American people who stand to lose most. Advertisement There is too much at stake for Congress to play a game of chicken with Trump on the USMCA. If the new treaty goes down, the president will not hesitate to officially abandon NAFTA entirely. If Congress rejects the USMCA to force additional changes, or stalls the vote until after the 2020 elections, Trump could officially withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement without a backup plan, winning him the dramatic and divisive news coverage he craves as well as adulation among his most fervent supporters. And dont expect anyone in his administration or his advisors to rein him in. The White House Council of Economic Advisors failed to even mention the USMCA in its assessment of key drivers of growth over the next few years. A no-deal scenario could be catastrophic. The USMCA is the best opportunity available to preserve free trade with our neighbors and crucial economic partners. Since NAFTA went into effect in 1994, U.S. trade has quadrupled with Mexico and Canada, which are also the top destinations for exports from small and medium-size U.S. businesses. Casting aside what is essentially just an altered version of NAFTA is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In a Brexit-like replay, observers are sounding the alarm on the risk of a hard exit from NAFTA. If the USMCA replaces NAFTA, our baseline economic growth will stay about the same. But a sudden ending of NAFTA would be devastating. Trade Partnership Worldwide, a research firm, estimated last year that withdrawing from NAFTA with no replacement could eliminate 1.8 million to 3.6 million mostly blue-collar jobs in the next few years. Failure to pass the USMCA will also damage U.S. credibility on trade just when it is needed most. Upcoming talks between Trump and President Xi Jinping are crucial to successfully ending the trade war with China, which has hit American farmers hard. The inability to ratify or implement a major Trump trade deal will have inevitable negative consequences on the U.S.-China negotiations. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion The potential damage to U.S.-Mexico relations is incalculable. That Trade Partnership Worldwide report also notes that a no-deal situation would put 2.3 million to 10.3 million Mexicans out of work, potentially reversing the dwindling Mexican immigration numbers of the last decade. Notwithstanding Trumps rhetoric and criticism, Mexico is a trusted U.S. partner in reducing immigration, fighting drugs, cooperating against transnational crime and containing international terrorist groups. Imagine what happens if that cooperation ceases. There is room for improvement in the USMCA. But this issue is not the right one to test the ego of our president and his commitment to campaign promises. Nor is it the time. With U.S. elections around the corner, whatever bipartisan coalition that could possibly be mustered today will vanish in 2020s electoral noise. Congress should treat the USMCA as a necessary stopgap to preserve free trade on the continent from a White House that is unusually hostile to cooperation with our most important economic partners. Its up to Congress to ratify the trade agreement and prevent a no-deal crash out of NAFTA. Peter Schechter was the founding director of the Atlantic Councils Latin America Center. He hosts Altamar, a global issues podcast. Twitter: @PDSchechter Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook As he moves toward formally entering the Democratic presidential race, Joe Biden has repeatedly expressed regret for how he handled one of the most consequential challenges of his career in the Senate the 1991 hearings into Anita Hills sexual harassment allegations against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. But he has not put the decades-old issue to rest. Biden, who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time, has rankled rather than reassured many critics by portraying himself as powerless to have conducted the hearing differently. To this day I regret I couldnt come up with a way to get her the kind of hearing she deserved, given the courage she showed by reaching out to us, Biden said, speaking of Hill at a charity event in New York in late March. I wish I couldve done something. Advertisement His critics call that excuse flimsy, saying Biden has downplayed his considerable authority as the committee chairman. He could have done more, said Kimberle Crenshaw, a UCLA law professor who assisted Hills legal team in 1991. Thats not an apology. An apology starts with a full acknowledgement of the wrong you have committed. If he wants the womens vote, hes got to do something more than symbolic stuff. A review of the record of the hearings 28 years ago shows how much Biden was a creature of a Senate that was clubby and male-dominated for much of his early career. The Hill-Thomas hearing was so long ago that the committee received one of the most volatile political documents of the decade Hills affidavit outlining her claims over a fax machine. Anita Hill is sworn in by Sen. Joe Biden to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court in 1991. (Arnie Sachs / Associated Press) Bidens handling of the hearings go beyond being just a single data point in his 36-year Senate voting record. The incident became a test of leadership in a climactic political event as Hills allegations blew up what were already high-stakes confirmation hearings. Thomas, a young black conservative, had been picked by President George H.W. Bush to replace Thurgood Marshall, the legendary civil rights lawyer and the courts first African American justice. Hill, then a law professor at the University of Oklahoma, alleged that Thomas harassed her by talking in sordid detail about sex and pornography while she she was an employee of his at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Thomas flatly denied the allegations. The Senate was singularly ill equipped to deal with the subject at the time. It had no black and only two female members. The Judiciary Committee had none of either. The hearings turned a spotlight on that glaring lack of diversity. The image of a young black woman sitting alone behind a witness table, telling an all-male Senate Judiciary Committee a lurid tale was televised across the country and the world. Never before had sexual harassment been discussed so explicitly on Capitol Hill. There was a real and perceived problem the committee faced, Biden said at the March charity event. They were a bunch of white guys. Biden had never shown much appetite for pressing nominees on issues related to their personal lives. Another committee leader, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, had been involved earlier in the year in a drunken Florida beach scene with a nephew who was accused of rape. For about two weeks before the nomination came to a vote, Biden and a few staff members knew of the allegations but kept them out of public view because Hill requested anonymity. Biden did not deem the allegations important enough to postpone the committees scheduled vote on Thomass nomination. When he announced his opposition to Thomas in a floor speech he said, My view on this matter has nothing to do with Judge Thomas character. For he is a man of character. News of the allegations and Hills identity leaked only after the committee voted. At that point, Biden came under enormous pressure to investigate. Several House Democratic women including Rep. Patricia Schroeder of Colorado marched to the Senate to demand the hearings be reopened. Schroeder said in an interview that, when she complained to Biden that the process was being rushed, his response was a window to the ways of the Senate. Biden told her, she said, that he had given his word to Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.), Thomass sponsor, while they were in the Senates all-male gym that it would be a quick hearing. Is that where the deals are all cut? Really? said Schroeder. That stuck in my craw. It was a boys club and the boys were not really wanting to yield. Danforth, asked about Schroeders account, said he did not remember such a conversation with Biden. Once the Hill hearing was set, Biden accepted a Republican demand that Thomas be given the chance to testify both before and after Hill. He and his fellow Democrats did little to force Thomas to respond to accusations he flatly denied. Thomas heightened the racial tensions surrounding the committee by calling the allegations a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks. With Democrats doing little to defend Hill, Republicans grilled her, challenging her credibility and motives, even suggesting she made up the charges. We just got totally outplayed by the Republicans, said Cynthia Hogan, a top committee aide to Biden at the time. They had a coordinated attack planned well in advance, and they all participated. We didnt have ourselves ready to fight back. Biden later explained that he was hogtied by Senate rules that give broad latitude to individual senators. My one regret is that I wasnt able to tone down the attacks on her by some of my Republican friends, he said in a 2017 interview with Teen Vogue. I mean, they really went after her. As much as I tried to intervene, I did not have the power to gavel them out of order. Biden did, however, have the authority to call other women to testify to corroborate Hills account, but he did not. One woman, Angela Wright, was prepared to testify that she, too, had been harassed by Thomas. Members of both parties were wary of calling Wright to testify, Hogan said. A written statement from her was submitted instead. But it landed in the wee hours of the morning and got little attention. The final Senate vote ended up being so close 52-48 that Hill supporters believed that the testimony of another accuser would have doomed Thomas nomination. Biden supporters are confident that this chapter in his Senate career will not weigh heavily in the minds of voters, especially among women too young to have witnessed the hearings. In the years since, Biden established himself as a champion of womens issues like the Violence Against Women Act. Many voters dont currently have a strong view of the case. A poll by Morning Consult taken in March found that 30% of Democratic voters disapproved of how Biden handled Hills testimony and 17% said it would make them less likely to vote for him in the primary. But 44% of Democrats didnt have an opinion. Bidens handling of Hills allegations, however, rose to prominence for a new generation of women during last falls hearings into sexual harassment allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh. And the issue could also tie in with concerns about Bidens tendency to hug and touch people, including strangers. That subject seems not to be taking an immediate political toll on Bidens support, several polls have shown, but the polls also show some evidence that it has raised doubts in voters minds. Fresh scrutiny of Bidens handling of Hills charges through the lens of #MeToo politics could spotlight one of his broader political liabilities the perception that he is a man of another political era, and sometimes out of step with the times. For some, the issue already forms a powerful block against supporting the former vice president. It literally does not matter what else Biden says about sexual assault if he cannot acknowledge his own culpability in putting a sexual assaulter on the Supreme Court and then pretending for years like he was powerless to stop it, Jess Morales Rocketto, political director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, said on Twitter. By contrast, former California Sen. Barbara Boxer, who was one of the House members who marched to the Senate at the time demanding action, does not think voters should hold the case against Biden. I believe the committee was very uncomfortable with the whole thing; they didnt know how to deal with it, she said. I believe Joe when he says he wishes he could have done more. The most important thing he did, Boxer said, came after the 1992 election swept four more women in the Senate. Biden, to ensure no woman ever again faced an all-male Judiciary Committee, recruited two of the newly elected women senators to sit on the panel. Congress has passed just 12 new laws since January. One modifies pay for podiatrists working for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Another renames a vets center in North Ogden, Utah. A third revises the charter of the National Future Farmers of America Organization. Democrats, who control the House, blame Republicans who control the Senatenamely Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for not considering the bills the House sends over. Leader McConnell has turned the Senate into a legislative graveyard for priorities the American people care about, Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. Advertisement McConnell grinned at the characterization that House bills were going nowhere in the Senate. I think thats pretty accurate, yeah, he told The Times. Theyve been busy here in the first part of the Congress sending us things that have shall I say no potential in the Senate. And I understand that theres a new majority. They want to lay out, you know, how they feel about things. Democrats flush with a new House majority after nearly a decade in the minority are sending over a rash of bills most political watchers believe have little chance of passing the Senate, such as universal background checks for gun purchases, net neutrality, climate change, congressional ethics, expanding voter access, raising the minimum wage and more. Still, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said shes optimistic. Public sentiment will weigh in, and the Senate will see that many of the pieces of legislation that we have passed or [are] about to pass are 70% to 80% bipartisanly and nonpartisanly supported by the American people, Pelosi said. And [Republicans] will either act upon the legislation or be accountable to the public for why they do not. She noted that both chambers were essentially at a standstill in January during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Of the more than 4,000 bills filed before Congress left for a two-week spring recess, the House has passed 188. The Senate has passed about 100, including many Republican priorities that the House wont likely take up. President Trump vetoed one, which would have overridden his executive order declaring a national emergency at the southern border. In total, just 12 bill have passed both chambers and been signed into law. Two of the largest-scale bills that have become law include a major lands package that has been in the works for years, and pay for federal workers not paid while the government was shut down in December and January. Meanwhile, historically bipartisan issues that have been considered by the Senate, like billions of dollars in disaster aid including for California fire victims have failed. The Senate has been largely focused in the last few months on approving nominees to fill vacancies within the Trump administration, something that doesnt require input from the House. Since the beginning of the year, they have confirmed more than 200 nominees to positions in the executive branch, circuit courts and district courts, including confirming Californian David Bernhardt to be the new Interior secretary Thursday. McConnell called confirming the nominations, especially the judicial positions, part of his legacy. The impact on the courts has been enormous and positive for the country young men and women that weve been confirming as rapidly as possible who believe the job of a judge is to follow the law, McConnell said. Senate Republicans accused Democrats of dragging their feet on nominations by requiring the full 30 hours of available debate time to pass for each, and they recently changed the chambers rules to reduce the time senators get to consider many positions. He is hanging his entire hat on putting all these judges in, Schumer said, and I dont think history is going to look kindly on either the way hes changed the rules to do that [or], more importantly, how the Senate has done so little on the major issues of the day when the American people are crying out. Its not unusual for legislative action to slow down when congressional power is divided between the parties. In 2011, when Republicans took control of the House and Barack Obama was president, only nine new laws had passed by April 15. Both McConnell and Pelosi indicated they saw areas for common ground ahead. Well find a way to do some business together, McConnell said. Pelosi said shes heartened by talk of bipartisan agreement on infrastructure and lowering prescription drug prices. For years, legislative leaders have said those two topics could be a place the two parties could work together, but actual movement on both has been difficult. McConnell said he, Pelosi and Trump have begun talking about a deal to raise discretionary spending limits. McConnell also said that Congress needed to address immigration in a meaningful way, another topic that has proved to be intractable in Washington for years. The American people have given us divided government again. They do that frequently. As all of you probably know, weve had divided government more often than not since World War II, so we need to get used to the fact that the power is divided, McConnell said. Were working our way toward having rational bipartisan discussions of things that can only be solved together. The latest from Washington More stories from Sarah D. Wire The 2018 election sent a record number of women to Congress including two named Katie from Southern California. One is a mom and former professor who has made a career of consumer advocacy. The other, more than a decade younger, has a history of fighting homelessness. They look nothing alike, yet Washington cant seem to tell the difference between Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) and Rep. Katie Hill (D-Agua Dulce). Political donations for Porter have gone to Hills campaign office. Congressional staffers conflate them in meetings. Reporters mix them up in the hallways and in their stories. Advertisement Social media is where most mistakes manifest. The Victory Fund, a group that supports LGBTQ lawmakers like Hill, who is bisexual, has tagged Porter who is straight in social media posts so many times that she jokes that she hopes the group might endorse her, too. Even Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) isnt immune. From the dais on the House floor, she mentioned Hill when she meant Porter on swearing-in day in January. Its constant, Porter, 45, said during an interview in her congressional office. It got so bad their staffs discussed producing a social media video to help Washington tell them apart. Why is this so hard? Hill, 31, said in an interview, recounting how she felt when the confusion first began on the campaign trail. We dont look anything alike. Shes a mom. I feel like were running on pretty different messages and in totally different places. As more than 100 freshman lawmakers begin to compete to make names for themselves in Washington, Hill and Porter are still struggling to make sure people simply keep their names and faces straight. The women expressed a combination of frustration and bemusement about why Capitol Hill cant tackle a problem most elementary schools deal with each year. Katie P. and Katie H. say they have learned to laugh off the confusion, nicknaming themselves the Katie Caucus. Hill expressed empathy with her colleagues, noting that with so many new faces, it is hard to learn everyones name in the early months. I cant keep track of other members, so Im a bit sympathetic to that, Hill said. There are plenty of the older white men. There is no way I would know who [is who]. Please dont quiz me! At the same time they wondered whether subtle sexism was at play. There are 15 men named John in the House and 14 who go by James or Jim. But its the two Katies who keep getting mixed up. Porter believes it stems from the familiarity many Americans have with using the first names of female politicians, pointing to how often first names are used to speak of Hillary Clinton or 2020 presidential contenders Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). These people have last names. Katie Hill and I each have last names, Porter said. This confusion around first names strikes me as a uniquely feminine problem. Porter acknowledged that the confusion at times has been unsettling. Being constantly confused with another member, it deepens the sense of dislocation and Do I belong here? she said. When you walk into a room and someone says, Katie Hills arrived! it sort of makes you feel like: Do I not count? But I know it happens to her on the other side, too. The problem was particularly acute in 2017, when both Porter and Hill were putting together upstart campaigns to challenge Republican incumbents. They and other Democrats in Southern California began appearing at joint fundraising appearances, putting the two Katies side-by-side at events. I think I probably got a little bit more annoyed by it during the campaign because I was, like: How are people going to remember which one to vote for? Hill said. There are similarities that compound the confusion. They are both Democratic women from Southern California who ousted incumbents in districts long held by Republicans. Theyre both high-profile members with progressive values, such as not accepting corporate PAC money. But Hill has a more moderate streak than Porter. Shes a member of both a progressive Democratic coalition and a pro-business group. And though theyre both from Southern California, their districts are nearly 90 miles apart. Their styles are different, too. Porter calls herself a middle-age, middle-class, minivan-driving mom. Hill is a millennial and more casual. Each has become a force in a freshman class with many big personalities. Porter has developed a reputation as perhaps one of the toughest questioners on the House Financial Services Committee, demanding that the CEO of Wells Fargo explain why his statements contradicted what the companys lawyers argued in court; and that the CEO of JP Morgan explain the disparity between his salary and his lowest paid workers. She has also spoken out about her own history with domestic violence and on the challenges of raising three kids as a single mom. Hill has carved a niche as a party leader of the sprawling freshman class and as the vice chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, a high-profile perch that has put her near the center of the Houses investigative arm. As a member of Pelosis leaderships team, shes helped bridge the gap between moderates and progressives in the freshman class. And theyve begun working together on policy. Last week, the House approved a bill to reform the IRS that included a provision that would permanently prohibit the agency from creating a system to allow people to file for free, a proposal that could benefit large tax companies such as HR Block and TurboTax. Shortly after ProPublica published a story outlining the fallout of the provision, Hill flagged the article to Porter and they considered gathering support among House freshmen to defy Democratic leadership and block the measure. Ultimately, they settled on a promise from Democratic leaders to help them develop legislation to undo the ban on developing a free filing system. Theyre not the only women in Congress who run into this problem. Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) often find themselves misidentified on social media and in newspaper articles. Only on the phone, joked Baldwin, who is white. Duckworth, an Army veteran, is Thai and uses a wheelchair after losing both legs when her helicopter was shot down in Iraq. Katie isnt even the most common name among the women in Congress. There are five women named Susan (including one Suzan and one Susie). Like Hill and Porter, Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.) is a freshman, but she said she hasnt been mistaken for the other Susans, even her Washington roommate, Rep. Susan A. Davis (D-San Diego). Im glad there were no other Susans running in my state when I ran, Wild said. I dont know what the confusion is over Katie and Katie. There are examples of men who get confused over their last names. Rep. Mike Levin (D-San Juan Capistrano), who is close with both Porter and Hill, has been mistaken for Rep. Andy Levin of Michigan, another freshman Democrat. It could have been much worse for the Katies. They might have had to serve alongside the only other Katie ever to serve in Congress: Katie Hall, who represented the 1st District of Indiana in the early 1980s. The latest from Washington More stories from Jennifer Haberkorn In 1992, Bill Clinton won the White House focused on a message so elegantly simple the slogan became campaign legend: Its the economy, stupid. In this presidential race, its a lot of things. Abolishing the electoral college. Ending the Senate filibuster. Refashioning the Supreme Court. Paying reparations for slavery. A whole raft of issues that were little noted, if not wholly overlooked, in previous presidential campaigns have assumed a significant role in this early phase of the Democratic nominating contest, reflecting the partys leftward shift, the power of social media and, perhaps above all, a field of contenders the size of a small platoon. Advertisement The pressure on all the candidates to figure out how to differentiate themselves from the other candidates is intense, said Anna Greenberg, a pollster working for former Colorado governor and presidential hopeful John Hickenlooper, one of more than 20 Democrats running or deciding whether to do so. Mayor Pete Buttigieg is the hottest thing in politics. Can it last? Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Ind., launched his upstart campaign with a push to eliminate the electoral college and was one of the first to propose expanding the Supreme Court from nine to 15 justices. He suggests five members appointed by a Democratic president, five by a Republican president and the remainder coming from the appellate bench, subject to unanimous consent from the 10 other justices. Other Democratic hopefuls, including Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and former Texas Rep. Beto ORourke, have said they are open to both ideas. Every vote matters, and the way we can make that happen is get rid of the electoral college, Warren said, amplifying the issue by pitching it during a recent CNN town hall. Harris and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker have discussed the issue of reparations, which has largely been consigned to academic and theoretical debate, in the context of their broader proposals to help the poor. Several rival candidates, including Buttigieg, Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, have said they too support ways of compensating victims of systemic racism. It doesnt have to be a direct pay for each person, but what we can do is invest in those communities, acknowledge whats happened, Klobuchar said on NBCs Meet the Press. To a great extent, the Democratic candidates are moving in the direction of left-leaning voters and activists, who have the power on social media to organize around issues and elevate concerns, rather than what has typically been the other way around. Healthcare, education and the economy are still matters of great interest and routinely come up wherever White House contestants appear. But underlying those issues is a broader frustration particularly among those on the left with the political system and its institutions, which, in their view, have thwarted the political will of most Americans. The Democratic nominee has won the popular vote in all but one of the last seven presidential elections, yet twice in the last two decades it was a Republican George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016 who claimed the White House by receiving the most electoral college votes. In the Senate, Republicans refused to even consider President Obamas nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, waiting out the 2016 election in hopes of filling a vacant seat, and have wielded the filibuster in such a way it now requires a super-majority to pass any significant legislation. The Supreme Court, meantime, has moved decidedly rightward under President Trump, who benefited from the Senates delaying tactics and filled two vacancies. All of that fuels Democratic demands for drastic change in the way the country picks its presidents, creates its laws and operates the highest court in the land, addressing what Greenberg, the Democratic pollster, called the existential anxiety of our time. Theres immense frustration among primary voters at the way popular will is being subverted, she said. There are tactical considerations as well. Right now, if youre a white candidate in the middle of the pack a moonshot issue like reparations is not a bad way to go. Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher The black vote is key to winning the Democratic nomination African Americans helped lift Barack Obama to the White House and push Hillary Clinton past Bernie Sanders and discussing slave reparations is a way to signal empathy and concern, said pollster Cornell Belcher. The issue may not be top of the mind for the 40-year-old mom whos got two kids shes trying to keep out of trouble and feed and is busting her tail to make a living, said Belcher, who conducts extensive research among black voters. Having said that, he continued, is it a way for some candidates to have a different and unique conversation with African Americans? I think it is. Right now, if youre a white candidate in the middle of the pack a moonshot issue like reparations is not a bad way to go. Some Democrats, though, worry the candidates are straying too far from voters core concerns. Nobody was elected to the House just now running on reparations, said Paul Begala, a top strategist in Bill Clintons pocketbook-focused 1992 campaign. Without minimizing slaverys harsh legacy or the import of other freshly surfaced issues, Begala suggested, how Democrats win is running on a broad middle-class agenda, the way they did in the midterms. Trump has gladly chimed in with his perspective. He seized upon the wide-ranging Democratic debate including a passing suggestion from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) on expanding the electorate to portray his prospective 2020 rivals as not just wacky but desperate. Democrats, facing a big candidate field, ask: Who can beat Trump? The Democrats are getting very strange, he tweeted. They now want to change the voting age to 16, abolish the Electoral College, and increase significantly the number of Supreme Court justices. Actually, youve got to win at the Ballot Box! (His defense of the electoral college marked a turnabout for Trump, who tweeted the day after Obamas 2012 reelection, The electoral college is a disaster for democracy.) Donna Brazile, a former head of the Democratic National Committee and a longtime party strategist, was among those who welcomed the campaigns broader conversation, suggesting the debate over, for instance, remaking the Supreme Court doesnt preclude discussion of other subjects. Its like going into a restaurant and knowing there will always be a choice of chicken, beef and fish, she said, likening those entrees to election staples like education, healthcare and the economy. Now youve got vegetarian options and youve got gluten-free options. Were not removing anything from the table, Brazile said. Were just adding a few items that have been conventionally left off. mark.barabak@latimes.com @markzbarabak The most consequential editing process in the country is almost over. Lawyers from the Justice Department and the special counsels office have gone word by word, sentence by sentence through the nearly 400-page confidential report that Robert S. Mueller III completed last month, using color coding to conceal classified or other protected information. The Justice Department will release the redacted report on Thursday morning, a spokeswoman said Monday. At stake is not just what information becomes public from the special counsels 22-month investigation into Russias role in the 2016 election, but also the credibility of the entire enterprise. Advertisement Too many redactions or a botched process could deepen political uncertainty surrounding the Russia investigation and fuel concerns that Atty. Gen. William Barr is deliberately shielding President Trump from scrutiny. Its important that the public see it, and also that the public have confidence [that] what theyre seeing is the real thing, and not some partial facsimile of the real thing, said David S. Kris, a former assistant attorney general for national security in the Obama administration. Kris, a founder of Culper Partners consultants, said the redaction process could be extremely frustrating for officials reviewing the document. Im sure theyre feeling the pressure, he said, not only to do this well but to do it quickly. The process can be arduous, especially when multiple agencies are involved, but the effort appeared near completion over the weekend. When they have a deadline, they can get it done, said Mark S. Zaid, a Washington lawyer who works on national security issues. Trumps lawyers have prepared a counter report to give the public a competing narrative to Muellers document. Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who represents the president, said Sunday that the legal team was polishing it up. Barr told a Senate panel last week he was surprised that Muellers report did not contain a vetted summary that he could quickly release to the public. Instead, he said, every page carried a warning that it contained what he called 6(e) material, a reference to Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which establishes rules for grand jury secrecy. Thats among the four categories of protected information that officials are redacting from the report, which is officially titled Report on the Investigation Into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election. Each category has been assigned a color to identify the reason for each cut or trim, but for now the four hues are as closely guarded as the reports contents. Besides grand jury evidence, the categories include classified material from U.S. intelligence agencies or allies, information about ongoing investigations, and details that could unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties. The vague final category raised concerns that prosecutors could try to shield the White House from embarrassing new disclosures. But Barr promised a Senate panel on Wednesday he wouldnt hide unflattering information about the president. Im talking about people in private life, not public-office holders, he told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday. Barr said he wasnt consulting with the White House on what should be redacted, but he declined to say if he or his aides had briefed the presidents team on the contents. A spokesman for the White House declined to comment. Atty. Gen. William Barr testifies before the Senate Appropriations Committee on April 10. (Pete Marovich / EPA/Shutterstock) The report is likely to contain reams of previously unknown material. Barr wrote that Muellers prosecutors issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communications records and and interviewed about 500 witnesses. Mueller already has publicly unspooled much of his work in voluminous indictments, court filings and trial testimony since he was appointed special counsel in May 2017. But the only insight into his chief conclusions came in a four-page letter that Barr wrote to Congress on March 24. Barr wrote that Mueller had not established a criminal conspiracy between Trumps campaign and the Russian governments attempts to interfere with the election, essentially clearing the president of the darkest allegations against him. Barr also said the evidence was not sufficient to determine that Trump had obstructed justice by trying to interfere with the investigation. Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller and supervised his work, concurred. Mueller had not reached a conclusion on the matter. But he didnt give Trump a clean bill of health, either, writing that, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him, according to Barrs letter. Mueller included evidence for a potential obstruction case, and Barrs letter implied some incidents had not yet come to light. Barr caused alarm among Democrats last week by describing court-ordered surveillance during the early stages of the Russia investigation as spying on Trumps campaign. He later clarified that he was concerned that unauthorized surveillance might have occurred, and was not declaring that it had. His language echoed some of the presidents most explosive criticisms about the surveillance and revived Democrats worries that Barr was not a fair broker in the process. Trump quickly seized on Barrs comments to renew his attacks on the Russia investigation. The Mueller Report, which was written by 18 Angry Democrats who also happen to be Trump Haters (and Clinton Supporters), should have focused on the people who SPIED on my 2016 Campaign, and others who fabricated the whole Russia Hoax. That is, never forget, the crime..... Trump tweeted on Monday. Whatever redactions are made, its unlikely the reports release will be the final word on what becomes public from the investigation. House Democrats have prepared a subpoena they say they will use, if necessary, to force the Justice Department to hand over the full, uncensored document. Such a subpoena, if issued, would probably start a long court battle. Barr has signaled his willingness to negotiate with Congress on what other information he could provide. Im willing to work on some of these categories, he said. Ken Gormley, president of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and the author of books about the Watergate and Whitewater investigations, said letting lawmakers see the full document was crucial to ensure the redactions were handled appropriately. The only way well ever know if this process worked is if Congress gets the whole report, he said. How can you know whats redacted if no one else gets to see it? The Justice Department plans to release on Thursday its redacted version of the final report from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, providing Congress and the public with an expanded narrative of a historic investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and other crimes. Mueller filed the nearly 400-page confidential report on March 22 after nearly two years of work, and Atty. Gen. William Barr and his aides have been working with the special counsels office to strip out classified or other protected information. House Democrats have pledged to fight for access to an unredacted version and have vowed to subpoena the Justice Department if necessary. Details from the report could prove damaging to President Trump even though Barr wrote in a four-page letter to Congress on March 24 that Mueller did not establish the existence of a criminal conspiracy between the presidents campaign and the Russian government. Advertisement Equally explosive is the question of whether Trump obstructed justice by trying to interfere with the probe. Mueller did not reach a decision on the issue, Barr wrote. Instead, the special counsel outlined the evidence and wrote while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him, according to Barrs letter. Barr and Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller in May 2017 and supervised his work, instead determined that the evidence was not sufficient to determine that the president committed an obstruction-of-justice offense. Its unclear how much will be redacted, but officials have said they are looking at four categories of information in the report, which is officially titled Report on the Investigation Into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election. Justice Department officials plan to conceal grand jury testimony, classified intelligence, information about ongoing investigations, and details that could damage the reputations of peripheral third parties. Barr testified to a Senate panel on Wednesday that he would not use that fourth category to hide unflattering information involving the president. Im talking about people in private life, he said, not public officeholders. Barrs letter suggested the report could contain reams of previously unknown material. He wrote that Muellers prosecutors issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communication records and interviewed about 500 witnesses. Atty. Gen. William Barr leaves the hearing room after testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee on April 10. (Pete Marovich / EPA/Shutterstock) Release of the report could spark a legal battle if House Democrats decide to issue a subpoena for the redacted material, as some have vowed. We will go to court. We will do whatever is necessary, said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the New York Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee. Republicans opposed the subpoena. This is reckless, its irresponsible, and its disingenuous, said Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee. Trump initially seized on Barrs March 24 letter to claim he was fully exonerated. In recent days, however, hes resumed denouncing the investigation and those who conducted it. This is dirty politics. This is actually treason, Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday. He also claimed he wasnt worried about the reports pending release. Im not concerned about anything because, frankly, there was no collusion and there was no obstruction, Trump said. And we never did anything wrong. Muellers investigation resulted in criminal charges against 34 people, including several of Trumps former top associates. No Americans were charged with conspiring with the Russian election operations. Michael Flynn, the presidents first national security advisor, pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about conversations with the Russian ambassador. He is awaiting sentencing and is cooperating in a separate investigation into a Turkish lobbying effort involving his former business associates. Paul Manafort, Trumps former campaign chairman, was sentenced to 7 years in prison for financial crimes and conspiracy charges related to his work in Ukraine. Michael Cohen, Trumps longtime personal lawyer, admitted to lying to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. The conversations continued until mid-2016, even as Trump was proposing closer ties to Russia and the Kremlin was pursuing a covert effort to tip the election in his favor. Mueller also indicted 25 Russians. They include a dozen military intelligence officers who allegedly hacked Democratic Party computers and released tens of thousands of emails through WikiLeaks during key moments in the campaign. Also indicted was Yevgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who allegedly funds the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg. A dozen employees of the organization were accused of spreading divisive and false content on social media. Along with their taxes, Americans have also filed a verdict this spring on the Republican tax law: Meh. When the law passed, late in 2017, President Trump and other party leaders hoped it would significantly boost their fortunes. But as the first filing season under the new law drew to a close, most Americans did not feel it had fattened their paychecks, and only about 1 in 4 supported it, according to a new USC-Dornsife/Los Angeles Times nationwide poll. One in 3 said they opposed the law and roughly 4 in 10 either had no opinion or were neutral. Those who said the new law had made them financially better off either by increasing their take home pay or their refunds offered more support for the law than those who did not experience a benefit. But for most taxpayers, the new law didnt have a big enough impact to outweigh partisanship, the poll found. Republicans largely support the new law, while Democrats oppose it; most others dont have an opinion. Advertisement The poll also asked those who expect to vote in a Democratic primary which candidate they preferred. Joe Biden, the former vice president, and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont topped the list with 30% and 19%, respectively, among those who volunteered a name. The results were very similar when potential voters were shown a list of 16 candidates, although significantly fewer voters could venture an opinion when asked to volunteer a name. Shown the list, about 1 in 4 said it was still too early to have a choice. Behind the two leaders, Sen. Kamala Harris of California and former Rep. Beto ORourke of Texas came next, each with 7% support. Harris did best among voters in the West, largely on the basis of strong support among her fellow Californians, the poll found. Age ranked as the biggest difference among supporters of the two leaders Biden got backing from 4 in 10 older than 70, but just over 1 in 10 younger than 30. Sanders led among those under 30, but his support dropped sharply with age. Thats consistent with a raft of other surveys of potential primary voters nationwide and in states that have contests early in the primary season. The age gap could pose a problem for Sanders since older Americans vote more consistently, especially in primaries, said Robert Shrum, the veteran Democratic campaign consultant and co-director of USCs Center for the Political Future, which co-sponsored the poll. The resistance to him as you go up the age scale could limit Sanders ability to expand his support, Shrum said. Despite early attention to the race, gender and ideology of the candidates, most candidate traits had limited impact on voter preferences, noted Jill Darling, the survey director. Only 1% of potential Democratic voters, for example, ranked having a female candidate as the top characteristic they were looking for. Most chose descriptions that contrast with Democrats image of President Trump, listing such top traits as honesty, good character intelligence and compassion. The poll indicates that Democratic voters so far have not signed up for a contest centered on identity politics, noted Mike Murphy, the longtime Republican campaign strategist and co-director of the USC center. That could change as the candidates begin to clash directly, but so far its just absent, he said. Similarly, issue differences among the candidates dont yet seem to have a major impact. Although Sanders has made Medicare for All the centerpiece of his campaign, as in 2016, Biden still led among the roughly 1 in 4 who listed healthcare as their top issue. On the tax law, the new poll joins a growing body of evidence that the legislation has not given Republicans the political benefit they had hoped for. Democrats campaigned against the law last year, saying it gave too much of its benefit to corporations and wealthy Americans. Earlier this year, the law took on more criticism amid reports of taxpayers discovering smaller refunds than they had expected. That problem abated as tax season went along, according to IRS data. Through the first week of April, the most recent data the IRS has published, the average refund and the total number of refunds nationwide were down just over 1% from last year. Tax experts say that most Americans received at least some benefit from the new law about two-thirds of individual taxpayers got a cut, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center but the poll indicates many didnt feel it. Just under 4 in 10 of those surveyed said they had noticed a change in their paychecks not caused by a raise or job change, with most of those reporting an increase. Among those who did see a change, about 3 in 4 attributed it to the tax law. Overall, fewer than 1 in 3 said the tax law had boosted their pay. Thats consistent with previous research indicating that most people dont notice tax changes that cause small increases in their paychecks, noted Marco Angrisani, an economist at USCs Center for Economic and Social Research, which administers the poll. Among those who got refunds last year and had filed this years returns, fewer than 1 in 3 said they were either getting a larger refund this time or owed less money. About 1 in 3 said they either were getting about the same refund as last year or owed the same amount. One in 4 said they either were getting a smaller refund or owed more money this year. None of those outcomes had as much impact on peoples view of the law as their partisanship, however. While experience seems to shape peoples support, party affiliation supersedes it, Angrisani said. Thats especially true for Democrats, the poll found: Even among those who reported being better off this year than last, only 1 in 20 support the new law. This USC-Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll was conducted March 15 to April 15 among 5,165 adult Americans, including 2,196 potential Democratic primary voters. Respondents were drawn from a probability-based panel maintained by USCs Center for Economic and Social Research for its Understanding America Study. Responses were weighted to accurately reflect known demographics of the U.S. population. The margin of error is 2 percentage points in either direction. A full description of the methodology, poll questions and data, and additional information about the poll are posted on the USC website. Other link here Get the latest news from the nations capital on Essential Washington >> The Trump administration moved Monday to restart a controversial policy that forces Central American asylum seekers to return to Mexico to await adjudication of their claims, an approach dubbed Remain in Mexico. The move came after a federal appeals court in California temporarily lifted an injunction on Friday that had blocked the policy. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials told staff at the agencys main asylum office in Arlington, Va., on Monday to prepare for asylum seekers to again be sent back across the border, according to emails obtained by the Los Angeles Times. An internal agency memo on Monday cited Fridays decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that granted the governments emergency motion for a stay of a lower court ruling that had blocked the policy. The administration calls the policy Migrant Protection Protocols. Advertisement This means that implementation of MPP may resume pending the ongoing litigation, the memo reads. In the meantime we have staff on standby for new referrals. Although the legal ruling allowed the administration to again force asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are processed in U.S. courts, authorities did not return any migrants over the weekend. The appeals court is expected to decide this week whether to extend the temporary stay and allow the Remain in Mexico policy to remain in effect. The statute explicitly authorizing the use of the Migrant Protection Protocols has been on the books for more than two decades, said Alexei Woltornist, a Justice Department spokesman, and the Department of Justice will robustly defend our ability to use it. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Under the policy, which then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced in December, authorities have forcibly returned more than 1,000 asylum seekers, mostly from Central America, to Mexico. The policys slow and chaotic rollout frustrated administration officials, frontline immigration officers and advocates alike, and the legal back-and-forth added to the confusion. The initial court ruling last Monday that blocked further returns came down a day after the president had ousted Nielsen, whod just called for a border-wide, aggressive expansion of the policy, and launched a purge of Trumps top Homeland Security officials. The president also threatened to transfer detained immigrants into so-called sanctuary cities in California and elsewhere, despite his own advisors warnings that such a move would likely violate the law. The Mexican government, which has insisted the returns policy is unilateral although it has cooperated so far, issued a careful statement last week rejecting the Trump administrations suggestion that the policy was part of a cooperative program extensively negotiated with Mexican counterparts. Alan Bersin, who served as a senior Homeland Security official in the Obama administration, says there is nothing unusual about the department proceeding with the Remain in Mexico policy while the injunction is lifted. But Judy Rabinovitz, deputy director of the ACLUs Immigrants Rights Project, who argued the initial case against the policy, questioned why the administration would temporarily resume it, given that judges soon could block it again. Im not surprised by anything the government does at this point, but Im a little bit surprised why they would make a point of trying to remove more people when were waiting on a decision from the court, Rabinovitz said. People are being harmed by this, she continued. And the harm is going to increase exponentially if they can keep expanding this in other places. Trump issued rare praise for Fridays ruling from the 9th Circuit, which hes often maligned for rejecting a number of his initiatives to crack down on immigration. Finally, great news at the Border! he tweeted. molly.otoole@latimes.com Twitter: @mollymotoole That headline probably got your attention, right? It may not be full-on nervousness, but theres definitely anxiety in Sacramento on this tax day about income tax receipts that help pay for a variety of vital government services from K-12 schools to prisons, parks and beyond. Heres the thing: Even if tax receipts meet projections by Gov. Gavin Newsom, it still will force some tough choices when lawmakers craft a new state budget. Thats because the state began April far behind where things were expected. Sign up for the Essential Politics newsletter Advertisement WANTED: ABOUT $2.7 BILLION IN MISSING MONEY Simply put, Newsoms projections for tax revenues back in January missed the mark by almost $2.7 billion. I first wrote about this in mid-February, pointing out that state budget writers believed they could pin the problem on President Trump and congressional Republicans. The federal tax overhaul of 2017 shrunk the amount of state taxes that Californians could write off on their federal returns. The theory since this winter is that some California taxpayers who used to pay their state taxes early just to get that benefit would hold on to their dollars until the last possible moment the final hours of April 15. Through the end of last week, though, most of the money hadnt shown up. Tax receipts were about $600 million above projections, reported the independent Legislative Analysts Office. And its certainly possible this week will close the gap. But what if it doesnt? As I wrote in my Sunday column, it could force Newsom and the Legislatures mega-majority of Democrats to rethink some of their more ambitious budget proposals. The governor will use Aprils final tally to revise his budget plan next month; legislators must send him a final spending plan by June 15 or forfeit their paychecks for every day that its late. CLOCK TICKS ON A SACRAMENTO DEAL OVER WILDFIRE COSTS Newsom also faces a few intense weeks on a topic that has bedeviled lawmakers for the past year: a comprehensive plan to ensure the costs of utility-involved wildfires are paid to victims and communities without putting any more utilities into bankruptcy. On Friday, the governor unveiled a 52-page report from the task force he commissioned to find a road map for Californias wildfire future. The group made recommendations on wildfire prevention and enforcement but declined to pick a path forward on whether long-standing liability laws should be loosened so that utility companies only pay when theyre at fault for a blazes origin. The chance that such a change means someone else pays the difference ratepayers or taxpayers is why the issue has been so contentious at the state Capitol. MIGRATION: CALIFORNIA HELP, THE SANCTUARY SUGGESTION Nor is the governor likely to find an easy way to move the needle on the economic plight in Central America that has led so many people to make their way to the U.S.-Mexico border. Newsoms trip last week to El Salvador left him convinced that California could do more to boost the economy of the country, the kind of assistance that was once solely the province of the U.S. government. The president, meantime, ratcheted up the rhetoric over the weekend on the idea of sending migrants to cities with sanctuary laws many of them in California. We hereby demand that they be taken care of at the highest level, especially by the State of California, which is well known [f]or its poor management & high taxes! Trump tweeted on Saturday. Newsom who found tensions running high on the immigration debate while in El Salvador called the idea sophomoric and petulant. NATIONAL LIGHTNING ROUND -- Pete Buttigieg, the Indiana mayor who hopes to be the voice of a new generation, officially entered the 2020 presidential race on Sunday. (Can it last?) -- Sen. Kamala Harris used the looming tax day deadline on Sunday to release 15 years worth of her personal returns. Last year, she and her husband paid almost $700,000 in taxes on more than $2 million in income. -- Speaking of Californias junior senator and money: Harris is the early presidential favorite of Hollywood donors, a Times analysis finds. -- Trumps reelection campaign is set to report that it raised more than $30 million in the first quarter of 2019, edging out his top two Democratic rivals combined, according to figures it provided to the Associated Press. The haul brings the campaigns cash on hand to $40.8 million, an unprecedented war chest for an incumbent president this early in a campaign. -- Roger Stone asked a federal judge to compel the Justice Department to turn over a full copy of special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs report on the Russia investigation as part of discovery in his criminal case. -- Top Democrats rushed to defend Rep. Ilhan Omar after Trump retweeted video that was edited to suggest she was being dismissive of the significance of the 9/11 terror attacks. And on Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she has taken steps to ensure Omars safety. -- A bipartisan group of congressional leaders is questioning the Trump administrations new system for detecting anthrax or other airborne biological weapons, warning it could be even less reliable than the nations existing, problem-plagued program. -- Joe Biden, preparing to enter the 2020 presidential race, has spent years trying to make amends for his handling of the Anita Hill sexual harassment allegations. A careful review of the record shows problems that could hurt his candidacy. -- A top House Democrat on Saturday ratcheted up his demand for access to President Trumps tax returns, telling the IRS that the law clearly gives Congress a right to them. TODAYS ESSENTIALS -- Our Times investigation: Californias automated motor voter system was launched at DMV offices even after engineers reported an alleged hacking attempt. State lawmakers said last week they want to know why the project wasnt delayed so the problems could be fully investigated. -- Newsom announced Thursday he was pursuing a plan for at least three new low-income housing projects to be built on state land. -- Nurse practitioners won an early round at the state Capitol in their bid to expand their care for patients without doctor supervision. -- A bill to ban cosmetic surgeries on young children born with atypical genitalia was shelved for the year amid opposition from doctors who said medical decisions should be left up to parents. -- California lawmakers are considering a bill that would clarify how county boards of supervisors can oversee sheriffs, including controversial departments in Los Angeles and Sacramento. -- A contentious bill that would tighten rules around police use of force moved forward last week after California legislators voted it through a key legislative committee. -- Soda news: Californias proposed ban on Big Gulp-style sodas is shelved for 2019 in Sacramento. LOGISTICS Essential Politics is written by Sacramento bureau chief John Myers on Mondays and Washington bureau chief David Lauter on Fridays. You can keep up with breaking news on our politics page throughout the day. And are you following us on Twitter at @latimespolitics? Miss Fridays newsletter? Here you go. Please send thoughts, concerns and news tips to politics@latimes.com. Did someone forward you this? Sign up here to get Essential Politics in your inbox. The roughneck politics over release of tax returns has century-old roots in two California oil fields. It grew from the corrupt administration of President Harding and its Teapot Dome scandal, which partly involved the Elk Hills and Buena Vista oil fields in Kern County. A half-century later, President Nixon resurrected the issue of politicians tax returns as he began to drown in Watergate. A highlight of this Nixon tax dodge was his legendary declaration: I am not a crook. Even before that, California Gov. Ronald Reagan gave Democrats a strong reason for demanding the release of his returns. Advertisement Reagan had opposed switching to payroll withholding of income taxes, arguing the state should stick with annual lump payments. Taxes should hurt so citizens dont get comfortable paying them, he maintained. Turned out, the conservative Republican hadnt paid any state income tax the previous year. Although its surely no balm for President Trumps tormented mind, the Democrats cry for release of tax returns hardly started with him. It should be pointed out that former California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, refused to release his taxes when he ran for governor in 2010 and 2014. But no Democrat Im aware of ever demanded that he make public his returns. Republicans Harding, Nixon, Reagan and Trump became the Democrats fat tax targets. Shock! Related: Kamala Harris releases 15 years of tax returns Not that Trumps tax returns shouldnt be examined. They should be. Just not by every rummaging Tom, Dick and Harry looking at stuff thats none of their business, like charitable donations. The returns should be studied in private by a congressional oversight committee. And if suspect, they should be investigated, perhaps in public hearings. Thats what an obscure law stemming from the Teapot Dome scandal allows Congress to do. House Ways and Means Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) is using the statute. Hes seeking Trumps returns. The Harding administration scandal, in 1921-22, involved the Teapot Dome oil field in Wyoming and the two California fields. They were Navy petroleum reserves that Harding turned over to the Interior Department. Interior Secretary Albert Fall then leased them to private companies at low rates without competitive bidding. A congressional committee investigated. Fall was convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies. He became the first presidential cabinet member to be imprisoned. Harding died of cardiac arrest in San Franciscos Palace Hotel in 1923. In 1924, Congress passed the law that now allows Democrats to go after Trumps returns. Fast forward to 1973. A Watergate lawsuit contained passing reference to a $500,000 tax deduction Nixon claimed for donating 1,000 boxes of papers to the National Archives. Reporters jumped on the story and foundered. Democrats demanded an audit. But Nixon opposed it and refused to release his taxes. The IRS deferred to the president. Then data were leaked to a relatively small newspaper, the Providence Journal-Bulletin. The paper reported that in 1970 and 1971, Nixon had paid what amounted to a poor mans taxes $793 and $878, respectively on presidential income of $400,000 plus. The documents donation had drastically reduced Nixons tax liability. Or so he thought. At an editors conference, a delegate from the Providence newspaper pressed the president. And Nixon famously replied with a quote that would make any political strategist wince: I welcome this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I am not a crook. Related: Elizabeth Warren releases 2018 tax return, revealing $900,000 in income The IRS reversed itself and began auditing Nixons returns. The president then caved and publicly released them. The IRS found Nixons donation to be improper, and he paid nearly half his net worth in back taxes. The reporter, 31-year-old Jack White, won a Pulitzer Prize. Since then, all major-party presidential nominees except President Ford in 1976 and Trump in 2016 have voluntarily released their tax returns. Ford at least provided a summary. Trump offered only poppycock. Reagan released his returns reluctantly when he ran for president in 1980. But he had no practical option, especially after what happened in 1971. A Franchise Tax Board employee opened Reagans mailed return and couldnt keep secret what she found. Who could? She told a downtown Sacramento salesclerk. The clerk told her daughter. Her daughter was a journalism student at Cal State Sacramento and had a campus radio show. The student, Rose King, reported on air that Reagan had paid no state income tax for 1970. Not many people heard her show. But she also interned for state Senate Democratic Caucus Chairman Mervyn Dymally of Los Angeles. Dymally tipped off a Capitol television reporter. And Reagan was asked about it at his weekly news conference. The startled governor replied: You know something, I dont actually know whether I did [pay taxes] or not. He really didnt know. But minutes after the news conference, Reagans office confirmed that because of business reverses he had owed no state tax. Something about a loophole cattle herd. He did pay a federal tax. I never saw Reagan angry, but he was this time, recalls George Steffes, his legislative liaison who became a respected Sacramento lobbyist. And his staff was angry because his lawyer [future U.S. Atty. Gen. William French Smith] had not said anything about it. We were blindsided. Reagan slammed his glasses down on the desk and said, I can make more money in a month in Hollywood than Im making as governor of California. He was making $49,100 and afterward making sure he was paying taxes on every cent. More from George Skelton george.skelton@latimes.com Follow @LATimesSkelton on Twitter Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) continues to press the U.S. Congress to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide in advance of the 102nd anniversary of the massacre of millions on April 24. On Wednesday, Schiff and Rep. Dave Trott (R-Michigan) introduced a bipartisan resolution that recognizes the genocide of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire that spanned from 1915 to 1923 .The Ottoman Empire is modern-day Turkey. Over 100 years ago, the Ottoman Empire undertook a brutal campaign of murder, rape and displacement against the Armenian people that took the lives of 1.5 million men, women and children in the first genocide of the 20th century, Schiff said in a statement. Genocide is not a historic relic even today hundreds of thousands of religious minorities face existential threat from ISIS in Syria and Iraq. It is therefore all the more pressing that the Congress recognize the historical fact of the Armenian Genocide and stand against modern-day genocide and crimes against humanity. Join the conversation on Facebook >> Trott, whose district in Michigan has a large population of Armenian people, was a co-sponsor alongside Schiff in introducing legislation last year to have former president Barack Obama recognize the genocide. Like Schiff, Trott has been working to have the U.S. government formally acknowledge the tragic event. This year will be the ninth time, one for every congress since he was elected, that Schiff has brought forward legislation to commemorate the Armenian Genocide. In 2007, Schiff had legislation with 212 co-sponsors that nearly passed on the House floor. Trott said he was proud to be taking part in the effort. After over 100 years, it is long overdue that the United States government stand in solidarity with the Armenian people to officially recognize the genocide waged against their families a century ago, Trott said in a statement. I am honored to be able to represent such a vibrant Armenian population in southeast Michigan, and I will continue to fight for them in Congress. anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com Twitter: @acocarpio Burbank Unifieds facilities-naming committee unanimously voted Tuesday to recommend renaming David Starr Jordan Middle School because of its namesakes controversial writings on eugenics. Burbank Unified school board members are expected to decide next month whether or not they agree with changing the schools name. Board members could then decide to select a new name on their own or reconvene the facilities-naming committee to come up with some options. School board member Charlene Tabet, who heads the naming committee, said she felt compelled to change the schools name after hearing from parents during the committees three public meetings on the matter and researching Jordans beliefs. Jordan, who was the first chancellor of Stanford University, has become a controversial figure because of his support of eugenics, which endorses controlled breeding to rid society of physical and mental disabilities. From 1910 up until 1964, roughly 20,000 people considered less-than-desirable, such as minorities and people with mental disabilities, were forcibly sterilized in California due, in part, to the eugenics philosophy. The ideology was embraced by the Nazi party and notable people, such as Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger and U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. I understood where [Jordan] had been and what his viewpoints were, and I didnt agree with that, she said. Tradition is wonderful and nice, but there is a concrete solid argument to do this. In addition to Tabet, the facilities-naming committee is made up of fellow school board member Steve Frintner, resident Gerrard Panahon, Jordan teacher Dana Ragle, Jordan principal Jennifer Meglemre, parents Gayle Kolodny Cole and Laura Jimenez, and district director of secondary education John Paramo. Student Ixchel Sanchez Jimenez was also appointed to the committee but was unable to attend the meeting on Tuesday. Burbank Unified officials started looking at the districts school names this past July in the wake of a national trend to remove public tributes to historical figures who held racist or other intolerant beliefs. In March, the Palo Alto Unified school board renamed its middle school from David Starr Jordan to Frank S. Greene Jr., after an African American venture capitalist. Burbank has 15 schools christened after white males, with the exceptions being Providencia Elementary, named after the schools location, and Monterey High School for the street where the school is located. Parent Erica Quiel is one of the proponents of the name change and said during the meeting she sees this process as a chance for the school district to name a school after a woman and/or person who isnt white. I think this is a really great opportunity to update the school name to be something relevant for our students, Quiel said. Whatever name local school officials select, it will likely take several years for district employees to fully phase out Jordan Middle Schools name, Paramo said. School business cards, letterhead and gym clothes can be changed fairly easily, but it will take time for school officials to raise money and install a new marquee and sign for the front of the school. Parent Konstantine Anthony was in tears when the naming committee made its recommendation because he would have been a target for eugenicists because he is autistic. Hes been a fierce advocate for rights and access for the disabled as a member of the Burbank Advisory Council on Disabilities. Even though his 6-year-old son, who is also autistic, will attend another middle school in the district, Anthony said the potential renaming offers an important lesson to stand up for whats right. I hope he takes away two things that everyone, including him, is worth being respected, and when theres something wrong, you get your friends together and change it, Anthony said. Daniel Langhorne is a contributor to Times Community News. 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. When Tobias Tubbs was incarcerated in a state prison in Lancaster, he immersed himself in books to learn more about his religion, Islam. But it wasnt until a group of Muslim volunteers from Orange County more than 100 miles away started visiting him that Tubbs truly reconnected with his faith. Having a religious community, he said, brought the words he read in ancient texts to life. They brought connection, said Tubbs, who spent 26 years behind bars for murder before then-Gov. Jerry Brown commuted his two life sentences to 25 years to life in October last year. Were all so isolated at faraway places that its difficult for our families and our parents to come. When you dont have that kind of human connection, it tears at the human soul and personality of the individual. Advertisement We wanted someone to hear us out, to recognize our humanity and spirituality. The volunteers were part of Link Outside, a program affiliated with the Islamic Institute of Orange County in Anaheim that for the past eight years has offered a variety of services to Muslim inmates throughout California and the nation including letter writing, prison and jail visits, correspondence and in-person, college-level theology courses, as well as reentry assistance such as housing and obtaining official documents. This year, the group started taking volunteers to Orange County jails and prisons. The idea is that connecting Muslim inmates to their broader religious community gives them the support and resources necessary to succeed behind bars and back in society. Were one of the few A-to-Z programs, meaning we have services that we offer from the time they get arrested and are in prison to when they get released, said Amin Eshaiker, program manager for Link Outside. But really, the biggest need, from my experience, is that they want to feel accepted, they want to feel part of a community. This need is particularly great, Eshaiker said, since many Muslim inmates convert in prison, and may have never met a Muslim before or stepped inside a mosque. Even though Islam is thought to be one of the fastest-growing religions in prison, many dont have access to Muslim chaplains or other religious resources while incarcerated. Even if thats all you offer, by responding to them or visiting them once in a while, thats more important than having a library full of books, or a course, so that they dont feel alone in this, and that there are people out there who support them, Eshaiker said. Thats part of the motivation, once they get released, to stay on the right path, to not get distracted and to not go back to their old ways. Its a form of rehabilitation. Were one of the few A-to-Z programs, meaning we have services that we offer from the time they get arrested and are in prison to when they get released Amin Eshaiker, program manager for Link Outside Prison ministry is not new to the American Muslim community. Perhaps the most famous American Muslim, Malcolm X, joined the Nation of Islam in prison and exchanged letters with the groups leader, Elijah Muhammad, for years while he was behind bars. Link Outside also grew from a letter-writing program. Eshaiker said the mosque would get several letters a day from Muslim inmates around the country, many of them explaining that they had been writing to different mosques for several years but never got a response. So Eshaiker decided to not only reply to each writer, but to digitize and archive each letter so that other volunteers could jump in and correspond when needed. I read Malcolm Xs autobiography, and I thought, This is so similar to what we do, said Eshaiker. He was getting these letters in the mail, and he had all these people to write to. It opened up his heart and his trust. Its the same thing today. In conjunction with the mosques college, Cal Islamic University which offers a bachelors degree in Islamic Studies Link Outside developed correspondence courses in topics such as Islamic theology and spirituality, and eventually, in-person classes as part of a statewide program in which course hours take time off a persons sentence. Jesse Maroney, an instructor and program coordinator for Link Outside, said the lessons arent just academic, but also give inmates spiritual tools for healing such as meditation and a set of traditional Islamic spiritual practices known as purification of the heart. Guys are able to utilize the Islamic teachings to deal with some of their personal issues at a higher level, such as post-traumatic stress, said Maroney, who was incarcerated for about 10 years. Some of the spiritual practices help them deal with some of their emotions or with some of the traumas they have from their childhood. Link Outside hosted an Eid event last summer for Muslim inmates at Ironwood State Prison. (CDCR, Ironwood State Prison) Gernay Quinnie Jr. attended Maroneys classes for a year and a half during his 19-year sentence. After he was released in 2017, he said Link Outside helped him find housing and gave him the support he needed to get through college. He graduated from Associated Technical College in Los Angeles and now works in telecommunications. It gave me an extended family, he said. There are times when Im down, there are times when I feel like giving up, but that family is the linchpin for succeeding out here. Quinnie said its not just inmates who benefit from the program. The volunteers are also changed once they see the humanity of their fellow Muslims behind bars, he said. When brothers begin to share their stories, it immediately dispels the criminal, non-criminal barrier, he said. They think, that could have been me. And thats where the healing is. There is maybe only a degree of separation between us and the visitor. Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil is a contributor to TimesOC. With bottles of boron and sulfur covering a wooden work desk, Adam Neeleys studio on Coast Highway in Laguna Beach may look like it was made for chemistry, not jewelry design. But for the self-described alchemist, each piece requires a mixture of scientific technique and thoughtful design with a touch of magic. One of his latest pieces, a citrine pendant bordered by yellow and white gold, became a finalist in the international Saul Bell Design Award jewelry competition. The pendant, named Star Hen Galaxy, features 22- and 14-carat gold pieces appearing to swirl around a 19.43-carat citrine gemstone, like the spiraling arms of an actual galaxy. Its really cool because it comes alive, said Neeley, 35. The piece competed against hundreds of other entries from 19 countries to be named one of five finalists in the gold/platinum category. Neeley will find out May 19 whether he wins, which would mean beating out last years winner, Los Angeles designer Garen Garibian. Adam Neeleys Star Hen Galaxy pendant is a finalist in the gold/platinum category of the international Saul Bell Design Award competition. The winner will be announced May 19. (Courtesy of Adam Neeley) The competition piece began as a dream literally. Every new Neeley piece starts at home on the couch. He turns on classical music, holds a metal ball in his hand and lulls himself to sleep with visions of the gemstone he plans to work with. Just as he reaches a semi-dream state, the metal ball slips from his hand, jolting him awake and catching him in the middle of his meditation. What I like about that semi-dream state is that you dont have the rules holding you back, because its a dream, Neeley said. So you can just sit there and visualize and turn them and twist them and put things together that maybe you wouldnt have done at your daily conscious sitting at the bench. Once awake, Neeley puts his vision on paper with a quick sketch. He then usually translates the drawing to computer to render the vision more exactly. The computer-aided design is printed into wax form and cast in the shape of a necklace, ring, bracelet or earrings. The process combines design with technique and then mystery, he said. For most jewelers, the next step would be to pour liquid metal gold, silver, platinum, etc. into the casts. But the scientist in Neeley goes a step further. With the periodic table as his guide, he mixes elements into the gold, creating a distinct hue. I have to engineer how to go through and mix in just the right combination of ingredients to get the new colors of gold that Im making but also get them to be workable and then get them to be hard enough and resist tarnish, he said. It does have that kind of mad scientist element to it. The final steps are welding the pieces together and finishing the metal into smooth, sparkling jewelry. Its like culinary theres a lot of different layers to it and they hit your palette, said Zach Rollins, Neeleys partner and gallery manager. Adam Neeley made his first piece of jewelry, a denim lapis pendant with Southwestern motifs, for his mother. (Courtesy of Adam Neeley) Neeley began his vocation as a child, collecting rocks in his rural Colorado hometown with his father, whom he calls a hobbyist rock hound. The first piece of jewelry he ever made was a lapis pendant for his mother, who wanted him to do something with the piles of stones sitting around his bedroom. Soon, Neeley was apprenticing with silversmiths, learning to fashion raw metal into twisted designs for pendants and rings. By age 14, he sold out his first art show. He spent high school honing his technique and finding his voice in his artwork. You do not need to make a piece of jewelry that is just that standard concept of jewelry, Neeley said, fondling a gold ring inspired by a baby grand piano. Make something that is out of the box that pushes technique and pushes design into something that really is an art piece. After high school, Neeley moved to Florence, Italy, for 2 years, studying technical jewelry design. He learned how to draw and make technical renderings of how a piece of jewelry was going to look before creating it. He paid his way through school by working as a goldsmith in the evenings and selling his wares to a growing American patronage during the summers. It does have that kind of mad scientist element to it. Adam Neeley When you see a piece, you know its an Adam piece, said Deann Day, a longtime customer of Neeleys from Cypress. Some of the pieces are almost like curves of a womans body or very musical in nature. It all has a certain gosh, I dont even know how to put my finger on it its all very graceful and fluid. They just look distinctly Adam. After returning to the United States, Neeley and his father came to California which Neeley had previously visited for a planned road trip up the coast from San Diego to San Francisco to find a place to open a shop. They got as far as Santa Monica and decided to go back to Laguna Beach because Neeley liked it so much. We got to Laguna Beach and thats always been a very special spot, Neeley said. I was like, this feels really wonderful. Laguna just had that really awesome vibe. At age 21, he opened his first shop on Coast Highway in Laguna with 15 pieces. They sold out in the first month. Leslie Tucker of Newport Beach met Neeley nearly 15 years ago and commissioned him to redo her wedding ring. Hes grown and grown and weve just watched him bloom, said Tucker, who owns several Neeley pendants. Theyre timeless. Theyre amazing pieces. Corona del Mar State Beach, the last stretch of sand to remain closed after a 52-year-old woman was bitten by a shark while swimming off the coast Sunday, reopened Wednesday morning. Lifeguard crews who had been searching by boat and helicopter for shark activity in the water off Newport Beach reopened the state beach at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday. Lifeguards had reopened the beach between the Balboa Pier and the Wedge at about noon Tuesday. Maria Korcsmaros, a personal trainer and aerobics instructor from Corona, was swimming along the buoys about 150 yards offshore as part of her training for an Ironman competition scheduled for July in Canada when she was attacked at about 4:15 p.m. Sunday, according to officials from Orange County Global Medical Center in Santa Ana, where Korcsmaros is recovering from surgery. Korcsmaros had multiple teeth marks on her right side extending from her shoulder area to her lower pelvis. She also had lacerations on her right arm, an open chest wound and multiple rib fractures and had lost about a liter of blood, doctors said. She was moved out of the coronary care unit and is beginning a new journey toward recovery, her husband, Alex, wrote in a comment on her Facebook page. Officials said they are not certain about the species of shark that bit Korcsmaros. However, Chris Lowe, head of the Shark Lab at Cal State Long Beach, said Tuesday that based on the size of her wounds it was likely an adult great white measuring more than 10 feet long. hannah.fry@latimes.com Twitter: @HannahFryTCN With the Orange County Museum of Art having found a new buyer for its Newport Center site, the city of Newport Beach is settling lawsuits involving the museum and local activists who opposed OCMAs attempted land sale to make way for a high-rise condominium project. The city confirmed the settlements Friday. For the record: The original version of this article stated incorrectly that the Orange County Museum of Art will pay Newport Beach about $40,000. Nexus Development Corp. will pay that as reimbursement for the citys legal costs. The city was a defendant in two suits filed early last year related to the ill-fated Museum House condo proposal. One, filed by OCMA, challenged the validity of a petition that activists circulated seeking to force a public vote on the development. The other was filed by Museum House opponent Susan Skinner, who alleged the city didnt properly implement its Greenlight Initiative a growth-control measure passed by local voters in 2000 when it approved Museum House in 2016. The City Council revoked development approval for the 100-unit, 25-story Museum House tower in February 2017 when faced with enough petition signatures to force the referendum. OCMA has agreed to pay $205,000 in attorney and other litigation costs to Line in the Sand, a residents group that accused the museum of threatening its free speech when the museums suit alleged its petition was deficient. Skinner agreed to drop her suit, which she has said was merely an insurance policy against the unexpected event of a successful challenge of the referendum petition. OCMA sued the city and individual Line in the Sand members in January 2017, before Orange County verified the signatures on the referendum petition. The museum challenged the documents small font size and alleged it didnt contain the full text of general plan amendments and that signature gatherers provided objectively false information to voters about things such as Museum Houses location, size and height and permitted uses for OCMAs property. The petition weighed roughly 10 pounds and was about 1,000 pages long. Line in the Sand called the suit an attempt to stifle the groups free speech, although an Orange County Superior Court judge did not agree. Line in the Sand appealed the judges ruling. An appellate court had not set a hearing date at the time of the settlement, and the group will withdraw its appeal. OCMA had planned to sell its property to would-be Museum House developer Related California and use the proceeds to help it move to a new location at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa. In the settlement agreement, OCMA said it now plans to sell the museum property at 850 San Clemente Drive, and an adjoining parcel, to Nexus Development Corp. It did not state the tentative sale price or what might be built there. An attorney for OCMA did not return messages seeking comment Friday. In a side agreement, Nexus will pay Newport Beach about $40,000 as reimbursement for the citys legal costs. Nexus is a real estate developer with offices in Santa Ana and Phoenix. Its portfolio includes office, retail, industrial, hotel, residential and senior living facilities, according to its website. The settlement is contingent on the sale to Nexus being completed by June 30. hillary.davis@latimes.com Twitter: @Daily_PilotHD My name was published in a recent article about the police car logos in Laguna Beach (Laguna Beach debates whether American flag image on police cars is patriotic or overly aggressive, April 12). The article posted on the Daily Pilot website was taken completely out of context. All of my words were not presented. My purpose for standing before the council was the fact that a design was put before the City Council and council approved the design. Then the police cars showed up with a different design that was not approved. My shock was in seeing a design that was not the approved design. Not shock at the American flag, as the original design included the American flag. My second point in front of council was if other designs were going to be considered, being an artist community filled with many talented artists, why not put a call out to artists for logo design ideas to be considered? (I am not a graphic artist and would not be submitting one by the way as this was not a self-gratifying exercise). My final point was my personal opinion that the unapproved design felt a little aggressive. I guess I wasnt wrong about that, was I? I have been attacked with phone calls voicemails and emails harassing me, calling me un-American and calling me names I would never even repeat. I have been put forth on the dark web with my email and my phone number as a pariah for an anti-nationalism campaign that I have nothing to do with. I love our country. I was born and raised here. I raise my family here. I have always saluted the flag, and I love what I thought the American flag represents. I never said anything about the flag being offensive to anybody else or that we should be sensitive about using the American flag. I never said any of that. I was in support of the original approved design that incorporated the American flag. My point was the design used, which was not approved, felt a bit aggressive. Guess I hit the nail on the head on that one, because the America I know would never attack an individual like I have been attacked. And if this is what our flag represents its a very sad day indeed. Ive received over 50 threatening emails, voicemails and threats to expect retribution against me personally at my summer art studio this year. The American flag I salute does not support the behavior that I have been subject to as a result of exercising my civil right to speak my opinion. And for it to be taken out of context and presented in this manner is nothing short of distortion, and serving this climates undercurrent of hatred that is seeking a vessel. I am not your vessel. I think the real story here is how hatred is seeking a vessel and does not demand any factual basis or evidence of a backstory before attacking. Carrie Rae Woodburn is a Laguna Beach artist. LAureole, a womens philanthropic and social organization, presented its Perennial Rose luncheon and fashion show to celebrate 52 years of caring and sharing. Two hundred supporters packed the ballroom at the Oakmont Country Club in Glendale this past Saturday. Guests had lots to enjoy. An hour before lunch, there were opportunities to win raffle prizes, table centerpieces, a 50/50 drawing and silent-auction goodies. Just when guests were too pooped to pop, a salmon and veggie lunch was served. Emcee Tom Smith kept the action going by introducing Kathy Dupree, Laureole president. She, in turn, introduced her benefit co-chairs, Marlin Galvez and Sheri Gfeller. Students from the Salvation Armys Zone After School Program made a welcome appearance at Laureoles Perennial Rose Luncheon & Fashion Show. (Ruth Sowby Rands / Glendale News-Press) The featured speaker was Katelin McPhee, coordinator of the Glendale Salvation Armys after-school program called the Zone. This popular program at the organizations headquarters has 80 elementary school students enrolled. Forty students come daily and are provided generous snacks and classes in subjects such as art, robotics and even knitting. Luncheon profits are earmarked solely for the Salvation Army and its outreach to community children. Laureole member Grace Sheldon-Williams models an ensemble from Magnolia Boutique. (Ruth Sowby Rands / Glendale News-Press) Along with Salvation Army lieutenants Justin and Jennifer Shiflett, McPhee introduced seven of the children enrolled in the Zone program. Glendale resident Maria Melendez is mother of one of the seven in attendance, Cielo Martinez, 7. Maria Melendez said she appreciated the safe environment the program provides. The afternoon ended with a fashion show, featuring organization members wearing fashions from Magnolia Boutique in Arcadia. Boutique owner, Karen Crisci, was the fashion-show commentator. The 29 founding members of the Cabrini Literary Guild gathered in 1943 to share their interest in good books and current Catholic activities. Those members may never have dreamed that their good efforts would survive for over 75 years. One of the organizations efforts is an annual writing contest open to students attending all Catholic high schools in the Los Angeles Archdiocese. This years writing awards were handed out this past Thursday. Some 60 members and guests were at the Oakmont Country Club to honor three young female writers. Abigail Merkel, 18, from Bishop Alemany High School won first place; Kira Toal, 17, from Immaculate High School took home second place; and Grace Fontes, 16, of Mayfield Senior School received third place. All contestants were asked to submit original essays about an assigned topic. This years topic was What Challenge Do You See Your Generation Facing. Merkel wrote about the negative impact of social media. She titled her essay Generation Z: Plugged In, and she read it during the event. Toals E Pluribus Unum essay (Out of Many, One) discussed political extremism. Fontes wrote about climate change in her essay titled Climate Change in Our World. In total, the young writers received $2,250 in cash awards. Cabrini Literary Guild Writing Award winners are, from top, Grace Fontes, 16, Kira Toal, 17, and Abigail Merkel, 18. (Ruth Sowby Rands / Glendale News-Press) Rev. John Terence OBrien, associate pastor at Glendales Church of the Incarnation, distributed the awards. He performed double duty as guest speaker. Cabrinis annual fundraiser in March helps generate money to support the writing awards and other philanthropic efforts. More than 100 essays were submitted from students at 40 Catholic high schools. Essay judges were Dennis Doyle, a Glendale Community College instructor; his wife, writer and editor, Paula Doyle, and Robert Lincoln, a retiree from Raytheon Co. Congratulations for a program well done must be given to Cabrini VIPs, Brenda Lantieri, president; and Mary Pallares and Marie Urrutia, event co-chairs. OBriens parting advice to his audience and, especially, to the winning, young authors Be open to Gods surprises. Ruth Sowby Rands may be reached at ruthasowby@gmail.com. Melissa Patton, executive director of Lanterman House, has announced to the museums board of directors and La Canada Flintridge city officials her plans to retire later this year after 25 years at the helm. Patton was a young mother of two with her masters in museum studies from USC when she was hired in 1992 by Lanterman Foundation Board President Sue Schechter, then-mayor Joan Feehan and Gabby Pryor, then city manager, to oversee on a part-time basis the restoration of the former Lanterman family house, which had been left to the city. This female mafia was running the city, and they just said, This is who weve decided is going to be the director of Lanterman House, Patton joked of her hiring. That is how I ended up here. Join the conversation on Facebook >> As phases of rehabilitation to the building were completed, Pattons job duties shifted toward turning the Encinas Drive house and its contents into a functioning museum and showcase of La Canadas founding family and their role in Crescenta Valley history. Lanterman House Executive Director Melissa Patton accounced she will be retiring after 25 years at the museum. (Raul Roa / La Canada Valley Sun) A quarter of a century later, the 1915 stone bungalow-style manse once called El Retiro is a cultural touchstone for visitors who want to learn more about the citys founders and the early days of the valley. A thriving archive of historical documents makes the location an important local resource and point of interest to the estimated 43,000 people whove come to the house since it opened to visitors. Patton, 60, says now seemed as good a time as any for her to retire and, in doing so, make room for the next leg of Lanterman Houses journey. The executive director officially announced her plans to step down as of Sept. 1 the 25th anniversary of her first day on the job in a March 9 meeting of the Lanterman Historical Museum Foundation Board of Directors. I figured I will have been here for 25 years. That seemed like a good time to depart, she said. The Lanterman board has appointed board member and docent Bob Moses to serve as interim director while it searches for Pattons replacement, according to President-elect Mary Lou Langdyke. Were in the process of creating a current job description, Langdyke said Monday. Bob has graciously agreed to be the interim director, so were not going to miss a beat. But we want to take our time and make sure [the job description] reflects whats really needed at this point. A retired nursing home administrator whose own roots go back to La Canadas early families, Moses praised Pattons many contributions to Lanterman House. She has come, personally and professionally, a very long way, as well as bringing the museum a long way, he said. She has been a fantastic executive director. Patton, who plans to get more involved in art and art history and travel internationally with husband and Caltech chemistry professor Jay Winkler, is bracing herself for a bittersweet departure. It is going to be hard to let it go, she said. "(But) I hope Im leaving it in a very good place, both physically and educationally, and that we have not just made ourselves useful, but made ourselves an important part of the Crescenta Valley. -- Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com Twitter: @SaraCardine Hello, my name is John Cherwa and welcome back to our horse racing newsletter as we have a few days off before racing at Santa Anita resumes on Friday. With all the news going on, were way behind on the stewards' rulings. As behind as we are, it pales in comparison as to how slow it is to get the stewards minutes made public. Cmon CHRB, lets start making state public records available a little faster. Lets roll. --Jockey Norman Rodriguez was fined $100 because he had five parking violations in the stable area. The stewards only get involved in parking tickets if someone has more than one. Rodriguez said he had no valid explanation for his misconduct. --Trainer Patrick Gallagher was fined $100 because he had three parking violations in the stable area. Gallagher explained he parked in the space for the track Chaplin to transport carrots he buys for horses in his stable. --Groom Eswin Ceron was suspended indefinitely after failing to show for a hearing over admitted drug use. On Jan. 30, Santa Anita security determined that Ceron was under the influence of a controlled substance. According to the stewards minutes, he was searched and a glass pipe and plastic bag with a white powdery substance was found. Ceron said the substance was crystal meth. Ceron is denied access to the track during his suspension. --Were going to lump all five of these rulings together. Exercise riders Max Corrales , Alejandro Covarrubias , Adan Perez Fuentes , Jose Flores and Tony Gutierrez were each fined $50 for waiting in the tunnel to the training track before the allotted time to gallop. --Exercise rider and assistant trainer Tony Rubalcava was fined $50 for entering the tunnel to the training track on horseback during the 15 minute workers-only period. He was very apologetic. --Jockey John Jude was ordered to pay $670 in boarding fees for one of his horses. The unnamed horse was stabled for three weeks in the bar of trainer Walther Solis . Failure to pay the debt will result in suspension of all licenses. Steward Grant Baker voted to dismiss the complaint. --Exercise rider Marcelino Olguin was fined $50 for being in the training track tunnel during the workers only period. Olguin said he wasnt warned, outrider Juan Garcia said he warned him previously. We did, and by we, I dont mean me. For reasons that are unexplained both in print and in the newsletter, we had a ninth race listed in Sundays entries. There was no ninth race. We get our statistical stuff from an outside vendor and they likely had some kind of glitch. No big deal but we always try and own up to our faux pas. --"Ive said all along, some day somebody will ask me, How did you get this horse beat so many times? I started saying that way back because we always thought [the talent] was there. --(On shipping to Churchill Downs) I dont want to go [Monday] morning. I just got him here. Let him have an extra day. Im thinking of just putting him on a van and go straight through. Im thinking that might be a better way. --[Improbable] got away well from the one hole and Jose Ortiz rode a great race. We just came up second-best. . . . I had some anxious moments, but was pretty relieved that we ran second, got in the Derby and learned some things about the horse. --"He does have gears, took dirt for the first time and hung in there after getting upset in the gate. Im not sure if it was the blinkers, because I noticed in the post parade he was rubbing his head, just being a little anxious. But he was fresh, because Ive just been running him into shape. I havent really tightened the screws. I wanted the races to do that, and he got beat by a very good horse. --Heres what Im proud about. At Santa Anita, weve gotten all this bad publicity, and these horses have been training on this surface, and look at them. Theyre going into the Derby as the top four favorites, so I dont want to hear any more about how bad it is in California. The feature was the Grade 3 $100,000 Tokyo City Cup for older horses going 1 miles on the dirt. Campaign, running his fourth race for John Sadler , bided his time near the back of the compact five-horse field, entered the stretch a very close third and then rallied to the front to win by 3 lengths. It was Campaigns third win in four California starts. In fact, hes coming off a very short layoff having run fourth a little over a week ago in the Santa Anita Handicap. Campaign, with jockey Rafael Bejarano up, paid $7.00, $3.20 and $2.20. Beach View was second followed by Acker and Arch Prince. Full of Luck was pulled up when he went wide entering the stretch but he walked off the course. The race set up perfectly and coming back on short rest, you have to be really careful with that, Sadler told Mike Willman of Santa Anita. I dont do it very often, but I thought this was a case where I could do it. Turning for home I felt pretty good, because hell run all day. Hes a true stayer. I had a lot of confidence in this horse [Sunday], because Ive ridden him in his last two races, Bejarano said. In the Big Cap, he didnt have any pace to run at. [Sunday], he was very relaxed and he was full of run going into the far turn. I didnt want to try and go inside, because I know this horse likes to make a run on the outside. At the top of the stretch, I was about two or three lengths behind Beach View and I was very confident. Gotta say, watching the final round of the Masters in the morning is a real treat. A little Sunday mimosa action, the best back nine of a final round every year. They should play it early every year. And could you imagine a better comeback story than Tiger Woods winning it? Then youve got the whole afternoon to go to the races. OK, Im done. Always looking to add more subscribers to this newsletter. Cant beat the price. If you like it, tell someone. If you dont like it, then youre probably not reading this. Either way, send to a friend and just have them click here and sign up . Remember, its free, and all we need is your email, nothing more. Any thoughts, you can reach me at johnacherwa@gmail.com . You can also feed my ego by following me on Twitter @jcherwa Santa Anita Charts Results for Sunday, April 14. Copyright 2019 by Equibase Company. Reproduction prohibited. Santa Anita, Santa Anita Park, Arcadia, California. 3rd day of a 41-day meet. Clear & Firm FIRST RACE. 1 Mile Turf. Purse: $55,000. Maiden Special Weight. 3 year olds and up. Time 23.24 46.13 1:10.66 1:23.24 1:36.02 Pgm Horse Wt PP St Str Fin Jockey $1 5 Preaching Trainer 118 5 4 32 11 11 1hd 1 Van Dyke 1.90 2 Hit the Seam 124 2 2 1hd 22 21 22 21 Gutierrez 1.30 3 Jetovator 118 3 5 41 42 35 38 310 Bejarano 2.60 4 Unusually Handsome 111 4 1 2hd 3hd 46 49 49 Diaz, Jr. 13.70 1 Unusual Spice 118 1 6 6 6 5 55 518 Quinonez 15.30 6 Rare Journey 124 6 3 54 54 6 6 6 Martin 44.80 5 PREACHING TRAINER 5.80 3.00 2.10 2 HIT THE SEAM 3.00 2.10 3 JETOVATOR 2.10 $2 ROULETTE (RED) $3.40 $1 EXACTA (5-2) $5.70 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (5-2-3-4) $2.69 50-CENT TRIFECTA (5-2-3) $5.05 WinnerPreaching Trainer Ch.g.3 by Lucky Pulpit out of Debbie Sue, by Citidancer. Bred by Harris Farms (CA). Trainer: Carla Gaines. Owner: Harris Farms, Inc.. Mutuel Pool $143,917 Roulette Pool $182 Exacta Pool $60,083 Superfecta Pool $30,703 Trifecta Pool $43,106. Scratchednone. PREACHING TRAINER pulled his way along to duel three deep then took the lead and angled in on the backstretch, set the pace inside, came a bit off the rail into the stretch, fought back inside the runner-up under urging in the final furlong and gamely prevailed. HIT THE SEAM had good early speed and dueled inside then saved ground stalking the pace, re-bid outside the winner into the stretch, fought back in the drive but was outgamed. JETOVATOR a bit slow to begin, chased inside then just off the rail to the stretch and bested the others. UNUSUALLY HANDSOME dueled between horses then stalked outside a rival or inside to the stretch and weakened. UNUSUAL SPICE broke in and a bit slowly, settled inside chasing the pace, fell back on the backstretch, went around a rival on the second turn and lacked a further response. RARE JOURNEY drifted out into the first turn, angled in and chased outside a rival then inside, dropped back along the rail on the second turn, gave way and was eased in the final furlong. SECOND RACE. 1 Mile. Purse: $33,000. Starter Allowance. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $50,000. Time 24.29 48.56 1:13.98 1:27.41 1:41.14 Pgm Horse Wt PP St Str Fin Jockey $1 4 Bellerin 124 4 1 21 2 21 11 11 Van Dyke 2.60 1 I Can Do This 122 1 5 41 5 42 2 24 Talamo 2.30 2 Ack 118 2 3 1hd 1hd 1hd 31 31 Maldonado 9.40 3 Desert General 122 3 4 5 41 3 46 410 Bejarano 4.30 5 Wilshire Dude 124 5 2 3 3hd 5 5 5 Gutierrez 2.00 4 BELLERIN 7.20 3.20 2.40 1 I CAN DO THIS 2.80 2.20 2 ACK 3.40 $2 DAILY DOUBLE (5-4) $16.80 $1 EXACTA (4-1) $8.40 50-CENT TRIFECTA (4-1-2) $16.65 WinnerBellerin B.g.5 by Malibu Moon out of Seek to Soar, by Seeking the Gold. Bred by Phillips Racing Partnership (KY). Trainer: Carla Gaines. Owner: Keith Brackpool. Mutuel Pool $129,414 Daily Double Pool $27,089 Exacta Pool $57,255 Trifecta Pool $35,566. Scratchednone. BELLERIN had good early speed and dueled outside a rival then between foes on the backstretch, battled outside a rival on the second turn, took the lead into the stretch, inched away under urging in the drive, drifted out late and held gamely. I CAN DO THIS chased inside then a bit off the rail, came out on the second turn and four wide into the stretch to loom a threat behind the winner in the drive but could not catch that one. ACK hustled along early, angled in and dueled inside, fought back on the second turn and into the stretch and held third. DESERT GENERAL pulled outside a rival and was in a bit tight midway on the first turn, went up four wide with a bid on the backstretch, stalked off the rail on the second turn, came three deep into the stretch and weakened. WILSHIRE DUDE three deep early, stalked outside a rival, bid three wide between horses on the backstretch, dropped back and angled in some on the second turn and had little left for the drive. THIRD RACE. 5 Furlongs Turf. Purse: $55,000. Maiden Special Weight. 3 year olds and up. Time 22.07 44.99 56.48 Pgm Horse Wt PP St 3/16 3/8 Str Fin Jockey $1 2 Overdue 124 2 2 21 22 12 13 Prat 1.00 5 Victory Element 124 5 3 32 32 32 21 Talamo 1.10 4 Farquhar 111 4 4 5 4hd 41 31 Velez 8.30 1 Bowl of Spaghetti 118 1 1 1 1hd 22 42 Maldonado 9.00 3 Derby Champ 124 3 5 4 5 5 5 Quinonez 48.60 2 OVERDUE 4.00 2.20 2.10 5 VICTORY ELEMENT 2.60 2.10 4 FARQUHAR 2.20 $2 DAILY DOUBLE (4-2) $17.60 $1 EXACTA (2-5) $3.20 50-CENT TRIFECTA (2-5-4) $3.35 WinnerOverdue Grr.g.4 by Overanalyze out of Nushka, by Cherokee Run. Bred by Columbiana Farm LLC (KY). Trainer: Philip D'Amato. Owner: H and E Ranch, Inc.. Mutuel Pool $202,528 Daily Double Pool $12,460 Exacta Pool $80,780 Trifecta Pool $63,221. Scratchednone. 50-Cent Pick Three (5-4-2) paid $11.55. Pick Three Pool $35,204. OVERDUE broke out and bumped a rival, had speed between horses then dueled outside a rival, put a head in front nearing the stretch, was shaken up with the reins to kick clear and drew away under a brisk hand ride and a hold late. VICTORY ELEMENT three deep early, stalked off the rail, angled in a bit on the turn and gained the place. FARQUHAR squeezed some at the break, chased off the rail then outside a rival leaving the backstretch and on the turn, came three wide into the stretch and bested the others. BOWL OF SPAGHETTI had good early speed and dueled inside, fought back on the turn and weakened in the final furlong. DERBY CHAMP hopped some and was squeezed at the start, saved ground chasing the pace and lacked a response in the stretch. HAND TIMED. FOURTH RACE. 6 Furlongs. Purse: $33,000. Claiming. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $25,000. Time 22.22 45.88 1:11.64 1:18.27 Pgm Horse Wt PP St Str Fin Jockey $1 5 Buckys Pick 124 4 3 3 3 1 15 Prat 1.90 3 Denman's Call 124 2 4 4 4 31 21 Bejarano 0.80 4 Facts Matter 122 3 1 1hd 1 21 33 Pereira 3.90 1 Joe Jackson 122 1 2 2 21 4 4 Pedroza 7.90 5 BUCKYS PICK 5.80 2.40 3 DENMAN'S CALL 2.20 4 FACTS MATTER $2 DAILY DOUBLE (2-5) $16.80 $1 EXACTA (5-3) $5.20 50-CENT TRIFECTA (5-3-4) $3.65 WinnerBuckys Pick Grr.g.5 by Exchange Rate out of Blind Date, by Not For Love. Bred by William M. Backer Revocable Trust (VA). Trainer: Doug F. O'Neill. Owner: ERJ Racing LLC, Bambauer, Sheila, Westside Racing Stable and Mora, Leandro. Mutuel Pool $99,576 Daily Double Pool $16,513 Exacta Pool $44,144 Trifecta Pool $29,119. ScratchedRiver Echo (GB). 50-Cent Pick Three (4-2-5) paid $15.75. Pick Three Pool $14,547. BUCKYS PICK pressed then stalked the pace outside a rival, came out some in the stretch, bid outside a foe to gain the lead under urging in midstretch and drew clear. DENMAN'S CALL hopped some and was bumped at the start, stalked a bit off the rail then inside, came out into the stretch and again nearing midstretch and gained the place. FACTS MATTER dueled outside a rival then between foes, battled alongside a foe on the turn, inched clear leaving the turn, fought back just off the inside in midstretch then weakened but held third. JOE JACKSON broke out and bumped the runner-up, had good early speed and dueled inside, fought back midway on the turn, stalked leaving the bend and weakened in the drive. FIFTH RACE. 1 Mile Turf. Purse: $64,000. Allowance Optional Claiming. Fillies and Mares. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $80,000. Time 24.24 48.36 1:12.26 1:23.66 1:35.03 Pgm Horse Wt PP St Str Fin Jockey $1 1 Ahimsa 122 1 1 11 11 1 12 13 Blanc 5.70 4 Tapped 122 4 5 5 5 5 4 2 Bejarano 5.50 2 Causeforcommotion 124 2 3 3 3 41 32 3 Van Dyke 3.20 5 Gliding By 122 5 2 2 21 21 21 44 Gutierrez 4.00 3 Love and Peace 122 3 4 41 42 3hd 5 5 Prat 1.20 1 AHIMSA 13.40 6.40 3.80 4 TAPPED 6.20 3.60 2 CAUSEFORCOMMOTION 2.60 $2 DAILY DOUBLE (5-1) $38.60 $1 EXACTA (1-4) $34.70 50-CENT TRIFECTA (1-4-2) $52.30 WinnerAhimsa Ch.f.4 by Animal Kingdom out of Hot Affair, by Cuvee. Bred by Three Great Sons, LLC (KY). Trainer: Peter Eurton. Owner: Three Great Sons, LLC and Hughes, Darryl. Mutuel Pool $216,902 Daily Double Pool $12,955 Exacta Pool $87,468 Trifecta Pool $61,562. Scratchednone. 50-Cent Pick Three (2-5-1) paid $28.70. Pick Three Pool $33,918. 50-Cent Pick Four (4-2-5-1) 435 tickets with 4 correct paid $136.95. Pick Four Pool $78,041. 50-Cent Pick Five (5-4-2-5-1) 557 tickets with 5 correct paid $499.85. Pick Five Pool $323,957. AHIMSA sped to the early lead, set the pace inside, inched away again a half mile out, responded when challenged on the second turn, edged away again in the stretch and drew clear under a brisk hand ride. TAPPED chased a bit off the rail, swung three wide into the stretch and got up late for the place outside foes. CAUSEFORCOMMOTION saved ground stalking the pace, came out into the stretch and was edged for second between horses late. GLIDING BY had speed three deep then stalked outside a rival, bid alongside the winner early on the backstretch then tracked again, re-bid outside that one on the second turn, was not a match for that rival in the drive and was edged for a minor award nearing the wire. LOVE AND PEACE (FR) close up stalking the pace outside a rival, came out three deep into the stretch and weakened in the final furlong. SIXTH RACE. 1 Mile. Purse: $100,000. 'Tokyo City Cup Stakes'. 4 year olds and up. Time 26.01 51.57 1:18.18 1:43.66 2:09.23 2:34.73 Pgm Horse Wt PP 1 Mile 1 Mile Str Fin Jockey $1 1 Campaign 120 1 5 5 5 44 31 13 Bejarano 2.50 5 Beach View 122 5 43 44 45 32 1 22 Prat 0.90 2 Acker 120 2 11 11 1 1hd 21 31 Espinoza 2.30 4 Arch Prince 120 4 31 31 31 2 4 4 Quinonez 19.50 3 Full of Luck 120 3 21 21 2hd 5 dnf Gutierrez 16.30 1 CAMPAIGN 7.00 3.20 2.20 5 BEACH VIEW 2.40 2.10 2 ACKER 2.20 $2 DAILY DOUBLE (1-1) $51.40 $1 EXACTA (1-5) $5.80 50-CENT TRIFECTA (1-5-2) $7.90 WinnerCampaign B.c.4 by Curlin out of Arania, by Dynaformer. Bred by Alexander-Groves Thoroughbreds (KY). Trainer: John W. Sadler. Owner: Woodford Racing, LLC. Mutuel Pool $226,675 Daily Double Pool $32,352 Exacta Pool $77,196 Trifecta Pool $72,545. Scratchednone. 50-Cent Pick Three (5-1-1) paid $37.05. Pick Three Pool $22,284. CAMPAIGN settled inside then off the rail into the backstretch, went outside a rival on the final turn and four wide into the stretch, rallied under urging to gain the lead outside the runner-up a sixteenth out and won clear. BEACH VIEW chased off the rail then inside on the middle turn, went outside a rival on the last turn, bid three deep a quarter mile out, took the lead in upper stretch, fought back past midstretch then could not match the winner while clearly second best. ACKER took the early lead and set the pace inside, dueled along the rail on the backstretch and final turn, fought back inside in midstretch and held third. ARCH PRINCE stalked off the rail, bid three deep on the backstretch then outside the pacesetter on the final turn, battled between foes leaving that turn and into the stretch and weakened in the final furlong. FULL OF LUCK (CHI) close up stalking the pace a bit off the rail, bid between horses on the backstretch, dropped back on the last turn, drifted out while being pulled up into the stretch and was walked off. SEVENTH RACE. 1 Mile Turf. Purse: $32,000. Maiden Claiming. Fillies and Mares. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $50,000. Time 23.35 47.18 1:12.18 1:24.33 1:36.36 Pgm Horse Wt PP St Str Fin Jockey $1 1 Persephone 118 1 7 51 3hd 3hd 12 11 Prat 5.60 2 Breezy Bee 124 2 4 7 7 51 2hd 22 Bejarano 2.20 6 Sapori Girl 118 6 5 6hd 6hd 7 6 31 Talamo 9.40 3 Daddys Real Diva 118 3 2 1hd 1hd 1hd 41 4 Roman 35.90 7 Field Bet 111 7 6 41 4 41 3 51 Velez 1.60 5 Meso 111 5 1 3hd 51 6hd 7 63 Diaz, Jr. 20.40 4 Gotta Be Lucky 118 4 3 21 21 2 51 7 Van Dyke 4.70 1 PERSEPHONE 13.20 5.00 4.20 2 BREEZY BEE 3.40 2.80 6 SAPORI GIRL 5.00 $2 ROULETTE (BLACK) $5.20 $2 DAILY DOUBLE (1-1) $51.60 $1 EXACTA (1-2) $17.50 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (1-2-6-3) $63.90 $1 SUPER HIGH FIVE (1-2-6-3-7) $1,607.50 50-CENT TRIFECTA (1-2-6) $42.00 WinnerPersephone Dbb.f.3 by Real Solution out of Treqqer, by Cape Cross (IRE). Bred by Kenneth L. Ramsey & Sarah K. Ramsey (KY). Trainer: Peter Eurton. Owner: Alesia, Sharon, Ciaglia Racing, LLC, Savides, Dominic and Van Doren, Paul. Mutuel Pool $241,382 Roulette Pool $485 Daily Double Pool $27,541 Exacta Pool $119,683 Superfecta Pool $54,332 Super High Five Pool $6,319 Trifecta Pool $81,968. ClaimedField Bet by Pappas Horse Racing Corp., Bambauer,Sheila,Mansor,Tom,Tucker,Terri and Rothblum. Trainer: Doug O'Neill. Scratchednone. 50-Cent Pick Three (1-1-1) paid $55.10. Pick Three Pool $31,357. PERSEPHONE hopped slightly in a bit of a slow start, saved ground stalking the pace, came out on the second turn, bid three deep between foes, took the lead into the stretch, kicked clear under urging and held gamely. BREEZY BEE saved ground chasing the pace, pulled and moved up inside then was in tight leaving the backstretch into the second turn, came out leaving that turn and three wide into the stretch, split horses in midstretch and finished well. SAPORI GIRL chased outside a rival then three deep on the second turn, swung five wide into the stretch and gained the show. DADDYS REAL DIVA had speed between horses then angled in and dueled inside, fought back on the second turn and into the stretch and weakened in the final furlong. FIELD BET four wide through the first turn, stalked three deep, bid four wide leaving the second turn and into the stretch, continued four wide in midstretch and also weakened in the final furlong. MESO chased between horses, swung four wide into the stretch, drifted in through the drive and lacked a rally. GOTTA BE LUCKY had speed between horses then dueled outside a rival, fought back between foes leaving the second turn and into the stretch and weakened. EIGHTH RACE. 6 Furlongs. Purse: $57,000. Allowance Optional Claiming. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $20,000. Time 22.59 46.17 1:11.91 1:18.61 Pgm Horse Wt PP St Str Fin Jockey $1 3 Royal Trump 122 3 9 6hd 4 4hd 1hd Talamo 4.70 2 Rinse and Repeat 124 2 10 5hd 6hd 51 2 Bejarano 6.90 4 Teacher's Treasure 118 4 2 1hd 1hd 1hd 3nk Prat 4.00 5 Fire When Ready 115 5 5 3hd 2hd 21 41 Diaz, Jr. 17.40 7 Minoso 124 7 8 91 8 6hd 51 Fuentes 3.50 8 Psycho Dar 122 8 3 41 31 3 63 Roman 13.00 11 Red Envelope 124 10 7 7 71 73 74 Van Dyke 4.00 9 Nap Lajoie 124 9 1 81 10 91 8ns Maldonado 8.50 6 Shaymin 124 6 4 10 9hd 10 94 Mn Garcia 91.20 1 Carnivorous 118 1 6 2 5hd 81 10 Gutierrez 40.50 3 ROYAL TRUMP 11.40 6.60 3.80 2 RINSE AND REPEAT 7.40 4.40 4 TEACHER'S TREASURE 4.40 $2 ROULETTE (RED) $3.00 $2 DAILY DOUBLE (1-3) $82.20 $1 EXACTA (3-2) $36.60 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (3-2-4-5) $185.93 $1 SUPER HIGH FIVE (3-2-4-5-7) $6,114.10 50-CENT TRIFECTA (3-2-4) $81.85 WinnerRoyal Trump B.g.4 by Ministers Wild Cat out of Royal Woodman, by Woodman. Bred by Mr. & Mrs. Larry Williams (CA). Trainer: Mark Glatt. Owner: Rodney E. Orr. Mutuel Pool $413,515 Roulette Pool $528 Daily Double Pool $94,306 Exacta Pool $225,709 Superfecta Pool $140,568 Super High Five Pool $16,025 Trifecta Pool $162,782. ScratchedDialed Up. 50-Cent Pick Three (1-1-3) paid $64.80. Pick Three Pool $136,013. 50-Cent Pick Four (1-1-1-3) 659 tickets with 4 correct paid $440.00. Pick Four Pool $379,762. 50-Cent Pick Five (5-1-1-1-3) 81 tickets with 5 correct paid $1,913.05. Pick Five Pool $203,038. 20-Cent Pick Six Jackpot (2-5-1-1-1-3) 37 tickets with 6 correct paid $1,715.90. Pick Six Jackpot Pool $118,857. Pick Six Jackpot Carryover $106,200. ROYAL TRUMP in tight early, steadied between foes nearing the five eighths pole, stalked between horses, went four wide leaving the turn and into the stretch and rallied under urging to get up four wide late. RINSE AND REPEAT stalked inside then between rivals on the turn, continued between horses in midstretch, bid between foes a sixteenth out and continued willingly. TEACHER'S TREASURE sped to the early lead a bit off the rail, dueled between horses then inside on the turn, fought back along the rail in the stretch and continued gamely to the end. FIRE WHEN READY came in when stalking between foes early then bid three deep between foes to duel for the lead, battled between horses on the turn and into the stretch and outside a rival in midstretch and was edged for third between horses late. MINOSO chased off the rail then inside into the turn, came out leaving the turn and three wide into the stretch and was outfinished. PSYCHO DAR stalked early then bid four wide to duel for the lead, battled three deep on the turn and into the stretch, drifted inward in the final furlong and weakened. RED ENVELOPE stalked outside then four wide on the turn, came under urging five wide into the stretch then had the rider lose the whip in midstretch and lacked the needed late kick. NAP LAJOIE chased off the rail then between foes leaving the backstretch and off the rail on the turn, came three wide into the stretch and lacked a rally. SHAYMIN settled off the inside then three deep leaving the backstretch and on the turn, came four wide into the stretch and did not rally. CARNIVOROUS went up inside to duel for the lead, dropped back on the turn and had little left for the drive. On Monday, news broke that Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris had caught on fire. The 12th century Roman Catholic cathedral, distinguished for its size and French Gothic architecture, is one of Paris most enduring and beloved landmarks, having survived more than 850 years of renovations and destruction to become a symbol of France itself. Here are five things to know about the cathedral. 1. Its origins The cathedral was built during the reign of King Louis VII, on the eastern end of the Ile de la Cite, an island in the Seine River near the historical center of Paris. In about 1160, Bishop Maurice de Sully proposed building a cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary (Notre Dame is French for Our Lady). It was the center of an urban project, and a church was demolished to make space. By 1163, it is believed that the first stone was set in the presence of Pope Alexander III, according to the cathedrals website. In the 1180s, the high altar was consecrated. Over the next 100 years, additions were made, including the western facade, chapels and porches. Advertisement 2. The architecture The cathedral is an example of French Gothic architecture, which was an emerging style in the 12th century. Notable pieces of its design were built over time, such as the construction of the imposing western facade, which began in 1200 under the cathedrals third architect and continued for at least 20 years. The facades north and south towers were completed in the mid-1200s. The addition of flying buttresses slanted structures that form arches to provide support came as the cathedral was built higher and stress fractures occurred. The flying buttress was invented at the cathedral because it was an exceptionally tall structure, says Carolyn M. Malone, a USC professor of art history and history. The center iconic spire, which collapsed on Monday, was dismantled in the 13th century and later reconstructed in the 19th century. The cathedral is also home to rose windows made of circular stained glass, some of which were re-created in the 19th century. The interior of the cathedral is about 130 feet by 420 feet, the roof about 140 feet high. This file photo taken on July 14, 2017, shows an aerial view of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. (Jean-Sebastien Evrard / AFP/Getty Images) 3. Its revival Over the years, the cathedral sustained damage, mostly during the French Revolution, during which 28 statues of kings were destroyed. But the 19th century also brought changes to the cathedral, including a period of reconstruction ordered by King Louis Philippe and Victor Hugo publishing his novel, Notre Dame de Paris, also known as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which became a huge success. During this period, the spire was reconstructed, murals were painted in the side chapels, sculptures were restored and the great organ was reconstructed. 4. Significant moments in history at Notre Dame Cathedral The cathedral has been the setting for numerous historic moments. In 1431, King Henry VI of England was crowned king of France. Notre Dame is where King James V of Scotland married Madeleine of France in 1537. It was also where, in 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned emperor. It is also where Joan of Arc, who helped France battle England, was beatified. Hugos book was set at the cathedral (and later became a popular Disney movie). Most recently, it was the site where tourists were trapped when a hammer-wielding assailant attacked police in 2017. It was the second attack in four days at a European landmark. 5. The cathedral today An estimated 13 million people visit the cathedral each year, according to its website. Until Monday, the towering cathedral still regularly celebrated Sunday Mass and was home to historical artifacts, including a restored centuries-old organ. Some of its treasures were reported saved during the fire. The cathedral was in dire need of renovations in 2017, according to the New York Times. The Friends of the Notre Dame foundation estimated that it needed $40 million for urgent fixes and hoped to raise more than $110 million over the next decade for complete renovations, the New York Times reported. The operator of the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant began removing fuel Monday from a cooling pool at one of three reactors that melted down in the 2011 disaster, a milestone in what will be a decades-long process to decommission the facility. Tokyo Electric Power Co. said workers started removing the first of 566 used and unused fuel units stored in the pool at Unit 3. The fuel units in the pool located high up in reactor buildings are intact despite the disaster, but the pools are not enclosed, so removing the units to safer ground is crucial to avoid disaster in case of another major earthquake similar to the one that caused the 2011 tsunami. Tepco says the removal at Unit 3 will take two years, followed by the two other reactors, where about 1,000 fuel units remain in the storage pools. Removing fuel units from the cooling pools comes ahead of the real challenge of removing melted fuel from inside the reactors, but details of how that might be done are still largely unknown. Removing the fuel in the cooling pools was delayed more than four years by mishaps, high radiation and radioactive debris from an explosion that occurred at the time of the reactor meltdowns, underscoring the difficulties that remain. Advertisement Workers are remotely operating a crane built underneath a jelly roll-shaped roof cover to raise the fuel from a storage rack in the pool and place it into a protective cask. The whole process occurs underwater to prevent radiation leaks. Each cask will be filled with seven fuel units, then lifted from the pool and lowered to a truck that will transport the cask to a safer cooling pool elsewhere at the plant. The work is carried out remotely from a control room about 550 yards away because of still-high radiation levels inside the reactor building that houses the pool. I believe everything is going well so far, plant chief Tomohiko Isogai told Japanese public broadcaster NHK. We will watch the progress at the site as we put safety first. Our goal is not to rush the process but to carefully proceed with the decommissioning work. About an hour after the work began Monday, the first fuel unit was safely stored inside the cask, Tepco spokesman Takahiro Kimoto said. Mondays operation was to end after a fourth unit is placed inside the cask, he said. No major damage was found on the fuel unit Monday, but plant officials will closely examine if there are any pinholes or other irregularities, Kimoto said. The removal, however, raises a storage capacity concern at the plant because the common pool, where fuel from the Unit 3 pool heads to, already has 6,000 fuel units and is almost full. Kimoto said Tepco has made room at the common pool for the incoming fuel by moving years-old and sufficiently cooled fuel into dry casks for safer, long-term storage, though further details are being worked out. In 2014, Tepco safely removed all 1,535 fuel units from the storage pool at a fourth reactor that was idle and had no fuel inside its core when the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami occurred. Robotic probes have photographed and detected traces of damaged nuclear fuel in the three reactors that had meltdowns, but the exact location and other details of the melted fuel are largely unknown. Removing fuel from the cooling pools will help free up space for the subsequent removal of the melted fuel, though details on how to gain access to it have yet to be decided. Experts say the melted fuel in the three reactors amounts to more than 800 tons, an enormous amount that is more than six times that of the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, where one reactor had a partial core melt. In February, a remote-controlled robot with tongs removed pebbles of nuclear debris from the Unit 2 reactor but was unable to remove larger chunks, indicating a robot would need to be developed that can break the chunks into smaller pieces. Toshiba Corp.s energy systems unit, which developed the robot, said the findings were key to determining the proper equipment and technologies needed to remove the melted fuel, the most challenging part of the decommissioning. Tepco and government officials plan to determine methods for removing the melted fuel from each of the three damaged reactors later this year so they can begin the process in 2021. Can the canisters filled with San Onofres nuclear waste be opened if damaged? Definitely maybe In this village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, a house has sat abandoned for more than 3 years. It is locked from the outside, and a courtyard accessible from the back is full of geckos scurrying among unruly weeds. This was the residence of Mohammad Akhlaq, a 50-year-old Muslim man who was beaten to death by a mob in 2015. Akhlaqs perceived crime was that he had killed and eaten the flesh of a cow an animal that is revered by Indias majority Hindu population and whose slaughter is banned in many states. Relatives said the meat in question was mutton, not beef. The family has not returned to Bisara since the lynching an incident that made the village and surrounding town of Dadri synonymous with communal violence and division. It was the first of many high-profile acts of violence by a self-styled cow protection group since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014. Advertisement Such incidents have consistently marked his time in office. (Jon Schleuss / Los Angeles Times) According to the data journalism initiative India Spend, 98% of Indias 125 cow-related hate attacks this decade have occurred during the tenure of Modi and his Hindu nationalist government. In the past few weeks, a man from a tribal community in the state of Jharkhand was killed was for allegedly cutting meat from a dead bull, while a Muslim man elsewhere was reportedly assaulted by a mob and forced to eat pork, which is forbidden in Islam. Critics say Modi and leaders of his Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, have emboldened vigilante Hindu cow protection groups by failing to act against them and by spouting religiously charged rhetoric of their own. As Modi seeks a second term in a general election with roughly 900 million voters eligible to cast ballots over the next five weeks, the rise in intolerance is a key issue for many. The publics way of thinking has changed, said Akhlaqs brother Jan Mohammad. The divisions that have been created werent there before. When this mob lynching took place Id never ever heard of an incident like that based on religion. But since then weve heard of so many against Muslims. In Bisara, where voters went to the polls April 11 in the first of the elections seven phases, Modis allies continue to exploit the Akhlaq lynching for political gain. When the BJP took over the Uttar Pradesh state government from a rival party in 2017, Modi installed Yogi Adityanath, a hard-line Hindu priest, as the states chief minister. Last month, Adityanath gave a fiery speech here accusing the states previous government of having suppressed the emotions of villagers after the murder and of playing the politics of appeasement toward minorities. As Adityanath spoke, Indian news media reported that all 17 men accused in Akhlaqs killing out on bail awaiting trial were in the audience displaying vocal support, some sitting in the front row. If the most prominent party in India cannot act against hate crimes and many of their members can make hate speeches, then it means there is a level of social acceptance for those thoughts, said Saba Naqvi, an author and commentator who has covered the BJP extensively. Adityanaths words have widespread support among Hindus in Bisara who believe the BJP has treated them with greater sympathy than the previous state government. That government was led by the regional Samajwadi Party, and accused of pressuring the police to make arrests in the Akhlaq case without conducting a proper investigation. The accused include the son and other relatives of a local BJP leader. Everyone in this village is definitely voting for the BJP, said Hariom Sisodia, one of the accused in the case, who denies involvement in the killing. Indias Narendra Modi, battling for reelection, gets a questionable Bollywood boost Sisodia has gained enough visibility that he briefly considered launching a campaign for Parliament for a small, right-wing Hindu party. He and other villagers boasted of erecting a signboard outside Bisara warning politicians from the Samajwadi Party and another BJP rival that they were not allowed in the area. Sisodia insists he is innocent, but his views on Akhlaqs lynching are clear. We believe what happened to him was right, he said. We know the difference between mutton and beef. Akhlaqs neighbors have grown tired of discussing the case with journalists. But other villagers insist that Hindus and Muslims have long lived peacefully together in the area, describing the lynching as an isolated incident. We never had any problems between the two communities, says Santosh, a Hindu leader in the village who knew Akhlaq well and, who, like many villagers, goes by only one name. This was the first time in my 60 years. Santosh and many other Hindu residents said the small Muslim population also overwhelmingly supports the BJP. Those claims are difficult to verify, as Muslim villagers were wary of talking to a reporter. They live in a cluster on its outskirts, apart from the Hindu population that outnumbers them by several thousand. Mohammad, Akhlaqs brother, said that Muslim families moved away after the killing and that fewer than 50 remain mostly poor laborers who are afraid to speak against the majority. But one member of the community said he supports his Hindu neighbors. I support the BJP. We dont have any problems because of them, said Imran, a shopkeeper. Imran had little more to say. But he did play down the idea that BJP rule represents a threat to his community and said he was happy with the current government because he has a job. That point buttresses the view of political analysts who say that Modis reelection will hinge on perceptions over whether he has delivered on promises of creating jobs and boosting the economy. Controversial economic policies have hurt his popularity in the business community over the last few years, and in January, a leading Indian business daily reported that the government had tried to withhold the release of data that showed unemployment at a 45-year high. The rise in intolerance is an important issue to all right-minded people, said Naqvi, the author. But as a political analyst I think that if the ruling partys seats are reduced its going to be because of economic disenchantment. I dont think people are voting against hate crimes. Its in this environment that Akhlaqs relatives say they will never return to Bisara, where family members have lived for five generations. Akhlaqs killers broke a wall of trust which had been carefully constructed over many years, Mohammad said. The entire family his children, brother, wife have all seen him get murdered. We have been shaken. How can we go back there? Malhotra is a special correspondent. Philippine President Rodrigo Dutertes embrace of China has hit a wall. A year after joking about his country becoming a province of China and professing his love for Chinese President Xi Jinping, Duterte is heeding pressure at home to confront Beijing. The Philippine strongman known for his bluster employed his toughest language in years against China this month when he told the country to stay away from the Philippine-held island of Thitu or face the prospect of suicide attacks. Chinese coast guard and fishing vessels have been surrounding the tiny island in the hotly contested South China Sea for months. Known in the Philippines as Pag-Asa, the island houses Philippine troops and includes a runway that could be used to help thwart Beijings vast territorial claims to the waters there. Advertisement I will not plead or beg, but I am just telling you [to] lay off the Pag-Asa because I have soldiers there. If you touch that, thats a different story. I can tell my soldiers, Prepare for suicide missions, Duterte said in a recent speech. In response to Duterte, Chinas Foreign Ministry said Chinese fishermen had rightful historical claims to the disputed waters. Dutertes barbs were backed up by an annual joint military exercise with the U.S. last week that featured the Wasp, an amphibious assault ship equipped with F-35 stealth fighters. It was the biggest show of force between the two sides since Duterte took office in 2016 saying he wanted to part ways with the U.S. and move closer to China. The friendlier approach with Beijing had been seen by analysts as an effort to help the Philippines win billions of dollars in Chinese loans and reduce tensions in the South China Sea, a vital shipping lane serving one-third of all global maritime traffic. When Duterte took office, he disparaged President Obama, who had been critical of Dutertes bloody war on drugs, calling Obama a son of a whore. President Trump, on the other hand, has praised Dutertes approach to crime, giving reason to draw closer to the U.S. again at a time of American-Chinese trade tensions. Despite the pledges from Beijing, only a handful of loans have materialized and Philippine officials have called them one-sided. At the same time, Philippine fishermen say they continue to be harassed by Chinese coast guards and maritime militia in disputed waters around the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal. The shoal, a triangular chain of reefs and rocks surrounding a lagoon less than 150 miles west of the Philippine island of Luzon, was seized by China in 2012. The ongoing conflict has further soured the attitude toward China in the Philippines, exacerbated by complaints about Chinese workers being hired for Chinese-funded infrastructure projects and Chinese investors driving up property prices in Manila. Hundreds of flag-waving citizens marched to the Chinese Embassy in Manila on Tuesday to protest Chinas territorial claims at sea, its binding loan agreements for infrastructure projects and the rising presence of Chinese nationals in the Philippines. The enemy is no longer outside the gates, they are in our own backyard, said Jose Antonio Custodio of the Manila-based think tank the Institute for Policy, Strategy and Development Studies. The Chinese are seen as displacing Filipinos, taking their jobs and making property too expensive for them to buy, Custodio added, drawing similarities to anti-immigrant sentiment in other countries. This is no longer just a territorial issue. We are talking about livelihoods and shelter. It is now an issue of survival. As a populist, Duterte is sensitive to the shifting political winds, analysts say, especially with approaching midterm elections next month that will decide 12 of 24 Senate seats and all 297 House seats. A recent public opinion survey showed that 84% of Filipinos disapproved of the governments inaction over Chinas aggressive incursion into Philippine territory. That includes Dutertes decision to downplay a historic 2016 ruling by an international tribunal that favored the Philippines and rejected Chinas sweeping claims to the South China Sea. The softer approach surprised Filipinos considering Duterte had branded himself a defender of Philippine sovereignty during his presidential run. He once pledged to jet ski out to the Spratly Islands or Scarborough Shoal and plant the countrys flag. A spokesman later said it was a joke. China is no longer ruining their livelihoods, but these Filipino fishermen arent entirely grateful Seeing no effort by the government to challenge China, former officials have begun circumventing the Duterte administration by seeking redress from international bodies. Albert del Rosario, the Philippines former foreign secretary and Conchita Carpio-Morales, a former presidential-appointed ombudsman, filed a complaint before the International Criminal Court in The Hague on March 15 alleging Chinas construction of artificial islands for military installations on reefs and atolls around Scarborough Shoal and other islands caused irreversible environmental damage constituting a crime against humanity. (The complaint was filed two days before the Philippines withdrawal from the court, which was investigating extrajudicial killings linked to Dutertes war on drugs). All of this is happening because of the foreign policy of the president and his policy is to do nothing. There is a clear disconnect between the problems Filipinos face in the West Philippine Sea and the foreign policy of the president, said Florin Hilbay, a former solicitor general, using the Philippine name for the South China Sea. Whether Duterte and his PDP-Laban party will be forgiven for their inaction remains to be seen. The presidents recent statements on China are clearly a response to mounting public pressure, said Richard Heydarian, a political analyst. But while divisive, the China problem may not be enough for the opposition to win enough House seats to counter Dutertes consolidation of power, he added. The opposition has demonized China too much while underestimating the pragmatic desire of Filipino people to have peaceful relations with Asias new superpower, said Heydarian. Although local surveys show that China has extremely low trust ratings, Pew surveys indicate that two-thirds of Filipinos prefer a strong economic engagement over confrontation with China. This is how Duterte gets away with his China appeasing strategy, Heydarian said. That hasnt stopped the opposition from trying. This month, senatorial opposition candidates joined fishermen in the coastal town of Masinloc to demand an end to Chinese harassment around Scarborough Shoal. For generations, fishermen there have claimed rights to the grounds, which are rich with high-value tuna, grouper and Spanish mackerel. But Chinese sailors have blocked their access, boarding their boats, raiding their ice boxes for their best catch and giving them expired cigarettes, noodles or bottled water in exchange. The fishermen say the Chinese sailors have confiscated their cellphones when they attempt to document the incidents. The Chinese still do not allow us to enter Scarborough Shoal. We cannot freely fish, said Wilfredo Labolabo, 32, who has been fishing in the area since he was a child. The president is all words, but he isnt taking action, Labolabo continued. We feel discouraged and forsaken. The Chinese seized Scarborough Shoal after the Philippine navy apprehended eight Chinese vessels carrying illegally harvested corals and giant clams. The Philippine government filed a case before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague arguing Chinas territorial claims violated international maritime laws. In July 2016, the international tribunal ruled in favor of the Philippines, but Duterte dismissed the ruling and said that there was no way to enforce it short of going to war with China. After a state visit to China in October 2016, Duterte returned to the Philippines with more than $24 billion in trade and investment deals and a pronouncement that, through an agreement between him and the Chinese president, Philippine fishermen could go back to Scarborough Shoal. That agreement apparently did not mean access to the lagoon, fishermen report. We can fish around Scarborough, but we are not allowed to enter the lagoon for shelter against strong winds, said Fred Manzano, 67, referring to the coral beds within the lagoon that serve as nesting habitat for fish. The lagoon is also where the most of the fish are. Times staff writer Pierson reported from Singapore and special correspondent Santos from Masinloc. - Kudirat Afolabi, a Nigerian, was executed in Saudi Arabia for drug-related offences - There are however reports that no fewer than 23 Nigerians are still on the death row in the kingdom - A full list of the affected Nigerians who were also reportedly found guilty of drug-related offences, have been released There was outrage in Nigeria on Monday, April 1, when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia executed a Nigerian, Kudirat Afolabi, over alleged drug-related offences. The outrage was fueled by a report claiming the federal government ignored the call for Ms Afolabi's intervention. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has, however, refuted the report in a statement by its spokesperson, Sarah Sanda, on Friday, April 12 in Abuja, describing it as a complete falsehood. Sanda said that the attention of the ministry was drawn to what she described as a tendentious, mischievous and libelous article alleging that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the minister were responsible for the death of Afolabi. Meanwhile, no fewer than 23 Nigerians are still on the death row in the kingdom, The Nation reports. The newspaper said it had access to a document listing 23 more Nigerians on the death row in Saudi Arabia. READ ALSO: President Buhari weighs options on incoming cabinet According to the document, the Nigerians were found guilty of allegedly contravening the Narcotic and Psychotropic Substances Control Law, issued under Royal Decree No. M/39 dated 8/7/1428AH and is punishable with death penalty. The convicted Nigerians are: 1. Adeniyi Adebayo Zikri 2. Tunde Ibrahim 3. Jimoh Idhola Lawal 4. Lolo Babatunde 5. Sulaiman Tunde 6. Idris Adewuumi Adepoju 7. Abdul Raimi Awela Ajibola 8. Yusuf Makeen Ajiboye 9. Adam Idris Abubakar 10. Saka Zakaria 11. Biola Lawal 12. Isa Abubakar Adam 13. Ibrahim Chiroma 14. Hafis Amosu 15. Aliu Muhammad 16. Ms Funmilayo Omoyemi Bishi 17. Ms Mistura Yekini 18. Amina Ajoke Alobi 19. Kuburat Ibrahim 20. Alaja Olufunke Alalaoe Abdulqadir 21. Fawsat Balagun Alabi 22. Aisha Muhammad Amira 23. Adebayo Zakariya. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has also defended its legal system following the controversy that trailed the beheading of Afolabi. In an interview with The Nation, the ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Adnan Mahmod Bostaji, on Sunday, April 14, said sentences are only carried out after the evidence has been established. He described the legal system as transparent, adding that it works on fairness and justice. He also said about 1.5 million Nigerians live in Saudi Arabia unmolested. As at today, we have over 1.5 m Nigerians in Saudi Arabia in virtually all sectors of our economy. These 1.5 million Nigerians are legitimately engaged in various services and they are not being molested. You should not use the misconduct of a few Nigerians to assume that all is not well between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Nigeria," he said. Bostaji pleaded with the authorities at all Nigerian airports to implement procedures that will prevent drug smuggling. He said: The legal system in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is transparent and only works on fairness and justice. Death sentences are only carried out after all evidence has been established, and this is exactly what was done in the case of the recently executed Nigerian woman. In fact, in her recent statement, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and the Diaspora, Mrs Abike Dabiri-Arewa, condemned what the woman had done. I hope the media and social networking channels will restrain themselves from hasty judgments and comments. I believe that we all have interest in doing justice. I also want them to note that there is continuous coordination, as well as cooperation, between the officials and the embassies of both countries. The two countries have had robust years of bilateral relationship, including cooperation on various international matters of mutual interest. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that Abike Dabiri who is the chairman of the National Diaspora Commission said that eight Nigerians had been executed by the Saudi Arabian government over drug-related offences. Dabiri revealed this on Tuesday, April 2 at the State House while also speaking about the execution of Afolabi in the same country for drug trafficking. Dabiri appealed to the Saudi Arabian authorities to ensure that the Nigerians on death row are given fair hearing. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have upgraded to serve you better I was trafficked abroad to be a slave, s*ex machine -Damilola Falodun | Legit TV Source: Legit A woman hit her 2-year-old daughter, injuring the toddler after the little girl cried, according to Easton police. The incident occurred in the early morning of Feb. 5, but Lisette Marie Mercado wasnt arraigned until Monday afternoon on charges of simple assault and child endangerment. Mercado, 26, of Mississippi, was sent to Northampton County Prison in lieu of $15,000 bail. Easton police said they were contacted March 7th for a report of suspected abuse from a Feb. 5th incident in a home in the first block of North 13th Street in Easton. The victims aunt reported the little girl was lying on a bed at 3:30 a.m., when Mercado, the girls mother, came in drunk, according to police. The girl started to cry, when Mercado allegedly began to swing punches and slaps at the toddlers head and body. After Mercado stopped, the aunt picked up the girl and could see redness and swelling near the girls left eye, police said. Mercado began yelling and was kicking items in the room, police said. The aunt and the girls grandmother took the 2-year-old to St. Lukes Hospital in Bethlehem Township for treatment. Police filed a search warrant for the girls medical records at the hospital, and the records were provided April 4th, police said. They showed the girl suffered a preorbital bruise near her left eye, police said. Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Billy Gruenewald doesnt care what your politics are. He serves breakfast and lunch every day to people across the political spectrum at The Peoples Kitchen at 636 Linden St. in Bethlehem. The 30-year-old just wants you to stop in and give the food a chance. And if youre in the neighborhood between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. Tuesday, you may just be on national TV. The Fox & Friends feature Breakfast with Friends will visit and do three, three-minute segments with Todd Piro the morning after Fox News hosts a town hall with Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at the SteelStacks campus, Gruenewald said Monday morning as he cooked in his 28-seat north side diner/luncheonette. After months of gas line replacement tying up traffic in his small section of the city at North and Linden streets, hes hoping TV drives the crowds. As a small business and not a part of a large conglomerate, we always sort of get the short end of the stick, he said. So when Fox News called and asked to do the segment and the person on the phone explained they know what the networks reputation is, but just wanted to hear peoples opinions on the news of the day, Gruenewald welcomed the opportunity. A Fox News spokeswoman confirmed the event in Bethlehem Breakfast with Friends is a recurring segment on FOX News Channels FOX & Friends where a co-host or program correspondent travels to a restaurant across the country to have candid conversations with patrons aimed to spotlight how Americans feel about current events that are impacting their everyday lives, the spokeswoman said by email. The 2010 graduate of Penn State Universitys hotel and restaurant management program, who says his only stated political position is wanting his taxes to go away, said The Peoples Kitchen, which opened in 2014, is a small place populated by many different political points of view. But while the mix of older, more traditional people and young professionals eat barbecue shrimp and grit crepes, croissant french toast and breakfast mac and cheese, their discussions always remain friendly, he said. A lot of different people come here, the 2006 Liberty High School graduate who grew up in Hanover Township, Northampton County, said. Everybody has their own opinion. Bethlehem is becoming a place where national politicians need to come, Gruenewald said. And he enjoys knowing that the other business that takes his time -- the Tavern at the Sun Inn, in the same building George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette and the Continental Congress once hung out -- is balanced on Monday night by a presidential candidate coming to town. The Peoples Kitchen -- which is open 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays, 7 to 2 on Saturday and 8 to 2 on Sunday -- has a homey kind of feel and could certainly use a kickstart, Gruenewald said. There is some off-street parking, and street parking on Linden, High and Garrison streets, he said. Even though North Street has been where the management of the street construction work has focused, there is a foreman there who can let drivers through to park on that street, he said. The main city garages are four or five blocks away, he added. Gruenewald wont be going to the Sanders event. Fox & Friends arrives at 4:30 a.m. to start setting up, he said. Gruenewald, whose California relatives will have to get up awfully early to see his restaurant on TV, said hes thankful to his regulars for getting the business this far in tough road conditions. We have a pretty dedicated following, he said. I greatly appreciate them making that effort. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Weeks dragged into months after the murder of Michael Davis. A year passed and no one was charged with killing the 25-year-old Palmer Township man. It took 10 law enforcement agencies working together to piece together the criminal conspiracy that allegedly led to the cellphone store workers death and the robberies of multiple stores. Now, more than two years after Davis killing, one of the alleged perpetrators in the scheme will stand trial. Jury selection is slated for Monday in the trial of Gregory Lewis, 28, of Wilson Borough. He and Vaughn-Darrius Felix, 28, of Easton, allegedly killed Davis on Nov. 21, 2016. Theyre also charged with kidnapping Verizon store manager Michael DeRose on Nov. 22, 2015. The crimes were in furtherance of a scheme to rob cellphone stores and sell the ill-gotten goods. "It was greed. That's what it was a result of," Northampton County Assistant District Attorney Patricia Fuentes Mulqueen said when Felix and Lewis were charged in December 2017. Lewis is charged with participating in robberies of cellphone stores in Bethlehem Township, Wind Gap and South Whitehall Township and a jewelry store in Easton. Hes not charged with helping rob the Forks Township store where Davis and DeRose worked. Lewis and Felix are also scheduled to face trial later in Berks County for the murder of 21-year-old Dominic Colona on Dec. 2, 2016, in Reading. Mulqueen said Felix has agreed to testify against Lewis. Mulqueen has offered to take the death penalty off the table if Felix agrees to plead guilty to Davis murder. Lewis does not face the death penalty. He is charged with second-degree murder because he helped kill Davis in the furtherance of a robbery, Mulqueen said. The murder stemmed from the robbery and was not part of the original plan, Mulqueen said. Felix is charged with first-degree murder because hes the person believed to have pulled the trigger and killed Davis. The trial is expected to last two weeks, maybe longer, Mulqueen said. Lewis will be defended by attorney Robert Eyer. Eyer didnt return a call seeking comment. Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook. A tornado watch has been issued for the Lehigh Valley and all of New Jersey through 7 a.m. Monday as a line of strong storms sweeps through from the west. The local watch was issued just after 1 a.m. by the National Weather Service. Similar watches had been issued earlier Sunday evening across Pennsylvania and as far south as the Carolinas as severe thunderstorms moved through. At least two tornado warnings had been issued in areas of Pennsylvania as of 1 a.m. A tornado watch has been issued for parts of CT, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA until 7 AM EDT pic.twitter.com/kI8Ad5hx4Z NWS Mount Holly (@NWS_MountHolly) April 15, 2019 While a watch indicates that tornadoes are possible, a warning is more serious and means that a tornado is likely or imminent. If a tornado warning is issued in your area, the National Weather Service says to immediately take shelter in a basement or lower-level room away from windows. If you are in a car and unable to get to a sturdy building, get down low in your vehicle and cover your head or find a low-lying area such as a ditch or ravine. Avoid seeking shelter under bridges, which offer little protection against flying debris. (LIST: Every tornado ever recorded in the Lehigh Valley) Tornadoes are not common in the Lehigh Valley but the do happen. The most recent was last summer in Heidelberg Township. The Lehigh Valley is already under a flash flood watch through the overnight hours. Storms expected after midnight will dump rain on ground already saturated from heavy rain earlier in the weekend. Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveNovakLVL and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Athy train station is to operate without any staff as part of plans to make it a staff-less railway station, one of a number of train stations in Kildare according to a local councillor. Cllr Tommy Redmond raised the issue at this months area meeting which was held earlier today at Castledermot Community Centre. He tabled a motion that the council write to Irish Rail to express their regret that these plans have been confirmed by the National Transport Authority adding that this was not in the best interest of Athy town community. Cllr Redmond said that the matter was confirmed to him by the Chairperson of the NTA on March, 26, 2019. He added that a number of stations in Kildare are to be made staff-less. I feel in Athy that a lot of people will find this difficult, he said. Already we have no lift for people with disabilities and one of the toilets does not work. Weve been let down by Irish Rail. Anyone who has any sort of difficulty at all will be affected by this and it will be a bad day for the town. All agreed that the council should write to Irish Rail to express their concerns. Almost a million euros is to be given to a Maynooth University researcher for a history study of Ireland covering the 16th and 17th centuries. Professor Patricia Palmer, from Maynooth Universitys Department of English is receiving funding for the MACMORRIS project which the Irish Research Council (IRC) said sets out to recover the vibrancy and complexity of Irelands transformative years between Henry VIIIs assumption of the kingship of Ireland in 1541 and the Flight of the Earls in 1607. She is among amongst twelve researchers awarded a total of 11.8 million from the IRC under the IRC 2019 Advanced Laureate Awards Programme for what it described as world-class frontier research. The poets, patrons and political activists of this period will be digitally mapped for the first time under Prof Palmers project, which is set to receive funding of just under 1 million (992,750). SEE ALSO: Naas Local History Group remember first Kildare County Council in 1899 The project was among a total investment of 11.8 million in frontier research announced by Minister for Education and Skills, Joe McHugh, and Minister of State for Training, Skills, Innovation, Research and Development John Halligan, on Thursday, April 11 last. The IRC said the researchers are receiving funding are at an advanced stage in their careers and will be supported to conduct ground-breaking, world-class research across a wide range of disciplines. Each will receive a maximum of 1 million in funding, over a period of four years. Peter Brown, Director of the IRC, said all the researchers are exceptional in their fields and have been selected following a rigorous and independent international peer-review process. The IRC said a total of 140 applications were received under this funding call. In addition to the 12 funded awards, a further 48 proposals were deemed to be excellent and fundable by the international panel of experts. This illustrates the high quality of researchers and the calibre of proposals being generated in frontier research in Ireland. The Council is committed to establishing regular calls under the Laureate awards to ensure that leading-edge, world-class research does not go unfunded. The Irish Research Council opened the first call under the Laureate Awards Programme in 2017, resulting in 36 awards with an associated investment of 18 million. Address Ballyneety Occupation Self-employed/farmer Why have you decided to run in the Local Elections? I made a conscious decision to run in the Adare/ Rathkeale area as Im passionate about keeping rural communities alive. Ive lived and worked in Limerick all my life and Ive dedicated much of my time to many local organisations on a voluntary basis, always prioritising the best interests of the local community. I want to help shape rural Ireland of the future as I believe Limerick has a significant part to play in its success. Why should people vote for you? I have a proven track record having previously served as a councilor from 2007 to 2014. During this time, I dedicated myself to my constituents and I intend to do the same should I be successful in the upcoming elections. Having spent the past few months meeting with the people in my area, Im very aware of the issues and challenges people face. I believe I have the experience, knowledge and personal drive to overcome these challenges and solve these issues on their behalf. I just need people to support me on May 24 . What do you think is lacking in your area and what will you be campaigning for? Limerick is a city thats thriving. However, sometimes rural communities can be overlooked. I want to work with the people in my electoral area to ensure that they have a voice and benefit from Limericks growing success. Although I have my own views on what is lacking in my area, the most important thing for me is to prioritise what my constituents feel is lacking. Having met with many people over the past four months, the issue of infrastructure and rural transport has been raised again and again. Rural Limerick towns and villages need more financial support to ensure future sustainability and I plan to ensure this is a priority locally should I get elected. As a part-time farmer, Im passionate about ensuring that farming remains a viable career for future generations. I hope to work closely with Limerick County Council to ensure this is a priority locally, especially as we have one of the largest agricultural colleges in the country on our doorstep (Pallaskenry Agricultural College). I also believe more can be done locally to bring tourists to the towns and villages outside the city. Events such as The Limerick Show has contributed greatly to local tourism and agriculture in Adare and the surrounding areas. As President of the Limerick Show Society, I believe more local initiatives like this can go towards providing a brighter future for rural Limerick. MEMBERS of the Adare-Rathkeale Municpal District have rejected an invitation to send a representative to a meeting with officials from Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII). The agency, which has responsibility for the national roads network, has agreed to meet with council officials, the mayor and one councillor from each of the electoral districts in Limerick. At a meeting in Rathkeale on Tuesday, councillors said the attendance of representatives from other areas was an attempt to dilute our influence in relation to the proposed Adare bypass. Cllr Adam Teskey noted that he, as chairman, had previously requested that TII meet with all six members as a group but had yet to receive a reply. We are standing firm, he said adding that he would get through to the CEO of Apple quicker than the CEO of TII. It was a agreed the invitation would be declined and that the request for all six councillors to meet with TII would be reiterated. Tracey Corbett Lynch, sister of Jason Corbett who was brutally murdered in North Carolina said the family are participating in a CBS television programme 48 Hours to challenge every lie and scurrilous allegation levelled against her brothers good name by those who will resort to anything in their bid to evade justice for their crimes We felt the allegations levelled by Tom and Molly Martens needed to be publicly challenged in the US - and that is the reason for our involvement with the CBS programme, she said in a statement issued this Monday morning. We will never falter in our campaign to ensure that Tom and Molly Martens serve the full sentence handed down by a North Carolina court for their terrible crime. We will also never tire of defending the good name and honorable reputation of a dearly loved father, brother, son, uncle, friend as well as a proud Limerick native and Irishman, Ms Lynch added. She said that sine the brutal murder of our beloved brother, Jason Corbett (39) in North Carolina in August 2015 they have sworn to fulfill three solemn vows. Firstly, to do everything in our power to assist the US authorities to deliver justice on those responsible for my brother Jason's cruel and senseless killing. Thanks to the professionalism of Davidson County prosecutors and the courage of the good people of North Carolina, Tom Martens and his daughter, Molly, were convicted in August 2017 of the second degree murder of Jason. They are now serving 20-25 years in North Carolina prisons. She said that they have never shown one ounce of remorse for beating a helpless father to death as he slept. Jason's wife and father-in-law, two people he should have been able to trust implicitly, took his life in the most appalling circumstances. They left his adored children, Jack and Sarah, orphaned. Our second solemn vow was to protect Jason's good name. Our third vow was to provide Jason's children, Jack and Sarah, with all the love, care and protection that he would have wanted as a proud Irish father. Tom and Molly Martens did not seek just to kill my brother - they also sought to destroy his good name and reputation. Even before their 2017 trial, they had given an interview to a US TV channel in which they leveled unfounded and scurrilous allegations against Jason. These appalling allegations caused enormous hurt and upset to Jason's family, friends and work colleagues both in Ireland and the US. It speaks volumes of the type of people that Tom and Molly Martens are that they never once raised those same allegations during their murder trial. THE cost of running the office of a directly elected Mayor of Limerick could be up to 450,000 a year it has been revealed. The committee overseeing the plebiscite, which takes place on Friday May 24, has launched a public information campaign which will see a printed guide in English and Irish being sent to every home across Limerick between now and polling day. At a media briefing this Monday the chairman of the committee, retired High Court judge Henry Abbott, said any directly elected mayor will be paid an annual salary of around 130,000 the same as a Minister of State. He or she will be entitled to recruit two advisers and there will be other costs and expenses associated with the running of the office. The committees guide states the total annual cost could be anywhere between 313,000 and 450,000 depending on the individual mayor. There could be some elected mayor who could decide to do the job on a restrained budget within the parameters of the proposal or there could be another mayor who could have a more expensive budget, said Mr Abbott. The Government is proposing that any directly elected mayor will assume some of the executive responsibilities which are currently carried out by the CEO of Limerick City and County Council. It is proposed that issues relating to human resources, planning permissions and the allocation of housing would remain the responsibility of the council CEO. In addition to the executive functions, any directly elected mayor would also act as chairman of the full council and would assume the ceremonial duties associated with the office of the Mayor of Limerick city and county. There will be 40 councillors in addition to any directly elected mayor. It is proposed the directly elected mayor will serve a five-year team running alongside the life of each council although the first first directly elected mayor is likely to serve a shorter term possibly just two years. Any directly elected mayor will come under the remit of the Standard in Public Office Commission and, nn a first for any political office in Ireland, there will be a recall mechanism similar to that which operates in the House of Commons meaning a new election can take place. They are answerable to the electorate first of all, they are directly elected and if they have any interest of being re-elected thats a very serious level of accountability, said Mr Abbott. In addition to sending an information guide to homes across Limerick, a public information evening will take place on May 16 and there will be an extensive media campaign across print, radio and online platforms. A dedicated website has also been set up www.mayors.gov.ie Leonardo da Vinci was left-handed, but he was equally adept at writing and painting with his right hand, new evidence from one his earliest known works has revealed. Experts with the Opificio delle Pietre Dure (OPD), an art conservation and research institution in Florence, Italy, conducted diagnostic surveys of a drawing made by da Vinci on Aug. 4, 1473, when the artist was only 21 years old. The drawing is called "Landscape" and is also referred to as "8P" after its inventory number; it is currently part of the collection of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, according to a statement issued by the museum. Da Vinci created "Landscape 8P" using lead and several types of ink, and the highly detailed work depicts a river winding through the Arno Valley and the battlements of Montelupo Castle, in Italy's Tuscany region. But it was da Vinci's two inscriptions on the drawing that drew the attention of OPD art historian and conservator Cecilia Frosinini, who led the investigation. [Leonardo Da Vinci's 10 Best Ideas] One inscription the date, written on the front of the drawing in the upper left corner was written backward, inscribed from a reflection in a mirror, the Uffizi said. Da Vinci often used this so-called mirror writing, though it is unclear why. The other note, on the back of the paper, was written normally, from left to right. Additional text and more sketches were visible on the back of the drawing. (Image credit: Opera Laboratori Fiorentini) Frosinini and her team examined the inscriptions and the drawing under a microscope, through high-resolution photos and in infrared light. They also used a fluorescent X-ray system and a portable machine for detecting organic materials. They determined that the inscriptions were both written by da Vinci; the writing was done with the same ink that was used in the drawing, and the handwriting was consistent with other da Vinci writing samples, according to the statement. However, differences between the two inscriptions suggest that da Vinci wrote them with different hands. After evaluating typical hallmarks of da Vinci's penmanship across multiple documents, the conservators concluded that he used his left hand to write the reversed text on the front of the drawing, while the text on the back was written with his non-dominant right hand. "From an observation of his handwriting, including the inscriptions on this drawing, it is clear that his writing as a right-hander was both cultivated and well formed," Frosinini told Agence France-Presse. This exhaustive analysis of da Vinci's drawing also revealed other secrets. Under infrared light, the conservators discovered that da Vinci had sketched different versions of the landscape on both sides of the sheet, with the landscapes on the reverse side looking very different from the ones on the front. Other drawings done in pencil geometric shapes and a flower were concealed underneath the landscape on the back, Uffizi representatives said in the statement. Originally published on Live Science. California's "superbloom" appears in almost unbelievable color in a new aerial image from NASA. The shot comes courtesy NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center aerial photographer Jim Ross, who snapped it from a T-34 airplane on April 2. The image shows Southern California's Antelope Valley carpeted in wildflowers. The spray of color is an annual event, made more intense by this year's wet winter in California. When the flowers are as dramatic as this year's display, they're called a "superbloom." The last drought-busting season that resulted in a superbloom in California was in 2017. The desert environment of Southern California might seem a strange spot for wildflowers, but the orange California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) is well suited for hot environments. According to the U.S. Forest Service, the plants bloom in the spring and then go dormant in the heat of summer, allowing their tops to die off and surviving underground as a taproot. [Photos: The Sonoran Desert in Bloom] NASA Armstrong's T-34 doesn't usually stop and smell the flowers; it's a training and mission support aircraft that often accompanies research flights for safety and documentation purposes. But the flight research center is near the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, and Ross snapped the photos during a flight with Armstrong director of Safety and Mission Assurance and astronaut Rex Walheim. The aerial view is more impressive than the view from space. In March, NASA released a shot of the wildflower bloom in Anza-Borrego Desert Park captured by the Landsat-8 satellite. From Earth's orbit, the vivid flowers blend in with the desert, leaving only the slightest hint of pale color detectable. An imager on the Landsat-8 satellite snapped this image showing the greening landscape and wildflowers (pale patches) around Anza-Borrego Desert State Park on March 13, 2019. (Image credit: Lauren Dauphin, NASA Earth Observatory/Landsat 8) Originally published on Live Science. The worlds last known female Yangtze giant softshell turtle (seen here in 2015) died at Chinas Suzhou Zoo this weekend, leaving only 3 individuals of the species left on Earth. The Yangtze giant softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei) is considered the most critically endangered turtle in the world, with only four known individuals left on Earth. On Saturday (April 13), that population fell to three, as the species' last known female died in a zoo in Suzhou, China, according to the BBC. The captive turtle was more than 90 years old and died shortly after an attempt to artificially inseminate her, the BBC reported. No complications from the insemination procedure (which was the turtle's fifth) were reported, and the cause of death is being investigated. The rare turtle is survived by one male, who also lives in the Suzhou Zoo and is believed to be about 100 years old. Scientists had been trying to breed the pair for years, a 2018 New Yorker article reported, but were unsuccessful due, in part, to the male's damaged penis. The world's final two known R. swinhoei turtles live in separate ponds in Vietnam. Their genders are unknown. The species used to be widespread in the fresh waters of China and Vietnam, according to the New Yorker, but have dwindled to near-extinction due to hunting and habitat loss. This is a sadly common story. According to a 2018 report from the Zoological Society of London, turtles and tortoises account for 29 of the world's 100 most endangered reptiles, "despite representing only 3.3% of reptilian species richness." True to their names, Yangtze giant softshell turtles can be huge, growing to more than 360 lbs. (163 kg), the New Yorker reported. Originally published on Live Science. The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is on fire. Smoke and flames engulfed the medieval cathedral on Monday. Firefighters are on the scene and Paris police tweeted that people should avoid the area in order to allow emergency vehicles in. The cause of the fire is currently unknown, but the cathedral has been undergoing renovations and police say they may be linked to the fire, according to the BBC. Photos and videos of the fire taken by onlookers and circulating on social media offer glimpses of the smoke and flames. Videos show that the building's spire has fallen and the roof has collapsed. See more The world remains stunned, watching the iconic cathedral, which dates back to the 12th century, burn, with its beautiful gothic architecture hidden beneath the flames. Originally published on Live Science. DENVER Researchers have developed a new, unspeakably dangerous, and incredibly slow method of crossing the universe. It involves wormholes linking special black holes that probably don't exist. And it might explain what's really going on when physicists quantum-teleport information from one point to another from the perspective of the teleported bit of information. Daniel Jafferis, a Harvard University physicist, described the proposed method at a talk April 13 here at a meeting of the American Physical Society. This method, he told his assembled colleagues, involves two black holes that are entangled so that they are connected across space and time. What's a wormhole? Their idea solves a long-standing problem: When something enters a wormhole, it requires negative energy to exit the other side. (Under normal circumstances, the shape of space-time at a wormhole's exit make it impossible to pass through. But a substance with negative energy could, in theory, overcome that obstacle.) But nothing in the physics of gravity and space-time the physics that describes wormholes allows for those sorts of negative-energy pulses. So wormholes are impossible to actually pass through. "It's just a connection in space, but, if you try to get through it, it collapses too quickly so you can't get through it," Jafferis told Live Science after his talk. [9 Ideas About Black Holes That Will Blow Your Mind] This older model of wormhole dates back to a paper by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen, published in Physical Review in 1935. The two physicists realized that, under certain circumstances, relativity would dictate that space-time would curve so extremely that a sort of tunnel (or "bridge") would form linking two separate points. The physicists wrote the paper in part to exclude the possibility of black holes in the universe. But in the decades since, as physicists came to realize that black holes do exist, the standard image of a wormhole became a tunnel where the two openings appear as black holes. However, according to this idea, such as tunnel would likely never exist naturally in the universe, and if it did exist would disappear before anything passed through it. In the 1980s, the physicist Kip Thorne wrote that something might be able to pass through this wormhole if some sort of negative energy were applied to hold the wormhole open. Quantum entanglement Jafferis, along with the Harvard physicist Ping Gao and the Stanford physicist Aron Wall, have developed a way to apply a version of negative energy that relies on an idea from a very different area of physics, called entanglement. Entanglement comes from quantum mechanics, not relativity. Back in 1935, Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen published another paper in Physical Review showing that under the rules of quantum mechanics particles can become "correlated" with one another, such that the behavior of one particle directly impacts the behavior of another. [The 18 Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics] Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen thought this proved something was wrong with their ideas of quantum mechanics, because it would allow information to move faster than the speed of light between the two particles. Now, physicists know that entanglement is real, and quantum teleportation is an almost routine part of physics research. Here's how quantum teleportation works: Entangle two light particles, A and B. Then, give B to your friend to take into another room. Next, bash a third photon, C, against photon A. That entangles A and C, and breaks the entanglement between A and B. You can then measure the combined state of A and C which is different from the original states of A, B or C and communicate the results of the combined particles to your friend in the next room. Without knowing the state of B, your friend can then use that limited information to manipulate B to produce the state particle C had at the start of the process. If she measures B, she'll learn the original state of C, without anyone telling her. Information about particle C functionally teleported from one room to the next. This is useful, because it can act as a kind of uncrackable code for sending messages from one point to the next. And entanglement isn't just a property of individual particles. Larger objects can become entangled too, though perfect entanglement between them is much harder. Entangled black holes can transport you Back in 1935, the physicists writing these papers had no inkling that wormholes and entanglement were connected, Jafferis said. But in 2013, physicists Juan Maldacena and Leonard Susskind published a paper in the journal Progress in Physics linking the two ideas. Two perfectly entangled black holes, they argued, would act as a wormhole between their two points in space. They called the idea "ER=EPR," because it linked the Einstein-Rosen paper with the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paper. Asked if two fully entangled black holes might really exist in the universe, Jafferis said, "No, no, certainly not." It's not that the situation is physically impossible. It's just too precise and huge for our messy universe to produce. Producing two perfectly entangled black holes would be like winning the lottery, only zillions upon zillions of times less likely. And if they did exist, he said, they'd lose their perfect correlation the moment some third object interacted with one of them. But if, somehow, such a pair were to exist, somehow, somewhere, then Jafferis, Gao and Wall's method might work. Their approach, first published in The Journal of High Energy Physics in December 2017, goes like this: Toss your friend into one of the entangled black holes. Then, measure the so-called Hawking radiation coming off the black hole, which encodes some information about that black hole's state. Then, bring that information over to the second black hole and use it to manipulate the second black hole. (This can be as simple as dumping a bunch of Hawking radiation from the first black hole into the second.) In theory, your friend should pop out of the second black hole exactly as she entered the first. From his perspective, Jafferis said, she would have dived into a wormhole. And as she approached the singularity at its neck, she would have experienced a "pulse" of negative energy that would have propelled her out the other side. [What Would Happen If You Fell into a Black Hole?] The method isn't particularly useful, Jafferis said, because it would always be slower than just physically moving the distance between the two black holes. But it does suggest something about the universe. From the perspective of a bit of information passing between entangled particles, Jafferis said, something similar might be going on. At the scale of individual quantum objects, he said, it doesn't really make sense to talk about space-time curving to produce a wormhole. But involve a few more particles in the mix for a slightly more complex bit of quantum teleportation, and suddenly the wormhole model makes a lot of sense. There's strong evidence here, he said, that the two phenomena are linked. It also strongly suggests, he said, that information lost to a black hole might go somewhere where it could one day be retrieved. If you fall into a black hole tomorrow, he said, all hope isn't lost. A sufficiently advanced civilization might be able to zoom around the universe, collecting all the Hawking radiation emitted from the black hole as it slowly evaporated over eons, and compressing that radiation into a new black hole, entangled with the original across time. Once that new black hole emerged, it might be possible to retrieve you from it. Theoretical research into this method of moving between black holes, Jafferis said, is ongoing. But the goal is more to understand fundamental physics than perform black hole rescues. So, perhaps it's best not to risk it. Originally published on Live Science. In southwestern Kenya, in the Kenya Rift Valley Province, lies 583 square miles (1,510 square kilometers) of protected land known as the Maasai Mara National Reserve. It was established in 1961 and is a popular safari destination, renowned for its wildlife population, according to a 2019 study about the park published in the journal Land Use Policy. The wildlife roam freely across the boundaries of the reserve into areas with several villages, where animals and humans coexist. Also known as Masai Mara, Maasai Mara or simply the Mara, the reserve lies at between 4,875 and 7,052 feet (1486 and 2149 meters) in elevation and extends south to Serengeti National Park. The name comes from the local Maasai people, who called this expanse of land "Mara," or spotted, in their native language of Maa, because of the way the acacia trees and wildlife dotted the plains. Wildlife A diverse group of animals call the Maasai Mara home, including Africa's "big five" (the African elephant, Cape buffalo, African leopard, African lion and African black rhino). Cheetahs, wildebeests, gazelles, zebras, hyenas, giraffes, crocodiles, hippos, more than 500 bird species and many more residents can also be found across the reserve. [In Photos: The Lions of Kenya's Masai Mara] The most popular time to visit the reserve is between July and October. The peak of the wildebeest migration, usually in October, is a particularly popular time in the park, as visitors come to see the more than 2 million animals travel up to 500 miles (800 km) from Serengeti National Park in Tanzania to the Maasai Mara National Reserve, according to the World Wildlife Fund. During their migration, wildebeest and several hundred thousand other migratory mammals, including gazelles and zebras, must cross the Mara River while avoiding crocodiles and other predators, such as large cats and hyenas. An estimated 250,000 wildebeest never make it to their destination, as they fall prey to carnivores, die of hunger, thirst or exhaustion, or drown in the Mara River, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The fallen animals, however, provide a wealth of food and nutrients for the ecosystem. Climate The great migration occurs during the main dry season, which lasts from June through October. The two wet seasons, a short one and a long one, occur between November and December and March and May, respectively. Due to Kenya's location at the equator, temperatures there remain fairly constant throughout the year, with daytime temperatures of about 73 degrees Fahrenheit (23 degrees Celsius) during the dry season and 81 F (27 C) during the wet season. Average annual rainfall is about 1 meter (3 feet) per year, with nearly 80% of the rain falling during the wet season, according to a 2018 article published in the journal PLOS One. During the dry season, many of the temporary lakes and rivers dry up, leaving the one permanent body of water in the region, the Mara River, to provide for both the Maasai Mara and Serengeti regions. Flooding is common during the wet season and can displace wildlife and increase the risk of diseases such as Rift Valley fever and anthrax, both of which can infect domesticated and wild animals as well as humans. The flooding also affects livestock and agriculture in the surrounding areas. Culture The Maasai people, known for their fierce warriors and bright red robes, were once one of the dominating native tribes in Kenya. They are one of the few who have retained much of their traditions and lifestyles, according to the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust. The Maasai moved into the highlands of what is now Kenya in the early 17th century and spread across what became Kenya and south into what is now Tanzania soon after, according to an article from the nonprofit Cultural Survival. They were seminomadic, moving with their prized cattle herds to different areas during the wet and dry seasons to prevent any one area from becoming overgrazed. As with most other African tribes, however, the Maasai lost much of their fertile lands and parts of their culture when European settlers moved into the territory. The Maasai people are no longer nomadic and are now settled in a single location, where they depend on local agriculture and tourism to sustain their lifestyle and traditions. Within the Maasai Mara, conflicts between wildlife and villagers have become increasingly controversial. As humans and beasts compete for natural resources in this remote area, millions of animals have been forced to alter their behaviors, territories and migration patterns. As a result, their populations have suffered. Additional resources: Paris' iconic Notre Dame cathedral caught fire today (April 15), a shocking inferno that soon collapsed part of the building's spire. According to the BBC, the cause of the fire was not immediately known, but may have been linked to ongoing renovation work on the building. It's not yet clear how much of the famous twin-towered church that the fire will destroy, but the damage including to the church's famous stained glass is apparently extensive. "The temperature in this [fire] might have reached close to 1,700 to 1,900 degrees Fahrenheit (930 to 1,037 degrees Celsius), easily," said Venkatesh Kodur, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Michigan State University and an expert in structure fires. Glass shatters at about 1,200 F (650 C), Kodur said. Hard history This is not the first time that the Notre Dame cathedral has been in dire straits. The cathedral was completed in 1345, the final result of a mind-bogglingly huge construction project that began in 1163. Notre Dame sites on the Seine river, on a spot where a previous cathedral, the Saint-Etienne, had stood for at least 400 years before. When Maurice de Sully was elected bishop of Paris in 1160, he proposed the demolition of Saint-Etienne and the reconstruction of a new cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary, according to the official cathedral history. It was an enormous project, involving new urban planning for the entire area. [10 Historical Treasures That the World Lost in the Past 100 Years] No building makes it 856 years without some ups and downs. Among the low points for Notre Dame was the 17th century. According to National Geographic, the reign of Louis XIV brought dire changes to the cathedral. Original stained-glass windows were replaced with plain glass; a pillar in the main doorway was demolished to widen the opening so carriages could pass through. The Notre Dame cathedral is known for its gorgeous stained-glass windows. (Image credit: Gurgen Bakhshetyan/Shutterstock) The French Revolution was even more devastating. According to the cathedrals official history, revolutionaries tore down 28 statues of kings housed in Notre Dame, driven by anti-monarchist fervor. They also destroyed many other statues with the exception of one of the Virgin Mary, and tore down the original spire of the church, erected in the 13th century. Revolutionaries renamed Notre Dame the Temple to the Goddess Reason, according to the Fondation Napoleon, and later converted it into a wine warehouse. After the revolution, an agreement called the Concordat of 1801 returned Notre Dame to the Catholic Church. Napoleon Bonaparte, the French general and eventual emperor, chose the damaged cathedral as the site of his 1804 coronation. Bonaparte's people draped fabrics over the Gothic architecture of Notre Dame to make it look like a Greek temple, according to Fondation Napoleon. From then on, the building was used for imperial ceremonies, but remained in disarray until the Romantic movement of the 1800s, according to the Fondation Napoleon. Victor Hugos famous novel "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame," published in 1831, reinvigorated interest in the crumbling building in the middle of Paris. With city officials and public support behind him, architect Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc launched a major renovation project to save the cathedral in 1843. It was a 20-year project that created Notre Dame as it appeared before today's fire: The old spire was replaced, sculpted gargoyles were added and new murals were painted. According to the cathedrals official website, the renovation also included the building of a new sacristy, where priests prepare for worship services, and the reconstruction of the cathedrals organ. [Images: The Church of the Holy Sepulchre] Modern-day damage Over the next 150 years, the cathedral would see more facelifts, including the restoration of stained glass in the nave and a decade-long effort to clean the building's western facade. In recent years, the building has again shown its age. Last year, the Friends of Notre-Dame of Paris Foundation launched a major fundraising effort in the United States in an effort to fund repairs to the cathedral. According to CBS News, years of pollution and weathering had cracked the facade and the famous flying buttresses. The French government had pledged $50 million to renovations, but the Archdiocese of Paris had estimated that the total cost would reach $185 million. Most likely, Kodur said, the masonry walls of the cathedral will stand, though they could crack and become weakened from the heat of the fire and the cold water used by firefighters to control the flames. The wooden roof is a loss, Kodur said, as are any drapes, decorations or flammable objects inside. The much-needed renovations may be the cause of the fire that raged at the cathedral yesterday, according to French authorities. But some of the cathedrals treasures may have been saved by those same renovations, too. On April 11, cranes lifted more than a dozen religious statues off the top of the building to be sent to southwestern France for restoration work, according to the Associated Press. The statues made it down just four days before the fire burst into flame. Originally published on Live Science. A statue of King David, created about 400 years ago by the sculptor Nicolas Cordier. It is now in the Borghese Chapel of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. In the Hebrew Bible, King David is famous for slaying the Philistine giant Goliath and expanding Israel into a large kingdom centered in Jerusalem. However, archaeological evidence for King David is limited, and there is an ongoing debate among archaeologists and other scholars about the size of David's kingdom and how many of the biblical stories are true. When, exactly, he ruled is also uncertain. David's "reign is traditionally dated from about 1000 to 962 [B.C.]," wrote Daniel Bodi, a religious history professor at the Paris-Sorbonne University, in the book "Ancient Israel's History: An Introduction to Issues and Sources" (Baker Academic, 2014). However, the precise years of David's reign are uncertain and a subject of debate among scholars. [Photos: Rare Inscription from King David's Time] From Goliath killer to ladies' man David was the youngest son of a man named Jesse and was chosen by God to be king of Israel at a young age, the Hebrew Bible says. In David's early life, Israel was ruled by a king named Saul, and the country was often at war with a group called the Philistines. David rose to prominence when, during a battle with the Philistines, he killed a powerful warrior named Goliath by hurling a sling stone at him. "As the Philistine [Goliath] moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground." 1 Samuel 17:48-49. David rose in rank and power quickly after that, leading troops on order of King Saul and slaying numerous enemies, according to the Hebrew Bible. Eventually, Saul offered one of his daughters, Michal, for David to marry, and he accepted. As David's fame increased, tension brewed between him and Saul and Saul feared that David would usurp his throne. While Saul's oldest son, Jonathan, was friends with David and attempted to convince his father that David was no threat, Saul eventually decided to kill David. But David escaped and took refuge with a Philistine king named Achish. David offered to fight against the Israelis for Achish but was refused because the other Philistine kings were uncomfortable with having David on their battle lines. After Saul and several of his sons, including Jonathan, died while fighting a Philistine army, David came out of exile and tried to assert his kingship over Israel. For several years, David was based at Hebron, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Jerusalem, where he battled survivors of the house of Saul in a civil war. David eventually won and became king of all of Israel, the Hebrew Bible says. He then expanded Israel's territory, conquering several towns and cities, including Jerusalem a city which he would later make his capital. As David's kingdom grew, he took on more wealth and more wives and concubines. "David appears as a man with one deep personality flaw: He was a 'ladies' man.'" wrote Bodi. This eventually got David into trouble with God. David was on the rooftop of one of his palaces when he saw a beautiful lady named Bathsheba bathing. She was married to Uriah the Hittite, a soldier fighting in King David's army. This didn't deter David, and he sent messengers to get her and he impregnated her. David arranged to have Uriah killed while the soldier was fighting a group called the Ammonites. The king wrote a letter to one of his commanders telling him to "put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then, withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die." 2 Samuel 11:14-15. After Uriah was killed, David took Bathsheba to be one of his wives. God was furious with David and sent a prophet named Nathan to deliver David a message: "'The sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.'" 2 Samuel 12:10. The remainder of David's rule was fraught with peril. David and Bathsheba's first child died. (But their second child, named Solomon, survived and later became king of Israel.) David also faced multiple rebellions, including one led by Absalom, one of David's sons. [Biblical Battles: 12 Ancient Wars Lifted from the Bible] While David succeeded in stopping the rebellion, Absalom was killed in battle and David mourned his death. In David's final year of rule, fighting broke out over who would succeed him. To resolve the issue, David had to get up from his deathbed to announce that Solomon would be king. Ultimately, the kingdom that David helped build broke apart. After Solomon's death, Israel split in two, with a northern kingdom that retained the name Israel and a southern kingdom, based in Jerusalem, that was called Judah, the Hebrew Bible says. This rare inscription was found on a 3,000-year-old ceramic jar from the time of King David. (Image credit: Tal Rogovsky) Archaeological evidence The archaeological evidence for King David's existence is limited, and much of it is controversial. Perhaps the most important piece of evidence linked to King David is known as the Tel Dan stele, which is an ancient and broken inscribed stone discovered in 1993 and 1994. The inscription tells how the ruler of a kingdom named Aram Damascus defeated a king of Israel named Joram and a king of Judah named Ahaziyahu, who were both members of the house of David. The reference to "house of David" indicates that King David likely existed, wrote Eric Cline, a professor of classics, anthropology and history at George Washington University, in his book "Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford University Press, 2009). "At a single blow, the finding of this inscription brought an end to the debate and settled the question of whether David was an actual historical person," Cline wrote. Unfortunately, there isn't any other evidence of either David or his son Solomon. Another 2,800-year-old inscription called the Mesha stele (named after King Mesha of Moab, the person who erected it) has writing on it that some scholars believe refers to King David, but that's also heavily debated. How powerful was David's kingdom? There's even more debate among scholars over how powerful David's kingdom was, what territory it controlled and whether David's kingdom was ever the "united monarchy" that is supposed to have united the Jews. Israel Finkelstein, an archaeology professor at Tel Aviv University, has argued that David's kingdom was more modest than what the Hebrew Bible claims. "Over a century of archaeological explorations in Jerusalem the capital of the glamorous biblical United Monarchy failed to reveal evidence for any meaningful 10th-century building activity," Finkelstein wrote in the book "One God One Cult One Nation: Archaeological and Biblical Perspectives" (de Gruyter, 2010). "10th-century Jerusalem was no more than a small, remote highlands village, not the exquisitely decked-out capital of a great empire." But some scholars disagree with Finkelstein's assessment. An archaeological team led by Eilat Mazar, a research fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Institute of Archaeology, found a wall that the researchers believe dates to the 10th century B.C. and may have been built during the reign of King Solomon, David's successor. Mazar has also been investigating the remains of a large structure in Jerusalem that she thinks may be a palace built for King David. Some archaeologists contend that there is strong evidence for King David's kingdom outside of Jerusalem. Recently, a team of archaeologists has been excavating a large site called Khirbet Qeiyafa. Radiocarbon dating indicates that human activity flourished in the site around 3,000 years ago. Archaeologists at Khirbet Qeiyafa, led by Hebrew University of Jerusalem archaeology professor Yosef Garfinkel, have found the remains of large buildings including a royal palace that they believe King David used. However, their interpretation is controversial. While a few inscriptions have been found at Khirbet Qeiyafa, none mention King David, and it's debatable whether King David ever controlled the site. Other recently discovered archaeological remains that King David may have controlled include a sophisticated gatehouse at a 3,000-year-old mining camp in the Timna Valley of southern Israel and a large, 3,000-year-old house at a site called Tel 'Eton, located southwest of Jerusalem. But again, no inscriptions describe who controlled those sites, and it remains unclear if King David had anything to do with them. Additional resources: Violence is on the rise in Mexico, and that means its neighbors like Laredo have an increased risk of being caught in the crossfire. With more than 2,200 murders in June, Mexico just experienced its deadliest month in at least the last 20 years, The Associated Press reported using government data. The Czech governments website vlada.cz reported that Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis will chair an official welcome ceremony for his Vietnamese counterpart on April 17. One of the key contents of the talks between the two PMs will be the enhancement of bilateral economic cooperation, it said, adding that the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) will help promote bilateral trade. The two leaders will open the Czech-Vietnam business and investment forum, according to the website. This will be the second meeting between the two PMs after their meeting on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2019, it added. The Czech-Vietnam Friendship Association also highlighted PM Phucs upcoming trip to the Czech Republic on its website www.cvs-praha.cz, saying the associations Honorary President Marcel Winter and President Milos Kusy are glad to meet the Vietnamese leader. The Parliament of the Czech Republic posted on its website parlamentnilisty.cz an article titled Potential to boost economic cooperation between Czech and Vietnam, emphasising on the bilateral long-standing friendly cooperative relations and potential collaboration in economy, trade, and investment. The article said the bilateral cooperative relations have been stepped up in recent years, particularly through the visit to Vietnam by Czech President Milos Zeman in June 2017 and the visit to Czech by Vietnamese National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan in April 2017. The sound political ties between the two countries have created a momentum for the development of the bilateral cooperation, including economy and trade, it said. As a member of the European Union, the Czech Republic is willing to cooperate with Vietnam in the fields of machine manufacturing, mining, food processing technology, agriculture and beer production, the article said. The EVFTA will create opportunities for Vietnam and the Czech Republic to access to each others market effectively and increase trade flows in agriculture and food, it added. The article concluded that the Czech Republic always attaches great importance to the traditional friendship and cooperation with Vietnam and considers the Southeast Asian country an important partner and a gateway to boost cooperation with the ASEAN. The Parisian By Isabella Hammad Grove Press. 576 pp. $27 --- There are moments of such lyric beauty in "The Parisian," Isabella Hammad's debut novel, that you want what they describe to be permanently closed, hers to be the final word. The book begins aboard a ship bound for France, and in these few pages alone she flicks off with seemingly effortless grace the dreamy sensation of being on deck ("the wind harassed the tassels on their parasols") and the careful process of smoking there ("he cupped his hands over a cigarette, shook a match free of its flame, and held the lit end in his palm"). Unfortunately, the novel is perhaps the single art form hardest to conquer through sheer talent. While neither poets nor songwriters nor painters have to confront the problem of duration unless they wish to do so, even a short novel asks hours of its readers. As for a long one, it has no chance of success without merits beyond its prose. "The Parisian" is worthy, sincere, generous - and grievously dull, a tale whose flares of energy are buried beneath a gnarled, inexpert narrative. Nearly halfway into the book, there is a description of black coffee trembling and flashing in the sunlight. As an image, it has a swift, beautiful clarity of expression - which by then only serves to highlight the long-windedness of the story surrounding it. The title character of "The Parisian" is Midhat Kamal. Refined and intelligent, Midhat is the son of a prosperous textile dealer from Nablus, in what's now called the West Bank, but which as the novel begins in 1914 is part of the Ottoman Empire. He is on his way to Montpellier to study medicine; hence those early shipboard scenes. This is a year of some consequence in European history, obviously. (In his diary for the 28th of June of that year, King George V writes, with a sort of glorious stupidity, "The poor archduke and his wife were assassinated this morning in Serbia ... stamps after lunch, bed at 11:30.") But Midhat's experience of the war is secondhand. He falls in love with a Frenchwoman; loses a friend who's gone to the front; encounters, in numerous (and well-drawn) ways, Europe's most polished varieties of racism; and finally runs himself sick on love and despair in Paris, having abandoned Montpellier. By the time he returns to Nablus, Midhat's high aims have dissolved, while Hammad's have become clear: She is writing about history before it became history. After 1918, much of what was once called Ottoman Syria, including Nablus, came under French and British rule. The region's future was still radically undetermined, and Hammad wants to return the reader, through Midhat, to that point, before the tragic century that lay ahead for the Palestinian people came to seem inexorable. It's a strong idea. So why does it falter? "The Parisian" is complex in a way few experienced writers could handle, and its catalog of technical missteps is long. (Nearly every one of its chapters could beneficially be halved, for example. Hammad has tenuous control of point of view. And if only we could permanently retire the pocketwatch as a symbol of time and hardship.) But it also has a close grasp of history, and the high quality of its writing never fades. The problem is simpler than any of that, really: Hammad has yet to develop any skill for character. The people she creates are so taxonomically familiar as to be basically blank: the remote father, the excitable friends, the fierce, canny grandmother. Midhat himself, even in the throes of emotion, never blooms into reality. He is tenderhearted and wary, you might say. He is certainly handsome and smart. Still, he remains a cipher. Perhaps the clue is in the title. Since 1918, the people of the Levant have endured a series of catastrophes. Nablus has become the site of Israeli settlements, terrible violence and wholly understandable anger. The (admirable) purpose of "The Parisian" seems to be to reorganize that narrative around Palestinian rather than Israeli or European history; Midhat is a "Parisian" only in the bitterest sense - foreign there, eventually exiled at home, a victim of Paris's careless confidence in its own centrality. In other words, Hammad is writing with ideas and events toward the front of her mind. She does so empathetically, but "The Parisian" still feels like a house that's been staged to sell, furnished only to draw attention to its architectural lines. What makes this doubly regrettable is that Hammad is clearly writing something highly personal, however she has fictionalized its occurrences - several of the book's central characters bear her last name. I found myself wishing again and again as I read "The Parisian" that we didn't equate ambition with length. Hammad set out to write a vast, painstaking saga of the Palestinian experience, but her particular gifts seem far more suited to the short form. That's no knock - so were Denis Johnson's. Perhaps Hammad's best chance of writing through the full sweep of history might be, paradoxically, in flashes, in the brief human moments, captured tantalizingly here and there in her debut, which occur only in the present - before some later observer compresses their joys and agonies into a protracted and deadening account, to which we have the patience to pay only a sadly vague, inadequate attention. --- Finch is the author, most recently, of "The Vanishing Man." New York Army National Guard Sgt. Joshua Sanzo of Schenectady has been recognized as one of the top military Honor Guard members in the country by the Army National Guard. Sanzo coordinates military funeral services for the New York Army National Guard Honor Guard from the Hudson Valley north to the Canadian border and west to Utica. He has been named Army National Guard Honor Guard Soldier of the Quarter by the National Guard Bureau, the Department of Defense agency that oversees the state National Guards. The award recognizes both Sanzo's military skills and his work in administering the funeral honors program. Sanzo's unit is responsible for providing military funeral services at the Gerald B. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery in Schuylerville. His element conducted more than 900 funerals in 2018. Anyone who served in the Armed Forces and was honorably discharged is eligible for military funeral honors, he says. Sanzo is one of 36 New York Army National Guard soldiers on duty full time who make that happen, along with 90 to 100 soldiers who perform the duty part time. "Sergeant Sanzo represents the best of the Military Funeral Honors program by holding himself to the highest standard both on duty and off duty in performance, conduct and appearance," said Army National Guard Col. William C. Greer. "He represents the total soldier concept and is the epitome of the soldier attributes while displaying true professionalism, discipline, fitness, focus, and precision. Sergeant Sanzo is an example within the Honor Guard as well as his unit." Being recognized by the National Guard puts Sanzo in the running for the Honor Guard Soldier of the Year Award for 2019. The competition judges soldiers on their fitness, their scores on a written test, their job performance, and their ability to demonstrate excellence in the drill and ceremonies required for conducting military funerals. Sanzo, who enlisted in the New York Army National Guard in 2014, also serves as a military police soldier. He also completed the Army's Air Assault School in 2017. He attended the Army Basic Leaders Course in 2018 and graduated with honors on the Commandant's List. He has attended two Honor Guard training schools and was honor graduate in both instances. He also earned the Army Physical Fitness Badge for getting the maximum score on the Army's physical fitness test. He has personally played a part in conducting more than 530 military funeral services since joining the military funeral honors program in 2016. "To me, personally, the most rewarding thing is to be able to give the veterans the honors they deserve," Sanzo said. "It is us being able to give back to the veterans and giving them their final salute and to lay a fallen brother to rest." Help high school band Getting rid of your returnable bottles and cans can make a lot of cents for the benefit of a local band slated to perform at the 75th anniversary observance of the D-Day Normandy invasion in France. Donations raised through redeeming the bottles and cans will help finance Albany High School's Albany Marching Falcons trip in June. The June 6, 1944, invasion led to the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II in Europe. More than 5,000 ships, 10,000 planes and 150,000 ground troops stormed beaches along 360 miles of the French coast. The Falcons need to raise $134,000 so all 48 band members can go, according to Bryan Cady, Marching Falcons director. "Many of us have someone in our family who served in World War II, and in June we will make the journey to France to pay a musical tribute to the Greatest Generation as a thank you for their sacrifices," Cady said. To help finance the trip, drop off the bottles and cans between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. weekdays and between 8 a.m. and noon weekends at the Capital Redemption Center, 610 Clinton Ave., Albany. Let the Redemption Center folks know that the proceeds are to be donated to the Albany Marching Falcons. Students in grades six through 12 comprise the Albany Marching Falcons and Color Guard. The Falcons will visit Paris and Caen. On June 6, the anniversary of the invasion, the Falcons will march along Omaha Beach from Vierville-sur-mer to St. Laurent-sur-Mer, two towns liberated after the Normandy invasion by American and allied troops. They'll also participate in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Normandy American cemetery. The group will perform several times in Caen. The Falcons will be the only high school marching band representing the United States at festivities. Afterward, the students will tour various monuments and historic sites. Tax-deductible donations are also welcome via the Albany Fund for Education. Indicate that the donation is for the Marching Falcons. For more information, contact Bryan Cady at 518-221-4365 or bcady@albany.k12.ny.us. News of your troops and units can be sent to Duty Calls, Terry Brown, Times Union, Box 15000, Albany, NY 12212 or brownt@timesunion.com. On this date in ... 1919: The rivalry between the four Albany posts of the Grand Army of the Republic and the two more modern veterans organizations, the Spanish War Veterans and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, made its way to the mayor's office. At issue was the $1,000 annually allotted for Memorial Day and Fourth of July programs in the city, and the dissatisfaction over the way the money was spent and which organizations got to be in charge. Delegations from the G.A.R. had already called upon Mayor James R. Watt and now Spanish War vets and members of the V.F.W. arrived to make their case. 1969: The trustees on the Colonie Village Board voted themselves a 70 percent raise, which was already included in the budget for next year calling for an $11.38 increase per $1,000 assessed valuation in the general tax rate. Mayor William Cook, who was voted a raise from $2,160 to $3,000, explained the salary increases would only mean a difference of about 30 cents per $1,000 assessed value. Charles Haas, a village resident, told the board the salary increases were "not justified." He also questioned most of the items on the budget. He charged the board with never making the proposed budget public until the public meeting when the board adopted the budget. 1994: Former New York State Police Superintendent Thomas A. Constantine was sworn in as head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, telling an audience of law enforcement officials that "the battle against drugs is far from over." Constantine, 55, was the sixth administrator of the DEA since its creation in 1973. He took over several months after the $723 million agency with 3,600 agents narrowly escaped extinction in the form of a merger with the FBI. With his wife Ruth holding the Bible, Constantine took the oath of office administered by U.S. District Judge Frederick Scullin of Syracuse. Want to read more about the Capital Region's past? Have any memories or thoughts about how our history relates to today's events? See http://blog.timesunion.com/history/ U.S. Customs and Border Protection/AP Photo/U.S. Customs and Border Protection Border Patrol agents said they arrested 57 undocumented immigrants during a foiled human smuggling attempt near Oilton. The incident occurred Thursday when agents saw four pickup trucks inside a ranch just north of the town. Agents monitored the area before approaching the vehicles and apprehending 40 undocumented immigrants. Using aerial support from Customs and Border Protection, the agents tracked and apprehended 17 more migrants hiding in the brush. Thirty were determined to be from Guatemala, 19 from Mexico, six from Honduras and two from Nicaragua. The pickup trucks used in the foiled human smuggling attempt were seized by Border Patrol. This weekend marks the 107th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, the most famous shipwreck in American history even though the ship was British and sank in international waters. A former Jacksonville resident was among the survivors. Richard Becker, who lived in Jacksonville in the late 1930s and early 1940s, was one of the 712 survivors of the Titanic, which smashed into an iceberg in the north Atlantic Ocean late on April 14, 1912. At the time, he was two months shy of his second birthday. Due to his tender age, he had virtually no memories of that horrific night. But his sister, Ruth, became one of the most visible of the ships survivors late in life, and was a frequent interview subject. Becker was born June 26, 1910, in Kondaikanal, India, where his father, a Lutheran minister, was serving as a missionary. The elder Becker and his wife also spent much time in Princeton, 55 miles east of the Quad Cities, before settling permanently in South Bend, Indiana. Richard was the fourth child, following sister Ruth, born in 1899, Luther, who died at age 2 in 1907 and another sister, Marion, born in 1907. Unfortunately, Richard became severely ill in early 1912, and doctors recommended a return to America for treatment. His mother, Nellie, determined to take the boy to a specialist in Benton Harbor, Michigan, booked the trip on the Titanic with her other two children, leaving her husband behind in India. The pride of the White Star line, the 883-foot Titanic was on its maiden voyage as it set off from Southampton on April 10. Constructed in Belfast, the ship was widely believed to be unsinkable. Despite the lavish amenities of the ship, its 20 lifeboats could only hold about a third of its passenger capacity. Contrary to popular belief, the ship was not loaded only with wealthy passengers, as over half were sailing third-class in steerage. While they existed in decent surroundings, it was certainly nothing like those in first- and second-class above. The Beckers accommodations were a little better, as they traveled second-class in Cabin F4, which came at a cost of 39 British pounds, or around $50 in American dollars of the time. On the night of the accident, Nellie and her three children moved to the upper decks, waiting in one of the public rooms for rescue. She managed to get Richard and Marion into lifeboat number eleven, but an officer told Nellie there was no room for her to join her children. After she pleaded with the officer, he finally pushed her into the boat as it was being lowered. Ruth, meanwhile, was left behind until she made her way into lifeboat number thirteen, where she handed her blanket to another passenger, who was shivering nearby. As the lifeboats plodded away in the frigid seas, the Titanic finally went under at 2:20 a.m. April 15, just over two and a half hours after plowing into the iceberg. Though figures vary, a total of 1,517 832 passengers and 685 crew lost their lives. Seventy-six percent of those in third-class died; by comparison, one writer claims that 97 percent of first-class women survived. In all, 80 percent of male passengers died, while only 25 percent of female passengers were victims. All four of the Beckers were among the many survivors picked up by the 558-foot liner Carpathia, which arrived in New York harbor on April 18. The return of the survivors was celebrated by a public that was captivated by the disaster. Nellie Becker and her husband eventually settled in Benton Harbor, where she died in 1961 at age 84. She is buried in the family plot in Princeton. Nellie outlived her daughter, Marion, by 17 years, as she had succumbed to tuberculosis in 1944 at age 36 in her new home of Glendale, California. Ruth, the oldest sister, became a schoolteacher and raised three children before her retirement to Santa Barbara, California, in 1971. For many years, she barely spoke of that night on the Titanic, but in later life, she became one of the most famous survivors of the ship, granting numerous interviews. She did not take a sea trip again until she embarked on a cruise to Mexico four months before her death in July 1990. Her ashes were scattered over the water where the Titanic now rests. The U.S. Census of 1940 reported that Richard Becker was living in Jacksonville with his 28-year-old wife, Eve, and a 2-year-old son. Eve died in 1942, and the next year, Richard remarried, a union that produced two daughters. Richard and his family eventually settled in Minnesota, where he was a regional director for the American Red Cross. He subsequently relocated to Peoria and worked as a safety supervisor for Caterpillar Tractor. He died on Sept. 6, 1975, and is buried in Peoria. The Titanic has since become an indelible part of American lore and pop culture, bolstered by the 1997 blockbuster movie and a Tony-winning Broadway musical, and has been romanticized for its luxurious splendor. However, it is not the deadliest shipwreck in American history. That distinction belongs to the Sultana, an overcrowded steamer that included many Civil War veterans returning from service, which met a much more gruesome end. That vessel was sailing near Memphis on the Mississippi River on April 27, 1865, when the boilers exploded, killing at least 1,700 passengers, many from burns. Other serious maritime disasters included the Lusitania, a luxury liner taken out by a German U-boat on May 7, 1915, costing 1,197 lives, and the General Slocum, a steamer that burned on a pleasure excursion in the East River in New York City on June 15, 1904, with a loss of 1,021 lives. Closer to here, the Eastland, a steamer loaded with electrical workers bound for a company picnic, capsized from its mooring in the Chicago River on July 24, 1915. The loss of 844 passengers was higher than the passenger casualty total on the Titanic, and remains the deadliest ship disaster in Great Lakes history. WASHINGTON - Prosecutors in Maryland dropped criminal charges against a woman accused of accosting White House counselor Kellyanne Conway over her political views at a Mexican restaurant near Washington, D.C. In a brief court appearance Monday morning, Montgomery County (Maryland) Assistant State's Attorney Kathy Knight said the office will not move forward on one count of second-degree assault and another of disorderly conduct that were filed five months ago by Montgomery County Police. At that time, police alleged that Mary Elizabeth Inabinett, 63, of Chevy Chase, Maryland, had been at Uncle Julio's in Bethesda, Maryland, when she approached Conway from behind, grabbed her shoulders briefly and yelled "shame on you" among other statements. The altercation resulted in Inabinett being removed from the restaurant, according to court documents, and followed a series of incidents in the Washington area where employees of President Donald Trump were taunted and heckled in public. A trial had been scheduled to begin Monday. Conway and Inabinett were not in court before Montgomery County Circuit Judge Robert Greenberg. In dismissing charges, prosecutors essentially declared that even if they could prove the case, Inabinett would not merit the types of punishment that could flow from a conviction. She had no previous criminal record, did not injure Conway and agreed to apologize in a letter to Conway, according to Montgomery State's Attorney John McCarthy, the county's longtime prosecutor. "Was this woman rude? Yes," McCarthy said. "Did she violate Ms. Conway's space and try to embarrass her? Yes, and yes. Is this a case where criminal sanctions would have been appropriate? No." Knight, Montgomery County prosecutor, said in court that "Ms. Inabinett chose that time and that place --inappropriately so--to make contact with Ms. Conway and vent her political opposition to Ms. Conway." However, "given the lack of priors, the de minimus nature of the contact and the apology letter," the state dismissed the counts, Knight told the judge. The charges of second-degree assault and disorderly conduct, both misdemeanors, cover a wide-range of conduct, with the assault count ranging from spitting to punching someone and the conduct charge applying to raising a public ruckus that affects the behavior of others. "Dropping this case was a very reasonable exercise in prosecutorial discretion," said David Felsen, a veteran defense attorney in the county. The events in question began the night of Oct. 14 when Inabinett was dining at Uncle Julio's, part of a string of high-end shops and restaurants in Bethesda. Conway was there, too, with her daughter for a birthday celebration, according to court records. Conway later described what happened to police: "Conway stated that she was speaking with other individuals who were part of the party when she felt someone grab both of shoulders from behind and shake her," Cpl. Joseph McNally wrote in court papers. "Conway stated that at first she believed it was someone trying to get her attention for a hug before they left the party. When she turned around, she came face-to-face with the suspect who was screaming and making aggressive hand gestures towards her." In an interview later with CNN, Conway said she was assaulted. "Somebody was grabbing me from behind, grabbed my arms and was shaking me," she said, describing the woman identified as Inabinett as unhinged and out of control. "She ought to pay for that. She ought to pay for that. Because she has no right to touch anybody. She put her hands on me. I said, 'Get your hands off me.' She put her hands on me and was shaking me." Neither Conway nor Andrew White, an attorney who represented her in the matter, replied to requests for comment Monday. William McDaniel, an attorney for Inabinett, declined to comment, and said his client had no comment. He previously had said after the charges were made that Inabinett "saw Kellyanne Conway, a public figure, in a public place, and exercised her First Amendment right to express her personal opinions. She did not assault Ms. Conway." Second-degree assaults in Maryland can be as minor as a grab or a push if the action was not one a victim consented to, said Louis Leibowitz, a Maryland defense attorney who has taught trial practice at the American University Washington College of Law. But certain acts, while not welcomed, do not rise to a crime, Leibowitz said. From the charging document, Leibowitz - who has no role in the case-- noted that Conway told police that she initially thought someone was trying to get her attention before they left the party. "There was probably a defense argument that it wasn't un-consented but was part of social interaction," Leibowitz said. Sudanese pro-democracy protesters won further concessions from the army that overthrew President Omar al-Bashir, as upheaval in the ruling military council signals a power struggle among the remnants of his 30-year regime. Since taking control on April 11, the council has canceled its curfew, freed prisoners, changed leadership and vowed to review laws that brought trials for perceived indecency or apostasy, all in response to mass protests. Yet it hasn't budged on the key opposition demand of an immediate handover to civilians -- insisting on as long as two years -- and named as its deputy head Mohamed Hamdan, the chief of a powerful militia accused of rights abuses. There's "jockeying for power within what remains" of al-Bashir's regime, said Harry Verhoeven, author of 'Water, Civilization and Power in Sudan.' He cited a failure to "agree on a division of labor among them and a joint strategy to deal with the protesters" that "has been on full display." The ouster of al-Bashir, one of Africa's longest-serving rulers, followed four months of protests across the oil-producing nation in which dozens of people were killed. Now under house arrest, he's the second North African leader forced from office this month in the face of mass demonstrations, following Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. It's stirred echoes of the Arab Spring uprisings earlier this decade. In the final days of al-Bashir's rule, soldiers clashed with security forces attempting to crush a sit-in outside army headquarters in the capital, Khartoum. It lay bare splits in the complex political-security alliances the 75-year-old president forged after seizing power in an Islamist-backed 1989 coup. The threat of more internecine fighting likely contributed to al-Bashir's associates' decision to remove him. What's left is "Bashirism without Bashir," said Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University in Massachusetts. Defense Minister Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf, who announced the coup, stepped down as head of transitional military council less than two days later, as protesters raged against a prominent member of al-Bashir's regime wielding power. On Sunday, the council announced the general is retiring and that Sudan's ambassador to Washington, Mohamed Ata, the former head of the National Intelligence and Security Service, is being replaced. Salah Gosh, who twice served as NISS's chief, resigned Saturday. A restructuring of the service is promised. "The deal between the army, NISS and the paramilitaries is fundamentally unstable because of the rivalries among them and because they won't be able to resolve the challenge of the mass protesters," De Waal said. "It's actually more dangerous than when Bashir was there." The council's new leader, Abdel Fatah al-Burhan, was chief of staff of Sudan's ground forces, involved in coordinating assistance to a Saudi Arabia-led war against Houthi rebels in Yemen. In that post, he worked with Hamdan's Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary unit with roots in the Janjaweed militia accused of terrorizing Darfur during its war that began in 2003. As Sudanese refuse to leave the streets, there's no guarantee the council's latest formation will be any longer lasting. The main protest groups, united as the Forces of the Freedom and Change Declaration, have met the council to demand a civilian handover, winning a pledge for greater political and media freedoms. The council on Sunday asked the opposition to submit suggestions for a transitional prime minister and Cabinet. It also said it formed a committee to seize all the assets of al-Bashir's once-ruling National Congress Party, and that it would review the public order law. Derived from a hard-line reading of Shariah, it prescribed punishments such as whipping for certain alleged crimes. Splits are beginning to emerge in the opposition too: The National Consensus Forces, one of the alliance's main components, accused other members of preventing it from putting its ideas to the council and hijacking the talks. Meanwhile, a rebel alliance fighting in Darfur and two southern states said the delegation failed to present its demands for a peace initiative. That may blunt the opposition's bargaining power. But Sudan's new rulers -- while they have no shortage of armed might -- are also in a precarious position, according to Verhoeven. "Further elite fragmentation is both to be expected and likely to be violent," he said. - - - Bloomberg's Zaid Sabah contributed. WASHINGTON - Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has made income inequality a hallmark of his presidential campaign, earned with his wife about $566,000 last year and $1.15 million in 2017, putting them in the nation's highest income brackets, according to tax returns released by the presidential candidate Monday. Sanders, I-Vt., and his wife were in the top 1 percent of all taxpayers for those two years, according to an Internal Revenue Service calculation that said such people had an adjusted gross income of $480,000 or higher. By comparison, the average income for an American household in 2018 was $62,175, according to an analysis by Sentier Research. Sanders's annual Senate salary is $174,000. Much of his income came from books he has written about his democratic socialist platform, which includes a call for higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans. He has become wealthier, in part, by cashing in on his status as a presidential candidate. In 2014, before his first presidential run, he reported an income with his wife of about $206,000, according to his tax returns. Since then, he has written two campaign-oriented books: "Our Revolution" in November 2016 and "Where We Go From Here" in November 2018. The impact of his book contracts is most evident in Sanders's return for 2017, when he and his wife reported wages of $139,549 and business income - most of it from books - of $961,784. That squares with a financial disclosure report that Sanders filed last year as a senator and that showed he earned $880,000 in royalties from book deals. The 2018 returns show that Sanders and his wife, Jane, contributed about $19,000 to charity out of their income of $566,000, or 3.35 percent. The couple gave $36,300 to charity in 2017. The Sanders campaign said those rates do not reflect charitable proceeds given from one of his books, which he did not deduct from his taxes. The campaign did not say how much was given in that case. "These tax returns show that our family has been fortunate," Sanders said in a statement. "I am very grateful for that, as I grew up in a family that lived paycheck to paycheck and I know the stress of economic insecurity. . . . I consider paying more in taxes as my income rose to be both an obligation and an investment in our country." The Sanders campaign said in a news release that he paid a 26 percent effective tax rate in 2018. Speaking at a Fox News Channel town hall Monday night, Sanders sought to downplay his wealth. "You raised the issue. I am a millionaire," Sanders told a questioner, making air quotes as he spoke. "Well, actually, this year we had $560,000 in income." Daniel Shaviro, a New York University School of Law professor of taxation who examined the 2018 return at the request of The Washington Post, said the return was straightforward. "He didn't do a whole lot, economically or tax-wise, other than earn his Senate salary, Social Security income and book royalties, as well as paying state and local taxes and giving about $19,000 to charity," Shaviro said. "This clearly is not the tax return of someone who does either a lot of tax planning or complex investing." The earliest return released Monday, for 2009, was done by hand, which may indicate that the couple did the taxes themselves. It showed they had total income of $314,742. All of the other returns have typed entries. There is no requirement that presidential candidates release their tax returns, but many have done so by tradition. Sanders faced pressure to release his returns this year as Democrats have increasingly made an issue of President Trump's refusal to release returns. Trump said during the 2016 campaign that he would release his returns after an audit was completed. But after the House Ways and Means Committee recently requested them, Trump's acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, said earlier this month that Trump would "never" turn them over. Sanders's personal wealth has come under heightened scrutiny in recent weeks. At a Saturday campaign stop in Gary, Indiana, a reporter asked Sanders whether his millionaire status was at odds with his populist economic message. "I don't think so," Sanders replied. "I didn't know it was a crime to write a good book." As a senator, Sanders has been required to release a financial disclosure statement, but the information in that is much more limited than a tax return. For example, the disclosure form requires that income and debts be described only in wide ranges and does not report the value of real estate. Sanders and his wife, Jane, have three homes, one in Burlington, a second in Washington and a third, on a Vermont lakefront. Sanders was first elected to the Senate in 2006 and served in the House for 16 years before that. Former New Hampshire Democratic Party chair Kathy Sullivan said that while she does not see a problem with Sanders's financial status squaring with his commitment to curbing income inequality, she was struck by the way he handled questions about his wealth. "I don't think it's a problem that someone has been successful in the private sector," said Sullivan, who supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary. "He seemed defensive about it, and I don't think he should be." The perception of a contrast between Sanders's wealth and his rhetoric has become a campaign issue on the left and the right. Fox News mocked him on its website in a February report headlined: "Lifestyles of the rich and socialists: Bernie Sanders has 3 houses, makes millions." The website ThinkProgress earlier this month posted a video about what it called "Bernie's millionaire problem." It included clips of Sanders criticizing the influence of "millionaires and billionaires" alongside a chart showing how he became a millionaire through his book sales. ThinkProgress is affiliated with the Center for American Progress, a liberal group, but says it is editorially independent. Sanders on Saturday said he was subject to a "smear" by the group. Jodi Enda, the editor in chief of ThinkProgress, said in an interview that the Center for American Progress does "not see the stories until they are online" and had nothing to do with the video. "Nobody was trying to attack him," she said. "We were just stating the facts." She said the video would remain online. Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress and a former adviser to Clinton, said in a statement that the video was "overly harsh." A number of Democratic presidential candidates have released tax returns in recent weeks. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., on Sunday released 15 years of returns, showing she and her husband earned about $1.9 million in adjusted gross income in 2018. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., earlier this month released a tax return that showed she and her husband earned about $906,000 in 2018. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., released 12 years of tax returns, showing that she and husband earned about $292,000 in 2017. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and her husband earned about $215,000 in 2018. Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington released 12 years of tax returns, showing that he and his wife earned $202,912 last year. A group of parents asked a judge to block New York City's order requiring people in three Brooklyn ZIP codes to be vaccinated against measles. An outbreak in the Orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg prompted the city to declare a public health emergency April 9, imposing fines as high as $1,000 for residents who fail to be vaccinated with the measles-mumps-rubella shot. As of April 8, there were 285 confirmed cases of the highly contagious and sometimes deadly illness since October, in Brooklyn and the neighboring borough of Queens, according to the city health department. New York At 6 feet, 5 inches tall, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio stands out in a crowd. But does he have any shot of standing out in the packed field of potential Democratic candidates for president? A would-be progressive standard bearer, de Blasio has spent the past few months exploring a run, traveling to events in early primary states including New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, and appearing on "The Simpsons" and "The View." So far, scant evidence of enthusiasm for his candidacy has emerged. He's drawn sparse crowds at his out-of-state speaking engagements. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found 76 percent of New York City voters believe their mayor should not run. The headlines chronicling his flirtations with the race have been snarky at best, including The New Republic's "Bill de Blasio's Embarrassing Quest for National Fame" and Vanity Fair's "Lord Help us, Bill de Blasio is Still Thinking About Running for President." De Blasio has been undeterred. "I'm glad I could unify the people of New York City," he quipped when asked about the Quinnipiac poll. "My whole history has been as an insurgent and an underdog," he said in a TV interview. Observers of New York politics say even if de Blasio doesn't have much chance of winning, a run could raise his profile and possibly position him for a role in another Democrat's administration. "Part of what he's doing is campaigning for a chance to be in the Cabinet or maybe an ambassador," said Mitchell Moss, an urban policy professor at New York University and onetime adviser to de Blasio's predecessor, Michael Bloomberg. "By acting as a candidate, you raise your profile politically. You're not just known as the mayor of New York, you're known as a person with national aspirations." Term limits prevent De Blasio, 57, from running for mayor again after 2021. "When you're term-limited and you're looking for a new job, why not try the obvious path? It's free publicity," said veteran political consultant George Arzt. A former city councilman, public advocate and federal housing official, de Blasio was elected in 2013 pledging to fight the inequities he said had turned New York into "two cities," one rigged to benefit the rich and another impossible to navigate for the poor. In the early moments of his mayoralty, he seemed to have a shot at becoming a national voice on the left. In office, de Blasio won praise for expanding full-day prekindergarten citywide and for curtailing stop-and-frisk policing. But he also developed a reputation for self-inflicted wounds. Early in his tenure, he offended fellow Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who then spent years taking every opportunity to embarrass and belittle de Blasio. Federal prosecutors investigated de Blasio's political operation over possible campaign finance law violations before deciding not to press charges. Two of his donors pleaded guilty to charges related to contributions to de Blasio. De Blasio also narrowly avoided a federal takeover of the city's troubled public housing authority. He easily won re-election in 2017, but liberals turned elsewhere for inspiration, most recently to freshman U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Asked Friday in a radio interview whether he is contemplating running for president, de Blasio reiterated that he has "not ruled it out." WASHINGTON - The storm system that sowed death and destruction across the South earlier in the weekend plowed toward the Washington region Sunday, with a first wave that prompted tornado warnings and a potential second wave that stoked even greater fears. For about 15 minutes on Sunday evening, the National Weather Service placed parts of Frederick County, Maryland, and nearby jurisdictions under a tornado warning. Before it expired at 6:45 p.m., it gained considerable attention. Citing the warning, issued for an area around Urbana in Frederick County, one on-air forecaster urged via Twitter: "GO TO BASEMENT NOW!" Warnings call for action. They usually are issued after a tornado has been spotted by sight or radar. Even before the warning was issued, most of the Washington region, including the District of Columbia itself, was placed under a tornado watch. Tornado watches mean conditions are favorable for thunderstorms that can produce tornadoes. Forecasters said they expected a second line of storms, potentially more damaging than the first, to push into the region from the west or southwest early Monday morning. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan took account of forecasts issued earlier in the day and called for close attention to them. "Residents should take every possible precaution and stay indoors away from windows during thunderstorms," the governor said in a statement. He said it was particularly important for mobile devices to be set to receive emergency alerts. Noting that severe storms occur regularly in Maryland in the spring, he said the state has recorded nearly 100 tornadoes in the past 10 years. A crowd gathers outside an apartment complex south of downtown Dallas, nervously watching and waiting. Before long, there are screams: A man in a long-sleeved white shirt and heavy-duty gloves appears to throw a slender, pink-haired woman to the ground, then pummels her over and over again as she writhes on the concrete. Dressed only in a crop top and skimpy shorts, she tries to shield her face as others join in and take turns kicking her. To Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings (D), and many others who watched the footage that went viral on social media late last week, the brutal beating looked like "mob violence" against a transgender woman. "Those who did this do not represent how Dallasites feel about our thriving LGBTQ community," Rawlings said in a statement on Saturday. "We will not stand for this kind of behavior." Authorities announced on Sunday night that they had arrested Edward Thomas, 29, for his role in the violent daytime attack, which has been flagged as a possible hate crime. The violent altercation began after the victim was involved in a minor traffic accident at the apartment complex on Friday, a statement from the Dallas Police Department said. During a verbal argument over the accident, a man began assaulting her, and several other suspects joined in. The victim sustained serious bodily injuries, according to officials. Witnesses transported her to a hospital, where she was interviewed by police late Friday. She reportedly told them that she knew the people who attacked her, and that they had used homophobic slurs during the assault. Police haven't said whether Thomas was the man who initiated the attack or one of the individuals who got involved later on. It's also unclear whether more arrests could be forthcoming. Online records indicate that he is being held in the Dallas County Jail, and that his bond has not yet been set. Officials have not yet said what charges he faces. As BuzzFeed News pointed out, gender identity is not covered by Texas' hate crime statutes, but federal law allows prosecutors to seek enhanced penalties for violence that targets transgender people. Relatives have told local news outlets that the victim was 23-year-old Muhlaysia Booker. She did not respond to a request for comment late Sunday night, but thanked supporters in a Facebook post on Saturday. That same day, a family member who wasn't identified by WFAA told the station that she was home from the hospital and recovering with close friends. She had reportedly suffered from facial fractures and had her arm in a sling. The three-minute video that was posted on Facebook and YouTube on Friday begins by showing Booker standing in the middle of an intersection at the apartment complex as a large number of people look on. She appears to be addressing the crowd, but her words are inaudible. The video then flips to show the man in the white shirt posing with a man who is filming. "Knock 'em out," the man in the white shirt appears to say, before the camera flips around again to show the crowd milling around. A few seconds later, he can be seen throwing Booker to the ground and punching her as she tries to protect her face from his blows. Booker, whose shoes have fallen off, gets up and tries to stagger away. The man appears to follow her, swinging punches at her head. Eventually, she falls to the ground again, and he hits her in the stomach. Finally, a group of women surround her, pick her up by her arms and legs and carry her to a nearby car. It's unclear exactly who filmed the video, which had been viewed on Facebook and YouTube more than 136,000 times by early Monday morning. The footage was posted by a user going by the name Taj Mahal and TajTV, who described himself as a blogger and advocate for the LGBTQ community in a follow-up video on Saturday and said that he wanted the video to go viral so that there would be more awareness of violence toward transgender women and accountability for the people involved. Speaking to BuzzFeed News on Sunday, Taj initially claimed that he had shot the footage, then later said that he had obtained it from someone else. He also claimed that it consists of two videos that have been spliced together. He did not respond to requests for comment from The Washington Post on Sunday night. At least one woman can be heard yelling a homophobic slur toward the end of the video. While it's unclear exactly how the altercation began, family members suggested in an interview with local television station KXAS that Booker had been targeted because of her gender identity. Pierre Booker, her father, told the station that she had been the victim of hatred in the past, but had never experienced such a violent attack. The ringleader, he said, was a "coward." Debora Booker, the woman's grandmother, added that she would be praying "for these people to find it in their hearts to accept people just like God does." As a transgender woman who is also black, Booker belongs to a group that is disproportionately likely to experience a violent attack. According to the Human Rights Campaign, the vast majority of the 128 transgender people who were killed between 2013 and 2018 were women of color. Within the LGBTQ community, black transgender women are the most likely to face deadly violence, HRC has found. The Anti-Violence Project, a group that tracks hate crimes against LGBTQ people, found that Texas witnessed seven anti-LGBTQ homicides - more than any other state - in 2017, the most recent year for which statistics are available. Last year, a 26-year-old transgender Dallas woman, Carla Patricia Flores-Pavon, was found choked to death in her apartment, though police said that the motive appeared to have been robbery and it was not a hate crime. "The scary part to me is, if this was the apartment complex where she lives, where does she go home?" Leslie McMurray, the transgender education and advocacy coordinator for the Resource Center in Dallas, told the Dallas Morning News. "Where does she go home and feel safe?" More from Morning Mix: 'This is endangering lives. It has to stop': Rep. Ilhan Omar says death threats spiked after Trump tweet Tiger Woods hugged his dad after his first Masters win. 22 years later, he embraced his son in the same spot. 'Such a puff piece': Nancy Pelosi unleashed on Trump in a '60 Minutes' interview, and the president isn't happy WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Monday that it was "beneath the dignity of the Oval Office" for President Donald Trump to have shared a video on Twitter of Rep. Ilhan Omar spliced with footage of the burning twin towers from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Taking questions during an appearance at the London School of Economics, Pelosi said she was hesitant to criticize Trump while on foreign soil. But she said called his action "wrong" when questioned about how Trump has responded to the freshman lawmaker. April 14, 1959: A tomato canning plant which will employ 140 persons during peak canning season is now under construction here, the industrial committee of the Chamber of Commerce announced today. --Approximately 300 parents and teachers today heard Mrs. Jasper Barron, state vice president of the Texas Congress of Parents and Teachers, call upon them to "accept our responsibilities" and to develop in youth "sound individual and community attitudes." A jury has found a San Antonio woman guilty of murder in the fatal shooting and stabbing of her boyfriend, a decorated Army veteran. It took the jury two hours and 45 minutes to find Laura Flores Messick guilty. Messick, who faces up to life in prison, has chosen to be sentenced by Judge Catherine Torres-Stahl. The date for the sentencing hearing hasnt been set yet. Chason Montez DeOca was killed on June 10, 2017. His bloodied body was found in his home in the 7400 block of Muleshoe Lane on the West Side. The 40-year-old veteran had served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Messick, 32, was accused of killing him after the pair argued in his home. In a video interview conducted by a San Antonio police detective, Messick had admitted she shot DeOca and shortly after cut his neck to see if he was dead. On Friday, both sides rested their cases after hearing the chilling screams and cries from the victims mother, who testified about how she went to her sons home after he did not return her calls and texts, and found him lying in a pool of his own blood. Related: Mothers emotional testimony the last jury heard in murder trial of San Antonio woman accused of killing boyfriend Testimony established that DeOca likely was standing with his palm out because when the gun was fired, the bullet went through his palm and into his heart. In addition, his neck was cut from behind with a kitchen knife. In his closing argument Monday, prosecutor Thom Nisbet reminded the jury of all the evidence and testimony they have seen and urged jurors to find her guilty. She let him die by her own admission, Nisbet told the panel. And, shes not sorry. No remorse. Referencing a phone call the defendant had with another person after the incident, Nisbet reminded the jury that Messick told the person she was chillin and killin, he said. The word for that is murder, Nisbet said. Defense attorney Edward Garza told the jury in his closing argument that his client and the victim had a history of situations where she and DeOca would fight, and he would block her path if she tried to leave. Garza said the incident also was an escalation to an altercation his client had with DeOcas ex-wife, and that in the end, Messick did what she did because she was afraid and acted in self-defense. Its our position Chason took out a gun and she was trying to leave, Garza told the panel. Maybe he didnt let her leave. He had a tendency of blocking her from leaving, placing her in fear. Related: San Antonio woman on trial for murder allegedly shot boyfriend for being a jerk Referencing the emotional testimony of the victims mother, Rachel Montez DeOca on Friday, Garza told the jury that theres no doubt his mother suffered a loss and is still grieving, but he urged them to look at the facts and not base their decision on sympathy. Theres more than enough for you to consider she acted in self-defense, Garza told the jury. I ask that you find her not guilty. In her closing argument, Talia Triesch recalled her opening statement when she said the case was not a whodunit, but a howd she do it. She reminded the panel of the crime scene photographs that showed no struggle, except for that the victim, who dragged his body through his own blood down the hallway. Theres no struggle in that house. No overturned furniture, no broken glass, no torn curtains, she said. He was no threat to her. Elizabeth Zavala covers county and state courts in San Antonio. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | ezavala@express-news.net | Twitter: @elizabeth2863 The San Antonio Independent School District school board election is being viewed by some as a referendum on Superintendent Pedro Martinezs turn-around plan for the troubled district and the board members who support his mission. Martinez is on year four of a five-year plan to bring change to SAISD. He merits the support of a board composed of independent thinkers who will offer him the backing necessary to carry out his work. We are not talking about trustees who will rubber-stamp his recommendations but rather community representatives who ask hard questions and possess the political fortitude to weather the storms and dont shy away from making the tough decisions. There are difficult decisions being made and yet-to-be-made in this inner city school district with about 51,000 students. It has long been in dire need of an aggressive change in direction. This is a low-performance district where students move around frequently. Ninety-one percent of the students qualify for school meal subsidies. SAISD is on a good trajectory and needs to stay on course. Three of the seven trustee seats on the board of the third-largest school district in Bexar County are on the May ballot. One is held by a board member seeking her third term, one is an appointee seeking election to a full term and the third is open seat. The growing presence of charter schools in the district, layoffs, a perception of a lack of transparency and objections to Martinezs ambitious plans for the district fueled great interest among candidates this election cycle. The San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel, which has been vocal about its opposition to the course Martinez is taking the district, has come out strongly against the incumbents on the ballot and described them as well-meaning but misdirected or complicit in the destruction of our neighborhood schools. We disagree. SAISD board members have been asked to make some very difficult decisions, and we believe, mostly, they have been good decisions, made with the best interest of the school children at heart. We support the re-election of the two incumbents on the ballot. In addition, in District 2 we recommend Alicia Monica Perry, 39, a student success specialist at St. Philips College. The mother of seven children, including six attending SAISD schools, Perry has first-hand knowledge of the needs on the front lines. Working in higher education, she is also aware of the need to connect education in the public schools with what is expected of students when they enroll in college. Perry would be an asset in helping set policy that aids in connecting the dots. District 2 is an open seat. James Howard, who held the seat for 21 years, did not seek re-election. In District 5 we recommend incumbent Patti Radle, 71, who is seeking her third term on the board. A former city councilwoman, Radle is a retired schoolteacher who spent 12 of her 20 years in education employed in SAISD. Radle has built a reputation as a no-nonsense, take-action board member who does her homework. She has earned the respect of her colleagues and her community. Her long tenure in public service and the relationship she has developed during that time are an asset to the school district as it continues to enlist support across Bexar County for its many initiatives. In District 6 we recommend Christina Marie Martinez, 39, vice president of external relations for Big Brothers Big Sisters of South Texas. Martinez was appointed to fill an unexpired term in 2017 after Olga Hernandez resigned. If elected, Martinez would serve a four-year term. Martinez has three children in the district. During her short tenure on the board, Martinez has been a good team player and has not backed away from making the difficult decisions. There are many more of those decisions ahead and the district would benefit from continued stability on the board. We urge all eligible voters to cast a ballot. The decisions made at the polls in these races on the inner city school board impact the entire San Antonio community. Rural Women New Zealand (RWNZ) supports the Governments ban on military style semi-automatic firearms and believes that action must be taken to avoid tragedies in future. This month, RWNZ conducted a comprehensive survey of its membership to gauge the response of New Zealands rural communities to the Arms (Prohibited Firearms, Magazines, and Parts) Amendment Bill 2019. There was overwhelming support for the ban, at 88 per cent, says RWNZ national president Fiona Gower. Avocado and fruit tree growers are being asked to be on the lookout for signs of a serious new wood-boring pest that has been discovered in five areas of Auckland since February. Biosecurity New Zealand said the granulate ambrosia beetle had been found at Blockhouse Bay, Kumeu, Titirangi and two sites in Riverhead the first time the pest has been detected in this country. The beetle is regarded as a serious pest overseas, and is known to damage a wide range of broadleaf trees, including avocado, plum, peach, persimmon and pear, as well as common trees such as oak, ficus, eucalyptus, magnolia, acacia, and casuarina. While it is unclear how the beetle arrived in NZ, evidence suggests it may have been here for at least two years. Because the granulate ambrosia beetle lives under bark, it is difficult to detect, but a tell-tale sign is distinctive stick-like protusions of compacted sawdust poking out of the bark that resemble toothpicks or matchsticks, known as frass. Other symptoms include sap oozing from tunnel entrances and branch dieback, and mainly weak or diseased trees are affected. Biosecurity NZ is asking members of the public to report any sign of the pest so that traps can be placed and further inspections carried out. Biosecurity surveillance and incursion manager Brendan Gould said officials were working with local authorities to identify the extent of the spread. We need to know if New Zealand has a wider population, which is why we are asking the public to report any possible sightings, he said. Anyone who believes they have seen the granulate ambrosia beetle or any sign of frass on trees should take a photo and call Biosecurity New Zealands exotic pests and diseases hotline on 0800 809966. The Ministry for Primary Industries, DairyNZ and Beef + Lamb New Zealand released their 2019 M. bovis National Plan at a meeting with farmers in Hamilton on April 5. M. bovis programme director Geoff Gwyn said the National Plan was an important step in making sure that eradication was successful, and that farmers are properly supported the whole way. The eradication effort is on track, but there is still a lot of hard work to get done. There will be more farms put under movement restrictions, and more farms that need to be depopulated, he said. Dangerous roads become even more treacherous during winter when conditions are often wetter and darker. Mahurangi Matters spoke to Brendan Woolley, of Beaurepaires Warkworth, about making sure your tyres are up to snuff when the going gets tough. Why are wet roads a problem? The tread pattern on a tyre is formed to enable the tyre to clear water from underneath the tyre. If the water is not cleared it will force the tyre off the road surface this is known as aquaplaning or hydroplaning. If a tyre has limited tread depth, it is more likely to lose traction, and you cannot stop or steer a vehicle without traction. Wet roads also take a lot longer for a vehicle to stop on. This makes the chances of accidents higher. Globally, 75 per cent of accidents occur on wet roads. Some tyre manufacturers make tyres that have small cuts inside the tread details. These are called sipes and the best manufacturers ensure these last the whole life of the tyre. These cuts allow for massive grip improvement on wet, greasy and cold roads. In winter, we must remember that although the law says you can still use tyres with low depth of tread, performance in the wet will be dramatically reduced. How often should motorists be checking their tires during winter and what should they look for? Tyres should be correctly inflated for the load and use. Unless you have one of the latest cars with a tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS), you should be checking your tyre pressures every two weeks and before a long or high-speed journey. You should also look for damage and cuts, which can let water into the structure and will cause problems later. The law says tyres should be changed when the tread depth falls to 1.5mm. Most car manufacturers recommend changing tyres at 3mm for safety. They have no agenda other than keeping people safe. Are there any kinds of vehicles where having tyres in good condition is especially critical? Vehicles such as 4x4s and SUVs weigh more and require more grip. What is often ignored, however, is that older vehicles need much better tyres. They often dont have now standard safety features such as anti-lock braking systems (ABS) and vehicle traction and stability assistance. Studies show you are much more likely to be seriously injured in an older vehicle. If your car has not got good crash protection, then make sure you invest in great tyres. Tyres are the primary safety system on a vehicle. Brakes slow the wheels only good tyres stop the car. Should I consider buying tyres specifically for winter? Most motorists dont really need a winter tyre formulation as our temperatures are relatively warm compared to other countries. Snow tyres are not a good option unless there is snow and ice on the ground and winter tyres only really come into their own when it is 7C or less. You need these types of tyres if you are working in the snowfields or higher ground, but they offer less performance when used in other areas and temperatures. Final tip? Carry our regular condition checks, rotations and alignments to get the best life from your tyres and to keep yourself and others safe. Gumboots ranged from classic red bands to gold sparkles. From left, Louis Mayne, Joel Henwood, Leah Andrell and Rylee Pollock. Silverdale School students give gumboots the thumbs up. From left, Eleanor Healy and Mila Bibbie, from Silverdale School, show their support by wearing their colourful gummies even on the playground. Year 2 students at Red Beach School say they wear their gumboots not just to keep their feet dry, but to help those whose brains are a bit sad. Hibiscus Coast schools sported their best gumboots for Gumboot Friday on April 5, supporting young Kiwis struggling with mental health. Gumboot Friday is a new nationwide initiative, driven by New Zealander of the Year Mike Kings charity I am Hope, aimed at providing free counselling for all school-aged children who need it. Students nationwide also donated a gold coin on the day to help reach the charitys goal of $2 million. The total raised was not yet finalised, but was almost $1m when Hibiscus Matters went to print. The charity say gumboots are symbolic of the struggle people with mental health issues experience every day a bit like walking through mud. Gumboot Friday also encouraged students to talk about mental health, with the hope of removing any stigma and reducing New Zealands high youth suicide rate. Silverdale School principal Cameron Lockie says their school approaches mental health discussions in a careful, relatable way. Words like mental health and depression are quite large concepts for primary aged kids to comprehend, so we focus on recognising those feelings, he says. For example, by explaining what to do when they get a funny, sinking feeling in their tummy. While they dont want to overwhelm students, Cameron says the conversation is still important. An increasing number of kids have anxiety, even at a young age, he says. This can make functioning in a classroom setting difficult for them because it causes them to shut down. Gumboot Friday follows I Am Hopes Facebook campaign, where Kiwibank donated a dollar to the cause for every Kiwi who used the I Am Hope filter on their profile picture. More than 185,000 people participated, resulting in Kiwibank donating $100,000. Organisers of Anzac Day services across the Rodney district are in flux after police last week recommended consolidating smaller services in the interests of public safety. Several services have been cancelled and many of those that are going ahead have been scaled back. In Warkworth, the dawn and civic services will be held as usual, but without the marches that traditionally start and finish the parades. Warkworth RSA immediate past president John Stephen says the marches have been dropped at the suggestion of police. It will definitely take something away from the parade, but that cant be helped, Mr Stephen says. We dont have any concerns about safety, as weve received no indication of any threat, but we understand the police concerns across NZ as a whole. Services at Upper Waiwera, Puhoi (see change below) and Matakana have been cancelled. Matakana War Memorial spokesperson Adrienne Miller says the decision had not been made lightly, but unfortunately, it had to happen. She says the decision was final. The Leigh & Districts Ex-Services and Community Club has decided to go ahead with its service at the Leigh Cemetery. However, club president Lucy Harris says if anything further came to light between now and the 25th, then that decision could be reviewed. She says there will be a short march to the cemetery, but it is unlikely the school kapa haka group will be involved this year. The feeling of the committee was that we didnt want to cancel, but we cant ignore the police concerns about safety, either, Ms Harris says. Services in the north Matakohe/Paparoa, Maungaturoto and Hakaru looks set to be held as usual. Maungaturoto RSA president Terry McCook says communication from the national RSA president in Wellington was that it was basically up to individual clubs to make their own decision. Were not overly worried, and weve decided that wed rather go ahead than be intimidated, Mr McCook says. The Wellsford RSA president Terry Blackmore says the Wellsford service will go ahead as usual. A dawn parade will be held at the Wellsford Memorial Park with the fall-in starting at 5.45am. Tea, coffee and nibbles will be provided after the parade at the RSA. Warkworth Constable Jon Williams expects Warkworth to be a bigger service than usual and extra security will be in place. Theres nothing to say that there should be a concern, but its about reassurances, he says. People shouldnt be concerned to see armed police. Auckland District Commander Superintendent Karyn Malthus says it is important to reiterate that there is no information to suggest a specific risk to public safety at this time. In the current environment, police are continuing to provide a visible presence nationwide for the safety and reassurance of the community, she says. Service times Service details as at Friday, April 12 (this story will be updated online if any changes come to hand): Puhoi The Puhoi community has decided to go ahead with its Anzac Service at the war memorial gates, at the entrance to the Puhoi Pioneers Memorial Park, starting at 9.30am. The service will be coordinated by the Puhoi Volunteer Fire Service. The annual display of war memorabilia and literature, plus Anzac biscuits and refreshments, will be held at the Puhoi Library from 10am to 2pm Warkworth The two services in Warkworth will be held as usual, but minus the marches. The dawn parade at the rotunda on Church Hill will start at 6am, followed by breakfast at the Warkworth RSA. There is a free breakfast for servicemen or $12 for members of the public. The Civic Ceremony at 10.30am, also at the rotunda, will include the New Zealand and Australian national anthems, the ode in Maori, and will be followed by light refreshments at the RSA. Wellsford A dawn service will be held at Memorial Park, outside the library. Fall-in at 5.45am. Leigh A service, with guests from the NZ Defence Forces, Leigh Volunteer Fire Brigade and Rodney Local Board, will be held at the Leigh cemetery at 11am. Matakohe/Paparoa A combined Paparoa RSA and The Kauri Museum service will be held at the museum, with fall-in at the Matakohe War Memorial Hall at 10.30am. The march will halt at the Cemetery Flag, the flag will be lowered and the Last Post sounded. There will be wreath-laying ceremonies at the Gun Memorial and the War Memorial Hall. A service will be held at the Volunteers Hall at the museum during which family or friends will have the opportunity to lay flowers or poppies in the display near photographs of family members. Refreshments will follow. Maungaturoto Assembly will take place at the back of the hall at 5.45am. The dawn service will begin at 6am at the Maungaturoto Community Centre Hall, opposite the War Cemetery. A breakfast at the Maungaturoto RSA will follow. There will also be a brunch at the Maungaturoto RSA at 11.30am. Hakaru The Hakaru & District Memorial RSA service will start with an assembly at the clubrooms at 10am. The parade will march to the flag for a wreath-laying ceremony at 10.30am. The service will finish with refreshments. Kawau Island A community service will be held at the Kawau Boating Club at 12.30pm. Algies Bay A service will be held at the Amberlea Rest Home at 1pm. Memories of Wellsford Kindergartens early years were shared at a celebration last week, which marked the centres 50th year. Pictured are long-time kindergarten supporters, from left, Sue Crockett, Wendy Palmer and Delwyn Cramond, with current students Harper and Carlin Wright (left) and Zac Smith. Fifty years of caring for young children was marked at a special birthday event at Wellsford Kindergarten, in Hazelmere Street, on April 10. The anniversary was celebrated with a powhiri, guest speakers and a cake cutting ceremony. Head teacher Donna Railey welcomed official guests including Auckland Kindergarten Association Board chair Robin Houlker, deputy chair Bruce McLachlan and chief executive officer Pauline Winter. She also extended a warm welcome to the many former staff, parents and children who attended. Ms Houlker acknowledged the inter- generational nature of kindergarten, where often people were first enrolled as children, and then became parents and grandparents of kindergarten children. Preschool education in Wellsford dates from 1953 when it was run by a volunteer committee in rented accommodation. The present kindergarten was the result of years of advocacy to government and support from the community-at-large, and was officially opened by Member of Parliament W.J. Scott on April 19, 1969. The first head teacher was Miss P. Snelling, assisted by Miss J. Aiken. It was the first kindergarten in New Zealand to cater for children with special needs, under the direction of Marie Flavell, along with Joan Kearney and Sue Parkinson. The kindy currently has 46 children on its roll, and employs four qualified teachers and three support staff. Work on the forthcoming Drumlish and Ballinamuck history book began about a year after the formation of Drumlish Heritage & History in 2012, now the Drumlish Heritage & History Society, with a suggestion by Sean Murphy, whose paternal ancestors lived in Clonmacart, Bawn and Esker. Sean himself lived in Drumlish as a child and later attended the old Gaigue school, immortalised by Mick Flavin. He approached people he thought might be interested in compiling a history of Drumlish/Ballinamuck and offered to do research, though nothing ever came of it at the time. As a result of a lecture carried out by Sean in 2016, the history book dream became a reality and Annette Kane soon assembled a team of eight people, all with ties to the area, to work on individual aspects of the history book for the next two and a half years. Further essays were contributed by local volunteers, with the work of text, format and layout all coordinated by Sean, who has 45 years of experience editing text and was a member of the eight-person team which carried out one of the major editing projects in Irish legislative history, the compilation of the 1100-page Taxes Act, 1997. The other members of the team were Rev Liam Courtney, Liam Caldwell, Pauric Gill, Fergus Gorman, Aiden Gray and David Leahy, with Annette in overall charge. Other writers of essays were Dr Seamus Mimnagh, Conor Ward, Vincent Gray, David Hannify, Michael and Celine Lennon, the late Peter Kelly TD, Gary Brady, the O'Toole family, Padraig Rehill, Christina Jordan, Tom Crowe and the late Mary Davis Rogers. Also read: GALLERY| Fundraiser for St Mary's NS, Drumlish Not only the writers contributed, but also members of the Drumlish/Ballinamuck diaspora, making it a widespread local effort. The book is said to recount, from an insider point of view, the long history of a basically rural area, and the lives and memories of its people. The book will be officially launched in Drumlish Community Centre, on Thursday May 2 at 7.30 p.m. Copies will be on sale at 30 (hard cover) and 25 (paperback). A man who walked out of a Longford chemist with over 1,000 worth of cosmetics was last week handed a cash fine by Judge Seamus Hughes over the incident. Shane McDonnell, 34 College Park, Longford, was charged with a shoplifting offence at Cara Pharmacy, Main Street, Longford on December 15, 2017. Among the items stolen included perfumes, make up and a 600 brush set, 500 of which had been recovered. Defence solicitor John Quinn said his client was amenable to allowing 200 of a cash bail sum to be transferred over to cover any outstanding compensation that was owed. That came after Sgt Paddy McGirl said approximately 513 of the items stolen had been retrieved. Mr McDonnell, who was wearing a black jacket and blue jeans, said he had not been in the best of health of late. A boil on my neck came up, he said, in the midst of attempting to show the size of the growth to Judge Hughes. Also read: It's time we dealt with feuding local thugs says local representative following violent incidents in Longford town Mr Quinn confirmed his client had been in St James Hospital in Dublin for most of the day 24 hours hours before last Tuesdays sitting and had only got married two weeks ago. Thats the stresses of married life, Judge Hughes sarcastically remarked. It was also revealed Mr McDonnell, who had three previous convictions on his record, had been homeless for a period of time while being the father to two small children. Judge Hughes signed off on the case by fining Mr McDonnell 125, giving him three months to pay. Eleven first time female election candidates and campaign managers from five counties attended training organised by Longford Womens Link and 50:50 North West at LWL recently. It is just the latest in a series of initiatives implemented by LWL and the Womens Manifesto Programme to support more women in rural constituencies into politics. LWL engaged training from Women For Election on the topics of canvassing and media engagement and Deputy CEO Tara Farrell presented on the work of the Womens Manifesto Programme and the 50:50 North West Group who have been working together for many years on the issue of gender balance in public life. Key learning from the Womens Manifesto Programme has been a comprehensive understanding of the local democratic structures and Tara spoke about the importance of being familiar with structures such as the Public Participation Networks (PPNs), Local Community Development Committees (LCDCs) and the Strategic Policy Committees (SPCs) as well as being aware of the Local Community and Economic Plans in the relevant candidate counties. Speaking prior to the training, Tara stated, We were delighted to be able to fund todays training as it is another element in our ongoing work to support more rural female candidates running for election. The Womens Manifesto Programme is a flagship programme of LWL and delighted to be celebrating its tenth anniversary in 2019 with yet another training initiative. LWL and 50:50 North West are observing the situation closely as political parties gear up for the local elections in May. Selection conventions are being held around the country and candidates will soon be out on the canvassing trail. When the elections are over though will there be much change when it comes to seeing a better representation of women on our councils? Also read: Longford Sleep Out for Simon Training included three Longford candidates Uruemu Adejinmi (FF) running in the Longford Municipal District, Grace Kearney (IND) running in the Granard Municipal District, and Amanda Duffy (FF) also running in the Granard Municipal District. Speaking after the event, Noirin Clancy from the 50:50 North West group stated: We really need to see more women stepping forward and it is very positive to see that this training is happening. Hopefully we see a real change in the gender balance of our councils after the May elections. LWL would like to wish all candidates the very best of luck on the campaign trail in the coming weeks. Local News, Crime, Press Releases By Long Island News & PR Published: April 14 2019 NCPD: Kenneth Matson of Hempstead, 52, was arrested on multiple charges. April 17, 2019 - The First Squad reports the arrest of a Hempstead man for an incident that occurred on Friday, April 12, 2019 at 8:35 pm in Baldwin. According to detectives, the defendant Kenneth Matson, 52, was observed by CIRRT (Criminal Intelligence Rapid Response Team) officers sitting in a 2003 Dodge Durango, smoking from a glass pipe. Officers approached the vehicle and saw the defendant throw the glass pipe onto the passenger side floor board. The officers attempted to remove the defendant from the vehicle but he locked the doors and rolled up the windows. The defendant then started his vehicle and accelerated forward striking the officers vehicle. The defendant then put his vehicle in reverse and almost struck the officers as he fled the scene northbound on Grand Avenue. At approximately 8:48 pm a K9 officer located the vehicle parked at a dead end on Sumner Avenue in Merrick. The K9 officer with numerous first precinct officers approached the vehicle and defendant accelerated his vehicle towards the officers causing them to jump out of the way. The defendant struck multiple parked vehicles, trees, and two police vehicles while attempting to escape. The defendant fled the scene traveling southbound on Meadowbrook Road and was taken into custody on the northbound Meadowbrook Parkway near the Babylon Turnpike exit after a brief struggle. The defendant was transported to a local hospital for treatment of his injuries. Defendant Kenneth Matson is being charged with six (6) counts of Criminal Mischief 4th Degree, two (2) counts of Reckless Endangerment 1st Degree, Unlawful Fleeing of a Police Officer 3rd Degree, Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance 7th Degree, Resisting Arrest, DWI Alcohol or drugs 2nd offense, multiple VTL violations. He will be arraigned on Saturday, April 13th, 2019 in First District Court, Hempstead. Nassau DA: Life Sentences Handed Down to Two Roosevelt Men for Murderous 2015-2016 Crime Spree Local News, Crime, Press Releases By Long Island News & PR Published: April 14 2019 Corey Williams, 19, and Malique Shelton, 19, were both sentenced to lengthy prison terms, DA Singas says. April 16, 2019 - Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas announced that two Roosevelt men were sentenced yesterday for a murderous robbery spree that left two men dead. Corey Williams was sentenced to 100 years to life in prison and Malique Shelton was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison by Judge Meryl Berkowitz. Corey Williams, 19, was convicted by a jury before Judge Meryl Berkowitz on November 5, 2018 of: Two counts of Murder in the Second Degree (an A-I felony) Attempted Murder in the Second Degree (a B violent felony) Three counts of Robbery in the First Degree (a B violent felony) Two counts of Robbery in the Second Degree (a C violent felony) Attempted Robbery in the First Degree (a C violent felony) Six counts of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree (a C felony) Assault in the Second Degree (a D violent felony) Attempted Robbery in the Second Degree (a D violent felony) The four-week trial started on October 9, and the jury deliberated for less than a day. Malique Shelton, 19, pled guilty on May 23, 2018 before Judge Meryl Berkowitz to two counts of Murder in the Second Degree (an A-I felony). These defendants robbed and murdered two innocent men in cold blood on a ruthlessly violent crime spree that terrorized the Roosevelt community, DA Singas said. Predators like Williams and Shelton belong behind bars, and they deserve every day of the long prison sentences they received today. DA Singas said that on November 18, 2015, at approximately 6:30 p.m., 33-year-old Gerber Hernandez was walking home from his job as a construction worker on Babylon Turnpike in Roosevelt, when Williams and Shelton, both on bicycles, attempted to rob Hernandez of cash and then shot him two times, once through the aorta. Hernandez was attended to by a Good Samaritan who stayed with him until police and EMTs arrived. The victim died from his wounds and left behind a son. At approximately 3:50 p.m. on June 22, 2016, the defendants and another accomplice, while inside an unoccupied home under construction on Wagner Street in Roosevelt, robbed 37-year-old Royston Hall of marijuana, and then shot him once in the chest. To escape the house, Hall jumped out of a closed, glass window and ran down the street bleeding and shoeless while holding his chest. Hall, a father of two, was eventually transported to the Nassau University Medical Center where he died. On July 8, 2016, at approximately 1:50 a.m., Williams called a taxi to Willet Place in Roosevelt. When the taxi arrived, he and an accomplice robbed the 46-year old driver at gunpoint, stealing approximately $200 in cash. On July 18, 2016, at approximately 11 p.m. Williams called a taxi to W. Raymond Street in Roosevelt. When the taxi arrived, he shot the driver in the upper back, seriously injuring him and then stole approximately $120 in cash. The victim was transported to Nassau University Medical Center and eventually recovered from his injuries. Following an investigation, Nassau County Police Department detectives arrested Williams on August 31, 2016 and Shelton on January 18, 2017. Local News, Crime, Community, Charity & Cause, Press Releases By Long Island News & PR Published: April 14 2019 After being shut down seven years ago, 8th Precinct to reopen with improved staff and services as part of County Execs community policing initiative. April 15, 2019 - Nassau County Executive Laura Curran today announced the reopening of Nassau Countys 8th Police Precinct with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, seven years after the precincts closure during the previous administration. The reopening of the precinct adds staff and services to enhance the countys successful community policing initiative, which focuses on pro-active crime prevention and quality-of-life strategies. Earlier this week the 6th Precinct in Manhasset was reopened and restored to full-service after a similar seven-year shutdown. Its time to give our community and our police officers the precinct they deserve, County Executive Curran said. Last week we announced the reopening of the Sixth Precinct in Manhasset. Today we are reopening the 8th Precinct here in Bethpage. These precincts will enhance our community policing, an essential part of how we serve and protect our county. Commissioner of Police Patrick Ryder announced the appointment of Inspector Thomas Corona to serve as Commanding Officer of the 8th Precinct. I am pleased to announce that in the past week, the Nassau County Police Department has been able to reopen both of our closed precincts with the full support of County Executive Curran, he said. The 8th Precinct in Bethpage is officially open today to serve our residents and continue our long-standing reputation as one of the most service orientated police departments in the country which brings back the community policing model to the local communities. Our precinct doors are always open to speak with our police officers, supervisors and POP officers, which in turn keeps those lines of communication open with our entire community. Over the course of time when both precincts were closed, we have continued to assign the same personnel to patrol posts and crime in both areas has declined to historic lows due to the dedication and hard work of our department members. I am proud to announce that Inspector Thomas Corona will be the Commanding Officer of the 8th Precinct and he will continue our beliefs and values that guide our department as Loyalty, Integrity, Fairness and Excellence. State Senator Kevin Thomas said, County Executive Laura Curran and Commissioner Ryder showed strong leadership in reopening the 8th Police Precinct in Levittown. Community policing has been the key to bringing police and citizens together in Nassau to prevent crime and build a vibrant and safe community. The reopening of the 8th Precinct will allow our law enforcement to get a better sense of residents needs, improve public safety and lower response times. As a Levittown resident, I welcome our brave officers to the neighborhood. County Legislature Minority Caucus Kevan Abrahams said, Local precincts are a valuable resource and a source of community pride, and reopening the Sixth and Eighth Precincts marks the end of a misguided consolidation plan. I thank my colleagues in the Legislature and County Executive Curran for their commitment to community policing across the County." The precinct at 299 Hicksville Road serves Bethpage, Levittown, Plainview, and Farmingdale. The building was recognized for outstanding design in January by the national the Precast Concrete Institute, one of only three projects in the county to receive the Institutes highest honor. Despite the outstanding design, the building was never utilized to its full potential as an operating precinct, a fixture in the life of the community. The widely praised problem-oriented policing deployment, or POP, is among the initiatives returning to the restored Eighth Precinct command. This proven program assigns officers to work closely with community leaders, business owners, and residents particularly young people. Officers focus on crime prevention, safety issues, traffic hazards, graffiti complaints, among many other quality-of-life issues. As I have said before, community policing is part of Nassaus DNA, the county executive said. We do it better here than anywhere else---thanks to hard work, dedication, and commitment of the men and women of our police department. Under Ryder's leadership, Nassau is one of the safest counties of its size in the nation," she said. Local News, Crime, Press Releases By Long Island News & PR Published: April 14 2019 SCPD: Taieek Smith, 23, had a license that had been suspended 26 times. April 16, 2019 - Suffolk County Police arrested a man whose license had been suspended multiple times, after he fled two traffic stops and crashed into multiple cars on Sills Road in Patchogue. Taieek Smith was driving a 2015 Mercedes Benz northbound on Lincoln Avenue in Holbrook when a Fifth Precinct patrol officer attempted to initiate a traffic stop at 5:27 p.m. Smith initially stopped his vehicle but fled when the officer approached. The vehicle was spotted approximately seven minutes later heading northbound on Sills Road by a different Fifth Precinct officer who initiated another traffic stop. After initially stopping, Smith pulled away at a high rate of speed. He crashed into four vehicles approximately a half mile later at approximately 5:35 p.m. Four people in the cars Smith crashed into were transported to Long Island Community Hospital in East Patchogue with minor injuries. Smith, 23, of Wyandanch, whose license had been suspended 26 times, was charged with Aggravated Unlicensed Operation of a Motor Vehicle, Reckless Driving, Reckless Endangerment, two counts of Fleeing a Police Officer, Leaving the Scene of a Motor Vehicle Accident, Criminal Possession a Controlled Substance 7th Degree and multiple Vehicle and Traffic violations. Smith was held overnight at the Fifth Precinct and arraigned at First District Court in Central Islip. Smiths vehicle was impounded. For many analysts, it has become convenient to simplify things and say that the Lebanese Civil War began on April 13th 1975. This mistake hides the political context and numerous major developments that, for years, paved the way for a conflict that has had wide ranging repercussions and still does, 44 years later. Sunday April 13th 1975 was actually a - dramatic - turning point, after a long period of destabilization and chronic internal crises. First of all, on a strictly local level, it happened after the tensions between what was called the Christian camp (or political Maronitism) and the Islamo-Progressive camp reached its climax. This tension had been simmering since the 1960s, and that revolved around the frail balance between the communities that held political power. At the time, the Muslim leadership denounced what it perceived as "Christian privileges" and was asking for more participation in the management of public affairs. Christian privileges and participation: in the late Sixties and early Seventies, these were the main slogans around which revolved an often feverish national debate. In addition to these community-based demands, there was a growing socio-economic crisis that provided an ideal breeding ground for Leftist movements. The Palestinian factor As explosive as it was, this context would probably not have resulted in the successive wars that began in April 1975 if it had not been connected to another much more serious, endemic crisis: the continuous regional interferences related to the Palestinian problem. It is precisely this factor that explains the longevity and frequency of the incessant conflicts in to which Lebanon was dragged. If one were to quickly study the newspapers of the 1960s and 70s, one would realize that the leaders of the Kataeb party, Pierre Gemayel, and of the Liberal National Party, President Camille Chamoun (among others), did not miss an opportunity to repeat their leitmotiv, the priority of sovereignty. The equivalent of todays cries of Lebanon first. The fact is that by the end of the 1960s, armed Palestinian organizations had established themselves, militarily, in the Arqoub, in South Lebanon, the territory was off limits and was named symbolically, and quite appropriately, "Fatahland". Led by Yasser Arafat, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had slowly turned into a powerful mini-state within the Lebanon, with disregard to central state sovereignty. This situation was fiercely condemned by the Christian parties. But the Islamo-Progressive camp was perfectly satisfied with it, seeing it as leverage that could be used to push the Christian camp towards constitutional concessions. This struggle ended in 1969 with the oft-criticized Cairo agreements, which, under the impulsion of Nasser, practically institutionalized the PLO's control over the Arqoub. State sovereignty was severely breached, allowing Palestinian organizations to keep on gaining ground and undermining the governments authority, while taking advantage of the Muslim leaderships support, under the guise of solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Sleiman Frangie reacts In this context, the Palestinian excesses amplified, prompting President Sleiman Frangie, who had been elected in 1970, to react three years later. In May 1973, on his orders, the Lebanese army launched an offensive against the Palestinian camps in Beirut. The army besieged the camps and Hawker Hunters of the Lebanese Air Force undertook bombing runs. The aim was clear: to put an end to the PLO mini-state. The offensive lasted for several days, but president Frangie was forced to order the army to cease military operations under pressure from a number of Arab countries. Syrian president Hafez al-Assad, despite his special relationship with Frangie, even went as far as to close the borders between the two countries to force the President to end to the offensive. This episode was a turning point in the Lebanese crisis. Supported by President Frangie, the Christian parties concluded that they were to contain the armed Palestinian organizations on their own initiative. The Christian parties took up arms, and trained militias to oppose the PLO's growing hold on the country. The arming of the Christian parties took place gradually with the tacit consent of President Frangie. Everything was in place, the detonator need only be found. The explosion occurred on Sunday April 13th 1975. (This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour on the 13th of April) Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site. 0108263 License for publishing multimedia online Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349 Sources close to the investigation into allegedly missing five-year-old Samuel Benjamin de Vries revealed yesterday that the young boy from Calvia is living with his mother in Germany. Apparently, the mother took her son to Germany on November 26 last year and on April 10, was reported missing by the father who lives in Calvia. Investigators have managed to confirm that the father, who was entitled to shared custody of the child, had been in regular contact with the German mother since they moved off the island. The Guardia Civil have now contacted Europol in an attempt to locate the young boy and establish if he is well, whether he is going to school and how his style of life is so that the judge handling the case can decided what action to take. On Thursday, the Interior Ministry went public with the matter that it was dealing with a possible case of parental kidnapping. The search in Majorca has been stood down and now all the focus is on Germany because it appears that although the father had contact with the mother, he does not know where they are living. Visiting Stop & Shop workers on strike in Quincy, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey pointed to the handful of cars in the parking lot behind them. You are gonna win, the Massachusetts Democrat told dozens of workers Monday morning. You can see that the people of Massachusetts are with you. Theres no one shopping here today at Stop & Shop. He added: Were gonna have a boom at Star Market ... but at Stop & Shop they are going to have a hard time until they come to the bargaining table to give the families what they need." Markey is the latest politician to show solidarity with Stop & Shop employees who walked out on Thursday. State Reps. Bruce Ayers and Tackey Chan, both Quincy Democrats, visited the workers over the weekend. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Friday joined the picket line outside the Somerville store. Do not cross the picket line, Warren said. Understand people on the picket line are not just fighting for their families. Theyre fighting for all our families. Theyre fighting for basic fairness and equality in this country. About 31,000 workers at Stop & Shop in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island represented by United Food and Commercial Workers International have been without a contract since late February. Stop & Shop said its proposed contract included pay increases for all associates, no changes to employees deductibles, an increase of $2 to $4 on health insurance premiums and an increase to the companys pension fund contributions. The proposed pay increase amounts to an additional 50 cents an hour for workers, spokeswoman Erikka Knuti told the New York Times. She said the increase was not really a pay increase. Several stores in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island reopened Friday, but some locations had fewer staff members due to the strike. Majority of our stores remain open as we continue to serve our customers, Stefanie Shuman, a company spokeswoman, told MassLive. The Quincy store was open Monday morning. Workers yelled when cars entered the parking lot. Some motorists beeped their horn and vowed only to pick up pharmacy prescriptions. Others drove by without a word. To have regulars just drive through and say, 'sorry, said Leeanne Noonan, who has worked for the company since 1984, I want my customers to come back when Im done, but I want them to respect me when Im out here." Leanne Noonan, left, and Michael Welch, right, protest outside of the Stop & Shop in Quincy on Patriots' Day. The company website says most full-time employees, including unionized department managers, earn more than $21 on average. Michael Welch makes that much, but he said thats because hes a department manager in Quincy and has been with the company more than 20 years. He said other employees who arent managers have spent 15 years with the company and make $15 an hour, while part-time workers make $12 or $13 an hour. A lot of these people have been here a long time, Welch said. Most of them are not making that ($21) wage. We just want to be able to support our families." Markey wasnt the only one to donate food. The workers had a police detail at the store, and officers brought them 10 pizzas, Welch said. Teachers, plumbers, nurses, craftsmen and others have shown their support for the striking workers. Others criticized the workers at the picket line. One man threw up his middle finger while passing the crowd Monday morning. Noonan said one motorist entering the store called the workers uneducated. You call me uneducated and that I need a real job? You go in what I do for five minutes, she said. I can balance a cash office, I can run the front end and run the service desk and do Western Union. I run the self-scans and the billings for the grocery department. Now tell me I need an education. Stop & Shop and union representatives met over the weekend. The company said talks are expected to continue on Monday. SPRINGFIELD MGM Springfield laid off five workers from its engineering and facilities staff last week, paring down its headcount after the expected number of workers didnt leave on their own in the $1 billion casinos first nine months of operation. Benjamin Thurman, one of the workers who lost jobs, said MGM hired more people for the department than it knew it would need as a safeguard against being short on people, expecting attrition to bring the headcount down to where managers needed it to be. When those losses did not happen, MGM laid people off April 8, he said. MGM Springfield said in a statement: We are proud of the jobs we are creating in the community and the economic stimulus we are producing, and we are excited to continue to provide the best hospitality experience for our guests. Three employees from the facilities staff and two from engineering lost jobs. All told, the two departments have about 40 people. Thurman, 34, a mechanical engineer, ran and maintained boilers and chillers providing hot water and refrigeration. A four-year veteran of the industry, he left a job working at the on-site power plant for Pfizers 160-acre, 2.8-million square foot campus in Groton, Connecticut. He had been at MGM since August. A Springfield native, he had hoped to move his three children here. "I made more money here," Thurman said. "But I left a job that I could have retired from." With a second-class firemans license for operating boilers, Thurman said he has good job prospects and has been in touch with Trinity Health in Hartford and with Foxwoods Resort Casino. MGM promised state and local leaders that the casino would employ no fewer than 3,000 persons, saying no fewer than 2,200 persons (73%) would be either full-time or the equivalent. The casino has only partially met that requirement. The casino had 2,522 employees as of Dec. 31, including 568 part-time workers and 1,954 full-time. This is according to MGMs most recent quarterly report. Parent company MGM Resorts International told investors last year it plans to cut $100 million in U.S. payroll over the next two years. Its unclear how that will impact Springfield. WESTFIELD Plans for a new behavioral health hospital in Holyoke mean Baystate Health will close 20 beds in the Fowler Wing at Baystate Noble Hospital. For community members who want to learn more about the potential impact of that change, the Massachusetts Nurses Association has organized a public forum at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 18 at the Westfield Athenaeum, 6 Elm St. Tammy Bringaze, director of The Counseling Center at Westfield State University, will be one of the panelists. State Rep. John Velis, D-Westfield, and Mayor Brian Sullivan are hosting the event. We rely heavily upon the expertise of the staff in the Fowler Unit when our students are in crisis; I cant imagine not having this resource in our community, Bringaze said in a news release. The union, which represents nurses at Baystate Noble, Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield and elsewhere, put together a similar forum attended by mental health services consumers and advocates in Greenfield in February. Earlier that month Baystate announced plans to partner with for-profit US HealthVest to build a 120-bed behavioral health hospital at the former site of the Geriatric Authority of Holyoke. The proposal involves consolidating inpatient mental health services at the new hospital. Baystate now has 98 inpatient psychiatric beds: 28 at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, 22 in Greenfield, 28 in Palmer and 20 in Westfield. Baystate officials have said facilities at the community hospitals are out-of-date and decentralized. The Baystate Medical Center beds will remain. The Massachusetts Nurses Association has complained that consolidating the beds will make it harder for patients without transportation to get the help they need. It will also be harder for families to visit patients, the union has argued. Baystate says it picked the Holyoke location because it is centrally located near Interstate 91 and the Massachusetts Turnpike and it is working on transportation solutions. Its been about a year since I checked in with the talented Dennis Crommett, and lo and behold, I get an email from him announcing a pair shows hell be playing in the coming weeks. The somewhat shocking part of the email, however, was the title of it: Turn 40 with me. In my mind, there is no way Mr. Crommett is 40 years old. First of all, if hes 40, then I must be around 107, but never mind that. Crommett simply doesnt look 40. But no matter. Age is just a number, as they say (albeit a number that keeps getting annoyingly bigger). Anyway, Crommett will be playing two shows in two different formats: First on Friday, April 19, Crommett will bring his full band, Spanish For Hitchhiking, to The Os Music Bar at 330 Amherst Road in Sunderland. Dennis writes: I had some fun times at this easy-going bar in college, and were gonna light it up with our friends The Fawns and The Big Why. That sounds like a great way to start sliding into whatever decade youre celebrating. A week later on Friday, April 26, Crommett will do a solo opening show for his friends Opal Canyon at the bands album release show at the Parlor Room at 32 Masonic St. in Northampton. Dennis doesnt actually turn 40 until April 30, so these two shows are your last chance to see him before old age sets in with weight gain, hair loss, mom jeans, dad bod, as he described the aging process. So go see him while he still has none of those features. Scouting Report Pamela Means will play an intriguing show at Luthiers Co-op on April 27. Since this year is the 50th anniversary of The Beatles Abbey Road album, Means will play the entire record in order, live, as a solo act. The show starts at 8 p.m. Luthiers Co-op is at 108 Cottage St. The Dave Fields Band will play Theodores in Springfield on April 20. Fields, the son of noted composer/arranger/producer Sammy Forever Fields, grew up in New York City, always spending time in his fathers recording studio. This exposed him to the best NYC studio musicians of the time and artists such as the likes of Sammy Kahn, Rupert Holmes and Stevie Wonder. As he learned piano and embraced the blues, Fields reputation grew, leading him to record with such notables as Ahmed Ertegen, Aretha Franklin and The Family Stand. He also has done shows with Lucky Peterson, Joe Louis Walker and Hubert Sumlin as well as jazz names as Dave Valentin, Alex Foster and Delmar Brown, to name just a few. Theodores is at 201 Worthington St. Do you have a cool event coming up at a local club? Send me a note about it at least two weeks in advance to geolenker@yahoo.com and Ill try to get it in this space. Cinderella had her glass slipper. Dr. Cynthia M. Galavotti has her Soffts, Borns and Clarks, and frequently advises her patients as a physician who treats the foot, ankle, and related structures of the leg, Its best to avoid shoes that have no support at all. This means slipping instead into properly fitting shoes with an arch and some cushion for the ball of the foot. Women come in because they are on their feet all day and they are wearing the wrong type of shoe for them in my opinion, said Galavotti, a podiatrist and an associate of Dr. Christopher H. Peteros at New England Foot Specialists in Longmeadow. They are wearing flats - ballet flats or just regular flats. When you wear a shoe with no support, she adds, "You might as well be putting paper over your foot and be walking around barefoot. You are not providing any service to your feet. She adds footwear becomes a particular concern with aging as most people become heavier on your feet. You need more structural support and shock absorption for your feet and you also need arch support as well, Galavotti said. The biomechanics of walking are that your heel hits the ground, your arch provides shock absorption for ground reactive forces and then you propulse off your big first toe joint. She adds, When you are wearing a flat, you are setting yourself up for trouble and also plantar fasciitis (inflammation of tissue that runs across the bottom of the foot), especially on tile and wood floors because there is no cushion. If you could live your life walking on a cloud or very thick plush carpet, everything would be wonderful, Galavotti said. A registered nurse earlier in her career, Galavotti became interested in podiatry while working in orthopedics at Massachusetts General Hospital. She returned to school, graduating in 1993 from the California School of Podiatric Medicine at Samuel Merritt University. She said what footwear she recommends depends on an individuals foot structure and their complaint and adds sometimes supports can be inserted to help address an issue. I do get a lot of questions from women on shoes, Galavotti said. What I recommend depends somewhat on what your foot type is, that is, basically whether you have a high-arched foot, a normal rectus (well-aligned) foot or a flat foot (low or no arch). If people are having pain, we can recommend a custom-made orthotic or an over-the counter orthotic." She said sneakers, too, should have an arch and adds brands she shops include Asics, New Balance and Saucony. She that some companies make sneakers for different foot types with styles made to help if a person is an over pronator (rolls foot inward too much) or over supinator (places too much weight on the outside of the foot). What qualifies as a supportive shoe, Galavotti said is generally "any type of shoe that has a forefoot base, and an arch. Sometimes I will recommend a heel, not a stiletto heel, for people who are having Achilles tendinitis pain (tissue connecting calf muscle at the back of the lower leg to the heel bone), Galavotti said. I would like to see them in a pump that has a forefoot cushion on it. This is good because when your rear foot is up, and your fore foot is down, you are putting all the pressure on your metatarsals (mid-foot bones) which will cause pain in the ball of your foot. But if you have a little bit of cushion there for shock absorption, you are not going to have any pain. She said some women who need support for a high arch are among those who like a brand called Vionic. Galavotti, who recommends patients wear a good sandal as opposed to slippers at home, likes to joke that she always thought I would open a store and call it Pain-less Shoes." I feel like a lot of women don't know what to get for their foot type and I do feel they do buy shoes because they are pretty and go with the outfit, said Galavotti who suggests patients instead look at brands whose shoes have support and style and can be worn for different occasions. She said this can save money over time and possibly visits to a podiatrist. SPRINGFIELD Members of the local carpenters union, accompanied by an inflated Fat Cat balloon, protested outside the U.S. Post Office on Main Street on Monday, calling for an end to corporate tax fraud related to construction projects. About 25 demonstrators from Carpenters Local 336 chose April 15, the traditional final date for paying federal taxes, to conduct the protest, triggering some motorists to honk their horns as they passed by the busy intersection at Main and Liberty streets. "UBC, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, are protesting tax fraud nationwide, actually in all of North America," said Timothy S. Craw, business representative for Local 336. "And this is one of our rallies in downtown Springfield. It's in regard to the taxes unscrupulous contractors don't pay. Whether they are misclassifying as independent contractors, just paying plain cash to people under the table, they are committing tax fraud." While state Attorney General Maura Healy is doing a good job with limited staff, it is very difficult to really get everybody under the umbrella of enforcement, Craw said. Various unions have lobbied communities in Massachusetts including Springfield, to enact stronger local legislation on In public construction projects, he added. In September, the City Council overrode a mayoral veto and approved an ordinance attaching fair labor requirements for new businesses and expanded businesses receiving tax incentives from the city. The ordinance included requiring the contractors and subcontractors to properly classify workers and meet city residency and diversity goals. Hailshadow/iStock(NEW YORK) -- A group of parents in Brooklyn are seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent mandatory measles vaccinations from taking effect. The parents lawsuit against the New York City Department of Health called the emergency order "arbitrary and capricious" and the measures it necessitates "drastic." The order, issued by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio last week, demands that all persons, starting at the age of 6 months old, who live, work or attend school within the specified zip codes of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, be vaccinated. The parents who are suing argued "there is insufficient evidence of a measles epidemic or dangerous outbreak to justify" forced vaccinations and they accused the city of failing to take the least restrictive measures to end the outbreak. The suit was filed by five mothers on behalf of themselves and their minor children. They are listed as living in Williamsburg and Clinton Hill, parts of Brooklyn included in the mandatory vaccinations. In declaring a public health emergency, de Blasio called the measles "a very serious situation" and noted the "danger of this disease and how highly contagious it is." The affected zip codes are heavily populated with Orthodox Jews and the mayor sought to get everyone vaccinated before people travel for the Passover, which begins Friday. "To make sure it is a good holiday we have to ensure that people are protected," de Blasio said. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been 285 confirmed cases of measles in Brooklyn and Queens from October 2018 to April 8, 2019. The CDC states that most of the confirmed cases involved members of the Orthodox Jewish community and the first case stemmed from an unvaccinated child getting infected while on a trip to Israel. New York is one of 20 states where there have been confirmed measles cases in 2019. Between Jan. 1, 2019, and April 11, there have been 555 confirmed cases of measles in the U.S. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT), Romania has a rather developed livestock industry but the country has to import a significant amount of pork from other EU and European countries. In addition, several Vietnamese products such as electrical and electronic machinery and equipment (household appliances, computers, and cell phones), interior and exterior furniture, garments and textiles, footwear, fibers, construction materials and sanitary equipment also have advantages of export to Romania due to a large demand for these items. Another area that Vietnamese enterprises can take advantage of is labour export as a large number of labourers from Romania have migrated to other EU countries, resulting in serious labour shortage in Romania. The MOIT forecasts that Romania will lack about 1 million workers in the future. According to the Ministry of Labour and Social Justice of Romania, non-EU foreign employees in Romania including both permanent and temporary workers reached 17,089 by July 2018, a record high number so far, of which China and Turkey are the two leading countries in terms of number of migrant workers in Romania. The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on labour cooperation between Vietnam and Romania in late November 2018 is expected to create favourable condition for Vietnamese employees to work in Romania. According to MOIT leaders, the Governments of the two countries will make efforts to promote the signing of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement in a bid to boost bilateral cooperation between Vietnam and Romania. Ohio Has a Heartbeat NEWS PROVIDED BY Liberty Counsel April 11, 2019 COLUMBUS, Ohio, April 11, 2019 /Christian Newswire/ -- The full Ohio legislature passed a bill yesterday that prohibits a person from knowingly and purposefully performing or inducing an abortion of an unborn baby whose heartbeat has been detected, typically about six weeks into pregnancy. SB 23 provides that violating this is a felony of the fifth degree. The Senate previously passed the bill in March. However, the bill returned to the Senate because the House amended it to include stiffer penalties for abortionists who violate the measure. Governor Mike DeWine is expected to sign it soon. Since many women do not even know they are pregnant at this early stage, this legislation could protect almost all unborn babies in Ohio. The Ohio Department of Health reported 20,893 abortions in 2017, an increase of one percent from 2016. "A baby with a beating heart in the womb deserves the opportunity of being born," said state Rep. Niraj Antani. "As a co-sponsor of the Heartbeat Bill since the moment I was elected, today's vote will save countless lives. It's time to end abortion in Ohio." In addition to Ohio, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina and West Virginia are among the states that have either passed "heartbeat" legislation or are hoping to do so. "I commend Ohio lawmakers for fighting for precious babies and passing this heartbeat bill," said Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver. "The beating heart of a priceless unborn child should awaken the conscience of our nation to the violence of abortion. I am grateful that Ohio is not afraid to take significant steps toward making the womb a safe place again," said Staver. Liberty Counsel is an international nonprofit, litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family since 1989, by providing pro bono assistance and representation on these and related topics. Liberty Counsel provides broadcast quality TV interviews via Hi-Def Skype and LTN at no cost. SOURCE Liberty Counsel CONTACT: Mat Staver, 407-875-1776, Liberty@LC.org Related Links lc.org/ Clothing retailer Charlotte Russe is reopening 100 stores and a new online experience after closing down earlier this year. The San Diego-based store, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February, began its liquidation sale in March in preparation to close all stores. The store announced on its Twitter account Thursday that the stores would open across the country and more details would come soon. We are planning a brand new online shopping experience, as well as re-opening 100 retail locations across the US. Watch out for more details coming soon! pic.twitter.com/AvOgTHvHkI Charlotte Russe (@CharlotteRusse) April 11, 2019 The brand was successfully sold to fashion company YM Inc. in late March. We are very excited Charlotte Russe will be joining the portfolio of brands at YM, Dayna Quanbeck, interim CEO of Charlotte Russe said in a statement. This acquisition marries a beloved brand with a sophisticated retail platform and provides Charlotte Russe a path to grow in the future. The chain had multiple locations in Massachusetts, including in Boston, Natick, Marlborough and Cambridge. Its not clear if any of these locations will be among the 100 reopened. The Massachusetts Legislature will consider two bills that could help address some of the problems foster parents have identified with the foster care system. One bill, sponsored by Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier, D-Pittsfield, Rep. Joseph McKenna, R-Webster, and Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, would create a foster parents bill of rights. Rights included under the proposed law include foster parents right to: accurate medical information; a 24-hour emergency hotline; access to respite care; notice of reviews, meetings and court dates; information about reimbursements; advance notice when a child will be removed; the authority to make routine decisions. I think we want to say to both current foster care families and families considering foster care that the state sees and honors the work of foster care families and to do that, we have to have public articulation of the challenges facing foster care families and what the state can and must do, Comerford said. Many of these rights already exist, but are not easily accessible. Often, foster parents and advocates say, they are not followed. Foster parents say they are not always given a childs accurate medical history, are not notified of court dates, and do not know what money they are entitled to. Farley-Bouvier said foster parents are not always told before a social worker picks a child up from school and moves them to another home. Foster parents cannot make routine decisions, such as allowing a child to attend a sleepover. Rep. Aaron Vega, D-Holyoke, said he hears stories of families who leave work to attend a court hearing only to find it was canceled, and of kids being dropped off at homes with a trash bag of clothing and no medical records. The idea behind the foster parent bill of rights is to put into statute that foster parents are to be treated as a respected member of the professional team, Farley-Bouvier said. Another bill, sponsored by Farley-Bouvier, Vega and Comerford, would create an external office to review placements by the states Department of Children and Families. Under federal law, all foster care placements must be reviewed every six months to ensure the child is safe and that there is a plan toward a permanent home. In Massachusetts, reviews are conducted by a DCF reviewer, DCF supervisor and a community volunteer. According to a fiscal 2017 report from DCF, the department had 16,000 children in foster care and performed 14,500 reviews. Families and advocates say the reviews are often perfunctory, that they fail to address childrens problems and that there is little follow-up. Reviews may be canceled and not rescheduled. June Ameen, director of policy for the advocacy group Friends of Children, said having an external review creates transparency and accountability and oversight of the system. Ameen said an outside agency will also have greater ability to provide aggregate data on how the system is working and what is happening to children. Susan Elsen, an attorney with the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute who works on childrens issues, said a lack of foster families means there are concerns about whether children will be placed in a safe environment. The courts provide little oversight after an initial hearing when a child is taken into custody. You really need a very robust review at the foster care review, Elsen said. HOLYOKE Mayor Alex B. Morse has proclaimed April Sikh Awareness and Appreciation Month and he marked the occasion with a City Hall flag raising. Gurninder Tony Dhaliwal, the owner of Dinos Pizza on Homestead Avenue, and the mayors staff organized the Saturday morning event, which included City Councilors Linda Vacon, Peter Tallman and David Bartley. Morse and the Sikh community raised the orange and blue Sikh National Flag. Harjinder Singh, who presided over the ceremony, said the principles of Sikhism are equality, justice, and respect for all. Thirty-million people identify themselves as Sikhs, making it the fifth largest religion globally. Around 700,000 of the devoted live in the U.S. The religion traces its origins to the late-15th Century in Punjab, India. Singh said Sikhs pray in the morning and evening for the welfare of all mankind. He added that Guru Nanak Dev, the religions founder, said, Recognize the whole human race as one. Sikhs arrived in America around the late-18th Century, mostly on the West Coast. Although Sikh-Americans have been here that long, theyve been highly misunderstood and regular targets of discrimination, and occasional victims of hate crimes, Singh said. Its ceremonies like this that propagate the message of Sikhism to Americans so that the misrepresentation of Sikhs can be reduced this way. Morse thanked Dhaliwal and the Sikh community for reaching out to his administration. In November 2018, the city remembered the victims of the 1984 Sikh genocide, in which thousands of Sikhs were killed in India. Those historical events remain in many of our hearts and minds in 2019, Morse said. He added that the community and the nation should educate themselves about the Sikh faith. I know in the City of Holyoke we go above and beyond recognizing all aspects of our community. The mayor added, Its not just about one population, one immigrant group, but its about all of us and how we contribute to what makes Holyoke the place we know and love. Morse said Sikhs at home and abroad continue to be targets of hate crimes, violence, and misperceptions. The mayor issued the formal proclamation declaring Sikh Awareness and Appreciation Month. Patricia Duffy attended on behalf of State Rep. Aaron Vega (D-Holyoke). One day, a social worker picked up Marianna Litovichs foster son from daycare and kept the boy for four hours before bringing him home. The social worker refused to tell Litovich where she had taken the boy. I was told I had no right to know. I was immediately demoted from parent to babysitter, said Litovich, of South Hadley, who has adopted two children through the Department of Children and Families and hopes to adopt a third. She has fostered 11 children since 2008, and founded All Our Kids, an organization that supports foster families. But Litovich came close to reaching her breaking point after the daycare incident which came after three occasions when a social worker told her to prepare the boy to be picked up within hours to be moved to a relatives house. Each time, no one came to get him. I felt constantly lied to and disrespected, Litovich said. Problems with the Department of Children and Families made headlines in 2013 after a child under DCF supervision went missing and was found dead. Since then, Gov. Charlie Bakers administration, which took office in 2015, has increased the departments funding by $180 million over four years and added 600 new staff, including social workers and supervisors. But little public attention has been paid to the daily travails of foster families, who say the service they provide in looking after the states most vulnerable children is often repaid with disrespect, a lack of information and bureaucratic hurdles. State officials at DCF and the independent Office of the Child Advocate say they are working to fix the problems. But advocates for foster families say the state is not doing enough. The Legislature is considering bills to create a foster parents bill of rights and to establish an outside office to review foster care placements. The foster parents basically are at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to communication and support, said Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier, D-Pittsfield, who sponsored both bills. In order for us to continue to recruit and retain foster parents, we have to treat them well. Don Treeger / The Republican To talk to foster parents in Massachusetts is to hear a litany of complaints, big and small. Litovich once received notice of a permanency hearing for a child she hoped to adopt. She told the DCF attorney that she planned to attend. She arrived at court, checked in and then waited two hours until someone told her the hearing happened without her. Tracey Levy of Florence fostered two children before adopting them. Often, no one called her after court hearings. She recalled thinking, If its Friday at 3 p.m., there was a hearing at 10 a.m., will I get a call today saying we should pack his bags? It would be nice to know. Levy said she got more useful information from foster parent Facebook groups than from DCF. Paul and Laura Taberner of Duxbury have been fostering children for eight years and adopted two children. They told lawmakers at a public hearing that DCF placed a one-year-old girl with them without telling them the girl was at risk for hepatitis. DCF placed a nine-year-old boy without informing them he had a history of sexualized behavior. Material information was not disclosed, preventing us from taking necessary precautions to protect everyones well-being ours, our foster children and our children, Laura Taberner said. Foster parents say there is a lack of communication about everything from court dates to medical records. Multiple families said they were never told what expenses the department would reimburse them for. One proposed bill would create a foster parents bill of rights, codifying the rights of foster parents to things like access to accurate medical information; a 24-hour emergency hotline; and advance notice when a child is being removed. State Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, who adopted her two children through DCF and sponsored that bill, said this would create a common understanding and a framework for foster parents rights and responsibilities. Another bill would create an external office to review DCF placements. Under federal law, foster care placements must be reviewed every six months to ensure the child is safe and there is a plan toward a permanent home. The reviews are now done by a unit within DCF. June Ameen, director of policy for the advocacy group Friends of Children, said an outside reviewer would provide more transparency and accountability. Right now, we dont have an external check and balance, Ameen said. Kristin Sorensen and her husband, of Waltham, fostered and then adopted two sisters. Sorenson said initially, DCF did not disclose accurate information about her childrens physical and emotional states. At foster care reviews, her concerns about the girls birth parents were brushed off because those issues were not part of a service plan, which outlines the birth parents responsibilities. Multiple times, Sorensen was not given a copy of a review report, which was supposed to be mailed to her. She said it was clear on one occasion that a report was not written until she asked for a copy. When DCF canceled a review because the girls biological mother was grieving her own mother, it was never rescheduled. When the case was bounced between DCF offices as the birth parents moved, details were not recorded. Sorensen and her husband expected the children to be free for adoption within a year. But the adoption took four years, including several months when the girls were returned to their biological parents. Sorensen said the reviews seem to be more of a formality than a chance to examine how the children are doing. It just seems like it was not comprehensive and not with the best interest of the children in mind, Sorensen said. Its more about shuffling paperwork and checking off boxes. Child Advocate Maria Mossaides speaks at a rally to end child marriage. (The Republican file)Staff-Shot State officials are aware of the problems. Maria Mossaides is Massachusetts Child Advocate, a position created to be an independent advocate for children under state care. Mossaides agrees that the foster care review system was broken, but she thinks DCF can fix it. Unless we can prove that the department cant fix the things that are broken, I strongly do not believe taking this external to the department is going to improve the practice, Mossaides said. Mossaides said one major problem was the outdated technology used to track cases, which failed to provide timely notices to families and provided no way to track whether problems identified at reviews were followed up on. DCF is upgrading to a new software system. When fully implemented, the system will mail out notices 30 days in advance and allow online rescheduling. It will send reminders regarding what material must be collected for example, telling a parent to bring proof that they attended a parenting class. If a problem is noted during a review, the system will inform the DCF area director, then track the issue until it is resolved. Mossaides said another problem is a lack of volunteer reviewers, who conduct the reviews with DCF staff. She said DCF is working to recruit more volunteers. DCF is working on allowing adolescents to participate in reviews via conference call from their schools. The agency is also creating a foster care review ombudsman. Mossaides said DCF has had problems for years, exacerbated by budget cuts during the 2008 recession. Today, she said the agency finally has adequate social work staffing and has addressed many of its problems. The foster care issues, she said, are something I know the department is working on. Secretary of Health and Human Services Marylou Sudders said at a recent budget hearing that her office is making an intentional effort to improve foster care, including addressing foster parent communication and resources. She said the department has hired foster care recruiters, leading to an increase of 300 foster homes and 385 kinship homes, where children are placed with relatives. The department in 2017 created a pilot program to better identify kinship placements, and in 2018 got a grant to develop training and resources for kinship caregivers. Adoptions have increased by 22 percent since 2015. The Baker administration has been increasing the stipend for foster parents annually. In 2017, the department launched annual foster parent forums and an e-mail list. It created a new guide for foster parents, conducted a parent survey and developed training for foster care social workers. It is preparing to launch an online portal with foster care information and resources this May. DCF offers an after-hours hotline, free trainings and support groups. Foster parents go above and beyond to care for some of the Commonwealths most vulnerable children, said DCF spokeswoman Andrea Grossman. The Department of Children and Families goal is to find permanent, stable home for kids in our care, and pair children with appropriate foster homes that meet their specific needs. We value and respect all foster parents for the important role they play in the child welfare system, and we are grateful for their ongoing partnership. Grossman said the department has not reviewed the bill to establish a foster parents bill of rights, but the agency is generally supportive of measures that ensure foster parents feel supported, including a potential foster parent bill of rights in Massachusetts. But some say the problems go deeper than what DCF is fixing. Nancy Scannell, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, said the problems are structural. Foster parents go through a period of training and then they are supported in a variety of ways, Scannell said. But the rules, the laws and the regulations and the policies that govern foster care are frankly not that accessible to them. A bill of rights, Scannell said, sets a set of baseline expectations that foster families can have. Jane Lyons, executive director of Friends of Children, said historically, the problems with foster care reviews have been that any recommendations fell into a black hole, so people saw reviews as something that fulfilled federal requirements, rather than a place where issues were being addressed. For example, Lyons said, a review might find a lack of psychiatric care for a child, since some parts of the state have long waits for providers. But the problem would not be documented or addressed. A group of foster parents testified at the Statehouse about the need for a Foster Parents' Bill of Rights on March 26, 2019. (Shira Schoenberg / The Republican) Many foster parents tell stories of behavior by DCF they feel needs outside review. Ardis Fisch is a single mother and physician in Western Massachusetts who adopted two children from DCF and spent $11,000 appealing a DCF decision. Fischs nanny, who was approved by DCF, occasionally brought over her husband while babysitting. When one of the children reported that he acted inappropriately, Fisch immediately notified DCF, the police, and the childs school, and cooperated with an investigation. Fisch was devastated when DCF held her responsible for acts allegedly committed by the nannys husband, and ruled that she was negligent. Their decision was based, she said, on an unclear, undefined regulation relating to who she was required to run a background check on. DCFs decision prevented her from adopting a child with whom her children had already bonded. She has spent the last 16 months trying to reopen her home for foster care. The decision could affect her ability to work in some settings with children. Fisch pursued the case in court. A Superior Court judge overturned DCFs decision, stating in court that he was uncomfortable with it, and that it sent the wrong message, Fisch said. Fisch said she felt she had a duty to pursue the case to represent the other families in similar situations who do not have resources to defend themselves. Barbara Papile, of Rockland, said she has been legally blacklisted by DCF for no valid reason. Papile fostered medically fragile infants for eight years. She said DCF stopped placing children with her, with no formal notification or explanation, after what she described as an incident where she was struggling late at night to obtain prescription formula for a baby with a feeding problem who she brought to the hospital. DCF reports to no one and is not regulated by anyone, Papile said Another foster mother Anne, who asked that her last name not be used for safety reasons, and because she is trying to adopt privately had a foster daughter for three years. She was trying to adopt the girl through DCF. The child had seven DCF social workers during that time; one disagreed with Annes decision to call the girl by a nickname. Anne felt a nickname was necessary for safety since the girls birth parents made threats when their daughter was removed. After the disagreement, DCF moved the girl to a family where her younger brother was placed, although the girl barely knew her brother. Anne petitioned for a court hearing to get the girl back. As the hearing was proceeding, DCF signed an adoption agreement with the other family. My personal experience is, I would tell people please go through private adoption, Anne said. It certainly is very costly ... but you wont have the same uncertainty as to whether you get to keep the child you fall in love with. SPRINGFIELD Police Officer Edwin Irizarry, who was shot twice in a gunfight near a State Street nightclub early Sunday, has been released from the hospital. Irizarry, who was hit once in the left elbow and grazed in the same arm, has been discharged, according to police spokesman Ryan Walsh on Sunday night. A second officer was not injured in the incident, which took place near Club Aquarius. Irizarry joined the department in 2007. Police arrested Kenneth Hernandez, 25, on a variety of charges including two counts of assault with intent to murder with a firearm, assault with a dangerous weapon and carrying a firearm without a license. Officers continue to investigate the shooting and are seeking at least one additional suspect. The two officers were working a private detail at Club Aquarius, located at the corner of State and Benton streets, when managers of the club alerted them to a disturbance outside at about 1:50 a.m. Both responded and found a man across the street in the parking lot of the Dunkin, which was closed. The victim had been attacked by someone armed with a bottle and was bleeding from his head, according to Acting Police Commissioner Cheryl Clapprood. Hernandez is accused of grabbing a gun from a vehicle, during the disturbance. When one of the officers demanded he show his hands, which were behind his back, he pulled out a gun and fired it, Clapprood said. The officers ducked behind a car for cover. While Hernandez was allegedly firing at them, a second person is believed to also have shot at them from the opposite direction, she said. Mayor Domenic J. Sarno said he was incensed that Hernandez, who he said is known to police was allowed to terrorize the city, adding he has been arrested numerous times and at least once on weapons charges. You shake your head and ask why this person was on the street in the first place, the mayor said. Management for Club Aquarius posted on Facebook well wishes for the officer, with the owner saying he has known Irizarry since they were children. Springfield police seized cash and illegal firearms in two separate incidents Saturday evening and Sunday morning. Ryan Walsh, spokesman for the Springfield Police Department said the Strategic Impact Unit under the command of Lt. Scott Richard, arrested two men Saturday night on Sumner Avenue and seized a handgun and cash. Samuel Sevilla, 30, of Palmer and 30-year-old Isaiah Santiago of Holyoke were taken into custody on charges of carrying a firearm without a license. Earlier in the evening, police arrested two people in the 100 black of Chestnut Street and confiscated two illegal firearms. Details about those arrests will be released after the suspects are arraigned in Springfield District Court Tuesday. A fourth illegal handgun was taken following the shooting of Springfield Officer Edwin Irizarry Sunday morning near a nightclub on State Street. Irizarry was wounded in the shooting but has since been released from the hospital. AMHERST - A 24 year-old University of Massachusetts graduate student died Friday night when he was stuck by a car on North Pleasant Street, according to the Northwestern District Attorneys Office. The student, Jaskaran Singh, was killed in the 10:30 p.m. crash, said Mary Carey, communications director for Northwestern DA David Sullivan. The driver of the car stopped immediately and remained at the scene. No charges or citations have been filed against the drive. Amherst police, state police assigned to Sullivans office and the state police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section are continuing to investigate. The campus was notified of the death in an email sent out to students late Sunday by Dean of Students Cara Appel-Silbaugh. On behalf of UMass, we extend our sincere condolences to Jaskarans family and friends who are mourning his untimely death, she wrote. Singh was enrolled as a UMass grad student studying computer science. He was a native of India. When he was seeking the Republican Partys presidential nomination in 2015 and 2016, Donald Trump, at the time a reality TV star, treated immigration as though it were a serious problem that could be solved quite simply. If he were elected, he said, repeatedly, hed build a wall on our nations border with Mexico -- a border of nearly 2,000 miles -- and see to it that Mexico paid for that wall. From the first, it was obvious that Trump was engaged more in political theater than in trying to put forth a legitimate policy proposal. He was a showman working the crowd, and when he found a bit that elicited cheers from the rabble, he milked it for all it was worth. And then some. With Trump, it was always about the show. Still is, too. Just a week after he assumed office, Trump, in a telephone call with then-Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, said: But you cannot say anymore that the United States is going to pay for the wall. I am just going to say that we are working it out. Believe it or not, this is the least important thing that we are talking about, but politically this might be the most important. In other words, it's all a game, just part of the show. And so it was on Friday, with Trump's most recent bit of immigration foolishness. After The Washington Post had reported that the White House had twice over the past several months considered a plan to ship some immigrant detainees to sanctuary cities, but had rejected that proposal not only as unworkable, but also as likely illegal, Trump doubled-down on a losing hand, saying he, in fact, was giving "strong considerations" to the proposal. Quickly, Democrats from coast to coast called his bluff. Consider just one response to Trump's Friday fit of pique, from Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone of Somerville, a city of some 81,000 just northwest of Boston. Fine by me, he wrote on Twitter. But does he realize that the moment after people get placed theyll start moving to wherever they want to go? Every city has an open border. Curtatone knew well that Trump was holding a losing hand and was full of bluster. And he put the president in his place. Further, Curtatone, in a telephone interview with The Washington Post, added: "Somerville has experienced a continuous wave of immigration now for well over a century of Europeans and those from the Caribbean and Central and South America. We speak more than 52 languages in our neighborhoods and our schools. We embrace it." Hear, hear. If Trump wants to learn a little something about immigration, he could stop by Somerville one day to see the vibrant city in action. Better yet, Stephen Miller, the anti-immigration zealot and presidential aide who has been behind so many of the president's worst moves on immigration, could pay Somerville a visit. It was Miller, of course, who was the prime force behind the outrageous travel ban that barred those from several Muslim-majority nations from coming to the United States. That plan, put in place from out of the blue on a Saturday morning just a week into Trump's presidency, created havoc for travelers across the land and around the globe, and put everyone on notice that this administration did not have rational behavior as an item near the top of its to-do list. From the first, though, the White House knew how to create chaos. Because mayhem is a fundamental part of this administration's show that never ends. On occasion, such as when special counsel Robert S. Mueller's redacted report is about to be released, it could even serve something of a purpose, taking over the news cycle and distracting people from what's most important. Though the administrations circus act can still grab peoples attention, at least from time to time and at least for a moment, the citizens ultimately see through the thinning veneer and are again able to focus on the big, sad picture: Trumps anti-immigration administration has no overarching plan and is instead just continuing to make things up as it goes along. AGAWAM - Police are investigating a shooting late Sunday in Feeding Hills that left a man seriously injured, police said. Lt. Edward McGovern of the Agawam Police Department said the shooting was reported just before 11:30 p.m. Sunday at a residence on North Street. Police and EMTs arrived on the scene and found a man suffering from what McGovern described as apparent gunshot wounds. He was rushed to the hospital and underwent emergency surgery. The man is expected to survive. Agawam detectives are investigating the incident and are being assisted by the State Police Detective Unit and Crime Scene Services. McGovern said the investigation is in its earliest stages. He said police had little information to release about the circumstances leading up to the shooting or on any suspects. Anyone with information that could assist police is asked to call the police at 413 786-4768. BOSTON -- Red Sox manager Alex Cora had an unusually busy morning, building a wacky defensive alignment that has Christian Vazquez at second base and Steve Pearce in left field against the Orioles on Monday. There were a lot of thoughts, Cora said. There were a lot of discussions. We feel like were very comfortable, or, comfortable with the guys were playing today. About 90 minutes after releasing the original lineup, Cora made four defensive switches while keeping the order the same. Vazquez moved from catcher to second base, Pearce moved from designated hitter to left field, Blake Swihart moved from left field to catcher and Dustin Pedroia from second base to DH. Theres a few people sick, Cora said. Theyre banged up. Were trying to stay away from certain guys. Its what we have. Cora is trying to stay away from three players-- outfielders Andrew Benintendi (left foot contusion) and Jackie Bradley Jr. (flu) as well as infielder Eduardo Nunez (unknown). Benintendi is unavailable but Nunez and Bradley Jr. (in an emergency) could come off the bench. (Bradley Jr.) lives across the street so if something happens well call him, Cora joked. Vazquez takes ground balls at different spots around the infield as part of his preparation as a catcher. He has only four professional innings at second base (at Single-A in 2010) but is capable of playing in the infield-- as evidenced by his appearance at first base in Game 4 of the World Series last year. He wants to do it. He likes to do it, Cora said. Were going with him. The changes appear to be motivated by keeping Pedroia off the diamond, though Cora said Mondays rainy conditions didnt have any impact on the decision. Instead, the manager wanted to be cautious after having Pedroia play on back-to-back days for the first time this season over the weekend. We have to be disciplined. We were pushing him to play second but it doesnt make sense, Cora said. If something happens today with him, its on us. The only thing we can do, honestly, is DH him and keep him off his feet as much as possible. Not push him so hard. Its a tough start (time), its tough conditions. Coras work might not be done for the day. With a few players in unusual spots, he might make some in-game changes to improve the defense. Dont be surprised if were moving people around the whole game like we did in the World Series, from spot to spot, Cora said. It should be fun." Middle East Christian Broadcaster SAT-7 Announces New CEO Middle East Christian broadcaster SAT-7 has appointed Lebanese-born Rita El-Mounayer as its new chief executive officer (CEO). Lebanese-born Rita El-Mounayer takes over reins from visionary founder Dr. Terence Ascott, heralding "child focused" era for satellite TV ministry NEWS PROVIDED BY SAT-7 April 15, 2019 EASTON, Md., April 15, 2019 /Christian Newswire/ -- Pioneering Middle East Christian broadcaster SAT-7 has announced the appointment of Rita El-Mounayer as its new chief executive officer (CEO). She takes over from visionary SAT-7 founder and longtime CEO Terence Ascott, who will continue as president. Raised in war-torn Lebanon, El-Mounayer a 23-year veteran SAT-7 broadcaster, producer and administrative leader launched the satellite television network's hugely successful Christian children's programming in the Middle East, and is talented both on and off camera. "It's been exciting to see how far (El-Mounayer) has come since the early days, when she scripted, produced and presented SAT-7's first children's programs," said Ascott, who will continue to represent SAT-7 internationally. "I believe she will be exceptional in the CEO role." The satellite network is "bringing a voice and a message that people in the Middle East and North Africa are eager to hear: that there's a God who loves you and forgives you and wants to give you eternal life," said El-Mounayer, who is based on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, SAT-7's broadcasting hub. "If we want to change the Middle East for Christ, we must focus on the children." Believers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are part of what El-Mounayer calls "the invisible, living room church" Christians whose only biblical teaching comes via SAT-7 programs on their living room TV. Many Christ followers in the region have been impacted by turmoil and wars something El-Mounayer understands from her childhood growing up in Lebanon during the country's civil war. "They have all this pain, all this brokenness and hurt, but God is using SAT-7 to bring the Word of God and a message of reconciliation and peace," El-Mounayer said, adding the network also had more than 50 million YouTube hits last year. Recently, the SAT-7 podcast Unconventional Ministry featured an interview with El-Mounayer, affirming her vision for the ministry and her heart for children. The podcast (www.sat7usa.org/unconventional) shares stories of how God is moving in the lives of people in the region, part of what missions groups call the 10/40 Window. "The church in this part of the world has been behind closed doors for years, but now it's time for the church in the Middle East and North Africa to come out of the shadows and take a stand," El-Mounayer said. "This is when media plays such a crucial role, especially in places where there are no visible churches and believers gather around a television." Broadcasting in Arabic, Farsi and Turkish, SAT-7 programs reach a vast potential audience across the Middle East and North Africa, beaming the "good news" into nations such as Iran and Turkey, home to millions who have never heard the gospel. El-Mounayer joined SAT-7 in 1996 and quickly rose through the organization's ranks in the Middle East, presenting the flagship children's program Bedtime Stories and going on to head all SAT-7 children's and Arabic programming. In 2007, her vision and drive supported the launch of SAT-7 KIDS, the first independent Arabic Christian channel for children. She also spearheaded SAT-7's educational programs targeting Syrian refugee children and their parents in Lebanon. Most recently she provided leadership to all SAT-7's channels as Chief Channels and Communication Officer. "I thank God because my role with SAT-7 is not simply 'work' it's a calling," said El-Mounayer, who has a Master's degree in communications from the University of Wales in the UK. "I see my role as encouraging and empowering SAT-7's committed workers around the world, especially those who work so hard behind the scenes. I want them to see the long-lasting significance of what they are doing and their valuable contributions to the higher purpose of changing people's lives." About SAT-7 Launched in 1996, SAT-7 (www.sat7usa.org) - with its international headquarters in Cyprus broadcasts Christian and educational satellite television programs to more than 25 million people in the Middle East and North Africa. Its mission is to make the gospel available to everyone, and support the church in its life, work and witness for Jesus Christ. SAT-7 broadcasts 24/7 in Arabic, Farsi (Persian) and Turkish, using multiple satellite channels and online services. SOURCE SAT-7 CONTACT: Ty Mays, 770-256-8710, tmays@inchristcommunications.com Related Links www.sat7usa.org Share Tweet The National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning for multiple counties in Western Massachusetts early Monday morning. The warning was issued for Franklin, Hampden and Hampshire Counties. The National Weather Service issued the warning after severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from near Middlefield to near Cornwall Bridge, moving east at 45 mph. The storm could bring gusts up to 60 miles per hour and the National Weather Service said to expect damage to trees and power lines" in impacted communities. Issued shortly after 5 a.m., the warning will remain in effect until 6 a.m. A wind advisory and flood watch were previously issued for the region. Several thousand households in Massachusetts woke up without power early Monday morning following a wave of storms that hit the region. Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency reports 5,155 customers were without power as of shortly after 6:30 a.m. Monday. Shortly after 8 a.m., the number more than doubled. MEMA reports 15,261 households are without power as of 8:02 a.m. Outages have followed the wave of storms hitting Massachusetts overnight into Monday morning, with "heavy showers and thunderstorms sweeping across the region through mid morning, the National Weather Service wrote in a discussion of Mondays forecast. Students from a local high school were on a river cruise in Paris Monday as they watched flames engulf the Notre Dame Cathedral and firefighters rush to try and save the historic structure. The students from Bartlett High School in Webster had toured the church in the morning, according to Superintendent Ruthann Petruno-Goguen. Petruno-Goguen said she spoke with trip chaperone Melinda Doherty and confirmed that everyone was safe. Under the direction of Mrs. Doherty our group left the city of Paris and all students contacted their parents to let them know they were safe, Petruno-Goguen wrote in an email. I am pleased to report our chaperone and students handled this crisis situation very well and they are all safe. The superintendent did not say how many students were on the trip and when they would return. More than 400 firefighters have been battling flames for at least three hours. The church, built between 1160 and 1260, may not be saved. A Notre Dame spokesman told French media that the fire spread throughout entire wooden frame of the cathedral and would likely come down. Social media was flooded with photos of the damage, smoke billowing from the French Gothic-style church. Videos circulated of the cathedrals massive spire collapsing into the wreckage. Its possible the fire could be connected to the recent restoration of the church, The Associated Press reported. Statues of the apostles were removed last week for restoration. New Children's Book is a Modern-day Retelling Between The Wizard of Oz and the Prodigal Son in Luke 15 NEWS PROVIDED BY Redemption Press April 15, 2019 In a modern-day retelling between The Wizard of Oz and the Prodigal Son in Luke 15, this delightful children's book Roo, the Kangaroo Cat shows school-age children the importance of home and relationships. Follow Roo, a quirky but curious cat, as he leaves his beloved home to explore his unknown neighborhood and encounters several unexpected adventures and lessons along the way. From her middle school students to high school students to adults, Carol Lester has experienced firsthand the power of reading a picture book. Carol says, "When my beloved father was days away from death, I read Wilfrid Gordon Macdonald Partridge, by Mem Fox, aloud to him. Once I read the last page, my dadvery weak and barely able to speakbegan talking. He told memories of his childhood he had never before shared. Likewise, the reading aloud of children's books to my students unlocked their emotions and memories, which they translated into poems, essays, and other literary expressions." If reading a story aloud to students has the potential to encourage them to write and express their feelings about the world around them, then any educator has unlocked potential within their respective sphere of influence. Current issues like bullying and isolation are relevant among school-age students, and young people experience an increasing pressure to have the latest name-brand clothes, shoes, or electronics. Pick up a copy of Roo, the Kangaroo Cat today and discover how reading it in your classroom or to your kids can change their perspective or encourage them to open up when they might otherwise not see the need. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Carol L. Lester is a published author and has taught secondary English and language arts for over thirty years. She holds teaching certificates in three states, with degrees in education and sport psychology. Now a sport psychologist, she lives with her two cats in San Antonio, Texas. (Saturnthe real-life Roo on whom this story is basedwas a rescue cat of Carol's and lived with her for nearly two years. His sweet spirit and quirky personality brought great joy and blessing.) www.instagram.com/carollester70/ For review copies and media interviews, contact: Carol Lester SOURCE Redemption Press CONTACT: Carol Lester, 360-226-3488, cllbooks21c@gmail.com Related Links www.redemption-press.com ENUMCLAW, Wash., April 15, 2019 / Christian Newswire / -- Who doesn't love reading a good children's book or being read to? As an English teacher, Carol Lester, author of Roo, the Kangaroo Cat, regularly read children's books to her middle and high school students. Her students looked forward to these readings, which led to their insightful, and often emotional, journal responses. Thus, Lester's students served as inspiration for this true story of a cat named Saturn.In a modern-day retelling between The Wizard of Oz and the Prodigal Son in Luke 15, this delightful children's book Roo, the Kangaroo Cat shows school-age children the importance of home and relationships. Follow Roo, a quirky but curious cat, as he leaves his beloved home to explore his unknown neighborhood and encounters several unexpected adventures and lessons along the way.From her middle school students to high school students to adults, Carol Lester has experienced firsthand the power of reading a picture book. Carol says, "When my beloved father was days away from death, I read Wilfrid Gordon Macdonald Partridge, by Mem Fox, aloud to him. Once I read the last page, my dadvery weak and barely able to speakbegan talking. He told memories of his childhood he had never before shared. Likewise, the reading aloud of children's books to my students unlocked their emotions and memories, which they translated into poems, essays, and other literary expressions."If reading a story aloud to students has the potential to encourage them to write and express their feelings about the world around them, then any educator has unlocked potential within their respective sphere of influence. Current issues like bullying and isolation are relevant among school-age students, and young people experience an increasing pressure to have the latest name-brand clothes, shoes, or electronics. Pick up a copy of Roo, the Kangaroo Cat today and discover how reading it in your classroom or to your kids can change their perspective or encourage them to open up when they might otherwise not see the need.ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Carol L. Lester is a published author and has taught secondary English and language arts for over thirty years. She holds teaching certificates in three states, with degrees in education and sport psychology. Now a sport psychologist, she lives with her two cats in San Antonio, Texas.(Saturnthe real-life Roo on whom this story is basedwas a rescue cat of Carol's and lived with her for nearly two years. His sweet spirit and quirky personality brought great joy and blessing.)For review copies and media interviews, contact: Carol Lester cllbooks21c@gmail.com Share Tweet is an AI-driven digital pathology company based in Ohio. Theyre currently working with Worldwide Clinical Trials to fast-track patient enrollment into clinical trials. This week, they announced a successful Series A financing round of $14 million. Since our inception, weve benefited from a tremendous group of investors, which now includes the world class team at Northpond Ventures, said Deep Lens co-founder and CEO Dave Billiter in a press release statement. This Series A financing is further validation of the value of our industry-changing approach to digital pathology in delivering the right cancer diagnoses faster and accelerating oncology trial recruitment and timelines. We wrote about Deep Lens last October after they exited stealth mode and obtained seed equity funding. We caught up again with Dave Billiter and Simon Arkell, co-founder and President, respectively, to gain insight into their funding and future goals towards a better digital pathology service. Ben Ouyang, Medgadget: How did you find the investors for the Series A financing? Deep Lens: The global oncology trials market is approaching $65 billion and Northpond Ventures had been looking at the market. Their analysts completed their review of the market and reached out to us. They realized we were the best vendor in the space because we have a business model that can give us critical mass with pathologists. We can leverage that footprint for its data and have access to patients that can be identified for clinical trials. Medgadget: What will the money help you do? Deep Lens: The financing will aid in us expanding our software development and data science teams, as well as expand marketing and sales headcount. We will be developing more models and methods based upon tumor types and different therapies. We will continue to add more features to the platform to support the workflow of pathologists, clinical research coordinators, principal investigators, and biopharma. The AI methods we have already created have proven to surpass all published literature in terms of accuracy. We will develop more of those and embed them in VIPER so that they can be used to improve pathology uptake and drive further adoption of digital pathology. Without going into our proprietary methods in too much detail, what we can say is that VIPER will be used to identify and match patients to appropriate clinical trials much sooner than any current methods, thereby helping trial sponsors identify more patients and improve recruitment rates, and compress timelines for clinical trials. Medgadget: Have there been any developments in the tech since we spoke last year? Deep Lens: Absolutely. We have added more logic based on a tumor type and AI methods into the workflow of VIPER. We have developed AI that has proven to literally exceed any published literature for tumor identification models in breast cancer and lymphoma. We have also completed enhancements to the image viewer within VIPER. Medgadget: What advice do you have for our readers in getting a technology going? Deep Lens: I would recommend establishing a continuous feedback loop from the end-users and to be extremely focused on the product market fit. We understand this process because VIPER was developed over a period of 10 years and was used by collaborating pathologists on dozens of global studies. We iterated on their feedback and provided a product that found product market fit. Medgadget: Whats the biggest hurdle youre facing right now? Deep Lens: Hiring. We are rapidly expanding our team and finding the right individuals as fast as possible to support scaling our operation. We are looking across a number of industries for software developers, AI data scientists, AI developers, sales, marketing and business development personnel. Related announcement: Deep Lens Closes $14 Million Series A Financing to Further Advance Digital AI Pathology Platform for Clinical Trial Recruitment Link: Deep Lens The global gout therapeutics market is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 15.2% from 2019 to 2026 to reach USD 9,815.6 million by 2026, according to a new market report. The report Gout Therapeutics Market Size, Share, Trends & Analysis Report, By Drug Class (Urate-Lowering Agents, Corticosteroids, Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs [NSAIDs], Colchicine); By Disease Condition (Chronic Gout, Acute Gout); By Region, Segment Forecast, 2019 2026 provides in depth analysis of the current and future market trends. The incidence of gout has witnessed continual growth over the past years. It is majorly caused by uncontrolled metabolic disorder and high level of uric acid in the body. U.S. region is observed to have a high prevalence of gout owing to lifestyle issues such as high alcohol intake, obesity, and smoking resulting in the inflammatory disorder. Attributed to these factors along with the adoption of innovative treatments and increased understanding about arthritic conditions, the market in North America region is observed to be the dominant market across all regions during 2018. While, the Asia Pacific regional market is expected to witness highest growth rate owing to rising healthcare expenditure among the developing economies and significant investments by key players in this region. As per the severity of gout condition recommendations of medications and therapies are made to the respective patients. Multiple pharmaceutical companies have consistently increased the R&D investments to come up with further effective medications. The market for therapeutics of acute and chronic gout has witnessed significant growth over the past years and is expected to continue its growth trend. Although both segments are anticipated to grow, chronic gout segment presently holds major market share. NSAIDs, corticosteroids are among the approved drugs for treating gout condition and are available for purchase over the counter. These drugs are observed to be greatly effective in treating mild gout conditions and are expected to have significant impact on driving the growth in global gout therapeutics market. Moreover, rising preference for combination therapies due to benefits such as speeding up the treatment process, reduction in side effects is also another factor enhancing the market growth. Some of the key players in this market are AstraZeneca, Horizon Pharma plc, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, GlaxoSmithKline plc, Novartis AG, Merck & Co. Inc., Teijin Pharma Limited, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc., JW Pharmaceutical, Selecta Biosciences, Inc., and Grunenthal Group. Companies are also increasingly having their focus on regenerative medicines which is further expected to contribute in the growth of gout therapeutics market. Request Free Sample Report at https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/3907784-gout-therapeutics-market-share-size-trends-analysis-report The global Gout Therapeutics Market has been segmented on the basis of Drug Class, Disease Condition and region: Gout Therapeutics by Drug Class Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 2026) Topical Hemostats Corticosteroids Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs [NSAIDs] Colchicine Gout Therapeutics by Disease Condition Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 2026) Chronic Gout Acute Gout Gout Therapeutics Region Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion, 2015 2026) North America U.S. Canada Europe Germany UK France Italy Spain Belgium Asia Pacific China India Japan South Korea Australia Latin America Brazil Mexico Middle East and Africa Israel South Africa Table of Contents Overview and Scope Executive Summary Global Gout Therapeutics Testing Market Insights Gout Therapeutics Market Size and Forecast by Drug Class Gout Therapeutics Market Size and Forecast by Disease Condition Gout Therapeutics Market Size and Forecast by Regions Company Profiles About Us: Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Contact Us: NORAH TRENT sales@wiseguyreports.com Ph: +1-646-845-9349 (US) Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK) The Global In-Vitro Diagnostics (IVD) Market is projected to register a CAGR 8.16% during the forecast period from 2018 to 2023. In-Vitro Diagnostics (IVD) Market Research Report, By Product & Services (Reagents & Kits, Instruments, Data management software), By Applications (Infectious Diseases,Non-infectious diseases), By End User Global Forecast Till 2023 This projects above-average growth for the market. In-vitro diagnostics include tests which are performed on tissue, blood or other samples taken from the human body and are used extensively for the testing of a large number of medical problems. Valued at USD 69,284.16 Mn in 2017, the global in-vitro diagnostics report is expected to grow to generate a market value of USD 102,555.24 Mn by the end of 2023. This MRFR perspective presents a detailed analysis of the global market for in-vitro diagnostics along with a five-year revenue for, until 2023. An exhaustive discussion on all the key market elements (drivers, restraints, growth trends and opportunities) is available in the research documents. The scope of the discussion also covers various IVD product & services such as reagents & kits, instruments and data management software. IVD technologies mentioned in the document include immunoassay/immunochemistry, molecular diagnostics, clinical chemistry, microbiology and hematology. Revenue analysis based on IVD application is also available in the report. Academic institutes, hospitals, and laboratories are analyzed under end-user market opportunity. To Get Free Sample Copy Visit https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1165 In-vitro diagnostics (IVD) combines the application of reagents, medical devices and accessories for performing complex test procedures on biological specimens such as tissue, blood and urine taken from human body. In-vitro diagnostics is increasingly used for diagnosis of medical conditions and detection of infection. IVD has emerged as an important medical technology for overcoming challenges faced in diagnosis and management of diseases. Such factors are supporting the growth of the global IVD market. IVD is more precise than conventional test procedures and thereby gaining a quick popularity. In fact, many of the modern test procedures cannot be carried out without using IVD technology. Medical diagnostic device manufacturers are likely to capitalized on the market opportunity that has emerged. Demand for IVD services has grown substantially in recent years, which is attributable to the rising number of private diagnostics centers. Moreover, advances in diagnostics technology coupled with the expanding global geriatric population, which is necessitating faster and more accurate diagnosis is likely to provide an impetus to the in-vitro diagnostics market in the forthcoming years. Other factors such as increased occurrence of chronic diseases and acceptance of molecular diagnostics in personalized medicines have also raised the importance of IVD. In-Vitro Diagnostics Industry Updates: In September 2018, OptraSCAN, a leading end-to-end digital pathology solution provider, has announced that its whole-slide scanners have received CE Mark approval for in-vitro diagnostics use. The market is immensely growing due to the increasing demand for advanced diagnostic techniques. Additional factors that influence the market growth are increasing technological advancement in healthcare that supports the desired results, further increasing the market growth. Moreover, the government funding to encourage the adoption of in-vitro diagnostic are pervasively fostering the market growth. On the other hand, factors such as the lack of proper reimbursement policies in the developing countries and strict FDA regulations are obstructing the market growth. Regional Analysis Global In-Vitro Diagnostics Market The in-vitro diagnostics market has been covered across North America, Europe, South America, the Middle East & Africa (MEA) and Asia Pacific (APAC). North America and South America collectively accounted for close to 40% share of the market in 2017. North America, in particular, is expected to remain highly lucrative market for in-vitro diagnostics. Easier accessibility along with high healthcare expenditure has a positive impact on the regions market. The market in Asia-Pacific is likely to increase at a relatively higher CAGR over 2023. Key Players Global In-Vitro Diagnostics Market The prominent players profiled by MRFR in the report on the global in-vitro diagnostics market are Abbott (the U.S.), F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd (Switzerland), Biomerieux (France), Ortho Clinical Diagnostics (the U.S.), Johnson & Johnson (the U.S.), Siemens Healthcare GmbH (Germany), Sysmex (Japan), Becton Dickinson (the U.S.), Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (the U.S.), Accelerate Diagnostics (the U.S.), Hycor Biomedical (the U.S.), Diagnostic Biosystems (the U.S.), Eurogentec (Belgium), Orgentec Diagnostics (US), Immunarray PVT. LTD (the U.S.), Werfen Group (Spain), Danaher Corporation (the U.S.), Bio-Rad Laboratories INC (the U.S.), Stago Diagnostica (France), Alere Inc (the U.S.) and others. Segmentations Global In-Vitro Diagnostics Market MRFRs report includes a through segmental analysis of the global in-vitro diagnostics market based on product & services, technology, application and end-user. Based on product & services, the market has been segmented into reagents & kits, instruments, and data management software. In 2017, the reagents and kits segment accounted for the largest market share. The segment is expected retain its top position over 2023, exhibiting a CAGR of 9.34%. By technology, the market has been segmented into immunoassay/ immunochemistry, clinical chemistry, molecular diagnostics, microbiology and hematology. The clinical chemistry segment currently commands for more than one-third share of the market. This is primarily owing to the rapid integration of advanced technologies in clinical diagnostics. To Browse Complete Report visit https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/in-vitro-diagnostics-market-1165 Meanwhile, the molecular diagnostics segment is projected to capture the highest during the assessment period. By application, the market has been segment into infectious diseases, and non-infectious diseases. In 2017, the infectious diseases segment accounted for over 60% of the market share. High prevalence of infectious disease is the primary driver of the segments growth. By end user, the market has been segmented into hospitals, laboratories and academic institutes. The hospitals segment holds the most dominant position a majority of test are performed in hospitals. Hospitals continue to witness high patient influx despite the growing number of diagnostics centers. Some Brief Table of Contents of Report Chapter 1. Report Prologue Chapter 2. Market Introduction 2.1 Definition 2.2 Scope Of The Study 2.2.1 Research Objective 2.2.2 Assumptions 2.2.3 Limitations Chapter 3. Research Methodology 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Primary Research 3.3 Secondary Research 3.4 Market Size Estimation Chapter 4. Market Dynamics 4.1 Drivers 4.2 Restrains 4.3 Opportunities 4.4 Challenges 4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators 4.6 Technology Trends & Assessment Chapter 5. Market Factor Analysis 5.1 Porters Five Forces Analysis 5.1.1 Bargaining Power Of Suppliers TOC Continued To Get an Exclusive Discount on Report Visit https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/check-discount/1165 LIST OF TABLE TABLE 1 MARKET SYNOPSIS 19 TABLE 2 LIST OF ASSUMPTIONS 21 TABLE 3 PERSONALIZED THERAPY AUTHORIZED IN GERMANY 31 TABLE 4 GLOBAL IN-VITRO DIAGNOSTICS MARKET, BY PRODUCT & SERVICES 2015-2023 (USD MILLION) 40 TABLE 5 GLOBAL IN-VITRO DIAGNOSTICS MARKET FOR REAGENTS & KITS, BY REGION 2015-2023 (USD MILLION) 41 Continued LIST OF FIGURE FIGURE 1 GLOBAL IN-VITRO DIAGNOSTICS MARKET: MARKET STRUCTURE 22 FIGURE 2 RESEARCH PROCESS OF MRFR 24 FIGURE 3 TOP-DOWN & BOTTOM-UP APPROACH 27 FIGURE 4 VALUE CHAIN 38 FIGURE 5 GLOBAL IN-VITRO DIAGNOSTICS MARKET, BY PRODUCT & SERVICES 2017 & 2023 (USD MILLION) 40 FIGURE 6 GLOBAL IN-VITRO DIAGNOSTICS MARKET, BY TECHNOLOGY 2017 & 2023 (USD MILLION) 44 Continued 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), Statistical Report, Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. Contact Us: Market Research Future Hadapsar, Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India Phone: +1 646 845 9312 Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message. Negative Pressure Wound Therapy Market- Segmental Analysis The global negative pressure wound therapy market has been segmented on the basis of wound type, product type, end-user, and region. By mode of product type, the global negative pressure wound therapy market has been segmented into single-use negative pressure wound therapy devices, conventional negative pressure wound therapy devices, and accessories. Among these, the conventional segment is considered to account for the largest market share owing to the ability of conventional negative pressure wound therapy devices to manage severe wound exudates. Get Premium Free Sample Report at https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/6514 By mode of wound type, the global negative pressure wound therapy market has been segmented into ulcers, surgical and traumatic wounds, and burns. Among these, the ulcers segment has been further sub-segmented into venous ulcers, diabetic foot ulcers, pressure ulcers, and others. Surgical and traumatic wounds account for the largest market share owing to the increasing prevalence of such wounds coupled with an increasing spending on surgical and chronic wounds. By mode of end-users, the global negative pressure wound therapy market has been segmented into home care settings, hospitals, and others. Among these, the hospitals segment is considered to account for the largest market share owing to the high number of surgeries performed in hospitals. Negative Pressure Wound Therapy Market Synopsis The global negative pressure wound therapy is predicted to register 6.7% CAGR during the forecast period (2018-2023) owing to the rising prevalence of chronic diseases, asserts Market Research Future (MRFR). NPWT, also known as negative-pressure wound therapy is referred to as a sealed wound-care system, majorly indicated for acute complicated wounds and large chronic persistent wounds. The system comprises a foam dressing and a controlled pump which drains out the wound. Negative pressure is applied around the wound which promotes healing. Such devices are used to manage chronic and acute wounds like venous ulcers, diabetic ulcers, pressure ulcers, arterial ulcers, and first- and second-degree burns. The therapy heals wound by applying vacuum through a sealed wound dressing. The vacuum further draws out the debris and fluid from the wound and helps to increases blood supply to the affected area. Competitive Dashboard The prominent players operating the global negative pressure wound therapy market are Lohmann & Rauscher International GmbH & Co. Kg, Talley Group, Genadyne, Smith & Nephew, Medela, DeRoyal Industries Inc., Molnlycke Health Care AB (A Subsidiary of Investor AB), ACELITY L. P. Inc., Cardinal Health, and ConvaTec Group Plc. Drivers and Constraints Impacting the Market With rising prevalence of chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes, increasing spending on surgical and chronic wounds, and growing causalities caused by accidents and trauma, the global negative pressure wound therapy is considered to propel during the forecast period. For instance, as per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, around 2.8 million people were hospitalized due to injuries in 2015. The augmenting rate of caesarean sections in elderly mothers is likely to accelerate the post-operative use of NPWT devices. Moreover, with the growing use of simplified single-use devices, the negative pressure wound therapy market is considered to propel during the forecast period. Additionally, the rise of hospitals with enhanced services for wound care is further anticipated to trigger the demand for NPWT across the globe. On the flip side, the high cost associated with the therapy over conventional wound therapy coupled with a dearth of trained healthcare professionals are some of the major concerns anticipated to impede the market growth during the appraisal period. Also, absence of proof of clinical adequacy is predicted to restrict the market growth in the coming years. Industry Updates December 07, 2018: An Acelity Company, KCI has recently announced the launch of the V.A.C.RX4 Therapy System in the United States. The V.A.C.RX4 System has been initially developed at the request of the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Air Force in order to help the military personnel treat multiple battlefield wounds with a single negative pressure wound therapy. Browse Complete 100 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with 82 Respective Tables and Figures at https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/negative-pressure-wound-therapy-market-6514 Negative Pressure Wound Therapy Market Regional Insights Geographically, the negative pressure wound therapy market span across regions namely, Europe, Americas, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East and Africa. Among all the regions, America is anticipated to dominate the global negative pressure wound therapy market. The growth is attributed to the presence of well-developed healthcare sector, augmenting rate of accidents, increasing prevalence of diabetes, and rising expenditure of the healthcare sector. The European region is presumed to account for the second largest position owing to the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases and accelerating occurrences of burn cases and accidents. The Asia-Pacific region is anticipated to exhibit the fastest growth rate due to the presence of a huge population base of diabetic patients coupled with the rising developments in the healthcare segment. About US: Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. Contact Us: Market Research Future Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar, Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India Phone: +1 646 845 9312 Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com by Karlene Lukovitz @KLmarketdaily, April 15, 2019 Pancheros Mexican Grill, a fast-casual burrito chain with more than 70 locations across 13 states, has launched a brand campaign spanning television, video, social, audio and digital marketing channels. The chain, which brought on Ryan Murrin, Chipotles former head of advertising, as its new vice president of marketing and franchise development last September, is ramping up marketing to support expansion plans for 2019 and beyond. The campaigns creative -- developed with its AOR, Madison, Wisc.-based agency Planet Propaganda -- includes three, 15-second montage spots featuring footage of the products being made intercut with clips from cartoons, whimsical historical and animal footage, and some original animation (above). Each ad focuses on a Pancheros differentiator: fresh-pressed tortillas, fresh, perfectly mingled burrito ingredients, and spicy queso sauce (below). The campaign will run through the end of 2019. The chain was founded in 1992 by Rodney Anderson, starting in Iowa City, Iowa. by Larissa Faw , April 15, 2019 Publicis Groupe's first-quarter 2019 earnings were impacted by key clients like Procter & Gamble cutting back on traditional advertising and bringing more media capabilities in-house. The Groupe's North America net revenue has been particularly affected by the attrition of major CPG clients, representing around 3% revenue impact on the region's performance. Publicis must adapt to follow the lead of P&G as the worlds largest advertiser, spending $10 billion a year -- which is one reason the Groupe is acquiring Epsilon for $4.4 billion. "Realized at compelling financial terms, the transaction will make us fully equipped with truly end-to-end suite solutions to address the increasingly complex needs of our clients in a fast-changing, data-driven marketing environment," stated Publicis Groupe CEO/Chairman Arthur Sadoun. advertisement advertisement Publicis Groupes year-over-year net revenue in the first quarter was in line with expectations, totaling 2.12 billion ($2.4 billion), up 1.7%. The Groupe posted an organic revenue decline of 1.8% during the first quarter. North America net revenue was essentially flat on a reported basis with an organic revenue decline of 4.3%. In addition to advertiser spending cutbacks, the Groupes first-quarter numbers were impacted by a handful of media agency client losses from 2018. Net revenue in Europe was up 3.1%, with Italy recording double-digit growth at 28.4%. It was the opposite for Germany, where the drop was at 10.1%. Asia-Pacific net revenue was up 4% on a reported basis and 1.2% on an organic basis. Latin America recorded net revenue down 8.3% on a reported basis, and down 6.3% on an organic basis. Clients seeking the full-stacked service combining data, dynamic creativity and business transformation recorded a 27% rise in the quarter. Looking forward, the Groupe believes the pace of attrition will slow down in the second half of 2019. In addition, a number of major pitch wins in 2018 will start to ramp up in the second quarter, noted Sadoun. by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, April 15, 2019 The ad industry is weighing in against a new privacy proposal in Texas that would require companies to obtain consumers' opt-in consent before drawing on data about them, including information used for ad targeting. The Texas Privacy Protection Act (HB 4390), introduced last month, would apply to information collected electronically that can be linked to individual users. The measure is so sweeping that as currently drafted, it wouldn't only require companies to obtain opt-in consent before using data to target ads, but would also require consumers' explicit consent to use data for fraud prevention and internal operations, according to ANA Executive Vice President Dan Jaffe. advertisement advertisement "We have real problems with this legislation," Jaffe says. "The opt-in provisions are exceptionally broad in this bill." The Association of National Advertisers, Interactive Advertising Bureau, American Advertising Federation. American Association of Advertising Agencies, and Network Advertising Initiative add in a letter to Texas lawmakers that passage of the bill will result in a decline in targeted advertising. Without the ability to effectively advertise online due to opt-in consent barriers, revenues will be impacted and companies that rely on such revenue may no longer be able to support free and low cost content and services that Texans desire, such as online newspapers, social networking sites, mobile applications, email, and phone services, the ad industry writes in a letter sent last week. As a result, companies will be forced to charge consumers higher prices or create pay-walls that will disproportionately impact less affluent Texans. The ad industry also says an opt-in consent system fails consumers by forcing them to read thousands of pages of terms and conditions and endlessly click 'I Accept.' The groups add that the constant requests for consent will frustrate consumers and also desensitize them, which will reduce their sense of control over their privacy. Texas lawmakers are also considering a separate bill, the Texas Consumer Privacy Act (HB 4518), which is similar to the new California privacy law. The Texas Consumer Privacy Act would give consumers the right to know what information about them is held by businesses, opt out of the sale of that information, and require companies to delete the data. Losing a loved one is, of course, incredibly traumatic; it may also shorten lifespan. A recent paper reviews decades worth of research into bereavement and its effects on the immune system. Share on Pinterest A recent paper discusses loss and the immune system. For years, researchers and laypeople alike have noted that when someone loses a partner, their risk of mortality increases significantly. In days gone by, we might have referred to this as a death from a broken heart. The phenomenon has been under investigation for decades . For instance, researchers using data from a Finnish population published their findings in 1987. They found that For all natural causes, mortality during the first week [following the death of a spouse] was over two-fold, compared to expected rates. Another study, published in 1995, concluded that, following the death of a spouse, mortality was significantly elevated in both men and women. This elevation was most pronounced 712 months after the bereavement. Although scientists have collected a fair amount of evidence demonstrating this effect, there is less information about the biological mechanism that drives it. Bereavement and the immune system Now, a literature review has attempted to tie previous findings together to create a clearer picture of this phenomenon. Specifically, the authors were interested in how bereavement and grief might negatively influence the immune system, thereby increasing mortality risk. The authors, from the University of Arizona, in Tucson, recently published their paper in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine. The researchers conducted a systematic review of published research from 1977 to now. In all, 33 studies met the grade to be considered for analysis and the scientists focused on 13, which were of the highest quality. When asked why they conducted the research, one of the authors, Lindsey Knowles, explained that There is strong evidence that spousal bereavement increases morbidity and risk for early mortality in widows and widowers; however, we have yet to discover how the stress of bereavement impacts health. It was in the late 1970s that scientists started looking to the immune systems role in increased mortality risk after bereavement. A paper published in The Lancet in 1977 claims to be the first to measure an abnormality in immune function following bereavement. 'Game Of Thrones' has a cult following for a lot of reasons. One of which is the fact that the show has stellar costumes that look authentic to the timeline they shoot in. However, wearing such context-heavy costumes comes at a heavy price. Sometimes, the fabric or the design was so uncomfortable that the actors could do nothing but sit through long and tiresome shooting hours. Maisie Williams, in a recent interview with a leading publication revealed that the prep for 'Game Of Thrones', aside from the strenuous shooting in extremely cold locations, also had to deal with uncomfortable straps and bellies. For Maisie Williams, as Arya Stark in the initial few seasons, had to wear a strap across her chest to hide her breasts. At 15, while normal teenage girls had crushes and an awkward teenage life, Maisie Williams had to wear a strap and hide her breasts for long shoot hours as her character Arya, was pretending to be a boy in the series. And after the strap stopped working, Maisie Williams had to wear a "chubby belly" to "even out the playing field" so no one( other characters) would suspect her a girl on the show. HBO It was only in the sixth season that the costume designers decided to let Arya grow on the show so they gave a bra to Maisie Williams as a part of the costume. This made the costume in general so much more comfortable for Maisie Williams. Fashion has some questionable tenets, but the two we stand by are: All-black ensembles are amazing, AND Henley t shirts look good on everyone. Henley t shirts, in particular, are a wardrobe staple that all men ought to be investing in. After all, they can help take even a relatively simple pair of denim jeans a notch higher into the 'stylish' territory when teamed up with a henley tee. But even after knowing about its utility, you might not know where to start your search for the perfect henley t shirt, as there is an abundance of options online. So if you are looking for investing in the best henley t shirts for men, that are also budget friendly without compromising on quality, then we are here to aid you in your search. These t shirts are size inclusive, and will also make you look fashion-forward AF! Check Out The Most Stylish Henley T Shirts You Could Own 1. Tuck N Stitch Bottle Green Polo T-shirt MensXP This bottle green henley tee is perfect for an understated, yet stylish ensemble. The white stripes running across it, with the contrasting black chest pocket, gives it an extra edge that sets it apart from other basic variants. As for those concerned about its fitting, this henley t-shirt comes in a regular fit, so there is no need to size up. To sum up, if you are looking to invest in some quality t-shirts for your wardrobe, this makes for a great choice. Fabric Composition: Cotton MRP: Rs. 1,590 Buy it here 2. Kalt - Men's Half Sleeves Henley Neck T-Shirt Amazon While henley neck full sleeve t shirts are perfect to wear under a jacket during winters, the half-sleeved variant is more useful for summers and the sweltering heat that comes with it. This half sleeved henley variant by Kalt is of good quality and budget friendly to boot, perfect for those who don't want to shell out much, but still want a t-shirt that isn't in tatters after the first wash. The fit is also comfortable, and we won't really recommend sizing up or sizing down, just consult the size chart once, and you'll be good to go. Fabric Composition : Cotton blend MRP : Rs. 349 Buy it here 3. CHKOKKO - Casual Round Henley T Shirt Amazon CHKOKKO offers this henley t shirt in a variety of colours, that too at affordable prices, making it perfect for those of you who like the design but would prefer a different colour. The t shirt is durable and machine washable, ensuring that the colour will stay intact after the first wash. This is a good addition to your summer wardrobe as it is light and breezy. You can team it up with a black chinos or a pair of washed denim jeans. Fabric Composition : 60% cotton and 40% polyester MRP: Rs. 499 Buy it here 4. Calvin Klein Men's Henley T Shirt Amazon For the brand-conscious beings, this henley tee by Calvin Klein makes for a great addition to your wardrobe. This is a navy blue variant, so you will be hitting two birds with one stone - getting a wardrobe staple AND a branded item too boot. While it may be on the pricier side, you should keep in mind that it is made of pure cotton and has Calvin Klein's stamp on it, making it one of the best henley t shirts for men that won't lose its appeal anytime soon. Fabric Composition: Pure cotton MRP: Rs. 2,799 Buy it here 5. House & Shields Men's Henley T-Shirt Amazon This maroon henley is perfect for an understated yet modish look. However, if you don't prefer the colour maroon, this henley is available in other colours as well, so you should definitely check those out. For those concerned about the size, this henley tee has a slim fit, so we suggest sizing up one size from what you usually get. Unlike some high priced high street brand options, this henley is actually budget friendly as well, giving you no reasons to not invest in it. Fabric Composition: Pure cotton MRP : Rs. 454 Buy it here 6. Red Tape - Men's Regular Fit T-Shirt Amazon If you're bored of solid coloured henley t shirts, and are more interested in something different that also isn't too over-the-top, then this offering from Red Tape is perfect for you. The raglan sleeves give it just the right dosage of uniqueness to stand out from other t-shirts in your wardrobe. Made of pure cotton, this variant is definitely as soft as it looks. It is also available in pink and blue, so you can choose whichever colour you want according to your own preferences. Fabric Composition: Pure cotton MRP : Rs. 479 Buy it here 7. LAZYCHUNKS Full Sleeves Henley T-Shirt Amazon When it comes to casual wear, LAZYCHUNKS happens to be a great, budget-friendly brand. As such, this black variant makes for yet another kickass addition to your wardrobe, especially since you can effortlessly team it up with either cargo shorts or well-fitted denims. Also, this particular tee is available in a wide range of colours (including, but not limited to, black, green, sky blue, and charcoal grey), so you can get one that best matches your aesthetic and personality. Fabric Composition : Pure cotton MRP : Rs. 449 Buy it here 8. United Colors of Benetton Solid Henley Neck T-Shirt Amazon United Colors of Benetton's brand name may make it seem like this henley tee would be costly, but it is actually available at an affordable rate. It comes in four different shades, including electric blue and maroon variants that are perfect for those looking to break from the monotony of black, white and grey t shirts, without having to experiment too much. We suggest pairing this with well-fitted jeans or shorts, along with a pair of loafers, for an Insta-worthy #OOTD. Fabric Composition : Cotton MRP: Rs. 799 Buy it here 9. Stitch Studios Men's Henley T-Shirt Amazon For its price, this is possibly one of the best henley neck full sleeve t shirts you could own. This henley variant comes in various colours, so your preference for a particular colour can definitely be satisfied! As mentioned above, it is also budget friendly, so you won't need to shell out much to get your hands on it. As such, you should pair this with either light blue jeans or a pair of black chinos (depending on the colour of the t-shirt you opt for) for a cohesive yet modish ensemble. Fabric Composition : Cotton blend MRP: Rs. 399 Buy it here 10. GESPO Men's Henley Neck T-Shirt Myntra There is a reason why nautical stripes are always in fashion, and this variant from Roadster, which is also one of the best henley t shirts for men on the market, proves just why that is the case. Apart from being incredibly budget-friendly, it is also quite comfortable (owing to its fabric composition) and will add a pop of colour to your wardrobe. Pair this up with black chinos and navy blue loafers for casual yet arresting ensemble. Fabric Composition: Pure cotton MRP : Rs. 719 Buy it here 11. H&M Cotton jersey Henley shirt H&M To be honest, H&M is our favorite place for reasonably-priced basics. If you too are biased in your love for H&M, then do check out this henley neck variant from their collection. The dark red colour of this henley will give you a certain elegance. Wear it with a pair of faded blue jeans, and dark brown sandals, and you've got yourself a cultured but not pretentious man-about-town look. If you're planning to opt for a funkier look, you can also pair it up with some coloured or printed socks and loafers. Fabric Composition : Pure cotton MRP : Rs. 799 Buy it here 12. WROGN - Henley T Shirt Jabong This is one of those henley full sleeve t shirts which is perfect for anyone planning on moving away from basics, one step at a time. We suggest pairing this with jeans for a polished look and with shorts for a casual weekend look. This is a slim fit henley t shirt, so please consult the size guide before ordering it. Investing in this piece is a decision you can definitely not go wro(n)gn with (pun intended!). Fabric Composition : Cotton MRP: Rs. 559 Buy it here Read More: Best Lacoste T shirts for men Best plain black t shirts for men Organic Cotton T-shirts JOURNALIST: Minister, which stage are we at in the formation of committees between Greece and North Macedonia on the issue of trademarks and schoolbooks? G. KATROUGALOS: The committee on books has already been formed and will carry out significant work. New schoolbooks will be published in North Macedonia as of this coming September, free from any kind of irredentism. One of the most significant changes is the reference to Ancient Macedonia as an integral part of Greek culture, as specified in the Prespa Agreement. The committee on trademarks will be formed around mid-May. It will consist of representatives from the competent ministries of Foreign Affairs, Finance & Development, and Agricultural Development, as well as international experts. As part of the preparations, there will be regular consultations with the business world and chambers of Northern Greece, as well as other stakeholders. JOURNALIST: The government recognises the political cost from the Agreement. Do you believe you will be able to convince all those bona fide critics who criticise its benefits by the elections? G. KATROUGALOS: I have no doubt as to this. The meaning of the Agreement is gradually being understood; an honest compromise that satisfied the essence of the national interests of both sides, removing once and for all the venom of suspicion. And as time goes by, the financial benefits for the country are becoming clearer, and especially for our Macedonia, as we have taken on once again a leading position in the Balkan economic area. JOURNALIST: Mr Mitsotakis is insisting that you traded off the Macedonia issue for the pensions. G. KATROUGALOS: Mr Mitsotakis had invested in the pension cuts and his investment fell through, as has been the case with all previous doomsday lamentations. He was never able to create a positive agenda and the Greek people will be the judge of this. JOURNALIST: You recently returned from the USA [that you visited] in the context of the Strategic Dialogue. Where are we at? Why are some saying that the USA has put a freeze on this due to our countrys stance towards Maduro. G. KATROUGALOS: Right from the start we strove for the European Union to speak as one, so as to promote a democratic and peaceful escape from the crisis in Venezuela through dialogue. We worked together on a European proposal and we are trying to play an active role in this process. We are talking to both sides. As a matter of fact, we are expecting the representative of the National Assembly president in Athens for talks in April. The USA follow a different practice and approach than that of the EU and ours. However, in no way does this mean that there has been a freeze on the Greek-US relations, which are better than ever, as they are based on aligning interests in the area of the Balkans and in the Eastern Mediterranean. The strategic dialogue is continuing systematically and is constantly being upgraded, while the international prestige and positive role of Greece is recognised by the US leadership. During our recent meeting in Washington, the US Deputy Secretary of State, Mr Sullivan, praised the stabilising role of Greece in the region, while just recently Vice President Pence congratulated the Prime Minister on the economic recovery of our country and the Prespa Agreement. JOURNALIST: Are all these connected to the US-Turkish relations? G. KATROUGALOS: They are mainly connected to the fact that as a stable and democratic force, but also as an exporter of stability, Greece is filling a significant security vacuum in the Eastern Mediterranean. Key tools to this end are the multiple trilateral cooperation configurations we have developed with the Republic of Cyprus. Obviously, Turkeys ambiguous stance towards the West constitutes an additional instability factor that is troubling the USA and is highlighting the strategic significance of our country. A strategic analyst described the US policy in the Eastern Mediterranean as a huge oil tanker slowly shifting away from Turkey towards Greece. However, these trends have not crystallized yet and require prudence in the exercise of our foreign policy, which will continue to be multidimensional and balanced. JOURNALIST: Ms May requested a new extension for the Brexit. How should the EU react from this point onwards? G. KATROUGALOS: The prudent and democratic stance proposed by the Greek Prime Minister has already been adopted, extending the process for finding a solution until the end of October. Our goal is not to exert power, but to seek common ground and consent, he said in the recent EU summit. This is also the stance adopted by J. Corbyn, the Labour Partys leader, who is for a soft Brexit, with the prospects for a Bremain still open, provided such a movement is created in Britain, which will have the potential to reverse the referendum result. JOURNALIST: The SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance (Proodeutiki Simachia) configuration is a reality. However, it is being hammered by the Opposition forces, which consider your allies has-been hawkers. G. KATROUGALOS: This type of criticism shows panic and bewilderment, if not a decision to align with the powers of conservatism and neo-liberalism. The truth is that the political scene was tectonically rearranged after Prespa and it essentially oriented itself towards the European state of affairs. In Europe, two different views about Europe are clashing in the upcoming elections: one of them expresses this paradoxical union between neo-liberalism and the extreme right, while the other the social Europe, the open societies, the freedoms and the rights. So the stakes and the political fronts in our country are shaping in much the same, bipolar way. SYRIZA is the democratic and progressive pole, which expresses the majority of the Left and Centre Left wings. At the same time, we are trying to enter or strike instrumental partnerships with as many related powers or personalities that are aligned with our strategic choices as possible, but also form platform partnerships with parties of bordering political areas. Provided they choose to stand on the right side of History. JOURNALIST: Can SYRIZA win the European elections? G. KATROUGALOS: Victory in every election is the sole target of all parties in power, such as SYRIZA. I consider this target very realistic. JOURNALIST: Is the 26 May battle a referendum for your government? G. KATROUGALOS: It is a referendum for the future of Europe and a significant political test. However, governments are judged in parliamentary elections. I am quite optimistic when it comes to those. The people both remember and can judge. Minister of Foreign Affairs Giorgos Katrougalos will be making a working visit to Japan on Monday 15 and Tuesday 16 April. r. Katrougalos visit coincides with the 120-year anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. It is also the first visit by a Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs since 1996. On Tuesday 16 April, the Minister of Foreign Affairs will meet with his Japanese counterpart, Taro Kono. The discussion will focus on international and regional matters, including developments in the Balkan and Korean peninsulas. The two Minister will also discuss ways to upgrade and intensify contacts between the two countries on a political and diplomatic level, as well as strengthen bilateral relations, centring on the investments, tourism, shipping, entrepreneurship, culture and cooperation, in the context of the upcoming 2020 Olympic Games. Mr Katrougalos will also meet with business and economic organisations, and representatives from the Japanese Media. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 15) After months of delay, President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday has finally signed the proposed national budget for 2019. However, the President rejected 95.3 billion of the 3.757 trillion appropriation. A copy of the President's veto message, however, has yet to be released. According to Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, the vetoed amount was allocated for programs that are not among the administration's priority initiatives. "The President, among others, vetoed 95.3 Billion pesos items of appropriations in the details of DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways) Programs/Projects, which are not within the programmed priorities," Medialdea said. Both the Senate and House ratified the 2019 General Appropriations Act in February, but the proposal's enactment was delayed due to a tiff on supposed unauthorized "insertions." Senate President Vicente "Tito" Sotto III and other senators had previously denounced the 75 billion worth of programs and projects under the DPWH budget that were itemized by the House of Representatives after the bicameral conference committee report was ratified. Senator Ping Lacson, who denounced the insertions and likened them to pork barrel, lauded Duterte and his economic managers over the budget's passage. "I have to see the veto message first although I think it is safe to assume that at least most if not all of the P75 (billion) worth of items as listed by (Senate President) Sotto was part of the president's veto message. It is that, or the P20 (billion) plus insertions made by some senators was included as well. Either way, it is victory for the Filipino taxpayers," Lacson said in a statement. House Appropriations Committee Chairperson Rolando Andaya Jr., who first introduced the insertions in December 2018, said he will wait for the veto message to be released. "There are many kinds of veto. It has many variants. There is the direct veto, and the conditional veto. The president can also place several provisions under conditional implementation and attach requisites before an appropriations can be released so that such act complies with the laws," he said. He also questioned the "celebratory mood" of some senators over the deletion of the itemized programs and projects. "Does this mean that the Senate pork remains intact? Could this be the reason for their celebratory mood," Andaya said. But House Majority Floor Leader Fredenil Castro said the lower House will accept the President's decisions. "We will abide with the President's decision and respect the thorough study made by his team after all factors were considered. With the signing, we can all buckle down to work and start implementing the President's priority projects for the Filipino people," Castro said in a statement. The government has been operating on a reenacted 2018 budget for four months since Congress' failure to pass the budget bill. Malacanang said the earlier scheduled ceremonial signing may be pushed back until after the Holy Week, pending the President's review. Duterte had reiterated that he would not sign an 'illegal' budget. The senators said the insertions were illegal, but House members maintained they did not do anything wrong. READ: The struggle for the 2019 national budget According to Director of the European-American Market Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ta Hoang Linh, the two-way trade revenue between the two countries expanded at 10% over recent years. Total import-export revenue between Vietnam and Czech Republic reached US$298.01 million in 2018, up nearly 16% compared to 2017. In the first quarter of 2019, total import-export revenue between Vietnam and Czech was reported at US$64.643 million, down 12%. Of which, Vietnams exports to Czech reached US$37.766 million, up 2.4%, while Czechs exports to Vietnam were US$26.876 million, down 27.6%. Deputy Director of the European-American Market Department, Nguyen Khanh Ngoc, said that Vietnams exports to the Czech Republic include footwear, apparel, seafood, consumer goods, computers and parts, mobile phones, and others. At the sixth meeting of the Vietnam-Czech Republic Intergovernmental Committee on economic cooperation in March 2018 in Hanoi, the two sides expressed their wishes to continue to strengthen diplomatic and economic cooperation for the mutual benefits of both countries. In particular, the Czech Republic put Vietnam on the list of 12 key markets given priorities in foreign trade under the Czech international trade strategy in the 2012-2020 period. Vietnam is the only representative from ASEAN named on the list. Ngoc noted that to promote exports to the Czech Republic, Vietnamese enterprises should participate in supply chains of large retail systems in the host country in addition to boosting direct sales to importers and distributers. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 15) The police apprehended a notorious member of the local terrorist Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in Quezon City, the city police director reported on Monday. Quezon City Police District Director Joselito Esquivel said they caught 32 year-old Abuhair Kullim Indal or alias Annual Dasil and Abu Khair in his residence in Salam Compound, Barangay Culiat, Quezon City on Friday. Philippine National Police Chief Oscar Albayalde said Indal had arrest warrants against him related to seven separate criminal cases in Basilan. The suspect participated in the kidnapping incident involving 15 workers of the Golden Harvest Plantation in Barangay Tairan Lantawan, Basilan last June 11, 2001, Albayalde said. He added that Indal was a trusted aide of ASG commander Furuji Indama. Esquivel said the tribal leader of the compound reported that the suspect did not identify himself when he moved into the area over five weeks ago. He said they coordinated with the regional court in Isabela to verify the identity of the suspect which lead to his arrest. The police director detailed that Indal was about to detonate a hand grenade when he was confronted by the police. "He has (the) intention probably to preserve himself, not to be arrested, or blow himself in the process, but my men were fast enough to get the hand grenade before he could do that, and he is a very fanatic to his cause," Esquivel told reporters. The QCPD director said the suspect did not reveal if there are other members of the ASG planning to sow terror in the region. "When we arrested him we subjected (him) to interview but he's not budging and we're still investigating on that angle," he said. "He's just a person of interest wanted by the law nagkataon lang na [it just so happened that] his affiliation was Abu Sayyaf." Albayalde said Indal will be brought to the Isabela Regional Trial Court for further proceedings. The chief said the latest arrest of an Abu Sayyaf member in Metro Manila emphasized the impact of military and police presence in Mindanao, threatening terrorists to hide out in other regions. "Lumalabas na, 'tong mga taong ito na feeling the pressure in Mindanao," Albayalde said. [Translation: This is showing that the people are feeling the pressure in Mindanao.] He maintained that they will continue to ensure safety in the region. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 15) The Luzon grid was placed on alert anew on Holy Monday. The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) on Monday afternoon lifted the grid's red alert status -- the highest warning -- but said it will remain under yellow alert until 8 p.m. Red alert means there is insufficient power supply and authorities may implement rotational brownouts in some areas. Meanwhile, a yellow alert is raised from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. This means power reserves have dropped below the minimum 647 megawatts, but does not necessarily mean there will be power outages. NGCP said the alerts were raised because of insufficient operating reserves due to the forced outage of multiple power plants. A red alert status was hoisted over the grid for the first time this year on April 10 following consecutive days of being under yellow alert. Energy officials have said that despite the insufficient power reserves over the past week, there is no power crisis. They also said they are open to an investigation into the matter. DECKERVILLE The Sanilac County Sheriff's Office was called to an incident at Deckerville High School on Monday. According to the sheriff's office, deputies responded to the scene around 10:30 a.m. to assist school staff with an altercation between two students. During the altercation, the school was placed on lock down. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 15) The new peace panel President Rodrigo Duterte plans to create will oversee the localized negotiations with communist rebels, the government's peace adviser said Monday. In a statement, Presidential Peace Adviser Carlito Galvez Jr. said the panel will allow government to 'directly' engage with the rebels on ground. "Through the formulation of the new panel, government will be directly engaging the people on the ground to address the fundamentals of the problem," Galvez said in a statement. "The panel will oversee the localized peace engagements. It will act as the adviser for local peace dialogues through the establishment of protocols and other legal and systematic procedures. This includes the vital component of a security lens in this process, hence the need for former security officials to be part of the panel," he added. Galvez explained the government has already "learned its lessons" from previous negotiations with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) National Democratic Front (NDFP) and the New People's Army, which Duterte had terminated through Proclamation 360 on Nov. 23, 2017. He then slammed CPP founder Jose Maria "Joma" Sison for calling on the NDFP to reject the planned panel. Sison had argued that placing more military men in the negotiations would not create a peace panel but a "war panel" instead. "It is unfortunate that instead of reciprocating the government's initiative to move the peace process forward, Joma Sison immediately rejected the idea," he said. "And this raises the question: Is Mr. Sison for genuine peace?" READ: Joma Sison: Duterte only creating 'war panel' with military men in peace talks The peace adviser said this new peace panel is in line with the "whole-of-nation" approach stated within Executive Order 70 to address the five-decade long communist insurgency in the Philippines. As Stop & Shop strikers hunkered down on a windy, wet Monday afternoon in front of a Norwalk supermarket, live lobsters moved lazily in their tank at the seafood counter, with product carts positioned to block would-be buyers. Plenty more meat and other fresh foods abounded, however all of it carrying expressed or implied expiration dates, and with no clear indication on the fifth day of the strike whether some or all of it would go to waste. Stop & Shop resumed negotiations Monday with five local union affiliates of the United Food & Commercial Workers, including UFCW Local 371, which has its head office in Westport. The strike extends to stores throughout Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, with markets operating on skeleton staffs comprised of managers brought in from other locations and temporary workers. In a letter posted on the companys website, Stop & Shop said it is committed to resolving our labor negotiations as quickly as possible so that our employees can return to their jobs and we can get back to serving you and the community. The company also posted a Strike Fact Sheet and a list of Frequently Asked Questions. Union workers said they have noticed many customers opting to shop elsewhere rather than cross picket lines. And with the Easter weekend beckoning, cashiers at competing markets said business is booming as Stop & Shop customers stock up for the occasion. That leaves hams piled high in open, refrigerated cases at Stop & Shop stores throughout the region. Theres also an open question what will happen to that food and other perishable items if the impasse continues and shoppers stay away? A spokeswoman with Quincy, Mass.-based Stop & Shop said the company has been trying to keep up with its normal schedule of donations of excess food to local nonprofit pantries, including Monday in Trumbull, Branford and Mystic, among other locations. We are working with all of our regional food bank partners right now as well as local pantries to donate as much food as possible to our neighbors in need, Stop & Shop spokeswoman Jennifer Brogan wrote in an email Monday to Hearst Connecticut Media. We are also working with our longtime partner Foodshare to facilitate donations from all our stores in Hartford and Tolland counties. Its particularly a problem since the strike has occurred prior to the Easter holiday weekend when pantries see more activity, according to Kathleen Lombardo, executive director of the Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County. Lombardo said her drivers have been turned away from their normal visits to Stop & Shop stores to pick up unsold food and truck it to the nonprofits Stamford warehouse. Stop & Shop accounts for more than half of the some 1.2 million pounds of provisions redistributed annually by the Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County, freezing food as it approaches expiration dates for storage until the food pantry can use it. Lombardo said Stop & Shop benefits from the arrangement as well, in tax deductions it can record on what would otherwise amount to total losses on any unsold food. A spokesman for the Wallingford-based Connecticut Food Bank said it too is making efforts to ensure food does not go to waste. We will work with stores individually to arrange salvage and work with representatives of the unions representing workers so that safety and respect for the process are maintained, spokesman Paul Shipman, wrote in an email. Donated food is a vital means of helping us fulfill our mission to provide nutritious food to people in need. Due to a reporting error, an initial version incorrectly listed as East Haven the main office for the Connecticut Food Bank, which is in Wallingford. Includes reporting by Helen Bennett and Julia Perkins. Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman A new train schedule on Metro-Norths New Haven Line will go into effect on Sunday, April 14 to accomodate spring construction planned on the tracks. The new schedule means some trains will leave earlier and take more time to travel between Connecticut stations and Grand Central Terminal. The state Department of Transportation said the work will include Metro-North track maintenance and CTDOT capital projects including bridge replacement and new interlockings. The schedule changes will affect train times on weekdays and weekends. Metro-North said in a statement, Our new timetables are designed to more accurately reflect how the railroad's progressive infrastructure improvement plan affects train running times, resulting in a more reliable and safe service for our customers. In a release, DOT said, the New Haven Line capital investment program is designed to improve the reliability of the railroad and set the stage for higher speed train service over the next several years. CTDOT has been working with Metro-North to minimize train conflicts and unexpected train delays. During the 2019 construction season, travel times from Connecticut to Grand Central will increase temporarily, as trains will be required to slow down through work zones. The minutes of additional travel time will vary by time of day and for each train. Metro-North will restore train schedules at the conclusion of the construction season. The schedule will be in effect beginning Sunday April 14 and continuing through June 29, according to the schedule. The full train schedule is available on the Metro-North website at http://web.mta.info/mnr/html/planning/schedules/schedules.htm. Highlights of the New Haven Line schedule adjustment are: AM Peak: 48 mainline trains depart initial stations between 1-10 minutes earlier and have schedules lengthened by 1-6 minutes, depending on the trip length. PM Peak: 42 mainline trains depart GCT at the same time as today and have their schedules lengthened by 1-6 minutes, depending on the trip length. Off-Peak and nights: 83 westbound trains depart their initial station between 10 minutes earlier and 4 minutes later and have their schedules lengthened by 1-11 minutes, depending on the trip length and the time of day, while 53 eastbound trains depart GCT at the same time as today and have their schedules lengthened by 1-11 minutes, depending on trip length and the time of day. Weekends. Westbound trains depart their initial station up to 10 minutes earlier and have their schedules lengthened by 2-10 minutes, depending on the trip length. Eastbound trains depart GCT at the same time as today and have their schedules lengthened by 2-10 minutes, depending on the trip length. For more information on the new service or changes to the existing service, customers should consult the new train schedules on-line at http://www.mta.info/mnr . Grist Mill Market in East Haddam is in the process of posting signage noting that service animals will be welcome in the store after a settlement with the U.S. Attorneys office. The U.S. Attorneys office announced Monday it has reached the agreement with Grist Mill Market to resolve allegations that the store was not operating in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, according to a release. The settlement agreement resolves an ADA complaint filed by an person with disabilities alleging that the store required her to remove her service animal from the store as a condition of service, according to the release. The store will also implement a Service Animal Policy, which includes the types of legally permissible inquiries store employees may make of a customer who enters the store with a service animal, and training for employees regarding the policy, the U.S. Attorneys office said. Under federal law, private entities that own or operate places of public accommodation, including grocery stores, are prohibited from discriminating on the basis of disability, the release said. The ADA authorizes the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate complaints and undertake periodic reviews of compliance of covered entities. The Justice Department is also authorized to commence a civil lawsuit in federal court in any case that involves a pattern or practice of discrimination or that raises issues of general public importance, and to seek injunctive relief, monetary damages and civil penalties. During the course of the U.S. Attorneys investigation, the Grist Mill Market was sold to a new owner. U.S. Attorney John H. Durham Durham noted that the new owner and management of the Grist Mill Market has worked cooperatively with the U.S. Attorneys Office to promptly address the ADA issues without litigation. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires that individuals are able to access and enjoy grocery stores and other places of public accommodation, Durham said in the release. Our Office is committed to enforcing the ADA, which requires businesses to appropriately serve the diverse populations of patrons who live, work, and visit Connecticut. We appreciate the Grist Mill Markets commitment to increasing access to its store for individuals with disabilities who require service animal assistance. Any member of the public who wishes to file a complaint alleging that any place of public accommodation or public entity in Connecticut is not accessible to persons with disabilities may contact the U.S. Attorneys Office at 203-821-3700. Additional information about the ADA is available by calling the Justice Departments toll-free information line at (800) 514-0301 and (800) 514-0383 (TTY). ESSEX With the Essex Steam Train season about to begin, motorists are asked to refresh their sense of caution at the many railroad crossings in the lower valley. At crossings with STOP signs, motorists are required by law to come to a complete stop before the white STOP line, and yield to approaching rail traffic. At crossings with flashing lights and/or gates, motorists are required to come to a full stop before the white STOP line and wait until rail traffic passes and lights/gates shut off. Vehicles carrying passengers for hire, as well as vehicles carrying hazardous materials, are required by Federal Law to stop at all railroad crossings at all times, and yield to approaching rail traffic regardless of signs, lights, or gates. The Valley Railroad will be working in conjunction with law enforcement to reduce a recent increase in unsafe motorist behavior at the Route 153/Plains Road railroad crossing in Essex. This will entail police surveillance, and may include written warnings and/or fines for motorists failing to heed crossing signals. Fines can start at $129, and points can be assessed against a CT Drivers License. Railroad crossings, signals, and train operations are inspected and maintained to strict standards as promulgated by the Federal Railroad Administration and the Connecticut Department of Transportation. The final piece of the safety puzzle at crossings is attentiveness and safe action by motorists using the crossings. Any questions may be directed to Robert Bradway, V.P. Track and Property, The Valley Railroad Company at 860-964-3422. Middletown Pride event set for June 15 MIDDLETOWN The City of Middletown recently announced the creation of the first Middletown Pride event, scheduled for Saturday, June 15. The City of Middletown, the Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce, and Wesleyan University are partnering together to ensure that the inaugural event will be a successful celebration of our diverse community and particularly the lives and contributions of our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning residents. The parade will begin at 2 p.m. in Middletown, Connecticut on Main Street at St. Johns Square and will proceed down Main Street to Union Street. A festival will take place on the South Green immediately following the conclusion of the parade. Middletown is inviting interested participants from local community groups, businesses, and individuals. Contact the Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce for information on sponsoring the event, joining in the parade, being a merchandise and/or food vendor, or overseeing an informational booth. The Chamber can be reached by phone at 860-347-6924 or by email at haley@middlesexchamber.com. Artists wanted for festival, show ESSEX Artists are invited to participate in the Essex Green Summer Arts Festival, Saturday and Sunday, June 15 and 16. Annual event includes an outdoor festival on the Essex Town Green and a Gallery Group Show. Artists are invited to participate on the Green as well as submit work for a 6-week show at Spectrum Gallery in Centerbrook set for May 31-July 14 with receiving May 19-23. Festival space is limited and fills quickly. Visit spectrumartgallery.org/future-exhibitions or email 3-4 high resolution jpegs of work with titles, medium, dimensions to Barbara@spectrumartgallery.org. Artists are also wanted for the 15th Autumn Arts Festival on the Madison Connecticut Town Green (Boston Post Rd/Route 1 and Copse Road) Saturday, Oct. 12-13, with a rain date of Oct. 14. Artists and fine artisans are welcome including representational and abstract painters, collage artists, photographers, potters and ceramicists, glass artisans and jewelry designers. This year there will be several large covered tents available to participants or artists can choose to use their own. Artists are invited to participate on the Green as well as submit work for a 6-week show at Spectrum Gallery in Centerbrook, Sept. 27-Nov. 10. Receiving is Sept. 15-20, 12:30-6 p.m., except Sept. 18. Visit spectrumartgallery.org/future-exhibitions or email 3-4 high resolution jpegs of work with titles, medium, dimensions to Barbara@spectrumartgallery.org. Earth Day event set at Hammonasset When: Saturday, April 27, 2019 10:00am to 3:00pm A Celebration of Earth Day 2019 and the arrival of Spring, sponsored by the Friends of Hammonasset with fun events for the whole family, will be held at Meigs Point Nature Center, Hammonasset Beach State Park, 1288 Boston Post Rd, Madison, on Saturday, April 27, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Activities are scheduled for the Meigs Point Nature Center (MPNC) and at other locations around the Park. Events and exhibitors include: The Archeology Road Show and Open House at MPNC; bring artifacts for identification; Atlatl Demonstration with Gary Nolf; the Connecticut Audubon Society; Beach and Trail Maintenance; Pitch In Pick Up. Volunteers to assist with this important activity should visit the Table at MPNC at any time between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. to register and obtain gloves/trash bags. Preregistration is not necessary, but larger groups should email Jim Mazur: jamesemazur@gmail.com, or call 860-227-1083, so sufficient supplies can be ensured. Friends of the Office of the State Archaeologist; Guided Geology/Nature hike honoring the memory of noted geologist Sid Horenstein, led by Don Rankin and beginning at 1p.m. Additional information may be found at the Meigs Point Nature Center Website: https://www.meigspointnaturecenter.org. Or call 203-245-8743. Relay for Life schedules meetings HADDAM/The Relay For Life of Haddam Killingworth will be held Saturday, June 29, 12-10 p.m. at the HKHS track. Relay for Life is a non-competitive community event involving walking with survivors, caregivers, and many teams of all ages to join in the fight against cancer. Walkers from all Middlesex County- Chester, Deep River, Essex, Old Saybrook, Clinton, Durham, Westbrook are welcome to join the Haddam and Killingworth communities. The event begins with a soft opening at 12 op.m. and the start of walking. Survivors and caregivers are welcome to the Survivor/Caregiver Ceremony/buffet at 5 p.m. At dusk, a luminaria ceremony will take place, followed by the closing ceremony at 10 pcm. Monthly information meetings are scheduled on Thursday, April 25, Monday, May 6, Thursday, May 23 and Monday, June 3. Bank night is June 20. All meetings begin at 7 p.m. and are held in HKHS Room C112, 95 Little City Rd, Higganum. Those who are able to attend one meeting a month are welcome. Go to www.RelayforLife.org/hkct to get more event information or to register as a survivor, team or participant. Registration is free. Volunteers are always needed and welcome. For more information email Ed Yantosh, Elaine Jackson at www.rflofhk@gmail.com or, Survivors may contact Elaine at 860-345-7755. Teams are forming. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 15) A security guard has admitted to killing a 14-year-old student with whom he was rumored to have had a relationship, before dumping her in the septic tank of a school in Danao City, Cebu. Jessie Mediquillo said in an extrajudicial confession that his anger towards the girl's father led him to kill the victim. He said the father blamed him for the girl's late night outs and had challenged him to a fight. However, Mediquillo denied that he and the victim had a romantic relationship, saying he just treated her like his niece. But the Central Visayas Regional Police said the girl's killing was a "crime of passion" and that the suspect was jealous that the victim may have had a boyfriend. Police said Mediquillo shaved the victim's head a week before the killing. The security guard admitted he stabbed the victim on her chest a number of times at the school guard house, wrapped the body in a mat and dumped it in the septic tank. He then fled to Tabuelan town, 72 kilometers northwest of Danao City. He surrendered to a barangay employee there on Friday after learning that police were pursuing him. Mediquillo was remorseful and even cried after the media briefing. "Nakonsensya ko sa akong nabuhat. [My conscience is being bothered by what I have done,]" he said. The security guard also asked forgiveness from the victim's family. He will face murder charges for the killing of the student. Cebu-based journalist Dale Israel contributed to this report. The Marine Corps' Aging Amphibious Vehicle Fleet Will Be Kept Out of the Water Eight Marines and a Navy corpsman died when an AAV sank hundreds of feet into the ocean during exercises on July 30, 2020. The acting deputy secretary at the Department of Veterans Affairs has been nominated to fill the position permanently, ending a 10-month stretch without a permanent official in the position. James Byrne, the VA's general counsel who has been working in the deputy secretary position since last August, was nominated by President Donald Trump on Friday. Byrne is a distinguished graduate of Naval Academy and former Marine infantry officer. He earned his juris doctor from Stetson University College of Law in 1995 and worked at the Justice Department as a narcotics prosecutor before holding positions as counsel in the United States Office of Special Counsel and investigator with the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. He was hired at VA as general counsel in 2017 after spending some time in the private sector, working as general counsel and lead cyber and counterintelligence attorney at Lockheed Martin Corp. If confirmed, Byrne would head a position that has been vacant since last June, when then-Deputy Secretary Thomas Bowman resigned. A number of key jobs remain unfilled by permanent appointees at VA, including the important role of under secretary for health -- the top position at the Veterans Health Administration. Dr. Richard Stone currently serves as executive in charge at VHA, but VA has not had a Senate-confirmed health under secretary since Dr. David Shulkin left the post in February 2017 when he was nominated for VA Secretary. On Saturday, Sen. Johnny Isakson, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said he is looking forward to Byrne's confirmation hearing. After the White House announced Byrne's nomination, Isakson, R-Georgia, said he looked forward to heading the confirmation hearing. "I am glad to see Mr. Byrne nominated to serve in this critical role," Isakson said. "The deputy secretary of the VA is responsible for working closely with the secretary to make sure the federal government's second largest cabinet department is operating effectively, efficiently and in the best interest of our veterans." -- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @patriciakime. A blind World War II veteran's home was painted over the weekend by firefighters in Florida who decided to give back to the community in a special way. William Velez, 89, and his wife were full of gratitude after dozens of members of the Hillsborough County Fire Rescue and their families painted their house Saturday as part of an event coordinated with Paint Your Heart Out Tampa, a volunteer effort. Volunteer Ken Forward told Fox station WTVT that it's natural for firefighters to give back to the community. "To assist the community, to serve the community, and that's what we're doing today," Forward said, adding that Velez noted "he's not able to get around and maintain his home the way he'd like." Forward continued, "He told me he painted his home 17 years ago by himself. But now with his impairment, he can't do it, so we're here to help him." In addition to a fresh coat of paint, fire rescue volunteers installed smoke detectors in Velez's home. "Mr. Velez and his wife came out and met with us, and just to see his appreciation and gratitude is rewarding," he told the news station. Paint Your Heart Out Tampa's website states that its mission "is to enrich lives and renew our community through annual volunteer efforts to paint and beautify our senior, veteran, or disabled neighbors' homes one paint brush at a time." The group has 75,000 volunteers who have painted 3,000 houses, according to the site. A Marine assigned to Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command was fatally injured Saturday during training aboard Camp Pendleton, California, MARSOC officials announced Monday. The Marine, who has not been identified, was a critical skills operator with 1st Marine Raider Battalion, MARSOC spokesman Maj. Nicholas Mannweiler told Military.com. He and two other Raiders were injured in a single-vehicle accident involving a Polaris MRZR -- an unarmored ultra-light all-terrain vehicle that has been fielded to Marine Corps and special operations troops. This is the first reported Marine Corps training accident fatality involving an MRZR. The Marine sustained critical injuries in the accident and required aeromedical evacuation to an area California hospital, Mannweiler said. He died Sunday night. The two other Raiders sustained minor injuries, officials said. Mannweiler said the Marines were completing a company collective exercise as part of standard pre-deployment training at the time of the accident. The Marine's identity will be released following notification of next of kin, according to a release. Officials are now investigating the incident. -- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck. If youre a veteran eyeing a run for office, you now have access to a training program specially designed to get you in the race. Syracuse University, with a grant from JP Morgan Chase & Co., plans to start a training program late this fall or early winter for veterans on the nuts-and-bolts of running for office at the state, local and federal levels. The goal of the "Veterans in Politics," or VIP, program is to take advantage of veterans' commitment to public service and translate that into organizing and running a campaign, but the school is upfront about potential pitfalls. "We want to be clear about what they're getting into. It's not all cookies and cream," said Steve Lux, director of executive education at the university's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, located in central New York state. He said the program will start with online preparation, leading to a free, week-long intensive seminar at the Maxwell School, tied for No. 1 with Indiana University as the nation's top public affairs graduate school, according to U.S. News & World Report. The program's launch was announced last week by Syracuse University's Institute for Veterans and Military Families, or IVMF, and the Maxwell School, with the intent of aiding veterans and military family members who aspire to public office or administration. In a statement, David M. Van Slyke, dean of the Maxwell School, said the collaboration with IVMF would "empower those who have served our nation in uniform with preparation, expertise and confidence, so that they can extend their commitment to public service in the form of a political career at the local, state or federal level." University and IVMF officials said VIP courses will cover election law, party politics and public policy; creating, managing and leading campaign teams; campaign finance; understanding voters; message development; and other aspects of running for office. Dr. Mike Haynie, executive director of IVMF, said he began discussions with the Maxwell School about a year ago, adding "once we started the conversation, it was a no-brainer." He called JP Morgan's grant "generous," though he would not give details. In a statement, Mark Elliott, head of Military and Veterans Affairs at JP Morgan & Chase, said the program is intended "to help develop the next generation of political leaders" from veterans and their families, who have a commitment to the public sector. Both Haynie and Lux said VIP is non-partisan and open to veterans with widely divergent political views, but there will be screening to keep out extremists whose values are not in line with those of the university. Lux said the plan is to start small with a first class of 20 to 25 applicants. The first phase will be online with required readings and videos to set up the week-long, on-campus phase involving immersion seminars, he said. The third phase entails follow-ups to gauge the veterans' progress in achieving their political goals, he said. "We don't just want to send them out there in the woods and say 'Good luck.'" "We need to keep the first cohort size relatively small," Haynie said. But, he added, the eventual goal is to put more veterans in office in Congress and at the state and local level. According to IVMF, veterans made gains in the 2018 elections, but overall veteran representation in Congress has dropped from more than 75% in the 1960s to 19.1% today. Currently, the 116th Congress has a total of 96 veterans -- 30 Democrats and 66 Republicans. More information on the VIP program and instructions on how to apply are available here. -- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com. A woman died by apparent suicide Monday at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, just yards from Joint Base Henderson Hall-Fort Myer. The death took place near the Confederate Memorial in the western portion of the cemetery, according to a report by local news outlet ARLnow. Emergency responders from the base and Arlington County were called to the scene, according to reports. "We are deeply saddened to learn about the apparent suicide in the cemetery earlier today," Arlington National Cemetery spokesman Timothy Lawson said Monday. "Our thoughts are with the family at this time." Lawson could not provide information on the deceased and did not say whether the person was affiliated with the military or the cemetery. The location in which she died is easily accessible through Fort Myer, the home of the 3rd Infantry Regiment, The Old Guard -- the regiment that stands vigil at Arlington's Tomb of the Unknowns and serves as the U.S. Army's main ceremonial unit. Visitors also can access the cemetery through the Visitors Center and, with proper identification, through a gate accessible within Fort Myer. The suicide rate among Americans rose by 33 percent from 1999 to 2017 -- making suicide a "serious public health problem" that is the tenth leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the last week, three veterans took their own lives on VA properties. On average, 20 veterans a day die by suicide in the United States. In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a Cabinet-level task force to address the issue of suicide among veterans and service members. The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Pentagon also hold a conference every two years on suicide prevention. The next conference is scheduled for August. The location of the event has not been announced. Lawson said cemetery officials are "supporting the family during their time of need." "We thank our first responders for their quick reaction to the incident," he said. Are you or a loved one in crisis? Call (800) 273-8255; press 1 if you are a veteran or service member. Help also can be reached by text messaging 838255. Editor's note: This story has been amended regarding the suicide prevention conference's location. The 2017 conference took place in Denver. -- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @patriciakime. Marine Corps drill instructor and Hollywood actor R. Lee Ermey was robbed of an Oscar for his legendary portrayal of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Stanley Kubricks 1987 classic Full Metal Jacket" and snubbed by the Academy's Oscar "memoriam" montage. But while the Academy may not have thought his contribution worth recognition, we know the Gunny knew a thing or two we should all remember about military service. Ermey had a long career. As well as his iconic role in "Full Metal Jacket," where he improvised most of his dialog, and that long run on Mail Call, he played iconic roles as the police captain in Se7en, the voice of Sarge in the Toy Story movies, the mayor in Mississippi Burning and a chilling serial rapist in a 2010 episode of Law & Order: SVU. Ermey also had a wicked sense of humor, one that allowed him to play the over-the-top movie director Titus Scroad in the cult TV series Action and the lead kidnapper in the Run Ronnie Run, the bizarre comedy from Mr. Show With Bob and David guys Bob Odenkirk and David Cross. He left us on April 15, 2018 and hes now at rest at Arlington National Cemetery. So what did his TV and movie appearances teach us about service? Here are nine great examples. 1. Once a Marine, always a Marine In his Full Metal Jacket rants, Gunny Hartman tells his recruits that their Marine Corps training had permanently changed them. Theyre no longer mere men: Theyve become Marines. Today, you people are no longer maggots. Today, you are Marines. You're part of a brotherhood. From now on, until the day you die, wherever you are, every Marine is your brother. Most of you will go to Vietnam. Some of you will not come back. But always remember this: Marines die. That's what we're here for. But the Marine Corps lives forever and that means you live forever. 2. You gotta break someone before you build them up Few civilians understand the bonds of trust required for a military unit to function and even fewer can grasp the process that goes into tearing down the idea of the individual so a person can be truly absorbed into the group. Gunnery Sgt. Hartman can help you with that. If you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training, you will be a weapon. You will be a minister of death praying for war. But until that that day, you are pukes. You are the lowest form of life on Earth. You are not even human fucking beings! You are nothing but unorganized grab-ass-tic pieces of amphibian shit! Because I am hard, you will not like me! But the more you hate me, the more you will learn! I am hard, but I am fair! There is no racial bigotry here. I do not look down on niggers, kikes, wops, or greasers. Here you are all equally worthless. And my orders are to weed out all non-hackers who do not packed the gear to serve in my beloved corps. Do you maggots understand that? 3. Modern art is not good art. Gunny Hartman may have been talking about Pablo Picasso's 1939 portrait of Dora Maar. Hidden in Gunny Hartmans psychological tear down are some important observations about other parts of our world. Hes also an art critic. You're so ugly you could be a modern art masterpiece! 4. Comedy is not pretty Truthfully, Gunny Hartman's material is closer to Don Rickles than Steve Martin but Steve's the one who said, "Comedy is not pretty." Hes a talented insult comic. Well I've got a joke for you, I'm going to tear you a new a--hole. 5. A clean toilet is a holy toilet Ask yourself: "Is my toilet clean enough that I could invite the mother of Our Savior to use my bathroom?" Hes concerned that our religious icons have a good bathroom experience. I want that head so sanitary and squared away that the Virgin Mary herself would be proud to go in there and take a dump. 6. A great catchphrase works in any situation What's YOUR major malfunction? Ask anyone who grew-up in a household where dad always asked Whats your major malfunction? Every Single Time they did something he didnt like. 7. The Heart is the Deadliest Weapon He even operates on multiple levels. He may SAY a Marine is the deadliest weapon but listen closely: The threat really comes from a Marines cold, cold heart. The deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and his rifle. It is your killer instinct which must be harnessed if you expect to survive in combat. Your rifle is only a tool. It is a hard heart that kills. If your killer instincts are not clean and strong, you will hesitate at the moment of truth. You will not kill. You will become dead Marines. And then you will be in a world of s***. Because Marines are not allowed to die without permission. Do you maggots understand? 8. Everyone Needs Mail Ermey did his part on his long-running History Channel series to educate a generation of Americans who knew nothing about the military. He also reminded everyone that communication is critical for men and women who are serving their country. If you want to remember Ermey, write a letter, send an email or make a phone call in honor of his service. The National Geographic Channel's new series "Hostile Planet," hosted by Bear Grylls, shakes up the nature documentary with a focus on animals who have adapted to survive in the most brutal environments our world has to offer. Animals featured on the show must go to extreme lengths, and the episodes don't shy away from the harsh realities their survival require. Think of it as a program designed to win over viewers who usually watch action movies. The show was a massive undertaking and used the latest film technology to capture the action with a perspective and level of detail we haven't seen before. The program was edited from approximately 1,800 hours of footage. The crew traversed all seven continents in 82 shoots over 1,300 days of filming and employed 245 crew members on location. That's a long way from the days when "Wild Kingdom" was made by one guy hiding in the bushes with a Rolleiflex. Rather than having each episode focus on a continent or a specific type of animal, "Hostile Planet" explores a different type of environment in each of its six episodes: mountains, oceans, grasslands, jungles, deserts and polar. The first two aired last week, and the rest are showing Monday nights at 9 p.m. Eastern on the NatGeo channel. Earlier episodes are now streaming on demand in the app. Tom Hugh-Jones is an Emmy-winning producer who spent two decades at the BBC Natural History Unit before producing the award-winning "Planet Earth II." He's the "Hostile Planet" showrunner and executive producer for the series alongside Oscar-winning cinematographer Guillermo Navarro ("Pan's Labyrinth") and fellow BBC vet Martha Holmes. Hugh-Jones shared some thoughts about his experiences making "Hostile Planet" and offers advice for aspiring filmmakers. Tom Hugh-Jones (YouTube) You worked on the BBC "Planet Earth" series. "Hostile Planet" offers a very different take on the subject. What inspired you to make the series? I've made a few BBC series, and I loved working with David Attenborough. But I felt like it was an interesting challenge to try and engage with a different audience, particularly in America, and particularly people who might not normally come to watch nature shows. We tried to interrogate how we can make it more exciting, perhaps younger-skewing. We're trying to show people who think wildlife is boring that it's really exciting and worth protecting. A pack of Arctic wolves have isolated a musk ox cow. They cooperate to pull her down. (National Geographic) I always think of the "Planet Earth" shows as being calming and reassuring, but this program is actually incredibly brutal to watch. It seems to have been billed like that. We certainly have gone toward some sequences which show the extreme lengths to which animals have to go to survive in the harshest environments, but we've tried to make sure it feels triumphant as well. But we didn't want to sugarcoat the pill. We really wanted people to realize just how tough it is out there and then to ask if we really need to make it any tougher for animals. Greenland - Cameraman Barrie Britton prepares to film barnacle geese. The 400 foot basalt cliffs provided unstable filming platforms. Over thousands of years the freeze/thaw cycle has split the rocks. Many of them are balanced delicately on top of each other so the crew had to be extremely careful whenever they were working on, or under, the cliffs. On several occasions the crew witnessed avalanches. (National Geographic/Miguel Willis) One thing that's very striking is the cinematography. You've been making these films for a while. How has technology changed? I've always been really interested in the idea of trying to make wildlife films more immersive, to try and give viewers the experience of what it might be like to be in these wild places, almost being in the skin of the animals and experiencing the world from their point of view. In the olden days, we would film from a tripod with a long lens, and it was quite limited to what you could do. Now, with the advent of drones and the stabilized gimbals and high-quality remote-triggered cameras, you can get much closer to animals and you can move with the animals, so you get this much more cinematic and immersive feel. I think that's really exciting and almost gives you a first-person experience of the natural world. Do you think animals have always been aware they're being filmed, and does that change their behavior? Do you think you get a different take on the animals if you're filming with a drone? Are they less aware that there are people watching them? Sometimes. I think it ranges. There are some animals that are so wild and skittish that if they even hear a drone, they will run away. On the other end of the spectrum, there are animals that scientists have been working with for so long that they don't even bat an eyelid when a drone flies quite close to them. If you want to get exciting behaviors of animals on film, they need to feel relaxed and comfortable to do what they do naturally. If they're being stressed by what you're doing, they're only going to cower and not act normally. There's no point in doing that, so we always try to tread carefully and move in slowly. You've got to learn the limitations of the animal you're working with, but also win its trust. I don't think filming has changed that much. What has been really useful is that we can see a schematic view of how behaviors play out. For example, in the Oceans episode where the great white sharks are chasing the seal, we've also got leopard seals chasing penguins, so [you] really get this kind of overview vision of how a chase pans out, which you just can't get when you're on the ground because you don't get the same appreciation of the depth. Cameraman Tom Walker uses a gyro-stabilized camera to film meerkats (Suricata suricatta) in the Kalahari Desert. The meerkats are being studied as part of a long-term university project and have becoming completely used to seeing human beings. To a meerkat habituated in this way, a human being is no more a threat than a tree or bush. Working alongside scientists, the crew were able to get intimate, close-up shots of these meerkats, despite them being completely wild. (National Geographic/Holly Harrison) This program is very specific about the effects of climate change on these animals' environment. The approach is very direct. For some Americans, it's even going to seem to be in their face. Is that a conscious thing for you or is it just business as usual because that's how climate change is seen in the rest of the world? No, there is a movement in all types of programming to be a bit more aware of the situation the planet is in and the challenges facing us all. We've tried to be really hard in "Hostile Planet." We didn't want to make a didactic film that points a finger of blame or even one that tells people that they need to change their ways. We had facts and the figures that we had rigorously checked by NatGeo and worked to weave those facts and figures into the animals' narratives to show how it is changing the challenges for animals. In some cases, it's making life much harder. An obvious example would be polar bears that depend on sea ice to hunt. But in other cases, say, with the gentoo penguins, who like to nest on rocks rather than ice, you know the less ice cover in the Antarctic is actually allowing them to push further south and breed more successfully. We wanted to give a realistic portrait of how the challenges of survival are changing in the modern day. All of us who make these series try and do our bit to improve our impact on the planet. We're very aware that we're part of the problem as well, so we don't want to alienate viewers or do a guilt trip on them. We just want people to start to be aware, and hopefully it will start the kind of slow, steady changes that can be quite significant in the long run. Cameraman, David Reichert filming the Emperor Penguins march to the ice edge at the Cape Washington Emperor Penguin colony. (National Geographic/Tanja Bayer) Now that you're shooting everything in 4K, how has the gear changed for you? Are the cameras more versatile and mobile than they used to be? Is there commercial pressure for you to adopt these new filming formats as quickly as possible? Yeah, it's a bit of a double-edged sword. The higher resolution, along with the other new technology, allows you to show an actual world more crystal clear and closer to reality than ever before. It allows you to get new angles and perspectives to view the animal. That's all really exciting, but there's no doubt that we travel with a huge amount more kit these days and we've got loads more electronics going on. You can imagine that when you're taking that gear to the most extreme corners of the planet, there's much more room for failure. Back when I started, we would just be filming with a film camera and a lens. It was all mechanical, and there was pretty much nothing that would ever break. Now you've got all these Wi-Fi connections between different gimbals and gizmos talking to each other, and there are so often technical problems. You need more people on locations to be able to troubleshoot these problems, and you need to be close to places where you can recharge your batteries. So, that's made it a lot harder. I would say the hit rate for when you actually do manage to capture a animal's behavior has gone down because there's so many different variables that all have to work together to make it a successful shot. But when you do capture those moments with all your technology working, it looks absolutely incredible. The reality is that, having seen imagery with stabilized gimbals tracking with the animals as they're hunting, it's very hard to go backward to those locked-off shots. Some technologies that were originally developed for the military are really finding a use in natural history filmmaking. The kind of stabilized helicopter gimbals, such as Cineflex, started off with military-grade stabilization technology in them. Then there's lots of kind of low light and night-vision technology that we're starting to employ to allow us to film into the night. Military technology is making its way into wildlife filming. Red Sea, Egypt - A predatory lionfish stalks the shallows as it waits for nightfall to hunt. (National Geographic/Corinne Chevallier) If someone watches your films and says, "That's an amazing job; that's what I want to do," how do they get your job? There are quite a few routes, but the kind of traditional way would be to go to college and to study zoology or filmmaking. Then you get a job doing research, and then you'd become an assistant producer and then a producer, et cetera. However, I think it's more open these days. When I started out, the chance of being able to afford to buy camera equipment with which you could make a film was almost untenable, whereas today you can buy a digital stills camera, for example, for a couple thousand dollars, and you can go out and start making films. Almost anyone, if they've got the passion and the initiative, can go out and start kind of playing with cameras and filming wildlife and telling stories. You can tell interesting stories even about the seemingly most normal animals that live in your backyard. You just need to be creative. If you're interested in pursuing a career in natural history/filmmaking, showing that you have that initiative and creative flare is really important; it goes a long way. Certainly, if someone came to me having made a film that had an interesting angle and could show some creativity in the camera work, I'd be really impressed. I worked on the first "Planet Earth." That was at the advent of high-speed digital technology, and we were using these Photron Cameras and Phantom Cameras. I now look at the high-speed I can do on my iPhone, and it's better than what we were able to do 13 years ago on these really, really expensive cameras. It's unbelievable how fast things can move. Jaguar hunting a crocodile on the river banks in the Pantanal, Brazil. (National Geographic/Adrian Seymour) "Hostile Planet" seems like the action movie version of nature documentaries. You've made a different kind of film, and it's really interesting to see how there's more than one way to shoot anything. Exactly. I think we're really excited by the idea that there's a growing market for wildlife shows, and there's room for different styles and different ways to approach editing and filming these things. The most important thing is that we're trying to get as many people who aren't that connected to nature anymore to experience and marvel at the wonders out there. Hopefully, that will lead them to want to protect it. UPDATE: Police and fire officials at the scene have alluded to the news organization that the fire could be linked to recent renovation work on the historic relic. A fire continues to rage on Monday, April 15 at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris as smoke pours from the top of the historic medieval building. Police have confirmed to the Associated Press what footage and live feeds from the scene have been showing in the last hour. See below for a live feed to the fire in Central Paris from a local source: Un incendie est en cours a la cathedrale de Notre-Dame de Paris Un incendie est en cours a la cathedrale de Notre-Dame de Paris Posted by BFM Paris on Monday, April 15, 2019 BREAKING: Paris police say there is a fire at the city's Notre Dame cathedral. The Associated Press (@AP) April 15, 2019 CNBC reports that the fire department in the city said there was a major operation was under way," and that the area was being cleared. Construction on the cathedral was completed in the 1260s, and continues to be a landmark for tens of millions of tourists each year. There is not much information known as of now, but continue to refresh this feed as more information and visuals become available Monday afternoon. The Bay Mills Indian Community in the Upper Peninsula is the first tribal community in Michigan to legalize marijuana for adult use. Our tribal government does not necessarily promote the use of marijuana, but we believe that criminalizing it is bad policy, said Tribal Chairman Bryan Newland in a statement. Our new tribal law ensures that people on our lands are no longer at risk of prosecution for actions that are lawful everywhere else in Michigan. There are 12 federally recognized tribes in Michigan. As sovereign governments, Native American tribes have the right to set their own laws on marijuana, according to the National Congress of American Indians. The tribe now allows for the cultivation, possession and use of marijuana by those 21 and older, under a law adopted April 8 by the Bay Mills Executive Council. The possession limits mirror what Michigan voters approved in November 2018: up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana or 15 grams of marijuana concentrate, and up to 12 plants. Marijuana use is not allowed in public. People with previous marijuana convictions can ask to have them vacated. Any commercial sale or production of marijuana is limited to tribal-owned enterprises, according to the tribal ordinance. While Native American tribes in Michigan are able to make their own rules on marijuana, the states Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs is in preliminary talks with tribal leadership. We continue to engage with stakeholders in this new industry to determine the best approach for all involved, said David Harns, spokesman for the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. To that end, initial discussions have been held with interested tribal nations on possible cooperative approaches to marijuana. The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe will be reviewing its approach to marijuana soon, said Erik Rodriguez, interim public relations director. -- 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 recreational marijuana. A 75-year-old Florida man was killed by a cassowary -- a large, flightless bird native to Australia and New Guinea -- on the farm where he breeds them on Friday. The Associated Press reports that police said that the bird likely attacked the man, Marvin Hajos, with its long claws. Florida wildlife officials claim the man was breeding the birds on his farm, and a woman on the scene said he was doing what he loved. My understanding is that the gentleman was in the vicinity of the bird and at some point fell, Jeff Taylor, Alachua County Fire Rescue Department deputy chief, told the Gainesville Sun. When he fell, he was attacked. The man was rushed to a nearby hospital at about 10 a.m. Friday, April 12 where he was later pronounced dead. Cassowaries can grow to 6-feet tall and weight in at about 130 pounds. The flightless birds have a four-inch claw on each foot, which earned them the recognition of worlds most dangerous bird from the San Diego Zoo. A.P. reports the massive birds are eaten in parts of New Guinea, but are not raised as food stateside. The newspaper reports that the bird involved in the fatal attack remains on private property, but that it is not known what will happen to it. The cassowary can slice open any predator or potential threat with a single swift kick. Powerful legs help the cassowary run up to 31 miles per hour (50 kilometers per hour) through the dense forest underbrush, the San Diego Zoo writes of the bird. A cassowary can also jump nearly 7 feet (2 meters) straight up into the air and swim like a champ, so the bird is quite good at fending off threats or escaping danger. The cassowary is listed as a Class II wildlife in Florida, which means the danger they can pose to humans and other animals is known. Substantial experience and specific cage requirements must be met in the state to own one of the exotic birds. A permit is required to own one of the exotic birds. The long-vacant State Fairgrounds site in Detroit took a major step toward its planned redevelopment with the sale wrapping up, state officials said Monday, April 15. A group with ties to Magic Johnson -- Magic Plus LLC -- closed on 16 acres of the site Monday, and the city of Detroit is expected to do the same on its 142 acres later this month. For the past decade, the site has sat vacant, costing taxpayers $1 million each year to keep it maintained. Magic Plus has plans to turn its 16 acres along Woodward Avenue into a comprehensive development project. The groups owner, Joel Ferguson, said that they are excited to be part of Detroits continued economic renaissance and community revitalization. The Land Bank initially accepted a bid for Magic Plus to develop the entire property back in 2013. Related: Magic Johnson plan for Michigan State Fairgrounds reduced to 16 acres State Fairgrounds site in Detroit As for the citys plan, the Michigan Land Bank reports that Detroit officials will explore all options to ensure the project creates real economic opportunities for its residents. Creating jobs and providing commercial options is one of the main goals of the site. We are pleased to see this deal with Magic Plus close, as it paves the way for the redevelopment of this strategically located Woodward Avenue property, Thomas Lewand, the citys executive for jobs and economic growth, said in a statement. We also look forward to closing on the citys purchase of the other 142 acres of the State Fairgrounds property in the next several weeks. Magic Plus LLCs initial plan was met with concern from residents near the site, who wanted to see green space, walkability, parking decks and space for transit and agricultural elements. Those in the area at the time said the plan for the site was big-box boring. Related: Residents call Magic Johnsons Michigan State Fairgrounds development big-box boring The State Fairgrounds site hosted the annual fair from 1905-2009 until former Gov. Jennifer Granholm said the state could no longer afford to subsidize it. In 2012, then-Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation that transferred the site to the Michigan Land Bank to be returned to productive use. The historic State Fairgrounds is an important site for residents, the city of Detroit and the entire region, Josh Burgett, director of the Michigan Land Bank Fast Track Authority, said in a previous statement on the site. All parties involved have worked hard to bring redevelopment to the site and this public/private agreement is marrying two visions for the State Fairgrounds to create jobs and provide commercial destinations for those new employees and current residents. Related: Development plan for Michigan State Fairgrounds unveiled Detroit City Councils 2018-19 budget included $4 million from the general fund to cover the $3.5 million upfront cost of the total $7 million purchase price of the State Fairgrounds, according to the land bank. Once the site is developed, the remainder of the purchased price will need to be paid. As a fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral continues to burn Monday, April 15 in Paris, the world is watching as pieces of history crumble to the ground. The citys deputy mayor, Emmanuel Gregoire, told local media that the cathedral has sustained colossal damages in the still-burning fire. The Associated Press reports the fire first started in the spire of the structure, which eventually caused it to collapse. Related: Terrible fire at Notre Dame Cathedral: Visuals, live feeds from Paris A.P. adds that a spokesperson with the cathedral said the entire wooden interior is currently burning with the expectation that it will be destroyed. The spokesperson, Andre Finot, told media at the scene that everything is burning, nothing will remain from the frame. The horrifying moment the spire of the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris collapses For LIVE updates follow our team: https://t.co/sdmwa4wCZn pic.twitter.com/6IR6WPaYJp The Telegraph (@Telegraph) April 15, 2019 French President Emmanuel Macron not only delayed a nationwide televised address due to the fire set for Monday evening, but is reportedly headed to the scene in Central Paris. In a Monday tweet, the president said this is like watching a part of us being on fire while sending well wishes to all the Catholics and the French. The Associated Press reports that flames continue to shoot from the top of the historic cathedral that finished construction in Paris back in 1260. Police and fire officials at the scene have alluded to the news organization that the fire could be linked to recent renovation work on the historic relic. A.P. reports that recent renovation work has focused on the churchs spire and 250 tons of lead, costing $6.8 million. It has not yet been made clear if there was anyone injured by or in the fire. A Michigan family and Catholic adoption agency are suing Michigan over Attorney General Dana Nessels recent decision to make adoption agencies getting state funds adopt children to LGBT parents. In 2015, former Gov. Rick Snyder signed a law saying adoption agencies that contract with the state can decline service to prospective parents on religious grounds. The American Civil Liberties Union and a same-sex couple denied for adoption by religious agencies sued over that law. When Nessel took over as Attorney General she settled it, agreeing to make it so adoption agencies with state contracts for placing children with families cant turn away prospective LGBT parents. Under the settlement, adoption agencies could deny adoption services to LGBT people only if the children involved were not referred to them by the state. Now, the state is being sued from the other side of the issue; the religious adoption agencies who want to adopt within their religious beliefs. Melissa Buck is the mother of five children adopted through St. Vincent Catholic Charities. She, her husband, the Catholic adoption agency and a person adopted through the agency are suing the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and two of its employees, Nessel and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and its secretary in federal court. The plaintiffs are represented by Becket Law, a Washington, D.C.-based firm that focuses on religious liberty cases. My five children have a home and a future today thanks to St. Vincent, and my husband and I still rely on St. Vincents vital support in every step of our journey together as a family, Melissa Buck said in a statement released by the law firm. "We are hopeful that the courts will step in, do the right thing and allow faith-based agencies to continue to help vulnerable families like mine. Buck and her family were brought onto the national stage recently by President Donald Trump, who acknowledged them at the National Prayer Breakfast in February. Unfortunately, the Michigan adoption charity that brought the Buck family together is now defending itself in court for living by the values of its Catholic faith, Trump said then, before the settlement and before this most recent lawsuit. We will always protect our countrys long and proud tradition of faith-based adoption," he added. The lawsuit claims that the recent state decision makes St. Vincent and other religious agencies choose between following their faith and closing down a vital ministry. Kelly Rossman-McKinney, a spokesperson for Nessel, said, We have not had a chance to review the complaint. Based on the information provided during the plaintiffs counsels press conference, it appears that the plaintiffs attorneys do not understand the settlement agreement." She said under it, the state does not take action against faith-based adoption agencies that dont take a state referral. If the agency accepts a state referral, however, the agency cannot refuse to provide the child with foster care or adoptive services that conflict with its religious beliefs. ANN ARBOR, MI - College students living at YOUnion Ann Arbor have a new study space and fitness center thanks to a $1 million-renovation undertaken by the buildings new owner. SmartStop Asset Management purchased the 10-story, 97-unit student housing high-rise at 411 E. Washington St. in January 2018 for an undisclosed price. The apartment building, constructed in 2008 half a mile from the University of Michigan Diag, was previously called 4Eleven Lofts. This opportunity came up and we jumped on it, even though we knew we were going to have to do over a $1 million renovation because it was very dated, said Paula Mathews, executive vice president of SmartStop, which is based in California. SmartStop started as a self storage company and expanded to student and senior housing about four years ago, Mathews said. Its a very niche industry, and all of the universities - especially Big 10 - are all very competitive, she said. 7 411 Lofts In recent months, YOUnion Ann Arbor has gotten a facelift, with an expanded sky lounge study area on the 10th floor, an expanded fitness center relocated from the 10th floor to the ground floor, a remodeled lobby and new office space. YOUnion Ann Arbors new look will be unveiled at an open house from 3 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 17, through Friday, April 19, and from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday, April 20. Attendees can tour the new study space, and for every person who signs a message board during the open house, YOUnion will donate $5 to the University of Michigans Counseling and Psychological Services, up to $5,000. YOUnion Ann Arbor has a 98-percent occupancy rate, which has remained steady since 4Eleven Lofts opened, said Abby Jarvela, who worked at 4Eleven Lofts and now is regional supervisor of Asset Campus Housing, the management company based in Texas that SmartStop hired when it purchased the building. YOUnion Ann Arbor offers 345 beds in one-bedroom to four-bedroom apartments, ranging from 400 square feet to 1,135 square feet. After an industry-standard 3-percent annual increase, rent for the 2019-20 school year starts at $829 for a shared bedroom in a four-bedroom unit, and the highest cost is $2,069 for a one-bedroom apartment. YOUnions renovation prioritized study space and other amenities like fast wifi that accommodate college students lifestyles, Jarvela said, rather than adding things like a pool or tanning beds. This our brand that weve done at five universities now, and it works, Mathews said. The residents now are a little more sophisticated than they were a few years ago wanting all the pools. They want study space. From 2011: Fierce competition: Downtown Ann Arbor high-rise apartments wield lavish amenities to attract tenants A neon YOUnion sign above the front door welcomes people to the renovated lobby, which leads down a hallway with an Amazon hub to new management offices and a street-level fitness center with new equipment. The sky lounge, which offers a view of the Big House across downtown Ann Arbor, includes flexible seating with built-in power outlets, TVs, large tables for group meetings, a computer lab, kitchenette and an alcove with three booths and smaller tables. A laundry room is attached. The YOUnion building also includes retail space that houses Subway and Wilmas, the rebranded version of Freds restaurant owned by Sava Farah that opened in January. FLINT, MI --The Michigan Attorney Generals Office says illness has forced it to delay another court date in a Flint water prosecution. Patrick Cook, a specialist for the state Department of Environmental Quality, was scheduled to appear in Genesee Countys 67th District Court for continuation of his preliminary examination Monday, April 15, but that date has been delayed at the request of prosecutors due to an attorneys illness, said Dan Olsen, a spokesman for the department. Last week, appearances for former emergency manager Gerald Ambrose and two officials at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services -- Nancy Peeler and Robert Scott -- were also delayed after state attorneys requested adjournments. Prosecutors also did not appear at scheduling conferences for two other defendants -- former emergency manager Darnell Earley and former Flint Department of Public Works Director Howard Croft on April 1. Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud, appointed to lead the prosecutions following the election of Attorney General Dana Nessel, has said her team, including Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, are assessing the cases theyve inherited from former special prosecutor Todd Flood. Nessel criticized the water crisis prosecutions during her campaign, and though Flood has remained a part of Flint team since she took office, he is no longer directing the cases. Cook, 55, is charged with willful neglect of duty, misconduct in office and conspiracy. Court records dont yet show when his examination will resume. The next movement in the eight remaining Flint water criminal cases could come May 1 -- a scheduling hearing for former DHHS Director Nick Lyon. Genesee Circuit Judge Joseph Farah is also expected to issue a decision soon on a motion to quash Lyons bindover into circuit court on charges including involuntary manslaughter. GENESEE COUNTY, MI -- A barricaded gunman inside a Forest Township home has surrendered to police. Police responded around 7:15 p.m. Sunday, April 14 to a home in the 12000 block of East Lake Road, between Henderson and Washburn roads. Michigan State Police Lt. Duane Zook said the gunman came out of the home to law enforcement and is being questioned by investigators. There were others inside the home, but Zook said its not clear how many at this this time. No injuries are being reported. East Lake Road was closed in the area to allow for police to focus on the situation. The state police Flint post is the lead agency on the situation, Zook noted, with assistance at the scene including the Genesee and Lapeer County Sheriffs offices. UPDATE: GENESEE COUNTY, MI -- A barricaded gunman situation has police asking residents to avoid a portion of East Lake Road in Forest Township. Michigan State Police Lt. Duane Zook said the situation is still developing as we speak and requested people to steer clear of the area. East Lake Road is closed between Henderson and Washburn roads, according to Genesee County 911. The state police Flint post is the lead agency on the situation, Zook noted, with assistance at the scene including the Genesee and Lapeer County Sheriffs offices. No additional details on the situation were immediately available from police. GRANDVILLE, MI -- Two girls were injured when the vehicle they were riding in Monday morning, April 15, was involved in a pile-up of more than a dozen vehicles on I-196 in Grandville. Michigan State Police said the girls -- ages 12 and 14 -- were transported to Helen DeVos Childrens Hospital to be treated for minor injuries. The crash, which included a school bus, occurred shortly before 7:30 a.m. Monday on westbound I-196 at the M-11 (28th Street) exit ramp. The girls werent passengers on the school bus. Police said one vehicle spun-out due to icy roads, which triggered the pile-up. Additional vehicles, including a school bus, were unable to stop in time and joined the collision. The Grandville Calvin Christian Schools bus sustained minor damage. In total, 14 vehicles were damaged in the pile-up. Other vehicles were involved but werent damaged, according to police. One Kent County dispatcher initially said there were up to 30 vehicles involved. One driver involved in the pile-up, Andy Heffernan, said he was on the overpass traveling about 40 mph when the vehicle in front of him tried to stop for the crash ahead and slid. He tried to brake but was unsuccessful and crashed. When I came over top of the hill, I saw the car in front of me, they locked their brakes up and at first I didnt realize it was all ice until I tried to apply my brakes, Heffernan said. "From there it was too late. There were cars lined up about three deep pretty far in front of me ... I was on the tail end of it so i didnt get the worst of it. The children who were injured in the crash were in a vehicle in the middle of the wreck, police said. They were transported to the hospital by AMR. State police closed the exit-ramp to 28th Street after the crash. It was reopened shortly before 9:30 a.m. Monday. Troopers were assisted on scene by crews from the Grandville and Wyoming fire departments. BARRY COUNTY, MI -- Police said speed appears to be a factor in a two-vehicle crash that killed one driver and hospitalized two passengers in Barry County. A 76-year-old Battle Creek man was pronounced dead at the scene. A 77-year-old Battle Creek woman and a 9-year-old girl, who were passengers in the mans Chrysler Town and Country van, were transported to an area hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The crash occurred around 2 p.m. Sunday, April 14, on M-37, south of 108th Street, in Thornapple Township. State police said a 19-year-old Middleville man lost control of his Ford Explorer and crossed the center line before colliding with the minivan. Police didnt report any injuries to the 19-year-old. A preliminary investigation indicates that the crash was caused by speed," according to state police. Alcohol and drugs do not appear to have been factors. The crash remains under investigation by state police. Troopers were assisted on scene Sunday by the Caledonia and Thornapple Township fire departments. Police ask anyone with further information regarding the crash to contact the state police post in Wayland at 269-792-2213. Several crashes were reported across West Michigan on Sunday as heavy snow hit portions of the state, which caused road conditions to worsen. KALAMAZOO, MI A Grand Rapids police captain foresaw controversy when recorded calls were found on a non-recorded telephone line about the investigation into a prosecutors alcohol-related crash. The recordings captured fired Lt. Matthew Janiskee talking with police at the scene of a Nov. 19, 2016, crash involving former Assistant Kent County Prosecutor Josh Kuiper. His Toyota Tacoma crashed into a parked car while he drove the wrong way on Union Avenue SE. Officer Adam Ickes called Janiskee at the watch commanders desk and said Kuiper was hammered. Janiskee told him to stop talking and to call back on the line designated non-recorded. In five subsequent calls on that line, Jansikee and two others talked about helping Kuiper avoid an arrest for drunken driving. Interim-Deputy Chief Peter McWatters, testifying Monday, April 15, in a civil trial in U.S. District Court in Kalamazoo, said police sought legal counsel after a handful of investigators listened to the unexpected recordings. Police found the recordings while looking for a call log. I assumed there would be an issue (where) we would be accused of doing this on purpose, or knowing about, he said. McWatters and other police commanders including interim Chief David Kiddle - said they did not know that Line 3407 had been set to record. The recordings captured an attempt to cover up Kuipers drinking before the crash, attorney Scott Dwyer, representing the City of Grand Rapids, told U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney. He said the line designated non-recorded was not to be used to hide misconduct. Janiskees attorney, Andrew Rodenhouse, contends police violated federal wiretapping law. He discounts the citys position that human error caused the line to record. Rodenhouse said the Grand Rapids Police Department, which asked state police to investigate if Janiskee and two others committed crimes, should have also asked an outside agency to investigate whether wiretapping laws were violated. The city early on filed a federal lawsuit seeking a declaratory ruling that the recordings of the five calls did not violate state or federal wire-tapping laws. The city then provided the recordings after the state Court of Appeals sided with MLive and said the calls should be released publicly. Rodenhouse said he thinks the citys lawsuit was to escape liability for the use of the five phone calls. Janiskee was fired. Ickes, along with then-Sgt. Thomas Warwick, were suspended. Warwick drove Kuiper home without having him undergo a breath or blood test for alcohol. Retired Deputy Chief Daniel Savage testified he would have expected Janiskee to notify him if a prosecutor had been in a serious crash for professional reasons as well as Janiskees wife, Monica, serving as Kent Countys chief assistant prosecutor. Savage said he was concerned because Janiskee didnt report the incident for several days and Kuiper was not given a test for alcohol despite his drinking. Kuiper was convicted of reckless driving and jailed two days. Paul Klimas, the citys Information Technology director, testified that he had never heard of Line 3407 until he read an MLive article shortly after the controversy began. He said that a city worker could gain access to a recording but not change settings to record or not record. That would require a technician with administrative credentials" who had passed a background check. Klimas said he has not been able to determine why the line was changed from non-recorded to recorded. The city had a new system installed in 2010 with upgrades the following years. KALKASKA COUNTY, MI -- Police are investigating an alleged home-invasion in which the homeowner shot an intruder following a struggle over a rifle in Kalkaska County. A 26-year-old Kalkaska man is recovering Monday, April 15, at Munson Medical Center after undergoing surgery for a gunshot wound to the chest. Police arrested the homeowner -- a 23-year-old Rapid City man. He was questioned and later released. The case will be forwarded to the Kalkaska County Prosecutors Office for review upon completion by the Kalkaska County Sheriffs Office. The incident began around 9 p.m. Saturday, April 13, when a 26-year-old Kalkaska man went to the residence of his ex-girlfriends current boyfriend, where she lives with him. Police said the homeowner told the ex-boyfriend to leave. He complied, but then allegedly sent threatening messages to his ex-girlfriend and her current boyfriend. The messages declared that he was going to return to the residence to fight the current boyfriend, police said in a report. The Kalkaska man returned around 3:30 a.m. Sunday, April 14. He was met by the rifle-wielding homeowner, who demanded he leave the residence. Police said the Kalkaska man forced his way into the residence and a struggle ensued over the rifle. The intruder gained control of the rifle for a short time and then a second struggle for the rifle began. At one point, the homeowner produced a small caliber pistol and shot the Kalkaska man once in the chest. He was transported to Munson Medical Center for treatment. The Kalkaska County Sheriffs Office was assisted on scene by the Michigan Police Crime Lab and detectives, Clearwater Township Fire Department and Kalkaska EMS. HOLLAND, MI Battery maker LG Chem Michigan is hosting a career fair Tuesday at it looks to hire 75 employees. The company, located at 1 LG Way, will host on-site interviews during two sessions. The first runs from 9 a.m. to noon, and the second starts at 4 p.m. and ends at 6 p.m. LG Chem is looking for technical operators, production engineers, journeymen electricians, maintenance technicians and an experienced production manager, the company said in a news release. To make the best products, we need the best employees, Jeremy Hagemeyer, the companys human resources director, said in a statement. We understand that to accomplish that, we need to pay and treat our team members well. Whether its our on-site cafeteria, excellent benefits, fitness facility, or promotional opportunities, we aim to be the employer of choice in West Michigan. Technical operators earn a minimum starting hourly rate of $16. The company also offers a $500 bonus at 90-days and an additional $500 at 180-days. ALLEGAN COUNTY, MI -- A 32-year-old Hopkins man died over the weekend after the vehicle he was driving left the roadway, rolled, and struck a tree in Allegan County. The single-vehicle crash occurred around 3:40 p.m. Sunday, April 14, on 20th Street, south of 128th Avenue, in Hopkins Township. Police said the Dodge SUV was southbound on 20th Street when its driver lost control and left the roadway. The vehicle rolled before striking a tree. The driver was not wearing a seat belt, police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police declined to release the name of the driver, pending notification of his family. He was the only person in the vehicle at the time of the crash. The crash remains under investigation by Michigan State Police. Troopers were assisted on scene by the Hopkins Township Fire Department and Wayland EMS. Sundays return of snowy weather and slipper driving conditions kept West Michigan emergency crews busy responding to an uptick in reported crashes and slide-offs. Another fatal crash was reported on M-37 in Barry County. Police ask anyone with additional information to contact the state police post in Wayland at 269-792-2213. GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Mujey Dumbuya was excited for her first prom. She knew what she wanted to wear, how she wanted to look. Then, Quinn James took her life. This would have been her prom dress, that wouldve been her makeup and that wouldve been her hairdo, Dumbuyas aunt, Jainya Sonnoh, said in court Monday. She wanted to ride a limo with her friend but instead she got a casket, instead she got a hearse. James, 43, was sentenced Monday, April 15, to life without chance of parole for killing 16-year-old Dumbuya. Investigators say he killed her to prevent her from testifying in court about how he raped her. He was convicted earlier this year of first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree felony murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. You destroyed her life and then you turn around and take her away from me forever, Dumbuyas mother, Fatmata Corneh, said at sentencing. It is hard for me to forgive him. People like this dont deserve to be in a community. I know Mujey she is in heaven and she is smiling, because she wants him behind bars all of the time. James cried and claimed he was innocent before Kent County Circuit Judge George Quist handed down the sentences. He plans to appeal the convictions. Quist called the murder a horrific crime committed against a very vulnerable young girl. James told Quist he tried to remain quiet and stoic throughout the proceedings to respect the process he thought would exonerate him. As Dumbuyas family spoke at sentencing about the pain he caused them, he had a fixed smirk. Dumbuya was found dead Jan. 28, 2018, in a wooded area of Kalamazoo. Investigators believe she was strangled to death four days before she was found. A jury found James guilty Feb. 28 of murdering Dumbuya after deliberating for about five hours over two days. Investigators say James killed Dumbuya to prevent her from testifying that he raped her in summer 2017 while she dated his fiancees nephew, who was living with him in Wyoming. He was found guilty in June 2018 of raping Dumbuya and later sentenced to two to three decades in prison. James alleged accomplice in the slaying, 59-year-old Gerald Bennett of Detroit, awaits trial. He is jailed on $100,000 bond. UPDATE: Two injured in the crash; off-ramp to 28th Street back open GRANDVILLE, MI -- A multi-vehicle pile up on I-196 in Grandville injured at least two people and closed an off-ramp during the morning commute Monday, April 15. Police were dispatched shortly before 7:30 a.m. Monday to a multi-vehicle crash involving a full school bus on westbound I-196 near the M-11 (28th Street) ramp. A Kent County dispatcher said the crash reportedly started as a four-vehicle crash, and evolved into a pile-up with up to 30 vehicles involved. A preliminary report from the scene was that two people were injured. A dispatcher confirmed there were at least two patients, but could not immediately provide details involving the severity of injuries. None of the children on the school bus had any reported injuries, according to dispatch. The exit ramp to 28th Street will be closed for a extended period of time Monday morning while police investigate the various crashes involved in the pile-up. One driver involved in the pile-up, Andy Heffernan, said he was on the overpass traveling about 40 mph when the vehicle in front of him tried to stop for the crash ahead and slid. He tried to brake but was unsuccessful and crashed. When I came over top of the hill, I saw the car in front of me, they locked their brakes up and at first I didnt realize it was all ice until i tried to apply my brakes, Heffernan said. "From there it was too late. There were cars lined up about three deep pretty far in front of me ... I was on the tail end of it so i didnt get the worst of it. Michigan State Police are investigating the incident. Crews on scene are from the Grandville Fire Department, Wyoming Fire Department and AMR. Local authorities and first-responders in West Michigan were busy Monday morning as slippery conditions were a factor in dozens of crashes and slide-offs in Kent and Ottawa counties. Emergency crews were dispatched around 7:30 a.m. Monday, April 15, to a report of a multi-vehicle crash on WB I-196 at the 28th Street exit in Grandville. (Courtesy photo | MDOT camera) Multimedia Specialist Neil Blake contributed to this report. HILLSDALE, MI -- U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell considers himself a First Amendment purist, and he spoke out on free speech in higher education Monday on a conservative Michigan college campus. McConnell, R-Ky., spoke to students, faculty and Hillsdale Colleges Board of Trustees on April 15 as part of the Distinguished Fellow Lecture series. He also was presented an honorary degree. Hillsdale College is a an independent private liberal arts college that accepts no state or federal taxpayer funds. McConnell said he respects Hillsdales dedication to teaching the Constitution. He said defending free speech is one of the primary challenges the nation is facing today. (Hillsdale Colleges) academic excellence, independence and impact all bears witness to the truth that ideas have consequences, McConnell said. Institutions built on good ideas can reshape history for the better. McConnell, who has served Kentucky in the U.S. Senate since 1984 and has been majority leader since 2014, argued that restoring the U.S. judiciary is another matter of constitutional law facing the nation. People didnt consent to elected judges who start with an outcome in mind and torture (the Constitution) until it coughs up a convenient interpretation, McConnell said. He also touched on the controversial appointment of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who faced accusations of sexual misconduct during his confirmation hearing. McConnell said the reaction to the appointment made him question whether partisan politics override the presumption of innocence. What we see are angry mobs looking to intimidate the notion that if you feel something with enough passion, the actual facts arent relevant, he said. ... Its not even policy differences. Its the broader consensus in which all of this conflict takes place, he said. Above all else, America is built on good ideas. The declaration of independence distills them, the Constitution allows them to flourish, and as long as these endure, so will we. Hillsdale College sophomore Grace Balkan said she respects the colleges leadership for having the conservative Senate leader speak on campus. I admire the way we are respecting him for what hes done well, because no matter what you think about politics right now, hes done a lot of good for our country, Balkan said. This was an honor and shows respect for the college since at other universities, people would refuse to listen. KALAMAZOO, MI -- Kalamazoos school board last week discussed support and opposition to plans to erect a statue downtown honoring Abraham Lincoln, hearing from some residents with concerns about the idea. Lincoln visited Kalamazoo prior to his presidency and a group of supporters have been working for years to build a statue in his honor and create educational opportunities around his visit to the city. Two community members expressed concerns to the Kalamazoo Public Schools Board of Education Thursday, April 11, questioning the schools role in funding the proposed statue honoring the former U.S. president. Brionne Fonville said it was inappropriate for the school to hold penny drives raising money for the statue, citing racial and social justice issues surrounding the former president. Our public school systems curriculum tells a white-washed version of U.S. history and Lincolns place in it, Fonville said. The Kalamazoo Abraham Lincoln Project is a nonprofit organization working to erect the statue in Bronson Park. Work began in 2011 among a group of supporters to honor the presidents legacy and provide a new educational resource in the community. The nonprofit was created in 2017 by former state Sen. Cameron Brown, a Republican who represented St. Joseph, Branch, Hillsdale and Lenawee counties in the Michigan Senate. Brown said the projects intent is to bring value and allow for conversation." The projects plan includes more than just the statue itself. Organizers hope to hold symposiums and art and essay contests for young children to learn about the role race played in U.S. history, Brown said in an interview with MLive. Lincoln came to Kalamazoo to speak out against the expansion of slavery, Brown said. The former president lobbied for the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing those in slavery and during a speech the day he was killed, spoke of his desire for freed slaves to have the right to vote, Brown said. Lincoln died as a martyr for what he believed in, he said. All of us who serve on the project have a deep respect for the right of others to have an opinion, Brown said. Im hoping they understand the big picture, and the big picture has value." A video published to the projects website explains the history of Lincolns visit to Kalamazoo in 1856. In 2013, the Kalamazoo City Commission approved the steering committees request to place a privately funded Lincoln statue in Bronson Park. The nonprofit is seeking about $300,000 to fund construction of the statue. Penny drives began this spring in Kalamazoo, Portage and Comstock public schools, according to the projects website. Kalamazoo Public Schools board member Tandy Moore said the district pledged support" for the project and was holding penny drives, encouraging families and students to bring in loose change to help fund the project. Donating is optional for the families, Moore said. Board Vice President Ken Greschak said Lincoln was a complicated historical figure at a very complicated historical time. Greschak requested information on the history curriculum from school administrations and commended the board for having the discussion. Maybe its well past time that we as a society begin to look at our heroes of bygone eras through a new lens, new perspectives, improved perspectives, Greschak said. Fonville said the community worked hard to advocate for the removal of the controversial Bronson Park statue in April. Our community did this work so that native folks dont have continue to feel disrespected, misrepresented and re-traumatized by depictions of white supremacy and historical violence against communities of color, Fonville said. District support of the Lincoln statue project undoes the work the community did then, she said. Kirstin Simons-Valenzuela read a poem as public comment during Thursdays meeting, expressing her concern with a statue honoring Lincoln. As we take down monuments dedicated to disgraced, white men, let us not erect more in deaf ignorance, Simons-Valenzuela said. Lincoln was one of several who spoke in Bronson Park during an Aug. 27, 1856, rally for a Republican presidential nominee. Though historians note that, at the time, Lincoln was a relatively obscure Illinois prairie lawyer, his 16-minute-long speech in Kalamazoo focused on the issues that would later define his presidency after his election just four years later. Kalamazoo is the only place in Michigan where Lincoln made a public appearance, according to the projects website. Kalamazoo has memorialized Lincolns visit in multiple ways over the years, starting with a boulder placed in the southeast corner of Bronson Park in 1934. A Michigan Historic Site marker was placed in the park in 1957 to celebrate the 100th year anniversary of Lincolns appearance. Brown said people need to look at the entirety of Lincolns legacy to America, rather than a snapshot. Theres opposition in everything, Brown said. That doesnt negate the good, and were promoting the good. The project is an opportunity to teach students about history, while the former presidents values like honesty are an chance to teach values to children, Brown said. Kalamazoo Public Schools Board President Patti Sholler-Barber, who worked as a social studies teacher for 35 years, said many former presidents and historical figures have horrific things that they did and exemplary things they did. Sholler-Barber commended teachers for teaching a complicated subject and encouraging their students to be critical. Lincoln is hugely controversial, justifiably so, Sholler-Barber said. It demands community conversation. Several prominent community leaders have pledged to support the capital campaign, including local businessman and Western Michigan University Trustee Ken Miller, Kalamazoo Public Schools Superintendent Michael Rice, former city commissioner and Borgess Medical Center executive Moses Walker, among others. The project also touts endorsements from the Kalamazoo Community Foundation, Vicksburg and Oshtemo historical societies, Kalamazoo County Trial Lawyers Association, organizations representing sons and daughters of Union veterans of the Civil War and the Edison Business Association. In 2013, the Kalamazoo Gazette Editorial Board supported the project. Rice voiced his support for the project, according to a testimonial published on the projects website. I am supportive of both the statue and leadership center, and look forward to the opportunity to flesh out ways in which such a center might aid in the development of Kalamazoo Public Schools students," Rice said in the testimonial published on the projects website. The superintendent remains supportive of the plans. I stand with the Kalamazoo City Commission and the Kalamazoo Gazette in endorsing the Abraham Lincoln project," Rice said in a statement Monday, April 15. "Discussions of history help us grow as a community and a nation. BATTLE CREEK, MI -- Eleven new, fury faces will great visitors at Binder Park Zoo Wednesday as the zoo opens for the 2019 season. A litter of endangered African painted dogs, born in November and raised by parents Ghost and Verizon through the winter months, are ready to meet the public when the zoo reopens Wednesday, April 17, according to zoo staff. The African painted dog is currently listed as endangered by both the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, with an estimated global population of less than 5,000. Binder Park Zoo is the only facility in Michigan where guests can see this rare species, according to a Binder Park Zoo news release. Visitors can see the pups from three viewing stations in the zoos Wild Africa exhibit. The successful birth of the pups was a significant contribution towards conservation of the species," Curator of Collections Kathryn Sippel said in the release. They are endlessly entertaining to watch and we expect them to be immensely popular because really, who doesnt love a pack of puppies? Sippel said. Following the birth of the litter, zoo staff maintained a hands-off" approach to give the family unit the opportunity to grow and bond without unnecessary intervention. When the zoo first opens for the year, its daily hours will be 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday, April 17, through Tuesday, April 30. Starting Wednesday, May 1, and running through Monday, Sept. 2, zoo hours will be expanded to 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. Daily admission rates to Binder Park Zoo start at $14.25 for adults, $12.25 for children ages 2-10 and $13.25 for seniors over 65. Admission to the zoo is free for children younger than 2. The zoo offers memberships starting at $110. For more information on special events and zoo exhibits, visit www.binderparkzoo.org. MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI Muskegon Countys plans to terminate its lease with Planned Parenthood would force the shutdown of the health clinic, Planned Parenthood officials say. The countys Public Health department has asked the Muskegon County Board of Commissioners to terminate the contract with Planned Parenthood so the department can reclaim the groups clinical space at 209 E. Apple Ave. The request has already passed a preliminary vote by board. Planned Parenthood currently pays $1,500 a year for the space where it provides physician referrals, birth control, pregnancy testing, emergency contraceptives, HIV/STD testing, as well as general womens, mens and LGBTQ healthcare services. Health department officials say the space is needed to expand STD/HIV services. They would like to use the Planned Parenthood space to create a clinic with private rooms and larger workstations for nurses to administer vaccines. A separate contract with Planned Parenthood to offer clinical services like patient referrals and access to birth control would remain unaltered, said county board Chairwoman Susie Hughes. An eviction by the county would effectively shut down Planned Parenthoods Muskegon health center, according to a news release the organization issued Monday afternoon. If the Board terminates (the) contract, the more than 1,500 people who received free- or low-cost reproductive care and birth control would no longer have access to high-quality, affordable services, the release reads. A request for further comment from Planned Parenthood was not immediately returned. While the request is seemingly apolitical, it hasnt stopped reproductive rights activists and Muskegons conservative base from turning the vote into a battle of ideologies. Residents on both sides of the political aisle hope to sway commissioners before they cast a final vote on the matter at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 16. The meeting has been moved to the Muskegon Area Transit Systems Louis A. McMurray Conference Center, 2624 Sixth St., in Muskegon Heights, in anticipation of a larger-than-normal turnout, Hughes said. The boards human services committee on April 9 voted 7-2 in favor of terminating the contract. Those in favor were Hughes, Vice Chairman Gary Foster and commissioners Zach Lahring, Bob Scolnik, I. Jon Snider, Charles Nash and Rillastine Wilkins. Commissioners Marcia Hovey-Wright and Ken Mahoney voted against the measure. Lahring, a Republican elected in 2018 who campaigned on reducing the countys involvement with Planned Parenthood, told MLive/Muskegon Chronicle that hes totally supportive of the measure" and called it a financial win for county taxpayers. Urgent Action Needed!!! I'm asking every parishioner in Muskegon County to talk to their pastor this Sunday! I need... Posted by Zach Lahring for Muskegon County Commissioner on Saturday, April 13, 2019 Lahring said the lease adopted in 2010 has no room for negotiation to increase the rent. Planned Parenthood pays the county $1,500 a year, while the Health Department pays $8,000 a year for the building, Lahring said. He feels that amounts to free rent since the county in turn uses that money to market Planned Parenthood and other family planning services. If they want to lease space outside of the county property, thats fine," Lahring said. But I dont want the county subsidizing them through free rent. The Muskegon County Planned Parenthood center opened in March 2010 after a three-year absence. The county had been without a dedicated government grant-funded provider after the Muskegon Family Center closed in November 2009. The county is required by law to provide STD testing, which it has done since 2010 through Planned Parenthood. However, some STD testing is done by the county independent of Planned Parenthood. Hughes said the board since Thursday received more than 400 emails from area residents regarding the Planned Parenthood contract. Planned Parenthood indicated its supporters sent 2,000 emails. Hughes, a Democrat, said she supports the request from Kathy Moore, director of the public health department. We need to take that space back, Hughes said. Theyll still be providing services, were just asking them to find their own space. The county does not have a public space available for a relocated Planned Parenthood clinic, she said. Several commissioners and Muskegon County Administrator Mark Eisenbarth are in the process of helping Planned Parenthood identify private spaces throughout the county, Hughes said. Were also not asking them to move out tomorrow, Hughes said. Weve extended the time to give them 90 days. There are spaces out there, and since Planned Parenthood deals mostly with womens health issues, we suggested they look at places like Every Womans Place. A lack of privacy in a small space According to Moores request for board consideration, the county has accommodated the needs of other outside agencies to the detriment of our own. Moore added that public healths operational capacity and quality of services have diminished over time because it has limited access to our own resources. Moore said Planned Parenthoods clinical space is the only area within the Muskegon County Public Health building available for the county to expand its clinical services, which include immunizations for children and families and STD/HIV treatment and prevention. Moore said the countys current clinical space consists of two office spaces with several small cubicles located near the front of the building. Planned Parenthood takes up at least a third of the building to the rear, complete with two exam rooms, a front desk area, a records room and a lab space. The lab space and at least one of the rooms is shared between the county health department and Planned Parenthood. Moore said cramped cubicle spaces potentially violate privacy laws because staff and clients can overhear conversations about medical ailments, which Moore said can make clients wary to share medical information or ask questions. Accessibility and potential Americans with Disabilities Act violations are two other issues cited in Moores memo, because clients with wheelchairs or walkers may have a hard time moving about the cramped spaces. Plans for expanded immunization, HIV programs Moore said the countys STD and HIV program needs more space because recent data shows Muskegon County has some of the highest rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea. The small STD/HIV prevention and treatment clinic fills up quickly, and clients often wait for long periods of time to be seen. With the continued elevation of STD rates, it would be beneficial to obtain a second room so we may increase clinical activities to help reduce rates and provide more one-on-one education with clients seeking clinical care, Moore said. However, the plan could be upended Tuesday with enough public pressure from local activists. The board on Tuesday could approve the measure, postpone the vote until a later date or table the measure altogether. Hughes said she plans to miss Tuesdays meeting for a previously-planned surgery. If the board vote results in a tie, the motion would fail, Hughes said. That means the public health department would have to try again later, but Hughes said she hopes the measure passes. Sometimes they have difficulty fitting people in who have randomly shown up for STD testing, she said. It takes a lot to build up the courage to do that, and when they get turned away, difficult to get them back. MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI A teen who murdered a man more than 2 1/2 years ago but still awaits sentencing could be in bigger trouble if hes convicted of new charges of shooting up a house. Galvester James Robinson II, 18, awaits adult sentencing for the September 2016 drive-by shooting death of Gary Thompson on Peck Street in the city of Muskegon. Robinson was 16 and driving the car from which shots were fired into the car Thompson was driving. Muskegon County Probate Judge Gregory C. Pittman delayed adult sentencing after Robinson pleaded no contest to second-degree murder in February 2017. He did order Robinson to attend the Woodward Academy in Iowa roughly from June 2017 to March 2018. Since late March 2018, Pittman has repeatedly ordered Robinson to reside with his mother as a temporary ward of the court on intensive probation. Finding that Robinson has not been rehabilitated, Pittman also has continued to delay imposition of an adult sentence in that case. Its now alleged that on Aug. 21, 2018, Robinson shot at an occupied home at the corner of Riordan Street and Hume Avenue in Muskegon Heights. On Wednesday, April 10, a mistrial was declared in that case involving two counts: discharge of a firearm at a building, a 10-year felony; and possession of a firearm while committing a felony. Muskegon County Circuit Judge William Marietti declared after three hours of deliberation that the jury was hung in the case and scheduled a retrial for April 30. At a preliminary examination on Nov. 29, 2018, a reluctant witness testified that he was with Robinson when both of them shot at a house. He said they were there to take care of business, though he didnt know the nature of that business. He testified that Robinson was armed with a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun and that he had a 9 mm semi-automatic. The alleged victim testified at Robinsons trial that he was inside the home when it was shot at least five times, said Muskegon County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Timothy Maat. BAY CITY, MI Greg Jajo Sr. is planning a community line dancing event, an activity that has helped him cope with post traumatic stress disorder and help others. Dust Stompers Present Stomping the Street is tentatively scheduled for 7 p.m. to midnight Saturday, May 18 on Third Street in Bay City. The City Commission will vote on the event permit on Monday, April 15. The event will include the Rebel Line band, a DJ and line dance classes, said Jajo. Jajo, a Bay City native, learned how to line dance in North Carolina, after he left the military where he served for more than 22 years. Since he left, hes had to deal with issues like PTSD and line dancing has helped him push through the tough times. It turned into therapy for my PTSD, said Jajo. When Jajo moved back to Bay City, he started teaching line dancing classes in bars and other venues in the area. He eventually named the class Dust Stompers and now consistently holds classes at The Stables in Bay City on Sundays. Dust Stompers also visits nursing homes and rehabilitation centers, Jajo said. A portion of the proceeds for the event will go toward the Bay City chapter of the Military Order of Purple Heart and Patriot Paws, a service dog organization based in Texas. Jajo said the cost of entry to the event is still being worked out. I wanted to do something different than being at a bar and get out to the public and make it more aware of what we do and what weve accomplished, Jajo said. MIDLAND, MI The Michigan Supreme Court will allow a lawsuit to move forward involving a transgender woman using the womens locker room at a Planet Fitness. Yvette Cormiers lawsuit against Planet Fitness was filed in Midland County in 2015 after her membership was canceled because she complained to fellow gym members about seeing a transgender woman using the locker room. Cormier said her membership at Planet Fitness was wrongly terminated. Cormier is alleging violations of the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, breach of contract and other claims. Midland County Circuit Court Judge Michael J. Beale dismissed the lawsuit in 2016. Cormiers attorney, David A. Kallman, appealed the judges decision to the Michigan Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals affirmed Beale's ruling in June of 2016, but Cormier then took her case to the Michigan Supreme Court, which ordered the Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision. The state appeals court then said Cormiers case can go to trial. The state Supreme Court on April 2 said that decision will stand. The issue that remains is Planet Fitness' alleged failure to reveal that it had an unwritten policy that allows an individual to use whichever locker room or restroom that corresponds with the gender that individual self-identifies. Cormiers initial lawsuit was seeking damages of $25,000 or more from Planet Fitness. BAY CITY, MI -- The Bay City Times-MLive has moved its editorial and advertising staff to a new location in Uptown Bay City. The Central Michigan University Research Corp. business incubator in Uptown will be home base for our continued coverage of the community and service for our business partners. MLive Media Group President Dan Gaydou said moving to a center for entrepreneurship makes sense for the company. As the top media organization in our community and as digital innovators, we believe we fit in well and will make positive contributions. This also shows our continued commitment to our core communities, Gaydou said. The Bay City Times remains deeply committed to the people of Bay County and surrounding region. That hasnt changed. Only the location has changed. As digital journalists, we work from a variety of locations across the Bay City area. That will not change with the move upriver to Uptown, from offices in downtown Bay City. The Bay City Times has been with the city since its early beginnings during the heyday of the lumber and timber industry in the 1800s. The Times was published at a facility on Water Street for nearly two decades before it moved into a new building at Fifth and Adams downtown in early 1910. In 2014, The Times moved its editorial and sales operations back to Water Street, leasing space at the new Mill End Lofts, at Water and Third Streets. In January 2017, developers unveiled The Times Lofts luxury apartments at the old Bay City Times headquarters at Fifth and Adams. The Bay City Times now follows to Uptown the next stage in the continuing development of our city and region. As a Corporate CoWork Member, MLive will have a presence throughout the Great Lakes Bay Region, said CMURC President and CEO Erin Strang, They will be embedded in the heart of the entrepreneurial community. For news tips and questions concerning coverage, contact News Leader Eric English at 989-372-2345 or eenglish@mlive.com. For print and digital advertising, contact Senior Sales Manager Michele Zurvalec at 989-245-2879 or mzurvale@mlive.com. For circulation and other questions, contact customer support at (616) 222-5411 or (800) 878-1411 or click here. Despite repeated warnings and scaremongering from Washington, Belgiums center for cybersecurity has not found any evidence to suggest that equipment provided by Chinese telecom giant Huawei could be used for spying purposes. The Belgian agency looked into potential threats posed by Huawei, but found no proof of any spying threat posed by using technology provided by the company, which supplies telecom equipment to Belgian mobile operators Proximus, Orange Belgium, and Telenet. Huawei has been targeted in recent months by Washington and accused of being a threat to national security. In particular, US officials have said that the companys 5G networks could enable Chinese cyber-espionage. The US has even threatened to stop sharing intel with countries which allow Huawei to build 5G infrastructure. Also on rt.com Merkel on Huawei: Germany wont exclude 5G providers just because they come from China Until now we have not found technical indications that point in the direction of a spying threat, a spokesman for the Belgian agency said on Monday, adding that it would not yet publish a final report on the matter and is continuing to look into it. The US has already banned federal agencies from using Huawei products as part of President Donald Trumps campaign of economic pressure against China. The ban prompted a lawsuit from Huawei which claims it restricts Huawei from engaging in fair competition and notes that the US has repeatedly failed to produce any evidence to justify its restrictions on the Chinese companys products. Also on rt.com Blatant extortion: German ex-chancellor lashes out at US threat to withhold intel over China Washington has also been pressuring European countries into similarly banning Huawei technology, although its efforts have been mostly unsuccessful. In March, the European Commission ignored US calls to ban Huawei, but urged member states to continue assessing any cybersecurity threats. Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei sarcastically thanked the Trump administration in February for talking about the alleged threat so much, which he said ultimately was helping to promote the technology. Like this story? Share it with a friend! The public must raise its voice for Julian Assange if it does not want to be gagged for good, says George Galloway, who believes that the publisher's persecution is an assault on the fundamental right of people to know the truth. Galloway and a crowd of WikiLeaks supporters staged a protest rally in support of the arrested co-founder of the whistleblowing site on Sunday outside Belmarsh Prison, where Assange is being held, a top security jail in southeast London known as 'Britain's Guantanamo Bay.' Assange was dragged out of Ecuador's London embassy on Thursday after spending almost seven years in de-facto confinement, with his visitor rights limited and Internet cut off during the last months of his exile. Galloway, a film-maker, writer and former Labour MP, who calls himself a friend of Assange, said that his case affects all who cherish their right to know the truth about shady government dealings. "You don't have to like him, you don't have to like everything he's ever written or published, but if you like the fact that we have the right to speak and know the uncomfortable truths our rulers don't want us to know, then you should be here in person, or, at least, in spirit," Galloway said. He said this is exactly the type of the situation in which one must take sides, and either stand with the "executioners" or oppose them. READ MORE: WikiLeaks 'dead man's switch'? Assange's arrest prompts speculation about possible major data dumps "If Julian Assange is criminalized and incarcerated for revealing the truth about what our rulers are doing, have done, then you might as well deliver yourself behind those walls, you might as well volunteer for a prison cell yourself, because you'll no longer be free, and you'll never be free again," the former lawmaker said. Assange was arrested for skipping bail in the UK and is facing a US extradition request. The US charged him with conspiracy to hack into a Pentagon computer network together with former US Army soldier Chelsea Manning. Also on rt.com Julian Assange exposed great crimes & now great crime committed against him - George Galloway While the UK police had a formal right to arrest Assange because of his bail violation, Galloway thinks they should not have treated him like a dangerous criminal. "The British police had to arrest Julian Assange and they had to put him in an ambulance, not in a police wagon because the man, after seven years in a single room in the Ecuadorian embassy, is obviously not a well man." Speaking on the prospects of the US extradition request, Galloway told RT he hopes the British court would reject it. He argued that his trial in the US might go against the principle of double jeopardy since Manning already served time for the same offense. "There may have been a theft of information involved," but it was justified, Galloway believes: it was "a right of all the people of the world to know about what Chelsea Manning released." And while publishing stolen materials in the public interest is nothing new, Assange's case threatens to put a full stop to it. "If every publisher who publishers material that was stolen from its owners was put on trial and extradited and sent behind bars, there would be no publishing." Hear George Galloway's thoughts in full below: Omar Barghouti, who was banned from entering the US, says Israel makes Washington do its bidding in suppressing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, but it only results in greater grassroots support. Last week, Barghouti was prohibited from traveling from Israel to the US by the American immigration authorities despite having a valid visa. Speaking to RT, the activist said the US was adopting McCarthyite policies to please Israel. '), link: "http://bit.ly/2VMLLjN" }, events: { onReady: function () { if(ga) { ga('send', 'event', 'JWPLAYER-GA', 'CLICK PLAY', location.href); ga('send', 'event', 'JW Player Article', 'Ready', location.href); // } // BARB Integrations document.body.setAttribute('onunload', 'unload()'); // , Kantar Media UK/BARB streamingSensor = new SpringStreams("rttvdotcomtest"); // JWPlayer id var videoID = document.querySelector('#js-mediaplayer-5cb43519fc7e939b308b4583 video'); // video var description = { stream: "videos/rt_news", cq: "5cb43519fc7e939b308b4583", }; let curTime = new Date().getTime() / 1000; function getPositionTime() { if(!videoID.paused) curTime = new Date().getTime() / 1000; return curTime; }; var adapter = { "getMeta" : function() { return { "pl" :"rt player", "plv" :"version1", } }, "getDuration" : function() { return videoID.duration; }, "getPosition" : function() { return getPositionTime(); } }; // track streamingSensor.track(videoID, description, adapter); // BARB unload function unload() { streamingSensor.unload(); // give time for submission var start= new Date(); var now = null; do now = new Date(); while(now-start We see this as Israel outsourcing its McCarthyite anti-democratic repression against the BDS movement for human rights in Palestine to the United States, he said. The US administration has been mobilized now to do Israels bidding in trying to silence Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights defenders, who are active in this extremely effective and very important non-violent BDS movement. Also on rt.com US bars BDS co-founder from boarding DC-bound plane in Israel, despite valid travel papers Barghouti said the travel restriction resulted in him missing several events in the US, where he intended to advocate the BDS cause. He added that the attempts by dozens of US states to ban the movement were a clear violation of the First Amendment. As far back as 1982 the US Supreme Court ruled that boycotts for political, social, and economic change are considered free speech, he said. All those 27 states are following Israels orders, basically, while violating their own constitution. There is a lot of outrage at the audacity of the US administration, this xenophobic, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Jewish US administration that is hiding behind its support for Israel to cover up its own violations of human rights around the world, including its suppression of democratic rights of the American citizens themselves. The attempts to undermine the BDS movement from above in the US have so far been in vain, he believes. It has miserably failed to stop the immense growth of the movement at the grassroots level among trade unions, churches, womens groups, LGBT groups and so on and so forth. Ecuadors attempted character assassination of whistleblower Julian Assange stepped up since his arrest last week, with officials offering various excuses to justify his expulsion and the media has been eagerly lapping it up. Apparently more interested in (allegedly) salacious details of Assanges almost seven-year exile inside the west-London embassy, members of the UK and US press have been breathlessly repeating flaky Quito-leaked claims about his living habits and personal hygiene. While Assange awaits the very likely possibility of extradition to the US and prosecution for reporting on the sins of the worlds most powerful, mainstream media journalists are doing humanity another great service by posting irrelevant videos and pictures taken inside the embassy in an effort to assist Quito in its smearing efforts. Footage of Assange messing around on a skateboard has travelled around the world quicker than a historic WikiLeaks document dump (back when the media was interested in cashing in off the back of Assanges work). News outlets around the globe have been excitedly posting the footage and any other juicy tidbits they can get their hands on, but the UKs Daily Mail has truly been on top of the story, reporting on Assange the overgrown teenager and even posting exclusive photographs of his fetid lair and the squalid horror in which he lived. This Pulitzer-worthy scoop contained one photograph of a perfectly clean bathroom and a sneaky snap of a kitchen with one not-yet-washed dinner dish. Assange, the Mail tells us, also had the run of the embassy and bagged himself a nice bedroom. The lucky thing; one wonders why he ever complained about his circumstances at all. Who needs unnecessary luxuries like light, air, medical care or internet access? Other accusations from Ecuador have included that the WikiLeaks founder played loud music, left the cooker on, smeared feces over the walls of his bathroom and left some dirty underwear in the toilet. Notably, those particular claims have not been backed up by evidence but they are still being reported on without little to no skepticism at all. READ MORE: 'If Assange is criminalized & incarcerated, you'll never be free again' George Galloway The always-curious minds that populate US and UK newsrooms have instantly accepted and promoted the notion that it was not extreme pressure from Washington that prompted Ecuador to finally push the eject button on Assanges stay, it was obviously this convenient misbehavior that got too much for them. Or perhaps it was the leaked pictures of Ecuadors President Lenin Moreno eating lobster in a fancy hotel room bed that finally did it. WikiLeaks denies having anything to do with the leak, but they are indeed the kind of photographs that might anger a corruption scandal-plagued president who imposed austerity measures on his citizens while apparently living the high life himself; just the kind of man journalists ought to be cherrily assisting in the shameless smearing of a whistleblower who is desperately fighting for his freedom. Theres little concern either from Assanges fellow journalists that Ecuador was seemingly spying on him while inside the embassy. Instead, the media has dutifully and unquestioningly reported Quitos claims that Assange himself used the embassy as a center for spying. In one particular attempt to justify its decision to revoke his asylum and invite British police inside its embassy to arrest him, Ecuadorian officials claimed Assanges cat was possibly spying on them with a secret camera embedded in its collar. Meanwhile, as journalists and commentators joke about his plight, Assange is languishing in the UKs notorious maximum Belmarsh Prison where he awaits a US extradition hearing for the crime of committing real journalism. Danielle Ryan RT Like this story? Share it with a friend! Infowars' Kaitlin Bennett, best known as the Kent State Gun Girl for flaunting an AR-10 rifle at her graduation, has been kicked out of a Bernie Sanders campaign event, which appears to have been members-only. Bennett, who earned her nickname after a photo in which she poses with a rifle on the Kent State University campus went viral, made an unsuccessful attempt to attend a Bernie Sanders event in Lordstown, Ohio, on Sunday. As soon as Bennett settled in one of the front rows, she got approached by a security guard asking her to leave. Bennett uploaded video of the verbal fight on her Twitter page. In the video, the guard dodges Bennett's questions as to whether she has violated any rules and repeatedly askes her to leave, while seeming to imply it's a private event. "Ma'am, this is an event that we've paid for, this is an event we've bought the space [for]." "So, I'm being ejected from public event?" Bennett asks, before reluctantly following the guard out of the hall. Outside the room she spars with another guard, who appears to be more sympathetic, but asks her to leave nonetheless. When outside, Bennett goes on a lengthy rant about being "discriminated against" because of her affiliations. "What we just saw was a Bernie Sanders campaign discriminating against a certain journalist. I'm a journalist for InfoWars.com, we are a news outlet. I'm a woman journalist and I got ejected from a Bernie Sanders town hall event." Bennett, a Trump supporter, then takes aim at the opposite camp, arguing that if they do want to convert her they should let her listen to them instead of kicking her out. She insists the event was advertised as a public one on Sanders' website, promising to post a screenshot to prove her point. READ MORE: From Comrade Bernie to Dildos Against Democracy: The top 5 Democrat conspiracies ranked "This is a public high school. This is not a private property. This is not a private event," she repeats. However, Bennett has not provided the image so far, and it appears from previous reports in local media that the event was actually closed to the general public. It was hosted in Lordstown High School by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which invited Sanders to talk to the members of its Lordstown chapter, Tribune Chronicle reported on Thursday. Citing AFT spokesman Andrew Cook it said the event would be members-only. READ MORE: Berniecrats feeling burned as Sanders keeps mum on Assanges arrest Moreover, the event does not appear to be listed on Sanders' Facebook page. Bennett's stunt drew mixed reactions on Twitter. Conservative commentators hailed her, calling Sanders "a communist dictator" and her treatment at the event a violation of her First Amendment rights. Liberals have denounced her cameo as a PR stunt, laughing off her journalistic credentials. Since rising to fame in May 2018 on the back of her photo statement and scathing attacks on the Parkland shooting survivor-turned gun-control proponent David Hogg, Bennett has taken on a journalist career. Most recently, the conservative-libertarian activist has been associated with InfoWars. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! France and the US play a deeper role in Saudi war efforts than acknowledged, a leaked military document reveals. Nonetheless, it seems the''inefficient' Saudi army has had some trouble taking advantage of their allies' efforts. Obtained by the French investigative news organization Disclose, the "highly classified document" by the French Directorate of Military Intelligence from September of last year harshly criticizes the Royal Saudi Armed Forces (RSAF) for their inability to take full advantage of their amazing arsenal to more effectively wage their brutal war against Yemen.The report was originally intended as a briefing for a cabinet meeting which included French President Emmanuel Macron and the Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly. Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen is widely seen as one of the largest scale human-rights nightmares taking place today. A UN report from last November places the civilian casualty count at 17,640 since the war began in 2015, which is not to mention the epidemic spread of disease and mass displacements it has caused. According to the leaked briefing, the Saudi coalition is extremely dependent on Western-produced weaponry, especially considering that a lot of their military hardware is only compatible with parts produced in NATO countries, implying a sharp contradiction to Trump's claim that the US sells the weaponry to prevent competitors from doing so. The list of munitions employed by the Saudis is extensive, including American F-15s, Apache attack helicopters, Abrams tanks and numerous artillery guns. While it is no secret that the US and France provide weapons, French officials have been rather shady about providing any details. France's Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly told public radio in January that the country "[doesn't] sell weapons like they're baguettes," and hadn't "recently" provided any that Saudi Arabia could use in war efforts. The list of French weapons 'not to be used in war' include armored vehicles, long-range artillery, fighter-planes and laser-targeting technology. The technicality seems to be that these weapons have not been observed on "active fronts," and have mostly been put in place for "defensive purposes." While the report does not provide any details on whether or not the weapons have been used against civilians, one map puts an estimated 430,000 of them within the French artilleries' firing range. The report also revealed that despite hand holding by the most powerful militaries in the world, the Saudi Kingdom has dropped the ball in putting it all to good use. One example refers to the Saudi armed forces failure to make use of intelligence provided by US drones, which have been employed to gather intelligence on Houthi controlled territory: If the RSAF benefits from American support, in the form of advice in the field of targeting [by American drones], the practice of Close Air Support (CAS) is recent and appears poorly understood by these crews. This seems to be in direct contradiction to a statement made to the Intercept by a CENTCOM spokesperson, who reportedly said that the US does not provide targeting support to Saudi Arabia. CENTCOM's email statement supposedly underlines that the US' role is "advisory only." Also on rt.com Trump pumps new poison into US confrontation with Iran (by George Galloway) Despite Congress beginning to push President Trump to stop providing weapons to the Saudis, he has been resolute in keeping the lucrative arms sales in-tact, resulting in some serious blowback. The documents could also end up being a headache for the French president who has defended the country's arms sales while downplaying any knowledge about how they are used. Like this story? Share it with a friend! A man accused of raping a teenage girl while on a Mediterranean cruise ship has walked free from a Spanish court on a legal technicality because the alleged attack occurred on international waters. The Italian man, 18, was arrested by Spanish police last week for the alleged attack on a 17-year-old British girl. The victim accused him of forcing his way into her cabin on the MSC Divina cruise ship while sailing through the Mediterranean at 5am on Thursday. The teenager was reportedly examined by doctors in Valencia, Spain following the attack, and DNA samples taken from the scene of the alleged crime were sent for analysis. Also on rt.com Only yes means yes: Spain promises new sexual consent law The accused initially appeared before a judge in Valencia on Saturday, but the court refused to take action because the alleged crime occurred on international waters and didnt involve Spanish residents, reports local newspaper Levante-EMV. The judge went on to suggest that authorities in Britain, Italy, or Panama (where the ship is registered) look into taking the case themselves. The Italian was subsequently released without charge. Also on rt.com Construction crane collapses on cruise ship in Bahamas, injuring at least 8 people (VIDEOS) Following the attack, the British teen reportedly continued on the cruise with her parents toward Italy, and the ship had already departed by the time her alleged attacker was released from custody. A spokesperson for MSC Cruises said while they would not comment on the matter as it involved guests, they are fully cooperating with authorities overseeing the investigation. The UKs Foreign and Commonwealth Office said they were providing support and assistance to the woman, however its not clear if British authorities will pursue the case. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! A majority of EU governments approved a much-criticized copyright directive, targeting platforms like Google and Facebook. The new rules were earlier slammed by Big Tech, rights groups, and ordinary users alike. The European Council backed the new directive on Monday. Among its sweeping changes is making large content platforms like Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Wikipedia liable for copyright violations by their users. In order to avoid being sued, they will have to either buy the licenses for the works uploaded, or use expensive "upload filters" to scan all the content for potential copyright breaches. Another controversial provision allows media publishers to charge tech firms like Google for displaying their news stories. Nineteen EU nations, including France and Germany, voted for the document. Romanian Minister for Culture and National Identity Valer-Daniel Breaz hailed its "balanced text" as "a milestone for the development of a robust and well-functioning digital single market." A completely opposite opinion was voiced by Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Finland, and Luxembourg, all of whom voted 'no'. The directive "does not strike the right balance between the protection of right holders and the interests of EU citizens and companies," the five countries said in a joint statement earlier this week. They also argued that the document "risks to hinder innovation rather than promote it," and "lacks legal clarity." Estonia, which abstained along with Belgium and Slovenia, held similar views, saying the directive fails to ensure "different interests in all aspects." As the new rule set faced backlash, its backers tweaked some of the wording, like adding the promise to not punish users for making and sharing memes and gifs without obtaining permission of the rights holders first. Nevertheless, the key controversial parts remained intact, prompting fears of censorship and losing free access to information. Also on rt.com Save the Internet: 1,000-strong rallies against EU copyright bill hit European cities (VIDEO) Over 70 internet pioneers, including Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, and World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, came out against the changes when they were initially proposed. They slammed the directive as "an unprecedented step" that would turn the internet from "an open platform for sharing and innovation" into "a tool for automated surveillance and control of its users." The proposed legislation was heavily criticized by digital rights groups, tech giants, and ordinary users on social media. Google said improvements have been made to the document, but it will "still lead to legal uncertainty and will hurt Europe's creative and digital economies." People also took the fight to the streets in numerous European cities, with tens of thousands rallying against the new rules in Germany alone. No final decision yet on date, venue of Putin-Kim meeting Kremlin No final decision yet on date, venue of Putin-Kim meeting Kremlin No final decision has been made on the date and place of a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. I can confirm that preparations for the meeting are underway, he told reporters on Monday. As soon as there is full clarity on the date and place of the meeting, we will inform you, he added. We cant provide any specific information at the moment, TASS quoted the Russian presidential spokesman as saying. An earlier report by South Koreas Yonhap news agency said, citing sources in Moscow, that Kim might visit Russia next week for the Russia-North Korea summit in the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok.Source : RT - Daily news European refiners are switching to Russian sour grades as US sanctions have shrunk Venezuelas similar-grade exports, Reuters reports, adding that the Russian sour crude is getting increasingly expensive. Citing sources from the trading industry, Reuters says the situation has been made worse by the fact that OPEC members have cut mainly their output of heavier, more sour grades under the OPEC+ agreement aimed at stimulating a price rise. US crude is not an alternative as it is overwhelmingly light and sweet, while refineries in Europe are equipped to process heavier grades as well as light ones to make refined products. Also on rt.com EU energy system will collapse if sanctions target Russian oil & gas BP boss The news is the latest reminder that the world is tipping towards a shortage of heavy, sour crude, which is the staple kind of Venezuela crude and which many refineries need to produce fuels and other products. Urals is anchored in a positive zone versus dated Brent and there is no indication it will fall to a discount any time soon, one of the Reuters sources said. Thats a complete reversal of the traditional differential between light and heavy oil, with the latter typically trading at a discount to Brent, a light blend. Sanctions on Iran are further complicating life for European refiners as they have restricted exports of sour grades that Iran also produces in addition to its very popular superlight crude, also called condensate. Also on rt.com Venezuela keeps oil exports stable despite US sanctions & blackouts report According to Reuters, US sanctions have removed 800,000 bpd of heavy crude from the global market, leaving refiners scrambling for alternatives in a limited pool that, besides Russia and Middle Eastern producers, also includes Canada and Mexico as large producers of these grades of crude. The former is having its own problems with a pipeline capacity shortage and a production cut that has boosted prices, and the latter has yet to reverse a fall in oil production. This article was originally published on Oilprice.com From slow motion close-ups to picturesque far-distance shots, new footage provides different angles of the S-300 Favorit (Favorite) system launching missiles at targets during an air defense exercise in Russia. Video released by the Defense Ministry shows several S-300 launchers positioned in the field during a drill in Astrakhan Region in southern Russia, near the Caspian Sea. The missiles eject bright bursts of flames and smoke when fired, leaving multiple contrails in the clear blue sky. Around 300 troops and 100 pieces of military hardware participated in the exercise, the army said. Originally developed in the late 1960s, the S-300 underwent several upgrades and modifications over the years. It can destroy targets up to 195km (121 miles) away, depending on the type of missile used. Also on rt.com WATCH Russian corvettes unleash hurricane-like gunfire in Baltic Sea Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! US President Donald Trump has doubled down on his heated criticism of Democrat Ilhan Omar, accusing the congresswoman of anti-Semitism and claiming she is out of control. Twitter erupted on Friday after Trump tweeted a video showing scenes of the 9/11 terrorist attacks intercut with a quote from Omar. Addressing the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) earlier this month, Omar commented about the stigma towards American Muslims in the wake of 9/11. However the video Trump shared took just one sentence from her speech, saying that some people did something on 9/11. Also on rt.com Twitter split in half over Omar again, after Trump posts clip of her 'downplaying' 9/11 The response online was swift: Social media users sent messages in droves either accusing Omar of minimizing 9/11 and being un-American, or to accuse Trump of intentionally taking her line out of context and potentially endangering her life. Tweeting on Monday, Trump showed he wasnt prepared to back down over the furor, accusing Omar of making anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements and calling on top Democrat Nancy Pelosi to step in. Pelosi had earlier called on Trump to take down the video tweet, adding she has serious concerns for Omars safety due to the resulting outcry against the congresswoman. In a Twitter thread responding to Trumps video post, Omar said that no one could threaten her unwavering love for America. Also on rt.com Rep. Ilhan Omar cites Islam holy text in response to Trump mocking her for not liking Israel Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! Taliban team at Afghan peace talks in Qatar to include women for 1st time Taliban team at Afghan peace talks in Qatar to include women for 1st time Women will be included for the first time in the Taliban delegation to peace talks this month with US officials and Afghan representatives in Qatar, according to the movements main spokesman. There will be women among Taliban delegation members in the Doha, Qatar meeting, Reuters quoted Zabihullah Mujahid as saying on Monday. The group is notorious for its strictly conservative attitude to womens rights. The peace talks are aimed at bringing an end to more than 17 years of war in Afghanistan. These women have no family relationship with the senior members of the Taliban, they are normal Afghans, from inside and outside the country, who have been supporters and part of the struggle of the Islamic Emirate, Mujahid said. The April 19-21 meeting in Doha will be the latest in a series of talks between Taliban and US officials. A 150-strong delegation of Afghan politicians and civil society figures is expected to attend the talks.Source : RT - Daily news US, French & British navies on mine drill off Bahrain in support of free movement of trade US, French & British navies on mine drill off Bahrain in support of free movement of trade The US, French and British navies have launched anti-mine exercises off Bahrain in support of the free movement of trade in Gulf waters, AFP reported, citing a military spokesperson. As mines threaten maritime traffic indiscriminately, the US, France and UK are dedicated to conducting tactical training to counter the risk of mines in order to support the continued free flow of commerce and freedom of navigation in this critical region, according to the US Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain. The exercise is purely defensive, Lt. Chloe Morgan, a spokesperson for the US Navy, told AFP on Monday. Bahrain, allied with Gulf powerhouse Saudi Arabia, is located in the waters between the kingdom and its arch-nemesis Iran. The archipelago is also home to a permanent British military base.Source : RT - Daily news US official says Chinas drills near Taiwan threaten stability in region US official says Chinas drills near Taiwan threaten stability in region Chinese bombers and warships conducted drills around Taiwan on Monday as a senior US official denounced the maneuvers coercion and a threat to stability in the region. Any attempt to influence Taiwan through threats or coercion, we believe, destabilizes the region and threatens stability in the Taiwan Strait, said James Moriarty, chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan. The official was speaking at a ceremony to mark the last four decades of US-Taiwan relations. Chinas military said its warships, bombers and reconnaissance aircraft had conducted necessary drills around Taiwan on Monday, and described them as routine. China has repeatedly carried out island encirclement patrols in the past few years. The exercise damages the cross strait relationship, Moriarty said at the institutes new $256 million facility, the de facto US embassy in Taiwan, Reuters reported. A delegation led by former US speaker of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, was in Taipei to mark 40 years since the signing of the Taiwan Relations Act, which governs US-Taiwan relations.Source : RT - Daily news US President Donald Trump has chimed in on the fire ravaging the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, suggesting the firefighters can use flying water tankers and act quickly. So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly! the US president tweeted on Monday, minutes before the cathedrals spire crashed due to fire damage, and parts of the roof caved in. Fire broke out in the scaffolding on Notre Dames roof on Monday afternoon, heavily damaging the 850-year-old Gothic cathedral as it was undergoing restoration. It is the most-visited monument in Paris, ahead of the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. to RT newsletter to get stories the mainstream media wont tell you. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza accused US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of using the tensions on the border with Colombia to stage a publicity stunt as part of a smear campaign against Caracas. The US and Colombia turned the beleaguered Colombian border town of Cucuta into a regular stage for their most decadent and cheap spectacles, Arreaza tweeted on Sunday in response to Pompeos visit in the area. The consequences of the criminal blockade imposed by his [Pompeo] government on Venezuela are too grave to count. It has created death, suffering and need. Earlier, Venezuelan migrants living in camps on the Colombian side of the border rioted over food rations and clashed with local police. Towns on the Venezuelan side also saw clashes between law enforcement and protesters. The unrest was exacerbated by the oppositions attempts to drive trucks filled with US-sponsored aid into Venezuela. The authorities refused to let them pass, denouncing the move as a PR stunt, and citing suspicions that Washington might use the trucks to smuggle in weapons. As tensions mounted, US officials and some in the Western media accused the Venezuelan government of setting one of the trucks on fire during a dramatic confrontation at a border bridge with Colombia, but footage from the scene and additional reporting revealed that the truck was in fact set on fire by opposition activists. Nevertheless, during his stay in Cucuta, Mike Pompeo met with a group of Venezuelan migrants and once again urged Caracas to accept the US-sent humanitarian aid. Venezuela for its part stated that it will only accept aid sponsored by the UN and global relief organizations like the Red Cross, which Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro struck a deal with earlier this week. On Sunday, Pompeo further blasted Maduro from Colombia, saying the US will continue to utilize every economic and political means at our disposal to help the Venezuelan people. He mentioned economic sanctions and visa revocations for Venezuelan officials among the means to pressure the government into succumbing to the opposition. Washington openly backed opposition leader Juan Guaido when he declared himself interim president of Venezuela in January. The US slapped Caracas with a number of economic restrictions and urged others to follow suit. US President Donald Trump refused to rule out military intervention should the other methods to oust Maduro fail. Maduro, meanwhile, vowed to continue to defend the nations sovereignty against any foreign attack. He has repeatedly slammed the US for plotting to launch a coup to topple him. That aside, officials in Caracas also accused Washington of having a hand in the countrys recent major blackouts. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! The event aims to introduce the image of the land, culture, people and cuisine of Vietnam to international friends, particularly Russians. The programme feature numerous pavilions showcasing various traditional Vietnamese foods, such as pho (noodle soup), nem cuon (spring rolls), tea, banh nep (sticky rice cake) and fruits. Visitors to the programme also had a chance to join in folk games, including rope jumping, lion and dragon dance, drum dance and nhay sap (bamboo pole dance). On April 13, an art show featuring traditional songs and dances imbued with Vietnamese cultural identities attracted a large audience. The programme was organised by Vietnamese students at the Russian State Social University, contributing to enhancing the solidarity between Vietnamese and Russian people. Various Vietnamese traditional food are introduced to international visitors. Apple's iPhones will be mass produced in India by Foxconn Technology from this year onwards, marking a shift of the company's production from China, Bloomberg reported. Terry Gou, the group Chairman of the Taiwanese manufacturing company, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited him to India. Apple has been producing older models of iPhones in Bengaluru for many years, but it will now expand its manufacturing to the newest models. It was reported earlier this month that Foxconn will start trials of producing iPhone X and iPhone 7 in India before launching a full-scale assembly in its factory in Chennai. "In the future, we will play a very important role in India's smartphone industry," Gou said at an event in Taiwan. "We have moved our production lines there." India's smartphone market is the fastest-growing in the world, leaving behind a stagnated China. Due to Chinese competitors like Xiaomi offering advanced features at lower prices, Apple is losing its market share in the country. It hopes to ramp up its sales in India by manufacturing locally which would let it dodge the 20 percent import duties. It is unclear how Apple's foray into manufacturing in India will affect its relationship with China, which has been its production hub for years with Foxconn and other partner companies. There are two assembly sites of Foxconn in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, where it also manufactures Xiaomi and Nokia devices. As the US and China engage in a trade battle, it might be helpful for Apple and Foxconn to find a third market to focus on. Sources told the wire agency that Foxconn's Indian assembly line, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, would serve local and export markets before Apple's new iPhone models in September. Foxconn's initial investment will be about $300 million to set up, with lined-up investments depending on capacity expansion. The chairman of Taiwan's Foxconn, assembler of Apple Inc's iPhones, told Reuters on April 15 he plans to step down in the coming months, saying he wants to pave the way for younger talent to move up the ranks of the company. Terry Gou, speaking on the sidelines of an event in Taipei, said that while he planned to step down as chairman, he hoped to remain involved in strategic decisions regarding the company's business. He said his plans would be discussed with the board of Foxconn, the world's largest contract manufacturer, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd. In a serious setback to Jet Airways, its lenders have refused to infuse interim funds, thereby putting a big question mark on its chances of survival. The senior management will brief the airline's board on April 16, said its top official. In a letter to employees soon after the meeting with banks proved futile, Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube told employees that "Management will seek guidance from the Board on the next steps forward." He said: "The interim funding has not been forthcoming thus far, and as a result of this we have extended cancellation of international operations through Thursday, April 18. "Please note that the current status of our engagement with the lenders and other related matters shall be placed before the Board in the meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning, where the Management will seek guidance from the Board on the next steps forward. We will keep you updated on all critical developments." The funds were crucial to keep Jet flying. The airline was operating just seven aircraft, out of 119, and had suspended its international operations from April 13. In the domestic market, it was operating less than 50 flights a day. The banks, which had earlier promised Rs 1,500 crore in emergency funding, had transferred only about Rs 250 crore. They were reluctant to give more, given the high debt of the airline. Jet has debts of over Rs 8,000 crore. India's steel export to the US in 2018 declined by 49 per cent to USD 372 million, while that of aluminum increased by 58 per cent to USD 221 million, the independent Congressional Research Service (CRS) said in its latest report. In 2018, the US imports of steel and aluminum products totalled USD 29.5 billion and USD 17.6 billion respectively, the report said adding that over the past decade steel imports have fluctuated significantly by value and quantity, while imports of aluminum have generally increased. The largest declines in US steel imports, by value, were from South Korea (-USD 430 million, -15 per cent), Turkey (-USD 413 million, -35 per cent) and India (-USD 372 million, -49 per cent) with significant increases from the EU (+USD 567 million, +22per cent), Mexico (+USD 508 million, +20 per cent) and Canada (+USD 404 million, +19 per cent)," the report said. "The largest declines in aluminum imports were from China (-USD 729 million, -40 per cent), Russia (-USD 676 million, -42 per cent), and Canada (-USD 294 million, -four per cent) with major increases from the EU (+USD 395 million, nine per cent), India (+USD 221 million, 58 per cent) and Oman (USD 186 million, +200 per cent)," the report added. The countries with permanent exclusions from the tariffs (all except Australia are instead subject to quotas) accounted for 18.4 per cent of US steel imports in 2018 and 4.4 per cent of US aluminum imports. Last year President Donald Trump used Section 232 to apply new tariffs to steel and aluminum imports and potentially on automobile and auto parts and other sectors currently under investigation. These actions have raised a number of policy issues and some members of Congress have introduced legislation to revise various Section 232 authorities. Global overcapacity in steel and aluminum production, mainly driven by China, has been an ongoing concern of the US, the report said adding that the George W Bush, Obama and Trump Administrations each engaged in multilateral discussions to address global steel capacity reduction through the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). "While the US has extensive anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Chinese steel imports to counter China's unfair trade practices, steel industry and other experts argue that the magnitude of Chinese production acts to depress prices globally, it added. Effective March 23, 2018, Trump applied 25 per cent and 10 per cent tariffs, respectively, on certain steel and aluminum imports. The President temporarily exempted several countries from the tariffs pending negotiations on potential alternative measures. Permanent tariff exemptions in exchange for quantitative limitations on US imports were eventually announced covering steel for Brazil and South Korea, and both steel and aluminum for Argentina. Australia was permanently exempted from both tariffs with no quantitative restrictions. In August 2018, President Trump raised the tariff to 50 per cent on steel imports from Turkey. The proposed US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) would not resolve or address the Section 232 tariffs on imported steel and aluminum from Canada and Mexico, CRS said in the report. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Sumit Bilgaiyan Finally, the electoral battle for the central government began with claims and counterclaims made by all parties. With the first phase of polling on April 11, India VIX has surged above 20 level. FIIs have poured in Rs 4,421.76 crore during April so far. The DIIs, however, continued to book profits and remained net sellers in the last two-and-half months. Crude oil prices moved higher with Brent crossing $71 per barrel on account of supply cuts led by the OPEC and US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela. Higher crude price is one of the negative developments for our market and economy. Result season started with TCS and Infosys posting above expected numbers for Q4FY19; however, Infosys disappointed with future guidance. But for the next one month, market momentum will remain positive and the result season will support this momentum. For the next week, Nifty has strong support at 11,550-11,500 and resistance at 11,710-11,760. Here are the top stock trading ideas that can give good returns: KEI Industries: Buy for medium to long term KEI manufactures and markets extra-high voltage (EHV), medium voltage (MV) and low voltage (LV) power cables. Serving both retail and institutional segments, KEI has emerged as a one-stop shop for products and services, with its growing presence in the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) services, further strengthening its leadership position. The company posted strong numbers for Q3FY19. During Q3FY19, its net profit increased 24 percent to Rs 48.39 crore from Rs 39.03 crore YoY on 22.37 percent higher sales of Rs 1087.49 crore. For 9MFY19, it posted 28.36 percent higher PAT of Rs 121.94 crore on 20.36 percent higher sales of Rs 2,968.18 crore and an EPS of Rs 15.52. At the CMP, the stock traded at a P/E of 18.5x. Its pending order is approx Rs 3,866 crore plus L1 Rs 175 crore of EPC, EHV & Export. The company is expanding its Pathredl and Silvassa plant. DIIs have increased their stake by 2.11 percent in December Quarter. We recommend buying in a staggered manner for medium to long term. Bharat Heavy Electricals: Buy for medium to long term Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) is an integrated power plant equipment manufacturer and one of the largest engineering and manufacturing companies of its kind in India engaged in the design, engineering, manufacture, construction, testing, commissioning and servicing of a wide range of products and services for core sectors of the economy, viz. Power, Transmission, Industry, Transportation (Railways), Renewable Energy, Oil & Gas, Water and Defence with over 180 products offerings to meet the needs of these sectors. The company paid 40 percent interim dividend for FY19. With this, BHEL has paid the highest total dividend in a single year, in the last five years. We recommend buying in a staggered manner for medium to long term. Britannia Industries: Buy for medium to long term Britannia Industries is one of Indias leading food companies with a 100-year legacy. It is among the most trusted food brands and manufactures Indias favourite brands like Good Day, Tiger, NutriChoice, Milk Bikis and Marie Gold that are household names in India. At the CMP, the stock trades at a P/E of 64x. It has shown a reversal sign on the daily chart after a long time. We recommend buying in a staggered manner for medium to long term. The author is Founder of Equity99. : The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on moneycontrol.com are their own, and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Metropolis Healthcare shares started trade on the first day at Rs 960 on the BSE on April 15 a 9 percent premium to issue price of Rs 880. The stock has managed to hold Rs 950 level given the positive market conditions and good response to its public issue. It closed at Rs 959.55 after hitting day's high of Rs 981.30 and low of Rs 934.80. Metropolis Healthcare, the third largest listed diagnostic chain, raised Rs 1,204 crore through public issue which was subscribed 5.84 times earlier this month. After its good listing which was largely on expected lines, the question arises whether to hold current shares, sell those shares or buy more to make a portfolio? Moneycontrol spoke to several analysts to know what investors should do and most of them said Metropolis Healthcare is a good long-term bet given likely growth in healthcare sector, company's strong brand name and strong growth potential. "Metropolis is available at discount to its listed peer Dr Lal PathLabs based on FY19E earnings. The industry is poised to grow in favour of the organised sector with rising requirement for high end testing & consolidation in industry," Nikhil Shetty, Research Analyst - Institutional Research, BP Wealth said. If one wants to buy, he/she can accumulate the stock below its issue price as it is expected to give double-digit returns in next one-two years, experts said. Milin Desai, Analyst, IIFL Securities told Moneycontrol that investors can definitely remain invested for the long term and accumulate in case the price dips below the issue price. "One can look at returns of more than 20 percent over the next two years." Nikhil Shetty, Research Analyst - Institutional Research, BP Wealth The company is seeking to expand its presence in a large under-penetrated market which is dominated by smaller, unorganised players. Considering the superior brand trust, strong growth potential in under-penetrated tier 2 and tier 3 cities coupled with better margins, we are optimistic on future growth prospect of the company. Hence, we recommend to hold for the long term. Astha Jain, Senior Research Analyst at Hem Securities We advise investors with long term horizon to hold the stock on listing day as the company, being one of the leading diagnostics companies in India, has a wide operational network, young patient touch point network and an asset-light growth of service network. Also, the company has a strong and established brand with a focus on quality and customer service. Company's brand and reputation, economies of scale and wide geographic coverage are well positioned to leverage from the underlying opportunities in the Indian diagnostics space. Prashanth Tapse, AVP research, Mehta Equities We believe Metropolis is well placed for long term investment considering the rising healthcare sector and the second largest market share diagnostic player in India. We expect the company to deliver strong earnings growth in the coming years considering the fragmented and under-penetrated diagnostic market in India. Hence we recommend investors to accumulate (price around Rs 800-820) the stock with a view of making long term wealth with one year target near Rs 1,000-1,050. Milin Desai, Analyst, IIFL Securities We believe that the company can establish its brand name in the seeding cities, most of which have a regional reference lab. These reference labs can enable it to lower the turnaround times for results in these markets. Additionally, these labs facilitate expanding the catchment areas, from where a non-critical test can be sent to respective reference centres. As it operates in cities like Rajkot, Nashik, Nagpur, Kochi, Raipur, National Capital Region, Kolkata, and Guwahati, we expect it to establish a connection with the doctors and physicians which are critical for patient referrals. These strategies should enable it to garner market share in the B2C segment, mainly in the smaller of the above-mentioned cities and drive overall growth. Moreover, both Metropolis and Dr Lal Pathlabs would benefit from being a diagnostic chain. They are far more superior compared to standalone centres in terms of infrastructure, comprehensive test menu, etc. : 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. Here are stocks that are in the news today: Results on April 15: Hathway Cable & Datacom, Network18 Media & Investments, TV18 Broadcast, Reliance Industrial Infrastructure, Mac Hotels, TRF, Tata Metaliks, Sanghi Corporate, International Travel House, Gujarat Hotels, Dhruv Estates Listing: Metropolis Healthcare USFDA issues no observation for Wockhardt's bioequivalence centre at Aurangabad TCS Q4: Profit rises 0.3 percent to Rs 8,126 crore versus Rs 8,105 crore and revenue grows 1.8 percent to Rs 38,010 crore versus Rs 37,338 crore QoQ. Revenue in constant currency terms increases 2.4 percent QoQ. Infosys Q4: Profit jumps 12.9 percent to Rs 4,074 crore versus Rs 3,609 crore, revenue rises 0.6 percent to Rs 21,539 crore versus Rs 21,400 crore; EBIT margin falls 120 bps QoQ. Company sees constant currency revenue growth at 7.5-9.5 percent and EBIT margin at 21-23 percent in FY20. Jet Airways: SBICAPS acquires 5.19% stake in company on April 11 via pledge encumbrance. Rajshree Pathy submitted her resignation as an Independent Director of the ompany, owing to time constraints on account of her other current commitments. Cosmo Films launches CPP High Barrier film Eris Lifesciences pre-paid the entire loan facility obtained from Axis Bank Pricol: ICRA downgrades rating on long term - line of credit facilities of the company to BBB (Negative) from BBB+ (Stable). ITI Limited: Company records a turnover of Rs 2,051 crore for FY19, up 20 percent compared to previous year. Dixon Technologies has acquired 50% stake in Padget Electronics for Rs 27 cr Sudarshan Chemical Industries: Board approved proposal to enter into a definitive agreement with GMM Pfaudler (GMMP) to divest industrial mixing solutions division (IMSD) of the company. Quick Heal fixed April 26 as the record date for buyback Mcleod Russel: Wholly owned subsidiary Borelli Tea Holdings approved Share Purchase Agreement for disposal of its stake in Pfunda Tea Company. Dr Reddy's Labs: Company entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a portfolio of 42 approved, non-marketed Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDAs) in the US. Persistent Systems: Sudhir Kulkarni, President - Sales, Technology Services Unit has resigned to pursue other interests. Texmaco Rail board meeting on April 17 to consider raising of funds by way of a qualified institutions placement or a preferential issue or a rights issue APL Apollo Tubes: Company to acquire Shankara's 2,00,000 MTPA tube manufacturing unit in Southern India for Rs 70 crore. Arcotech: Company has been completed issue of non- convertible, non-cumulative redeemable preference shares. Lakshmi Vilas Bank board approved allotment of 1.68 crore shares for the purpose of the proposed scheme of amalgamation between lndiabulls Housing Finance & bank Trident Texofab: Company' newly setup manufacturing unit in Surat, Gujarat started its commercial production and operations and the said unit has been set up for manufacture of grey fabrics. Adani Enterprises: Adani Transport, a wholly owned subsidiary, incorporated a subsidiary company namely Suryapet Khammam Road Private Limited. HT Media: As per share purchase agreement, company will now acquire 69,05,383 equity shares of NRL on or before November 15, 2019. Suven Life Sciences: Company receives court approval of 'Stalking Horse' Agreement to buy the assets of Rising Pharmaceuticals through its joint venture partner, Shore Suven Pharma Inc. International Paper APPM: There would be annual outage (maintenance) from April 15, 2019 to April 22, 2019 (both days inclusive) in manufacturing facility located in Kadiyam, East Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh. The estimated loss of production would be around 200 MTs per day. Out of F&O Ban: Adani Power, PC Jeweller Analyst or Board Meet/Briefings Sadhana Nitrochem: Board meeting to be held on April 17 to consider interim dividend. Bajaj Finance: Company's officials will meet certain institutional investors, banks and analysts on debt side at a Non-Deal Road Show in Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo during April 15-18. APL Apollo Tubes: Conference call with investors and analyst to be held on April 16 to discuss the acquisition of Shankaras manufacturing unit. Manappuram Finance: Company's officials will meet Creador and Sundaram Mutual Fund on April 16. Bulk Deals on April 12 live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More ITI Mutual Fund will be launching a maiden scheme, ITI Liquid Fund, for a day on April 24, said George Heber Joseph, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer, ITI Mutual Fund. ITI Asset Management is a part of Sun Pharma director Sudhir Valia-backed Investment Trust of India group. ITI Mutual Fund had received the Securities and Exchange Board of Indias go-ahead in May 2018. The open-ended scheme will invest money market papers and debt instruments having residual maturity up to 91 days. Other features: Plans: Regular and direct Options: Growth and dividend Minimum investment: Rs 5,000 and in multiples of one rupee thereafter. Exit load: Nil Performance benchmark- CRISIL Liquid Fund Index Fund Managers: Milan Mody and George Heber Joseph Payments network NPCI is considering using highly scalable blockchain solution to further strengthen digital payments, which have seen an exponential growth in recent times. A blockchain or distributed ledger is a continuously growing list of encrypted transactions called blocks. A block may contain any type of data such as unique digital identifiers of physical products The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is an umbrella organisation for all retail payments in India. It was set up with the guidance and support of the Reserve Bank of India and the Indian Banks Association (IBA). Promoted by 10 banks in India under the aegis of the IBA, it aims to become the "best payments network globally". Presently, 56 banks are shareholders of NPCI. "NPCI intends to develop a resilient, real time and highly scalable blockchain solution. It is proposed to develop this solution using an open source technology/ framework/solution," it said in a notification. In this regard, the NPCI has floated an Express of Interest (EOI) in order to enable bidders to propose their capability for developing distributed ledger technology/ blockchain in the payment domain. As per a recent report of global consultancy firm PwC, India would be one of the world's blockchain leaders by 2023. "Blockchain stores information about transactions between users in a way that can be tracked by any user for forever for maximum transparency. This gives visibility which can lead to greater efficiency by automating or confirming transactions and increasing liquidity in the supply chain," said Innefu Labs Co-Founder Tarun Wig. NPCI has invited bids for selection of Liaisoning Consultant (LC) to acquire various End-to-End Statutory permissions for Construction of Captive Data Center (CDC) in Chennai and Hyderabad. NPCI provides services like cheque clearance and facilitates digital payments. It has developed Unified Payments Interface (UPI), an instant payment system. UPI is fast gaining traction in the country with total payments through it soaring to Rs 1.33 lakh crore in March 2019 from a meagre Rs 3.1 crore in August 2016. Jet Airways owes banks nearly Rs 8,000 crore. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Lenders to Jet Airways said SBI Capital Markets, which has been given the mandate to carry out the stake sale process in the beleaguered airline, will soon shortlist prospective bidders. The consortium of lenders, led by the State Bank of India (SBI), had invited the Expression of Interest (EoI) from participants between April 8 and April 10. The deadline was later extended to April 12 in order to encourage participation from more entities. The bid process for an orderly sale of equity in Jet Airways is currently being run by SBI Caps and is being vetted by the legal team. The prospective bidders will be shortlisted by SBI Caps shortly, a spokesperson from SBI said in a statement on April 15. In the stake sale, lenders have allowed restructuring of debt and infusion of funds by way of loans or acquisition of up to 75 percent stake in the company. The proposed equity conversion by banks, if any, will be undertaken as a transitory mechanism to facilitate the bidding cum sale process, the statement said, adding that SBI is acting on behalf of the group of lenders as part of the Bank-led Resolution Process. SBI also said necessary support to facilitate the process was being extended by the banks in the consortium. Cooperation by and support from all the other stakeholders will be the key to the success of the process, the countrys largest bank said. Etihad Airways, which owns 24 percent stake in Jet and former chairman Naresh Goyal are said to be among those who have submitted their EoIs. Private equity majors and NIIF, India's sovereign fund, have also shown interest in buying shares in the troubled airline. Earlier today, Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube told employees the interim funding from the banks had not been forthcoming so far. The senior management will brief the airlines board on April 16. The banks, which had earlier promised Rs 1,500 crore in emergency funding, had transferred only about Rs 250 crore. The airline was operating just seven aircraft, out of 119, and had suspended its international operations from April 13. In the domestic market, it was operating less than 50 flights a day. With Rs 12-15 crore left in its kitty, Tiger Global-backed Shopclues is definitely having a tough time sustaining itself every passing day. In a last bid to survive, the company is learnt to be in talks with rival Snapdeal for an acquisition. However, the deal is yet to take off. This leaves the decision to the discretion of the buyer, in this case Snapdeal. Also Read: Snapdeal, Shopclues eyeing same shopping cart On the other hand, according to a person privy to the development, Snapdeal is reluctant to go ahead with the deal which is being anchored by Nexus Venture Partners - a common investor in both the companies. Nexus declined to comment on the issue while Shopclues denied being in talks with Snapdeal for an acquisition and did not respond to a media query. The downfall It was in January 2016 when Shopclues joined the much coveted unicorn club. The company had raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a round led by sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte Ltd along with existing investors Tiger Global and Nexus Venture Partners. The round was estimated to be $100-150 million in size and the money was expected to come in tranche. Many saw GIC's entry as a precursor to an imminent initial public offering (IPO) of the company. And it wasn't far from truth. By then, Shopclues had created a special name for itself. Unlike bigger rivals such as Flipkart and Amazon, it was mostly known for selling non-branded products. Most of its orders used to come from Tier 2-3 markets. Many called it an online flea market. By mid-2017, Shopclues had hired Deepak Sharma as its chief financial officer as it was gearing up for an IPO. This was around the same time when Flipkart was in talks to acquire Snapdeal. Even as Shopclues was trying to shortlist bankers, the Snapdeal- Flipkart deal collapsed. Snapdeal had decided that it wanted to go solo and not merge with rival Flipkart. The investor ecosystem became a bit jittery after the Snapdeal-Flipkart deal collapsed as they were looking forward to consolidation in the sector. The development left most of the investors in a wait and watch mode and Shopclues funding talks came to a grinding halt. Shopclues was trying for a 2018 IPO. However, every banker it met during the shortlisting process, told them to defer it to 2019. The bankers were of the view that with the amount of scale the company had achieved in the last few years, it would be leaving too much money on the table if they did an IPO in 2018. Shopclues decided to defer the IPO by a year. This was definitely a nail in the coffin because around the same time talks of a Walmart-Flipkart deal started emerging. After delaying its IPO, the company decided to raise a bridge round. However by then the investors wanted to see how the e-commerce market shaped up post the Flipkart's acquisition. Walmart announced the majority acquisition of Flipkart in March 2018 for $16 billion. By this time, according to a people privy to the development, investors had lot of interest in Shopclues. But they didn't want to commit an investment fearing it will go down the drain, given that Walmart had entered the fray. In August 2018, an internal letter written to the employees by the co-founder and chief executive officer Sanjay Sethi got leaked. It said that Shopclues had managed to raise over $16 million additional fund for the year. While the email didn't mention the name of the investors, according to sources, this money had come from existing investors Nexus Venture Partners and Tiger Global. Sethi had added that the company was targeting to break-even by November with a reduced burn rate of $0.5 million per month as against $5.5 million in January 2017. It also stated some ambitious plans of expanding to US, Nepal, Bangadesh and Sri Lanka. Moneycontrol couldn't ascertain if the expansion happened as planned. Meanwhile, Moneycontrol has learnt that the company is in a standoff with its employees, who want clarity related to their ESOPs if the deal goes through. However, what is to be noted is that most of the ESOPs would have lost their value given the downfall in the valuation of the company in the last couple of years. Under such a scenario, with investors having preferential rights, the employees mostly end up with raw deals. Shopclues has denied any issue regarding ESOPs. However as of now, the company's daily orders have shrunk down from 60,000 during the good old days to around 30,000. Shopclues reported its revenue from operations to be $42 million during the financial year ending March 2018, against $28 million during the previous financial year. The losses stood at $31 million in FY18. In the fresh talks with Snapdeal, Shopclues has very limited strong points to tilt the deal in its favour. While Shopclues claims to have 6,70,000 sellers on board, according to sources, barely 2,000-2,500 of them are live sellers currently. The company's 1/3rd of the sale is learnt to be coming from private label products. The average ticket size of the product sold ranges between 300-500 and the company is currently burning around Rs3-4 crore every month. Currently it has less than 1,000 employees left in the company and only a select few have vested ESOPs. The company is in the middle of a standoff with its team who is trying to figure out what happens to their ESOPs. Snapdeal on the other hand is in a much better position, financially having sold off most of its ancillary business units. Axis Bank bought Freecharge from Snapdeal in July 2017 giving Snapdeal a cash breather of Rs 385 crore. In 2018, Vulcan Express, the logistics arm of Snapdeal was acquired by Future Group again in an all-cash deal valued at $5.5 million. In the last couple of years the company has cut costs and stayed away from heavy discounting of products on their platform. The strategy has worked with losses dropping by a sharp 88 percent to Rs 613 crore during the financial year 2018, compared to a loss of Rs 4,647 crore in the previous fiscal. The company is learnt to be shipping around 1.8-2 lakh orders on a daily basis. Snapdeal announced that it turned cash flow positive in June 2018 and has since been investing its positive net margins in driving growth. Angel Commodities' report on Cotton MCX cotton climb to its highest levels since November (22,540) last week but corrected to close at 22,260 rupees per bale due to fear of losing demand at higher prices. Moreover, India is losing cotton export market to Brazil due to higher prices and stronger rupees. CAI trims cotton crop size to 321 lakh bales for 2018/19 season, lowest since 2009-10 which will raise imports and decline exports. USDA kept production and consumption figures unchanged at 27 and 24.8 million bales respectively but revised down imports and exports by 12.5% and 6.7% respectively. According to USDA attache report, India 2019/20 cotton output to rise about 7% yr/yr to hit five-year high on higher yields, acreage. Outlook Cotton futures expected to trade sideways to lower tracking weak global prices due to bearish USDA monthly report. Moreover, improving in exports demand from China and increasing domestic demand may support prices. Reports of CCI selling its stock may keep prices in a range. For all commodities report, click here Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts/broking houses/rating agencies on moneycontrol.com are their own, and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. Read More Representative image live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Naresh Goyal's bid for Jet Airways is reportedly being backed by Delaware-based Future Trend Capital. His bid comes a month after he stepped down as Chairman of the carrier, which is struggling to stay afloat. The general sales agency (GSA) from which Jet Airways originated, Jetair, submitted its expression of interest (EoI) on April 12 along with Future Trend. Sources told The Economic Times that Adi Partners, a London-based firm, is also connected to this consortium. It was reported that lenders may not let Goyal regain control of Jet Airways. He was allowed to submit a bid only if he did so as part of a consortium with other investors and held a minority stake. Apparently, his bid does not satisfy these conditions. "Technically, there is nothing that stops Goyal and his associates from bidding. The forensic report has so far not gone against him. Also, Jet Airways is not a case under the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code (IBC) that bars existing promoters from re-entering. But after being almost nudged out from the board and management, it's a call the bankers would have to take," a banker told the newspaper on condition of anonymity. Moneycontrol couldnt independently verify the report. Banking experts had suggested that multiple, unconnected investors be brought on board to save the carrier. "Investments by Etihad, National Investment and Infrastructure Fund, or private equity fund TPG Capital could be a way to avoid an open offer," a source told the newspaper. Etihad has made it clear it does not want to exceed its stake in Jet Airways beyond 25 percent, as that would mandate an open offer for an additional 20 percent. Due to government restraints, it cannot surpass the threshold of 49 percent stake. It currently owns a 24 percent stake in the airline. Banks are contemplating whether to release Rs 1,000 crore in interim funding for the airline, as per a request by Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube. Industry experts believe the carrier has a chance of surviving this rough patch if banks release this fund. Jet Airways is currently operating just seven aircraft, six ATR turboprop planes and one Boeing 737, down from its 124-strong fleet in December. The pilots and engineers of the airline have not been paid since January. The airline had also deferred paying March salaries to all its employees. Russian aluminium giant Rusal on Monday announced plans for its first investment in the United States since sanctions against the company were lifted. The US sanctions, which targeted oligarchs close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, were imposed on Rusal last year and only removed in January after owner Oleg Deripaska divested and resigned his seat on the board. Rusal on Monday said it would partner with US manufacturer Braidy Industries Inc "to establish a joint project in Ashland, Kentucky, USA to produce flat rolled aluminium products for the US automotive industry". The factory "will be the widest US-based cold rolling mill" and "will aid towards rebalancing the anticipated deficit of the auto body sheet in the US market," Rusal said in a statement. Rusal, the world's largest aluminium maker outside of China, will hold a 40 per cent share in the project and be the exclusive supplier to the factory. It will therefore be subject to the 10 per cent tariff on aluminium imports announced by US President Donald Trump last year. Rusal will initially invest USD 200 million in the USD 1.7 billion project, executives of both companies told S&P Global Platts. The company took a hit last year when Russian billionaire Deripaska was included the US Treasury's sanctions which sought to punish Putin's inner circle for Moscow's alleged interference in the politics of Western democracies. The penalties were lifted against Rusal and two of Deripaska's other companies when he reduced his stakes in them, but sanctions remain on him personally, preventing others from doing business with him. Deripaska was also mentioned frequently in the investigation by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian meddling in America's 2016 election, but he has not been charged. He had been formerly involved in business with Paul Manafort, Trump's ex-campaign chairman who has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for financial and other crimes. Senior Madhya Pradesh Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Monday accused the Central government of forcing the state-run Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) to bail out cash-strapped entities in contravention of norms. He also alleged that lakhs of agents of the LIC have stopped working in the last five years due to the policies of the Narendra Modi government. Addressing a press conference, Singh, who is the Congress nominee from Bhopal Lok Sabha constituency, expressed apprehensions that LIC might not be able to return money of policy holders if the current situation continues. The former chief minister also alleged that condition of PSUs like BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) and BHEL (Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd) is also deteriorating. "There were around 37 lakh LIC agents in the country, but 25 lakh of them have stopped working during the past five years due to policies of the Narendra Modi government," Singh said. He alleged that the Centre forced the LIC to give an interest-free loan of Rs 1.50 Lakh crore to the Railways. "Similarly, the Centre also forced the LIC to bail out IDBI Bank having higher NPAs. As per rules, the LIC cannot buy more than 15 per cent of shares in any company or institution, but in case of IDBI Bank the insurance company was forced to purchase 51 per cent of shares. "However, despite purchasing the shares, the management control still does not rest with the LIC. If this situation remains, the LIC won't be able to return the money of its policy-holders in future," he said. Singh said BSNL and BHEL are not doing well. "About 45,000 employees of BSNL are set to be retrenched. The state-run company is being ruined to benefit private cellular operators. PSUs like BHEL are being destroyed by the Modi government as strength of BHEL employees has come down to 6,000 from 22,000," claimed the Congress leader. He alleged that only private insurance companies have made profit ranging from Rs 6000 crore to Rs 12000 crore through agriculture insurance whereas the farmers have not benefited under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima scheme. "The Congress-led state government would set up its own insurance company to provide cover to farmers as promised in the party manifesto for last year's assembly elections," he said. Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on April 15 alleged that the BJP had deviated from the path of truth and it seemed that the saffron party neither has faith in democracy nor in the people. The Congress secretary general in-charge for Uttar Pradesh (East) also said the BJP instead of speaking about India and what it had done for its youth was talking about Pakistan. "It seems that the government has faith neither in democracy, its institutions nor the people..had they been real nationalists they would have tread the path of truth." "They would have understood that this country is based on truth and those who deviate from it are not let off...you will also not be excused as you, too, have deviated from the path of truth long ago," she said at a rally. The Congress leader was campaigning for the party's Fatehpur Sikri Lok Sabha seat candidate and Uttar Pradesh unit president Raj Babbar. Lashing out at the BJP government, Priyanka Gandhi said during election time, they are talking about nationalism and Pakistan. "They must talk about India, what they have done for the youth, farmers and other sections of society. They must tell what their agenda for women and women security is,"she said. Taking a dig at the BJP publicity campaign, she said the truth is being "drowned" in such campaigns. "I have seen the reality in the eyes of youth who complain about jobs, seen it in the eyes of potato growers who come to Rae Bareli and Lucknow to tell about their loans and the high costs that they have to bear," Priyanka Gandhi said. Citing the example of a farmer here who reportedly sold his produce for Rs 490 and send the money to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a mark of protest, she said,"He sent this money to the PM to apprise him about the truth of the country and its farmers." "The truth is being drowned in publicity...you all know better...whenever a question is raised the questioner is told that he is an anti-national," Priyanka Gandhi said. She, while talking about the Congress manifesto, mistakenly said that "aisi yojnaein ghoshna patra mein hai jisse aapko swastha sarkari aspatalon mein muft milega (There are schemes in the manifesto through which you will get free health in government hospitals)". However, the Congress leader was quick to realise her mistake and smilingly remarked,"Swastha nahin... matlab swastha ki jaanch aur swastha ka ilaj muft milega (Not swasth (health)...I mean diagnosis and treatment will be free)." She quipped that "swastha bhi mil jaye toh achcha hain (It will be great if health can be given for free)". File Image: Actor Sumalatha during a press meet in Bengaluru. (Image: ANI) It's palpably hot in Mandya, a high profile constituency located roughly 100 kilometres from Bengaluru. While the temperature is nearing the 40 degree Celsius mark, the political heat too is soaring. Autos and vans with JD(S) trademark green flags are making rounds as loudspeakers screech Vote for our son Nikhil Kumaraswamy. However, a political debutant Nikhil, son of Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy and grandson of JD(S) supremo HD Deve Gowda, is hardly seeing the local support the Gowda clan is otherwise used to. Nikhil will be facing Sumalatha, wife of late actor and politician MH Ambareesh. Sumalatha is contesting as an independent after the Congress declined her candidature and gave the Mandya seat to its alliance partner JD(S). The locals, it seems, have not taken well to the dynasty politics of the Gowda family. Combine this with the disappointment the locals harbour for the JD(S)- Congress coalition government in the state, the district might vote for change and development. Farmer distress The region has seen little development. In addition, the distress among farmers, most of whom grow sugarcane, is mounting. Local administration officials say 150 farmers committed suicide in the last one year. Sugar mills owe farmers Rs 140 crore. Shambhoonahalli Suresh, district president, Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS), a farmer association, said, In the last 20 years, nothing has changed either under the Congress or the JD(S). Both the governments did nothing for the district, which is suffering from water shortage, high farm loans and lack of development. While the shortage of water and the quality of drinking water are serious issues, given that sugarcane is a water-intensive crop, Mandya has few employment opportunities other than agriculture. When HD Kumarasamy became the Chief Minister in 2018, he had promised to waive off loans and renovate deteriorating sugar mills. Nothing has happened so far, say locals. Caste factor The final blow for the locals came when Nikhil was announced as the candidate, instead of choosing from local party workers. "While the Gowda family still has support, the move might finally make Mandya natives vote for development and change instead of caste," a local working with the farmer union in the district said. Nikhil and the Gowda family is from Hassan (about 120km from Mandya). There are many leaders from the district whom they could have chosen. But no, they have to choose Nikhil of all people. So we are supporting Sumalatha, he added. That will be a change in the trend. Caste has till now played a key role in electoral battles in Mandya, a Vokkaliga heartland. So far the district has not chosen anyone other than a Vokkaliga to be its MP or MLA. Even though caste is an important factor, having a local touch is significant. Nikhil is largely seen as an outsider, whereas Sumalatha is the wife of their favourite late actor, politician and 'son of Mandya', Ambareesh. Ambareesh was the MP from 1998 to 2009, winning three general elections. Though he was a part of the JD(S) in 1998, he shifted to the Congress in 1999. In the 2009 general elections, he lost to N Chaluvaraya Swamy of the JD(S). But when Swamy resigned in 2013, actress Ramya or Divya Spandana from the Congress won the bypoll. Shivarame Gowda of the JD(S) won in 2018 in a bypoll when the incumbent MP CS Puttaraju, who won in the general election in 2014, resigned in 2018. Ambareesh, who died in 2018, has remained in people's mind. This will help Sumalatha, a popular actor who was seen in southern language movies in the 1980s. Though she hails from Andhra Pradesh, Sumalatha has been in Bengaluru since 1991, when she married Ambareesh. Jayapal S, a farmer, said, So JD(S) caste card might not be enough to turn the tide. Basavanna P, another farmer from Mandya, said, People here have been electing JD(S) and Congress leaders time and again though none has helped us. However this time it could actually be different. Apart from the BJP and a few disgruntled Congress workers, the farmer union is backing Sumalatha. Latha Sankar, president of the women's wing of KRRS, said, We are supporting Independent candidate Sumalatha in the hope that she will do something for us. There are some reports that Sumalatha's team is trying to bring actor Rajnikanth to campaign for her in Mandya. The Kannada film industry, also known as the Sandalwood industry, is already backing her. Kannada actors Yash and Darshan are seen campaigning for her. Final vote There are other factors that need to be considered, cautioned some locals on the condition of anonymity. Despite the popularity, Shiva Sankar, a local small businessman, said that deep-rooted caste politics might favour Nikhil since he is a Gowda. All said and done, Nikhil is a Gowda whereas Sumalatha is not, he said. Another major factor cash votes. A Deccan Herald report quoting Chetangowda, son of Mandya MP L R Shivaramegowda, stated that the JD(S) has spent Rs 150 crore in the constituency to ensure that Nikhil wins. Though the report has not been verified, locals say Nikhil has the bandwidth to pay to get votes whereas Sumalatha will not be able to. This might be a deciding factor on who wins, said the local. Even as opposition Congress lashed out at ruling BJP in Goa over its "failure" to resume mining operations in the state, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said only the government led by his party (BJP) could resolve the issue. Goa Congress spokesperson Yatish Naik, while addressing a press conference in Panaji, accused the BJP of creating problems for the mining industry, which came to a standstill in March last year and continues to remain so. Naik said the ruling party has been promising to bring a solution to the mining crisis since 2014. "The BJP has been assuring to resume the mining operations, and have repeated its promise even in the manifesto for the upcoming Lok Sabha election," he said. Sawant, while addressing a rally, made an emotional appeal to the mining dependents saying he knows the pain of people working in this industry, as his own father was one amongst them. "I know how the people dependent on mining industry suffer when there is lay-off or disturbance to the industry. I represent the Assembly constituency which has mining as major economic activity," Sawant told BJP workers in Sanguem assembly constituency while campaigning for party's South Goa Lok Sabha candidate Narendra Sawaikar. South Goa has a sizable number of mining dependents, who are now jobless due to the closure of the industry. "I know the pain of the people because I belong to the family of mining dependents. My father was a machine operator at Chowgule Industries (a mining firm)," he said. "I can very well understand what difficulties are faced by people dependent on this industry, when it is shut down. Give me some days to provide solution. We will find out the solution. I assure the people dependent on mining industry that only the BJP government can resolve this issue," he said. The mining dependents under the banner of Goa Mining People's Front have been agitating demanding resumption of the industry. File image The country was heading towards a coalition government as neither the Congress nor the BJP are unlikely to get an absolute majority despite claims by political leadership, former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on Monday. He said the mood of the country is clearly in favour of bringing in a UPA government to reject communal and divisive forces. The senior Congress leader observed that neither of the two national parties were in a position to cross the 150 mark out of 543, despite claims to the contrary by BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In Karnataka, he said the Congress along with its ally JD(S) is expected to win around 20 seats out of 28 parliamentary constituencies. The first phase of polling is scheduled on April 18 in the state. Talking to PTI in an exclusive interview during a campaign trail, Siddaramaiah said: "Both Congress and BJP appear not to be in a position to get an absolute majority on their own. The UPA will however get a clear majority." Holding that claims and reality are two different things, he said there is no Modi wave. On the contrary, there is a growing wave of people wanting to curb divisive and communal forces. This has put full stop to the second term for the NDA. "According to me, the UPA will get enough seats and will emerge as a single largest front. Naturally, other regional parties will rally around," he said and added the Mahagathbandhan (the grand-alliance) has taken place so that the secular votes are not divided. He said, "The campaign is against the BJP which is a communal party. All secular forces which were fighting each other, have come together to prevent division of votes among secular parties. We are fighting against the communal party." Siddaramaiah, who is also chairman of the Congress-JD(S) coalition committee in the state, is however, confident that the Congress will be able to make a major in roads in Karnataka along with the JD(S), limiting the BJP to anywhere between 8 and 10 seats out of 28 parliamentary constituencies. The Congress, which is contesting 21 seats in the state, would win 13-14 seats and its ally JD(S) will take the combine tallly to around 20, he said. Rubbishing claims that there was lack of coordination between Congress and JD(S) workers resulting from an unfair allocation of seats, he said the two parties were in perfect harmony and the campaigning was going on satisfactorily. "This issue has been verified because myself and JD(S) chief H D Deve Gowda jointly toured all constituencies. Look, myself and G T Devegowda of JD(S) fought against each other during the last assembly elections, now we have come together. We have asked workers to work together," he said. Three out of seven seats allocated to JD(S) are being contested by former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda and his two grandsons, forcing the JD(S) leadership to concentrate on three constituencies of Tumkur, Mandya and Hassan. Gowda is contesting from Tumkur, his grandson and chief minister H D Kumaraswamy's son Nikhil Kumaraswamy from Mandya and elder son H D Revanna's son Ujwal Revanna from Hassan. Asserting that Congress-JD(S) alliance will benefit in this Lok Sabha poll, Siddaramaiah said, "Our vote share will be definitely more than the BJP. Both voters, irrespective of what Congress and JD(S) got in the assembly poll, put together will get more votes." On too much of Modi bashing in election campaign, he said, "It is because Modi is prime minister of this country and has completed five years. Who else should I attack? If you attack Modi, it means we are attacking the RSS. He is a symbol of RSS." He said the Congress's narrative of the election campaign is positive unlike the BJP which is not raising issues concerning the poor people, farmers, youth and women. "Is Modi discussing these issues in the public meeting? Why he is not mentioning his achievements in the public meeting? He is talking only about surgical strikes" the Congress leader said. "There were 12 surgical strikes in the past. In the first war against Pakistan in 1948-49, Narendra Modi was not even born then. In 1977, when Indira Gandhi was PM and Bangladesh was liberated, where was he? Was he a soldier in Indian army?" Siddaramaiah said adding these surgical strikes are taking place frequently in the country after Independence. Even the BJP's manifesto talks of the same old issues such as scrapping of Article 370 and construction of Ram temple. "It is raising emotional and very old issues. These issues were there since 1982," he noted. Union minister Manoj Sinha said that had Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel been the first prime minister of the country, India would not had to face the menace of terrorism. He was addressing a programme held here in Maupara village. "Had Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel been the first prime minister of the country, India would not have to face the menace of terrorism. The Congress's policies pertaining to terrorism were bad earlier and are now as well," the Union communication minister (independent charge) said. "Today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set the entire world against terrorism, but due to the wrong policies of the Congress, the country's enemy gets help," he said. Sinha also took a jobe at BSP chief Mayawati, saying, that those who gained power using the name of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar, forgot his policies after coming to power. He urged the public to be cautious of such leaders. "The BJP follows the principles of Babasaheb, and is working for the upliftment of the downtrodden and poor people," Sinha said. Taking on the prime minister over his nationalistic poll pitch, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath said even when Narendra Modi "didn't learn to wear pyjamas and pants", Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi had built the country's defence forces. The veteran Congress leader's stinging attack on Modi came days after the prime minister referred to him as 'bhrasht' Nath, meaning corrupt. Addressing an election rally at Harsud in Khandwa district, Nath said the "highest" number of terror attacks happen whenever the BJP is in power at the Centre. "Modi talks about security of the country. Was the country not in safe hands five years ago? "Modi, when you had not even learned to wear pyjamas and pants, Jawaharlal Nehru (the first prime minister of India) and (former PM) Indira Gandhi had created the Army, the Air Force and the Navy for this country. And, you say that the country is safe under you," he said. Modi has been invoking the Pulwama terror attack and Balakot air strike in an apparent bid to build a poll narrative around national security and a decisive government. "Under whose government did most terror attacks happen? Whose government was in Delhi when terror attack on Parliament happened (in 2001)? The BJP government was there and statistics shows that the highest number of terrorist attacks have happened under the BJP rule," the chief minister said. Continuing his tirade, the Congress leader said Modi has failed to keep his promise of generating jobs for youths. "Modi promised to give crores of employment but how many youths have got jobs? Modi said good days will come. Whose good days have come? Modi promised to bring back black money from abroad. Where is that money?" he asked. In a recent interview to a TV channel, Modi had referred to the chief minister as 'bhrasht' Nath after tax raids were conducted at properties linked to his close associates. "I didn't raise the finger against corruption, corruption is an issue for us. Just see what happened in Bhopal. 'Bhrasht' Nath can say anything but it doesn't matter," Modi had said. Polling in all 29 Lok Sabha seats of Madhya Pradesh is slated to be held in four phases beginning April 29. Every election is important in a democracy but some are more important because of the circumstances in which they are held. Tamil Nadu, which goes to the polls on April 18, is facing one such important election, the results of which could change the decades-long course of regional politics in the state. For more than three decades now and roughly since the beginning of coalition governments at the Centre, the two main Dravidian parties, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) or the All India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), have played a vital role in New Delhi. The only exception being the current Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. The way the BJP and the Congress have courted the AIADMK and the DMK respectively show that the two regional majors are expected to play a vital role in any coalition formed post-May 23. With 39 Lok Sabha seats, Tamil Nadu is merely the fourth largest state yet it is a state which commands its presence at the centre. Two factors are responsible for this: one, the minimal presence of the BJP and the Congress in the state; two, the electoral monopoly the DMK and AIADMK enjoy across the state. Both these factors are evolving, and thats why this election is a game-changer in Tamil Nadu/Dravidian politics. There are many indicators that show why it will be difficult to predict a winner this time or do the usual crystal gazing on the basis of previous trends. The 2019 Lok Sabha polls will be the first major election to be held in Tamil Nadu after the death of former Chief Ministers J Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi. While Kalaignar, as Karunanidhi was called by his admirers, was the last in the pantheon of Dravidian leaders who shaped Tamil Nadus contemporary cultural identity and electoral politics. Jayalalithaa single-handedly led a party that not only countered Karunanidhis DMK but also commanded New Delhis respect. For a majority of people in Tamil Nadu, the DMK is synonymous with Karunanidhi, who was in active politics for more than half-a-century. The AIADMK has had only two leaders its founder MG Ramachandran (MGR) and Jayalalithaa. This election will test the AIADMKs current office bearers, who by no stretch can be compared to MGR or Jaya. This is an important election because there is the absence of a towering personality. It is a wave-less election where the narrative is not dominated by any of the leaders. Loyalties to this leader or that party is getting shattered in this election, says Kombai S Anwar, a political analyst and documentary film-maker. The death of Jayalalithaa in 2016 not only put the state government through a series of crises but also sent the AIADMK on a downward spiral. Since then it has not been able to recover. At one time the party was split into three factions, and today it faces a major threat from a breakaway faction led by TTV Dhinakaran. A perception that the state government is kowtowing the Centres line in the state and that the AIADMK is controlled by the BJP has further eroded support from voters who view the saffron party as a threat to Dravidian culture and regional pride. The DMK, on the other hand, is placed much better. In MK Stalin, Karunanidhis son, the party has a leader who has risen up the ranks. However, he too is finding it hard to fill into the vacuum left behind by Karunanidhi. In this election, he will have to prove that he has the acumen to lead the party and keep the DMK as a force to reckon with in Tamil Nadu. This election is important for Stalin. He needs to evolve as a leader. This campaigning has done him lots of good, where he has been steering the campaign for the party and the alliance. He can show that he is not simply the son of his father, but the man of his own times, says Dr R Manivannan, professor and head, Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Madras, Chennai. The uncertainties detailed above add to the unpredictability of this election. It is largely believed that the AIADMK, which won 37 of the 39 parliamentary seats in 2014, will lose a considerable number of its votes. The partys lack of confidence is evident in the fact that it is only contesting 20 seats this time. That said, it is not clear if the votes the AIADMK loses will go en masse to the DMK. Perhaps, the biggest factor is the Dhinakaran-led Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK). Though Dhinakaran has fielded a candidate from every constituency, he is likely to cause a stir in the southern part of the state where the Thevars, an important caste group in central and southern Tamil Nadu, are predominant. The AMMKs performance in Theni and Sivagangai needs to be watched. What has weakened his case is that AMMK candidates are treated as independent candidates and could move to either the AIADMK or DMK camp after winning the election. Another factor which increases the importance and uncertainty of this election is the presence of small political parties which have the potential to upset preconceived electoral theories in the state. This election will decide whether or not Vaikos Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), Vijayakanths Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) and Seemans Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) have what it takes to attain a respectable political velocity. While the MDMK has allied with the DMK and the DMDK with the AIADMK, the NTK is fighting it alone. The NTKs politics is a case study in itself. An ultra-nationalist regional party which has Velupillai Prabhakaran, the slain leader of the banned Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam (LTTE), as its mascot, is believed to have a minimal but dedicated presence in the southern districts. The party focuses on building an informed citizenry and focuses on education and gender equality; of the 40 NTK candidates contesting this time, 20 are women. The entry of Kamal Haasans Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) is unlikely to upset the major regional parties, but it could chip at the corners. In an election when there are multiple known unknowns, its performance will determine its impact and longevity. The transfer of votes in Tamil Nadu is not as easy as it is often said to be. Stitching alliances does not ensure that all the votes, which the parties in the alliance would have gathered had they been contesting the polls individually, will go to the alliance candidate. The main reason for this is the complex caste structures across the state. The AIADMK and the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) are a part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Tamil Nadu. The PMK predominantly represents the Vanniyars, a dominant caste group in northern Tamil Nadu, while the AIADMK has traditionally cultivated a goodwill among Dalit voters. MGRs pro-poor image and the AIADMKs poverty-alleviation schemes have helped towards this. However, the AIADMK-PMK alliance is an unlikely match because the Vanniyars and the Dalits have a tense relationship. Given this, it is difficult to see a vote transfer from the Thol Thirumavallavan is the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) founder and candidate for the DMK+ alliance from Chidambaram. The VCK is a pro-Dalit party which is seen suspiciously by the upper castes in the region. The DMK has a good following in the constituency but is working overtime to see that its traditional vote-base is transferred in favour of to the VCK candidate this time. Special meetings are being held where local DMK cadre and party leaders are told to canvas votes for Thirumavallavan. In some places where the party is strong, the candidates (Thirumavallavans) name does not appear on posters. Stalins name along with other local DMK leaders name and the poll symbol is what is advertised. This is an ingenious technique to ensure that party votes are not lost, said a senior journalist who has covered every Tamil Nadu election since the mid-eighties. The various reports of money being seized by the Election Commission of India (ECI) across Tamil Nadu is an indicator of the nervousness among parties. Since March 10, when the Model Code of Conduct came into effect, the ECI has seized unaccounted cash, jewels and other items worth Rs. 552 crore. This is proportionally higher than what has been seized in recent years. Tamil Nadu is infamously associated with the freebie culture, which has spread to other states as well. It was during the 2016 assembly polls that the ECI, in the first time of its history, decided to cancel polls to two seats (Aravakurichi and Thanjavur), following reports of a large scale bribing of voters. The high volumes of unaccounted cash is an indicator that many parties are uncertain about their electoral prospects, and money is being used to influence voters much like the infamous Thirumangalam by-election in 2009 or the Andipatti by-election in 2002. Despite these uncertainties, many believe that the DMK has a slight edge over its main rival, the AIADMK. Auto-drivers at an auto-stand near the AIADMK headquarters at Avvai Shanmugam Salai in Chennai, told me why: Traditionally most of us have voted for the AIADMK, but this time were not sure. Look at what happened to the party! Many neutral voters who chose Amma (Jayalalithaa) last time, might turn to the DMK. In an interview to this author, actor-cum-social activist Balaji said, Dont expect change this election. If people selected one party last time, this time they will go for the other party. Real change will happen many years from now. Slamming the BJP-led government, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said it stands on the twin pillars of loot of natural resources and more misery for the poor. Yechury also accused the Narendra Modi-led NDA government of trying to use the armed forces to polarise the elections in the face of its imminent defeat. He said it is "quite evident" from the anger against the present dispensation at the grassroots that a secular democratic government will come to power after the elections. "Recently, a report came out where it stated that bank loans of corporates worth Rs 5.5 lakh crore were waived off in the last five years. This only sums up from where the BJP is getting so much money in terms of electoral bonds. "This Modi government rests on twin pillars of loot of natural resources, cronyism and more misery for poor and common masses," Yechury told reporters here. Asking the Centre to reveal names of the corporate leaders whose loans have been written off, the senior CPI(M) leader said the Rafale deal with France was also a blatant example of "promoting crony capitalism". Criticising Modi for seeking votes in the name of martyrs and the armed forces, he urged the Election Commission to act strongly against BJP's "despicable attempts". "As the BJP is well aware that they are going to lose the elections, they are making last-ditch efforts to use the armed forces to polarise the voters. The EC should act against it and stop BJP's attempt to politicise the security forces," Yechury said. He said the saffron party would face the same fate as in 2004, when it lost the general elections. "We have full faith in Indian voters. In 2004 also, the BJP raised the issue of opposition being rudderless and they had Atal Bihari Vajpayee leading from the front. But, we had seen they were defeated and Manmohan Singh became the prime minister for the next 10 years. "This time, too, the same thing is going to happen, a secular democratic government will come to power after the elections," he said. Yechury added that the 2019 Lok Sabha election is the most crucial one in the history of Independent India, as the very future of the secular democratic republic, as enshrined in the Constitution, is at stake. Representative Image Sumanth Raman As Tamil Nadu gets ready to vote on April 18, the expectation among all political fronts is high. The DMK-Congress-Communist plus alliance is enthused by opinion polls, pointing to a comfortable victory for the alliance, with some predicting almost a clean sweep in the state. The NDA is being led by the AIADMK and includes the BJP, the PMK of S. Ramadoss and the DMDK of actor Vijayakanth, besides some smaller parties. This alliance has faced headwinds in the campaign with double anti-incumbency (AIADMK government has been in power in the state for eight years) being felt at several places on the ground. There is also an element of anti-Modi sentiment, as the prime minister did not visit the state after Cyclone Gaja, but has made at least five trips in the last two months ostensibly because of elections. Yet, AIADMK leaders including Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswamy has run a spirited campaign, hitting the streets with gusto, talking about various welfare schemes and invoking the name of late Jayalalithaa in an attempt to recreate her magic among the electorate. For the NDA, their hope lies in how they perform in three key areas of the state. The western belt, also known as the Kongu belt, is where the AIADMK has traditionally been the strongest and the BJP also has influence in several pockets. The NDA will be hoping to won seats like Salem (chief ministers home constituency falls within this seat), Namakkal, Coimbatore, Tiruppur and Pollachi. A poor performance in this belt will mean significant anti-incumbency against the AIADMK-BJP combine, and this could well result in a sweep for the DMK-Congress alliance. The second area, where the NDA hopes to put up a fight, is in the Vanniar belt where the PMK has a strong base. The PMK has been criticized for joining the NDA after releasing a book on the alleged corruption of the state government a few months ago and meeting the Governor to demand an inquiry into the corruption charges. PMK gets about 5-6 percent of votes across the state, but it is concentrated in around 8-10 Lok Sabha constituencies. If the party can pull its weight, it can help determine the outcome in favour of the alliance in at least 2-3 seats. Its leader and former Union minister Anbumani Ramadoss is contesting from the Dharmapuri seat which he won last time. The third area, where the NDA hopes to score well is in southern Tamil Nadu, is where the BJP is contesting four of its five seats. The party has fielded heavyweights, Union minister and sitting MP Pon Radhakrishnan in Kanyakumari, state President Tamizhisai Soundararajan (against the DMK's Kanimozhi) in Tuticorin and National Secretary H.Raja against Karti Chidambaram in Sivaganga. The fourth seat, Ramanathapuram, is where the BJP has fielded a relatively new entrant to the party former AIADMK Minister Nainar Nagendran. This is the area where TTV Dhinakarans AMMK is expected to cut heavily into the AIADMK-BJP alliance vote, thus helping the DMK combine. The other major area in the state, the Cauvery delta region, is widely considered a washout for the NDA with the DMK alliance expected to capitalise on the criticism on the handling of Cyclone Gaja and the general farm discontent across the region. Chennai City is also considered a lost cause for the NDA, with two out of the citys three seats being given to alliance partners like the DMDK and the PMK, who have a very little base in the city. Only in Chennai South, where the AIADMK and the DMK are contesting, can be considered to be an actual fight. A reasonably good performance will boost the morale of both the AIADMK and the BJP in Tamil Nadu. Three months ago, they were both down and out as far as these elections were concerned. Yet, in a couple of months, they have forged an alliance that, at least on paper, can put up a fight. If the alliance manages to win about 10 seats, it should be satisfied. A few weeks ago, the possibility of winning even a single seat seemed remote. For the AIADMK, there is the additional issue of winning at least 7-8 seats out of the 22 assembly seats for which by-elections are being held. A big defeat can put the future of the state government in doubt. So the focus of the party will be more on the by-elections than on the Lok Sabha poll. For now, though, the DMK-Congress combine is in pole position to win a significant number of seats from Tamil Nadu. Will the NDAs alliance arithmetic overcome anti-incumbency in Tamil Nadu? May 23rd will provide the answers. (Sumanth Raman is a Chennai-based television anchor and political analyst. Views are personal) Prime Minister Narendra Modi assailed BSP supremo Mayawati for seeking votes for a candidate who had called BR Ambedkar a 'land mafia', and also attacked the opposition alliance, saying the 'mahamilavat' will face a "mahagiravat"-- a grand fall. Addressing a poll rally in Moradabad, over 350 km from here, Modi claimed there was a wave across the country in favour of the BJP and opposition grouping's "survival is difficult". "Mahamilavat ka mahagiravat tay hai (the grand fall of the highly adulterated alliance is certain)," he said. The Prime Minister has been slamming the opposition alliance terming them 'Mahamilavat'. Modi said the Uttar Pradesh alliance partners the SP and the BSP are facing "existential crisis" and, therefore, they have "put behind all the expletives" they used against each other. "Now, they have coined a new slogan -- 'mera bhi maaf, tumhara bhi maaf, varna ho jayenge donon saaf' (Let's forgive each other else both of us will be wiped out)," Modi said. In Uttar Pradesh, the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party is contesting 38 Lok Sabha seats, while the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) has fielded candidates on 37 parliamentary constituencies. There are three Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) candidates in the poll fray from the state. The alliance has not fielded any candidate on Rae Bareli and Amethi, the two Congress' bastions. Referring to the seat-sharing arrangement between the SP and the BSP, Modi said, "For forming a government at the Centre, 272 seats in the Lok Sabha are needed. Those who are fighting on 40 seats, will they bag 272 seats?" "They are only befooling you," Modi said. "UP will completely finish the half-half people from the state." Modi alleged the SP and the BSP have become "contractors" of their vote banks and "selling" and "transferring" them to each other. He also attacked Mayawati over her party's support to SP's Rampur candidate Azam Khan. "Mayawati is today seeking votes for the candidate who had termed Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar as a 'bhoo-mafia' (land mafia) and had encroached Dalit hamlets in the name of a university," the prime minister alleged. Khan had in 2016 allegedly termed the Father of the Constitution as someone who "grabs land". An FIR was registered against him two years later. Modi said, "These are the same people who had once said that Mayawati will meet the same fate as Saddam Hussein. Mayawati is seeking votes a person who did not approve of garlanding the statue of Ambedkar." Taking a jibe at SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, the prime minister said, "Has babua forgotten the act of Mayawati who had once talked about sending Mulayam Singh Yadav to a mental asylum. Today, an elephant is riding the cycle, and the chowkidar (watchman, as Modi often refers to himself) is the target." 'Elephant' is the poll symbol for the BSP while 'cycle' is allotted to SP. NC president Farooq Abdullah dubbed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah "biggest enemies of people", alleging that they want to divide the country. The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister made the remarks at a public meeting in Mir Bahri Dal. "PM Modi and Shah are the biggest enemies of people who believe in dividing the nation on basis of caste, creed and religion. But the people have made it a point not to fall prey to the divisive agenda of the BJP," Abdullah said. The National Conference (NC) patron accused the BJP of trying to divert people's attention by propping up emotive issues. "These people want to change the very framework of the Constitution of India, which grants equal rights and opportunities to everyone. It is the Constitution of India which grants rights to profess any faith. It is the same Constitution that confers upon our state certain constitutional safeguards," Abdullah said. "It is the same Constitution which grants our state a special status by means of Article 35 A and Article 370. These people have always shown abhorrence for our special status and special constitutional position," he added. Abdullah said the BJP manifesto reflects the BJP's hatred for the identity of the state. "They have forcefully vowed to do away with the provisions of Article 370, Article 35 A in that manifesto. Their sole agenda is to change the demography of our state. However, let me tell them that they are playing with fire," he said. Alluding to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and People's Conference (PC), Abdullah said the BJP was using its "cronies" to weaken the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. "To meet this purpose, they have employed various henchmen in our state, such cronies can be seen holding inkpot (PDP's party symbol) and apple (PC's party symbol) in their hands. The sole aim of BJP and its cronies is to make non-state subjects buy land and property in our state," he said. The NC president said these polls would decide if India remains secular or not. "Our fight is with the divisive forces. We should utilise our power of vote to show such forces as are inimical to our special status their right place. They can go to any extent to grind their axe, they will use men, money and machinery to coerce the voters," Abdullah said. "However, the need of the hour demands us to remain united and vigilant of their machinations. This time we are voting for our identity and the integrity of our state," he said. He warned any mistakes will have serious repercussions for the coming generations. Abdullah said the National Conference would not allow anybody to fiddle with the state's special status. "We have been (protecting) and will continue to protect the identity, integrity and pluralistic character of our state. We would not allow anyone to abridge our rights," he said. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Production of two-wheelers slipped to its lowest level in five quarters after manufacturers cut back heavily on output following a slump in retail demand. Data shared by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) showed two-wheeler output during January-March of 2019 quarter at 5.4 million - a fall close to the levels of 2017 quarter of October-December, when the industry saw production close at 5.25 million. All major two-wheeler manufacturers, with the exception of Bajaj Auto, reported a decline in sales volumes during FY19. Increased insurance and product costs, tightened lending norms, high fuel prices, poor sentiments and demand saturation in certain segments such as scooters have affected retail off-take of two-wheelers, which has remained poor since the conclusion of 2018 festive period. While sales grew by 4.86 percent last year, Bajaj, which is present only in the motorcycle segment, recorded 28.7 percent sales growth in volumes. Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India recorded the biggest fall with sales volumes declining by 4.4 percent. HSMI's sales in March slumped by 47 percent. The maker of Activa and Unicorn closed the month lower than Chennai-based TVS Motor Company, which has been trailing the Japanese giant since many years for the second spot. Unlike its rivals, HMSI does not offer credit days to its dealers which means that dealers have to make on-the-spot payments for their purchases. As inventories of the two-wheeler industry started to hit 100 days (as against the normal 25-30 days) dealers began to cut back on purchases thus leading to fall in production. During March alone, HMSI's production went down by 67 percent. Hero Motocorp, the country's largest two-wheeler maker, saw production go down by nearly 20 percent in March and 14 percent in January. The Delhi-based manufacturer has amongst highest unsold inventory in the industry. A mail sent to Hero seeking response over its planned production cut remained unanswered at the time of publishing the article. While SIAM predicted a growth of 10-11 percent before the start of last financial year, the two-wheeler sector ended last year with a growth of just 4.86 percent. The apex lobby body has reduced its prediction of growth for FY20 to 5-7 percent. The outlook looks grim following political uncertainty, low consumer sentiment below normal prediction of rains for the year. Demand may get a boost only before the switch over to Bharat Stage VI standard when prices are expected to increase. Bajaj, Indias third biggest two-wheeler producer, has been able to navigate the slowdown better than its peers. During March for instance, the Pune-based company's sales grew by nearly 39 percent while the industry saw volumes go down by 17 percent. It has managed to keep its inventory days to 55 as against 90-100 of the industry. The IMF's bailout package to Pakistan could be delayed as both sides are still engaged in an intense conversation to finalise the agreement and the international lending body is seeking details of the CPEC project and a written guarantee from Islamabad that its assistance will not be used to repay loans to China, according to a media report. Pakistan Finance Minister Asad Umar said earlier this month that a mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would visit Islamabad soon after the spring meetings of the World Bank Group, which includes the IMF, and an agreement should be signed by the end of this month. Pakistani daily Dawn quoting official sources on Monday said the visit of the IMF mission to Islamabad for finalising the bailout package may be delayed as both sides are still engaged in an "intense discussion" on the final details of the agreement. "So, the IMF mission is now more likely to visit Islamabad in May, not April, the sources told the daily. The finance minister, who led the Pakistani delegation at the meetings, went to New York on Friday but his team, which includes senior officials of his ministry and other government agencies, stayed in Washington for further talks. Umar during a press conference on Thursday said the two sides had more or less, reached an understanding on the bailout package and in a day or two, we hope to reach a full agreement. An official familiar with the Pakistan-IMF talks said, Islamabad still hopes to conclude the agreement before June, as they believe the bailout package would help budget prospects. The sticking points, however, are the demands for market-determined exchange rates and sharing details of Chinese loans which Pakistan is reluctant to do so. The sources said that IMF officials were also seeking details of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), along with a written guarantee from both Pakistan and China that the IMF assistance will not be used to repay loans to China. The IMF insists on full disclosure of all financial cooperation between Pakistan and China, including assistance related to infrastructure development, nuclear power plants, joint manufacturing of JF-17 Thunder fighter jets and procurement of submarines. The IMF is also demanding details of more than USD 6.5 billion of commercial loans Pakistan has received from China in the past two and a half years. In July, China also deposited USD 2 billion with the State Bank of Pakistan. The finance minister is likely to visit China on April 25 for talks on the IMF concerns over CPEC and IMF will wait to hear from him before it finalises the bailout package, the daily reported. Some of the other conditions proposed by the IMF include: making the State Bank independent, a market-oriented exchange rate, expanding the tax target by Rs 5,000 billion, ending income tax concessions, more taxes on salaries, narrowing the amount of taxable income from Rs12 lakh a year to Rs4 lakh, reducing electricity and gas losses, no government interference in Nepra and Ogra policies, Rs140 billion electricity and gas revenue losses be recovered from consumers. Both sides are engaged in fine-tuning the details of the proposed IMF programme. Pakistan wants the IMF to review some of the conditions it has attached to the package while the IMF insists that those conditions are absolutely essential for a successful completion of the programme. Pakistan points out that this would be its 14th package with the IMF, if finalised. It argue that the conditions attached to previous programmes were also not fully implemented because they were too restrictive. Pakistan wants the IMF to focus on long-term structural reforms that help revive its economy instead of attaching conditions that would be difficult to implement. During negotiations on the new package, the Pakistani delegation told the IMF that they do not want to commit to what we cannot implement. When asked how much money did Pakistan expect from the IMF, a source said: The amount and length of the programme also depends on the nature of the package. If the conditions are too restrictive, Pakistan would expect a larger package, i.e. more assistance for a longer period. The top Democrat in the US Congress ordered a safety review for a Muslim congresswoman and her family after accusing President Donald Trump of putting her in danger by tweeting a video of her spliced with footage of the 9/11 attacks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took time out from an official trip to issue a strong statement urging Trump to remove the clip featuring Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar. "Following the president's tweet, I spoke with the sergeant-at-arms to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff," she said. "The president's words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger. President Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video." Trump's spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, meanwhile, defended the president Sunday against accusations that he was inciting violence toward Omar. Omar has been at the center of an escalating row after a clip emerged of her characterising the deadliest attack on US soil as "some people did something." On Friday, Trump tweeted a video that juxtaposed the snippet, which Omar's fellow Democrats say was taken out of context, with images of the hijacked planes used in the attacks crashing into the Twin Towers that once dominated New York's skyline. Menacing music accompanies Omar's words. The clip, which had been viewed more than 9.4 million times as of Sunday afternoon, ends with the words: "SEPTEMBER 11 2001 WE REMEMBER." Prominent Democrats including Beto O'Rourke, Kamala Harris and Omar's fellow first-time Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were quick to rush to Omar's defence, accusing the president and other Republicans of deliberately de-contextualizing her remarks and endangering her life. Sanders, however, defended Trump, telling ABC television's "This Week" that "the president is wishing no ill will and certainly not violence towards anyone." But, she added: "It's absolutely abhorrent the comments she continues to make and has made and (Democrats) look the other way. "I find her comments to be absolutely disgraceful and unbefitting of a member of Congress and I think that it's a good thing that the president is calling her out for those comm Omar has mounted her own trenchant fight back, tweeting Saturday: "No one person - no matter how corrupt, inept, or vicious - can threaten my unwavering love for America. "I stand undeterred to continue fighting for equal opportunity in our pursuit of happiness for all Americans," she said. The controversy arose after Omar delivered a 20-minute address to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) shortly after the New Zealand mosque attacks in March. "For far too long, we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I'm tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it," she said. "CAIR was founded after 9/11," she added, "because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties." The civil rights group was in fact founded in 1994 but grew significantly after 2001. The speech did not initially receive significant attention until the snippet in question was highlighted weeks later by controversial Australian personality Mohammad Tawhidi who refers to himself as the "Imam of Peace. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the agency that issues Aadhaar, has been emphatic in its claim that Aadhaar data is protected by a 13 feet wall. And yet, UIDAI has registered a first information report (FIR) regarding data theft of 7.82 crore people from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. How did this happen? The Cyberabad Police in Madhapur, on the request of UIDAI, had registered the FIR against Hyderabad-based IT Grids (India) Pvt Ltd. While there already is a complaint filed against IT Grids about using Aadhaar data for voter profiling, the new FIR, for the first time, asks for forensic investigation in the data breach, says Srinivas Kodali, an Internet researcher and alumnus of IIT Madras. FIR 278/2019 by Cyberabad Police in Madhapur on the request of @UIDAI against IT Grids Pvt Ltd. First time in a #Aadhaar case there is a forensic investigation which was missing in all other UIDAI security claims. pic.twitter.com/8gDI3LmpRt Srinivas Kodali (@digitaldutta) April 15, 2019 The FIR states, "...investigation so far has revealed that Seva Mitra application is suspected to be using stolen voter information along with Aadhaar data of the state governments of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh for voter profiling, targeted campaigning and even deletion of votes." On 2nd and 3rd March, the Cyberabad police seized seven hard disks and other digital evidence during search on the premises of IT Grids. This evidence was sent to Telangana State Forensic Science Laboratory (TSFSL) for forensic examination. The examination by TSFSL found that "the structure and size of the database is surprisingly similar to that of the databases that could have been originally owned by UIDAI". UIDAI supplied sample code shows they share around 44 parameters of #Aadhaar details to states governments from CIDR in csv files for building surveillance databases of citizens. https://t.co/hwbGSYK13C pic.twitter.com/bj08N0kbNI Srinivas Kodali (@digitaldutta) January 10, 2018 "The presence of enrolment identification number (EID_NUM) raises a strong suspicion that the data could have been obtained either from the Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) or one of the state resident data hubs (SRDH) aligned to CIDR. Availability of such unique information of an Aadhaar number indicates that the accused (IT Grid) might have illegally accessed CIDR or SRDH and has used such information or data for wrongful gain," the FIR says, adding, "...the directors of IT Grids are suspected to have hosted databases related to Aadhaar number and related identity information in Amazon web service (AWS), which is in clear contravention of Aadhaar Regulations." "There is every possibility that sensitive data of Indian citizens could be accessed and used by countries hostile to India or international organised crime syndicates in a manner which could be seriously detrimental to the national security," the FIR registered on request of UIDAI states. Isnt all this contrary to what UIDAI's chief executive (CEO) Ajay Bhushan Pandey had told the Supreme Court when his presentation talked about 'sufficient safeguard mechanism' and 'almost fool proof public key infrastructure (PKI)-2048 encryption...virtually impossible to decipher'. The September 2018 judgement appears to have accepted this claim, but the action of filing the FIR and the data breach suggest otherwise. Over the years, Moneylife has been raising similar issues associated with the Aadhaar numbering scheme and role played by UIDAI. Dr Anupam Saraph, a renowned expert in governance of complex systems, had even warned on how benami voters and Aadhaar could be used to launder elections. In one of his articles, Dr Saraph had said , "The use of Aadhaar by governments fits the classical definition of electoral malpractice as it constitutes manipulation of electoral processes and outcomes so as to substitute personal or partisan benefit for the public interest. Such malpractice threatens the integrity of an election as it is extensive, systematic and decisive." "Unlike the Voter ID, that is certified by the registration officer in accordance with Rule 28(3)(d), the Aadhaar 'card' or the biometric or demographic data associated with any Aadhaar number is not certified by the UIDAI. Unlike the process of revising the electoral rolls, there is no process of revising Aadhaar database. In fact, there is no process for objecting to assigning an Aadhaar number to any combination of biometric or demographic data in the Aadhaar database. In the absence of such a process to clean the database, no verification or audit of the Aadhaar database has happened either," Dr Saraph says. IT Grids, which provides information technology (IT) services to Andhra Pradesh's ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP), is facing allegations of having stolen data of 37 million voters from the state government database through its Seva Mitra app. Calling Andhra Pradesh as "true digital nightmare, all thanks to Aadhaar", Mr Kodali says, the state government publishes Aadhaar everywhere from electricity bills to even in auto-rickshaws. Telangana Govt has everyone's Aadhaar with them, which was passed to EC. Voter id Aadhaar has already been linked of everyone in state and all the deletion are because of this stupid tech. So before you utter garbage, please do some homework. Those Hindu voters were deleted too pic.twitter.com/pHOPzyFRuu Srinivas Kodali (@digitaldutta) December 8, 2018 Coming back to the presentation in the Supreme Court by Mr Pandey, the CEO of UIDAI, the majority judgement seemed to have relied on the PowerPoint in its ruling. On 21 March 2018, requesting the five-judge Constitutional bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, comprising Justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, to allow UIDAI CEO make a technical presentation, Attorney General (AG) KK Venugopal contended that this would explain how security is protected at every step in CIDR. Many doubts and fears that have been raised (by the petitioners) will be clarified by the presentation (from the UIDAI CEO). There is also a four minute video showing the thirteen foot wall around the CIDR, the AG had told the bench. In the majority judgement, the five-judge bench (on page 242/567) stated... "153) After going through the Aadhaar structure, as demonstrated by the respondents in the PowerPoint presentation from the provisions of the Aadhaar Act and the machinery which the Authority has created for data protection, we are of the view that it is very difficult to create profile of a person simply on the basis of biometric and demographic information stored in CIDR. Insofar as authentication is concerned, the respondents rightly pointed out that there are sufficient safeguard mechanisms. To recapitulate, it was specifically submitted that there were security technologies in place (slide 28 of Dr Pandeys presentation), 24/7 security monitoring, data leak prevention, vulnerability management programme and independent audits (slide 29) as well as the Authoritys defence mechanism (slide 30). It was further pointed out that the Authority has taken appropriate proactive protection measures, which included disaster recovery plan, data backup and availability and media response plan (slide 31). The respondents also pointed out that all security principles are followed inasmuch as: (a) there is PKI-2048 encryption from the time of capture, meaning thereby, as soon as data is given at the time of enrolment, there is an end to end encryption thereof and it is transmitted to the Authority in encrypted form. The said encryption is almost fool proof and it is virtually impossible to decipher the same; (b) adoption of best-in-class security standards and practices; and (c) strong audit and traceability as well as fraud detection. Above all, there is an oversight of Technology and Architecture Review Board (TARB) and Security Review Committee. This Board and Committee consist of very high profiled officers. Therefore, the Act has endeavoured to provide safeguards." Refuting the contention of the petitioners on the use of Aadhaar by third parties or by the State for mass surveillance, AG Mr Venugopal and UIDAI counsel Rakesh Dwivedi had submitted to the apex court (as mentioned in the SC judgement on page 243/567) that "...given the architecture of the Aadhaar Act, there are no such possibilities and in any event, submission based on imaginary possibility do not provide any basis for questioning the validity of Aadhaar Act." The IT Grids episode of exposing data and profile of 78.2 million people from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh has brought forward a stark reality. This exactly is the scenario that the petitioners in the Aadhaar case were trying to point out. It is Official People. CIDR has indeed been breached and is stored in the USA using Amazon Web Services. It is not just AP and Telangana but other states as well. Fully busted!! Please read the communique from @UIDAI. Is there anything left? Link: https://t.co/iIUWaBlKJa V. Anand | . (@iam_anandv) April 14, 2019 In this case, there are a number of violations from the private entity such as data breach, storage of data on servers located overseas and exploitation of Aadhaar number holders by creating their demographic profile and using it for political means. As pointed out by Justice DY Chandrachud in his (dissenting) judgement, the Aadhaar Act, these violations also hampers right to privacy, as defined by the apex court, of the individual. When Aadhaar is seeded into every database, it becomes a bridge across discreet data silos, which allows anyone with access to this information to re-construct a profile of an individuals life. This is contrary to the right to privacy and poses severe threats due to potential surveillance, Justice Chandrachud had said in his judgement. (page 1043/1448) These revelations raise several serious and important questions on linking Aadhaar with everything under the sun by government and exploitation of the Aadhaar data by private entities. Important to note, when the Supreme Court in its order last year discarded Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act that allowed use of the UID by private entities, the Union government brought out an ordinance to allow such usage. This means, citizens will need to be on constant vigil and protect own personal data that is vulnerable and exploited through linking of Aadhaar with everything, either legally or illegally by almost anyone. Also under the new circumstances, where it is proved that Aadhaar data can be used to create demographic profile that can be exploited for profit, will the Supreme Court consider speedy hearing of review petitions filed by petitioners in the Aadhaar case? At time of writing, the share price of Creso Pharma Limited [ASX:CPH] is up 3.45%, trading at 45 cents. The Creso Pharma share price has been locked in a slide, but is creeping towards a crossover of its 20- and 50-day moving averages: Source: tradingview.com The latest news out of the company is an update pertaining to cultivation at its Nova Scotia facility. Download your free report to learn four of the hottest pot stocks on the ASX right now. Creso Pharma indicates that first crops will be harvested in May The highlights of the update include: Harvest of first crops to be carried out in May, with facility scheduled to be running at full capacity by the end of June. Creso Pharma has progressed its European Union Good Manufacturing Practice (EU-GMP) certification process. Three-year agreement with TerrAscend to supply 100kgs of crop per month, worth $6 million in sales per year. Nova Scotia facility designed to produce edibles when they are approved for sale in Canada by the end of 2019. Dr Miri Halpering, the CEO and Co-Founder of Creso Pharma hailed the progress saying, We are very pleased that our subsidiary Mernova has commenced cultivation at its Nova Scotia facility so soon after receiving its license. The cannabis genetics being used there are of very high quality and the grow operation is proceeding as planned along with the certification process of EU-GMP that will allow export to pharma companies in Europe. Mernovas partnership with TerrAscend is progressing well and we look forward to seeing the results of the first harvest from the facility. What are Creso Pharmas prospects? As we articulate in our free report on pot stocks, the process for Creso Pharma is likely going to progress in two steps. Step one for the company is to get its Canadian facility up and running, generating sales and sustaining cash flow. With this in place, Creso Pharma can then branch out to more value-added opportunities, like its product pipeline and edibles. The recent announcement promising sales revenue in the near future can only be read as good news. While the stock is trading at a significant discount to where it was a year ago, established sales could help its valuation. As the announcement underlines, it is the only ASX-listed company that has a 100% ownership interest in a company licensed to cultivate in Canada, and that they are only the fifth licensed producer in Nova Scotia. Regards, Lachlann Tierney, For Money Morning PS: The Four Most Exciting Pot Stocks on the ASX Right Now Uber or gold, which do you pick? While Im no gold bug, I wouldnt blame you for picking the latter. I believe buying physical gold is speculative and misguided. I mean, at what price do you know gold is good value? How can you tell if a lump of yellow metal is under or overvalued? In my eyes, it all comes down to what you believe others will do. Most investors buy physical gold because they think other people will buy it, not because its good value. But speculating on gold is probably a better option than piling into a company going bust! Wait, what?! Uber is going bust? I could see it happening. Even though this company is everywhere, they still fail to comfortably remain in the black. Its because they spend billions to subsidise rides to keep them cheap. And it might be like this for years to come. Management said in their S-1 filing (the filing for a plan to go public) that they expect operating expenses to increase significantly in the foreseeable future and they may not achieve profitability. So why would anyone consider buying this stock? Oh, I know why. On the off-chance Uber does make it, they want to be the ones who can brag about it later. The only way that happens though, is if some greater fool comes along and pays an even higher price than you did. So, maybe gold is the smarter buy FREE report: Why Nano Metal could soon be Australias most valuable export. Where to turn when nothing looks certain At the Grants 2019 New York Conference, many attendees seemed to think so. Most of the prominent speakers expected dark days ahead, Jim Grant included. They saw the usual problems: ineffectual monetary policy, rampant money printing, too much debt, high asset prices. The biggest fear for Russell Napier, a macro advisor to money managers, was an imploding China. Russell kicked us off at 9am, by saying something I had never considered before. Chinas ability to create money is not under their control, he told us. The Peoples Bank of China is not ultimately in control of the printing presses because it targets its exchange rate, Russell said. Thats because China has pegged their exchange rate to the US dollar. As it currently stands, China uses a whole lot of US dollars and debt as reserve assets. These are safe assets which back newly created money that China pumps into their economy. But these safe assets only come Chinas way when they export a whole lot of goods (which is another reason why theyve pegged their currency). With a surplus in their current account (the net transfer of cash), China can print money to their hearts content. But with declining foreign exchange reserves (US dollars), they have a limited ability to print more yuan. And when that account goes negative, its not a good sign for China. Maybe the graphs below will give you a better idea of the relationship. When Chinas foreign reserve assets fall, so too does the quantity of money (M2) they pump into their system. Source: Trading Economics [Click to open in a new window] Source: Investing.com [Click to open in a new window] Now, this might not be that much of a problem. China might just have to grow much more slowly for a few years until those reserve assets build up. But China has a problem many other nations share. Their debt-to-GDP is humongous. Its close to 300% Source: The Financial Times [Click to open in a new window] So, without the ability to turn the money printers on at will, China may be heading for a dramatic collapse. And it might only be then that China floats their exchange rate and takes back control of the money printing press. Yet another reason to buy gold in the interim? Maybe. Maybe that was why Grant brought in two art experts. Things are getting turbulent. Something could trigger the next GFC 2.0 at any moment. Why not expose attendees to a new type of safe haven to guard against what might be coming? Yet while pens were furiously taking notes on art, I found myself far more interested in what John Hughes, founder of Quantum Capital Management, had to say. It might have been the Buffett quote he started with that turned some attendees off Leaving the question of price aside, the best business to own is one that over an extended period can employ large amounts of incremental capital at very high rates of return. Warren Buffett, 1992 shareholders letter Or maybe some people prefer complex (art) to simple (good, cheap businesses). Yeah, yeah. Its great to quote Buffett and all, but how does that make you any money? Well, John showed us how. And now, Im going to show you In this just released report, Matt Hibbard shows you his top five dividend picks for 2019. Click here to claim your copy today. Simple is often best Take a look at this stock chart: Source: Marco Trends [Click to open in a new window] What kind of company do you think it belongs too? Would you be surprised to know its a US home builder? This chart belongs to NVR Inc and it was Johns first idea. While John likely spent months researching NVR, he only had about 30 minutes to sell us on the stock. Maybe that was another reason I didnt hear too many pens scratching while John was speaking. But the reasons that John bought NVR, or any other stock, are simple. Its a good business with higher operating margins than their peers. They are far more efficient at using their assets and capital. They avoid big losses by buying options on land, rather than speculative buying and development. They also dont stretch themselves too thin. They concentrate on a few states of America, where their distribution system of building products and knowledge allow them to be the #1 or #2 home builder of that market. All of these things mean steady earnings and cash flow year after year. And what does management do with all this excess? They buy back stock. From 1999 to present, NVRs share count is down 67% , increasing earnings attributable to each share by more than 100%. Still think gold is the best investment out there? Your friend, Harje Ronngard, Editor, Money Morning Please note the companies mentioned above are not official recommendations. They are used as examples to illustrate our point. If you wish to follow these companies, you should conduct your own individual research. The first hearings for an Ohio House bill that would generate funds for the states two nuclear power plants on the verge of closure are set to begin in Columbus this week. The first is scheduled for 11 a.m., April 16, in a House Energy and Natural Resources Committee meeting. Sponsor testimony is expected in the hearing, according to the Ohio House of Representatives meeting calendar. The following day another hearing is scheduled at 9 a.m. in an Energy Generation Subcommittee meeting. The hearings come after Ohio lawmakers on April 12 unveiled their latest plan to provide subsidies for money-losing nuclear plants that are struggling to compete with natural gas. Late last March, owner FirstEnergy Solutions announced that it plans to close the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in North Perry in 2021 and Ottawa Countys Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in 2020. Under the proposed bill, residential ratepayers would pay $2.50 per month for Ohio Clean Air Program. Commercial customers would pay an estimated $20. Sponsors say the program will provide incentives to build and maintain zero and reduced carbon emissions generation facilities. The sponsors Reps. Jamie Callender, R-Concord Township, and Shane Wilkin, R-Hillsboro said customers would save money on their electric bills by cutting out current mandates to pay for clean energy and efficiency programs. Currently the average residential customer pays $4.39 in mandates, according to lawmakers. The current program wouldnt be eliminated entirely, but those who want to continue supporting it will have to send a written opt-in notice to the secretary of the public utilities commission according to the bills text. Ohio Speaker of the House Larry Householder, R-Glenford, said he expects the program to generate $300 million annually. Each month, Ohio Air Quality Development Authority will buy Clean Air Credits from a certified clean air resource. Credits are worth $9.25 per megawatt hour of zero-emissions electricity produced. The two nuclear plants generate roughly 16 million megawatt hours of electricity a year, making them eligible for $148 million in credits. The bill is being supported by the Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance, a group of government, business and labor officials that formed last October in an effort to save the states two power plants. We have spent years fighting for a public policy solution that invests in these two economically important clean energy facilities, alliance member and Lake County Commissioner Jerry Cirino said. Allowing Perry and Davis-Besse to close would have a devastating impact on the entire state. The 31-year-old Perry plant employs more than 700 people. The legislation also quickly generated opposition from groups like the National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club. (I)f the legislature is really concerned about carbon and clean air, they should pursue a comprehensive energy agenda with a focus on how to increase investment in energy efficiency, expand clean energy development, and support communities disproportionately impacted by the transition away from, and retirement of, dirty energy generation, Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign representative Neil Waggoner said in a statement. When Muriel Siebert was asked what the secret to her success was, she answered: "I put my head down, and charge." Typical. Siebert was a research analyst in the U.S., at a time when women were a virtual non-entity on Wall Street. In 1967, there were 1,375 men on Wall Street and herself. The media dubbed the First Lady of Wall Street a total badass. When analyst meetings were held at luncheon clubs where women were banned or not allowed through the front door, she entered through the kitchen. She confessed that she became an expert in vulgarity and often told some of the men to do the physically impossible to themselves. To her, they were just words. And she wanted to be accepted as one of them. Once at a restaurant, the chairman of the stock exchange ridiculed her in front of the guests with: Muriel, some men object to your being on a floor. Why don't you ABC your seat to a man?" Her response: Mr. Lasker, the day I ABC my seat to a man for a reason not to my liking, I will hold the goddamn biggest press conference the city of New York has ever seen." [An ABC Agreement is a contract between a purchasing member with a seat on the NYSE and the brokerage firm for which they work. The Agreement states that the employee of the firm can: transfer their seat to another employee in the same firm; retain ownership and purchase a new seat for another delegate of the firm and sell the seat and transfer any gains to the firm.] Indomitable, fearless and gutsy, Muriel Siebert was a trailblazer for women in the all-male bastion of Wall Street. Here are three learnings we can benefit from. Know a lot about a little. The first stock she really pushed was Boeing. When everyone else was offloading the stock, she was advising her clients to buy. (Those institutions that did pay heed to her buy call tripled their money). Boeing already had the 707 jet (jet aircraft had been invented during WWII and the Boeing 707 was a commercial edition of the military jet tanker) and the 3-engine 727. The new 737 was a 2-engine jet that could get into smaller airports and could make money with fewer passengers. That information was coupled with the fact that a senior official from United Airlines informed her that aircraft had passed every performance test it had been given on the day it was delivered. Moreover, she obtained a brochure showing the interchangeable spare parts that could be used for different planes in the fleet, thus lowering the operating costs. When Siebert referred to doing her homework, she studied the company from every possible angle, and talked to customers, suppliers and engineers. She zeroed in on 15 to 20 companies and really delved into her subject, spending time with executives and keeping up to date on all contracts, cancellations, slowdowns and bids. She studied everything there was to know about management, production, suppliers, competition, research and labour conditions. If a company had a disappointing quarter, she could figure out whether it was a systemic problem in the organization or something beyond its control. But with all the information amassed, she had a keen business acumen. In her interactions with company staff and management, it was obvious they would hold back information. The trick was in asking the right questions to benefit from informative answers. Her trick: Know a lot about a little. At one time she heard rumours about a new development at Kodak. She dropped in at two camera stores on Wall Street and asked the salesmen what they thought. She was informed that the company was planning to introduce a drastically different model in a few months and showed it to her. She found it easy to use and took it to a Christmas party, where it caused quite a stir among the other guests. On visiting the company and analysing the numbers, she found that the stock was priced without reflecting any new possible developments. Her recommendation was a hit. That camera was an Instamatic. By 1970, 50 million had been produced. Analyzing the market is both an art and a science. The financial data that indicate how a company fits into the economy make up the science part, but seeing a pattern in those numbers and then looking ahead is an art. From the beginning, the recondite world of figures seemed like second nature to me. At college, I didn't have to do any homework in my accounting courses and still could ace the exams because I could look at a page of numbers, and they would light up like a Broadway marquee. When learning everything possible there is to know about a company, it is the numbers that eventually tell the story. The depreciation and cash flow that she learned in accounting classes was most valuable. Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was a demi-god during the fifties. This American Ace of Aces was not just a celebrated fighter pilot (26 aerial victories in just two months of combat flying), but also a race car driver, airline executive and wartime adviser. At an analyst meet, during his tenure as President of Eastern Airlines, she loudly told him: "Captain, I've figured out the company's earnings three ways, based on the three different depreciation schedules." An aircraft, like most physical assets, exhibits a depreciation profile whereby its current market value depreciates to a residual value over time. Siebert read a footnote in the annual report stating that the company depreciated its aircraft three different ways: 5 years for taxes, 4 years for stockholders, 7 years internally. Incidentally, the accounting strategy was all legal. Sieberts diligent observation and courage to sidestep the fact that she was a female analyst venturing into unchartered territory impressed the Captain. He magnanimously paid her the highest compliment by loudly declaring: "Young lady, are you permanently employed? If not, there's a job for you at Eastern Airlines." Another time, when looking at the annual report of National Cash Register (NCR), she noted that it depreciated its computers rapidly by 40% (first year), 30% (second year), 20% (third year), 10% (fourth year). That method is called a four-year "sum-of-the-digits," and any revenue after the four years was all profit, with no depreciation expenses. On playing around with the numbers, she found that the stock appeared cheap. On digging deeper and meeting the company officials, she concluded that NCR was not in the forefront of new technology, but it did have a lot of computers in the field. She began to recommend the stock because the earnings were going to pop as the computers that were installed became fully depreciated. She called Chase Manhattan Bank, which already had a large piece of NCR, and requested that they buy. They declined. In fact, they reverted with a decision to sell the stock. They invited her to come in with a bid which would probably earn her $2,00,000 in commissions. She called Jack Bridgewood, who ran the entire investment department at Chase, and explained how NCR's earnings were going to increase sharply because of the depreciation schedule and advised him not to sell the stock but to buy more. He agreed. She lost the commission, but bagged a customer -- and a friend. Understand Risk. She once was invited to speak to female entrepreneurs in Hungary about running and growing a business. She suggested that they write down the best that could happen and the worst that could happen. If you arent willing to accept the worst, dont do it. Recognizing a capacity for calculated risk is key to success. To Siebert, that meant analysing a situation and asking tough questions. She put down her success to three 4-letter words ending in k. Work. Luck. Risk. Risk is the ability to study the information, assess liability and be brave enough to make a decision. In the mid-1980's, she testified in Congress that junk bonds should be labelled as ''hazardous to your financial health.'' Fred Joseph, the CEO at Drexel Burnham Lambert, sent her a letter telling her she didn't know what she was talking about. In an interview in 1999, she expressed her scepticism of the dot.com boom: I don't like the craziness that anything that has "dot.com" can just zoom. I want to see revenues. I want to see a position in an industry. She cautioned investors about the 2-tiered market where some companies were vastly overpriced, while others vastly underpriced. Her advice was to pay deep attention to the numbers and the cash flow. Advice that is extremely relevant two decades later. The chief executive of one of Americas largest mortgage lenders is predicting an easier time for homebuyers this spring compared to a year ago. Jay Farner told CNBCs Squawk Box that both purchase and refinance mortgage demand is increasing and he noted that the expectations between what sellers are asking for their homes and what buyers will pay is very tight right now making a more normalized market. He said he expects a lot of transactions this spring with sales turning pretty quickly. Talking about the weakness in demand in some markets including the west coast, Farner said that those areas are likely just taking a breather and highlighted strong demand in the Midwest currently following a lag. Non-bank impact on the mortgage market The mortgage firm leader was interviewed by regular host Rebecca Quick who was joined by Quicken Loans founder and chairman Dan Gilbert. Gilbert asked his firms CEO about the impact of non-bank and shadow-banking lenders on the mortgage market, noting a fall in Q1 2019 mortgage volume at JPMorgan to $15 billion from $18 billion a year earlier. Farner said that the issue is not about bank/non-bank but about quality of loan, lenders balance sheets and assets, and the right technology for servicers. He said the companies that are doing those things properly are supporting the economy, while those that are not should be kept in check with regulation. Expanding on the use of technology in mortgage originations, Farner said that the centralized business model of Quicken Loans has been a positive for the firms originations. Tech vs. people However, while the internet is a key channel for the lender, Farner said that client experience is vital and talked of the importance of Quicken Loans team of around 17,000 who are always ready to communicate with clients. I think its the combination of great team members and technology that separates us, he said. Gilbert added that, in the case of Quickens Rocket Mortgage the use of technology has not only increased the speed and convenience of the mortgage application process, it has improved security. Less fraud, more honesty, more clarity, are among the benefits of the process. He added that the system uses a sophisticated verification algorithm to ensure accuracy. The Fort Worth Herd makes its way twice daily through the Historic Fort Worth Stockyards. Led by cowhands, the cattle drive is an authentic recreation of how it was done more than 150 years ago and is a popular attraction. A Longhorn named Big Mac soon will join those daily drives and the herd family. Tonya and Phillip Hancock owned 25 heads of cattle that resided on their 31 acres in Midland County, which was also going to be the site of the couples forever home. Back in in 2014, Phil was diagnosed with a pancreatic mass, Tonya Hancock said. It touched him how close the end can always be. He grew up in a ranching family, so he always wanted some land. They bought the land and made a home for longhorns and their horses. Phil Hancock made a pond to fill with catfish. Buildings were in place for ranching needs. But he was doing it not only for the two of them; he was doing it for others. See Big Mac live The Cattle Drive The Fort Worth Herd's twice-daily cattle drive is at 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. (weather permitting). Cowhands in authentic gear lead the drive down Exchange Avenue in the Stockyards National Historic District. See More Collapse He did everything out here for our grandchildren, she said. We just wanted this space for them. Her husband died in October. She then had a whole lot of land with a whole lot of animals. She needed help, which included downsizing the herd. I had been working with the Texas Longhorn Breeders Association and the chairman, Kevin DuBose. He had been helping us already, so after Phil died, he helped me downsize, Hancock said. That turned out to be a fortuitous connection. DuBose was aware that the Fort Worth Herd was looking to add to their family and mentioned Hancocks steer. Trail boss Kristin Jaworski reached out to Hancock. She contacted me on March 22 to ask if I would consider letting Big Mac join, and of course, I said Yes. On March 24, they called to say that he has officially been chosen, she said. Jaworski explained that adding a steer to the Herd is a rare occurrence. It is an elite opportunity, as the job openings dont come available very often, she said. We have steers that have been in the program for over 10 years and some members who have been here less than a year. We rotate them based on tenure, health and safety. Working closely with our program veterinarian and monitoring their overall well-being on a daily basis determines their retirement date and when we are able to recruit a new steer. They loved the name and his look and markings, Hancock said. Since our cattle drive is twice daily and seen by millions of people from all over the world, we strive to represent the breed by showing guests various colors, horn patterns, heights and, of course, personalities, Jaworski said in an email. When selecting a coveted steer to join the majestic Herd not only are we choosing an animal that carefully represents the Texas Longhorn breed but also that can become an ambassador for livestock producers in an promotional setting in our historical education program. In 2017, the ride celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Chisholm Trail arriving in Fort Worth. The cattle drive began in 1999 so, Big Mac will be a part of the 20-year anniversary of the herd. Big Mac arrived on Wednesday, and now tourists and children on school tours can see the 3-year-old steer doing his thing every day. I love that our family has joined that family, Hancock said. Hes the first one from Midland to be selected. Im just thrilled that hell be on display for all those people, who also get to learn about that history. This is pretty prestigious and definitely an honor. Hancock intends to keep the land for now but continue to reduce her herd. But shes also happy that through her animals, her husband will have a legacy. He loved his steer, and Big Mac would just eat out of his hand. I know hes looking down just tickled pink, she said. -- Best view Visit Fort Worth recommends three spots to get the best views of the drive. Visitors can stand on East Exchange Avenue in front of the Stockyards Visitor Center or on the lawn in front of the Livestock Exchange Building or they can sit at Stockyards Station restaurants that have outdoor seating. Longhorn visits --The Fort Worth Herd can also be viewed a bit closer in their pens between drives at the Livestock Exchange Building. Drovers (livestock movers) will also chat and take photos before and after each drive. --Behind the Scenes with the Herd Visitors can get hands-on experience of the cattle drive era with saddling, roping, chuck wagon stories and cattle drive demos. Behind the Scenes is 1:30-2:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday between Memorial Day and Labor Day. For more information, visit fortworth.com/the-herd. Guests have tea with Winston Churchill It was tea party fit for a prime minister when Randy Otto of Milwaukee presented himself in the role of Winston Churchill for Churchill Tea Under the Trees at the Midland County Public Library Centennial branch. The tea was held in conjunction with the Winston Churchill exhibit at the library. The tables were set with exquisite formal china and there were silver tea pots filled with hot water and a variety of tea flavors to choose from. Guests had their choice of cucumber and cream cheese tea sandwiches, pimento cheese tea sandwiches, peach and almond scones, assorted mini pastries, key lime bars, French macaroons, and preserves of peach, apricot and fig. Clotted cream was available to spread on the desserts. After his presentation as Churchill, Otto took questions from the audience. Afterward, guests viewed the exhibit, which was on loan from the National Churchill Museum in Fulton, Missouri, which celebrated the life and career of Churchill. High Sky Wing hosts Open Cockpit Day Children and their families got to enjoy the unique experience of climbing inside the cockpits of vintage airplanes during the Commemorative Air Forces Open Cockpit Day. The event was hosted by the CAFs High Sky Wing. A few pilots stood next to their plane and answered questions about the history of their aircraft. Volunteers were also on hand to help the kids climb in and out of the cockpits. Families also visited the museum and had the option of buying a lunch of Frito pie, hotdogs or chili dogs. Student inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs inspire optimism for a better tomorrow as they put their projects before judges and the public on Thursday, April 18. What do a full-flexion knee implant, a backpack-able power system, and an elevator for a bird-watching tower all have in common? They're life-improving solutions among the more than 100 real-world undergraduate student projects that will be showcased at the 19th annual Design Expo at Michigan Technological University. All are welcome to the event, which is free, and runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday in the Memorial Union Ballroom on the Michigan Tech campus. Student Innovation in Action Huskies enrolled in Michigan Techs Enterprise and Senior Design programs take great pride in presenting their projects, which this year include a low-cost vaccine fridge to provide access to important health initiatives in the developing world; ultra-strong aluminum scandium alloys to improve the tensile strength and physical properties of products; a 1,000-miles-per-gallon competition vehicle; and a DIY climate sensor. The Formula SAE Enterprise has a long history of top-performing cars in International Society of Automotive Engineers Collegiate Design competitions. (Photo credit: Formula SAE Enterprise) Projects, posters, and presentations are judged throughout the day by a panel made up of corporate representatives, invited guests, university faculty, staff, and graduate students. Enterprise team presentations, each 15 minutes in length, are also open to the public, and take place in The Alley Makerspace, also in the Memorial Union Building. A Big Day for Industry Sponsors, Too More than 120 sponsors and partners support student teams. And Design Expo itself is supported by industry and university sponsorship. ITC Holdings is directing partner for the eighth consecutive year and collaborating partners include Code Blue; Innovation Center for Entrepreneurship at Michigan Tech's Pavlis Honors College; Miller Electric Manufacturing Company; Nexteer; and Nucor. Innovating partners are Challenge Manufacturing and Kimberly-Clark. Curious about a device, process or product you see at Expo? Just ask. Teams work hard to prep presentations and are happy to tell you about their projects. Huskies Learn By Doing Michigan Techs innovative Enterprise Program is open to all majors to foster interdisciplinary learning, leadership development and team-based project work. Diverse teams of first-year through graduate-level students develop products, processes and services within their market space, with multi-year participation from concept to design, testing and full implementation. Senior Design challenges teams of highly dedicated senior-level students to explore and address real-world design challenges in their final year. The program connects students and industry sponsors through open-ended projects where teams follow the complete design process from ideation to realization. Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, the University offers more than 125 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure. The cornerstone of J.B. Pritzkers political career has arrived. A graduated income tax is moving. Pritzker heralded new language for a constitutional amendment April 10. Barring any unlikely changes, this will be what the governor rides until the end of May. It adds 26 words to the Illinois Constitution and eliminates 43. Those few words mean a lot. Together, they would be the biggest change to Illinois taxation since the state adopted an income tax in 1969. And their inartful phrasing means Illinoisans have good reason to be frightened. Those concerned about Pritzkers progressive tax have been stating a simple message for months: It is a bridge to higher taxes on the middle class. Pritzkers new wording two elements in particular only confirms that fear. One applies to individuals. The other to businesses. First, the individuals. The Illinois Constitution currently bars the state from imposing more than one type of tax on income. But Pritzkers amendment scraps that language, allowing Illinoisans to be taxed more than once on the same dollar earned. If Pritzkers amendment becomes part of the Illinois Constitution, the state could adopt an extra income tax surcharge dedicated entirely to pensions, for example. A quarter of the state budget is currently consumed by pension costs, and a 2018 report published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago suggested a 1 percent statewide property tax to pay for soaring pension liabilities. Pritzker pitched new pension obligation bonds to investors earlier this year. Specifically, Pritzkers amendment deletes these lines from the Illinois Constitution: A tax on or measured by income shall be at a non-graduated rate. At any one time there may be no more than one such tax imposed by the State for State purposes on individuals and one such tax so imposed on corporations. Pritzkers amendment eliminates that language and adds this: The General Assembly shall provide by law for the rate or rates of any tax on or measured by income imposed by the state. Todd Maisch, president and CEO of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, raised concerns about this language in committee testimony. If somebody decides theres a need for another income tax increase, I think its going to look a lot like a special assessment for public safety. Its going to be a special tax dedicated to education. Its going to go under that guise, Maisch said. It also allows [for] taxation of certain kinds of income a second or third time, he added. Maisch referenced carried interest and agriculture as two examples of income that could be subject to special additional taxation should this protection be eliminated. Not only does Pritzkers amendment leave Illinoisans vulnerable to additional income taxes, it also lacks protection for businesses seeking to invest in Illinois talent. In fact, the amendment would allow lawmakers to impose the nations highest corporate income tax rate. The Illinois Constitution currently caps the corporate income tax rate at eight-fifths of the individual income tax rate. Illinois personal income tax rate is 4.95%, and the corporate income tax rate is 7%, but lawmakers could legally hike that rate up to 7.92%. The cap remains in place under Pritzkers amendment with one very important change: it would apply to the highest individual income tax rate. Under the governors fair tax proposal, that rate is 7.95%. So given Pritzkers top personal income tax rate, lawmakers could pass a corporate income tax rate of up to 12.72%. And adding the states Personal Property Replacement Tax would bring Illinois effective corporate income tax rate to a whopping 15.22%. The highest marginal corporate income tax rate of any state in the nation is 12% in Iowa, according to the Tax Foundation. And thats scheduled to drop to 9.8% by 2021. Ultimately, the states spending and debt habits mean Pritzkers plan will be a bridge to higher taxes for the middle class. Pritzker and state lawmakers should instead pursue sensible spending reforms that dont require declaring open season on Illinois taxpayers. Austin Berg is a writer for the Illinois Policy Institute. He wrote this column for the Illinois News Network. Berg can be reached at aberg@illinoispolicy.org. At a working session with Prahovas governor Ioana Madalina Lupea, the Vietnamese PM highlighted the ties between several pairs of localities of the two countries, such as the memorandum of understanding signed between Hoa Binh and Prahova, Ben Tre and Tulchea, Da Nang and Timisoara, and Lao Cai and Hunedoara. Phuc said there is great potential for cooperation between Prahova and Vietnamese provinces, particularly in fields where the Romanian locality is strong in, such as tourism, education-training, oil and gas, agriculture and forestry, which coincide with the priorities in Vietnams cooperation with Romania. Governor Ioana Madalina Lupea welcomed the Vietnamese PM to the county, and informed her guest that the countys authorities have coordinated with the Chamber of Commerce and the Vietnamese Embassy in Romania to organise business workshops and meetings to introduce Prahovas strength and opportunities for economic, tourism, education partnership as well as cultural exchange to Vietnamese firms and localities. She affirmed that Prahova wanted to expand its cooperation with Vietnamese localities. PM Phuc is making an official visit to Romania from April 14 at the invitation of Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila. President Donald Trump View Photos President Trump discussed upgrading the nations cellular communications networks from 4G to 5G. Trump was Mondays KVML Newsmaker of the Day. Here are his words: Well, thank you very much, everybody. Big day. Very important day. We have a lot of important days at our White House. And this is, to me, the future. I want to thank you all for being here to discuss a critical issue for our countrys future: winning the race to be the worlds leading provider of 5G cellular communications networks. Its all about 5G now. We were at 4G, and everybody was saying, We have to get 4G. And then they said, before that, We have to get 3G. And now we have to get 5G, and 5G is a big deal. And thats going to be there for a while. And I guess, at some point, well be talking to you about number 6. What do you think? (Laughter.) Do you think thats true, Ajit? But, right now, we want to be the leader in this. Were the leader in almost everything else. And were grateful to be joined by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, whos been doing a fantastic job, and Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Stephen Censky. Thank you very much, Stephen. Appreciate it. And tell Sonny hello. Hes doing a tremendous job. Really tremendous. Secure 5G networks will absolutely be a vital link to Americas prosperity and national security in the 21st century. 5G will be as much as 100 times faster than the current 4G cellular networks. It will transform the way our citizens work, learn, communicate, and travel. It will make American farms more productive, American manufacturing more competitive, and American healthcare better and more accessible. Basically, it covers almost everything, when you get right down to it. Pretty amazing. And just as 4G networks paved the way for smartphones and all of the exciting breakthroughs they made possible so many things this will be more secure and resilient. 5G networks will also create astonishing and really thrilling new opportunities for our people opportunities that weve never even thought we had a possibility of looking at. We cannot allow any other country to out-compete the United States in this powerful industry of the future. We are leading by so much in so many different industries of that type, and we just cant let that happen. The race to 5G is a race America must win, and its a race, frankly, that our great companies are now involved in. Weve given them the incentive they need. Its a race that we will win. In the United States, our approach is private-sector driven and private-sector led. The government doesnt have to spend lots of money. According to some estimates, the wireless industry plans to invest $275 billion in 5G networks, creating 3 million American jobs quickly very quickly and adding $500 billion to our economy. And, as you probably heard, we had another alternative of doing it; that would be through government investment. And leading through the government, we dont want to do that because it wont be nearly as good, nearly as fast. And especially in that business, I think that theyll be better doing the job than a lot of the folks who we know and love. To accelerate and incentivize these investments, my administration is focused on freeing up as much wireless spectrum as needed were going to free it up so theyll be able to get out there and get it done and removing regulatory barriers to the buildout of networks. As Chairman Pai will discuss with you in a moment, the FCC is taking very bold action probably bolder than theyve ever taken before; its a new frontier to make wireless spectrum available. By next year, the United States is on pace to have more 5G spectrum than any other country in the world. Thats a big statement because, as you know, some people got ahead of us. We should have been doing this a long time ago, as advanced as it may be. In addition, last October, I directed the Department of Commerce to develop a National Spectrum Strategy to free up even more spectrum for economic activity, including 5G. The FCC has also taken action to streamline the permitting process for 5G infrastructure with state and local governments. Thats a big deal. It takes too long to get permits. Were going to free that situation up, and were going to put limits and the local areas are going to listen to us very, very strongly. They have a big incentive to do that. They must now approve new physical infrastructure within 90 days, instead of many years. It can sometimes take three, four, and five years. Were going to put a limit of 90 days. And there is now a cap on the unreasonable fees local governments often charge. They get greedy. They think, Hey, we can really take advantage. And it ends up that everybody gets hurt. So were putting a cap on those fees. These changes will contribute greatly to building high-speed networks across America. And its going to happen very quickly. Very, very quickly. By the end of this year, the United States will have 92 5G deployments in markets nationwide. The next nearest country, South Korea, will have 48. So we have 92, compared to 48. And were going to accelerate that pace greatly. But we must not rest; the race is far from over. American companies must lead the world in cellular technology. 5G networks must be secure. They must be strong. They have to be guarded from the enemy we do have enemies out there and they will be. They must cover every community, and they must be deployed as soon as possible. As we are making great progress with 5G, were also focused on rural communities that do not have access to broadband at all. And we have a couple of people from the great farms that I love, that Im sure voted for me. I wont ask them, but they seem (laughter) I think they, for the most part yes? PARTICIPANT: Yeah. THE PRESIDENT: Good. I think, for the most part, they did. I think I know that almost automatically. Id be very surprised. But I have to say, Ive been talking about broadband for the for rural America the farmers and others. They have really been they just havent been treated properly. And now, what were doing is were making it a priority. Thats the areas we want to go to first, so theyre covered. Were working closely with federal agencies to get networks built in rural America faster and at much, much lower cost than it is even today. So now Id like to introduce a very special man whos really worked hard and gained the respect of the world, truly because they see what were doing in our country who will making two major announcements to accelerate our 5G future and extend broadband access to every American. No matter where you are, you will have access to 5G. And its going to be a different life. I dont know that its going to be better. Maybe youre happy the way it is right now (laughter) but I can say, technologically, it wont even be close. So, Chairman Pai, thank you very much. Please, say a few words. Thank you very much, Ajit. MR. PAI: Thank you, Mr. President. Appreciate you. (Applause.) Well, thank you, Mr. President, for you your compelling vision of U.S. leadership on 5G. I also want to thank Larry Kudlow, the Director of the National Economic Council, for your steadfast support of this vision. Mr. President, as you observed, America must win the race to 5G, the next generation of wireless connectivity. And this matters for two key reasons: The first is national competitiveness. We want the good-paying jobs that develop and deploy 5G technologies jobs that support some of the folks in this room to be created here, in America. We want these technologies to give our economy a leg up as we compete against the rest of the world. The second reason U.S. leadership matters is that 5G will improve Americans lives in so many ways, from precision agriculture, to smart transportation networks, to telemedicine, and more. We want Americans to be the first to benefit from this new digital revolution while protecting our innovators and our citizens. And as you pointed out, Mr. President, we dont want rural Americans to be left behind. And, Mr. President, thats why Im pleased to report that America is now well positioned to win the race to fast, secure, and reliable 5G. And dont just take my word for it. In February, ABI Research stated, and I quote, It is the United States who will win the 5G race in the short term. That same month, Cisco projected that, in three years, 5G would be more than twice as prevalent in North America as in Asia. Last week, CTIA reported that America leads the world with the most commercial 5G deployments of any nation. And just this past Tuesday, it was reported that 5G-related job listings here in the United States increased 12 percent in just the past three weeks according to data from an online job search service. Today, 5G is a success story an American success story. Well, how are we getting the job done? As the lead agency on 5G, the FCC is pursuing a three-part strategy called the 5G FAST Plan. First, were freeing up spectrum, the invisible airwaves that carry wireless traffic. We finished our first 5G spectrum auction in January, and were holding a second, right now, that has already generated almost $2 billion in bids. Second, were making it easier to install wireless infrastructure. 5G will rely heavily on a web of small antennas. But when I came into office, regulations designed for tall towers threatened to strangle our 5G future in red tape. We have eliminated these rules, because infrastructure the size of a pizza box shouldnt have to jump through the same regulatory hoops as a 200-foot cell tower. And third, weve taken action to encourage the deployment of optical fiber. That is because 5G isnt just about wireless. Well also need strong fiber networks to carry 5G traffic once it goes from the air to the ground. And weve done a lot to make that happen, including ending heavy-handed regulations imposed by the prior administration. And here, too, we are getting results. Last year, fiber was deployed to more new locations in the United States than in any year before. But in the race to 5G, our early success is still early. We still need to do more, and we will. And so today Im announcing two new steps the FCC will take to build on our momentum. First, the FCC intends to start its third 5G spectrum auction on December 10th of this year. This will be the largest spectrum auction in American history. We will be selling 3,400 megahertz in three different bands. And for those of you who arent wireless experts, that is a lot of spectrum. Second, to help build the infrastructure of the future, the FCC aims to create a $20.4 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund headed by the agency. This money will extend high-speed broadband to up to 4 million homes and small businesses in rural America. These next-generation networks will bring greater economic opportunity to Americas heartland, including some of the great jobs building infrastructure, and they will help support future 5G technologies. In closing, I want to thank you again, Mr. President, for your leadership on 5G. Your White House has advanced your vision in many ways, from international treaty negotiations to much-needed regulatory reforms. I appreciate all these efforts, and in the same spirit, this FCC will help build a great and lasting legacy of American success on 5G. Thank you, Mr. President. THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Ajit. Very good. (Applause.) Ivanka worked very hard on this. Maybe say a couple of words, Ivanka? Please. MS. TRUMP: Sure. Well, thank you. And thank you, everyone, for being here today. Obviously, American dominance in the industries of the future is predicated on connectivity and digital connectivity. And 5G is the future. And so I think everyone in this room feels very comfortable to know its in your very capable hands. And, President, we thank you for your leadership on this critical issue. And Im so glad that we were able to include in todays discussion our priorities on rural broadband. So that is something that, from the earliest days of the administration, weve sought to really deliver on. And with todays announcement, in addition to the milestones that have been achieved over the last two years, we can say that were bringing 5G and rural broadband across this country. So, really, thank you. THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, honey. (Applause.) Would you like to say something on behalf of the farmers and our great people? Please. MR. SMITH: Certainly. Mr. President, we really appreciate the fact that you have put this emphasis on rural America. THE PRESIDENT: Thats right. MR. SMITH: The things that you have done in office have been tremendous for us. We look forward to the next several years of you continuing to do that. The thing that you struck today, though, of deregulation, broadening it out, and letting the American business, letting the American farmers and ranchers fix the problems of this country, really rings hard with us. Thats what we try to do and thats what well take forward to build this nation. Thank you for your help. THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. (Applause.) MR. MILLER: Mr. President, Chairman Pai, on behalf of the National Association of Tower Erectors, our 900-member companies, we build, deploy, and maintain the wireless infrastructure of this nation. And you all are fixing to put us to work, and we appreciate it. (Laughter and applause.) THE PRESIDENT: And your people do an incredible job, Jimmy. Thank you very much. What a great job. And they go up high. How high do you go? MR. RAY: Ive been up 800-foot. THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. And somebody said 200 feet and sometimes more. Thats a long way up. And you feel very safe, right? Huh? Who said 200? (Laughter.) MR. MASSENGALE: A thousand. THE PRESIDENT: A thousand? Come here. Come here. PARTICIPANT: Thats a big tower. THE PRESIDENT: Come here. (Laughter and applause.) How high do you go? MR. MASSENGALE: Up to 1,000 feet. THE PRESIDENT: I dont want that job. (Laughter.) Thank you very much. Thank you all very much. I appreciate it. This is going to be a great, great thing. The Newsmaker of the Day is heard every weekday morning at 6:45, 7:45 and 8:45 on AM 1450 and FM 102.7 KVML. Criminal Case Disposition Report March Augustine Sebastian Chumacero possession of a controlled substance, penalty group 1, less than 1 gram convicted confinement 2 years state jail Augustine Sebastian Chumacero hinder apprehension or prosecution dismissed Sonya Flores possession of a controlled substance, penalty group 2, less than 1 gram convicted CSCD and community control 2 years Augustine Sebastian Chumacero - possession of a controlled substance, penalty group 1, at least 1 gram, less than 4 grams dismissed Robert Wayne Moseley possession of a controlled substance, penalty group 1, less than 1 gram convicted confinement 1 year county jail Robert Wayne Moseley tampering fabricate physical evidence with intent dismissed Eugene Wiedl possession of a controlled substance, penalty group 1, at least 4 grams, less than 200 grams convicted CSCD and community control 8 year confinement 8 years Texas Department of Corrections Eugene Wiedl burglary of a building dismissed Augustine Sebastian Chumacero possession of a controlled substance, penalty group 1, less than 1 gram convicted confinement 2 years state jail Tifany Lanette Marrs theft of property valued to at least $2,500, less than $30,000 deferred CSCD and community control 5 year Joshua John Hinojosa unauthorized use of a vehicle dismissed Joshua John Hinojosa evading arrest or detention with a vehicle deferred CSCD and community control 5 years Gary Jamiel Franklin assault of a family/house members impeding breath/circulation deferred CSCD and community control 6 years Ernest J. Salinas theft of property valued to at least $2,500 but less than $30,000 convicted confinement 18 months state jail CSCD and community control 3 years Jacquelynn Strauss driving while intoxicated, third or more offense probation revocation confinement 5 years Texas Department of Corrections Leonard Rodriguez, Jr. Prohibited substance in a correctional facility alcohol/drug/phone dismissed Pedro Mares Dominguez theft of a firearm dismissed Crispin Michael Valles burglary of a habitation convicted confinement 2 years Texas Department of Corrections John David Burnett possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, penalty group 1, at least 4 grams, less than 200 grams convicted confinement 8 years Texas Department of Corrections CSCD and community control 8 years Corky Lawrence Lee Perez possession of marijuana 5 pounds or less, at least 4 ounces deferred CSCD and community control 4 years Pedro Mares Dominguez driving while intoxicated, third or more offense convicted confinement 6 years Texas Department of Corrections CSCD and community control 6 years PLAINVIEW -- Wayland Baptist University gathered Friday afternoon to recognize and honor those students participating in the Honors Program, as well as those who are members of honors societies. The 39th annual Honors Luncheon featured recognition of three students who are graduating With Honors in May. Holli Foster and Makayla Nicholson gave a brief summary of their honors research. Leigh Ann DeMerritt, who is also graduating With Honors, was unable to attend the luncheon. Foster, a sociology major from Keller, TX, summarized her research on historical inaccuracies in public school textbooks. Entitled "Textbook Representations of Brown V. Board: Consequences for Students and Society," Foster's research pointed out how textbooks fail to tell the whole story about Brown versus the Board of Education and its repercussions. The court ruling was meant to end segregation in public schools. "My big concern and main passion is about the education system. As I was doing my research and reading articles it kept coming back to Brown V. Board," Foster said. "Though many textbooks and people claim this was highly successful, many historians claim different." Foster looked at on-level and advanced-placement textbooks and found that the on-level books leave out many historical facts about slavery and segregation. She said that due to the inaccuracies, public education is producing students who don't have a full understanding of history and how it affects society today. "Looking at modern stats it's easy to see that it is not quite successful," Foster said. "I want to pursue lobbying for better textbooks for Texas history." Nicholson, a biology major from Paris, TX, focused on breast cancer cells for her research. Her thesis, "Cytotoxic and Apoptotic Effects of Cinnamomum Cassia (Cinnamon) and Salvia Officinalis (Sage) in 4T1 Breast Cancer Cells," records the results of a study of 27 plants and their effects on cancer cells in mice. Nicholson said cancer cells in essence become immortal and she was trying to find natural remedies that keep that immortality from occurring. "I focused on herbal medicine and looked into Native American and Chinese herbal remedies," Nicholson said. "I found that cinnamon and sage were not only cytotoxic, but were also cell specific so they can target tumor cells." Nicholson said the next step is to try to find the specific elements within those herbs that are toxic to cancer cells and turn them into medicine. Dr. Elisabeth Vichaya, a 2004 Wayland graduate who went on to earn her Ph.D. in psychology at Texas A&M, then shared some of her research and topic of interest, focusing on psychological health and its physiological ramifications. Vichaya said research shows that psychological health and physiological health are related as the body deals with stressors. She said one study has shown that maintaining happiness, specifically the happiness derived from helping others, has immensely positive effects on health and wellbeing. She said these study results correlate directly with faith. "That is exactly what my faith represents," she said. "Life is about more than who we are. It's not about pleasing ourselves. It's about being something bigger than ourselves." Vichaya said ultimately she hopes this type of research will lead to a better understanding of psychological health and that society will start to see mental disorders as disorders that need the same type of treatment and care as any other illness. Covenant Health Plainview is growing its family for your family, as the hospital announced that three new family practice physicians will join the medical group this year. This coming summer, Plainview will welcome Kelsey Richardson, M.D. and the husband and wife team of Evan Colmenero, D.O. and Victoria Colmenero, M.D. "These three new family practice providers will be a welcome addition to our outstanding medical staff," said Bob Copeland, CEO Covenant Health Plainview. "Adding these physicians to our staff will reinforce Covenant's commitment to our Plainview community in ensuring comprehensive, primary healthcare services are available to our citizens. "Dr. Kelsey Richardson, Dr. Evan Colmenero and Dr. Victoria Colmenero believe in the Covenant mission, our values and vision of spreading the healing Ministry of Jesus throughout our region. They will fit wonderfully into our culture and will work hard to ensure our local patients stay in Plainview for all of their healthcare needs. I couldn't be happier having these well-trained physicians being a part of this community." All three physicians will specialize in family medicine. Richardson and Victoria Colmenero will also specialize in obstetrics. "I am very excited to come to Plainview," said Richardson. Richardson is originally from Rowlett. She is currently a resident physician in Waco with the McLennan County Family Medicine Residency program. Richardson received her Doctorate of Medicine from the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine in Lubbock. She also received her Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Stephen F. Austin State University. "I interviewed in Plainview because it was an awesome job opportunity, and it was near Amarillo, where my husband (Seth) is from, as well as near Texas Tech, where I attended medical school. We chose Plainview because of the overwhelming welcome my husband and I felt when we visited." Additionally, Richardson said it was an opportunity to be the broad spectrum family doctor that she was trained to become. "I am grateful to be able to work in the clinic caring for entire families and also caring for my pregnant patients and their babies in the hospital," Richardson said. "Covenant Health Plainview initially stood out to me because of the friendly people I met on my tour. Later, once I spent some time in the hospital, I was impressed with the quality of the medical care provided. The community stood out because of how kindhearted and helpful every single person was to us." The sentiment was shared by the Colmeneros. "We are very excited to come to Plainview. Seemingly everyone I have spoken to this year has had a connection to West Texas. The common saying is: "The nicest folk you'll ever meet are in the Panhandle," said Evan Colmenero, originally from Houston. The Colmeneros are also both currently in Waco as Evan is practicing in the Waco Family Medicine Residency program and Victoria is with Richardson at the McLennan County Family Medicine. Victoria is originally from El Paso and went to medical school at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at El Paso. She also received her Master's in Public Health form the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston and her Master's in Medical Science from the University of North Texas. Victoria received a Bachelor's Degree in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Texas. "When I started training to be a family medicine physician I envisioned being able to work in a close-knit community and try to make a difference," said Victoria. "I am excited for the opportunity to provide full spectrum family medicine care including delivering babies. When we came to visit, Plainview stood out from other places because everyone was so friendly and welcoming. The hospital and clinics provide quality care and it was great to hear all the great feedback they are receiving from patients. I am excited to move to such a close-knit community and start my practice with my husband and hopefully start a family there too." Evan Colmenero attended medical school at the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine at the University of North Texas' Health Science Center in Fort Worth. He gained his Bachelor of Science degree in Neuroscience from the University of Michigan. "My wife and I felt that Plainview offered the best opportunity to practice medicine how we were trained. We wanted to develop a broad scope of skills and services so we can provide for our future patients. This was one of the many reasons we chose to train in Waco," Evan said. "When we came to visit Plainview for the first time, we were pleasantly surprised by how welcoming everyone was. We look forward to becoming part of the community." The physicians plan to move to Plainview in the mid-summer and will officially begin their practice in September. Be on the lookout for more individual, in-depth interviews with the new Plainview physicians in the coming weeks. Courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers / Courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers While Houston officials have resubmitted an application to complete additional dredging in Kingwood, residents and a U.S. representative raised concerns about the slow pace of major flood relief projects. Chief Recovery Officer Stephen Costello said the reworked permit application was submitted to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on March 25. Costello also received and submitted the results of the core study, called a Stockton Survey, performed to determine what debris came from Hurricane Harvey, he said on April 9. The info was provided to the Texas Division of Emergency Management and FEMA and will be publicized after he receives feedback from the organizations, Costello said. Its something that was actually approved by FEMA for Hurricane Sandy recovery in New Jersey, Costello said. So we just simply followed that procedure. Under FEMAs Stafford Act, a potential funding source for the $40 million dredging of the Kingwood mouth bar, it can only pay for projects that were caused by a natural disaster like Harvey. Houston will also contribute $18 million toward the project through a grant from the governor. PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Houston submits application to dredge Kingwood mouth bar for federal approval Costello said the city is expecting to dredge approximately 1.4 million yards of sediment in the West Fork San Jacinto River from downstream of West Lake Houston Parkway to the mouth bar. This is in addition to the $70 million dredging project already underway in the river near Hwy. 59. Permit delays When the City of Houston originally submitted their permit application in October they were denied by the Corps. Costello and Houston Councilmember Dave Martin met with FEMA and TDEM back in October and provided technical information such as bathymetric surveys and LIDAR Mapping. However, according to a November press release from Martins office, the bathymetric study was performed by the Texas Water Development Board in 2011. The problem was the data I was using as base data was not immediately before Harvey, Costello said. It was historical-based data. So FEMA said in a meeting back in December, two months later, that we really cant verify that, first of all, this data is accurate (and caused by) Harvey to qualify as debris. We needed to do a little more of a detailed, technical effort to identify what was Harvey related material. Since the City of Houston has never done any maintenance dredging before they didnt have any more recent data to present. LAKE HOUSTON GATES: Martin, state officials seek funds to dredge Kingwood mouthbars, build gates in 2019 Costello said they were advised by the Corps that the application needed to be revised because the city was seeking a nationwide permit. We were having to modify the application to accommodate the Corps request, which we did, Costello said. Resident concerns However, Tim Garfield, a Kingwood resident and retired geologist from Exxon, said he felt the city didnt proceed with enough urgency after Harvey. City officials were trying to complete the application process in October so the dredging of the mouth bar could be completed with the same equipment currently being used for the $70 million project that is currently underway, saving the city time and money. However, with a four-month or more typical turnaround on Corp permit applications, the application may not be approved before the current project concludes this month. PRE-HARVEY LEVELS: Lake Houston area officials push for post-dredging remediation efforts To me thats excuse making. It doesnt explain why when they knew this needed to be done by a certain date why didnt they get it done as early as possible and get the paperwork in to accelerate the process instead of doing what theyve done, which is actually, theyve dragged it out, Garfield said. Costello said the city initially was supposed to work with a geomorphologist from Texas A&M in Galveston sometime in 2018, but due some contractual problems, they went with Tetra Tech, who has done the field work for the core study and other studies. He said the delay in getting the results of the core study was because of those contract issues with the geomorphologist. The original proposal to do the field work wasnt going to be done until the end of March anyway, even if I used a geomorphologist, Costello said. What we told everybody was were going to pursue the work effort and try to get it done as soon as possible, so thats what were doing. Once FEMA agrees that the results from the core study did come from Hurricane Harvey and the Corps approves their permit for the sediment disposal site, the dredging of the mouth bar can begin. CITY COUNCIL: Houston takes step in grant application for upper San Jacinto River watershed plan However, Garfield said he is worries about going through another hurricane season without the dredging of the mouth bar. Heres the part that bothers me. I think people generally assume because there has been dredging of the river that the flooding issue has been resolved, and its pretty clear that most people who understand a little bit about hydraulics and a little bit about how rivers and deltas form that until they remove the mouth bar or at least kind of channel through it, the situation may well be worse than better, Garfield said. Costello said he has already submitted the Stockton Survey results and doesnt plan on making the core study results available to the public until he gets funding from FEMA. Im not going to make it public until FEMA says its OK, Costello said. Ill send the results to all the federal agencies, Im just not going to share it publicly until I hear that this is debris removal. Crenshaw provides support The city has made an agreement with Lake Houston area resident Berry Madden who volunteered one of his properties near the river to dump the sediment. The city is also waiting on approval of a permit for this disposal site. The long timeline is going to be the Corps disposal site, so we are encouraged that Congressman (Crenshaw) is going to get involved and help move that process along, Costello said. NEEDED FUNDS: Harris County awarded $2.7 million for San Jacinto River drainage plan U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, who told residents in March that the city had not yet submitted their permit application to the Corps, is happy to assist in the process. He is hoping to work with federal officials to get the project done as fast as possible. Im thrilled to see the City of Houston submit their application. Now well work with the U.S Army Corps of Engineers to expedite it. This is a crucial step in recovery, and our residents have waited too long for this moment, Crenshaw said. Costello said the permit application process could take from four months to a year and a half. Were hoping well be on a much quicker timeline, and in fact, we would much rather have it quicker than four months, Costello said. Well see how the process goes. Right now we made sure we submitted a complete application and since (the Corps) just got it on (March 25) well have to wait and see. Preventing future mouth bars Now that the City of Houston is focusing on dredging the San Jacinto River, Costello said he is also looking into preventing future sediment from coming down the West Fork. What you want to do is capture the sediment at its source, which is upstream somewhere, and so thats what were going to work on and see if we can come up with some plans to get that done. Before getting that done, Costello said the city needs to determine where the sediment traps are, who will be responsible for cleaning the sediment traps and what to do with the material. Thats very important because right now if a dredge operator is working in the river and they take out the material they have to pay a fee to Texas Parks & Wildlife, Costello said. Were trying to come up with a sedimentation plan to where the state allows whoever is going to be maintaining those sediment traps, the state allows them to keep that material. HOUSING RELIEF: Houston region finally poised for influx of billions in Harvey housing funds During the last community meeting in Kingwood, Mayor Turner announced that Governor Greg Abbott allocated $50 million to the City of Houston for flood restoration. Turner said he has specifically designated $20 million to Kingwood. Costello said those funds will be allocated to several dredging projects in the river. So what we have right now is FEMA advanced the city a little over $100 million post Harvey for debris removal. We (spent) $75 million of that advance. So we want to use the extra money from FEMA, Costello said. Then the governor had given us $50 million for debris removal. We have spent all but $18 million out of it, and we want to use both the FEMA leftover money as well as the governors leftover money for the dredging operation. The city estimated the removal of the mouth bar would cost $40 million. Since the city is looking at removing 1.4 million yards of sediment, the price can go up. To move anything north of 1.4 million yards is going to cost a lot more than ($40 million), Costello said. Thats one of the issues about the report that FEMA has to review to see if they agree with the amount of material we need to move and then decide how much theyre willing to fund. kaila.contreras@chron.com A 7-year-old who was missing from a campsite at Lake Corpus Christi State Park has died, according to the San Patricio County Sheriffs Office. Beau Henderson went missing at about 12:20 p.m. Sunday, the Sheriffs Office said in a Facebook post. Shortly before both sides rested in a murder case against a San Antonio woman accused of killing her boyfriend, a jury heard the anguished cries and screams of the victims mother as she testified Friday in the murder trial of Laura Flores Messick. Messick, 32, is accused of killing Chason Montez DeOca, 40, on June 10, 2017. Testimony established that Messick and DeOca were arguing in his home in the 7600 block of Muleshoe on the far West Side before the incident. Messick told detectives DeOca brought out a gun, and when he put it down, Messick said she took it, shot the man, then grabbed a knife to cut his neck to see if he was dead. Prosecutors attempted to portray Messick as calm and cold, because after she confessed to police, she told them she left the house and kept going back to retrieve things that belonged to her. The defense told the panel that it was DeOca who brought out the gun, and said Messick committed an act in self-defense. A San Antonio police detective testified when the trial opened last week that during her interview at police headquarters, Messick never said she shot the man because she was afraid he would kill her. Prosecutors and the defense rested their cases Friday after DeOcas mother was the last witness called to testify for the state. The defense called no witnesses. No clear motive was established, other than the pair argued and there were some jealousy issues involving the man's ex-wife. Rachel Montez DeOca began her testimony quietly and attempted to keep herself composed when asked about talking and texting with her son and Messick, and hearing the couple argue while on the phone the night before her son was killed. "I heard her cursing at him, screaming at him, she told the court. Copies of telephone calls from her cell phone established that several calls were made throughout the day, and she cried when she told the panel she missed a call from my son at midnight. She woke up the next morning and had errands to run, she said. But after not hearing from her son in hours, she said she went to his home the evening of June 10, 2017, and made several attempts to enter. When she got to the backyard, she realized the back door was unlocked, and went in. As she made her way through the kitchen, she began to see blood and bloody footprints. She saw her son in the hallway lying face down in his own blood. I ran to him, I just touched him, she said through sobs. He was so cold. I grabbed a blanket and I covered my son. There was blood everywhere. Prosecutor Talia Triesch showed photographs of Chason DeOca for her to identify one with him and a relative, and another of the man in his Army uniform. My son was such a proud, proud soldier, Rachel DeOca said. He went to fight for our country to protect us, in Iraq and Afghanistan. She said he was hurt and had to get out, received a medical discharge and was on disability. Triesch, who had approached the witness stand in an attempt to calm DeOca while she was under direct questioning, asked the woman if she could identify one more picture. As a photograph of her deceased son was placed in front of her, Rachel DeOca swiveled to face the back wall, put her hands to her face and nearly collapsed from the witness stand. It took several minutes for Rachel DeOca to compose herself. As the jury left the room, family members and attorneys helped her off of the witness stand and escorted her out of the courtroom. The jury would leave the court several times during her emotional testimony so the victims mother could be calmed. After DeOcas emotional testimony, defense attorney Edward Garza asked the judge for a mistrial or for a directed verdict, and Torres-Stahl denied the motions. Garza then rested his case. Closing arguments are expected Monday morning. Should Messick be convicted of murder, she faces up to life in prison and has chosen to be sentenced by the judge. Elizabeth Zavala covers county and state courts in San Antonio. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | ezavala@express-news.net | Twitter: @elizabeth2863 San Antonio radio listeners will catch "hot adult rhythmic contemporary music" on 107.5 FM rather than Tejano, in a move unexpectedly made Friday that the station's president and general manager, Chris Morris, says does not reflect the appetite for the genre. Those looking for Tejano music and instead finding the new VIBE 107.5 can hear their beloved hits on 107.5 FM HD2, 1350 AM, on KXTN.com and the Uforia app. The station originally launched Tejano music on 1350 AM in 1988. RELATED: Tejano is no longer playing on 107.5 FM in San Antonio, but KXTN still exists San Antonians who noticed the change over the weekend took to Twitter in confusion or to lament the 30-year-old station. Morris, at the helm of the station, said the decision to make the change wasn't easy. "Any change is always a tough decision to be thoroughly evaluated," he said, adding that the cause was a way to "better service the full listener base of San Antonio." Some on Twitter questioned if the move was the first step in a process of Tejano becoming extinct or did it mean the genre was "dead." IN PICTURES: The "Selena" movie cast then and now Morris refuted that, saying the music "still has play." "We're fully supportive of the Tejano format and the move to the AM and subsequent HD format secures that and the appetite for it," he added. KXTN's Facebook page shared a video tutorial to show listeners how to set up their radios to access the HD station. Morris said everything from the FM format will remain the same on the simulcast. "We are still going to be heavily engaged with the Tejano nation, we are not changing anything within the format presentation," he said. Along with "not changing," Morris wants Tejano fans to "rest assure" knowing the stations large events like Univision San Antonio Fan Fair, Tejano Thursdays and Fiesta Navidena will still take place. 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 woman was rushed to the hospital with burns over 90% of her body Sunday night after firefighters rescued her from her home on the North Side. The San Antonio Fire Department was called to the 600 block of Dawnview Lane to knock down the fire around 11:34 p.m. The baby of a pregnant woman who was fatally shot at a South side apartment complex Tuesday has died, according to the Bexar County Medical Examiners Office. Bernadett Jean Quiroz, 18, and her mother, Janette Quiroz, 37, were both shot on Tuesday night at an apartment complex in the 100 block of Emerald Ash. 21 Pro Video Charges are pending after a man was shot and killed with a rifle at a Southeast Side home during an argument Saturday night, according to San Antonio police. A 25-year-old male was "causing a disturbance which escalated into a fight" with another man, 22, on the 300 block of Koehler Court around 8 p.m., police say. A man was shot in his arm by robbers who entered his home through his bathroom window early Monday morning, according to San Antonio police. At 5:20 a.m., police were called to the 5200 block of Meadow Rise, where police found a man with "an apparent injury to his left forearm," police said in a news release. Most Texans agree that the state needs to lower school property taxes but spend more money on public education, and, according to a new poll by the University of Houston, they have a lot of ideas on how to fund it all. When theres a problem, people tend to be pretty pragmatic about dealing with it, said Jim Granato, executive director of the UH Hobby School of Public Affairs. In the poll, we find that people are not satisfied with public education right now. This feeds into, lets put more inputs and lets spend some more money on this important issue. More than 80% of the 1,000 Texas voters surveyed online said the state should provide 50% or more of public school funding. Texas currently funds about 36% and the Legislatures proposed $9 billion increase over two years would only bump that number up to 39%. Additionally, more than 60% said property taxes in Texas are high or very high as the Legislature considers a number of measures to cut property taxes or tamp down annual increases. The survey has a margin of error of 3.7 percent. Texas Take: Get the latest news on Texas politics sent directly to your inbox every weekday To generate additional revenue, a majority of respondents to the poll gave a green-light for the state to legalize and tax recreational marijuana and gambling. There was also strong support for an increase in taxation of tobacco, alcohol and the oil and gas industry. Theres a mix of things theyre offering as a swap for a cap on the property taxes that theyre asking for, Granato said. Its a real pragmatism that is coming out of this. The state provided more than 50% of the funding for public schools a little over two decades ago, but that share has slowly decreased over time. Since 2012, the state share of education funding has decreased 8%. Local school districts have made up the difference through property tax increases, according to the Legislative Budget Board. Some new or increased taxes were also rejected. The idea of introducing a state income tax was opposed by 75% of respondents. Texas is one of just seven states without a state income tax. Also, increasing the state sales tax was opposed by 50% of those surveyed. Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dennis Bonnen proposed raising the state sales tax by 1% in order to fund a decrease in property taxes. AN increase in the price of maize meal is imminent due to the rise in the cost of procuring grain, an industry official has said. Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe chairman, Tafadzwa Musarara told journalists on the sidelines of a meeting with Southern Region Millers in Bulawayo, that the cost of maize had gone up by close to 70%. Masarara said: There is going to be an increase, we cant stomach the 70%. Todays meeting was to discuss the next maize meal prices. We have agreed on the new prices and when we are going to increase it, but we cannot announce it to you before we inform the government about it. South America gives us maize. We think South America is going to be our biggest source of maize coming this season. We are not quite sure of how much they will be able to export to us given the disturbances in Venezuela. However, our first priority is the region so I will be leading a delegation to Zambia and South Africa to see how much maize we can get in the region. If there is any excess required then we will approach the Southern Americans. Maize is the main staple food crop in Zimbabwe. The countrys annual maize requirement for human consumption is around 1,6 million tonnes, while 300 000 tonnes is required for livestock feed. NewsDay Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News MDC Alliance secretary general, Mr Douglas Mwonzora has said he withdrew from the presidential election race because the playing field was not even but tilted in favour of his rival Mr Nelson Chamisa. He launched a scathing attack on party and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions for failing to address concerns that he had raised. In an interview today, Mr Mwonzora said he had raised an array of irregularities that he said were rampant in the ongoing provincial congresses but the ZCTU which was superintending over the polls had failed to address them. This, he said, had seen him withdrawing from the race. I am no longer able to continue participating in the current congress. I have raised my concerns to the chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission, ZCTU led by Mr Japhet Moyo but nothing was done. I therefore had to withdraw because I do not wish to see the party divided, said Mr Mwonzora. I cannot continue participating in the congress under the present circumstances if the concerns I have raised remained unresolved. Asked why he announced that he would contest the post of the secretary general, Mr Mwonzora said the statement was based on his desire to respect those who had nominated him to that post. Pressed to divulge the concerns he had raised Mr Mwonzora referred questions to Mr Moyo. There are internal but there are a number of concerns that I raised but were not addressed, he said. When contacted for comment, Mr Moyo confirmed receiving the letter from Mr Mwonzora but said the committee had not yet sat to deliberate on them. More to follow Chronicle Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News By Lambert Strether of Corrente. Patient readers, I am finishing up a post on framing climate change, and so (again) will throw down some conversation starters in the Politics section it was a very busy weekend! then return later and finish up. lambert Politics But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? James Madison, Federalist 51 They had one weapon left and both knew it: treachery. Frank Herbert, Dune 2020 2019 Not a showoff. Sharice Davids quiet approach endears her to Democratic leaders [Kansas City Star]. Congress has never seen anyone quite like Davids: Cornell Law School-educated MMA fighter, one of the first two Native American women in the House, the first LGBT person to represent Kansas. Congress has never seen anyone quite like Davids: Cornell Law School-educated MMA fighter, one of the first two Native American women in the House, the first LGBT person to represent Kansas. And yet, while her personal biography is barrier-breaking, Davids approach to her first 100 days in office has been exceedingly traditional, marked by deference to leadership and studious attention to the details of legislating. I would put her toward the top of the freshman class in terms of doing things the right way, said Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Illinois, the chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Any Kansas readers care to comment? 2016 Post Mortem By Maria Gallucci, the 2017-2018 Energy Journalism Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. Originally published at Yale e360 as part of its Climate Desk collaboration with Grist Isbel Izzy Palans lives in a small cabin nestled among mountain peaks and towering trees in the Colorado Rockies. Her home is often shaded and, during the long winters, buried under heaps of snow. Her monthly utility bills show credits for solar electricity production, but no solar panels are affixed to her roof. Instead, the power comes from a solar array some 60 miles away in a nearby valley. Last year, the panels nearly slashed her energy bill in half. Ive been thrilled, said Palans, a 76-year-old retired waitress who relies partly on Social Security benefits to make ends meet. Palans is a subscriber to a 145-kilowatt solar array project run by Holy Cross Energy, a rural utility cooperative. Built with state funding, the program provides solar credits to more than 40 low-income households in western Colorado that otherwise wouldnt have the financial or technical means to access renewable energy. The venture is just one of a growing number of so-called community solar projects across the United States focused on delivering renewable energy and the cost-savings it can provide to low-income households, from California to Minnesota to Massachusetts. Community or shared solar is broadly definedas a project where multiple participants own or lease shares in a mid-sized solar facility, usually between 500 kilowatts and 5 megawatts, and receive credits that lower their monthly utility bills based on how much power the facility delivers to the grid. The sector has emerged as a bright spot in an otherwise sluggish U.S. solar market, outpacing growth in new residential and utility installations that has been stymied by fading federal and state incentives and the Trump administrations import tariffs on solar equipment. U.S. community solar capacity has more than quadrupled since 2016, increasing from more than 300 megawatts to nearly 1,400 megawatts today. That is enough electricity to power roughly 266,000 households. Analysts say they expect another 600 to 700 megawatts to go online this year. The vast majority of community solar subscribers to date, however, have been businesses, universities, government agencies, and higher-earning households all of which can generally pay the steep project enrollment fees or meet financial requirements. Meanwhile, those who could benefit the most from access to renewable energy and lower utility bills low-income residents have largely been left out of the rise in community solar, analysts say. Less than half of U.S. community solar projects have any participation from low-income households. Of projects that do include lower-earning families, only about 5 percent involve a sizable share, or more than 10 percent, according to a November 2018 survey. Recently, states and industry experts have been working to change these dynamics. A dozen states and the District of Columbia have developed, or are developing, a variety of mandates, financial incentives, and pilot programs to make it easier for low-income participants to access shared solar. About 50 million households, or 44 percent of the U.S. total, fall into this income category. Nonprofit developers are also trying new approaches, such as eliminating income and credit score checks for low-income customers, and offering short-term contracts for renters. Community solar really should serve the community, and have a diverse subscriber pool with each project, said Marta Tomic of Vote Solar, a nonprofit in Oakland, California. If we have this goal of empowering customers, of being able to provide them savings on their electricity bill, we need to close that gap [in participation]. New Jersey is moving ahead with a pilot program to build around 75 megawatts of community solar projects a year 40 percent of which will be dedicated to serving low- or moderate-income customers. Illinois new $30 million Solar for All program waives low-income participants upfront costs to join community solar projects and limits monthly fees. Colorados 2010 shared solar law, one of the first in the country, requires developers to reserve at least 5 percent of a projects subscriber pool for low-income participants. The state also awarded $1.2 million in grants to build eight low-income community solar projects, including the one Palans is enrolled in. Washington, D.C.s new Solar for All program, which aims to help 100,000 low-income households slash their energy bills in half by 2032, recently awarded $13 million in grants for community solar and similar projects. And in New York state, a new initiative will cover the enrollment fees and other costs for 7,000 low-income households to join community solar projects. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority recently awarded contracts for nine community solar projects with a combined capacity of 26.4 megawatts, one-third of which will be reserved for cost-free subscriptions. For equity reasons theres a basic desire to use community solar as a way to reach groups that wouldnt otherwise participate in solar, said Kenneth Gillingham, associate professor of environmental and energy economics at Yale Universitys School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. There is still a market thats untapped in the low- to moderate-income communities. While community solar initiatives vary widely, they tend to share two overarching policy goals. First, states and cities want to reduce living expenses for low-income households, which on average spend 8.2 percent of their income on energy bills about three times more than moderate- to high-income households. For decades, government agencies have helped residents reduce energy costs by insulating their homes, replacing leaky windows, or installing energy efficient appliances. Analysts say that in this way, community solar serves as an extension of existing energy conservation and cost-savings programs. In Colorado, for example, the nearly 400 households enrolled in the states eight low-income solar projects save between 15 and 50 percent on their electricity bills, amounting to average annual savings of $382 per household, the Colorado Energy Office found. In Washington, D.C., nearly 100 households are each saving $250 a year on their electric bills thanks to a 182-kilowatt project by New Partners Community Solar, a nonprofit developer that offers free subscriptions to low-income residents. Groundswell, a nonprofit community solar developer, is installing 366-kilowatts worth of shared solar on houses of worship in Washington, D.C., which it said will help more than 120 low-income households in the city slash their utility bills in half, with about $500 in annual savings. The first project is set to break ground in April at the DuPont Park Seventh Day Adventist Church. Pastor Marcus Harris said leaders initially planned to install rooftop solar for the churchs own use, but decided to host the community solar project to spread savings to the neighborhood. We are always looking for ways to impact the quality of life for those that are in this segment of the District of Columbia and wherever we can, he said. Shared solar projects also ensure that its not just homeowners with suitable rooftops who can access renewable energy. Nearly half of U.S. households totaling more than 154 million people arent able to host their own solar arrays because they lack suitable rooftop space or rent their homes. Millions more simply cant afford to spend tens of thousands of dollars to lease a solar array or pay the enrollment or monthly subscription fees for a conventional community solar project. Just because youre not affluent doesnt mean you dont care about the environment, said Brandy Toft, environmental deputy director for the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota. It doesnt mean you dont have that drive to do what you can do to help. The tribal government recently installed a 200-kilowatt solar array on its reservation, using a $490,000 state grant and donations from foundations. Revenues from the solar electricity should help reduce the energy bills of about 100 low-income families, Toft said. Beyond reduced bills and increased access, proponents say shared solar arrays can provide additional benefits. An array that can interconnect directly to the grids distribution network eliminates the need for additional transmission infrastructure, which can be costly, and avoids electricity losses that happen along long-distance power lines, the Rocky Mountain Institute, a sustainability think tank, said in a 2018 paper. Community-scale systems also occupy an economic sweet spot when theyre small enough to efficiently link to the local grid, yet large enough to achieve competitive electricity rates. If coupled with energy storage systems, local solar projects can also supply backup power if the grid collapses during a storm or natural disaster. At the Maycroft Apartments, an affordable housing complex in northwest D.C., rooftop solar panels and batteries will soon supply three days worth of emergency power to a communal resilience room, where residents can charge cell phones and refrigerate medications. Under normal conditions, the array will connect to the grid, generating utility bill credits for low-income customers in the neighborhood. New Partners Community Solar, the lead developer, said the $300,000 project will come online this month. Some solar developers also incorporate job training and hiring into their projects. In Minnesota, the nonprofit developer Cooperative Energy Futures works with groups like Renewable Energy Partners to provide on-the-job training for local workers, who could go on to get employment in one of the nations fastest growing industries. One of the first installations, a 204-kilowatt shared solar array, is atop Shiloh Temple International Ministries, which sits within a majority African American neighborhood in North Minneapolis where opportunities for employment are scarce. Renewable Energy Partners says it plans to train up to 200 workers in the city. Brad Boston, a solar contractor in D.C., has so far trained about a dozen people on job sites, including some just released from jail. His firm, Suncatch Energy, works with Groundswell and other developers to install shared solar projects across the city. Boston said he strives to involve more people of color in technical fields such as electrical engineering, a trade that runs four generations deep in his family. With all the billions of dollars that are going out [into the economy] with solar, theres a need to reach people who are most disenfranchised with these work opportunities, he said. On average, according to a recent study by researchers at Tufts University and the University of California, Berkeley, black- and Hispanic-majority census tracts have significantly fewer rooftop solar projects than white-majority or no-majority census tracts. For low-income households in particular, said Tom Figel, head of community solar at GRID Alternatives in Oakland, the push for state and local community solar policies is needed to overcome the financial and technical hurdles that prevent more inclusive participation. We know the market wont serve these customers on their own, he said. Nature has manufactured the perfect machines. Only the fastest, toughest, and most cunning creatures have endured. We examine how animals have evolved and how we can benefit from their evolution. Sundays from 8:30pm AEDT. (Natural News) Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) limits the amount of oxygen that reaches important parts of the body. Patients with this condition are, thus, very prone to developing neurodegenerative diseases. But a Canadian-led research team advised that giving these patients extra doses of oxygen could help prevent the onset of dementia. For their experiment, researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC) Okanagan flew all the way to the Split Clinical Hospital Centre for Pulmonary Diseases in Split, Croatia. They administered oxygen therapy to patients with COPD who were recuperating at the hospital. UBC researcher Ryan Hoiland served as the first author of the study. He said that the inefficient exchange of oxygen gas in patients with moderate to severe COPD could lead to the onset of chronic hypoxemia, where the blood contains reduced levels of oxygen. His co-author and team leader, Phil Ainslie, reported that their experiment showed how oxygen therapy boosted the amount of beneficial gas that reaches the brain of COPD patients. Increasing the oxygen levels in the brain could protect the patient from neurogenerative diseases. Ainslie added that oxygen treatment could also reduce the risks of cardiovascular disease. So in addition to stopping dementia and mild cognitive impairment, the treatment could also prevent diseases such as stroke. (Related: Fight Parkinsons with these 6 alternative treatments.) Oxygen therapy could protect the brain of COPD patients from dementia Studies dating back to the 1980s showed that oxygen therapy can decrease the risk of mortality for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. However, no one had thoroughly examined the ability of oxygen to protect a participant from other diseases. People with COPD may experience lower than normal blood oxygen levels on a consistent basis due to reduced lung function, Hoiland explained. While COPD is a respiratory disease, the low oxygen levels cause problems throughout the body, including impacting the health of the heart and brain. Furthermore, earlier literature indicated that oxygen therapy could decrease the chances of cognitive impairment and perhaps dementia as well. And it seemed to achieve this by improving the activity of blood vessels in the brain. For example, the airways of COPD patients can get obstructed. The blockage can cause a drop in blood oxygen levels; conversely, it can also cause the concentration of carbon dioxide to climb. If the brain received this low-oxygen, high-CO 2 blood for long periods of time, it could become more vulnerable to dementia. A dose of extra oxygen bolsters the blood vessels during periods of brain activity The UBC Okanagan researchers started the experiment by evaluating the blood flow to the brain of the COPD patients. After the initial readings, the participants rested for 30 minutes while undergoing oxygen treatment. Subsequently, the treated participants read standardized materials for 30 seconds in order to induce activity in their brain. They then spent the next 30 seconds with their eyes closed. The pre-treatment and post-treatment measurements were taken using an ultrasound device. Analysis of the data showed that oxygen therapy increased the oxygen level in the blood that reached the brain of participants. Furthermore, the treatment bolstered the ability of blood vessels in the brain to coordinate with the other cells in the organ. This neurovascular function made sure that the brain is getting enough amounts of oxygen during periods of increased activity that need the energy boost. This particular aspect of brain and neurovascular function is extremely important, with impaired neurovascular function implicated in the development and progression of diseases such as dementia, said Hoiland. This improvement in cerebral oxygen delivery and neurovascular function might provide a physiological link between oxygen therapy and a reduced risk of certain brain diseases for people with COPD. Sources include: News.ok.ubc.ca PhySoc.org (Natural News) Fitness can mean a lot of things. Theres physical fitness, which pertains to health and the proper functioning of a human body and theres biological fitness, which has more to do with an organisms ability to reach reproductive age. And theres also cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) fitness related to heart health. According to Bjarne Nes, author of a study on the relationship between CRF and coronary heart disease (CHD), Fitness isnt just a measure of how much youve trained in your life, it also tells you what kind of genes you have. Other factors like obesity may also affect fitness both genes and physical activity play a role in how your heart and blood vessels function. In a study published in the European Heart Journal, Nes and several colleagues showed that people who are not fit are at great risk of CHD, even though they may not have any of the symptoms. They used cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) to measure the peak oxygen uptake of the participants and determine their level of fitness. Why peak oxygen uptake is a good measure of fitness Peak oxygen uptake is the maximum amount of oxygen the body is capable of absorbing while doing a physical activity. Oxygen is vital for metabolism, and metabolism provides the energy needed by the muscles. Hence, the more intense the activity is, the more oxygen the body needs. People with heart problems, however, require less oxygen because heart conditions prevent the heart rate from increasing. Without this increase, oxygen delivery and consumption are limited. It makes sense then that the people who were less fit and had higher risk of CHD absorbed less oxygen during CPET. Using CPET as part of medical checkups, therefore, could benefit people because it can warn them of their cardiovascular risk. How fitness affects cardiovascular risk Between 2006 to 2008, the entire county of Nord-Trndelag in Norway participated in a health study called HUNT3. From the participants, the researchers selected people without any history of cardiovascular disease and lung disease and invited them to participate in CPET. A total of 4,527 people completed the test, which involved running on a treadmill while wearing a special mask that measured their peak oxygen uptake. The speed was steadily increased by the minute and the test was only stopped when the participants could no longer run or their oxygen uptake was no longer increasing. By 2017, 147 of the test participants had experienced heart attacks or were diagnosed with angina pectoris (chest pain due to blocked arteries). Upon comparison of their CPET results, the researchers noted that those who developed heart problems had lower peak oxygen uptake values than those who remained healthy. Furthermore, when they considered factors such as age and gender, they noticed a steady decline in CHD risk as their fitness level increased. These findings suggested that a persons fitness level directly affects their cardiovascular risk and that peak oxygen uptake is a good measure of a persons fitness. Half your risk of heart attack Even among people who seem to be healthy, the top 25 percent of the most fit individuals actually have only half as high a risk as the least fit 25 percent, one of the studys authors said. If that is the case, then people who want to half their risk of CHD should get in good shape. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle and regular exercise may be the key. The American Heart Association recommends a minimum of 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity exercise for adults. The first author of the study, Jon Letnes, who is also a doctor, suggests the same thing for effective risk reduction. After all, their study showed that higher fitness levels translated to better heart health. (Related: Cut Your Heart Attack Risk Dramatically by Simply Eating More Berries.) ReverseHeartDisease.news has more studies and news stories discussing cardiovascular risk and how to keep your heart healthy. Sources include: Academic.Oup.com NewsWise.com Heart.org (Natural News) Extremists in the Democratic Party have found a new way to tear down traditional values and mores: By pretending that men can be women, women can be men, and by condemning anyone and everyone who refuses to go along with it. And like all Left-wing lunacy, this gender dysphoria nonsense has been adopted by the like-minded pinheads who dominate academia. Last week, during an event sponsored by the Young Americas Foundation on the campus of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Michael Knowles, who hosts The Daily Wires Michael Knowles Show podcast, was sprayed with an unknown substance by a whacko protestor as he tried to deliver a speech titled, Men Are Not Women. (Related: Madness: Australian navy, fighter pilots told to think of women and take gender perspective during war missions.) The attack prompted a response by campus police, who subdued the assailant while the room fell into chaos. Great speech Michael, I was in the front row and caught the whole thing on video. pic.twitter.com/fVeaXs0Q4p Collin Tuso (@collin_tuso) April 12, 2019 From the looks of things in the above video, it appears as though the chanters of Hands up, dont shoot! in the small crowd a slogan built on a myth, by the way were likely aware of what was about to take place. In any event, what came next was trulyeducational. The following day, the universitys chancellor, C. Mauli Agrawal, issued a statement to the campus community praising students who organized the protest against yet another conservative speaker. He also condemned Knowles and, by default, those who invited him to speak, for voicing unpopular viewpoints. Ever notice how Leftists are so welcoming and tolerant of all views other than those held by conservatives? Ever notice the tone-deaf hypocrisy of the Left decrying alleged intolerance by themselves being intolerant? Last night, our campus witnessed a collision of two principles that we steadfastly support: The Right to free expression and the right to civil protest in response to views we disagree with, Agrawals statement continued. The evenings events laid bare deep divisions that exist in our society today divisions that UMKC works diligently to address through education, support and commitment to our values. When we can no longer acknowledge this simple truth, our country really is in trouble Except, not everyone shares the same values which is the point of defending all viewpoints. But Agrawal didnt do that. He virtue-signaled to his Left-wing base, then pivoted to attack the views of Knowles. A student group brought a speaker to campus a speaker whose professed opinions do not align with our commitment to diversity and inclusion and our goal of providing a welcoming environment to all people, particularly our LGBT community, he continued. As if that werent enough, he praised the peaceful protestors, not all of whom, as evidenced by the video above, were peaceful. Upon learning of this speakers visit, members of our UMKC community responded in the best way by organizing and conducting a counter-event across campus Thursday afternoon focused on positive messages about diversity and inclusion, he wrote an event that, as far as we know, was not crashed by chemical-wielding conservatives attempting to shut the event down by attacking the speakers. And notice how only Left-wing messages about such issues are considered positive. And even during the speech, some peaceful protestors stood and expressed disagreement with the speakers views, Agrawal continued, referencing Knowles. Begrudgingly, Agrawal had to admit that the attack crossed a line and forced campus police to intervene, noting that the attacker is a student at the university who was spraying what was an unknown chemical at the time (it turned out to be lavender oil and other non-toxic household liquids). The chancellor also mouthed standard platitudes about how the university is required to protect Free Speech. Knowles, however, said the topic of his discussion should have been uncontested: Men are not women. This is the kind of violence conservatives on campus stand to face if they state plain facts and refuse to kowtow to leftist fantasy, he noted. Read more about this cult-like Leftism and campus insanity at LeftCult.com and CampusInsanity.com. Sources include: DailyWire.com NewsTarget.com (Natural News) There are so many misperceptions about so many of the most important issues of our day because the one institution charged with informing us the mainstream media is itself ill-informed or politically compromised. Nowhere is this more evident than in the coverage of firearms, gun rights, and the Second Amendment. Case in point: Earlier this week a local ABC affiliate reported a remarkably erroneous and, likely purposefully misleading story claiming that 3D-printed gun props are no different from actual 3D-printed firearms, though the former is non-functional. (Related: 3D-printed gun designer sues federal government over constitutional violations.) According to the Katy, Texas, affiliate, sheriffs deputies told the station that a 14-year-old student was taken into custody after allegedly making a terrorist threat with a 3D-gun he printed at the house of a friend. The report said the student stands accused of texting pictures of the gun to another student at Harmony School and then telling him hed better not attend any classes. Officials with the Fort Bend County Sheriffs Department said deputies took the student into custody after the friend told school officials hed made a threat. Officers told the local affiliate that they found the 3D printed gun prop in the students bedroom after his parents agreed to let them search the home. Later, investigators would learn that the student bought plans for the fake gun for $5 then put the pieces together with super glue. The sheriffs office did say that the gun was non-functional because it is constructed entirely of plastic and has no moving parts. But the report apparently did not emphasize that point, and thats a problem because the Democratic Left has now begun targeting 3D-printing plans for firearms components even though theyre not really reliable and treating them the same as a regular firearm. Blown opportunity for a teachable moment As The National Sentinel reported last year, the National Rifle Association, as it so often has in the past, stepped up to educate the general public on 3D-printed guns after Cody Wilson, publisher of blueprints for 3D guns, came to an agreement with the federal government following a years-long legal battle involving freedom of speech, and anti-gun Leftists stepped in to halt the settlement: Several state attorneys general filed lawsuits in cherry-picked federal courts with judges known to be sympathetic to opponents of the Second Amendment, and at least three courts have issued a stay, once again blocking Wilson from being able to publish his blueprints. Democrats are claiming the plans will be used by criminals to print untraceable, undetectable firearms. Chris Cox, executive director of the NRAs Institute for Legislative Action, noted that too many media types and politicians were making false claims regarding the legality behind making 3D firearms and components. Many anti-gun politicians and members of the media claimed that 3D printing technology will allow for the production and widespread proliferation of undetectable plastic firearms, he noted at the time. Regardless of what a person may be able to publish on the internet, undetectable plastic guns have been illegal for 30 years. Federal law passed in 1988, crafted with the NRAs support, makes it unlawful to manufacture, import, sell, ship, deliver, possess, transfer, or receive an undetectable firearm, he added. Regarding the Katy, Texas students dumb act of intimidation, its highly likely that a number of viewers went away from the story thinking it is feasible to actually print a functional firearm that is just as functional and capable as a real firearm and thats just not the case. But rather than use the situation as a major teaching moment, the local station chose to hype the terrorist and another potential school shooting angles instead. Thats not only a disservice to the community the affiliate serves, its an affront to honesty. Read more about 3D-printed guns and school shootings at Guns.news and Shootings.news. Sources include: TheNationalSentinel.com ABC13.com (Natural News) Welcome to Nazi America, where the vaccine police want to see your papers in New York to be sure youve been injected with cells from someones abortion and also some key central nervous system disruptors. Wait, no papers? Then youre banned from leaving your house to go to public places, including the grocery store, gas station, or for medicine (this law can be enforced right now). Yes, a law-abiding American can be arrested and put in jail for six months for not agreeing to get some mercury, aluminum and formaldehyde shot directly into their muscle tissue through a syringe. Want some genetically-modified bacteria that you can spread with the measles next week? Try getting the MMR vaccine. Meet the Gestapo, alive and functioning in Arizona, where, around 1 a.m., an anti-terrorist-style SWAT team kicked down the front door of a family who chose not to get a meningitis vaccine jabbed into their childs arm, cuffed the husband, and took all three children (not just the sick one). Yes, here in America, a swat team of armed strangers must protect your children from infectious diseases by traumatically separating you indefinitely from them, and then probably having child protective services force vaccinate infant or child with E. coli and sodium chloride, which are both dangerously included in Meningococcal vaccines. Dont think so, check the CDC vaccine web pages. The toxic jabs also include GMOs, hydrolyzed casein (got milk allergies?), aluminum, polysorbate 80, and some other highly questionable ingredients. And just WHAT will the vaccinated children shed to the other immune-compromised vaxxed children? The measles and other mixed genetically-mutated viruses So whats in the MMR-II vaccine wouldnt you like to know why the Leftist government wants your children injected by force with known neurotoxins all while demanding gun confiscation? What could be that end goal? The MMR-II contains chick embryo cell cultures, genetically modified abortion cells (their fancy name is WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts), cows blood (bovine serum), recombinant human albumin (thats GMO human blood/cells), sorbitol (synthetic smoothing agent) and even some neomycin (thats an antibiotic). Guess what? Side effects of injecting neomycin include decreased urination, hearing problems, spinning sensation, nausea, feeling like you might pass out, loss of coordination, trouble walking. The MMRV ProQuad (includes the chicken pox vaccine neurotoxins) also contains monosodium glutamate. Got migraines? Get ready for the worst ones youll ever have when it gets injected. The MMRV also contains urea. Thats animal piss. Yep, the State wants your child immune-compromised because Big Pharma runs the State, the same folks that manufacture the insane vaccines in secretive laboratories. If your child is being injected with recombinant human albumin, thats the blood cells from a human abortion, so that means your child is getting cannibalized. Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, called it out perfectly based on recent reflection: Measles hysteria is the Russia collusion hoax of the vaccine industry. With this declaration of medical martial law in New York, measles has become the latest mass hysteria media fraud, following in the footsteps of the now-imploding Russia collusion hoax. As always, the media is lying to everyone, and government bureaucrats are going along with the lie to terrorize their own citizens into compliance. Shedding vaccine viruses and bacteria is common during 1st two weeks after receiving any live-virus injection It is a scientific fact that any person injected with a live virus, even if its weakened or inactive due to formaldehyde, can shed that virus (by coughing, sneezing, or even sharing a drink) through their saliva or mucus, to any person, whether they are inoculated or not. This also holds water when the vaccinated shedder does not contract the disease (or those particular strains of a virus) themselves. What nearly everyone forgets to consider and debate about is the fact that injecting mercury (listed as thimerosal), aluminum, MSG and formaldehyde WEAKENS the immune system by unnaturally shocking it into fight or flight panic mode. So what you have is all these children going to daycare and school after getting their immune systems shocked, confused, and completely stressed out (from trying to locate and destroy all these pathogens trapped and multiplying inside muscle tissue). Then, they sneeze and cough and SPREAD the measles virus they just got injected with last week. And thats exactly why anyone who gets the Measles Vaccine should be BANNED from all public places for at least two weeks due to likelihood of virus shedding. You can avoid the virus-shedding-epidemic in America by avoiding toxic vaccines. Yet, how ironic the masses are being sold sickness and are the ones spreading it, all while they attack the healthy people for not doing it their way. Tune into Vaccines.news for more updates on the experimental vaccines Big Pharma wants you injected with at gunpoint in America. Welcome to the Medical Tyranny Gone Wild show. New episodes are being filmed now. Sources for this article include: ZeroHedge.com NaturalNews.com CDC.gov/vaccines NaturalNews.com (Natural News) While the rest of the country is advancing towards medical tyranny, legislators from the Lone Star State are working to preserve health freedom. State lawmakers have put forth multiple vaccine measures that need support. One such measure, S.B. 2350, will mandate the need for legitimate vaccine safety studies. Legislators are also pushing to ensure no parent is forced to vaccine their child in the state of Texas. Proponents of the vaccine industry have been quick to label these efforts as misinformation intended to stoke fear about vaccine safety. Ironically, many of these pro-vaccine rags blither on about measles outbreaks while disparaging dissent to the vaccine narrative even though most outbreaks are actually caused by the measles vaccine. Remember folks, its only fear-mongering if youre going against the grain. The fact of the matter is that vaccine propagandists rely heavily on scare tactics and self-aggrandizement to encourage compliance with pharmaceutical dogma. Without those two tools, vaccines would be seen for what they are: poison. Texas legislators demand vaccine safety studies Senator Bob Hall (R) recently introduced S.B. 2350, a bill which would mandate the necessity of legitimate safety studies before a vaccine can be administered by healthcare providers. As Tenth Amendment Center reports, the bill will toughen up on vaccine safety requirements and how safety studies are performed. As Natural News has previously reported, it is not at all uncommon for Big Pharma (and their government pawns) to manipulate data in their favor. Recall the CDCs treasonous act of scientific fraud regarding the MMR vaccine for proof of how far that stain has spread. While vaccine propagandists like to pretend vaccine science is infallible, that notion simply couldnt be further from the truth. The new regulations proposed by SB 2350 would mandate sufficient time for vaccine side effects to be observed post-vaccination in safety studies, and would also demand that all vaccines be evaluated for their ability to cause cancer, fertility issues, neurological changes and other unintended consequences. You can read S.B. 2350 in full here. More bills to preserve health freedom in Texas Sen. Hall is not alone in his efforts to fight for health freedom in the state of Texas. Representative Bill Zedler (R) has introduced H.B. 4274, a bill which will require healthcare providers to obtain informed consent before administering a vaccine. Under Zedlers informed consent bill, providers must give patients (or their caregivers) information on the risks and benefits of vaccination and a list of the ingredients in every vaccine administered. Information on the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, and what recourse patients have in the event of vaccine injury, must also be disclosed. Zedler told reporters that he is adamantly opposed to people being forced into vaccinating their children. Hes also stated that people should have the freedom to choose what, if any, vaccines their kids get. You can read H.B. 4274 in full here. Rep. Matt Krause is also leading the charge on a new bill designed to simplify the process of filing a vaccine exemption, H.B. 1490. Under this bill, the Texas Department of State Health Services would be prohibited from maintaining a record of vaccine exemptions. The legislation would also make it easier for Texas residents to obtain a vaccine exemption form. Currently, citizens must submit a written request to the state health department. If the bill passes, exemption forms will be available online, making the whole process much more accessible. You can read H.B. 1490 in full here. These bills need support in order to pass. You can find out who your Texas representatives are here. For all those concerned with preserving health freedom in the United States, the time to act is now. Vaccine tyranny has already come to states like California and New York. Its time to send Big Pharma a message they wont soon forget: Medical tyranny isnt welcome here. See more coverage of the latest vaccine atrocities at Vaccines.news. Sources for this article include: InfoWars.com FoxNews.com Oakland police on Monday released a photo of the person they believe is responsible for a hit-and-run collision that left a mother and her young son dead and another family member critically injured. Police identified the suspect as 27-year-old Rasenoch Allen. Authorities are offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information that leads to Allen's arrest. Oakland Police Department The deadly hit-and-run happened Saturday night at the intersection of 26th Avenue and Foothill Boulevard, according to police. The driver of a black two-door Mercedes-Benz was traveling westbound on Foothill Boulevard when they hit the three family members as they were crossing the street in a marked crosswalk. Angel Garcia-Vasquez, 6, and his mother, 30-year-old Alma Soraya Vasquez, did not survive, according to police. The boy's 20-year-old uncle was taken to a hospital where he is listed in critical condition. "I have two kids left," husband and father Anselmo Garcia said Sunday. "That's it. I lose my whole family. I need some help, please. I need help." A GoFundMe page has been created for the family. The driver fled the scene of the collision without providing information, police said. The car was later found abandoned in another part of Oakland. Anyone with information about Allen is encouraged to call the Oakland Police Department's Traffic Investigation Unit at 510-777-8540 or Crime Stoppers of Oakland at 510-777-8572. What to Know A Buttigieg spokesman said Sunday's event is a "special announcement" when asked if the mayor will declare he's running for president Buttigieg's $7 million fundraising haul in the first quarter of the year is more than Sens. Warren, Klobuchar and Booker brought in Pete Buttigieg, the little-known Indiana mayor who has risen to prominence in the early stages of the 2020 Democratic presidential race, made his official campaign entrance Sunday by claiming the mantle of a youthful generation ready to reshape the country. "I recognize the audacity of doing this as a Midwestern millennial mayor," he said to cheers of "Pete, Pete, Pete" from an audience assembled in a former Studebaker auto plant. "More than a little bold, at age 37, to seek the highest office in the land." In the hours after his announcement, more than $1 million in donations poured in, said Lis Smith, speaking for the campaign. The South Bend mayor, a Rhodes scholar and Afghanistan War veteran who has been essentially campaigning since January, has joined a dozen-plus rivals vying to take on President Donald Trump. "The forces of change in our country today are tectonic," he said. "Forces that help to explain what made this current presidency even possible. That's why, this time, it's not just about winning an election it's about winning an era." Financial support from the LGBT community has helped Buttigieg defy expectations by raking in more than $7 million in just over two months. The money has come from grassroots supporters like Burrell and big-dollar Hollywood donors who hope Buttigieg will make history or at least the summer debate stage. Buttigieg will return this week to Iowa and New Hampshire, which hold the nation's first nominating contests, to campaign as a full-fledged candidate now being taken more seriously. Over the past few months, Buttigieg has appeared frequently on national TV news and talk shows and developed a strong social media following with his message that the country needs "a new generation of leadership." Buttigieg's poll numbers have climbed. Some polls put him behind only Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who sought the party's nomination in 2016, and former Vice President Joe Biden, who has not yet said he's running. Buttigieg's campaign has raised more than $7 million in the first three months of this year, a total eclipsed by Sanders' leading $18 million but more than Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Cory Booker of New Jersey. "Right now, it's pretty fun," Buttigieg told The Associated Press last month while visiting South Carolina , where he was met by larger-than-expected crowds. His challenge is finding a way to sustain the momentum over the long term and avoiding becoming a "flavor-of-the-month" candidate. Scrutiny of his leadership in South Bend has increased, as has his criticism of Vice President Mike Pence , who was Indiana's governor when Buttigieg was in his first term as mayor. Buttigieg would be the first openly gay nominee of a major presidential party; he married his husband, Chasten, last year. He would be the first mayor to go directly to the White House. And he would be the youngest person to become president, turning 39 the day before the next inauguration, on Jan. 20, 2021. Theodore Roosevelt was 42 when he took office, while John F. Kennedy was 43 and Bill Clinton 46. The campaign kickoff speech echoed themes that have resonated with voters during Buttigieg's exploratory phase. He talks often about how political decisions shape people's lives, including his own from serving as a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve in 2014, to being able to marry his husband and to not having to worry about how to pay for his father's hospital bills after his father's death this year. Buttigieg also says the best way for Democrats to defeat Trump may be to nominate a mayor experienced in helping to revive a Midwestern city once described as "dying," rather than a politician who has spent years "marinating" in Washington. He has criticized Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again," saying the way to move the country forward is not to look backward or cling to an old way of life. "There's a myth being sold to industrial and rural communities: the myth that we can stop the clock and turn it back," he said. "It comes from people who think the only way to reach communities like ours is through resentment and nostalgia, selling an impossible promise of returning to a bygone era that was never as great as advertised to begin with." South Bend, which neighbors the University of Notre Dame, was hit hard by the decline of manufacturing, dating to the 1963 closing of the Studebaker auto plant that costs thousands of residents their jobs. The hulking, dilapidated factory loomed over the city for much of the past 60 years as what Buttigieg called a daily reminder of South Bend's city's past. Partially remodeled, it's now a mixed-use technology center outside downtown and the setting for Bettigieg's announcement. The South Bend fire marshal's office said the rally drew over 4,500 inside and 1,500 outside. A steady stream of raindrops fell on speakers on the stage through the leaky roof. "I like that he's young," said Tom Lacy, a 62-year-old retiree who came from Peoria, Illinois, for the event with his wife, Candy, on their 35th wedding anniversary. "He's so relatable. He doesn't seem like a politician to me." Lacy said: "The contrast between him and our current president is unbelievable." Nausher Ahmad Sial, a 68-year-old developer from South Bend, said "we need to try new blood." Sial, who came to the U.S. from Pakistan 35 years ago, said he has worked with Buttigieg on development projects in the city and described the mayor as a "very honest, very fair guy." Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld says he is seeking the Republican nomination against President Donald Trump in 2020. Weld said Monday in announcing his candidacy that "it is time to return to the principles of Lincoln equality, dignity and opportunity for all." He said, in his words, "There is no greater cause on earth than to preserve what truly makes America great. I am ready to lead that fight." Weld was the 2016 Libertarian vice presidential nominee. He served two terms as Massachusetts governor in the 1990s. Weld's move makes Trump the first incumbent president since George H.W. Bush in 1992 to face a notable primary challenge. The Republican National Committee in January issued a nonbinding resolution to declare the party's undivided support for Trump. The Massachusetts Republican Party called Weld's decision to run a "grandstanding political gambit that reeks of political opportunism," criticizing him for appearing on the Libertarian ticket against Trump in 2016. "After abandoning Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians, Weld demands that faithful Republicans consider him as their standard bearer," MassGOP Chair Jim Lyons said in a statement. "Even Benedict Arnold switched allegiances less often! We Republicans will put partisanship aside, reach across the aisle to Democrats, and Libertarians, and reject Bill Weld." Chicago will remain a sanctuary city, officials said, despite recent comments from President Donald Trump threatening to ship migrants to such cities - a move that had Illinois reps "deeply" disturbed. Sen. Dick Durbin, fresh from visiting migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, said Monday the latest comments from the president were "the meanest thing I have heard a president say recently." Trump suggested Monday that his threat to ship migrants to so-called sanctuary cities is taking effect, even though it remains unclear whether such a plan is feasible. "Those Illegal Immigrants who can no longer be legally held (Congress must fix the laws and loopholes) will be, subject to Homeland Security, given to Sanctuary Cities and States!" Trump tweeted just days after aides insisted the plan had been shelved. Neither the White House nor Department of Homeland Security immediately responded to requests for comment Monday. And it's unclear whether DHS has taken any steps to implement the controversial plan. Lawyers there had previously told the White House that the idea was unfeasible and a misuse of funds. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is already strapped for cash. What President Trump fails to understand is that America is a sanctuary country. Small, medium and large cities across the nation are suddenly and rapidly identifying as sanctuary cities because of the abandonment of Americans values, ideals and cultural destiny under President Trumps watch," Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said. "Not only does hate have no home in Chicago, but, as a welcoming city, we would welcome these migrants with open arms, just as we welcomed Syrian refugees, just as we welcomed Puerto Ricans displaced by Hurricane Maria and just as we welcome Rohingya refugees fleeing genocide in Myanmar. Chicago will always be a welcoming city; immigrants of all faiths, nationalities and ethnicities help make Chicago the most American of American cities." Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, had said during a pair of Sunday show appearances that the idea was just one option under consideration. "Whether or not it moves forward, that's yet to be determined," she said on Fox, acknowledging that the idea had been rejected by DHS lawyers several times. "The president heard the idea, he likes it, so - well, we're looking to see if there are options that make it possible and doing a full and thorough and extensive review," she said on ABC. At the same time, Democrats on Monday asked the White House and agency officials for internal documents on the administration's deliberations on its proposal to send detained migrants to "sanctuary cities" cities and districts that don't cooperate with federal immigration officials and which are mostly Democratic strongholds. "Not only does the administration lack the legal authority to transfer detainees in this manner, it is shocking that the president and senior administration officials are even considering manipulating release decisions for purely political reasons," read the letter, which was signed by three House committee chairmen. The letter said the plan seemed aimed at targeting Democratic areas "in a bizarre and unlawful attempt to score political points," citing news reports. The proposal was rejected twice by administration officials, but Trump has defended the idea. The plan comes as the administration has said it's been overwhelmed by a flood of migrant families, largely from Central America, attempting to cross the southwestern border. The U.S. Border Patrol said the number of families apprehended in March, 53,000, set a new record, though Democrats say the administration is worsening the problem by aggressively detaining people caught entering illegally and limiting the number of applicants for refugee status who are processed. "I would like to remind everyone that seeking asylum is not illegal," said Rep. Lauren Underwood. "So the idea of using individuals who are poor, who are desperate, who are seeking safety from unspeakable violence and tragedy in the countries they come from - I find deeply disturbing," she said. Legislation barring local governments from establishing what is known as right-to-work zones has been signed by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. The bill prohibits laws barring employers and labor organizations from signing contracts that require workers to join unions or pay dues. The law, which takes effect immediately, is a result of the Chicago suburb of Lincolnshire creating a right-to-work zone in 2015. The ordinance was overturned by a federal court, but the village has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. During a bill-signing event at the Capitol on Friday, Pritzker said the legislation "makes it abundantly clear that we have turned the page here in Illinois." Former Gov. Bruce Rauner was a proponent of right-to-work zones. In 2017, Rauner vetoed a previous version of the bill. A Wisconsin middle school gym teacher has been placed on indefinite leave while district officials look into claims that she separated students in one class by race and assigned the black children to research games that enslaved children played. The Shorewood Intermediate School teacher was instructing seventh-graders about games from around the world on April 1 when she allegedly gave the assignment to the black students, Shorewood School District Superintendent Bryan Davis said in a Thursday letter to parents. He didn't name the teacher. "We take these allegations extremely serious," Davis wrote. "Throughout this situation, student safety and well-being have been our top priority." One of the black students, MaHailey Stephens, told a local station that she and her classmates were separated into groups based on race and asked to research games from their cultures. "I went to my mom, I'm like, 'mom, what are slave games?'" she said. Her mother, Reshunda Stephens, told the station that the same teacher asked her older daughter to be part of "the colored club," last year. "How many more times do people have to feel uncomfortable until change happens?" she asked. Davis said the district is "committed to providing an environment of inclusion in our schools." "We will continue to assess the situation and ensure that we provide ongoing support to our students as we move forward," he wrote. School officials including a counselor and a psychologist are providing support to affected students, according to Davis. President Donald Trump's reelection campaign is set to report that it raised more than $30 million in the first quarter of 2019, edging out his top two Democratic rivals combined, according to figures it provided to The Associated Press. The haul brings the campaign's cash on hand to $40.8 million, an unprecedented war chest for an incumbent president this early in a campaign. The Trump campaign said nearly 99% of its donations were of $200 or less, with an average donation of $34.26. Trump's fundraising ability was matched by the Republican National Committee, which brought in $45.8 million in the first quarter its best non-election year total. Combined, the pro-Trump effort is reporting $82 million in the bank, with $40.8 million belonging to the campaign alone. Trump formally launched his reelection effort just hours after taking office in 2017, earlier than any incumbent has in prior years. By contrast, former President Barack Obama launched his 2012 effort in April 2011 and had under $2 million on hand at this point in the campaign. Obama went on to raise more than $720 million for his reelection. Trump's reelection effort has set a $1 billion target for 2020. Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement that Trump "is in a vastly stronger position at this point than any previous incumbent president running for re-election, and only continues to build momentum." Trump's fundraising with the RNC is divided between two entities: Trump Victory, the joint account used for high-dollar gifts, and the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, the low-dollar digital fundraising operation known internally as "T-Magic." The campaign is set to launch a traditional "bundling" program which it lacked in 2016 in the coming weeks. Bundlers are mid-tier donors who bring in contributions from their associates. Together, the Trump entities have raised a combined $165.5 million since 2017. Trump is benefiting from the advantages of incumbency, like universal name recognition and his unrivaled position atop the Republican Party. Among Democrats, dollars are divided across a candidate field of well more than a dozen, while the Democratic National Committee remains in debt and has suffered from being dramatically outraised by the RNC in recent months. Bernie Sanders topped the Democratic field in the first quarter, raising slightly more than $18 million, followed by Kamala Harris with $12 million and Beto O'Rourke with $9.4 million. Trump is reporting a haul of $30.3 million. Republicans have trailed Democrats in online fundraising ever since the medium was invented roughly two decades ago. But Trump has closed the gap, driving small-dollar donors who make recurring donations to the GOP like the party has never seen before. According to RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Trump's campaign has already had eight seven-figure fundraising days this year, and has taken in money from more than 1 million new online donors since Trump's inauguration including 100,000 this year. The Republican committee said it is planning on spending $30 million on maintaining and growing Trump's email list alone, recently expanded its headquarters space to an annex in Virginia and will soon invest in developing an app. In 2015, Trump swore off outside money, declaring in his opening speech: "I'm using my own money. I'm not using the lobbyists'. I'm not using donors'. I don't care. I'm really rich." He quickly reversed course on high-dollar donations after he won the GOP nomination, bowing to the financial pressures of running a general election campaign, and he'd already raised millions online through the sale of merchandise like his signature red Make America Great Again hats. Trump gave or loaned $66 million to his 2016 campaign, but has yet to spend any of his own cash for his reelection effort. Aides don't expect that to change. The power country trio Lady Antebellum is heading to Connecticut this summer. The seven-time Grammy award winners, Hillary Scott, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood, will be performing perform at Mohegan Sun Arena on Friday, Aug. 2. The show starts at 8 p.m. and country artist Drake White will also be performing. Some of Lady Antebellums biggest hits include Need You Now, You Look Good and several others. Tickets are $69, $49 and $39. They will go on sale Friday, April 19. Learn more here. This band has been performing in Vegas and their Our Kind of Vegas residency at Palms Casino Resort's will continue into the spring with performances in May and August, but they will also be performing at some additional venues. See more concert dates here. Local leaders are voicing concern as President Donald Trump doubles down on a new immigration policy targeting sanctuary cities. Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin has long been an opponent of the presidents immigration policy, welcoming undocumented immigrants to the Capital City. Were not afraid of immigrants. Were a city that has been strengthened decade after decade by immigration, said Mayor Bronin. Now, the federal government may take him up on that offer. They want more people in their sanctuary cities, well we'll give them more people. We can give them a lot, we can give them an unlimited supply, Trump said Friday. The president now says instead of sending the hundreds of thousands of migrants seeking asylum back over the border hell bus them to sanctuary cities and states, where illegal immigrants are protected instead of prosecuted. They're always saying they have open arms. Let's see if they have open arms, said Trump. Despite a flurry of opposition to the idea over the weekend, the president doubled down on the directive in a tweet he sent Monday afternoon. Those Illegal Immigrants who can no longer be legally held will be, subject to Homeland Security, given to Sanctuary Cities and States! Trump tweeted. Those Illegal Immigrants who can no longer be legally held (Congress must fix the laws and loopholes) will be, subject to Homeland Security, given to Sanctuary Cities and States! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019 Let them come, said Jeff Romanchuck, a Hartford resident. Come on, theyre people, theyre human beings. They got kids. Whos going to turn their back on a kid? I cant. Bronin added that if the president is serious about this plan the Capital City will do its best to provide services to all residents. I think thats fundamental to our values as a city and our values as a country, said Bronin. I dont know if its a good idea or a bad idea, but I think everybody should be here whos running away from danger from their own country, said Vernon Harris, also of Hartford. Joshua Daniel, of New Britain, works in Hartford and says the city has to focus on its own financial future first. I think its a bad idea. We have a lot going on here, he said pointing to pot holes in the street. I feel like fix what weve got going on here and then we can welcome other people here. The mayor wouldnt say whether his administration is developing a plan to deal with an influx of people but called the presidents response to the immigration crisis, irresponsible. An outrageous use of federal resources, Bronin said. He also questioned whether the plan was even legal. This is not a serious proposal and Donald Trump is trying to do what he always does which is create chaos and fear that he can then exploit for political purposes, said Bronin. New Haven is another sanctuary city. Mayor Toni Harp commented on the presidents proposal telling NBC Connecticut, ....for as long as Im mayor, New Haven will continue its open-arms tradition for those fleeing oppression in other countries and for those who seek a better life here. Negotiations between Stop & Shop and the UFCW local unions continued Monday, five days after workers first walked off the job and onto the picket line at all 90 stores in Connecticut. Striking employees are scheduled to receive paychecks on Wednesday. Thats it, said Denise Tartaglia on the picket line outside the Whalley Avenue store. We dont get another one until we go back to work. While some stores are staying open with minimal staff, the Whalley Avenue Stop & Shop in New Haven is closed except for the Peoples United Bank. I helped bring Stop & Shop to the community because after Shaws closed we didnt have any grocery store to shop, Helen C. Powell told NBC Connecticut. Now, Powell is joining more than 31,000 employees on strike against Stop & Shop in Southern New England. Im not thinking about myself, she said, Im thinking about my coworkers and my other neighbors surrounding this area. In this New Haven neighborhood, there isnt another large supermarket nearby. A lot of my customers they dont have the means of transportation to go out to other stores that may be three miles to five miles away from here, so theres a lot of people in the community going without food right now, said Julian Harris, who works as a meat and deli clerk at the Whalley Avenue store. In other cities and towns like North Haven, shoppers dont have to go far to find an alternative to Stop & Shop. The parking Monday afternoon at the Big Y on Washington Avenue was packed compared to the many empty spots outside the Stop & Shop down the road. Check out the empty parking lot at the North Haven #StopAndShop on day five of the strike compared to outside the Big Y down the road on Washington Ave. @NBCConnecticut #NBCCT https://t.co/O2SJ47BN7Y pic.twitter.com/VkF81I7il6 Justin Schecker (@jscheckerTV) April 15, 2019 They should be parking the overflow in Stop & Shop, Tartaglia said when NBC Connecticut showed her pictures. Normally, Cathy Conklin from Hamden doesnt shop at Big Y. I do my grocery shopping at Stop & Shop in Hamden and stop and shop in North Haven, she said. But Conklin explained she refuses to cross the picket line. I dont want any of their benefits to be cut, if anything they should be getting an increase in benefits because of the increases in prices, she said. Ross Prinz is a regular Big Y customer. He said he noticed longer lines than normal on a Monday afternoon. Its normally one person but they have more people in here working so that helps, he said. At the entrance to the North Haven Stop & Shop, customers were greeted by employee Jackie Zampaglione saying with a bullhorn, do not shop today until were back inside that would be wonderful. Zampaglione said shes worked at that store for a dozen years. We do flowers, we do funerals, we do weddings, we do deli platters, we celebrate with them, we service them every day, she said, so they are supporting us which is wonderful we thank every single one of them. Zampaglione said she is willing to stay on strike as long as we have to. They are negotiating, she said. We are positive that its going in the right direction we need to do this for today and for the future kids that ready to come in this door and work. At the Whalley Avenue store, Powell said she recognizes the inconvenience of the strike for some Stop & Shop customers in her community. I feel sorry for the young mothers they need Pampers, they need formula, she said, you got to go to the corner store. NBC Connecticut reached out to Stop & Shop to see what might happen to the food in its stores during the strike. Regarding food, we are working with our regional food bank partners, as well as local food pantries, to donate as much food as possible to our neighbors in need, a Stop & Shop spokesperson replied. New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart announced she is seeking re-election on Monday. Stewart posted a video to her Facebook and Twitter pages with the announcement. "From the smallest of projects to massive developments, New Britain is investing in itself and we are growing. We are tearing down blight, rebuilding our streets and laying a foundation for a new New Britain. We're transforming our outdated schools, providing care for those who need it most and making our neighborhoods safe and vibrant. We are creating an environment where businesses can thrive and where families want to live," Stewart said in the video. Stewart also described her vision for the future of New Britain. "My vision is crystal-clear: Keep investing, keep building, keep leading, keep stepping forward," she added. Stewart said she believes a lot has been done in the six years since she began her journey to restore New Britain, but there's still more to do. "That is why today I am proud to announce that I am officially seeking re-election as your mayor. It has been my highest honor to serve as mayor for everyone in every corner of our city. Together we have accomplished so much, but there is still a lot of work to be done," she said. Stewart is holding a kick off event on Tuesday, April 23 at 5 p.m. at the New Britain VFW. The full video announcement can be found below: A road and bridge are closed after a roof partially collapsed at an abandoned mill in Pawcatuck and landed in the Pawcatuck River on Monday morning. Stonington Police and the Pawcatuck Fire Department responded to the Stillmanville Mill on Stillman Avenue in Pawcatuck after getting a report of a partial roof collapse during the storm. The mill, which is on the Connecticut-Rhode Island state line, is old and has been abandoned, according to police. It was formerly the Connecticut Castings Company, town documents show. Police said the back wall on the top two floors of the building collapsed and the roof collapsed on itself. Part of structure that collapsed landed in the Pawcatuck River, according to First Selectman Rob Simmons. The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has been contacted. Officials met Monday to discuss what to do with the building and determined a portion of the building was unsafe and needed to come down. The town applied for and was granted approval to take the building down on an emergency basis. A demolition crew is expected as early as Monday night to begin the work. Town officials said the building is continuing to collapse internally and they are concerned that more debris could fall into the river. If the structure fails, the dust cloud could present a public safety concern. While a final report is not yet complete, the fire chief believes the collapse may have been caused when the building was struck by lightning. The abandoned mill, which dates back to 1848, according to the property listing report from the Town Assessor's Office, is privately owned and has been since 2006. There is also tax lien on the building and the roof of the building has been deteriorating for some time. The town has tried to contact the owners repeatedly, but they have not gotten a response, Simmons said. The Town of Stonington offered the building on a tax sale last year, but there were no bidders, Simmons added. Stillman Avenue and the Stillman Avenue Bridge, which is between Connecticut and Rhode Island, are both closed. Police said roads could be impacted for 24 hours. Many Connecticut taxpayers saw more money in their paychecks throughout the year as a result of the changes at the federal level. Andrew Lattimer, a tax partner at BlumShapiro, which specializes in tax advisory and consulting in West Hartford, says many taxpayers only realized the difference later in the year. "I know there's a lot of people that are upset because they feel like they owe a lot of money and if they look at where their tax liability actually is, they'll see it actually might be lower, said Lattimer. Lattimer explained that the main reason was that the federal withholdings tables were changed, which led to more people having less money set aside for federal tax payments. It's just that the decreased withholdings during the year they probably had more one during the year so now it's managing that expectation of, last year I got $5,000 but this year I actually owe $500, how did that happen? So it's understanding what happened during the year and now as you're looking at 2019, you might want to adjust your withholdings so you're not stuck in the same situation." Where many Connecticut taxpayers saw a lost benefit was the capping of state and local tax deductions at $10,000. Previously, Connecticut taxpayers could deduct the local property taxes and their individual income taxes from the federal taxes. With the cap in place, that meant many would have to pay more in taxes on their homes which are often valued high, and then lead to higher tax bills. If you think about, most people who have a house in Connecticut, most people are close to that $10,000 just in property taxes alone, you know, between the car and the house alone, now your state and local income tax really gets you to that $10,000 and you're well above it, Lattimer said. He added, because you're capped at the 10, a lot of the people I saw this year actually were using the standard deduction, might mean some charities or that mortgage interest, maybe that doesn't, it becomes not deductible whereas in the past it was." Senate Democrats in Connecticut criticized the federal tax changes, arguing that wealthier residents received breaks that the middle class did not. "There's something wrong in the United States of America when Middle Class families are struggling so to meet their obligations to take care of our society and I think the transfer of wealth to the very wealthiest in our state and in our country is a huge mistake, said Sen. Julie Kushner, (D Danbury). Sen. Len Fasano, (R North Haven), responded to the Democrats press conference, saying the event was a distraction. Fasano said, Its no surprise that Connecticut Democrats want to talk about the politics of Washington D.C., which no state lawmaker on either side of the aisle has a say in or can control. A junior at the University of Connecticut has been named a Truman Scholar. Wanjiku (Wawa) Gatheru, a junior from Pomfret who is majoring in environmental studies, is one of 62 students across the country honored for their public service by the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation. She is the seventh UConn student honored and the second in as many years. It is the first time the school has had back-to-back winners in more than 30 years. Gatheru has been a student leader in numerous conservation and political activities on campus. She was a founding member of the President's Council on Race and Diversity and played a role in the successful implementation of an environmental literacy general education requirement at UConn. The honor comes with a $30,000 scholarship toward graduate school. Residents in parts of southwestern Iowa were forced out of their homes Sunday as a torrent of Missouri River water flowed over and through levees, putting them in a situation similar to hundreds of people in neighboring Nebraska who have been displaced by the late-winter flood. Heavy rainfall and snowmelt have led to dangerously high water in creeks and rivers across several Midwestern states, with the Missouri River hitting record-high levels in many areas. At least two deaths were blamed on flooding, and two other men have been missing for days. While river depths were starting to level off in parts of Nebraska on Sunday, the water is so high in many places that serious flooding is expected to remain for several days. And downstream communities in Kansas and Missouri were bracing for likely flooding. In Iowa, the Missouri River reached 30.2 feet (9.2 meters) Sunday in Fremont County in the state's far southwestern corner, 2 feet (0.6 meter) above the record set in 2011. People in the towns of Bartlett and Thurman were being evacuated as levees were breached and overtopped. County Emergency Management Director Mike Crecelius said it wasn't just the amount of the water, it was the swiftness of the current that created a danger. "This wasn't a gradual rise," Crecelius said. "It's flowing fast and it's open country there's nothing there to slow it down." Thurman has about 200 residents. About 50 people live in Bartlett. Lucinda Parker of Iowa Homeland Security & Emergency Management said nearly 2,000 people have been evacuated at eight Iowa locations since flooding began late last week. Most were staying with friends or family. Seven shelters set up for flood victims held just a couple dozen people Saturday night. In Nebraska, the Missouri River flooded Offutt Air Force Base, with about one-third of it under water on Sunday. Spokeswoman Tech. Sgt. Rachelle Blake told the Omaha World-Herald that 60 buildings, mostly on the south end of the base, have been damaged, including about 30 completely inundated with as much as 8 feet (2.4 meters) of water. Hundreds of people remained out of their homes in Nebraska, where floodwaters reached record levels at 17 locations. The Nebraska Emergency Management Agency highlighted some remarkably high crests. The Missouri River was expected to reach 41 feet (12.5 meters) in Plattsmouth on Sunday 4 feet (1.22 meters) above the record set in 2011. The Elkhorn River got to 24.6 feet (7.5 meters) Saturday in Waterloo, breaking the 1962 record by 5 1/2 feet (1.68 meters). In hard-hit Sarpy County, Nebraska, up to 500 homes have been damaged, including some cabins along a lake, said Greg London of the Sarpy County Sheriff's Office. The damage followed breaches of levees along the Platte River on Thursday and Saturday, and a Missouri River levee break on Thursday. The two rivers converge there. London said many of the damaged homes are wet up to the roof line and likely ruined. "This area's had flooding before but not of this magnitude," London said. "This is unprecedented." Nearly 300 people have been rescued from high water across the state. At least two people have died in the floodwaters. Aleido Rojas Galan, 52, of Norfolk, Nebraska, was swept away Friday night in southwestern Iowa, when the vehicle he was in went around a barricade. Two others in the vehicle survived one by clinging to a tree. On Thursday, Columbus, Nebraska, farmer James Wilke, 50, died when a bridge collapsed as he used a tractor to try and reach stranded motorists. Two men remain missing. A Norfolk man was seen on top of his flooded car late Thursday before being swept away. Water also swept away a man after a dam collapse. Downstream in St. Joseph, Missouri, home to 76,000 people, volunteers were helping to fill sandbags to help secure a levee protecting an industrial area. Calls were out for even more volunteers in hopes of filling 150,000 sandbags by Tuesday, when the Missouri River is expected to climb to 27 feet (8.2 meters) 10 feet (3 meters) above technical flood stage. Flooding was causing problems for passenger train service between Kansas City, Missouri, and St. Louis. Amtrak said Sunday that its Missouri River Runner service between the state's two largest cities was experiencing delays up to five hours because of flooding and rail congestion. All Missouri River Runner trains will be canceled Monday. The service typically travels twice daily between the two metropolitan areas. The rising Mississippi River also was creating concern. The Mississippi was already at major flood level along the Iowa-Illinois border, closing roads and highways and swamping thousands of acres of farmland. Moderate Mississippi River flooding was expected at several Missouri cities, including St. Louis. Flooding has also been reported in Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, officials said residents who evacuated their homes could return now that floodwaters have receded there. ___ AP reporter Jeff Baenen in Minneapolis contributed to this report. The mother of a toddler whose disappearance prompted the biggest criminal investigation in Maine history says she's been unable to locate the father. In a Facebook post that has gone viral, Trista Reynolds wrote that no one can find Justin DiPietro, who reported then-20-month-old Ayla Reynolds missing in 2011 in Waterville. Court documents show DiPietro's last known address was in Winnetka, California. State police have long believed the girl is dead, and a judge declared her legally dead in 2017. Reynolds has blamed DiPietro for the toddler's death. But the body has never been found and no charges have been filed. Last year, Reynolds filed a wrongful death lawsuit but she says her team is running out of time to serve DiPietro with legal papers. She asked for information about his whereabouts in her social media plea. Maine toddler Ayla Reynolds has been missing for five years, and her mother says she may have to wait even longer for answers in her daughters death. Reynolds also said she seeks to depose DiPietro's sister and his ex-girlfriend, who were with DiPietro at the time of Ayla's disappearance. Investigators say those three people have not been forthcoming and may hold the key to the case. "I hope they do kind of contradict each other [in their testimony] and someone slips," Reynolds said in 2017. "I hope somebody tells the truth." Texas Senators voted in favor of a new property tax bill Monday afternoon by an 18-13 vote. According to The Dallas Morning News, all of the Republicans, except for Kel Seliger of Amarillo, voted for the bill. There is one more vote that is needed before the legislation goes to the Texas House. The House is expected to hear it next week. Some Texas mayors, including Dallas' Mike Rawlings and Fort Worth's Betsy Price, opposed the original bill submitted Monday. That bill capped property tax growth at 2.5%, and they were concerned it would affect the delivery of city services. Monday, the Senate changed that cap to 3.5%. Under the proposal, the 3.5% cap could still be exceeded if approved by voters. The bill does not cut property taxes, but caps growth on them. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) released the following statement on the bill. A group of North Texas volunteers are spending time in storm-ravaged areas of Franklin and Alto as parts of Texas continue to clean up after several weekend tornadoes. Texas Baptist Men (TBM), an organization that lends aid to communities affected by disasters, sent a first group of volunteers over the weekend. The volunteers brought chainsaws, temporary roofs and equipment to provide hot food and electricity. TBM also provided chaplains because their mission to care for physical, emotional and spiritual needs. The group will next send a fuel trailer to affected areas to continue aid. S Band Radar & Maps | Forecast | Weather Alerts Traffic | Send Us a Photo/Video | Live Cams Thunderstorms grew throughout the evening, but did not produce the large hail that was expected. The storms are now moving east. Thursday will be cooler with a couple of morning showers possible, but nothing severe. The Easter weekend will be dry and mild. The latest video forecast from NBC DFW team of Weather Experts will appear in the player above. Keep up with the latest changes to the weather by downloading the NBC DFW smartphone App for iOS and Android! As always, make sure you stay with NBC 5 as we will be tracking the storms and keeping you informed on the air, online and through our free NBCDFW App. Inside the App, you'll have access to NBC 5's S band radar, the fastest, most accurate radar in North Texas. Charge your phones and tablets -- if you lose power during the storm you can always get up-to-the-minute live storm coverage in our App. Friends and family want help from the United States to find an American citizen living abroad who disappeared during a hike Thursday in a Baja California, Mexico desert. Kat Hammontre, 68, and her dog, Tootsie, went hiking in the desert near San Felipe with a group of about six friends but she started to have difficulty walking the trail and told her friends to go on without her. Hammontre said she would wait in the parking lot, but when the group returned, she was nowhere to be found. "When they came back about 90 minutes later, she was gone. There was no trace of her or the dog; No sign of a wild animal attack," Victoria Langsett, a friend of the missing, said. Search teams, including Mexican military helicopters have since been looking for Hammontre. Langsett hopes that someone from the U.S. has a search dog that may be able to help. "A Bloodhound right now is the only hope of finding her, shes been out there for three nights," said Langsett. "Shes somebodys mother, grandmother, shes a friend to hundreds of people." Langsett said that Hammontre and her husband lived for a time in San Diego while they were both treated for cancer before moving back to San Felipe. Langsett said for her friend to survive cancer -- only to get lost in the desert -- is unimaginable. "We're running short on time we need to give the family hope, hope has no border," said Langsett. What to Know Its Monday, April 15th and NBC 6 has the top six stories you need to know for the day. Its Monday, April 15th and NBC 6 has the top six stories you need to know for the day. No. 1 Keep that rain gear handy as the latest front to come through South Florida arrives Monday and brings with it shower chances that stick around most of the day. Keep your NBC 6 app handy to track the weather and get updates instantly on your device. No. 2 - Family members say two sisters were killed and two other people were wounded in an overnight shooting this weekend in northwest Miami-Dade. Dozens of rounds were fired during the shooting, which happened in the area of Northwest 19th Avenue and 60th Street early Sunday. Anyone with information on this incident is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS. No. 3 - A man suspected of killing three people, including a young girl in Central Florida on Friday has turned himself in to police, officials said Sunday. According to police, Ernst Cherizard, 38, turned himself into the Haines City Police Department after 2 p.m. Sunday. Cherizard fled in a burgundy 2011 Nissan Altima and a toll booth 200 miles away near Boynton Beach recorded the plate early Saturday morning. No. 4 - Two former South Florida firefighters will go on trial today for a crime against one of their superior officers. Prosecutors say the men were part of a group of Miami firefighters who wrote racially charged messages on a family picture of an African American lieutenant - including a noose on the desk. No. 5 - American and Southwest Airlines are pushing back their deadline to get Boeing 737 planes back up and running to August, which means your summer travel plans could be affected. The planes were grounded after two deadly crashes took place in a short period of time due to a suspected software issue. No. 6 - Today is Tax Day and you have until the end of the business day to get your tax documents in the mail on their way to the government. Click here for tax day freebies and deals plus tips if you need to file an extension. What to Know No one was injured and officers were eventually able to get Taylor outside and placed her under arrest. A Florida woman is behind bars after she allegedly began shooting at the home of her neighbor after an argument over the volume of music in her car. Police in Orlando told NBC affiliate WESH-TV that the neighbor approached 51-year-old Nicole Taylor early Sunday morning and asked her to turn down the music in her car because the victims children were sleeping. Taylor went into her home, according to officials, and came out with a gun and started firing shots at her neighbor before going back inside to hide. No one was injured and officers were eventually able to get Taylor outside and placed her under arrest. Taylor faces several charges from the incident, including attempted second degree murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. A 29-year-old Miami man hit 100 mph fleeing sheriff's deputies in his Ferrari early Sunday morning in the Florida Keys before being arrested, officials said. The Monroe County Sheriff's Office received a call that a Ferrari was driving recklessly down Highway 1 at a high rate of speed. When a sergeant spotted the Ferrari, the driver, identified as Gabriel Molina, speeded up from 75 to 100 mph and cut his lights, officials said in an arrest report. The sergeant found him at a gas station with a woman sitting in the passenger seat, the deputies said. Molina was taken into custody on Plantation Key, according to arrest records. He allegedly admitted speeding to officials, saying, "The car is a Ferrari and it goes fast," according to the report. He denied fleeing, but the woman in the car said that Molina did see the sheriff's cruiser's lights and sirens, officials said. She also claimed she told him to slow down. The woman wasn't arrested. It wasn't immediately clear if Molina had an attorney who could speak to the charges. He is due to be arraigned May 7. What to Know The spire has collapsed at the world-famous cathedral that dates back centuries The fire comes during the Catholic Church's Holy Week, days before Easter French President Emmanuel Macron postponed a televised speech to the nation because of the stunning blaze A massive fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris' soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below. The blaze collapsed the cathedral's spire and spread to one of its landmark rectangular towers, but Paris fire chief Jean-Claude Gallet said the church's structure had been saved after firefighters managed to stop the fire spreading to the northern belfry. The 12th-century cathedral is home to incalculable works of art and is one of the world's most famous tourist attractions, immortalized by Victor Hugo's 1831 novel "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." The exact cause of the blaze was not known, but French media quoted the Paris fire brigade as saying the fire is "potentially linked" to a 6 million-euro ($6.8 million) renovation project on the church's spire and its 250 tons of lead. The Paris prosecutors' office ruled out arson and possible terror-related motives, and said it was treating it as an accident. A hole left by the fallen spire was still burning and sparks rained down from the cathedral's vaulted ceilings more than five hours after the fire broke out. Gallet said fire crews would keep working overnight to cool down the structure. As the spire fell, the sky lit up orange and flames shot out of the roof behind the nave of the cathedral, among the most visited landmarks in the world. Hundreds of people lined up on bridges around the island that houses the church, watching in shock as acrid smoke rose in plumes. Speaking alongside junior Interior minister Laurent Nunez late Monday, Gallet noted that "two thirds of the roofing has been ravaged." He said firefighters would keep working overnight to cool down the building. Late Monday, signs pointed to the fire nearing an end as lights could be seen through the windows moving around the front of the cathedral, apparently investigators inspecting the scene. The city's mayor, Anne Hidalgo, most of the significant collection of art work and holy objects inside the church had been recovered. Remarkably, only one of the about 400 firefighters who battled the blaze was injured, officials said. The fire came less than a week before Easter amid Holy Week commemorations. As the cathedral burned, Parisians gathered to pray and sing hymns outside the church of Saint Julien Les Pauvres across the river from Notre Dame while the flames lit the sky behind them. Paris Archbishop Michel Aupetit invited priests across France to ring church bells in a call for prayers. French President Emmanuel Macron was treating the fire as a national emergency, rushing to the scene and straight into meetings at the Paris police headquarters nearby. He pledged to rebuild the church and said he would seek international help to do so. "The worst has been avoided although the battle is not yet totally won," the president said, adding that he would launch a national funding campaign on Tuesday and call on the world's "greatest talents" to help rebuild the monument. Built in the 12th and 13th centuries, Notre Dame is the most famous of the Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages as well as one of the most beloved structures in the world. Situated on the Ile de la Cite, an island in the Seine river, its architecture is famous for, among other things, its many gargoyles and its iconic flying buttresses. Among the most celebrated artworks inside are its three stained-glass rose windows, placed high up on the west, north and south faces of the cathedral. Its priceless treasures also include a Catholic relic, the crown of thorns, which is only occasionally displayed, including on Fridays during Lent. French historian Camille Pascal told BFM broadcast channel the blaze marked "the destruction of invaluable heritage." "It's been 800 years that the Cathedral watches over Paris," Pascal said. "Happy and unfortunate events for centuries have been marked by the bells of Notre Dame." He added: "We can be only horrified by what we see." Reactions from around the world came swiftly including from the Vatican, which released a statement expressing shock and sadness for the "terrible fire that has devastated the Cathedral of Notre Dame, symbol of Christianity in France and in the world." In Washington, Trump tweeted: "So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris" and suggested first responders use "flying water tankers" to put it out. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, said he was praying "to ask the intercession of Notre Dame, our Lady, for the Cathedral at the heart of Paris, and of civilization, now in flames! God preserve this splendid house of prayer, and protect those battling the blaze." Top administration officials have been discussing ways to increase pressure on countries with high numbers of citizens who overstay short-term visas, as part of President Donald Trump's growing focus on immigration heading into his re-election campaign. The administration could introduce new travel restrictions on nationals from those countries, according to two people familiar with the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose private conversations. The idea, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is just one of many under discussion by an administration that is increasingly desperate to satisfy a president who has been angry about the influx of migrants at the border as he tries to make good on his 2016 campaign promises and energize his base going into 2020. The ideas have ranged from the extreme including Trump's threat to shut down the southern border and consideration of again separating children from parents to more subtle tweaks to the legal immigration system, including efforts to clamp down on visa overstays, which, according to the nonpartisan Center for Migration Studies, exceed illegal border crossings. Plans are also in the works to have border patrol agents conduct initial interviews to determine whether migrants seeking asylum have a "credible fear" of returning to their homelands. Border patrol agents are the first officials who come into contact with migrants, and the thinking is that they'll be less sympathetic than asylum officers. And officials have been considering raising asylum standards and changing the court system so that the last people in are the first to have their cases adjudicated. Some of the ideas have been proposed, rejected and then proposed again. The administration has also been weighing targeting the remittance payments sent home by people living in the country illegally. And White House aide Stephen Miller in particular has been pushing Homeland Security officials to move forward with plans to punish immigrants in the country legally for using public benefits, such as food stamps. White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said both are topics of focus for the White House. "It is a top priority for the administration, as has been for two years, to reduce overstay rates for visas and the visa waiver program and it's well known that the administration is working to ensure faithful implementation of immigration welfare rules to protect American taxpayers," he said. At the same time, Trump suggested Monday that his threat to send migrants to so-called sanctuary cities in an apparent effort to exact revenge on Democratic foes is taking effect, even though it remains unclear whether such a plan is feasible. "Those Illegal Immigrants who can no longer be legally held (Congress must fix the laws and loopholes) will be, subject to Homeland Security, given to Sanctuary Cities and States!" Trump tweeted just days after aides insisted the plan had been shelved. Neither the White House nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to requests for comment on what, if anything, had changed Monday. And it's unclear whether Homeland Security has taken any steps to implement the contentious plan. Lawyers there had previously told the White House that the idea was unfeasible and would be a misuse of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement funds. ICE is already strapped for cash and resources, and some believe such a plan would actually end up doing the migrants a favor by placing them in locations that make it easier to for them to put down roots and stay in the country. Trump has recently gutted DHS's leadership amid frustrations over agency pushback against the White House on immigration matters. Democrats on Monday demanded that White House and agency officials turn over internal documents on the administration's deliberations over the sanctuary city plan. "Not only does the administration lack the legal authority to transfer detainees in this manner, it is shocking that the president and senior administration officials are even considering manipulating release decisions for purely political reasons," read a letter signed by three House committee chairmen. Trump, meanwhile, has insisted he has "the absolute legal right to have apprehended illegal immigrants transferred to Sanctuary Cities." He continued to rail about the situation at the border during an appearance in Minnesota on Monday and made the case that the issue could be a winning one for Republicans in 2020, telling the crowd that the GOP could "retake the House" over this issue. Many moderate Republicans urged Trump to avoid harsh immigration talk in the lead-up to the 2018 midterm elections, warning that it could hurt the party's chances, especially in the suburbs. The Republicans wound up losing the House. U.S. officials say a flood of migrant families, largely from Central America, is overwhelming the southwestern border. The U.S. Border Patrol said the 53,000 families apprehended in March set a record, though Democrats say the administration is worsening the problem by aggressively detaining people caught entering illegally and limiting the number of applicants for refugee status who are processed. Associated Press writer Alan Fram contributed to this report. Ardently liberal, pro-labor and anti-corporate cash, the field of Democrats running for president may look like a union activist's dream. But some key labor leaders are starting to worry about the topics dominating the 2020 conversation. The candidates are spending too much time talking about esoteric issues like the Senate filibuster and the composition of the Supreme Court and not enough time speaking the language of workers, several union officials said. Those ideas may excite progressive activists, they said, but they risk alienating working-class voters. "They've got to pay attention to kitchen table economics," said Ted Pappageorge, president of the Las Vegas Culinary Union that represents 60,000 hotel and casino workers. "We don't quite see that." Terry McGowan, president of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 139, in Wisconsin, said many of the issues driving the 2020 primary so far are distractions. "The people that are into politics, the people who like sideshows, they're into that," he said, citing the debates over reparations for slavery and immigration as examples. "The masses just want to feed their families." The unease may be an early warning sign for Democrats, who watched as many white, working-class voters, including many union members in key Rust Belt states, chose Trump three years ago. Democrats are hoping to win back some of those voters next year, a challenge that is made harder, some argue, by labor's struggle to build its membership and influence its rank and file. Democrats' early messages may not help, some said. "You see where some of the party's being driven. It's no secret," said Rusty McAllister, executive secretary of the Nevada AFL-CIO. McAllister pointed to "Medicare for all" the health care proposal of choice for several candidates as an example of Democrats' not seizing on labor's top priorities. Many unions already organized and fought for private health insurance for their members. "That's not something that I think that labor is as much focused on as some of the progressives are," McAllister said. Such concerns which stretched from the progressive-minded organizing halls of Nevada to the Rust Belt precincts were typically focused on the conversation, not the candidates. The early 2020 primary has included detours into debates over the Senate filibuster, the composition of the Supreme Court and breaking up technology companies. Ken Broadbent, business manager of the Pittsburgh-based Steamfitters Local 449, worried that Democrats are too focused on environmental plans like the Green New Deal, a blueprint for shifting the U.S. economy away from fossil fuels, and will neglect the importance of swing state Pennsylvania's rich natural gas deposits in creating jobs. "Jobs is where we've got to keep things focused," Broadbent said. To be sure, many unionists are excited about the presidential field. Contenders include liberal stalwarts like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose campaign became the first in U.S. history with a unionized workforce, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who joined striking Stop & Shop workers on a picket line in New Hampshire on Friday. California Sen. Kamala Harris hired a top Service Employees International Union executive for her campaign and made her first proposal one to raise teacher's pay. Former Vice President Joe Biden made clear that he plans to appeal to union workers, if he gets in the race. "You are coming back," he told the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers last week. "We need you back." Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said the competition in the crowded field has amplified workers voices and issues. She noted that prominent presidential candidates quickly supported Los Angeles public school teachers when they struck in January. Warren, Sanders, Harris and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker have all proposed various taxes on higher-earning families, a departure from most past Democratic hopefuls who have treaded carefully on the issue. "It feels different than at other times," Weingarten said. "There is far more attention and focus on working people's economic needs." Major endorsements are likely several months away, especially because the labor movement is treading carefully after complaints that its leadership was too quick to back Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary over Sanders. For labor, much is at stake. Despite Republican gains, particularly with trade union members, labor remains an essential part of the Democrats' coalition. Unions spent $169 million in 2018 on federal elections, largely on Democrats' behalf, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Democrats won union workers by a strong 59%-39% margin in 2018, according to AP VoteCast, a national survey of the electorate. But other big donors and small, online ones, too increasingly compete with labor's organizing muscle as key to Democratic victories. Activists on a broad array of issues, from gay rights to criminal justice, compete with unions for candidates' attention. And the labor movement itself is split on its priorities, with some pushing for a focus on trade while other who represent more diverse workforces want to zoom in on immigration. All this comes as Republicans have pushed several state laws weakening organized labor. And, last year, the Supreme Court ruled that government workers can't be forced to contribute to the unions that represent them in collective bargaining, dealing a blow to public service union's pocketbooks. As candidates court unions for endorsements, labor leaders say they are listening for a comeback plan. Any proposal aimed at workers "must include ensuring the opportunity to join a union, no matter where you work, since that's the best way to raise wages, improve working conditions, create family-sustaining jobs and begin to fix our rigged economy and democracy," said SEIU president Mary Kay Henry. At a conference of North America's Building Trades Unions in Washington on Wednesday, several Democratic contenders talked about outlawing so-called "right to work" laws that prevent unions from automatically deducting dues from members, said the group's president, Sean McGarvey. But, he added, he heard "very little about the actual structural changes to the National Labor Relations Act, or things they could put in place to give people a real free choice to join a union." What to Know Environmental groups are opposing a New Hampshire-based company's proposal to create an incinerator ash dump at a Hudson Valley quarry Portsmouth-based Wheelabrator Technologies wants to operate an ash dump in the Greene County town of Catskill, 35 miles south of Albany Environmentalists say about 450,000 tons of ash would be trucked from three company-owned incinerators in New York Environmental groups are mounting opposition to a New Hampshire-based company's proposal to create an incinerator ash dump at a Hudson Valley quarry. Portsmouth-based Wheelabrator Technologies wants to operate an ash dump in the Greene County town of Catskill, 35 miles (56 kilometers) south of Albany. The company is applying for the required permits from the New York state Department of Environmental Conservation. Environmentalists say about 450,000 tons of ash would be trucked from three company-owned incinerators in New York to a defunct quarry located less than a half-mile from the Hudson River. A new coalition of environmental and community groups held a news conference in Albany on Monday to call on Catskill's elected officials to reject the ash dump proposal. Company officials say the dump won't hurt the environment. A man was robbed of his Rolex watch while he slept at a midtown Manhattan hotel, police said. Police are looking for a woman in connection to the robbery. She was in the room when he fell asleep, police said. The 60-year-old man fell asleep early on April 7, then woke up nine hours later to discover his watch was missing from his wrist and several transactions were charged through his phone totaling $2,000, the NYPD said. The woman is described as about 25 years old with long brown hair and a tattoo on her neck that says "Truth." She was last seen wearing a red halter top and acid-washed blue jeans. The battle between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the American government was always going to be epic, involving concepts like free speech, journalists' rights, national interests, even treason. As Assange settles in to his first night in British custody , his allies and enemies alike are gearing up for what promises to be a long, dogged legal slog, not only over his possible extradition to the U.S. but over how U.S. courts should view his actions, which sharply cleave public opinion. Yet in a way, Assange has been fighting this battle for much of the past decade. The struggle has taken him through a "mansion arrest" in the English countryside; a dramatic escape into the Ecuadorian Embassy in London; a multimillion-pound U.K. police siege of the embassy that has strained government coffers; and even a bizarre attempt to turn him into a Moscow-based diplomat. Whatever happens now, one thing is clear: Assange, who was dragged out of the embassy and arrested Thursday by British police after Ecuador withdrew his political asylum, is not going anywhere soon. Extradition to the United States could take years more. Assange's saga kicked off in November 2010, when his publication of 250,000 confidential U.S. diplomatic cables that month left American officialdom apoplectic. Joe Biden, then-U.S. vice president, compared Assange to a "high-tech terrorist." Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice presidential candidate, called for him to be hunted down by U.S. troops like an al-Qaida operative. Tempers at the top eventually cooled Palin would later apologize to Assange after he began publishing material about U.S. Democrats. As a candidate, President Donald Trump startled many Americans by repeatedly praising WikiLeaks. But in the U.S. intelligence community, the rage against Assange lingered. On the sidelines of a conference a few years ago, a former senior National Security Agency official told an Associated Press journalist that all he wanted was a couple of minutes alone with Assange in a dark alley, grasping his hands together as if he were crushing a man's windpipe. Assange seemed to sense that the release of the diplomatic cables, which also enraged and embarrassed other countries around the world, were the point of no return. It's often forgotten that Assange once traveled easily to the United States, appearing at the National Press Club in Washington on April 2010 to present "Collateral Murder," the title he chose for the camera footage that captured American helicopter pilots laughing as they fired at a crowd of civilians they mistook for Iraqi insurgents. Shortly after his visit, his source for the video an American Army intelligence analyst now named Chelsea Manning would be arrested after an ill-advised online confession. Assange dropped out of sight, likely aware that the government now had spools of conversations between him and Manning, including the one that now forms the centerpiece of the Justice Department's newly unveiled indictment against Assange for conspiracy to hack into a U.S. government computer. For a while, Assange gravitated to the Frontline Club in London, the convivial journalists' hangout where he dropped one media bombshell after another in collaboration with the Guardian newspaper and other media outlets. But staying in Britain, a close ally of the United States, was risky. In a fateful move, Assange decided to scope out Sweden, a country with powerful press protections and where he had already located some of WikiLeaks' servers. The expedition would prove to be a disaster. Two women he stayed with there would soon go to the police with allegations of sexual assault and rape. The prosecution nearly tore WikiLeaks apart and threated the upcoming publication the U.S. diplomatic cables. With Sweden out of the question and "Cablegate" sure to enrage the Americans further, Assange looked to Moscow. A document published by the AP last year showed he considered the idea of getting a Russian visa through his friend and sometimes WikiLeaks collaborator, Israel Shamir. Assange would eventually get the visa, Shamir said later, but it came several weeks too late. Sweden had already applied for an Interpol Red Notice, something akin to an international arrest warrant, making travel all but impossible. That left Assange little choice but to turn himself in on Dec. 7, 2010, to British authorities. Things only got more surreal from there. Assange was granted bail at the country mansion of Frontline's founder, Vaughan Smith, receiving a stream of well-heeled and rebellious visitors in rural Norfolk while his London legal battle against extradition went all the way to Britain's Supreme Court. When that court finally turned him down, Assange dyed his hair, popped in colored contacts and skipped bail, fleeing to the Ecuadorian Embassy. From there, he carried on as before, albeit in a more constricted space. When the AP visited him in 2012, he occupied a back room in the embassy scattered with laptops, some marked "Do not connect to the internet." When discussing an upcoming leak, Assange took a reporter into the corridor between his office and the bathroom, speaking in a whisper in a bid to baffle the high-tech surveillance thought to be deployed against him. The embassy stalemate dragged on for years, costing the British government millions in policing costs. But it didn't stop Assange from publishing new material, notably in 2016, when his disclosure of U.S. Democratic Party documents stolen by Russian hackers hurt Hillary Clinton's presidential election campaign. But if Assange had hoped for leniency from America's new president, he would soon be disappointed. Twitter messages between WikiLeaks and Trump's eldest son, Donald Jr., showed the group lobbying him to get his father to suggest that Australia appoint its native son Assange to be its ambassador to the U.S. Instead, the Trump administration promoted him to public enemy; in a 2017 speech, then-CIA director Mike Pompeo described WikiLeaks as a "hostile non-state intelligence agency." Meanwhile, Assange wasn't getting much more satisfaction from his Latin American host, which was increasingly embarrassed by its houseguest's publications. The government of Ecuador tried all kinds of creative solutions to break the embassy impasse, including an abortive attempt to send Assange to Russia under diplomatic cover. When it became clear that the WikiLeaks founder wasn't leaving and that he wouldn't curb his publications to suit Ecuador's diplomatic interests the government looked for a way to wash its hands of him. Tensions had been building for more than a year, but the Thursday morning raid in London was still a surprise. WikiLeaks had issued one of its periodic warnings that Assange was at risk, but at a Wednesday press conference, his longtime lieutenant, Kristinn Hrafnsson, told journalists that Assange's eviction from the embassy had been averted. It's not clear what comes next, but it will almost certainly be complicated. The interactions quoted in the U.S. indictment are nothing new Assange's instant message exchange with Manning has been in the public domain ever since the latter's court-martial so Assange's high-powered legal team has had years to prepare their arguments. And Britain has generally tended to favor accused hackers fighting extradition to America. Lauri Love, a friend of Assange's who was accused of penetrating U.S. government networks, was last year spared extradition after Britain's high court ruled in his favor. British hacker Gary McKinnon, accused of breaking into U.S. military and space networks, won his fight against extradition in 2012 after a decade-long struggle. Assange's fight may not take a decade, but he's unlikely to see the inside of a U.S. courtroom anytime soon. What to Know During a storm Monday morning, many Philadelphians woke up to an emergency alarm and warning message on their phones. The message is called a Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) and people are automatically opted into the alerts by their wireless carrier. Alerts are sent during child-abductions, extreme weather events and national emergencies. Many living across the greater Philadelphia region woke up to a blaring alarm and warning message on their phone as strong winds and rain hit early Monday morning. It was a warning to the threat of tornadoes for some parts of the area issued by the National Weather Service at 3:20 a.m. (That threat proved real as a strong tornado did strike a town in southern Delaware.) Immediately after, thousands of people woke up to an emergency alert on their wireless devices warning to stay in place and take cover from possible tornadoes. If you got the message, you received a Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA). More than 100 wireless carriers participate in the Federal Emergency Management Agencys program -- including the largest carriers like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile. Your cell-provider automatically opts their users into the alerts, but you are able to opt out in your phone's settings. WEAs are less than 90 characters and although they look like text messages, they are not. They are authorized through federal, state and local governments and sent through your wireless carrier. The alerts have a special tone and vibration that are both repeated twice its intended to get your attention even if youre asleep. Your device will not receive an alert if it is not powered on. The warnings are sent to you based on your current location. Alerts are also sent during child-abductions, extreme weather events and national emergencies. Youve probably received emergency alerts during flash floods, AMBER alerts and even the Presidential Alert that was sent last October. You will never be charged for WEAs and they do not count towards texting limits on your wireless plan. You can opt out of WEAs for imminent threats and AMBER alerts in your phone settings. However, the WARN Act, passed by Congress in 2006, prohibits users from opting out of receiving Presidential messages. More information on WEAs can be found here. You can also sign up for local emergency alert systems like the Philadelphia Office of Emergency Managements (OEM) ReadyPhiladelphia program. "ReadyPhiladelphia is a completely opt in program, you wouldn't get an alert unless you signed up for one," said Jeffrey Kolakowski, a spokesperson from Phialdelphia's OEM. ReadyPhiladelphia lets you opt into emergency weather alerts, SEPTA transit alerts, police alerts, event alerts and more. "People got alerts from ReadyPhiladelphia during the Eagles Parade last year," Kolakowski said. You can choose which ReadyPhiladelphia alerts to opt into here. NBC10 also reached out to AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile for statements on the Wireless Emergency Alert system. None of the four major providers responded to requests for information about their roles in administering emergency alerts. Court documents reveal federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in late 2017, NBC News reports, more than two months earlier than the indictment disclosed when he was arrested last week. Assange was taken into custody April 11 after spending more than six years under the protection of Ecuador's embassy in London. A federal indictment unsealed after his arrest accused him of trying to help a U.S. Army private crack an encrypted password to hack into a Pentagon computer and steal classified documents. But charges for the same offense were actually filed in secret on December 21, 2017, in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. The 26-page affidavit accompanying the charges listed what it said were hundreds of online exchanges between Assange and Chelsea Manning, the former Army private who provided hundreds of thousands of government documents to WikiLeaks, many of them classified. Despite filing the criminal charges, the Justice Department sought a grand jury indictment only a few months later in order to make a stronger case for extradition in the event Assange was arrested, an administration official said Monday. Wild weather walloped Philadelphia early Monday morning -- and its lingering effects may have messed with your trip to work. A line of strong early-morning storms swept through Philadelphia and the suburbs close to 4 a.m., leaving power outages, building damage and flood threats in their wake. During the height of the storm, the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for most of the area. All tornado warnings and watches and an NBC10 First Alert have since expired. The storms also brought hail and hundreds of lightning strikes. Thousands electric customers lost power, particularly in West Philly and Delaware County, PECO reported. Thousands of other customers served by other providers also lost power. Severe Storms Leave Damage in Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey In Delaware, rescue crews said they responded to multiple reports of damage in western Sussex County. Debris could be seen strewn across some neighborhoods in Laurel and Seaford and a snack warehouse in Laurel had its roof torn off. Federal investigators would determine if a tornado touched down there. A line of disaster is left in Laurel, Delaware, by strong storms overnight. National Weather Service investigators will need to determine if a tornado touched down or if straight-line winds tore off roofs and left debris across fields. The storm ripped the roof off two buildings at the All American Garden Apartments along South 8th Street in Camden, New Jersey. Firefighters say that no one was hurt but 27 residents were forced from their homes. There were early reports of some damage, including a tree down on a house in Robeson Township, Berks County and tree on cars along Mole Street in South Philly. More than two dozen residents of two buildings at the All American Gardens Apartments in Camden were forced out of their homes early Monday as a severe storm ripped off part of the roofs, leaving debris scattered around. SEPTA said the weather contributed to signal suspensions and delays on the Broad Street Line and the Norristown High Speed Line. Service on the High Speed Line was suspended for a time, then resumed, with some residual changes, service around 6 a.m. Local service on the Broad Street Line subway resumed at 7 a.m. with trains every 10 minutes. By 9 a.m. Express service had resumed and the Ridge Spur was operating every 10-12 minutes. In Bucks County, Route 113 was closed between Route 309 and Bethlehem Pike due to water flooding the road. A stretch of the Martin Luther King Drive in Philly was closed due to flooding. More than two dozen residents of two buildings at the All American Gardens Apartments in Camden were forced out of their homes early Monday as a severe storm ripped off part of the roofs, leaving debris scattered around. The storm moved quickly through the Philadelphia area. The most severe line was over coastal Jersey by 5 a.m. More flooding remained possible in the wake of the storm, possibly messing with other routes during the Monday morning commute, NBC10 First Alert Meteorologist Bill Henley reported. There are flood warnings along some rivers and creeks in Pennsylvania and New Jersey until around 8 a.m. The weather should start drying out by 8 a.m. From there, temperatures will drop from the upper 60s to the mid-50s by the afternoon. A wall of rain over Center City Philadelphia is illuminated by lightning early Monday 4.15.19 pic.twitter.com/5ku0GLRlXR Joe Kaczmarek (@joekaczmarek) April 15, 2019 Safety Tips: As a young child growing up in Ohio, Dan Hoy spent hours and hours watching and memorizing the 1998 recording of "CATS" on London's West End. He knew the choreography by heart. He knew all of Andrew Lloyd Webber's iconic music. The Webber musical, based on "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" by T. S. Eliot, tells the story of a feline tribe on the night of their Jellicle Ball. So when Hoy got the audition for the "CATS" National Tour several months out of college, he had mixed feelings. "It was interesting because part of me was saying, 'I love this show since childhood, this would be such a cool, full-circle moment,'" Hoy explained in a phone interview with NBC 7 San Diego. "But at the same time, I had dozens of auditions the first few months I was there. I didn't want to get too excited." Several auditions and several callbacks passed and then Hoy didn't hear anything for over a month. Hoy assumed he should move on, he told NBC 7. Then, he got the phone call. "The world stopped for a moment, the second that they had said I booked 'CATS' and I was playing Munkustrap," Hoy recalled. "It was such an amazing moment filled with gratitude, excitement at how the universe set up this really amazing, full-circle moment," Hoy added. "One of the first shows that I ever loved was going to be one of the first major contracts that I did." This revival feels updated in a number of ways, Hoy said, especially when it comes to the choreography. "Hamilton" and "Bandstand" Choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler combined the iconic, original choreography by Gillian Barbara Lynne and blended them with his own new work. "It feels like you're getting a new, refreshed version of CATS that has everything you knew and loved but has now been filtered through a 2019 lens to bring it to a new audience," Hoy said. The choreography makes it one of the most physically challenging shows Hoy has ever done. Most cast members are on stage for nearly the entire two and a half hour show. It took weeks for the cast to build up their stamina, especially on days they have two shows back-to-back. "We all have to be careful about making sure we take care of our bodies," Hoy said. "That we're eating healthy, that we're resting well so that we're able to bring 100 percent to every audience at every performance." And then there's the elaborate make-up that transforms every actor into a Jellicle Cat. "People actually make fun of me because I'm still one of the people that takes forever to do the makeup," Hoy said with a chuckle. Hoy comes to the theater two hours before curtain to start the process of becoming a cat. It takes the actor about one hour and 45 minutes to put one make-up (most actors in the show generally take an hour) and a few minutes to slip into the leotard costume, the only costume he wears during the whole musical. Even still, it's a dream come true for the recent college graduate. Hoy said if he could go back in time and tell his younger self that he would one day star in the musical he loved so much, his younger self wouldn't believe him. "If I could go back in time and be like, 'Hey, you're going to do this one day,' I think he'd say, 'alright, we'll see, calm down, calm down,'" Hoy said. One of the most rewarding parts of the show is coming out the stage door every night after the show and meeting the fans - especially the younger fans. "There's certainly a wide-eyed wonderment with this show. The dancing, the costumes, the lights, the effects, the music, it really was a show that, as a kid, captured my imagination," Hoy said. "It's really cool now getting to go out, to do stage door at the end of the night, or sometimes when you're out doing photos, seeing these kids with that same wide-eyed wonderment that I know I had as a kid," Hoy added. The musical, which won seven Tony Awards in 1983, including Best Musical, may seem convoluted and obscure to some, Hoy said, but it tells an important story about inclusion, redemption and the power of listening. "[Remember] that everyone has a story and sometimes sitting back and listening is the best thing that you can do to understand their perspective and where theyre coming from," Hoy said. "Often, youll find that there were things you never knew that lead to your intolerance and your hatred," Hoy said. "And thats the only way you can move forward." "CATS" runs at the San Diego Civic Theatre from April 16 to April 21. You can buy tickets here. California lawmakers are considering a new law that would expand a tuition program to help thousands of community college students graduate without debt. The California College Promise (CCP), signed into law in 2017 by then-California Gov. Jerry Brown, waives first-year tuition fees for eligible full-time community college students. But a new bill, Assemby Bill 2, could expand the program to waive fees for two academic years, potentially saving full-time students about $1,350 dollars in tuition and fees a year. The proposed legislation will add $160 million into the state's community college districts to help fund the second year of free tuition, based on the number of students who would have been eligible to receive the subsidy during the 2017-2018 year. AB 2 also expands the pool of students who are eligible for free tuition. Previously, the fee waiver was only available to first-time students. Under the new bill, anyone who doesn't already have a degree would be eligible. San Diego County has nine community colleges. All of them have some form of the CCP. In 2018, Mira Costa College used its funding from CCP to cover tuition for about 500 low-income students. Stephanie Rivera was one of those students. "I grew up in Encinitas and being lower income, I didn't have any SAT prep or I couldn't stay after school because I had to help my mother with another job," said Rivera. She attends Mira Costa College's Encinitas campus and plans on becoming a doctor. "It definitely did level the playing field for me because I didn't have to worry about textbook costs. I didn't have to worry about food rationing. I didn't have to worry about holding a 9-to-5 job," explained Rivera. What colleges want students to walk away with instead is preparation for advanced education and training for the many middle-skilled jobs in fields such as automotive, accounting and child care, which are in constant need of qualified workers. "We know that's a barrier for students even looking at higher education," said Kristen Huyck, Director of Public and Governmental Relations at Mira Costa College. "They don't even want to start college because of the debt that they know that they could walk away with." Assembly Bill 2 would have to pass the state Senate and state Assembly and be signed by the governor before it can be enacted. Some lanes of Interstate 5 near the San Ysidro Port of Entry were closed overnight Monday, though the border crossing was not affected. Southbound lanes of I-5 from SR-905 to the U.S.-Mexico border were expected to be closed through 7 a.m. Monday, the city of San Diego said. Instead, traffic will be re routed along eastbound SR-905 and southbound I-805 before rejoining southbound I-5 to the port of entry. Northbound I-5 will not be affected and the San Ysidro POE would remain open, the city said. The closure was planned to add the finishing touches to an expansion project near the border. Once the lanes reopen Monday morning, there will be additional lanes and inspection booths. No other information was available. Federal lawmakers said they'll approve badly needed funding for Washington's transit system, but only if it avoids buying new rail cars from China. The Washington Post reported Saturday U.S. Senators from Virginia and Maryland proposed the idea in new legislation. It reflects growing concerns that China's state-owned rail company could hurt American manufacturers and make the system vulnerable to cyberespionage. Dave Smolensky, spokesman for the China Railway Rolling Stock Corp, dismissed the espionage concerns. The company also said the U.S. should be promoting competition. The company has won four major U.S. rail car contracts. It is pursuing a Metro contract worth more than $1 billion to build up to 800 of the new rail cars. There are no U.S. transit rail car manufacturers. The bidding deadline is May 31. The White House was looking to shake things up when it designated Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization. It worked, NBC News reports. American terrorists killed in bombing, read a headline in Irans official Fars news agency, referring to an attack in Afghanistan that killed three U.S. servicemen. Iranian lawmakers dressed in military uniforms chanted "Death to America" during an open session of Parliament on Tuesday. And according to the countrys Mehr news agency, Parliament passed an emergency bill requesting that countries that arrest U.S troops should hand them over to Iran to face trial as terrorists. Richard Nephew, a former director for Iran at the National Security Council who served as a member of the team who negotiated the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement from which President Donald Trump has since withdrawn said Trump's decision to designate the Guard as terrorists would most likely make American operations in the region much more complicated. Trump called the designation an unprecedented step that recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft. The world reacted with shock and prayers to the massive fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, united in grief and in solidarity with the people of France. As the flames tore through the 12th-century cathedral, Spain's prime minister offered France the help of his country in the recovery. The fire is a "catastrophe for France, for Spain and for Europe," Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez tweeted Monday, adding that the flames are destroying "850 years of history, architecture, painting and sculpture." French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters near the scene that he will seek international help, including from the "greatest talents" in the world, to rebuild Notre Dame. President Donald Trump, speaking at an appearance in Minnesota, spoke of the "terrible, terrible fire" that devastated "one of the great treasures of the world." "It's a part of our growing up, it's a part of our culture, it's a part of our lives," Trump said of the landmark. The Notre Dame Cathedral, situated on an island in the Seine River in the heart of Paris, is one of the world's most visited tourist destinations, drawing some 13 million people each year. The fire's emotional impact was widely felt. People from all over described in Facebook posts how they cried when they heard about the fire. Nicolas Marang, 47, has lived in Paris for more than 25 years and told NBC News he was running along the Seine River when he saw the smoke, which looked like a "dark smog," coming from the Notre Dame. "Something just collapsed inside me. [It was] one of the worst things I've ever seen," Marang said. Former President Barack Obama posted an old photo of himself, his wife Michelle and their two daughters lighting candles in the cathedral. "Notre Dame is one of the world's great treasures, and we're thinking of the people of France in your time of grief," Obama said on Twitter. Michelle Obama, who was in Paris on Monday on a book tour, said "my heart aches with the people of France." "The majesty of Notre Dame - the history, artistry, and spirituality - took our breath away, lifting us to a higher understanding of who we are and who we can be," she tweeted. She predicted the cathedral would rise again. Japan's government early Tuesday expressed sympathy and said it would consider sending support to the French government. "Its damage is a loss to the world and our hearts ache," said Yoshihide Suga, the chief cabinet secretary. The Vatican said Pope Francis "has seen with shock and sadness the news of the terrible fire." As the flames spread, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, prayed at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan for intercession. "God preserve this splendid house of prayer, and protect those battling the blaze," Dolan said in a statement. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said many works of art and holy objects inside the church had been saved, but the art world was distressed about what might have been lost. Barbara Drake Boehm, senior curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's medieval Cloisters branch in New York, was desolate about damage to the cathedral, which she called "one of the great monuments to the best of civilization." "Civilization is just so fragile," Boehm told a reporter in a trembling voice. "This great hulking monument of stone has been there since 1163. It's come through so many trials." Jeff Ament, bass player for Pearl Jam, remembered spending hours at the cathedral in his first visit, in 1991, with record executive Michael Goldstone. "Thinking about Paris," Ament tweeted, with photos of the cathedral. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres tweeted that he's "horrified," calling the cathedral "a unique example of world heritage." In Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church's secretary for inter-Christian relations Hieromonk Stefan called the fire "a tragedy for the entire Christian world and for all who appreciate the cultural significance of this temple," the state news agency RIA-Novosti reported: On Twitter, Trump suggested using planes to drop water on the flames. France's Civil Security agency said that wasn't feasible. "All means are being used, except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral," the agency tweeted. Associated Press reporters Jocelyn Noveck, Kiley Armstrong, Jim Heintz, Edith M. Lederer and Samuel Petrequin contributed to this report. Sen. Bernie Sanders released his long-awaited tax returns Monday as he continued his campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Monday is April 15, which means Tax Day for everyone but those in Massachusetts. Several presidential candidates, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have released their returns and called on President Donald Trump to do the same. Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont and a front-runner for the Democratic nomination, disclosed 10 years of tax returns on Tax Day after promising to do so for a month. The senator's 2018 return reveals that he and his wife earned more than $550,000, including $133,000 from his Senate salary and $391,000 from sales of his book, "Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In." The previous year, they took in more than $1.3 million, mostly from book royalties and sales. Asked about his economic status by the New York Times last week, Sanders said, "I wrote a best-selling book. If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too." Sanders owns a home in Burlington, and he bought a $575,000 lake home in North Hero in 2016. The senator hopes the release of his tax returns will encourage President Trump to do the same, but based on the comments of National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, that's not happening. "The president is not releasing his tax forms today," Kudlow said. "It is under audit. He's submitted hundreds of pages. You know the arguments ... This administration has no intention to weaponize the IRS." Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, has followed up on his request for the president to release his tax returns by April 23. All of this is expected to kick off a legal battle that will test the 1920s era tax statute that allows Congress to ask for anyone's personal tax returns a battle that is expected to land in the courts. A 21-year-old Maine Marine was reportedly killed by another Marine on Friday night. WCSH reports Tyler Wallingford of Standish was fatally shot at approximately 9:30 p.m. at the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina. Wallingford belonged to Marine Aircraft Group 31 and was shot on the base, according to WCSH. The other Marine accused of shooting the 21-year-old is reportedly in custody. The investigation is ongoing. Ken and Nancy LeClair of Taunton, Massachusetts, had just finished a tour of Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral on Monday and were sitting in a cafe a short distance away when they saw the smoke. "My first thing was, 'It's not on fire, Nancy, it's just a little bit of smoke,'" Ken LeClair said. "It was just like a cloud of smoke, then it started to pick up, it just kept getting worse. Then you realize this is something serious, something's going on." The vacationing couple had just arrived in Paris on Monday afternoon and were among the last people to tour the famed cathedral before it went up in flames. "It's such a beautiful building, inside and out," Ken LeClair said. "To have literally just walked out of it, then to see it now, it's just a terrible tragedy for sure." Video from the scene showed flames engulfing the spire and part of the roof, all of which were encased by scaffolding. The fire eventually spread to one of the cathedral's iconic towers. Hours after the fire started, the Paris police chief said the structure of the cathedral had been saved. Ken LeClair spoke to NBC10 Boston on Monday from his hotel room about a mile and a half away from the beloved building, describing the reaction from French citizens as they watched the iconic spire falling. "It was sad for everybody that was watching it, it was disbelief," he said. "The French people were immediately stricken, saddened. There were a lot of tears." LeClair said some were even singing hymns as the fire continued to rage. "It was quite an emotional crowd," he said. "Totally, totally emotional. For me, as well." The cause of the blaze was not known, but French media quoted the Paris fire brigade as saying the fire is "potentially linked" to a major renovation project on the church's spire and its 250 tons of lead. Paris police said there were no reported deaths. Hours after the storied Paris cathedral burned, a handful of people had gathered at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston's South End, where a prayer table had been set up near the altar. "It was on my mind a littlle bit this evening," said Mary Beezhold, who's visiting from Seatle. "It kind of reminded me of the brevity of life. Even these amazing, historical things that we make they can be lost quickly." The centuries-old cathedral in the heart of Paris is a religious and architectural icon. According to its website, the spire, constructed in the mid-19th century, contained a part of Jesus' crown of thorns as well as two other relics, from saints Denis and Genevieve. "I think we probably didn't know how attached we were to it until it was up in flames," said Thomas Groome, a Boston College theology professor. "In a sense, it had won the hearts of the world because the beauty of it and the elegance of it just touched everybody's lives." Notre Dame announced in 2017 that it was raising funds to restore parts of the church, including the 100-meter spire, the framework for the stained-glass windows and the 12 apostles and other statues on the building. The world-famous cathedral draws about 50,000 tourists each day in the summers, according to its website. Notre Dame dates to 1163, when the foundation stone was laid. The facade was started in 1200 and the first spire was built around 1250. The structure was damaged and deteriorated through the centuries, but was rescued from possible destruction by Napoleon, and it underwent a major restoration in the mid-19th century. NBC's Asher Klein and Cathy Rainone and The Associated Press contributed to this report. Police in Massachusetts are reportedly investigating a quadruple stabbing that happened after a brawl broke out early Monday at a bar. WWLP reports the stabbing happened outside of Le Souk bar after an altercation spilled out of the bar and onto the street. Springfield police reportedly said there were multiple fights that led to four people being stabbed. Four people were arrested in connection to the fight and charged with disorderly conduct and affray. The victims are expected to recover and they are not cooperating with police, according to WWLP. Officials did not release the names of those involved in the stabbing nor did they say where the victims were stabbed. The investigation is ongoing. Rhode Island's Attorney General has ruled the operators of a federal immigration detention facility in Central Falls violated the state's open meeting laws in approving a $1.5 million loan at an emergency meeting. The Providence Journal reports Attorney General Peter Neronha's office determined Friday that the Central Falls Detention Facility Corporation's reason for the January emergency vote did not constitute an "unforeseen circumstance." The corporation's board had said the loan was needed shore up finances for the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility during the partial federal government shutdown. The city filed an Open Meetings Act complaint with Neronha's office in response. The corporation declined to comment. Central Falls City Solicitor Matthew Jerzyk said the city hopes the January vote is rendered null and void. U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, of Massachusetts, joined striking Stop & Shop workers in Quincy on Monday, in a show of solidarity. Thirty-one thousand workers from more than 200 stores in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island have been on strike since April 11 over "unreasonable" wage and benefit cuts, something the grocery chain denies. "Their strike is a strike for pensions for health care, for their wages. They have to be protected," said Markey. The senator is the latest politician to show his support. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren joined the striking workers on the picket line at the Stop & Shop on McGrath Highway in Somerville on Friday morning. "The fight that they're fighting, the support that they're getting, is something that just sets a standard for a country where prosperity is what we are enjoying right now," said Markey. "A company that is enjoying profits, cannot then turn to its workers and say, 'we're going to be cutting the benefits, cutting the opportunities which were given to these workers.'" Company officials maintain their wages, pensions and benefits are competitive. The United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) disagrees, which has resulted in the current impasse. On the picket line outside the Halifax, Massachusetts store Monday, workers there said they are staying put, despite what they could stand to lose. "What they're putting out there about what we're asking for is wrong," said Dan Deveau who has worked for Stop & Shop for 14 years. "The telling half-truths." Some say they are now worried about automation and losing their jobs to Marty, a robot that Stop & Shop uses to detect spills in the aisles. "They have bigger plans for it obviously. It's going to be able to maybe do some inventory preparation," said Cathy Gray who has worked for the company for 32 years. At the Halifax store, only the pharmacy and bank are open, forcing customers to shop elsewhere the week before Easter. "They're losing people. And they'll be lucky to get some of them back after it," said Deveau. "They're really gambling here." President Donald Trump proposed a record $4.7 trillion federal budget for 2020 on Monday, relying on optimistic 3.1 percent economic growth projections alongside accounting shuffles and steep domestic cuts to bring future spending into promised balance in 15 years. The deficit is projected to hit $1.1 trillion in the 2020 fiscal year, the highest in a decade. The administration is counting on robust growth, including from the Republican tax cuts which Trump wants to make permanent to push down the red ink. Some economists, though, say the bump from the tax cuts is waning, and they project slower growth in coming years. The national debt is $22 trillion. Even with his own projections, Trump's budget would not come into balance for a decade and a half, rather than the traditional hope of balancing in 10. Still, Trump contended the nation is experiencing "an economic miracle." He said in a letter to Congress accompanying the plan that the country's next step must be "turbocharging the industries of the future and establishing a new standard of living for the 21st century." Presidential budgets tend to be seen as aspirational blueprints, rarely becoming enacted policy, and Trump's proposal for the new fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, sets up a showdown with Congress over priorities, including his push for $8.6 billion to build the U.S-Mexico border wall. Titled "A Budget for a Better America: Promises Kept. Taxpayers First," Trump's proposal "embodies fiscal responsibility," said Russ Vought, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget. Despite the large projected deficits, Vought said the administration has "prioritized reining in reckless Washington spending" and shows "we can return to fiscal sanity." The budget calls the approach "MAGAnomics," after the president's "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan. Some fiscal watchdogs, though, panned the effort as more piling on of debt by Trump with no course correction in sight. Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said Trump "relies on far too many accounting gimmicks and fantasy assumptions and puts forward far too few actual solutions." She warned the debt load will lead to slower income growth and stalled opportunities for Americans. Perhaps most notably among spending proposals, Trump is reviving his border wall fight. Fresh off the longest government shutdown in history, his 2020 plan shows he is eager to confront Congress again over the wall. Trump's budget proposes increasing defense spending to $750 billion and building the new Space Force as a military branch while reducing nondefense accounts by 5 percent, with cuts recommended to economic safety-net programs used by many Americans. The $2.7 trillion in proposed spending cuts over the decade is higher than any administration in history, they say. The budget imposes work requirements for those receiving food stamps and other government aid as part of the cutbacks. The Department of Housing and Urban Development faces a 16 percent cut and for Education, a 12 percent reduction. Trump's budget would re-open two health care battles he lost in his first year in office: repealing "Obamacare" and limiting future federal spending on Medicaid for low-income people. Under the budget, both programs would be turned over to the states starting in 2021. The plan sticks to budget caps that both parties have routinely broken in recent years. To stay within the caps, the budget shifts a portion of the defense spending, some $165 billion, to an overseas contingency fund, which some fiscal hawks will view as an accounting gimmick. Conservatives railed for years against deficits that rose during the first years of Barack Obama's administration as tax revenue plummeted and spending increased during the Great Recession. But even with Republican control of Congress during the first two years of the Trump administration, deficits were on a steady march upward. The top Democrat on the Appropriation Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, said the budget is "not a serious proposal." By refusing to raise the budget caps, Trump is signaling a fight ahead. The president has resisted big, bipartisan budget deals that break the caps threatening to veto one last year but Congress will need to find agreement on spending levels to avoid another federal shutdown in the fall. The Democratic chairman of the House Budget Committee, Rep. John Yarmuth of Kentucky, called the proposed cuts to essential services "dangerous." He said Trump added nearly $2 trillion to deficits with the GOP's "tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations, and now it appears his budget asks the American people to pay the price," the Democrat said. While pushing down spending in some areas, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the proposal will seek to increase funding in others to align with the president's priorities, according to one official. The administration would boost Veterans Affairs funding by $6.5 billion, or 7.5 percent, and says reducing veteran suicides would be a top priority. The budget provides $291 million to "defeat the HIV/AIDS epidemic" with hopes of eliminating 90 percent of new infections within 10 years. It would also increase resources to fight the opioid epidemic with money for prevention, treatment, research and recovery, the administration said. It provides $500 million in new spending over the decade on child cancer research. The proposal will also include $1 billion for a child care fund that would seek to improve access to care for underserved populations, a White House official confirmed. The one-time allocation is championed by the president's daughter Ivanka Trump, who has focused on economic advancement for women in her role as a White House adviser. It also provides $200 billion toward infrastructure, much lower than the $1 trillion plan Trump once envisioned. The plan says that money would be leveraged with private dollars, but Congress has largely panned that approach. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Trump's budget "points a steady glide path" toward lower spending and borrowing as a share of the nation's economy. He also told "Fox News Sunday" there was no reason to "obsess" about deficits, and expressed confidence that economic growth would top 3 percent in 2019 and beyond. Others have predicted lower growth. The border wall remains a signature issue for the president and is poised to stay at the forefront of his agenda, even though Congress has resisted giving him more money for it. Leading Democrats immediately rejected the proposal. "Congress refused to fund his wall and he was forced to admit defeat and reopen the government. The same thing will repeat itself if he tries this again," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York. They said the money "would be better spent on rebuilding America." In seeking $8.6 billion for more than 300 miles of new border wall, the budget request would more than double the $8.1 billion already potentially available to the president for the wall after he declared a national emergency at the border last month in order to circumvent Congress although there's no guarantee he'll be able to use that money if he faces a legal challenge, as is expected. Along with border wall money, the proposed budget will also increase funding to increase the "manpower" of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and Customs and Border Patrol at a time when many Democrats are calling for cuts or even the elimination of those areas. The budget also proposes policy changes to end sanctuary cities, the administration said. The budget arrives as the Senate readies to vote this week to terminate Trump's national emergency declaration. The Democratic-led House already did so, and a handful of Republican senators, uneasy over what they see as an overreach of executive power, are expected to join Senate Democrats in following suit. Congress appears to have enough votes to reject Trump's declaration but not enough to overturn a veto. The standoff over the wall led to a 35-day partial government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history. The wall with Mexico played a big part in Trump's campaign for the White House, and it's expected to again be featured in his 2020 re-election effort. He used to say Mexico would pay for it, but Mexico has refused to do so. Gods love for Bosnia in a Norfolk shoebox Just before Christmas, 5,500 shoeboxes packed with toys, stationery, winter woolies and toiletries were donated by people across Norfolk to children living in poverty overseas, a charity effort co-ordinated by Trish Ellse from Wymondham. Jenny Seal reports. The Government leader expressed his delight at the development of the Vietnamese community in Romania, noting that they are highly appreciated by the local authorities. The PM highlighted the importance of solidarity among the Vietnamese community in Romania, hoping that they will continue to unite and help each other while preserving the cultural identity, mother tongue and fine customs of Vietnam. PM Phuc noted that Vietnam will develop more policies to facilitate overseas Vietnamese and that the Party and State always pay due attention to overseas Vietnamese, considering them an inseparable part of Vietnam. He said that the Government is making efforts to send more Vietnamese workers to Romania while expressing his belief that the cooperation between the two countries will be increasingly strengthened. The Government leader asked the Vietnamese Embassy in Romania to pay more attention to community related work and to take the role as a bridge in the friendship and cooperation between the two countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a 30 second application of a six-step hand washing and hand rub regimen that could keep infections away. New research titled, 'Simplifying the WHO protocol for hand hygiene, three steps and 15 seconds: a randomized crossover trial' and presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Amsterdam, Netherlands held between 13th and 16th of April suggests hand rubs could achieve the same in a three step procedure for 15 seconds. Image Credit: Santypan / Shutterstock Alcohol based hand rubs are widely used in hospitals and other set ups for infection control. This hand hygiene could be a crucial measure to prevent and reduce the spread of infections. There are no studies evaluating the best practice that could reduce infections. The WHO recommended six-step hand rub technique is effective in killing bacteria. This study shows that a simple 15 second three step hand rub could be just as effective in killing bacteria as well as improved user adherence. Dr Sarah Tschudin-Sutter and colleagues from University Hospital Basel, Switzerland, tried their 15 second three step hand rub regimen in a randomised cross-over trial. They recruited 20 healthy participants between ages 18 and 51 years. They were randomly assigned to four different techniques of hand rubs including; Six-step hand hygiene for 30 seconds Six-step hand hygiene for 15 seconds Three-step hand hygiene for 30 seconds and Three-step hand hygiene for 15 seconds All participants were in turn assigned to each of the groups. Results revealed that three step technique for 15 seconds was as effective as reducing bacteria counts on the hands of the volunteers as 30 second three or six step regimen. Professor Tschudin-Sutter in a statement said, The time pressure and heavy workload experienced by healthcare workers reduces compliance with hand hygiene standards. Our findings suggest that shortening hand rubbing time and simplifying the technique for use of hand rub could be a safe alternative that is easier to fit into their busy routine, could enhance the overall quality of hand hygiene performance, and have a positive effect on adherence. Further studies are needed to validate the performance of the shorter application time in everyday clinical practice. The team agrees that the study could not make blanket statements about the three step regimens ability to stop transmission of microbes unless studied in actual clinical settings. Hand hygiene and reduction in Staph infections In 2009 the National Australian Hand Hygiene Initiative (NHHI) was implemented and since then there has been a significant improvement in reduction of Staph infections in healthcare facilities. The results of this new study titled, 'Improved hand hygiene compliance (HHC) is associated with a significant reduction in rates of healthcare-associated Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (HA Sab) in Australia's 132 largest hospitals: outcomes of the Australian National Hand Hygiene Initiative (NHHI)', were presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Amsterdam, Netherlands held between 13th and 16th of April. The report suggests that there have been a significant improvement in hand hygiene and its adherence among Australian health care workers. This has reduced the risk of transmission of often fatal healthcare-associated Staphylococcus aureus infection. The researchers noted that for each 10 percent rise in adherence to hand hygiene guidelines, there was a 15 percent reduction in the incidence of S. aureus bloodstream infection among the 132 largest public hospitals of Australia as was seen from the study. These hospitals cater to over 15 million patients-days across the nation in 2016-17, they add. This translates to more than three quarters of inpatient care for the Australian population. The team was following up the WHO campaign called 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene that would reduce the risk of healthcare associated infections. These five moments include; Before touching a patient After touching a patient After touching a patent's surroundings Before a clean procedure After exposure to body fluids/wounds Professor Lindsay Grayson from Hand Hygiene Australia, and study leader said, Hospital-acquired infections are a major concern for hospitals around the world and S. aureus is among the most dangerous. The risks to patients are enormous, as are the associated hospital costs. Despite robust evidence supporting improved practices for hand hygiene, securing compliance is notoriously difficult, and few national programmes have been sustained in the long-term. The researchers and experts say that S. aureus is the main Gram positive bacterium that leads to hospital-acquired infections. Some of these such as endocarditis, acute pneumonia, and sepsis might become fatal and good hand hygiene could keep them at bay. The team for this study looked at outcomes of the NHHI for eight years since it started. The timeline for the study was from January 2009 to June 2017. Three times a year hand hygiene moments were observed and recorded. The impact of this programme was assessed using linking of the data on hospital based S. aureus infections. Results showed that hand hygiene compliance moments (observed) was 64 percent (36,213 of 56,978 potential opportunities of hand washing or hygeine) in 2009. The numbers came to 84 percent (494,673 of 586,559 potential opportunities of hand washing or hygiene) in 2017. The team looked at adherence to the hand hygiene moments among doctors, nurses and allied staff. They found that compliance to hand hygiene was 10 to 15 percent lower among medical staff compared to nursing staff over the 8 years of the study. Further every 10 percent increase in hand hygiene compliance reduced the S. aureus infection by 15 percent they found. Cases of S. aureus infection declined from 1.27 new cases per 10,000 bed-days in 2010-11 to 0.87 per 10,000 bed-days in 2016-17. Professor Grayson said in a statement, The National Australian Hand Hygiene Initiative has achieved impressive results, both in terms of improving healthcare worker hand hygiene compliance and its association with reduced rates of healthcare-associated staphylococcal bacteraemia. Few national programmes have become successfully integrated into national health-care structures. Leica Microsystems has received DeNovo clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market its FL400 surgical microscope filter in the United States for characterization of tumor tissue in neurosurgery. In combination with the active substance 5 aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA), FL400 fluorescence allows surgeons to visually differentiate malignant glioma tissue from healthy brain tissue in real time. This aids precise tumor resection, which is vital in order to preserve brain function. For the past decade weve been pioneering new fluorescence imaging technologies in partnership with surgeons to advance surgical practices, says Markus Lusser, President of Leica Microsystems. Weve gathered strong clinical evidence for the efficacy of FL400 with 5-ALA by working closely with our surgical partners and with NX Development Corp. (NXDC), who license 5-ALA as GleolanTM in the US*. Leica Microsystems and NXDC are proud that we can now provide surgeons with another visualization tool to support decision-making in some of the most complex and critical neurosurgical interventions. The technology of the FL400 filter has been designed to provide intense, homogenous excitation light and a well-adjusted observation spectrum. When this is combined with a Leica neurosurgical microscope, such as the ARveo digital augmented reality microscope, surgeons benefit from real-time, bright, and high-contrast delineation of tumor margins. FL400 mode can be activated with just a touch of the button and surgeons can choose to view tissue fluorescence in the oculars of the microscope or displayed on a large 4K 3D screen. This supports a smooth intra-surgical workflow as well as offering the option to operate heads-up. With FL400, FL560, and GLOW800 fluorescence now cleared and integrated into the ARveo digital AR microscope, we are equipping health care providers with a comprehensive future-ready surgical imaging solution." Maxim Mamin, VP, Medical Division In addition, the ARveo integrates Image Guided Surgery (IGS) data and endoscope imaging. This further augments the insights available to the surgeon during life-saving procedures. FL400 oncological fluorescence and GLOW800 AR vascular fluorescence can be experienced first-hand integrated into the ARveo digital AR microscope at the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) Annual Scientific Meeting 2019. The meeting will take place in San Diego, USA, from 14 to 17 April and Leica Microsystems can be found on booth 1733. *NXDC is a trademark of NX Development Corp., Lexington, KY, USA. More detail on Gleolan can be found at www.gleolan.com. There have been a reported over 115,000 cases and over 1,200 deaths due to measles in Madagascar according to reports. This is one of the largest epidemics of a vaccine preventable viral disease in the recent times, say experts. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) the population that succumbed to the infection are mostly below the age of 15 years. Vaccination coverage for effective prevention of the infection through herd immunity according to the WHO is a recommended over 95 percent. In Madagascar the vaccinated population remains 58 percent. This means that a large population remains susceptible to the infection, says WHO. Image Credit: Ananchai Phuengchap / Shutterstock The present outbreak began sometime in September last year and gained momentum due to the prevalence of malnutrition among the children which affects around one in two children in Madagascar. Dr. Dossou Vincent Sodjinou, a WHO epidemiologist in Madagascar explained that this could be main reason for the spread and the fatality of the epidemic. He said in a statement to the Associated Press, Malnutrition is the bed of measles. Immunization is not the only strategy for the response to this epidemic. We still need resources for care, monitoring and social mobilization, he said. The epidemic unfortunately continues to expand in size, though at a slower pace than a month ago, Sodjinou added. Poor accessibility to the vaccines is another reason cited by the experts for the spread and mortality of the epidemic. According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), US are also facing a measles threat. There have been a reported 387 cases of measles since January this year to March. Cases have been reported from Washington, Texas, Oregon, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Missouri, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, and Connecticut says a bulletin from the CDC released on 28th of March this year. In contrast there have been 372,120 and 86 cases respectively throughout the year in 2018, 2017 and 2016 respectively. Inadequate vaccination remains a major problem in the US as well with the rise of anti-vaxxers who propagate the anti-vaccination conspiracy theories deterring many parents from vaccinating their children against the vaccine-preventable infections. The CDC also says that these outbreaks have resulted from travellers who have brought the infection into populations with inadequate vaccine coverage. The agency said, These outbreaks are linked to travellers who brought measles back from other countries such as Israel, Ukraine, and the Philippines, where large measles outbreaks are occurring. Measles is still common in many parts of the world including some countries in Europe, Asia, the Pacific, and Africa. According to the CDC two doses of the measles vaccine can be 97 percent effective against the infection. As a result of the epidemic in Madagascar, the WHO has started a vaccination campaign last month to vaccinate 7.2 million children between the ages of 6 months to 9 years. Free medications and support has been sent to regions most affected by the disease from the Madagascars health ministry. There is only a short window of opportunity to seek medical help before rabies becomes almost invariably fatal, but people wait an average of 10 days before seeking medical advice following exposure to potentially rabid animals overseas, according to new research being presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Amsterdam, Netherlands (13-16 April). The average delay in seeking treatment following bat exposures in the UK was almost three days. "The findings highlight the importance of raising public awareness around the risks of rabies, both for travellers visiting rabies-infected countries and from bat exposures in the UK", says co-author Dr Kevin Brown, Head of Rabies and Immunoglobulin Service for Public Health England. Symptoms typically take 2 to 3 months to appear, but can develop in as little as a week (following severe bites to the head) or up to several years after exposure. "Preventive treatments are 100% effective if given promptly after exposure", says Dr Brown. "That's why seeking prompt care is so important, even if the wound or incident seems very trivial. If you are bitten, scratched, or licked by an animal you must wash the wound or site of exposure with plenty of soap and water and seek medical advice without delay. Travellers should not delay waiting for treatment until they return to the UK." Rabies is a zoonotic infection (a disease that spreads from animals to humans) that can cause a rare but life-threatening infection of the brain and nervous system in humans. It usually results from a bite, scratch, or lick from an infected animal. The virus is estimated to kill around 59,000 people every year worldwide, most often as a result of a bite from a rabid dog in parts of Africa and Asia. Rabies does not circulate in wild or domestic animals in the UK, although some species of bats can carry rabies-like viruses (European Bat Lyssavirus type 1 and type 2). Every year around 150 people in England are treated after being bitten by a bat. People who believe they may have been exposed to rabies are advised to immediately seek treatment which involves a series of rabies vaccinations with or without immunoglobulin, an antibody treatment that gives immediate short-term protection while the vaccines start to work. In England, national rabies advice, guidance and treatment is provided through the Rabies and Immunoglobulin Service within Public Health England, with ten issuing centres around the country. In this study, medical staff from one of the issuing centers in Manchester, North West England conducted a review of all requests for rabies post-exposure treatment at their lab between June 2015 and June 2018. In total, 200 patients (aged 0-77 years old) received post-exposure treatment through the virology laboratory. Over a third (69/200 patients) were aged 20-29 years old. The vast majority of patients (92%; 183/200) had not received any rabies vaccination in the past. Results showed that over three-quarters (79% (157/200) of post-exposure treatment was given to travellers returning to the UK from 43 different countries. However, 1 in 5 individuals (22%; 42/200) reported an exposure to a bat in the UK. "While the risk of catching rabies in the UK is extremely low, it is important that all potential bat bites are risk-assessed and treated as necessary. Bat bites in the UK often do not leave a mark, and are felt rather than seen", says Dr Brown. In the UK, although prompt treatment is recommended, given the prolonged incubation time it is never considered too late to receive post-exposure treatment for an exposure. In separate research, Public Health England doctors found a 7.5-fold increase in the number of risk assessments performed for rabies post-exposure in England since 2001--increasing from 390 in 2001 to 2949 in 2018--the majority as a result of dog bites in South and South East Asia, whilst around 1 in 10 were for bat bites in England. Of the previously unimmunised individuals exposed to animals overseas, 40% did not seek rabies post-exposure treatment overseas, but waited until return to the UK. Similar to the results from Manchester, more than 60% of bat bites sought treatment within 2 days. Nationally, in addition to the advice and guidance, Public Health England provides rabies vaccine and rabies immunoglobulin for all potential rabies exposures in England. In mid-2018, the guidance on post-exposure treatment for rabies was updated. The routine vaccine schedule for unimmunised individuals was reduced from 5 doses of vaccine to 4 doses. Additionally, a composite rabies risk (red, amber, or green) was calculated for each exposure, taking into account the country and animal risk; and the category of exposure. Rabies immunoglobulin was only recommended in cases with a 'Red' composite rabies risk, ie a category 3 exposure (bite or laceration) in a 'high risk' country/animal risk combination. Rabies immunoglobulin is also no longer given for bat bites in the UK, although still advised for non-UK bat bites. Further analysis showed that in the first 6 months following the introduction of the new guidelines, there was a significant increase in the number of calls about possible cases of rabies compared to the same period in 2017 (1727 vs 1157). Nevertheless, there was a decrease in both the number of vaccines (2.4 vs 3) and vials of immunoglobulin (256 vs 575) issued as treatment. "Those completing the risk assessment found the process easier to follow, and there was less risk of inappropriate treatment given", says Dr Brown. "The new guidance has led to a significant reduction in the costs of running the program, whilst still ensuring appropriate treatment for those at potential risk of rabies." Intimate partner homicide among teens does occur and 90 percent of the victims are girls, according to a new study in JAMA Pediatrics. "This is a public health issue that should be taken seriously," said lead author Avanti Adhia, a senior fellow at the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center at the University of Washington School of Medicine. The study looked at data from the National Violent Death Reporting System from 2003-2016, which included 2,188 homicides of young people 11-18 years where the relationship between the victim and perpetrator was known. Of these homicides, 150 (6.9 percent) were classified as intimate partner homicide. "While not a common occurrence, it does occur more often than people realize," said Adhia. Adhia said 90 percent of the perpetrators are male, and guns are the most common weapon used. "The majority of the homicides occur in older adolescence between the ages of 16-18," she said. "A common circumstance is when a victim ends a relationship with the perpetrator or there is jealousy over the victim dating someone new. " Adhia said another common scenario is an acute altercation or argument that ends in death by firearm or stabbing. The data comes from 32 states and each state contributed data for a different number of years, so no trend analysis was available. But the dataset has been expanded to 50 states and more cases will be available in the future. "Partly why I was interested in this topic is the perception that teen dating violence is less serious than intimate partner violence among adults," said Adhia. "But it's important to understand that things can escalate among teens as well." She said evidence-based interventions should be implemented in school and community settings around awareness, communication skills in relationships and bystander intervention. For decades, hospitals have worked to get doctors, nurses and others to wash their hands and prevent the spread of germs. But a new study suggests they may want to expand those efforts to their patients, too. Fourteen percent of 399 hospital patients tested in the study had "superbug" antibiotic-resistant bacteria on their hands or nostrils very early in their hospital stay, the research finds. And nearly a third of tests for such bacteria on objects that patients commonly touch in their rooms, such as the nurse call button, came back positive. Another six percent of the patients who didn't have multi-drug resistant organisms, or MDROs, on their hands at the start of their hospitalization tested positive for them on their hands later in their stay. One-fifth of the objects tested in their rooms had similar superbugs on them too. The research team cautions that the presence of MDROs on patients or objects in their rooms does not necessarily mean that patients will get sick with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. And they note that healthcare workers' hands are still the primary mode of microbe transmission to patients. "Hand hygiene narrative has largely focused on physicians, nurses and other frontline staff, and all the policies and performance measurements have centered on them, and rightfully so," says Lona Mody, M.D., M.Sc., the University of Michigan geriatrician, epidemiologist and patient safety researcher who led the research team. "But our findings make an argument for addressing transmission of MDROs in a way that involves patients, too." Studying the spread Mody and her colleagues report in the new paper in Clinical Infectious Diseases that of the six patients in their study who developed an infection with a superbug called MRSA while in the hospital, all had positive tests for MRSA on their hands and hospital room surfaces. In addition to MRSA, short for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, the study looked for superbugs called VRE (vancomycin-resistant enterococcus) and a group called RGNB, for resistant Gram-negative bacteria. Because of overuse of antibiotics, these bacteria have evolved the ability to withstand attempts to treat infections with drugs that once killed them. Mody notes that the study suggests that many of the MDROs seen on patients are also seen in their rooms early in their stay, suggesting that transmission to room surfaces is rapid. She heads the Infection Prevention in Aging research group at the U-M Medical School and VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System. Additionally, since many patients arrive at the hospital through the emergency room, and may get tests in other areas before reaching their hospital room, it will be important to study the ecology of MDROs in those areas too, she says. "This study highlights the importance of handwashing and environmental cleaning, especially within a healthcare setting where patients' immune systems are compromised," says infectious disease physician Katherine Reyes, M.D., lead author for Henry Ford Health System researchers involved in the study. "This step is crucial not only for healthcare providers, but also for patients and their families. Germs are on our hands; you do not need to see to believe it. And they travel. When these germs are not washed off, they pass easily from person to person and objects to person and make people sick." More about the study The team made more than 700 visits to the rooms of general medicine inpatients at two hospitals, working to enroll them in the study and take samples from their bodies and often-touched surfaces as early as possible in their stay. They were not able to test rooms before the patients arrived, and did not test patients who had had surgery, or were in intensive care or other types of units. Using genetic fingerprinting techniques, they looked to see if the strains of MRSA bacteria on the patients' hands were the same as the ones in their rooms. They found the two matched in nearly all cases - suggesting that transfer to and from the patient was happening. The technique is not able to distinguish the direction of transfer, whether it's from patient to objects in the room, or from those objects to patients. Cleaning procedures for hospital rooms between patients, especially when a patient has been diagnosed with an MDRO infection, have improved over the years, says Mody, and research has shown them to be effective when used consistently. So lingering contamination from past patients may not have been a major factor. But the question of exactly where patients picked up the MDROs that were found on their bodies, and were transmitted to the surfaces in their rooms, is not addressed by the current study and would be an important next step based on these results. Why MDROs matter Also important, says Mody, is the fact that hospital patients don't just stay in their rooms - current practice encourages them to get up and walk in the halls as part of their recovery from many illnesses, and they may be transported to other areas of the hospital for tests and procedures. As they travel, they may pick up MDROs from other patients and staff, and leave them on the surfaces they touch. So even if a relatively healthy person has an MDRO on their skin, and their immune system can fight it off if it gets into their body, a more vulnerable person in the same hospital can catch it and get sick. The researchers are exploring studying MDROs on patients in other types of hospital units who may be more susceptible to infections. Patients and staff may also get colonized with MDROs in outpatient care settings that have become the site of so much of American health care, including urgent care centers, freestanding imaging and surgery centers, and others. Mody and colleagues are presenting new data about MDROs in skilled nursing facilities at an infectious disease conference in Europe in coming days. They showed that privacy curtains - often used to separate patients staying in the same room, or to shield patients from view when dressing or being examined - are also often colonized with superbugs. "Infection prevention is everybody's business," says Mody, a professor of internal medicine at the U-M Medical School. "We are all in this together. No matter where you are, in a healthcare environment or not, this study is a good reminder to clean your hands often, using good techniques--especially before and after preparing food, before eating food, after using a toilet, and before and after caring for someone who is sick-- to protect yourself and others." Its Saturday morning and the women of the Contreras family are busy in Montclair, Calif., making pupusas, tamales and tacos. Theyre working to replace the income of Jose Contreras, who has been held since last June at Southern Californias Adelanto ICE Processing Center, a privately run immigration detention center. Joses daughter, Giselle, drives around in an aging minivan collecting food orders. First a hospital, then a car wash, then a local bank. Giselles father crossed illegally from Guatemala more than two decades ago. He worked in construction until agents picked him up and brought him to Adelanto. Jose languished there for three months without his diabetes medication, Giselle said. Now, she said, the guards give it to him at odd times during the day and night. And ICE agents took his eyeglasses so he cant read legal documents or write letters, she said. "My aunt tried to take in glasses for him, but they dont allow for us to give them anything," Giselle said, steering the minivan. "They tell us that they give them everything they need." But as to reclaiming his glasses, "No. He doesnt have glasses." Giselle said that her 60-year-old father is terrified of being deported, and that the regimented world inside Adelanto is driving him into a deep depression. "His conversations now have become shorter," she said. "He doesnt talk to us and ask, 'Hows your day? How you been?' Hes always looking down at the ground; he doesnt want to make eye contact for the same reason that hes so depressed." Joses sister, Maria Contreras, visits her brother every Saturday. She has urged him to see a psychologist at Adelanto, but he tells her that even though he filled out a medical request, he doesnt get any help. "No response, or anything," Maria said. Adelanto sits on a desolate stretch of road in the high desert about an hour north of the city of Riverside. Nearly 2,000 men and women are held here. Some arrived recently during the surge in border crossings. Others lived in the U.S. undocumented and undetected for years. In the visiting room, where detainees are brought in wearing blue, orange or red baggy pants and tops, a sign on the wall reads, "Dont give up hope." The facility run by a federal contractor, the GEO Group, a for-profit company based in Boca Raton, Fla., that runs private prisons has a troubled past. During an unannounced visit last year, federal inspectors from the Department of Homeland Securitys Office of the Inspector General found nooses made out of bed sheets in 15 out of 20 cells. The inspectors found guards overlooked the nooses even though a detainee had committed suicide using a bedsheet in 2017 and several others had attempted suicide using a similar method. The government audit concluded GEO Group guards improperly handcuffed and shackled detainees, unnecessarily placed detainees in solitary confinement and failed to provide adequate medical care. A separate investigation of Adelanto and other immigration detention facilities in California released in February by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra found similar health and safety problems and concluded that detainees were treated like prisoners, some kept in their cells for 22 hours a day, even though they have not been charged with a crime. A state law passed in 2017 directs the state to inspect and report on the treatment of immigrant detainees held in California. The alleged cases documented in the most recent report by Disability Rights California, a watchdog group with legal oversight to protect people with disabilities in the Golden State, are grim: detainees slitting their wrists; discontinued medication for depression; and ignored requests for wheelchairs and walkers. At least one detainee claimed that guards pepper-sprayed him when he did not stand up, and a second time while he tried to hang himself. In a written statement, the GEO Group said it strongly disputes the claims in the report, and that the remedies recommended by Disability Rights California "were already in place." "We are deeply committed," the company said, "to delivering high-quality, culturally responsive services in safe and humane environments." An ICE spokesperson said, in an emailed statement, that the GEO Groups Adelanto facility is in full compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. But Mario, who was inside Adelanto for six months in 2018, said the report describes his own experiences there. "Whats happening is all those claims that have been made against GEO and the staff in the medical department are finally being backed up by reports," Mario said. He requested his last name be withheld because hes out on bond and still fighting deportation. Mario is now 32; he crossed the border illegally with his parents when he was 5. In 2017, he was convicted of a misdemeanor and ICE agents picked him up at his home in Ontario, Calif. At the time, Mario was seeing a therapist for depression and taking medication. It took three weeks to get back on antidepressants, he said, and the sessions with the psychologists at Adelanto were only cursory. "They keep their actual sessions to five to 10 minutes," he said. "Its basically like a quick check-in. They just ask you, 'How are you? Do you have any suicidal thoughts? When is your next court date?' Its one of those things that I feel is basically done just to say, All right, we did it." Mario is gay and lived in a room with three other men, including a gay man from Mexico who was seeking asylum. The two became close friends. "He was persecuted in Mexico because of being gay," Mario said. Months of detention "and not getting any mental health care really took a toll on him. And thats when he cut himself. He cut his wrist with a razor blade that we get to shave. And after that he was placed in solitary confinement for about a week." Mario said when his friend came back to their room, he was taking some sort of medication. "After that, all he did was sleep," Mario said. "When the food was ready Id go call him: 'OK, its time to eat.'" Other detainees and immigration lawyers described a similar pattern, of GEO psychiatrists prescribing antipsychotic medications that make people sleep much of the time. Its one of the reasons people were reluctant to seek help, Mario said. But also, like other detainees, he was worried about being labeled as depressed. "I couldnt express whenever I was feeling extremely sad or depressed or anxious because I was afraid that would be used against me in court," he explained. Judges cannot use mental health conditions to deny legal status to a detainee, according to immigration attorneys. Although the GEO Group said any problems detailed in the Disability Rights California report had long been addressed, last month detainees in Adelanto staged a hunger strike. The detainees gave an attorney a handwritten note, which was released by the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, an advocacy group. Chief among their demands was speedier access to good medical care. Researchers at Rutgers University have revealed that pre-schoolers in New Jersey have the highest rates of autism ever recorded in the US. They report rates of autism have increased faster in children living in New Jersey than in other states. The study, which was conducted in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), states that up to three percent of children in the US live with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Alexander Lukatskiy | Shutterstock As a spectrum condition, autism affects people in different ways, with different symptoms arising among those with the condition that manifest with varying levels of severity. There are two main characteristics of autism. The first is a person showing difficulties with social interactions and communication, for instance joining conversations or reading social cues. The second main symptom is engaging in repetitive behaviors, routines, and activities. Possible symptoms of autism in pre-school aged children include delayed speech development, rejecting physical gestures of affection, avoiding eye contact, showing little interest in interacting with other children, or preferring to play with toys in a repetitive manner over engaging with imaginative play. Children who are diagnosed with autism by their fourth birthday are often diagnosed early because they present moderate to severe symptoms of autism and catch the attention of pediatricians and early-childhood educators. One in 35 children in New Jersey are diagnosed by this time. The study analyzed data from the health and special education records of 129,354 children who turned 4 between 2010 and 2014, along with 128,655 children who were 8 years old during the same period. Guidelines for ASD in the American Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV were used for the studys primary findings. The data for New Jersey was sourced from the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network (ADDM), a network that has monitored rates of autism diagnoses for almost 20 years. Along with researchers in New Jersey, researchers in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, North Carolina, Utah, and Wisconsin analyzed health records of almost 71,000 children. Autism rates increased by 43% between 2010 and 2014 Walter Zahorodny, an associate professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School who was responsible for running the study in New Jersey, explained that among 4-year-olds, the rate of autism increased by 43 percent from 2010 to 2014, with 1 in 23 four year old boys being diagnosed with autism. He also said that the increasing rates of autism in children show no signs of slowing. The explosive rate of autism is impossible to ignore. Theres no let-up. I really dont understand why the rate is going up in this way. Dr. Walter Zahorodny Risk factors associated with ASD incidence include advanced parental age, maternal illness during pregnancy, genetic mutations, and premature birth. These are true influences exerting an effect, but they are not enough to explain the high rate of autism prevalence, Zahorodny said. There are still undefined environmental risks that contribute to this significant increase, factors that could affect a child in its development in utero or related to birth complications or to the new-born period. We need more research into non-genetic triggers for autism. The results were 'startling' Discussing the prevalence of ASD in children of 4 years of age, the estimated prevalence of ASD was 13.4 per 1,000 in 2010, 15.3 in 2012, and 17.0 in 2014. Disparities in ASD prevalence were also highlighted by the study, with the prevalence of ASD in 4-year-old white children standing at 7.7 per 1,000 children in Missouri (2014), but 29.3 in New Jersey (2014). Data for black children in New Jersey showed a prevalence of 24.7 per 1,000 (2014), and prevalence in Hispanic children was 28.2 per 1,000 in New Jersey (2014). It was found that across all the sites studied, ASD prevalence was higher in boys than in girls, ranging from 2.6 in Arizona and Wisconsin (2010) to 5.2 boys per one girl in Colorado (2014). The study states an absence or delay in ASD identification could adversely affect children by delaying interventions and initiation of special services. We must take swift and systematic action to increase access to and fund medically necessary treatment for every child with autism. Early identification is crucial to helping families access services for these pre-schoolers, who need intensive treatment to learn developmentally appropriate skills and maximize their potential. Suzanne Buchanan, Executive Director, Autism New Jersey Zahorodny deemed the results to be consistent, broad and startling, believing that Its very likely that the next time we survey autism among children, the rate will be even higher. Limitations of the study were acknowledged, from the fact that the study was based on a record review and not clinical examinations to the possibility that some children with ASD may not have been included in the network because their records were incomplete. Additionally, the specificity of the records may have been affected by early diagnoses being changed at a later date if clinicians have concluded a different diagnosis fits a childs symptoms more accurately. The earlier the diagnosis, the better On the importance of early screening, Zahorodny said: Children who are evaluated for autism early around their second birthday often respond better to treatment than those who are diagnosed later. However, it appears that only the most seriously affected children are being evaluated a crucial time, which can delay access to treatment and special services. It is concerning to see results showing that black and Hispanic children were slightly less likely to be diagnosed than white children and that the age of diagnosis did not change over a period of 15 years. An increase in demand for services and subsequent delay in care could account for this plateau. According to Zahorodny, The experience of our special education system and the number of developmental specialists in our region meant that NJs data was more complete than other states. AAP spokesperson and MP Sanjay Singh hits out at Congress over Rahul Gandhi's tweet and says, "In Punjab, where there are four MP and 20 MLAs from AAP, Congress does not want to give a single seat. In Haryana, where Congress has one MP there too they do not want to give a seat. In Delhi where there are 0 Congress MLA and 0 MP there, you want to give us 3 seats. Is this what happens in a settlement? Why do not you want to stop the BJP in other states?" You Are Not Serious About Coalition, Says AAP Chief | Aam Admi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal also slams Rahul Gandhi and asks him what "u-turn" he is referring to when the conversation over the alliance is ongoing. "Your tweet shows that the alliance is not something you want but is only for show. I am sad that you are just making statements. Today, you have the desperately want to save the country from the danger of Modi-Shah. Unfortunately, you are helping Modiji by distributing anti-Modi votes in UP and other states too," he tweets. Kerela BJP state president PS Sreedharan Pillai has sparked a row over his comments at a public meeting in Attingal in which he said that Muslims can be identified by removing their clothes. Our Rahul Gandhi, Yechury, and Pinarayi are saying, our soldiers have to go there and see the count of the dead...their caste, religion etc. If it is Islam, there are some signs, no? he said, adding If you remove their clothes you will be able to know. We have to do all that and return is what they (the Opposition) are saying. Election 2019 Live: The verbal war between Congress and AAP continued till late night with Ahmed Patel being the latest leader to hint that 3:4 Delhi formula is the final deal for Arvind Kejriwal's party. "Our proposition still stands, the ball is in their court," he said. Earlier, senior Congress leader Ajay Maken tweeted vote share tally to answer Aam Aadmi Party's question on why Congress was offering it 3:4 formula.Two days after Congress decided to go solo in Delhi, party president Rahul Gandhi, in a surprise offer to Arvind Kejriwal, said that they are willingly to give up four seats in the national capital for AAP to "ensure BJP's rout". "An alliance between the Congress & AAP in Delhi would mean the rout of the BJP. The Congress is willing to give up 4 Delhi seats to the AAP to ensure this. But, Mr Kejriwal has done yet another U turn! Our doors are still open, but the clock is running out," he tweeted. Since, then there has been a war of words between Congress and Kejriwal's party over the " show-off" seat-sharing formula Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Monday evening condemned the EC ban on her campaigning ahead of crucial second phase on voting. "The poll body order deprives me of my Constitutional right, while Modi and Amit Shah are given a free run," she said, requesting people to turn up for SP-BSP-RLD rallies in large numbers.Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav today defended Azam Khan's derogatory remark on BJP leader Jaya Prada. "He was talking about someone else. We are Samajwadis, we never use foul language for women," he said. Later, when reporters asked Khan about NCW notice served to him in connection with the controversial comment, the infuriated leader said, "Aapke walid ke maut me aaya hun (I have come at your father's death)." He was in MP's Vidisha for last rites of former Rajya Sabha MP Munawwar Salim, who had passed away earlier today.The Supreme Court on Monday ordered Congress chief Rahul Gandhi to explain why he attributed his Chowkidar Chor Hai jibe against Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the top court. We only looked at the admissibility of the documents. We didnt say what has been attributed to us by Gandhi. The alleged statement has been wrongly attributed to the court, the Supreme Court said, issuing a notice to the Congress chief.The court also criticised the Election Commission for its inaction on hate speeches by netas, citing the instances of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath and BSP supremo Mayawati, while sending a notice to the EC on a plea seeking directions to bring political parties under the ambit of RTI.Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi reached Fatehpur Sikri in UPs Agra to campaign for Congress candidate Raj Babbar alongwith his sister and Congress eastern UP incharge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. He will visit Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Kerala from where he is also contesting.Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti will hold a rally at 11am, while National Conference leader Omar Abdullah will address a public meeting at 2pm in Ganderbal. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav will be campaigning in Kasganj and Muradabad.On the issue of biopics, the Supreme Court asked the makers of PM Narendra Modi to screen the political biographical drama for the Election Commission. The Supreme Court has directed the EC to watch the Vivek Oberoi-starrer and then take a call on whether or not it should be banned. GamesRadar+ is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more (Newser) The deaths were horrible ones: 39 people died on March 24, 1999, in the Mont Blanc Tunnel, with many asphyxiating. A semi-truck carrying more than 20 tons of flour and margarine entered from the French side, intending to traverse its way beneath Mont Blanc for seven miles to the tunnel's exit in Italy. Instead, the truck caught fire mid-way through and the resulting toxic fumes overtook the French portion of the tunnel. Four years later, Mark Gardiner wrote the article that he imagined would have "led my obituary." It told the story of Pierlucio Tinazzi, a security guard who lost his life in the tragedy but not before entering the tunnel four times and rescuing 10 people using his motorcycle. He never emerged from his 5th trip in. Except it wasn't true. story continues below After Cycle Canada first ran the article, it was reprinted in other magazines over successive years, and the with the 20th anniversary approaching, the New York Times asked Gardiner to revisit the story. An interview with the engineer who oversaw the tunnel's renovations clammed up when asked about Tinazzi. "For the first time, I began to worry," writes Gardiner in the Columbia Journalism Review. Gardiner's story had relied in part on local newspaper reports; officials were under gag orders and records were sealed at the time. What he now discovered was a 97-page police report that had factored into a 2005 trial in France and made clear Tinazzi, who did indeed die in the tragedy, couldn't have saved anyone. "I should have questioned how Tinazzi managed to operate in the French zone, when fully kitted firemen could not," Gardiner writes. Read the full story, which digs into a potential mix-up with another hero from that day. (Read more Longform stories.) (Newser) Her name is Louisa Akavi, and the world is far more familiar with her onetime cell mate: American aid worker Kayla Mueller. Both were kidnapped by ISIS, and while Mueller was killed while in custody, Akavi is believed to be still alive. Akavi is a 62-year-old New Zealand nurse, and the International Committee of the Red Cross is talking about their worker for the first time since her abduction in Syria five years ago, reports the New York Times. The ICRC has kept silent about Akavi all this time, believing it was the best strategy for her safety. Now that the ISIS caliphate has been essentially wiped out, however, the organization is changing strategy. The group says it has received credible reports that Akavi was still aliveand being forced to work as a nurse for ISISas recently as late 2018. story continues below This was incredible information to receive, apparent confirmation of her location, that she was still alive and that she was still doing what she is trained to do and has long done: providing medical care in a conflict zone, says ICRC official Dominik Stillhartsaid, per the Guardian. The group does not have information on two men abducted with her, Alaa Rajab and Nabil Bakdounes. The shift in strategy to go public is not without controversy. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern refused to answer questions about Akavi on Monday, reports the BBC. "It absolutely remains the government's view that it would be preferable if this case was not in the public domain," she said. (Read about Mueller's last letter home to her family.) (Newser) Nancy Pelosi thinks one of her Democratic congresswomen is in danger because of a tweet by President Trump. The House speaker says she has ordered Capitol Police to conduct a security assessment in regard to Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, reports USA Today. Pelosi also called on Trump to remove "his disrespectful and dangerous video," per the Wall Street Journal, but the tweet remains. On Sunday, White House press chief Sarah Sanders said Trump is wishing no ill will and certainly not violence toward anyone. But, she added, the president is absolutely and should be calling out the congresswoman for her not only one time but history of anti-Semitic comments." The new controversy revolves around a speech Omar made in which she referenced the 9/11 attacks and used the phrase, "some people did something." story continues below Critics including Trump have pounced on the speech, accusing Omar of belittling the 2001 attacks. Democrats say her comments have been taken out of context. (You can read Omar's remarks in full via Politifact.) Since the presidents tweet Friday evening, I have experienced an increase in direct threats on my lifemany directly referencing or replying to the presidents video," said Omar on Sunday evening, reports Politico. "I thank the Capitol Police, the FBI, the House Sergeant-at-Arms, and the speaker of the House for their attention to these threats." (Earlier this month, federal prosecutors accused a man in New York of threatening to kill Omar, whom he described as a "terrorist." (Read more Ilhan Omar stories.) (Newser) A 22-year-old Fordham University student was fatally injured early Sunday during a banned "rite of passage" at the Bronx campus. The Jesuit university says Sydney Monfries was injured in a fall inside the iconic Keating Hall clock tower around 3am, the Fordham Ram reports. She was pronounced dead in St. Barnabas Hospital on Sunday evening. Police say she tripped on a landing inside the tower and fell 40 feet through an opening in the stairs. Monfries, who was a month away from graduation, had apparently climbed into the off-limits tower with a group of fellow seniors, the New York Times reports. The group had sent a Snapchat video from the top of the tower. Students say sneaking into the university's most recognizable building at night has long been a tradition for Fordham seniors. story continues below In the Snapchat video, students can be seen using their phones as flashlights as they move through the dark tower, the Times reports. "There are no words sufficient to describe the loss of someone so young and full of promiseand mere weeks from graduation," university president Rev. Joseph M. McShane said in an email to students. He said Monfries, a journalism student from Portland, Ore., will receive her degree posthumously. A Sunday evening mass at the university church was packed with people praying for Monfries' survival. News of her death arrived during the service. "It was filled. There were people outside the church at the doors. We were saying prayers in unity because we felt so horrible about what was happening and we all understood the gravity of the situation," freshman Jack DeBruin tells the New York Daily News. (Read more Fordham University stories.) (Newser) The big day is near: The Mueller reportor at least a redacted versionwill be released on Thursday, reports NBC News. Not that that President Trump's team seems all that worried. Over the weekend, Jonathan Swann of Axios called around to top Trump advisers who will be handling the response, and he found that two of them (unnamed) were watching the Masters. (In their defense, it was a great Masters.) The piece describes Trump's own approach as "fairly blase." Related coverage: Expect this: Trump's outside legal team will read the report separately from official White House attorneys, per Axios. Expect a more aggressive response from the first camp. The post has a quote from aide Kellyanne Conway that might hint at a preview: "If we've gone from two years of roaring 'indict and impeach' to now a more resigned 'embarrass and harass' the president ... then no wonder many Americans demand answers as to how this all started and who was involved." Trump's outside legal team will read the report separately from official White House attorneys, per Axios. Expect a more aggressive response from the first camp. The post has a quote from aide Kellyanne Conway that might hint at a preview: "If we've gone from two years of roaring 'indict and impeach' to now a more resigned 'embarrass and harass' the president ... then no wonder many Americans demand answers as to how this all started and who was involved." Echoing that: The president on Monday echoed Conway's point. "Mueller, and the A.G. based on Mueller findings (and great intelligence), have already ruled No Collusion, No Obstruction," he tweeted. "These were crimes committed by Crooked Hillary, the DNC, Dirty Cops and others! INVESTIGATE THE INVESTIGATORS!" story continues below The strategy: The New York Times frames Trump's strategy as so: "Now, as Mr. Barr prepares to submit a redacted version of the report, Mr. Trumps plan of attack, aides said, is to act as if the report itself is extraneous to Mr. Barrs brief letter." That is, Trump has and will continue to focus on the bottom line, as relayed in Attorney General William Barr's four-page summary: that Robert Mueller did not recommend charges of collusion or obstruction. Similar to Axios, the Times says the White House has only a "bare-bones" plan for the report's release. The New York Times frames Trump's strategy as so: "Now, as Mr. Barr prepares to submit a redacted version of the report, Mr. Trumps plan of attack, aides said, is to act as if the report itself is extraneous to Mr. Barrs brief letter." That is, Trump has and will continue to focus on the bottom line, as relayed in Attorney General William Barr's four-page summary: that Robert Mueller did not recommend charges of collusion or obstruction. Similar to Axios, the Times says the White House has only a "bare-bones" plan for the report's release. Four colors: What's happening now at the Justice Department is "the most consequential editing process in the country," per the Los Angeles Times. Lawyers from the department are going over the Mueller report line by line, redacting details in four color-coded categories: grand jury evidence, classified information, ongoing investigations, and the privacy of "peripheral third parties." The vagueness of the last category in particular is already raising concerns that too much will be blacked out. What's happening now at the Justice Department is "the most consequential editing process in the country," per the Los Angeles Times. Lawyers from the department are going over the Mueller report line by line, redacting details in four color-coded categories: grand jury evidence, classified information, ongoing investigations, and the privacy of "peripheral third parties." The vagueness of the last category in particular is already raising concerns that too much will be blacked out. Democrats: They say they need to see the full report to make sure Barr didn't cherry-pick facts or interpret some incorrectly in order to cover for the president, according to an NPR primer on the report and where we are now. They say they need to see the full report to make sure Barr didn't cherry-pick facts or interpret some incorrectly in order to cover for the president, according to an NPR primer on the report and where we are now. What to look for: Politico Magazine talks to Trump supporters, critics, academics, and "legal insiders" on what they'll be looking for when Barr releases the report. An example from one in the critics' camp, Donna Brazile: I am most interested in reading if anyone inside the campaign reported to the FBI or others any contact with Russian officials or individuals who promised to provide dirt." (Read more Mueller report stories.) (Newser) An Indiana man moved into his parents' home in Grand Haven, Mich., in 2016 after getting divorced. Ten months later he got his own place in Muncie, Indiana, but when his parents brought him his things, something was missing: 12 boxes of porn, which his father told him had been destroyed. And now the 40-year-old man is suing. FOX 17 reports the man valued the collection at $28,940.72 in a police report filed with the Ottawa County Sheriff's Office. The Ottawa County prosecutor opted not to press charges, so the man filed a civil suit seeking $86,822.16 in damages. WILX notes that because it's a civil case involving no criminal charges, parties' names aren't being disclosed. story continues below The lawsuit cites an email from the man's father that read in part, "One reason for why I destroyed your porn was for your own mental and emotional heath [sic]. I would have done the same if I had found a kilo of crack cocaine. Someday, I hope you will understand." The AP reports his titles included Frisky Business and Big Bad Grannys. He allegedly claimed some of the titles were valuable, noting in emails to investigators that some of the destroyed films are "Not Just Out of Print. But the entire studio making it dissolved, and that was 20 years ago." (Read another unusual porn-themed story here.) (Newser) Julian Assange was a bad guest who attempted to turn Ecuador's embassy in London into a "center for spying." So charges Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno in an interview with the Guardian, elaborating on comments he made roughly a week before Assange's arrest. In early April, Moreno complained in an interview that "photos of my bedroom, what I eat and how my wife and daughters and friends dance" had been shared online, and while he didn't finger Assange, his government thought WikiLeaks was behind the leak. In his new comments, Moreno said, "We can not allow our house, the house that opened its doors, to become a center for spying," a line the Guardian sees as a reference to the leaked photos. "This activity violates asylum conditions." More standout lines: "It is unfortunate that, from our territory and with the permission of authorities of the previous government, facilities have been provided within the Ecuadorian embassy in London to interfere in processes of other states." The BBC notes Moreno became president in 2017; Assange entered the embassy in 2012. story continues below "The withdrawal of his asylum ... is a sovereign decision. We do not make decisions based on external pressures from any country." "He maintained constant improper hygienic behavior throughout his stay, which affected his own health and affecting the internal climate of the diplomatic mission. In addition, Assange had health problems that should also be resolved." This after fiery comments that Vox reports were made by Moreno on Thursday: "We've ended the asylum of this spoiled brat. From now on we'll be more careful in giving asylum to people who are really worth it, and not miserable hackers whose only goal is to destabilize governments." As for that unhygienic behavior, the AP on Thursday cited an Ecuadorian official who alleged Assange went weeks without showering, had issues with his teeth due to his habits, and at one point smeared his poop on embassy walls. Another unappealing line from the AP: "Embassy staff complained of him skateboarding at night, playing loud music and walking around in his underwear with no apparent concern for others in the tiny embassy." El Pais reports something similar regarding the underwear, hearing from security guards who worked at the embassy that Assange allegedly sat for interviews dressed properly from the waist up. What you could see on screen was that he allegedly wore no pants. ABC News notes Assange's alleged bad hygiene was documented well before he even entered the embassy. It quotes lines from a 2011 New York Times piece in which Bill Keller recounted first meeting Assange, describing him as "like a bag lady walking in off the street, wearing a ... dirty white shirt, beat-up sneakers and filthy white socks that collapsed around his ankles. He smelled as if he hadn't bathed in days." Read the full interview here . (Read more Julian Assange stories.) (Newser) It's got a short runway and sits among mountains in the Everest region, two big reasons why Nepal's Lukla Airport is considered one of the most dangerous in the world. That became clear again on Sunday, when a small passenger plane struck a stationary helicopter on takeoff, killing three people, reports the BBC. The weather was relatively good, and investigators are still trying to figure out what happened. The crash killed a co-pilot and two security guards who were standing near the helicopter. Four others were injured. Only helicopters and small, fixed-wing planes are allowed to use Lukla, which at an elevation of more than 9,000 feet is a gateway for tourists into the Himalayan region, per the AP. (Read more Nepal stories.) (Newser) The Cowlitz County Sheriff's Office in southwest Washington state is mourning Justin DeRosier, who is believed to be the first deputy killed in the line of duty in the agency's 165-year history. Sheriff Brad Thurman says the 29-year-old deputy was fatally shot Saturday while responding to a report of a disabled vehicle blocking a rural road near Kalama, CNN reports. DeRosier was able to report to other deputies that he had been shot, but he died of his injuries soon after he was taken to a hospital in Vancouver, Wash. After a 22-hour manhunt, the suspected gunman was shot dead Sunday night, Longview Daily News reports. Thurman says the gunman was shot by two officers after emerging from woods carrying a firearm. It's not clear whether the gunman fired first. story continues below DeRosier, a patrol officer and boat operator who had been with the sheriff's office since 2016, was to have joined the drug task force as a narcotics investigator in July, police say. He leaves behind his wife and 5-month-old daughter, KOMO News reports. "There are few cops who want to be cops more than Justin did," Cowlitz County Undersheriff Darren Ullmann said Sunday. "He loved his job, and he was incredibly good at it. Five-month-old Lily is always going to know what an incredible man her father was." Gov. Jay Inslee tweeted: "Every one of these tragedies is a reminder that these men and women put their lives on the line every day in service to us all." (Read more Washington state stories.) (Newser) On the heels of American Airlines' Sunday announcement that it would keep its Boeing 737 Max fleet grounded until at least Aug. 19, President Trump weighed in with some advice for the aircraft's maker. "What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!), but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name," Trump tweeted early Monday. "No product has suffered like this one. But again, what the hell do I know?" story continues below Politico notes that Trump has spoken highly of Boeing in the wake the deadly 737 Max crash in Ethiopia in March, calling it "one of our truly great companies of the world." Reuters calls Trump an "aviation enthusiast" who from 1989 to 1992 owned an airline called Trump Shuttle. As for American Airlines, CNBC reports its decision will affect about 1.5% of its summertime flights. (The 737 pilots in the Ethiopia flight tried again and again to regain control.) (Newser) Nancy Pelosi appeared on 60 Minutes Sunday night, and she didn't have much good to say about President Trump. Among her lines: "There's nobody in the country who knows better that he should not be president of the United States than Donald Trump," she told Lesley Stahl. Trump took notice, deriding the "puff piece" and Pelosi ("her leadership has passed no meaningful legislation") in a tweet. "All they do is Investigate, as it turns out, crimes that they instigated & committed," he wrote. "The Mueller No Collusion decision wasnt even discussed-and she was a disaster at W.H." Trump later ramped up his criticism not only of Pelosi but of Rep. Ilhan Omarafter Pelosi complained that Trump's attacks were putting Omar in physical danger. story continues below Trump suggested that freshman congresswoman Omar was in charge of Pelosi, rather than vice versa. "Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made," wrote Trump. "She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy!" On Sunday night, Omar said that she's been getting death threats since the president tweeted a critical video about her 9/11 comments. Also in Sunday's interview, the Daily News notes that Pelosi downplayed the influence of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. When Stahl asked about the sway of "AOC and her group," Pelosi responded, "That's like five people." (Read more Nancy Pelosi stories.) (Newser) The man charged with throwing a 5-year-old over a railing at the Mall of America went there "looking for someone to kill," a court filing says. Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda, 24, was charged Monday with attempted first-degree premeditated murder, the Star-Tribune reports. The boy, identified only as Landen, suffered multiple fractured bones and massive head trauma Friday, the complaint says, in the 40-foot fall to a stone floor. Landen, who was at the mall with his mother, has undergone several surgeries. "He is the sweetest, kindest 5-year-old you will ever meet," a family friend said, per USA Today. story continues below Aranda told investigators he had been going to the Minnesota mall for several years and had tried to talk to women there but was rejected, the filing says. The rejections led Aranda "to lash out and to be aggressive," investigators said, per the Star-Tribune. In 2015, Aranda was arrested at the mall after a police officer said he'd thrown items from the upper level. He was ordered to stay away from the mall for a year, police said, but ignored the order. Last Friday, he returned. "He said he planned to kill an adult, because they usually stand near the balcony," the criminal complaint said, "but he chose the victim instead." (Read more Mall of America stories.) (Newser) Paris' iconic Notre Dame is burning, and it may be doomed. France's interior minister says it "is not certain" the 850-year-old cathedral can be saved, reports AFP. The AP initially reported flames and smoke could be seen pouring from the base of the building's spire, which was in the process of being renovated at a cost of $6.8 million. Reuters has since reported the spire has collapsed as well as the roof. "Basically the whole rooftop is gone," says a witness. "I see no hope for the building." Added a police officer on the scene: "Everything is collapsing." The BBC quotes fire officials who say it's possible the fire is connected to the renovation work. CNN notes firefighters struggled to get through rush-hour traffic to reach the scene of what Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo calls a "terrible fire." More coverage: Watch live coverage of the fire via the BBC. About 14 million people a year visit the cathedral, per the Guardian. It is, by far, the most visited monument in Paris, notes the Washington Post. "Its intricate stone gargoyles, spires, stained glass and flying buttresses make it one of the great masterpieces of architecture." story continues below President Trump weighed in on Twitter: "So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!" The Week flags this tweet from France's Securite Civile, which makes clear Trump's suggestion won't work: "Hundreds of firemen of the Paris Fire Brigade are doing everything they can to bring the terrible #NotreDame fire under control. All means are being used, except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral." President Emmanuel Macron postponed a major televised speech that was to address the country's yellow vest crisis due to the fire. "Like all of my countrymen, I am sad tonight to see this part of us burn," Macron said while visiting the scene. The fire began about 6:30pm local time as the last big group of tourists of the day was attempting to get in, reports the New York Times. The doors were shut abruptly, without any explanation, and the first wisps of smoke were soon evident. Thousands have lined the banks of the Seine to watch. Former President Obama also weighed in, via Twitter. "Notre Dame is one of the worlds great treasures, and were thinking of the people of France in your time of grief," he wrote. "Its in our nature to mourn when we see history lostbut its also in our nature to rebuild for tomorrow, as strong as we can." For a quick history, see the Wall Street Journal. Most know the cathedral thanks to Victor Hugo's 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame and its multiple movies. Friends of Notre-Dame de Paris, which is raising funds for the construction work, had previously written about the need for the renovation: "the lead that protects the wooden spire from the elements [and] dates from the mid-nineteenth century has fallen into disrepair, and because of water damage to the wooden structure beneath, is structurally compromised." (Read more Notre Dame Cathedral stories.) (Newser) Aretha Franklin received an honorary Pulitzer Prize on Monday, as judges praised the Queen of Soul "for her indelible contribution to American music and culture." Franklin, who died last summer, was the first woman singled out for an honorary Pulitzer, which has been given to Bob Dylan and John Coltrane among others, reports the AP. Competitive Pulitzers were awarded to books about two other giants of American history: Frederick Douglass and Alain Locke. David W. Blight's 900-page Frederick Douglass was named the best work of history, while the biography prize went to Jeffrey C. Stewart's The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke. Richard Powers' innovative novel The Overstory, which shows us the world through the perspective of nature, won for fiction. story continues below The drama prize went to Fairview, by Jackie Sibblies Drury, and Eliza Griswold's Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America won for general nonfiction. Ellen Reid's opera p r i s m, which tackles sexual and emotional abuse, was given the music award, and Forrest Gander's elegiac Be With the poetry prize. The lives of Franklin, Douglass, and Locke spanned and helped define more than a century of political and social change: Douglass was the country's leading abolitionist of the 19th century, Locke the so-called "Dean" of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s, and Franklin a transcendent and inspiring voice of the civil rights and feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s. The AP has much more on the authors here. (Read more Pulitzer Prize stories.) Sorry! This content is not available in your region New Delhi: Days after Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan endorsed another term for Narendra Modi, outgoing Pakistani high commissioner Sohail Mehmood on Sunday said that Islamabad was hopeful of re-engagement with New Delhi as soon as the new government takes charge after the Lok Sabha elections. Before leaving to Islamabad, outgoing Pakistani high commissioner Sohail Mehmood said that talks between India and Pakistan will help maintain peace and security in the south Asian region. "We hope for re-engagement with New Delhi after elections in India. Engagement between Pakistan and India will help in building an edifice of durable peace and security in the region," The Times of India quoted Mehbood as saying. After Pulwama attack and Balakot air strike, Pakistan has become, probably for the first time, a major issue with the prime minister and his party BJP inserting it in the rehtoric of election campaign. Modi, in all his ralliles has been targeting the Opposition parties of speaking the language of Pakistan and said that Islamabad wanted to see him losing the elections. However, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan's recent remarks that he would rather like the BJP - a right wing party - to win the elections, had turned things a little messy for the BJP. Following Imran Khan's remarks, the Opposition parties some ammo to respond the BJP in its own language. They questioned the "secret understanding" of PM Modi with his Pakistani counterpart. Some Opposition leaders even alleged that Pulwama attack was a conspiracy by Modi to win the elections. Opposition parties said that from being on the brink of war with India, what happened suddenly that Pakistani prime minister endorsed another term for Narendra Modi. With Pakistan claiming resumption of talks as soon as the new prime minister takes charge in India, more questions are likely to be raised by the Opposition as New Delhi's "terror and talks can't go together" stand remains effective. New Delhi: The Election Commission has barred Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from Lok Sabha poll campaigning for next 72 hours. The development comes after the Supreme Court rebuked the poll panel for ahaving limited power to act against such leadersa A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi had asked the representative of Election Commission to appear before it tomorrow. The poll panel has barred the UP Chief Minister from holding public meetings, road shows and giving media interviews for 72 hours starting from 6 am on April 16. Election Commission bans UP CM Yogi Adityanath from holding public meetings, road shows & giving media interviews for 72 hours, starting 6 am tomorrow, for violating Model Code of Conduct by making objectionable statements in his speeches. https://t.co/2SycB93NXb pic.twitter.com/HOgRO4XRSq a News Nation (@NewsNationTV) April 15, 2019 aHe (yogi Adiyanath) being the CM of a state has an added responsibility to not only uphold the basic tenets, including secularism,of the Constitution, but also to display the same in his public appearances/speeches,a the poll panel said in its notice against UP Chief Minister. Last week, on Thursday the poll panel had issued a show cause notice to Yogi Adityanath for his "Ali" and "Bajrang Bali" remarks while addressing a rally in Meerut. Finding him prima facie guilty of violating the model code of conduct, the commission asked him to respond by Friday evening. Adityanath had compared the Lok Sabha elections to a contest between 'Ali', a revered figure in Islam, and Bajrang Bali, the Hindu god Hanuman. "Agar Congress, SP, BSP ko 'Ali' par vishwaas hai toh humein bhi 'Bajrang Bali' par vishwaas hai (If the Congress, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party have faith in Ali, we have faith in Hanuman)," the UP CM had said. His statement came while referring to BSP chief Mayawati's speech at a rally in Deoband, where she urged Muslims to back the alliance. New Delhi: The BJP on Monday released a new list of candidates for the ensuing Lok Sabha elections. The list comprises seven candidates from Uttar Pradesh. The party has fielded Bhojpuri actor Ravi Kishan from chief minister Yogi Adityanath's home turf Gorakhpur while Praveen Nishad, the chief of Nishad Party which has joined hands with the BJP, will contest from Sant Kabir Nagar. Senior party leader and former chief of Uttar Pradesh unit Ramapati Ram Tripathi will contest the polls from Deoria constituency. Uttar Pradesh is going to polls in all seven phases from April 11 to May 19. The counting of votes will be done on May 23. In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had won 71 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the politically crucial state. The SP had won five seats, while the BSP failed to win any seat. This time, BJP-Apna Dal-Nishad Party alliance faces stiff challenge from the SP-BSP alliance. Ballia: The Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP), an ally of the ruling BJP in Uttar Pradesh, on Monday said it will go alone in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls in the state. "The SBSP will contest the Lok Sabha election on its own. It will field candidates from 25 seats (in Uttar Pradesh) and their names will be announced soon," party chief and state minister Om Prakash Rajbhar told reporters at his residence here. The SBSP had won four seats in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. However, hours after SBSP's announement, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya asserted that the SBSP will remain in alliance with the BJP in the state. Rajbhar said there was a meeting on the alliance at the chief minister's residence on April 13, in which Union minister JP Nadda was also present. At that meeting, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had proposed to field an SBSP candidate on its symbol, which was disapproved by him, Rajbhar added. He insisted to use his party symbol even if the SBSP got just one seat to contest. The Uttar Pradesh minister for backward class welfare and divyangjan empowerment said he had sought time from Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, but was yet to get an appointment. Rajbhar also said if the BJP wanted to remove him from the council of ministers, it could do so. Meanwhile, Rajbhar's son and SBSP general secretary Arun Rajbhar said, "The alliance with the BJP is for the Assembly polls and not for Lok Sabha elections." (With PTI inputs) New Delhi: The Election Commission on Monday barred Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Azam Khan from campaigning for 72 hours and BJP leader Maneka Gandhi for 48 hours starting from 10 am on Tuesday for violating Model Code of Conduct. The veteran Samajwadi Party leader has stoked a controversy with an inappropriate remark against film actor and BJP candidate Jaya Prada, fighting the Lok Sabha polls from Rampur against him. Khan, without taking names, on Sunday had said it took "you 17 years to understand her reality" but, "I could recognise it in 17 days that she wears a khaki underwear". The BJP claimed that the comment was made against Prada, who is fighting the Lok Sabha polls against the Samajwadi Party (SP) leader. Kicking up a political storm, Union minister Maneka Gandhi warned the Muslim community that if they do not vote for her, she will not help them in future. A video clip of her political rally in Sultanpur Lok Sabha constituency on Thursday showed the minister telling voters that it is all about give and take. The three-minute clip has gone viral on various social media platforms. On Friday, the Congress on Friday moved the Election Commission against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for allegedly "dragging" the armed forces in the political domain and over Union minister Maneka Gandhi's remarks on Muslims. The party had demanded that an FIR be registered against Maneka Gandhi and cancel her nomination. Earlier in the day, the EC had barred UP chief minister Adityanath for 72 hours for 48 hours for their religious comments. The actor-turned-politician, who was earlier with the SP and has now been pitted by the BJP against Khan from Rampur Lok Sabha seat, demanded his immediate disqualification from contesting polls and said she had considered him a brother but he has now crossed the 'lakshman rekha'. After examining the remarks made at an election rally on Sunday by Khan, the Election Commission on Monday night imposed a nationwide ban on him from campaigning for 72 hours, beginning Tuesday. During the last Lok Sabha elections in 2014, the EC had imposed a ban on Khan from campaigning in Uttar Pradesh for his provocative speeches and had also lodged an FIR against him. Khan, however, remained defiant and said he did not name any person in his speech and if anyone proves that he had taken any name or maligned anyone then he would not contest the polls. Jaya Prada had represented Rampur twice in Lok Sabha after winning in 2004 and 2009 as a Samajwadi Party leader. Later she was expelled from the party, along with Amar Singh, following differences with Mulayam Singh Yadav. Last month she joined BJP and has been nominated as the saffron party's candidate against Khan from Rampur, which goes to polls on April 23. Khan and some other SP leaders sought to suggest that Khan's comments were targeted at Singh, who is considered her mentor in UP politics. As the remarks drew a sharp criticism, with the BJP launching a scathing attack on him and other SP leaders including the party chief Akhilesh Yadav who was allegedly himself present at the rally, the police lodged an FIR against Khan. Rampur's District Magistrate Aajaneya Kumar Singh told news agency PTI: "An FIR has been registered against Azam Khan under section 509 of the IPC (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and under sections of the Representation of People's Act." The National Commission for Women (NCW) issued a show cause notice to Khan, saying his remarks were "extremely derogatory, offensive, unethical and show disrespect towards dignity of women". It also urged the EC to take "strong action" against the SP leader. The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) also asked the EC to take strict action against politicians making "disparaging" comments against women. Union Minister Sushma Swaraj questioned SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav's silence on the matter and asked him not to stay silent like 'Bhishma Pitamah' did at disrobing of Draupadi in Mahabharata. Tagging a video of Khan's remarks, Swaraj tweeted, "Brother Mulayam, you are the patriarch of the Samajwadi Party. In Rampur, Draupadi is being disrobed in front of you. Don't commit the mistake of staying silent like Bhishma Pitamah", referring to an incident from the famous Indian mythology Mahabharata. Swaraj also tagged SP president Akhilesh Yadav, who was allegedly present at the rally when Khan made the controversial remarks, his wife Dimple Yadav and film star Jaya Bachchan, who is also an SP leader. At an election rally in Gujarat, BJP chief Amit Shah hit out at Khan and his party, as well as its ally in Uttar Pradesh BSP, and sought their apology for their leader's "disgusting" remark, calling it an insult to crores of mothers and sisters", not Jaya Prada alone. BJP leader and union minister Smriti Irani also questioned the silence of the Congress and its allies on Khan's remarkes and alleged it was a clear indication that those connected with the UPA were disrespectful towards women. "There is silence on the part of the Congress, its allies and other such political parties on the derogatory comments of Azam Khan...there has not been any opposition to it nor any condemnation...this proves that those in the UPA are disrespectful towards women," she told reporters in Amethi, where she is fighting Lok Sabha election against Rahul Gandhi. Speaking to reporters in Rampur, Jaya Prada said, "(Khan has) crossed the lakshman rekha (his limits) this time. He is no longer a brother to me. I had considered him as my brother and tolerated everything, but now I cannot tolerate (this)." Seeking an answer from SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, she said, "I am asking Akihlesh, whether you will allow such a person to contest the polls. Shame. He (Khan) should be expelled." Amar Singh also attacked Khan, calling him "filth and muck" of Indian politics. The former SP leader also alleged Khan of distributing Jaya Prada's morphed pictures during last elections and of launching a vicious propaganda against him and the actor-politician. New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday said the party is open to give up four seats to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Lok Sabha elections, but alleged that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal ahas done yet another U turn.a He also warned that the doors are still open, abut the clock is running outa. aAn alliance between the Congress & AAP in Delhi would mean the rout of the BJP. The Congress is willing to give up 4 Delhi seats to the AAP to ensure this. But, Mr Kejriwal has done yet another U turn! Our doors are still open, but the clock is running out,a Gandhi tweeted. An alliance between the Congress & AAP in Delhi would mean the rout of the BJP. The Congress is willing to give up 4 Delhi seats to the AAP to ensure this. But, Mr Kejriwal has done yet another U turn! Our doors are still open, but the clock is running out. #AbAAPkiBaari a Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) April 15, 2019 Soon, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal hit back at the Congress president, asking his Rahul Gandhi's intention.A A "What U-turn? The talks were still going on. Your tweet shows that alliance is not your intention but only a show. It makes me sad that you are only making big statements. Today, saving the nation from the Modi-Shah threat is the most important mission. It is unfortunate that you are splitting the anti-Modi votes in UP and all other states,"A Kejriwal said in a reply to Rahul Gandhias tweet.A On Friday, the Congress announced that it would fight the Lok Sabha polls in Delhi alone but maintained that it was still willing to form an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party, provided the tie-up is restricted only to the national capital. Congress' in-charge for Delhi PC Chacko said the party would go it alone in Delhi since the AAP has taken an "impractical stand" by demanding seats in Punjab, Haryana, Goa and Chandigarh. He, however, said, "We are still ready (for alliance) if AAP is willing to have an alliance in Delhi alone. We want to fight the BJP together." The AAP had on Wednesday rejected the offer of the grand old party for a tie-up in Delhi. All the routes of alliance with the Congress have been closed, AAP's Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh had said. The Congress was eager for tie-up with the AAP in Delhi. The AAP, in turn, wanted such an alliance to extend to Haryana and Punjab as well. The talks between the two sides derailed after they failed to reach an agreement over seat-sharing in Delhi and Haryana. (With PTI inputs) New Delhi: Actor-turned-politician Jaya Prada on Monday broke her silence on SP leader Azam Khanas controversial remark against her. aIt isn't new for me,a the actor was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. She recalled the 2009 period and said, aI was a candidate from his party in '09 when no one supported me after he made comments against me.a She also added that, aI'm a woman and I can't even repeat what he said.a She wondered, aI don't know what I did to him that he is saying such things.a Khan kicked up a political storm with his remark against his friend-turned-political rival. The Election Commission has demanded report from the DM and a case has been filed against him. A He shouldn't be allowed to contest elections. Because if this man wins, what will happen to democracy? There'll be no place for women in society, says Jaya Prada READ full story:https://t.co/DXeQivEcTa pic.twitter.com/PJDy1M7ikf a News Nation (@NewsNationTV) April 15, 2019 Demanding a ban on Khan, Jaya Prada said that, ahe shouldn't be allowed to contest elections. Because if this man wins, what will happen to democracy? There'll be no place for women in society. Where will we go? Should I die, then you'll be satisfied? You think that I'll get scared and leave Rampur? I won't leave.a National Commission of Women chief Rekha Sharma said, aWe are also writing to EC to take strict action against him because he has to learn this lesson now. It's high time, he has to stop this. Women are not sex objects. I think, women voters should vote against such kind of people who are treating women in such way.a She also added that, ahe's always talking dirty about women and in this election it's the second remark he gave against woman politician. NCW has taken suo-motu cognizance and we're sending him notice.a A National Commission for Women (NCW) sends a notice to SP leader Azam Khan over his remark 'main 17 din mein pehchan gaya ki inke niche ka underwear khaki rang ka hai', he made in Rampur (UP) yesterday, reports ANI.@NCWIndia @BJP4India READ full story:https://t.co/DXeQivEcTa pic.twitter.com/3QJCDT6wT7 a News Nation (@NewsNationTV) April 15, 2019 One of the 80 constituencies of Uttar Pradesh, Rampur Lok Sabha Constituency was formed before 1957. The Rampur Parliamentary constituency (constituency number 7) has a total of 1,154,544 electorates out of which 531,775 are females and 622,769 are males according to Election Commission of India 2009 reports. It has five Vidhan Sabha segments of which one is reserved for the SC category. It covers the district of Rampur which is a part of the Moradabad Division and is divided into five tehsils: Bilaspur, Milak, Rampur, Shahabad, Swar and Tanda. Rampur District covers an area of 2,367 sq km. According to the India census 2011, the district has a population of 2,335,398 and is the 194th most populous district of the country. About 52% of the population is male and 48% is female. From 2001-2011, its population growth rate has been 21.4% and the population density of Rampur is 987 people per sq km. 16.24% of the population is under six years and the sex ratio is 909 females per 1000 males. The average literacy rate here is below the national average at an appalling rate of only 53.34% with male and female literacy rates at 61.40% and 44.44%. Hindi and Bhojpuri are the most commonly used languages here. 51% of the population comprises of Muslims. Agriculture is the primary economic activity here. National Highway NH-24 and NH-87 pass through the district. New Delhi: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati will address a public rally in Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh. Congress president Rahul Gandhi will hold public rallies in Bhavnagar and Nanded. His sister and party's general secretary for Uttar Pradesh (East), Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will begin her two-day visit to Amethi. Anil Singh, spokesperson of the Congress' Amethi unit, on Sunday said Priyanka Gandhi is scheduled to arrive in the district on Monday evening. 21:24 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Can Congress give justice to those killed in 1984 Anti-Sikh riots, asks PM Modi 20:25 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Narendra Modi - why are names Of all thieves Modi, says Rahul Gandhi. 20:24 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Will provide 22 lakh jobs a year after Congress comes to power: Rahul Gandhi 20:24 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In If likes of Ambani not in jail for not repaying loans, why should farmers be in jail: Rahul Gandhi 18:46 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In MA Naqvi, BJP after meeting with EC: Rahul Gandhi ji made shameful comments on Modi ji's caste & said"Why are all Modis thieves?"Modi ji comes from a backward community, ppl with feudal mindset have hatred towards him.We've appealed to EC to take action against Rahul ji &Congress pic.twitter.com/hQ4Hwh3mzj ANI (@ANI) April 15, 2019 18:46 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Robert Vadra on being asked 'when does he plan to join politics?': As of now there are no plans. I have no wish to join politics right now. I'm amongst people and working hard; When people will feel that I should enter politics I will come with full force. pic.twitter.com/cMKZh5X00K ANI (@ANI) April 15, 2019 17:30 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In The Trinamool Congress will win all 42 seats in Bengal by defeating the deadly combine of Congress, BJP and the Left, says Mamata Banerjee. 17:30 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Mamata Banerjee accuses Congress of taking help from RSS to win elections. 17:23 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Money for 'Nyay' scheme from pockets of people like Choksi, Nirav Modi, Mallya, says Rahul Gandhi. 17:22 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Was inspired by Narendra Modi's false promise of giving Rs 15 lakh to every Indian, says Rahul Gandhi. 15:15 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Narendra Modi to file nomination on April 26 14:55 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In FIR has been registered against Azam Khan. SH Meena, SP Rampur on SP leader Azam Khan's remark: An FIR has been registered against him. Police is taking further action. pic.twitter.com/5m8FX4Jrwt ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 15, 2019 14:53 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In After Supreme Court's rebuke, Election Commission bars UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from Lok Sabha poll campaigning for 72 hours 14:49 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Repolling is likely in two booths of Outer Manipur constituency, where unidentified miscreants allegedly destroyed EVMs and VVPATs. 13:54 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Not only Azam Khan, but both Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party should apologize to the crores of women in our country: Amit Shah 13:39 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Sheila Dikshit condemns Azam Khan's statement Senior Congress leader Sheila Dikshit on #AzamKhan: This is highly condemnable, he owes an apology to women immediately.Its unacceptable, action should be taken against him pic.twitter.com/o3mXrvmt0E ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 15, 2019 13:35 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Bad days for BJP are coming, says Mayawati in Aligarh while addressing a joint rally 13:20 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Priyanka Gandhi fumbles during her speech in Fatehpur Sikri #WATCH Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, fumbles during her speech then corrects herself, "Aisi yojnayein ghoshna patra mein hai, jisme aapko swasthya sarkari aspatalon mein muft milega...Swasthya nahi, Swasthya ki jaanch aur swasthya ka ilaaj muft milega" pic.twitter.com/awoDUt2V6K ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 15, 2019 13:10 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Real nationalists stick to path of truth, says Priyanka Gandhi 13:10 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Those who talk about nationalism, why dont they speak truth: Priyanka 13:10 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Youth and farmers are very angry with PM Modi: Priyanka Gandhi 11:55 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Watch PM Modi biopic and take a call on ban, says Supreme Court to Election Commission 11:29 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In SC agrees to hear on April 22 an appeal filed by BJP MLA Pabubha Manek, disqualified by Gujarat High Court for incorrect filling of his nomination form. SC agrees to hear on April 22 an appeal filed by BJP MLA Pabubha Manek, disqualified by Gujarat High Court for incorrect filling of his nomination form. HC on April 12 had set aside Maneks election from Dwarka Assembly seat (Gujarat) in 2017 and ordered by-polls for the same. pic.twitter.com/2RQCe5LCDy ANI (@ANI) April 15, 2019 10:39 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In He (Azam Khan) shouldn't be allowed to contest elections: Jaya Prada 10:19 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In He's always talking dirty about women and in this election it's the 2nd remark he gave against woman politician: NCW Chairperson 10:17 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In It isn't new for me: Jaya Prada on Azam Khan's remark. Jaya Prada on Azam Khan's remark:It isn't new for me,you might remember that I was a candidate from his party in'09 when no one supported me after he made comments against me.I'm a woman&I can't even repeat what he said.I don't know what I did to him that he is saying such things pic.twitter.com/KEKzFvlQbF ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 15, 2019 10:16 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In BJP Goa filed a complaint with the Election Commission yesterday against a Roman Catholic priest for 'creating an atmosphere of hate and fear against a particular political party. BJP Goa filed a complaint with the Election Commission yesterday against a Roman Catholic priest for 'creating an atmosphere of hate & fear against a particular political party & a specific religion' in an address inside a religious institution pic.twitter.com/V1nQ35OnSH ANI (@ANI) April 15, 2019 10:09 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In SBSP president refuses offer to contest from Ghosi Lok Sabha seat on BJP ticket 10:02 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In FIR registered against Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan for his controversial remark. FIR has been registered against Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan for his comment 'main 17 din mein pehchan gaya ki inke niche ka underwear khaki rang ka hai'. (File pic) pic.twitter.com/7srNhNoue2 ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 15, 2019 10:01 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Election Flying squad and Income-Tax department conducted raid at MLA hostel at Chepauk. Chennai: Election Flying squad and Income-Tax department conducted raid at MLA hostel at Chepauk last night. Rooms of AIADMK RB Udayakumar & 2 others were searched. #TamilNadu pic.twitter.com/lJBuPQ9tZ7 ANI (@ANI) April 15, 2019 09:15 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Armed forces and soldiers have always been kept separate from politics, in this country. For the first time in 70 years, they are being politicised: CM Ashok Gehlot 08:16 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Navi Mumbai: Case registered against BJP MLA from Belapur, Manda Mhatre, for violating model code of conduct, for allegedly asking voters at a programme to vote twice in Lok Sabha Elections 2019. 08:04 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In I will not contest polls if proved guilty: Azam Khan on objectionable remarks against Jaya Prada 07:40 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Anil Singh, spokesperson of the Congress' Amethi unit, said Priyanka Gandhi is scheduled to arrive in the district on Monday evening. New Delhi: Former Mizoram Governor Aziz Qureshi on Sunday alleged that the 14 February attack on CRPF convoy in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama was planned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to win the Lok Sabha elections. Speaking in Madhya Pradesh, Qureshi, according to a video shared by news agency ANI, said, "You planned the attack to get another chance. But people understands this. If Modi Ji wanted to put crown on his head by killing 42 soldiers, people of the country won't allow that." Over 40 soldiers were killed in the deadly suicide attack on a CRPF convoy in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama. Following the attack, India conducted an air strike on Jaish-e-Mohammed terror camps inside Pakistani territory. The strike, that came days ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, became a politcal issue with the prime minister asking first time voters to dedicade their vote to the martyrs of Pulwama attack and soldiers who carried out the attack. Interestingly, while Modi and the entire BJP continue to target the Opposition Congress of speaking in the language of Pakistan, the country's Prime Minister, Imran Khan, in a recent interview with foreign journalists, endorsed another term for the BJP. Following Khan's remarks, Opposition parties launched counter offensive against the saffron party, with several leaders questioning the timing of the Pulwama attack and Imran Khan's "secret love" for PM Modi. Refering to the Pakistani prime minister's statement, AAP leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that the neighbouring country cannot get a better Indian prime minister than Narendra Modi who had allowed the ISI to visit the Pathankot air base, and is "implementing" Pakistan's agenda. "Four weeks back, a war-like situation prevailed between both the countries but now Imran Khan wants Modi to be the PM. Why is he saying so? Why does Pakistan want Modi to be PM again? Now people have started asking about the Pulwama attack," he said. Kejriwal further said that because of Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah, the unfulfilled agenda of Pakistan to divide India on the religious lines seems to be working. "Pakistan failed to divide India on the religious lines in the last 70 years. But it is being made possible in the last five years because of Modi and Shah duo who have filled poison in the minds of the people. Pakistan cannot get better Indian prime minister than this. They (Shah and Modi) have implemented Pakistan's agenda," he said. Lucknow: Seeking to drive a wedge between political parties which are part of 'mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) in Uttar Pradesh, Union Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday said that the Samajwadi Party will have to pay a heavy price for aligning with Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for the Lok Sabha Elections 2019. Addressing an election meeting at Dataganj, Singh said, Samajwadi Party does not know what big mistake it has committed by forging an alliance with the BSP. It will have to bear the consequences." Singh, who is seeking re-election from Lucknow Lok Sabha constituency, also said that both parties joining hands is something that could have never been imagined. They knew 'Modi ki aandhi mein hum (SP and BSP) akele tinke ki tarah beh jaenge', so they came together, the union minister said. Earlier this year, SP president Akhilesh Yadav and BSP chief Mayawati announced that they will fight from 38 and 37 seats, respectively. The Ajit Singh-led RLD, which is also part of the grand alliance, will be contesting from Baghpat, Muzaffarnagar, and Mathura. The alliance has left Amethi and Rae Bareli a stronghold of Gandhi family - for the Congress party. The Union home minister also said that barely 13 days after the Pulwama terror attack, 'revenge' was taken. "Congress and other opposition parties started demanding proof as to how many terrorists were killed, how many camps were destroyed... had it been one or two, we could have counted them. Uttar Pradesh will vote in all seven phases on April 11, 18, 23, 29, May 6, 12 and 19. Lucknow: Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) chief Om Prakash Rajbhar has reportedly refused Bharatiya Janata Partys offer to contest from Ghosi parliamentary seat on its symbol. The offer was made by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Union Minister JP Nadda. Rajbhar is very miffed over the development and has reportedly decided to break the alliance with the BJP and offered to resign. He is even seeking time from the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister to tender his resignation. The SBSP has called a meeting today to decide whether to continue its alliance with the BJP for the general election. According to sources, the SBSP may field its candidates on 25 seats if it decided to go solo. "An important meeting of party workers has been convened in Lucknow in which strategy for the upcoming Lok Sabha election and continuation in the government will be finalised," SBSP general secretary Arun Rajbhar said on Saturday. Suggestions of the party workers will be taken on these important issues, after which a final decision will be taken, said Arun Rajbhar, who is the son of Uttar Pradesh cabinet minister Om Prakash Rajbhar. Arun Rajbhar said the BJP was overconfident about returning to power at the Centre, adding that saffron party would get a reality check after the elections results were out. The SBSP leader claimed that the popularity and people's support to the SBSP was much more than the Nishad Party, citing the votes polled by the two parties in the previous elections. New Delhi: Senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan is not known for his subtle remarks. Famous or rather infamous for his acerbic tongue, Khan sparked a massive political storm on Sunday with his inappropriate remark against BJP leader Jaya Prada. The actor-turned-politician is pitted against Khan in a high-stake battle in Uttar Pradesh Rampur. On Monday, while an FIR has been filed against Khan, Union Minister Sushma Swaraj also hit out at Samajwadi Party for the leaders disgraceful remark. Tagging Akhilesh Yadav, Swaraj said that Mulayam is like SP patriarch and he shouldnt act like Bhishma and remain silent while Draupadis chir haran is going on in Rampur. The National Commission for Women Chairperson Rekha Sharma termed Khan's alleged below-the-belt remarks against the actor as "extremely disgraceful" and said the women panel will be sending a show cause notice to him. Reacting to Khan's remarks, she tweeted that the NCW would also be requesting the Election Commission to bar him from contesting elections. Sharma reacted after taking cognisance of another tweet by a user, who had also uploaded a video of the SP leader's purported jibe. The video of Khan making the "abusive" remarks was also doing rounds on various social media platforms. Khan allegedly made the remarks while addressing a poll campaign rally at Rampur, which goes to polls on April 23 along with a total of 115 constituencies across 15 states in the third phase of the elections. "Extremely disgraceful," said Sharma, reacting to Khan's remark. "Aazam Khan is always abusive and disrespectful towards women. The NCW will take suo motu cognisance and will send a notice to him. Will request Election Commission to bar him from contesting elections, tweeted the NCW chairperson. New Delhi: The Opposition Congress on Sunday claimed that the helicopter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was seen transporting a "suspicious black trunk" during his visit to Karnataka's Chitradurga and demanded an inquiry by the Election Commission to reveal whether money was transported in PM's chopper. Addressing a press conference,A Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma said that a thorough probe should be conducted in the matter. "We saw that there were three more choppers escorting the Prime Minister's helicopter. After landing, a black trunk was taken out and whisked away in a private car that was not part of the special protection group carcade," Sharma said. The Congress' Karnataka unit has already filed a complaint with the Election Commission in this regard. The Congress leader said, "What was there in the trunk. If there was no cash in it, let there an inquiry be held," he said. The party also played a video clip claiming that the purported trunk, after being unloaded from the PM's helicopter, was shipped to a private Innova car, that Sharma alleged was not a part of the SPG carcade, and taken away. Suspicious box was offloaded from the PM's helicopter in Chitradurga, Karnataka today. It was rushed to a waiting Innova, which then sped away The question is, Why was the box not part of security protocol? Why wasn't the Innova part of PM's convoy? Whose car was it? (1/n) pic.twitter.com/lJWVPC5neb a Srivatsa (@srivatsayb) April 13, 2019 Raising the issue of Rafale, Sharma asked Modi to make public the minutes of a meeting held last year between him and former French president Francois Hollande on the fighter jet deal. A "Why is he (PM) silent on his role in Rafale scam? Make the minutes of the meeting between Prime Minister and former French president Francois Hollande on the Rafale deal public by tomorrow. As there has been a controversy, it would help settle it once for all," he said. The Prime Minister in his "desperation to win has done enormous disservice to the nation by dragging in the Armed Forces for Partisan political propaganda", Sharma further alleged. (With inputs from PTI) Politburo member and Head of the Party Central Committees Commission for Organisation, Pham Minh Chinh, attended the ceremony and beat the drum to open the festival. The annual event aims to commemorate and honour the merit of national hero Dinh Bo Linh (924-979), who defeated 12 warlords to unite the country, afterwards declaring himself Emperor Dinh Tien Hoang and naming the country Dai Co Viet (Great Viet) - the first centralised feudal state in Vietnam. The traditional festival has a great influence on the preservation of unique cultural values and folk arts, and has become quintessential in the spiritual and cultural activities of local people in the Hoa Lu Ancient Capital area. Running until April 15, the event features various activities, including a water procession ceremony, incense offering, a palanquin procession, praying for the nations prosperities and security, boat racing, cultural exchanges, folk games and a photo exhibition, as well as a fair on handicrafts and special products of Ninh Binh. The water procession ceremony on Hoang Long River at the Hoa Lu Festival. (Photo: NDO/Le Hong) New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday ordered the Election Commission to watch PM Modi biopic and decide on whether the movie should be banned or not. The top court asked the poll panel to give its view to the court by April 22 in a sealed cover. Makers of the movie had moved the Supreme Court against stay on its release by the poll panel. Last week, the poll panel had banned the screening of the Vivek Oberoi-starrer biopic 'PM Narendra Modi' during the Lok Sabha Elections 2019, saying any such film that subserves the purpose of any political entity or individual should not be displayed in the electronic media. Earlier, the Supreme Court had dismissed the petition filed by a Congress activist seeking a stay on the release of the biopic, saying the Election Commission was the right forum to decide the issue. The court said that it will be decided by the poll panel whether the movie can violate the Model Code of Conduct. Since the movie was not certified at that time by the Censor Board it could not entertain the petition seeking a ban on the film, the top court had said. Later on Tuesday evening, the Censor Board had certified the biopic and the Congress activist on Wednesday succeeded in securing a ban on its release from the Election Commission. The film was originally scheduled to hit the theatres on April 5 but due to certain hurdles by "powerful people", the release got delayed to April 11, the same day first phase of Lok Sabha elections starts. Bollywood actor Vivek Oberoi, who is portraying Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his controversial biopic, has reacted sharply after the films release got postponed to April 11. Meanwhile, lead actor of the film Vivek Oberoi had slammed those raising issue against the political drama. I don't understand why some people are overreacting like this. Why are such senior and famous lawyers like Abhishek Singhvi ji and Kapil Sibal ji wasting time on filing a PIL on such a modest film? Don't know if they are scared of the film or of Chowkidar's 'danda', Oberoi was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. On the portrayal of the Prime Minister on the silver screen, Oberoi said that, We are not projecting Modi ji as larger than life, he already is larger than life. We are not projecting him as a hero, he already is a hero ,not only for me but for crores of people in India and abroad. Its an inspirational story which we brought to the screen. Last month, the Bombay High Court had refused to interfere with the release of the biopic. "The Election Commission has already taken note of the issue and shall deal with it," the court had said. The bench disposed of a Public Interest Litigation filed by Satish Gaikwad, national president of the Republican Party of India (I), who said the film, if permitted to be released for public viewing, would violate the model code of conduct imposed by the EC. The plea had questioned the timing of the film's release and said if released, it was likely to earn the prime minister electoral mileage. New Delhi: Malaika Arora and Arjun Kapoor have been grabbing the limelight ever since the two were spotted together at an event. Though the lovebirds have remained tight-lipped about their relationship, their vacation pictures and outings have become the talk of the town. Now, if the grapevine is to be believed, things are getting pretty serious between the two, and they are planning to tie the knot in April, as per Hindu and Christian rituals. The speculations took a high note when Malaika had jetted off to Maldives along with her gal pals and, apparently Arjun had also joined them. It was speculated that Malaika was on her bachelorette and that we may hear the wedding bells ringing anytime soon. However, in an interaction with Bombay Times, Malaika has refuted the wedding rumours saying, "There is no truth to these silly speculations." Earlier, when Malaika was asked by Hindustan Times about the reports of her tying the knot with Arjun, she was quoted as saying, ''I never answer personal questions. Not that I shy away from answering or whatever. I just dont feel comfortable talking about my personal life. And whatever my life has been, everyone is aware of it. I dont need to be talking about it. I am just enjoying my life - its beautiful and precious. Talking about being open to the idea of marriage, Arjun had said on Koffee with Karan, "Yes, now I am. Earlier, I wasn't" on his appearance on Koffee With Karan 6. When KJo asked Malaika about Arjun's KWK appearance, she said, "It was hot, it was honest and I loved every bit of it!" On the professional front, Arjun Kapoor would next be seen in Raj Kumar Gupta's India's Most Wanted, the trailer for which would reportedly be attached to Abhishek Varman's Kalank, which hits the theatres on Wednesday. For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Technology was on India's side in the Balakot air strikes and the results would have been further tilted in the country's favour if the Rafale jets were inducted on time, Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa said on Monday. The Indian Air Force chief was addressing a gathering at a seminar on aerospace power of the future and the impact of technology. "In the Balakot operation, we had technology on our side, and we could launch precision stand of weapons with great accuracy. In the subsequent engagements, we came out better because we upgraded our MiG-21s, Bisons, and Mirage-2000 aircraft," he said. "The results would have been further skewed in our favour had we inducted the Rafale aircraft in time," Dhanoa said. In March, Dhanoa said India will induct French-made Rafale fighter jets in September. His statement, the first after captured Indian Air Force Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was released by Pakistan on March 1, was an indication that India would soon get advanced fighter jets to increase its offensive and defensive capabilities. India has ordered at least 36 Dassault Aviation-manufactured Rafale fighter aircraft to update its arsenal in the wake of increased threat from cross-border terror attacks. Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated after a suicide bomber of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) killed 40 CRPF personnel and injured dozens of others in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district on February 14. In response to the attack, India launched a counter-terror operation and conducted air strike in Balakot inside Pakistani territory. IAF claimed it destroyed a major terror camp of Jaish-e-Mohammed - the terrorist organisation which took the responsibility of the Pulwama attack. However, Pakistan accepted that Indian fighter jets did enter into Balakot, but denied any damage as claimed by India. A day after India's air strike, the Pakistani Air Force (PAF) even tried to carry out a Balakot-like attack against Indian military targets but failed miserably. "On February 27, the Pakistani Air Force with its package of more than 20 planes led by the American F-16s along with the French Mirage-IIIs and Chinese JF-17, fired 11 H-4 1,000 kg bombs from ranges of around 50 km inside their territory at military targets at three locations but failed to hit any of them," news agency ANI quoted government sources as saying. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The next time your men with their hirsute looking beard of a forest comes near you, tell him to stay a mile away! Because a new hair-raising study claims that men with beards carry more germs than dogs including deadly bacteria in their facial ball of hair. Researchers discovered that nearly half of all sampled beards hosted bugs dangerous to human health. The study, which was published by the Daily Mail took swabs from the beards of 18 men and the necks of 30 dogs, across a range of breeds, and compared the results. Professor Andreas Gutzeit, of Switzerland's Hirslanden Clinic, told the publication, The researchers found a significantly higher bacterial load in specimens taken from the men's beards compared with the dogs' fur. "On the basis of these findings, dogs can be considered as clean compared with bearded men." Keith Flett, founder of the Beard Liberation Front seems to argue otherwise against this bushy debate. 'I think it's possible to find all sorts of unpleasant things if you took swabs from people's hair and hands and then tested them,' he said. 'I don't believe that beards in themselves are unhygienic. 'There seems to be a constant stream of negative stories about beards that suggest it's more about pogonophobia than anything else Flett adds. And with that, are you giving a second thought about re-grabbing the razor stashed away in the washroom? New Delhi: Salvator Mundi, another of Leonardo Da Vincis masterpiece, deemed as the worlds most expensive painting which depicts Jesus Christ as the saviour was reportedly sold at a ground breaking 350 million at auction. Experts however now claims that the painting, valued because of the handiwork by the Italian polymath dating back to c.1500 might not have been done by Da Vinci himself. This new doubt over the most famous painting came into light two years after it was sold at $ 450 million US dollars reportedly to Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman record price in the belief that it was Leonardos work. Now, a new book by art scholar Ben Lewis claims the National Gallery in London asked five experts to examine the portrait in 2008, before its inclusion in the gallery's blockbuster Leonardo exhibition three years later. Lewis, according to Daily Mail writes that just two of the experts were willing to verify that the painting was a genuine Leonardo, a third said it wasn't and two refused to comment. But the gallery reportedly failed to include any of the doubts in the catalogue when it was sold, report claims. Michael Daley, director of ArtWatch UK, said, 'We don't think it's a Leonardo and it should not have gone in the exhibition back in 2011.' But Dr Bendor Grosvenor, who presents the BBC4 series Britain's Lost Masterpieces according to the Daily Mail said he thought there were valid reasons to believe the work was by Leonardo further adding that Leonardo scholars agree that it's by him or at least mostly by him. For all the Latest Offbeat News News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to stay Madras High Court order imposing a ban on Chinese video app TikTok. The Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi posted the matter for hearing on April 22 as the case is coming up for hearing on April 16 in Madras High Court. Earlier, the Supreme Court had said that it will look into an appeal filed against Madras High Court order banning TikTok. The Madras High Court had passed an order to prohibit the download and use of TikTok. The Madurai bench of the high court passed the order after expressing concern that the app hosts inappropriate content, including pornography, which is available for access to children. The bench had also expressed its concern that minors are also exposed to strangers online through TikTok. "Majority of the teens are playing pranks, gaffing around with duet videos sharing with split screen to the strangers. The children who use the said application are vulnerable and may expose them to sexual predators . Without understanding the dangers involved in these kinds of Mobile Apps., it is unfortunate that our children are testing with these Apps." Justices N Kirubakaran and SS Sundar have also directed the central government to respond before the February 16 if it would enact like US' "Children's Online Privacy Protection Act" to prevent children becoming online victims. The order also observed pranks made using the app could violate privacy. The petition was filed by a Madurai-based senior lawyer-cum-social activist Muthu Kumar. Citing pornography, cultural degradation, child abuse, suicides, he had sought a direction to ban TikTok. Tik Tok, which was launched in 2019, is a social video app owned by China's Beijing ByteDance Co. It reached the one billion download mark in February. It is a popular app worldwide and was the fourth most downloaded non-game app in 2018. New Delhi: American Airlines announced on Sunday it would scrap some 115 flights per day in the coming months because its fleet of Boeing 737 MAX planes is being grounded until August 19. America's leading airline had previously only planned to keep the planes out of commission until June 5. "These 115 flights represent approximately 1.5 per cent of American's total flying each day this summer," American Airlines chairman and CEO Doug Parker said in a statement. But he stressed his confidence in the aircraft overall. "Based upon our ongoing work with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Boeing, we are highly confident that the MAX will be recertified prior to this time (August 19)," he said. "By extending our cancellations through the summer, we can plan more reliably for the peak travel season and provide confidence to our customers and team members when it comes to their travel plans. "Once the MAX is recertified, we anticipate bringing our MAX aircraft back on line as spares to supplement our operation as needed during the summer." American Airlines had lowered one of its first quarter indicators in light of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes being grounded, along with the partial US government shutdown and technical challenges. Earlier this week, competitor Southwest Airlines said it would operate its 34 aircraft of the same model starting August 5. Earlier, Boeing reported a 19 per cent drop in first-quarter commercial airplane deliveries as the global grounding of its 737 MAX plane hits results. The aerospace giant delivered 149 commercial planes in all in the first quarter, including 89 of the 737 aircraft. That is down from 184 commercial deliveries and 132 of the 737s in the year-ago period. Boeing has been under scrutiny following a March 10 Ethiopian Airlines crash on a 737 MAX that killed 157 people, the second deadly crash involving in the aircraft in five months. Regulators worldwide grounded the planes within days of the Ethiopia crash, a move that also restricts Boeings ability to deliver new planes. Plane deliveries are closely tied to company revenues. Boeing had announced it would temporarily cut production of the 737 plane to 42 per month from 52 per month. The company is expected to update its full-year profit forecast when it reports earnings on April 24. In January, Boeing had signalled that it expected big jumps in 2019 in both revenues and earnings-per-share. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Toronto/ Chandigarh: The Canadian government led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has removed a reference to Sikh extremism from its 2018 report on terrorism which had earlier mentioned it as one of the top five terrorist threats to the country. The updated version of the '2018 Public Report on the Terrorism Threat to Canada' was released on Friday, Toronto-based CBC news quoted The Canadian Press news agency as saying. The language in the report was changed to remove any mention of religion, instead discussing the threat posed by "extremists who support violent means to establish an independent state within India", it reported. The 2018 report on terrorism, first released in December last year, drew the ire of the Sikh community at the time of its release as it was the first time when it listed Sikh extremism as one of the top five extremist threats in Canada, the CBC news said. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale had said that he would at least ask for a review of the language the report used, the report said. A He said entire religions should never be equated with terrorism, it said. On Saturday, Prime Minister Trudeau praised the minority Sikh community as he visited a gurdwara on the occasion of Vaisakhi. Vaisakhi is a time to focus on what matters a family, friends, and coming together as neighbours & fellow Canadians a and an opportunity to recognize the remarkable contributions Sikh Canadians have made to our country. What a celebration in Vancouver today! pic.twitter.com/Hlq6d24SJo a Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) April 13, 2019 "Vaisakhi is a time to focus on what matters - family, friends, and coming together as neighbours & fellow Canadians - and an opportunity to recognize the remarkable contributions Sikh Canadians have made to our country. What a celebration in Vancouver today!," he said in a tweet. The dedication to helping others at the heart of the Sikh faith is also "fundamental to who we are as a country", he said at one of the largest Sikh temples in the country, Vancouver's Ross Street Gurdwara. He, along with Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, also took part in a massive parade to mark the Sikh holy day of Vaisakhi. Trudeau praised the Sikh community for its values of "equality and social justice". There are roughly half-a-million Canadians who identify themselves as Sikh, most of them in the Greater Toronto Area and suburban Vancouver. Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh Sunday protested the Canadian governmentas decision saying it "succumbed to domestic political pressure"."The move is a threat to Indian and global security," he said. Amarinder said the "knee-jerk decision" by the ruling Canadian Liberal Party was aimed at protecting its political interests in an election year. It could have serious consequences for the Indo-Canadian relations in the long run, Singh said. "(Canadian Prime Minister Justin) Trudeau is playing with fire with his decision to assuage inflamed domestic passions through this ill-considered move," he claimed. The world cannot afford to fan extremism in any form, which is what the Trudeau government is effectively doing with such ill-thought moves, he added. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The United States congratulated the new Palestinian government on Sunday, a day after incoming prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh announced his new cabinet alongside president Mahmud Abbas. "Congratulations to the new Palestinian Authority Cabinet," tweeted Jason Greenblatt, assistant to US President Donald Trump and special representative for international negotiations. "With the experience of those on the list, we hope we will be able to work together toward peace and improving Palestinian lives. It's time for a new chapter." A new government for the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority was sworn in Saturday. As peace talks with Israel ran aground years ago and the Trump administration will likely put forward a peace plan that the Palestinians say favours Israel, Abbas badly needed to garner power at home and extend his control back to Gaza, which Hamas governs separately. The Palestinian leadership fears that Israel would retain major Jewish settlements in the West Bank and that the seat of the future Palestinian state would be in Gaza instead. Ishtayeh's government, which controls those parts of the West Bank on which the PA has autonomy, doesn't feature significant changes from its predecessor. Five members, including those of foreign affairs, finance and the two premier deputies, retained their posts. Ishtayeh holds the interior and religious portfolios. The Palestinian government runs day-to-day affairs while Abbas and the PLO's Central Committee, which he also heads, manage the political decision-making. Since coming to power, Trump has proven to be perhaps the most pro-Israel American president in history, breaking with decades of international consensus to recognize Jerusalem as the country's capital and Israel's control over the Golan Heights. The peace plan is being developed by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, an Orthodox Jew whose close family ties to Netanyahu have heightened Palestinian suspicions over whether the US administration can serve as an honest broker. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Interior Minister, General Shaikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al-Khalifa yesterday called for greater US-Bahrain cooperation to counter the growing threats posed by terrorist organisations in the era of smart terrorism. Terrorist group today works with sophisticated weapons and communication system, the minister said warning that they are now capable of conducting operations with minimal physical risk. Facing such threats, the Minister stressed, requires greater and deeper US-Bahrain cooperation and is also essential to counter the destabilising influence of Iran and its sectarian and terrorist allies and to preserve the security of the Gulf and beyond. The minister was speaking during a meeting on US Counterterrorism and Law Enforcement Cooperation in the Middle East at the Atlantic Council in the United States. Discussions focused on the security challenges facing the Gulf region that require confronting the Iranian Interference and combating all forms of Iranian support to terrorist groups. The event highlighted cybersecurity and the threat of the use of technology in terrorism and the need to improve the capabilities of security authorities to deal with the development in cross-border organised crimes, in addition to the exchange of information and the reinforcement of international counter-terrorism cooperation. Irans proxy war Iran, the Minister told the meeting, is waging a proxy war to undermine the regions safety and stability and ultimately to seize power and impose a Hezbollah -style clerical regime. This strategy has played out clearly elsewhere in the region, with countries paralysed, and Hezbollah holding key centres of power, the minister said adding that they have tried the same game plan in Bahrain. They have not succeeded, and we will not let them succeed, the minister said. In Bahrain, the minister said, There was a genuine hope that so-called opposition groups could work constructively taking part in elections and engaging productively to develop their country. But those groups slipped into a familiar pattern of rejectionism, of boycotts, of more extreme demands, and ultimately of street violence and intimidation. It also became clear that Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society was little more than the Bahrain franchise of Hezbollah. Terrorist designation Highlighting the designation of Al Ashtar Brigades as a terrorist group by the US State Department, the minister told the conference that it was enormously encouraging. Bahrain, the minister said, has clear evidence that Iranian-origin explosives were used in the 2017 bombing of a major oil pipeline carrying some 250 thousand barrels of oil per day, carried out by a group trained, supplied and directed from Iran. Bahrain is safe The Minister assured that amid all these real and pressing challenges Bahrain today is safe and is welcoming people from around the world as demonstrated by last weeks Formula 1 Grand Prix. The session was attended by officials from the US management, Congress Members, officials from intellectual and research organisations and decision-making departments in the United States. The meeting was also attended by Bahrain Ambassador to the United States, Shaikh Abdullah bin Rashid Al Khalifa, President of Customs Affairs, Shaikh Ahmed bin Hamad Al Khalifa and the accompanying delegation of Interior Minister. ISIS still alive Speaking on the occasion, Ambassador Nathan A. Sales, Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Counterterrorism Bureau, US Department of State highlighted that the ISIS isnt defeated fully. They will continue to fight in Syria and Iraq. The second face, he said, will not be facing ISIS in the battlefield however it will be faced by law enforcement and by border security. This is not only related to ISIS but all the different terrorist organizations all over the world, such as Al Qaeda. Sandrea Hwang, Section Chief for the Counterterrorism Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, also highlighted that terrorism was a complex problem. It requires all of us to work together. His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the Supreme Commander visited the Bahrain Defence Force (BDF)s General Command yesterday. Upon arrival, His Majesty was welcomed by BDF Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, Minister of Defence Affairs General Abdullah bin Hassan Al Nuaimi, Chief of Staff General Dhiab bin Saqr Al Nuaimi, and senior BDF officers. His Majesty was accompanied by Royal Guard Commander His Highness Major-General Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa. His Majesty held a meeting with senior officers during and discussed the BDFs development plans. His Majesty expressed pride in the Bahrain Defence Force (BDF) patriotic servicemen, reaffirming the confidence in the team. The BDF officers expressed congratulations to His Majesty on the anticipated advent of the blessed month of Ramadan, wishing Bahrain many happy returns in blessing and prosperity under His Majestys leadership. His Majesty tasked them to convey his greetings and congratulations to all the brave BDF men on this blessed occasion at their various worksites, wishing many happy returns of this blessed occasion to our beloved Bahrain and the Arab and Islamic nation in prosperity and welfare. His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa also visited the BDF-affiliated Royal Guard where His Majesty was welcomed by His Highness Major-General Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Commander of the Royal Guard, and several Royal Guard officers saluted His Majesty the Supreme Commander. His Majesty was briefed on the Royal Guard important duties which it performs efficiently as well as its development plans. His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa lauded Bahrains human rights strides yesterday as he received the Human Rights Committee at the Council of Representatives, led by MP Abdulla Al Thawadi. We are proud of our human rights situation. We have attained many landmark achievements in the human rights field, and we - government and members of the Council of Representatives- have to preserve and build on our accomplishments in this regard. We share the same desire and exert similar efforts aimed at optimizing the gains of our country and people in all fields. The interests of our nation must always bring us together, HRH Premier said. The representatives of the people represent our democracy of which we are proud. Our doors are always open for MPs, out of our belief that our common responsibility requires us to cooperate to achieve more for our nation and people, HRH Premier added. In the government, we have endeavored to harness all potentials to ensure that the Bahraini citizens enjoy the best quality services. We are keen to follow up on that personally through field visits, to measure the citizens satisfaction with them. We do not rely on reports only. We believe that the provision of the needs and sufficient quality services that ensure a decent living for the citizens is essential to human rights protection, within our comprehensive vision of the human rights concept, HRH Premier added. Connecticut State Police A Bridgewater woman whose baby needed emergency medical attention after consuming drugs earlier this year was arrested by state police in New Milford last week. Julie Warner, 31, was taken into custody April 11 on a warrant stemming from a Feb. 23 incident in Bridgewater, where police said Warners infant child consumed illicit narcotics she possessed. TORRINGTON A soldier from the city who died in WWI will be honored this summer by a local high school student as part of the Connecticut State Librarys Digging Into History project. Lucas Rodriguez, 16, will join a group of other teenagers from the state who will travel to France where certain American soldiers faced the German army for the first time. The group will volunteer in the village of Seicheprey where the troops dug trenches into the forest soil in April 1918 as a measure of protection. As part of the history project, Rodriguez is researching the military history of John Ryan, of Torrington, with the help of the Torrington Historical Society. He found out that many soldiers from Connecticut died in the attack, including Ryan. A key find about the local solider was discovered in a July, 1918 newspaper article with the help of the historical society curator, Gail Kruppa. It shows that Ryan was the first Torrington soldier to be killed with the American army in France. Rodriguez will compile the information hes gathered into a detailed essay about Ryan as part of a requirement for the project. Quite a few residents from Torrington served in the war, Kruppa said. It was over 1,350 (residents) and 25 percent were immigrants. She said the city had a population of about 20,000 at the time of the war. The teens interest in military history was kindled by stories he heard from his family. Both of my grandfathers served, one in the army and one in the navy. My dad was a marine, Rodriguez said. I grew up hearing all of these stories. His decision to apply for the history project was sparked by a discussion he had with his teacher, Kelly Falvey, at the Connecticut River Academy in East Hartford, where he attends high school. We were talking about college and what I wanted to study, Rodriguez said. When he told Falvey he wanted to study history, she let him know about the opportunity to travel to France. The students from Connecticut will team up with about 20 French students and historians to restore a section of trench once occupied by Connecticut soldiers of the 102nd Infantry Regiment according to the project description. The 102nd took heavy casualties at Seicheprey. The morning of April 20, 1918, was one of those clear, dreamy moonlight nights when the war seemed far away, wrote a historian of the 102nd. At 3:16 a.m., German stormtroopers attacked the surprised doughboys of the Yankee Division. The 102nd bore the brunt of the assault, the New England Historical Society website says. The society site also notes: for Connecticut, Seicheprey, a small ruined village in northeastern France, was the first place the 102nd Regiment was tested in battle. They were a National Guard battalion called up from New Haven, recently arrived in France. They had never been in battle, they had no direct support, and they fought hard, earning the respect of allies and enemies alike. The restored trench will be a historic site for tourists to visit and learn about this important battle and American contributions to the war, the project information noted. They told us the plan is to clear vegetation and make it look more like it did in the war, Rodriguez said. Well put of signs on posts that show what happened there, he added. The young historians will be in France from July 6 to 27. They will stay in a nearby village, Rodriguez said, where there is student housing for the group. These students will be ambassadors in this work, re-affirming the friendship once held so dear between Seicheprey and the people of Connecticut, the project notes. The cost to travel to France is more than $3,400 per student, according to the state library, which is not provided by the project administrators. To support the students efforts, the state library is accepting donations for their expenses. To find out more on the Digging Into History project and read about the other students who were selected to participate, check here for the information. NEW HAVEN As statewide Stop & Shop workers strike continued into a second day, some residents in cities such as New Haven and Bridgeport had to figure out Friday where they could shop for groceries in communities so underserved they were declared food deserts by the federal government. (The strike) affects me because I live right around the corner, said Wanda Perez, a member of Witnesses to Hunger, who lives near Stop & Shops Whalley Avenue location in New Haven. Thats where I do my groceries, because I dont have transportation to go to all the other grocery stores. Perez, who is 52 and has a heart condition, says its not practical for her to carry bags long distances. She said she attempted to go to the supermarket Friday during the strike because she doesnt have food in her home, only to learn it was closed. New Haven officials expressing support for the workers also said they are not sure what might happen to the community if owners dont meet with United Food and Commercial Workers representatives soon. The major grocers Connecticut locations shut down Thursday, save for banks and pharmacies, when union employees walked out as contract negotiations stalled with company leaders. The strike continued Friday, although a number of stores opened with only self check-out lanes available. Were just anticipating Stop & Shop coming to the table and getting this thing done, said Alder Frank Douglass D-2, whose ward includes the Whalley Avenue Stop & Shop in the citys Dwight neighborhood. However, Douglass recalls how difficult things were for his ward in the year between the closure of Shaws supermarket in that location and the opening of Stop & Shop. For those without cars, the site is convenient due to bus lines. Traveling far from the neighborhood to buy groceries is not as easy, however. In the past, this was a food desert, Douglass said. A food desert is defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as an area without access to healthful and affordable food. Before Stop & Shop moved into its Whalley Avenue location, three Census tracts were identified as food deserts. According to the federal governments Food Access Research Atlas, the Elm City now has two food deserts: just north of East Shore Park and the north end of the city, above Edwards Street between Whitney and Winchester avenues. In Bridgeport, the East End has long been considered a food desert by the federal government although a pop-up market opened earlier this year. In New Haven, Perez said she has the option of going to a nearby corner store, but she would be able to afford nearly twice as much in groceries at the supermarket for what her budget is. In Westville, Alder Michelle Sepulveda, D-30, said she knows there are a number of elderly people and residents of housing projects in her ward who rely on the supermarket at its Amity Road location. Its going to be a challenge for folks that dont have access to transportation, she said. None of the three alders said they have heard from constituents yet about difficulties getting groceries as of Friday, the strikes second day, but a number are prepared to find temporary and long-term solutions. I have put my name and my phone number out there if there are elderly people who might need a ride to ShopRite, Douglass said. He said hes looking to sit down with stakeholders to find solutions. Sepulveda said one of the senior living residencies in her ward has access to MyRide, but she would like to speak to the Housing Authority to collaborate on transportation solutions for her constituents in public housing. A request for comment for Elm City Communities Executive Director Karen DuBois-Walton was not immediately returned Friday. This is a neighborhood place, said Helen Powell, a cashier at the Dwight store. Its a place where all ethnicities mix. Powell said she knows that the Dwight neighborhood and its surrounding areas will be impacted by the strike, but its a larger indictment of a lack of transportation and agricultural infrastructure than on striking workers, many of whom live in the community themselves and are demanding better conditions. Mayor Toni Harp briefly met with strikers on Whalley Avenue Friday to offer her support. She said the city does not have a plan to assist with elderly or mobility-limited residents, but she believes the city has more options than it did years ago, when that community was labeled a food desert. There is access to food; we dont really have the food deserts like we used to, she said. Harp said the city would write a letter to Stop & Shop on behalf of the workers. brian.zahn@hearstmediact.com In his recent column, Hearst senior editor James Walker accused Gov. Lamont of using Blacks as a propaganda tool to get elected. (Marijuana? Dear Gov. Lamont: What say you?) According to Mr. Walker, Lamont visited Bridgeport and other low-income areas when he ran for governor in 2010, then disappeared for nearly eight years. Or, at least, Mr. Walker couldnt find media of Lamont in Black neighborhoods during that time. Regarding the accusation that Gov. Lamont used African-Americans as a propaganda tool, perhaps Mr. Walker would like to talk that over with Paul Mounds, the African-American man whom Lamont named to the post of Chief Operating Officer; or perhaps with Melissa McCaw, the African-American woman whom he selected to serve as Secretary of the Office of Policy and Management, the states chief budget official. Perhaps he would like to debate the question with Vannessa Dorantes, the African-American woman whom Gov. Lamont named Commissioner of the Department of Children and Families; or with Renee Coleman-Mitchell, the African-American woman whom Gov. Lamont asked to serve as Commissioner of Public Health; or with Andrew M. Mais, the African-American man who presides as Commissioner of Insurance in Lamonts cabinet; or with Sibongile Magubane, the African-American Commissioner of Department of Motor Vehicles. Or perhaps Mr. Walker would like to hold a sit-down on the subject with Scott R. Jackson, the African-American man whom Lamont requested to serve as the states top tax executive, Commissioner of the Department of Revenue Services. Then Mr. Walker might like to talk about the subject of using people of color as propaganda tools with the Hispanic members of Gov. Lamonts cabinet, with Maribel La Luz, his Director of Communications; with Chris Soto, his Director of Legislative Affairs; or Seila Mosquera, Commissioner of Housing; or Jorge Perez, his Secretary of the Department of Banking. For that matter, he might like to discuss the issue with the half of his cabinet who are women. Mr. Walker will remember that his fellow Hearst editor, Dan Haar, sharply criticized the governors ad hoc working groups recommendation that half of his cabinet be comprised of women, and that women of color be appointed to reflect their representation in the population of Connecticut, calling the recommendation demeaning. But even before sitting down for a talk with those men and women of color whom Gov. Lamont asked to serve in top positions in his administration, one has to acknowledge that this governor has created a cabinet that is the most diverse and representative in the history of the state by far. The governor did not forget the minority community in creating his government, a government that he wants to work for all the states people. But Mr. Walker went further, demanding in his column to know where Gov. Lamont stands on the issue of marijuana legalization. Mr. Walker, who calls it a tough decision, claims that Gov. Lamonts mouth has been zipped shut, his hand stilled, by political pressure on the issue. Gov. Lamonts mouth has not been zipped on the issue of marijuana legalization. In fact, Gov. Lamont has been clear from the start of his campaign, and long before, that he stands for legalization of the recreational use of marijuana, that he supports expungement of prior convictions for marijuana-related crimes, and support for communities of color devastated by the war on drugs, which civil rights activist Michelle Alexander called The New Jim Crow, in legalization legislation. He doesnt have to take my word for it. Mr. Walkers own Hearst newspapers have carried numerous articles reporting on Gov. Lamonts steadfast support for legalization for months. Indeed, the media, including Hearst publications, are still reporting on Gov. Lamonts support for legalization bills working their way through the General Assembly. But, as a senior editor for Hearst Connecticut Media, all Mr. Walker really needs to do to get the answers hes looking for is pick up the phone and dial the governor. One has to believe that Gov. Lamont would be eager to talk with Mr. Walker, and answer all of his questions directly. Gov. Lamonts actions have already spoken clearly and forcefully. In his support for legalization bills, in his nominations of people of color to the top jobs in his administration, Gov. Lamont is already answering Mr Walkers questions. Sean B. Goldrick is a resident of the Riverside section of Greenwich. He was elected as a delegate to the Connecticut Democratic Party convention from Greenwich as a Lamont delegate for his 2006 senatorial run, and the 2010 convention as a Lamont delegate during his run for governor. More than two years after President Donald Trump took office, the State Department remains critically understaffed. Only four of its nine top positions are filled; overall, according to the Partnership for Public Service, 38% of key positions are vacant. This month, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the administration's belated choices for ambassadors to Iraq and Saudi Arabia, but there are still no nominees for such important posts in Pakistan, Honduras, Jordan and Brazil. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Republican senators frequently blame Senate Democrats for obstructing the filling of positions. So it's worth reviewing, as the ranking Foreign Relations Committee Democrat, Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, did in a recent floor speech, some of the people Trump has nominated - and, in some cases, renominated - for ambassadorships or senior positions in the State Department. A decorated state police lieutenant who filed a lawsuit after being demoted for an alleged 2013 drunk driving incident will have his rank and seniority restored under the terms of a settlement agreement, his attorney said. Patrick Torneo, a 16-year veteran of the state police, filed state and federal lawsuits against command staff and Doris Schriro, the former commissioner of the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, after he was demoted to sergeant in 2014. Torneo was accused in two anonymous emails sent to state police commanders months after his promotion to lieutenant that he led Middletown police on a chase hours after rescuing a state police detective wounded in a shootout with robbery suspects, according to arbitration documents. The documents said Torneo was drunk and wearing his full police uniform when he engaged officers in the pursuit with his cruiser. The arbitration documents and federal and state court filings in the case show a rare view of the inner workings of the states largest law enforcement agency, which declined to investigate the allegations until a union leader directed them to Schriro a year after the incident. Torneo admitted during an internal affairs investigation that he had two beers and a shot of alcohol at the home of the detective he saved, documents said. His next recollection was being woken up by a Middletown sergeant, said arbitrator Joel Weisblatt, of the Office of Policy and Managements Labor Relations unit. In his November 2015 decision siding with the demoted lieutenant, Weisblatt said Torneo was behind the wheel of his parked cruiser at the time. The allegations were not substantiated in the internal affairs report, which led to Torneos demotion, Weisblatt determined after his review of the case. He also noted that no Middletown officers were interviewed during the internal investigation or during the arbitration proceedings. The record at hand includes absolutely no evidence of (Torneo) operating his cruiser during the Middletown encounter, Weisblatt said. As a result of the internal investigation, Torneo was disciplined for driving a department vehicle while intoxicated and conduct that would reflect negatively on the department, Weisblatt said. Weisblatt overturned a five-day suspension Torneo received for the incident, but he could not require state police to reinstate his rank. Amid the allegations of drunk driving, Andrew Matthews, president of the state police union, and attorneys representing the state in the lawsuit, contended that Torneo was negligent in his duties as a lieutenant while commanding Troop F in Westbrook, which is in part why he was transferred to headquarters and later demoted. According to the original lawsuit filed in state court in October 2017, Torneos attorney, Lewis Chimes, claimed Matthews was siding with female troopers who complained of discrimination and harassment under Torneos command at Troop F. Toreno was not accused of participating in the discrimination or harassment that allegedly occurred under his command, the documents said. That state lawsuit was dropped in November 2017 when a federal complaint was filed, claiming Torneos 14th Amendment rights to due process were violated by the demotion. Trooper First Class Kelly Grant, a spokeswoman for the state police, declined to comment on the Torneo case since she said its still open. Matthews did not return a request for comment last week. Tornero claimed in the lawsuit that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder when he was found on the side of the road the morning after he pulled a wounded co-worker to safety during a shootout with robbery suspects in April 2013. It is unclear if he was on duty when he was found. Medal of Bravery The previous day, Torneo, who was a sergeant at the time, responded to reports of a chase on Route 153 in Old Saybrook involving a vehicle occupied by two robbery suspects. When Torneo encountered the chase, he found the suspects car and a vehicle driven by state police Detective Scott Wisner had plunged down an embankment with the occupants of both cars exchanging gunfire, the lawsuit said. Wisner had been shot and was trapped in his vehicle, the lawsuit said. Torneo climbed down into the steep embankment and pulled the detective to safety. Torneo admitted during the internal affairs investigation that he had consumed alcohol at Wisners home with other officers after the detective was treated and released from the hospital, according to the arbitrator. Two troopers who responded to Middletown the next morning noted that Torneo appeared to be intoxicated but was steady on his feet. Middletown police treated the incident as a medical issue and did not perform a sobriety test or file charges, the arbitrator said. Torneos superiors were notified about the incident and he was treated for PTSD afterward, Chimes said in the lawsuit. No disciplinary action was initially taken. About six months later, Torneo was promoted to lieutenant in September 2013. He was awarded the Medal of Bravery for rescuing the detective in December 2013. It wasnt until the second email surfaced in April 2014 when state police commanders at Schriros direction insisted on an internal affairs investigation, the lawsuit claimed. As Torneo approached the one-year anniversary of becoming lieutenant in August 2014, he was told his probationary period was being extended six months due to the internal affairs investigation, court documents said. Torneo was suspended five days and demoted back to sergeant in October 2014 before the six months were up. The arbitration overturned the suspension but couldn't reverse the demotion due to lack of jurisdiction. The lawsuit hinges on whether the extended probation was improper, allowing command staff to demote him during a test period when he would have no administrative recourse through the collective bargaining process. Ranking officers who pass the probationary period can only be demoted for just cause, according to the union contract. Rank restored The lawsuit claimed his 14th Amendment right to due process was violated by the extended probationary period. A federal judge in Hartford was notified last month that the state has reached an agreement with Torneo. Details of the agreement will not be released until it is finalized, said Elizabeth Benton, a spokeswoman for the state attorney general's office. Chimes said part of the agreement will include Torneo returning to the rank of lieutenant. His seniority as a lieutenant will date back to when he was originally promoted, Chimes said. The attorney declined to comment on any other aspect of the agreement until it has been finalized. The state Attorney Generals Office also declined comment until the agreement is complete. The re-opening of an internal affairs investigation over one year after the shooting and incident against a state trooper who had shown extraordinary courage in the line of fire, and who had documented PTSD from the incident, was truly outrageous, Chimes said in the lawsuit. NEW HAVEN There is at least one topic that mayoral rivals Toni Harp and Justin Elicker agree on: welcome immigrants. The issue is at the forefront as President Donald Trump continues to threaten to send immigrants, fleeing violence in Central America to so-called sanctuary cities, of which New Haven is one. He always comes up with solutions that dont solve the problem. Anyone who wants to live in New Haven, any way that they come, as long as they want to be law abiding citizens and make a life for themselves here and their families, we welcome them, Harp said. Trump has tweeted about this several times, only to be contradicted by the Department of Homeland Security that the proposal had been considered but was quickly discarded. On Saturday however, he tweeted again that that was his plan. Homeland Security is opposed given the prohibitive cost of transporting people, as well as on questions of legality. Sanctuary cities limit the cooperation of police in assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement in deporting undocumented immigrants. I think it is a threat to try to leverage the speaker of the House, threatening to send them to San Francisco. It is what I consider silly playground stuff. Lets get some real solutions to the problems that we have. Lets get these departments, that are supposed to work on these issues, working. He is making it difficult for them to work because he has pushed everybody out. Stop being juvenile, Harp said. She does not believe it will become a policy, but if that is his solution and this country puts up with it and people want to live here and want to be our friends and neighbors, build a life here, we are welcoming everybody, the mayor assured them. Elicker had a similar message and added that the policies in New Haven should be strengthened in protecting undocumented immigrants. New Haven, for instance in 2007 became the first city in the nation to offer identification cards to all residents regardless of immigration status. We need to be much more proactive at pushing back on the rhetoric coming from Washington, to stand up for the values that are important for our country, he said. He was critical of Harp and didnt think she offered strong leadership when there were community meetings after Trump was elected and New Haven residents were deciding how to respond to him. The mayor however, has been a visible supporter of the many immigrants here who have been targeted by ICE as advocates helped them seek sanctuary here. As he was canvassing in the Dixwell neighborhood on Saturday, Elicker talked to Ebony McClease who was upset that Trump was threatening to use the migrants seeking asylum here as pawns to punish sanctuary cities. What is happening? she asked in disbelief. My response is we welcome them because this is a time where we are defining our values as a nation and if the president is not going to step up, and reinforce the values that many of us, I think, have had for a long time, then city leadership has to step up, Elicker said. He added that the citys rules on not assisting ICE in deporting the undocumented, unless they are guilty of serious crimes, should be strengthened. Elicker said New Haven is not fully a sanctuary city because it lacks legislation that says people from the Board of Education cant cooperate with ICE, leaving a loophole. That is not right, he said. In response to President Trump, I say lets welcome people to New Haven because that is who we are and that is the kind of country we need to be. If our president is not going to be that way, we are going to show individually as city leaders, that New Haven will. mary.oleary@hearstmediact.com; 203-641-2577. NEW HAVEN Several hundred people caught up with friends Saturday after dining on pulled pork and macaroni and cheese at the citys newest barbecue place, where they gave Mayor Toni N. Harp an official kickoff as she seeks a fourth term in office. The alders were in the crowd, as were city workers, while state Senate Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, dropped by before going to a family event. It was a dreary morning at the new venue, but the sun was out by the time Harp addressed the crowd. In her sixth year as mayor, she reminded them she has been in elected office for 30 years, given her long service in the state Senate. The theme was longevity and her promise was to sustain what has been accomplished as she leads the city. Elected in 2013 after Mayor John DeStefano Jr. decided not to run again, Harp won the three-way primary and defeated Justin Elicker in the general election. Elicker is challenging her again and has raised some $165,000 to the $26,392 brought in by Harps campaign. One new face at the event was her campaign manager, Ed Corey, 24, of Torrington, who introduced himself to the audience before Harp spoke. He said it will be serious race, but Harp will prevail running on her record. Im convinced theres been more progress, theres been more excitement and theres been more investment in New Haven these past few years than there has been in all that other time, Harp said, referring to her three decades in politics, to cheers from the audience. All the progress we enjoy in New Haven now is the result of a process that has been in place over time, Harp said. She added the seeds of progress are bearing fruit and she wants to be the one to see the fruit grow. Harp spoke of the lowest crime rates in years, which she attributed to community policing, a concept she backed in the 1980s when she was on the Board of Alders. Today, I stand before you to describe a much improved New Haven, a much safer New Haven and a city much better equipped to quash the scourge of gun violence, the mayor said. Harp did not mention the high rate of police retirements and the uncertainty of a new contract in binding arbitration after three years of talks, or a school system projecting a large deficit next year and a school board seen as dysfunctional. Those themes are being stressed by Elicker as he campaigns door-to-door in city neighborhoods and raises money at house parties where as a participant in the Democracy Fund he is limited to a $370 limit per individual. Jason Bartlett, Harps campaign chairman, said fundraising wont be a problem. Harp, in her talk, reminded the audience, that while DeStefano embarked on a $100 million school rebuilding program, as co-chairwoman of the state Appropriations Committee, she helped to get the necessary funding. Harp said her focus was to add things like school clinics, wraparound services for students and restorative practices instead of disciplinary measure, as Superintendent. of Schools Carol Birks nodded affirmatively from the audience. Harp said fewer students are being suspended and fewer are ending up in the judicial system. The mayor said in 2013, unemployment was 10 percent, but that has been cut in half. The New Haven were here to celebrate today is a strong, vibrant city, ripe with enthusiasm, investment and opportunity, she said. New Haven has seen an explosion of new housing units with 1,500 built and another 2,500 in the planning, permitting or construction phases. The mayor said retail and restaurants have a 90 percent occupancy rate. Harp pointed to the new boathouse at Long Wharf and The District, a tech-focused cooperative workspace, as examples of revitalized spaces. The restaurant where her kickoff was held is The Stack, which is on the same property as The District. The new head of the state Department of Community and Economic Development, David Lehman, recently said The District represents the future where ideas are shared among entrepreneurs, young and established. The Holberton School at The District offers a nontraditional approach to computer engineering. Harp mentioned the leveling of decrepit housing at Church Street South, as well as the new units being built through the Hill-to-Downtown project as more progress. She touted smaller scale programs such as 200 small businesses owners getting help with the Small Business Academy. The mayor paraphrased an African proverb: For a community to prosper, people must plant trees under the shade where they will never sit. In New Haven, its entirely satisfying to know our children will enjoy the shade, Harp said. Some of the longtime supporters for the mayor at the rally included William Carbone, now a professor at the University of New Haven and Frank Alvarado, who works for the U.S. Small Business Administration and is the chair of the Grand Avenue Special Services District. She is doing a great job here in the city, Alvardo said, despite the cuts in funding at the state and national levels with increased development here. mary.oleary@hearstmediact.coml 203-641-2577 NORWALK From the Walk Bridge to the SoNo Collection Mall to the construction at Washington Village, Sen. Chris Murphy received a birds-eye view of a variety of projects happening in the city. In this job, you need to make sure you know all the local opportunities so that if some money shows up at the federal level, you know where it best fits, Murphy said. Mayor Harry Rilling, along with Tim Sheehan, executive director of the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency, Jessica Casey, chief of economic and community development, and Steve Kleppin, director of planning and zoning, took Murphy on a bus tour through the city to show off current construction and potential future sites. The tour featured a look at development on Wall Street and West Avenue, the SoNo Collection mall, transit-oriented development projects around the South and East Norwalk train stations and the Washington Village replacement projects. Murphy praised the construction near the train station, including the Spinnaker Real Estate Partners projects in South Norwalk on Chestnut and Monroe streets and the 230 East Avenue mixed-use project in East Norwalk. The transit-oriented development project here is amazing, it's transformational and we should be able to sell Washington on being able to make some additional investments in that given how much private money is already teed up, the Democratic senator said. Murphy also spent time on the hour-long bus ride through the city asking questions about the impacts of some of these developments, including how the mall would affect local businesses and the Walk Bridge project. Along the way, staff members and the mayor highlighted other areas, including the growth of local businesses near the Head of the Harbor project on Wall Street and the need for a community services office in the city. Some of the areas were a return visit for Murphy, including the former Washington Village public housing project, which received most of its funding through the federal Choice Neighborhood Initiative Grant. All 136 public housing units of the former Washington Village will be replaced and 67 workforce housing units and 70 market-rate units will be added, collectively known as Soundview Landing. All of the former Washington Village residents are guaranteed a spot in the new development, if theyd like to return. The mayor and I have done deeper dives on these projects before, Murphy said. We were over before at the East Norwalk train station a year or so ago, I've been over to the choice neighborhood but it's good especially as we're heading into the appropriations process to get an overview of what's happening in the city so that I can see if we have any opportunities in Washington (D.C.). Rilling said he appreciated Murphys willingness to see what is happening throughout the city. I'm impressed because of how much he was impressed by what's happening in town, Rilling said. He was looking at the TOD areas, looking at the development taking place, looking at choice neighborhoods, looking at what's happening with our train station he was just really incredibly impressed about the forward movement, the momentum in Norwalk. Rilling said it was interesting to see the tour of the city through Murphys eyes and it helps strengthen Norwalks relationship with the senator. The senator has always been really available to us and been a partner in Norwalk in the past and whenever there's an opportunity to try to find federal funds, we reach out to him, he reaches out to us, Rilling said. kelly.kultys@hearstmediact.com 5 1 of 5 Ben Lambert / Hearst Connecticut Media Show More Show Less 2 of 5 Ben Lambert / Hearst Connecticut Media Show More Show Less 3 of 5 4 of 5 Ben Lambert / Hearst Connecticut Media Show More Show Less 5 of 5 NEW HAVEN A woman shot Saturday in New Haven has been released from the hospital, Capt. Anthony Duff said Monday. Four people were shot in a spate of violence on Saturday. NEW HAVEN After the Board of Education rejected a $144,000 data-based training program affiliated with Harvard University, Superintendent of Schools Carol Birks repeatedly has noted that education spending is not a straightforward endeavor. You cant just spend it on whatever you want to, Birks said at a public forum held to explain the Board of Education budget. But restrictions on the state-funded Alliance District grant fund and how it is spent have become controversial, as Birks weathers criticism from board members and the public on how her spending priorities benefit the school districts core functions. Board of Education members said they believe Birks has been misrepresenting what the funds can be spent on to advocate for contracts that they see as unnecessary. We have more latitude than we were led to believe, said board member Ed Joyner, who expressed annoyance with the Harvard contract, seeing it as providing services that education staff should be able to accomplish on their own. Both Joyner, who has supported Birks since she was hired, and school board President Darnell Goldson, who pushed aggressively for her hire in 2017 but became almost immediately critical of her once he succeeded, said they dont believe the grant spending is benefiting students as best it can. In the past, Joyner criticized Goldson for micromanaging Birks, but more recently he assured his colleague that he was in the right for using a measure of accountability. At the conclusion of a recent meeting, Joyner called for an impromptu executive session to discuss a personnel matter related to the superintendent which ultimately did not happen as Birks, who was absent from the meeting, was not made aware ahead of time. But Birks has said on multiple occasions that spending of state money cannot be arbitrary. You cant just buy crayons, Birks said at one of the forums about the grant fund. According to the state Department of Education, the Alliance District program is a targeted investment in Connecticuts 33 lowest-performing districts. Those 33 districts, identified through a process determined by state law, receive a larger allocation of the Education Cost Sharing grant. The ECS grant is the states education funding mechanism, and is meant to be awarded via a formula for districts where the local contribution through property taxes is inequitable compared to other municipalities. The Alliance grant differs, however, in that its funds are restricted and recipients must present a spending plan to the state education department as a condition to receive the money. In New Havens plan for an allocation of $12.6 million in 2018-19, for instance, $9.4 million was set aside for salary expenses, $859,000 for employee benefits, $2.3 million for professional and technical services and $87,164 for supplies. At least one of the contracts in the plan $150,000 for a contract with Integrated Wellness Group has already ceased running in the district after the district and contractor ended their relationship. Spending debate Birks has proposed multiple contracts with outside agencies with the remainder of New Havens Alliance funding for the current fiscal year, coming into conflict with some school board members and earning criticism from some in the community over whether the grant funding is being spent effectively. Goldson said he had a conversation with the state education department after Birks argued a talent director position was included in the district plan and approved by the state. Goldson said he came to understand the state doesnt direct types of hires school districts must make. Although that position has not been filled, Goldson said the district should be able to make changes to the pre-approved plan accepted by the state. She wants to have another boss (in the district), but we need more support staff, he said of Birks. We told her months ago to reprogram that money. The school board hasnt given specific instructions on what it wants to see with the remainder of the Alliance District grant funds, but members say they want to ensure that students have teachers in every classroom. But in addition to the Harvard Data Wise contract, which was rejected, administrators presented the school board with a contract for a full curricular audit by Curriculum Management Solutions Inc., which was approved by the school board under the Alliance grant. They will look at our policies, how we follow the policies, what curriculums are currently in use, do a thorough document review and a visit with 10 people who are experts in the area of curriculum, interview students, parents and teachers, Deputy Superintendent Ivelise Velazquez told the school boards finance committee in February. This is extensive. Its a really complex system. CMS was the highest bidder, offering its services for $132,000. Officials said the contract was the only one offering the full scope of services requested. Velazquez stressed the contract would need to be in place by the summer, so the district would have time to review audit results before the beginning of the 2019-20 school year. District staff told the school board no other similar district in the state had undergone such a comprehensive audit of its curriculum in at least a decade. The Register contacted personnel at each of New Havens District Reference Group school districts similar to New Haven in demographics and only Bridgeport responded to a request for comment, saying no document for a full curricular audit exists. Goldson told the Register he regretted his vote for the curricular audit as soon as I made it because he believes the school board was missing information. He said he was convinced by the fact that we had not had an audit for a while. Velazquez said an upside of CMS is that it does not attempt to pitch districts following the audit, as it is not a curriculum vendor. According to prior CMS audits, the company has an exclusive contractual agreement with Phy Delta Kappas International Curriculum Management Audit Center. The district paid $50,000 to PDK, a professional association for educators led by Josh Starr, a former superintendent of schools in Stamford and a mentor for Birks, to manage the superintendents transition into the district in 2018. In an email, Birks there is no conflict in the new contract, because a conflict of interest arises when a public official stands to benefit personally from a decision he or she makes in fulfilling his or her public responsibilities. [T]here is no personal benefit to me or others in awarding the contract to this highly qualified organization, she said. When we awarded the contract based on the quality of the submission CMSi made, I was not aware that it was affiliated with PDK, which oversaw my Transition Team (at no cost to the public). However, that affiliation was irrelevant to the selection, and neither I nor anyone in the Administration receives any benefit from this arrangement. Rather, the school district as a whole will benefit from the quality of its work. On the Alliance funding. Birks explains the four major areas where the district is able to spend money under its plan with the acronym taco. This stands for: talent and management, academics, culture and climate, and operations. More specifically, those four areas are where districts communicate their priorities when submitting an annual plan to the state. For instance, New Haven said it would use the Alliance funds to develop and maintain a human capital pipeline as a talent priority and would rely on ACES consultants to improve literacy achievement for academic priorities. Each expense identified under the Alliance District spending plan must refer back to one of the goals identified under the taco acronym. The district plan lists $9.4 million in salary costs; $2.5 million for 35 full-time behavioral interventionists refers to a climate priority to improve and integrate social-emotional and behavioral supports; and $1.7 million for 21 full time library media specialists is meant to bolster a state operations goal to improve technology integration through media and information literacy instruction. There is no reference to the taco acronym on the state education department website, and a spokesman provided a list of 10 non-exclusive focus area suggestions, seven of which emphasize tiered interventions, literacy programs, and teacher recruitment and training strategies. In Gov. Ned Lamonts proposed budget, New Haven would receive about $2.5 million more in education funding from the state in the 2019-20 school year than the current year overall, although the share of unrestricted ECS funding would decline by about $275,000. This isnt a new proposal by Gov. Lamont, said Katie Roy, executive director and founder of the nonpartisan nonprofit CT School Finance Project, which aims to increase knowledge of how the state funds education. Its just the set of policies that went into place when the major education bill was passed in 2012. Roy said the distribution of the Alliance District grant funding is not unusual, and she sees the state as being fairly permissive to districts to formulate their own plans when compared to programs in other states. In some other states, you see very strict restrictions, like new dollars need to be spent on additional learning time or only on a specific reading program; basically where the state is dictating what the district does with the money, she said. Roy said she sees the district plan approval process as an accountability measure, ensuring the state is being a good steward of its money. I dont think theres any sort of draconian policies here, she said. Nothing about whats being asked about school districts here strikes me as being out of line. Roy said she believes there is a larger question about whether the state provides adequate municipal aid and whether tying local education funding to property taxes is a good policy, but state restrictions on funding are a tiny piece of this picture and an assurance that school districts are taking steps to provide equity. Providing services The rule that Alliance funds may not be used to supplant local funding has been controversial for how it has been interpreted, as well. We cant just hire 50 more teachers, Birks said. The state will see that as supplanting. A spokesman for the state education department said prohibiting supplant funding would mean the Alliance funding cannot be used to offset existing operational costs. However, the state is allowing for 50 percent of the increased Alliance funding to be applied toward increasing operational costs. Parent Jill Kelly, an organizer with the local NHPS Advocates group, which opposes school privatization and corporate reform efforts, said most education grants require a non-supplantation clause. It means that the grant will not pay for things that the school system should be paying for, she said in an email. While ECS is underfunded (statewide by half a billion dollars last year), it leaves districts with large structural gaps in basic educational services, which Alliance and other grants refuse to supplant. Kelly said she sees the Alliance grant as a means of chasing innovation, spurning the boring, necessary work of maintaining the systems fundamental functions. Some stakeholders believe the funding is not enough for New Havens schools to fully operate. Sarah Miller, a parent organizer with the NHPS Advocates, said the current level of ECS funding is woefully inadequate. Presently we cannot provide the most basic front-line educational services, which are funded primarily via ECS: teachers, paraprofessionals, counselors, librarians, nurses, social workers and other in-school support staff. These personnel have the most direct impact on student learning and well-being. Yet none can be funded via the alliance grant, Miller said in an email. The alliance grant categories partly reflect priorities of the corporate education reform movement, which inappropriately considers schools on business-like terms. Birks said that she, too, wants to see an ECS increase. I want more money, and I wish theyd increase ECS, she said. We are in the learning business, and were redistributing resources to cover existing needs. brian.zahn@hearstmediact.com Throughout the country, tensions between the police and communities of color have sparked a national debate on how best to serve a community that often views the police themselves as hostile and adversarial. Police shootings of unarmed African American men followed by a lack of judicial oversight and deliberated police exonerations have left many in some communities feeling doubly victimized. So a national non-profit organization, along with New Haven and Yale police officers, New Haven school administrators, and over 80 high school students from Career, Cooperative Arts, Hillhouse and Wilbur Cross recently assembled at the Betsy Ross Arts and Magnet Parish Hall to view the documentary video Walking While Black. While the films principle objective is to offer a perspective and insight on both sides of a precarious and often tenuous relationship, it also offers up a hopeful strategy using the acronym L.O.V.E as a viable prescription to follow. L Learn about the community; O - Open your heart to the people in it; V volunteer yourself to be part of the solution and E Empower others to do the same. New Haven Assistant School Superintendent of Schools Dr. Paul Whyte, who assisted in organizing the event, brought along school administrators and youth community engagement directors, including Gemma Joseph Lumpkin, and Kermit Carolina. Representing the New Haven Police Department were Sgts. Lucille Roach, Jacqueline Hoyte, and Shayna Kendall. Yale police officers attending the event included Officers Martha Ross and Martin Parker. It was good, Hillhouse student Julio Mongilio said. It showed both perspectives, those from the police and those from the community. The film, licensed by the New Haven Chapter of the National Coalition of One Hundred Black Women and funded by the Walter E. Luckett Jr. Foundation, has been shown in various communities and school districts throughout the state with the objective of initiating a much needed dialogue. NCBW member Agnes Wilson, who along with NCBW President Valencia Goodridge collaborated with school officials in spearheading the event, said: I think that this type of dialogue is important to the youth in our communities. There needs to be a change with how people of color and the police interact with one another. In addition to the initial depictions of police harassment, and brutality, the film also provided a glimpse of the emotional toll experienced by many police officers who are often themselves conflicted on the actions of their fellow officers balanced against the challenging and exigent demands of the job. We knew there was a problem when we asked a group of students to name the sounds of spring and gun shots was one of the responses echoed one Baltimore police officer in the film. In another video segment, a white former Baltimore police officer admits that he resigned from the force but only after orchestrating a wrongful arrest and subsequent conviction against an African American father. Following the viewing, groups were assembled to respond to a questionnaire regarding the film and their own individual perspectives of the police. One articulate student made a passionate plea by imploring the police to create more opportunities for relationships to develop between themselves and communities where people of color reside prior to tragedies occurring. The police are supposed to serve and protect us but we dont feel protected by them, she said. As the event closed, the overwhelming consensus was that these types of events should be on-going and promoted on both a local and national level. Weve got a lot of work to do, said Sgt. Hoyte. A lot of work. Newsfrom Japan Tokyo, April 15 (Jiji Press)--The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on Monday called for fundamental reform of labor market practices in Japan, which is struggling with manpower shortages. "Fundamental reform of traditional Japanese labor market practices is essential" to ensure sustainable economic growth amid the rapid aging of the population, the OECD said in its latest Economic Survey of Japan report. Forecasting that Japan's labor force will decline by 16.1 million, or 24 pct, by 2050, the OECD stressed the importance of promoting the employment of women and the elderly to alleviate labor shortages. Some Japanese labor market practices, such as lifetime employment, seniority-based wages and mandatory retirement, are not suitable to the era of 100-year lives, as they reduce job opportunities for older people, the report said. Accelerating a shift to performance-based pay and abolishing mandatory retirement ages will allow a larger number of older people to continue working as regular employees, which would in turn help improve productivity in the country, according to the report. [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.] Firefighters are on the scene of a large house fire in Rutherford on Monday morning, borough police said. The fire broke out overnight on the 100 block of Ridge Road, according to the Wood-Ridge Fire Department, which is providing mutual aid. All of the homes residents got out safely after it was struck by lightning, according to WPIX-11. 2 alarm fire in #Rutherford the roof continues to smoke with flames shooting up pic.twitter.com/oUg9PMg2IL Mary-Lyn Buckley (@ml_buckley) April 15, 2019 Thats what theyre suspecting, but they still have a full investigation (to conduct), police chief John Russo told News 12 New Jersey when asked if the home was hit by lightning. Rutherford police ask motorists to avoid Ridge Road in the area of Summit Cross. Borough officials couldnt immediately be reached for more information. NJ Transit said bus routes 76 and 76X are detoured due to the fire as Ridge Road is closed between Highland Cross and East Pierrepoint Avenue. Rutherford house struck by lightening. Family safe according to neighbors. Fire burned through roof. Home partially destroyed 139 Ridge Rd. Live @PIX11News pic.twitter.com/5r77DsJNyR Kirstin Cole (@kirstincoletv) April 15, 2019 Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Kate McClure, the New Jersey woman who spun a tale of a homeless veteran who had helped her, but later admitted the story behind her fundraising was a sham, pleaded guilty Monday for a second time to lying in the scheme that raised $400,000. McClure, dressed in black, appeared in Burlington County Superior Court before Judge Christopher Garrenger with her parents and pleaded guilty to a second-degree charge of theft by deception. The state has recommended she serve four years in prison for the offense. The 29-year-old had already admitted to lying when creating the fundraiser. In March, she entered a guilty plea to a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and is facing 27 to 33 months in federal prison. Her attorney, James Gerrow, told reporters gathered outside the courthouse he hopes the judges will keep his client out of jail, and that they will have compassion for her, as there is a lot more at play involving her relationship with her ex-boyfriend and co-defendant, Mark DAmico, which was allegedly marked by domestic violence. Her hope is that in the end, the judges are satisfied with her explanation, he said. All of this was done at the direction of DAmico. Any imposed state sentence will run concurrent with the federal sentence, and the additional state charge of conspiracy will be dropped, Assistant Prosecutor Andrew McDonnell said. One of her co-defendants, Johnny Bobbitt, has pleaded guilty to his role in both federal and state court, as well. The two have agreed to pay restitution to GoFundMe in terms that will be finalized at a later date. DAmico, faces a charges of theft by deception over $75,000 and conspiracy, and has not been charged in federal court. All three rode a wave of brief, glowing international fame in late 2017 when their GoFundMe campaign went viral. They told the heart-warming but since-debunked story of how McClure had run out of gas while driving into Philadelphia on I-95, and Bobbitt had come to her rescue, walking to a nearby gas station and using his last $20 to fill up her tank while she waited in her car, safe. McClure and DAmico said they had started the fundraiser to pay it forward, hoping to raise $10,000 to get their new friend off the street. But the story tugged on donors heart strings as it went viral, leading more than 14,000 donors to open up their wallets and shell out some $400,000 to the veterans cause. Bobbitt would get his own house and a dream truck, the trio said, as they appeared on national news. But by mid-2018, the relationship had soured. He accused the couple of withholding hundreds of thousands of dollars, while McClure and DAmico said they had no choice, worrying he would burn it on drugs. Bobbitt sued, and it soon became clear that all the money was gone, spent in mere months by the trio. In November, the story saw another twist: investigators had determined that the whole story had been a fake, and Bobbitt had never stopped to help McClure. Instead, the couple met him while he panhandled near a Philadelphia casino they frequented. McClure has since broken up with DAmico. During her plea in federal court, Gerrow named DAmico as the mastermind of the scam, saying his client had made up the story, yes, but had done so with intention of helping a homeless veteran, whom she did not at first know had a history of substance abuse. That narrative re-emerged Monday afternoon. McClure said she had not participated freely in the national news interviews, but did so because DAmico told her it would help Bobbitt. He didnt pull me there, she said of DAmico. Gerrow also told reporters after the hearing that DAmico had physically attacked McClure, and that it was caught on an audio tape. The media appearances continued later in 2018, after Bobbitt accused the couple of withholding the money. They appeared on Megyn Kelly Today to deny his accusations, maintaining that the accounts still had more than $150,000. I didnt want to do that," she said of the interview. I just want to make that 100 percent clear. Gerrow said McClure is concerned that her actions will adversely impact donors for other campaigns in need. Bobbitt received a special five-year sentence in Drug Court Friday. He must abide by the programs conditions, which include inpatient treatment and eventually securing employment, or could face up to five years in prison. McClure is scheduled to be sentenced in Burlington County June 3 and federal court June 19, while Bobbitt has a status conference there June 18, but no sentencing date, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorneys Office said. Editors Note: A previous version of this story said McClure was 28. It has been corrected to show she is 29. Amanda Hoover can be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandahoovernj. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Rutgers University administrators and representatives of the schools faculty union are scheduled to face off at an all-day bargaining session Monday that union officials called critical as professors weigh whether to call the first faculty strike in the state universitys nearly 253-year history. Members of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT, which represents 4,800 full-time faculty and graduate workers, voted to authorize a strike last month, saying they were frustrated by the slow progress of contract talks that have gone on for more than a year. Union leaders said they could call a strike at any time, but both sides met for several days last week and are scheduled to meet again Monday to try to reach a deal. What are the chances of a strike? Authorizing a strike is a common negotiating tactic and does not necessarily mean there will be a strike. But last months strike authorization vote, in which 88 percent of the faculty unions members voted in favor of green-lighting a strike, is unusual for Rutgers and was a sign that negotiations were not going well. Since then, both sides have been cautiously optimistic they can reach a deal. I am fully confident that we will be able to resolve these things and to arrive at a contract and we will not have a work stoppage, Rutgers President Robert Barchi told NJ Advance Media last week. Faculty union vice president David Hughes was also hopeful. I think this can be stopped actually, Hughes said. I think we can end up with a contract that makes everybody happy and everybody in the state of New Jersey proud. I stand with AAUP-AFT Rutgers professors who are prepared to strike in order to defend affordable, quality higher education. When we organize and stand together, we win. #UnionStrong https://t.co/cbgbjfpWox Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 9, 2019 What are the two sides fighting over? In addition to salary increases, the faculty union says they want equal pay for female faculty along with better pay for faculty on the Newark and Camden campuses. They also want more full-time faculty, more librarians, more graduate worker positions and more racially-diverse hiring. The union previously dismissed an initial offer of 1.5% raises as insulting, officials said. Rutgers contracts with 24 labor unions, including the professors union, expired at the end of last year. The university has struck new deals with just five groups so far, typically including 3% raises in each of the next three years. What happens if the faculty goes on strike? Full-time professors and graduate workers would cancel their classes and cease doing any work for the university. There would likely be pickets on campus. It is unclear what this would mean for the end of the spring semester, finals and graduation. The university has not detailed any plans for how it would handle a strike. Rutgers adjunct professors, called part-time lecturers, are not part of the bargaining unit and would not be part of the strike. But the union would likely to ask all Rutgers workers to honor the strike and not cross picket lines. Educators at every level of our education system deserve better. I support the Rutgers AAUP-AFT in this fight for equality & dignity. Rutgers faculty are on the front lines every day for their studentswe should all be united in the movement to support them. Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) April 9, 2019 Is it legal for the faculty to strike at a public institution? There is no law barring university faculty from striking, but the Rutgers administration could go to court to ask for an injunction to force the faculty to go back to work, union officials said. How much do Rutgers professors earn? The average salary for a full-time professor at Rutgers-New Brunswick was $145,458 in 2016, according to an analysis by the Chronicle of Higher Education. But that average is for full professors, not assistant or associate professors, and salaries differ between departments. Faculty on Rutgers Newark and Camden campuses also average less than their counterparts in New Brunswick, union officials said. About 1,000 of the unions members who are full-time faculty earn as little as $60,000 a year, according to the unions data. Staff writer Adam Clark contributed to this report. Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KellyHeyboer. Find her at KellyHeyboerReporter on Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. A New Jersey man who made his way onto the FBI Top Ten Most Wanted list appeared in court for the first time Monday morning to face charges in the 2014 killing of his fiancee and her dog in Newark. Lamont Stephenson, 44, pleaded not guilty to a murder charge in the death of Olga DeJesus, his 40-year-old fiancee, and her dog in Superior Court in Essex County. He was ordered held in the Essex County jail pending trial. Stephenson stood before Judge Ronald Wigler in a plaid button down shirt. He only spoke to say he understood the charges and was represented by public defender Deirdre McMahon. DeJesus family took up two rows of the courtroom. They shook their heads and cried when he pleaded not guilty. Family of Olga DeJesus shook their heads in disappointment as Lamont Stephenson pleaded not guilty in connection to her murder. (Steve Hockstein | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) Stephenson was arrested in Prince Georges County, Maryland in March after more than four years on the run. First responders found DeJesus and her dog asphyxiated inside her apartment in the Stephen Crane Village housing project on Oct. 17, 2014. While the Essex County Prosecutors Office charged him with murder less than a month after her body was found, detectives were unable to find him. Stephenson was added to the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive list in October 2018, after the FBI wanted to raise the stakes and increase the likelihood of finding him, Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens II said at the time. He was on the run from the FBI as a wanted fugitive for 147 days before the arrest. He was caught by local authorities after they responded to a 2 a.m. call of a suspicious person in an Enterprise truck in Lanham, Maryland. He told officers he was homeless and just trying to get out of the weather," but later told police he was wanted in New Jersey for murder and that he had also committed a crime in Washington D.C. that week, local authorities said. According to the Washington Post, he allegedly stabbed his girlfriend Natina Kiah to death, along with her cat. The pair had reportedly only known each other for two weeks. Authorities have said both killings could be related to domestic violence issues. Stephenson is expected back in court on June 10. Sophie Nieto-Munoz may be reached at snietomunoz@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her at @snietomunoz. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. JERSEY CITY A West New York man who was 17 years old when he allegedly murdered a man with a gunshot to the neck in December will be prosecuted as an adult, authorities said. Jeriomar Cruze, who is now 18, was arrested Jan. 4 and charged with the Dec. 23 murder of Steven Flores, 19, of Union City, who was shot dead in the area of 61st Street and Park Avenue, officials said, adding that he was originally charged as a juvenile. Cruz, a 65th Street resident, could have faced a sentence of up to 20 years in prison if convicted of murder in Hudson County Superior Courts Family Division. As a result of being waived up to the Criminal Division, he will face 30 years to life if convicted. On the morning of the shooting, West New York police officers responding to a call of shots fired in the area of 61st Street and Park Avenue found Flores with an apparent gunshot wound to his upper body. He was pronounced dead at about 1 a.m., Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez said at the time. A 24-year-old man was also shot in the incident and he was transported to a local hospital for treatment of wound to his abdomen. Cruz is charged with aggravated assault regarding that victim, according to the criminal complaint, which was released Friday. The investigation included the recovery of surveillance video and the seizure of Flores cellphone. Projectiles and shell casings were recovered at the scene. Probable cause for the charges against Cruz include statements made by one or more eyewitnesses and identification of Cruz in a photo array, the criminal complaint states. The court document also says that other defendants fled the scene. The state filed a motion to detain Cruz and at a detention hearing Thursday, Hudson County Superior Court Judge Paul Depascale ordered he be jailed in the Hudson County jail in Kearny through the course of his prosecution. Cruz is also charged with weapons offense related to a handgun, the complaint says. By Richard E. Tolson Its Tax Day, and New Jersey needs all of the revenue it can get. Last month, S&P Global Ratings said the state is on track for a $740 million shortfall. Given this precarious situation, why is New Jersey leaving millions in uncollected taxes on the table? The potential windfall stands to come from wealthy developers who take advantage of labor laws and outdated regulations to increase profit margins by abusing workers. These millionaires are utilizing middlemen who break state and federal laws by misclassifying full-time workers as contractors, committing wage theft by paying below minimum wage, establishing illegal work weeks, paying cash and evading taxes all to increase record profits. A 2016 Stockton University report conservatively estimated that the developers are swindling the state out of more than $25 million in tax revenue annually. This theft involves approximately 35,000 workers who are off-the-books or illegally misclassified as independent contractors. An entire underground economy has been allowed to fester, all built on the abuse of workers and the taxpayers, for the benefit of multi-millionaires. Under new leadership, New Jersey is making progress in cracking down on employee misclassification, worker abuse, and tax theft. Governor Murphy signed an executive order last year creating a task force on the issue, and three subsequent public meetings revealed ample evidence of widespread abuse. Last summer, the Hudson County Board of Freeholders passed a resolution decrying these practices as not only unconscionable but illegal. And Attorney General Grewal announced late last month that an Ocean County construction contractor pleaded guilty to purposely not paying prevailing wages. Yet for abuse on an oceanic scale, the state is so far only focused on minnows. Right now, there are more than a dozen active major development sites in Hudson County alone that are using an illegal business model and cheating workers. There is much more we can do to create basic fairness and economic justice and collect all of the tax revenue the state is owed. Large development and construction companies view the paltry fines the state levies as an acceptable cost of doing business, so they are OK with paying the fines and continuing to cheat workers and taxpayers. Not only is this a large loss of revenue for the state, it creates no deterrent for abusive actors in the industry. The Labor Department needs to be given the tools to have a stronger approach to penalties and license suspensions. And the Department of Labor needs more help from its colleagues in state government. The Attorney Generals office dedicates limited staff to working with the Labor Department on these cases, and without the teeth of prosecutorial arm, many violators know they can get away with continuing to cheat. There also needs to be more support from the Department of Treasury. The Labor Department makes a high number of referrals to the Treasury, but too few are acted on and the threat of tax fraud prosecution a strong deterrent is not being employed nearly often enough. For enforcement actions to carry weight, the Labor Department needs more support from the Attorney Generals office and the Department of Treasury. State legislators can help, too, by increasing funding for enforcement at all levels and modernizing our laws. For example, under current statute it is so difficult for the Department of Labor to obtain Stop Work Orders for worker abuse that it barely ever occurs. By comparison, Connecticut, a state 2.5 times smaller than New Jersey, has issued more than 1,500 stop work orders in the last 10 years for worker abuse. Existing statute needs to be amended to give the department a realistic ability to enforce the law by using stop work orders. There is a bill nearing passage in the legislature to rectify this issue, it should be advanced to become law as soon as possible. After years of seeing elected officials at the highest level turn away from the issue of employee misclassification, we are glad to see the beginnings of leadership from Trenton. For the sake of blue-collar workers across the state and for the sake of the states own tax revenue that action must continue and become far more aggressive. Richard Tolson is Director of International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Administrative District Council of New Jersey, Locals 4 & 5, which represents craftworkers in the masonry trades across the state. Submit letters to the editor and guest columns at jjletters@jjournal.com Founded in 2001, Animal Alliance in Lambertville is an animal welfare organization that rescues and rehabilitates homeless pets, caring for them until they are adopted. Animal Alliance The nonprofit organization was founded by Anne Trinkle, who retired from work in transfusion medicine after a 15-year stretch in the corporate world to devote herself full-time to animal rescue after years of part-time volunteering in the field of animal welfare. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006, Trinkle underwent 30 rounds of chemotherapy. During one treatment, she overheard two nurses expressing dismay that both of their cats recently had kittens. She made up her mind that if those nurses couldnt get their cats spayed, many more people were likely in the same situation. Planned Pethood, Animal Alliances Low Cost Spay/Neuter Clinic, became a reality one year later. As the clinic expanded, it was moved to its current location in Lambertville in 2012. Since then, a team of veterinary surgeons has spayed/neutered thousands of animals. Animal Alliance focuses its efforts on animals facing euthanasia at other shelters, as well as those who were victims of cruelty or neglect. The nonprofit organization is located at 1432 Route 179. For more information, call 609-818-1952, email animalalliance@comcast.net or go to animalalliancenj.org. There are shelters and adoption centers all over New Jersey that work to find permanent homes for cats and dogs. To see just a handful of the pets in need in New Jersey, click here https://www.nj.com/expo/news/g66l-2019/04/0c7598905c3502/index.html EDITORS NOTE: Entrepreneurs everywhere are eyeing the billion-dollar legal weed industry, an economic opportunity unrivaled in modern N.J. history. NJ Cannabis Insider features exclusive weekly content geared toward those interested in the marijuana industry. View a sample issue. As New Jerseys leaders aim to pass a bill by the end of next month to legalize marijuana in the state, theyre grappling with a damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-dont dilemma thats threatening their efforts. After more than a year of debate and wrangling, Gov. Phil Murphy and his fellow top Democrats remain a few votes short of the number they need to pass the measure a cornerstone of Murphys agenda in the state Legislature. A big impediment to closing the gap is a provision that would clear the record of any resident who had been convicted of possessing between up to 5 pounds of weed. Some lawmakers long considered possible supporters of the bill think that number is too high, four sources familiar with the situation told NJ Advance Media. But if leaders change it, they risk losing the backing of other lawmakers who want the provision included, according to the sources. Its a conundrum that could stop the bill cold at least until the end of the year. Murphy, state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, and state Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin are trying to come up with a solution, the sources said. How do you thread that needle? one source asked. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks. This comes less than a month after Sweeney, D-Gloucester, and Coughlin, D-Middlesex, called off a planned vote in the Legislature when it became clear the bill wouldnt have enough votes to pass. While Coughlin said he had enough votes in the Assembly, sources say leaders are anywhere from one to four votes short in the Senate. Now, leaders are hoping to hold another vote by the end of May if they can gather enough support. If not, sources say, a vote may be moved to the end of the year, after Novembers Assembly elections. That would be two years after Murphy was elected, partially on the promises to make New Jersey the latest state to legalize pot. Murphy and other Democrats have said their main goal for legalizing weed is to improve the states social justice system because black residents are three times more likely to face marijuana charges than white residents. On top of the bill to legalize recreational marijuana for people 21 and older in New Jersey, sponsors have drafted two separate but related measures: one that would expand the states medical marijuana program and another that would expunge criminal records of those with certain pot convictions. In order to secure more votes for legalization, they expanded the definition of who would be eligible to have their records expunged. They included people who have been convicted of third-degree marijuana distribution and possession charges. Under existing law, a crime in the third-degree which affects the level of fines and other penalties ranges from one or more ounces to five pounds. Sources say some lawmakers on the fence especially Republicans but even some Democrats believe the five-pound mark would cover hardened drug dealers. The wide disparity of one ounce to five pounds has caused a degree of sticker shock," said Amol Sinha, executive director for the ACLU-NJ, which has been at the table as the legislation has been written. But, Sinha added, there is a misunderstanding out there about what a third-degree crime is. He said this would not include a big-time drug dealer dealing with other drugs and threatening public safety. Frankly, these are people who have already served their sentences, Sinha said. "This is an opportunity to start their lives and become productive members of society. He also said it would be hypocritical for the state to welcome the cannabis industrys money while continue to punish people arrested and convicted before legalization who still cannot find a decent job, rent an apartment or obtain a loan. While Sinha said hes aware the expungement language has divided some legislators, he draws attention to those who support it: Murphy, Sweeney, Coughlin, the ACLU, NAACP, the Latino Action Network and a lot of the faith community. The bill as a whole is seen as a really good step forward for New Jersey and is already highlighted as a national model, Sinha said. "People are keeping an eye on what New Jersey does. This comes as legislative leaders are already concerned about Murphys vow to use his powers to expand the states medical marijuana program if a May vote doesnt happen. Though Murphy says the program is in dire need of growth, sources say top lawmakers are worried legislators on the fence will have a reason to avoid voting for legalization because the governor would medical expand either way. Coughlin, the Assembly speaker, said on his monthly call-in radio show Friday morning the hope is still to have the Legislature vote toward the end of May. But, he said, theres not a real time clock on this." Most importantly, we want to get the bill right, Coughlin said on WCTC 1450-AM. Were gonna look at ways to see if we can improve it and bring some other members along. Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnsb01. Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Are you interested in the N.J. cannabis industry? Subscribe here for exclusive insider information from NJ Cannabis Insider. The parents of Samantha Josephson the 21-year-old New Jersey college student killed after getting into a car she thought was her Uber appeared on Good Morning America Monday to make a national plea for changes to ride-share laws. Its become a new phenomenon, using Uber. We trust people and you cant, Marci Josephson told GMA co-host George Stephanopoulos on the morning show. You have to change the way that the laws are to make it safer. Laws have to change. Samantha Josephson, a 21-year-old from Robbinsville in Mercer County, was attending college in South Carolina when police say she mistakenly got into a strangers car early on March 29. Her body was found later that day, and 25-year-old Nathaniel David Rowland was later charged with stabbing her to death. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have signed a petition to ask Uber and Lyft for increased security, and South Carolina lawmakers have proposed requiring ride-share drivers to have illuminated signs. Seymour Josephson said 19 states do not require drivers to install a front license plate. He doesnt think a front plate should be mandatory for all vehicles unless its a ride-share. South Carolina is one of the states where currently a front license plate is not required, he said. So (when) the cars pulling up, you cant see the front license plate, Seymour Josephson said. I think if youre going to be in the ride-sharing industry then you should have a front license plate. Samanthas parents also say ride-share drivers should have barcodes on their windows. You put your phone up to it, it turns green thats my ride, Seymour Josephson said. If its not your ride, it turns red. The technology is already out there. The Josephsons said they have heard from people across the country who have said Samanthas killing hit close to home. So many people have told us it could have been our daughter, our son, Marci Josephson said. We automatically assume were safe (and) we all put our loved ones in an Uber or Lyft. We grow up teaching our kids not to get into cars with strangers and what do we do? Seymour Josephson said. You get in cars with strangers. Seymour Josephson said he and his wife are working with lawmakers in New Jersey to come up with legislation something bipartisan to make ride-sharing safer. Early in the interview, the Josephsons described their daughter as hard-working, determined and a good friend. We just want you to know that she was a fabulous young woman, Marci Josephson said. The couple said the University of South Carolina will present their daughter with a degree at its graduation ceremony in May. The Josephsons said they will be there. It will be the hardest thing for us to go but we need to go, Marci Josephson said. She wanted us there. Marci and I will be on Good Morning America Monday April 15th between 7:25-7:35. We will be discussing the safety... Posted by Seymour Josephson on Sunday, April 14, 2019 Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. UPDATE: Homeless known to live under boardwalk where blaze burned, but we dont know who is to blame, cops say As business owners grapple with the loss of an eatery that was just starting to gain traction on the Ocean Grove boardwalk, investigators on Monday continued to comb through the wreckage two days after the establishment was destroyed by a stubborn blaze. The Dunes Cafe, a food-court-style building that housed businesses such as Americas Cup coffee and Playa Bowls, went up in flames Saturday afternoon. The building reopened four years ago after it was damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The investigation is active and ongoing, said Charles Webster, a spokesman for the Monmouth County Prosecutors Office, the agency leading the investigation. In a statement, the Monmouth County Prosecutors Office said the fire originated underneath the Dunes Cafe on the east side of the structure. It said that area is known to be frequented by homeless, but that investigators were continuing to probe the cause of the massive blaze. The fire, which was reported around 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, was nearly extinguished but then flared up, leading to a massive blaze that had firefighters from 40 departments as far away as Union County on scene around the clock. A silver lining for David Fernicola and Thomas Wilson, the owners of the Days Ice Cream, is that firefighters were able to pull from the wreckage a partially destroyed cow bench. A trip to Just Another Days Ice Cream in the Dunes, the shops second location in Ocean Grove, was not complete without a group photo sitting on DayZ, the bench shaped like a cow. David Fernicola, left, and Thomas Wilson, the owners of Day's Ice Cream. The well-known ice cream shop had a stand in the now-destroyed Dune's Cafe. Firefighters were able to salvage the cow bench. (Submitted photo) It was sad. Its out of your control and you just sit there and watch it, Fernicola said of the fire. Everyones been very supportive. We have another store to fall back on, thank God. It was just kind of starting to catch on, to have its own identity, he said of the Dunes Cafe, a former fine-dining restaurant started 100 years ago. Ian Zucker, owner of the Crooked Snook restaurant, said he hasnt really thought about the future yet as hes still processing what happened. He was preparing for the restaurants second season in the spot. The Crooked Snook, which is housed in the same structure as the Dunes Cafe but not inside the cafe itself, had a raw bar and was the only eatery there with an outdoor seating area. Twenty tables right on the ocean, Zucker said. It employed about 20 people for each shift, he said, and many were planning to come back for the 2019 season. Zucker said hes been in the restaurant business for a while and has never seen a setup like the Dunes. It will be missed, he said. Playa Bowls owner Michele Gannon said, Dunes Boardwalk Cafe is a community that has grown over the past four years. It was a place for our beach community, that was built for families. We are devastated at the complete loss of the livelihood for hundreds of people. We are thankful for all those who worked for hours to keep our community safe. Thank you for your continued love and prayers. That stretch of boardwalk, which connects Asbury Park and Ocean Grove, experiences a lot of foot traffic, from joggers to people taking leisure walks through the Casino building. Officials in both municipalities said its too early to determine if it will be closed for the summer. Neptune Township Business Administrator Vito Gadaleta said it would be up to the buildings owners to remove the rubble and cleanup the site. Theres not an immediate deadline at this point, he said, but the township would impose one on the owner soon, with Memorial Day weekend six weeks away. I think the public is still going to come to Ocean Grove and come to the oceanfront, but certainly the loss of the Dunes and the other businesses is going to have an impact on commerce and employment and the ability of people to shop and get a few things in the area," he said. Asbury Park Fire Chief Kevin Keddy said the boardwalk in Asbury Park is still intact, despite flying embers from the Dunes building. He said there was a small fire on the upstairs deck of the Waterfront, a popular nightclub on the Asbury Park boardwalk, but that it was nothing serious. He said Asbury Park would cooperate with whatever Ocean Grove decides as far as closing the boardwalk in that area. Amy Quinn, the deputy mayor in Asbury Park, said the fire could have a small impact on summer tourism, but she doesnt believe it will keep people away. She said the city will do whatever it can to support the businesses that were lost in the fire, a couple of which have other locations in the city. The image of a pile of charred rubble is a familiar site for the residents of Ocean Grove. The historic Victorian community, which is part of Neptune Township, has had five major fires since 2010. That year, the Manchester bed-and-breakfast burned down, taking with it several neighboring residences. A year later and two blocks north, a soon-to-be apartment complex on Surf Avenue went up in flames. In February 2015, a fire on Main Avenue damaged several shops and restaurants. The historic Warrington Hotel, located a couple of blocks west of the Dunes Cafe, burned to the ground in 2017 as it was in the process of being renovated. Officials said the fire was intentionally set but no arrests were made. Fires in the residential area are a major concern, said Neptune Councilman Michael Brantley. The structures are mostly wood and theyre close together. The community is very concerned about it and the Council and Planning Board are very concerned about the products being used (to build the houses). But theres very little we can do because Ocean Grove is a historic community. On Monday, Laura Lundy, 48, of Ramsey, was with her husband standing on the boardwalk behind yellow police tape looking at the two piles of rubble that were once the pavilion where she and her husband spent time while dating in the 1990s. Lundy said the two would eat at what was then the Perkins restaurant, which later became the site of the Dunes Cafe. It was there forever, said Lundy, a teachers assistant. I feel sad, I really enjoyed Perkins when it was there and and the little surf shop that was there, she recalled. They had flip flops, clothing, everything. Our kids really enjoyed that. Alex Napoliello may be reached at anapoliello@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexnapoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. There may be no local business more truly local than an independent book store. The local book store they can be found in places big and small throughout New Jersey typically serves as an essential part of the community, almost like a trusted friend. Loyal customers show up for book signings, even when unfamiliar with the author. They swing by just to browse, and often end up departing with an unexpected find. Sure, some book lovers prefer the convenience of shopping on the Internet, but something intangible is sacrificed. Its hard to discover books you didnt know about online," said Oren Teicher, chief executive officer of the American Booksellers Association. We know theres lot of independent book store fans in New Jersey and we want to here from you! Let us know via email to local@njadvancemedia.com, or in the comments in this story, about why your favorite store is special to you. Then check back here on April 27 - thats Independent Bookstore Day - for a story derived from your suggestions. The stores deserve their own day, right? Owning one may be a labor of love, but it is definitely not easy. Mendham Books was a popular draw for 17 years and showcased a litany of celebrity authors. There was the time in 2010 when Daryl Strawberry was signing his autobiography and someone announced that then-Gov. Chris Christie, a huge Mets fan, was outside the store, patiently waiting at the end of the line. Four years later, the book store closed. The owner cited an unspecified disagreement with the landlord. When Christie, a Mendham Township resident, released his autobiography last winter, he went to Mendham High School to sign books. Teicher, asked about the industry, said there has been an independent book store resurgence in the last years years, but also acknowledged obstacles, such as high rents. I dont for a second minimize how difficult this is. It is a fiercely competitive environment out there, Teicher said. Other places appear to be thriving. In Hoboken, Little City Books is marking its 4th anniversary next month, co-owner Kate Jacobs said. The estimated 12,000 books on the shelves include many that are perfectly tailored to her home city. There is the Hoboken Chicken Emergency, a well-known childrens book from the late 1970s by Daniel and Jill Pinkwater, but also some lesser-known, yet endearingly local, offerings. Asked for an example, Jacobs cited works of poetry by Michael Sobsey, who until recently ran the Sobseys Produce organic grocery store in Hoboken. He has a audience because so many chomped on his vegetables, she said. Every independent book store has similar examples of local flair. We cant wait to hear your stories! Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@RobJenningsNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters An establishment doesnt reach 102 years of business without some strong community ties, and the Chester House in Manville did just that. The bar has been around since 1917, has had four locations, and operated as a speakeasy fronted by an ice cream shop during Prohibition. But by the end of this month the bar will close the doors for a final time. The building will be demolished and a Royal Farms convenience store will stand in its place. The current owner Tommy Trojanowski is the grandson of the man who started it all, Chester Trojanowski Sr. who opened the bar in 1917, a few years after immigrating to the U.S. from Poland. Chester created a space for the local Polish community to come and gather, and after establishing the business he often volunteered to sponsor other Polish immigrants, setting them up with housing and helping them find a job as they started a new life in America. He took all those risks then and they really ended up paying off in the end, said Trojanowski, I still think about that every day. The Chester House is the kind of dimly lit, wood-paneled hole in the wall that has had a loyal set of patronage for decades. Ive had people coming in here since their 21st birthday, Tommy said. Some people that celebrated their 21st birthday here have their kids coming in here. The ovular bar takes up the majority of the front room, accompanied by bar stools and a few neon signs. A virtual legacy, its closing is bittersweet for its patrons, but Trojanowski is excited for the potential new development to bring new life into a town that was hit hard by the exit of manufacturers like Johns-Manville asbestos plant in the 80s. The bar has been in its current location since the 1940s, passed down from Chester Sr. to Tommys father Chester Jr. to Trojanowski himself. Although he grew up walking from his parents home to the bar with his siblings, to visit his grandfather and father, Trojanowski never imagined hed one day be in charge of the place. I had a whole different career before this, Trojanowski said. Trojanowski had picked up the family business, along with his brother, in the 80s after his father died suddenly from a heart attack. It was only a short term plan to take over the bar. His employer ShopRite even promised to hold his supervisor position for him, but Trojanowski ended up staying for over 30 years. And Trojanowski is not one of those hands-off owners that only signs his employees paychecks. He is a jack-of-all-trades, and re-worked his entire daily schedule for years in order to work an afternoon shift, and close up at night. He works the lunch shift, goes home to eat dinner with his wife and take a nap before heading back out the bar work until closing. Ive told everyone dont expect to see me for a month, Trojanowski said. I have to catch up on a lot of sleep. He also plans to travel with his wife, and spend time with his grandkids. Out of all the experiences hes had over the years Trojanowski will treasure the people hes gotten to talk to along the way. And at the end of the day, Chester House was about the people. In the early days, it was a safe haven for immigrants, and then it became a watering hole for those working in the local factories. Its now a place for loyal customers to come and have one last hurrah. I tell them, treat every night as if its your last night here because I think it would be kind of chaotic if we had one big event, Trojanowski said. One night Im going to walk out at two oclock in the morning and Im going to put a sign on the front door that says closed for renovations. Weve said our goodbyes. Olivia Rizzo may be reached at orizzo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @LivRizz. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips. One of the original sponsors of the New Jersey First Act -- the law that requires state, county and local employees to live in the state -- wants to see the exact reasons why at least 2,310 workers have been granted exemptions from the law. Assemblyman Paul Moriarty, D-Gloucester, questioned why there are no publicly-available documents detailing why public employees got permission from a state review committee to live out of state since the law went into effect eight years ago. I believe the citizens of New Jersey, who pay the salaries of those who wish to live elsewhere, should at least have the benefit of why your Committee found it necessary to grant a waiver, Moriarty wrote Thursday in a letter to the head of the state Employee Residency Review Committee and Department of Labor officials. Moriartys letter was delivered after NJ Advance Media published an analysis of state records that showed at least 2,310 public employees have applied for and received exemptions from the state Employee Residency Review Committee to live outside of New Jersey despite having taxpayer-funded jobs. Under the New Jersey First law, nearly all public employees hired after 2011 are required to live in the state. The only exceptions are for workers who can prove a financial hardship, cite a health reason or provide proof they are critical in their workplace. Every month, dozens of applicants for exemptions travel to Trenton to argue their cases before the review committee at its meetings on the top floor of the state Department of Labor building. Some make emotional pleas, explaining why financial problems, complex child custody agreements, new marriages or family health problems require them to move to Pennsylvania or New York. Other applicants simply present a critical need letter from one of their supervisors, explaining they are considered a critical employee in their job and would be difficult to replace, so they should be permitted to live wherever they want. Moriartys letter questioned whether the Employee Residency Review Committee has become little more than a rubber stamp for public employees trying to bypass the law requiring them to live in New Jersey. The assemblyman also questioned why the publicly-available documents on the committees website only list the names of applicants, where they work and whether or not the committee voted to allow them to live outside of New Jersey. The reasons why the state employees asked for and were granted exemptions are not listed. As such, I am respectfully requesting documentation on each of the cases that have come before your Committee. Specifically, I would like detailed summaries on each case and the reasoning behind the Committees decision, Moriarty wrote. Employee Residency Review Committee officials did not immediately respond to requests to comment on Moriartys letter or whether they will honor his request to provide summaries of the more than 3,000 cases they have voted on since 2011. I am reviewing your request for information and will respond to you as soon as possible, Douglas Ianni, head of the committee, said in a brief email sent to the assemblyman early Monday. A state Department of Labor and Workforce Development spokeswoman said the department has a minimal role in the process. The Labor Department is not involved in Employee Residency Review Committee decision-making. Labor Department staff provide administrative support to the committee, including preparing the agendas and memorializing the committees decisions in writing. These tasks were assigned to Labor by the previous administration, said Angela Delli Santi, a spokeswoman for the department. NJ Advance Medias analysis of the available committee documents from 83 public meetings found more than 3,000 people have applied to be exempt from the New Jersey First law since 2011. In 2,310 cases the committee voted to grant temporary or permanent exemptions to the law. Another 560 applicants were rejected. In three cases the results were either sealed for an unspecified reason or the result of the vote was not revealed. The remaining 210 applications were withdrawn, delayed or not voted on. It also appears it has grown easier to be granted an exemption to the law over the years. In 2012, the first full year the law was in effect, the committee voted in about 71 percent of the cases to grant exemptions, according to the data. So far this year, nearly 90 percent of requests have been granted. Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr., R-Union, is among the lawmakers calling for New Jersey to kill the New Jersey First law. He has introduced legislation that would rewrite the law to require only high-ranking state officials, including the governor, members of the state Legislature and judges, to live in New Jersey. Other employees, from local town clerks to public school teachers and state agency workers, would be permitted to live anywhere. I dont think the state should be building walls to keep people in, Kean said Friday. Some NJ Transit employees have already been exempted from the law. Last year, the review committee voted to allow mission essential employees, including bus operators, train engineers and conductors, to live out of state. The vote came at the request of NJ Transit and lawmakers who said the residency law was contributing to a shortage of workers that was causing train delays and other problems. Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KellyHeyboer. Find her at KellyHeyboerReporter on Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Stop us if youve heard this one before, during an awkward Thanksgiving or perhaps Trump administration housing chief Ben Carsons Ambien-ramblings. Rules that require rich and exclusive towns to build their fair share of housing that is affordable for lower income people are nothing more than a socialist scheme. This is an Anti-American socialistic land and vote grab by Democrats looking to take away property from taxpaying citizens and redistribute property and wealth under the color of 'law. So says Mario Kranjac, the Republican mayor of Englewood Cliffs. His tony town, just a 10-mile drive from Manhattan, is known for its billion dollar mile some say trillion dollar of corporate campuses flush with tax ratables. What you pay in property taxes for a $300,000 house, people here might pay for a million-dollar McMansion. They have among the lowest tax rates in Bergen County, and the entire state. This isnt magic. Its exclusionary zoning laws. Its keeping housing values high and property taxes artificially low, by using home rule powers for selfish financial goals. Its zoning out anything that doesnt provide big revenue the schoolchildren-breeding, communist rabble. Such abuses over the past few decades have forced other towns in this county to shoulder greater expenses. This was why Mount Laurel was needed, a landmark decision against discriminatory zoning practices that towns long used to welcome the wealthy and keep out the poor. Now, state rules require municipalities to build their fair share of affordable housing, pushing back against enclaves of affluence and opportunity hoarding, in which to send your kid to the best public schools, you have to buy an expensive house. When former Gov. Tom Kean first read the Mount Laurel decision back in the early 1980s, he called it communistic. This was during the Cold War. Were not sure what Kranjacs excuse is, or why the good people of Englewood Cliffs elected him to speak for them. Nowadays, most conservatives recognize that while market forces may cause housing discrimination, government policy shouldnt add to that. Even under Chris Christie, no champion of Mount Laurel, this debate was no longer about whether government should be involved in helping create homes that are affordable. Its, whats the best way to do that? Until, of course, a developer proposes up to 20 percent of 600 units as affordable in Englewood Cliffs, and the mayor screams socialism. Kranjac, a corporate attorney who owns a venture capital firm, told us that if he had his druthers, there wouldnt be any affordable housing at all in his town. Even the Democratic council members privately agree its a socialist scheme, he maintains. Like other wealthy, lower-density towns filled with sprawling McMansions and corporate parks with monstrous front lawns, he argues: We have no vacant land. And while he concedes that its wrong to discriminate based on race, he says he should be able to keep out poorer people. Heres the reality: He achieves the same result. This is why New Jersey is one of the most racially and economically segregated states in the nation. If you work hard, you should be able to afford a home; its the American Dream. Yet thanks to growing income inequality, the path to the middle class is much harder to climb today than it was decades ago. This mayor doesnt want lower-income New Jerseyans to live in his town, and the truth is, hes the one using the power of government to achieve his goal. It is an anti-American scheme for the rich. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. By Philip Perinelli I have contemplated writing a letter to the state government of New Jersey, including the Governor, Senate President, Assembly Speaker, and all members of the legislature. The article by Rob Duffey that appeared in the March 27 Star Ledger, titled Dont worry about the rich; N.J. needs the millionaires tax prompted me to write. Much has been said about a millionaires tax. Some say tax them and they will leave. And they well may. Of course, as Mr. Duffey points out, they may not. The fact is that the truly rich can decide to stay or leave. They can afford to do either. Mr. Duffey also points out that the state needs the money. I am not a millionaire. And that is why, while there is much to love about living in this town and this state, my wife and I plan to leave New Jersey in the next several years. What is motivating me, and many of my friends, to make this decision is obvious; the high cost of living in New Jersey. We moved from Brooklyn to North Plainfield in 1985. We have lived in the same three bedroom, 1 bathroom house, raised three sons, and are now empty nesters. In 1985, our property tax bill was $2,805. It was over $10,000 a few years ago, but our house was reassessed, prompting a decrease. Imagine, the only reason for a tax decrease was because the value of your house decreases. Recently, I looked online at a beautiful four bedrooms, three baths, very affordable house in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. The property tax is just over $3,100. As we dont need that much house I can only imagine what a house out there comparable in size to ours costs. Egregious property taxes are just the beginning. For example, while a retirees Social Security benefits are not taxed, New Jersey only allows for a retiree to pay no income tax if income is below $100,000. At $100,001, you are taxed on the entire amount. We have worked hard and saved hard over the years, and I am proud that our retirement income will exceed that threshold. As a result, we will get no tax break. Pennsylvania charges no income tax on any retirement income, including pensions, IRAs, 401Ks, and Social Security. There are no bargains in this state. Sales tax, auto insurance, the list goes on. We even lost the inexpensive gasoline with the heavy tax increase a few years ago. While we can afford to stay we simply choose not to. Why pay high property and income taxes, along with all the other high cost taxes and fees when we can relocate a few miles down the road and keep all that money and spend it on well-earned travel? And lets face it, the cost of living here will not decrease. There will not be a magic bullet that suddenly makes taxes drop. Everyone did a high five when then-Gov. Chris Christie worked to limit property tax increases to 2 percent. But it is still an increase! On top of that, our state is broke. We never have enough money to pay our bills. Our governor has some interesting progressive ideas, none of which we can afford. There is constant talk about how negotiating new health plans with union members will save tons of money, about regionalization saving the day. I have no confidence that anything will change for the better in the next few years. I have a lot of opinions about what the problems are, questions about why things are done a certain way. I would think that the intelligent people we elect to represent us could figure it out. They havent, and times up. We have many friends who can afford to stay but are planning to move. We also have friends who simply cannot afford to retire here. Make no mistake, the exodus will not be limited to the top earners. Plenty of fairly successful folks like me will be making the move, too. Finally, and this is the hard part, I am bitter. Were it not for the way the people of New Jersey are squeezed, were it not for there being greener pastures so close at hand, we would not be moving. So yes, I am bitter. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I will get past that. Were we to stay, then the bitterness would stay with me and increase year after year, as I watch my taxes inexorably increase and my quality of life move in the opposite direction. Philip Perinelli lives in North Plainfield. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow us on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and on Facebook at NJ.com Opinion. Get the latest news updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. After 30 years of making commuters days a little better, the man they know and love as Conductor Gene is getting on the retirement train. Conductor Gene is part philosopher, bar tender and friend. He can dispel a bad mood with a smile or a joke, even during the worst of moments. He pleasantly doles out little bits of philosophy, that some riders, such as Stephanas Palarcme of East Orange, write down on their phones notepad. His smile, his demeanor, hes been that way every day, said Palarcme, a commuter for 20 plus years. Youre like okay, Im ready to go to go to work. Conductor Gene Ruocchio, 61, of Nazareth, Pa., is so loved that commuter Jill Harris of Summit organized Mondays retirement party on rails, putting together a scrap book of photos and well wishes, even though she is an accountant in the thick of tax season. N.J. Transit commuters TJ Gavenda, Mary Twill and Maggie Peters look at a memory book riders put together as they throw a retirement party for their favorite conductor Gene Ruocchio on his last week of work after 30 years, in Summit, N.J., Monday, April, 15, 2019Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for She handed out 150 fliers, collected selfies from riders with Ruocchio and put them in a scrapbook. She brought a multicolored boa for him to wear, balloons for the train and Thomas the Tank engine party hats that some commuters wore. They invited his wife Joann, who rode the 7:26 a.m. party train. Her mission was to get him recognition after 19 years for a career punctuated with kindness , Harris said. What inspired such an outpouring of affection? Maybe Ruocchio understands commuters because he was one, working in banking and finance in New York until a downsizing. A friend suggested a job on the railroad, he said. Its not easy to be the face of the railroad when things go wrong. His answer is he understands their frustration and tries to make them laugh. You try to lighten the mood, Ruocchio said. You try and help people out. That works more effectively than being a grump. I try to make the problem less painful, thats what I choose to do. It works because he is genuine, commuters said. He makes everyone feel theyre special, hell stand with his hands up for a high five, said Lynn Brodsky of New Providence. When were delayed, hes making everyone laugh. Its consistent, every time. He is never in a bad mood. His philosophy for life is simple enough to fit on a coffee mug dont get upset over what you cant control and enjoy life, because its short. Years ago, a friend of mine died of brain cancer. When I saw that and realized how short life is, it woke me up and made me realize youve got to appreciate every moment, he said. People dont always understand what front line people who work with the public go through, he said. Railroading can be dangerous work and conductors do more than punching paper tickets, Ruocchio said. Weve lost co-workers before they had the chance to retire, due to illness and injuries, it also affects you, he said. Im standing here because of them and their efforts. They are the reason Im here, they trained me. It surprises him when riders comment about his attitude and ask him why hes so happy, Ruocchio said. N.J. Transit Conductor Gene Ruocchio embraces commuter Jill Harris after the last commute train on his last week of work after 30 years, in New York City, N.Y., Monday, April, 15, 2019Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for I try and give them the little secrets I have, he said. The job does takes a toll. He gets up at 2 a.m., to drive from Pennsylvania to Gladstone. Although he has a break between rush hours, he doesnt get home until 8 p.m., which has meant missed events, birthdays and other occasions with his son and daughter, who are now teachers. This is a lifestyle, you either like or not, Ruocchio said. There is a camaraderie. He has three grandchildren to spend time with and has a Christmas trip planned with them to a Disney theme park, he said. After that is a trip to Italy with his wife. But retirement also is emotional, he said. You make friends. Ill miss them," Ruocchio said.. Commuters said theyll miss him, too. Commuter T.J. Gavenda recalled how after a friend of his was struck by a train, Rudocchio sat and talked with him. Gene was awesome," he said. "Without him here, it will be sadder. Im always so happy to be on his train. Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @commutinglarry. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters Chef Brad McDonald came to New Orleans with a stunning resume. The Mississippi-born chef worked for culinary legends such as Thomas Keller and Alain Ducasse before running his own restaurants in Brooklyn and London. He opened Couvant last August, a classic French restaurant in the Eliza Jane hotel, where he demonstrated an effortless command of classic French cuisine. McDonald's time cooking in New Orleans has proven to be short. Friday (April 19) will be his last day at Couvant. McDonald has taken a job as the food and beverage director at the Ace hotel. While he will oversee all the restaurants and bars at the hotel, including Josephine Estelle and Seaworthy, a representative for Ace confirmed that McDonald will not be cooking in his new role. Its not about being frustrated or unhappy, McDonald said. Its an opportunity to exercise some other muscles. McDonald said he has been impressed with the restaurants at the Ace, and feels they deserve more attention. He looks forward to mentoring some of the young staff there, like Seaworthys new executive chef Justin Koslowsky. A representative from Couvant said a search was underway for a new executive chef. Couvant: 317 Magazine St., New Orleans, 504.882.1234 Chef makes impressive debut at Couvant: Review Got a tip? Know some restaurant news? Email Todd A. Price at TPrice@NOLA.com or call 504.826.3445. Follow him on Twitter (@TPrice504) or join the conversation at www.facebook.com/groups/wherenolaeats. University of Holy Cross President Dr. David Buck Landry is planning to retire this summer, university officials announced Monday (April 15). The private universitys 18th president said his retirement will occur by June 30 or whenever the universitys Board of Trustees selects his successor, according to a UHC news release. Landry plans to stay to help with the transition to the new administration until his successor is installed. The universitys board will form a search committee at its April 17 meeting, according to a university news release. My proudest moments at the University of Holy Cross are transforming the university from a locally based college to a nationally accredited and highly ranked university, launching new and innovative educational programs especially in the health science field, building new housing and learning facilities, and upgrading the schools infrastructure, according to Landry in a released statement. University of Holy Cross aims to make transfers easier for Delgado culinary students Landry, who turns 76 this year, worked for nearly three decades in the financial services industry, including six years as the managing director of Raymond James. An Army veteran, Landry has also held various administrative positions at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Miss., and Nicholls State University in Thibodaux. He was a member of UHCs board before he was named university president in 2014. Landry replaced former president Ronald Ambrosetti, who received a unanimous vote of "no confidence" in 2014 from the faculty assembly of Our Lady of Holy Cross College, UHCs previous name. Ambrosetti in 2012 succeeded Myles Seghers, UHCs interim president after Rev. Anthony DeConciliis was fired in August 2011. During Landrys tenure, officials stated Our Lady of Holy Cross College was renamed, it launched its first doctorate programs, expanded many of its masters programs, and restructured the schools governance while increasing overall student enrollment by 10 percent. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Specifically, officials credit Landry for the fundraising, planning, and construction of the universitys 60,000-square-foot residence hall, the schools first-ever dormitory. He also spearheaded the construction of the new 7,000-square-foot Health Science Center, which will be home to the expanded undergraduate and graduate healthcare programs, officials stated. Buck agreed to step up with his accomplished academic expertise when we needed him the most, taking the reins of a century-old New Orleans educational institution and transforming it from a small local college to a fully-accredited university, according to UHC Board of Trustees Chair Dennise V. Tabony in a released statement. While other similar local and national universities suffered cutbacks, Buck led UHC to its pinnacle of excellence while increasing the enrollment. He has literally taken our university, which was once known to many as Louisianas best kept secret to what has now become a story to share and celebrate nationwide, Tabony stated. The University of Holy Cross is a Catholic university in Algiers that offers more than 65 majors and programs to more than 1,300 students. The university was founded in 1916 as a mission of the Marianites of Holy Cross, whose distinguished history of educating minds and hearts dates to 1848. Check out the University of Holy Cross's new $14 million residence hall Wilborn P. Nobles III is an education reporter based in New Orleans. He can be reached at wnobles@nola.com or on Twitter at @WilNobles. Emilie Leumas first set foot in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris 38 years ago and was immediately captivated by magnificent surroundings that she describes with an oxymoron: intimately grandiose. She could barely take her eyes off of the elaborate carvings, artwork, statues and architecture that made the 13th century monument one of the most revered structures in the world. On Monday (April 15), Leumas again found it difficult to take her eyes off the cathedral, although for a vastly different reason. Like others around the world on the first day of Holy Week, she watched with horror video of the structure being engulfed in a massive fire that was turning a significant part of western European history into ash. As a New Orleanian, Leumas harkened back to the disheartening 1988 Cabildo fire that caused $4 million in damage to the 1700s structure and threatened other historic buildings in the French Quarter, including the adjacent St. Louis Cathedral. As the Archdiocese of New Orleans archivist who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and French studies, she attempted to compare that fire to the one she painfully watched on Monday. The Cabildo fire of 1988 I dont know how many times youd have to multiply that fire (Cabildo) to equal the significance of the Notre Dame fire, Leumas said. Im sick. Ive been sick since I first got the news. This is an extraordinary building with extraordinary historical significance. Leumas, who serves on the International Council on Archives, said she has been to the Notre Dame Cathedral more than a dozen times since her first visit at age 23. She said each visit left her in awe, particularly over the incalculable artifacts and carvings. The cathedral is one of the most visited tourist attractions in the world, attracting about 12 million people a year. Im sure the Parisians must be in a state of shock, Leumas said. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Live updates of Notre Dame fire Construction of the cathedral began in 1160 and was completed in 1260. It underwent numerous modifications over the years. It is considered one of the worlds finest examples of French Gothic architecture. Its two towers are 226 feet tall and were the tallest structures in Paris until the completion of the Eiffel Tower in 1889. The towers were the last major elements of the Cathedral to be constructed. Late Monday in Paris, the cathedrals spire collapsed and fire spread to one of the landmark rectangular towers. A spokesman said the entire wooden frame of the cathedral would likely come down, and that the vault of the edifice could be threatened too, the Associated Press reported. Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans is the only institution of its kind in the U.S. to share a name with the famous cathedral in Paris, according to The Very Rev. James Wehner, rector of the seminary. He said seminarians are now on spring break, but have been asked to pray for both those affected by the recent church burnings in Opelousas and the high profile disaster in Paris. We feel a spiritual solidarity with those impacted, he said, adding he believes that people of all faiths can sense the loss of history resulting from the fire at Notre Dame. New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond said Monday that the local archdiocese offers its prayers for the people of Paris as they grapple with the tragedy during Holy Week. It is truly one of the most beautiful and recognizable churches in the world, Aymond said. Such a tragedy is challenging at any time, but especially during Holy Week as we prepare for the great celebration of Easter. For all of us who have seen it, Notre Dame is truly an icon of Gods presence in Paris. The narrow-bezel Asus ZenBook UX391 will now be even narrower with the ZenBook UX392. Asus is promising a lighter and faster GeForce-powered Ultrabook than the Dell XPS 13 while offering a larger 13.9-inch display. 4 Reviews , News , CPU , GPU , Articles , Columns , Other "or" search relation. 3D Printing , 5G , Accessory , AI , Alder Lake , AMD , Android , Apple , ARM , Audio , Biotech , Business , Camera , Cannon Lake , Cezanne (Zen 3) , Charts , Chinese Tech , Chromebook , Coffee Lake , Comet Lake , Console , Convertible / 2-in-1 , Cryptocurrency , Cyberlaw , Deal , Desktop , E-Mobility , Education , Exclusive , Fail , Foldable , Gadget , Galaxy Note , Galaxy S , Gamecheck , Gaming , Geforce , Google Pixel , GPU , How To , Ice Lake , Intel Evo / Project Athena , Internet of Things (IoT) , iOS , iPad Pro , iPhone , Jasper Lake , Lakefield , Laptop , Launch , Linux / Unix , Lucienne (Zen 2) , MacBook , Mini PC , Monitor , MSI , OnePlus , Opinion , Phablet , Radeon , Renoir , Review Snippet , Rocket Lake , Rumor , Ryzen (Zen) , Science , Security , Single-Board Computer (SBC) , Smart Home , Smartphone , Smartwatch , Software , Storage , Tablet , ThinkPad , Thunderbolt , Tiger Lake , Touchscreen , Ultrabook , Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) , Wearable , Windows , Workstation , XPS , Zen 3 (Vermeer) Ticker It's only been half a year since we reviewed the Asus ZenBook S UX391 and now Asus is ready to ship a successor. The ZenBook S13 UX392 will be even smaller than its predecessor while offering a larger 13.9-inch display for an insanely high screen-to-body ratio due to its 2.5 mm thick "frameless 4-sided NanoEdge" display. Our table below summarizes the main differences between the UX392 and UX391. Aside from the usual CPU update from Kaby Lake-R to Whiskey Lake-U, the UX392 throws in a MicroSD slot that was omitted from the UX391. Furthermore, the larger 1080p-only display promises to be brighter and with deeper colors. Most everything else remains identical to the UX391 including the 50 Wh battery, GeForce MX150 GPU, single M.2 PCIe x4 storage bay, and 8 to 16 GB of LPDDR3 RAM. Interestingly, Asus has decided to drop Thunderbolt 3 support on the UX392 even though it was a feature on the UX391. The Asus ZenBook S13 UX392FN-XS71 with 8 GB of RAM can be found online for $1400 while the UX392FN-XS77 SKU with 16 GB of RAM can be found at Micro Center stores for $1500. Asus first unveiled the laptop at CES 2019. As usual, expect our review on the new system in the coming weeks. It will be interesting to see if the unit ships with the slower '1D12' GeForce MX150 GPU or the faster '1D10' variant. Asus ZenBook S13 UX392 Asus ZenBook S UX391 CPU Core i7-8565U Core i7-8550U GPU GeForce MX150 GeForce MX150 Display 13.9-inch IPS FHD 2.5 mm bezels 97 percent screen-to-body ratio 100 percent sRGB 400 nits 13.3-inch IPS FHD 5.9 mm bezels 85 percent screen-to-body ratio 90 percent sRGB 300 nits RAM 8 to 16 GB LPDDR3 2133 MHz 8 to 16 GB LPDDR3 2133 MHz Ports 2x USB 3.1 Type-C Gen. 2 1x USB 3.1 Type-A Gen. 2 1x MicroSD 1x 3.5 audio 2x USB 3.1 Type-C Gen. 2 + Thunderbolt 3 1x USB 3.1 Type-C Gen. 1 1x 3.5 mm audio Battery 50 Wh 50 Wh Dimensions 12.9 x 316 x 195 mm 12.9 x 311 x 213 mm Weight 2.4 lbs 2.24 lbs MSRP $1399 $1149 (as of this writing) ASUS ZenBook S13 (UX392) A recent tweet from tipster Ice universe has arguably explained what Samsung could be planning in terms of naming the phablets that are part of its upcoming Galaxy Note 10 lineup. The four models, which are differentiated by two sizes and whether they come with 5G or not, could end up being called the Samsung Galaxy Note 10e and the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Pro. 4 Reviews , News , CPU , GPU , Articles , Columns , Other "or" search relation. 3D Printing , 5G , Accessory , AI , Alder Lake , AMD , Android , Apple , ARM , Audio , Biotech , Business , Camera , Cannon Lake , Cezanne (Zen 3) , Charts , Chinese Tech , Chromebook , Coffee Lake , Comet Lake , Console , Convertible / 2-in-1 , Cryptocurrency , Cyberlaw , Deal , Desktop , E-Mobility , Education , Exclusive , Fail , Foldable , Gadget , Galaxy Note , Galaxy S , Gamecheck , Gaming , Geforce , Google Pixel , GPU , How To , Ice Lake , Intel Evo / Project Athena , Internet of Things (IoT) , iOS , iPad Pro , iPhone , Jasper Lake , Lakefield , Laptop , Launch , Linux / Unix , Lucienne (Zen 2) , MacBook , Mini PC , Monitor , MSI , OnePlus , Opinion , Phablet , Radeon , Renoir , Review Snippet , Rocket Lake , Rumor , Ryzen (Zen) , Science , Security , Single-Board Computer (SBC) , Smart Home , Smartphone , Smartwatch , Software , Storage , Tablet , ThinkPad , Thunderbolt , Tiger Lake , Touchscreen , Ultrabook , Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) , Wearable , Windows , Workstation , XPS , Zen 3 (Vermeer) Ticker We recently reported on Samsungs plans with the premium Galaxy Note 10 series. It seems the smartphone/phablet will come in two distinct sizes and with the choice of 5G or not. It was already widely believed that the smaller device (6.28-inches) would be the Samsung Galaxy Note 10e, but now thanks to a tweet from Ice universe we seem to have a name for the larger device: Note 10 Pro. However, it does seem a rather odd choice by Samsung if this naming convention ends up being accurate. The Galaxy Note line is already considered a Pro line, and if rumors are to be believed, the next-generation phablets are going to be stuffed with high-end features, which makes one wonder how the South Korean manufacturer will Pro-up the Note 10. Obviously, it will have a huge 6.75-inch screen to help it stand out from the rest of the Pro rivals (Huawei P30 Pro = 6.47-inch; Huawei Mate 20 Pro = 6.3-inch), but what else could it feature? Of course, Samsung could just simply take some features away from the Galaxy Note 10e but that could also make that particular device irrelevant; smartphone buyers may as well just choose from Samsungs Galaxy S10 range if the regular Note is going to be nerfed anyway. The other option is to give the 6.75-inch Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Pro phablet hardware boosts that we have already touched upon: pressure-sensitive display, UFS 3.0 storage, high-capacity RAM and more cameras. A new series by the New York Times investigating privacy has uncovered a Google database known internally as SensorVault. Police have been able to access the database to help identify suspects based on their movements recorded in SensorVault. 4 Reviews , News , CPU , GPU , Articles , Columns , Other "or" search relation. 3D Printing , 5G , Accessory , AI , Alder Lake , AMD , Android , Apple , ARM , Audio , Biotech , Business , Camera , Cannon Lake , Cezanne (Zen 3) , Charts , Chinese Tech , Chromebook , Coffee Lake , Comet Lake , Console , Convertible / 2-in-1 , Cryptocurrency , Cyberlaw , Deal , Desktop , E-Mobility , Education , Exclusive , Fail , Foldable , Gadget , Galaxy Note , Galaxy S , Gamecheck , Gaming , Geforce , Google Pixel , GPU , How To , Ice Lake , Intel Evo / Project Athena , Internet of Things (IoT) , iOS , iPad Pro , iPhone , Jasper Lake , Lakefield , Laptop , Launch , Linux / Unix , Lucienne (Zen 2) , MacBook , Mini PC , Monitor , MSI , OnePlus , Opinion , Phablet , Radeon , Renoir , Review Snippet , Rocket Lake , Rumor , Ryzen (Zen) , Science , Security , Single-Board Computer (SBC) , Smart Home , Smartphone , Smartwatch , Software , Storage , Tablet , ThinkPad , Thunderbolt , Tiger Lake , Touchscreen , Ultrabook , Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) , Wearable , Windows , Workstation , XPS , Zen 3 (Vermeer) Ticker While most of us arent going to be caught up in a crime, it is nevertheless concerning that your location history can conceivably be accessed by law enforcement, on demand, should the police want to know your whereabouts. This is what a New York Times series investigating privacy in todays society has uncovered When Android users enable location history to get maximum usefulness from Google's services, user location history is stored in a massive Google database known internally as SensorVault. Police have been using it as a digital dragnet to track and apprehend crooks. According to Google, it only ever provides police with access to this data when required to do so by law. Police have been providing Google with a type of warrant known as a geofence request. Google will use the coordinates and time provided by the police and identify devices that were in the area. These devices are initially given anonymous ID numbers and police will review the data to assess location and movement patterns that might be a possible fit for the crime. Once the field has been narrowed to a few devices, Google then provides police with the names and email accounts associated the movements police are interested in. Unfortunately, as the Times article demonstrates, this has led to wrongful arrests but also helped solved many crimes. According to a statement provided to the Times by Apple, it said it is unable to provide police with this type of information. While the police could also pull similar data from a carriers records of cell phone (Android or iPhone) to tower pings, the Google data is much more accurate with regard to a specific vicinity thanks to your smartphones GPS. If you plan to commit a crime while carrying a smartphone, an iPhone might be the better choice -- but only if you don't enable Google location services on it. Then again, it's almost impossible to maintain privacy in a world where you can't even walk down a street without being surveilled. Continuing the tough steps against Iran aiming to pressure Tehran into abandoning its ambitions on the nuclear programme and missiles carrying nuclear warheads as claimed by Washington, President Trump recently decided to consider IRGC as a foreign terrorist organisation. This is the first time the US has listed a nations military force on the terrorist list. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned of measures to strengthen economic sanctions against Iran. Accordingly, President Trump will continue to increase pressure on Iran to force the Islamic nation to change its behaviour. All banks and businesses will suffer severe consequences if they continue to carry out transactions with IRGC. Previously, the US government imposed new sanctions on a network of companies and individuals in Iran, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), stating that the network provided billions of dollars for IRGC. Twenty-five individuals and organisations were placed on Washingtons blacklist for being claimed to be the screen of IRGC and the Iranian Defence Ministry. As the most powerful security organisation with huge influence on Irans political and economic system, IRGC insisted that it would use all means to combat the United States Central Command (CENTCOM). In response to the US move, IRGC declared CENTCOM and related forces in the West Asian region as terrorist organisations. The IRGC commander warned the US Navy to maintain the distance between its warships and IRGCs high-speed vessels in the Gulf. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani affirmed that IRGC is a force that serves to protect the Islamic Republic of Iran. He stressed that the IRGC members sacrificed their lives to protect the people and the Islamic Revolution in 1979. President Rouhani considers the US decision a mistake, while other Iranian officials warned that the new US move would jeopardise Washingtons interests in the region. The Iranian leader also warned that, if the US puts pressure on Iran, Tehran will manufacture a series of IR8 centrifuges. At the moment of escalating tensions with the US, IRGC commanders repeatedly stated that US bases in the Middle East and US aircraft carriers in the Gulf are within the range of Iranian missiles. Tehran also warned that it would prevent oil tankers from passing through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf, if the US seeks to pressure Irans economy via preventing it from exporting oil. Analysts have stated that the US labelling IRGC as a foreign terrorist organisation could disrupt US economic and diplomatic links globally and escalate tensions in the Middle East. Many countries have called on the parties concerned to avoid actions that escalate tensions in the region. There are warnings that the US move may cause Washingtons rival nations to apply similar measures against US intelligence and defence officials. Even the Pentagon and the US intelligence community also fear that President Trumps move could lead to a backlash aimed at US forces in the region without damaging the Iranian economy as planned. Analysts worry that retaliation from Iran and the Shi'ite Islam forces in Middle Eastern countries will escalate regional confrontation and complicate the duties of US forces and diplomats, who are in charge of working with governments with close ties to Iran and even Iran itself to addresses a range of sensitive issues. Along with the tightening of sanctions against Iran, the new move of US President Trump aimed at IRGC has made relations between the two countries worsen, triggering fears of further complicating the situation in the region. The international community has called on the parties concerned to avoid creating dangerous precedents causing confrontation in relationships because the Middle East region already has so many hot spots and is in desperate need of actions to ease tensions. You are clearly a super-user of NUVO.net. Thats a good thing. It means you depend on independent and local news sources to keep you informed. You are a smart person. Coincidentally, independent and local news sources depend on you too. Youve read 25 articles this month and now, wed like you to be join our mission and become a NUVO Supporter. For as little as $4 a month, you can keep us alive and fighting -- and can have unlimited access to the independent news that cant be found anywhere else. April 14, 2019 The Old Carriage Inn was an exercise in nostalgia from the moment it opened on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn, in 1983. Joan Beasley, who opened the restaurant with her then-husband, Ron , had grown up down the street. When she was little, an older neighbor described how the building had once been a carriage house for horses. Women in fancy dresses and men in suits would wait for their carriages to be ready. The image captured her imagination and eventually would give the restaurant its name. The restaurant became a bar in the early 1990s, and in recent years it was a celebrated local dive, with a rowdy karaoke night and a close-knit circle of regulars. The customers stuck together, hanging onto memories of a grittier Park Slope even as the area become increasingly upscale. April 14, 2019 You could say that stepping into Terraza 7, a tiny, eclectic and fiercely beloved music club on the border of Jackson Heights and Elmhurst, Queens, is like taking a trip to Latin America. But thats not exactly right. Yes, many of the patrons speak Spanish, and the rhythms youll hear may have originated in Central or South America. But the bar is a classic New York archetype, a remix that aims to bring together diverse musical traditions and blend them into something new. Freddy Castiblanco, the energetic owner of the bar, sought to foster that syncretism when he opened Terraza 7 in 2002. Its name is a reference to indigenous agricultural practices as well as the 7 train, which rumbles past along Roosevelt Avenue. The bar showcases many types of folk music, jazz, salsa, cumbia and other genres. April 14, 2019 On a recent Friday night inside The Muse Brooklyn, a circus-arts studio housed in a mammoth warehouse in Bushwick, aspiring acrobats twirled from straps suspended from the 30-foot ceiling. Nearby, two young women were learning flips on a large hoop, called a German wheel , while instructors urged them on. You got this! Emily Lawson, a lawyer by day, reassured one of the students preparing to try a backward flip. The Muse Brooklyn moved into its home on Moffat Street in 2015, converting a former stone foundry into a colorful circus-arts studio and event space. A team led by the spaces owner, Angela Buccinni Butch, installed wood floors, brought in aerial rigs, circus equipment, spotlights, put down AstroTurf and added eclectic decorations to the expansive backyard. Last month at an event hosted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Representative Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat and one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, delivered a speech in which she correctly derided Islamophobia, a real and persistent problem in this country and others. In that speech, Representative Omar invoked the attacks of Sept. 11, saying the council was created because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties. (As The New York Times pointed out, The Council on American-Islamic Relations was actually founded in 1994.) The congresswoman could have used different, more severe language to describe the attacks, but she didnt. Maybe we could judge her use of language as inartful, but we all succumb to that occasionally, me included. Error is inevitable among the loquacious. But the Omar of the speech stands. I saw nowhere in it a thread of terror apologia. CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties, she said, making an incorrect reference to the organizations founding, which actually took place in 1994. Ms. Omars critics have seized on the some people did something remark. But others have said the words were taken out of context. The speech focused on attacks Muslims in America faced after Sept. 11. A spokesman for Ms. Omar has said the entire speech was addressing civil rights and the danger of Islamophobia in the United States and around the world in particular the danger of associating all members of a religion with the acts of a few despicable terrorists. Ms. Pelosi, who is traveling in Europe during the congressional recess, has tried to contact Ms. Omar, but her travel schedule has made it hard for the two to connect, a Democratic aide said. The speaker criticized Mr. Trump in a series of early-morning tweets on Sunday from Germany, where she was visiting with United States service members. It is wrong for the President, as Commander-in-Chief, to fan the flames to make anyone less safe, she wrote. But the remarks have caught fire in conservative circles. The New York Post, owned by Trump ally Rupert Murdoch, juxtaposed Ms. Omars comments with a picture of the twin towers on its cover last week. On Friday, Mr. Trump followed suit. WE WILL NEVER FORGET, the president tweeted to his nearly 60 million followers, while posting the video that repeatedly played Ms. Omars reference to some people, then cut to the planes slamming into the Manhattan skyline. Ms. Omar has been the subject of numerous threats. Earlier this month, federal prosecutors charged a New York State man with phoning in a death threat to her. President Trump raised more than $30 million for his re-election in the first three months of 2019 and now sits atop more than $40 million, his campaign said on Sunday. Mr. Trumps campaign which has set an ambitious $1 billion goal for the 2020 race launched an aggressive fund-raising push earlier than his predecessors. The campaign has already installed a headquarters in Northern Virginia and is combining a push for both big donations and small contributions online. Nearly 99 percent of the donations in the first quarter were for $200 or less, according to the campaign, with an average contribution of just over $34. Some Democrats are concerned that Mr. Trump will spend the next year amassing a war chest as Democrats fight among themselves in a primary now featuring nearly 20 candidates. Mr. Trumps $30 million haul is about the size of what Senators Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris the top two Democratic fund-raisers so far in the 2020 field raised combined in the first quarter. WASHINGTON Stephen Miller was furious again. The architect of President Trumps immigration agenda, Mr. Miller was presiding last month over a meeting in the White House Situation Room when he demanded to know why the administration officials gathered there were taking so long to carry out his plans. A regulation to deny welfare benefits to legal immigrants a change Mr. Miller repeatedly predicted would be transformative was still plodding through the approval process after more than two years, he complained. So were the new rules that would overturn court-ordered protections for migrant children. They were still not finished, he added, berating Ronald D. Vitiello, the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. You ought to be working on this regulation all day every day, he shouted, as recounted by two participants at the meeting. It should be the first thought you have when you wake up. And it should be the last thought you have before you go to bed. And sometimes you shouldnt go to bed. A few weeks after that meeting, the consequences of Mr. Millers frustration and the president he was channeling have played out in striking fashion. A Finnish political party that campaigned against ambitious climate change policies won the second-highest number of seats in parliamentary elections on Sunday, in a vote in which global warming became a polarizing issue. The Finns Party did even better than predicted by recent polls during the campaign. It was almost tied in the popular vote with the winning party. Although the Finns, a right-wing populist party, is unlikely to be part of a new government, its performance Sunday may give it more of a voice in the countrys politics. The vote reflected a growing fragmentation among voters. While the other eight parties running for office endorse strong measures to fight climate change, the Finns Party seized on the issue as a new front in culture wars. It argued that aggressive climate change policies are an elitist approach that hurts the working class. PARIS A new task force in France has been given a broader mandate to search for and return artwork that had been looted or sold under duress during the Nazi occupation, after years of criticism that its restitution efforts were not proactive enough. The task force, announced last year and starting work in the coming weeks, will primarily look at artwork in France that is already suspected of having been looted during World War II, to try to return it to the original owners or their heirs. But in a step up from current policy, it will also try to determine whether any other pieces acquired by French institutions have dubious origins, though those are only expected to represent a small fraction of Frances vast national art collections. We are not starting from nothing, but we are amplifying the work, David Zivie, a Culture Ministry official who is expected to lead the new task force, said in an interview. A family sitcom with a mysterious twist debuts on Netflix. And the delightful drama Enchanted April arrives on Hulu. Whats Streaming NO GOOD NICK Stream on Netflix. The Nick thats up to no good in this new show is a teenage con artist (Siena Agudong) out for revenge. At the outset, she arrives at the doorstep of the Thompson family pretending to be a distant relative. They take her in, oblivious to her true motives. But the closer Nick gets to the children and their parents, Liz (Melissa Joan Hart) and Ed (Sean Astin of Stranger Things), the harder it is to go through with her sinister plan. Its difficult to categorize the series: Hart recently described it as a serialized family mystery dramedy, adding that its like Scandal for kids. ENCHANTED APRIL (1992) Stream on Hulu; rent on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu or YouTube. In this adaptation of the 1922 novel by Elizabeth von Arnim, two married women in 1920s London, Lottie (Josie Lawrence) and Rose (Miranda Richardson), spot a newspaper ad for a medieval Italian castle thats up for rent for a month. They jump at the offer its the perfect getaway from their dull lives. To defray the cost, they share the sanctuary with two others: Mrs. Fisher (Joan Plowright), an older woman who cant help but name-drop all her eminent literary friends, and Caroline (Polly Walker), a rich beauty whos too pretty for her own good. Personalities clash, and gradually the viewer realizes that this film is not simply about an idyllic vacation but about the troubles these women left behind. (Interestingly, the movie takes place in the same gorgeous villa where von Arnim wrote her novel.) Some poets are cutters, others are curers, showing up to every occasion like a condolence-wisher with a casserole. Chelsey Minnis is firmly in the first category. Her verse arrives well chilled. It is served with misanthropic aplomb. Lets go get some smoke in our eyes, she writes in her latest collection, Baby, I Dont Care, a set of nearly 150 single-page poems, most of them untitled double quintets, that play with notions taken from Hollywoods golden era and film noir. I love to go to bed sober, / which means I have to start drinking early, her narrator comments. I like it when two men take off their dinner jackets and fight, she says. Next time you see me, Ill be crashing Rolls-Royces. Minnis is endlessly quotable, so one has to work hard not to quote her endlessly. Lets be objectionable and immoral and utterly no good, her narrator suggests. Lets get thrown into third class. She says: You see, Im the type of person who would hurt a fly. And: Did anyone ever try to kill you in a rowboat before? Tourists and residents alike came to a standstill, pulling out their phones to call their loved ones. Older Parisians wept over the loss of a national treasure. For hours, hundreds of French firefighters battled to contain the blaze. No one was killed or injured, officials said. Cause: None had been identified as of this writing, but officials said the fire had begun in the attic. The cathedral is currently undergoing extensive renovation work, and several statues were lifted by crane from the spire last week. Go deeper: We have photos and video of the disaster, and a short history of this scarred jewel of Gothic architecture. Congressional investigators on Monday intensified their pursuit of President Trumps personal and business financial records by issuing a subpoena to his longtime lender, Deutsche Bank. The two committees that issued the subpoena, the Houses Intelligence and Financial Services committees, also demanded documents from numerous other financial institutions, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup, related to possible money-laundering by people in Russia and Eastern Europe, according to three people with knowledge of the investigation. The potential use of the U.S. financial system for illicit purposes is a very serious concern, Representative Maxine Waters, the chairwoman of the Financial Services Committee, said in a statement. She added that the panel was exploring these matters, including as they may involve the president and his associates, as thoroughly as possible pursuant to its oversight authority, and will follow the facts wherever they may lead us. The subpoenas were the latest attempts by congressional Democrats to collect information about the finances of Mr. Trump and his family-owned company, the Trump Organization, and were immediately condemned by Mr. Trumps son Eric. Belgium abstained because the regional government of Wallonia, a French-speaking area in the south, viewed the negotiations much like France, according to a Belgian diplomat, who declined to speak on the record given the continuing negotiations. In 2016, Wallonia temporarily blocked the ratification of a free-trade deal between the European Union and Canada, on both protectionist and environmentalist grounds. The two negotiation mandates were first proposed in January by the European Commission, which negotiates trade deals for the blocs 28 member states. Last year, Mr. Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum produced in the European Union. The European Union retaliated with tariffs on a list of goods imported from the United States. In July, leaders on both sides called a truce during a meeting in Washington and vowed to work toward a free-trade agreement. However, Congress has made clear that it will not ratify any trade agreement with the European Union that doesnt include agriculture. And the Trump administration has repeatedly insisted that agriculture be included in later negotiations, something that European countries, including France, have forcefully resisted. Meanwhile, the United States has been threatening to impose punitive tariffs on European car imports. Peter Chase, a former United States trade representative in Brussels and currently a resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, said: The U.S. administration is trying to push Europeans to adopt a negotiating mandate using the threat of the auto tariffs to ensure that mandate is broad and includes agriculture. The U.S. will push, and the E.U. will push back. I do think that it is possible that the U.S.-E.U. trade relationship will become more contentious over the next few months, he said. BERLIN German prosecutors on Monday filed aggravated fraud charges against Martin Winterkorn, the former chief executive of Volkswagen who led the company when it deceived regulators about its vehicles diesel exhaust levels. The charges are the first criminal indictment in Germany against an individual in connection with the diesel scandal, which has cost Volkswagen tens of billions of dollars since it came to light in 2015. In charging Mr. Winterkorn and four Volkswagen managers whose names were not released, the public prosecutors office in Braunschweig tied the five to events reaching as far back as 2006, when the deception was initially conceived. The timeline is significant because it rejects initial claims by Volkswagen that senior management became aware of the so-called defeat devices used to cheat emissions tests only after being confronted by the United States environmental authorities in 2015. BOURGES, France In a world seething with anger over the widening gap between the rich and everyone else, France stands out as a country elaborately engineered to protect social peace. It has less economic inequality than the United States, Canada and Britain, according to the World Bank. Its people enjoy comprehensive health care under a national insurance program. Only Denmark, Belgium and Sweden spend a larger percentage of their economies on social welfare programs for working-age citizens, according to an analysis by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Even so, France is consumed by a ferocious and sustained outpouring of social unrest. The tumultuous, intermittently violent protests of the so-called Yellow Vest movement have shaken the country since they began in November, intensifying in recent weeks. President Emmanuel Macron had been preparing to address the nation last Monday to detail new measures in response to the demonstrations. But as the Notre-Dame cathedral went up in flames that evening, Mr. Macron scrapped his address, and used the devastation of a beloved and iconic monument to call for national unity. Its cold. Its gray. It has a lot of potholes. But, could it be paradise? It could be, at least for climate migrants: those fleeing rising tides and temperatures in other parts of the country. This is Duluth, Minn., a small city on the western tip of Lake Superior. Hi, Jesse? Hi, Im Kendra. Nice to meet you. Hey, Kendra, hows everything? Jesse Keenan is a climate adaptation expert at Harvard University. Keenan believes climate change could cause displacement across the U.S., and cities like Duluth could benefit by welcoming climate migrants. Is it unrealistic to think that 10 or 20,000 people could move here in the future, lets say in the next 50 years? I dont think thats unrealistic at all. He somewhat jokingly refers to Duluth as the most climate-proof city in America. When people at the University of Minnesota-Duluth got wind of Keenans ideas, they hired him to do analysis and demographic forecasting. Beautiful colored brick. Keenan acknowledges theres no escaping climate change, but there could be relief from those scorching Phoenix summers and rising Miami seas that will only get worse as the planet warms. So Keenan believes theres no better place for climate migrants to land than Duluth. They call it the air-conditioned city for a reason, and they have for 80 years. Its pretty cool here in the summertime. Therefore, when they do have extreme heat, it wont be as bad. Another selling point? The citys forward-looking economic approach. Theyre not so much stuck in the nostalgia of the past that were going to bring back manufacturing and coal and all of these things. Theyre actually diversifying their economy. And the citys existing infrastructure could make it attractive to newcomers. Theres wonderful architecture. Theres landscape, theres parks, theres all kinds of amenities that are residual parts of this Rust Belt that are actually a great platform for a future city. But what its really all about is this: Lake Superior. Im just happy I made the executive decision not to wear ballet flats. This is all fresh water. And as the world heats up, and it starts absorbing more and more water into the atmosphere, fresh water is going to become more and more scarce and more and more valuable. And theres plenty of fresh water here to go around. Think of this lake as a giant water fountain of the future. Life in Duluth already revolves around it, from sledding to beer making. And as fresh water becomes scarce under a warming climate, it will be even more important. Keenan says its something Duluth can capitalize on now. Climate adaptation is not just managing risk. Its also thinking about the opportunities that arise with climate change. I think its healthy for those in, lets say, economic development, planning to think about how do we take advantage of climate change? Whats the good stuff? How do we create value? And then maybe we extract that value and help people of lesser means or help promote the environment or to offset the costs of adaptation itself. Although there is no data to show that people are already moving to Duluth to escape climate change, Keenan projects that, on average, over 200 people a year could potentially move to the city over 50 years. Thats a lot of people for Duluth. That would actually increase their municipal budget by about 1.5 percent every single year. So how to get people from California and Florida to move here? Keenan has created a marketing campaign, and hes already running test ads with new slogans for the city on Facebook. Duluth: Not as cold as you think. Particularly in Florida, people are worried about how cold it is, but its beautiful. People go to the beach here. Theres actually a very vibrant surfing scene. We wanted to know what the people of Duluth thought of Keenans plan. So we headed to something thats pretty easy to find in Duluth: a brewery. Turns out all that fresh water also makes for great beer. Duluth: Its not as cold as you think. [Laughing] Metaphorically? Duluth: Its not as cold as you think. [Laughter] Its not true. Its way colder than you think! Were not going to turn people away for trying to run away from climate change. More people here means more people to play board games with, more people to come hang out at the cool bars, for sure. I dont think that making your small world bigger with new people is a bad thing. So, Im fine with it. It was something we heard often from people: Why not? As for the mayor of the city? Emily Larson says shes considering Keenans proposal. This is a topic, an area that our residents care deeply about. We have this national researcher who has identified Duluth as a place where has kind of a secret sauce when it comes to this being a place for refuge and sustainability and resiliency. That is something you want to be a part of. Next up, Keenan presented his plan to an audience at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. This is where it really gets fun. Texas, dont get left behind. Move to Duluth. The most climate-proof city in America. Youve done it, Duluth, this is your identity. You have that opportunity to provide that kind of leadership. [Laughter] [Applause] But there are some challenges ahead. An influx of people could put new stress on the citys population, as a member of a local Native American tribe pointed out. My first impression is, with all due respect to other people moving around for climate migration, we will never, ever get to move our homelands. And so thats a bit of a concern, right? Additional stressors, our way of life is so tied to the natural environment a healthy natural environment. More people, more strain, more pollution, more need for economic growth. When, from my perspective, we havent even figured out how to interact in a positive way with our Indigenous people here. So not everyone was won over by Keenans plan. Why should Duluthians listen to you? Maybe they shouldnt. I know nothing about Duluth other than what Ive externally understood and maps and plans and ideas and history and photographs and archives and economic data. This is actually a really nice place and people are really nice and theres good restaurants, and I get a sense of what it means to be on the lake, and I can understand why people would live here. I dont know if I could ever live here. But maybe so. The number of new measles cases in the United States rose again this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Monday, bringing the total number to 555 in 2019. This years outbreak is on course to be the worst since the country eliminated measles as an endemic disease in 2000. Health authorities reported 90 additional cases as of April 11, with outbreaks in New York, Washington, California, New Jersey and Michigan, up from 78 the week before. Those cases were largely linked to travelers returning from countries seeing outbreaks of their own, including Israel, Ukraine and the Philippines. The disease then spread through populations in which large numbers of people are unvaccinated, the C.D.C. said. More than half of the cases this year were reported in New York City, where the latest number was 285. In Rockland County, to the north of the city, health authorities updated their count Monday to 186 cases. In These High School Murals Depict an Ugly History. Should They Go? Carol Pogash writes: In one of the murals, George Washington points westward over the dead body of a Native American. Another depicts Washingtons slaves, hunched over, working in the fields of Mount Vernon. These images arent in a museum exhibition but on the walls of a public high school. In this famously left-of-center city, liberals are battling liberals over these Depression-era frescoes that have offended some groups. In the debate over the 13 murals that make up The Life of Washington, at George Washington High School, one side, which includes art historians and school alumni, sees an immersive history lesson; the other, which includes many African-Americans and Native Americans, sees a hostile environment. Sometime this spring, the school board will make a decision about the future of the massive frescoes that extend from the schools entryway through its lobby, confronting students as they climb the stairs to their classrooms. The works were created in the mid-1930s by Victor Arnautoff, a social realist, for the Works Progress Administration, an agency created under Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal that provided public works jobs for the unemployed during the Great Depression. Arnautoff, who was born in Russia and taught at Stanford, was a Communist who embedded messages critical of the founding father in his murals. He depicted Washington, accurately, at a time when that was rarely acknowledged, as a slave owner and the leader of the nation that annihilated Native Americans. There are no cherry trees. But to Amy Anderson, a member of the Ahkaamaymowin band of Metis who has been a catalyst in the campaign to remove the murals, they represent American history from the colonizers perspective. Around the country in recent years, people have been questioning historical representations in public art. Confederate statues and monuments have been dismantled. And in September, San Francisco city workers removed a statue symbolizing the Catholic Churchs mission-era subjugation of Native Americans. But the Washington High frescoes present a different issue. What they symbolize is open to interpretation. Some see a subversive message about Washingtons failings; others see his glorification. A half-century ago, 1969 capped a radical, idealistic decade that saw the rise of the hippie generation and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Woodstock, perhaps the most famous concert ever, happened that summer, with free love and drugs serving as backdrops to sets by Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Richie Havens and others. But another large, raucous rock festival that year became notorious for very different reasons: Altamont. That December, the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead organized an impromptu concert at Altamont Speedway, in the golden hills of Northern Californias East Bay, that drew an estimated 300,000 people. Four people died, including a man who was killed by members of the Hells Angels who had been hired to provide security for the event. So much for peace and love. The situation facing Yemens 28 million citizens is painfully difficult, with famine and malnutrition exacerbating the humanitarian crisis. Covering it, Mr. Tugnoli said, was equally daunting and necessary. He worked with Sudarsan Raghavan, The Posts Cairo bureau chief, who has long experience in the region. It is really important, this recognition, said Mr. Tugnoli, who is with the Contrasto agency. I think this crisis is not over. I think it is important that people keep talking about what happened there, the involvement of the United States has in the war and the support they give to Saudi Arabia. I hope these awards are going to push the attention on this crisis. Although he had already made one trip to Yemen early last year, the killing of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi led the paper to intensify its coverage, especially given the rapport Mr. Tugnoli and Mr. Raghavan had established. There was a commitment from The Post to talk about what was happening in Yemen, said Olivier Laurent, the papers international photo editor. When you have that desire to cover a story that is that dangerous, you want to be working with someone who is levelheaded, conscientious and knows how to work in these kind of situation. Also, you want them to work so closely with the writer, because so much coverage in a situation like this is about the trust between the writer and photographer. [What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] New York City closed a preschool program at a yeshiva in Brooklyn on Monday for violating a Health Department order that required it to provide medical and attendance records amid a measles outbreak. The preschool at United Talmudical Academy, which serves 250 students between the ages of 3 and 5 in the Williamsburg area, is the first program to be closed by the city, as it escalates efforts to stem the countrys largest measles outbreak in decades. New York City has confirmed 329 measles cases since the outbreak began in the fall, and the cases have largely been confined within the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. The outbreak began after unvaccinated individuals returned from celebrating Sukkot, a Jewish harvest festival, in Israel. The closing of the preschool comes as tensions have risen in the ultra-Orthodox community over increased scrutiny and fears of anti-Semitic backlash. On the one hand, most in the ultra-Orthodox community are vaccinated, and the vast majority of prominent rabbis have urged people to vaccinate their children. However, the citys response to the outbreak has caused vaccine skeptics to double down on their opposition to immunization. The anti-vaccination movements well-coordinated and sophisticated messaging campaign, highlighted by magazines, hotlines and conference calls, has convinced some parents that vaccines are dangerous, and that diseases, like measles, are not. Subway fares will increase on Sunday. Soon after that, L train service will be disrupted on nights and weekends. (And, of course, big dogs in bags will be a fixture in your subway future, too.) In light of all that, its easy to forget that the subway was once grand and majestic: chandeliers and skylights, graceful arches and vaulted ceilings. Theres one subway station that still has all those glamorous features, and youre not allowed to explore it except on a special tour. Where is the station? Its right under City Hall in Lower Manhattan. Its technically one stop south of the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall stop. Southbound No. 6 trains head into the old station, using it as a turnaround to get onto the northbound tracks at Brooklyn Bridge. That accumulation of wealth was increasingly driven by international trade. As Professor Davis later wrote in The New York Review of Books, There is now impressive evidence that the economic importance of slavery increased in the 19th century along with the soaring global demand for such consumer goods as sugar, coffee, tobacco and cotton textiles. The second volume was particularly noteworthy for its nuanced discussion of the relationship between emerging antislavery sentiment and a new commercial and industrial class. Some abolitionists in England and the United States were motivated by capitalist interests, he wrote, seeing slavery as stagnating the South economically in an increasingly mechanized world. The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation examined the rise of abolitionist sentiment in England and the United States more fully. It included a surprising four chapters about the colonization movement, which aimed to resettle free black people and emancipated slaves on the west coast of Africa. Professor Davis located the reasons for its appeal, to both black and white people, in the movements evocation of the Exodus narrative. Professor Davis also argued for the centrality of free blacks like James Forten, Samuel Cornish and Frederick Douglass to the development of radical abolitionism in the United States. They were the key to slave emancipation, he wrote, not only in their contributions to the movement but also because their lives demonstrated that the dehumanization of slavery had not made blacks unfit for freedom. In these books Professor Davis captured as no other scholar has the sweep of what he has called inhuman bondage and its abiding legacy, the Princeton historian Sean Wilentz, one of Dr. Daviss students, wrote in an email. Dr. Foner called Professor Davis one of the most influential historians of his generation. No one, he wrote, also in an email, did more to inspire the revolution in historical understanding that places slavery at the center of American history and indeed the history of the West. Mirjana Markovic, who as the wife of Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader accused of war crimes, was so politically powerful that she was branded the Lady Macbeth of the Balkans, died on Sunday in Russia, to which she had fled in 2003 to avoid prosecution. She was 76. Her death, attributed to complications of pneumonia, was announced by Serbian State Radio and confirmed by her husbands Socialist Party. She had been treated in a hospital in Sochi, a beach resort city on the Black Sea. Mira and Sloba, the diminutives of the couples given names, loosely translate as peace and freedom a benevolence belied by the havoc they wreaked when they ruled as Serbias power couple from 1989 to 2000. After leading their country into catastrophic wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo that left some 130,000 dead, Mr. Milosevic was the first head of state charged by an international court for crimes against humanity committed while he was in office. He died in 2006 while awaiting the conclusion of his trial in The Hague. Mr. Trudeaus inspired words abroad often garner eye rolls at home. He promised to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, but his government still spends billions propping up the oil and gas industry. It also allocated 4.5 billion Canadian dollars ($3.41 billion U.S.) to nationalize a beleaguered oil pipeline from the company Kinder Morgan last year, while the country is expected to fall well short of its 2030 climate targets. Opinion Conversation The climate, and the world, are changing. What challenges will the future bring, and how should we respond to them? What should our leaders be doing? Al Gore, the 45th vice president of the United States, finds reasons for optimism in the Biden presidency. Al Gore, the 45th vice president of the United States, finds reasons for optimism in the Biden presidency. What are the worst climate risks in your country? Select a country, and we'll break down the climate hazards it faces. Select a country, and we'll break down the climate hazards it faces. Where are Americans suffering most? Our maps, developed with experts, show where extreme heat is causing the most deaths in the U.S. Our maps, developed with experts, show where extreme heat is causing the most deaths in the U.S. What does climate devastation look like? In Sept. 2020, Michael Benson studied detailed satellite imagery. Here's the earth that he saw and the one he wants to see. That said, these policies look like progress compared to what the gas-pumping Conservatives have planned. Most of their proposals drive Canada ever closer to the worst possible scenario in the climate report. Mr. Kenney in Alberta has vowed to scrap his provinces version of the carbon tax, and then launch a legal assault to obliterate the landmark federal policy. At the national level, Mr. Scheer has urged voters to Fill your tank! via mass text message. He too plans to repeal Canadas carbon price its the first act he has promised as prime minister should he win in October. He hasnt offered any replacement strategies for reducing emissions. All this defiant anti-environmentalism looks more perverse than ever, though its nothing new for the conservative movement. If an election is on, expect a Tory to be trashing the proponents of a job-killing carbon tax (and then ignoring the earth once in office). By using noxious framing to obscure the carbon prices value as a tool for reducing emissions, theyve won multiple big races over the last decade. It was a successful gambit for former Prime Minister Stephen Harper back in 2008, and he expects it to keep working wonders. Let the other guys do a carbon tax, because we can all win the next federal and provincial elections on that issue alone, he confidently told supporters just last year. Another election cycle, and no alternative thats not awful. The governing Liberals, reeling and weakened by a major corruption scandal, are poorly positioned to stop the Conservatives. Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the federal New Democratic Party, which is now ranking a distant third, has rightly called climate change the single greatest threat we face. But even Mr. Singh supports the construction of a $30 billion liquefied natural gas project in northern British Columbia. The new climate report clearly warns that making certain choices now will propel ever graver consequences. Extrapolate from the recording-breaking wildfires in Western Canada last year that scorched 3.3 million acres, choking Vancouver with smoke that at times was worse to breathe than the air in Beijing. Those fires consumed more than 10 times greater an area of land than otherwise, suggest researchers, due to 1.9 degrees Celsius (3.4 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming in that region related to human activity. The morning I left, I awoke at 5:00, bathed and got dressed. All the while, I cried like a small child. Id cried a lot when my mother died, but this was different. I was worried that something would happen to my sister s when I was gone. My father hugged me. He didnt want me to see that he was crying. I warmed up some beans and said, Papa, lets share a plate of frijoles. A white car with black windows drove up. A couple of the gang members who had been threatening me walked up to the car. But before they could reach me, I got in and we drove off. Inside the car were the coyote and his helper, who was driving. The coyote wore a dress shirt and black shoes. Hed made this trip many times. It took us a month to reach the American border. When we arrived in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, I got separated from the coyote and became lost. I had no money, nothing to eat. Three days later, the coyote found me. He took me and another migrant to a bridge to cross. Border guards were checking people on foot, so we grabbed bicycles and rode across. When an officer standing in a booth turned toward us, I ditched the bike and ran. But the border guards on the United States side caught up with me and handcuffed me. I told them that Id fled gangs in my country. One agent said in Spanish, All of them say this! Another yelled, We dont want people like you. They asked: Why did you enter this way? Why didnt you go to another country? I told them that I had an aunt here and I didnt have anyone in other countries. I also had two stepbrothers and a stepsister in the United States, but I didnt have any contact with them at that point. When I told the agents I was 16 years old, they took off my cuffs. Then they took off my belt, my shoes, all my clothes, and searched me. An officer called my aunt and she confirmed I was her nephew. But after they hung up, they said I was going to a shelter in San Antonio. The shelter was clean, and the staff made sure that we could play and that we would attend school. As soon as I could, I called my aunt. She said that she couldnt take me because she wasnt working and my sponsor had to be able to support me financially. So one of my stepbrothers, whom I knew only from photos and who lived in California, agreed to sponsor me. The shelter allowed me only a couple of phone calls, so I wasnt able to talk to my father until a few days later. When I heard his voice, I felt like crying. He fell silent, and then asked if I was safe. He advised me to hang out with good people youre going to learn things from. I stayed in the shelter for a month. I celebrated my 17th birthday there. Finally, I was sent to live with my stepbrother in California. In Donald Trumps two-plus years as president, his approach to policymaking has often been defined by an unsavory stew of indecision, inaction, flip-flops and outright lies. Nowhere has this been truer than with health care, where the administration has reversed direction multiple times. A short history: During his presidential campaign, Mr. Trump said he would produce a health care plan that provided universal coverage and also promised that he would not cut Medicare or Medicaid. Everybodys got to be covered, Mr. Trump told 60 Minutes, a position that he repeated regularly until he took office. Then he began backing proposals that would eviscerate the Affordable Care Act and severely damage the other programs. MEXICO CITY After years of covering the drug war in Mexico, after looking down from a helicopter to see burning marijuana fields that soldiers had set aflame and after riding along with federal police as they looked for heroin and cocaine traffickers, I got a very different perspective when I visited Baltimore. On a reporting trip there last year, I accompanied a former drug dealer to one of the so-called open air markets, where marijuana and heroin were hawked in plain view o n a busy street . It was a striking paradox. South of the border, Id watched soldiers torch drugs to destroy them. Here, 40 miles from the White House, I was watching people sell them openly. That image came to mind early this month, when President Trump gave Mexico an ultimatum to stop the northward flow of narcotics. Were going to give them a one-year warning, and if the drugs dont stop, or largely stop, were going to put tariffs, he told reporters at the White House. And if that doesnt stop the drugs, we close the border. Blaming Mexico for the American drug problem and then coercing it to act is a tactic that dates back to Richard Nixon. Its pure hypocrisy. While drugs do flow through Mexico, they also flow throughout the United States, feeding one of the biggest drug markets on the planet. If the United States government fails to halt the river of narcotics inside its own territory, how can it expect Mexico to succeed? Whats better than something that is basically a story about you? Mr. Birnbaum said. But that explanation ignores what many in the astro-verse consider the major turning point for Big Zodiac: The election of Donald Trump. It changed everything, according to Aliza Kelly , the astrologer-in-residence at Sanctuary. (She writes its horoscopes and conducts some of its readings.) Watching The New York Timess forecast needle tip from Hillary Clinton to Mr. Trump raised peoples doubts about certain scientifically proven systems, Ms. Kelly said. People became so much more receptive to the idea of there being different ways of seeing the world, she said. They turned to astrology in order to create some sense of structure and hope and stability in their lives. President Trumps election inspired Ms. Guler to leave her work in fashion media and create Co-Star. I was like, We gotta figure out something more meaningful than what we are doing, she said. The role social media played in the election and how it is changing how we operate as humans in the world was a part of her concern, Ms. Guler said. Investors see other trends feeding into astrologys resurgence, Ms. Vardhana said. People are seeking smaller, specialized communities onlin e , while participation in organized religion is declining. Millennials (and the rest of us) are lonely and want community, no matter how many followers we have on social media. Why wouldnt we turn to the stars and moons and planets and houses of the horoscope? This is a phenomenon and maybe astrology and the technology of Co-Star is well equipped to address it, Ms. Vardhana said. The challenge, she said, will be converting more mainstream skeptics without alienating the astro-nerds. Big Pisces Energy A few minutes into my reading on Sanctuarys app, Ms. Kelly, my on-demand astrologer, asked me if her assessment of my birth chart rang true. According to her interpretation, last year was a very important year for me to redefine my values. As a Libra rising, my relationships are very important to me, she noted. And in the next few weeks, I should put myself out in the world to make connections :) . Sure! I typed into the app. It was just vague enough that if I did a little mental backbend, I could find examples to support her conclusions. I felt hesitant to share anything too personal about myself with a stranger until I remembered that by entering the date, city and precise time of day I was born, I had already bared my soul, astrologically speaking. This summer, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater will join many other New York City cultural institutions in commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, which brought the fight for gay rights into public view in 1969. From June 20-24, the theater will present Pride Plays, a festival of readings that celebrate L.G.B.T.Q. voices, produced by Doug Nevin and the actor Michael Urie, and directed by Nick Mayo. The festival will include plays in the queer theater canon alongside works from a new generation of artists. The lineup, which Mr. Nevin and Mr. Urie say is not yet complete, includes classics like William Hoffmans As Is, Chay Yews A Language of Their Own and Jane Chamberss Last Summer at Bluefish Cove. But the producers also plan to highlight work from emerging playwrights like MJ Kaufman and Daaimah Mubashshir, whose play Room Enough (For Us All) explores gay life and cultural identity for a young Muslim woman. [Check out our Culture Calendar here.] To ensure that the selection of playwrights and plays reflected diverse voices, the organizers put together an advisory committee that includes the playwrights Moises Kaufman, Lucy Thurber and Mr. Yew, who the producers say have encouraged them to listen to new voices. If you look back at all history its generally been written by white men, and so much of the theater has been predominantly that, Mr. Urie said. We really wanted, as we look forward, to find plays that accurately represented the community, which is so vast. After the tour, Bill put me in touch with Mary Rivers Legree, who maintains the praise house as president of the Coffin Point Community Association. Ms. Legrees family has lived on the same land on Coffin Point since the era of slavery. She was raised there until the age of 9, then moved north. Amid the horrors of the Jim Crow South , 78-year-old Ms. Legree recalled an isolated childhood with access to fresh seafood, tomatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, okra, and such exotic-sounding fare as pomegranates, persimmons, figs and turtle eggs, all grown on St. Helena Island. Even when Ms. Legree moved to New York City and later Michigan, she kept her connection to the Lowcountry, once asking her father to send a cooler of whiting by Express Mail so she could hold a fish fry for her Detroit neighbors. More important, she kept paying the property taxes on the land that had been in her family since 1866. I didnt know what it meant, but I sent the money, she told me as we sat on the wooden pews in the praise house, the door open to the sunny June morning. She understood the value of the land when, in 2005, she retired and moved back to St. Helena. After settling into her fathers cottage on Coffin Point, Ms. Legree often passed the old praise house. Services had ceased with the deaths of elders, and the building was in poor condition. The doors had been left open, and no markers or plaques indicated the historical significance of the structure. Ms. Legree recalled saying to herself, This place needs somebody. Despite renewed public interest in the areas history, Ms. Legree still worries that the strong sense of culture that has made St. Helena a cohesive community will be lost unless local residents fight harder to preserve it. Most of the Gullah people around here are between 60 and 80 years old, she said. The young people here dont understand the historical significance of being landowners. They dont even know how they got their land. A white man in South Carolina has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to trying to hire a hit man to kill his black neighbor, hang him from a tree and leave a burning cross in his yard, prosecutors said. The man, Brandon Cory Lecroy, 26, of Greenwood, was arrested last year after a confidential source tipped off the authorities that Mr. Lecroy had reached out to an unidentified white supremacist organization seeking help in the murder. An F.B.I. agent posing as a hit man contacted Mr. Lecroy, who told the agent over the phone, $500 and hes a ghost, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. After giving the agent an initial payment of $100, he was taken into custody. Mr. Lecroy received the maximum 10-year sentence and three years of court-ordered supervision on Friday after pleading guilty to a murder-for-hire charge, the United States attorneys office in South Carolina said in a statement. A police officer in Pennsylvania will not be charged after shooting and wounding an unarmed man in the torso in the honest but mistaken belief he was using a Taser, the authorities said. In a letter to the police chief of New Hope, a town about 40 miles northeast of Philadelphia, District Attorney Matthew D. Weintraub of Bucks County said the shooting of the man, Brian Riling, was neither justified, nor criminal, but was excused. The officer violated a department rule that a Taser be worn on the opposite hip from a firearm, but he did not possess the criminal mental state required to be guilty of a crime under state law, Mr. Weintraub said in a statement that quoted his letter to the police chief. The statement refers to a Pennsylvania law that states that a person cannot be charged with a crime if he makes a mistake as a matter of fact for which there is a reasonable explanation or excuse. The campaign of Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., reported that it had raised $7.1 million in the quarter but spent modestly. His campaign ended the period with $6.4 million in cash on hand. [Some candidates have also released their tax returns in recent days. See how they compare.] The fund-raising reports provide an early measure of how the Democratic candidates are picking up support in a crowded field. Many campaigns had already announced their overall fund-raising totals for the quarter, but the reports filed before Monday nights deadline offered details about the money that the campaigns took in and spent in the first three months of the year. The deadline also highlighted the steep financial challenge facing some lesser-known candidates. Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington raised about $2.3 million in the quarter, while former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado raised $2 million. Only 10 percent of Mr. Hickenloopers total came from donors giving $200 or less. Both candidates entered the race in early March. Julian Castro, the former housing secretary, raised about $1.1 million. Another Democrat who is trying to gain more attention, former Representative John Delaney of Maryland, has plenty of money but as a result of his own wealth, not an outpouring of donations. Mr. Delaney provided $11.7 million in loans to his campaign during the first three months of the year, and his campaign ended the quarter with $10.6 million in cash on hand. 2014: Russia sends troops into Ukraine and occupies the Crimean Peninsula. That helps set in motion a chain of events that brings us to here. I call it the Russian witch hunt. The public release of special counsel Robert Muellers report, the investigation into whether people associated with Donald Trumps campaign Lock him up! conspired with Russia in 2016 Its a whole big fat hoax. and whether Trump or his aides tried to obstruct this investigation. The people doing that investigation, theyre dirty cops. So how did we get here, from this to this? There was no collusion, theres no Russia. O.K., starting with Crimea, Russia enters and eventually annexes the region from Ukraine. The U.S. supports Ukraines government, so the U.S. responds with sanctions. To impose a cost on Russia. Russia decides to strike back to undermine U.S. democracy. Show me what hypocrisy looks like! How? Use Americas polarized politics to turn people against each other. Dont shoot! Perfect timing, because its 2015, and here comes the presidential election. The months tick by. Trump does well. I consider myself the presumptive nominee. Then several members of his campaign get approached by people with ties to Russia. Those people claim to have information that can hurt the Hillary Clinton campaign. See, the Russians dont like Clinton. They dont want her to become president. They say that she meddled in Russian affairs when she was secretary of state. But Trump Wouldnt it be nice if we actually got along with Russia? Then we learned that Russian hackers had infiltrated the Democratic National Committees computer system. And just over a month later, Wikileaks publishes 20,000 hacked Democratic emails. All of this makes the F.B.I. more suspicious of Russian meddling and suspicious of ties between Trump campaign aides and Moscow. Trumps campaign chairman at the time, Paul Manafort, denies this. We have no relationship. The F.B.I. investigates. Then election victory, and the stakes get higher. President Obama gets ready to leave office. But before he does The Russians were responsible for hacking the D.N.C. he announces new sanctions on Russia. Enter Michael Flynn, Trumps soon-to-be national security adviser. He urges Russias U.S. ambassador from Moscow not to retaliate over those Obama sanctions. Russia agrees. Thats a problem because Trump hasnt been inaugurated yet. Flynn isnt part of the U.S. government. He may have broken federal law by doing this. Then So help me God. Soon Flynn has to resign because he misled the vice president and others I was disappointed. about those conversations with the Russian ambassador. These chats become part of the F.B.I. investigation into Russian ties with the Trump campaign. The day after Flynn resigns, Trump meets with F.B.I. Director James Comey. According to Comey, Trump asked him to stop investigating Flynn. I took it as this is what he wants me to do. Three months after that meeting, Trump fires Comey. According to the White House He fired him because he was not fit to do the job. Its that simple. Eight days later, the Justice Department taps former F.B.I. Director Robert Mueller to lead the investigation now that Comey is gone. His inquiry now includes Comeys firing. Did Trump try to obstruct the investigation by asking Comey to stop investigating Flynn? Lets move ahead to five months after Mueller took the job. He begins charging several Trump associates with a variety of crimes, like lying to the F.B.I. and bank fraud. See, thats important because they may have information that helps Muellers investigation. He can offer them lesser punishments in exchange for that information. Now its been almost 11 months since Mueller took over the investigation. And who gets caught up in this? Michael Cohen, Trumps personal lawyer. Hes mostly charged with crimes that arent part of the Mueller investigation. Mr. Cohen will continue to cooperate. But Mueller wants to talk to him to see if he knows anything about Trump business dealings in Russia while Trump was running for president. How do you feel about you may have changed an election? By the time Cohen testifies before Congress, its clear hes done being loyal to Trump. He is a racist. He is a con man. And he is a cheat. And so we come to the present, about five years since Russia annexed Crimea. The investigation You wouldnt oversee a witch hunt, would you? speculation There was no anything, so thats the nice part. and anticipation Robert Mueller may be ready to submit his findings. are all in the past. Only the future will tell us how the Mueller report will go down in American history. In that campaign, Mr. Sanders disclosed his tax return for only one year, 2014, which showed that he and his wife had an adjusted gross income of $205,271, largely from his Senate salary and Social Security benefits. More recently, Mr. Sanders has come under criticism for his expanding personal wealth. A post on the website ThinkProgress last week called Mr. Sanderss millionaire status very off-brand and embarrassing, and a video suggested he had stopped referring to millionaires after he became one himself. The website is run by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, the sister organization of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. On Saturday, Mr. Sanders fired back, accusing the think tank of using its resources to smear him and other progressive presidential candidates. The think tank was founded in 2003 by John D. Podesta, a close Clinton ally who served as Mrs. Clintons campaign chairman in 2016. (The editor in chief of ThinkProgress said in a statement that the site was an editorially independent journalistic entity.) [On Fox News, Mr. Sanders rejected the idea that his wealth was proof of the American dream.] Tax returns released by other Democratic presidential candidates have shown that they also earned more than a vast majority of American households in recent years. Senator Kamala Harris of California and her husband reported an adjusted gross income of about $1.9 million last year, while Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and her husband had $846,394 in adjusted gross income. Former Representative Beto ORourke of Texas also disclosed 10 years of tax returns on Monday, though not his 2018 return. He and his wife, Amy ORourke, reported $366,455 in adjusted gross income on their 2017 return. The couple reported donating $1,166 to charity that year, just three-tenths of 1 percent of their income, though it is possible they made other donations not listed on their personal return. The filings showed the extent to which the ORourkes have benefited financially from family wealth. Mr. ORourkes income was boosted over the years through his interest, passed to him by his parents, in a shopping mall and an apartment complex. Ms. ORourke collects dividends and interest from family partnerships established by her father, the real estate investor William D. Sanders (no relation to Bernie Sanders). In some years, that dividend and interest income contributed over $100,000. WASHINGTON President Trump has often seen the political benefits of stigmatizing Muslims. During the 2016 campaign, he would not rule out creating a registry of Muslims in the United States. He claimed to have seen thousands of Muslims cheering on rooftops in New Jersey after Sept. 11, a statement that was widely debunked. And after the deadly attacks in Paris and California, Mr. Trump called for a moratorium on Muslims traveling to the United States. I think Islam hates us, Mr. Trump told Anderson Cooper, the CNN host. Now, with 19 months until the 2020 election, Mr. Trump is seeking to rally his base by sounding that theme again. And this time, he has a specific target: Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota and one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress. In Ms. Omar, a Somali refugee whose family received asylum in the United States when she was a teenager, Mr. Trump has found a perfect foil: a progressive whose embrace of the boycott-Israel movement and attacks on supporters of the Jewish state have already made her a divisive figure within her own party. As the first woman to wear a hijab on the House floor she pushed for a rules change to allow it she is also a powerful, and visible symbol for Muslims and refugees. Mr. Trump and his team are trying to make Ms. Omar, who is relatively unknown in national politics, a household name, to be seen as the most prominent voice of the Democratic Party, regardless of her actual position. In February, the president pounced when Ms. Omar unleashed a firestorm with her comments on Israel, rejecting her subsequent apology and calling for her to resign. Its worth taking a look at some numbers from the 2016 exit polls. When Pennsylvania voters were asked whether minorities are favored in the United States, 31 percent of the electorate or around 1.9 million voters agreed. Of those, 1.6 million supported Mr. Trump. Pennsylvania, as many of you may remember, went for Mr. Trump by less than 45,000 votes. We dont know how many of those 1.6 million voters flipped to Mr. Trump. What we know is the belief that white people are under attack which exit polls showed was shared by Trump supporters in Wisconsin and Michigan has helped animate his support. That brings us back to Ms. Omar, a woman at the intersection of all three elements of the new culture war. A refugee from Somalia, shes a hijab-wearing Muslim and is closely identified with the Democratic Partys left wing. Her comments last month before the Council on American-Islamic Relations led Mr. Trump to post an inflammatory video implying she trivialized the horror of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. She has also divided members of her own party, having made several statements that repeated historically anti-Semitic tropes. Their responses to Mr. Trumps video, cataloged here by my colleague Astead Herndon, ranged from fierce to more milquetoast. Regardless of the complicated politics surrounding Ms. Omar, though, the freshman congresswoman has a decent shot at re-election. Her Minneapolis district hasnt voted for a Republican in nearly six decades, and her profile will make it fairly easy for her to raise the kind of money that scares off primary challenges. The bigger political unknown is whether this benefits Mr. Trump quite as much as he may expect. [Sign up here to get On Politics in your inbox.] I believe in American greatness. I believe in American values. And I believe that we can guide this country and one another to a better place. After all, running for office is an act of hope. You dont do it unless you think the pulleys and levers of our government can be used and if necessary redesigned to make the life of this nation better for us all. You dont do it unless you believe in the power of a law, a decision, sometimes even a speech, to make the right kind of difference, to change our lives for the better, to call us to our highest values. Things get better if we make them better. After all, you and I stand now in a building that used to be a symbol of our citys decline, where new jobs are now being created in industries that didnt even exist when they poured this concrete and laid this brick. You and I now stand in a city that formally incorporated in 1865, the last year of a war that nearly destroyed this whole country. What an act of hope that must have been. We stand on the shoulders of optimistic women and men. Women and men who knew that optimism is not a lack of knowledge, but a source of courage. It takes courage to move on from the past. If I could go back into the past, it wouldnt be out of a desire to live there. No, if I went into the past, it would be just twenty years back, to find a teenage boy in the basement of his parents brick house, thinking long thoughts as he played the same guitar lick over and over again, wondering how he could belong in this world. WASHINGTON The sixth sentence of the Constitution, and the first one that specifically tells the government to do something, established the census. It called for an actual enumeration every 10 years and, since the end of slavery, requires answers to just two questions: How many people live in the United States? and Where do they live? The answers to those questions are the basis for American democracy, and much more. They determine, for instance, how congressional seats are allocated and where hundreds of billions of dollars of federal money are spent. Next week, the Supreme Court will consider whether the Trump administration may add a question about citizenship to the 2020 short form questionnaire the one that goes to every household in the nation. Nobody seriously disputes that this will cause fewer people to participate and will undermine the basic constitutional goal of counting everyone. WASHINGTON President Trumps personal lawyer on Monday urged the Treasury Department not to hand over Mr. Trumps tax returns to House Democrats, warning that releasing the documents to lawmakers he accused of having a radical view of unchecked congressional power would turn the Internal Revenue Service into a political weapon. It was the second such letter written on behalf of Mr. Trump since Representative Richard E. Neal, the Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, formally requested six years of the presidents personal and business tax returns earlier this month. Mr. Neal on Saturday gave the Internal Revenue Service until April 23 to provide him with the tax returns after Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said last week that he could not meet an earlier deadline because he needed to study the lawfulness of the request. The fight over Mr. Trumps tax returns is expected to turn into a protracted legal battle that will likely make its way to the Supreme Court. Mr. Trump, who declined to provide his tax returns while running for president, continues to cite an ongoing audit as the reason he cannot release the documents, despite no rule or law that prevents him from doing so. Mr. Neal used an obscure provision of the tax code to request the returns, which he said his committee needs in order to evaluate the policy of automatic audits of presidential tax returns. Mr. Trump and his defenders argue that the request is being driven by politics and represents presidential harassment. WASHINGTON President Trump is embracing a new tactic as he tries to rewrite the rules of global trade: Dont believe a final deal is truly final. Mr. Trump, who has called deal-making his art form, has used his unpredictability as a source of leverage in discussions with Europe, Canada, Mexico, Japan and elsewhere. He has dangled the possibility of lifting American metal tariffs while threatening to add new tariffs on automobiles at any time. He has repeatedly agreed to new trade terms with foreign partners, then talked about undoing those deals to achieve additional goals. Mr. Trump has argued that this aggressive and unpredictable negotiating style allows him to extract greater economic concessions than past administrations and he may be right, at least in the short run. But his approach is causing concern among business groups and foreign officials, who say the uncertainty Mr. Trump loves to sow could undermine the role the United States has traditionally played in setting and stabilizing the global rules of trade, hampering economic growth in the process. His administration is working on a number of trade deals, including agreements with South Korea, Canada and Mexico and discussions with China, Europe and Japan. On Monday, the European Union approved a mandate giving the bloc the authority to negotiate a limited trade agreement with the United States. And Japanese officials met with their American counterparts on Monday in Washington for preliminary trade talks. A Dallas man was offered $200 to beat up a transgender woman in what the mayor called an attack of mob violence, according to court records released Monday. The man, Edward Thomas, 29, was arrested late Sunday and charged with aggravated assault with serious bodily injury, the Dallas Police Department said. At a news conference on Monday, Lt. Vincent Weddington said that the episode, which took place following an automobile accident in the parking lot of an apartment complex, was being investigated as a possible hate crime and that more arrests were likely. A video of the episode showed a man later identified by the authorities as Mr. Thomas repeatedly punching a woman on the ground as she struggled. Other men in the crowd kicked her, before a group of women helped her to get away. WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. The international finance consultant accused of illegally entering President Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida knew several days before she traveled to the United States that the gala she had paid to attend had been canceled, federal prosecutors said on Monday. The disclosure raised new questions about the intentions of the woman, Yujing Zhang, 33, who told the authorities she had come to attend a United Nations Chinese Friendship Association event associated with a gala that night. Instant messages recovered from one of her cellphones revealed that Ms. Zhang had been told even before she left Shanghai that the Mar-a-Lago event had been canceled, Rolando Garcia, an assistant United States attorney, told the court. Ms. Zhang had texted back, Mr. Garcia said, wanting to know why the event was canceled. Magistrate Judge William Matthewman of the Federal District Court in West Palm Beach rejected Ms. Zhangs bid to be released on bail, concluding that there was a substantial risk she could flee the country if released before her trial on charges of entering restricted property and making false statements to a federal agent. It does appear to the court that Ms. Zhang was up to something nefarious, the judge said. But prosecutors also revealed that they were no longer certain that a thumb drive Ms. Zhang was carrying when she entered the resort on March 30 was infected with malicious malware, as they had earlier claimed. All the pediatric rooms in the hospital except those used for patients with damaged immune systems have been converted to negative pressure, she said, with the airflow directed out of the hospital. Visitation to the newborn intensive care unit has been restricted to parents, since premature infants are particularly vulnerable, and parents who live in one of the high-risk ZIP codes have to show immunity in order to visit. Theres almost this guilty feeling because I recognize the real suffering that measles inflicts, these children who are truly sick and are in the intensive care unit with pneumonia and without that support would certainly be in danger of dying, Dr. Ratner said. And yet, this is an incredible chance to learn for our trainees and for me, he said. I will never forget what Im seeing now. The baby in our clinic had no evidence of measles, and in fact, the original rash was almost gone. The resident was able to get in touch with the shelter and verify that there were not in fact any cases of measles there, and we were therefore able to reassure the mother. But we talked all afternoon, on and off, about what to do to keep children safe. Dr. Arthur Fierman, chief of pediatric ambulatory care at Bellevue and a professor of pediatrics at N.Y.U., said that may mean reviewing all the children cared for in the clinic who live in the four ZIP codes of the outbreak. [Read More About the Measles Outbreak and Misinformation Targeting Ultra-Orthodox Jews.] I have a spreadsheet on my desktop right now with the names, addresses, phone numbers, of about 700 kids less than 4, he said. It may be necessary to contact them all, offering protection through early initial or second vaccination and also telling them how to get help if they think theyve been exposed (come in but call ahead so they dont expose everyone in the waiting room). The first MMR vaccine is usually due at the age of a year, but we can give it as early as 6 months if children are in danger of being exposed. That means giving an extra dose of vaccine, since theyll need to get it again at a year. And theres also the possibility of moving the usual second dose forward; we normally give it at 4, but could do it earlier. Babies under 6 months who are exposed and are too young for vaccine can be given immune globulin as protection. The New York Department of Health has advised medical providers serving the Orthodox community in those ZIP codes that all babies 6 to 11 months should be given the first dose of vaccine early, and that children under 4 can receive the second dose early as well. The decline in initiating treatment with any of the many medications known to reduce fracture risk is widely attributed to the outsize publicity given to the very rare risk of jaw necrosis and an uncommon fracture of the femur among patients who take bone drugs for many years. Yet the risk of a second hip fracture is far greater than either of these side effects, Dr. Bauer said. (The Food and Drug Administration just approved a new and different drug, Evenity, which builds bone, but it may have its own risks, this time a small increase in the chances of having a heart attack or stroke. Also, it is very expensive and may not be covered by insurance, and licensed only for postmenopausal women with a high risk of fracture.) [Read more about a new osteoporosis drug that builds bone.] In Dr. Desais study, treatment rates among those who broke a hip were even lower for men than for women, although men are nearly as likely to break another bone, including the other hip. In general, without preventive treatment, 15 percent to 25 percent of patients who suffer an osteoporotic fracture will experience another one within 10 years. And with people living longer, hip fractures are increasingly likely. A report, published last year in the journal Osteoporosis International, revealed that, after a decade of declining rates of hip fractures, since 2012 the rates have plateaued in the United States, most likely because so many older adults, and their doctors, have turned their backs on bone-protecting medication. Among people enrolled in Medicare alone, Dr. Desai and co-authors wrote, this plateau may have resulted in more than 11,000 additional estimated hip fractures between 2012 and 2015. The side effects associated with bone drugs have gotten more hype than they should have, Dr. Desai said in an interview. People worry about them and with preventive therapy, they dont see the benefits right away. However, Dr. Bauer wrote, hip fractures represent only the tip of the iceberg; timely evaluation and consideration of drug treatment are appropriate for many other individuals at high risk of fracture. Many people at risk of breaking a bone because of osteoporosis are reluctant even to take vitamin D and calcium, nutrients critical to forming healthy bones. In a new national study reported recently by Dr. Spencer Summers, orthopedic surgeon at the University of Miami, to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, fewer than one person in five known to have osteoporosis met the daily recommended intake of both vitamin D and calcium. More than 10 million Americans have osteoporosis, and another 44 million are at increased risk of developing it. Osteoporosis, which means porous bones, is a chronic, progressive disease of increasingly fragile bones that can break from a relatively minor insult, like falling from a standing height. In Indonesia, Salafi ideology has penetrated urban and rural, civil servants and villagers, said Din Wahid, a theologian at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University. They see corruption all around them and say that it is only Shariah and restoring a caliphate that will be able to fix society. Mr. Jokos opponent in the election on Wednesday, Prabowo Subianto the European-educated son of a Christian and a connoisseur of fine wines may seem an unlikely figurehead for hard-line Islam. But he is an astute politician who has shouted for jihad and vowed to welcome home from self-imposed exile Rizieq Shihab, the head of the Islamic Defenders Front, which gained notoriety for attacking nightclubs in Jakarta, the capital, and calling for Shariah law. Political Islam has strengthened tremendously over the last two decades in Indonesia, said Andreas Harsono, an Indonesia researcher for Human Rights Watch and author of the new book Race, Islam and Power. We should be very concerned, because both sides in the campaign have now made human rights and democracy decline. Faith politics exploded in late 2016 when millions of Indonesians marched in the streets of Jakarta to protest what they considered blasphemous language from Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian who was then the Jakarta governor. Mr. Maruf, Mr. Jokos surprising choice of running mate this year, was one of the drivers of those protests. Mr. Basuki, widely known as Ahok, was jailed for 20 months. Mr. Joko declined to defend his former deputy. WELLINGTON, New Zealand A rift emerged Monday between New Zealands government and the Red Cross over the humanitarian organizations decision to name a New Zealand nurse who was kidnapped by the Islamic State five years ago and who her employer believes could still be alive. The divide was another twist in the unusual story of the lengthy captivity of Louisa Akavi, which was kept secret for years by a government and an employer initially in lock step about the need to stop it from becoming public. If she is still alive, she would be the longest-held hostage in the 156-year history of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Ms. Akavi, 62, is a nurse and midwife who was abducted in late 2013 in the northwest Syrian city of Idlib along with two Red Cross drivers who are Syrian nationals. She was most recently sighted, according to Red Cross officials, in December at a clinic in Sousa, one of the final villages held by the Islamic State. The Red Cross said it had named Ms. Akavi with the New Zealand governments support in hopes of receiving information that could lead to her safe return. The timing was now right, the group said, after the Islamic State lost its last shred of territory in Syria last month. SEOUL, South Korea President Moon Jae-in of South Korea said on Monday that he wanted to meet again with North Koreas leader, Kim Jong-un, making the overture three days after Mr. Kim dismissed Mr. Moons mediating efforts between the North and the United States as officious. Now is the time to begin the preparations in earnest for an inter-Korean summit, Mr. Moon said. As soon as the North becomes ready, I hope the two Koreas will be able to sit down together, regardless of venue and form, and hold detailed and substantive talks on how to achieve further progress that goes beyond the previous two summits between Chairman Kim and President Trump. Mr. Moon met with Mr. Kim three times last year to help pave the way for Mr. Kims first summit meeting with Mr. Trump in Singapore last June and their second meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, in late February. Mr. Moon has repeatedly argued that a nuclear disarmament deal is possible, insisting that Mr. Kim is willing to give up his weapons and focus on economic growth should Washington provide the right incentives. But Mr. Moons mediating role was cast into doubt when the Hanoi summit ended abruptly without a deal, and he has since been struggling to assert his relevance. Despite Mr. Moons optimism, both Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim found in Hanoi that their terms on denuclearizing North Korea remained too far apart for a compromise. OTTAWA It was the sort of audience meant to be a natural fit for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada more than 300 young women taking part in a Daughters of the Vote day of civic engagement in Parliament. But no sooner had he begun to speak than several dozen of the women stood up and dramatically turned their backs on him. Respect the integrity of women & indigenous leaders in politics, Deanna Allain, one of the participants, said in a tweet aimed at Mr. Trudeau earlier this month. Do better. Try as he might, Mr. Trudeau cant seem to move past the controversy that has sucked up most of the air in Canada since February, when the countrys first Indigenous female attorney general quit after accusing the prime ministers office of inappropriately pressuring her to consider a civil rather than criminal penalty for a company accused of corruption. The episode has propelled Canada into an agonized, bad-tempered and occasionally hairsplitting argument about the rule of law, the exigencies of party loyalty and the role of women, Indigenous people and feminism in political life. COPENHAGEN After an anti-Muslim provocateur publicly desecrated the Quran in Copenhagen, demonstrations against him on Sunday and early Monday descended into violent clashes between protesters, who set about 70 fires in the streets, and the police, who made 23 arrests. The unrest in the Norrebro district of the Danish capital began on Sunday after Rasmus Paludan, the founder of a tiny far-right party, tossed a book he claimed was the Quran into the air and let it fall to the ground. Mr. Paludan has spent the past months touring Denmark and staging offensive protests against Muslims and immigrants, often in neighborhoods with large immigrant populations. Until recently, he had largely been ignored by mainstream Danish news outlets, but the riots have propelled him to the center of national attention. Protesters shouted at Mr. Paludan on Sunday, pressing against the lines of police officers who were protecting him. Violence then broke out and spread into surrounding streets, much of it shown live on television. The fire that tore through the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris on Monday, causing the collapse of its central spire and much of its roof, generated an outpouring of grief in France and around the world as the symbol of French culture and history burned. President Emmanuel Macron canceled a major speech on the Yellow Vest protests that have roiled the country. Like all of our fellow citizens, I am sad tonight to see this part of us burn, he said on Twitter. Thousands of French citizens lined the banks of the Seine, many in tears or unable to speak, watching the flames gut the cathedral, which had survived two world wars intact. In one video that was widely circulated online, a crowd near the cathedral sang a hymn together as the flames rose into the fading evening light. Many more watched on live streams on social media, or on television news. However they took in the spectacle, the emotions were the same: They were heartbroken. Sylvie Lacour, who lived near the cathedral for eight years, watched it burn on television from Bordeaux. The heart of Paris and my country is being gutted by the flames, she said. I am devastated. WASHINGTON The Trump administration has reached a critical juncture in its efforts to tighten United States oil sanctions against Iran and Venezuela. By pressuring China and India to end or sharply reduce oil purchases from Iran and Venezuela, American officials are seeking to cut off a key economic lifeline for what the administration considers to be two rogue nations that threaten the stability of the Middle East and Latin America. But they must do that without roiling global markets, further straining relations with China and India or raising gasoline prices in the United States. The dilemma has led to a fierce debate within the Trump administration, which is set to decide by May 2 whether to extend waivers allowing China, India and three other nations to buy Iranian oil. A halt of oil shipments would constrict global oil supplies and increase costs at a time when much of the world economy is slowing. Switzerland Begins Evaluation Phase of Air 2030 Combat Aircraft Competition The page you requested is only available to subscribers. 1. If you are a Premium Service subscriber, please log in here to access this story: Log-in : Password : 2. If you are not a subcriber, you can: -- buy access to this page: unlimited access for seven days costs 3.00 EUR + VAT (at 20%) if applicable. Clicking on the "Ok" button below will place the item in your shopping cart and return you to our home page, where you will be able to select additional stories. -- select additional stories and services from our home page and pay for them at the same time. -- see your shopping cart. You can also see the contents of your shopping cart at any time by clicking on the "Order" tab on the navigation bar at the top of any page, or by clicking on the "Your order" light blue link in the top right-hand corner of our home page, immediately under the log-on box. A 58-year-old street cleaner in China has been hailed as a hero after it was reported that he has donated over 180,000 yuan ($27,000) to dozens of poor children in the last 30 years, despite earning a monthly salary of just 2,000 yuan ($300). Mr. Zhao, a street cleaner from Shenyang, in Chinas northeast Liaoning Province, leads a very frugal lifestyle. Most of his meals consist of simple boiled noodles, he hasnt bought new clothes in about 30 years, and he and his family live in a very modest house. Even though he earns just 2,000 yuan per month, he could probably have much more comfortable life if he didnt give most of his income away. Coming from humble beginnings himself, Zhao known all about poverty, so he has dedicated the last three decades of his life to helping impoverished children, while also taking care of his own family. Zhaos father died when he was very young, and his mother suffered from mental problems, so he relied on the kindness of others throughout most of his childhood. He knows all about poverty and helplessness, but also remembers the kindness of his villagers and eating from 100 families, and thats what makes him so dedicated to paying this kindness forward and helping other helpless children. His family didnt understand him at first, and many people still dont get how he can donate most of his modest salary, but he knows hes doing the right thing. The 58-year-old street cleaner and his family used to live in their own house, but he decided to sell it a few years back, so now they live in a rented one. Zhaos wife gave him a hard time about it at the time, and constantly asked him why he was giving money to strangers when their own family barely had enough to get by. So he took her to a mountain village to see the children he was donating money to and the conditions they lived in so she could understand his reasons. She hasnt once argued with him about it since. I used to be like these children, I didnt have enough to eat and I felt helpless, Zhao said. I want to help them change their destiny. Apart from the clothes on his back, Zhaos most important possession is a pile of donation certificates he has acquired over 30 years. According to OMG Taiwan, he has donated over 180,000, which for a man in his position is nothing short of a fortune. Although he has never asked for anything in return for the money he has donated over the years, Zhaos kindness was returned last December, when he suffered a serious intestinal obstruction and had to be admitted to the hospital. His wife was away at the time, so there was no one to look after him. Luckily, the children he aided learned about his problems and came to be by his side. Zhao is almost 60-years-old, and his difficult job is starting to take its toll on his body, but he refuses to give up, as this is the only way he can continue helping those helpless children that remind him of his own tough childhood. Arthur Sadoun Publicis Groupe is acquiring Alliance Datas Epsilon unit for $4.4B as part of its drive to become a leader in the data-led, digital-first world. CEO Arthur Sadoun said with the mainstreaming of direct-to-consumer brands and new data regulations, the Epsilon deal will enable Publicis to deliver personalized experiences at scale. Epsilon recorded 97 percent of its $1.9B 2018 revenues from clients in the US. It employs 9,000 staffers, of which 3,700 are data scientists and 2,000 are technology delivery experts in Bangalore. Publicis will forge a strategic partnership with Alliance Datas remaining businesses. The Epsilon deal is expected to close during the third quarter. Publicis also reported a 1.7 percent rise to Q1 revenues to $2.7B. Organic growth dipped 1.8 percent. The flagship North America unit, which generates 53.8 percent of revenues, was flat, though down 4.6 percent on an organic basis. Sadoun blames advertising and media losses for the lackluster NA performance. Fraser Seitel If youve ever wondered which party is more ethical, public relations professionals or lawyers, the answer can be summarized in two words: Jussie Smollett. The obscure actor, purportedly accosted by MAGA hat-wearing racist homophobes on the frigid streets of Chicago, is back in the news. First, the city of Chicago sued Smollett, seeking to recover more than $130,000 for costs related to the investigation of the actors dubious complaint. Then, Kim Foxx, the embattled Cook County Attorney, called for the countys inspector general to review how her office handledor if youre so inclined, mishandledthe case. Regardless of how the lawsuit or the investigation turns out, the Smollett case has already yielded nourishing lessons for public relations professionals, specifically highlighting the differences in the counsel offered by PR people compared to lawyers. Assume for a moment that the actor, as the Chicago police charged, hired two African American associates to attack him, and then lied about it. Here, then, are the key questions that client Smollett faced and how his handling of them mightve been different, had he consulted savvy PR advisors rather than ethically-challenged attorneys. What happened? This is the first question an attorney asks a client. The client then tells the lawyer what went on, and generally, the attorney leaves it at that and accepts the explanation. The reason a lawyer doesnt probe is that he or she is forbidden to tell a judge or jury that the client didnt do something the lawyer knows he did. Thats why when they asked Alan Dershowitz whether he thought his client, O.J. Simpson, was guilty, the Harvard lawyer famously answered, I didnt ask, because that wasnt my job. In Smolletts case, of course, the actor claimed he was attacked by two white men, and his lawyers ran with it. Had a PR professional been on hand, the question wouldnt have been, What happened? but rather, What did you do? Public relations people must probe more deeply to determine if the client is telling the truth. If you think your client is lying, then you risk losing your own credibility by defending his innocence. Accordingly, a savvy PR person wouldve had real trouble defending Smolletts flimsy claim that he had been attacked. His lawyers, of course, suffered no such pangs of guilt. After a grand jury indicted Smollett for arranging the whole thing, the actors lawyer said, Like any citizen, Mr. Smollett enjoys the presumption of innocence, particularly when there has been an investigation, like this one where information, both true and untrue, has been leaked. Whats the worst case? One essential responsibility for a PR person is to present the client with a worst case analysis. In other words, determine, in advance, whats the worst thing that can happen. In Smolletts case, the worst thing that could happen was that hed be found out to be lying about the attack, thus committing a crime, destroying his reputation and imperiling his career. Had a public relations advisor been consulted before Smolletts cockamamie stunt, the actor mightve been talked out of risking everything on such a hare-brained idea. After the fact, a PR advisor wouldve cautioned the actor to tell the truth and show contrition, rather than continuing to follow his lawyers advice to insist on his innocence. Whats the right thing to do? Doing the right thing is the ultimate public relations mantra. A lawyer advises you on what you must do to stay out of jail. In Smolletts case, his attorneyswith a head-scratching assist from County Attorney Foxxsuccessfully got the charges dropped. In response, Smolletts lawyers continued to declare, The case is closed Mr. Smollett, like every citizen, is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. A PR professional, on the other hand, doesnt tell you what you must do but rather what you should do to defend yourself in the Court of Public Opinion; theres a big difference. In Smolletts case, the right thing to do, especially after the case was thrown out, would have been to admit what happened, take responsibility for the mistake that clearly was made, apologize profusely for wasting everyones time, and volunteer to make restitution to the city that took the actor seriously and wasted scarce taxpayer resources accordingly. The last thing a thoughtful PR advisor wouldve counseled Smollett was to continue to maintain his innocence. What do you say? Jussie Smolletts statement at his press conference after Foxx had thrown in the towel was stunning in its audacity. I have been truthful and consistent on every level since day one. I would not be my mothers son if I was capable of one drop of what Im accused of. This has been an incredibly difficult time. Honestly one of the worst of my entire life. Following his lawyers advice to play the victim to the end, the actor refused to be remorseful. What should Smollett have said? Well, he couldve taken a cue from fellow actor Felicity Huffman, who pleaded guilty and accepted full blame for participating in the college admissions cheating scam. Accordingly, Smollett shouldve said, What I did was stupid and a mistake. Implicating my two friends and taking advantage of the dedicated Chicago police force and the goodwill of the public was wrong in every way. I am ashamed and committed to repaying the city for its monetary loss and regaining the trust of the public through my actions going forward. Instead, the harassed actor opted to stay true to the wrong-headed advice his lawyers continued to proffer. With the Empire stars acting future in doubt and the false police report story refusing to go away, Smolletts attorney lashed out with one final tone-deaf appeal, We will not try this case in a court of public opinion. There is no case to try. The case was dismissed. We should all allow Mr. Smollett to move on with his life as a free citizen. Good luck with that, Counselor. *** Fraser P. Seitel has been a communications consultant, author and teacher for 40 years. He is author of the Pearson text The Practice of Public Relations, now in its 13th edition, and co-author of Rethinking Reputation and Idea Wise. He may be reached directly at yusake@aol.com. A new date has been confirmed for Offaly-based priest Fr Sean Hyland to tell his incredible story to Ryan Tubridy on The Late Late Show. Originally due to appear on the show in early March, Fr Sean will now be on The Late Late Show this Friday, April 19 which is Good Friday. He will chat with host Ryan Tubridy about his book 'Whisperings of my Soul'. The well-known Rhode and Clonbullogue priest has had people travel from all over the country to see him since he released his book. Fr Sean lives in his hometown of Portarlington. His book 'Whisperings of my Soul' was self-published last December and thanks to promoting the book himself to local and national media he was able to secure a nationwide distributor and attention from people all over Ireland. Sean recounts the early years of his marriage to Liz and his two childrens lives in depth in the emotional chapters from when he first met Liz to now visiting his familys grave every week in Portarlington. He explains that after he lost all three members of his family he received comfort through many consolations of faith which let him know that his wife and children are close by and watching over him in heaven. In thanksgiving, he entered a seminary in Rome and has devoted the remainder of his life to God as a Catholic priest. Fr Sean helps others experiencing grief by sharing the comforting messages he has received from his family in heaven. Fr Hyland said he is chuffed with the feedback from the book and he is now celebrating getting his book into mainstream distribution across the country. People visit me from all over the country with tragedies. I have had people come from Kerry and Tipperary. Water finds its own level and people who are in a tragedy will find you and they will travel to you. They know I am not going to solve it but I will share the reality of the closeness to heaven and to know that my family is safe and well, he said. He is happy that the book is having this impact on people and he is in a position to comfort people who have been hit with terrible grief in their lives. In writing the book, he set out to comfort people by sharing the consolations of faith he has experienced. Fr Hyland has been asked on to The Late Late Show as a guest to talk about his book and the message behind it. Conference logo by Corey Fuller. Angell College of Fine Arts to Host To Tell the Story Conference for Church Leaders Oct. 1-2 April 15, 2019 OBUs Warren M. Angell College of Fine Arts invites church leaders to attend the To Tell the Story conference Oct. 1-2 on the OBU campus in Shawnee. Registration is now open at www.okbu.edu/fine-arts/to-tell-the-story. The conference will be presented to pastors, staff members and congregants to offer the expertise of OBU faculty members in order to enhance the abilities within local churches to share the story of the Gospel, particularly through weekly worship services. Dr. Chris Mathews, dean of the Warren M. Angell College of Fine Arts, hopes that the conference will offer training, experience, skills and insights from its faculty and friends to local church leaders and congregations as an encouragement to foster creative story-telling, especially within the context of corporate worship. Each week, local congregations gather to remember and proclaim the Gospel of Christ, Mathews said, to tell the story of Gods work to create the world, to redeem his people and to display his grace throughout the heavenly realms. So, how can church leaders utilize their own skills and develop the abilities of their people to faithfully and effectively tell this amazing story? The conference will feature Dr. Ray Van Neste, dean of the School of Theology and Missions at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. He will focus on The Psalms. The conference will begin Tuesday, Oct. 1, at 5:30 p.m. and will conclude Wednesday, Oct. 2, at noon. In addition to teaching by Van Neste, students and faculty of the College of Fine Arts will offer a showcase of artistic ideas as examples of the creative incorporation of the Psalms into corporate worship. Those with expertise in singing, instrumental music, communications, drama, graphic design, journalism, media, and lighting and sound will present sessions intended to benefit churches as they proclaim the truths of scripture. We hope through our speaker, breakout session leaders and presentations, that attendees will leave encouraged and empowered to lead their churches in utilizing the Psalms to tell the story of our great God, Mathews said. Van Neste earned a bachelors degree from Union University. He then earned a Master of Arts from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He also graduated with a Ph.D. from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Van Neste has served at Union since 2001 and also served as a visiting lecturer in 1997-98. He has published numerous books and scholarly essays on topics such as biblical studies, pastoral ministry and church history. An ordained minister, he preaches and teaches regularly in local churches and has served in pastoral or other staff roles in Baptist congregations in Tennessee, Wisconsin and Scotland. He serves on the editorial board of the Southeastern Theological Review and on the Board of Reference for Eagle Projects International, a missions organization. He helped to start and currently leads the study group on the pastoral epistles for the Evangelical Theological Society. He manages the website www.pastoralepistles.com, which reports on the work of this study group and other research related to the pastoral epistles. Registration for the conference is $30 per person, including dinner on Tuesday night. Attendees may bring a spouse for an additional $10. Registration is now open online at www.okbu.edu/fine-arts/to-tell-the-story and the deadline to register is Sept. 15. "I agree with Kim Jong Un of North Korea (DPRK) that our personal relationship remains very good, perhaps the term excellent would be even more accurate, and that a third Summit would be good in that we fully understand where we each stand," Trump tweeted. Noting that the DPRK has tremendous potential for economic success under Kim's leadership, Trump said, "I look forward to the day, which could be soon, when Nuclear Weapons and Sanctions can be removed, and then watching North Korea become one of the most successful nations of the World!" The DPRK's official Korean Central News Agency earlier on April 13 quoted Kim as saying that he is willing to meet Trump again on certain conditions. "It is necessary for both sides not to table their unilateral demands but find out a constructive solution to meet each other's interests," Kim said. Blaming the United States for only considering its own interests during the second DPRK-US summit in Vietnam's Hanoi in February, the top leader said he will "wait for a bold decision" from Trump "with patience till the end of this year." Trump said on April 11 that a third summit with Kim could happen and "it's step by step" and "not a fast process." He also left possibility open that a three-way summit with Kim and Republic of Korean President Moon Jae-in "could happen also," but admitted that would largely depend on Kim. Earlier on April 10, Wu Haitao, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, said for dialogue to continue and make headway, the key is to address the legitimate concerns of the parties concerned in a balanced manner, and advance denuclearization and the establishment of a peace mechanism for the peninsula by following a phased approach with synchronized steps as a package solution. CONCORD The Delaware County Board of Prison Inspectors moved to have its monthly meeting on a Tuesday in May 10 a.m. Tuesday, May 7 although the change came with some concern. Last month, the board unanimously approved moving its meeting day from the second Wednesday of the month to the second Tuesday of the month in an attempt to accommodate members of Delaware County Council who want to attend. Then, it came to members attention that county council holds a regularly scheduled agenda meeting every Tuesday preceding a regular council meeting to discuss what will appear on the next days agenda. At that time, prison board Chairman John Hosier said the board would reconsider changing its meeting then, at Wednesdays meeting, he said the Tuesday meetings will go forward. That brought some concerns from county Councilman Kevin Madden. Tuesday doesnt really help us any more than Wednesday, he said at the prison board meeting. We have meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday at 10 a.m. but theyre every other week, which is why Im here today. He asked the prison board to look at the county council schedule and just have it on dates when council isnt going to be in session because it really is important that I can be here to hear whats going on and vice versa and that folks in this room can attend both without having to choose. This really shouldnt be rocket science, Madden continued. Hosier countered, I did review your schedule. It just seems like no matter what we pick, you have a meeting. Then, Madden suggested having the prison board meeting the second Tuesday of every month, unless it fell on a Tuesday when county council had an agenda meeting. Then, another Tuesday could do. Jumping around just makes it harder for the public, it makes it harder for the individuals up here if its not a set date and time, Hosier said. It makes it impossible for the public if theyre on the same time, Madden added. The councilman then suggested the prison board look at the county council meeting schedule and pick dates that dont coincide with theirs. But, if were going to move the meeting just for the convenience of council, with no undue respect , Hosier said before being interrupted by Madden. This is not just the convenience of council, with all due respect, Madden said. This is 30 percent of the county budget that is being allocated by this board without our input. So, I think it is important that I think I can be here to see the decisions that are made. Hosier said the prison board would look at the issue one more time. I will lay it out there to the members again, he said. We did look at the calendars once, we will do it again. Hosier then added, I think it would be confusing to change it. Madden replied, I think it would be less confusing. For now, the next prison board meeting is 10 a.m. Tuesday, May 7, at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility. Karnataka PUC results 2019 declared on official website; How to check on karresults.nic.in? Bengaluru oi-Vikas SV Bengaluru, Apr 15: Karnataka PUC result 2019 has been declared and by 12 noon it would be available on the official Karnataka Pre-University Course (PUC) result website. The PUC results would then be sent to the colleges, where the students would be able to check it on the notice boards. The overall pass percentage stood at 61.73 percent while the pass percentage of girls is 68.2 percent. The girls have yet again outshone the buys in Karnataka PUC results. The pass percentage of the urban areas stood at 61.38 percent while that of rural areas was 62.88 percent. The topper is from Udupi in coastal Karnataka, while the second rank went to a student from Dakshina Kannada. The pass percentage of the science stream is 66.58 percent while that of commerce was 66.39 percent. There was a 2.15 percent rise in the pass percentage as compared to Karnataka PUC result 2018. According to the available statistics of Karnataka PUC result 2019, 80 colleges have 100 percent passing percentage out of which 15 are government colleges. 28, 2124 have passed the Karnataka PUC exams with first class while, 52,106 have scored second class. 54, 823 students have scored distinction. Karnataka PUC Result 2019 was declared by the Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board (KSEEM). The Karnataka 2nd PUC exams were held between March 1 to 18, 2019. For those students wishing to pursue engineering, Karnataka PUC Result is very important, as the PUC score would be combined with the Karnataka CET score to arrive at the final ranking. It is on the basis of this ranking that the students would be able to opt for engineering of their choice. Karnataka CET exams are scheduled to be held on April 29, 30, May 1, 2019. Links to check Karnataka PUC Result 2019: Karnataka 2nd PUC result would be made available on the official websites karresults.nic.in, kseeb.kar.nic.in and pue.kar.nic.in. The link for the scores will be activated once the board declares the results. Along with the government website, the Karnataka PUC resulkt would also be available on www.examresults.net. How to check Karnataka PUC result 2019: Visit Karnataka PUC Result official website kseeb.kar.nic.in or examresults.net or examresults.net Once the results are officially declared, there would be a link which says Karnataka II PUC Results 2019 Click on the link and fill up all the details like name and roll number to get your Karnataka II PUC Exams Results 2019. Karnataka 2nd PUC result would be displayed on the screen. After India, Rahul Gandhis website gets most visits from Saudi Arabia India oi-Hardeep Singh Bedi New Delhi, April 15: After India, Congress president Rahul Gandhi's personal website gets second highest number of visitors from Saudi Arabia. Alexa, a popular tool to analyse the traffic and World Wide Web ranking of a website, calculates the rank using a combination of average daily visitors to a particular website and page views on the website over the past three months. The website with the highest combination of visitors and page views is ranked 01. Also Read | '100% chowkidar is a thief': Rahul renews attack on PM Modi At the time of filing this story, Alexa says Rahul Gandhi's website- www.rahulgandhi.in-has a global ranking of 572,625. In India, Rahul's website is ranked at 34905. Out of its total visitors, Rahul's website gets 77.9% visits from India and 6.6% from Saudi Arabia, where the website's ranking is 35922. These figures may leave a normal person wondering what it means. However, the security officials smell a rat in this data. A defence source links this data with Jammu and Kashmir and says that it's no secret that terrorism in the state has been thriving due to the illegal funding from Saudi Arabia. "Saudi money has been finding its way into Jammu and Kashmir much before the outbreak of armed Islamic militancy in the 1980s, when Congress was ruling the country. Functioning of intelligence apparatus of a country doesn't change according to the government of the day. The intelligence agencies always give their reports to the government, which decides how to act upon those reports. So, it would be wrong to say the then Congress government was not aware of Saudi money's role in Jammu and Kashmir's terrorism," says the defence official. The official alleges that that there are people in Saudi Arabia who keep a close watch on the Congress' activities and policies. "Why is Rahul Gandhi's website getting so many visits from Saudi Arabia? Congress' website www.inc.inalso gets third highest visits from Saudi Arabia after India and United States of America," says the official. 'He failed in one subject, got MPhil without Masters Degree': BJP jabs Rahul When asked that the visitors could be Indians living in Saudi Arabia, the official counters: "You mean to say that all Indians living in Saudi Arabia are Congress supporters! If it is not true then why don't websites of other political parties and politicians get visitors from Saudi Arabia?" Out of its total visitors, the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) website - www.bjp.org - gets 91.7% of visits from India, 1.1% from the United States of America, and 0.9% from the United Arab Emirates. Similarly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's website -www.narendramodi.in - gets 91.3% visits from India and 2.2% from the United States of America. The defence official also raised a question over the Congress' stand regarding J&K in its election manifesto for 2019 general elections. "The Congress manifesto has made all those promises in its election manifesto that, if implemented, will wash away all the counter-terrorism achievements so far. Who does Congress want to please?" questions the official. Congress has promised to review the deployment of armed forces, move more troops to the border to stop infiltration completely, reduce the presence of the Army and the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) in the Kashmir Valley, and entrust more responsibility to the J&K police for maintaining law and order. The party has also promised that the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and the Disturbed Areas Act in J&K will be reviewed, and suitable changes will be made in the text of the laws to balance the requirements of security and the protection of human rights. Wondering how could a national party promise such bizarre things, the defence official questions: has Congress been influenced by anti-India elements from Saudi Arabia? He says that any sensible political party would not overlook the repercussions of Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia's dominant faith, in J&K. Wahhabism maintains that all those who don't believe and practice this form of Islam are enemies. "Wahhabism is flourishing in the Kashmir Valley through over 2000 mosques built by the millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia, Gulf and other Muslim countries. Large numbers of Valley locals are following Wahabi practices, which is called 'Ahle Hadith'. Now, the terror in the Valley is not dependent on infiltration from Pakistan as the locals are being dangerously radicalised through these mosques. The terrorism in Kashmir Valley has moved from getting Independence to establishing Islamic State style of territory," claims the defence official. As battle shifts down South, a lot at stake for all parties India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Apr 15: Phase two of the Lok Sabha elections 2019 promises to be an interesting one. One would get to witness several interesting battles that include the ones to be fought in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Karnataka. Polling will be held on 97 seats and all eyes would be on the seats in Uttar Pradesh, where the BSP and SP together are taking on the BJP. Polls would be held in Amroha, Bulandshahr, Nagina, Aligarh, Agra among others. There would be an interesting contest in Mathura as well. The Fatehpur Sikri seat from where Raj Babbar would be contesting would also make for an interesting contest. Jobs, healthcare top TN voters' priority list The contests in Amroha, Aligarh, Agra and Nagina would be interesting as the Dalits and Muslims make up for most of the electorate. It is here that the SP-BSP combine would be put to test. It would interesting to watch out if the Dalits and Muslims would vote in large numbers for the grand alliance. Moving on to Bihar, there would be keen contests in Purnia, Banka, Bhagalpur and Kathihar. These areas have a substantial Muslim population and this would put the JD(U) and BJP to test against the Congress and RJD. All these seats except for Kathihar were won by the RJD alliance in 2014. Only Kathihar was won by the JD(U) in 2014. This time around the BJP has left all these seats for the JD(U), taking into account the party's performance in the 2015 assembly elections. 13 out of the 30 assembly segments in these seats were bagged by the JD(S). However in 2015, it may be recalled that the JD(U) had fought the elections with the RJD. The primary focus of the second phase would be on Southern India. Tamil Nadu, with 39 seats will go to polls on April 18. In Karnataka, 14 constituencies would go to elections. The remaining 14 seats in Karnataka would poll on April 23. In the April 18 battle, one of the key seats to watch out for would be Mandya. There is a direct fight between Nikhil Kumaraswamy of the JD(S) and Sumalatha Ambareesh, an independent candidate backed by the BJP. The chemistry of the JD(S)-Congress coalition would be put to test here as several members of the Congress are disgruntled after Sumalatha was denied a ticket. Her late husband, Ambareesh had won from Mandya thrice. The Mysore seat too would witness a tight fight. Prathap Simha of the BJP would look to retain this seat, which he had won in 2014. He could well have an advantage thanks to the internal rift in the Congress. Also Read | Election dates: When does my constituency vote? The Bangalore South contest would be an interesting one too. There was a lot of disgruntlement among the ground workers of the BJP after Tejaswini Ananth Kumar was denied a ticket. In a last minute surprise, the BJP picked Tejasvi Surya to contest from this seat, which is a stronghold of the BJP. He is up against B K Hariprasad of the Congress. The focus would also be on Tamil Nadu. However the more interesting battle here would be the by-elections to 18 assembly seats. The by-elections would put to test the longevity of the AIADMK government, which will need to win at least 8 to hold on to power. Apart from this the state would also witness an election to the 39 Lok Sabha seats. For now, it is advantage DMK in Tamil Nadu as all poll pundits have predicted. State vs national issues: Key lessons for the BJP to learn in Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Haryana Bengal: Actor Moon Moon Sen drubbed 9-time Left candidate Basudeb Acharia in Bankura in 2014 India oi-Shubham Ghosh Kolkata, April 15: The schedule for the 17th Lok Sabha election was announced by the Election Commission on Sunday, March 10. The election will be held in seven phases between April 11 and May 19 with the results to be declared on May 23. Of all the states in the country, West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh will witness elections in seven phases. Here we take a look at all the Lok Sabha constituencies (42) of Bengal and how parties have fared there over the years. Bengal: TMC has Dum Dum, a seat where all parties had success, under control since 2009 Constituency: BANKURA Date of election: May 12 (Phase 6) The Bankura Lok Sabha constituency is located in Bankura district and comprises the following segments: Raghunathpur (SC), Saltora (SC), Chhatna, Ranibandh (ST), Raipur (ST), Taldangra and Bankura. What happened in 2014: TMC's actor candidate Moon Moon Sen staged a massive upset in 2014 when she defeated the CPI(M)'s nine-time candidate Basudeb Acharia by a margin of almost a lakh votes. The BJP's Subhas Kumar Sarkar finished third with 2.51 lakh votes and the Congress's Nilmadhab Gupta finished fourth with just over 22,000 votes. Sen polled over 4.8 lakh votes as against Acharia's 3.84 lakh votes. Bengal: Barasat has become a TMC fortress now after they have won it 4 out of 5 times Total electors in Bankura constituency in 2014 were 14.98 lakh. Vote share: The TMC's vote-share in 2014 was over 39 per cent while the Left got 31.13 per cent. The BJP received 20.31 per cent vote share and the Congress a meagre 1.78 per cent. History of Bankura constituency results: Moon Moon Sen created history in 2014 After the Congress won Bankura seat six times between 1952 and 1977, the CPI(M) made it one of its strongholds, winning continuously since 1980. In 2014, the TMC won it for the first time. Candidates contesting from Bankura in 2019: TMC: Subrata Mukherjee; Left: Amiya Patra; BJP: Subhas Sarkar; For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, April 15, 2019, 12:53 [IST] BJP 'creating fear psychosis' and using national security as guise: Mehbooba Mufti India oi-Vikas SV Srinagar, Apr 15: Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti has given a strongly worded response to PM Modi's remark that third mistake by Pakistan may result in massive retaliation from India. She took to Twitter today and alleged that the BJP is using national security as a guise to prepare ground for another Balakot like strike. "In its desperation to win this election, seems like misappropriation of our jawans sacrifices & polarising the electorate hasn't helped BJP. Now they are creating fear psychosis by using national security as a guise to prepare ground for another Balakot like strike (sic)," she tweeted. In its desperation to win this election, seems like misappropriation of our jawans sacrifices & polarising the electorate hasnt helped BJP. Now they are creating fear psychosis by using national security as a guise to prepare ground for another Balakot like strike. https://t.co/ktrykBBiXO Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) April 15, 2019 Modi slams political families before polls, comes to stitch alliances later: Mehbooba Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday gave a veiled warning to Pakistan and hinted that India's retaliation could be massive if there is one more mistake from Islamabad. Speaking at a rally in Aligarh, PM Modi said India's stature had changed in the last few years in terms of dealing with the terrorists. He said earlier during the Congress rule, India would just whine before the world after being attacked by the terrorists, but now, Modi said, India hits back. "What used to happen earlier? Terrorists used to come from Pakistan, attack us & Congress govt used to cry before the world that we've been attacked. But this is new India. When terrorists attacked Uri, brave soldiers of the country conducted surgical strike there. When they committed the second mistake in Pulwama, we entered their home and conducted airstrike," he said, "Udhar walon ko bhi samajh mein aa gaya hai ki agar teesri galti hui to lene ke dene padd jaenge (Now, they (Pakistan) have understood that if a third mistake is committed then the retaliation could be massive," he added. Mehbooba asks Shah to apologise to people of India Mehbooba had even yesterday hit out at Prime Minister Modi's for claiming that the two regional parties had ruined three generations of J&K. "Why does the PM bash political families pre-elections & then sends his envoys to stitch alliances with the very same parties? NC in 99 & PDP in 2015. Why do they choose power over Article 370 then? BJP with its noxious agenda of banishing Muslims & minorities wants to divide India (sic)," she had tweeted. Earlier in the day, Narendra Modi launched a blistering attack at J&K Peoples Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, while addressing a massive poll rally at Kathua in Jammu region. He said that Mufti family and Abdullah family have ruined three generations of J&K and for better future of state, they need to be voted out. BSP to fight solo in UP, Uttarakhand, no tie-up with Owaisi's AIMIM, says Mayawati 'Should not be misled': Mayawati reaches out to Brahmins before UP polls My constitutional rights being denied: Mayawati on poll panel gag India oi-Deepika S Lucknow, Apr 15: Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Monday lashed out at the Election Commission's gag order and alleged that there was an hidden agenda behind the move. Addressing a press conference, Mayawati questioned the EC not taking any action against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for using armed forces in his election speeches. "PM Modi is using the army for votes. But EC is not taking any action even after repeated warnings," Mayawati says and adds, "This (the ban) shows the anti-Dalit mentality of EC. I can't go to Agra rally tomorrow because of the anti-Dalit mentality of the EC," said Mayawati. EC issues 72-hour gag order for Azam Khan, 48 hrs for Maneka Gandhi The BSP chief said the poll body's notice had no charge of any instigating speech. "The only allegation the EC made was that I had asked for votes on religious grounds," she said. "I had asked everyone to vote for alliance. I had asked Muslims to not let their votes get divided. In response to the show-cause notice I had specified that nowhere in my speech had I instigated communal tensions or spoken of any community," the BSP chief added. Saying that the EC has given a one-sided decision, the BSP chief said that this day will be known as a black day in the history of the poll body. "It will be remembered as a black day. The order could have been implemented a day after the end of the campaign for the second phase of polling. The order has prevented me from making an appeal to voters to vote for the alliance." She further added, "EC knows that the second phase of polling is on April 18 and the last day of campaigning is tomorrow. The Agra rally is scheduled for tomorrow. The result of this decision is that I will not be able to address the people of Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Mathura, etc." Earlier the day, the Election Commission barred Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from campaigning for 72 hours and Mayawati, for 48 hours starting Tuesday morning for controversial speeches. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, April 15, 2019, 22:28 [IST] 'Can identify muslims by removing their clothes': Kerala BJP chief sparks row India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Apr 16: Kerela Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president PS Sreedharan Pillai stoked a controversy on Monday after he said that Muslim can be identified 'by removing their clothes" in an apparent reference to circumcision. Pillai allegedly made the comment at an election rally in Attingal on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday referring to the Balakot air strike carried out by Indian Air Force (IAF) in February, the News Minute reported. "Our Rahul Gandhi, Yechury, and Pinarayi are saying, our soldiers have to go there and see the count of the dead...their caste, religion etc. If it is Islam, there are some signs, no?" he said, adding "If you remove their clothes you will be able to know. We have to do all that and return is what they (the Opposition) are saying." CPI(M) leader VS Sivanjutty has filed a complaint with the Election Commission alleging a violation of the Model Code of Conduct as it is targeted towards a religious community. "He is spewing venom. It clearly exposes the BJP's attitude towards the minority community," said CPI (M) leader V Sivan Kutty after filing a complaint with the state electoral officer. Pillai stoutly denied his speech and said he did not do anything to tarnish the minority community. Congress can't win majority this time, accepts Siddaramaiah India oi-PTI Mysuru, Apr 15: The country was heading towards a coalition government as neither the Congress nor the BJP are unlikely to get an absolute majority despite claims by political leadership, former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on Monday. He said the mood of the country is clearly in favour of bringing in a UPA government to reject communal and divisive forces. The senior Congress leader observed that neither of the two national parties were in a position to cross the 150 mark out of 543, despite claims to the contrary by BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In Karnataka, he said the Congress along with its ally JD(S) is expected to win around 20 seats out of 28 parliamentary constituencies. Doors still open for AAP, says Rahul Gandhi on alliance in Delhi The first phase of polling is scheduled on April 18 in the state. Talking to PTI in an exclusive interview during a campaign trail, Siddaramaiah said: "Both Congress and BJP appear not to be in a position to get an absolute majority on their own. The UPA will however get a clear majority." Holding that claims and reality are two different things, he said there is no Modi wave. On the contrary, there is a growing wave of people wanting to curb divisive and communal forces. This has put full stop to the second term for the NDA. "According to me, the UPA will get enough seats and will emerge as a single largest front. Naturally, other regional parties will rally around," he said and added the Mahagathbandhan (the grand-alliance) has taken place so that the secular votes are not divided. He said, "The campaign is against the BJP which is a communal party. All secular forces which were fighting each other, have come together to prevent division of votes among secular parties. We are fighting against the communal party." Siddaramaiah, who is also chairman of the Congress-JD(S) coalition committee in the state, is however, confident that the Congress will be able to make a major in roads in Karnataka along with the JD(S), limiting the BJP to anywhere between 8 and 10 seats out of 28 parliamentary constituencies. The Congress, which is contesting 21 seats in the state, would win 13-14 seats and its ally JD(S) will take the combine tallly to around 20, he said. Rubbishing claims that there was lack of coordination between Congress and JD(S) workers resulting from an unfair allocation of seats, he said the two parties were in perfect harmony and the campaigning was going on satisfactorily. "This issue has been verified because myself and JD(S) chief H D Deve Gowda jointly toured all constituencies. Look, myself and G T Devegowda of JD(S) fought against each other during the last assembly elections, now we have come together. We have asked workers to work together," he said. Three out of seven seats allocated to JD(S) are being contested by former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda and his two grandsons, forcing the JD(S) leadership to concentrate on three constituencies of Tumkur, Mandya and Hassan. Gowda is contesting from Tumkur, his grandson and chief minister H D Kumaraswamy's son Nikhil Kumaraswamy from Mandya and elder son H D Revanna's son Ujwal Revanna from Hassan. Asserting that Congress-JD(S) alliance will benefit in this Lok Sabha poll, Siddaramaiah said, "Our vote share will be definitely more than the BJP. Both voters, irrespective of what Congress and JD(S) got in the assembly poll, put together will get more votes." On too much of Modi bashing in election campaign, he said, "It is because Modi is prime minister of this country and has completed five years. Who else should I attack? If you attack Modi, it means we are attacking the RSS. He is a symbol of RSS." He said the Congress's narrative of the election campaign is positive unlike the BJP which is not raising issues concerning the poor people, farmers, youth and women. "Is Modi discussing these issues in the public meeting? Why he is not mentioning his achievements in the public meeting? He is talking only about surgical strikes" the Congress leader said. "There were 12 surgical strikes in the past. In the first war against Pakistan in 1948-49, Narendra Modi was not even born then. In 1977, when Indira Gandhi was PM and Bangladesh was liberated, where was he? Was he a soldier in Indian army?" Siddaramaiah said adding these surgical strikes are taking place frequently in the country after Independence. Even the BJP's manifesto talks of the same old issues such as scrapping of Article 370 and construction of Ram temple. "It is raising emotional and very old issues. These issues were there since 1982," he noted. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, April 15, 2019, 18:34 [IST] Doors still open for AAP, says Rahul Gandhi on alliance in Delhi India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Apr 16: Amid the uncertainty over the alliance with AAP, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi in a tweet wrote that the party is willing to give up four Delhi seats to Arvind Kejriwal's party to ensure a victory over the BJP. "An alliance between the Congress & AAP in Delhi would mean the rout of the BJP. The Congress is willing to give up 4 Delhi seats to the AAP to ensure this," he tweeted. "Our doors are still open, but the clock is running out," Rahul Gandhi tweeted only a day after AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal said his party will do anything to "save the country" from Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. AAP, JJP enter into alliance, agree to 3:7 seat-sharing deal The AAP chief was addressing a press conference in New Delhi after a meeting of opposition parties to discuss the issue of EVM malfunctioning in the ongoing parliamentary election. "The country is in danger. We will do anything to save it. Our effort to save the country from Narendra Modi and Amit Shah will continue," Mr Kejriwal said. Congress leaders and senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who were also present on the occasion, however, dodged questions on an alliance with the AAP and threw the ball in Kejriwal's court saying, "He knows better". "You ask him about the alliance. He knows better than us," Sibal said, even as Congress leader and senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, "You know the stand of Congress. The alliance was almost done in Delhi but linking it with other states is not right." The uncertainty over an alliance between the AAP and the Congress has been continuing for some time now. The talks between the two sides derailed after they failed to reach an agreement over seat-sharing in Delhi and Haryana. Congress' in-charge for Delhi PC Chacko had earlier said that the Congress would go it alone in Delhi since the AAP had taken an "impractical stand". AAP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia although said that his party was ready to form an alliance with the Congress in Delhi, Haryana and Chandigarh but it would not agree for a tie-up just in the national capital. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, April 15, 2019, 18:29 [IST] TMC delegation to meet Election Commission in Delhi today; To request for early bypolls in Bengal EC bans Yogi Adityanath from campaigning for 72 hours, Mayawati for 48 hours India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Apr 15: After the Supreme Court slammed the Election Commission (EC) for being soft on hate speech, the poll body has now censured Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati for communal remarks. The EC barred Yogi Adityanath from campaigning for 72 hours and BSP chief Mayawati for 48 hours starting tomorrow morning for violating Model Code of Conduct. Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav were scheduled to address a joint rally in Agra tomorrow. However, after the EC's order she will not be able to attend the rally. BJP got 160 hours, Cong only 80 hrs: EC issues notice to DD news over 'disproportionate' coverage The commission's orders came hours after the Supreme Court gave the poll panel time till tomorrow to report on the action taken against the two prominent politicians for their controversial speeches. In separate orders, the Election Commission "condemned" the two speeches and "censured" the politicians before issuing a gag order. "The Commission, under Article 324 of the Constitution of India and all other powers enabling in this behalf, bars him from holding any public meetings, public processions, public rallies, road shows and interviews, public utterances (electronic, print, social media) etc in connection with ongoing elections for 72 hours from 6 am on 16 April 2019," the panel said. The UP Chief Minister was issued notice by the Election Commission for his 'Ali-Bajrangbali' remark. "If you (Opposition) have faith in Ali, we have faith in Bajrangbali," Adityanath said at a rally. In his response to the notice, Adityanath said he made the apparently communal statement in retaliation to BSP chief Mayawati's appeal to Muslim voters in Deoband, which was also taken note of by the EC. Mayawati had made an appeal to Muslim voters in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur and Bareilly districts during the first joint rally of the BSP-SP alliance in Deoband. Watch film first, then review its ban: SC directs EC on PM Modi's biopic She had cautioned voters, "particularly Muslims", against splitting their votes in the eight western UP seats that went to polls in the first phase on April 11. The BSP chief was also issued a showcause notice for her appeal. She had defended her appeal to the voters, saying that the message was actually meant for the "bahujan samaj", of which Muslims are a part. EC issues 72-hour gag order for Azam Khan, 48 hrs for Maneka Gandhi India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Apr 15: The Election Commission of India on Monday barred Azam Khan of Samajwadi party and union minister Maneka Gandhi from campaigning for violating the Model Code of Conduct. The move comes hours after the EC barred UP CM Yogi Adityanath and BSP Supremo from campaigning for a similar offence. While Azam Khan has been barred for three days, Maneka Gandhi will face the censure for two days starting 10am on Tuesday. Azam Khan has triggered a huge row over his "underwear" jibe at Jaya Prada who is fighting the Lok Sabha election 2019 from Uttar Pradesh's Rampur parliamentary constituency against him. "I brought her (Jaya Prada) to Rampur. You are a witness that I did not allow anyone to touch her body. It took you 17 years to identify her real face but I got to know in 17 days that she wears khaki underwear," Khan had said while addressing a campaign rally in Rampur. In a video clip that is being shared widely on social media, Maneka Gandhi is seen telling Muslim voters in Sultanpur, that they should vote for her or else she may not be responsive to their requests. "I am winning. I am winning because of the love and support of people. But if my victory is without Muslims, I won't feel that good. Dil khatta ho jayega. (heart will become hard) Then when a Muslim comes to me for work, I think let it be, how does it matter? It is all give and take, isn't it? We are not all children of Mahatma Gandhi, are we?" Arjan Singh: All you need to know about the only five-star ranked officer IAF Arjan Singh's 100th birth anniversary today: Remembering first and only 'Five star' rank officer India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Apr 15: Today India is celebrating the 100th birth anniversary of Marshal of Indian Air Force (IAF) Arjan Singh. He is remembered for his distinguished service in commanding the IAF during the 1965 Indo-Pak war. He was promoted to the rank of Air Chief Marshal on January 15, 1966, and the first Air Chief Marshal of the IAF. Born on April 15, 1919, at Lyallpur, now in Pakistan, MIAF Arjan Singh DFC was the first and only "Five Star" rank officer of IAF. His father, grandfather and great grandfather had served in the cavalry. His dynamic personality, professional competence and honesty of purpose in his service to the IAF and the country sets him apart as a leader and an icon of the IAF. Arjan Singh: All you need to know about the only five-star ranked officer Singh, who led the IAF during the 1965 India-Pakistan conflict, died in September 2017 at the age of 98. An icon in the country's military history, Singh had led a fledgling IAF in the 1965 Indo-Pak war when he was just a 44-year-old. Singh was Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), from 1 August 1964 to 15 July 1969, and was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 1965. When appointed as Chief of the Air Staff of the IAF, he was just about 45. He has been the only Chief of the Air Staff to have headed the Air Force for five years as opposed to the regular tenure of two and a half to three years. Singh also became the first Chief of the Air Staff of the IAF to be upgraded to the rank of Air Chief Marshal from the rank of Air Marshal in honour of his Air Force's contribution in the 1965 war. He retired in 1969 at the age of 50. India short by 6,00,000 doctors India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa New Delhi, Apr 15: India has a shortage of an estimated 6,00,000 doctors and 2 million nurses, say scientists who found that lack of staff who are properly trained in administering antibiotics is preventing patients from accessing life-saving drugs. Even when antibiotics are available, patients often cannot afford them. High out-of-pocket medical costs to the patient are compounded by limited government spending for health services, according to the report by the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP) in the US. In India, 65 per cent of health expenditure is out-of-pocket, and such expenditures push some 57 million people into poverty each year. Doctors operate on wrong leg of patient, now she can barely walk The majority of the world's annual 5.7 million antibiotic-treatable deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries where the mortality burden from treatable bacterial infections far exceeds the estimated annual 7,00,000 deaths from antibiotic-resistant infections. Researchers at CDDEP in the US conducted stakeholder interviews in Uganda, India, and Germany, and literature reviews to identify key access barriers to antibiotics in low, middle and high-income countries. Health facilities in many of these countries are sub-standard and lack staff trained properly in administering antibiotics. In India, there is one government doctor for every 10,189 people (the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends a ratio of 1:1,000), or a deficit of 600,000 doctors, and the nurse:patient ratio is 1:483, implying a shortage of two million nurses. "Lack of access to antibiotics kills more people currently than does antibiotic resistance, but we have not had a good handle on why these barriers are created," said Ramanan Laxminarayan, director at CDDEP. "The report shows that even after the discovery of a new antibiotic, regulatory hurdles and substandard health facilities delay or altogether prevent widespread market entry and drug availability," Laxminarayan said in a statement. The study showed that out of 21 new antibiotics that entered the markets between 1999 and 2014, less than five were registered in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa. "Just the mere existence of an effective antibiotic does not mean that they are available in countries where they are most needed," said Laxminarayan. Shocking medical botch up: Baby's head left inside womb during delivery in Ramgarh Worldwide, the irrational use of antibiotics and poor antimicrobial stewardship lead to treatment failure and propagate the spread of drug resistance which, in turn, narrows the available array of effective antibiotics. Research and development for new antimicrobials, vaccines, and diagnostic tests has slowed since the 1960s as profitable investment in this area is limited by low sales volumes, short duration of treatment, competition with established products and less expensive generics, and the possibility that resistance will rapidly emerge. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, April 15, 2019, 5:47 [IST] JKSSB SI Recruitment 2021: Last date to apply for 800 Sub Inspector posts, direct link here J&K: Stones pelted at Mehbooba Mufti's cavalcade, driver injured India pti-PTI Srinagar, Apr 15: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti's motorcade came under stone-pelting in Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir on Monday while she was returning from a shrine there, officials said. Mehbooba had gone to a shrine at Khirram in Anantnag district to pay her obeisance and was returning to Bijbehara when the incident took place, they added. One of the spare vehicles in the former J&K chief minister's motorcade was damaged in the stone-pelting and the driver was hurt, the officials said. [BJP 'creating fear psychosis' and using national security as guise: Mehbooba Mufti] Others in the entourage, including the PDP president, escaped unhurt. Mehbooba is contesting the ongoing Lok Sabha election from the Anantnag seat, which she had won in 2014. The south Kashmir constituency, spread over the four districts of Anantnag, Kulgam, Pulwama and Shopian, is going to the polls in three phases from April 29 to May 6. PTI Jet's revival looks bleak as Anil Agarwal pulls out of race for acquiring cash-strapped airline Jet Airways pilots ask PM Modi to save 20,000 jobs, appeal to SBI for funds India oi-PTI New Delhi, Apr 15: Jet Airways pilots body, the National Aviator's Guild, on Monday appealed the State Bank of India (SBI) to release Rs 1,500 crore, which was proposed to be infused in the ailing carrier as part of a debt-restructuring plan last month. The airline is operating just 6-7 planes, with almost its entire fleet being grounded due to non-payment of rentals to lessors amid severe paucity of cash. "We would like to appeal SBI to release Rs 1,500 crore funds for the airline to help it continue operations. We also appeal Prime Minister Narendra Modi to save 20,000 odd jobs at the airline," National Aviator's Guild ( NAG) vice president Adim Valiani told reporters at the airline's headquarter, Siroya Centre, here on Monday. Jet Airways pilots' strike which was to begin from April 15 deferred Earlier, the airline's pilots, engineers and cabin crew members assembled at the headquarters to show their solidarity. The airline's pilots along with engineers and senior staff were last paid for December, 2018. This apart, the airline has also defaulted on the March salary of other categories of employees as well. Last month, an SBI-led consortium of lenders had taken management control of the airline post a debt-recast deal, following which the lenders had proposed to infuse as much as Rs 1,500 crore to the carrier to keep it afloat till the time it gets a investor. The Monday meeting with lenders is reportedly expected to take a final decision on the quantum of funds to be infused immediately to avert a possible shut down. A meeting between the airline management and its major lender SBI last Friday could not take a decision on the fund infusion issue. PTI How do naxals procure sophisticated weapons: It was the LTTE which aided them Abducted CoBRA jawan Rakeshwar Singh Manhas released by Naxals after six days of captivity AK-47s stolen from COD Jabalpur supplied to naxals, criminals says NIA in chargesheet Naxals from Telangana were in the process of making grenade launchers, IEDs: NIA Jharkhand: 3 Naxals, CRPF jawan martyred during an encounter in Giridih India oi-Madhuri Adnal Jamshedpur, Apr 15: Three Maoists and one CRPF jawan were killed in an encounter in Jharkhand's Giridih district on Monday, officials said. The encounter between the two, took place around 6 am in the forests of Belbha Ghat area of the district when troops of the 7th battalion of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were undertaking operations, they said. Three bodies of Maoists along with an AK-47 Rifle, three bullet magazines and four pipe bombs have been recovered from the encounter site till now, the officials said. Jharkhand: Three Maoist killed in encounter, 2 AK-47 recovered A CRPF jawan was martyred in the encounter, they added. According to a government report, more than 90 civilians, 47 security forces personnel were killed in Chhattisgarh in 2018. In 2017 and 2016, the toll was 263 and 278 respectively. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, April 15, 2019, 11:49 [IST] We must take agriculture out of chemistry lab and connect it to lab of nature: PM Modi PM Modi to lay foundation stone of Ganga Expressway in UP LS polls 2019: Modi lookalike gets notice for his 'one vote, one note' slogan India oi-Madhuri Adnal Lucknow, Apr 15: A lookalike of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is contesting the Lok Sabha elections has been served a notice for violating the poll code over his slogan - "one vote, one note". Abhinandhan Pathak filed his nomination papers from Lucknow as an Independent candidate and said he would also contest Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency represented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. After filing nomination, he told the media that his slogan was "one note, one vote". Lok Sabha elections 2019: BJP fields Bhojpuri actor Ravi Kishan from Gorakhpur In a notice served to Pathak, District Magistrate Kaushalraj Sharma said that the slogan appeared to be in violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) and amounts to "luring electorate for votes". "Pathak has been given 24 hours time to reply to the notice after receiving it. In absence of the reply, FIR under relevant sections will be lodged against him," the DM, also the returning officer, said. Claiming himself to be a "serious candidate and not the dummy one", Pathak said he was against 'jumla' (gimmick) and after winning, "I would support Rahul Gandhi's PM's candidature" . Pathak bears resemblance to PM Modi. He dresses and speaks like Modi and begins his speech with 'Mitron' (friends), the pet word PM uses frequently to address his audiences. A resident of Saharanpur, Pathak was with the BJP-led NDA constituent Republican Party of India (Athawale) as its state vice-president for Uttar Pradesh till he joined the Congress last month. During the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, there were several lookalikes of Modi, including Pathak, who were seen in different places across the country during election campaigns. Why did you lie and attribute it to SC: BJP fires at Rahul Gandhi However, Pathak had actively campaigned for the Congress in the run-up to the assembly elections in Chhattisgarh last year, holding meetings in a number of seats in the state, including Jagdalpur, Dantewada, Kondagaon and Bastar. Lucknow, from where Pathak has filed his nomination, will vote in the fifth phase of the elections on May 6. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, April 15, 2019, 18:39 [IST] In pics: PM Modi has lunch with workers who made Kashi Vishwanath Dham possible From taking dip in Ganga to offering prayers to Lord Shiva, check out pics of PM Modi's visit to Varanasi From Varanasi, PM Modi urges Indians to take these 3 resolutions Modi likely to file nomination from Varanasi on April 26 India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Apr 15: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to file nomination from Varanasi parliamentary constituency next week. Sources quoted by ANI in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who are in charge of planning his election schedule, told that Prime Minister Modi may file the nomination on April 26. The BJP workers and leaders are working on a plan to organise a two-day mega programme in the run-up to the filing of nomination during which Prime Minister Modi will hold two road shows in the constituency. Sonia Gandhi files nomination, aims for fifth win from Rae Bareli According to sources, Prime Minister Modi would reach the city on April 25 and will head for a road show from Banaras Hindu University to Dashashwamedh Ghat. We must take agriculture out of chemistry lab and connect it to lab of nature: PM Modi Nationalism, martyrdom of soldiers as much a poll issue as farmer deaths: PM Modi India pti-PTI New Delhi, Apr 15: Nationalism and martyrdom of soldiers are as much an election issue as the death of farmers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday, rejecting allegations that he was using the defence forces in his campaign speeches for winning the polls. In an interview to national broadcaster Doordarshan, Modi said the country is suffering because of terrorism for the last 40 years and there is no reason for people not being told about this. "If we don't tell them what our views are on this, then what is the logic in that? ...Can any country move ahead without the feeling of nationalism," he said. "In a country where thousands of its soldiers have been martyred, shouldn't that be an election issue? If farmers die, then it is an election issue, but when soldiers die then it is not an election issue? How can that be?" the Prime Minister added. Modi in Aligarh: 'Surgical strike after first mistake, air strike after second, what after third...' Last week, Modi asked first-time voters to dedicate their votes to those who carried out the air strike in Pakistan's Balakot. He also urged to dedicate their first votes to the security personnel killed in the Pulwama terror attack. The comments created political furore with opposition parties accusing the Prime Minister of using the defence forces for winning the polls. The poll panel took notice and the remarks are currently under examination. The poll authorities in Maharashtra's Latur, where he made the speech, have told the Election Commission that prima facie the comments are violative of its orders, asking parties against using the armed forces in their campaigns. Modi in his interview also took a swipe at Congress president Rahul Gandhi, alleging that he was raking up the Rafale issue to wash the sins of his father. "He has made the Rafale issue to wash the sins of his father. For the past six months, he has been making it an issue without any proof," he said. Modi further said that in the past five years his government has addressed the basic requirements of the people that should have been fulfilled within the first ten to twenty years of Independence. He said that his comments against the Gandhi family were against dynastic politics and his opposition was issue-based and not personal. "Dynastic politics is the most dangerous thing for a democracy," he said. Commenting on the Congress' 'NYAY' or minimum income promise, Modi said with the announcement of the scheme, the Congress has accepted that they have done "great injustice" to the people for the past 60 years. "Will they give nyay (justice)?," he asked, referring to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Talking about BJP's chances in the ongoing elections, Modi said there is an "unprecedented wave of support" for his party. "I have not seen this even in 2014," he said. No wish to join politics right now: Robert Vadra India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Apr 15: A day after Congress' UP president Raj Babbar said that no one can stop Robert Vadra from joining the party, Vadra on Monday said he has no plan to take the political plunge right now. When asked about his plans to join politics, Congress president Rahul Gandhi's brother-in-law Robert Vadra said, "As of now, there are no plans. I have no wish to join politics right now. I'm amongst the people and am working hard. When people feel that I should enter politics, I will come with full force." On Sunday, Babbar had said that it was Vadra's decision. "If he wants, the party would surely consider. He is part of the family. Who will stop him from becoming a part of the party?" Babbar had said. Doors still open for AAP, says Rahul Gandhi on alliance in Delhi In February, Robert Vadra had said that he would start working on his entry into active politics after clearing his name in cases of alleged money laundering being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). In a Facebook post, Vadra had written, "All these years of experience n learning cannot be just wasted and should be put to better use... once all these accusations n allegations are over, I feel I should dedicate a larger role in serving the people." Vadra was also seen accompanying his wife and mother-in-law Sonia Gandhi when the latter filed her nomination from the Rae Bareli constituency for the Lok Sabha elections. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, April 15, 2019, 19:55 [IST] We must take agriculture out of chemistry lab and connect it to lab of nature: PM Modi Revealed: What was inside the mystery black trunk in PM Modis chopper India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Bengaluru, Apr 15: The Congress has raised concerns over the mystery box that was present in the chopper used by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Congress on Sunday demanded a probe into the alleged transportation of a "suspicious black trunk" in the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's helicopter during his visit to Chitradurg in Karnataka for poll campaign. Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma asked the Prime Minister to come clean and said the Election Commission should inquire into the contents of the "trunk". Modi rally in Aligarh: Minor fire after short-circuit below PM's stage He said the Congress' Karnataka unit has already filed a complaint with the Election Commission in this regard. The Prime Minister had addressed an election rally in Karnataka's Chitradurga on April 9. Amidst the controversy, sources tell OneIndia that the the allegations made by the Congress are baseless in nature. The box contained a teleprompter and other material that needed to be used on the dais, the source also added. The box is under the control of the SPG, the source also added. Sharma suggested there was cash stashed in the trunk. "What was there in the trunk. If there was no cash in it, let there an inquiry be held." The party also played a video clip claiming that the purported trunk, after being unloaded from the PM's helicopter, was shipped to a private Innova car, that Sharma alleged was not a part of the SPG carcade, and taken away. Modi in Aligarh: 'Surgical strike after first mistake, air strike after second, what after third...' Sharma also asked Modi to give an account of his five-year rule to the people of the country as a tribute to Dr B R Ambedkar on his birth anniversary. "The Prime Minister is trying to control and change the narrative because he has no courage the face real issues," he alleged. Cruise missiles: Nirbhay better than Babur, but is it as good as US' Tomahawk Sub-sonic cruise missile 'Nirbhay' test fired successfully India oi-Vikas SV New Delhi, Apr 15: India on Monday successfully test fired sub-sonic land attack cruise missile Nirbhay from a test range Odisha. The Nirbhay is a land attack cruise missile armed which can be armed with a 300-kilogram warhead and is capable of reaching speeds of 0.6-0.7 Mach. The range of this missile which has the capability to strike deep into the enemy's territory is around 1,000 kms. The successful testing of Nirbhay would significantly bolster India's striking capabilities as the missile has terrain hugging capability to avoid radar detection and can loiter over the target before going in for the kill. What's wrong with India's Nirbhay cruise missile? As per reports, the previous and the fifth test of Nirbhay was conducted on November 7, 2017, which was said to be a success. Not much is known about that test in terms of the outcome or weather, the test was satisfactory on all the parameters. Nirbhay was initially conceptualised to counter Pakistan's Babur Land-attack cruise missile. During its testing, nuclear-capable Nirbhay missile has suffered several setbacks. Since March 2013, three Nirbhay test launches have been classified as failures. The missile was developed by the Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), Bengaluru. All fine with BrahMos, but what about cruise missile Nirbhay Nirbhay adds a new dimension to India's attack capabilities along with BrahMos cruise missile. BrahMos, a potent supersonic missile in the Indian arsenal, is the world's fastest anti-ship cruise missile in operation. The missile travels at speeds of Mach 2.8 to 3.0. Nirbhay flies slower and closer to ground and this gives it capability to avoid detection by enemy radars. What are cruise missiles? Cruise missiles fly at a low altitude, mostly to avoid radar detection, and can be guided throughout its path. They fly within the earth's atmosphere and use jet engine technology. These vehicles vary greatly in their speed and ability to penetrate defences. Talk about India, not Pakistan: Priyanka Gandhi slams BJP India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Apr 15: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi on Monday stepped up her attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and said that instead of talking about India, jobs and agrarian distress, the saffron party was focussing on nationalism and Pakistan. "BJP must talk about India, what they have done for the youth, farmers and other sections of society. They must tell what their agenda for women and women security is," said Priyanka while addressing a campaign in Agra. "I have seen the reality in the eyes of youth who complain about jobs, seen it in the eyes of potato growers who come to Raebareli and Lucknow to talk about their loans and the high costs that they have to bear," she added. Priyanka Gandhi likens Silchar MP Sushmita Dev to Indira Gandhi Priyanka said the Congress is trying to reach out to the people through its Nyay scheme of minimum income guarantee while the BJP is trying to silence the voices of the masses. "Anybody raising questions are branded anti-national. If they are patriots why didn't BJP leaders meet farmers when thousands of them protested on the streets. Why don't they meet families of those who are lynched," she further said. Priyanka Gandhi's gaffe During her speech, Gandhi fumbled but quickly made a save. Talking about the Congress manifesto Gandhi said, "Aisi yojnaein ghoshna patra mein hai jisse aapko swasth sarkari aspatalon mein muft milega" (There are schemes in the manifesto through which you will get free health in government hospitals). She was just about to continue with her speech when she realised her gaffe and laughed about it. Gandhi acknowledged the mistake and said, "Swasth nahin... matlab swasth ki jaanch aur swasth ka ilaaj muft milega" (Not swasth...I mean diagnosis and treatment will be free). Priyanka Gandhi then continued and said, "Swasth bhi mil jaye toh achcha hain" (It will be great if health can be given for free) Fatehpur Sikri will vote in the next round of the national election on Thursday. The results will be announced on May 23. Three more Rafale jets to land in India from France in non-stop flight 6 Rafale fighters to be flagged off by IAF chief from France Timely induction of Rafale jets would have boosted Balakot airstrike: BS Dhanoa India oi-PTI New Delhi, Apr 15: Technology was on India's side in the Balakot airstrikes, Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa said on Monday, asserting that the results would have been further tilted in the country's favour if Rafale jets were inducted in time. The Indian Air Force chief was addressing a gathering at a seminar on aerospace power of the future and the impact of technology. "In the Balakot operation, we had technology on our side, and we could launch precision stand of weapons with great accuracy. In the subsequent engagements, we came out better because we upgraded our MiG-21s, Bisons, and Mirage-2000 aircraft," he said. "The results would have been further skewed in our favour had we inducted the Rafale aircraft in time," Dhanoa said. Rahul's comments on Rafale not part of our observations: SC The Air Force struck a Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist training camp in Pakistan's Balakot area on February 26, in response to the February 14 Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed. The Pakistan Air Force retaliated the next day by unsuccessfully targeting various military installations in Jammu and Kashmir. Dhanoa said in his speech, "In the proposed induction of the Rafale and S-400 surface-to-air missile system, in the next two-four years, once again the technological balance will shift in our favour, like it was in 2002 during Operation Parakaram during the last stand-off." India inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September 2016 for the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore. The delivery of the jets -- capable of carrying a range of potent weapons and missiles -- is scheduled to begin from September. In October last year, India and Russia signed a multibillion dollar deal for S-400 'Triumf' long-range air defence missile systems. It has the capability to destroy incoming hostile aircraft, missiles and even drones at ranges of up to 400 km. The seminar on 'Aerospace power in the 2040s: Impact of Technology' was held at Subroto Park here to mark the birth centenary of the late Marshal of the IAF Arjan Singh. The event was hosted by the IAF along with the Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS), an autonomous defence research and analysis body. "Among all arms of the military, technology affects us the most.. land forces mainly fight with men, naval and air force officers operate machines and in the Air Force this technology has to be packed in smaller machines and subject to extreme temperature and pressure conditions," the IAF chief said. And, air power is more sensitive to technological change, he said. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last week complimented the IAF for its "flawless execution" of the February 26 Balakot operation and subsequent thwarting of the Pakistani response while addressing top IAF commanders here. At the event on April 11, Dhanoa emphasised on further enhancing the IAF's capability in the field of space, cyber, artificial intelligence and drone technology to further boost its overall combat capability. Various IAF veterans, at the seminar paid tribute to Singh, who led the Indian Air Force during the 1965 India-Pakistan war, died in September 2017 at the age of 98. An icon in the country's military history, Singh led a fledgling IAF in the 1965 Indo-Pak war when he was just 44 years old. Born on April 15, 1919, in Lyallpur in Punjab in undivided India, his father, grandfather and great grandfather had served in the cavalry. "This event is a fitting tribute to IAF Marshal Arjan Singh," Dhanoa said. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, April 15, 2019, 20:09 [IST] Watch film first, then review its ban: SC directs EC on PM Modi's biopic India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Apr 15: The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Election Commission (EC), to watch the movie first and asked the film makers to screen the movie for EC and then review its ban on the release of a biopic on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The apex court asked EC to give its view to the court by April 22 in a sealed cover. The plea was filed by the producers of the biopic after the poll panel had passed an order on April 10 banning the screening of the Narendra Modi biopic during the ongoing Lok Sabha poll, citing the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The apex court on Friday agreed to hear the matter after the producers raised issues related to fundamental rights of freedom of speech and expression in their petition. Modi biopic won't release until elections are over says EC The film stars Vivek Oberoi in lead role. The EC had said in its order that any such film that helps promote any political entity or individual should not be displayed on the electronic media. The poll body had also directed the producers of the film titled 'PM Narendra Modi' to refrain from releasing the film until further orders. It is to be noted that the biopic was earlier scheduled to release on April 5 but its release was pushed to April 11. At that time Vivek Oberoi, who is a big fan of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that some powerful people did not want the film to release on April 5. The voting for seven-phase Lok Sabha poll is scheduled to take place on May 19 and counting will take place on May 23. Raviji, the same thing just happened to me: Shashi Tharoor to seek explanation from Twitter What is itat e-dwar the new e-filing portal of the IT appellate tribunal Social media companies free to do business, but should be accountable to Indian laws: Ravi Shankar Prasad Big step towards transparency: Prasad on first compliance report by Google, FB under new IT rules Ashwini Vaishnaw gets thumbs-up from Ravi Shankar Prasad on IT rules If over 45 countries use Pegasus, why target just India?, asks Ravi Shankar Prasad Why did you lie and attribute it to SC: BJP fires at Rahul Gandhi India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Apr 15: Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in a press conference on Monday slammed Rahul Gandhi and said that the Congress chief is "spreading lies." Speaking to media, Prasad said, "Today, SC oral observation shows a new low of Rahul Gandhi politics." Ravi Shankar Prasad, on the Supreme Court's notice to Rahul Gandhi over 'chowkidar chor hai' comment, said, "As far as the law is concerned, we won't say anything. But why did you [Rahul Gandhi] lie and attributed that lie to SC." When Jammu and Kashmir had a Prime Minister "Rahul targeted the Prime Minister by making false allegations. He twisted the court's facts," Prasad said hours after the Supreme Court issued a notice to Rahul Gandhi. The top court on Monday clarified that its decision on April 10 to hear the points raised over the Rafale documents was solely on a legal question regarding admissibility of certain documents as evidence, which was objected by the Attorney General. It clarified that it's recent order "had no occasion" which might have indicated to Rahul Gandhi to make any such comments. The apex court directed Gandhi to explain his comments 'chowkidar chor hai' and file his reply on or before April 22. The BJP had filed a petition in the Supreme Court after the Congress president hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a rally with chowkidar chor hai remark. After the Supreme Court announced its decision to allow leaked Rafale documents to review a previous judgment, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi had claimed a moral victory and said the court has made it clear that Prime Minister Narendra Modi "committed theft". Following this, the BJP filed a contempt plea against Gandhi for calling the Prime Minister a 'chor'. The BJP accused Rahul Gandhi of contempt of court and seeking action against him for levelling unsubstantiated charges against Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale deal. The Congress president is using abusive words against the Prime Minister that are untrue. He is repeatedly calling the Prime Minister a 'chor' by putting words in the mouth of the Supreme Court, Sitharaman said. Why NOTA ends up becoming a deal-breaker for political parties India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Apr 15: In the midst of the electoral battle for the 17th Lok Sabha, there is a lurking fear amidst political parties. Many would fear the NOTA over their opponent as previous elections have shown that this option can wreck havoc for the prospects of candidates. Last week, the chief of the RSS, Mohan Bhagwat said the voter should say either 'yes' or 'no.' Staying quiet is not an option he added, while making a reference to the None Of The Above option, that was introduced following a Supreme Court order. The option was first introduced in the 2013 assembly elections. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, there were over 60 lakh NOTA votes that were polled. This accounted to 1.1 per cent of the votes. A total of 55 crore votes were polled. Since 2013, at least 261 assembly constituencies had more NOTA votes than the winning margin. Will 2019 be a 2004 for the BJP? In the 2017 Gujarat elections, there were 21 constituencies which had more NOTA votes than the winning margin. This in fact had played spoilsport for the BJP as it lost 12 seats by a margin that was lesser than the NOTA votes. Looking back at the 2018 assembly elections NOTA managed to outperform several parties such as the AAP and Samajwadi Party. The NOTA votes polled in Chhattisgarh was recorded at 2 per cent while in Mizoram it was 0.5 per cent. AAP had fielded 85 candidates in Chhattisgarh and they recorded 0.9 per cent of the votes when compared to the 2 per cent NOTA votes. The NCP recorded 0.2 per cent of the votes while in the case of the CPI it was 0.3 per cent. SP too secured 0.2 per cent of the votes, thus signalling that the NOTA votes had outdone all these parties. In the Madhya Pradesh elections, both the SP and AAP polled 1.3 per cent and 0.7 per cent respectively, while NOTA polled 1.4 per cent. In Rajasthan, the CPI got 1.2 per cent of the votes, while the SP and AAP secured, 0.2 per cent and 0.4 per cent respectively. The RLD on the other hand polled 0.3 per cent, while NOTA ended up with 1.3 per cent. When Jammu and Kashmir had a Prime Minister In Telangana, NOTA with 1.1 per cent outdid the CPI (M) and CPI which polled 0.4 per cent. The NCP bagged 0.1 per cent in Telangana. Political parties are extremely worried about people exercising this option as it has played spoilsport. The BJP suffered due to NOTA in the Madhya Pradesh elections. In 23 constituencies, the NOTA votes were more than the margin of victory. In these seats, the Congress won 12 and the rest were bagged by the BJP. Take for instance the Kolaras constituency, where the victory margin was 720 votes. Here NOTA polled 1,674 votes. In Bina, the victory margin was just 632 as opposed to the 1,528 NOTA votes. It was in the 2015 Bihar elections that NOTA polled the highest at 9 lakh votes. This is 2.5 per cent of the total votes that the state polled. NOTA was higher than the victory margin in 21 constituencies and the Amnour seat witnessed the highest at 6,447. The victory margin in this seat was 5,251. In the Tarari constituency, the victory margin was just 272 and NOTA polled 3,858. In the 2016 elections held in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry, 62 of the 822 constituencies polled more NOTA votes than the victory margin. NOTA beat the victory margin in 24 constituencies each in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. In the case of Assam and Kerala it was nine and four, while in Puducherry it was one. In all there were 17 lakh NOTA votes in these states and the percentage stood at 1.25. In the 2017 elections that were held in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, the NOTA votes were at 1.83 per cent or 5.50 lakh. The Danta constituency in Gujarat recorded the highest at 6,641 NOTA votes. The lowest was at Mahesana at 686. In Himachal Pradesh, the highest number of NOTA votes polled was at Jogindernagar. The count stood at 1,162. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, April 15, 2019, 18:04 [IST] Agree with Indian govt on need to safeguard citizens' privacy: WhatsApp State vs national issues: Key lessons for the BJP to learn in Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Haryana Pak hopes to re-structure ties with India after Lok Sabha polls International oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa Islamabad, Apr 15: Pakistan has said it was hoping for "re-engagement" with India after the Lok Sabha polls, noting that structured dialogue would enable the two countries to understand mutual concerns, resolve outstanding disputes and build the edifice of durable peace and security in the region. In an interview to PTI, Pakistan's outgoing High Commissioner Sohail Mahmood said diplomacy and dialogue are indispensable to improve ties between the two neighbours. "We hope for re-engagement after the elections in India. Diplomacy and dialogue are indispensable," he said. Moily levels serious allegation, says BJP has a tactical understanding with Pakistan Tensions between the two countries worsened after the Pulwama terror attack and both the countries were almost on the brink of a war after India's military planes struck a terrorist training camp in Pakistan's Balakot on February 26 and Pakistan carried out a counter-offensive the next day. Mahmood, who has been appointed as Pakistan's next Foreign Secretary said dialogue between India and Pakistan was the only option to understand mutual concerns and ensure peace, prosperity and security in the region. "Sustained engagement and structured dialogue would enable the two countries to understand mutual concerns and differences, resolve outstanding disputes and build the edifice of durable peace, security and prosperity in the region," Mahmood said. He also said that there was a need to review the narrative about Pakistan in India. "A narrative is needed that captures the reality in Pakistan objectively and more fully. A narrative that also helps recognise opportunities for peaceful, cooperative and good neighbourly relations," he said. "We must strive for stable peace, equal security and shared prosperity for ourselves and the region," the envoy added. In signs of easing tensions, Pakistan around two weeks ago announced that it was releasing 360 Indian prisoners, mostly fishermen as a "goodwill gesture". The initiative was followed by Pakistan High Commission here granting visas to 2,200 Sikh pilgrims from India to facilitate their participation in the annual Baisakhi celebrations in Pakistan. Over two weeks after the Balakot strike, India and Pakistan held talks to finalise the modalities for setting up a corridor linking the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan's Kartarpur with Gurdaspur district in Punjab. A vote for Modi is a vote for Pakistan: Congress on Imran Khan's remarks Asked about the Kartarpur corridor project, the Pakistani High Commissioner said Islamabad was committed to completing the physical infrastructure on its side. "The government of Pakistan is proceeding in full measures to complete the physical infrastructure on its side and it is hopeful that the modalities will be mutually agreed between the two sides in good time before November 2019," he said. Last November, both India and Pakistan agreed to set up the Kartarpur corridor to link the historic Gurdwara Darbar Sahib -- the final resting place of Sikh faith's founder Guru Nanak Dev -- to Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur. Kartarpur Sahib is located in Pakistan's Narowal district across the river Ravi, about four kilometres from the Dera Baba Nanak shrine. 'Whipping up war hysteria': India rejects Pak claim of prepping new attack The relations between India and Pakistan remained tense since 2016. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had travelled to Delhi to attend Modi's oath-taking ceremony and the Indian premier had in December 2015 made a stopover in Lahore to greet his counterpart on his birthday. However, the ties nose-dived following a string of cross-border terror attacks in 2016 and India's subsequent surgical strikes. The sentencing of alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav to death by a military court in April 2017 further deteriorated bilateral ties. Global Full Body Scanner Market: Detailed Analysis by Latest Trends, Emerging Size, Share, Sale and Forecast to 2024 Full Body Scanner Market https://www.infiniumglobalresearch.com/reports/sample-request/1468 https://www.infiniumglobalresearch.com/ict-semiconductor/global-full-body-scanner-market www.infiniumglobalresearch.com The increasing need for aviation and railway security from terrorist activities drives the Full Body Scanner Market. Additionally, increasing incidence of drug marketing across the world has made the use of scanners compulsory thereby fuelling the growth of the body scanners market. However, privacy issues and cyber threats among passengers are anticipated to restrain the growth of the full body scanner market over the forecast period. Furthermore, technological advancements and infrastructural developments in countries such as India and China are creating several growth opportunities for the key players in the full body scanner market over the years to come.For More Details Get Free Sample Pages of this Research Report@Infinium Global Research has produced a new premium report full body scanner market. The report covers the analysis of global as well as regional markets of the full body scanner. The objective of the study is to identify market sizes of different segments & countries in recent years and to forecast the values for the next six years. The report also deep dives into the sub-segments of full body scanner market by technology (image processing and modeling and 3d body scanners) and application (transport and infrastructure) through main geographies in the global market such as North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and RoW.The report covers market changing aspects including drivers, restraints, opportunities, and trends expected to encourage the expansion of the Full Body Scanner Market during the said period. The report also provides market attractiveness analysis, by geography, and market share analysis, by key players respectively. Some of the prominent participants in the Global Full Body Scanner Market are Braun and Company Ltd, Millivision Technologies, Nuctech Co Ltd., Westminster International Ltd., OD Security, Iscon Imaging, Inc., Adani Systems, Inc., Rapiscan Systems Limited, L-3 Technologies, Inc. and Smith Group PLC.North America Region to Contribute to Growth in the Global Full Body Scanner Market Over the Upcoming YearsNorth America dominated the full body scanner market. Like North America, being the most technologically advanced the need for providing more security is anticipated to lead the global full body scanners market during the forecast period. Pooja Baragale a research analyst at Infinium Global Research quoted that Adoption of such devices is increasing at airports and train stations across the globe mainly due to the increasing threat of terrorism, and for aviation security. Moreover, in the U.S., a bill called the S.A.F.E.R. A.I.R. Act has been passed, that makes full-body scanners mandatory in airports. This will again boost the full body scanner market in the years to come. Pooja Baragale further stated that the Asia Pacific is anticipated to be the emerging market owing to the increasing terrorist threat and security concerns in this region. Moreover, the growth in Europe is mainly driven by regulatory mandate of installing at least one full-body scanner in each airport.Browse Detailed TOC, Description and Company Mentioned in this Premium Report@Key Trends to Feature the Global Full Body Scanner Market Between 2018 and 2024The prominent players in the full body scanner market are Smiths Detection, L-3 security and detections system, Rapiscan, Safran Morpho, Brijot Imaging Systems Inc, Braun and Company Limited, Tek84 Engineering Group Llc, CST Digital Communication (Pty) Limited, American Science and Engineering Inc.Safran Identity & Security reveals its contribution to the new MasterCard biometric cardIn May 2017, Saran Identity & Security (ex Morpho) announced that they are contributing with biometric card software and manufacturing capacities for the recently announced MasterCard next-generation biometric card.Infinium Global Research and Consulting Solutions is started with a single motto of being a business partner of the first choice. We at Infinium work on the strengths of our clients to ensure we help them consolidate their market position. We firmly believe in the fact that if you are able to develop newer opportunities then you find there is no dearth of opportunities for you. With our strategic research approaches and deep dive in the market segments, we try to find out new opportunities that our clients can encash with their existing resources. Our experts with over 100 years of cumulative experience in research offer the best in the industry services to our clients to ensure that they achieve their business goals.Infinium Global ResearchOffice No. 04, 06, Ganadhish Empire,Rahatani Corner, Pune, MH 411027Email: info@infiniumglobalresearch.comWebsite: Alzheimers Therapeutic Market Analysis Outlook (2019-2025)| Pfizer Inc, Novartis International AG, Axovant Sciences Ltd, Acadia Pharmaceuticals Inc global alzheimers therapeutic market https://www.qyresearch.com/sample-form/form/796533/global-alzheimer%E2%80%99s-therapeutic-industry-research-report-growth-trends-and-competitive-analysis https://www.qyresearch.com/settlement/pre/f1c32e018b4d93ccc6dec518106d8697,0,1,Global%20Alzheimer%E2%80%99s%20Therapeutic%20Industry%20Research%20Report%252C%20Growth%20Trends%20and%20Competitive%20Analysis%202018-2025 www.qyresearch.com The report comes out as an intelligent and thorough assessment tool as well as a great resource that will help you to secure a position of strength in the global Alzheimers Therapeutic market. It includes Porters Five Forces and PESTLE analysis to equip your business with critical information and comparative data about the Global Alzheimers Therapeutic Market. We have provided deep analysis of the vendor landscape to give you a complete picture of current and future competitive scenarios of the global Alzheimers Therapeutic market. Our analysts use the latest primary and secondary research techniques and tools to prepare comprehensive and accurate market research reports.Each segment of the global Alzheimers Therapeutic market is extensively evaluated in the research study. The segmental analysis offered in the report pinpoints key opportunities available in the global Alzheimers Therapeutic market through leading segments. The regional study of the global Alzheimers Therapeutic market included in the report helps readers to gain a sound understanding of the development of different geographical markets in recent years and also going forth. We have provided a detailed study on the critical dynamics of the global Alzheimers Therapeutic market, which include the market influence and market effect factors, drivers, challenges, restraints, trends, and prospects. The research study also includes other types of analysis such as qualitative and quantitative.Get PDF template of this report:Global Alzheimers Therapeutic Market: Competitive RivalryThe chapter on company profiles studies the various companies operating in the global Alzheimers Therapeutic market. It evaluates the financial outlooks of these companies, their research and development statuses, and their expansion strategies for the coming years. Analysts have also provided a detailed list of the strategic initiatives taken by the Alzheimers Therapeutic market participants in the past few years to remain ahead of the competition.Key players cited in the reportPfizer IncNovartis International AGAxovant Sciences LtdAcadia Pharmaceuticals, IncBiotie TherapiesAstra Zeneca plcEli Lilly, IncF. Hoffman Le RocheMerck & CoH. Lundbeck A/STakeda Pharmaceutical Company LtdGlobal Alzheimers Therapeutic Market: Type SegmentsMemantine HydrochlorideDonepezil HydrochlorideRivastigmineGalantamine HydrobromideGlobal Alzheimers Therapeutic Market: Application SegmentsHospitalsClinicOtherGlobal Alzheimers Therapeutic Market: Regional SegmentsThe chapter on regional segmentation details the regional aspects of the global Alzheimers Therapeutic market. This chapter explains the regulatory framework that is likely to impact the overall market. It highlights the political scenario in the market and the anticipates its influence on the global Alzheimers Therapeutic market. The Middle East and Africa (GCC Countries and Egypt) North America (the United States, Mexico, and Canada) South America (Brazil etc.) Europe (Turkey, Germany, Russia UK, Italy, France, etc.) Asia-Pacific (Vietnam, China, Malaysia, Japan, Philippines, Korea, Thailand, India, Indonesia, and Australia)Get Full Report Now at USD 4,900 @Report Highlights Comprehensive pricing analysis on the basis of product, application, and regional segments The detailed assessment of the vendor landscape and leading companies to help understand the level of competition in the global Alzheimers Therapeutic market Deep insights about regulatory and investment scenarios of the global Alzheimers Therapeutic market Analysis of market effect factors and their impact on the forecast and outlook of the global Alzheimers Therapeutic market A roadmap of growth opportunities available in the global Alzheimers Therapeutic market with the identification of key factors The exhaustive analysis of various trends of the global Alzheimers Therapeutic market to help identify market developmentsTable of ContentsReport Overview: It includes six chapters, viz. research scope, major manufacturers covered, market segments by type, Alzheimers Therapeutic market segments by application, study objectives, and years considered.Global Growth Trends: There are three chapters included in this section, i.e. industry trends, the growth rate of key producers, and production analysis.Alzheimers Therapeutic Market Share by Manufacturer: Here, production, revenue, and price analysis by the manufacturer are included along with other chapters such as expansion plans and merger and acquisition, products offered by key manufacturers, and areas served and headquarters distribution.Market Size by Type: It includes analysis of price, production value market share, and production market share by type.Market Size by Application: This section includes Alzheimers Therapeutic market consumption analysis by application.Profiles of Manufacturers: Here, leading players of the global Alzheimers Therapeutic market are studied based on sales area, key products, gross margin, revenue, price, and production.Alzheimers Therapeutic Market Value Chain and Sales Channel Analysis: It includes customer, distributor, Alzheimers Therapeutic market value chain, and sales channel analysis.Market Forecast Production Side: In this part of the report, the authors have focused on production and production value forecast, key producers forecast, and production and production value forecast by type.About Us: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.ContactQY Research, INC.USA: +1 626 428 8800China: +86 1082 945 717Japan: +81 9038 009 273India: +91 9766 478 224Emails enquiry@qyresearch.comWeb Former Commander of the Army Test and Evaluation Center, US Army invites you to attend Future Armored Vehicles Active Protection Systems USA 2019 Future Armored Vehicles Active Protection Systems USA 2019 http://www.fav-aps.com/openpr http://www.fav-aps.com/openpr http://www.smi-online.co.uk SMi reports: Major General (Retd) John Charlton, Former Commander of the Army Test and Evaluation Center, US Army will be chairing the conference in Arlington this June.SMi Groups Future Armored Vehicles Active Protection Systems will convene in June 11th and 12th 2019, in Arlington, Virginia. As the first conference in North America dedicated to this revolutionary capability, this years event will provide insight into the leading nations Active Protection Systems programs, with unique technical briefings on the best ways to integrate APS and the emerging architectures necessary to support it.Experts will also cover exclusive updates on the latest modular technology, hard/soft kill systems, Sensors, threat data management, data processing, countermeasures, munitions, layered and integrated protection systems, architecture service strategies and capability concerns, and more.There is a $200 Early Bird discount for those who register b.y April 30th 2019. Register online atSMi are pleased to have Major General (Retd) John Charlton, Former Commander of the Army Test and Evaluation Center, US Army chairing the two-day event. See his invitation to the conference below:I would like to welcome you to participate in the Future Armored Vehicles: Active Protection Systems USA conference on 11th and 12th June, 2019 in Arlington, Virginia. The focus of the conference is on vehicle protection systems, with special attention given to active protection systems. This two-day program will bring together senior U.S. Army leaders, industry leaders, vehicle protection system experts, and leaders from our multi-national partners. The goal is to provide information on current and future Army programs, new technologies, as well a discussion on current and future threat environments. I can assure you the presentations will be outstanding and the question and answer periods even better.We went into Iraq in 2003 with the finest armored fighting vehicles in the world but, almost immediately, we were faced with new threats that challenged these vehicles. Threats like buried Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), Explosively Formed Projectiles (EFPs), and shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons. We are now seeing near-peer threats that possess new weapon systems that again challenge the protection our vehicles provide. We solved this problem in the past by adding more, and better, armor to our combat vehicles. The down side of that method was that our vehicles became too heavy, less maneuverable and required powertrain upgrades to maintain performance. We now need to look for innovative solutions that keep pace with evolving threats without increasing the weight of our combat vehicles.As you look through our agenda, youll find we have covered every aspect of vehicle protection systems. You will have the opportunity to hear from true subject matter experts and network with colleagues from across the military, defense industry and academia. I look forward to meeting you in June in Arlington, Virginia at this unique forum and am confident you will benefit greatly from attending.Download the event brochure for the full agenda and speaker line-up atGold Sponsor: Leonardo DRS Sponsor: Collins Aerospace, Microflown Avisa, Rheinmetall DefenceFor details on tailored sponsorship and branding packages, please contact Sadia Malick on +44 (0) 20 7827 6740 or email: smalick@smi-online.co.ukFor media enquiries, please contact Natasha Boumediene on email: nboumediene@smi-online.co.uk_______________________________________________About SMi Group:Established since 1993, the SMi Group is a global event-production company that specializes in Business-to-Business Conferences, Workshops, Masterclasses and online Communities. We create and deliver events in the Defence, Security, Energy, Utilities, Finance and Pharmaceutical industries. We pride ourselves on having access to the worlds most forward-thinking opinion leaders and visionaries, allowing us to bring our communities together to Learn, Engage, Share and Network. More information can be found atSMi Group LtdRegistered & Head Office SMi Group Ltd, India House, 45 Curlew Street, London, SE1 2NDContact Natasha Boumediene on nboumediene@smi-online.co.uk Global Matrix Converter Market Share and Status by Players Like Fuji Eletric, Yaskawa, ABB, Mitsubishi Electric, Hitachi Electric, Siemens Electric, Toyo Electric, Samsung and More 2019 - 2025 https://www.researchtrades.com/request-sample/1676627 https://www.researchtrades.com/checkout/1676627 https://www.researchtrades.com/report/global-matrix-converter-market-insights-forecast-to-2025/1676627 www.researchtrades.com The Matrix Converter market was valued at Million US$ in 2018 and is projected to reach Million US$ by 2025, at a CAGR of during the forecast period. In this study, 2018 has been considered as the base year and 2019 to 2025 as the forecast period to estimate the market size for Matrix Converter.Request for sample@This report presents the worldwide Matrix Converter market size (value, production and consumption), splits the breakdown (data status 2014-2019 and forecast to 2025), by manufacturers, region, type and application.This study 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.The following manufacturers are covered in this report: Fuji Eletric, Yaskawa, ABB, Mitsubishi Electric, Hitachi Electric, Siemens Electric, Toyo Electric, Samsung, Hyundai, ARVI Systems & Controls, Bonfiglioli Transmissions, Riello PCI, Emerson Network PowerMatrix Converter Breakdown Data by Type: CMC Matrix Converter, IMC Matrix Converter, Matrix Converter Breakdown Data by Application, General Industrial Machines, Fans or PumpsMatrix Converter Production by Region: United States, Europe, China, Japan, South Korea, Other RegionsBuy Single User Copy of This Report@The study objectives are:To analyze and research the global Matrix Converter status and future forecast?involving, production, revenue, consumption, historical and forecast.To present the key Matrix Converter manufacturers, production, revenue, market share, and recent development.To split the breakdown data by regions, type, manufacturers and applications.To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.To identify significant trends, drivers, influence factors in global and 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 Matrix Converter :History Year: 2014 - 2018Base Year: 2018Estimated Year: 2019Forecast Year: 2019 - 2025Table of Contents1 Study Coverage1.1 Matrix Converter Product1.2 Key Market Segments in This Study1.3 Key Manufacturers Covered1.4 Market by Type1.4.1 Global Matrix Converter Market Size Growth Rate by Type1.4.2 CMC Matrix Converter1.4.3 IMC Matrix Converter1.5 Market by Application1.5.1 Global Matrix Converter Market Size Growth Rate by Application1.5.2 General Industrial Machines1.5.3 Fans or Pumps1.6 Study Objectives1.7 Years Considered2 Executive Summary2.1 Global Matrix Converter Market Size2.1.1 Global Matrix Converter Revenue 2014-20252.1.2 Global Matrix Converter Production 2014-20252.2 Matrix Converter Growth Rate (CAGR) 2019-20252.3 Analysis of Competitive Landscape2.3.1 Manufacturers Market Concentration Ratio (CR5 and HHI)2.3.2 Key Matrix Converter Manufacturers2.3.2.1 Matrix Converter Manufacturing Base Distribution, Headquarters2.3.2.2 Manufacturers Matrix Converter Product Offered2.3.2.3 Date of Manufacturers Enter into Matrix Converter Market2.4 Key Trends for Matrix Converter Markets & Products3 Market Size by Manufacturers3.1 Matrix Converter Production by Manufacturers3.1.1 Matrix Converter Production by Manufacturers3.1.2 Matrix Converter Production Market Share by Manufacturers3.2 Matrix Converter Revenue by Manufacturers3.2.1 Matrix Converter Revenue by Manufacturers (2014-2019)3.2.2 Matrix Converter Revenue Share by Manufacturers (2014-2019)3.3 Matrix Converter Price by Manufacturers3.4 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion PlansComplete Report With TOC@Who we areResearch Trades has a team of experts who is working on a comprehensive analysis of market research. This estimate is based on a comprehensive study of the future and estimates of future estimates, which can be used by various organizations for growth purposes. We distribute customized reports that focus on meeting the customers specific requirement. Our company provides a large collection of high-quality reports obtained by customer-centered approaches, thus providing valuable research insights.Contact Us:Email: sales@researchtrades.comCall us: +1 6269994607 (USA), +91 7507349866 (IND)Web:Skype ID: researchtradescon A woman convicted in the 1990 killing of a traveling portrait photographer in Roseburg died Sunday morning at Coffee Creek Correctional Institution. The Oregon Department of Corrections on Monday said Tammara Upton died in the prisons hospice. She was 55. Upton and Tracey Lee Poirer were convicted of murdering Donald Fish. Fish met the women at a Roseburg tavern and asked them to join him in a game of pool. Afterward, they kidnapped, robbed and beat him to death with rocks and dumped his naked body in the Umpqua River. Fish was killed on the day Poirer was released from prison after serving time for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. The women were celebrating Poirers freedom when they encountered Fish. Both women were convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Eight years later, Poirer escaped from prison with help from Pamela Kay Trimble, a former Coos County sheriffs deputy who had struck up a relationship with Poirer while she was in jail. Poirer broke out windows in her maximum-security cell, ran across the darkened prison yard and crawled through a hole cut in the perimeter fence. Poirer and Trimble were caught a month later in Rhode Island. Poirer, now 57, is serving her sentence out of state as is common for people convicted of high-profile crimes or prison escapes. -- Noelle Crombie 503-276-7184 ncrombie@oregonian.com @noellecrombie Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. A 22-year-old college senior from Portland fell to her death in New York while climbing the stairs of an off-limits campus clock tower in the early hours of Sunday, authorities said. Police said that they were alerted to incident, on the campus of Fordham University in New York City, at about 3:20 a.m., Sunday. Emergency responders arrived to find the woman, Sydney Monfries, lying on the floor of the Keating clock tower with trauma to her head and body. She was taken to a nearby hospital, where she later died. Police said that Monfries and her friends were climbing stairs inside the tower when she fell through an opening on one of the landings. The drop was around 30-40 feet, according to the school and news reports. The newspaper said that climbing the stairs of the clock tower, which is supposed to remain locked on campus, is a "rite of passage" for students who try to touch the bell and take pictures before their graduation. Gina Vergel, a university spokeswoman, told The Washington Post that the door to the clock tower is always locked and that only facilities and public safety staff should be able to access it. She said that the university is investigating how the students were able to get into the building where the clock tower is, which she said was locked. This is the first fall inside the clock tower, she said, noting that the university officials have sometimes given tours of the tower to satisfy students curiosity about it, and reduce the likelihood that they would attempt to enter the structure without authorization. An article in another campus newspaper, The Fordham Ram, quoted many students who said they had attempted to climb the tower. "There was a huge spiral staircase going up, and we couldn't even see the top. Once the door closed behind us, it was pitch black. Halfway up the staircase, there was actually a dark room with only a chair in it so that was pretty scary," one told the newspaper. A dean at the school at the time told the Ram that students were subject to discipline if they were found to have entered the tower. "Whether a student is expelled for such a violation is always a matter of the circumstances. Over the years, a very small number of students have been found in the area, and the circumstances have usually been simple curiosity," the dean, Christopher Rodgers said. "As the clock tower is a rather dangerous, and therefore secured area of campus, students would likely face disciplinary action if they entered it." The school held a mass for Monfries on Sunday night. "There are no words sufficient to describe the loss of someone so young and full of promise - and mere weeks from graduation," the university's president, the Rev. Joseph McShane, wrote in an email to staff and students. The school will award Monfries a posthumous bachelor's degree. Monfries, of Portland, Oregon, was set to graduate in May with a degree in journalism. According to her social media profiles, she had worked as an intern at InStyle magazine and KGW-TV, an NBC affiliate in Portland. Her Facebook page shows her with friends in different scenes around New York City: eating ice cream, hanging on a rooftop, and at the Pride parade. Subscribe to get the Morning Briefing newsletter delivered to your email inbox weekdays at 7 a.m. Today's stories OIL TERMINAL: Oregons largest facilitator of crude oil exports last year defied its agreement with state regulators to show it could control and clean up a major crude spill at its Willamette River terminal in Portland. Read more. COWLITZ COUNTY: A southwest Washington sheriffs deputy was shot shot and killed after responding to a report of a stopped vehicle Sunday, setting off a multiagency manhunt. Read more. MILWAUKIE: A police officer suffered non-life-threatening injuries during an exchange of gunfire late Saturday night, and a 30-year-old man was arrested in connection with the shooting. Read more. PERS PLAN: Gov. Kate Brown rolled out a financially and politically ambitious proposal Friday to rein in increasing public pension costs for schools over the next 15 years. Read more. PROTEST LAWSUIT: A jury declined to award any money to a Portland protester who was 66 years old when a police officer shoved her face into the street and broke her nose while handcuffing her. Read more. MENTAL HEALTH: An advocacy group may sue to ensure criminal defendants in need of mental health treatment have access to hospitals. Read more. BRIDGE BARRIERS: After 5 years with no suicides from the Vista Bridge, Portland is considering installing permanent barriers. Read more. TAX PLAN: Oregon lawmakers are zeroing in on a plan to raise $1 billion a year in business taxes to spend on K-12 education. Read more. Snap of the day Over a million tulips packed into 40 acres are blooming at the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm in Woodburn for the 35th annual Tulip Festival.Mark Graves/Staff See more. More news Report: Foster child gave credible account of caseworkers sexual encounter Portland police: Man arrested after urinating in public, locking self in port-a-potty, punching cop Whats fresh at Portland-area farmers markets in mid-April From IPAs to farmhouse ales, Culmination lives up to its name: Portland breweries series Beverly Cleary, who turns 103, left behind grim Portland during Depression, but city remained in her heart Dear Abby: Stay-at-home mom helps everyone else and has no time for herself Ask Amy: Mom says yes to getting son a dog as shes coming off anesthesia and now she regrets it Carolyn Hax: Your parents horrible divorce does not have to define your breakupFind more at oregonlive.com Todays comics Click here to see today's comics Todays obituaries Click here to find area deaths reported recently Today in history AROUND THE WORLD: In 1452, artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci was born in or near the Tuscan town of Vinci. Oregon child welfare workers described as credible the account by a 14-year-old foster boy that other child welfare workers had sex in front of him last year. According to a state police report obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive, rumors had been circulating that child welfare supervisor Mark Walsh and paralegal Kate Guy were having an affair before the night they spent supervising the boy at a hotel. While interviewing Guy, Detective Casi Hegney-Bach described it as the worst kept secret at the Dallas (Department of Human Services) office. At the same time, another supervisor at the office and the caseworker assigned to the boy described him as a credible source. Walsh and Guy have been on paid leave since Nov. 30, according to public records released last month. In interviews, both Guy and Walsh denied they were having an affair and said they did not have sex in front of the boy when they were caring for on him on Nov. 20. They could not be reached for comment Sunday afternoon. After the state police report was completed, the Oregon Department of Justice declined to file any charges against Walsh and Guy. Senior Assistant Attorney General Kurt Miller wrote on March 15 that there was insufficient evidence to prove criminal charges beyond a reasonable doubt. A lawyer for the boy has notified the state he plans to file a lawsuit over the alleged incident, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported last month. In a tort claim notice, lawyer David L. Kramer accused the state of sending the boy to a juvenile detention facility as punishment after he reported the incident. The allegations highlight Oregons controversial practice of housing children in hotels, state offices and other temporary lodging when state workers cannot find anywhere else for children in the foster system to stay. Oregon is phasing out the practice known as hoteling under a 2018 legal settlement, and Marilyn Jones, Oregons child welfare director, personally signs off each time child welfare workers house children in hotels. However, the agency faces criticism for some of the institutions where it is sending children instead, including residential programs in converted juvenile jails and out-of-state facilities accused of mistreating children. The alleged incident came to light when the boys caseworker, Jaclyn Trujillo, visited him at the Yamhill County juvenile detention center on Nov. 28. It was not clear from the report why the boy was at the detention center. During this conversation (the boy) told Trujillo something happened at the hotel on the night of Nov. 20, but he did not want to disclose what it was, according to the police report. Eventually, the boy told Trujillo that Walsh and Guy were doing stuff. When Trujillo asked if they were having sex, the boy said yes, according to the police report. Trujillo immediately reported the allegation to her supervisors. Walsh and Guy were placed on paid leave two days later. As part of the state police investigation, the boy underwent a child forensic interview at an organization that screens for child abuse. Using dolls, the boy described in detail how the sexual encounter allegedly unfolded in the bed adjacent to his that night at the hotel. When police interviewed Trujillo on Jan. 3, she said she was not surprised at his allegation because it was common knowledge at the child welfare office in Dallas that Walsh and Guy were having an affair. Trujillo told police she believed the boy was telling the truth. Trujillos supervisor, Chad Blackman, told police in a Jan. 8 interview that he also believed the allegations were true and offered examples of what he considered to be inappropriate office behavior by Walsh and Guy, according to the police report. This particular allegation is pretty credible to me, Blackman said, according to the police report. Blackman explained that he had found the boy to be credible in another recent situation that involved a dispute with a foster parent who as behaving erratically. Blackman, who also supervises Guy, said he observed her make an effort to be around Walsh all day, every day. He heard from another previous supervisor that she had observed Guy and Walsh leaving the lactation room a space generally reserved for breastfeeding mothers together and that they were adjusting their clothes. Another employee told Blackman that Guy and Walsh left each other love sticky notes. Blackman also said he offered to take over watching the boy at the hotel around midnight and Walsh declined the offer, which Blackman found odd because supervisors were not paid overtime, according to the police report. Blackman said he did not know Guy was at the hotel. Trujillo told state police she also volunteered to watch the boy at the hotel that night. Asked by state police why Trujillo didnt supervise the boy that night, Walsh said, I dont know. Guy and Walsh each declined to voluntarily turn over their cell records. State police subpoenaed Walsh and Guys cell phone records, but information about those records was redacted from the documents that were released. Two of Walsh and Guys co-workers told police they did not believe the employees were having an affair. When police inquired with program manager Stacy Daeschner about the alleged incident, she told them she had received two previous reports that Walsh and Guy were having an affair and engaging in inappropriate conduct at work or a work-related event. Daeschner reportedly told police that she found both complaints were not substantiated. Daeschner has been on paid leave since Feb. 14. She could not be reached for comment Sunday afternoon. Another caseworker, Arthur Warren, was interviewed by state police after he volunteered through Daeschner to answer questions about Walshs behavior during an April 2018 summit on child abuse. Warren said he shared a hotel room with Walsh and said that contrary to what another child welfare employee claimed, Walsh did not share a hotel room with Guy during the event. Warren also told police he did not think Guy and Walsh were having an affair. Hillary Borrud | hborrud@oregonian.com | 503-294-4034 | @hborrud Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. A Portland woman attending college in New York died Sunday after falling from a university clock tower. The New York Times reports Sydney Monfries, a 22-year-old student at Fordham University, plunged down the inside of a clock and bell tower early Sunday. She was among a group of friends that sneaked into the tower in Keating Hall to see the Bronx under moonlight, according to the Times. She posted a video from the top on Snapchat early Sunday, the newspaper reports. Access to the tower is restricted, a university spokeswoman told the Times. It isnt clear how the group gained access to the tower, but a student told the newspaper that people recently heard the door was open or found a passageway. Fordhams president said in an email to the university community that Monfries would be awarded a posthumous bachelors degree. Our hearts go out to Sydneys parents, and her family and friendstheirs is an unimaginable loss, and we share their grief, he said. Monfries was a senior and had been studying journalism, according to the Times. A Facebook page in her name says shes from Portland and lived in the Bronx, a borough of New York City. She is a 2015 Jesuit High School graduate and worked as an intern at KGW (8) in 2016. -- Jim Ryan; jryan@oregonian.com; 503-221-8005; @Jimryan015 Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic "The King and I" is coming to Midland, including an area actor, Brandon Shan Chu, a junior at Central Michigan University. A touring company will present the play at Midland Center for the Arts this weekend. Considered a musical from the golden age, "The King and I" is loosely based on the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who tutored the wives and children of King Mongkut of Siam (present day Thailand) in the 1860s. In the play, Anna befriends the children, brings the Western world to the king's court and encounters a couple of young lovers. The musical premiered in 1951 on Broadway and has gone through several revivals, the latest in 2015. Chu explained how audiences of all ages will enjoy well-known songs as well as the banter between Anna and the king. "There are so many things that people can look forward to," Chu stated in a recent phone interview. Originally from Grand Rapids, Chu is pursuing a bachelor of fine arts in music theater performance at CMU; he credits his voice professor, Eric Tucker, for his teaching and mentoring. Chu was familiar with "The King and I" and was eager to be a part of the musical. Last summer he submitted a video to the show's casting directors just for consideration. They contacted Chu last month, informing him that they were holding auditions in New York. He flew out the next day to audition and landed the part of Lun Tha, whose lover is married off by the King of Burma to King Mongkut. "He's a very hopeful guy," Chu commented. In the past month Chu has traveled across the Midwest and eastern United States with the troupe, from Kansas and Missouri to Indiana and Virginia. Although he joined four months into the tour, the cast and crew welcomed him like family. "It's been a wild ride, but it's been so much fun. I'm so blessed to do this with them." Chu's last performance with "The King and I" will be in New Haven, Connecticut, in May, after which he'll return to CMU to complete his studies. However, he is open to the prospect of auditioning for more touring productions in the future. "The best experience you have as a performer is doing," he said. "The King and I" will perform at 7:30 p.m. this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, as well as 2 p.m. Saturday, at MCFTA, 1801 W. St. Andrews Road. Tickets are available at mcfta.org or by calling the Ticket Office at 989-631-8250. Having now shared two car rides with the 45th president of the United States, the representative of Michigan's 4th Congressional District said he has gained a deeper understanding and appreciation for the man holding the reins of the country's government. John Moolenaar, R-Midland, most recently rode with President Donald Trump in the specialized presidential Cadillac -- nicknamed "The Beast" -- on his way to a March 28 rally in Grand Rapids. "The car itself is very conducive to meeting," Moolenaar said. "It's well-armored, but very quiet, and you're able to look out and see people along the route." The two were joined in the roughly 30-minute car ride from Gerald R. Ford International Airport to Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids by representatives Bill Huizenga, R-Zeeland, and Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet. The group discussed the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which aims to keep Michigan's Great Lakes clean and combat the spread of invasive species such as Asian carp, zebra mussels and sea lamprey. Both Trump and 44th president Barack Obama had previously proposed reductions in funding for the project, though Moolenaar said after their conversation during the car ride, Trump came around to embracing a restoration of funding to the program. Speaking in front of the packed audience of Van Andel Arena, Trump announced his plans to restore more than $300 million to go toward funding the initiative. The arrangement of the four-seats in the passenger area of "The Beast" allow for a "roundtable" type of discussion, Moolenaar recalled. Moolenaar said he found Trump to be a "very good listener" when it came to discussing the issues facing Michigan. Moolenaar had previously ridden with Trump, along with Bergman and Rep. Paul Mitchell, R-Dryden, last April while heading to a rally in Washington Township on the eastern side of the state. During that ride, the trio expressed the importance of improving the condition of the Soo Locks, specifically the Poe Lock -- which larger freighters pass through -- which has not received an update in about 50 years. Moolenaar cites a study by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security which called the possibility of the Poe Lock going down for a significant period of time an "Achilles heel" of the North American industrial economy. During the following rally, Moolenaar said Trump took their conversation to heart and put his support behind improvements to the Soo Locks. "Since that time, we've had tremendous cooperation form the (U.S.) Army Corps of Engineers," Moolenaar said. "The president has requested $75 million in the budget for this year to begin the planning and development of a new lock. The State of Michigan has put over $50 million towards the project as well -- we're making significant progress, something that hasn't happened in the past 30 years." Trump started both conversations with a discussion on things his administration is doing that affect the nation at large, Moolenaar said, before opening the discussion to issues affecting the state of Michigan. "(Trump) has the ability to carry a conversation both in private and in public," Moolenaar said. "He's got a very good sense of humor, he's got a very quick mind, but in private he took the time to listen to each one of us to gain our perspective on what is important in our districts, what is important to the state -- a combination of policy and politics. "I was impressed by how well tuned-in he was to the issues as we discussed them." The next principal of Midland High School is moving to Midland from Texas, but she will be "coming home" to a community where she has deep roots. Tracy Speaker-Gerstheimer, currently principal of Northwest Early College High School in Canutillo, Texas (in the El Paso area), will begin her new duties July 1. She replaces Jeff Jaster, who is being promoted to an associate superintendent position with Midland Public Schools. In a phone interview Thursday, Speaker-Gerstheimer noted that as an educator, she has never been able to say she has a nephew or niece in her school or a cousin who works in the same school system. "I'm looking forward to having that kind of connection with the community," she said. She grew up in the Midland area - her father was a Midland High School graduate and her mother was an H.H. Dow High School grad - and she graduated from Meridian High School. Speaker-Gerstheimer has bachelor's and master's degrees from Michigan State University, and she met her husband at MSU. "I am so much a Michigander," she said. "There are things about the Midwest that stand out. It will be interesting to be back in my home again." While Speaker-Gerstheimer has family in the area, including her mother, two grandmothers, several aunts and uncles and many cousins, a top priority when she arrives at Midland High will be getting to know the people at the school. "My main focus for when I come will be building relationships with the students, the parents, the teachers, the community," she said. Among the ways she has gotten to know the 400 students at Northwest Early College High School is taking the yearbook home at night and memorizing students' names and activities, allowing her to call students by name and making connections. "I'm very focused on students on trying to ensure that teachers have what they need to do the best possible job they can in their classrooms." Speaker-Gerstheimer said a key priority in her approach to education is letting students shine. "I really believe that we need to give students a chance to show what they can do," she said. "I believe we need to provide students with lots of different opportunities to find something that's meaningful to them." She is currently in her fifth year at her current school which, when she arrived, "hadn't made adequate yearly progress for math." "I had a wonderful team of teachers. We knew we had the capacity to do much more," she said. "We asked, 'What are the skills the students bring in? What are they lacking? What can we do to fill the gaps?'" After much effort and considerable trial and error, "this past year, we won the Blue Ribbon from the U.S. Department of Education," she said. "We went from begging people to come (to attend the school) to having not enough space to accommodate those who have an interest in coming." The keys to improvement, she said, are "making use of the strengths people have" and "making use of the data that you have." The National Blue Ribbon Schools Program recognizes schools "based on their overall academic excellence or their progress in closing achievement gaps among student subgroups," according to the U.S. Department of Education website. Chestnut Hill Elementary School received the honor in 2015. For Speaker-Gerstheimer, being an educator is "a calling." "I'm the first person in my family to go to college," she said. "Where I am (in El Paso), a student may be the first person in his or her family to graduate from high school. They may never have traveled out of the El Paso area. "Some of the simplest things can really impact a student's life," she said. She brings an enthusiasm to education that she believes can have a positive impact. "A person's attitude about their work can be contagious." In an email, MPS Superintendent Michael Sharrow said Speaker-Gerstheimer "has a proven track record as an academic and instructional leader who is highly respected by all who have worked with her. I am confident Tracy will lead Midland High to even more prestigious levels of student achievement." "We announce the cancellation of the curfew and release of all people tried by the emergency law," said Al-Burhan in a statement aired live on official Sudan TV. He also declared the dismissal of all states' military governors and the assignment of the commanders of the military areas in the states to run the work. The chairman voiced commitment to forming a two-year transitional civilian government to run the affairs of the country. The civilian government will be formed in consultation with the Sudanese parties, he explained. Notably, he promised to restructure the government institutions and dismantle all aspects based on partisan quotas. All who prove to be involved in bloodshed will be held accountable, Al-Burhan said, vowing to maintain security and remove all barriers to free work. Al-Burhan was appointed on April 12 as the new chairman of the military council to succeed Awad Mohamed Ahmed Ibn Auf who announced his resignation the same day. Louie Domerese on the opening of Louie's Leatherworks & Shoe Repair in Midland. The cast and crew of Midland High Drama Club's production of "Newsies." Tracy Speaker-Gerstheimer, who was appointed as Midland High School's new principal. Max Bain of Northwood University, who was named the NCBWA Division II National Pitcher of the Week. Members of the Midland Figure Skating Club who placed in the 45th annual Van Camp Invitational and the Michigan Showcase. Joe Lancaster on the opening of his establishment, Eighteen Taps LLC in Beaverton. Shirley Altenburg, who celebrated her 90th birthday. Terry and Jamie Smith, who celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. Gary and Laurie Agin, who celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Im steadily making a dent in the sample pile at the moment, after getting massively behind after my little one was born. Shes 8 weeks old now (and beautiful, in my completely unbiased opinion), so things have settled down a bit more. Kinda. Anyway, lets talk Pinot. Were now at a high point in the history of Australian Pinot Noir, no doubt, with wines better than ever before. And for mine, a big part of the reason is that enough vines have been planted in the right place, with the right clones (and tended the right way), for long enough to produce great wines. Indeed whats often forgotten is that much of the plantings of Pinot Noir are recent, so vine age has been a key component missing from the Australian Pinot quality equation. Theres a smattering of old vines in the Hunter, Yarra and parts of Victoria (hello ancient Bests plantings), but otherwise Pinot has only been big in the last 25 years. I did some digging (though stats are convoluted and spread across Wine Australia, the ABS for starters) and it appears plantings of Pinot Noir in Australia went from 1,407ha in 1996 to 4,804ha in 2016, or an increase of 3.41 times. Thats notable because the national vineyard plantings for all winegrapes over the same period went from 63,132ha to 135,177 (or 2.14 times larger). Even with my suspect maths, you can see that Pinot Noir has enjoyed a planting boom (and by extension, a popularity boom). Further, recent work with clones, planting density (a quality article by Max Allen on Jancis site on vine spacing) and canopy management (leaf plucking, trellising et al) has just served to push Pinot quality even further. Want evidence? Heres three Australian wines that have impressed me lately: Montalto Red Hill Block Pinot Noir 2016 Simon Black at Montalto continues his streak of quality wines, even in the tricky, dry 2016 vintage. As the name suggests, this is from the Red Hill vineyard (drr Andrew, its in the title). Lovely, juicy raspberry shaped Pinot with low acidity and slurpable raspberry fruit. Perhaps a little syrupy and the tannins then kick in firmly (dry year tannins), but the power and sense of generosity contained is bang on. High quality. Best drinking: Now to five years. 18.5/20, 94/100. 13.8%, $65. Would I buy it? Well worth a bottle. Soumah U. Ngumby Pinot Noir 2017 From a vineyard in the upper reaches of Yarra Glen, and shows the beauty of 2017 Pinot from a maker in a vein of form. Gentle glace raspberry fruits, a lovely juicy palate in a generous mode. Its packed with pinosity and the buxom, perfectly ripe and lively palate is just very inviting. So likeable. Best drinking: Now to five years too. 18/20 93/100. 13.25%, $38. Would I buy it? Yes. Harewood Estate Denmark Pinot Noir 2018 Now this was a real surprise. Long time readers will know that Im not a fan traditionally of Great Southern Pinot, so I didnt expect much here. But gee its an immediately appealing red. Ripe red cherry a go go. Its a riot of red glace raspberry fruit. Really fun! Even comes with some buzzy acidity too. This is such open, red fruited Pinot. Even has real tannins. Great buy! Best drinking: Over the next 3 years. 17.7/20, 92/100. 14%, $20. Would I buy it? A bottle is $20 well spent. This isnt Australian, I realise that. But the quality is so high that it deserves inclusion here. Nautilus Clay Hills Vineyard Pinot Noir 2015 Nautilus, like many others have embraced the southern clay hillsides for Marlborough Pinot, with this red sourced from a vineyard in the Southern Valleys sub region. Although four years old you wouldnt pick it as this is bright ruby red, the glossy fruit sitting beautifully, the barest hint of gamey, sappy flavours in a torrent of red fruit. This just pulsates Marlborough Pinot fleshiness, but with deeper, dark overtones, with depths below the surface to keep you enthralled. It built on me slowly this red, and every sip I found myself thinking this is so convincing in its concentration. Best drinking: Now and up to five years. 18.5/20, 94/100. 13.5%, $58. Would I buy it? I definitely would. A style Id happily drink. HELP KEEP THIS SITE FREE Rather than using a paywall or bombarding you with ads I simply ask for a small donation via the Paypal link below. Any amount welcome, it all helps keep this site free. Ad: GET A $20 VOUCHER TO SPEND ON WINE Now at The Wine Collective Ad:Now at The Wine Collective Share this: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Email WhatsApp Reddit Print Paducah, KY (42003) Today Rain. Thunder possible. Morning high of 66F with temps falling to near 50. SW winds shifting to NNW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%.. Tonight Mainly cloudy. Low 42F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. Rome, Italy (PANA) Italy has offered to be involved in a dialogue with all Libyan actors involved in the raging conflict until they reach a political solution, said the Italian minister of Defence, Elisabetta Trenta Bamako, Mali (PANA) - A total of 92 cases, most of them crimes (murders, patricides, infanticides), will be tried during the first session of the Assize Court, which opened on Monday at the Bamako Court of Appeal, a judicial source said PANA Over the weekend, Bernie Sanders fired a salvo at the Center for American Progress, Washington D.C.s largest liberal think tank. Per Sanders: Dear members of the Board of the Center for American Progress and CAP Action Fund, I write to express my deep concern and disappointment with the destructive role that the Center for American Progress and its affiliated Action Fund arm are playing in the critical mission to defeat Donald Trump. Last week, you published an article on ThinkProgress criticizing me for my appearance and for the income I earned from writing a book. Then, a day later, you published a video that dishonestly attacked me for hypocrisy in my effort to address income inequality in America a video that was excitedly discussed on many conservative websites. Here is the video from ThinkProgress that really started this whole mess (ThinkProgress is theoretically editorially independent, but they are owned by CAP). Thats a fairly harmless video, but it is a cheap shot. The implication throughout that whole thing is that Bernie has changed his politics after becoming a millionaire, but there is absolutely no evidence in his actual platform that things have changed since writing a best-selling book. Its simply a change in rhetoric, likely stemming from the fact that he is a millionaire and politically, ranting about millionaires would open him up to more attacks (theoretically far more substantive than this one). This is a pretty innocuous change in political strategy, but because there is a lot of anger in the Democratic Party, it has sparked a long-simmering battle that we need to have. Now, many current ThinkProgress employees will tell you that they secured their independence from CAP in their latest union contract, but plenty of former employees have stories suggesting otherwise. Benjamin Armbuster was the national security news editor from 2011 to 2014, and he said that Neera Tanden, head of CAP, and other senior staffers overruled ThinkProgress editorial independence in saying that Benjamin Netanyahus name was not to appear in any stories I wrote or edited. 2016 e-mails released by Wikileaks revealed that Tanden vigorously interjected in ThinkProgress election coverage, proving that while ThinkProgress does have editorial independence, Tanden and other senior folks at CAP will not hesitate to try to inject their agenda into ThinkProgressand this is the establishment mindset us leftists have been highlighting as part of the central problem in America. The party of the little guy sold him out in order to pledge fealty to the global financial elite, and that influence is laundered through organizations like CAP (it should be noted that CAP does a lot of good work, and they are far from a monoliththis is a critique of senior leadership at CAP like Tanden and these D.C. swamp folks below). CAP-AF board member Hilary Rosen is a partner at SKDKnick. SKDKnick helped junk food companies lobby against Michelle Obamas school nutrition standards, managed a massive lobby campaign to cut corp taxes, helped TransCanada build support for the Keystone XL pipeline. Lee Fang (@lhfang) April 14, 2019 CAP fellow Rudy deLeon earns over $300k a year as a board member to General Dynamics, one of the largest arms contractors in the world. deLeon regularly publishes pieces for CAP supporting strengthened security ties to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, all clients of GD. pic.twitter.com/TpVeksOO9Y Lee Fang (@lhfang) April 14, 2019 This pushback is long overdue, and it really isn't about that stupid video. That stupid video is simply an entry point into the larger fight over who should control institutions like CAP, and how much say they should have in a party shifting its focus away from the upper end of the economic spectrum and towards the lower end. Neera Tanden will tell you that those working on the nitty gritty details of policy are the heart and soul of CAP, but that thread by Lee Fang above proves that elite financial interests have immense sway over this liberal organization. Thanks to the efforts of these establishment folks, CAP has become a symbol for the Democratic Party's abject failure over the last 40 years. But in very on-brand Bernie fashion, his righteous crusade contained some serious unforced errors. He also claimed that ThinkProgress unfairly went after Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren in articles that were 100% fair. In fact, the woman who wrote the article critiquing Warren's DNA test is a Bernie supporter. Since I have spoken out against @ewarren, I've been called a Russian bot, a right wing troll, and a tool of Trump. And now, I've been called a pawn of the Democratic establishment. I am none of these things. I am Cherokee woman with a truth ppl on the Left don't want to hear. Rebecca Nagle (@rebeccanagle) April 14, 2019 But if u read my words "Native Americans live in the space btwn Trump and Warren, btwn the stereotypes that were created to excuse the wholesale slaughter of our people and the stereotypes that were created to excuse the wholesale appropriation of our identity and cultures." Rebecca Nagle (@rebeccanagle) April 14, 2019 Bernie likely included Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren in his letter because he wanted to make it look like he is defending progressivism from CAP, and not just himself, but the notion that Cory Booker is progressive is objectively hilarious. Booker's votes prove that he is part of the insurance company and Wall Street-backed establishment that so many progressives spend their days fighting against. The narrative put forth by Bernie is fairly incoherent, and I am not the only leftist who believes this. I suspect this has more to do with the fact that the campaign is staffed with people who are just as online as me, and they are settling grudges, which I personally find extremely relatable. But there was nothing wrong with half the TP article cited by Bernie. It was a misfire. Sam Sacks (@SamSacks) April 15, 2019 This is a gigantic mess with varying degrees of mistakes on behalf of everyone involved, but thats OK. We need this fight. The Democratic Party is currently undergoing a massive change for the better, and a battle over major capitals influence at key liberal organizations like CAP is the first step in addressing the Democratic Partys inherent shortcomings. While Bernie is leading the charge against the establishment and deserves a ton of credit for his leadership on that front, the 29-year congressman is not immune to the ills of the last 40 years of the Democratic Party. Including Warren and Booker in his letter is emblematic of a party who assumes to speak for everyone before actually speaking to anyone. Charging ThinkProgresswhich on the whole, is a staunchly liberal/sometimes leftist outletwith being wrapped up in some massive CAP conspiracy is a reflection of the destructiveyet legitimateparanoia that has plagued leftists for more than the last 40 years. This mindset certainly has a hand in the lack of power that progressives have in government (that said, the primary reason is clearly thanks to major capital freezing progressive priorities out of the party). Politics is about building coalitions to pass laws that make lives better. While there is clearly a concerted effort at the highest levels of CAP to continue the Democratic Partys fealty to major capital and endless war, smearing the entirety of CAP and ThinkProgress is counter-productive to Bernies righteous crusade against a wholly inadequate Democratic establishment. He has tons of allies at both institutions (his speechwriter, David Sirota, worked at CAP and created a newsletter that would go on to become ThinkProgress), and this far too generic broadside is sure to cut into his support at these very important liberal outlets. All of us have a hand in this massive failure that is 2019 America, and once we put all our grievances on the table, the next step in this fight is to accept the varying degrees of personal responsibility that every liberal has in the creation of President Donald J. Trump, and work to rectify our mistakes to help build a future that most liberals agree on. Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling. For generations, Ireland has been spat upon by other countries. The Emerald Isle has been relentlessly invaded, persecuted and caricatured throughout history, so its no surprise the Irish have an us-against-the world complex. Enter Irish rock band Fontaines D.C., who proudly bear the Dublin City initials at the end of their name and capture the real-life implications of the capitalist rat race on Irish people and culture. The young five-piece were one of the buzziest bands at this years SXSW, and their debut album, Dogrel, is out now on Partisan Records. Were reflecting [Ireland] in a way that it pains us to see, explains frontman Grian Chatten. Were proud to be Irish in a sense. It feels nice because Ireland is such a historically underdog country. It feels nice to wear our Irishness on our sleeves because its a voice thats been shouted over for hundreds and hundreds of years. Post-punk is all the rage when it comes to on-the-rise bands from the other side of the Atlantic. Last year, you couldnt swing a virtual dead cat without hitting an article about Londons Shame or Bristols Idlestwo bands known for their ferocious live performances, playfully self-effacing lyrics and stout, melodic guitars. Fontaines D.C. have been loosely lumped in with both bands, having toured with them and generated similar levels of hype. Though a passive listener might dub Fontaines D.C. the next members of this bright and shiny post-punk scene, a more thoughtful survey of their work arguably uncovers more differences than similarities with their British counterparts. Grian Chattens speak-sing delivery in a distinct Dublin tongue is one thing that sets them apart. His droney recitations never reach the kind of gravelly howl youd associate with Shame or Idles, but his voice is no less expressive. You cant miss those Irish rolled Rs when Chatten sings, slick little boy with a mind of Ritz on their snappy lead track Big. Chatten proclaims amidst lashing cymbals and a hopping bass line, Dublin in the rain is mine / A pregnant city with a Catholic mind. Despite piling onto the common criticisms of Ireland, their brutal realism comes from authentic personal experience and a desire to hold a mirror to their homelands face and empower it. Though with descriptions like a cabbie [pissing] on the wheel of his own car, the breeze in the night time [that] would kill you stone dead or that violent how do you do, Fontaines D.C. likely wont receive any job offers from the Irish tourism board any time soon. Were from the Liberties, Chatten says. Its relatively rough, but its not as bad as it used to be. Its kind of at the edge of the gentrification strip. Its been surrounded by a dying culture thats really potent inspiration. Theres a harshness as well. Theres drug use. At the same time, everybodys so friendly. Its a combination of friendliness and harshness thats really inspiring. The five band members met in Dublin at college a few years ago and bonded over a shared love of poetry. They began writing together in the local pubs, a practice that continues to fuel the bands spirit. People tend to believe the things they wish they could believe when theyre at a pub and drunk on the notion of romance, Chatten says. I use the themes that different people in Dublin bring to me. People who carry things with them. People carry stories just in the way they speak. When you overhear a conversation with that sort of emotion, its an invitation as a writer to feel something. Their debut album title, Dogrel, refers to a form of verse that has been historically looked down upon for being too crude, humorous and low-brow. Fontaines D.C. join a storied lineage of Irish writers who know better than to over-intellectualize and carry themselves with elitismthey prefer to speak both like the people and for the people. But thats not to say they dont have a way with words. Their tantalizing, picturesque descriptions couldnt come from just any man yelling on a street corner, but their whip-smart, affecting lines would likely win over that same crazed man. They mention The Pogues and Dubliners by James Joyce as points of inspiration, and their naturalistic blarney has clearly rubbed off on the young group. Before the band fell in love with Joyce and other Irish writers like W.B. Yeats and Patrick Kavanagh, they were drawn to the Beat Generation. Ive been reading poetry since I was 10-years-old, Chatten says. But it wasnt until I was 15 or 16 that I started writing my own stuff and that was influenced by the Beats. That makes a lot of sense when you think about it because the Beats were great advocates of unfiltered self-expression. That philosophy encouraged me to accept my own writing. Once I felt like I was good enough, I allowed myself to be influenced by people that I really love now like Yeats and Keats and James Joyce. Though Fontaines D.C. have been thrown into the post-punk framework thanks to their droll vocals and occasional fits of spiky guitars, they are by no means a musical monolith. Liberty Belle is a straight-up surf rock cut with reverb-drenched guitars and saccharine backing vocals, Boys in the Better Land revolves around a swiftly-plucked garage rock riff and songs like Roys Tune and Dublin City Sky are the kind of tender-hearted ballads destined for the closing time blues. The sinister, unhinged slide guitar licks that open Too Real prove theyve got a few tricks up their sleeves, and the songs refrain (Is it too real for ya?) is indicative of their brazen-faced wit. They stitch together a wide array of influences ranging from classic garage rock bands, an Irish noise group called Girl Band and Britpop bands who painted gritty portraits of their own respective hometowns. The Libertines are very London and theyre very obviously influenced by English literature as well, Chatten says. I think were similar in that sense. Oasis are obviously very Manchester. I think Im attracted to the power of Oasis. Im interested in the idea of harnessing that power and pulling it into something a little more honed in, a little more literary and self-expressive. Oasis talked about we. We talk about I but its never really me that Im talking about. Its someone I identify with. Dogrel encapsulates the hope and entrapment that anyone with at least an ounce of awareness feelsand particularly millennials who have their whole lives ahead of them, but have to live in a world built by previous generations who ran amok without any consideration of consequences. Thats where the bands authenticity comes in. On Too Real, they sing, None can pull the passion loose from youths ungrateful hands, and you cant help but believe them because they believe in themselves. Theres a charming intensity to Chatten. When I ask about the source of the bands self-belief, Chatten quips in an endearing, low grumble, You reckon we have self-belief, do you? Theres also something about an Irish band shouting Sha, Sha, Sha for a chorus that just makes you want to pound a military drum or punch the brisk Irish air. If Im struggling with the emotion while I sing the song, then I know its because I feel it, you know? Chatten says. Every time I look at a river at the golden hour, my entire body feels like its melting or something. I get goosebumps all over my body. And thats what happens when you come face to face with the truth and thats what happens when we play our tunes that we believe in. When Fontaines D.C. perform, you dont get the feeling that the floor is going to cave inthe stage floor anyway. The band doesnt thrash around or dive into the crowd. When Chatten performs, theres a level of seriousness and effortless magnetism that you wouldnt get from a frontman more prone to confrontation. Though hes not outwardly rambunctious, hes not completely motionless either. Hes anxiously moving in some slight capacity at all timeseven if its scratching his head or meandering around in a wired state. The groups appearance at SXSW last month drew crowds so large that many were forced to peer through venue windows or listen from the streets. Fontaines D.C. had only been to America once before to record a session for KEXP, so they werent exactly expecting hordes of people clamoring to get inside Austin, Texas venues, packed like sardines. Chatten was expecting sparse crowds of industry people with notepads, but after playing nine shows in five days, he says the adrenaline was highly addictive and invited an alien energy. It was crazy, Chatten says. We come over to America and were playing to actual crowds and people who know our lyrics and stuff, which I find mental. But Im very happy about that because America is a place Ive always wanted to understand and have more of a connection with. Dogrel mourns the loss of culture in urban cities, where independent venues fight to stay open, artists struggle to make a living and gentrification continues to displace people and wash away the old-world charm of yesteryear. Cultural discourse that once relied on word of mouth at the regular haunts has now largely relocated to social mediabreeding grounds for isolation, superficiality, anxiety and reductive conversations about topics worth a lifetime of study. Its hard to imagine another cultural renaissance unless something drastically changes in socioeconomic and political realms. If romance in the city is dying, where does that leave a rock band in 2019? With Fontaines interest in the Beats, Bob Dylan and 60s garage rock, I asked Chatten if they wish their band could exist in a previous decade. No, actually, Chatten replies. Interestingly enough, I like the challenge of it now. I like trying to find how it can be relevant and discover how to make music that affects people. Like their resilient country, Fontaines D.C. fancy themselves in a David and Goliath scenario, and thats one reason listeners find them so compelling. Their music video for Big sums up their sky-is-the-limit outlook as it follows a young Irish boy named Finn McGinnis (whom Chatten used to babysit and calls both a funny lad and a bit of a genius) roaming the streets and miming the lines, My childhood was small / But Im gonna be big! Fontaines D.C. dont mind being thrown to the lions if its in the spirit of a good, old-fashioned challenge, and they might even throw some money on their chances. Another test they relish is their live show, but Chattens perspective on that arena might surprise people. I dont really like having wild crowds, Chatten says. When we play Poland and places like that, it gets crazy and I think part of the reason Im not mad on that is because it feels a bit too easy or something. Theres no winning over at all. The crowds are hardly even listening. The crowds are just there and they know all the tunes already and they just want to use the shows to blow off their own steam. I like a crowd that watches and listens but also a bit of moving as well. After ditching his rotten job at a hotel breakfast buffet and finding a true passion in self-expressive writing and rock music, Chatten isnt looking back and neither are the other steadfast members of Fontaines D.C. They arent naive to the grind thats required of a touring band in 2019, but theres something pure about their desire to experience everything as passionately as possible. And whats stopping them from pursuing their dream? Theyre Irish for Christs sake. Dogrel is out now via Partisan Records. Catch them on tour with Idles in North America in May. Click here for their full tour slate. More than 330 million people visited the 418 units of the National Park Service last year. Familiar names like Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Blue Ridge Parkway and Lincoln Memorial each snag millions of visitors each year. But also tucked into the nooks and crannies of the system are places like Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial in Philadelphia. The tiny site, which at just 0.2 acres in size is also the smallest unit in the NPS system, saw just 2,077 visitors last year. It was the eighth least visited site in the system. The white-shuttered brick house along Pine Street was the home of Visit the house where wounded Polish freedom fighter Andrzej Tadeusz Bonaventura Kosciuszko (1746-1817), more commonly known as Thaddeus Kosciuszko, lived and received notable visitors like Chief Little Turtle and Thomas Jefferson. Kosciuszko was a Polish general, military engineer and revolutionary. He fought in the American Revolutionary War, as well as an uprising in his home country. He was known for his bravery, kindness, patriotism, likeability and unwavering strength of character. Late in August 1776, Kosciuszko stepped off a ship and onto the docks in Philadelphia. After making the acquaintance of Benjamin Franklin and proving his worth by designing blockades and fortresses along the Delaware River, he was given the rank of colonel by Congress in October 1776. In December, he designed Fort Mercer in Red Bank, New Jersey. In the summer of 1777, he ordered the troops retreating from Ticonderoga to delay the British by felling trees and moving boulders onto the path, as well as diverting and damming streams to turn the woodland path into a swamp. In the autumn of 1777. His structures and use of topography contributed to the American victory at Saratoga. Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve in Alaska was the least visited NPS site last year. Just 100 people visited Aniakchak, one of the most remote and wildest places in the NPS system. Unknown to anyone other than native people in the region until the 1920s, it is located in the volcanically active Ring of Fire, and is home to a 6-mile-wide, 2,500-foot-deep caldera formed during a massive volcanic eruption 3,500 years ago. The second least visited site, the Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site in Washington, D.C., saw 109 visitors last year. The Council House was the first headquarters of the National Council of Negro Women and was Bethunes last home in Washington, DC. From there, Bethune and the NCNW spearheaded strategies and developed programs that advanced the interests of African American women. The third least visited site of 2018, Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River, Texas, would not make the least-visited list if considered as a whole, but the wild-and-scenic section of 196 miles was visited by just 330 people last year. They witnessed some of the more remote vistas in the Chihuahuan Desert. No. 4 on the list, the Clara Barton National Historic Site in Maryland was visited by 425 people in 2018. Barton, who spent the Civil War tending to wounded soldiers close to the battlefield, founded the American Red Cross in 1881 and served as its president until 1904. Her house in the Washington suburb of Glen Echo, Maryland, was the early headquarters for the organization. The Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Monument near San Francisco, California, with 653 visitors in 2018, was the fifth least visited site in the NPS system last year. On the evening of July 17, 1944, residents in the San Francisco east bay area were jolted awake by a massive explosion that cracked windows and lit up the night sky. At Port Chicago Naval Magazine, 320 men were instantly killed when two ships being loaded with ammunition for the Pacific theater troops blew up. It was World War II's worst home front disaster. The sixth least visited site last year was Alaskas Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, where just 1,272 visitors ventured in 2018. Located in Interior Alaska, Yukon-Charley Rivers offers exploration in a largely untouched landscape. Access to the preserve is limited to water or air travel during the summer season and air or various means of adventurous options (including snowmachines) during the harsh winter months. The Carter G. Woodson Home National Historic Site in Washington, D.C., was the seventh least visited site in 2018, with just 1,954 visitors. Before Woodson, there was very little accurate written history about the lives and experiences of African Americans. The home served as the headquarters for the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, and Woodson established Negro History Week there in 1926, which we celebrate today as Black History Month. The Royal Mail Steamer Titanic was one of three large ships built by the White Star Line during a time of intense competition among shipping lines, according to history.com. Construction of the lavish ship with 10 decks and 840 staterooms took two years from 1909 to 1911. It was constructed at a shipyard in Belfast, Ireland. A list of first class passengers for the RMS Titanic is displayed during a press preview June 22, 2007, for the Christie's New York Ocean Liner sale. Eighteen of the items for sale are related to the ill-fated ship RMS Titanic. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images)AFP/Getty Images At the time, it was the largest passenger steamship ever built. According to history.com, the ship had 29 boilers to power two main steam engines. More than 100,000 people turned out to see it launched. Titanic had a capacity of 3,300 people. Mayday communications from the RSS Titanic hang on display at the opening of the "Titanic at 100: Myth and Memory" exhibition on April 10, 2012, in New York City. The exhibit opened at the Melville Gallery, part of the South Street Seaport Museum, on the 100th anniversary of Titanic's launch on her maiden - and only - voyage. The exhibition features mayday communications from the ship, personal artifacts from survivors, production items from Titanic films and interactive multimedia tours through the ship.(Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)Getty Images Titanics maiden voyage created a stir. Passengers included celebrities and dignitaries. First-class passengers included American millionaires Benjamin Gugghenheim, John Jacob Astor and Charles M. Hays. Astor and his wife, Madeleine, 18, were returning home to await the birth of their child. He was the wealthiest passenger on board. Also on board were the owner of Macys, Isidor Straus and his wife; and heiress Margaret Molly Brown. According to history.com, Brown would earn her unsinkable nickname by helping to maintain calm and order while the lifeboats were being loaded and boosting the spirits of her fellow survivors. Gugghenheim and John Astor did not survive. A Marconi message (radio message log) from the Titanic to the Olympic ship is on display at Bonhams auction house in New York, April 12, 2012. Bonhams is scheduled to hold on April 15, 2012 an auction called "R.M.S. Titanic: 100 years of fact and fiction", featuring artifacts from the Titanic, documents related to the sinking of the ship, various memorabilias and Titanic-related movie props. (Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images)AFP/Getty Images The ship left from Southampton, England, on April 10, 1912, bound for New York. There were 2,240 people - including passengers and crew - on board. More than half of the passengers, 1,680 were men. One person who had a ticket but was not onboard was Milton S. Hershey.Hershey bought the ticket for $300 but left England on the German liner Amerika on April 6 and arrived in New York before Titanic set sail. People are gathered in front of the The New York Sun's building on Broadway, reading the bulletin board with latest news about the Titanic, in April 1912. (AP Photo)ASSOCIATED PRESS Passengers did include Pennsylvanians from Philadelphia, Germantown, Bryn Mawr, Pittsburgh, Haverford and Scranton. Around 11:40 p.m. April 14, Titanic hit an iceberg. A lookout had spotted the iceberg and the crew attempted to move the ship quickly. Titanic grazed the iceberg but a jagged, underwater spur that no one had seen ripped a 300-foot hole below the ship's waterline. By the time the captain toured the damaged area . Five compartments were already filling with seawater, and the bow of the doomed ship was alarmingly pitched downward, allowing seawater to pour from one bulkhead into the neighboring compartment. Survivors of the Titanic disaster in a crowded lifeboat. (Photo by General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)Getty Images The ships builder, Thomas Andrews, was on board and determined that the ship would be able to stay afloat only for another hour and a half. The crew attempted to evacuate Titanic. The number of lifeboats on board could only accommodate 1,178 people but as they were floated, they were not filled to capacity. Each lifeboat could hold 65 people but many left with less than half of that. Survivors of the RMS Titanic come in to land on the Duchess of York at Plymouth, England, April 1912. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)Getty Images Titanic snapped in two and sank around 2:20 a.m. on April 15 in the North Atlantic Ocean about 300 miles south of Newfoundland. Passengers were dumped into the frigid water - many dying from cardiac arrest and cold incapacitation. Eva Hart, age 7, center, is pictured with her parents, Benjamin, left and Esther Hart, in this 1912 photo. The family was aboard the British liner Titanic when it struck an iceberg and sank. Eva and her mother survived; Benjamin did not. (AP Photo/Press Association)AP The Carpathia, which was headed toward Titanic after receiving a distress call, rescued 705 people from the lifeboats. The wreckage was not discovered until Sept. 1, 1985. When your cellphone rings, its quite likely to be someone you dont (or shouldnt) want to talk to. Nearly half of all mobile phone calls this year are expected to come from scammers. Robocalls automated telephone calls that may or may not be legitimate are climbing. Americans received nearly 5 billion robocalls in February, way up from 2 billion a year ago, according to the YouMail app. Scammers often use spoofing on robocalls, which tricks the caller ID into showing an inaccurate phone number. That can make the numbers look legitimate, local or personal, regardless of where the call originates. Scam artists use phone scams because they're cheap to pull off and often successful. (Photo illustration from Shutterstock) Following are tips for reducing the number of robocalls you get on your cellphone and, therefore, reducing your chances of being scammed by them. Information is culled from The Conversation, the Washington Post, The Associated Press and the Federal Communications Commission: 1. Why does everyone get so many robocalls? Automatic dialing systems make it easy and cheap to make phone calls. Computer programs can dial many numbers at the same time, then play a message. The scams continue because the scammers make huge profits fooling callers into handing over their money. Consumers reported losing more than a billion dollars in scams in 2018, including via robocalls. FILE - In this Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2017, file photo, Jen Vargas looks at a call log displayed via an AT&T app on her cellphone at her home in Orlando, Fla. The app helps locate and block fraudulent calls although some robocalls still get through. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)AP 2. What about the federal Do Not Call Registry? You can put your phone information on the Do Not Call Registry. Its supposed to work by fining companies that call numbers on the list despite having no legitimate business with the person on the other end. However, fraudulent robocallers usually ignore the list and are able to get away with it because they hide who they are and from where their calls originate. From left, state Sen. Todd Kaminsky, D-Rockville Centre, Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, D-New York, and state Sen. Brad Hoylman, D-New York, hold a news conference to advance legislation banning robocalls in New York state, Tuesday, March 26, 2019, at the state Capitol in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)AP 3. How can I make them stop? Sorry, but you cant completely. The FCC is trying to get phone companies to do more to prevent robocalls and to offer verified Caller ID services that would help prevent spoofing. If your cellphone company offers a blocking service, use it. There also are several apps that purport to help stop or reduce fake calls, but make sure youre using a reputable one. Ask your provider for more information. In the meantime, dont give out your cellphone number unless its necessary. The Federal Communications Commission has suggestions for battling robocalls. 4. How do I prevent being scammed? Dont always answer the phone; let voicemail sort it out. Dont assume the caller is telling the truth even if they say theyre your jailed grandchild or that youre about to be hauled off to court. Ask for a number to call someone back. Dont give out bank, Social Security, drivers license, birthdate or credit card numbers. Your bank, credit card company and IRS will never ask you for identifying information, such as passwords or account numbers, over the phone they already have your details! Its cliche but true: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Its unlikely you won the lottery. If you did, you wouldnt have to pay up front to collect the jackpot. Hang up if youre uncomfortable. Its OK to be rude. Don't give out identifying information over the phone, officials warn. (Photo illustration via Getty Images)Getty Images/iStockphoto Read more Two state troopers violated the civil rights of a central Pennsylvania man by searching his garage without a warrant after he told them to get off his property, a state Superior Court panel has concluded. The officers claim that they justifiably conducted the search because they needed to ensure their own safety didnt fly with the court, which overturned the drug manufacturing conviction of Timothy M. Duke. In an opinion by Judge Alice Beck Dubow, the Superior Court agreed with Duke that because the search was illegal, the marijuana plants the troopers found in his York County garage should not have been used as evidence against him in court. Dukes encounter with the police occurred in 2015 when the officers came to his property in Seven Valleys seeking to serve an arrest warrant on his son. Duke told the troopers his son was already incarcerated in Lancaster County Prison, Dubow noted. Neither officer tried to verify that fact until after they returned to their station. Instead, the troopers asked to search Dukes property. Duke, who was standing in his driveway holding a small dog, refused to grant permission for a search and started walking back toward his garage, Dubow wrote. The troopers followed, the judge wrote, and later testified they saw a bow and arrow, a crossbow and a rifle or shotgun in his garage. They also claimed they smelled marijuana. The officers found five or six marijuana plants in the garage during the warrantless search, then got a search warrant and found more plants, Dubow wrote. County Judge Harry M. Ness rejected Dukes petition to suppress that evidence and convicted Duke of the drug manufacturing count after a non-jury trial. Duke was sentenced to 3 years of probation. In overturning Dukes conviction, Dubow rejected the troopers claim that they had to search the garage without a warrant because they had to ensure Duke wasnt going to threaten them with the weapons in the garage. The troopers had no basis upon which to make this assumption, Dubow wrote. Duke simply retreated from the troopers, carrying a small dog. He did not act in any manner from which it was reasonable for the troopers to assume that (he) was walking awayto obtain a weapon and threaten their safety. Therefore, she found, the officers violated Dukes constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure. Lisa was standing in line at the Sayford Market April 6 when three masked men wearing hoods barged into the midtown Harrisburg store, each with a gun drawn. This is a robbery, one of the robbers yelled. Everybody get on the floor! Lisa scurried to the floor, face down near the candy bar aisle, as the gunmen rushed in. She quickly tucked her phone under her body and put her hands on her head. The older customer in front of her sat down on the floor with his back against the counter. This is how Im going to die, on this dirty floor, Lisa thought. This is where it ends." Even if the robbers dont intentionally fire their guns inside the store, she thought, they could pull the trigger accidentally. The robbers seemed nervous, she said, and moved frenetically, flapping their guns. Someones going to get anxious or excited or spooked and shoot, she thought. The armed robbery at Sayford near Third and Calder streets was one of five committed by the same three robbers within about two hours April 6, police said. Police have charged one person, a 17-year-old male, so far in connection with the five robberies. During the investigation into a sixth robbery that occurred on April 7, police arrested and charged another man for unrelated gun and drug charges but have not announced any link between him and the serial robberies April 6. Officers, however, have recovered the assault-type rifle believed to have been used in the holdups, police said. PennLive talked to three victims at two different businesses to find out more about the crimes and the effects of witnessing such violence. Lisa agreed to having her first name published but not her last because not all robbery suspects have been identified. The night of the robberies, Lisa had gone to Sayfords to get a pack of cigarettes and a half-gallon of milk. As she waited in line, she was focused on her phone and sending text messages. Then suddenly, loud male voices filled the store. She couldnt tell what they were saying at first. But when she looked up and saw the guns, she knew it was a robbery. She couldnt take her eyes off the guns. Its crazy to think like when youre walking down the street, you see everything and take it all in, she said of the tunnel vision that overcame her. But all I could see were the guns. She crawled onto the floor, where she closed her eyes and tried not to move. She didnt want to give the robbers any reason to look her way or think that she could recognize them. The only time she opened her eyes was when she felt something brush against her head. Was it a gun? She opened her eyes to see it was the steel-toe boot from one of the robbers. She believes it was accidental contact as the robbers scrambled around the store demanding money. Video cameras inside Sayford recorded the holdup. The footage showed one robber walked into the store and immediately confronted a customer who was walking across the store. The robber used his assault-type rifle to push the man forward, and then to the floor, repeatedly pressing the tip of the barrel into the mans neck, head and back. The rifleman then ordered the customer to empty his pockets, and the rifleman scooped up some valuables. The other robbers waved their guns in peoples faces demanding money and one of them jumped over the counter, according to the video. The husband and wife who run the store were behind the counter with their two middle-school-age children, Lisa said. The kids were crying. It was just such an intense moment, Lisa said. The guy with the rifle was terrifying. The clerk seemed to be in shock, and slow in opening the register, Lisa said, which caused the robbers to raise their voices, and get increasingly agitated. Open the drawer, they shouted while waving their guns in the clerks face. Lisa heard the clerk saying, Okay. Okay, to let the robbers know she was trying to comply with their demands. At one point, the robber with the rifle had to rein in another robber who started leaning angrily over the counter, pointing his gun at the female clerks face. The rifleman used his arm to push the other robber away from the counter. The ramped-up situation with a gunman behind the counter and two gunmen pointing weapons at the clerk prompted the daughter to wrap her hands around her mothers head in a feeble attempt to stop any bullets that might be fired at her mom. You get out of my store, the husband said from behind the counter, according to Lisa. I already called 911. The police are on their way. The robbers took cash from the clerk and the register and fled, leaving behind the female clerk who was still holding some bills in her hand. Lisa remained frozen in fear on the floor, even after the robbers left. But eventually, she heard the clerk say: Get up. Get up. The police are here. As Lisa gave her information to a police officer, she heard from the police radio that another robbery was occurring a block away, at Als Cafe near Third and Verbeke streets. Most of the officers left Sayfords at that point to run to Als, Lisa said. After hitting Als Cafe, the robbers drove back to uptown to rob a beer distributor, police say. The robbers barged into Beer King near Sixth and Division streets and pointed their guns at two employees, one of whom posted what happened next on his Facebook page. He said PennLive could use his comments but he didnt want his name published. I told them, Dont pull that (expletive) trigger, and popped open the register and let them get what they want, the employee wrote. The robbers kept their guns trained on the employees the whole time, he said. They were there for about a minute and then left, he wrote. Even though they had masks on, I knew it was some young dudes. Those are the ones who will shoot you without hesitation. The employee later saw the video surveillance footage from Sayfords robbery and noted it was more torture than we went through. He also noted that he had been the victim of two prior robberies in his lifetime, so it wasnt my first rodeo. His Facebook friends expressed concern about him and gratitude that he was okay. Thank you, he wrote. It definitely makes you look around your surroundings a little differently now. The second employee who endured the robbery at Beer King said he didnt want to talk about it. Im trying not to think about it at all, he said. A manager at Beer King noted that his employees did everything right by complying with the robbers and prioritizing safety. While the robberies made a splash in the news in the days after the crimes, and put neighbors on edge, many of them eventually will forget the crimes and be able to move on with their lives. But the people who were inside those stores could be changed forever. With all the fear and terror they went through, I think there is a slim chance theyre not suffering from some sort of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,) said Jennifer Storm, the states victim advocate. These are images they will never be able to get out of their minds. One of the most damaging aspects of violent crimes like the ones that unfolded April 6, Storm said, is that the victims lose their feeling of safety and security. I imagine it will be some time before they get that back, she said, and some may not ever feel that again. Dauphin County has a victim witness assistance program and people who endured the recent robberies should reach out to see if any services could be helpful, Storm said. Lisa couldnt sleep for the next few nights after the robbery, until she heard news of an arrest in the case. That provided some comfort, although shes still concerned if there are other robbers still on the loose. I cant help but think, are they going to hit somewhere else where Im going to be? she said. I replay it in my head every day. I feel very lucky to have made it through unscathed. She later saw surveillance video images released by police that showed the rifleman standing guard right near where she was lying on the floor. His gun was pointed at her back, but she didnt know it at the time because her eyes were closed. Some friends have since talked big to Lisa about what they would have done to fight back at the robbers if they had been in Sayfords that night, but Lisa said she doubts they would have done anything differently than she did. There were three of them, she said. You cant shoot three robbers at once. Youre not going to do anything. Your instinct to survive kicks in. Three days after the robbery spree, Lisa said she went back to Sayfords with a friend. She didnt want to go alone. The family who owns the store was there working and the female clerk recognized Lisa as one of the robbery victims. Aw, how are you doing, the clerk said. Im pretty messed up, Lisa responded. You come in all the time, the clerk said. That was only one bad time. Thats true, Lisa said, but it was pretty bad. DERRY TOWNSHIP They may live far apart and their townships range in population from a couple hundred to tens of thousands, but they found out today they face the same issues. Township supervisors from round the state came together for the 97th annual Education Conference and Exhibit Show of the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, which started yesterday at the Hershey Lodge and runs until Wednesday. And according to a speech this morning by Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, those townships may be seeing $4.5 billion worth of help soon to resolve some of those issues. We have over 3,500 local officials from all across Pennsylvania who are here to see the best and the brightest, said David Sanko, executive director of the association. Our job is to make our supervisor members jobs easier as they go about the business of serving their taxpayers. The attendees can go to more than 100 workshops, meet other township officials from around the state, and visit more than 300 vendors, offering just about every service a township can possibly use. And they got to learn about some of those issues they have in common. Some of the biggest issues facing townships include unfunded mandates, rules and regulations that come from Harrisburg or Washington that sometimes dont make any sense, but they have to do them and maintain property taxes, Sanko said. While juggling those, he said townships also have to find a way to pay for flooding and storm water management, bridge and road maintenance, keeping a roster of volunteers for their fire departments and EMS, fixing blight and bringing high-speed internet in rural areas. Those are shared problems by a wide-ranging group of Pennsylvanians, and in his speech to a packed ballroom, Gov. Wolf, who said the state has not done enough to help its municipalities, proposed his new plan. We have the bones in our communities for greatness. This is a great commonwealth, Wolf said. What we have to do is make sure were investing in those bones, in that framework that makes us so great, and we can do this. And that comes in the form of a plan hes calling Restore Pennsylvania, which is a $4.5 billion investment into communities, paid for through a severance tax. He noted Pennsylvania is the only state in the country without a severance tax for the extraction of resources like natural gas. A reasonable tax would continue to allow industries to succeed, but some of those funds would come back into municipalities to help pay for those bridges and roads and flooding concerns, he said, noting that right now, Pennsylvania is just leaving the money on the table. In the meantime, those attending were there to learn and to network. Scott Mack is in his second year as a supervisor in Southampton Township, Cumberland County, and he said he came to learn what some of the best practices are for issues like road maintenance and storm water management. But his township is seeing one particular challenge. I think mostly its the growth issues for us, he said. How to navigate all the building permits we have to go through and the best practices for how to develop and rezone, or continue those zoning practices along with preserving farmland is one of our biggest issues, really. What I try to do is come here and keep up with the latest technologies, said Greg Richardson, who is in his sixth year as a supervisor in Southampton Township, Franklin County. But also its a nice time to talk to other supervisors and pick their brains about things that might be changing. In his township, like most, costs are always rising, and he said supervisors are doing what they can to do things economically, but with new and improved ideas. The conference is always a learning experience for Randy Braden, a supervisor in Conewago Township, Dauphin County. Last year, we were interested in purchasing a dump truck, he said. He and his fellow township officials came to the conference, saw the vendors, and came away with some ideas for the truck and other township necessities. Weve gotten some ideas for other patching, for asphalt that weve tried. Its very informative here. But mostly, its getting together with people in similar jobs in sometimes vastly different townships, all trying to solve some of the same problems. You can chime in and say, weve handled this problem here, and this is how we did it, and it really worked out well for us, he said. A report of a gunshot at a Wormleysburg motel has led to a 21-year-old mans arrest on firearms and drug charges, West Shore Regional Police said Monday. They said Kenyatta Gilmore fired the shot Saturday in the hallway of the Rodeway Inn in the 800 block of North Front Street. Gilmore, a New York City resident, was arrested without incident on charges of illegally possessing a firearm, possessing marijuana and drug paraphernalia, discharging a firearm in an occupied structure, reckless endangerment, and criminal mischief, police said. He was committed to Cumberland County Prison in lieu of $30,000 bail. They came here for all kinds of reasons, from all kinds of places. But the common denominator is easy enough to discern: the quest for a better life. Ultimately, that is why 84 new Americans from 28 nations and at least three generations met in a Dauphin County courtroom Monday morning to eagerly take on a new title: citizen. And at a time when immigration issues fuel endless political debates and sometimes leave us wondering if the great melting pot has finally run cold, this next generation of immigrants assured observers that America still has a lot to offer to so much of the world. Fatima Muhammad Porgho, who fled an abusive marriage in her native Burkina Faso 12 years ago, said she appreciates that shes buying into a system where respect for the law outweighs the might of the political strongman of the moment. The Constitution is great. The values are great. The principles are great. People obey the law; this is very important, Porgho said. People are very respectful of the law, and they trust it. They love the country its like the wind that comes and then the tree is still there. For others, there was the siren call of economic opportunity. Citizenship is important because its going to give me better job prospects, said Aasheesh Agarwala, of Susquehanna Township, an information technology manager at DeLoitte who took the oath with his wife, Deepshikha Agrawal, on Monday. And second thing is that I know that Im going to be here long term. Then why not take a citizenship and be a participant in the political, you know, everything here. Others just simply were pleased to have a country to call their own. Think about this: Brothers Novin and Dadhi Dhungana have lived their lives as men without a country. After a boyhood as refugees in Nepal, Novin, 27, and Dadhi Dhungana, 20, are full-blown American citizens now. Their family was part of a the government of Bhutans purge of about 100,000 Nepalese-speaking people in 1991, after they were identified as illegals. The migrants wound up in refugee camps, not really welcomed in either nation. The Dhunganas were among the fortunate to eventually resettle in America. But even so, up to this point I wasnt any citizen of the entire world," Novin Dhungana said. "So now Im a first-time citizen in the United States, so I feel proud of that. "Getting the right to vote means a bigger thing to us. As a refugee, we have never gotten to vote for anyone, said Dadhi Dhungana, a 20-year-old student at Harrisburg Area Community College. "Also we can apply for federal jobs and all that. Its like, we have a country now," Dadhi added. We have a home now, you know. We feel like we have a home by having citizenship in the United States. America is not a perfect place, as any glance of the daily headlines confirms. But the journeys made by some of these new residents put some of our first-world problems in a different context. While America wrangles with the aftermath of the #metoo revelations, for example, the courthouse was full of stories of women from places where there was no choice but to flee whole cultures because they were so helpless to fight back against abusive husbands. Porgho, now 47, left her home nation of Burkina Faso in West Africa 12 years ago, to escape the abusive grip of a husband who,- because of his connections to the nations rulers - could cut off all forms of relief to a wife who wanted out. Attorneys, as she tells the story, were intimidated from taking her case. Police had no interest in prosecuting domestic violence charges. When she left her husband, she said, her parents were threatened with jail. Ultimately, she was able to get away with the help of the Inter-African Union of Human Rights and qualified for asylum here. On Monday, she celebrated her new status with other family members who have preceded her as citizens here, including a younger sister who has just enlisted in the Army. Chased from Burkina Faso by domestic violence, Fatima Mohammad Porgho hopes to help make American a safe place for immigrant women. "This country has done so much for us. Its like a second door to life, " Porgho said. If we did not come here there was nothing, So it (citizenship) is a way for us to give back and I wont to be able to give back full if Im not a citizen. Porgho hopes to give back by continuing to help in Americas fight against domestic violence, with a particular focus on immigrant women who may be in a new place now, but find themselves more isolated than ever by language and other barriers. The nations represented Monday were: Brazil, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Canada, Chad, China, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Eritrea, Germany, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, Ukraine and Vietnam. Becoming a citizen is not something one just signs up for on a lark, noted Rose Marie Sallemi, of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Under established law, any aspiring U.S. citizen must be able to show that he or she arrived in America via lawful means including the random chance of a diversity lottery, petitions from family or employers, or through refugee or asylum status. They must have resided in the U.S. for five years, (or three years after a marriage). During that period of legal residency they must have been in America at least 50 percent of the time, with no single trips outside of the country of more than six months in duration. They must be able to read, write and speak English, and pass a basic civics test (in certain cases, the language requirement can be waived. And, fittingly on this day, the new Americans must be able to prove that they are current on all taxes," Sallemi said. For that, each new citizen received a certificate, small American flags, and a pocket-sized copy of the Constitution, courtesy of the Daughters of the American Revolution. They were congratulated by local dignitaries including U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-York County, and U.S. Sen. Robert P. Casey. All were also invited to register to vote, just in time for the upcoming May 21 primary election. But most of all, theyve now got a home and a voice in this big, brawling and sprawling nation thats always prided itself on having room for everyone. I hope that you will continue to make decisions, just like this decision youve made today, that will make this country better and stronger, said Dauphin County Judge Deborah Essis Curcillo, after administering that made these people Americans. Welcome home, she added. Should West Hanover Township have to pay $1.75 million to the owner of a truck stop that lost come land to a Linglestown Road improvement project? A Dauphin County jury said Yes after a trial late last year. County Judge Andrew H. Dowling said, No, and overturned the jurys decision late last month. Now the dispute between the township and the HPT TA Properties Trust is headed to the state Superior Court on an appeal filed by the Massachusetts-based trust. This is a long-running legal fight. As Dowling noted in his opinion on the case, it began in 2008 when the township filed a notice to take .054 acres of the trusts land to widen Linglestown Road and make improvements around Exit 77 of Interstate 81. The taking deprived the trust of an access road cars used to get to the truck stop, Dowling noted. All car and truck traffic now enters the rest of the 53-acre business via an intersection with a traffic light. In 2013, a board of viewers recommended the township pay the trust $1.25 million for the land lost to the road upgrade. Township officials objected, triggering the jury trial that resulted in the $1.75 million verdict this past November. In overturning that verdict, Dowling noted the trust used the disputed access point under a deed of easement with the state. Therefore, the judge found, the plot, known as the Elbow, was owned by the commonwealth and could have been closed by the commonwealth at any time without paying any compensation. Because the trust does not have any right to traffic using the Elbow to enter its property, the jury was incorrect to render the $1.75 verdict, Dowling concluded. Members of Hebron United Methodist Church in Millersburg will have to meet at a different church after a Sunday night storm downed trees and wires and tore off roofs in the community about 25 miles north of Harrisburg. Millersburg is located along the Susquehanna River in northern Dauphin County. Assorted Millersburg structures were damaged by the storm which caused widespread damage in central Pennsylvania and included a tornado which touched down in Union County northwest of Dauphin County. At Hebron United Methodist, the storm tore the roof off the back section and flipped it on the section that houses the sanctuary. Pastor Rick Anderson on Monday said the sanctuary escaped major damage but will be out of use for an indefinite period. Beginning Sunday, the congregation will be meet at the nearby New Life Center of the First United Methodist Church on Center Street in Millersburg. About 65-70 Hebron members typically attend Sunday service, according to Anderson. The three-story portion of Hebron which lost its roof and also sustained significant water damage once housed Sunday school classes, but was no longer in use. However, Anderson said the unused section will be repaired, and might provide a very painful opportunity to do some restructuring regarding use of space. An engineer assessed the damage Monday. Although theres no detailed repair plan, the engineer expects it will take about six to eight months to carry out the repair, with the sanctuary returning to use before the entire project is finished, according to Anderson. Anderson, who had no cost estimate, said the church is insured and he expects insurance will cover the majority of repair costs. A tornado with winds howling from 86 to 110 mph touched down in Union County around 12:30 a.m. Monday, the National Weather Service office at State College has confirmed. No one was injured as the twister cut a 1 -mile swath near Buffalo Valley in East Buffalo Township, the service said. The tornado was listed as an F1, the second-lowest grade for such storms. A barn was destroyed and several other lost roofs, the service said, trees at the Buffalo Valley United Methodist Church were uprooted and snapped and homes suffered minor damage. It was the second church in Pennsylvania damaged by storms Sunday night. Hebron United Methodist Church in Millersburg, Dauphin County, lost much of its roof to high winds. The same storm had owners of Ark Safety in Millersburg assessing their loss after winds ripped the roof from the companys warehouse. Nearly 2,200 people with disabilities have opened tax-advantaged savings accounts to cover education, job training, and other costs in the two years since the Pennsylvania ABLE program was established. Now, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., is sponsoring legislation to expand the federal Achieving a Better Life Experience program. He wants to raise the age limit of the program from 26 to 46. The legislation would allow millions of Americans, including military veterans, to take advantage of the savings accounts. Sometimes the onset of a disability can occur much later in life, Casey told a small crowd of individuals with disabilities and their advocates gathered in a meeting room at the state Capitol on Monday. Casey hopes his bill to expand the ABLE program can pass by the end of the year. Since the ABLE programs launch in Pennsylvania, more than $15 million an average of about $7,000 per accountholder has been invested in ABLE accounts to empower people with disabilities to live more independent lives. But advocates for the accounts are aiming to raise awareness of the program nationally and expanding its eligibility to allow more people to participate and to make the ABLE program sustainable. As many as six million Americans could benefit from the proposed ABLE Age Adjustment Act, including as many as one million veterans who come home from their military assignments with missing limbs, head injuries, and other disabilities. How awesome to have returning veterans come home that dont have all these restrictions. They have the ability to save, said disability advocate Theo Braddy, president of Theo Braddy Consulting, who participated in the roundtable discussion with Casey. Pennsylvanias ABLE program allows individuals or their family members to make state tax deductible contributions of up to $15,000 a year to an account without impacting their eligibility for social service programs such as medical assistance or Social Security disability insurance. The accounts grow tax-free through investments and are exempt from the states inheritance tax. Prior to ABLEs passage, individuals with disabilities could accumulate no more than $2,000 a year in assets such as savings or retirement funds without putting benefits at risk. Further, it forced individuals, including Braddy, to turn down pay raises to avoid losing benefits. Harrisburg resident Josh Teach and his wife Lisa, whose 9-year-old daughter Lilly was born with Down syndrome, is grateful to have an ABLE account to save money for Lillys future expenses without jeopardizing her benefits when she turns 18. We would love for Lilly to live with us forever but she has a lot to give. She has a lot to do with her life, Teach said at the roundtable discussion. I have no doubt that shortly after she turns 18, shes going to be like, Dad, Im out. Another roundtable participant, Lynn Dorundo of Mechanicsburg, however, is ineligible to open an ABLE account. The Center for Independent Living of Central PA board member and volunteer said her disability occurred after she turned 26. All of the money she had stashed away for retirement while she was working and not disabled has since been spent on medical expenses and modifications, she said. Saving to buy a van so she could return to the workforce without impacting her eligibility for housing assistance is among the challenges she faces. The ability to save at least for me personally would give me more independence, Dorundo said. Casey said the current age limit for opening an account was set at 26 because that was the age around which consensus could be built to gain the votes needed to pass Congress in 2014 due to cost concerns. He and fellow co-sponsor Sen. Richard Burr, R-NC, "decided that we would draw the line at the age of 26 and thereby get enough support to pass it and to work on growing that age number at another day, Casey said. Just like Social Security is a lot different today than it was in the 1930s. Medicare today is a much different program, a bigger program than it was in the 1960s. So is true with ABLE. Expanding participation in the program nationally is considered critical to its sustainability, according to the National Association of State Treasurers. Currently, 41 states and Washington, D.C., have launched ABLE programs. Some 34,700 ABLE accounts have opened up nationwide with a combined investment of $171.7 million invested. Based on an analysis by ABLE program managers and the National Disability Institute, 390,000 accounts will be needed by June 2021, the five-year anniversary of the first program, for it to achieve bare-bones sustainability. There are nearly 70 counties that remain under a tornado watch until 3 a.m., the National Weather Service at State College is reporting. The counties span Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. But, the main event is mostly over, meteorologist John Banghoff said. Banghoff said he hasnt received any confirmed reports of a tornado touching down in York County. The tornado warning expired at 8:30 p.m. We have not had any reports yet, Banghoff said. It looks like there was a rotation, but well continue to monitor reports and see if anything materialized on the ground. An April tornado is not out of the norm, he added. It is relatively common, he explained. April, May, June, the atmosphere gets warmer. It fuels those thunderstorms. Its a favorable environment: moisture meets up with warm temperatures, and a pretty strong storm front can produce strong weather. And, even though the skies may clear briefly, Banghoff said, his best advice overnight is for Central Pa. residents to have a way to receive warnings. Be cell phone ready, he said. Have weather radios ready to receive information. For a majority of people, you may wake up to a rumble of thunder, but there wont be much impact. Be ready to respond though, so if a tornado warning is issued, take shelter. The rest of the night he said he expects a line of showers to move through. A line of showers is crossing the PA/OH border at this hour. Heavy rain, damaging winds, and a tornado or two are possible as the line of storms moves through. Make sure you have a way to receive warnings tonight. NOTE: Forecast timing shown is approximate. #PAwx pic.twitter.com/ML3RYMI8ry NWS State College (@NWSStateCollege) April 14, 2019 Storms will move through York and southeast Pennsylvania after midnight, some could be severe, he said. At this point, though, it looks like heavy rain. For now, the main event is over. Well cool off tomorrow. Its going to be quite a bit cooler and windier. It will feel like early spring, or late winter. Its too early to tell, but strong storms could be back again, or rain, on Friday." The National Weather Service noted that most of Pennsylvanias 67 counties are under a tornado watch until 3 a.m. The flash flood watch is valid until 6 a.m. tomorrow. A tornado watch has been issued for parts of Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia until 3 AM EDT pic.twitter.com/z7RhifKWdj NWS State College (@NWSStateCollege) April 14, 2019 The following locations should be prepared and take precautions for flood safety: the cities of Harrisburg, Hershey, Pottsville, Lebanon, York and Lancaster. In addition, specific locations in York County should anticipate to experience flooding: Hanover, Weigelstown, Parkville, Red Lion, Spry, Dallastown, Shiloh, East York, Stonybrook-Wilshire, West York, Littlestown, Shrewsbury, Codorus, Grantley, Tyler Run-Queens Gate, McSherrystown, Manchester, Hallam and Emigsville. Visit PennLive.com/weather for your latest weather updates. You can see live weather updates via the National Weather Service and other Twitter sources below. Tweet us at @pennlive with photos of inclement weather at your place, incidents you see on your commute or send a submission to submissions@pennlive.com. Hampden Township Chief of Police Steven Junkin will tell you one of the most difficult and dangerous situations his officers face on a daily basis is responding to calls of domestic violence. From 2008 to 2017, more than 1,200 people died as a result of domestic violence in Pennsylvania. The majority of those tragic deaths were abused women, but the number also included men, children and even law enforcement When police respond to a call of domestic violence, they dont know if they will step into a home where the attacker is out of control and has a gun or whether the victim is out of control, has found a weapon and is ready to use it. Its not unknown to have both the attacker and the victim turn on police, who find themselves in the middle of a potentially deadly family feud. The dangers only increase when children are involved but what can make matters frustratingly worse is when the victim doesnt realize she needs help. And all too frequently, police have been unable to identify signs of an impending tragedy before its too late. In the past five years, Pennsylvania law enforcement agencies have had some new tools to help assess the danger in a domestic violence situation and summon professional help. Law enforcement officials such as Chief Justin believe the Lethality Assessment Program (LAP) that began in a few counties in Pennsylvania in 2012 may have saved thousands of lives by identifying those most in danger of being killed. LAP started in Maryland 2008 when authorities discovered that only four percent of people who die in domestic violence incidents had sought help through a hotline, shelter or other program. They were confident if victims could connect to professionals in time, it would prevent untold tragedies. Seems they were right. In the first five years the program was implemented in Maryland, the number of deaths due to domestic violence decreased by 32 percent. The program cant take sole credit for the decrease, but authorities are confident it contributed greatly to the decline in deaths as police began to refer more and more victims to agencies for help. Those numbers were good enough for Pennsylvania and other states to give the program a try. Now, many police agencies, such as Hampden Township, are using LAP to better assess the seriousness of a domestic violence situation and summon professional help. Cumberland and Dauphin Counties are among more than 50 Pennsylvania counties and more than 300 police agencies now using the LAP with promising results, although there has not been a statewide assessment like that in Maryland. Theres no doubt that lives have been saved as a result of connecting victims with domestic violence services, PCADV reports. Dauphin County Coroner Graham Hetrick is frequently called to respond to deaths from domestic violence. In 2012, the organization brought the program to Pennsylvania, with grant funding from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD). LAP provides police a simple but effective series of questions to identify high-risk victims those most in danger of being killed and to contact domestic violence experts for support. From 2008 to 2017, more than 1,200 people died as a result of domestic violence in Pennsylvania. The majority of those tragic deaths were abused women, but the number also included men, children and even law enforcement. Since 2012, more than 10,000 high risk domestic violence victims have been identified and referred to experts for immediate and long-term assistance. Terri Lynn Hamrick, a long-time advocate for victims of domestic violence and a board member of PCADV, lauds police for their willingness to work with professionals and for taking concrete action to prevent deaths. LAP equips officers to better assess domestic violence situations by asking victims 11 key questions, such as: Has he/she ever used a weapon against you or threatened you with a weapon? Has he/she threatened to kill you or your children? Do You think he/she might try to kill you? Yes answers to these questions would be a pretty clear sign that professional help is urgent. I really feel this program has gone a long way in showing victims what dangers they face, Chief Junkin said. But what is even more important, he said, the program helps to ensure the best chances of survivability and persistence in pursuing charges against abusers. LAP is an example of how non-profits, police and government can work together, bringing their individual expertise and resources to tackle the most pressing problems in our communities. From the officer to Domestic Violence Services, to the District Attorneys Office Victim Advocates, to Mid-Penn Legal Services, to the prison and the District Attorney, himself, Junkin said, they all work in concert . . . as best we can . . . in trying to achieve the best outcomes for victims of domestic violence. Everyone who has had anything to do with LAP should be commended for treating domestic violence as a serious scourge in our society, and for taking aggressive action to do something about it. Recently, my local paper, The Dillsburg Banner, published an unsigned Letter to the Editor on March 28 entitled, Close the gate on this gateway drug imploring me to oppose Senate Bill 350, which calls for the legalization of recreational marijuana. Additionally, my office has received calls incorrectly characterizing my position by stating that I support the legalization of recreational marijuana because of the potential tax revenue and because states like New York and New Jersey are pursuing legalization. With regard to Senate Bill 350, the legislation has not officially been introduced. The prime sponsors, Senator Daylin Leach (D-Delaware and Montgomery) and Senator Sharif Street (D-Philadelphia) have circulated a co-sponsorship memo outlining the general concept of their proposal. While there are aspects that are very concerning, lets be honest, the ask is not for me to oppose Senate Bill 350. What is being asked of me is to oppose the legalization of marijuana. I have taken a cautiously open-minded approach, and I can understand why some individuals have misinterpreted things I have said on the issue. Mainly, I have expressed the need for Pennsylvania to be proactive because we will be dealing with the repercussions of legalization in places like New York and New Jersey without the tax revenue to address them. Our residents will no doubt be crossing the border to buy marijuana as they do to buy less expensive gas and alcohol. As a retired U.S. Marshal, I am inclined to be against legalization because of my background in law enforcement. However, the truth of the matter is, law enforcement from local police to District Attorneys to Federal DEA agents are not bringing charges against people for possession of personal amounts of marijuana. This is due to the overwhelming amount of time and money that was being dedicated by both law enforcement and our courts to marijuana cases. Instead, our law enforcement officers are focused on drug cartels and the murders that occur within the drug trafficking industry. Additionally, we are seeing an increase in dangerous synthetic forms of marijuana and the possibility of fentanyl being mixed with marijuana as it has been with heroin and cocaine all occurring due to the illegal, unregulated nature of the marijuana trade. As a Senator representing roughly 250,000 Pennsylvanians, it is my responsibility to gather input from my constituents and to do research on an issue of this magnitude. I have my staff looking at states that have legalized recreational marijuana and its legal, social, and economic impacts in those states. If I am going to be opposed, it is going to be an educated decision not one based on emotion. One concern that has been raised with regard to legalization of recreational marijuana is the possibility of people driving under the influence and how testing for such would be done during a traffic stop. This, along with the concern for increased DUI related accidents, are very much factors that I am taking into account as I continue to research this issue. Of equal concern to me is our fledgling medical marijuana industry. I was and continue to be a strong advocate for medical marijuana. Not a week goes by that I dont get a tap on the shoulder by someone to thank me for supporting the legalization of medical marijuana from the mother with the daughter that has epilepsy whose seizures have diminished to the disabled veteran who has experienced significant pain relief. Clearly, this new form of medicine is working, and I have reservations about how legalization of recreational marijuana could detract from and negatively impact a young industry that the Commonwealth is still working to fully get up and running. Chapter 20 of the Medical Marijuana Act has yet to be implemented by the Pennsylvania Department of Health. This was the marquee aspect of the legislation that was to set the gold standard for medical marijuana in Pennsylvania by having the Commonwealths medical schools partner with licensed growers and dispensaries to conduct and develop a body of research. Ensuring full implementation of the Medical Marijuana Act is a top priority for me before we take steps to legalize marijuana if that is the route that Pennsylvanians want to go, and polls continue to show growing support. So, overall, I have not closed the door or the gate, as the Letter to the Editor writer noted on legalization of marijuana. It is a major issue being discussed across Pennsylvania and in our neighboring states, so regardless of stance, we all have to be part of the conversation and must look at the big picture. Senator Mike Regan represents Pennsylvanias 31st Senatorial District covering parts of Cumberland and York Counties. Visit with Santa this Saturday at the Emmet County Fairgrounds Kids, adults and families alike will be able to share their holiday wish lists with Santa this coming weekend at the Emmet County Fairgrounds. Comparing the Canadian and the American Right updated to 2019 (Part Four) By Mark Wegierski The Conservative Party was finally able to win a strong majority in the federal Parliament in the 2011 federal election. This was the first putatively conservative majority in the federal Parliament since that won in 1988. However, in October 2015, Justin Trudeaus Liberals rebounded, and won a strong majority. Their return to power probably means the undermining of whatever small steps in a conservative direction that Stephen Harper had undertaken. It should be well noted that left-leaning infrastructures such as feminist groups (who are indeed often tightly enmeshed with governmental bureaucracies) outweigh in resources such right-leaning infrastructures (such as, most notably, the Fraser Institute think-tank) by astronomical factors. And, although there is a quite substantial amount of debate about economic issues and economic conservatism, as far as social conservatism and right-wing patriotism, these have almost no register on the Canadian political scene. Left-liberals are quite content to allow the presence of a soulless managerial Right that manages the economy so long as they themselves get to control all the social and cultural issues. Some Canadian newspapers, notably The National Post (formerly owned by the Canadian-born conservative press baron Conrad Black who is now largely disgraced), have some degree of right-wing content, including a few surprisingly acerbic columnists. There are a handful of prominent conservative academics, especially in Alberta. There also arose in April 2011, a right-leaning news outlet on television Sun Network News but it closed abruptly on February 13, 2015 (putting around 200 people out of work). Ezra Levant has also founded a major news website The Rebel Media. However, this is all very, very little, compared with the comparatively massive right-wing presence in the United States. The presence of a large, organized, political Right in the U.S., and its absence in Canada, will probably lead to increasingly divergent futures for both countries. Many of the more pleasant aspects of life in Canada are likely to disappear with the increasing triumph of ever-more-insistent, utterly unchecked and unimpeded left-liberal and left-wing policies. The political situation in Canada, with the virtual non-existence of an intellectual and cultural Right, cannot be described as healthy for Canadian society. Persons of traditionalist or conservative outlooks in Canada are faced with the unappealing prospect of the spiraling into oblivion of many congenial aspects of Canada, about which they can do virtually nothing. Their feelings of chronic hopelessness may perhaps to some extent be assuaged by looking to more hopeful developments in the United States, or perhaps in East-Central Europe and Russia. Considering that Harper has been badly stymied in his efforts at systemic reform through the federal Parliament, there might arise increased calls for regional devolution, so that, for example, Alberta or all of Western Canada could carry out social and economic policies more congenial to itself. It could be seen that Harper, during his majority government, has decisively failed, and such scenarios of regional devolution may, ironically, become the best hope for some fragmentary survival of traditionalism and conservatism in Canada. The more furiously and immoderately the Left opposed Harper, thwarting the work of the Conservative federal majority government, the more it might have created the preconditions for frustrated Conservative voters to turn to devolutionist scenarios. Mark Wegierski is a Canadian writer and historical researcher. Home Imagine a long-hidden trove of old diaries. Having discovered them after a long search, a daughter reads her fathers words and eventually comes upon this line: I cause my own sterility. This is a story of the Main Line, that world of wealth and society, that fading memory. The writer was Robert Montgomery Scott (1929-2005) of the Montgomery/Scott clan that built and occupied Ardrossan, the Villanova estate with that still-astonishing (and endangered) 50-room mansion, last gem of its era, set on a glorious but shrinking parcel of land. This is the family who inspired The Philadelphia Story, people whose philanthropy, idiosyncrasies, and parties were legendary. Scott was a grandson of the creators of Ardrossan. His diaries tell of dissatisfaction with self and career, of alcoholism and marital breakdown. His reader was Janny Scott, who grew up on the Ardrossan estate from 1955 to 1969, when her father was appointed special assistant to the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. A former reporter for the New York Times, Scott, 63, has written The Beneficiary: Fortune, Misfortune, and the Story of My Father. It reveals another side of this world of charmers and partiers. True to its subtitle, The Beneficiary concerns the ambiguities of inheritance. Scott brings that story to the Free Library in a free appearance on Monday, April 22. She spoke to us from her New York apartment about her father, his diaries, and how her family is receiving the revelations in her book. What was it like to be a kid growing up on Ardrossan? Kind of fantastic. The family called the estate simply the place, such a plain-vanilla term, but it was extremely beautiful, on wide-open land not that far from Philadelphia, with wonderful old houses and barns. We were surrounded by my fathers family, which to a child was a wonderfully warm, colorful community. At the same time, I had a childs obliviousness to how unusual it was. It was what we grew up with. Your discovery of the main trove of diaries is such a dramatic moment. My father had promised me his diaries when I was in my 20s, saying he wanted me to have them when he died. I found my father mysterious, wanted to understand him better, and this offer, which came out of the blue, was both flattering and of great interest. Why me? I asked. He said, Youre the writer. We never mentioned it again. When I got interested in this book project, I received some diaries from my fathers girlfriend, and eventually I stumbled upon the rest. He had chosen to leave them in a wooden chest with a padlock. It had a combination everyone in the family knew, and hed left the padlock one digit off, so it was easy to open, even inviting. I read the first pages of the first diary and was blown away by his sensitivity to his situation and character. I carted them all back to my apartment in New York and read them over a period of months. Youre the writer was he suggesting you write about his story? Its ambiguous. It could mean, You might want to do something with this or, Youre the only one whod be interested. Its an offhand answer, and our little talk was strangely flippant on both of our parts, considering the gravity of what was being offered. People might question whether using the diaries in the book was the right thing to do. But because my father had offered them to me for the reason he stated, I didnt feel the degree of qualms one might have about reading a parents intimate account of his private life. How does the rest of the family feel about the book? I dont know yet entirely. People were wonderfully open in talking to me. They let me subject them to repeated interrogations. I was really touched when they agreed to speak to me, even early, when I wasnt sure where the project was headed. I showed the manuscript to my mother, my siblings, and my fathers brother, who were closest to my father. While there was much in the book that was surprising to them, they did not object to things, did not try to stop me. What surprised them? My uncle [Edgar Scott Jr., now 93] was surprised by the degree of my fathers distress, that he had not seen that in my father. My father certainly did not make it very visible; he was a seemingly jovial, gregarious soul. That inner turmoil was surprising to my uncle. My siblings and mother had lived through a lot of this and so were less surprised. But they, too, were struck by the confessional, painful quality of the diaries. One thing that surprised us all was that my fathers awareness of his alcoholism began very early, in his 20s, and he struggled with it for decades, in ways we didnt see. When we eventually raised the subject of his drinking with him, hed deny he had a problem. How old were you when you realized it? As a teenager, it became pretty clear to me. Drinking was not unusual in that era and that place. I dont remember hearing much about people who didnt drink that would have been like hearing that someone didnt use soap. I was aware, yes, that father drank a lot. But many did, and attitudes were different. People say that even the term alcoholic was fairly uncommon back then. I have to think this process has been painful for you, too. I feel much greater empathy for him than I did before. I was so in the dark about the forces he was wrestling with. The painful self-scrutiny there is also painful to read. And, I confess, I was deeply frustrated by my fathers inability to avoid the fate [fatal cirrhosis] he succumbed to. This was a very moving exercise in getting a handle on the demons that haunted him. I also now have a much more detailed understanding of the family history and how it plays out in generations, how the economic successes of the 19th and early 20th centuries shaped choices subsequent generations made. What about the big house at Ardrossan? What of its future? I have mixed feelings. My father cared deeply about it, and he devoted the last decade of his life to restoring it to absolutely original perfection, with a staggering, bewildering meticulousness. But its not clear what the possible use of Ardrossan is now, and the family does not have the cash to subsidize something like that indefinitely. It involves a lot of emotions. I do not live there and am perhaps a little more detached than some others, but even now, even for me, the place, the land in particular, is achingly beautiful. I understand the way it resonates in various family members minds and hearts. Author Event Janny Scott: The Beneficiary: Fortune, Misfortune, and the Story of My Father 7:30 p.m., April 22. Parkway Central Library, Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine St. Free. Information: 215-567-4341, freelibrary.org. Billy Penn lives on. WHYY, Philadelphias public radio and television outlet, acquired the local news site and will maintain its brand and staff, WHYY said Monday. Billy Penns owners put it up for sale last month after failing to raise more money from investors. Advertising and membership dues are the primary sources of revenues for Billy Penn, which was launched in 2014. Future revenue considerations are part of the deal so that some ad revenue generated in the future would be funneled back to Billy Penns former owner, Spirited Media. WHYY is mostly financed through memberships and charitable donations but can earn revenue through advertising. WHYY, which did not disclose the news sites revenues, said it would retain Billy Penn editor Danya Henninger. Billy Penns offices near around City Hall are expected to be relocated to WHYY, near the National Constitution Center. Sandra Clark, a former managing editor at The Inquirer who is now vice president for news and civic dialogue at WHYY, will oversee Billy Penns editorial direction. Kyra McGrath, WHYYs executive vice president and chief operating officer, will lead management oversight of the new property. With the addition of Billy Penn, weve taken another step to grow our next generation of public media consumers, WHYY president and chief executive William Marrazzo said in an internal email to employees. He added that WHYY has consistently grown its journalism capacity to fortify the local news ecosystem." WHYY spokesman Art Ellis said that readers will be able to access the Billy Penn website as they do now. In March 2015, WHYY acquired the PlanPhilly website that covers urban issues, zoning and development. The fate of Billy Penn had been uncertain after Spirited Media disclosed earlier this year that it would divest its online news sites in Denver, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Its announced sale was part of a broader consolidation and continued hard times in the local news business in the Philadelphia region. The free tabloid Metro cut its general news reporters in Philadelphia this year and the Reading Eagle filed for bankruptcy protection in February. The Reading newspaper will be auctioned through the bankruptcy court in May. Jim Brady, chief executive at Spirited Media, said in a statement on Monday that Im thrilled to have found such a perfect home for Billy Penn at WHYY, and Im excited for what that combination will bring to Philly journalism." Spirited Media has reorganized its business around consulting for digital operations for television and radio stations, a company official said earlier. In similar deals, the New York public radio station WNYC acquired the Gothamist, including its archives, domain name and social media assets in February 2018. While the Gothamist will become a part of New York Public Radio, its voice wont change, according to published reports. Co-founder Jen Chung said at the time that the revived Gothamist site will still have the irreverent voice that made it popular with its readers. And last month, New York PBS station WNET acquired online public policy newsroom NJ Spotlight. Reporters for NJ Spotlight and NJTV, the public TV network operated by WNET in the state, will collaborate on broadcast and online content as part of the deal. The Candle Bar, coming to 1733 Chestnut St., is a DIY candle-making shop. Read more The Candle Bar, a Nashville-based mini-chain that allows customers to create their own candles and sip wine in the process, has inked a lease at 1733 Chestnut St. near Rittenhouse Square. Its the former Beans Beauty Supply, across from Di Bruno Bros. Its expected to open in late 2019. The Candle Bars candle-pouring experience is a DIY counterpart to its sister company, Paddywax. Candle Bar customers choose a vessel, add scents from a fragrance library, place their wick, and pour the wax. Meanwhile, employees pour the wine. Brittany Goldberg of MSC Retail, who brokered the lease, said it would be the Candle Bars first location outside of Nashville, Charlotte, Dallas, and Austin, Texas. Besides Paddywax products, the store will sell merchandise from Designworks Ink (a line of decorative stationery) and Olivina Men (mens grooming essentials) in addition to American-made jewelry, giftable sweets, modern textiles, and all-natural skincare items. This company is unrelated to Wax + Wine, a BYOB candle-making business in Washington Square West. Camille Paglia in an art installation outside The University of the Arts. Her new book is Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art From Egypt to Star Wars." Read more It was probably only a matter of time before the campus free speech debate landed in Camille Paglias lap. Again. The University of the Arts professor and social critic, known for her critiques of modern feminism, last week had a lecture targeted by protesting students and alumni angry at comments she made in a YouTube video, posted in January about the #MeToo movement, that they contend perpetuates rape culture. They also were critical of comments that they call transphobic. Now, a Change.org petition thats garnered more than 800 signatures is demanding that the school remove her from the faculty and stop giving her a platform to speak. I had a concern that she would be able to speak, and her fans were allowed onto our campus, into our main classroom building, where there will be trans individuals and sexual-assault survivors, said Joseph McAndrew, a UArts student who organized the protest. Were giving a space for her following to come into our safe space that we pay to be in. In an email sent to students and faculty on Wednesday, school president David Yager didnt name Paglia but said the school is committed to the exercise of free speech and academic freedom." Artists over the centuries have suffered censorship, and even persecution, for the expression of their beliefs through their work," he wrote. "My answer is simple: not now, not at UArts. Yager also noted that while opinions with which we disagree are generally legally protected, we strongly affirm the importance of respect for others and the value of civil discourse. In an email, Paglia said Yagers eloquent statement affirming academic freedom was a landmark in contemporary education. She said she hopes it will be a turning point in how American colleges and universities deal with their rampant problem of compulsory ideological conformity. She described the protest and petition as a publicity stunt without academic merit or import and wrote that the people involved evidently do not read books (Ive written eight) but get their information from garbled social media. It is categorically untrue that I have ever imposed any ideology whatsoever in my classes, where I constantly affirm free thought and free speech for every individual, she wrote. Paglia is one of a handful of local academics whose views have won them intense opposition. At Drexel University, there was George Ciccariello-Maher, who left in December 2017 after making a number of controversial remarks on Twitter. In March 2018, the Black Law Students Association at the University of Pennsylvania organized a campaign to get law professor Amy Wax fired after she spoke negatively about black students performance in her class. And in December, Temple Universitys board of trustees condemned professor Marc Lamont Hill for remarks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In each case, the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has sided with the professors. Will Creeley, the groups senior vice president of legal and public advocacy, said he hopes Yagers email to the university community represents the end of the institutions commentary on it, and they continue to protect academic freedom. Faculty members are entitled to have opinions about the world in which they work and live, he said. Absent any showing the professor has harassed a student, she is absolutely entitled to voice her opinions, as her critics are entitled to voice theirs. Paglia, a tenured faculty member who has been at UArts since 1984, has in the last several years been critical of the plague of political correctness and assaults on free speech. In 2016, she delivered a talk at Drexel about free speech on campus, arguing that the entire college experience should be based on confronting new and disruptive ideas. And in a 2017 commentary for Time magazine titled Blocking Campus Speech is Anti-Democracy and Anti-Feminist, she described her own dissident brand of feminism and stood by a date-rape manifesto she wrote in the early `90s that remains the most controversial thing I have ever written. The essay, in which Paglia argues that the only solution to date rape is female self-awareness and self-control, led to protests outside lectures she delivered on campus. Since then, Paglia who has characterized herself as libertarian hasnt shied away from the provocative. During the recorded interview about victim mentality and #MeToo" posted in January, she said its ridiculous college students expect authority figures to address a mistake that they might make at a fraternity party and then they regret six months later and a year later. Its ridiculous ... that any university ever tolerated a complaint of a girl coming in six months or a year after an event, she continued. If a real rape was committed, go friggin report it to police. To me, this is not feminism, she said. This is just a bourgeois culture of excuses. Organizers of opposition to her have also circulated comments shes made about transgender people. I am highly skeptical about the current transgender wave, which I think has been produced by far more complicated psychological and sociological factors than current gender discourse allows, she said in a 2017 interview with the Weekly Standard, a conservative political magazine. McAndrew, a UArts junior who is nonbinary and has been sexually assaulted, organized the protest at Paglias lecture Tuesday evening titled Ambiguous Images: Sexual Duality and Sexual Multiplicity in Western Art" after trying for about two weeks to get it moved off campus. Sheridan Merrick, a UArts senior and another student activist, said that while Paglia has attracted criticism from some students for years, the difference now is the national political discourse and that McAndrew chose to take a stand. It really reached a boiling point in this political climate, when peoples identities and rights are under attack from the administration on a national level, she said. Once one person said, Hey, were going to stand up for what we believe, everyone else joined in. McAndrew and Merrick said about 100 protesters sat in a lobby at Terra Hall, 211 S. Broad St., Tuesday holding signs ahead of the talk. Then, some of those protesting filed in to listen. About 30 minutes into the lecture, McAndrew said, a building fire alarm went off, prompting an evacuation and moving the protest outside, where demonstrators chanted, Trans lives matter! We believe survivors! Paul Healy, a UArts spokesperson, said the alarm was determined to have been intentionally pulled and an investigation into the incident is ongoing. The evacuation effectively ended Paglias lecture. McAndrew said no other protests had been planned. Theyre hoping to go to the university president with the petition once it reaches 1,000 signatures. The hope is for a dialogue with Paglia and university leadership. Im not going to be swept aside by an email from the president, McAndrew said. Its almost like a social-justice duty. An exterior of the Free Library on the Parkway on Wednesday, April 03, 2019. Read more The leaders of the Free Library on Monday testified before City Council members for more than two hours during a budget hearing that focused on discrimination and bias in the system. The hearing puts the library system one step closer to a new budget, which many hope will include more funding. The systems current budget is nearly $49 million, with about $40 million from the city and additional support through state funding and private donations. But advocates and city officials have said the budget is far below what the system needs to function at a basic level. Patrons of the 54-branch system have dealt with lengthy wait times for materials and closed branches due to staff shortages and facility emergencies in the last year. In March, the library requested about $15 million in additional funding from the city, but Mayor Jim Kenney later proposed adding only $2.5 million for the system, which advocates, and most City Council members, said would not address the systems needs. What happened Library president Siobhan Reardon testified alongside Pamela Dembe, chair of the librarys board of trustees, to the cheers and jeers of a few dozen advocates who lined the Council chamber gallery in matching green tees, occasionally holding up signs that read Not Enough and No Excuses. Nine Council members trickled in and out of the hearing, asking pointed questions mostly about facilities issues, six-day service, and the librarys strategy to address bias and diversity issues. Councilwomen Cindy Bass and Blondell Reynolds Brown, among the most vocal during the hearing, focused on instances of discrimination and bias reported by staff; diversity and inclusion efforts; and a lack of response by leadership. "You need to do more. You need to do better. Or we need to get someone whos going to do more and do better, Bass said. Bass and Reardon engaged in a testy exchange. Councilwoman [Bass], you have to know that we are deeply committed to this. It is a priority for this administration, Reardon said. Bass quickly replied: I cant tell. I cant tell. Based on what youve given me, and your response, I cant tell that youre deeply committed to anything related to diversity and inclusion. And show and prove. Show me what you want to do dont just talk to me about it, show me, in this budget cycle. Other Council members, including Kenyatta Johnson and Helen Gym, asked about the systems long-term plan to address crumbling facilities. READ MORE: Free Library borrowers face long waits for books, materials the side-effect of a shrunken materials budget READ MORE: Philadelphia announces hiring of new library staff, expanded branch hours READ MORE: Most city public libraries to close on Saturdays due to lack of funding READ MORE: As Mayor Kenney prepares to deliver budget address, Philadelphia Free Library asks for $15 million more READ MORE: In the citys poorest neighborhoods, libraries close earlier and more often Council members also reiterated that Kenneys proposed $2.5 million bump was insufficient for a library system struggling to meet a state mandate to maintain its collections, and open its doors each day. Two and a half million dollars is not enough to do nearly the level of work that needs to be done to the libraries, said Bass, who estimated the need is closer to $25 million based on her recent visits to branches in her district. We cant get to the bottom of Nicetowns needs alone with $2 million, she said. Whats next A few advocates and library employees will testify before City Council later this week. At the hearings close, library administrators were asked to return April 30 to report progress on strategies relating to diversity and inclusion training and efforts. Jayna Fey, a marketing and branding consultant, works on her laptop at Spaces - Philadelphia, a coworking space in the Hale Building in Center City Philadelphia. Read more Over Jayna Feys 15 years in the workforce, shes been called too assertive, too comfortable, too frowny, too familiar. Accurate or not, she used to make self-deprecating jokes about these traits. Not anymore. The 30-year-old consultant says shes done making cracks about who she is: a pixie-cut-rocking, septum-ring-wearing leader with a brash sense of humor. But that doesnt mean Fey, of Point Breeze whos also managed restaurants and dabbled in standup comedy is done being funny at work. There are too many benefits. I dont want to have any job or be in any environment long term," she said, "where we cant make each other laugh. A recent study in the Journal of Applied Psychology that showed being funny at work can hurt women and help men sparked a conversation about how women professionals fare when dropping jokes in the office. In Philadelphia, women said perceptions of their wisecracks vary from workplace to workplace, from conversation to conversation. Whats consistent is that good things can happen for women who use humor at work, like sprinkling a presentation with puns to make others comfortable or easing tension with a sarcastic one-liner. Jonathan Evans, the study author and a doctoral student in management at the University of Arizona, said that while the results suggest women cant benefit from using humor in the same way their male colleagues do, the goal wasnt to tell women to tone it down. Instead, people should use the report to recognize the prejudice. When we evaluate others, lets be aware there tends to be this negative bias, he said, and lets pay more attention to that so we can reduce it. Researchers had two actors, a man and a woman, deliver presentations as if they were managers of a retail store. Both presented two reports, one funny and one not. The researchers avoided humor that could be risky for women no sardonic jabs, no making fun. They opted for conversational wit that was more light and self-critical. More than 300 participants watched their presentations, rating whether they found the boss functional or disruptive. When the male actor was funny, he was rated as more functional. When the female actor was funny, she was rated as more disruptive. But plenty of funny women havent seen their careers play out that way. Mina Llona, aka radio host Mina SayWhat on Sirius XMs The Heat and Boom 103.9, is sure that humor helped her as a Latina working in urban radio. There's a stigma that comes with being a woman in a male-dominated field. Sometimes, they think we're too serious or were too focused, she said. There's these stereotypes that come with being that kind of woman. I think that being comical or being witty kind of breaks down some of those stereotypes. Brittnie Knight, a program associate at the Knight Foundation whos hosted a podcast called Black Girls Laughing," knows how to adapt her humor to the audience at work. Knight, a biracial black queer woman who lives in West Philadelphia, cant remember ever being told that a joke of hers was inappropriate. And she cracks jokes all the time. Her sarcasm, she said, is always on. Her last boss, she explained, was a white man who was also sarcastic. She thinks when she was up for her current job, he liked that they shared that quality. But normally, I dont think people respond to my sarcasm as well as he did, she said. Some of her peers in the nonprofit world, she explained, have read her as aggressive and sassy. If she wasnt a black woman, she doesnt think that would happen. Like many professionals, she uses humor to broach tough conversations like using sarcasm to call out everything from casual racism to institutional biases. That approach gets the conversation rolling, she said, but hasnt worked with seeing action followed up with that. Shes been thinking about her sense of humor recently, talking about it in therapy. I feel like I use it as a shield for other people, she said. And it really sucks when I think about that thats what I feel like I have to do. A 2000 study in the Journal of Managerial Psychology noted that women and people of color across genders in the workplace were historically discouraged in professional development guides to avoid humor altogether. But in diverse settings, people might be using jokes as a means to cope. Evans said that while they didnt evaluate how race would shift reactions, that merits further study. Researchers say humor improves work relationships, but funny comments can be ambiguous and humor styles vary, especially in crosscultural conversations. Also, how people hear humor is influenced by stereotypes. Cecily Cooper, an associate professor of management at the University of Miami whos researched humor in workplaces, said those differences can even cause anxiety during conversations that should be fun. She added that the study says more about gender than humor. We still have these pervasive gender differences in terms of how women are evaluated compared to men, she said, and in initial reactions, women never fare as well, and thats been shown over and over again in a lot of different contexts. Since the experiment captured only first impressions, the studys authors acknowledge that other factors could offset a poor reception to jokes. For example, the researchers wrote in the Harvard Business Review, a funny woman boss with a reputation for arriving early, staying late could skip the costs that other women pay for trying to get laughs. The problem, they wrote, is this shows women must meet a higher performance standard before benefiting from the use of humor. SayWhat said there are pluses to using humor as a woman in radio using it makes you more likable and brings levity to news or commentary. Still, shes noticed women cant seem to use sexual humor the way men can, without risking the consequences or being oversexualized. When shes discussing R-rated topics on her show, shes careful about not going too far. Navigating this, she said, is about balance. And learning not to put women in boxes. God forbid Im smart and Im pretty, she quipped, and I have a sense of humor. Dee McDowell (left), who is experiencing homelessness, collects her mail from volunteer Chris Martin at Broad Street Ministry on Avenue of the Arts. Read more Shuffling slowly with her cane, Dee McDowell lined up to receive her mail in a large, well-lighted room at Broad Street Ministry on the Avenue of the Arts. Once, she worked in a retail store, and had an actual address. But McDowell, 48, from North Jersey, now lives on the streets and in shelters. Ask what happened and shell recite a dismaying litany of calamities: mental illness, abuse, diabetes, and something dreadful about her spine. Shes here awaiting correspondence from her bank. Maybe theyll replace her debit card, get her going again back on the grid, back from the nowhere. Here, you get your mail and its never stolen, McDowell said, marveling at those two facts. The people who run it are pleasant. They want to help. Since 2010, Broad Street Ministry has served as a kind of post office for people experiencing homelessness. Those who comes in can claim the ministrys address as their own. Currently, more than 3,200 people actively use the mail service at the ministry, which is not a shelter, but offers meals, medical service, and other amenities for the homeless in a large, Gothic church across from the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. Last year, ministry volunteers handled 154,000 pieces of mail for guests, as they are called. Its not uncommon for individual shelters to accept mail for clients, experts say. But Broad Street is believed to be the citys largest mail service for people without a home. Along with letters from loved ones, Social Security checks, and packages, guests say the mail service helps them obtain birth certificates and identification, impossible to do without an address. When applying for official IDs or licenses, guests can write in the ministrys address of 315 S. Broad St. For some, its nothing less than salvation. According to a recent survey of people whove used services at Broad Street, 33.5 percent said that they had received IDs through the mail that ultimately allowed them to obtain housing. Sixty-four percent said those IDs helped them get benefits. And 33 percent said they were able to use the IDs to land jobs. If youre somewhere, youre someone, many of the guests believe. Getting mail here is one way of proving you exist, said Brenna McGinnis, a shelter director. An address gives you the dignity of being able to show that." The ministry mail service is incoming, not outgoing. No guest can buy stamps, or post a package. Collecting mail at Broad Street "is just a good way to stay in contact with your people, said Adrian Davis, 25, originally from Texas, now living rough in Philadelphia. And, he said, coming into the ministry for mail allows all the folks living outside to check in with street acquaintances and friends as they sort through their letters. We bounce situations off each other, see where we went wrong, the things we did, Davis said. Sam Steffen, who calls himself the postmaster general of Broad Street Ministry, runs the mail service wearing a blue U.S. Postal Service hat. Mail, he likes to say, is a human right, and is not only for people who are tied to a property. A former member of AmeriCorps a kind of domestic Peace Corps whose members do public-service work Steffen, slender and youthful in a red flannel shirt, has a masters degree in theology from Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville. People here are sometimes in desperate situations, waiting for something they need in the mail, said Steffen, who, with volunteers, stores the mail in large, black file cabinets, to be distributed weekdays between 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. This can be an intense place when people are awaiting their delivery. He smiles as he recounts one of the more notable sweating-out-the-mail anecdotes: A while back, a guest whod grown anxious about receiving his mail explained that he was awaiting a long-postponed settlement of his parents estate. Time passed. "Then one day, an envelope arrives, Steffen said. "The man opens it, looks up at me and says, Im not homeless anymore. You normally dont hear happy endings like that. But hes no longer around. This is so great. Mike Dahl, executive director of the ministry, said that, initially, he "had no clue how critical this service was. Now, he understands, and has many of his 3,000 yearly ministry volunteers ensuring that the right envelopes get into the right hands. Mail is so important, said Marie Rockemore, 51, formerly a worker in the credit department of a national retailer. Originally from West Philadelphia, Rockemore said memory loss from a severe head injury was one of a cascade of events that pushed her onto the streets. She was at the ministry on a cold spring morning with her husband, Joseph Krips, 69, a homeless man shed met at Broad Street whom she credits with protecting me from men when I wanted to be celibate." She said her welfare checks have been delivered to 315. They kept her going. Before walking to the upper church for a mac-and-cheese lunch, Rockemore slid a cache of a dozen official-looking letters shed just picked up into her backpack. This, she said, indicating the ministry and its mail operation, is a necessity for all of us. Dean Lloyd, 55, a sad-eyed construction worker from Lewisburg whos been dealing with an alcohol problem, agreed. I get forms I need from the welfare office here, he said, explaining that hes close to starting a job in a restaurant. This place is perfect. Philadelphia Media Network is one of 21 news organizations producing Broke in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on solutions to poverty and the citys push toward economic justice. See all of our reporting at brokeinphilly.org. The researchers were hot on the trail of an infamous 19th century assassin, using the latest 21st century technology to track him down. Before them were photographic images of a man named John St. Helen from 1877, of the embalmed corpse of a David E. George from 1903 and of John Wilkes Booth taken in 1865, shortly before he famously fired a .44-caliber pistol, made by Philadelphias Henry Deringer, into the head of President Abraham Lincoln. Facial-recognition software, already loaded with photos of 5,000 other white males, began to meticulously analyze the faces for similarities: the spaces between the eyes, the jaw lines, the shapes of the noses and cheek bones. In less than a minute, results came back that left the researchers stunned. The data showed a strong possibility that all three photographs were of the same man a belief long-held by a small number of historians, but always dismissed by scholars and assassination experts as conspiracy nonsense. Though not as definitive as DNA results, the facial recognition test used widely by law enforcement agencies raises the prospect on April 15, the 154th anniversary of the day Lincoln died, that Booth was not killed in a Virginia tobacco barn by a Union soldier in 1865, as history books say, but lived 38 years more as St. Helen and George, said Ramy Romany, an author and Egyptologist who helped oversee the Booth investigation as part of the new TV series Mummies Unwrapped. I was absolutely shocked, said Romany, host of the segment scheduled to air on the Discovery Channel at 10 p.m. Wednesday. It changed my perspective on American history. For the first time, I thought this could be true. John Wilkes Booth could have gotten away." After researchers obtained the best images available, they fed them into a high-resolution scanner, said Scott Hartford, executive producer of Fight or Flight Studios. Everyone was prepared for it to not to be a match and just say, `Oh well, it was an intriguing story to try to tell...,' he said. "It sounded like a crazy conspiracy theory, but when we looked at it, it raised legitimate questions. Georges photo was nearly a perfect match with Booths, within the top 1 percent of those bearing similar facial features, said researchers who worked with the creator of the New York Police Departments first dedicated facial-recognition unit. Whats more, he was within one pixel of having the same eye structure. St. Helens photograph, which was damaged and had to be repaired for the test, came within the top 3 percent of the digital lineup, researchers said. Police examiners give special attention to results that come up at 5 percent. History says Booth the matinee idol of his time shot the 16th president in the back of the head at Fords Theater on April 14, 1865, then fled through Maryland and Virginia, where the man believed to be the assassin was cornered by soldiers and detectives shortly after 2 a.m. on a cool, cloudy Wednesday in a barn near Port Royal, Va. Draw up your men before the door, and Ill come out and fight the whole command, called a voice from the barn. Well, my brave boys, prepare a stretcher for me! A soldier lit a tuft of hay, threw it inside and amid the smoke and flames spied the silhouette of a man on crutches, a carbine resting on his hip. A shot rang out. The man collapsed to the ground, mortally wounded in the neck. For historian James L. Swanson, the case is closed. The survival myth of John Wilkes Booth, roaming across the land, evokes the traditional fate of the damned, of a cursed spirit who can find no rest, he wrote in his book Manhunt. The 12-Day Chase for Lincolns Killer. But from the beginning, several people who saw the body at the barn questioned the official account. The dead man didnt resemble the fair, raven-haired Booth, a dashing Shakespearean performer who, with his brothers Edwin and Junius, played theaters in Philadelphia, New York, and Washington. Though others identified the corpse as Booths and the government confirmed the assassins death, questions lingered. Attempts were made in 1995 to exhume the remains from a family plot at a Baltimore cemetery to check it for identifying marks a broken left leg and crushed right thumb and to superimpose photographs to match the skull to photos of Booth. The judge turned down the request after determining it could not be proved where the body was buried. The government told us that Booth was caught and killed, and traditional historians went along with it, said Maryland educator and historian Nate Orlowek, who has investigated the assassination since he was 15 years old and worked with a group of other like-minded historians. They fell down on the job and ridiculed those of us who toiled for decades to disprove the hoax. We were right. John Wilkes Booth got away. Historian Andy Waskie, author of Philadelphia and the Civil War and associate professor in Temple Universitys language department, said he is open to new insights offered by facial recognition technology. I always support any and all practices that lead to a better understanding and concept of historical events and personalities, he said. If this practice can lead researchers into a clearer picture of the past, I am all for it. Waskie and other scholars such as Rob DOvidio, associate professor of criminology and justice studies at Drexel University, who focuses on high-tech crime and electronic surveillance, including facial recognition software, say new technologies can be useful. But the evidence needs to be strong if youre going to rewrite history, DOvidio said. This is like the History Detectives show on PBS, which uses modern tools and old-fashioned legwork to learn more about the past. Facial characteristics can be like a fingerprint, but much depends on the quality of the photos, said DOvidio. Thats a huge factor. The best samples are taken in controlled environments. Youre not going to get 90 percent accuracy if you have photos of questionable quality. Based on various historical accounts, Orlowek is convinced that Booth fled to Granbury, Texas, and took the name John St. Helen before moving to Enid, Okla., where he was known as David E. George. An image of Georges mummified remains in 1931 also was visually compared by researchers to a picture of the embalmed George in 1903. This is the first time any independent scientific test has been performed to try to settle this controversy, Orlowek said. This high-tech test has determined there is an 99 percent likelihood that George is Booth and now history needs to be rewritten. WASHINGTON At 1 a.m. Monday morning, 17 men in tuxedos gathered around a monument in Washingtons Southwest Waterfront Park to honor a 107-year-old sacrifice. They are members of the Titanic Mens Society, a private club of mostly retired broadcast newsmen who meet every year to pay tribute to the heroes who let women and children board the Titanics lifeboats first. Inscribed on the memorial are the words: "To the brave men who perished in the Titanic, April 15, 1912. They gave their lives that women and children might be saved." Society members in their formal wear had eaten a dinner of filet mignon and potatoes same as the last meal served in first class of the ship before surrounding the memorial for cigars and champagne toasts. They were joined by about 50 onlookers, mostly from boy's private schools in the area. They rang a bell, laid a wreath, and in their toasts "to these brave men," several mentioned the "secluded," "forgotten" spot where the memorial now sits. It is such an odd location that a Washington resident, Jeff Comer, recently wrote to Ask the Post, "What is the story behind the Titanic memorial? How did it get to be there, and can't we find a better spot for it?" At one time, there actually was a better spot for it. Until 1966, it was prominently displayed on the Potomac at New Hampshire Avenue; it was moved to its current location to make way for the Kennedy Center. Fundraising for the memorial statue began soon after the famous ship sank in 1912. Women across the country donated to the Women's Titanic Memorial Association. The statue was designed by heiress Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and sculpted from granite by John Horrigan, with a base from Henry Bacon, designer of the Lincoln Memorial. (Whitney's outstretched-arms design predates the "Titanic" movie's famous "I'm flying, Jack!" scene by many decades, but director James Cameron has never said if he was inspired by it.) It was finished by 1918 but remained in storage for more than a decade before it was installed at its original location. President Herbert Hoover and first lady Lou Hoover attended the unveiling ceremony in 1931. The memorial's heartfelt tribute to the men who sacrificed their lives isn't hyperbole. In 2012, Swedish researchers found that the concept of "women and children first" hasn't been adhered to at all in maritime disasters with the glaring exception of the Titanic. Of the passengers on board, 70 percent of women, but only 20 percent of the men, survived. Five D.C. residents, all of them wealthy, were aboard the doomed vessel. Two survived feminist and interior decorator Helen Churchill Candee and writer and historian Archibald Gracie. As The Post's Michael E. Ruane reported in 2012, Gracie initially went down with the ship, then swam to the surface, where he climbed onto an overturned lifeboat until being rescued. But he found the ordeal hard to move past, both physically and emotionally, and died less eight months later, likely from diabetes complications brought on by the hypothermia he endured on that fateful night. Jim Silman, who founded the Titanic Men's Society, still marvels at those who went down with the ship. At 91, he would have been a boy when the statue was first unveiled farther up the Potomac, but he doesn't want it to be forgotten. Tell your friends about the memorial, he told the crowd Monday morning. Come out and spend a nice, quiet moment here thinking about these men. Rigging electoral demo-graphics to guarantee leftist rule By Mark Alexander Every day since Donald Trump's electoral victory over Hillary Clinton in November of 2016, leaders of the now-socialist Democrat Party and their deranged legions of "useful idiots" have claimed that the election was stolen. This theme fueled Robert Mueller's contrived Russian-collusion investigation into how Trump and the Russians conspired to defeat Clinton. But as it turns out, they didn't collude which all but the most dimwitted partisans already knew. However, the Leftmedia's endless delusional dramatization of the greatest crime in American political history made for great diversionary theater over the last 30 months and generated a lot of revenue. Ironically, this collusion between the Demos and their media propagandists was, in large measure, responsible for their victory in the 2018 midterm elections ironic because it ensured that Vladimir Putin did influence our elections. Additionally, the Demos' "Hate Trump" platform has emboldened new socialist cadres and boosted socialist protagonist Bernie Sanders to the front of the 2020 pack. But they are deeply concerned about their 2020 presidential prospects under the current "antiquated constitutional system" that only allows U.S. citizens to vote and requires a majority of electoral votes state-by-state to determine a presidential victory. The old FDR model for buying elections redistributing wealth and entitlements in exchange for votes didn't work in 2016, when a substantial number of blue-collar "deplorables" defected from Clinton to Trump, from Democrat to Republican. Democrats now worry that these deplorables are even more firmly in the Trump camp than ever and that the Electoral College is somehow rigged against them. So, what's a Demo to do? Since they're concerned about their ability to defeat Trump under the current rules even given their feigned threats of impeachment and the economic instability that creates their solution is much more radical. Democrats are in the process of changing election rules, which will virtually guarantee them majority rule in the near future. And make no mistake the leftists at the head of the Demo-dragon are pulling out all the stops to enact those rule changes, thereby "transforming" our Constitutional Republic into a mob-rule democracy. Of course, Democrat initiatives are never bridled by the Constitution or the antiquated notion of Rule of Law, opting instead for the rule of men. Here is the lineup of the Democrats' nine strategic objectives to purge the Constitution from our electoral process and ensure their perpetual majority: 1) resist attempts to secure our southern border and thereby allow illegal immigrants to flood the country; 2) give illegals voting rights; 3) oppose voter-ID requirements; 4) rig the census so that illegals are counted as U.S. citizens; 5) lower the voting age to introduce a younger, more ignorant, and more impressionable demographic; 6) centralize elections so the outcome can more easily be rigged; 7) give statehood to overwhelmingly Democratic Puerto Rico and Washington, DC; 8) abolish the constitutionally mandated Electoral College; and finally, 9) pack the Supreme Court with additional justices to make sure their plan for a permanent Democrat majority faces no legal hurdles. Democrats clearly want to open our southern border and extend voting rights to all the illegal immigrants who have poured, and continue to pour, across that border, knowing that these poor, low-skilled immigrants are overwhelmingly predisposed to their welfare-state policies. At the same time, Demos vehemently oppose voter-ID requirements in states that don't allow illegal immigrants to vote. If they're successful at blocking citizenship questions on the 2020 U.S. Census, Democrats will be able to artificially inflate the population demographics of "sanctuary" cities and states to increase their electoral representation. Democrats are always endeavoring to dumb-down the electorate, and what better way to do that than reducing the voting age to 16? As Speaker Nancy Pelosi says, "I myself have always been for lowering the voting age to 16. I think it's really important to capture kids when they're in high school, when they're interested in all of this, when they're learning about government, to be able to vote." Of course, there hasn't been a real civics class taught in a public high school for three decades, so this has nothing to do with engaging civic-minded young people and everything to do with mobilizing brainwashed minions. Central to the Democrats' efforts to expand their voter ranks was passage of HR1, the so-called For the People Act to "expand Americans' access to the ballot box," mostly by federalizing state and local elections. That bill provides for mass voter registrations, voting rights for illegal aliens, voting rights for convicted felons while in prison, and same-day voter registration meaning no verification. It will sit in the House, however, until a Democrat Senate majority can be secured. Of HR1, Investor's Business Daily warns: "Far-left media advocates for the Democrats have benignly called the proposed new law 'election reform,' claimed it 'could save American Democracy' and characterized it as 'a sweeping anti-corruption proposal.' It is none of those things. Instead, H.R.1 is a shocking power grab on the part of the Democrats who seek to nationalize all elections so they can permanently silence the Red States that stand in their way. It does so by transferring most of the power over elections to the federal government, and taking it away from the states, as the Constitution requires." HR1 is so offensive to our Constitution that even the leftist American Civil Liberties Union opposed it, protesting that the bill would "unconstitutionally impinge on the free speech rights of American citizens and public interest organizations." As HR1 reached the House floor, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) noted that he "offered a motion to recommit #HR1 reaffirming that only US citizens should have the right to vote. Dems rejected it." Thus, he said, "Next time you go to the ballot box, keep that in mind. The future of their party is in cities like San Fran, where illegals can vote. Let that sink in." Of course, creating states out of socioeconomically dependent jurisdictions or territories is a quick way to increase Democrat representation in the Senate, and that's the objective of active and ongoing efforts to win statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Last, and most insidious in terms of subverting our Constitution's electoral mandate, is the effort to abolish the Electoral College the method by which we've elected our presidents since 1789. Pursuant to Article II, Section 1, Clause 2, the legislature of each state determines the manner by which its electors are chosen. Democrats are well down the road to sabotaging the Electoral College by rigging how states cast their electoral votes. According to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who is leading the 2020 candidates' electoral-subterfuge movement, "Every vote matters and the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting, and that means get rid of the Electoral College." Actually, the Electoral College ensures that every vote matters, and not just those in a few states with massive urban centers. What the Democrats are setting up is "Urbana versus America," an effort to make sure that New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and a few other large and deeply Democrat metropolises dictate policy for the rest of the nation. By way of review, in their timeless wisdom, our Founders ensured that a few states would not be able to exercise dominion over all the other states. Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 68, regarding "The Mode of Electing the President," wrote about the brilliance of the Electoral College. James Madison explained in Federalist No. 39, regarding "Conformity of the Plan to Republican Principles," that our election system should be a combination of state-based and population-based selection. States would have a number of representatives in the House based on population, while each state would have two members in the Senate. And the president would be elected by a combined representation of state electors. Additionally, in Federalist No. 10, regarding "Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection," James Madison outlined the danger of "an interested and overbearing majority" and the "mischiefs of faction," which he defined as "a number of citizens whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." The number of electors in each state is, of course, equal to the total of each state's Senate and House members. There are currently 100 senators and 435 representatives, plus three electors from the District of Columbia, for a combined total of 538 electors. Thus, when a presidential candidate reaches 270 electoral votes, he or she is the victor. In recent decades, three presidents didn't win a majority of votes but did win the Electoral College vote. Bill Clinton failed to win a popular majority in either of his presidential victories, receiving just 43% in 1992 and 49% in 1996. In the 2000 election, neither George W. Bush nor Albert Gore gained a popular majority of the votes, with Bush narrowly defeating Gore with 271 electoral votes. Likewise, in 2016, neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump received a popular majority of votes, but Trump won where it mattered, trouncing Clinton 304 to 227 in the Electoral College. If Democrats succeed in their National Popular Vote campaign to negate the Electoral College, however, they will ensure that a few large states control all the rest. Wealthy leftists, including the likes of George Soros and his archenemies of Liberty, are bankrolling the National Popular Vote movement. According to the compact, states will award electors to whoever wins the national popular vote even if a majority of a member state's voters supported another candidate. By definition, this goes against the stated purpose of the compact and Sen. Warren's assertion that "every vote matters." The signatories to the NPV effort agree that it will take effect when there are enough states to reach 270 electoral votes. It currently has 181. The NPV has already been enacted into law in 15 states and jurisdictions, representing 189 electoral votes. Those include five smaller states (DE, HI, RI, VT) and DC; six medium-size states (CO, CT, MD, MA, NM, WA); and four of the nation's largest states (CA, IL, NJ, NY). While these Democrat-controlled states will likely not reach 270 by 2020, they will very likely reach that level by 2024. And they will weaponize the Federal Election Commission to ensure they do. Finally, to ensure that all these measures to produce a permanent Democrat majority face no legal hurdles, leftists have renewed their call to pack the Supreme Court, as FDR endeavored to do under cover of the Great Depression. In sum, the Democrats' multiple-vector effort to change the rules is all about absolute power over principles, and their effort to abolish the Electoral College in particular has ominous implications for the future of Liberty. As Founder John Adams wrote, "We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections." That institutional infection is now epidemic. Mark Alexander is the executive editor of the Patriot Post. Other related stories: Facts, not myths back national popular votes surge in popularity (April 1, 2019) The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is being portrayed as an unconstitutional attempt to ignore the Electoral College. Rachel Alexander says it's nothing of the kind and Republicans better get up to speed ATLANTIC CITY Formica Bros., the century-old baker of the bread that supplies many of the Jersey Shores classic sandwich shops, including the White House Sub Shop, has filed for bankruptcy. But the company whose bread has defined the taste of a cheesesteak or Italian sub down the Shore will continue operations, said Frank Formica, a third-generation baker. An emotional Formica said Monday that he would no longer be an owner of the bakery, founded by his grandfather and great-uncle in 1919, that is a staple on Arctic Avenue in the citys Ducktown neighborhood. Two workplace accidents, including one involving a worker whose arm was amputated, led to lawsuits that forced him to declare bankruptcy, Formica said. The second incident resulted in a workers fingers being crushed, he said. Its sad, said Formica. Its tragic. This is my grandfather, my grandparents, and my parents and my family. We are being forced into this situation. Im 67 years old. Its not exactly my exit strategy. Formica (pronounced For-MEE-ca) said that 67 of the companys 71 employees would be retained and that the business would continue to supply 280 shops with the companys famous sub rolls, including White House in Atlantic City, Sack-O-Subs, Sugar Hill, and even Congress Hall in Cape May. Several other well-known Atlantic City businesses, including Tonys Baltimore Grill and James Candy Co., maker of Fralingers Salt Water Taffy, have declared bankruptcy in recent years. Every iconic business has suffered from the downturn of the [local] economy, said Formica, who is also an Atlantic County freeholder. The foreclosure rate in Atlantic County is the highest in the country. We had a loss of 35,000 jobs, five casino closings [two have reopened]. That took a toll on us. We were persistent. He said workers compensation claims stemming from the two accidents were settled. But additional lawsuits were then filed in court that go beyond workers comp, he said, and would not have been covered by the business $10 million insurance policy. Beyond that, he said, Atlantic City has become a tough place to do business. Youre constantly trying to make things better in Atlantic City, but our market here is still suffering, Formica said. He said the Chapter 7 declaration, filed April 5 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Camden, listed the companys assets of $675,416 and its liabilities at $5,740,436. He said it was the only way to preserve the business against a potential judgment from the lawsuits, which sought $5 million apiece. In one case, Francis Carpinelli of Galloway suffered horrific and catastrophic injuries to his right hand from contact with a bread-making machine. In the other, Dianna Trujillo had her right arm amputated after an injury from a mobile conveyor that the lawsuit says lacked protections including a guard for its chain. Formica said he expected the bankruptcy to discharge the lawsuits. He said the injuries were catastrophic and tragic. Robert Zimmerman, attorney for Carpinelli, declined to comment Monday on the bankruptcy filing. A lawyer for Trujillo could not be reached. Under the proposed Chapter 7 liquidation and reorganization, the assets of the company, which bakes bread, rolls, cannolis, and Tomato Pie daily, have been leased to a separately owned entity, Formica said, that will trade as Formicas Bakery. Pat McKenna, owner of A Taste of Italy, an Egg Harbor City-based manufacturer of Italian foods, will take over the leases, he said. A related company, Baker Boys LLC, also declared bankruptcy. Formica was a Republican candidate for the Assembly but withdrew his candidacy earlier this year. He said the two accidents at the business were used against him politically. He said that he will continue as a consultant for the business and that his daughter will still work there. But the end of a family tradition clearly stung Formica. Atlantic Citys sub rolls and bread have long been praised. Some attribute their quality to the water from reservoirs located just outside the city limits. In 1919, Formica Bros. was Francesco and Santo Formica, Formica said. That was my grandfather and his brother. After World War II, Formica Bros. was my father, Mario, and my uncle Frank. He worked there until he was 89. Ive tried with all my heart to keep this business going, Formica said. I think we have a plan. Keith Benson, the head of the Camden Education Association, walks along River Road in Pennsauken on his way to Beverly, N.J., for the first leg of his three-day walk to Trenton from Camden, to protest budget cuts that will shut several schools and possibly cause up to 200 layoffs. Read more Camden activists began a three-day march Monday to Trenton to meet with lawmakers to demand more funding for the citys traditional public school system to avoid layoffs and school shutdowns to close a $27 million budget deficit. After a brief rally and prayer in downtown Camden, Keith Benson, president of the Camden Education Association, began the first leg of the march to Trenton. He walked about 13 miles to Beverly. Were out here to try to fight for our schools, Benson said at the union headquarters. Acting School Superintendent Katrina McCombs unveiled a sweeping plan last week to relocate about 900 students by closing a school and an annex, reconfiguring a third building, and cutting several hundred jobs. Critics have called for a freeze on cuts and school closures and want a federal probe into the districts spending. McCombs cited a budget gap for the 2019-20 school year, as well as long-term enrollment and facilities issues plaguing South Jerseys largest school district. Camden has been operating as a state takeover district since 2013. If the district receives $27 million in emergency state aid, that funding could help reduce the projected layoffs, McCombs said in an interview. About 50 to 200 positions could be cut, she said. Its a moving target. Were still advocating, the superintendent said. Even with additional aid, the district plans to close Veterans Memorial Family School, which needs $14 million in repairs, and the Bonsall Annex. Also, Riletta T. Cream Elementary will be turned into an early-childhood center, she said. The biggest impact would be felt at Veterans, which has about 500 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Some students will be sent to Davis Elementary, while bilingual sixth through eighth graders will be sent to Cramer Elementary, where the district plans to start a dual language academy. McCombs said most of the districts preschoolers would be enrolled in Cream, which is operating at about 43 percent capacity. Cream Elementary students would be sent to H.B. Wilson Elementary, which will become a K-8 school, and Creative Arts Morgan Village Academy. McCombs said the decisions, widely criticized by union and community leaders, were excruciating to make, but would save about $7 million. She said she considered decreasing enrollment, academic performance, and the condition of some school buildings. Veterans, a nearly 80-year-old building, is operating at half capacity, she said. At the end of the day, I stand by the decisions, said McCombs, who grew up in Camden and was educated in the public schools. Its decisions thats focused on putting students first. McCombs said the district plans to relocate as many employees as possible to other schools in the event of closings. Under state law, employees must be notified by May 15. The state Department of Education says it is working with Camden and that any proposed cuts are pending. Camden is one of four districts operating under state control. The district has about 1,600 employees and operates 19 schools. As Benson made his way from downtown to the citys Cramer Hill section, he was met by about 10 students from Veterans who walked out to protest the closing of their school. They gathered briefly in front of Mastery, one of the Renaissance schools where they might be sent, and chanted, Save our school. I disagree with her [the superintendents] opinion, said Jacqueline Class, 15, an eighth-grader at Veterans. I dont think its fair for everybody. Benson and others believe Camden school officials have focused too much on Renaissance and charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated, and has ignored its traditional public schools, such as Veterans. More Camden public school students are enrolled in charter and Renaissance schools than traditional public schools. Benson believes the latest proposed changes are designed to move additional students from traditional public schools because they will have fewer options in their neighborhood schools. For the 2018-19 school year, the district said it enrolled 7,520 students in the citys 19 traditional public schools; 4,340 in 11 charter schools; and 4,400 in 11 Renaissance schools. Camden has had a history of fiscal problems and state oversight. The district imposed layoffs, school consolidations, and closures in 2013 when the state took over with a $100 million budget gap. McCombs said Camden submitted applications to the New Jersey Schools Development Authority seeking $122 million for repairs for its aging buildings. No additional school closings are expected, she said. Benson, who completed the first leg of his march of equity in about four hours, said he was inspired by supporters along the route. More activists are expected to join the walk for the second leg Tuesday, which will begin in Beverly. The march will end at the Statehouse on Wednesday at the state Board of Education meeting and a rally at 1 p.m. Kate McClure, 29, charged with theft by deception in the $400K GoFundMe scam, with her lawyer Jim Gerrow Jr., pleads guilty before State Superior Court Judge Christopher Garrenger in Burlington County Courthouse, Mt. Holly, NJ Monday April 15, 2019 Read more Three days after Johnny Bobbitt Jr. was sentenced for his role in a GoFundMe campaign that netted $402,706 and defrauded donors with a fake Good Samaritan tale, Katelyn McClure appeared before the same judge in Superior Court in Mount Holly to admit her role in a conspiracy that preyed on peoples sympathies. McClure, 29, of Bordentown, pleaded guilty Monday before Judge Christopher Garrenger as part of an agreement that calls for her to face a four-year prison term. McClure admitted that she and her ex-boyfriend, Mark DAmico, befriended Bobbitt, 36, a former homeless veteran, outside a Philadelphia casino. She said the couple then made up a story about Bobbitts offering her his last $20 when she ran out of gas off I-95 in Philadelphia, in an area where he had been panhandling in November 2017. She said DAmico, 39, of Florence, told her that this was for Johnny and if I did it, it would help Johnny out. She said she and DAmico had given Bobbitt money when he was panhandling and even brought him small gifts. Under McClures agreement with county prosecutors, she admitted to a single charge of theft by deception, which would be downgraded to a third-degree crime. In return, a conspiracy charge would be dropped. She also agreed to testify against DAmico and Bobbitt, and to cooperate with authorities. Sentencing is scheduled for June 3 in the Burlington County courthouse. More than 14,000 donors across the country and beyond contributed to the GoFundMe campaign and were led to believe the money would be used to help get Bobbitt, who served in the Marine Corps, off the streets. The three appeared on national TV and radio shows to promote their Paying It Forward campaign, which went viral over the holiday season. McClure calmly answered questions posed by her defense attorney, James Gerrow, during a 30-minute hearing Monday, and described her role in the scam as limited. She said she allowed DAmico to take a photograph of her and Bobbitt on an exit ramp off I-95 and admitted the picture became the face of the campaign. She also admitted that she video-recorded Bobbitt as he sat in her car and heard about the GoFundMe campaign the couple had launched. She said he never told her to terminate the campaign. McClure said she went along with interviews on Good Morning America, BBC radio, and other media outlets, but objected to going on Megyn Kellys morning show last August when the couple said they spent the money to meet Bobbitts needs because they were afraid he would waste it. The couple also said they had more than $150,000 left. I didnt want to do that, she told the judge. I just want to make that 100 percent clear. McClure arrived at the hearing with her parents and was dressed in black, as she was when she pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge related to the scam in federal court in Camden six weeks ago. She admitted Monday that she and DAmico spent much of the money that was raised on vacations, casino gambling, a BMW, two trucks, designer handbags, and other purchases. Bobbitt lived for a short time in a camper next to the couples home in Florence, and used some of the $25,000 he received from the couple for illicit drugs, she said. She admitted she dropped him off near a side street in Philadelphia and assumed he made these purchases, but never actually watched. DAmico has also been charged by Burlington County prosecutors with theft by deception and conspiracy.. Assistant Burlington County Prosecutor Andrew McDonnell said the state would not take any position on the sentence beyond the plea agreement, and would defer to the courts pre-trial team. He also said the plea agreement called for McClure to pay more than $400,000 in restitution to GoFundMe, which refunded donors money after authorities announced the fraud. McDonnell said McClures repayment would be subject to her ability to pay. He also said her sentence could run concurrently with the sentence a federal court might impose in June. McClure lost her job with the state after she was charged by prosecutors. Last month, McClure pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in federal court for her involvement in the scheme, which included interstate banking. She is scheduled to be sentenced on that charge on June 19 in U.S. District Court in Camden. McClures plea in state court came after Bobbitt, a longtime drug addict, was sentenced Friday to five years of special probation that requires him to enroll in a court-supervised live-in drug rehabilitation program. If he fails to complete the program, he could be sentenced to five years in state prison with 18 months of parole ineligibility. He also agreed to testify against McClure and DAmico at trial. County Prosecutor Scott Coffina said Friday that Bobbitt was being transferred from the Burlington County Jail to a drug treatment facility that he declined to name. Bobbitt also was prosecuted by federal authorities and faces an additional six to 30 months in federal prison on a charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering, under his plea arrangement. That term could be concurrent or consecutive to the sentence in state court. Federal prosecutors have declined to say whether DAmico may be charged or whether he is under investigation. He has not responded to requests for comment. The Paying It Forward campaign was posted online on Nov. 10, 2017, by McClure. The initial goal was to raise $10,000 with the goal of providing Bobbitt with money for rent, a vehicle, and six months of living expenses. But donations poured in, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. Within nine months, all of the money was gone. Bobbitt sued McClure and DAmico last summer, saying he didnt get his share of the money. That lawsuit caught the attention of authorities. After an investigation, that civil case was put on hold and the three were charged with conspiracy. U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly (right) greets supporters at his election returns party last year, in Butler, Pa. He was one of the chief co-sponsors of the SECURE Act. Read more Congress has proposed legislation to help Americans sock away more money. Yes, its true: Lawmakers might actually do something to help solve our retirement savings pickle. Wending its way through the House and Senate this month is an epic bill called The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019. The act is a bit of kitchen-sink legislation, with goodies for current and future retirees, including students. Lets go through some of the offerings. The SECURE Act starts by raising the age for required minimum distributions, known as RMDs, from investment accounts to 72 years of age from 70 years. This recognizes that Americans are living longer and shouldnt be forced to take money out of the markets just because of their age. The legislation also makes it easier for employers to offer annuities in 401(k) and 403(b) retirement plans. (Read: heavy lobbying by insurance companies that sell these annuities. Well address the pros and cons of annuities in a future column.) Also in the bill: Americans can take out money from retirement accounts without a penalty for a birth or adoption, up to $5,000. The SECURE Act also allows employees to invest up to $19,000 if under age 50 and up to $25,000 if 50 or overinto their 401(k) plan. Those contributions and any employer match grow tax free. Since women are more likely to work part-time for at least some portion of their careers, the bill also requires retirement plans to open up to all employees who either work 1,000 hours in one year or at least 500 hours for three consecutive years. (Under current law, employers could set any eligibility rules they wanted, as long as employees who complete 1,000 hours of work in one year can enroll.) One provision not related to retirement the SECURE Act would expand 529 college savings plans to cover the costs of apprenticeship programs and homeschooling. And heres the best part: It allows 529 funds to be used to pay student loans up to $10,000. Thank you, Congress. This is a no-brainer. For those who want to read the bills in full or call the sponsors, the SECURE Act incorporates measures from the previous Senate bill, dubbed the Retirement Enhancement and Savings Act, or RESA. The SECURE Act was introduced by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D., Mass.), along with Rep. Ron Kind (D., Wis.), Ways and Means Committee ranking member Kevin Brady (R., Texas), and our own Rep. Mike Kelly (R., Pa.). Here are links to the House bill: https://waysandmeans.house.gov/sites/democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/files/documents/NEAL_008_xml_0.pdf and the Senate version: https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/RESA%20Summary%204.1.19-banner-converted.pdf. Vanguard Stewardship report Local investment giant Vanguard has issued a new report on how it engages with public companies on governance and social issues, in a write-up published on the firms website: https://about.vanguard.com/investment-stewardship/perspectives-and-commentary/2019-semiannual-engagement-update.pdf. Its an important step for Vanguard, as it appears to name publicly for the first time 356 companies with which the mutual fund giant has engaged on issues such as board composition, executive compensation, and governance issues for the six months ended Dec. 31, 2018. The $5 trillion-plus firm has come under more scrutiny for its shareholder activism efforts, and the Wall Street Journal last week reported that Vanguard will vote against board members who work a full-time job and serve on more than two corporate boards at a time. Vanguard spokeswoman Carolyn Wegemann said the company has three general types of engagement: Event-driven: Typically discussions about a ballot item or contentious vote where we want to hear all relevant perspectives. Topic-driven: These meetings are held to discuss matters within the boards purview, that may, in our view, materially affect a companys long-term value. Strategic: Given the fact that our funds are near-permanent owners of company stock, understanding a companys long-term strategy and how its governance practices align with that strategy is valued and helps us better understand how companies plan to stay relevant over the long term. BetterInvesting.org in Moorestown BetterInvesting.org, a nonprofit investor education group, is hosting a free event at the Moorestown Public Library on Thursday, April 18. The library is at 111 W. Second St. Their event is being held in conjunction with FINRAs Money Smart Week program, and features testimony by two members about how they left behind Wall Street investing concepts, found BetterInvesting, and became self-educated. BetterInvesting will also feature a video on fraud prevention. For more information, or to RSVP, email contact@sjersey.betterinvesting.net or call John Pierce, secretary, South Jersey chapter of BetterInvesting, at 856-429-3752. Youngsters (no IDs) play on the hockey rink at the Burke Playground April 14, 2019. Since 2014, Philadelphia City Councilman Mark Squilla has directed $23,000 in public money to the Burke Community Fund, a nonprofit named for the playground. The fund has never been audited and in 2010, the IRS revoked its charity status for failure to file a tax return since at least 2007. Read more That was some storm, huh? If much of the region is a bit sleepy this morning, blame those middle-of-the-night tornado warnings. No actual tornadoes were reported but the storm did take down power lines and trees, leading to outages in Philly and Delaware County. Now that the storm has passed, were ready to start the week. Were kicking it off with a look at a city-run nonprofit and its lack of oversight; what City Council candidates want to do if they win; and how Philly experiences everyday mass shootings. Reading this online? Sign up here to get this newsletter delivered to your inbox every morning. Aubrey Nagle (@aubsn, morningnewsletter@philly.com) The Philadelphia Activities Fund, a nonprofit arm of the Department of Parks and Recreation, was established 25 years ago as an independent overseer for community funding requests. The goal was to end the ethically fraught practice of letting Council members choose which groups in their districts deserve money. In the years since, the fund has distributed tens of millions of dollars. Where does the money go, exactly? An Inquirer review suggests theres been little, if any, oversight of the fund and individual council members still decide who gets the money. And its not just not-for-profit groups. Phillys laws are set by 17 people on City Council. This year, dozens of people are running for a spot. In such a crowded race, fund raising can set a candidate apart. So can age, as a group of millennials vie to be the first on the Council. But what about the issues? We asked incumbents and challengers what their first proposed bill would be if they win their party nomination May 21 and the general election this fall. Their answers touch on everything from tax abatement to rent control. Mass shooting events in suburban settings involving multiple victims shot by the same person devastate communities and get a lot of public and political attention. Shootings in Philadelphia often take place in different neighborhoods and involve different residents but send multiple patients to the same emergency room at once. These patient clusters can be as devastating for communities and hospitals as single-site mass shootings. And when clusters are considered, a new study from Temple University has found that Philly has seen an average of nearly two mass shootings every month for the last 11 years. What you need to know today Through Your Eyes | #OurPhilly Emoji game strong, @willyiu. 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 This shared grief reminds us of the extent to which an independent bookstore is rooted in its community. Like a plant, its shaped by its environment. ...The Penn Book Center is truly a collaboration between us and our customers. The owners of Penn Book Center on reactions to the closing of their independent bookstore. Affordable summer camps funded by Philadelphias Parks and Recreation department are a lifesaver for working parents, writes Marcella Lipski, a full-time mom and part-time marketing data specialist for HDR Architecture Inc. The Democratic presidential hopefuls radiate unseriousness about the things they speak solemnly of, writes columnist George Will. What were reading A Daily Dose of | Kielbasa Its almost Easter and, in Pennsylvanias Polish communities, that means its time for kielbasa. Lots and lots of fresh kielbasa. An e-scooter zips along a Washington, D.C., street. Pennsylvania lawmakers Greg Rothman (R-Cumberland) Stephen Kinsey have introduced a bill to legalize on-the-road scooter use in the state. Read more When Henry Ford began his automobile business with the goal of mass-producing his black Model T, people scoffed at his vision of making a car for the great multitude. Such skeptics likely never would have imagined that, according to Worldometers, it is estimated that more than 1 billion passenger cars travel the streets and roads of the world today. Ride-sharing services such as Lyft and Uber, the latter of which 90 percent of Pennsylvanians have had access to since 2016, have reduced the need to own a car. Uber and Lyft also now rent electric bikes and scooters through their apps. Non-electric bike sharing has become another popular service. After reporting success stories of their e-scooter vehicles bringing an affordable transportation alternative to those in underprivileged areas, these alternative ride-sharing companies are looking to expand to other states, including Pennsylvania. On March 26, we participated in a demonstration of Lime and Bird scooters where we were able to ride the electric bikes on the street outside the Pennsylvania Capitol. After multiple meetings with these companies, we have come to believe e-scooters could bring a wealth of benefits to Pennsylvanians, including convenience, decreased road congestion and pollution, and cheaper transportation. You rent an e-scooter the same way you order an Uber or Lyft ride, although scooter rides are cheaper. These convenient bikes are ideal for college students, tourists, and commuters who have shorter distances to travel. Trips which may be more of a hassle by car, or too long to walk, can be taken by e-scooter. This is not only convenient for the e-scooter traveler, but also for people in cars who now deal with less-congested roads. Under current law, e-scooters are illegal in Pennsylvania. According to the state Department of Transportation, Pennsylvania currently outlaws the use of electric scooters on roads and sidewalks. Amending the state vehicle code would allow electric scooters to travel as bicycles do now. We are sponsoring a bipartisan bill, H.B. 631, which would add them to the state vehicle code and legalize them. Due to current restrictions, the Commonwealth is already falling behind in transportation innovation in comparison to our neighbors in the Northeast, such as Maryland and Washington. A D.C. Department of Transportation study found that Birds e-scooter pilot program in Washington provides greater micro-mobility accessibility across the entire city." City regulators in areas where private e-scooter companies are launching programs have been generally hostile, with some, such as Nashville, San Francisco, and Washington, imposing speed restrictions and fines and mandating certain zones within the cities where the vehicles can be used. Cities in Pennsylvania may want to impose similar restrictions. However, we believe citizens are better off having the option available to them and the freedom to choose what mode of transportation they wish to use, especially for shorter trips. We also would urge city administrators in Pennsylvania to look to other cities as examples of how overregulation can get out of control and cause over-criminalization and limit access in underserved areas. For example, the D.C. study on Birds pilot program found that it provided greater micro-mobility for Ward 8, which is traditionally underserved. Bird pointed to this information as evidence that over-regulating e-scooters incentivizes e-scooter providers to avoid historically underserved areas. For those with safety concerns around e-scooters, consider the following: In a Washington Post report on the first recorded ride-share scooter death in D.C., it was also noted that there had been 25 other transportation fatalities in the same year, including nine pedestrians, five motorcyclists, three bicyclists, and seven motorists or car passengers. Moreover, people are increasingly aware of the high financial and environmental costs of cars, especially the millennial generation. Car pollution is a major cause of global warming, with cars and trucks contributing nearly 20 percent of the United States total global warming pollution. Cars contribute to air pollution, emitting ozone, particle pollution, and air toxics. These pollutants affect millions of people, especially those living close to busy roads. The environmental impacts can be seen as haze, smog and soot in many parts of the U.S., and the acidification of lakes and streams. If we want to make our Commonwealth an attractive place for young people to live and work, we must ease restrictions on alternative forms of travel that are less impactful on the environment. Our bill is a common sense, bipartisan solution. Most importantly, we want all Pennsylvanians to have the freedom to choose any mode of transportation that is most efficient for them. The government should not decide how you get to work or visit family and friends. Instead, it should be looking at ways to make it easier for you. If you want access to these services in Pennsylvania, let your state representative and senator know that you support our bill. On April 18, we will participate in a hearing on our legislation that you can watch on Rep. Rothmans website, at reprothman.com. Together, we can move our Commonwealth forward on transportation innovation and ride sharing. Greg Rothman (R., Cumberland represents the 87th District, and Stephen Kinsey (D., Philadelphia) represents the 201st District, in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. We are an educator and an organizer in the labor movement, respectively. Both of us were born in the Philly area, and both have us lived elsewhere. But we both found our way back here, and have settled down in the Point Breeze section of South Philadelphia. And, because we both bought rehabbed rowhouses, we both have 10-year tax abatements. Or, at least, we did. Our paid work and volunteer organizing in our neighborhood and beyond have shown us that there is intense inequality all over the world, including here in Philadelphia, and especially in Point Breeze. A quarter of Philadelphians live in poverty, and 14 percent live in deep poverty. But if you watch the development in the city, you may not know it. On almost every block in our neighborhood, new houses are being built. In many ways, thats great: Our city is growing, and we need to provide housing that keeps up with interest in our wonderful, far-too-forgotten city. But the vast majority of new housing is being built for the wealthy. And in our neighborhood, the only homes being built or rehabbed are unaffordable for the average Philadelphian. A new development, 2100 Kimball, will provide 40 luxury townhouses at the edge of Graduate Hospital. The starting price is $975,000, and each home comes with a 10-year tax abatement. The idea that someone who purchases a million-dollar home needs or deserves a tax break is laughable. Which is why we put our money where our mouths are and just contacted the Office of Property Assessment (OPA) asking to cancel our abatements. According to the Mayors Office, the beneficiary of an abatement may elect to have the abatement terminated by filling out a form and submitting it to OPA. Neither of us totally understood what our tax abatements were or what they signified when we bought our homes. But once we connected the dots between our personal tax breaks and our under-resourced schools, we realized that there was no way to be advocates for public education while also being part of the process that starved our schools. Many of our schools are filled with asbestos, rodents, bedbugs, and lead, and have the potential to make students, staff, and teachers sick. Right now, our public schools are partially funded through property taxes. As an educator and labor organizer and as community members invested in our neighborhood we wont sit by and watch our schools (and the people in them) suffer. Which is why weve decided to give back our tax abatements, and why were calling on City Council and the Mayors Office to end the 10-year tax abatement program so that moving forward, no one else receives an unnecessary tax break and the money can go toward bettering our neighborhoods. To some people, there are few things more ridiculous than willingly paying more taxes. But, to us, it seemed like a no-brainer: We had the great privilege of buying homes, which we know continues to be either flat-out denied, or just completely out of reach, for our poorer neighbors and some of our neighbors of color. If we can afford to buy homes and commit to our communities, we can afford to pay our fair share of property taxes. But we cant do this alone. To protect the future, City Council should end the abatement moving forward. And in the meantime, were calling on our neighbors with tax abatements to join us and cancel theirs. Alison Stohr is an educator in the School District of Philadelphia and a member of 215 Peoples Alliance. alisonstohr@gmail.com Mindy Isser is an organizer in the labor movement and a member of 215 Peoples Alliance. mindy.isser@gmail.com Signs advertising free measles vaccines and information about measles at the Rockland County Health Department, in Pomona, N.Y. Read more The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called on Americans to vaccinate their children against measles and other preventable infectious diseases. So has the Surgeon General of the United States. But the President of the United States? He has been silent, even amid one of the largest measles outbreaks in recent American history. Nearly 500 people have already contracted the disease, mostly in New York and its northern suburbs. Here in Philadelphia, meanwhile, a mumps outbreak at Temple University led to 140 cases; mumps has also been reported at Penn, Drexel, and West Chester University. Silent isnt a term we normally associate with our voluble president, of course. And surely its a big improvement on his previous pronouncements, which spread the false claim that vaccines cause autism. But now is the time for the president to act, well, presidential. Ever since Franklin D. Roosevelts March of Dimes campaign, which helped finance research on the polio vaccine, every chief executiveregardless of partyhas supported immunizations against infectious diseases. Dwight Eisenhower signed a law providing federal money for polio vaccines. Lyndon Johnson funded an immunization program against smallpox. Jimmy Carter started the National Childhood Immunization Initiative, which reached its goal of protecting 90 percent of American children. And Ronald Reagan signed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which compensated patients in the rare instances where immunizations caused harm. By contrast, Donald Trump has condemned the very concept of vaccination. Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesnt feel good and changesAUTISM, Trump tweeted in 2014. During his campaign for the White House, Trump met with British physician Andrew Wakefieldwhose 1998 article claiming a link between vaccines and autism has been thoroughly debunkedand also with prominent anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who reported that Trump was planning to appoint him chair of a new vaccine safety commission. Fortunately, that never happened. And Trump has gone quiet about vaccinations, which is better than repeating falsehoods about them. But its not good enough. Although all 50 states require certain vaccines for children to enter school, all but three allow exemptions for people with religious or philosophical objections. And the percentage of children who are unvaccinated has quadrupled since 2001. Not surprisingly, preventable infectious diseases like measles have spiked as well. Last Tuesday, New York declared a public health emergency to contain the measles outbreak in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods of Brooklyn. That comes on the heels of an outbreak in nearby Rockland County, which also witnessed a high number of measles cases in its own Orthodox community. Yet opposition to vaccines is hardly limited to small religious sects. It is broad and bipartisan, but higher among Republicans: in a 2014 Pew Research survey, 34 percent of Republicans and 22 percent of Democrats opposed mandatory vaccination policies. Just last month, a GOP state lawmaker in Arizona condemned mandatory vaccination as Communist. And in February, the wife of President Trumps communications director tweeted that illnesses like measles and mumps keep you healthy" and even help fight cancer. The entire baby boom population alive today had the #Measles as kids, tweeted Darla Shine, wife of White House communications director Bill Shine. Sadly my kids had #MMR so they will never have the life long natural immunity I have, she added, referring to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. Bill Shine was ousted from his post a few weeks later, but that had nothing to do with vaccines. And our president has ignored them, too, even as his own public health advisers have called on Americans to vaccinate their kids. Our children, and our childrens children, have the opportunity to grow up in a world that is free from polio, measles, and other vaccine-preventable diseases, CDC director Robert R. Redfield and Surgeon-General Jerome M. Adams wrote last month. We must work together to make this a reality. Thats exactly right. But its hard to work together when the guy in charge is checked out. A single tweet from Donald J. TrumpVACCINATE YOUR KIDS!would do more than anything else to protect American children right now. Lets hope he can summon the courage and decency to send it. Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author (with Emily Robertson) of The Case for Contention: Teaching Controversial Issues in American Schools (University of Chicago Press). The Historical Society of Pennsylvania at 13th and Locust streets in Center City Philadelphia. The nearly 200-year-old library and archive announced April 8 that it would lay off 10 staff members and cut some programs. Read more At the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, staff layoffs and program cuts recently made news. The landmark library and archive at 13th and Locust Streets is an imposing repository of nearly 20 million manuscripts. But the travails of similar legacy institutions in this history-rich city are nothing new. In 2018 the Philadelphia History Museum near Seventh and Chestnut abruptly closed; issues of how best to preserve its 130,000 artifacts and allow public access to that collection have yet to be resolved. And historical sites and cultural attractions citywide have long struggled to attract fresh audiences and financial support. It goes without saying that in a city whose marquee attraction is history, these struggles suggest its time for new ways of thinking. Partnerships with other institutions, like one thats been discussed for several years between the society (Philadelphias Library of American History) and Drexel University, may offer a chance for financial stability and sustainability. Such an arrangement recently was crafted between the Athenaeum of Philadelphia and Penn Libraries, and in 2011 between the Academy of Natural Sciences and Drexel University. More, or more innovative, marketing may be helpful as well. Tourism professionals at Visit Philadelphia and Historic Philadelphia suggest the innovative telling of lesser-known stories as a tool to engage people who may not realize that their ethnic or racial groups or even their own ancestors in some way played a role in the larger historical narrative. Reminding the public that the citys story is not only about colonial-era luminaries or 19th-century titans of industry can boost attendance or contributions, the experts say. While its handsome buildings may strike some as a bit fortress-like, the society does make efforts to attract and serve diverse audiences. Its website promotes programs with titles such as Neighbors: The Puerto Rican Philly Experience and Researching Your Irish Ancestors; the collections include 600,000 printed items and one of the nations largest collections of genealogical material. Its ironic that such a professionally curated treasure trove faces a budget crisis in an age of Ancestry.com, heritage products like at-home DNA test kits, and websites such as Find a Grave.com all of which suggest people are hungry for their connection to the past, and to our collective story. But society board chairman Bruce K. Fenton says the popularity of genealogy, while welcome, is less significant than what the nearly 200-year-old institution also offers the public: An opportunity for immersion in the writings, ideas, and ideals that helped shape American democracy, such as the first draft of the Constitution and the printers proof of the Declaration of Independence, both of which are found at the society. Better showcasing that collection, perhaps in a new facility on Independence Mall, or promoting its contemporary relevance the Societys Balch Institute Collection focuses on the history of immigrants to the United States could help boost patronage and support. The curated and assembled artifacts in our institutions tell only part of the story of this city and this country. But llosing any of those parts would be tragic. We all have a responsibility to keep our history alive. The Phillies placed reliever David Robertson on the injured list on Monday afternoon after the elbow soreness he managed through spring training became too much for him to pitch with. Robertson and manager Gabe Kapler said that they were not concerned about the pitchers long-term availability, but an MRI on Tuesday will provide a clearer picture of how long the Phillies will be without the reliever they signed this winter to a two-year, $23 million contract. Robertson, who played the previous 11 seasons without being sidelined with an arm injury, thinks he strained his flexor tendon in his right elbow. He said that he has had this problem before but that it has been years since Ive had it flare up this bad. The injury comes just as Robertson was beginning to right his season following three rough outings to start his career with the Phillies. He pitched two scoreless innings on Sunday in Miami and had not allowed a run in four appearances since walking three-straight batters -- including the losing run -- earlier this month in Washington. I felt really good, Robertson said. I feel really comfortable out there on the mound. I felt like I was throwing the ball real well. I was kind of having trouble with a few pitches. It just started really irritating me out there. Robertson was replaced on the 25-man roster by righthander Drew Anderson, who was starting at triple A but will be used as a long reliever by the Phillies. The Phillies were attracted to Robertson this winter because of his willingness to be used in various roles. He was the prototypical reliever for Kaplers bullpen style and the manager was quick to thrust Robertson into higher-leverage situations. Kapler will now need to navigate the late innings without Robertson and Tommy Hunter, two relievers who began spring training as key pieces of the bullpen. Hunter, who is in Clearwater, Fla., with an arm injury, is at least a month away from debuting this season. Kapler will rely heavily on Pat Neshek, Hector Neris, Seranthony Dominguez, and Hector Neris. Luckily, weve had a couple guys step up and be pretty dependable in high-leverage situations the last couple of days, Kapler said. ... I think we have a couple leverage options still, even without Robertson. Kapler, glancing at Monday nights lineup sheet, observed how the Mets lefthanded-heavy lineup would be a good chance for the Phillies to utilize Robertsons cutter and curveball. But a few hours earlier, the reliever told Kapler he was sore. And the manager could not ignore it. He would have to find another way to attack the Mets. We just kind of felt like this was the right time to get him some rest, Kapler said. All-Star announcement The Phillies and Major League Baseball will announce Tuesday afternoon at Independence Hall that the 2026 All-Star Game will be held at Citizens Bank Park in conjunction with Americas 250th birthday. The event will begin at 2 p.m. and is open to the public. Bryce Harper, Rhys Hoskins, Jake Arrieta, Odubel Herrera, Rhys Hoskins, Andrew McCutchen, Aaron Nola, and Jean Segura are scheduled to appear, along with former Phillies All-Stars Mike Schmidt, Jimmy Rollins, Larry Bowa, Dave Cash, Bob Boone, Ricky Bottalico, and Greg Luzinski. Extra bases Scott Kingery was out of Mondays lineup after having five hits over the weekend in Miami. Kapler said it was a tough choice to keep him on the bench and my expectation is that were going to look for ways to get him into the lineup in the next couple of days.... Nick Pivetta will start Tuesday night against lefthander Steven Matz. Get insights on the Phillies delivered straight to your inbox with Extra Innings, our newsletter for Phillies fans by Matt Breen, Bob Brookover and Scott Lauber. Click here to sign up. Pseudo-Green Leftism and True Green Conservatism By Bruce Walker Outskirts Press PB, 108 pgs. US$22.95 ISBN: 1-4787-9877-7 The right environmentalist By Steven Martinovich It is dogma these days that the politically liberal care for more about the environment than those of conservative political strains. No political announcement can be made these days without commentators and pundits stating as fact that of course the conservative government making the announcement is weakening environmental laws in pursuit of profit or that the liberal government is strengthening environmental protections in order to save us all from ourselves. It's all quite convenient that it has been lost to relatively recent history that conservatives have long been at the forefront of pursuing conservation, promoted policies which were environmentally friendly decades before the modern and liberal movement began. It was they who tended to be friends of the very people who used nature in environmentally sustainable fashion. These days no environmentalist tale can be told that does not feature the greedy corporation or conservative politician that fairly cackles while pouring barrels of toxic sludge into some pond. Bruce Walkers slim tome Pseudo-Green Leftism and True Green Conservatism was written to take issue with this modern narrative. It is traditional conservative policies which promote the welfare of the planet, he argues, while liberalism harms the environment with the very big government, intrusive and interventionist policies they seek to or manage to impose on society. Economic and social conservatism, he argues, are natural processes which looks for things of greater value than just material goods and views man as part of an organic whole when he lives traditionally. To that end Walker martials arguments, numbers and examples to illustrate his argument that leftist policies tend to make the environment worse off. He cites extreme examples, such as the horrific environmental degradation that communism brought to nations behind the Iron Curtain, and contrasts that to capitalism which seeks to squeeze out every last efficiency from those resources culled for our use. Men like Henry Ford and Walt Disney, he writes, promoted environmentalism even while raking in money. Walker also takes aim at many of the assumptions that underlie the green movement, describing it as one labouring under internal contractions which fail to see nature as it is versus what liberals imagine it to be. Nature itself, he argues, preserves and conserves nothing and requires human intervention for that to happen. There is no such thing, he writes, as a nature that is unchanging and benign. Ultimately, the modern liberal environmentalist movement is simple about control of humanity with nature as the pretext. For the most part, at least for those inclined to agree with Walker, Pseudo-Green Leftism stands on reasonably firm ground. Where some readers which includes conservatives may have some difficulty with Walkers arguments is the section entitled Green Social Conservative Living. Many will likely read this as shoe-horning cultural conservatism into an environmental treatise as Walker argues things like divorce, urban living and public schools contribute to environmental (and societal) degradation, and that a return to a more traditional America would foster a healthier climate, presumably both environmental and moral. And while that may be true, the genie of our morally permissive society isnt likely going to be put back in the bottle any time soon. Whatever positive environmental benefits we will enjoy from traditional nuclear families and farm living will likely have to wait for some system shock to society enormous enough to return us to a morality that only the older social conservatives amongst us can likely remember at this point. This is not an argument against Walkers contention in this section, only a note that it likely will not resonate with a reader who hasnt read The Conservative Mind or wouldnt even understand what standing athwart history, yelling stop would even mean. That mild criticism aside, Pseudo-Green Leftism is an interesting and effective culturally conservative environmentalist argument. Regardless of what one thinks of Walkers prescriptions, most conservatives can agree with the foundations of his arguments, that the left plays a grand game of being the moral stewards of the environment but have a romanticized view of it straight out of feudal Marxism and pursue economic and social policies which harm humanity, an intended consequence, and ironically the environment itself, perhaps an unintended consequence. Irrespective of where you sit on the conservative spectrum Pseudo-Green Leftism is an imminently worthwhile read. Steven Martinovich is the founder and editor of Enter Stage Right. Pseudo-Green Leftism and True Green Conservatism can be found at Amazon.com. Home When an unarmed black American dies at the hands of police, the emotional impact reverberates so widely that black Americans who don't even know the victim report distress, anxiety and depression, creating a national mental health burden nearly comparable to the stress caused by a chronic illness like diabetes, a new study has found. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Boston University, and Harvard University analyzed data from a nationally representative survey covering more than 100,000 Americans for the study, published Thursday in the Lancet. They found that on average, police killings of unarmed black Americans contribute nearly two additional days a year in which a black person suffers some mental health toll. The study found no such effect on the mental health of white Americans, nor did black Americans report this kind of distress over police killings of armed black suspects. "I wasn't so much surprised by the findings as I was saddened," said Atheendar Venkataramani, a study author and assistant professor of health policy at Penn's Perelman School of Medicine. Hearing of an unarmed person dying in a police shooting, he said, may signal to others that they, too, could be vulnerable to violence through no fault of their own. "Events that communicate to people that maybe they are worth less or their lives are not valued can influence people's health," Venkataramani said. >> READ MORE: The stress of poverty is a serious health hazard for Philadelphia children | Opinion For Reuben Jones, a Philadelphia native and executive director of the nonprofit Frontline Dads, the findings quantify what he's seen throughout his life. "Police killings remind you of your own mortality," he said. "Even the most simple police stops can end your life." As the father of 8- and 11-year-old sons, the trauma of a police killing hits him on a level he describes as "debilitating." "If these two harmless young people have an encounter with the police, I realistically don't know how it would turn out," he said. That level of fear and uncertainty affects every aspect of life, Jones said. It's why black men make sure to kiss their families before leaving the house. It's why some youth see little value in education. "There's no living for tomorrow," Jones said. In the United States, an unarmed black person is three times more likely to be shot by police than an unarmed white person, and in the last three years, more than 70 unarmed black people have been killed by police, according to a Washington Post database that tracks fatal shootings. These include cases that garnered national attention, like those of Philando Castile in Minnesota and Walter Scott in South Carolina. But there are also cases that hit closer to home: Dennis Plowden Jr. was fatally shot by an officer in Philadelphia in December and 17-year-old Antwon Rose was shot and killed in East Pittsburgh this week. The relentless nature of these incidents prompted Venkataramani and his coauthors to examine their effect on mental health. "We were hearing from friends and from people on social media that they could not sleep," he said. "They were talking about anxiety and feeling depressed." To quantify the effect, the researchers looked at responses from a telephone survey of adults, who were asked about their mental health in the last 30 days. Combining this information with data on police killings from the Mapping Police Violence database, they were able to compare the self-reported mental health of those surveyed before a police killing in their state with those surveyed afterward. Though the study looked only at shootings within one's own state, authors said news of shootings elsewhere likely contributes to the mental health impact. Venkataramani said another reason the findings likely underestimate the mental health burden of black Americans is that black people face multiple forms of racism every day. Bias in the criminal justice system and housing and employment discrimination are also important factors, he said. Previous research has found that the chronic stress caused by experiences of racism can impact mental and physical health in myriad ways from higher rates of hypertension to increased incidence of breast cancer. "It's not just one incident, like a police killing," said Lisa Christian, director of community services at the Anti-Violence Partnership of Philadelphia. "You're talking about a cumulative effect of how a variety of these events is impacting communities." Many compounding factors have existed in neighborhoods for years, like poor access to healthy food or medical care, said Phillip DeMara, director of Philadelphia's Network of Neighbors program which trains residents in trauma response and psychological first aid to provide support after a tragedy occurs. How does mental stress harm physical health? For instance, if a person overeats when stressed, and they're surrounded by unhealthy food choices, that can lead to obesity, which is linked with diseases from diabetes and hypertension to cancer. "Over generations, that has a significant impact," DeMara added. While the new study focused on black adults, previous research has shown that violence can affect children throughout a community, too. Katherine Streit of the Center for Grieving Children, which runs grief groups in Philadelphia schools, said she's often heard kids after a shooting express their own distress. "That was a good kid," a child might say. "He didn't do anything wrong. If it happened to him, what's to say it won't happen to me?" >> READ MORE: How art therapy may help children raised in poverty and violence "That is a very difficult reality to grapple with at such a young age," Streit said. It can lead to increased anxiety and depression in black youth a problem that is often compounded by the fact that mental illness can manifest differently in black adolescents than their white peers. As a result, black youths often go undiagnosed and untreated, and their mental health continues to suffer, potentially leading to dropping out of school, poor physical health, and substance abuse. Any one of those consequences can extend the impact of early trauma into adulthood. "Until we take the action to hold police accountable for taking the lives of black people, we'll continue to see the accumulation of this trauma," Jones, of Frontline Dads, said. "It's not going to go away. It doesn't magically disappear." Nicolai Saturn 14 Nicolai's Saturn 14 trail bike brings 140mm of aggressive travel to the trail with either 27.5" or 29" wheels. Nicolai's Saturn 14 is the European brand's latest incarnation of the aggressive trail bike. For this bike, Nicolai have combined what they learned with their G13 Geolution chassis with their Saturn 11 to make what they call "an addictively fun bike" that's ideal for a wide range of rides from short after work jaunts to all-day missions in the mountains. It seems that a lot of care was taken in creating this new trail bike. Nicolai's Geolution geometry concept focuses on four different aspects to create their vision of the mountain bike. There's a longer reach, slacker head angle, longer wheelbase, and steeper seat tube angle than what we've long considered standard. The geometry on this bike is less extreme than that found on Nicolai's G1 enduro bike, but still progressive by most any account. Saturn 14 Details Intended use: Trail Frame material: Aluminum Wheel size: 29" or 27.5+ Rear wheel travel: 130/138mm Geolution Trail Geometry Tailormade custom geometry available 5-year warranty, 10-year spare parts availability Sizes: S-XXL Sizes: XS-XL Price: 2,499 EUR - Frame only; 6,499+ EUR - Complete Colors and components customizable www.nicolai-bicycles.com Intended use: Trail Frame material: Aluminum Wheel size: 29" or 27.5+ Rear wheel travel: 130/138mm Geolution Trail Geometry Tailormade custom geometry available 5-year warranty, 10-year spare parts availability Sizes: S-XXL Sizes: XS-XL Price: 2,499 EUR - Frame only; 6,499+ EUR - Complete Colors and components customizable Construction and Features Titanium bolts and custom color options on all of Nicolai's bikes. The tension bar is intended to reinforces a historically weak area of the frame and allows for the use of lighter tubing without sacrificing durability. Geometry and Sizing Nicolai's bikes are all currently based on their Geolution geometry concept. There are four key components to this concept, according to Nicolai. The longer reach means that all riders, even tall ones, can take advantage of shorter stems without feeling cramped in the cockpit of the bike. The slacker head angles reduce the risk of rolling over the bars. This also improves high-speed stability and wheel grip.Longer wheelbases centralize the rider on the bike and give a more stable ride both climbing and descending and steeper seat tube angles make climbing easier by getting the rider more over the front of the bike and reducing the amount the front wheel wants to 'wander'.All sizes of the bike have space for a full-size water bottle and there are ISCG mounts for chain retention systems or a bash guard. The cable routing for the bikes is fully external to aid in easy cable replacement or brake swaps. Also, to keep things as light as possible there are titanium bolts at the Horst Link connection and shock mounts. Custom colors and anodizing are also available for all bikes.The Saturn 14 also utilizes a tension bar - an extra connection between the lower shock bolt and rocker link. This is to further reinforce the area between those two pivot points, an area of common frame breakage, and allow for lighter tubing and parts to be used in that area, further reducing weight.The Saturn 14 has an adjustable geometry and works with both 27.5" and 29' wheels. Nicolai's 'Mutator' chips, located on the seat stay and lower headset cups can be changed out to modify stack height and accommodate for the different wheels sizes. Nicolai have their standard factory geometry settings but the bikes, according to them, have near endless adjustability and they're willing to help riders figure that out if they don't know exactly what they want on their own.With metric shock sizing, one shock length can offer two different stroke lengths for different travel options: A frame with 27.5" wheels can use either a 201 x 55mm or 210 x 50mm shock to provide 138mm or 130mm of rear wheel travel. If using 29" wheels, only the 201 x 50mm shock, producing 130mm of travel can be used due to tire clearance.The Saturn 14 is available in five sizes, from Small to XXL. This should accommodate riders from 160-205cm, according to Nicolai. The accompanying reach measurements span 450-540mm - pretty stretched out, even by the most progressive of standards. If that doesn't work for you, Nicolai say they will work with riders to produce their own custom 'Tailor-Made' frame, for a surcharge. Takahashi Goes Wire-to-Wire and Wins PokerStars APPT Korea High Roller April 15, 2019 Christian Zetzsche A champion has been crowned in the 4,000,000 ($3,525) High Roller Event and it was a fitting end to 2019 PokerStars APPT Korea festival at the Paradise City Casino in Incheon, South Korea, which saw all events across the board boost their numbers significantly. Keiji Takahashi led the field as chip leader into the final day and went wire-to-wire to lift the trophy and take home the first-place prize of 143,890,000 ($126,623) after defeating Jian Yang heads-up. A quick look on The Hendon Mob reveals no recorded live cash for Takahashi, who considers himself more of a cash game player and was part of a large group of poker enthusiasts from nearby Japan that made the short flight to South Korea. Eight other Japanese players finished in the money including Jun Obara and Kazuhiko Yotsushika. APPT Korea National champion Yan Li narrowly missed out on an unprecedented third title at an APPT festival and finished in third place. The final table also featured Yongwei Mo, World Series of Poker bracelet winner Calvin Lee, and Weiyi "Wayne" Zhang. The two-day event saw 72 players out of 155 entries return to the table on the second day of play. With the registration open for the first level of the day, a flurry of eliminations, new entries and re-entries boosted the field to 181 entries in total, creating a prize pool of 649,609,000 ($571,656). The top 27 spots were paid at least 6,495,000 ($5,716) and Dong Chen, as well as Huijie Zhou, were eliminated on separate tables to let the money bubble burst. Eventual champion Takahashi called all in on the money bubble, too, and doubled through Yotsushika who ran a gutsy bluff with seven-deuce. 2019 PokerStars APPT Korea 4,000,000 High Roller Final Table Results Position Winner Country Prize (in KRW) Prize (in USD) 1 Keiji Takahashi Japan 143,890,000 $126,623 2 Jian Yang China 97,114,000 $85,460 3 Yan Li China 66,845,000 $58,824 4 Yongwei Mo China 54,500,000 $47,960 5 Calvin Lee United States 43,460,000 $38,245 6 Wayne Zhang China 33,390,000 $29,383 7 Yasreel Praveen Doddaiavar India 24,295,000 $21,380 8 Shinryo Nonin Japan 17,605,000 $15,492 9 Yunye Lu China 14,550,000 $12,804 Keiji Takahashi Wins the 2019 APPT Korea High Roller 2019 PokerStars APPT Korea 4,000,000 High Roller Final Day Action With one further level of late registration and reentry allowed, players arrived and left in quick succession. Among those to buy in two more times was Kazuhiko Yotsushika. Super High Roller finalist Irshat Shaykhov put his hopes on a flush draw and ran into pocket aces just when the registration for the event had officially closed and from there on out; the field was thinned at an alarming pace. Among the notables that missed out on the money and busted before the dinner break were Natalie Teh, Ken Okada, Nan Hong, Danny Tang, Yuri Ishida, Dong Guo, Short-Deck champion Phachara Wongwichit, Alex Lee, Daniel Lee, Pete Chen, Robert Glasspool, and Michael Soyza to name just a few. For Michael Soyza, it was a tale of two hands that decided over the fate of the Super High Roller champion. First, he four-bet jammed with eights into the pocket jacks of Yasreel Praveen Doddaiavar. Soon after, he got it in with ace-nine suited against the pocket queens of Tianyuan Tang. Two nines appeared on the flop, but a queen accompanied them to leave the Malaysian with just one out. Quads indeed came on the turn, but it was the case queen instead to leave Soyza drawing dead. Super High Roller champion Michael Soyza out before the money Randy Lew was left very short two spots off the money bubble and hand-for-hand was enabled with two players to go empty-handed. Lew doubled and one hand later, three players were all in and at risk. Kazuhiko Yotsushika ran a gutsy bluff with seven-deuce, and Keiji Takahashi called with queen-ten for kings and tens to get back into contention. At the same time, Dong Chen lost a flip with deuces against ace-queen and Huijie Zhou got it in with eight-seven suited against the queen-eight suited of Yan Li to end up second-best to a king-high straight. In a matter of minutes, the final three tables were set once the bubble had burst with Lew among the casualties. Wai Kiat Lee lost a flip with king-queen against the pocket fives of Daniel Smiljkovic, and Jun Obara ran out of chips in a three-way all in at the same table just minutes later. Kenny Shih also missed out on the final two tables when his ace-king found no help in a flip against pocket sevens. On the way to the final table, Yan Li dominated at the top of the counts. Wayne Heung had to settle for 15th place, and the wild roller coaster ride of Kazuhiko Yotsushika ended in thirteenth place. Yilu Yuan, who bubbled the APPT Korea Main Event and doubled on the High Roller bubble, then lost a big pot with flopped two pair, as eventual runner-up Jian Yang jammed with nine-six suited for middle pair and a flush draw and immediately turned a flush. Yang finished the job with ace-queen versus eights and also claimed the stack of Chuanshu Chen with aces versus jacks. Yang was also responsible for the first elimination on the final table as Yunye Lu jammed with eights into his kings. Shinryo Nonin lost most of his chips to Yasreel Praveen Doddaiavar and busted the very next hand before Doddaiavar, and Wayne Zhang became the next two casualties. Down to the last five, Yongwei Mo (ace-eight) and Calvin Lee (ace-queen) moved all in with their short stacks and Yang held aces in the small blind to score a double knockout and jump above half of the chips in play. No third win at APPT Korea, but a third place instead for Yan Li While Yang had done most of the work until then, it was Takahashi that ramped up the aggression and claimed the stack of Yan Li. First, he turned two pair and rivered a flush to take more than half of it, shortly after he cracked Li's aces with ten-nine suited. Heads-up play started with almost 90 big blinds apiece, but it would take less than half an hour to determine a champion without a deal being discussed. The lead changed a few times before Takahashi pulled into a solid lead. Eventually, Yang three-bet jammed with king-deuce for top pair on the flop only for Takahaski to call with queen-nine suited and the flopped straight to let his rail from Japan erupt in applause. The Stars Group is a majority shareholder in iBus Media Sparrow Cheung Wins APPT PokerStars Korea Main Event April 15, 2019 Brandyn Trenholm The 2019 PokerStars APPT Korea Main Event had a total of 581 entries gathered at the Paradise City Resort & Casino in Incheon, South Korea. At the start of Day 3, only 12 runners remained, and when the final curtain came down, it was Hong Kong pro Sparrow Cheung taking home the prestigious main event trophy. Cheung broke the world record in 2017 for most cashes in a single year with an absurd 67 and has over $1,500,000 total career earnings. Cheung took home 198,100,000 ($174,580) for his finish and added his first APPT Main Event title to his resume. "I was excited just to make the final table because in 2017 I finished in 11th or 12th, I forget which, after running queens into aces and I was so sad, so this time, just getting to the final table I was already very happy." The Hong Kong native took down a respectable competitor in Tomomitsu Ono, and it took just under two hours of heads up play to do so. Ono put up a fight but failed to ever get to level playing ground during the heads-up battle. Ono took home a respectable 122,800,000 ($108,221) for his second-place finish. When the final day began, Cheung sat in the bottom half of the field and actually started the final table as the short-stack. Halfway through the first level of the final table, he doubled with rockets against the big slick of Tetsuro Tomita. It was a rollercoaster ride from that point on; he would go from hero to zero and back again multiple times before he took down the title. This is my tenth year playing PokerStars tournaments, and this is the first Main Event title for me, and Ive known Danny [McDonagh], Lorie [Lagrosas] and everyone for a long time, and its been a long time since I last saw them - maybe half a year. We are like family, and for me to take the Main Event title here [Paradise City, Korea] and have them celebrate with me is very special - and very exciting for me! For Cheung, it meant more than just money, and that showed as he wore his heart on his sleeve during every all in. He came close to a final table in this main event in 2017 and was just happy to get to the final nine. What happened after that was the cherry on top. I was excited just to make the final table because in 2017 I finished in 11th or 12th, I forget which, after running queens into aces and I was so sad, so this time, just getting to the final table I was already very happy. "And then when he flopped the ace... Oh! Im ready to leave, and then river... Ten! A one-outer ten, yeah... thats poker." The crowd gathered behind fan-favorite Cheung throughout the entire final table and shared in every moment with him. The one-outer included against Hung Sheng Lin for a monster chiplead on a fortuitous river. The hand that stands out the most was having pocket tens against Shaqs [Hung-Sheng Lin] ace-ten for around 36-37 big blinds - that was a big pot. And then when he flopped the ace... Oh! Im ready to leave, and then river... Ten! A one-outer ten, yeah... thats poker. And all my friends on the rail were shouting together for me; it was a special moment. Sparrow Cheung and the rail celebrate an unlikely river 2019 PokerStars APPT Korea Main Event Final Table Results Position Winner Country Prize (in KRW) Prize (in USD) 1 Sparrow Cheung Hong Kong 198,100,000 $174,580 2 Tomomitsu Ono Japan 122,800,000 $108,221 3 Hung Sheng Lin Taiwan 76,250,000 $67,197 4 Jiang Chen China 58,150,000 $51,246 5 Tao Fan China 40,150,000 $35,383 6 Tetsuro Tomita Japan 31,950,000 $28,157 7 Huidong Gu Macau 26,000,000 $22,913 8 Mengdian Peng China 21,900,000 $19,300 9 Xinglong Huan g China 18,283,400 $16,113 2019 PokerStars APPT Korea Main Event Final Day Action Wenwei Chen was the first to take an exit, losing a race against Xinglong Huang and next to take a leave was Ching Wei Chen. Chen got it in with aces against the queens of Tao Fan but couldn't fade a queen and was sent home. Yinsheng Yang ran his once big stack down to just crumbs before he pushed all in and would run into the monster of Ono, setting up the final table. 2019 PokerStars APPT Korea Main Event Official Final Table Huang started on a heater after the final nine combined. He pushed everyone around and seemed to be an unstoppable force. It was Lin that would throw a stick in the wheel of Huang and take all of what he gained throughout the first hour of the final table, in one hand with ace-jack. Huang spiraled out of control and fell victim to Jiang Chen when he pushed all in with a flush draw, failing to hit. The eighth-place finisher was China's Mengdian Peng. After a couple of rounds being on the losing end of hands, he pushed all in and ran into the cowboys of Fan. Just moments later, Huidong Gu moved all in with two paint cards. Cheung called, and the two had a race in which Cheung was the victor. Tomita lost half his stack early at the final table against Cheung's aces and never seemed to recover fully. He withered down to a shorter stack and pushed all in with the dead man's hand. The same person that took the first chunk out of his stack was the same player to send him out the door in sixth place when Cheung called his all in and won with queens. Fifth-place finisher Fan played a solid day of poker. He saw a three-bet from the aggressive Ono and moved all in with his jacks. Ono had the best starting hand in poker and Fan failed to crack aces again as he was sent out. Chen shoved jack-five off from the small blind, only to run into the pocket jacks of Cheung and he took an exit in fourth place. Three-handed play went on for almost two levels before the hand of the tournament happened. Unfortunately for Lin, he was on the losing end of it. Lin called a four-bet all in from Cheung and would be in rough shape with ace-ten against Cheung's pocket tens until the ace high flop peeled off. After four cards were turned, Cheung only had the case ten that could take down the monster pot. The unthinkable happened when he nailed it! Lin was left with crumbs and busted the next level. Heads-up started with a major chiplead for the Hong Kong pro. Both runners had massive crowds behind them cheering after every hand, and the room was full of excitement as a champion was soon to be crowned. Ono fought back as much as he could, but the patience and the perfect amount of aggression from Cheung were too much for the Japanese cash game specialist. Cheung opened, Ono moved all in with ace-three and ran into the bullets of Cheung. The Stars Group is a majority shareholder in iBus Media Sanity and humanity return to the World Bank? By Paul Driessen President Obama infamously told Africans they should focus on their bountiful wind, solar and biofuel. If they use dirty fossil fuels to raise living standards to the point where everybody has got a car, and everybody has got air conditioning, and everybody has got a big house, well, the planet will boil over. So when South Africa applied for a World Bank loan to finish its low-pollution coal-fired Medupi power plant, his administration voted present, and the loan was approved by a bare majority of other bank member nations. The Obama Overseas Private Investment Corporation refused to support construction of a power plant designed to burn natural gas that was being flared and wasted in Ghanas oil fields. As David Wojick and I have documented (here, here, here, here and here), eco-imperialist, carbon colonialist policies by the World Bank and other anti-development banks have perpetuated needless energy deprivation, poverty, disease and early death in Africa, Asia and beyond for much too long. But now the World Banks executive board has unanimously approved President Trumps nominee as its new president. Former Treasury Department Under Secretary for International Affairs David Malpass has long criticized the bank for its lack of transparency, multiple low-interest loans to China (even as China became an economic behemoth), and insufficient focus on private-sector development and a stronger, more stable global economy for all nations and families. He just began serving a five-year term. A few critics predictably claimed Malpass had committed economic malpractice and would be a disastrous, toxic choice. However, others praised his experience, skills, free-market principles, and commitment to accountability and poor country development. Malpass is the ideal candidate to cleanse and modernize an institution charged with helping developing nations climb the economic ladder, said Deroy Murdock, whose travels have given him a firsthand look at rampant poverty and malnutrition all across the globe. A healthy dose of sanity and humanity is clearly in order. In recent years, the World Bank strayed far from its original 1944 mission of reducing global poverty, providing financial aid and guidance to needy countries, and giving life-saving global health and humanitarian assistance to the worlds most vulnerable populations. Instead, it increasingly focused on fighting the effects of climate change, supporting wind and solar energy projects, and combating emissions of plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide. In 2018 alone, the World Bank provided $20 billion for such projects. Its cumulative loans to China now total more than $60 billion even as the Middle Kingdom increasingly engaged in predatory loan practices. Sri Lanka, for example, was forced to cede control of the strategic port of Hambantota to China Merchants Port Holdings Company, after falling into the Chinese debt trap, Murdock wrote. Other supposed multilateral development banks followed the World Banks callous lead. Most stopped financing coal-fired power plants, slashed or ceased funding for oil and gas exploration by poor countries, and emphasized total de-carbonization in their lending practices. In their warped worldview, manmade climate change dangers that exist only in computer models are a far more pressing concern than horrific real-world, present-day deprivation, disease and death. Right now, around the world, over a billion people still do not have electricity; another 2 billion have electrical power only sporadically and unpredictably. In Sub-Saharan Africa, nearly 700 million people (the population of all Europe) rarely or never have electricity, and still cook and heat with wood, charcoal, and animal dung. In India, over 200 million people still do not have access to safe drinking water. Every year, hundreds of millions become ill and 5 million die of lung and intestinal diseases from inhaling pollutants from open fires, and from lack of clean water, refrigeration, bacteria-free food and decent clinics. Largely because they lack electricity to power modern economies, nearly 3 billion survive on a few dollars per day, and more millions die every year from preventable or curable diseases. But the anti-development banks still focus on climate change mitigation and financing the shift in energy production to renewable energy technologies, and the shift to low-carbon modes of transport. Such as horses, oxen and walking, one supposes. People in those countries have been there, done that. They will no longer tolerate being told these banks will help them improve their lives only a little, only to the extent that doing so would conform to climate and sustainability guidelines, only as much as could be supported by wind, solar biofuel and geothermal energy. Carbon colonialism is on its way out. Its about time. Will the Malpass World Bank help lead the way? In what can only be seen as a massive show of defiance and common sense, developing, emerging and modern economies have well over 215,000 megawatts of coal-fired generating capacity under construction: China 128,650 MW; India 36,158; Indonesia 11,466; Japan: 8,724; Pakistan 3,300; Philippines 2,890; Poland 4,170; South Africa 5,429; South Korea 5,429; Vietnam 9,705. The Africa Development Bank also knows fossil fuels still represent the way forward to a healthier and more prosperous future and will for decades to come. The AfDB is again financing coal and natural gas power generation projects, because it understands that abundant, reliable, affordable electricity is essential for real progress and cannot possibly be achieved with expensive, inadequate, intermittent, unpredictable wind and solar power. The continents geothermal energy is also woefully inadequate. Africa has the lowest electrification rate in the world. Its per capital power consumption is a miserly 615 kWh per year, AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina emphasized. Compare that to 6,500 kWh per person per year in Europe, and 13,000 in the United States. The average Africans access to electricity is equivalent to the average American having this miraculous, all-purpose power available 1 hour a day, 8 hours a week, 411 hours per year at totally unpredictable times. Try running your home, hospital, school, factory, film industry or World Bank office on that. In reality, most of Africas electricity is generated in one country, South Africa, and the vast majority of the continents people still have zero, zip, nada electricity except maybe enough photovoltaic power to charge their cell phones and power a single light bulb in their primitive huts. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her coterie of petroleum-denigrating socialists have no inkling of what life would be like without oil and natural gas. This short video gives a graphic clue of life under their Green New Deal. But in reality, even the metal, wood and cotton items the video leaves behind when petroleum is yanked away would disappear without oil and gas to get raw materials out of the ground and turn them into everyday products and to grow, harvest and weave cotton into T-shirts and undies. Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe and many other sub-Sahara African countries have vast coal deposits that would last at least a century at rates necessary to electrify those countries. Many also have enormous oil and natural gas resources. Those fuels must no longer be ignored under the keep it in the ground mantra. Of course, all this anti-fossil-fuel fervor is justified by cries of climate change. But the issue isnt whether the climate or weather is changing. Its whether humans and fossil fuels are truly causing any observed changes whether any changes will be dangerous or catastrophic and whether alarmist scientists have any actual, credible evidence that could survive scrutiny by a Presidential Commission on Climate Change that they are scared to death President Trump might create. Hopefully, David Malpass will set a more realistic, more human-rights-focused tone at the World Bank and for the various multilateral development banks. Billions of lives hang in the balance. Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of articles and books on energy, environmental and human rights issues. Home 301 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard By Amanda Becker WASHINGTON (Reuters) Democratic U.S. Senator Kamala Harris released on Sunday 15 years of tax returns through 2018, offering the most complete look to date at a presidential candidates finances. Harris held public office during the years 2004 through 2018. With her husband, Douglas Emhoff, an attorney, she had a combined adjusted gross income in 2018 of about $1.89 million, and paid total taxes of about $697,000, according to the returns. Harris and Emhoff, who have filed joint tax returns since marrying in 2014, have paid more than $2.2 million in federal taxes over the past five years at an average effective tax rate of 32.6 percent, according to her campaign. Harris release of her tax filings follows that of fellow White House contenders like Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren. Senator Bernie Sanders has said he will release his tax filings this week. Tax day is April 15 in the United States. Democrats in the 2020 race have released their tax returns as Republican President Donald Trump resists moves by congressional investigators to review his tax filings in probes related to his businesses and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Trump is the first modern U.S. president not to release his tax returns to the public. After taking control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 elections, Democrats passed a bill that would require presidential candidates to release their tax returns. It has not been voted on by the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans, but Harris supports such legislation. Harris has also called for the repeal of the Republican tax law approved in 2017 that delivered major tax cuts to the wealthy and businesses. In 2018, about $157,000 of Harris and Emhoffs $1.89 million in income came from Harris salary as a U.S. senator, with the bulk of the rest reported as partnership income from Emhoffs work at a law firm. Before her marriage to Emhoff, most of the income Harris reported each year was from the salary she earned as Californias attorney general and, before that, as San Franciscos district attorney. (This version of the story corrects year of tax law to 2017 in paragraph 8) (Reporting by Amanda Becker; Editing by Susan Fenton) 197 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard By Michelle Price and Humeyra Pamuk WASHINGTON (Reuters) President Donald Trump may have threatened to transport illegal immigrants to so-called sanctuary cities to make everybody crazy and generate media attention, Republican U.S. Senator Rick Scott said on Sunday. Trump said on Friday he was considering sending illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities, prompting U.S. mayors to accept such an offer as the battle over border security rages. Sanctuary cities are local jurisdictions that generally give undocumented immigrants safe harbor by refusing to use their resources to help enforce federal immigration laws that could lead to deportations. Since many such jurisdictions are Democratic strongholds, the proposal was seen by critics of Trump as an attempt by the president to punish Democrats for refusing to support funding for the construction of a wall on the southern U.S. border. It would, however, likely encounter a slew of logistical and legal obstacles, with some legal experts and advocacy groups saying the proposal could violate federal laws, including those barring the use of government funds for political purposes. Speaking to CNNs State of the Union, Scott said he did not know if transporting immigrants to these jurisdictions was legal or illegal, and he suggested the president could be bluffing: I mean maybe hes just saying this to make everybody crazy, make everybody talk about it on their shows. Scott, a former Florida governor who was elected to the U.S. Senate in November, has generally kept his distance from Trump and criticized him in the past over immigration policies and other issues. Frustrated by rising numbers of undocumented immigrants arriving at the southern border and a failure to get Congress to fully fund a U.S.-Mexico border wall, Trump has sought to taunt Democrats by dangling the possibility of an influx of illegal immigrants into their communities. Scott acknowledged the presidents frustration over a lack of progress on addressing the influx of migrants, but said the administration had to comply with the law. Im sure the president is very frustrated because were not securing our border, the Democrats are stopping this. But we have to comply with every law. Late on Saturday, Trump wrote on Twitter that the United States has the absolute legal right to transfer apprehended illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities, without citing evidence. (T)his includes Gang Members, Drug Dealers, Human Traffickers, and Criminals of all shapes, sizes and kinds, he wrote. On Sunday, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told ABC News This Week that administration staff had initially concluded that transporting immigrants to sanctuary cities may prove too logistically challenging, but that the White House was exploring its options because the president likes the idea. Were looking to see if there are options that make it possible and doing a full and thorough and extensive review, Sanders said. Since Democrats have said they would welcome these individuals, everybody gets a win out of it, she added. (Reporting by Michelle Price; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Daniel Wallis) 234 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard By Amanda Becker WASHINGTON (Reuters) Democratic U.S. Senator Kamala Harris released on Sunday 15 years of tax returns through 2018, offering the most complete look to date at a presidential candidates finances. Harris held public office during the years 2004 through 2018. With her husband, Douglas Emhoff, an attorney, she had a combined adjusted gross income in 2018 of about $1.89 million, and paid total taxes of about $697,000, according to the returns. Harris and Emhoff, who have filed joint tax returns since marrying in 2014, have paid more than $2.2 million in federal taxes over the past five years at an average effective tax rate of 32.6 percent, according to her campaign. Harris release of her tax filings follows that of fellow White House contenders like Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren. Senator Bernie Sanders has said he will release his tax filings this week. Tax day is April 15 in the United States. Democrats in the 2020 race have released their tax returns as Republican President Donald Trump resists moves by congressional investigators to review his tax filings in probes related to his businesses and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Trump is the first modern U.S. president not to release his tax returns to the public. After taking control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 elections, Democrats passed a bill that would require presidential candidates to release their tax returns. It has not been voted on by the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans, but Harris supports such legislation. Harris has also called for the repeal of the Republican tax law approved in 2017 that delivered major tax cuts to the wealthy and businesses. In 2018, about $157,000 of Harris and Emhoffs $1.89 million in income came from Harris salary as a U.S. senator, with the bulk of the rest reported as partnership income from Emhoffs work at a law firm. Before her marriage to Emhoff, most of the income Harris reported each year was from the salary she earned as Californias attorney general and, before that, as San Franciscos district attorney. (This version of the story corrects year of tax law to 2017 in paragraph 8) (Reporting by Amanda Becker; Editing by Susan Fenton) 4.6k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Trump doesnt have anything better to do with his time as president, so he was on Twitter giving advice on how to put out the Notre Dame Cathedral fire. Trump tweeted: So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019 Video of the fire: Trump should be being president, not watching cable news All former presidents agree on one thing, and that is that the most precious resource that they have in office is time. Presidents who want to get things dont waste time. Some presidents have been early risers who worked day and nights. Others have been night owls who were famous for long late hours, and then there is Donald Trump, whose presidency is so barren of urgency and activity that he has the time to hop on social media and play fire expert. Trumps knowlege of firefighting is probably on par with his knowledge of the Constitution and how government works, which is to say that he knows nothing. Trump is in Minnesota to hype the economy and his tax cuts for the rich, but that is his only event of the day. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook 3.7k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a 60 Minutes interview that theres nobody in the country who knows better than Donald Trump that he shouldnt be president. Explaining the Mueller report is about an attack on our elections by a foreign government, Pelosi said And we want to know about that. Lesley Stahl asked if Attorney General Barr was covering anything up, to which Pelosi pointed out that she has no way of knowing that and thats exactly why he should release the full Mueller report. Speaker Nancy Pelosi then said theres nobody in the country who knows better than Donald Trump that he shouldnt be president. Stahl asked if Pelosi thinks Trump knows this himself, I think he does. Video: Pelosi knows that Trump watches endless TV and that in order to communicate with Trump, one either says it on TV or on Twitter. But I respect the office he holds and hes not worth the trouble of saying youre so horrible we cant work together, Pelosi carefully added. No, we need to work together. So in one swoop Pelosi hit Trump where hes most sensitive and gave him nothing on which to hang his Palin-esque victim complex. Nancy Pelosi knows better than most that what she just said touches Trumps most sensitive nerve. Trump has always felt on the outside of New York high society and now hes in the White House and he is not capable of doing the job and even he thought he was going to lose on election night. Trump knows that without the help of the Russians (whether or not he conspired with them), its doubtful he would be in the White House. Trump won after losing the popular vote by almost 2 million by capturing a narrow 77,000 collective votes from three Midwestern states. He knows he had to lie about his inauguration size. He knows he got there and is staying there with the use of excessive propaganda tools. Bait taken (there are more tweets of this variety, this is but a sampling): Mueller, and the A.G. based on Mueller findings (and great intelligence), have already ruled No Collusion, No Obstruction. These were crimes committed by Crooked Hillary, the DNC, Dirty Cops and others! INVESTIGATE THE INVESTIGATORS! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019 Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made. She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019 THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN (We will never forget)! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019 The Radical Left Democrats will never be satisfied with anything we give them. They will always Resist and Obstruct! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019 Trump cant stand the idea that his presidency is seen as illegitimate. Nancy Pelosi is not the one who has lost control of her caucus. That would be Trump, whose own party couldnt come together enough to repeal Obamacare even when they had control of the White House and both chambers for two years. Trolling is Trumps specialty. Playing the victim is his specialty. Bullying people is his specialty. None of those traits make a leader. They make a good disruptor and conspirator, which is what Trump is. Trumps biggest fear has always been that he is illegitimate. An illegitimate rich man. An illegitimate successful business man. And now an illegitimate President. Which is ironic and perfect for the man who trolled Obama for 8 plus years over his birth certificate. Nancy Pelosi knows how to poke Trump. She just did it again, and he fell for the bait like he always does. Image: Screen capture via CBS 60 Minutes. 2.4k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Mnuchin is trying to pull a Trump sleight of hand with the word shall that is clear as day on a statute of the tax code that has never been interpreted otherwise. He is also suggesting that the intent of the people asking him to uphold the law somehow mitigates the law. Section 6103(f) of the tax code law commands the Treasury Secretary that [u]pon written request from the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives . . . the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request. They shall furnish tax returns to Congress. SHALL still means SHALL even in Trumps alternative facts world. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Monday that while he will follow the law regarding Congress request for U.S. President Donald Trumps tax returns, he is concerned that the Democrats might be using this for political disputes. I will follow the law, Mnuchin said on Fox Business Network, while actually in the middle of defying the law. Were analyzing the law, were consulting with the Department of Justice, Mnuchin added. Video: There is no analyzing of the law. The word means what it means and it has always meant that. The law doesnt change just because the person asking you to uphold it isnt on your side. This is how a checked government works. This is how our system has always worked. You cant tell a police officer who pulls you over that the law doesnt apply to you because you feel he or she might have political intentions with their ticket. The Congress has always checked the power of a president and investigated potential overreaches. In this case, Democrats wouldnt have had to request Trumps returns had Trump not falsely claimed he couldnt release them because they were under audit. There is no such IRS rule, and every presidents tax returns are audited but they manage to release their returns. Conservative David Frum pointed out that Trump has already undermined the rule of law by doing the opposite of executing the law faithfully, so shall is equally optional for his administration. Since President Trump has already effectively rewritten Article II to read he may take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, if convenient for him and if hes in the mood, therefore other shalls in US legislation must be equally optional, Frum wrote in a tweet. These are the rules of being president. A person must be willing to be transparent so that the people can be confident the president is working in *their* best interest, not his own or another countrys or a business entitys best interest. The Trump administration is breaking the law at every turn, as Trump fires anyone who refuses to break the law enough to satisfy him. He isnt upholding the law as he is charged with doing; instead, he is breaking it and then whining and screaming like a rebellious teenager when caught. This is why hes screaming about being spied on (again today). Mnuchin is just another Trump official who is breaking the law for this President. Trump seems to hypnotize those who work for him into believing that he is infallible and being persecuted, because he has convinced people who had good reputations and were thought of as law-abiding and of integrity (per conventional beltway thought, not sure I agree because anyone with integrity would not take a job from Trump right now) to violate the very oath they swore to uphold. The word is shall. It is not up for debate, gaslighting, or alternative factising. 786 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard A Goldman Sachs study says that Trump will win reelection based on economic data, but polling shows that economic data has no impact on voters feelings about Trump. Study Predicts Narrow Trump Reelection Win Bloomberg reported on the Goldman Sachs study, Incumbent presidents carry a 5 to 6 percentage-point edge over rival candidates in the popular vote and Goldman Sachss economic forecast also leans in favor of Trump, although that is partly offset by his negative approval rating, economists Alec Phillips and Blake Taylor wrote in a report released late on Saturday.Historically, Phillips and Taylor found variables such as employment and income are better indicators of an election result than market-based forces such as equity or oil prices. The performance of the economy in the second quarter of the election year is often a strong guide to the result, they said. How Voters Actually Feel Doesnt Match Up With Data The standard president that had Trumps economic data should be favored to win. Presidents with good economies usually win a second term. It has been a general rule of American politics since the dawn of polling. The problem when it comes to Trump is that how voters feel about this president has nothing to do with the economy. Take the recent Georgetown University Battleground Poll as an example. Voters give Trump a 58% approval rating on the economy. That should mean that Trump is well on his way to reelection, but here is what the Georgetown Battleground Poll also found: 59% of voters are worried about an economic downturn. Trumps disapproval rating has held at a steady 55%. 57% of voters believe that the country is on the wrong track. If the economic data is so great, why does a majority of battleground state voters feel that the country is on the wrong track? The Goldman Sachs Study Is Wrong Because 2020 Isnt Going To Be About The Economy Trump makes voters feel stressed out, unsafe, and uneasy. Voters dont trust Trump, like his character, or think that he is honest. Majorities of voters believe that Trump doesnt care about them. The 2020 election wont be about the economy. House Republicans tried to run on the economy in 2018 and got blown out. If Democrats nominate a candidate who can communicate honesty, empathy, experience, and stability, they stand a good chance of beating Trump. Trying to project the 2020 election based on traditional factors like the economy is a fools errand that is going down the wrong path and missing the point and the reasons why a majority of voters want to vote against Trump. 1.4k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Trump went on a rant about crooked cops and spying as soon as the release date for the Mueller report was announced. Trump came unglued when the Mueller report release date was announced After it was reported that the Mueller report will be released on Thursday, Trump tweeted: The Mueller Report, which was written by 18 Angry Democrats who also happen to be Trump Haters (and Clinton Supporters), should have focused on the people who SPIED on my 2016 Campaign, and others who fabricated the whole Russia Hoax. That is, never forget, the crime.. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019 .Since there was no Collusion, why was there an Investigation in the first place! Answer Dirty Cops, Dems and Crooked Hillary! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019 An innocent president would welcome the report, but Trump isnt innocent Not having enough evidence to charge a crime is not the same thing as innocence. It is also most definitely not total exoneration. Trump and his administrations constant need to lie and exaggerate everything has set them up once again. Even the redacted version of the Mueller report wont be total exoneration that Trump claimed it was. Trump is melting down because he knows that his lie is about to come back to haunt him in a big way. Congress, journalists, and the American people are going to be closely reading the redacted report to see if it matches up with Trumps claims. The way to know that the redacted version of the report will be bad for Trump is his preemptive blow up on Twitter. Donald Trump has had a lot of bad weeks as president, but Thursday could be the start of his worst week yet. The Mueller report is coming, and the president is showing his fear. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook Get the SC business stories that matter. Our newsletter catches you up with all the business stories that are shaping Charleston and South Carolina every Monday and Thursday at noon. Get ahead with us - it's free. Smart money is piling into oil By Nick Cunningham Oil prices jumped to five-month highs last week, pushed higher by a bullish cocktail of supply outages, geopolitical unrest and a sputtering shale sector. The most recent factor is the sudden eruption of the long simmering feud in Libya between rival factions. The attack on Tripoli by the Libyan National Army (LNA), a militia led by Khalifa Haftar, led to a spike in oil prices last Monday as the market priced in the possibility of supply outages. One oil export terminal near Tripoli is the most obvious asset at risk. "If this port were to be shut down due to the fighting, this could see a delivery outage of up to 300,000 barrels per day," Commerzbank said in a note on Tuesday. "The oil market is already undersupplied, so if supply from Libya also falls away the supply deficit will become even bigger." Brent jumped to $71 and WTI to $64 on the news, the highest level in five months. Intriguingly, speculators have only recently turned bullish on crude oil in terms of their positions in the futures market. "Indeed, our money-manager positioning index implies that speculative funds only moved from neutral to positive on oil in the latest week," Standard Chartered wrote in a report on April 9. The investment bank argued that major investors only began to properly factor in geopolitical risk in the last few days, having overlooked risk for much of this year. Standard Chartered analysts said that the "supply security" of Libyan oil is "low," and that output could decline in both the short and medium term. Meanwhile, the U.S. shale industry has already begun to slow down. Weekly EIA data put U.S. output at 12.2 million barrels per day (mb/d) two weeks ago, a jump of 100,000 bpd from the week before (the EIA rounds off to the nearest 100,000 bpd on these weekly estimates). More accurate retrospective data found that U.S. production actually declined in January by 90,000 bpd, offering solid evidence of a slowdown. Most analysts still see strong U.S. supply growth this year, but the gains have slowed significantly. Standard Chartered looked at three-month periods, which it argues shows a clear deceleration in production growth over the past year. "The 3m/3m change peaked at 861kb/d in August, and has declined since, reaching just 140kb/d in March," the investment bank wrote. Goldman Sachs argues that these bullish factors will continue. "We expect the drivers of this deficit to persist through 2Q19: the shock and awe implementation of the OPEC cuts, global activity sequentially accelerating, further tightening of US oil sanctions and an only moderate increase in shale production for now," Goldman analysts wrote in an April 8 report. However, the investment bank said that prices could begin to decline in the second half of the year as OPEC+ begins to unwind the production cuts and U.S. shale picks back up. On top of that, some "long-cycle" projects could hit the market in 2020, leading Goldman to project a $60 Brent price for next year. In fact, while the oil market is moving very much in an upward direction, not everyone believes that it will last. "The mood is increasingly turning bullish, but several feedback loops are about to start spinning that stand in the way of a prolonged oil rally," Norbert Ruecker of Julius Baer told Reuters. "Russia already signaled its willingness to raise oil output from June. Fuel remains costly in emerging markets, with soft currencies adding to high oil prices." Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a forum in St. Petersburg that he was comfortable with oil prices where they are, and seemed to suggest that his government was not yet sold on the idea that OPEC+ should extend production cuts. The higher prices go, especially over such a short time period, the more that cracks will begin to surface in the OPEC+ group. Saudi Arabia clearly wants to stick with the cuts, still smarting from the downturn last year. Russia is less keen. Meanwhile, some economic concerns still linger. The IMF warned about slowing growth, expecting global GDP to expand by 3.3 percent this year, down from 3.6 percent last year. One glaring weak spot is the fact that emerging market currencies are lagging far behind the rally in commodities and global equities. Higher oil prices and a persistently strong U.S. dollar have put pressure on an array of currencies, and the weakness will make crude oil much pricier in many countries. That, in turn, could dampen demand. Nevertheless, declining output in Iran and Venezuela, and the threat of severe outages in Libya, at a time when U.S. shale growth has slowed is a powerful combination pushing oil prices to new highs. Nick Cunningham is a writer for Oilprice.com where this originally appeared. Home Michael Majchrowicz is a reporter covering crime and public safety. He previously wrote about courts for the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Massachusetts. A Hoosier native, he graduated from Indiana University with a degree in journalism. Robert Behre works as an editorial writer with a focus on local government, transportation and the built environment. Military officials have identified the 21-year-old Marine who was shot and killed Friday at the Beaufort air base but have released few other details. Cpl. Tyler P. Wallingford, who was an aircraft ordnance technician with Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501, was shot around 9:30 p.m., said base spokesman 2nd Lt. Kevin Buss. The shooting took place at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort. No further information regarding what may have led to the shooting was available Monday. A fellow Marine, 21-year-old Cpl. Spencer T. Daily, is in custody in connection to the killing, Buss said. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is in charge of the investigation, which remains ongoing. "Our deepest condolences go out to the family and friends of our fallen Marine," Buss said in a statement. Syndicated and guest columns represent the personal views of the writers, not necessarily those of the editorial staff. The editorial department operates entirely independently of the news department and is not involved in newsroom operations. Editorials represent the institutional view of the newspaper. They are written and edited by the editorial staff, which operates separately from the news department. Editorial writers are not involved in newsroom operations. Assistant Columbia bureau chief Adcox returned to The Post and Courier in October 2017 after 12 years covering the Statehouse for The Associated Press. She previously covered education for The P&C. She has also worked for The AP in Albany, N.Y., and for The Herald in Rock Hill. Unvaccinated travelers By Robert T. Smith Presented as a part of a public service announcement on the radio for the local Pittsburgh-area Allegheny County Health Department, a new term has been coined for our times: "unvaccinated traveler." Posing an apparent new health concern, who exactly are these unvaccinated travelers? With a bit of thought and experience with the liberal language-origami game, it is likely that our unvaccinated travelers are in reality our southern border illegal alien guests. Coincidentally, not reported in the Democrat propaganda media are the third-world diseases being brought to this country by the influx of unvaccinated travelers...dengue, swine flu, TB, scabies, and measles, among many others, and as an added bonus a proliferation of a once-rare enterovirus causing polio-like symptoms, paralysis, and even death to children around the country. Border patrol agents, those working with the unvaccinated travelers and their families, as well as those who come into contact with these travelers have contracted these diseases, with the risk of further spreading the diseases in their own communities. Additionally, our unvaccinated travelers may not show symptoms of these third-world diseases, but still be carriers, ensuring a robust distribution throughout our country. According to Mayor Bill de Blasio and his ilk, who are now demanding forced measles vaccinations due to an outbreak in New York, the obvious problem is a handful of American citizens who may not have been vaccinated, not the multiple thousands of unvaccinated third-world illegals pouring into all parts of our country. The unvaccinated travelers are just the newest slice of the illegal alien pie. Kick-started by former President Barack Obama, thousands have poured and continue to pour over our southern border, to obtain their free share of Americans dreams. Higher taxes for schools, hospitals, and other social services; higher unemployment; and reduced wages, to name a few, are the outcomes for America's citizens. Importing poverty, diseases, and other social stressors into America appears to be the agenda du jour of the Democrat party. Obviously, those with bad intentions or ill will for America would never think to use this open border avenue to penetrate our ironclad homeland security . Of course, there is an increased potential for terrorists to penetrate the homeland security border sieve and facilitate violence, like mass shootings, explosive or dirty bombs, ad infinitum, not to mention the more pedestrian lawlessness of the uninvited gang members and other murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and drunk drivers. From a humanitarian perspective, who would deny the social niceties we enjoy here in our country? Even basic sanitation is an upgrade for many who enter the country illegally. But why should we unfairly limit access to our country to those who can walk or drive across the border? Perhaps we should provide taxpayer-funded airfare or luxury liner boat transportation to our shores from all around the world. Unfortunately, our social financial buffering capacity is finite. A quote comes to mind attributable to Margaret Thatcher: "the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money to spend." If we kill the American goose that lays the golden eggs, the goose that provides financial, humanitarian, medical, and military assistance across the world, all the while providing for its own citizens, we will eventually suffer an equal outcome, and those who rely upon us will be left without. Based on the Democrats statements, a degraded condition for Americans equal outcome with other less well-off countries appears to be pleasing to them. After all, the Democrat hate-America-first crowd has determined that we are the problem around the globe anyway. Contemplate that one day, you or your progeny may find yourselves planning to sneak over the border to Mexico to improve your life experience. The moral to the Allegheny County Health Department's radio announcement is clear: make sure that you and your kids are vaccinated, so that you do not become the unvaccinated traveler in some future Mexican town's public service announcement. Robert T. Smith is an environmental scientist who spends his days enjoying life and the pursuit of happiness with his family. He confesses to cling to his liberty, guns and religion, with antipathy toward the arrogant ruling elites throughout the country. Home The Rochester Art Center will host a reception Friday for four artists whose work is currently part of the "Rooted: Southeastern Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program." Alesandra Sulpys "Driftless" paintings chronicle her response to moving to a new community, Winona, where she teaches at Winona State University. The exhibition continues through May 11. "Distress Cycle" is a collaboration by filmmaker Jon Allen, seamstress and fiber artist Heather Acerro and painter Eric Tarr, all of Rochester. The exhibition continues through May 18. The reception is from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The art center is located at 40 Civic Center Drive SE. Tonic Sol Fa brings new music to Zumbrota ADVERTISEMENT ZUMBROTA Tonic Sol Fa , the a cappella quartet that needs no introduction to Minnesota audiences, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the State Theatre, 96 E. Fourth St., Zumbrota. The group, which formed at Saint Johns University in Collegeville, has toured regionally and nationally for more than 20 years. In addition, Tonic Sol Fa has been seen on three public television specials, the latest of which will be shown through 2020. This time, theyre touring with some new material, including selections from an upcoming album of top requests. Tickets are $20 in advance, $22 at the door, available at zaac.org/state-theatre . Middle Eastern music, art, dance on stage WINONA "Dreaming Under the Cedar Tree 2.0," an evening of dance, art, food and conversation, will be presented at 7:30 p.m April 25 at Page Theatre on the campus of Saint Marys University in Winona. The performance integrates the experiences of Sharon Mansur on her first trip to Lebanon, and as well as her Lebanese heritage. The program is the final installment of this seasons Cedar Tree Project at Saint Marys. Ten events involving Arab-American culture and artists were presented over the course of the past eight months. This performance will feature original solo dance by Mansur, visual elements by local artists and Mansur family members, Middle Eastern food and an open discussion. ADVERTISEMENT Tickets are $15, online at pagetheatre.org and by phone at 507-457-1715. Beethoven fest season tickets announced WINONA Season tickets for the 2019 Minnesota Beethoven Festival , which runs June 30 through July 21 in Winona, will go on sale April 23. This years festival features concerts by Joshua Bell, the Manhattan Chamber Players, the Venice Baroque Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra, among others. Season tickets are $200 for all nine concerts, $180 for any eight concerts, $160 for any seven concerts, and $140 for any six concerts. Tickets will be available by phone at 866-811-4111 and online at mnbeethovenfestival.org. Individual concert tickets are $25, and will go on sale May 14, pending availability. LAKE CITY The Minnesota Department of Transportation will host an open house April 25 concerning the U.S. Highway 61 reconstruction plans in Lake City. The meeting, which runs from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at City Hall, will allow the public to ask questions and get information about the project, which is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2020. Representatives from the city of Lake City, engineer consultants and MnDOT will be available to answer questions and provide information. During the open house, people may drop by at any time to learn more about the project, offer feedback and ask questions, according to a statement from MnDOT. Maps and information will be available. To learn more about the project, go to the city of Lake Citys project website at http://tinyurl.com/yxzw7vaf , or contact Scott Jensen, Lake City public works director, at 651-345-6850 or sjensen@ci.lake-city.mn.us. Efforts continue to make sure the handoff of planning duties in Rochester goes smoothly in July. "Were on the staffing and recruitment side of things," Rochester Deputy Administrator Aaron Parrish said. The city hired Cindy Steinhauser last year as its first-ever community development director. Since then, a communications and engagement coordinator and administrative assistant have been added to the fledgling department. Parrish said a new planning supervisor, who will come from the current Rochester-Olmsted Consolidated Planning Department, is expected to start at the end of April. The hiring process is also underway for several planners. ADVERTISEMENT Overall, the department is slated to have a staff of 13. Searches to fill at least four positions continue, Parrish said. A new zoning administrator, administrative assistant and sustainability coordinator could be hired in May, along with someone to coordinate urban design and heritage preservation efforts in the city. The two positions to address sustainability, urban design and heritage preservation were added to earlier plans, partly due to moving an open staff position from the city administrators office to the new department. During Fridays meeting of the Planning Administrative Services Committee, Rochester City Council Member Nick Campion said he expects the new sustainability coordinator position will pay for itself. "His job is to look at ways to save us money and look at what were doing operationally and find ways to improve," he said. The city already shares a similar position with the Destination Medical Center Economic Development Agency, which Campion said has proven fruitful with efforts to address ways the city can become more energy efficient. "The position has probably paid for itself for the next decade," he said of Kevin Brights work. "Hes pushed a lot of stuff forward." As positions continue to be filled, the city and county are working on an agreement to implement the split of duties from a department they have shared for more than 40 years. ADVERTISEMENT Olmsted County Administrator Heidi Welsch said she expects the agreement to be ready for county commissioners to review in early June. The city wont be taking over all aspects of planning handled by the consolidated department. The county will continue to oversee long-range planning efforts and offer GIS support to the city. Members of the Planning Administrative Services Committee questioned the groups role after the transition is made. While Campion suggested it remain in place to discuss potential inter-government concerns, others suggested it was work that could be handled by the Rochester-Olmsted Council of Governments, which is another inter-governmental group, helping guide transportation projects that receive federal funding. Olmsted County Commissioner Ken Brown said ROCOG could take on some regional planning policy issues, since transportation planning often intersects with land-use concerns. "There is now a strategic element to ROCOG because we have to do 40-year plans," he said. Brown said he believes the larger priority is making sure the county maintains communications with the cities and townships, which could be handled in a different format. ADVERTISEMENT "We have to figure out a forum for that," he said. Jim Schumann, who represents the countys townships on the Planning Administrative Services Committee, agreed with the need to maintain communication in some form. "The official job of this body was to oversee essentially the hiring and spending, because you had two groups come together under one, but the benefit, at least that I saw, from this group was it was a place where the small cities and townships could get out a concern to everybody," he said, acknowledging the committees primary purpose is ending. For now, the Planning Administrative Services Committee has arranged to meet at least twice throughout the transition process, once on May 31 to review the city-county agreement and once in July for an update on the transition. As the new members of Congress from Minnesota passed 100 days in office last week, Democrats were already looking forward to next years election, while Republicans expressed frustration with ongoing Washington gridlock. U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, the Democrat who represents Minnesotas 2nd District south of the Twin Cities, said Democrats efforts on gun control and campaign and election reform have merit even if they arent going to pass in the Republican-controlled Senate. "Were showing our constituents what were fighting for and I think thats what we need to continue to do," Craig said, adding that shes trying to work with Republicans. Democrat Dean Phillips, who represents the western Twin Cities suburbs, agreed its valuable for House Democrats to pass legislation even if it wont make it in the Senate. "We have a presidential election forthcoming in 2020, and our hope is that many of the bills were passing in the House, while theyre not making it through the Senate in two years, hence may stand a chance of going to the presidents desk and being signed," Phillips said. ADVERTISEMENT The House recently passed a bill Craig co-sponsored with a Florida Republican that will increase water pollution grants for local and state governments. Craig said she got to know Republican Rep. Peter Stauber from northeastern Minnesotas 8th District, and found they both have kids with special needs, which lead them to collaborate on legislation to increase special education funding. "Pete and I have become, what I would say is, good friends and we want to work together," Craig said. "Both Congresswoman Craig and I are really going to work hard to make this a reality," said Stauber, who counts a new law that provides funding to route a trail that runs through northern Minnesota around wetlands as one of his early achievements. Stauber has also been promoting legislation that would require American-made steel in any border barrier. Stauber agreed with Craig that many members want to work across party lines. "We have more in common on both sides of the aisle than the public or the media will share because Ive had private conversations with my Democratic colleagues and we are on the same page on so much but that doesnt see the light of day," Stauber said. Stauber blames Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for focusing on legislation she knows will never pass in the Senate. Fellow first-term Republican Jim Hagedorn is also unhappy with top House Democrats. ADVERTISEMENT "So far Im very, you know, pretty disappointed," Hagedorn said. "Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, they really dont want the president to succeed on anything." In the Senate, where Minnesota Democrat Tina Smith won a special election in 2018, the partisan roles are reversed. Smith said she thinks Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is preventing Democrats and Republicans from coming together to help reduce prescription drugs prices and address other pressing issues. "I cant tell you how frustrating it is to see the majority leader of the United States Senate basically say what he wants to do this year is to nominate, approve judges and he doesnt see opportunities for us to work on some of these big issues," Smith said. A Rochester woman was arrested Sunday evening after she was caught reportedly stealing three vacuums from Target. Desirae Marie Frank, 23, was arrested around 6:30 p.m. at Target North on suspicion of felony theft. Rochester police were called to the store for a report of a woman who attempted to leave the store with a cart full of four vacuums that she had not paid for, according to Lt. Frank Ohm. When an officer spoke with the stores loss prevention, they learned that Frank was suspected of doing something similar two times before, Ohm said. Frank allegedly took three vacuums totaling approximately $1,500 on April 5 and two vacuums totaling approximately $1,000 on April 7. The stores security was unable to stop Frank the first two times but surveillance footage captured the incidents. ADVERTISEMENT Ohm said Frank did not give a statement at the time of her arrest. There is a lot to appreciate about living on our island home where there is still a sense of community and where we are still, for the most pa Read more BEIJING, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Speaking highly of the just-concluded eighth China-CEEC leaders' meeting, Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) express the hope that cooperation between the two sides can be lifted to a broader and higher level. The meeting, themed "Building new bridges through openness, innovation and partnership," was held Friday in the southern Croatian coastal city of Dubrovnik, with the participation of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and leaders of 16 CEECs. Delo, a national daily in Slovenia, has paid close attention to the meeting. It said Friday in an editorial that the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) aims to join hands with regions including Europe in creating a better life and shows Europe the prospects of future win-win cooperation with Asia. Tomislav Tolusic, Croatian deputy prime minister and minister of agriculture, told Xinhua that as Croatia hosts the meeting, it is a great opportunity for the country to position itself in the region, in Europe and even broader than that. He said that Croatia and China have many common points and can cooperate in many different areas. He expects that bilateral cooperation will be more concrete after the meeting. Tolusic's remarks were echoed by Luka Burilovic, president of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, who said possibilities of cooperation between Croatia and China are enormous. Li delivered a speech at the ninth China-CEEC Business Forum on Friday, during which he said China will continue to create conditions to import more honey, fruit, dairy and meat products and other farm produce from CEECs to meet the diverse needs of Chinese consumers. Burilovic told Xinhua that his country was delighted by Li's remarks, saying this is good news for Croatia as his country could provide high-quality products for the Chinese market. Ivona Ladjevac, senior researcher at the Institute of International Politics and Economics in the Serbia's capital Belgrade, said the China-CEEC cooperation has been continuously expanding its scope in recent years, and has reaped solid achievements, adding that this cooperation mechanism has won higher expectations. It can be expected that the China-CEEC cooperation will be further strengthened by such measures as expanding investment in infrastructure to promote financial flows and trade exchanges, Ladjevac said. As there is a growing enthusiasm for learning Chinese language and culture among European students, educational exchanges can do a lot to promote the China-CEEC cooperation, she said. Endre Spaller, vice president of Hungarian Governmental Information Technology Development Agency, told Xinhua that cooperation with China is the key to the county's development as China is a growth engine for the world market. He appreciated the importance China attaches to Central and Eastern Europe, and believes that the cooperation between Hungary and China faces greater opportunities in the future. President of Sino-Czech Aviation Association Petr Hyl said that the CEECs welcome the cooperation mechanism with China as they have more space to highlight their priorities. Finding a right partner is always the foundation of successful cooperation, and Czech companies welcome the possibility of meeting new potential partners from China, Hyl added. Faruk Boric, executive director of the Center for Promotion and Development of the Belt and Road Initiative, said since China proposed the BRI, European countries that participated in its construction have benefited a lot. Within the China-CEEC cooperation framework, relevant countries would gather together annually to negotiate and implement new projects in areas of interest to all the participants, with none of such cooperation failing to notch up win-win results, Boric added. Marceli Burdelski, vice president of the Asia Pacific Society in Poland believes that China-CEEC cooperation do not conflict with China-EU cooperation. He said the CEECs cooperate with China to seek economic development and narrow down gaps with western European countries, which is good for the integral development of Europe. He also said that this year marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Poland and China. Taking this opportunity, Poland and China can open up wider areas of cooperation, and bilateral economic and trade cooperation will reach a higher level. Sylwester Szafarz, the former consul general of Poland in Shanghai, China and expert on international issues, spoke highly of the China-CEEC cooperation, considering it as one of the initiatives and mechanisms that China proposed while actively participating in global governance and maintenance of multilateralism. He said that through this mechanism, China could carry out mutually beneficial cooperation with CEECs more effectively to make China-EU cooperation more balanced and substantial. China's cooperation with CEECs has achieved pragmatic results, and there is still much potential for cooperation between the two sides, he added. Who weaponized the FBI? By Dr. Robert Owens With the release of the Mueller Report we finally have what should be the definitive word: There never was any collusion between President Trump or his campaign and the Russian government. After 675 days of investigation, 2,800 subpoenas, 500 warrants, and 500 witness interviews nada, zip, nothing but false charges, innuendo, slander, and an obvious smear campaign by the sore losers and their megaphone media. The beginning of this sordid chapter in American History is almost laughable. After former Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from his job Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein sends a letter to President Trump recommending he fire DBI director James Comey for his handling of the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clintons private email server. Then Rosenstein appoints a Special Counsel to investigate supposed collusion between the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin because President Trump fired Comey in an attempt to obstruct of justice. You just cant make this stuff up. With the release of Muellers report the first act in the silent coup has collapsed. Now comes the time to pay the piper. There are increasing cries to investigate the investigators. Its high time the American people find out who weaponized the FBI and then used them in an illegal attempt to influence an election and once that failed to overthrow a duly elected president. Rep. Devin Nunes (R. CA) the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee plans to send eight criminal referrals to the Department of Justice. Calling the gang-that-couldnt-shoot-straight Watergate Wannabees Nunes said the criminal activity includes leaks of highly classified material and conspiracies to lie to Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. Nunes went on to say that five of the referrals "are what I would call straight up referrals that name someone and name the specific crimes... [which are] lying to Congress, misleading Congress, leaking classified information. He also added that "There are three [referrals] that I think are more complicated We believe there was a conspiracy to lie to the FISA court, mislead the FISA court by numerous individuals that all need to be investigated and looked at that, and we believe the [relevant] statute is the conspiracy statute. The second conspiracy one is involving manipulation of intelligence that also could ensnarl many Americans." This is not just a Republican witch hunt in response to the Democrat witch hunt. Ex-Gov. / Sen. Bob Kerrey (D. NE) says, "Rather than investigating the president further, Congress needs to investigate how the Department of Justice got this one so wrong. If the president of the United States is vulnerable to prosecutorial abuse, then God help all the rest of us." Former Harvard Professor and legal expert Alan Dershowitz, a self-declared liberal Democrat, has maintained from the start that Congress needs a nonpartisan commission to investigate the failings of the justice system in searching for a crime that was not found in the Mueller Report. The collapse of the Mueller investigation hasnt stopped those who suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome who infest Congress. The current smear being perpetrated by the never-say-die Watergate Wannabees and their silent coup is obstruction of Justice. Since collusion is not a crime and there never was any collusion to begin with how could there have been any obstruction of justice? If anything it should be obstruction of injustice. Lying to Congress, leaking classified material, lying to obtain FISA warrants, conspiracy to influence a presidential election, and conspiracy to overthrow the president of the United States: this sounds like a plot from the TV series 24. All we need is the dramatic music to make it a real nail biter. If Rep. Nunes starts whispering like Jack Bauer Im going to move to the edge of my seat. Dr. Robert Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com 2019 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens Home Looks like the Bernie Bros are starting to have some fratricidal impulses. First up, Bernie lashed out at the Center for American Progress according to CNN: Sen. Bernie Sanders has accused a leading liberal think tank, founded and run by longtime Hillary Clinton allies, of orchestrating attacks on him and two other 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. In a letter provided to CNN by his campaign, Sanders addressed the board of the Center for American Progress and CAP Action Fund on Saturday, alleging that its activities are playing a destructive role in the critical mission to defeat Donald Trump. Sanders cited two posts about him by ThinkProgress, a website run by CAPs political arm, and past pieces focused on Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker. . . Center for American Progress leader Neera Tanden repeatedly calls for unity while simultaneously maligning my staff and supporters and belittling progressive ideas, Sanders wrote, adding: I and other Democratic candidates are running campaigns based on principles and ideas and not engaging in mudslinging or personal attacks on each other. Meanwhile, the Center for American Progress is using its resources to smear Senator Booker, Senator Warren, and myself, among others. This is hardly the way to build unity, or to win the general election. The New York Times account (no linkbecause screw their paywall) has more detail: This counterproductive negative campaigning needs to stop, Mr. Sanders wrote to the boards of the Center for American Progress and its sister group, the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Well of Bernie is upset with the negative campaigning of CAP, wait till the current issue of The Nation lands in the mailbox at any one of this three houses: The Liberal Case Against Bernie by Eric Alterman Senator Bernie Sanderss presidential candidacy poses a conundrum for progressives. Not since 1936, when Franklin Roosevelt said that he welcomed the hatred of corporate interests, has a serious presidential candidate offered so aggressive a challenge to the conservative powers that be. At the same time, however, a dangerous lunatic is president of the United States, and Sanders, of all the major Democratic contenders, is the one who will make Donald Trumps reelection most likely. Not so sure about that. I think Elizabeth Warren would also assure Trumps re-election. Still, thats no reason not to soak up all the schadenfreudey goodness of this piece, such as: A Sanders nomination would, I fear, deliver the country to Trump. It would depress turnout among all the groups I mentioned; increase support for the likely spoiler in the race, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz; and keep a significant number of swing voters in Trumps column. Additionally, some of the moms and grandmas who make up the backbone of the #Resistance told researcher Theda Skocpol that, owing to Sanderss harsh treatment of Clinton in the 2016 election, they might sit out 2020 if hes the nominee. Pass the popcorn. PostscriptNancy Pelosi disses the AOC progressives: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told CBSs 60 Minutes that the left flank of the House Democratic caucus represented by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is like five people in a Sunday interview. Asked by Lesley Stahl about potential insurrections or pushback from the progressive wing of the party, Pelosi responded, Thats like five people. When Stahl asked for Pelosis thoughts on the left wing of the party pushing initiatives such as Medicare for all, which Stahl said were allowing the president to say youre all socialists, Pelosi noted the GOP made similar claims when former President Lyndon B. Johnson led the creation of Medicare in the 1960s. This is an ongoing theme of the Republicans, Pelosi said. However, I do reject socialism as an economic system. If people have that view, thats their view. That is not the view of the Democratic Party. Its like Nancy is nervous or something. Goldman Sachs must be one of the most heavily Democratic business organizations in the U.S., and its a good thing: given the companys pervasive influence on American business, if its partners were Republicans they would be more vilified than the Koch brothers. So it is a day-brightener to see that Goldman predicts a Trump re-election in 2020: narrowly, but still. President Donald Trump holds a narrow electoral advantage heading into 2020, according to Goldman Sachs, with his chances buoyed by a resilient U.S. economy and a crowded Democratic field in which a clear frontrunner has yet to emerge. In a comprehensive report released late Saturday, the investment bank gave its preliminary thoughts on a general election thats still more than a year away. While Trump reelection is far from assured, Goldmans economists believe the president is bolstered by the advantage of first-term incumbency and the relatively strong economic performance, in what is sure to be a close call election. I think that is a sound assessment. Of course, Yahoo Finance must get its anti-Trump licks in: Trumps approval ratings remain mired below 50%, as new crises appear to engulf his administration on a near daily basis. Meanwhile, early reads on the November 2020 ballot suggest the incumbent faces an uphill climb in his reelection bid. The only daily tracking presidential approval poll has Trump mired between 48% and 53% approval among likely voters, better than Barack Obama at the same point in his first term. And at the moment, I would say that crises are engulfing the Democratic opposition on a daily basis, not the Trump administration. Yet with more than 20 Democrats vying to replace him, voter turnout uncertain and the likely emergence of an independent candidate suggest that President Trump is more likely to win a second term than the eventual Democratic candidate is to defeat him, Goldman wrote. The Goldman report mentions the prediction markets, in which people place bets on everything under the Sun: While we believe the majority of market participants expect President Trump to win a second term, we note that prediction markets point in the opposite direction and imply that the Democratic candidate has a 56% probability of winning and the Republican candidate has a 44% chance, the bank said. Political betting markets have shown mixed results, with a few recently showing a clear reelection advantage for Trump, while others predict a Democratic win. In my opinion, the prediction markets are a poor indicator. Did they forecast a Trump victory 19 months before the 2016 election? Um, no. On the contrary. I dont suppose Goldman Sachs has much more insight into what will happen over the next year than the rest of us, but their business model requires that they deal in reality, not the bizarre fantasies that animate Americas left. So it is nice to see that they recognize the likelihood that President Trumps performance in office will merit a second term from the voters. Ilhan Omars Los Angeles CAIR speech the one that has attracted the current attention gives the received CAIR origin fable that is recited as fact by the mainstream media outlets. I mean the one that serves up CAIR as a civil rights organization. Mosaic reminds us this morning: Controversy broke out last week concerning remarks Congresswoman Ilhan Omar made at a gathering of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Last week also marked the fifth anniversary since CAIRwidely regarded by American journalists and politicians as a legitimate representative of U.S. Muslimssuccessfully pressured Brandeis University into canceling its plans to grant an honorary degree to the apostate Muslim and womens-rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali. At the time, Andrew McCarthy responded with an updated version of a chapter from his 2010 book, in which he explained how Hamas operatives created CAIR. Mosaic quotes this passage: When 25 [Hamas] members and supporters gathered at a Marriott Hotel in Philadelphia on October 27, 1993, they were unaware that the FBI was monitoring their deliberations. The confab was a brainstorming exercise: how best to back Hamas and derail the Oslo Accords while concealing these activities from the American government? . . . In the U.S., Hamas was [by this time] perceived as the principal enemy of the popular peace process. . . . That was where [a] new organization would come in. . . . The new entitys Islamism and Hamas promotion would have to be less conspicuous. It would need to couch its rhetoric in sweet nothings like social justice, due process, and resistance. If it did those things, though, it might be more attractive . . . and effective. A Muslim organization posing as a civil-rights activist while soft-pedaling its jihadist sympathies might be able to snow the American political class, the courts, the media, and the academy. It might make real inroads with the . . . progressives who dominated the Clinton administration. . . . Despite its Hamas roots and terror ties, the most disturbing aspect of CAIR is its accomplishment of the Muslim Brotherhoods precise aspiration for it. Thanks to its media savvy and the credulousness of government officials and press outlets, which have treated it as the civil-rights group it purports to be rather than the Islamist spearhead that it is, CAIR has been a constant thorn in the side of American national defense. Sad news a few days ago of the passing of Paul Hollander, the long time professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and author of several important books about the culture of fellow-traveling, that is, the pathology of left-leaning intellectuals and cultural figures who were always taken in by the latest Communist totalitarian regime merely because they mouthed the slogans of revolutionary utopia. The most famous of Hollanders books was Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals In Search of the Good Society, published in 1981. It was a fabulous catalogue of the foolish credulity of leftists, and he followed up this book with several sequels, all of which I have . . . somewhere. I wasnt able to chase them down over the weekend at home to dust off some greatest hits. Alexander Riley of Bucknell University offered one of the best appreciations of Hollander and his work in the journal Society just two years ago, and is worth sampling at length: That Paul Hollander is not more widely celebrated by his own discipline is perhaps itself something of a corroboration of the ascendancy of the alienated, adversary intellectual culture that has been the central theme in much of his research. The wide learning, rigorous intellectual spirit, and grand vision evident in that work could once be found with some frequency in American sociology, in the books and articles of men like Robert Merton, Seymour Martin Lipset, Edward Shils, Barrington Moore, and Daniel Bell. Hollander is today one of the rare remaining reminders that a half century or so ago, before the academic revolution that accompanied the broad cultural sea change of the 1960s and 1970s, there existed serious thinkers, brought to the discipline by the desire to understand how human societies really work. These scholars were seemingly immune to the kind of self-righteous ideological and moral prejudices that provide in advance answers to inquiries that should be settled empirically and they were therefore prepared to modify or abandon hypotheses based on evidence. Their acute vision was fortified by long years of study not only in their own fields but also in adjacent disciplines such as history and political science. Hollanders intellectual trajectory was powerfully shaped by personal experience, even as he learned and meticulously applied an approach to social science research that forbade a simple translation of this experiential affect into published conclusions. He grew up in mid-twentieth century Hungary and escaped the country as a young man after Soviet tanks rolled in to crush the 1956 democratic uprising. In his own words, these early events produced a lifelong morbid fascination with the processes by which some intellectuals betray their calling and come to support and aid the legitimation of totalitarianism and dictatorship. Theres more at the link, including good short summaries of his other books on this theme. They dont make sociologists like Hollander any more. Two points about the following headline in Fridays Washington Post: Democrats lack unified stance on solving border crisis. First, the Post is acknowledging something that the mainstream media has long denied the existence of a border crisis. The phrase border crisis also appears in the headline of the online version of the story. And it appears in the Post article itself, not just in the words of sources but also in the words of the Posts reporters (Mike DeBonis and Rachel Bade). The Post even documents the crisis: Between October and February, U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended 268,044 migrants the fastest pace recorded by the agency since 2008 and more than double the rate seen two years ago. My second point is that the Democrats, unlike their media allies, still do not acknowledge that a true crisis at the border exists. Thus, the problem isnt that the Democrats lack a unified stance on solving the border crisis. The problem is they dont believe theres a genuine crisis. According to the Post, progressive members of the House Democratic caucus believe that the crisis has been manufactured by President Trump. The crisis, said one member, is that weve blocked the process for people to come in and claim asylum. The Post also reports that a session on the [illegal immigration] issue organized by liberal members [of the House] largely focused on how to reduce enforcement and detention. (Emphasis added) They want to accomplish this by limit[ing] funding for enforcement agencies and also curb[ing] the ability of executive branch officials to transfer funds that could be used, for example, to buy more detention beds. I see no evidence that Speaker Pelosi supports this approach, but neither, to my knowledge, has she acknowledged that theres a crisis at the border. Instead, according to the Post, she points to the need for an overarching immigration deal with President Trump. However one feels about an overarching deal, one does not hold out for it when theres a genuine crisis. In times of crisis, one addresses the situation on the ground immediately rather than trying to extract major concessions from it. Thats particularly true where, as here, attempts to gain the concessions that the overarching deal Pelosi seeks would entail have been resisted successfully by Republicans time after time, and not just under this president. There might well be a political cost to the Democrats unwillingness to take the border crisis seriously, and it is this possibility, not the border crisis itself, that seems most to concern the Post. It puts the matter this way: The lack of an easily articulated alternative to Trumps hard-line border policy stands as a persistent challenge for Democrats both in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail as they approach the 2020 election cycle increasingly confident on other fronts, such as health care. But again, the real problem isnt the lack of an easily articulated alternative to Trumps policy. Rather, its Democratic indifference (or worse) to the crisis that Trumps policy is trying to address. Phote credit: Keys Energy Power went out in the Florida Keys last week when a sailboat ran into the tieline about 12 miles south of Tavernier. Keys Energy Services (KEYS) imports just about all of the power for the islands from mainland Florida because its far more economical and also helps build economies of scale for the mainland utilities. The tieline is the transmission line that connects the islands to the mainland power grid. KEYS does have local generation backup capabilities, which it said would be implemented while crews worked to free the sailboat and restore transmission through the tieline. Power was restored shortly after 6:30, about an hour-and-a-half after it was cut. It was certainly an inconvenience to residents and businesses, many of whom wonder why sailboats are allowed anywhere near the tieline. Say hello to the sailboat that triggered the systemwide outage today at 5:04P. The boat was cleared from the lines and power restored to all affected customers by 6:47P. Local generation did not need to be utilized. The perils of powering paradise. pic.twitter.com/jEKNP2ffQo Keys Energy Services (@KeysEnergy) April 9, 2019 Businesses, though, have to be wary of outages. Just as they can require major repair work for utilities, surges can cause damage to the IT systems that are the heart of business operations. Even a small surge can break tiny circuitry in servers, switches, storage devices, firewalls, or other infrastructure, taking them offline. The costs to repair or replace equipment and restore systems to operational status can be expensive. Even a single server knocked offline can wreak havoc on business processes when they are part of daily workflows. The way to ensure against these kinds of situations is by investing in a power protection system. These are designed specifically to manage power into systems and regulate voltage to eliminate risk of damage. UPS components of these systems keep connected systems powered for some duration depending on the size of the UPS. It could be a short time, but enough to manually shut systems down to prevent data corruption or loss, or extended runtime systems can keep systems operational for longer certainly beyond the short-lived outage in the Keys. Regardless of UPS capacity, every business should be aware of the risks posed by power outages and take measures to protect their technology investments. Just like cybersecurity, once the damage is done, its too late the think about preventing it. Edited by Erik Linask Greener Housekeeping House Cleaning service is offering a special discount with a 3 month contract. Discounted price is available for home cleaning, maid service, condo cleaning and office cleaning. house cleaning in naples PR-Inside.com: 2019-04-15 07:15:42 Press Information Greener Housekeeping 1305 Granada Boulevard Naples, FL 34103 Timea H. manager (239) 687-6597 email http://www.greenerhousekeeping.com # 285 Words 1305 Granada Boulevard Naples, FL 34103manager(239) 687-6597 Fast, honest, family owned and operated cleaning service has become a reputable home and office cleaning service provider in Naples, Florida. Greener Housekeeping House Cleaning service is offering a special discount with a 3 month contract.Greener Housekeeping employees are cleaning homes using 51-point Checklist. This checklist details everything from top to bottom with a specific focus on the bathroom, kitchen, floor, livingroom, lanai and sanitizing. 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Similarly, investors wealth reduced by N24 billion or 0.22 per cent as market capitalisation closed lower at N11.079 trillion against N11.103 trillion recorded on Friday. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that performance was influenced by price depreciation in medium and large capitalised stocks. Among these are Nestle Nigeria, Dangote Cement, Flour Mills Nigeria, Ecobank Transnational Inc (ETI) and United Bank for Africa (UBA). Analysts at Afrinvest Limited said: Following the negative performance and weakened investor sentiment, we expect sustained low activity this week, barring any major economic events. Our outlook remains bearish, but we do not rule out bargain hunting toward the end of the week as witnessed last week. Looking into this week, analysts at United Capital Plc expected bargain hunters looking to take advantage of cheaply priced stocks to guide sentiments in the near term as Relative Strength Index (RSI) hovers below its oversold region. NAN reports that market breadth closed positive with 26 gainers against 17 losers. Initiates recorded the highest price gain of 9.59 per cent to close at 80k per share. Dangote Flour Mills followed with a gain of 9.52 per cent to close at N9.20, while First Aluminium rose by 9.38 per cent to close at 35k per share. Cadbury appreciated by 8.91 per cent to close at N11, while Consolidated Hallmark Insurance went up by 8.33 per cent to close at 26k per share. Conversely, Associated Bus Company led the losers chart by 10 per cent to close at 36k per share. A.G. Leventis (Nigeria) followed with a decline of 9.68 per cent to close at 28k, while Niger Insurance declined by 9.09 per cent to close at 20k per share. Royal Exchange declined by eight per cent to close at 23k, while United Bank for Africa (UBA) was down by 4.62 per cent to close at N6.20 per share. Total volume traded went down by 4.6 per cent to 223.78 million shares valued at N1.79 billion exchanged in 3,175 deals. This was in contrast to a turnover of 232.77 million shares worth N1.97 billion transacted in 2,677 deals on Friday. Sovereign Trust Insurance was the toast of investors with 45.72 million shares worth N10.96 million. Chams accounted for 36.84 million shares valued at N10.93 million, while Union Bank of Nigeria traded 26.22 million shares worth N178.41 million. Guaranty Trust Bank sold 14.36 million shares valued at N503.35 million, while UBA transacted 13.65 million shares worth N86.38 million. (NAN) The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) on Monday said over five million Nigerian electricity consumers were unmetered. Abdulkadir Shettima, NERC General Manager, made this known at the launch of a Mojec International Limited, bank consumer and retail financing scheme, for Meter Asset Programme (MAP) in Lagos. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that NERC recently issued permits to some MAPs to commence roll out of prepaid meters to tackle metering gap and estimated billing. According to NERC, the move is in accordance with Section 4(3) of the MAP Regulations 2018, to MAPs that were successful in the procurement conducted by Abuja and Jos Discos. Section 4(3) of the MAP Regulation 2018 also requires all electricity distribution licensees to engage MAP that would assist, as investors, in closing the metering gap. Also, it is to assist in eliminating the practice of estimated billing in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry, NESI. NERC said it has directed that the roll out of meters should commence not later than May 1, 2019. Mr Shettima said the countrys unmetered gap stood at five million with the ongoing enumeration being carried out as against 4.7 million recorded as at December 2017. He said the gap would be closed primarily with investments being paid by various stakeholders in the industry. Mr Shettima commended Mojec for kick starting the implementation of the MAP with the launch of financing with some consortium of banks. We are very happy with this event kick starting the implementation of the MAP, but we will be happiest when all Nigerians are metered or metering gap is closed. We are very hopeful that it will be closed with this regulation very soon starting from May 2019, Mr Shettima said. On the objectives of MAP, he said that the regulation was introduced to eliminate the practice of estimated billing or minimise it to a large extent. By doing this, we will have happy customers; that is customers will be happier and more willing to pay for the services they consume, he added. Mr Shettima said the country would attract private investment with MAP regulation, if the economies were right. There will be investments; we have seen it happening in many other sectors across the globe. If its not happening, it is because economy is not right. We expect to create a new metering services industry in the value chain. We have gas, generation, transmission, and now metering and consequently, when the industry matures, we will also have retailing of electricity. I believe its going to work, because we are going to get the economies right. If its not right, we will not be seeing these many banks coming in; we wont be seeing these many investors coming into the industry, he said. Mr Shettima said there would be incentives for performance and sanctions for non-performance in MAP regulations to achieve the desired result. The roles are clear; there are incentives for performance and there are also sanctions for non-performance. We believe that with all of these, there will be complete metering in the Nigerian electricity supply industry soonest, he added. Advertisements Mr Shettima, however, commended Mojec for the funding initiative with the financial industry aimed at reducing the metering gap. Earlier, Chantelle Abdul, Mojec Managing Director, said that the flag off of its consumer retail financing scheme was to tackle the metering gap. Ms Abdul said that NERC issued the MAP regulation in an effort to fast-track the closure of the metering gap to ensure that electricity consumers in Nigeria, not only pay for what they consume, but also bring to an end the estimated billing system. Mojec and several other MAPs were appointed over a week ago in Abuja on the regulation to commence meter roll out as soon as May 1, 2019. Todays event is to announce our partnership with leading commercial banks in the country, as well others who may be willing to join this exclusive club of banks not every bank is here today. The MAP regulation rightly know there are no free meters; and however provides for third party to be financing these meters for acquisition of these assets under a term to be issued by the commission. We are proud to be flagging off a retail financing scheme in partnership with the following banks Wema Bank, Polaris Bank, Zenith Bank, First Bank, Key Stone and Unity Bank. There are some names that are not here and some have even expressed interest to participate, we are in discussions with them, she said. (NAN) U.S. President Donald Trump continued to attack a Muslim congresswoman on Monday, even after she reported receiving an increase in death threats following previous messages targeting her. Trump on Friday tweeted a video of Representative Ilhan Omar giving a speech about the treatment of Muslims after the September 11, 2001 attacks, spliced with images of the World Trade Centre on fire. Omar said on Sunday that the video sparked threats against her. Leading members of Omars centre-left Democrat party have stepped up to defend her. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she had asked officials to review security measures in place to protect Omar. Trumps latest salvo on Monday attacked both Omar and Pelosi. Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made. She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy! Trump said on Twitter. Trump has also refused to take down the video using the Sept. 11 imagery. Omar, who fled the civil war in Somalia with her family when she was eight, in 2018 became one of the first two Muslim women to be elected to Congress. The freshman Democrat representing the state of Minnesota has been critical of Israeli policies towards Palestinians and also raised questions about the influence of pro-Israel lobbying in Washington, triggering some accusations of anti-Semitism, which she denied. (dpa/NAN) Nigerias Excess Crude Account (ECA) has been ranked as the most poorly governed among similar funds operated by resource-rich countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, a new report by the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) has shown. The report showed that Nigerias ECA ranked lowest among other sovereign wealth funds assessed by the NRGI, ranking last alongside the Qatari Investment Authority. The new report, titled Resource Governance Index: From Legal Reform to Implementation in Sub-Saharan Africa, looked into the gap between the state of resource governance in relation to oil, gas and mining laws, and the practices on the ground. A total of 28 countries in the region were selected and assessed in different areas of resource governance. The report found that Sub-Saharan Africa is, on average, the lowest-scoring region in relation to sovereign wealth funds. Six funds, which together manage over $8 billion in resource revenues, attain failing scores, the report said. These funds are found in countries that achieve poor scores in control for corruption. Nigerias poor ranking Although Nigeria operates one of the largest funds by asset balance at the time of the report, its ECA ranked as the worst governed in the index. The government discloses almost none of the rules or practices governing deposits, withdrawals or investments of the ECA, the report said of Nigeria. The ECA is an account used to save oil revenues above a base amount adopted as benchmark price in the budget. Resource Governance Index scores and revenues oil gas The report said Nigeria has other sovereign wealth funds, some of which are more transparent. But as the largest fund by asset balance, the report revealed, the potential revenue loss through ECA constitutes a critical challenge in the country where over 90 per cent of government revenues come from the oil sector. The management of the ECA has been a source of concern among Nigerians and other stakeholders in the oil and gas sector. While the report put the balance in the ECA at $2.4 billio, being the figure as at the time the report was being put together, new details have since emerged showing that the amount in the ECA has been depleted. Last December, details emerged through the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) that the excess crude revenue account savings had been depleted to only $631 million within three weeks. Resource Governance Index sub Saharan Africa The shocking disclosure came barely three weeks after the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, disclosed at the end of the committees meeting in Kaduna that the balance in the account stood at about $2.319 billion. In February, PREMIUM TIMES published a detailed breakdown of how, in the last fifteen years, the Nigerian government spent at least $107.4 billion (the equivalent of N15.46 trillion) from the Excess Crude Account (ECA) under the administrations of Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar Adua, Goodluck Jonathan and incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari. The report noted, however, that despite the huge arbitrary spending, the nation has failed to transform its potential into growth. Extractive sector implementation gap in sub Saharan Africa The NRGIS index assesses nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa that have set up sovereign wealth funds to save, invest and balance resource revenues. The Ghana Stabilisation Fund achieved a score of 93, the report showed, making it the second-best governed fund in the index and the only one to sit in the good category in the region. On the same scale, Nigerias ECA recorded a score of 4. Ghanas high ranking is a result of clear rules and advanced oversight mechanisms, including by the parliament, the report said. Botswanas Pula Fund achieves a satisfactory score of 65, even though it does not have binding rules on how much is deposited into and withdrawn from the fund each year. For years, there have been controversies over the illegality of Nigerian governments continued operation of the ECA without the requisite legal backing. The Auditor-General of the Federation, Anthony Ayine, in his last report released in 2018, advised the Nigerian government to legalise its continued maintenance of the ECA. In the report, Mr Ayine recommended that relevant government agencies and the Federation Accounts and Allocation Committee (FAAC) initiate the process to legalise the creation of the Excess Crude Oil/Petroleum Profit Tax/Royalty Account, through the National Assembly. Resource Governance Index law practice scores environment social Earlier in November 2017, the Nigerian Senate had declared the ECA illegal, with some senators describing it as the biggest slush fund for governors. In its report, the NRGI advised that ministries should ensure sovereign wealth funds are subject to oversight independent of the funds management and the executive. Parliamentary approvals for withdrawals, and a rules-based deposit, withdrawal and investment framework audited by a supreme audit institution or external auditor can help, it added. Similarly, it said the funds should publish annual reports containing information on assets, investments and returns, which help assess their feasibility of a fund as a revenue management tool. Advertisements Poor Licencing In the area of licensing, the report also identified that there is opacity in Nigerias key decisions including qualification of companies, process rules and disclosure of terms of extraction. In Nigerias oil and gas value realisation component, licensing is the weakest link with a score of 17 of 100, the report said. Extractive sector legal reform and implementation gap in subSaharan Afri As the first step in developing mineral resources, it explained that the award of exploration and production licenses presents a critical opportunity to set the course of governance for the entire life cycle of a project. Sub-Saharan African countries that performed best in licensing are Mozambique, Burkina Faso, DRC (for mining), Guinea and Ghana. Ten countries achieved failing scores in this area, it said, including significant resource economies like South Africa, Nigeria, Botswana, Sudan and Madagascar. The report noted that it is particularly important for government officials to disclose ownership in extractive companies to avoid conflicts of interest. While seventeen out of 28 countries require public officials to declare their financial assets, including investments in extractive companies, to a government entity, five (Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Guinea, Niger and Uganda) require these disclosures to be made publicly, and two, Burkina Faso and Uganda, actually disclose this information. The report recommended, among other things, that licensing authorities should run transparent license allocation processes to ensure qualified, legitimate companies are selected to develop resources. They should publish prequalification requirements and rules of allocation, and negotiable terms when licenses are awarded through competitive tender or auction, it said. The NRGI report explores resource challenges and governance in Sub-Saharan Africa, with judicious use of data set and evidence documents comprising over 10,000 legal texts, reports and other data sources. The Nigerian Army on Monday announced the imposition of a permanent discomforting sleep on 27 Boko Haram suspects in a joint raid with Cameroonian forces. The raid on April 13 also led to the recovery of heavy arms, ammunition and combat machinery, a military spokesperson said in a statement early Monday. The gun battle occurred in the villages of Wulgo, Tumbuma, Chikun Gudu and Bukar Maryam, on the northern flank of Nigeria and Cameroon. It was part of an ongoing operation to clear Boko Haram remnants by the multinational joint forces, a military alliance formed by Nigeria and its northern neighbours against Boko Haram. Recovered items included five gun trucks, several motorcycles, five AK-47 rifles, Galil automatic revolver, G3 rifle and general purpose machine gun. FILE: Ammunition recovered from Boko Haram. [PHOTO CREDIT: Official Twitter handle of the Nigerian Military] Ammunition recovered from Boko Haram. [PHOTO CREDIT: Official Twitter handle of the Nigerian Military] Ammunition recovered from Boko Haram. [PHOTO CREDIT: Official Twitter handle of the Nigerian Military] Ammunition recovered from Boko Haram in April. [PHOTO CREDIT: Official Twitter handle of the Nigerian Military] Two anti-aircraft guns, four rocket-propelled gun tubes, PK machine gun, M21 rifle, Dane gun, five rocket propelled gun tube bombs were also recovered. The suspected terrorists also lost one thousand rounds of ammunition, a Toyota Land Cruiser and a Nissan gun truck to the troops, the official said. Army spokesperson Sagir Musa said there was no casualty on the part of the Nigerian and Cameroonian forces during the raid. Nine senior officials of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) are currently in detention over alleged multi-billion naira fraud. The officials, who are being detained by the anti-graft agency (EFCC) in Abuja, include the Director of Finance and Accounts (DFA) of the FIRS, Mohammed Auta. Apart from Mr Auta, another director of the agency, Peter Hena, is also alleged to be involved in the scandal. Mr Hena, the Coordinating Director, Support Services Group of the FIRS, is currently out of Nigeria and will be arrested as soon as he returns to the country, EFCC sources told this newspaper. A top official of the FIRS, however, said Mr Hena is on official medical leave outside the country and did not flee. Mr Hena is believed to be one of the closest officials to the FIRS chairman, Babatunde Fowler. It is still unclear to EFCC officials, whether or not Mr Fowler is involved in the scandal. PREMIUM TIMES has no evidence of the involvement of the FIRS chief. Details of the scandal are still sketchy as at the time of this report. However, Messrs Auta and Hena are being investigated for allegedly diverting about N6 billion tax funds that should have gone to the Nigerian government, anti-corruption officials said. Our reporter learnt that most of the other affected officials are from the finance and account department of the FIRS. All the officials have been in the EFCC detention since April 1. PREMIUM TIMES learnt the EFCC is closing in on several other senior officials of the revenue collection service in a widening investigation to uncover other fraudulent activities involving several billions of government tax revenues. When contacted on the detention, the EFCC spokesperson, Orilade Tony, said he had not been briefed on the matter. He said any such detention would be at the EFCC office in Wuse 2, Abuja. He asked to be given more time to get more details on the detention. The FIRS is saddled with collecting taxes and revenues of the federal government. The agency under Mr Fowler has seen its revenue generation improve, setting new records. The agency said it collected about N5.32 trillion as revenue in 2018, the highest in Nigerias history. EDITORS NOTE: The response of the EFCC spokesperson was modified after he called back to clarify his statement. Several armed bandits were reportedly killed on Sunday after Nigerias military launched an offensive in Tsanu community in Zurmi Local Government Area of Zamfara State. Residents said the soldiers came around 1 p.m., heavily armed, and reportedly cordoned the entry and exit points of the community before they started the operation. While some soldiers were manned at the entry and exit point of the community, some entered the communitys market square, targeting armed bandits who were walking freely with arms. They killed many, while others threw their rifles and fled. I cannot say exactly the number of armed bandits killed, but many of them were killed and others fled with bullets wounds. When the soldiers came, the bandits were easily identifiable because they were walking around clutching weapons, a resident of the community, who requested not to be named, said. According to him, We saw four armed bandits that were arrested. One of them is a chemist in the community who was allegedly providing medication for the armed bandits. A spokesperson for the military in Zamfara, Clement Abiade, a major, confirmed the report. He, however, stated that the operation is still ongoing and information, for now, is sketchy. He said it will not be justifiable to make further comments, for now. PREMIUM TIMES reported on Saturday how suspected armed bandits infiltrated Jaja, Rukudawa, Tsanu communities in Zurmi Local Government Area, walking freely, unchallenged. The armed bandits were said to be on the run after the military began airstrikes in many of their hideouts in the bush. They were accommodated out of fear by some members of the communities. A Nigerian activist has been jailed for seven years for falsely accusing a public official of corruption. Ibrahim Wala, popularly called I G Wala, was jailed on Wednesday by Justice Yusuf Halilu of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). He was found guilty of falsely accusing the head of a pilgrim commission of corruption and leading a protest against the official. Justice Halilu found Mr Wala guilty on three of the four charges filed against him by the Inspector General of Police and the Attorney General of the Federation. The three charges for which he was found guilty include unlawful assembly, public incitement and criminal defamation of character. The judge, however, dismissed the charge of criminal intimidation for lack of merit. The trial The activist was arraigned following a petition filed by the chairman of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), Abdullahi Mukhtar. In the petition, Mr Mukhtar alleged that Mr Wala used his Facebook page to incite the public against him and defame his integrity and that of the commission he heads. On the charge of unlawful assembly, Mr Wala was found guilty of using his organisation, the Citizens Action To Take Back Nigeria (CATBAN), to form an unlawful assembly. The judge ruled that the organisation was unregistered. The judge said the prosecution has been able to establish the offence of making an unlawful assembly. He, therefore, sentenced him to seven years in Prison for the offence. The judge also found Mr Wala guilty of public incitement, an offence contrary to section 114 of the penal code which deals with the breach of public peace. He sentenced him to three years in prison for the offence. Mr Yusuf also agreed with the prosecution that Mr Wala criminally defamed Mr Mukhtar after he alleged that the NAHCON boss made N3 billion for himself from the 2017 Hajj operations. The judge said Mr Wala wrote on his Facebook page that he has documents to prove the allegation. He, however, said the activist failed to provide the document to prove his claims in court. Where is the document proving N3 billion made by chairman hajj commission? Why has the accused person failed to tender such document now that he has been dragged before a court of law? the judge said. He said by his inability to provide relevant documents to prove his huge allegations, Mr Wala has made the case of the prosecution less cumbersome. The judge sentenced him to two years in prison for criminal defamation. Concurrent Jail Terms The judge also said all the sentences would be served concurrently; meaning the convict would serve seven years in jail unless the ruling is upturned by an appeal court. Mr Wala is to serve the sentence in Suleja prison. Mr Wala has led protests against issues like corruption and human rights violations in several parts of the country. Advertisements Thirty-three Nigerians arrested by Kenya anti-narcotic officers on suspicion of entering the country illegally are being held at various police cells in the country despite a court ordering their immediate and unconditional release, PREMIUM TIMES has learnt. Kenyan newspaper, Standard Digital, reported that the suspects were arrested in Kasarani, a suburb of the countrys capital, Nairobi on Thursday morning. According to the newspaper, the police said they were arrested by anti-narcotic detectives pursuing leads in a drug trafficking-related incident. According to a senior police officer in Kasarani, Peter Kilmani, the suspects posed as students of two universities in the area. When they arrived, they declared they were students at the universities, but our investigations have shown they are in other illegal businesses, Mr Kimani told Standard Digital. The report also added that the suspects who included an Eritrean were taken to Kiambu Magistrate Court where the police were hoping to get more time to keep them while they process their deportation papers. Release them unconditionally PREMIUM TIMES has however obtained a court order showing that the police application to remand the suspects was declined by the court. The court ruled that that they should be released unconditionally. A copy of the court ruling signed by B. Khaemba, the principal Magistrate of Kiambu Magistrate court dated April 12, in the case of Ogochukwu Madubuike and others, reads: This matter coming up for ruling on 12th April 2019 and in the presence of the suspects and the prosecution; It is hereby ordered: 1. That request for suspects to be remanded at the police station is hereby declined. 2. That the suspects be released unconditionally, and the file be and is hereby closed. But instead of obeying the court order, the Kenyan police decided to detain the suspects in pairs and threes at police stations across Nairobi, sources who asked not to be named for fear of being targeted by the Kenyan police told PREMIUM TIMES on Monday. A representative of the students union of United States International University (USIU), one of the two private universities in the area, said 12 of those arrested are genuine students. It said one of the suspects is a student of USIU. She shared transcripts of some of the students and a letter signed and stamped by the USIUs registrar, Lydiah Masinde, confirming the status of a student of the USIU with PREMIUM TIMES. One of our sources, a Nigerian businessman, said the suspects were arrested following a police raid near a restaurant popular among Nigerian students. He said contrary to Standard Digitals report, they were arrested on March 29. He alleged the Kenyan police is in the habit of raiding areas populated by Nigerian where people are arrested to extort them. He said he was afraid of the safety of the students, especially as they have been separated. Owen Vincent, a lawyer representing some of the arrested students, told PREMIUM TIMES that he was going to file a contempt of court case against the police for refusing to release the suspects. We also dont understand why they are still being held. That is why we have filed a case in court to address that issue. Why are they being held, yet this is an order stating that they are released, he said during a telephone interview. What I can tell you is that this is an injustice. They are being held in prison for no apparent reason. That is why we are going to the high court to challenge the decision. Mr Vincent claimed some of the arrested students were released on Friday. He accused the countrys interior minister of ordering the deportation of others despite not being charged for committing any offence. They have not been charged with any crime. That is why we are challenging the decision of the interior minister that they should be deported. Advertisements He said the case file at the high court had been slated to be heard on April 18. Meanwhile, the lawyer representing one of the detainees has secured a court injunction stopping the police from deporting him. The injunction dated April 12 was signed by the deputy registrar of Constitutional and Human Rights Division of Milimani High Court. PREMIUM TIMES could not reach the Kenya Police for comment. The contact telephone number on their website failed to connect after multiple tries. No help from Nigerian High Commission Mr Vincent said the matter is a diplomatic one and that he believed that the Nigerian High Commission should intervene in the matter. He added that a letter was sent to the Nigerian High Commissioner, Momoh Shiedu, but he has not responded. One of my colleagues wrote a complaint to Nigerian High Commissioner, she was told they call them back. We thought this is something that the Nigerian and Kenya government can resolve diplomatically. Mr Shiedu did not return multiple calls to his mobile number. He also did not reply to a text message sent to him requesting for comment about the incident. The spokesperson of National Association of Nigerian Students in Kenya, (NANS0), Akeem Ajani, told PREMIUM TIMES during a telephone interview that he could not make a statement about the matter until the associations executives meet later in the week. We are not Aware When reached comment about the incident, the Special Adviser to the President on Diaspora Affairs, Abike Erewa, said all enquiries should be directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Akpan Friday, a spokesperson of the ministry of foreign affair said he was unaware of the matter. He, however, promised to find out and return with a comment. He did not do that after several hours and did not answer or return subsequent calls to his mobile number. The spokesperson of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo, said an aspirant does not need to have a West African Examination Council (WAEC) certificate to become a president or governor in the country. Mr Keyamo disclosed this in a tweet posted on his verified Twitter handle, @fkeyamo on Monday. According to him, one does not need a WAEC certificate to become a president as long as the person has occupied a public office for a reasonable length of time. There are other levels of qualifications to run for the office of President. If you have occupied the public office for a reasonable length of time, by the provisions of the constitution, you do not even need a WAEC certificate to become President of Nigeria, Mr Keyamo said. One of the hurdles President Muhammadu Buhari had to surmount during his campaign for a second term was the allegation that he did not possess a WAEC certificate. The matter was later laid to rest when officials of the examination body eventually came to the presidential villa to present an attestation that he (Buhari) indeed sat for the examination. Mr Buhari will be commencing his second term from May 29. Keyamos defence The lawyer also gave the constitutional requirements that makes one eligible to become a president in the country. He said, the 1999 Constitution (amended) only requires a primary 6 School Leaving Certificate for one to become a president. He said the ability to communicate in the English Language is also required by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). PREMIUM TIMES reported how INEC said it was satisfied by the academic documents submitted by President Buhari while running for office. Yes. Section 318 of the 1999 Constitution defines School Certificate or its equivalent to mean primary 6 School Leaving Certificate plus the ability to speak, write, understand and communicate in the English language to the satisfaction of INEC. No WAEC certificate is needed, Mr Keyamo explained. The advocate also spoke on the case of Osun State candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Ademola Adeleke, who is also facing allegations of forgery of WAEC certificate. By the definition of School Certificate or its equivalent in section 318 of the 1999 const, you dont need a WAEC certificate to become President or Governor, but if you present a FORGED WAEC or another certificate to INEC for any office, you will be disqualified. #OsunStateScenario Forgery occurs when the supposed author of a document denies ever making it or denies its authenticity. WAEC has confirmed the authenticity of PMBs certificate by issuing an attestation of it. Case closed. In #OsunCaseScenario WAEC has denied authenticity. See the difference? Let me end my free lecture series by saying that the crux of the matter is that if you dont have a WAEC certificate, theres no need to go ahead & forge one in a bid to be Governor or President. You can still be qualified, regardless. Thats the mistake made in #OsunCaseScenario, he said. The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on Monday said it has uncovered and arrested over 50 Professional Examination Writers who specialised in writing examination for candidates for a fee. The boards weekly official bulletin, tagged: JAMBULLETIN, signed by JAMBs Head, Media and Information, Fabian Benjamin, disclosed this in Lagos. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that over 1.8 million candidates are expected to sit for the boards ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) that commenced nationwide on Thursday, April 11. The board said it uncovered a group, it described as Professional Examination Writers who specialises in writing examination for candidates for a fee. According to the bulletin, as a result of the various intelligence gathering mechanism, the board was able to uncover and arrest over 50 of such fraudulent persons in centres spread across the country. It noted that some of the suspects were Masters Degree holders and undergraduates of tertiary institutions in the country. According to the bulletin, these professional examination writers connived with some Computer Based Centre (BT) owners to perpetrate the crime by engaging in multiple registrations where by the finger prints of the actual candidates and their impersonators are captured side by side. The modus operandi of these UTME syndicates was confirmed when one of the kingpins was apprehended recently. On interrogation, he confessed to the multiple registration of his biometrics alongside other several potential candidates preparing to sit for the examination, in exchange for a huge sum of money. This development led to the decision of the board to revalidate all biometrics of candidates that have taken the boards examination in recent times. This timely action will enable the board to not only fish out and dismantle this registration cartels and racketeers, but also bring them to book along with their collaborators, it said. The bulletin added that another startling discovery by the board was the fact that a substantial portion of the UTME application documents, was composed of the bogus registration. It noted that the unwholesome application had the singular effect of inflating the total statistical data of candidates registration that amounted to over 30 per cent of the 1.8 million that registered for the 2019 UTME. The board in a bid to live up to its billings, has therefore resolved to set machinery in motion to effect the arrest and prosecution of all those involved in the unwholesome act, capable of subverting the sanctity of the entire examination process, the bulletin said. (NAN) The Executive Secretary of Nigerian Christian Pilgrims Commission (NCPC), Tor Uja, said the Easter pilgrimage slated for April was delayed due to operational reasons. Mr Uja disclosed this in on Monday in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja. The first reasons was because the general pilgrimage for 2018 only ended in the middle of February just before the general elections and the commission will not want Nigerians to be outside the country during the general elections. The second reasons is that most of the stakeholders were busy with the elections and need time to make provision for the pilgrims. We have to screens them, get their visas, sort them out and make adequate preparations for them. Also the commission has to go round the states which have not been done. Thirdly and very serious, Israelis have their own holiday in the month of April and it starts from April 15 till the end of the month. As a nation we normally go in thousands and the hotels we normally used would have been occupied by the Israelis who came from far to observe the holidays. So the commission felt the Easter pilgrimage for April, 2019 should come after these holidays. By May, all arrangements will be concluded and from June 2 we will commence the first flight to Israel, he said. Mr Uja explained that the Commission was trying its best to make the cost of Pilgrimage affordable. NCPC is not making profit out of Pilgrimage. 740,000 is the cost of a pilgrim to Jerusalem, (Israel) and back. It covers to and fro airfare, visa processing, all forms of insurance, tour of Holy Sites, hotels accommodation and feeding. This cost is per pilgrim because we are providing very good hotels accommodations; good food and excellent plans and they would be moved around Israel by new air-conditioned buses. In the last two years NCPC had subsides this cost but we are not in such position to do so anymore, he said. Mr Uja called for the involvement of youths in this years Easter pilgrimage in order to open their eyes to what other youths were doing in Israel and emulate same when they come back. We are looking for sponsors that will help us take youths to Israel in batches so that they can come back to the nation to be a blessing; we have not yet succeeded but we will. The commission intends to strengthen these two areas; youths and women pilgrimage so that they can rescue Nigeria and also reposition the nation for the future. Youth cannot pay their pilgrimage fees. Women hardly can unless their husbands are generous people. We did the first women pilgrimage only about a 100 women went and it was not easy because we had to sponsors a lot of them. Just a few of them their husbands sponsored but majority struggled to pay part and the commission had to help them complete their money, he said. (NAN) A Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court in Zuba has ordered the final forfeiture of properties worth N124.5 million illegally acquired by a civil servant. The culprit, Daniel Obah, is a Principal Accountant in the Finance and Accounts Department of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs. The court ordered that the properties should be forfeited to the Federal Government of Nigeria. Mr Obah, who was charged before Justice E. O. Ebong by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), was accused of fraudulently acquiring a four-bedroom duplex in Abuja and plots of land in Rivers State. The counsel to ICPC, John-Paul Okwor, told the court that the commission was relying on Section 48 (2) (3) of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act 2000, which gives it the power to obtain a ruling of forfeiture of seized assets acquired by individuals through corrupt means. The commission had argued before the court that Mr Obah and two other staff of the ministry, Poloma Nuhu and Mangset Dickson, allegedly carried out a coordinated fraud within the ministry resulting in the withdrawal of N605 million from its 2014 Constituency Projects account with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The assets forfeited by Mr Obah which also include a Toyota Camry car and a 2013 Honda Accord were ascertained to be from the proceeds of the fraud. The landed properties include one 4-bedroom duplex at Janew Home, Plot No.3 Cadastral zone D02, Karsana South District, Abuja, valued at N60 million and a plot of land at Ohia Ngbakiri, Ozuoba, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, valued at N30 million. Others include plots of land at Oliopobo, Rumuekini New Layout, Obio Akpor L.G.A. of Rivers State valued at N18 million, Umuodili Odubo, Abe Ndoni Community, valued at N16. 5 million and Livingstone Estate Umuogodo, Igbo- Etche, Obio Akpor L.G.A. Rivers State. However, Mr Obah argued for the four-bedroom duplex to be left out of the properties to be forfeited because according to him, it was acquired with his legitimate income. Unfortunately for him, the trial judge dismissed his plea for failing to convince the court with proof. He, therefore, ruled that all the seven properties listed by ICPC be forfeited to the federal government. A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has convicted an activist, Ibrahim Wala, popularly known as I G Wala. Justice Yusuf Halilu of FCT High Court in Maitama found Mr Wala guilty on three out of the four charges filed against him by the Inspector General of Police and the Attorney General of the Federation. The three charges for which he was found guilty include unlawful assembly, public incitement and criminal defamation of character. The judge, however, dismissed the charge of criminal intimidation for lack of merit. The activist was arraigned following a petition filed by the chairman of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), Abdullahi Mukhtar, alleging that Mr Wala uses his Facebook page to incite the public against him and defame his integrity and that of the commission he heads. On the charge of unlawful assembly, Mr Wala was found guilty of using his organisation, the Citizens Action To Take Back Nigeria (CATBAN), to form an unlawful assembly. The judge ruled that the organisation was unregistered. The judge said the prosecution has been able to establish the offense of making an unlawful assembly. The judge also found Mr Wala guilty of public incitement, an offense contrary to section 114 of the penal code which deals with the breach of public peace. Mr Yusuf also agreed with the prosecution that Mr Wala criminally defamed the chairman of NAHCON, Abdullahi Mohammed, after he alleged that the NAHCON boss made N3 billion for himself from the 2017 Hajj operations. The judge said Mr Wala wrote on his Facebook page that he has documents to prove the allegation. He, however, said the activist failed to provide the document to prove his claims in court. Where is the document proving N3 billion made by chairman hajj commission? Why has the accused person failed to tender such document now that he has been dragged before a court of law? the judge said. He said by his inability to provide relevant documents to prove his huge allegations, Mr Wala has made the case of the prosecution less cumbersome. The judge will announce sentencing later today. Mr Wala has led protests against issues like corruption and human rights violations in several parts of the country. The Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, on Monday warned Area Commanders and Divisional Police Officers that, henceforth, they would be held liable for the professional misconduct of officers under their charge. Mr Adamu spoke during a visit to the Police College in Lagos, following a spate of extrajudicial killings by police officers in the state. It is with a deep sense of professional concern that I visit you here in Lagos state command to address you on the state of affairs for the past few months, Mr Adamu said. This visit has become expedient in view of the recent threat of unprofessional conducts of some police officers. Our visit is to reinforce the extant Force Accountability Policy which holds any officer professionally and criminally liable for the consequences of their actions, particularly if such misuse of power resulted into death, injury or indignity of citizens. The line supervisors of such officers including the area commander, divisional police officer shall be held vicariously liable for lacking supervision and shall, be similarly sanctioned. Last weekend, police officers shot and killed a 20-year-old lady who was reportedly returning from a club with her partner. Her partner is still hospitalized for gunshot injuries. The police chief said in order to reduce the extrajudicial killings, the police would now use technologies and weapons systems instead of firearms for law enforcement. This will include the use of electro-muscular disruption technology which is commonly known as Taser or stun guns by police for patrols, he added. Zubairu Muazu, the Lagos police commissioner, while welcoming Mr Adamu, said it was unfortunate the IGP was visiting the state on such a bad note. The command would have loved to welcome the IGs official visit to the command on a better note than the one that brought the IG, he said. It is sad and unfortunate that the IGP is visiting Lagos command due to insistent misdemeanours of the Nigerian Police Force, Lagos State. Mr Adamu condoled the families of victims of misuse of firearms and other forms of abuse of powers by the Lagos police. He assured that the police would not condone the abuse of power resulting in misuse of firearms, overzealousness, and unprofessional conducts of police officers. After the meeting with police officers in the state, Mr Adamu; Frank Mba, the force spokesperson; assistant inspector-generals present; and other officials went into a closed-door meeting. The National Universities Commission (NUC) said it is processing about 303 new applications for the establishment of private universities in Nigeria. Nigeria currently has about 170 universities (43 federal universities, 48 state-owned universities, and 79 private universities). The NUC chief, Abubakar Rasheed, said this in Abuja at a two-day summit on Nigerian private universities. The summit had the theme: Private University Education Delivery In Nigeria; Challenges and Opportunities. Also speaking at the summit, the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Ishaq Oloyede, accused Nigerian private universities of aiding academic corruption in the country. He said private university operators are going against many laws guiding university operations in Nigeria. Government opened up space a few years ago for private operators to complement government effort in providing university education to Nigerians, but it seems like the aim is gradually being defeated. Some of the proprietors choose to run the universities like a family business and it ought not to be so, he said. According to him, We complained that public institutions have lots of problems thinking the private institutions will help, but they have complicated the issue. He said private universities have brought another corrupt tendency to what the country has in public institutions. Only the Vice Chancellor is recognised by law as being in charge of the day-to-day running of the university, while every other person with ceremonial titles plays supportive roles. If I were to be a university proprietor, I would prefer to take the position of Chairman of the Council because of the control power attached to that office, he said. He urged the proprietors of private institutions to steer clear of making illegal money. 303 Applications Presenting a paper on Regulating Private Universities Education Delivery in Nigeria: The Role of National Universities Commission, the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Abubakar Rasheed, said the commission is processing about 303 applications for the establishment of new private universities in Nigeria. We are currently processing 303 applications for the establishment of private universities in the Commission. They were received from groups of individuals, corporate organisations/foundations and faith-based organisations from all over the country, he said. He said 208 out of the 303 applications are on step 3 in the processing of their applications. Sixty-three applicants representing 20.79 per cent of the total applicants, are on step 6 having only submitted their completed application forms and strategic documents and are waiting for first verification visit, while 30 applicants, representing 9.9 per cent are on step 8 and have had first verification visit conducted to their proposed university campuses. He said two of the applicants, representing 0.66 per cent, have attained step 10 and the second verification visit has been conducted for them. Meanwhile, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, said running a private university is a very serious business which requires great discipline. Mr Adamu who was represented at the summit by the permanent secretary of the ministry, Sunny Echono, urged private universities to address the major challenges militating against their operation. He said some of them are issues of staffing, poor or non-implementation of university governance arrangement, excessive proprietor influence, and inadequate funding among others. The National Universities Commission of Nigeria was established to promote quality higher education in Nigeria. Seven Chadian Soldiers have been killed in an attack by Boko Haram, Azem Bermendoa Agouna an army spokesman said on Monday. The Islamist militants injured 15 others when they attacked an army position in Kaiga Kindjiria, in western Chad, on Sunday, according to Agouna. The army claims it killed 63 Boko Haram fighters during the fighting near Lake Chad. Boko Haram is a Nigerian jihadist group but also carries out attacks in neighbouring countries. (dpa/NAN) A reshuffle has been announced in the management of the Kaduna State Ministry of Finance. The ministry has not had a substantive commissioner since the resignation of Suleiman Abdu Kwari became effective on January 7, 2019. A government statement disclosed that Muhammad Saidu has been appointed as the new Commissioner of Finance. Mr Saidu is one of the original 13 commissioners cleared by the Kaduna State House of Assembly in 2015. He took the position of commissioner for local government in the first cabinet. He was appointed Chief of Staff in December 2016. Mr Saidus mandate, according to the statement, is to restructure and reposition the finance ministry within the shortest possible time for the challenges of the second term of the Nasir El-Rufai government. He will be assisted in that task by Idris Nyam, the erstwhile Permanent Secretary in the ministry, who has been appointed Accountant-General. Umar Waziri, the former Accountant-General, becomes Managing Director of the Kaduna Investment and Finance Company. The most senior director in the ministry will act as Permanent Secretary until further notice. The government statement also disclosed that Salisu Suleiman, the Principal Private Secretary, will cover the duties of the Chief of Staff in the absence of Muhammad Saidu. All the new appointments become effective immediately. Shehu Sani, the Kaduna Central senator, has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of hiring a personal lawyer to Governor Nasiru El-Rufai of Kaduna State to represent it at the National and State Assembly Election Petition Tribunal in Kaduna. Mr Sani, a member of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), who addressed a press conference in Kaduna, on Monday, urged INEC to substitute A. U. Mustapha, its defence Counsel at the tribunal, alleging conflict of interest. We have enough evidence that A.U Mustapha is a personal lawyer to Nasiru El-Rufai, Governor of Kaduna State. He is the one representing Governor El-Rufai in a case of defamation which he filed against me in four courts in Kaduna State. As a personal lawyer to El-Rufai now hired by INEC in a case where El-Rufai is a party is not acceptable. It is suspicious that the governor of the state and INEC are using A.U. Mustapha and Co, who remains El-Rufai personal lawyer, the senator said. Mr Sani is currently challenging INEC at the state Election Tribunal for declaring Uba Sani of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as winner of the February 23 poll in the Kaduna Central Senatorial District. The petitioner alleged that the election was characterised by massive rigging and other irregularities that placed him third after Lawal Adamu of the Peoples Democratic Party in the just concluded 2019 elections. However, Muhammad Auwal Mashi, INEC Administrative Secretary in Kaduna State, said INECs Legal Department in Abuja was in charge of recruiting or hiring lawyers and not state offices. Mr Mashi said he was not aware of who the electoral body hired to stand for it at the tribunal in Kaduna. Ideally I should not be the one speaking on this, I am not even aware of who INEC hired for any of its cases in the tribunal. INEC hires its counsel at the headquarters. Mr Mashi said. Meanwhile, the senator said neither him nor the PRP would challenge INEC on the matter in court as it would delay the main petition which ought to be concluded within 90 days by the tribunal. (NAN) A total of 43 political parties are to participate in the upcoming local government council elections in Zamfara State, scheduled to hold on April 27. The Permanent Commissioner of the State Independent Electoral Commission in charge of political parties, Bello Wadata, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Gusau, the state capital on Monday. According to him, the commission had already started the activities for the conduct of the election including a stakeholders meeting to intimate them on its preparations. We have held stakeholders meeting today. We are going to start selling the nomination forms very soon, he added. Mr Wadata solicited the support and cooperation of all stakeholders for the successful conduct of the election. He reiterated the commitment of the commission under the leadership of its executive Chairman, Garba Muhammad, to conduct free, fair and credible local councils election in the state. (NAN) The Court of Appeal sitting in Benin City, Edo State, on Monday, nullified the election of Peter Akpatason of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as a member of the House of Representatives for the Akoko-Edo Federal Constituency. The Speaker, Edo House of Assembly, Kabiru Adjoto, had filed an appeal against the judgment of a lower court that held and declared Mr Akpatason as the partys candidate in the February 23 National Assembly elections. Mr Adjoto claimed that he won the partys primary election held in October 2018, but was denied the ticket by the party leadership which he alleged was also affirmed by the lower court. The Justice Moore Abraham-Adumein-led three-member tribunal, in its Judgment, held that Mr Akpatason was not the right candidate who emerged from the party primary, hence was not qualified to have contested for the March 9 National Assembly election. The tribunal subsequently declared Mr Adjoto, being the candidate who emerged from the party primaries, as the right candidate for the Akoko-Edo Federal Constituency. The Court also nullified the decision of the APCs National Assembly Primaries Election Appeals Committee headed by former Governor of Edo, Oserheimen Osunbor. Mr Abraham-Adumein held that the trial court ought to have heard the case brought before it since it is its duty to do so. The trial court, for reasons best known to it, failed or neglected to make any pronouncement on the live issue before it, he said. Mr Abraham-Adumein said the Osunbor committee was not properly constituted because the committee contravened Article 21B of the APC guidelines, part of which said, no member of the five member appeals committee shall be from the state of assignment and so the committee ab initio ought not to hear the case. He, however, said referring the case back to the trial court would have been statute barred. Adjoto won the primary election, as the returning officer, Sufiyanu Igbafe, declared that Adjoto scored 7,034 votes, as against his opponent, Peter Akpatasons 5,606 votes. This appeal is hereby unanimously allowed and the prayers sought by the appellant in the trial court are hereby granted and the sum of N300, 000 is hereby awarded as costs against the 1st and 2nd respondents. He said his two colleagues: Justice Chioma Nwosu-Iheme, who is the presiding justice and Justice Tunde Efotoye, agreed with the judgment. However, Omoh-Ige Adebayo, Counsel to Mr Akpatason, said they would contest the judgment in the Supreme Court, while an elated Mr Adjoto said, The judiciary is not only the last hope of the common man but also of the big man. Mr Adjoto promised to give more representation to his people, more than he has given to them at the state house of assembly. (NAN) A prosecution witness, Sunday Alade, in the ongoing trial of a former governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, on Monday, told Justice Mojisola Olatoregun of the Federal High Court in Ikoyi, Lagos, how the defendant and his company received a sum of N1,219,000,000 from Zenith Bank, Akure Branch in the build-up to the states governorship election in 2014. Mr Fayose was arraigned alongside his company, Spotless Investment Limited, on October 22, 2018, on an 11-count charge bordering on fraud and money laundering. In his testimony, Sunday Alade, Head, Business Development and Safety, Zenith Bank, Akure branch, Ondo State, said: On June 17, 2014, I received a call from my Head of Operations, Abiodun Osode, that a customer of the bank would be coming to make a deposit into his account with the bank. He also instructed me to provide security as well as the bullion van movement team to pick up the cash from the airport. We were later instructed to proceed to the airport, where there would be other mobile policemen and soldiers. Mr Osode also called me and introduced one Abiodun Agbele to me, before we all left for the airport. At the airport, I was also introduced to Mr Adewale .O, who was the Aide-De-Camp, ADC, to the then Minister of State, Musiliu Obanikoro. We had to go twice, as two different planes brought in the money. While it was being bundle-counted, a sum of One Billion Two, Hundred and Nineteen Million (N1, 219,000,000.00) was taken to Zenith Bank, Akure Branch. I gathered that the cash was lodged into three accounts namely: De-privateer Limited, Spotless Investment Limited and Ayodele Fayose accounts. I also understand that part of the money was taken away that day by Mr. Agbele. When asked by the prosecuting counsel, Rotimi Jacobs, the department that is responsible for paying and transferring such funds into accounts, the witness told the court that In this kind of transaction, the Head of Operations would be the one to do that with the authorisation from the signatory to the accounts. Also, when asked if there was any complaint that the money was not complete while it was the bank, he said: I have no knowledge of the money not being complete, while it was in the banks possession. During cross-examination by counsel to the first defendant, Ola Olanipekun, the witness, while explaining to the court on whose instruction he had gone to the airport, said: My Head of Operations instructed me to go to the Airport. Though the witness, during further cross-examination, told the court that he was not aware of where the money came from or what it was used for, he said: I was told by my Head of Operations how the money was moved. The signatory to an account can make withdrawal and authorize someone who is not a signatory to move money from his account. When asked by counsel to the second defendant, Olalekan Ojo, if the bank had a record of the cash transaction in its custody, where the money was kept and how long it took to process that particular transaction, the witness told the court that the record of the money was kept in a boxed cash register because it took about 10 days to process. In his response to Mr Ojos question if he presented the record of the boxed cash register to the EFCC, the witness told the court that it was not his duty to give the commission that piece information and that he was not aware of any information about the boxed cash register transactions. Mr Ojo further asked the witness to read out some transactions in the exhibit tagged A series dated September 6, 2014, October 6, 2014, December 6, 2014, and March 6, 2015. The witness, while reading it out, told the court that they were cash transfers titled Mortgage Repayments Loans of the Sum of Eleven Million, One Hundred and Seventy- three Thousand, Six Hundred and Fifty-two Naira, Eighty- five Kobo (N11, 173,652.85), on each date and also a mortgage Loan Liquidation transfer. Consequently, Mr Ojo stated that it was obvious that Spotless Investment Limited was repaying a loan it obtained from Zenith Bank. He further asked the witness if he was aware of a sister charge at the Federal High Court, Abuja in respect of the charge, to which the witness responded in the affirmative. Justice Olatoregun adjourned the case to May 10 and 14, 2019 for the continuation of trial. Advertisements Recent developments proved that Europe can suceed to overcome challenges by aiming at great objectives, and this is needed also in 2009, said EU chairman, French President Nicolas Sarkozy. - "It's in the name of Great Ideas, Projects, Ambition and Ideals, that EU can overcome" challenges, stressed Sarkozy at EU Parliament in Strasbourg, in conclusion of a dense 7 months EU Chairmanship. "It's even easier for Europe to have Great projects, able to overcome national egoism, instead of limiting itself only to small projects" (unable to do alike), he observed. - "Europe must remain Ambitious and understand that the World needs her to take Decisions". "The World needs a Strong Europe", which "thinks on its own, has convictions, its own responses, its imagination" : "A Europe which does not limit itself into following" others, (as it did in the Past, when it followed USA, f.ex. on Bosnia). On the contrary, "Europe should undertake its own responsibilities", he said, after a series of succes in stopping the War between Russia and Georgia, and organizing the 1st EuroZone's Summit in Paris, which incited the Washington DC G-20 Summit to extend similar decisions World-wide. - "When you sweep it all under the carpet, prepare yourself for hard tomorrows", he warned. "What hinders decisions is the lack of Courage and Will, the fading away of Ideals", he stressed before EU Parliament's 2008 debate on Human Rights and Sakharov prize on Freedom of thought attributed by MEPs to Chinese cyber-dissident Hu Jia, followed by an EU - Turkey meeting on Friday. - "I don't abandon my convictions" and "I will take initiatives" on EU level also in 2009, Sarkozy announced later. "France will not stop having convictions and taking initiatives" on Europe. + "It's an Error to wish to pass over the Heads of those who are elected in their Countries" : "It's an integrism I always fought against"', he warned. --------------------- French EU Presidency faced 4 unexpected Crisis : - An institutional crisis, with the Irish "No" to EU Lisbon Treaty, just before it started. A geopolitical crisis, wth the threat of War between Russia and Georgia risking to throw Europe back to Cold-war divisions, on August. A World-wide Financial and Economic crisis, arriving at a bad moment before crucial 2009 EU elections. And even a Strasbourg's mini-crisis, with EU Parliament's roof curiously falling down, from unknown reasons, in a brand new building on August, provoking an unprecedented transfert of the 2 September Plenary Sessions... But it wasn't enough to stop Sarkozy ! On the contrary, it stimulated him... --------------------------------------- - "The better way to deal with the recent problems of EU institutions (as the "3 NO" by France, the Netherlands and Ireland) is to take them as a "Test" in order to find solutions closer to Citizens' concerns", said later in Strasbourg Sarkozy's new choice as Ministe for EU affairs, Bruno Le Maire. - On the Institutional front, Sarkozy gave Time to the Irish to think about it, and stroke on December a deal including a New Referendum after the June 2009 EU Elections, in exchange of a promise to keep the rule of "one EU Commissioner for each EU Member Country", and some opt-outs on Defence and Fiscal EU policies, Abortion, etc. If the Irish get a "Yes" Majority, then the institutional package could be completed in 2010 or 2011 on the occasion of Croatia's probable EU accession. He was accused in Strasbourg to upgrade EU Council and downgrade EU Commision, but he replied that "strong Political initiatives by EU Council reinforce also the more technical role of EU Commission, under the political-technical leadership of its President", all 3 "working together with EU Parliament". - But, meanwhile, Sarkozy energetically spearheaded an Historic 1st Summit of EuroZone's 15 Heads of State and Government at EU's core, exceptionally enlarged to a partial participation of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, on October 12 in Paris' Elysee palace, which started to tackle succesfully the growing world Financial crisis. It also paved the way for its endorsement by a subsequent Brussels' 27 EU Member States' gathering, before it all come to Washington's G-20 Summit. And "Europe was united, it asked for the 1st G-20 Summit, and it will also organise the next G-20 Summit on April in London", he observed. But a Conference with EU, Russia, African and other Developing Countries, hosted in Strasbourg shortly after Washington G-20 Summit by the French EU Presidency, took a Resolution asking to enlarge participation to Global Economic Governance. Many found, indeed, illogic and unacceptable that f.ex. states as Turkey were given a seat at G-20 level, while all African Countries, and even the African Union itself, representing the greatest Continent on Earth, were excluded... Meanwhile, even USA''s "Paulson No 3" Plan, was, in fact, inspired by Europe's No 1 Plan", Sarkozy observed, largelly applauded by MEPs. And "Europe showed Solidarity" by mobilizing some 22 Billion credit for Hungary, 1,7 billion for Ukraine, as we do nowadays for Baltic States, etc., he added. The move on Economy was extended on December by an EU stimulus' plan totalling some 200 billion Euros, including 5 Billions released by EU Commission for big Projects, as well as various parallel National plans for Economic revival, (fex. 26 billions in France alone). They might appear limited, compared to USA President-elect Obama's reported plan to boost the American economy with 800 billion $, but at least succeded to overcome Europe's divisions for the first time on Economic governance, opening new horizons. - The French President stressed even harder the unique role of an active EU Council's chairmanship, when he moved swiftly and efficiently, at the beginning of August, to succesfully stop War between Russia and Georgia, at the last minute, which threatened to bring Europe back to Cold War division. "We (EU) also wanted to avoid a situation like in Bosnia, in the Past, when EU was absent, so that our American friends took their responsibilitues, and EU only followed", despite the fact that the conflict took place in Europe. Now, it was the EU who took its responsibilities". A roadmap towards a new PanEuropean Security policy, before which all unilateral moves to place new Missiles (from USA or Russia) would be freezed, was proposed by Sarkozy after a meeting with Russian president Medvedev, at the eve of Washington DC's G-20 Summit. Ukraine's "European" character was stressed at a Sarkozy - Jushenko Summit, September in Paris, while EU adopted on December an "Eastern policy", in which, "I'm convinced that our (EU's) future is to find with our Neighbours the conditions for Economic Development. Peace and Security, by explaining them that.. they must respect (Human Rights') Values, and adopt behaviors different from the Past", explained Sarkozy in Strasbourg. Meanwhile, the "Union for the Mediterranean" was created, since July's Summit if 45 Heads of State and Government in Paris, as "an organisation for a permanent Dialogue, that we need", mainly in order to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, by bringing together, for the 1st time, Israelis and Arabs, where "Europe must be present, in order to avoid a frontal clash". - "If Europe doesn't take its part for Peace in the Middle-East, nobody else will do that in our place", Sarkozy stressed. ----------------------- Meanwhile, other EU Agreements were brokered during the French EU Presidency on Immigration, (fex. common Asylum rules, etc), and Climat- Energy : - On Climat-Energy, the 2007 German EU Presidency had fixed a triple 20% aim for 2020 (20% renewable Energies, 20% reduction of CO2 emmission, 20% energy efficience/economies), and the 2008 French EU Presidecny realized that, making the necessary compromises in order to modernize EU's industry, but without throwing some former Central-Eastern European Countries into abrupt Economic break down risking "social explosion". - Defence-Security EU policy was mainly postponed for April 2009, since both German chancellor Merkel and French president Sarkozy want to strike a deal with the new American president Obama in Strasbourg's NATO Summit. However, with all these 4 unexpected Crisis diverting attention to other urgencies, People wil wonder now, what happened to the famous deal proposed by freshly-elected French President Sarkozy on Turkey's controversial EU bid, back on August 2007, to continue EU - Turkey negotiations, but on the double condition that core chapters, intrinsequally linked with EU Membership, will be excluded, and that a collective Reflexion and Debate on Europe's future would start before the end of 2008. It was meant to reply to the crucial question : What kind of Europe do we want in 10 or 20 Years from now : A large Market, or a Political Europe, with a popular identity ? In Sarkozy's thinking, presented in his 2 landmark speeches on Europe in Strasbourg, shortly before and after the 2007 Elections, (on February and July 2007), Turkey's controversial EU bid would be incompatible with the second choice. It's true that EU Commision's Chairman, Jose Barroso, (who had notoriously declared, as former Portuguese Prime Minister, that he found "nonsense" the idea that Europe might become equal to the US), had repeatedly tried to avoid that Sarkozy's criticism on Turkey might start winning a larger audience in Europe, preferring a discrete "wismens' committee" work. And that most of the personalities later chosen in order to participate in a Committee on Europe's Future, are too much linked with Socialist parties and/or American policies, to be really critical of USA's notorious wish to impose Turkey to the EU, as Sarkozy had noted himself since March 2007.. - "It's on EU Council's presidency to take political initiatives. EU Commission has other competences", stressed Sarkozy. The "European Ideal" is to "build Europe with the States, not against them". "Ask Europeans to chose between their countries and Europe won't work. You don't choose between your two parents : We must add them together". "France and Germany have an Historic Duty to work together, precisely because of what happened to the Past. We have to work hand by hand. We cannot be separated.It goes beyond me and Mrs Merkel today, Mr Schroeder and Mr. Chirac yesterday. It's not a choice, it's a duty to Europe and to the World". "We need Germany, as Germany needs Europe". Compromise is inevitable, here as everywhere, and each one made some steps towards eachother's positions. But "it's true that Mrs Merkel didn't chose her Socialist partners, while I chose mine", Sarkozy said, in an indirect hint that the Socialist Minister of Finance in Germany might be a cause of minor past disagreements in Economy, which were overcome in recent negotiations. "We (France and Germany) have particular duties in Europe", but "in a Europe of 27 Member States, it's not enough for France and Germany to agree between them. "I always thought that Great Britain has a special role to play in Europe. ... Now, everybody "saw what it cost payed the UK for having been too exclusively open towards the US (and) Financial services. Europe needs the UK, but also the UK needs Europe" :- "We were able to face the hardest moment of the Financial crisis because the UK clearly chose Europe", stressed Sarkozy, reminding Gordon Brown's exceptional participation to the Historic 1st Heads of State/Government Summit of EuroZone, October 12 in Paris (See EuroFora's Reportage from Elysee Palace then). - "Some look at Europe with old glasses aged 30 years ago. While we must look at her in relation to what it will be in 30 years" in the Future, Sarkozy concluded. For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME. Jones chronicles the history of the global elite's bloody rise to power and reveals how they have funded dictators and financed the bloodiest warscreating order out of chaos to pave the way for the first true world empire. Watch as Jones and his team track the elusive Bilderberg Group to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. Learn about the formation of the North America transportation control grid, which will end U.S. sovereignty forever. Discover how the practitioners of the pseudo-science eugenics have taken control of governments worldwide as a means to carry out depopulation. View the progress of the coming collapse of the United States and the formation of the North American Union. Never before has a documentary assembled all the pieces of the globalists' dark agenda. Endgame's compelling look at past atrocities committed by those attempting to steer the future delivers information that the controlling media has meticulously censored for over 60 years. It fully reveals the elite's program to dominate the earth and carry out the wicked plan in all of human history. Endgame is not conspiracy theory, it is documented fact in the elite's own words. In Ubers first-ever SEC filing last week, it disclosed a two-year old FCPA investigation in five countries, including Indonesia and Malaysia. What might have gone wrong in those countries? Here are some clues. Indonesia. Uber said the DOJ is asking about small payments to police in Indonesia. Uber didnt say what the payments were for, or how small they were. But press reports from 2017 said the police were paid to turn a blind eye to the fact that [Uber] was operating a support office for local drivers outside the registered business zones of the capital, Jakarta. Who knows what happened at Uber? But when companies talk about small payments, as Uber did in last weeks FCPA disclosure, that can be a reference to supposed facilitating payments. Some countries allow grease payments overseas. Among them are Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United States. But the U.S. exception for facilitating payments is narrow and its easy to confuse a legal facilitating payment for a bribe thats illegal under the FCPA. In the FCPA, an exception allows payments for routine governmental action . . . which is ordinarily and commonly performed by a foreign official. See 15 U.S.C. 78dd-1 (b) and (f) (3) [Section 30A of the Securities & Exchange Act of 1934]. More often than not, bribes first identified as permitted grease payments do not fall within the exception after all. Sometimes the purpose of the payments makes them unsuitable, or the recipients identity or role, or even the timing or size of the payments. In other words, a lot can go wrong. Anyone relying on the exception should be prepared to defend it that is, the burden of proof is on the one asserting the exception as a defense to an FCPA violation. Dollar thresholds alone arent reliable. Bribes arent facilitating payments just because theyre small. Malaysia. According to reports from 2017, Uber made a corporate donation of tens of thousands of dollars that it made to the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Center, a government-backed accelerator for entrepreneurs. Within a year, a Malaysian government pension plan sponsor had invested $30 million in Uber and Malaysias government had passed legislation favorable to Uber. MGICC denied any improper quid-pro-quo, reports said. Can charitable contributions violate the FCPA? Yes, if they benefit government officials and are intended to obtain or retain business or gain an unfair advantage. But there isnt much enforcement precedent to go by. In 2016 Utah-based Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc. paid almost $766,000 to settle SEC charges that it violated the internal controls and books-and-records provisions of the FCPA. The FCPA violations arose from a $150,000 payment Nu Skins China subsidiary made to a charity so that a high-ranking Chinese Communist party official would intervene in an on-going provincial agency investigation. Before that, Schering-Plough the maker of Afrin, Claritin, Coricidin, Cipro, and other drugs. It was once charged under the FCPA for its overseas giving. According to the SECs 2004 complaint, Scherings Polish subsidiary donated about $75,000 to a charitable organization. The organization was headed by an individual who was the director of the Silesian Health Fund when the donations were made. The Silesian Health Fund was a Polish governmental body that funded the purchase of pharmaceuticals by government hospitals. In its settlement with the SEC, Schering-Plough paid a $500,000 civil penalty and retained an independent consultant to review its FCPA compliance program. During a 2007 conference, Mark Mendelsohn, then head of the DOJs FCPA unit, said charitable donations have to be considered on a case-by-case basis. Is there a nexus between the charity and any government entity from which the company is seeking a decision? If the governmental decision-maker holds a position at the charity, thats a red flag. Is the donation consistent with the companys overall pattern of charitable contributions? Other smell tests: Whos idea was the donation? If it benefited a government official, did that person hint or beg for a payment to the charity? Will there be a tax deduction for the donation? In most countries, one important result of any gift to charity is tax relief. Therefore, not seeking the tax benefit can become another warning sign. These are some of the questions the feds may be asking Uber about its donation to the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Center. ___ Heres the FCPA disclosure from Ubers S-1 filed April 11, 2019, courtesy of FCPA Tracker: We received requests from the DOJ in May 2017 and August 2017 with respect to an investigation into allegations of small payments to police in Indonesia and other potential improper payments in other countries in which we operate or have operated, including in Malaysia, China, and India. The investigation is ongoing, and we are cooperating with the DOJ in this investigation. If we are determined to have violated the FCPA or similar laws, we may be subject to criminal sanctions and other liabilities, which would adversely affect our business, financial condition, and operating results. ____ Richard L. Cassin is editor at large of the FCPA Blog. Splitty, an Israeli-based startup, offers unique hotel prices, by taking advantage of splitting and combining multiple bookings under one reservation. Splitty analyzes and splits over 1.5 million transactions to create the exclusive deals in one second. They provide their services for more than 500,000 properties in 127 countries. Founded in 2015, Splitty has been focusing on developing its technology and was launched in the market in 2018. In 2017, they won the Start-up Award at the Eye for Travel San Francisco. Fosun RZ Capital launched its Israel office in 2018 and is already represented in five other countries with global teams. Chairman of the lead investor Jin Hualong commented, "Our investment strategy in Israel will be more focused on high-end technology, which aligns strategically with what we have in the China market". Splitty will be a landmark in Fosun RZ Capital's travel tech distribution. With its 'Split & Match' technology, Splitty has driven the innovation of the traditional OTA model and provided the best solution for both users and hotels. Fosun has been centered around its worldwide family customers and created an ecosystem of 'Health, Happiness and Wealth'. Splitty will play a connecting role between Fosun and other platforms in the tourism industry, while diversifying traveling options for family customers as part of Fosun's 'Happiness' ecosystem. "Splitty differentiates itself from traditional OTA through this transaction model", says Eran Shust, Splitty's CEO. "It's a win-win situation - we could improve the occupancy rate of hotels by over 15%, while users enjoying lower prices up to 50%. Fosun RZ Capital is the perfect partner for us to bolster our business globally". Currently, Splitty provides room booking options mainly in Europe and America. Since China has become the largest consuming market in the international tourism industry, the company is planning to expand its business in the Asian market right after the completion of this round of financing. For more information on Splitty, visit www.splittytravel.com or eran@splittytravel.com. For media inquiries, contact PR@fosun.com Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/870829/Fosun_Splitty.jpg SOURCE Fosun RZ Capital To register for the 13th Annual Customer Contact Europe: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange or to view the event agenda, please visit: https://www.customercontacteu.com/ Hickey will present the opening keynote, Delivering the Kind of Customer Experience that Adds Customer Value and Brings Business Benefits. She will discuss why it is critical for a customer-centric strategy to be integrated into not only the service organisation but across the entire enterprise. She will share PayPal's journey and lessons learned in creating effortless customer experiences and explain how organisations can take charge of a customer-first vision and empower teams to surpass customer expectations. In her keynote presentation, "Bring Your Human to Work"The Advisor Experience as a Force for Innovation and Creativity, Cronogue will provide a fresh perspective on why peoplenot technologyare the real force for innovation and creativity. Her session will look at how leaders can ensure they activate the true power of their people to become advisors who foster a winning customer experience. She will provide practical ways to create a new customer-focused organisational environment that leads to better results. The 13th Annual Customer Contact Europe: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange will offer contact centre and customer experience executives the opportunity to benefit from dynamic collaboration zones fostering transformational thinking as well as numerous networking opportunities with customer contact industry peers. Don't miss out on the opportunity to leverage the latest customer service thinking for competitive advantage. For additional information, please email events.us@frost.com or contact Alan Bowman at +44 1865 398 644. 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: Francesca Valente P: +1 210 348 10 12 E: Francesca.Valente@frost.com http://ww2.frost.com Related Links https://ww2.frost.com SOURCE Frost & Sullivan Positive results of single-center, prospective study to be presented along with several educational sessions SAN ANTONIO, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Bluegrass Vascular Technologies (Bluegrass Vascular), a private medical technology company focused on innovating lifesaving devices and methods for vascular access procedures, announced today events taking place at the Charing Cross (CX) International Symposium this week in London, United Kingdom on April 15-18, 2019. Leading clinicians will discuss experience with the Surfacer Inside-Out Access Catheter System. The Surfacer System is indicated for obtaining central venous access to facilitate catheter insertion in patients with diminished upper body access. Positive results from a single-center, prospective observational study of the Surfacer System demonstrating a 100% success rate in all patients will be presented on April 16th from 2:42 - 2:47 pm BST by Tobias Steinke, M.D., Chief of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, Schon Klinik, Dusseldorf, Germany. The session titled "The Surfacer System - a single-center prospective observation study in central venous occlusion to demonstrate safety and efficacy" adds to the growing body of strong clinical evidence supporting the Surfacer System during routine commercial use. "I look forward to sharing the compelling clinical results assessing the safety and efficacy of the Surfacer System as a viable treatment for central venous obstructions," stated Dr. Steinke, an investigator of the SAVE Post-Market Registry and presenter of the study's results at the 2019 Leipzig Interventional Course (LINC). "The Surfacer System continues to be an important tool used to reliably gain access and guard against the damaging and often deadly progression of this disease frequently experienced by patients in my clinical practice." "The Surfacer System is an innovative approach to a long-standing problem that achieves sustainable access and delivery of life-saving treatments to patients, such as those requiring hemodialysis," stated James Gilbert, M.D., Consultant Transplant & Vascular Access Surgeon at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. "I look forward to expanding upon the extensive clinical capabilities of the Surfacer System in this week's Masterclass at Charing Cross." Gabriele Niederauer, Ph.D., CEO and President of Bluegrass Vascular, commented, "This is an exciting time for our company and for patients everywhere suffering from the devastating effects of chronically occluded veins. I am appreciative of the clinical efforts being made by leading clinicians to substantiate its clinical value and look forward to announcing the highly anticipated results of our IDE study in the U.S." The Surfacer System will also be highlighted during the following educational sessions: "Central Occlusion Vascular Access Masterclass 'Inside-Out''" presented by Dr. Gilbert on Wednesday, April 17 th from 9:00am 4:00pm BST . presented by Dr. Gilbert on from 9:00am . The "CX Vascular Access Workshop" demonstrated by Gurkan Sengolge, M.D., Medical University of Vienna , Department of Medicine III, Division of Nephrology and Dialysis on Thursday, April 18 th from 10:00am 4:00pm BST . The Surfacer System is CE-Mark approved and nearing completion of its pre-market investigational device exempt (IDE) study, SAVE-US (Surfacer System to Facilitate Access in VEnous Occlusions United States). About the Surfacer Inside-Out Access Catheter System The Surfacer System is designed to reliably, efficiently and repeatedly gain central venous access by inserting the Surfacer System through the femoral vein and navigating it up through the patient's venous system with an exit point in the right internal jugular vein, the optimal location for placing a central venous catheter. This proprietary Inside-Out approach allows for the placement and maturation of permanent arteriovenous access options that are associated with improved patient outcomes and reduced cost of care for both hospitals and hemodialysis providers. The Surfacer System is CE marked and distributed in Europe by Merit Medical , a prominent global distributor of medical devices. About Bluegrass Vascular Technologies Bluegrass Vascular Technologies is a medical technology company dedicated to developing and commercializing lifesaving devices and methods that address shortcomings in vascular access procedures. For more information, please visit www.bluegrassvascular.com . Related Links http://www.bluegrassvascular.com SOURCE Bluegrass Vascular Technologies Walking the talk on moving women leaders into leadership roles, collaboration, cross-industry best practices and creating a path for change management called out as key enablers for business. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Middle East's most successful Companies came together at the 2019 Middle East Edition of House of Rose Professional's Break the ceiling touch the sky - the success and leadership summit for women in Dubai this week to share best practices on gender diversity, leadership and success. Walking the talk on moving women leaders into senior leadership roles, collaboration, cross-industry best practices on gender diversity and creating a path for change management were highlighted as key enablers for business in the Middle East. In his keynote address James Michael Lafferty, Chief Executive Officer, Fine Hygienic Holding (FHH) demonstrated the significant positive impact gender diversity was having on the FHH business after a concentrated focus on increasing the number of women in executive leadership roles in 2018-19 and urged industry to take more direct action. "It is crucial that leaders in industry--primarily men--move from a "NATO" approach on gender diversity ("no action, talk only") to one of NIKE ("Just do it"). Take the plunge. Hire and promote women into senior leadership roles, so the knock-on effect of role modelling can begin within your organization. It starts with changes at the TOP and cascades down. This is the success model," shared James Michael Lafferty. Julie Hamilton, Global Chief Customer and Commercial Leadership Officer & Senior Vice President, The Coca-Cola Company highlighted the importance of women in leadership being intentional about building their own careers, networks and supporting other women. "Step out of your comfort zone and make sure you reach out, network and constantly build your support network. This support will be priceless as you develop in your career," she shared. "Diversity is necessary for the changing landscape of business, but to help drive diversity you first need to diagnose where you are as an organization now and create a path for change management. This is at the core of raising equal opportunities for everyone," shared Judith Trujillo, Human Resources Manager, General Motors Africa & Middle East. We at RB recognize everyday the immense value of a diverse and balanced workplace. We have amazing women and men working together to bring the best of both to our consumers and to each other. The business case and the rationale for "better balance" is well beyond needing a discussion or any debate - time for us to act! To the women...be bold, take risks, be active in seeking peer to peer and mentoring relationships and groups, and ask the questions that need to be asked - the policies and framework are all there but this is half the job - it's the proverbial car ready to go with a road waiting to be travelled - but you need to drive it forward! shared Shahzeb Mahmood, Regional Director and GM, MENAP, Reckitt Benckiser. Break the ceiling touch the sky the success and leadership summit for women was launched in 2015 by House of Rose Professional Pte. Ltd, after the success of the book Break the ceiling touch the sky: success secrets of the world's most inspirational women by Anthony A. Rose. The summit has evolved to become a key enabler of gender diversity around the world in the Corporate sector with current editions in the USA, Singapore (world edition), India, Australia and the Middle East and is leveraged by over 200 organizations to train and develop their leaders. Break the ceiling touch the sky now heads to Mumbai for the 2019 India Edition on May 13, 2019 in Mumbai, and then to Singapore for the 2019 World Edition on Sept 2, 2019. Sponsors for the 2019 World Edition of Break the ceiling touch the sky were Coca-Cola, Fine Hygienic Holding, General Motors and Reckitt Benckiser (RB). Commented Anthony A. Rose, Founder Chairman and CEO, House of Rose Professional, "With six editions around the world in 2019, Break the ceiling touch the sky is now truly global and offers organizations a gold-standard forum to enable and empower their women leaders and male supporters of diversity. We look forward to enabling even more leaders to greater success via our upcoming editions in India, Singapore, etc." For more information on Break the ceiling touch the sky please visit www.houseofroseprofessional.com House of Rose Professional Pte.Ltd. is based in Singapore and operates in the areas of People, Public Relations and Publishing. Media/Sponsors contact: Email: anthony@houseofroseprofessional.com Related Links http://www.houseofroseprofessional.com SOURCE House of Rose Professional Pte. Ltd. The Responsible Care Energy Efficiency Awards program is among ACC's many initiatives to improve energy efficiency. Member companies are required to consider operational energy efficiency as well as waste minimization, reuse and recycling when developing their environmental, health, safety and security plans. "Chemistry is the science behind sustainability," Dooley said. "Our member companies are committed to creating innovative products and technologies that help society save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions while improving performance in our own operations." The 2019 Energy Efficiency Award winners were selected from the following categories: The "Energy Efficiency Program" award is given to companies with broad programs to achieve energy-efficiency improvements, with components such as establishing energy teams, goal setting, communications, management support and recognition. The "Significant Improvement in Energy Efficiency in Manufacturing" award is given to companies with broad programs to achieve energy efficiency in their manufacturing operations through technical innovations, creative projects or novel procedures or actions. The "Non-Manufacturing Energy Efficiency Improvement" award is given for improvements resulting from energy-efficient lighting, insulation and other building improvements, as well as other non-manufacturing energy efficiency improvements. The companies receiving awards in 2019 are: Afton Chemical Corporation American Air Liquide Holdings, Inc. Albemarle Corporation Arkema Inc. BASF Corporation Celanase Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LLC Dow DuPont Eastman Chemical Company ExxonMobil Chemical Company FMC Corporation Hexion Inc. Occidental Chemical Corporation Olin Corporation SABIC Below is a summary of the awards by category. Some companies won multiple awards for a category. An asterisk (*) denotes an "Exceptional Merit" award designation for at least one of the projects awarded: Energy Efficiency Program Arkema Inc.* BASF Corporation Celanese Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LLC Significant Improvement in Energy Efficiency in Manufacturing American Air Liquide Holdings, Inc.* Albemarle Corporation BASF Corporation Celanese Dow* DuPont Eastman Chemical Company* ExxonMobil Chemical Company* FMC Corporation Hexion Inc. Occidental Chemical Corporation* Olin Corporation* SABIC* Non-Manufacturing Energy Efficiency Improvement Afton Chemical Corporation Occidental Chemical Corporation ACC member companies nominate specific projects for recognition under the award program. The judging committee that determined the winners is comprised of select ACC member companies. The 2019 Responsible Care & Sustainability Conference & Expo is being held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, April 14-17. For more information, please visit http://www.rcconference.org http://www.americanchemistry.com The American Chemistry Council (ACC) represents the leading companies engaged in the business of chemistry. ACC members apply the science of chemistry to make innovative products and services that make people's lives better, healthier and safer. ACC is committed to improved environmental, health and safety performance through Responsible Care; common sense advocacy designed to address major public policy issues; and health and environmental research and product testing. The business of chemistry is a $526 billion enterprise and a key element of the nation's economy. It is among the largest exporters in the nation, accounting for ten percent of all U.S. goods exports. Chemistry companies are among the largest investors in research and development. Safety and security have always been primary concerns of ACC members, and they have intensified their efforts, working closely with government agencies to improve security and to defend against any threat to the nation's critical infrastructure. SOURCE American Chemistry Council Related Links http://www.americanchemistry.com TEMPE, Ariz., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Adair Homes, Inc., a leading on-your-lot builder that specializes in affordable custom homes in the Pacific Northwest, is excited to announce the launch of its second location in the Arizona market with the opening of its office in Tempe. Building upon its Phoenix office launch in February, Adair continues to target Arizona's prospective homebuyers who would like to build a custom home without paying custom home pricing. Adair offers Arizona homebuyers more freedom than its competitors. Unlike most other homebuilders, Adair does not require buyers to move into existing developments and choose from limited customizations. Its unique homebuilding process ensures that its homebuyers have access to a multitude of customizable options and receive tremendous value for every dollar they spend, making their new custom home a wise financial investment. By mixing together innovative designs, personal touch, and materials that matter, many Adair homeowners discover a tremendous opportunity for move-in equity. "Our unique homebuilding process addresses a need in Arizona that is currently underserved," said Matt Whitehead, Adair's regional manager for Arizona. "Adair is one of the few homebuilders in Arizona that allow the homeowner to build on their own lot. By owning the land development process, the homeowner is able to gain significant equityin some cases up to 20 percentby the time they move in." The builder's new Tempe office boasts a nearly 1,600-square-foot design center full of custom options selected by an interior designer and offers a full array of custom floor plans to fit the needs of Arizona's homebuyers. Aiming to make its move into the Arizona consumer real estate market a seamless one, Adair has relocated a few members of its expert staff from the Pacific Northwest, while tapping into resident experts, such as construction and homeownership specialists, to join the teams in both the Phoenix and Tempe offices. "Moving into Arizona's real estate market is a very special milestone for our company," said Adair's CEO, Byron Van Kley. "Adair has deep roots in Arizonamany of our employees have lived there, have family connections to the area, and/or currently own a home in the state. We have also carefully selected key staff members for our Arizona offices who are long-term residents and are intimately familiar with the state's housing market." One of these residents is Adair Arizona's Regional Construction Manager, Scott Glenn, who played a big role in the construction of both the Phoenix and Tempe offices. "I'm thrilled to be part of a company that is passionate about its home offerings and makes a special effort to ensure that each one of its homebuyers feels comfortable with the building process and is more than happy with the result," he said. "Adair's focus on customer equity and partnership building is unlike any other I have seen in Arizona." Other key staff members include PreConstruction Administrator, Lori Thomas, who is also native to the area, as well as Home Ownership Counselor, Tori Myers. In an effort to help prospective homebuyers understand the custom homebuilding process, Adair is offering an upcoming event that will answer questions about the homebuilding process in a relaxed environment and help homebuyers learn more about how building a custom home is within reach. The events include: April 17th , 6:00-7:30 p.m.Building 101: Navigating the Path to CustomTour the showroom, meet Adair's experts, and learn more about how building a custom home is within reach. For additional details about this upcoming event, please visit the event link or sign up to receive updates in your area at https://info.adairhomes.com/event-signup . Adair's Tempe office is located at 8425 S. Emerald Dr., Suite 105, Tempe, AZ 85284. Anyone is welcome to stop by the design center, make an appointment, or attend the event listed above. Another office in Tucson is slated to open in the coming months. For more information on building an affordable custom home in Arizona, please contact Adair via live chat , email , or by calling 602-562-2709. About Adair Homes, Inc. Adair Homes is a premier homebuilder in Arizona and the Pacific Northwest. The company was founded in 1969 in Oregon and takes pride in offering better homes for less. Adair continues to invest in its business by providing new home plans for customers. For more information, visit adairhomes.com . SOURCE Adair Homes, Inc. Related Links https://www.adairhomes.com KANSAS CITY, Mo., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- BacklotCars , a leading online wholesale automotive marketplace, announced $25 million in Series B funding today as the company continues its rapid growth nationwide, disrupting the $100 billion auto wholesale market. The funding was led by Stripes , a New York-based growth equity firm with investments in a number of market-leading marketplace and software companies, including Upwork, Grubhub, Flatiron Health, and monday.com, among others. Existing investors including Origin Ventures , Pritzker Group Venture Capital , Revolution's Rise of the Rest Seed Fund , Royal Street Ventures , KCRise Fund , and Chaifetz Group also participated, bringing the company's total funding to $38 million. "We're excited to have Stripes partnering with us on this next round of funding, as well as the continued support from existing investors," said Justin Davis, CEO of BacklotCars. "Stripes' experience with guiding high-growth, tech-driven marketplaces will be helpful as we double down on our mission of making wholesale easy." The new capital partners join BacklotCars during a period of rapid growth. In 2018, the company expanded its geographic footprint by more than 500% while maintaining an industry-leading success rate for dealers. BacklotCars' condition reports, five-day guarantee, transportation, and inventory financing services add value to dealers throughout the purchase process, save hours of legwork, and expedite buyers' supply chains. "We are thrilled to be joining the BacklotCars team," said Saagar Kulkarni, Principal at Stripes. "The BacklotCars marketplace, combined with its transportation and financing products, is a complete solution for dealers. We believe their tremendous growth is proving that car dealers want a digital marketplace for buying and selling inventory. We look forward to partnering with Justin and the team as they continue to expand their footprint and create value for dealers nationwide." Selling dealers are never charged a fee to sell through BacklotCars which immediately increases their bottom line. The company assumes 100% of the arbitration risk and legwork in order to create a more transparent and streamlined process for buyers. "We're focused on building one platform for all dealers to transact efficiently, not just a new version of the same old auction," Davis added. "We will continue to improve our dealer experience through product enhancements, expanded inventory, and additional resources focused on the success of dealers." About BacklotCars Based in Kansas City, MO, BacklotCars is a leading online marketplace for auto dealers. Through BacklotCars, auto dealers, auto finance, and rental car companies can transact without having to go to physical auctions. The company's end to end solution is truly seamless for dealers as BacklotCars provides vehicle inspections, transportation, and inventory finance services. About Stripes Group Stripes Group is a leading growth equity firm that brings a unique, entrepreneurial approach to investing in high-growth Marketplace, SaaS and Consumer businesses around the world. For over a decade, Stripes has been partnering with market-defining companies to provide them with the support they need to accelerate growth and achieve their long-term vision. Stripes' mission is to have a culture, a set of resources, and expertise that provide entrepreneurs with an unparalleled advantage in markets that are evolving rapidly due to changes in technology and consumer behavior. Contact: Riley Bowden [email protected] SOURCE BacklotCars Related Links https://backlotcars.com M/C Partners, a Boston, MA-based private equity firm investing in Telecommunications and Information Technology infrastructure and services, hired Travis Keller as a Partner. Keller joins M/C from Altman, Vilandrie & Co., a technology, media and telecom focused strategy consulting and investment advisory firm where he served as a Director. While at AV&Co., Keller led hundreds of engagements with investors to develop investment theses, identify acquisition targets, perform investment due diligence, integrate acquisitions and improve portfolio companies performance. Recent diligence targets included commercial fiber operators, retail and wholesale colocation providers, managed cyber security companies and UCaaS platforms. In addition, Keller worked directly with management teams to develop long-term business strategies, improve go-to-market with a focus on product prioritization, and channel optimization. Led by Jim Wade, Managing Partner, and Gillis Cashman, Managing Partner, M/C Partners is a private equity firm focused exclusively on the communications and information technology sectors. The firm has invested over $2.2 billion of capital into nearly 100 companies, generally investing in companies with enterprise values of $25 million to $250 million. Related current and prior investments include Zayo, Lightower, Ensono, Everstream, Denovo, Neutral Connect Network, Thrive, Involta, ICG Communications, MetroPCS, Fusepoint and NuVox. Last week, M/C Partners closed its most recent fund, M/C Partners VIII, L.P. at $350m. FinSMEs 15/04/2019 STAMFORD, Connecticut and LUCCA, Italy, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Wolters Kluwer today announced that its CCH Tagetik 5 solution is now available on the SAP App Center, the digital marketplace for SAP partner offerings. The company's CCH Tagetik 5 solution is certified by SAP to run on SAP HANA, the powerful in-memory database management system. CCH Tagetik 5 runs on and integrates with SAP HANA to expedite financial planning and analysis, financial close and consolidation, reporting and disclosure by 50 percent and provides customers a unified platform capable of managing, processing, and analyzing large volumes of data in almost real-time. "The combination of CCH Tagetik 5 powered by SAP HANA provides the office of finance with a modern, unified platform capable of handling all financial processes and reporting as well as harnessing the power of data for faster and more granular analysis," said Bani Brandolini, vice president strategic partners for CCH Tagetik, part of the Tax and Accounting division of Wolters Kluwer. "The solution, which can be deployed on the cloud or on premise, is also 'future ready' when it comes to AI-based applications or advanced analytic applications that may be deployed in years to come." CCH Tagetik 5 is now available for purchase on the SAP App Center. CCH Tagetik 5 has been optimized for SAP HANA and achieved the 'powered by SAP HANA' certification to provide the Office of the CFO: Faster consolidation cycles, more in-depth planning & analysis with a unified CPM platform optimized for SAP HANA's in-memory processing. Reduced implementation time, faster importing and exporting of data and reporting with Integration-ready connectors, specifically designed for SAP solutions. Easily drill-down to uncover the "why" behind the numbers and conduct sophisticated benchmarking for new insights with the combined solution's centralized storage of data. Streamlined support with CCH Tagetik 5 providing 'follow-the-sun' first-line support for both CCH Tagetik 5 and SAP HANA. Committed partnership with CCH Tagetik, a SAP OEM Partner, bringing the solution to our customers and continued innovation with more integration to SAP systems. The SAP App Center provides customers with real-time access to more than 1,700 innovative partner solutions that complement and extend their SAP solutions, enabling digital transformation of their business. SAP App Center customers can buy solutions directly from partners and centrally manage purchases, billing and vendor communications. Wolters Kluwer is a partner in the SAP PartnerEdge program. As such, it is empowered to build, market and sell software applications on top of market-leading technology platforms from SAP. The SAP PartnerEdge program provides the enablement tools, benefits and support to facilitate building high-quality, disruptive applications focused on specific business needs quickly and cost-effectively. The program provides access to all relevant SAP technologies in one simple framework under a single, global contract. About Wolters Kluwer Wolters Kluwer (WKL) is a global leader in professional information, software solutions, and services for the healthcare; tax and accounting; governance, risk and compliance; and legal and regulatory sectors. We help our customers make critical decisions every day by providing expert solutions that combine deep domain knowledge with advanced technology and services. Wolters Kluwer reported 2018 annual revenues of 4.3 billion. The group serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries, and employs approximately 19,000 people worldwide. The company is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands. Wolters Kluwer shares are listed on Euronext Amsterdam (WKL) and are included in the AEX and Euronext 100 indices. Wolters Kluwer has a sponsored Level 1 American Depositary Receipt (ADR) program. The ADRs are traded on the over-the-counter market in the U.S. (WTKWY) For more information about our solutions and organization, visit www.wolterskluwer.com, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. About SAP SAP, SAP HANA and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE (or an SAP affiliate company) in Germany and other countries. See http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/legal/copyright/index.epx for additional trademark information and notices. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Media Contacts: Greta Bartoli CCH Tagetik +39-058396811 office [email protected] SOURCE CCH Tagetik CHICAGO, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Cision (NYSE: CISN) today announced the appointment of Susan Steele as the company's new global Chief Human Resources Officer. Steele, who brings more than 25 years of human resources expertise to the role, is known for pioneering the use of artificial intelligence in the HR function to improve productivity, enhance the employee experience, and improve business results. Susan Steele, Cision's new Chief Human Resources Officer "Over the past four years, Cision has grown aggressively through acquisition," said Kevin Akeroyd, Cision CEO. "Each acquisition has brought in tremendous new talent, and creating an industry-leading employee experience will be a competitive advantage as we move into a new era for Cision. Susan's expertise will be invaluable to our organization as we attract, develop and retain our more than 4,000 employees globally." Prior to joining the Cision executive team, Steele served as HR Reinvention Lead for Global Talent and Transformation at IBM. There, she was responsible for positioning IBM as a preferred partner for the use of AI and automation in the transformation of clients' HR functions. She leveraged agile, analytics, design thinking, digital badges and other innovations to equip IBM clients around the globe for HR reinvention, continuous learning, and employee experience transformation. Steele's 25 years of experience also include HR leadership roles at WPP, Deloitte and Linklaters and earlier investment banking roles at HSBC and JPMorgan Chase. At Cision, Steele will focus on fostering an environment of continuous learning and career mobility, enhancing productivity for all employees via scalable talent processes, resources and technologies, and delivering employee experiences that accelerate client success and revenue growth. "In today's era of continuous disruption, it is increasingly important for fast-growing enterprises, such as Cision, to create the employee-centric environment, experiences and culture critical to client satisfaction and commercial success," said Susan Steele. "Cision is uniquely placed to enable new skills, fuel career growth, and leverage a tradition of innovation; I am excited about Cision's future and the opportunity to help craft a compelling employee and client experience." Steele will be based in Cision's New York office. About Cision Cision Ltd. (NYSE: CISN) is a leading global provider of earned media software and services to public relations and marketing communications professionals. Cision's software allows users to identify key influencers, craft and distribute strategic content, and measure meaningful impact. Cision has over 4,000 employees with offices in 22 countries throughout the Americas, EMEA, and APAC. For more information about its award-winning products and services, including the Cision Communications Cloud, visit www.cision.com and follow Cision on Twitter @Cision. Media Contact: Jenn Deering Davis VP of Communications & Content, Cision [email protected] SOURCE Cision Related Links http://www.cision.com PORTLAND, Oregon, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research published a report, titled, "Europe Pentane Market by Type (n-pentane, Isopentane, and Neopentane) and Application (Blowing Agent, Chemical Solvent, Electronic Cleansing, and Others): Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20182025." The report provides a detailed analysis of key investment pockets, drivers & opportunities, value chain, major segments, and competitive intelligence. According to the report, the Europe pentane market garnered $28 million in 2017 and is expected to reach $38.1 million by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 4.1% from 2018 to 2025. Increase in demand from end user industries and surge in adoption of pentane due to its chemical properties facilitate the growth in the market. However, stringent regulatory policies restrain the market growth. On the other hand, rise in adoption in fuel blending and formation create new opportunities in the industry. Request Sample Report at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/5202 n-pentane segment to remain dominant during the forecast period Based on type, the n-pentane segment held the major market share, contributing nearly three-fourth of the total market share in 2017 and is estimated to remain dominant during the forecast period. This is due to surge in adoption of chemical intermediates for its usefulness as chemical solvents and electronic cleaning solvents in various industries. However, the Isopentane segment would grow at the highest CAGR of 5.4% from 2018 to 2025, owing to rapid demand for usage in binary cycle systems at the geothermal power stations for operating turbines. Blowing agents segment to maintain its lead position throughout the forecast period Based on capacity, the blowing agents segment accounted for nearly two-fifth of the total share in 2017 and is expected to maintain its lead position throughout the forecast period. This is due to surge in production of polymer-based compounds including polystyrene and polyurethane. However, the electronic cleansing segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.9% from 2018 to 2025, owing to rise in demand for electronic components from end-use industries including aerospace & defense, automobile, and consumer electronics. For Purchase Enquiry at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/5202 Germany to maintain its dominant position in terms of revenue by 2025 Germany contributed to nearly one-third of the total share in 2017 and will maintain its dominant position in terms of revenue by 2025. This is due to the surge in demand as blowing agents for manufacturing polyurethane & polystyrene foams for usage as cushioning materials in vehicle seats and home furnishings. However, Italy is expected to register the highest CAGR of 5.2% from 2018 to 2025, owing to significant increase in demand as a solvent for manufacturing various chemicals. Leading market players Leading market players analyzed in the research include Exxon Mobil Corporation, INEOS Group Holdings S.A., HCS Group (Haltermann Carless UK Ltd.), Phillips 66, Air Liquide S.A., Chevron Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell Plc., Brenntag, and Inventec. Access KNOWLEDGE TREE (Premium on-demand, subscription-based pricing model) at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/knowledgetree Knowledge tree is a cloud-based intelligence platform that offers more than 2,000 selective, off-the-shelf reports on niche markets to enable our clients gain deep insights on the latest trends, dynamic technologies, and emerging application areas. Similar Reports: Foam Blowing Agents Market - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2014-2022 Polyurethane Foam Insulation Materials Market - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2015-2023 About 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 Correa 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States USA/Canada (Toll Free): +1-800-792-5285, +1-503-894-6022, +1-503-446-1141 UK: +44-845-528-1300 Hong Kong: +852-301-84916 India (Pune): +91-20-66346060 Fax: +1(855)550-5975 [email protected] Web: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com SOURCE Allied Market Research MECHANICSBURG, Pa., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- HealthPay24, a premier SaaS provider of enterprise patient payment solutions, and Curae Finance, LLC, a leading provider of non-recourse patient financing solutions, today announced a strategic partnership to satisfy nationwide patient demand for better financing options for their healthcare services. About 90% of patients would return to a healthcare facility that offer a loan program.1 This compelling industry stat is the key factor for providers to introduce loans to drive patient loyalty. The Curae solution also addresses the needs of consumers across the entirety of the credit spectrum. Until now, banking and patient financing vendors have only made loan solutions available to approximately the top 15% of the credit population. This neglects the vast majority of patients with less than perfect credit who are in immediate need of financing options for their healthcare services. Providers, too, can feel distraught as these programs only assist/benefit a small percentage of their patient community. Launching Curae from HealthPay24's solution enables US healthcare providers to offer non-recourse patient loans to the entire credit spectrum, both prime and less than prime. Curae's patient financing platform brings key differentiators for both providers and patients. "Patients enjoy a mobile first experience and can view options within seconds of application with no impact to their credit file," says Mark Starr, Vice President of Curae. Providers benefit from a SaaS front and back end design and receive non-recourse funding within 48 hours. Curae's platform does not require the purchase or transfer of an existing receivable enabling accounts to be set up pre-service without any risk or impact on provider bond or debt covenants. "Curae is thrilled to partner with as innovative of a company as HealthPay 24 to help meet the growing consumer demand in healthcare for payment solutions. We share a common mission with HealthPay24: to assist patients in managing their healthcare expenses by providing access to flexible, affordable options in a mobile first, consumer rich experience," says Christopher Stenglein, CEO of Curae. "This combination," he adds, "delivers a blue chip point-of-sale and self-service patient payment experience including patient engagement messaging and analytics large health systems have come to expect." Branded to any provider entity, the SaaS driven architecture ensures the ongoing, unique ability to adopt emerging & AI technologies for the benefit of all HealthPay24 users; both enterprise and patient. "Patients want options and a great experience. We're proud to say that our clients are equipped to adopt the new best practices in patient financing to meet this demand. With our partner solution, providers can quickly experience increased payment revenues, adoption and satisfaction rates across their entire healthcare enterprise," said Julie Gerdeman, President of HealthPay24. "We chose Curae as our preferred partner because of their ability to open financing options to a much wider population, plus our mutual dedication to exceptional patient and product experiences." ABOUT HEALTHPAY24 HealthPay24, a recognized leader in cloud-based patient payment software, continues to pioneer consumer-driven solutions to the ever-increasing patient pay responsibility. Its SaaS product design ensures the unique, ongoing, ability to adopt emerging & AI technologies for the benefit of its client base. Founded in 2001, the solution equips providers with best in class POS and online payment portals, plus new patient messaging and analytics engines. The solution captures and manages the patient financial responsibility as early as pre-service estimation through post-service, provides flexibility and convenience for online and POS collections, and fuels productivity to financial posting and reconciliation processes. https://www.HealthPay24.com/ ABOUT CURAE Headquartered in Atlanta, Curae works with acute, hospital and Integrated Delivery Network providers across the United States to empower providers to better serve patients through a suite of flexible, patient friendly non-recourse-based financing options. Our software as a service platform enables ease of integration and our mobile first customer experience enhances patient engagement. As consumerism continues to drive healthcare purchasing behavior, Curae Finance, LLC. is uniquely positioned to improve patient satisfaction, increase collections and improve provider efficiencies. www.curae.com 1 Lapointe, Jacqueline. (2017, Sept. 29) Consumers Favor Patient Financial Responsibility Loan Programs. Retrieved from: RevCycleIntelligence.com SOURCE HealthPay24 Related Links http://www.healthpay24.com SEATTLE and PORT ORCHARD, Wash., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Reck Law, PLLC is pleased to announce it hired injured worker, Robert Biddix, to join their team. After completing retraining through his workers' compensation claim at Tacoma Community College, Mr. Biddix graduated from the paralegal program with exemplary grades. Mr. Biddix had a nearly 20 year career as a garbage truck driver prior to his work injury in 2011. With the help of the Washington State Workers' Compensation system, Mr. Biddix successfully received treatment for his injuries, completed retraining for a new career that accommodates his permanent physical limitations, and returned to full-time employment. Over the course of his career, Mr. Biddix worked for several employers in waste management as a garbage truck driver. In 2011, while on his route in Poulsbo performing daily work duties for Waste Management, Inc., he severely injured his back. His colleagues finished his route, while he went to see a doctor who opened a workers' compensation claim on his behalf. Shortly after, he performed light duty work and returned to full-time regular duty, resulting in worsening of his injury. Washington State employers are obligated to carry industrial insurance, under a system that benefits both employees and employers when work injuries occur. Employers can subscribe to the state-funded program administered by the Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) or maintain their own insurance if they are certified to be Self-Insured. Either way, the treatment of injured workers is governed by the Washington State Industrial Insurance Act, RCW Title 51. Despite insurance coverage, claims do not always proceed as smoothly as they should. "After going back to light duty work, I tried to get an MRI. The insurance company refused it. To make things worse, they sent me to an IME and I received a letter from my claim manager wanting to close my claim. I realized something wasn't right and hired an attorney that handles Workers' Compensation cases" said Mr. Biddix. His MRI was approved quickly after the attorney got involved. Under his claim, Mr. Biddix attended physical therapy and underwent two back surgeries to get to Maximum Medical Improvement, meaning the point where his injury would not improve any further. While his treatment was considered successful, he was left with permanent physical limitations that preclude him from ever returning to work in physically demanding jobs. The vocational expert assigned to Mr. Biddix's claim determined that for him to return to work, he should be retrained. After exploring his options, Mr. Biddix decided he wanted to obtain an Associates Degree so that he could return to work helping injured workers just like him. If approved for retraining, injured workers in Washington State can select Option 1 or Option 2. Mr. Biddix chose Option 1, which means he received time-loss compensation and tuition coverage while he attended the Paralegal Program at Tacoma Community College. Near the completion of his college retraining program, he was offered internship at Reck Law, PLLC, a law firm that represents injured workers. Upon the successful completion of his program, Mr. Biddix was extended an offer of full-time employment. On April 1, 2019 he began working as a salaried member of the Reck Law, PLLC legal team. "It is a privilege to bring Mr. Biddix onboard. As a Workers' Compensation law firm entirely dedicated to representing injured workers in Washington State, we adhere to our principles and we practice what we preach, which is to help injured workers" said Ms. Tara Reck, managing attorney at Reck Law, PLLC. She added: "We are lucky to live in Washington State, where the rights of injured workers can be upheld and protected. The system is not perfect. There are many fights to fight on behalf of injured workers that are mistreated or fall between the cracks, and that's what we are here for. For over a decade I have helped injured workers with so many aspects of their claims, but this is the first time I get to be the person providing an injured worker with a new job. I'm thrilled to have Mr. Biddix on my team. He has experienced first-hand what happens after a severe injury at work, and I know he's eager to put all he's learned to work helping other injured workers". Reck Law, PLLC is a Workers' Compensation law firm dedicated to representing injured workers in Washington State. Ms. Tara Reck is the founder and managing attorney at Reck Law, PLLC. Since 2006 she has been a very active and vocal advocate for injured workers in Washington State. She is a regular speaker at national and in-state conferences regarding workers' compensation issues. If you would like more info, please contact Ms. Reck, managing attorney at Reck Law, PLLC at (360)-876-4123 or (206) 395-6141, via email at [email protected], through her blog https://tarareck.com/contact or her company website at https://recklaw.com/contact. Contact: Tara Reck, Managing Attorney at Reck Law Workers' Compensation Attorneys Seattle office: (206) 395-6141 Port Orchard headquarters: (360) 876-4123 https://recklaw.com | https://tarareck.com | [email protected] SOURCE Reck Law, PLLC NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC today announced the signing of a sponsorship agreement with the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) to be the principal corporate partner of the Healthy Longevity Catalyst Awards in the United States. Part of the Healthy Longevity Global Grand Challenge1 founded by the NAM, the Catalyst Awards are a global prize competition to launch later this year, designed to stimulate innovation to transform the field of healthy longevity. The program will culminate in one or more Healthy Longevity Grand Prizes for major breakthroughs in increasing human healthspan. "At Johnson & Johnson Innovation, we're working to change the trajectory of health for humanity. In addition to developing effective treatments, our 'World Without Disease' vision is to increasingly eliminate diseases through prevention, disease interception in its earliest forms and cures," said William N. Hait, M.D., Ph.D., Global Head, Johnson & Johnson External Innovation, Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC. "Our goals are closely aligned with the NAM's Grand Challenge. A great idea can come from anywhere, and we are proud to partner with the NAM to catalyze new cross-disciplinary ideas and innovation that we believe will ultimately lead to novel solutions for aging in freedom from debilitating disease." Dramatic breakthroughs in medicine, public health and social and economic development have resulted in unprecedented extensions of the human lifespan in many parts of the world over the past century. This demographic shift provides new opportunities as well as new challenges. Today, 8.5% of people worldwide (617 million) are aged 65 and over. By 2050, this percentage is projected to more than double, reaching 1.6 billion. The global population of people aged 80 and over is expected to more than triple between 2015 and 2050, growing from 126 million to 447 million.2 At the current pace, population aging is poised to impose a significant strain on economies, health systems and social structures worldwide. "But it doesn't have to," said Victor Dzau, M.D., President, National Academy of Medicine. "Just over the horizon, we can envision new medicines, technologies, preventive and social strategies to transform the way we age and ensure better health, function and productivity during a period of extended longevity." "Johnson & Johnson Innovation's commitment to a 'World Without Disease' aligns perfectly with the NAM's goal to extend the human healthspan globally and equitably, and I am grateful for their partnership on this important initiative. With its deep knowledge of the entire spectrum of human health, Johnson & Johnson Innovation is uniquely positioned to help advance the most promising innovations. I am confident that, by joining forces, we can accelerate breakthrough innovations that will transform the field and change the way we think about aging forever," Dzau added. The NAM Grand Challenge will roll out over three distinct phases and employ a tiered model of awards and prizes to stimulate new research and solutions around healthy longevity. Under the agreement, Johnson & Johnson Innovation will provide funding for the foundational Healthy Longevity Catalyst Awards in the U.S., to identify innovative, entrepreneurial proposals that have the greatest chance of being translatable into solutions to prevent, intercept and/or cure disease or deficits related to aging. In a separate, parallel effort, upon reaching a certain number of global NAM Catalyst Award winners, Johnson & Johnson Innovation will launch a series of QuickFire Challenge (QFC) idea crowd-sourcing competitions open exclusively to Catalyst Award winners, to support the further development of their ideas, help them compete for the ultimate NAM Healthy Longevity Grand Prize and bring their innovations to market. QFC winners typically receive funding and/or benefit from world-class lab facilities, business services, educational and mentorship support at one of 13 Johnson & Johnson Innovation JLABS facilities around the world. "At Johnson & Johnson Innovation, we believe good health is the foundation of vibrant lives, thriving communities and forward progress. That's why for over 130 years we have been aiming to keep people well at every age and every stage of life," said Hait. "We envision a world in which widespread disease is a historical artifact and people enjoy longer, healthier lives, promoted by technological and medical advances. To achieve this, we need to shift the paradigm from today's widespread focus on 'disease care' where we wait for people to get sick, to only then do something about it towards true health care, by keeping people well in the first place, eliminating disease and restoring people to full health." About Johnson & Johnson Innovation Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC focuses on accelerating all stages of innovation worldwide and forming collaborations between entrepreneurs and Johnson & Johnson's global healthcare businesses. Johnson & Johnson Innovation provides scientists, entrepreneurs and emerging companies with one-stop access to science and technology experts who can facilitate collaborations across the pharmaceutical, medical device and consumer companies of Johnson & Johnson. Under the Johnson & Johnson Innovation umbrella of businesses, we connect with innovators through our regional Innovation Centers; Johnson & Johnson Innovation JLABS; Johnson & Johnson Innovation JJDC, Inc.; and our business development teams to create customized deals and novel collaborations that speed development of innovations to solve unmet needs in patients. JLABS provides the laboratories, expertise, education, tools and resources needed to help life science startups thrive, all with no strings attached. A Johnson & Johnson Innovation Center for Device Innovation at the Texas Medical Center (CDI @ TMC) has been established to accelerate the development of medical devices. For more information about Johnson & Johnson Innovation, please visit: www.jnjinnovation.com. About Johnson & Johnson Innovation JLABS Johnson & Johnson Innovation JLABS (JLABS) is a global network of open innovation ecosystems, enabling and empowering innovators across a broad healthcare spectrum including pharmaceutical, medical device, consumer and health tech sectors to create and accelerate the delivery of life-saving, life-enhancing health and wellness solutions to patients around the world. JLABS achieves this by providing the optimal environment for emerging companies to catalyze growth and optimize their research and development by opening them to vital industry connections, delivering entrepreneurial programs and providing a capital-efficient, flexible platform where they can transform the scientific discoveries of today into the breakthrough healthcare solutions of tomorrow. At JLABS, we value great ideas and are passionate about removing obstacles to success to help innovators unleash the potential of their early scientific discoveries. JLABS is a no-strings-attached model, which means entrepreneurs are free to develop their science while holding on to their intellectual property. JLABS also produces campaigns to seek out the best science called QuickFire Challenges. For more information, visit www.jlabs.jnjinnovation.com or follow @JLABS. Cautions Concerning Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding the collaboration with the National Academy of Medicines. The reader is cautioned not to rely on these forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations of future events. If underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or known or unknown risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results could vary materially from the expectations and projections of Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC and/or Johnson & Johnson. Risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: the potential that the expected benefits and opportunities related to the collaboration may not be realized or may take longer to realize than expected; challenges inherent in new product development, including the uncertainty of clinical success and obtaining regulatory approvals; competition, including technological advances, new products and patents attained by competitors; uncertainty of commercial success for new products; the ability of the company to successfully execute strategic plans; impact of business combinations and divestitures; challenges to patents; changes in behavior and spending patterns or financial distress of purchasers of health care products and services; and global health care reforms and trends toward health care cost containment. A further list and descriptions of these risks, uncertainties and other factors can be found in Johnson & Johnson's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 30, 2018, including in the sections captioned "Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" and "Item 1A. Risk Factors," in the company's most recently filed Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, and the company's subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Copies of these filings are available online at www.sec.gov, www.jnj.com or on request from Johnson & Johnson. Neither Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC nor Johnson & Johnson undertakes to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information or future events or developments. 1 https://nam.edu/initiatives/grand-challenge-healthy-longevity/ 2 The National Academy of Medicine, data on file. SOURCE Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC Related Links http://www.jnjinnovation.com HOBOKEN, N.J., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Maid Sailors, a leading professional home cleaning service, is proud to announce the official launch of its services in Hoboken. House cleaning is typically considered a 'luxury' experience. The company has disrupted the home services industry and made house cleaning affordable to everyone. "We are very excited to be launching our Hoboken cleaning service following our recent launch in Boston," said a spokesperson from Maid Sailors. "We have been very active behind the scenes in preparation for today. In order to scale, we've spent the past several months focusing on the development of our human capital to insure the best possible customer experience at launch. We look forward to doing business in Hoboken." Whether you need a one-time clean or a recurring cleaning service, Maid Sailors sends a trusted cleaner with the promise of 100% customer satisfaction. The team based out of their HQ in New York City was deployed for the initial launch into Hoboken to ensure that the company would follow their original blueprint that grew them into the premier cleaning service in NYC. Maid Sailors has one of the strictest and most exhaustive hiring processes in the industry. Successful cleaners must pass background checks, training exams, and have a solid track record of cleaning expertise. Maid Sailors is proud of its legacy of professionalism and quality in the New York Tri-State area and the company looks forward to servicing Hoboken. For those who are looking to hire the services of professional cleaners, free estimates on cleaning services are available from the company website here: https://maidsailors.com/book-now/ About Maid Sailors Maid Sailors is a top-rated cleaning service. We service all homes, apartments, and offices in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, New Jersey and Boston. We pride ourselves on our excellent work ethic and professionalism. Our home cleaners are reliable, trustworthy, and always ready to work. We keep great client relations and provide superior customer service. The company is based in New York City. We are bonded, insured and provide workers compensation and benefits to our employees. For more information, visit https://maidsailors.com Contact: Edwin Urrutia Email: [email protected] Phone: (212) 299-5170 Related Links https://maidsailors.com SOURCE Maid Sailors Related Links https://maidsailors.com DUBLIN, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN) today announced that both leading independent proxy advisory firms, Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. ("ISS") and Glass Lewis & Co. ("Glass Lewis"), have recommended that the Company's shareholders vote FOR all of the Company's proposals and AGAINST the dissident shareholder proposal ("Proposal No. 6") calling for the immediate separation of Chair and CEO roles at the Company's 2019 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, to be held on May 1, 2019. Commenting on the ISS and Glass Lewis reports, Allergan's Board of Directors said: "We are pleased with the support we have received from both leading independent proxy advisory firms recommending FOR all of the Company's proposals and AGAINST a proposal calling for the immediate separation of Chairman and CEO roles. Their recommendations affirm our position that our plan to adopt separate Chair and CEO positions with the next leadership transition is the best approach for Allergan shareholders. The Board and management team are fully focused on improving the company's operational and financial performance and creating value for shareholders." In supporting the Allergan Board's recommendations, ISS' report stated: "In this case, the board has already been responsive to the request of the prior year's proposal by adopting an independent chair policy to be phased in at the next CEO transition. It has also adopted a robust lead independent director role, with clearly delineated and extensive duties, and has substantially refreshed itself appointing six new directors since 2016there are no significant concerns regarding the board's current leadership structure sufficient to suggest that an immediate split of the CEO and chairman roles is warranted at this time rather than at the next CEO transition. As such, support for this proposal is not warranted." In supporting Allergan's leadership structure, Glass Lewis noted the following: "We are not convinced that adoption of this proposal is necessary at this time, given the board's stated intention to phase in an independent director as chair at the time of the next CEO transition. We recognize that, until that time, the board will not have separated chair/CEO roles. However, we believe that the Company's phasing in of this policy upon the next CEO transition essentially implements the request of this proposal. Accordingly, we do not believe that adoption of this proposal would affect any meaningful change in the Company's leadership structure following the next CEO transition. Thus, we do not believe support for this measure is warranted at this time." Allergan's Board of Directors encourages shareholders to vote FOR each of the Company's proposals (No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5a and 5b) and AGAINST the shareholder proposal No. 6. Additional discussion of election of directors, proposal No. 6 and the Board's recommendations is included in the Company's 2019 Proxy Statement. The Board of Directors strongly encourages Allergan shareholders to consider and support the Board's position on these important issues related to our company's Board leadership. Allergan's 2019 Proxy Statement has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and can be found at the company's website at https://www.allergan.com/investors/financial-information/proxy-materials. Allergan's Annual Meeting of Stockholders is scheduled to take place on May 1, 2019 at The Conrad Hotel, Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland, at 8:30 a.m. local time. Shareholders are encouraged to vote their shares regardless of whether or not they plan to attend the Annual Meeting in advance of the voting deadlines outlined in the Company's Proxy Statement. If you need any assistance voting your shares or have any question regarding the Annual Meeting, please contact our Investor Relations department by email at [email protected] by mail at Allergan plc, Investor Relations, 5 Giralda Farms, Madison, NJ 07940, or by telephone at (862) 261-7488. You may also contact our proxy solicitor, MacKenzie Partners, by email at [email protected] or by telephone (tollfree) at (800) 322-2885. Allergan Contacts: Investors: Manisha Narasimhan, PhD (862) 261-7162 Media: Amy Rose (862) 289-3072 About Allergan plc Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN), headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is a bold, global pharmaceutical leader. Allergan is focused on developing, manufacturing and commercializing branded pharmaceutical, device, biologic, surgical and regenerative medicine products for patients around the world. Allergan markets a portfolio of leading brands and best-in-class products primarily focused on four key therapeutic areas including medical aesthetics, eye care, central nervous system and gastroenterology. Allergan is an industry leader in Open Science, a model of research and development, which defines our approach to identifying and developing game-changing ideas and innovation for better patient care. With this approach, Allergan has built one of the broadest development pipelines in the pharmaceutical industry. Allergan's success is powered by our global colleagues' commitment to being Bold for Life. Together, we build bridges, power ideas, act fast and drive results for our customers and patients around the world by always doing what is right. With commercial operations in approximately 100 countries, Allergan is committed to working with physicians, healthcare providers and patients to deliver innovative and meaningful treatments that help people around the world live longer, healthier lives every day. For more information, visit Allergan's website at www.Allergan.com . Forward-Looking Statement Statements contained in this communication that refer to future events or other non-historical facts are forward-looking statements that reflect Allergan's current perspective on existing trends and information as of the date of this communication. Actual results may differ materially from Allergan's current expectations depending upon a number of factors affecting Allergan's business. These factors include, among others, the difficulty of predicting the timing or outcome of FDA approvals or actions, if any; the impact of competitive products and pricing; the effects of any changes to management or corporate governance; market acceptance of and continued demand for Allergan's products; the impact of uncertainty around timing of generic entry related to key products, including RESTASIS, on our financial results; risks associated with divestitures, acquisitions, mergers and joint ventures; risks related to impairments; uncertainty associated with financial projections, projected debt reduction, projected cost reductions, projected synergies, restructurings, increased costs, and adverse tax consequences; difficulties or delays in manufacturing; and other risks and uncertainties detailed in Allergan's periodic public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to Allergan's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018. Except as expressly required by law, Allergan disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Important Additional Information and Where to Find It The Company, its directors and certain of its executive officers may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies from Company shareholders in connection with the matters to be considered at the Company's 2019 annual general meeting. The Company has filed a definitive proxy statement and proxy card with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") in connection with any such solicitation of proxies from Company shareholders. COMPANY SHAREHOLDERS ARE STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO READ THE DEFINITIVE PROXY STATEMENT, THE ACCOMPANYING PROXY CARD AND OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS FILED WITH THE SEC IF AND WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE, AS THEY CONTAIN, OR WILL CONTAIN, IMPORTANT INFORMATION. Information regarding the identity of the Company's directors and certain of its executive officers, and their direct or indirect interests, by security holdings or otherwise, is set forth in the proxy statement and other materials to be filed with the SEC. You may obtain the proxy statement, any amendments or supplements to the proxy statement and other documents that may be filed by the Company with the SEC for no charge at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. The proxy statement and other relevant documents filed by the Company with the SEC are also available, without charge, on the Company's website at www.allergan.com, or by directing a written request to Allergan plc, Clonshaugh Business and Technology Park, Coolock, Dublin, D17 E400, Ireland, Attention: Investor Relations. SOURCE Allergan plc Related Links www.allergan.com AmTrust Surety , previously managed by Insco Dico, which provides contract, commercial, and subdivision bonds primarily in the Western U.S. , previously managed by Insco Dico, which provides contract, commercial, and subdivision bonds primarily in the Western U.S. AmTrust Insurance Spain which offers surety bonds in Spain and Latin America. which offers surety bonds in and Latin America. Nationale Borg which provides surety, worker disability, and home purchase bonds in the Netherlands and Belgium. which provides surety, worker disability, and home purchase bonds in and Belgium. Nationale Borg Reinsurance (NBRe), a global provider of surety, trade credit and political risk reinsurance. The AmTrust Surety portion of the acquisition is expected to close in Q2 of 2019, and the AmTrust Insurance Spain, Nationale Borg, and NBRe portion is expected to close in the second half of 2019, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. "The transaction will further enhance our strong global surety and reinsurance expertise, market leadership, and geographic footprint," notes Dennis Langwell, President, Global Risk Solutions, Liberty Mutual, which offers a broad range of primary, excess, specialty, and reinsurance products in the U.S. and globally. "Once the transaction closes, we'll integrate the acquired operations into our current structure." The agreement reinforces Liberty Mutual's global surety market position. "We believe this transaction will strengthen our best-in-class operation, allowing us to better serve our valued agents, brokers, and customers," notes Tim Mikolajewski, President, Global Surety. "The added scale and key talent aligns well with our model and goals in the U.S., and will provide a platform for broader global development through AmTrust Insurance Spain, Nationale Borg, and Nationale Borg Reinsurance." The agreement is an important step in the AmTrust Forward strategic plan to position the company for long-term success. "Earlier this year, we announced our plan to become a leading specialty commercial P&C insurer by focusing on local markets and niche products where we can add significant value," said Barry Zyskind, Chairman and CEO of AmTrust. "The agreement with Liberty Mutual enables us to focus our resources in areas where we can differentiate ourselves through the value we bring to distribution partners and buyers." Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP acted as legal advisor to Liberty Mutual Insurance in the transaction. Bank of America Merrill Lynch served as financial advisor to AmTrust in connection with the transaction, and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP was legal counsel. About Liberty Mutual Insurance Liberty Mutual's purpose is to help people embrace today and confidently pursue tomorrow. The promise we make to our customers throughout the world is to provide protection for the unexpected, delivered with care. In business since 1912, and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, today we are the fifth largest global property and casualty insurer based on 2017 gross written premium. We also rank 68th on the Fortune 100 list of largest corporations in the U.S. based on 2017 revenue. As of Dec. 31, 2018, we had $41.6 billion in annual consolidated revenue. We employ nearly 50,000 people in 30 countries and economies around the world. We offer a wide range of insurance products and services, including personal automobile, homeowners, specialty lines, reinsurance, commercial multiple-peril, workers compensation, commercial automobile, general liability, surety, and commercial property. You can learn more about us by visiting www.libertymutualinsurance.com . About AmTrust Financial Services, Inc. AmTrust Financial Services, Inc., a multinational insurance holding company headquartered in New York, offers specialty property and casualty insurance products, including workers' compensation, commercial automobile, general liability and extended service and warranty coverage through its primary insurance subsidiaries rated "A-" (Excellent) by A.M. Best. AmTrust is included in the Fortune 500 list of largest companies. For more information about AmTrust visit www.amtrustfinancial.com . Contact: Richard Angevine Liberty Mutual (office) 671-574-6638 (cell) 617-833-0926 [email protected] Hunter Hoffmann AmTrust 646-870-1949 [email protected] SOURCE Liberty Mutual Insurance Related Links http://www.libertymutual.com NEW YORK, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The National MS Society has just committed $24.4 million to support 64 new MS research projects and training fellowships. These are part of a comprehensive approach to accelerate breakthroughs by stopping multiple sclerosis, restoring function that has been lost, and ending the disease forever. This financial commitment is the latest in the Society's relentless research effort, investing more than $35 million in 2019 alone to support new and ongoing studies around the world, in line with our Research Priorities and commitment to supporting pathways to a cure for MS. To date, the Society has committed more than $1 billion in research funding. Just a few of the of the new cutting-edge research projects include a phase II clinical trial at Tisch MS Research Center of New York to see if stem cells derived from individuals' own bone marrow can inhibit immune mechanisms and augment repair of nerve-insulating myelin in progressive MS; a University of Edinburgh team attempting to enhance energy production in nerve cells to protect them from damage in MS; a study in Milan, Italy analyzing how gut bacteria influence immune cell activity in the brain; and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center researchers in Boston asking whether treating sleep apnea can reduce MS-related fatigue. For the full list of projects click here. "These strategic research investments strengthen the Society's comprehensive approach to addressing research priorities that will accelerate breakthroughs and build pathways to cures for MS," noted Bruce Bebo, PhD, National MS Society's Executive Vice President, Research. "Funding research gets us closer to a cure," said Cyndi Zagieboylo, the Society's President and CEO. "As our new MS prevalence research shows, there are nearly 1 million people living with MS in the U.S. -- that's twice as many as previous estimates, and it means twice as many people need solutions. If you are among the hundreds of thousands of people who participate in our fundraising events such as Walk MS, then the progress we're seeing now is thanks to you . Ending MS will take all of us." The Society is the largest private funder of MS research in the world and is recognized as a global leader in driving MS research, stimulating studies worldwide, leveraging opportunities, fostering collaboration, and shaping the research landscape to find solutions for the urgent needs of people with MS. To find the best research with the most promise, the Society relies on more than 130 world-class scientists who volunteer their time to carefully evaluate hundreds of proposals every year. This rigorous evaluation process assures that Society funds fuel research that delivers results in the shortest time possible. About Multiple Sclerosis Multiple sclerosis is an unpredictable, often disabling disease of the central nervous system that disrupts the flow of information within the brain, and between the brain and body. Symptoms vary from person to person and range from numbness and tingling, to walking difficulties, fatigue, dizziness, pain, depression, blindness and paralysis. The progress, severity and specific symptoms of MS in any one person cannot yet be predicted, but advances in research and treatment are leading to better understanding and moving us closer to a world free of MS. Most people with MS are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50, with three times more women than men being diagnosed with the disease. A recent study led by the National MS Society estimates that nearly 1 million people are living with MS in the United States; twice as many than previously thought. About the National Multiple Sclerosis Society The Society mobilizes people and resources so that everyone affected by multiple sclerosis can live their best lives as we stop MS in its tracks, restore what has been lost and end MS forever. Last year, the Society invested $35 million in MS research with more than 340 active projects around the world. Through its comprehensive nationwide network of services, the Society is focused on helping people affected by MS connect to the people, information and resources needed to live their best lives. We are united in our collective power to do something about MS now and end this disease forever. Learn more at nationalMSsociety.org Early and ongoing treatment with an FDA-approved therapy can make a difference for people with multiple sclerosis. Learn about your options by talking to your health care professional and contacting the National MS Society at nationalMSsociety.org or 1-800-344-4867. SOURCE National Multiple Sclerosis Society Related Links http://www.nmss.org Private equity firm Ridgemont Equity Partners acquired Munchs Supply, a New Lenox, Illinois-based wholesale HVAC distributor, from Rotunda Capital Partners. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Ridgemont Equity Partners looks to continue Munchs growth trajectory in partnership with existing management through further investment and increased M&A initiatives. Founded in 1956 and led by Bob Munch, CEO, Munchs Supply is a wholesale distributor of HVAC equipment, parts and supplies to residential and commercial customers in the Midwest, Great Plains and Mountain states. The company distributes products from more than 100 leading HVAC equipment, parts and supplies manufacturers, including Trane, American Standard, Rheem and Mitsubishi. Rotunda acquired a majority stake in the company in 2015. Since then, Munchs tripled in revenues, completed four acquisitions, and expanded from seven locations in one state to 27 locations in nine states. FinSMEs 15/04/2019 This publication details the lives of those who once lived in Lafayette Square, just across from the White House, when the neighborhood was a center of political power in Washington, D.C. Seale's book captures the fascinating history of this iconic neighborhood while also enriching the reader's understanding of the nation's social and political culture. In one notable story, Seale recounts: "Into the Rodgers House in 1859, the corpse of the prominent attorney Philip Barton Key, shot to death outside by his lover's congressman husband, was dragged even as crowds rummaged through the dead man's pockets, taking his handkerchiefs, before the constable arrived. In an upper bedroom of this same house Lincoln's secretary of state, William Seward, was viciously knifed the night Lincoln was assassinated. The house was demolished long after to build an opera house, which contributed its own half-century history to Lafayette Square." About William Seale William Seale is an American historian and author. His many books include A White House of Stone (2017); Imperial Season (2013); Blair House: The President's Guest House (2016); and the two-volume The President's House (1986 and 2008). He is founding editor of White House History Quarterly, the award-winning journal of the White House Historical Association. About The White House Historical Association First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy envisioned a restored White House that conveyed a sense of history through its decorative and fine arts. In 1961, the White House Historical Association was established to support her vision to preserve and share the Executive Mansion's legacy for generations to come. Supported entirely by private resources, the Association's mission is to assist in the preservation of the state and public rooms, fund acquisitions for the White House permanent collection, and educate the public on the history of the White House. Since its founding, the White House Historical Association has contributed more than $47 million in fulfillment of its mission. To learn more about the White House Historical Association, please visit www.whitehousehistory.org . SOURCE White House Historical Association Related Links http://www.whitehousehistory.org LANSING, Mich., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- A new report released this week by Insuring More for Michigan shows the growing, positive impact of the insurance industry on the state of Michigan. The report found that in 2017, Michigan's insurance industry directly employed more than 80,000 individuals, made an economic contribution of more than $38 billion to the state's economy and contributed nearly $60 million to charities across the state. "Michigan insurers can be proud of the tremendous impact they are having toward continued job growth, community development and philanthropy across our state," said Tricia Kinley, executive director of the Insurance Alliance of Michigan. "It is an industry that truly cares about the lives and livelihood of all residents in Michigan." According to the report, property and casualty insurance companies employ 17,000 individuals across the state while working with tens of thousands of independent agents throughout Michigan. Additionally, the property and casualty insurance sector has contributed more than $16.5 billion to Michigan's economy. "The Insuring More for Michigan report helps quantify the amazing work done by insurance companies across the state to grow the economy, provide good paying jobs and give back to our communities," said Arthur J. Miller III, manager of Government Affairs at AF Group. "We're proud to play a role in the continued growth and success of Michigan's insurance sector." To view the full report, click here. About this Report The Insuring More for Michigan report was assembled by Public Sector Consultants, an independent, nonpartisan company based in Lansing, Mich. About AF Group Founded in 1912, AF Group (Lansing, Mich.) and its subsidiaries are a premier provider of innovative insurance solutions. Rated "A-" (Excellent) by A.M. Best, AF Group is a nationally recognized holding company conducting business through its brands: Accident Fund, United Heartland, CompWest, Third Coast Underwriters, Fundamental Underwriters, AF Specialty and Assigned Risk Solutions. Contact: Bob Lapinski Tel: 312-443-9819 [email protected] AFGroup.com SOURCE AF Group Related Links http://www.afgroup.com/ Many of today's fast breakfast options include frozen, microwaved food items that lack flavor or nutritional value; and made-to-order foods can often come with a wait time that impacts the morning commute. Panera's 100% clean breakfast optionsincluding three new breakfast wraps are seamlessly integrated with Panera's digital ordering platforms and Rapid Pick-Up and Delivery services, providing both well-crafted, craveable breakfast foods and unparalleled convenience for the morning commute. "Our focus on breakfast isn't just about a single item or categoryit's about looking at the market and bridging a gap for guests. People are compromising between convenience and quality in the morning, and we know that's a problem Panera can help solve," said Blaine Hurst, Panera CEO. "Craveable, clean, high-quality menu options made easily accessible by digital and channel access is what has propelled our lunch business forward. Now we are taking that powerful combination to breakfast, giving our guest even more of what they want, when and where they want it." On-the-Go Breakfast Menu Items & Elevated Coffee Experience Panera has launched three new breakfast wraps, representing an entirely new category for Panera, designed to provide consumers with wholesome options ideal for on-the-go occasions. Packed with beloved breakfast flavors in a whole grain lavash wrap, the new breakfast category includes classic Maple Glazed Bacon with Scrambled Egg & Gouda Cheese; Chipotle Chicken with Scrambled Egg, Avocado and Peppadew peppers; and the vegetarian Mediterranean with Scrambled Egg White, roasted tomatoes, spinach and Feta cheese. All breakfast food and new coffee offerings are 100% clean, with no artificial preservatives, sweeteners, flavors, or colors from artificial sources as defined by our No No List. Panera has also made a significant investment to upgrade its coffee revamping and expanding its coffee offerings to meet the quality of its food and introducing new standards for brewing. With summer approaching, Panera has just introduced Cold Brew, a smoother, sweeter and bolder alternative to traditional iced coffee. While it can easily be consumed black, two new flavored options are made with vanilla sourced from Madagascarthe gold standard of vanillas: Madagascar Vanilla Cream Cold Brew and Madagascar Vanilla Almond Cold Brew, made with unsweetened almond milk. Panera has also begun rolling out a new line of hot coffee, introducing new Light Roast and Dark Roast. Light Roast is a blend of Central and South American beans with hints of citrus, roasted nuts and chocolate. Dark Roast is a blend of Costa Rican and Colombian coffee beans that give this slightly sweet coffee a rich, mellow finish. The two new coffee blends are freshly ground from whole beans on premise and will be available in Panera bakery-cafes nationwide by late summer in a completely revamped coffee station, accompanied by the current Hazelnut and Decaf offerings. For those who prefer sweet over savory for breakfast, Panera has also revamped its bakery line, offering 10 new bakery items, including Cheese and Cherry Brittanys, Almond and Chocolate Croissants, Cinnamon Crunch, Blueberry and Orange Scones, a Cocoa & Creme cookie, Brownie and a Vanilla Cinnamon Roll. "We've long set the standard for an elevated morning experience from bagels to brioche breakfast sandwiches and craft bakery. But we recognize our guest is looking for new breakfast offerings for their busy lives," said Sara Burnett, Panera Vice President of Wellness and Food Policy. "By offering handcrafted breakfast options made with our real, fresh pantry ingredients and pairing them with coffee that matches the quality of the food in our cafes, our customers can get all their breakfast needs under one roof at their own pace." Unmatched Digital Offerings Make Breakfast On-The-Go More Convenient Already an industry-leading e-tailer, Panera continues to focus on technology to add speed and convenience critical to the breakfast timeframe. Its end-to-end digital pathways like Rapid Pick-Up and Catering make it easy to get breakfast on the go, and it is one of the few companies offering breakfast delivery via its own drivers. Now, the company offers a new Reorder function on the Panera app allowing guests to select their daily breakfast in just a few clicks and have it waiting for them at the bakery-cafe via Rapid Pick-Up, or meet them at the office via delivery in participating bakery-cafes. This May, Panera is conducting a market test on a new "Panera Tap" technology for hot coffee, where guests can skip the register or kiosk altogether. Guests in the Raleigh-Durham, NC market will only need to open the Panera app and tap an NFC smart poster to purchase a grab-and-go coffee via mobile payment. To learn more, or to order Panera for breakfast, visit www.PaneraBread.com. About Panera Bread Thirty years ago, at a time when quick service meant low quality, Panera set out to challenge this expectation. We believed that food that was good and that you could feel good about, served in a warm and welcoming environment by people who cared, could bring out the best in all of us. To us, that is food as it should be and that is why we exist. So we began with a simple commitment: to bake bread fresh every day in our bakery-cafes. No short cuts, just bakers with simple ingredients and hot ovens. Each night, any unsold bread and baked goods were shared with neighbors in need. These traditions carry on today, as we have continued to find ways to be an ally for wellness to our guests. That means crafting a menu of soups, salads and sandwiches that we are proud to feed our families. Like poultry and pork raised without antibiotics on our salads and sandwiches. A commitment to transparency and options that empower our guests to eat the way they want. Seasonal flavors and whole grains. And a commitment to removing or not using artificial additives (preservatives, sweeteners, flavors, and colors from artificial sources on our No No list) in the food in our bakery-cafes. Why? Because we think that simpler is better and we believe in serving food as it should be. Because when you don't have to compromise to eat well, all that is left is the joy of eating. We're also focused on improving quality and convenience. With investments in technology and operations, we now offer new ways to enjoy your Panera favorites like mobile ordering and Rapid Pick-up for to-go orders and delivery all designed to make things easier for our guests. As a result, Panera has been one of the most successful restaurant companies in history. What started as one 400-square-foot cookie store in Boston has grown into a company with more than 2,300 units, nearly $6 billion in system-wide sales, and over 100,000 associates. In late 2017, Panera acquired Au Bon Pain Holding Co. Inc., parent company of the 304-unit Au Bon Pain bakery-cafe chain. The acquisition reunites Panera and Au Bon Pain, both of which were founded by Ron Shaich, and will intensify Panera's growth in new real estate channels, including hospitals, universities and transportation centers. As of March 26, 2019, there were 2,130 bakery-cafes in 48 states and in Ontario, Canada, operating under the Panera Bread or Saint Louis Bread Co. names. For more information, visit panerabread.com or find us on Twitter (@panerabread), Facebook (facebook.com/panerabread) or Instagram (@panerabread). SOURCE Panera Bread Related Links http://www.PaneraBread.com Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Plug and Play has created the world's largest innovation platform with over 10,000 startups and 280 official corporate partners. Plug and Play Italy plans on running two 3-month programs per year, accepting startups that are working on innovating the food and beverage space. Saeed Amidi, CEO & Founder of Plug and Play stated: "We are proud to open our first Food & Beverage Accelerator in the heart of Italy. Plug and Play was born twenty years ago in our Lucky Building, where Google, Paypal and Dropbox were born. We are especially excited to expand to Italy and connect leading Italian corporations with our international startups, while offering the country's talented entrepreneurs access to our global programs." Alexandre Carvalho, Tetra Pak's Global Director of Marketing and Customer Innovation Centers, commented: "We started the partnership with Plug and Play in 2017 after a visit with customers to their headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA. It had an enormous impact on the way we were looking at open innovation approaches and partnerships. Plug and Play has been instrumental in connecting relevant startups to well-established companies, We now have several projects with Plug and Play that will help us continue to drive our digital transformation." "Innovation plays a fundamental role in our history and is an important driver of the global diffusion of Italian coffee culture," said Sergio Cravero, Lavazza Chief Marketing Officer. "We are proud to be a founding partner of Plug and Play, the main player in the sector. We will be able to speed up the process of technological innovation, becoming a key player in the largest international ecosystem of startups." Roberto Selva, Esselunga's Head of Customer Relations, stated: "Since its inception, Esselunga has set innovation as one of its priorities: it was the first to introduce the bar code in the 1980s and the e-commerce service as early as 2000. This motivates our desire to partner with Plug and Play, an international leader in innovation. We look forward to this opportunity to engage with young startups and create a channel between our know-how and their new skills." Ranieri De Marchis, UniCredit's Co-Chief Operating Officer, commented: "UniCredit is a simple and successful pan-European Bank and we have been building strong relationships with our customers for years, continuously meeting their evolving needs with our full commercial offering. We know that our customers increasingly want simplicity and we recognize the crucial role technology plays in achieving this. We believe that Fintechs can help support us in finding new and relevant digital solutions that meet changing client needs and the partnership with Plug and Play provides us with an additional strategic avenue for doing this." Plug and Play Italy Contact Andrea Zorzetto [email protected] SOURCE Plug and Play Related Links http://plugandplaytechcenter.com LOS ANGELES, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Rexford Industrial Realty, Inc. (the "Company" or "Rexford Industrial") (NYSE: REXR), a real estate investment trust focused on owning and operating industrial properties located in Southern California infill markets, today announced that the Company will release first quarter 2019 financial results after the market closes on Tuesday, April 30, 2019. A conference call will be held the next day on Wednesday, May 1, 2019, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time to review the Company's first quarter results, discuss recent events and conduct a question-and-answer period. Webcast: The conference call will be available through visiting the Company's website at ir.rexfordindustrial.com . To listen to a live broadcast, go to the site at least 15 minutes prior to the scheduled start time in order to register, download and install any necessary audio software. To Participate in the Telephone Conference Call: Dial in at least 5 minutes prior to start time: Domestic: 1-877-407-0789 International: 1-201-689-8562 Conference Call Playback: Domestic: 1-844-512-2921 International: 1-412-317-6671 Pass code: 13690002 The playback can be accessed through June 1, 2019 About Rexford Industrial Rexford Industrial is a real estate investment trust focused on owning and operating industrial properties in Southern California infill markets. The Company owns 182 properties with approximately 22.4 million rentable square feet and manages an additional 20 properties with approximately 1.2 million rentable square feet. For additional information, visit www.rexfordindustrial.com. Contact: Investor Relations: Stephen Swett 424-256-2153 ext 401 [email protected] SOURCE Rexford Industrial Realty, Inc. Related Links http://www.rexfordindustrial.com BUFFALO, N.Y., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Circuit Clinical is proud to announce a unique collaboration with Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, to support the expansion of clinical trial opportunities to its outpatient oncology practices. This collaboration marks Circuit Clinical's entry into oncology clinical research, with both digital and clinical services. Circuit Clinical will be delivering both research operational support and TrialScout - its patient experience platform - in support of Roswell Park's groundbreaking CIMAvax-EGF Clinical Trial. "We are honored to bring our expertise in conducting clinical trials in physician practices, and our proven patient engagement platform to support Roswell Park's mission of hope," said Dr. Irfan Khan, CEO of Circuit Clinical. "Our team is thrilled to play an important supporting role in the CIMAvax-EGF Clinical Trial and view this collaboration as the first of many new opportunities in cancer research in collaboration with Roswell Park." Circuit Clinical will be providing patient identification, engagement, enrollment and ongoing patient experience support services under the direction of the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center clinical research leadership team. "Clinical trials are a critically important part of the care that Roswell Park provides, as they expand the treatment options our patients have at their disposal and offer access to potentially life-saving approaches not available anywhere else in the region," stated Thomas Schwaab, M.D., Ph.D., Roswell Park's Chief of Strategy, Business Development and Outreach. "We want to make sure that patients throughout our community who are eligible to participate in the CIMAvax Clinical Trial have a convenient opportunity to do so, whether they are getting their care at our main campus or one of our community practices." Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in Upstate New York. In addition to its main campus on Carlton Street in the City of Buffalo, Roswell Park offers care at satellite offices in Amherst and Niagara Falls and at five affiliated community practices. Through this collaboration, eligible patients with certain forms of lung and head/neck cancer will have the opportunity to participate in the CIMAvax Clinical Trial onsite at one or more of the following practices: Read more about Roswell Park's CIMAvax research at https://www.roswellpark.org/cimavax. About Circuit Clinical Circuit Clinical is an Integrated Research Organization, dedicated to empowering patients choosing clinical research as a care option and transforming the experience of finding and participating in clinical trials. For more information visit www.circuitclinical.com About Roswell Park Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is a community united by the drive to eliminate cancer's grip on humanity by unlocking its secrets through personalized approaches and unleashing the healing power of hope. Founded by Dr. Roswell Park in 1898, it is the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in Upstate New York. Learn more at www.roswellpark.org, or contact us at 1-800-ROSWELL (1-800-767-9355) or [email protected]. Contact: Rachael Pollinger, Circuit Clinical Phone: (716) 349-7664 Email: [email protected] SOURCE Circuit Clinical Related Links https://circuitclinical.com SANTA CRUZ, Calif., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Santa Cruz County Bank, a locally owned and operated full-service community bank headquartered in Santa Cruz County, today announced receipt of its ninth consecutive designation of Super Premier performing bank by The Findley Reports, Inc. based upon 2018 financial performance. For a bank to achieve the Super Premier performance rating it must meet four key performance ratios established by Findley Reports, Inc. Super Premier is the highest rating level established by Findley Reports, Inc. Santa Cruz County Bank met the four criteria at a high level of performance: growth, return on beginning equity, net operating income as a percentage of average assets and loan losses as a percentage of gross loans. The Findley reports also profiled Santa Cruz County Bank in its March 2019 Newsletter for exceptional performance. Gary Steven Findley, Editor of The Findley Reports remarked, "One of the true joys in writing the Newsletter and reviewing the performance of all banks in the western United States is recognizing exceptional performance. Santa Cruz County Bank has again been recognized as a Super Premier Performing Bank and remains one of the top performing banks year in and year out." David Heald, President and CEO of Santa Cruz County Bank commented, "Achieving nine consecutive years as a Super Premier performing bank is a testament to the hard work and focus of our Board of Directors, our management team, and our employees on meeting high service standards and delivering exceptional value for our shareholders." ABOUT THE FINDLEY REPORTS For over fifty years The Findley Reports has been recognizing the financial performance of banking institutions in California and the Western United States. The Findley Reports is the reporting service of The Findley Companies. Since 1965, The Findley Companies have earned recognition as being knowledgeable, innovative and effective in implementing solutions to complex situations. ABOUT SANTA CRUZ COUNTY BANK Santa Cruz County Bank, founded in 2004, is a top rated, locally owned and operated full-service community bank headquartered in Santa Cruz, California. The bank operates five branches located in Aptos, Capitola, Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley and Watsonville. The bank offers a variety of competitive deposit and lending solutions for businesses and individuals; including business loans, lines of credit, commercial real estate financing, agricultural loans, SBA and USDA government guaranteed loans, credit cards, merchant services, remote deposit capture, mobile and online banking, bill payment, and cash management. The bank's SBA Department has been recognized as a top SBA lender in Santa Cruz County and in the Silicon Valley. Santa Cruz County Bank is a top USDA lender in the state of California. Santa Cruz County Bank stock is publicly traded on the OTC marketplace under the stock symbol SCZC. Stock purchase orders may be placed through a brokerage firm or one of the Market Makers listed in the Investor Relations section of the bank's website. For more information about Santa Cruz County Bank, visit www.sccountybank.com. NATIONAL, STATE, AND LOCAL RATINGS AND AWARDS S&P Global Top 100 Community Banks: Santa Cruz County Bank ranked 35th in the nation out of nearly 3,000 banks with assets under $3 billion based upon 2018 performance. The Bank has ranked in the Top 100 Community Banks by S&P Global for three consecutive years. Financial Management Consulting (FMC) Group: Santa Cruz County Bank is the top bank in California in overall performance among 148 banks, and also ranked 1st in asset quality as well as 1st (lowest) in non-performing assets for its financial performance in the first, second and third quarters for 2018. The Bank has ranked in FMC's top ten banks in California for the past four years. Bauer Financial Reports, Inc.: Santa Cruz County Bank is rated 5-star or "Superior" based upon its financial performance. American Banker Magazine: Santa Cruz County Bank ranked 22nd out of 633 institutions in American Banker Magazine's "Top Performing 200 Community Banks & Thrifts in the United States" based upon 3-year average return on equity. The Bank ranked 4th out of 26 California banks. The Bank has ranked in the Top 200 Community Banks in the United States for five consecutive years. The Bank ranks 8th in the Silicon Valley for the number of SBA loans lent to Silicon Valley businesses for the SBA's 2018 fiscal year. RECENT COMMUNITY AWARDS AND RECOGNITION Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce, 2018 Business of the Year Award. Farm Bureau of Santa Cruz County, 2018 Al Smith Friend of Agriculture Award, for support of the agricultural industry and providing access to capital. Second Harvest Food Bank, Platinum Level Award for the Bank's 2018 Holiday Food & Fund Drive. Voted "Best Bank" by the readers of Good Times for the Best of Santa Cruz County 2019 Awards, for the seventh consecutive year. Voted "Favorite Bank" by the readers of Santa Cruz Waves Magazine for the 2019 Swellies Awards. This release may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Such risks and uncertainties may include but are not necessarily limited to fluctuations in interest rates, inflation, government regulations and general economic conditions, and competition within the business areas in which the Bank is conducting its operations, including the real estate market in California and other factors beyond the Bank's control. Such risks and uncertainties could cause results for subsequent interim periods or for the entire year to differ materially from those indicated. Readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements, which reflect management's view only as of the date hereof. The Bank undertakes no obligation to publicly revise these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. SOURCE Santa Cruz County Bank Related Links http://www.sccountybank.com GREENWICH, Conn., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Starwood Property Trust (NYSE: STWD) today announced that the Company will release its first quarter 2019 financial results on Wednesday, May 8, 2019 before the opening of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. A conference call will be held on Wednesday, May 8, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time. During the conference call, the Company's officers will review first quarter performance, discuss recent events and conduct a question-and-answer period. Webcast The conference call will also be available in the Investor Relations section of the Company's website at www.starwoodpropertytrust.com. To listen to a live broadcast, go to the site at least 15 minutes prior to the scheduled start time in order to register, download and install any necessary audio software. A replay of the call will also be available for 90 days on the Company's website. To Participate in the Telephone Conference Call: Dial in at least five minutes prior to start time. Domestic: 1-877-407-9039 International: 1-201-689-8470 Conference Call Playback: Domestic: 1-844-512-2921 International: 1-412-317-6671 Passcode: 13689755 The playback can be accessed through May 15, 2019. Full Text of the Earnings Release Internet -- The full text of the earnings release will be available on Wednesday, May 8, 2019 at the Company's web site, www.starwoodpropertytrust.com. at the Company's web site, www.starwoodpropertytrust.com. Mail -- For those without Internet access, the first quarter earnings release will be available by mail or fax, on request. To receive a copy, please call the Company's Investor Relations line at 203-422-7788. About Starwood Property Trust, Inc. Starwood Property Trust (NYSE: STWD), is a leading diversified finance company with a core focus on the real estate and infrastructure sectors. An affiliate of global private investment firm Starwood Capital Group, the Company has successfully deployed over $51 billion of capital since inception and manages a portfolio in excess of $16 billion across debt and equity investments. Starwood Property Trust's investment objective is to generate attractive and stable returns for shareholders, primarily through dividends, by leveraging a premiere global organization to identify and execute on the best risk adjusted returning investments across its target assets. Additional information can be found at www.starwoodpropertytrust.com. Contact: Zachary Tanenbaum Starwood Property Trust Phone: 203-422-7788 Email: [email protected] SOURCE Starwood Property Trust, Inc. HOUSTON, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Stellus Capital Investment Corporation (NYSE: SCM) will release its financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2019 on Friday, May 10, 2019, before the market opens. Stellus Capital Investment Corporation will host a conference call to discuss these results on Friday, May 10, 2019 at 10:00 AM, Central Daylight Time. The conference call will be led by Robert T. Ladd, chief executive officer, and W. Todd Huskinson, chief financial officer, chief compliance officer, treasurer, and secretary. For those wishing to participate by telephone, please dial 855-719-5012 (domestic). Use passcode 8305783. Starting approximately twenty-four hours after the conclusion of the call, a replay will be available through Saturday, May 18, 2019 by dialing (888) 203-1112 and entering passcode 8305783. The replay will also be available on the company's website. About Stellus Capital Investment Corporation The Company is an externally-managed, closed-end, non-diversified investment management company that has elected to be regulated as a business development company under the Investment Company Act of 1940. The Company's investment objective is to maximize the total return to its stockholders in the form of current income and capital appreciation by investing primarily in private middle-market companies (typically those with $5.0 million to $50.0 million of EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization)) through first lien, second lien, unitranche and mezzanine debt financing, and corresponding equity investments. The Company's investment activities are managed by its investment adviser, Stellus Capital Management. To learn more about Stellus Capital Investment Corporation, visit www.stelluscapital.com under the Stellus Capital Investment Corporation link. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS Statements included herein may contain "forward-looking statements" which relate to future performance or financial condition. Statements other than statements of historical facts included in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements and are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, which change over time. Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in any forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including those described from time to time in filings by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission including the final prospectus that will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statement made herein. All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release. Contacts Stellus Capital Investment Corporation W. Todd Huskinson, (713) 292-5414 Chief Financial Officer [email protected] SOURCE Stellus Capital Investment Corporation Related Links http://www.stelluscapital.com "Sleeping cooler, and in particular, sleeping cooler throughout the night, is the number one unmet consumer need in the sleep industry -- with more than 60% of Americans struggling with this problem -- and the new TEMPUR-breeze is the only mattress line that truly addresses it," said Rick Anderson, Tempur Sealy EVP and President, North America. "TEMPUR-breeze mattresses are a thermodynamic breakthrough that provide both unbeatable all-night cooling and maximum pressure relief for a deeper, more refreshing sleep." Tempur-Pedic's thermal, material and textile scientists -- including ten cross functional teams across three continents -- have spent more than ten years and 2.6 million hours on R&D in the industry's most sophisticated Thermal Lab. Building on this commitment to innovation, the new TEMPUR-breeze mattress performs exceptionally at each layer -- and for the first time in the industry -- across the whole system. This coordination addresses temperature and humidity flux in the sleep microclimate during three separate phases of sleep: When you lie down: The high molecular weight yarn in the SmartClimate Dual Cover System delivers a cooling sensation up to 30 percent more intense than non-cooling models. Thermal effusivity testswhich measure heat absorptionconfirm this cool-to-touch yarn absorbs heat throughout sleep, continually feeling cool as you roll over and adjust. With a washable, easy-to-remove cover that features a patent-pending 360-degree zipper system, cooling effects will not diminish. The high molecular weight yarn in the SmartClimate Dual Cover System delivers a cooling sensation up to 30 percent more intense than non-cooling models. Thermal effusivity testswhich measure heat absorptionconfirm this cool-to-touch yarn absorbs heat throughout sleep, continually feeling cool as you roll over and adjust. With a washable, easy-to-remove cover that features a patent-pending 360-degree zipper system, cooling effects will not diminish. As you fall asleep: At about 80F, the molecules within TEMPUR-breeze's most efficient Phase Change Material (PCM) to-date, PURECOOL+, activate, shifting from a solid to a liquid to absorb massive amounts of heat. For the first time, Tempur-Pedic's scientists successfully altered these proprietary molecules to deliver more phase change material, increasing its capacity to absorb heat by 2x compared to other PCM. At about 80F, the molecules within TEMPUR-breeze's most efficient Phase Change Material (PCM) to-date, PURECOOL+, activate, shifting from a solid to a liquid to absorb massive amounts of heat. For the first time, Tempur-Pedic's scientists successfully altered these proprietary molecules to deliver more phase change material, increasing its capacity to absorb heat by 2x compared to other PCM. Staying cool all night: In an unprecedented engineering feat at a cellular level, TEMPUR-CM+ comfort layer is up to 10x more porous to more effectively channel heat and humidity away from you all night long. For the first time, both phase change and climate materials are integrated into the bed's top layer where they're most effective. Coolness and comfort in concert TEMPUR-breeze delivers the highest performing cooling system and most advanced pressure-relieving material in one mattress. On a molecular level, the ability to combine Tempur-Pedic's pressure relieving, adaptation and motion-isolating properties with open-cell foam material is an industry-first. Tempur-Pedic is the only brand to successfully engineer this into soft, medium and firm feel preferences. Perfect temperature every time From cover to core the TEMPUR-PRObreeze and TEMPUR-LUXEbreeze mattresses combine the best cooling performance and pressure relieving properties in Tempur-Pedic's history. The new TEMPUR-breeze line includes PRObreeze, which features three-level cooling system and feels up to 3 degrees cooler through the night. It's available in medium and medium hybrid and retails at a price point of $3,799 for queen-size. The LUXEbreeze also includes the company's most advanced pressure relieving material in a ventilated TEMPUR-APR support layer, delivering even more breathability and cooling comfort for four-levels of cooling technology. As a result, it feels up to eight degrees cooler through the night. Available in soft and firm versions, the LUXEbreeze retails at $4,499 for queen-size. About Tempur Sealy International, Inc. Tempur Sealy International, Inc. (NYSE: TPX) develops, manufactures, and markets mattresses, foundations, pillows and other products. The Company's products are sold worldwide through third party retailers, its own stores, and online. The Company's brand portfolio includes many highly recognized brands in the industry, including Tempur, Tempur-Pedic, Sealy featuring Posturepedic Technology, and Stearns & Foster. World headquarters for Tempur Sealy International is in Lexington, KY. For more information, visit http://www.tempursealy.com or call 800-805-3635. Investor Relations Contact Aubrey Moore Investor Relations Tempur Sealy International, Inc. 800-805-3635 [email protected] Public Relations Contact Rick Maynard Public Relations Tempur Sealy International, Inc. 859-455-2988 [email protected] SOURCE Tempur Sealy International, Inc. Related Links http://www.tempursealy.com CITY OF COMMERCE, Calif., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Easter Bunny is taking over the 99 Cents Only Stores this season! On Thursday morning, April 18th at 7:30am, the Easter Bunny will grab his basket and load up on toys, arts and crafts, snacks and more at the 99 Cents Only Store location on Almeda Genoa Rd in Houston. The Easter Bunny will be donating the items to children at the Boys & Girls Club to make sure they have something special for Easter! About 99 Cents Only Stores Founded in 1982, 99 Cents Only Stores is the leading operator of extreme value stores in California and the Southwestern United States. The Company currently operates 389 stores located in California, Texas, Arizona & Nevada. 99 Cents Only Stores offers a broad assortment of name brand and other attractively priced merchandise and compelling seasonal product offerings. Media Contact: Vianai Austin, (323) 202-3230 or [email protected] SOURCE 99 Cents Only Stores Related Links http://www.99only.com MOORESVILLE, N.C., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Joe Hughes, the Owner and Founder of Ultimate Plumbing & Repair, a residential, commercial and emergency plumbing repair services company located in Mooresville, North Carolina, is pleased to announce that he is looking to hire an experienced plumber to join his team. To learn more about the requirements for the position and how to apply, please check out https://ultimateplumbinginc.com/plumbing-repair-blog/ultimate-plumbing-repair-now-hiring-for-the-ultimate-plumber/. As Hughes noted, he is not looking for just any plumber for the job. "We're looking for a 'plumber's plumber,' someone who has the right mix of skills, experience, customer care and work ethic to live up to and represent our company name in every aspect of their work," he said, adding that he and the rest of his team are fully committed to offering outstanding customer service. "It's our responsibility to help our friends and neighbors with their plumbing problems quickly, efficiently and with friendly service, no matter what time of the day or night, and we take it seriously." In order to apply for the position with Ultimate Plumbing & Repair, candidates must be able to meet a number of criteria, including having verifiable work experience as a plumber; be able to handle general plumbing tools and equipment; have or be able to provide their own basic service plumbing tools; and be committed to providing 5-star customer service and serving as an ambassador for both the company and the plumbing trade. Hughes said he is looking forward to meeting with qualified applicants and talking more about the job and his company, which offers water heater, sewer, toilet, faucet, shower and drain services along with plumbing repair and more. About Ultimate Plumbing & Repair Inc.: At Ultimate Plumbing & Repair in Mooresville, North Carolina, they pride themselves on the fact that they have never turned down a plumbing job. They offer quality residential, commercial and emergency plumbing repair services in Lake Norman, Mooresville, Denver, Terrell, Sherrills Ford, Huntersville, Davidson, Cornelius, Charlotte, Concord, Kannapolis, Matthews, Statesville and Troutman, North Carolina. For more information, please visit https://ultimateplumbinginc.com/. Ultimate Plumbing & Repair Inc 710 N. Broad Street Bldg 5. Unit 28 Mooresville, NC 28115 (704) 892-5843 SOURCE Ultimate Plumbing & Repair Related Links https://ultimateplumbinginc.com "We're excited to welcome Tim to our team," said Davis. "With more than 25 years of experience in the healthcare industry, his leadership and expertise will help ensure we deliver quality healthcare services and resources to our members and the community to promote better health outcomes in Nebraska." "It's an honor to join WellCare of Nebraska," said Meyers. "I look forward to working with our talented and dedicated team to support quality and access to care for Nebraskans." Before joining WellCare of Nebraska, Meyers held vice president positions at Aetna where he was responsible for underwriting and actuarial duties related to commercial group lines of business in local health plans and national accounts. Prior to that, he served in leadership roles at Deloitte Consulting, Coventry Health Care and Deloitte & Touche. Meyers earned a bachelor of science in mathematics and statistics, actuarial science from the University of Nebraska. As of Dec. 31, 2018, WellCare of Nebraska serves approximately 80,000 Medicaid members in Nebraska. For more information about Heritage Health, visit www.neheritagehealth.com . 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 December 31, 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 LAS CRUCES, N.M., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Thirty-three medical students attending the Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine (BCOM) are set to receive scholarships to support their educational journeys. The scholarships are made possible thanks to a $1.6 million anonymous gift to the Southwest Foundation for Osteopathic Education and Research (SWFOER). "This private foundation strongly supports the mission of BCOM and SWFOER to bring more doctors to New Mexico and the Southwest region of the U.S.," says Victoria Pineda, BCOM director of institutional advancement. "We're so excited they are supporting these aspiring physicians. It's not just an investment in students, it's an investment in the health and future of New Mexico." The gift will establish a new scholarship program at BCOM that supports 14 students with $100,000 over the course of their four years in medical school. An additional 19 students will receive one-time scholarships of $10,000. Students who are awarded scholarships must agree to complete a clinical rotation hands-on medical training at BCOM's Southeastern New Mexico hub, which includes the cities of Artesia, Carlsbad, Hobbs, Lovington and Roswell. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, each of these cities is located in counties that are critically low on health professionals. This rural training experience is expected to inspire medical students to one day work in regions of the U.S. where there are little to no doctors. In addition, BCOM students who receive scholarships totaling $100,000 must agree to return to New Mexico after their residency training. If a career opportunity is available, he or she will practice as a physician for four years in one of the following regions: Artesia; Eddy County; Chavez County; Lea County; or Las Cruces. "A program like this guarantees to bring doctors back to our region," says Don Peska, DO, BCOM dean and chief academic officer. "This gift is going to make an extraordinary impact on New Mexico, bringing physicians back to communities that truly need their help and expertise." John Hummer, president of BCOM, adds, "We are humbled and extremely grateful to have this donor a renowned business leader and philanthropist who has done so much good for New Mexico supporting our medical students and joining us on our mission to increase the number of future New Mexico physicians." Nadia Whitehead 915-276-6803 [email protected] Related Images class-of-2020.jpg burrell-college-of-osteopathic.jpg SOURCE Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine "April, with cooler weather still creeping into the forecast, is not typically a time when Chicagoans are thinking about their HVAC system," said Justin Carrol, president of Perfect Home Services. "Unfortunately, HVAC systems can age and develop unseen issues, even when you aren't using them. An HVAC tune-up is inexpensive and spares you the headache of an inconvenient and costly breakdown when you really need cooling in the warmer months." TEL AVIV, Israel and BEIJING, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading global crop protection company ADAMA Ltd. (the "Company") (SZSE 000553), today provided an estimate regarding its expected net income for the first quarter of 2019. The Company is expecting to deliver another first quarter of more than $1 billion in sales, almost matching last year's best ever, overcoming the disruption at the Jingzhou old site which is already gradually resuming operation, harsh winter in North America and continued supply constraints globally, as well as the impact of softer currencies. On a constant currency basis, the Company's sales in the first quarter are expected to be above those of last year, driven by price increases. Strong contribution of Latin America, India, Middle East and Africa, as well as China and new joiners Bonide and Anpon, offset weather- and supply-related delays in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. In addition, the Company delivered marked price increases across all regions. The Jingzhou old site is gradually resuming operation, following its connection via pipeline to the state-of-the-art wastewater treatment facility installed at the new and already operational site. As a consequence of the disruption, the Company lacked sufficient product to fulfill demand, and incurred approximately $10 million of additional idleness cost. Adjusted net income for the quarter, as well as other profit metrics, are expected to be in-line with Q1 2018's robust levels, which laid the foundation for a very strong year. Reported (2018 as previously reported) Estimated Q1 2019 Q1 2018 Net income attributable to shareholders (USD millions) 50 - 58 320 Earnings per share (USD) 0.0205 - 0.0238 0.1307 Net income attributable to shareholders (RMB millions) 338 - 391 2,032 Earnings per share (RMB) 0.1381 - 0.1602 0.8306 The significantly higher reported net income in Q1 2018 is due to the recognition of an approximately $247 million one-time net income from the divestiture of several products in Europe in connection with the approval by the EU Commission of the acquisition of Syngenta by ChemChina last year, and other related impacts. The proceeds of this divestiture, net of taxes and transaction expenses, were paid to Syngenta in return for the transfer of a portfolio of products in Europe of similar nature and economic value. Excluding the impact of the products' divestiture and transfer on the net income of Q1 2018 (capital gain net of taxes) and Q1 2019 (amortization of written-up assets), results in net income in Q1 2018 which is lower by $247 million and Q1 2019 which is higher by $8 million. Excluding the impact of the products' divestiture and transfer, as well as the impact of certain one-time/non-cash items, including mainly the legacy amortization of the 2011 PPA for the acquisition of Adama Agricultural Solutions Ltd. by ChemChina, and reflecting the long-term incentive plan on an equity-settled basis, results in the following adjusted net income. Adjusted Estimated Q1 2019 Q1 2018 Net income attributable to shareholders (USD millions) 76 - 84 84 Earnings per share (USD) 0.0309 - 0.0341 0.0343 Net income attributable to shareholders (RMB millions) 509 - 563 533 Earnings per share (RMB) 0.2081 - 0.2302 0.2178 These estimations are preliminary and have not been audited or reviewed by the Company's auditors. These estimations may change, inter alia, as a result of the further processing and analysis of the financial data that the Company will perform for the preparation of its quarterly financial statements, which will be released on April 29, 2019. Investors are reminded to exercise caution when making investment decisions. About ADAMA ADAMA Ltd. is one of the world's leading crop protection companies. We strive to Create Simplicity in Agriculture offering farmers effective products and services that simplify their lives and help them grow. With one of the most comprehensive and diversified portfolios of differentiated, quality products, our 6,600-strong team reaches farmers in over 100 countries, providing them with solutions to control weeds, insects and disease, and improve their yields. For more information, visit us at www.ADAMA.com and follow us on Twitter at @ADAMAAgri . Contact Ben Cohen Zhujun Wang Global Investor Relations China Investor Relations Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] SOURCE Adama Agricultural Solutions Ltd. Many of Chef Jason's recipes feature made-from-scratch ingredients including his very own hollandaise sauce made fresh every day and featured on: Eggs Benedict: grilled breakfast ham on an English muffin, topped with poached eggs and green onions. grilled breakfast ham on an English muffin, topped with poached eggs and green onions. Eggs Blackstone Benedict : grilled red tomatoes on an English muffin, topped with poached eggs, chopped bacon and green onions. grilled red tomatoes on an English muffin, topped with poached eggs, chopped bacon and green onions. Crab Cake Benedict: jumbo lump crab cakes on an English muffin, topped with poached eggs, andouille-infused hollandaise, red peppers and green onions. jumbo lump crab cakes on an English muffin, topped with poached eggs, andouille-infused hollandaise, red peppers and green onions. Smoked Salmon Benedict: toasted bagel, cream cheese, smoked salmon and poached eggs, topped with red onions, capers and green onions. All four benedicts are available every day at every cafe across the country. Another Broken Egg Cafe, the only national daytime cafe with a bar producing hand-crafted cocktails, is one of the fastest-growing breakfast and brunch concepts in the nation. Our signature cocktails are crafted to pair perfectly with our menu items. Another Broken Egg was recognized as one of TripAdvisor's Top 10 Best Restaurant Chains for 2018. Another Broken Egg Cafe is open daily from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. About Another Broken Egg Cafe Another Broken Egg of America, LLC is an upscale breakfast, brunch and lunch restaurant that specializes in award-winning, Southern-inspired menu options with innovative twists and signature cocktails. Another Broken Egg Cafe is one of the fastest-growing daytime-only concepts in the country, with over 60 locations in 12 states and dozens more in development. The company was honored in 2017 by Winsight Media with its Leader in Foodservice Full-Service Award and ranked by Franchise Times magazine as one of their Fast & Serious Smartest-Growing Brands. This year, Another Broken Egg Cafe was named by FSR magazine as one of the 14 Restaurant Chains Ready for Lift-Off in 2018. For more information about franchising opportunities, please visit anotherbrokenegg.com/franchising. SOURCE Another Broken Egg Cafe Related Links http://anotherbrokenegg.com BOCA RATON, Fla., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Apple Core Hotels, a New York City-based hotel ownership and management company, has selected Cendyn's eInsight CRM to provide customer relationship management across their portfolio of properties. Conveniently situated in the heart of Manhattan, Apple Core Hotels includes four boutique locations: The Hotel at Times Square, The Hotel at Fifth Avenue, The Broadway at Times Square Hotel, and The Hotel at New York City. Cendyn will implement CRM at Apple Core's hotels, bringing to light intuitive marketing automation and guest intelligence. This will mobilize Apple Core Hotels to employ data collected from multiple channels to gain an accurate, single source of truth for each guest. This visibility and accessibility will provide each Apple Core property a clear understanding of its guest history and preferences in real time, while providing total chain visibility to hotel management for all locations. Moreover, Cendyn eInsight CRM will help Apple Core Hotels further personalize a guest experience that empowers exceptional service, leverage tools that build lasting brand loyalty, and drive direct bookings. Charles Deyo, CEO & President at Cendyn said "Apple Core Hotels is a great NYC-based brand with a strong collection of hotels in the city. Using CRM across their portfolio will enable the team to really target their key NYC market and beyond. We're honored to be their partner in helping personalize the guest experience, drive smarter marketing programs and nurture brand loyalty to keep customers coming back." "We're excited by the opportunity to have deeper insight into our guests and to supercharge our ability to respond to their individual needs and desires. As important, eInsight's ability to power one-to-one marketing initiatives and effectively prospect new audiences is enormously appealing to us," said Apple Core Hotels' Vice President of Brand + Culture, Seth A. Goldstein. The Hotel at Times Square is one of four NYC based properties inside Apple Core Hotels, Inc. About Cendyn Cendyn is a cloud-based software and services provider that develops integrated technology platforms for driving sales and marketing performance in the travel and hospitality industry. The Cendyn Hospitality Cloud offers the most complete set of innovative software and services in the industry, covering hotel marketing, guest engagement and group sales. With offices in Boca Raton, Atlanta, Boston, San Diego, Whistler, London, Munich, Singapore, Sydney, Bangkok and Tokyo, Cendyn proudly serves more than 30,000 clients in 143 countries, sending over 1.5 billion personalized communications on behalf of their customers every year. For more information on Cendyn, visit www.cendyn.com. About Apple Core Hotels, Inc. Apple Core Hotels' portfolio of independent properties includes The Hotel at Times Square, The Hotel at Fifth Avenue, The Broadway at Times Square Hotel, and The Hotel at New York City. All are located in the heart of Manhattan, from 30th Street to 46th Street, and from Broadway to Lexington Avenue. With a focus on delivering comfortable and budget-friendly accommodations in some of the most desirable locations for both domestic and foreign business and leisure travelers, all four hotels are within walking distance of major attractions and landmarks that draw visitors from across the country and around the globe. Visit www.applecorehotels.com for more. Media contact Michael Bennett SVP, Global Marketing [email protected] +1 561-419-2286 SOURCE Cendyn Related Links http://www.cendyn.com SAN FRANCISCO, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- BootstrapLabs, a leading venture capital firm focused on applied artificial intelligence (AI), is holding its fourth annual Applied AI Conference on Thursday, April 18th in San Francisco. The event brings some of the brightest AI experts across industries together to engage in discussion and learnings around the current and future impact of AI applications and commercialization across a breadth of sectors, including transportation, logistics, health, energy, FinTech, the Future of Work (FoW), Internet of Things (IoT) and Cybersecurity. Why: The event features world class perspectives from research, entrepreneurship, investing and business transformation, aiming to capture the deepest insights within the AI ecosystem. Attendees will gain access to practical wisdom on applied AI methodologies and are offered a chance to network with fellow executives, entrepreneurs, investors and developers to discuss the current status and powerful potential of applied AI. Speakers and panellists will engage in thought-provoking discourse about how AI is reshaping business, government, society and life as we know it. Where: Bespoke Events Westfield San Francisco Centre 845 Market St., Level 4 San Francisco, CA 94103 When: Thursday, April 18th Registration opens at 8 AM Welcome message at 8:55 AM Closing reception at 5:30 PM Who: The BootstrapLabs Applied Artificial Intelligence Conference establishes a community of Founders, CTOs, CIOs, Corporate Development Executives, Innovation Officers, Product Managers, and AI/ML Experts including Directors of Engineering, Data Scientists, Executives, Professors, Researchers, and Investors. This year's speakers will include: Danny Lange , VP of AI and ML, Unity Technologies , VP of AI and ML, Unity Technologies Dinkar Jain , Head of Machine Learning, Facebook Ads, Facebook , Head of Machine Learning, Facebook Ads, Facebook Kay Firth-Butterfield , Head of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, World Economic Forum , Head of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, World Economic Forum Jonas Svensson , Head of Global Innovation and Technology, UNOPS , Head of Global Innovation and Technology, UNOPS Erin Kenneally , Portfolio Manager, Cyber Security Division, Science & Technology, U.S. Department of Homeland Security , Portfolio Manager, Cyber Security Division, Science & Technology, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Walter Robb , Principal, Stonewall Robb Advisors, Entrepreneur & Former Co-CEO, Whole Foods Market , Principal, Stonewall Robb Advisors, Entrepreneur & Former Co-CEO, Whole Foods Market John Apostolopoulos , VP and CTO of Enterprise Networking, Lab Director of Innovation Labs, Cisco , VP and CTO of Enterprise Networking, Lab Director of Innovation Labs, Cisco Nicolai Wadstrom , Founder & CEO, BootstrapLabs , Founder & CEO, BootstrapLabs Benjamin Levy , Co-Founder, BootstrapLabs More: For additional information about this year's Applied AI Conference visit: About BootstrapLabs: Founded in 2008, BootstrapLabs is a leading Venture Capital firm based in Silicon Valley and focused on applied artificial intelligence. We invest in founders that dream big and are solving today's hardest problem by applying artificial intelligence to shape a better future. To learn more visit: https://bootstraplabs.com/ SOURCE BootstrapLabs Related Links https://bootstraplabs.com SHANGHAI, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- BorgWarner, a global product leader in clean and efficient technology solutions for combustion, hybrid and electric vehicles, highlights its innovative electrification solutions at the 18th lnternational Automobile and Manufacturing Technology Exhibition (Auto Shanghai 2019) April 18-25, at the Shanghai National Exhibition and Convention Center. BorgWarner's vision of a clean energy-efficient world complements the show's theme "Creating a Better Life." BorgWarner's industry-leading electrification solutions will be on display including the latest fully integrated electric drive module eAxle iDM, Onboard Battery Chargers (OBC), and on- and off-axis P2 hybrid systems, which demonstrate its commitment to providing customized solutions for applications ranging from passenger cars, light and heavy trucks, to commercial and off-road vehicles. BorgWarner to Highlight Electrification Solutions at Auto Shanghai 2019 "Hybrids and electric vehicles have experienced robust growth during the past few years, in fact, it is estimated that hybrid and electric car production will reach about 32 million in 2023, accounting for roughly 30% of total global market," said Frederic Lissalde, President and Chief Executive Officer, BorgWarner. "BorgWarner has always been at the forefront of developing innovative technologies for hybrid and electric systems, and now has a series of solutions including the eAxle iDM integrated electric drive module, Onboard Battery Chargers, P2 hybrid solutions, P1+P3 hybrid solutions and 48-volt hybrid technologies. As a trusted partner of global auto manufacturers, we will continue to be a leader in propulsion systems solutions for combustion, hybrid and electric vehicles." The debut of key products for electric cars The eAxle iDM is displayed for the first time in China. Featuring specially developed power electronics, it can easily be integrated at the front or the rear axle of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles depending on the architecture and the application. The solution integrates highly efficient power electronics with an advanced transmission system and industry-leading drive motor technology featuring BorgWarner's efficient bar wound stator solution to form a scalable compact package. With the eAxle iDM, BorgWarner delivers a product family of highly integrated propulsion solutions to drive customers' hybrid and electric vehicles, marking a big step toward a clean and energy efficient world. The OBC, which also makes its debut at the show, can be used on both plug-in hybrid and pure electric vehicles. It meets the waterproof and dustproof requirements of IP6K9K, and complies with the safety standard of ISO26262. Featuring advanced power electronics and scalable AC input range, the OBC supports two-rated power sections of 7.4 kilowatts and 11 kilowatts. In addition, the three-phase electrical input enables more powerful, efficient and faster battery charging. Thermal management is another major challenge in electric vehicles. BorgWarner assembles a range of thermal management solutions including cabin and battery heaters. The battery heater's fast response time enables optimal battery and cabin temperature management. The high-voltage cabin heaters create a comfortable interior made possible by its dual-zone heating and core temperature sensing abilities. Innovative P2 technologies With its wide range of products and solutions for the hybrid system, BorgWarner is dedicated to helping customers meet evolving demand from the growing trends of autonomous driving and connected cars. During Auto Shanghai 2019, BorgWarner highlights its on- and off-axis P2 modules, which provide OEMs the flexibility to place the electric motor where there is space in existing architectures. The modules also facilitate fast-to-market hybridization by enabling pure electric driving as well as hybrid functionalities such as stop/start, regenerative braking and supplemental electric propulsion. In the on-axis configuration, the electric motor is located directly on the main axis enabling easy integration and a compact overall package. It also allows for several clutch options and improves engine performance. The off-axis configuration places the electric motor parallel to the main axis for an even more compact axial package, which minimizes adjustments needed to incorporate with existing engines and transmissions. BorgWarner's P2 modules are capable of decoupling the engine for limited pure-electric driving, making it a desirable solution for hybrid architectures. They also enable easy integration and a compact overall package, offering high power density and increased fuel efficiency. BorgWarner's technical experts and engineers are available throughout the show to answer questions and share insights on the company's latest products and solutions at Hall 5.2, Booth 5BG001 of the Shanghai National Exhibition and Convention Center. About BorgWarner BorgWarner Inc. (NYSE: BWA) is a global product leader in clean and efficient technology solutions for combustion, hybrid and electric vehicles. With manufacturing and technical facilities in 68 locations in 19 countries, the company employs approximately 30,000 worldwide. For more information, please visit borgwarner.com. Statements contained in this press release may contain forward-looking statements as contemplated by the 1995 Private Securities Litigation Reform Act that are based on management's current outlook, expectations, estimates and projections. Words such as "anticipates," "believes," "continues," "could," "designed," "effect," "estimates," "evaluates," "expects," "forecasts," "goal," "initiative," "intends," "outlook," "plans," "potential," "project," "pursue," "seek," "should," "target," "when," "would," variations of such words and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond our control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed, projected or implied in or by the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include: fluctuations in domestic or foreign vehicle production, the continued use by original equipment manufacturers of outside suppliers, fluctuations in demand for vehicles containing our products, changes in general economic conditions, as well as other risks noted in reports that we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Risk Factors identified in our most recently filed Annual Report on Form 10-K. We do not undertake any obligation to update or announce publicly any updates to or revision to any of the forward-looking statements. SOURCE BorgWarner Related Links http://www.borgwarner.com Credit: Danny ClinchBruce Springsteen gave his first live performance of 2019 on Saturday night, when he made a surprise appearance with photographer/musician Danny Clinch's Tangiers Blues Band at a charity event in New York City. RollingStone.com reports that The Boss hit the stage at New York's Tribeca Grill to sing two songs with the Tangiers Blues Band: covers of the 1957 Huey "Piano" Smith tune "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu" and the 1940 Will Bradley Trio hit "Down the Road a Piece," which later was recorded by Chuck Berry, The Rolling Stones and many others. It was Bruce's first time playing in public since the final performance of his Springsteen on Broadway show this past December. You can watch fan-shot video of the Tribeca Grill performance on YouTube. The performance was part of the Kristen Ann Carr Foundation's annual A Night to Remember benefit, which raises funds to aid the fight against sarcoma cancers. Clinch was honored at the event for his support of the organization, which is named after the late daughter of Springsteen's co-manager Barbara Carr. Bruce has performed with the Tangiers Blues Band on numerous occasions, including at the June 2018 concert celebrating the re-opening of the Asbury Lanes venue in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Springsteen and Clinch's group also played "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu" and "Down the Road a Piece," at that show, among other songs. As previously reported, Springsteen announced in December that he wouldn't be touring with the E Street Band in 2019 and would instead be focusing on "various recording projects." Among the projects, apparently, is a solo album that he told Variety in an October 2017 interview is "influenced by Southern California pop music of the '70s." Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. TEHRAN, April 14 (Xinhua) -- The recent floodings in most parts of Iran killed at least 76 people, Press TV reported on Sunday. The heavy downpours in north, west and southwest of the country also caused hundreds injured. Iranian officials are warning that even though floodwaters have been receding in most parts of the country, several provinces remain under the flood alerts due to renewed heavy precipitation. Ahad Vazifeh, an official with Iran's Meteorological Organization, said that there is a possibility that flash floods could still affect the southern provinces of Fars and Hormozgan, Sistan and Baluchestan in the southeast as well as South Khorasan and Khorasan Razavi provinces in the northeast of the country which are in a state of emergency. Rainfall is also expected to intensify in the southwestern Province of Khuzestan, he was quoted as saying. Massive downpours swept 25 out of 31 lranian provinces since March 19, with raging currents of water battering houses, washing away cars, destroying the infrastructures and agricultural fields. HOUSTON, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Bristow Group Inc. (NYSE: BRS) ("Bristow" or the "Company") today is providing an update on its efforts to complete its financial reporting process for the quarter ended December 31, 2018 and to best position the Company for the future. The Company has obtained waivers from certain lenders that extend the deadline under its agreements with those lenders for filing the Company's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended December 31, 2018 to June 19, 2019, subject to certain conditions. The Company has also retained financial and legal advisors to explore strategic financial alternatives, with the objective of strengthening its long-term capital position. In addition, the Company has determined it would be in the Company's best interest to exercise its contractual right to utilize a contractual grace period of up to 30 days and not make a $12.5 million interest payment on the 6.25% Senior Unsecured Notes maturing in 2022 (the "Senior Notes") as it continues to work on its overall financing arrangements. Bristow President and Chief Executive Officer L. Don Miller stated, "Bristow is working diligently with its financial and legal advisors to best position the company for the future, both financially and operationally. The steps we are announcing today will afford us additional time to continue our efforts to complete our financial reporting process and address our capital structure. Most importantly, we are, as always, focused on continuity of service in a safe, reliable and professional manner for our valued employees, clients and passengers, as we continue to navigate a challenging market." Financial Reporting and Debt Covenant Waivers The Company has obtained waivers of its covenants with its secured equipment financing lenders and asset backed revolving credit facility ("ABL") lenders with respect to the timing of delivery of unaudited financial statements for the quarter ended December 31, 2018. The waivers also include waivers of cross-default provisions arising from the decision to enter the 30-day grace period in connection with the Senior Notes. The waivers have the effect of extending the Company's deadline under its agreements with the lenders to file its 10-Q for the quarter ended December 31, 2018 until June 19, 2019, subject to certain conditions, including securing customary forbearance agreements with certain other debtholders as detailed in the Company's 8-K filing today. Strategic Financial Alternatives Review and Liquidity Update The Company has engaged Houlihan Lokey and Alvarez & Marsal as its financial advisors and Baker Botts L.L.P. and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz as its legal advisors to assist the Company in analyzing various strategic financial alternatives to address its capital structure, including strategic and refinancing alternatives to restructure its indebtedness and other contractual obligations. There can be no assurance that this review will result in any particular outcome, or that the Company will succeed in obtaining the forbearance agreements referred to above. As of April 12, 2019, the Company had approximately $202.1 million of liquidity, consisting of aggregate cash on hand and availability under its ABL facility. As part of the strategic financial review process, Bristow has elected not to make an interest payment of approximately $12.5 million due April 15, 2019 on the Senior Notes. Under the terms of the relevant indenture, the Company has a contractual grace period of up to 30 days during which it may elect to make the interest payment and cure any related default. Bristow believes it is in its best interest to use the grace period to continue working with its advisors and creditors to review alternatives for improving its capital structure. The Company does not intend to comment further on its financial results or performance until its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended December 31, 2018 has been filed with the SEC. About Bristow Group Inc. Bristow Group Inc. is the leading global industrial aviation services provider offering helicopter transportation, search and rescue (SAR) and aircraft support services to government and civil organizations worldwide. Bristow has major transportation operations in the North Sea, Nigeria and the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, and in most of the other major offshore oil and gas producing regions of the world, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Russia and Trinidad. Bristow provides SAR services to the private sector worldwide and to the public sector for all of the U.K. on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. For more information, visit bristowgroup.com. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS DISCLOSURE Statements contained in this news release that state Bristow's or management's intentions, hopes, beliefs, expectations or predictions of the future are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include statements regarding strategic alternatives and other statements identified by words such as "will," "expect," "believe," "anticipate," "estimate," "should," "intend," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "aim," "hope," "predict," and similar words, phrases and expressions, although not all forward-looking statements include such words, phrases or expressions. It is important to note that the Company's actual results could differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. Information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained from time to time in the Company's SEC filings, including the Company's Current Report on Form 8-K filed on April 15, 2019. Bristow Group Inc. disclaims any intention or obligation to revise any forward-looking statements, including financial estimates, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Contact: Global Media Relations Adam Morgan Director, Global Communications +1 281.253.9005 [email protected] Reevemark Hugh Burns/Delia Cannan/Molly Curry +1 212.433.4600 [email protected] Investor Relations Linda McNeill Director, Investor Relations +1 713.267.7622 [email protected] SOURCE Bristow Group Inc. Related Links http://www.bristowgroup.com MONTREAL, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- SDL (LSE: SDL), a global leader in content creation, translation and delivery, is pleased to announce that it will be providing a customized Linguistic Services Request Management System (LSRMS) to the Translation Bureau, a federal institution within the Public Services and Procurement Canada of the Government of Canada. Combining two of SDL's market-leading solutions, SDL MultiTrans and SDL Trados Studio, the Translation Bureau will have access to an unmatched set of feature-rich tools on one secure platform for managing linguistic services workflows, projects, and resources. As a key player within the Government of Canada, the Translation Bureau provides translation, interpretation and terminology services to federal departments and organizations, and both of Canada's Houses of Parliament. In addition to translating over 350 million words and providing close to 7,000 days of interpretation each year, the Bureau maintains Termium Plus, a terminology database of over 1.4 million records that garners 100,000 queries a day (3 million a month) from over 220 countries. The Translation Bureau wished to upgrade its linguistic services management system in order to meet current and future demands. It was looking for a highly secure, best-in-class industry solution that would allow the management and provision of end-to-end linguistic services and processes in an integrated way, while being scalable enough to support thousands of concurrently connected users without any service degradation. By bringing together two of the translation industry's most powerful tools SDL MultiTrans and SDL Trados Studio SDL is able to provide the Translation Bureau with an intelligent and centralized, web-based platform that allows automated translation workflows, interactive online editing and unified terminology through its advanced leveraging of translation memory. SDL's solution met all LSRMS requirements. At the heart of the solution will be SDL MultiTrans, providing strong business reporting, project management, and centralized translation memories with a workflow engine which complements all business management functions. Built with an unparalleled level of security, the translation environment of SDL MultiTrans complies with regulatory obligations and local data protection regulations, providing full content cycle control and audit trails. "We will be providing an enhanced solution tailored for the Translation Bureau, where project managers have complete control over their linguistic projects, within a secure, user-friendly environment capable of automating tasks, helping them manage projects more efficiently and to the highest security standards," said Christophe Djaouani, SVP, Regulated Industries at SDL. "This will up-level the way the Translation Bureau meets numerous stakeholder requirements." As well as the integration with SDL Trados Studio, the solution will provide the Translation Bureau with access to an ecosystem of 40+ Connectors to popular third party systems and technologies including machine translation engines, CMS, CRM, PIM, WCMS and many more. This includes connectivity to SDL's enterprise-grade Neural Machine Translation (NMT) offering, enabling fast and high-quality translation in a secure environment. About SDL SDL (LSE: SDL) is the global leader in content creation, translation and delivery. For 27 years we've helped companies communicate with confidence and deliver transformative business results by enabling powerful experiences that engage customers across multiple touchpoints worldwide. Are you in the know? Find out why 90 of the top 100 global companies work with and trust us on SDL.com. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. SOURCE SDL plc U.S. Marine Veteran and Company Co-Founder Honored to Participate in Panel VANCOUVER, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - Dan Anglin, Co-Founder & CEO of CANNAMERICA BRANDS CORP. ("CannAmerica" or the "Company") (CSE: CANA) (OTCQB: CNNXF) will be participating on National Cannabis Policy Summit panel, Thank You for Your Service: When Will Congress Let Veterans Use Medical Cannabis? at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. on Friday, April 19, 2019 at 3:30 p.m. ET. Mr. Anglin is a U.S. Marine veteran who served in both Desert Shield and Desert Storm and has spent the past decade championing veterans' access to cannabis. The Conference's second annual event will bring together leaders and activists in cannabis policy and the cannabis industry in order to converse on important issues relevant to their communities and businesses. Mr. Anglin is regarded as a national expert on cannabis policy reform and has owned and operated 38 licensed businesses across the nation. He was ever-present at the Colorado Capitol as the state's adult-use Amendment 64 was implemented, and continues to serve on rule-making working groups for the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division. He founded the Colorado Cannabis Chamber of Commerce (C4) in 2014, a nonprofit organization that provides advocacy and networking opportunities for stakeholders in the cannabis industry. CannAmerica Brands is an industry-leading cannabis branding, licensing and intellectual property company with a portfolio of premium cannabis brands in the United States. CannAmerica products are available in Colorado, Nevada and Maryland with plans to expand to an additional eight U.S. states and internationally to the Canadian market. "I am honored to be attending this forward-looking conference and receiving the opportunity to speak on a topic that I am passionate about," said Dan Anglin, CEO and Co-Founder of CannAmerica. "As a veteran owned and operated company, discussing medical cannabis as it relates to use by veterans is an area that Congress needs greater awareness, focus and education on." For more information, please visit www.cannamericabrands.com. On Behalf of the Board Dan Anglin CEO and Director (314) 495-4589 About CannAmerica Brands CannAmerica Brands is a U.S. marine veteran founded and operated portfolio of cannabis brands with licensing agreements in the states of Colorado, Nevada and Maryland. The Company aims to maximize the value of its brands by employing strong brand management teams, marketing and licensing the brands through various distribution channels, including dispensaries, wholesalers and distributors, in the United States and internationally. The Company's core strategy is to enhance and monetize the global reach of its existing brands, and to pursue additional strategic acquisitions to grow the scope and diversity of its brand portfolio. For more information, please visit www.cannamericabrands.com. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: This release includes certain statements and information that may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws or forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements in this news release, other than statements of historical facts, including statements regarding future estimates, plans, objectives, timing, assumptions or expectations of future performance, including that the Company plans to expand to eight additional U.S. states and internationally to the Canadian market are forward-looking statements and contain forward-looking information. Generally, forward-looking statements and information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "intends" or "anticipates", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "should", "would" or "occur". Forward-looking statements are based on certain material assumptions and analysis made by the Company and the opinions and estimates of management as of the date of this press release, including that the Company will be able to expand into eight additional U.S. states and internationally to the Canadian market. These forward-looking statements are 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 statements or forward-looking information. Important factors that may cause actual results to vary, include, without limitation, the Company will not be able to expand into eight additional U.S. states and that the Company will not be able to expand internationally to the Canadian market. Although management of the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or 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 statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement, forward-looking information or financial out-look that are incorporated by reference herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. SOURCE CannAmerica Brands Corp. INDIANAPOLIS, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Celadon Group, Inc. ("Celadon," the "Company," "we," or "us") (OTCPink: CGIP) announced today that it has disposed of substantially all of the assets used in its Logistics business division (the "Logistics Division" or "Logistics") in an all cash transaction. The Company continued its strategic plan to streamline operations, reduce total debt, and focus on its core trucking business by completing the sale of Logistics today, with an effective financial transfer date of April 1, 2019. The purchaser was TA Services, Inc. ("TA Services"), a PS Logistics, LLC ("PS Logistics") subsidiary. PS Logistics is a rapidly growing full-service provider of asset-based transportation, brokerage, 3PL, and supply chain services. The Logistics Division, which provides a full spectrum of freight brokerage, transportation management, and warehousing solutions, contributed approximately $139 million in revenue to the Company in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2018. The proceeds were used to pay transaction expenses, to reduce borrowings under the Company's revolving credit agreement, and to provide additional liquidity. The transaction will include an ongoing strategic relationship under which the Company will have access to the Logistics platform to continue to serve customers' needs on a revenue sharing basis as well as a commitment for the Company not to conduct independent brokerage operations. The transition of customer relationships, IT, and other activities will be ongoing. Jon Russell, the Company's President and Chief Operating Officer and former President of Logistics, will remain a member of the Company's senior management team, while serving as a consultant to TA Services through the transition process. Post-transition, Mr. Russell is expected to become part of TA Services management team. Paul Svindland, the Company's Chief Executive Officer, commented: "The sale of Logistics marks another important milestone in executing our strategic plan to simplify our business and reduce debt. Over the past several quarters, we have divested the former Quality business, the joint venture with Element, our flatbed business, our West Coast dedicated business, A&S/Buckler, and now Logistics. Giving effect to these dispositions, the go-forward Celadon has returned to its roots as an asset-based truckload carrier serving the North American market, with particular focus on the eastern half of the United States and cross border traffic with Mexico and Canada. On a pro forma basis, we remain one of the largest industry competitors, with key locations in approximately a dozen states and provinces and a consolidated annual revenue run rate of approximately $550 million. "From a leverage perspective, this transaction and our recent sale of our A&S Kinard and Buckler subsidiaries have reduced our outstanding borrowings and capital leases by approximately $185 million. We continue to work with existing and new financing sources toward both an extension of our current facility and a longer-term capital structure that will support our ongoing operational and financial improvement efforts." Mr. Svindland continued, "We expect that TA Services' significant existing footprint and resources, combined with Jon Russell's expertise, will provide an excellent platform for Logistics' continued growth and dedication to excellent customer service. We look forward to the ongoing strategic alignment between our companies and are confident in delivering continued value to our customers as well as an excellent new home for the Logistics employees." Additional Information The Company will provide additional information concerning the Logistics disposition and Mr. Russell's ongoing role at Celadon on a Form 8-K to be filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. About Celadon Celadon Group, Inc. (www.celadongroup.com) is one of North America's leading cross-border carriers and, through its subsidiaries, provides long haul, regional, local, dedicated, intermodal, temperature-protect, and expedited freight service across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Forward Looking Statements This press release contains certain statements that may be considered 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, and such statements are subject to the safe harbor created by those sections and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Such statements may be identified by their use of terms or phrases, including "expects," "expected," "will," "would be," "intends," "believes," and similar terms and phrases. Forward-looking statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of our management and are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which cannot be predicted or quantified, which could cause future events and actual results to differ materially from those set forth in, contemplated by, or underlying the forward-looking statements. In this press release, statements relating to Mr. Russell's future role at TA Services and the Company, Celadon's continued logistics service to customers through the strategic relationship with TA Services, PS Logistics, and the Company's continued efforts to obtain a long-term capital structure, among others, are forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Readers should review and consider factors that could cause actual results to differ from expectations and various disclosures by the Company in its press releases, stockholder reports, and filings with the SEC. For more information: Paul Svindland Chief Executive Officer (317) 972-7000 [email protected] SOURCE Celadon Group Inc. HOUSTON, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- C&J Energy Services, Inc. (NYSE: CJ) announced today that it will issue its first quarter 2019 financial and operating results on Tuesday, May 7, 2019, before the market open. In conjunction with this release, C&J Energy Services has scheduled a conference call for 10:00 a.m. E.T. (9:00 a.m. C.T.) on Tuesday, May 7, 2019, which will be webcast live. Supplemental materials referenced on the conference call will be posted immediately prior to the call in the investor relations section on the Company's website. Information on how to access the conference call and webcast is set forth below: What: C&J Energy Services' First Quarter 2019 Earnings Call When: Tuesday, May 7, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. E.T. (9:00 a.m. C.T.) Where: Live via phone by calling U.S. (Toll Free): 1-855-560-2574 or International: 1-412-542-4160 and asking for the "C&J Energy Services' Earnings Call," or live via webcast at www.cjenergy.com on the Investor Relations page. Participants are encouraged to dial into the conference call ten to fifteen minutes before the scheduled start time to avoid any delays entering the earnings call. For those who cannot listen to the live call, a telephonic replay will be available through May 14, 2019 and may be accessed by calling U.S. (Toll Free): 1-877-344-7529 or International: 1-412-317-0088, using the access code: 10130830. An archive of the webcast will also be available shortly after the call at www.cjenergy.com on the Investor Relations page. About C&J Energy Services C&J Energy Services is a leading provider of well construction and intervention, well completion, well support and other complementary oilfield services to oil and gas exploration and production companies throughout the United States. We offer a comprehensive suite of services throughout the life cycle of the well, including fracturing, cased-hole wireline and pumping, cementing, coiled tubing, rig services, fluids management and other well support services. We are headquartered in Houston, Texas and operate across all active onshore basins of the continental United States. For additional information, please visit www.cjenergy.com. C&J Energy Services Investor Contact Daniel E. Jenkins Vice President Investor Relations [email protected] 1-713-260-9986 SOURCE C&J Energy Services, Inc. Related Links http://www.cjenergy.com GUANGZHOU, China, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- CNFinance Holdings Limited (NYSE: CNF) ("CNFinance" or the "Company"), a leading home equity loan service provider in China, today announced that it will hold its 2018 annual general meeting of shareholders (the "AGM") at 44/F, Tower G, No. 16 Zhujiang Dong Road, Tianhe District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province 510620, People's Republic of China on May 20, 2019 at 3:00 p.m. 5:00 p.m. (Beijing Time). No proposal will be submitted for shareholder approval at the AGM. Instead, the AGM will serve as an open forum for shareholders and beneficial owners of the Company's American depositary shares ("ADSs") to discuss Company affairs with management. The board of directors of the Company has fixed the close of business on April 15, 2019 as the record date (the "Record Date") for determining the shareholders entitled to receive notice of the AGM or any adjournment or postponement thereof. Holders of record of the Company's ordinary shares at the close of business on the Record Date are entitled to attend the AGM and any adjournment or postponement thereof in person. Beneficial owners of the Company's ADSs are also welcome to attend the AGM in person. About CNFinance Holdings Limited CNFinance Holdings Limited (NYSE: CNF) ("CNFinance" or the "Company") is a leading home equity loan service provider in China. CNFinance facilitates loans by connecting micro- and small-enterprise ("MSE") owners with its funding partners. The Company's primary target borrower segment is MSE owners who own real properties in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities in China. The loans CNFinance facilitates are primarily funded through a trust lending model with its trust company partners who are well-established with sufficient funding sources and have licenses to engage in lending business nationwide. The Company's risk mitigation mechanism is embedded in the design of its loan products, supported by an integrated online and offline process focusing on risks of both borrowers and collateral and further enhanced by effective post-loan management procedures. For more information, please contact: CNFinance E-mail: [email protected] Christensen In China Mr. Christian Arnell Phone: +86-10-5900-1548 E-mail: [email protected] In US Ms. Linda Bergkamp Phone: +1-480-614-3004 Email: [email protected] SOURCE CNFinance Holdings Limited ARLINGTON, Va., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Knowland, an industry leader in market intelligence for hotels, convention and visitor bureaus (CVB), convention centers and other meeting venues, today announced its inaugural edition of the Knowland Quarterly Market Outlook Report. This report shows that demand sourced from CVB sales efforts is outpacing expectations for overall demand. Knowland Room Night Data: CVBs sourced demand is outpacing expectations for overall demand growth. CVB room nights booked in 2018 were up by 4.4% over 2017 and room nights actualized in 2018 also grew by 2.0% over 2017. Knowland, through its TAP solutions , aggregates, analyzes, and reports on past and future event booking data as reported by participating CVBs, to deliver actionable trending insights needed to make better strategic decisions. This data is pulled from more than 60 major North American markets and is unique in providing group room nights booking pace information across the entire multi-year future booking window. It represents over 30 million annual room nights and nearly 50% of the group business conducted by hotels across these markets. "By keeping tabs on the pace of bookings for future dates, we are able to anticipate hospitality industry performance trends and assist our customers on how to best navigate forward," said Tim Hart, chief executive officer of Knowland. CVB sourced group business is pacing 4.3% ahead in room nights over last year. With an overall supply growth of 2.1% projected to outpace overall demand growth of 1.6% in 2019, and supply growth projected to continue at the same rate over the next two years, hotels will be best served by working in close partnership with their CVBs. Building a sufficient base of group business will help hotels weather risks in this increasingly uncertain environment. In fact, CVB room nights booked in 2018 were up by 4.4% over 2017 and room nights actualized in 2018 also grew by 2.0% over 2017. Knowland regularly shares insights from this data in its monthly Pace Navigator newsletter, to help industry stakeholders anticipate what lies ahead and better manage their business accordingly. Knowland is now publishing a quarterly report which will provide a deeper look into and analysis of this data. The inaugural edition of Knowand's Quarterly Market Outlook Report recaps 2018 performance and explores the current outlook for the coming months and years. Learn more about the Knowland Quarterly Market Outlook by registering for the upcoming Webcast. About We believe that there is a better way to sell group business. Our suite of hospitality solutions harnesses the power of data and analytics to help our customers know their buyers and win in the group and meetings marketplace. With the industry's largest historical database of actualized events, we deliver insights that win more share, optimize revenue strategies, and accelerate sales cycles. That's the Knowland Advantage. See why thousands of customers trust Knowland to sell smarter and maximize their revenue. Knowland operates globally and is headquartered in Rosslyn, VA. To learn more about our suite of solutions, please visit www.knowland.com or call 202-312-5880. Media Contact/Inquiries: Lisa Bonanno, 202-312-5880, [email protected] SOURCE Knowland Related Links http://www.knowland.com TEMECULA, Calif., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Doffo Winery is proud to announce that they have been named the Temecula Valley Winery of the Year at the 9th Annual Xenia Hospitality Awards. "We are very honored to have won this award," commented Damian Doffo, General Manager and Winemaker at Doffo Winery. "We work very hard as a family to not only produce premium wine but also to deliver an exceptional experience for our members and guests." Marcelo Doffo (right) with his children Samantha and Damian. Presented by Visit Temecula Valley, the Xenia Hospitality Awards are "awarded to tourism businesses and individuals who have displayed exemplary hospitality and service to our visitors and community members." The Cilurzo Award for Winery of the Year is named for the late Vincenzo Cilurzo and his wife Audrey, who planted the region's first commercial vineyard in 1968. The Temecula Valley AVA now comprises 33,000 acres, with more than 40 wineries producing 500,000 cases of wine each year. Doffo Winery was one of five wineries that were nominated and evaluated by Visit Temecula Valley and a special selection committee. Following their evaluations, the committee concluded that Doffo Winery's commitment to providing exceptional service and producing outstanding wine, its promotion of the Temecula Valley Wine Country brand in the media, and its philanthropic activities with its events and community outreach programs are all characteristics of the Winery of the Year recipient. The Winery of the Year Award comes at a time when the Temecula Valley is establishing itself as one of the premier wine growing regions in California. Earlier this year, Wine Enthusiast named Temecula Valley one of the world's 10 Best Wine Travel Destinations for 2019, an announcement that will only add to the growing popularity of Southern California's wine country. This is not the first accolade that Doffo Winery has received. The winery's Zinfandel was awarded first prize at the Temecula Valley People's Choice Blind Tasting Awards in October 2018, the second consecutive year that a Doffo wine took top honors. To learn more about Doffo Winery, its wines and how to plan your next visit, head to www.doffowines.com. Follow them on Facebook and Instagram for the latest updates and upcoming events. Media Contact: Ron Benfield Phone: 714-960-5500 Email: [email protected] About Doffo Winery: The Doffo family's philosophy has always been that good winemaking begins in the vineyard. The meticulous care and attention that Doffo Winery gives its grapes on a daily basis results in rich and intense handcrafted wines that can be enjoyed immediately or aged for a special wine drinking experience. A unique feature of the beautiful Doffo grounds is the MotoBarrel Room that is home to barrel-aging wines and the MotoDoffo Collection. Learn more at www.doffowines.com. Related Images doffo-family.jpg Doffo Family Marcelo Doffo (right) with his children Samantha and Damian. award.jpg Award Damian Doffo accepts the award with his father, Marcelo. SOURCE Doffo Winery Related Links https://www.doffowines.com NEW YORK, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Following a competitive bidding process, the State of Colorado selected FAIR Health to provide its expertise and data resources to aid in analyzing, revising and updating Colorado's workers' compensation fee schedule. FAIR Health, a national, independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing transparency to healthcare costs and health insurance information, will work closely with the Division of Workers' Compensation to update the Colorado Workers' Compensation Medical Fee Schedule, including values for medical, anesthesia, transportation, HCPCS and dental procedures. The new contract marks the first time FAIR Health will be supporting Colorado in updating its workers' compensation fee schedule. In addition to helping to assure that the fee schedule remains current, comprehensive and geographically relevant, FAIR Health will participate in meetings to gather feedback from stakeholders. While using data from the State of Colorado, FAIR Health will use its own healthcare database for comparative analysis and benchmarking. FAIR Health President Robin Gelburd stated: "We look forward to assisting the State of Colorado and the Division of Workers' Compensation in their efforts to update and maintain a fee schedule that pertains to the state's specific needs. In our experience, state fee schedules benefit greatly from addressing the specific needs of the state and utilizing data that have been validated by an independent, neutral organization such as FAIR Health in order to accommodate all stakeholders, including injured workers." FAIR Health's experienced team is already working with a number of other states to develop or support their workers' compensation fee schedules through data and services to address states' varying needs. For instance, FAIR Health has been assisting Georgia and Kentucky for many years to update their fee schedules and is currently assisting the Mississippi Workers' Compensation Commission with their 2019 fee schedule, which will be released later this year. FAIR Health data are not only the basis for fee schedules in some states, but also serve as a primary data source in many states for private companies that process workers' compensation claims in the absence of a state fee schedule or when a procedure is not valued in a state's fee schedule. In addition, FAIR Health data are referenced in statutes, regulations and official memoranda around the country as the designated source of cost information for a variety of other state health-related programs. Follow us on Twitter @FAIRHealth About FAIR Health FAIR Health is a national, independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing transparency to healthcare costs and health insurance information through data products, consumer resources and health systems research support. FAIR Health possesses the nation's largest collection of private healthcare claims data, which includes over 28 billion claim records contributed by payors and administrators who insure or process claims for private insurance plans covering more than 150 million individuals. FAIR Health licenses its privately billed data and data productsincluding benchmark modules, data visualizations, custom analytics, episodes of care analytics and market indicesto commercial insurers and self-insurers, employers, providers, hospitals and healthcare systems, government agencies, researchers and others. Certified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as a national Qualified Entity, FAIR Health also receives data representing the experience of all individuals enrolled in traditional Medicare Parts A, B and D; FAIR Health houses data on Medicare Advantage enrollees in its private claims data repository. FAIR Health can produce insightful analytic reports and data products based on combined Medicare and commercial claims data for government, providers, payors and other authorized users. FAIR Health has earned HITRUST CSF and Service Organization Controls (SOC 2) certifications by meeting the rigorous data security requirements of these standards. As a testament to the reliability and objectivity of FAIR Health data, the data have been incorporated in statutes and regulations around the country and designated as the official, neutral data source for a variety of state health programs, including workers' compensation and personal injury protection (PIP) programs. FAIR Health data serve as an official reference point in support of certain state balance billing laws that protect consumers against bills for surprise out-of-network and emergency services. FAIR Health also uses its database to power a free consumer website available in English and Spanish and an English/Spanish mobile app, which enable consumers to estimate and plan for their healthcare expenditures and offer a rich educational platform on health insurance. The website has been honored by the White House Summit on Smart Disclosure, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), URAC, the eHealthcare Leadership Awards, appPicker, Employee Benefit News and Kiplinger's Personal Finance. FAIR Health also is named a top resource for patients in Elisabeth Rosenthal's book, An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back. For more information on FAIR Health, visit fairhealth.org. Contact: Dean Sicoli Executive Director of Communications and Government Relations FAIR Health 646-664-1645 [email protected] SOURCE FAIR Health Related Links http://www.fairhealth.org CLEARWATER, Fla., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Florida Agency Network (FAN) is joining forces with Total Title Solutions (TTS), a company with multiple locations in Pinellas, Pasco, and Hernando Counties. This merger aims at expanding each organization's footprint into key Florida markets. TTS was established in 2009 and their number one goal was to provide great customer service. Their owner, Abe Moussa, built a team with experienced title veterans and created cutting edge technology to help streamline the title process for the TTS staff, and their clients. TTS couldn't be a better match for FAN. Between the two companies the resources are vast, and capitalizing on those resources will create an improved experience for the clients. "As a team, we are excited about the services and products that FAN has to offer. We all believe that the TTS way is already above and beyond the standards of the Title Industry," says Angie Haddon, Chief Operating Officer of TTS. "However, the merger with FAN will make a superior experience! Anyone involved in the real estate transaction will continue to be in GREAT hands." FAN will take control of TTS' operations. Angie Haddon will become a Division Manager for FAN, while Lisa Jahr will be promoted to Regional Manager and will oversee offices throughout the Tampa Bay Area. The merger will add five new locations for FAN, which include two in Pinellas, two in Pasco, and one in Hernando County. "At an earlier point in our careers, Chris LaChance, our Sales Manager, and I enjoyed a good relationship with Abe and Angie on both a personal and professional level. We've maintained that relationship over the years, and knowing them and how well they ran their organization gave us the confidence to pursue this opportunity seriously. TTS has great people and a great reputation, and we couldn't picture a better strategic fit for both of our companies," stated Mike LaRosa, Esq., Chief Operating Officer for FAN. "We are so excited to have TTS become part of FAN and continue to grow our footprint in the Tampa Bay Area. Abe, Angie, and the team have a like-minded culture to FAN, and we are grateful for the opportunity to service our clients together," stated Amy Gregory, President of Title Operations for FAN. About Florida Agency Network The FLORIDA AGENCY NETWORK (FAN) is a conglomerate of independent title agencies, settlement service providers, and innovative technology companies within the State of Florida. FAN has formed a strategic alliance amongst members and vendors, in addition to creating proprietary technologies, to better serve its clients, allowing it to provide customized solutions to protect and streamline the closing experience. Members share back-office services, pooled resources, access to industry-leading technology, improved efficiencies, and the ability to offer their clients greater geographic coverage throughout Florida with SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 security compliance solutions available. For more information, please visit http://www.FLAgency.net. SOURCE Florida Agency Network Related Links https://flagency.net HANGZHOU and SHAOXING, China, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Ascletis Pharma Inc. (Ascletis, 1672.HK), a commercial-stage biotechnology company addressing unmet medical needs in therapeutic areas including anti-viral, cancer and fatty liver diseases, announces today that according to the official notifications from Zhejiang Provincial Medical Insurance Bureau, Zhejiang Provincial Department of Finance and Zhejiang Provincial Health Committee, the "Basic Medical Insurance -- Reimbursement-by-disease for outpatients with Hepatitis C (Antiviral Therapy)" program will be launched in Zhejiang Province. Ganovo (Danoprevir) is eligible for the Basic Medical Insurance of Zhejiang Province -- Reimbursement-by-disease for outpatients with Hepatitis C. Ascletis' second direct-acting antiviral agent (DAA), Category 1 new drug -- Ravidasvir will also be eligible for the Basic Medical Insurance of Zhejiang Province -- Reimbursement-by-disease for outpatients with Hepatitis C once it is approved by National Medical Products Administration (NMPA). Ganovo entry into the Basic Medical Insurance of Zhejiang Province -- Reimbursement-by-disease for outpatients with Hepatitis C is another significant advancement for patient access to Ganovo after its enrollment in Tianjin Basic Medical Insurance Program under capped-reimbursement per patient pilot program, Chengdu Basic Medical Insurance and Shaoxing government funding subsidy program. Ganovo is the first DAA developed and commercialized by a domestic company in China. Ganovo inhibits the Hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS3/4A protease that is critical to HCV replication. In the phase III clinical trial conducted in mainland China, Ganovo regimen (Ganovo in combination with PEGylated interferon and ribavirin) demonstrated a cure rate of 97% (SVR12) in HCV genotype 1 non-cirrhotic patients with a 12-week treatment duration. Ganovo, in combination with Ravidasvir, an NDA accepted HCV NS5A inhibitor, forms an all-oral, interferon-free HCV therapy (RDV/DNV Regimen), which offers a cure rate of 99% (SVR12) in the phase II/III clinical trial of HCV genotype 1 non-cirrhotic patients with 12-week treatment duration. In the same phase II/III clinical trial, RDV/DNV Regimen demonstrated a cure rate of 100% (SVR12) for patients with baseline NS5A resistance mutations. Jinzi J. Wu, Ph.D., Ascletis' Founder, Chairman and CEO commented, "We greatly appreciate Zhejiang Provincial Medical Insurance Bureau, Zhejiang Provincial Department of Finance and Zhejiang Provincial Health Committee for their attention and care for Hepatitis C patients. The timely introduction of the reimbursement policies will greatly benefit Hepatitis C patients to gain access to high efficacy DAA such as Ganovo. With Ganovo entry into the Basic Medical Insurance of Zhejiang Province -- Reimbursement-by-disease for outpatients with Hepatitis C, this will allow for more Hepatitis C patients in China to access and benefit from Ganovo treatment regimen. Ganovo reimbursement success reflects the strong endorsement and validation of Ganovo regimen's efficacy and safety profile from clinical community. In addition, this also demonstrates that domestic innovative drugs can compete effectively against imported drugs in terms of efficacy, safety and pharmacoeconomic value." SOURCE Ascletis Pharma Inc. The "Non-invasive, urine-based prostate cancer detection kit" invented by HKBU and its spin-off company New Life Medicine Technology Company Limited (NLMT), which won the Gold Medal with the Congratulations of Jury. The "OH Furniture Collection" invented by Mr Andrea Ingrassia , a lecturer from the Academy of Visual Arts, which won a Gold Medal. , a lecturer from the Academy of Visual Arts, which won a Gold Medal. The "OHO Jewellery Collection" invented by Mr Andrea Ingrassia , a lecturer from the Academy of Visual Arts, which won a Silver Medal. Extending his wholehearted congratulations to the winning teams, HKBU President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Roland Chin said that the awards signified that HKBU's innovative research has been recognised by the international academic and professional community. Professor Chin thanked the scholars for creating new knowledge through impactful research that can solve real-world problems. Such an impact was notably achieved by the winning project "non-invasive, urine-based prostate cancer detection kit". He also commended Mr Andrea Ingrassia's achievements, as his two awards are among the few non-science and non-medical awards that HKBU scholars have won at the Geneva event. The award-winning prostate cancer detection kit developed by HKBU's Head of the Department of Chemistry Professor Gary Wong Ka-leung and NLMT could revolutionise the detection of prostate cancer, which is the third most common cancer in men in Hong Kong. While medical statistics have reported that one in six men will develop prostate cancer during their lifetimes, the disease is curable with minimal side effects if detected early. The innovative test, which can detect the biomarker affected by cancer cells with an accuracy of up to 90%, can be easily used at home as users simply need to mix a urine sample with the chemical agent. After a short period of time, users will know if they are likely to have prostate cancer and whether they require further screening and tests. The novel method is faster, non-invasive and can help address the limited sensitivity and specificity problems associated with traditional blood tests, which have an accuracy of around 40% and can only be conducted in a professional laboratory setting. The invention has been filed with patent applications in the United States, Europe, mainland China, Taiwan and the PCT Procedure. This prostate cancer detection kit technology was licensed to Jacobson Pharma Corporation Limited for commercialisation. The "OH Furniture Collection" and "OHO Jewellery Collection" consist of an interlocking design invented by Mr Andrea Ingrassia. The invention has been granted patents in the United States and mainland China. The interlocking mechanism can be applied to a variety of products for daily use, such as jewellery and furniture. The unique invention, which can be scaled up accordingly, enables flexibility and customisation, while also facilitating simple disassembly. By integrating the design into furniture, chairs can be easily stacked and also turned into tables, providing a modern solution to our interior needs. Likewise, pieces of jewellery can be easily modified depending on the occasion. Media enquiries Communication and Public Relations Office, Hong Kong Baptist University ([email protected]) SOURCE Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) PUNE, India, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- 360Quadrants powered by MarketsandMarkets, has released a quadrant on Industrial Control Systems Security Solutions in Energy and Utilities to help businesses make quicker and more informed decisions. The first release of the quadrant has Honeywell, Fortinet, and ABB sharing space as Visionary Leaders. 360Quadrants are generated post analysis of companies (product portfolios and business strategy). Quadrants are updated every three months, and the position of vendors reflect how buyers, industry experts, and other vendors rate them on different parameters. Quadrant Highlights 100+ companies offering Industrial Control Systems Security solutions were analyzed, of which 25 companies were shortlisted and categorized on a quadrant under Visionary Leaders, Innovators, Dynamic Differentiators, and Emerging Companies. ABB, Belden, Check Point Software Technologies, Cisco Systems, Fortinet, GE, Honeywell, McAfee, and Siemens have been identified as visionary leaders as they have established product portfolios and a robust market presence and business strategy. Kaspersky Lab, Bayshore Networks, Indegy, Nozomi Networks, Schneider Electric, and Symantec have been identified as innovators as these vendors have a focused product portfolio but weak growth strategies. BAE Systems, Carbon Black, CyberArk, Claroty, and SecurityMatters have been identified as emerging companies as they do not have strong business strategies as compared to other established vendors, while FireEye, IBM, Raytheon, Rockwell Automation, and Trend Micro have been recognized as dynamic differentiators. The 360Quadrants platform provides the most granular industrial control systems security solutions in energy and utilities comparison between vendors. Methodology The methodology used to rank Industrial Control Systems Security Solutions in Energy and Utilities involved extensive secondary research including annual reports, press releases, investor presentations, whitepapers, and various related directories and databases to identify key vendors offering industrial control systems security solutions. Of these, 25 vendors were shortlisted on the basis of their core features, geographic footprint, and other criteria. The scores and weights for shortlisted vendors against each parameter were finalized post research. After the ratings were finalized, each vendor was placed in respective quadrants based on their score in the product offering and business strategy parameters. Recent activities in Industrial Control Systems Security covering Nozomi Networks include: GE Power and Nozomi Networks Collaborate to Improve Cybersecurity for Global Energy and Industrial Operators GE Power selected Nozomi Networks to provide cybersecurity protection and real-time visibility for customers of energy and other critical infrastructures across the globe. Nozomi Networks will provide GE Power with advanced solutions for ICS cyber resiliency and operational visibility in real-time. Recent activities in Industrial Control Systems Security covering ABB include: ABB Launches OPTIMAX Solutions for Power Generation Companies ABB launched its OPTIMAX solution for the easy transition of new energy business models. This solution reduces the impact on the environment by reducing energy costs and emissions in sites through the optimization of energy sources. The solution has been launched for virtual power plants and commercial industries. Many industries lack the capability to reduce emission and energy costs despite having Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) such as wind and solar power installed. OPTIMAX monitors and controls energy use by connecting to these Distributed Energy Resources to control costs and emissions. About 360Quadrants 360Quadrants is the world's only comparison platform that combines expert analysis with crowdsourced insights. It essentially compares companies in emerging technologies on 100+ critical parameters. Each company is reviewed by 4 stakeholdersbuyers, industry experts, other vendors, and MarketsandMarkets analyststo make it unbiased. 360Quadrants aims to simplify and de-risk complex purchase decisions. Buyers get to personalize their quadrant against their specific needs. The combined insight from peers, analysts, experts, and vendors cut the bias and help the buyer find the best-fit solution. Vendors get to position themselves to win ideal new customers, customize their quadrants, decide key parameters, and position themselves strategically in a niche space, to be consumed by giants and start-ups alike. Experts get to grow their personal brand and increase their thought leadership. The 360Quadrants platform targets the building of a social network that links industry experts with companies worldwide. 360Quadrants has also launched quadrants in fields like Application Modernization Services, AI in Fintech Soltions, and Predictive Analytics Software. Contact: Mr. Manoj Singhvi [email protected] MarketsandMarkets Research Private Ltd. Tower B5, Office 101, Magarpatta SEZ, Hadapsar, Pune - 411013, India Phone: +1-888-600-6441 SOURCE MarketsandMarkets MIAMI, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The European Institute of Efficient Intelligences (IEIE - Instituto Europeo de Inteligencias Eficientes) and Ismael Cala will be convening "School of Emotions: Experience," an intensive 6-day course from July 1 to 7, in Jerez de la Frontera (Spain). "In this course, attendees will learn to identify their emotions. They will be given tools by a group of experts to manage these emotions appropriately. Emotions are neither good nor bad, but the way they are interpreted and the way they affect us are very important. Through practical exercises, participants will be able to connect with their emotions, control their thoughts and generate feelings to improve their lives, their surroundings and their relationship to others," said IEIE President, Dra. Estrella Flores-Carretero. Noted business strategist, communicator and inspirational author, Ismael Cala, for his part, argued that "it's proven that successful people, in either personal or professional terms, are those who can achieve a good management of their emotions. This enables them to adapt to their surroundings efficiently and intelligently, even in situations of conflict." "Those who are able to recognize with certainty the emotions that govern their lives can take actions that will enable them to look for the causes that give rise to them, and use techniques to control them, preventing them from exercising control over us, and from our somatizing them as illness," Cala added. Register at: http://escuelaemociones.com/ "School of Emotions" has already held two theoretical sessions in Miami. Now, with a new format, the organizers of "The Experience" will help participants to perceive a positive impact on their self-esteem, self-image, assertiveness, self-control, social skills, conflict resolution and decision making. Registration at: http://escuelaemociones.com/ ABOUT IEIE The European Institute of Efficient Intelligences (IEIE - Instituto Europeo de Inteligencias Eficientes) offers programs of analysis, training and reinforcement in efficiency strategies for companies and individuals, ranging from children to adults, with more than 30 years of experience and research. It inspires creativity, talent, intelligence, the entrepreneurial spirit, reflection, knowledge, emotional skills, and as a result, personal and corporate success. Its headquarters are in Spain, and it has a branch office in Miami, USA. ABOUT ISMAEL CALA A life and business strategist, for five and a half years Ismael Cala was the host of CALA on CNN en Espanol. A businessman and social entrepreneur. Author of eight bestsellers on themes of leadership, entrepreneurship and personal development, including El poder de escuchar ('The power of listening'), and El analfabeto emocional ('The emotional illiterate'). Cala was born in Santiago de Cuba in 1969, and holds a degree in Art History from Oriente University. He graduated from the School of Communication at York University in Toronto. He is President and founder of the Cala Enterprises Corporation and the Ismael Cala Foundation SOURCE Cala Enterprises Related Links http://escuelaemociones.com/ BIELEFELD, Germany, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- itelligence AG announces a change in its executive board. Dr Michael Dorin, CFO of itelligence AG, and the supervisory board reached a mutual amicable agreement according to which Dr Dorin will leave the company with effect as of April 30, 2019. Norbert Rotter, CEO of itelligence AG, will assume the responsibilities of Dr Dorin for the time being. Norbert Rotter, CEO of itelligence AG: "We thank Dr Michael Dorin for his great commitment and his valuable contribution to our company. With joint efforts, we were able make significant structural improvements to drive the growth of itelligence AG." Dr Dorin was a member of the executive board of itelligence AG since January 1, 2017. He was responsible for finance and accounting, controlling, purchasing, (internal) IT, compliance, risk management and legal affairs. itelligence itelligence AG transforms IT landscapes and business processes through the combination of innovative SAP software and technology with services and products developed in-house. As an SAP Global Platinum Partner, itelligence supports SMEs and large enterprises in every phase of their digital transformation. itelligence's range of services includes IT strategy and transformation consulting, software deployment and implementation, as well as application management and managed cloud services. The excellence of these services is built on the foundation of itelligence's local presence, global capacity, and comprehensive industry expertise. itelligence partners with customers to create new and innovative business opportunities through the use of IT for each facet of the customer's business. Thousands of satisfied customers have placed their trust in itelligence, many of them since the company was founded 30 years ago. itelligence's contribution to innovation and long-term business success has been confirmed by numerous SAP awards and leading market analysts. itelligence is part of the global NTT DATA group and employs over 8,000 people across 25 countries. In 2018, itelligence generated 926.6 million euros in total revenues. https://itelligencegroup.com/ Contact International Media: Head of Corporate Public Relations itelligence AG Silvia Dicke itelligence AG Konigsbreede 1 D-33605 Bielefeld E: [email protected] T: +49 (0) 521 / 9 14 48 - 107 W: http://itelligencegroup.com/de/ SOURCE itelligence AG "I am proud and humbled for being recognized for helping people every day and doing something that I truly love," said Jeff Germain. "With the incredible research and resources of Wells Fargo and its team members, I believe we have an amazing opportunity to best represent our clients better than any other financial institution. I am fortunate to be surrounded by a team of such competent and compassionate individuals to help me deliver the best experience possible. Jeff, along with his partner Vincent DiCarlo, bring an abundance of experience and knowledge to their clients, having earned the following designations: Certified Investment Management Consultant (CIMC), Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Certified Trust and Financial Advisor (CTFA), and Certified Financial Planner (CFP). The team was established in 1992 and cumulatively has 80 years of experience in the financial services industry. Jeff has also been recognized by Financial Times as one of the "Top 400 Financial Advisors" in the country, one of the "Top 50 Bank Advisors" in the country by Bank Consultants Magazine and as a Five Star Wealth Advisor by Los Angeles Magazine. These recognitions are based on a number of measurements including assets under management, designations, breadth of services, revenue, and compliance record. Jeff takes great pride in truly representing his clients' needs first and foremost. His team not only takes advantages of the deep pool of resources at Wells Fargo, they work with a vast network of providers outside of the bank as well to always ensure that they are always delivering the best solution for their clients' individual needs. About Barron's Top Financial Advisors in America List Advisors who wish to be ranked in Barron's will complete a 102-question survey about their practice. We then apply our rankings formula to that data to generate a ranking. The formula features three major categories of data: Assets, Revenue, and Quality of practice. The overall goal in publishing these rankings is to shine a spotlight on the best advisors, with an eye towards raising standards in the industry. About Wells Fargo Advisors With $1.4 trillion in client assets as of April 15, 2019, Wells Fargo provides investment advice and guidance to clients through nearly 14,000 full-service financial advisors and 5,000 licensed bankers. This vast network of advisors, one of the nation's largest, serves investors through locations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Wells Fargo Advisors is the trade name used by two separate registered broker-dealers and non-bank affiliates of Wells Fargo & Company: Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC and Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, LLC (members SIPC). Statistics include other broker-dealers of Wells Fargo & Company can be found at: www.wellsfargoadvisors.com About Wells Fargo Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.9 trillion in assets. Wells Fargo's vision is to satisfy our customers' financial needs and help them succeed financially. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, investment and mortgage products and services, as well as consumer and commercial finance, through 7,800 locations, more than 13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 37 countries and territories to support customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 259,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 26 on Fortune's 2018 rankings of America's largest corporations. News, insights and perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo Stories. Media Contacts: Joy Ogbunamiri 213-253-6038 SOURCE Wells Fargo VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc. (CSE: LDS), (OTCQX: LDSYF), (Frankfurt: LD6, WKN: A14XHT) ("LDS" or the "Company") announces that Highway 395 Dispensary has received approvals for environmental impact and yucca tree preservation requirements. Highway 395 Dispensary has received approvals from the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") regarding environmental impact of the proposed construction and has completed the required yucca tree preservation study to ensure that the proposed construction will not have a negative impact on the yucca tree population. The City of Adelanto informed Highway 395 Dispensary that the application for construction would most likely be on the agenda for planning commission approval this month. Once built, Highway 395 Dispensary would be accessible to a potential traffic count of over 120,000 vehicles per day with the benefit of a signal turn lane to easily access the facility from vehicles traveling in both directions. The dispensary will also offer direct delivery service operating under the name 420 Prime Delivery Inc. 420 Prime Delivery will service the high desert and southern California. The Company's CEO, Brad Eckenweiler, stated, "Highway 395 Dispensary is the final step in the completion of a truly vertically-integrated cannabis company from genetics to the customer's door step. With the completion of the dispensary and the ability to deliver directly to the customer, the Company's subsidiaries and affiliates can produce, package and deliver cannabis products at prices that will be significantly more competitive than other market participants." The Company will continue to inform the market of corporate developments as they become available. About Highway 395 Dispensary Inc. Highway 395 Dispensary Inc. is in the process of building a comprehensive dispensary experience with a full array of cannabis products for walk-in customers, drive-thru customers and direct delivery to the customer's home or office. The dispensary construction is anticipated to be completed in July/August of 2019. 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. WASHINGTON, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- International law firm McDermott Will & Emery has launched its new Compliance Toolkit and Checkup program for Physician Practice Management (PPM) organizations. Developed to help PPMs build new compliance programs or enhance their existing compliance standards, these two solutions will allow PPMs to more effectively identify and avoid potential compliance risk in the shifting health industry landscape. "With the growing intricacies of health care regulations, it's becoming more challenging for physicians and other medical providers to evaluate potential risk," explained Jason B. Caron and Jenny J. Wang, leaders of the Health Care Regulatory Compliance Toolkit & Checkup Team. "And while having an effective regulatory compliance program is crucial for risk evaluation, knowing how or where to start developing these programs can seem daunting. By offering our clients these two new compliance resources, we're helping them efficiently assess their compliance needs, and better equipping them to tackle the complex challenges they're facing." Derived from the experience of McDermott's top-ranked health care practice, the Compliance Toolkit and Checkup helps clients evaluate compliance risk and develop customized programing. COMPLIANCE TOOLKIT: provides the framework for developing a code of conduct and over 30 policies and procedures targeted to address the unique regulatory risks faced by physician practice management companies. provides the framework for developing a code of conduct and over 30 policies and procedures targeted to address the unique regulatory risks faced by physician practice management companies. COMPLIANCE CHECKUP: identifies gaps and weaknesses in existing compliance programs; based upon a methodology that takes into consideration evolving government guidelines, as well as the need to address critical ongoing operations. In addition to the Toolkit and Checkup, McDermott offers PPM companies a wide range of non-compliance services, including HIPAA privacy, security solutions, merger and acquisition strategy, and joint ventures. To learn more about McDermott's Physician Practice Management Compliance Toolkit and Checkup, or to schedule a consultation with one of our lawyers, please click here. McDermott Will & Emery is the nation's leading health care law firm. The Health Industry Advisory group is the only health practice to receive top national rankings from U.S. News Best Lawyers "Best Law Firms," Chambers USA, The Legal 500 US, and Law360. The practice was also recognized by Chambers as "Health Team of the Year" in 2010, 2013 and 2017. McDermott has held the top spot in PitchBook's League Tables as the most active firm for health care private equity since 2017. About McDermott Will & Emery McDermott Will & Emery partners with leaders around the world to fuel missions, knock down barriers and shape markets. With 20 locations on three continents, our team works seamlessly across practices, industries and geographies to deliver highly effectiveand often unexpectedsolutions that propel success. More than 1,100 lawyers strong, we bring our personal passion and legal prowess to bear in every matter for our clients and the people they serve. SOURCE McDermott Will & Emery Related Links http://www.mwe.com LONDON, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Medical Baby Monitoring Devices Market: Overview This report on the global medical baby monitoring devices market provides analysis for the period 20162026, wherein 2017 is the base year and 2018 to 2026 is the forecast period.Data for 2016 has been included as historical information. Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5750441/?utm_source=PRN The report covers market dynamics, including drivers, restraints, opportunities, trends, and policy and regulations, which are expected to influence the growth of the medical baby monitoring devices market during the said period. The study provides a comprehensive analysis of market growth throughout the forecast period in terms of value and volume estimates (US$ Mn and Thousand Units) across different geographies. Global Medical Baby Monitoring Devices Market: Trends and Opportunities This report on the medical baby monitoring devices market is categorized on the basis of product type, connectivity, hardware, application, and region. Rise in number of employed parents, increase in disposable income etc. are seen as key drivers of the medical baby monitoring devices market across the globe. Increase in demand for baby monitors in emerging economies and new innovations and technological development is anticipated to create good opportunities in the medical baby monitoring devices market. Evolution in e-commerce has created huge opportunities for manufacturers and distributors in the industry. In order to cater to a wide range of customers across the world, manufacturers and distributors of baby monitors are focusing on selling their products on various e-commerce websites. Rise in popularity of smart baby monitors will trigger the growth of the medical baby monitoring devices market during the forecast period. Global Medical Baby Monitoring Devices Market: Key Segments The medical baby monitoring devices market has been segmented on the basis of product type, connectivity, hardware, application, and region.Based on product type, the market has been classified into video monitor, audio monitor, and others. On the basis of connectivity, the market has been categorized into wireless and wired.In terms of hardware, the report is divided into camera, sensors, and others. Based on application, the report is bifurcated into hospital, residential, and nursery.Based on region, the report classifies the market into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and South America. The regions are bifurcated in terms of value and volume. Furthermore, prominent countries covered in the report include the U.S, Germany, Canada, France, U.K., India, Japan, China, GCC, and Brazil. Global Medical Baby Monitoring Devices Market: Scope of the Study The report highlights key developments in the medical baby monitoring devices market.Porter's Five Force Analysis, which identifies bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat from new entrants, threat from substitutes, and degree of competition is also included in the report. Value chain analysis shows work flow in the medical baby monitoring devices market and identifies types and raw material providers of this industry.Consumer buying behavior analysis and technological overview have been added in the report. It also covers region-wise price trend analysis.The comprehensive medical baby monitoring devices market estimates are the result of our in-depth secondary research, primary interviews, and in-house expert panel reviews. These market estimates have been analyzed by taking into account the impact of different political, social, economic, technological, and legal factors along with the current market dynamics affecting the medical baby monitoring devices market growth. The analysis has also been provided for each segment in terms of product type, connectivity, hardware, and application and region. Global Medical Baby Monitoring Devices Market: Competitive Landscape The report includes competition landscape, which covers market share analysis of major players in the global medical baby monitoring devices market based on their evenues, and profiles of prominent players.The market share analysis benchmarks leading players on the basis of their capabilities and potential to grow. Factors including market position, offerings, and R&D focus are attributed to a company's capabilities.Factors such as topline growth, market share, segment growth, infrastructure facilities, and future outlook are attributed to a company's potential to grow. This section also identifies and includes various recent developments and strategy of leading players in the medical baby monitoring devices market. Company profiling includes company overview, major business strategies, and key developments. Companies profiled in the global medical baby monitoring devices market include Angelcare Monitors Inc., Dorel Industries Inc., Motorola Solutions Inc., Summer Infant Inc., Koninklijke Philips N.V., Snuza, Hisense, Windeln.De, and Sony Corporation. The global medical baby monitoring devices market has been segmented as follows: Medical Baby Monitoring Devices Market, by Product Type Video Monitor Breathing Monitor Movement Monitor Audio Monitor Breathing Monitor Movement Monitor Others Sleep Tracker (wristwatch) Wall Mountable Stand Medical Baby Monitoring Devices Market, by Connectivity Wired Wireless Global Medical Baby Monitoring Devices Market, by Hardware Camera Room Temperature Sensor Camera Motion & Sound Detection Temperature & Motion Detection Sensors Under the Mattress Diaper Attachment Smart Wearable Others (Camera sensing, Non-wearable) Global Medical Baby Monitoring Devices Market, by Application Hospital Residential Nursery Global Medical Baby Monitoring Devices Market, by Region North America U.S. Canada Rest of North America Europe U.K. Germany France Rest of Europe Asia Pacific (APAC) China India Japan Rest of Asia Pacific Middle East & Africa (MEA) GCC South Africa Rest of Middle East & Africa South America Brazil Rest of South America Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5750441/?utm_source=PRN About Reportbuyer Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers For more information: Sarah Smith Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com Email: [email protected] Tel: +1 (718) 213 4904 Website: www.reportbuyer.com SOURCE ReportBuyer Related Links http://www.reportbuyer.com PITTSBURGH, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Federated Investors, Inc. today announced that monthly fund composition and performance data for Federated Premier Municipal Income Fund (NYSE: FMN) as of March 31, 2019, is now available in the Products section of FederatedInvestors.com. To order hard copies of this data or to be placed on a mailing list, call 800-245-0242 x5587538, email [email protected] or write to Federated Investors, 1001 Liberty Avenue, Floor 23, Pittsburgh, PA 15222. Federated Investors, Inc. (NYSE: FII) is a leading global investment manager with $459.9 billion in assets under management as of Dec. 31, 2018. Our investment solutions span 130 equity, fixed-income, alternative/private markets, multi-asset and money market funds and a range of separately managed account strategies. Providing comprehensive investment management to more than 9,500 institutions and intermediaries, our clients include corporations, government entities, insurance companies, foundations and endowments, banks and broker/dealers. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, Federated's nearly 1,900 employees include those in New York, Boston, London and several other offices worldwide. In 2018, Federated acquired a majority interest in Hermes Investment Management, which provides world-class active management and stewardship services. For more information, visit FederatedInvestors.com. ### SOURCE Federated Investors, Inc. Related Links http://FederatedInvestors.com SAN FRANCISCO, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- A prominent Argentine lawyer filed a multimillion-dollar federal complaint against Uber for the unimaginable harm Uber inflicted on him as a result of Uber's recklessly orchestrated entry into Buenos Aires. The suit was filed Friday, April 12, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The plaintiff is represented by McDonald Hopkins LLC. A copy of the complaint can be found here. The complaint asserts that Uber's introduction into Argentina's capital city, as has been a pattern in the company's tumultuous entry into new markets, took the approach that it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission. However, Uber's risk was not its own. Uber retained the plaintiff years before the launch simply to be the legal representative of Uber and to set up a local subsidiary in preparation for potential future operations. Instead of consulting or even giving plaintiff fair warning before beginning operations, Uber launched operations which even today are regarded by city government and taxing authorities as in violation of applicable laws. The launch, which the plaintiff only learned about via a spam email, was disastrous, causing him to endure years of prosecution under two criminal investigations, including charges for aggravated tax evasion which could lead to years of imprisonment. Additional threatened charges of evasion of federal and provincial taxes and money laundering also loom over the plaintiff's head. This widely publicized ordeal has been a staggering blow to the plaintiff. The complaint details a pattern of deceit whereby "Uber, a multibillion-dollar international behemoth with near limitless resources, allowed [plaintiff], who played no role in its operations, to be thrown to the wolves and bear the brunt of the eminently predictable public outcry, labor union and taxi driver rage, political pressure, police actions, and criminal charges. With [plaintiff] as a scapegoat, Uber's real Argentine counsel and advisors continued to operate behind the scenes unscathed." The complaint seeks compensatory and punitive damages for breach of fiduciary duty, deceit, fraud, negligence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Stephen J. Rosenfeld, the plaintiff's counsel, said "We filed the lawsuit to right an unspeakable wrong. A good and decent man with a 30-year career and an impeccable reputation until his path crossed Uber's has been fingerprinted, branded as a criminal, and devastated as a result of Uber's conduct. His name was synonymous with tax evasion and illegal activity even though Uber committed all of the alleged wrongdoing. Uber has yet to even publicly apologize for what it considers a mere inconvenience or collateral damage. This abhorrent conduct must be deterred, and the only way Uber will stop bullying others is to have someone like my client say enough is enough. Uber cannot trample over others and the law any longer." About McDonald Hopkins Founded in 1930, McDonald Hopkins is a business advisory and advocacy law firm with locations in Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Miami, and West Palm Beach. With more than 50 service and industry teams, the firm has the expertise and knowledge to meet the growing number of legal and business challenges our clients face. For more information about McDonald Hopkins, visit mcdonaldhopkins.com . CONTACT: David Carducci McDonald Hopkins LLC 600 Superior Avenue, East, Suite 2100 Cleveland, Ohio 44114 Phone: 216.348.5814 Email: [email protected] SOURCE McDonald Hopkins Related Links http://www.mcdonaldhopkins.com SEATTLE, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Inspired Futures AI, a Seattle-area edtech startup has welcomed new advisory board member, Dr. Jenny Klein-Sosa. mytaptrack, an IoT device that tracks the behaviors and symptoms of special needs children, allows teachers, parents and doctors to share real-time data for faster diagnoses and treatment. Dr. Klein-Sosa's role will be as a content expert advisor in the areas of clinical psychology and behavior management, child development, and special education laws and regulations. mytaptrack, an IoT device that tracks the behaviors and symptoms of special needs children, allows teachers, parents and doctors to share real-time data for faster diagnoses and treatment. Dr. Klein-Sosa received her Master's and Doctoral degrees in Clinical Psychology from the University of Central Florida, where she specialized in child and family intervention. She has published research in the area of family interactions, parenting styles, and predictors of child emotional and behavioral problems. She completed her pre-doctoral internship at the Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., an APA-accredited placement, where she focused on pediatric and clinical child assessment and intervention. Dr. Klein-Sosa commented, "As a child assessment and therapy specialist and also the mother of a son with special needs, I see great promise in mytaptrack. It's a clever way to solve the data management problem affecting special education today. I'm looking forward to helping mytaptrack give kids with special needs a better chance for success." Inspired Futures AI founder, Nikody Keating, created mytaptrack as a way to improve his own special needs child's education experience. One click, two clicks, or holding a click on the mytaptrack button logs a special needs child's symptom or behavior and communicates it to an online platform. With each click the child's parents, teachers and doctors receive notifications about a data event, and with the help of artificial intelligence, data pattern variations. Keating shared, "When an individual with Dr. Klein-Sosa's credentials looks at your company and says, 'This is great,' certainty about its viability skyrockets. There is immense value here as a solution for rescuing special education that serves a preexisting and growing need. Everywhere you look public school districts are saying they are desperate for help in special education. mytaptrack is doing something about it." Dr. Klein-Sosa has conducted psychological and neuropsychological evaluations in an array of settings serving children and adolescents with a broad variety of characteristics and diagnoses. Therapeutically, she is trained from a Cognitive-Behavioral theoretical orientation and has conducted short- and long-term individual, family, and group therapy. She has training and experience in evidence-based, manualized treatments, such as the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) for children with Autism spectrum disorders, parent-focused behavioral interventions for children with externalizing behavior problems, exposure and response prevention for youth with anxiety disorders, and behavioral activation and CBT for anxiety and depression. Dr. Klein-Sosa has also served on interdisciplinary treatment teams and worked closely with schools, medical staff, and other service providers in coordinating care for children and adolescents. She holds a strong interest in how educational policies impact children's learning and development, and for several years she worked at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, where she assisted program offices in linking data with policy development. Presently, Dr. Klein-Sosa provides neuropsychological evaluations at a private practice in a Boston suburb with youth presenting with a wide variety of challenges. She believes that research and data are integral to her practice, noting, "Without data we are at a disadvantage in our mission to help children who deserve a greater advantage." About Inspired Futures AI, LLC Inspired Futures AI is a Seattle-area tech company that helps special needs children succeed using mytaptrack. mytaptrack, symptoms tracking IoT device and platform, counts the moments that shape special needs children, and shares data in real time with teachers, parents and doctors. mytaptrack is poised to revolutionize special education through innovation that promotes inclusion, progress and understanding. Inspired Futures AI is committed to providing private, secure, HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) compliant solutions for children worldwide. Learn more at mytaptrack.com and @mytaptrack on all social media platforms. Contact: Kelly Keating [email protected] SOURCE Inspired Futures AI CINCINNATI, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- A new study by the University of Cincinnati Economics Center finds that the Ohio operations of biopharmaceutical company Allergan have a significant impact on the state's economy and communities. The study finds that the annual economic impact of Allergan's manufacturing and packaging facility in Cincinnati includes total output of $46.3 million and total earnings of $28.8 million. Allergan's economic impact is primarily a result of its daily operations and capital investments in Cincinnati, as well as its strong influence on employment in the community. The manufacturing facility, which employs nearly 200 highly skilled workers, supports 686 total jobs directly and indirectly through local investment and daily operations, according to the study. Additionally, Allergan's capital expenditures and operations in Cincinnati generate significant local and state tax revenues with a total fiscal impact of more than $1.3 million in 2017. The Economics Center study finds that Allergan and its employees contribute substantially to the Ohio community through volunteering and financial donations. Allergan's Cincinnati employees donate hundreds of hours of their time each year to a range of local charitable and community initiatives. In addition, The Allergan Foundation has contributed a total of $555,000 to organizations in Cincinnati and in Ohio since it was established in 1998. "Allergan's contribution to Ohio's community and economy is substantial. The company's Cincinnati manufacturing and packaging plant is a driver of economic activity for the state, including through employment, earnings, capital expenditures, and tax revenues. In addition, Allergan and its employees contribute to the communities in which they live and work through philanthropy and volunteerism. Allergan employees have spent hundreds of hours volunteering for local charities and community outreach programs while The Allergan Foundation has contributed more than half-a-million dollars to charitable groups in the Cincinnati area," said Brad Evans, Director of Research at the University of Cincinnati Economics Center. "Allergan is extremely proud of our strong partnerships in the Cincinnati community and the economic impact of our operations as detailed in the University of Cincinnati study. Our positive impact would not be possible without the tremendous support of local and state leaders who make Cincinnati an excellent place for companies like Allergan to do business. Another key contributor is our Cincinnati team which plays an important role in supporting Allergan's commitment to delivering innovative treatments for patients. We also applaud our Cincinnati colleagues for earning Allergan's "Plant of the Year" distinction in 2017 and 2018. Allergan looks forward to making significant contributions to the economy and community of Cincinnati and the Buckeye state for many years to come," said Brent Saunders, Chairman and CEO of Allergan. Additional findings of the Economics Center study included: Allergan's total annual economic output of $46.3 million includes $34.7 million in output from operations and $11.6 million in output from capital investments. includes in output from operations and in output from capital investments. Allergan's total employment impact of 686 jobs includes nearly 200 direct positions and 467 jobs supported indirectly by the economic contribution of the Cincinnati facility. facility. Allergan's Cincinnati facility enjoys strong employee retention with the average employee tenure of eight years. facility enjoys strong employee retention with the average employee tenure of eight years. Allergan's more than $1.3 million in total fiscal impact in 2017 included more than $316,000 in local tax revenue and more than $1.0 million in tax revenue paid to Ohio . in total fiscal impact in 2017 included more than in local tax revenue and more than in tax revenue paid to . The Allergan Foundation's 2017 contributions in Cincinnati and Ohio included donations for the Cincinnati Eye Institute Foundation, the Cincinnati Association for the Blind, St. Vincent de Paul Charity Pharmacy of Cincinnati and the Cleveland Clinic. The study, titled "The Economic and Community Impact of Allergan in Ohio" was commissioned by Allergan. Full-text of the original report and the supplement are available via the following links: Economic Impact Study: https://allergan-web-cdn-prod.azureedge.net/actavis/actavis/media/allergan-pdf-documents/responsibility/economic-impact-ohio-full.pdf Economic Impact Study Supplement: https://allergan-web-cdn-prod.azureedge.net/actavis/actavis/media/allergan-pdf-documents/responsibility/economic-impact-ohio-infographic.pdf About Allergan's Ohio Operations Allergan employs nearly 200 highly skilled workers at its 150,000 square-foot manufacturing and packaging facility in Cincinnati. The facility currently produces a number of products supporting the Central Nervous System and Gastroenterology therapeutic areas, including VRAYLAR (Cariprazine) for the treatment of schizophrenia and for the acute treatment of manic or mixed episodes of bipolar I disorder and LINZESS (linaclotide) for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome with constipation and chronic idiopathic constipation. Opened in 1984, Allergan's Cincinnati facility now produces more than one billion doses annually. Cincinnati received Allergan's "Plant of the Year" distinction in 2017 and 2018. About The Allergan Foundation The Allergan Foundation is a U.S.-based, private charitable foundation committed to providing a lasting and positive impact in the communities in which Allergan employees live and work. The Allergan Foundation focuses its support on charitable efforts dedicated to promoting access to quality healthcare and improving patient diagnosis, treatment, care and quality of life. Established in 1998, The Allergan Foundation has donated more than $92 million to a wide variety of philanthropic pursuits globally. For more information, visit The Allergan Foundation website at www.AllerganFoundation.org. About Allergan plc Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN), headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is a bold, global pharmaceutical leader. Allergan is focused on developing, manufacturing and commercializing branded pharmaceutical, device, biologic, surgical and regenerative medicine products for patients around the world. Allergan markets a portfolio of leading brands and best-in-class products primarily focused on four key therapeutic areas including medical aesthetics, eye care, central nervous system and gastroenterology. Allergan is an industry leader in Open Science, a model of research and development, which defines our approach to identifying and developing game-changing ideas and innovation for better patient care. With this approach, Allergan has built one of the broadest development pipelines in the pharmaceutical industry. Allergan's success is powered by our global colleagues' commitment to being Bold for Life. Together, we build bridges, power ideas, act fast and drive results for our customers and patients around the world by always doing what is right. With commercial operations in approximately 100 countries, Allergan is committed to working with physicians, healthcare providers and patients to deliver innovative and meaningful treatments that help people around the world live longer, healthier lives every day. For more information, visit Allergan's website at www.Allergan.com. Forward-Looking Statement Statements contained in this press release that refer to future events or other non-historical facts are forward-looking statements that reflect Allergan's current perspective on existing trends and information as of the date of this release. Actual results may differ materially from Allergan's current expectations depending upon a number of factors affecting Allergan's business. These factors include, among others, the difficulty of predicting the timing or outcome of FDA approvals or actions, if any; the impact of competitive products and pricing; market acceptance of and continued demand for Allergan's products; the impact of uncertainty around timing of generic entry related to key products, including RESTASIS, on our financial results; risks associated with divestitures, acquisitions, mergers and joint ventures; risks related to impairments; uncertainty associated with financial projections, projected cost reductions, projected debt reduction, projected synergies, restructurings, increased costs, and adverse tax consequences; difficulties or delays in manufacturing; and other risks and uncertainties detailed in Allergan's periodic public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to Allergan's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018. Except as expressly required by law, Allergan disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements. CONTACTS: Allergan: Investors: Manisha Narasimhan, PhD (862) 261-7162 Christine Chiou (862) 261-7396 Media: Amy Rose (862) 289-3072 Lisa Brown (862) 261-7320 SOURCE Allergan plc Related Links www.allergan.com "Education is critical for individuals and families making the choice to buy a home," said Stacey Epperson, president and founder of Next Step Network. "Factory-built housing is an often misrepresented option for hardworking Americans struggling to purchase, finance and own a sustainable home in the midst of our housing crisis." The course is publicly available on eHome America, a premier provider of Web-based education programs for prospective home buyers. By taking the course, prospective buyers learn the basics of factory-built housing including how to shop, finance and maintain their new home. Next Step's Factory-Built Homebuyer Education Course is also a key component of the organization's SmartMH program a pilot initiative launched in partnership with Freddie Mac supporting the government-sponsored enterprise's Duty to Serve plans. The program connects educated homebuyers with financial institutions and manufactured home retailers to increase access to affordable, ENERGY STAR manufactured homes with fair financing. News Facts: Both first-time and repeat home buyers who receive pre-purchase housing counseling and education are one-third less likely to become 90 or more days delinquent during the two years after they obtained their loans (Department of Housing and Urban Development). Factory-built housing is the largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing in the U.S. Nearly 22 million Americans live in factory-built homes nationwide (Manufactured Housing Institute). Homes constructed in a factory represented 10 percent of all new single-family home starts in 2018 (Manufactured Housing Institute). In no state, metro area or county can a worker earning the federal minimum wage or prevailing state minimum wage afford a two-bedroom rental home at fair market rent by working a standard 40-hour week (National Low-Income Housing Coalition). As of February 2019 , the U.S. homeownership rate was 64.8 percent (U.S. Census Bureau). About Next Step Network, Inc. Next Step Network, Inc. is a national, nonprofit housing intermediary that works to promote expanded use of factory-built housing as a viable solution to address housing affordability. Our organization mobilizes a national network of mission-driven nonprofits, leaders in the manufactured housing industry and lending institutions serving home buyers and homeowners in their communities. Next Step's system Manufactured Housing Done Right connects responsible financing, comprehensive homebuyer education and delivery of high-quality, ENERGY STAR manufactured homes at scale, creating a model that brings more value to the homeowners and communities. Learn more at www.nextstepus.org. About eHome America Working with over 500 non-profit partners across the nation, eHome America has been endorsed by the USDA and numerous state housing finance agencies, and is accepted by most lenders as well as ten of the eleven federal home loan banks. eHome America is a nationwide program with offices in Louisville, Lexington, Cincinnati and Washington D.C. For more information on eHome America, visit us at www.eHomeAmerica.org. Contact: Grant Beck, Marketing and Communications Manager Phone: (202) 851-7550 Email: [email protected] SOURCE Next Step Network Related Links http://www.nextstepus.org Publishers Weekly , featuring Little Girl Leaving in BookLife, writes: "Based on a true story and told from the first-person, present tense perspective of the child, this novel presents various forms of child abuse and how children are forced to confront them." The World Health Organization reports that half of all children are victims of sexual, physical or other forms of violence. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) research shows approximately 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused before the age of 18. Lisa Blume, the author of Little Girl Leaving, quoted a New York Times editorial when testifying on Washington child sexual abuse statute of limitations saying the #MeToo movement showed the risk for victims speaking out against their abusers, noting: "Now consider how much harder it must be for a child." Lisa Blume and others were with Governor Jay Inslee on April 19 when the new law ending the criminal statute of limitations for child rape and other sex crimes was signed. Kirkus Reviews writes: "The author, who works as a producer of public service media and research projects, says she hopes the book 'will help adults to experience life as a very young child who needs them does.' This enlightening work skillfully does that and more." Marianne Benkert Sipe, MD, Distinguished Life Fellow of The American Psychiatric Association says, "This book will touch many people." Her late husband, Richard Sipe, depicted in the Academy Award-winning best picture, "Spotlight", was an inspiration for the author. Judith Landau, MD, former president of the International Family Therapy Association says, "I believe that everyone living with or around children should read this book." Gabrielle Glaser, New York Times bestselling author, says, "Little Girl Leaving, Lisa Blume's debut novel, is sadly tragic, but deeply moving and evocative." Kerry J. Todd, forensic child-interviewer and professional trainer on child abuse, writes in the Afterword: "As a clinician, I've heard hundreds of accounts of abuse from young children. The author's ability to immerse the reader in the child's world is unique." To learn more information or to purchase the book please visit littlegirlleaving.com . SOURCE Illumine LLC Related Links https://littlegirlleaving.com OXFORD, Miss., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Oxford Treatment Center is hosting a free community event on the topic of underage drinking and its effects on teens and young adults. "The Culture of Alcohol: Current Perspectives on Underage Drinking" is set for Tuesday, April 23, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Oxford High School Library. The event will feature two testimonials followed by a Q&A session with panelists including Jay Hughes, Mississippi House of Representatives and candidate for lieutenant governor; Meg Hayden, nurse at Oxford High School; Dr. Stephen Pannel, medical director at Oxford Treatment Center; Kevin Frye, attorney and candidate for Mississippi State Senate; and Mark Stovall, CAT, CMHT, Chief Operating Officer at Oxford Treatment Center. These speakers will address how alcohol is shaping the lives of young people ages 12-25 within the Oxford community, said Brian Whisenant, director of community relations at Oxford Treatment Center. "Our goal for this event is to help people see issues surrounding alcohol through a new lens," Whisenant said. The program will specifically look at raising awareness about underage drinking and reinforcing efforts to prevent and reduce alcohol use or misuse among adolescents. It was created in support of SAMHSA's Community's Talk initiative for town-hall meetings nationwide. An American Addiction Centers facility, Oxford Treatment Center provides a complete continuum of care for drug and alcohol addiction at two campuses in Lafayette County. While the opioid crisis has gripped the nation's attention in recent years, many patients at Oxford Treatment Center still cite alcohol as their reason for getting help. "Compared to illicit drugs, alcohol is a different beast because it's legal for people over age 21," Whisenant said. "When it comes to addiction, almost every person who uses drugs used alcohol for the first time in their teens. "In addition to teenage drinking, we will also be looking at how alcohol affects adolescents when it's not them but their friends or family members who are abusing it." In a small university town, Whisenant said, the issue of drinking among those in middle school and high school is closely tied to the observed behavior of college students. "High school students look up to college students and want to be just like them," he said. "When they see college students drinking, they imitate their behavior without realizing the long-term effects it can have on them." Learn more about alcohol abuse: https://www.oxfordtreatment.com/alcohol-abuse/ Media Contact: Joy Sutton, 1-615-727-8407, [email protected] SOURCE Oxford Treatment Center Related Links https://www.oxfordtreatment.com/alcohol-abuse About Super Lawyers One of the legal industry's most trusted rating services, Super Lawyers has become a hallmark for identifying top practitioners in the profession. Through a lengthy selection process that begins with nominations and professional / ethical vetting, Super Lawyers relies not only on its proprietary methodology for evaluating over a dozen criteria of success, but also the opinions of leading lawyers. The selection process' final step is a meticulous peer review conducted by a Blue Ribbon Panel of Bar and Judiciary members who have themselves been previously recognized by Super Lawyers, and are in the best position to know what qualities signify legal talent. When final annual listings are published, no more than 5% of all practicing lawyers in the region (Arizona and New Mexico) are included. That's a testament to the respect attorneys have cultivated among their peers, and the reputation they've built in their communities. About J. Blake Mayes J. Blake Mayes was named to the 2019 Southwest Super Lawyers list for his work in Criminal Defense, and Personal Injury General. He was previously named to Super Lawyers list of Rising Stars for four consecutive years (2015-2018). Recognized among "The Top 100 Trial Lawyers" by The National Trial Lawyers, Mr. Mayes has become known for his exceptional ability to communicate with clients, prosecutors, juries, and others in the courtroom. He's also earned acclaim for his intractable advocacy of clients' rights and futures in cases ranging from misdemeanors and DUIs to the most serious state and federal felony offenses. Mr. Mayes is also an active volunteer in local communities in and around the Phoenix area, participating in Pro Bono work and dedicating time to other charitable activities. Mr. Mayes and the firm have also established an annual college scholarship to help Arizona high school students in need of financial support fund their higher education. J. Blake Mayes is a nationally recognized Phoenix Criminal Defense Attorney and a Principal at MayesTelles. Comprised of top-rated trial lawyers, former prosecutors, and a team of professionals who prioritize clients' needs, the firm has secured thousands of positive results for clients across the Greater Phoenix area and the state of Arizona. More information about the firm can be found at https://www.mayestelles.com. SOURCE MayesTelles PLLC Related Links https://www.mayestelles.com NEW YORK, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Siddhartha Mukherjee has delighted, informed, and touched a wide audience through his books and essays, for which he will be awarded the 2019 Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science. The prize, honoring scientists as inspirational authors, will be presented Monday, April 22, at a free, public event on The Rockefeller University campus. Mukherjee's commitment to demystifying cancer takes multiple expressions. He has won acclaim for the sensitive and caring treatment he delivers to his patients, and for his innovative cancer biology research. But what has ultimately made him a household name is his work as a science writer, especially his debut piece chronicling the past, present, and possible future of the disease. In his 2010 book, The Emperor of All Maladies, Mukherjee travels back more than 4,000 years to the first documented mention of cancer, and then explores humanity's relationship with the disease through the ages and until present time. He traces not only the medical and scientific history of the cancer, but also its cultural meanings and political currency. "Mukherjee's willingness and ability to bring cancer to a human level epitomizes the 'scientist as poet' spirit of the Lewis Thomas Prize," says Jesse H. Ausubel, chair of the selection committee. "His clear and engaging writing about science bridges the worldviews of scientists and writers, and brings pivotal scientific discoveries about cancer into the public discourse." The committee also noted that The Emperor conveys an immense amount of material while telling the stories of real peoplescientists, doctors, and patientswhose journeys move the heart as much as they stimulate the mind. The book has won several other literary awards, including the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Mukherjee has also written other books, including The Laws of Medicine and The Gene, and is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Times. Born and raised in New Delhi, India, Mukherjee first encountered his lifelong interest in cancer at age nine, when a cousin with neck and mouth cancer visited his family home. He earned his undergraduate degree at Stanford University and then attended the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He attended Harvard Medical School, and is now on the faculty of Columbia University, where he practices medicine and conducts research. He has made scientific discoveries that hold promise for the development of new treatments for cancers of the blood, as well as for other conditions such as osteoporosis and osteoarthritis. Recent recipients of the Lewis Thomas Prize include astrophysicist Kip Thorne, oceanographer Sylvia Earle, physiologist Frances Ashcroft, surgeon Atul Gawande, and mathematicians Steven Strogatz and Ian Stewart. Register here to attend this year's event on April 22. A reception will take place at 5:30 p.m., followed by the prize presentation and a lecture at 6:30 p.m. About The Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is the world's leading biomedical research university and is dedicated to conducting innovative, high-quality research to improve the understanding of life for the benefit of humanity. The university's unique approach to science has led to some of the world's most revolutionary and transformative contributions to biology and medicine. During Rockefeller's 118-year history, our scientists have won 25 Nobel Prizes, 22 Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards, and 20 National Medals of Science. Media contact Katherine Fenz 212-327-7913 [email protected] SOURCE The Rockefeller University NEW YORK, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Tire & Rubber segment is the leading application segment of the Global Process oil market Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p04973886/?utm_source=PRN Among applications, the Tire & Rubber segment led the Global Process oil market during the forecast period.The Tire & Rubber application segment is one of the potential application segments of the Global Process oil market, which is expected to witness growth during the forecast period, 2018 to 2023 as well. The growth of this application segment can be attributed to increase in demand of process oils as carrier oils, plasticizers, dust control agents, and processing aids in automotive industry. The tire & rubber application segment is expected to grow at the second highest CAGR during the forecast period, 2018 to 2023. Personal Care application segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period Process oils are used in various personal care products, such as petroleum jelly, hair care products, and skin care products, among others.The growth of the process oil market in personal care application can be attributed to the rising disposable incomes, improving lifestyles, and increasing demand for natural personal care products. With improving lifestyles and increased disposable incomes, demand for skin care products has increased significantly.Consumers have become more conscious regarding the quality and use of cosmetics to improve their personality. This increasing consumer awareness is expected to boost the demand for organic and herbal personal care products, and in turn, drive the growth of the process oil market. Non-carcinogenic process oils are widely used for the manufacturing of cosmetic products. Naphthenic dominated the global process oil market in terms of type during the forecast period Naphthenic process oils are light-colored and non-staining compounds with properties such as thermal stability and excellent compatibility with synthetic elastomers.These oils have greater solvating power than paraffinic oils. They are highly stable at high temperature and have low viscosity. Asia Pacific and North America are the major markets for naphthenic process oil, in terms of both value and volume. Presence of naphthenic oil producers such as Ergon (US), San Joaquin Refining (US), Tulstar Products Inc. (US), Lubline (US), Cross Oil (US), Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd. (Japan), and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (India) is one of the key significant factors fueling the growth of the markets in these regions. Asia-Pacific is leading the Global Process oil market, in terms of consumption In terms of consumption, Asia-Pacific region is the leader in the global base oils market and this dominance is expected to continue during the forecast period as well.The Process oil market in Russia is projected to grow at the highest CAGR between 2018 and 2023, Owing to increasing investments made in the automobile sector and rapid industrial growth. Key countries in the Asia-Pacific process oil market include China, Japan, South Korea, and India, which dominated the region's overall market in terms of volume, in 2018. The break-up of profiles of primary participants for the report has been given below: By Company Type: Tier 131%, Tier 246%, and Tier 323% By Designation: C Level50%, D Level30%, and Others20% By Region: Asia Pacific30%, North America34%, Europe20%, Middle East & Africa13%, and South America-3% Major companies in the process oil market include Royal Dutch Shell (the Netherlands), Exxonmobil (US), Total S.A. (France), Indian Oil Corporation Limited (India), Petronas Group (Malaysia), Repsol S.A. (Spain), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (India), Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd (Japan), Unipetrol Group (Czech Republic), Panama Petrochem Ltd (India), Nynas AB (Sweden), H&R Group (Germany), Apar Industries (India), Gandhar Oil Refinery Limited (India), and Hollyfrontier Refining & Marketing LLC (US). Research Coverage This report defines, segments, and projects the process oil market based on type, application, and region.It strategically profiles key players and comprehensively analyzes the ranking of leading players in the process oil market. It also tracks and analyzes competitive developments such as expansions, acquisitions, partnerships, agreement, new product launches, and new product development in the process oil market. Reasons to Buy the Report This report is expected to help market leaders/new entrants in this market by providing them the closest approximations of revenues of the process oil market and its subsegments.This report is also expected to help stakeholders obtain an improved understanding of the competitive landscape, gain insights to enhance the position of their businesses, and enable them to make suitable go-to-market strategies. The report is expected to help stakeholders understand the pulse of the market and provide them with information on key market drivers, restraints, challenges, and opportunities. Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p04973886/?utm_source=PRN 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. __________________________ Contact Clare: [email protected] US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001 SOURCE Reportlinker Related Links http://www.reportlinker.com XIAMEN, China, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Qudian Inc. ("Qudian" or the "Company") (NYSE: QD), a leading provider of online small consumer credit products in China, today announced that it filed its annual report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018 with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 15, 2019 (U.S. Time). The annual report on Form 20-F can be accessed on the Company's investor relations website at http://ir.qudian.com . Qudian will provide a hard copy of the annual report containing its audited consolidated financial statements, free of charge, to its shareholders and ADS holders upon request. Requests should be directed to Investor Relations department, Level 29, Tower A, AVIC Zijin Plaza, Siming District, Xiamen, Fujian Province, The People's Republic of China, 361000. About Qudian Inc. Qudian Inc. ("Qudian") is a leading provider of online small consumer credit in China. The Company uses big data-enabled technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, to transform the consumer finance experience in China. With the mission to use technology to make personalized credit accessible, Qudian targets hundreds of millions of young, mobile-active consumers in China who need access to small credit for their discretionary spending or budget auto financing solutions but are underserved by traditional financial institutions due to lack of traditional credit data. Qudian's data technology capabilities combined with its operating efficiencies allow Qudian to understand prospective borrowers from different behavioral and transactional perspectives, assess their credit profiles with regard to both their willingness and ability to repay and offer them instantaneous and affordable credit products with customized terms, and distinguish Qudian's business and offerings. For more information, please visit http://ir.qudian.com. For investor and media inquiries, please contact: Qudian Inc. Annie Huang Tel: +86-592-591-1580 E-mail: [email protected] The Foote Group Philip Lisio Tel: +86-135-0116-6560 E-mail: [email protected] SOURCE Qudian Inc. Related Links http://ir.qudian.com Resolvly has and continues to help families and individuals dealing with insurmountable debt by referring them to an attorney who can advise them of their rights. Whether due to credit cards, medical bills, school loans or other expenses, you have rights as a borrower and do not have to be burdened with unsecured debt. As part of the debt relief process, the team will help put you in contact with a lawyer who can help you discover all the available options. As many Americans continue to drown in debt, Resolvly resolves your unsecured debts by referring you to consumer protection lawyers to protect your rights and stop creditor harassment. Here are some of the debts that can be resolved with Resolvly and the attorneys on your side: Credit Card Debt -- The lawyers assist people who can no longer make the minimum payments on their outstanding credit card debts. This helps them avoid further finance and interest charges, as well as collection efforts by creditors and agents. Medical Bills -- Unpaid medical debt can truly take a toll on your life. In fact, millions of Americans have ended up in the red and filed for bankruptcy due to these bills. Resolvly helps get you an attorney who can help people secure financial relief with medical debt solutions. Private Student Loans -- America is seeing a growth in students defaulting on their federally-financed or private student loans. In fact, many so-called institutions of higher learning continue to lure students into career programs with promises of guaranteed employment after graduation. No truer is this than when it comes to technical colleges that promise high-paying jobs. If you fall into this category, Resolvly works with consumer protection attorneys to protect your rights and possibly get you loan forgiveness and/or dismissal. Unsecured Loans -- Defaulting on unsecured loans can lead to non-stop creditor harassment. The company works diligently with lawyers to put an end to these calls and notices with timely and lasting solutions. Debt Settlement vs. Debt Consolidation Resolvly works with an attorney and you every step of the way to ensure financial freedom. The company will analyze and assess your current situation while offering a range of helpful options and solutions. Here are the differences between each available option: Debt Settlement Debt settlement allows you to lower your debt based on a negotiated arrangement. This, of course, is between you and your creditor while Resolvly works as a vessel to financial freedom. The company works hard to put you in contact with an attorney who can advise you of your rights. Debt Consolidation Debt consolidation provides temporary solutions so you can manage your debt issues. However, this option does not decrease your debt and the full amount will still be owed. Resolvly works hard to put you in contact with an attorney who can advise you of your rights to help you reduce or eliminate your debt. Debt Validation Debt validation resolves your debt problems because it promotes your legal rights. Resolvly will refer you to an attorney that advise you of your rights and what your options are regarding your financial freedom. To learn how Resolvly can help solve your debt issues, simply contact them today at resolvly.com or call (855) 404-0034 SOURCE Resolvly Related Links http://www.Resolvly.com THAMES DITTON, England and WASHINGTON, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Celebrating its first anniversary as an independent company, SHL launched SHL Verify Interactive an innovative, new suite of cognitive ability assessments at the 34th Annual Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) Conference outside Washington, D.C. SHL Verify Interactive helps businesses predict workplace performance for graduate, professional and manager hires with assessments that reflect real-world corporate challenges. Candidates can take the tests anytime, anywhere, on any device, with business-relevant questions and content that are designed to provide them with the best opportunity to showcase their skills. "SHL is dedicated to providing deep people insight through science, technology and data. SHL Verify Interactive represents the best of our innovative thinking bringing the science and rigor that I-O practitioners and clients demand into a mobile-first candidate user experience that is second-to-none," said SHL Chief Executive Officer Andy Bradshaw. "We're focused on building technology around the client's needs and the user experience and this is a prime example." SHL, the global leader in talent innovation, was relaunched one year ago with the backing of Exponent Private Equity, one of the UK's largest private equity firms. During its first year as an independent company, SHL has focused on driving science-based innovation to help organizations anticipate and solve for their most critical people challenges. In addition to the launch of SHL Verify Interactive, SHL scientists led or participated in an unprecedented 29 sessions at SIOP, reflecting SHL's on-going commitment to advancing the field of I-O psychology. In addition, SHL's Principal Research Scientist Jeff Johnson won the first-ever Scientist-Practitioner Presidential Recognition award, recognizing his contributions to the combined science and practice of I-O [Industrial-Organizational] psychology. "I can think of no greater acknowledgement of the innovation and value of the science that underpins SHL's talent solutions than this award for Jeff," said Ken Lahti, Chief Science and Innovation Officer at SHL. "It's also a great way to celebrate SHL's first anniversary as an independent company." Learn more about SHL Verify Interactive or SHL's other leading assessment solutions. About SHL SHL exists to help you win. At a time of unprecedented change, our data-driven talent solutions empower leaders and their teams to make unbiased decisions throughout the employee journey. We understand and measure the things that make people successful at work. With 40+ years of talent expertise, cutting-edge assessment science, and more than 45 billion data points, we have an unparalleled view of the workforce. With this insight, you're empowered to make confident, unbiased talent decisions to drive business results. SOURCE SHL "I was in utter disbelief when I received my stage III diagnosis, but what I quickly learned with the support of my husband and family, was that cancer was not something that I had to let consume my inner being or personality," says Simone I. Smith. "With the help of ACS and a few friends, this campaign was created to empower women to lean onto their support system and tap into their strength to 'Beat Cancer Like A Boss,' a message I carried with me throughout my journey to recovery." ACS has a longstanding partnership with Simone I. Smith, that began with her desire to give back following her fight with Chondrosarcoma, a rare bone cancer that she was diagnosed with in 2004. In 2011, Simone created and launched a series of signature "A Sweet Touch of Hope" lollipop pendants, a personal ode to her cancer journey, where a portion of the proceeds from every piece in the collection went directly to ACS. Now, along with her husband LL COOL J, Simone I. Smith and ACS aim to encourage those diagnosed and those supporting a loved to overcome the barriers and hardships that they often endure together and "Beat Cancer Like A Boss". "African Americans are un-equally affected by cancer and it was our goal with this campaign to instill hope in the families and survivors as we strive to find a cure," said Sharon Byers, Chief Development, Marketing & Communications Officer. "Through Simone's very personal story, we wanted to reach a wider community of people impacted by this disease cancer and encourage them to utilize ACS and it's support system in their ongoing fight." According to ACS, African Americans have the highest death rate and lowest survival rate of any racial or ethnic group for most cancers in the United States (SOURCE: American Cancer Society. Cancer Facts & Figures for African Americans 2019-2021). For more information on the American Cancer Society and its programs, or to donate, you can visit https://www.cancer.org/ , or follow them on Twitter , Instagram , and Facebook . About the American Cancer Society The American Cancer Society is a global grassroots force of 1.5 million volunteers dedicated to saving lives, celebrating lives, and leading the fight for a world without cancer. From breakthrough research, to free lodging near treatment, a 24/7/365 live helpline, free rides to treatment, and convening powerful activists to create awareness and impact, the American Cancer Society is attacking cancer from every angle. For more information go to cancer.org. CONTACTS: Media Inquiries [email protected] 212-691-2800 SOURCE American Cancer Society Related Links https://www.cancer.org AUSTIN, Texas, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- SoftServe, a leading digital authority and consulting company, was recognized as one of four top finalists for the 2018 Google Cloud Global Breakthrough Partner of the Year Award during the Google Cloud Next '19 conference in San Francisco this month. SoftServe joined the Google Cloud Partner Program in April 2017 and rapidly accelerated to become a Premier Partner in August 2018. SoftServe holds Partner Specializations in Infrastructure, Machine Learning, and Internet of Things. SoftServe has proven expertise in leveraging Google Cloud solutions to significantly accelerate clients' response to scalability and availability challenges as well as commitment to architect and build customers' Google Cloud Platform infrastructure, workflows, and migrations which enable clients to succeed in the market with greater speed and impact. "Building success on the cloud for our customers requires technical competencies and innovation to deliver truly differentiated solutions that create a seismic change in the cloud development approach," said Todd Lenox, vice president, global alliances and partnerships at SoftServe. "Receiving recognition as a Google Cloud Global Breakthrough Partner of the Year finalist is a great honor and a testament that we are enabling our clients to get innovation done with Google Cloud." About SoftServe SoftServe is a digital authority that advises and provides at the cutting-edge of technology. We reveal, transform, accelerate, and optimize the way enterprises and software companies do business. With expertise across healthcare, retail, media, financial services, software, and more, we implement end-to-end solutions to deliver the innovation, quality, and speed that our clients' users expect. SoftServe delivers open innovationfrom generating compelling new ideas, to developing and implementing transformational products and services. Our work and client experience is built on a foundation of empathetic, human-focused experience design that ensures continuity from concept to release. We empower enterprises and software companies to (re)identify differentiation, accelerate solution development, and vigorously compete in today's digital economy. No matter where you are in your journey. Visit our website, blog, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter pages. SoftServe Media Contact Paul Jones Senior Manager, Analyst and Public Relations [email protected] 512-796-7358 SOURCE SoftServe Related Links http://www.softserveinc.com BEIJING, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Sogou Inc. (NYSE: SOGO) ("Sogou" or "the Company"), an innovator in search and a leader in China's internet industry, today announced that it will report its first quarter 2019 unaudited financial results on Monday, April 29, 2019, before U.S. market hours. Sogou's management team will host a conference call at 7:30am U.S. Eastern Time, (7:30pm Beijing/Hong Kong time) on April 29, 2019, following the quarterly results announcement. The dial-in details for the live conference call are: U.S. Toll Free: +1-888-317-6003 Mainland China Toll Free: 4001-206115 Hong Kong Toll Free: 800-963976 Hong Kong Local Toll: +852-580-81995 International: +1-412-317-6061 Passcode: 9791296 Please dial in 10 minutes before the call is scheduled to begin. When prompted, ask to be connected to the Sogou Inc. call and provide the passcode. A replay of the conference call may be accessed by phone at the following number until May 6, 2019: International: +1-412-317-0088 Passcode: 10130428 A live webcast and archive of the conference call will be available on the Investor Relations section of Sogou's website at http://ir.sogou.com. About Sogou Sogou Inc. (NYSE: SOGO) is an innovator in search and a leader in China's internet industry. With a mission to make it easy to communicate and get information, Sogou has grown to become the second largest search engine by mobile queries and the fourth largest internet company by MAU in China. Sogou has a wide range of innovative products and services including the Sogou Input Method, which is the largest Chinese language input software for both mobile and PC. Sogou is also at the forefront of AI development and has made significant breakthroughs in voice and image technologies, machine translation, and Q&A, which have been successfully integrated into our products and services. For investor enquiries, please contact: Jessie Zheng Sogou Investor Relations Tel: +86 10 5689 8068 Email: [email protected] For media enquiries, please contact: Rachael Layfield Brunswick Group Tel: +86 10 5960 8600 Email: [email protected] SOURCE Sogou Inc. Related Links http://ir.sogou.com TORONTO, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - TerrAscend Corp. (CSE: TER;OTCQX: TRSSF) ("TerrAscend" or "the Company") today announced that it anticipates 2019 full year revenue exceeding CAD$135 million.1 Key drivers of 2019 revenue include: Anticipated revenue attributable to the acquisition of The Apothecarium (anticipated closing in Q2 2019); Continued growth in Canada in both the medical and adult-use markets, fueled by the ongoing expansion of the Company's Mississauga facility (to be completed in Q2 2019) and commencement of pharmaceutical and nutraceutical compounding activities at the Drug Preparation Premises (DPP); in both the medical and adult-use markets, fueled by the ongoing expansion of the Company's facility (to be completed in Q2 2019) and commencement of pharmaceutical and nutraceutical compounding activities at the Drug Preparation Premises (DPP); Worldwide sales growth of hemp-derived products developed, manufactured, and distributed by Arise Bioscience; and Export of THC and hemp-based CBD products to Germany and other international markets once GMP certification is obtained (expected in the coming weeks). The Company expects to open new Apothecarium locations in Berkeley, California and Philipsburg, New Jersey as well as a fully vertically integrated cultivation, extraction and processing facility in Boonton, New Jersey in Q4 2019. The Company has not included revenue from these operations in 2019 guidance. "We are seeing the results of the foundation we laid in 2018. Our team is focused on operational excellence in our facilities across North America, continuing to procure new licenses across the US through greenfield license applications and strategic acquisitions of existing operations. On behalf of all of the employees of TerrAscend, we pledge to continue our hard work and efforts in our goal of exceeding patient, customer and stakeholder expectations." said Matthew Johnson, President of TerrAscend Corp., and TerrAscend USA, Inc. On April 24, the Company will release its 2018 annual audited financial statements and will host an Investor Day on April 25. About TerrAscend TerrAscend is a biopharmaceutical and wellness company that is committed to quality products, brands, and services for the global cannabinoid market. The Company participates in the medical and legal adult-use market in Canada and in US states where cannabis has been legalized for therapeutic or adult-use. TerrAscend operates a number of synergistic businesses, including Arise Bioscience Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of hemp-derived products, Ascendant Laboratories Inc., a biotechnology and licensing Company committed to the continuous improvement of cannabinoid expressing plants, and Solace RX Inc., a proposed drug preparation premises focused on the development of novel formulations and dosage forms. Caution Regarding Cannabis Operations in the United States Investors should note that there are significant legal restrictions and regulations that govern the cannabis industry in the United States. Cannabis remains a Schedule I drug under the US Controlled Substances Act, making it illegal under federal law in the United States to cultivate, distribute or possess cannabis in the United States. Furthermore, financial transactions involving proceeds generated by, or intended to promote, cannabis-related business activities in the United States may form the basis for prosecution under applicable US federal money laundering legislation. While the approach to enforcement of such laws by the federal government in the United States has trended toward non-enforcement against individuals and businesses that comply with medical or adult-use cannabis programs in states where such programs are legal, strict compliance with state laws with respect to cannabis will neither absolve TerrAscend of liability under US federal law, nor will it provide a defense to any federal proceeding which may be brought against TerrAscend. Following any investment made by TerrAscend in operations in the United States, enforcement of federal laws in the United States will be a significant risk to the business of TerrAscend and any proceedings brought against TerrAscend thereunder may adversely affect TerrAscend's operations and financial performance. Forward Looking Information This release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Particularly, information regarding expectations of future results, targets, performance achievements, prospects or opportunities is forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements in this press release may be identified by the use of words such as, "may", "would", "could", "will", "likely", "expect", "anticipate", "believe, "intend", "plan", "forecast", "project", "estimate", "outlook" and other similar expressions, and include statements with respect to the completion of the transactions discussed herein and the anticipated benefits thereof. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance and are based upon a number of estimates and assumptions of management in light of management's experience and perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors relevant in the circumstances, including assumptions in respect of current and future market conditions, the current and future regulatory environment; and the availability of licenses, approvals and permits. Although TerrAscend 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 TerrAscend can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Actual results and developments may differ materially from those contemplated by these statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the inability of the parties to satisfy the conditions to closing set out in the definitive documentation in a timely manner or at all; risks related to federal, state, provincial, territorial, local and foreign government laws, rules and regulations, including federal and state laws in the United States relating to cannabis operations in the United States; TerrAscend's ability to successfully integrate any acquired businesses in the future; and fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rate. The statements in this press release are made as of the date of this release. TerrAscend disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, other than as required by applicable securities laws. TerrAscend undertakes no obligation to comment on analyses, expectations or statements made by third-parties in respect of TerrAscend, its securities, or financial or operating results (as applicable). 1 Presented on a pro forma basis including transactions that have not closed. SOURCE TerrAscend qPCR remains the most broadly adopted and leveraged genetic analysis technology in the life sciences industry, but what has been missing are modern features to improve the user-instrument interaction. Now, with smart features that include quick and secure log-in through facial authentication, and hands-free operation with voice-activated commands, productivity and the overall user experience is transformed. QuantStudio Pro instruments use RFID-enabled Applied Biosystems TaqMan Array Plates for seamless upload of plate layout and assay information for setting up the run. This eliminates manual data entry, reduces potential errors and improves experimental reproducibility. Results from experiments can then be analyzed remotely from any desktop computer or smart phone using the Instrument Connect mobile app. Support on the new system is also now expedited with the new Smart Help feature, which provides instant access to service and support professionals. Through this feature, all relevant diagnostic information is forwarded to an on-call team member and, when possible, corrective action may be completed remotely using augmented reality technology. All these innovations are delivered on an instrument with a smaller footprint that consumes 26 percent less energy than its predecessor. "QuantStudio Pro qPCR systems deliver everything you would expect from the Applied Biosystems brand and more," said Will Geist, vice president and general manager of qPCR for Thermo Fisher Scientific. "What makes Pro transformational is the integration of smart features that support a fundamentally better and more productive user experience." Learn more at www.thermofisher.com/quantstudiopro About Thermo Fisher Scientific Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is the world leader in serving science, with revenues of more than $24 billion and approximately 70,000 employees globally. Our mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. We help our customers accelerate life sciences research, solve complex analytical challenges, improve patient diagnostics, deliver medicines to market and increase laboratory productivity. Through our premier brands Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Fisher Scientific and Unity Lab Services we offer an unmatched combination of innovative technologies, purchasing convenience and comprehensive support. For more information, please visit www.thermofisher.com. Media Contact Mauricio Minotta Director, Public Relations +1 760 929 2456 [email protected] SOURCE Thermo Fisher Scientific Related Links http://www.thermofisher.com WASHINGTON, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. Naval Academy Midshipman Michael Wallace was acquitted of all charges at a general court-martial held at the Washington Navy Yard. Wallace was charged with sexual assault and obstruction of justice stemming from an encounter that took place in March 2018 in Pensacola, Florida. Wallace was represented by Antoinette Quinn O'Neill with Patriots Law Group, and LT Robbin Lee, a Navy JAG. "While it is important to take allegations of sexual assault seriously, it is equally important to ensure every accused is fully afforded the presumption of innocence," said O'Neill, "that happened this week. Justice was done, Midshipman Michael Wallace is innocent." Midshipman Wallace was about to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy when he visited Pensacola, Florida in March 2018 for spring break. The events at issue in the trial took place on that trip. Wallace always maintained his innocence and took the stand in his own defense. Opening statements in the court-martial took place Monday, April 8, 2019 and closing arguments took place Friday, April 12, 2019. The panel, composed of eleven Navy and Marine Corps officers, deliberated for approximately seven hours before returning its verdict of not guilty to all charges. About Antoinette "Toni" Quinn O'Neill Toni is a retired U.S. Air Force JAG with three consecutive tours as a top-rated Air Force military defense attorney. She has tried over 100 courts-martial and personally advised on and supervised the trial strategy and preparation for hundreds more. She joined Patriots Law Group in 2017. About Patriots Law Group of Lyons & Hughes, P.C. Patriots Law is a veteran-owned law firm. Formed by lawyers who served in the military, the attorneys at Patriots Law are seasoned attorneys in both military and civilian law. Visit https://www.patriotslawgroup.com/ to learn more. 5819 Allentown Road, Suitland, MD 20746 Phone: (301) 952-9000 [email protected] SOURCE Patriots Law Group Related Links https://www.patriotslawgroup.com CHAPEL HILL, N.C., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Value Colleges ( www.valuecolleges.com ), an independent online guide to the best values in undergraduate and graduate education, is pleased to share two significant new rankings: Top 25 Best Value Master's in Management Programs https://www.valuecolleges.com/rankings/best-value-masters-in-management-programs/ Top 25 Best Value Online Master's in Management Degrees for 2019 https://www.valuecolleges.com/rankings/best-online-management-masters/ Value Colleges ranking of the Top 25 Master's in Management Programs and the Top 25 Online Master's in Management Programs focuses on traditional, on-campus programs and online programs that provide the best overall return on investment. For both rankings, Value Colleges based the ranking on the three points most central to value: Affordability Reputation Alumni Salary To make a long story short, the top 3 MIM programs are: 1) Georgia Tech, 2) University of Virginia, and 3) Texas A&M University. The top 3 Online MIM programs are: 1) CSU Global Campus, 2) Kettering University, and 3) Stevens Institute of Technology. Value Colleges congratulates the top 3 in each category, as well as all of the Best Value management schools! The full lists, in alphabetical order, can be found below. According to VC editors, "In just a few short years, the Master's in Management degree has gone from being a new, untried credential to a proven means of getting ahead in business, government, or educational settings." The MIM closes an important gap in business education: "almost all MBA programs require students to have at least a couple of years of professional work experience, but that can be hard to come by these days in a contracted job market." With the Master's in Management, there are cases to be made for both on-campus and online programs. The mentorship and networking opportunities of an on-campus program are valuable for new graduates, while the convenience and affordability of online programs benefit working professionals who want to increase their management skills. Value Colleges' two Master's in Management rankings provide prospective students with both. Value Colleges has a mission to help future students - whether they are working professionals, new graduates, minority and first-generation students, or others - to find residential and online degree programs that will help them make their goals a reality. Value Colleges is independent and unbiased, ranking degree programs, providing guides for the complex financial and professional questions of college students, and offering honest facts about the potential and pitfalls of a college education. Best Value MIM Degree Programs (alphabetical order) DePaul University Fordham University George Mason University Georgia Institute of Technology Indiana Wesleyan University Lehigh University Michigan State University New Jersey Institute of Technology Northeastern University Penn State University Pepperdine University Saint Mary's University of Minnesota Saint Vincent College (PA) Stevens Institute of Technology Texas A&M University University of Florida University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign University of Indiana at Bloomington University of Michigan University of Notre Dame University of San Francisco University of Southern California University of Texas at Dallas University of Virginia Wake Forest University Best Value Online MIM Programs (alphabetical order) Bellevue University Benedictine University CSU Global Campus CUNY School of Professional Studies Concordia University St Paul Dallas Baptist University Embry Riddle Aeronautical University Georgetown University Greenville University Indiana University - Bloomington Indiana Wesleyan University Kettering University Maryville University Michigan State University Minot State University Saint Vincent College Salve Regina University Southeast Missouri State University St. Joseph's College (NY) Stevens Institute of Technology Texas A&M University - Commerce Thomas Edison State University Troy University University of Colorado Denver University of Texas at Dallas Rhonda Corey Media Manager, Value Colleges [email protected] (919) 864-2220 SOURCE Value Colleges Related Links http://www.valuecolleges.com CALGARY, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - Vermilion Energy Inc. ("Vermilion") (TSX,NYSE: VET) is pleased to announce a cash dividend of $0.23 CDN per share payable on May 15, 2019 to all shareholders of record on April 30, 2019. The ex-dividend date for this payment is April 29, 2019. This dividend is an eligible dividend for the purposes of the Income Tax Act (Canada). About Vermilion Vermilion is an international energy producer that seeks to create value through the acquisition, exploration, development and optimization of producing properties in North America, Europe and Australia. Our business model emphasizes organic production growth augmented with value-adding acquisitions, along with providing reliable and increasing dividends to investors. Vermilion is targeting growth in production primarily through the exploitation of light oil and liquids-rich natural gas conventional resource plays in Canada and the United States, the exploration and development of high impact natural gas opportunities in the Netherlands and Germany, and through oil drilling and workover programs in France and Australia. Vermilion holds a 20% working interest in the Corrib gas field in Ireland. Vermilion pays a monthly dividend of Canadian $0.23 per share, which provides a current yield of approximately 8%. Vermilion's priorities are health and safety, the environment, and profitability, in that order. Nothing is more important to us than the safety of the public and those who work with us, and the protection of our natural surroundings. We have been recognized as a top decile performer amongst Canadian publicly listed companies in governance practices, as a Climate Leadership level (A-) performer by the CDP, and a Best Workplace in the Great Place to Work Institute's annual rankings in Canada, the Netherlands and Germany. In addition, Vermilion emphasizes strategic community investment in each of our operating areas. Employees and directors hold approximately 5% of our fully diluted shares, are committed to consistently delivering superior rewards for all stakeholders, and have delivered over 20 years of market outperformance. Vermilion trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol VET. SOURCE Vermilion Energy Inc. Related Links http://www.vermilionenergy.com RALEIGH, N.C., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- WGU North Carolina, an affiliate of the national online nonprofit Western Governors University, has signed a partnership agreement with Mako Medical Laboratories that will help Mako employees advance their professional development and personal education goals through scholarship opportunities with degrees in business, IT or healthcare. As an organization known for only employing veterans for many of their positions, and in alignment with WGU North Carolina's outreach to the military community, Mako Medical supports military veterans in their pursuit of meaningful employment and career success. All employees of Mako Medical will be eligible to apply for special Bridge to Success Scholarships from a dedicated fund of $500,000 just for them. A designated WGU scholarship team member will work one-on-one with each employee to help them through the financial aid process to ensure they are maximizing all grant options available, and then help them apply for last-dollar funds to make it possible to earn their degree debt-free. Additionally, employees will receive an application fee waiver code, and have access to WGU career services resources and onsite events such as lunch-and-learn sessions. WGU is an accredited online university offering more than 60 bachelor's and master's degree programs in healthcare, IT, business and K-12 education. The university has more than 114,000 students enrolled nationwide, including more than 3,100 in North Carolina. Tuition is around $3,225 per six-month term for most degree programs. "Mako Medical has been named the fastest growing company in the Triangle for three years running," said WGU North Carolina Chancellor Catherine Truitt. "As the company continues to achieve unprecedented growth, we look forward to helping its employees achieve success through a competency-based education model that is flexible, affordable and conducive to the needs of working adults." "Our company is proud to hire a large number of veterans who have the desire and discipline to improve their knowledge and skills while serving our overall mission of providing industry-leading laboratory services to patients and healthcare professionals," said Chad Price, founder and CEO of Mako Medical. "This partnership with WGU North Carolina will allow our employees to apply for scholarships at a student-centered university with a proven model that recognizes their existing knowledge and fosters accelerated learning." For more information about WGU North Carolina, visit www.wgu.edu/north-carolina.html. To learn more about Mako Medical, visit www.makomedical.com. About WGU North Carolina WGU North Carolina is an online competency-based university established to expand access to higher education for North Carolina residents. The university offers more than 60 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in the fields of business, K-12 teacher education, information technology, and health professions, including nursing. Degrees are granted under the accreditation of WGU, which is accredited through the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU). Teachers College programs are accredited by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), College of Business programs are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP), and nursing programs are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE). CCNE is located at 655 K St., NW, Suite 750, Washington, DC 20001, 202-887-6791. Learn more at http://northcarolina.wgu.edu. About Mako Medical Laboratories Mako Medical Laboratories has quickly become one of the most desired laboratories in the United States. Winning over 12 major awardsit has become a diagnostic partner for businesses, physicians, urgent care facilities, and many hospitals around the United States. Mako Medical Laboratories has recruited the top Ph.Ds., chemists, and scientists to provide industry-leading innovation. Mako Medical Laboratories has developed many custom and proprietary tests and uses robotics/automation to improve precision and accuracy. They have won awards for growth, innovation, best places to work, charitable work, and from the Department of Labor for employing military veterans. Mako is also known for supporting over 470 nonprofits and charities, and many international causes. For more information, visit www.makomedical.com. Follow WGU: https://www.facebook.com/WGUNorthCarolina https://www.linkedin.com/company/wgu-north-carolina https://twitter.com/WGUNC https://www.instagram.com/wgunorthcarolina http://www.youtube.com/WesternGovernorsUniv Contact for media inquiries: Glenn Gillen, APR Public Relations Manager 919-450-8113 [email protected] SOURCE WGU North Carolina Related Links http://northcarolina.wgu.edu MONTREAL, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- On April 17, 2019, the global bleeding disorders community and the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH) will come together to celebrate World Hemophilia Day. World Hemophilia Day is an opportunity to help people with bleeding disorders live healthier, longer and more productive lives by educating and empowering them through knowledge sharing, information exchanges, education and training. This year, the theme of World Hemophilia Day is outreach and identification, and our tagline is "Reaching Out: The First Step to Care." Patient outreach and identification is about finding and supporting individuals with hemophilia or other bleeding disordersincluding von Willebrand diseasewho have not yet been diagnosed or whose health needs are not being met by health care services. These patients can be found through awareness-raising campaigns and educational activities. "Taking care of existing patients with a bleeding disorder is critically important. But we also have to look at those people who are suffering and haven't been diagnosed. We have to find these individuals, bring them into the community and provide them with the support they deserve." Alain Weill, President of the WFH World Hemophilia Day 2019 activities include a global campaign to light up landmarks around the world in red, as has been done successfully in the past. Members of the community, partners and national member organizations (NMOs) will come together so that local landmarks will "light it up red" on April 17. Many people will also light a red light in their home or office in an individual effort to raise awareness in their community. To access World Hemophilia Day resources, such as a downloadable poster and social media badges, visit www.wfh.org/en/whd. WFH support for the bleeding disorders community is provided by many endeavors that are making a difference in the community today, including: WFH programs, which are carried out in collaboration with national member organizations (NMOs) and a dedicated group of medical and lay volunteers and are based on a comprehensive development model that aims to achieve sustainable comprehensive care and "Treatment for All." The WFH Humanitarian Aid Program, which provides a range of integrated care development training programs to ensure the local infrastructure and medical expertise in developed countries are able to use donated products in the most optimal way possible. The Global Alliance for Progress (GAP) Program is the WFH flagship development program aimed at closing the gap in treatment between developed and developing countries in three key areas: the number of people born with hemophilia and those who reach adulthood; the estimated and actual number of people known with bleeding disorders; and the need versus the availability of treatment products. WFH World Bleeding Disorders Registry (WBDR), which uses data collection to advance the understanding and care of people with hemophilia worldwide. An accessible patient registry strengthens our capacity to identify, diagnose, treat and care for people living with hemophilia and other inherited bleeding disorders. The WFH Annual Global Survey, which collects basic demographic information and data on access to care and treatment products in order to provide hemophilia organizations, hemophilia treatment centers and health officials with useful information to support efforts to improve or sustain the care of people with bleeding disorders. The WFH eLearning Platform, which features more than 500 important educational resources for users with both medical and non-medical backgroundsin six languagesincluding guides, fact sheets, videos, articles, games and interactive modules that are downloadable for free and are well-suited for any learning style or area of interest. The WFH would like to thank our 2019 World Hemophilia Day sponsors for their continued support: Bayer BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. Biotest CSL Behring F.Hoffman La-Roche Ltd. GC Pharma Grifols Kedrion Novo Nordisk Octapharma Pfizer Precision BioLogic Sangamo Therapeutics Sanofi Genzyme Sobi Spark Therapeutics Takeda uniQure About hemophilia and other bleeding disorders Hemophilia, von Willebrand disease, inherited platelet disorders and other factor deficiencies are lifelong bleeding disorders that prevent blood from clotting properly. People with bleeding disorders do not have enough of a particular clotting factor, a protein in blood that controls bleeding or else it does not work properly. The severity of a person's bleeding disorder usually depends on the amount of clotting factor that is missing or not functioning. People with hemophilia can experience uncontrolled bleeding that can result from a seemingly minor injury. Bleeding into joints and muscles causes severe pain and disability, while bleeding into major organs, such as the brain, can cause death. About the World Federation of Hemophilia For over 50 years, the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH)an international not-for-profit organization has worked to improve the lives of people with hemophilia and other inherited bleeding disorders. Established in 1963, it is a global network of patient organizations in 140 countries and has official recognition from the World Health Organization. To find out more about the WFH, please visit www.wfh.org. Media contact: Neha Suchak, Director, Marketing and Communications Tel.: +1 514-875-7944, #2857 [email protected] Related Images world-hemophilia-day-logo.jpg World Hemophilia Day logo image2.jpg SOURCE World Federation of Hemophilia Related Links http://www.wfh.org Cucuta : , April 15 (IANS) US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has arrived in the Colombian border city of Cucuta, where he will visit two border crossing points and meet Colombian President Ivan Duque to discuss the crisis in neighbouring Venezuela. After ending his Peru visit, the top US diplomat to Colombia arrived here a little before 4 pm at Camilo Daza International Airport for the final leg of a regional tour he began in Chile, Efe news reported. At the air terminal, Pompeo was welcomed by Colombia's Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo Garcia. Before arriving here, Pompeo visited three countries -- Chile, Paraguay and Peru. The main issue on his agenda was the Venezuelan crisis and the challenges of dealing with the situation both regionally and internationally. In Cucuta, the main border crossing point between Colombia and Venezuela, Pompeo went to a shelter housing Venezuelan refugees where he met with Duque and Vice President Marta Lucia Ramirez, as well as Humberto Calderon Berti, the ambassador to Colombia appointed by Venezuela's interim president, Juan Guaido. Pompeo and Duque chatted with some of the Venezuelans being housed at the shelter, including several children, who told them about the difficulties they had experienced living in their country. Upon leaving the shelter, Pompeo signed a mural on which he wrote "Blessings to you all." Underneath that, Duque added the phrase "We're united in solidarity and affection." Later, Pompeo and Duque went to the Simon Bolivar border bridge between Colombia and Venezuela, where they strolled around on the Colombian side of the bridge and heard shouts of "Freedom! Freedom!" from a large crowd of Venezuelans. Duque told reporters in English that Colombia had taken in 1.5 million Venezuelans over the past two years. The US official and Duque also went to visit the warehouse facilities where humanitarian aid is being stockpiled on the Colombian side of the Tienditas border bridge, which is currently being blocked by Venezuelan troops so that this aid cannot be ferried into their country, this on the order of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Before the arrival of the US Secretary of State, Duque presented in Cucuta an "Impact Plan," a package of measures to help Colombia's provinces bordering on Venezuela deal with the effects of the crisis in the oil-producing neighboring country. That package of measures is valued at approximately 712 billion pesos (about $229 million) and is targeted at the provinces of Norte de Santander, Arauca, Cesar, La Guajira, Vichada and Guainia. This is Pompeo's second visit to Colombia this year after he traveled to the city of Cartagena on Jan. 2, where he spoke with Duque about the Venezuelan crisis and the fight against drug trafficking. Venezuela has been mired in a severe political, economic and social crisis for years, but it became more acute in January when Maduro was inaugurated to a second six-year term after winning an election the previous May that was held to be fraudulent by the Venezuelan opposition and a significant portion of the international community. After Maduro's inauguration, the head of the opposition-controlled Parliament, Juan Guaido, proclaimed himself Venezuela's interim president and since then he has received recognition as the country's legitimate leader by more than 50 nations around the world, including the US and most of the nations of Latin America and Europe. The US, Colombia and other nations began stockpiling humanitarian aid for Venezuela in Cucuta, Brazil and Curacao some months ago with an eye toward shipping it into Venezuela to alleviate the suffering of the Venezuelan people, but Maduro has blocked those shipments, claiming that there is no crisis in Venezuela and that aid shipments could be the pretext for a US-led invasion. Helsinki, April 15 : The Social Democratic Party (SDP) narrowly beat the right-wing Finns Party in the Finnish parliamentary elections. With 99.3 per cent of the ballots counted, the SDP, headed by former union leader Antti Rinne, obtained 17.7 per cent of the votes and 40 seats in Parliament, while the anti-immigration Finns Party, who are also in the opposition - obtained 17.5 per cent of the votes and 39 seats, Efe news reported. Thus, in a result that may be a harbinger for Europe-wide elections later this year, the nationalist Finns Party managed to garner more votes than the conservative governing National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) headed by Acting Finance Minister Petteri Orpo, which secured 17 per cent of the votes and 38 seats. The Centre Party - which is also in the country's governing coalition - headed by Prime Minister Juha Sipila, appears to be the big loser, obtaining 13.8 per cent of the votes and 31 seats in Parliament, its worst showing in history. In 2015, the Centre Party had held 49 seats after garnering more than 21 per cent of the vote. Meanwhile, the Green League is the party that gained the most support, after the SDP, capturing 11.5 per cent of the vote and 20 parliamentary seats, five more than they obtained in 2015. The Left Alliance also increased its support, garnering 8.2 per cent of the votes, a result that allows them to increase the number of their seats in parliament by four to 16. The other parties obtaining seats in the new 200-seat Finland's Parliament Eduskunta are the Swedish People's Party with 4.5 per cent of the votes and 9 seats and the Christian Democrats with 3.9 per cent of the votes and 5 seats. Blue Reform, a party that split off from the Finns Party, received 1 per cent of the votes but did not manage to secure any seats in parliament. The latest opinion polls had indicated that the Social Democrats stood an excellent chance of becoming the country's largest party, thus securing the post of Prime Minister, although it was widely recognised that they would obtain less than 20 per cent of the vote. The leftist SDP has not held the post of PM since 2003. Among the party's key policies are favouring work-related immigration to ensure that the labour force in Finland - whose population is aging - does not stagnate and allowing in a moderate number of refugees from afflicted countries on humanitarian grounds. The Finnish government of Juha Sipila resigned in March citing a failure to achieve social welfare and healthcare reform goals. The country's President approved Sipila's resignation but asked him to continue leading a caretaker government until a new cabinet could be appointed. More than 1.5 million people - 34.5 per cent of the total - voted in advance of the parliamentary elections under a system put in place in 1970 to encourage participation. The Finnish parliamentary election was being closely watched in Europe and elsewhere because the European Union holds its own legislative elections in less than two months and a strong showing by the ultra-conservative anti-immigration parties could presage increased clout for such political forces in Europe as a whole. Finland is slated to take over the rotating EU presidency from Romania in July. Washington, April 15 : Muslim Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has said that in the days since President Donald Trump tweeted about a speech she gave last month, she has experienced an increase in death threats. "Since the President's tweet Friday evening (April 12), I have experienced an increase in direct threats on my life - many directly referencing or replying to the President's video. I thank the Capitol Police, the FBI, the House Sergeant at Arms, and the Speaker of the House for their attention to these threats," Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, said in a statement released on Sunday evening. She also alleged that President Trump is encouraging right-wing extremist violence, CNN reported. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders denied earlier Sunday the President was trying to incite violence. In the April 12 tweet, Trump wrote: "We will never forget!" and included video of a speech Omar gave last month in which she said: "For far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I'm tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it. "CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognised that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to civil liberties." Omar was speaking last month to a California chapter of CAIR - the Council on American-Islamic Relations. It was actually founded in 1994. Trump also included in the tweet an edited video of the 9/11 attacks. In her statement, Omar noted Trump would be visiting her home state on Monday for a rally, reports CNN. "Violent crimes and other acts of hate by right-wing extremists and white nationalists are on the rise in this country and around the world. We can no longer ignore that they are being encouraged by the occupant of the highest office in the land. "Counties that hosted a 2016 Trump rally saw a 226 per cent increase in hate crimes in the months following the rally. And assaults increase when cities host Trump rallies. This is particularly concerning given the president's visit to my home state of Minnesota on Monday." Following Omar's statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday night that she had spoken with the House Sergeant at Arms about the Congresswoman's safety and that she wanted to make sure a security assessment was being conducted. "They will continue to monitor and address the threats she faces," Pelosi added. Earlier this month, federal prosecutors charged a man with threatening to assault and murder Omar. Thiruvananthapuram, April 15 : Hindus across Kerala on Monday celebrated 'Vishu' or the traditional new year, marking the arrival of good luck and fortune. Ahead of the main festival, women in the Hindu households prepare the 'Vishukani darshan' the previous night which is a traditional arrangement of their favourite deity, to be viewed the first thing in the morning. A special vessel called the 'urali' that consists of fresh produces including cucumber, pumpkin, coconut, plantains, mangos, pineapples, rice, grains and the areca nut, is kept in front of the idols. Elders first view the 'Vishukani', after which they wake up others in the house, who are all brought for the 'darshan' with their eyes closed. Another important event of the day is the giving away of 'vishukaineetam' (gift) which is mostly coins. Following this and a quick visit to the temple, the entire household gets ready for the traditional Vishu lunch, which is a 26 course vegetarian meal served on a banana leaf. In the southern and central districts of the state, this is a pure vegetarian meal, but in the northern districts, the lunch consists of non-vegetarian items also. Hindus constitute more than 50 per cent of the of the 33 million Kerala population. New Delhi, April 15 : The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to examine statements made by political leader allegedly violating the Model Code of Conduct during the ongoing poll campaign. The court will take the matter up on Tuesday. The Election Commission had informed the court that its power was circumscribed, as a consequence, it could merely issue notice, then advisory and lodge criminal complaint on repeated violations. The counsel for the poll body informed the court that the EC has no powers to disqualify candidates for such violations. The matter pertains to comments made by Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and others. Tokyo, April 15 : The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on Monday warned of the risks Japan faces due to its ageing population. In 2017, there were 50 Japanese people aged 65 per hundred, while the rest were aged between 20 to 64, and this ratio is projected to rise to 79 per hundred in 2050, according to a report presented by OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria here. "Half of the children born in Japan in 2017 are expected to live to the age of 107," Gurria said during the presentation. This implies that, unless a series of reforms are implemented, Japan will lose its working-age population by 25 per cent in 2050, reports Efe news. The official estimates contained in the report indicate that if in 2018, social spending on elderly population accounted for 18.8 per cent of the GDP, in 2060, it will be 23.2 per cent if certain measures are not undertaken. Among them, Gurria mentioned the need to revise the mandatory retirement age, which is 65 years, although 80 per cent of Japanese companies set it at 60 years. The report also highlighted a lack of career growth for the Japanese despite an increase in employment levels. The OECD's recommendations for Japan includes increasing the number of foreign workers in the country as Japan has the third-lowest number of foreign workers, more than only Poland and Mexico. In the press conference, Gurria also highlighted the decision taken by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government to increase the value added tax from 8 per cent to 10 per cent in October, which will serve to gradually reduce the country's budget deficit. Gurria said that, among OECD member countries, only Canada has a VAT lower than Japan and thereby recommended progressive increases of one percentage point in Japan in subsequent years. New Delhi, April 15 : The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to examine statements made by political leaders violative of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) after the Election Commission admitted it was "toothless" and "powerless" vis-a-vis hate speeches made during the election campaign. The court will take up the matter at 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday, saying it wants to examine the scope of powers of the Election Commission. Speeches by BSP chief Mayawati, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and others were cited as violations of the MCC. The Election Commission told the court that it can merely issue notice, then an advisory and lodge a criminal complaint in the case of repeated violations. The counsel for the poll body said it was "toothless" and "powerless" against hate and religious speeches made during the election campaign. The apex court said then it was appropriate to examine the scope of powers of the poll panel which is also a constitutional body. The EC counsel informed the court that it had already sought reply from Mayawati to furnish a reply regarding her election speech seeking votes on the basis of religion. Mayawati was supposed to reply by April 12 but the EC was yet to get it. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked: "What do you propose to do?" The EC counsel replied that it does not have the power to de-recognise or disqualify the person and it can only send advisories. And if the candidate continues to to violate the MCC, then it can file a compliant. The Supreme Court directed the Election Commission official to be present in court on Tuesday. Chennai, April 15 : The Income Tax (IT) department has for now concluded search operations in the premises of PSK Engineering after seizing about Rs 14.18 crore in cash, an IT official said on Monday. "Total cash seizure is Rs 14.18 crore and Rs 112 crore of unaccounted income has been admitted to," the official told IANS. The officials had on April 12 searched the premises of PSK Engineering in Chennai, Namakkal and Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu to flush out cash apparently aimed at bribing voters. The company was into construction business. Several incriminating documents and accounts with details of generation of unaccounted money by inflating the expenditure, payments made to influential persons and unaccounted capital were also seized, said the official. In the operation carried out in the premises of one Sujai Reddy, evidences of investment of Rs 16 crore in a Malaysian company was found which was not disclosed in his IT returns, said the official. "Unaccounted cash of Rs 18 lakh was seized from Reddy's premises." Meanwhile, the flying squads of the Election Commission searched the MLA hostel here on Sunday night after it got information of cash stocked in the hostel rooms for distribution to voters. The Lok Sabha polls in Tamil Nadu are slated for April 18. Abu Dhabi, April 15 : India will be the guest of honour at the 29th edition of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair that will be held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) capital from April 24 to 30. Over 1,000 publishers from 50 countries will participate in the 29th edition of the fair, reports The Khaleej Times. The National Book Trust of India will lead a 100-strong delegation comprising celebrated authors, publishers, literary figures and artists, Smitha Pant, Deputy Chief of Mission at the Indian embassy, told the media here on Sunday. "India's participation as the guest of honour is reflective of the deep strategic ties between India and the UAE," said Pant. "The recently opened Zayed-Gandhi digital museum at the Manarat Al Saadiyat that showcases the teachings and life of the two great leaders is an example of the cultural cooperation that is part of the ties shared by the two countries," she added. She said India will have the biggest pavilion at the book fair. Apart from the eminent authors in both English and other regional languages, the pavilion will also host cultural shows, poetry sessions and workshops. New Delhi, April 15 : The National Commission for Women (NCW) on Monday issued a notice to Samajwadi Party candidate Azam Khan for his "extremely offensive, unethical" remarks against his BJP rival and actor-turned-politician Jaya Prada. Khan, who is contesting from Uttar Pradesh's Rampur constituency, had said at a Sunday rally that he "realised in 17 days that the underwear beneath is of the khaki colour", while hinting at Jaya Prada, a two-time MP from Rampur. Videos in which Khan was seen making the speeches have been doing rounds on social media and have invited strong reactions. The SP leader claimed he never named Jaya Prada. The notice was signed by NCW Under Secretary Priti Kumar. The women rights body took strong note of the "sexist comments" and condemned such "irresponsible and disparaging comment from persons holding responsible positions". The NCW notice said: "...the remarks made are extremely offensive, unethical and shows disrespect towards the dignity and respect of women in general". The Commission has asked the politician to provide a satisfactory explanation to it. It had earlier also taken cognisance of Khan's derogatory remarks against women. An FIR has been lodged against Khan. Los Angeles, April 15 : Actors John Travolta and Kelly Preston honoured their son Jett on what would have been his 27th birthday. The "American Crime Story" actor and his wife took to Instagram on April 13 to pay tribute to their eldest child who died in 2009, reports aceshowbiz.com. Jett, who had autism and suffered other serious health issues, died at the age of 16, after hitting his head on a bathtub when he suffered a seizure during a family trip to the Bahamas. Travolta shared some fan art of his son, and wrote alongside the portrait: "A painting a fan made of my son Jett! Happy birthday my son I love you!". "Happy Birthday Jetty, my sweet love," Preston captioned a slideshow of photographs that included images of her and her husband with their son. The post comes a week after the 56-year-old "Sky High" actress shared a black and white photograph of her and Travolta kissing and cuddling Jett, in honour of Autism Awareness Month. The couple, who wed in 1991, is also parents to daughter Ella, 19, and son Benjamin, 8. Bhubaneswar, April 15 : A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Odisha's Khordha town, police said on Monday. Party workers have called for a six-hour shutdown. Khordha Mandal President Manguli Jena was shot at near Khurda BJP MLA candidate Kalucharan Khadayat's residence. He sustained critical bullet injuries and was admitted to the district hospital. Jena was declared dead on arrival by doctors. Following the incident, the BJP called for Khordha bandh from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Monday. The party workers staged protests outside a police station demanding immediate arrest of the killers. "We are shattered to hear about the murder of one of our party leaders of Khordha," Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said. He blamed the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) for the murder of the BJP worker and said they will get a befitting reply from voters. New Delhi, April 15 : Chinese tech major Huawei, battling a ban in the US, has put up a strong fight against rivals like iPhone maker Apple and South Korean giant Samsung in the premium smartphone segment with flagship P30 Pro. Known to be a stylish trendsetter -- it was the first smartphone player to bring a triple camera system in P20 pro last year - Huawei's P30 Pro comes with the world's first RYYB sensor aims to disrupt the digital imaging space. The new RYYB sensor, which uses yellow sub-pixels instead of green for the main camera, replaces the RGB sensor found in most smartphones. Image Source: IANS News According to the company, the new sensor would let in up to 40 per cent more light than an RGB sensor. The Huawei P30 Pro costs Rs 71,990 - nearly Rs 2,000 cheaper than Samsung Galaxy S10+ (128GB variant) and way cheaper than the 256GB variant of iPhone XR that costs Rs 91,900 and iPhone XS with 64 GB internal storage that is priced at Rs 99,900. The device brings to table a cluster of rear cameras that promise extraordinary zoom capabilities, great night photography and dynamic image range. We used the "Breathing Crystal" colour variant with 8GB RAM and 256GB onboard storage for roughly five days and here's what we think of it. The P30 Pro's USP is its rear quad camera system that puts Galaxy S10+ and Apple flagship iPhone XS to shame. There's 40MP main sensor, a 20MP ultra wide-angle and an 8MP 5x optical periscope zoom lens along with a Time of Flight (ToF) sensor. The P30 Pro offers the best zoom on a smartphone camera to date. It combines image data from the telephoto sensor and the main image sensor to produce hybrid but "lossless zoom". While it does a great job, we also noticed a little loss of sharpness as we zoomed into 10X. But the loss in detail was negligible. Image Source: IANS News The biggest feature of any phone has to be its low-light camera performance. Google Pixel 3 (with its night sight feature) may have been the undisputed leader in low-light imaging but the P30 Pro is much better in this department. Compared to Samsung Galaxy S10, the P30 Pro is a winner that refrains from oversaturating the photos. Notably, iPhone XS fails to compete with the bigger sensor of P30 Pro. The phone is powered by Huawei's homegrown Kirin 980 chipset that also fueled last year's Mate 20 Pro. The chip makes it one of most responsive phones out there today. The EMUI software, which was quite bulky, was a disappointment. It was quick but wasn't free of bloatware like reminders to enable "HiCare". Another let down was a single speaker and the lack of a 3.5-mm standard headphone jack. The vivid and bright 6.47-inch OLED FHD+ display gave us pronounced colours and deep blacks. The display features an almost negligible waterdrop style notch and underneath this screen lies the earpiece speaker as well as the fingerprint scanner. A 4,200mAh battery ensured the high-performance phone lasted almost two days on a single charge under moderate usage. We got almost 70 per cent juice in 30 minutes with the fast charging technology. The memory on the phone can be expanded only via Huawei's proprietary nanoSD card -- similar to what we saw on last year's P20 Pro. Conclusion: While the Huawei P30 Pro isn't cheap but it offers much more than its competitors. An excellent low-light camera coupled with flagship specs make the device a great buy over the iPhone XS or Galaxy S10+. (Krishna SinhaChaudhury can be contacted at Krishna.s@ians.in) London, April 15 : Multi-Michelin starred chef Gordon Ramsay's newest London restaurant has become embroiled in a row over alleged cultural appropriation after an Asian food critic accused him of tokenism, the media reported on Monday. Ramsey's restaurant group is preparing to launch Lucky Cat, which promotional material describes as "an authentic Asian Eating House and vibrant late-night lounge, inspired by the drinking dens of 1930s Tokyo and the Far East" later this year, reports CNN. But at a preview night last week, food writer Angela Hui claimed "it was nothing if not a real life Ramsay kitchen nightmare". Writing on Eater website, Hui said she was "the only east Asian person in a room full of 30-40 journalists and chefs" and that the setting was "more seedy nightclub than Asian eating house". In a series of scathing accompanying posts made to Instagram, the screengrabs of which were embedded in the review, Hui said she could only "drink through the pain that is this an "Asian' event". In another she added, "Japanese? Chinese? It's all Asian who cares". Ramsay hit back at the review in an Instagram post, saying that "despite the very positive feedback from guests" he had to call out "one offensive response from the night". He went on to accuse Hui of being unprofessional for publishing a "slew of derogatory and offensive social media posts" in her social channels. "It is fine to not like my food, but prejudice and insults are not welcome," the celebrity chef added. Seoul, April 15 : "Avengers: Endgame" directors Joe and Anthony Russo, collectively known as the Russo Brothers, are set to join forces with actor Tom Holland again. This time for a smaller film that has a "bit heavier material". "We are going to do our next movie with Tom Holland, who plays Spider-Man," Joe said here on Monday. The directors and Holland have worked together in Marvel films "Captain America: Civil War", "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers: Endgame". Talking about their next film, Joe said: "It is a smaller film about a war veteran who comes home with PTSD and develops a heroin addiction." "So, it's a bit heavier material... We thought it was an important issue to tackle," he added. The directors are here to promote "Avengers: Endgame", the 22nd film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Lucknow, April 15 : Even before the controversy over her vote-for-job statements for Muslims could settle down, Union Minister Maneka Gandhi has made another statement -- this time classifying villages on the basis of votes she gets. Gandhi, who is the BJP candidate from Sultanpur, said at a meeting: "I will develop an ABCD system and prioritise development work on this basis. "For instance, villages that cast 80 per cent votes for Bharatiya Janata Party will be put in category A, those that cast 60 per cent votes will be in category B and so on and so forth." She further said that this would help in developing a framework for development. "Villages in A category will get priority in development and then will come the turn of other categories. It is up to you whether you make it to A, B, C or D. No one should fall in D category as we all come here to do well," she said. Gandhi said that the BJP has also implemented the same category system at Pilibhit, from where her son Varun Gandhi is now the BJP candidate. She is already facing a notice from the Election Commission for her earlier statement in which she said that if Muslims do not vote for her, they should not expect her to give them jobs. "My feelings get hurt. If Muslims then come to me asking for work, then I will think let it be, how does it matter? After all, a job is a deal," making it clear that Muslims should not expect jobs if they don't vote for her. Following her previous remarks, the Election Commission had issued a show-cause notice demanding an explanation. Maneka Gandhi is contesting from Sultanpur where she is pitted against Sanjay Sinh of Congress and Chandra Bhadra Singh of BSP. Sultanpur goes to polls in the sixth phase on May 12. Beijing, April 15 : China on Monday said it won't hold a grudge against India if it skipped the second edition of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) forum, an event related to the multi-billion dollar connectivity project, to be held this month. Beijing also said even though some countries have wrongly judged the project, the growing support for the initiative spoke volumes. Like 2017, India may boycott the forum, citing its opposition to the key artery of the project that passes through the Pakistan-administered-Kashmir. Last month, Indian envoy to China Vikram Misri had said New Delhi could not be the part of any initiative that ignored its sovereignty and territorial integrity. He was referring to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the BRI's crown jewel. "Whether the Indian side will participate in the BRI forum, I think you need to ask India for more specific answer. I would like to re-emphasise that the BRI is proposed by China, but it's already an international public good," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said. "As for the Indian comment on not participating in the BRI for various reasons, I would like to say the BRI is an open and inclusive economic cooperation initiative and does not involve territorial and maritime dispute," Lu said referring to Misri's remark. "The first BRI forum was a success and many practical outcomes were achieved and now more international organisations and countries are participating in the Belt and Road cooperation. I think it speaks volumes. "Since it's announcement, the Belt and Road cooperation has been an open and inclusive for all countries and organisation interested in it. But if the relevant side would like to wait and see, we do not oppose that," Lu said. India is a major naysayer to the BRI, which aims to connect Asia, Africa and Europe through a network of roads, highways, ports and lanes. India's absence will be conspicuous as China will showcase growing support for the project at the event, which will be attended by over 100 international organisations and countries. Despite India's protest, China has gone ahead with the project. However, it continues to seek India's concerns, saying the project is purely an economic one and has nothing to do with Kashmir. "In the BRI, China and other countries uphold the principles of equality and transparency. We follow market-based principles and the customary international rules. I think some sides have misunderstandings on the BRI and thus have some wrong judgment," Lu said. Asked if it meant India would miss the opportunity if it did not participate at the event, Lu said: "Some countries will lose some opportunities as more international organisations are participating at the event. you may need to ask the countries themselves which are not participating at the forum." (Gaurav Sharma can be contacted at sharmagaurav71@gmail.com) San Francisco, April 15 : Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) that has dealt with a reputation for poor security for years, now makes PCs vulnerable even if it is just installed in them, a security researcher has found. According to researcher John Page, an unpatched exploit in the web browser's handling of MHT files (IE's web archive format), hackers can use to both spy on Windows users and steal their local data. "As Windows opens MHT files using IE by default, you don't even have to run the browser for this to be a problem -- all you have to do is open an attachment sent through chat or email. "This wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for the disclosure of the flaw. Page posted details of the exploit after Microsoft reportedly declined to roll out an urgent security fix, Engadget reported on Sunday. The vulnerability affects Microsoft Windows 7, Windows 10 and Windows Server 2012 R2. "Microsoft said a fix would be 'considered' in a future release. While that does suggest a patch is on the way, it leaves millions of users potentially vulnerable unless they either turn off Internet Explorer or point to another app that can open MHT files," the report added. The news came at a time when Microsoft, coming to terms with the Outlook.com data breach case, reached out to some users, informing them of the hack which exposed data sent over emails to hackers who kept accessing their accounts between January 1 to March 28. In an email, Microsoft claimed that apart from the content of the emails including attachments, the hackers could have possibly viewed account email addresses, folder names and subject lines of the mails sent and received. The case came to notice when the software giant discovered that the credentials of a support agent were compromised for its web mail service which led to unauthorised access into some accounts. New Delhi, April 15 : The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Election Commission to watch the film "PM Narendra Modi", a biopic on the Prime Minister, and submit it's report in a sealed cover to the court by the end of this week. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna, has scheduled the hearing of the writ petition filed by film producer, Sandeep Ssingh, on April 22. When the court asked the poll panel counsel whether the poll body has already seen the film, senior advocate Mukul Rohtagi, appearing for the producer submitted before the court that the poll body has barred the film's release, without even watching it. The bench then asked the EC counsel to watch the movie and submit its report to the court. The Supreme Court scheduled the matter for next hearing on April 22. The filmmakers had moved the apex court challenging the EC's order delaying its release date. The petitioners contended that the poll body order violated the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by the Constitution. Last week, the EC issued an order barring the screening of political films during the polls. The film starring Vivek Oberoi was slated to release on April 11, the first day of polling for the seven phased Lok Sabha elections. "Any biopic material in the nature of biography/hagiography sub-serving the purposes of any political entity or any individual entity connected to it, which is intended to, or which has the potential to disturb the level playing field during the elections, should not be displayed in electronic media, including cinematograph during the operation of the MCC (Model Code of Conduct)," the EC said in its order. Earlier on April 9, the apex court had rejected a plea filed by a Congress leader, Aman Panwar to stay the release of the biopic. It had also refused to consider the issue whether the screening would tilt the balance in the favour of a political party. The court had said let the EC decide the matter. Agartala, April 15 : Before campaigning for the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections ends on Tuesday, some candidates from Tripura East constituency used the 'Poila Baisakh' (Bengali New Year) on Monday to reach out to the electorate personally. Tripura Congress President Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Burman, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) candidate Jitendra Chowdhury and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nominee Rebati Tripura interacted with the people on Monday too. The constituency, reserved for tribals, goes to the polls in the second phase on Thursday and the campaigning will end on 5 p.m. on Tuesday. Tribal leader Rebati Tripura, accompanied by the others, carried out a door-to-door campaign and exchanged new year's greetings with the voters. Academician-turned-politician Rebati said: "I am a new entrant. So I have no time to relax. I am using my time to expand my relationship with the people." Deb Burman, a royal scion, told IANS: "Exchanging greetings and campaigning for the elections are going together. This is the best way to maintain social life and personal relationship." Sitting Lok Sabha member and CPI-M candidate for the Tripura East seat, Jitendra Chowdhury, campaigned in the mountainous Jampui areas, adjoining Mizoram. "There is a very little time left. So we do not waste our time. Sharing good wishes and campaigning are going on together," Chowdhury told IANS over phone from northern Tripura. Pragya Deb Burman of Congress said she was busy in exchanging greetings with the people while her brother and state party chief Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Burman was campaigning in the constituency. "I have already covered most of the habitations in the constituency," said Pragya Burman, who studied from the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (under ISRO) in Dehradun. Jammu, April 15 : People engaged in hectic shopping for essential commodities in Jammu and Kashmir's Kishtwar on Monday as curfew - imposed on April 9 following tension over killing of an RSS leader - was relaxed across the whole town for three hours. Curfew was imposed after killing of RSS leader Chandrakant Sharma and his security guard by militants led to high tension in the town and even the army had to be called out to assist the civil administration. "Curfew was relaxed in the afternoon today for three hours. Mobile Internet has also been restored as the situation continues to return to normal," Kishtwar District Magistrate Angrez Singh Rana said. He said that the curfew relaxation ended at 3 p.m. without any untoward incident. "The situation is being closely monitored and we plan to give further relaxation in in the evening," the DM added. It was for the first time since April 9 that curfew was relaxed in the entire Kishtwar town. Curfew was relaxed on April 12 and April 14 in a phased manner in different parts of the town. Police has detained around a dozen suspects so far during the investigation into the militant attack. The car used to transport militants during the attack has also been seized, but the owner is still absconding. Kishtwar comes under the Udhampur Lok Sabha seat that goes to polls on April 18. Agartala, April 15 : A young tribal boy killed three people including a woman and injured another in northern Tripura after a brief altercation late on Sunday night, police said on Monday. "After some quarrel, a minor tribal boy killed three tribals with an axe at Paiseram Karbari Para village under Manikpur police station late on Sunday night," Dhalai district police chief Sudipta Das told IANS. He said that the accused, now in police custody, might be a juvenile and that's why they are not disclosing his details. The victims are Henabati Tripura, 45, Kenachan Chakma, 68, Subal Kanti Chakma, 45 while Priyalal Chakma was injured and admitted to a hospital. The opposition Congress, however, accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of masterminding the incident to vitiate the atmosphere during the Lok Sabha elections. "Days before the second phase of elections in the Tripura East Lok Sabha constituency on Thursday, the BJP has staged this incident as the murderer is a BJP activist," Congress Vice-President Tapas Dey told the media. The BJP strongly denied the allegations. Chennai, April 15 : In a major setback to the ruling AIADMK, the Election Commission of India (EC) on Monday banned its advertisement running in television and social media on grounds that it violated its model code of conduct (MCC). In a letter issued to all the media (TV channels and Print), the poll body said the AIADMK's advertisement "Oru Kudumba Aatchi" (rule of one family) is telecast in electronic and social media based on unverified allegations or distortions. The Commission said the telecast of the video should be stopped forthwith. Further telecast of the advertisement will attract severe punishment and penal provisions of the Cable TV Act and other laws in force. The DMK had complained to the Election Commission against the AIADMK's advertisement which made baseless allegations against it. The poll body in its letter said political parties are telecasting/ broadcasting their advertisements without the approval of the State Level Media Certification and Monitoring Committee or being telecast without mentioning the approval number. The Election Commission had earlier banned AIADMK's advertisement as it made unverified allegations against the DMK. Jaipur, April 15 : Former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on Monday hit out at the Congress, alleging that it had done "injustice" to the people for decades but now during the elections, has started talking of "Nyay (justice)". Addressing a gathering here before the filing of nomination papers by BJP's Jaipur candidate and sitting MP Ramcharan Bohra, she said that those who ruled the nation for 55 years and spoke of eradicating poverty failed in their promises and hence poverty could not be eliminated from India. Hitting out at the present Ashok Gehlot-led party government, Raje accused it of failing to give full loan waiver to farmers while the unemployed could not get their allowance as promised. Surprisingly, their party continues speaking of Nyay," she said at a jibe at the Congress' poll promise of a minimum income support scheme, which aims to provide Rs 72,000 annually to 20 per cent of the poorest families. Raje also said that this Lok Sabha election is not a normal election but "stands synonymous for soldiers' respect and national security". "Prime Minister Narendra Modi helped in eradicating corruption from India and hence we need to ensure that we help him come as PM again," she added. BJP state President Madan Lal Saini, who was also present, accused Congress of trying to "throttle democracy" during the Emergency (1975-77) and "torturing" various sections of people. The Newport Princess, a 77-year-old, 61.5-foot-long Mississippi-style paddleboat that toured Newport Harbor, has sunk about a mile off of the coast of Long Beach. Taipai, April 15 : In a clear signal that India is Apple's next growth market, Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer Foxconn's Chairman Terry Gou said, here on Monday, the company would begin mass production of iPhones in India this year. Addressing an event, Gou said the move "will get Foxconn more deeply involved in the development of the country's smartphone industry", reports Patently Apple. "In the future, we will play an important role in India's smartphone industry," Gou said. The 69-year-old billionaire founder and Chairman of Foxconn Technology Group also revealed plans to retire, signalling handing over of the baton to young management that would run the world's largest electronics contract manufacturer. Foxconn is already expanding its manufacturing operations in India, especially at its Sriperumbudur (Chennai) facility. "To start with, it makes sense for Apple to localise assembling of models that have the potential to scale up and then slowly expand it to entire portfolio," Tarun Pathak, Associate Director at Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Research, told IANS. A CNBC report in December said Apple would begin assembling its top-end iPhones in India through the local unit of Foxconn as early as 2019. "Importantly, Foxconn will be assembling the most expensive models, such as devices in the flagship iPhone X family, potentially taking Apple's business in India to a new level," reported CNBC. Giving an impetus to its India manufacturing plans, Apple in March started the assembling of iPhone 7 at its other supplier Wistron's facility in Bengaluru. Taiwanese industrial major Wistron assembles iPhone 6S in the country. Wistron has also announced plans to invest Rs 3,000 crore in the Narasupra industrial sector in Karnataka's Kolar district. The new Wistron facility may also manufacture a wider range of Apple devices. Apple is slowly but steadily strategising its plans to make deeper inroads in a country where over 450 million people use smartphones, and assembling iPhone 7 is another step towards gaining ground. Apple has begun reducing price of iPhones in China and may go the same way in India where the iPhone is considered expensive. It is also seeking tax relief and other incentives to begin assembling more handsets and open its branded stores in India. New Delhi, April 15 : India's merchandise exports grew 11.02 per cent, on a year-on-year basis in March, to $32.55 billion from $29.32 billion reported for the corresponding month of last year, official data showed on Monday. "Exports in March 2019 were $32.55 billion, as compared to $29.32 billion in March 2018, exhibiting a positive growth of 11.02 per cent," the Commerce Ministry said. "Cumulative value of exports for the period April-March 2018-19 was $331.02 billion as against $303.53 billion during the period April-March 2017-18, registering a positive growth of 9.06 per cent in dollar terms." As per the data, inorganic chemicals, engineering goods and drugs and pharmaceuticals showed high export growth during the month under review. On the other hand, imports were flat in March, growing only 1.44 per cent to $43.44 billion, from $42.82 billion reported for the corresponding month of 2018. "Cumulative value of imports for the period April-March 2018-19 was $507.44 billion, as against $465.58 billion during the period April-March 2017-18, registering a positive growth of 8.99 per cent in dollar terms," the ministry said. New Delhi, April 15 : Bringing out the alliance talk in public domain, Congress President Rahul Gandhi and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal on Monday blamed each other for the delay in forging an alliance between them in the national capital. In a tweet, Gandhi said the Congress was willing to give up four of the seven parliamentary seats in Delhi to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). "An alliance between the Congress and AAP in Delhi would mean the rout of the BJP. The Congress is willing to give up four Delhi seats to the AAP to ensure this. But Kejriwal has done yet another U turn! Our doors are still open, but the clock is running out," Gandhi said. Responding to the tweet in Hindi, Kejriwal said he had not taken any U-turn and he feels sad over Gandhi's comments. "What U-turn? The talks are still going on. Your tweet shows that the alliance is not your wish but just a showoff. I feel sorry that you are making statements. Today, it is very important to save the country from the threat of the Modi-Shah duo. It is unfortunate that you are helping Modi by dividing the anti-Modi vote in UP and other states too," he said. On Sunday, when asked about a possible alliance with the Congress in Delhi, Kejriwal said he and his party were ready to do anything to save the country from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah. The talks between the Congress and the AAP for an alliance in Delhi is said to be still on despite the AAP's insistence on an alliance in Haryana and Chandigarh as well. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP bagged all the seven seats while the AAP came second. Chandigarh, April 15 : Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday questioned the absence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Badal family from the events to mark the centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre by British forces. Accusing the Prime Minister of "serious discrimination against the Congress government in Punjab in matters of religious importance as part of his and his party's divisive agenda", Amarinder Singh upped the ante against Modi, who on Sunday chose to target him (Amarinder) in a speech at Kathua. Amarinder Singh asked why the Prime Minister had not attended the event or pointed fingers at the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leaders, including former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal and union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal for failing to attend the central government function to commemorate the centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. "Neither Prakash or Sukhbir Badal nor Harsimrat Badal, who happens to be a Minister in Modi's own cabinet, deemed it fit to pay their homage to the martyrs at the historic Jallianwala Bagh. Yet Modi, who himself chose to keep away from this occasion of national importance, had criticized me even though I had been part of a series of events at the Jallianwala Bagh national memorial over two days," Amarinder Singh said in a statement here. "Why was Modi not present at this major event? Why did the Badals fail to turn up, and why did the Prime Minister chose to conveniently ignore their absence?" asked the Chief Minister. Interpreting Modi's actions and words as part of his government's persistent discrimination against the Congress government in Punjab, Amarinder Singh said that the central government chose to hold a parallel event to mark the Jallianwala Bagh centenary instead of supporting the state government's commemorative programmes. New Delhi, April 15 : While the Prime Minister is not getting ahead of himself just yet on crucial appointments given that he is slap bang in the middle of the general election, the incumbent or leader of whatever the new formation emerges out of the ongoing polls has to decide on three vital slots which free up. All three critical appointees are on extension and their extensions run out around the time the new government takes over. Two top security establishment personnel who are on six-month extension retire immediately after the new government is sworn in. Intelligence Bureau Director Rajiv Jain retires on May 30 while A.K. Dhasmana, who heads RAW superannuates on May 29. With both Anil Dhasmana and Jain having to go, India's security apparatus will get new blood, and given that these are at one level political appointees, there is a veritable blue sky available. Similarly, the cabinet secretary P.K. Sinha also retires after an extension on June 12. Now this troika is vital to running the nation's bureaucratic steel-frame at one level and internal and external security requirements at another. The trinity has top billing in any government after the Prime Minister's Office, which includes the Principal Secretary and National Security Adviser in its ranks. Though the Cabinet secretary's post is for a fixed tenure of two years, like home, defence and foreign secretaries, Cabinet secretaries usually get an extension mainly because the Prime Minister looks for continuity to manage the bureaucracy. In fact, in Sinha's case, there is a precedent -- both K.M. Chandrasekhar and Ajit K. Seth - served for four years each, due to extensions. Sinha, a 1977 batch Uttar Pradesh cadre IAS officer, has thus managed a four-year term, though, again, as with his predecessors, extension of tenure does deny other eligible IAS officers the opportunity to occupy the top post in the bureaucracy. The extensions of Chandrasekhar denied the hope of Sudha Pillai of 1972 batch IAS to become India's first woman cabinet secretary. It was the case with Seth too. By extending Sinha's tenure, the PMO ensured that all contenders of 1980 and 1981 batch of IAS would have retired. As per government rules, no government servant shall be granted extension in service beyond age of retirement of 60 years. But as per rule FR 56, extension in public interest may be given "for a period not exceeding four years in the case of Cabinet Secretary". Sinha, who was appointed in 2015 for two years, got his first extension of a year in 2017 and the second one has been given now. The extension to Dhasmana pushed the four contenders to be R&AW chief into the background. On top of that list was K. Ilango, former chief of the Colombo R&AW station, where he is said to have been able to help defeat then Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who went on to lose the elections in 2015. Samant Goel, a Punjab cadre IPS officer, was also in the reckoning to be the RAW chief. Two others tipped as favourites for IB chief were Arvind Kumar, a 1984-batch Bihar cadre IPS officer, and R.K. Shukla, Madhya Pradesh police chief. Bhubaneswar, April 15 : Hours before the Election Commission (EC) banned him from campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls for three days, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday accused the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government in Odisha of indulging in large-scale corruption. "The Odisha government is involved in various scams, including the chitfund scam. It has nothing to offer to youth and to state," said Adityanath at rallies in Odisha. He also asked the people to vote for a "double-engine government" to usher in progress in the state. Criticising the Congress, he said,, "The Congress-led government at the Centre preferred to remain quiet when Chinese were intruding into India and Pakistan-sponsored terrorists were killing people in India." "But the scenario has changed after the BJP's coming to power. Now, if Islamabad showed the temerity to launch an attack, the Modi government would take the fight to terror camps deep inside Pakistan" he said. IANS cd/rtp/pcj New Delhi, April 15 : The ban on Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from campaigning in the Lok Sabha elections for 3 days over hate speeches is not the first punitive action by the Election Commission (EC) against erring politicians. During the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the poll panel had banned Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Amit Shah and Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Azam Khan from holding public meetings or road shows in UP. The EC had also asked authorities to initiate criminal proceedings against them. The action against Shah in connection with his speech at a rally in riot-hit Muzaffarnagar where he called for "revenge". "You have been treated as second-grade citizens. It is time for revenge now. Batons, guns and swords belong to a bygone era. These days you take revenge by pressing the button," he said. The action against Khan was taken over his remark that "No Hindu soldier died in the 1999 Kargil war, which was won by Muslim soldiers". As in the case of Mayawati and Adityanath, the action against Shah and Khan was taken under Article 324, which gives the EC wide powers to ensure free and fair elections. But Monday's action against Mayawati and Adityanath came after the Supreme Court pulled up the poll panel for blatant violation of the model code of conduct. Welcoming the EC action, constitution expert P.D.T. Achary said it might have come under pressure, realising that the Supreme Court would take harsh view of things on Tuesday, when the case is listed for consideration. "The EC always had teeth, but unless it showed them no one would fear it. It is a good beginning to set right the wrongs," he told IANS. Given the gravity of the offence, the EC could have barred the two leaders for campaigning from the entire election, he said. "But this is a signal, just a beginning. It would act as deterrent for others by sending a message that the poll panel can take the most stringent action, if needed, and can even bar violators from campaigning for the whole election," he said. New Delhi, April 15 : After Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the Election Commission (EC) on Monday barred Union Minister Maneka Gandhi and Samajwadi Party leader Mohammed Azam Khan from campaigning in the Lok Sabha elections for 48 houres and 72 hours, respectively. While Gandhi was barred for asking Muslims in Pilibhit, her constituency, to vote for her if they wanted jobs, Khan was banned for making objectionable remarks against actor-turned-politician Jaya Prada, his BJP opponent in Rampur. Khan reportedly told a rally in Rampur on Sunday: "It took you 17 years to identify the real face of these people, but I got to know it in 17 days that they wear khaki underwear." The EC reprimanded Khan saying his "indecent", "derogatory and totally uncalled for" statement violated the model code of conduct and banned him from holding any public meetings, processions, rallies, road shows and interviews or public utterances in media in connection with the ongoing elections for 72 hours from 6 a.m. on Tuesday. In a separate order, it also barred Gandhi from holding any public meetings, processions, rallies, road shows and interviews, public utterance in media related to the elections for 48 hours. The EC had earlier barred Mayawati and Adityanath from campaigning in the Lok Sabha elections for 48 hours and 72 hours, respectively. While the BSP leader had urged the Muslim community to vote only for the SP-BSP-RLD alliance candidates, the Chief Minister had said if the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the BSP had faith in Ali, "we have faith in Bajrangbali". The poll panel also asked Adityanath to explain his remark calling the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) a "virus" and saying the Congress was infected with this "green virus". Campobasso : , April 15 (IANS/AKI) Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte on Monday urged a negotiated solution to the escalating conflict in oil-rich Libya between the internationally recognised government in Tripoli and forces loyal to eastern military strongman Khalifa Haftar. He also called on Haftar's militia to withdraw from Tripoli and urges an immediate truce in the fighting with forces loyal to the internationally recognised government. "Armed conflict is not the solution. We have a precise strategy and want a political solution," Conte told reporters upon his arrival in the southern Italian city of Campobasso for talks with local officials. "I will do my utmost to ensure that all Libyan stakeholders as well as members of the international community work together for a peaceful solution in Libya and its permanent stability," Conte added. Italy's first priority is a truce in the fighting and talks are taking place in Rome between the government, Qatar's Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Mohammad Al Thani and Libya's UN-backed Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj's deputy Ahmed Maitig, Conte said. "We are following the unfolding events in Libya and are worried because we must stem this armed conflict without fail," he said. The warfare in Italy's former colony has intensified this month since Haftar began a military offensive against "terrorist" groups in the capital in which at least 160 civilians have been killed and 16,000 have fled their homes, according to the UN. The tripartite talks in Rome on Monday are a sign of Italy's eagerness to play a greater role in Libya, according to observers. Earlier Conte, after talks with Qatar's Thani in Rome, told reporters that Italy hopes that the Libyan National Army troops will withdraw from Tripoli, referring to Haftar's self-styled force. "We want an immediate ceasefire," he said. Qatar shared Italy's "intense concern" at the "military escalation" in Libya and that "this cannot be the answer" to the lawless country's problems, Conte said. Thani earlier held talks in Rome with his Italian counterpart Enzo Moavero Milanesi which allowed "an in-depth exchange of views on the most recent dynamics of the Libyan crisis," according to a statement. Libya has been wracked by conflict since the Nato-backed ouster of late dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Rival administrations in the east and west are backed by a myriad of militias vying for power in the oil-rich country, which was an Italian colony from 1911-1947. Meanwhile, Italy's embassy in Libya on Monday brushed off social media reports that it had closed amid the escalating military conflict in Tripoli, tweeting that it was "open" and was operating normally. "There has been no reduction of Italy's institutional presence in Libya," the tweet added. New Delhi, April 15 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday defended invoking martyrs in his poll campaigns, saying there was nothing wrong in highlighting the sacrifices made by security personnel, adding some parties have made the deaths of farmers a political issue. "Thousands of soldiers have died in the past 40 years due to terrorism. Is it not an issue as to what should be done for them? If farmers die, it is an issue, then why not soldiers who die defending the counrty?" he said in an interview to DD News. "We want to strengthen our forces. We have been fighting terrorism for the past 40 years. If we do not take this to public, what is the logic?" Opposition parties have lodged complaints to the Election Commission over "politicisation" of the death of 40 CRPF personnel in Pulwama and subsequent retaliatory airstrike in Balakot in Pakistan. Modi said the country cannot be run without nationalism. "Can any country run without nationalism? If we want to bring Olympic medals, the chances increase if the youth is filled with nationalism," he said. The Prime Minister said a section of "hyper-secular" people in the country were targeting his government. Nothing had happened since Nehru's time to resolve Jammu & Kashmir conflict, he said. "We toed one line for 70 years. There has been no outcome. We prepared roadmaps in regards to Articles 370 and 35 A (of Constitution). Should not we take people into confidence and inform them about it?" he said. Over the charges of National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah and Peoples Democratic Party leader Mehbooba Mufti that "Kashmir will be separated", Modi said "They have always used such language. They have resorted to emotional blackmailing and emotional exploitation". Calling them outdated, Modi said panchayat elections in the state saw 70-75 per cent polling despite a boycot call by these leaders. Modi also took a dig at Congress President Rahul Gandhi for raising Rafale fighter jet deal issue even when there were "no proof showing any irregularities" in it. "He raised wrong issues about Rafale to wash away his father's sins in Bofors case by attributing it to nationalism," said Modi. Suspects flee by train : Bonn police arrest thieves after street robbery Bonn/Sankt Augustin On Sunday evening, Bonn police temporarily arrested a 24-year-old woman and a 17-year-old man. They are suspected of having snatched the shoulder bag from a 55-year-old pedestrian on Clemensstrae in Schwarzrheindorf. Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken A street robbery occurred on Sunday evening on Clemensstrae in Bonn. According to Bonn police, on the basis of current investigations, a woman exited a train at 9.55 p.m. at the Adelheidisstrae S-Bahn station. As she subsequently crossed Clemensstrae, she was suddenly attacked from behind by a woman and a man. They snatched the 55-year-old's handbag and ran away. The woman, who was slightly injured during the attack, shouted for help. A local resident heard her cries and called the police. Another resident followed the two suspects on his bicycle. He observed that they boarded a city train in the direction of Siegburg. He immediately passed this information on to the officers of the Ramersdorf station. A few minutes later, the suspects were apprehended in the city train at the Hangelar-West stop and were temporarily arrested. They did not have the stolen shoulder bag with them. Faced with the accusation, the couple admitted the crime and stated that they had hidden the bag on Sankt Augustiner Strae behind a waste container. The police found the bag there and safeguarded it. After completion of the initial criminal investigation, the 17-year-old and the 24-year-old, who have a permanent residence, were released. The investigation against them is ongoing. New Delhi/Mumbai, April 15 : Troubled Jet Airways' board will meet on Tuesday to chalk out future course of action after the airline failed to get emergency funding from lenders on Monday. Awaiting outcome of lenders' meet with the government, the cash-starved airline has extended cancellation of international flights till April 18 (Thursday). On Friday, it suspended all international operations till April 15 (Monday). The airline's CEO Vinay Dube wrote to staff saying the management would seek guidance from the board on the next steps. In his message to employees, Dube said the airline has been working with lenders to secure interim funding for its operations. "The interim funding has not been forthcoming thus far and as a result of which we have extended cancellation of international operations through Thursday, April 19," he wrote. "We will keep you updated on all critical developments," he added. Late on Monday evening, the SBI that leads the consortium of Jet's lenders said merchant banker SBI Caps' legal team was working on the expressions of interest (EoIs) received from investors, and bidders will be selected soon. "The proposed equity conversion by banks, if any, will be undertaken as a transitory mechanism to facilitate the bidding-cum-sale process," the State Bank of India (SBI) said in a statement. The SBI Caps is acting on behalf of the group of lenders as part of the bank-led resolution process. Necessary support to facilitate the process is being extended by other banks in the consortium. "Cooperation and support from all other stakeholders will be the key to success of the process," SBI said. The development assumes significance as the airline has almost run out of funds to pay for fuel and other operational expenses. It has folded up most operations due to grounding of over 80 per cent of its fleet by lessors, and is running just 7 aircraft, barely enough to save its air operating permit (AOP). Industry insiders say fuel supply is expected to run out on Tuesday afternoon as fresh payments would be required for vendors. Without extra funds the airline may temporarily suspend operations. Even the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has started giving its slots to other carriers suggesting Jet's closure is just a matter of time. Jet's woes has intensified as the airline that once operated around 120 aircraft is now left with just 16-plane fleet. It owes over Rs 8,000 crore to the SBI-led consortium of lenders. Its only ray of hope is an immediate injection of interim funding and the completion of the stake sale process, initiated by lenders. Campobasso : /Rome, April 15 (IANS/AKI) Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte on Monday urged a negotiated solution to the escalating conflict in oil-rich Libya between the internationally recognised government in Tripoli and forces loyal to eastern military strongman Khalifa Haftar. He also called on Haftar's militia to withdraw from Tripoli and an immediate truce in the fighting with forces loyal to the internationally-recognised government, while warning any military intervention could plunge the chaos-stricken North African country into a "devastating" humanitarian crisis that would impact Italy as well. "Armed conflict is not the solution. We have a precise strategy and want a political solution," Conte told reporters upon his arrival in the southern Italian city of Campobasso for talks with local officials. "I will do my utmost to ensure that all Libyan stakeholders as well as members of the international community work together for a peaceful solution in Libya and its permanent stability," he added. Italy's first priority is a truce in the fighting and talks are taking place in Rome between the government, Qatar's Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Mohammad Al Thani and Libya's UN-backed Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj's deputy Ahmed Maitig, Conte said. "We are following the unfolding events in Libya and are worried because we must stem this armed conflict without fail," he said. The warfare in Italy's former colony has intensified this month since Haftar began a military offensive against "terrorist" groups in the capital in which at least 160 civilians have been killed and 16,000 have fled their homes, according to the UN. Earlier Conte, after talks with Qatar's Thani in Rome, told reporters that Italy hopes that the Libyan National Army troops will withdraw from Tripoli, referring to Haftar's self-styled force. "We want an immediate ceasefire," he said. Conte also said that they "absolutely must avoid a humanitarian crisis, which would be devastating, not only for the obvious repercussions on our country, but for the Libyan people". "Once again, the political dialogue supported by Italy has shown itself to be the only way forward. The view that military intervention could be a solution for Libya has been discredited - force can never lead to sustainable solutions," he said. Nations have stepped up a diplomatic push to broker an "inclusive" and "sustainable" peace in war-wracked Libya under the auspices of the United Nations, Conte added. A UN-backed national conference in southwest Libya slated for April 14-16 that was due to hammer out a roadmap for elections has been cancelled due to the warfare in the capital between Haftar's militia and forces loyal to the UN-backed government. Qatar shared Italy's "intense concern" at the "military escalation" in Libya and that "this cannot be the answer" to the lawless country's problems, Conte said. Thani earlier held talks in Rome with his Italian counterpart Enzo Moavero Milanesi which allowed "an in-depth exchange of views on the most recent dynamics of the Libyan crisis," according to a statement. Libya has been wracked by conflict since the Nato-backed ouster of late dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Rival administrations in the east and west are backed by a myriad of militias vying for power in the oil-rich country, which was an Italian colony from 1911-1947. Meanwhile, Italy's embassy in Libya on Monday brushed off social media reports that it had closed amid the escalating military conflict in Tripoli, tweeting that it was "open" and was operating normally. "There has been no reduction of Italy's institutional presence in Libya," the tweet added. Kolkata, April 16 : Hitting back at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for trying to link two of its candidates to the RSS, the Congress on Monday accused her of trying to sow the seed of suspicion among the minorities about the Congress, and reminded her of her past relations with the BJP. "The West Bengal Chief Minister knows very well that there is no existence of the RSS in West Bengal. And people in Murshidabad also know this," said Congress' Baharampur candidate and sitting MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. Addressing election meetings at Beldanga and Domkal of Murshidabad district, Banerjee had accused the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of helping and providing funds to Chowdhury and Congress' Jangipur candidate and incumbent MP Abhijit Mukherjee, son of former President Pranab Mukherjee. Chowdhury took a dig at Banerjee for having called the RSS leaders "true patriots" at a programme organised by the organisation in Delhi years back. "The Chief Minister regards the RSS as 'patriotic', because he had given this certificate to RSS in at a meeting in Delhi. She was an invitee in the RSS programme. So it was actually you who had praised the RSS, not we," said Chowdhury, also a former state Congress president. The meeting Chowdhury referred to had taken place in September 2003. Banerjee had attended a book release programme organised by the RSS in Delhi where its top brass was present. There Banerjee had reportedly called the RSS leaders "true patriots" and said: "I know you love the country, you care for even small, remote areas of the country". She had also sought RSS support to fight the Communists, who were in power then in West Bengal. "By saying in Murshidabad that Adhir Chowdhury and Abhijit are involved with the RSS, she is trying to create some suspicion and confusion about the Congress in the mind of the minorities and the religious-minded Muslims," said Chowdhury. Abhijit Mukherjee also joined the issue with Banerjee. "Congress has never joined the RSS. But who was a member of (former Prime Minister) Atal Behari Vajpayee's cabinet? Not us." Banerjee had served as Railway and Coal Minister in Vajpayee's cabinet. Richmond ranked as the busiest suburb for weekend auctions with the Melbourne suburb having 21 homes offered under the hammer. Richmond's weekend sales included the three bedroom cottage of former Melbourne Victory captain Adrian Leijer (above and below). His property, which passed in at auction at $1.505 million, sold post auction for an undisclosed price. The three-bedroom home, renovated by the star centre back and his architect wife Ashlee, had pre-auction $1.4 million to $1.54 million price guidance through Jellis Craig agent Trent Stewart. The Herald Sun reported a Mornington Peninsula based family will use it as a city pad, the keenest of around 80 groups who had gone through the property at 118 Richmond Terrace, Richmond which was bought in 2011 for $615,000. The preliminary Real Estate Insititute of Victoria results for Richmond had 10 homes sold with seven passed in, with four yet to be reported. According to CoreLogic, the next busiest suburbs were Sydneys Leichhardt, which had 16 auctions scheduled, followed by Maroubra (15) and Mosman (14), also in Sydney. But auction listings are low across the capital cities. And the auction volumes are set to be interrupted over coming weeks the school holidays, the Easter break, then Anzac Day, and the May 18 Federal election. The REIV calculated 970 Melbourne auctions, then next weekend (20/21 April) there will be just 60 auctions given the Easter slowdown. Auctions will rise on the 27/28 April weekend to around 410 Melbourne auctions and then in early May to 550 auctions. There were 2,268 homes taken to auction across the combined capital cities, up from 1,976 over the previous week. But there was not the traditional huge pre-Easter weekend surge. CoreLogic noted auction volumes were significantly lower than the week prior to Easter 2018 when some 3,990 homes were taken to auction. "Although the number of auctions remain well below the week prior to Easter last year, the number of auctions held was the second highest so far this year," Kevin Brogan, the CoreLogic auction analyst noted. Preliminary results show an auction clearance rate of 58.2 per cent across the capitals, although Brogan added: "keep in mind that this will revise lower as the remaining results are collected." The previous week saw the final clearance rate dip from the 57.2 percent preliminary figure, but hold above 50 per cent for the fourth consecutive week at 52.6 per cent. Across the smaller auction markets, Perth saw a fall in auction volumes week-on-week. The nation's cheapest weekend auction result was just $212,000 in Brisbane. The three bedroom 1970s two storey house sat on an 800 sam holding at 116 Bardon Rd, Kingston (below), just outside of Brisbane. It last sold at $55,000 in 2000. "As you enter you will see this home could do with a little TLC, a coat of paint certainly wouldn't hurt however you will be impressed with this solid home offering a large fantastic layout both upstairs and downstairs," the selling agent's marketing suggested. The accomodation downstairs could be used by "the savvy investor looking to maximise rental returns," Sam Fuller, the Ray White Logan City agent said. Adelaide had the next cheapest when $257,000 secured another three bedroom home. It was 10 Warrigal St, Para Hills which sold pre-auction, marketed as offering "an excellent subdivision opportunity for the savvy investor." In Melbourne, the 970 homes taken to auction was up on the 900 in the prior week. But the week prior to Easter last year saw a surge with some 2,070 homes taken to auction across Melbourrne. Melbourne's preliminary weekend auction clearance rate came in at 54.9 per cent. Melbourne's most expensive weekend sale was at 9 Mernda Road, Kooyong (below) for $4.72 million after being passed in. When listed last June it had a guide of between $5.5 million and $6 million. Sydney was host to 927 auctions with preliminary results returning a 62.9 per cent clearance rate across 577 results. The week prior to Easter 2018 saw 1,383 Sydney homes taken to auction across the city. Sydney has the priciest sale when $6.22 million was paid for 15 Cairo Street, South Coogee (below). The four bedroom house was a contemporary design by MKD Architects. The resort-style three-level residence came with 10-metre pool. It had ocean views over Wedding Cake Island, its McGrath selling agent Marnie Senior said. Work on the new M4 tunnels from Homebush to Haberfield is almost complete with the project set to open in around four months. The project is expected to taking around 10,000 trucks off Parramatta Road every day. Premier Gladys Berejikilian and Minister for Roads Andrew Constance toured the nearly-completed M4 tunnels today, part of a seven kilometre section of WestConnex. Berejikilian said the new M4 tunnels, themselves 5.5km long, would allow drivers from Western Sydney to bypass a significant section of stop-start traffic on Parramatta Road, and instead connect directly onto the City West Link. Within two years, around 67,000 trips are expected in the M4 tunnels every day, and this is still just the first stage of WestConnex, Berejiklian said. Today weve seen first-hand that the tunnelling and road pavement for the long promised project has been completed. We are on the home straight for the new M4 tunnels, with fit-out of the tunnels now underway. Constance thanked the communities of the Inner West for their patience while the work was undertaken. We appreciate the delivery of city-shaping infrastructure takes time, and it isnt easy on those who live nearby. I look forward to the new M4 tunnels opening soon and taking thousands of vehicles off local roads, Constance said. Berejiklian said WestConnex will link Sydneys west and southwest with the city,airport and port precinct in more than 30 kilometres of continuous motorway. Upon completion, WestConnex will provide a bypass of up to 52 sets of traffic lights. Once all of WestConnex is complete in 2023, drivers will be able to get from Penrith to the Anzac Bridge without having to stop at a single traffic light and travel times from Parramatta to Sydney Airport will fall by up to 40 minutes. Traffic volumes on sections of Parramatta Road will also be reduced by more than 50 per cent, Berejiklian said. EXPERT OBSERVER Brisbane is like a car where the engine is revving but it cant move forward because the handbrake is on. The citys property market is poised for an up-cycle but, according to the generalised price data published in mainstream media, its not yet happening. The key point for investors, however, is that there are many Brisbane markets achieving above-average price growth. Theres no doubt that Brisbane real estate has an underlying strength and it continues to show gradual improvement in its market. It remains poised to deliver on the potential shown by advances in the economy, population trends (lots of Sydney refugees are escaping to affordable South-East Queensland) and infrastructure spending. The price data for the Greater Brisbane Area is noteworthy, because it shows that the generalised figures published in mainstream media are highly misleading. The latest figures from sources like SQM Research, Domain and CoreLogic have Brisbane houses showing little or no growth in the past year, but Hotspottings suburb-by-suburb analysis shows there are many out-performers. We analysed 269 suburban markets, looking at the latest price figures showing quarterly and annual growth rates: 83 of them have recorded annual price growth above 5% (including 20 suburbs with double-digit growth) and another 100 have recorded growth below 5%; 47 have dropped by less than 5% and 39 have dropped more than 5%. This means seven out of 10 suburban markets have median prices higher than a year ago very different to the trend in Sydney which is dominating media coverage and causing careless analysts and writers to morph that into a national downturn. Many of the Brisbane suburbs where the median house price has lifted more than 10% are higher-end markets, including Bardon (up 11% to $1,005,000), Hendra (up 13% to 1,100,000), Graceville (up 13% to $950,000), Kenmore Hills (up 10.5% to $900,000), NORMAN PARK (up 10% to $950,000) and Paddington (up 11% to $1,165,000). But the highest annual growth in median house prices has been recorded for Sandgate houses (up 19% to $755,000). A key trend is that 27 or the 39 markets with prices down more than 5% are unit markets: median prices have dropped for apartments in Bowen Hills (20%), Bulimba (15%), East Brisbane (15%), Woodridge (10%), GREENSLOPES (11%), Hamilton (11%) and Woody Point (18%). This reflects the cold reality that the Brisbane unit market has been oversupplied for the past few years and not just in the inner-city areas. The Moreton Bay Region LGA has been the busiest market in Greater Brisbane for some time - and my latest survey of sales activity shows that the number of suburbs with rising demand has risen from 7 (six months ago) to 12 making it one of the leading municipalities in the nation for growth markets. Growth locations include Bray Park (median $435,000), where quarterly sales have been 37, 57, 62 and 65 in the past 12 months; Murrumba Downs ($540,000) where the sales pattern has been 50, 60, 58 and 68; and Everton Hills ($595,000), where sales have been 26, 39, 39 and 45. A number of Moreton Bay suburbs recorded good median price growth in the past 12 months, including Beachmere (up 10%), Sandstone Point (8%), Upper Caboolture (7.5%), Strathpine (10%), Burpengary East (up 9%) and numerous others which grew 5-6%. The Brisbane-north precinct (the northern suburbs of the sprawling Brisbane City Council area) is now level with the Moreton Bay Region on growth markets (those where demand, as measured by sales volumes, is rising). With Moreton Bay Region and Brisbane-north the strongest market, it means the Brisbane market is strongest north of the Brisbane River (with more than half the rising suburbs in the Greater Brisbane area being in these two northside precincts). A number of Brisbane-north suburbs recorded have good annual price growth, headed by Gordon Park (9%), Hendra (13%), Sandgate (19%), Newmarket (8%) and NUDGEE (10%) while many others have grown 5-6-7%. These numbers, once again, show how misleading the generalised data is and that investors need to dig a little deeper to find the growth markets. Brisbane - boosted by the affordability and rental yield comparisons with the biggest cities has a lot more forward momentum than the media reports suggest. Once the handbrake comes off (with the big banks starting to compete for business again and the Federal Election soon to be history), Brisbane will become a more obviously upwardly-mobile market. Terry Ryder is the founder of hotspotting.com.au [email protected] twitter.com/hotspotting Online car insurance quotes will help drivers compare multiple insurance plans and find the insurance deal they want without leaving the comfort of their homes, said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company. Compare-autoinsurance.org has launched a new blog post that explains how to purchase online car insurance in a fast and easy manner. For more info and free car insurance quotes online, please visit https://compare-autoinsurance.org/5-tips-buying-car-insurance-online The internet has changed the habits of many persons. One of these habits is how car insurance is purchased. Usually, drivers had to go from one insurance agency to another in order to get quotes, compare them and buy car insurance. With the help of the internet, drivers can save time by getting quotes and purchasing insurance without leaving the comfort of their homes. Drivers that want to purchase car insurance online should follow these tips: Be prepared with the right info and documents. To obtain accurate car insurance quotes drivers need to know their car's make, model, sub-model, year of production, vehicle identification number (VIN), ZIP code, installed safety devices, installed anti-theft devices. Drivers will also have to provide details from their driving record and their credit score. Go to the states Department of Insurance website. Insurance legislation is different from one state to another. This website will provide information about the profiles of insurance companies that are authorized to sell insurance policies in the area where a driver lives. Also, policyholders will get to know what are the minimum insurance requirements and how the states legislation regulates totaled or stolen cars. Use a brokerage website. To find affordable coverage that satisfies their needs, drivers are advised to obtain as many quotes as possible. Brokerage websites will help drivers discover the offers made by local insurance companies. Its not uncommon for local insurance companies to offer better insurance deals when compared to known national insurance companies. Provide honest info. Drivers will have to provide details from their driving record. It s in the drivers best interest to be honest with past driving incidents. Lying to an insurance company is not a smart idea. Insurers will eventually find out about the lies and will drastically penalize the lying drivers. Select the policies they need. Drivers should get at least the states minimum required coverage. Brokerage websites will help drivers simulate different insurance deals. By doing so, they will obtain an insurance deal that can satisfy their needs. For additional info, money-saving tips and free car insurance quotes, visit https://compare-autoinsurance.org/ Compare-autoinsurance.org is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc. Lane Williams Architects Participating homes in the 8th annual Seattle Modern Home Tour will open their doors for viewing from 11AM 5PM on Saturday, April 27. Ages 10 & up are invited to attend. Some tour-goers search for an architect or home builder to work with on their next project; others hope to find a little inspiration; whatever the reasons may be, all tour-goers come to see a curated selection of Seattle homes that embody the Pacific Northwests unique modern architecture and design aesthetic. On Saturday, April 27, the Modern Architecture+ Design Society (MA+DS) returns to Seattle for the 2019 Modern Home Tour. The annual event celebrates regional architects, designers, and home builders, and gives them the opportunity to showcase their work to the community in which they work. In turn, the self-guided tour gives the community a rare chance to ask questions and engage the minds behind the designs, as they explore some of Seattles modern homes up close, inside and out. The Seattle Modern Home Tour is traditionally the first tour in our annual Pacific Northwest series, and its one we always look forward to, says MA+DS founder and president, James Leasure. Seattles modern movement in the area of residential architecture and design is inspiring and amazing. Every year we are fortunate enough to showcase some truly incredible designs from some of the areas leading architects and home builders. Participants and homes featured on the 2019 Seattle Modern Home Tour include: A new home in Miller Park by Lane Williams Architects that showcases a unique stacked/staggered build and an ADU The Big Mouth House in the Squire Park neighborhood, which is a collaboration between Best Practice Architecture, Hybrid Design, and Steven Lazen A small, unique lake house designed by E. Cobb Architects that is recessed into the ground, located on the southwestern shore of Lake Washington A modern home in Seaview designed by Finch Design & Production Inc., that features expansive western views and the owners lighting design/art studio A second E. Cobb Architects home, located in Capitol Hill, that is a full modern renovation of a classic 1905 Victorian style home A modern home located Briarcliff, designed by Stan Hanson and built by Next Century Modern, that features a rooftop deck with a hot tub and amazing panoramic views Continuing a long-standing partnership, the Seattle Architecture Foundation (SAF) returns as the tours local non-profit beneficiary. The SAF will help staff the event in return for a donation and the opportunity to use the tour as a fundraising vehicle. Additional proceeds will be added to develop a scholarship fund to help future architects and designers further their education. New for 2019, the Seattle Modern Home Tour is proud to partner with acclaimed interior designer Michelle Dirkse to offer our Sunday Educational Extension. At this separately ticketed, small-group event (held on Sunday, April 28th), tour-goers are invited to take a deep dive into the world of modern interior design and renovation firsthand as Michelle guides participants through the process of construction, layout, color, texture, and other critical considerations for creating an amazing modern space. Participating homes in the 8th annual Seattle Modern Home Tour will open their doors for viewing from 11AM 5PM on Saturday, April 27th. Ages 10 & up are invited to attend. Tickets to see all homes are $40 in advance online; $50 on the day of the tour. Details on ticket purchases and descriptions of all participants with photos can be found on the 2019 Seattle Modern Home Tour event page. About the Modern Architecture + Design Society: Based in Austin, Texas, the Modern Architecture + Design Society was founded was founded by James Leasure in 2010 as Modern Home Tours, to introduce modern architecture and living to people across the nation. Through fun and informative self-guided home tours in dozens of cities across the USA and Canada, the group invites people into some of the most exciting examples of modern architecture and design in the nation. With carefully selected architects, neighborhoods and architecture, the MA+DS Home Tours are unlike anything youve ever seen. Not only will you learn about the cutting edge of home design while on our tours, but you might even get an idea or two for your next home project! Walking Brian Home: One Young Man's Story of Faith in the Face of Death: a rousing life story of a manalthough put to test several times, he stayed strong with his faith to the Lord. Walking Brian Home: One Young Man's Story of Faith in the Face of Death is the creation of published author Alice Jane Stuckey, a writer who grew up going to church and Sunday school and never doubted the existence of Christ. She accepted Christ as her Lord and Savior and began her own personal relationship with Him at a youth rally when she was sixteen. Leaning on the strength only Jesus could provide through lifes struggles, Alice learned she could have a deep, trusting relationship with Him. He is her strength and hope. Stuckey shares, Farmer, builder, ballroom dancer, dungeon master, insurance agent, youth leader, and friend. Whatever the challenge that came his way, Brian not only accepted it, but he conquered it with excellence. Brian always appeared to live a charmed life. Not because he preached at others, but because of his loving and accepting heart, people knew he loved and trusted his God above all. His friends knew it. His youth knew it. His clients knew it. The man on the street knew it. Would Brian be able to conquer the challenge of this crippling fatal disease? Or would his friends see his faith crumble and fall under the devastation of ALS? Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Alice Jane Stuckeys new book is an inspiring reminder for the readers that one should build a personal relationship with the Lord for He will never leave or forsake His people. View a synopsis of Walking Brian Home: One Young Man's Story of Faith in the Face of Death on YouTube. Consumers can purchase Walking Brian Home: One Young Man's Story of Faith in the Face of Death at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or inquiries about Walking Brian Home: One Young Man's Story of Faith in the Face of Death, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919. ASCCP today announces its new president, Colleen K. Stockdale, MD, MS. Dr. Stockdale was sworn in as President of ASCCP at the annual business meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. In her role as president, she will serve as executive officer for ASCCP and oversee the governance of the board organization. Prior to becoming president, Stockdale served as president-elect on the Board. I am honored to serve as the President of the ASCCP, where I will build upon the outstanding leadership of Dr. Warner Huh, Immediate Past-President. I look forward to working with our Board, committees, members, and staff as well as other collaborative relationships to optimize care. Stockdale plans on continuing to move the society forward. The ASCCP Risk-Based Management Consensus Guidelines for the management of women with abnormal cervical cancer screening tests is targeted to be completed by the end of the year. This collaborative effort will better direct care of women to reduce their individual risk for cervical cancer. I look forward to bridging these efforts to women and clinicians over the next year and beyond. Dr. Stockdale completed her residency in Gynecology and Obstetrics at the University of Iowa in 1999 and has been in practice for twenty years. Serving as Director of the Colposcopy and the Vulvar Vaginal Disease Clinics at the University of Iowa, she focuses on Lower Genital Tract Diseases. Primarily serving patients from Iowa and the surrounding states, the clinics referral base stretches beyond the immediate area, with patients traveling from outside countries for care. _____________________________________________________________________________ About ASCCP ASCCP is a professional society for an interdisciplinary group of healthcare professionals including physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, midwives and researchers, who are focused on improving lives through the prevention and treatment of anogenital and HPV-related diseases. For more information visit http://www.asccp.org. We are very proud of both our internal team, trade partners, vendors and consultants. This was truly a team effort that resulted in Beazer earning this prestigious award for our quality of construction. Over 185 international builders, product manufactures, and insurance companies gathered at the Stratosphere Casino, Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, NV for the unveiling of the 2019 Quality Built (QB) Builder Awards. Beazer Homes Sacramento was awarded first place for the Quality of Construction Award for Full-Scope QA Inspections. The annual QB Builder Awards is hosted by Quality Built, LLC, the nations leader in third party QA inspections and risk management solutions for new building construction, to recognize builders in their program who consistently build to a high level of quality. These builders consciously strive to raise the bar by utilizing QBs proven system to measure their performance and pursue continuous process improvement. To qualify for the first place award, builders had to build at least 50 units annually, enrolled in the QB program for three years, and maintain consistent quality of construction spanning across all projects within their division. The Full-Scope QA Inspections is among QBs most comprehensive services and addresses the foundation (pre-pour), windows pre-wrap and post-wrap, exterior frame, balcony waterproofing, weather resistive barrier (WRB), lath, siding, flashings, mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP)/rough trades - interior frame, roof dry-in and roof final. Throughout 2018, Quality Built inspected 100,422 homes within 2,784 communities across the United States. said Beth Michaelis, President and Co-Founder, Quality Built. Winning this award is certainly something Beazer NorCal should be proud of. This division is dedicated to building a quality home; which has been evidenced through the hundreds of inspections conducted by our Field Consultants on their projects. They have every home inspected at multiple stages of construction and immediately act to correct any issues found. More importantly, they utilize the data to improve processes to minimize reoccurrences. Ray Ferrarini, Vice President of Operations from Beazers Sacramento division, accepted the #1 award alongside QBs executive team and their strategic partner, professional contractor and TV host, Mike Holmes. Our goal is to build a high-performing, quality home that delivers long-term durability and comfort to our valued customers Ray explained. We are very proud of both our internal team, trade partners, vendors and consultants. This was truly a team effort that resulted in Beazer earning this prestigious award for our quality of construction. I know that to win the #1 Quality Built Award you cant do it alone said Mike Holmes, TV Host and President, The Holmes Group. You need a dedicated team, at every level of the organization that truly believes in the value that comes with caring about ensuring the highest standards are achieved for every home. I am proud of my partnership with Quality Builts inspection program. Together, we are able to help identify and collaborate on best building practices combined with detailed performance verification to Make It Right, the first time. About Beazer Homes Headquartered in Atlanta, Beazer Homes is one of the countrys largest single-family homebuilders. The Companys homes exceed the benchmark for energy-efficient home construction, as established by ENERGY STAR and provide Surprising Performance, which means more quality, more comfort, and more savings every month. In addition, Beazer homes are designed with Choice Plans to meet the personal preferences and lifestyles of its buyers, and offers a Mortgage Choices program which provides a range of preferred lender choices to facilitate transparent competition between lenders and enhanced customer service. The Company offers homes in Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Beazer Homes is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BZH. For more information, visit http://www.beazer.com or check out Beazer on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/beazerhomes/), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/BeazerHomes/) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/BeazerHomes). To learn more about Beazer Homes Sacramento, visit https://www.beazer.com/search-CA-sacramento About Quality Built Quality Built, established over 25 years ago, is the United States largest and most respected third-party quality assurance inspection and risk management solution provider for new building construction. Backed by a team of architects, engineers and inspectors averaging 20 years of experience in the industry, QB has developed a powerful software platform that addresses construction risk, encourages collaboration and delivers qualitative and quantitative data allowing builders to effectively make informed business decisions. QBs inspection capabilities cover all phases of construction and include but are not limited to: Technical Plan ReviewsTM, Geotechnical Consulting, Building Envelope Inspections, Quality Assurance Inspections, Property Condition Assessments, ASTM/AAMA Water Testing, Fit and Finish Inspections, and more. About The Holmes Group The Holmes Group is an international brand with operations in independent media production, new-home building and home inspection, residential construction and renovation, as well as product development. The Holmes Group is responsible for developing and managing all HOLMES branded entities, including Make It Right Productions Inc., Make It Right Releasing, HOLMES Approved Homes, MIKE HOLMES Inspections, HOLMES Approved Products, HOLMES Workwear and supporting the skilled trades through The Holmes Foundation. Bryan Weisbard, Director and Head of Online Safety Operations at Twitter, has been appointed to the Rutgers University Big Data Advisory Board. Weisbard is an expert in Online and Cyber Security, Trust & Safety, Digital Privacy, Corporate Security, and Risk Management. He is recognized for leveraging technological innovation to solve security challenges. In his Board capacity, Weisbard will advise industry professionals on how best to solve cyber security, machine learning, privacy, online safety, and data analytics challenges. Weisbard served in the United States Intelligence Community for several years in a variety of national security roles, both in Washington D.C. and around the world. Currently, Weisbard serves as Director and Head of Online Safety Operations at Twitter (@BryanW) where he ensures that the millions of users on the platform have a safe environment for online conversation. In addition, he leads security investigations and analytical functions globally. Weisbard brings a wealth of experience in advising organizations on privacy, digital safety, and security matters. He is a member of Business Executives for National Security, the Pacific Council on International Policy, and a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Weisbard also holds leadership positions in ASIS International's Chief Security Officer Center for Leadership as a member of both the Advisory Board and the Membership Committee. Weisbard received an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Bachelors of Business Administration from the University of Miami, and a Certificate in Forensic Accounting from Georgetown University. Weisbard is a licensed Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE). Follow @BryanW on Twitter to hear more about Weisbards thoughts on security and privacy. Holocaust survivor Natan Gipsman, admires the art inspired by his story. The artwork, Humanity was created by Kristen Landsman and was first-place in the high school division in 2018. "The student works testify eloquently to the power of Holocaust memory to educate, engage and empower and to the extraordinary ability of students to grasp the essence of memory and respond creatively, said Marilyn Harran, director of Chapman Universitys Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education. Chapman Universitys Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education https://www.chapman.edu/research/institutes-and-centers/holocaust-education/rodgers-center/index.aspx is honored to have the LA Museum of the Holocaust http://www.lamoth.org/ host a special exhibit featuring 20 years of prize-winning entries from Chapmans annual Holocaust Art and Writing Contest https://www.chapman.edu/research/institutes-and-centers/holocaust-education/rodgers-center/holocaust-art-and-writing-contest/index.aspx. The exhibit titled Messengers of Memory includes first place entries in prose, poetry, art, and film representing the more than 100,000 middle and high school students who have participated in the contest. Initially regional in its outreach, this year the contest includes students representing 27 states and 12 countries, including Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia. In a time of rising antisemitism and xenophobia, with ever fewer Holocaust survivors to witness in person to students, we are challenged to find new ways to engage students in learning about the Holocaust so that it becomes personally meaningful and goes beyond statistics and brief paragraphs in textbooks. These student works testify eloquently to the power of Holocaust memory to educate, engage and empower and to the extraordinary ability of students to grasp the essence of memory and respond creatively, said Marilyn Harran, director of Chapman Universitys Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education. Since 1999 and in partnership with The 1939 Society https://www.the1939society.org/, a Holocaust survivors and descendants organization, the art contest challenges young people to engage in a direct and personal way with Holocaust survivor testimony to create unique and meaningful art from the memories. The Messengers of Memory temporary exhibit runs until Aug. 31 at the LA Museum of the Holocaust, 100 The Grove Dr., Los Angeles) About Chapman University Chapman University https://www.chapman.edu/ is Californias third largest private university and ranks fifth in the U.S. News & World Report listing of Best Regional Universities in the West. Chapman is categorized by the Carnegie Classification as an R2 high research activity institution and offers personalized education to more than 8,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Chapman strives for diversity and inclusion by recruiting and supporting students representing a variety of backgrounds, experiences, learning styles and unique talents. The campus has produced a Rhodes Scholar, been named a top producer of Fulbright Scholars and hosts a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nations oldest and most prestigious honor society. Founded in 1861 and based in the City of Orange, California, Chapman also includes the Harry and Diane Rinker Health Science Campus, 21 miles south in the Irvine Spectrum, Orange Countys technology hub. In 2020, the university will open its 11th college, the Fowler School of Engineering in its newest facility, Keck Center for Science and Engineering. About Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, the first survivor-founded Holocaust museum in the nation, commemorates those who perished, honors those who survived, and houses the precious artifacts that miraculously weathered the Holocaust. Since 1961, the Museum has provided free Holocaust education, fulfilling its mission of to educate, commemorate, and inspire. Through programs that value dialogue, learning, and reflection, the Museum believes that we can build a more respectful, dignified, and humane world. Photo Caption: Holocaust survivor Natan Gipsman, pictured here, admires the Messengers of Memory art inspired by his story. The artwork, Humanity was created by Kristen Landsman and was first-place in the high school division in 2018. Kristens artwork was inspired by Mr. Gipsmans video testimony https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpxdKpdU8G4. Contact: Lara Wyss or Bethanie Le Chapman University PR PR@Chapman.edu 714-289-3143 Just some of the COA Winners We believe its important to honor and celebrate our leaders that make the biggest difference in delivering that experience. For COA thats our team on the ground - the people on the frontline every day, working with the families we serve." says Ted Hockenberry CEO Children of America, one of the nation's largest high-quality educational childcare organizations, honored its top leadership teams with a two-day event April 5-6 in Trevose, PA. Over 200 company leaders were in attendance, to honor the companies very best in leadership and operational excellence. "At COA we provide children the best start in life for success in school and beyond," said Ted Hockenberry, CEO. "And we believe its important to honor and celebrate our leaders that make the biggest difference in delivering that experience. For COA thats our team on the ground - the people on the frontline every day, working with the families we serve." Every year we look forward to producing this event of appreciation and gratitude, said Lynne D'Andrea, VP of Marketing. Where leaders at all levels of the company can come together to celebrate our successes and re-energize for tomorrow's challenges. Recipients honored at the event were: The Founders Award was presented to Maureen Gioio, who has served the company embodying the Spirit of a Champion. The Shining Star Award was presented to Andrea Shield - Director, Clementon, NJ, Kate Leon - Director, St. Charles, IL and Crystal Bruce - Director, Bowie, MD for those brightest STARS who shine for the benefit of others. The COA Teacher of the Year Award for those who inspire others, was presented to Hayly Fortunato. The COA Campus Hero Award for outstanding performance, the ability to thrive and for valuing what's possible was presented to several of our top performing schools: South Elgin, IL., Hockessin DE., Avon, IN., Warminster, PA., Smithtown, NY., Warrenton, VA., Braintree MA., Trappe, PA., Sewell, NJ., Orland Park, IL., The Bentley Award COAs Highest Honor for Exceptional Leadership & Performance in Educational Childcare was awarded to Christina Polidoro - Director from our Sewell, NJ., location. All recipients were presented with beautiful glass sculptures and received financial remuneration for their accomplishments. Congratulations to all of our nominees and award winners. About Children of America Children of America operates facilities throughout Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. The company expansion plans include several locations in the NY and NJ areas over the next year. COA offers the highest level of care for children ages six weeks to twelve years of age. The premier programs include infant care, toddler care, nationally renowned preschool and pre-kindergarten programs, before-and-after school care, and summer camp. An industry pioneer, Children of America is a subsidiary of World Wide Child Care Corp. Visit childrenofamerica.com for more information or interact with COA on Instagram and Facebook. For more information about COA centers and programs, please visit childrenofamerica.com. We are extremely proud to partner with Digimind. Digiminds mission to help their customers understand the world as it is, is a perfect fit with TrustedOuts mission to make Corpus Intelligence smarter and trustworthy In 2018, only 34% of people trusted the news, down from 74% in 1974 (Reuters Institute / University of Oxford). Fake news is just the tip of the disinformation iceberg. The overwhelming increase of unreviewed, unverified communication has lead to severe and growing distrust in content. Therefore, TrustedOut was founded on the principle that only what is trusted in can be trusted out. TrustedOut allows business intelligence analysts, brand safety managers, and PR professionals to define their own set of sources from a super-profiled media database to feed their analytics tools. Maintaining a fresh and consistent corpus of sources is a daunting and time-consuming task. TrustedOut uses the latest advancements in machine learning, web crawling, big data, and micro-services to overcome the limitations of human curation and bias, and deliver an always up-to-date, trustworthy corpus of sources. Corpus Intelligence from TrustedOut, combined with the power of the Digimind platform, will provide immediate benefits to: Business Intelligence analysts: use content you trust to make decisions with confidence Brand Safety managers: define the perimeter of media you trust to promote your brand PR professionals: set and compare different media groups by trust levels In The Forrester Wave: Social Listening Platforms, Q3 2018, the authors write that "buyers will struggle to distinguish major differences between each vendors current offering because social listening platforms [...] all rely on the same data sources as the foundation of their platforms. We believe that the addition of TrustedOuts Corpus Intelligence will further differentiate Digimind from other vendors in this category. "We are extremely proud to partner with Digimind. Digiminds mission to help their customers understand the world as it is, is a perfect fit with TrustedOuts mission to make Corpus Intelligence smarter and trustworthy said Freddy Mini, co-founder and CEO of TrustedOut. About Digimind Digimind is the global leader in AI-Powered social listening platforms and market intelligence software, designed for brands and agencies who want to accelerate digital transformation through an insights-driven approach. Recognized by Forrester and Gartner, Digiminds best-in-class technology transforms social and online data into actionable business insights, enabling marketers to effectively plan, execute, and analyze their marketing strategy. Digimind is based in New York, Paris, Singapore, Grenoble, and Rabat, serving more than 600 customers worldwide including LinkedIn, Sony, McCann Worldwide, and Lexus. Learn more at http://www.digimind.com. About TrustedOut TrustedOut introduces Corpus Intelligence to make Intelligence trustworthy, allowing our clients to precisely define what they trust with a uniquely profiled, AI-fed and permanently updated media database. TrustedOut will be in production in Q2 2019. Learn more at http://www.trustedout.com. Lets Laugh Together: a charming joke book, is the creation of published author Dr. Jack Lord, an adjunct professor in pastor ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary who has also pastored Baptist churches in Dallas and Texas. He is a married grandfather. Dr. Lord writes, This book is loaded with humor. Touching up your communication with humor may be just what you need to keep them awake. Ask yourself if they are being so polite in not disturbing your speech that it is an indication that they have gone to sleep. Improve your communication! Find the humor you need by checking the subject titles and the index. You might discover the sparkle you need! Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Dr. Jack Lords new book is a real treat for anyone looking to appreciate the lighthearted side of life. Those overwhelmed, overburdened, or just disheartened by the dark directions of the modern world will find that Dr. Lords collection is just the ticket they need, offering readers of all ages much to delight in. View a synopsis of Lets Laugh Together on YouTube. Consumers can purchase Lets Laugh Together at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or inquiries about Lets Laugh Together, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919. Eze Castle Integration, a global managed service provider to the investment industry, today announced the addition of two senior executives to support the companys rapid growth and expansion. Eze Castle Integration recently welcomed Sean Casey as Senior Vice President of Sales Strategy and Business Development and Dan Jones as Senior Vice President of North America Sales. Eze Castle Integrations ability to deliver superior client service coupled with innovative cloud and cybersecurity solutions has translated into significant demand across the entire financial sector and beyond, said John Cahaly, CEO of Eze Castle Integration. Adding these highly accomplished sales leaders further enables Eze Castle Integration to capitalize on this significant market opportunity while enhancing the services provided to existing clients. Together Sean Casey and Dan Jones bring nearly five decades of sales, management and technology experience to Eze Castle Integration. With deep knowledge in worldwide service provider market, Casey will oversee Eze Castles global sales strategy, sales operations and partnership development initiatives. Over the past decade, he has held leadership positions including Vice President of Alliances at Turbonomic, Director of Worldwide Cloud Sales at Zerto, and Vice President of Sales and Business Development at Cloud Cruiser. Jones, who most recently served as Chief Revenue Officer of a fast-growing cybersecurity provider, will drive sales and business development across North America. While CRO at Skout Secure Intelligence, Jones established the sales organization, business initiatives and go-to-market strategy. Previously, he held multiple regional and global sales leadership roles at leading technology companies including Worksoft, EMC, Double-Take Software (acquired by Carbonite) and Storage Networks. Eze Castle Integration excels at guiding clients through their cloud journeys public or private by staying focused on each clients specific needs, industry pressures and risk profile. Beyond providing premier cloud solutions, Eze Castle includes best-of-breed security layers and award winning 24x7x365 support to ensure complete IT coverage. About Eze Castle Integration Eze Castle Integration is a global managed service provider delivering complete cloud solutions, IT services and cybersecurity to the investment industry. The companys products and services include Technology Consulting, Outsourced IT Support, Public and Private Cloud Services, Cybersecurity Solutions, Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery, Project and Technology Management, Telecommunications, Archiving, Storage and Internet Service. Eze Castle Integration is headquartered in Boston and has offices in Chicago, Dallas, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco, Singapore and Stamford. Learn more at http://www.eci.com. Founder and CEO of GKhair, Mr Van Tibolli with Jordanian Partners and GKhair Educators The event planning and execution was superior than any event coordination I have ever seen. The experience was exciting and the team was exceptional. - Van Tibolli Just three months into 2019 and GKhair is paving new possibilities for the future! During a two-day event held at the Opera House in Amman, Jordan, GKhair Juvexin Cream colors were introduced to the Haircare Industry of the country. The Hair Show was organized at the Opera House by Mr Ashraf Najjar CEO of Beauty Code, and was attended by the founder and CEO of GKhair, Mr Van Tibolli. Juvexin Cream Colors are permanent/semi-permanent hair colors that ensure 100% grey coverage. Infused with GKhairs patented keratin anti-aging protein blend Juvexin, these colors impart its restorative properties to hair. The event witnessed over 300 attendees including hair professionals, representatives of leading beauty salons, and influencers. It included a 30-minute live Hair Show featuring a stunning display of color, cut and styling techniques by the renowned hair artists, Federico Longo and Kriss Helou. After the event, there was a Master Class on color transformations with the meticulous stylists. "The event planning and execution was superior than any event coordination I have ever seen. The experience was exciting and the team was exceptional," remarked Mr Van Tibolli. Mr Ashraf Najjar endorsed his confidence in the love GKhair has been receiving in Jordan since 2014. Mrs. Rasha Anabtawi shed light on the importance of the support from partnering salons which contributes towards the expansion of GKhair product line in Jordan. The hair care industry in Jordan is positively thriving and as a brand GKhair is also contributing towards it with complete devotion. We believe that it will only boom in the future. About GKhair Operating in more than 75 countries, GKhair is a US-based haircare brand with an extensive product line including Keratin Treatments, Aftercare and Styling Products, Tools, and Accessories. The multi-office timeshare group from global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP represented Orange Lake Resortshome to the Holiday Inn Club Vacations brandand members of the Wilson family in connection with a significant minority investment in Orange Lake Resorts by an affiliate of KSL Capital Partners, LLC. Established by Holiday Inn founder Kemmons Wilson, Orange Lake Resorts operates 28 resort properties and 7,600 villas in the United States. The Greenberg Traurig timeshare group was led by Shareholders Jim Mace (Las Vegas and Orlando), Todd A. Miller (Orlando and Tampa) and Andrew R. Finkelstein (Orlando and Tampa), with support from Shareholders Steve Mastbaum (New York), Jason C. McDonald (Orlando), Brian H. Blaney(Phoenix), Ed Chansky (Las Vegas), Christopher R. Miltenberger (Las Vegas), Christopher J. Neumann (Denver), Stephen M. Pepper (New York), and Thomas Woolsey (Dallas); Of Counsel Richard M. Caron (Orlando); and Associates Bruce T. Lower (Orlando), and James R. Martin (New York). This transaction marks the first time the Wilson family has taken on an outside equity partner for privately held Orange Lake Resorts. KSL Capital Partners, LLC is a private equity firm that specializes in travel and leisure enterprises in hospitality, recreation, clubs, real estate and travel services. Greenberg Traurigs multidisciplinary timeshare group is powered by the firms hospitality, regulatory, securitization and finance, litigation, advertising and marketing, and real estate attorneys who are intimately involved in the representation of leading timeshare industry players. The timeshare group is enhanced by the firms employment, tax, and state and federal government relations attorneys. With 39 offices around the globe, Greenberg Traurig is equipped to meet the needs of the timeshare industry. The firms global geographic scope allows us to tap into our diverse resources to provide forward-thinking legal services in the timeshare industry. Our wide-ranging experience, subject matter leaders, and global network provide our clients with innovative and tailored legal strategies. About Greenberg Traurig, LLP: Greenberg Traurig, LLP (GT) has more than 2,000 attorneys in 39 offices in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. GT has been recognized for its philanthropic giving, was named the largest firm in the U.S. by Law360 in 2017, and is among the Top 20 on the 2018 Am Law Global 100. Web: http://www.gtlaw.com Twitter: @GT_Law. Henry M. Greenberg, a litigation shareholder in global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLPs Albany office and president-elect of the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA), will speak at the 55th Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Lecture at the New York County Lawyers Association (NYCLA) Home of Law on April 18, 2019. Greenberg joins an impressive group of individuals from the highest levels of the profession who have delivered the Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Lecture. They include Chief Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and New York Court of Appeals, a former U.S. Attorney General, bar leaders, and Deans of law schools. Greenbergs lecture will be titled, Charles Evans Hughes & The Role of New Yorks Organized Bar at a Time of Crisis for the Rule of Law. He will be introduced by former Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals, Hon. Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick, who is co-chair of Greenberg Traurigs National Appellate Practice Group and a member of the firms New York office. According to NYCLA, Since 1950, Hughes Hubbard has sponsored a lecture in conjunction with the New York County Lawyers Association on the ideals of public service and the education of lawyers and the public. On June 1, 2019, Greenberg will become President of NYSBA, the largest voluntary state bar association in the nation. A former Counsel to the New York State Attorney General, General Counsel to a major New York State agency and federal prosecutor, he has handled numerous high-profile matters. He concentrates his practice on civil litigation, criminal and civil investigations, and regulatory and administrative law. From 2007 to 2010, Greenberg served as Counsel to then New York State Attorney General (now Governor), Andrew M. Cuomo. In that capacity, he worked on some of the agency's most significant litigation and public policy initiatives. He also served as General Counsel for the New York State Department of Health (1995 to 2000), where he was the chief legal advisor to the Commissioner of Health and administered an office of more than 100 attorneys engaged in virtually all aspects of administrative law. In addition to his current role as president-elect of the New York State Bar Association, Greenberg is counsel to the New York State Commission on Judicial Nomination, which nominates New Yorks Court of Appeals Judges. He chairs the Third Department Judicial Screening Committee and is a member of the State Judicial Screening Committee, Judicial Task Force on the New York State Constitution, and the State Commission on the Restoration of the Capitol. He is a founding member and vice chair of statewide programming for the Historical Society of the New York Courts and a member of the New York State Judicial Institute on Professionalism in the Law and the advisory group of the New York State and Federal Judicial Council. About Greenberg Traurig, LLP: Greenberg Traurig, LLP (GT) has more than 2,000 attorneys in 39 offices in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. GT has been recognized for its philanthropic giving, diversity, and innovation, and is consistently among the largest firms in the U.S. on the Law360 400 and among the Top 20 on the Am Law Global 100. Web: http://www.gtlaw.com Twitter: @GT_Law. Photo taken on April 14, 2019 shows the site of aircraft collision at Lukla airport in Solukhumbu, Nepal. At least two people were killed after an aircraft of Summit Air collided with a helicopter at Lukla Airport in Nepal on Sunday morning, according to local authorities. (Xinhua) KATHMANDU, April 14 (Xinhua) -- At least two people were killed after an aircraft of Summit Air collided with a helicopter at Lukla Airport in Nepal on Sunday morning, according to local authorities. Locals said a Summit Air plane with call sign 9N-AMH collided with a helicopter of Manang Air, which was parked within the airport premise. "At least two persons have been dead, while few others are injured," local media reported. It has been reported that the Summir Air plane was en route to Kathmandu from Lukla. The detail of casualties has yet to be ascertained. Lukla airport is the nearest airport to the world's highest peak Mount Qomolangma, while April-May is the peak climbing season in the Himalayan country. In the springtime, domestic airline companies conduct over 50 flights everyday to Lukla, known as Tenzing Hillary airport, featuring vibrant terrains and harsh weather patterns. Due to the extreme wind pressure, all round-trip flights are usually operated in the morning. Our 2019 BUILDER Brand Use Study confirms that it is critical for building product manufacturers to demonstrate advanced product features, performance and quality to set themselves apart from their competitors, said Ron Spink, Executive Vice President, Design:Build Group. Hanley Wood, the premier information, media, event, and strategic marketing services company serving the residential, commercial design and construction industries, has released the findings of the 2019 BUILDER Brand Use Study to its building product manufacturer customers. Results from this years study show continued movement in brand leaders compared to last year, and a continued willingness among builders to try new brands. Our 2019 BUILDER Brand Use Study confirms that it is critical for building product manufacturers to demonstrate advanced product features, performance and quality to set themselves apart from their competitors, said Ron Spink, Executive Vice President, Design:Build Group. A strong brand identity and reputation; as well as advanced product features and quality are essential to reaching and driving adoption among builders. For nearly 30 years, BUILDERthe leading media brand in the residential construction industry, has issued its annual Brand Use Study. The report has become one of the most anticipated industry resources for trends, brand and product information. The 2019 study was conducted in collaboration with The Farnsworth Group, a leading industry market research firm, and represents a sample of 1,059 qualified builders, builder/developers and general contractors. The 2019 BUILDER Brand Use Study found that 66% of respondents indicate an interest in trying building product brands that they have not used in the pastan increase of 2% compared to last year. The top reasons they give for this willingness to try new brands include advanced or new product features (77%), price (50%), and quality (47%). The BUILDER Brand Use Study examined: Brand familiarity, brands used most, brands used within the past two years and brand quality across 50 building product categories Analysis of brand metrics by size of builder, sale price of homes built and geographic region Respondents willingness to try to brands they havent used in the past Decision-maker involvement in the final building product selection process Importance of factors influencing brand selection The 2019 BUILDER Brand Use Survey results can be found on BUILDERs website here. About BUILDER Hanley Woods BUILDER is the leading authority in the residential construction industry and serves as the magazine of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). For more than three decades, BUILDER has provided essential news, information and resources about products, technologies, trends, regulatory requirements and best practices to help home building professionals succeed in todays market. Learn more, visit builderonline.com. About Hanley Wood Hanley Wood is the premier company serving the information, media, and marketing needs of the residential, commercial design and construction industry. Utilizing the largest analytics and editorially driven Construction Industry Database - powered by Metrostudy - the company provides business intelligence and data-driven services. The company produces award-winning media, high-profile executive events, and strategic marketing solutions. To learn more, visit http://www.hanleywood.com. Interim HealthCare Inc., a leading national franchisor of home care, home health and healthcare staffing, will present at the 2019 Aging in America Conference in New Orleans, La. The session, How Brain-Based Dementia Education Helps Home Caregivers Provide the Best Care, will feature Interim HealthCares Senior Manager of Program Development and Implementation, Catherine Tedder, and National Director of Personal Care and Support Services, Vicki Demirozu. WHEN: Wednesday, April 17, 2019 at 10:30 11:30 a.m. CT WHERE: Hyatt Regency New Orleans, Strand 10B, Level 2 WHAT: How Brain-Based Dementia Education Helps Home Caregivers Provide the Best Care will focus on how critical it is for caregivers to have a more science-based understanding of the brain, how to care for patients through the different stages of dementia, and how to customize care plans. WHO: Catherine Tedder, RN, is a Positive Approach to Care (PAC) certified trainer, a designation of the Teepa Snow organizations dementia training. With over 25 years of experience in home healthcare, Catherine has served in patient care clinical roles, operational leadership roles and sales leadership positions. Vicki Demirozu is the National Director of Personal Care and Support Services at Interim HealthCare Inc. Vicki is a 26-year veteran of the industry and uses her experience to provide hands-on support to sales, recruitment, onboarding and retention, service delivery, management and operations. To learn more about Catherine and Vickis session, please visit here. About Interim HealthCare Inc. Interim HealthCare Inc., founded in 1966, is a leading national franchisor of home care, hospice and healthcare staffing. It is part of Caring Brands International, which also includes UK-based Bluebird Care and Australia-based Just Better Care, both well-known franchise brands in their countries. With more than 530 franchise locations in seven countries, Caring Brands International is a global health care leader. Interim HealthCare in the United States is unique in combining the commitment of local ownership with the support of a national organization that develops innovative programs and quality standards that improve the delivery of service. Franchisees employ nurses, therapists, aides, companions and other healthcare professionals who provide 25 million hours of home care service to 190,000 people each year, meeting a variety of home health, senior care, hospice, palliative care, pediatric care and healthcare staffing needs. For more information or to locate an Interim HealthCare office, visit http://www.interimhealthcare.com. Longtime Nashville financial entrepreneur Jeff Hays has been named President of Arlington Family Offices (Arlington) in Nashville. Hays will serve selected clients and will head the local Nashville team of Birmingham-based Arlington, a leading multi-client family office providing highly-specialized guidance and services to a select portfolio of 48 families located in the United States, Canada, and Europe. With a financial career spanning nearly 25 years, Hays brings a depth of insight and experience to Arlington. In 2001, he partnered with family members to launch Hays Advisory, an institutional research and financial management firm. He led a significant expansion there, achieving more than $2 billion in assets under management. In 2014, Hays was a founder of Cypress Capital, a firm designed to help high-net-worth investors achieve their financial goals. In 2017, he launched the inaugural Nashville Group of TIGER 21, the premier peer membership organization for high-net-worth wealth creators and preservers that helps them to navigate the challenges and opportunities that success creates. Hays facilitates monthly meetings for TIGER 21 members, leading discussions around subjects like wealth preservation, investment opportunities, family dynamics, and philanthropy. At Arlington I have found an opportunity that aligns with my deep experience in helping ultra-high-net-worth families become better stewards of their financial capital as well as their human capital, says Hays. Arlington offers the resources of large firms in the areas of investments, estate, tax, and trust services, but the peace of mind and individualized attention of a boutique firm. Clients are led through a process that helps to articulate the purpose of their wealth, which guides them as they learn how to pass on their values, as well as their resources, ensuring that wealth is protected and respected for generations to come. Hays added, Families also take great comfort in knowing that Arlington can consolidate their complex financial lives onto one platform where they can view their entire portfolio and monitor their progress toward establishing a successful family legacy, says Hays. Arlingtons custom-built technology platform along with an experienced team of professionals provides insight into all elements of a familys portfolio, including stocks, real estate, private equity, and partnership assets. Arlington recently acquired the Courtney House (est. 1838) located at 515 Church Street in downtown Franklin and has established this historic home as its base for serving families in middle Tennessee. Jeff Hays welcomes your contact at jhays@myafo.com or at (629-777-1043). Headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, Arlington Family Offices is one of the nations leading multi-family offices representing a select group of families with collective net worths in excess of $10 billion. Founded in 1998, Arlington has developed internal talent in the areas of investments, trust, tax and overall financial services, including a cutting edge family office technology platform. Arlington combines these technical services with a holistic approach to developing a family's human capital. http://arlingtonfamilyoffices.com/ Tony J. Tyre Our goal is to collect at least 100 pounds of food. You can also help online by shopping on our Virtual Food Drive page. One in eight people in Los Angeles County experiences food insecurity. To help rectify this, the Law Offices of Tony J. Tyre, Esq., APC is holding a food drive from April 15 to May 31. Donated food items can be dropped off at 100 S Citrus Ave., Suite 101, Covina, CA. Items needed include canned or dry fruits and vegetables, shelf-stable lean meats and canned or dry beans, non-perishable whole grains, and shelf-stable low-fat dairy products. Our goal is to collect at least 100 pounds of food, said attorney Tony J. Tyre, a Los Angeles native. You can also help online by shopping on our Virtual Food Drive page. By participating virtually, you can purchase fruits and vegetables to help feed the hungry, including bananas, apples, oranges, carrots, etc.; grains, such as oatmeal, bread, pasta and more; protein, like beans, chicken and salmon; and dairy, including yogurt, cheese, eggs and milk. You will also be able to provide full meals for veterans, senior couples, a family of four, children and holiday meals for families, added Tyre. Food drives such as these help the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, which has been fighting hunger since 1973, stock empty pantry shelves. Community support enables the Food Bank to serve more than 300,000 people on a monthly basis. Since its inception, the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank has distributed more than 1 billion pounds of food. To donate directly to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, please visit https://www.lafoodbank.org/. Every $1 donated allows the Food Bank to distribute the equivalent of four meals through its agency network or Food Bank programs. About Tony J. Tyre, Law Offices of Tony J. Tyre, Esq., APC. Tony J. Tyre is a highly respected estate planning attorney throughout California. He is a member of the State Bar of California and the U.S. District Court, Central District of California. The Law Offices of Tony J. Tyre, Esq., APC is dedicated to fulfilling all of the estate planning drafting and estate and trust administration needs of its clients. For more information, call (626) 858-9378, or visit http://www.tyrelawgroup.com. The main law office is located at 100 S Citrus Ave., Suite 101, Covina, CA 91723. The firm also has offices at 5703 Temple City Blvd., Temple City, CA 91780 and 13751 Roswell Avenue, Suite A, Chino, CA 91710. For media inquiries, please call the NALA at 805.650.6121, ext. 361. A rendering of the Mira Winery currently under construction Jesus brings an expertise, attention to detail and passion for winemaking that will only make us better Mira Winery, which produces a limited amount of hand crafted, all-natural wines, each a singular expression of unique grapes, announced today that Jesus Medina is joining the team as Assistant Winemaker. The announcement comes as Mira prepares to open its new Winery and Hospitality House at 6170 Washington Street just south of Yountville in time to celebrate the winerys 10th harvest in 2019. Jesus brings an expertise, attention to detail and passion for winemaking that will only make us better, said Mira Winemaker Gustavo A. Gonzalez. I have worked with winemakers around the world and Jesus is at the top of the pack. Jesus Medina has spent more than two decades supporting the production of premium wines in Napa Valley and around the globe. Over the course of a twenty-year career with the Robert Mondavi Winery he rose to the position of Cellar Master and took an active role in constantly refining and improving standards and practices for cellar work and winemaking. We are excited that Jesus is joining the team and to have a new winery and hospitality house on our 10th anniversary to share with wine lovers visiting the Napa Valley, said proprietor Jim Bear Dyke. Our goal is to create a look and feel on the property that reflects the history of Yountville and could have been built by George C. Yount himself. Gonzalez is now able to have complete control over every aspect of the winemaking process working with Medina to further the winerys pursuit of perfection in fine wine production. Every aspect of Miras new winery has been designed with that pursuit in mind, from the specially designed French oak tanks used to produce Miras flagship Cabernet Sauvignon Schweizer Vineyard to a workflow and visitor experience inspired by the innate perfection of the golden ratio. The Miracle of Mira In 2009 entrepreneur Jim Bear Dyke and winemaker Gustavo A. Gonzalez launched Mira Winery and began to produce limited production single vineyard 100% varietal wines that are interesting, balanced and a true reflection of their place, varietal, and season. Mira is the Latin root of miracle. Mira captured the attention of the world when they experimented with the ocean-aging of wine followed by a dominant performance against some of the worlds most highly regarded wines at a tasting commemorating the Judgement of Paris. Mira began construction on a new winery and hospitality house at 6170 Washington Street in May of 2018 and will open in time for harvest 2019. For more information on Mira, please visit our website http://www.miranapa.com or follow us on Instagram and Facebook. Cooltrax Trailer Tracking units Fleets are challenged to better manage assets every day. These innovative, easy-to-install trackers combine the accuracy of our telematics capabilities with a rugged hardware design to deliver real-time asset data in even the most extreme environments, said Mike Sharpe, President, Cooltrax NA. Cooltrax today introduced a complete line of asset trackers trailer and non-powered asset trackers to provide fleet managers with quick, precise location and asset management capabilities. On display in the companys National Private Truck Council (NPTC) Annual Conference booth (#1012) this week, the new Cooltrax durable, compact trailer and non-powered asset trackers allow for easy location of assets in the field, providing real-time tracking data to better manage and increase utilization of fleet assets for greater revenue potential. A global leader in cold chain fleet management solutions, Cooltrax delivers innovation and efficiencies through its suite of temperature control monitoring solutions that streamline in-house fleet management processes and reporting capabilities of trailers and perishable goods. Fleets are challenged to better manage assets every day, said Mike Sharpe, President, Cooltrax North America. These innovative, easy-to-install trackers combine the accuracy of our telematics capabilities with a rugged hardware design to deliver real-time asset data in even the most extreme environments and locations. With the Cooltrax trailer and non-powered GPS trackers, the fleet manager can instantly track or locate the asset; gain insight into asset utilization for maximum efficiency and improved billing processes; set alerts for unauthorized use and minimized asset recovery costs; protect assets by monitoring in-service mileage, usage concerns and preventative maintenance protocols; and create custom reporting metrics to improve service. Cooltrax Trailer Tracking units feature a completely weatherproof, low-profile design that installs easily to the powered asset. Delivering instant location reporting, Trailer Tracking trackers provide real-time theft or unauthorized use detection and recovery capabilities; the ability to create virtual perimeters for instant alerts of motion past user-set geo-fences and perimeter landmarks; and increased insight into engine mileage and in-service specifics. Cooltrax non-powered Asset Tracking units feature an IP67 rated, rugged weatherproof design for easy internal or external installation to the asset. Ideal for tracking shipping containers, freight, skip bins, chassis and other applications, the Asset Tracking unit operates in even the most ultra-sensitive environments where other GPS units commonly fail like container stacks and also include an integrated accelerometer to detect movement. These high-performance tracking units provide accurate location services in an easy-to-conceal package, providing real-time data for better response times and better utilized asset deployment. These units include long-lasting, easily replaceable batteries for uninterrupted service life. For more information about the new Cooltrax asset tracking devices, please visit booth #1012 during the NPTC conference, visit http://www.cooltrax.com or call 877-667-6868. About Cooltrax For more than 10 years, Cooltrax has helped companies across the globe operate their businesses more efficiently, with a suite of solutions that provide unparalleled visibility and control of their entire cold chain while providing warehouse and fleet managers the analytics and real-time data to manage all their cold storage locations and reefer units with confidence resulting in improved ROI. Cooltrax enables transportation, logistics, wholesale, and retail companies to become more valuable to their customers by providing visibility and actionable supply chain insights through its real-time industrial IoT platform and family of wireless environmental sensors to cover trailers, storage, in-store and at product level. For more information, visit http://www.cooltrax.com. The Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) has announced that Micron Technology Inc. (MICRON) CEO & President, Sanjay Mehrotra, will join Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, in a fireside chat to discuss Microns new $3 billion manufacturing facility. Micron, which makes computer chips for smartphones, automobiles and other consumer products, plans to add 100,000 square feet of workspace to its 123-acre plant in Manassas, Va. In addition, the project is expected to create 1,100 new jobs for the region. The discussion will focus on advanced manufacturing capabilities, and building intelligent workforce to sustain and advance technology. For more than 40 years, Microns memory and storage solutions have led to disruptive technologies and trends in the areas of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and autonomous vehicles across market segments like cloud, data center, networking, mobile and automotive. Sanjay Mehrotra has served as Microns President & CEO since 2017. Prior to joining the company, Mehrotra was with SanDisk Corporation, an early pioneer in flash storage technology. Mehrotra was one of the original co-founders of SanDisk, helping lead the company from a start-up in 1988 to its eventual sale in 2016. Mehrotra also serves as the current Chair of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), a position hes held since November 2018. DATE: April 26, 2019 TIME: 7:00 a.m. 7:45 a.m. Registration and networking 7:45 9:15 a.m. Breakfast and program LOCATION: Ritz Carlton, Tysons Corner REGISTRATION: To register as a member of the press, please contact Jake Lynn at 703-268-5153 or email JLynn(at)nvtc(dot)org. Press credentials are required for entry. The Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) is the membership and trade association for the technology community in Northern Virginia. As the largest technology council in the nation, NVTC serves about 1,000 companies from all sectors of the technology industry, as well as service providers, universities, foreign embassies, nonprofit organizations and governmental agencies. Through its member companies, NVTC represents about 300,000 employees in the region. NVTC is recognized as the nation's leader in providing its technology community with networking and educational events; specialized services and benefits; public policy advocacy; branding of its region as a major global technology center; initiatives in targeted business sectors and in the international, entrepreneurship, workforce and education arenas; and the NVTC Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity that supports the NVTC Veterans Employment Initiative and other priorities within Virginia's technology community. Visit NVTC at http://www.nvtc.org. ABACE 2019 (April 15) - Left to Right: Michel Coulomb, Co-Owner and CEO, ElitAvia; Nick Houseman, Co-Owner and Board Member, ElitAvia; Phil Mulacek, Chairman, OJets and Marc Vinson, Treasurer, OJets OJets, a privately-owned provider of comprehensive business aviation services, today announced the extension of its partnership with ElitAvia, a fully-integrated provider of business aircraft charter, management and operations services. OJets and ElitAvia possess highly-complementary areas of expertise. OJets is headquartered in Singapore with a fleet of Bombardier Globals and a Challenger 650. Additional Global 6000s will be added under ElitAvias Maltese AOC by the end of the month. The OJets team is guided by a commitment to delivering industry-defining service tailored to the most discerning Asian and international business travelers. ElitAvia is headquartered in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The company holds AOCs in Slovenia, Malta and San Marino, and manages a mixed fleet of 25 midsize to long range business aircraft for charter and private use. From its operations center at Singapores Seletar Airport, OJets is now supporting ElitAvia clients both aircraft owners and charter passengers. And, both ElitAvia and OJets sales teams are actively promoting OJets luxury charter services worldwide, from sales offices including Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok, which have been in operation since July 2018. As a part owner of the company, we enjoy an exceptionally close working relationship with ElitAvia, says Phil Mulacek, Chairman, OJets. The further integration of our two companies efficiently draws on complementary areas of expertise and geographical specialization. For example, leveraging the benefits of our indirect air carrier model, our aircraft operate under ElitAvias Maltese AOC. By working together, we are a stronger team able to provide clients with a more comprehensive service and global reach. Working with OJets is a perfect fit for ElitAvia, continues Michel Coulomb, CEO, ElitAvia. Our partners offer a charter fleet of long range luxury business aircraft, with a focus on the Asian market. Whereas we specialize in aircraft management and have deep roots in Europe, Russia and Africa. At present, we are managing a half-dozen aircraft based in Asia. We expect that number to grow as we continue our business development efforts in the region with the support of the OJets team. The merging of our companies complementary skillsets and territorial expertise allows us to present a very compelling proposition to the global business aviation market. Note to Editors: Visit OJets at ABACE in Shanghai, April 16 18. An OJets Bombardier Global will be open for viewing at static display 45 (SD 45) throughout the conference and exhibition. About OJets Headquartered in Singapore, OJets Pte Ltd is a privately-owned integrated provider of comprehensive business aviation services with a fleet of state-of-the-art, ultra-long range Bombardier business aircraft that provide intercontinental capabilities across the Pacific Rim. OJets is dedicated to providing the pinnacle of service excellence and an unparalleled luxury experience in business aviation to the most discerning travellers worldwide. OJets is an indirect air carrier. The fleet is operated by Elit'Avia Malta Limited under a Maltese air operators certificate. OJets holds a 30% equity interest in Elit'Avia Malta Limited. For more information, please visit http://www.ojets.com. About ElitAvia ElitAvia is a fully-integrated provider of business aircraft charter, management and operation services. Headquartered in Ljubljana, Slovenia, ElitAvia holds AOCs in Slovenia, Malta and San Marino. ElitAvia is Stage 3 International Standard Business Aircraft Operations (IS-BAO) certified by the International Business Aviation Council (IBAC). At present, ElitAvia manages a mixed fleet of 25 midsize to long range business aircraft for charter and private use. Aircraft types include: Gulfstreams (650 and 450), Bombardier Globals (6000 and XRS), Bombardier Challengers (650, 605 and 604), Dassault Falcons (7X and 50EX) and Hawkers (850 and 800). For more information, please visit http://www.elitavia.com. Media Contacts: Peini Lim, Senior Manager, Marketing, OJets plim(at)ojets.com / +65 6350 7199 Mark Lowe, PRagmatic Communications, for ElitAvia mark.lowe(at)pragcom.com / + 1 (514) 576-2519 "It was a no-brainer because we felt Real was in line with our tech-forward approach and the way we feel the real estate industry is headed. Real announced today that OSO Realty Group, led by managing partner and co-founder Derek Sneed, has joined the tech-connected brokerage in Southern California. OSO is a six-person team comprised of agents who believe in the power of technology as a disrupting force in the real estate industry. Sneed launched OSO Realty Group in 2017 after spending five years at Keller Williams, where he served on the Agent Leadership Council and as a compliance director. Previously he did marketing, programming, and design for startups in the technology industry. Sneed says the decision to bring OSO on as a Real team has been a long time coming: Ive been keeping an eye on Real even before it launched in California because the company seemed modern and with the times, says Sneed. When I pitched it to my team it was a no-brainer because we felt Real was in line with our tech-forward approach and the way we feel the real estate industry is headed. Additional members of OSO Realty Group include licensed agents Ciaara Hoffmann, Andrew Valdes, Jazmin Gallardo, Matthew Zialcita and brand manager Russell Manuyag. Together they serve residential buyers and sellers in the Inland Empire area of Southern California. When building his team, Sneed said he looked for like-minded people who felt online marketing and technology could drive success. While he says his team still respects and utilizes some tried and true old school real estate principles, they also believe leveraging technology is helping them stay ahead of the curve while serving clients more efficiently. My tech background has allowed me to have this mindset where I know we need to constantly adapt, Sneed says. We cant get comfortable, we must always be looking to change for the better. To that end, the entire OSO Realty Group works remotely but communicates 24/7 via the messaging service Slack. Through Real they have also been able to leverage the customer relationship management software Chime to track and nurture leads. And of course, all transactions are managed through dotloop, a transaction management solution Real provides to agents at no cost. We may only meet in person once a month now but we get so much more done because we are meeting with purpose, Sneed says. Nobody sees losing the brick-and-mortar office as a negative. As for the future, Sneed says now that his team is aligned with Real, he is eyeing an expansion, including the possibility of expanding to other states using the Real platform. For agents interested in joining OSO Realty Group, Sneed has a pitch: The tech and support which Real provides, along with what weve developed as a team are a recipe for success in this rapidly changing real estate industry. Our agents can focus on taking care of clients and not have to worry about creating and managing the technology, branding, marketing, or transaction management side of things. Its a smooth running machine. For more on OSO Realty Group, visit https://oso.realty About Real Real is the first tech-connected real estate brokerage that leverages mobile technology in place of costly offices to serve agents and teams better. By marrying a tech-connected business model with agent equity opportunities and revenue sharing, Real seeks to make agents lives better. For more information, please visit http://www.joinreal.com. We love the idea of having an inclusive restaurant. So often we go to restaurants and feel as though we are not fully welcomed and respected, and we never want our customers to feel that way. Family-owned RB Sushi just celebrated the ten-year anniversary of their Rancho Bernardo location grand opening! Of the three locations belonging to the Japanese cuisine establishment, the Rancho Bernardo counterpart is the most classic and exemplary, appropriately so. Owner Francis Park has a lot to say about his business: We want to continue to provide excellent customer service and the freshest ingredients possible, all for an affordable price. Thats what is important to us. The self-proclaimed sushi aficionado considers the quality of his sushi to be among the best in San Diego. While the restaurant maintains an all-you-can-eat nature, they make sure to never compromise their freshness and flagship preparation. Regular customers appreciate the establishments overall welcomeness, all while getting their favorite sushi; a union that continues to lead to the restaurants success. When not working on their business, the Park family contributes to their local industry by trying a variety of other restaurants. They consider themselves a foodie-family, actively trying new cuisines and taking their experiences with them to help develop their own restaurant. Outside of Japanese, their favorite flavors come from around the world, namely Mexican, Italian, and American-fusions. Many years ago, before RB Sushi was conceived, the family took time to travel and try foods from all across the world to find inspiration for the restaurant they would eventually establish together. Though Japanese food was their final settlement, they still like to keep other culture's flavors in mind when making specialty dishes. About RB Sushi RB Sushi is an informal Japanese cuisine restaurant with three locations operating in San Diego, CA. They specialize in fresh sashimi and hand rolls while maintaining an all-you-can-eat serving form. The family-owned restaurant hopes to continue to grow their business and maintain their high standards of quality into the future. As a WBNEC certified privacy-focused consultancy, clients can benefit from our unique perspective while demonstrating their commitment to fostering diversity within their supply chain, said Jodi Daniels, Founder and CEO of Red Clover Advisors. Red Clover Advisors, a national consulting firm advising businesses on privacy and its opportunities, is proud to announce national certification as a Womens Business Enterprise by the Greater Women's Business Council, a regional certifying partner of the Womens Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). As one of the few WBENC certified privacy-focused consultancies, clients can benefit from our unique perspective while demonstrating their commitment to fostering diversity within their supply chain, said Jodi Daniels, Founder and CEO of Red Clover Advisors. Clients receive concierge level service with the added advantage of working with a professional services partner holding a nationally recognized certification. WBENCs national standard of certification implemented by the Greater Women's Business Council is a meticulous process including an in-depth review of the business and site inspection. The certification process is designed to confirm the business is at least 51% owned, operated and controlled by a woman or women. The inclusion of women owned businesses among their supply chain demonstrates the commitment of companies to foster diversity and accelerate the maturity of their supplier diversity programs. To learn more about Red Clover Advisors, please visit http://www.redcloveradvisors.com. About Red Clover Advisors: Red Clover Advisors creates customized and affordable privacy programs to fit the size and diversity of each business. Our privacy consultancy is dedicated to understanding the ins and outs of balancing customer data collection and use, GDPR and US privacy law compliance, operationalizing privacy, digital governance, online data strategy, and much more. Our job is to simplify privacy practices so your business can gain a competitive advantage through trust. We believe privacy is just good business. About WBENC: Founded in 1997, WBENC is the nations leader in womens business development and the leading third-party certifier of businesses owned and operated by women, with more than 13,000 certified Womens Business Enterprises, 14 national Regional Partner Organizations, and over 300 Corporate Members. More than 1,000 corporations representing Americas most prestigious brands as well as many states, cities, and other entities accept WBENC Certification. For more information, visit http://www.wbenc.org. In signing the form individuals "make their commitments in solidarity with traditional Jewish practice and history." In honor of the traditional Passover custom of "selling" one's chametz in order to rid your home of any leftover bread products Rabbi Steve Blane has created a newly envisioned contract for the modern Jew. You can access the form on the Sim Shalom Facebook page here. People who sign the form promise not to eat chametz, keep any in their homes, and do their best to avoid having contact with anything that may have chametz on it - like dishes and silverware - opting instead for paper products. In signing the form individuals "make their commitments in solidarity with traditional Jewish practice and history." Chametz (also spelled "hametz" or "chometz") is any food product made from wheat, barley, rye, oats or spelt that has come into contact with water and been allowed to ferment and rise. In practice, just about anything made from these grainsother than Passover matzah, which is carefully controlled to avoid leaveningis to be considered chametz. This includes flour (even before it is mixed with water1), cake, cookies, pasta, breads, and items that have chametz as an ingredient, like malt. Rabbi Blane has an intuitive understanding of what is important for today's Jew simplifying traditions while maintaining their integrity. Sim Shalom is an interactive online Jewish Universalist synagogue which is liberal in thought and traditional in liturgy. Created in 2009 by Rabbi Steven Blane on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Sim Shalom offers a means of connecting the unconnected. Rabbi Blane leads accessible and short Shabbat services every Friday night using a virtual interface and additionally Sim Shalom provides online education programs, Jazz concerts, conversion and life-cycle ceremonies along with weeknight services at 7:00PM EST led by Rabbis and students of this online community. Rabbi Blane is also the founder and director of the Jewish Spiritual Leader's Institute, http://www.jsli.net, the online professional rabbinical program. Sim Shalom, a non profit 501 (3) tax-exempt organization, nurtures a Jewish connection through its mission of innovative services, creative education and dynamic outreach to the global community. For more information visit http://www.simshalom.com or call 201-338-0165. Each of these honors reflects SourceMedias strengths across many capabilities and competencies, including reporting and analysis, research and writing and visual design in multiple media SourceMedia, a business information, media and events company serving professional communities in financial services, technology and healthcare, won 12 Jesse H. Neal Awards for excellence in business journalism and media. SourceMedia also won three Best in Business awards and one honorable mention from the Society for Advancing Business Editing & Writing (SABEW). American Banker led the SABEW charge, with a General Excellence award, and along with Financial Planning, was responsible for most of the companys Neal and SABEW honors this year. SourceMedia also won a Neal for a ground-breaking cross-community project, Sexual Harassment in the Professional Workplace, which reached the audiences of American Banker and Financial Planning, as well as those of Accounting Today, Employee Benefit News and other SourceMedia brands. Other Neal awards include Best Website honors for both American Banker and Financial Planning, and the Grand Neal, the competitions best-in-show award, which went to American Banker reporter John Heltman for Nobodys Home, a 10-part podcast series about housing blight. Heltman also won a Neal for Best Range of Work by a Single Author and is the recipient of this years McAllister Fellowship at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern. In his McAllister acceptance speech, Heltman thanked his colleagues, who create such a collaborative, selfless, fun environment to work in. He added: Thats the real award, getting to do work that is important, that has credibility, that influences people and hopefully works as a force for positive change in our society. Each of these honors reflects SourceMedias strengths across many capabilities and competencies, including reporting and analysis, research and writing and visual design in multiple media, said Chief Content Officer David Longobardi. They also demonstrate the teams deep knowledge of, and strong relationships in the communities they serve. American Bankers SABEW General Excellence is SourceMedias third such honor (American Banker won in 2013, and Financial Planning in 2016). The SABEWs received nearly 1,000 entries, submitted by 175 news organizations across the country, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and Bloomberg. Additional SABEW Awards Banking/Finance First Prize to American Banker, for Bank CEOs fire-and-rehire maneuver, reaps windfall at taxpayer expense by Kevin Wack Banking/Finance Honorable Mention to Financial Planning for Keep Quiet: Confidential emails reveal a top Wells Fargo advisors despair after he cried fraud by Ann Marsh Breaking News First Prize to American Banker, for Comerica scrambles to address fraud in prepaid benefits program by Kate Berry. Additional Neal Awards Best Subject-Related Package to SourceMedia, for Sexual Harassment in the Professional Workplace (also a runner-up for the Grand Neal) Best Art Direction for a Single Article to Financial Planning Senior Art Director Nick Perkins for the immersive digital feature The rise of the class of '68 Best Single Article to Financial Planning, for Keep Quiet, by Ann Marsh Best News Coverage to American Banker, for Consumer Credit on the Brink, with reporting and editing by Kevin Wack, Bonnie McGeer, Alan Kline, Dean Anason and Kristin Broughton Best Commentary to American Banker, for a series of articles on bank regulatory issues by Editor in Chief Rob Blackwell Best Commentary to Financial Planning for columns by contributor Allan Roth The Neal Awards, founded in 1955, recognize and reward editorial excellence in business media and journalism. Bestowed by Connectiv, The Business Information Association, the competition received more than 500 entries this year. About SourceMedia SourceMedia is a business information, media and events company serving professional communities in financial services, technology and healthcare. The company advances communities of professionals and marketers, uncovering powerful ideas and their business implications, connecting and rallying industry leaders, setting standards and benchmarking progress. Brands include American Banker, The Bond Buyer, PaymentsSource, Financial Planning, Digital Insurance, Accounting Today, and National Mortgage News. We have a great relationship with H&H and are excited to have closed our second transaction together. We are proud to be their partner by providing attractive non-recourse financing through our model home sale leaseback program. -- Edward Steffelin, President, STAC. STAC Capital Management (STAC) today announced the closing of a second model home sale leaseback program with H&H Homes and the opportunistic acquisition of seven luxury residential condominium units at the Enclave at Borgata in Scottsdale, AZ. STAC focuses on opportunistic residential investment or financing opportunities, including model home purchases. On March 29, 2019, STAC closed a $4 million model home "sale-leaseback" transaction with H&H Homes. In the transaction, STAC purchased the pool of model homes from H&H Homes and simultaneously entered into lease agreements allowing H&H Homes to utilize the home as sales offices for up to three years. The agreement allows H&H Homes to obtain attractive growth capital while reducing its exposure to fluctuations in housing prices. The portfolio is made up of 12 model homes throughout North and South Carolina. We have a great relationship with H&H and are excited to have closed our second transaction together, said Edward Steffelin, President, STAC. H&H Homes is a very well managed builder that is building in great markets. We are proud to be their partner and help them grow their business by providing attractive non-recourse financing through our model home sale leaseback program. STAC moved quickly and decisively, providing us with additional capital and flexibility, and we expect to have a relationship with them for years to come, stated Jack Rostetter, CEO of H&H Homes. On March 1, 2019, STAC opportunistically purchased seven luxury condominium units in the Enclave at Borgata (the Borgata) in bulk and will sell them individually. The Borgata is a very well located project in Scottsdale and bordering Paradise Valley. At Lincoln Drive and Scottsdale Road, it is an excellent location and walkable to resorts and restaurants. It is an investment in the best condominium location in the greater Phoenix area. STAC Capitals senior management average over 20+ years of industry experience. As part of its investment strategy, STAC will offer select builders the opportunity to sell and leaseback portfolios of model homes. In 2018 STAC began to partner with a number of institutional capital sources to offer these homebuilders over $1 billion in growth capital. Please see http://www.staccap.com for more details. About H&H Homes: Established in 1991 by Ralph and Linda Huff, H&H Homes was inspired to provide high-quality affordable new homes for military families serving at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, NC. Today the company has grown to seven markets in the Carolinas and celebrated their 6000th homeowner in 2018. Recognized in major publications such as Builder Magazine for their excellence, H&H Homes is a customer-committed firm that takes pride in providing value by offering high-end quality and exceptional features to its homebuyers. For more information, please see http://www.hhhomes.com. As company crippling mega data breaches make headlines nearly daily, TechR2 is committing $1.4M to install 1,000 Tear-A-Byte data security solutions over the next 12 months to stem the tide of these debilitating cyber-attacks. TechR2s pledge to abate the wave of cyber-crime will focus primarily on organizations being hit the hardest such as healthcare and financial service institutions, universities, and insurance companies. TechR2s patented Track-Contain-Destroy-Verify process is a state-of-the-art solution designed to ensure protection of an organizations data at rest. The Tear-A-Byte ensures that no data bearing device ever leaves the 4 walls of an organizations facility, closing the door on one of the most significant threats to company loose media. TechR2 has made this a priority and is lending its data security expertise to protect organizations from the relentless pursuit of cyber-crime, said Tony Johnson, EVP and COO of TechR2. We are committed to a collaborative effort to quash the effects of what is quickly becoming all out data warfare. TechR2 also believes this initiative will create 40 to 50 full time positions in the Pataskala location alone. COO Tony Johnson is available for further comment at the contact information listed above. ABOUT TechR2 TechR2 is a global leader in the data security industry backed by multiple ISO Certifications (i.e., ISO 27001 for Information Security; 14001 for Environmental Protection; 9001 for Quality Assurance Management and OHSAS 18001 for Occupational Health and Safety). TechR2s core Tear-A-Byte solution is unmatched in the industry and coupled with TechR2s ISO 31000 compliant risk assessment, auditing, decommissioning and secure transport services ensure the utmost protection of our clients. TechR2s offerings fully comply with international laws (e.g., GDPR); federal regulations (such as, NIST, SOC, HIPAA, PCI, FERPA and FFIEC); and state statutes, including the California Privacy Act, New York Data Privacy Law and Ohio Safe Harbor Act. For more information, please visit http://www.techr2.com/ A little over a decade ago, the federal government recommended new guidelines to attain the worlds highest proportion of college graduates by 2020. Higher education institutions embraced the challenge and made a concerted effort to increase graduation rates through improved practices, updated policies and innovative programs. The results after a decade of implementation? While institutions have improved, many educators say that improvement of completion rates has been marginal, at best, and there is still significant work to be done. The president of Lone Star College-Tomball, Dr. Lee Ann Nutt, and colleague Latoya Hardman confront the conventional wisdom around college completion efforts in "Complete the Agenda in Higher Education: Challenge Beliefs About Student Success." They present a compelling argument, backed by tested classroom techniques, that to increase graduation rates, academic institutions must shift from the completion-only-mindset, often referred to as the Completion Agenda, to a more holistic approach that encompasses a broader student experience, which the authors call the Beliefs Agenda. "We still want students to finish, said Dr. Nutt. But we want them to leave college knowing how to finish anything they start, because if a student can't complete a degree, its likely they can't finish anything else either. The Beliefs Agenda takes practical aspects of the Completion Agenda and builds heavily on them, adding indispensable fundamentals the authors say are missing in the current culture of completion efforts. Foremost among the authors approach is instilling four principles students need to succeed: growth, resilience, instinct and tenacityor GRIT, the centerpiece of research conducted by Dr. Paul G. Stoltz, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of PEAK Learning. He defines GRIT this way, A persons capacity to dig deep, do whatever it takesespecially struggle, sacrifice and even sufferto achieve your most worthy goals. Co-author Hardman, currently the Director of Academic Initiatives and Partnerships at LSC-Tomball, developed many of the teaching techniques mapped-out in the second part of book. She experimented with various ways the Beliefs Agenda could be integrated into the classroom and help students experience and internalize success, and gain new beliefs about their own abilities and what it takes to be successful. I gave my students a riddle to work on for 15 minutes, she said, explaining one of the simple exercises that shows students they already have the capacity to think about things, focus for long periods of time, and finish what they start. I explain to them, its not always going to be easy, but you have the ability within you. Now I need you to take what you did on that puzzle and apply it to this paper or to this project. "Complete the Agenda in Higher Education: Challenge Beliefs About Student Success" provides practical implementation methods, offers engaging teaching tactics, and proposes sensible strategies. While the authors expect some pushback, there are many higher education professionals calling for fresh thinking and are willing to try new ideas that may not only increase graduation rates but also yield better students-citizens. [The authors] challenge readers to think beyond institutional goals of completion by also focusing on helping students believe they belong and can succeed in college and in life, said reviewer James R. McCoy, co-creator and executive producer, for the Emmy-nominated documentary, "No Greater Odds." Backed by empirical research, [the authors] do a marvelous job of harnessing the powerful outcomes that can be achieved by focusing on student GRIT. Look out world, a new movement is on the horizon in higher educationthe Beliefs Agenda is here! After a decade of the Completion Agenda, most researchers and higher education leaders agree that student completion has not improved to the desired success level. [The authors] advocate that it is time for the next disruptive change in higher education, said Dr. Martha M. Ellis, Director of Higher Education Strategy, Policy, and Services for the Charles A. Dana Center, University of Texas at Austin. At the core of the Beliefs Agenda is the acknowledgement that experiences and beliefs underlie why some students finish despite the obstacles they face and why some students cannot finish anything, including an assignment. In their book, published by Rowman & Littlefield, Dr. Nutt and Ms. Hardman take on a timely and crucial topic in higher education that challenges the status quo. Now, their nationally recognized ideas and innovative approaches, which have been field-tested at their community college, could very well be an answer to one of the nations most important and on-going educational concerns. Lone Star College-Tomball is located at 30555 Tomball Parkway, at the intersection of SH 249 and Zion Road. For more information about the college, call 281.351.3300 or visit LoneStar.edu/Tomball. Lone Star College offers high-quality, low-cost academic transfer and career training education to 99,000 students each semester. LSC is training tomorrows workforce today and redefining the community college experience to support student success. Stephen C. Head, Ph.D., serves as chancellor of LSC, the largest institution of higher education in the Houston area with an annual economic impact of nearly $3 billion. LSC consists of six colleges, 10 centers, two university centers, Lone Star Corporate College and LSC-Online. To learn more, visit LoneStar.edu. City National Bank supports volunteers from Free Tax Prep Los Angeles and United Way of Greater Los Angeles free tax rebate program for low-income families and individuals. This year, City National Bank co-sponsored nearly 100 volunteers to join United Way of Greater Los Angeles, receiving IRS certification to help low-income, working families and individuals file their taxes and put money back into their pockets. Through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, United Way of Greater Los Angeles volunteers provide free tax assistance for households who are eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). United Way of Greater Los Angeles, in partnership with the Free Tax Prep Los Angeles coalition, has been a leader in the VITA program since 2007 and trains volunteers to impact lives and incomes. United Ways 2019 cohort of VITA tax preparers have been out in the community supporting working families who made less than $56,000 in 2018. This dedicated team helped hundreds of households receive up to $5,500 through the EITC, the California EITC, their normal tax return, and by helping them save on the cost of filing their taxes. City National Bank believes in fostering financial literacy in the community and we are excited to team up during tax season with our partners at United Way to provide this valuable resource, remarked Jennifer Nickerson, Senior Vice President, Corporate Citizenship, City National Bank. City National Bank has worked with United Way of Greater Los Angeles on a variety of programs. They are an event sponsor of the upcoming HomeWalk 5K Run/Walk Bringing EVERYONE IN to end homelessness on May 18 and EmpowerHER Awards to be held June 13, 2019. Additionally City National Bank has been active as a donor to United Ways Southern California Disaster Relief Fund for the Hill and Woolsey Fires, an event sponsor of Fall into Literacy and Leadership for L.A.s Future, and a giving society category sponsor to United Ways Emerging Leaders. About United Way of Greater Los Angeles United Way of Greater Los Angeles is a nonprofit organization fighting to end poverty by preparing students for high school graduation, college, and the workforce; housing our homeless neighbors; and guiding hard-working families towards economic mobility. United Way identifies the root causes of poverty and works strategically to solve them by building alliances across all sectors, funding targeted programs and advocating for change. For more information, visit UnitedWayLA.org and EveryoneInLA.org. About City National With $51.1 billion in assets, City National Bank provides banking, investment and trust services through 71 offices, including 19 full-service regional centers, in Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, Nevada, New York City, Nashville, Atlanta, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C. In addition, the company and its investment affiliates manage or administer $71.7 billion in client investment assets. City National is a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), one of North Americas leading diversified financial services companies. RBC serves more than 16 million personal, business, public sector and institutional clients through offices in Canada, the United States and 33 other countries. For more information about City National, visit the companys website at cnb.com. Jerry D. Jackson, a Vietnam veteran and a retired small business owner, has completed his new book An American Vendetta: a gripping account of a traffic stop that forever changes the already tenuous balance between an everyday family, the Johnsons, and the influential family, the Jordans. This book asks the readers: what would it take for you to kill a man? Jerry D. Jackson explained of his newest work. As hard as he tried to do the right thing, Mr. Bruce Johnson found his breaking point. Bruce and his partner, Mikaila, settle down in a town outside of Nashville. There, they buy their first home, settle down, and get married. Its also here where they first come in contact with the Jordan family. While the Johnsons just want to live a happy life in peace, the Jordans are a dangerous, vindictive, and very ruthless family who controlled the goings-on around town and the county as a whole. Published by New York City-based Page Publishing, Jerry D. Jacksons compelling novel explores the tipping points of hardworking individuals who try to keep their heads down until they are forced to rear up in response to some injustice. Jerry D. Jackson has also published a book of poetry, Poetic Justice, and a book on religion, Destination-Eternity with his late wife, Drucilla Johnson Jackson. Other than his time in the military, he has lived in several cities in North Carolina, including his hometown Elizabethtown, North Carolina for his whole life. An American Vendetta captures the moment when the paths of the Johnson and Jordan families cross as the result of a routine traffic stop; a young police officer, Bruce Johnson, pulls over a man by the name of Matthew Jordan for speeding. That single event becomes the catalyst that changes the lives of the local townspeople, specifically the lives of Bruce Johnson and his family, forever. Readers interested in discovering how this confrontation plays out can purchase An American Vendetta at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes store, Amazon, Google Play or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708. About Page Publishing: Page Publishing is a traditional New York based full-service publishing house that handles all of the intricacies involved in publishing its authors books, including distribution in the worlds largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing knows that authors need to be free to create - not bogged down with complicated business issues like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes and the like. Its roster of authors can leave behind these tedious, complex and time-consuming issues, and focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com. Wildwood Pizza is excited to announce the opening of a second location in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The new location, scheduled for opening in May, will offer the same authentic and delectable wood-fired pizza experience as the award-winning flagship location in Alexandria. Wildwood Pizza Partners (with over 65 years of combined experience in owning and operating local Louisiana restaurants) - Gary Perkins, Lee Gwin, Vivian Perkins, and Garrett Perkins - also have plans to expand to Lake Charles in 2019. Wildwood Pizzas Alexandria location was recently named the best pizzeria in Louisiana by TripAdvisor. Known as the worlds largest travel site, TripAdvisor recently named the nations top pizzerias in every state based on diners site reviews through September 2018. The announcement of Wildwood Pizzas selection came in a feature article in USA Today. TripAdvisors diner reviews loved the unique menu options, wide assortment of fresh toppings, made from scratch crust, and the ability to personalize every pizza. This fast casual restaurant is known for their handmade dough which is transformed into a crispy, tender wood-fired crust. In Baton Rouge, pizza fans, with mouths watering, are waiting in anticipation of Wildwoods arrival with their renowned wood-fired pies including The Beast, Kickin Chicken, Porkys Revenge, Pesto, Mediterranean, and more. The Build-Your-Own options feature everyones favorite toppings and many unique choices, including gluten-sensitive and dairy-free, plus every Wildwood pizza and salad can be customized. The Baton Rouge location will be located in Long Farm Village. Partner, Gary Perkins, offered, We are excited by the opportunity to expand and share the Wildwood difference with the people of Baton Rouge - delicious authentic wood-fired crusts topped with the finest ingredients! With that, wed like to officially extend our invitation to join us in May at the Baton Rouge location. Wildwood Pizza is proud to host Pizza for a Purpose. Every Tuesday, Wildwood Pizza gives back to the community though this exclusive program with 10% of all sales going to local non-profit organizations. Thus far the pizzeria has raised more than $20,000 for community organizations in the Alexandria area and the company is excited to do the same for local Baton Rouge organizations when they arrive in May. Wildwoods reviews speak for themselves, making the case for Wildwoods success and growth with comments like, best wood-fired pizza - love, love, love this place and artisan pizza! Fabulous selection of ingredients on a great fired crust. Get ready Baton Rouge pizza lovers, Wildwood is coming with the best pizza in Louisiana. About Wildwood Pizza Wildwood Pizza was founding with the goal of delivering pizzas with Freshness You Can Taste. As Alexandrias first wood-fired pizza oven casual dining restaurant, the pizzeria offers the only authentic wood-fired pizza experience in Central Louisiana. Local owned, Wildwood Pizza promises exceptional pizzas with their proprietary dough recipe and the freshest local sourced ingredients. For more information, please visit http://www.wildwood-pizza.com/. Media Contact: Wildwood Pizza 1260 Texas Avenue Alexandria, LA,71301 (318)448-7121 wildwoodpizza(at)yahoo(dot)com For more information, please visit http://www.wildwood-pizza.com/. Maintaining a healthy tree population worldwide is the primary goal of the Arbor Day Foundation, and one of many ongoing Earth Day Network programs. Woodcraft applauds the Arbor Day Foundation and the Earth Day Network for keeping issues affecting trees, as well as the whole environment, publicized and promoted. There seems to be a day dedicated to just about everything including National High Five Day on Thursday, April 18. Although the High Five hand gesture is a congratulatory or celebratory greeting between two people, Woodcraft is borrowing it to commend two organizations that work year round to promote planting and nurturing trees and a healthier, safer environment. The National Arbor Day Foundation sponsors National Arbor Day (April 26, 2019) to celebrate the importance of trees for people and the environment. The Earth Day Network sponsors Earth Day (April 22, 2019) to publicize environmental issues that need addressed worldwide. Woodcraft applauds the Arbor Day Foundation and the Earth Day Network for keeping issues affecting trees, as well as the whole environment, publicized and promoted. Since Woodcraft serves woodworkers, who use wood to create everything from furniture to pepper mills, the company is eager to support efforts to maintain a healthy tree population, Woodcraft President/Chief Executive Officer Jack Bigger said. Protecting Trees On March 20, The Arbor Day Foundation announced its Time for Trees initiative, a commitment to plant 100 million trees in forests and communities worldwide by 2022 the 150th anniversary of Arbor Day. The Foundation says the initiative will leverage trees as a simple, powerful way to preserve the necessities of life on Earth that are becoming increasingly compromised, as well as reverse the damage done by climate change. "It can be easy to take trees for granted, but they are absolutely critical to maintaining balance on our planet supporting clean air and water, healthy food and a livable climate," said Dan Lambe, president of the Foundation. "With an estimated 18 million acres of forests lost globally each year, that balance is being shaken, and the Time for Trees initiative our organization's largest undertaking to date will provide a powerful solution." The need for an ongoing effort to plant trees was recognized nearly a century and a half ago by J. Sterling Morton, editor of the first newspaper in Nebraska, a treeless plain in the 1850s. In 1872 the Nebraska Board of Agriculture accepted his resolution to set aside a day to plant trees both forest and fruit, and set the date for April 10. Today National Arbor Day is celebrated on the last Friday in April. All 50 states, Puerto Rico and some U.S. Territories have passed laws adopting Arbor Day, which is celebrated on a date appropriate for tree planting in their region. Protecting the Environment The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, brought together 20 million Americans from all walks of life and is widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement that was followed by the landmark Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act and other groundbreaking environmental laws. The landmark event also led to the Earth Day Networks founding, with a mission to diversify, educate and activate the environmental movement worldwide. Earth Day is now global, mobilizing 200 million people in more than 190 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage. Earth Day Network (EDN) has chosen Protect Our Species for the 2019 campaign. According an EDN press release, Studies estimate that we are now losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the normal rate. Insect populations have decreased by more than 45% worldwide; 40% of the worlds bird species are in decline; beekeepers report annual hive losses of 30% or higher, and the list goes on. Trees, coral reefs, whales, elephants, plants, fish, sharks, crustaceans, sea turtles, and great apes are also among the species listed that need protection. The good news is that the rate of extinctions can still be slowed, and many of our declining, threatened, and endangered species can still recover if we work together now to build a united global movement of consumers, voters, educators, faith leaders, and scientists to demand immediate action, says Kathleen Rogers, President of Earth Day Network. Earlier in March, in Nairobi, Kenya, Earth Day Network, the U.S. Department of State through the Eco-Capitals Forum, and the Wilson Center announced the launch of Earth Challenge 2020 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day In 2020. Earth Challenge 2020 is a global citizen science initiative that shows how small digital acts can add up to global change. Using mobile technology and open, connected citizen science data, EC2020 will get a snapshot of worlds environment and health and empower people around the world to have an impact on future global policy decisions. For more information about the Arbor Day Foundation and the Earth Day Network, visit visit this Woodworking Adventures blog, arborday.org or earthday.org. Raising a community of readers is a fundamental objective of public libraries. Libraries make it their primary business to build readers, with story times, readers advisory, thoughtfully developed collections, and more. But libraries dont do all the heavy lifting on their own. They get plenty of help from their communitieseven at the doctors office. This year marks the 30th anniversary of Reach Out and Read, an organization that helps transform doctors and health care professionals into partners in literacy. Since its launch at Boston Medical Center in 1989, under the leadership of Robert Needlman and Barry Zuckerman, Reach Out and Read has been giving young children a foundation for success by donating books to pediatric care providers, reading aloud to kids in waiting rooms, and teaching families about the benefits of reading together at home. To this day, the programs inspiration remains a powerful memory for Needlman: he was standing in the inpatient ward when, at the end of the hallway, he noticed a mother reading to her child. The mom became so excited, he says, recalling how the childs reaction to the words the mom read appeared to give her an incredible charge of energy. Such experiences have kept Needlman motivated and involved with Reach Out and Read, which, 30 years after its launch, counts more than 6,000 partners in all 50 states. There are more and more doctors who get it and use it, Needlman says, adding that the program has become a popular way for new doctors to forge relationships with families during child wellness visits. Im fortunate that Needlman lives and works in the Cleveland area. When I moved to Cleveland in 1997 and discovered that he also had relocated there, it took me nearly a year to work up the courage to call him. But once we met, I quickly saw why children, doctors, and librarians so easily put their trust in the mission of Reach Out and Read. Finding My Calling Theres a reason the mission of Reach Out and Read especially resonates with me: I found my calling as a librarian at the intersection of youth services, early brain development, and childrens learning. I will forever be grateful to my friends at Middle Country Public Library in Centereach, N.Y., for welcoming me into their library initiative, the Parent/Child Workshop, as well as for the development of their Family Place Libraries program. And Im particularly grateful to my dear friend, coauthor, and inspiration Sandra Feinberg, the former director of Middle Country Public Library. Together, we worked to show how real learning happens in libraries. But, as with many things in my life, what really inspired me in this work was a serendipitous read. One day in 1990, someone left an article in my inbox about this remarkable program happening at the Pediatric Primary Care Center in BostonReach Out and Read. The program was totally groundbreaking at the time. From personal experience, however, it made perfect sense. When my first daughter was born, I was told by well-meaning librarians to read to her. At the time, there was still little information out there about the benefits of early reading, and most libraries had yet to offer programs for babies and new mothers. So, in my own intentional, somewhat selfish way, I held my daughter, Meg, and read Ann Tylers The Accidental Tourist aloud to us both. Why not? I wanted to hold my baby. And I wanted to read the Ann Tyler book. This scene made perfect sense to me! I dont think Meg has any residual memories from the experience, but I am still sentimental about that quirky novel. There was plenty more to come, of course; I recited beloved Mother Goose nursery rhymes, and my husband consistently sang to our new baby. By the time we welcomed our second daughter, Bridget, there was growing evidence suggesting a relationship between reading to kids and early language development. And we were fortunate to raise two great readers. Its now well documented that talking, singing, and reading to your baby encourages brain development and lays the foundation for language skills. And with some 90% of young children seeing their pediatricians regularly, Reach Out and Read offers a tremendous opportunity to reinforce early literacy in a safe, nonthreatening way. Gifting books to children and families over a series of wellness visits gives physicians the opportunity to talk to new parents about this crucial part of their childrens development. Meanwhile, volunteers in the waiting room read to families, modeling the dialogic reading methods most recommended to reinforce language development and school readiness. Still Growing Perri Klass, professor of journalism and pediatrics at New York University, is the national medical director of Reach Out and Read. I have long been a fan of her columns on medical school that appeared in the New York Times, as well as her early books on medical training, including A Not Entirely Benign Procedure: Four Years as a Medical Student. Klass says she discovered Needlmans work while writing an article on the pediatrics of poverty for the Times. She interviewed him and loved the way he talked about the importance of literacy. Historically, we partitioned health and education, Klass says. But with young children, you cant have one without the other. As fate would have it, Klass was doing a fellowship at Boston Medical Center when she learned that Needlman was moving to Cleveland, and, given her passion for early literacy, she decided to step in to lead the program. Historically, we partitioned health and education, Klass says. But with young children, you cant have one without the other. Brian Gallagher, CEO of Reach Out and Read, says the passionate and engaged, Klass is inspiring future generations of pediatricians to incorporate early childhood reading programs into their practices. And as an organization, Reach Out and Read continues to grow and evolve, adding approximately 20 new sites each month, including at neonatal intensive care units, dental clinics, public health systems, and newborn nurseries. Meanwhile, the adoption and promotion of early literacy development programs by the American Academy of Pediatrics has helped make Reach Out and Reads literacy mission part of a large and growing number of pediatric care and residency programs. Thirty years on, the basic principles of Reach Out and Read remain the same, though the program today is less prescriptive than it used to be, Gallagher says, and is now more locally designed and more locally funded. But it may well be one of the most cost-effective programs out there to promote healthy child development. It costs about $20 per child per year to cover books, support, and training, Gallagher notes. Partners in Literacy Of course, the books chosen and distributed through Reach Out and Read are an essential component in helping parents create a literacy-rich environment for their kidsmeaning publishers have a major role to play. Among the programs largest supporters in the publishing community is Scholastic Books. Scholastic offers a catalogue specifically for Reach Out and Read programs, complete with recommended titles and volume pricing models. All About Books, a book aggregator, also offers a catalogue and volume pricing in support of Reach Out and Read. Obviously, theres an important role for libraries in the Reach Out and Read program, too. When Reach Out and Read doctors prescribe a visit to the local library for their young patients, a lifetime of family reading and learning begins, says Susan Hildreth, interim director at Californias Sonoma County Library and current American Library Association treasurer, adding that libraries are especially effective partners, whether providing books, story times, or reading activities in waiting rooms. I know from experience how true this is. I started my own Reach Out and Read program in Syracuse, N.Y., in the early 1990sa partnership between the Onondaga County Public Library and the State University of New York Health Sciences Center. For me, talking with the doctors and medical school students about picture books and demonstrating the technique of dialogic reading at monthly pediatric sessions was almost as joyful as reading to families with babies and toddlers in the waiting room. As Reach Out and Read celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, why not take this opportunity to reach out and see how you might help better support early childhood literacy efforts in your community? When partners such as Reach Out and Read, public libraries, and the publishing community commit to the message, Read to your children early and often, we are committing to healthy kids, healthy families, and healthy communities. Correction: This article previously misidentified Barry Zuckerman as Barry Zucker. PUNK VS. CABANA LAWSUIT UPDATES: ONE COUNT AGAINST PUNK DISMISSED, PUNK RESPONDS TO ALLEGATIONS FOR FIRST TIME & MORE The ongoing lawsuit brought by Ring of Honor star Scott Colt Cabana Colton against former WWE Champion Phil CM Punk Brooks in the Circuit Court of Cook County in Illinois has seen one of the two allegations against Punk dismissed, leading to Punk personally responding before the court for the first time about Cabana's allegations of unpaid legal fees and breach of contract, stemming from the lawsuit that WWE physician Doctor Chris Amann filed against the two in the fallout of Punk's appearance on Cabana's November 2014 Art of Wrestling podcast. For simplicity, we have broken down the latest moves in the lawsuit by the dates they were filed: MARCH 15th On 3/15, Judge Daniel J. Kubasiak ruled on CM Punks motion to dismiss the amended lawsuit Cabana brought against him. In that filing, Punk argued that Cabana again failed to explain under Illinois law why the amended lawsuit should be allowed move forward after the initial filing was dismissed. Punk's attorneys are claiming that Cabana have failed to properly argue why the lawsuit should stand, instead choosing to point back to the allegations in the amended lawsuit. In the 3/15 ruling, each side gained a small victory. Judge Kubasiak ruled that while Punk's text that Colt Cabana would be "100% covered" in regard to Dr. Chris Amann lawsuit was not "definite and certain enough to constitute an offer that could support an enforceable contract", a later email from Punk's attorney offering to continue to represent Cabana after Punk and Cabana had a falling out over the course of the Amann lawsuit "constituted an offer sufficient at this stage so as to establish that an enforceable contract exists between Colton and Brooks." The email in question: "Despite your unwillingness to contribute to your legal fees, I am still prepared to represent you, and Phil is prepared to have me represent you and cover your legal fees going forward, as long as there is no conflict between you and Phil that prevents me from fairly and ethically representing you. At this time, I don't believe that any such conflict exists..." So, the court let that count move forward in order to it to be sorted out if and when the case goes to trial. Whether it actually was indeed a legitimate, enforceable contract will be the crux of the case going forward if and when they actually go to trial. However, the allegation of fraud against Punk was dismissed as Judge Kubasiak as Cabana once again failed to allege a successful fraud claim, instead making statements that Brooks "knew or should have known" that the court dismissed. The count was dismissed without prejudice, which does leave the door for Cabana to revisit it down the line with a different argument, but this is the second time the court has shot such an argument down, which means that unless Cabana can provide concrete proof that Punk and his attorneys decided to actively defraud him, it likely won't be revisited. As of 3/15, the case was down to one simple count against Punk, based around the premise that when Punk's attorney emailed offering to continue to represent Cabana for free (as Punk was footing the bllls) in the Amann lawsuit, that could indeed constitute an offer from Punk's side to Cabana. APRIL 8th On 4/8, CM Punk filed his first official response to Colt Cabana's lawsuit, noting that all claims related to fraud accusations had been dismissed by the court, therefore he had no reason to respond to them. Other highlights from the response filing included the following: *In regard to Cabana's claim that Punk asked to be on Cabana's podcast The Art of Wrestling, Punk responded, "Brooks admits only that he was interviewed by Colton for an episode of Colton's podcast. Brooks denies the remaining allegations of Paragraph 6 because it was Colton who had wanted, and had repeatedly requested, Brooks to be on his podcast, a vehicle through which Colton seeks to promote and financially benefit himself, and for which Brooks was not compensated." *In regard to the Dr. Chris Amann's demand letter to Cabana demanding the podcast be removed, Punk responded, "...he believed the Demand Letter was a retaliatory measure against him initiated by the WWE" and denied all other "characterizations and allegations" about that letter that were alleged by Cabana. He also denied Cabana's claim that Punk believed the letter was likely to lead to WWE litigation against Punk. Regarding the text message conversation where Punk allegedly stated Cabana would be "100% covered" in any legal action regarding the Amann situation, Punk responded, "Brooks admits only that Colton advised him by text message on December 16, 2014 that Colton had received a physical copy of the Demand Letter. Brooks denies all the remaining allegations in Paragraph 14 through which Colton seeks to conjure a legal claim, although his effort is totally undermined by the text messages he attached as Group Exhibit C to his Complaint." *Punk also responded that claims he would 100% cover Cabana "are entirely unfounded, are totally false, and are insulting." *On Cabana's statement that he had notified Punk he was accepting an offer to have Punk cover his costs and any liability or legal fees Cabana might incur, "Brooks denies that any such notice was given, denies that any such offer was ever made by him to Colton, and denies all remaining allegations of Paragraph 16. Brooks further answers that he expended enormous sums of his own money defending Colton in the Amman Lawsuit as an act of friendship and generosity only to have Colton attempt to weaponize that generosity against Brooks in a shameless effort to get even more money from Brooks or publicity, or perhaps both." *While admitting that Cabana did not respond to Amann's requests to have the Art of Wrestling podcast episode removed, Punk denied there was any formal "agreement" between the two sides. *In regard to a claim there was an Indemnity Agreement between the two sides that would have resulted in Punk handling Cabana's legal fees, Punk stated, "Brooks admits only that he paid a substantial amount of money for Colton's legal expenses in the defense of the Amman Lawsuit out of an act of friendship and generosity. Brooks denies there was ever any Indemnity Agreement, and denies all remaining allegations." Punk repeated the claim that he was paying the legal fees out of "friendship and generosity" several additional times in his response. *In regard to the April 2016 email that had been revealed when Cabana filed the lawsuit last year where Punk demanded Cabana pay half of their legal fees (up until that point) and that Punk had given up on Cabana doing "what was right", Punk explained for the first time, his stance on that email, writing, "Brooks admits that he gave up long ago on hoping Colton would do what is right. Brooks further admits that, at the time of the quoted message, he felt that given a lack of reciprocation in their friendship, that he wanted Colton to finally pay toward his own legal defense expenses, which to that point Colton had contributed absolutely nothing. Brooks also admits that in Paragraph 24, Colton accurately quoted words from an email by Brooks. Brooks denies that there ever was any Indemnity Agreement and denies all the remaining characterizations and allegations in Paragraph 24. " *Punk also responded to email exchange between Punk's attorney and Cabana, where Cabana was advised that he could still be represented by Punk's team - the email at the center of the court allowing that aspect of the case to move forward -, alleging that the entire email exchange has not been revealed to the court by Cabana, writing, "Brooks admits only that Colton has accurately quoted some, but not all, of the words in the email referenced in Paragraph 29 and attached to Colton's Complaint as Exhibit G. Brooks denies any remaining allegations." Punk also denied the allegation, made by Cabana, that the legal offer from Punk's attorney was made on his behalf and also denied that he "asked, demanded or otherwise caused" the team to withdraw as Cabana's legal counsel. What led to Punk's attorneys dropping Cabana as a client is covered later on in the filing. Punk's response also denied a claim by Cabana that right after they successfully defeated Dr. Chris Amann in court last year, that Cabana's new counsel Carey Stein (a Cabana family friend who also represents Cabana in this matter as well), notified Punk's legal team, demanding $200,000 for Cabana's legal fees and costs. *Regarding a claim that Punk's legal team refused to comply with that request, Punk stated, "Brooks denies the allegations contained in Paragraph 37 to the extent they assert or suggest that Brooks was or is required to reimburse Colton for Colton's own separate defense of the Amman Lawsuit. Brooks admits only that after paying many hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal defense expenses on behalf of Colton in the Amman Lawsuit to which Colton refused to contribute any money, he finds it telling that Colton is still yet seeking even more money from Brooks. Brooks denies all remaining allegations in Paragraph 37." Punk also commented on Cabana requesting $200,000, writing, "Brooks admits that Colton has demanded money from Brooks toward Colton's legal defense expenses above and beyond the many hundreds of thousands of dollars Brooks had already paid for Colton's defense expenses in the Amman Lawsuit as a gesture of friendship and generosity that Brooks has long learned was entirely misguided. Brooks denies that Colton is entitled to any money from Brooks and denies any remaining allegations in Paragraph 49." Punk then laid out his defense for the remaining count against him, arguing that any alleged agreement between the two "are so indefinite as to be unenforceable as a contract under Illinois law." Punk then argued that even if it was ruled that he and Cabana indeed had an enforceable agreement, the agreement was severed by Cabana, writing, "Even assuming any valid contract between Brooks and Colton existed as alleged by Colton in the Complaint (which it did not), Brenner's June 1, 2016 e-mail to Colton attached as Exhibit G to the Complaint stated, in part, that [Brooks) is prepared to have me represent you and cover your legal fees going forward, as long as there is no conflict between you and [Brooks) that prevents me from fairly and ethically representing you. Brenner and/or the Loeb Firm advised Colton on or around March 1, 2017 that a conflict did arise between Brooks and Colton which prevented Brenner from fairly and ethically representing both parties, thereby triggering the contingency/condition in the alleged agreement that resulted in a termination of the agreement. Whatever that trigger was remains unexplained before the court, but Punk's response claims that whatever "conflict did arise" would have been great enough to lead to Punk's legal team removing themselves from representing Cabana "fairly and ethically." Punk's defense argument, in essence, is that Cabana was being covered legally, but something Cabana allegedly did ended up creating a situation that led to Punk's team having to drop him as a client. Therefore, if they had an enforceable agreement, it would have been terminated because of Cabana's actions. Ergo, Cabana would not be eligible for financial damages. If and when that series of events is revealed before the court, it will be up to the court to decide which side falls under the right side of the law. Punk is also arguing that even if there was an agreement between the two sides, Cabana would severed that agreement in June 2016 when he informed Punk's team he was willing to pay for his own legal defense against Chris Amann going forward on 6/2/16. WHAT NEXT On 4/9, it was ruled discovery in the case would continue through 5/7 and that there would be a case management conference on 5/21 at 9:30 AM. From there, it's up to the presiding judge to decide what direction the case continues, whether Cabana's remaining claim should be thrown out or whether the two sides should be ordered to attempt to settle the issue. Thanks to Billy Krotchsen for his assistance. If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here! Welcome to Railway Gazette. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. By continuing to browse this site you are agreeing to our use of these cookies. You can learn more about the cookies we use here. OK Riedel Communications and Switzerlands tpc are collaborating on Project Metechno, Switzerland's first full-IP broadcast facility. Located in the Leutschenbach district of Zurich, the location will be a campus for the Swiss public broadcasters SRG, SRF and tpc, set to open in autumn 2019. The IP technology beacon project will include several studios, postproduction facilities, a new MCR, and a centralised playout centre all based on a full-IP infrastructure that unites intercom, audio and video.As the production and technology partner of SRG, tpc took on the task of designing the technical framework for the new sports, news and technology centre. One of the cornerstones of their concept was to maximise multifunctionality and flexibility, thus the technical infrastructure of the facility will continuously evolve and grow with industry developments and production demands. In order to keep their communications up to date with the latest technical innovations, tpc has entered a strategic, long-term partnership with Riedel."With this new intercom contract, we have taken our long-standing partnership with the Swiss public broadcasting association to the next level. SRG and Riedel are united in their commitment to push the borders of innovation and have one shared vision: to help shape the IP broadcast world of tomorrow," said Thomas Riedel, CEO, Riedel . "With this exciting project, we want to realize this vision together."In the collaborative effort, engineers and system consultants from tpc and Riedel began to conceptualise the intercom system of the future in 2017. They devised a fully AES67-compliant communications infrastructure based on Riedel's Artist decentralised intercom network that will integrate with the IP workflows in use throughout the facility. The scalable infrastructure will easily adapt to future developments in IP broadcasting and will be one of the first installations worldwide to incorporate Riedel's new, full-IP Artist-1024 node."With its wide range of connectivity options and extensive IP capabilities, the Artist ecosystem is the perfect communications backbone for our facility," said Andreas Lattmann, CTO at tpc . Riedel's intercom network will provide us with a reliable, futureproof foundation for our networked live productions.The Riedel installation in Zurich represents the first milestone in a comprehensive modernisation of SRG's intercom network across all of the Swiss broadcaster's studios in Bern, Geneva, Chur and Lugano. SpaceX has successfully launched Saudi Arabias Arabsat 6A satellite in its first commercial Falcon Heavy mission, and pulled off a triple booster landing at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The broadcast and communications satellite, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, will be placed in orbit at 30.5 degrees East."Arabsat-6A is a high-capacity telecommunications satellite that will deliver television, radio, Internet, and mobile communications to customers in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. Built by Lockheed Martin, Arabsat 6A is the largest and most powerful commercial satellite Lockheed Martin has ever produced, said Khaled bin Ahmed Balkheyour, president & CEO of Arabsat The modernised LM 2100 includes several innovations that make the satellite more powerful, more flexible and more versatile in orbit.Arabsat 6A will provide advanced Ka-spot beam communications services and Ku and Ka-band coverage for customers across MENA and parts of Europe.The flight of SpaceXs megarocket, which essentially comprises three of the companys Falcon 9 rockets strapped together, came over a year after the rockets demonstration mission. That propelled a Tesla car owned by SpaceX founder Elon Musk and a manakin named Starman into orbit around the sun. Albanian operator Digit-Alb has entered into a partnership with SPI/FilmBox to offer Turkish dramas to all of its subscribers through the Timeless Drama Channel. TDC Partnership is said to be dedicated to people of all ages who love the drama genre and want to watch high-quality and critically-praised shows. It offers hundreds of hours of internationally acclaimed programmes from major Turkish producers.I am proud to announce the launch of one of our most popular channels, Timeless Drama Channel, in Albania; this agreement is a new milestone for SPI/FilmBox and our partner Digit-Alb. We are confident that Timeless Drama Channel will be immensely popular amongst Digit-Alb subscribers, commented Murat Muratoglu, head of distribution for the Middle East, Ex-Yugo, Baltic States, Bulgaria, Greece, India, Turkey, CIS Countries, APAC at SPI International. We are thrilled to welcome SPIs Timeless Drama Channel into our fantastic TV bouquet, added Digit-Alb Co-CEO Arben Taipi. By adding Timeless Drama Channels unmatched quality programmes to our roster, we are re-affirming Digit-Albs reputation as the screen of the best regional channels. #MeToo is about believing women who say they've been assaulted. But college students expelled for assault allegations are suing and winning in court. Nearly a year after having what he claimed was consensual sex and she claimed was assault, two Aquinas College students were back together, this time separated by a curtain. For 50 minutes, they appeared in front of a panel of employees of the college in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In a 10-minute opening statement, the male student defended himself against charges he had sexually assaulted the female student. The female student offered no opening statement. Across the country, scores of coal plants are shutting down and many nuclear plants are at risk of closing. Consequently, natural gas is in great demand for electricity production. But serious supply problems have developed from a shortage of gas due to a failure to overturn moratoriums on the construction of new pipelines. This problem dwarfs anything likely to happen with the rest of the power sector. Natural gas is a wonderful fuel clean burning, produced domestically, and plentiful and power plants fueled with natural gas have many advantages. Current trends, however, indicate that serious stresses are building due to a shortage of gas pipelines. If natural gas cant get to market, no one will drill for it. This could mean trouble for an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars. And it could expose consumers of natural gas to much higher gas and electricity prices and loss of reliability. Some parts of the country, particularly the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, have already had warnings about the negative economic impacts of pipeline shortages. In New York state, for example, existing natural gas infrastructure is not capable of meeting demand and Gov. Andrew Cuomos opposition to the construction of new pipelines in the state has resulted in a severe lack of capacity, causing several natural gas utilities to implement a moratorium on new residential and commercial connections. A moratorium could devastate economic development in New York. The case for building more pipelines is strong. A rapid scale-up of natural gas production is needed to meet increasing national demand for electricity just as most of the coal and nuclear power fleets are being phased out. Last year LNG from Russia was delivered to Boston to meet consumer needs for natural gas during a cold snap, because a pipeline to carry gas to New England from the prolific Marcellus shale a few hundred miles away in Pennsylvania couldnt be built. Some politicians, including Gov. Cuomo, have said they want energy companies to focus more on renewable power sources, instead of building more gas plants and pipelines. Although solar and wind energy are emission-free, it is a matter of common sense that when faced with difficult environmental challenges, the more options that are available, the more likely emissions will be reduced. In fact, the switch from coal to natural gas nationally has reduced carbon emissions from electricity production to mid-1980s levels. The United States has been a laggard rather than a leader in energy decision-making. Implementing a natural gas agenda will require political leadership capable of neutralizing the longstanding opposition of people for whom the biggest dragons to be slain are the construction of new pipelines or the natural gas industry itself. A failure to act will drive away investment in natural gas production and cost thousands of jobs. It will also compromise environmental objectives. And it will increase the price of natural gas, which would harm consumers of natural gas and electricity and put U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas at a competitive disadvantage with other countries. A key question, then, is what should be the federal governments role in the siting and construction of new pipelines? The most sensible approach would be for the Administration to issue an executive order that would open the door for more natural gas pipelines. This new agenda would be a clear departure from more than three decades of controversy, timidity, and indecision in U.S. infrastructure policy. It is one of the unfortunate legacies of the years of policy drift that now, at the very moment that environmental concerns are building and the need for low-carbon energy sources is growing more urgent, the ability of natural gas to respond to this need is in doubt.And that could become problematic. Matthew Kandrach is President of CASE, Consumer Action for a Strong Economy, a free-market oriented consumer advocacy organization. English French Tianjin Service Centre receives Authorized Service Centre status from engine manufacturers Rolls-Royce, GE and Honeywell New line maintenance station can service Bombardier Challenger and Global aircraft with various international registrations Continuing enhancements are part of Bombardiers worldwide expansion of its award-winning customer services network MONTREAL, April 14, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bombardier is proud to announce significant enhancements to its customer support capabilities for business aircraft customers in China on the eve of this years Asian Business Aviation Conference & Exhibition (ABACE). Bombardiers centrally located Service Centre in Tianjin has received Authorized Service Centre status from engine manufacturers Rolls-Royce, GE and Honeywell. This authorization demonstrates the confidence these renowned companies have in the abilities of this facilitys world-class technicians. Our customers can now have the engines of their business jets serviced in China by the team who knows their aircraft best. Bombardier is also pleased to announce new line maintenance services at its Tianjin Service Centre. This new team offers AOG mobile repair as well as unscheduled and scheduled maintenance services on various Challenger and Global aircraft registered with the following regulatory bodies: EASA, FAA, Canada, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Aruba, Qatar, Isle of Man, San Marino and Guernsey. Bombardiers Tianjin Service Centre has obtained approvals from a growing number of aviation authorities since opening two years ago and can now offer a full scope of scheduled and unscheduled maintenance services for Global, Challenger and Learjet aircraft registered in China, Hong Kong, Macau, Cayman Islands and Bermuda. Certification is in progress for further expanded capabilities under FAA and EASA. Its important for Bombardier to be close to our customers in the Greater China region so as to ensure they have access to excellent service, said Jean-Christophe Gallagher, Vice President and General Manager, Customer Experience, Bombardier Business Aircraft. Thats why we are committed to expanding our services in this market, where we see a bright future for our growing aircraft portfolio. Bombardiers Tianjin Service Centre was inaugurated in April 2017 in collaboration with the Tianjin Airport Economic Area (TAEA). Two years later, the facilitys expanded services are a testament to Bombardiers dedication to growing business aviation in the Greater China region and to strengthening its relationship with TAEA. Bombardier also has two regional support offices in Hong Kong and Beijing and two regional parts depots in Hong Kong and Tianjin. Enhancements to customer support capabilities in China are part of Bombardiers commitment to providing exceptional service worldwide. In February, Bombardier announced the expansion of its Singapore Service Centre, which will more than quadruple its footprint. In October 2018, Bombardier announced it will more than double its customer service footprint in Florida with a new service centre. This is in addition to the entry-into-service of a Challenger 300 support aircraft stationed in Europe. Bombardier is proud to be participating at ABACE 2019 and displaying its flagship Global 7500 aircraft, its exceptional large-cabin Global 6000 aircraft, as well as its best-selling Challenger 350 aircraft. About Bombardier With over 68,000 employees across four business segments, Bombardier is a global leader in the transportation industry, creating innovative and game-changing planes and trains. Our products and services provide world-class transportation experiences that set new standards in passenger comfort, energy efficiency, reliability and safety. Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, Bombardier has production and engineering sites in 28 countries across the segments of Transportation, Business Aircraft, Commercial Aircraft and Aerostructures and Engineering Services. Bombardier shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (BBD). In the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018, Bombardier posted revenues of $16.2 billion. News and information are available at bombardier.com or follow us on Twitter @Bombardier . Notes to Editors Visit the Bombardier Business Aircraft website for more information on our industry-leading products and services. Follow @Bombardierjets on Twitter to receive the latest news and updates from Bombardier Business Aircraft. To receive our press releases, please visit the RSS Feed section. Bombardier, Challenger, Challenger 300, Challenger 350, Global, Global 6000, Global 7500 and Learjet are registered or unregistered trademarks of Bombardier Inc. or its subsidiaries. Although Republicans were pleased that Special Counsel Robert Mueller said he was unable to establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, they fear his practice of distorting facts during his investigation will color his final report, which Attorney General William Barr is expected to release to Congress in redacted form this week. Democrats are convinced that it will show examples of collusion" between Trump and Russia, even if there was no evidence of a criminal conspiracy. Seeking to manage public perceptions about the Mueller report as much as Democrats are, Republicans say their counterparts are bent on cherry-picking its details to make it still look as if President Trump coordinated with Russia, part of their effort to keep the collusion narrative alive heading into the 2020 presidential election. They fear Mueller will make it easy for them to continue spinning that tale. Sen. Lindsey Graham: Mueller distorted Papadopoulos emails. Senior Republicans on investigative committees on Capitol Hill, who have reviewed some of the same evidence Muellers investigators have examined, complain that the special counsels team of mostly Democratic prosecutors shaded evidence in charging documents filed against a number of Trump associates for process crimes unrelated to collusion (mostly lying to investigators) to suggest a broad conspiracy. They say that the special counsel and prosecutors misled the court and the media by, among other things, editing the contents of emails to cast a sinister shadow on otherwise innocuous communications among Trump advisers and by omitting exculpatory information. They cite charging documents filed against Trump advisers George Papadopoulos, Michael Cohen and former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as examples. The indictments that were made by the Mueller team are very questionable, and theres pieces of them that read like Russian spy novels, said Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. That was done on purpose, he added, "to create a narrative to make the American people think, as they were indicting these people, that somehow this had to do with collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. For example, in filing false-statement charges against former Trump campaign adviser Papadopoulos in October 2017, Muellers team included a footnote that said emails obtained by the special counsel revealed that a Trump campaign official suggested low level staff should go to Russia. As the Senate Judiciary Committee pointed out in a secret letter to Mueller, the special counsel neglected to mention that the emails had been provided to it by the Trump campaign and they showed the campaign wanted someone low level to decline these types of invitations. The distortions led the Washington Post, CNN and other major media to misinterpret the nature of the internal campaign dialogue as attempts by the Trump campaign to coordinate activities with Moscow, according to Sens. Lindsey Graham and Chuck Grassley, the top Republicans on the committee. Sens. Graham and Dianne Feinstein of the Judiciary Committee: Graham suspects Robert Mueller of distortion, Feinstein suspects Attorney General William Barr of the same. Muellers office declined repeated requests for comment. A spokesman for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the committee, did not respond to a request for a statement regarding Grahams and Grassleys concerns about Muellers objectivity. Feinstein on April 11 joined five other Democratic senators in signing a letter to Barr accusing the attorney general of working with Republicans to "perpetuate a partisan narrative designed to undermine the work of the Special Counsel, arguing that their doubts about the Russia investigation only serve "to legitimize President Trumps dangerous attacks on the Department of Justice and the FBI." But Republicans have pressed their own doubts about Mueller. Last month, in another little-noticed letter to Barr, Senate Judiciary Committee investigators elaborated on the Papadopoulos matter and what they described as Mueller unfairly cherry-picking from internal Trump campaign emails. They claimed that he and his prosecutors had cited only fragments of the emails in the charging document against Papadopoulos. And they pointed out that this "selective use" of the emails made it seem as if the adviser and the campaign were working behind the scenes with Russia, when in fact that was not the case. Taken in their fuller context, the emails showed Papadopoulos was in fact discouraged from meeting with Russians. Additional context showed that Papadopoulos, acting as a foreign policy adviser, had conversations with representatives from multiple governments, not just Russia, and that his supervisor Sam Clovis, along with campaign chair Paul Manafort, had opposed any trip to Russia for Trump and the campaign. Mueller left all of this out of the complaint he personally signed against Papadopoulos in October 2017. Citing the misleading complaint, CNN erroneously reported that records describe an email between Trump campaign officials suggesting they were considering acting on Russian invitations to go to Russia. The story also stated that the Papadopoulos charge was the campaigns clearest connection so far to Russias efforts to meddle in the 2016 election. The following month, after Senate investigators had compared the emails quoted in the Papadopoulos filing with the full emails they had obtained separately from the Trump campaign, they called Mueller out on the omissions, arguing he took information out of context. George Papadopoulos: Probers made it seem he was vaguely connected with the collusion aspect of Mueller's case. In this matter, the public deserves to have the full context for the information the special counsel chooses to release, then-Senate Judiciary chair Grassley wrote Mueller in a four-page letter. The glaring lack of it feeds speculation and innuendo that distorts the facts." Mueller objected to the committee releasing the full emails at the time. Papadopoulos said he handed over all his emails, text messages and other communications with the Trump campaign to Muellers investigators. He said they shaded the emails to make it seem as though he was vaguely connected with the collusion aspect of Muellers case. Also listed on the charging document against Papadopoulos was Mueller prosecutor Jeannie Rhee, a former top Obama appointee and Clinton donor who Papadopoulos said was biased against him and had political conflicts of interest investigating him and the Republican campaign. She was one of 13 registered Democrats on Muellers team of 17 prosecutors. Papadopoulos said Rhee repeatedly threatened him, telling him he was looking at 25 years in prison if he didnt cooperate with Mueller. Ultimately he pleaded guilty to making a false statement he claimed he did not know that Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese academic who had told him the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton, had connections to the Russian government when, in fact, he did. There are no reports he tried to track down the dirt or told anyone in the Trump campaign about Mifsud. Ultimately he was sentenced to 14 days in jail. Formerly a senior adviser to Attorney General Eric Holder, Rhee was a partner at Muellers old law firm, WilmerHale. In 2015, she defended the Clinton Foundation in a lawsuit that claimed it operated as a racketeering enterprise shaking down donors in exchange for government favors. In 2015 and 2016, she contributed $5,400 to Hillary Clintons presidential campaign. In his new book, Deep State Target, Papadopoulos revealed that the FBI investigator handling his case and leading interrogations of him was FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, whom the Justice Department inspector general last year exposed for anti-Trump bias. Clinesmith was kicked off the Mueller team in February 2018 after the inspector general alerted Mueller to instant messages he wrote on FBINet revealing he was devastated over Clintons loss on Election Day and would join the resistance against Trump. He also called Vice President Mike Pence stupid." Michael Flynn: Mueller omitted an exculpatory detail, that anti-Trump FBI agent Peter Strzok thought he was truthful. Republicans say the special counsel also demonstrated collusion bias in its complaint against Trump National Security Adviser Flynn, former prosecutors say. Mueller charged the retired general with lying to FBI investigators about his conversation with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition, even though one of the investigators noted Trump critic Peter Strzok had the impression at the time that Flynn was not lying or did not think he was lying, according to internal FBI documents uncovered by Flynns defense team. In fact, former FBI Director James Comey has said Flynn provided truthful answers and wasnt intentionally misleading investigators on Jan. 24, 2017, when he was questioned by Strzok and another agent. Mueller omitted the exculpatory information from the charging documents he filed against Flynn. Flynns charges were made up so Mueller could get his Russian connection, said former federal prosecutor and well-known Trump defender Victoria Toensing. The complaint he filed against Flynn is warped." A third troubling example Republicans point to is the special counsels complaints against Trumps personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, which like other court documents included tantalizing hints of collusion that dissolved upon closer inspection. They say Mueller used the so-called Moscow Project talks Trumps hope to build or at least brand a Russian skyscraper -- to connect Trump directly to Vladimir Putin during the campaign, while withholding from the court details that would exonerate Trump of such collusion. Mueller omitted the fact that Michael Cohen, above, did not have any direct points of contact at the Kremlin, and had resorted to sending emails to a general press mailbox. A closer reading of the November 2018 charging document filed with Cohen's false-statement plea deal reveals that Mueller who personally signed the document omitted a fuller accounting of Cohens emails and text messages which, according to Capitol Hill investigators who have seen them, make the deal look far less nefarious than portrayed in the filing and in the press. On page 7, Mueller mentions that Cohen tried to email Russian President Vladimir Putins office on Jan. 14, 2016, and again on Jan. 16, 2016. But Mueller omitted the fact that Cohen did not have any direct points of contact at the Kremlin, and had resorted to sending the emails to a general press mailbox. It's clear from personal messages he sent in 2015 and 2016 that the Trump Organization did not have formal lines of communication set up with Putins office or the Kremlin during the campaign, one Hill investigator said. There was no secret back channel. So as far as collusion goes, the source added, "the project is actually more exculpatory than incriminating for Trump and his campaign." In the end, neither Putin nor any Kremlin official was directly involved in the scuttled Moscow Project, sources say. Moreover, neither Cohen nor Trump traveled to Moscow in support of the deal, as real estate broker and Cohen business associate Felix Sater had urged. No meetings with Russian government officials took place. It was Sater, a Russian immigrant with a checkered past, who came up with the tower project idea in 2015. But the project never went anywhere partly because Sater didnt have the pull with Putin he claimed to have. Sources who have seen Saters still-secret transcripts of closed-door testimony say Sater, whom Cohen described as a salesman," testified to the House intelligence panel in late 2017 that his communications with Cohen about putting Trump and Putin on a stage for a "ribbon-cutting" for a Trump Tower in Moscow were mere puffery to try to promote the project and get it off the ground. Also according to his still-undisclosed testimony, Sater swore none of those communications involved taking any action to influence the 2016 presidential election. None of the emails and texts between Sater and Cohen mention Russian plans or efforts to hack Democrats campaign emails or influence the election. Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative nonpartisan government watchdog group, said the criminal-information statement of offense against Cohen reflects political bias. He said the special counsel appeared more interested in trying to draw connections to Russia than highlighting exculpatory evidence in what he called "a transparent attempt to try to embarrass the president. Major news organizations seized on Mueller's misrepresentations. CNN said the charging documents, which reference the president as Individual 1," suggest Trump had a working relationship with Russias president and that "Putin had leverage over Trump" because of the project. Well into the 2016 campaign, one of the presidents closest associates was in touch with the Kremlin on this project, as we now know, and Michael Cohen says he was lying about it to protect the president, said CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer. Cohen was communicating directly with the Kremlin, Blitzer added. CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said the development was so enormous that Trump might not finish his term. At MSNBC, pundits maintained the court papers prove Trump secretly interacted with Putins own office." Now we have evidence that there was direct communication between the Trump Organization and Putins office on this. I mean, this is collusion, said David Corn of Mother Jones, co-author of Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putins War on America and the Election of Donald Trump. Adam Schiff, now the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Trump was dealing directly with Putin on real estate ventures during the campaign. Clinton supporter Rhees name is the first listed under Muellers signature as one of the prosecutors involved in the Cohen case, appearing at the end of the governments December 2018 sentencing memorandum filed against him. Muellers office declined repeated requests for comment from RealClearInvestigations. Thanks, well decline to comment, spokesman Peter Carr reiterated Sunday evening Attorney General William Barr: Republicans fear juiced indictments color final report. Attorney General Barr last week pledged to Democrats that he wont withhold any derogatory information about the president regarding collusion contained in Muellers report. But Republican lawmakers warn that if the special counsel's juiced indictments are any indication, his report wont be any more objective in detailing underlying evidence and telling the whole truth about Trump campaign activities in 2016. Still puzzling to many Republicans is why Mueller, reportedly a Republican himself, would feint criminal collusion findings. Its not hard to see why many of the partisan Democrats he hired for his prosecution team, led by Clinton booster and anti-Trump pit bull Andrew Weissmann, would want to leave the impression Trump was actively cooperating with Moscow to steal the election from Clinton. But why Mueller? Former prosecutors and investigators think Muellers hidden agenda was to protect the institutions of the FBI and Justice Department, as well as the broader intelligence community the agencies increasingly had become a part of following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. They describe Mueller as an establishment guy who spent some 20 years loyally working for the Justice Department and FBI, which had come under attack as politicized and even dirty for employing two standards in investigating Clinton and Trump during the 2016 campaign; they needed to be protected from what he viewed as a hostile takeover by the Trump administration, these people say Why did Mueller take the job? Not simply to protect the FBI but the entire intelligence community that he was part of, said veteran FBI agent and lawyer Mark Wauck. Its hard to overestimate his interest in protecting DOJ from a Trump takeover. To do that, he added, it would be helpful to not necessarily prove collusion but show at least a colorable case that the IC could claim a reasonable belief in collusion. Muellers hiring of extreme partisans suggest that the view of Trump was of an existential threat [to the IC] that had to be, at a minimum, neutered but hopefully dumped. To that end, some suggest Mueller had a more Machiavellian plan: swaying the 2018 congressional elections to change the House majority and trigger impeachment hearings. Former federal prosecutor and commentator Andrew McCarthy pointed out that Mueller knew he had no collusion case more than a year before the midterm elections, yet kept teasing collusion in court filings throughout the 2018 campaign. When Mueller closed his investigation, he almost certainly knew for about a year and a half that there was no collusion case, McCarthy said, adding that, among other things, Mueller let the surveillance warrant on Carter Page lapse in early fall of 2017. Did prolonging his investigation influence the 2018 election results? Exit polling shows that 49% of voters nearly 1 in 2 said they believed the Trump campaign coordinated with the Russian government during the 2016 election. President Trump said last week that the race to 5G is a race that America must win. What he hasnt said is why. The truth is, it makes little or no difference which countrys telecom companies achieve 5G first. What matters is which national economy takes advantage of it best. 5G which is about 100 times faster than 4G will make a big difference in our lives. It will facilitate self-driving cars, remote surgery, more efficient agricultural methods including the opportunity to turn around the increasing mortality rate of bees and communication between machines in homes and factories. Smart cities that use the Internet of Things such as connected street lamps and traffic lights will be able to benefit from 5Gs faster speeds and constant data connections. But it makes little difference which countrys telecom companies develop it first. The U.S and Chinese industries are indeed competing; but what they are competing over is who can provide efficiencies to companies in all industries, all over the world. If Chinese telecoms get there first, and provide the services that U.S. companies need, is that a bad thing or a good thing for the U.S. economy? How well a country fares with 5G depends less on getting there first, and more on taking advantage of what it has to offer by marshalling the skilled and entrepreneurial people and the financial capital to maximize its potential. Is it really important, or even beneficial, for the United States to build a 5G network before China? Japan was the first country to offer 3G, but that hasnt impeded Apple from using it to dominate the smart phone and apps market. Which of the components of your smart phone are there because they were developed by the Japanese? Do you know? Do you care? Do you have any reason to, as long as you and tens of millions of your fellow Americans, are reaping the benefits? 5G may very well lead to the creation of 3 million jobs, as Trump claims. But would the United States be able to scoop up all of them, even if it does indeed win the race? No, and neither would China. Both countries would still be well-positioned to derive the economic benefits and other advantages the technological breakthrough will offer. GM will still be able to advance its goal of leading the self-driving space, even if Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei participates among the providers. Americans will still benefit from remote surgery, U.S. smart cities will still be able to benefit from constant connection and faster speeds, and the American environment will still benefit from improved protections for bees, regardless of whether the technology companies involved are based in Shanghai or Silicon Valley. Given this, it is not surprising that Germanys telecommunications regulator made it clear to the Financial Times this week that no equipment suppliers, including Huawei, would be excluded. All participating companies will be required to comply with security requirements, but there is no reason to believe the Chinese provider poses a particular risk. While some countries, including Japan and Australia, have joined the United States in banning Huawei from selling 5G networking equipment to domestic firms, the European Union has thus far shunned U.S. pressure to prohibit the firm from participating. The German regulator has said it has yet to see evidence that Huawei poses a security risk. 5G represents an important technological breakthrough for the whole world. The last thing we should be doing is turning it into a vehicle for the display of nationalist pride. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale Buy real estate. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale in US and Canada. Search Real Estate Results from SC+ Human Factors Testing Published in Hemodialysis International SC+ confirmed as safe and easy to use with minimal training Alcester, Warwickshire, UK, 12 April 2019: Quanta Dialysis Technologies Ltd (Quanta or the Company), a pioneering British medical technology company developing a personal haemodialysis system (SC+) for patient use in the clinic and the home, today announces that results from its human factors testing (HFT) of SC+ have been published in Hemodialysis International, a leading peer-reviewed journal for the renal community. SC+ was designed to empower patients to take control of their lives by making selfcare and home hemodialysis more accessible through a device that is small, simple to use, and powerful enough to deliver dialysis adequacy. This addresses the need for a dialysis system that is appealing to patients while also being suitable for use across the continuum of care, from the clinic to the home. To evaluate whether SC+ could be used safely and effectively, and as part of the product design usability validation, HFT was performed with 17 healthcare professionals (nephrology nurses and healthcare assistants) and 15 home users (patients and caregivers). The HFT involved between 4.5 and 6 hours of training and, after a period of training decay of at least a day, a subsequent test session in which participants were assessed independently performing tasks on SC+. Between the two user groups, there were only 29 use errors observed out of 1,216 opportunities for error, despite minimal training. Errors that did occur were minor and attributed to an initial lack of familiarity with the device; none were safety-related. These results from human factors testing with patients and healthcare professionals demonstrate that SC+ is easy to useeven with minimal training and a significant learning decay periodwhile offering a high level of use safety. John E. Milad, Chief Executive Officer of Quanta, said: Despite the benefits that home haemodialysis offers, uptake rates are still low and the fear associated with self-managing treatments at home can be a significant barrier. SC+ is a user-friendly, patient-centred personal hemodialysis system, and the findings in this study support our claims that it can address systemic and patient barriers, allowing for wider self-care and home haemodialysis adoption. The full research paper can be viewed on the Haemodialysis International website: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/hdi.12757 -ENDS- For more information about Quanta, please contact: Quanta John E. Milad, Chief Executive Officer T: +44 (0)1789 400043 E: enquiries@quantadt.com Consilium Strategic Communications Mary-Jane Elliott / Matthew Neal / Lindsey Neville T: +44 (0)203 709 5708 E: quanta@consilium-comms.com About SC+ SC+ is a small, simple and powerful haemodialysis system designed to provide greater flexibility around where, when and how patients manage and receive their dialysis therapy. As a CE marked medical device, SC+ has been successfully piloted with the NHS, demonstrating clinical efficacy and performance compatible with traditional treatment regimens used in-centre. The innovative and patented technology behind SC+ is based on a design breakthrough that allows all dialysate fluid management to be conducted on a small, lightweight, disposable cartridge. The small form factor and simple-to-use design are intended to enable a broader range of usersincluding patients themselvesto manage dialysis therapy delivery across a wide range of settingsfrom the clinic to the home. About Quanta Quanta aims to improve the lives of dialysis patients by providing advanced haemodialysis solutions for use both in the clinic and the home. Quantas lead product SC+ is designed to empower dialysis patients by giving them greater flexibility, convenience and control over the delivery of their life-sustaining renal replacement therapy. Quanta is based in Alcester, UK, and was founded in 2008 as a spin out from IMI plc. The company has attracted funding from a group of leading investors, including: Wellington Partners, Seroba Life Sciences, b-to-v Partners, Stage Capital, ALIAD, CITA, Seventure Partners and Kuwait Life Sciences Company. For more information, please visit: www.quantadt.com . SC+ is not yet FDA cleared and not yet available for sale in the USA. , We're sorry, this article is not currently available By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 04/15/2019 ADVERTISEMENT FOLLOW REALITY TV WORLD ON THE ALL-NEW GOOGLE NEWS! Reality TV World is now available on the all-new Google News app and website. Click here to visit our Google News page, and then click FOLLOW to add us as a news source! ADVERTISEMENT Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade. star Jonathan Francetic and show expert Dr. Jessica Griffin are going to get married!Jonathan, who starred on Season 6 of on Lifetime, proposed marriage to Jessica on Saturday at the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.The couple, however, did not announce their big news until Sunday through separate Instagram posts."I just love how happy she looks. Oh, and we got engaged at the Grand Canyon yesterday! And now @dr.jessicagriffin is mine foreverrrr #shesmine #nervouswreck @grandcanyonadventures @mpopefinejewelers," Jonathan, 30, captioned a sweet image of Jessica smiling on Sunday.And Jessica shared two photos of the pair riding bikes before she posted an image of the couple kissing in which her oval diamond engagement ring can be seen."I have always said, you can find love in extraordinary ways -- you just have to follow your heart and be you, nobody other than you, and the right person will find you (if he's persistent enough and eventually hunts you down and won't take no for an answer.) For the first time in my history of knowing him, Jon was at a loss for words and a total adorable mess on his knee. So, of course, I said yes -- just helping a guy out," Jessica, 41, captioned the slideshow."Today, we celebrated yesterday's Grand Canyon engagement by a sick mountain bike trail ride in Sedona where I decided to faceplant via an endo (where you flip head over feet over your handle bars) and landed on face likely breaking nose, bike landing on top of me and jacked up both legs. Zoom in for the proof. Hey, in my defense, I was a little distracted by this incredible guy. I love you with everything I have. @jon_francetic #lovewins #engaged #shesaidyes."A representative for Jonathan and Jessica told People they are "beyond thrilled" about their engagement and "knew this would be the end result all along" once they began dating last summer."He proposed after their hike and her sister was there," a friend of the couple also told People of the exciting moment."He was so nervous! Jessica had no idea what was happening. It was a total surprise."News of Jonathan and Jessica's engagement comes shortly after the magazine reported Jessica is leaving her role as a relationship expert on after appearing on the Lifetime reality series for three seasons.Jonathan and Jessica met on Season 6 of the show, which began filming in late Summer 2017 and aired on Lifetime in early 2018.The finale aired in April 2018, but Jonathan's wife, Molly Duff , called it quits on their romance well before "Decision Day."Jonathan and Molly therefore decided to divorce at the end of the eight-week experiment.Jonathan later confirmed he's in a relationship with Jessica in late August 2018, but dating speculation had begun circulating several months prior, fueled by the pair's social-media activity.One fan, for example, tweeted in July of last year claiming she had just spotted the pair kissing in Sandwich, MA, a Cape Cod town. Jonathan and Jessica had also taken hikes together and even participated in a Spartan race.The friend of the couple insisted to People that Jonathan and Jessica began dating more than five months after his season wrapped.But given Jessica served as a marriage counselor or therapist for Jonathan and Molly on , both individuals felt the need to defend their romance at first against critics arguing on social media it's "ethically dubious" and "against the rules."One woman, for instance, wrote Jessica and Jon's relationship "speaks poorly on [Jessica]'s profession."While Jonathan addressed the alleged uneducated and unresearched remarks on social media, Jessica shared a May 2018 blog post on her drjessica.com website titled, "Why I Said Yes to Television," that touched on the subject."At no point should the role I (or others) provide be construed as replacing actual therapy. We are NOT individuals' or couples' therapists on these television shows or in real life," Jessica explained of her dynamic with and Seven Year Switch cast members."We do not have a client/therapist or doctor/patient relationship at any point during production or any point, period. Outside companies are hired to conduct the psychological evaluations of cast members."Jessica concluded in her blog post, "My role that I am hired to do as a 'Relationship Expert' is to provide consultation to the cast of a television show and consultation to production on topics that fall within my expertise."Lifetime has yet to comment on Jessica and Jonathan's engagement news.Jessica also served as an expert on the spinoff : Honeymoon Island.Interested in more news? Join our Married at First Sight Facebook Group A few months into his first term as mayor, Mayor Kelly Girtz sat down with The Red & Black to discuss his transition to mayor and future plans, as well as the horse painting in his office. An unknown suspect drove a stolen Jeep with four other suspects through the front door of the Athens Gun Club at around 4:30 a.m. on April 28. The five suspects entered the building and stole multiple guns, according to an ACCPD press release. PRAGUE, Czech Republic, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dr Len Dauphinee, President of HomeGrid Forum , has revealed the Alliances G.hn technology roadmap at the 23rd IEEE International Symposium on Power Line Communications (ISPLC). HomeGrid Forums attendance at the event follows its recent expansion of G.hn technology beyond the home to enable Smart Cities. ISPLC, the flagship conference of the IEEE Communications Society Technical Committee on Power Line Communications, was held in Prague, 3-5 April 2019, and brought together high industry participation, academia, researchers and users of power line technologies. This year, the agenda focused on key aspects of powerline technology standards, measurements and evaluation of field trials. Industry experts, including Dauphinee, presented and discussed state-of-the-art solutions and research results on existing and future power line communication systems. The ISPLC event was a great success for HomeGrid Forum. We presented our G.hn technology roadmap and its great advantages for the Smart Grid applications, said Dauphinee. The theme for this years event was Smart Applications for Smarter Future and we really focused on this by showcasing G.hns broadband capabilities for ensuring reliable, secured and real-time data communication between smart meters and the electric utilities central office. HomeGrid Forums recent speaking opportunities at Smart Home Expo and Gigabit Access have showcased its expansion into several new verticals including Smart Grids, IoT, Connected Cars and VLC. For these technologies to reach their full potential, physical layer networking must be high quality to provide a strong backbone to support their capabilities. HomeGrid Forum recommends the unified deployment of G.hn to meet the reliability demands of Smart Living. We are pleased to have received such a positive response to our roadmap and our SmartGrid applications. This is an exciting time for these technologies and to be able to see where the developments are headed really solidifies what this industry has been working towards, concluded Dauphinee. This is a really exciting time for HomeGrid Forum and Im looking forward to continuing the great work that we are doing throughout the rest of 2019. For more information, please contact Proactive PR on +44 (0) 1636 704 888 or at hgf@proactive-pr.com . About HomeGrid Forum In February, the University of Georgia boasted that its economic impact on the state reached $6.3 billion in the 2018 fiscal year. With the passage and signing of Georgia House Bill 324, a new product could soon be cultivated and studied at UGA medical marijuana. The lessons taught in elementary schools are vital for a childs development, and it is important that the school is doing everything in their power to foster an environment of learning and fairness. 'Let me stick my neck out and say that Tamil Nadu will keep alive its reputation for landslide election verdicts, with the DMK front winning at least 30 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats going to the polls in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy. IMAGE: DMK President M K Stalin. In India, especially since the onset of television, death of major personalities has always casts its shadow on electoral outcomes. We saw in 1984 how when a huge tree fell, not only did the ground shake, but it also delivered a gigantic majority to a young sapling. Indira Gandhi's assassination, and the unparalleled parliamentary numbers secured by her son Rajiv in the elections that followed, showed us what the loss of a towering personality can mean to the outcome. In 1991, when Rajiv Gandhi was himself assassinated in the course of the Lok Sabha elections, its impact was enough to rescue the Congress from decimation, conferring on it enough numbers to run a minority government for full five years. In this context, Tamil Nadu, where Prannoy Roy and team have shifted focus after Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, presents a unique picture. Since the last election, the state has lost two of its biggest stalwarts in quick succession. The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam lost its sole vote-catcher in Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, while the DMK lost its president M Karunanidhi soon after. So will sympathy for the former be neutralised by sympathy for the latter? That is one of the questions looming over Tamil Nadu as it heads for the first leaderless election in living memory on Thursday, April 18. Prannoy Roy pointed out that Tamil Nadu has the unique distinction of having a landslide verdict in 94% of the elections since 1952, a record matched by no other state. Would the state go by precedent this time too, when both the main rivals have the second-rung generals leading them into battle? Election verdicts are hard to forecast, and most times what passes off for informed opinion is only a guesstimate. With that preamble, let me stick my neck out and say that Tamil Nadu will keep alive its reputation for landslide election verdicts, with the DMK front winning at least 30 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats going to the polls in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Theni, vidi, vici And one of the keenly watched constituencies in the state is Theni, hometown of Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and from where his US-educated son Raveendranath Kumar is contesting on the AIADMK ticket (external link). There is a lot of sympathy for OPS in his hometown. Chosen by Jayalalithaa as her stand-in and sworn in as chief minister after her demise, he dreamt to break free of her coterie's shackles and paid the price. A reunion happened thanks to a nudge from the BJP-led Centre, but it came with a demotion (minus), and the ultimate expulsion of the coterie (plus). But the coterie is not giving up without a fight. T T V Dinakaran, nephew of Jaya's aide Sasikala, has put up a candidate from his fledgling Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam against old friend OPS's son. If that is not enough, the DMK front has senior Congress leader E V K S Elangovan in the fray. Will the debutant salvage the family reputation against such immense odds? Or will the Opposition drown him out on its way to a landslide? We will know on May 23. Kashmir ki curry India Today TV's Rajdeep Sardesai, meanwhile, continues on his food trail, with a little bit of elections thrown in. Courtesy the programme titled Elections on my Plate, he has swung by Tamil Nadu in the deep South to Kashmir in the upper northern reaches. And, I am glad to report, he has introduced the nation to the legendary hospitality of the Kashmiri (except on the return of Pandits to their homeland), and is being treated to generous rounds of the famed wazwan. Rajdeep's food trails have taken him from the home of Omar Abdullah to father Farooq, to rival Mehbooba Mufti, and outlier Shah Faesal, as well as quizzing youngsters, and speaking to Rizwan Pandit's family, where I was thankful he didn't quiz them about the best place to get Kashmiri delicacies. Mehbooba Mufti told Rajdeep of how the BJP pursued her father, the late Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, for over two months for an alliance, and had agreed to every conditionality, including safeguarding Article 370 and Article 35A, the same two articles the party in its manifesto has promised to revoke. 'Dad gave a big opportunity to Modi' to show he was a statesman, but Modi 'lacked conviction', was the daughter's summation of the NDA government. What if the two Articles are indeed revoked? Mehbooba didn't hesitate to answer. 'Then our relationship becomes najaayaz, I shouldn't use that word, what I mean is illegitimate', as Kashmir became part of India on the basis of conditions and if the conditions were not fulfilled anymore the relationship doesn't exist, she said. What did she think of the Modi government's efforts at uprooting terrorism, including the airstrikes on Balakot? 'I don't know about that, only some trees were uprooted, not terrorism, I am told.' And finally, did she consider herself a proud Kashmiri, Mehbooba replied, 'I am a proud Kashmiri and also a proud Indian.' Amit Shah's calculations Open magazine meanwhile carries an elaborate article (exteranl link) on how BJP chief Amit Anilchandra Shah is helming his party's election campaign, and in an accompanying interview has him giving his opinion on various issues facing the electorate. What is of interest is what Shah has to say on how the BJP will make up for the shortfall it is expected to face in the Hindi heartland where it had won the bulk of the seats in 2014, a performance it is unlikely to repeat now. 'We had won only eight of the north east's 25 seats. This time, our tally will go up to 20 there. West Bengal and Odisha together account for 63 seats and we won just three in the last election... I am confident the BJP will emerge as a dominant force in Bengal, winning at least 23 Lok Sabha seats... The BJP's performance in the two states will make pundits and adversaries run for cover. And our alliance in Tamil Nadu is going to keep the BJP in good stead. We will also make impressive gains in Kerala, which had remained out of our reach.' No gadbad in Mahagathbandan CNN-News18's Rahul Joshi conducted an interview with Rabri Devi and Tejashwi Yadav on how the Mahagathbandhan is faring in Bihar, especially with the divisions within Bihar's first family, what with elder son Tej Pratap sulking and threatening to work against the RJD. On the party's own strength, the duo seemed to be in no doubt. 'We will win 39-40 seats in the state,' Tejashwi asserted (Bihar has 40 Lok Sabha seats). 'We are fighting with our full strength, we are growing, expanding, as seen from our win in the by-elections to Araria, which is not our traditional seat.' About her elder son's rebellion, Rabri Devi said what any mother would in the circumstances. 'Our family is united, there are no divisions, and personal issues won't affect the party.' Even Tej Pratap's threat to campaign for his own candidates and against the party's official ones in two constituencies was dismissed as 'not too important'. Tejashwi wanted to know why the Opposition (read: NDA) was focussing so much on what is going on in his family. 'We are not asking anyone if they have fought with their wife, so why are they asking about us?' Modi's absence from an event to mark the centenary of a definitive moment in Indian history puzzles Utkarsh Mishra. IMAGE: British High Commissioner Sir Dominic Asquith lays a wreath at the Jallianwala Bagh memorial in Amritsar, marking the 100th anniversary of the massacre, April 13, 2019. Photograph: PTI Photo The Indian Army commemorated the centenary of the First World War from March 10 to 14, 2015. Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi laid a wreath at the Amar Jawan Jyoti on March 10, 2015 in honour of the nearly 1.5 million Indian soldiers who fought in the war, on the anniversary of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, the British offensive in France in which the Garhwal Brigade and Meerut Division of the Indian Corps participated. A month later, in April 2015, while on a visit to France, Modi visited the memorial at Neuve Chapelle. There, he mentioned the contribution of Indian soldiers in both the World Wars. Last year, Vice President Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naidu represented India during the Armistice Day centenary commemoration in Paris. We may herald stories of Indian valour in the Great War and our prime minister may like to stand alongside current leaders of the Allied countries, but we forget that most of these Indians were forcibly recruited to serve in the war. Others supported it in the hope of substantial concessions by the British at the end of the brutal conflict. What they got instead was the Rowlatt Act of 1919, severely curtailing the civil liberties of Indians. It was a peaceful protest against this very Act at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar that General Reginald Dyer and his troops of the 1/9 Gurkha Rifles exhibited the utmost cruelty. Punjab was then under martial law and Indians were often made to crawl on their bellies in front of the English in the lanes of Amritsar, still called the Crawling Lane. The response it generated among Indians was huge and a precursor to Mahatma Gandhi's non-cooperation movement It came as a surprise that the Jallianwala Bagh centenary received a lukewarm response from a government that commemorated the WWI centenary with some fanfare. Yes, there was an event in Amritsar in which the vice president released a commemorative coin of Rs 100. But somehow, the omnipresent prime minister gave the event a miss. Why? Modi was campaigning for the Lok Sabha election in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and, unlike British High Commissioner Sir Dominic Asquith, he did not find the time to travel to the Jallianwala Bagh memorial in Amritsar to mark this important anniversary in recent Indian history. A day later, he may have anticipated an attack from Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh who both visited the memorial. So at a poll rally he pre-empted such salvos by saying that the captain was not present at the official event and instead preferred to accompany Rahul Gandhi later to the memorial. But why did Modi, who likes so much to be a part of events of national importance, not visit the Amrtisar memorial? Was it to avoid the debate of seeking an apology from Britain? A week earlier, British Prime Minister Theresa May 'deeply regretted' the massacre and called it a 'shameful scar' on British history, but she did not apologise for the colonial crime. Her stand was no different from her predecessor David Cameron who, in 2013, became the first serving British prime minister to voice regret over the massacre. It is a long-standing demand by many in India, especially the Sikh community, that Britain apologise for the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre. Then prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral mentions in his autobiography Matters of Discretion that in 1997, while in London, he told the media that Queen Elizabeth II should not visit Amritsar during her visit to India that year owing to the Sikh demand for an apology over Jallianwala Bagh. However, he discovered 'to his surprise' that the Akalis rejected having any such demand and instead expressed keenness that the queen visit the Golden Temple. Gujral says he had to retract his remark 'under pressure' and say the queen was free to go to Amritsar. That was the closest, I think, an incumbent Indian prime minister spoke on the apology question, for which he was rebuffed by his own countrymen. In the Modi era, the demand for an apology and reparations for colonial excesses were renewed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in his Oxford Union speech of 2015. Citing the example of then German chancellor Willy Brandt genuflecting in front of the Warsaw Ghetto, Dr Tharoor said the British royal family should do something similar at the Jallianwala Bagh memorial on the 100th anniversary of the massacre. During her 1997 visit, Queen Elizabeth visited the memorial, but she has not expressed regret to date over the incident. Modi too has remained silent about a British apology. Could it be because he cares about his image in Britain so much that he would not like to stir the pot, especially during election season? The Koh-i-Noor episode is a case in point. During his 2015 visit to the United Kingdom, many wanted Modi to ask Britain to return the diamond to India. In the past, the Indian government had demanded the return of the diamond twice -- in 1947 and 1953. Both times, it was rejected by the then British government. In 2010 and 2013, Cameron rejected the return of the diamond. Modi's government told the Supreme Court that the Koh-i-Noor was a 'gift' to Britain from India, but later sought to modify the statement after facing sharp criticism. The government said Modi was determined to bring back significant pieces of India's history and blamed its earlier stand on (surprise! surprise!) Jawaharlal Nehru, saying the comments referred to the latter's views. It is possible Modi thought that attending the Jallianwala Bagh centenary could distract from his election campaign and give likely fodder to the Opposition for the government's past dilly-dallying on colonial reparations. But no one can disagree that the centenary event merited the prime minister's presence, and his absence is a telling admission of his government's position on history when it does not suit its own crafted narrative. 'One big leader said you might get 3 lakh votes and still lose.' 'I said if I do, I will make sure you are sleepless because it will be me and three lakh people.' Rediff.com's Archana Masih meets Prakash Raj, actor and Lok Sabha candidate in Bengaluru Central. Photographs and Videos: Seema Pant for Rediff.com Video Editors: Rajesh Karkera/Rediff.com, Hitesh Harisinghani/Rediff.com IMAGE: Actor and Independent candidate Prakash Raj in his office in Bengaluru. A framed Preamble of the Constitution and a statuette of Dr B R Ambedkar are placed at his desk. It's 5.30 in the evening and a crowd is awaiting actor and Lok Sabha candidate from Bengaluru Central, Prakash Raj, at a junction of small bylanes in a redeveloped slum in the city. People do their evening vegetable shopping, vendors sell gajras and small restaurants are readying tavas for kebabs and egg rolls. A man walks with a portable ampli-speaker from which emanates music interspersed with slogans for the candidate. There are no posters of the actor -- in fact the city does not feature a single political poster of any party. Prakash Raj, the successful actor with a string of films in all the five major film industries of the country, is coming for a padyatra through the area. Supporters are handing out pamphlets and pink sashes bearing the actor's face. Little boys run up and down blowing coloured whistles, which is the actor's party symbol. The shrill sound competes with the sound of drums being played by another group. All this being done under the watchful eyes of Election Commission observers whose vehicle is parked by the road. Prakash Raj's car comes up the narrow lane and as he steps out, fire crackers burst. He greets people and without much ado, begins a brisk padyatra, raising his hands in a Namaste and is followed by a crowd. IMAGE: Women wear the pink stole bearing his picture and carry pamphlets as they wait for him in a marketplace. Next morning 8.30 am. The Prakash Raj Foundation office on Vittal Mallya Road. The actor-politician's home and office is opposite the fancy UB City mall, one of Bengaluru's most well-known addresses. Prakash Raj started out with Rs 120 in his pocket to get where he is today. The Foundation has adopted 3 villages in Karnataka, Telangana and Tamil Nadu and taken up 5 government schools. Next year it will include 30 schools. Pictures of Dr B R Ambedkar, Periyar, Gulzar, Girish Karnad, U R Ananthamurthy and many more Kannada literary figures line the walls. A map of Karnataka hangs on another wall, a framed Preamble of the Constitution is placed on the window beside his table. Prakash Raj arrives for the interview dot on time and will leave for the day's campaigning after the interaction. In a candid conversation with Rediff.com's Archana Masih, he speaks about his new journey -- from which he has no intention of turning back. IMAGE: As drums play, a group of men stand by the roadside await the actor. Francis Lobo, third left, is a friend for 40 years who manages the campaign locations. What propels your politics and what is your political ethos -- is it Socialist or Left of centre? I'm from the '70s generation, grown with JP's movement, know what Ambedkar, Kamaraj and Periyar have done for this country. Being in theatre exposed me to literature. What propels me today is how the spirit of democracy is no more. What disturbs me is how the two major national parties have done. I think we are in a denial mode in this country that they have failed to deliver. In the Constitution there is no idea of a political party. It is representatives of every constituency because it is so vibrant and varied. MPs represent 130 crore people, 90 crore votes and 544 seats. Do you see an MP behaving like a statesman? An MP is a world leader. S/he takes lakhs of votes and becomes one vote to a political party. What happened to the basic democratic spirit of electing your candidate, knowing your candidate, knowing that an election is a conversation between a candidate who is aspiring to represent and the people. Are we having that? What was the trigger for joining politics? This is another freedom struggle, we need representatives in Parliament, in the Opposition and government who keep a hawk's eye to see if every policy made is people friendly. Has it got a vision or is it for the survival of the party? Or is it appeasement politics? We have to see to that. Majoritarian is when a majority takes a decision. It is not dictatorship. It is about which issue is major. You need MPs who have a clear understanding of the reasons that have brought them to Parliament and have a vision. I have decided not to contest from any political party because we have to do the cleaning and remind people that we have to find our candidates. The common man does not elect the PM of this country. The local guy cannot get into politics because there is no atmosphere at all. ]There is an alarming state of thought process and that triggered me off. IMAGE: A man distributes pamphlets to passerby and autorickshaws. Even drops them through windows of mini buses. What according to you are the real issues today? We are forgetting that water, jobs, health, education are our problems. Everything is interconnected and that is the vision we need. Political parties don't understand what a job is. You have Mudra Yojana etc, but unless you understand what a job is you won't find policies. A job is a person's identity in a society, his way of living and his relevance in society. There are 1,000 odd jobs for railway clerks and lakhs including engineers are applying for it. So why aren't you reimagining the future? You need a vision. Today all crisis situations are being handled as an outpatient. You are trying to give first aid, it doesn't work like that. These were the triggers, but was the killing of your friend Gauri Lankesh the main reason for politics? I have been a politically conscious citizen. I've been an artist, a reader and have been chiselled by that. Gauri is not my election agenda. Gauri is something personal. What happened was very communal. The silencing of her voice has triggered me, it made helpless, made me feel guilty that if I was with her this would not have happened. The immediate reaction is I don't want another Gauri to happen but here let us not go back to it. This is about basic needs. There are 2,000 slums in Bangalore and those are the voters. A woman there is washing coke cans to fill water and is worried about thirst 3 years down the line. That is the issue and you are not worried about it and have 3,000 crore to build a statute! What was the impetus of speaking out against the PM? ...I don't have anything personal against him. I don't hate him, but as a citizen of this country, I am worried and when I ask, they are very comfortable in calling me an anti- national. Why am I anti-national? I questioned GST when 18% was levied on a handloom product. What happened to Swaraj? In two years you have changed it 200 times, you can't experiment with the nation. I ask his supporters that you are against black money -- are you paying booth workers and election agents in cheque? Have you really eradicated black money? Have you paid the price for speaking out against Narendra Modi? Are film-makers giving roles with the ardour they did before? How has politics affected your acting career? What does your family think? When I took this decision, I sat with my mother, wife, daughter, few industry friends. I started with Rs 120 in my pocket, I have 40 crores. I told them I have had enough. For the next 15 years, I am on a different journey, stand by me and they stood by me. IMAGE: In the late evening, on an extremely hot day, Prakash Raj walks around the area, waving to locals. As an Independent trapped between the BJP and Congress, is your candidature tokenism? Yet, you threw in the dice which many feel is a courageous thing to do. Tokenism doesn't work. It is not only courageous, it is intelligent, relevant and right. The country is ready for alternative politics and disillusioned by political parties. You said I am trapped -- go to the grassroots, they are the ones trapped. I have not thrown in a dice, it is a way of life for me. One big leader said you might get 3 lakh votes and still lose. I said if I do, I will make sure you are sleepless because it will be me and three lakh people. It is not just about being an MP, but to empower. That is my journey and I am seeing an overwhelming response. Have you any idea what co actors like Paresh Rawal who are Modi supporters think about your candidature? I have no issues with Modi's supporters. You can take sides. I want to talk to people who can discuss issues wholeheartedly. It is okay to be on opposite sides. What is this language of ruling? What is an election? Is it a kabaddi match of winning and losing? If you elect the right government, people win, if you elect the wrong government, people lose. When you are elected to represent, deliver -- if you are not elected, make the MP deliver. Why do you think Bollywood stars went to meet Mr Modi? Do they genuinely believe in him or are pressurised in extending support? Are actors helping in your campaign? I don't need star campaigners. I am connected to five state film industries. I wanted it to be a conversation with me and my people IMAGE: A young boy readily poses for a picture as he blows out of a plastic whistle, Prakash Raj's poll symbol. WATCH Prakash Raj explain why he is not just another Independent candidate: If you lose this election, will you continue on this political course? It is another horizon, another journey for me. I may do 1 or 2 films because I need to earn some bread money. I win, I deliver. I lose, I make the person who wins, deliver. MPs need to understand local, state and national issues. That's why look at candidates, see who speaks, see who delivers, see who is the voice, see who will differ on certain things. That is the spirit of the country. The people who are with me are not working for money. They have found an alternative. I started my journey alone, but I realised I will not be alone and I just had to take a step. Today I have more than 5,000 working on the ground. That is beautiful and means that they wanted a voice. WATCH Prakash Raj speak on what makes the country run: What happens when two former ministers go up against each other? No sparks fly, reports A Ganesh Nadar from the Arakkonam Lok Sabha constituency in Tamil Nadu, but it is the summer heat that has the last word on the campaign. Photographs and video: A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com IMAGE: The DMK's S Jagathrakshakan (left) on the campaign trail. So weakened was he by the summer heat that he had another person alongside him to given speeches and urge people to vote for him. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam candidate from Arakkonam Lok Sabha constituency is a self-confessed billionaire. Former Union minister S Jagathrakshakan -- he was minister of state for commerce and industry in 2012-2013 in the Manmohan Singh ministry -- has disclosed family assets of Rs 114.7 crores in his election affidavit with zero liabilities. Last year he resigned as director of a Singapore-based company that went on to make the largest FDI in Sri Lanka; his wife still holds 45,00,000 shares in the said firm. Facing him is another former MoS, A K Moorthy of the Pattali Makkal Katchi. But when you encounter Jagathrakshakan during his election campaign in Ranipet, one of the assembly constituencies in the Lok Sabha constituency astride NH4 running from Chennai to Bengaluru, 80 km outside Chennai, there is none of the bandha (manner) associated with the super rich. Even his motorcade is modest in size. None of the youngsters sitting on bikes flying the DMK flag waiting for their candidate, I am sure, know of Jagathrakshakan's background. Before I quiz them, he has materialised in an open vehicle, saying 'Vanakkam' with folded hands here and a wave there when he made eye contact. He is very tall, and the black of his hair belies his 68 years. His vehicle is followed by a van with a live band which was making the maximum noise even while a song was playing. Several vehicles follow him, including one Election Commission observer. All this is accompanied by 50 motorcycles both in front and behind, weaving dangerously between the highway traffic. Luckily, he soon leaves the highway and enters a smaller road snaking its way between hills where rocks were being broken to feed the hungry construction industry. Earlier, the dust from these mills used to coat roads, and now it is being sold as M-sand to replace river sand which used to be mixed with cement for building homes. When the convoy stops at one place an old lady performs an aarti of the candidate. He stays in his vehicle, but bends down to place a note in the plate, as is the custom in Tamil Nadu, all this done strategically out of view of the EC observer vehicle. The candidate has employed a man to deliver his speeches while he just stands and waves to voters. "Among other things he has promised to change MGNREGA from 100 days to 200 days. He has also said that they must have suffered the last five years when he wasn't MP," the designated speaker drones on. Jagathrakshakan has twice been the MP from Arakkonam, in 1999 and 2009. Once he is on his way, the women folk look expectantly at the ward member who had asked them to wait. He pulls out a wad of 50 rupee notes and starts distributing it. "I will come again before the elections," he assures the women. After the convoy halts between villages, the DMK candidate gets down, saying he is very tired. The heat has clearly got to him. He gets into his own car promising to get down at every point where people are waiting. In Ranipet town there is no sign of any election. A lone autorickshaw (below) plays songs and in between a man keeps urging the people to vote for the "gift box", the symbol allotted to All India Anna Dravida Munentra Kazhagam rebel leader T T V Dinakaran's Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam. In the Sholingur assembly segment, the Pattali Makkal Katchi, which is in league with the ruling AIADMK and has been allotted the Arakkonam seat, is just getting its campaign going. Several young men and two cars wait by the side of the road, and soon another man comes along with a group of women he had gathered to welcome the candidate, A K Moorthy. Like Jagathrakshagan, Moorthy is also a former minister of state in Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government. In the Thiruttani assembly segment, one of the six abodes of Lord Murugan, the Tamil deity and younger brother of Lord Ganesha, the local tea-seller is a compendium of political knowledge. "The DMK is going to win very easily and they have Dinakaran to thank, he will split the AIADMK vote, and anyway all their votes will not go to the PMK," the chaiwallah declares wisely. China on Monday played down India's reported plans to boycott the upcoming 2nd Belt and Road Forum (BRF), saying India may have misunderstood the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and suggested New Delhi to 'wait and see' before taking a decision. The BRI is a multi-billion-dollar initiative launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping when he came to power in 2013. It aims to link Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Gulf region, Africa and Europe with a network of land and sea routes. China is expected to hold the 2nd BRF meeting from April 25 to 27 in Beijing. Beijing already said officials of over 100 countries besides 40 government leaders have agreed to take part in it. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a media briefing in Beijing that the BRI is an economic cooperation project and it does not involve territorial disputes. "The Indian comments on not participating in the BRI for various reasons, I would like to say that the BRI is an open and inclusive economic cooperation initiative. It does not involve territorial and maritime disputes," he said. The $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which has been officially designated as a flagship project of the BRI, has become a stumbling block for India to take part in it as the controversial project is being laid through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. India has already protested to China over the China Pakistan Economic Corridor violating its sovereignty and boycotted the first BRF held in 2017. Asked for comments on India's reported plans to boycott the 2nd BRF, Kang said, "Whether the Indian side will participate in the BRI forum, I think you need to ask India for a more specific answer." In BRI, China and other counties uphold the principle of equality, openness inclusiveness and transparency, he added. "We follow market based principles and the customary international rules," the spokesman said. "I think may be some sides have misunderstandings on the BRI and thus have some wrong judgement. Please know that China follows principle of cooperation and consultation for shared benefit and that principles will not change," he said. Asked whether China is suggesting that India would miss out a lot by not participating in the event, Lu said, "The BRI has been an open and inclusive initiative for all countries and organisations interested in this." "But of course, if the relevant side would like to wait and see, we do not oppose that and as for the participation of international organisations in the BRF some countries losing out on opportunities, you may need to ask the countries that does not participate in the BRF," he said. Lu said BRI is already a success. "I would like to re-emphasise that the BRI is proposed by China but it is already an international public good. The first BRF has been success and many practical outcomes were achieved. And now more international organisations and countries are participating in the BRI cooperation. I think it speaks volumes," he said. The BRF is being held to consolidate China's trillion-dollar BRI to further its global influence by financing and building massive infrastructure projects throughout the world. Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Misri has signalled India's boycott of 2nd BRF as well by saying that 'to be honest, we have made no secret of our views and our position on BRI is clear and consistent and one that we have conveyed to the authorities concerned'. "Above all, connectivity initiatives must be pursued in a manner that respects sovereignty, equality and territorial integrity of nations. "No country can participate in an initiative that ignores its core concerns on sovereignty and territorial integrity," he told the state-run daily Global Times last month. Amid a continuing blame game over seat-sharing in Delhi, Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal on Monday engaged in a public spat, with the Congress president accusing the Aam Aadmi Party of taking a U-turn over alliance talks and the Delhi chief minister hitting back. The Congress chief said that while the doors of his party are open, time is running out, but Kejriwal slammed him, questioning what U-turn was he talking about as the talks were still on. He also accused Gandhi of helping the Bharatiya Janata Party by 'dividing anti-Modi votes in Uttar Pradesh and in some other states'. Amid this sparring on Twitter, sources claimed the two sides were still 'engaged' in taking the alliance talks forward and are likely to meet again on Wednesday over seat sharing between the two. The Congress chief said his party is willing to give four of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi to the AAP to ensure that their alliance defeats the BJP, which had won all the seven seats in 2014. 'An alliance between the Congress and the AAP in Delhi would mean the rout of the BJP. The Congress is willing to give up four seats in Delhi to the AAP to ensure this. 'But, Mr Kejriwal has done yet another U-turn. Our doors are still open, but the clock is running out,' Gandhi tweeted. He used the hashtag "AbAAPkiBaari" to target the AAP leadership to come out with its side for an alliance with the Congress. Hitting back, Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal said, 'What U-turn. The talks are still on.' 'Your tweet shows that an alliance is not your desire but only a pretension. I am pained that you are giving mere statements,' he said. 'Today, the foremost issue is to save the country from the threat of Modi-Shah. Unfortunately, you are helping Modi by dividing anti-Modi votes in Uttar Pradesh and in some other states,' Kejriwal tweeted in Hindi. Congress insiders claimed that party's in-charge P C Chacko on Monday sent messages to AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh, seeking their answer. "The AAP leaders have been asked to make up their mind on alliance in Delhi alone considering the ground realities," they said. AAP sources said that Singh and senior Congress leader Ahmad Patel will meet on Wednesday for discussing alliance prospects. The Congress has offered the AAP 4:3 seat-sharing formula, four Lok Sabha seats for the ruling party and three seats for itself. The arrangement has been arrived at on basis of the vote share of both parties in 2017 civic polls here, they said. The Congress has accused the Kejriwal-led outfit of backing out from its commitment, as it is demanding seats in Goa, Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh, besides Delhi for a pre-poll understanding with the Congress. AAP leader Sanjay Singh said in response to Gandhi's tweet, "The Congress is not giving even a single seat to the AAP in Punjab where it has four MPs and 20 MLAs, and in Haryana." "In Delhi where the Congress has zero MPs and MLAs, it is demanding three seats. Is this how agreement happens? Why do not you want to stop the BJP in other states," he asked. The AAP has already announced its candidates on the seven parliamentary constituencies in Delhi, while the Congress has finalised names of its candidates which could be announced soon. Why Congress proposed 4-3 formula, Maken explains The 4-3 formula suggested by Congress to AAP for an alliance in Delhi is based on the results of the 2017 municipal elections, former Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken explained on Monday. After Gandhi's tweeted, Maken on the social media platform explained how the Congress party's formula came about. 'Why 4-3 formula between AAP-INC?' Maken tweeted along with charts to explain the rationale behind the formula based on the 2017 municipal poll results. His analysis in essence is based on the vote share and seats (wards) won by Congress and AAP in the municipal polls. As per Maken's charts, Congress won 31 seats and AAP won 49 seats, polling 21 per cent and 26 per cent votes, respectively, in the elections for three municipal corporations in Delhi. Further, as per vote share of Congress (21 per cent), he calculated the seat share of the party for Lok Sabha polls to be 3.13 approximated to 3. The AAP's seat share for Lok Sabha thus comes to be 3.87 per cent approximated to 4. Also, as per number of seats won (31), the party's seat share for Lok Sabha polls comes around 2.71 approximated to 3. The AAP's seat share based on 49 wards won by it, is calculated to 4.29 per cent or 4. He may be only 28, but the now-chosen candidate for Bengaluru South has handled the party's IT cell and campaigned for several party candidates during the state polls last year, reports Bibhu Ranjan Mishra. -- INDIA VOTES IMAGE: Tejasvi Surya was chosen as the Bengaluru South candidate rather than Tejaswini Ananth Kumar, the wife of Ananth Kumar, who won from the constituency six consecutive terms. Photograph: @Tejasvi_Surya/Twitter OMG OMG!!! I cant believe this -- this was how 28-year-old Tejasvi Surya reacted after he was announced the Bharatiya Janata Partys candidate for the prestigious Bengaluru South Lok Sabha constituency. This was certainly not the language of politicians but connected well with the younger population. But when in a subsequent television interview, the interviewer compared his reaction to that of a teenager getting ready for his first date, Suryas reply was much more mature and statesmanlike. One wondered if Suryas reaction was instantaneous or just a carefully crafted expression of a well thought out strategy. An active member of the Akhila Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and vice-president of the state Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, Surya is no novice in the world of politics. He handled the BJPs IT cell and campaigned for several party candidates during the state polls last year. He is also the nephew of Ravi Subramanya, BJP MLA from Basavanagudi, which falls under the Bengaluru South Lok Sabha constituency. But some believe that what may have also have gone in his favour is the infighting within the Karnataka BJP, especially between state party President B S Yeddyurappa and the partys National Joint General Secretary (Organisation) B L Santosh. A veteran RSS member, Santosh was said to be eyeing to fill the void created by the absence of the late Union minister Ananth Kumar. Surya represents the young guard of the BJP in the state, and sooner or later, the old guard has to make way, said Harish Bijoor, a noted Bangalorean and leading brand and marketing expert. IMAGE: Tejasvi is an active member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and vice-president of the state Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. Photograph: @Tejasvi_Surya/Twitter But as the young leader takes the plunge into electoral politics, he may have to face several hurdles, from both within and outside the party. A day after he was announced the BJP nominee, his name was dragged into several controversies, including his so-called misogynist comments on Twitter and several other radical posts. The most damaging one, however, was the allegation made by a start-up founder that she suffered physical and mental harassment at the hands of the young politician for five years before she decided to end the relationship. And in a matter of hours, someone who was seen as one of the promising faces of Indian politics was projected a villain -- the state Congress unit dubbed him another M J Akbar in the making. Surya is also expected to face several hurdles from within the party, prominently from Tejaswini Ananth Kumar, the wife of Ananth Kumar, and several other top state BJP leaders who are said to be close to her. Bengaluru South has always been considered as the traditional stronghold of the BJP. This is the parliamentary constituency from where Ananth Kumar had won elections for six consecutive terms. In fact, the chances of the saffron party retaining the seat were even seen more imminent after the demise of Kumar. So Tejaswini, an active social worker who stood behind her husband in many of his electoral battles, was seen as the obvious choice as the BJPs candidate for the seat. She had already started her campaign until it was cut short by the rather unexpected decision. On the other hand, Surya is said to be groomed by Kumar himself. IMAGE: Surya may have to face several hurdles, from both within and outside the party. Photograph: @Tejasvi_Surya/Twitter Political analysts while agreeing that in the given situation, theoretically, Tejaswini had a fair chance of winning the seat, they feel that she probably miscalculated the political move of the partys central leadership. During the 2018 state election, the BJP had given a clear message that the party was not in favour of hereditary politics when Yeddypurappa s younger son B Y Vijayendra was denied the ticket from the Varuna assembly constituency, even though he had already launched a vigorous campaign before the list was out. Besides, some experts say that the common belief that sympathy votes will come to the rescue of kin of a deceased family member has not always been proven right. At least, in a place like Bengaluru, which boasts a huge cosmopolitan and floating population, this has been proven wrong in the recent past when the Congresss Sowmya Reddy beat the BJPs B N Prahlad, who was seeking votes in the Jayanagar assembly by-poll after the death of his brother and sitting MLA Vijaykumar. Contact: International Administration Group (Guernsey) Limited Company Administrator Attn: Mark Woodall Tel: +44 1481 723450 Share Buyback Programme: Transactions in week ending 12 April 2019 Guernsey, 15 April 2019 Eurocastle Investment Limited (Eurocastle or the Company) today announces that between 8 April 2019 and 12 April 2019, under its non-discretionary share buyback programme with Liberum Capital Limited (acting as the Company's broker) announced on 7 March 2019 (the Third Buyback Programme), it bought back 7,503 of its ordinary shares at an average price of 7.05 per ordinary share. These purchases were made pursuant to the authority granted at its Annual General Meeting on 20 June 2018. The purchased shares will all be held as treasury shares. The purpose of the share buyback programme is to reduce the share capital of the Company and the programme is executed in compliance with the provisions of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 and the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1052 of 8 March 2016, collectively referred to as the Safe Harbour rules. The following transactions have been made under the buyback programme: Accumulated, most recent announcement Platform code Volume Volume Weighted Average Price Gross Value () 08/04/2019 BATE - - 0 XLON 620 7.00 4,340 CHIX 35 7.00 245 TRQX 20 6.96 139 Total 675 7.00 4,724 09/04/2019 BATE 8 7.08 57 XLON 2,170 7.07 15,339 CHIX 139 7.08 987 TRQX - - 0 Total 2,317 7.07 16,380 10/04/2019 BATE 21 7.02 147 XLON 525 7.02 3,686 CHIX 142 7.02 997 TRQX 87 7.02 611 Total 775 7.02 5,441 11/04/2019 BATE 19 7.04 134 XLON 1,946 7.05 13,713 CHIX 149 7.04 1,050 TRQX 87 7.04 612 Total 2,201 7.05 15,509 12/04/2019 BATE 19 7.04 134 XLON 1,291 7.05 9,096 CHIX 144 7.04 1,014 TRQX 81 7.04 570 Total 1,535 7.04 10,813 Following the above transactions: The total number of ordinary shares of the Company in issue is 63,813,362 The total number of ordinary shares held by Eurocastle in treasury is 18,776,648 (equal to 29.4% of the Companys share capital) The total number of voting rights exercisable by holders of ordinary shares of the Company is 45,036,714, as voting rights of shares held in treasury are suspended. ABOUT EUROCASTLE Eurocastle Investment Limited is a publicly traded closed-ended investment company that focuses on investing in performing and non-performing loans and other real estate related assets primarily in Italy. The Company is Euro denominated and is listed on Euronext Amsterdam under the symbol ECT. Eurocastle is managed by an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group LLC, a leading global investment manager. For more information regarding Eurocastle Investment Limited and to be added to our email distribution list, please visit www.eurocastleinv.com. Set out below are all trades completed between 8 April 2019 and 12 April 2019: Platform code Volume Price Gross Value () 08/04/2019 CHIX 35 7.00 245.00 XLON 379 7.00 2,653.00 XLON 55 7.00 385.00 XLON 186 7.00 1,302.00 TRQX 20 6.96 139.20 Total 675 7.00 4,724.20 09/04/2019 XLON 526 7.10 3,734.60 XLON 500 7.10 3,550.00 CHIX 139 7.08 984.12 BATE 8 7.08 56.64 XLON 135 7.06 953.10 XLON 161 7.06 1,136.66 XLON 347 7.06 2,449.82 XLON 130 7.06 917.80 XLON 371 7.00 2,597.00 Total 2,317 7.07 16,379.74 10/04/2019 TRQX 87 7.02 610.74 BATE 21 7.02 147.42 CHIX 142 7.02 996.84 XLON 192 7.02 1,347.84 XLON 77 7.02 540.54 XLON 203 7.02 1,425.06 XLON 41 7.02 287.82 XLON 12 7.02 84.24 Total 775 7.02 5,440.50 11/04/2019 CHIX 31 7.06 218.86 XLON 801 7.06 5,655.06 XLON 368 7.04 2,590.72 XLON 185 7.04 1,302.40 XLON 16 7.04 112.64 XLON 62 7.04 436.48 CHIX 118 7.04 830.72 BATE 19 7.04 133.76 TRQX 87 7.04 612.48 XLON 377 7.04 2,654.08 XLON 137 7.02 961.74 Total 2,201 7.05 15,508.94 12/04/2019 XLON 343 7.06 2,421.58 TRQX 81 7.04 570.24 BATE 19 7.04 133.76 CHIX 144 7.04 1,013.76 XLON 200 7.04 1,408.00 XLON 200 7.04 1,408.00 XLON 41 7.04 288.64 XLON 219 7.04 1,541.76 XLON 44 7.04 309.76 XLON 244 7.04 1,717.76 Total 1,535 7.04 10,813.26 Technology was on India's side in the Balakot air strikes, Air Chief Marshal B S Dhanoa said on Monday, asserting that the results would have been further tilted in the country's favour if Rafale jets were inducted in time. In his address to a gathering at a seminar in New Delhi on aerospace power of the future and impact of technology, the IAF chief also asserted that the strike on a 'non-military target with precision at night, deep inside Pakistan demonstrates our ability to hit the perpetrators of violence in our country, wherever they may be'. "In the Balakot operation, we had technology on our side, and we could launch precision stand of weapons with great accuracy. "In the subsequent engagements, we came out better because we upgraded our MiG-21 Bisons, and Mirage-2000 aircraft," he said. "The results would have been further skewed in our favour had we inducted the Rafale aircraft in time," Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa said. The Air Force struck a Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist training camp in Pakistan's Balakot area on February 26, in response to the February 14 Pulwama terror attack in which 41 Central Reserve Police Force personnel were killed. The Pakistan Air Force retaliated the next day by unsuccessfully targeting various military installations in Jammu and Kashmir. The IAF chief asserted that it was a 'critical demonstration of our national will and capability which is the major lesson coming out of the present crisis'. Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa said in his speech, "In the proposed induction of the Rafale and S-400 surface-to-air missile system, in the next two-four years, once again the technological balance will shift in our favour, like it was in 2002 during Operation Parakaram during the last stand-off." India inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September 2016 for the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore. The delivery of the jets -- capable of carrying a range of potent weapons and missiles -- is scheduled to begin from September. In October last year, India and Russia signed a multibillion dollar deal for S-400 'Triumf' long-range air defence missile systems. It has the capability to destroy incoming hostile aircraft, missiles and even drones at ranges of up to 400 km. The seminar on 'Aerospace power in the 2040s: Impact of Technology' was held at Subroto Park in New Delhi to mark the birth centenary of the late Marshal of the IAF Arjan Singh. The event was hosted by the IAF along with the Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS), an autonomous defence research and analysis body. In his speech, Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa also made a reference to the 1971 Indo-Pak War to emphasis that number of aircraft loss do not necessarily signify victory for any side. "You win or lose on how much of your politicomilitary objectives were achieved... Similarly, post our strike on a terrorist training camp, to thwart an impending strike on our soil, Pakistan Air Force had launched a riposte on February 27 against Indian military targets. "Did they succeed in their objective, the answer is a clear 'no', as the attack was thwarted while we achieved our objective in Balakot. This is the main argument. Yes we lost an aircraft, a MiG-21 Bison, and one of our pilot was held captive," Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa said. But, India got an aircraft too, which electronic signatures suggest was 'an F-16'. But to shift the narrative to this air combat from not being able to achieve one's military objective is obfuscating the issue, like the statements given by the other side post 1965 and 1971, he said. "Among all arms of the military, technology affects us the most.. land forces mainly comprise men, naval and air force officers operate machines and in the Air Force this technology has to be packed in smaller machines and subject to extreme temperature and pressure and 'G' forces," the IAF chief said. And, air power is more sensitive to technological change, he said. "Some critical technological inductions such as AWACS, fourth-generation fighter aircraft, ISR platforms and critical force enablers have to be fast tracked to maintain the edge in such short skirmishes where we cannot bring our numbers to bear for decisive outcome," he said. In the long term, IAF's modernisation programme is to progressively absorb technology through indigenisation, Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa said. "Here, the 'Make in India' fighter programme under a strategic partnership and our indigenous technology would give us the capability of designing, developing and manufacturing 5th generation fighter aircraft by the 2040s," he said. "Similarly, in the field of missile defence systems, I am optimistic that by 2040s having developed the MRSAMs with a strategic partnership, we would manufacture design and develop a LRSAM along with a secure anti-cruise missile and anti-ballistic missile defence system," the IAF chief added. "In space, we intend to enhance our communication, navigation and ISR capabilities and the newly formed tri-service Space Command would further our capability in this dimension by 2040," Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa said. He said the kind of numbers India can bring to bear in case of a full-scale conflict was amply demonstrated in Exercise 'Gagan Shakti- 2018' wherein IAF flew '5,000 fighter sorties within a period of three days in the western sector'. "During Exercise Vayushakti in February, we demonstrated our capability to strike with precision both during day and night. All this works towards our conventional deterrence," he said. English Swedish The shareholders of NIBE Industrier AB (publ) are hereby invited to attend the Annual General Meeting on Tuesday 14 May 2019, at 5.00 p.m. in Sparbankshallen, Ola Martens vag 8, Markaryd. Please note new premises! Between 2.00 and 4.00 p.m. the shareholders are welcome to visit NIBE Stoves product exhibition at Skulptorvagen 10 and NIBE Energy Systems product exhibition at Marknadscenter, Jarnvagsgatan 17 and the Nobel exhibition at Hannabadsvagen 1 in Markaryd. Right of attendance A shareholder has the right to attend the Annual General Meeting if the shareholder is both recorded in its own name in the share register kept on behalf of the company by Euroclear Sweden AB (Euroclear) on Wednesday 8 May 2019, and has registered for attendance of the meeting to the company no later than on Wednesday 8 May 2019. A shareholder, which has its shares registered in the name of a nominee, must in addition to registration for attendance reregister the shares in its own name at Euroclear. Such a registration can be temporary and shall be made before Wednesday 8 May 2019. Request for such a registration must be submitted to the nominee in good time before Wednesday 8 May 2019 in order for the re-registration to be accomplished. The Annual General Meeting will be held in Swedish. Notification Notification of attendance at the Annual General Meeting can be made in writing to the following address: NIBE Industrier AB, Arsstamma, c/o Euroclear Sweden, Box 191, 101 23 Stockholm, by phone +46 433 27 36 00 or by www.nibe.com. When submitting notification of attendance please state name, personal identity number/corporate identity number, address and telephone number, number of shares and class of shares as well as number of advisors. A shareholder which is represented by a representative, should forward a written and dated proxy together with the notification. The proxy may at the time of the meeting not be older than one year if a longer period of validity is not stated in the proxy, however not longer than five years from the date of issue of the proxy. A proxy form for this purpose is provided by www.nibe.com. The proxy form can also be ordered by phone as described above. If requested, the proxy shall be presented in original. A person representing a legal entity shall present a certificate of registration or a corresponding document of qualification showing person(s) authorized to sign for the legal entity. As a confirmation of the notification of attendance NIBE Industrier AB will send an admission card which shall be brought to the meeting and shown at the recording. 1. Opening of the meeting. 2. Election of chairman at the meeting. 3. Preparation and approval of a voting list. 4. Approval of the board of directors proposed agenda. 5. Election of one or two persons to verify the minutes. 6. Examination if the meeting has been properly convened. 7. The managing directors statement. 8. Presentation of the annual report and the auditors report, the group financial statement and the group auditors report as well as the auditors statement concerning the application of the guiding principles for remuneration to executive employees decided at the Annual General Meeting 2018. 9. Resolution in respect of a) adoption of the income statement and the balance sheet as well as the consolidated income statement and the consolidated balance sheet, b) allocation of the companys profit according to the adopted balance sheet and adoption of record day for dividend, c) discharge from liability of the board members and the managing director. 10. Determination of the number of board members and deputy board members to be elected by the meeting. 11. Determination of the number of auditors and deputy auditors or registered public accounting firms. 12. Determination of fees to the board members and the auditors. 13. Election of board members, chairman of the board and deputy board members, if any. 14. Election of auditors and deputy auditors, if any, or registered public accounting firms. 15. Resolution in respect of the board of directors proposal to authorize the board of directors to decide on issue of new shares in connection with acquisitions of companies/business. 16. Resolution in respect of guiding principles for remuneration and other terms of employment for executive employees. 17. Closing of the meeting. Processing of personal data For information on how your personal data is processed, please see the privacy policy which is available on the companys website https://www.nibe.com/governance/privacy-policy.html. Proposed decisions Shareholders, which together represent more than 50% of the votes for all shares in the company, have notified the company that they support the proposals under items 2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16. 2 Proposal for election of chairman at the Annual General Meeting It is proposed that Hans Linnarson shall be chairman at the Annual General Meeting. 9 Dividend The board of directors proposes to the Annual General Meeting and the auditors support to distribute to the shareholders 1.30 SEK per share for the financial year 2018. Thursday 16 May 2019 is proposed as record day for the dividend. If the Annual General Meeting decides in accordance with the proposal, it is estimated that the dividend will be distributed by Euroclear on Tuesday 21 May 2019. 10 Proposal for number of board members and deputy board members It is proposed that six ordinary board members, without deputies, shall be elected. 11 Proposal for number of auditors and deputy auditors or registered public accounting firms It is proposed that a registered public accounting firm is appointed. 12 Proposal for fees to the board members and the auditors It is proposed that fees to the board of directors shall be paid with a total amount of 2,400,000 SEK, of which 800,000 SEK to the chairman of the board and 400,000 SEK to each one of the other board members elected by the general meeting, who are not employed in the group. It is proposed that fees to the auditors shall be paid in accordance with approved invoices. 13 Proposal for election of board members and chairman of the board It is proposed that the board members Georg Brunstam, Gerteric Lindquist, Hans Linnarson, Anders Palsson, Helene Richmond and Jenny Sjodahl are re-elected as board members. It is proposed that Hans Linnarson is re-elected as chairman of the board. 14 Proposal for election of auditors and deputy auditors, if any, or registered public accounting firms For the period up to the end of the Annual General Meeting 2020 it is proposed that KPMG AB is elected as registered public accounting firm. KPMG has announced that if the Annual General Meeting is voting in accordance with the proposal, KPMG will appoint authorized public accountant Dan Kjellqvist as auditor in charge. 15 The board of directors proposal to authorize the board of directors to decide on an issue of new shares in connection with acquisitions of companies/ business The board of directors of NIBE Industrier AB (publ) proposes that the Annual General Meeting decides to authorize the board of directors to decide, on one or several occasions during the time up to the next Annual General Meeting, with or without deviation from the shareholders preferential rights, on issue of new shares of class B in the company. The authorization shall also include right to decide on issue of shares with provision stating payment with non-cash consideration, that shares may be subscribed for with right of set-off or otherwise with conditions referred to in Chapter 13 5 first paragraph 6 of the Swedish Companies Act. Share issue may only be decided if it concerns financing of acquisition of companies, part of a company or businesses. The authorization does not include a right for the board of directors to decide on cash issues with deviation from the shareholders preferential right. The authorization shall be limited to a total issue of shares corresponding to a maximum of 10% of the total number of outstanding shares at the time of the Annual General Meeting. Further, the board of directors proposes that the Annual General Meeting decides that the managing director, or anyone authorized by the managing director, shall have the right to make such minor adjustments of the meetings decision that may be necessary in connection with the registration with the Swedish Companies Registration Office and Euroclear respectively or due to other formal demands. For a valid decision of the meeting in accordance with the board of directors proposal as above it is required that the decision is supported by shareholders representing at least two thirds of the casted votes as well as of the shares represented at the meeting. 16 The board of directors proposal for guiding principles for remuneration and other terms of employment to executive employees The board of directors proposes that the company shall offer remuneration on market terms and be competitive in order to attract and keep personnel. It shall be possible to pay the remuneration as fixed salary, variable salary, pension and other benefits such as company car. Fees to the board of directors shall not be paid to board members, who are employed in the group. The term of notice, upon termination by the company, for the managing director shall be six months. The managing director shall be entitled to severance payment corresponding to twelve monthly salaries. Other executive employees shall be paid salary during the term of notice, which varies between 6-12 months. There shall be no special agreement stating that executive employees may terminate their employment before they have reached retirement age and until then receive a certain part of their salary. All executive employees shall have retirement benefits corresponding to the defined benefit ITP-plan (supplementary pensions for salaried employees) (SW: ITP-planen), section 2, for salary parts up to 30 income base amounts (SW:inkomstbasbelopp). For salary parts exceeding 30 income base amounts a premium with a fixed percentage of 30% shall be paid, in accordance with the same principles as in the ITP-plan with fixed premium, section 1. Executive employees shall as incentive be able to have a variable salary part which is paid if the goals that have been set up are met. The variable salary shall be limited to four monthly salaries. In addition thereto, an extra monthly salary may be paid as remuneration provided that the executive employee uses this extra remuneration and an additional monthly salary of his/her variable remuneration for acquisition of NIBE-shares. A condition for the extra remuneration is that the executive employee keeps the annually acquired NIBE-shares for at least three years. Normally, the executive employees acquisition of NIBE-shares will be made once a year in February/March and then with application of the rules against market abuse in force. The managing director shall not be included in any incentive program. The board of directors may deviate from the guidelines if there are particular grounds therefor in an individual case. Miscellaneous The annual report and the auditors report, the board of directors statement according to Chapter 18 4 of the Swedish Companies Act regarding proposal for dividend, the board of directors complete proposal for decision concerning items 15 and 16, the auditors statement according to Chapter 8 54 of the Swedish Companies Act and other documents will be kept available for the shareholders at the companys premises in Markaryd and on the companys home page, www. nibe.com, as from 23 April 2019 and will be sent to shareholders requesting it and stating their address. The board of directors statement according to Chapter 18 4 of the Swedish Companies Act regarding proposal for dividend can also be seen from the administration report in the annual report. The shareholders are informed of their right to request information at the Annual General Meeting concerning conditions that may have an effect on the judgement of a matter on the agenda and conditions that may have an effect on the judgement of the companys financial position. At the time of execution of this notice the total number of shares in the company amounts to 504,016,622, of which 58,532,590 shares of class A and 445,484,032 shares of class B. The total number of votes in the company amounts to 1,030,809,932. Markaryd in April 2019 NIBE Industrier AB (publ) The Board This information is information that NIBE Industrier AB (publ) is obliged to make public pursuant to NASDAQ Stockholms Rule book for Issuers. The information was submitted through Benny Torstensson for publication on April 15, 2019 at 09:00 CET Benny Torstensson Information Manager, Tel. +46 (0)433 - 73 000 Attachment After years of cutting overcapacity in the coal industry, China appears to be reversing course, raising environmental concerns as the government spurs economic growth. On March 26, Reuters reported that China added 194 million metric tons of coal production capacity last year, citing a statement by the National Energy Administration (NEA). The expansion came despite Premier Li Keqiang's pledge to "get rid of" 150 million tons of capacity in 2018, announced in his work report to national legislators in March of last year. Li said nothing about adding new capacity to offset the cuts. The additions may mark the end of China's campaign for consolidation and capacity cutting in the coal industry, which was driven by overproduction and collapsing prices in 2012. The increases may have consequences for greenhouse gas emissions and climate change if higher capacity leads to greater growth in production and consumption. China's output of coal rose 5.2 percent last year. In the first two months of 2019, coal production fell 1.5 percent from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said. Consequences for carbon emissions China is by far the world's leading producer and consumer of coal, accounting for about half of global volumes. Because of China's huge share, small changes in growth can have major consequences for carbon emissions. According to Enerdata's Global Energy Statistical Yearbook, last year's capacity increase in China exceeded the coal production of eighth-ranked Germany in 2017. In its report to this year's legislative sessions, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said the government had already cut 270 million tons of coal capacity under its 13th Five-Year Plan for 2016-2020, meeting its goal "two years ahead of schedule." The top planning agency made no commitments to further capacity reductions or firm promises to lower total consumption in the rest of its report. "We continued working to cut coal consumption and to replace coal with alternative energy in key areas," the NDRC said. "We made progress in using market mechanisms to cut capacity in the steel and coal industries," Li said in his annual work report to the National People's Congress this year. But the NEA said total production capacity rose to 3.53 billion tons from 3.34 billion tons at the end of 2017. According to Reuters, the 2018 figure did not include 1.03 billion tons of mining capacity under construction and 370 million tons more under "trial operation." Taken together, the annual coal capacity could reach 4.93 billion tons. China's coal imports also climbed 3.4 percent to 281.5 million tons in 2018, the highest level in four years, the General Administration of Customs reported in January. In March, the NBS reported that China's coal consumption rose 1 percent from a year earlier in the biggest gain since 2013. The NBS did not publish a tonnage figure for 2018, but the China National Coal Association (CNCA) reported consumption of 3.87 billion tons. The coal increases appeared to clash with the government's broader environmental goals. "We launched an all-out fight to keep our skies blue, our waters clear, and our land pollution-free," Li said in his report. Coal miners leave a mine after their underground shift ends in Datong, northern China's Shanxi province, Nov. 20, 2015. Credit: AFP A glaring exception While coal consumption, capacity and production all rose last year, the NEA data suggested that China made gains in consolidating operations after years of closing smaller, less efficient and more dangerous mines. The total number of mines dropped to 3,373 last year from 3,907 in 2017, the agency said. But it is unclear exactly how the number of mines has been counted following the merger of mining companies. In 2010, The New York Times cited official figures that claimed the number of mines had already been cut to 1,053 from 2,600 a year before. China's cabinet-level State Council first promised to bar approval for new mines with annual production of less than 300,000 tons in 2013. In December 2015, a senior NDRC official said China had more than 7,000 mines with annual capacity under 300,000 tons, the official Xinhua news agency reported at the time. The questions about capacity coincide with concerns that China is also increasing construction of coal-fired power plants at a time when development is decreasing worldwide. A study released by three environmental groups last month found that China is a "glaring exception to the global decline in coal plant development." On the positive side, the planned new generating capacity of coal-fired power plants in China has dropped by 86 percent since 2015, said the study by the Global Energy Project, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club. But China has "quietly resumed" construction of more than 50 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired capacity that had previously been postponed by the central government, the groups said, citing satellite photos. The report also noted a proposal by the China Electricity Council to set a cap of 1,300 GW of coal-fired capacity for 2030. The plan would allow an increase of 290 GW above current levels, or more than the current coal generating capacity of the United States, it said. The resurgence of coal in China comes despite the NBS report in February that the high-polluting fuel's share of primary energy sources fell to 59 percent last year from 60.4 percent in 2017. The government has been walking a fine line between keeping its environmental promises and promoting pro-growth economic policies after expansion slipped from 6.8 percent in 2017 to 6.6 percent last year. The economic worries raise the possibility that the current coal increases may be short-term responses to pump up growth that will soon pass when China's troubles subside. Hardly a 'temporary response' Philip Andrews-Speed, a China energy expert at National University of Singapore, said there are reasons to doubt the short-term conclusion. "Given that coal-fired power plants and coal mines have lifetimes of decades, this can hardly be seen as a 'temporary response,'" Andrews-Speed said. "The environmental will be substantial, but the key question is whether the equivalent capacity is being decommissioned," he said. Andrews-Speed noted that the government has also recently approved construction of several nuclear power projects, suggesting that future economic growth will require added generating capacity, despite the current oversupply. But conclusive readings remain difficult, since the government may be allowing an increase in coal mine capacity to keep prices from rising too much. It may also allow more coal to be used in power generation while reducing consumption for heating and industry, Andrews- Speed said. "The key thing to watch in the coming months and years is the actual consumption of coal," he said, Unfortunately, accurate and authoritative consumption figures for coal in China are among the most difficult to come by. Industry associations release consumption data sporadically, while final NBS numbers have been subject to large retroactive revisions and lengthy delays. Thirty years after the sudden death of ousted liberal premier Hu Yaobang sparked weeks of student-led protests on Beijings Tiananmen Square, Hus family returned to his ancestral home to visit his grave, closely watched by state security police, a Hong Kong-based rights group reported on . Some 20 Hu family members and relatives visited the graves of Hu and his wife Li Zhao at Gongqingcheng in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangxi on morning, under close watch by the authorities, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy in China reported on its website. Hu Yaoping, a relative of Hu Yaobang, visited the cemetery to pay respects to Hu Yaobang and his wife Li Zhao, the report said. It said Hu's daughter Li Heng and her husband Admiral Liu Xiaojiang were advised to keep a low profile by the authorities, and had paid their respects earlier instead. They didnt go to Gongqingcheng to pay their respects, as they had already paid a visit in advance, the Center said. The report said the cell phones of Hus sons Hu Deping and He Dehua were switched off on . The Information Center was informed that Hu Deping will leave Gongqingcheng , so relatives will still participate in some seminars and exhibitions this afternoon and night, it said. The authorities deliberately kept a low profile [but] there are still dozens of public security guards outside the hotel , and the atmosphere is very tense, the report said. It said Hus son- and daughters-in-law also paid their respects to Hu, alongside his grandson and relatives still living in Gongqingcheng. He Deping is a former deputy minister of the United Front Work Department of the ruling Chinese Communist Party Central Committee and a member of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference advisory body. No state media coverage The low-key memorial event was in sharp contrast to the spontaneous outpouring of public mourning on Tiananmen Square following Hu's state funeral in 1989. Popular among ordinary Chinese for rehabilitating millions purged during the 1957 Anti-Rightist Movement and for righting some of the wrongs of the disastrous Cultural Revolution (1966-76), Hu was mourned by thousands on Tiananmen Square in . The demonstration of public grief and outrage sparked the student-led pro-democracy movement on Tiananmen Square, which ended in the Tiananmen massacre in early June that year. It also triggered the fall of Hu Yaobang's successor, Zhao Ziyang. Liberal members of the Communist Party elite also held a memorial at Hus former residence in Beijing on. Among those paying their respects were former editors of the now-shuttered liberal political theory magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu, including founding editor Du Daozheng. There was no coverage of the anniversary in Chinas state media, in contrast to several articles praising him and public memorials to him in the years before President Xi Jinping began to consolidate his grip on power. The government styled the 1989 student-led democracy protests a "counterrevolutionary rebellion," and the families of victims and pro-democracy campaigners have focused their efforts on a re-evaluation of that verdict. Public memorials and discussions of the events of are banned in mainland China, with activists who seek to commemorate the bloodshed often detained, with veteran dissidents placed under police surveillance or detention during each anniversary. In Hong Kong, more than 100 people ran 30 kilometers through the city, shouting Never forget ! to mark the anniversary at the weekend, leaving white flowers symbolizing mourning outside Beijings Central Liaison Office. Richard Choi of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, which organized the event, said more than 100 runners took part. Hong Kong has played a very important role in the struggle [to reevaluate the Tiananmen protests and massacre] in the past three decades, Choi said. Hong Kong still hosts the only free and legal tribute to the [massacre] on Chinese soil, he said. We believe in the people of Hong Kong people; that they will not forget. Choi said the Alliance is still working repair the Memorial Hall, which was recently vandalized, and that the venue will reopen by the end of this month. Reported by Shi Shan for RFAs Mandarin Service, and by Lau Siu-fung for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Plans outlined by the ruling Chinese Communist Partys youth wing to send millions of young people to rural areas on volunteering assignments and as entrepreneurs have been widely compared to late supreme leader Mao Zedongs mass mobilization of urban youth during the Cultural Revolution. China is planning to mobilize more than 10 million young people in its cities, in a bid to reverse a brain drain from the countryside, state media reported on Friday. The move, announced earlier this month by the Communist Youth League, is aimed at boosting cultural, technological and medical development in rural areas by 2020. These young volunteers will be sent to rural areas, especially old revolutionary base areas, regions of extreme poverty and areas where ethnic minority groups live to promote local development and improve personal skills, the Global Times newspaper quoted the Communist Youth League as saying in a recent document. The move was hailed by many local officials, who said that it would help revitalize rural areas in the country that have been suffering from talent and labor outflows, the paper said. While it is still unclear whether the program will result in a mass, mandatory mobilization of young people, political commentators told RFA that there are clear economic parallels with Maos Down to the Countryside movement of the late 1960s to early 1970s. U.S.-based political commentator Wu Jianmin said the recent economic slowdown in China and the U.S.-China trade war have boosted unemployment among young people, including university graduates, with huge potential for social unrest. "The Central Committee of the Communist Youth League has said that this Down to the Countryside [decision] was based on the overall situation of the Chinese economy, Wu said. If you have large numbers of young people accumulating in the cities, and if they have no employment opportunities and go online every day, this will trigger dissatisfaction with the government, Wu said. The authorities are worried that there will be various protests against the government in the cities," he said. Unlikely to be mandatory According to Wu, the current program is unlikely to be completely mandatory, however, unlike the Down to the Countryside movement initiated by Mao. Back in the day, the Down to the Countryside movement was totally compulsory, he said. When Mao Zedong decreed it, every eligible young person in every family had to do, whether they liked it or not. Nowadays, the government will be dressing it up and selling it to them, so this policy is actually much more deceptive than the previous one, Wu said. The proposals outlined by the League target three areas: encouraging educated young people to go back to their rural hometowns to revitalize local economies by starting businesses; encouraging talented Chinese overseas to come back to China; and mobilizing educated young people to begin new lives in rural areas and boost those areas pool of human capital. Zhang Weimin, a former urban youth sent down to the countryside during the Mao era, said that her generation never fully recovered from the experience. Those who were sent away often lost access to government benefits such as retirement and healthcare on their return, and they are still struggling to defend their rights, decades later. She said the younger generation today is unlikely to be attracted by the idea. I think that if they only go for two years training in rural areas, then maybe some people would be willing to do it, Zhang said. But if it was an indefinite arrangement, as it was for us back then, [they wont]. If you were to ask them what they want to do next, I dont think a single person will tell you that they want to go to the countryside, she said. Incentives offered According to the League document, the government will provide incentives for e-commerce entrepreneurship in rural areas and training for returning entrepreneurs, and will publicize any success stories, in a bid to attract participants. The document also outlines plans to send 10,000 student members of the Communist Party of China and the Youth League to serve in rural areas as part-time officials, to train them in rural governance. It also proposes building training centers in rural areas targeting more than 200,000 young people by 2020, the Global Times said. But Chen Kuide, executive chairman of the Princeton China Society, said the government will find the plans much harder to implement than Mao did. "It is definitely much harder to carry out this kind of mass mobilization nowadays, Chen told RFA. If the government can't provide these young people with definite benefits, it will be difficult for it to impose its will to the extent that it did during the Cultural Revolution. Instead, this plan could turn into one of those policies that is imposed from above, but resisted from below, he said. According to official statistics, more than 14 million Chinese youth were sent into rural areas during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The Global Times said the plan is the latest in a raft of policies in recent years to help rural areas attract skilled labor. Reported by Jia Ao for RFAs Mandarin Service, and by Wen Yuqing for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. North Korean authorities are trying to procure higher-yield South Korean rice seeds to cope with chronic food shortages. But instead of simply asking Seoul for the seeds, which are not subject to economic sanctions, Pyongyangs trade representatives are attempting to bring them in via China, posing difficulties with Chinese customs inspections, sources say. I was asked by a North Korean trade worker in China to get South Korean rice seeds, but theres no easy way to bring seeds from Korea into China, so I am not sure what to do, said a source in a Chinese border city. The source said relatives living in South Korea have already procured 30 kilograms of the seeds and are ready to ship them. But I have to go through a very complicated process to bring the seeds here, so I am hesitant about the whole thing, said the source, adding, Plant seeds, especially those for agricultural products have a meticulous customs inspection that takes forever to get through. Other products from South Korea can be brought into China with relative ease, according to the source. Merchants who do the China-South Korea run by ferry can usually bring whatever they want into China but most of them avoid anything having to do with farming, because clearing customs is so difficult, said the source. In recent years, farming conglomerates worldwide have vigorously defended their intellectual property rights for engineered seeds. Seoul, however, doesnt mind if merchants take the rice seeds out of the country. It isnt too difficult to pass South Korean customs, but [merchants] have to report the seeds to Chinese maritime customs. Then they have to pay high tariffs and go through a strict quarantine, the source said. If they try to smuggle them (into China) to avoid the hassle, they face [the possibility of] heavy fines and criminal punishment, said the source. I am pretty certain that North Korean authorities are ordering their trade workers in China to find South Korean seeds. They arent really asking for a lot of them. I think they will conduct experiments on the seeds to see if they are suitable for North Koreas soil and weather, said the source. A second source, from a Chinese border city, noted that North Korea was able to bring beech seeds from Ulleung-do, a South Korean island east of the Korean peninsula, but wondered why Pyongyang is trying to get Southern rice seeds in such a roundabout way. They can have these kinds of plant seeds easily if they just ask the South Korean government, especially now that North and South Korea are trying to be friendly with each other, the source said, adding, It is hard to understand why they are being so secretive. The source pointed out that Pyongyang was able to get the seeds directly from the South in the past. During the Roh Moo-hyun administration, South Korea sent rice seeds to the North several times as part of an inter-Korean exchange project. North Korean [farmers] harvested a surprisingly large amount of rice, so the seeds received favorable reviews from Northern agriculture officials, the source said. The exchanges were conducted by South Korean civic group. But there are now questions about why the seeds didnt get distributed nationwide and why it ended as a one-time project, said the source. The source suggested that international sanctions aimed at deterring Pyongyangs nuclear ambitions might be the reason for all the secrecy. But Seoul says the seeds are not covered by the sanctions. North Korea may have felt it difficult to just ask South Korea for the seeds and chose this method instead, said the source. But regardless of how they get the seeds, the source thinks they will be of little help in improving yields. North Korean authorities should know that their rice seeds are not the reason their crop yields are so low. It is their old-fashioned socialist agriculture system that causes food shortages. Its really hard to guess what they have in mind, said the source. South Koreas Ministry of Unification told RFA last week that shipments of seeds to North Korea would not be subject to sanctions. The South Korean government has not provided seeds to North Korea in the past, and has no plans to send seeds in the future, said the ministrys spokesmans office. But if civic organizations say they want to send seeds, the government might review the details of [this type] of shipment, the office continued. According to the ministry, all items sent to the North, including seeds, must first be given ministry approval. The ministry confers with the South Korean Customs Service, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Ministry of Justice during the approval process. Staff from the latter three ministries will then check the approved items again in a transit office between North and South Korea before they are allowed to go North. A South Korean expert on North Korean agriculture told RFA that seeds arent sent as aid by the South Korean government. South and North Korea had a very active relationship during Roh Moo Hyuns presidency. At that time North Korea requested seeds from the South Korean government, but it was always the South Korean civic organizations that filled those requests, said Kwon Taejin, head of the North Korea and Northeast Asia Research Center at the GS&J Institute in South Korea. One such group, the International Corn Foundation, said they shipped corn seeds multiple times to North Korea, but almost never through China, due to the difficulty. Reported by Joonho Kim and Jae Wan Noh for RFAs Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Three U.S. citizens arrested in northern Laos last week for distributing bibles and other evangelistic materials are free from police custody, but confined to a guest house and the surrounding village while a lengthy holiday has slowed talks on their case, a U.S.-based Christian organization told RFAs Lao Service Monday. Identified by their organization, Vision Beyond Borders, only by their given names, Wayne, Autumn and Joseph have been detained in a guesthouse in Luang Namtha province since April 8, after visiting villages in northern Laos to hand out the materials. Eric Blievernicht, Operations Manager of Vision Beyond Borders, told RFA the three had surrendered their passports to authorities but can walk out of the guesthouse and around the village now. He said he has not spoken directly to the three out of concern that authorities will listen to phone calls, but has spoken to their stateside family members. A big concern, Blievernicht said, was that the three U.S. citizens been caught up in the Lao New Year holiday, when offices are closed and very little official business is conducted, and might have to wait a week or more. An official of the Luang Namtha police department confirmed on April 12 that the three were arrested but denied they were being detainedapparently a reference to their placement in a guest house. A State Department official on April 12 confirmed the temporary detention and subsequent release of three U.S. citizens in Luang Namtha, Laos and said the department was providing all appropriate consular services. While the constitution of Communist-run Laos technically protects freedom of religion, conflicts between Christians and local authorities often flare up because authorities in the traditionally Buddhist nation consider Christianity a foreign religion. In December, seven Lao Christians were arrested for attending an illegal church service. They were allowed to return home. In a 2017 report, the U.S. State Department said that Lao local authorities often arrested or detained members of minority religions during the year, with a district-level official in Houaphan province expelling 26 Hmong Christians from their village, advising them they could return only if they renounced their faith. Reported by RFAs Lao Service. Written in English by Paul Eckert. Wooden rifles are among the military training equipment seized by Myanmar forces at what they said was an Arakan Army training camp in the hills east of Pan Myaung village, Mrauk-U township, western Myanmar's Rakhine state, April 13, 2019. Myanmar troops seized an Arakan Army training camp the hills of turbulent Rakhine states Mrauk-U township on Saturday, finding weapons, ammunition, and food reserves, a government military spokesman said, though a representative for the rebel group denied the claim, suggesting that it was a fabrication. Colonel Win Zaw Oo, spokesman for the Myanmar militarys Western Command responsible for Rakhine state, told RFAs Myanmar Service that the AA set up the base east of Pan Myaung village as a temporary camp while fighting government soldiers. We have been trying to capture the facility step-by-step since March 19 during clearance operations, he said. We first had armed engagements with them before we captured it around 2:30 p.m. yesterday. As it was announced, we found huts and residential facilities for 200-300 people and trenches, he said. We also found some equipment used for training. Win Zaw Oo said the seizure of the camp was the second training facility the Myanmar Army had captured during hostilities with the AA which escalated early this year after Arakan fighters carried out deadly attacks on police outposts in northern Rakhine. Myanmar forces took hold of the other camp east of Mrauk-U's Tain Nyo village in March. We captured a small training facility with food, rice, and pots for cooking that were used by AA members, he said. Residents of Pan Myaung village and other communities in Mrauk-U informed Myanmar military columns about the locations of AA training grounds and camps in nearby ridges and said they were subjected to threats and assaults by the Arakans, state-run Myanmar News Agency reported Monday. Myanmar forces searched the ridges near the village and began armed operations against the AA on March 19, engaging in 20 battles in a campaign that ended in the capture of the temporary training ground on April 13, the report said. AA soldiers stationed at the training camp then fled to the southwest and northwest, it said. 'Lying to their superiors' AA spokesman Khine Thukha denied the militarys claim, saying that the Arakan force did not set up any training facilities at the location east of Pan Myaung village mentioned in an announcement by the Myanmar military. [Regarding] what they mentioned in the announcement, they might be referring to huts built by some woodcutters and local villagers for hunting activities, he said. He also charged that Myanmar military officials made up the story, asserting that they often fabricate tales about victories during clashes when they report to their superiors to avoid being reprimanded by the top brass. The death toll from the military has been high, especially in the past few months, Khine Thukha said. Some soldiers were killed in battle, but they were [falsely] listed as deserters. There are cases where the commanding officers were punished for showing so many deserters. A commanding officer and a tactical operation commander were recently reprimanded for this charge, he said. Top leaders of the military are lying to the state, while the officers at the bottom are lying to their superiors. I think this announcement is exactly what that is. The Myanmar Army has yet to disclose how many of its soldiers have been killed in the hostilities. Khine Thukha also noted a similar announcement by Myanmar forces about capturing AA training facilities in the Yan Chaung area of Mrauk-U township. In reality, there are no training facilities in that area, he said. It is the same in this case. We dont have any training facility in the Pan Myaung area. Reporting the truth But Win Zaw Oo countered that Myanmar soldiers have been reporting the truth to their superiors and that the two seized camps the one east of Pan Myaung village and the other one east of Tain Nyo village definitely had been set up for training purposes. We have reasons to conclude it is a training facility, he said, pointing to military training equipment found at the site near Pan Myaung village and to the testimony of people the Myanmar Army recently captured as suspected AA soldiers supporters following a deadly attack last week by the Arakans on a police battalion headquarters and residential unit in Mrauk-U township. [After] a large force of AA members attacked our police facility and then dispersed, we arrested 23 people suspected of being AA members, Win Zaw Oo, adding that four other were later apprehended, bringing the total to 27. According to the testimonies of these detainees, we could confirm that many local villagers had had received [some kind of] training at that facility, he said. Reported by Nay Rein Kyaw for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Rushan Abbas, a former broadcaster for RFAs Uyghur Service and the director of the U.S.-based Campaign for Uighurs exile group, recently testified at the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in Washington about rights violations in northwest Chinas Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), where authorities have held an estimated 1.5 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities accused of harboring strong religious views and politically incorrect ideas in a network of political re-education camps since April 2017. During her testimony, Abbas detailed how authorities in the XUAR abducted her sister and aunt in September 2018 after she took part in panel exposing conditions at the camps, as part of what she said was a bid to silence her and stop her activism within the U.S. She praised recent strong words coming from the Trump administration against Chinas policies in the XUAR, but added that at some point, words are not enough, urging the U.S. government to hold Chinese officials and businesses accountable for their actions in the region with sanctions through the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. She recently told RFAs Uyghur Service in an interview that Uyghurs in the U.S. must raise their voices to ensure Washington takes Beijing to task for its actions in the XUAR and demands the closure of the regions camp network. What we are asking for [from the U.S. government] is to punish Chinese officials who are responsible for what is happening in our homeland with the Global Magnitsky Act. This has been delayed for too long. The Trump administration the Department of State and various other agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Commerce, should enforce the Global Magnitsky Actthat is our strongest request. What Uyghurs can do is speak out against Chinas atrocities. For example, when my older sister was taken away, I stood up for her and starting speaking out five weeks after her detention on every possible occasion. Because of this, I drew the attention of journalists and the government. This is why I was invited to testify at the U.S. Senate. The more Uyghurslike me and others who have campaigned for their disappeared relativesspeak out, the more awareness they will raise about the Uyghur situation. Uyghurs who have American citizenship must do more. As citizens, we have the right to demand answers from our government and lawmakers. We must use our rights granted in the Constitution, and all Uyghur citizens should use these rights. Reported and translated by RFA's Uyghur Service. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Chemesis International Inc. (CSE: CSI ) (OTC: CADMF ) (FRA: CWAA ) (the Company or Chemesis), announces it has entered into a Binding agreement to acquire a fully operational cannabis manufacturing facility in Arizona (Facility), establishing the Company as a Multi-State Operator. During its operations in calendar Q1 2019, the Facility earned revenues of approximately USD $1,000,000. The Facility is 5,000 square feet and is a turn key solution that comes with a team of operators in place. The Facility currently produces finished goods products, such as hard and soft-capsules, cartridges, lotions, tinctures, and other liquid formulations. Additionally, the Facility focuses on producing products that are 100% Cannabidiol (CBD). The Company has continued to focus on its ability to enter the CBD market by adding manufacturing capabilities in California and now in Arizona. The CBD market potential across the United States continues to grow and Chemesis is positioning itself to quickly gain market share in an industry that is expected to exceed $2.1 billion by 20201. The Facility will leverage the 2018 U.S. Farm Bill to further capitalize on the expected increased demand for CBD. The Facility in Arizona gives Chemesis a turn key solution that brings strong bottom line revenues and a team of operators that will help the Company expand its multi-state operations, said CEO of Chemesis, Edgar Montero. Chemesis plans to explore expansion opportunities into additional states as the cannabis industry continues to see further validation. The acquisition brings a team of individuals that brings a wealth of experience that we believe will allow Chemesis to gain market share. Under the terms of this acquisition, Chemesis will issue 250,000 shares at a deemed price of CDN $2.11. The Company expects to close its previously announced acquisition of the California fully licensed cannabis extraction and manufacturing facility within the next ten days. On Behalf of The Board of Directors Edgar Montero CEO and Director About Chemesis International Inc. Chemesis International Inc. is a vertically integrated global leader in the cannabis industry, currently operating within California, Puerto Rico, and Colombia. Chemesis is developing a strong foothold in key markets, from cultivation, to manufacturing, distribution and retail. Chemesis has facilities in both Puerto Rico and California, allowing for cost effective production and distribution of its products. In addition, Chemesis leverages exclusive brands and partnerships and uses the highest quality extraction methods to provide consumers with quality cannabis products. Chemesis will add shareholder value by exploring opportunities in emerging markets while consistently delivering quality product to its consumers from seed to sale. Investor Relations: ir@chemesis.com 1 (604) 398-3378 Social Media: Chemesis.facebook Chemesis.twitter Chemesis.instagram DesertZen.instagram CaliforniaSap.instagram Jay&SB.instagram Forward-Looking Information: This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including in relation to statements regarding the Acquisition, the anticipated benefits of the Acquisition, the expected size of the CBD market, the Companys ability to increase production of various cannabidiol products, and generally regarding the business, products and future of the Companys business, its product offerings and plans for sales and marketing, including upon completion of the Acquisition. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance and developments to differ materially from those contemplated by these statements depending on, among other things, the risks that the Acquisition will not be completed as proposed or at all, that the anticipated benefits of the Acquisition will not materialize, that the CBD market will not expand as anticipated, that the Company will not be able to expand production of CBD products at the rate anticipated upon closing of the Acquisition (or at all), and generally that the Company's products and plan will vary from those stated in this news release and the Company may not be able to carry out its business plans as expected. Except as required by law, the Company expressly disclaims any obligation and does not intend to update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information in this news release. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct and makes no reference to profitability based on sales reported. The statements in this news release are made as of the date of this release. The CSE has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the content of this press release The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. Decades of conflict and a recent severe drought have left many Afghans unable to provide enough food for their families. RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan spoke to people in Kabul who struggle with hunger every day. An Afghan official said at least seven children were killed and eight others wounded when an unexploded mortar shell went off in the country's east. The incident occurred in a village near Mihterlam, the capital of the eastern province of Laghman, on April 14. Assadullah Dawlatzai, the spokesman for the provincial governor, said authorities were investigating how the children found the mortar and why it exploded. Dawlatzai said all those killed or wounded were under 15 and at least four were in serious condition in the hospital. The United Nations Mine Action Service said around 150 people were killed or injured in Afghanistan each month in 2017 by mines and so-called explosive remnants of war. While many land mines come from the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and the civil war in the 1990s, casualties have increased from homemade bombs used by the Taliban. Based on reporting by AFP and AP A gunman has opened fire at a wedding ceremony in Afghanistan's eastern Khost Province, killing at least three people before he fled the scene, an Afghan official said. The incident occurred on the evening of April 14 in the Tani district, Talib Mangal, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said on April 15. Mangal said the three people killed were wedding guests. Twelve others were wounded in the shooting. The motive for the attack was unknown and no militant group immediately claimed responsibility for the shooting. The Taliban and other militant groups are active in the area, although attacks on wedding parties are rare. Provincial authorities have launched an investigation, Mangal said. Based on reporting by AP The Russian government is developing a draft law that will "further jeopardize" freedom of expression and assembly in the country, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has warned. The bill, if adopted, would enable the authorities to "freeze the bank accounts of people who donate to or finance protests that are deemed unlawful," the New York-based human rights watchdog said in a statement on April 15. The provision on financing public assemblies is one of several amendments being considered in a bill to prevent and address the financing of terrorism, extremism, drug trafficking, and money laundering. HRW said that the provision had the "insidious effect of placing the financing of unauthorized demonstrations in the same category as these other forms of serious criminal activity." Damelya Aitkhozhina, Russia researcher at HRW, urged Russia to immediately drop the provision from the bill, "On amendments to laws of the Russian Federation concerning the financing of terrorism and other illegal activities," saying that it would enable the government "even to target and intimidate someone who paid for some flyers or protest signs." In recent years, the government "has created new obstacles to the exercise of free expression and assembly and has pushed peaceful protesters to the margins of the law," HRW said in its statement. It cited a law on public assemblies that requires protesters to seek authorization for public assemblies and enables the authorities to "routinely deny requests for authorization on a plethora of grounds." "Police routinely disperse authorized and 'unauthorized' protests and detain, beat, harass, fine, and intimidate peaceful protesters," the watchdog said. It added that posting information online about upcoming, unauthorized public gatherings may also result in detention, and repeated violations can lead to a prison sentence. Last month, an 18-year-old Russian activist became the first person punished under a new law that prohibits adults from encouraging minors to take part in unauthorized protests. "As public discontent over the government's economic, social, and political agenda grows, authorities need to stop looking for ways to stamp down the public, and look for ways to listen to what protesters are saying," Aitkhozhina said. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says it will send a team to Pakistan later this month to continue negotiations over a support package, amid efforts by the South Asian country to deflect an economic crisis. "At the request of the authorities, an IMF mission will be going to Pakistan before the end of April to continue the discussions," the IMF said in a statement on April 15. The announcement follows Pakistani Finance Minister Asad Umar's visit to Washington, where he had talks with the international lender on a long-delayed bailout program. Pakistan reached an "agreement in principle" with the IMF over bailout package during Umar's "successful" visit to the United States, according to the country's state minister for revenue. "Technical details and formalities will now be finalised during the IMF's staff level visit to Pakistan later this month," the minister, Hammad Azhar, tweeted. Earlier, a Pakistani government source who did not want to be identified was quoted as saying that "both sides are still engaged" in intense negotiations, and the IMF mission was more likely to visit Pakistan in May. Pakistan was last year expected to sign up for its 13th IMF bailout program since the late 1980s, but Pakistani officials complained that the conditions attached to the proposed IMF loans could hurt the country's economic growth. The IMF demands full disclosure of all financial cooperation between Pakistan and China, which would include infrastructure development assistance, nuclear power plants, joint manufacturing of warplanes, and procurement of submarines. The lender also wants details of more than $6.5 billion of commercial loans Pakistan has received from China in the past 2 1/2 years. With reporting by Reuters and Dawn Iran has protested to France about remarks made by the French ambassador in Washington over Tehran's right to enrich uranium after 2025. Iran agreed under a 2015 deal with world powers to curb its nuclear program in return for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions. Some of these limits are due to expire after 10 years, and others after 15 years. But U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out from the deal last year, saying one of the weaknesses in the agreement is that limits to Irans nuclear program would expire. In a tweet on April 13, France's ambassador to the United States, Gerard Araud, said: "It's false to say that at the expiration of [the nuclear deal], Iran will be allowed to enrich uranium," adding that sanctions could be reimposed. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on April 14 that Araud's comments were "a major violation of the object and purpose of the" deal, adding they needed "immediate clarification by Paris, or we act accordingly." Iran also summoned the French ambassador in Tehran on April 14. Despite Washington's withdrawal, other signatories to the nuclear deal -- Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia -- are still trying to salvage the agreement. Based on reporting by Reuters and AP Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has approved drawing up to $2 billion from the country's National Development Fund as a last resort for aid and reconstruction after catastrophic floods, state media reported on April 15. The government said on April 14 that the floods had caused an estimated $2.5 billion in damage to roads, bridges, homes, and farmland. The floods, Iran's worst in 70 years, had killed at least 76 people and forced more than 220,000 into emergency shelters, the government told lawmakers. "Using the National Development Fund is authorized if no other sources are available," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a letter to President Hassan Rohani read out April 15 on state television. However, Khamenei urged the government to look into other budgetary resources to fund aid and reconstruction efforts before drawing from the sovereign fund. Khamenei's letter did not give an amount but Morteza Shahidzadeh, who is in charge of the fund, said earlier that Rohani had asked to withdraw $2 billion and Khamenei had in principle agreed. In Geneva, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said April 15 that an estimated 2 million Iranians needed humanitarian assistance as a result of the floods. Based on reporting by Reuters and AP A Pakistani human rights watchdog has urged the mainly Muslim country to endorse and implement measures to protect its religious minorities, which it says continue to face "harassment, arrest, or even death." In its annual report released on April 15, the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said that extremist groups "continued to target [Shi'ite] mosques, religious gatherings, religious leaders, and other individuals in attacks resulting in at least 112 persons being killed" in 2018. The report came out days after a suicide bombing that appeared to target the Shi'ite ethnic Hazara community in the southwestern city of Quetta claimed the lives of at least 20 people. The attack was claimed by both an affiliate of the Pakistani Taliban and the Islamic State group. The report, titled State Of Human Rights In 2018, also raised concerns about incidents of forced conversions and marriages of women and girls from the South Asian country's Hindu and Christian communities to Muslim men. HRCP said that around 1,000 cases of forced conversion of Hindu and Christian women and girls were reported last year in the southern province of Sindh alone. Some of the girls were recovered on court orders, it said. Earlier this month, an Islamabad court allowed two sisters from the Hindu community to live with their Muslim husbands, rejecting allegations from their parents that their daughters were abducted and forcibly married. A government investigation concluded the girls were 18 and 19 and that they were not forced to change their religion. HRCP also expressed concern over what it says was the misuse of blasphemy laws in Pakistan, where around 70 people have been lynched since 1990 on accusations of insulting Islam. "The blasphemy laws have been grossly abused with many people lodging false complaints to settle their personal vendettas," it said. "In many cases, blasphemy allegations end up in a mob lynching or targeted killing of the accused before they can be tried or heard in a court of law." Forty people are currently on death row or serving a life sentence after being convicted on charges of blasphemy, according to HRCP. The report cited the case of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who was released last year after spending eight years on death row for alleged blasphemy. She has been in protective custody at a secret location since her acquittal in October 2018. HRCP also said that Pakistani media faced "unprecedented" curbs last year, particularly in the run-up to the country's general elections. "Under the opaque shroud of 'national security concerns,' the restrictions on media coverage were stepped up, journalists increasingly took to self-censorship to evade intimidation and threats, cable operators were prohibited from broadcasting certain networks, the distribution of a national newspaper was severely curtailed, and a media blackout was imposed on coverage of certain events," it said. In September 2018, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said that the climate for press freedom in Pakistan was deteriorating as the country's powerful army "quietly, but effectively" restricted reporting through "intimidation" and other means. With reporting by AP The U.S. Justice Department says Attorney General William Barr plans to release a redacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election on April 18. Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said on April 15 that the report will be released to both Congress and the public. She said it will be released on the morning, without specifying a precise time. Democratic lawmakers have been pressuring Barr to release the nearly 400-page report in its entirety since March 24, when he summarized the findings in a four-page letter to Congress that was made public. Democrats have said that the summary is not enough and expressed concerns that Barr, recently appointed by Donald Trump, is attempting to cover up negative findings about the president. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the Associated Press last week that she was "very concerned" about Barr's handling of the report. She also accused Barr of doing Trump's political bidding. "He is not the attorney general of Donald Trump. He is the attorney general of the United States," Pelosi said. "I don't trust Barr. I trust Mueller." Trump said on April 10 that the investigation into possible links between his campaign team and Russia was an "attempted coup," and "an attempted takedown of a president." In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee on April 10, Barr said he thought U.S. intelligence agencies conducted "spying" operations against Trump's 2016 election campaign team. Barr did not present any evidence to support the spying accusation, which Trump previously made on several occasions. In later testimony, Barr appeared to backtrack from his statement, saying he wasn't certain that any wrongdoing had occurred. With reporting by Reuters, AP, Bloomberg Business News, and The New York Times A rights activist in Russia's North Caucasus region of Ingushetia says police have surrounded his house in the town of Karabulak, 20 kilometers north of the region's capital, Magas. Magomed Mutsolgov, a human rights defender and blogger, said in a Facebook post on April 14, "It's my turn once again to experience arbitrariness...my house and office in Karabulak are surrounded by authorities." The reason for the police action was not immediately known. Mutsolgov is the head of the Mashr (Peace) human rights organization. In June, investigators accompanied by masked officers searched Mutsolgov's home. Mutsolgov wrote in a blog post for the site later on June 30 that the law-enforcement officers conducted themselves "appropriately" during the search and did not "plant" any evidence. Mashr, established in April 2005 by the relatives of kidnapped or missing residents of Ingushetia, is one of the few NGOs in Russia's North Caucasus that monitors human rights abuses in the volatile region. Russia's Justice Ministry in 2015 placed the group on its official register of organizations "operating as foreign agents." A Russian law adopted in 2012 requires any NGO that receives funding from abroad and engages in political activity to formally register as a "foreign agent." TORONTO, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- YAMANA GOLD INC. (TSX:YRI; NYSE:AUY) (Yamana or the Company) is pleased to announce it has agreed to sell the wholly-owned Chapada mine (the Sale Transaction) to Lundin Mining Corporation (TSX:LUN) (Lundin) for total consideration of over $1.0 billion. Chapada, located in the State of Goias, Brazil, is a copper mine with additional gold production that was developed by the Company and began production in 2007. Under the terms of the agreement with Lundin, Yamana will receive cash consideration of $800 million at closing, additional consideration of up to $125 million based on the price of gold, a $100 million payment contingent on the development of a pyrite circuit to optimize the operation, and a royalty on the adjacent Suruca gold project. Yamana will host a conference call and webcast at 8:00 am ET on Monday, April 15, 2019 to discuss the Sales Transaction. Call details are outlined at the end of this news release. Peter Marrone, Executive Chairman of Yamana, commented: While Chapada has been a valued asset for Yamana, the Sale Transaction delivers a significant gain, delivers a high after-tax return and financially repositions the Company with a significant and immediate improvement to overall financial flexibility, thereby allowing the Company to pursue near-term value maximizing portfolio opportunities and also to increase shareholder returns, initially by way of a 100% increase in the annual dividend. The Company conducted direct discussions with several possible purchasers which ultimately led to the Sale Transaction. The Company concluded that the consideration paid pursuant the Sale Transaction represents fair value for the asset. The Company took several factors into account when considering the Sale Transaction, including initially indicative and then definitive terms offered by the purchaser and others, results of extensive negotiations, future capital needs of Chapada and comparative benefits of leverage improvements. The Company also considered that the planned expansion was included in arriving at the valuation for Chapada. Further, the expansion would require significant and immediate commitment to capital and any delay would put at risk and erode that value. Previously, the Company had indicated that a gating item to the expenditure of capital for the expansion would be a meaningful improvement to the balance sheet. While the Company expects, and is on track, to derive significant free cash flow in the next several years, the resulting cash increases would be sufficient to fund the expansion although not immediately. Further, the capital requirements for the expansion would restrict the ability of the Company to pursue other organic opportunities on its other assets or increase cash returns to shareholders. The Board of Directors of the Company obtained separate opinions from each of Citi and Rothschild & Co that the consideration to be received by the Company in the Sale Transaction was fair from a financial point of view to the Company as of the date of such opinions. The opinions were based on and subject to the assumptions made, procedures followed, matters considered and limitations and qualifications on the review undertaken as more fully described in such opinions. (All amounts are expressed in United States dollars unless otherwise indicated.) Pursuant to the Sale Transaction, Yamana will receive the following consideration: $800 million in cash, payable at closing; Additional cash payments of up to $125 million based on the price of gold over the five-year period from the date of closing, as follows: a. $10 million per year for each year over the next 5 years where the gold price averages over $1,350/oz, up to a maximum cash payment of $50 million; b. Additional $10 million per year for each year over the next 5 years where the gold price averages over $1,400/oz, up to a maximum cash payment of $50 million; and c. Additional $5 million per year for each year over the next 5 years where the gold price averages over $1,450/oz, up to a maximum cash payment of $25 million. $100 million payment contingent on the development of a pyrite roaster at Chapada by Lundin; and 2% net smelter return (NSR) royalty on gold production from the Suruca deposit. In respect of the pyrite roaster, the Company is engaged in several studies to evaluate the project. Preliminary studies show the potential for significant benefits including cost savings from power generation, the sale of by-product sulphuric acid, and production increases for copper and gold from recovery improvements. Suruca is a gold-only project 7 kilometers northeast of Chapada with an oxide zone scheduled to deliver production of 50,000 ounces per year over 5 years and an underlying sulphide zone with current proven and probable mineral reserves of 762,000 ounces (estimated at 42.7 Mt of sulphide material grading 0.56 g/t Au) and measured and indicated mineral resources of 1.4 million ounces that remains open for expansion (estimated at 82.3 Mt grading 0.54 g/t Au). Total proven and probable gold mineral reserves for Suruca are estimated at 65.2 Mt grading 0.51 g/t Au containing approximately 1.1 million ounces of gold, inclusive of 22.5 Mt of oxide material grading 0.41 g/t Au containing approximately 300,000 ounces of gold and 42.7 Mt of sulphide material grading 0.56 g/t Au containing approximately 762,000 ounces of gold. Based on the mineral reserves and mineral resources, the production potential of the Suruca sulphide zone is expected to range between 120,000 and 150,000 ounces per year based on a processing plant capacity of 8 million tonnes per year. The Company has been evaluating development options for the sulphide project along with extending the deposit with an exploration program and had previously completed a feasibility study for the oxide deposit. The total consideration exceeds the current carrying value and, as such, on closing of the Sale Transaction the Company expects to report a significant after-tax gain resulting in an overall after-tax internal rate of return to the Company of approximately 50 per cent, including the initial acquisition cost for Chapada. The Sale Transaction is subject to customary regulatory and third party approvals and other customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2019. The Sale Transaction is not subject to any financing conditions. Strategic Rationale for Yamana Financial flexibility is a core value and of strategic importance to the Company. The Sale Transaction affords Yamana an immediate and significant improvement to the balance sheet while positioning the Company as a dominant intermediate precious metals producer, consistent with the long-held strategic objective. Further highlights in respect to the strategic rationale of the Sale Transaction and benefits to the Company on closing of the transaction are as follows: Immediate Leverage Reduction The up front cash consideration of $800 million provides for significant deleveraging benefits highlighted by a decline in current ND/EBITDA (1,2,3) to 1.5x from the year-end 2018 value of 2.5x with an opportunity for further reductions based on the contingent payments. The Company is prioritizing the repayment of the outstanding revolving credit facility and then the repayment of near and medium-term fixed term debt maturities. The up front cash consideration of $800 million provides for significant deleveraging benefits highlighted by a decline in current ND/EBITDA to 1.5x from the year-end 2018 value of 2.5x with an opportunity for further reductions based on the contingent payments. The Company is prioritizing the repayment of the outstanding revolving credit facility and then the repayment of near and medium-term fixed term debt maturities. Improved Financial Flexibility The Sale Transaction provides a significant improvement to the Companys financial flexibility going forward due to annualized interest savings in excess of $35 million. Additionally, the redirection of cash flow that would have been otherwise allocated to Chapada enables the maximization of the value enhancing opportunities at the Companys other operations. The Sale Transaction provides a significant improvement to the Companys financial flexibility going forward due to annualized interest savings in excess of $35 million. Additionally, the redirection of cash flow that would have been otherwise allocated to Chapada enables the maximization of the value enhancing opportunities at the Companys other operations. Rebalanced Portfolio The resultant production platform, comprised of five high quality precious metal mines in the Americas, is expected to deliver continued balance sheet improvements supported by a compelling free cash flow outlook, both in magnitude and duration. The Company forecasts ND/EBITDA (1,2) of 1.0x at year-end 2021, in line with the Companys updated target for net debt leverage, as compared to 1.5x previously. The resultant production platform, comprised of five high quality precious metal mines in the Americas, is expected to deliver continued balance sheet improvements supported by a compelling free cash flow outlook, both in magnitude and duration. The Company forecasts ND/EBITDA of 1.0x at year-end 2021, in line with the Companys updated target for net debt leverage, as compared to 1.5x previously. Increased Shareholder Returns, Dividend Increased The improved balance sheet and interest savings will enable the Company to increase its dividend significantly thereby improving its returns to shareholders and allowing the Company flexibility of further capital returns, including a share buyback. Increasing Dividend Effective April 14, 2019, and conditional on closing of the Sale Transaction, the Board of Directors of the Company has approved a 100% increase in its annual dividend to $0.04 per share, an increase that is more than covered by the magnitude of savings in interest payments from planned debt retirement, while also being reflective of the Companys free cash flow outlook, quality of the production base, and strength of the balance sheet. Normal Course Issuer Bid Separately, the Company announces that it intends to make a normal course issuer bid (a NCIB) to purchase up to 5% of the Companys issued and outstanding common shares (the Common Shares) on the Toronto Stock Exchange (the TSX) and New York Stock Exchange. Further details related to the Companys NCIB announcement will available in a separate press release to be issued following approval of the NCIB by the TSX. Pro Forma Production Profile With the sale of Chapada, the Companys production platform would be comprised of five high-quality mines in the Americas, two in Chile, and one in each of Canada, Brazil, and Argentina. Approximately 85% of the Companys revenue would be derived from gold and another 15% from silver. With a closing of the Sale Transaction in the third quarter of 2019, attributable production for 2019 is expected to approximate 1 million gold equivalent ounces ("GEO"). The indicative pro forma production outlook through 2021 is presented in the following table. 2019 consolidated unit costs excluding Chapada are expected to be within the provided cost ranges previously disclosed in our 2019-2021 Outlook released on February 14, 2019. An official update to Company guidance will be provided on closing of the transaction. Production 2019 2020 2021 Total Gold Equivalent (oz.) (1,2) Pro forma outlook 1,000,000 1,020,000 1,020,000 GEO includes gold plus silver with silver converted to a gold equivalent at a ratio of 79.6:1 for 2018 and a forecast ratio of 82.5:1 for 2019, 2020 and 2021. Excluding any attribution from Yamanas interest in Leagold Mining Corporation. Additionally, with the divestiture of Chapada the Company would see its 2019 guidance for overall expenditures decline as follows: sustaining capex by $15 million, costs of adding to long-term stockpiles by $25 million, expansionary capex by $2 million, and DD&A by $25 million. The Company is, however, planning an increase in exploration expenditures going forward with the annualized increase expected to be up to $20 million through the guidance period. This is consistent with plans to use the improved financial flexibility to maximize value enhancing initiatives. The Companys exploration program is one such initiative. Growth Opportunities and Increased Exploration Budgets The financial flexibility afforded by the Sale Transaction will enable the Company to be opportunistic with respect to high quality opportunities within the portfolio to grow production, expand margins and also to expand mineral resources. Opportunities have been identified to increase higher-margin production from existing mines by in excess of 150,000 gold-equivalent ounces per year, an increase of over 15% from the current production run-rate and additive to current guidance. Consistent with the Companys strategy, these opportunities are to be funded by cash flows from operations noting that the expected capital requirements are more than covered by free cash flow. The projects currently in the evaluation stage include the following: Jacobina: Two options are being evaluated to increase production beyond 150,000 ounces per year, with the increase supported by higher grades, as delineated by the 2017 and 2018 drill program, and through the application of higher milling rates. The first option considers production increases to between 165,000 to 170,000 gold-equivalent ounces per year through a mill optimization to 6,500 tonnes per day (tpd) from the current operating rate of 5,800 tpd. The second option considers a larger increase in the plant capacity to between 8,000 and 8,500 tpd, which would further significantly increase production. Canadian Malartic (50% interest): The Company and its partner are currently evaluating opportunities for the development of the Odyssey and East Malartic deposits with extraction expected to be by way of underground mining methods with ore fed to the existing Malartic mill, displacing a portion of the lower grade open pit ores. Preliminary studies show the potential for production increases of approximately 75,000 gold-equivalent ounces per year (50% interest). Further evaluation through additional drilling from underground access points, resource delineation, and engineering would be required to advance Odyssey and East Malartic towards development decisions. Cerro Moro: An aggressive drill program is planned for 2019 to delineate near-mine targets and test major near-mine and regional structures. An increase in mineral reserves would unlock opportunities to expand the existing processing plant and to transition to grid power resulting in both production increases and a reduction to operating costs. Separately, the Company is also advancing technical studies on the Agua Rica project, a large porphyry-style copper-gold-molybdenum-silver deposit located in the Catamarca province, Argentina. Agua Rica presents an opportunity for the Company to maintain significant copper exposure where development and ownership decisions are to be aligned with the Companys capital allocation priorities and strategies. The Company recently signed and an integration agreement pursuant to which the Agua Rica project would be developed and operated using the existing infrastructure and facilities of Minera Alumbrera Limited in the Catamarca Province of Argentina. The agreement represents a significant step forward towards the optimization of Agua Rica. The Alumbrera infrastructure, including the existing infrastructure for concentrate logistics located in northern Argentina between the mine site and the port, presents a unique opportunity to enhance project economics while also reducing both the project complexity and environmental footprint. Preliminary studies show the potential for a mine life in excess of 25 years at average annual production of approximately 236,000 tonnes (520 million pounds) of copper-equivalent metal(4), including the contributions of gold, molybdenum, and silver, for the first 10 years of operation. This is based on the Agua Rica mineral reserve(5) estimated to contain proven and probable mineral reserves of approximately 4.5 million tonnes (10 billion pounds) of copper and 6.5 million ounces of gold contained in approximately 910 million tonnes of ore. A pre-feasibility study for the integrated project will be completed in 2019 and a full feasibility study with updated mineral reserve, production and project cost estimates will be completed by 2020. Yamanas Approach to Capital Allocation and Portfolio Considerations Consistent with the Companys strategy, with the Sale Transaction, priority has been given to balance sheet improvements. Previously, the Company had been targeting an initial net debt leverage ratio of 1.5x or better. Going forward, the Companys updated target is 1.0x or better with a strategic objective to maintain the lower net debt leverage ratio through the metal price cycle as a means to enhance financial flexibility. Importantly, this approach also affords the Company the ability to be opportunistic, such as to build or buy assets off cycle, with consideration to further increases to shareholder returns including dividends and buy-backs, while balancing these initiatives with the sustainability of cash flows through portfolio optimizations. In the evaluation and assessment of projects, the Companys approach is to target projects for which it has the technical expertise to develop and operate. The Company is targeting after-tax returns of a multiple of its weighted average cost of capital and, as a rule of thumb, approximately 15%. These returns may be adjusted to reflect the complexity of the construction and operation, whether technical or geopolitical. The timing of any construction activity would follow detailed engineering to mitigate against late-cycle design and scope changes. This approach was fundamental to the success of Cerro Moro and remains the template for Yamana going forward. The Company is an Americas-focused company operating in mining friendly jurisdictions with adherence to best practices for mining. Presently, Yamana operates in Canada, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. Consideration will be given to operating in other jurisdictions in North and South America, so long as there are established protocols for permitting and adherence to best practices. Given the significant exploration and expansion opportunities, along with advancing projects in jurisdictions in which the Company presently operates, it is unlikely that Yamana will pursue opportunities in other jurisdictions in the foreseeable future. On the size of mines, Yamana prefers each of its mines to produce at least 130,000 ounces as that represents sufficient size and scale by mine. With the pro forma production platform, three mines exceed 190,000 gold-equivalent ounces and one of those is over 300,000 gold equivalent ounces. Four mines exceed, or soon will exceed, 150,000 gold-equivalent ounces. Only one mine produces below a threshold of 130,000 ounces, although with exploration success, this may change. Conference Call Information Yamana will host a conference call on Monday, April 15, 2019 at 8:00 a.m. ET, where Yamanas senior management will discuss the details of the Sale Transaction. Toll Free (North America): 1-800-806-5484 Passcode 2391595 Toronto Local and International: 416-340-2217 Passcode 2391595 Webcast: www.yamana.com Conference Call REPLAY: Toll Free (North America): 1-800-408-3053 Passcode 7131165 Toronto Local and International: 905-694-9451 Passcode 7131165 The conference call replay will be available until 11:59 p.m. ET on May 15, 2019. For further information on the conference call or webcast, please contact the Investor Relations Department at investor@yamana.com or visit www.yamana.com. ENDNOTES Endnote 1 Refers to a non-GAAP financial measure or an additional line item or subtotal in financial statements. Reconciliations for all non-GAAP financial measures are available at www.yamana.com/Q42018 and in Section 11 of the Companys 2018 Annual Report, which has been filed on SEDAR. Endnote 2 Net debt (ND) and Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) are Non-GAAP metrics Endnote 3 The current Net Debt to EBITDA (ND/EBITDA) ratio is adjusted for the $800 million cash consideration and is based on the last twelve months EBITDA. Endnote 4 Copper equivalent metal includes copper with gold, molybdenum, and silver converted to copper-equivalent metal based on the following metal price assumptions: US$6,614/tonne for copper, US$1,250/oz for gold, US$24,250/tonne for molybdenum, and US$18/oz for silver. Endnote 5 As of December 31, 2018, further details including tonnes, grade and assumptions are presented at the end of this press release. Qualified Persons Scientific and technical information contained in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Sebastien Bernier (Senior Director, Geology and Mineral Resources). Sebastien Bernier is an employee of Yamana Gold Inc. and a "Qualified Person" (QP) as defined by Canadian Securities Administrators' National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Mineral Reserve Statement, Suruca Proven Mineral Reserves Probable Mineral Reserves Total Proven & Probable Tonnes Grade Contained Tonnes Grade Contained Tonnes Grade Contained (000's) (g/t) oz. (000's) (000's) (g/t) oz. (000's) (000's) (g/t) oz. (000's) Gold 11,454 0.42 153 53,741 0.53 908 65,195 0.51 1,062 Mineral Resource Statement, Suruca Measured Mineral Resources Indicated Mineral Resources Total Measured & Indicated Tonnes Grade Contained Tonnes Grade Contained Tonnes Grade Contained (000's) (g/t) oz. (000's) (000's) (g/t) oz. (000's) (000's) (g/t) oz. (000's) Gold 1,284 0.39 16 81,039 0.54 1,416 82,323 0.54 1,432 Inferred Mineral Resources Tonnes Grade Contained (000's) (g/t) oz. (000's) Gold 12,565 0.48 194 Mineral Reserve and Mineral Resource Reporting Notes 1. Metal Price, Cut-off Grade, Metallurgical Recovery: Mineral Reserves Mineral Resources Price assumption: $1,300 gold Price assumption: $1,600 gold Cut-off grade 0.19 g/t gold for Suruca oxide Cut-off grade 0.16 g/t gold for Suruca oxide Cut-off grade 0.3 g/t gold for Suruca sulfide Cut-off grade 0.23 g/t gold for Suruca sulphide Metallurgical recoveries for Suruca oxide average 85% for gold Metallurgical recoveries for Suruca oxide average 85% for gold Metallurgical recoveries for Suruca sulphide average 88% for gold Metallurgical recoveries for Suruca sulphide average 88% for gold 2. All Mineral Resources are reported exclusive of Mineral Reserves. 3. Mineral Resources which are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. 4. Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources are reported as of December 31, 2018. 5. Due to rounding, numbers may not add up precisely to the totals. 6. Mineral Reserves QP, Luiz Pignatari, Registered Member of Chilean Mining Commission, EDEM Engenharia. Mineral Resources QP, Felipe Machado de Araujo, Registered Member of Chilean Mining Commission, Mineral Resources Coordinator Brazil, Yamana Gold Inc. Mineral Reserve Statement, Agua Rica Project Proven Mineral Reserves Probable Mineral Reserves Total Proven & Probable Tonnes Grade Contained Tonnes Grade Contained Tonnes Grade Contained (000's) (g/t) oz. (000's) (000's) (g/t) oz. (000's) (000's) (g/t) oz. (000's) Gold 384,871 0.25 3,080 524,055 0.21 3,479 908,926 0.22 6,559 Silver 384,871 3.7 46,176 524,055 3.3 56,070 908,926 3.5 102,246 Tonnes Grade Contained Tonnes Grade Contained Tonnes Grade Contained (000's) (%) lbs (mm) (000's) (%) lbs (mm) (000's) (%) lbs (mm) Copper 384,871 0.56 4,779 524,055 0.43 5,011 908,926 0.49 9,790 Moly 384,871 0.033 279 524,055 0.030 350 908,926 0.031 629 Mineral Resource Statement, Agua Rica Project Measured Mineral Resources Indicated Mineral Resources Total Measured & Indicated Tonnes Grade Contained Tonnes Grade Contained Tonnes Grade Contained (000's) (g/t) oz. (000's) (000's) (g/t) oz. (000's) (000's) (g/t) oz. (000's) Gold 27,081 0.14 120 173,917 0.14 776 200,998 0.14 896 Silver 27,081 2.4 2,042 173,917 2.9 16,158 200,998 2.8 18,200 Tonnes Grade Contained Tonnes Grade Contained Tonnes Grade Contained (000's) (%) lbs (mm) (000's) (%) lbs (mm) (000's) (%) lbs (mm) Copper 27,081 0.45 266 173,917 0.38 1,447 200,998 0.39 1,714 Moly 27,081 0.049 29 173,917 0.037 142 200,998 0.039 172 Inferred Mineral Resources Tonnes Grade Contained (000's) (g/t) oz. (000's) Gold 642,110 0.12 2,444 Silver 642,110 2.3 48,124 Tonnes Grade Contained (000's) (%) lbs (mm) Copper 642,110 0.34 4,853 Molybdenum 642,110 0.034 480 Mineral Reserve and Mineral Resource Reporting Notes 1. Metal Price, Cut-off Grade, Metallurgical Recovery: Mineral Reserves Mineral Resources Cut-off grade at 0.2% copper Price assumption: $1,000/oz gold, $2.25/lb copper, $17.00/oz silver and $12.00/lb molybdenum Cut-off grade at 0.2% copper Metallurgical recoveries are 84.9% for copper, 52.7% for gold, 67.6% for silver, 65.9% for zinc and 68.0% for molybdenum 2. All Mineral Resources are reported exclusive of Mineral Reserves. 3. Mineral Resources which are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. 4. Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources are reported as of December 31, 2018. 5. Due to rounding, numbers may not add up precisely to the totals. 6. Mineral Reserves QP, Enrique Munoz, MAusIMM, Registered Member of Chilean Mining Commission and Mineral Resources QP, Felipe Machado de Araujo, Registered Member of Chilean Mining Commission. Counsel and Advisors Yamana has engaged Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP as its legal advisors. Citi and Rothschild & Co US Inc. are acting financial advisors to Yamana. About Yamana Gold Inc. Yamana is a Canadian-based gold producer with significant gold production, gold development stage properties, exploration properties, and land positions throughout the Americas including Canada, Brazil, Chile and Argentina. Yamana plans to continue to build on this base through existing operating mine expansions, throughput increases, development of new mines, the advancement of its exploration properties and, at times, by targeting other gold consolidation opportunities with a primary focus in the Americas. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Steve Parsons Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications 416-815-0220 1-888-809-0925 Email: investor@yamana.com CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: This news release contains or incorporates by reference forward-looking statements and forward-looking information under applicable Canadian securities legislation within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to information with respect to the Company's strategy, plans or future financial or operating performance. Forward-looking statements are characterized by words such as "plan," "expect", "budget", "target", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions, assumptions and estimates of management considered reasonable at the date the statements are made, and are inherently subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other known and unknown factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. These factors include the Company's expectations in connection with the satisfaction of all closing conditions, the completion of the Sale Transaction, the expected use of proceeds discussed herein and delivering value creation over the long term, as well as those risk factors discussed or referred to herein and in the Company's Annual Information Form filed with the securities regulatory authorities in all provinces of Canada and available at www.sedar.com , and the Company's Annual Report on Form 40-F filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's estimates, assumptions or opinions should change, except as required by applicable law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The forward-looking information contained herein is presented for the purpose of assisting investors in understanding the Company's expected plans and objectives in connection with the Sale Transaction and may not be appropriate for other purposes. ARGUT, Russia -- Ecologists long suspected the rugged mountains of Sailyugemsky National Park -- tucked into the Central Asian notch where Kazakhstan, Russia, China, and Mongolia meet -- were prime habitat for the beautiful, endangered snow leopard. But little was known about the numbers or habits of the elusive creatures. In 2010, American researcher Rodney Jackson of the Snow Leopard Conservancy donated 20 motion-activated camera traps to his Russian colleagues in hopes of learning more. "Rodney said that if we protect the snow leopard in the Argut area, then their population might recover to sustainable levels within 10 years," Russian naturalist Sergei Spitsyn tells RFE/RL. "Because this is the home of the largest concentration of Siberian mountain goats, which is the snow leopard's preferred prey." "But to our surprise," Spitsyn continues, "over about two years of trying we were not able to photograph a single snow leopard. Only in February 2012 did we find the tracks of two individuals on the left bank of the Argut River. We set up a camera trap and in May we finally got pictures of the two animals, which we named Vita and Kryuk. We understood that we needed people who were intimately familiar with the domain of the snow leopard: hunters." In 2013, Spitsyn traveled to the remote settlement of Argut to meet with local hunter Mergen Markov. Life in Argut is severe -- the one road into the settlement is often passable only to the sturdy local horses. The 12 remaining residents try to eke out a living as shepherds. But a lot of them turn to poaching to make ends meet. A snow leopard pelt can bring in more than 40,000 rubles ($620). The meeting with Markov lasted just minutes. "He came in and told me his project," Markov recalls. "Told me how it was supposed to work. He gave me a photo trap and a four-month trial period. We agreed on where I'd put the camera. So I went there and set it up." Markov knew that the cameras had to be placed high on the cliffs, about 2,000 meters in elevation. His first trip was a success. "I showed my first photos of a snow leopard to my father and he told me immediately that it was a pregnant female," Markov recalled. "A few months later, I put a camera at the same spot and caught a photo of the same female with two kittens. I got a few more photos of them and named them Batyr and Argut." Markov has been wandering the Altai Mountains since he was 5 years old, hunting with his father and herding sheep and cattle. "That was my life before I went into the army, and again after I got back," he tells RFE/RL. Since 2015, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), together with Sailyugemsky and other Altai parks, has been working with local residents to protect endangered wildlife. Under the program a village agrees to remove poaching traps and to refrain from setting more. If at the end of the year a photo trap is able to capture an image of a snow leopard in the region of that village, the WWF pays them 40,000 rubles -- the value of one pelt. In addition, the WWF hires the locals to work as guides for other projects, and rents horses from them. It was an easy transition for most to make, says Denis Malikov, scientific researcher at Sailyugemsky Park. "You shouldn't think that people here just started worrying about preserving wildlife when scientists arrived," he tells RFE/RL. "For people in Altai, both the snow leopard and the argali mountain sheep are sacred animals." SLAVYANKA, Russia -- Stalin is the first name residents of Slavyanka think of when it comes to side streets. It is also the 10th. And the 15th.... In fact, all 25 side streets in the Siberian village are named after the notorious Soviet dictator. The initiative is the brainchild of village head Vyacheslav Zuyev , according to locals, who add that he insists that each of the lanes be called "not just Stalin, but Generalissimo Stalin." Several residents who spoke to RFE/RL said that they had no problem with their streets bearing the name of Josef Stalin, whose reign is commonly equated with terror and political repression. Hundreds of thousands of people were summarily killed during Stalin's Great Purge, while millions more were sent to the gulag, camps notorious for their harsh conditions, brutal treatments of prisoners, and sub-zero temperatures. Yelena, a young mother from Slavyanka, is unmoved. "What's the big deal?" said Yelena, who gave only her first name. "I like it [that our streets are named after Stalin]," she said on April 10. Yelena said she was more worried about practical issues, such as rising electricity prices and road construction. Another passerby said she saw nothing unusual in naming the locations after Stalin. "The naming of the streets is justified because it's not so much about Stalin as it is about the whole country, which has come a long way in its development," said Lyudmila Vasilyevna, who works as a university professor in neighboring Novosibirsk. She downplayed estimates given for victims of Stalin-era repressions, suggesting such figures are exaggerated. "Only 76,000 people were executed in the camps," Lyudmila Vasilyevna said on April 10. Slavyanka residents' main complaint about the street names is that registry officials often misspell the word Generalissimo when they enter their address. "In my passport, they spelled it wrong twice," said a resident of the 5th Side Street Generalissimo I.V. Stalin, who declined to give her name. Slavyanka -- a so-called residential dacha cooperative on the outskirts of Novosibirsk -- dates only back to 2008. Many houses in the village are still partially built and unoccupied. According to Yandex Maps, there are more than 20 full streets -- accounting for a total length of 29 kilometers -- bearing Stalin's name across Russia. Yandex also lists the full name of Slavyanka's side streets, starting with 1st Side Street Generalissimo I.V. Stalin. Village head Zuyev wasn't available for comment as to why a village with no apparent connection to Stalin should have all its side streets named after him. Officials at the Communist Party's Novosibirsk office said they had no idea about the existence of Slavyanka, let alone the names of its side-streets. "I have never heard of it," said Rinat Suleymanov, the second secretary of the party's regional committee. The Communist Party was the only political party during Soviet rule. "The Communist Party doesn't have any connection to the naming of streets," Suleymanov told RFE/RL. The party, however, recently agreed for a Stalin bust to be installed in downtown Novosibirsk. The monument is set to be unveiled on May 9. Lawyer Ivan Kasharin explains that in Novosibirsk the naming of streets is controlled by the office of the mayor. "The office of the mayor has a special commission that deals with naming the streets and the final decision is approved by the mayor," Kasharin told RFE/RL, adding that similar commissions exist in other cities and regions. Nine years on, people in Yushu embrace new life after quake YUSHU, Qinghai Province, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Nine years after a catastrophic earthquake battered Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, which killed thousands of people, new schools, hospitals and squares have mushroomed out of debris, and the locals are rebuilding their new life. Lodru Gyatso, 16, lost his father in the magnitude-7.1 quake, which hit Yushu in northwest China's Qinghai province on April 14, 2010 and left around 3,000 people dead or missing. "I was reading books in school when the quake struck," he said. "When I got back home, my brother told me our dad had been buried under the toppled house." Lodru Gyatso's mother passed away when he was young. He was admitted to a local orphan school after the quake. The school is now home to more than 460 students, many of whom lost their parents in the disaster. "After the earthquake, we have received many donations, which help to improve our infrastructure," said Nyima Rigzin, headmaster of the school. The school, humble with one-storey temporary houses, now has a classroom building, dormitory building, canteen and library. Lodru Gyatso likes to make robots in the classroom equipped with a 3D-printer. For 23-year-old Dawa Tsedin, takeout delivery is a bit boring. But it allows him to enjoy the beauty of Yushu's new cityscape, which has sprung up from a remote, backward town to a modern city over the past nine years. Dawa Tsedin chose to be a take-away food delivery man in Yushu after graduating from a vocational school in Xi'an, capital of neighboring Shaanxi Province. He said he returned because he had seen great potential in takeout delivery in the city. "In the past, I couldn't believe that takeout delivery was available in Yushu," he said. "Now as I pass by the landmarks such as the Gesar Square, I really feel that Yushu looks like a big city." New buildings with Tibetan characteristics, new business quarters and broad avenues have sprung up in the city, in sharp contrast to the scenes before the quake. Cai Chengyong, the city's Party chief, said Yushu has also been improving urban management and building a smart city with advanced technologies. To date, the city has invested over six million yuan (about 895,000 U.S. dollars) to build an intelligent urban management network covering all streets and communities. During reconstruction, Beijing has lent a hand, investing heavily in infrastructure construction and bringing talent of education, medicine, city planning and urban management. Pei Zhifei, a veteran gynecologist from a hospital in Beijing, has been working in the Yushu Prefectural People's Hospital since 2017, tutoring local doctors in complex surgeries. "Now many critically ill patients get treated in Yushu," said Pei. "And many patients from Sichuan and Tibet have come to our hospital seeking medical help." Official data show 163 experts from Beijing, including teachers and doctors, have worked in Yushu to assist the reconstruction. In recent years, Yushu has received a growing number of tourists from home and abroad as it has listed tourism as a pillar industry. Ashak Yumpon, director of Yushu prefecture tourism bureau, said the prefecture, home to the Hol Xil Nature Reserve and the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang (Mekong) rivers, boasts abundant tourism resources. "We will promote sustainable development of the tourism industry and build ourselves into an international tourism destination," he said. Seattle, Washington, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- 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 ISRACANN Biosciences Inc. [Canadian Listed: IPOT (Pending)], and how to invest in Israels cannabis industry. Israel decriminalized adult use cannabis on April 1 just days before the Jewish states April 9 election. The new law makes it legal for Israeli citizens to possess homegrown marijuana plants, while carrying small amounts of cannabis in public will only result in a fine rather than an arrest. The move follows similar legislation across roughly 25 other countries that have legalized cannabis to some extent ranging from decriminalization to full recreational use. While the country is smaller than North American cannabis markets, it has already been established as a research capital and could become a gateway to European markets. Dr. Raphael Mechoulam is widely known as the Godfather of Cannabis after discovering tetrahydrocannabinol and paving the way for medical cannabis research. Cannabis research was legal in Israel long before other countries liberalized their laws. Israels unique location could also make it a key gateway to European markets. The government recently legalized cannabis exports earlier this year and analysts believe that regulations could be in place later this year. As a home to more than 740 million people, Europe is roughly double the size of the Canadian and U.S. markets, which represent the two largest legal cannabis markets in the world right now. Investing in Israels Cannabis Industry ISRACANN Biosciences Inc. [Canadian Listed: IPOT (Pending)] will be Israels first pure-play cannabis company to list on a Canadian exchange, with a fully-funded facility of 232,900 sq. ft. With plans to initially target the domestic market before exporting into Europe, investors may want to keep an eye on the stock as it gears up to go public in Canada under the ticker symbol IPOT later this year. Click Here: Learn how to invest in ISRACANN Biosciences as an Accredited Investor. With over 15 years of experience in the capital markets, President and CEO Darryl Jones took True Leaf Medicine public at a $10 million valuation and exited in 2016 with a $150 million market capitalization. Hes joined by an experienced team of cannabis and finance veterans with an established track record of success. The company will also partner with leading Israeli research institutions and universities to leverage their expertise in the market. The company is well positioned in Israel via its agreements with three farms with cultivation licenses. These operations have a fully-funded capacity of 232,900 sq. ft. with the ability to produce 23,500 kilograms of cannabis per year. Management believes these operations can be further scaled to produce 50,000 kilograms per year with a low production cost of just 40 cents per gram given the unique climate and technologies. Whats Next for Israels Cannabis Market? It is anticipated that new guidelines will enable more patients to purchase cannabis at pharmacies with a prescription. Currently, the law is restricted to patients suffering from Parkinsons, epilepsy, cancer, and other terminal illnesses, which has limited demand. The new law is expected to go into effect imminently. Over the longer-term, Israel appears to be moving closer to a fully-legalized cannabis market. Mainstream political parties have been supportive of cannabis legalization and theres widespread demand from the public for reforms. Decriminalization and wider medical cannabis use are a great first step, but the countrys cannabis market wont realize its true potential until adult-use cannabis is legalized and export laws go into effect. Fortunately, Israel legalized exports in January 2019, initiating a massive catalyst for the Israeli market. Click Here: Learn how to invest in ISRACANN Biosciences as an Accredited Investor. ISRACANN Biosciences Inc. [Canadian Listed: IPOT (Pending)] plans to become fully operational in the near-term with initial harvests expected by the first quarter of 2020. Given the strong valuations across North American cannabis companies, investors may want to keep a close eye on the stock ahead of its listing on a Canadian Stock Exchange later this year. The unique exposure to Israels market and the potential to expand into Europe are key catalysts. Please follow the link to read the full article on CFN: https://www.cannabisfn.com/israel-decriminalizes-adult-use-cannabis-in-another-step-toward-legalization/ About CFN Media CFN Media (CannabisFN) is the leading creative agency and media network dedicated to legal cannabis. We help marijuana businesses attract investors, customers (B2B, B2C), capital, and media visibility. Private and public marijuana companies and brands in the US and Canada rely on CFN Media to grow and succeed. Learn how to become a CFN Media client company, brand or entrepreneur: http://www.cannabisfn.com/featuredcompany Download the CFN Media iOS mobile app to access the world of cannabis from the palm of your hand: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cannabisfn/id988009247?ls=1&mt=8 Or visit our homepage and enter your mobile number under the Apple App Store logo to receive a download link text on your iPhone: http://www.cannabisfn.com Disclaimer 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. TORONTO, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Blueberries Medical Corp. (CSE: BBM) (OTCQB: BBRRF) (FRA: 1OA) (the Company or "Blueberries") a Latin American licenced producer of medicinal cannabis and cannabis-derived products, has signed a definitive joint venture agreement (the Agreement) with the International Research Center on Cannabis and Mental Health (IRCCMH or the Center) for the development of medical education programs for physicians and patients in Latin America and product formulation. IRCCMH is a leading research and academic organization in the cannabis sector with extensive experience in cannabis research and education, pharmacology, product formulation and the efficacy of cannabis-based treatments. Based in New York and aligned with the Silver School of Social Work at New York University, IRCCMH is comprised of renowned scientists, educators and clinicians and was created to bridge a gap between research and clinical practice. IRCCMH also creates education programs for physicians and patients and acts as advisor to several state-sponsored medical cannabis programs and has guided state regulators to create and implement cannabis programs in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Utah, California and other states. Founded by Jan Roberts, LCSW and Jahan Marcu, Ph.D, the Centers founders and staff are regarded as thought leaders in the sector and have also been deeply involved with several other leading cannabis focused associations and are respected authors and speakers within the industry as further detailed below. "This collaboration agreement with IRCCMH provides an outstanding opportunity for Blueberries to leverage IRCCMHs deep sector expertise to help educate physicians in Latin America and develop medical treatments for patients in the Latin American market and beyond. As cannabis regulation evolves globally, education and awareness are paramount to its adoption and the establishment of early mover advantages," stated Dr. Patricio Stocker, Chief Executive Officer of the Company. IRCCMH is a highly respected institution in the United States and their focus on education and research aligns with our goal of providing effective and responsible treatment to a broad spectrum of patients and customers globally. The agreement will emphasize education for prescribing doctors and patients and provide educational tools for all parties. This alliance will ensure that we are developing products and treatments that the medical community needs, with a streamlined process for reaching patients in these evolving markets. IRCCMH will leverage its background and expertise to support the development of Blueberries commercial and educational initiatives. Together with IRCCMH, Blueberries is developing a treatment-focused medical education program designed to assist physicians in prescribing cannabis-based treatment plans to patients (the Program) in Latin America. A comprehensive patient and physician education program will be a cornerstone of Blueberries strategy for the introduction and adoption of cannabis-based treatments, positioning Blueberries as an early leader in the Latin American medicinal cannabis market. IRCCMH is excited about our collaboration with Blueberries Medical and the opportunity to leverage our expertise in cannabis-based patient care, research and education in rapidly evolving global markets, stated Jan Roberts, founder of IRCCMH stated, This affiliation will help Blueberries position themselves in Latin America as a leader in medical cannabis treatment and will ensure that the research, education, and unique expertise of IRCCMH will impact a growing segment of medical treatment with cannabis in this region of the world. This initiative will initially be rolled out through the companys previously announced partnership with El Manantial Medical Centers in Bogota which will provide the platform, resources, patients and expertise needed to launch the Program and commercialize the formulations and products developed through the collaboration with the IRCCMH. Blueberries is further extending its patient & physician network currently, replicating the El Manantial Medical Center model with other physicians, institutions and medical associations. In addition to the development of best in class educational programs for the education of physicians and patients in Latin America, access to IRCCMHs team of specialists with deep expertise in medical cannabis will facilitate faster product development and generate the appropriate formulations and product standardization to accelerate the commercialization of the Companys medicinal cannabis products, initially through El Manantial Medical Centers rapidly growing patient base and the Companys other strategic arrangements. About IRCCMH & IRCCMH Founders Based in New York and aligned with the Silver School of Social Work at NYU and building upon years of expertise working with cannabis and mental health in the United States, IRCCMH was created to bridge a gap between research and clinical practice. IRCCMH was co-founded by Jan Roberts and Dr. Jahan Marcu in 2017 to provide quality research and education to the medical cannabis community. IRCCMH is a community-based institute in New York City that collaborates with universities, researchers, foundations, state institutions, and other organizations to leverage the best talent in the field. The Institute works to build educational seminars, expand research with universities, and provide consultation for healthcare professionals and regulatory organizations in order to improve patient care. Through its numerous projects, Marcu and Roberts have been instrumental in creating dialogues in areas of cannabis education and investigation that hadnt been previously addressed. For more information visit www.irccmh.org/about-irccmh . Jan Roberts, LCSW: CEO & Director of Translational Research Jan Roberts is a co-founder for IRCCMH and serves as CEO and Director of Translational Research. Ms. Roberts is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who owns and operates one of the largest collaborative care practices in the mid-Atlantic region - Partners in Health and Wellbeing. Ms. Roberts is a clinician and an entrepreneur with an activist spirit who has extensive experience running both non-profit and for-profit healthcare organizations. Ms. Roberts teaches at NYU Silver School of Social Work and is currently working on a funded study of Mental Health Clinicians and Knowledge and Attitudes on Cannabis. She is also Guest-Editor for a Special Issue on Cannabis and Mental Health for the Clinical Social Work Journal (CSWJ). Ms. Roberts' current work is focused on the clinical application of cannabis in mental health settings and focusing on maladaptive coping strategies rather than a substance-based approach to treating addictions. As a result, Ms. Roberts is especially interested in educating fellow mental health clinicians on the most recent research findings to address stigma and lack of knowledge related to cannabis, the endocannabinoid system and mental health outcomes. Jahan Marcu, Ph.D.: COO & Director of Experimental Pharmacology and Behavioral Research Jahan Marcu, Ph.D., is a co-founder for IRCCMH. Dr. Marcu is the former Chief Science Officer at Americans for Safe Access (a medical cannabis advocacy non-profit) and former Director of the Patient Focused Certification program, which is a health and safety oversight program that assesses regulatory compliance at cannabis operations. He is co-founder and past-chairman of the CANN subdivision of the Chemical Health and Safety Division (DCHAS) of the American Chemical Society. His is also on the Board of Directors of the International Association for Cannabinoids as Medicine. He has a background in analytical chemistry and molecular pharmacology, and received his Ph.D. for contributions in characterizing the structure and function of the cannabinoid receptors. He is an author of the American Herbal Pharmacopeia's Cannabis Monograph and serves on multiple expert government, trade association committees and scientific organizations. Dr. Marcu has helped create medical cannabis educational training for clinicians and for workers in the medical cannabis industry, and has been invited to speak at many international conferences and universities, including the University of Leiden, Temple University School of Medicine, Princeton Hospital, and Yale University. Dr. Marcu is also a court qualified expert witness on cannabis and synthetic cannabinoids. Dr. Marcu is a recipient of the Billy Martin research award from the International Cannabinoid Research Society. About Blueberries Medical Corp. Blueberries is a Latin American licensed producer of naturally grown premium quality cannabis with its primary operations ideally located in the Bogota Savannah of central Colombia and operations currently being established in Argentina. The Company is led by a specialized team with proprietary expertise in agriculture, genetics, extraction, medicine, pharmacology and marketing, Blueberries is fully licensed for the cultivation, production, domestic distribution, and international export of CBD and THC-based medical cannabis in Colombia. Blueberries combination of leading scientific expertise, agricultural advantages and distribution arrangements has positioned the Company to become a leading international supplier of naturally grown, processed, and standardized medicinal-grade cannabis oil extracts and related products. Additional information about the Company is available at www.blueberriesmed.com . For more information, please contact: Camilo Villalba, Chief Operating Officer Tel: +57.313.483.0131 Email: cvillalba@blueberriesmed.com Jessika Angarita, Pacta Relations angarita@pactarelations.com Tel: +1 (305) 877 4710 Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information This news release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward looking statements") within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that involves discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as expects, or does not expect, is expected, anticipates or does not anticipate, plans, budget, scheduled, forecasts, estimates, believes or intends or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results may or could, would, might or will be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. In this news release, forward looking statements relate, among other things, to: expectations relating to the potential benefits of the Agreement and the Companys partnership with the Center, expectations regarding the development and commercialization of the Companys products, and future growth plans. These forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions and estimates of management of the Company at the time such statements were made. Actual future results may differ materially as forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to materially differ from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors, among other things, include: fluctuations in general macroeconomic conditions; fluctuations in securities markets; expectations regarding the size of the Colombian and international medical cannabis market and changing consumer habits; the ability of the Company to successfully achieve its business objectives; plans for expansion; political and social uncertainties; inability to obtain adequate insurance to cover risks and hazards; and the presence of laws and regulations that may impose restrictions on cultivation, production, distribution and sale of cannabis and cannabis related products in Colombia or internationally; and employee relations. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the Company believes, or believed at the time, to be reasonable assumptions, the Company cannot assure shareholders that actual results will be consistent with such forward-looking statements, as there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release. The Company assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law. Cancun police arrest seven, seize 263 bags of drugs Cancun, Q.R. A series of Cancun surveillance operations over the weekend has resulted in seven being arrested and more than 260 bags of drugs being removed from streets. Members of the Quintana Roo Police force made the arrests in different parts of the city through neighborhood surveillance operations. The seven were taken into custody in five different incidences. One of the detained was a 16-year-old minor of Colombian origin. The 16-year-old was found carrying 13 bags of marijuana in the Los Garcia neighborhood in Supermanzana 225. A second arrest also involved a Colombian man, 35, who was found circulating with a bag of marijuana from a motorcycle on Paseos Kabah. Two others, a 19 and a 29-year-old, were taken into custody by Cancun police when they were discovered in Colonia Los Garcia in Supermanzana 225 with 57 doses of cocaine and crack, while, in that same community, another alleged drug dealer was captured with 96 doses of cocaine, crack and marijuana. Several others were arrested when police found two alleged drug dealers carrying 96 doses of varying drugs that included cocaine, crack, crystal and mota along the Cancun-Playa del Carmen highway. In total, Cancun police arrested seven and seized 263 bags of drugs. Feds seize nine kilos of drugs from Tulum beaches Tulum, Q.R. Members of the Policia Federal were busy over the weekend seizing packages of drugs found washed up on Tulum beaches. A total of nine kilos was found in different areas with the first being reported outside the Royal Catalonia Tulum hotel after police were alerted to the mysterious package. When they arrived, the found the rectangular package that, when opened, contained 5.7 kilos of marijuana. Photo: Policia Federal The second report came in for a suspicious package seen on the beach at the Bahia Principe hotel. When police arrived, they found that wrapped package contained 3.8 kilos of marijuana. Both packages were handed over to the agent of the Public Ministry of the Common Jurisdiction in Solidaridad for investigations. Lopez Obrador says US will support Maya Train project Hopelchen, Campeche Mexicos President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says that during his recent talks with US officials, the United States has agreed to support the countrys Maya Train project. The announcement of support came after a Friday meeting in Merida with Wilbur Ross, the United States Secretary of Commerce. During a speech given in Hopelchen, Campeche over the weekend, ALMO said that Wilbur Ross conveyed the willingness of the US president to invest. Yesterday we had a meeting in Merida, Yucatan with the Secretary of Commerce of the United States government and he gave me a message from President Trump that they are willing to invest and help to build the Maya Train and other infrastructure work in the southeast, said Lopez Obrador. Photo: U.S. Commerce Dept. Ross, who is the principal voice of business in the Trump Administration said, I congratulate the new presidential administration in Mexico for its strong emphasis on improving the economic development of this region in particular, adding, We also thank them for assisting us as we confront the crisis at our southern border. Thomas Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the Chamber had vigorously opposed the idea of closing the U.S.-Mexico border, which would have imperiled that trade. Ross explained that Mexico is the United States second-largest export market and its third-biggest trading partner with more than $678 billion in goods and services changing hands last year. REHOVOT, Israel, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Todos Medical Ltd. (OTCQB: TOMDF) a clinical-stage in-vitro diagnostics company focused on the development of blood tests for the early detection of cancer and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, today announced the signing of a Distribution Agreement with Orot+, the operational division of Orot-Luces ( http://orot-luces.com ), for exclusive distribution rights of Todos Medical Ltd.s innovative and cost-effectiveTM-B2 blood tests for breast cancer screening in the European territories of Romania and Austria. Since inception, Todos Medical has worked diligently to bring our breast cancer screening technology to commercialization to help patients and their physicians identify cancer earlier in the disease process using a simple blood test, said Dr. Herman Weiss, Todos Medicals CEO. Today, we are happy to announce the signing of a Distribution Agreement with Orot+ to act as the exclusive distributor of Todos Medicals breast cancer screens in Austria and Romania. Establishing a local network to introduce our cancer screening tests to the European market is an important milestone for Todos Medical. We are excited at the opportunity to bring Todos Medicals simple blood test for the early detection of breast cancer to Austria and Romania, said Mr. Ron Streichman, Orot-Luces groups CEO. We believe that our experienced team and established network will be instrumental in making our vision to give cancer patients access to innovative solutions, a better chance at long term survival, resulting in a better quality of life. We look forward to working with Todos for many years to come. Orot+ will be responsible for marketing and distribution costs and execution associated with commercializing the breast cancer tests in Romania and Austria. Todos Medical will be able to use the data gathered from these initiatives to support further development and commercialization in other jurisdictions. About Todos Medical Todos Medical Ltd. (OTCQB: TOMDF), an Israeli company headquartered in Rehovot, is a cancer in-vitro-diagnostic (IVD) company engaged in the development of a series of blood tests for the early detection of a variety of cancers and has initiated the development of blood tests for neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, through Breakthrough Diagnostics, Inc. its joint venture with Amarantus Bioscience Holdings, Inc. (OTCPK:AMBS). The company has developed two cancer screening tests based on TBIA (Todos Biochemical Infrared Analyses), a method for cancer screening using peripheral blood analysis. The TBIA screening method is based on the cancers influence on the immune system which triggers biochemical changes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and plasma. This proprietary and patented method incorporates biochemistry, physics and signal processing. The companys two cancer screening tests, TM-B1 and TM-B2 are CE marked in the EU. Breakthrough Diagnostics is developing the Alzheimers blood diagnostic LymPro Test. For more information, the content of which is not part of this press release, please visit http://www.Todosmedical.com . About Orot+ Orot+, an Israeli company headquartered in Tel-Aviv, is the operational division of Orot-Luces ( http://orot-luces.com ). Orot+ focuses on connecting innovative solutions with significant unmet needs in the cancer care eco-system (diagnostics, therapeutics and patient empowerment). The Orot+ team has vast experience and proven track record in building and operating medical services across Europe. Orot+ maintains close working relationships with Amethyst (Amethyst-radiotherapy.com) a pan-European Radiotherapy network which the Orot+ team was actively involved in establishing and operating. Orot+ is well established and connected to key opinion leaders, doctors, clinics, hospitals, medical centers and has close working relationships with regulatory bodies and reimbursement agencies. Forward-looking statements: This press release contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are only based on the current expectations of the management of Todos Medical Ltd., and are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements, including the risks and uncertainties related to the progress, timing, cost, and results of clinical trials and product development programs; difficulties or delays in obtaining regulatory approval or patent protection for our product candidates; competition from other biotechnology companies; and our ability to obtain additional funding required to conduct our research, development and commercialization activities. In addition, the following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements: changes in technology and market requirements; delays or obstacles in launching our clinical trials; changes in legislation; inability to timely develop and introduce new technologies, products and applications; lack of validation of our technology as we progress further and lack of acceptance of our methods by the scientific community; inability to retain or attract key employees whose knowledge is essential to the development of our products; unforeseen scientific difficulties that may develop with our process; greater cost of final product than anticipated; loss of market share and pressure on pricing resulting from competition; and laboratory results that do not translate to equally good results in real settings, all of which could cause the actual results or performance of Todos Medical Ltd. to differ materially from those contemplated in such forward-looking statements. Except as otherwise required by law, Todos Medical Ltd. undertakes no obligation to publicly release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. More detailed information about the risks and uncertainties affecting the company is contained under the heading Risk Factors in Todos Medical Ltd.s Annual Report on Form 20-F. Reference is made to Todos Medical Ltd.s Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017 filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which is available on the SEC's website, www.sec.gov and in the Companys periodic filings with the SEC. Media Contact: Todos Medical Ltd. Daniel Hirsch Investor Relations Dan.h@todosmedical.com (347) 699-0029 Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell quelled an intraparty fight Monday when he reluctantly embraced an earmark ban demanded by the GOPs conservative wing. In a surprise floor speech, the Kentucky Republican said that he was joining the Republican leadership in the House in supporting a ban on earmarks, despite his continued belief that earmarking is a Constitutional right of lawmakers and a necessary practice. Im not wild about turning over more spending authority to the executive branch, he said Monday. But the only way we will be able to turn the corner and save our future is if elected leaders like me make the kinds of difficult decisions voters are clearly asking us to make. By agreeing to support a ban on earmarks, McConnell, a longtime appropriator, at least temporarily put off a showdown with Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), the conservative agitator who has led the charge for a ban. McConnells move, combined with the White Houses announcement Monday of its support for a temporary earmark ban, may put more pressure on Senate Democrats to address the issue, too. This was just becoming a distraction, a senior GOP aide said, explaining McConnells announcement. The aide added that todays planned closed-door vote on the ban was shaping up to be an ugly fight between traditional legislators in the Conference and the increasingly large faction of conservative reformers. A MAN who went into a McDonalds restaurant in Dalton armed with a bladed weapon and assaulted a woman will have to wait until next month to learn his fate. Anthony Binney (36), of Elliott Court, Rotherham, was due to be sentenced at Sheffield Magistrates Court today (Monday) but his case was adjourned until May 3 because his pre-sentence report was not ready. Binney admitted on April 1 to possession of a bladed weapon and common assault in relation to an incident at McDonalds on Doncaster Road on March 28. He was remanded in custody and is due to appear via video link at the next hearing. Sudhir Mungantiwar Mumbai, Apr 15: Maharashtra Finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar has dared the Congress to implement its minimum income guarantee scheme called Nyay in states by ruled by it. In an interview to PTI, he said the Congress itself knew its ambitious poverty-alleviation scheme was not implementable. The Congress, in its manifesto, has said that 20 per cent poorest families in the country will get Rs 72,000 annually as part of its Nyunatam Aay Yojana (Nyay). When asked about the Nyay scheme, the minister said, similarly, in 2004, the Maharashtra Congress government under Sushil Kumar Shinde had promised free electricity, only to raise tariff by Re 1 per unit in six months. Shinde also promised food grains at Re 1 per kg, but the then Congress president later called it a "printing mistake", he said. Similarly, a Congress promise during the recent Rajasthan Assembly elections of allowance for unemployed people is yet to to be fulfilled. Advertisement "There can be sunrise at midnight but Congress cannot have its own prime minister. Yet, if they are so clever with economics and if they have the courage, they should start the (Nyay) scheme with states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and set an example. If it removes unemployment there (Congress-ruled states), people might believe them," he said. "The Congress knows this scheme is not implementable. Sushil Kumar Shinde In 2013, Dr Manmohan Singh had said if he is unable to reduce subsidies amounting to Rs 1,39,000 crore, the country will deviate from the right path and there will be financial chaos. A dialogue of his then had become famous. He had asked if money grew on trees," Mungantiwar said. He further said the Congress was not clarifying where the Rs 4 lakh crore needed for the scheme will be raised. "The Congress has a history of not fulfilling promises. Advertisement In 1971, they spoke of garibi hatao (removing poverty), but poverty remained. The Congress has an anti-democratic heart," the minister alleged. When asked if issues like the construction of Ram temple, the Pulwama attack and air strike inside Pakistan were a (BJP) ploy to deviate from "real issues" as the Opposition parties claim, the minister said on the contrary, the BJP and other NDA constituents have been working hard on a development agenda since coming to power in 2014. "However, they (the Opposition) are trying to create an atmosphere as if for us only issues like Pulwama, Ram temple are important. In the last 5 years, when Modi ji talks of development, Ayushman Bharat, farmers credit card, Jan Dhan scheme, the same people kept asking what happened to Ram temple and when we talk about Ram temple, they ask what happened to development," he said. PM Modi Advertisement Mungantiwar said PM Modi gives equal importance to politics of development and quality of living as well as the country's pride and security. Mungantiwar said the issues raised by the Congress president (Rahul Gandhi) now were first raised by the party in 1952, and sought to know why they were not solved in all these years. "Except Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, all those who have ruled the country belonged to Congress gotra (lineage). It was under PM Modi that a government with absolute majority was formed without the Congress gotra. Modiji uses his authority only for the service of the common man," Mungantiwar said. Accusing the Congress of being "two-faced", the senior BJP leader said it "troubled" Babasaheb Ambedkar the most but now asks for votes in the name of the Dalit icon. "Babasaheb had written a book asking what the Congress had done for the untouchables. Babasaheb, while drafting the Constitution, had spoken for a Uniform Civil Code, and had opposed Article 370," he said. "Dr Ambedkar was not given a Bharat Ratna for 34 years after his death, and today they (Congress) ask for votes in his name," he said. Structured Indo-Pak engagement key to build edifice of durable peace New Delhi, Apr 15: Pakistan has said it was hoping for "re-engagement" with India after the Lok Sabha polls, noting that structured dialogue would enable the two countries to understand mutual concerns, resolve outstanding disputes and build the edifice of durable peace and security in the region. In an interview to PTI, Pakistan's outgoing High Commissioner Sohail Mahmood said diplomacy and dialogue are indispensable to improve ties between the two neighbours. "We hope for re-engagement after the elections in India. Diplomacy and dialogue are indispensable," he said. Tensions between the two countries worsened after the Pulwama terror attack and both the countries were almost on the brink of a war after India's military planes struck a terrorist training camp in Pakistan's Balakot on February 26 and Pakistan carried out a counter-offensive the next day. Advertisement Mahmood, who has been appointed as Pakistan's next Foreign Secretary said dialogue between India and Pakistan was the only option to understand mutual concerns and ensure peace, prosperity and security in the region. "Sustained engagement and structured dialogue would enable the two countries to understand mutual concerns and differences, resolve outstanding disputes and build the edifice of durable peace, security and prosperity in the region," Mahmood said. Sohail Mahmood He also said that there was a need to review the narrative about Pakistan in India. "A narrative is needed that captures the reality in Pakistan objectively and more fully. A narrative that also helps recognise opportunities for peaceful, cooperative and good neighbourly relations," he said. "We must strive for stable peace, equal security and shared prosperity for ourselves and the region," the envoy added. Advertisement In signs of easing tensions, Pakistan around two weeks ago announced that it was releasing 360 Indian prisoners, mostly fishermen as a "goodwill gesture". The initiative was followed by Pakistan High Commission here granting visas to 2,200 Sikh pilgrims from India to facilitate their participation in the annual Baisakhi celebrations in Pakistan. Over two weeks after the Balakot strike, India and Pakistan held talks to finalise the modalities for setting up a corridor linking the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan's Kartarpur with Gurdaspur district in Punjab. Asked about the Kartarpur corridor project, the Pakistani High Commissioner said Islamabad was committed to completing the physical infrastructure on its side. "The government of Pakistan is proceeding in full measures to complete the physical infrastructure on its side and it is hopeful that the modalities will be mutually agreed between the two sides in good time before November 2019," he said. Nawaz Sharif Advertisement Last November, both India and Pakistan agreed to set up the Kartarpur corridor to link the historic Gurdwara Darbar Sahib -- the final resting place of Sikh faith's founder Guru Nanak Dev -- to Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur. Kartarpur Sahib is located in Pakistan's Narowal district across the river Ravi, about four kilometres from the Dera Baba Nanak shrine. The relations between India and Pakistan remained tense since 2016. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had travelled to Delhi to attend Modi's oath-taking ceremony and the Indian premier had in December 2015 made a stopover in Lahore to greet his counterpart on his birthday. However, the ties nose-dived following a string of cross-border terror attacks in 2016 and India's subsequent surgical strikes. The sentencing of alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav to death by a military court in April 2017 further deteriorated bilateral ties. Curious Case of An Indian Netas Qualification Chandigarh 15th April'2019: Let us visualise a scenario. An employer hires a person, and asks for the educational records, and other required documents before appointing. The person in question submits an affidavit claiming a graduate degree, and gets the job. A few years later, while renewing the contract, another such declaration is required, and the employee submits the declaration again. Only this time, the employer finds out, that the earlier declaration made by the employer, of being a graduate are false, and that person is a first-year drop-out. What do you think must have happened? Yes! You are right in thinking that the said employees services were terminated. At least that is what happens in a normal day-to-day scenario. But not in our political scenario. In our political scenario, a person who lies about educational qualifications while contesting for the highest sanctorum of democracy, the Parliament, is alleviated to the rank of a Union Minister. Advertisement Smriti Irani The above scenario matches what happened in the case of former HRD minister and present Textile Minister Smriti Zubin Irani. It was in the year 2004, that Smriti Irani, while submitting her nomination from Chandni Chowk in new Delhi, had claimed in her affidavit that she had done her Bachelor of Arts (BA) from Delhi University in 1996, via School of Open Learning (Correspondence). The problem here is not her education, but her later claims, and the questions on its authenticity. In 2011, while filing her nomination for Rajya Sabha from Gujrat, Smriti Irani claimed in her affidavit that her highest qualification was Bachelor of Commerce Part I, from Delhi University School of Open Learning. Her consequent affidavits submitted while filing nomination for Lok Sabha election 2019 from Amethi state a slightly different fact, where she states her qualification as Bachelor of Commerce Part I (Three-year degree course not completed) through the School of Open Learning (Correspondence), University of Delhi in 1994. Advertisement Is her qualification complete or incomplete? At an event organised by India Today, The India Today Woman Summit in reply to a question asked by a journalist, about discrepancies in her affidavits submitted to EC, she vehemently claimed that she had a degree from Yale University which she could show all the people who call her uneducated and shut them up. She said that Yale celebrated her leadership capacities in that degree. Yes, Smriti Irani is that employee of the People of India, who produced a fake affidavit while applying for her job at the Parliament. Even after so many disclosures, she continues to remain on the job. Given any other normal scenario, this would not have been possible. But in the politics of our nation, anything and everything is possible. After submitting her conflicting affidavits, the conflicts which are highlighted are many. Is her qualification complete or incomplete? Advertisement Smriti Irani finally admits she is not a graduate The minister has been asked this question on various occasions, but has very conveniently avoided answering. Has she studied Arts (according to her affidavit in 2004) or Commerce (according to her affidavits following 2011)? Smriti Irani and BJP have easily passed the buck on to other incidents of politicians lying about their qualifications. But the most important question is, is there any accountability and ownership of politicians playing around with the laws and rules? And an even bigger question is, can a person who has never been to a college, and has regularly lied about her qualification, be appointed as in-charge of an important ministry like Human Resource Development, which decides all policy matters on higher education in the nation. Her ability can be judged from the fact that she thinks a 6 day crash course in a foreign university is equal to a degree from the same. Can an employee of the People of India, who has lied her way through, stay on the job? Should the employer forgive an employee of such a blunder which is akin to a moral crime? Advertisement -Ravijot Kaur New York, NY, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Maureen M. Goodenow, Ph.D., National Institutes of Health (NIH) Associate Director for AIDS Research and Director of the Office of AIDS Research (OAR) will be presented the 2019 Esperanza Award by the Latino Commission on AIDS at its Annual Cielo Gala on Friday, June 7, 2019, at Cipriani Wall Street in Manhattan. The Esperanza (Hope) Award was created by the Commission to recognize leaders in medical research, public health, and treatment dedicated to stemming the tide of HIV and AIDS. Dr. Goodenow has 30 years of experience in HIV/AIDS research and is a respected, peer-reviewed author, publishing more than 100 articles and book chapters. Dr. Goodenow continues to invest in the next generation of scientists and has trained more than 50 doctoral and postdoctoral fellows. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to honor Dr. Maureen M. Goodenow for her dedicated service and distinguished career in HIV/AIDS research, said Guillermo Chacon, president of the Latino Commission on AIDS. It is through science, research and community engagement, such as that of Dr. Goodenows, that we keep hope and optimism alive as we work toward ending HIV and AIDS in our life time. We thank her and the NIH for joining us in this cause to design a world without AIDS. Dr. Goodenow joined NIH in 2016 and leads the OAR in coordinating the HIV/AIDS research agenda across the NIH. Before her tenure at OAR, Dr. Goodenow was involved in international AIDS efforts as the Acting Director of the Office for Research and Science within the U.S. Department of State, Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and Office of Global Health Diplomacy. In 2012, Dr. Goodenow was the recipient of the prestigious Jefferson Science Fellowship at the State Department, where she served as senior science advisor in the Office of Economic Policys Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Prior to her government service, Dr. Goodenow was a professor of pathology, immunology, and laboratory medicine at the University of Florida, Gainesville, where she held the Stephany W. Holloway University Endowed Chair for HIV/AIDS Research. She also was the Director of the Center for Research in Pediatric Immune Deficiency Diseases, where she led a research program in HIV pathogenesis, genetic diversity, host-virus interactions at the molecular level, and the role of recreational marijuana in HIV-associated inflammation and neurocognitive conditions in youth with HIV. I am truly honored to be recognized by the Latino Commission on AIDS with the Esperanza Award,said Dr. Goodenow. The Commission, Health and Human Services (HHS), NIH and community partners have a shared goal in addressing the challenges in preventing and responding to the HIV epidemic in our nation. A New York native, Dr. Goodenow received her undergraduate degree in biology from Fordham University and her Ph.D. in molecular genetics from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Following a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular oncology at the Sloan Kettering Institute, Dr. Goodenow was a visiting scientist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, where she began her study of HIV. The Cielo Gala raises support for the Latino Commission on AIDS to create and promote HIV and AIDS service programs and initiatives aimed at increasing awareness, prevention, and treatment education, as well as building capacity among other organizations serving Latino communities throughout the U.S. and the US Territories. Under the theme Designing a World without AIDS, the Cielo Gala this year will highlight transgender-led HIV/AIDS initiatives and leaders. For more information on the event and how to order tickets, visit: cielolatino.org. ### About the Latino Commission on AIDS The Latino Commission on AIDS (Commission) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1990 dedicated to meet the health challenges and addressing the impact of HIV/AIDS, viral Hepatitis, and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the Hispanic/Latinx community. The Commission is the leading organization coordinating National Hispanic Hepatitis Awareness Day (May 15), National Latino AIDS Awareness Day (October 15), Latinos in the Deep South, and other prevention, research, capacity building, and advocacy programs across the United States and its territories. The Latino Commission is also the founder of the Hispanic Health Network, dedicated to eliminating health disparities in Latino communities. New York, NY, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust has awarded $4.3 million to Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, and Robarts Clinical Trials, Inc. to launch the Stenosis Therapy and Anti-Fibrotic Research (STAR) consortium for the development of imaging and patient-reported outcome tools that will enable the clinical testing of new anti-fibrotic therapies for Crohns disease patients. People with Crohns disease, a chronic inflammatory condition of the intestinal tract, frequently develop stricturing or narrowing of the intestinal tract due to excessive scar tissue formation, known as fibrosis. Although advances have been made in the treatment of gut inflammation, the development of treatments for Crohns disease fibrosis has been hindered due to a lack of appropriate tools that enable clinical testing of anti-fibrotic drugs. The STAR consortium, for which Cleveland Clinic will be the coordinating center, will be co-led by Florian Rieder, M.D., Cleveland Clinic, Joel Fletcher, M.D., Mayo Clinic and Brian Feagan M.D., Robarts Clinical Trials, Inc. The consortium will draw upon the expertise of each of the centers to develop and validate a patient-reported outcome tool that measures signs, symptoms and impacts experienced by stricturing Crohns disease patients that are indicative of a therapys success or failure, as well as an imaging system to measure how these strictures respond to anti-fibrotic therapies. Addressing the unmet medical needs of patients with Crohns disease is at the center of our Programs mission. The STAR consortium represents a tremendous opportunity to create the tools necessary for advancing anti-fibrotic therapeutic clinical trials, said Dr. Garabet Yeretssian, Director of the Helmsley Charitable Trusts Crohns Disease Program. Helmsley is proud to partner with the STAR consortium experts to develop and disseminate these tools to the greater Crohns disease clinical and research communities and benefit all patients. The significant support from the Helmsley Charitable Trust will enable us to accelerate the development of much-needed anti-fibrotic therapies for patients with stricturing Crohns disease, said Dr. Rieder, Cleveland Clinic. For patients with stricturing Crohns disease and their families, development of anti-fibrotic drugs could mean greatly reducing infections, pain, surgeries and hospitalizations that currently result from Crohns disease complications, said Dr. Fletcher, Mayo Clinic. Robarts Clinical Trials, Inc. is proud to be an integral partner in a collaboration that brings together expertise in gastroenterology, radiology and clinical epidemiology to address a poorly studied clinical problem that affects many patients with Crohns disease, said Dr. Feagan, Robarts Clinical Trials, Inc. Through the development of patient reported outcome and imaging tools, the STAR consortium will help build a pathway to develop new, effective therapeutics for Crohns disease that will ultimately improve the well-being of patients. About the Helmsley Charitable Trust The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust aspires to improve lives by supporting exceptional efforts in the U.S. and around the world in health and select place-based initiatives. Since beginning its active grantmaking in 2008, Helmsley has committed more than $2 billion for a wide range of charitable purposes. Helmsleys Crohns Disease Program supports impactful ideas and mobilizes a global community committed to improving the lives of Crohns disease patients while pursuing a cure. For more information, please visit helmsleytrust.org. About Cleveland Clinic Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. Located in Cleveland, Ohio, it was founded in 1921 by four renowned physicians with a vision of providing outstanding patient care based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation. Cleveland Clinic has pioneered many medical breakthroughs, including coronary artery bypass surgery and the first face transplant in the United States. U.S. News & World Report consistently names Cleveland Clinic as one of the nations best hospitals in its annual Americas Best Hospitals survey. Among Cleveland Clinics 66,000 employees are more than 4,200 salaried physicians and researchers and 16,600 nurses, representing 140 medical specialties and subspecialties. Cleveland Clinics health system includes a 165-acre main campus near downtown Cleveland, 11 regional hospitals in northeast Ohio, more than 180 northern Ohio outpatient locations including 18 full-service family health centers and three health and wellness centers and locations in southeast Florida; Las Vegas, Nev.; Toronto, Canada; Abu Dhabi, UAE; and London, England. In 2018, there were 7.9 million total outpatient visits, 238,000 hospital admissions and observations, and 220,000 surgical cases throughout Cleveland Clinics health system. Patients came for treatment from every state and 185 countries. Visit us at clevelandclinic.org. About Mayo Clinic Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization committed to clinical practice, education and research, providing expert, comprehensive care to everyone who needs healing. Learn more about Mayo Clinic. Visit the Mayo Clinic News Network. About Robarts Clinical Trials Inc. Robarts Clinical Trials Inc. (RCTI) is a global research organization providing clinical trial and central image management solutions (CIMS) to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Headquartered in London Ontario, RCTI employs more than 225 people across its operations in Canada, the United States, The Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom. Its unique model combines the efforts of leading internationally recognized academic researchers with operational experts to offer integrated solutions to its pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners. Founded in 1986 at the Robarts Research Institute, the clinical trials division was initially led by Dr. Henry Barnett. In 1997, Dr. Brian Feagan, Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology & Biostatistics at Western University assumed leadership and built on the foundation of academic excellence by focusing the organization towards Inflammatory Bowel Disease research. Over the past 22 years, RCTI has become recognized as the expert in clinical trial design, execution, outcome development and image management for drug development. In 2018, Robarts RCTI transitioned ownership from Western University to the Health Academic Research Trust. This new social enterprise structure prioritizes employees, R&D investment and strong fiscal management in support of its mission to transform human health. Robarts Clinical Trials Inc. provides services in over 55 countries worldwide, collaborates with leading academic research institutions across the globe and partners with many of the leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations to bring new and improved treatment options to patients. She thought it was her wake-up call. Lee Woodruff answered the phone that January morning in 2006, in a hotel room at Disney World, and muttered Thank you to the person she assumed was a front-desk clerk. But the person on the other end was the president of ABC News, calling to tell Woodruff that her husband, journalist and nightly co-anchor Bob Woodruff, had been seriously wounded in a roadside bombing while covering the war in Iraq. Her old life was over, and a new one was here in an instant. Advertisement Thats what the Woodruffs would eventually call their memoir about what happened: In An Instant. Taken largely from a journal Lee Woodruff kept while helping her husband recover from a traumatic brain injury, the book was a New York Times best seller and has become a source of inspiration for other families going through life-changing health crises. Lee Woodruff will share her experiences and insight as the keynote speaker at next Saturdays CaregiverSD Community Expo at Liberty Station. Human beings are built to survive, she said in a recent phone interview. We are resilient. I think inside everybody is that pilot light of hope and wanting to get better, and it burns brighter in different people in different measures and a lot of that is about your support system, whos around you, your family. I just think we are built to come through stuff. It may not always be pretty. God knows ours wasnt. But we are pretty incredible animals. Part of what helped her with the stuff of her husbands injury was a natural instinct to take control. Almost immediately she saw herself as The General, and the troops were her four children ranging in age from 5 to 14. I realized very quickly that I cant react the way they do in the movies and fall on my knees, she said. Thats not going to work for my kids. They needed to see me almost like the general in a battalion. They needed to see me sure of where I was going, full of command about what we were going to do, and if I fell apart it would probably set the tone for the way the rest of this was going to go. The first time she saw her husband, in a hospital in Germany, he was unconscious and on life-support, with a large chunk of his skull missing. Doctors told her not to get her hopes up. Transferred to Walter Reed, the medical center in Bethesda, Md., he remained in a coma for about five weeks. His wife was there every day, talking to him because the nurses told her she should, that even though he was unconscious, his brain might be knitting itself together again. And then he woke up. Bob Woodruff was back at work a year after he was injured, a remarkable ending that masks all he went through to get better, and what his wife and kids did to help get him there. Still, they know how lucky they are. At Walter Reed, and at VA hospitals around the country, they have seen service members and their families coping with far more grievous outcomes. Thats why they created the Bob Woodruff Foundation, to bring attention (and financial help) to wounded veterans. And its why, 13 years later, Lee Woodruff still flies around the country, talking to medical workers and caregivers about what worked for her, and what didnt. She talks about the Four Fs that became the legs of a stool keeping her upright: Friends, Family, Funny and Faith. And she talks about hope. Im a big proponent of how we can add more hope into the health-care system because I feel like every step of the way in the medical system, for the most part, is intended to sort of beat the hope out of you, she said. She understands that doctors dont want to over-promise. But if you take hope away from the caregiver, she said, you are taking away the giant engine that is going to help that patient moving forward. When her husband was in the hospital, what gave her hope were the nurses and therapists who shared stories of other people theyd cared for positive stories, surprising stories, outcomes that no one had expected. The stories, she said, became beads on the necklace I was building to weave a mantle of hope around myself. She also kept a journal. It was really the only way I had any control over this hideous, completely out of control situation, she said. I wrote because I knew my children would want to know what happened if Bob died, and I certainly knew Bob, as a completely curious person and a journalist, would want to know what happened if he were alive. And because life in an ICU is 990 miles an hour, I knew I wouldnt remember any of it. Less than a year later, she had written 600 pages. A friend in the publishing world suggested she turn the journal into a book, and In An Instant was born. It was followed by a collection of essays, Perfectly Imperfect, and a novel, Those We Love Most. In the Woodruff family, Jan. 29 is Bobs Alive Day, the anniversary of the roadside bombing that could have killed him but didnt. We usually all call each other or send texts, Lee Woodruff said. This year it sort of came and went and we didnt mark it the way we usually do. And I was OK with that. She views it as progress, another step forward in a life that changed in an instant. john.wilkens@sduniontribune.com A man who stabbed a customer at a McDonalds restaurant in Palmdale was fatally shot by a security guard Sunday afternoon, according to authorities. The suspect crashed his car into a nearby restaurant at around 4 p.m. and disrobed as he fled the scene, according to Los Angeles County Sheriffs Deputy Tracy Koerner. He then ran across the street to the McDonalds on East Avenue South, where he stabbed an older man, Koerner said. A security guard confronted the suspect as he attempted to leave the business, police said, and the suspect then began assaulting the guard, who fired one round, striking the man in the upper torso. The suspect was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Koerner said. His name has not been released. Advertisement The stabbed customer was also taken to a hospital and was listed in stable condition Sunday night, authorities said. The security guard was not harmed, police said. laura.newberry@latimes.com Twitter: @LauraMNewberry DALLAS, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Elite Discovery, formerly Elite Document Technology, an award-winning alternative legal services provider to law firms and corporate legal departments, today announced a renaming and rebranding to reflect the companys core competencies and leadership position in the marketplace. Since 2001, the company has delivered an award-winning approach that guides clients through the entire litigation life cycle. The new company name validates the companys approach to staying ahead of the rapid advancements in legal technology, aligns the companys eDiscovery managed services to the marketplace and reinforces the companys advanced service offerings such as analytics and expert contract attorney review. The company is introducing the new brand this week at the Association of Legal Administrators Annual Conference & Expo, being held April 14 17 in Grapevine, Texas. While at the conference, Elite Discovery experts will be presenting on the topic of The Litigation Technology and Expertise You Need, When You Need It, on Monday, April 15 at 1:15 p.m. Elite experts will be in booth number 1136 in the Expo to discuss the companys managed services and analytical approach to litigation support. In 2001, we formed a company that provided quality litigation support services in a timely manner and with expertise and service second to none, said Terry Reeves, CEO of Elite Discovery. Today, our clients in law firms and corporate legal departments seek us out for our full spectrum of eDiscovery solutions, including eDiscovery managed services, contract attorney review, consulting and digital forensics. With the name change to Elite Discovery, we continue to stand for quality eDiscovery and litigation support, delivered in a timely manner, expertly and efficiently. The name Elite Discovery more accurately reflects the level of expertise and service we offer, and encompasses our future product offerings, continued Reeves. For instance, we currently are developing advanced eDiscovery software that will simplify and improve the way our clients manage eDiscovery projects. The name Elite Discovery encapsulates all of our current services and future product development. In addition to the name change, the company launched a simplified, recognizable logo that conveys their easy and expert approach to eDiscovery, and a new website, which company leaders expect to become a one-stop location for litigation-related education and information. The launch of the companys new name and resources coincides with the ALA Annual Conference & Expo, just as the industry is shifting to more efficient, effective and advanced technology and processes to help reduce costs and burdens. The session company experts will deliver on the first day of the conference deals directly with this industry shift. Elite experts will discuss how to lower operational expenses, reduce costs to clients and optimize discovery processes while improving technology resources through managed services. About Elite Discovery Elite Discovery (formerly Elite Document Technology) has provided award-winning, end-to-end alternative legal services to law firms and corporate legal departments since 2001. Elites staff is tenured and utilizes established best practices combined with their expertise to ensure a clients success. Elite Discovery acquired iSolutions, Inc., in 2015, Litigation Solutions, Inc. in 2012, and Diversified Discovery in 2010, merging the latest software, consulting services, and talent in Dallas. The company has won numerous local and national awards. Learn more on the companys website: www.elitediscovery.com 866.896.2626 / info@elitediscovery.com Several environmental groups joined the Sierra Club over the weekend in suing the county of San Diego for its plan to use carbon credits to offset greenhouse gas emissions from new housing and commercial developments. Signing onto the lawsuit are The Center for Biological Diversity and the Endangered Habitats League, as well as the local groups Cleveland National Forest Foundation, Climate Action Campaign, Environmental Center for San Diego and Preserve Wild Santee. As part of a years-long legal battle with the Sierra Club, the county recently redrafted its Climate Action Plan under court order. County officials put forth a plan that would allow developers to offset air pollution by purchasing carbon credits. San Diego County embraces carbon credits to green up suburban sprawl amid legal war Advertisement Such credits would be bought through carbon registries, such as Climate Action Reserve, American Carbon Registry and Verified Carbon Standard, and could represent projects located anywhere in the world. The Sierra Club argues the county has no way to verify the quality of the credits and that it should require all such off-set programs to be located within the county. Such offsets may be completely illusory and would not benefit the residents of San Diego as offsets attained through local projects would, said Josh Chatten-Brown of Chatten-Brown & Carstens, the law firm representing the groups, in an e-mail. The county declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation. The county has required developers to do as much onsite mitigation of greenhouse gases as possible before turning to the credits market. However, sprawling suburban development generates significant numbers of new car trips that will likely require credits to help the county satisfy its climate plan. Developers seem eager to embrace the credit proposal. The developers of Newland Sierra north of Escondido, for example, have proposed buying credits to offset about 80 percent of the projects climate pollution. Lilac Hills Ranch in Valley Center has plans to address about 70 percent of its climate pollution through credits. The county has more than a dozen such projects currently awaiting approval. As part of the states cap-and-trade program, businesses have the option of buying such credits. However, the state independently verifies the quality of the offset projects and limits use to just 8 percent of a regulated companys total emissions. Twitter: @jemersmith Phone: (619) 293-2234 Email: joshua.smith@sduniontribune.com A year after claims of sexual assault and harassment rocked the U.N. agency that fights HIV, UNAIDS looked like it might be on the mend. The top deputy facing the allegations had departed, the leader who presided over the troubled institution announced plans to bow out early and managers vowed to correct the agencys toxic atmosphere in a scathing probe. But the upheaval is not over. Confidential documents obtained by The Associated Press show UNAIDS is grappling with previously unreported allegations of financial and sexual misconduct involving Martina Brostrom, who went public last March with claims that one of the organizations top officials assaulted her in 2015. As part of a preliminary internal inquiry, investigators for the World Health Organization, which oversees UNAIDS, wrote that they had found evidence that Brostrom and her former supervisor may have taken part in fraudulent practices and misuse of travel funds, the documents show. Advertisement The inquiry was put on hold in late 2016 after Brostrom asked for whistleblower protection in a formal complaint to UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe alleging that Dr. Luiz Loures, one of Sidibes deputies, forcibly kissed her and tried to drag her out of a Bangkok hotel elevator. In a statement that did not identify Brostrom by name, UNAIDS said the investigation was suspended to safeguard the integrity of a potentially related sexual harassment case. Edward Flaherty, a lawyer for Brostrom, said she had no knowledge of any such inquiry. She is unaware, and has not been advised, of any such investigation and denies any assertion of impropriety, Flaherty said of the Swedish employee. The ongoing turmoil is a damaging distraction for an agency at the center of multibillion-dollar, taxpayer-funded U.N. efforts to end the global AIDS epidemic by 2030. The virus affects more than 37 million people worldwide and kills more than 900,000 people every year. The allegations of sexual assault and managerial mismanagement prompted Sweden to announce last year it would suspend its funding to the agency. The Scandinavian country is UNAIDS No. 2 donor, providing more than $30 million in 2017. Anytime there are claims about misuse of funds, its incredibly damaging to an agencys credibility, said Devi Sridhar, a professor of global public health at the University of Edinburgh. UNAIDS goes into countries to protect those who are marginalized, including sex workers, drug users, poor communities to advocate for AIDS prevention and treatment, Sridhar said. How can they do that when its widely known theres an internal culture that permits bad behavior? Brostroms complaint against Loures prompted two inquiries a U.N. investigation that concluded there was insufficient evidence to support her claims and an independent assessment of the agencys management that found a culture of impunity and defective leadership. Amid the resulting criticism, Sidibe announced he would step down in June, six months early. Loures left after his contract expired last March. Brostrom, who some credited with sparking a #MeToo movement at the U.N., told Sidibe in November 2016 that her work environment became increasingly fraught immediately after the alleged assault by Loures. Brostrom was working as a technical adviser in UNAIDS Office of Special Initiatives when the problems with Loures began. LL started to explicitly block my work, excluded me from participation in key meetings in areas in which I was leading and blocked my requests for duty travel, she wrote in an email that was provided to the AP. She said she became the victim of a malicious and anonymous defamation campaign in early 2016. According to internal documents reviewed by the AP, the U.N. ethics office and other senior UNAIDS officials received a series of anonymous emails in early 2016 alleging misconduct by Brostroms former supervisor, prompting the preliminary internal review that ultimately grew to include examining Brostroms own conduct. Brostrom told officials that immediately after the alleged attack by Loures, she called her mother, a friend and her then-supervisor to tell them what happened. Brostroms mother told WHO investigators that her daughter was very upset and she was crying and she didnt think that such a thing could happen to her. When Brostrom went public with her story, two other women described similar encounters with Loures, who denies all the allegations. I have always said that the allegations made against me are false, Loures told the AP in an email Saturday. Loures said Brostroms accusations against him were only made after he took steps to investigate the misconduct of her former male supervisor. I found (they) had not taken permission for travel on several occasions and had cheated the system, he said. Brostrom and her former supervisor are both currently on leave from UNAIDS for undisclosed reasons. The WHO investigation into them remains preliminary. In the preliminary report obtained by the AP, which described discussions with both Brostrom and the supervisor regarding potential misconduct, officials noted that they reviewed an array of documents, including more than 1,900 emails. In one confidential memo provided to the AP, WHO investigators said they found evidence that Brostrom and her ex-boss may have engaged in unprofessional conduct, including the misuse of funds. The two were reproached for abusing U.N. privileges by requesting special U.N. rates when booking hotels for the purpose of having sexual encounters. The preliminary review found one instance where Brostrom and her colleague apparently told hotel management to forge an invoice to claim their personal costs were business-related, the memo said. WHO investigators also wrote that they found evidence suggesting the pair routinely used their work email accounts to exchange messages with explicit sexual language, profanity and nudity. WHOs initial investigation concluded such conduct may have exposed UNAIDS to high reputational risk and referred the matter to UNAIDS to determine the best course of action. The July 2018 memo was marked confidential and sent from WHOs Office of Internal Oversight Services to Gunilla Carlsson, deputy executive director at UNAIDS. The sexual assault and harassment case against Loures has been reopened and is now in the hands of the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services following criticism of how it was handled by UNAIDS and WHO. The investigation into potential misconduct by Brostrom and her former supervisor will resume as soon as appropriate, UNAIDS spokeswoman Sophie Barton-Knott said in an email. The lingering inquiries mean UNAIDS new leader will inherit unfinished business that casts a shadow over donor support. Global health expert Sridhar called for UNAIDS management to be overhauled. I wouldnt give up hope on UNAIDS, but there needs to be a new leadership to change the culture there, she said. People tend to behave badly when they think that kind of corruption is permitted. Swedens foreign ministry said it was not planning to restore funding to UNAIDS imminently. The U.S. is UNAIDS biggest donor, supplying the agency with more than $82 million in 2017. _____ Cheng reported from London. Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Pennsylvania lawmakers solemnly remembered the 11 worshippers killed in an anti-Semitic attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue last fall, hearing Wednesday from an affected congregations rabbi that all is not well in our republic. The rare joint session in the chambers of the states House of Representatives was attended by nearly two dozen family members of victims of the Oct. 27 attack on the three congregations holding services that day. Among those in attendance was Andrea Wedner, whose 97-year-old mother was killed and who was herself was among seven people wounded. This moment of American history and this ravaging Sabbath massacre in my hometown tells us that all is not well in our republic, said Rabbi Cheryl Klein, whose Dor Hadash congregation had a member killed and another wounded. Hate is emboldened, and white supremacists are somehow mainstreamed. This diseased American moment was anti-Semitism in our face. It is ugly, unacceptable, and its condemnation needs to be met with tireless strength. We pray that we are not guilty of inaction. We pray that we are not guilty of complacency. We pray that we are not guilty of allowing ourselves to be paralyzed by politics, Klein said. Advertisement The service was held a day after the Pittsburgh mayor signed new gun control measures that were introduced weeks after the attack. The legislation was immediately challenged in court by gun rights advocates who argued municipalities may not impose firearms regulations that go beyond what state law allows. Klein, who was out of town the day of the attack told the joint session gun violence kills tens of thousands of Americans annually and said she prayed that lawmakers will find the courage to seek a path forward. The assault on these three congregations was an act of unimaginable evil, said state Rep. Dan Frankel, whose district includes the Tree of Life building where the massacre occurred. But it has been met with unfathomable bravery and love within our community and far beyond it. Literally hundreds of people acted heroically, starting within seconds of the first gunshot. Rabbi Jonathan Perlman of the New Light Congregation gave the opening prayer. Perlman, who was in the synagogue during the massacre, asked that God grant us peace, your most precious gift. Truck driver Robert Bowers, 46, of Baldwin, Pennsylvania, has pleaded not guilty to carrying out the attack, during which authorities say he expressed hatred of Jews. The charges he faces could result in the death penalty, though his lawyer said last month she hopes the case will be resolved without a trial. On Wednesday, lawmakers passed identical resolutions that highlighted the history of the Jewish community in Pittsburgh and remembered the victims individually. The resolutions established April 10 as Stronger Than Hate Day in Pennsylvania. In the painful aftermath of the attack, the singular phrase that arose from the heartbroken city of Pittsburgh became Stronger Than Hate, the resolutions said. The General Assembly thanks the first responders, rabbis, staff, lay leadership and hundreds of members of these synagogues who helped their family and friends. Frankel spoke about the attack on the House floor in November and wanted to give mourners some time before putting together a more formal legislative memorial. The only previous time the states House and Senate met together in response to a tragedy was after Sept. 11, officials said. State House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler spoke of the 2006 shooting at an Amish school near his home in Lancaster County that killed five girls and wounded five others. Those who choose to commit horrendous acts like this of terror and violence can never achieve their ultimate goal, which is the triumph of hate, Cutler said. Gov. Tom Wolf, who also attended, said the shooting continues to haunt him and his wife, Frances Wolf. But we continue to be inspired by the ways in which the people of Pittsburgh came and stood together in the face of hatred and violence, Wolf said. We owe a debt of gratitude to all those who chose love over hate. Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. German English SIKA SUCCESSFULLY PLACES EUR 1,000 MILLION DUAL-TRANCHE BONDS Sika Capital B.V. in the Netherlands, with a guarantee from Sika AG, today successfully completed a dual-tranche bonds offering with a total amount of EUR 1,000 million. The payment date of the bonds is April 29, 2019. The bonds were placed under the global coordination of Citigroup, with Citigroup, UBS Investment Bank and Credit Suisse acting as joint lead managers. The bonds are planned to be listed on the Irish Stock Exchange ("Euronext Dublin"). Sika intends to use the net proceeds from the bonds offering for the partial financing of the recently announced acquisition of the Parex Group. Key data: EUR 500 million bond 2019-2027 with a fixed coupon of 0.875% per annum. EUR 500 million bond 2019-2031 with a fixed coupon of 1.500% per annum. CONTACT Dominik Slappnig Corporate Communications & Investor Relations +41 58 436 68 21 slappnig.dominik@ch.sika.com SIKA CORPORATE PROFILE Sika is a specialty chemicals company with a leading position in the development and production of systems and products for bonding, sealing, damping, reinforcing, and protecting in the building sector and motor vehicle industry. Sika has subsidiaries in 101 countries around the world and manufactures in over 200 factories. Its more than 20,000 employees generated annual sales of CHF 7.09 billion in 2018. The media release can be downloaded from the following link: Attachment BALLSTON SPA, N.Y. Every small business has the potential of becoming a bigger business. More than 60 aspiring food entrepreneurs learned how to follow their dreams recently during the workshop, Recipe for Success, highlighted by lessons from state and Cornell University officials plus business owners already in the field. The event was co-hosted by Cornell Cooperative Extension and Saratoga County Prosperity Partnership, the countys designated economic development agency. We want to give them sources of information so they know the rules and regulations that have to be followed if theyre going to enter this food industry, said Karen Roberts Mort, Extension nutrition educator. Even on a small scale there are certain things that have to be done, certain ways of doing things. The big goal of this is to help small, food-oriented businesses learn how to run their businesses, all the ins and outs, rules and pressures that go with it, said Marty Vanags, Prosperity Partnership president. Everything you want to know about starting a food business is happening here today. The day-long event began with a talk by John Luker, of the state agriculture department, who told how and where to get permission for selling packaged and ready-to-eat foods, and whether its okay to make things in a home-based kitchen. Bruno Xavier and Shannon Prozeller, of Cornells Food Venture Center, then gave a detailed presentation about food safety, with regard to things such as storage and processing temperatures. This is a fantastic time to be in food, Xavier said. Specialty food manufacturing is growing 15 percent a year. Local food sourcing is a national trend. People are more interested in foods theyre familiar with. They want to know where its manufactured and who makes the ingredients. New products were seeing are taking advantage of that. Thats why we promote these events, so that people know were there whenever they have questions, and to provide the guidance they need to bring products to market, he said. Kelley Hillis told how shes putting her kids through college with a small business called Puckers Pickles, based out of her home in Salem, Washington County. Like many similar food operations, shes also helping local agriculture. I buy all my Kirby cucumbers and cabbage from Hand Melon Farm, sometimes 30 bushels at a time, Hillis said. In addition to pickles, she makes fermented cabbage products such as kimchi and pak dong, which originated in Korea and Thailand, respectively. We take recipes from around the world and put our own twist on them, Hillis said. Vanags wife, Trish Nusbaum, owns and operates a frozen food business called The Food Florist in Ballston Spa. Like Hillis, she had to overcome many struggles and challenges en route to becoming a successful entrepreneur. Thats what business is all about, seeing if you can survive the bad times, she said. You can have the best product in the world, but if you dont have what it takes inside, dont take the first step. Other presenters discussed topics such as The Value of a Good Business Plan, Market Research & Marketing Basics and Getting Your Product on the Store Shelf. After watching YouTube videos of people supercooling water in a bottle and then triggering it to freeze by banging it, something about this concept solidified for Matthew M. Szydagis, an assistant professor of physics at the University at Albany, State University at New York, especially when he saw it again during the Disney movie "Frozen." During the 2019 American Physical Society April Meeting in Denver, Szydagis will describe how this inspired him to explore whether a subatomic particle like dark matter can trigger the freezing of supercooled water. "All of my work is motivated by the search for dark matter, a form of matter we're sure is out there because we can observe its indirect gravitational effects," Szydagis said. "It makes up a significant fraction of the universe, but we have yet to uncover direct, conclusive and unambiguous evidence of it within the lab." If water is clean enough -- low in impurities, such as dust particulates -- and placed in a smooth enough container, Szydagis explained, it can be cooled below its freezing point of 0 C (32 F) without freezing. "This is called 'supercooling' and is similar to how water can be easily superheated in the microwave, essentially heated above its boiling point without actually boiling. It's simply the reverse," he said. "The water ends up, in either of these cases, in a state known as 'metastability,' neither unstable nor quite stable either." A disturbance can trigger the phase transition, freezing and crystallization, in this case. "This isn't ordinary freezing, and it forms white snow instead of clear ice," he added. "We cooled liquid water to as cold as -20 C (-4 F). in our lab without it freezing. It isn't the same as freezing point depression, like when you salt your sidewalk, because the water was pure and not contaminated with impurities on purpose." The group demonstrated that certain forms of particles hitting the water can microscopically (subatomically) cause it to freeze if it's supercooled first. "Some particles like neutrons can even scatter multiple times within the water," Szydagis said. "We were able to show this not only with commercially available sources of particles, but also a Fiestaware 'radioactive red' plate with orange uranium-based paint from the 1950s." They created a new detector based on the supercooled water, dubbed the "snowball chamber" because that matches well with "bubble" and "cloud" chambers, which are technologies from the early- to mid-20th century that use boiling and condensation. Supercooled water certainly isn't new; it's been studied for numerous decades by chemists and condensed matter physicists, down to -40 C (-40 F). There are even publications about it dating back more than 100 years old. "But we managed to discover a new property of supercooled water," Szydagis said. "To our great surprise, we found that some particles (neutrons) but not others (gamma rays) trigger freezing. Since this is basic research that has never been done before, there was no guarantee it would work. It was a 'let's try it and see' approach -- the scientific method in its most basic form. Not only do we have a new detector of fundamental particles, but potentially of dark matter because neutrons are thought to emulate it." The group envisions numerous other potential implications for their discovery, including detecting nuclear weapons in cargo for homeland security, understanding cloud formation, and providing clues as to how certain mammalian species hibernate, supercooling their blood somehow. English French Rueil-Malmaison, 15 April 2019 Denial VINCI formally denies the rumours appearing in the press that discussions are taking place with the State on the compensation payments for termination of the airports concession agreement in the Grand Ouest region of France. VINCI also denies that it has made any request for an amount of compensation. Furthermore, the concession company has not received any notice of termination of the concession agreement, though the States unilateral decision to abandon the Notre-Dame-des-Landes project dates back to January 2018. PRESS CONTACT VINCI Press Department Tel: +33 (0)1 47 16 31 82 media.relations@vinci.com About VINCI VINCI is a global player in concessions and contracting, employing more than 210,000 people in some 100 countries. We design, finance, build and operate infrastructure and facilities that help improve daily life and mobility for all. Because we believe in all-round performance, above and beyond economic and financial results, we are committed to operating in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. And because our projects are in the public interest, we consider that reaching out to all our stakeholders and engaging in dialogue with them is essential in the conduct of our business activities. VINCIs goal is to create long-term value for its customers, shareholders, employees, and partners and for society at large. www.vinci.com Attachment About one fourth of the Northern Hemisphere is covered in permafrost. Now, these permanently frozen beds of soil, rock, and sediment are actually not so permanent: They're thawing at an increasing rate. Human-induced climate change is warming these lands, melting the ice, and loosening the soil. This may sound like any benign Spring thaw, but the floundering permafrost can cause severe damage: Forests are falling; roads are collapsing; and, in an ironic twist, the warmer soil is releasing even more greenhouse gases, which could exacerbate the effects of climate change. From the first signs of thaw, scientists rushed to monitor emissions of the two most influential anthropogenic (human-generated) greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide and methane). But until recently, the threat of the third largest (nitrous oxide) has largely been ignored. In the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) most recent report (from 2010), the agency rates these emissions as "negligible." Perhaps because the gas is hard to measure, few studies counter this claim. Now, a recent paper shows that nitrous oxide emissions from thawing Alaskan permafrost are about twelve times higher than previously assumed. "Much smaller increases in nitrous oxide would entail the same kind of climate change that a large plume of CO 2 would cause" says Jordan Wilkerson, first author and graduate student in the lab of James G. Anderson, the Philip S. Weld Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at Harvard. Since nitrous oxide is about 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide, this revelation could mean that the Arctic -- and our global climate -- are in more danger than we thought. advertisement In August 2013, members of the Anderson lab (pre-Wilkerson) and scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) traveled to the North Slope of Alaska. They brought along a plane just big enough for one (small) pilot. Flying low, no higher than 50 meters above the ground, the plane collected data on four different greenhouse gases over about 310 square kilometers, an area 90 times larger than Central Park. Using the eddy-covariance technique -- which measures vertical windspeed and the concentration of trace gases in the atmosphere -- the team could determine whether more gas went up than down. In this case, what goes up, does not always come down: Greenhouse gases rise into the atmosphere where they trap heat and warm the planet. And, nitrous oxide poses a second, special threat: Up in the stratosphere, sunlight and oxygen team up to convert the gas into nitrogen oxides, which eat at the ozone. According to the EPA, atmospheric levels of the gas are rising, and the molecules can stay in the atmosphere for up to 114 years. In Alaska, Anderson's field team focused on carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor (a natural greenhouse gas). But, their little plane picked up nitrous oxide levels, too. When Wilkerson joined the lab in 2013, the nitrous oxide data was still raw, untouched. So, he asked if he could analyze the numbers as a side-project. Sure, Anderson said, go right ahead. Both of them expected the data to confirm what everyone already seemed to know: Nitrous oxide is not a credible threat from permafrost. advertisement Wilkerson ran the calculations. He checked his data. He sent it to Ronald Dobosy, the paper's second author, an Atmospheric Scientist and eddy-covariance expert at the Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) at NOAA. "I was skeptical that anything would come of it," Dobosy says. After triple checks, Wilkerson had to admit: "This is widespread, pretty high emissions." In just one month, the plane recorded enough nitrous oxide to fulfill the expected cap for an entire year. Still, the study only collected data on emissions during August. And, even though their plane covered more ground than any previous study, the data represents just 310 of the 14.5 million square kilometers in the Arctic, like using a Rhode Island-sized plot to represent the entire United States. Even so, a few recent studies corroborate Wilkerson's findings. Other researchers have used chambers -- covered, pie plate-sized containers planted into tundra -- to monitor gas emissions over months and even years. Other studies extract cylindrical "cores" from the permafrost. Back in a lab, the researchers warm the cores inside a controlled environment and measure how much gas the peat releases. The more they heated the soil, the more nitrous oxide leaked out. Both chambers and cores cover even less ground (no more than 50 square meters) than Anderson's airborne system. But together, all three point to the same conclusion: Permafrost is emitting far more nitrous oxide than previously expected. "It makes those findings quite a bit more serious," Wilkerson says. Wilkerson hopes this new data will inspire further research. "We don't know how much more it's going to increase," he says, "and we didn't know it was significant at all until this study came out." Right now, eddy-covariance towers -- the same technology the Anderson crew used in their plane -- monitor both carbon dioxide and methane emissions across the Arctic. Anderson was the first to use airborne eddy-covariance to collect data on the region's nitrous oxide levels. And, apart from the small-scale but significant chamber and core studies, no one is watching for the most potent greenhouse gas. Since the Arctic is warming at almost twice the rate of the rest of the planet, the permafrost is predicted to thaw at an ever-increasing rate. These warm temperatures could also bring more vegetation to the region. Since plants eat nitrogen, they could help decrease future nitrous oxide levels. But, to understand how plants might mitigate the risk, researchers need more data on the risk itself. In his place, Wilkerson hopes researchers hurry up and collect this data, whether by plane, tower, chamber, or core. Or better yet, all four. "This needs to be taken more seriously than it is right now," he says. The permafrost may be stuck in a perpetual climate change cycle: As the planet warms, permafrost melts, warming the planet, melting the frost, and on and on. To figure out how to slow the cycle, we first need to know just how bad the situation is. Studying organic matter in sediments helps shed light on the distant past. What was the climate like? What organisms populated the Earth? What conditions did they live in? Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, and the University of Lyon, France, have examined the sediments in the Dead Sea, where the salinity is without compare, making it one of the most hostile environments on the planet. The geologists drilled a 400-metre hole in the core of the Dead Sea before analysing each layer of sediment and the traces of a strategy that enables bacteria to survive by feeding on the remains of other organisms. This discovery, to be read about in the journal Geology, will further our understanding of how life can develop even in the most severe conditions. It also provides vital research leads for detecting life on other planets. The study of the deep biosphere -- microbial presence in sediments -- helps us understand the various aspects of the evolution of the Earth and the manifold climatic changes that it has been subjected to. ""t's about studying bacteria and archaea -- the oldest forms of life on Earth -- that live in the sediments, and analysing the transformation processes that result from their presence, and that's called diagenesis," explains Daniel Ariztegui, a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences in UNIGE Faculty of Sciences. An international team worked on reconstructing the climate of the Dead Sea over the last 200,000 years. Although the surface area of the lake and its depth are roughly equivalent to those of Lake Geneva, the Dead Sea loses a metre a year, which explains its ever-increasing salinity: 275 grams of salt per litre compared to 20 to 40 grams per litre in the oceans. Nevertheless, microbial life subsists in this extreme environment. But is it possible that a form of life has managed to adapt to the sediments in the Dead Sea -- a particularly hostile environment that is isolated from the surface without any light, oxygen or frequent food intake? The scientists drilled a hole 400 metres deep and 10 centimetres in diameter in the heart of the Dead Sea in an attempt to find traces of microbial presence in the sediments, analysing sediment samples for each metre that was dug. Necrophilous bacteria "We started by freezing the collected samples to preserve any genetic material that might degrade at room temperature," explains Dr Camille Thomas, a researcher in UNIGE Department of Earth Sciences. "Then we used different techniques, including scanning electron microscopy, which can identify at very high resolution the remains of microbes that could have changed the original composition of the sediments." The aim was also to extract the organic compounds trapped in the salt, such as DNA or lipids. "This enables us to identify the organisms that live or have lived in the sediment, and helps us understand how they manage to survive under these conditions," continues professor Ariztegui. Earlier research had shown that archaea could be found in the most saline environments in the Dead Sea. "But here we uncovered molecules known as isoprenoid wax esters that can't be produced by archaea but only by bacteria from fragments of archaea," says Dr Thomas. This proves that a form of life other than archaea developed that is potentially still present in these sediments: bacteria. "Archaea have the capacity to withstand the Dead Sea's very high levels of salinity. Until now, they were the only ones that had been identified in the deep waters of the Dead Sea. But it turns out that another population can overcome these intense conditions by feeding on the corpses of archaea: bacteria -- which we thought were not so well adapted." In becoming "necrophages," these bacteria have been able to acclimatise to one of the most severe environments on our planet. Furthermore, they have contributed to the chemical changes found in the sediments of the Dead Sea. Geomicrobiology represents the future for searching for life in space The study, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), lies on the boundaries between geology and microbiology -- a field known as geomicrobiology, which seeks to understand the mechanisms behind the formation of life and the Earth, no matter how hostile the environmental conditions are. "Establishing how life adapts in the most hostile conditions also opens up important avenues of research for discovering life on other planets," enthuses professor Ariztegui. "And that gives us an idea not only of what we should be looking for but also helps develop increasingly sophisticated microbial techniques." A shock pushes economies out of a state of equilibrium. Modern macroeconomics are still based on the assumption of equilibria. That makes them fail when dealing with economies in times of crises. Researchers from the Complexity Science Hub Vienna (CSH) are now proposing a novel method borrowed from physics that makes the effects of major events on out-of-equilibrium economies computable for the first time. Their article was published in the current issue of Nature Communications. The new method adds to current economic models in several ways. Calculating resilience "First, we can determine the resilience of an economy," says Peter Klimek, first author of the paper. Each country has different industries, and depends on various imports and exports. "We see all these interdependencies in newly available data sets. From these data we can calculate how susceptible a country and its different production sectors are to disturbances." The scientists see, for instance, which parts of an economy are particularly vulnerable to a shock, such as a trade war. Modeling outputs "We can further quantify how much a shock in one corner of the world affects the production of a given sector far across the globe," says co-author Stefan Thurner. Modeling responses to shocks helps answer questions like why it took economies so long to recover from the 2008 recession. "A shock does not evaporate," explains Peter Klimek. Just like a rock that is thrown into a still pond, a shock produces waves. "The shock waves will run through the whole system, following each of its interdependent connections." The researchers found that it typically takes six to ten years before all sectors of an economy have fully digested a shock. advertisement Testable predictions Another line of progress resulting from the new method is that testable predictions can be made. The authors took the input-output data of 56 industrial sectors in 43 OECD countries from the years 2000 to 2014. With this large dataset they tested the accuracy of different economic projections that were dealing with the aftermaths of 2008. "Our method clearly outperformed all standard econometric forecasting methods -- most of them substantially," the authors state. They also estimated the effects of Donald Trump's new tariffs on EU steel and aluminum, imposed in June 2018. The model finds winners and losers. In Germany, for instance, the output of the automotive industry increases, as do legal activities or wholesale trade. On the other hand, electricity production, warehousing or land transport show a decline. "Interestingly, the production output in most of the EU countries rises so much that it can partly compensate the losses due to the tariffs," says Thurner. As soon as statistics for 2018 and 2019 are available, the team will test its prediction with real-world data. "Our vision is to eventually be able to calculate global effects of all kinds of shock scenarios that can happen anywhere," the complexity scientist adds. A concept from physics The concept for the new model is inspired by classical physics: Linear response theory (LRT) explains, for example, how electric or magnetic substances react to strong electrical or magnetic fields. This is known as susceptibility. It can be measured with special devices, but also be mathematically derived from properties of the material. "We show that LRT applies just as well to input-output economics," says Peter Klimek. "Instead of material properties, we use economic networks; instead of electrical resistance, we determine the susceptibility of economies, their response to shocks." advertisement Visualizing economies To make it intuitively understandable how economies work, scientists at the CSH employ an interactive visualization tool. It will be constantly fed with new data until the final version should represent the whole world economy. The tool visualizes the various dependencies of countries and production sectors. "Users can change all kinds of parameters and immediately see the effects across countries and sectors," says Stefan Thurner. A preliminary version, showing Trump tariff effects on Europe, can be seen at https://csh.ac.at/ecores/ In most colonies, ants work in service of a single reproductive queen, but that's not always the way ant societies function. Researchers at the University of Georgia have found colonies of tropical fire ants, native to Florida and coastal Georgia, that thrive with multiple queens and in close proximity to single-queen colonies of the same species. "The coexistence of two dramatically different social structures fascinated me," Kip Lacy said. "I had to know more." Lacy, who is currently a graduate fellow at the Rockefeller University but received his master's degree in entomology from UGA's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in 2018, worked with UGA fire ant researcher Ken Ross and DeWayne Shoemaker at the University of Tennessee to isolate and document the multi-queen colonies. Their work will appear in the April 2019 edition of Current Biology. Lacy worked with colleagues at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service in Gainesville, Florida, to help find and isolate the communities of native fire ants that cover the shoulders and medians of Florida highways. advertisement In these areas, they found that multi-queen "polygyne" colonies would be nestled right next to single-queen "monogyne" colonies of the same species. Nests with single queens were found as close as 5 feet away from nests with as many as 13 queens, Lacy said. "They can exist right next to each other, but their social structure remains intact," Lacy said. Many fire ant colonies are founded by a single queen, mated to a male ant from a different colony, who produces all of the eggs to start a colony of her own. However, it's not unheard of for ants of the same species to develop alternative reproductive habits. Ross, who has studied fire ant genetics and social structures for decades, previously documented the coexistence of monogyne and polygyne colonies in populations of Georgia's invasive red imported fire ants. In polygyne colonies of this species, all the ants share a "social chromosome" that is absent from individuals in single-queen colonies. This chromosome apparently induces what Ross described as the "polygyne syndrome." In addition to the number of queens, polygyne colonies of the red imported fire ant differ from monogyne colonies in many ways, including lower levels of aggressiveness toward non-nestmates and smaller body sizes of individual ants. But despite these differences, the fundamental mode of reproduction is the same in both types of colonies -- all daughters (both queens and workers) are produced sexually. advertisement Lacy was surprised to find that in the tropical fire ant, the reproductive modes of the two types of colonies differed. Just like the red imported fire ants, queens of monogyne colonies produce all daughters sexually. By contrast, in tropical fire ant colonies with multiple queens, Lacy found that the queens reproduce asexually. All reproductive queens and daughter queens inside the colony have been shown to be genetically identical. However, the worker ants in these colonies displayed a much greater genetic diversity; unlike the queens, they were not clones. Controlled experiments revealed that queens were produced asexually and workers were produced sexually in polygyne colonies. "That was a surprise because we also found that the male ants in these colonies seem to be sterile," Lacy said. Lacy and Ross found that queens from multi-queen colonies were mated to males from single-queen colonies. This practice helped facilitate clonality in multi-queen colonies by introducing new genetic material into the colony to maintain genetic diversity, but there is no clear benefit for the male ants. "(Evolutionarily speaking), the males get nothing out of it because their sperm goes to produce workers that are sterile," Ross said. "Those males' genetic lines end there." Lacy and Ross have described the behavior of polygyne queens as "sperm parasitism." "Different species of ants have displayed different forms of social parasitism before, and this is just one more example of that behavior," Ross said. The genetic underpinnings of asexuality and the multi-queen syndrome in the tropical fire ant are currently unknown. However, genetic studies suggest that asexual queens may have evolved from sexually reproducing queens in monogyne colonies. Understanding more about the biology of the tropical fire ants is important because, while they have been displaced by invasive fire ants in some communities in coastal Georgia and Florida, they've become invasive pests across Africa, southeast Asia and even the Galapagos Islands. A new paper published today in the journal Nature Communications shows a blueprint for conserving enough habitat to protect the populations of almost one-third of the warblers, orioles, tanagers, and other birds that migrate among the Americas throughout the year. For the research, an international team of scientists used the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's global citizen science database, eBird, to calculate how to sufficiently conserve habitat across the Western Hemisphere for all the habitats these birds use throughout their annual cycle of breeding, migration, and overwintering. The study provides planners with guidance on the locations and amounts of land that must be conserved for 30 percent of the global populations for each of 117 Neotropical migratory bird species. More than a third of Neotropical migratory birds are suffering population declines, yet a 2015 global assessment found that only 9 percent of migratory bird species have adequate habitat protection across their yearly ranges to protect their populations. Conservation of migratory birds has historically been difficult, partly because they require habitat across continents and conservation efforts have been challenged by limited knowledge of their abundance and distribution over their vast ranges and throughout the year. "We are excited to be the first to use a data-driven approach that identifies the most critical places for bird conservation across breeding, overwintering, and migratory stopover areas throughout the Western Hemisphere. In doing so, we provide guidance on where, when, and what type of habitat should be conserved to sustain populations," said Richard Schuster, Liber Ero Postdoctoral Fellow at Carleton University, and lead author on the Nature Communications paper. "This is a vital step if conservationists are to make the best use of limited resources and address the most critical problems at a hemispheric scale." The team's analysis found that conservation strategies were most efficient when they incorporated working lands, such as agriculture or forestry, rather than exclusively focusing on areas with limited human impacts (i.e., intact or undisturbed landscapes). The importance of shared-use or working landscapes to migratory birds underscores how strategic conservation can accommodate both human livelihoods and biodiversity. The research also found that efficiency was greatest -- requiring 56 percent less land area -- when planning across the entire year in full, rather than separately by week. "Efforts to conserve migratory species have traditionally focused on single species and emphasized breeding grounds. Our results show that planning for multiple species across the entire year represents a far more efficient approach to land use planning," said Scott Wilson, Environment and Climate Change Canada research scientist and co-author on the paper. "This study illustrates how globally crowd-sourced data can facilitate strategic planning to achieve the best return on conservation investments. No other data source could have achieved anything close to this level of detail and efficiency in spatial planning over such a vast area," said Cornell Lab senior conservation science director and co-author Amanda Rodewald. "Prioritizing sites in which to invest our conservation dollars will dramatically improve our returns on the roughly $1 billion spent annually on the conservation of birds by government and nonprofit organizations, often in the absence of spatially explicit information on year-round abundance or geographical representation," said Peter Arcese, co-author and FRBC Chair in Applied Conservation Biology at University of British Columbia. Army scientists have discovered how to build novel synthetic biomolecule complexes that they believe are a critical step towards biotemplated advanced materials. Their work was recently featured in the March issue of Nature Chemistry. A team of researchers from the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory, the Army's corporate research laboratory also known as ARL, and The University of Texas at Austin's Department of Molecular Biosciences, combined pairs of oppositely charged synthetic proteins to form hierarchical ordered, symmetrical structures through a strategy they termed as "supercharged protein assembly." Dr. Jimmy Gollihar, a synthetic biology research scientist at ARL, along with University of Texas at Austin professors, Drs. Andrew Ellington and David W. Taylor, Jr., collaborated on this discovery. The researchers said synthetic protein units had their surface charge artificially augmented to create either a positively or negatively charged protein unit to create supercharged proteins. This feature allowed the team to create self-assembled structures that are driven by charge alone. As a demonstration of this capability, the team used computational modeling to design two fluorescent proteins, one super positive and the other super negative. Gollihar explained that when the team synthesized and mixed the oppositely supercharged fluorescent proteins, it resulted in well-ordered aggregates. advertisement "Our simple charged proteins assembled into well-ordered structures in a manner that has not been observed in nature," Gollihar said. "These protomers are aggregates of two oppositely charged pairs of fluorescent proteins. Once the protomers form, they can be reversibly assembled by altering the ionic strength or pH of the solution. At very low ionic strength, the proteins assemble into structures that are larger than bacterial cells." Gollihar indicated this begins to address questions on how protein structures can be engineered into templates for advanced materials. "Biology is exceptional at Angstrom-level scales that current manufacturing methods cannot access," he said. "By studying the self-assembly and functionalization at this level, it should prove possible to manufacture nanoscale materials for a host of Army-relevant applications. He said synthetic biology is a key technology area that has disruptive potential to shape how the Army will fight and win in the future operational environment. "These efforts will be followed by attempts to engineer protein structures with unique properties suitable for Army applications such as bio-enabled sensing and functional coatings," Gollihar said. "The ready assembly of this structure suggests that combining oppositely supercharged pairs of protein variants may provide broad opportunities for generating novel architectures via otherwise unprogrammed interactions." This foundational work will continue, expanding in scale and composition, as part of Transformational Synthetic biology for Military Environments, or TRANSFORME, one of ARL's essential research programs. "TRANSFORME is about programmable control of biological processes allowing not only expeditionary capabilities in multi-domain operation, but also adaptation at operational tempo, a pace that can define a country's dominance in battle," said Dr. Dimitra Stratis-Cullum, program manager for TRANSFORME. Researchers have investigated the varying composition of cancer and immune cells in over one hundred breast tumors. They've found that aggressive tumors are often dominated by a single type of tumor cell. If certain immune cells are present as well, an immune therapy could be successful for a specific group of breast cancer patients. Every year more than 1.7 million women all over the world are diagnosed with breast cancer, with the disease ending fatally for around half a million patients. In the fight against breast cancer, research is being done into novel therapeutic approaches that are designed to target cancer cells more precisely and also activate the tumor-associated immune system. So far, however, little has been known about the different cancer and immune cells present within a tumor, and how they differ from patient to patient. Mass cytometry unravels diversity of cells Johanna Wagner of the University of Zurich joined forces with Marianna Rapsomaniki of IBM Research in Ruschlikon and the Patients' Tumor Bank of Hope to use mass cytometry to exam-ine several million cancer and immune cells from 140 patients, as the basis for creating an atlas of tumor and immune cells. "Using this technology we were able to examine the diversity of can-cer cells very precisely and describe how many different types of cancer cells are present in a tumor," explains Wagner, who's working on her PhD under the supervision of Bernd Bodenmiller, professor at the new Department of Quantitative Biomedicine, whose group specializes in the precision medicine analysis of tissues. In parallel to this they also analyzed the immune system's tumor-associated macrophages and T-cells, which could attack the tumor -- but also support it. If the activated immune system launches a successful attack, the breast cancer cells are destroyed. But if the nearby immune cells are inactivated, the breast cancer cells survive the attack. Every tumor is unique in terms of its cellular composition The researchers discovered that the previous assumption that a greater diversity of tumor cells was present in more aggressive tumors was false. More aggressive tumors are in most cases dominated by one single type of tumor cell, which often displays a high degree of abnormality. "Every tumor we looked at was unique in terms of its cellular composition, which varied from pa-tient to patient. This could be one of the reasons why we're having such difficulty treating breast cancer," says Wagner. Breast cancer patients could benefit from immune therapy At the same time, the scientists discovered similarities in the tumor-associated immune system between the aggressive tumors. Among one group of breast cancer patients they found an ac-cumulation of inactive immune cells that are successfully activated by immune therapy to fight lung and skin cancer. This included patients who previously weren't considered suitable candi-dates for immune therapy to treat breast cancer. A comprehensive analysis of a tumor's entire cancer and immune cells could thus be a good basis for therapies in precision medicine. "Our findings suggest that immune therapy might pos-sibly work for breast cancer. We'll be doing further studies on this, and if they're successful will extend them into a clinical trial," explains Professor Bodenmiller. The North Atlantic warming hole (NAWH), a region of reduced warming located in the North Atlantic Ocean, significantly affects the North Atlantic jet stream in climate simulations of the future, according to a team of researchers. Sea surface temperatures (SST) are projected to increase in most of the world's oceans as the result of global climate change. However, within an area of rotating ocean currents just south of Greenland an anomaly exists where colder sea-surface temperatures were documented in both global climate-model projections and in observations. "It's called a hole because there is a lack of warming," said Melissa Gervais, assistant professor of meteorology and atmospheric science, Penn State, who used the Community Earth System model (CESM) to investigate the impact of the NAWH on atmospheric circulation and midlatitude jets. "We found that this region of the ocean is a really important place for forcing the jet stream that goes across the North Atlantic Ocean." The researchers published their findings in the Journal of Climate. Development of the NAWH is linked to a slowdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a large system of ocean currents that carry warm water from the tropics northwards into the North Atlantic, and is thought to be caused by an influx of fresh water coming from melting Arctic sea ice. Previous research by Gervais and her team demonstrated that this increase in fresh water to the ocean changes circulation patterns and leads to surface cooling. advertisement "With more Arctic sea ice melting, more fresh water flows into the Labrador Sea, which leads to a reduction in deep convection," said Gervais who also is an Institute for CyberScience co-hire. "That changes the ocean circulation, allowing it to cool in that region south of Greenland." This cooling pattern, relative to global average SST increase, is predicted to become greater and more apparent relative to the internal ocean variability as the 21st century progresses. "These changes in SST patterns occur as the result of changes in ocean circulation and could have a significant impact on atmospheric circulation and the North Atlantic storm track in the future," said Gervais. Jet streams, high altitude currents of wind flowing above the Earth, transport air masses and drive weather patterns. The relationship between climate change and jet streams is complex and understanding the potential impact of climate change on jet streams is crucial for understanding changes in weather patterns and storm tracks. "With climate change we have some ideas about how the jets are going to change. In general, we expect to see a poleward shift and eastward elongation of the jet," said Gervais. "Right now, it's sort of a tug of war between impacts of the tropics and impacts of the arctic. So those two things are competing to shift where the jet is located." Most climate models seem to agree that the Pacific jet stream is going to shift poleward but there is a lot of variability in predictions for the Atlantic, said Gervais. advertisement To investigate how the development of the NAWH impacts the jet stream, the team conducted a series of large-ensemble, atmospheric model experiments in the CESM with prescribed SST and sea ice levels over three different time periods. "We ran three simulations," said Gervais. "One with current warming-hole conditions; one where the ocean temperature was increased to fill in the warming hole; and one where its size was twice as deep, to simulate more freshwater from melting ice sheets." Their results indicate that the NAWH plays an important role in midlatitude atmospheric circulation changes in the model's future climate simulations. "We found that it's really quite important for that region," said Gervais. "The NAWH seems to be elongating the jet even further and shifting it a little bit north. Instead of just thinking about how the tropics and arctic amplification are influencing the jet, we now also need to think about how this warming hole is going to influence the jet. These local changes in the North Atlantic jet are of a similar magnitude to the full climate-change response in the region, indicating that the North Atlantic warming hole could be an important additional factor in the tug of war on midlatitude circulation, that has received little attention." LAS VEGAS, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CV Sciences, Inc. (OTCQB: CVSI) (the Company, CV Sciences, our, us or we), a preeminent supplier and manufacturer of hemp CBD products, announced that it has appointed Deloitte & Touche LLP (Deloitte) as the Companys new independent registered public accounting firm. Following a thorough selection process, the Companys Audit Committee has concluded that Deloitte is best positioned to meet the evolving needs of CV Sciences. We would like to thank Tanner LLC for the quality work and expertise they have provided over the last three years, said Joseph Dowling, Chief Executive Officer of CV Sciences. The Company has also filed a Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission noting the engagement of Deloitte. About CV Sciences, Inc. CV Sciences, Inc. (OTCQB: CVSI) operates two distinct business segments: a consumer product division focused on manufacturing, marketing and selling plant-based CBD products to a range of market sectors; and a drug development division focused on developing and commercializing CBD-based novel therapeutics utilizing synthetic CBD. The Companys PlusCBD Oil is the top-selling brand of hemp-derived CBD on the market, according to SPINS, the leading provider of syndicated data and insights for the natural, organic and specialty products industry. CV Sciences, Inc. has primary offices and facilities in San Diego, California and Las Vegas, Nevada. Additional information is available from OTCMarkets.com or by visiting www.cvsciences.com . FORWARD-LOOKING DISCLAIMER This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements and information, as defined within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the Safe Harbor created by those sections. This material contains statements about expected future events and/or financial results that are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements by definition involve risks, uncertainties. CONTACT INFORMATION: Investor Contact: ICR Scott Van Winkle 617-956-6736 scott.vanwinkle@icrinc.com HOUSTON, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Targa Resources Partners LP (Targa Resources Partners or the Partnership) (NYSE: NGLS PR A) announced its monthly distribution on the Partnerships 9.00% Series A Fixed-to-Floating Rate Cumulative Redeemable Perpetual Preferred Units ("Series A Preferred Units") for April 2019. Targa Resources Partners LP announced today that the board of directors of its general partner has declared a monthly cash distribution of 18.75 per Series A Preferred Unit, or $2.25 per Series A Preferred Unit on an annualized basis, for April 2019. This cash distribution will be paid May 15, 2019 on all outstanding Series A Preferred Units to holders of record as of the close of business on April 30, 2019. About Targa Resources Partners LP Targa Resources Partners LP is a Delaware limited partnership formed in October 2006 by its parent, Targa Resources Corp. (TRC or the Company), to own, operate, acquire and develop a diversified portfolio of complementary midstream energy assets. On February 17, 2016 TRC completed the acquisition of all outstanding common units of the Partnership. Targa Resources Corp. is a leading provider of midstream services and is one of the largest independent midstream energy companies in North America. Targa owns, operates, acquires, and develops a diversified portfolio of complementary midstream energy assets. The Company is primarily engaged in the business of: gathering, compressing, treating, processing, transporting and selling natural gas; storing, fractionating, treating, transporting, and selling natural gas liquids (NGL(s)) and NGL products, including services to LPG exporters; gathering, storing, terminaling, and selling crude oil; and storing, terminaling, and selling refined petroleum products. The principal executive offices of Targa Resources Partners LP are located at 811 Louisiana, Suite 2100, Houston, TX 77002 and their telephone number is 713-584-1000. For more information, please visit our website at www.targaresources.com. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this release are "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. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this release that address activities, events or developments that the Partnership expects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in the future, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements rely on a number of assumptions concerning future events and are subject to a number of uncertainties, factors and risks, many of which are outside the Partnerships control, which could cause results to differ materially from those expected by management of the Partnership. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, weather, political, economic and market conditions, including a decline in the price and market demand for natural gas, natural gas liquids and crude oil, the timing and success of business development efforts; and other uncertainties. These and other applicable uncertainties, factors and risks are described more fully in the Partnership's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K. The Partnership does not undertake an obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. This release is intended to be a qualified notice under Treasury Regulation Section 1.1446-4(b). Brokers and nominees should treat one hundred percent (100.0%) of Targa Resources Partners LPs distributions to foreign investors as being attributable to income that is effectively connected with a United States trade or business. Accordingly, Targa Resources Partners LPs distributions to foreign investors are subject to federal income tax withholding at the highest applicable effective tax rate. Contact the Company's investor relations department by email at InvestorRelations@targaresources.com or by phone at (713) 584-1133. Sanjay Lad Director - Investor Relations Jennifer Kneale Chief Financial Officer BEIJING, April 11 (Xinhua) -- The Beijing swift and Beijing cuckoo should be "ambassadors" of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to represent the importance of the ecological and environmental cooperation on regional and global scales, proposed Terry Townshend, a British environmental law expert and conservationist. These birds, well-known and considered "ordinary" in China, migrate along the Belt and Road from East Asia to spend winters in southern Africa and fly back to Beijing in spring year after year. "The BRI could be a wonderful opportunity to consider the migratory routes of birds and to encourage protection of these routes and key habitats," said Townshend, who founded Birding Beijing, a web portal for birdwatchers and anti-poaching volunteers in China and overseas. Research by Birding Beijing with the China Birdwatching Society and Birdlife International found that the Beijing swift flies 26,000 km every year from Beijing to South Africa and back. During its journey, the bird spends over 90 percent of its time in the air, according to the tracking data. The Beijing cuckoo, in other research by Birding Beijing, surprised the world with a yearly migration route that extends 32,000 km between Beijing and Cape Town. One Beijing cuckoo, in particular, Flappy McFlapperson, became famous among bird lovers with her amazing journeys between Beijing and Cape Town. She was affectionately titled "the bravest traveler" by the Chinese public who have been following her updates since 2016. In May last year, Flappy's tracker signal disappeared from the monitor in Myanmar. "Making the Beijing swift and Beijing cuckoo like Flappy ambassadors might help to highlight the plight of migratory birds among the partner countries," Townshend suggested. He emphasized the importance and urgency of translating China's proposal of building a green Belt and Road and promoting ecological and environmental cooperation into effective plans and concrete actions. "I would like to see robust biodiversity criteria included in all investments through the BRI, making clear that environmental protection and the restoration of diverse habitats is a key condition of Chinese investment overseas, helping to set a clear example for others to follow," said Townshend. ECO ECONOMICS ALONG THE B&R Besides birding, Townshend is an advisor to Washington-based Paulson Institute's conservation program in China and a collaborating researcher with the Peking University Center for Nature and Society. One of his focuses is the indispensability and importance of the biosphere and ecological civilization for mankind's sustainable development. "In my view, an ecological civilization should accurately and fully value nature, including habitats and the creatures that inhabit them," he said. "A major change is required by all major countries of the world to move away from the current outdated and partial economic model that assumes infinite natural resources and considers the costs of pollution and climate change as 'externalities', towards a more holistic model that properly values nature and the services it provides," he added. The size of China's domestic economy and its increasing influence overseas, including the BRI and through its new development bank, means it is well-placed to have a strong influence on the future direction of the global economy, Townshend said, adding that there is a huge opportunity, as well as a responsibility, for the country to identify, implement and promote a better, more complete, economic model. "The concept of ecological civilization is a move in the right direction," he said. National parks and reserves could be built along the green B&R, and China could share its experience and merits with partner countries and regions to enhance the protection of the integrity of the ecosphere, Townshend proposed. By placing ecological impacts and species conservation as priorities for the planning stage, it could also be an opportunity for China to lead the BRI and global transformation towards more sustainable development, he said. Description GIS 15 April, 2019: A plaque unveiling ceremony to mark the 113th birth anniversary of Professor Basdeo Bissoondoyal was held today at the entrance of Signal Mountain, in Port Louis. The Minister of Arts and Culture, Mr Prithvirajsing Roopun, proceeded with the unveiling ceremony which was organised by the Professor Basdeo Bissoondoyal Trust Fund. In his address, Minister Roopun emphasised the predominant role of Professor Basdeo Bissoondoyal in shaping the socio cultural and political history of Mauritius. Professor Bissoondoyal, he pointed out, has empowered Mauritians to uphold their dignity . He also spoke about the role of the Professor Basdeo Bissoondoyal Trust Fund in perpetuating the memory and work of Professor Bissoondoyal which will, as a result, inspire all Mauritians to devote themselves to the service of their country. Some of the other functions of the Trust Fund include: collecting and preserving the voluminous writings of Mr Bissoondoyal in the fields of religion, philosophy, culture, and history; and, organising talks, seminars, conferences, exhibitions, and other activities on the life, work, and writings of Professor Bissoondoyal to promote a greater understanding and dissemination of his literary creations nationally and internationally. Professor Basdeo Bissoondoyal Born on April 15in 1906, Professor Basdeo Bissoondoyal was an exceptional missionary and one of the leading figures in the Independence movement . One of his greatest achievements is that he carried out an intensive campaign, at the grassroots level, to show Indo-Mauritians how to sign their names in Hindi in order to pass the literacy test as required by the new Constitution of 1947. By teaching Mauritians, at grassroots level, he also paved the way and contributed to Mauritius accession to Independence in 1968. Some of the key events during the career of Pandit Bissoondoyal were also milestones in the history of modern Mauritius. These are, namely: the founding of the Jan Andolan Movement in 1939, the Mahayajin 1943, and the celebrations of the IndependenceDayof India and Pakistan in 1947. Professor Bissoondoyal was also one of the most prolific writers and great intellectuals in Mauritian history. He wrote more than 275 articles as well as 20 books in Hindi, 14 in English, five in French, and in Sanskrit over a period of more than 60 years. He wrote mainly on Mauritian literature, Indian and world history, philosophy, religion, and comparative civilisations, and his works have been published in India, Great Britain, France, and the United States. His works have shaped the thoughts and heavily influenced the writings of three generations of Indo-Mauritian intellectuals and writers and they have become an integral part of the Mauritian literary heritage. Jacques Villeneuve says a budget cap is the wrong direction for F1. With support from the FIA and many teams, the sport's new owner Liberty Media is determined to impose caps on annual spending from 2021. Villeneuve, F1's outspoken 1997 world champion, is diametrically opposed. "F1 is supposed to represent absolute excess," he told Le Journal de Montreal as he began to tackle his new racing role in the European Nascar series. "But now it is an economy race. We limit the use of engines to three per season, and after that you are penalised. That's not F1," Villeneuve insisted. "If we do a budget cap at, say, 100 million, what's going to happen? Mercedes would certainly spend the 100 million, but mid-pack teams like Haas or Alfa Romeo and the others will spend a fifth of that to stay fifth or sixth," he said. "I'll tell you what's going to happen: the smaller organisations will just put more money into their pockets. "It will not help F1. It's ridiculous, if you want my opinion," Villeneuve declared. (GMM) Good morning, Bay Area. Its Monday, April 15, and officials are struggling to deal with rising numbers of homeless people seeking shelter at San Francisco International Airport. In other transportation news, Oakland and Alameda have authorized the installation of a fleet of electrically assisted water bikes that will allow commuters to ride across the estuary between the two cities. Heres what you need to know to start your day. The next big one Thursday marks the anniversary of the 1906 earthquake, a 7.9-magnitude event that turned San Francisco streets into waves, flattening much of the skyline and igniting fires that raged for almost four days. At typically active sites along five major fault branches in Northern and Southern California, including parts of the San Andreas, no big earthquakes have occurred in the past century. Based on current understanding of earthquake recurrence, thats a statistical anomaly, according to a report from U.S. Geological Survey scientists. It may be that the whole system is on edge and ready for a more active cycle, said Glenn Biasi, co-author of the paper and a supervisory geophysicist with the USGS. The whole system is loading, and we dont know how its going to unload. If a repeat of the 1906 temblor were to strike today, state and federal officials project that building damage would eclipse $98 billion, up to 7,800 people could die and tens of thousands of residents would be displaced from their homes. Tariff backlash Peter DaSilva / Special to The Chronicle When China imposed retaliatory tariffs on American goods last April, vintners at Wente Vineyards in Livermore feared the move would push them out of China, the worlds fastest growing wine market, for months or years. They were right. The winery hasnt shipped wine to China since the tariffs took effect, after 24 years of doing business there. And the whole industry is feeling the shift. South to the airport Michael Short / Special to The Chronicle In two years, homeless encounters at SFO by police and airport staff have tripled. The airport is calling on BART to try to stem the tide, saying many unsheltered people arrive on trains especially the last one each night. Its yet another challenge for BART as it deals with the pending retirement of its general manager and police chief, but its not the only transit agency in the area that has seen its trains and buses become a shelter of last resort. Complaint of sex abuse Michael Short / Special to The Chronicle A Bay Area pediatrician and former foster parent who has been accused of sexual molestation by more than a dozen children and teens since 2001 is under investigation for a third time after a new allegation of abuse in Santa Cruz County. The investigation of Dr. Patrick Clyne, 57, who practices in the small community of Freedom, is a joint effort by the Medical Board of California and the Watsonville Police Department, police officials said. It involves a complaint from a child patient that was first reported to the Santa Cruz County Sheriffs Office in May. The new investigation comes eight years after a succession of complaints of sexual abuse made against Clyne, the former chief pediatrician for children in Santa Clara Countys foster care system. Hundreds of pages of filings in a U.S. District Court case show that from 2009 to 2011, 10 of Clynes former patients foster children he treated at a county shelter reported examinations so invasive that other physicians described them as extraordinarily uncommon, bizarre and suspicious. Water commute Brittany Hosea-Small / Special to The Chronicle Would you commute by water bike? Oakland and Alameda have given approval for a Mill Valley company to rent water bikes. Commuters can ride the electrically assisted devices across the 200-yard-long estuary starting this summer. Now the company has its sights set on San Francisco, believing commuters may ditch overcrowding on BART and the bridge in favor of biking across the bay. Around the bay Judges decision: A San Francisco judge considered releasing a man held over for trial on eight felony counts of pimping, sex trafficking underage girls and engaging in unlawful sex with a 15-year-old, Heather Knight writes. Its complicated: San Francisco Mayor London Breed plans to add 100 mental health beds by next year, but said the behavioral health system which serves 30,000 people a year needs greater coordination, focus and accountability. Sign up for Bay Briefing Like what you're reading? Subscribe to The Chronicle's Bay Briefing newsletter, and get the Bay Area's best journalism in your in-box every weekday. See More Collapse At the border: Heres what you need to know about the asylum system as President Trump pushes to shut down the border and keep asylum seekers from entering the United States. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. And in Washington: The Justice Department is on the verge of issuing rule changes that would make it easier for a handful of appellate immigration judges to declare their rulings binding on the entire immigration system, The Chronicle has learned. At the other border: Some U.S. border agents have quietly begun refusing to process work visas for Canadians already working in the country, a change that is confounding immigration lawyers and could pose problems for big Silicon Valley employers that frequently move tech workers between Canada and the U.S. No place to call home: San Francisco board-and-care homes for those with serious mental illnesses are shuttering as housing values soar and minimum-wage increases drive up staffing costs. His first 100 days: While his big-ticket items on hard-to-solve problems slowly wend their way through the Legislature, Gov. Gavin Newsom has filled the void with a to-do list that bolsters Californias position as a counterweight to Trump and perhaps improves his own prospects as a national political figure. Spillover effect? A new Berkeley ordinance that would ban overnight street parking of recreational vehicles has Oakland officials concerned that hundreds of RV dwellers could move to their city and others nearby. Easing controls: Midway through a yearlong trial to limit electric scooters in the city, San Francisco officials will soon consider whether to double the number. Something big: Newsom challenged the Legislature on Friday to revise state laws on utilities wildfire liabilities, presenting lawmakers with a series of potentially controversial strategies to shield electric companies from growing costs fueled by climate change. Chronicle Food + Wine Stephen Lam/Special to The Chronicle Unlike so many things we wait in line for, the Swans Oyster Depot experience is worth the inconvenience, restaurant critic Soleil Ho writes. Id do it all again, happily. So what makes Swans Oyster Depot worth it all? At the end of the line is a vision of the San Francisco that was, Ho writes, a celebration of local seafood married with blue-collar graciousness and the deliciousness that is crab backs with a little red wine vinegar. Read more. Bay Briefing is written by Taylor Kate Brown and sent to readers email in-boxes on weekday mornings. Sign up for the newsletter here, and contact Brown at taylor.brown@sfchronicle.com This summer, Tom Gray will lose his home. A slim man with hunched shoulders and a halting voice, Gray, 72, has schizophrenia. Before he landed in Carmen Palarcas board-and-care home 11 years ago, he spent 20 years living on the streets, many of them huddled in a doorway across from a San Francisco Whole Foods. I feel kind of sad and worried a little bit, Gray said quietly, sitting in the Sunset District homes small kitchen on a recent afternoon. He hadnt yet received official notice from Palarca of her plans to close, but knew it was likely. She had, in fact, sent a letter to the city a few days earlier outlining her intent to shutter the home. The planned closure of yet another board-and-care home reflects a broader trend affecting thousands of low-income Californians with serious mental illness. While housing values soar and minimum-wage increases drive up staffing costs, state reimbursement rates to board-and-cares have remained stagnant. The result: More facilities are shutting their doors. There are no reliable statewide data on the decrease of homes serving this population. But since 2012, San Francisco has lost more than a third of licensed residential facilities that serve people younger than 60, and more than a quarter of those serving older clients. Much of the decline has been in small, homelike facilities like Palarcas, which provide food, laundry and medication help and are more likely to accept low-income people with mental illness. Los Angeles, which has a large portion of the states board-and-cares, has lost more than 200 beds for low-income people with serious mental illness in the past year. Advocates say the state needs to collect better data and significantly increase reimbursement rates if it hopes to save the remaining facilities. If legislators dont get onto this, were in big trouble, said Lisa Kodmur, a health care consultant working with Los Angeles County on the issue. We will see more homelessness, more incarceration, more institutionalization, more people living on the streets. The housing crisis has placed those concerned about board-and-care in a strange predicament: Many now find themselves advocating for facilities they consider to be of poor quality and outmoded. Thats because the alternatives they see homelessness, incarceration, long-term placement in nursing homes or locked facilities are worse. Our inventory is so dire that we are now trying to save an industry that is not a darling, said Adriana Ruelas, legislative affairs director of the Steinberg Institute, which advocates for better mental health policies. Solutions lawmakers are considering Last week, the Steinberg Institute convened advocates and policymakers in Sacramento to address the disappearing board-and-cares. Among potential solutions being considered: Increasing the state's supplement to federal Supplemental Security Income rates to increase reimbursement rates to board-and-cares. Currently, the federal government pays $771 and the state pays $423 for SSI; residents keep a small amount for personal needs and the rest goes to the board-and-cares. Expanding the state's assisted-living waiver program, which uses Medi-Cal funds to allow vulnerable people to stay in board-and-cares instead of nursing homes. The program is currently authorized to serve fewer than 6,000 people. AB50, carried by Assemblyman Ash Kalra, D-San Jose, would broaden the program to serve more than 18,000. Requiring the state to maintain data on board-and-care residents to better understand their needs; AB1766 is carried by Assemblyman Richard Bloom, D-Santa Monica. Using funds from the Mental Health Services Act or No Place Like Home funds to help maintain board-and-cares. - Jocelyn Wiener See More Collapse Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg is a former state Senate leader who founded the institute and was recently appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to lead a new commission on homelessness and supportive housing. He calls the closures catastrophic. They are not the perfect solution for everybody, he said. But, perspective here: Its real shelter with care. The losses here are only making an already horrendous problem worse. At the root of the problem is money. Many facilities are closing because owners are selling the properties, or because operators are aging and their children dont want to take on a business that is not financially sound. Licensed board-and-cares, also known as adult residential facilities, receive a government-set monthly rent of $1,058 just less than $35 a day from tenants to pay for housing, 24-hour care and three daily meals. The tenants cover that cost with their monthly Supplemental Security Income checks, a combination of federal and state funds for people with serious mental illness. A report published in January by San Franciscos Long-Term Care Coordinating Council noted the citys minimum wage has increased by 46% since 2012, while the SSI rate for assisted living residents has increased by just 8%. The report estimated the monthly break-even rate for board-and-cares at more than $2,000 per bed, about double what low-income residents currently pay. Some counties, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, pay a patch using local and state funds to boost this rate to about $1,700 a month. Operators say thats still not enough. Dr. Jonathan Sherin, director of the Los Angeles Department of Mental Health, said hes been ranting and raving for years about the alarming rate of disappearance of board-and-cares in his city. Its a broken business model, he said. When homes close, his county scrambles to place the residents elsewhere. But that worsens the backlog for people in jails, hospitals or locked psychiatric facilities waiting for housing in the community. And once homes are sold, NIMBYismthe Not in My Backyard attitude can make it difficult to open new facilities in the same locations. Ideally, Palarca said she would like to sell the home where Gray lives to someone willing to maintain it as a board-and-care. But so far, she said, no potential buyer has seen a way to make the numbers work. Larry Mateo, 59, once operated five board-and-care homes in San Francisco. By the end of last year, hed closed them all. Now one is for sale, and two others are being rented to young people who can pay the high rates commanded in the city. Thats an easy no-brainer decision, Mateo said. I dont have payroll, I dont have to go buy groceries, I dont have to deal with clientele. Some residents, however, initially refused to leave. Some said, I have no place to go. I love this place, Mateo said. We had to call the sheriff to move them out because they just didnt want to move. Im not sure if it was part of their mental illness, but they didnt want to adapt to change. They said, This is my home. Why are you moving me out? About a third, or some 35,000, of the states homeless individuals have serious mental illness, according to estimates from the Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit that advocates for expanded psychiatric services. As tent encampments proliferate, efforts to house homeless people with mental illness have gained traction. Last fall, voters passed the No Place Like Home Act, allowing the state to borrow $2 billion to increase the supply of permanent supportive housing, which pairs affordable housing with mental health services. But not everyone with a serious mental illness is independent enough to thrive in that setting. Some still need help with meals and laundry and medications. The disappearance of board-and-cares leaves these vulnerable people without an option, said Ruelas of the Steinberg Institute. After landing in hospitals because of psychosis, paranoia and hallucinations in his early 20s, Tristan Scremin was discharged to board-and-care homes. Without this option, Scremin, now 45, speculates he might have ended up on the streets. Instead, he was able to stabilize and now works as a community liaison for Painted Brain, an arts-based mental health agency in Los Angeles. I see a lot of seriously mentally ill people on the street who are obviously having difficulty figuring out basic things, he said. If I had lost my chance to be in a board-and-care home, if Id become homeless, I think it would have been very difficult. Were just really failing this population, said Molly Davies, Los Angeles Countys long-term care ombudsman. She worries that funding gaps are not only forcing closures, but worsening conditions at board-and-cares that can be inhumane. Shes seen bedbug and rat infestations, and a typhus outbreak. Regulators are sometimes lenient, she said, because they dont want to lose more beds. They know that as licensed homes close, unlicensed ones proliferate with no oversight whatsoever. Residents of Palarcas board-and-care now face the possibility of being relocated to Central Valley communities theyve never visited. Im settled here. Im used to it here, said Setsuko Letchford, 70, who said she hears voices that constantly badger her. I dont have any place to go. They should find me someplace to go. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. Palarca, 77, and her husband, Domingo, 87, bought the seven-bedroom home for $96,000 in 1976, after they moved to San Francisco from the Philippines. Carmen was working as a benefits eligibility worker for the city of San Francisco; Domingo was a mechanic for United Airlines. They wanted additional income to pay for their childrens college educations. Now, they want to relax and travel. Still, Palarca worries for Letchford and Gray and the homes seven other residents. Clients in the home she closed in 2016 were farmed out to other facilities, some outside of the city. They didnt have a choice, she said. Kelly Hiramoto, director of transitions for the San Francisco Health Network, said the city is aware closures can be stressful for residents, although she wouldnt label it a crisis because she said the city is generally able to find alternative placements. The city subsidizes board-and-care beds for about 500 individuals, she said, starting at an additional $22 a day on top of the SSI rate, with half of those located outside of the county. Benson Nadell, San Franciscos long-term care ombudsman, said he expects the citys remaining board-and-care homes to disappear in 15 years, if not sooner, given the current funding model. But he said hed like to see new models, ones that prioritize programming and independence for the residents. The Steinberg Institutes Ruelas also would like to see a dynamic system that provides life skills and activities, not just medication, laundry and food. She said Progress Foundation, which offers residential treatment options in San Francisco, Napa and Sonoma, is one model to consider. Steve Fields, the nonprofits executive director, said board-and-care homes should be saved and transformed into something better. Otherwise, he said, counties without any imagination go back and reinvent the thing we dont need anymore. Across the city from Palarcas closing home, Aurora Concepcion is trying to keep hers open. Shes closed two homes in recent years because of staffing costs but still has three others. Brightly lit, with immaculate blond wood floors and big windows that look out on the Financial District, the homes, perched on a hill in the Portola district, are much nicer than most board-and-cares, Nadell said. Concepcion, 70, lives among her clients and said she feels driven by a mission. What I have is what they have; what I eat is what they eat, she said. I always tell them, We are a family here. Arriving from the Philippines in 1972, she took a bank job doing data entry and later stayed home to care for her daughter. She opened her first board-and-care in 1978, then another, then another. At her peak, she cared for 30 people. With the closures, shes down to 16. To stay open, she has reduced paid staff from four to one. She and her ex-husband and children handle shopping, cooking and medications. She washes the laundry at night when utility rates are cheaper, buys food in bulk, and said she hasnt taken a real vacation in 40 years. Were pinching pennies, she said. I make a joke all the time: Were the cheapest hotel in town. On a recent morning, residents gathered to eat the lunch Concepcion had prepared: salami-and-cheese sandwiches, chicken tomato soup and chocolate sandwich cookies. After lunch, Concepcion offered a tour of one of the homes shes closed. The brightly lit upstairs looks out onto a city panorama. It will doubtless command a fortune in rent on the private market. But Concepcion laments that she couldnt keep it open for residents with mental illness. They deserve a second chance, she said. They deserve a home. Jocelyn Wiener is a contributing writer to CALmatters, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California politics and policy. This story was supported by a grant from the California Health Care Foundation. A 19-year-old woman hit by a tractor-trailer Monday morning near the Balboa Park BART station in San Francisco was rushed to the hospital in critical condition, officials said. Around 8:47 a.m., police responded to a crash near San Jose and Seneca avenues and found a woman in the street. Officers determined a tractor-trailer struck her and she was taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries, police said. When China imposed retaliatory tariffs on American goods last April, vintners at Wente Vineyards in Livermore feared the move would push them out of China, the worlds fastest-growing wine market, for months or years. They were right. Wente Vineyards Wines hasnt shipped wine to China since the tariffs took effect, after 24 years of doing business there. The whole industry is feeling the shift: A report this month from the Wine Institute, a trade group in San Francisco, found that the value of U.S. wine exports to China fell nearly 25% last year, to $59 million. Wine exports as a whole fell nearly 5%, to their lowest levels since 2012. In China, we are not competitively priced anymore, said Michael Parr, vice president of international sales at Wente Vineyards. Its a lost opportunity for the entire California wine industry. California wines make up 90% of U.S. wine exports by volume. And theyre hurting well beyond China. The top market for American vintners, the European Union, saw a 15 percent drop in export sales last year to $469 million, partly because of the strong dollar. Two other major markets, Canada and Hong Kong, saw growth. Peter DaSilva / Special to The Chronicle 2019 But the trade war with China has nonetheless dampened spirits throughout the industry. The wrangling began in March 2018, when President Trump slapped tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods, mostly non-consumer items like machinery and equipment. China promptly retaliated with tariffs on wine, fruits, nuts and other agricultural products. The tit-for-tat has caused losses and uncertainty. Weve been investing time, money and have been making trips there for more than two decades, Parr said. That is how we built China to be one of our top 10 export destinations. All of that momentum was disrupted because of these tariffs. Duties on U.S. wine shipped to China are substantial 79% of the value, according to the Wine Institute. Wines from Australia, New Zealand and Chile face no tariffs in China and have gained market share. China is a crucial market for us, but right now were at a distinctive disadvantage, said David Amadia, president of Ridge Vineyards in Cupertino. Tariffs caused the price of his wines on Chinese shelves to rise 33%, he said and while its a small part of his business, it still hurt. The tariffs came at a time when California wineries are thriving. Theyre bringing in $1.5 billion in revenue, up 60% compared with a decade ago, according to Honore Comfort, the vice president of international marketing at the Wine Institute. The growth is not in volume but in value, as consumers trade up to high-end wines which are increasingly in demand around the world, according to a spokeswoman for the Wine Institute. In China, the tariffs have changed the trajectory. Peter DaSilva / Special to The Chronicle Besides the impact on producers, our national reputation has suffered in the last two years, said Michael Havens, an export broker with the firm California American Terroirs. Theres no question about that. More Information 25% Drop in U.S. wine exports to China in 2018 5% Drop in U.S. wine exports overall $469 million U.S. wine sold to the European Union 90% California's share of U.S. wine exports See More Collapse Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes Some vintners have put a lot of their eggs into the China basket and are suffering, he said. Lower-end wines are most affected by the trade war, according to Rob McMillan, founder of Silicon Valley Banks wine division. Fewer wines sent to China mean more bottles stay here, though the slight surplus is unlikely to result in cheaper wine, he said. Chinese consumers, for their part, have fewer American wines to choose from. When China opened its market in the late 1970s, traditional spirits like baijiu, a liquor made from grain, was more of the norm. Over time, as trade grew, Chinese consumers developed a sophisticated palate as wines from different parts of the world became available to them. China and the U.S. are expected to offer an update this month on trade negotiations, potentially leading to either an increase or repeal of the tariffs. For family-owned Wente Vineyards, the export tariffs have been survivable. The winery produces about 700,000 cases from grapes in the Livermore Valley and Monterey areas, and sales are spread out enough it exports a quarter of its production to 75 countries that overall revenue did not fall. Still, our wine export business suffers, Parr said. I want to be optimistic that the leaders of our countries will realize that there are no winners in a trade war. Shwanika Narayan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: shwanika.narayan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @shwanika Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has made progress in efforts to infuse a stronger focus on safety throughout its corporate culture in recent years, but some troubling shortfalls remain, a consultant told state regulators Monday. The remarks came during a public presentation before the California Public Utilities Commission about NorthStar Consulting Groups review of PG&Es approach to safety, which was updated in a report released last month. Angela Anderson, who was NorthStars project manager for the review, said the firm found PG&E had made a lot of strides since the commission first charged the consultants with auditing the utilitys safety culture because of the deadly 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion. But there are some concerning areas that have not evolved as far as we would have liked, Anderson said. While PG&E developed an occupational health and safety plan, the company did not have what the consultants would consider a comprehensive safety strategy that really looks at the corporation as a whole and keeps an eye on the future, she said. Anderson said one of the more troubling things is that PG&E has made very little progress getting more supervisors out in the field, as managers are too bogged down by administrative duties, meetings and paperwork. PG&E may respectfully disagree with us on that, but it just comes up again and again, Anderson said. Everyone recognizes that this needs to happen, but it just doesnt seem to be happening with the speed that it should. Robert Kenney, PG&Es vice president of regulatory affairs, said later in the forum that PG&E has fully embraced NorthStars recommendation and is working very diligently across all lines of business to implement that. He said it will take well into 2019 to implement PG&Es supervisor-in-the-field program. Kenney appeared alongside one of PG&Es longtime board members, Richard Kelly, who outlined the process company leaders followed when they recently overhauled the board of directors of the utility and its parent company PG&E Corp. Kelly, who was until recently chairman of PG&E Corp.s board, admitted the company can do more to improve its corporate culture. We have to get the safety message down through the whole organization. There seems to be a spot where it seems to die, Kelly told the commission. Its not a matter of more money. Its not a matter of more programs: Weve got to just do a better job of getting it down to the individual person. NorthStars first review of PG&E was conducted in 2016 and released in 2017 on behalf of the utilities commission, which opened a regulatory proceeding into the utilitys corporate culture in light of the San Bruno blast that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes several years earlier. That regulatory process is ongoing and has dramatically expanded in the wake of last years Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in state history. PG&E power equipment is suspected of starting the blaze, and the company has admitted it will likely be found responsible. Wildfire liabilities were the driving force behind PG&Es decision to file for bankruptcy protection in January. As part of the expanded safety investigation, the commission is now considering a range of potential restructuring options for PG&E, including whether some or all of the utilitys 70,000-square-mile service area should be taken over by the government. Regulators are also looking at whether the company should be broken up in another way or change its corporate governance structure. At the forums outset, Commissioner Clifford Rechtschaffen acknowledged PG&E had taken a number of very significant steps to improve its emphasis on safety. But the steps havent been fast enough. They havent been systemic enough. They havent been embedded in the fiber of the organization, he said. One of the forum panelists was Kenneth Feinberg, a well-known lawyer who oversaw the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund and also worked for the U.S. Treasury Department on executive compensation issues arising from the financial crisis. Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes Feinberg spoke about how federal officials worked to motivate less risky practices by linking senior executives pay more closely to their companies performances by making part of their compensation based on long-term stock awards. He said California regulators might have other tools to shape utilities approach to safety. Im sure there are some creative ways, through rate-setting, however it might be, for the commission or others in the executive branch to wield more regulatory authority over safety goals, Feinberg said. Feinberg is one of the 13 candidates nominated by the hedge fund BlueMountain Capital Management to serve on the PG&E board of directors. The utility just replaced most of its board and seated 10 new directors, all of whom will be up for election at a shareholders meeting next month. BlueMountain said it would carefully evaluate the companys nominees. PG&E spokesman Paul Doherty said in an email that the company welcomes and appreciates additional input on how PG&E can do better when it comes to safety and values these discussions on governance, management and safety culture as part of our overall engagement with the commission in this proceeding. The utilities commission is set to hold another PG&E-focused workshop next Friday. J.D. Morris is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @thejdmorris Sebastian Vettel has denied suggestions he could soon quit F1. Heavily criticised for his start to the 2019 season, some believe the German will struggle to have his Ferrari contract renewed beyond its expiry late next year. Not just that, Vettel recently admitted there are aspects of today's F1 'show' that he doesn't like. He also dislikes how the modern media reacts. "Out of nowhere things are blown up, and a week later it's forgotten. I cannot identify with that," Vettel told Bild am Sonntag newspaper. This week, his friend Bernie Ecclestone suggested that if F1 starts to put Vettel's family life out of "balance", he will retire. "Well, I'm certainly not going to be in formula one as long as he was, that's for sure," Vettel said of the 88-year-old former F1 supremo. "I don't know, to be honest. At the moment I feel on top of my game, I feel that I know what I'm doing and I'm very, very self-critical, very ambitious and I put a lot of expectation on myself," he added. "I love driving, I love the sensation of speed, I love fighting with these guys, so there's a lot of things that at the moment I really like and I'll miss so that's why it's not an option to quit tomorrow," said Vettel. "I've got the contract but that's a piece of paper and then we see what happens." (GMM) OROVILLE, Butte County After five months of bouncing from motel to motel, Camp Fire survivors Marianne Warner and her 2-year-old daughter, Charlotte Sherwood, were finally able to kick up their heels after a long-awaited move into more stable housing: a travel trailer in Oroville. Inside the homey camper, they did a victory dance to Rolling in the Deep, a song by Adele that Warner cranked over the trailers built-in radio so she and her daughter could hug and boogie. Theres a fire starting in my heart, reaching a fever pitch, its bringing me out the dark, sang Adele. Warner and Charlotte, along with Charlottes, father Jonathan Sherwood, were among about two dozen families Monday to move into trailers at Bidwell Canyon State Park in Butte County, a welcome respite from the nomadic hell they have been living since the deadliest fire in California history burned them out of the Sierra foothills town of Paradise and the surrounding area last fall. The new digs, provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, represented the kind of progress toward normalcy that they have been craving. It means I can cook for myself. I dont have to eat out as much. I can save some money, said Warner, a 40-year-old home-care worker who lost all of her belongings and believes the smoke and stress of fleeing the fire contributed to the death of her mother-in-law. Maybe there can be some relaxation. The federal government, working with the California Department of Parks and Recreation, set up 74 camp trailers at the park, each capable of housing two to four people. They are among several hundred trailers set up in Oroville (Butte County), Yuba City (Sutter County), Orland (Glenn County) and Corning (Tehama County) for victims of the Camp Fire, said Dan Horvath, FEMAs Camp Fire housing task force leader. The newest community was set up at a camping area in the park in Oroville, where FEMA spent $3 million in upgrades, including an entirely new electrical system and resurfaced roads. The lucky residents were selected by social workers from a list of people who signed up for the housing. Horvath said the new residents will be allowed to live in the trailers free of charge for about a year 18 months from the November date that President Trump declared a disaster emergency. Everybody is really excited to get out of their current situation, Horvath said. Its a good win for everybody. Were helping the park with upgrades, and they are helping survivors. The Camp Fire, which began Nov. 8, destroyed the entire town of Paradise, gobbling up entire neighborhoods on its unprecedented path of destruction in the hills above Chico. The fire destroyed 528 businesses and 13,972 homes in Paradise, its neighbor Magalia and several other wooded communities, shutting down commerce in the area and leaving thousands homeless. Eighty-five people died. It could take years to rebuild Paradise and the other small communities. Many of the elderly property owners are expected to move away. The rest have been left to fend for themselves until the water system and electrical grid can be rebuilt and hazardous-materials officials can declare the place safe enough for property owners to rebuild. In the meantime, it will be a tight squeeze for people like Maureen Curtis, 64, who will share a kitchen, bathroom and sitting area with her two small dogs, Buddy and Spark. Its been really difficult since the fire. Ive moved 14 times and I was always under the stress of not knowing whether I would have a place over my head or whether I was going to have to live on the streets, which Im too old for, said Curtis, who lost three friends in the fire and whose family lost seven homes in Paradise. Only two of those homes, not including hers, were insured. Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California To have this means the world to me because its a home, she said. For a whole year, I dont have to worry about where Im going to sleep at night, are my dogs going to be OK. Genevo Brockelsby, 33, who was born and raised in Paradise and escaped the fire only because she knew all the back roads out, was looking forward to finally being able to concentrate on finding a job and doing a little fishing. I havent been able to accept full-time work because I cant go to an employer and tell them Im a reliable employee when I dont even have a place to live, said Brockelsby as she calmed her Australian shepherd Ruger and whippet Lulu. This is that little bit of stability that Ive been needing not having to worry about what am I going to do with the dogs when I go to work or do I have to check out of my hotel in two days. Ive stayed in my car, Ive stayed at friends houses, Ive done whatever Ive had to do. I need to keep moving forward. Mel Contant, a lead organizer who has been helping wildfire survivors since November, said most of the victims have maintained their composure through the deaths of friends and family, not having a place to go and a lack of money to pay for food, clothing or child care. There is so much grief, so much, said Contant as she helped Warner and Charlotte move into their trailer. I cannot begin to make up the scenarios that these survivors have run across. Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite 2 1 of 2 San Francisco Chronicle Show More Show Less 2 of 2 Bill Hutchinson / The Chronicle Show More Show Less One person was killed and three others were injured in a shooting early Sunday morning in Vallejo, police said. Officers responded to a report of shots fired just after 12:30 a.m. in the 100 block of Princeton Ave. and found one male who appeared to be suffering from gunshot wounds. The victim died at the scene. When a news article exposed the criminal past of a former insurance claims investigator at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland whos now accused by federal prosecutors of embezzling $7 million from the company it created a digital record available to the world. Potential employers, industry colleagues, friends, relatives or anyone else who ran Michael Albert Quinns name in Google would find the 2016 Chronicle story at the top of the search list. So it appears that Quinn or someone looking to help him did what many others have done when faced with a negative internet search result: Bury it. Using the name Michael Albert Quinn Kaiser, which combines the 48-year-olds name and the name of his alleged fraud target, somebody created social media accounts, blogs and web pages that began to populate Google searches and eventually pushed the unfavorable story down the page. The result, according to experts, is the product of a complex process thats well known in the growing world of online reputation management. A person unhappy with search results not only has to create new digital content, but also fool Googles algorithms into giving the web pages and social media accounts high rankings. This is not the kind of work that you do by yourself, said Herman Tumurcuoglu, an online reputation management expert in Montreal. Google is dynamic, and theres constant learning going on. You have to keep up in the industry. Techniques to mimic engagement and boost search rankings range from company to company and are often closely guarded in the industry. Google did not respond to a request for comment about its ranking algorithm. But in general, Tumurcuoglu said, someone could suppress a negative article by following the steps done for Michael Quinn Kaiser. First, create accounts on Tumblr, Crunchbase, WordPress, Twitter, LinkedIn and dozens of other pages. Then, begin populating each site with content. Last comes the tricky part. To boost search engine optimization, a person must crowdsource digital clicks from a variety of sources, mimicking interest in the content. This process starts moving it up, Tumurcuoglu said. It happens over many months. If the negative article was the first result, it can take up to a year to bury the result. Studies show that nearly 95% of people dont click past the first page of search results, so the goal is to get the bad press on page two of Google search results or the best place to hide a dead body, Tumurcuoglu said. The technique wont scrub an article off the internet. And many employers hiring for sensitive positions, like government jobs, do extensive background checks that would probably reveal a documented criminal past. But for people looking to network with other professionals or keep things hidden from friends and family, the results can be significant. The internet and social medias ever-growing reach in society has fueled demand in the online reputation management industry. Job candidates, singles, students and any other person must consider how they are represented online, which directly affects their livelihood. Patrick Ambron is CEO of New Yorks BrandYourself, which offers services to people looking to clean up their digital profiles. Some customers want to purge embarrassing social media posts, he said, while others are victims of online harassment or revenge porn and need protection. Negative media coverage is one of the hardest forms of content to kill because Googles algorithms rank news stories high in search. News has a lot of authority in Google, and it outlives the news cycle. Thats a new phenomenon in society, Ambron said. Some companies in his industry, he said, use black-hat techniques, which manipulate Googles algorithms. For example, someone could run a script creating a multitude of artificial clicks thats not in the spirit of how Google intends for people to use its search tools. Its unclear what approach elevated the seemingly bogus pages above the article on Quinn, which detailed his past felony convictions for falsifying evidence in a criminal case in 1994 and embezzling nearly $80,000 from Nordstrom in Pleasanton in 2002. He apparently kept those records hidden from Kaiser, where he started in 1998 and worked until he was fired in 2014. He went on to work for Save Mart Supermarkets as the director of risk management and loss prevention before leaving under circumstances the company wouldnt discuss. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. In the three years since The Chronicle story was published, Quinn has run into more trouble. In 2017, an Alameda County Superior Court judge ruled that he owes Kaiser $18.5 million after he failed to show up for depositions and hearings in a civil lawsuit. And on April 5, federal prosecutors charged him with fraud after a years-long FBI investigation. On Wednesday, Rohnert Park police arrested Quinn, who was transferred to Glenn Dyer Jail in Oakland and then released Friday. His attorney, Tony Brass, said three co-conspirators named in the charging documents against Quinn make it difficult to determine the comparative levels of culpability for those involved. Im not certain why a case this old would still have so many people that are uncharged, he said. Biggest crime news of the past week The family of Nia Wilson, the 18-year-old woman killed last summer on an Oakland BART station, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the transit agency. A serial cat shooter in Oakland prompted a local nonprofit to offer a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. A Fremont elementary school teacher was arrested this week for possessing child pornography. An Uber driver was arrested after police say he drove passengers from San Mateo to the airport and then returned to burglarize their home. East Oakland saw a rash of violence this week, after four people were killed in shootings spanning over four days. Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky Residents in San Franciscos Haight-Ashbury neighborhood awoke Monday to discover someone had painted numerous swastikas all over a popular neighborhood park. Around a dozen swastikas were scrawled in white paint on the pedestrian walkway around Buena Vista Park, a wooded hillside in the iconic neighborhood that offers dramatic views of the Bay Area. Max Szabo was walking his dog with his wife on Monday morning and made the alarming discovery along with other neighbors around the park. Its chilling, said Szabo, who works as a spokesman for the San Francisco district attorneys office. I dont think a lot of people that do this kind of thing really understand what they are symbolizing. Szabo said he had family members who died in the Holocaust and Mondays discovery was extremely troubling. Who ever did this is preaching hate in an area that spawned the summer of love, he said. Courtesy of Max Szabo Officials with San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department said they have dispatched crews to remove the graffiti. We will never allow anything like this to stand, said Tamara Aparton, a spokeswoman for the department. Our parks are places of peace and respite and vile symbols of antisemitism and hate have no place there or anywhere in civilized society. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. Park officials said they reported the incident to the Police Department, which is handling the investigation. Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky Ahmed Mustafa / AFP / Getty Images CAIRO The Sudanese military attempted to break up a sit-in Monday outside its headquarters in the capital, Khartoum, but backed off, organizers behind the protests said. Later, the African Union gave Sudans transitional military council 15 days to hand over power to a civilian-led political authority or face suspension from the unions activities. There were no clashes and no one was hurt in the attempted dispersal, but the incident set off concerns that the military, which last week ousted Sudans longtime President Omar al-Bashir after four months of street protests against his rule, could renege on its promises not to use force against the peaceful demonstrators. If Jessica Schiller has her way, there will soon be floating bikes crossing the bay from morning to night, commuters escaping the perils of BART and the traffic snarls of the bridge by pedaling amid the whales and container ships. For now, the Oakland Estuary will have to do. After attending a March demonstration, Oakland and Alameda officials have given the Mill Valley entrepreneur the go-ahead to install a fleet of 25 electrically assisted water bikes that will allow commuters to ride between the Jack London Square area in Oakland and either Mariner Square or the Grand Street dock in Alameda. As with the land-based scooters and e-bikes that fill the roads, commuters will use a mobile app to claim a bike on either side of the estuary, ride across the 200-yard expanse of water and surrender it on the opposite side, paying by the minute. The bikes, which Schiller invented in 2013, resemble mini-catamarans: a standard bicycle frame suspended over two inflatable pontoons, with a drop-down propeller powered by pedals and a 750-watt motor. The pontoon design provides stability so users can ride the bikes without having to worry about tipping or getting wet. Though pricing and specifics still need to be ironed out, Schiller plans to start the program in July. Brittany Hosea-Small / Special to The Chronicle As idealistic as Schillers vision might be, her company will have to address several challenges. For starters, considering the boat traffic in the Oakland Estuary, who will teach users how to navigate busy waterways? Whats stopping users from taking a bike and pedaling off? And what about safety? Ginger Jui, executive director of Bike East Bay, a nonprofit that promotes bicycle transportation, is cautiously optimistic. It certainly is a creative option, (but) its hard to say how big it could be, said Jui, who uses the pronoun they. We do know that there is a real desire for everyday folks to have an active, accessible option in their commute. So far, city officials in Oakland and Alameda are intrigued by the prospect and willing to give it a shot. People have been thinking about ways to improve transit between Oakland and Alameda for years, said Ryan Russo, director of transportation for the city of Oakland. These bikes are a fun, fast and sensible approach to addressing the problem. Speaking for Alameda, Rochelle Wheeler, senior transportation coordinator in the citys Transportation Planning Division, agreed. We see this as a fantastic near-term solution to improving access to Alameda, she said, noting that Lime pulled its electric scooters out of Alameda last month. We are expecting a lot of waterfront development in the next few years, so this would be a piece of a bigger transit puzzle, not the only answer. According to Schiller, the bikes reduce crossing time to a few minutes an improvement on the stop-and-go schlep required to cross any of the four bridges that span the estuary. The water route also provides a biking alternative to the Posey Tunnel, which connects the two cities underwater but has a narrow and notoriously treacherous sidewalk. Think about it: You never pay by the minute to do anything on the water, Schiller said. Were disrupting that and making mobility something everybody can afford for the price of a latte. Users will be required to go through a brief water-safety and instructional tutorial on the mobile app and sign a liability waiver before taking their first ride. Schiller noted that each bike will come with a personal flotation device, and employees will be on hand at each dock to manage bikes as they come and go. Schiller Bikes would manage the water bike rental program, requiring no financial commitment from the cities involved. Schillers company also would cover insurance. Schiller wouldnt reveal how much the bikes cost to produce, but her company now sells bikes without electrical assistance for $5,500. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. At a trial run in San Franciscos McCovey Cove on April 6, Giants fans lined up to watch Schiller and colleagues motor around, and Schiller and her crew made the Jumbotron inside Oracle Park. The demo was part of a bigger effort to woo San Francisco city officials. Over the next few years, Schiller hopes to expand her water-bike rental program with six to eight stations around the San Francisco waterfront between the Marina and Hunters Point. She has shared the idea with city agencies and groups, but none has endorsed the idea to date. Ultimately, Schiller envisions a fleet of electric water bikes commuting across San Francisco Bay, though the 4-mile crossing to the East Bay transects active shipping channels, and weather, chop and swell in the bay can make navigation difficult for novices. Urban waterways are like empty highways just waiting to be used for transportation, she said. This is just the beginning of new and brilliant future on a blue planet. Matt Villano is a Healdsburg freelance writer. Email: style@sfchronicle.com Clockwise from top: The House Spritz, Furred Murderer, Abraco Cocktail, Negroni, and Johnny Jubek cocktails at Abraco in the East Village. Photo: Scott Heins Since it opened in 2007, Abraco has forged its own iconoclastic identity: a super-soulful mom-and-pop in a city fairly crawling with corporate chains; a coffee specialist with great homemade food; a roomy cafe (at least once it expanded across the street) with a no-laptops rule thats actually enforced; a cash-only holdout in an increasingly chip-happy world. To say that the Underground Gourmet is a big fan of this delightfully contrarian coffeehouse and its eccentric ways would be to understate the facts. And now the East Village anomaly has added yet another winning identitythat of a European-style bar, with a full liquor license and a highly personal approach to cocktails. Over the past few months, Abraco has been stealthily extending its evening hours to 10 p.m. Tuesday to Sunday. You might think of it as an all-night-aperitivo bar or secret taperia, with a broad selection of vermouths and amari and small-plate snacks to eat with them. Although there are strong Spanish and Italian underpinnings to the proceedings the beer is Mahou, theres not one but three spritzes the drinks list itself is pleasingly unclassifiable. Co-owner Jamie McCormick, it turns out, is a bartender trapped in the body of a barista, on a first-name basis with most of his customers and as palpably excited about an original or revamped classic cocktail as he is about the latest batch of beans he roasted at his Greenpoint plant. (These obsessions meet in his homemade coffee liqueur, and in traditional drinks like the espresso-and-brandy carajillo.) Hes also a bit of a cocktail subversive, taking inspiration from song lyrics and neighborhood characters and dispensing with conventional mixological wisdom on everything from recipes to ice. To wit: He carbonates a Provencal rose that he serves, like his red and white, on tap. And he makes a persuasive case for mixing a Negroni with Contratto red bitter instead of Campari and easily scandalized Negroni formalists, avert your eyes and skip ahead to the next paragraph shaking the thing like a Bahama Mama. Food is the domain of his partner, Elizabeth Quijada, who expands upon her savory-sweet daytime pastries and lush frittatas with a rotating assortment of vegetarian tapas. There is usually a slender bocadillo stuffed with non-humdrum combinations like kabocha squash, roasted pepper, tomato sauce, and Cheddar; glossy half-moon-shaped borekas served with dipping sauce; and mysteriously flavorful room-temperature vegetables, like sauteed spigarello with pistachios and red grapes, or wine-braised baby artichokes with honey ricotta to smear on excellent housemade focaccia. There are marinated olives and spiced nuts, too, and a vibe thats less bar or restaurant than a place where the simple food and improvisatory drink are meant to fuel conversation, accompany Brazilian jazz on the turntable, and let life return to a serene and manageable pace. Coffee bar by day, liquor bar by night. Photo: Scott Heins The bocadillo contents change every week or so; this one has smoked mozzarella and spiced rainbow carrots. Photo: Scott Heins Clockwise from top left: Gruyere-and-leek quiche with ramp pesto; spigarello with grapes and pistachios; braised artichokes with honey ricotta and focaccia; borekas stuffed with cheese, hazelnuts, and leek. Photo: Scott Heins. Clockwise from top left: Gruyere-and-leek quiche with ramp pesto; spigarello with grapes and pistachios; braised artichokes with honey ricotta and foc... more Clockwise from top left: Gruyere-and-leek quiche with ramp pesto; spigarello with grapes and pistachios; braised artichokes with honey ricotta and focaccia; borekas stuffed with cheese, hazelnuts, and leek. Photo: Scott Heins. The Johnny Jubek: gin, tonic, grapefruit liqueur. Photo: Scott Heins The Furred Murderer: caraway aquavit and dry vermouth. Photo: Scott Heins The House Spritz: Contratto, sparkling rose, seltzer. Photo: Scott Heins Photo: Scott Heins 81 E. 7th St., nr. First Ave.; no phone; cash only; closed Monday *A version of this article appears in the April 15, 2019, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now! Ambitious East Bay politicians whose blood pressure spiked when Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Dublin, announced his candidacy for president and that he would not run simultaneously for a fifth term should not quit their day jobs quite yet. Swalwell may still run for re-election in Congress if his presidential bid flames out by December. The assumption that Swalwell was headed for 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. or bust, fueled by some of his own comments, has been making its way into assorted news stories about his candidacy after he announced on Stephen Colberts show on April 8. No one was more puzzled than I was. After all, Swalwell was quite clear in spelling out his intentions in a January interview with me. If he were to run, he said then, he would not run for both offices at the same time even though it was legally possible. Heres the caveat: The filing deadline for each is Dec. 6. So if he were to drop out of the presidential race by then, he could still run for Congress. I spoke with Swalwell on the phone last Thursday to make sure that was still the case. It is. What I have said and maybe this is where the confusion is that if Im still a viable presidential candidate when that day (Dec. 6) comes, Im staying in the presidential lane, he said. If Im viable (in the Democratic presidential primary), Im not running for both. The first threshold will be the upcoming Democratic debates. Swalwell said he fully expected to meet the requirements (at least 1 percent in the polls and 65,000 individual donors) to reach what is certain to be a crowded stage. As long as I keep hitting way points and our vision is connecting, Im running for president, he said Thursday. In truth, Swalwell is hardly blameless in the confusion. Some of his quotes have left the unmistakable impression that it was White House or go home. A swashbuckling Swalwell told my colleague Joe Garofoli in a February Its All Political podcast that he was taking the burn the boats philosophy that conquistador Hernan Cortez embraced when he invaded the Aztec Empire in 1519. They stormed the land, Swalwell said. And he had them burn the ships behind them so there was no looking back. I would want people to know that Im putting my all into this and I dont have a life insurance policy. He added: If youre seeking such a big job that would affect so many people, I think you have to assure the people youre asking to vote for you that youre not hedging. And that you dont have a lifeboat waiting for you. Swalwell insists he is all-in for the presidential race, even if he is hedging with a political insurance policy through the fall. He went back to his alma mater Dublin High School for a kickoff rally Sunday. He certainly showed that he could make a robust stump speech, focusing on gun safety as my top priority. The other takeaway? The relatively lean national news coverage and modest crowd gathered on the campus lawn are not going to set off alarms in the headquarters of Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders or Pete Buttigieg, who are drawing more of each. As for the Democrats in eastern Alameda and central Contra Costa counties looking to move up to Congress: See you in December. Maybe. The boats remain anchored offshore. John Diaz is The Chronicles editorial page editor. Email: jdiaz@sfchronicle.com San Francisco Supervisor Matt Haneys constituents in District Six are in revolt over a proposed Navigation Center for homeless residents along the Embarcadero. The easiest thing for Haney to do would have been to tell Mayor London Breed to find another location for the center. But hes chosen a harder and better path. Haney plans to introduce a new piece of legislation at the next meeting of the Board of Supervisors that would require every district in San Francisco to open a Navigation Center in the next 30 months. I think its important for the full board to step up and say, yes, we need to have a plan that demonstrates shared responsibility and full commitment to solving the problem of creating services and stability for homeless people, Haney said. Haneys been vocal about the need for more districts in San Francisco to share the burden of providing shelter since before he was elected supervisor in 2018. Historically, San Franciscos homeless services have been concentrated in the citys southeastern districts, and especially in the Tenderloin and the South of Market area. The northern and western neighborhoods have resisted homeless shelters and services, saying their homeless populations are too small to warrant them. That excuse was never really true. There have been sizable homeless populations in Golden Gate Park, the Haight-Ashbury area, and around the Marina, for example, for many years. But the claim clearly rings false now. Data from the citys 2017 Point in Time count showed that there are unsheltered homeless people in every district. They were present in districts with homeless shelters and in districts without homeless shelters. Homelessness has changed. New construction has forced unsheltered homeless people to leave formerly depopulated parts of town in search of new spots to rest their heads. A housing crisis has created huge growth in vehicular homelessness. Theres a shortage of shelter beds. This is truly a citywide issue that requires the participation of every district. Navigation Centers arent perfect: They dont provide homeless residents with the ultimate solution of permanent housing. But theyre a proven way to get people off the streets and to shorten their experience of homelessness. Unfortunately, theyre also concentrated in the same three districts that always deliver homeless services. Thats unfair to the citys homeless population and unfair to the residents of those districts. It breeds resident resentment as we see from the reaction to the proposed Embarcadero Navigation Center. I support creating an Embarcadero Navigation Center, Haney said. And Im not saying we cant have more centers in Districts Six, Nine and 10. But we need to go back to these neighborhoods and say, hey, the rest of the city is going to do its part, too. Under Haneys proposal, each district would be required to open a Navigation Center within the next 30 months. It doesnt specify a punishment for districts that fail to fulfill their commitment. When asked why, Haney said that he expects districts to follow this law as they would any others. I dont know what a punishment would be, he said. We depend on people to follow the law. First, though, Haney has to get the law passed. Its a heavy lift, but with four co-sponsors for the bill, its not an impossible one. Mayor London Breed could make things easier by asking the other supervisors to support this measure. 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. Regarding White House urged detainees be moved to sanctuary cities (Nation, April 12): This venal policy of using families and children as pawns in retaliation and punishment against perceived political enemies has Stephen Millers grubby fingerprints all over it. Its time for Congress to drag him in to testify under oath about the cruel and colossal mess hes made of President Trumps so-called immigration policy. John Brooks, Fairfax Sad for the country Regarding Judge lifts ban gun fans rush in (Front Page, April 11) and Prime ministers ban on military-style weapons ratified (World, April 11): I am sad for our country! The headline reports a California run on high-capacity ammo magazines following a federal judge temporarily setting aside the prohibition. Turn the page, and I read that New Zealand, in the space of less than a month of an attack that killed 50 people, has passed a law banning most semiautomatic weapons. Am I so out of touch that I cant understand Americans love of weapons of war in spite of the many, many massacres we have had and continue to have? What is preventing us from following New Zealands example? Paola Sensi-Isolani, El Cerrito Combat command Our president is pushing the idea of a Space Force with significant support. The idea is crazy. What we need is an additional combat command, not a space force. Space Force means adding a new service to the military (Army, Navy, Air Force, Space Force). Does that mean adding a new academy? (West Point, Naval Academy, Air Force Academy, Space Academy). A much better idea is adding one more command (Space Command) to our existing combat commands (six geographical (Northern, Central, Southern, European, African, Pacific) and support commands (Special Operations, Transportation, Strategic, Cyber). All combat commands are led by four-star flag officers from the existing services. Heres an interesting point: When you make four stars, the color of your uniform often does not matter. You are selected because of your leadership, command capabilities, so combat commanders are often selected without regard to their service with few exceptions. The chain of command for all combat commands goes directly from the president to the secretary of defense to the combat commander its a direct line for defensive purposes. Bottom line: forget the Space Force, add a new combat command. Marle Hewett, Groveland Prioritize residents The homeless problem in San Francisco is taking up all the oxygen in San Francisco right now. City leadership needs to remember that taxpaying residents wishes and concerns should be prioritized. Reading the proposal that requires every San Francisco district to open a Navigation Center is infuriating. The next thing well be told is that well have to open our spare rooms or garages to the homeless! The San Francisco Board of Supervisors isnt looking for long-term solutions to this problem, its looking at Band-Aids that will have long-term adverse effects. Its time to get serious and invoke some tough love. First, get the addicts into rehab and the mentally ill help by moving them into facilities outside the expensive Bay Area. Second, spend our housing resources on finding long-term solutions for the working poor. Its time to start addressing (and talking about) these homeless populations as distinct audiences, because they each require a different approach. Jay Elliott, San Francisco Carbon fee benefits Regarding Electric bills may increase sharply (Front Page, April 11): The article asserts that increased Pacific Gas and Electric Co. bills because of forest fires will decrease the incentive to purchase electric vehicles and inhibit Californias drive to phase out natural gas. There is another, more hopeful, way to look at it with respect to the states desire to lead the nation in fighting climate change through a large-scale switch to renewable energy. Increased electricity prices will, in fact, also make the economic case for residential solar power installations, whether purchased or rented, more attractive. This is an example of the power of market forces to accelerate the conversion to alternative sources of energy. Using market forces for much-needed change is embedded in HR763, The Energy Innovation and Carbon Fee and Dividend Act recently introduced in the House of Representatives. In this act, the fee-per-ton of carbon assessed on the producers of fossil fuels is returned equally to all households in the form of a regular check. Please encourage your representative to support HR763. Stephan Crothers, Palo Alto Accurate depiction Regarding Impact on students (Letters, April 12): I believe the first impact schools should have on students is good education. The mural accurately depicts harsh truths about our history, the racist cruelty toward nonwhite people, as it also gives a beautiful example of Depression-era federally funded public art. If students have concerns and questions about what is shown, or lack of women in the mural, there is a great opportunity for teaching history and for open discussion. To pretend it never happened, or to assume students may mistake the murals message, would not be good education. Susan Brown, San Carlos As Californians sit down to complete their tax returns by todays deadline, hundreds of thousands of middle-class households are realizing that the Trump tax cut was no tax cut at all. In fact, it was a huge tax increase. According to a 2018 analysis by the California Franchise Tax Board, the 2017 Trump tax overhaul will cause more than 750,000 middle-class households in California to pay more to the Internal Revenue Service, costing California residents about $12 billion a year in higher taxes. By contrast, large corporations won big. With corporate profits at close to an all-time high, Trumps tax bill gave corporations an enormous windfall, slashing the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. The result: Large, highly profitable corporations that do business in California got to pocket an extra $13 billion to $17 billion a year, money they previously paid to the IRS. In other words, the Trump tax overhaul effectively takes $12 billion annually from many California residents and hands it to large corporations. Indeed, the Trump tax cut seemed almost designed to punish blue states like California in order to finance a giant corporate giveaway. How? On Tax Day, many Californians are realizing how the Trump plans cap on itemized deductions for state and local taxes at $10,000 a year impacts their tax return. In states with high housing prices like California and thus high local property taxes it means that lots of people can no longer write off all of their local and state taxes and thus have to pay more to the IRS. Its blatantly unfair. Thats especially true given the fact that large corporations havent been paying their fair share to California for a long time. Since the 1970s, corporate tax revenues as a percentage of Californias budget have plummeted more than 40 percent and are at near-record low levels, according to the California Budget Project. Plus, large corporations didnt need a huge tax cut. Last year, U.S. corporate profits reached record levels, and corporations shelled out a record amount of cash to investors. The rich keep getting richer and income inequality now rivals that of the Gilded Age. Just look at the pay of CEOs compared to their workers. In 1978, U.S. CEOs were paid about 30 times the pay of an average employee. Yet today, according to a 2018 report by the Economic Policy Institute, compensation for CEOs has soared to 300 times the pay of the average worker so that CEOs take home about $18.9 million a year compared to just $54,600 for the average employee. Corporations, in short, pay their CEOs too much and our state and their workers too little. Thats why I, along with Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, and Rob Bonta, D-Alameda, introduced Senate Bill 37, Corporate Fair Share for California & Californians. It would allow the state of California and average Californians to benefit from the Trump corporate tax windfall while incentivizing corporations to pay their employees an equitable wage. It would also raise up to $5 billion a year for our K-12 schools, community colleges, early childhood education, and other state programs. SB37 seeks to capture a portion of the corporate tax giveaway by increasing taxes on large U.S. corporations on the business they do in California. It affects only the top 0.2 percent of U.S. companies because they got the lions share of the Trump tax cut. In addition, the legislation progressively increases taxes on these corporations depending on the gap between CEO pay and the pay of their average worker. SB37 would help close the income inequality gap by rewarding large corporations with a lower tax rate if they increase the pay of their workers, or reduce CEO pay, or both. And it would help the state diversify its revenues. For too long, California has depended too heavily on personal income taxes, and so in an economic downturn, the states general fund revenues plummet. SB37 will help stabilize Californias budget. Some naysayers are already claiming that SB37 will push corporations out of California. But the legislation applies to all corporations that do business here regardless of where theyre based. Apple, for example, would not be able to avoid SB37 by moving to Texas. Some have also claimed that corporations will slash jobs if they have to pay higher taxes in California. But if that were true, then the Trump tax cut wouldve prompted corporations to hire more workers. But it hasnt. Still, because of Proposition 13, SB37 doesnt face an easy road: It requires a two-thirds majority vote to pass both houses of the Legislature. So, we need your help. If you want to reduce income inequality and ensure that California gets its fair share of the Trump corporate tax giveaway, then I urge you to contact your Assembly member and state senator to ask them to support SB37. Our tax system should help level the economic playing field not be tilted in favor Big Business and fat-cat CEOs. State Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, is the Senate Majority Whip in Sacramento. On Tuesday, Oakland City Council members will vote on whether to reject $30 million for our children and our schools funds to which our children are entitled. Just a few weeks ago, Oaklands teachers went on their first strike in more than two decades to demand increased investment in our schools. We, as a community, fought passionately alongside them. After witnessing this strike and teacher strikes across the country, one thing is clear: Cities need to invest in our children and schools. Paul Kuroda / Special to The Chronicle For Oakland, that means protecting the $30 million in education funds that would be collected through Measure AA. At the core of our education funding crisis is Proposition 13, which has allowed a minority of anti-tax purists to systematically block resources for education by requiring a two-thirds voter approval for any tax measure. But in 2017, the state Supreme Court wrote in the Upland case that Prop. 13s restrictions only applied to government-placed measures, not voter-led measures placed on the ballot through signature-gathering. Measure AA was placed on the ballot by a community coalition and won with more than 62 percent of the vote. But the same people who opposed Measure AA to begin with now are working hard to stop the city from collecting Measure AA revenues this year. That means taking away $25 million to $30 million from our children and schools that we can never get back. We have one last chance to ensure that the City Council doesnt turn its back on Oaklands teachers and students, and votes with their progressive values of equity and affordable education. The council needs to send a strong message to our teachers and children by collecting these funds and implementing Measure AA. Oaklanders know how important it is to support our education system. Its why thousands of us voted for Measure AA. Anyone who values public education in our community should be outraged that the City Council would abandon any source of education funding. Heres whats at stake: 1 in every 5 Oaklanders live at or below the poverty line and one-third of African American, Latino and low-income students in Oakland are already academically behind when they start kindergarten. That equates to thousands of our kids who were setting up for failure. We must and can do better. Measure AA funds address this by offering quality, affordable preschool to every low-income Oakland child. Study after study has shown that high-quality prekindergarten has huge long-term benefits for kids, and has been shown to improve graduation rates and reduce truancy. Investing in our children early in life is not only the moral thing to do, its the most efficient way to reduce crime and improve quality of life in our communities. Its also a huge investment research shows that for every $1 spent on quality preschool produces returns on investment of up to $9. The teachers strike showed the country that our city demands more investment in our schools and our children Measure AA is part of our movement to increase resources for education. We have actively stood behind every source of education funding that would support our public schools. Abandoning Measure AA would mean abandoning millions of dollars annually for our students, teachers and workers. Amid school budget crises, its critical that we maximize any and all education funding. No Oakland City Council member should deny our children and teachers these critical education dollars. Its time Oaklands leaders take huge steps in the right direction, instead of leaps backward. Lets encourage them to do the right thing, collect and escrow Measure AA funding now, and stand on the side of education. If the City Council chooses to reject this money for our schools, we will forfeit those funds forever. Teachers, children and parents will be watching: We hope the Oakland City Council will stand with us to deliver the investment that teachers went on strike for and principals called on Sacramento for. Carmina Portea is a teacher at Reach Academy. Carmelita Reyes is principal of Oakland International High School. East Bay Rep. Eric Swalwell believes that making gun control his top priority including a $15 billion plan to buy back every assault weapon in America is the key to his success as a longshot presidential candidate. Guns is the No. 1 issue that does not have a champion in this field, Swalwell said Sunday after holding the first rally of his week-old campaign, delivering a 43-minute speech before what organizers said was 1,000 people on the lawn outside Dublin High School, his alma mater. I dont accept anymore that its a divisive issue, Swalwell said. I think most of the American people believe that you can keep your rifles, your pistols and your shotguns, but take the most dangerous weapons from the most dangerous people. Swalwell believes that he can carve a niche for himself in the 19-candidate-and-growing Democratic field by focusing on two issues student debt and gun control. The debt issue is a personal one. Unlike many members of Congress, he is not wealthy. He is the first person in his family to attend college and has somewhere between $50,001 and $100,000 of student loan debt and between $25,001 and $65,000 in credit card debt, according to his latest federal financial disclosure forms. He attended nine schools by the time he was in ninth-grade as his parents moved often to get their children into the best school district on his fathers salary as a police officer. Swalwell proposes that if public university students complete work-study throughout college and perform volunteer service in low-income communities after they graduate, they should receive a debt-free education. Swalwell was inspired to focus on gun control after the February 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where a gunman killed 17 students and staff members. Swalwell wants universal background checks and more spending on mental health care, and he proposes to spend $1,000 each or fair market value to buy back assault weapons from their owners. Those who dont want to give up their weapons can store them at a hunting club or shooting range. He estimates that the buyback plan could cost $15 billion. Swalwell said, Theres not going to be a roundup (of guns). Nobodys going door to door. If youre caught with one, just like any other contraband that you cant have, there would be a penalty for it. Swalwell faces a ton of other obstacles en route to the White House as a four-term House member with little significant legislation under his name. He doesnt have a national fundraising network. He pitches himself as a Millennial candidate, but so does South Bend, Ind., Mayor and current Democratic Party It candidate Pete Buttigieg, who is 37 and has already climbed to fourth in the some of the latest polls. Swalwell has raised roughly as much money since hes been in Congress ($7.8 million) as Buttigieg, who formally announced his candidacy Sunday, who says he has raised $7.7 million in the past three months. Swalwell may be a regular guest on cable TV news shows, but hes unknown in his native Iowa. Even though the native of Sac City, Iowa, has made more than a dozen trips to the state, which holds the 2020 cycles first caucuses in February, 71 percent of likely Democratic voters there dont know enough about him to register an opinion, according to a March survey by the Iowa Poll. But look what happened to Buttigieg nobody knew who he was a few months ago, Cheryl Gude, a retired administrative assistant from Pleasanton, said Sunday. Hes got good ideas. And hes a good guy. Like Gude, many of those there Sunday were constituents who said they were there to support Swalwell but are realistic about his long-shot campaign. Ill support him for as far as he goes, said Bill Meyers, a union electrician from Hayward who said Swalwell helped him cut through the bureaucracy to obtain unemployment benefits years ago. Swalwell has until Dec. 6 to decide whether to run for re-election. But if he doesnt make it, I want him to be in Congress, Meyers said. Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli If you havent picked up food writing queen Ruth Reichls new book, Save Me the Plums, I highly recommend you fix that problem, preferably by heading to Omnivore Books or your local bookstore and grabbing yourself a copy. Reichl is in top form and ready to dish, with every chapter seeming like a dedicated behind-the-scenes documentary on its own. The book, which recounts Reichls tenure as editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine from 1999 to 2009, is full of details about the workplace culture at Conde Nast her stories about the excess of the companys heyday is a striking reminder of an industry that was. Her anecdotes about the people she worked with are both honest and kind; in one section, she recalls an interaction with chef Mario Batali and muses on what more she and the industry could have done to fight against sexual harassment and misogyny in the restaurant world. The solution is much more complicated and systemic than canceling one person, and she brings fitting nuance to the question. Whats also striking is the inside look at the work she put in to reshape Gourmet into a challenging and groundbreaking publication that brought ethics, literary might and labor politics into what was then a staid epicurean manual for the well-to-do. Sign Up for the Newsletter Follow Soleil as she dines around the Bay Area. Subscribe to Bite Curious. See More Collapse Personally, I felt encouraged by her story about getting piles of angry letters for putting cupcakes on the cover of the magazine: something that, unbeknownst to her at the time, signaled for some an existentially disturbing shift in cultural focus from people of taste to the broader culinary zeitgeist. Gourmet was an integral part of food writing history and paved the way for so much of the beauty and fierceness that came after. When I got on the plane to come to San Francisco for this job, I started reading Garlic and Sapphires, her memoir about becoming the New York Times restaurant critic. The parallels in the prologue were astounding: She writes about flying from Los Angeles to New York to interview for the job, full of doubt about what she was doing. It cured my nausea faster than any cup of ginger ale could. When I emailed her later, she told me something that she repeats in Plums: The one thing I've learned in my career is that the only things worth doing are the ones that terrify me. If it keeps me up at night, I know I have to do it. Listen to this I was thrilled to speak to Reichl on-stage at the Osher Marin JCCs Kanbar Center when she came here on her book tour last week. We were lucky enough to be able to record the conversation, which you can listen to here. Photo of the week Stephen Lam / Special to The Chronicle My favorite dish at Swan Oyster Depot, which I reviewed this weekend, is the crab back: a Dungeness crab body filled with crab fat and tomalley (guts) and served cold with sliced sourdough. Rich and bright, like if the sea were filled with liquid gold instead of water. Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more. What Im reading This gorgeous story by Jonathan Kauffman on a local tea farmer whose dream life goes up in smoke is a heart-wrencher. But its also about a global network of tea growers, the history of tea in the American West and one very optimistic man. Nicole Taylors article for the James Beard Foundation on the influence Ebony magazine had on American food culture is a fascinating read. Through interviews with key figures in its history, she follows their evolving visions for the magazines food coverage and how they pushed the black culinary world forward. After an aspiring New York City restaurateur caught heat for promoting her menu as a healthy alternative to processed and sugar-ridden Chinese cuisine, the debate over cultural appropriation reared its ugly head, like a chronic rash. In the midst of so much controversy, this considerate and personal essay by MacKenzie Fegan, whose family opened the historic Henrys Hunan Restaurant here in San Francisco in 1974, is a wonderful primer on why stereotypes about Chinese food dont make sense. Bite Curious is a weekly newsletter from The Chronicles restaurant critic, Soleil Ho, delivered to inboxes on Monday mornings. Follow along on Twitter: @Hooleil For more stories like this, check out The Chronicles weekly Travel newsletter! Sign up here. When state surveyors measured the Sierra snowpack on April 2, they found 106.5 inches of snow, with an equivalent of 51 inches of water meaning that if the area were hit with some sort of cosmic laser beam and everything turned to liquid in a flash, thats how much water would be left behind. Compared to average measurements for this time of year, those readings represent 200% of normal levels. Next to Sierra-at-Tahoe Resort at 6,800 feet of elevation, the Phillips Station, where the measurement was taken, is part of the American River Basin. That means the snows that drew skiers this winter will soon deliver thrills to another group of outdoor enthusiasts: whitewater rafters. Its shaping up to be a really good season, says Phillip Schoenhoff, president of Whitewater Excitement, which runs trips on the Merced River near Yosemite National Park and the North, Middle and South Forks of the American River. All those rivers are predicted to be pretty high this spring. Across California, the Sierra Nevada snowpack was at 162% of average earlier this month. In the American River Basin, snowpack measured 186%; the Tuolumne and the Merced River basins were at 176% and 153%, respectively, as of April 1, when the snowpack is typically at its peak. As warmer days melt the snow, those numbers will translate to higher water, gnarlier rapids, and free-flowing California rivers that remain navigable well into the summer. From mid-April to late June, reservoir-fed rivers like the South Fork of the American will see waters rise as reservoirs hit and exceed capacity. During drier years, scheduled dam releases usually allow rafters to paddle the South Fork six days a week. This year, there wont be any question of seven days of [raftable] water [per week]. And itll be high water, says Nate Rangle, president of outfitter Raft California. High water can be both a boon and a worry for whitewater outfitters. Rapids are measured on a scale from Class I (gently moving water) to Class VI (potentially fatal aquatic fury thats impossible or close to impossible to navigate). High water levels can push an exhilarating Class IV rapid into expert territory and beyond. To prepare for a season of high water and roiling rapids, outfitters are stepping up guide training, raising the minimum age on certain trips and adding extra safety boats or kayakers to accompany groups. Adventure outfitter OARS has increased the minimum age from 14 to 16 on a number of itineraries through the end of June, and Whitewater Excitement sometimes subs out smaller boats for more stable rafts and adds frames on the back so guides use a pair of oars to maneuver instead of a single paddle. The three companies also screen to ensure their clients skill and experience levels match the river theyre booking. Hot Shot Imaging On the South Fork of the American a Class III river where Raft California usually covers 21 miles over two days Rangle says heavy flows allow a full-mileage run in a single day. Its still Class III, but its a lot of Class III. The South Fork at high water is the most fun ride, most bang for your buck, he says. On the Americans Middle Fork, however, when the water is double its normal flow rate up from 1,100 cubic feet per second to about 2,200 CFS Rangle says the rapids become unrunnable. It goes from Class IV to class were-not-going-to-do-it, says the veteran rafter, whos been paddling California rivers for 40 years. We know the Middle Fork wont be runnable in May and early June. We probably wont be on the Middle Fork until late June and early July. When the Middle Fork is too high to paddle thanks to features like the Tunnel Chute, a funnel of whitewater that barrels into a 90-foot tunnel blasted out by gold miners in the 1860s Schoenhoff steers clients toward the North Fork, a free-flowing river without an upstream reservoir. North Fork right now is the river to get on in California, he says. Its really exciting because we dont get to get out there that much as guides. We love to show people down the North Fork as well. . The heavy snowpack will mean its navigable weeks longer than normal. After a weak winter last year left the statewide snowpack at 52% of the historical average, Angels Camp-based OARS had a limited season for some trips. The company, which guides on seven California rivers, ran its final trip on the North Fork of the American on May 1 and sent its last group down the Merced on June 18. For 2019, OARS sales and marketing Vice President Steve Markle says the company is projecting raftable flows on both rivers into June and through July. Schoenhoff recently paddled the South Fork of the American. Flow was up to 5,000 CFS, he said, well beyond the normal 1,500 CFS. It feels awesome. All the rapids tend to get a bit bigger, but they maintain that fun character. Its optimal. 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Out of 261 wild horses rounded up from the Modoc Plateau and moved to corrals in Alturas (Modoc County), all but 30 have been adopted or purchased and placed in happy homes, said Ken Sandusky at Modoc National Forest headquarters. After the roundup last fall, these horses were kept in the Double Devil Wild Horse Corral over the winter. They were fed and cared for by the Forest Service and volunteers, said Charles Johnson, who directs the corral operation for the Forest Service. Requirements for sale or adoption include 400 square feet of corral space, no barbed-wire fencing and a horse facility that is at least 6 feet high, Johnson said. For information on adopting or buying a wild horse, phone 530-233-8738 to schedule an appointment to see the horses. Some charged last fall that the roundup would end up as a slaughter in which the horses would be sold to entities that would, in turn, sell them to Mexico for food. The adoption contract, provided by Sally Carter of Modoc National Forest, includes California Penal Code Section 598c, which says, in part: It is unlawful for any person to possess, to import into or export from the state, or to sell, buy, give away, hold, or accept any horse with the intent of killing, or have another, kill, that horse. Violation is a felony punishable by imprisonment in state prison for up to three years. My trip last fall to stalk and photograph the wild horses of the Modoc Plateau was the most exciting and fulfilling of the year. After five hours afield one day, a wild alpha stallion emerged from behind a juniper and stared at us head-on at 100 yards. It was as electric as photographing a grizzly bear at 40 yards in Yellowstone. On a parallel course with future wild horse roundups, the Forest Service released a draft Plateau Science Synthesis last week for public review, a document that will help guide and manage the long-term ecological health of the Modoc Plateau. Tom Stienstra is The San Francisco Chronicles outdoors writer. Email: tstienstra@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @StienstraTom Local writer Armistead Maupin got a packed house at the Castro Theater to burst into laughter Wednesday night during a panel that followed an SFFilm Festival screening of the first episode from Netflix's "Tales of the City" series. "The culture that's come into our midst, it's not evil, but sometimes it's really dull," said Maupin, when asked how the city has changed since the 1970s when he was writing "Tales of the City." The stories originally ran as a newspaper serial before becoming a novel and a miniseries. THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR has been nominated for a 2019 Peabody Award in the category of "Documentary" by the award's board of jurors. THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR was produced by Augusta Films, in association with Transform Films, and is the subject of a powerful social impact campaign through Odyssey Impact. This announcement comes at the beginning of Sexual Assault Awareness Month (April), which is of profound significance to the topic of the film. THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR shines a spotlight on the culture of physical abuse that was a common reality to women in 1944 Alabama. When Recy Taylor was just 24 years old, she was gang-raped by six teenage white boys as she was walking home from church. THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR has already received critical acclaim during a run at film festivals around the world, including a nomination for Best Documentary at the 2018 NAACP Image Awards and the Special Prize for Human Rights at the 2017 Venice Film Festival. The story of Recy Taylor also earned unexpected media interest after being included in Oprah Winfrey's historic speech at the 2018 Golden Globes Awards. Nominees for a Peabody Award are selected by unanimous vote of 19 jurors from more than 1,200 entries. The winner in the documentary category will be announced April 16, with the awards given at the 78th Annual Peabody Awards. The Peabody Awards ceremony will be hosted by Ronan Farrow at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City on May 18. About THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR shines a spotlight on the culture of physical abuse that was a common reality to women in 1944 Alabama. When Recy Taylor was just 24 years old, she was gang-raped by six teenage white boys as she was walking home from church. While the vast majority of women stayed silent after their attacks, fearing for both their lives and the lives of their families, Recy, a black wife, mother, and sharecropper chose to not stay silent. She bravely stood up for her rights, reported the crime, and publicly identified her rapists. The NAACP sent their chief rape investigator, Rosa Parks, to investigate. Parks had also been the victim of an attempted rape, and she fought tirelessly to rally support, raise awareness, and establish a nationwide community that demanded justice. Stuart continues, "At Odyssey Impact, we are passionate about sharing powerful stories of social justice through compelling documentaries. We know that social change is possible when we can raise awareness, change attitudes, and begin meaningful conversations. The faith community is uniquely poised to use these stories to bring a spirit of healing, support, understanding, and lasting change in their individual communities." The national social impact initiative around THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR is designed to engage and inform the public about sexual violence against women, underscore the historical trauma faced by Black women during the Jim Crow South era, and examine the structural racism still affecting women today. Focused on encouraging a new dialogue and sparking positive change, Odyssey Impact has developed numerous resources and discussion guides to accompany the film, which will be available for download to help facilitate events by local grassroots organizations. A community toolkit, surveys, and local organizing tools are additional components provided to assist with educational and community outreach. For information, go towww.odyssey-impact.org/the-rape-of-recy-taylor. THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR (USA, 91 minutes) is directed and written by Nancy Buirski and produced by Buirski, Claire L. Chandler, Beth Hubbard, and Susan Margolin. Executive producer is Regina K. Scully. Executive producers are Geralyn White Dreyfous, Amy Tiermann, Mark Trustin, CarolAnne Dolan, Derrick Harkins, Nick Stuart, Barbara Dobkin, Bobby Kondrat, and Jack Turner. Editor is Anthony Ripoli. Director of photography is Rex Miller. THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR was produced by AUGUSTA FILMS and TRANSFORM FILMS, an affiliated production company of Odyssey Networks. For more information about the film and to view a trailer, visit www.therapeofrecytaylor.com. Tags : 2019 Peabody Award THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR movie When Joseph Lai was working in San Francisco's Financial District as a product manager at Yelp, he found himself dissatisfied whenever lunchtime rolled around. Sure, he didn't have to walk far for a sandwich, a salad, or a Chipotle burrito, but anytime he was craving good Asian food, he found himself out of luck. At the time, Lai was living in the Outer Richmond. He and his coworkers constantly talked about how they wished they could order food from out there during lunch hour. "The food was really good there, especially authentic Asian food," said Lai. "But what I realized is that during lunch time, these places are super slow." That's when the idea clicked. "What if I could teleport the food from there to here?" he'd mused. "All the mom and pop restaurants, I thought, would be really happy if we could bring them business during weekday lunch time." Instead of keeping it a pipe dream, he decided to make his katsu curry and mapo doufu dreams come true with his very own food delivery service: Bento Club. Bento Club is an online lunch delivery service that specializes in bringing San Francisco's Asian food scene to 9-5 workers in the Financial District and SoMa. Customers place their lunch orders by 10:45 a.m. each day, selecting from dishes coming from 8-10 different restaurants, including Burmese Kitchen, Jangsoo Korean, Jiangnan Cuisine, Shanghai Dumpling Curry, and JapaCurry. Customers then meet drivers at 10 different designated drop-off spots within walking distance of their offices. Lai said his foray into the food industry came naturally to him. "I've always been a foodie," he said. Having moved from Seattle to San Francisco in 2009, he said he was immediately amazed by the food scene here. He also was not a novice to the business side of things during his mandatory military service in Taiwan, he launched a peach jam company in a small village that became a viral hit. It's not like Lai is the first to invent a food delivery service. Postmates, Grubhub, UberEats, Doordash, Seamless... the list goes on. But with these apps, Lai found delivery fees exorbitant. Some charge monthly subscription fees; others charge as much as $8 in delivery fees. "One of the main principles when I started [Bento Club] was that it has to be affordable, or else there's no point," explained Lai. Lai keeps the cost of Bento Club low by focusing on bulk orders, encouraging customers to use group pickup by offering discounts. "Also, having customers willing to walk a little bit to come meet us helps us save on delivery costs," said Lai. By having customers meet the drivers, it also streamlines the delivery process. The whole drop-off route each day is completed in a single hour. The affordability is no joke the Bento Club website promises a $1/item delivery fee on average, as well as no markups on restaurant prices. There are also no minimum order requirements, and no subscription fee. When he first started Bento Club, Lai was the sole driver. "I was only selling five lunches a day I didn't even make back the gas money," he recalled. But now, he said, the business is growing, with hundreds of customers ordering each day. Bento Club has expanded from two drop-off locations to ten, and hopes to keep expanding to more neighborhoods in San Francisco. Burmese Kitchen, a restaurant in the Inner Richmond, has been one of Bento Club's commonly featured restaurants since the beginning. "They are improving a lot. They are getting bigger and bigger," said owner Dennis Lin. Burmese Kitchen is not open for weekday lunch service, but often takes lunch orders from Bento Club. Currently, Lin said they get on average of 10-20 orders a day from the service. While Asian food was their emphasis in the beginning, Lai also noted that Bento Club is starting to branch out to other types of cuisine recently, they started offering dishes from Piri Pica, a Portuguese BBQ chicken joint. "Our customer base is getting more diverse, so people request all kinds of things," he said. Not all food has to come from distant neighborhoods, either so many customers were requesting Washington Bakery & Restaurant in Chinatown that they added that to their repertoire, too. The one common thread with Bento Club restaurants is an emphasis on quality, said Lai. "At the service, we really value authenticity and the chef's passion," he explained. Someone from the Bento Club team always does a secret tasting of the restaurant's food before approaching them, taking note on how much care is put into the food. Lai contrasts this process with how larger, corporate food delivery services don't necessarily visit the restaurants they feature on their apps. "We really care about who we work with," he emphasized. Speaking of apps, Bento Club is not actually an app yet customers can only find them on their website. But at this rate, it should be coming soon. Two pizzerias part of the local chain Escape from New York will sling their last slices within the next week, as SF Weekly reported Monday and company staffers confirmed to SFGATE. The company currently runs five locations across the city, but will close down their Mission Street restaurant on 22nd Street on Sunday and their Polk Street location on Monday. The locations had been open since 2009 and 2007, respectively. ROCKVILLE, Md. Prosecutors have dropped a criminal case against a woman who was charged with assaulting White House counselor Kellyanne Conway during a confrontation last year at a restaurant in a Washington suburb. A trial for Mary Elizabeth Inabinett, 63, of Chevy Chase, was scheduled to start Monday. Instead, a Montgomery County prosecutor asked a judge to dismiss the charges. Police had charged Inabinett last November with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct. Conway told police she was attending a birthday party with her teenage daughter at a restaurant in Bethesda last October when she felt somebody grab her shoulders from behind and shake her. The woman who confronted Conway yelled, Shame on you and other comments believed to be about Conways political views, according to a charging document prepared by Montgomery County police. Conway wasnt injured, the document says. Montgomery County prosecutor Kathy Knight said Inabinett sent Conway a letter apologizing for the incident. She has apologized for choosing this time and place to vent her political views, Knight said, adding Inabinett had never been arrested for a crime before. Ramon Korionoff, a spokesman for the Montgomery County States Attorneys Office, said dropping the charges is the best resolution for this particular set of circumstance. The restaurants manager told police the woman had to be forcibly removed from the premises. Conway told police the woman yelled and gestured at her for 8 to 10 minutes before she was escorted out of the restaurant. Michael Kunzelman is an Associated Press writer. WELLINGTON, New Zealand New Zealands foreign minister confirmed Monday that a New Zealand nurse has been held captive by the Islamic State group in Syria for almost six years, information long kept secret for fear her life might be at risk. The status of nurse and midwife Louisa Akavi, now 62, is unknown, but her employer, the International Committee of the Red Cross, says it has received recent eyewitness reports suggesting she might be alive. The New York Times on Sunday became the first media organization to name Akavi, ending a more than 5 -year news blackout imposed by New Zealands government and the Red Cross with the cooperation of international media. The collapse of the Islamic State group has raised hopes that Akavi and the two Syrian drivers kidnapped with her might now be discovered. In a statement, the ICRC said that as recently as December, Akavi may have been seen by at least two people at a clinic in Sousa, one of the Islamic State groups last outposts. There were also sightings in 2016 and 2017, Red Cross officials said. We continue to work together (with the Red Cross) to locate and recover her, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said. This has been a uniquely complex and difficult case. Louisa went to Syria with the ICRC to deliver humanitarian relief to people suffering as a result of a brutal civil war and ISIS occupation. Peters said New Zealand had sent a small multi-agency team, including special forces, to Iraq to gather information on Akavi. This has involved members of the New Zealand Defense Force, drawn from the Special Operations Force, and personnel have visited Syria from time to time as required, he said. This noncombat team was specifically focused on locating Louisa and identifying opportunities to recover her. Akavi was taken captive in 2013 in the city of Idlib in northwest Syria. It is believed she was offered for ransom and may have been used as a human shield. New Zealands government believed at one point that she may have died. But there are hopes her medical skills might have caused her captors to spare her. Akavis family said they miss her and are proud of the work to which shes dedicated her life. We think about her every day and hope she feels that and finds strength in that, said a video statement issued by family spokesman Tuaine Robati. We know she is thinking of us and that she will be worried about us, too. New Zealands government is reported to have opposed the ICRCs decision to allow the New York Times to report Akavis name and nationality. At a news conference Monday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern refused to answer questions about Akavi but indicated she was disappointed the ICRC had gone public before her fate had been learned. Dominik Stillhart, director of operations for the ICRC, said the organization had decided to permit publication in the hope it would elicit new information on her whereabouts. SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) San Francisco Mayor London Breed sent out a statement in solidarity with Paris after a catastrophic fire Monday ravaged much of the iconic Notre Dame cathedral. Paris is one of San Francisco's sister cities and the twin towers and other designs of Notre Dame served as principal influences in the architecture of San Francisco's own famous cathedral, Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill. "As we watch the devastation at Notre Dame Cathedral, San Francisco's thoughts are with the people of Paris, our Sister City, and those who continue to battle the flames," Breed wrote on Twitter. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Francisco/San Mateo, also wrote on social media to express sadness about the fire. "My heart breaks for Paris & all who have a place in their heart for #NotreDame Cathedral," Speier wrote on Twitter. "It's weathered war, revolution & natural forces for nearly 1000 years. Watching the spire collapse was like a dagger to the heart. Praying for the firefighters & city." 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. VALLEJO (BCN) One man was killed and three other people injured in a shooting early Sunday morning in the northern part of Vallejo, police said. Police were called at 12:34 a.m. to the 100 block of Princeton Avenue, in Vallejo's Chabot Terrace neighborhood just east of State Highway 29. They found a male victim who had been shot; he was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Three other gunshot victims took themselves to local hospitals, and are expected to survive, police said. No other information was immediately available Sunday afternoon. Vallejo police on Sunday afternoon were still investigating the shootings and what prompted them. Anyone with information that could help police is asked to contact Detective Craig. Long at (707) 648-4514 or Detective Terry Schillinger at (707) 648-4278. 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. An artificial intelligence-powered robot welcomes a customer in the Xiangyang branch of Ping An Bank in Xiangyang, Hubei province. [Photo by Yang Dong/For China Daily] Universities in China will welcome the first group of undergraduate students majoring in artificial intelligence in September. According to a list issued by the Ministry of Education, 35 universities received approval to establish the four-year undergraduate AI-related majors amid the country's drive to build a strong AI talent pool. They include many prestigious universities such as Beijing Jiaotong University, Beihang University, Nanjing University and Xi'an Jiaotong University. Lin Youfang, vice-dean of the School of Computer and Information Technology at Beijing Jiaotong University, said the school plans to enroll about 30 undergraduate students majoring in AI in September. There might be more students majoring in AI who transfer from other majors through a selection process if the new major proves to be successful, he said. The school established an AI research institute in December 2017 for graduate students. Many instructors at the school are working on AI-related research so there will be no problem finding capable teachers for the new students, Lin said. China's booming AI industry has resulted in a growing demand for talent. It is common for students in AI-related fields to have already committed to companies before they even graduate and enter the job market, he said. Master's graduates majoring in AI can easily find jobs with salaries over 300,000 yuan ($44,700) per year, and salaries for doctoral graduates are even higher, he said. Chinese universities are catching up with their counterparts in the United States in terms of basic research in AI and the number of published papers, yet they still lag behind in transforming research into application, he added. Zheng Nanning, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and head of the innovation research academy of intelligent robotics at Xi'an Jiaotong University, said the university began considering an undergraduate AI major in 2016, and it has since established an experimental undergraduate AI class in 2018 with 55 students taught by the country's leading AI experts. The university established the academy in October 2017 and an AI school in January. The academy has 26 master's candidates and eight doctoral candidates, Zheng said. "Universities should aim for major breakthroughs in basic research and core technology. We are still striving to achieve revolutionary and disruptive changes in AI theories, methods, tools and systems," he added. The ministry issued an action plan in 2018 to promote AI education in universities. According to the plan, universities in China will improve AI discipline and make breakthroughs in basic theories and key technology research by 2020. Chinese universities will become core forces for building major global AI innovation centers by 2030. The plan calls for integration of AI with mathematics, statistics, physics, biology, psychology and sociology, among other disciplines. It promotes the "AI + X" interdisciplinary approach in universities and aims to set up 100 majors that combine AI and other subjects by 2020. Many Chinese universities have set their sights on improving AI education and nurturing more AI talent and have established new AI departments and research institutes. Tsinghua University established an AI institute in 2018 as part of its efforts to advance AI research and education. Aiming to become a globally influential AI research institution, the institute focuses on the basic theory of AI and actively promotes cross-disciplinary AI research as well as the integration of academia and industry. Petteri Orpo, the chairperson of the National Coalition, on Sunday acknowledged that the coalition formation negotiations will likely be difficult as not a single party has a strong mandate to govern. THE NATIONAL COALITION is prepared to sit down to discuss forming a ruling government regardless of whether the negotiations are led by Antti Rinne, the chairperson of the Social Democrats, or Jussi Halla-aho, the chairperson of the Finns Party. When you have to put together a government from several parties, the negotiations will be challenging. Questions related to the [government] programme will be decisive, he estimated to Uusi Suomi on Sunday. He also called attention to the importance of respecting the election results. It has to be possible to talk to everyone in Finland. Its completely another question whether were able to find common ground on questions related to the programme. It wont be easy, he said. When the [election] results are so even, I think everyone is responsible for trying to find common ground. The National Coalition, he added, is satisfied to have won an additional seat in the Finnish Parliament. As you may be able to tell the people here are relieved because we started with a considerable disadvantage in light of polls and had had a politically difficult start to the year, he said during the election night event of the National Coalition, referring particularly to the debate about elderly care. Now that we pulled off an additional seat a minor election victory the mood here tells were satisfied, said Orpo. Aleksi Teivainen HT Source: Uusi Suomi A mother and her son were killed, and another man seriously injured, after being struck in a marked crosswalk by a vehicle in Oakland's Foothill neighborhood on Saturday evening, according to police. The collision occurred around 7:30 p.m. at the intersection of 26th Avenue and Foothill Boulevard, police said. The three pedestrians were walking in a marked crosswalk when a two-door Mercedes-Benz struck them and fled the scene. The mom, described as a 30-year-old woman, and the child, a 6-year-old boy, were pronounced dead. Police said the vehicle was located in another part of the city, but the suspect has not been captured. The suspect's identity wasn't released. The other victim, a 20-year-old man, is in critical condition early Sunday morning. All three pedestrians that were hit are Oakland residents, police said. U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Dublin, on Sunday made the issue of gun-related violence and mass shootings the focus of his first presidential campaign rally. Speaking at Dublin High School, where he graduated in 1999, Swalwell said, "I want to be the first campaign to make ending gun violence the top priority." He praised Parkland, Florida students who have organized for stricter firearm legislation after 17 students were shot at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018. "No one should be able to purchase a gun without a violent history check," he said. The 38-year-old Swalwell, who has represented California's 15th congressional district since 2012, also called for a higher minimum wage and cited the need to address the high cost of medical care and college education. Swalwell announced his candidacy for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president on Monday, on CBS' "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." As far as returning to his old high school, "I do see a few very surprised teachers of mine who did not expect to see me here today," Swalwell said. Berkeley police are looking for two people suspected in a Friday night robbery in which they shoved two victims to the ground and took their cell phones. The robbery was reported about 10 p.m. Friday, when two pedestrians in the 2700 block of Dwight Way were pushed to the ground. Two suspects grabbed their phones, and immediately got into a car driven by a third person. That car was last seen headed east on Dwight Way from the scene. The victims were not seriously injured. Berkeley police are investigating. Anyone with information on the case is asked to call police at (510) 981-5900. It isn't really a shadow government, but rather a contingency, in case the unthinkable happens. Tuesday night, the Walnut Creek City Council is scheduled to vote to appoint "standby officers" who could assume the duties of elected council members should something dire -- an enemy attack, natural disaster or other local emergency -- render some, or all, of the electeds unable to do their jobs. Standby officers have four basic duties -- to stay informed of the basic duties of being a council member; to stay informed of the city's basic affairs; to immediately report for duty in the event of a local emergency; and to assume the elected council member's post until the elected member can return to their job. The standbys' jobs, in an emergency, could be to make local emergency proclamations, approve emergency purchases and/or establish citywide curfews in the name of preserving law and order in a chaotic time. Article 15, Sections 8635 through 8644 of the state of California Government Code that provide for "preservation of local government" allow city councils to designate standby council members if the elected officials become incapacitated - killed, seriously injured, missing or stranded somewhere where communications are impossible. City council members of several East Bay cities, as well as the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, periodically select standby members. In Walnut Creek and elsewhere, designated standby members people the elected council members know and trust to be up for the job in an emergency. In Walnut Creek, such selections are made annually. City Councilwoman Loella Haskew has designated three former council members (Gary Skrel, Sue Rainey and Gail Murray). Other council members selected people who may or may not serve as elected council members. The city manager also has standby replacement, but doesn't choose them. They are, in order, the assistant city manager, police chief and public works director. The regular Walnut Creek City Council meeting begins at 6 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 1666 N. Main St. An Antioch man was arrested Saturday afternoon in Petaluma on suspicion of vehicle theft, police said. Whitney Dase, 52, was taken into custody after a resident called about 4 p.m. to report that a man parked a car in the 1600 block of Baywood Drive and then walked away, checking door handles on other vehicles, police said. The resident provided a license plate number, which revealed the car had been stolen out of San Rafael earlier in the day. When the suspect started to drive away in the car he had arrived in, officers pulled him over. A record check revealed Dase was on felony probation out of Contra Costa County. He was arrested without incident on suspicion of vehicle theft, possession of a stolen vehicle, and vehicle theft with prior convictions. Dase was booked into the Sonoma County Jail, and the undamaged vehicle was returned to its owner. 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. U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Dublin, on Sunday made the issue of gun-related violence and mass shootings the focus of his first presidential campaign rally. Speaking at Dublin High School, where he graduated in 1999, Swalwell said, "I want to be the first campaign to make ending gun violence the top priority." He praised Parkland, Florida students who have organized for stricter firearm legislation after 17 students were shot at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018. "No one should be able to purchase a gun without a violent history check," he said. The 38-year-old Swalwell, who has represented California's 15th congressional district since 2012, also called for a higher minimum wage and cited the need to address the high cost of medical care and college education. Swalwell announced his candidacy for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president on Monday, on CBS' "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." As far as returning to his old high school, "I do see a few very surprised teachers of mine who did not expect to see me here today," Swalwell said. Arizona Congressman Ruben Gallego, who introduced Swalwell on Sunday, will act as his campaign chairman. Gallego called for Swalwell supporters to send donations of at least $1 "to get him to that first debate." The first speaker at the rally was Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley. Swalwell worked with her as a deputy district attorney. 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. ROHNERT PARK (BCN) The Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety arrested a 17-year old Rancho Cotate High School student for posting a school threat on the Snapchat social media app Sunday. The post depicted an assault rifle on someone's lap and the words "Don't go to school tomorrow," Deputy Chief Aaron Johnson said Monday. A Snapchat investigator who saw the post while monitoring data on the website informed the FBI within hours, and it was determined to have a IP address in Rohnert Park, Johnson said. The Public Safety Department learned the suspect was a 17-year-old Rancho Cotate student and secured a search warrant for the teen's home. The weapon was not found in the home but the teen said the Airsoft brand rifle designed to look real belonged to a 16-year-old friend and fellow student, Johnson said. The teen who posted the photo of the gun said he was 'joking around' and did not think it would be a big deal, Johnson said. He was arrested and booked in Sonoma County Juvenile Hall on suspicion of criminal threats. The 16-year-old boy said he was not aware the 17-year-old was going to photograph the Airsoft rifle. The gun was confiscated and both boys cooperated with the investigation, Johnson said. Johnson said if the posting had not been intercepted, it could have caused undue fear to school campuses in Rohnert Park. 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. The newspaper pointed out today that a record number of female candidates (92) won election to the Finnish Parliament for 20192023. The previous record dated back to 2015, when 85 female candidates ran a successful campaign for a seat on Arkadianmaki. THE PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS held in Finland on Sunday were exceptional, if not outright unprecedented, from a number of perspectives, according to Helsingin Sanomat. The Green Parliamentary Group, for example, is set to consist of 17 women and three men. The elections were won with the smallest share of votes ever in Finland. The Social Democrats and Finns Party were involved in a close election-day tussle, with the former eventually coming out on top by a 0.2 percentage point margin and with a 17.7 per cent share of the vote. The election day was unprecedentedly unforgiving for the outgoing coalition government, with the three ruling parties losing an all-time high of 34 seats in the Finnish Parliament. The losses were recorded by the Centre Party and Blue Reform, which lost 18 and 17 seats, respectively. The National Coalition, by contrast, gained a seat to emerge with a total of 38 in the 200-seat Parliament. The record was previously held by the minority government of Prime Minister Mauno Koivisto (SDP), which lost 20 seats in the parliamentary elections of 1970. The Centre also recorded its worst election result in a century. Its vote share of 13.8 per cent and seat tally of 31 are both record-lows since 1917, when the centrist agrarian party emerged from the elections with 26 seats. Voter turnout, meanwhile, rose to its highest level since 1991, with estimates suggesting as many as 72.0 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot in the elections. Aleksi Teivainen HT Please enter a valid keyword with 2 or more characters / numbers. Confirm By Deepak Chopra, MD Although we dont often put it this way, the most important relationship in everyones life is with the mind. The late Stephen Hawking drew the worlds attention by leading a life totally of the mind, his physical activity reduced to eye motion and blinking. The body without the mind is inconceivable, however. We cannot exist without thought. So its important to ask how best to relate to our minds. Im thinking of the most basic issue: Is the mind friend or enemy? Leave aside for the moment the traits that make it fascinating to be human: love, creativity, intelligence, evolution, and self-awareness. These traits make the human mind unique among all life forms on Earth, but we also suffer uniquely. Our minds are the source of anger, fear, envy, depression, grief, and hopelessness. If a friend brought suffering into our lives, it wouldnt matter how happy he made us at other timessuffering trumps friendship, especially when you consider that the mind is capable of confusing us so deeply. The last thing the mind seems to understand is itself. Your mind cannot be your friend unless the problem of inner suffering is solved. There are countless ways that the mind preys upon itselfthe standard handbook of psychiatric diagnoses lists literally thousands of specific maladies. But it isnt clear that anyones mind, even that of the most cheerful, gifted, prosperous, physically healthy person, has found a secure way to be happy. The human mind engenders irrational fears, ungoverned impulses, sexual cravings, wishful thinking, and futile dreamsall geared to make the world in here a morass of confusion and conflict. Lets set aside the complex solutions that have been offered to end human suffering, which would include traditional religions, modern psychotherapy, self-help, and positive thinking. If the most basic question is whether the mind is our friend, and if we have all experienced the negative traits of the mind just outlined, it seems clear that the mind isnt our friend. This wasnt a hard answer to arrive at. Even if you dont think in terms of friend or enemy, anyone who leads a productive life has found a way to adapt to the negative side of the mindthats what it means to be a mature, rational adult. You and your inner enemy have called a truce or at least a stalemate so that you dont have to fight a new skirmish every day. If the mind isnt our friend, what is it and why do we put up with it? Those two questions have an answer: The mind is a construct, and we put up with it because we feel stuck with the construct, not realizing that anything that can be made can also be unmade. The confused, conflicted, irrational, and self-defeating aspects of the world in here go back to malleable factors like old conditioning, family teaching, ingrained habits, unfounded beliefs, memories of old traumas, social pressure, and an X factor we call predisposition. Just as some gifted children are born with inexplicable musical or mathematical talent, everyone is born with inexplicable character traits, likes and dislikes, and everything else that makes each new human unique. The X factor cannot be explained to everyones satisfactiongenes are the fashionable explanation in the West, karma in the Eastbut the other ingredients in here are mental constructs that can be changed. People overcome all kinds of things that they dont want, from lack of love to bad memories to the habit of overeating. The human potential movement symbolizes the intention to change in a positive direction, and even if success is far from assuredold conditioning is incredibly stubborn and persistentthe vision of self-improvement dominates life almost everywhere that opportunity exists. But theres a hitch. If we rely on the mind to undo the ills created by the mind, isnt this a self-contradiction? We are asking an unfriendly, unreliable, baffling agentour own mindto solve the very suffering it clings to. The futility of asking the mind to heal itself was faced centuries ago. The crucial question was whether a person can go in here, survey the jumble and wreckage and general disarray of the mind, and decide with clarity what should be done. The answer is tricky, because no one is an honest broker when it comes to their own mind. The landscape In here is littered with things we like and things we dislike. Why should we trust ourselves, burdened with the conditioning that keeps us stuck, to be impartial? Indeed, the mind is so complex that youd have to be omniscient to sort everything out. Then theres the problem of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. We dont want to discard the mental constructs that enrich human life: art, music, philosophy, science, etc. Centuries ago, faced with surveying what lies in here in a fair, impartial way, it was discovered that the mind couldnt know itself, much less heal itself. Objectivity was impossible for several reasons. Every person has a life story and an agenda of hopes and ambitions that color their view of themselves. The ego plays a dominant role in all our decision-making, and it has its own agenda, which is self-protection. Everything in here, it turns out, is entangled with everything else. The whole entangled mass is me, the person my mind has constructed since birth. This me is the last person anyone should trust to be impartial, fair, and wise. So, the way forward to end suffering had to somehow bypass me, with my old conditioning, my confusion and conflictin other words, the entire mind-made system. This bypassing can actually be done, amazingly enough. The mind, as we usually relate to it, is constantly active. But when it is quiet, the mind returns to its essential stuff, the way a roiling ocean settles down into being still water. The stuff that the mind settles into, its very essence, is awareness. The great discovery about mind in the ancient world is that consciousness, in its pure, unbounded, inactive condition, is the ground state of mind, before the whole process of making constructs begins. From this insight arose the teaching known as non-doing. Suffering takes work, memory, struggle, and attention. Non-doing takes none of these, and so the theory was that consciousness by its very nature contains no suffering. If left to itself, consciousness will undo mental constructs and make the mind our friend at last. This process of healing and rehabilitation depends, as you can see, on the theory being right. Generation after generation has experienced suffering. Life has been built around mind-made constructs, which we cannot do without. There is no guarantee that consciousness, left to itself, will preserve what we value most about being human while getting rid of mind-made suffering. What if we wind up being passive and totally detached from real life? In the next post well discuss how the end of suffering actually comes about once the mind has been exposed for what it really is. The bottom line is transformation, nothing less. (To be cont.) Deepak Chopra MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation and co-founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. Chopra is the author of more than 85 books translated into over 43 languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His latest books are The Healing Self co-authored with Rudy Tanzi, Ph.D. and Quantum Healing (Revised and Updated): Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine. Chopra hosts a new podcast Infinite Potential available on iTunes or Spotify www.deepakchopra.com Spring has arrived, which means it's a great time to visit dozens of Northern California waterfalls. As the snow in the Sierra melts, the runoff will increase water levels and river flows across Northern California. Waterfall photographer Leon Turnbull gave his top six picks of Northern California waterfalls to visit during late spring. HORSETAIL FALLS: You can catch this 590-foot waterfall cascade down the mountain alongside Highway 50 on your way to South Lake Tahoe. "The first time we came was late in the year, and we thought the waterfall was great. We came back in the spring, and we were amazed. I had to up my ranking from eight to nine. Wow," Turnbull said. Visitors can stop and see the waterfall by parking at the trailhead at Twin Bridges. Note that there is a parking fee. "There are usually a lot of cars parked here on weekends, so there might be quite a few people here. This is a very popular destination," Turnbull said. CRYSTAL BASIN FALLS: In the Desolation Wilderness near Wrights Lake, you can stumble upon a 40-foot "high segmented" waterfall dropping into an incredible pool, or better known as the Enchanted Pools. SUSIE LAKE FALLS: "Susie Lake Falls is one of the most spectacular waterfalls in the Lake Tahoe area," Turnbull said. This 150-foot waterfall goes from the outlet stream of Susie Lake all the way down to Grass Lake in El Dorado County. "I wonder just how many people each year hike right by Susie Lake without even realizing there is an incredible waterfall just below the lake?" Turnbull said. You can see the waterfall from Susie Lake. However, it is a steep and difficult trek, Turnbull said. He suggests watching the waterfall from Grass Lake. TWIN LAKE FALLS: Another waterfall to look out for in the Desolation Wilderness is the Twin Lake Falls. The 214-foot-high waterfall drops into Twin Lakes. It's a 2.5-mile hike from Wrights Lake to Twin Lake Falls. "This is a gorgeous hike to a gorgeous destination," Turnbull said. UPPER TRUCKEE RIVER FALLS: This 64-foot high waterfall along the Upper Truckee River isn't as popular to visitors but won't disappoint, Turnbull suggests. "This one upstream is not as well-known, and bypassed by most, yet is a much more interesting waterfall," Turnbull said. There is a lower waterfall on the Upper Truckee, which is a more popular waterfall and very easy to get to. GROUSE FALLS: In Mariposa County, the trail to Grouse Falls overlook is an easy, pleasant hike through the forest. Once there, you can see the 504-foot waterfall from a steep cliff into a deep canyon. "The canyons in this area of the Sierra are stunningly beautiful and difficult to get into as well," Turnbull said. "At the overlook, you are looking at the huge waterfall from a half-mile away, across a large canyon. Even from this distance, the waterfall is amazingly spectacular." Grouse Creek joins up with the South Branch Grouse Creek, where there is another waterfall. Water rushes downstream, where it joins up with the North Fork of the American River. However, Grouse Creek is greatly reduced in volume once all the snow is melted. "Spring is definitely the best time to visit Grouse Falls," Turnbull said. United Airlines today announced that it would like to fly nonstop between New York-Newark and Cape Town, South Africa beginning in December 2019. The carrier says that it would like to serve the nonstop route three times weekly using a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner jet, pending approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation. This would be the only nonstop flight between the U.S. and Cape Town. From the U.S., Delta and South African Airways (Star Alliance) fly nonstop to Johannesburg only. The flight time between Newark and Cape Town is about 16 hours, which would likely make it one of United's longest nonstops in terms of hours flying. It's about 8,000 miles from New York to Cape Town (as the crow flies). By comparison, Singapore is about 8,450 miles from San Francisco, one of United's longest flights. Don't miss: First impressions of Cape Town in a letter to a friend who died there United says that removing that stop in Johannesburg will cut travel time between New York and Cape Town by about four hours. Flight time between Cape Town and Johannesburg is about two hours. If approved by the government, United would begin service between Newark and South Africa on December 15. The flight would depart Newark at 8:30 pm and arrive in Cape Town at 6 pm the following day. On the return, the flight would depart CPT at 8:50 pm and arrive in New York/Newark at 5:45 am. To get to Cape Town from San Francisco now, it's easiest to fly over Europe or Dubai, where one-stop roundtrips in May are going for $800-$1,000 in economy class. Business class is relatively cheap, too at about $4,300 round trip. Don't miss a shred of important travel news! Sign up for our FREE bi-weekly email alerts United has not announced any fare information, and likely will not until governmental approvals for the flights are secured. What's really interesting for frequent fliers though, is how many miles United will charge to fly nonstop to Cape Town. By December, the United's award chart will have vaporized, and awards will be priced on what the market will bear. Cape Town and the Bay Area have a lot in common, with similar topography, climate, food & wine as well as a shared focus on tech. Greater Cape Town (with 3.75 million residents) is known as "The Silicon Cape," and home to nearly 500 tech companies employing 40,000 to 50,000 workers. It is now considered Africa's tech capital, according to Wesgro, the area's tourism, trade, and investment promotions agency. Johannesburg, the country's largest city, has about 4.5 million inhabitants, and is considered its primary business center. There's no getting around the fact that Cape Town is far away from San Francisco-- currently total minimum travel time is about 24 hours no matter how you slice and dice it. A United nonstop to Newark, then a change of planes to Cape Town could help reduce that to maybe 20-22 hours. If approved, flights could go on sale, or be available for award travel by May. Would you be more likely to visit Cape Town if United could fly you there? Please leave your thoughts in the comments! Read all recent TravelSkills posts here Get twice-per-week updates from TravelSkills via email! Sign up here Chris McGinnis is the founder of TravelSkills.com. The author is solely responsible for the content above, and it is used here by permission. You can reach Chris at chris@travelskills.com or on Twitter @cjmcginnis. TravelSkills on SFGate is brought to you by Visa How do you decide where to go on personal trips? For most Americans, that choice could hinge on how they think the destination will look on their Instagram feed. The poll of 8,000 U.S. and European travelers commissioned by the big European online travel company eDreams found that 52 percent of U.S. travelers admitted they book their vacation destination based on its "Insta-worthiness" (i.e. "destinations beautiful enough to post on Instagram," as eDreams explains it). And Americans aren't alone in that regard. According to the study, the same decision-making process applies to 58 percent of Italian travelers and 55 percent of Spaniards. By contrast, only 14 percent of Brits consider social media appeal when picking a destination. And if the reality of the destination doesn't match up to travelers' expectations, a majority of Americans will turn to filters to make it look better. According to eDreams, 51 percent of Americans surveyed said they use filters and other editing techniques on their trip photos before they post them on Instagram. (Okay, I admit to a little selfie taking myself! See below) The survey also concluded that U.S. travelers were "the least cynical" about vacation social media posts, with 52 percent agreeing that those who put up a lot of vacation pix must be having a good time. Among British travelers, 40 percent said those who upload a lot of holiday photos are "show-offs." Don't miss a shred of important travel news! Sign up for our FREE bi-weekly email alerts Of course, the nature of travel photos has changed considerably in recent years. While your grandpa might have been happy snagging snaps of local landmarks and scenery with a Kodak camera on his vacation, Millennials are unlikely to do the same unless they plant themselves in the foreground of each picture. (It's called FACE-book for a reason.) OK, I take selfies, too! And I'll use a filter every so often! This one from Kauai. From my Instagram feed. That selfie madness can have dire consequences for travelers who aren't careful; one recent study determined that hundreds of deaths have been caused by Instagrammers trying to capture the perfect selfie without regard for their personal safety. The eDreams survey also asked travelers about the role of social media "influencers" on their travel habits. It found that U.S. travelers are unlikely to be swayed by someone else's postings. "Only 1 in 10 (U.S. travelers) admit to having booked a holiday to a destination that appeared on someone else's Instagram page, similar to Italian travelers (with 11%)," eDreams said. Do you enjoy posting your trip photos on social media? Do you like to see those of your friends, family or followers? Tell us in the comments! Read all recent TravelSkills posts here Get twice-per-week updates from TravelSkills via email! Sign up here Chris McGinnis is the founder of TravelSkills.com. The author is solely responsible for the content above, and it is used here by permission. You can reach Chris at chris@travelskills.com or on Twitter @cjmcginnis. BAGHDAD After decades of conflict, Iraq is seeking to reclaim a leadership role and status in the Arab world with a centrist policy and a determination among the countrys top leaders to maintain good relations with both Iran and the United States. A flurry of recent diplomatic activity and high-profile visits to the Iraqi capital including this months re-opening of a Saudi Consulate in Baghdad for the first time in nearly 30 years points to a new era of openness as the nation sheds its war image and re-engages with the world. Iraq is coming back to the neighborhood, President Barham Salih said in an interview. The veteran politician laid out a vision centered on an Iraq First policy, saying his country can no longer afford to be caught in regional disputes. For almost four decades, Iraq was the domain in which everybody pursued their agenda at the expense of the Iraqi people. Its time we say we need a new political order ... in which Iraq must be an important pillar, Salih said. Iraq has emerged from a ruinous three-year war against the Islamic State group and faces the mammoth task of reconciling, rebuilding and returning tens of thousands of displaced to their homes. And while the extremists territorial caliphate has been defeated in Iraq and Syria, the militants have now shifted to an insurgency campaign of targeted assassinations, car bombings, and suicide attacks. The issue of Iran-backed Shiite militias who fought the Islamic State alongside Iraqi security forces poses a challenge to the governments central authority, and the countrys oil-based economy is suffering from wide-scale corruption. Iraqs path to reclaiming a leadership role in the Arab world will depend on how successful its leaders are in tackling security and economic challenges at home, Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, wrote recently. Amid rapidly escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran, Iraq also needs to maintain a delicate balance with the two as Baghdad has strong ties with both countries. The dynamics are complex. The Shiite-majority country lies on the fault line between Shiite Iran and the mostly Sunni Arab world, led by powerhouse Saudi Arabia, and has long been a theater in which Saudi-Iran rivalry for regional supremacy played out. Relations have been particularly frosty with Riyadh, which broke relations with Baghdad following Saddam Husseins invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and never really warmed much as Iraq was increasingly pulled into Irans orbit in later years. Iraq needs much help and investment to rebuild its cities something it can only get from oil- and gas-rich Gulf countries. But it can also ill afford to alienate Iran, which holds enormous political and military sway in Iraq. Mindful of the need to counter Irans growing influence in the region in the post-IS order, Saudi officials have sought closer ties with Iraq, and last week sent a high-level delegation to Baghdad where the kingdoms consulate was inaugurated. Zeina Karam and Qassim Abdul-Zahra are Associated Press writers. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. This includes cookies from third party social media websites and ad networks. Such third party cookies may track your use on Sharedots sites for better rendering. Our partners use cookies to ensure we show you advertising that is relevant to you. If you continue without changing your settings, we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on Sharedots website. However, you can change your cookie settings at any time. Learn more Incredible scenes from Thailand yesterday (Sunday) as tens of thousands of tourists joined celebrations for the country's Songkran new year celebrations. Massive crowds descended on the Silom Road area of the capital Bangkok where they had a mass water fight - spraying each other with guns and throwing buckets of cold water. The annual festival began hundreds of years ago with locals sprinkling water on their elders to bring good luck for the year ahead. And while millions of Thais take part in the tradition in villages and towns around the country, in recent years it has also developed into a highly commercialised three-day event with millions of tourists converging on major cities and resorts to join in. Silom Road in Bangkok is one of the most popular destinations for the festivities and water fights continue round the clock through the early hours of the morning and again the next day. Religious devotees began the Songkran Thai new year with a parade of nine Buddhist relics. Worshippers congregated at the Sanctuary Of Truth, a large and ornate wooden temple, where the relics from the ancient Busabok Stupa have been perched on a high shelf since the Supreme Patriarch placed them there in 2009. Footage shows them being transferred onto floats decorated with flowers and carried to six stops in Banglamung District of Pattaya, eastern Thailand. The parade sees residents and tourists pour holy water on the relics as the country begins its Songkran Day, a three-day annual holiday which sees mass water fights in villages and cities across the land. Devotees wish for good luck in the year ahead while sprinkling water on the relics. The Songkran tradition began hundreds of years ago with natives sprinkling their respected elders other with water for good luck as they welcomed in the coming rainy season and prayed for success and fortune in the coming years. But in recent years it has developed into a commercialised tourist attraction where many holidaymakers and backpackers converge on major tourist attractions for water battle free-for-alls. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.-- Just as the opioid epidemic has gained the full attention of the medical and law enforcement communities, experts say a new drug is trending upward on a national level among teens and young adults. In New York City, statistics show the number of high school students abusing benzodiazepines remained steady in recent years, but experts caution the drug is something for parents and community leaders to keep an eye on-- as it could prove deadly when mixed with other depressants, including alcohol. Brand name pills that fall in to the category of benzodiazepines -- a schedule IV controlled substance -- include Xanax, Valium and Ativan. The pills are prescribed for anxiety, depression and in some cases suggested by doctors for use along with opioids to treat chronic pain. About 13,000 high school students in New York City used the drug recreationally in 2017, which was about the same as 2015, according to the Center for Disease Controls Youth Risk Behavior Survey. However, the drug isnt included in the database prior to 2015, and experts say current data hasnt caught up with reality. Theres so many resources that have been put toward educating young people about the dangers of opioid use, but I havent seen any messaging toward "benzos, said Jazmin Rivera, project director for Tackling Youth Substance Abuse, a coalition of stakeholders in the fight against addiction on Staten Island. Overall use of benzos by high school students on Staten Island decreased slightly from 2015 to 2017, though its increased among Latino students -- which bucks a trend set during the current opioid epidemic of white students being statistically more at risk, said Rivera. On a national level, addiction treatment centers are just seeing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to benzodiazepine addiction, according to a Stateline report. (Medical doctors) see things first, so Im not surprised that the spike in Xanax use isnt reflected in national data yet," said Sharon Levy, director of adolescent addiction treatment at Boston Childrens Hospital and lead author of an adolescent drug use study. Im not surprised the spike in Xanax use isnt reflected in national data yet. THE RISK Medical experts say benzo use alone places users at risk of withdrawal and seizures, in addition to a higher risk of suicide. The biggest concern, however, is the mixture of benzos with opioids and other depressants. More than half of the fatal overdoses reported on Staten Island in 2018 involved the presence of multiple depressants including benzos, opioids and alcohol. Co-prescribing benzos with opioids rose from 0.5 percent of doctors visits to 2 percent, from 2003 to 2015, while co-prescribing with other sedating medications increased from 0.7 percent to 1.5 percent, according to recent findings by the American Medical Association. What is most striking is not just that the use of benzodiazapines has risen in the outpatient setting but also that it is increasingly being prescribed alongside opioids and other sedating medications, where the risks of adverse events are much more pronounced," wrote Dr. Sumit Agarwal, a co-author of the report. EASY ACCESS From 2003 to 2015, the percentage of visits to general care physicians and ambulance rides in which benzos were prescribed doubled from about 3.7 percent of visits to about 7.5 percent, according to the American Medical Association. The pills were prescribe for both mental and physical issues, including anxiety, depression, neurological conditions and back pain, according to the report. Over that same time period, the rate of visits in which psychiatrists prescribed benzos remained steady at about 30 percent, according to the findings. That being said, absolutely there are other ways to treat anxiety and depression, said Susan Abbott, a Manhattan-based child and adolescent psychiatrist. Alternative treatments include counseling, meditation and non-addictive medications that work slowly over a long period of time to alter serotonin production in the brain, she said. People are willing to talk more about how they have anxiety now, and think, I take a pill for that.'" "But then a certain percentage of those people will go on to abuse it. On Staten Island, the rate of benzos prescribed has dropped since 2015, along with the prescription of opioids amid a borough-wide effort to curb the trend. A NEW GENERATION OF DRUG USE While experts note a rise in the benzo use, prescription pain killers among high school seniors in New York City and across the country has dropped drastically over the past 15 years, according to the citys Youth Risk Behavior Survey and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Luke Nasta, founder of Camelot of Staten Island drug counseling, said he saw a similar trend about 40 years ago, as a decline in heroin use was making way for a boom in cocaine and prescription drug use. The younger brothers and sisters saw the damage done to their older brothers and sisters and to their family, and that was enough to say Im not experimenting with that, said Nasta. So they say to themselves, lets try something else I dont hear of anyone overdosing on Xanax. GETTING AHEAD OF IT Nearly 70 percent of adolescents who try an illicit drug before age 13 will develop an addiction within seven years, compared with 27 percent for those who first try an illicit drug after age 17, according to the U.S. Surgeon Generals 2016 report on drugs and alcohol. Staten Island ranked second among the five boroughs in 2017 in regard to the number of fatal overdoses, while authorities reported an increase of fatal and non-fatal incidents in 2018. Content for the health section in the Advance and on SILive is supported by the Staten Island Performing Provider System. More at https://topics.silive.com/tag/Health/. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - David Bloomers family will never forget last Fathers Day. Early on the morning of June 17, 2018, Bloomer, 32, the father of a son and daughter and stepfather of two other girls, was fatally mowed down as he crossed a Stapleton street by a felon from Clifton who was speeding and driving while drunk and high. On Monday, an emotional John Rudder, the driver, turned around and faced a group of Bloomers relatives and friends who sat in the back of Justice Alexander Jeongs courtroom to attend Rudders sentencing for manslaughter. I know theres nothing I can do as of right now, (but) I will say how deeply remorseful I am, the bearded, bespectacled Rudder said, as several audience members fought back sobs and tears. I just want to let you guys know I see the errors of my ways. Rudder, who was sentenced under a plea agreement to five to 10 years in prison, vowed to turn his life around while behind bars. Everything I do after my return (from prison) will be done in a different light. I will make sure I make up for things that cant be replaced," the defendant said. Hopefully, you guys are satisfied with the sentence. Hopefully, you can find some point to find it in your heart to forgive me. Im very, very remorseful. Moments earlier, a friend of Bloomers family read a statement which contained brief passages from various relatives and friends. You took my heart, my son, my buddy, my joker, she said on behalf of the victims parents. If taking my son doesnt wake you up, I dont know what will wake you up. Other kin recalled Bloomers kindness and generosity hed literally give you the shirt off his back, they said - and wrote of the pain of never seeing him again. Im trying to deal with the fact hes not coming back, wrote one family member. Me, as well as my entire family are in so much pain, a family friend wrote. Still, there was belief that Bloomers indomitable spirit would never die. David will always live, a friend wrote. Nobody can stop him from living. The tragic events unfolded around 4:40 a.m. Police said Rudder was driving a 2015 Nissan Altima northbound, toward St. George, on Tompkins Avenue when the vehicle crossed the double yellow lines and entered the southbound lane. The car plowed into Bloomer, a Stapleton resident, who was crossing Tompkins, police said. The force of the impact propelled the victim into the air and through the windshield of a parked car on Tompkins, said prosecutors. Thats where police found him. Bloomer was pronounced dead on the scene. Prosecutors said Rudder, 26, attempted to drive off, but a patrol car in the area stopped him. A criminal complaint said Rudders eyes were watery, his speech was slurred, he appeared lethargic and smelled of alcohol. Rudder told cops he had three drinks before getting behind the wheel, and implored them to "Go, get the man," the complaint said. A Breathalyzer test measured Rudders blood alcohol content at .11 percent, said the complaint. The legal threshold to be charged in New York with driving while intoxicated is .08 percent. Prosecutors also said Rudder had cocaine in his system, and cops found cocaine and prescription medicine in the vehicle. The defendant was indicted on charges including second-degree manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, vehicular assault, leaving an incident scene and driving while intoxicated. He pleaded guilty last month in state Supreme Court, St. George, to second-degree manslaughter. Rudder admitted to recklessly causing Bloomers death by speeding in the opposite lane of traffic on Tompkins while intoxicated and while impaired by alcohol and cocaine. Assistant District Attorney Frank Prospero told the court Rudders actions were reckless and Bloomers death was completely avoidable. Defense lawyer John M. Murphy III said Rudder was extremely remorseful. He did not intend the harm he caused, said Murphy. Jeong, the judge, told Rudder he believed his sorrow was genuine, but he needs to back up his words. Jeong implored the defendant to undergo substance-abuse treatment while incarcerated and come back a productive member of society. Ironically, just two days before the crash, Rudder was sentenced to five years probation for third-degree burglary in an unrelated case. STATEN ISLAND -- Rep. Max Rose says he is confident legislation to fully and permanently fund the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund will pass. Rose (D-Staten Island) has been leading a bipartisan effort to rally Congress to pass a bill to fully fund and permanently reauthorize the VCF. So far, he said at least 230 co-sponsors have signed onto the Never Forget the Heroes: Permanent Authorization of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund Act, more than 50 of which he personally got to sign on himself. But 60 more signatures are needed to force the bill onto the House floor for a vote. The freshman congressman blasted lawmakers during an editorial board meeting with the Advance for each year honoring the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack, but refusing to support the legislation. My issue is though is hypocritical politicians who every 9/11 tweet out thank you for your service, well never forget.' Some of them even have pictures of the Twin Towers in their office and even when they come to New York City, they make sure to go to a firehouse to do a selfie ... then theyre not signing on to the VCF? Rose said. So Ive been talking about it, yes, but Ive also each and every day Im going on the House floor making phone calls getting more and more people to sign onto this. The congressmans remarks come as the fund announced earlier this year it will be forced to dramatically cut the future awards made to sick victims and families. The head of the fund said a record number of claims submitted in 2018 and this year have left insufficient funding in the VCF to pay all current and future claims. In February, the VCF said it awarded nearly $5 billion in original and amended determinations on more than 21,000 claims, leaving about $2.3 billion of the $7.3 billion appropriated funding available to compensate all pending and future claims filed through Dec. 18, 2020. Last year, the fund said that since it began accepting claims in 2011, some 3,194 Staten Islanders have submitted claims to the VCF and the fund has awarded 1,706 claims to Island residents. The highest number of claims both submitted and awarded came from Island residents living in the 10312, 10314, and 10306 zip codes. FOLLOW SYDNEY KASHIWAGI ON TWITTER. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Speaking to a national audience on ABCs Good Morning America, the parents of a New Jersey woman who mistook a car for an Uber and was later found dead in an apparent homicide are urging lawmakers to pass stricter ride-sharing laws, according to an NJ.com report. Samantha Josephson, 21, of Robbinsville, N.J., was attending college in South Carolina when, according to police, she mistakenly got into a strangers car on March 29. Police have since charged Nathaniel David Rowland, 25, in the stabbing death. In the weeks that followed, hundreds of thousands of people have signed a petition to ask Uber and Lyft for increased security, according to the report. You have to change the way that the laws are to make it safer," Marci Josephson told GMA co-host George Stephanopoulos on Mondays show. "Laws have to change. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A Staten Island man was killed after he was allegedly struck and run over by a coworker in the parking lot of a Costco in New Jersey, according to a report by NJ.com. Jorge Velazquez, 38, was among workers repairing a curb line in the parking lot of a Costco in Union Township Friday morning when a worker allegedly reversed a 2007 GMC Pickup, striking Velazquez, Union Township police said to NJ.com. The driver of the truck allegedly continued to reverse, running over Velazquez, NJ.com reported. Police said he was taken to Overlook Hospital, Summit, N.J., where he was ultimately pronounced dead the report said. The identity of the driver has not been released, police said, as an investigation is ongoing. Authorities did not say if they intend to charge the driver with any criminal offenses, according to the report. To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account. We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription. A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much! Australia's competition watchdog has entered an agreement with the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation to strengthen its work combating anti-competitive behaviour. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Rod Sims said the watchdog was aiming to put two to three cartel cases before the court each year, and would be leveraging its relationship with the FBI to improve its investigative techniques. The ACCC is currently investigating 10 local cartel cases. ACCC chairman Rod Sims says its relationship with the FBI has deepened in recent years. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer The memorandum of co-operation signed this week allows the ACCC and the FBI to exchange expertise and staff for the detection, investigation and prosecution of criminal competition offences. Mr Sims said the arrangement between the agencies was "certainly rare" and he was not aware of similar relationships. Frankfurt: German prosecutors charged former Volkswagen boss Martin Winterkorn with fraud on Monday over his role in the carmaker's manipulation of diesel emissions testing, more than three years after the scandal came to light. Martin Winterkorn, the former chief executive officer of Volkswagen AG. Credit:Bloomberg The German case comes nearly a year after the United States filed criminal charges against Winterkorn, accusing him of conspiring to cover up the German carmaker's diesel emissions test cheating. The prosecutors' office in the German city of Braunschweig said Winterkorn and four other managers faced charges. It did not give the names of the other four or say whether they were still employed by Volkswagen. A spokesman for Winterkorn did not immediately respond to a request for comment. KERR NEILSON, the man who manages $20 billion or so, has done a bit of tinkering with Platinum Capital's short positions, pushing them out to 30% with the aim of benefiting from the credit squeeze that has thrown up opportunities "simply too good to refuse". Neilson had been wary about an oversupply of credit for some time, but had actually cut Platinum's short positions from 27 to 22%. The increased nervousness on global stockmarkets looks to have encouraged the Platinum team to push out the positions in areas such as commodities, emerging small markets and low capitalisation stocks in America. "There is enough optimism in valuations and overenthusiasm in profit expectations to justify some short positions to reduce market risk," Neilson said. He thinks there will be a period of slower world growth, and he says the main worry as far as equity markets were concerned was valuations at the extremes. "Like the tech boom before it, the trap lies in visions of endless demand and the willingness of investors to extrapolate current above-trend prices into the distant future," he says. Australian dairy farmers are calling for an independent commissioner to advise the government of the day on policy so that farmers can be assisted on the "very difficult" road ahead. "We need a coordinated approach to an agricultural commodity that is very different from everything else. It's fresh, nutritious and it has a short shelf life," Dairy Connect chief executive Shaughn Morgan said. Dairy cattle on a farm near Singleton. Credit:AFR The New South Wales-focused dairy lobby group issued calls for a national commissioner on Monday, suggesting the role would be similar to a small business commissioner but with a sole focus on farming. The independent office would be charged with communicating with the federal government on key issues including the mandatory dairy code and a possible future milk floor price, as well as advising farmers on issues like dispute resolution. Chinese private power companies have started to buy contracts for Australian thermal coal, which could signal an end to China's import restrictions that have sent prices plummeting. Earlier this year, China placed unofficial restrictions on Australian low-grade coal imports, forcing ships laden with thermal coal - which is used in power plants to go through onerous customs procedures. Other nations such as Indonesia have not faced the same restrictions. Australian coal imports are waiting up to two months to pass Chinese customs clearance, compared to coal from Indonesia. Credit:AP Opinion has divided on whether the restrictions have been driven by economic or political factors, with some suggesting China is punishing Australia for its ban on telecommunications company Huawei. Analysts said the rise in new contracts may signal an end to the restrictions. A bronzeware exhibition was recently opened to the public at the Shaanxi History Museum in Xian, capital of northwest Chinas Shaanxi province, where visitors can see how experts preserve precious objects, Chinanews.com reported on April 12. Restoration experts can be seen working on bronze pieces throughout the demonstration area. The exhibition, which opened on April 8, is the sixth of its type at the museum this year, which was held to raise public awareness of the restoration of bronze. Exhibits are from the Shang and Zhou dynasties of ancient China, generally known as the peak of the Bronze Age. (Photo: Zhang Yuan/China News Service) After decades in a Wetherill Park storage unit, the tapestry curtains commissioned and designed for the 1973 opening of the Sydney Opera House will be back at Bennelong Point for one day only next month. The Opera House will host a free exhibition of Australian artist John Coburn's Curtain of the Sun and Curtain of the Moon, the original house curtains for the Joan Sutherland Theatre and Drama Theatre, on May 22. Only 1500 people will be allowed in to see the curtains in the theatres they were originally designed for, in tour groups of 25 to 35 people every half-hour, from 10am until 7.30pm. This honours a commitment made by the Opera House to celebrate and share the tapestries, which were commissioned by Australian architect Peter Hall, who took over completing the interiors of the building once Danish designer Jrn Utzon controversially left the project in 1966. Of the many challenges presented by life as the wife of the nation's Opposition Leader, being presented unexpectedly to a prime minister while she is at home in her "trackies" is one that stands out for Chloe Shorten. It happened to her when her husband, Labor leader Bill Shorten, called to introduce her to New Zealand leader Jacinda Ardern. Chloe Shorten, campaigning with husband Bill on the weekend, is acknowledged by Labor insiders as a huge advantage for him. Credit:AAP "With Bill's constant travel we have to do every possible app, every piece of technology," said Ms Shorten, who has been accompanying her husband on the campaign. "It can get a bit embarrassing because he might FaceTime me in my trackies, putting a child to sleep and 'Bing! Hello?' Bill is there with his colleagues, all dressed in their suits." The vast majority of the tens of billions of dollars the Coalition has vowed to funnel into "congestion busting" road and rail projects will not be spent until after the next federal election, prompting criticism that the Morrison government is claiming credit for infrastructure it may never deliver. A breakdown of $30 billion in new infrastructure spending announced in the budget shows just 30 per cent is earmarked to be handed out over the next four years, with the spending not scheduled to peak until 2024 - well beyond the forward estimates and far past the next federal poll due in 2022. The government has vowed to "bust" congestion but large parts of the package won't be spent for more than four years. Credit:Graham Tidy Handing down his first budget on April 2, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg declared "cranes, hard hats and heavy machinery" would soon be seen across Australia as part of a government-funded building plan designed to boost the economy and ease congestion. "We know you want to be there for the school drop off, to help the kids with their homework and spend more time together at the dinner table," he said. Julie Bishops Perth seat of Curtin is a long way from inner-city Melbourne and even further from Gaza. So why did Melissa Parke, Bill Shorten's "star candidate" for the seat, have to quit over remarks about Israel she made last month to a group of pro-Palestine Labor activists meeting at the United Voices headquarters in Perth? Former Fremantle MP Melissa Parke had been seeking another shot at Federal Parliament. And how could they cost Labor a marginal seat in Melbourne? Ms Parke said Israels settlements were akin to Chinas activity in the South China Sea and claimed "a pregnant refugee woman was ordered at a checkpoint in Gaza to drink a bottle of bleach". Australia's blood banks urgently need more than 4000 people to make life-saving donations over Easter and ANZAC Day to stave off a national shortage of critical blood products for cancer patients and trauma victims. The rampant "summer flu" has knocked-out a large proportion of regular donors, prompting a rare nationwide plea for blood donors over the long weekends. Two bags of blood platelets saved Ryan Nesbit's life last Easter. Blood donor cancellations have surged to 1200 per week over April due to donors coming down with cold or flu symptoms. The Blood Service usually receives just 100 cancellations per week in the warmer months and has not seen cancellations this high since the beginning of the 2017 flu season. As the April school holidays continue throughout Australia, thousands of families and individuals have turned their focus north to our favourite holiday destination; the Indonesian island of Bali. And apart from our Bali holidays there is little many of us know, or care, about the rest of Indonesia. Yet right in the middle of these Australian school holidays, a relatively unheard-of event of truly massive proportions will take place throughout Indonesia tomorrow, as over 193 million Indonesian citizens head out on just one day to vote for their next president, their next national and state legislature and also to elect members of over 400 local councils. A street busker in a traditional giant puppet, called ondel-ondel, in Jakarta. The world's third-largest democracy is gearing up to hold its legislative and presidential elections. Credit:AP Just consider the logistics that are being actioned now, as a lead-up to tomorrows election day: There will be 245,000 candidates seeking only 20,000 seats. There will be 800,000 polling stations to accommodate voters, of which 100 million will be under 35 years of age. More than 300,000 officials supported by six million electoral workers will assist voters on the day. Every person will have their hand stamped once they have cast their vote to ensure no-one is able to vote more than once. This will require 1.6 million bottles of halal-certified black ink. Child sex allegations followed Frank Valentine from one child welfare job to another until the mid-1980s when he was named Department of Youth and Community Services operations manager for the Hunter, or second-in-charge. Valentine, 78, would "go ballistic" about staff who asked why he was still working in such a senior position after facing child sex charges in 1987 and 1988, said Max Morrissey, who was a Hunter child protection consultant reporting to Valentine. Questions: Yawarra Training School at Kurri Kurri where Frank Valentine allegedly sexually abused a teenage boy in 1978 who died by suicide before a trial a decade later. Valentine was last week convicted of child sex offences against six children in NSW Government-run facilities. Credit:Fairfax Media "Everybody knew about Frank," said Mr Morrissey, after NSW District Court Judge Nicole Noman last week found Valentine guilty of 20 historical child sex offences against six victims, including rape, buggery and indecent assault, in NSW government-run facilities. "He rang me one night and said how terrible it was that people were talking about him and saying he sexually abused children. He said he was going to get them all and have them put in jail. He would go around saying people were making false allegations against him and about not being guilty, so a lot of people knew about Valentine," Mr Morrissey, a Charles Sturt University academic, said. Yesterday, while a transistor radio played pop music in the background and family washing flapped in the breeze, half a dozen aborigines attacked the clearing-up with gusto. IBK Construction Pty Ltd, which has sold the site for cost price, has promised jobs for Aborigines working on the project. The company's managing director, Mr Ian Kiering, said last night the company already employed around 15 Aborigines - "but they get no special favours," he said. "They are treated like any other employees." He was reluctant to discuss the company's role in the project, saying: "We did this because we wanted to, and we think something had to be done." Terraces in Louis Street, Redfern, on April 16, 1973 Credit:Staff photographer "We have foregone taking a profit as our contribution, and because we think people should get behind a responsible government which is doing something for the under-privileged," Mr Kiernan said. Others are not being so helpful. South Sydney Council has ordered the Aborigines to dismantle gates they erected at either end of a narrow laneway bisecting the site. One of the workers, Mr Henry Wallace, said the gates had been put up because the site was frequently used as a rubbish dump. The leader of the State Opposition, Mr Hills, said there was a another method which would guarantee Aborigines a better standard accommodation than the standard under the Commonwealth plan. Mr Hills, whose electorate includes the housing project, said the alternative method was for the Commonwealth to give the NSW Housing Commission the money to build homes specifically for the Aborigines. The mayor of South Sydney Council, Alderman W. C. Hartup, said last night he had sent a telegram to the Prime Minister, Mr Whitlam, protesting against the Federal Government's decision. He said the basis of the protest was that neither the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Mr Bryant, nor the chairman of the Federal Government's committee on Aborigines, Senator J. Keefe, had discussed the proposal with the council. Neither the Federal MP for the area, Mr J. Cope, the Speaker of the House, nor Mr Hills had been consulted. The council had not discussed the proposed scheme. "I do not even know what the proposition is," he said. Alderman Hartup said that when he spoke with Senator Keefe on Saturday " he guaranteed me that a decision would not be made for the next six weeks." Editorial: Redfern's Aborigines THE FEDERAL Government's decision to pay for development of an Aboriginal community housing project in the inner Sydney suburb of Redfern is a clear and welcome manifestation of the Government' s philosophy of racial "integration" put into practice. The project will transform a block of terraces in the heart of the area which holds the bulk of Sydney's Aborigines in conditions ranging from poor to appalling. The scheme, if successful, will have an impact, therefore, not only on the people who are rehoused, but on the morale of the Aboriginal people throughout Sydney. Redfern has been a home for the dispossessed for many decades, and none in Australia have been more dispossessed and deprived than the Aborigines. It has been, in effect, a cheap dossing area for the thousands of Aborigines who have streamed into Sydney in recent years. But although an area where these people have been held because of their deprivation of educational and economic resources, it has also been a place where they have clung together to preserve their identity. As Dr H. C. Coombs pointed out in his George Judah Cohen Memorial Lecture last year, Redfern has thrown up the young spokesman for the Aborigines, the self-help legal and medical services, the National Black-Theatre. Whereas the old "assimilative" approach to the Aboriginal housing problem would have been to scatter families in new houses among the white community further out in more prosperous suburbs, the new philosophy recognises the value of this Aboriginal cohesiveness and pride. Artist's impression of the development, 1973. The project itself is an admirable one.The Government will give an Aboriginal co-operative society 5530,000 to buy 41 terrace houses around one block. They will be renovated and rented to selected tenants. In the centre the tangle of fences, sheds and chicken-houses will be cleared to make way for an attractive community courtyard. Room will be available for services needed by residents, including the "shopfront" medical and legal advisory offices. This is an example that could well be followed in other inner suburbs ringing the City. The texts seemed innocent enough messages to a man named Roger, asking for drinks. Sometimes Roger would initiate the conversation by sending messages like: "Mardi Gras Eve is here... Road Closures on Saturday so get in as early as you can! Be prepared and safe this weekend. Cheers, Roger". Rosa Adilovic and her boyfriend Gabriel Issa have been charged with running a cocaine delivery business. Credit:Facebook But the detectives who tapped "Roger's" phone will allege he didn't exist. Rather, police will argue in court that Roger was an alias for a Campsie couple accused of masterminding a north shore drug syndicate and that "drinks" actually meant bags of cocaine. Police documents seen by the Herald allege that Razija "Rosa" Adilovic and her fiance Gabriel Issa ran a cocaine delivery business in the blue-ribbon suburb of McMahons Point employing at least seven delivery drivers including Gabriel's teenage brother Adam Issa. Close polluted beaches Sydneys northern beaches could be closed permanently if councils accept a plea by 80 doctors to stop swimmers risking their health in dirty water. The doctors have called on Manly and Warringah councils to close 15 beaches until the NSW Health Department can prove they are safe. Dr Peter Macdonald [from Manly] said the doctors feared there could be an outbreak of disease if people kept swimming. Bunch of whingers British movie master David Puttnam has branded Australian film-makers a bunch of whingers on his return from a Sydney lecture tour. Puttnam, who produced the international blockbusters Chariots of Fire, Midnight Express [and] The Killing Fields blamed Australias flagging movie industry on the welfare state mentality of film makers. He said the Aussie film industry was the most subsidised in the world. Chaplin, Hitler share stage Close polluted beaches Sydneys northern beaches could be closed permanently if councils accept a plea by 80 doctors to stop swimmers risking their health in dirty water. The doctors have called on Manly and Warringah councils to close 15 beaches until the NSW Health Department can prove they are safe. Dr Peter Macdonald [from Manly] said the doctors feared there could be an outbreak of disease if people kept swimming. Bunch of whingers British movie master David Puttnam has branded Australian filmmakers a bunch of whingers on his return from a Sydney lecture tour. Puttnam, who produced the international blockbusters Chariots of Fire, Midnight Express [and] The Killing Fields blamed Australias flagging movie industry on the welfare state mentality of filmmakers. He said the Aussie film industry was the most subsidised in the world. Chaplin, Hitler share stage The company at the centre of a catastrophic scaffolding collapse at Macquarie Park that resulted in the death of one man is being sued over a separate incident in which scaffolding allegedly fell and struck a worker on the north shore. Synergy Scaffolding Services erected scaffolding that crashed earlier this month, at an apartment development known as 'nbh at Lachlan's Line' in Macquarie Park. An injured worker is taken away from the accident site in Macquarie Park. Credit:Photos: Peter Braig, NSW Fire and Rescue Apprentice formworker Christopher Cassaniti died after he was crushed in the rubble, while another worker, 39, was seriously injured. It comes as Synergy is being sued in the NSW Supreme Court by a labourer who was allegedly injured at an Artarmon construction site in October 2012. Detectives have charged a woman with murder after a man was stabbed on an island in Queensland's Gulf Country. Police will allege a 32-year-old woman, who was known to the victim but not a family member, stabbed the 50-year-old local man with a knife in the upper abdomen on Mornington Island on April 9. Mornington Island is a remote Indigenous community in the Gulf of Carpentaria with more than 1100 residents. Credit:Chris Burns Officers were called to a home in Wurrurku Street on the Gulf of Carpentaria island about 10am. The victim was found on the floor in one of the bedrooms with blood on his face. Last week more than a hundred people gathered for a meeting in North Richmond at a pub across from the medically supervised injecting room. A mix of media, politicians, local residents and people working in the alcohol and drug sector attended. It was a spirited discussion about the issues associated with drug use and antisocial behaviour negatively affecting local residents. Richmond locals at the public meeting. Credit:Luis Ascui North Richmond has been a hot spot for drug use for two decades. The City of Yarra had the highest frequency of heroin-related deaths in Victoria between 2009 and 2016 one of the reasons North Richmond was chosen as the location for Victorias only injecting room. The injecting room opened on June 30 last year for the start of a two-year trial. The expectation for some was that it would solve the drug problems in the area and an inability to achieve this might be perceived as a failure of the injecting room itself. The issue is more complex. Police are the scene of a nightclub shooting in Prahran. Credit:Chris Hopkins He was standing near 37-year-old security guard Aaron Khalid Osmani, when a gunman fired a volley of shots from a stolen Porsche Cayenne into Love Machine nightclub in Prahran. The 28-year-old from Maidstone in Melbourne's north-west was standing in line outside the venue when it was sprayed with bullets about 3am on Sunday. A patron critically injured during a drive-by shooting outside a Prahran nightclub has been identified as talented Melbourne soccer player Richard Arow. Richard Arow, 28, was critically injured in the drive-by shooting outside Love Machine nightclub in Prahran. Credit:Facebook It is understood the Porsche did not stop as bullets were sprayed from the vehicle and swerved onto Malvern Road before making a sharp right turn into Bray Street. Police are yet to confirm the weapon used, but it is believed to have been an automatic weapon, possibly an AK-47 assault rifle. Mr Arow is understood to have received a gunshot wound to the head and was rushed to The Alfred hospital. A police source said Mr Arow and Mr Osmani could have been hit by the same bullet. Mr Osmani, from Narre Warren South, died in hospital. Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Mark Stone will step down at the end of the year. The long-serving boss of the state's highest profile business advocacy group told staff on Monday that he would leave the post in December after eight years in the role. VECCI boss Mark Stone will step down at the end of the year Credit:Sebastian Costanzo The announcement to staff came after The Age contacted the organisation on Sunday, in response to murmurs that Mr Stone and the chambers board had decided he would wrap up his term within the coming months. Chamber president Don Rankin confirmed the impending departure on Monday, in a statement which said the board and Mr Stone had made the decision together. Planning Minister Richard Wynne has called for a rethink of Federation Square, saying something has to be done to stop the much-loved civic space from withering away. If you go there pretty much anytime outside of maybe a weekend event its pretty sad, Mr Wynne told The Age. Planning Minister Richard Wynne says Federation Square is "pretty sad" if you visit outside the weekend. Credit:Joe Armao Mr Wynne said people loved Fed Square and it had some amazing big attractions or "anchors" such as the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, the NGV's Ian Potter Centre and the Koorie Heritage Trust. You have got really good anchors, really high end restaurants there but then the rest just falls away really quickly, he said. A group of young men have been charged by Midland Detectives after allegedly bludgeoning a kangaroo with a wooden axe handle in the Perth Hills last month. Footage of the brutal animal cruelty attack went viral on social media in March, which led to a police investigation into the incident. Footage of the incident was circulated on social media network Snapchat. The footage attracted public outrage with the RSPCA describing it as the most abhorrent cruelty to one of Australias iconic animals. A police spokesman said it would be alleged the kangaroo was struck multiple times with the wooden handle of an axe and the incident was filmed on a mobile phone. The number of undercover police operations in Western Australia has increased tenfold in the past five years, with more than 50 stings targeting drug syndicates, murder suspects, and prostitution rings carried out in 2017-18. The operations were carried out under the Criminal Investigation (Covert Powers) Act, with the latest statistics revealing police were focused on infiltrating drug syndicates. Vision of Brett Cowan confessing to undercover police, to the murder of Daniel Morcombe in 2011. Credit:DPP Of the 51 operations carried out, 38 related to drug offences, five to stolen property, five to firearm offences and two to murder. More than 290 law enforcement officers and nine civilians were involved in the stings. Former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer has accused Malcolm Turnbull of buckling to military pressure and abandoning his support for promoting World War I hero Sir John Monash to Field Marshal. Mr Fischer, who has campaigned for years to have Monash promoted posthumously to Field Marshal - the highest Australian Army rank - said he had kept detailed notes of a "disappointing" phone call from Mr Turnbull a few days before Anzac Day last year. Former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer has led the campaign to recognise Sir John Monash. Credit:Eddie Jim His notes revealed the then prime minister had called on April 18 from London to advise he planned to address the "Monash for Field Marshal" campaign after he had opened the $100 million Monash Centre at Villers-Bretonneux, in northern France, on Anzac Day. However, Mr Turnbull had said that because of "recent publicity", he wanted to bring the matter forward and announce before Anzac Day that he had decided against the posthumous promotion. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have contacted Home Affairs Minister Peter Duttons office for comment on whether medical visas for Kurdish fighters are being considered by Australia. The Herald and the Age interviewed about a dozen Kurdish soldiers whod been wounded fighting IS, mostly around Baghouz near the Iraq border, where the terrorist group made its final stand last month. Syrian Democratic Forces soldier Ahmad Atiya, 24. Credit:Kate Geraghty Ahmad Atiya, 24, was hit accidentally by his own sides mortar fire in the town of Hajin, 30 kilometres northeast of Baghouz, just over four months ago. He lost both his legs. Comrades dragged him into a room where he lay alone for six hours without painkillers or treatment. "I was trying to reach my weapon to kill myself," he said. "If Id been captured by ISIS, they would have tortured me." Loading By the time he got to the major hospital at Hassaka for treatment, he needed 4.5 litres of blood - nearly an entire bodys worth. He is clearly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as well. "When I sleep, I dream Im walking. Ive got my legs back," he said. It is remarkable what some of them have survived. Shiyar Noushtiman was hit in the stomach by shrapnel from IS artillery fire which also partially detonated an ammunition pouch he was carrying. He described holding his intestines in his hands. "Everything inside was outside," he said. He has a plastic hip now and an open wound on his back that will not heal. Shiyar Noushtiman has his wound dressed at a house in Hassaka where SDF soldiers are recuperating from their injuries. Credit:Kate Geraghty Sipan Ezzo, 20, was fighting just outside the former IS capital of Raqqa, in a village called Salhabia, when he took a rest to have breakfast and placed his heavy weapon on a pile of ceramic tiles. Retreating IS fighters had put a booby trap bomb, known as an improvised explosive device or IED, under the tiles. He was holding four grenades and had an ammunition belt slung over his shoulder. Together the consecutive blasts took both his legs and his right forearm. He describes the contrast between the Kurds and the IS fighters, most of whom had come from outside Syria. The Islamic State fighters were "brainwashed", he said. They would use drugs such as Tramadol - an opiate that dulls pain and fear. The Kurds would find empty packets everywhere as they took IS territory. "We get energy from our martyrs and comrades," he said of the Kurds. "They keep us going all the time." US President Donald Trump has hinted at a full withdrawal of US forces from Syria but so far has not followed through. Sipan Abdulrahman Khadir (left) who lost the lower part of his left leg in Baghouz reapplies the bandage to his leg as Sipan Ezzo, 20, looks on. Ezzo lost both legs and his right hand and part of his arm. Credit:Kate Geraghty Mustafa Bali, the spokesman for the largely Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, said on Twitter at the weekend: "[The] US military hasnt yet informed or co-ordinated any withdrawal of its troops with the SDF from north Syria, contrary to reports [in the media]. The situation on the ground remains the same [with] no pullout of US forces." Militan Afrin Ciya, the commander of the military academy at al-Omar base near Baghouz, said his troops had faced many of the most hardcore IS fighters. "Those people who decided to fight until the end, they were willing to die," he said. "We were fighting very close to one another. The coalition in some cases were not able to strike their points because the distance between their fighters and us was so small. "ISIS was using civilians as human shields. We had to fight while keeping the women and children safe. That was the reason it took so long." Dr Omar said the international community needed to restart Syria peace talks in Geneva, with the Kurds included. They have previously been kept out thanks to a Turkish veto. "After liberating north east Syria, we now control more than 30 per cent of the country. Thats why we need our partners to put pressure on the United Nations ... We paid a high price ... We cannot solve the Syrian problem when the Kurds are left out." A Florida man was killed on Friday, Florida time, by a cassowary the enormous, flightless bird native to Queensland. He raised the animal on his farm, along with other exotic birds, authorities said. The man, who police identified as Marvin Hajos, 75, owned the farm where the cassowary was located and the altercation took place. Emergency medical workers responded to a call about 10am on Friday at a farm near Alachua, Florida, according to Josh Crews of the Alachua County Sheriff's Office. The cassowary was kept on the Florida farm, along with various other exotic birds. Credit:Alamy Hajos fell, they said, and the bird attacked him, injuring him severely. He was transported to the hospital, where he died. Infinity Joining Spanish eMobility Group AEDIVE&Update of European Commission Initiatives Posted by Publisher Internet . Infinity joins forces with Spanish eMobility group AEDIVE in a continued drive towards European and Spanish initiatives. The European Commission has published its 4th State of the Energy Union Report with a keen focus on the lithium-ion battery industry. Battery materials and specifically lithium chemical supply within Europe has been identified as imperative. Infinity?s San Jose Lithium Project is a large, potentially long-life vertically integrated industrial chemicals project. Infinity Joins Forces with Spanish Electric Mobility Business Association AEDIVE Infinity Lithium (http://www.commodity-tv.net/c/search_adv/?v=298809) has joined forces with AEDIVE to support the development of Electric Mobility in Spain. ?Created in April 2010, AEDIVE is the Spanish business association for the development and promotion of electric vehicles whose goal is to support and accelerate the development of the Electric Mobility Market. ?The group gathers industrial, technological and service companies across the value chain of the Electric Mobility sector. One of the key goals of the cluster is to represent and promote its associate members and advocate for an economic, political and social support of Electric Mobility. ? The association includes around 150 members including companies such as BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan, Mercedes, and Total.? The group has strong associations with federal, regional and local governments in addition to leading market participants.? European Commission Publishes 4th State of the Energy Union Report The European Commission (?EC?, or ?the Commission?) published the fourth State of the Energy Union report on 9 April 2019, important mechanism that highlights and monitors the implementation of the Juncker Commission?s key energy priorities.? The Commission also presented forward visions including one on the strategic batteries plan for Europe.? The EC readily acknowledges the strategic imperative of the lithium-ion battery (?LIB?) market within Europe that will be required to drive the ongoing clean energy and mobility transitions.? They note that ?the European market potential could be worth up to EUR 250 billion annually from 2025 onwards? however? that ?if no action is taken to support the creation of a viable battery manufacturing sector, there is a risk that Europe falls irreversibly behind its competitors in the global batteries market, and becomes dependent on imports of battery cells and raw materials used in the supply chain.? Furthermore, the EC has identified that LIBs strategic importance ?where the EU must step up investment and innovation in the context of a strengthened industrial policy strategy aimed at building a globally integrated, sustainable and competitive industrial base.? This dependency is not only limited to LIB cell production.? Access to the five essential battery raw materials (lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite) is also a major challenge for Europe?s security of supply as they are only currently available from a small number of countries worldwide and very limited within Europe (Figure 1). The EC now proposes the launch a dialogue with Member States through the Raw Materials Supply Group and the High-Level Steering Group of the European Innovation Partnership on Raw Materials (EIP Raw Materials).? A key output of the first raw materials mapping exercise by the Commission is that Europe lacks a processing facility for lithium, whilst noting that currently risk of availability is concentrated largely in China, which consequently dominates the LIB supply chain. Access to raw materials and essential LIB chemicals may be at risk because of political instability, which could lead to access being disrupted (including exposure to high taxes and duties on exports).? On the domestic front, the Commission has launched a dialogue with EU Member States to map the availability in Europe of raw materials for batteries, including cobalt, lithium, natural graphite and nickel. ?The outcome shows that despite having geological potential in Europe, extraction of battery raw materials is limited and concentrated in a few European countries. ?Greater use of this potential would reduce the risk to security of supply of raw materials for batteries. ?Furthermore, while processing capacity exists in Europe for cobalt and nickel, there is none for battery-grade lithium compounds or natural graphite. ?That would mean that even if lithium and natural graphite extraction can be increased in Europe, all materials ? at least in the short term would have to be shipped to countries outside Europe for processing into battery-grade materials. The 4th State Energy Union Report the Commission is working with the European Investment Bank (EIB), key industrial actors and Member States to address this gap in the value chain. The Vice President of the EC Maro? ?ef?ovi? and Vice President of the EIB Andrew A. McDowell both acknowledged the importance of Europe?s strategic position in the LIB supply chain, promoting the sector and the EIB?s commitment to provide capital to facilitate growth EV market and European value chain participants at EBA250 in Brussels (refer to ASX announcement 1 February 2019). Infinity?s San Jose Lithium Project contains the European Union?s (?EU?) second largest JORC lithium resource and is projected to produce up to 15,000 tonnes per annum of battery grade lithium chemicals for more than 24 years (ASX announcement 29 November 2018), placing it ideally to supply battery grade chemicals into the European market. San Jose is currently undergoing a Pre-Feasibility level study. Infinity?s CEO and Managing Director, Ryan Parkin commented ?This is another example of the rapidly evolving recognition of the importance of battery chemicals within Europe, and the momentum gathering within the EU to address a significant risk to their burgeoning auto industry.? San Jose is ideally placed to supply Europe with a significant volume of lithium chemicals in addition to the utilisation of the raw material resource.? It benefits from the availability of key infrastructure located adjacent to the project area, ensuring the availability of a sustainable source of product with an environmentally advantageous carbon footprint.? About Infinity Lithium Infinity Lithium is an Australian listed minerals company who is seeking to develop its 75% owned San Jose Lithium Project and produce battery grade lithium hydroxide. ?Supply response is needed to satisfy Europe?s burgeoning energy storage needs through feeding the large-scale battery plants currently under construction. The San Jose deposit is a highly advanced, previously mined brownfields development opportunity representing one of Europe?s largest lithium deposits. ?Infinity Lithium will potentially mine the hard rock Mica resource and develop processing facilities to provide what would currently be the sole European mine-to-end-product lithium hydroxide operation. Disclaimer Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts. Words such as ?expect(s)?, ?feel(s)?, ?believe(s)?, ?will?, ?may?, ?anticipate(s)? and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements include, but are not limited to statements regarding future production, resources or reserves and exploration results. All of such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond the control of the Company, that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied or projected by, the forward-looking information and statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: (i) those relating to the interpretation of drill results, the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits and conclusions of economic evaluations, (ii) risks relating to possible variations in reserves, grade, planned mining dilution and ore loss, or recovery rates and changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, (iii) the potential for delays in exploration or development activities or the completion of feasibility studies, (iv) risks related to commodity price and foreign exchange rate fluctuations, (v) risks related to failure to obtain adequate financing on a timely basis and on acceptable terms or delays in obtaining governmental approvals or in the completion of development or construction activities, and (vi) other risks and uncertainties related to the Company?s prospects, properties and business strategy.? Our audience is cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements that speak only as of the date hereof, and we do not undertake any obligation to revise and disseminate forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof, or to reflect the occurrence of or non-occurrence of any events. The Production Target referred to in this announcement is based on 91% Indicated Resources and 9% Inferred Resources for the life of mine life covered under the Study.? In accordance with the twenty four (24) year mine plan incorporated into the Study, the first three (3) years of production (covering payback period) will come 96% from Indicated Resources. The Study is based on the material assumptions outlined in the ASX announcement 29 November 2018.? These include assumptions about the availability of funding.? While the Company considers all the material assumptions to be based on reasonable grounds, there is no certainty that they will prove to be correct or that the range of outcomes indicated by the Study will be achieved.? To achieve the potential mine development outcomes indicated in the Study, additional funding will be required.? Investors should note that there is no certainty that the Company will be able to raise funding when needed? however? the? Company? has? concluded? it? has? a? reasonable? basis? for? providing? the? forward? looking statements included in this announcement and believes that it has a ?reasonable basis? to expect it will be able to fund the development of the San Jose lithium deposit. Infinity is not aware of any new information or data that materially affects the information included in this ASX release, and Infinity confirms that, to the best of its knowledge, all material assumptions and technical parameters underpinning the resource estimates in this release continue to apply and have not materially changed. Competent Persons Statement Production Target and Scoping Study: The information in this report that relates to Exploration Results is based on the information compiled or reviewed by Mr Adrian Byass, B.Sc Hons (Geol), B.Econ, FSEG, MAIG and an employee of Infinity. Mr Byass has sufficient experience relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity which he is undertaking to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the 2012 Edition of the JORC Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Exploration Targets, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves.? Mr Byass consents to the inclusion in the report of the matters based on this information in the form and context in which it appears. Why cellular connectivity is the smart choice for CCTV deployments Businesses large and small rely on their CCTV systems to deter intruders and provide recorded evidence of security incidents. Overtime, CCTV has evolved to offer real-time intrusion detection and monitoring, and businesses now expect easy, secure and anytime access to cameras, and data. For that, they need connected CCTV systems. These modern installations can benefit from cellular connectivity, helping businesses protect their sites, while also supporting enhanced capabilities for CCTV to deliver more. Widespread use of CCTV systems So widespread is the use of CCTV cameras now that London, United Kingdom has over 600,000 cameras, according to Surfshark, while IHS Markit expects over a billion to be operating around the world, by the end of 2021. CCTV often sits at the heart of a business on-site security arrangements CCTV often sits at the heart of a business on-site security arrangements. Yet, despite this, traditional set-ups fail, to take advantage of the full capability, such physical security can provide. Real-time feeds with anytime access Nominated personnel must physically go to premises to access CCTV video, when it is recorded and kept only on-site. This causes loss of valuable time, when a potential crime must be reported and investigated. Whats more, it can put those who arrive first at the site at risk, if intruders are still present. Nowadays, CCTV installations can take full advantage of connected capabilities. They can provide real-time feeds, which authorised users can access securely from anywhere. That expands the security credentials of CCTV systems, beyond just recording. Detected intrusions can trigger alerts and provide a real-time visual of whats happening, so that required action can be taken. Of course, to realise these CCTV capabilities, systems must be connected and use the right type of connectivity at that. Connectivity must be resilient, so that it provides a continuous feed, even if a primary connection is lost, secure for authorised users, scalable and cost-effective. Traditionally, connectivity has come from wired connections and WiFi, but now cellular connectivity provides an attractive alternative. The benefits of cellular connectivity There are a number of reasons for this. To start with, fixed line connectivity isnt always available in all locations. If the infrastructure isnt there, particularly at remote sites, cables have to be laid. Thats expensive and takes time. CCTV towers in the construction and building industry, for example, require CCTV that can be rapidly deployed in areas that most likely dont have fixed line connectivity. A cellular connection can be quickly arranged to get a CCTV system up and running in the shortest possible time. Relying on third-party infrastructure, such as fixed line networks, can also be an issue for CCTV solution providers, because any policy changes can make integration difficult. Issues that may require changes from the third-party network administrator can take longer to resolve and if the fixed line network goes down, there is usually no backup. Cellular connectivity offers end-to-end control Cellular connectivity, delivered by a solution provider, gives end-to-end control of the connectivity Cellular connectivity, delivered by a solution provider, gives end-to-end control of the connectivity. In the rare event that something goes wrong, the solution provider can manage a resolution quickly. Where a number of sites are involved, cellular connectivity can provide a single solution, simplifying overall management of the complete installed CCTV system and reducing total cost of ownership for connectivity. Single connectivity management platform Through a single connectivity management platform, businesses can oversee an entire security installation, viewing and managing data usage, and using the information to assist decision making, as security needs evolve. This brings us to the fourth benefit - The ability to easily scale up. This might be because additional cameras are needed at a site or additional sites need to be catered for. It could even be because the CCTV installation is being enhanced to support additional capabilities. Simple plug-and-play to get cameras online securely Whatever the reason, being able to roll out connections rapidly, to a range of locations will be critical to existing and new installations. Ideally, connectivity should be possible within a matter of days and end users should be able to simply plug-and-play to get their cameras online securely. Resilience is the next factor to consider. Pre-configured routers, or embedded SIM cards in cameras, can reconnect to the most readily available alternative cellular network in the event of a network outage. In this way, cellular connectivity can form part of business continuity options. In some cases, it can work together with fixed line connections, as part of robust installations, which have mitigation built-in, should primary connections fail. Expanding CCTV capabilities 4G and now 5G too, allows for easy access and remote monitoring for CCTV applications 4G and now 5G too, allows for easy access and remote monitoring for CCTV applications. It can be deployed rapidly, supports an always on approach and can stream high volumes of data and imagery. Live video feeds can be viewed by authorised users on any device and they can receive alerts, and notifications direct to their mobiles too. The high speed, high bandwidth and lower latency of 5G connectivity also provides the opportunity for enhanced CCTV system capabilities, such as live feed analytics. This is ideal because it helps businesses build on the primary function of security with, for example, occupancy monitoring. This has very much come to the fore, over the past 18 months+, as businesses have had to concern themselves more than ever with occupancy levels in their buildings. ANPR in crime detection and traffic enforcement Retailers, meanwhile, have built on the real-time nature of CCTV technology, to monitor customer numbers in their stores, in line with social distancing guidelines. Another CCTV application can be found with automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) in crime detection and traffic enforcement. Combined with software, the feed from CCTV cameras is used to help find and track vehicles for law enforcement or traffic monitoring. For most CCTV applications, the speed and functionality that comes from 4G is more than sufficient. However, it is likely 5G will drive new applications and ways to expand CCTV capabilities to the benefit of businesses. CCTV systems offer remote monitoring and high quality visuals Once a single application installation, CCTV use to provide only on-site recording capabilities. Now, CCTV systems can support remote monitoring and higher quality visuals. They can deliver alerts, and back them up with access to real-time video feeds, so that authorised users can assess a situation and take action rapidly. These additional capabilities support enhanced use cases for CCTV. The data that CCTV systems generate is valuable to businesses. Businesses that capture and analyse the data can fully capitalise on its potential. Cellular connectivity provides a resilient and scalable way of connecting single or multiple sites. Through a connectivity management platform, businesses can consolidate CCTV connectivity, managing connections across networks and deployments. "Columbia," the Apollo 11 command module, is seen through the window of its crew hatch as displayed in the Smithsonian exhibition "Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission" now at The Museum of Flight in Seattle for the flight's 50th anniversary. SEATTLE Fifty years after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, the spacecraft that carried the first astronauts to land on the moon has again returned to the United States' west coast. "Columbia," the Apollo 11 command module that flew Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins to and from the moon in July 1969, will spend the 50th anniversary of its mission at The Museum of Flight in Seattle. The capsule is the star of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service's "Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission," which opens Saturday (April 13) through Sept. 2 at the Washington state museum. "It is truly an honor to have the Destination Moon exhibition here, the command module Columbia and the other artifacts from the moon landing, for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11," said Geoff Nunn, adjunct curator for space history and exhibit developer at The Museum of Flight, during a press preview on Thursday. "Mounting an exhibition like Destination Moon for the 50th anniversary was truly a daunting undertaking." Related: In Photos: NASA's Historic Launch Pad 39A, from Apollo to Shuttle to SpaceX The Museum of Flight has expanded the Smithsonian's Destination Moon exhibition to highlight the roles that Washingtonians and regional companies played in making the first moon landing possible. (Image credit: collectSPACE.com) Previously on display in Houston , St. Louis and Pittsburgh , the Destination Moon exhibition was the Smithsonian's answer on how to keep Columbia on public view through the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission as its permanent home, the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, undergoes an extensive, multi-year renovation . In addition to the command module, the exhibit features 20 artifacts from the first moon landing mission, including the gloves and helmet visor assembly that Aldrin wore on the lunar surface. "This is the not the first time Columbia has traveled the country. In 1970, NASA organized a tour that took Columbia to each of the 50 states," explained Michael Neufeld, senior curator for space history at the National Air and Space Museum . "Over the course of three rainy days, nearly 45,000 Washingtonians saw the command module when it was on view in Olympia in front of the State Capitol." At The Museum of Flight, Columbia is displayed inside the previous location of the museum's "Apollo" exhibit, which debuted in 2017 . The museum removed some of the prior exhibit's artifacts out to make way for Destination Moon, including a test command module, but also augmented the Smithsonian's objects with pieces of its own collection. Apollo 11 artifacts on display under a mockup of an Apollo lunar module's ascent stage in Destination Moon at The Museum of Flight in Seattle. (Image credit: collectSPACE.com) Visitors can still view an intact Saturn V F-1 rocket engine and the parts from flown engines that were recovered off the seafloor, as were previously part of the Apollo gallery, but can now also see an F-1 injector plate that helped launch the Apollo 11 mission as is part of the Destination Moon touring exhibition. "I like the idea you might inspire more kids today just the way the lunar missions in the late 60s and early 70s inspired me as a kid," said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, whose family foundation underwrote the F-1 engine recovery and helped sponsor bringing the Destination Moon exhibition to Seattle. "So if we can inspire just a few kids to go off and invent the future, it is well worth it." In addition to incorporating some of its own Apollo artifacts, The Museum of Flight has also used Destination Moon to highlight the Seattle region's role in making the lunar landing possible. "Seattle is very well known as an airplane town, but we have been very involved in exploring beyond the atmosphere since the earliest days of the space program," said Nunn. "As we approached this exhibit, we sought to capture the local story. Not just the global achievement, but all of the contributions that Washingtonians brought to the space race." To that end, the expanded exhibition includes a model of the lunar rover as was developed by The Boeing Company in nearby Kent, examples of the thrusters designed and built by Redmond-based Aerojet Rocketdyne and memorabilia from the 1962 World's Fair, which included the debut of the now iconic Space Needle in Seattle. The Apollo 11 command module "Columbia" as seen in Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission at The Museum of Flight in Seattle. (Image credit: collectSPACE.com) In conjunction with Destination Moon, dozens of Seattle businesses, restaurants, attractions and organizations are planning to offer space-themed products, special promotions and events celebrating the 50th anniversary of the moon landing under the banner of "Seattle's Summer of Space." The Museum of Flight has also re-themed its children's play area as "Tranquility Base," with kid-friendly mockups of the Apollo spacecraft and artwork featuring Snoopy, the Peanuts comic strip dog , as the first beagle on the moon. "All around the country right now, there are Apollo celebrations going on. It is going to be a big deal and you're going to feel the momentum build. And at those openings, at those exhibitions and celebrations, there are going to be people like me who can't start off their speech with 'I remember where I was on July 20, 1969,'" said Matt Hayes, president and CEO of The Museum of Flight, who was born in 1970. "So why is this relevant to me and the billions of people like me who didn't get to watch Apollo unfold on TV? That is one of the many questions we hope to explore with this exhibition; that there is a lot to be inspired about," said Hayes. "And I would argue even more relevance to the moon landings and that program now than there was 50 years ago." Click through to collectSPACE for more photos of Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission at The Museum of Flight in Seattle. Meteoroid impacts regularly liberate puffs of water vapor from the moon, suggesting that minuscule amounts of water may lurk just under the entire lunar surface, a new study finds. When the Apollo missions brought lunar rocks to Earth, scientists found evidence that the moon was devoid of water. However, in the past decade, data from a bevy of spacecraft including NASA's Cassini, Deep Impact and Lunar Prospector missions, and India's Chandrayaan-1 probe revealed trace amounts of water on the surface of the moon. Even more intriguingly, they found water across the moon's surface, not only at the poles, as was previously expected. But scientists still have many questions about the source and extent of lunar water. To learn more, researchers analyzed data from NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), which orbited the moon from October 2013 to April 2014. Related: Watch Two Meteorites Hit the Moon! The scientists behind the newly published research found that the moon released numerous puffs of water vapor from near its surface into its exosphere , the very tenuous layer of molecules comprising the closest thing that the moon has to an atmosphere. These outbursts coincided with 29 known meteoroid streams that passed near Earth during that eight-month span of time, including the Leonids, Geminids and Quadrantids. "Most of the geological processes we deal with in planetary science are very slow we almost never get to see something respond dynamically over the scale of hours like we did here," lead author Mehdi Benna, a planetary scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, told Space.com. The researchers suggested that meteoroid impacts kicked up these puffs of water from the moon, and said that four of these puffs were apparently caused by previously undetected meteoroid streams. "One would think we know all of the meteoroid streams that are out there, but apparently we don't," Benna said. By analyzing the amount of water released by meteoroid streams of different sizes, the scientists estimated that the uppermost 3.15 inches (8 centimeters) of lunar soil is dehydrated any less, and smaller meteoroids would have excavated more water. Below this desiccated layer, the researchers suggest, water comprises up to about 0.05% of the weight of the rock up to at least 10 feet (3 meters) deep. "With our measurements, we could see exactly the water extracted from the moon in a very dynamic way by micrometeroid impacts, and by analyzing the data, see how much water was stored in the lunar reservoir and where it was going," Benna said. The researchers estimated that meteoroid impacts cause the moon to lose as much as 220 tons (200 metric tons) of water annually. To sustain this amount of loss over time, they suggested that this water either was present when the moon formed, about 4.5 billion years ago, or was delivered by cosmic impacts from water-laden rocks soon after the moon was born. The lunar samples from the Apollo missions may have appeared devoid of water because the water on those rocks was likely not incorporated into the rocks themselves, but only weakly coated them. As such, any water on the rocks was likely fragile and difficult to hold onto during the return trips, Benna said. Future research can examine how deep water actually extends on the moon, Benna said. He and his colleagues detailed their findings online today (April 15) in the journal Nature Geoscience. 16.19 - "Perennial Written by Gina Lucita Monreal Directed by Tony Wharmby Reviewed by KathM Ive got one with a swan, one with a kid, one with a plant ~ Leroy Jethro Gibbs There was a lot of action in this episode, ending with the end of Rule 10. I know, right? I dont know who was more freaked out by this, me or McGee. This was a decent episode with entirely too much going on featuring two main storylines and a plant. Theres also a swan, but its more connected to one of the main storylines so Ill just leave it there. The more I watch this episode, the more disturbing I find it. The Kid (1 of 2) The primary story concerns Evan, the younger brother of a man who killed a family of four while driving drunk. Christopher was thrown out of the military and put in jail and will soon be up for parole again. The officer who was first on the scene of the accident, Dale Mosby, speaks at Christophers parole hearings to make sure that the family isnt forgotten. Evan doesnt want this to happen again because he misses his brother, so he does the only thing he can think of to stop Mosby from testifying; he decides to kill him. A teenagers logic in a world where guns are easily accessible and mass shootings are becoming common. He gets hold of a gun and shoots up the lobby of Liberty Naval Hospital, where Mosby is having breakfast with his wife. One person is killed, and several are injured, Mosby included. Mosby was able to get a shot off, though, so Evan is also wounded. Unfortunately, he gets away before the NCIS crew gets to the scene. Evan is easily traced via Kasies mad skills and some blood left behind. They converge on Evans house just in time to find blood on the carpet and empty boxes of ammunition. Evans been there and grabbed some more ammo to continue his spree. Looks like hes not done yet. Evans father shows up and is taken into questioning, where he spends time in Interrogation talking to Gibbs and Torres about how Evan was a good kid until his brother went to prison. In fact, Evan was getting teased and bullied so much about Christopher that his dad moved them to another city and changed their names. This doesnt mean we should make excuses for Evan, its just the way it was. Evans dad loves him, but does he really know whats going on in Evans mind? He didnt know Evan had a gun and couldnt imagine him shooting people. But he did, and he has. Despite telling Gibbs that he has no idea where Evan is, Sloane tells them that as much as Noah (Evans dad) loves his son there is no way he hasnt helped him hide out. Noah then takes the gang to the hotel where Evan is holed up, and he apprehended. Well, Ev, now youll get to spend time with your brother after all. The Swan Torres has a Patronus and it is a swan. Swans, he tells us, can go dark real quick. Theyre all good and in control and suddenly they get triggered and go off the rails. Which makes a lot of sense when you think of Torres in animal form. Swans are also all pretty and preening and that makes sense, too. You know what makes Torres mad? People shooting at innocent people for no reason, like they did in this episode. This ignites the swan and makes for a really angry Torres. A dont coddle, dont make excuses for his behavior kind of Torres. Which I mostly agree with. When the team gets to the hotel Gibbs sends Torres in to apprehend him. I think this is a catastrophic mistake that could so easily end in tears. I dont know if Gibbs wanted to show Torres that he trusted him after last week, but trust exercises should be confined to the office or a designated training area only. Torres was so angry that I dont think I would have risked it. When he opens the hotel door Torres finds a teary, bewildered kid who seems to have no idea of the consequences of what hed done. Torres yells at him to pick up his gun, almost like hes hoping Evan will so that he can shoot the kid. Fortunately, he calls Gibbs before he loses it, for which I am eternally grateful. The Kid (2 of 2) Ill be honest, most adoption storylines confuse me. This one does, too. But you knew it was coming, and here it is. Sloane finally gets to meet her daughter and her daughter has a few things to say. Faith Tolliver is an OR Nurse who was assisting in surgery as the shooting happened, but before she went in, she spoke briefly with the suspect (Evan). She wasnt interviewed initially, so Gibbs has her come in to take her statement in Interrogation Lite. He knows about Faith, so he tells Sloane she cant go along. Sloane tries to prep Gibbs about how he should talk to Faith, so Gibbs tells her she can go along after all. Gibbs, this is a mistake. Do not get involved in this. Oh dear, too late. Faith spends hours with Kasie making a sketch of Evan that is very accurate. Yay, Faith! Thanks for your help, well let you know if you need anything else. Would you like police protection? No? Okay. See you later, when Sloane has decided to sit outside of your building in case any baddies come calling. When Faith is finally done with Sloanes stalking, the guilt trip begins. Faith knows who Sloane is, and while shes been stalking Faith, she in turn has been stalking her. She thinks Sloane abandoned her and was hurt that Sloane told her birth parents that she didnt want to see Faith. Given that Faith seems like a rational woman, it makes no sense to me that she wouldnt have at least tried to get in touch with Sloane since she so obviously could. If Faith had a good life with her family, why does her biological mothers life upset her so much? And why, if she sees that Faith is in a good place, is Sloane so obsessed with her and crying and trying to apologize? Theres no reason she shouldnt be sad, but Sloane thought she did the best thing for both of them. And there she is, begging for forgiveness. All I can think of is that the trauma of being held prisoner and tortured overseas for so long made her want to be near her daughter. I never thought about the reason Sloane moved from California to DC, but now Im creeped out. In the end Sloane stops Faith in front of her house again and gives her a piece of paper before running away. It has Sloanes phone number on it, asking Faith to call her so that she can explain. I really dont want this to become a big, emo storyline, so Im hoping that maybe theyll go for coffee or something and theyll part amicably. But the storyline is open to much more. The Plant Ellie is worrying me. I know she wants to figure out the Ziva mystery, despite being specifically asked by someone who may or may not be Ziva not to try and find her, but it seems to be going in a weird direction. It seems that while she was cleaning up Zivas office she found a long-dead plant and decided it was some clue to the Ziva puzzle. There doesnt seem to be any kind of clue or ancient runes carved on the pot, so Im not sure of its significance. Thoughts? She hasnt shared the note that may/may not have been from the theoretically departed, but suddenly Ellie decides to see what Gibbs thinks. About the plant. In the hallway of the hospital while theyre waiting to see Mosby. Gibbs tells her not to get involved and Bishops all, If you know, I need you to say it. Surprisingly, Gibbs does not look as angry as I thought he would, and we didnt see him chew her out. He actually looks uncomfortable. This is the first time its occurred to me that Gibbs might know about a possibly living Ziva. Oh, man. The Rule (RIP) Rule 10: Never get personally involved in a case. Gibbs is the one going through the most in this episode; hes weighted down with secrets and swans and it seems have really hit him hard this time. He may have dipped his toe into personal feelings now and then throughout the years, but for the most part hes lived according to Shannons Rules. He made mistakes in this case, and seems frustrated and angry and exhausted. Hes not personally involved in the overall case per se, but people hes come to care about personally and professionally are. In some ways hes been there: hes had anger problems that needs to be recognized and controlled like Torres and he passionately misses a child, like Sloane. Ellies secret, which may also be his secret, is the heaviest of all. I dont think Gibbs is burning Rule 10 for his team, I think hes burning it for himself. Im glad that Gibbs can talk to someone like McGee. Their conversation in Gibbss basement shows how much he trusts him and how far theyve come. They spent all those months together as prisoners and I think that really bonded them. McGee is also a strong right hand and normally stays strictly business on a case, which Gibbs really needs right now. I hope Tim is able to help him through this and get Gibbs back on track. T he row between Barclays and Ed Bramson ramped up another notch on monday when the rebel investor attacked the make-up of the board and questioned the competence of incoming chairman Nigel Higgins. Bramson, a corporate raider who specialises in taking stakes in underperforming companies and agitating for change, is seeking a seat on the board as he pushes his plan for Barclays to ditch all or part of its investment bank. While the chances of him securing a seat are low few investors have backed him the continuing weakness of the Barclays share price is making him hard to ignore. Headhunters say Bramson lacks banking experience and is not qualified to join the board, especially given the risk others would quit if he joined. Today he wrote: By our count, five of the current directors already have banking or advisory backgrounds and we wonder how adding more could possibly make any substantive difference. Bramson notes the new chair has already backed Barclays strategy and plans to hire more directors with banking backgrounds. Bramsons broadside also cited an alleged email to chief executive Jes Staley and others from ousted investment bank chief Tim Throsby. According to Business Insider, it was titled irreconcilable and criticised plans to cut bankers pay and reduce capital reserves. Barclays denied such plans. Bramson said in his latest letter, before the banks annual meeting on May 2: The stubbornly low valuation that the market accords to the shares of Barclays will continue until the board finally adopts a strategy that is more realistic and shareholder orientated. By that he means scaling down the trading arm and returning imagined savings to investors. Having the ability to speak English fluently opens doors all over the world. If you have a solid understanding of the English language, you will certainly be able to pursue traveling, educational and employment possibility in Philippines and beyond. Yes, discovering a brand-new language can be scary. But you can take heart from the truth that numerous non-English talking people have successfully discovered English as a 2nd language and use it at the workplace or in institution, both at home and abroad. You can do it too! There are numerous attempted and checked techniques of finding out the language. The initial way is with self-study. There are computer software application and online lessons conveniently available for Newbies. These programs are structured to enable trainees to research on their own at their own area. Having stated that, the best way to discover a brand-new language is to be immersed in it. Many major universities provide English as a 2nd language training course and there are many personal English schools that specialize in teaching English. Top 5 Reasons to Study English in Philippines Philippines are a preferred destination among worldwide pupils to examine English. The number of students who choose to research right here raises annually. Right here are the top 5 reasons pupils choose to discover English in Philippines: There are over 240 schools located around the country and they vary in size and specialty. There is a school for any preference. The English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS) system is in area throughout the nation. Most schools are recognized by ELICOS, assuring that you will obtain accepted curriculum from certified teachers. Wide variety of quality programs that deal with particular discovering goals. You can research the language due to the fact that you plan to take a trip or for occupation objectives. Programs supplied array in length and deepness. English programs in Philippines can be finished in a variety of time span, from as low as 12 weeks! Versatile discovering programs. Finding out a language expands beyond the classroom. Hence, some programs include off university activities. It is essential for you to learn the language with communication with indigenous speakers. English school philippines may supply excellent teaching however they usually do not have the personal aspect of training English. If you maintain all these ideas in mind, youll find an ideal institution and speak the language with complete confidence in no time at all! I WG, the worlds biggest serviced-offices firm, on Monday agreed to sell its Japanese arm for 320 million, marking the first in a string of planned international disposals. The FTSE 250 firms shift of focus to being a franchiser rather than a landlord, kicked off today with a deal to sell 130 co-working office sites to Tokyo-listed property firm TKP Corporation. The Japanese business contributed 94.4 million to IWGs revenues in 2018. TKP will get the rights to use IWGs brand names including Regus, Spaces and OpenOffice. IWG will also be paid ongoing fees for providing franchise services, including tech and marketing. The City cheered the update, sending the shares up 42p, or more than 15%, to 317.7p. It is the first deal since IWG appointed Rothschild this year to advise on offloading some overseas operations. Mizuho Bank advised TKP. Offices giant IWG wants to expand its partnership model, in which IWG takes a fee from landlords for using its brands without incurring the costs of operating or owning the properties. Last year IWG, which has faced increasing competition from new entrants including The Office Group and WeWork, abandoned takeover talks with suitors because management did not think the offers were high enough. Mark Dixon, who founded IWG in 1989 and is the biggest shareholder, said there would be more disposals this year. He argues that the rise in street violence is a national emergency which needs to be tackled in new ways, including a public-health approach which the Evening Standard has been calling for since last year, with knife crime treated as a virulent disease. He speaks powerfully about his fears, saying he sometimes saw the faces of his own children staring back at me in pictures of victims. He also makes the case for a party which tries to do something about the burning injustices in society which Theresa May spoke about when she became Prime Minister but has done absolutely nothing about. Hes drawing on his own background as the son of immigrants who lived above the shop they ran to call for prosperity to help everyone. Many feel that they cant lose opportunities they never had in the first place, he says. No future should be pre-determined by where you are born, or how you are brought up. Now it is true that you would struggle to find anyone in the House of Commons who would argue the opposite of that and creating opportunity is a basic Tory ambition. The test, of course, is whether they have any policies which could turn these decent hopes into action. Mr Javid thinks he does. The Home Secretary is calling for a Tory future which sees modern Britain as something more than a threat. Thats welcome. Children lead on climate Consider the contrast. Over the last month, school pupils have been leading a brave, peaceful and properly organised campaign against climate change. Articulate leaders such as Noga Levy-Rapoport have put forward their case, with last months school strike and demonstrations in cities across Britain last Friday. Its supporters are camping illegally in Hyde Park a public green space thats already under pressure and are said to be planning to block public transport, which you might think was the opposite of encouraging people to cut carbon use. The truth is that they dont really have an aim other than to cause chaos. If they want to make a difference, and win the support of Londoners for action on climate, rather than drive them to fury, they should learn from the intelligent call for change coming from our children. Give e-scooters a chance Electric scooters are banned in London so thats why the police are launching a crackdown this week. Officers will be stopping users of the devices to warn them that they are too fast, too dangerous and could land people with a fine and points on their driving licences. We predict it wont make any difference. Why? Because e-scooters are popular and useful. After all, Londoners are only joining in with other cities such as Paris and Madrid, where they are legal. So instead of trying to get rid of them, the Mayor should call for them to be legal to use in the capital and in return insist on proper regulations to limit their maximum speed, require people to use them safely and make sure hire schemes dont lead to piles of unwanted devices dumped all over the city. We will have to think carefully about making sure people dont race at 20mph along pavements. But theres no reason scooters shouldnt be allowed in Londons network of often underused cycle lanes. This is a chance for London to make good technology work and support new businesses, rather than fight change. H ere are three pro-European truths: the DUP is right, the SNP are not our friends, and our priority in fighting Brexit should not be our membership of the European Union. Unlikely they may seem, but each should be a key argument during the next stage of this purgatorial debate. Lets start with the DUP, whose MPs have shown singular consistency throughout this whole affair. In supporting Brexit, the party cleaved to the decades-old doctrine of its founding father, Ian Paisley, who opposed the European Economic Community, as it was called when he was elected to the European Parliament in 1979, and fought it from within. But the DUP did not support Brexit in order to see its core belief, in the union of Northern Ireland with Great Britain, put at risk. Ever watchful, it could see what lazy Westminster polls could not: that by making a new border between the province and Great Britain, the withdrawal agreement threatens the logic and integrity of the Union. The DUP is right. Ulstermen do not like the taste of fudge, and this confection was for all the talk of temporary and unlikely measures an attempt to sweeten a sour truth: that for the first time in centuries the UK would have an internal border. Not only would that destroy the integrity of our own internal market but it would threaten its logic too, so much so that a border poll would become inevitable, and such a poll might see Northern Irish people opt to remain in a union that they could depend upon rather than one they could no longer trust. What is far less discussed is the next border that would be demanded that favoured by the separatists of the SNP. For why, they would argue, should there be different customs and single market arrangements for Northern Ireland but not for Scotland, which voted to remain within the EU. If you can draw a boundary down the Irish Sea, why not between the Esk and the Tweed? Ben Gummer is a former Conservative MP and Cabinet Office minister / AFP/Getty Images The purpose of the nationalists border would not just be to break further the UKs internal market but to paraphrase Robert Frosts poem Mending Wall to give offence. For the populists of the SNP dispute is valued above any reasonable compromise with the straw enemies of Westminster, and what better way to start an argument than a new economic wall? If the SNP thinks the economic shock of a hard Brexit would best suit its ends, the Governments deal is the next best thing. Now you may understand why the nationalists are so distinctly lukewarm about the emerging consensus that we may, as a United Kingdom, stay in a customs union with the EU. All of this, you may think, would be central to the rationale for why Conservative diehards hate Mrs Mays deal. But in the topsyturvy world of Brexit, that supposition would be only partly right. There are those who share the DUPs concerns, which is why a switch by the DUP would have brought over many sympathetic Tory Eurosceptics. But let me reveal a dirty secret of the Conservative and Unionist Party: there are a number of MPs on the Tory benches who no more value the union of our four nations than they appreciate our membership of the European Union of 28. If the cost of extraction from the EU is the end of our United Kingdom, that is a price they are willing happy even to pay to attain their ideological dream. It is why these same MPs would embrace a hard Brexit, even though it would put intolerable strain on the political and economic ties that bind our kingdom. "They no more value the union of our four nations than they appreciate our membership of the EU" All of this may seem strange to those of us who thought the Brexiteers wished to recover a lost age of British greatness. But then the most militant Brexiteers are not patriots but ideologues. What their patriotic fellow-travellers representing English seats fail to see is that were Brexit to force the union to lose one, and then two of its constituent parts, we would indeed return to a former time but one where England and Wales stood alone, a second-division power on the edge of Europe, incapable of generating the prosperity, providing the security and wielding the influence that England and Wales have as part of Great Britain. That would be a loss of historic proportions. This is the greatest union of nations the world has seen, and the longest lasting. Our ability to provide for our own, to defend what is good and defeat that which is bad, to make a unique contribution to global culture and to play our part in the story of humanity is incalculably greater than it would have been if we had plodded along on our own for the past 300 years. Were Brexit to precipitate the break-up of our own union, then we would have turned a disaster into a tragedy. Before we make that mistake, it would be as well to remember what makes the United Kingdom so special and the vandalism of populist nationalists so repellent: that the essence of our union is that we achieve more together than apart, and that in unity we are better able to celebrate difference. When demagogues around the globe seek to create dispute, our union speaks of something beautiful and, in the current climate, rather radical. It is why the United Kingdom still has something important to teach the world. In deciding not to heed our own lesson, we may, via Brexit, undo Great Britain. T errified customers dived for cover as a masked gunman opened fire in a barber shop, witnesses said today. Children as young as nine were among those inside when the shotgun-wielding attacker fired a single blast at two men, thought to be the intended targets, who locked themselves in a toilet. Police were called to the scene on Green Street in Newham but the suspect and intended victims had already fled. Witnesses today told how the pair ran for cover as the gunman stormed into the salon, which was full with up to 15 customers at the time. A 33-year-old barber, who was cutting one of the targets hair, told the Standard: They seemed to know the gunman was coming for them because when he was outside, one said the guy is coming and they both ran. They ran towards the backroom and hid in the toilet. The gunman followed them and thats when he shot at them. It happened so fast, he was holding a shotgun and he did one shot and ran back out. Everybody ran out when we heard the shot. The adults really didnt scream but the kids were screaming, they were very scared. He didnt say anything to anyone, and a few minutes later the two customers came out and ran out of the shop too. The barber said the targets were not regular customers. They were both young looking men in their early 20s, he said. They arrived 15 to 20 minutes before the gunman. We didnt recognise them, we know the locals and we hadnt seen them before. Saturdays are our busy nights and at that time the shop was packed full of customers. This is the first time something like this has happened in the shop, it was very shocking. Were lucky because the gunman just had his focus on the two guys, nobody else. He came for his targets and just ran out after. The suspect was described as black, 6ft and of muscular build, who was dressed in dark clothes and covered his face with a bandana. Police said no arrests have been made in connection with the shooting at 8.15pm on April 6. Detectives from the Mets Trident gangs unit are now appealing for witnesses. A Met spokesman said: There is no indication that anyone was injured during the shooting. A leading sixth-form college was today accused of flouting government rules by apparently charging a one-off 250 fee as a condition of students being offered a place. St Dominics Sixth Form, a Roman Catholic state college in Harrow, north-west London, requested a payment in offer letters sent out to prospective students on Wednesday. The letter suggests that failure to meet a series of conditions may result in this offer being withdrawn. It states: If you wish to accept this offer, you are requested to pay 250 to the Governors Fund by Friday 26th April 2019, which can be paid in instalments. Government guidelines warn that state-funded schools cannot request financial contributions without explicitly saying any payment is voluntary. The letter, seen by the Evening Standard, contains no such reference. The Department for Education is in discussions with the school about the wording. A parent whose 16-year-old son was offered a place if the conditions were met told the Standard he was flabbergasted at the request. My 16-year-old son told my wife and I that it was not a request but a condition, he said. He forwarded us the email, we read it and we were incredulous because its a quite blatant condition. He added: Five months before hes due to go to this school, regardless if he gets the grades, theyre saying, bung us this 250. I was just flabbergasted, quite shocked and quite angry. The 54-year-old father, from Harrow, said that while he and his wife were lucky enough to be able to support the school, they were concerned about other parents. We know a lot of schools are struggling, we already support his existing school, but we know a lot of other parents cant. Theyre in Harrow, which is a mixed area [financially], and there are parents who are not Catholic but who would want to send their children there because of the ethos of the school. I think theyre particularly vulnerable to this kind of nonsense because they might not tick the box of saying yes, I go to church every Sunday, and they might feel inclined to pay it to be in the schools good books. The request comes amid a growing trend of schools asking for money from parents to help towards costs. The college, which was attended by author Conn Iggulden, was rated outstanding by Ofsted. C limate protesters causing chaos across London say they plan to continue indefinitely until the Government meets their demands. Extinction Rebellion blocked roads and bridges across London on Monday on the first day of its International Rebellion. We are trying to stay as long as possible, a spokeswoman for the group told the Standard. There are people who are willing to be arrested. Protestors have blocked roads throughout the day / Jeremy Selwyn She emphasised the groups non-violent ethos though and even in the face of detention she said: We would expect there to be no violence towards the police. Environmental activists erect tents near Marble Arch / AFP/Getty Images Those prepared to be arrested for their cause have been given advice on how to act should they be detained and understand the potential of criminal charges being taken against them. Environmental activists at the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain at Piccadilly Circus / AFP/Getty Images Among those willing to face prosecution are grannies, teachers, doctors and mums, she said. Extinction Rebellion vigil at St Paul's Cathedral Groups occupying sites have set up tents and will be provided with resources they need to stay in place, according to the campaign group. Extinction Rebellion is calling upon the Government to meet three key points to cease the chaos, which are: To tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency. To act now with means to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net by 2025. To create a citizens assembly on climate change and ecological justice which would lead Government action. For the action to stop steps would be needed to show these are being taken seriously, with protesters calling for an open air meeting at one of the sites they are occupying. Robin Ellis-Cockroft, a co-ordinator for the groups youth faction, told the Standard: We are looking for the Government to meet us at one of these sites and to treat the crisis as a crisis. Environmental campaigners block Oxford Circus / Getty Images This is day one and we go from here. He added that "big, dramatic, potentially arrestable stuff" is planned. Extinction Rebellion take over Waterloo Bridge He said the action could stop once the Government had showed its desire to meet the requests and a meeting would be a strong first step. However, should the group not be pleased with what was said they would likely keep going. Tents have been set up for those intending to stay for long periods / Jeremy Selwyn He spoke of further action being taken against other sites including banks, fast fashion and fast food Many of the group are prepared to take criminal action should it be required to cause chaos. Protestors came from across the country / PA Obstructing the highway and criminal damage are likely to be crimes committed by those involved. Another Extinction Rebellion source told the Standard: I think at some point its going to escalate. Theres a lot of people that are prepared to be arrested. Those involved said they hoped the atmosphere would remain pleasant for the most part though, with events such as band performances even scheduled throughout the demos. London Bridge, Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Circus and Marble Arch are among the areas which have been filled with thousands of demonstrators. Earlier on Monday protesters shattered glass at Shell's London HQ and plastered the building with paint. The revolving doors of were shattered while some protesters glued themselves to the glass. A British Transport Police spokesman said: "We are currently responding to a protest incident at Canary Wharf station where a @LondonDLR service is being obstructed. "Specialist units are on scene who are working to remove the protesters." A Transport for London spokesman said: "We are aware that there are demonstrations taking place across London which may cause disruption to travel. "The safety of our customers and staff is our number one priority and we're working closely with the police to manage the impact on London's transport network. We would encourage people to check their journeys before they travel." A grieving Brexiteer paid for an obituary in a national newspaper to mourn the death of UK democracy. The author, who paid 87 for the entry in the Times, marked the date Britain was originally due to leave the EU as the day Democracy died quietly in her sleep. The obituary is titled UK Democracy on 29th March 2019, aged 312. It reads: It was with sad regret that Democracy died quietly in her sleep at 11pm, on the 29th March 2019. The cause of death was by foul play and the culprits have yet to be brought to justice. Democracy campaigned for the rule of law, human rights and free elections. She listened to everyone and favoured the majority in all her decisions. She will be sorely missed. God have mercy on her soul." Theresa May agreed to a new Halloween Brexit deadline at a crunch summit in Brussels last week following hours of talks with EU leaders. Countdown to Brexit: 199 days until Britain leaves the EU The six-month delay was decided to prevent the Britain from leaving the EU without a deal at the end of March. Mrs May told a conference at the time: I know that there is huge frustration from many people that I had to request this extension. The UK should have left the EU by now and I sincerely regret the fact that I have not yet been able to persuade Parliament to approve a deal which would allow the UK to leave in a smooth and orderly way. T he battle to replace Theresa May intensified today with a warning that the Conservatives are doomed unless they choose a new leader who can appeal to Metropolitan Britain. A string of current and former Cabinet ministers paraded their credentials as potential successors to the Prime Minister as she left Westminster for a walking holiday in Wales. Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson clashed with speeches and interviews setting out their core values. Former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab bet on his ability to overtake the frontrunners, referencing Game Of Thrones in a tweet. Im not alone in backing Arya, he said. Its never the favourite. But the first solid endorsement of the day was for another dark horse cantering up from the back, as Health Secretary Matt Hancock was hailed as the best candidate to unite the country and stem long-term Tory decline in the cities. Stephen Hammond, health minister and former party vice-chairman for London, told the Evening Standard that it was time for a generational shift of the kind that saw David Cameron leapfrog older rivals in 2005. We are electing a prime minister, not just a party leader, and we also want someone who can lead the Tories for five years and beyond, what ever the result of the next general election, Mr Hammond said. Health Secretary Matt Hancock was hailed as the best candidate to unite the country / Jack Taylor/Getty Images There is a real difference between Metropolitan Britain and the rest of Britain. We have to be a party that represents and understands all of Britain and we cant do that if we dont understand Metropolitan Britain. If the Tories retreat to just being the party of the shires at a time when more and more people are going to be living in towns, thats not a good place for us to be. We need someone who understands both, and the problem is that at the moment we are only perceived as understanding one. Mr Hammond said the Health Secretary, aged 40, understood both urban and rural Britain, was relatively untainted by Brexit, and could appeal to people under 35, as well as older voters. Boris Johnson also delivered a speech setting out his core values / PA Having worked with him, I am staggeringly impressed with him as an individual, he went on. He has a good easy style with people, but he is very clear about what he wants to achieve. He is sharp, he gets it straight away. He also delegates and is a good manager, which is important for a prime minister. He added: As I look round my colleagues, there are probably two or three who could do it, but it is time to make that big jump as we did in 2005, to make another generational shift. In other bids for the Tory throne, Home Secretary Mr Javid gave a speech on crime that dwelled on his tough upbringing, the need to strengthen communities and revealed his own fears as a father of teenagers that the streets are not safe. I may be the Home Secretary but Im not ashamed to confess ... I have stayed up late many times just so I can hear the key turning in the door, he said. The former banker claimed he might have turned to a life of crime but for his parents and teachers. I grew up on what was dubbed by a tabloid the most dangerous street in Britain, he said. Its not so difficult to see how instead of ending up in the Cabinet, I could have been taken in to a life of crime. Foreign Secretary Mr Hunt took a swipe at his rivals, saying the total focus of ministers had to be on getting a Brexit deal through to avoid having to stage European Parliament elections next month. Interviewed on BBC Radio 4s Today programme during a tour of Japan, he did not deny he wanted to wear the Tory crown but said that for the moment, I have to focus on getting Brexit sorted. Former foreign secretary Mr Johnson sought to widen his appeal beyond Brexiteers by stressing his positive narrative on social issues and public services. Brexit is going to happen, he said on Twitter. And when it does, we must finally begin the positive narrative of Brexit Britain: tackling crime, investing in our health service and our schools, and fixing the housing market to help young people own their own homes. But digital minister Margot James said she would not serve under Mr Johnson if he became Tory leader. Asked if she would stay in the party if a hard-Brexit candidate became Tory leader, Ms James told BBC Radio 4s The Westminster Hour: I have already said I wouldnt serve under Boris Johnson. Not just because of his Brexit views, but because of his performance as foreign secretary. Chancellor Philip Hammond mocked the failed bids to beat Mrs May in 2016 by Mr Johnson and Environment Secretary Michael Gove as an unintended suicide pact. Giving a speech in America, the Chancellor also said that Commons leader Andrea Leadsom had effectively knifed herself during the race to become Tory leader and PM. No 10 said Mrs May is spending the Easter break on a walking holiday in Wales, but reassured the nation that she is not mulling a general election. It was during a ramble in Snowdonia in 2017 that Mrs May decided to call a snap election which led to her Commons majority being wiped out. Asked if she was considering another, her spokesman replied firmly: No. N igel Farage has warned Theresa May that Brexiteer anger will "explode" if she strikes a pact with Jeremy Corbyn to keep the UK closely tied to the European Union. The Brexit Party leader has claimed the UKs democracy is under threat as he sought to build momentum for his movement ahead of the European elections. His comments came after Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt warned that Mrs May could struggle to hang on to power if she cannot get her Brexit deal through Parliament before the May 23 European poll. Mr Hunt said the "total focus" of ministers was to ensure the country did not have to vote in the elections to the European Parliament on May 23. Speaking during a visit to Japan, he acknowledged that the Government would be facing a "very serious situation" if it failed to do so. British Prime Minister Theresa May has been warned Brexiteer anger will 'explode' if she makes a Brexit pact with Jeremy Corbyn. / AP But Mr Farage, speaking at a rally in Shoreham-by-Sea, said even a Brexit deal with Labour which allowed the elections to be cancelled would not save her from a Eurosceptic backlash. He said: "The only way they could be stopped is if Mrs May signed up to a deal with Mr Corbyn which kept us stuck, permanently, in a customs union and under single market rules. "A message to you Prime Minister: If you think by doing that deal and cancelling the European elections that the threat of Farage and the Brexit Party will go away, you are in for a rude shock. "If you betray us that much, this will explode." He told his supporters: "What we are now fighting for is much, much bigger than Brexit. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn / PA "What we are now fighting for is for the survival of the very principle of democracy in this country." Mr Farage's new party was boosted by the defections of three MEPs, who followed him in shifting over from Ukip. Deputy chairman and East Midlands MEP Margot Parker, West Midlands MEP Jill Seymour and Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire MEP Jane Collins announced their resignations on Monday. Former British Chambers of Commerce director general John Longworth has also confirmed he will stand for the party in the European elections. On the other side of the Brexit divide, the pro-EU centrist party Renew has given its backing to The Independent Group as the breakaway former Labour and Tory MPs seek to form their new party to contest the European elections. Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs / Rex Features Many Tory MPs are furious that the elections may have to take place at all following the delay to Brexit. Mr Hunt acknowledged that the party could be heading for a "disastrous" showing at the polls if the country was required to vote. "In terms of polling it certainly looks that way," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Mr Hunt said it would be "highly, extremely, very, very challenging" for Mrs May if she was not able to get her deal through. "That would be a very serious situation - I don't pretend otherwise - but we aren't at that point," he said. He said talks with Labour - aimed at finding a cross-party consensus on the way forward - were proving "more constructive" than many at Westminster had expected. A series of working groups are being set up within the Brexit talks with Labour to look at specific issues, Downing Street said. Business Secretary Greg Clark and his Labour shadow Rebecca Long-Bailey will look at services and consumer and workers' rights, Environment Secretary Michael Gove and his counterpart Sue Hayman will consider environmental protections, and Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay and Labour's Sir Keir Starmer will look at security. With Parliament in recess, and Mrs May on a walking holiday in North Wales, no imminent breakthrough is expected. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister's potential successors jostled for position in the Tory leadership race, with Home Secretary Sajid Javid making a high-profile speech on tackling crime which focused heavily on his personal history. Chancellor Philip Hammond mocked prominent Tory Brexiteers for engaging in a "suicide pact" during failed bids to beat Theresa May to the Tory leadership. Mr Hammond used a speech in the US on Friday to say Mr Gove and former foreign secretary Boris Johnson had formed an "unintended suicide pact" in the 2016 leadership contest, the Daily Telegraph said. The Chancellor said that Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom had effectively "knifed herself" during the race to become Prime Minister, according to the newspaper. The budget does include new CTE programs at Taconic High School. McCandless Shrinks Pittsfield School Budget Request PITTSFIELD, Mass. Superintendent Jason McCandless is scaling back his budget request by about a half-million dollars. McCandless said he had a meeting with Mayor Linda Tyer and Director of Finance Matthew Kerwood since revealing his initial request for a $3.4 million increase to the budget and the three agreed to a lesser number. Particularly, McCandless said the number of new positions, mostly new paraprofessionals, is being scaled back. "The number of new employees will be between 14 and 20. It will not be in the upper 20s or low 30s like it was last time," McCandless said. Tyer said she had a couple of particular concerns with the superintendent's original request. She said the city's health insurance costs are rising, and 62 percent of that is attributed to school employees, and that there is still uncertainty in exactly how much the city will get from the state. "I think this sets the stage for providing some very needed interventions for kids that need it the most but also balances out the health insurance cost and the uncertainty of the chapter 70 formula," Tyer said. In Gov. Charlie Baker's budget, the city was poised to see a $3.7 million increase. The House of Representative's Ways and Means Committee is proposing even more. But, there is a strong push from school districts in the eastern part of the state asking for money to be allocated specifically for English language learners. The city's large increase was driven a lot by special education and economically disadvantaged population while only having a small population of English language learners. Should the funds be shifted, the city could see lesser funding than expected. "I have some anxiety about what ultimately is going to be the final number," Tyer said. McCandless added that many of the suburban districts that are not seeing an increase in state aid are lobbying the legislature to allocate more to them. Tyer said she did want to preserve increases for special education, expanding early literacy programs, and increasing the technical programs at Taconic High School. That served as the basis in how the new number was crafted. As for health insurance, the mayor said the city's premium is $25 million. It is increasing by $1 million. McCandless said part of the Massachusetts Foundation Budget Review Commission's findings, which led to the push for increased state funding for schools, is for health insurance. The commission believes that state support for education has accurately reflected the costs districts incur for health insurance, special education, economically disadvantaged students, and English language learners. "This notion of leaving money on the table for the city ... we're actually honoring what the Foundation Budget Review Commission wanted to do," McCandless said. School Committee member and former Superintendent William Cameron believes the biggest shortfall in state funding over the years has been related to health insurance. He said offsetting those costs is keeping staff, which in turn, helps the students. "It hasn't taken into account the staggering increases that have happened in the last 25 years in health insurance," he said. McCandless added that not only does the health insurance fall on the city's side of the ledger but that the city is also responsible for maintaining the school buildings. He said he believes it is fair that the city gets a portion of the increased state aid. School Committee member Cynthia Taylor disagrees. She said the schools are asked to do so much with limited resources. She believes the increased state aid should all go directly toward direct services for the students. "It bothers me that we are leaving money on the table from our budget," she said. Taylor added that it appears that the city will see even more than the $3.7 million increase the governor proposed. The superintendent said that exactly how the district gets to that $2.9 million increase from the original $3.4 million requested increase is still in flux. He said such things as hiring fewer new paraprofessionals and certified nursing assistants to help school nurses are being scaled back. "We can get there," he said. I SIS bride Shamima Begum has reportedly been granted legal aid to fight the decision to remove her British citizenship. Lawyers have successfully asked for taxpayers' money on her behalf arguing that the Home Secretary's move to strip the 19-year-old's citizenship was unfair, according to the Daily Mail. It is understood that the legal bill could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. The decision emerged after it was alleged that Ms Begum had been witnessed preparing suicide vests for would-be bombers. Ms Begum, who is currently in a refugee camp in Syria, fled London when she was just 15. Ms Begum had her British citizenship revoked She had her British citizenship revoked earlier this year and has since been stuck in a displacement camp for months after being detained when leaving ISIS territory. However the Mail reported that the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) has accepted that Ms Begum's family can initiate an appeal and apply for funding on her behalf. The LAA apparently agreed to grant funding to lawyers instructed by her family. The family's lawyer Tasnime Akunjee told the newspaper that legal aid had been granted after an application was made on March 19. Mr Akunjee passed the case onto human rights solicitor Gareth Pierce, who represented former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg. He said: "I represent the family who initially brought the case on behalf of Shamima Begum, but the family are not entitled to legal aid the legal aid is for Shamima Begum alone." Ms Begum arrived heavily pregnant at al-Hol camp in February, and gave birth shortly after. But her newborn son, named Jarrah, died from a lung infection last month. He was her third child to have died during her time living in the caliphate. An LAA spokesman said: We are unable to comment on individual cases. M ichelle Obama compared America to a broken family with Donald Trump behaving like a divorced dad in a Q&A session at the O2 last night. Mrs Obama was speaking on a tour to promote her book Becoming where she vented her frustration at President Trump's work to change her husband's legacy. She said of her home nation: We are a teenager, were changing all over the place and we come from a broken family. Were a little unsettled and having good parents is tough. Sometimes you spend the weekends with divorced dad and that feels like its fun, but then you get sick. Thats what Americas going through. Were kind of living with divorced dad right now. Taking aim at President Trump, she said: For anyone who had any problems with Barack Obama, lets just think about what we were troubled by - there were never any indictments. She also urged the people of the UK to stay engaged with politics and to resist becoming complacent or cynical. The former US first lady said people "cannot afford to sit on the sidelines", and said it is time to "roll up our sleeves". She was asked what advice she would give people in the UK about how to stay calm in a time of turmoil. Mrs Obama joked: "Everybody's like 'help us out here'." She added: "This trepidation, the anxiety, I mean, it's everywhere, it's all over the world, for sure. "We're seeing it. We're seeing it played out in our country and all over the place." Mrs Obama said the thing she loves about London is that it is "truly representative of true international diversity". She said the world is at a point of "extreme change", what with social media, adding: "We know what's going on more now than we ever did before." Mrs Obama said: "So why would this be easy? And it's a little unreasonable for us to expect that we as a world go through this transition and it's not going to cause some fear and trepidation. "And in all truth, that's part of what we have to learn, how to be a little more empathetic. "Because people are afraid, because the world is changing so fast. And their fears are real. "We may not agree with them but some people don't know where their place will be in this new and changing society, this new and changing world." She added: "But we've changed before. We've had some tough times on this planet and we've come out of it." Mrs Obama said: "It is time for us to roll up our sleeves. And if we are not happy with the state of things, then in democracies we have votes. "But that means you've got to pay attention and we have to be engaged and we can't take our rights and liberties for granted, because if we don't vote, somebody will and that means that's the direction of the country that we're in. "So this still is all within our control and it's all within our power in our democracy. "So my advice is get to work. Don't be complacent and don't become so cynical that you just turn off because democracy never stops. A female historian whose book tells how spirited women helped London rise to maritime greatness is one of three authors from the capital shortlisted today for her subjects most important prize. Margarette Lincoln, an academic from Goldsmiths College and former deputy director of the National Maritime Museum, is in contention for the 40,000 Wolfson History Prize after impressing its judges with her book Trading in War about Londons dockland communities. It tells how cross dressing females who sneaked onto ships in disguise, wives, businesswomen and prostitutes played their part alongside other forgotten people in enabling London to become the worlds greatest sea power during the eras of Captain Cook and Lord Nelson. The Wolfson Prize judges describe it as a lively account covering crime and punishment, shipbuilding and repair, smuggling and much more that covers the lives of the riverside dwellers whose activities sustained a global empire. Two other London writers are also on the six strong shortlist for this years prize, whose previous winners include Mary Beard and Simon Schama. The first is Matthew Sturgis for Oscar, an acclaimed biography of Oscar Wilde, which the judges praise as a tremendously readable account of a man whose anarchic genius never fades. The other is Mary Fulbrook, a professor of German history at University College London. Her book Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice is described as a masterly work which includes many moving accounts from victims of the extreme cruelty perpetrated by the Nazis. Announcing the shortlist, Paul Ramsbottom, the chief executive of the Wolfson Foundation, said each book was wonderfully accessible and that the selection of Margarette Lincolns had particular significance for his charity, which had given more than 3 million to support Londons maritime history in recent years. He added: Margarette Lincolns book brilliantly brings to life Londons maritime world in the 18th and 19th Centuries. The winner of this years prize will be announced at a ceremony at Claridges in June. Other previous winners include Andrew Roberts, the former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption, and Lady Antonia Fraser. D onald Trump has suggested the ways he could fix Boeing's scandal hit 737 MAX aircraft. The US president posted online suggesting he would have the plane fixed, add additional "great" features, and rebrand the plane. He posted on Twitter: "What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!), but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name. No product has suffered like this one. But again, what the hell do I know?" US aviation authorities are still working with Boeing regarding the now-grounded aircraft. The Federal Aviation Administration has been meeting with representatives from American Airlines Group Inc, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines Co over the next steps after more than 300 Boeing 737 MAXs were grounded worldwide. J eremy Hunt attempted to explain Brexit to Japanese schoolchildren in just 90 seconds during his trip to the country. The Foreign Secretary spoke to students at Tokyo Metropolitan Hibiya High School ahead of his meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. He told pupils that the UK wanted to stay the best of friends with our neighbours in Europe but that we have a different vision. The fluent Japanese speaker, who taught English in Japan during his 20s, also chatted with students in their own language during his visit. Jeremy Hunt spoke to students during a visit to Tokyo Metropolitan Hibiya High School / PA Mr Hunt said: We want to change our legal relationship with the EU, because many countries in the EU would like one day Europe to become one country like the United States of America they think Europe can be stronger that way. But Britain has a different vision of our own history, we always want to remain totally independent. But being independent doesnt mean that were not going to stay open, friendly to the world, wanting the best people from all over the world to come and study and work in England and show us the great things about other countries and other cultures. In fact weve always been like that for many, many hundreds of years, so thats not going to change. Mr Hunt taught English in Japan during his 20s / PA We want to stay the best of friends with our neighbours in Europe as well, because there are many wonderful things in Europe and we always want to be open to those as well. So its a change in our legal relationship, which I think in the long run will mean that both Britain and the EU are more comfortable, because we have a different vision as to what our destination should be. Its not a change in the fundamental British character. Following his meeting with Prime Minister Abe, he told Radio 4s Today programme that the continuing uncertainty over Brexit was damaging Britain internationally. The Foreign Secretary met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at his official residence / AP He said that other countries feared the UK would become "submerged in the mire of Brexit indecision. Mr Hunt added: "It is absolutely clear that Brexit paralysis, if it continues for a long time, will be highly damaging to our international standing. A New Zealand nurse held captive by the Islamic State group in Syria for almost six years may still be alive, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said. Louisa Akavi, 62, and two Syrian colleagues, Alaa Rajab and Nabil Bakdounes, were seized in 2013 while delivering medical supplies in Idlib, north-west Syria. In a statement on the incident, the Red Cross said it has received recent eyewitness reports suggesting the nurse and midwife may still be alive. The fate of Mr Rajab and Mr Bakdounes remains unknown. On Sunday, The New York Times became the first media organisation to name Ms Akavi, ending a five-year news blackout imposed by the New Zealand government and Red Cross with the cooperation of international media. The group has asked for a ransom up to 20 million (17.2 million) for her release, it was reported. Red Cross worker Louisa Akavi / REUTERS The collapse of IS has raised hopes Ms Akavi and the two Syrian drivers kidnapped with her might now be discovered. It is understood Ms Akavi may have been seen as recently as December by at least two people at a clinic in Sousa, one of IS's last outposts. There were also reported sightings in 2016 and 2017, Red Cross officials said. "We continue to work together (with the Red Cross) to locate and recover her," New Zealand foreign minister Winston Peters said. Syrian driver Nabil Bakdounes / AP "This has been a uniquely complex and difficult case. "Louisa went to Syria with the ICRC to deliver humanitarian relief to people suffering as a result of a brutal civil war and Isis occupation. "Where a New Zealander is held by a terrorist organisation the Government takes all appropriate action to recover them. That is exactly what we have done here." It is believed Ms Akavi was offered for ransom and may have been used as a human shield after she was taken captive. Syrian driver Alaa Rajab / AP The New York Times reported the terrorist group negotiated with the Red Cross, initially demanding a ransom of less than 1 million. However the ransom fluctuated rising to 20 million before dropping down to 5 million. The New Zealand government believed at one point she may have died, but there are hopes her medical skills might have caused her captors to spare her. The New Zealand government is reported to have opposed the ICRC's decision to allow The New York Times to report Ms Akavi's name and nationality. Dominik Stillhart, director of operations for the ICRC, said the organisation had decided to permit publication in the hope it would elicit new information on her whereabouts. "We have not spoken publicly before today because from the moment Louisa and the others were kidnapped, every decision we made was to maximise the chances of winning their freedom," Mr Stillhart said in a statement. "With Islamic State group having lost the last of its territory, we felt it was now time to speak out," he added. He said the collapse of IS in Syria could bring new opportunities to learn more about Ms Akavi's situation and that the ICRC also feared it risked losing track of her in the aftermath of the collapse. Ms Akavi is of Cook Islands descent and lives in Otaki, a small town north of Wellington. She is the longest-held captive in the history of the ICRC, and Mr Stillhart called her "a true and compassionate humanitarian". He said strenuous efforts had been made to secure her release. Negotiations in 2013 and 2014 were not successful. In 2014 she was among a group of hostages moved by IS only hours before a raid by US special forces which aimed to free them. "We call on anyone with information to please come forward," he said. "If our colleagues are still being held, we call for their immediate and unconditional release." H eartbroken Parisians broke into song tonight as Notre Dame burned. As flames continued to rip through the historic cathedral on Monday night, groups of mourners across the French capital started singing as they gazed at the billowing building. Footage posted on social media showed people kneeling and holding hands as they sang hymns. It came as the authorities said the devastating fire was not limited to a certain area, and that it might continue to expand. Notre Dame fire: What we know so far A firefighter has been seriously injured while battling an inferno that has devastated the world famous Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. The iconic tourist spot was engulfed by a raging fire on Monday night that caused its main spire and roof to collapse. People kneel on the pavement as they pray outside watching flames engulf Notre Dame Cathedral / AFP/Getty Images Brave firefighters were inside with cathedral workers trying to rescue treasures as others fought the inferno from outside. One fireman has been seriously hurt, officials confirmed. French fire chiefs earlier said they feared the spread of the fire at the cathedral could not be stopped and that they would not be able to save the building. But later, officials said the two towers of the cathedral had been salvaged and that crews had stopped flames from spreading to the belfry. Notre Dame Cathedral fire - In pictures 1 /64 Notre Dame Cathedral fire - In pictures Aerial image if Notre-Dame Cathedral fire AP An image taken from a television screen shows an aerial view of the Notre-Dame Cathedral engulfed in flames. AFP/Getty Images The steeple of the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral collapses as the cathedral is engulfed in flames AFP/Getty Images Smoke rises around the alter in front of the cross inside the Notre-Dame Cathedral AFP/Getty Images A man watches the landmark Notre Dame Cathedral burn AFP/Getty Images People kneel on the pavement as they pray outside watching flames engulf Notre Dame Cathedral AFP/Getty Images Security forces evacuate artifacts from inside the Notre Dame cathedral Franck Riester Security forces evacuate artifacts from inside the Notre Dame cathedral Franck Riester Notre Dame cathedral burning in Paris AP Seen from across the Seine River, smoke and flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris AFP/Getty Images General view of the roof of the Notre-Dame Cathedral after a massive fire in Paris EPA French President Emmanuel Macron (C) speaks with firemen as they fight against a fire burning the roof of the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris EPA Smoke and flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre Dame Cathedral in central Paris AFP/Getty Images Flames on the roof of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris AFP/Getty Images The cathedral entrance shows smoke rising around the alter in front of the cross inside Reuters People pray as Notre Dame cathedral burns in Paris AP The Notre Dame cathedral spire collapses EPA Flames as a fire engulfs the world famous Notre Dame cathedral in Paris AFP/Getty Images Smoke and flames billows into the sky as the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris AFP/Getty Images Flames on the roof of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris EPA Smoke billows into the sky as a fire rips through the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris AFP/Getty Images The gothic cathedral attracks millions of tourists every year AFP/Getty Images Smoke billows from the Notre Dame Cathedral after a fire broke out Reuters Bright orange flames lick the air during a fire at the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris AFP/Getty Images People kneel on the pavement as they pray and sing while flames engulf Notre Dame AFP/Getty Images Smoke billows as fire engulfs the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral Reuters A fire fighter uses a hose as Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris AP Smoke billows across Paris following the Notre Dame fire Reuters Firefighters tackle the blaze as flames and smoke rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns. AP General view of the roof of the Notre-Dame Cathedral after a massive fire in Paris EPA French President Emmanuel Macron (C) and his wife Brigitte Macron (R) pay a visit to firemen fighting against a fire burning the roof of the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, France EPA A statue of Saint John is removed from the spire of Notre Dame cathedral by a crane before restoration work last week Reuters Smoke billows as flames burn through the roof of the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral AFP/Getty Images Flames are doused through the scaffolding erected on the roof of the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral AFP/Getty Images Firefighters douse flames billowing from the roof at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris AFP/Getty Images Firefighters douse flames billowing from the roof at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris AFP/Getty Images People react as they watch flames engulf the roof of the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral AFP/Getty Images A firefighter uses a hose to douse flames and smoke billowing from the roof at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris AFP/Getty Images Smoke and flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris AFP/Getty Images Firefighter douse flames billowing from the roof at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris AFP/Getty Images People look at smoke and flames rising during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral AFP/Getty Images Smoke and flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral AFP/Getty Images People stand on the banks of the Seine river as they look at a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral AFP/Getty Images The steeple collapses as smoke and flames engulf the Notre-Dame Cathedral AFP/Getty Images A woman reacts as she watches the flames engulf the roof of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris AFP/Getty Images Paris Fire brigade members are seen at an entrance that looks into the Notre Dame Cathedral Reuters Flames and smoke are seen billowing from the roof at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris AFP/Getty Images The steeple engulfed in flames collapsing as the roof of the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral burns AFP/Getty Images A church spokesman said the entire wooden interior of the 12th century landmark was burning and is likely to be completely destroyed. "Everything is burning, nothing will remain from the frame," Notre Dame spokesman Andre Finot told French media, after the blaze broke out at 5.50pm on Monday afternoon. Parisians grew tearful as they watched the iconic landmark burn. A tearful woman prays as Notre Dame cathedral burns / AP Up to 400 firefighters were deployed to the fire, the cause of which is under investigation. The peak of the church was undergoing a six million-euro renovation project and the fire brigade said the fire is "potentially linked" to this. Video shows the moment spire on Notre Dame collapses The cathedral took nearly 200 years in total to build after construction began in 1163 and was completed in 1345. The first stone of the original structure was laid in front of Pope Alexander III. This was after the Bishop of Paris, Maurice de Sully, proposed the cathedral after his election in 1160. It is famous for featuring in Victor Hugo's classic novel the Hunchback of Notre Dame and is more than 800 years old. Notre Dame, located on a small island in the middle of the River Seine, translates to Our Lady of Paris, in reference to the Virgin Mary. F ive people are reported dead after a dust storm engulfed the city of Karachi in Pakistan. Local media have reported up to 86 people were also injured following the storm early on Monday. Pakistani news channel Geo News reported one man died after a tree fell on him, while two children were among the fatalities in separate incidents. Meanwhile, it said five students were injured and rushed to hospital after the roof of their school collapsed. The imam of a mosque was also hurt after the buildings makeshift roof collapsed. A person sits on a fallen tree after the wind storm in Karachi / Rehan Khan/EPA Dramatic videos posted on social media showed strong winds battering the city, with trees appearing close to being uprooted. People pass under a fallen tree after the wind storm in Karachi / Shahzaib Akber/EPA Some people chose to commute during the storm, with debris littering the highways. In the aftermath, one motorcyclist was pictured wheeling his bike under a fallen tree which was covering the entire width of the road. T he Spice Girls have officially kicked off rehearsals for their upcoming tour next month. The reunited band headed to a studio in north west London on Monday morning to start intense preparations as a group. Geri Horner, who looked stylish in a white leather jacket, was the first to arrive at the venue with her 12-year-old daughter Bluebell by her side. Horner was followed by Emma Bunton, who wore a pair of funky heart-emblazoned sunglasses, and a dressed-down looking Melanie Chisholm. There was no sign of Melanie Brown, who now lives in Los Angeles. Brown recently catapulted the band into the headlines after she claimed to have slept with Horner at the height of the bands fame. Getting to work: Geri Horner headed to a London studio on Monday / SplashNews.com Brown nodded and smiled when asked by Piers Morgan if the pair had ever shared a bed like that during an interview on his Life Stories show. Geri Halliwell practicing for upcoming Spice Girls tour Last week, Bunton revealed that the tour was set to go ahead as planned despite the drama and speculation that tensions between the pair would prove too much. Of course its happening, we are starting rehearsals on Monday! she told Jonathan Ross on his self-titled show. Emma Bunton talks about the Spice Girls tour Its all fine. We have all chatted about it. Listen, we had fun back in the day. I didnt know anything else but you know, we are all good, were starting Monday, we cant wait, weve all been chatting, its all good. Bunton admitted that she loves Brown because of her energy and tendency to cause a bit of mischief among the close friends. The Spice Girls tour, which was announced last year, will kick off on May 24 in Dublin, Ireland. The band will visit Cardiff, Manchester, Coventry, Sunderland, Edinburgh and Bristol before finishing off at Londons Wembley Stadium in mid-June. Y ou post a picture on Instagram and wait for the likes to roll in. That particular feature, the one that keeps you coming back to check your profile again and again, could soon come to an end. Facebook and other social media companies may have to turn off the like function under proposed guidelines to ensure the safety of children online. The UKs Information Commissioner Office has released a proposed child-friendly design code that would remove aspects of social media for children under the age of 18 that encourage them to stay on the internet. Nudge techniques, including the like button and the Snapchat streak, were criticised under the code, as they help firms harvest more data about the people using them. The code, which begins its consultation process today, suggests 16 online standards that must be met, such as settings must be set to high privacy by default, and that only the minimum amount of personal data should be collected. Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said: "This is the connected generation. The internet and all its wonders are hardwired into their everyday lives. "We shouldn't have to prevent our children from being able to use it, but we must demand that they are protected when they do. This code does that." The NSPCC described the code as vital, whilst Baroness Beeban Kidros, chairwoman of the 5Rights Foundation, which supports children and young people in their digital activities, said it represents the beginning of a new deal between children and the tech sector. "For too long we have failed to recognise children's rights and needs online, with tragic outcomes," said Kidros. "I firmly believe in the power of technology to transform lives, be a force for good and rise to the challenge of promoting the rights and safety of our children. But in order to fulfil that role, it must consider the best interests of children, not simply its own commercial interests. That is what the code will require online services to do. This is a systemic change." The code is only supposed to be for children under the age of 18, but the like button can cause problems for adults too. Research has shown that the like button can be found to increase envy and depression. Even the engineer behind the feature, Justin Rosentein, says he no longer uses social media apps like Reddit and Snapchat, fearing the effects of his design. You can respond to the ICOs age-appropriate design code until May 31, 2019. PA and Hamas Target Students Stand for Israel | April 15, 2019 Embed from Getty Images It would seem that many of the worlds students show their pro-Palestinian stance by attacking Israel and blaming her for all Palestinian problems. Perhaps instead, writes Khaled Abu Toameh at the Gatestone Institute, they should look at how the Palestinian Authority and Hamas beat up their own students: Pro-Palestinian activists at university campuses in the US and other Western countries have long been waging various campaigns to denounce Israel and hold it fully responsible for the continued suffering of Palestinians. These activists, however, seem to care little about violations committed against the Palestinians by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank or Hamas in the Gaza Strip even when fellow students in the West Bank and Gaza are being targeted. In recent weeks, the PA has been waging a campaign of arrests and intimidation against Palestinian students at some of the West Bank universities. The students, according to the Palestinian Authority, are being targeted because of their affiliation with opposition groups, including Hamas. The students, in other words, are being targeted because of their political affiliations and not because of any crime they committed Hamas and other Palestinian groups accused the Palestinian Authority security forces of acting with a mob mentality against university students in the West Bank. Our people and sons in the West Bank are facing a gang in contradiction of morals, laws and national values, Hamas said in response to the crackdown on university students. The PLOs Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) called on the Palestinian Authority to stop dealing with a mob mentality toward with Palestinian students. It is ironic that Hamas is accusing its rivals in Fatah and the Palestinian Authority of acting like gangs. This is the same Hamas that has repeatedly resorted to repressive measures, including breaking bones and shooting unarmed protesters, to silence its critics in the Gaza Strip. Hamas and the PA have been at war with each other since 2007, when Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip. Since then, hundreds of Palestinians, including political activists, journalists, writers, and university students, have fallen victim to the power struggle between the two groups T he gaming rumour mill has gone into overdrive with the news that a new Xbox console is on its way. The most exciting part? Its going to be disc-less. As reported by Windows Central, the new console, set to be called Xbox One S All Digital Edition, would allow gamers to ditch discs and play completely digitally. Fans would be able to buy games via a streaming platform, like its Xbox Game Pass digital subscription, to make gaming more like Netflix and Spotify where no one really owns anything. Here's what we know so far. What is the new Xbox One S All Digital Edition? The Xbox One S All Digital Edition is Xbox's next-generation console. According to leaks by WinFuture.de, the new console is spearheading disc-free gaming, so from now on gamers will have to buy games digitally or subscribe to Microsoft's digital subscription in order to access new titles. Luckily, the device will have 1TB of memory to store all those new games. The new console is set to come pre-loaded with three of Microsoft's biggest games: Minecraft, Forza Horizon 3, and Sea of Thieves, to help players get started. In keeping with the classic Xbox design, the new console looks pretty much exactly the same as the current Xbox One S, but is presumably thinner thanks to the lack of a disc drive. When is the new Xbox One S release date in the UK? WinFuture says that the official unveiling of the new console could be as early as tomorrow (April 16). As a result, the new console could be available to buy in Europe, and presumably the UK, on May 7, so you really don't have to wait that long for the device. The previous Xbox, the Xbox One S, was launched in 2016 at E3 (Kevork Djansezian / Stringer / Getty images ) / Kevork Djansezian / Stringer / Getty images What will the new Xbox One S price be? Price-wise, you're looking at around 230, which is about 198 but it's unlikely the Xbox One S All Digital will cost less than 200 in the UK. One benefit of a disc-less console is that it would make it much cheaper. When the Xbox One S came out in November 2017, prices started at around $299, so already innovation is making gaming slightly more affordable. Games The new Xbox will arrive with a forward-thinking 'Game Pass' service, similar to how Netflix operates. Essentially, players will have access to hundreds of games. To make things even more exciting the Xbox One Digital will launch with Forza Horizon 3, Sea of Thieves and Minecraft. How does the new Xbox One S work without a disc? Thanks to the new Xbox One console being all-digital, it demonstrates that there is no need for discs when it comes to gaming anymore. It's how the times are moving: streaming dominates most of our lives now, and Xbox rival PlayStation offers a similar service in the form of PlayStation Now. It makes sense that Microsoft would go this way for the next Xbox. Last year, news leaked that the global tech company was working on a new project, codenamed Scarlett, which was Xboxs version of a game streaming platform. Microsoft's gaming head, Phil Spencer, hinted something along these lines at the companys E3 conference in June, saying: Our cloud engineers are building a game streaming network to unlock console gaming on any device. In a recent interview with GeekWire, Spencer added some more weight to Xboxs cross-device plans, saying: "We want to bring Game Pass to any device that somebody wants to play on. Not just because it's our business, but really because the business model allows for people to consume and find games that they wouldnt have played in any other space." However, the major issue is internet connections. Not everyone will have a good enough connection to facilitate cloud gaming, and latency is a problem, particularly in something like gaming. One solution could be 5G. At Mobile World Congress in February, Chinese phone company OnePlus had its prototype 5G phone on show, demonstrating how cloud gaming will be possible with 5G speeds. The next generation in mobile technology will allow people to stream large-sized games online, experience high definition, and almost no latency. Theres nothing to suggest that this is the tech Microsoft is going to be banking on for its version of cloud gaming, but it's one option. 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"This is preposterous. PSD - ALDE have shut down the Senate. They ruled that no Senate plenary meeting shall take place until May 6. First: this is about the motion on Justice tabled by PNL, the second motion, also moved by PNL is against [Finance minister] Teodorovici for the budget execution and the catastrophic effects of the OUG No. 114, and this motion cannot be debated either. By shutting down the Senate until May 6, [Senate President] Tariceanu cowers away from the consequences of his actions, behind the wall made by PSD-ALDE. It is a well-known fact that a criminal prosecution request has been lingering for over five months now, as the Senate majority is keeping it in the drawers, refusing to debate it, to take the procedure to the final vote, with no explanation, in brazen violation of the law and of the Senate Regulation. These individuals are capable of absolutely anything, they don't respect anything anymore," Orban said at the Parliament Palace after the meeting of the PNL Executive Bureau. The Senate floor leaders committee decided on Monday to postpone to May 6 the debate and vote on both simple motions initially entered on the plenary's Monday agenda. The two motions initiated by the National Liberal Party and the Save Romania Union are targeted at the Justice Minister - "Justice, a sure victim at Toader's hands", and the Minister of Finance, respectively - "Eugen Teodorovici, the Romanians are asking you to resign!" AGERPRES . Georgian Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze said on Monday that the friendship between the peoples of Georgia and Romania "goes back centuries already," saying there is "a special relationship with the Romanian people." "Romania is a very important country for us, we have a special relationship with the Romanian people, the friendship between the peoples of Georgia and Romania goes back centuries already and today's visit is very important to me because we already celebrate 300 years of friendship between our countries. It is clear that when talking about the friendship between our peoples we cannot help talking about Anthim the Iberian [Georgian theologian, scholar, calligrapher, philosopher and one of the greatest ecclesiastic figures of Wallachia, ed.n.] and Constantin Brancoveanu [Prince of Wallachia between 1688 and 1714, ed.n.], their contribution is invaluable in the Georgia-Romania relationship and I am convinced that what our ancestors started we shall continue. We have some common interests with Romania, we are geographically connected, we have access to the Black Sea, which gives us a unique opportunity to play an important role in the development of our bilateral and regional relations," Georgian Prime Minister said at Victoria Palace during joint statements alongside Prime Minister Viorica Dancila. He added that it is important for the two countries to intensify economic relations next year and create some opportunities for cooperation between Constanta port and the ports of Georgia. Mamuka Bakhtadze said that Georgia is still successfully implementing the association agreement with the European Union. "We are convinced that Romania will continue to support us and we want to thank you for always supporting the territorial integrity of Georgia. We also discussed the very painful challenges we have in Georgia. The Russian Federation has annexed 20 percent of the Georgian territories. (...) Of course, the Russian Federation does not do what it promised and the Russian army remains on Georgia's territory, unfortunately. We want to thank the international society for its support and I would like to thank the Romanian Government in particular for the fact that as concerns the EU monitoring mission, Romania has the biggest contribution," the Georgian premier said. AGERPRES . Social Democrat leader Liviu Dragnea told the top court judges on Monday that the case of the fictitious hiring of two women at the Teleorman Social Assistance and Child Protection Directorate General (DGASPC) he stands accused in is politically motivated and that time will confirm this. "I am completely innocent and I want to assure you, no matter what you decide, that I didn't know the two did not go to work, and my opinion is that this is a political case and time will confirm this," Dragnea said, arguing also that he was unaware that Adriana Botorogeanu and Anisa Niculina Stoica were PSD members. "I was traveling through the county during the election campaigns, one doesn't win sitting in the office. Of course we had our hands full during the campaigns, but there were dozens of volunteers. I don't know if Stoica and Botorogeanu were party members, I didn't know what their task was," Dragnea told the judges. The High Court of Cassation and Justice on Monday had a new hearing in the DGASPC Teleorman fictitious employment case in which Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Dragnea was sentenced at first instance to 3 years and 6 months in prison for incitement to abuse of office in his then capacity as head of the Teleorman County Council. In December 2013 the prosecutors took ex-officio action in the case of executive director of DGASPC Teleorman Floarea Alesu who kept Adriana Botorogeanu and Anisa Niculina Stoica on the job, in exchange for undue benefits. According to the prosecutors, the two employees didn't show up to work and did not perform any of the activities set forth in their contract with DGASPC Teleorman, as they actually carried out their activity at the the Teleorman PSD organization. The anti-corruption prosecutors argue that Liviu Dragnea, in his capacity as president of the Teleorman County Council, was also coordinating and supervising the activity of DGASPC Teleorman, that had Botorogeanu and Stoica on its payroll. The prosecutors hold that Liviu Dragnea determined Anisa Niculina Stoica to take up the job and collect pay at DGASPC Teleorman. Dragnea is also accused of having contributed, through his influence as president of the Teleorman County Council, to Adriana Botorogeanu and Anisa Niculina Stoica being kept on the job at DGASPC Teleorman. AGERPRES . The Council of the EU adopted on Monday the decisions authorising the opening of negotiations of agreements with the US and related negotiating directives on the elimination of tariffs for industrial goods and on conformity assessment. It also decided to make public both the decisions authorising the opening of the negotiations with the US and the accompanying negotiating directives, a release of the Business Environment, Trade and Entrepreneurship Ministry (MMACA) sent to AGERPRES informs. "Today's adoption of the EU negotiating directives gives a clear signal of the EU's commitment to a positive trade agenda with the US and the implementation of the strictly defined work programme agreed by Presidents Trump and Juncker on 25 July 2018. But let me be clear: we will not speak about agriculture or public procurement. Another important element is that the environmental and social impact of the agreement will be fully taken into account during the negotiations,' Business Minister and President of the Council Stefan-Radu Oprea stated. The Council also voted to publish decisions authorizing the opening of negotiations with the US, as well as the related negotiating directives.The recommendations for decisions and for negotiating directives had been sent by the European Commission to the Trade Policy Committee of the Council of the EU on 18 January 2019. Those recommendations were discussed at political level during the informal Foreign Affairs Council - Trade, organized in Bucharest on 21-22 February 2019."The Committee of the Permanent Representatives of the governments of the Member States to the European Union (COREPER II) approved the abovementioned decisions on 11 April 2019, being submitted for adoption to the Council of the European Union gathered today in the AGRI Council meeting. The EU and the US are the largest and most integrated economies in the world, with a long history of trade and a similar level of economic development. The US is the main destination for EU industrial product exports and is the second largest exporter of industrial products to the EU," the MMACA release said.The negotiating directives on the removal of customs duties on industrial products provide for the reciprocal elimination of tariffs, taking into account the EU sensitivities, such as energy-intensive and fishery products, as well as the environmental impact arising from the differences in the EU and US regulatory frameworks. Industrial products include all products other than those included in Annex I to the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (agricultural products).Moreover, the new negotiating directives also clarify that the negotiating directives for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreed in June 2013 must be considered obsolete and no longer relevant."The removal of customs duties on industrial products and the reduction of conformity assessment costs will generate important economic benefits by increasing bilateral trade and improving market access, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are unevenly affected by the costs of introducing a new product on the market. The Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU (RO PRES 2019) has made significant efforts towards the implementation of the Joint Statement of 25 July 2018 of Presidents Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Trump, as one of the main priorities of the RO PRES 2019 in the trade policy area," the relevant ministry said.The Joint Statement represents the beginning of a new phase in the EU-US trade relations by promoting the development of trade in industrial goods, cooperation on standards regulation and on the World Trade Organization modernisation process. Kabul, Apr 15 (IBNS): An unexploded ordnance detonated in Afghanistan's eastern Laghman province on Sunday and left at least seven children killed, media reports said. The incident left seven others reportedly hurt. The children were playing outside their houses in Basram area, a village on the outskirts of the Mihtarlam city, the center of Laghman, when they were hit by an unexploded ordnance, provincial governors spokesman Assadullah Dawlatzai was quoted as saying by Tolo News. The incident occurred around 5 pom local time. An informal meeting of health ministers from the member states of the European Union will take place in Bucharest today at Parliament Palace, to be chaired by Romania's Health Minister Sorina Pintea. The event is organised in the context of the Romanian presidency of the Council of the European Union. The meeting will also be attended by General Director Anne Bucher of DG SANTE, responsible for health and food safety, as well as Director Maria Magdalena Meulenbergs of World Health Organization.The two working sessions will be dedicated to patient access to innovative and expensive medicines and treatments, as well as Information on cross-border healthcare - patient mobility.With regard to the first working session, possible solutions will be discussed on patient access to innovative therapies as well as identifying possible solutions for the continued treatment of patients with clear therapeutic benefits following their participation in clinical trials.Talks at the second working session will focus on improving access to planned cross-border healthcare, improving access to appropriate information, and exchanging experience on the implementation of the EU Directive.The EU health ministers will also discuss mobility of patients under the age of 18 with rare diseases. Romania's Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu said on Monday, in the beginning of a high-level conference to mark the adoption of the new EU Strategy for Central Asia - Connectivity for sustainable development, that the countries in that region have undergone important changes and new opportunities are opening up for them. "In the light of the new EU Central Asia strategy to be launched soon, this is an excellent opportunity to hold a discussion today. The priorities set out in the EU's strategy regarding connectivity between EU and Asia of October 2018 give us a solid platform (...) Central Asia, as a region, and each country individually have undergone tremendous changes over the last decades and new opportunities are opening up for them. Opportunities come with challenges and threats either new or old ones. The world in which we live is changing and, at the same time, becoming more connected. We are facing global challenges and threats. Every region is also facing challenges and threats but we must note that for each country there are also plenty of opportunities," Melescanu told a conference called "Connectivity for Sustainable Development," organised by Romania's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in co-operation with the European External Action Service. Melescanu said that Romania, as host of the event, wants to provide a platform for concrete projects enabling co-operation and intensification of connectivity."Traditionally, Romania shares constructive agendas with all the countries of Central Asia. We have intensified bilateral diplomatic and politic dialogue on regional affairs. We have been advocating for a closer relationship with the European Union as a trustworthy partner for reforms and modernisation, in view of significant positive developments in the region," he said.He highlighted a "substantial partnership" built by Romania with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, mentioning political contacts, dialogue at the level of foreign ministries, joint economic committees, as well as co-operation projects in transport, energy and education. He noted at the same time that "joint efforts undertaken over the past two years opened new chapters in the relationship" with partners in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan."In regional dynamics, water is a matter of concern to Central Asia, which highlights the unique role of this essential resource for prosperity and stability. Even if there are challenges in this area, they should lead to future long-term bilateral and regional co-operation projects for sustainable development. From this point of view, we are particularly interested in sharing our experience and best practices with the management of water resources," added Melescanu.He also mentioned that in the beginning of March the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and Turkmenistan signed a joint political declaration in Bucharest to support the materialisation of the Black Sea - Caspian Sea freight route."It is more than obvious that not only geographically, the Black Sea, South Caucasus and Central Asia are at the core of the transport route from Europe to Asia and are an important part of the EU strategy to connect Europe and Asia. In this respect, Romania and Turkmenistan, along with Georgia and Azerbaijan, have declared their political will and a strong commitment to the freight route between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea across the four countries, signing a declaration at the level of the foreign ministers in Bucharest on March 4. We see this route as a measure that adds up to other initiatives in the region, also open to third country participation," Melescanu explained.The minister highlighted the part of connectivity in linking Afghanistan to the wider Central Asian neighbourhood, which would help strengthen peace and economic development in that country.He also pointed to another aspect of connectivity, education and contacts between people who build "bridges" in areas that are affected sometimes by distance and geography. Three infrastructure projects were signed on Sunday at the Victoria Palace, in the presence of PM Viorica Dancila, one of them regarding the design and execution of the 1st segment of the Sibiu-Pitesti Motorway. The design and execution agreement for the Sibiu-Pitesti Motorway, segment 1 Sibiu-Boita, was signed by the representative of the National Company of Administration of Road Infrastructure SA (CNAIR), Narcis Neaga, and the manager of Porr Construct SRL. The second agreement - regarding the design and execution of the 3rd part of the Bucharest City Belt, the southern segment - was signed by Narcis Neaga, the general manager of Aktor SA and the special manager of Euro Construct.The third agreement, regarding the traffic safety and automation system for Subway Line 5, the Raul Doamnei-Eroilor segment, was signed by the general manager of Metrorex, Dumitru Sodolescu, and the general manager of Alstom Transport SA.At the respective ceremony, the Minister of Transport, Razvan Cuc, mentioned that all three agreements are very important for the Romanians."The first agreement refers to a very important motorway long desired by the Romanians - the Pitesti-Sibiu motorway, Boita-Sibiu segment. Ever since my first term in office as Minister I understood that crossing through the Carpathians is a priority for Romania's economic development. This meaning that the Boita-Sibiu segment is not just another segment of a motorway, which is why, in 2017, the ALDE-PSD (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats and the Social Democratic Party) unblocked and launched the acquisition procedure for the first parts of the Sibiu-Pitesti motorway. The agreement is worth more than 612 million lei, without VAT, the equivalent of 129 million euros, with works to take 48 months, 12 of which will be needed for the design stage and 37 for the execution stage. The second agreement refers to the 3rd segment of the Bucharest City Belt, the southern section. The agreement is worth more than 853 million lei, the equivalent of 180 million euros, without VAT. (...) This segment is part of the southern section of the Bucharest City Belt, which will ensure the connection with the TEN-T network and also make the connection between motorway A1 Pitesti-Bucharest and motorway A2, Bucharest-Constanta," specified Cuc.He also added that the third agreement, the one regarding Subway Line 5, refers to the traffic safety and automation system, including the safety system to be found on board of the train and the dynamic information system.The Minister of Transport told constructors he won't tolerate any more excuse. (Photo/pixabay.com) The recent Mercedes oil leak scandal in the northwestern Chinese city of Xian sparked outcry on Chinese social media, with many netizens calling on China to better protect consumer rights and interests. The case started when a video clip, showing a woman crying on the hood of a car at a dealership in Xian, complaining that her newly-purchased Mercedes CLS 300 had an oil leak and asking for a refund, went viral on Chinese social media. As seen in the video, the woman found the oil leak of the vehicle immediately after she picked up the car, before she drove it away from the car dealership. However, after talking with the car dealership, she was only offered a free engine replacement, even though she requested a refund for the down payment of 200,000 yuan ($29,833) she paid for the 660,000-yuan 4-door coupe. According to the woman, she spoke with the car dealership multiple times and filed complaints to the local market supervisor, but the case remained unsolved. After the scandal boiled up online, local market supervisors and Mercedes finally spoke out. The Xi'an cyberspace affairs office said local market supervision department had placed the case on file and requested a refund from the car dealership, and Mercedes has also sent a workgroup to Xian to find a reasonable solution. The woman reportedly raised eight requests to the investigation team, including an investigation into the history of the car, an independent inspection of the vehicle, and a formal apology from Mercedes-Benz. Amid rapid social and economic development in recent years, China has witnessed a growth in car ownership. By the end of 2018, China was home to 240 million vehicles, and the country received 19,283 complaints about vehicle products through the China Consumers Association (CCA). The difficulty for Chinese consumers to protect their rights and interests has long since been a pain point of the automobile market, as it is a long and costly process. The Mercedes scandal once again highlights the company's service and quality issues, bringing national attention to the safety of luxury cars. According to a recent CCA report, the organization received 550 complaints about Mercedes last year, the second largest figure among all carmakers. Additionally, the three major luxury brands from Germany - Mercedes, BMW and Audi - were all in the top five most complained about companies. Canada to Russia: Interference Is Okay If It Destabilizes You but Not the Other Way Around During Trumps two first years as President, the long British infiltration of America has finally begun to fall apart with the collapse of the Mueller investigation and the exposure of the British-run deep state that Mueller was a part of. In the midst of one of the most de-stabilizing scandals to rock Canada in years, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland announced on April 5 that the threat of Foreign interference going into the October 2019 elections was at an all-time high. Sitting beside her UK counterpart at a G7 meeting in France, Freeland stated: Interference is very likely and we think there have already been efforts by malign foreign actors to disrupt our democracy. Her warning was echoed by an embattled puppet Prime Minister in Ottawa who stated it is very clearly that countries like Russia are behind a lot of the divisive campaigns that have turned our politics even more divisive and more anger-filled than they have been in the past. The Measures to Defend the British Deep State In order to counteract this foreign threat, several Canadian mechanisms have been announced to keep democracy safe in alignment with the G7, Five Eyes and NATO. These mechanisms are: The creation of an Incident Public Protection Panel run by five Privy Council bureaucrats under the Clerk of the Privy Council which will exist outside of the authority of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, whose job is to maintain the integrity of elections. In defense of this mysterious group, Canadas Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould stated that it wont be one person who will decide what Canadians will be allowed to know (apparently having five people decide is more democratic). The new Clerk of the Privy Council is Ian Stugart, who served as former deputy minister to Chrystia Freeland until just a few weeks ago. A Security and Intelligence Election Threats Task Force which will incorporate all of Canadas intelligence agencies such as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the RCMP, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) and Freelands Global Affairs Canada. All of these agencies are Privy Council organizations. The Rapid Response Mechanism of the G7 created in June 2018 and headquartered in Ottawa Canada in Freelands Global Affairs Office and Privy Council Office. While Russia is being set up as the scapegoat of the collapsing western liberal establishment, this most recent red alarm by Freeland and Canadas response to the danger is useful for two reasons: First and foremost, Freelands shameless warnings over foreign interference have become so loud that an irony has become unavoidable. She has after all been caught red handed behind the destabilization of both Ukraine and Venezuela. Secondly, by reviewing the mechanisms being created by Canada to counter-act this threat, a clear insight is provided into the inner workings of the actual foreign influences which infiltrated Canada many decades ago. Chrystia Freeland: Regime Change Princess of Ukraine and Venezuela On the first point, Freelands role as a co-architect of the nazi-fueled overthrow of a pro-Russian government in February 2014 is now well known. Aside from her familys Nazi connections going back to her grandfather Michael Chomiaks leading role as a Nazi collaborator in WWII, and her own mothers role in helping to draft Ukraines neo-liberal constitution, Freeland herself not only befriended leading neo-Nazi collaborators such as Canadian Ukrainian Congress president Paul Grod and but has also promoted NATOs anti-Russian expansion across eastern Europe. Less well known but equally important is Freelands leading role in planning for the Venezuelan coup attempt which has been recently halted thanks to Russias March 23rd intervention. Working alongside fellow Oxford operative Ben Rowswell (now head of the Canadian International Council/ Chatham House of Canada) during his three year tenure as Ambassador to Venezuela (2014-2017), Freeland set up a program for regime change which involved a two-part formula of 1) mobilizing mass direct support for the overthrow of a government, and 2) gaining international support for said overthrow. Rowswells on-the-ground work was designed to achieve the former as he himself admitted in a 2017 interview saying We became one of the most vocal embassies in speaking out on human rights issues and encouraging Venezuelans to speak out. Before leaving his post to become the head of the Chatham House of Canada, he tweeted I dont think they (anti-Maduro forces) have anything to worry about because Minister Freeland has Venezuela way at the top of her priority list. Working on fulfilling the 2nd part of the formula, Freeland directed the creation of the Lima Group. A Global News article of January 24 described the group in the following terms: Playing a key role behind the scenes was Lima Group member Canada, whose Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke to Guaido the night before Maduros swearing-in ceremony to offer her governments support should he confront the socialist leader. It shouldnt be too surprising in our day and age that a nation with such a high reputation as polite Canada is actuality, an active agency for regime change and global governance. Canadas very Prime Minister did assert in 2016 that Canada is the worlds first post national-state nation. What may surprise some readers is that Canada itself was infiltrated by a foreign player many years ago and what we will briefly see is that Canada can only be called the worlds first post national-state nation because it never really became a genuine nation in the first place, but was always manipulated by a foreign power although not the one you think. The Foreign Influence Controlling Canada While a longer presentation is needed to do this story justice, it is enough to note for now that neither Freeland, nor Rowswell are operating on behalf of Canadas interests, but are rather both operatives run by an entity that took over Canada many decades ago and are currently directed by two interlocking organizations: The Privy Council Office and the Rhodes-Milner Round Table Group. The Privy Council Office The Privy Council office was set up in 1867 in order to act as the British hand guiding its newly formed confederacy (Canada nearly became a part of Lincolns America in the wake of the Civil War. The only thing stopping that outcome was Britains creation of a confederation. The full story is told in the Imperial Myth of Canadas National Policy.). While its power was always great, there was still room for independent policy making by nationalistic elected officials when the international conditions were favorable. This was nearly entirely destroyed during the reign of technocratic golden boy Pierre Elliott Trudeau during his 1968-1973 reform of the Federal Government under the guidance of the OECDs Sir Alexander King. It was during this time Sir Kings Club of Rome (Ottawa branch) was set up in Ottawa under the guidance of Trudeau and his clerk of the Privy Council Michael Pitfield, and other neo-Malthusian technocrats such as Privy Council President Michel Lamontagne, Maurice Strong, and Governor General Roland Mitchener. It was from this control point in Ottawa in 1971 that the work later to become known as Limits to Growth was funded by tax payers and which became the bible for the new Malthusianism and blueprint for the post-industrial society. It is from this cybernetics central node that the web of governance both in Canada and also across other British infiltrated territories in the Trans-Atlantic system is coordinated under the directives of London. Sir Alexander King, working through the Club of Rome advanced the Malthusian revival known as Carrying Capacity which presupposed a world of fixed resources and discounted the parameter of human creativity The current President of the Privy Council is Justin Trudeaus childhood friend Dominic Leblanc, son of former Governor General (i.e.: Head of State of Canada) and co-controller of the Canada 2020 think tank which created Justin as an Obama-modelled puppet in 2006. Following in the footsteps of Pierre Trudeaus Limits to Growth, it is this very network which is at the heart of the Green New Deal now being pushed internationally. Another leading member of Canada2020 is Facebook Canadas Kevin Chan who will be working closely with the Freelands Security and Intelligence Election Threats Task Force. The oath of every member of the Privy Council member (which includes both private individuals and also every cabinet minister of government) is: I, [name], do solemnly and sincerely swear that I shall be a true and faithful servant to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, as a member of Her Majestys Privy Council for Canada. Additionally to becoming a Privy Councillor, the Prime Minister must additionally give another oath stating: I, [name] do swear (declare) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors. The Milner-Rhodes Trust Group Coordinating closely with the Privy Council office for over 100 years is an organization known as the Round Table Group (c.1902) which was created with funds from South Africas race patriot and diamond magnate Cecil Rhodes who wished to use his wealth in order to advance a church for the extension of the British Empire and the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire, the inauguration of a system of Colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament which may tend to weld together the disjointed members of the Empire. Upon Rhodes death in 1902, Lord Alfred Milner directed Rhodes trust and created the Round Table Movement across all British Territories. The trust was also directed towards the creation of the Rhodes Scholarship system designed to indoctrinate talented young minds around the world in Oxford before deploying them back into their countries of origin in order to infiltrate all public and private fields of influence. The Roundtable groups (dubbed the Council on Foreign Relations upon its creation in the United States in 1921), changed its name several times and today is known as the Royal Institute for International Affairs/Chatham House in the UK and the Canadian International Council (CIC) in Ottawa. * Regime Change disciple Ben Rowswells presidency as head of the CIC and Chrystia Freelands status as an Oxford Rhodes Scholar (having been brought into Liberal politics via Rhodes Scholar/Canada2020 controller Bob Rae in 2013) should give any thinker a moment of grave pause. The Strategic Issue at Hand As ugly as this picture may appear to some, it should not cause sadness or even anger. Only pity mixed with a dose of hope are appropriate, since we are in fact witnessing the desperate death rattle of a Monarchical system of empire which has too long poisoned the well of human civilization and which must now give way for something better. Although this imperial system may be deploying every asset and dirty trick it has in opposition to the new paradigm now emerging under the guiding leadership of Russia and China, it is becoming increasingly clear that this empire cannot win. Its regime change plans have failed, its Green New Deals are failing and even the irrational aesthetical traditions underlying this system of post-modernism are giving way to an optimistic artistic sensibility that seeks to re-unite beauty with truth evidenced by the renewed interest in classical art and music during the recent Belt and Road Musical Festival on March 24, 2019. Russia and Chinas leadership have not only consolidated a partnership of nations across Eurasia and Africa around this new paradigm, but they have also found what no one thought was possible just a few years ago: a potential ally in an America which is returning to its nationalist sensibilities under the surprising leadership of Donald Trump. During Trumps two first years as President, the long British infiltration of America has finally begun to fall apart with the collapse of the Mueller investigation and the exposure of the British-run deep state that Mueller was a part of. The question now remains: With the impending meltdown of the trans-Atlantic financial system, and olive branch of cooperation which China has offered to the west via the Belt and Road Initiative and the World Landbridge which can bring this system of development into the Americas and Africa, will America join hands as an ally and will Canada follow suit in order to become a true sovereign nation freed of all foreign imperial influence once and for all? * Original research on the Roundtable/Rhodes Trust infiltration of North America can be found in the Canadian Patriot #18 (British Roots of the Deep State Exposed), Canadian Patriot #19 (Green New Deal vs New Silk Road) and volumes 2-4 of the Untold History of Canada. What Makes the EU So Rabidly Hypocritical When theres a choice to be made between supporting jihadists or else to side with Russia (or any nation thats friendly toward Russia), the American team always back the jihadists or other extremists. Unlike America under Donald Trump, who is proudly psychopathic and went so far as to blurt out that his followers would accept his leadership even if he were to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, the European Union is so rabidly hypocritical (Trump would probably call it politically correct) that its leaders routinely moralize about human rights and democracy even while their governments indiscriminately rob and slaughter people in foreign lands (as will be documented here). EU leaders assist US-led atrocities while using prettier language to describe their alleged motivation for these policies. Though the US Government also occasionally employs such verbal sucker-punches (insincere or politically correct rhetoric), such moralizing is now the exception for the US Government, and is no longer (as it had been under the immediately prior US President, Barack Obama) the routine American practice very much like the EUs was, and still remains: such idealistic hypocrisy. But even Obama wasnt as hypocritical as EU leaders still are. The biggest difference between the US and the EU is that, whereas even under Americas Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning (and continuing to be predominantly sanctified) President Obama (the invader of Libya, Syria, Yemen, and more), Americas head-of-state repeatedly said that America is the one indispensable nation meaning that all other nations are dispensable. By contrast, there is no EU leader, and not even any European head-of-state, who says, in the modern era, anything of the sort. Adolf Hitler infamously did it when reasserting Deutschland uber alles! (i.e, that Germany is the one indispensable nation). But modern Europes leaders know better than to copy such rhetoric. (Trumps version, of course, is America first, but this can mean many different things, and not only mean that America is the one indispensable nation. Obamas version was far less ambiguous than Trumps is, because Obamas clearly means that every other nation is dispensable, and that only America is not. And, yet, still, Europes leaders accepted it they accepted that their nations were and are dispensable. After all: they are vassals.) Americas leaders are simply more honest about their psychopathy than modern Europes are. In fact, ever since at least the time of Ronald Reagans Presidency, Greed is good has been Americas unofficial, but clearly dominant, political philosophy virtually the official American philosophy. How many European nations today publicly and proudly assert anything like that? Do any? A recent example of the EUs hyper-hypocrisy was headlined at the far-right UAWire Ukrainian news-site on March 31st, EU urges Russia to stop attacks on Crimean Tatars, which reported that, The EU decisively condemns the arrest of 23 Crimean Tatars in police raids by the Russian occupation authorities in Crimea on 27 and 28 March, said EU Spokesperson for EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Maja Kocijancic in a statement. A court in the Crimean peninsula, illegally annexed from Ukraine by Russia, has ruled that all 23 Crimean Tatars detained on 27 March and 28 March will be held in pre-trial detention until 15 May. They are accused of belonging to the organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is banned in Russia but not in Ukraine. The European Union does not recognise the enforcement of Russian legislation in Crimea and Sevastopol and expects all illegally detained Ukrainians to be released without delay, Kocijancic stated. The recent detentions, as well as the prior searches of their private property, constitute the latest targeting of Crimean Tatars, human rights defenders, and people who have spoken out peacefully against the illegal annexation by Russia of the Crimean peninsula, the EU spokesperson stressed. Here is what Wikipedia says about that banned-by-Russia group: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hizb_ut-Tahrir Hizb ut-Tahrir (Arabic: ) (Translation: Party of Liberation) is an international, pan-Islamist political organisation, which describes its ideology as Islam, and its aim as the re-establishment of the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) to resume the Islamic way of life in the Muslim world. The caliphate would unite the Muslim community (Ummah)[4] upon their Islamic creed and implement the Shariah, so as to then carry the proselytising of Islam to the rest of the world.[5] Hizb ut-Tahrir has been banned in countries such as Germany, Russia, China, Egypt, Turkey,[14] and all Arab countries except Lebanon, Yemen, and the UAE.[15][16] In July 2017, the Indonesian government formally revoked Hizbut ut-Tahrirs charter, citing incompatibility with government regulations on extremism and national ideology.[17] They declare the necessity of jihad so that Dawah will be carried to all mankind and will bring them into the Khilafah state, and the importance of declaring Jihad against the Kuffar without any lenience or hesitation; (Ummahs Charter),[97][117] as well as the need to fight unbelievers who refuse to be ruled by Islam, even if they pay tribute (The Islamic Personality).[97][118] Do Europeans really want people such as this to be increasing in the EU? The Ukrainian regime that Obama had installed in February 2014 thinks its fine, but do Europeans, really? Obama had fooled Russias Government, at least until his 2012 re-election, to think that he wasnt aiming like all his predecessors since at least the time of Reagan were aiming for the US Government ultimately to conquer and absorb Russia into the steadily growing US empire but after the bloody US coup right on Russias doorstep in Ukraine in 2014, the EU has been clearly the US regimes vassal in this conquer-Russia enterprise participating in it, though reluctantly. The EUs leadership has consistently been working in secret to assist jihadists mass-murderers and terrorists whenever jihadists are fighting in the US-led international war against Russia and against any nation whose leadership (such as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Viktor Yanukovych, and Nicolas Maduro) are either allied with or even just friendly toward Russia. Syria, and its President, Bashar al-Assad, constitute one particular example of this EU hypocrisy. Here are examples of this US-EU support for jihadists that are trying to overthrow a Russia-friendly government: On 10 December 2012, AFP bannered Jihadists seize key north Syria army base, and reported that, Jihadists led by the radical Al-Nusra Front seized a strategic army base in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo on Monday, in a fresh setback for President Bashar al-Assads regime. On the political front, the EU gave a vital boost to the newly-formed Syrian opposition coalition, describing it as the legitimate representatives of the Syrian people following talks in Brussels with its leader Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib. On that very same day, December 10th, Britains Telegraph headlined and sub-headed Syrian rebels defy US and pledge allegiance to jihadi group: Rebel groups across Syria are defying the United States by pledging their allegiance to a group that Washington will designate today a terrorist organization for its alleged links to al-Qaeda. That report opened: A total of 29 opposition groups, including fighting brigades and civilian committees, have signed a petition calling for mass demonstrations in support of Jabhat al-Nusra, an Islamist group which the White House believes is an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq. So: no one could reasonably doubt that Americas alleged rebels in Syria were, in fact, loyal to al-Nusra. Yet, the EU and US continued supporting them. Also on that same day, Bill Roggio at Long War Journal bannered, Al Nusrah Front, foreign jihadists seize key Syrian base in Aleppo, and he reported that, The Syrian government has warned that rebels may also use chemical weapons after the Al Nusrah Front took control control of a chlorine factory in Aleppo last week. Islamists hold sway over new rebel military command. So: it was already clear, even then, that the rebels were interested in perpetrating against civilians a chemical-weapons attack that their supporters in the US and EU could then blame against Syrias Government as being an alleged reason to invade Syria by their own forces in order to protect the Syrian people and establish democracy and human rights there, or similar lies. The next day, December 11th, Roggio reported that The Al Nusrah Front has by far taken the lead among the jihadist groups in executing suicide and other complex attacks against the Syrian military. The terror group is known to conduct joint operations with other Syrian jihadist organizations. And, on the very next day, December 12th, Roggio headlined Syrian National Coalition urges US to drop Al Nusrah terrorism designation. Anyone who, after this, didnt know that the US and EU were supporting jihadists to take control over Syria, was very deceived, because the truth was now known, and was then being subsequently hidden from the public, by almost all of the subsequent news-reporting. But there were a few exceptions: On 26 January 2013, Roggio reported that, The Al Nusrah Front has now claimed credit for 46 of the 55 suicide attacks that have taken place in Syria since December 2011, according to a tally of the operations by The Long War Journal (note that multiple suicide bombers deployed in a single operaton are counted as part of a single attack). Al Nusrah spearheads military assaults Al Nusrah has also served as the vanguard for jihadist forces in the major attacks on Syrian military bases. In concert with allied jihadist groups such as the Ahrar al Sham, the Islamic Vanguard, Mujahedeen Shura Council, the Muhajireen Group, and Chechen fighters, the terror group has overrun three large Syrian installations since last fall. On 20 April 2013, Reuters headlined Rebels battle with tribesmen over oil in Syrias east and reported that, The EU said this week it wants to allow Syrias opposition to sell crude in an effort to tilt the balance of power towards the rebels. The EU supported and backed the rebels seizure and black-market sale of whatever oil they could steal from Syria. This was the EUs humanitarianism. On 22 April 2013, the AP headlined EU lifts Syria oil embargo to bolster rebels and opened: The European Union on Monday lifted its oil embargo on Syria to provide more economic support to the forces fighting to oust President Bashar Assads regime. The decision will allow for crude exports from rebel-held territory. On 1 May 2013, TIME bannered Syrias Opposition Hopes to Win the War by Selling Oil and reported that, Without an embargo, European companies can now legally begin importing barrels of oil directly from rebel groups, which have seized several oil fields in recent months, mostly around the eastern area of Deir Ezzor. That would provide the opposition with its first reliable source of income since the revolt erupted in Feb. 2011, and in theory hasten the downfall of Bashar Assads regime. No mention was made, in any of this reporting, that this constituted aggression by the EU against the sovereign nation of Syria under the UNs Charter and was therefore an international war-crime. The Western press didnt care about such things but only about democracy and human rights and other such billionaires bumper-stickers for suckers. On 22 February 2019, one of the UNs top experts on international law, Alfred de Zayas, was interviewed for a half hour on the ways in which America and its allies are blatantly violating international law by attempting a coup to overthrow Venezuelas Government, and by going even further and imposing sanctions against Venezuelas Government because it was resisting this (in effect) economic invasion-by-means-of-sanctions. The EU is one of these invading countries, but some of its constituent states oppose the US-sponsored invasion. On 31 March 2019, I headlined EU Joins NATOs War Against Russia and reported on the EUs knee-jerk increase of economic sanctions against Russia as being the initial phase the sanctions phase of the US regimes wars to overthrow the leaders of nations that are friendly toward Russia (e.g., Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad, Viktor Yanukovych, and now Nicolas Maduro), and now (ever since the 2012 Magnitsky Act sanctions fraud against Russia) increasingly to apply Washingtons economic sanctions against Russia itself. In international affairs, the EU therefore is clearly a stooge of the constantly aggressive US regime. After all, the US regime had initiated and led the creation of the European Union. This scheme started as soon as FDR died and Harry S. Truman became Americas President. The death of FDR was also, in a sense, the death of any real democracy in the United States. Truman was forced onto the Democratic Partys Presidential ticket in 1944 by the Democratic Partys centi-millionaires against the will of FDR.Truman and Churchill started the Cold War, which increasingly became mass thought-control in America (culminating with Joseph R. McCarthy) and with the CIAs operations Gladio in Europe and Mockingbird in the US itself. First, NATO, and then the EU, were born as part of that secret US strategy to conquer Russia even after the end of the USS.R and of its communism and of its Warsaw Pact counterbalance to Americas NATO anti-Russian military alliance. Ever since that time (1991), Americas controlling owners of international corporations (our billionaires) have also controlled via European nations own super-rich first, Europes national Governments, and then the EU itself. It secretly remains true even after the 1991 end of the Cold War on Russias side. Consequently: when theres a choice to be made between supporting jihadists (or other extremists such as in Ukraine nazis) or else to side with Russia (or any nation thats friendly toward Russia), the American team always back the jihadists or other extremists, and they say its being done for human rights and democracy and other such hypocrisies, while they perpetrate actual war-crimes, and make fools of their own publics, in order ultimately to conquer Russia. Thats doing it the diplomatic way, and they dont like Trumps doing it the Greed is good way. The directness of his greed makes themselves look bad. Thats why these super-hypocrites preferred Obama. Why the Gulf States Are So Edgy The Gulf grandees have a right to be edgy, Alastair Crooke writes. They can see that Trumps war hawks are intent on cornering, pressurising and provoking Iran. A little more than a decade ago, I was asked to address a London dinner-table of about twenty Gulf figures a mix of Ambassadors and those with ties to power. All represented the cosmopolitan, rich elite of the Gulf. Then, towards the evenings end, talk turned to Hizbullah: the gathering simply erupted into flames. Well, almost literally as these grandees choked on the smoke and tongues of fire pouring from their nostrils (to say they were unhappy is an understatement). In unison, they swore oaths that they would stop at absolutely nothing to destroy the resistance. They choked again at the very word resistance. They swore to destroy it, utterly, down to the last particle. But how times do change. Of course, in the interval, there was a war backed by these gentlemen in 2006 that was supposed to finish off Hizbullah for good (but plainly didnt). There was also a billions-of-dollar insurrection mounted against rejectionist President Assad in Syria that was supposed to break the keystone to the arch (but hasnt); and an equally massive info-war to turn Iran into a global leper. Yes, these well-polished gentlemen have had certain successes in squashing the so-called Arab Spring, and in fracturing and demonising Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet, after these, and after gulling the Americans and Europeans with their anti-Iranian propaganda so completely, the Gulf is fretting again. Why? Well, the clue lies in Libya, and with General Haftars military thrust on the capital, Tripoli. At one level, evidently this push is a part of an internal Libyan struggle; but at another, Haftars unexpected and sudden exit from the political process (the UN Secretary General and Envoy were left gaping on their last visit to Libya), is revealed more as an expression of Gulf agitation. (Haftars push came on the heels of a round of consultations in certain Gulf capitals). It is not so much agitation about Libya, but rather fears real fears about Algeria. Algeria is experiencing huge and repeated popular protests which have forced the President to stand down. The popular (peaceful, so far) uprising, however, continues but with the security apparatus still hovering menacingly in the background. In Khartoum too, protests have been afoot, and now that President has been overthrown (in a military coup). Ghosts old ghosts from 2011 are affronting Gulf leaders. The UAE-Saudi message from (Islamist-hater) Haftars getting the green light to take Islamist controlled Tripoli is simply addressed to the people of Algeria: If you rise up against your ruling-structures, be aware: It will be repressed unhesitatingly. And, it is an absolute red line that Islamists will not be tolerated. (The UAE has a past history of intervention in Algerias affairs through the Algerian military. Bouteflika was a guest of the UAE, until he became President). If that was it, a cynic might conclude that the UAE will likely deal with Algeria; so whats their fuss? But that is not it: Algeria comes against a context a background. One that makes Gulf States so very edgy. Here is the point. After all those pyrotechnics at dinner a decade or so ago, and after the sarcasm directed at the resistance from US commentators subsequently, a resistance front is, in fact, taking shape. From Lebanon to Iran, a political front has arisen out from the defeat of the Gulf-supported, jihadist and Kurdish political projects in the region. And for the sake of clarity, the regional Belt and Road initiative linking Iran via Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean ports of Tripoli (in Lebanon) and Latakia in Syria, is very much of interest to China (just as its energy dimension is of interest to Russia). Nicholas Lyall writes in The Diplomat: The Levant is set to become a critical node in the BRIs China-Central Asia-West Asia economic corridor, as it offers an alternative route to the Mediterranean as opposed to the Suez passage. Syria is being eyed in the long term as the key Levantine region to achieve this aim. For instance, Tripoli in Lebanon is set to become a Special Economic Zone within the BRI, with the Tripoli port planned to be a main trans-shipment hub for the eastern Mediterranean. This will provide a more direct route for Chinese goods to Europe compared to relying on the Suez Canal. China is set to be the major player in the impending rebuilding process that will occur in postwar Syria pledged deals include the construction of steel and power plants, car manufacturing, and hospital development. Some of Chinas flagship involvements include Huawei committing in 2015 to rebuild Syrias telecommunications system by 2020, and the China National Petroleum Corporation owning major stakes in two of Syrias largest oil companies. And what has this to do with Libya or Algeria, or Gulf edginess? Quite a lot. And that is not just because Syria, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon all of whom have been on the wrong end of Gulf regional projects are on the rise, but because Turkey and deep-pocketed Qatar are moving ever closer to Russia, and to the Iran, Iraq, Syria, axis. The latter (Turkey and Qatar), are the main supporters of the Libyan Misrata militia, and the Islamists of Tripoli which is to say, they are the facilitators and funders of those forces opposing General Haftars thrust to destroy the Islamist movements based in Tripoli (Libya). The present conflict in Libya therefore is also a Gulf proxy war waged against the Muslim Brotherhood, and its patrons (Turkey and Qatar). This constitutes a further, second, message to Algeria: Do not allow the Brotherhood a role in the popular unrest or else! And there is something else to keep the Gulf grandees awake at night: Turkey is gently slipping away from NATO towards Moscow (as best Erdogan can do, without as a result, completely losing the secular, Europe-leaning coastal constituencies). And, even if Turkey should remain in NATO in body though not in spirit this would represent a huge strategic shift, impacting on (substantively Turkic) Central Asia, and the Middle East. In brief, a major US pillar is being uprooted from the region at a time when Gulf leaders are questioning US constancy, and are alarmed at the resurgence of popular protest. No wonder they are making overtures towards Israel. Where else can they turn for protection in a world becoming ever more hostile to their interests. But even that is not without risk. Reports suggest that Trump is on the cusp of publishing his Deal of the Century. It is widely expected to be another Naqba (catastrophe) for the Palestinians. Gulf leaders (who guardedly support Kushners deal), will worry that its publication will provide fertile ground for Turkey and Qatar to instigate the Muslim Brotherhood against them on their own patch on the Palestinian issue. All in all, the Gulf grandees have a right to be edgy. They can see that Trumps war hawks are intent on cornering, pressurising and provoking Iran. After 3 May (when oil waivers expire), we may witness a major escalation by Bolton and Pompeo against Iran. How far might this be bluster and bluff in the lead up to crucial Presidential elections in the US? Or is Trump being quietly being manoeuvred into some forever war with Iran, that John Bolton has long sought? Will Netanyahu play along? What then will become of the Gulf? All of this complicates matters for President Putin. The Belt and Road political and economic alignment that is shaping up across the northern Middle East to the Mediterranean, is not just some extraneous happening that doesnt really impinge on Russia. No. Rather it impacts very directly on Russian strategic interests. The new alignment serves as the frontline to Russia and Chinas vulnerable underbellies: the various stan states, and Chinas Xingjian Province. China needs a secure corridor into Europe for its goods, and Russia needs a land energy corridor to Europe to counter Trumps attempt at US energy dominance, by hobbling rival producers. (Both China and Russia are at risk from maritime chokepoints on their sea links being closed by the US, through naval blockade). And, it is just because of this emerging constellation of the northern tier of the region plus NATO Turkey shifting towards the Russian security umbrella and therefore towards effective area denial in respect to the US and Israel, that Russia must worry that the US will try to disrupt it. Not least, because of the Tel Aviv hold over US foreign policy. In other words, Russia must (and is), preparing against the possibility of conflict occurring in the region (most likely between US/Israel and Iran). Recall the old Mackinder doctrine: he who controls the (Asian) heartland On March 14, Russias National Security Council, headed by President Putin, officially raised its perception of American intentions toward Russia from military dangers (opasnosti) to direct military threats (ugrozy). In short, the Kremlin is preparing for war, however defensive its intention. Does Moscow think Trump wants a war? It is doubtful; but Trumps position his very continuance in office, like that of previous US Presidents inevitably is held ransom by the collegiate deep state which will not allow any existential threat to its inner circle, or to its hold on the levers of global power to develop. Trump undoubtedly is aware of his predecessors fates, and trades with them: i.e. pursuit of his own political necessities against yielding to Sheldon Adelsons two proteges (Bolton and Pompeo), the licence to do Israels will. Faustian perhaps, but maybe the only way to survive. It appears then, that Putins response is to prioritise Moscow remaining as the go-to global mediator that is not pulled into any gathering Middle East storm, but holds itself above the fray. The point here is that Middle East conflicts have a history of escalating. And the risk of a direct stand-off between Russia and the US is beyond contemplation. For this end, Putin needs a direct channel to Trump (where none exists at the diplomatic level; they have been dismantled); and, to be able mediate between Israel and Iran, he needs to clutch Netanyahu tight to his bosom, and to show empathy for the latters political needs (a strategy that Putin has evolved well, with the mercurial Erdogan too). It will not be easy: Netanyahu is asking to continue to attack claimed Iranian structures in Syria and Iraq, and wants assurances that Russian air defences will not intervene; and he wants together with Washington a joint say in the political future of Syria. That is no small ask. It would place at risk Russias relations with Iran and Syria and with her Belt and Road allies. The precedent could become the rule. Can Mr Putin walk this tightrope? Is the channel to Trump through Netanyahu worth it? Can Netanyahu ever be trusted? Foxconns CEO Terry Gou has announced that he will be stepping down from running the day-to-day operations of the company later this year. He is now looking to hand over the running of the company to younger management. While Gou will step down as the CEO of Foxconn, he will still continue to be involved in making strategic decisions of the company. He wants to take the time to chart the long-term future of the company. Gous decision would still require approval from Foxconns board and shareholders. I dont know where you got the information from. But I have to say, basically, Im working toward that direction to walk back to the second line, or retire, the Foxconn CEO said. I will be involved in the major direction of the company, but not involved in daily operations. Im already 69 years old. I can pass down my 45 years of experience. Thats the goal I set up to let young people learn sooner and take over sooner and to replace my position sooner. Gou also confirmed that Foxconn will start mass production of iPhones in India this year. This will help Foxconn in playing a far greater role in the development of the smartphone industry in India. As of now, Wistron is the only Apple manufacturing partner that is assembling iPhones in India. By assembling iPhones in India, Apple will be able to offer the phones at better prices in the region due to the various custom duty savings. A report from last week claimed that Foxconn will start assembling the iPhone X in India from July. Foxconn is Apples largest vendor, though it also manufactures smartphones for a number of other companies including HMD Global, OnePlus, and others. [Via SCMP One of Eurasias largest connectivity projects is taking off. The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) is a major transit route designed to facilitate the carriage of goods from Mumbai in India to Helsinki in Finland, using Iranian ports and railroads, which Tehran plans to connect to those of Azerbaijan and Russia and its Baltic ports. Those links could give Russia rail connectivity to both the Persian Gulf and the Indian rail network. Russia, Iran and India founded and laid the groundwork for the project between 2000 and 2002. Subsequently, other countries joined the project. They included Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Bulgaria. With countries in the Caucuses, South Europe, West Asia and Central Asia joining the INSTC, it is envisaged as one of Eurasias most important connectivity ventures. The INSTC is not and cannot be a counterpoise to Chinas Belt and Road Imitative (BRI). Apart from India, all the countries involved in the INSTC are on the BRI. They also have far stronger trading ties with China than with India. Indeed, the INSTC was conceived long before Xi Jinping had arrived on the world scene as Chinas president in 2012, inaugurated the BRI in 2013, expanded it to include more than 65 countries in five years and set China on the path to great power. Operationalized in January 2018 with a new Iranian rail link filling a connectivity gap, the INSTC could connect South and West Asia to the Caucuses, South Europe and Central Asia, and to the Persian Gulf and the Indian rail network. It could also cut down transport time and costs. Running from north to south across Eurasia, it could complement and cut across the BRI, which runs from east to west. On March 6, 2019, Iran and 12 other countries, including India, Russia, Turkey, Tajikistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Oman, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Syria, held two days of meetings in Tehran to coordinate work on INSTC. All these countries are located along the Corridor. A 164-kilometer rail project linking the two Iranian cities of Qazvin and Rasht was inaugurated by President Hassan Rouhani. The Qazvin-Rasht line fills a missing link in the INSTC. The INSTC is envisaged as a 7,200-km-long multi-mode network of ship, rail, and road route for moving freight between India, Iran, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Central Asia and Europe. The countries involved hope that the Corridor will increase trade connectivity between major cities such as Mumbai, Moscow, Tehran, Baku, Bandar Abbas and Astrakhan. This transit network could allow all these countries to bypass the Suez Canal on the way to Europe and could become the basis for expanded Russian influence in Central and South Asia. The Corridor is the shortest multimodal transport route linking the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf via Iran to Russia and Europe. The Corridor will help reduce the costs of transferring goods from India to Russia and Europe via Iran. Simultaneously it will provide an alternative connectivity route to countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The central link for INSTC would be the railway line from Russia through Azerbaijan to Iran. The inauguration of the INSTC in January 2018 was marked by the first shipment of cargo from India to Russia via the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, which is not a deep water port. In contrast, Chabahar, the Iranian port which is being developed by India, can handle very large and heavily loaded ships. Russia has a special interest in the progress of the Corridor. Buffeted by western economic sanctions since it invaded Ukraine in 2014, it could benefit by developing commercial ties with the Caspian littoral states. On August 12, 2018, the leaders of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea. All these states are members of the INSTC. And the Caspian agreement links their interests in the Caspian with the Corridor. On February 5, 2019, India and Russia signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the INSTC. Both share an interest in fast-tracking the project to increase their links to other areas via Iran. India also hopes to gain some advantages over its main rival China, across Central Asia and in the Indian Ocean region. Finance for the INSTC poses problems. Given the high risks involved, many private sector players are reluctant to invest in the project. Meanwhile, India and Iran are looking at connectivity across Central Asia to Europe. Indias development of Irans Chabahar port marks one of the most important connectivity projects in Eurasia. Chabahar is not merely of interest to India, which has used it to cross Pakistans transit hurdle and to ship food to war-torn Afghanistan. The Caspian and Central Asian powers also have great interest in Chabahar because it could open more than one trading doors for them across Eurasia. In fact, Chabahar could be the starting point of the INSTC. For Iran, which wants to build several connectivity corridors, the INSTC serves as the shortest route to Europe and Turkey. At the moment, the Corridor is not in the vicinity of regional conflicts such as the Armenian-Azeri conflicts over Nagorhno Karabakh and Nakhichevan. Running through Russia, the INSTC would offer Iran the easiest transit through Central Asia to West European markets. With Russia and Azerbaijan, Iran is already building a railway corridor. Together with that railway, the INSTC could facilitate efforts made by Iran and Azerbaijan to become regional transit and trading hubs. Partly because of its geopolitical location, partly because of Chabahar port, Iran could emerge as a major player along the INSTC. One reason is that India and Afghanistan will also benefit from the Corridor because of their good ties with Iran. Chabahar is Indias most viable gateway to Afghanistan and Central Asia. Chabahar and the INSTC could help India increase trade with Central Asia, which currently stands at USD 11.9 billion. The INSTC would also facilitate the import by India of minerals, metals, oil and gas from Central Asian countries to boost its manufacturing economy. An Indian rail project linking Chabahar to Zahedan on the Iranian border will be extended to Zaranj in Afghanistan. The INSTC will open up Indias access to mineral-rich, landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asian states, while paving their way to the Arabian Sea. Afghanistan shares borders with Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, but inadequate supply networks have resulted in low volumes of trade between these countries. The proposed new railway lines will enable Afghanistan to act as the bridge between Central Asia and the worlds markets and give its trade ties with all these countries a much-needed boost. Afghanistans rail connection with Chabahar would highlight a huge breakthrough in Eurasian connectivity. That in itself could give impetus to its economic progress and political stability. The INSTC has been hobbled by two outstanding factors. First, all the countries involved do not share common borders. Even its founders Russia, India and Iran are not neighbors. That fact in itself makes it hard to build the Corridor. There have also been disagreements between them on how to develop it. That more countries have signed on only exacerbates those two problems even if it is clear that several countries could benefit from the completed corridor. Second, the project failed to take off because of the international sanctions against Irans nuclear program between 2006 and 2016. Plans to go ahead with the Corridor were made after the lifting of sanctions on Iran. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, India and Oman then signed the Ashgabat Agreement (Ashgabat is the capital of Turkmenistan). This is a multimodal transport accord for creating an international transport and transit corridor which could facilitate the carriage of goods between Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. Ashgabat gave impetus to the INSTC. What is the outlook for INSTC then? Finance for the INSTC poses problems. Given the high risks involved, many private sector players are reluctant to invest in the project. But some multilateral organizations are backing the INSTC. The Asian Development Bank has given credit to Azerbaijan for the development of its rail link to Iran. Japan, once a possible stakeholder, withdrew when Trump announced sanctions against Iran in 2017. At present, different track gauges in the countries concerned pose another problem. The design of the INSTC currently suggests limited opportunities for scaling up businesses. To sustain trade, it would be necessary to build towns, ports and even hotels along the route. Chabahar and the INSTC have opened many windows of economic opportunity in Eurasia. How best to give substance to these opportunities will remain the main challenge before the countries involved in this major connectivity project. If they meet their own expectations, the INSTC could become a game-changer in South, West, Central Asia and Europe. The Tauranga City Council has been identified for over promising and under delivering for several major projects, a report has revealed. Max Pedersen Consulting authored the report, investigating four embattled council projects all marred with issues, ranging from unfinished consultation, bad project management, poor budget reporting, costing and omitting key details from the public. An emphasis made on the report was around staff completing tasks, rather than facilitating the best outcome for the community. There is a clear link between the culture of an organisation and its performance, says Max. "If consistently better performance is to be achieved by council staff, the culture needs to change so that the community is at the forefront of all services provided and projects that are undertaken." The Greerton Village Road upgrades were one project investigated, and key information was revealed around how congestion was likely to worsen after a major roading project was completed was omitted from consultation. "The predicted negative impact of the project on traffic flow on the overall network from Cornwall Street to Pooles Road was a fundamental piece of information that should have been communicated to the community," Max says. "The fact that it was omitted means that the community did not possess all relevant information about the project and accordingly could not reach an informed opinion about it." Another project investigated is the $2.5 million Phoenix car park transformation, which found "unrealistic" designs which were more expensive than the budget would allow by about 40 per cent, resulting in a scaled-back version of the project which has significantly less green space and has been likened to a skate park by local residents. Mayor Greg Brownless says the report was part of a "warts and all" look at council instigated by new chief executive Marty Grenfell who replaced Garry Poole in August 2018. "He [Marty Grenfell] was aware there were certain projects where there have been concerns," he says. "He wants to get to the bottom of it as do we." Greg says the report has been released in the public domain for the community to read. "These issues have built up over a few years and it is what we are trying to change." Max Pedersen's report follows another damning report from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment into how council handled the Bella Vista Homes development. The report shows council staff intervened with standard practices which contributed to the downfall of the development resulting in a $14.2 million payout to homeowners. Councillors will respond to both reports at a council meeting on April 16. -Additional reporting from Stuff/Matt_Shand New Zealand is experiencing a national egg shortage and prices may increase, however it is unlikely the staple food will disappear from supermarket shelves. Poultry Industry Association executive director Michael Brooks says supply problems were causing the shortages nationally. The number of laying hens nationally has dropped from 4.2 million at the end of last year, to 3.6 million. "We're just going to see a lesser amount of eggs, and that will probably translate to some extent to price increases, just because of a shortage of supply," says Michael. He says there are two main reasons for the drop; in 2012 new rules were introduced to gradually phase out battery cages for hens in New Zealand by 2022, meaning a series of deadlines for farmers to incrementally give hens more space. Poultry farmers faced significant costs to meet each stage of the new regulations and some had reduced flock sizes as they made infrastructure changes. "There are costs in terms of new land, new farming systems, and a lot of farmers have really got some big and very costly decisions to make - and that's had an impact on supply, and that is part of the issue that's leading to this supply issue at the moment." Slow resource consent processes had also held up many developments, and affected new-comers, he says. The other factor is demand is up as Kiwis are eating more eggs. Michael thinks this is partly because nutritionists have swung back in favour of recommending eggs, and partly because of a swing away from carbohydrate-rich and sugary breakfast cereals. In 2009 New Zealanders ate about 200 eggs each a year, but now we get through about 226 a year each. "We produce one billion eggs a year. We're big egg eaters, it's a cost effective form of protein, and New Zealanders like eggs," he says. For now, Michael says the downward trend in the number of hens in the national flock had already turned upwards, and the flock had begun to grow again. Hens take about five months to go from hatching to producing their own eggs, and he estimates the egg supply should be back to normal in about six months. Michael expects the shortage could be repeated in coming years, as farmers are more vulnerable while they work toward the final 2022 tightening of cage rules, and this would produce more noticeable ebbs and flows in flock numbers and supply. A spokesperson for New World and Pak'n Save stores said they had not noticed an egg shortage. Countdown's head of perishables and deli foods, Nikhil Sawant says their stores were reporting pressures on supplies of barn and free range eggs. "New Zealanders are increasingly interested in social and environmental issues and this is influencing their purchasing. In the last three months we've seen a real surge in demand for barn and free range eggs. "We're working closely with our egg farmers as we all adjust to this increased demand, but there are unfortunately going to be shortages from time to time. We're trying our best to keep shortages to a minimum and are expecting supply to improve in the coming few months," says Nikhil. The CEO for Wholesome cage-free egg distributors, Ian Higgins, says cage-free egg producers were noticing the strong demand, but felt the overall egg shortage fell into the normal pattern of shortage and supply swings all food producing farmers experienced. About 30 percent of eggs sold in New Zealand were cage free, and demand had been noticeably increasing for some time, Ian says. "There's some areas which are more pro-animal welfare than others, like Wellington - where there's always been a higher percentage of cage-free eggs in supermarkets, and parts of Auckland and parts of Christchurch. "Whereas some of the provincial towns are still more engaged with caged eggs. Although the Countdown stores are now pushing more and more into cage-free in provincial towns." As more farmers either moved to cage-free poultry farming, or kept up with the changes to caging regulations, eggs would get dearer, he says. "We cannot produce eggs for the same price. We can't." Ian believes cage-free was the right move ethically, and says regulations were the only way to make that happen. But he also sympathises with farmers facing huge costs to make changes as the regulations become tighter. "It can't be done just overnight. Many farmers are going as fast as they can to gear their farms up to produce more non-cage product." Some were choosing to wind businesses up, or retire, rather than finance the changes to meet the regulations, he says. "But for us to not make those changes, we're being naive, and not keeping up with public demand." -RNZ Bay of Plenty Our client has plenty of work in the pipeline and as such they are in need of qualified or experienced carpenters for an... View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nz Tauranga City Council has adopted the Water Supply Bylaw 2019. The Water Supply Bylaw sets rules for accessing and using Councils water supply, protecting the water supply network and responsibilities for maintenance and repair. The updated bylaw will come into force on April 22, and replaces the Supply of Water Bylaw 2007. The key changes in the new bylaw are: Addition of a section that specifies all the situations where people need to apply for Council approval; Clarification of the Point of Supply and Points of Responsibility to clarify the boundary of responsibility between customers and Council; Requirement for customers to install a backflow prevention device and for customers to inform Council of any activities that may contribute to the risk of backflow and cross connection; Requirement for Council to be notified before particular types of works are carried out at set distances to the water supply network; Clarification of Councils ability to put in place water restrictions; and removing how water use will be estimated when the water meter is unable to record water use. The new Water Meter Policy will set out this process Last month, on March 19, Councils Policy Committee adopted two new policies that relate to the bylaw: the Water Meter Policy and the Large Water Users Policy. As a result of community feedback, small amendments to clarify the intent of both of these policies were made, says a Tauranga City Council communications spokesperson. The Water Meter Policy sets out responsibilities for managing water meters and states how water is metered when a meter isnt functional. The Large Water Users Policy sets out Councils priorities for allocating water. Under the policy, anyone applying to use over 15m3 of water a day will be assessed on a range of factors, to determine if the activity is an efficient use of our water supply and wastewater services. Both these new policies also take effect on April 22. Named Vitrine, the OLED display concept was designed in collaboration with Swiss furniture brand Vitra. It resembles a glass cabinet with a wooden frame built around it and has been designed in a way that blends naturally into any contemporary living space when not in use. Upon switching on the display, the transparent section transforms into a fully functional, vivid OLED display. The electronic components are smartly hidden inside the wooden frame, while the lighting element for the OLED display is also built into the frame, which also doubles up as its stand. It took two years for Panasonic and Vitra to complete the concept study for the transparent display and come up with the first prototype. The concept at the show is placed on a wooden bookshelf and has several display items kept behind the glass display, showcasing its use as a furniture item. Panasonic plans to display the concept in Tokyo from the end of April, though the company has not yet revealed if the Vitrine will enter production anytime soon. SYRACUSE, NY - A 15-year-old female has been charged with assault after Syracuse police say she struck several people with a pellet gun back in February outside a party on Ackerman Avenue. The incident, which occurred Feb. 9 in the 800 block of Ackerman Avenue, sparked an outcry among Syracuse University student leaders who criticized campus and city police at the time for their response to the incident. The Student Association, the undergraduate student governing body, said the universitys Department of Public Safety and the Syracuse Police Department did not take seriously the victims allegations that the attack was racially motivated. Syracuse police said today at this point in the investigation, after speaking with victims, suspects and witnesses, it does not appear that this incident was motivated by race. The 15-year-old is charged with two counts of second-degree assault and one count of fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon in connection with the Feb. 9 incident, police said. At the time, one of the assailants, who were white, called a black student a n*****," the victims said in a statement provided to Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard. Three people targeted in the attack were students of color, the students said. In a release today, Syracuse police said when they arrived at the call, they discovered three males who had been in a fight with a male and female. The three male victims reported they were hit in the head with what they thought was a handgun, but later turned out to be pellet gun, police said. After a lengthy investigation, Syracuse police found the 15-year-old female had returned to a party at 814 Ackerman Ave. when she noticed her male companion was in a fight with others outside the party. She then retrieved the pellet gun from a car, and then struck several people with that gun, police said. She was charged April 11, and her case is being handled in Family Court, police said. Syracuse, NY -- A badly disguised William Wood entered the DeWitt Chilis late one September night, armed with a handgun. The employees inside immediately recognized the masked man as their former co-worker, Will. Theyd celebrated birthdays, given him rides home and shared their lives with him amidst the hectic pace of running a restaurant. What they didnt know was that Wood had been planning to rob his former Erie Boulevard East workplace for months. And he didnt intend to leave anyone alive. Today, Wood, 33, was sentenced to life without parole in state prison for the cold-blooded shooting deaths of former co-workers Stephen Gudknecht and Kristopher Hicks during the 1 a.m. Sept. 15 robbery. Statements from the deceased victims families, the survivors and the prosecutor at sentencing paint a chilling picture of the murders that have led federal prosecutors to take the unusual move to seek a death-penalty case. Will was one of us, recalled Eliane Pelletier, a Chilis employee who was also Hicks girlfriend. We all had a place in the dysfunctional Chilis family... We all made an effort to embrace him regardless of his issues. People gave him rides, we gave him bus fare; we even sang Happy Birthday to him. That meant Wood knew them, too. He knew who to target. The night of the robbery, he ordered three of his former colleagues to the floor. Then he pointed the gun at manager Stephen Gudknecht -- a father of two -- and demanded Gudknecht open the safe. Gudknecht did. But there wasnt much money inside. Wood shot Gudknecht in the head, killing him, Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said today. He knew these people, Fitzpatrick said in court. He knew their lives, he knew their children." But none of that mattered. Wood then returned to the others, still lying on the floor in another room. There, he pointed the gun at Hicks head, shooting and mortally wounding him. Hicks died 45 minutes later on the way to the hospital, his father said today. Wood next pointed the gun at the back of Jessica Saums head. But the gun jammed. I am thankful the gun jammed, Saum said in court today. But in those few seconds, I was the most scared that I have ever been. Saum begged for her life. When the gun jammed, she ran from Wood into the office and called police. The fourth co-worker that night saw the opportunity to escape himself. Instead of fixing the gun, Wood decided to make a run for it. He reconnected with his getaway driver and fled. Saum recalled today holding Gudknechts hand. I just held Steves hand and just kept saying, Help is coming." She was still holding his hand when he died, she said. Since that day, Saum said its been hard to face the deceased victims families because she was wracked with guilt. I lost the ability to be the person I was before," she said, her hands shaking in court. Living with this has been extremely difficult. I never feel safe anymore. Close family of Gudknecht and Hicks described hard-working men who made their families proud. Gudknechts daughter, Adrianna, described telling her father about her dreams and his vow of total support as they drove to a family vacation home near Sackets Harbor. Hicks father recalled delivering his sons eulogy to a packed house of 300 people, despite his son worrying that he wasnt very well-liked. Hicks girlfriend, Pelletier, said the two met working at Chilis. For two years, she watched Hicks incredible work ethic before the two fell in love. Pelletier had left Chilis about 45 minutes before Hicks was killed. The couple was looking forward to a rare Saturday off together. He promised to be home after closing up after midnight. Instead, she got a call from Saum. Hicks had been shot during a robbery. The shooter was Will. She knew immediately who that was. Hicks had fought for his life for 45 minutes, but died on his way to the hospital. At sentencing today, Fitzpatrick said there are no words to describe what Wood did. He urged the judge to rid our community forever of Mr. William Wood. Wood himself spoke briefly, saying he was sorry. His words caused an angry outburst in the gallery among the victims loved ones. Truth is, I am very sorry for my actions. And that is the truth, said Wood, who had confessed to police soon after the shooting. I am sorry for all Ive done," he said today, speaking against his lawyers advice. I owe the families here today those words. Im willing to accept any punishment. If I could take it back in a heartbeat I would. For his part, County Court Judge Stephen Dougherty said neither of the surviving victims should feel any guilt. He noted all the loved ones who spoke on behalf of the deceased victims. I truly believe, Mr. Wood, that you dont have a soul, the judge said, handing down the life sentence. Related stories SYRACUSE, NY - Jessica Saum, who survived the Chilis homicide nightmare when the killers gun jammed as he was about to shoot her in the head, described the horror of her ordeal in Onondaga County court Monday morning. The courtroom was silent except for occasional sobs as Saum spoke publicly for the first time since the murder of of her co-workers, Stephen Gudknect and Kristopher Hicks on Sept. 15, 2018. The killer, William Wood, 33, of Syracuse was sentenced Monday to life in prison without parole. He pleaded guilty in March to shooting the two men in the head during a robbery of the Chilis restaurant in DeWitt. Saum said seeing her two friends executed that day by her former co-worker, William Wood, as I lay there helpless" was like being in a nightmare. Having the gun held to the back of her head and thinking her life was over "is something no one should ever have to experience,' she said. Although I am grateful the gun jammed, for those few seconds I was the most scared Ive ever been. When Woods gun jammed, Saum said she was able to get to the office and call 911, although she said it was hard to get her head straight. As she talked to the 911 operator, I just held Steves hands and I said help is coming, but it was too late,'' she said. Holding his hand as Steve was passing away was devastating. It still breaks my heart every day." Then she came out of the office to the horror of finding Hicks had been shot in the head as well. Saum said the guilt she feels at surviving is immense. "Not a day goes by that I dont replay what happened in my head, and wish I could change it,' she said. Gudknect and Hicks were special and rare," she said, and its so unfair they are gone. Saum said shell never be the person she was before the night her co-workers were killed and she thought she was going to die. "Living with this is extremely difficult,'' she said. " I never feel safe anymore." With the support of her family and friends, Saum said she will heal and be strong again, as she said she believes Hicks and Gudknect would want her to do. While Woods sentence wont bring back her friends, Saum said, it will (ensure) pure evil cant commit such a heinous act again. Jessica Saum, an employee at Chili's restaurant in the fall of 2018, gives her victim statement statement in court on Monday. William Wood, an ex-Chilis employee who admitted killing two former co-workers during a robbery, was sentenced today to life in prison without parole. April 15, 2019. Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.comDennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com Related stories This story has been updated. SYRACUSE, NY - A female was injured after a shooting at an apartment on Village Drive near Shop City in Syracuse, according to Syracuse police. Syracuse city police were on the scene, and had the area around 325 Village Drive - where the shooting occurred - taped off while they investigate. An ambulance transported the victim to the hospital. The shooting was reported around 5 p.m. There is no threat to public safety, said Sgt. Matthew Malinowski, spokesperson for the Syracuse police. He said information was limited at this time. He could not say if the shooting was accidental or not, as initially reported on 911 scanner reports. Malinowski said more information will be released later. SYRACUSE, N.Y. Syracuse Fire Department crews battled an early morning house fire on Liberty Street, according to Lt. Eric Yetman, a spokesman for the fire department. Fire crews were called to 408 Liberty St. at about 1 a.m. Monday for the report of a structure fire. District Chief Nick Pagano spotted the fire as he was returning to Fire Station 5 from a previous alarm, Yetman said. The 1 1/2 story, wood-framed dwelling was vacant. The fire was reported out within 30 minutes and crews remained on scene for a time performing overhaul operations. The cause and origin of this fire is still under investigation, Yetman said. There were no reported injuries during this incident. ROME, N.Y. - A 14-year-old boy has been arrested on charges that he sexually abused a 13-year-old girl on a school bus in the city of Rome. According to the Oneida County Sheriffs Office, the boy touched the girls intimate body parts aboard the bus in late February. The Oneida County Child Advocacy Center launched an investigation on March 7 after being alerted to the incident by Rome police. The boy, who was not identified, was charged with second-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child, both misdemeanors. He will appear in juvenile probation at a later date, deputies said. An order of protection was requested on behalf of the victim. Syracuse, NY -- The ex-Chilis employee who opened fire on his former colleagues was sentenced moments ago to life in prison without parole. William Wood, 33, had hoped to rob the DeWitt restaurant of thousands of dollars in the late-night September 2018 robbery. When he didnt get money, Wood opened fire, killing two employees -- who he knew and called by first names -- and would have killed two more if his gun hadnt jammed, Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said. Wood pleaded guilty March 1 to a 10-count indictment that included multiple counts of murder, attempted murder, robbery and weapon possession in the 1 a.m. Sept. 15 shootings. Those charges included Woods attempt to kill another worker when his gun jammed. County Court Judge Stephen Dougherty sent Wood to prison for a sentence of life without chance of parole for the top count, first-degree murder. Wood will face a death-penalty prosecution in federal court. Check back to Syracuse.com and The Post-Standard for our complete coverage of the sentencing. U.S. Attorney General William Barr Thursday will release a redacted copy of Special Counsel Robert Muellers report on the 2016 election, the Department of Justice said today. Congressional Democrats have been urging Barr to release the entire, unredacted document since Mueller concluded his investigation in March. Barr provided a four-page summary of the report to Congress shortly after it was completed. In Barrs initial summary, he said Mueller found no proof President Donald Trump or anyone associated with his campaign colluded with Russia. Mueller did not make a conclusion as to whether Trump obstructed justice, but Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded the evidence did not support such a charge. Barr indicated at the time that everyone would soon be able to read the report, but did not provide a timeline for its release until now. DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec told national news outlets including The New York Times and NBC News that the department would release a copy of the entire report on Thursday to Congress and the general public. Kupec said DOJ lawyers are currently working to redact secret grand jury testimony, classified information and other sensitive information, The New York Times reported. Thirty-four people, including six Trump aides and advisers, were charged as part of the special counsels 22 month-long investigation, according to The Associated Press. Most of the people charged are are Russians accused of interfering witht he election either through hacking or social media campaigns to spread disinformation, the AP reported. SYRACUSE, N.Y. Out-of-state developers spent millions of dollars buying Syracuse buildings just to tear them down, because there was money to be made putting up apartments for wealthy college kids. Hundreds of students have flocked to the new apartment buildings. They pay up to three time the average local rent. Amenities include wood-style flooring, 50-inch TVs and on-site fitness centers. Its a booming business. And it gets a lot of help. Luxury student housing in Syracuse is heavily subsidized by city taxpayers. The developers get some of the biggest tax breaks in town. The three most recent apartment complexes, which opened last fall Theory Syracuse, The Marshall, and The 505 on Walnut -- will save more than $42 million combined over the next 12 years in avoided property taxes and other incentives. In the city of Syracuse, where money is always tight, the forgiven property taxes would be enough to hire 20 cops or teachers. Thats not counting taxes the projects avoid paying to Onondaga County and New York state. Most of the developers savings will come from a standard tax exemption anyone can take if they renovate a commercial building to include apartments. But none of the three projects was a renovation. Syracuse assessors bent over backwards to let developers claim the lucrative exemption despite doubts about whether the projects qualified. On top of that, the citys industrial development agency gave exemptions from sales and mortgage taxes, although there was no evidence the developers would walk away without the help. High-end student apartments create relatively few permanent jobs. But some student housing gets more tax relief than major manufacturers. Theory Syracuse, for example, promised 15 jobs, records show. It will save an estimated $20 million in tax breaks over 12 years. Thats more than medical manufacturer Hill-Rom Holdings got when it promised to create 100 jobs at its Welch Allyn facility in Skaneateles. Hill-Rom got about $15.4 million in state grants, tax credits and local property tax breaks. Syracuse officials say the city will benefit from the student housing in the long run, after property tax breaks expire on the new multimillion-dollar buildings. In the meantime, they say, new construction makes the city more vibrant and encourages investment. But vibrancy in one neighborhood may come at the expense of others. Neighborhood groups in the Euclid Avenue area east of SU have sent up flares of worry that a glut of student housing could lead to vacant houses on their streets. And although tax exemptions dont require the city to pay out cash, they give breaks to big national companies while other taxpayers, including competing landlords, pay full fare. Syracuse landlord Ben Tupper, who owns 59 rental properties in the neighborhood along Euclid Avenue, said each year about 10 of his apartment houses get reassessed higher. His houses on Sumner Avenue, for example, got assessment increases of roughly 20 percent this year, records show. My taxes are going up, Tupper said. And faceless, nameless entities from Georgia, or whatever state theyre from, show up and theyre getting millions of dollars in tax breaks. That, to me, just stinks. $1,500 studio apartments The gold rush in high-end student housing started about five years ago and reached a peak last fall, when three of the largest complexes opened. The Marshall, at 727 S. Crouse Ave., is an eight-story building on the site of the former Campus Plaza. The 287 tenants pay $1,200 to $1,800 a month per bed. Several chain restaurants are expected to fill the ground floor, including Blaze Pizza, I Heart Mac & Cheese, The Halal Guys and Kung Fu Tea, co-owner Jared Hutter said. Hutters company, Aptitude Development, of New Jersey, bought the Campus Plaza property for $4.6 million, far above the assessed value. The previous owner bought it for $1.8 million a decade earlier. The site was assessed at $910,000 before the student apartments were built. Before razing the existing structure, Aptitude hired lawyers to evict the final tenant, a popular college bar called Hungry Chucks. The bar owner put up a fight in court. The Marshall will save about $9 million in property taxes over the next 12 years, paying an estimated $2.2 million during that time. The project also received $1.8 million in exemptions from sales and mortgage recording taxes. On top of all that, New York state threw in an $800,000 grant. Theory Syracuse, a sprawling 601-bed complex at 919 E. Genesee St., also opened last fall. Apartments start at $1,500 a month for a 450-square-foot studio. The Georgia developer, Peak Campus, spent $12.8 million to acquire several parcels on the block, including Liberty Deli and two office buildings, all of which were razed. The development will save about $17.9 million in property taxes over 12 years, paying an estimated $5.2 million during that time. The project also received $2.1 million in sales and mortgage tax abatements. The 505 on Walnut, a 363-bed student building, was built on the site of a former medical office building at East Genesee Street and Walnut Avenue. Rents range from $1,300 for a studio to $4,400 or more for a four-bedroom, according to its website. The owners will save about $9.5 million in property taxes over 12 years, paying about $2.6 million during that time. The project also received $1.7 million in sales and mortgage tax abatements. Stretching the law The biggest subsidies for these high-end apartments come from a property tax exemption intended to revitalize urban buildings. But the developers didnt revitalize buildings, they demolished them and built new ones. To qualify for the so-called 485-a exemption (named for a section of state law), a developer must convert an existing commercial property to a mix of commercial and residential use. Syracuse success stories like the State Tower Building and the Pike Block are prime examples. Urban centers of New York can be revitalized with the creative reuse of office, warehouse, manufacturing, and retail buildings for residential and commercial mixed uses, state lawmakers wrote in justifying the tax break. But as syracuse.com reported last year, the 485-a exemption is haphazardly enforced and easily exploited. One developer even claimed that three vending machines in the lobby of his apartment building qualified as a commercial enterprise. After city assessors cracked down following the report, the developer leased space to a beauty salon. Theory Syracuse, The 505 and The Marshall all were built on sites that were cleared by demolishing older buildings. Yet each project claimed a 485-a exemption for the conversion of an existing commercial property to mixed use. There are other exemptions available for new construction, or a developer could request a payment in lieu of taxes from the industrial development agency. But neither option is as lucrative as the 485-a. It exempts 100 percent of improvements from taxation for eight years, then reduces the exemption 20 percent annually for the next four years. Syracuse assessor David Clifford said he was told, but did not verify, that the three apartment projects planned to retain portions of existing foundations or other interior elements from the demolished buildings, so they could claim they converted them. Thats really abusing the intent of the law, Clifford said. Nevertheless, he allowed it. City lawyers thought the legislation was too vague to support a denial, he said. What is a conversion? Clifford said. Unfortunately, the law was so loosely written. Whos in charge? Assessors are free to interpret 485-a as they see fit. Rochester assessor Michael Zazzara said he has denied 485-a exemptions to several developers who wanted to tear down buildings and construct new ones. Theyve asked about it, but we said no, Zazzara said. None sued the city, he said. Buffalo assessor Martin Kennedy, on the other hand, told the Buffalo News last year that 485-a exemptions can be used even for new construction on vacant land. The state tax department has declined to provide guidance, leaving the interpretation to each local assessor. Syracuse officials say they are asking the state for permission to enforce 485-a more strictly. They asked state legislators this year to tighten up the law. We propose that the exemption be amended to explicitly spell out that the conversion applies to existing structures, not taking most of a building down and then constructing new, city officials wrote. Syracuse city councilors expressed concerns about 485-a exemptions last year, after syracuse.com reported how some projects strayed from the laws intent. But the council has not taken any action since then. In Rochester, city lawmakers put their own stamp on the exemption. They added local restrictions to the law. Before 485-a can be used in a municipality, the local government must adopt it. When the Rochester city council adopted 485-a in 2003, they added restrictions unique to their city. They limited the exemption to the central part of the city, for example, and required qualifying projects to devote at least 25 percent of the renovated building to residential use. Demolition begins at Campus Plaza in Syracuse in 2017. The plaza was replaced by The Marshall student apartments.SYR Rochesters law appears to fly in the face of guidance from the state tax department. In a 2003 legal opinion, state tax officials said municipalities did not have authority to amend the rules of the 485-a exemption. A tax department spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. Student housing developers have made due with tax deals less generous than 485-a. In Binghamton, which had not adopted the 485-a exemption, the Broome County Industrial Development Agency awarded PILOTs to two Binghamton student apartment developments that are now managed by Peak Campus, the Atlanta company that also developed Theory Syracuse. Under the 10-year PILOT deals, the Binghamton properties make payments totaling roughly half of what they would otherwise pay on improvements to the property. By contrast, 485-a developments pay nothing on improvements for the equivalent of 10 years. Do they really need the subsidy? The average monthly rent in the Syracuse University area is about $630 per bed, according to a 2016 study the city commissioned. The new high-end apartments supported by taxpayers typically charge two or three times that much. Some typical attractions: in-home washers and dryers, stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, and 24-hour fitness centers. Some have saunas, climbing walls or movie theaters. Some offer garage parking for extra. Despite the pricey rents, developers say they need tax breaks to make the projects go. Chris Geiger, of Long Island, a university-area real estate investor, said he believes the new apartments would not get built without tax breaks. Geiger acquired land in the 1200 block of East Genesee Street for The 505 on Walnut before selling it to the New Jersey development company. He also is the developer of two smaller apartment projects nearby on East Fayette Street. Out-of-state investors would not risk money on Syracuse projects without some relief from high property taxes, he said. Its the nature of New York state, Geiger said. Very few projects will ever get approved by investment groups, much less invested in by out-of-town developers, without that. Jared Hutter, who developed The Marshall, said he never analyzed whether the project could be done without tax breaks, because he knew they were available. But Hutter said The Marshall would not have been as good a project without the help. He said the public reaps a benefit, because the project will encourage other owners to invest in their properties. Residents play pool at The 505 on Walnut. a 363-bedroom student housing development that features two courtyards, a 24-hour fitness center, multiple tenant gathering areas and a dog park.Rick Moriarty Development induces development, so it becomes a domino effect, he said. I mean, look, Marshall Streets a dump. (It) needs to be bull-dozed and restarted. I couldnt do that -- I dont own Marshall Street. But Im hoping that what we do will ultimately induce people to redevelop their properties as well. Syracuse officials say they dont evaluate a developers need before awarding subsidies. Instead, they try to encourage projects that dovetail with city goals such as urban density, while seeking the greatest private investment for the least public subsidy. Its not an exact science, Mayor Ben Walsh said. Windfalls As national companies scouted University Hill for building lots, prices soared. And developers paid. Geiger, for example, put together the land for The 505 on Walnut. He acquired about 11 lots on both sides of the 1200 and 1300 blocks of East Genesee Street. One of the last parcels he bought was a building at 511 Walnut Ave. Geiger paid $200,000 for it. The previous owner bought it a year earlier for $117,000, property records show. Geiger then sold his East Genesee Street properties in 2017 to an affiliate of The Michaels Organization. The New Jersey company developed The 505 on Walnut and plans another apartment complex across the street. Geiger received $8.35 million, about $2 million more than he paid for the parcels over the previous decade, according to property records. Did the availability of property tax breaks inflate land values on University Hill? Thats a fair question, Geiger said. I think it all is part of the recipe. The Marshall student apartment building charges monthly rent of $1,200 to $1,800 per bed.Tim Knauss Clifford, the city assessor, said the prices developers paid far exceeded local property values. But developers were willing to pay extra to secure a piece of the luxury housing business, he said. Peak Campus paid $12.8 million for its building site, for example. Clifford assessed it at $3.4 million, not counting the new building. He defended assessing the site at about one-quarter the sales price, saying developers paid much more than what the land would be worth if resold. I couldnt justify assessing stuff at what they were buying it for, he said. What theyre doing is buying market share. Too much housing? Walsh, who was the citys economic development director before he ran for mayor, points out that the city began giving incentives to student housing developers more than a decade ago. At the time, city officials faced fierce complaints from university-area homeowners about the number of single-family and two-family homes that were being converted to student housing. The solution was to encourage the development of large private apartment buildings, Walsh said. Area homeowners supported the projects, and university officials welcomed new student housing that did not require the schools capital. The first projects, including Park Point on Comstock Avenue and University Village on Colvin Street, were built on land leased from Syracuse University that was previously tax-exempt. Park Point received a 20-year PILOT that will save the owner about $7 million through 2030. University Village got a 15-year deal that will save about $7.5 million through 2024. Both projects preceded Syracuses adoption of the 485-a program in late 2010. More recently, as apartment construction on University Hill took off, both Syracuse University and neighborhood groups have started to complain about the number of developments. Before The Marshall, The 505 and Theory Syracuse opened last fall, at least four other University Hill apartment projects had already claimed 485-a tax exemptions worth roughly $14 million. Since 2013, new apartments for roughly 2,000 students have opened as a result. We have heard loud and clear from Syracuse University that they are concerned about the number of private student housing units coming on the market, Walsh said. We have heard loud and clear from neighborhood reps that they are concerned about the impact on the neighborhood from these projects. In the future, the city might put the brakes on. Whats important is that we continue to adapt to changing community needs and changing market trends, Walsh said. Its fluid. SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Syracuse city officials are moving closer to developing a plan to control deer and ticks, including the possibility of killing deer on city property. Mayor Ben Walsh said today he will name an advisory group to devise a deer management strategy by June 1. The group is expected to consider all options, including deer culling and fertility control, landscape and habitat management, public education and other measures. Walsh also plans to propose that the Common Council amend city law to permit the use of city property for deer culling, which is currently prohibited. The proposed city budget includes $75,000 for deer management, which would be eligible for reimbursement by Onondaga County. City officials are concerned about the spread of Lyme Disease. Deer are the primary hosts for ticks that carry the disease. Large concentrations of deer can also destroy vegetation and cause vehicle accidents. The tick and deer population in the city presents a real threat to peoples health and safety. We need to work together now as a community to take action, Walsh said. Nader Maroun, a former East Side city councilor who has worked on the issue for a decade, said that after much delay the city appears to be taking action. Its a breakthrough, he said. At a special Common Council meeting today on deer and tick management, wildlife biologist Brian Underwood told councilors that the citys deer population has grown for decades and cant be reduced quickly. Deer are especially numerous on the East Side, but they are common throughout the city. This is going to take a concerted, long-term effort to resolve, said Underwood, who works at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. The good news is, you can. This is definitely a solvable problem. Fifth District Councilor Joe Driscoll, who chaired todays meeting, said the council will hold at least two more sessions in late May and early June to hear from constituents on the issue. Walsh has not finalized the makeup of his advisory group yet, said Greg Loh, director of city initiatives. The group will submit a plan that will be reviewed by the city council and by Onondaga Countys deer management advisory committee. Onondaga County agreed in 2016 to reimburse municipalities for county-approved deer and tick management. Each municipality is free to devise its own plan, said Travis Glazier, director of the county Office of Environment. Its really a reflection of the tolerance of the community there, and how they want to address this issue, Glazier said. Because a big part of the issue is dealing with deer, and that can have a very personal feeling for residents. To the east of Syracuse, the village of Fayetteville and the town of DeWitt have both introduced deer culling by federal sharpshooters to reduce their deer populations. The venison is processed and delivered to the Food Bank of Central New York. The Syracuse Common Council passed an ordinance in 2017 that authorized the use of firearms by experts to cull deer in the city. But the same ordinance prohibited culling on city property or within 1,000 feet of a school or day care facility, effectively making a culling program impractical. Recent regulations from the state Department of Environmental Conservation prohibit baiting deer within 300 feet of a public road or shooting guns within 500 feet of a structure, further limiting options in urban areas. Walsh said he and Councilor Driscoll will propose an amendment to allow deer management on city property. WASHINGTON Navy veteran Francis Conole, who comes from a prominent Democratic family in Syracuse, plans to announce Monday that he will seek the partys nomination to challenge Rep. John Katko in the 2020 election. Conole, 40, of Syracuse, told Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard that he will file as a candidate Monday with the Federal Election Commission in Washington, allowing him to raise money for a potential Democratic primary election. The Iraq war veteran said he left a job as a senior intelligence officer for the Department of Defense and moved back to Syracuse this month, where he plans to campaign full-time for Congress. Ive been pretty much serving my entire life and fighting for what I believe are American values at home and abroad, Conole said in an interview. I thought it was time to fight for the needs of families in Central New York. This is my home. My family has lived here going on four generations. He said his campaign will focus on under-served people living in poverty, protecting the Affordable Care Act from Republican efforts to repeal it, and lowering the federal deficit. He plans to advocate for more investment in education, job training, healthcare and green energy. Conole will be the second Democrat and military veteran to launch a campaign for Congress in the 24th Congressional District. Roger Misso, a Navy veteran from Red Creek in Wayne County, declared his candidacy April 3 after moving from Washington, D.C. to Syracuse. A third Democrat, Dana Balter, plans to announce her decision about entering the 2020 race at an event open to the public 6 p.m. Tuesday at the PressRoom Pub, 220 Herald Place, Syracuse. Balter, 43, of Syracuse, won the Democratic primary election in 2018 but lost the November election to Katko, R-Camillus, by about 5 percentage points. It was the closest a Democrat has come to defeating Katko in three elections. Conole will try to become only the second Democrat in 40 years to win the Syracuse-based congressional seat, hoping to blaze a trail similar to that of his late grandfather, former Onondaga County Sheriff Patrick Packy Corbett. Corbett is the first and only Democrat elected to the sheriffs post in the countys history. He died in 1987 after serving as sheriff from 1964 to 1978. The Onondaga County Justice Center was named after him when it opened in 1995. Conole, aware of the history of the congressional seat, said he met earlier this year with former Rep. Dan Maffei, the Democrat who served two non-consecutive terms representing Central New York after winning the 2008 and 2012 elections. Conole also met with Balter to inform her of his decision to run for Congress, even if that means the two will meet in a Democratic primary election. In Washington, Conole spent the last two years on the staff of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, serving as a policy adviser for the Middle East, focusing on Jordan, Lebanon and Israel. The Westvale native graduated from Westhill High School in 1996 and the U.S. Naval Academy in 2001, three months before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He served two tours of active duty, one on the destroyer USS Carney in the Middle East, and the other on a helicopter carrier, the USS Wasp. He also deployed with Army Special Forces to Iraq. After leaving active duty to become a senior Navy intelligence analyst, he volunteered to be activated Dec. 1, 2008, to play a key role in Barack Obamas first inauguration. As assistant officer in charge of assembly for the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee, Conole helped organize more than 13,000 military and civilian marchers in the inauguration parade in Washington, D.C. Conole now serves as a commander in the Navy Reserves, keeping a family tradition of service in the Armed Forces, law enforcement, teaching and social work. He is the son of Bill Conole and Patricia Corbett Conole of Skaneateles. Bill Conole is a retired Army colonel who worked as a health administrator in Central New York. Patricia Corbett Conole is a teacher and former contributing writer for The Post-Standard, where she wrote the House of the Week feature. New Yorks 24th Congressional District covers all of Onondaga, Cayuga and Wayne counties, and the western half of Oswego County. Contact Mark Weiner: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751 Democrats and Republicans in the New York Senate joined forces Monday to unveil a bill that would provide free college tuition for the families of any New York military member killed or disabled in the line of duty. The bipartisan bill comes less than a week after Assembly Democrats blocked similar legislation proposed by Republicans, setting off calls from both sides of the aisle to find common ground on the issue. Assembly Democrats had criticized the bill last week for coming up outside of the state budget process. The GOP bill would have changed an existing state scholarship program that offers tuition aid to children, spouses and financial dependents of military members killed or disabled in combat zones. The change would have provided free SUNY tuition to family of military members killed or disabled anywhere in the line of duty, including training accidents in the U.S. or overseas. Some Democrats had criticized the bill as too loosely defining what constitutes a death or injury for military members conducting official duties. Sens. John Brooks, D-Long Island, and Robert Ortt, R-North Tonawanda, the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Veterans, Homeland Security and Military Affairs Committee, unveiled a compromise bill Monday. Their bill, co-sponsored by 10 Democrats and eight Republicans, would become effective April 1, 2020 allowing the state Legislature to provided funding in next years budget process. The extra time would allow lawmakers to better estimate the additional costs that would be added to the MERIT scholarship program. The legislation also would address concerns raised by Veterans of Foreign Wars leaders about the definition of what official duties would be covered by the law, according to a spokesman for Brooks. Would that cover a member of the military who died at a desk job? Under the bill, the commissioner of the state Department of Education would be asked to propose rules about what military duties qualify surviving family members for free tuition. Any proposed rules would be subject to hearings and public review. Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, D-Brooklyn, is expected to introduce a companion bill in the Assembly. After the GOP bill was blocked last week in the Assembly Higher Education Committee, political leaders across the political spectrum called for New York lawmakers to reconsider the issue. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he would support the bill outside of the budget process because, We have a moral obligation, a social obligation to help those families who lost their provider, their loved one, in service to this nation. President Donald Trump weighed in on the issue late Friday night with a tweet. In New York State, Democrats blocked a Bill expanding College Tuition for Gold Star families after approving aid for illegal immigrants, Trump tweeted. No wonder so many people are leaving N.Y. Very Sad! Contact Mark Weiner: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751 SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) Pete Buttigieg, the little-known Indiana mayor who has risen to prominence in the early stages of the 2020 Democratic presidential race, made his official campaign entrance Sunday by claiming the mantle of a youthful generation ready to reshape the country. "I recognize the audacity of doing this as a Midwestern millennial mayor," he said to cheers of "Pete, Pete, Pete" from an audience assembled in a former Studebaker auto plant. "More than a little bold, at age 37, to seek the highest office in the land." In the hours after his announcement, more than $1 million in donations poured in, said Lis Smith, speaking for the campaign. The South Bend mayor, a Rhodes scholar and Afghanistan War veteran who has been essentially campaigning since January, has joined a dozen-plus rivals vying to take on President Donald Trump. "The forces of change in our country today are tectonic," he said. "Forces that help to explain what made this current presidency even possible. That's why, this time, it's not just about winning an election it's about winning an era." Buttigieg will return this week to Iowa and New Hampshire, which hold the nation's first nominating contests, to campaign as a full-fledged candidate now being taken more seriously. Over the past few months, Buttigieg has appeared frequently on national TV news and talk shows and developed a strong social media following with his message that the country needs "a new generation of leadership." Buttigieg's poll numbers have climbed. Some polls put him behind only Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who sought the party's nomination in 2016, and former Vice President Joe Biden, who has not yet said he's running. Buttigieg's campaign has raised more than $7 million in the first three months of this year, a total eclipsed by Sanders' leading $18 million but more than Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Cory Booker of New Jersey. "Right now, it's pretty fun," Buttigieg told The Associated Press last month while visiting South Carolina , where he was met by larger-than-expected crowds. His challenge is finding a way to sustain the momentum over the long term and avoiding becoming a "flavor-of-the-month" candidate. Scrutiny of his leadership in South Bend has increased, as has his criticism of Vice President Mike Pence , who was Indiana's governor when Buttigieg was in his first term as mayor. Buttigieg would be the first openly gay nominee of a major presidential party; he married his husband, Chasten, last year. He would be the first mayor to go directly to the White House. And he would be the youngest person to become president, turning 39 the day before the next inauguration, on Jan. 20, 2021. Theodore Roosevelt was 42 when he took office, while John F. Kennedy was 43 and Bill Clinton 46. The campaign kickoff speech echoed themes that have resonated with voters during Buttigieg's exploratory phase. He talks often about how political decisions shape people's lives, including his own from serving as a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve in 2014, to being able to marry his husband and to not having to worry about how to pay for his father's hospital bills after his father's death this year. Buttigieg also says the best way for Democrats to defeat Trump may be to nominate a mayor experienced in helping to revive a Midwestern city once described as "dying," rather than a politician who has spent years "marinating" in Washington. He has criticized Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again," saying the way to move the country forward is not to look backward or cling to an old way of life. "There's a myth being sold to industrial and rural communities: the myth that we can stop the clock and turn it back," he said. "It comes from people who think the only way to reach communities like ours is through resentment and nostalgia, selling an impossible promise of returning to a bygone era that was never as great as advertised to begin with." South Bend, which neighbors the University of Notre Dame, was hit hard by the decline of manufacturing, dating to the 1963 closing of the Studebaker auto plant that costs thousands of residents their jobs. The hulking, dilapidated factory loomed over the city for much of the past 60 years as what Buttigieg called a daily reminder of South Bend's city's past. Partially remodeled, it's now a mixed-use technology center outside downtown and the setting for Bettigieg's announcement. The South Bend fire marshal's office said the rally drew over 4,500 inside and 1,500 outside. A steady stream of raindrops fell on speakers on the stage through the leaky roof. "I like that he's young," said Tom Lacy, a 62-year-old retiree who came from Peoria, Illinois, for the event with his wife, Candy, on their 35th wedding anniversary. "He's so relatable. He doesn't seem like a politician to me." Lacy said: "The contrast between him and our current president is unbelievable." Nausher Ahmad Sial, a 68-year-old developer from South Bend, said "we need to try new blood." Sial, who came to the U.S. from Pakistan 35 years ago, said he has worked with Buttigieg on development projects in the city and described the mayor as a very honest, very fair guy. Australia Issues Ruling On Hybrid Mismatch Rules by Mary Swire, Tax-News.com, Hong Kong 15 April 2019 The Australian Taxation Office has opened a consultation on a draft Law Companion Ruling on the targeted integrity rule that will apply under the new hybrid mismatch regime. The LCR has been developed to provide guidance to taxpayers regarding the Tax Commissioner's interpretation of the hybrid mismatch targeted integrity rule in subdivision 832-J of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997. The hybrid mismatch rules aim to prevent multinational companies from gaining an unfair competitive advantage by avoiding income tax or obtaining double tax benefits through arrangements that exploit differences in the tax treatment of an entity or instrument under the laws of two or more jurisdictions. Subject to some exceptions, the rules generally apply to certain payments made after January 1, 2019, and to income years commencing on or after January 1, 2019. The integrity rule seeks to prevent offshore multinationals from effectively replicating a hybrid mismatch outcome by routing financing into Australia through an interposed entity in a no- or low-tax (10 percent or less) jurisdiction. When applicable, the rule will deny the borrower's entitlement to a deduction for the cost of funding owed to the interposed foreign entity. The consultation on the draft LCR will close on May 10. Dutch Beneficial Ownership Register Effective 2020 by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels 15 April 2019 The Dutch Government has confirmed that a registry of ultimate beneficial owners of companies will enter into force in the Netherlands from January 2020. Legislation to implement the UBO register was submitted to the lower house of parliament on April 4, 2019, following advice from the Council of State, the Ministry confirmed. The purpose of the register is to combat financial and economic crime, such as tax evasion, money laundering and terrorist financing, by increasing transparency about who ultimately owns a corporate entity, the Ministry said. Certain information about company owners held on the register will be accessible by the public. However, the law is said to include privacy safeguards for company owners who feel they may be put at risk of intimidation, violence, and other threats by having their details publicized. The UBO register will become part of the Dutch trade registry, and will therefore fall under the management of the Chamber of Commerce, the Ministry said. European Union member states are required to introduce centralized databases of ultimate beneficial owners of companies under European Directive 2015/849 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for money laundering or terrorist financing, otherwise known as the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive. France May Cut Tax In Response To Protests by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels 15 April 2019 French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has said that France should prioritize tax cuts following the conclusion of a three-month national consultation on the Government's economic and tax policies. After being presented with the findings of the "Great Debate," commenced in December following weeks of protests against certain tax measures, Philippe said on April 8 that "we need to lower taxes and lower them faster." While Philippe did not announce any specific tax proposals, it has emerged from the consultations that taxpayers are most opposed to high rates of income tax and value-added tax. The "gilets jaunes" protests, which began towards the end of 2018, initially began in response to the Government's plans to raise taxes on petrol and diesel from January 2019 to help achieve France's carbon reduction targets. However, they quickly escalated into a general protest against the direction of the Government's economic policies. In December 2018, the Government announced that the fuel tax hikes would be suspended for at least six months, with Philippe acknowledging at the time that taxpayers' discontent runs deeper that there are long-standing grievances harbored by French taxpayers about social injustice in the tax system for workers. According to a report published by Eurostat, the European Union's statistical office, in November 2018, France had the highest tax burden in the EU in 2017, with a tax revenue to GDP ratio of 48.4 percent. Vietnam Announces Corporate Tax Breaks For SMEs by Mary Swire, Tax-News.com, Hong Kong 15 April 2019 Vietnam's Ministry of Finance has forwarded a proposal to parliament to legislate for corporate tax relief for small and medium sized enterprises. The proposal would involve the introduction of a 17 percent corporate income tax rate (down from 20 percent) for those businesses with an annual turnover of between VND3bn (USD129,000) and not more than VND50bn in the preceding year, providing also that they have no more than 100 employees. A lower rate of 15 percent would be introduced for those businesses with turnover below this threshold in the preceding year providing they employ no more than 10 people. The proposal would also provide a two-year corporate tax holiday to newly started businesses, subject to certain conditions. Certain businesses and income would be excluded from the scope of the reduced corporate tax rates, including real estate income, mining and other natural resources companies, investments in various projects, and foreign production and business activities. In brief: Password managers are becoming an increasingly important tool in the fight against hackers, helping reduce incidents where the same credentials are re-used across multiple websites. Their popularity has led to government officials demanding the login details of suspected criminals, but companies such as LastPass wont, and usually cant, hand them over. A recent report by Forbes highlights a case in which the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) demanded that LogMeIn, owner of LastPass, hand over logins, physical IP addresses, and communications of customer Stephan Caamano, who is charged with trafficking a counterfeit drug and money laundering. LastPass never gave up his login details, but it did give the DEA the IP addresses Caamano used, while also revealing the date his account was created and when it was last used. Such information allows investigators to understand the geographic and chronological context of LastPass access, use, and events relating to the crime under investigation, explained the application for the search warrant. The Champaign, Illinois, resident allegedly trafficked large quantities of pills containing alprazolam, which is sold under the trade name Xanax, according to the indictment. One of his customers said they ordered the drug from a Reddit user called Googleplex, who was also active on Dream Market, the dark web marketplace where everything from heroin to stolen financial data can be purchased. When arrested on May 29, officials discovered the LastPass extension on Caamanos PC, leading to the demand for his login details from LogMeIn. A spokesperson for the company explained why the request could not be fulfilled: User passwords stored on LogMeIn's servers are only done so in an encrypted format. The only way they get decrypted is on the users side, and the way that happensthe decryption keyis the users master password (used to log into LastPass), which is never received by or available to LogMeIn/LastPass. In other words, we have no means of decrypting user password information on our side, and thus, we are unable to provide these passwords. Other password managers also make it difficult, if not impossible, for government agencies to access user information, though we dont know if this is true of every service. Make sure to read the full Forbes article here. Whoops! Lyft's electric bikes for rent have front brakes that are working really well, so well in fact such that customers have nearly flipped their bikes over. For safety reasons, approximately 3,000 bikes have been pulled from rental pools while awaiting repairs. Electrically assisted bikes deployed by Lyft in San Francisco, Washington D.C., and New York are in the process of being replaced due to user complaints over strong front brakes. Electric bikes remaining on docks are temporarily unable to be rented while awaiting maintenance. Lyft has numerous brands operating its bike sharing programs. In New York, Citi Bike is what you will find. Washington D.C. has Capital Bikeshare, while the Bay Area of San Francisco has Ford GoBike. According to company officials, Lyft is almost ready to launch a new electric bike for short term rentals. However, fixing around 3,000 existing bikes to prevent customer injuries may lead to additional checks on the new bikes before introducing a new model. A company statement was shared with customers on Sunday regarding the braking issue. "We recently received a small number of reports from riders who experienced stronger than expected braking force on the front wheel." Spokeswoman Julie Wood for Citi Bike declared, "After a small number of reports and out of an abundance of caution, we are proactively pausing our electric bikes from service." Even though this is a minor setback for Lyft and all of its bike sharing operators, fixes should not take all that long to implement. After all, these are just souped up bicycles with an added paywall. The big picture: After 45 years at the helm, Foxconn founder and Chairman Terry Gou is finally ready to hand the reins over to a younger generation. The 68-year-old owns 9.4 percent of Foxconn and is the richest person in Taiwan with a net worth of $7.6 billion, a fortune that'll ensure a comfortable lifestyle in his golden years. Foxconn founder and Chairman Terry Gou on Monday announced intentions to step back from daily operations in the coming months, paving the way for younger executives to move up the corporate ladder. Im already 69 years old, Gou said at an event in Taipei. I can pass down my 45 years of experience. Thats the goal I set up - to let young people learn sooner and take over sooner and to replace my position sooner. Gou started Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., better known as Foxconn, in 1974 and initially made plastic parts for televisions. Today, Foxconn is the largest private employer in Taiwan and the worlds biggest contract manufacturer. The company assembles products for Apple, Microsoft and Sony, among other tech giants. Foxconns founder is the latest in a growing list of top-level executives to announce retirement plans in recent memory. Last September, Alibaba Group co-founder Jack Ma said he aims to do so later this year. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) founder Morris Chang retired last June. Gou intends to discuss his plans with Foxconns board and reveal definitive plans to shareholders in June. Lead image courtesy Koki Nagahama, Getty Images. Israels Beresheet spacecraft may have crashed on the moon, but SpaceIL is not yet ready to throw in the towel. Planning for Israels second lunar spacecraft is already underway. Beresheet 2.0 Just days after Beresheet crashed on the moon, the SpaceIL teams spirits are already up again. In a video statement on Twitter, the president of SpaceIL, Morris Kahn, announced that they are going to build another spacecraft and complete the mission. The team will work on the project immediately, and in fact, meetings to plan the new endeavor are already scheduled. Project Beresheet 2 begins tomorrow, he says in the video. According to Kahn, the decision to build another spacecraft came because of all the support that they got from all over the world. Khan, a South African-born billionaire, largely funded the original mission, covering about 40 percent of the $ 100-million project. Israel Aerospace Industries, which was SpaceILs partner on Beresheet, is also willing to be a part of the new endeavor. Beresheet Mission Originally, the SpaceIL team was one of the Google Lunar XPrize finalists, and the team continued work on the project even after the competition had ended without announcing a winner. The hope was that Beresheet would be the worlds first privately funded mission to the moon, and to become the fourth nation to touch down on the moons surface. With all the teams efforts, Israel became the seventh nation to put a probe in orbit around the moon. Unfortunately, Beresheet experienced a glitch while it was descending, and it crashed. Despite this, the teams spirits have not been dampened, and XPrize still awarded them the $1 million Moonshot Award since they were still able to touch the moon. Furthermore, even if the team was unable to land perfectly on the moon, they still achieved Beresheets main goals of advancing Israels space program and generating young childrens interest in science, engineering, technology, and math. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A 3-month-old baby from San Antonio, who was born missing skin in some areas of the body, is now in Houston to receive life-saving treatment. Ja'bari Gray, who was born on New Year's Day weighing just 3 pounds, has an extremely rare form of skin disease known as Aplasia Cutis. He was born without skin from the neck down. What Is Aplasia Cutis? The condition is characterized by congenital absence of skin. Most commonly affected parts are the scalp but any location of the body can be affected. "He literally from the neck down, from the front and back nothing, there was no skin and even parts of his legs he had no skin," said the baby's mother, Priscilla Maldonado. It isn't clear what causes Aplasia Cutis, but health experts think many different factors such as genes, trauma, and compromised blood flow to skin, contribute to the condition. Some people who have the condition exhibit no other abnormalities, but there are some who also have congenital malformations that involve the cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and intestinal systems of the body. Ja'bari does have complications. His eyes are fused shut, and while his skin started to grow on its own, his fingers, toes, and neck became fused while he was in the ICU. He also has breathing difficulties because of bent airways. Poor Prognosis Maldonado said that doctors told her there were only two other babies like Ja'bari who have been born in the United States and none of them survived. After spending the child's first three months in San Antonio NICU, the family was advised by doctors to prepare for the worst, but they refused to give up. Insurance Approves Transfer Making things more difficult is they were initially denied transfer to another hospital, where the child could receive better medical treatment. Maldonado was told by the insurance company she was out of network, so the transfer and stay of the baby would not be covered. Maldonado's persistence, however, worked. A day after Medicaid denied the medical transfer, the insurance provider decided to approve it. Maldonado said that she was told doctors there could treat his son's condition. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A cassowary has attacked and killed its owner after the man accidentally fell on his farm in Florida. State wildlife officials said that the victim, 75-year-old Marvin Hajos, appears to be breeding the birds. Cassowary Attacks Suspected Bird Breeder The giant bird killed the man on Friday on his property near Gainesville, possibly using its long, sharp claws. Authorities said the first responders got a call at 10 a.m. Hajos was then rushed to a hospital, but he eventually succumbed to the injury inflicted by the flightless bird. "My understanding is that the gentleman was in the vicinity of the bird and at some point fell. When he fell, he was attacked," Deputy Chief Jeff Taylor said. Sheriff's office spokesman Lt. Brett Rhodenizer said the bird involved in the incident is currently secured on private property. World's Most Dangerous Bird The cassowary stands up to 6 feet tall and weighs up to 130 pounds. It features black body feathers and a distinct blue head and neck. The cassowary is the second heaviest bird in the world. It is also the most dangerous. It has daggerlike claws on its inner toes that can grow up to 4 inches long. A single kick can slice open a potential threat. Escaping an attacking cassowary is no easy feat. The bird may not have the ability to fly like other smaller birds, but it can run up to 31 miles per hour. It can also jump nearly 7 feet into the air and is a good swimmer. The bird is native to Australia and the island of New Guinea, but it is bred in other parts of the globe. Sought After By Exotic Bird Collectors Parts of the cassowaries are eaten in New Guinea, but breeders in the United States do not raise cassowaries for food. This close relative of the emu, however, is sought after by exotic bird collectors. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a food safety alert warning consumers to refrain from eating, serving, or selling pre-cut melon and fruits by Caito Foods. The said pre-cut melon and mixed fruit products are linked to a potential Salmonella Carrau contamination. The fruit products have been sold under several brands or labels by retails stores Amazon/Whole Foods, Kroger, Target, Walmart, and Trader Joe's. The states covered by the product recall are Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Contaminated Fruits Caito Foods has voluntarily recalled its fresh cut watermelon, fresh cut honeydew melon, fresh cut cantaloupe, and fresh cut mixed fruit containing one of these melons, produced at the company's facility in Indianapolis, according to a public service advisory by the U.S. Food and Drugs Administration. The recall advisory said that reports of salmonella infection linked to the fruit products are being investigated by the FDA, CDC, and regulatory officials in affected states. The CDC said that a total of 93 people from nine states have been sickened, 23 of whom were hospitalized. No deaths have been reported. More than half of the patients are female, and majority of those who got infected were adults over 50 years old. The multistate investigation began on April 2, when PulseNet identified the outbreak. PulseNet is the national subtyping network of public health and food regulatory agency laboratories coordinated by the CDC. Public health investigators are using the PulseNet system to identify illnesses that may be part of the Salmonella outbreak. When a foodborne outbreak is detected, health officials assess three types of data together to try to find the likely source of the outbreak: epidemiologic, traceback data, and food and environmental testing. The investigation indicates that pre-cut melon supplied by Caito Foods of Indianapolis, Indiana is the likely source of the multistate outbreak. Focus On Salmonella Carrau According to the CDC, Salmonella Carrau is an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections among young children, frail or elderly people, and individuals with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons that become infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Severe illnesses such as infected aneurysms, arthritis, and endocarditis can occur in rare circumstances of Salmonella infection when the organism gets into the bloodstream of an infected person. Caito Foods has temporarily suspended producing and distributing these products as the company and the FDA continue their investigations. How To Dispose Recalled Food? CDC advises the public to throw out the recalled food and other foods that came in contact with it. Put the food in a sealed bag in the garbage. If the food was stored in a reusable container, make sure to thoroughly wash the container with hot, soapy water before reusing. If the recalled food was stored in the refrigerator, empty and clean the refrigerator to avoid contamination of other food. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Madagascar is facing its largest measles outbreak in history with over 115,000 cases. Parents want to vaccinate their children, but they lack resources, and many people are too poor to afford vaccines. From a previous death toll of more than 900 in February, deaths due to measles have now risen to over 1,200, according to a recent report. "The epidemic unfortunately continues to expand in size though" at a slower pace than a month ago, said Dr. Dossou Vincent Sodjinou, a World Health Organization epidemiologist in Madagascar. Since the start of the outbreak in September 2018, Madagascar has launched a nationwide mass vaccination campaign and surveillance in an attempt to bring the outbreak under control. An emergency response has vaccinated 2.2 million people out of the 26 million population, with majority of those who received vaccines were children. As of mid-March, the public health ministry reported 117,075 cases affecting all regions of the country, with the highest cases recorded in Analamanga and Boeny. The outbreak has also spread to densely populated urban cities including Toamasina, Mahajanga, Antsirabe, Toliara, and the capital city Antananarivo. Measles Outbreak Exacerbated By Poverty A major factor in the outbreak's spread is low vaccination coverage. More than half or 51 percent of the cases reported during the current outbreak have not been vaccinated or have unknown immunization status. In 2017, only 58 percent of the population on Madagascar's main island have been vaccinated against measles. To prevent the outbreak of infectious diseases, the immunization rate has to be 90 percent or higher. The last vaccination drive was in 2004. Resistance to vaccination is not the cause of low vaccination in Madagascar. Many people simply cannot afford health care services, and public health care facilities are often understaffed or have poorly qualified workers. People are desperate for vaccination due to the increasing deaths. The first vaccination is free as part of the government's emergency response program, but a second-dose booster shot costs $15 at a clinic. This is considered costly for a typical family that survives only on $2 a day. The country is also $3 million short of the $7 million needed to have its entire population vaccinated. Children Are The Most Vulnerable According to WHO, most victims of the outbreak are children aged one to 14. Madagascar accounts for 47 percent or the highest proportion of malnutrition among children under five years old in the African region. This makes children particularly at high risk because malnutrition can increase the risk of serious complications and death from measles infection. Measles can also leave children vulnerable to potentially fatal pneumonia or diarrhea. The circulating genotype for the current measles outbreak in Madagascar is B3, usually found in Africa and Europe. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. All her life, Michelle Myers has spoken in her native American accent. The morning after a severe headache, she mysteriously woke up speaking in a British accent. It's been two years since and the 45-year-old mom from Buckeye, Arizona still hasn't gone back to her original American accent. American Woman Develops British Accent Overnight Myers, who is a former beauty queen, has never even left the United States, which makes her sudden switch to a British accent all the more odd. "Everybody only sees or hears Mary Poppins," Myers tells ABC affiliate KNXV. "They send in the psychiatrist at the hospital and make sure you're not a loon." It's not the first time this has happened to the mother of seven. The first time it happened, she went to bed with a headache and woke up with an Irish accent. The second time it was an Australian accent. Both prior incidents only lasted for a week, but this third occurrence is stretching out indefinitely. What's Going On? Myers' strange tendency of waking up with a completely new accent is actually a case of a rare but legitimate speech disorder known as Foreign Accent Syndrome. According to the University of Texas at Dallas, FAS is often caused by damage to the brain from a stroke or brain injury. Other conditions have also been linked to it such as multiple sclerosis and conversion disorder. In some cases, no clear cause are identified. After Myers' many medical consultations, she's been diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which is a group of disorders affecting the connecting tissue in the skin, bones, and blood vessels, among other organs and tissues, according to the NIH website. This condition, doctors tell Myers, may have turned her accent British. Multiple cases of FAS have been recorded all over the world with patients switching accents from Japanese to Korean, British English to French, American English to British English, and Spanish to Hungarian. Experiencing FAS is difficult, according to Myers, who says that she feels as if she's a different person compared to who she was before she switched to a new accent. More than anything, the Arizonian mother hopes that people who undergo FAS are taken seriously moving forward. "Some people think it's physiological; others think it's psychological," she says in KNXV. "People like me we don't care which one it is. We just really want to be taken seriously and if it is something that's going to hurt me, help me." 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Surprise, surprise. As this "leak" by WinFuture shows, Microsoft's alleged all-digital Xbox One S looks exactly similar to its sibling, save for the lack of a Blu-Ray drive. This should perhaps come as no surprise the design isn't that different because the console isn't that different, either it's still as powerful as the Xbox One S, only it can't accept physical media. At least in European markets, the console would carry a 1 TB hard drive with preinstalled copies of Forza Horizon 3, Minecraft, and Sea of Thieves to keep players occupied as soon as they open their brand-new console. All-Digital Xbox One S There's no telling when Microsoft might unveil its all-digital Xbox One S, but word has it that it could be unveiled as soon as April 16 and reach Europe by May 7. If true, expect a similar time frame for other countries. Prior rumors said it would be cheap, but as per WinFuture, that doesn't seem to be the case. This version would sell for 230, or about $260. Of course, that price point is still alleged, and even if it's true there's always a chance for pricing to change for elsewhere in the world. That's not much of a bargain, but considering there's three games out of the box, it's still a pretty good deal, especially for users who don't care much for having a disc drive. The Disc-Less Generation Will a disc-less home console thrive in this current generation? Very likely. Most people actually prefer digital media over physical ones, as they're less fussy to purchase, easier to access, and, in numerous cases, load faster. Besides the convenience of having digital titles always at the ready, the console is also believed to represent an initial experiment toward all-digital services as Microsoft prepares its next-generation Xbox lineup. If this finds an ample audience, Microsoft might be more willing to embrace a disc-less future. Google's Netflix-like Stadia games subscription service completely erases discs and other physical media out of the picture, the same with other companies' planned streaming services. While it's too early to declare physical media dead, it's clear it's the future Microsoft is willing to welcome. The only downside to this is players wouldn't be able to re-sell digital games or let other friends borrow them, as they can with physical media. Make sure to check back with Tech Times as we learn more about Microsoft's plans for the all-digital Xbox One S. In the meantime, if you have any thoughts, feel free to sound them off in the comments section below! 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. OPELOUSAS Digital evidence presented Monday places 21-year-old Holden Matthews at the scene of all three fires he is accused of setting, investigators and St. Landry Parish prosecutors said. Louisiana State Fire Marshal H. Butch Browning, testifying at Matthews arraignment and bail hearing in the St. Landry Parish District Courthouse, said photos and videos from the churches were pulled from Matthews cell phone. They were taken at the scenes of the three fires as the fires were starting and before and after emergency responders were on scene. Photos also show Matthews returned to the scenes of the fires days later, when the churches were reduced to rubble, Browning testified. Browning said agents found copies of news reports discussing the fire on Matthews cell phone that he altered to take responsibility for the crimes. He superimposed himself on these news reports claiming responsibility for these fires, he said. He also said investigators found a roughly 10 second video of Matthews discussing church fires in St. Landry Parish with a friend. Matthews said gasoline was the best method to use to burn a church. Time stamps from the video indicated it was taken before the fires were committed, Browning said. Prosecutors upgraded the charges against Matthews to include three Louisiana hate crime counts. Matthews is now being charged with two counts of simple arson of a religious building, one count of aggravated arson of a religious building and three hate crime counts relative to his motive behind the arsons. The hate crime charges specifically referenced the crimes being committed because of the actual or perceived race, age, gender, religion, color, creed, disability, sexual orientation, national origin, or ancestry of the owner, or owners, or occupant or occupants of that property or because of actual or perceived membership or service in, or employment with an organization. The upgraded aggravated arson charge stemmed from the immediate danger posed to residents who were sleeping in a home 15 feet from the Greater Union Baptist Church as it burned, Browning said. He said the homes siding adjacent to the church caught fire as a result of the blaze, and firefighters had to take extraordinary measures to prevent the home from catching fire. The two residents were evacuated, he said. Matthews appeared in court via video conference at 9 a.m. Monday, where he was formally arraigned and entered a plea of not guilty for all charges. District Judge James Doherty denied him bail, saying the weight of the evidence presented and the seriousness of the charges made Matthews a continued risk. There is a substantial amount of evidence, it appears, Doherty said. Matthews is charged in a string of arsons that destroyed three predominantly black Baptist churches in St. Landry Parish in a 10-day span. The first was St. Mary Baptist Church in Port Barre on March 26; followed by Greater Union Baptist Church in Opelousas on April 2; and finally Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Opelousas on April 4. +20 After St. Landry church burnings, governor tells congregations they are an 'example of faith' Even after learning more about the person accused of setting fire to their churches, displaced pastors and congregations in St. Landry Parish A trial date has been set for September, with a pre-trial hearing scheduled for July 17. Jury selection will take place Sept. 10 and 17. Browning also elaborated more on the physical evidence previously discussed in the crimes. He said investigators found a black Bic lighter and a pack of red oil rags in Matthews truck, matching the ones agents determined Matthews purchased from a Walmart hours before the first fire. Several of the rags were missing from the package, and remnants of matching rags had been found at the scenes of the fires, Browning said. Agents also confirmed gasoline was the accelerant used in each of the three blazes, he said. Matthews association with black metal music was also a topic of discussion at Mondays hearing. Investigators and officials have frequently cited this association as a point of interest when discussing the case. The Scandinavian subgenre has been linked to church burnings in Norway in the 1990s. One of the genre's most notorious figures, Norwegian bass player Varg Vikernes of the band Mayhem, was arrested and accused of setting the string of church fires, as well as killing one of his bandmates. Top stories in Acadiana in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Browning said Matthews bedroom was littered with posters, signs and devices mimicking elements from the film Lords of Chaos, a semi-fictionalized biopic released this year detailing Mayhems criminal acts during the early 1990s. He also had a replica of the torch the films subjects used to set the church fires in Norway. The fire marshal said Matthews also suggested to FBI investigators the film may have been a reason the churches were burned, though he didnt admit to committing the arsons himself. Browning said the film was not referenced in the interview prior to Matthews own suggestions. Other connections to the film included text messages between Matthews and a friend where the individual asked Matthews, Was that your work? regarding the fires. Browning said the messages mimicked communications in the film. Finally, Matthews made comments on a Facebook post inspired by the film where commenters were asked to select their class from a set of options including wizard, fighter, sniper, assassin, guardian or warrior. Matthews commented, Ill take the arson/assassin/bard. Browning noted arson was not a category listed on the Facebook post. When arguing for Judge Doherty to deny bail, prosecutor Charles Cravins, the chief administrative officer for the DAs office, said the severity of the evidence and the charges make Matthews a flight risk. That risk could increase if federal charges are added, he said. Browning said its possible the Federal Bureau of Investigation will bring federal hate crime charges and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives may bring federal arson charges. Im being told that its a big possibility at this time, he said. Browning also said he believes Matthews poses a continued risk to community safety. These three fires were done in a very deliberate and violent manner, Browning said. Browning said he believes Matthews behavior is reminiscent of a pathological arsonist and it would be impossible to ensure he wouldnt set more fires while out on bail. He said in his experience, arsonists dont stop setting fires. They continue to set fires and they become larger in nature, more tragic in nature and can even become deadly, Browning said. Matthews court appointed attorney, Quincy Cawthorne, argued his client didnt have the financial means to flee the parish if released on bail. He also challenged Brownings focus on the film Lords of Chaos, questioning if Browning had personally watched the entire film. He said he had not but coordinated with investigators who had. Matthews parents, Roy and Angela Matthews, were seated front row at the hearing, only a couple seats away from St. Landry Parish District Attorney Earl Taylor. They were visibly distressed and during a recess both broke down in tears and stepped into a personnel anteroom off the main chamber. Angela Matthews stared at the floor for most of the hearing as Roy Matthews wrung his hands. Browning, Taylor and Cravins each stopped for a moment to speak to the couple during the recess. Can't see video below? Click here. Even after learning more about the person accused of setting fire to their churches, displaced pastors and congregations in St. Landry Parish have focused on love, forgiveness and celebration. Those themes were on full display again Sunday afternoon as Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards led a unity service at Little Zion Baptist Church in Opelousas. "Hate is not a Louisiana value," Edwards told the congregation. "We will not be measured by what happened here in this community by the acts of that young man, but we will be measured rather by how we respond, which is what we're doing today. It's what we'll be doing for the next several weeks and several months. Hate is not a Louisiana value, so I'm just going to ask you to continue to spread that light into the world." Edwards was received with a standing ovation before and after his sermon-like address to the congregation. He was even declared an honorary pastor at the end of the service. "You all in this community and in these congregations have provided an example of faith for me that inspires me and an example for the state of Louisiana," Edwards said. "And I've had a lot of people reach out and tell me especially since Thursday just how inspired they have been by this community, and I wanted to be sure you know that." On Thursday, Edwards and investigators held a news conference to discuss the arrest of Holden Matthews, 21, who is accused in the string of arsons that destroyed three predominately black Baptist churches in St. Landry Parish in a 10-day span. The first was St. Mary Baptist Church in Port Barre on March 26, followed by Greater Union Baptist Church in Opelousas on April 2 and finally Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Opelousas on April 4. Can't see video below? Click here. The three targeted churches have been active in the community for more than 100 years, and families worshiped in the buildings for generations. Congregants at several churches said theyve never worshiped anywhere else, and theyre struggling to grasp that a source of solace and constancy in their lives is gone. Top stories in Acadiana in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up "I think even with everything that was going on and was done to these churches in the fires, we can still come together and forgive our brother," said Chantelle Sylvester, who attended Sunday's service. "We're just staying unified in faith." Sylvester has been a member of St. Mary Baptist Church for five years, and she said she felt mixed emotions over the arrest of Matthews. "I felt a sense of relief just because of the unknown being resolved," Sylvester said. "But I also feel sadness for his parents, his relatives, his family for what they have to go through with it as well." Celina Richard, who has been a member of Greater Union Missionary Baptist Church for 53 years, said she also felt mixed emotions over Matthews' arrest. "I was happy someone was caught, but I was sad because of what the individual had done," Richard said. "We need to pray, not only for ourselves, not only for our city, not only for our state, but we need to pray for these young people all over the world. We have missed the mark somewhere, and we need to correct our mistake because that one individual could spark a fire in others, and we don't ever want that to happen." +2 Want to help 3 burned St. Landry churches? Giles Automotive will match community donations up to $50K Giles Automotive on Friday announce the start of its 30 day Giles Gives Back campaign to help raise money for the three St. Landry Parish Chur Officials said they have yet to determine Matthews' motivation, but Louisiana Fire Marshal H. "Butch" Browning said Matthews was associated with a type of music called "black metal," which is "associated with church burnings." Browning also received a standing ovation during Sunday's service for his work in the arson investigation. "I was very humbled, but it's really about everybody who worked on this case as a team," Browning said after the service. "It's very uplifting for me and all the investigators to see this sense of spirituality and sense of forgiveness in this community." Louisiana is behind most other states in terms of having people create living wills and assigning someone to serve as their health care power of attorney in case they become unable to speak for themselves in a medical crisis. Gov. John Bel Edwards is pushing for a sweeping change in public high schools by allowing every junior and senior to take two college courses, free of charge and starting next year. "It's a chance for students to get real college experience before they get there," Edwards said in his opening address to the Legislature on April 8. The changes are spelled out in legislation Senate Bill 194 that is expected to undergo significant changes amid continuing talks. Whether the overhaul wins final approval by June 6 depends on all the parties reaching a nearly historic agreement among high schools, the state Board of Regents, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, two- and four-year colleges, superintendents and school board members statewide. "I understand there is heartburn," said Commissioner of Higher Education Kim Hunter Reed, who has been spearheading the effort for weeks. "But we can at least get to a consensus on some of this work." +2 Here's what could change under new rules for Louisiana students earning college credit in high school After a timeout in August, the Louisiana Board of Regents is set Monday to consider tightening the rules on how high school students can earn The program is called dual enrollment, which allows high schools students to earn both high school and college credit. But the current setup is plagued by a wide range of problems and is widely regarded as under-performing. The courses are viewed by some as reserved for well-to-do students headed for college anyway. Why aren't more Louisiana high school students earning college credit? 'The answer is money' It seems like a no brainer high school students earning up to a year of college credit, which means big savings for students, families and t Access to the classes varies from district to district, and even school to school. Some students pay nothing. Some pay $250 for a course. Students in cities, and those close to two- or four-year schools, have easier access than those in rural areas. Those pursuing industry credentials often feel left out. Less than 1 in 4 high school students take a course at all, even at a time when less than half of high school seniors take a full course load. Black students make up nearly half of the high school population but only one-fifth of those in dual enrollment. More Louisiana high school students are taking college courses, but access still uneven Although the number of public high school students taking college courses is up 60 percent, barely 1 in 5 of those enrolled are black students. "We want to level the playing field for students," Reed said. Senate Education Committee Chairman Blade Morrish, R-Jennings, made the same point. "It is not a level playing field," Morrish said. "There are those that don't know about all the opportunities." The governor wants to set up a "framework" that paves the way for every qualified high school junior and senior around 90,000 students to take two college courses each year starting in fall 2020. The state Board of Regents, BESE and the state Department of Education are supposed to coordinate the overhaul. Under the draft bill, they are to oversee the training of teachers a longtime stumbling block course content, eligibility, pricing, the development of a dual enrollment website and other issues. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up "We are going to generate some sort of clearinghouse, if you will, for all the programs," Morrish said. However, the legislation is expected to undergo heavy revisions before the first debate, including during a gathering of superintendents in Ruston on Tuesday. "It is an extremely fluid process that we are going through," Morrish said. Said Donald Songy, the governor's education policy adviser, "It is not something you can do overnight." About 23% of eligible students were taking dual enrollment classes during the last snapshot, officials said. Dual enrollment? The rules are changing The Louisiana Board of Regents on Monday approved new rules governing how high school students earn college credit. Funding comes from a variety of sources, including $17.5 million through a program called supplemental course allocation and parts of $9.5 million in another fund can be used for dual enrollment, according to the state Department of Education. What it would cost to ensure that every high school junior and senior could take two college classes is unclear, as well as where the money will come from. "The financing is always a challenge," Reed said. Mike Faulk, executive director of the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents and a key figure in the talks, said financing is uneven. "It varies from school district to school district," Faulk said. "You have some that are putting up enormous amounts of money, some of them are limited in their resources," he added. Some high schools have pricing and other arrangements with two- and four-year colleges. Said Reed, "The problem is some kids know about it and they are participating; some kids know about it but cannot afford it because if is out of pocket." "Right now the pricing is all over the place," she said. Faulk said the key to making the governor's proposal reality, and winning legislative approval, is getting buy-in from all the parties. "You have to craft something, get people's feedback on that and fine-tune it a little before actually implementing it," he said. Former state Rep. Chris Broadwater, vice president of workforce policy for the Louisiana Community and Technical College System, is a longtime proponent of dual enrollment. Broadwater said Edwards' plan has the potential to spur more interest in college, like what happened when Louisiana started requiring all high school seniors to take the ACT, which measures college readiness. "What is often found is that it becomes the chance for students who historically have never believed college was an option for them to have a chance to see that they are perfectly capable of succeeding in post-secondary education," Broadwater said. Broadwater, a former member of the House Education Committee when he served in the Legislature for seven years, said he thinks the overhaul can win approval during the eight-week session. "And it is important enough that it is worth the effort in order to get it done on that time frame," he said. Powerful storms swept across the South on Sunday after unleashing suspected tornadoes and flooding that killed at least eight people, injured dozens and flattened much of a Texas town. Three children, including one in Louisiana, were among the dead. Nearly 90,000 customers were without electricity in Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Georgia as of midday Sunday, according to www.poweroutage.us as the severe weather left a trail of destruction. Deputy Glenn Springfield of the Ouachita Parish Sheriff's Department said Sunday that two people died in floodwaters Saturday. He says 13-year-old Sebastian Omar Martinez died during flash flooding in the community of Bawcomville, near Monroe. Responders pulled him from a drainage canal. Several hours later, a person died in a submerged vehicle near Interstate 20 in Calhoun. Two children were killed on a back road in East Texas when a pine tree fell onto the car in which they were riding in a severe thunderstorm Saturday near Pollok, about 150 miles (241 kilometers) southeast of Dallas. The tree "flattened the car like a pancake," said Capt. Alton Lenderman of the Angelina County Sheriff's Office. The children, ages 8 and 3, were dead at the scene, while both parents, who were in the front seat, escaped injury, he said. Severe Weather Robert Scott looks through a family Bible that he pulled out of the rubble Sunday, April 14, 2019, from his Seely Drive home outside of Hamilt At least one person was killed and about two dozen others were injured after a suspected tornado struck the Caddo Mounds State Historic Site in East Texas during a Native American cultural event in Alto, about 130 miles (209 kilometers) southeast of Dallas. Cherokee County Judge Chris Davis said the fatality that was reported was of a woman who died of her critical injuries. In neighboring Houston County, the sheriff's office said one person was killed in Weches, 6 miles southwest of Caddo Mound. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up There was widespread damage in Alto, a town of about 1,200, and the school district canceled classes until its buildings can be deemed safe. A tornado flattened much of the south side of Franklin, Texas, overturning mobile homes and damaging other residences, said Robertson County Sheriff Gerald Yezak. Franklin is about 125 miles (200 kilometers) south of Dallas. The weather service said preliminary information showed an EF-3 tornado touched down with winds of 140 mph (225.3 kph). Severe Weather Sandra Cotten of Flora, Miss., looks at her uprooted 100-year old oak tree that now lies across her yard and two streets, Sunday, April 14, 20 It destroyed 55 homes, a church, four businesses, a duplex, and part of the local housing authority building, authorities said. Two people were hospitalized for injuries that were not thought to be life-threatening, while others were treated at the scene, Yezak said. Some people had to be extricated from damaged dwellings. Heavy rains and storms raked Mississippi into the night Saturday as the storms moved east. Roy Ratliff, 95, died after a tree crashed onto his trailer in northeastern Mississippi, Monroe County Road Manager Sonny Clay said at a news conference, adding that a tornado had struck. Nineteen residents were taken to hospitals, including two in critical condition. A tornado was reported in the area 140 miles (225 kilometers) southeast of Memphis, Tennessee, at the time. As the storm moved into Alabama, a possible tornado knocked out power and damaged mobile homes in Troy, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Montgomery. Near the Birmingham suburb of Hueytown, a county employee died after being struck by a vehicle while he was helping clear away trees about 2:15 a.m. Sunday, said Capt. David Agee of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. The man, whose name was not immediately released, died after being taken to a hospital. Betsy Ross's family Bible sits at the lab of the Conservation Center for Arts and Historic Artifacts in the Rittenhouse neighborhood of Philadelphia on Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2019. (Heather Khalifa/Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS) ORG XMIT: 1270694 Purchases made via links on our site may earn us an affiliate commission Wings anchor this operation, but baskets of thick golden-fried chicken tenders and cornmeal flour-battered catfish and shrimp make for substantial and tasty meals. A Perth insurance broker who stole nearly $200,000 from clients over six years has been sentenced to jail. While working at Phoenix Insurance Brokers broker and director Sergio Amaranti was found guilty of dishonest conduct after he diverted 51 client refunds, totalling $199,391, to his personal accounts from 2009 to 2015. ASIC were happy with the conviction. Credit:Louie Douvis The refunds were owed to 35 Phoenix clients for insurance policy cancellations and adjustments. He was found out when another Phoenix employee noticed a discrepency between the account a refund was paid into and the client's account. Shortly after Mr Amaranti confessed to Phoenix's managing director. Yoshihisa Kainuma has made a career out of being in the right place at the right time. In 2015, the head of Japan's Minebea Mitsumi was on a bullet train heading to a city northwest of Tokyo when he realised the chief of a potential acquisition target was onboard. He texted over his seat number and, during a one-hour ride, convinced his counterpart to sell his $US500 million ($696 million) company. Japan's "king of deals": Yoshihisa Kainuma. Credit:Bloomberg "We grabbed the 6A and 6B seats and hashed it out on our way to Karuizawa," Kainuma said during an interview at the company's Tokyo headquarters. Three months later, he closed the purchase of Nintendo supplier Mitsumi Electric, leading to a surge in profits when the Switch console was introduced. Decades of similarly well-timed deals have kept Minebea riding each big wave in technology -- from hard disks to smartphones and game consoles. The company, dubbed the 'King of Deals' in local media, has grown from a small ball-bearing manufacturer on the outskirts of Tokyo to a key player in the tech industry's global supply chain. London: The woman who took on Australian industry super fund-backed investment vehicle IFM for sexual harassment has been paid 270,000 ($492,000), with the firm opting to settle less than a week out from a second legal hearing of the case. Nathalie Abildgaard claims she was sexually harassed by an IFM executive in Madrid in March 2018. Nathalie Abildgaard, 27, alleged that Frederic Michel-Verdier, the head of IFM's London office, invited her to his hotel room after a work celebration in Spain last year. The Central London Employment Tribunal heard in January, that the 50-year old told her: "I know more about sex. I can teach you a lot of things." He denies harassing her and the settlement does not include any sort of apology. He is still employed by IFM. The settlement amount exceeds the 236,000 requested in her original court claim and some of it will go towards her charity, Legal Aid for Business Diversity, which she established to help victims of workplace discrimination. High profile WA Liberal senator and senior minister Mathias Cormann will spend the entire federal election campaign in Queensland. Senator Cormann, whose six-year term in the upper house will not expire until 2022, will be "minister-in-residence" at the Coalition campaign headquarters in Brisbane. WA Liberal senator and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann with Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton in Queensland on Sunday. Credit:AAP Image/Mick Tsikas For the campaign's six weeks, Senator Cormann will be embedded in the Coalition's campaign policy unit. He has also been making regular television appearances as a campaign spokesman and has declined invitations to attend events hosted by WA community groups. The Andrews Labor governments $1 million intervention into the federal election should be investigated by Victorias corruption watchdog, according to the state opposition. The Victorian Liberals want the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission to investigate four top public servants the opposition says are responsible for allowing the state governments $1 million ad campaign against Scott Morrisons government to go ahead. Opposition Leader Michael O'Brian. Credit:Justin McManus Premier Daniel Andrews and federal Labor Leader Bill Shorten co-ordinated their announcements on Sunday of a stepped-up attack on the Morrison government, which Labor accuses of cutting $2.6 billion from the nations hospitals. Labors national campaign will be supported by the Victorian government ad blitz on TV, radio, newspapers and social media, telling voters in the key battleground state that the Morrison government has short-changed their hospitals by $305 million, with more pain to come. Tim Briercliffe, Secretary General at the International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH), visits the park pavilions at the Beijing Expo 2019, April 13, 2019. (Photo provided by Beijing World Horticultural Expo Coordination Bureau) The Beijing International Horticultural Exhibition, or Beijing Expo 2019, opened to its first batch of visitors on a trial basis two weeks ahead of the official opening, Chinanews.com reported on April 14. Almost 30,000 visitors, mainly local citizens, arrived at the Expo park in Yanqing district of Beijing on April 13. A total of 30 electric powered cars and 555 volunteers from local colleges and youth league committees participated in the trial operation. Tim Briercliffe, Secretary General at the International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH), was among the visitors. During his visit, he praised the organization of the event, adding that he was impressed that preparations for the Beijing expo 2019 were progressing smoothly. Visitors wander outside the iconic International Pavilion of Beijing Expo 2019. (Photo provided by Beijing World Horticultural Expo Coordination Bureau) The Expo park will become a sightseeing destination after it opens, Briercliffe noted. The overall construction has now been completed, according to the Beijing World Horticultural Expo Coordination Bureau. A person in charge said that more than 4,000 members of staff in 12 working groups took part in the construction of the event, and about 2,000 volunteers from Beijing universities will join when it opens to the public. An alleged drink-driver charged with causing the death of his 17-year-old front-seat passenger, possibly also suffered a fractured spine, cracked ribs and a head wound, a Melbourne court has heard. Brandon Phongthaihong, 21, was allegedly driving a Mazda hatchback with four passengers on board when it crashed into a tree at Tootgarook on the Mornington Peninsula about 1.15am on Friday. A teenager died and four other young man were injured after a car hit a tree on the Mornington Peninsula last week. Credit:ninevms A 17-year-old McCrae boy died at the scene, while two 17-year-olds from Capel Sound and McCrae are fighting for life in hospital. A fourth youth, also 17, remains in a stable condition. A Melbourne man facing a raft of offences including sexual assault, attempted rape, trespass with a knife and unlawful imprisonment wants to transfer prison so he can be visited by his church. Mordialloc man Richard Souleymane Bangoura, 36, faced Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday, when it was revealed he suffered leg pain due to an issue with his left hip joint and problems with a nerve running down his leg. His lawyer added he had flagged mental health issues and was recently visited in jail by a psychiatric nurse. The court was also told Bangoura was being treated for pain twice a day and wanted to be transferred to Ravenhall prison so he could be visited by representatives from his church. Bangoura has been charged with two counts of attempted rape, two counts of sexual penetration without consent, trespass with a knife with intent to assault, assault with a knife, unlawful imprisonment, threatening to inflict serious injury and stalking on November 2 last year. A man who allegedly tried to hand himself into police only to find the local station locked up has been charged with murder after a body was found in Gisborne. Police say the body of a 61-year-old Gisborne man was discovered at a house on Rodney Street in Gisborne about 6.30pm on Sunday. Detectives from the homicide squad charged a Gisborne man with murder on Monday night. Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt said the alleged killer had to press an intercom button that took him through to Kyneton Police more than 30 kilometres away. Mr Gatt said the incident highlighted how a shortage of resources in the Macedon Ranges Police Service area was increasingly putting police and the public in danger. If the government doesnt can it altogether, the project could be a decade old by the time it's finished. Imagine how many of your tax dollars have been spent paying people to work on this plan. Melbournes equivalent plan was completed in about four years and has been in effect since 2013. Planning with the lights off Residents battled to save Crown land, classified Bush Forever, in Point Peron from being developed into a canal housing estate. The Swan Coastal Plain was already 71 per cent cleared of natural vegetation by 2014, to accommodate the present Perth and Peel population of 2.1 million. With a forecast of 3.5 million people by 2050, a plan is needed if we want to prevent total clearing. Currently, when a development is being considered, planners have no way of knowing how precious the bush being cleared is, in relation to how much is left. There is no monitoring of clearing approvals in Perth. The Green Growth Plan plan aimed to solve this, and for the first time bring together state Bush Forever protections and national endangered species protections in an overarching planning document, while simultaneously addressing things both national and state policies missed. It was intended to dovetail with the Perth and Peel@3.5 million planning frameworks. Effectively, all urban and mine developments would have got upfront environmental approvals without having to jump through the hoops they do currently. The principle behind it was a hierarchy: avoid mitigate offset. That is, avoid bush if possible; if not, mitigate damage if possible; if not, pay money for environmental works or conservation elsewhere. Residents of Nedlands, as well as the Mayor, attempted to save a patch of bush in Shenton Park from being bulldozed for a Landcorp housing development. It was aimed to allow developers to look at a plan, pull up a set of maps, and know which bits of bush were locked, which bits could be developed and what offsets they might need to pay. It would have saved the expense of assessing individual sites on a micro level. Without the plan we are valuing it blindly and giving environmental approvals blindly, too. Currently, a listed threatened species being found on their land means chaos and costs for a developer. Community groups get upset and begin campaigning. This plan aimed not just to identify what areas should be conserved, but also what action was needed to properly look after the conserved bits. The offsets were intended to generate revenue that could be used to manage land. Finally, after much consultation, the draft came out for public comment in 2015. The maps locked in clearing of nearly 40,000 hectares of habitat including endangered banksia woodland, and pine forest providing food for black cockatoos. But it also made broad commitments such as keeping 2600 hectares of habitat in a strategic retention layer and bold recommendations like limiting urban sprawl north of Perth. Why stop at the final hurdle? The draft was highly controversial with environmental groups, because it locked in the loss of so much habitat something likely to happen anyway, but confronting when laid out. The retention of large areas of bushland rather than smaller areas is more logical from a conservation standpoint, but is confronting for people who value the amenity of small patches of natural bush in urban settings. The Urban Bushland Council said the draft cast doubt over the future of Bush Forever sites, was over-reliant on offset plantings and would not protect Perths green corridors. Major green groups joined forces in October 2017 to ask for a major review. Loading The plan was also controversial with some parts of the development industry, which ironically, given the viewpoints above, viewed it as an environment grab. The Urban Development Institute of Australia WA gave dire warnings of a range of economic and social impacts for land development and new home buyers. No-one was happy, but this in itself is not necessarily a sign that the project was not worthwhile. Other planners thought it was a worthwhile project. They envisaged the offsets revenue going into an independent body, with non-government organisations, friends groups and traditional owners able to bid for funding for restoration projects. But the governments (former and current) didnt communicate this vision. Its a dry and difficult subject and the draft itself was criticised for being opaque. WAtoday understands a team of four public servants was working through a huge number of public comments, and had done a lot of work on the revisions. But a revised draft was never released, though a public servant reportedly inadvertently let slip in March 2017 that the government was also thinking of limiting development south-west of Perth. Shortly after, in early April the government quietly published an update on its websites that it would suspend work on the document pending a review. Residents trying to save a Bayswater wetland from being subdivided for a housing development. It appointed an independent four-member panel to undertake the review over the next six months, promising even more consultation. The review was to make recommendations to Deputy Premier Roger Cook about merit, risks, benefits, alternatives and costs. At the one-year mark the government says the initial review identified three critical gateway issues regarding legal risk, flexibility and funding, and the government had extended the review. It had asked for a supplementary report, due mid-2019, and would then make a final decision. Pushing through the pain barrier This government inherited the Perth and Peel @3.5 million planning frameworks, also half-finished, from the previous government, but those it managed to complete. So why not do the same with their intended partner, the Green Growth Plan? Why couldnt they push through the pain barrier? Isnt any plan for Perths bush better than no plan, and eight wasted years? Loading Police have laid further charges after an investigation into illegal animal activist activity at WA farms, with a 25-year-old man to face a Perth court later this month on seven charges. Last week, police announced the arrest of six people accused of breaking into seven farms, and on two occasions stealing animals. It comes less than a week after dozens of vegan activists were arrested following nationwide protests, as farmers called for tougher penalties for those trespassing on their properties. The WA arrests follow nationwide animal activist protest last week The four women and two men arrested in WA were charged after an investigation into activist group Direct Action Everywhere after the arrest and conviction of one of its members in February. Pocket knives, syringes, screwdrivers and even credit card knives were among more than 1400 weapons seized off people at WA's two main court buildings last year. The WA Police Union says the amount of weapons seized backs up their calls for officers to be fully armed in court buildings. Thirty syringes were confiscated at WA courts last year. Credit:Louie Douvis New figures supplied to WAtoday by the Department of Justice show 1415 unauthorised items were confiscated from people entering the WA District Court and Perth Magistrates Court last year. The long list of seized items included: A retired police detective and a vegan bodybuilder will enter the NSW Parliament as new MPs for One Nation and the Animal Justice Party respectively, after results for the upper house were finalised more than three weeks after the state election. A Facebook image of newly-elected Animal Justice MP Emma Hurst. Rod Roberts, a former police sergeant from Goulburn, became the second One Nation MP elected to the Legislative Council at last month's state election after he scraped into the 21st and final seat after preferences were distributed on Monday. Mr Roberts, who retired from the NSW police force in 2000 and now runs a small business in workplace safety, said he was "nervous and excited" about his new political career. A self-described former Liberal voter, Mr Roberts said he joined One Nation because he believed the Liberal Party "have moved away from their core values". Beijing: A Chinese court has ordered a media company to pay nearly $US30,000 ($41,849) to a real estate developer after it published an article that suggested a flashy building in Beijing violated the ancient laws of feng shui and would bring misfortune to its occupants. The Chaoyang District People's Court in Beijing ruled on Wednesday that the media company, Zhuhai Shengun Internet Technology, had damaged the reputation of the building's developers, SOHO China, one of the largest real estate companies in China. SOHO China sued Zhuhai Shengun last fall after it published a critical blog post about the Wangjing SOHO, a trio of sleek towers in northeast Beijing designed by renowned architect Zaha Hadid. Zaha Hadid's Wangjing SOHO building in Beijing. The post, written by a feng shui expert, argued that the building had a "heart-piercing" and "noxious" energy that had led to the downfall of its tenants, including several promising technology start-ups. Helsinki: Voters in Finland handed Prime Minister Juha Sipila's Centre Party a crushing defeat in parliamentary elections Sunday, while the populist-nationalist Finns Party and left-leaning parties scored gains. "It is clear that we have lost and I want to congratulate those who won," Sipila said, noting his party was "the biggest loser". Sipila's centre-right coalition had in office pledged a major shakeup of the health and welfare system, a reform that has been debated for over a decade. The government's plan failed to clear legislative hurdles. Austerity measures that affected pensioners, students and the unemployed also weighed on the ruling coalition's support. "I tell you solemnly tonight: We will rebuild this cathedral," he vowed. "Notre-Dame of Paris is our history," Macron continued, emphasising the structure's unique place in the national imagination. "The epicentre of our lives. It's the many books, the paintings, those that belong to all French men and French women, even those who've never come." The cathedral had been undergoing a badly needed renovation after decades of deterioration due to pollution, acid rain and the ravages of time. Officials said they were considering the blaze an accident relating to the construction. The Paris prosecutor's office opened an investigation. There were no deaths, but a firefighter was reportedly badly injured. The fire began in the early evening, just minutes after the building closed to tourists. Yellow clouds of smoke billowed into an otherwise perfect blue sky and orange flames assaulted the belfry. At twilight, a gaping hole could be seen where the enormous vaulted roof once had been. Flames continued to lick the night sky as an impromptu chorus in the streets below somberly sang "Ave Maria", some members falling to their knees. The heat of the fire could be felt from across the River Seine as firefighters frantically pumped water from cranes and sought to save the priceless works stored and displayed within. A firefighter tackles the blaze as flames and smoke rise from Notre-Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris. Credit:AP Initial reports in the French press suggested that many of those pieces had already been removed last week during the renovations, and Finot said that the cathedral's collection of sacred items, kept in the sacristy, were likely unharmed. "Normally there is no risk of things being burned," he said. Officials later confirmed that two of the cathedral's most precious relics survived the flames: a tunic worn by Saint Louis, a 13th-century French king, and the crown of thorns that Jesus Christ is said to have worn before his crucifixion. Loading The rest of the city seemed to stand still as the fire raged, with thousands of passersby watching from the streets below. Many were in tears, looking on in stunned silence. Some filmed the scenes on smartphones and broadcast them across the globe. Worldwide, the destruction triggered an outpouring of emotion, with people posting family photos to social media showcasing visits to a building that was constructed and refined over centuries but burned within hours. The building, the cornerstone of which was laid in 1163, is the most visited monument in Paris, with more than 12 million people coming each year - nearly double the people who visit the Eiffel Tower. Its intricate stone gargoyles, spires, stained glass and flying buttresses have made it one of the great masterpieces of architecture. The cathedral is both a literal and figurative centre of the city: it anchors the Ile de la Cite, the island in the Seine where the first settlements emerged that eventually became the city of Paris. The common distinctions of "Left Bank" and "Right Bank" are in reference to this island. Until Monday night, Notre-Dame had managed to withstand both the elements and the vicissitudes of history that left their mark elsewhere in the French capital: the French Revolution, the Paris Commune, two world wars and Adolf Hitler's demolition plans in 1944. Pope Francis issued a statement late on Monday expressing the Vatican's "shock and sadness" at "the news of the terrible fire that devastated the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, a symbol of Christianity in France and in the world". "We express closeness to the French Catholics and the people of Paris and we assure our prayers for the firemen and those who are doing everything possible to face this dramatic situation," the statement read. "I do not have a strong enough word to express the pain that I feel," tweeted Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo. Later, after visiting the cathedral's interior late on Monday, the mayor told reporters that the damage had not been as bad as she initially feared. Many of those gathered at the base of the cathedral on Monday were tourists and pilgrims visiting for Easter holidays. Others were local, there to pay their respects. "I came because we live in Paris and because, well, last week we were all there, having a drink on the steps of the cathedral, enjoying the beautiful flowers in the garden," said Fatima Marie, a 35-year-old Parisian. "We thought it would be better to be here among friends." Donia Hammami, 35, a trade expert, ran to the scene from her nearby gym when she saw the reports of the blaze. She was in tears in the crowd, watching the cathedral burn. "For me, this has been an inspiration for so many other churches in Europe," Hammami said. "It's been here for all those ages." "This is a historic moment for all of us, in the worst possible sense of the term," she added. Flames and smoke rise from Notre-Dame Cathedral as it burns in Paris. Credit:AP Europe is full of historic structures that have been rebuilt following damage during both war and peacetime. But experts despaired that the loss to Notre-Dame was incalculable and unrecoverable. "It's not just the medieval features," tweeted Kate Wiles, a scholar at King's College London. "It's a palimpsest of work and rework, and building and rebuilding, and we've lost all those layers. It's not just the 'original' masterpiece we're losing, but the culmination of some 900 years of history, which can't just be rebuilt." The spire that collapsed on Monday is not an original component of the cathedral. It was added in the 19th century, when tastes veered toward a Gothic revival, by the architect Eugene Viollet-le-Duc. The gargoyles - immortalised in Victor Hugo's classic novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame - were likewise added in the 19th century. Throughout French cultural history, Notre-Dame has served as a powerful symbol of Paris and of France's cultural heritage. The writer Anatole France once described it as "heavy as a hippopotamus" but "light as a butterfly". The painter Marc Chagall depicted it in his canvasses, distorted in dream-like haze. President Donald Trump tweeted his advice to Paris on Monday: "So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!" Firefighters use hoses as Notre-Dame Cathedral burns in Paris. Credit:AP French fire services tweeted in apparent reply that "dropping water by plane on this type of building could result in the collapse of the entire structure". Francois-Henri Pinault, the chairman and chief executive officer of international luxury group Kering, which owns brands like Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, and Alexander McQueen, has pledged 100 million euros ($158m) towards rebuilding Notre-Dame, according to a statement. Notre-Dame Cathedral burning in Paris. Credit:AP Although there was no evidence of a connection, France has seen a number of attacks on Catholic churches in the past year, including arson and vandalism. Paris's Church of St Sulpice was set on fire after midday Mass last month. No one was injured. Police are investigating, but firefighters attributed the blaze to arson. The possibility that foul play had been the cause of the Notre-Dame fire was on the minds of some of those who watched on Monday evening as the cathedral burned. The fall of the central spire - toppling amid an inferno - added resonance to the comparison to another tragic blue-sky day nearly 18 years ago. "I was in New York on 9/11 and this reminds me of that," said Donna Calhoun, 57, a professor of mathematics from Boise who is on sabbatical at the Sorbonne. The expressions of solidarity, too, were similar to the ones voiced in September 2001, even if this time there were no deaths and apparently no malicious intent. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the cathedral a "symbol of France and our European culture". British Prime Minister Theresa May said her thoughts were with the French people and emergency services fighting the "terrible blaze". Prime Minister Scott Morrison expressed concern for the fire and predicted it would be rebuilt. Australia's ambassador to France, Brendan Berne, tweeted: "Our hearts go out to our French friends in the face of this terrible tragedy. Notre-Dame belongs to all who love France - we are with you." One of France's most treasured buildings, Notre Dame, was on fire on Monday afternoon, local time. Credit:AP Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull tweeted that Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten should create a fund to help restore the iconic cathedral. ICRC has confirmed the positive sighting. It said the search for Akavi and the two Syrians had consumed the ICRC for more than five years. "At times, we've felt Louisa's freedom was close at hand," said director of operations Dominik Stillhart. "At other times, the trail seemed lost." Stillhart said Akavi had been held longer than anyone in the 156-year history of the ICRC. A US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighter stands on a rooftop overlooking Baghouz, Syria, after the SDF declared the area free of Islamic State militants last month. Credit:AP "It is emotionally wrenching that a person so dedicated to helping others would have her freedom taken from her for so long." He confirmed that in the first years of Akavi's captivity, in late 2013 and 2014, the ICRC was in active communication with the Islamic State group. "We were not able to persuade them to release her and that communication fell off." It knew that Louisa was moved around a lot, including to Raqqa. "A breakthrough for us came in late 2017, with the beginning of the end of [Islamic States'] broad control of territory, when people fled that region. "We spoke with people in IDP camps in Iraq who had been treated by Louisa in Syria. From this we understood that she had been in places like al-Susah and al-Bukamal (aka Abu Kamal) in late 2018, close to the Syrian-Iraqi border near the Euphrates River, the last concrete information we have on her whereabouts." Loading But when IS was finally overrun there was no sign of her. Akavi's remarkable story began October 2013, when she was abducted at gunpoint on a medical run for the Red Cross in Northern Syria. She was passed from one militant group to the next before being held hostage alongside other Westerners used as bargaining chips in IS's brutal propaganda war. Highly-informed sources spoken to by Stuff over many years have confirmed it was likely Akavi's nursing skills that kept her alive, because of her usefulness to IS as it came under heavy attack on the run from US and coalition forces. Akavi is a veteran of the frontline and has served in countless other conflicts including Iraq and Chechnya, where she survived a hospital massacre that left a fellow Kiwi nurse dead. Loading Akavi was taken hostage by armed gunmen who ambushed her medical convoy. There were public appeals for her return by the ICRC, but while others taken hostage in the same incident were later released, she remained in captivity. The ICRC says it does not know why the others were released, but not Akavi or the two Syrians. In 2014, Akavi came agonisingly close to rescue she was one of a number of Western hostages missed by only hours by US special forces in a raid to free them. Over the following years she was moved multiple times. For a long period with no sightings or fresh intelligence New Zealand authorities believed she may have been killed. But Stuff was told before the fall of Raqqa in 2017 that there was renewed confidence she was alive. Like with other hostages, there were attempts to seek a ransom in the early stages of her captivity and proof of life was offered. But both the New Zealand Government and the ICRC have a firm policy against paying ransoms. Nurse's close ties to American captive International media reports over the years have alluded to the Kiwi nurse, including her time sharing a cell with US hostage Kayla Mueller, a young aid worker, reported killed in 2015. Mueller suffered brutal treatment at the hands of her keepers, including rape and torture. One report suggested Mueller gave up her chance to escape her captors to look after the New Zealand nurse, who had shrapnel wounds and deteriorating health. That report was based on interviews with a young Yazidi girl who shared a cell with Mueller. Sources suggested to Stuff at various times that this is also what New Zealand authorities believe, though there are conflicting accounts. Mueller's parents, Carl and Marsha, have told Stuff that other hostages relayed stories that suggested a special bond between the two while they were held together in Raqqa. Kayla had at one point tried to protect the older nurse, who was sick and wounded. When the pair were split up, Mueller begged that she be moved with Akavi but their captors refused and Akavi was kept behind to work in the hospital treating IS wounded. Five years of trying For years, successive governments have tried to locate Akavi and there were hopes of a rescue mission. Stuff has been told about at least one aborted rescue attempt, though there may have been others. Stuff has also learned through sources that at some point in Akavi's captivity, New Zealand military and intelligence personnel were placed on the ground with coalition forces in neighbouring Iraq to gather information and look for opportunities for a rescue. At various times the "NZ Inc" team included soldiers from the elite SAS force, key GCSB and Security Intelligence Service personnel and police, in a Ministry of Foreign Affairs-led operation. They remained there for the final battle for Baghuz and Stuff has confirmed some were relocated to a displaced persons camps in Syria, where it was believed Akavi might end up amid the chaos of a mass exodus from the heavy fighting and bombing. They were on the lookout for Akavi and also any intelligence about her whereabouts. Their cover was lifted when Kiwi jihadi Mark Taylor revealed he had been interviewed by intelligence personnel after surrendering to Kurdish forces. Stuff has confirmed they wanted to know if he had come across the Kiwi nurse. He told them he had no knowledge of her. The last known sighting of Akavi was December or January, when she was picked out of a line up of photographs shown to some of the tens of thousands who had fled before the final battle. Stuff has been told that people were asked to pick her face out of a number of photographs of similar looking women, then asked to pick her out again, using a different pack of photographs. The fact that people successfully did so meant there was a high degree of confidence that she was still alive and nursing IS wounded as Baghuz came under heavy fire But then there was silence. In mid-April there was a surge of optimism when reports came through suggesting a woman matching Akavi's description had been spotted in a displaced persons' camp outside of Baghuz surrounded by IS sympathisers. But those hopes were dashed when it turned out she was an Iraqi woman. Fading hope Over the following days as Baghuz and surrounding tunnels were cleared it became clear that Akavi was no longer there. Intelligence services officials briefed the Government on April 10 that Akavi's status was now "under review" meaning they could no longer be sure she was alive. Her family were asked to attend a meeting at the Beehive on April 11 and given that information. The family were also told it looked increasingly likely that the story could soon become public, and to prepare themselves for that moment. NZ Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters spoke to the family at that meeting and told them they should pray for her. There has never been 100 per cent certainty about Akavi's survival. There were long periods without any news and some senior level sources spoken to by Stuff expressed doubt that some sightings were her. The woman believed to be Akavi had worn a burqa and went by several Arabic names as well, so mistaken identity was a possibility. In February, however, there were fresh reports of a New Zealand hostage after Britain's security minister, Ben Wallace, confirmed British journalist John Cantlie, also a hostage for more than five years, was still alive. Other international media reports also referred to a New Zealand hostage a nurse who was also alive and being used as a bargaining chip by IS in return for safe passage from the village of Baghuz, where a group of die hard fanatics were making their last stand. Those reports did not surface in NZbecause of agreements by New Zealand media not to put Akavi at risk. IS prisoners and family members spoken to after they fled the encircled town had confirmed three hostages Cantlie, the New Zealander, and an Italian Priest, Paolo Dall'Oglio, 64 were being held there, according to The Times. None of them have been sighted since the fall of Baghuz, however, raising several possibilities. Jason and Marnie Dyck believe every child should get to experience the great outdoors. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/4/2019 (976 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Jason and Marnie Dyck believe every child should get to experience the great outdoors. The couple, who live in Carey, west of St Pierre, have created a new non-profit organization called Enabled Outdoors that aims to turn that belief into reality. The organization allows children of all ages who live with a mental or physical disability, life-threatening illness, or financial hardship to participate in guided, accessible outdoor adventures. "If nobody is going to give the kids the opportunity, theyll never be able to go out and do these things," Jason, an experienced outdoorsman and self-employed outfitter, explained. "Its enabling the kids, giving them an opportunity. Thats the key there: you have to have the opportunity." The Dycks, who have two children, Coleman (14) and Kymber (12), are currently hard at work planning and fundraising for the organizations first three events: fishing in Lac du Bonnet on June 25, an ATV ride in Woodridge on July 6, and camping in St Malo Provincial Park the weekend of July 27-28. All of the events are free for participating families. Children can be referred by a support organization or registered by their parent or guardian. No prior experience is required, and equipment is provided. Jason is also planning to send each child home with a fishing rod or sleeping bag. Seated at their kitchen table last Monday, Jason and Marnie explained the idea for Enabled Outdoors began with a desire to see more special-needs children enjoy the confidence-building opportunities that Coleman, who lives with Down syndrome, has experienced. Since he was a baby, Coleman has gone hunting, fishing, and wildlife-watching with his parents and sister. "Theyve been flying in airplanes and helicopters all over the north," Jason said. Recently, Coleman became the first child with Down syndrome to complete the Manitoba hunter safety course. Settling in Carey after a decade spent running a fishing lodge near Lynn Lake, Jason and Marnie began realizing there were few organizations in Manitoba dedicated to helping special-needs children experience the outdoors. So, in February, at the Manitoba Outdoors Show in Winnipeg, they launched Enabled Outdoors. The response was immediate, with outfitting companies and industry associations from across southern Manitoba offering donations and equipment. A fundraising dinner later this month in St Pierre has sold out, and about 25 children have already registered for the fishing trip. "It just got so much traction," Jason said. "It took off so fast." He and Marnie see the events as a way to help children with unique needs boost their confidence and form lasting friendships. "When we see those kids all together, so comfortable with each other, they realize that they have something in common," Jason said. They also hope parents will build an informal support network as they visit at events. "There are families that are new to this," Jason said. "They think their kids are too fragile to do some of these things. We show them that if you take them out theretheyre not going to break." He likened the learning curve to Coleman and Kymbers first time climbing into a boat or onto an ATV. "Now, they love it. Its all they want to do." The same could be said of Jason himself, who has hunted on four continents. Raised in Grunthal, he has worked as a taxidermist, outfitter, guide, consultant, and magazine writer. A year ago, he landed a job as a television host. Jason Dycks Guide Life is broadcast on Wild TV in Canada and Pursuit Channel in the United States. "Its pretty much the only thing in the outdoor world I havent done yet," he joked. Stay informed The latest updates on the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 delivered to your inbox every weeknight. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. In the off season, he speaks at trade shows and seminars. "Its been my life," he said of the outdoors. "I think theres more to learn being in the outdoors than sitting in your house playing video games and watching TV all the time." Earlier in his career he worked at Kindale Industries in Steinbach, a job that taught him to focus on capabilities, not disabilities. Marnie grew up in Winnipeg, spending her summers in Shoal Lake, a small community northwest of Brandon. She now owns a post-construction cleaning company. The two have hunted mule deer in the Rocky Mountains and caribou in Northwest Territories. As their first Enabled Outdoors event nears, registration numbers grow, and so do equipment needs. Those able to volunteer or contribute boats and fishing equipment can call Jason at 204-392-0475 or Marnie at 204-392-2178. For the first time in her life, Gypsy Rose Blanchard is finally in control. Gypsy became a national true crime sensation when it was revealed in 2015 that she planned the murder of her mother Dee Dee Blanchard with her then-boyfriend after suffering years of medical child abuse. It's been nearly five years and following the release of HBO doco Mommy Dead and Dearest and TV series The Act, the public are still questioning if she's a victim or a villain. And the latest news in Gypsy's odd story: The 27-year-old is engaged. She's even said once that 10 years in prison is "better" than 10 more years under her mother's care. "In some ways they're the same, but now I'm so much more freer," Gypsy said of her life in prison compared to her life with her mother during her 20/20 interview. "The prison I was living in before with my mom, it was like I couldn't walk, I couldn't eat, I couldn't have friends. Over here, I feel like I'm freer in prison than living with my mom. [I can] live like a normal woman." And that includes an engagement. Israel Folau is sticking to his guns no matter what it costs. And he is continuing to place his faith in his religion, despite the outcry on social media. Last week Folau posted to his Instagram account that: hell awaits drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolators adding they should repent. As a result, his future in rugby seems to be over. Its obviously a decision thats in the process right now but I believe in a God thats in control of all things, Folau told the Sydney Morning Herald. Whatever His will is, whether thats to continue playing or not, Im more than happy to do what He wants me to do. Folau said he would not mind one bit if his rugby career was done as long as he got to do The Lords work. First and foremost, I live for God now. Whatever He wants me to do, I believe His plans for me are better than whatever I can think. If thats not to continue on playing, so be it. In saying that, obviously I love playing footy and if it goes down that path Ill definitely miss it. But my faith in Jesus Christ is what comes first. Ge Min, spokesperson for the Washington, D.C. Falun Dafa Association, at a rally commemorating the April 25 appeal in Beijing, in Washington on April 14. (Lisa Fan/The Epoch Times) A Silent Rally Remembers Historic Appeal 20 Years Ago WASHINGTONA silent and peaceful appeal of more than 10,000 people at a sensitive place in China before a sensitive date 20 years ago seized the worlds attention, more so than even some of the loudest or most violent protests in history. Twenty years later, a similarly silent and peaceful rally was held in Washington to express a never-changing message. On April 14, dozens of Falun Gong practitioners gathered in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Falun Gong practitioners appeal on April 25, 1999, in Beijing, which was widely covered by the worlds media as the first large-scale gathering in Beijing after the Tiananmen Square massacre 10 years prior. Washington D.C. Falun Dafa Association spokesperson Ge Min recounted the events from the 1999 event. Ge said Falun Gong practitioners gathered along the streets near the State Appeals Office adjacent to the Zhongnanhai headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on April 25, after 45 fellow practitioners had been illegally arrested in Tianjin. The demonstrators asked for three things: 1. The release of the arrested Falun Gong practitioners; 2. A legal and peaceful environment in which that they could practice without interference or harassment; 3. The legal right to publish Falun Gong books in China. Ge said then-Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji went out to meet personally with Falun Gong practitioners, asked them to select three representatives, then led those three back inside Zhongnanhai for talks. After the day of talks, the arrested Falun Gong practitioners in Tianjin were released, and Falun Gong practitioners who had been waiting quietly and peacefully left quickly in silence. As they left, they picked up any litter, including the cigarette butts thrown on the ground by the police. Ge said the peaceful conclusion of this event shocked the world, and many people praised it as a rational, peaceful, and successful appeal. This appeal had offered the CCP a chance to choose goodwill, said Ge, but the Party instead chose to persecute these people who practice simple qigong exercises and live according to the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. On July 20, 1999, a comprehensive, and most ruthless suppression of Falun Gong was launched. Zhang Tianliang, a doctorate in electronic engineering and an associate professor at Feitian College in New York, was a participant in the 1999 appeal. Addressing the crowd in Washington by phone, he said there has been a lot of propaganda surrounding the historic event, including the claim that the CCP decided to persecute Falun Gong because the practitioners had besieged Zhongnanhai. But in reality, harassment of Falun Gong started as early as 1996, Zhang said. Another qigong group that had around 30 million members also was suppressed, and its members had never besieged Zhongnanhai. Zhang said the reasons for the persecution were that too many people were practicing Falun Gong, and what they believed was different from what the CCP believes. The ultimate purpose of communism is to destroy humankind. Today, Chinese society has become a place where people are racing to the bottom and competing with one another to see who can be more evil, Zhang said. When a society comes to this stage, there is no hope, and this is exactly the result the CCP wants to see. In this context, the 20-year effort by Falun Gong practitioners to end the CCPs persecution is extremely significant, Zhang said. Falun Gong practitioners are guarding the fundamental requirements for society, while suffering persecution and sacrificing themselves. Thats why, Zhang said, the spirit of April 25 is most important and shall be remembered forever. American Airlines Cancels Max Flights Through Mid-August NEW YORKAmerican Airlines announced Sunday that it was canceling 115 flights per day through mid-August because of ongoing problems with the Boeing 737 Max aircraft. The announcement made American the second major carrier to cancel Max flights through the busy summer season. Southwest Airlines, the largest operator of Boeing jets, announced last week that it would cancel its Max flights through Aug. 5. Americans cancellations will last through Aug. 19. The U.S. and other countries grounded Boeings 737 Max plane in mid-March after deadly plane crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia. Boeing aims to finish fixing the planes in late April, and any changes would have to be submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration and foreign regulators for approval. American previously planned to cancel Max flights through early June. But by extending cancellations through the summer, the airline can plan more reliably for the peak travel season, said Doug Parker, Americans chairman and CEO, and Robert Isom, president, in a letter to employees Sunday. Airlines are being forced to ground their planes longer than expected after Boeing and the FAA said the company needs more time to complete changes to a flight-control system suspected of playing a role in the crashes. Americans cancellations represent 1.5% of its total flights each day of the summer. The airline, which has 24 Max jets, said its reservations and sales teams will work with customers to manage their travel plans. American explained on its website that not all flights previously scheduled on a Max would be canceled because the airline plans to substitute other aircraft for some flights. That also means some flights that were not scheduled to take place on a Max plane may be canceled because the airline aims to affect the smallest number of customers. American also said on its website that customers can request a full refund if they choose not to be rebooked. On Twitter, American Airlines passengers posted complaints Sunday about canceled flights impacting vacations, speaking engagements and travel to funerals and noted problems re-booking flights. American canceled 350 out of Dallas-Fort Worth Saturday, but that had nothing to do with the Max, said spokesman Ross Feinsten. The cancellations were caused by hail, thunderstorms and high winds in Dallas followed by snow in Chicago, he said. Were working as hard as possible to rebook customers, Feinstein said. By Cathy Bussewitz Attorney General William Barr testifies before the Senate Appropriations Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, on April 10, 2019. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images) Attorney General to Release Mueller Report on April 18 Attorney General William Barr plans to release the long-awaited final report by special counsel Robert Mueller on April 18, according to the Justice Department. Mueller investigated allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to interfere in the 2016 election. The special counsel concluded there is no evidence of collusion. Department of Justice spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said the report will be released to Congress and the public on the morning of April 18. Barr previously said the report is nearly 400 pages long. Since releasing a top-line summary of the report on March 24, Barr has been working with Mueller to black out portions to protect grand jury testimony, ongoing investigations, sources and methods, and damaging information about people who were not ultimately charged with a crime. The different categories of redactions will be color-coded in the final report, Barr told lawmakers. Throughout the entire duration of Muellers investigation, Trump denounced the probe as a hoax. The president again slammed the investigation moments before the Justice Department revealed the release date for the final report. The Mueller Report, which was written by 18 Angry Democrats who also happen to be Trump Haters (and Clinton Supporters), should have focused on the people who SPIED on my 2016 Campaign, and others who fabricated the whole Russia Hoax, Trump wrote. That is, never forget, the crime since there was no Collusion, why was there an Investigation in the first place! Answer Dirty Cops, Dems and Crooked Hillary! Moments after the department announced its plans for releasing the report, the president went to Twitter to make another attack on Muellers team and deride the Russia Hoax. The Mueller investigation has cast a cloud over the administration; Trump has often called it a politically motivated witch hunt. Mueller ended his 22-month inquiry on March 22, handing Barr a confidential copy of the report. Two days later, Barr summarized Muellers conclusions in a four-page letter. Mueller didnt make a determination on the obstruction charges against the president. Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein examined the evidence presented and determined that its insufficient to bring a case to trial. Trump called Barrs letter a complete exoneration. Barr has been under pressure from Democrats to release the full report, without redactions. Barr, a Trump appointee, has pledged to be as transparent as possible. Since Barr released his letter, Trump has set his sights on the FBI and accused the Obama Justice Department of spying on his campaign. The attorney general told lawmakers he believed that spying on Trumps campaign did occur, and that he plans to investigate whether it was legally justified. I think spying did occur, Barr said. But the question is whether it was adequately predicated. The connection between the Mueller investigation and the allegations of spying is the FBIs counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign, which predated the Mueller probe. The bureau started the investigation as early as July 2016 and handed it over to the special counsel in May 2017. The FBI investigators obtained a spy warrant to monitor former Trump-campaign associate Carter Page. The core of the evidence the bureau used consisted of information from a dossier compiled by a foreign spy and paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Kim and Michele Peoples saw Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Keller Auditorium in Portland, Oregon, on April 14, 2019. (Mary Zhang/The Epoch Times) PORTLANDShen Yun Performing Arts was an eye-opening experience for attorney Kim Peoples and his wife Michele Peoples. They were impressed by the New York-based companys courage to present a different side of Chinaone that the current communist regime is trying to hide. [Shen Yun presents] a dimension of the culture and civilization that I wasnt aware of before, Kim said. I find the performance spectacular. Very enlightening, beautiful production. Kim and Michele saw the performance at the Keller Auditorium in Portland, Oregon, on April 14. Through about 20 vignettes of classical dance, solo musicians, and story-based dances, Shen Yun takes audience members on a journey through Chinas 5,000 years of civilization and history. Shen Yuns mission is to bring back the genuine Chinese culture that was lost after seven decades of communist rule. Many people are surprised to learn from the emcees that a great number of Chinese people are still being persecuted for their faith, despite the communist regimes appearance of modernization and opening up to the West. What they dont know is that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sees traditional Chinese culture, which is deeply rooted in Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism, as its greatest rival. The regime has launched many campaigns to dismantle traditional culture and peoples belief in the divine, and replace it with Mao Zedongs way of thinking and style of discoursea move that has been devastating to the Chinese peoples identity. Michele, who is a teacher and actress, said the piece depicting the real-life persecution in modern China moved her to tears. I tell you, watching the scene with the mother and the daughter and the jail, it just brought me to tears, I had no idea And it was presented in a way that was striking, but at least there was a little more explanation to it after it was done, and so I appreciate that, Michele said. Her husband Kim said he was impressed by Shen Yuns efforts to bring back the culture. I am very impressed that there is an effort to do so. And Im extremely impressed and curious as to how the production can share the information that is prohibited in China, about the communist suppression of the culture, he said. Seeing that genuine Chinese culture was at its brink of being wiped out, a group of overseas artists was determined to bring back everything that truly defined the Chinese people. This was how Shen Yun Performing Arts was born. Kim added that he is concerned that the communist regime could retaliate against the performance for enlightening the West about sensitive issues. I worry that the communist regime will maybe be retaliatory for that enlightenment to the West. I would like to know how the production people feel about that, he said. Since its inception in 2006, Shen Yun has faced challenges due to Chinese embassy interference around the world. Some of these countries include Holland, Denmark, South Korea, Australia, and the United States. In many instances, the Chinese regime has tried to pressure theaters not to lease their space to the performing arts company or pressure them to cancel their shows. The communist regime has even sought to coerce government officials not to attend the performances or voice public support for the company. Meanwhile, Michele said in order to support Shen Yuns efforts, she hopes to come to see Shen Yun again. I think for myself, what I will continue to do to support is to come to these shows and to say how wonderful they are, and what they are preserving and representing, and for other people to support it as well, she said. With reporting by Mary Zhang. The Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time and has covered audience reactions since the companys inception in 2006. Bed Bath & Beyond to Close 40 Stores Bed Bath & Beyond is struggling, and its turnaround plan includes shutting down about 40 locations this year and testing new ideas with lab stores that sell more home decor and food products. Executives said this week that the companys sales are still declining and it lost money last quarter. It expects to shutter more than 40 stores if the company cannot negotiate better lease terms at some locationsbut the company also has plans to open 15 new locations. The company has 1,024 stores in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, and Mexico. CEO Steven Temares told investors during an earnings call last week that Bed Bath & Beyond started experimenting with 21 next-generation lab stores last year, and theyve fared better than other locations. The lab stores have a greater emphasis on home decor, food and beverage, and health and beauty care, Temares said, and different layouts that aim to give shoppers better views of the merchandise. Sales in the experimental stores were 2.2 percent higher than comparable Bed Bath & Beyond stores over the past four weeks, Temares said on Wednesday. Customers spent more and the company earned higher margins. It plans to bring what it learns at those stores to locations across the country. The home goods chain has struggled to compete with traditional retailers such as Walmart and Target, as well as online retailers Amazon ad discounters like TJ Maxx and its HomeGoods arm. On Wednesday, Bed Bath & Beyond said it would nominate a new lead director to its board and revamp its corporate governance structure. It plans to announce additional changes to the board in the future. The group wants Bed Bath & Beyond to trim its product selection and beef up the in-store experience to drive traffic back to stores. Theyre also pressuring the company to improve margins by selling more of its own products. Dissatisfied Activist Group In a press release on March 26 from Bed Bath & Beyond, a response was made to a group of investors referred to as the Activist Group after the groups attempt to replace the entire Bed Bath & Beyond board of directors that includes CEO Temares. Three groups of investors, Legion Partners Asset Management, Macellum Advisors GP, and Ancora Advisors had stated that collectively, they held a 5 percent stake in the company, and motioned to replace the entire board of directors with 16 nominees at the companys annual shareholder meeting. Bed Bath & Beyond regularly engages with our shareholders and welcomes constructive input focused on enhancing value, Bed Bath & Beyond stated in response. Members of our board of directors and senior management team have met with and held several discussions with Legion and Macellum over the past few weeks. Ancora has not previously reached out to or engaged with the company. We asked on several occasions for their suggestions and ideas for improving the companys business but they did not provide any, said the press release. We also invited them to participate in the board refreshment program we have been undertaking in recent years and are in the process of accelerating with investor input. Instead, they chose to publicly attack the company and provide their intent to nominate directors to take over the full board. The press release stated that the board is committed to the best interest of all shareholders and to the companys strategic priorities. The board recognizes the value of fresh perspectives and diversity in the boardroom and regularly evaluates its composition to ensure it reflects the right mix of skills and expertise, said the press release. Notably, as part of the boards ongoing refreshment program, three new independent directors with relevant experience have been added during the last two years. Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond rose as much as 30 percent after the Activist Group called for the change in the board of directors. NTD News reporter Jeremy Sandberg contributed to this report. File Photo: Hundreds of illegal immigrants are apprehended in Texas. Most are families and unaccompanied minors from Central America. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) Border Patrol Union President Says Its Absolutely Legal to Drop Illegals in Sanctuary Cities National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd claimed Sunday that it is absolutely legal for the federal government to transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities. Judd argued during a Fox & Friends segment that President Donald Trumps proposed plan to do just that was brilliant and should have been cheered by people on both sides. WATCH: Its absolutely legal, Judd explained. But Im going to get beaten up by the hard left for this comment. But this is actually a brilliant move on the presidents part. Judd went on to detail the two layers he saw at work in the proposed plan. If hes doing it for humanitarian purposes, he should be praised, Judd began. These are cities that the city councils have consciously made a decision theyre going to accept the illegal aliens into their cities to protect them. But then Judd addressed the flip side, saying, If hes doing it for political reasons, this is brilliant. These people have to be released for one reason or another. And if were going to have to release them, why not show the sanctuary cities the same pressure that other cities are feeling. From those two layers, this is a brilliant move, Judd concluded. Reports surfaced last week that the White House had proposed transporting detained illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities once the legal 20-day detention period had lapsed, but that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had rejected the plan over public relations concerns. Following the public reaction to those reportsparticularly the response from Democrats who suddenly appeared to oppose an influx of illegal immigrants into the cities they touted as welcoming to allTrump has doubled down on the idea, saying that his administration is now seriously considering the option. By Virginia Kruta | Associate Editor Follow Virginia on Twitter Counselor to the President Kelly Conway at the East Room of the White House in Washington on Oct. 12, 2017. (Benjamin Chasteen/The Epoch Times) Charges Dropped Against Woman Accused of Assaulting Conway ROCKVILLE, Md.Prosecutors have dropped a criminal case against a Maryland woman who was charged with assaulting White House counselor Kellyanne Conway during a confrontation last year at a restaurant in a Washington suburb. A trial for Mary Elizabeth Inabinett, 63, of Chevy Chase, was scheduled to start on the morning of April 15 in Montgomery County, Maryland. Instead, a county prosecutor asked a judge to dismiss the charges. Police had charged Inabinett last November with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct. Conway declined to comment on the dismissal. Conway had told police she was attending a birthday party with her teenage daughter at a Mexican restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland, last October when she felt somebody grab her shoulders from behind and shake her. The woman who confronted Conway yelled, Shame on you and other comments believed to be about Conways political views, according to a charging document prepared by Montgomery County police. Conway wasnt injured, the document says. Montgomery County prosecutor Kathy Knight said Inabinett sent Conway a letter apologizing for the incident. She has apologized for choosing this time and place to vent her political views, Knight said. That was inappropriate. Knight noted Inabinett had never been arrested for a crime before. Ramon Korionoff, a spokesman for the Montgomery County States Attorneys Office said dropping the charges is the best resolution for this particular set of circumstances. Maraya Pratt, an attorney for Inabinett, said Monday that she couldnt immediately comment. Another attorney for Inabinett, William Alden McDaniel, Jr., said in a statement in February that his client didnt assault Conway and was merely exercising her right to express her personal opinions about a public figure in a public place. In a CNN interview earlier this year, Conway said she was standing next to her middle school-aged daughter and some of her daughters friends when the woman began shaking her to the point where I thought maybe somebody was hugging me. She said it felt weird and a little aggressive, so she turned around to face the woman. A Maryland states attorneys office says it has dropped charges against a woman accused of assaulting White House aide Kellyanne Conway https://t.co/Czip39t9xx pic.twitter.com/CgGicR8F3A CNN (@CNN) April 15, 2019 She was just unhinged. She was out of control, she said. Her whole face was terror and anger. Conway said she told President Donald Trump about the incident long after it happened. She said Trump asked her, Are you OK? Is your daughter OK? Are the other girls OK? The restaurants manager told police the woman who confronted Conway had to be forcibly removed from the premises. Conway told police the woman yelled and gestured at her for 8 to 10 minutes before she was escorted out of the restaurant. Conways daughter provided officers with a short video clip and photograph of the encounter. by Michael Kunzelman Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos testifies during a Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee discussing proposed budget estimates and justification for FY2020 for the Education Department in Washington on March 28, 2019. (Zach Gibson/Getty Images) Charter Schools Outperform Public Schools: Report Charter schools have outperformed traditional public schools in both cost-effectiveness and return-on-investment (ROI) metrics according to a new report by the University of Arkansas Department of Education Reform. A national team of researchers, as part of The School Choice Demonstration Project, began studying over the course of a few years which type of public school delivered the most academically cost-effective education. The report, publicly released on April 2, examined schools in eight major cities: New York City, Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, San Antonio, and Washington. The authors found that in all eight cities, public charter schools outperform traditional public schools in both math and reading cost-effectiveness. They also were ahead in standardized test scores despite receiving less funding per student. A charter school is a public school that is independently run and receives greater flexibility over operations in exchange for increased performance accountability, according to the National Charter School Research Center. State laws and charter contracts provide schools with autonomy over curriculum, personnel, budget, and schedule. Charter schools, like regular public schools, are not allowed to charge tuition. While their sizes and demographics vary widely, each city has a substantial concentration of students enrolled in charter schools, the authors wrote in an op-ed for the New York Post. In every city, we found that charter schools were more productivethat is, they yielded more learning per education dollar spent than traditional district schools. The authors described how in New York City, students in charter schools scored roughly 12 points in reading on the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for every $1,000 invested in those schools, whereas students enrolled in the citys traditional public schools scored about 9.5 NAEP reading points with the same amount invested. For math, the numbers were similar: More than 13 NAEP points per $1,000 of funding for charters compared to almost 10.5 points for traditional schools, the authors wrote. In Washington and Indianapolis, charters were 67 percent and 65 percent more cost effective than traditional public schools respectively. Charter schools also delivered a greater lifetime ROI in all eight cities. For every dollar invested in a student enrolled in a traditional public school, they secured $4.41 in lifetime earnings. But the same dollar invested in a student from a charter school yielded $6.37 in lifetime earnings, the report found. Public charter schools ROI exceeded that of traditional public schools by an average of 53 percent. Atlanta charter schools yielded an ROI that was 102 percent greater than traditional schools. Indianapolis came in second, with charters ROI 73 percent greater than traditional schools, followed by Washington charters at 58 percent and Boston charters at 53 percent, the authors said. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos recently touted a charter school for soaring into the top academic performing schools in Tennessee. In March, DeVos testified to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services on President Donald Trumps 2020 budget. She said the new budget would increase access to school choice and includes, among other benefits, increased funding for charter schools. Just had a great visit at LEAD Cameron, a public charter middle school with a proven turnaround success story in TN, she wrote on Twitter on April 1. LEAD Cameron has moved from one of the states lowest performing Priority Schools to currently ranking in the top 5% for academic growth. A Chinese coast guard vessel (L) sails near China's oil drilling rig in disputed waters in the South China Sea on May 14, 2014. (HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/Getty Images) China Constructs Its First Deepwater Well in South China Sea China recently completed building its first deepwater well in the South China Sea, a technical breakthrough in the countrys offshore drilling efforts as it looks to secure more energy resources. Meanwhile, Japanese conglomerate Toshiba said a proposed deal to sell its U.S. liquefied natural gas business to a Chinese company has failed because of delays in obtaining approval from U.S. authorities. First Deepwater Well On April 8, China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), the countrys largest state-owned offshore oil producer, announced on its official website that Chinas first domestically constructed deepwater drilling development well, located in the eastern part of the South China Sea, was completed on April 1. The well will supply liquified natural gas (LNG) and crude oil to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, an area of southern China that Beijing hopes to turn into a high-tech economic hub. The well is 4,660 meters (15,290 feet) long, with a vertical depth of 2,529 meters (8,297 feet), and a sea-water depth of 680 meters (2,231 feet). Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told state-run newspaper Global Times that because the Greater Bay Area aims to become a center for trading, a gas well close to the area can greatly reduce the pressure of securing a stable energy supply. The well was drilled by the HYSY 981 offshore drilling platform, also developed by CNOOC. But its construction wasnt without controversy. The well was built in disputed territory within the South China Seaprompting frequent confrontations between Vietnamese ships and Chinese maritime forces. For example, in May 2014, the two sides clashed at sea after CNOOC moved the HYSY 981 to drill test wells in exploration blocks off the Vietnamese central coast, according to a Reuters report. The company later withdrew the platform after large scale protests and riots in Vietnam. Comments by a Chinese industry expert also hinted at Chinas ambitions. Han Xiaoping, chief analyst at Chinese energy industry website china5e.com, told South China Morning Post in an April 13 report: This is a common drilling operation used by the worlds top offshore drilling companies in the United States, Britain, and other Western countries, Han said. [It] indicates China is narrowing the gap with these countries. Chinas Reliance on Foreign Sources As a big, energy-consuming country, China cant produce enough oil and gas by itself, and has had to import crude oil from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Angola, Iraq, Iran, and other sources. According to official Chinese data released Jan. 14, China imported 461.9 million metric tons of crude oil, valued at 1,588 billion yuan ($236.87 billion), in 2018. Meanwhile, China produced roughly 4.8 million barrels per day in 2018, ranking it at the worlds fifth-largest oil producer, according to statistics by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In recent years, the Chinese regime has turned to LNGnatural gas cooled and compressed into liquid form (at minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit) so that it can be transported efficiently on ships or over landimported from Australia, Qatar, and Malaysia. Buying more LNG exports from the United States is a point of negotiation in ongoing trade talks between the two countries. The United States is the worlds largest producer of LNG and crude oil. China imported 125.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2018, 59 percent of which was LNG, according to data by the state-run China National Petroleum Corporation Economy and Technology Institute. To guarantee a stable LNG supply, China is looking for opportunities overseas. LNG Deal Scrapped Japanese company Toshiba said on April 11 that a deal with Chinese company ENN Ecological Holdings to buy Toshibas LNG business in the United States has failed. Japanese media Nikkei reported on April 12 that ENN informed Toshiba on the night of April 10 that it canceled the deal because of the delays in obtaining approval from U.S. and Chinese authorities. Both parties planned to close the deal in March, but the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which screens foreignU.S. deals for national security risks, hadnt completed its review because of the U.S. government shutdown earlier this year, and the China State Administration of Foreign Exchange failed to approve ENNs request to change from Chinese yuan to U.S. dollars for the acquisition, according to Nikkei. Toshiba has operated its LNG business in the United States since 2013. It has acquired rights to process 2.2 million tons of Texas shale gas into LNG annually over 20 years, starting in 2020. College Senior Falls to Her Death From Fordham University: Reports Sydney Monfries was just weeks from graduating A senior student at Fordham University in New York died after climbing the universitys famed bell tower to take a photo of New York Citys skyline. Sydney Monfries, 22, climbed the tower at around 3 a.m. when she fell through an opening, dropping 40 feet to her death, reported the New York Post. Her condition, as of April 14, was listed as critical. However, according to the Post, the president of Fordham confirmed her death. BREAKING: Fordham university student Sydney Monfries, 22, dies after fall from schools iconic clock tower, university president says. Officials are investigating how the student gained access to the tower, which is normally locked. WNBC pic.twitter.com/8p9ykvQshU NYC Scanner (@NYScanner) April 14, 2019 According to USA Today, the tower, located in the Bronx, is off-limits to students and is locked at night. Our hearts go out to Sydneys parents, and her family and friendstheirs is an unimaginable loss, and we share their grief, Rev. Joseph M. McShane said in a statement. Regarding her death, he added, There are no words sufficient to describe the loss of someone so young and full of promiseand mere weeks from graduation. Fordham will confer a bachelors degree upon Sydney posthumously, which we will present to her parents at the appropriate time. Reports added that Monfries had hailed from Portland, Oregon, before attending the school. I know you join me in keeping Sydney, and her family and loved ones, in your thoughts and prayers, Father McShane also said, reported the New York Times. I also urge you to be kind to one another, and to yourselves, in the days that follow. She was expected to graduate in May. Posted by New York Post on Monday, April 15, 2019 Rite of Passage The Post reported that students who climbed the tower and took photos described it as a rite of passage at the school. I heard they were just getting a better view of the city, a senior student told the news outlet. They were not identified. The senior continued, I think they were posting on Instagram when it happened. Theres the three things you have to do at Fordham, said Lili Huang, a 21-year-old, told the Times. Sydney Monfries, 22, a senior at Fordham University, died after falling from a tower known to attract thrill-seeking students at the universitys Bronx campus. It was just a month before her graduation. Posted by The New York Times on Sunday, April 14, 2019 You have to ride the ram, she said of a statue on campus, adding that students also have to go into the tunnels underground and you have to go into the bell tower. The thrill of danger is definitely a huge allure to going up, one student was quoted by the paper as saying. I would say the other two reasons for going up are the amazing view of the entire campus from up there and the ability to brag about doing it. A Fordham University journalism student just weeks from graduation died after falling from the iconic campus clock tower, apparently while trying to take a picture. Posted by KDKA-TV | CBS Pittsburgh on Monday, April 15, 2019 Its like a tradition, apparently, for seniors to sneak into the tower and climb up. And they were like trying to get good views of the city, student Antonia Greene told CBS New York. However, another student said they arent sure. I, personally, never heard about that. Im not sure if its a tradition. If it is, its kind of stupid, junior Linda Yenicag added to the CBS affiliate. And despite the tower being off-limits to students, that hasnt stopped them from climbing it. Its like a senior thing to go on the most popular building on campus, said Priscilla Morales, a psychology student, told the Times. Recently people heard the door was open or found a passageway. They usually go late at night at around 1 or 2 a.m. to drink and see the view. The Times reported that she had posted a video from the top of the tower via Snapchat that didnt show much. It had the caption, Bell tower. Complaint: Man Went to Mall of America Intending to Kill MINNEAPOLISThe man charged with throwing a 5-year-old boy off a third-floor balcony at the Mall of America told police he was angry at being rejected by women at the Minnesota mall and was looking for someone to kill when he went there last week, according to a criminal complaint on April 15 Emmanuel Aranda, 24, of Minneapolis, is charged with attempted premeditated first-degree murder in Fridays attack. The child plunged almost 40 feet and is fighting for his life in a Minneapolis hospital with head trauma and multiple broken bones. Aranda has two past convictions for assaults at the mall, both in 2015, including one in which he threw a glass of water and glass of tea at a woman who refused to buy him something. Aranda at one point was banned from the mall. Court records show that Aranda had been ordered to undergo psychological evaluation or treatment after the earlier mall assaults. The mother of Landen Hoffmann, the boy, told officers that she, her son, her friend, and the friends child were outside the Rain Forest Cafe on the third floor of the mall on Friday morning when Aranda approached them. She said Aranda came close to them so she asked if they were in his way and if they should move. Thats when the suspect picked up Landen, threw him off of the balcony, and fled. BREAKING: Emmanuel Aranda planned to kill someone before throwing boy over balcony at MOA, newly filed charges say. | https://t.co/qxgTRLj1cY pic.twitter.com/okBO2T1ftT WCCO CBS Minnesota (@WCCO) April 15, 2019 Officers estimated that the boy fell approximately 39 feet before smashing into the floor. He suffered multiple fractured bones in his arms and legs in addition to massive head trauma. Police caught Aranda on a light rail train at the mall waiting for it to leave. They said he admitted throwing the child from the balcony and said he had come to the mall a day earlier seeking to kill someone but it did not work out. Aranda originally said he planned to kill an adult before choosing the child instead, the complaint said. Defendant indicated he had been coming to the Mall for several years and had made efforts to talk to women in the Mall, but had been rejected, and the rejection caused him to lash out and be aggressive, the complaint said. Brian Johnson walked into Mall of America moments after a child was pushed from the third floor, according to police. Johnson said the childs family member was asking for prayers and that police immediately got a handle on the scene. @kare11 pic.twitter.com/1gYf7ptzAz Danny Spewak (@DannySpewak) April 12, 2019 Surveillance footage showed Aranda walking in the mall on the third floor on Friday and looking over the balcony several times before approaching Landen and the boys mother. This crime has shocked the community, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said in a statement. That a child, with his mother, at a safe public area like a mall, could be violently attacked for no reason is chilling for everyone. The childs family has asked for privacy. A GoFundMe page set up for the child, named Landen, had attracted nearly $600,000 in donations as of Monday. Help For Landen Mall Of America Attack Victim https://t.co/fwZJGyFPmf DisneywithKids (@DisneyWithKids) April 15, 2019 The pages creator, Noah Hanneman, posted Sunday that Landen had a peaceful sleep and is still fighting his courageous battle. NTD News Reporter Zachary Stieber Contributed To This Report. LOS ANGELESSeeing Shen Yun Performing Arts dancers execute one effortless move after another, Shiva Bagheri was on the edge of her seat, stunned and amazed, thinking wow, wow, wow. Its awesome, she said of the elegant feats. These women are so awesome, these men are so strong, and they make it look so effortless. Without a dance background, Bagheri said, one might think the fluidity of the dance simple. But Bagheri is a longtime dancer and now dance instructor at her own studio, and the abilities of these dancers blew her away. They wont understand the difficulty, she said. I mean, the moves they are doing and the precision, even the fingertips. Im looking at the fingertips and theyre all precise. And the head movements and everything is just amazing. I dont even know whatastounding. I dont know another word to describe it, but its awesome. Bagheri pointed out the difficulty of moving as quickly as the dancers did while walking heel-to-toe, and how light they were to seem as if they were floating through difficult flips that would normally look and sound heavy even for some experienced dancers. Theyre doing it like theyre doing it on a cloud, Bagheri said. And its ridiculously, ridiculously good. Shen Yun dancers are New York-trained, as the company was formed in 2006 by artists from around the world who wanted to revive the genuine traditional Chinese culture, through the arts. Today, the company is the foremost classical Chinese dance company in the world, touring globally each year to present this ancient, divinely inspired culture to a modern audience. Divine is an apt descriptor, Bagheri said after seeing the performance at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on April 12. Its so beautiful and angelic, I feel like Im in heaven watching this, Bagheri said. If I go to heaven, this is probably what the dancers are going to look like. Heavenly, divine, spiritualand funny, too. There is some humor in there, Bagheri added, describing some of the scenes from the story-based dances throughout the program. Ancient Chinese history and legend alike is brought alive through comedy and tragedy and a beautiful production. Everything is beautiful. The music is beautiful, the sets are beautiful, its just a magical experience, Bagheri said. Everything is just gorgeous, the whole thing is a heavenly experience, you know? And coming from a dancer, I really appreciate it. The artist in her was soaking up inspiration from the production she saw on stage. Bagheri took note of the position of the hands and feet; the turns they did that let the long skirts billow out just so; and the beautiful, long water sleeves the dancers made fly in catch-and-release movements. The whole thing is just so gorgeous, Bagheri said. With reporting by NTD Television. The Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time and has covered audience reactions since the companys inception in 2006. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and national press secretary Brian Fallon on her plane at Westchester County Airport in White Plains, N.Y., on Oct. 3, 2016. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) Former Clinton Aide Behind Efforts to Fire Kavanaugh From Summer Teaching Job A lobbying effort to remove Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh from a summer teaching job at George Mason University is being backed by a former top aide to Hillary Clintons presidential campaign. Brian Fallon, Clintons 2016 campaign press secretary, is leading a liberal advocacy group dubbed Demand Justice that aims to influence the political leanings of Americas courts by opposing conservative nominees. According to his LinkedIn account, Fallon is the executive director of the group. He was also an aide to then-President Barack Obamas attorney general, Eric Holder, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), according to his Twitter profile. Demand Justice is running an advertising campaign on Facebook to target students at the university in order to pressure the school to reverse their recent decision to have Kavanaugh teach a course this summer. Demand Justice will run digital ads on Facebook targeted specifically at people with a connection to the Virginia university, a report on their website stated. The advertisements asks students to sign a Change.org petition that calls for the school to Terminate AND void ALL contracts and affiliation with Brett Kavanaugh at George Mason University. The petition also calls for, among other demands, a formal apology from the administration, a public release of all documents relating to the hiring, and to hold a town hall to discuss Kavanaughs hiring and the implications for students. Demand Justice is a project of advocacy organization group Sixteen Thirty Fund that uses its funds to provide grants to progressive organizations, according to Influence Watch. The practice of giving such grants is known as dark money. The group acts mainly through media campaigns that are either against or for a judicial nominee. Demand Justice, created in early 2018, shares the same building with New Venture Fund, a prominent left-wing incubation group, and an affiliate of Sixteen Thirty Fund, according to Influence Watch. In response to the reports surrounding Kavanaughs hiring, the president of George Mason University said in a statement that he wouldnt remove Kavanaugh from his summer teaching job. I respect the views of people who disagreed with Justice Kavanaughs Senate confirmation due to questions raised about his sexual conduct in high school. But he was confirmed and is now a sitting Justice, President Angel Cabrera said in a statement. Questions about recent law school hires https://t.co/Ld6JAgGVuB Angel Cabrera (@CabreraAngel) March 27, 2019 The law school has determined that the involvement of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice contributes to making our law program uniquely valuable for our students. And I accept their judgment. Kavanaugh and professor Jennifer Mascott are scheduled to teach a course in Runnymede, England, on the origins and creation of the U.S. Constitution. In one of its video campaigns, Demand Justice accused Neomi Rao, Trumps nominee to take Justice Brett Kavanaughs previous position, of being a hard right, conservative ideologue and said she had no business to take the position on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The video was posted Feb. 27 on the groups Twitter account. Rao was sworn in on March 18. GoFundMe for Boy Thrown From Mall of America Reaches $500,000 Suspect faces attempted murder charges A GoFundMe fundraiser page for a 5-year-old who was thrown from a Mall of America balcony surpassed its goal of $500,000, raising more than $580,000 as of April 15. More than 17,000 people made donations in two days. The news comes as charges were filed against the suspect in the case, 24-year-old Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda, reported KARE-11. Aranda is accused of approaching the boy, named Landen, before throwing him off the balcony at the Minnesota mall. Officials charged him with attempted murder, the report said. Police said the incident took place without warning. After the incident, according to KARE, he pushed a witness against the wall after the bystander tried to stop him. The mother of Landen said Aranda, whom they never met, approached them and got very close before she asked him if they were in the way and if they should move. Without warning, she said, Aranda grabbed the boy and threw him, KARE reported. Officials said the boy was seriously injured in the fall. The 5-year-old child, who was pushed or thrown off the balcony of a Mall of America in Minnesota, continues to fight for his life. Posted by People on Sunday, April 14, 2019 According to a GoFundMe update on April 14, the boy had a peaceful sleep and is still continuing to fight his courageous battle, hes a strong survivor! No other significant updates at this time, but please continue to keep him in your prayers. We will continue to keep updating as we can. Thank you all and God bless, they added, saying that the family is asking for privacy at the time. Landen is also in stable condition, contrary to the rumors and attention seekers out there stating that he has passed, the GoFundMe said on April 13. Landen is in my familys prayers. Peace be with you all who love and care for him at this time of trial, wrote one woman. I am so sorry for what happened to this little man, donor Cassandra Sturtevant wrote on the page. My family and I are keeping him in our hearts and praying for a speedy recovery. I plan to donate more when I have it. From one mother to another I pray your sweet little boy recovers and the monster who did this to him gets whats coming to him, said Nicole Johnson. Arrest Update Investigators questioned Aranda, who reportedly told them that he wanted to kill someone last week, but it did not work out. According to KARE, he wanted to kill an adult, but he instead chose a young victim. Detectives said he acknowledged that he planned and intended to kill someone at the Mall of America and was aware that what he was doing was wrong. Aranda also said he went to the mall several times over the years to approach women, but his advances were spurned, KARE reported. The rejection, the report said, caused him to lash out. The victim was a 5-year-old boy, named Landen, who fell about 40 feet to a stone floor. Medical responders at the scene Posted by Star Tribune on Monday, April 15, 2019 Court documents have indicated that judges have ordered Aranda to undergo mental health counseling, reported the Star-Tribune, which added that he needs to also take prescribed medications and abstain from drugs and alcohol. Defendant indicated he had been coming to the Mall for several years and had made efforts to talk to women in the Mall, but had been rejected, and the rejection caused him to lash out and be aggressive, the complaint said, according to The Associated Press. Police caught Aranda on a light rail train at the mall waiting for it to leave. The Associated Press contributed to this report. L: Shamima Begum being interviewed by Sky News in northern Syria on Feb. 17, 2019. R: Begums father Ahmed Ali speaking to reporters in Sunamganu, Bangladesh, on March 5, 2019. (Reuters; AP Photo) ISIS Bride Shemima Begum Gets Legal Funding to Fight for Citizenship Schoolgirl ISIS bride Shamima Begum has been granted taxpayer-funded legal assistance in her bid to overturn the decision to revoke her British citizenshipeven though she hasnt asked for it. Begum travelled to Syria at the age of 15 from the UK to join the so-called caliphate. Her citizenship was revoked by the Home Secretary following a series of interviews she gave from a refugee camp in which she expressed little remorse but said she wanted to return to the UK. Her family filed a legal appeal to restore her citizenship, and according to the BBC, lawyers have now successfully applied for funding to fight her case. The decision has been slammed by some lawmakers, who are demanding a change to the rules, which allowed lawyers to successfully apply for potentially hundreds of thousands of pounds to fight for Begums return to the UK without receiving any formal instruction from her. The British legal system allows anyone who is a plaintiff in a British courtwhether they are a citizen or notto apply for legal funding if they cannot afford a lawyer. According to the BBC, the case could last for years. Cases before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) are among the most complicated legal challenges that the government can face, said BBC Home Affairs correspondent Dominic Casciniani. This is because they typically involve a complex combination of MI5 intelligence reports, which cannot be disclosed to the complainant, and long-standing law on achieving a fair hearing. Tory MP Tim Loughton, former chairman of the home affairs select committee, told the Daily Mail, Playing the victim card when she has clearly been an active and willing participant in the most barbaric terrorist organisation in the world has now been exposed for the lie it was and the UK should have nothing to do with her. Tory MP Philip Davies told the paper, Its absolutely disgusting how we are funding this person who is someone who joined an organisation that wants to destroy our way of life and our country. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the BBC, On a personal level, it makes me very uncomfortable because she made a series of choices and she knew the choices she was making. However, we are a country that believes that people with limited means should have access to the resources of the state if they want to challenge the decisions the state has made about them and, for obvious reasons, those decisions are made independent from politicians, he said. Begum traveled to Syria as a schoolgirl, aged just 15, from her home in London. She gave birth in a Kurdish refugee camp, after sparking controversy with a number of interviews. In her interviews, she indicated she wanted to return to the UK but expressed little remorse or indication that she had shed the caliphates ideology. The lawyers claim to legal aid money comes the day after a report by the Sunday Telegraph claimed she was a member of the dreaded ISIS morality police. Begum worked for al-Hisba, according to sources who told the paper she enforced the terror cults strict dress code with an AK-47 she carried with her and had a reputation as a strict enforcer. The Telegraph quoted an activist who recounted how Begum allegedly shouted at Syrian women in the city of Raqqa for wearing brightly colored shoes. Aghiad al-Kheder, an activist who documents ISIS crimes, told the publication, Members of our group from Raqqa knew her well. The report also claims Begum played a part in persuading other women to join the jihadi cause. Dont believe any of the bad things you hear about Dawla [the ISIS caliphate], its fake. You have everything you want here, she told a potential recruit in a message reported on by the Telegraph. And we can help find you a good-looking husband. A Legal Aid Agency spokesman told the Daily Mail: We are unable to comment on individual cases. Anybody applying for legal aid in a Special Immigration Appeal Commission case is subject to strict eligibility tests. Opinion: Israeli Voters Rejected the Partisan Witch-Hunts and Smokescreens: American Voters Should Follow Suit in 2020 Commentary It looks like Benjamin Netanyahu has won his fifth term as prime minister of the State of Israel in elections held April 9. While Netanyahu prevailed, the run-up to the election wasnt without controversy. More specifically, Netanyahu faced various accusations of corruption and a pending indictment. Netanyahu referred to the charges as a politically motivated witch hunt and vowed to fight them. Like Netanyahu, President Donald Trump also has been the subject of one or more witch hunts. Despite the efforts to politically hurt both leaders, the plans ultimately failed in Netanyahus case and are heading in the same direction in Trumps. Israelis saw through the smoke and mirrors show and reelected Netanyahu. Americans should do the same with regard to Trump in 2020. Witch Hunts A recent article in the Jewish Press provides an excellent analysis of some of the potential problems with the charges against Netanyahu. The article also describes the alleged game plan against Netanyahu by his opponents and some in the media, stating: Netanyahu has been prime minister since 2009, and his opposition is frustrated to the point of hysteria. They have been unable to defeat him by the normal political processes, so it seems that they have chosen to tie him down with multiple legal threads, as the Lilliputians did to Gulliver, and stone him to death with innuendos. Bibi [Netanyahu] claims, and I think he is essentially correct in this, that pressure from media and the legal establishmentgroups that are largely opposed to himforced the hand of the Attorney General in deciding to move forward toward indictment. Just as Israels enemies wish to destroy international sympathy for Israel by demonization and delegitimization, Netanyahus enemies hope to fracture his political support before the election. There are striking similarities between what Netanyahu has been forced to endure and what Trump endures on a daily basis. Like Netanyahu, Trump has been the unfortunate victim of multiple witch hunts by those on the left and their media mouthpieces. These witch hunts range from a two-year-long investigation into alleged collusion with Russia to a demand for six years of Trumps personal and business tax returns, and document requests from 81 different people and companies. The nexus linking all these investigations appears to be a deep-rooted desire by congressional Democrats to bring down a duly elected president and remove him from office. Ironically, their efforts appear to be backfiring. Most notably, the Mueller investigation that Democrats hoped would establish Russia collusion failed miserably. Furthermore, Attorney General William Barr has assembled a team to investigate the origins of the FBIs counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign, according to Fox News. Moreover, Barr recently indicated that spying did occur against the Trump campaign in 2016. As a result, what started out as an effort to delegitimize a duly elected president could turn out to be the spark that brings down the true perpetrators of this attempted coup. Voter Impact Trump and Netanyahus opponents and some of their media cohorts have made every effort to remove them from office and destroy their reelection efforts. In doing so, however, they failed to consider the impact that their conduct would have on the voters. In Israel, the voters apparently rejected the allegations against Netanyahu and elected him for a fifth term. In essence, they either felt that the allegations were untrue, politically motivated, or simply less important than electing Netanyahu at such a critical time. According to NBC News, those who voted for Netanyahu likely viewed him as indispensable to the security and prosperity of the nation given his many accomplishments. U.S. voters should do the same. They should reject the obvious and vicious partisan witch hunts by the left against Trump. They should send a message that intentionally and viciously targeting a duly elected leader for no legitimate reason and with no legal basis will not be tolerated. They should look at their paychecks, the economy, the job market, the countrys security, the tax breaks they are receiving, and the fact that the United States is respected again around the world when deciding who to vote for. The Israelis sent a loud and clear message when they reelected Netanyahu. Americans should do the same for Trump come 2020. Elad Hakim is a writer, commentator, and attorney. His articles have been published in The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, The Western Journal, American Thinker, and other online publications. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Ivanka Trump Promotes Womens Empowerment in Ethiopia ADDIS ABABA, EthiopiaPresident Donald Trumps daughter and senior adviser, Ivanka Trump, toured businesses run by women in Ethiopia on Sunday, April 14, while promoting a White House global economic program for women. Ivanka first stop in was a coffee shop and textile company in Addis Ababa as part of a four-day trip to Ethiopia and the Ivory Coast on behalf of a White House project intended to boost 50 million women in developing countries by 2025. Aiming to offer assistance and learn about the struggles of women in business, she took part in a traditional coffee ceremony, visited with weavers, and announced new financial support opportunities for local businesses. Investing in women is smart development policy and its smart business, Ivanka said, sitting in Dumerso Coffee, a dimly lighted space with a woven ceiling, tile floor and colorful paintings. Alongside were women who work in the industry. Its also in our security interest, because women, when were empowered, foster peace and stability, she said. Ivanka then visited the textile and craft manufacturer Muya, where she was greeted by dancers and chatted with women seated at colorful looms. She took a seat at one herself. Ethiopias success is Africas success, she said. We learned today that the quality of the coffee is second to none. You shared with me that Ethiopian cotton rivals cotton anywhere in the world. And then of course the skills and the craftsmanship of the Ethiopian people. We hope more people realize their full potential. She also noted that Ethiopia has Africas second-highest population. Ivanka was accompanied by Mark Green, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and David Bohigian, the acting president of the Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC), which provides loans, loan guarantees, and political risk insurance, funding projects that stretch across continents and industries. The OPIC and Ivanka Trump announced the White House program last year. She has drawn praise for taking on the project geared at women. At the coffee shop, Ivanka and her team announced a loan, issued by a local women-focused bank and backed by USAID, for a coffee business owned by women. At Muya, the team announced additional OPIC financing for the region. In the next few days, she plans to meet with Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Then in Ivory Coast, she will visit a cocoa farm and participate in a meeting on economic opportunities for women in West Africa. That gathering is part of the World Banks Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, a program that Ivanka Trump pushed the bank to introduce. She will be joined in Ivory Coast by a U.S. congressional delegation that will include U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close ally of the White House. The new global womens initiative involves the U.S. State Department, the U.S. National Security Council, and other American agencies. It aims to assist women in developing countries with job training, financial support, and legal or regulatory reforms. Money for the effort will come through USAID, which initially set up a $50 million fund using dollars already budgeted. The presidents 2020 budget proposal requests an additional $100 million for the initiative, which will also be supported by programs across the government, as well as private investment. By Catherine Lucey Kansas 2-Year-Old Likely Dead for Days Before Officers Found Him in a Crib: Reports Officials in Wichita, Kansas, said a child who was found dead in a crib by officers was likely there for days. Patrick Javonovich, 28, and Brandi Marchant, 22, were arrested and jailed on charges of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated child endangerment, KAKE-TV reported. The April 15 report indicated that Javonovich and Marchant, the boys parents, are still jailed on $200,000 bond. Wichita police say a 3-year-old Zaiden had likely been dead for days before officers found him wrapped in a blanket in a crib. "It's shocking to see adults treating kids the way these two did." Posted by KAKE-TV on Monday, April 15, 2019 Police officers were called at 11:30 p.m. on April 11 to a disturbance at a home within the Riverside Mobile Home Park in Wichita. They found the couple walking back to the home. When police entered the home, they found 2-year-old Zaiden Javonovich dead, wrapped in a blanket inside his crib. An autopsy will soon reveal the boys cause of death, said a police spokesman, Brent Allred, KAKE-TV reported. He said it appeared the boy had been deceased for days, without elaborating. Wichita police found the toddler dead and his baby brother "in need of medical attention," Officer Charley Davidson said Friday morning. Posted by Wichita Eagle on Friday, April 12, 2019 Whats more, he said, Zaiden appeared to have suffered obvious injuries. Marchants 4-month-old son also had injuries, and he was transported to a nearby hospital in critical condition. As of April 15, KAKE-TV reported hes doing better. The baby was found to be in need of medical attention, Charley Davidson, another police spokesman, told Kansas.com. BREAKING: Wichita police say they found the 2-year-old dead in a crib and a 4-month-old in need of medical attention. Their parents were found walking back to the house. https://bit.ly/2GhQVyN #kwch12 Posted by KWCH 12 Eyewitness News on Friday, April 12, 2019 The child does remain hospitalized at this time and will be taken into police protective custody once released from the hospital, Davidson said last week. He said that sometime before police were called, Marchant and Javonovich got into an argument and left home without their children. Its unclear how long they were gone. Its shocking to see adults treating kids the way these two did, Allred was quoted as saying. Its shocking is what it is. Allred noted that the states Department for Children and Families had a case on the two children and parents. However, there have been no police reports filed about the alleged abuse. CHILD DEATH: Wichita police arrested a man and woman on suspicion of felony murder stemming from the death of a 2-year-old boy. Posted by KSN TV on Friday, April 12, 2019 Marchant has two other children while Javonovich has another child. Missing Children Missing children typically fall into five categories: kidnapped by a family member, abducted by a non-family perpetrator, runaways, those who got lost, stranded, or injured, or those who went missing due to benign reasons, such as misunderstandings, according to the report. Department of Justice researchers said in a report ( pdf ) published in 2016 that an estimated 105 children nationwide were victims of stereotypical kidnappings, a number that was virtually the same as 1997. Most kidnappings involved the use of force or threats, and about three in five victims were sexually assaulted, abused, or exploited, the researchers said. Stereotypical kidnappings are defined as abductions in which a slight acquaintance or stranger moves a child at least 20 feet or holds the child at least 1 hour. Most victims were girls aged 12 to 17 and most perpetrators were men aged 18 to 35. Most kidnappings are done by people who know the victims. According to the Polly Klaas Foundation, approximately 200,000 children are kidnapped each year by a family member. Child custody experts say that people kidnap their own children to force a reconciliation or continued interaction with the other parent; to spite or punish the other parent; or from fear of losing custody or visitation rights. In rare cases, the kidnapping may occur to protect a child from a parent who is believed to be abusing the child. Common warning signs include the other parent threatening abduction, suspected abuse, or paranoid delusion. Man Says Xinjiang Like Nazi Germany, Risks Life to Post Photos of Concentration Camp on Twitter Uyghur man claims he could face 15 years in detention just for having Twitter on his phone The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is scanning Xinjiang residents phones for foreign social media apps and throwing those with the apps into Xinjiangs vast network of vocational re-education centers, according to a Uyghur living in the region who says he has risked his life to share photos of the facilities on Twitter. If you got Twitter or Facebook in your phone, you will be sentenced to 15 years in concentration camps, he said. Kasim, who claims to be a Xinjiang resident, posted a series of photos on April 7 of buildings he believes are some of the detention facilities where over 1 million ethnic Uyghurs are being held. Everywhere are monitors. These monitors are helping China to send people into Camps. When I took a picture, a Chinese police looked at me, he was checking others phones [sic], Kasim tweeted. The CCP has been justifying an escalating crackdown on the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities and religious believers in China as a way to educate and transform its citizens. Uyghurs in Xinjiang are deemed by the communist state as being at risk of the three evil forces of extremism, separatism, and terrorism. Kasim also tweeted that praying has been banned by the Chinese regime, and that praying publicly would lead to detention. We used to pray for our God after meals. They said Only Terrorist will pray for God! Now, if you pray in public, or if you say Amin, you will be sent to Concentration camps [sic], he tweeted. Kasim continued to describe life in Xinjiang as being like living in Nazi Germany as he posted the co-ordinates of several locations where he believes the regime is running detention centers. This used to be a hospital, but China Fascist changed it to a Concentration camp. It used to included 7,000 people in total. It is now abandoned, he wrote. There are growing reports that Xinjiang authorities are detaining Uyghurs for making political or religious digressions on foreign social media apps such as Facebook or Twitter. Their devices are forcibly scanned at checkpoints around the region by officers tasked with policing for material that the CCP deems suspicious, the Guardian reported. Access to foreign web services such as Facebook and Twitter have been banned in China by the CCP since mid-2009, following civil unrest and riots in Xinjiangs capital Urumqi, that authorities say were abetted by the sites. But according to political observers, officials from the faction loyal to former CCP leader Jiang Zemin fomented ethnic tensions between Uyghurs and the majority Han Chinese in order to create a political dilemma for Xis leadership. The Epoch Times previously reported that the Xinjiang region has been a stronghold for the Jiang faction since 2002. The repression of Uyghurs has only intensified in recent times. Now, mandatory spyware is installed onto every citizens phones to monitor and restrict their access to foreign sites. The spyware app named Jingwang Weishi, meaning web cleansing, monitors everything that is said, read, and written, as well as who people contact on their smartphones, BuzzFeed News reported. Any user with this app installed will have every file stored on their device sent to a unknown entity for monitoring, U.S. State Department-backed Open Technology Fund said in a blog post. Kasim said he was able to access Twitter and post the images by bypassing the Chinese regimes sensors with special software. We live in terrify. It is believed that this is just the first round of closing people in camps. There are also second round, third round..until everyone of us suffer Concentration Camps and Brain Wash [sic]. We cant hold revolution here. Because China wants a reason to kill us all, Kasim said. The CCP has continued to push its narrative that what are believed to be mass-detention centers are actually facilities that provide vocational skills training for detainees, where they learn about things such as sewing and baking. It publicly admitted their existence in October 2018. However, a former detainee told The Epoch Times, They are lying through their teeth, adding that she never saw a single classroom. The crackdown on Uyghurs accessing blocked sites such as Facebook and Twitter is an attempt by the CCP to control the narrative on the mass interment of Uyghurs, according to Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) senior researcher, Henryk Szadziewski. For a Uyghur the discovery of these apps on your phone is potentially dangerous due to the tight lid China maintains on information in Xinjiang and the frequent checks of content on phones, Szadziewski told The Epoch Times. Its a further illustration of the states deployment of technology to monitor and limit Uyghurs personal lives and any remaining semblance of expression outside of government confines. More Older Adults With Joint Replacements Recover at Home Mounting research finds few patients require stays at rehabilitation centers after joint-replacement surgery Older adults and their families often wonder: Wheres the best place to recover after a hip or knee replacementat home or in a rehabilitation facility? Increasingly, the answer appears to be home if the procedure is elective, friends and family are available to help, and the patient doesnt have serious conditions that could lead to complications. This trend is likely to accelerate as evidence mounts that recuperating at home is a safe alternative and as hospitals alter medical practices in response to changing Medicare policies. The newest data comes from a March study in JAMA Internal Medicine of 17 million Medicare hospitalizations of people from 2010 to 2016. All the patients were older adults and went home or to a skilled nursing facility after a medical procedure or a serious illness. Knee and hip replacements were the most common reason for these hospitalizations. People who were sent home with home health care services demonstrated the same level of functional improvement as those who went to a skilled nursing facility, the study found. Patients were assessed on their ability to walk and get up and down stairs, among other activities. Those who left the hospital were no more likely to die 30 days after surgery (a very small percentage in each group). Overall, costs were significantly lower for patients who went home, while hospital readmissions were slightly highera possible signal that home health care services needed strengthening or that family caregivers needed better education and training. What this study tells us is its certainly safe to send people home under many circumstances, said Dr. Vincent Mor, a professor of health services, policy and practice at Brown Universitys School of Public Health who wrote an editorial accompanying the study. The new report expands on previous research that came to a similar conclusion. In 2017, experts from New York Citys Hospital for Special Surgery published a study that examined 2,400 patients who underwent total knee replacements and were discharged home or to a skilled nursing facility for rehabilitation between May 2007 and February 2011. There were no differences in complication rates at six months or in functional recovery and patient-reported outcomes at two years. As a result of these findings, we are encouraging all of our patients to consider home discharge after TKA [total knee replacement], the authors wrote. The year before, researchers at New York University reported in JAMA Internal Medicine that from 2009 to 2012 and 2013-14, discharges to rehabilitation facilities fell from 68 to 34 percent for patients undergoing hip and knee replacements, from 71 percent to 22 percent for patients with cardiac valve replacement surgeries, and from 40 percent to 30 percent for patients whod had spinal fusion surgery. Instead, more people were sent home to recover. During this period, NYU Langone Medical Center assumed financial responsibility for episodes of care for joint replacements that include the post-hospital recovery perioda policy that Medicare is now promoting. Diane Rubin, 67, who lives on Long Island, had a hip replacement at the NYU medical center in January. Before the surgery, she got a list of things shed need to do to prepare for her recovery. Afterward, a nurse and physical therapist visited her at home regularly for about three weeks. I was more comfortable recuperating at home and Ive had absolutely no complications, she said. How do physicians decide where to send patients? In general, we tend to send patients to skilled nursing facilities who are older, sicker, more deconditioned after surgery, and who have no spouse or caregiver, fewer resources, and little social support, said Dr. Leora Horwitz, a co-author of that study and associate professor of population health and medicine at New York University School of Medicine. Though its widely believed that people who live alone might not do well going home, last year researchers at The Rothman Orthopaedic Institute at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia published research showing that isnt necessarily the case. At their institution, patients are assigned a nurse navigator who provides assistance before and after hip or knee replacements. Patients who lived alone stayed in the hospital longer and received more home health care services than those who lived with others. When they recuperated at home, the Rothman Orthopaedics patients didnt have higher rates of medical complications, returns to the hospital, or emergency room visits than those who went to rehabilitation facilities. Nearly 90 percent of people who lived alone said theyd again choose a home discharge. Dr. William Hozack, a co-author of the study and professor of orthopedic surgery at Thomas Jefferson University Medical School, acknowledged that patients who go to rehabilitation are probably sicker and more debilitated than those who go home, potentially biasing research results. Still, practices have changed considerably. Today, he and his colleagues send 95 percent of patients who get hip and knee replacements home to recover, instead of directing them to institutions. People shouldnt underestimate how much help they may require at home, especially in the first few weeks after surgery, said Carol Levine, director of the United Hospital Funds families and health care project, who has had two hip replacements. The potential downsides to going home include a greater burden on caregivers, the possibility that complications wont be identified as quickly, and that needs will go unmet if friends and family cant pitch in. Its also possible people wont follow through on recommended rehabilitation regimens. And outcomes may not be as favorable if services that support people at home arent readily available Utahs Intermountain Healthcare, a health system that operates 23 hospitals and nearly 170 medical clinics, is bringing an array of servicespalliative care, dialysis, primary care, and hospital careinto the home through its new Intermountain at Home program. Recovering at home after a hospital procedure is also a focus, and Intermountain has created standardized procedures for hip and knee replacements over the past few years, according to Rajesh Shrestha, the systems chief operating officer of community-based care. Every joint-replacement patient going home after surgery now gets a thorough assessment to determine the resources that are needed. A care plan is created and a case manager, usually a registered nurse, makes sure that physical therapy, durable medical equipment, and home health care are supplied. The case manager also coordinates postoperative care with orthopedic surgeons and makes sure that patients reconnect post-surgery with their primary care physicians. And a team of providers is available 24/7. During the past few years, discharges to rehabilitation facilities have declined by half at most of Intermountains Utah facilities, with no notable increase in complications or hospital readmissions, Shrestha said. During 2018, 85 percent of knee replacement patients and 88 percent of hip replacement patients went home after surgery, respectively. At Kaiser Permanente, a health plan with more than 12 million members, a substantial number of patients who get elective hip and knee replacements are skipping a hospital stay altogether and going home the same day. In Kaisers Southern California region, same-day joint replacement home discharges now total about 50 percent, according to Dr. Nithin Reddy, who oversees joint replacements for the region. (Kaiser Health News is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.) Kaiser Permanente has made this possible by introducing new protocols for pain management (opioids are used less frequently), altering anesthesia protocols (less general anesthesia and more regional anesthesia), reducing blood transfusions and hiring total joint coordinators (typically nurses) to help with the transition from the hospital to home, among other changes. All patients go home with home health care, receive two outreach calls the week after surgery, and get comprehensive handbooks that include checklists of what to do before and after surgery and common concerns to look out for. We have very robust discharge criteria: Patients have to have well-managed pain and be able to get in and out of bed by themselves and in and out of the restroom by themselves. And they need to be able to walk 50 to 75 feet unassisted, using a walker, Reddy said. If they cant do those things, they arent safe for a home discharge and [rehabilitation at] a skilled nursing facility would come into play. Magdalena Ritayik, 66, one of the doctors patients, had a knee replacement last September after cortisone shots stopped working and pain became a constant companion. Six years before, her husband had both knees replaced, separately, and stayed in the hospital three days each time. By contrast, Ritayik went home the afternoon after her surgery, only to find a nurse and physical therapist waiting there for her. The nurse went over all the medications when to take them and how much. The physical therapist showed me how to do bending and stretching with a chair in the living room and to raise [my leg] while I was lying on the bed, Ritayik said. The first week you have to stay home. After the second week, I was walking almost like regular. A month after the surgery, I was at full extension and full bending. Judith Graham is a writer for Kaiser Health News, which originally published this article. KHNs coverage of these topics is supported by John A. Hartford Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and The SCAN Foundation. Much at Stake in South Africas Most Significant Election Since End of Apartheid JOHANNESBURGTen million people unemployed. A national debt of more than $200 billion. A nation ravaged by almost a decade of extensive corruption. Collapsing water and electricity services. Political parties sowing racial discord in a country still haunted by its apartheid past. Radicals encouraging land invasions. The most unequal society in the world according to the World Bank, with more than half of the population of 58 million living in poverty and a tiny elite controlling extreme wealth. These are the circumstances under which South Africans will go to the polls on May 8, to vote in what analysts are describing as the most significant election since Nelson Mandelas African National Congress (ANC) won the first democratic vote in 1994 after decades of apartheid rule. This will be a very important election because it will decide whether well be able to repair the damage done by nine years of corruption, which has crippled our government and caused great hardship for our people, said University of Johannesburg Vice Chancellor Adam Habib. In a scheme that has come to be known as state capture, former President Jacob Zuma and his allies allegedly orchestrated the plunder of several state-owned enterprises. Habib said the graft would undoubtedly cost the ANC plenty of votes. Its true that the ANC has never been weaker, said professor Steven Friedman, of the Center for the Study of Democracy. In the municipal elections [in 2016], it nationally got about 54 percent of the vote, which is significantly the lowest share of the vote its ever got. It is indeed wracked by factionalism. He added, however, that while the ruling party is in longer-term decline, having lost the support of the black middle class, it should get enough votes next month to maintain the power its held for the past 25 years. The latest surveys put the ANC at around 60 percent, with the main opposition, the Democratic Alliance, at about 22 percent, followed by the Economic Freedom Fighters with roughly 12 percent. Habib estimates the ANC needs a victory of at least 60 percent to allow Cyril Ramaphosa, a former trade union leader turned ultra-rich businessman who replaced Zuma early last year, the space to implement reforms. Former ANC MP and political observer Melanie Verwoerd said the election result will be crucial because of what it could trigger within the African National Congress. Its [important] for Cyril to be able to deal with a lot of the problems that hes facing in his own partyparticularly for him to show that he has a big public mandate and to avoid interference from his inner-party enemies, who remain loyal to Zuma. But Habib describes a big win for the ANC as a double-edged sword: Victory by a large margin would make it easier for Ramaphosa to make positive changes, he said, but it could also ultimately harm democracy and set the scene for a possible repeat of the Zuma era, during which an all-powerful ANC had free reign. Friedman maintains voters in South Africa, whether rich, poor, or middle-class, are clear about what they consider important and about which parties represent their interests. He noted that many previously staunch ANC backers no longer trust the party because of its failure to govern properly under Zuma. He said voters lack of faith also could be a problem for the main opposition Democratic Alliance, which has been wracked with infighting in the run-up to the polls. Therefore I think this election will fundamentally be about trust, rather than particular issues, [such as] land and what ought to be done about the economy, Friedman said. Ninety-nine percent of voters have made up their minds on those issues long ago. Party loyalties, Friedman noted, remain very strong in South Africa and it would not be easy for people, and especially ANC supporters, to dump the only political home they have known. Nevertheless, the ANC should be very worried that a significant portion of its members will punish it for what happened under Zuma, he said. If youre angry with the party, the first stepand the step which many people took in the last two electionsis that you simply stay away and you dont vote. Ninth graders work on projects in the classroom of Health Education teacher Leticia Jenkins at James Monroe High School in North Hills, Calif., on May 18, 2018. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images) Orange County Community Leaders Join Opposition to Californias New Sex-Ed Law Opposition to Assembly Bill 329 (AB-329), a K-12 sexual education law that was enacted in 2016, recently has been brought to the limelight by Orange County, California, activists who demand that it be repealed. Those against the law claim the curriculum takes precious time away from childrens standard curriculum and teaches children about sexuality at too young of an age, encouraging promiscuity. The 2016 law passed in the state Assembly 5126 and in the state Senate 2614. In both cases, this was largely along party lines, with Democrats heavily in favor and Republicans staunchly opposed. The Epoch Times has recently covered the opposition to the law, as protests in Sacramento that call for its repeal continue. In Orange County, conservative opposition to the law is growing, according to Mari Barke, who sits on the Orange County Board of Education, who noticed the effort in Orange County to challenge the controversial legislation. Barke told The Epoch Times that a group of local parents rights activists from Hispanic, Asian, and Muslim communities were protesting the legislation due to the fact that its contents were only released in English. This shut out many parents from the communities, many of whom are non-native English speakers, from knowing the full contents of the bill. At an event in Santa Ana, California, on April 2, about 30 community leaders, parents, and faith leaders met to discuss the curriculum that Californias Department of Education has mandated to the states public schools. The event was hosted by financial planner Marc Ang and his nonprofit organization, Asian Industry B2B, which hosts bimonthly meetings on topics affecting the community. Ang invited a number of speakers who highlighted their struggles and concerns with the California education system, in particular the direction the state is going with its K-12 sex education and gender identity curriculum. The main speaker, Gina Gleason, executive director of Faith and Public Policy, highlighted the drastic changes that AB-239 has had on Californias public education system. The law aims to ensure that students be free from sexual inhibitions, outdated moral constraints, should make up their own minds when they are ready to have sex, and should be free to enjoy sexual pleasure, according to Gleason. Gleason pointed out that AB-329, introduced by California Assemblywoman Shirley Weber (D), also pushes to recognize different sexual orientations, develop healthy attitudes, and promote gender expression. In a presentation, Gleason explained that the bill vaguely states that the bills sex-ed curriculum encourages children to speak with their parents, guardians, or other trusted adults pertaining matters of sex and sexuality. The issue at hand, Gleason pointed out, is that other trusted adults is a fairly broad category that could include any number of individuals. Gleason also shed light on the fact that parents cannot always opt their children out of topics covering gender identity, as the bill separates curricula on gender identity from sex-ed, further convoluting the situation for parents. While the presentation by Gleason had a largely positive reception, a small number of protesters attending the event expressed their discontent. The handful of protesters began heckling and interrupting her talking points by shouting obscenities and participating in sexually obscene behavior as a means of trying to upset the conservative audience. The audience largely remained calm, with a few attendees asking the hecklers to be respectful and to not interrupt. The hecklers shouted profanities and attempted to shut down anyone who asked them to stop. After the event ended, the hecklers fiercely argued with participants for about twenty minutes. The Epoch Times followed up with organizer Ang after the event to discuss what occurred. Ang explained that the event had been promoted on Facebook, reaching around 10,000. About 14,000 people were reached by email. This is likely where the protesters saw the event. They came as a mob and attempted to trap me in a heated discussion, Ang said. I feel like our society is slowly becoming like Communist China during the Cultural Revolution. Leftist sympathizers conduct their own version of book burning and attack anything that doesnt fit their narrative. These rabble rousers dont have an end goal, only to silence conservatives and anything they deem offensive. Angs event and the topics brought up by Gleason encapsulate the ongoing tension that parents and faith leaders have with secular state institutions and social activists over this controversial bill and its contents. At this point, no motion has been made by opponents in the state legislature to repeal AB-329. However, Republican state Sen. Mike Morell has introduced a bill, SB-673, which would give more power to parents to make decisions about their childs sexual education. Despite the hecklers causing a commotion, Ang saw their presence as a success because they sat through the entire event and exposed themselves to an opposing perspective. This was also the first time protesters have attended one of his events, indicating that his organization is gaining traction in Orange County. Ang concluded by saying, Regardless of your politics, 80 to 90 percent of parents believe that learning academics is more important than gender nomenclature. Parents want the right to teach their children their values. Jet Airways aircraft are seen parked on the tarmac at Chattrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai, on March 25, 2019. (Punit Paranjpe/AFP/Getty Images) Over 1,000 Jet Airways Pilots Not to Fly from Monday Due to Unpaid Salaries NEW DELHI, IndiaMore than a thousand pilots of Indias debt-laden Jet Airways will not fly from Monday, April 15, as they have not been paid salaries for the past three months, the President of the National Aviators Guild said on Sunday. Saddled with more than $1.2 billion of bank debt, the airline has been teetering for weeks and has yet to receive a loan of about $217 million from its lenders as part of a rescue deal agreed in late March. Pilots havent been paid for the last three months, Capt Karan Chopra told Reuters. The crisis at Jet has deepened in recent weeks as lessors have started applying to deregister planes, signalling the planned bailout had failed to assuage their concerns. An urgent meeting to discuss the Jet situation was held at the prime ministers office on Friday, which was also attended by the countrys aviation secretary, Pradeep Singh Kharola. After the meeting, Kharola said the carrier had money to operate 6-7 planes over the weekend and after that the lenders would have to decide how many jets it could fly after Monday afternoon, news channel ET Now reported late on Friday. Kharola said the company will meet bankers on Monday for an infusion of funds in the interim, the TV channel said. According to a Business Standard newspaper report on Sunday, Jets lenders, led by the State Bank of India, are considering a proposal to infuse 10 billion rupees ($144.55 million) to keep the airline afloat. The money is expected to be disbursed after the Jet management submits an operational plan on how it intends to use the money till May 7, the report said. An SBI spokesman could not immediately comment on the emergency funding being considered by lenders for Jet Airways. The lenders, who have been seeking a new investor to take a stake of up to 75 percent in the airline, hope to complete the selection of bidders by May 7. Initial bids were to be submitted by the end April 10, but SBI extended the deadline to April 12. Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways, which owns a 24-percent stake in the airline, private equity fund TPG Capital, the government-owned sovereign fund National Investment and Infrastructure Fund, and ousted chairman Naresh Goyal are among those to have submitted bids, the Business Standard reported. By Nidhi Verma Pup with Leg Cut Off Gets Choked and Thrown 30Ft, Manages to Miraculously Survive The content is not available due to expiration. Queenslands Richest Man Plans to Reopen Mine, Pay Outstanding Worker Entitlements A mining magnate announced his intention on April 15 to re-open his metal refinery in North Queensland and to settle all outstanding entitlements for workers who lost their jobs when the refinery was shut down back in 2016. Clive Palmer has promised to pay any outstanding wage entitlements to workers who were laid off three years ago from Queensland Nickels Yabulu Nickel Refinery in Townsville. Although Palmer said he would pay up to A$70 million ($50.2 million) owed to former employees at his refinery, he continued to deny he made the decision to let them go. The sad truth is that people need help today, not in six years time. Politicians need to realize that now, he said. ENDS Clive Palmer (@CliveFPalmer) April 15, 2019 He previously called on the Queensland Government to lend A$35 million ($25.1 million) to bail-out the company and, when the left-leaning Labor government in power refused, he blamed the closure on the state government. The federal government also refused to loan the money. The businessman told reporters on April 15 he would cover the costs while also maintaining that in his view, none of his companies were responsible for sacking anyone. Queensland Nickel owed debts of about A$300 million ($215 million) to creditors when it collapsed in 2016. The announcement comes as Palmer stages a potential political comeback. He is waiting to find out if his own United Australia Party will pick him as its candidate for the Townsville seat of Herbert, currently held by Labor incumbent Cathy OToole by a slim margin of just 37 votes. Palmer is seeking to restart the refinery, at a time when the price of nickel is rising. This is not about politics, this is an announcement about the industry in this town and jobs, he said. We think our investment should be welcomed, as an Australian, as Queenslands richest person, and we employ hundreds of people in the state. Taxpayers stumped up A$70 million ($50.2 million) owed to Queensland Nickel workers; money that liquidators have been tasked with recouping. Liquidators are also trying to claw back money owed to creditors. The managing director of Palmers QNI Resources company issued a statement as he addressed media in Townsville to call on the state government to approve plans to get the refinery back up and running. Nui Harris urged Premier Annastacia Palaszczuks government to expedite port, rail and plant infrastructure proposals. Now is the time for the Premier and her Government to do their part and get behind securing approvals so the refinery can be recommissioned and the good people of Townsville can have jobs, Harris said. Harris said Townsville Mayor, Jenny Hill, also needed to get behind the project so jobs could be created immediately. By Sonia Kohlbacher. With additional reporting by Epoch Times staff ISIS terrorists wave their flags in front of the Iraqi provincial government headquarters in Mosul in June 2014. The disparate groups that make up Iraq's security forces are converging on the city of Mosul, that is likely to be decisive in the war against ISIS. (AP Photo) Red Cross, New Zealand Hope for Info on Nurse Held in Syria WELLINGTON, New ZealandNew Zealands foreign minister confirmed on April 15 that a New Zealand nurse has been held captive by ISIS in Syria for almost six years, information long kept secret for fear her life might be at risk. A New Zealand nurse was abducted by the so-called Islamic State more than five years ago and is still missing authorities believe she could still be alivehttps://t.co/R0smTmdG2P SBS News (@SBSNews) April 14, 2019 The status of nurse and midwife Louisa Akavi, now 62, is unknown, but her employer, the International Committee of the Red Cross, says it has received recent eyewitness reports suggesting she might be alive. The New York Times on Sunday became the first media organization to name Akavi, ending a more than 5 -year news blackout imposed by New Zealands government and the Red Cross with the cooperation of international media. The collapse of ISIS has raised hopes that Akavi and the two Syrian drivers kidnapped with her might now be discovered. In a statement, the ICRC said that as recently as December, Akavi may have been seen by at lest two people at a clinic in Sousa, one of the ISISs last outposts. There were also reported sightings in 2016 and 2017, Red Cross officials said. We continue to work together (with the Red Cross) to locate and recover her, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said. This has been a uniquely complex and difficult case. Louisa went to Syria with the ICRC to deliver humanitarian relief to people suffering as a result of a brutal civil war and ISIS occupation. Where a New Zealander is held by a terrorist organization, the government takes all appropriate action to recover them. That is exactly what we have done here, Peters said. A New Zealand nurse has been held captive by the Islamic State group in Syria for almost six years https://t.co/DlKthbGRko Bloomberg (@business) April 15, 2019 Peters said New Zealand had sent a small multi-agency team, including special forces, to Iraq to gather information on Akavi. This has involved members of the New Zealand Defense Force, drawn from the Special Operations Force, and personnel have visited Syria from time to time as required, he said. This noncombat team was specifically focused on locating Louisa and identifying opportunities to recover her. Akavi was taken captive in 2013 in the city of Idlib in northwest Syria. It is believed she was offered for ransom and may have been used as a human shield. New Zealands government believed at one point that she may have died. But there are hopes her medical skills might have caused her captors to spare her. Akavis family said they miss her and are proud of the work to which shes dedicated her life. We think about her every day and hope she feels that and finds strength in that, said a video statement issued by family spokesman Tuaine Robati. We know she is thinking of us and that she will be worried about us too. New Zealands government is reported to have opposed the ICRCs decision to allow The New York Times to report Akavis name and nationality. At a news conference Monday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern refused to answer questions about Akavi but indicated she was disappointed the ICRC had gone public before her fate had been learned. The identity of a New Zealand nurse held by Islamic State has been released by the Red Cross in a bid to track her down and bring her home. @sophie_walsh9 #9News pic.twitter.com/wqYeWcVz9v Nine News Australia (@9NewsAUS) April 15, 2019 Youll forgive me, I hope, for not commenting on that case, Ardern said. It remains the governments view that it would be preferable if the case was not in the public domain. Dominik Stillhart, director of operations for the ICRC, said the organization had decided to permit publication in the hope it would elicit new information on her whereabouts. We have not spoken publicly before today because from the moment Louisa and the others were kidnapped, every decision we made was to maximize the chances of winning their freedom, Stillhart said in a statement. With Islamic State group having lost the last of its territory, we felt it was now time to speak out. He said the collapse of ISIS in Syria may mean new opportunities to learn more about Akavis situation and the ICRC also feared it risked losing track of her in the aftermath of its collapse. Akavi is of Cook Islands descent and lives in Otaki, a small town north of Wellington. She is the longest-held captive in the history of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Stillhart called her a true and compassionate humanitarian. He said strenuous efforts had been made to secure her release. Negotiations in 2013 and 2014 were not successful. In 2014, she was among a group of hostages moved by ISIS only hours before a raid by U.S. special forces that aimed to free them. We call on anyone with information to please come forward, Stillhart said. If our colleagues are still being held, we call for their immediate and unconditional release. Stillhart later defended the ICRCs decision to publicize Akavis case after years of silence. Every decision was to maximize the chance of Louisas freedom and every decision was coordinated with the New Zealand government, Stillhart said at a news conference in Geneva. That included the difficult decision to go public. We think with new information from the public, we can redirect the investigation for Louisa. Removal of Fuel in Pool at Fukushimas Melted Reactor Begins TOKYOThe operator of the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant began removing fuel on April 15 from a cooling pool at one of three reactors that melted down in the 2011 disaster, a milestone in what will be a decades-long process to decommission the facility. Tokyo Electric Power Co. said workers started removing the first of 566 used and unused fuel units stored in the pool at Unit 3. The fuel units in the pool located high up in reactor buildings are intact despite the disaster, but the pools are not enclosed, so removing the units to safer ground is crucial to avoid disaster in case of another major earthquake similar to the one that caused the 2011 tsunami. Tepco begins second round of fuel rod removals at battered Fukushima nuclear plant https://t.co/lX0ByfGiIM pic.twitter.com/jmBufm2YhV Reuters Top News (@Reuters) April 15, 2019 TEPCO says the removal at Unit 3 will take two years, followed by the two other reactors, where about 1,000 fuel units remain in the storage pools. Removing fuel units from the cooling pools comes ahead of the real challenge of removing melted fuel from inside the reactors, but details of how that might be done are still largely unknown. Removing the fuel in the cooling pools was delayed more than four years by mishaps, high radiation, and radioactive debris from an explosion that occurred at the time of the reactor meltdowns, underscoring the difficulties that remain. Workers are remotely operating a crane built underneath a jelly roll-shaped roof cover to raise the fuel from a storage rack in the pool and place it into a protective cask. The whole process occurs underwater to prevent radiation leaks. Each cask will be filled with seven fuel units, then lifted from the pool and lowered to a truck that will transport the cask to a safer cooling pool elsewhere at the plant. The work is carried out remotely from a control room about 546 yards away because of still-high radiation levels inside the reactor building that houses the pool. I believe everything is going well so far, plant chief Tomohiko Isogai told Japanese public broadcaster NHK. We will watch the progress at the site as we put safety first. Our goal is not to rush the process but to carefully proceed with the decommissioning work. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Fukushima Daiichi. After being given a tour the Prime Minister presented letters of gratitude to contractor employees, and said, Lets continue to work together until we have enabled Fukushima to completely recover. https://t.co/7PSicuDAMI pic.twitter.com/ndrCTp6qY2 TEPCO (@TEPCO_English) April 15, 2019 About an hour after the work began Monday, the first fuel unit was safely stored inside the cask, TEPCO spokesman Takahiro Kimoto said. Mondays operation was to end after a fourth unit is placed inside the cask, he said. No major damage was found on the fuel unit Monday, but plant officials will closely examine if there are any pinholes or other irregularities, Kimoto said. The removal, however, raises a storage capacity concern at the plant because the common pool, where fuel from the Unit 3 pool heads to, already has 6,000 fuel units and is almost full. Kimoto said TEPCO has made room at the common pool for the incoming fuel by moving years-old and sufficiently cooled fuel into dry casks for safer, long-term storage, though further details are being worked out. In 2014, TEPCO safely removed all 1,535 fuel units from the storage pool at a fourth reactor that was idle and had no fuel inside its core when the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami occurred. Robotic probes have photographed and detected traces of damaged nuclear fuel in the three reactors that had meltdowns, but the exact location and other details of the melted fuel are largely unknown. Removing fuel from the cooling pools will help free up space for the subsequent removal of the melted fuel, though details on how to gain access to it have yet to be decided. Experts say the melted fuel in the three reactors amounts to more than 800 tons, an enormous amount that is more than six times that of the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, where one reactor had a partial core melt. Workers begin removing fuel from Fukushima nuclear reactor https://t.co/DHq0xwDCgv pic.twitter.com/s1cciztVbz New York Post (@nypost) April 15, 2019 In February, a remote-controlled robot with tongs removed pebbles of nuclear debris from the Unit 2 reactor but was unable to remove larger chunks, indicating a robot would need to be developed that can break the chunks into smaller pieces. Toshiba Corp.s energy systems unit, which developed the robot, said the findings were key to determining the proper equipment and technologies needed to remove the melted fuel, the most challenging part of the decommissioning. TEPCO and government officials plan to determine methods for removing the melted fuel from each of the three damaged reactors later this year so they can begin the process in 2021. by Mari Yamaguchi Restaurant Bans Middle School Students From Dining Without Parents A Wisconsin restaurant made headlines after posting a note on its door saying middle school students cannot go inside without a parent. Toms Drive-in in Appleton posted the letter after it experienced mistreatment of Toms Drive Ins property, guests and staff by middle school students, WFRV reported. A manager at the restaurant told the station that students were caught vandalizing tables, yelling curse words, and leaving messes. ".Middle School Students Due to mistreatment of Tom's Drive In's property, guests, and staff, you are no longer allowed inside of the building without parental supervision." Posted by 95.7 The Rock on Monday, April 15, 2019 They were also allegedly caught stealing soda, fighting with other patrons, and giving each other tattoos with needles and pen ink, the station reported. After the alleged tattoo attempt, bloody napkins were found. As a result of the abuse and rowdy behavior, it became a full-time babysitting job, WFRV reported. View this post on Instagram A post shared by WFRV Local 5 (@wfrvlocal5) on Apr 11, 2019 at 12:27pm PDT For those who did not cause any of the incidents, we are sorry for this inconvenience, the note said. You may still purchase food through the walk-up window. According to WFRV, the restaurant said it isnt singling out a specific school, adding that there are a lot of good kids coming in. The policy will remain in place until the end of the school year. On Instagram, after posting the note, numerous people agreed with the policy. This is nothing new teach the kids some manners and class while youre at it, one person wrote. To those saying that only the ones causing trouble should be punished.it no longer works that way. Punish them and they will come back for revenge. They will vandalize the whole place, burn it down or physically harm the management. Thats unfortunatley how it is these days. Punishing everyone because of the misdeeds of the few happens everywhere. It has happened at every job Ive worked at for the past 25 years. Get used to it, added another person. Said another, Good for this restaurant! Let these kids go home and pull this [expletive] in their own house. Their parents wouldnt stand for it. No one should have to put up with them. I dont blame the restaurant. Hey, you play you pay, wrote one. However, some thought it was excessive. Very Sad that All Students are banned when its probably just a Handful that Caused the Problems! Punish Those that are the Problems!! another person wrote. Restaurant Owner Bans Children Under 7 Several years ago, an Australian restaurant owner banned all children under the age of 7. Liam Flynn, the owner of Flynns restaurant, said years ago that a 2-year-old child started crying and screaming during lunch. A genius business move is seriously paying off. Posted by Business Insider on Thursday, July 30, 2015 Flynn came outside the kitchen after 10 minutes and tried to intervene, telling the parents would you mind quietening your child down please and suggesting they take him outside, according to Business Insider. The screaming, however, persisted. After an exchange of words, the mother eventually cursed at a chef before posting a negative review on TripAdvisor. He then banned children under the age of 7. If one pays money for having an enjoyable lunch during an anniversary or honeymoon, please do yourself and other patrons a favor by getting a babysitter or by removing the screaming baby from the room, he said. It is purely out of respect for other diners, regardless whether they are two or twenty of them in the restaurant. Those are basic social skills and we do not feel that we should be teaching parents how to handle their children. Days later, he said, Its been good for business. Flynn added to Business Insider: Business is booming. We just had record Friday and Saturday nights. People are spending up large, drinking fine wine and spending up big. A man drives a golf cart at a golf course as an ash plume rises in the distance from the Kilauea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii, on May 15, 2018. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) Scientists Monitor Increased Activity at Big Island Volcano HILO, HawaiiScientists in Hawaii are monitoring increasing activity surrounding one of the Big Islands volcanoes. The Hawaii Volcano Observatory is closely monitoring Mauna Loa because conditions have risen to levels comparable to a more active period between 2014 and 2017, The Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported Sunday. It is too early to predict possible outcomes of Mauna Loas activity, according to Tina Neal, the observatorys scientist-in-charge. An eruption could be anywhere from months to years away, Neal said. But we do know that its not days or weeks away. There have been increased earthquakes and ground deformation around Mauna Loas summit, she said. Earthquakes on Mauna Loa dropped to less than five per week in early 2018, but there have been up to 90 earthquakes weekly since August, with most considered mild at 2.0 or less on the Richter scale, Neal said. Gas monitoring equipment at Mauna Loas summit has not detected any emerging fumes, she said. The most important thing is that there is no cause for alarm, Neal said. An eruption last year by Hawaiis Kilauea volcano destroyed more than 700 homes from May through August. Kilaueas current alert status is Normal. The Kilauea eruption came shortly after a decrease in volcanic activity at Mauna Loa, but Neal said there is no perfect correlation between the volcanoes indicating one always becomes active as the other falls silent. However, there is some geological basis to suggest a pattern, and Mauna Loas increased activity would test that hypothesis, Neal said. More Restaurants Are Adding Healthcare Surcharge to Customers Checks Some restaurants in Texas are reportedly adding a new charge to diners checks, and it might become a nationwide trend. Foreign & Domestic, in Austins North Loop, and Hoovers Cooking, in Cherrywood, added a health care surcharge to checks to cover the cost of sick leave and health insurance, Fox News reported. Foreign & Domestic added a 3 percent charge to each bill. Patrons can deny the charge, but its co-owner, Sarah Heard, said many opt not to. Heard told Fox News, Since January 1 we have had less than five guests ask to have the fee removed. Would you ask to have this charged removed? #JTS Posted by KNOX Radio Grand Forks on Monday, April 15, 2019 Nathan Lemley, the other co-owner, told KVUE that Foreign & Domestic chose to charge more rather than raise the price of food. We also started applying a three-percent surcharge on customer bills. If they would like, we can remove it, said Lemley. If we were to raise prices on our food, we would have to raise a dollar per item. Basically, this would be the least amount we could raise and that would actually cost the guest more, he explained. Would you pay a surcharge to pay for restaurant employees' healthcare costs? Posted by AJC on Monday, April 15, 2019 Hoovers Cooking implemented a $1 community value contribution, according to Fox. Just as we value you as a patron, we want to do right by our team of cooks, servers and support staff. An extra dollar might not seem like a lot, but added to your bill, youre helping provide Paid Time Off [PTO] for each and every employee at Hoovers Cooking, said a note from Hoovers. The extra portion of comfort and security PTO brings means that the staffer is healthier, happier, and they enjoy working at Hoovers because our patrons show they care, it continued. Other restaurants across the United States have adopted similar measures. For example, a restaurant owner in Santa Monica, California, also adds the additional fee. If anybody has a real issue with the surchargefor whatever reasonand they dont want to pay it, we dont question it. We just tell them well take it off, Josh Loeb, the California restaurateur, told FSR Magazine in 2015. Id say that happens maybe once every couple of weeks in our restaurants. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Hoovers Cooking (@hooversez) on Mar 22, 2019 at 1:48pm PDT According to Fox, several restaurants in the Minneapolis area are now charging extra for health and wellness charges, and several Chicago-area restaurants have done the same. In San Francisco, diners at some restaurants have to pay an SF Mandates or Healthy SF charge following a citywide ordinance, reported the San Francisco Chronicle in 2018. But not everyone agrees with the move. The industry is asking for the right to add an extra fee, but it would be bad for diners, critic Ryan Sutton argues Posted by Eater NY on Wednesday, May 9, 2018 Ryan Sutton, in an opinion article for Eater.com, said that restaurants shouldnt be allowed to add surcharges. If adding a few percentage points to dinner doesnt seem like that big of a deal five percent works out to six bucks on a $120 bill remember that restaurant bills are already contain[ing] at least one more extra than at a typical retail establishment, said Suttons op/ed piece. Sutton noted that there are a number of fees. Of course theres the standard sales tax, levied on most transactions in the city, followed by the optional gratuity line, which is unique to bars and restaurants. Add on the extra surcharge and youll be at three discrete supplemental charges at your local cafe. A taste of this ridiculousness is already fully apparent to anyone who has ordered delivery from Caviar, which levies a service fee, permits delivery fees, and adds an optional line for courier bonus, says his article. Theres something particularly disingenuous about mandating a restaurant surcharge while keeping the tip as the only optional fee in a restaurant transaction, considering that the tip constitutes the bulk of a waiters compensation, he opined. President Donald Trump acknowledges applause as he is welcomed to the International Union of Operating Engineers International Training and Education Center Wednesday, April 10, 2019, in Crosby, Texas. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian) Trumps 2020 Campaign Raises $30 Million in First Quarter President Donald Trumps 2020 presidential campaign reported raising more than $30 million in the first quarter of 2019, far outpacing the haul of every Democratic contender during the same period. The presidents campaign chest totaled $40.8 million in cash. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) led the Democratic field in campaign donations, raising $18.2 million and $12 million, respectively, in the first quarter. The average donation for the Trump campaign was $34.26; nearly 99 percent of the donors gave $200 or less. The average donation for Sanders campaign was $20 during the first quarter. The Republican National Committee (RNC) brought in $45.8 million in the first quarter. Trumps re-election campaign is raising money alongside the RNC. Former Texas Rep. Beto ORourke and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg ranked third and fourth in total campaign contributions in the first quarter, raising $9.4 million and $7 million, respectively. Buttigieg announced his candidacy on April 14, one day prior to the April 15 deadline for first-quarter campaign disclosures. Former Vice President Joe Biden leads the Democratic field in early polling, but hasnt yet officially announced his candidacy or disclosed his fundraising figures. More than a dozen Democrats have announced their candidacy for the 2020 election. The party will begin the selection process for its candidate, starting with state-level contests early next year. In a race that is partly defined by fundraising prowess, other Democratic candidates are falling behind. During the first quarter, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts raised $6 million, while Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey raised $5 million each. The Trump campaign has cast the 2020 election as a choice between socialism and freedom. The leading Democratic contenders have all endorsed the socialist Medicare for All and Green New Deal policies. The two policies would hand the government a monopoly over the energy and health care sectors and cost an estimated $93 trillion over the first decade. The total projected spending of the current government is $60 trillion in the next 10 years. The embrace of Medicare for All represents a hard-left shift for the Democratic party. Six years ago, the Medicare for All bill had no co-sponsors. Today, it is embraced by every leading Democrat running for president, one-third of Senate Democrats and two-thirds of House Democrats. The majority of Americans approve of Medicare for All, but enthusiasm for the policy falls drastically once likely voters learn about the details of the policy. Only 13 percent of Americans would back the policy if it meant the end of private health insurance. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that support for Medicare for All dropped to 44 percent from 62 percent once the policy was described as socialized medicine. While socialism is increasingly popular among younger Americans, only 18 percent of the overall population view the ideology in a positive light. Aware of the negative perception, all of the leading Democratswith the exception of ORourke and Sandershave steered clear of the socialist label. They are playing a very delicate game because they have to appeal to their progressive socialist base, the people who get out and campaign for them, but they also dont want to frighten middle America into the hands of the Republicans, Trevor Loudon, an author who spent 30 years researching radical left, Marxist, and terrorist movements, said about the 2020 Democratic candidates. They know enough to say the right words to middle America so as to not frighten them, but to promote the exact same policies that have been promoted by the Communist Party USA and the Democratic Socialists of America, which are both Marxist-communist groups. Reuters contributed to this report. Correction: this article has been update to accurately reflect the combined projected cost of the Green New Deal and Medicate for All. The former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Paul Ryan attends a ceremony at the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), to mark the 40th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act, in Taipei, Taiwan on March 15, 2019. (Fabian Hamacher/Reuters) US Denounces Coercion as China Conducts Drills Near Taiwan TAIPEIChinese bombers and warships conducted drills around Taiwan on April 15, the latest military maneuvers near the self-ruled island that a senior U.S. official denounced as coercion and a threat to stability in the region. The United States has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help provide the island with the means to defend itself and is its main source of arms. China has stepped up pressure on Taiwan, whose President Tsai Ing-wen is suspected by Beijing of pushing for the islands formal independence, a red line for China which has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. Any attempt to influence Taiwan through threats or coercion, we believe, destabilizes the region and threatens stability in the Taiwan Strait, James Moriarty, chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, said at a ceremony to mark the last four decades of U.S.Taiwan relations. Chinas Peoples Liberation Army said its warships, bombers and reconnaissance aircraft conducted necessary drills around Taiwan on April 15, though it described them as routine. China has repeatedly carried out what it calls island encirclement patrols in the past few years. Taiwan scrambled jets and ships to monitor the Chinese forces, its defense ministry said, accusing Beijing of trying to change the status quo of the Taiwan Strait. Moriarty said flying fighter jets and bombers around the island, presumably in connection with what we are doing this afternoon, certainly does not help at all. It hurts stability. It damages the cross strait relationship. It damages any attempt by China to win the hearts and minds of Taiwan people, he told reporters at the institutes new $256 million facility, the de facto U.S. embassy in Taiwan. A delegation led by former U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, was in Taipei to mark 40 years since the signing of the Taiwan Relations Act, which governs U.S.Taiwan relations, and to reaffirm Washingtons commitment. We couldnt ask for a better friend than Taiwan. Taiwan is a democratic success story, a reliable partner, and a force for good in the world, Ryan said. We want the rest of the world to be more like Taiwan. Tsai, who says she wants to maintain the status quo with China but will defend Taiwans security and democracy, said at the ceremony that China has been ramping up military threats against Taiwan. The visit by U.S. officials comes just weeks after Tsai said the United States was responding positively to Taipeis requests for new arms sales to bolster its defenses in the face of growing pressure from China. Last month, Washington sent Navy and Coast Guard ships through the narrow strait separating the island from the mainland, part of an increase in the frequency of U.S. movement through the strategic waterway to show support for Taipei. By Yimou Lee Patrons crowd the platform at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's (WMATA) Metro Center stop in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 20, 2004. Thousands use the public transit system daily to get them in and around the D.C. area. (Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images) US Senators Threaten Metro Funding Over Chinese Manufacturer WASHINGTON Federal lawmakers say theyll approve badly needed funding for Washingtons transit system, but only if it avoids buying new rail cars from China. The Washington Post reported on April 13 that U.S. Senators from Virginia and Maryland proposed the idea in new legislation. It reflects growing concerns that Chinas state-owned rail company could hurt American manufacturers and make the system vulnerable to cyber espionage. Dave Smolensky, spokesman for the China Railway Rolling Stock Corp, dismissed the espionage concerns. The company also said the United States should be promoting competition. The company has won four major U.S. rail car contracts. It is pursuing a Metro contract worth more than $1 billion to build up to 800 of the new rail cars. There are no U.S. transit rail car manufacturers. The bidding deadline is May 31. Small toy figures are seen in front of a displayed Huawei and 5G network logo in this illustration picture on March 30, 2019. (Dado Ruvic/Illustration/Reuters) US to Press Allies to Keep Huawei Out of 5G in Prague Meeting WASHINGTON/LONDONThe United States will push its allies at a meeting in Prague next month to adopt shared security and policy measures that will make it more difficult for Chinas Huawei to dominate 5G telecommunications networks, according to people familiar with the matter and documents seen by Reuters. The event and broader U.S. campaign to limit the role of Chinese telecommunications firms in the build out of 5G networks comes as Western governments grapple with the national security implications of moving to 5G, which promises to be at least 100 times faster than the current 4G networks. The issue is crucial because of 5Gs leading role in internet-connected products ranging from self-driving cars and smart cities to augmented reality and artificial intelligence. If the underlying technology for 5G connectivity is vulnerable then it could allow hackers to exploit such products to spy or disrupt them. The United States has been meeting with allies in recent months to warn them Washington believes Huaweis equipment could be used by the Chinese state to spy. Huawei Technologies Co Ltd has repeatedly denied the allegations. Officials from more than 30 countries will meet May 2-3 to agree on security principles for next-generation telecoms networks, said Robert Kahofer, chief of cabinet at Czech cybersecurity agency NUKIB. A U.S. official familiar with the plan said the Prague meeting marks a strategic shift in how the U.S. government plans to urge allies to drop Huawei and other 5G vendors in the future, which Washington believes pose a risk to national security. The official described the approach as softer. A Huawei spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. U.S. proposals for the Prague meeting urge governments and operators to consider the legal environment in a vendors country, how much state support a company receives, transparency of corporate structure, and trustworthiness of equipment. It also calls on partners to prioritize security and work together on investigations into cyberattacks aimed at 5G architecture. The documents do not mention Huawei, the worlds largest telecoms equipment maker, by name, but U.S. officials said they hoped it would provide the intellectual framework needed for other countries to effectively bar Chinese vendors. In August, President Donald Trump signed a bill that barred the U.S. government itself from using Huawei and ZTE Corp equipment. The goal is to agree upon a set of shared principles that would ensure the security of next-generation telecommunications networks, said one of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. The Prague conference has been organized by the Czech foreign ministry with support from NUKIB, said Kahofer. The foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment. Delegations from all of the European Unions 28 member states, as well as the European Commission, NATO and around eight other countries including the United States and Australia are expected to attend, Kahofer said. China and Russia have not been invited, he added, but stressed that the event was not an anti-Huawei or anti-China conference. Europe has emerged as a key battleground for the future of 5G, with the United States pushing allies and partners to bar Chinese vendors. A senior U.S. cybersecurity official said last week Washington wanted European governments to adopt risk-based security frameworks, citing recent moves in Germany to implement stricter security standards for all 5G vendors, and that doing so would effectively rule out using Huawei and ZTE. The United States welcomes engagement from partners and allies to discuss ways that we can work together ensuring that our 5G networks are reliable and secure, said White House National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis. Officials in Britain, which last month exposed new security flaws in Huawei equipment but says it has found no evidence of Chinese state interference, have also spoken of raising security across the board for 5G. The European Commission said in March that EU nations would be required to share data on 5G cybersecurity risks and produce measures to tackle them by the end of the year. By Christopher Bing & Jack Stubbs Police patrol walk in front of the Id Kah Mosque in the old city of Kashgar, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China. (Reuters/Thomas Peter) Uyghur Residents Forced to Organize Into Civilian Anti-Terrorist Units An official document from authorities in a neighborhood of Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, has revealed more details about the extent of their suppression of Uyghurs. The document, first leaked onto the Chinese internet, explains a program for residents to form 10-household anti-terrorist units. Each member is equipped with a large wooden stick, whistle, and one-button alarm. In case a riot breaks out, members are required to press the alarmwhich can be mounted on the wall or carried anywhereimmediately, which notifies the authorities. Then, they blow their whistle to inform other members, and grab their sticks to attack any so-called terrorists they encounter. The notice gives tips on how to strike effectively, noting that members can even beat the terrorists to death, without having to bear any legal consequences. Proceed with confidence, the notice reads. Oftentimes it is the braver one who wins the fight. Xinjiang, home to many Muslim minorities including Uyghurs and Kazakhs, has been subject to heavy surveillance since July 2009, when riots in Urumqi turned deadly. Since then, the Chinese regime has labeled Uyghurs a terror threat, justifying the severe suppression of the population as anti-terror measures, including banning students from speaking Uyghur in schools, burning religious books, and throwing Uyghurs into concentration camps. According to reports on China Peace, an online media run by the Chinese Communist Partys Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC), the 10-household program has existed since at least August 2014, deployed in different parts of Xinjiang. The PLAC oversees Chinas entire security apparatus. In an April 11 interview with Radio Free Asia, a Kazakh resident in Ili Prefecture in northern Xinjiang said that local authorities often conduct alarm exercises. Those who are late three times, or fail to memorize the contents of a brochure containing the same information as the leaked notice mentioned above on 10 occasions, will be sent to concentration camps, he said. He learned that in the local counties of Yining and Altay, and the neighboring county of Emin, barbershops have had to suspend operations during the drills because there is only one barber working at the shop. Others have had to run out while in the middle of cutting a customers hair. Dilxat Raxit, spokesperson for the World Uyghur Congress, an international group representing exiled Uyghurs, told the Chinese-language Epoch Times on April 12 that the 10-household program is a mechanism for Uyghurs to inform on each other, because if there is an extremist in one household, the other nine households will be implicated and sent to concentration camps. Therefore, to protect oneself and ones family, these 10 households monitor and report on one another, he said. The person reporting on others will be rewarded, while the others are severely punished, leading to segregation of neighbors, as well as fear and panic among local people. Raxit also pointed out that some Chinese high-technology companies are assisting the Chinese regime in its surveillance of Uyghurs. For instance, Radio Free Asia found that the Shenzhen Security Group explained on its website that its one-key alarm product is used for the 10-household program. Raxit called on the international community to impose sanctions on Beijing, and to punish tech firms that assist the Chinese regime in carrying out their persecution of Uyghurs. Woman Facing Charges for Starving Two Dogs Locked in a Cage Together, One Eats the Other *Warning: Graphic photo* CANTON, OhioA 25-year-old Canton woman has been charged for allegedly starving two dogs locked in a cage, causing one of the animals to eat the other after it died, according to court records. Court records state that on or about April 5, Jessica J. Swinehart locked a beagle in a cage with a German Shepherd-mix and starved the animals. When the beagle died, the other dog ate it to survive. When authorities found the German Shepherd, it appeared to have lost nearly two-thirds of its body weight. it was still locked in the cage with the decaying beagle. Jessica Swinehart, a 25-year-old woman, probably satans niece, starved to dogs by locking them in a cage. The dogs, one a beagle and the other a German shepherd, went for weeks without food until the beagle died and got eaten by the German Shepherd. https://t.co/vVBUQYV87D USCarCrashNews (@USCarCrashNews) April 15, 2019 An arrest warrant was filed on April 8 and she was later arrested. Swinehart has been charged with two counts of prohibitions concerning companion animals, a fifth-degree felony. A future court date is pending. A 25-year-old Ohio woman has been charged for allegedly starving two dogs locked in a cage, causing one of the animals to eat the other after it died, according to court records. Posted by Fox Carolina News on Sunday, April 14, 2019 Animal Cruelty The effects of animal cruelty reach beyond the animal victims, noted researchers for the Animal Welfare Institute in a 2012 report (pdf). Accumulating empirical evidence is demonstrating a strong association between animal cruelty and other crimes, including interpersonal violence, illegal possession of drugs and guns, and property destruction, researchers stated. Moreover, participation in animal cruelty in childhood is a significant marker for the development of aggressive and anti-social behavior, as well as a predictor of individuals who might engage in domestic violence. Nearly every state has passed laws making animal cruelty a felony in some or all cases, the researchers said, a dramatic change in how the crimes are viewed and prosecuted. According to the Humane Society of the United States, hoarding behavior can hurt animals, with women as the main culprits; animal abusers, meanwhile, are most often men. Hoarding behavior often victimizes animals. Sufferers of a hoarding disorder may impose severe neglect on animals by housing far more than they are able to adequately take care of. Serious animal neglect (such as hoarding) is often an indicator of people in need of social or mental health services, the group stated. Surveys suggest that those who intentionally abuse animals are predominantly men under 30, while those involved in animal hoarding are more likely to be women over 60. Recently, I related to Entrepreneur readers how awful 2018 was for my business: ups and downs, mostly downs: My business partner Dan Foley and I were taken on a veritable rollercoaster ride of big bets and big busts. Related: Managing Your Lawyers as Your Startup Grows One of the only good things that happened last year? We learned a lot from lawyers. The reason was that all of our blockchain clients and security token offerings (STOs) needed legal counsel. So, we went looking for the folks who could help them. And, not only did we help clients connect to attorneys, but we also collaborated on our clients' legal documents: private placement memorandums (PPMs), purchase agreements and white papers. The takeaway? We learned firsthand the importance of setting aside cash for lawyers, even if you never think youll be in trouble. Here are four other ways new business owners can make sure theyre covered legally: 1. Have agreements with your business partners. When Foley and I partnered up, we were green around the gills. Neither of us knew anything about running a business. But we knew enough to draft up and sign articles of organization, and make sure we submitted incorporation paperwork to the right entities. Why does this matter? Because a business divorce can be very messy (Remember how Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, in the '80s, got kicked out of the company by his newly appointed CEO)? In the event that you and your business partner(s) have a falling out, its best to keep things civil. There is a right way to separate from your business partner and a wrong way. Doing it the right way ensures that everyone gets what he or she is owed -- nothing more, and nothing less. You can find templates for all sorts of business agreements and contracts at sites like RocketLawyer, LegalZoom and PandaDoc. One of our business partners last year actually turned out to be nefarious and tried to cheat us. But because we had detailed agreements in place, we convinced the partner to back down. Related: Nine Common Legal Mistakes Small Business Owners Make 2. Draft and sign contracts with all your vendors. Never assume people will play nice just because youre paying them. You need to have contracts in place with everyone who works for you, not just full-time employees. If youre like most small business owners in the 21st century, then youre probably relying on a number of part-timers and freelancers to move the needle. Make sure you have vendor contracts for all those 1099s. Solutions like HelloSign, DocuSign and SendDoc make it easy to send, share and electronically sign contracts. Weve personally never had any problems with our vendors because we do our best to pay everyone fairly and on time. But weve heard horror stories from some of our colleagues -- everything from defamation to lawsuits. 3. Send your clients contracts and ask for half up-front. This should go without saying: Never do handshake agreements, not even with friends and family. No, sending a contract and expecting it to be signed by clients before you begin work for them is not insulting. Its just sound decision-making. No matter who your clients are, always lay out your deliverables and payment terms in a statement of work (SOW). And, while some municipalities, like New York City, have recently passed laws to protect freelancers, the truth is that clients who dont pay on time or at all are a dime a dozen. Fortunately, an easy way to increase the odds that a client will pay (and, a litmus test as to whether they're trustworthy) is to simply ask for half up-front. Clients who arent totally trustworthy will hem and haw and complain, while decent human beings will say, That sounds fair. Good invoicing solutions include Quickbooks and Freshbooks. 4. If clients dont pay, send them a demand letter. In a worst-case scenario, where a client owes you a considerable amount of money and refuses to pay, youll have to resort to small claims court. If your contracts are airtight and youve kept records of all your interactions via email, chances are youll win the case. But the legal fees involved in hiring an attorney to sue a nonpaying client arent exactly low. In many cases, you may end up spending a significant amount of money just to recover your money, which isnt exactly the best investment. Thats why your best bet may be to send a demand letter, first. A well-written, official-looking letter from an attorney who specializes in recovering payments is much more cost-effective than actually taking anyone to court. Services like Letterdash, Avvo and LegalMatch help owners draft demand letters. It pays to be prepared. For new business owners with tight budgets, a lawyer may seem like a luxury. You may be tempted to draft up your own contracts using templates. And thats just fine ... until its not. Related: What are the Legal Issues That Stare at Augmented/Virtual Reality? When it comes down to it, having trustworthy legal counsel is probably one of the best investments you can make in your business in the long run. So, get some references, check your bank account -- and lawyer up. Related: 4 Ways to Cover Your Ass Legally as a Business Owner 5 Ways Contracts Are an Entrepreneur's Best Friend Time to Send Out 1099s: What to Know Copyright 2019 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved April 14 A 48-year-old School Street man was charged with three counts of violation of probation. He was held on $45,000 bond and given a court date of April 23. April 13 A 24-year-old Center Avenue man was charged with failure to carry registration, illegal operation of a commercial vehicle, failure to renew registration and driving under suspension. He was given a court date of April 22. A 35-year-old man was charged with fifth-degree larceny and conspiracy to commit fifth-degree larceny. He was held on $1,000 bond and given a court date of April 22. A 39-year-old New York woman was charged with fifth-degree larceny and conspiracy to commit fifth-degree larceny. She was held on $1,000 bond and given a court date of April 22. An 18-year-old Suncrest Road man was charged with second-degree breach of peace. He was held on $500 bond and given a court date of April 24. A 33-year-old Antigua woman was charged with fifth-degree larceny and conspiracy to commit fifth-degree larceny. She was held on $1,000 bond and given a court date of April 22. A 24-year-old West Haven woman was charged with sixth-degree larceny. She was held on $365 bond and given a court date of April 22. April 12 A 54-year-old Rhode Island man was charged with unsafe backing, failure to renew registration, driving under the influence and driving without minimum insurance. He was held on $500 bond and given a court date of April 24. A 29-year-old Delaware Avenue man was charged with second-degree breach of peace and third-degree criminal mischief. He was held on $2,500 bond and given a court date of April 15. A 29-year-old Sylvan Street man was charged with second-degree failure to appear. He was held on $10,000 bond and given a court date of April 24. A 38-year-old Colorado man was charged with three counts of second-degree failure to appear and first-degree failure to appear. He was held on $17,950 bond and given a court date of April 25. A 64-year-old Silvermine Avenue woman was charged with violation of a protective order and disorderly conduct. She was held on $2,500 bond and given a court date of April 15. NORWALK The Police Commission accepted Officer Phillip Roselles retirement on Monday. While Mayor Harry Rilling said Roselles family was very pleased with the pension agreement, the retiring officer a 31-year veteran who was shot and permanently injured in a September 2017 training accident felt the city should do more for him. This is nothing but a forced retirement. I was shot by somebody who was irresponsible. I got a bullet in my chest that I cant get rid of, and now I have kidneys that dont work and a hand that doesnt work thats what I got for 31 years of service, Roselle said. They dont give a rats behind about me. The commission unanimously approved a pension settlement that granted Roselle a full pension instead of the disability pension that had previously been discussed. The pension will be effective retroactively to April 1. The pension includes a monthly payment of $5,097.20 to Roselle for the rest of his life a payment that will transfer to his wife if he dies and a one-time severance package of $32,549.05. Rilling claims the city will go a step further. The city has been working to ensure that the family is going to be taken care of above and beyond what you see here, Rilling said. Rilling declined to reveal what was being considered, but said it centered on a workers compensation settlement. From what I understand, the Roselles are very pleased with what they will be receiving with the pension and workers compensation benefits, Rilling said. Roselle, who was at dialysis and could not attend his official retirement, confirmed discussions with the city regarding a workers compensation settlement. They havent done anything above and beyond for me and my family, said Roselle, whose workers compensation benefits had previously been denied. They basically said, this is what were going to get, shut the heck up and move on. Roselle also wouldnt reveal the potential worth of the discussed settlement, but said he expected it to be finalized within two weeks. The settlement, he claimed, would include one lump sum of cash followed by two additional payments over 12 months. Whatever it is, though, it certainly wont be enough, he said. Rilling said he empathized with the familys frustrations, especially given the extraordinary circumstances that led to Roselles retirement, but also pointed out that the family would be fairly compensated when all is said and done. The agreement comes more than two-and-a-half years after he was shot by his sergeant in a training range accident. In recent months, Roselles wife, Debbie Roselle, has advocated for state legislation to allow municipalities to pay the difference between the disability retirement pay and regular pay rate for public safety employees who are forced to retire due to injury. I basically begged and pleaded for the mayor to hold off until the bill Ive been working so hard on passes in June, but the mayor would not, Debbie Roselle said. Its a very unfortunate situation, but I guess they needed to fill Phils spot. While social media continues to evolve such as in terms of the popularity of certain platforms, the ways in which social media algorithms prioritize content and the types of content users want to engage with, brands need to recognize that the business of social media is still built on community and human-to-human engagement. In other words, even though social media looks quite different now than it did on early-internet communication mediums such as chatrooms and bulletin boards, the social aspect still remains. People use social media because they want to connect with other individuals, and they want to be entertained, inspired and form emotional bonds with others. That means that being successful on social media requires humanizing your brand through people rather than acting like an advertiser. And this principle will likely only become more important as social media shifts from a one-to-many communication style to focus more on one-to-one interactions. Focus on building relationships. Recently, I attended the seventh annual Social Media Marketing World conference in San Diego, which has grown to almost 5,000 attendees comprised of marketing professionals from around the world. There, I connected with some of the preeminent social media marketing experts to get their insights into how to be successful business-wise on social media. One of those individuals is Roberto Blake, a creative entrepreneur who has built a large social media following and is the owner of digital agency Create Awesome Media. As he explains, attaining long-term business success on social media requires building relationships with people regardless of the platform youre using. You also have to account for the fact that there might not be a long shelf-life to these platforms, and people are scared to invest and commit there, whereas I am not. Because what Im going to get is the relationship value while Im there, and Im going to take those relationships with me wherever I go, says Blake. And thats where I think the future is for marketers and people in the social media world, to move away from vanity metrics, to move away from the fear and anxiety of what platforms and algorithms are going to do in the future." Blake says brands need to understand how to translate the relationships theyve built and the lessons they learned using the platform into the larger ecosystem outside of specific platforms. Similarly, marketing experts such as Jay Baer and Andrea Vahl note that the business model of social media networks like Facebook is changing from a focus on mass communication to fostering one-to-one or small-group communication. People are realizing you dont have to be super big, you can just have influence on a smaller group and have a wonderful business, says Vahl. Leverage the power of connections. By connecting with a smaller group but creating deeper relationships, brands can tap more into word-of-mouth marketing, which goes further in an era where people trust businesses less and place more emphasis on what individuals say. The trick to everything in social now is to get your customers to do your marketing for you, to get them to create content, to get them to tell your story, says Baer. In addition, the people behind brands should focus on consuming content from others to keep up with whats relevant and to understand how to create content that other people want to share. Baer says he spends at least two hours per day on this endeavor. Attending conferences like Social Media Marketing World can be part of that content consumption, but in doing so, marketers should keep a similar focus on creating connections rather than passively absorbing information. Definitely get out and meet as many people [as you can] because amazing connections and synergies and even businesses are built from this conference, says Vahl. Watch more videos from Carlos Gil on his YouTube channel here. Follow Carlos Gil on Instagram @CarlosGil83. Related: How to Get More From Your Influencer Marketing Investment Want to Build Your Brand on Social Media? Here Are Some Quick Tips. Save Time and Money With This Social Media Automation Tool Copyright 2019 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Nirarta Samadhi and Reidinar Juliane (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, April 15, 2019 Our civilization is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money. It is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few. We cannot solve the crisis without treating it like a crisis. The real power belongs to the people. That statement was delivered by Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish girl who inspired the Fridays for Future Climate Strike, a movement to skip school on Fridays to strike, pushing the government to urgently act on climate change. This movement has seen many critics but it might signal that the climate is already in a very dangerous state. The strikes are now happening in more than 71 countries and 700 places, with thousands of students taking to the streets, from Sweden, the United Kingdom to South Korea. What about Indonesia? In Indonesia, Greenpeace said only a handful of students showed up to strike. There could be several reasons for this: We dont hear much about the movement, we hear about the movement but school classes are too important to skip, or perhaps, we simply dont care. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Sri Murniati (The Jakarta Post) Kuala Lumpur Mon, April 15, 2019 15:19 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87331925d 3 Opinion #2019GeneralElections,#2019PresidentialElection,2019-general-election,2019-presidential-election,Indonesia-Malaysia,KPU,voting-day Free The 2019 election is the second election for me outside Indonesia. Before then, I didn't think much about it because the percentage of permanent voters outside the country is too small compared to total number of voters in Indonesia. For 2019, it represents only 1 percent of the total voters. The 2014 election outside the country was quite smooth and didn't attract much attention. But this year, the election organization in Malaysia made news due to the discovery of thousands of ballots marked for certain candidates in shop lots in Selangor three days before the polling took place. Election organizers and supervisors moved fast by sending a team to Malaysia to investigate the suspected rigging. Unfortunately, until the polling took place on April 14, the team of the General Elections Commission (KPU) and the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) had not been able to access the evidence as the Royal Malaysian Police didn't allow them to access the incident area. The KPU-Bawaslu Team couldn't verify whether those marked papers were authentic or not. The result of the investigation should have been made public before the election took place because it determines the integrity of election organizers here in Malaysia (PPLN Malaysia). If those ballot papers are authentic, then the integrity of the PPLN Malaysia is compromised, and the entire quality of the election process here becomes questionable. But those who took this scandal lightly ignore the fact that voters in Malaysia represent a significant percentage of the Jakarta 2 electoral district which includes all voters in the diaspora. The total number of eligible votes of Jakarta 2 are almost 4.6 million comprising over 2.5 million in South and Central Jakarta; and a little over 2 are overseas voters. Of almost 4.6 million, 985,216 are eligible voters in Malaysia. That represents 21.5 percent of the total voters in Jakarta 2. Tainting the process involving almost a quarter of voters in Jakarta 2 will put the results into question. Additionally, if reports are true regarding around 60,000 to 80,000 marked ballot papers, then those marked papers represent about 6 percent of the total ballot papers delivered by the KPU to PPLN Malaysia. In the morning of April 14 2019, I almost decided to not exercise my rights in this election. But as I checked whether progress on the investigation has been made, I thought my earlier planned abstention or golput vote wouldnt matter much. Instead I believe it is the vote that I exercised that will help shape Indonesias future. With a heavy heart, I decided to go to the polling station though knowing that the integrity of the result will not be as I had earlier expected. I believe many Indonesians felt the same with me on the diasporas election day of April 14. Thus the election scandal in Malaysia should be taken seriously. The KPU-Bawaslu should announce the investigation result before April 17. The quality of the election process in Malaysia matters especially for the legitimacy of any candidate chosen to represent Jakarta 2. *** The writer is a fellow at the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS), a public policy think tank in Malaysia and PhD Candidate at the University of Nottingham Malaysia. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Fahmi M. Nasir (The Jakarta Post) Kuala Lumpur Mon, April 15, 2019 17:28 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87331f958 3 Opinion waqf,digital,economy,finance,lifestyle,social-media,technology Free Indonesia Wakaf Summit (IWS) 2019, organized by Dompet Dhuafa on March 5, has brought together important waqf stakeholders in the country such as National Committee for Shariah Finance (KNKS), the directorate of zakat and waqf empowerment, the Religious Affairs Ministry, and Indonesian Waqf Board (BWI) to deliberate on finding an effective ways to transform and develop waqf in the so called digital era. It is interesting to note that, chairman of BWI, Muhammad Nuh in his opening speech called for embracing waqf as a lifestyle as one of the solution to ensure the transformation and the optimization of waqf potentials in Indonesia. In reading this news, my mind was travelling back to a forum in Banda Aceh, last year, whereby I also called the audience to do the same. Perhaps, as I shared with the audience at that forum, lets reflect and look around us of the massive waqf contribution in our country. Having a clear picture of massive contribution of waqf, in the past, would make easier for us to embrace the abovementioned idea. Take Aceh for example, majority of mosques, meunasah (other than for congregational prayer, this place is also known as center and source of civilizational development for the Acehnese) and schools were established collaboratively by the community through crowd funding which is called meuripee in local language. The community donated whatever amount of money they have to purchase a piece of land which later utilized to build mosques, meunasah or schools, again to be financed through crowd funding. All of these assets were registered as waqf properties and that was one of the reasons we can easily find waqf assets all over the place in that province. I believe, similar situation also occurred and practiced nationwide. Even before the existence of Indonesia, our elders have shown us how they embraced and utilized waqf to finance the establishment of waqf-houses in Mecca. According to Snouck Hurgronje,a professor and Dutch colonial official, there were many waqf-houses in Mecca which belonged and named after the region for which they establish. Among the famous waqf-houses included those for Aceh, Banten and Pontianak. He also mentioned that in 1890 there were an Acehnese who was about to travel to Aceh to make further collections to establish waqf-house. This could be an indication that the waqf tradition in Aceh particularly and in Indonesia generally was already strong at that period of time. One of the waqf-houses is now known as Bait al- Asyi Waqf in Mecca which still giving the benefit to pilgrims from Aceh in the form of cash as supplementary money for accommodation. I also took the opportunity, at the forum, to further highlight the role of waqf - an item dear to my heart - in educational sector since there were many academics and students present. This can be observed through the establishment of waqf foundation in various educational institutions across Indonesia which still exists and continue to play a key role in respective region. To name but a few, Waqf Board of the Indonesian Islamic University (BW-UII) Yogyakarta in 1945, Waqf Board Sultan Agung Foundation (YBWSA) Semarang which originally establish in 1950, Waqf Foundation of the Indonesian Muslim University (YW-UMI) Makassar in 1955, Gontor Waqf Foundation which was formalized in 1958 and Almuslim Peusangan Foundation in 1929 which now running Almuslim University in Matang Geulumpang Dua, Bireuen, Aceh and Almuslim Islamic Institute (IAI) also in Matang Geulumpang Dua. The glorious records of waqf in the past should be taken as a source of inspiration for us to revive this sector again. In doing so, we should embrace waqf as our lifestyle whereby we will be obsessed with waqf and would not be happy if we are not able to contribute or to set a portion of our assets as waqf. In order to successfully making people embracing waqf as their lifestyle, continuous effort to create waqf awareness should be done by all stakeholders ranging from waqf authority to academicians and waqf practitioners. This can be done through various efforts like conducting waqf talk, producing as many writing as possible on waqf, utilising social media in disseminating waqf concept and ideas to reach wider audiences, and conducting as many event as possible relating to waqf. The systematic efforts on creating waqf awareness will succeed if it has reached the level of critical mass. As far as I am concerned, continuous and concerted efforts on waqf will take two years to reach at critical mass whereby people will be obsessed with waqf. Hence waqf will easily become a mainstream. Why two years? This is based on my observation on how Mahathir Mohamad going around and explaining to the people on why they need to change the government in order to save Malaysia. Since 2016, Mahathir travelling across Malaysia giving a speech and explaining to people that corruptions scandals like 1MDB will bring disaster to Malaysian economy and without changing the government no remedy will works as the leader of the government himself are at the center of the scandal. Combine with other efforts from the opposition party, we were witnessing that on May 9, 2018 for the first time in Malaysian history, the opposition led by Mahathir won the election at the federal level. This historic moment can only achieve after two years of herculean efforts by Mahathir Mohamad and his Pakatan Harapan. This is why I believe that, after two years, with the hard work and concerted efforts from waqf stakeholders, the community will embrace waqf as their lifestyle and making waqf as a mainstream. As a closing remarks on how we know that waqf has become a lifestyle and mainstream, let us observe the essence of waqf in Turkey, during Ottoman government, which was captured in the beautiful words of Birol Baskan, a Turkish writer, when he noted that a person would have been born in a waqf house, slept in a waqf cradle, eaten and drunk from waqf properties, read waqf books, been taught in a waqf school, received his salary from a waqf administration, and when he died, placed in a waqf coffin and buried in a waqf cemetery. *** The writer is the founder of the Center for Study and Consultancy of Waqf, Jeumpa DMeusara (JDM) Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Editorial Board (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, April 15, 2019 08:29 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa8732fec14 1 Editorial #Editorial,#2019PresidentialElection,#2019GeneralElections,KPU,2019-presidential-election,politics,vote,voting-day Free What transpired in the past week, especially in what has been widely suspected to be vote-rigging in Malaysia and the fact that hundreds of Indonesians in Sydney, Australia, were disenfranchised could be a cause for concern for those closely watching the 2019 general election. Are these instances a one-off problem or does it reflect a wider more systematic problem related to voter registration and logistical distribution, which if left unattended could undermine the credibility of its outcome? When the Constitutional Court ordered in 2014 that both the presidential and the legislative elections be held simultaneously, we kind of knew that problems would arise. This is after all one of the most complex elections in the world, with more than 192 million people voting in national and regional legislative elections, choosing from over 245,000 candidates. These voters will cast their ballots on April 17 at more than 800,000 polling stations. We can certainly hope that what had transpired at overseas polling stations are just teething problems, where poll workers encountered problems because of new mechanisms being put in place and that it will not be repeated on a wider scale at national level come April 17. Indonesia could certainly hope for glitch-free balloting on Wednesday, because it would cap off what has largely been a peaceful and amicable process right from the moment when incumbent President Joko Jokowi Widodo and his challenger, Prabowo Subianto, registered their bids with the General Elections Commission (KPU) in August last year. Even during the stage when we expected that tension would be high, the open campaign period, it proceeded without incident. During the televised presidential debates, on-stage sparks flew whenever Jokowi and Prabowo tried to drive their points home, but off-stage supporters of both candidates never tried to sort out their differences through violence. The only place where the rhetoric heated up was on social media, but this is true in any election anywhere in the world and this is exactly why we have problems with hoaxes and fake news. Two of the most persistent problems are vote buying and bribery, as our special report today found. The recent revelation by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) that it had found thumb-shaped stamps on thousands of envelopes with denominations of Rp 20,000 (US$1.42) and Rp 50,000 inside them that were confiscated from Golkar Party lawmaker Bowo Sidik Pangarso confirmed suspicions of vote buying. Having said that we can only expect political candidates, politicians and their supporters to remain peaceful and calm after April 17, when pollsters announce their exit polls. Doomsayers might have predicted that something bad would happen from disputed election results, but we have trodden this well-worn path before. After five democratic elections since 1999, we now believe that voters in Indonesia are mature enough to understand the process and would accept the outcome even if it does not go their way. By now, an election should just be another civic duty for all and its results should bring optimism. Dhoplang Market, a weekly old-timey market selling traditional Javanese food in Central Java's Wonogiri, has become a new alternative destination for tourists visiting the regency. The market is held every Sunday in a teakwood forest owned by the residents of Pandan village, Slogohimo district, about 40 kilometers from the Wonogiri town center. In the market, visitors can buy traditional Wonogiri dishes like sega tiwul (cassava rice), cabuk (condiment made of sesame seeds) and grontol (steamed corn with grated coconuts). There are about 193 kinds of traditional foods sold in the market, with prices ranging from Rp 2,000 (14 US cents) to Rp 5,000. All the food here is organic. We prohibit the use of artificial flavoring, coloring and preservatives. All foods are prepared over a wood fire instead of in stoves, Abdul Wahid Ahmadi, the head of Pandan village, told The Jakarta Post. We also refuse all kinds of plastic. All the food here is served on or wrapped with teak or banana leaves, he added. The organizer provides wooden coins as the payment currency. The coins are worth Rp 1,000, Rp 2,000, Rp 5,000, Rp 20,000 and Rp 50,000. When the market closes, sellers can exchange the coins for [real] rupiah, Lilies, one of the organizers, said. Read also: Wonogiri looks to cultivating tourism with 'coffee villages' All sellers are from Pandan village. They are required to don traditional clothing and speak Javanese in the market. The market opens every Sunday from 6 a.m. until 10.00 a.m., when everything is usually sold out. Some eager visitors often arrive 30 minutes before the market opens. The market was initiated by the Dasawisma Family Welfare Movement of Pandan village in January 2018. At first, eight tables of foods were placed on the village's main street to raise funds for the village's cash deposits. After a month, buyers started to come from other towns. The market was then moved to the teakwood forest so buyers could enjoy the food under the shade of the trees. Ahmadi said they planned to stage traditional dances and other performances to attract more visitors in the future. We have hopes that Pandan village can be a tourism village one day, a village that will protect Javanese wisdom and culture, he said. (gis/wng) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Yopi Ilhamsyah (The Jakarta Post) Bogor Mon, April 15, 2019 16:06 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87331b567 3 Environment islands,sea-level,climate-change,environment,#environment,small-islands,Indonesia,mangrove Free The Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry, supported by USAID, have launched 226,280-hectare conservation areas to protect small islands in North Maluku. The cooperation aims to secure marine productivity that benefits the locals. Indonesia possesses more than 10,000 small islands. In spite of minor inhabitants, these islets are important for their natural resources, leisure activities, even our national defense. However, these small islands are currently under threat. NASAs long-term satellite observations from 1993 to 2018 showed an increase in global sea level of about 90 milimeters, with 3.3 mm on average per year. Following significant change to the worlds climate, the increasing ocean height would submerge small islands, particularly the coral, atoll and alluvium islands. To address this problem, conserving the coastal ecosystem by introducing ecological engineering on mangrove, coral reef and seagrass is crucial. Most of the small islands are located in remote areas, which turn into an added value to the sustainability of engineering efforts. However, the risk of environmental degradation remains high due to the beauty of the coast and the ecosystem diversity, which has potential to be explored as a tourist destination. Excessive land conversion is feared to damage the ecosystem, resulting in high exposure to sea level rise. Ecological engineering aims to reduce anthropogenic impacts while restoring the ecosystem. It has the ability to fix the physical environment, which includes lowering sedimentation and resisting waves. To set up ecological engineering as part of the adaptation strategy, we need to consider the characteristics of landform of these small islands. There are the alluvium islands like Bintuni Bay Papua, which was formed on flat coastal plain or estuaries of large rivers dominated by nipa palm and mangroves. The latter plays a key role as an adapting strategy in maintaining ecological function. In addition, coral reef and seagrass are able to serve as coastal protection if the environmental factors to the growth of the ecosystem are available. Meanwhile, for coral islands such as Raja Ampat in Papua, Thousand Islands in Jakarta, Bontosua in South Sulawesi, Bunaken in North Sulawesi, Derawan in East Kalimantan, Karimunjawa in Central Java, Pengalap Riau as well as atoll islands as found in Takabonerate in South Sulawesi, very popular among travelers, that originate from coral fragments and small rocks deposit, covered by a typical feature of white sand and surrounded by coral reef, along with seagrass, are also important ecosystems to grow. Read also: Answering Gretas call with action Research published in Nature Geoscience2012 revealed the greatest potential of seagrass in absorbing carbon, which is two times greater than rainforest (around 30,000 tons per square kilometer). Considering its vital role, the cultivation of seagrass along the coastal areas is highly recommended. Since the islands are very small, the role of mangrove is less optimal, especially for atoll islands with limited areas. In addition to seagrass cultivation, coral reef status is important to monitor, and immediate rehabilitation is conducted if the damage is found. Artificial transplantation is carried out as healthy reef could reduce wave energy, slowing sea level rise. In recent years, mangrove habitats have been lost due to human influence. The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), based on the 2018 data, revealed around 52,000 hectares are lost annually. The remains still have to deal with natural threats. As they struggle to counter sea level rise, adaptation is required, and a vertical adjustment is given in their growth. A paper published by scientist Ken Krauss and colleagues in 2014 presents a comprehensive study on mangrove's resistance associated with sea level rise, how they contribute to increasing soil elevation as well as to provide nutrients on the ground, how the root processes grow upward, or how they could survive in inundation by storing sufficient mineral to feed them. Mangrove persistence on the changes of landform/landscape, hydrology and climate factors were also tested. Such valuable findings could be implemented on small islands. Restoration areas could serve as field laboratories to examine mangrove resilience. Such ecological engineering, including coral reef and seagrass treatments, strengthen our adapting strategies in facing sea level rise. On the other hand, a concept of community marine nursery services is essential to endorse. Ecosystem services are facilitated through marine nursery by concentrating on mangrove forest succession. It is believed that rich of fresh, brackish to saltwater biodiversity as well as marine, bird and endemic species are stored and depend on such hydrosere system to sustain their life. Since seagrass and coral reef are prominent in carbon sink and marine food web, seagrass farming and reef also become parts of the nursery program. Community awareness is highly encouraged by performing active participation by means of extension, dissemination and education as well as coastal conservation action as one small adaptation step towards giant mitigation of greenhouse gasses emission. These adaptation and mitigation options would inspire the development of community resilience to global warming. By involving the community, integrated management toward a sustainable ecosystem of small islands to overcome the ongoing sea level rise is able to achieve in the present and future. Since Indonesia lies in the tropical region where the worlds largest mangrove forest is located (around 23 percent), it is believed that by restoring and protecting the marine nursery throughout Indonesias coastal region would give a big impact to meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius target in Asia, as mangrove and seagrass play a dominant role in absorbing and storing carbon dioxide (five times greater). The greatest potential of carbon sequestration leads Indonesia to achieve a great opportunity in boosting national income through carbon trading compensation. Moreover, as the environment, including climate, improves, the ecosystem will be restored, biodiversity will flourish, local culture is maintained, natural aesthetic is added, tourist attention is drawn, job opportunities are created, renewable energy is developed and green lifestyle is promoted. Seafood is continuously supplied as agricultural land diminishes, the economy is growing, healthy mangrove, coral reef and seagrass would make a wealthy community. Climate community resilience services in marine nursery preservation bring optimism to realize the governments grand maritime vision, while the Asian climate change resolution is also resolved. (kes) *** The writer is a PhD student at the Applied Climatology Graduate School of the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) and lecturer at the School of Marine Science and Fisheries, Syiah Kuala University Banda Aceh. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Stockholm, Sweden Tue, April 16, 2019 01:06 975 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873328f30 2 Entertainment Bibi-Andersson,ingmar-bergman,film,actor,Sweden Free Swedish actress Bibi Andersson, best known for her roles in legendary director Ingmar Bergman's films, died on Sunday aged 83, her daughter Jenny Grede Dahlstrand told AFP. Andersson is perhaps best known for starring in many of Bergman classics including The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957) and Persona (1966). Andersson first started working with the director at the age of 15, when she was cast in several commercials for the Swedish soap brand "Bris", directed by Bergman. She received several awards including the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin international film festival in 1963 for her role in Vilgot Sjoman's "The Mistress" (1962). From early film credits in 1951, she continued working and starring in movies until 2009, when she suffered a stroke paralysing one side of her body. Her daughter Grede Dahlstrand said Andersson had made a mark on many people's lives. Read also: Ingmar Bergman, portrayer of inner demons, 100 years on "She leaves behind a great hole of loss for every one of us who had the privilege of being near her," Grede Dahlstrand said. Jan Holmberg, CEO of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, told AFP that although Andersson came to be extensively linked to Bergman, she was very much an artist in her own right. Andersson often played simple and sometimes poorly written characters, but she "would take those roles and make them something much greater," Holmberg said. The media, and Bergman himself, often referred to people he worked with as "his" actors and actresses. Andersson's response was: "I'm my own." "And that's exactly what she was," Holmberg said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Reuters) London Mon, April 15, 2019 19:00 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873324903 2 Lifestyle United-Kingdom,Salisbury,best-place-to-live,destination Free The English cathedral city of Salisbury, the location of a deadly nerve agent poisoning blamed on Russia, was named as Britains best place to live by the Sunday Times newspaper. The award comes a little over a year after a former Russian double agent and his daughter were found slumped on a bench, triggering a sequence of events which ended with one person dead and the Wests relations with Russia in the diplomatic deep-freeze. The Sunday Times praised the divinely attractive city in southern England, previously best-known for its medieval cathedral, citing its friendly atmosphere, good rail links and the high-speed broadband connections. Whatever foes this beautiful medieval city has faced, from the Celts to the Vikings the recent Novichok poisonings, it has emerged victorious, the newspaper wrote. In the weeks and months after Sergei and Yulia Skripal were found, police uncovered a trail of evidence that they said lead back to two agents from Russias GRU military intelligence who visited the city to smear Novichok poison on a door handle. Russia has denied any involvement in the attack, and the two men said they were innocent tourists visiting the citys cathedral. Read also: The best and worst countries to live and work in, according to expats Its famous not only in Europe, but in the whole world. Its famous for its 123 metre-spire, one of the men told Russias state-funded RT television station. Nevertheless, British Prime Minister Theresa May blamed Putin for the attack and European countries and the United States expelled 100 Russian diplomats over the incident. Large areas of the city centre, which is just 90 minutes by train from London, had to be cordoned off for decontamination and one woman died after her partner found a perfume bottle which turned out to have been used to transport the poison. Nevertheless, the Sunday Times said the city had bounced back, tourists were returning, and even the Zizzi Italian restaurant visited by the Skripals before the nerve took effect had reopened with a packed crowd. The paper said it had looked at statistics like crime, schools and property prices in reaching its judgement, but that the award had also been based on less easily-measured factors like beautiful scenery, culture and, above all, community spirit. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Catherine Lai (Agence France-Presse) Hong Kong, China Tue, April 16, 2019 03:02 975 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa8733292fe 2 Environment Hong-Kong,beekeeper,bees,animals,Yip-Ki-hok Free High up in the hills above Hong Kong, Yip Ki-hok uses nothing but his bare hands to remove a honey-filled nest of swarming bees -- a remarkable skill he learned after the hardship of China's famine years. While most new beekeepers buy insects from those with already established colonies, Yip prefers a more organic method, trekking into the hills and catching wild bees using skills he developed through trial and error from the age of seven. The 62-year-old effortlessly moves through bush and dense thickets, far from the official hiking trails, and pauses at a hole in the hillside he knows will contain a bee colony. Lighting five incense sticks to placate the bees, he waits for the smoke to take effect and then reaches into the hole, removing chunks of the hive along with handfuls of bees. Remarkably he is only stung twice. The trick, he explains, is to remove as much of the hive as possible without killing or losing the vital queen. "If you wear gloves, then you don't know how much strength you're using," he tells AFP. "If you use too much strength and accidentally kill the queen, it's very troublesome, it'll be very hard to take the hive back." Moving slowly and carefully, he blows on the hive to herd the bees into a wire cage covered with a white drawstring bag. He searches for the queen as stragglers buzz around him -- a crucial part of the operation as the other bees in the hive are fiercely attracted to her. "Without the queen, they will get angry and go looking for her everywhere. If they can't find her they will fly right back out of the cage. Theyll fly around everywhere to find her and start stinging like crazy," he said. Although he was once stung more than 200 times when he lost the queen during an extraction, Yip says he has no need for gloves or other protective gear. "Why would I need those things? I know their nature like I know my own hand. No matter how mean they are I still have a way to tame them," he explained. Back at his farm, Yip uses wire to attach the honeycomb to wooden frames, which are then slotted into wooden crates. Then he pulls out handfuls of bees from the drawstring bag and places them gently in their new home. Yip generally collects honey three times a year from over 200 hives, extracting the golden liquid by spinning each frame in a metal drum. Read also: Honeybees smart enough to do basic math, study finds Hard times It was on the Chinese mainland Yip learned his skills, in the wake of Mao's famine when millions starved and people took whatever steps they could to survive. Yip worked as a teacher in Guangdong province, supplementing his meagre income by trading honey for food coupons. He switched to full-time beekeeping after economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s allowed private businesses to flourish. After his wife's family successfully relocated to Hong Kong in 1983, Yip followed -- although it took him some five years as he was caught each time he tried to smuggle himself across the border before eventually making it through legally. He had to start his beekeeping from scratch, building boxes for the colonies out of scraps of discarded wood. Within a year he had 150 healthy hives, laying the foundations of a business which has since grown into one of the city's biggest local honey producers. Read also: Malaysia's honey hunters defy angry bees to harvest treetop treasure Rising temperatures But as the global climate warms and fuels bigger storms, his livelihood -- and Hong Kong's bee population -- face increasing challenges to their survival. Ever expanding urban developments in the densely populated city already threaten wild bees and their food supply. And ever stronger tropical storms are exacerbating the damage. Last year Typhoon Mangkhut -- the most intense storm on record in Hong Kong -- tore through the city, knocking down tens of thousands of trees and flattening huge swathes of pollinating flowers. "Last year this hole was full to bursting, but it wasn't like that this year," he said, referencing the hillside where he had just plucked out the hive. Another colony he visited earlier that day had also fared badly. "That first hive I picked up has not recovered at all," he lamented. "Typhoon Mangkhut was too strong, it felled over half of the trees and flowers... without the plants, the bees naturally reproduced more slowly." Scientists warn rising temperatures will increase the frequency of more powerful storms like Mangkhut. While Yip plans to continue trekking into the hills as long as he can, he hopes the typhoons of the future will give Hong Kong and his favourite bee colonies a miss. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, April 15, 2019 15:35 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873319f74 1 Business b100,trial,AgricultureMinistry,Amran-Sulaiman Free The Agriculture Ministry started on Monday the trial period for the use of a 100-percent biodiesel (B100) of fuel that uses fatty acid methyl ester from crude palm oil (CPO) in a move that expands its reach within the domestic palm oil market and reduces the dependency on imported fossil fuels. Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman said during the event that the trial would involve 50 of the ministry's official cars and tractors. He said B100 fuel allowed vehicles to travel 13.1 kilometers per liter, which was more efficient than using Solar-branded fossil fuels that limited travel to 9.6 kilometers per liter. In early testing, cars that used B100 fuel could travel 6,000 kilometers in total, he added. The ministry also began discussing the possible mass production of B100 fuel with state-owned enterprises and private companies. Amran estimated the commercial price of B100 to be around Rp 8,000 (57 US cents) per liter. "Users should not only think about cutting costs, but they have also to think about protecting the environment. B100 produces less pollution than diesel [fossil] fuels," he said on the sidelines of the launch. Amran expressed hope that the widespread use of B100 could be implemented to cut imports of fossil fuels and boost the domestic use of CPO amid the European Union's campaign against the commodity. In September, 2018, Indonesia issued a policy to begin the widespread use of 20 percent blended biodiesel (B20) and would soon campaign for the use of B30 fuel. (ark/bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Washington, United States Mon, April 15, 2019 07:37 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa8732fbfff 2 Business #aviation,#Boeing,American-Airlines,cancellation,flights,Boeing-737-MAX Free American Airlines announced Sunday it would scrap some 115 flights per day in the coming months because its fleet of Boeing 737 MAX planes is being grounded until August 19. America's leading airline had previously only planned to keep the planes out of commission until June 5, with Boeing facing intense scrutiny after 157 people died in an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX crash on March 10 -- the second deadly crash involving the aircraft in five months. The global fleet of 737 MAX planes has been barred from flying since mid-March. "These 115 flights represent approximately 1.5 percent of American's total flying each day this summer," American Airlines chairman and CEO Doug Parker said in a statement. But he stressed his confidence in the aircraft overall. "Based upon our ongoing work with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Boeing, we are highly confident that the MAX will be recertified prior to this time (August 19)," he said. "By extending our cancellations through the summer, we can plan more reliably for the peak travel season and provide confidence to our customers and team members when it comes to their travel plans. "Once the MAX is recertified, we anticipate bringing our MAX aircraft back on line as spares to supplement our operation as needed during the summer." American Airlines had lowered one of its first quarter indicators in light of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes being grounded, along with the partial US government shutdown and technical challenges. Earlier this week, competitor Southwest Airlines said it would operate its 34 aircraft of the same model starting August 5. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ni Komang Erviani (The Jakarta Post) Denpasar Mon, April 15, 2019 As part of the Bali administrations cultural preservation drive, Bali Governor I Wayan Koster has encouraged organizers to include the Balinese language and attire in national and international events. The Bali administration sent the Surat Edaran (circular) No. 3172/2019, signed on April 5, to all event organizers, government institutions, ministry offices, NGOs, consulates general and private companies. The circular is designed to introduce Balinese culture to the international community, as well as to preserve the culture. The policy is designed to preserve Balinese attire, language, script and literature. It should also generate a culture-based economy for Balis people, Koster said in a press release on Monday. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login File photo of Xinhua The Chinese embassy in Pakistan on Saturday has slammed reports accusing matchmaking centers linking China and Pakistan of human trafficking and organ sales, reiterating that China bans human organ sales and prohibits cross-national matchmaking centers. Both China and Pakistan adopt rule of law and firmly oppose human trafficking and sales of human organs. The reports about sales of organs are misleading and groundless, the embassy spokesperson said in a statement on Saturday. The statement came after Pakistani ARY News broadcast a report about an illegal matchmaking center in Lahore, with alleged images of several Chinese men with six local women, including two teenage girls. In response to reports which alleged that women could even be forced into prostitution or human organ sales later, the embassy spokesperson stressed that the Chinese government strictly prohibits any organization or individual from buying or selling human organs in any form, or engaging in such activities. The spokesperson, however, admitted that recently some unlawful matchmaking centers have made illegal profits from brokering cross-national marriages, which made youths from both countries victims. China is cooperating with Pakistani law enforcement agencies to crack down on illegal matchmaking centers, as Chinese laws and regulations strictly prohibit cross-national matchmaking centers. No individual is allowed to engage in such activities by deception or for profit, the spokesperson noted, adding that clues to combat such offenses are welcomed. Zhao Lijian, deputy chief of mission at the embassy, also responded on his Twitter account on Saturday, reiterating the nations staunch opposition to illegal matchmaking centers by citing a crackdown on two illegal centers involving Pakistanis in eastern Chinas Shandong province in February. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani, Marguerite Afra Sapiie and Karina Tehusijarana (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, April 15, 2019 Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to Gelora Bung Karno Stadium in Senayan, Central Jakarta, on Saturday. A number of musicians, including Slank, a legendary Indonesian bands, joined in on the euphoria of a political campaign event held for incumbent President Joko Jokowi Widodo and running mate Maruf Amin. Challengers Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno on Saturday preferred to visit popular Islamic preacher Abdullah Gymnastiar together after Sandiaga attended a campaign event at the Ahmad Yani city hall in Tangerang, Banten. Both camps wrapped up their campaigns on Saturday, as that marked the end of the open campaign period that started on March 24, as well as their eight-month political campaigns traveling across the country. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post) Bandung, West Java Mon, April 15, 2019 08:02 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa8732fd3a4 1 Business defence-minister,weapon,purchase,Pindad,PT-PAL,PTDI-aircraft-industry,PT-LEN Free The Defense Ministry signed contract agreements worth Rp 2.1 trillion (US$149.01 million) and $1.4 billion with several local companies in Bandung on Friday . One of the agreements comprises 18 weaponry equipment contracts and the other comprises supporting military equipment contracts The contract agreements show the government supports the domestic defense industry, state-owned weapon maker PT Pindad Abraham Mose said in a statement, adding that the two contracts were the biggest ever signed between the ministry and multiple companies. The signing ceremony was held at the Pindad headquarters and attended by Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu and representatives of the companies. The minister said the contracts were signed based on the reformed procurement system, which was quicker, more transparent and held parties accountable. It is to accelerate the budget absorption to fulfill the needs of the weaponry system within the Indonesian Military (TNI), he added. Among the companies included in the contracts are Pindad, PT Merpati Wahana Raya, state-owned ship maker PT PAL, PT Megah Perkasa, PT Bandar Abadi, PT LEN, state-owned aircraft company PTDI, PT Dahana, PT Merpati Wahana Raya and PT Prasanda Dumayasa. Under the agreement, Pindad will produce combat infantry, small caliber munitions and light weapons; PT Merpati Wahana Raya will construct vehicles to transport nuclear, biological and chemical materials and vehicles for explosive materials; PT PAL will construct a submarine; and PTDI will build the Super Puma NAS-332 C1+ helicopter. The helicopter, which is equipped with an avionic glass cockpit and optic sensor attitude heading and reference system, can fly for hours at up to 306 kilometers per hour. It can transport 18 passengers and three crew members at a time and be used for military transportation, cargo, paratrooper transportation, medical evacuations and VIP transportation. Previously, the company had sent the Super Puma NAS-332 C1+ to the ministry. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Marchio Irfan Gorbiano (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, April 15, 2019 14:34 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873317c48 1 Business trade-surplus,march,BPS Free Indonesia recorded a trade balance surplus of US$540 million in March, marking the second straight month that the country recorded a trade balance surplus this year, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) announced on Monday. Exports increased 11.7 percent month-to-month (mtm) to $14.03 billion last month, primarily driven by an increase in non-oil and gas exports by 13 percent to US$ 12.93 billion. The mtm increase in non-oil and gas exports were driven by a 24.2 percent increase in mineral fuel exports to $2.05 billion last month and a 110.4 percent increase in ore, slag and ash exports to $ 310.5 billion in the same period. Imports, meanwhile, increased by 10.31 percent mtm to $ 13.49 billion in March, driven by a 12.24 percent increase in non-oil and gas imports. When compared to the same month last year, which had seen imports decline 6.76 percent. Increases in imports were recorded across various types of goods. Raw materials and auxiliary goods, which hold the largest share of imported goods, increased by 12.34 percent mtm, while capital goods and consumer goods increased 0.47 percent and 13.49 percent, respectively. BPS head Suhariyanto said 2019 would be a challenging year because various projections by global institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had shown a slowdown in global gross domestic product (GDP) growth. The situation in the global economy in 2019 will be not easy as many of our main export destinations will experience a slowdown, while commodity prices are also still fluctuating, said Suhariyanto in Jakarta on Monday. China, the United States and Japan remain the three-largest export destinations for Indonesia, grabbing 34.53 percent market share last month. Meanwhile, the top three importers to Indonesia were also largely unchanged as China, Japan and Thailand imported goods totaling $16.81 billion in March. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Rosalia Sciortino (The Jakarta Post) Bangkok Mon, April 15 2019 Overseas voters were the first to cast their ballots, between April 7 and 14, in Indonesias first-ever simultaneous presidential and legislative elections set for April 17. After Sanaa and Tarimin in Yemen and Quito in Ecuador, on April 10 it was the turn of Thailand. Two polling stations were set up at the Indonesian Embassy in Bangkok and one at the Indonesian Consulate in Songkla, southern Thailand. While entering the embassy as an election observer, I could not help but ponder the significance of such a large-scale election with more than 190 million registered voters, with about 2 million of them living abroad. Amid the climate of democratic rollback and increasing authoritarianism, Indonesia is one of the few Southeast Asian countries that has managed to stick to a truly democratic election process for the last two decades. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, April 15, 2019 16:30 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87331ce16 1 City waste,sewers,sewerage-system,septic-tank,business,pollution,jakarta Free Some septic tank pumping businesses in Jakarta are allegedly dumping waste directly into the citys rivers, city-owned sewage company PD PAL Jaya has claimed. The companies are allegedly disposing the waste without first processing it at a sewer treatment plant (IPLT). "In my calculation, there are around 300 private septic tank pump trucks operating in Jakarta, but only 100 dump their waste at the IPLTs," PAL Jayas research and development assistant manager, Johan Sufandi, said on Sunday as quoted by tempo.co. The waste is supposed to be processed at the IPLTs in Duri Kosambi in West Jakarta or Pulo Gebang in East Jakarta. Both are capable of processing up to 1,800 cubic liters of fecal sludge per day. However, they have not yet reached their maximum capacity. Johan alleged that the companies do not take their waste to the IPLTs due to the distance and cost. Responding to the finding, PAL Jayas president director, Subekti, said: "Should you find any sludge pump truck dumping their waste in public places, take a picture and report it to us." Separately, Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan claimed that he had prepared short- and long-term plans to overcome the problem and also to prevent further pollution caused by domestic waste. Anies said the program would start by recording the names of about 500,000 residents who do not have decent toilets. The city would then allocate Rp 8.7 trillion (US$618 million) to build a Zone 1 integrated sewage treatment network system and establish a network of biopal toilets, completed with waste installations, in Central and North Jakarta. The city will also provide aid to residents who need to build toilets in their areas. (vla) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, April 15, 2019 12:55 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa8733134e8 4 Business Jokowi,visit,Saudi-Arabia,Aramco,investment Free President Joko Jokowi Widodo has shed some light on a pledged investment of Saudi Arabian Oil Co. (Aramco) in a refinery project in Cilacap, Central Java, during his visit to Saudi Arabia. One of the topics discussed was the cooperation between Aramco and state-owned oil and gas holding company Pertamina on the Cilacap refinery project, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi, who accompanied the President during the visit, said as quoted by kontan.co.id on Monday. Retno accompanied Jokowi when meeting with Saudi Arabian Minister for Energy, Industry and Human Resources Affairs Khalid Al-Falih along with Presidential Chief of Staff Moeldoko and Indonesian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Agus Maftuh Abegebriel. During the meeting, Retno said, Jokowi discussed the valuation of existing refineries with ministers soon after his arrival from Jakarta in a visit that would be extended for the umrah (minor haj). Previously, Aramco pledged to invest US$6 billion in the revitalization of refinery facilities in Cilacap, home to the largest refinery facilities in Indonesia. Pertamina and Aramco signed heads of agreement in November 2015 for the refinery development master plan project. After the revitalization, production capacity is expected to increase to 400,000 barrels per day with a fuel product that meets Euro V requirements. Retno said Saudi Arabia was also interested in investing in Indonesia's petrochemical industry, with Khalid Al-Falih to visit Indonesia to discuss cooperation between the two countries. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Rizki Fachriansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, April 15, 2019 20:07 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa8733271aa 1 Politics bekraf,elections,discount,voter-turnout,voters,Indonesian-elections,presidential-election Free In a bid to increase the voter turnout for Wednesdays presidential and legislative elections, the Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf) in collaboration with the Communications and Information Ministry (Kominfo), as well as several of the countrys business associations has announced a range of discounts and promotions for voters. The campaign dubbed Klingking Fun (in reference to the inked little finger signifying ones participation in the election) will offer up to 50 percent discounts for products and services from over 250 local and international brands, as well as retailers. Bekraf head Triawan Munaf said he floated the initiative following concerns about voter turnout on Apr. 17, which President Joko Jokowi Widodo declared a public holiday. I am aware that many employees are tempted to take the week off because the public holiday on Apr. 17 will be followed by Good Friday on Apr. 19. Many people will definitely be tempted to stay home or go out of town during the long holiday, instead of casting their vote, Triawan said on the sidelines of the campaign launch on Monday. Kominfo head Rudiantara said he was confident the campaign would prove to be effective in drawing more voters to polling stations. One of the indicators of a successful election is voter turnout. I urge everyone to go to the nearest polling station and cast their votes, Rudiantara said, adding that the ministry would broadcast public service announcements notifying the public of the campaign on multiple platforms, including television and social media. Voters can look forward to discounts from hundreds of notable brands and retailers including Sogo department store, Sushi Tei, Alfamart and Cinema XXI. In addition to offline retailers, local e-commerce giants Tokopedia and Bukalapak will also offer discounts to voters. Some offers will only be valid on voting day, while others will last until the end of the month. To get the discounts, voters can simply show their inked fingers at store counters. As for online shopping, voters may upload a photo of their inked finger to qualify for the limited offer. Business tycoon and politician Sofjan Wanandi commended Klingking Fun, saying that the campaign would give the public the opportunity to have fun and celebrate, especially following months of political polarization between supporters of the Jokowi-Maruf Amin and Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno presidential tickets. The primary aim of this initiative is to decrease the number of nonvoters. The second, no less important aim is to allow the public to reunite with friends and family without having to worry about their political differences, he said. Klingking Fun was launched amid the governments concerns regarding the publics increasing tendency toward golput (abstention). The abstention rate has increased since the 1999 general elections and disillusioned voters have recently taken to social media to voice their intention to abstain from voting on Apr. 17 because of their disappointment with both presidential tickets, particularly with their stances on human rights. For this years elections, the General Elections Commission set a target of 77.5 percent voter turnout. With the boost from Klingking Fun, Im confident that we will reach 80 percent voter turnout, Sofjan said. Indonesia Employers Association deputy chairwoman Shinta Kamdani said Klingking Fun would not be limited to Jakarta. Local brands from several regions across the archipelago had also expressed interest to offer similar discounts in support of the elections, she said. We have been overwhelmed by responses from local entrepreneurs outside of Java. We are happy that our fellow businesspeople have been so willing to support this years elections, Shinta said, adding that she also expected Klingking Fun to contribute to national economic growth. Millennials have welcomed Klingking Fun, but also see it as an insignificant addition to the voting experience. Muhammad Fadhil a 20-year-old university student from Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan said he would still cast his vote regardless of the special discounts. Limited discounts are not my reason to vote as I truly want my voice to be heard. That said, shopping at low prices is an exciting bonus for voters, he told The Jakarta Post. (asw) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, April 15, 2019 17:04 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87331e39c 1 National Pepera,Pepera-1969,Papua,self-determination,church Free Dozens of lawyers, academics, local Papuan leaders, churches and womens organizations under the Coalition of Advocates for Truth and Justice in Papua filed an application for a judicial review of the 1969 Law No. 12 on the establishment of the West Irian autonomous province and autonomous regencies in West Irian province at the Constitutional Court on Friday. West Irian was the former name of the Indonesian part of Papua Island. The 1969 law, also known as Pepera, which was the legal basis of Papuas integration with Indonesia after Dutch colonization, has been considered controversial for more than 60 years. Yan Christian Warinussy, one of lawyers and the coalitions coordinator, said the coalition filed for the review because there was evidence that the Pepera contradicted the 1962 New York Agreement, which was the basis of the Pepera. "The New York Agreement said all adults in Papua had the right to self-determination and the referendum had to be conducted under international principles of practice," Warinussy said. "The fact was, only 1,025 of 800,000 Papuans voted," he said. He said before the referendum, military operations had compelled Papuans to opt to integrate with Indonesia. "Therefore, we believe that paragraphs 7 and 8 in the law's explanation that the Pepera was a manifestation of the people's aspirations made with full awareness also contradicted Article 28I of the 1945 Constitution, which protects the rights of citizens from torture and guarantees freedom to express one's thoughts and follow their conscience," the coalition said in a release on Friday. He said the idea of challenging the Pepera through a judicial review in a court of law started in 2010. Many crimes against humanity happened [during the Papuas integration with Indonesia]. Thats why we want to file a review, he told the reporters after filing the application. The coalition highlighted that the controversy surrounding the Pepera was at the heart of prolonged conflict in Papua. Laus DC Rumayom, international relations lecturer at state Cendrawasih University, who is also one of the petitioners, said the application was also expected to encourage the public to acknowledge history and democracy in the country. Conflicts in Papua are not just about mining and illegal logging, but also about history, he said. Laus said it was the first time Papuans had officially challenged the law. We hope that [this application] can create public dialogue about the countrys law. Papua is one of regions that are victims of history, he added. Many prodemocracy activists have long urged the government to conduct a fair referendum after the 1969 vote on independence in which only a handful of locals were allowed to vote. Papua self-determination activists called the referendum a sham. Meanwhile, Yan Pieter Yarangga, the head of the Papua Customary Council and one of the petitioners, expressed gratitude after the coalition filed the application. We want the government to take this application into consideration, he said, adding that human rights violations were still happening in Papua despite regulations. The 50th anniversary of the Pepera will be marked in August. A womens rights activist, Fien Jarangga, a coordinator of the Tiki Community Womens Network in Papua, said the judicial review was feasible, despite the debate over whether the Pepera was a sham or not. She said the step supported the indigenous Papuan community in its international fight to get its rights upheld. "Papuans have to take a legal avenue in Indonesia to find the loopholes in the Indonesian laws [regarding indigenous Papuan community rights] before we can move onto an international tribunal," she said. "So we don't have to get a favorable decision in the judicial review, but the process might uncover the weaknesses in the Pepera process because the legal basis back then in Indonesia may have been limited," she said on Friday. (das) Victor Mambor contributed to this report from Jayapura, Papua. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Peter Hutchison (Agence France-Presse) Mumbai, India Mon, April 15, 2019 09:39 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873303e18 2 World #India,#election,tycoon,back,Narendra-Modi Free India's tycoons are playing a pivotal role in the Asian giant's most expensive election ever, from funding campaigns and tacit endorsements to being hot-button issues themselves. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's re-election bid has received huge financial backing from corporate India, raising fears about the integrity of the world's largest democratic process, experts say. Meanwhile, Congress party opponent Rahul Gandhi is trying to exploit a fighter jet deal involving industrialist Anil Ambani while fugitive tycoons Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi loom over the vote from London. Contesting polls is getting costlier in India and analysts say parties are becoming more reliant on donations from anonymous businessmen, leading to a lack of transparency and worrying conflicts of interest. "There's a trend towards plutocracy," Niranjan Sahoo, of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) think-tank, told AFP. "Unbridled corporate influence can have a serious impact on policies," he added. The New Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies estimates that around $5 billion was spent during the 2014 election that swept Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power -- up from $2 billion in 2009. The group thinks the 2019 contest could top $7 billion, making it one of the priciest elections globally. "Elections are getting more expensive for many structural reasons," Milan Vaishnav, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think-tank, told AFP. "(There is a) growing population, increasing political competition, voter expectations of handouts in the form of cash and other inducements, and technological change, which means greater outlays for media and digital outreach," he added. Analysts say traditional funding streams, such as party memberships, are declining so parties increasingly rely on wealthy donors to fund campaigns. Data compiled by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), an election watchdog, showed that in financial year 2017-18 corporates and individuals contributed 12 times more to the BJP than to six other national parties, including Congress, combined. 'Quid pro quo' The BJP received 93 percent of all donations above 20,000 rupees ($290) that year, according to ADR'S analysis. Modi's BJP banked 4.37 billion rupees ($63.3 million); Congress got just 267 million rupees. "There is a huge funding disparity now. Congress simply doesn't have the money to fight elections. That should worry people," said the ORF's Sahoo. Modi's government says it has cracked down on so-called "black money" in politics by lowering the amount that can be donated in cash from 20,000 rupees to 2,000 rupees. Critics, however, say it is now easier for wealthy entities to donate to political parties; corporate funding formed 92 percent of the total donations declared by the BJP in 2017-18, according to ADR. Detractors point to the government removing a cap on corporate donations two years ago and introducing a scheme whereby donors can give anonymously through "electoral bonds" purchased from a bank. On Friday India's supreme court ordered parties to reveal the identity of donors after activists challenged the bond system, which the government has defended. "The lack of transparency allows conflicts of interest and quid pro quos to flourish", said Vaishnav, who suspects that medium-sized businesses requiring permits from the government are more of an issue than India's big oligarchs. Tycoons do not explicitly endorse candidates for fear of backing the wrong horse but Modi, 68, is seen to be close to several big tycoons. In 2014 he travelled between rallies in a corporate jet and helicopter owned by billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani, while magnate Ratan Tata praised Modi for carrying out air strikes in Pakistan. India's richest man Mukesh Ambani -- whose personal net worth has soared from $18.6 billion when Modi came to power to $53 billion today, according to Forbes -- has repeatedly called him "our beloved prime minister" in speeches. 'He's not the messiah...' "If you look at the measure that counts, which is how much money do these guys have, then India's tycoons have done tremendously well under Modi," James Crabtree, author of "The Billionaire Raj", told AFP. Ambani's oil-to-telecoms conglomerate Reliance Industries and the Adani Group did not respond to requests for comment. Gandhi, 48, is trying to score political points by accusing Modi and Anil Ambani, Mukesh's younger brother, of dodgy dealings related to the purchase of Rafale jets from France - allegations both deny. Congress's leader is also using liquor-baron Mallya and jeweller Nirav Modi to attack the BJP. The government accuses them of massive fraud and is trying to extradite them from Britain. Modi pledged to crack down on crony capitalism during his tenure so the duo represent a sore point for a man who prides himself on being India's "chowkidar" ("watchman"). "Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi have become the symbols of a job half done. Nonetheless the noose is tightening on these guys," said Crabtree. India's business community appears less enthusiastic about Modi this time round after a shock cancellation of high-value banknotes and poorly implemented new tax disrupted economic growth. But they are set to vote for him overwhelmingly anyway, fearing that a coalition or Gandhi victory could put a halt to much-needed economic reforms. "He's not the messiah we thought he was but without doubt almost everybody wants Modi to come back with an absolute majority," said a prominent Mumbai-based businessman who asked not to be named. "Because beyond him there is no alternative," he added. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday shed asked the US Capitol Police to provide more protection for Representative Ilhan Omar after President Donald Trump tweeted a video of the lawmaker intercut with images of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the US. The Presidents words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger, Pelosi said in a statement. Pelosi demanded that Trump take down the post, which had been pinned at the top of his Twitter feed since Friday. By mid-afternoon the message had been removed, although at least one other anti-Omar retweet remained in Trumps feed. And by then, the two-day-old video had been retweeted more than 86,000 times. WE WILL NEVER FORGET! pic.twitter.com/VxrGFRFeJM Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 12, 2019 Earlier, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on ABCs This Week that Trump bears no ill will toward the Minnesota Democrat, whos been subject to at least one recent death threat. Pelosi said in her statement that following the Presidents tweet, I spoke with the Sergeant-at-Arms to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff. Fridays tweet wasnt the first attack by Trump on Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress. But it dialed up the temperature after the president a week ago mocked her in a speech in Las Vegas to a Jewish Republican group. In the latest incident, Trump posted a video to his 60 million Twitter followers that used a short snippet of an Omar speech followed by images of the burning Twin Towers in New York in 2001. Asked on Fox News Sunday whether Trump is worried he was inciting violence against Muslims or Omar, 37, a Somali-American who immigrated with her family to the US as a teenager after living in a Kenyan refugee camp, Sanders said no. Instead, she blamed Democrats for refusing to call Omar for what she termed anti-Semitic comments. Not Ashamed Nothing could be further from the truth. The president is not trying to incite violence against anybody. Hes actually speaking out against it, Sanders said on Fox. On April 5, a western New York man who told FBI agents that he loves the President, and that he hates radical Muslims in our government, was arrested for threatening to murder Omar in a phone call to her office. Trumps comment to the Republican Jewish Coalition came a day later. Omar sent a string of tweets on Saturday after Trumps Sept. 11 video, but she didnt address the president directly. In one she said that no one person - no matter how corrupt, inept, or vicious - can threaten my unwavering love for America. Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, said Sunday that the snippet of Omars speech used by Trump came from extended remarks about discrimination against Muslim Americans after the Sept. 11 attacks. She just said that, after that happened, it was used as an excuse for lots of discrimination and for withdrawal of civil liberties, Nadler, whose Congressional district includes Lower Manhattan, site of the World Trade Center towers destroyed in 2001, said on CNNs State of the Union. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan and Suherdjoko (The Jakarta Post) Medan/Semarang Mon, April 15, 2019 12:02 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa8733127db 1 Politics elections,voting-rights,golput,millennials Free Over the weekend, only days before the elections, some of the countrys youth staged rallies to encourage people to vote while protest voters, who are calling themselves "golput", stepped up their criticism against the current political system and reiterated their intention to not vote for any politician. People associated with the golput movement have reiterated that abstention is a legitimate form of protest against the government, while young voters in Medan, North Sumatra, and Semarang, Central Java, have publicly denounced the act of nonvoting. Saya Golput (I Vote None) a group that has been at the forefront of the protest movement in recent weeks published a manifesto on Friday titled Memilih untuk Tidak Memilih (Vote Not to Vote). Legislative candidates were picked by their respective parties, without involvement from the public. Presidential and vice-presidential candidates were also nominated without feedback from the public. People are forced to vote; we do not have any authority over our decision. The 2019 elections are not the peoples elections, the group wrote on its official Medium page. Saya Golput recently came under fire online as netizens considered views espoused by the movement to be disruptive to the elections and the countrys democracy in general. Feminist Lini Zurlia, who recently rose to prominence as the face of the Saya Golput movement on social media platforms, received a glut of ad hominem comments from netizens who mocked her for being a privileged millennial. The abstention rate has been increasing since the 1999 general election, and disillusioned voters have recently taken to social media to voice their intention to abstain from voting on April 17 because of their disappointment with both presidential tickets, particularly with their stances on human rights. A poll by Indikator Politik Indonesia in January shows that even though the abstention rate is high (about 30 percent), only 1.1 percent of 1,200 respondents said they would not vote for either candidate pair. In a last-ditch effort to counteract the rising golput movement, university students from the Indonesian Law Students Association (Permahi) staged a public protest denouncing abstention and money politics at Medan Merdeka Square in Medan on Sunday. The head of Permahi in Medan, Mulyadi Sihombing, said the event was a peaceful protest to encourage the public to vote. We also urge the public not to be tempted by money politics or any incentive to support a certain candidate. Money politics poses a serious threat to the countrys democracy, Mulyadi told The Jakarta Post on Sunday. He later called on all members of the public, including university students, to be involved in the effort to fight against money politics and get more people to vote. Meanwhile, young voters in Semarang also staged a similar protest, urging their fellow millennials to exercise their voting rights on Election Day. Members of the Semarang Anti-Golput Millennial Group painted their bare torsos with the slogan No Golput during the protest at Simpang Lima Square on Sunday. Event coordinator Ivan Handoko said he expected the protest to persuade young people to vote, since the abstention rate among millennials was high. We carried out the protest because we have been disturbed by the increasing number of potential nonvoters as shown by numerous surveys, Ivan told the Post, while calling on his fellow millennials to cast their votes at the assigned polling stations. Abstention is not a solution. The future of this country is at stake. Lets not waste the governments Rp 24.8 trillion [US$1,759 billion] budget dedicated to organizing the general election. In addition to university students, social media firms such as Instagram have also weighed in on the abstention phenomenon among millennials. To appeal to young voters, Instagram collaborated with popular local comic artist Reza Mustar to design a series of digital stickers encouraging the public to vote. These stickers are the result of my collaboration with Instagram. Dont forget to exercise your voting rights in this years biggest celebration of democracy. You can use my stickers on your Instagram stories tagged with #SayaPilihIndonesia (#IVoteForIndonesia)! Reza wrote on his Instagram page, @komikazer, alongside still images of his stickers. (rfa) Rizki Fachriansyah contributed to this report Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Medan Mon, April 15, 2019 19:19 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa8733258f8 1 National prank,bomb,North-Sumatra Free The police in Pematang Siantar, North Sumatra, have arrested a senior high school student for allegedly placing a black backpack -- which had Lailaha Illallah (There is no deity but God) theres a bomb, you die! written on it -- in front of a supermarket in the city. The police arrested the student, identified as IAN, 17, of Jl. Pattimuran, Tomuan subdistrict, East Siantar, on Sunday night. Pematang Siantar police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Heribertus Ompusunggu said the suspect had been arrested at a friends house. We solved the bomb prank case in just one day. The perpetrator is a student, Heribertus said on Monday. Based on the preliminary investigation, he said, the student admitted that he only did it for fun and claimed that he was not involved in a terror organization. Heribertus added that the prank had sent jitters down the spines of local residents and the police would charge the suspect under Article 6 of the Law on Terrorism that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The backpack was found in front of a supermarket on Jl. Melanton Siregar, Pematang Siantar, on Saturday. The polices bomb squad later found out that it only contained a flower pot. (swa) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Riska Rahman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, April 15, 2019 17:20 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87331f18a 1 Business SOEs,super-holding-company,temasek,Khazanah,Rini-Soemarno Free State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Minister Rini Soemarno has said that a super state-owned holding company may replace the functions of the SOEs Ministry. She said a super holding company would be directly controlled by the president, just like Temasek in Singapore and Khazanah in Malaysia, which were controlled by those countries' respective prime ministers. The super holding company will ensure the professional control of state-owned enterprises, Rini told the press on Monday in Jakarta. President Joko Jokowi Widodo revealed his intention to establish a super state-owned holding company during the final presidential candidate debate on Saturday. He said the holding company would become the ultimate parent company of state-owned holding companies. Rini, however, said such a super holding company needed approval from the House of Representatives. The government has established three holding companies state-owned oil and gas holding company Pertamina, state-owned holding plantation company PT Perkebunan Nusantara (PTPN III) and state-owned mining holding company PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium (Inalum). The state-owned oil and gas holding company was an integration of Pertamina and state-owned gas distributor PT Perusahaan gas Negara (PGN) and their respective subsidiaries; while the state-owned mining holding company was the integration of several companies, including Inalum, coal miner PT Bukit Asam, tin miner PT Timah and diversified mining company PT Aneka Tambang (Antam); while the planting holding company was also supported by all state-owned plantation companies. More holdings companies may be established, including a state-owned aviation holding company and state-owned construction holding company. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Karina M. Tehusijarana, Ghina Ghaliya, Agnes Anya and Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta/Tokyo Mon, April 15 2019 Fiesta of democracy: Indonesians living in Malaysia have their documents checked at the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur before casting their ballots ahead of the countrys April 17 general election on Sunday. More than 190 million Indonesians are to cast ballots on Wednesday in one of the worlds biggest one-day elections, with some 2 million living overseas also registered to vote, including in Malaysia.(AFP/Mohd Rasfan) A bigger than expected turnout by unregistered voters led to long lines at polling stations in various cities around the world over the weekend. Photos of snaking lines in cities like Amsterdam and Tokyo flooded social media on Saturday and Sunday as hundreds of thousands of Indonesian voters took to polling stations to cast their votes. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Karina M. Tehusijarana, Ghina Ghaliya, Agnes Anya and Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, April 15, 2019 09:45 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa8733068b9 1 Politics #2019GeneralElections,#2019PresidentialElection,KPU,voting-day,2019-presidential-election,2019-general-election Free A bigger than expected turnout by unregistered voters led to long lines at polling stations in various cities around the world over the weekend. Photos of snaking lines in cities like Amsterdam and Tokyo flooded social media on Saturday and Sunday as hundreds of thousands of Indonesian voters took to polling stations to cast their votes. More than 2 million overseas voters are registered on the final voter list (DPT) compiled by the General Elections Commission (KPU). Registered voters were able to vote when the polls opened, generally from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time, but unregistered voters had to wait until an hour before the polls closed, leading to long lines. The KPU is mulling reopening polling stations in Sydney, where hundreds of voters failed to cast their ballots because of time constraints. Donny Verdian, a 41-year-old design consultant and blogger living in Sydney, said the polling station at the Sydney Town Hall closed at 6 p.m. local time on Saturday despite a large number of unregistered voters still waiting in line. The line stretched for three blocks, he told The Jakarta Post on Sunday. The doors were closed on time and guarded by several well-built officials. Donny managed to vote but others were not so lucky. Hundreds of Indonesians, who are eligible to vote, were not allowed to exercise their right even though there was a long line in front of the town hall polling station since the afternoon, a change.org petition, demanding a revote, read. As of Sunday evening, the petition had been signed by more than 8,800 people. Voter enthusiasm: Indonesians wait to cast their votes at a polling station at the Balai Indonesia multifunction hall in Tokyo on Sunday.(JP/Tertiani Simanjuntak) KPU commissioner Ilham Saputra attributed the situation in Sydney to an unexpected influx of unregistered voters. He added that the polling station at Sydney Town Hall, in particular, could not stay open later because the venue had been rented by the Overseas Elections Committee (PPLN) for a limited time only. The buildings rental ended at 6 p.m., so now those who have not voted are asking us for a revote, but the PPLN in Sydney must have a supervisory committee recommendation first, Ilham told the Post. The KPUs PPLN coordinator, Wajid Fauzi, said it was currently working with the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu), the Sydney PPLN and the Elections Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) to reopen the polling station in Sydney, which was not the only city where voters faced long lines. In Tokyo, 90 percent of registered voters in the Kanto region of Japan showed up at a polling station on Sunday, when the closing time was extended. As of 9 p.m. local time, or two hours after closing time, at least 300 people, most of them students and first-time voters, were still queuing at the Balai Indonesia multifunction hall in Meguro, Tokyo. Weve been in the queue for five hours, said first-time voter Irma. Many of us have given up and went home but I dont want to lose my chance to vote because, like they say, each vote matters. According to the head of the PPLN for the Kanto region, Makmur Lubis, 90 percent of the 1,208 voters registered to cast their ballots at the polling station had showed up as of 4 p.m. It beats the previous record set in the 2014 election when it hovered at around 75 percent. Initially, the committee had lowered their expectations due to a change in the election system and, therefore, it had less time to prepare and disseminate information. We were surprised by the huge number of voters who showed up. We think there are many factors at play, with one being that there are only two pairs of candidates, which makes it easier for voters to decide, said Makmur. He added that there were around 300 spillovers, including tourists, and around 800 of those have yet to be registered. Voting for leaders: Former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono accompanies his wife, Ani Yudhoyono, who cast her ballot while on her treatment bed at the National University Hospital in Singapore on Sunday.(Courtesy of Anung Anindito) They all fall in the special voter list (DPK). We did not have extra ballots, so we had to use unused returned postal ballots to accommodate the special voters. In San Francisco, 28-year-old unregistered voter Heriberta Maharestusadya, 28, also stood in a long line to vote. She, along with hundreds of other potential voters, had to line up for over five hours amid uncertainty about the availability of the remaining ballots. Heriberta was eventually able to cast her vote, but others were not so lucky. There were people who had lined up for hours with me but were then told they had been listed on the DPT and had ballots sent to their homes. However, they have yet to receive any ballots. They eventually had to go home without voting. The situation [at the polling station] was a bit disorderly with no officials giving us information while we were lining up. The line was very long so I could not see what was happening in the front, Heriberta said. In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a large number of unregistered voters also turned up on Friday, but the local PPLN said they managed to handle the situation. We were able to serve them all. We have a lot of unused ballots here, Riyadhs PPLN head, Murjasa M. Solly, said. The KPU recorded that in the 2014 legislative election, only 464,458 or 22.19 percent of more than 2 million registered overseas voters cast their ballots. Voter turnout was higher for the 2014 presidential election, at 33 percent, but still trailed far behind the overall voter turnout rate of around 73 percent. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Humeyra Pamuk (Reuters) Washington, United States Mon, April 15, 2019 10:20 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873308e66 2 World #USA,#WikiLeaks,Julian-Assange,arrest,Donald-Trump Free White House adviser Kellyanne Conway On Sunday said she did not believe President Donald Trump had advance knowledge that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was going to be arrested by the British police and charged by US prosecutors. Not to my knowledge, Conway told NBCs Meet the Press show, when asked if Trump knew ahead of time about Assange, who last Thursday was hauled out of the Ecuadors embassy in London where he had taken refuge since 2012 to avoid extradition. US prosecutors subsequently announced charges on Thursday and accused Assange of conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to gain access to a government computer as part of one of the largest compromises of classified information in US history. The Justice Department said Assange was arrested under an extradition treaty between the United States and Britain. Lawyers for Assange said he may risk torture and his life would be in danger if he were to be extradited to the United States. They have also suggested the charges could chill press freedom. Conway said she believed Trump did not have any knowledge of what was going to happen to Assange but added that based on her numerous conversations with him on the issue, he is against releasing such classified information. The President believes that those who publish classified information should not do that, she said. ...So anybody whos publishing classified information, in our view, should think thrice before they do that because you can imperil folks. Trump in 2016 said I love WikiLeaks after the website released emails that US authorities have said were hacked by Russia to harm his election opponent Hillary Clinton. On Friday, he told reporters he had no opinion on the charges against Assange. I know nothing about WikiLeaks. Its not my thing, Trump said. Assanges US indictment arose from a long-running criminal investigation dating back to the administration of President Barack Obama. It was triggered in part by WikiLeaks publication in 2010 of US military reports about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the diplomatic communications - disclosures that embarrassed the United States and strained relations with allies. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, April 15, 2019 18:21 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873323826 4 City abduction,kidnap,kidnapping,Bekasi,Jakarta-police,Criminal-Code Free The Jakarta Police have arrested a homeless woman, identified as AG, 55, who allegedly abducted a 3-year old girl in Bekasi, West Java. AG has been named a suspect in the case, police spokesman Sr. Cmr. Argo Yuwono said. She thought that if she was with a child, people would feel sorry for her and be moved to give her money while begging, he said as reported by kompas.com on Monday. AG, who is homeless, moved from one mosque to another around Jakarta every night to sleep. She was arrested on Monday at the At Taufiq Mosque near Pasar Senen Station in Central Jakarta. The police confiscated a scarf, bag and the childs pink dress. She allegedly had the toddler, named Anisa Suci Ardiwibowo, for five days. AG could be charged under Article 328 of the Criminal Code on abduction, which carries a penalty of more than five years in prison. The case came to light when CCTV footage from a mosque in Bekasi went viral last week. It showed a woman allowing Anisa to sit on her lap in the mosques yard before walking away with her. Anisas grandmother, Sri Wahyuni, said her grandchild regularly played in the mosques yard, which is located close to their home. Sri was shocked when she went to the mosque to look for Anisa but only found her sandals. Staff at the mosque told her that they saw an elderly woman talking with Anisa and buying her food before the two disappeared. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Matt Blomberg (Thomson Reuters Foundation) Manila, Philippines Mon, April 15, 2019 12:52 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873313019 2 SE Asia #Philippines,#ChildTrafficking,CyberSex,Global,taskforce Free The tip-off came from the FBI: details of an arrest in the United States, the accused's social media profiles, and a host of photographs showing young Filipina girls engaged in sex acts. Led by police in the Philippines, a new global anti-child sex abuse taskforce started dissecting the US citizen's digital footprint in order to track down the exploited girls. "Those images were very sexually explicit ... disturbing," said William Macavinta, the Filipino police general heading the unit that launched this year to combat cybersex trafficking - a form of modern slavery where children are abused over webcam. "It was clear that we had to move fast to extract the children," said Macavinta, whose country is considered by campaigners to be the epicentre of the fast-growing trade. Three weeks later, British and Australian cops assembled with their local counterparts one evening just before dusk, and raided a slum located on fishing docks in the capital, Manila. The taskforce did not find the alleged local offender but rescued five girls - aged 10 to 13 - who had been groomed and directed to perform sex acts over livestream by the American. Tens of thousands of girls in the Philippines are estimated by charities to be trapped in the sex trade, with a growing number abused online for global clients due to the country's cheap internet, high standard of English and widespread poverty. The Southeast Asian nation received about 60,000 reports of online child sexual exploitation last year - up a third on 2017 - said a US investigator working in the Philippines with the International Justice Mission (IJM) - an anti-trafficking group. From Australia and the United States to Britain, major nations are boosting efforts to stop their citizens fuelling an illicit business believed to be spreading across Southeast Asia. But obstacles are aplenty. Many victims are exploited by their own families and unable or afraid to speak out, while the encrypted nature of modern technology from messaging to video call apps makes criminals tough to track, according to police. "This hidden crime is very difficult to shut down," said Macavinta, citing strict privacy laws that make it tough for police to monitor suspects and make arrests without a warrant. "Referrals from foreign law enforcement - that's how we know these things (online child sex abuse cases) are happening." "CUNNING, CLEVER, DESPERATE" The Philippine Internet Crimes Against Child Center (PICACC) was launched in February and is home to officials from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Britain's National Crime Agency (NCA), as well as representatives from the IJM. The taskforce has also forged links with authorities in the United States, Canada, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands. "Historically, there hadn't been a lot of cooperation," said Richard Stanford, a police detective heading up the Australian contingent, adding that different nations and local agencies had previously been working on cases "in ignorance of each other". Every report of online child sex abuse - raised in the Philippines or abroad - now goes to the taskforce, where experts in online forensics, criminal investigation and child protection work hand-in-hand to track down offenders and their victims. Stanford said Australia had a moral and legal responsibility to tackle the crime in the Philippines, having provided a "disproportionate number of paedophiles to Southeast Asia". And a 2017 Australian law preventing the country's more than 23,000 convicted padeophiles from travelling abroad could in fact accelerate the rise of cybersex child trafficking, he said. "Good intention (with the law) - but it means there'll be a corresponding increase in online sexual abuse," Stanford added. "We are looking at predators ... very, very cunning ... extremely clever, desperate ... who go to great lengths to achieve their ends," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Britain this month said it would give 3 million pounds in aid funding to the NCA to investigative British paedophiles who travel to "high risk" foreign countries such as the Philippines. Filipina senator Loren Legarda has urged other nations to get tougher on predators who watch abuse online by amending their laws to enact harsher punishments. The Philippines' anti-trafficking legislation carries the threat of life in prison. CATCH IN THE ACT No data exists on the number of child victims of cybersex trafficking, but at least 784,000 people in the Philippines - or one in 130 - are estimated to be trapped in modern-day slavery, found the Global Slavery Index by the Walk Free Foundation. Police say the crime is growing and has been fuelled by factors ranging from well-established money wiring services to affordable, high-speed internet coverage across the country. At least half of the population had internet access as of 2016, up from a quarter in 2010, according to World Bank data. Abusers can earn up to $100 per show in a country where about a fifth of its 105 million people live in poverty - earning less than $2,000 a year - government figures show. All but a few cybersex trafficking cases involve children being abused by their relatives or family friends, and half of the victims are aged 12 or younger, police and the IJM said. "Reporting on them is not natural, culturally" said the US investigator, a former SWAT team member who declined to be identified due to his involvement in ongoing operations. "Some of the children, they don't even understand that this is wrong." The trade has grown quickly in communities rife with crime, where it is seen as less risky than selling drugs, he added. The international command centre took on 33 new cases during its first month in action, adding to a backlog of hundreds of investigations brought to the table by the various agencies. But police say they are often hamstrung by laws stating that abusers must be caught in the act to justify an arrest, or be notified when an arrest warrant is issued during investigations. While most operations to rescue children are a success, their exploiters often escape, as was the case with the recent operation in the fishing dock slum, according to investigators. The alleged offender - a 17-year-old girl - was not found during the raid and is likely abusing others, officers said. "The most effective method is to catch them in the act of committing the crime," said the US investigator with the IJM. "But that's not always possible. It's very challenging." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, April 15, 2019 09:01 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa8732ff35b 4 News Genting-Dream,Genting-Dream-Cruise,cruise-ship,tourism,travel,destination,foreign-tourists,Bintan,Riau-Islands Free Luxury cruise liner Genting Dream returned to Bintan, Riau on Saturday, bringing hundreds of foreign tourists onto the exotic island. Bintan Tourism and Culture Agency head Wan Rudy said he was enthusiastic about the return of the luxury cruise as the arrival of foreign tourists would boost the regions tourism. We are proud that Bintan has once again been recognized as a worthy destination for foreign tourists arriving on the luxury cruise. [Their arrival] has fueled our spirit to keep working hard and improve our local tourism, Wan said on Monday, as quoted by kompas.com. Around 400 of the total 2,679 passengers disembarked the cruise ship to enjoy various tourist destinations on the island, according to the agency. Those who disembarked mostly flocked to Lagoi Beach, including Bintan Lagoi Resort. Wan said the vast majority of cruise passengers were from Singapore, with 2,180 tourists. Meanwhile, 169 tourists were from Malaysia, 164 from India, and 43 are domestic tourists from Indonesia. The rest departed from Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Canada, Hong Kong, Myanmar, Philippines and Thailand, he said. Genting Dream is a luxury cruise ship specifically designed for the Asian market. With a capacity of more than 3,300 passengers, the cruise liner is equipped with onboard facilities, such as six waterslide parks, rock climbing wall, a 35-meter zip-line that sways above the open waters and more. The cruise arrived in Bintan for the first time last July. The Tourism Ministry noted that the ship was carrying 4,000 passengers from various countries, including Singapore, Malaysia, China, India and Australia. Around 2,000 of them visited the island. (rfa/kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Xinhua) Beijing Mon, April 15, 2019 18:08 976 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873322488 2 News art,students,courses,Education,university Free China's Education Ministry has issued a guideline requiring general college students to obtain mandatory art credits before graduation, People's Daily reported earlier this week. Universities should set up or designate management institutions for popularizing art education and incorporate art courses and practices in their teaching program, the guideline said. It encouraged universities to approve cross-school registration for public art courses and recognition of credits earned at peer institutions. Read also: China's Tsinghua University students must pass swimming test to graduate In addition, higher education institutions should be equipped with qualified art teachers and promote the innovative development of traditional Chinese culture, according to the document. It also called for efforts to improve art education's integration into the national and regional development strategy. Topics : art students courses Education university "The Sea Will Not Sink" exhibition is held at Boan Yeogwan in central Seoul, last week. The memorial exhibition will also be held in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province on the occasion of the fifth year anniversary of the tragic incident to shed light on the continuing impact of the disaster on the nation. Yonhap Victims remembered in 'Sea Will Not Sink' exhibition By Kwon Mee-yoo It has been five years since the Sewol ferry sank in the waters off Korea's southwestern island Jindo, claiming over 300 lives, mostly Danwon High School students who were on an excursion to the scenic Jeju island. The tents of the Sewol memorial site at Gwanghwamun Square, which became a fixture over the years, were taken down last month, but it does not mean the maritime disaster has been forgotten. The Sewol sinking caused a serious disaster-induced trauma all over Korean society and changed perceptions on public safety and solidarity. "The Sea Will Not Sink," a memorial exhibition for the Sewol ferry disaster, is held in Seoul and Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the tragic incident to shed light on the continuing impact of the disaster on the nation. The exhibit not just mourns over the disaster, but focuses on how our senses have changed after the accident and the change is irreversible. "We lament over the Sewol ferry disaster and the oblivion became official. However, our world can never be the same before and after the Sewol disaster," said Ahn So-hyun, director of Art Space Pool and co-curator of this exhibit. "Some of the artworks on view were created before the accident, but we can still read the Sewol disaster from them. We express our sadness about the disaster, but this exhibit also questions how it changed our life fundamentally." Forty artists take part in the exhibition, organized by the 416 Foundation, established by the families of the victims. The Ansan exhibition is held at the Ansan Art Center in the city that houses Danwon High School and centers on the last five years through artistic perspective. Photos of classrooms where victims attended are on display with a chronological table showing what happened in the five years after the accident. The classrooms are no different from other ordinary classrooms in Korea, but along with the context, the shadows of the harrowing accident loom over the classroom. A visitor looks at artworks by ExpansionXColony at the "The Sea Will Not Sink" exhibition at Boan Yeogwan in central Seoul, last week. Yonhap 8 hours ago 3 Reasons Why BlackBerry May be Ready to Grow on Its Own Merits The unlikely meme stock is showing investors its business strategy is starting to pay off BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) was one of the stranger companies to be part of the meme stock movement. Read Article Lee Jae-woong By Lee Kyung-min Lee Jae-woong, the founder of Korea's first portal Daum, has blasted Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki over what he claims was a "misplaced blame" for the failure of now-disbanded innovation taskforce set up under the finance ministry. Lee, currently CEO of Socar, a car-sharing company, resigned as the head of the Innovation Growth Center in December 2018 amid continued discord with the ministry over policy stance differences. "I do admit that I lacked the willpower," he wrote in his sarcasm-ridden post on Facebook. "But isn't the innovation-led growth lagging behind because the minister lacks willpower, which I saw President Moon Jae-in had," he added. The post is an apparent rebuttal against the minister who said Lee could have better managed the taskforce if he had played the role expected of him. At a meeting with a group of reporters in Washington D.C April 12 (local time), he said "Lee could have done a better job had he had the determination." Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki Russia has unveiled plans to design and build its own fleet of limousines, to replace those currently sourced from the western world. President Vladimir Putin has reportedly overseen the project personally, which will eventually extend to building vans and SUVs. Called Project Cortege, for now, the primary purpose of the new limos - beyond ferrying Putin and his dignitaries around - is to serve as a Russian status symbol to the rest of the world. Lawmakers of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party enter the Supreme Prosecutors Office in Seoul, Monday, to file complaints against the disputed Constitutional Court Justice nominee Lee Mi-sun and her husband for allegedly making lucrative stock transactions using insider information. From left are Reps. Song Eon-seog, Lee Man-hee, Choi Gyo-il and Lee Yang-soo. / Yonhap By Park Ji-won Liberal and conservative parties are on a collision course over President Moon Jae-in's possible appointment of disputed nominee Lee Mi-sun as a Constitutional Court judge. The liberal President is expected to appoint Lee despite strong protest from conservative parties and negative public sentiment against her before leaving for a trip to three Central Asian countries, Tuesday. Moon will ask the National Assembly to adopt a report on the outcome of Lee's confirmation hearing held last week which is a de facto procedural step for appointing the nominee. The deadline of the adoption was Monday. Assembly approval is not mandatory for the appointment of presidential nominees. Moon embarks on an eight-day trip today to three Central Asian countries Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to boost economic ties and receive support for his moves to create peace on the Korean Peninsula. Lee came under fire over her and her husband's massive stock trading last week during a National Assembly hearing. They reportedly traded stocks 5,500 times. She insisted the stock transactions were made by her husband, denying any involvement. Responding to this, the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) and minor opposition Bareunmirae Party (BMP) have refused to adopt the reports on Lee's confirmation hearing citing her ethical lapses and the allegations that the couple violated several laws regarding stock transactions. They asked her to step down as a nominee. The LKP filed complaints with the Supreme Prosecutors Office on Monday against her and her husband for possible violations of laws such as the financial investment services and capital markets act and anti-corruption act. The BMP also asked the Financial Services Commission to investigate the couple for using insider information to buy stocks. The opposition parties have continued to step up political attacks against Cheong Wa Dae for lax screening of nominees for high-ranking posts, calling for the dismissal of senior civil affairs secretary Cho Kuk who is in charge of the reshuffle. On Friday, Lee sold her stocks worth about 660 million won ($587,246) and pledged to sell her husband's stocks if she gets the post. A Realmeter survey on 504 adults showed Monday that 54.6 percent said Lee is not qualified to be a Constitutional Court justice while 28.8 percent said she is qualified. Moon pushed ahead last week with the appointment of Park Young-sun for SMEs and startups minister and Kim Yeon-chul for unification minister despite strong objections from the opposition parties. Meanwhile, the progressive Justice Party and some lawmakers of the Party for Democracy and Peace changed their stance to approve her nomination. Georgians lay down flowers to mourn victims of the Tbilisi massacre by the Soviet army on April 9, 1989. / Embassy of Georgia By Yi Whan-woo On the 30th anniversary of the Tbilisi Massacre, the Georgian Embassy in Korea plans to run a series of activities here including lectures to raise public awareness about the bloody oppression by the Soviet army in the Georgian capital. Similar activities will take place in other parts of the world. But the campaign in Korea will be especially meaningful because Georgians and Koreans suffered occupations throughout their respective histories and can unite when it comes to peace and freedom, according to Georgian Ambassador to Korea Otar Berdzenishvili. "Our history pages are very alike and we have a lot in common," he told The Korea Times at the embassy on April 9. This was day when the Soviet army oppressed protesters who called for Georgia's independence from the Soviet Union and took to the streets in Tbilisi in 1989. The protest was sparked by anti-Georgia rallies in the Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and in Tskhinvali and South Ossetia. The Georgian protesters claimed Russia was behind such rallies. Soviet soldiers and tanks are mobilized in Tbilisi on the morning of April 9, 1989. / Embassy of Georgia And the Soviet army not only mobilized soldiers and tanks but also, according to studies, most probably used poisonous gas containing chloropicrin to quell the Georgians. The attack left 21 people, mostly women including a 16-year-old girl, dead and hundreds poisoned. Also known as the April 9 tragedy, its 30th anniversary coincides with the 100th anniversary of Korea's March 1 Independence Movement against the 1910-45 Japanese occupation. "This is why, besides our geographical distance, we're trying to show the Korean people how things are similar in other parts of the world and how peace- and freedom-loving people should be united and show our voices together," Berdzenishvili said. "This is what the story is about and we should be together when it comes to freedom and peace." The 1989 massacre marked the beginning of Georgia's struggle for independence, and ironically, the collapse of the USSR in the long term. "The Soviet regime never owned up to the Tbilisi Massacre. It rather triggered collapse of the USSR," the ambassador said. He pointed out that the tragedy motivated Georgians to vote in a referendum for independence from the Soviet Union on March 31, 1991. With a 90.5 percent turnout, 99 percent voted in favor of independence including today's occupied regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Also on April 9, 1991, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Georgia proclaimed Georgian sovereignty and independence from the Soviet Union based on the results of the nationwide referendum. In the same year, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, a nationwide protest movement leader, became Georgia's first democratically elected president. "For Russia, it's very difficult to swallow even today because a big empire has been demolished," Berdzenishvili said. He also said the Tbilisi Massacre remained in Georgia's history as "one of the most tragic and heroic dates" as well as a moment when the whole country united to fight for Georgia's independence. "Georgia will always remember the young people and others who tried to stop Russian tanks with their bare hands, only to be killed by Soviet troops," he said. "The date is indelibly etched into the minds of Georgians as the day of national unity." Meanwhile, the envoy said restoring independence to Georgia created "a new context for Russia's imperial politics to emerge," arguing that the 1989 tragedy was followed by further aggression and civil wars. "These events subsequently became the precondition for the new wave of hybrid threats emanating from Russia seeking to impede Georgia's military, economic and social stability," he said. Ancient sites put up Unesco shield BANGKOK: Residents in Phetchabun province who oppose oil exploration near an ancient historical site can breathe a sigh of relief after the Cabinet approved a proposal to push for Si Thep Historical Park to be granted Unesco World Heritage Site status. culture By Bangkok Post Monday 15 April 2019, 01:04PM Officials survey historical structures in Si Thep Historical Park in Phetchabuns Si Thep district. The government is pushing for the park to be recognised as a Unesco World Heritage Site. Photo: Sunthorn Kongwarakom /file via Bangkok Post Last Tuesday, the Cabinet also approved Phanom Rung Historical Park in Buri Ram province to be registered as such. Thai delegates will present the registration application for the two sites at a Unesco meeting in Azerbaijan in June, according to Cultural Minister Veera Rojpojanarat. The approval process is likely to take two years, and Thailand can place both sites on the Tentative List until their status is confirmed. The Cabinet approval has emboldened those who protested against planned oil exploration 100 metres from the 1,000-year-old Si Thep Historical Park. We are getting closer to the day we can call Si Thep Historical Park a Unesco World Heritage Site when oil exploration near the area will be unthinkable, said Wisarn Kositanont, president of Cultural Council of Phetchabun province. Eco Orient Resources was granted concessions to explore oil drilling in Si Thep district 15 years ago. The site, known as STN-2, is close to the ancient Khao Klang Nok stupa. On March 28, after local resistance, Nawin Pantham, a company representative, announced at a meeting with the provincial governor that the plans had been dropped. Yet local people remained concerned the company might still continue to explore for oil in other nearby areas that might also affect the historical site. Critics said the only sure way to curtail oil exploration around the park was for the Fine Arts Department to announce the area within a five-kilometre radius as a historical site. Famous activist and president of the Stop Global Warming Association Srisuwan Janya submitted this petition to the department in March. The ancient city in the park lies in an area that made it a historically essential point of contact between the Central Plains and the Northeast. It combines a mixture of the Buddhism-based culture of the Dvaravati kingdom and Khmer culture which draws on Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism. Some of the buildings date back 2,500 years. Sri Thep craftsmen benefited from these influences and went on to develop their own unique style, influenced by both cultures. According to officials, the site falls under two criteria required by Unesco for the special designation. The first is that it is situated on a key corridor through which Southeast Asian culture spread. The second is that it demonstrates different cultures coming together to create new forms of artistic and architectural expression. Meanwhile, Phanom Rung was constructed in the Angkor style between the 10th and 13th century. It consists of three main ancient structures. One is the Phanom Rung sandstone castle located on the top of an extinct volcano in the Phanom Dong Rak Mountain Range. It was dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. Another is Muang Tum, a uniquely-styled castle about four kilometres southeast of Phanom Rung castle and built as a shrine for the Hindu Shaivism sect. The last is Prasat Hin Khao Plai Bat I and II, which sit on Plai Bat Mountain, where the extinguished volcano lies. Read original story here. A poster for Thai Festival 2019 / Embassy of Thailand By Yi Whan-woo The Royal Thai Embassy in Seoul will host the fifth Thai Festival at Cheonggye Plaza in downtown Seoul, April 20 and 21. It will run from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day. Titled "So Thai Festival," this year's event will focus on up-to-date cultural and lifestyle trends in Thailand. It will also promote the country's emerging tourist destinations and traditional cuisine. Exhibitions include graffiti artworks from Alex Face, Em Parkpoom and Kotchawat Buranapinyo. In a press release, the embassy said the three young artists' works would offer "a glimpse into Thai artistic minds and discover the meaning of the unlimited imagination of Thai art." The two-day event will feature music and dance performances by DJ Machina, the Music for Fun Academy band, legendary Thai folk songstress Banyen Rakkaen and flautist Tanis Sriglindee. The embassy said visitors will have an "eye-opening" experience when they watch the opening show retelling ancient Thai stories using a hybrid of live action, stage performances and world-class technology. The show will include a traditional dance performance by Thais living in Korea. The Tourism Authority of Thailand will introduce Kalasin Province known for its fertile and picturesque landscapes, lush nature and friendly villagers. "Come get familiarized and enjoy what Kalasin Province and Northeastern Thailand has to offer," the embassy said. The Department of International Trade Promotion and the Ministry of Commerce of Thailand invite visitors to taste dishes prepared by chefs from nine top Thai restaurants. Additionally, eight Thai food companies and seven designers will introduce their respective goods. The 2018 Thai Festival took place in May at COEX in southern Seoul, on the 60th anniversary of bilateral ties. Thailand serves as the rotating chair of ASEAN. It focuses on sustainability in all dimensions, such as dialogue with ASEAN members. The theme was chosen to better serve ASEAN's long-term objective of promoting a people-centered ASEAN community and becoming more effective in addressing the challenges that ASEAN faces. HM King expresses concern over losses from Songkran accidents BANGKOK: His Majesty the King expressed concern over the loss of life on the roads during the Songkran festival. The prime minister has urged all agencies to follow His Majestys advice on accident prevention measures. transportaccidentsdeath By National News Bureau of Thailand Monday 15 April 2019, 01:12PM Lt Gen Werachon Sukondhapatipak, the deputy spokesman at the Prime Ministers Office, disclosed that His Majesty the King is concerned about peoples losses from accidents during the Songkran festival. Photo: NNT Lt Gen Werachon Sukondhapatipak, the deputy spokesman at the Prime Ministers Office, disclosed that His Majesty the King is concerned about peoples losses from accidents during the Songkran festival. He has instructed Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha to ask civilian, police and military officers and volunteers to provide convenience and safety to road users and to campaign for zero accidents. His Majesty the King emphasized that all provinces should accelerate operations to reduce accidents and losses rapidly. They can ask for support from the government to enhance the efficiency of their operation. Lt Gen Werachon added that the prime minister has instructed all agencies to follow His Majesty the Kings advice and assigned the Road Safety Administration Center to integrate cooperation to achieve concrete results. Read original story here. Southern Pines, NC (28387) Today Partly to mostly cloudy. High 68F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Considerable clouds this evening. Some decrease in clouds late. Low 52F. Winds light and variable. For Subscribers At The Next Level: More than 60 area athletes competing on winter college sports teams in six states More than sixty former area high school athletics standouts are compete for winter college sports teams in at least six states. LANSDALE As the North Penn School Board continues to debate several large building renovation projects, a smaller project has gotten the go-ahead. The school board voted unanimously April 11 to award a roughly $833,000 contract for a roof replacement project at General Nash Elementary School. The base bid is a 20-year warranty a lot of flat roofs are 20 years and we bid the 30-year option, just to see what the cost would be, said Director of Facilities and Operations Scott Kennedy. According to Kennedy and to bid results provided by the district, contractor Pro Com Roofing produced the lowest of five bids received for both the base bid and an alternative, which he said would produce a longer life span. You get a thicker membrane, you get improved seams, improved flashings, just a better quality of roof. For that amount of money, its worth it, he said. The base bid from Pro Com came in at $779,000 with the alternative adding an extra $54,000 to, and all four other bidders submitted prices of at least $962,000, according to the bid documents. The project was vetted by the boards facilities and operations committee, according to committee chairman Jonathan Kassa, and will be funded by the districts capital reserve fund. Solicitor report added to agenda: The boards April 11 meeting contained a new addition: a line item leaving time for a monthly report from district Solicitor Kyle Somers. Theres a couple of reasons: one is to update the board on any legal developments, cases of importance that have been decided, new legislation thats going to impact the school district, Somers said. Also, to note any items on the agenda that may be there for a legal purpose, such as a piece of legislation requiring a particular policy to be adopted, he said. The solicitors report will also allow Somers, or anyone else attending in his place, to announce if and when the board has met in executive sessions. Somers said during the April 11 meeting that he had no cases or updates, but announced an executive session was held for the half-hour before that meeting. The board met in executive session, immediately prior to tonights meeting, for the purposes of discussing a matter of personnel, involving an administrative employee, discussing a collective bargaining matter regarding the Educational Support Professionals Association, and to receive information on, but not deliberate, three additional items, he said. Gifts accepted, including one from McManus: The school board also voted unanimously to accept several gifts to the district, including $25,000 from North Penn alumni and current Denver Broncos kicker Brandon McManus that will be used to fund a Kick Start grant program. Its a very generous gift its making to the district, said board President Tina Stoll, who said McManus is a personal family friend. Other gifts included $500 from WTXF Fox 29 to North Penn High School for a Mini-Thon game show; $500 from Walton Farm Elementarys home and school association for a new TV in the school lobby; $200 from the Athletes with Disabilities Network for books about disabilities for General Nash Elementary; and $180 donation for playground stencils from the home and school associations to the schools at Nash, Walton Farm, York Avenue, Oak Park, Inglewood, Gwynedd Square, Knapp, and A.M. Kulp Elementaries. Several other action items were also approved by the board, including a school nutrition services budget for 2019-20 that includes no changes to student meal prices, a new textbook and classroom resource list for social studies, science, language, and Spanish curricula, and an update to board policies for initiating real estate tax assessment appeals. Details on each can be found in the boards meeting materials packet for April 11. The North Penn School Board next meets at 7:30 p.m. on May 7 at the district Educational Service Center, 401 E. Hancock St. For more information or meeting agendas and materials visit www.NPenn.org or follow @NPSD on Twitter. OTTAWACanada plans to attract more international students by expanding its presence overseas in an effort to advance classroom diversity and boost economic benefits that already amount to billions per year. The economic effects of foreign students nearly doubled between 2010 and 2016, when they reached a total of $15.5 billion in Canada for everything from tuition fees to rent and groceries, according to a federal analysis. To put that in perspective, the document says the sector supported nearly 170,000 jobs in 2016 and had greater economic impacts than Canadas exports of auto parts, aircraft and lumber. The vast majority of foreign students have been coming from India and China, while recent years have seen surges from countries with fast-growing economies like Vietnam. Officials from universities, colleges and the federal government are now in the early stages of developing an aligned strategy that will broaden campaigns in other parts of the world, Universities Canada president Paul Davidson said in an interview. He expects Canada to promote itself as an education destination in places with expanding economies and large populations of young people, like Colombia and parts of Africa. Were looking at where in the world there is a growing middle-class demand for higher education, a place where Canada has got linkages and connections, said Davidson, whose organization represents 96 institutions. Read more: Saudi Arabia orders its foreign students out of Canadian schools Saudi students given four weeks to leave Canada, even if studies not completed Halifax students demand end to high tuition fees for international students Canada has been an attractive place to study for years. In 2000, federal numbers show there were 122,665 valid study permits in Canada a number that hit 572,415 last year for an increase of 467 per cent. Numbers compiled by Universities Canada say full-time international student enrolment at universities rose by about 15 per cent across Canada between 2017 and 2018. The 2018 growth came despite a diplomatic dispute last August between Canada and Saudi Arabia, which has been one of the top home countries for international university students. The Saudi government suspended diplomatic ties with Canada, expelled the Canadian ambassador and recalled its own envoy to Ottawa after Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and her department criticized the regime on Twitter for its arrest of social activists. Saudi Arabia also ordered thousands of its citizens studying in Canada to come home. Davidson said diplomatic efforts by the federal officials and the higher-education community helped reduce the impact. In the end, he said many Saudi students stayed, including medical trainees who had been in Canada for several years as well as those in studying in other areas of health science and some graduate programs. The Saudi situation underscored the importance of having a diverse range of countries to work with, Davidson said. Last months federal budget announced nearly $148 million of funding over five years for international education, part of which will be dedicated to efforts to attract more foreign students to Canada. International Trade Minister Jim Carr said beyond the economic impacts, students from abroad often establish important, decades-long links with Canada. We believe that international students add value to our communities, that they experience Canadas fine institutions and take with them an appreciation of who we are as Canadians, Carr said in an interview. Sometimes they stay, sometimes they go back to their home countries and become, really, ambassadors for Canada. Denise Amyot, president and CEO of Colleges and Institutes Canada, said foreign students bring new perspectives that help their Canadian classmates better understand the world. Their higher tuition fees strengthen institutions and ensure a wider choice of programs are offered for all students, she added. Amyot, who represents 132 publicly funded colleges and institutes, said her members have also seen rising numbers of international students. In 2006-07, she said foreign students made up a 4 per cent share of enrolment in the college system by 2015-16, it had grown to 8 per cent. She said immigration policy changes in Canada have helped it compete with other countries in attracting the worlds increasingly mobile post-secondary students. The policies, she added, have sped up visa processing times, permitted foreign students to work in Canada while they study and improved a graduates chance of obtaining permanent residency. Numbers from the Immigration Department show that last year 10,950 former study permit holders became permanent residents. Between 2015 and 2017, the annual total failed to eclipse 3,000. Some of our best immigrants, in fact, have been international students that have studied in Canada, worked in Canada, said Amyot. This becomes very, very attractive and Canada has a shortage of employees right now, so it is really helping our labour-market situation. For a guy who says one of his fondest memories as a Canadian was watching the Quebec separatist movement fail at the ballot box in 1995, Brett Wilson sure talks a lot about his own province seceding. The entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist has been bringing up the idea of the western provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan dropping out of the country with increasing frequency. He sees separation as a potential remedy for moves by the federal government and other provinces carbon taxes, the cancellation of a pipeline to the Pacific, the obstruction of a pipeline to the Atlantic that he says amount to economic civil war. I remember celebrating when the Bloc Quebecois failed because I love my Canada, he said in an interview, referring to the federal party that advocated Quebecs secession. Thats why I describe myself as a frustrated nationalist, not in any way a separatist. But Wilson, who was born in North Battleford, Saskatchewan and made his fortune in Calgary through ventures like investment bank FirstEnergy Capital Corp., added: Its real easy for Alberta and Saskatchewan to feel like theyre being pushed out of confederation. Wilson an occasional panelist on Dragons Den, Canadas version of Shark Tank isnt alone in that thinking. Its become a major undertone in Albertas provincial election this week and could determine the future of Canadas energy industry. Perceived disrespect About 71 per cent of Albertans say their province doesnt receive the respect it deserves within Canada, and 68 per cent say it doesnt get its fair share of federal spending, the highest proportions of any province on both measures, according to a recent survey by the Canada West Foundation, a public-policy think tank. The poll shows western alienation the idea that the rest of Canada either doesnt care about Alberta and Saskatchewan or is actively opposed to their interests is real and has worsened in recent years. It has been front and centre in the provincial election campaign, in which a conservative who has harsh words for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is facing off against a centre-left incumbent who has occasionally allied with him in order to curry favour for provincial priorities at the federal level. And how Canada deals with western alienation has national and global repercussions. The energy sector accounts for 10 per cent of Canadas economy and 20 per cent of its exports. Albertas 3.7 million barrels of daily production are more than most OPEC members. And thats just what it pumps now. The provinces proven reserves of 165.4 billion barrels of oil trail only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and are enough to supply every drop of used around the world for four and a half years. Lingering anger Its the lack of awareness of how important the energy industry is and the dearth of support for it that irks Albertans, said Martha Hall Findlay, a former federal lawmaker from Ontario who now leads the Calgary-based Canada West Foundation. Hall Findlay grew frustrated with eastern Canadas dismissal of the west during her time in office and says her support for Enbridge Inc.s Northern Gateway oil pipeline contributed to her loss to Trudeau in the Liberal Partys 2013 leadership contest. After becoming prime minister in 2015, Trudeau scuttled the pipeline an offence that still angers many Albertans. Not to mention much of the province also still holds a grudge against Trudeaus late father. Former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau implemented the National Energy Program during the early 1980s, which was fiercely criticized for taking power over the industry away from Alberta. In that era, the anger was really focused on one person in the then-prime minister, Hall Findlay said in an interview. The frustration that I see now is much broader, and I find it arguably more depressing. Many westerners also think the federal government is more willing to help businesses in central Canada. They point to the scandal around SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., in which Trudeau is alleged to have pressured his former justice minister to intervene in a criminal case on behalf of the Montreal-based construction company. Canadas system of equalization payments between provinces, of which Quebec is a beneficiary, is also a particularly sore spot. Trudeaus bargain Ottawa has its frustrations with Alberta as well. Trudeau campaigned on a grand bargain with the west: implementing a carbon tax that would make Canada a world leader in combating climate change in a bid to secure public support for a new oil pipeline. He also extended added benefits to unemployed oil workers and paid $4.5 billion to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline from Kinder Morgan Inc. to save its expansion. But as crude prices languished below their 2014 highs, Alberta has dealt with persistent job losses and a sense that the boom is gone for good and many blame Trudeau. His comments at a town-hall meeting in Ontario in 2017 that Canada needs to phase out the oilsands only fuelled suspicion that hes secretly opposed to the industry. Despite the recent rough patch, Alberta remains Canadas richest province, or among the richest, by any measure. That reality is often difficult to square with protests radiating from the region. Trudeaus government looked set to advance on many of its environmental priorities in 2015, when the center-left New Democratic Party, led by labour lawyer Rachel Notley, broke 40 years of conservative rule in Alberta. In short order, Notley implemented a carbon tax, capped oilsands emissions, and started weaning the province off coal-fired power. But plunging oil prices, Trudeaus abandonment of Northern Gateway, Quebecs fatal obstruction of TransCanada Corp.s Energy East pipeline, and delays to other export projects through the U.S. have diminished Albertan appetites for co-operation. Momentum has swung back to Albertas conservatives, who campaigned on taking a more combative stance with Ottawa and are leading in the polls for Tuesdays vote. United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney is promising to cancel Albertas carbon tax, challenge the constitutionality of a federal bill that revamps pipeline approvals and hold a referendum on how much the province pays into federal coffers. We must have leadership that will never again be embarrassed about or apologize for Alberta, but will, without relent, fight for it, Kenney said at a rally in Calgary last week. Notley counters that she has fought the federal government when necessary, forcing it to buy Trans Mountain, and routinely blasts former Prime Minister Stephen Harpers government, in which Kenney served as a cabinet minister, for its lack of progress on major new export pipelines. She also has travelled Canada to rally support for new pipelines and says she helped shift public opinion so that now almost 70 per cent of Canadians support Albertas efforts. Albertans are angry, and Im angry, too, Notley said in a statement. But it is my job to advocate for Alberta regardless of who is in power. And sometimes you do that by outmaneuvering, not outshouting. For Wilson, Alberta separation has moved from his seventh-best idea for the province to near the top of the list. He wants the government to draft solid plans for secession so that the province has credible alternatives in future dealings with Ottawa. You dont go to the table to negotiate if you dont have an alternative, Wilson said. The problem is that the federal government has forced the west into using separation as its only alternative. Read more about: EDMONTONAlberta Party leader Stephen Mandel is fed up with what he called a despicable election campaign after hearing he might be impersonated in a fraudulent automated phone message endorsing United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney. This campaign has become one of the nastiest campaigns I think in the history of Alberta, one that I am ashamed almost to be a part of, Mandel said Sunday. Bob Wispinski, from Ardrossan, Alta., said before 6 p.m. Saturday night his phone rang. When he answered, an automated message started to play. Wispinski said the message sounded like it was a recording of Mandel, saying the scripted audio identified the message as being from Mandel, but at the end of it, it said Im Stephen Mandel and I support Jason Kenney of the UCP. The message, according to Wispinski, said voters who believe in Alberta should know that rival party leader Kenney has all the answers before listing off various points from the UCPs platform. Wispinski says he did not get a chance to record the message himself, but knew it didnt seem right. Read more: Alberta Party leader would build hospitals, shorten wait times, improve service Polarizing Alberta election has some voters looking for a third option Alberta Partys Stephen Mandel promises lane on Highway 2 for self-driving vehicles He said the call looked like it came from a local number, but when Wispinski called back he says the person who answered had no idea what he was talking about. Im not impressed. I dont know how to word it without cussing so Im not going to. It just ticks me off that thats whats got to be resorted to, Wispinski said, worried that some people might be fooled into believing the fake endorsement. Wispinski reported the call to his friend Marvin Olsen, Alberta Party candidate for Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville. I have never seen a low where somebody would impersonate a party leader with on a robocall endorsing another party leader, its absolutely ridiculous, said Olsen. The Alberta Party reached out to the RCMP on Sunday afternoon, and according to spokesperson Serena Mah, the RCMP had been in contact with the Elections Commissioner. We dont know the source of this, we dont know who it came from, we just think its an all-time low and whoever it is needs to be found out, needs to come to justice, Mandel said. There has been some confusion as Wispinskis reported call which has not been independently verified came at the same time as a series of legitimate automated calls endorsing Kenney with a recording of former prime minister Stephen Harper. Mah said as of Sunday afternoon she was not aware of any other reports of people receiving the automated message from Mandel. Wispinski remained adamant that the message he heard clearly identified Stephen Mandel and not Stephen Harper. Frustrated with the nastiness that has seemingly consumed the Alberta 2019 provincial election, Mandel made an appeal for decency with just two days left before election day. Where is the morality in politics? Its getting so despicable, to be honest with you, it really is so disappointing, Mandel said, adding, I think this is an honourable profession, I think people have to respect politicians and I think whats happening now is were losing all that respect. This isnt the first time fraudulent automated calls have been used to interfere with the course of a Canadian election. Michael Sona, a former federal Conservative Party staffer, was convicted of wilfully preventing or endeavouring to prevent an elector from voting in an election in 2014 and sentenced to nine months in jail after he pulled off a scheme that saw more than 7,000 fake calls sent to non-Conservative voters in Guelph, Ont., the day of the 2011 federal election. The calls directed voters to the wrong polling stations. As many as 200 voters went to the wrong polling station because of the calls, some tearing up their voter cards out of frustration. Others stayed home because the fake location was too far away to reasonably get to. Sona was the only one charged, but upon his conviction the judge acknowledged he likely did not act alone. This isnt the first time the Alberta Party has made allegations about harassing robocalls in their name. Former party leader Greg Clark who is now running as the incumbent Alberta Party candidate for Calgary-Elbow alleged that during the 2015 campaign constituents of Calgary-Elbow were subjected to harassing calls that appeared to come from the Alberta Party itself. The automated calls, according to Clark, didnt have any message, but would call constituents at all hours of the day and night. The RCMP are already investigating allegations of irregular funding of a so-called kamikaze campaign, where Jeff Callaway who ran against Jason Kenney for the leadership of the now United Conservative Party is accused of running as a stalking horse candidate to attack Kenneys main rival Brian Jean before dropping out of the race. In February, the Elections Commissioner issued $15,000 in fines to Callaways campaign co-manager Cameron Davies for obstructing an investigation. Former UCP financial officer Karen Brown was fined $3,500 for donating $3,500 contribution with somebody elses money to Callaway during the 2017 party leadership race. In March, the commissioner issued Hardyal (Happy) Singh Mann three fines totalling $9,000 for donating to Callaways campaign with someone elses money, and giving his wife and brother money to do the same. As rumours continue to swirl, on Thursday the RCMP seized a hard drive, electronic devices and a suitcase from an auto repair shop owned by Peter Singh, the UCP candidate in the riding of Calgary-East. While investigators have not confirmed what the search was about, Singh maintained his innocence. Read more about: MONTREALIn a rare display of unity, Montreal city council unanimously passed a motion against Quebecs proposed secularism bill on Monday. Mayor Valerie Plante and opposition leader Lionel Perez presented the bipartisan declaration stating that Montreal practises open secularism and its bylaws are neutral, regardless of the religious convictions of those who make them. It is our duty to speak up about this bill and to bring forward the voices of people we dont hear so much, and how itll be affecting our citizens, Plante told reporters shortly before the vote. The mayors primary political rival, Perez, was alongside her for the announcement and said he hopes the joint message will lead the provincial government to reconsider its plan. Its a message to the government of Quebec, a message to Montrealers, that here at city hall, together, we speak with one voice, Perez said. Bill 21 doesnt represent open secularism. It does not represent Montreal or Quebec values. Bill 21 would prohibit public servants in positions of authority including teachers, police officers, Crown prosecutors and prison guards from wearing religious symbols on the job. A grandfather clause would protect people already hired in those positions. Plante criticized the Coalition Avenir Quebec governments use of the notwithstanding clause to override potential charter challenges, saying it only serves to short circuit debate and create more anxiety. Read more: Liberal MPs join other elected officials to oppose Quebecs secularism bill Bloc Quebecois tells Ottawa to stay out of debate over Quebec secularism bill Montreal-area mayor under fire for equating secularism bill to ethnic cleansing She said she expects to explain the impact on Montreal when she presents to a committee studying the bill in the coming weeks. Perez questioned the provincial governments contention that there is a consensus in Quebec against religious symbols for teachers and other public servants. He said the Montreal councils declaration speaks to a different consensus: We want to be able to be judged on our actions, our convictions and not simply on what we wear. Perez, who wears a kippa, was emotional as he addressed council. Im a Quebecer as much as everyone else, the interim leader of opposition Ensemble Montreal said, tears in his eyes. Quebec Premier Francois Legault told reporters on Sunday that his government is open to suggestions to improve the bill, but he maintained that the legislation is reasonable and that there have already been compromises, including the grandfather clause. Plante wouldnt say what Montreal would do if the law is passed unchanged. I will not speculate. Ive already said that I respect the right of the government to bring a law, but right now its not a law, its a bill, Plante said. Read more about: The Archbishop of Toronto said Monday the fire that heavily damaged Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is a tragic event that has touched people everywhere. All around the world, all of us feel a certain sadness in our hearts at the thought of the people of Paris losing not only such an astonishing, most beautiful cathedral in the world, but their cathedral, Thomas Cardinal Collins said. It is their church. In Montreal, the bells of the citys Notre-Dame Basilica rang out in solidarity as the Paris landmark was consumed by flames. Pastor Miguel Castellanos said in a post on the Montreal churchs Facebook page that hes in shock over the news of the fire at Notre Dame de Paris, which he described as a jewel of architecture and an exceptional cultural, historical and religious symbol. My prayers are for the French people, the diocese of Paris, and everyone who will have to work hard to rebuild an international treasure, eternal and powerful, Castellanos said. Our heritage is very fragile. Together, lets take great care of it to preserve our treasures. Collins said a cathedral is meant to be a sign of beauty that leads to truth and goodness. He said the destruction has affected so many people because of its history and magnificence. Read more: Notre-Dame Cathedral continues to burn in catastrophic fire Editorial | Destruction of Notre-Dame is a blow to all the world The archbishop pointed out that the fire has come in the week before Easter, the holiest time of the year for Christians. The fire apparently erupted Monday in the roof of the medieval church, which was undergoing a major restoration. Flames and smoke could be seen engulfing the structure, with the spire collapsing into the church. The cause of the fire remains unclear. Collins said he didnt expect any type of special mass in light of the Notre Dame fire. He said thats because the cathedral is bricks, stone and mortar that is beautiful and significant, but of most importance is the suffering, death, and resurrection of the Lord. In addition to sharing a name with the French cathedral, Old Montreals gothic revival-style basilica owes its architectural inspiration to the two towers of Notre-Dame de Paris. Castellanos offered prayers to the French people and all those affected by the fire. Read more about: Two Canadian citizens have been detained in Somalia, Global Affairs Canada says. The two Canadians are receiving consular services, said Brittany Fletcher, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada. She added that embassy officials in Nairobi, Kenya, are in contact with local authorities to gather additional information. Fletcher would not provide more information about the circumstances of the detainment or the identities of two people, citing the Privacy Act. Jason Jeremias, a New York-based activist and executive director of performing arts collective Price of Silence, said the detained individuals are two women who had travelled to Somalia to assist a woman facing gender-based persecution. Jeremias said the women were arrested in January and have been held at a prison in Hargeisa, a city in the disputed region of Somaliland, since then. Jeremias said a third woman, a U.K. national, was arrested along with the other two women, but has since been released. What were calling on people to do is to call their members of parliament and to acknowledge the fact that these women were doing courageous ... work for womens rights, and to demand their release, said Jeremias. Rwandan Ambassador Emma Isumbingabo, eighth from left in the front row, poses with former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, seventh from left in the front row, and other VIP guests during a ceremony in Seoul on April 8, to mark the 25th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. / Korea Times photo by Yi Whan-woo Ban Ki-moon joins ceremony to honor victims By Yi Whan-woo Race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, sex and age do not matter. Any man or woman of conscience has love for mankind, peace and freedom. This was witnessed in Seoul last week when the Embassy of Rwanda here marked the 25th anniversary of the genocide against the Tutsi. About 100 people, including ambassadors and other members of the diplomatic corps in Korea from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East solemnly attended the ceremony at the Far East Broadcasting Company on April 8 to honor the victims of mass slaughter by ethnic Hutu extremists. Among the distinguished guests were Rwandan Ambassador Emma Isumbingabo and Gabonese Ambassador Carlos Victor Boungou, who is also the dean of the group of African ambassadors, and Claude Murekezi, chairman of the Rwandan Diaspora in Korea. From the Korean side were former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Deputy National Assembly Speaker Lee Ju-young and Deputy Minister for Political Affairs Yoon Soon-gu of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They observed a moment of silence, listened to speeches by selected speakers and watched a short film titled "Kwibuka 25." The film is named after a term for an annual commemoration of the genocide that killed about 800,000 from April 7 to mid-July 1994. The ceremony culminated when the ambassadors and other VIPs took to the stage and lit 25 candles, following the commencement of week-long mourning and remembrance of victims that began on April 7 in Kigali, Rwanda. "We must never forget the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda was perpetrated by evil men with wrong biased and unfounded ideologies whose hatred led to the loss of more than a million innocent lives," Ambassador Isumbingabo said in her speech. Citing Rwandan President Paul Kagame, she said her country has turned a corner and that "fear and anger have been replaced by the energy and purpose that drives us forward, young and old." Isumbingabo pointed out Rwanda's economy had grown at an annual average of 8 percent over the past two decades, becoming one of Africa's fastest-growing economies. She referred to legal protection enjoyed by the masterminds of the genocide who fled to other countries, mostly in Africa, the Americas and Europe. She argued that this was why Kwibuka could be "an opportunity to galvanize all efforts at national, regional, continental and international levels against genocide ideology and collectively fight against all forms and manifestations of genocide denial." She added, "Rwanda is determined to eradicate genocide denial and combats its sponsors." In a separate speech, former U.N. Secretary-General Ban said the 1994 genocide left a lesson for the rest of the international community. "Twenty-five years ago, the U.N. and the international community failed we failed Tutsis, we failed Rwandans, we failed Africans and we failed humanity," Ban said. "Never again can the international community collectively fail to act as it did in 1994 ... Never again can we neglect to identify the warning signs of mass atrocities." The Gabonese ambassador underscored the need to celebrate the courage of orphans and other ordinary heroes who survived the genocide and stood up against the call to hatred. He also underscored a need to preserve the memory of victims of the genocide and to rebuild communities through the unity of the Rwandan people. "It is the resilience and strong commitment to transcend its history and shape its destiny that constitutes the Rwandan exception," the ambassador said. In pitching their one-stop Scarborough subway plan and later defending it, staff in Mayor John Torys office and former chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat said the cost of the two-for-one deal being proposed had been verified by a third party. But the firm they named, the U.S.-based HDR, says now it never verified the costs. In 2016, Tory and Keesmaat made the two-for-one proposal, saying that if an estimated $3.56-billion three-stop subway planned from Kennedy station to Sheppard Ave. was reduced to just one stop at the Scarborough Town Centre, there would be enough money leftover to pay for a multi-stop LRT extension of the Crosstown line east along Eglinton Ave. Last month the Star reported that internal emails showed the plan was sold to council and the public with no time for city officials to check those cost assumptions. In providing response for that story, Keesmaat told the Star the cost assumptions had been checked by the outside company, HDR, a comment that was in line with what she and the mayors office said in 2016. The fact that this could be achieved within the order of magnitude funding envelope was verified by a third party in advance of us stating this in public, Keesmaat told the Star last month. Read more: Scarboroughs one-stop subway: This was a bait and switch Doug Ford vows 3-stop Scarborough subway. The timeline could leave riders on buses for years Opinion | Edward Keenan: The Scarborough subway was sold to us with a specific turn of phrase. We should have been paying attention Days after the story was published, HDRs market strategy manager emailed the Star to say that wasnt the case. Just for reference HDR had no involvement in doing any third party cost estimate, wrote Saloni Shah this month. Shah confirmed that HDR only provided high-level advice on costing for the Eglinton East LRT and that no advice was provided on the subway. In an email this week, Keesmaat said she provided the best advice she had available at the time they made their proposal, while Torys spokesperson said he was relying on the professional advice of staff. The plan presented by Tory and Keesmaat in January 2016 was seen as a compromise among councillors, several of whom had challenged the justification for the pricier subway after it was approved in 2013 over a seven-stop light rail line fully paid for by the province. But only months later, early cost estimates done by the TTC were quoted at $2.9 billion and quickly jumped to $3.2 billion as staff evaluated the design, pricing the Eglinton East LRT out of the equation. Three Star journalists attended a briefing with the mayors office on Jan. 20, 2016 where the mayors then chief of staff Chris Eby told the Star: HDR, who did the Eglinton West study, have peer-reviewed the financial piece of this and theyre comfortable saying that its within the order of magnitude, so it has been checked by an outside, independent authority. Later that day, as senior city staff questioned the costing information in a report to be published the next day, Keesmaat wrote to the citys chief financial officer, deputy city manager and other staff, saying: HDR conducted an order of magnitude analysis on our behalf to confirm that our proposal is within the range of the order of magnitude of the earlier proposal. Emails the Star has now been provided by the city show HDR did no such thing. On Jan. 13, 2016 before the report was released and the new plan publicized the citys director for transit and transportation planning James Perttula, who reported to Keesmaat, emailed HDRs then transit engineering leader Sheldon Frankel. Further to our chat in the hallway yesterday, here are the questions we would like HDR to address regarding an eastern extension of the (Eglinton Crosstown LRT), Perttula wrote. He asked Frankel what the key considerations and issues were related to connecting that potential extension east from Kennedy station and what the order of magnitude costs would be for an at-grade LRT. I recognize this will need to be framed with a number of assumptions and caveats. To give you a sense of level of effort on this, we are looking for a quick response by tomorrow if possible, Perttula wrote. After some back and forth, Frankel wrote back 28 hours later with answers to Perttulas questions. This is the best I can do on short notice, the engineer wrote. Using raw costs provided by the provinces transit agency, Metrolinx which would likely build and own the LRT extension Frankel estimated the LRT would cost $890 million to $1 billion. This estimate, requested on the fly, is not considered a verified cost estimate. HDR didnt provide any advice on the potential cost of a one-stop subway, their spokesperson confirmed. And they did not verify that, as Keesmaat and the mayor promised, the subway and the LRT could be done within the same funding envelope as the three-stop subway. HDRs advice was high level and related only to the (Eglinton East LRT). No advice was provided on the SSE, Shah wrote in an email to the Star. We dont have any new information beyond this. As per our agreement with the City of Toronto, any further inquiries with respect to HDRs involvement in these projects should be directed to the City of Toronto. HDR was on retainer with the city in 2016 to provide technical engineering advice on several projects, primarily six new GO stations championed by Tory and an Eglinton West LRT extension, city spokesperson Brad Ross explained in a recent email. HDR was asked to answer a number of technical questions related to the Eglinton East LRT in order for the city to develop a high level conceptual cost estimate, he said. In response to questions about why she claimed their cost assumptions had been verified by HDR when they had not, Keesmaat said in an email Tuesday that HDR provided advice on a broad range of costing matters consistently on the projects in question. As chief planner, the advice I gave with the information available was the best advice at the time. The mayors spokesperson, Don Peat, reiterated that Tory supported the plan based on the advice of our professional staff. We are getting on with building transit including the Bloor-Danforth subway extension to the Scarborough Town Centre thats what Mayor Tory was elected and re-elected to do by Toronto voters. Eby, in a text message response for this article, said he had little to add to the mayors statement, only: Planning staff has indicated throughout that their costing has been peer reviewed and we took them at their word. Perttula told the Star staff felt it was important to get advice from HDR on potential costs for the Eglinton East line and that the TTC was responsible for costing of the subway. Emails show TTC officials didnt think a costing could be done on the plan in time and a TTC spokesperson earlier confirmed that they did not verify whether the two projects could be built within the original budget. Asked if it was accurate to say a third party had verified the costs, Perttula wrote: HDR only provided advice on how best to approach a cost estimate for the (Eglinton East LRT). How others may have interpreted that advice isnt something I can speak to. Read more about: A partially collapsed house in the citys east end could be levelled as early as this week, says a real estate agent, who has been helping the devastated homeowners of 144 Harding Blvd. through the kind of property calamity that has prompted the city to issue a rare demolition order. The couple, who did not want to speak to media, and their two children have been left financially and emotionally drained, said Royal LePage agent Shea Warrington. She said their insurance claim has been denied. Jennifer Toner and Rick Saye have hired a contractor to tear down their four-bedroom house near Kingston Rd. and Birchmount Ave. to avoid even more costs if the city arranges the demolition, Warrington said. The house will come down as soon as the city issues a demolition permit and the gas is shut off. It could happen this week but is more likely to be next week, she said. The family received notice on Friday the City of Toronto would take down the house at the owners expense as early as Thursday. Warrington said the price of that could be substantially higher than if the homeowners contracted their own crew. She said the family is glad no one was injured when the house began to buckle on a February Saturday when Saye and his son were getting ready for their day To our overwhelming shock and disbelief the north facing side of the foundation collapsed and fell in resulting in the exterior north facing wall to fall out into my neighbours driveway and the north side of the main floor falling down into the basement, the couple wrote in a letter to TD Insurance. The side of the house is covered by a tarp and the front is blocked by blue construction fencing. The family had nothing but the clothes on their back, not even the kids backpacks much less legal documents, money and treasured family photos, Warrington said. Warrington said it isnt clear if they will be able to get into the house to reclaim some of their belongings before it is levelled. They havent been allowed in the house so they have nothing. They dont have their clothes, Warrington said Monday. They are so emotionally, mentally and financially drained. Warrington said the owners werent commenting on the cause of the collapse. At the time of the collapse, Toronto District Fire Chief Stephan Powell said they were told the basement had collapsed first, then the first floor of the house. He said there was renovation work being done in the basement prior to the collapse. Last week, Warrington listed the four-bedroom property for $500,000 on the real estate market as a rebuild opportunity that is not currently habitable. She had scheduled offers for Thursday but says that will now be postponed until after the house comes down. She said there has been lots of interest even though the house cannot be toured. Whats so upsetting to me is there are a lot of builders who want to build and regular buyers who are wondering if the house could be renovated. That would mean they could get more money, Warrington said. The family wasnt given the opportunity to see what the market value of the house is if was to be renovated because the city is forcing their hand, she said. Friends and family of the owners have started a GoFundMe page that has raised about $31,000 toward a $100,000 goal. The accompanying post describes the shock the family has experienced since the house collapse and learning their insurance claim has been denied. A spokesperson for TD Insurance was looking into the specifics of their claim at the Stars request on Monday. But it would be virtually impossible to say under which circumstances a standard policy claim would be denied, said a communications representative, since there are so many variables that go into the determination of how claims are covered. Demolition orders are a rare last resort, according to a strategic communications officer with the City of Toronto. Demolition is ordered only when a home is structurally unsafe and it is unreasonable to carry out repairs to resolve the safety condition, said Ellen Leesti in an email. Extensive failure of a buildings structural system or the buildings foundation may be a reason to require a building to be demolished, she wrote. The city received an engineers report citing foundation failure, Leesti said. Originally the city ordered the house demolished by April 9. That was extended to provide the owners with time to produce their own engineers opinion but the city did not receive such a report, it said in a letter on Friday. Toronto Building has determined that the building is in an unsafe and compromised position. Because of the condition of the building, Toronto Building is unwilling to put off any longer the process required to have the building demolished, said the letter. Toronto doesnt track how many demolition orders are issued after a house is determined to be unsafe. It does, however, have statistics for how many properties are declared unsafe with demolition being required in only a few cases. Leesti said there were 101 to 156 cases of unsafe conditions between 2014 and 2018. Forty-two properties have been found to be unsafe this year. The homeowners hope the crew can retrieve some of their possessions before the house is demolished, Warrington said. Correction April 16, 2019: This article was edited from a previous version that misspelled Rick Sayes surname in one reference. Toronto police are urging the driver of a black SUV who allegedly fled the scene after hitting a pedestrian waiting at a TTC streetcar stop in Chinatown early Sunday morning to speak to a lawyer and contact investigators. The pedestrian, a 21-year-old man, was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries following the early morning hit-and-run crash. He had been waiting at a glass streetcar shelter on a median on College St. shortly before 2 a.m. when the SUV passed at least three stopped vehicles waiting in the westbound passing lane before mounting the traffic median, striking the shelter and the pedestrian, police said in a Monday news release. The driver then fled the scene. Police on Monday said the SUV was found near the collision scene on Ulster St. The driver of the vehicle has not yet been found. Investigators at the scene had recovered a side mirror belonging to either a Ford Expedition, years 2015 to 2017, or a Lincoln Navigator, years 2007 to 2017. Police are urging the suspect to speak to a lawyer and contact investigators. Police are also asking any local residents, businesses or drivers how may have security or dashboard camera footage to contact police. They also ask anyone with information to contact police at 416-808-1900 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-8477. The Toronto police hold up unit is seeking the publics help after a Saturday afternoon bank robbery in Rexdale. According to a Monday news release, a man walked into a bank branch near the intersection of Rexdale Blvd. and Hwy. 27 around 4 p.m. The man allegedly waited in line before approaching the teller and verbally demanding money. The man kept his hands in his sweatshirt and stated that he had a weapon, said the release. The teller handed over a sum of money and the man fled the branch toward the parking lot. Police also released security footage that clearly shows the suspects face. The release describes the suspect as 25 to 30 years old, between five-foot-10 and six-foot, 180 pounds, with a goatee. He was wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt with a black hood and a stripe down the sleeves, dark grey pants and black shoes with white soles. Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-7350 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-8477. Toronto police have arrested two men and recovered three firearms, including an assault-style rifle, and a large quantity of cocaine and fentanyl following a pair of raids in Etobicoke on Sunday. Officers from the citys 31 Division executed search warrants at two addresses near Islington Ave. and Bloor St. and one vehicle associated with a 28-year-old man, according to a Monday news release. The two men were located at the first address and arrested without incident. The search of the first address yielded a loaded 9 mm Taurus semi-automatic handgun, a loaded Ruger .380 semi-automatic handgun, ammunition, and large quantities of cocaine and fentanyl. After searching the second address, police found a .22-calibre Mossberg assault-style rifle with ammunition, said the release. One of the men allegedly provided police with false identification, and further investigation revealed he was wanted on multiple warrants by the London Police Service, police said. Heysham Baity, 28, of Toronto, and Dominique Mossel, 28, of London, have been arrested. The two men face a combined 45 charges, including multiple counts each of possession of a loaded firearm, possession of a restricted firearm without a license, possession of a firearm with an altered serial number, possession of a firearm while prohibited, possession of cocaine and fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking, one count each of obstruct a police officer and several other charges. Both men were scheduled to appear in court at Old City Hall Courts on Monday. ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - During a visit to Addis Ababa, Ivanka Trump has honoured victims of the Ethiopian Airlines crash that occurred soon after takeoff last month. The presidents daughter and senior adviser visited Holy Trinity Cathedral Monday, where she met with religious leaders and laid a wreath to mourn the dead. A total of 21 United Nations staffers and 12 aid workers were killed last month when the Boeing 737 Max crashed minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa en route to Nairobi. All 157 people on board died. Airlines and countries around the world have grounded Boeing 737 Max jets or banned them from their airspace following the crash. A similar crash involving that Boeing model plane crashed into the waters off Indonesia in October, killing all 189 on board. JUBA, South Sudan - Mia Farrow will never forget the day she watched a baby die in her mothers arms. It was a little girl staring at her mother and finally she just stopped breathing. I just moved away and listened to the mothers cry, the actress and human rights activist told The Associated Press in South Sudans capital, Juba, earlier this month. She recalled the death as she visited the country again in her new role as envoy for the International Rescue Committee, helping the aid group to promote a global initiative to change the way humanitarian organizations approach malnutrition. Farrow, who has worked as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, has spent two decades travelling the world and advocating for human rights, especially for women and children. Crouching in a displacement camp in Juba earlier this month, she jotted notes while listening intently to women express fears about being sexually assaulted and not having adequate shelter for families during the upcoming rainy season. I dont know many people who could endure what theyre enduring, Farrow said. As South Sudan emerges from five years of civil war that killed almost 400,000 people, some 1.5 million people are on the brink starvation, the United Nations and South Sudans government said earlier this year. The International Rescue Committee calls the current approach to fighting malnutrition inadequate, asserting that it leaves millions of children with acute malnutrition untreated, Mesfin Teklu Tessema, the groups global senior director for health, told the AP. What weve seen on the ground, despite everybodys best efforts, were not able to save as many lives as we could, Mesfin said. With the current approach 50 million children around the world are acutely malnourished and approximately 80% arent receiving the treatment they need, he said. The group proposes treating moderate and severe acute malnutrition as one condition, using a single high-calorie therapeutic food instead of two and delivering aid to families in their homes via trained community health workers rather than making people seek care at a clinic. That can mean walking for days in search of help, Mesfin said. For the approach to be adopted the U.N needs to agree. The world body remains skeptical. There are still a lot of evidence gaps, Lauren Landis, director of nutrition for the U.N. World Food Program, told the AP. The U.N. wants to be sure the treatment is fully tested and works in a wide range of settings, she said. Both WFP and the U.N. childrens agency are supporting similar pilot programs, in a few cases partnering with the International Rescue Committee, looking at how to simplify the detection and treatment of malnutrition. While sending trained community health workers into remote areas is one way of reaching more people, organizations need to weigh the risks and the benefits, one expert said. There are a lot of problems with quality, control, monitoring and accountability, said Sarah Vuylsteke, former deputy head of access in South Sudan. The end goal should remain that everyone is able to access clinics and health care freely, she said. Having seen the country before and after civil war, Farrow has a clear message for South Sudans government as it tries to implement a fragile peace deal signed in September. Just stop fighting ... and find a way to peace, she said. Peace is the door out of this misery. Civilians continue to bear the effects of years of fighting. In a recent visit to the town of Aweil in Northern Bahr el Ghazal state, the AP saw dozens of hungry children swarm large pots of grains during a feeding program. The program is part of a new initiative launched by UNICEF and WFP with the aim of providing daily meals to 75,000 children at schools across the country. One of the children, 10-year old Malong Garang Deng, hung his head. Without school feedings he only eats once a day and sometimes there is nothing at all, he said. He lifted a frail arm, trying to flex a muscle. Im hungry, he said. But Ive adapted. Even if I cant eat I can still be strong. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazilian authorities said Monday they knew about structural risks in the area where a pair of buildings collapsed but were unable to act due to the threat posed by organized crime. Rio de Janeiros mayors office and firefighters said that 10 people, including five children, were killed when two buildings in the Itanhanga neighbourhood fell last week. The most recent casualty was an adult woman found dead early Monday morning. As of yet we have managed to rescue 10 people from the rubble but there is still evidence of 14 potentially missing people, Sgt. Moses Torres of the Rio fire department told The Associated Press. We have a lot more hope in situations like this, for example, than Brumadinho because the buildings collapsed in such a way that they can sustain life for an extended period, Torres said, referring to the January failure of a mining dam which killed 228 people. On Monday, the state attorney generals office said that the two buildings were part of an illegal construction scheme led by militias. Such criminal organizations often take over suburban areas in Rio to build and sell unregulated housing in a process called grilagem. The office said that it had observed militias conducting such business in the area of the collapsed buildings as far back as 2005. But it said that courts had blocked legal actions to limit construction in the area. In January, a specialized anti-organized crime unit conducted an operation in the area to arrest 13 individuals associated with the militias, but residents said such groups continued to tax businesses and locals. Residents were using the condemned structures up until their collapse last Friday after days of heavy rain. In February, Rio Mayor Marcelo Crivella said that the city had been unable to make drainage improvements in the area due to militia activity, but police had secured the neighbourhood and work was underway to resolve the issues. After being abandoned for so many years, I expect the area to be redeemed for Rio de Janeiro, Crivella said at the time. He first met with community leaders in March 2017 to announce a plan to improve sanitation in the area. A residents association, however, said authorities had failed to make any improvements. Rios Secretary of Infrastructure Sebastiao Bruno said that the city will now need to demolish three buildings surrounding the collapsed structures. Rescuers are still combing the wreckage day and night hoping to find survivors. WELLINGTON, New Zealand - New Zealands foreign minister confirmed Monday that a New Zealand nurse has been held captive by the Islamic State group in Syria for almost six years, information long kept secret for fear her life might be at risk. The status of nurse and midwife Louisa Akavi, now 62, is unknown, but her employer, the International Committee of the Red Cross, says it has received recent eyewitness reports suggesting she might be alive. The New York Times on Sunday became the first media organization to name Akavi, ending a more than 5 1/2-year news blackout imposed by New Zealands government and the Red Cross with the co-operation of international media. The collapse of the Islamic State group has raised hopes that Akavi and the two Syrian drivers kidnapped with her might now be discovered. In a statement, the ICRC said that as recently as December, Akavi may have been seen by at lest two people at a clinic in Sousa, one of the Islamic State groups last outposts. There were also reported sightings in 2016 and 2017, Red Cross officials said. We continue to work together (with the Red Cross) to locate and recover her, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said. This has been a uniquely complex and difficult case. Louisa went to Syria with the ICRC to deliver humanitarian relief to people suffering as a result of a brutal civil war and ISIS occupation. Where a New Zealander is held by a terrorist organization, the government takes all appropriate action to recover them. That is exactly what we have done here, Peters said. Peters said New Zealand had sent a small multi-agency team, including special forces, to Iraq to gather information on Akavi. This has involved members of the New Zealand Defence Force, drawn from the Special Operations Force, and personnel have visited Syria from time to time as required, he said. This noncombat team was specifically focused on locating Louisa and identifying opportunities to recover her. Akavi was taken captive in 2013 in the city of Idlib in northwest Syria. It is believed she was offered for ransom and may have been used as a human shield. New Zealands government believed at one point that she may have died. But there are hopes her medical skills might have caused her captors to spare her. Akavis family said they miss her and are proud of the work to which shes dedicated her life. We think about her every day and hope she feels that and finds strength in that, said a video statement issued by family spokesman Tuaine Robati. We know she is thinking of us and that she will be worried about us too. New Zealands government is reported to have opposed the ICRCs decision to allow The New York Times to report Akavis name and nationality. At a news conference Monday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern refused to answer questions about Akavi but indicated she was disappointed the ICRC had gone public before her fate had been learned. Youll forgive me, I hope, for not commenting on that case, Ardern said. It remains the governments view that it would be preferable if the case was not in the public domain. Dominik Stillhart, director of operations for the ICRC, said the organization had decided to permit publication in the hope it would elicit new information on her whereabouts. We have not spoken publicly before today because from the moment Louisa and the others were kidnapped, every decision we made was to maximize the chances of winning their freedom, Stillhart said in a statement. With Islamic State group having lost the last of its territory, we felt it was now time to speak out. He said the collapse of the Islamic State group in Syria may mean new opportunities to learn more about Akavis situation and the ICRC also feared it risked losing track of her in the aftermath of ISs collapse. Akavi is of Cook Islands descent and lives in Otaki, a small town north of Wellington. She is the longest-held captive in the history of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Stillhart called her a true and compassionate humanitarian. He said strenuous efforts had been made to secure her release. Negotiations in 2013 and 2014 were not successful. In 2014, she was among a group of hostages moved by IS only hours before a raid by U.S. special forces that aimed to free them. We call on anyone with information to please come forward, Stillhart said. If our colleagues are still being held, we call for their immediate and unconditional release. Stillhart later defended the ICRCs decision to publicize Akavis case after years of silence. Every decision was to maximize the chance of Louisas freedom ... and every decision was co-ordinated with the New Zealand government, Stillhart said at a news conference in Geneva. That included the difficult decision to go public. We think with new information from the public, we can redirect the investigation for Louisa. WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALANDA rift emerged Monday between New Zealands government and the Red Cross over the humanitarian organizations decision to name a New Zealand nurse who was kidnapped by the Daesh group five years ago and whom her employer believes could still be alive. The divide was another twist in the unusual story of the lengthy captivity of Louisa Akavi, which was kept secret for years by a government and an employer initially in lockstep about the need to stop it from becoming public. If she is alive, she would be the longest-held hostage in the 156-year history of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Akavi, 62, is a nurse and midwife who was abducted in late 2013 in the northwest Syrian city of Idlib along with two Red Cross drivers who are Syrian nationals. She was most recently sighted, according to Red Cross officials, in December at a clinic in Sousa, one of the final villages held by the Daesh group. The Red Cross said it had named Akavi with the New Zealand governments support in hopes of receiving information that could lead to her safe return. The timing was right, the group said, after the Daesh lost its last shred of territory in Syria last month. But Jacinda Ardern, New Zealands prime minister, on Monday deplored the decision by Akavis employers, and a government spokesman said it had put her at greater risk. Our preference, of course, is that the case not be in the public domain, Ardern told reporters Monday, while refusing to comment on Akavis plight. Read more: Red Cross, New Zealand hope for info on nurse held in Syria In carefully worded remarks at a news conference, during which she repeatedly declined to answer questions, Ardern did not mention Akavis name, or the name of any country or group. Dominik Stillhart, director of operations for the Red Cross, said he was slightly surprised by Arderns remarks. We would not have made that decision without the support of the New Zealand government, he said about naming Akavi. He added that the difficult decision was made after six or seven weeks of discussion with New Zealand officials most recently at an in-person meeting Friday and that he believed the Red Cross action was taken in full cooperation with those involved. The decision to name Akavi ended an especially strict, five-year media blackout in which news outlets agreed not to publish her name or even reveal that a New Zealander was being held by the Daesh group. Her capture prompted secret missions by a New Zealand special operations team to look for her, New Zealands foreign minister, Winston Peters, revealed Monday. Up to 12 people including defence and foreign affairs staff members, working in a noncombat capacity were making ongoing efforts from a base in Iraq to secure Akavis release, he said. A spokesman for Peters rejected the Red Cross assertion that it had revealed Akavis name with the Ardern governments support. The spokesman said by email that the government had advised the organization, at the highest level, that New Zealands preference was not to publish. The New Zealand view then, and continues to be, that the release of her story now increased the risks to her life, the spokesman said. Akavi had been travelling with six colleagues in a convoy marked with the Red Cross emblem in October 2013 when they were stopped at a checkpoint by gunmen. The next day, four of the aid workers were freed, but Akavi and the two drivers, Nabil Bakdounes and Alaa Rajab, remain missing. In early 2014, according to Red Cross officials and others held with Akavi, she was imprisoned outside Raqqa with other Western hostages, including Kayla Mueller, the American aid worker whom the Islamic State group reported killed in a 2015 airstrike. The Daesh group initially communicated with the Red Cross, providing proof that Akavi was alive and demanding fluctuating amounts of ransom, but her employer was not able to secure her release. By mid-2014, most of the hostages held with Akavi had been released, after ransoms were paid by their governments, families or employers. But a small number of American and British citizens, whose countries, like New Zealand, have a strict policy of refusing to pay ransoms, remained. All but one of them, including American journalist James Foley, were beheaded that year. The messages from the Daesh group about Akavi stopped in 2014, but between 2016 and 2018, Red Cross officials received reports of sightings of her in Syria, including from people she had treated. The news that she had been sighted in December 2018 at a medical clinic in Sousa was incredible information to receive, Stillhart said. She was still doing what she is trained to do and has long done: providing medical care in a conflict zone. Akavi, who was born in the Cook Islands and had lived in New Zealands capital, Wellington, was on her 17th deployment with the Red Cross since 1987, many of them in conflict zones. She survived a massacre of six of her colleagues by a gunman near Grozny, Chechnya, in 1996 by hiding in a locked room. Stillhart maintained Monday that the decision to name her and her colleagues had been the right one. From the moment Louisa and the others were kidnapped, he said, every decision we made was to maximize the chances of winning their freedom. Read more about: Sewol ferry disaster changed Korea but truth-finding work remains By Lee Suh-yoon The 2014 Sewol ferry disaster left a painful and lasting imprint on Korean society. Ahead of its fifth anniversary on April 16, ceremonies have taken place since the weekend to mourn its 304 victims and to keep pushing for better safety and disaster response systems. At Gwanghwamun Square last Saturday, thousands gathered with victims' families to remember the tragedy and demand further investigation into the causes of the sinking. Similar memorial gatherings took place in other cities, including Mokpo where the rusted ferry stands near its port after being salvaged. The 6,825-ton ferry sank off the southwestern tip of the country on April 16, 2014. Of the 476 passengers onboard, only 172 survived. Most of the dead or missing were students from Danwon High School on their way to a field trip on Jeju Island. The government's slow and botched rescue operation gutted the public's trust in the conservative Park Geun-hye administration. The ferry disaster, and the yellow ribbons that people wore or posted on their social media profiles to show sympathy for the victims, became symbolic of broader political dissatisfaction and need for government transparency and accountability. In the 2016 candlelit rallies against now-impeached President Park, the memory of the ferry disaster united demonstrators against what they saw as a corrupt and aloof administration. A mother of a Sewol ferry victim sheds tears during a press conference calling for responsible government officials to be brought to justice at Gwanghwamun Square, Monday. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul Some say the collective mourning and reflection on the disaster has already changed Korean society for the better. "The Candlelit Revolution and the successful quenching of the wildfire in Goseong and Sokcho are representative of how the Sewol ferry disaster changed Korean society," Bae Seo-young, head of the April 16 joint civic committee, told The Korea Times, Sunday. "This shift to a civic conscience that refuses to stay silent to injustice, and the prioritization of citizens' lives and safety in these quick national responses to disaster shows Korean society has started to change." Yet work still remains on uncovering why the Jeju-bound ferry sank. The two preceding special investigative committees found signs the ship was overloaded and sailing with defective steering controls. But the model simulations conducted at the Maritime Research Institute Netherlands (MARIN) could not replicate the exact angle and rate of the ship's sharp turn before it capsized leaving open the possibility of outside factors such as a collision according to some committee members. But no signs of major damage were found on the ship's hull after it was lifted from the seabed. The ship now stands upright at Mokpo New Port, its rust-caked hull a testament to the ship's time underwater. A CCTV recorder found in the main hall on the third floor of the ship had signs of evidence-tampering, the third investigative committee announced recently, saying the recording device, submitted by the Navy to the prosecution, only retained footage of the last three minutes of the Sewol's 100 minute-long descent into the sea. The sinking Sewol ferry is surrounded by maritime police boats off the coast of Jindo, South Jeolla Province, April 16, 2014. / Yonhap. Visitors walk down a seawall lined with yellow ribbons on Jin Island, South Jeolla Province, Monday, a day before the fifth anniversary of the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster. / Yonhap LONDON - Environmental protesters blocked access to several major London landmarks and vandalized oil company Shells headquarters Monday as they tried to bring the city to a standstill. The group Extinction Rebellion was seeking to paralyze parts of central London to highlight demands for the British government to declare a climate emergency. Thousands of protesters converged on Marble Arch, Oxford Circus, Waterloo Bridge, Piccadilly Circus and Parliament Square. Some activists glued themselves to windows at Shell headquarters near Waterloo, and others smashed glass revolving doors and sprayed the building with graffiti. Many carried signs pleading with the government to make fighting climate change a top priority. Police said three men were arrested in the ongoing protests. They have not been identified or charged. Extinction Rebellion drew attention to its cause two weeks ago when members stripped to their underwear in the public gallery in Parliament during a Brexit debate. Protester Olivia Evershed, 23, said climate policies must be altered quickly to prevent catastrophic changes. If we dont do anything to change this, our children will die, she said. Police advised Londoners to leave extra time for their journeys because of possible delays caused by the protest. Protesters aim to keep the demonstrations going for two weeks. BERLIN - German Chancellor Angela Merkel is expressing concern about the human rights situation in Libya and Sudan while calling for an improved approach to the factors that force people to migrate. Merkel said before a meeting Monday with the head of the UN refugee agency that the challenges (of migration) continue to be gigantic. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said the escalation of fighting in Libya made it difficult to work in the refugee camps there. He thanked Germany for its support of migrants in Libya and elsewhere. Separately, Merkel talked to Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on the phone about the political instability in Libya and Sudan. She says Germany supports the Sudanese oppositions demand for the military government to hand power over to a civilian administration. WARSAW, Poland - A nationwide strike of Polands teachers has entered its second week with the government saying it has no more funds to meet their pay demands after offering generous bonuses to various other groups. The majority among Polands hundreds of thousands of teachers continued their strike Monday, idling schools and kindergartens. They are demanding a 30% raise to their monthly earnings that are mostly below what a supermarket cashier makes. No talks were scheduled with the government, which insists it can offer no more than a 15% increase and says that anything more would bust the state budget, a clear sign that its policy of generous spending to secure backing in this years elections has reached its limit. The strike, however, did not prevent primary school graduation exams from being held Monday. BERLIN - A wave of migrants from what is now Greece and Turkey arrived in Britain some 6,000 years ago and virtually replaced the existing hunter-gatherer population, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature. Scientists examining samples of ancient remains dating as far back as 8500 BC found the dark-skinned foragers who had inhabited the British Isles since the last Ice Age left comparatively little trace in the genetic record after the transition to farming, suggesting there wasnt much interbreeding with the newcomers who arrived around 4000 BC. By contrast, the same Aegean migrants mixed extensively with local populations when they introduced farming to continental Europe about 1,000 years earlier, according to previous DNA studies. It is difficult to say why this is, but it may be that those last British hunter-gatherers were relatively few in number, said Mark G. Thomas, a professor of evolutionary genetics at University College London who co-wrote the study. Even if these two populations had mixed completely, the ability of adept continental farmers and their descendants to maintain larger population sizes would produce a significant diminishing of hunter-gatherer ancestry over time. The researchers from Britain and the United States found that the remains of Britains early farmers were genetically similar to those discovered in what is now Spain and Portugal, indicating this population travelled east to west through the Mediterranean, and then up to Britain. Strikingly, the newcomers appear to have arrived first on the western coast before spreading to other parts of Britain, suggesting they didnt cross the English Channel using the shortest possible course but instead braved the wilder Atlantic route. This route is a continuation of the Mediterranean coastal dispersal route but of course in much more complicated maritime circumstances, said Carles Lalueza-Fox of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona, Spain. Lalueza-Fox, who wasnt involved with the study, said the findings match what is known about the spread of megalithic structures along Europes Atlantic coast. Perhaps the best-known of these structures is Stonehenge in Britain. This work highlights the complex population turnovers affecting a rather marginal area of Northwestern Europe and points out the need to investigate all regions with ancient data to understand the shaping of modern human genetic diversity, said Laluelza-Fox. In their paper, Thomas and his colleagues also note the considerable variation in pigmentation levels in Europe during the Stone Age as shown from the genetic samples they examined. Whereas Britains outgoing hunter-gatherers including the oldest known Briton, Cheddar Man likely had blue or green eyes and dark or even black skin, the farming populations migrating across Europe are believed to have had brown eyes and dark to intermediate skin. BAGHDAD - After decades of conflict, Iraq is seeking to reclaim a leadership role and status in the Arab world with a centrist policy and a determination among the countrys top leaders to maintain good relations with both Iran and the United States. A flurry of recent diplomatic activity and high-profile visits to the Iraqi capital, including this months re-opening of a Saudi Consulate in Baghdad for the first time in nearly 30 years points to a new era of openness as the nation sheds its war image and re-engages with the world. Iraq is coming back to the neighbourhood, President Barham Salih told The Associated Press in a nearly hour-long interview last month. The veteran politician laid out a vision centred on an Iraq First policy, saying his country can no longer afford to be caught in regional disputes. For almost four decades Iraq was the domain in which everybody pursued their agenda at the expense of the Iraqi people. Its time we say we need a new political order ... in which Iraq must be an important pillar, Salih said. Iraq has emerged from a ruinous three-year war against the Islamic State group and faces the mammoth task of reconciling, rebuilding and returning tens of thousands of displaced to their homes. And while the extremists territorial caliphate has been defeated in Iraq and Syria, the militants have now shifted to an insurgency campaign of targeted assassinations, car bombings, and suicide attacks. The issue of Iran-backed Shiite militias who fought IS alongside Iraqi security forces poses a challenge to the governments central authority, and the countrys oil-based economy is suffering from wide-scale corruption. Iraqs path to reclaiming a leadership role in the Arab world will depend on how successful its leaders are in tackling security and economic challenges at home, Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute wrote recently. Amid rapidly escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran, Iraq also needs to maintain a delicate balance with the two as Baghdad has strong ties with both countries. The dynamics are complex. The Shiite-majority country lies on the fault line between Shiite Iran and the mostly Sunni Arab world, led by powerhouse Saudi Arabia, and has long been a theatre in which Saudi-Iran rivalry for regional supremacy played out. Relations have been particularly frosty with Riyadh, which broke relations with Baghdad following Saddam Husseins invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and never really warmed much as Iraq was increasingly pulled into Irans orbit in later years. Iraq needs much help and investment to rebuild its cities something it can only get from oil- and gas-rich Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia. But it can also ill afford to alienate Iran, which holds enormous political and military sway in Iraq through powerful militias and pro-Iran politicians. We have 1,400 kilometres of borders with Iran, we simply cannot ignore that reality, Salih said, adding that its in Iraqs national interest to nurture good relations with Iran, with which Iraq fought an eight-year war in the 80s. He said Iraq, however, was also keen on good relations with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other regional countries. Mindful of the need to counter Irans growing influence in the region in the post-IS order, Saudi officials have sought closer ties with Iraq, and last week sent a high-level delegation to Baghdad where the kingdoms consulate was inaugurated. The Saudi delegations visit followed a trip to Baghdad last month by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during which the two sides signed several agreement designed to boost bilateral relations. Its a stark contrast from past years when Baghdad was shunned and isolated, first because of international sanctions after Saddam Husseins 1990 invasion of neighbouring Kuwait, and later, after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled him, when Iraq sank into cycles of sectarian bloodletting. Amid the violence, international dignitaries avoided visits to the Iraqi capital, and when they did, made them brief and unannounced for security considerations. In 2007, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon famously ducked behind the podium during a live press conference with the prime minister at the time, Nouri al-Malki, as a rocket slammed outside the building. Now, Iraqi leaders say their country is not part of any regional conflict. Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi in his first foreign trip last month travelled to Cairo to meet with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. They were joined by Jordanian King Abdullah II for a tripartite summit on measures to strengthen economic co-operation. On Tuesday, Abdul-Mahdi announced he will soon be visiting Saudi Arabia to sign several agreements. Some are even suggesting that Iraq could play a mediating role between regional foes. Lebanons parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, on a visit to Baghdad earlier this month, said Iraq is a unique position to play an important regional role in the reconciliation between the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Watheq al-Hashemi, an Iraqi political analyst, said its an opportunity for Iraq to again become an important regional player. But for that to happen, Iraqi politicians need to put country before sect and act as statesmen, something he says theyve had trouble doing for a long time. NEW YORK - The 2019 Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists: JOURNALISM Public Service South Florida Sun Sentinel for examining mistakes by school and law enforcement officials before and after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting massacre in Parkland, Florida. Nominated as finalists: ProPublica for reporting on family separations at the U.S. southern border and The Washington Post for coverage of the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. ___ Breaking News Reporting Staff, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, for coverage of the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue and its aftermath. Nominated as finalists: Staff, Chico Enterprise-Record in collaboration with the Bay Area News Group for coverage of the California wildfire and staff, South Florida Sun Sentinel, for coverage of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting. ___ Investigative Reporting Matt Hamilton, Harriet Ryan and Paul Pringle, Los Angeles Times, for reporting on a gynecologist at the University of Southern California accused of abusing young women over decades. Nominated as finalists: David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner, The New York Times, for reporting on President Donald Trumps finances and Kathleen McGrory and Neil Bedi, Tampa Bay Times, for reporting on an increase in patient fatalities at a pediatric heart treatment centre after Johns Hopkins came in. ___ Explanatory Reporting David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner, The New York Times, for their examination of family tax schemes that helped President Donald Trump inherit a fortune from his father. Nominated as finalists: Aaron Glantz and Emmanuel Martinez of Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, Emeryville, California, in collaboration with The Associated Press, PRX and the PBS NewsHour, for an investigation into discrimination in the banking system; Kyra Gurney, Nicholas Nehamas, Jay Weaver and Jim Wyss of the Miami Herald for a look at a criminal operation centred around South American gold mining and reaching to Miami, and staff, The Washington Post, for stories about unsolved homicides in major American cities. ___ Local Reporting Staff, The Advocate of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for an examination of the states jury system and a law that allowed convictions without a unanimous verdict. Nominated as finalists: Barbara Laker, Wendy Ruderman, Dylan Purcell and Jessica Griffin of The Philadelphia Inquirer for stories on toxins in Philadelphia school buildings, and Brandon Stahl, Jennifer Bjorhus, MaryJo Webster and Renee Jones Schneider of the Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for a series on failures in the system to investigate and prosecute rapes. ___ National Reporting Staff, The Wall Street Journal, for stories disclosing payoffs during the campaign to two women who claimed to have had affairs with President Donald Trump, and how those transactions were handled. Nominated as finalists: Staff, The Associated Press, for coverage of the family separation policy of the Trump administration, and staff, The New York Times with contributions from Carole Cadwalladr of The Guardian/The Observer of London, for reporting on tech firms failure to protect private information and to allow the spread of misinformation. ___ International Reporting Maggie Michael, Maad al-Zikry and Nariman El-Mofty, The Associated Press, for stories on famine and torture during Yemens civil war. The staff of Reuters, with contributions from Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, on stories on the expulsion and killing of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar by the military and Buddhist villagers. Nominated as finalist: Rukmini Callimachi, for her coverage of the Islamic State group. ___ Feature Writing Hannah Dreier, ProPublica, for stories about Salvadoran immigrants in New York affected by a federal crackdown on MS-13. Nominated as finalists: Deanna Pan and Jennifer Berry Hawes of The Post and Courier, Charleston, South Carolina, for the story of a teen black boy wrongly convicted of the deaths of two white girls and only exonerated 70 years later, and Elizabeth Bruenig, The Washington Post, for a story on a teen sex assault victim and the crime going unpunished. ___ Commentary Tony Messenger, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, for columns showing how poor Missourians faced high fines or jail time over misdemeanour crimes. Nominated as finalists: Caitlin Flanagan, The Atlantic, for columns looking at gender and politics, and Melinda Henneberger, The Kansas City Star, for looking at sexism in a range of institutions including the hometown NFL team and the former governors office. ___ Criticism Carlos Lozada, The Washington Post, for reviews and essays on books focusing on government and America. Nominated as finalists: Jill Lepore, The New Yorker, for stories on a range of subjects including Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Frankenstein, and Manohla Dargis, The New York Times, for pieces examining the role of movies in the world. ___ Editorial Writing Brent Staples, The New York Times, for editorials focusing on racial issues. Nominated as finalists: Editorial staff, The Advocate, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for editorials calling for the abolishing of a Jim Crow-era law that allowed discrimination in the jury system, and editorial staff, Capital Gazette, Annapolis, Maryland, for reflections on gun violence and loss in the wake of a newsroom shooting. ___ Editorial Cartooning Darrin Bell, freelancer, for cartoons taking aim at the Trump administration over political turmoil and the impact on marginalized communities. Nominated as finalists: Ken Fisher, drawing as Ruben Bolling, freelancer, for comics that offered political commentary and satire on the Trump administration, and Rob Rogers, freelancer, for illustrations that took aim at hypocrisy and injustice. ___ Breaking News Photography Staff, Reuters, for images following the difficult journey of migrants attempting to get to the United States from South and Central America. Nominated as finalists: Noah Berger, John Locher and Ringo H. W. Chiu of The Associated Press, for images of the 2018 fire season in California, and photography staff, The Associated Press, for images of clashes in the Gaza Strip between Palestinians and Israelis. ___ Feature Photography Lorenzo Tugnoli, The Washington Post, for photographs documenting the famine in Yemen. Nominated as finalists: Craig F. Walker, The Boston Globe, for photos of a young boy with a complex developmental disability, and Maggie Steber and Lynn Johnson of National Geographic, for a photo story about the youngest face transplant recipient in the U.S. ___ Special Citation Capital Gazette, Annapolis, Maryland, in honour of the journalists, staff and editorial board for their response to the killings of their colleagues in a newsroom shooting. ___ LETTERS, DRAMA AND MUSIC Fiction The Overstory by Richard Powers Nominated as finalists: The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai and There There by Tommy Orange. ___ Drama Fairview by Jackie Sibblies Drury Nominated as finalists: Dance Nation by Clare Barron and What the Constitution Means to Me by Heidi Schreck. ___ History Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight Nominated as finalists: American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic by Victoria Johnson and Civilizing Torture: An American Tradition by W. Fitzhugh Brundage. ___ Biography or Autobiography The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart Nominated as finalists: Prousts Duchess: How Three Celebrated Women Captured the Imagination of Fin-de-Siecle Paris by Caroline Weber and The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam by Max Boot. ___ Poetry Be With by Forrest Gander Nominated as finalists: feeld by Jos Charles and Like by A. E. Stallings. ___ General Nonfiction Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America by Eliza Griswold Nominated as finalists: In a Days Work: The Fight to End Sexual Violence Against Americas Most Vulnerable Workers by Bernice Yeung and Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore by Elizabeth Rush. ___ Music p r i s m by Ellen Reid Nominated as finalists: Still by James Romig and Sustain by Andrew Norman. ___ Special Citation Aretha Franklin, for her role in American music for more than 50 years. RED BLUFF, Calif. - Officials say a Northern California police officer shot and killed a man who was threatening to strike officers with a large stick. Red Bluff Police Chief Kyle Sanders said in a statement that after officers encountered the man on a street he repeatedly refused to obey orders to drop the stick and walked away from them during the confrontation shortly after midnight Sunday. Police did not describe details about the stick. Officers first used a stun gun and a bean bag shot at the man to try to get him to comply but those efforts didnt work, Sanders said. When the man came toward the officers with the stick raised, Red Bluff Cpl. Stephen Harper fired a shot, striking the man in his upper torso, Sanders said. He said in a statement that officers began life-saving measures and the man was taken to a hospital where he died. But a witness told KRCR-TV in Redding that it took several minutes before officers began administering CPR. The mans identity was not immediately released. Harper, a 15-year veteran of the department, has been put on administrative leave while officials investigate. Red Bluff is about 200 miles (320 kilometres) north of San Francisco. ROCKVILLE, Md. - Prosecutors have dropped a criminal case against a Maryland woman who was charged with assaulting White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway during a confrontation last year at a restaurant in a Washington suburb. A trial for Mary Elizabeth Inabinett, 63, of Chevy Chase, was scheduled to start Monday morning in Montgomery County, Maryland. Instead, a county prosecutor asked a judge to dismiss the charges. Police had charged Inabinett last November with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct. Conway declined to comment on the dismissal. Conway had told police she was attending a birthday party with her teenage daughter at a Mexican restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland, last October when she felt somebody grab her shoulders from behind and shake her. The woman who confronted Conway yelled, Shame on you and other comments believed to be about Conways political views, according to a charging document prepared by Montgomery County police. Conway wasnt injured, the document says. Montgomery County prosecutor Kathy Knight said Inabinett sent Conway a letter apologizing for the incident. She has apologized for choosing this time and place to vent her political views, Knight said. That was inappropriate. Knight noted Inabinett had never been arrested for a crime before. Ramon Korionoff, a spokesman for the Montgomery County States Attorneys Office said dropping the charges is the best resolution for this particular set of circumstances. Maraya Pratt, an attorney for Inabinett, said Monday that she couldnt immediately comment. Another attorney for Inabinett, William Alden McDaniel, Jr., said in a statement in February that his client didnt assault Conway and was merely exercising her right to express her personal opinions about a public figure in a public place. aIn a CNN interview earlier this year, Conway said she was standing next to her middle school-aged daughter and some of her daughters friends when the woman began shaking her to the point where I thought maybe somebody was hugging me. She said it felt weird and a little aggressive, so she turned around to face the woman. She was just unhinged. She was out of control, she said. Her whole face was terror and anger. Conway said she told President Donald Trump about the incident long after it happened. She said Trump asked her, Are you OK? Is your daughter OK? Are the other girls OK? The restaurants manager told police the woman who confronted Conway had to be forcibly removed from the premises. Conway told police the woman yelled and gestured at her for 8 to 10 minutes before she was escorted out of the restaurant. Conways daughter provided officers with a short video clip and photograph of the encounter. ___ Associated Press writer Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report. CHICAGO - A top Chicago prosecutor says she hopes to begin expunging minor cannabis convictions in the coming months but acknowledges it wont be easy to implement her plan and that her office is still figuring out its scope. Cook County States Attorney Kim Foxx told the Chicago Sun-Times last week that she wants to enlist the help of San Francisco-based non-profit, Code for America, which has already aided with expunging records in California. Code for America can help us find some infrastructure support of being able to look at the (Cook County) clerks office, Dorothy Browns office, to be able to identify batches of people who are found or convicted of the statutory code for possession of marijuana, Foxx said. Kiera Ellis, a spokeswoman for Foxx, said the states attorneys office and Code for America have yet to sign an official contract. Code for America spokeswoman Maria Buczkowski confirmed the non-profit is in discussions with the attorneys office but declined to comment. Ellis previously said that people with convictions will not have to petition for expungements separately. Foxx estimated that thousands of misdemeanour drug convictions could be wiped out. The question is, how far back can we go? How far back does the data go which will give us what our universe looks like? But were in the process of figuring that out, she said, adding that she also plans to work with state officials to determine whether her office can file petitions for expungement on behalf of people with minor pot convictions. Foxx has recently advocated publicly for legalizing recreational marijuana in Illinois. Her comments come amid backlash over her offices decision to drop charges against Empire actor Jussie Smollett, who was accused of staging a racist, anti-gay attack against himself. Foxx said her office is also examining its policy toward prosecuting those detained for selling marijuana. She said she wanted to review her offices policy given the swift movement toward full decriminalization in Springfield. The next iteration of this is looking at those sales, she said, especially in light of the fact that legalization looks like its becoming apparent. We dont want to be on the back end of trying to figure out what to do. Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for Chicago police, said the department will stick to its job of enforcing laws, investigating crimes and presenting our evidence-based findings to prosecutors. He referred comments to the states attorneys office. ___ Information from: Chicago Sun-Times, http://chicago.suntimes.com/ WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - A federal judge denied bail Monday for a Chinese woman charged with lying to illegally enter President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago club, saying her actions and statements suggest she was up to something nefarious and there is an extreme risk of flight if she were released. Federal Magistrate Judge William Matthewman issued the ruling for 33-year-old Yujing Zhang, who pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of lying to federal agents and illegal entering of a restricted area. Zhang faces up to five years if convicted. Prosecutors did back away from their previous contention that Zhang was carrying a computer thumb drive containing malware, saying further tests have put that in doubt. Matthewman said he was particularly concerned that when Secret Service agents questioned Zhang on March 30 at Mar-a-Lago shortly after she gained admission, the defendant said she was carrying four cellphones, a laptop and an external hard drive because she feared they would be stolen if she left them in her hotel room. But during a search of her room later, agents found more electronics gear including a device to detect hidden cameras $8,000 in cash and numerous credit and debit cards, all of it unsecured. It does seem to the court that her alleged innocent explanation is refuted by what she left behind, Matthewman said. It does appear to the court that Ms. Zhang was up to something nefarious ... when she gained access to Mar-a-Lago. Because of that, Matthewman said he feared that if he allowed Zhang to be released, she would flee back to China. The U.S. and China do not have an extradition treaty. Zhang is not charged with espionage, but prosecutor Rolando Garcia said the investigation remains active. Even if Matthewman had decided to grant bail, immigration officials would most likely have detained Zhang because her U.S. visa has been revoked. Zhang showed no reaction throughout the hearing except for once saying she didnt understand when Garcia said she was at times within an arms length of Mar-a-Lago computers. One of Zhangs public defenders, Kristy Militello, told Matthewman she believes that Zhang, who works as a business consultant, was confused by the agents questions and they misunderstood her when they say she said she was a member. Zhang speaks English, but her level of expertise is disputed by the prosecution and defence. During court hearings, she listened to a Mandarin translator but also spoke directly to her attorneys occasionally. Militello said Zhang had come to Mar-a-Lago believing there would be a dinner that evening for a United Nations group, part of a $20,000 travel package she had purchased from a man named Charles she only knew through social media. Militello pointed to a receipt Zhang received from Charles Lee, a Chinese national who promotes such events at Mar-a-Lago, and a flyer she had promoting it. She requested Zhang be released on $250,000 bail secured by her father and said she would wear a monitoring device to ensure she didnt leave the area. It is a sad fact of this case that if a Mandarin interpreter was provided at that first contact with the Secret Service, we very well may not be here, Militello told Matthewman. She said Zhang co-operated with agents, followed their directions, allowed her belongings to be searched and sat through nine hours of questioning. Lee ran the United Nations Chinese Friendship Association and was photographed at least twice with Cindy Yang, a Republican donor and former Florida massage parlour owner. Yang recently made news after it was learned she was promising Chinese business leaders that her consulting firm could get them access to Mar-a-Lago, where they could mingle with the president. Yang previously owned a spa where New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was charged with soliciting prostitution. Kraft has pleaded not guilty, but also apologized for his behaviour. Garcia told Matthewman that a search of Zhangs phones showed Lee told her on March 26, two days before she flew from Shanghai to the United States, that the Mar-a-Lago event was cancelled and she acknowledged receipt, asking him why. Garcia did not say if Lee responded. An agent told Matthewman last week that when an analyst uploaded the possible malware found on Zhangs thumb drive, it immediately began installing and corrupting his computers files. Garcia said Monday that further analysis has not been able to replicate that action, so there are now doubts about whether it contained malware. He said further tests are being conducted. No trial date for Zhang has been set. There is no indication Zhang was ever near the president, who was at his nearby golf club when she arrived. __ This story has been restored a dropped letter in word. The charge is lying to federal agents. By Jung Min-ho A memorial altar, tents and yellow ribbons for victims of the 2014 Sewol disaster have been removed from Gwanghwamun Square after nearly five years. Workers from the Seoul Metropolitan Government took down all 14 tents and emptied what had long been called the "Sewol memorial space" in central Seoul Monday. The move was taken after the city government and victims' families agreed to replace them all with a smaller structure, which is expected to be set up in time for April 16, the fifth anniversary of the tragedy. Portraits of the victims had already been relocated from the altar to the basement of Seoul City Hall. The families and their supporters set up the altar in the symbolic area to demand a thorough investigation into the sinking of the ferry, which killed 304 people, mostly high school students on a school excursion to Jeju Island. A 20-meter-long rectangular wooden structure will be placed on one side of Gwanghwamun Square to display visual records of the tragedy as well as other major accidents that have left painful imprints on modern Korean society, including the 1994 Seongsu Bridge collapse and the 1995 Sampoong Department Store collapse. SANTA FE, N.M. - Leaders of the Navajo Nation and Pueblo tribes expressed frustration Monday with federal oversight of oil and gas leases on public holdings near ancient Native American cultural sites and endorsed legislation to restrict natural gas development around Chaco Culture National Historic Park. Acoma Pueblo tribal Gov. Brian Vallo told members of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources at a hearing in New Mexico that not enough is being done to safeguard sacred sites scattered beyond the national park at Chaco Canyon. Many of the sites involve more than just physical features that can by surveyed by archaeologists, he said, referring to the less tangible aspects of Chaco. Only we can identify these resources, he said. Lawmakers including U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona and New Mexicos Debra Haaland and Ben Ray Lujan said they were profoundly moved by a visit Sunday to ancient Chaco dwellings and nearby industrial sites where they used infrared camera technology to view methane escaping into the atmosphere. You could see the plumes coming out and moving across the sky, Lujan said. Theres no question that this is occurring. In this Aug. 10, 2005 file photo, tourist Chris Farthing from Suffolks County, England, takes a picture of Anasazi ruins in Chaco Canyon National Historic Park in New Mexico. Advocates for greater restrictions on oil and natural gas drilling near ancient Native American cultural sites in the Southwest are urging Congress to establish new precautions. A congressional subcommittee on energy ventured thousands of miles from Washington to hold a field hearing Monday, April 15, 2019 on the impacts of air pollution on sacred ruins and landmarks. New Mexico's delegation to Washington wants to halt new drilling leases near Chaco Culture National Historic Park. The House committee was exploring the possible impacts of air pollution on sacred sites. They also quizzed New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on her administrations push to contain emissions of methane through stricter local regulation. New Mexicos all-Democratic House delegation is seeking to halt new oil and natural gas lease sales on federal holdings within a 10-mile (16-kilometre) buffer zone around Chaco Culture National Historic Park. Grijalva said Chaco Canyon deserves the same consideration for protections as Yellowstone National Park, which received an ecological buffer under legislation signed this year by President Trump. The Trump administration is seeking to eliminate 2016 Environmental Protection Agency rules requiring energy companies to reduce flaring of methane. In response, New Mexico has initiated a process for developing its own regulations to reduce flaring and leakage, while giving oilfield regulators new authority to issue citations and fines. Panelists on Monday did not include oil producers or Bureau of Land Management officials that oversee federal mineral leasing. Rep. Alan Lowenthal of California said Republican members of the subcommittee declined to attend the field hearing or appoint witnesses. Oil industry representatives say robust protections already are in place within the national park at Chaco Canyon, and beyond the park, federal authorities including the Bureau of Land Management require detailed land surveys prior to drilling. Those archaeological surveys are baked into the process, said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance that represents more than 300 oil and natural gas companies. Any development on those leases would have to go through cultural surveys as specified under the Natural Historic Preservation Act and other laws. She doubts the Republican-led U.S. Senate will endorse the buffer. Its largely a messaging thing at this point, she said of Mondays hearing. The proposed buffer zone includes a mix of state, federal and tribal lands as well as parcels owned by individual Navajos. A significant portion of the land would not fall under the legislation, which calls for tribal autonomy. There already are more than 130 active wells within that area, according to the Bureau of Land Management. In recent years, federal land managers repeatedly have deferred any interest by the oil and gas industry in parcels that fall within the proposed buffer. New Mexico has promised to pursue its own moratorium on oil and gas lease sales on state trust land within the buffer zone, at the direction of Democratic State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard. The Bureau of Land Management continues to work with the Bureau of Indian Affairs on revamping a resource management plan for broader San Juan Basin in northwestern New Mexico and southwestern Colorado. Its one of the nations oldest production areas. The partnership between the agencies was meant to ensure tribes would be consulted and that scientific and archaeological analysis would be done to guarantee cultural sensitivity. WASHINGTONHouse Democrats are sharpening their focus on White House immigration adviser Stephen Miller, with key lawmakers saying he should be brought before congressional committees to testify about his role in recent policy controversies. The talk of bringing Miller before lawmakers comes days after the Washington Post reported that he played a key role in a plan first discussed last year to release undocumented immigrants into sanctuary cities represented by U.S. President Donald Trumps Democratic critics. While the plan never came to fruition because of objections from agency officials, Trump has since embraced the idea. With a slate of new vacancies at the Department of Homeland Security, including the departure last week of the secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, Miller has emerged as a key target for Democrats who see him as an influential survivor in an administration that has otherwise churned through personnel. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., on Sunday cited Millers role in developing the targeted-release plan in calling on him to testify. Steve Miller, who seems to be the boss of everybody on immigration, ought to come before Congress and explain some of these policies, he said in a CNN interview. While Cabinet officials routinely testify before Congress on budget and oversight matters, it is unusual for lawmakers to publicly question presidential advisers like Miller particularly in an adversarial scenario. Presidents of both parties have declined to make their executive aides available to congressional committees, citing the constitutional separation of powers. Miller, a former congressional aide whose title is senior policy adviser, has played a central role in the Trump administrations aggressive and controversial immigration policies since its earliest days helping to orchestrate the January 2017 executive order that barred travellers from seven countries and suspended refugee admissions. Read more: Kushner vs. Miller: Power players at odds over immigration Shake-up at Homeland Security goes beyond Nielsens exit Trump sidelines immigration nominee for tougher direction More recently, he has been a firm proponent inside the White House of adopting a zero-tolerance approach at the U.S.-Mexico border to deter asylum seekers streaming toward the United States from Central America. Homeland Security officials say he has pressured agencies to take firmer action to fight the recent surge of migrants massing at the border. Regarding the policy of targeting sanctuary cities jurisdictions that do not fully co-operate with federal immigration authorities for the release of undocumented immigrants, a congressional investigator told The Washington Post, It was basically an idea that Miller wanted that nobody else wanted to carry out. Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on border security, facilitation and operations, said in an interview that Miller needs to come before her panel to make his case for these terrible policies to the American people instead of being this shadow puppeteer. Its clear that hes the one pulling the strings, she said. And if hes going to continue advocating for these policies and personnel change, then he needs to come before the American people and explain himself. He has to be held accountable. Miller and White House communications officials did not respond Sunday to requests for comment on Miller. Press secretary Sarah Sanders said during an appearance on Fox News Sunday that the administration was looking at all options regarding the targeted release plan. The proposal, she said, is not an ideal solution but is one that could be implemented if Democrats refuse to negotiate with Trump on border security. Trump, meanwhile, conducted a Saturday night Twitter back-and-forth with Democratic Oakland, California, Mayor Libby Schaaf with a suggestion that she and other mayors did not want to host immigrants detained at the border. If they dont want to serve our Nation by taking care of them, why should other cities & towns? he said. Schaaf, who last year oversaw the strengthening of Oaklands sanctuary policy and warned residents of an upcoming federal immigration raid, told Trump to stop fanning hate and division in a tweet of her own. Oakland welcomes all, no matter where you came from or how you got here, she said. Trump and his deputies otherwise spent the weekend pushing congressional Democrats to take legislative action to address the border crisis. Democrats must change the Immigration Laws FAST, Trump tweeted Saturday. If not, Sanctuary Cities must immediately ACT to take care of the Illegal Immigrants. The Trump administration and Congress have struggled to respond to the rapid surge in migrants at the southern border, many of them women and children, which has been reflected in a massive spike in apprehensions. Between October and February, U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended 268,044 migrants the fastest pace recorded by the agency since 2008 and more than double the rate seen two years ago. In a Sunday appearance on NBC News Meet the Press, White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway accused an unserious Congress of not taking tougher action to stop migrants from crossing into the country. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday on Fox News that he is planning to introduce a new immigration package after the Senate returns from its two-week recess, although he did not give an exact date. The legislation, he said, will deter people from Central America from continuing to come, change our asylum laws, make sure you have more than 20 days to deal with an unaccompanied minor, and you can send people back to Central America. Graham said Republicans were hoping to garner Democratic support for the legislation: Im going to try to find a compromise here. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., speaking on ABC News This Week, said he was willing to sit down with Republicans to discuss legislation but laid the crisis squarely at Trumps feet. Before Donald Trump took office, we had a situation that was manageable we had spikes, but it also went down. But what we have now is a constant pushing of the system so that it doesnt work, Thompson said. Rather than being punitive, the president has to step up and provide real leadership, which hes failed to do on immigration. On Capitol Hill, Democrats are eyeing Miller as the common thread in the many controversial immigration policies they are seeking to examine. We dont see Stephen Miller as an expert, Thompson said. Hes a young man who has some novel ideas that most Democrats disagree with. Some are already in effect, such as Trumps recent national emergency declaration and the practice of metering asylum claims at border stations leaving migrants to either wait weeks for entry or seek apprehension by entering the United States illegally between official ports of entry. Others are under consideration, such as a plan called binary choice that would give migrant families the option of remaining detained together or agreeing to a separation that would allow children to remain free from custody. Every single one of those policies, I believe, is driven by Stephen Miller and proudly embraced by Trump, and theyre illegal on some level and yet theyre still trying to do it, Rice said. We can do what were meant to do, and we can have oversight. Rice said her panel will probably request emails and documents to determine to what extent Miller and other White House officials pressured agencies on these controversial policies. Democratic and Republican presidents have declined to make their executive aides available to congressional committees. In 2014, for instance, lawyers for President Barack Obama refused a request from the House Oversight Committee to allow David Simas, the presidents director of political strategy, to testify regarding an investigation into White House political activity. Two years later, Obama foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes also refused to testify before the same committee, citing executive privilege. Karl Rove, the top political adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, was subpoenaed by congressional Democrats in 2007. He resigned and left the White House before the subpoena could be enforced. As a private citizen, he declined another subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee on the basis of executive privilege but later testified during an investigation into the politically motivated firings of U.S. attorneys. Nadler on Sunday conceded that Miller is likely to invoke executive privilege to avoid testimony, but he said that would be a misuse of the claim. He seems to be making the decisions not the Cabinet secretaries who come and go, Nadler said. Rice said Miller has no legal or rational basis for him not to show up before Congress. You cannot have the architect for these illegal policies act with compute impunity and no accountability, she said. Read more about: LANSING, Mich. - Faith-based adoption agencies sued the state of Michigan on Monday, challenging a settlement that prevents them from refusing to put children in LGBT homes for religious reasons. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed the lawsuit in western Michigans U.S. District Court on behalf of Lansing-based St. Vincent Catholic Charities. It is among more than 90 agencies receiving state funding to help place children from troubled homes with new families, according to the complaint. The states decision to exclude certain agencies and certain very successful agencies like St. Vincent simply because of their religious beliefs causes unnecessary harm to the countless kids theyre serving now and could be serving in the future merely because the attorney general doesnt like what St. Vincent believes and has believed for over 75 years, said Nick Reaves, a lawyer with Washington-based Becket. The lawsuit also names Democratic state Attorney General Dana Nessel, the federal Department of Health and Human Services and other government officials. Also suing are two adoptive parents and a former foster child who was adopted. The suit alleges violations of the plaintiffs First Amendment rights and the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It was brought less than a month after the legal agreement was announced by Nessel and the American Civil Liberties of Michigan, which sued the state in 2017 on behalf of two lesbian couples who alleged they had been turned away because they are gay. Nessel has said such discrimination is illegal. Spokeswoman Kelly Rossman-McKinney said Monday that Nessel had not yet reviewed the complaint, but it appears the plaintiffs attorneys do not understand the settlement agreement. Upon accepting a referral ... the law does not provide an agency with discretion to refuse to provide the accepted child or individual with state-contracted foster care case management or adoption services that conflict with its sincerely held religious beliefs, she said. A 2015 Republican-enacted law says child-placement agencies are not required to provide any services that conflict with their sincerely held religious beliefs. But the settlement says the law does not apply if agencies are under contract with the state a determination challenged by those suing. The states new interpretation is certainly inconsistent with the legislative purpose and the language at the beginning of the law as well, which talks specifically about the important role that faith-based agencies play in caring from children in need in Michigan, Reaves said. The U.S. government is named as a defendant, he said, because Nessel relied in part on federal regulations to say the state cannot allow religious exemptions from allegedly applicable anti-discrimination laws, and some clarity is needed on the Trump administrations position. As of February, Bethany Christian Services, Catholic Charities and St. Vincent were responsible for more than 1,600, or 12 per cent, of the states 13,000-plus foster care and adoption cases. Faith-based agencies have said they will shut down their adoption and foster care services rather than violate their religious beliefs. One of the plaintiffs in the new suit, Melissa Buck of Holt, near Lansing, said St. Vincent helped her and her husband, Chad, adopt five special needs children who were in the states foster care system saving them from physical abuse, hunger and neglect. She said other children wont be as lucky if faith-based agencies are forced to close. Democrats, LGBT advocates and liberal groups have applauded the settlement for ending a policy of bigotry. After taking office in January, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a directive to prohibit discrimination against LGBT people by state government, contractors and others. It superseded an order that former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder signed and, unlike his, does not provide an exemption for religious organizations. ___ Follow Eggert on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00 MINNEAPOLIS - Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar is releasing her latest tax return as she calls on President Donald Trump to quit hiding from the American people and make his returns public. The Minnesota senator released her 2018 tax return Monday. Shes previously released 12 years of returns , dating back to the first year she ran for federal public office. She says its because she believes in transparency and accountability. Trump has refused to make his tax returns public. Hes travelling Monday to Minnesota, a state he narrowly lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and that hes hoping to flip in 2020. Klobuchars 2018 return shows that she and her husband, attorney and law school professor John Bessler, paid $65,927 in federal taxes on an adjusted gross income of $338,121. DETROIT - A man convicted of murder for killing a man at a trucking business before allegedly fatally shooting another man in a different suburban Detroit community has been sentenced to life in prison without parole. Forty-six-year-old Vernest Griffin of Sterling Heights was sentenced Monday. A Wayne County jury earlier found him guilty of first-degree murder and other charges in connection with the February 2018 fatal shooting in Taylor of 60-year-old Keith Kitchen. Griffin declined to address the court. Authorities said Griffin had lost his job at the company in November 2017. Griffin also is awaiting trial in Oakland County on first-degree murder and gun charges in the slaying of 58-year-old Eriberto Perez at an aluminum stamping firm in Pontiac. Griffin was captured after a shootout with officers. DERRY, Pa. - State police say the mayor of a small Pennsylvania town was charged with pointing a gun at several minors in a park over the weekend after an apparent fistfight involving his son. Derry Mayor Kevin Gross is charged with aggravated and simple assault, reckless endangerment, and harassment. The Tribune-Review reports that the 38-year-old Gross is accused of pointing the weapon at a 15-year-old Sunday night and ordering him to the ground and three girls to put their cellphones down. Police say that parents intervened and that he reholstered the weapon before troopers arrived. A message was left seeking comment at his phone number Monday. Court documents indicate he requested representation by the Westmoreland County public defenders office, but the office said it is not representing him. ___ Information from: Tribune-Review, http://triblive.com KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Russia is demanding that the U.S. release a Russian citizen who was convicted of kidnapping for moving her children from the U.S. to Russia amid a divorce. Bogdana Alexandrovna Osipova, who is referred to by her married name of Mobley in court documents, was convicted in Kansas last month of one count of international parental kidnapping and two counts of attempting to extort money. Ospivoa, 38, faces up to 20 years in prison on each extortion count and up to three years on the kidnapping count at her May 20 sentencing hearing. The Russian Embassy said in a tweet Friday that U.S. authorities should stop their lawless behaviour and release the Russian citizen Bogdana Osipova, thus returning the mother to her children. Her attorney, Craig Divine, didnt immediately return a phone message. A Russian court has found that the children should remain in Russia. U.S. prosecutors said Osipova, who has dual Russian and U.S. citizenship, left Wichita, Kansas, in April 2014 with one child from her first marriage and another child from a second marriage to Brian Mobley, an Air Force recruiter. She gave birth to a third child soon after returning to Russia. She was arrested in September 2017 after returning to the U.S. without her children to change child support arrangements. Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov previously rejected a plea from Kansas Republican Rep. Ron Estes that the younger children ages 6 and 4 be reunited with their father. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a briefing that the children are living with relatives in Kaliningrad, The Wichita Eagle reported. Osipovas oldest child is 16, and her first husband isnt seeking custody of him. Antonov told Estes that Osipova has been a victim of discrimination and psychological pressure in the U.S. criminal case. Weve attempted to work with Russian authorities to find a diplomatic solution to this situation on behalf of a constituent, but clearly Russia is not interested in adhering to court rulings or acting in good faith, Estes said Friday in a tweet. I once again call on Russia to reunite this father with his children and will work with the State Department in solving this case. The U.S. State Department didnt immediately return an email from The Associated Press seeking comment Monday. Weeks before Osipova left for Russia, Mobley filed for divorce and was granted joint custody. The Russian court system granted the couple a divorce in July 2014. That December, a Kansas judge also granted the couple a divorce and ordered her to return the two youngest children. The Kansas judge awarded sole custody to her ex-husband because Osipova had left the U.S. without court approval or Mobleys knowledge. According to the U.S. criminal complaint, Mobley hasnt been able to see his children. His ex-wife in January 2015 showed up to a meeting in Poland without the children. She allowed him to talk to the children on the phone and on Skype until November 2016, when she said he needed to send money to communicate with them, the complaint said. Zakharova said the Russian court sees the situation differently. Her claim to her ex-husband for alimony, which was supported by a Russian court, was qualified there as extortion, Zakharova said in the ministrys translation of a briefing. HILO, Hawaii - Scientists in Hawaii are monitoring increasing activity surrounding one of the Big Islands volcanoes. The Hawaii Volcano Observatory is closely monitoring Mauna Loa because conditions have risen to levels comparable to a more active period between 2014 and 2017, The Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported Sunday. It is too early to predict possible outcomes of Mauna Loas activity, according to Tina Neal, the observatorys scientist-in-charge. An eruption could be anywhere from months to years away, Neal said. But we do know that its not days or weeks away. There have been increased earthquakes and ground deformation around Mauna Loas summit, she said. Earthquakes on Mauna Loa dropped to less than five per week in early 2018, but there have been up to 90 earthquakes weekly since August, with most considered mild at 2.0 or less on the Richter scale, Neal said. Gas monitoring equipment at Mauna Loas summit has not detected any emerging fumes, she said. The most important thing is that there is no cause for alarm, Neal said. An eruption last year by Hawaiis Kilauea volcano destroyed more than 700 homes from May through August. Kilaueas current alert status is Normal. The Kilauea eruption came shortly after a decrease in volcanic activity at Mauna Loa, but Neal said there is no perfect correlation between the volcanoes indicating one always becomes active as the other falls silent. However, there is some geological basis to suggest a pattern, and Mauna Loas increased activity would test that hypothesis, Neal said. WASHINGTON - Federal lawmakers say theyll approve badly needed funding for Washingtons transit system, but only if it avoids buying new rail cars from China. The Washington Post reported Saturday that U.S. Senators from Virginia and Maryland proposed the idea in new legislation. It reflects growing concerns that Chinas state-owned rail company could hurt American manufacturers and make the system vulnerable to cyberespionage. Dave Smolensky, spokesman for the China Railway Rolling Stock Corp, dismissed the espionage concerns. The company also said the U.S. should be promoting competition. The company has won four major U.S. rail car contracts. It is pursuing a Metro contract worth more than $1 billion to build up to 800 of the new rail cars. There are no U.S. transit rail car manufacturers. The bidding deadline is May 31. ___ Information from: The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com BILLINGS, Mont. - The Latest on a court order that revoked a water use permit for a mine proposed beneath a Montana wilderness area (all times local): 3 p.m. Montana officials plan to challenge a court ruling that struck down a water use permit for a silver and copper mine thats proposed beneath a wilderness area. Judge Kathy Seeley said that state officials didnt adequately consider potential damage to nearby streams from Hecla Mining Co.s Rock Creek Mine. Department of Natural Resources and Conservation spokesman John Grassy said Monday the agency will appeal. Environmental groups represented by Earthjustice sued after the state issued the water permit in early 2018. They say streams within the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness are so ecologically valuable that they deserve the greatest protections available under law. Hecla spokeman Luke Russell says Seeleys April 9 ruling would not impact planned exploratory work at the mine site, located northeast of Noxon. __ 1:05 p.m. A state judge has revoked the water permit for a silver and copper mine proposed beneath a northwestern Montana wilderness area. Judge Kathy Seeley said in a recent order that state officials didnt adequately consider potential damage to nearby streams from Hecla Mining Co.s Rock Creek Mine. Environmental groups represented by Earthjustice argued streams within the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness are so ecologically valuable that they deserve the greatest protections available under law. Rock Creek would employ about 300 people and cover almost 500 acres. Montana regulators in a separate case have asked a judge to block Idaho-based Hecla CEO Phillips Baker, Jr. from exploring or opening new mines. They allege hes in violation of the states bad actor law because of ongoing pollution from a mining company where Baker once worked. (Photo/Anhui Daily) The holistic view of national security in China was first proposed five years ago, but few open resources report the development of China's national security system. In April 2014, while presiding over the first meeting of the National Security Commission of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized the need to adhere to a holistic view of national security and explore a "national security path with Chinese characteristics." Such a holistic approach calls for a focus on both internal and external security. Internally, it is essential to promote development, continue reform, maintain stability, and create a safe environment. Externally, we should promote international peace, seek cooperation and mutual benefit, and strive to bring harmony to the world. Homeland security and the security of our citizens are both of paramount importance. All initiatives taken in this respect will be people-centric, and implemented for the people, based on the peoples needs, and with the support of the people[1]. Over the past five years, China's national security reforms have moved toward transparency, sustainability, and diversity. Building a transparent national security system Just as CNN reported in 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping has made the anti-corruption campaign his No.1 mission since he became the general secretary of the Communist Party of China. Corruption inside the government has raised serious questions about the efficacy of its self-regulation. While persistent housecleaning is conducive to the government's image and legitimacy, well-thought-out mechanisms are a more reliable solution. In the past five years, China has made significant progress in building a clean government, showing self-discipline and restraining relatives and associates. Notably, China has established reform which regulates national security power. Today, national security issues are no longer mysterious in China, and in the future, national security agencies in China will be more transparent and widely supervised by the people. For example, on March 18, China's State Council Information Office published a white paper titled "The Fight Against Terrorism and Extremism and Human Rights Protection in Xinjiang." The white paper officially claimed that China slammed extremist forces and prevented separatist activities in Xinjiang. It stands as the first time that China has publicly announced the countrys anti-terrorism position and has made a powerful counterattack against Western rumors about Xinjiang. Developing a sustainable security strategy The rapid development of digital technology changed everything. The holistic view of national security stressed that Chinas national security strategy should avoid becoming obsolete or unsustainable. China must value both homeland security and the safety of its people, and the protection of Chinese citizens should be prioritized. The holistic view of national security emphasizes that only the people-centered national security strategy can rally support from its people. Anti-globalization, terrorism and regional conflicts over the past decade have brought sharp challenges to the international order and safety of humankind. The devastating global financial crisis and long-term cross-continental economic depression fundamentally changed the cornerstone of national security. As the largest developing country in the world, security in China not only means military and homeland safety but also relates to the people's psychological perception, family happiness, job safety, and ecology environment safety. China is attemptinged to re-define the concept of national security. China coordinates the security strategy transformation steps with political, economic, and military reform to avoid the radical strategic changes which could threaten social stability. The holistic view of national security describes a blueprint of how China should face internal and external security challenges over the coming decades. Uniting diverse partners to promote global security According to the holistic view of national security, China will not only pay attention to its own safety but also collective security. China will seek to form a community of common destiny and promote all involved parties to find mutual benefit, interests and common security. The holistic view of national security points out that Domestically, China will pursue development, reform, stability and foster a safe environment, and externally, the country will seek peace, cooperation, a win-win situation, and a harmonious world. Diverse cooperation creates a synergy of power from different countries and organizations. This is particularly useful when trying to find solutions to perplexing problems such as cross-border anti-terrorism operations or multilateral safety crises. Traditional security is not the main problem in China anymore. The holistic view of national security not only focuses on current threats and past commitments; it is the compass of future needs. Skip back through history, and militaristic unilateralism dominated most national strategies. However, more evidence now shows that this is not an effective way to preserve national security. The holistic view of national security seeks extensive multilaterallism cooperation. The key to national security in China is connected to Chinese economic development. Long-term trends in economic growth are the core pillars of national security. However, unilateral security actions will incur severe burdens on the Chinese economy. As the Belt and Road Initiative continues to grow, China will become more attentive to the costs of external security expenditures and will seek out multiform partners. This year, April 15 marks the 4th National Security Education Day. China has organized National Safety Education Courses for all Students to carry out national security publicity and community education activities. Over the past five years, the National Security Commission has solved many problems that had long remained unsolved, and finished tasks that had long remained incomplete. National security is now stronger. The Commission has the upper hand in preserving national security. In the future, China will strengthen publicity and education surrounding national security, raise national security awareness across the whole nation, and promote a community of shared future for humankind. [1]"Getting to know China through keywords--A holistic view of national security." China.org.cn, Sep.7th, 2015 The author is a research fellow of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University, China. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Peoples Daily Online. President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump walk to the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., Thursday local time. AP-Yonhap By Park Ji-won Most political parties welcomed the outcome of President Moon Jae-in's summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in terms of reaffirming the U.S.-South Korea alliance in tackling the North Korean nuclear threat and other issues of mutual interest. But the main opposition denounced the summit for ending without any substantial diplomatic achievements. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) said the Washington summit made "great progress" in terms of reaffirming the joint goal of the North's denuclearization, promising full cooperation for Moon to become a "top negotiator" in the peace-making process. "The two leaders reaffirmed they are in the same position over the final goal of the denuclearization of the North," DPK spokesman Lee Hae-sik said in a statement, Friday. "We consider that Moon was able to sympathize with Trump by suggesting a comprehensive agreement and step-by-step implementation, which has merged the U.S. stance of a comprehensive and big deal and the North's approach of a step-by-step and small deal. "The two countries shared the understanding that the so-called top-down diplomacy is essential to move forward the ongoing peace-making process on the Korean Peninsula and signaled that this strategic rapprochement will be working in the future as well." Lee said the DPK would make efforts to help Moon hold another successful inter-Korean summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and broker a third North-U.S. summit. Therefore, those meetings would be a cornerstone in achieving a final and verifiable denuclearization and lasting peace on the peninsula. At the Moon-Trump summit, Moon said he would continue to boost bilateral cooperation in further advancing the denuclearization process. President Moon also suggested a third summit between Washington and Pyongyang to get nuclear diplomacy back on track. The progressive Justice Party and the minor opposition Party for Democracy and Peace largely echoed the DPK's approach over the summit, expressing hope for peace on the peninsula. Another minor opposition Bareunmirae Party (BMP) also welcomed the outcome of the Moon-Trump summit, although the party asked the ruling DPK to suggest measures to narrow existing differences between Seoul and Washington for further development in nuclear talks. "Seoul is now tasked with taking the right position after considering the U.S.' stance," the BMP said in a statement. But unsurprisingly, the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) lashed out at President Moon, accusing the President of representing North Korea, which it believes reduces the possibility of denuclearization. "I am worried about the summit outcome because it showed different views over the North's denuclearization between Seoul and Washington, causing concerns over the allies' cooperation," LKP Chairman Hwang Kyo-ahn said in a statement. "It appears the North's denuclearization became more difficult. Moon said he will push for another inter-Korean summit Moon shouldn't be representing the North's stance." LKP floor leader Rep. Na Kyung-won also criticized Moon for failing to persuade the U.S. to back the South's "good enough deal" saying the summit was sloppy and aimed to build a groundwork for the inter-Korean summit. "I am disappointed by the diplomacy that is aimed at engaging with the North," Na added. Following the failure of the Hanoi summit in late February, Seoul has been pushing for a "good enough deal" as an alternative to revive momentum for talks aimed at dismantling the North's nuclear program. The initiative underlines a "couple of stages deal," under which the U.S. and the North move on to the next stage and continue developing negotiations, as long as they reach a "good enough" agreement in the previous phase. Washington, meanwhile, wants a "big deal" that contains specific denuclearization steps. GRAND CHUTE, Wis. - The Latest on the arrest of a 17-year-old boy in the deaths of an elderly Wisconsin couple (all times local): 3:25 p.m. Police say a 17-year-old Wisconsin boy fatally shot his grandparents and was planning to cause harm at his high school. Police found the elderly couple in their home in Grand Chute on Sunday morning. Investigators say Alexander M. Kraus of nearby Neenah was arrested at the home. They say he acknowledged shooting the couple and said he had a plan to cause harm at Neenah High School. Police identified the couple Monday as 74-year-old Dennis L. Kraus and 73-year-old Letha G. Kraus. Police confirmed they were Alexander Kraus grandparents. Kraus is scheduled to make his initial court appearance Tuesday afternoon. ___ 11:15 a.m. Police say a 17-year-old boy has admitted he fatally shot an elderly couple he knew in eastern Wisconsin and that he was planning to cause harm at his high school. Grand Chute police officer Travis Waas told the Associated Press Monday that police responding to a 911 call for assistance found the bodies of the couple in their home in Grand Chute about 11:30 a.m. Sunday. Waas declined to release details of the call. Police say Alexander M. Kraus, of Neenah, was arrested at the house. Waas says Kraus acknowledged shooting the two and that he had a plan to cause harm at Neenah High School, where he is a junior. Police and school officials havent disclosed the nature of those plans. Kraus is being held in the Outagamie County Jail on possible charges of first-degree intentional homicide. ___ 7:06 a.m. Police have arrested a high school junior in the killing of two people at a home in eastern Wisconsin. Police officers found the victims at the house in Grand Chute during a welfare check Sunday. The 17-year-old boy was arrested at the home. The teen is being held at the Outagamie County Jail on suspicion of first-degree intentional homicide. Authorities havent released the victims names, but police said in a news release that the teen knew them. No information has been released about how they died. Grand Chute police say the killings were an isolated incident, with no danger to the public. Neenah Joint School District said in a statement Monday that the student also planned to cause harm at the high school. The district and police have released no details of the alleged plan. WASHINGTON - The Latest on President Donald Trump and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota (all times local): 10 a.m. President Donald Trump is escalating his feud with Rep. Ilhan Omar, accusing her on Twitter of making anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements. The comments come a day after the Minnesota Democrat said shes faced increased death threats since Trump spread a video that purports to show her being dismissive of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Shes accused Trump of fomenting right-wing extremism and urged him to stop. Trump is also going after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Hes accusing her of having lost all control of Congress and getting nothing done, and says, before she decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at her past comments. He asserts, without evidence, that Omar is out of control, except for her control of Nancy! __ 12:22 a.m. Rep. Ilhan Omar says shes faced increased death threats since President Donald Trump spread around a video that purports to show her being dismissive of the 2001 terrorist attacks. This is endangering lives, she said, accusing Trump of fomenting right-wing extremism. It has to stop. Her statement late Sunday followed an announcement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that she has taken steps to ensure the safety of the Minnesota Democrat and the speakers call for Trump to take down the video. Soon after Pelosis statement, the video disappeared as a pinned tweet at the top of Trumps Twitter feed, but it was not deleted. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders defended Trump earlier Sunday, saying he wished no ill will upon the first-term lawmaker. WASHINGTON - The Latest on President Donald Trump and immigration (all times local): 7:45 p.m. Top administration officials have been discussing ways to increase pressure on countries with high numbers of citizens who overstay their visas in the U.S. Its part of President Donald Trumps growing focus on immigration heading into his re-election campaign. The idea is just one on a long list under discussion by the administration as the influx of migrants at the border raises Trumps ire. The ideas include Trumps threat to shut down the southern border and consideration of again separating children from parents. More subtle tweaks to the legal immigration system are being considered, too, including efforts to clamp down on visa overstays. The administration has also been weighing targeting the remittance payments sent home by people living in the country illegally. ___ 12:30 p.m. President Donald Trump now says that his proposal to send migrants to so-called sanctuary cities is taking effect. Trump is tweeting that, Those Illegal Immigrants who can no longer be legally held in custody will be, subject to Homeland Security, given to Sanctuary Cities and States! He also says that, Congress must fix the laws and loopholes. Its unclear, however, whether Homeland Security is taking any steps to implement the contentious plan. Lawyers there had previously told the White House that the idea was unfeasible and a misuse of funds. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is already strapped for cash. The White House and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday. ___ 11:40 a.m. Top House Democrats are asking White House and agency officials for internal documents about the administration proposal to send detained migrants to sanctuary cities. The chairmen of three House committees sent a letter Monday to the White House and Department of Homeland Security requesting emails and other documents discussing the idea, including its legal justifications and potential implications. The letter says its shocking the administration would consider such an action for purely political reasons. President Donald Trump has said he wants to explore the move as part of his drive to tighten immigration laws. The proposal was twice rejected by administration officials. Officials in sanctuary cities limit co-operation with federal authorities seeking migrants in the U.S. illegally. They tend to be in Democratic areas. WASHINGTON - As a catastrophic inferno tore through a cultural treasure, President Donald Trump assessed the response from 4,000 miles away and offered unsolicited advice for firefighters trying to save Paris Notre Dame cathedral. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out, Trump tweeted from Air Force One, minutes before landing in Minnesota for a Tax Day speech. Must act quickly! Trumps armchair observations were striking, even for a president who seems to offer an opinion about just about everything. Just hours before, Trump had weighed in on Boeings ongoing troubles after two crashes of its new airliner, suggesting a rebranding campaign is in order for the beleaguered 737 Max, and hed spent the previous day commentating on professional golf as Tiger Woods overcame long odds to win the Masters on Sunday. Theyre having a terrible, terrible fire, Trump said during his remarks in Minnesota, describing watching the flames on television from the presidential aircraft. It looks like its burning to the ground. In what appeared to be a direct jibe at Trumps firefighting suggestion, Frances civil security agency posted its only English-language message during the incident to defend its handling of the fire: All means are being used, except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral. The disaster appeared to resonate with the president, who called Notre Dame one of the great treasures of the world and declared it to be beyond countries, thats beyond anything. Its a part of our growing up, its a part of our culture, its a part of our lives. On his way back to Washington, he tweeted, God bless the people of France! ___ Associated Press Writer Deb Riechmann contributed from Burnsville, Minnesota. WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump is offering some unsolicited advice to Boeing, manufacturer of the troubled 737 Max jet. Trump tweeted Monday that if he were in charge of Boeing, he would FIX the plane, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name. He adds: No product has suffered like this one. Trump who brands his hotels, golf courses and buildings with the Trump name tweeted sarcastically, what the hell do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!) Airlines and countries around the world have grounded the Boeing 737 Max or banned it from airspace after an Ethiopian Airlines crash last month. A crash involving the same model happened off Indonesia in October. Trump once owned a short-lived airline: Trump Shuttle. BURNSVILLE, Minn. - President Donald Trump played up the benefits of his tax cuts on Mondays tax filing day in a state where hes aiming to turn a narrow defeat in the 2016 presidential race into a victory in his re-election bid next year. We promised these tax cuts would be rocket fuel for the American economy and we were absolutely right, Trump told an audience at a trucking company where a red, white and blue banner exclaimed: USA open for business. Youre got a very prosperous America, with low unemployment, the president said at Nuss Truck and Equipment. I would say Americans approve of a prosperous economy that has been rebuilt by Trumps policies. The $1.5 trillion, 10-year package of tax cuts Trump signed into law in 2017 helped accelerate economic growth in 2018 to a rate of 3 per cent, based on the administrations preferred measure of comparing the fourth quarter of 2018 to the same period in 2017. Most economists including at the Federal Reserve anticipate growth will slump this year to just above 2 per cent as the stimulus from the tax cuts wanes. The White House insists growth will again top 3 per cent this year, saying the benefits from a reduced corporate tax rate and other reductions will boost performance. Larry Kudlow, director of the presidents National Economic Council, pushed back against critics who argue the reductions benefited corporations more than average Americans. Minnesota U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, said Sunday the tax cuts had added trillions of dollars to the nations debate and disproportionately helped the wealthy. Take a look at the numbers, Kudlow said Monday at the White House. He said weekly earnings are up and more people are working and prospering. This is the hottest economy in the world. Boos rose from the audience after Trump said Today is tax day that were celebrating. He claimed his tax cuts are the largest in U.S. history, but the facts show otherwise. A $1.5 trillion tax cut ranks 12th as a share of the total economy, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Companies are reaping benefits, using their savings to buy back stock at a record pace, according to TrimTabs Investment Research. But so far, the tax cuts havent delivered a major shot of financial adrenaline to most families. The presidents focus on tax day served to highlight his refusal to release his own tax returns. Trump bucked decades of presidential tradition by declining to show voters his tax filings, both as a candidate and as president. He says he wont release the returns because hes being audited by the IRS though the agency says an audit bars no one from making their returns public. A key House committee, citing a 1920s law, has given the administration until April 23 to hand over six years worth of Trumps business and personal returns. A Trump opponent welcomed the president to Burnsville with a sign that said: Demand Trumps Tax Returns and a List of his Creditors. Trump narrowly lost Minnesota to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 and is hoping to flip the state in 2020. But history would appear to be against him: Minnesota has not voted for a Republican for president since Richard Nixon in 1972. This has been a very special state and we almost won it, Trump said. Speaking of the scene outside the warehouse, he added: I see American flags waving all over and its beautiful. ___ Associated Press writers Joshua Boak and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report. WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump isnt backing down from his tweets about Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, one of the first Muslim women to serve in Congress. In fact, he spoke at an event in Omars home state of Minnesota on Monday amid a ferocious fight over her comments about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Omar, a Somali-American, says its more than a rhetorical squabble, and that lives, including hers, are at stake. Trump says national security is at issue and Omar is ungrateful. A look at the latest rhetorical battle between the pair thats more broadly about race and whether leaders and their words should be blamed for violence. ___ THE AFTERSHOCKS Omar says shes faced increased death threats since Trump spread around a video that purports to show her being dismissive of the 2001 terrorist attacks. This is endangering lives, she said, accusing Trump of fomenting extremism. It has to stop. Her statement late Sunday followed an announcement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that she has taken steps to ensure the safety of the Minnesota Democrat. Pelosi also urged Trump to take down the video. The video soon disappeared as a pinned tweet at the top of Trumps Twitter feed, but it was not deleted. Trump further escalated his rhetoric Monday morning, tweeting that, Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made. Later Monday, Trump announced he was heading to the Great State of Minnesota! Omar responded by retweeting that post with the comment, The Great State of Minnesota, where we dont only welcome immigrants, we send them to Washington. Minnesota has the largest concentration of Somalis in the nation, and most of those are in the Minneapolis area. On Monday at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Pelosi said: I dont think any president of the United States should use the tragedy of 9-11 as a political tool. I think that is wrong, I think its beneath the dignity of the office. ___ WHAT OMAR SAID Omar told a Los Angeles gathering of the Council on American-Islamic Relations on March 23 that many Muslims saw their civil liberties eroded after the Sept. 11 attacks. For far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, Im tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it, she said in the speech, according to video posted online. CAIR was founded after 9-11, because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties. CAIR was founded in 1994, according to its website, but its membership skyrocketed after the attacks. ___ HOW TRUMP REACTED The president on Friday retweeted a video that pulled some people did something from Omars speech and included news footage of the hijacked planes hitting the Twin Towers. Trump also tweeted, WE WILL NEVER FORGET! The president elevated criticism largely from Omars political opponents and conservatives who say Omars phrasing offered a flippant description of the assailants and the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. Neither Trumps tweet nor the video included Omars full quote or the context of her comments. In Minnesota, Trump kept his remarks at a trucking company in Burnsville mostly focused on the 2017 GOP-passed tax cut. ___ WHO ECHOED TRUMP Other prominent GOP voices joined Trump in criticizing Omar. First Member of Congress to ever describe terrorists who killed thousands of Americans on 9-11 as some people who did something, tweeted Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas. The retired Navy SEAL lost his right eye in 2012 in an explosion in Afghanistan. Heres your something, the New York Post blared on a cover beneath a photograph of the flaming towers. Fox News Channel host Brian Kilmeade said on a Fox & Friends segment on Omar, You have to wonder if shes an American first. ___ LIFE AND DEATH... Omar has been the target of threats in the past. She tweeted back at Kilmeade and Crenshaw: This is dangerous incitement, given the death threats I face. My love and commitment to our country and that of my colleagues should never be in question. We are ALL Americans! An upstate New York man was charged recently with making death threats against her. ___ SAFETY Members of the Congressional Black Caucus said in a conference call Monday they are concerned for Omars safety, especially as Trump campaigned in Minnesota. Chairwoman Karen Bass said whipping up outrage over Omar further puts her life in danger. Added House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson: Members of Congress should be free to give their opinions on subjects without fear of threat of bodily harm. Im concerned about it and the notion that, if your thinking is different from the presidents, you become a target. ___ Associated Press Writer Errin Haines Whack contributed to this report. ___ Follow Kellman on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/APLaurieKellman Trudeau government reeling after narrowly dodging defeat, March 22 Now that the conversation is shifting from resignations of key players, including the PMO, caucus and the Privy Council, and is moving to unending mudslinging by political parties, it seems to me that there is a fundamental flaw in the DPA that should have a second look. Worrisome is the double standard of law inferred in the DPA, which places a lower weight on felonies than when cases are tested in the courts. Unlike the rule of law, the DPA levies fines for felonies and waives criminal charges to prevent what is politically perceived to be a much less serious fallout than what criminal proceedings would otherwise bring about. It is true that all political parties signed off on the DPA with SNC-Lavalin in mind, putting emphasis as it has on what is best to do in the public interest. So how can allegations of serious crimes of bribery and fraud the centre of allegations in the SNC-Lavalin case with doubtless modicums of truth being diminished in scale and penalty by the DPA truly gain the public trust? No less ill-advised, too, is the prospect of vesting power to an attorney general or a director of prosecutions to enact a DPA that would be in effect ascribing lessor weight to felonies. That is really not the intent of the rule of law. Instead, solutions should be sought that may very well involve rewriting the Criminal Code itself. Bribery and influence peddling come in various shades, and is certainly no stranger in societal environment with or without the exchange of money, whether in the electoral process in getting votes or in managing lemonade stands on the corner. Perhaps that can be reshaped and re-rationalized. Meanwhile, the rule of law is there for everyone. That is the bottom line, no matter unsavoury as that truth may sometimes be. Claude McDonald, Kitchener, Ont. Read more about: OTTAWAIn an Ottawa courthouse, where daily law-and-order dramas play out before judges, one court proceeding now underway could land on Justin Trudeaus doorstep just as Canadians get ready to go to the polls. At the centre of the case is Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, a top-ranking officer charged with breach of trust for allegedly leaking confidential details of a cabinet discussion about a supply ship contract. Like the SNC-Lavalin controversy that has dogged the Liberal government since February, Conservative MPs charge that the Norman case also involves political interference in this case, to make a senior naval officer the fall guy for an embarrassing political leak. To the Liberal government, he was a problem, and now he is being set up. It is shameful, Conservative MP Erin OToole told the Commons earlier this month. Canadians should be outraged. This is worse than the SNC scandal. We may have issues with bad practice by a company, but here is a Canadian who gave three decades of his life to his country, and before that grew up in a family serving the country, who is being hung out to dry, said OToole, a lawyer and a veteran himself. Opposition MPs wonder if evidence of political interference in the Norman trial lies somewhere in the emails and notes written by senior government officials and now sought by his defence team. Read more: Suspended Vice-Admiral Mark Normans lawyers target federal minister Brison Crown in Mark Norman case rejects notes, allegations of political influence Top bureaucrat wrote 60-page memo to Trudeau about Mark Norman case, lawyer says Norman, who was the vice-chief of defence staff, arrives for each court appearance in full dress uniform, with an array of medals accumulated over more than three decades of service. They include Commander of the Order of Military Merit, which recognizes outstanding meritorious service and demonstrated leadership in duties of great responsibility, the Canadian Peacekeeping Service Medal, the Special Service Medal for NATO service and a U.S. honour for exceptionally meritorious service as commander of the Royal Canadian Navy. Marie Henein, his lawyer, has denied any wrongdoing by Norman, painting him as an honourable officer who always put the interests of the military and the country first. We will respond to this allegation in a courtroom where evidence, objectivity and fairness matter and where politics have absolutely no place, she said in a statement the day the charge was laid. The roots of the case lie in a cabinet meeting in November 2015, just weeks after Justin Trudeaus government had taken office. At the time, the Royal Canadian Navy had a big problem: Its two aging resupply ships were retired in 2014, sooner than expected, leaving the navy with a gap of five to 10 years until new vessels arrived. With no ability to refuel and resupply its warships at sea, Canadas navy would be constrained in its operations or forced to rely on allies. The previous Conservative government had negotiated a $667-million, sole-source contract with the Chantier Davie shipyard in Levis, Que. to modify a civilian ship for the role. But that contract had sparked protests from rival Irving Shipbuilding which said its own proposal got scant interest. Just days before the Liberal cabinet ministers met, James Irving, co-chief executive officer of Irving Shipbuilding, wrote several of them, including Treasury Board President Scott Brison, asking that his companys proposal be considered as well before the contract was finalized. We believe our proposal is superior, Irving wrote in the letter, which was later revealed in court documents. Gathered around the large oval table in the cabinet meeting room, the fledgling cabinet ministers agreed to delay the contract. That decision was supposed to remain under wraps. It didnt. CBC journalist James Cudmore who later went to work in Defence Minister Harjit Sajjans office not only reported the two-month delay but detailed some of the cabinet discussions, including the warning delivered to ministers that any setbacks would imperil navy operations. It was a serious breach of cabinet confidentiality and it angered ministers. Brison, who had previously served in cabinet, told investigators that he could not remember a leak of this kind, which he said impacted our ability to do our work. We have cabinet confidence (so) that we can speak openly and honestly with each other and discuss information and that was blown out of the water by this, Brison said, according to court documents. The leak triggered an internal investigation and a subsequent police probe into how details of the cabinet discussions got into the hands of lobbyists and the media. In a subsequent application for a search warrant, RCMP Cpl. Matthieu Boulanger said he had reasonable grounds to believe that a breach of trust by a public officer had occurred. In January 2017, Norman was removed from his post by Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of defence staff. In March 2018, he was charged. The RCMP allege that Norman was opposed to the delay and leaked the cabinet debate to press the government to move forward with the project, a result he wanted personally. The trial is scheduled to begin in August, just as the federal election campaign is poised to begin for the October vote. Henein and her team have cast a wide net for government documents, reaching into the Prime Minister's Office, the Privy Council Office, the Treasury Board, the defence department and Canadian Armed Forces, Public Services and Procurement Canada, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and the Justice Department. She is also seeking emails, BlackBerry messages and other internal communications from senior officials. One of those in the spotlight Brison surprised many earlier this year when he quit his cabinet post and left politics entirely, declining to serve out the last few months before the October vote. For now, the pretrial process is weighed down in discussions about the pace of government disclosures and the review of documents by Justice Heather Perkins-McVey. The volume of the paper trail including a 60-page memo penned by then-clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick suggests to one former military officer that there was high-level interest in the case within government. An astonishing depth of info of some sort that implies way too much interest in the case by some party or parties, he told the Star, speaking on background because of the sensitivity of the case. A comment by the prime minister only fuelled the concerns of political interference when he predicted in 2017 that Norman would be in court. Why is this so outrageous? ... That was a year before charges were laid. The prime minister already knew what was coming for Mark Norman, OToole said in his Commons speech on the case. In February, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada felt compelled to issue a statement asserting its independence and insisting that it had not sought or received instructions on Normans prosecution from the department that supports the Prime Ministers Office or any other department or agency. I am confident that our prosecutors, in this and every other case, exercise their discretion independently and free from any political or partisan consideration, Kathleen Roussel, the director of public prosecutions, said in the statement. More recently, Conservative MP Lisa Raitt asked Jody Wilson-Raybould whether she had been approached by the prime minister, officials in his office, or the clerk of the Privy Council and given any directions, directives or suggestions on the conduct of the Mark Norman trial or any other trial that was within your bailiwick as the Attorney General? Wilson-Raybould, the former justice minister, replied that due to confidences she was not able to reply. OToole is certain that the August trial date will slip, given the pace of disclosure by the government and the volume of documents that need to be reviewed. He charges that the government is trying to delay the actual trial until after the October federal election. That would ensure any revelations embarrassing or damaging to the Liberals would emerge only after Canadians had gone to the polls. Canadians should get to hear the full extent of the trial before the election, he told the Star in an interview. As he awaits trial, Normans military career is in limbo. His former role as vice-chief of defence staff was filled by senior officers on an interim basis until last summer, when Lt.-Gen. Paul Wynnyk assumed the post full-time. Norman was assigned to a supernumerary position in Vances office. The case has riveted military personnel and veterans, some of whom are chipping in to help Norman cover his legal bills. As of Friday, a GoFundMe campaign had raised $359,105. There are many armed forces personnel who are very upset that Mark has been charged, one retired officer said. With files from The Canadian Press Read more about: MONTREALOf the premiers of the four larger provinces who signed off on Justin Trudeaus climate-change framework three year ago, only Rachel Notley is left. That makes her the second most prominent Canadian political leader after the prime minister to support the notion that it is desirable to strike a balance between pipeline building and carbon pricing. If, as the pre-election polls predict, she is defeated in Tuesdays Alberta election, the result will drive yet another nail in the coffin of Trudeaus defunct national climate-change consensus. But the election of a Conservative Alberta government led by Jason Kenney would not bring a polarized Canadian political class any closer to a resolution on the issue. It would mostly make contrary positions even more irreconcilable. Because regime change in the provinces caused the unravelling of Trudeaus grand energy/environment bargain, its fate has often been compared to Brian Mulroneys failed constitutional reconciliation attempts. In fact, the former Tory prime minister had more provincial allies left at the end of the divisive Meech Lake round in 1990 than Trudeau can now count on to continue to advance his two-pronged pipeline/carbon-pricing policy. Read more: Albertas carbon tax: What is it and what happens if its scrapped? Do any of Albertas political parties have a good enough plan for climate change? Opinion | Chantel Hebert: No easy solution for Justin Trudeaus pipeline woes If anything, the House of Commons is even more deeply divided than at the time of the constitutional wars, with positions on both sides of the debate more entrenched. The NDP, the Greens and the Bloc Quebecois would nix any future pipeline proposal. The Conservatives have never seen a pipeline project they did not want to support. One election promise Trudeau has kept is the commitment to gather the premiers at least once a year. They last met in Montreal in December. That means there will be no first ministers conference until after the October federal election. By then, a different prime minister could be in office. But whoever wins the Oct. 21 federal vote will find the same unbridgeable gap between the two camps. Not only is there little or no common ground between the pipeline-averse governments of British Columbia and Quebec in one corner and the anti-carbon-pricing cohort in the other but bridge-builders are increasingly in short supply at the federal-provincial table. As a last resort, Trudeau has been advancing his carbon-pricing policy through unilateral action. His government has imposed a federal carbon tax on provinces such as Ontario that have opted out the national framework. And it has kept the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion alive over the objections of B.C.s current government. On both fronts, the prime minister has been implementing what he and his advisers considered improbable worse-case scenarios as recently as two years ago. The backup plan of a federal carbon tax with assorted individual rebates was conceived with only a few isolated provincial outliers in mind. And approving the Trans Mountain expansion initially seemed like taking the path of least resistance to deliver more oil to tidewater. Instead, the process has earned Trudeau the enmity of a majority of his provincial partners. On both sides of the divide, provinces have been taking the federal government to court. B.C. is awaiting the decision of its top court in a reference that seeks to have the provinces power to limit the amount of crude oil and gas that transits through its territory affirmed. The Ontario government opened the latest front in the legal battle against the federal carbon tax in the Court of Appeal on Monday. Trudeaus name has become dirt in many Alberta and Saskatchewan pro-pipeline quarters. At the same time, he has been vilified in almost as many pro-environment quarters for keeping the Trans Mountain expansion alive by purchasing the pipeline. But heres the rub: the intense political polarization that has over the past three years come to attend the pipeline-versus-carbon-pricing debate complete in the case of Ontario with over-the-top predictions of a recession caused by the federal carbon tax has essentially been driven from the top down rather than from the ground up. To this day, polls suggest a plurality of Canadians support both the efforts to get more Alberta oil to markets and the bid to ensure carbon pollution is priced and taxed. While more and more politicians have deserted the middle ground, voters have not always followed suit. If anything, the decisively pro-pipeline agenda CPC leader Andrew Scheer and his provincial allies in Alberta and elsewhere have in mind stands to be a harder sell than Trudeaus mixed approach. That could start not at the premiers table but right in the House of Commons. With less than 200 days to go to the federal election, polls show that neither of the two main contenders has a governing majority in the bag. It is hard to see how a minority Conservative government could find enough opposition support to deliver on either its commitment to dismantle Trudeaus carbon-pricing policy or its promise to implement a more aggressive pro-pipeline agenda. Chantal Hebert is a columnist based in Ottawa covering politics. Follow her on Twitter: @ChantalHbert Read more about: President Moon Jae-in speaks at the start of a weekly meeting with senior presidential secretaries at Cheong Wa Dae, Monday. Moon's right is National Security Office chief Chung Eui-yong. Yonhap By Kim Yoo-chul President Moon Jae-in offered Monday to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un "at any time and any place," and if this is accepted, he is expected to send a special envoy to Pyongyang to discuss the agenda for what would be their fourth meeting. The offer came after Moon's summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. last week, in an effort to find a breakthrough in the stalled nuclear talks between the North and the United States. "I believe the time has come to push for an inter-Korean summit," Moon said during a meeting with senior aides at Cheong Wa Dae. "I want to discuss with Kim ways to make progress beyond the two previous North Korea-U.S. summits without restrictions on time and venue." Moon also suggested a three-way meeting with Kim and Trump, saying the U.S. leader reacted positively to the idea. The North Korean leader said last week he will meet U.S. President Donald Trump again, but only if Washington brings the "right attitude." Trump later tweeted praise of Kim and welcome the idea of a new summit. By Lee Min-hyung Thae Yong-ho North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made a strategic mistake by indirectly acknowledging in his recent speech his regime is vulnerable to tough economic sanctions, Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat who defected to the South, said. The analysis came in response to Kim's administrative policy speech last week when he expressed discontent over the failed summit with United States President Donald Trump in Hanoi. Kim said the regime would no longer stick to dialogue with the U.S. for sanctions relief. "Kim acknowledged that the North made the tactical blunder in that it exposed weakness by strongly demanding sanctions relief in Hanoi," Thae said on his blog, Sunday. The North's young dictator will hold a summit with Trump or South Korean President Moon Jae-in only when Kim can recognize their shifted stance in denuclearization negotiations, according to Thae. During the speech, however, Kim also left open the possibility of holding the third summit with Trump no later than the end of this year. "Kim will not hold the third summit in the first half of this year, as he fixed the timeline to before the end of this year," Thae said. He added that Kim would not be in a hurry to attend the summit. "Kim aims to show that Trump is in a vulnerable position in terms of a longer-term race in nuclear negotiations, as he has to engage in the 2020 re-election campaign," Thae said. He also said the North Korean leader appears to have been deeply concerned about how he has to manage domestic affairs following the breakdown of February summit. Pyongyang's foreign ministry had not released any official statements even more than a month after the failed nuclear negotiations with Trump, showing the regime carried out thorough internal discussions to deal with the aftermath of the summit, according to Thae. remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. American Airlines said Sunday that it would extend flight cancellations for Boeing 737 Max aircraft by four months while it waits for Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration to fix and recertify the planes' flight-control systems, which have been implicated in two deadly plane crashes in recent months. The cancellations will affect about 115 flights through Aug. 19. The move reflects a growing realization among Boeing's airline customers that a worldwide grounding of Boeing jets, now in its fourth week, is unlikely to wrap up soon. In early April, the company took the extraordinary step of cutting its 737 Max production rate from 52 per month to 42. And Southwest Airlines, the other U.S. airline that has 737 Max 8 jets, also has canceled flights involving the aircraft through August. In a letter to pilots and employees, American Airlines President Robert Isom and CEO Doug Parker said the airline is confident that Boeing and the FAA will recertify the Max jet before mid-August, at which time the airline would bring the planes back into service as spares to supplement its operations throughout the summer. "By extending our cancellations through the summer, we can plan more reliably for the peak travel season and provide confidence to our customers and team members when it comes to their travel plans," Parker and Isom wrote. They added that the airline has been in close contact with the FAA, the Department of Transportation, the National Transportation Safety Board and international regulators and are "pleased with the progress so far." "We remain confident that the impending software updates, along with the new training elements Boeing is developing for the MAX, will lead to recertification of the aircraft soon," Parker and Isom wrote. Boeing chief executive Dennis Muilenburg said at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Texas last week that the manufacturer is working closely with its airline customers in its effort to return the Max jets to flight. "My team and I are working closely with our customers to answer their questions, get their feedback and ensure those who operate the Max are prepared when the grounding is lifted and the fleet returns to flight," Muilenburg said. Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 jets have been grounded in the United States since March 13, when the FAA concluded that it needed to investigate "the possibility of a shared cause" between the two crashes. Investigators have concluded that an automatic anti-stalling feature known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System which can point the plane's nose automatically downward in certain rare but dangerous situations played a roll in both crashes. Boeing and the FAA announced March 12 that they would develop and recertify a set of modifications to the MCAS system and its related flight-control software. The software fix is to include changes to prevent the system from overreacting to bad data, a new set of cockpit alerts designed to make pilots aware of potentially dangerous situations, and a new pilot training course. The FAA initially said Boeing would complete the software fix "no later than April." A Boeing executive speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly said late last month that the training component of that update had been "provisionally approved" by regulators. The company had initially planned to submit its full package of software and training changes to the FAA for review by the first week of April, but the submission was delayed. In remarks on Thursday, Muilenburg said the company had completed 96 test flights totaling a little over 159 hours of flight time on 737 Max jets with the updated software. He also noted that about two-thirds of the company's 50 737 Max operators worldwide had participated in a simulator session that included the new software. For one test flight in early April, Muilenburg joined the pilots on one of the planes. "We're taking a comprehensive, disciplined approach, and taking the time to make sure we get it right," he said. In naming Corie Barry chief executive officer, Best Buy Co. hands the reins to the architect of its current growth strategy, widely considered to be one of the retail industry's most remarkable turnarounds. Barry, chief financial and strategic transformation officer, will replace Hubert Joly in June after almost seven years at the helm. In her outgoing role, she oversaw the company's current expansion announced in 2017, a rare consumer success story in the age of Amazon. The plan included finding new revenue streams, including an in-home advisory program she spearheaded and that went national in September to help customers with any tech-related issue. The Barry-led push into services has helped Best Buy buck the trend of legacy retailers succumbing to the shift online. During the holiday-shopping season, the chain again topped expectations when many peers struggled. Selling more services, warranties and accessories around a gadget, like smart-home lighting, increases margins, which has been key to Best Buy's revival, according to Craig Johnson, president of retail researcher firm Customer Growth Partners. "They make as much money around the product as the product itself," Johnson said. "They've done an excellent job on that." Barry, who will turn 44 this week, has spent nearly her entire career at Best Buy, working her way up the finance side of the business. She replaces Joly, who will remain with the company as executive chairman and maintain an office across the hall from Barry, who he has mentored for several years. "The transition makes sense at this point because it's good to do this from a position of strength," said Jonathan Matuszewski, an analyst for Jefferies. "It's also a positive that Hubert's not going anywhere." Still, investors showed some caution about the change with Best Buy shares falling as much as 1.2 percent to $72.70 on Monday. Through Friday's close, the stock had advanced 39 percent this year, more than double the S&P 500's gain over the same period. Joly, 59, arrived at a chaotic Best Buy in 2012 when the retailer looked headed for irrelevance, or worse. Former CEO Brian Dunn had resigned after having a relationship with a subordinate. Meanwhile, founder Richard Schulze was sparring with the board and trying to buy the company as Amazon.com Inc. was stealing market share. In walked Joly, an outsider from the hotel industry. He and his team revived the world's largest electronics chain with a focus on improving customer service and strengthening relationships with key vendors like Apple and Samsung. "Nearly seven years ago, the board made a stunningly good decision when they asked a Frenchman with no retail experience to save this company," Barry said Monday on a call with reporters. "He has been an exceptional mentor and friend, more than I could have imagined." The company also promoted Mike Mohan, another veteran who'd also been considered a leading candidate to replace Joly, from U.S. chief operating officer to president and chief operating officer. Best Buy will conduct a search to fill the role of chief financial officer. Barry will also join the board, giving the retailer a majority of female directors. Despite early hiccups and a sagging stock price -- the shares fell close to $11 in December 2012 -- Joly maintained a long-term view. He wanted to cut costs and invest in technology -- like revamping its website. He also rewired the company's culture to focus on customer service. In conference calls with investors, he'd talk as much about gains in shopper satisfaction as revenue growth. By 2017, Joly declared the turnaround was over and the company would shift toward ramping up growth -- a task he charged Barry with seeing through. "Best Buy was on a descent unless someone applied the brakes, turned it around and applied the accelerator and that's exactly what he did," Johnson said. "Almost everything he did was spot on." - - - Bloomberg's Matthew Boyle and Jeff Green contributed. Elon Musk, already in hot water over his Twitter use, posted another Tesla production forecast reminiscent of the one that landed him before a federal judge earlier this month. Musk wrote Sunday that Tesla will make more than 500,000 cars in the next 12 months. A similar tweet sent almost two months ago in which Musk said the company would build half a million vehicles in 2019 led the Securities and Exchange Commission to argue he was in contempt of a settlement reached with the regulator last year. The latest forecast, given as a seemingly innocuous aside in a discussion about the future value of Tesla vehicles, nonetheless came as Musk's lawyers are negotiating with the SEC over an agreement that put controls on the billionaire's tweeting. A U.S. judge gave the two sides until April 18 to meet for at least an hour and resolve their differences. If they can't, she'll rule whether Musk is in contempt. The legal tussle for Musk, 47, served as a distraction amid a record decline in deliveries for Tesla during the first quarter. Concerns about demand for Tesla's vehicles escalated last week after the Nikkei reported the company and its partner Panasonic Corp. were freezing plans to expand capacity at the battery factory they share in Nevada. Musk on Saturday disputed reports that Panasonic had boosted annualized battery cell production capacity at the plant to 35 gigawatt hours, saying the company's lines were only at 24 gigawatt hours and have been constraining output of Tesla's Model 3 sedan. Tesla shares fell as much as 1.7% to $263.03 as of 9:38 a.m. Monday in New York trading. The stock is down 21% this year. Both the Panasonic and the next-12-months production tweets are noteworthy in light of the settlement that sprang from Musk tweeting in August of last year about trying to take Tesla private. The SEC accused the chief executive officer of securities fraud, and Musk settled. He agreed to pay $20 million, step down as chairman and seek pre-approval from an in-house securities lawyer before tweeting information material to the electric-car maker. Musk's legal team has argued that he retained discretion to determine whether he was sending out material information or not, and that his Feb. 19 post about Tesla's 2019 production was consistent with comments he made weeks earlier on an earnings call. Judy Burns, an SEC spokeswoman, and a Tesla spokesman declined to comment on Musk's latest tweet about the carmaker's production. In an April 4 hearing where Musk appeared, U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan questioned the specifics of the CEO's settlement with the SEC and told the two sides to rework the language of their agreement. "Take a deep breath, put your reasonableness pants on and work this out," Nathan said. She wrote in an order the next day that if Musk is held in contempt, the court will allow further briefings on sanctions. The SEC said at the hearing that the remedies it was seeking included a series of escalating fines for future violations, and monthly reporting on Musk's communications. Iowa City, Iowa It was hard to miss Cheri Pichone's excitement about Bernie Sanders' second presidential run. She showed up to a recent Iowa rally decked out in Sanders gear, complete with a figurine of the Vermont senator and progressive icon. But underneath her exuberance, the 36-year-old was still mad about the last Democratic primary, when Sanders' bid for the presidency fell short to Hillary Clinton. "They cheated," she said, directing much of her anger at the Democratic National Committee. The party establishment, she lamented, was "actively working against us." Pichone voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein in 2016 and said she may vote for a third party again if Sanders doesn't clinch the nomination. She's emblematic of a persistent group of Sanders supporters who won't let go of the slights real and perceived from the last campaign. The frustration is notable now that Sanders is a 2020 front-runner, raking in $18.2 million in the first quarter, downplaying concerns about DNC bias and highlighting his success in bringing the party around on liberal policies it once resisted. Some establishment-aligned Democrats worry the party could lose in 2020 if lingering concerns about the last primary aren't put to bed. "It has the potential to escalate, and it has the potential to help re-elect Donald Trump," said Mo Elleithee, a former spokesman for Clinton and the DNC. The acrimony stems from a fiercely fought campaign and a sense among Sanders loyalists that party leaders privately favored Clinton. DNC leaders at the time scheduled fewer debates than Republicans and sometimes slated them for nights with low television viewership. Often opaque delegate allocation rules also contributed to a belief among some Sanders supporters that the primary was essentially rigged. According to data from the Pew Research Center, the tension took a toll. About 81 percent of people who consistently supported Sanders during the primary season and were confirmed to have voted in the general election said they ultimately voted for Clinton, while 11 percent said they supported Stein or Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, and 3 percent supported Trump. In a closely contested election, those moves away from Clinton may have factored into the results. Since the election, party leaders have sought to smooth things over with Sanders and his supporters. DNC Chairman Tom Perez is planning a robust debate schedule. The rules governing superdelegates party insiders who overwhelmingly backed Clinton have changed. Sanders has publicly expressed confidence in the process this time around, but in terms that suggest he won't soon forget 2016. "In 2016, I think I will not shock anybody to suggest that the DNC was not quite evenhanded," he said during a CNN town hall in February. "I think we have come a long way since then, and I fully expect to be treated quite as well as anybody else." In an interview Friday, Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir echoed that optimism. "If you're talking to anyone at the Democratic National Committee who's there now, I'm sure they will tell you that their relationship with the Bernie Sanders campaign is great and that we are operating in good faith and we are talking to each other on an almost daily basis," he said. "Anyone suggesting that there's any kind of friction there is living in the past. They are living with some grudges that they are holding onto from a bygone time." North Korea's Air Koryo freight plane parked at Noi Bai International Airport in Vietnam's capital of Hanoi, on Feb. 24. Yonhap By Lee Min-hyung North Korea wants to buy new Russian passenger planes to improve safety on air routes between Pyongyang and Vladivostok, according to reports in Russia. Sergei Neverov, who recently led a Russian parliamentary delegation to Pyongyang, said the North's foreign ministry had shown interest in buying the Russian planes, Russian news agency TASS reported Sunday. "At a meeting at the North Korean foreign ministry, we touched upon the issue of civil aviation and flight safety," the agency quoted the deputy speaker of the Russian State Duma lower parliament house as saying. WASHINGTON - House Democrats are sharpening their focus on White House immigration adviser Stephen Miller, with key lawmakers saying he should be brought before congressional committees to testify about his role in recent policy controversies. The talk of bringing Miller before lawmakers comes days after The Washington Post reported that he played a key role in a plan first discussed last year to release undocumented immigrants into "sanctuary cities" represented by President Donald Trump's Democratic critics. While the plan never came to fruition because of objections from agency officials, Trump has since embraced the idea. With a slate of new vacancies at the Department of Homeland Security, including the departure last week of the secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, Miller has emerged as a key target for Democrats who see him as an influential survivor in an administration that has otherwise churned through personnel. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., on Sunday cited Miller's role in developing the targeted-release plan in calling on him to testify. "Steve Miller, who seems to be the boss of everybody on immigration, ought to come before Congress and explain some of these policies," he said in a CNN interview. While Cabinet officials routinely testify before Congress on budget and oversight matters, it is unusual for lawmakers to publicly question presidential advisers like Miller - particularly in an adversarial scenario. Presidents of both parties have declined to make their executive aides available to congressional committees, citing the constitutional separation of powers. Miller, a former congressional aide whose title is senior policy adviser, has played a central role in the Trump administration's aggressive and controversial immigration policies since its earliest days - helping to orchestrate the January 2017 executive order that barred travelers from seven countries and suspended refugee admissions. More recently, he has been a firm proponent inside the White House of adopting a zero-tolerance approach at the U.S.-Mexico border to deter asylum seekers streaming toward the United States from Central America. Homeland Security officials say he has pressured agencies to take firmer action to fight the recent surge of migrants massing at the border. Regarding the policy of targeting sanctuary cities - jurisdictions that do not fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities - for the release of undocumented immigrants, a congressional investigator told The Washington Post, "It was basically an idea that Miller wanted that nobody else wanted to carry out." Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on border security, facilitation and operations, said in an interview that Miller needs to come before her panel to "make his case for these terrible policies to the American people instead of being this shadow puppeteer." "It's clear that he's the one pulling the strings," she said. "And if he's going to continue advocating for these policies and personnel change, then he needs to come before the American people and explain himself. He has to be held accountable." Miller and White House communications officials did not respond Sunday to requests for comment on Miller. Press secretary Sarah Sanders said during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday" that the administration was "looking at all options" regarding the targeted release plan. The proposal, she said, is not an "ideal solution" but is one that could be implemented if Democrats refuse to negotiate with Trump on border security. Trump, meanwhile, conducted a Saturday night Twitter back-and-forth with Democratic Oakland, California, Mayor Libby Schaaf with a suggestion that she and other mayors did not want to host immigrants detained at the border. "If they don't want to serve our Nation by taking care of them, why should other cities & towns?" he said. Schaaf, who last year oversaw the strengthening of Oakland's sanctuary policy and warned residents of an upcoming federal immigration raid, told Trump to "stop fanning hate and division" in a tweet of her own. "Oakland welcomes all, no matter where you came from or how you got here," she said. Trump and his deputies otherwise spent the weekend pushing congressional Democrats to take legislative action to address the border crisis. "Democrats must change the Immigration Laws FAST," Trump tweeted Saturday. "If not, Sanctuary Cities must immediately ACT to take care of the Illegal Immigrants." The Trump administration and Congress have struggled to respond to the rapid surge in migrants at the southern border, many of them women and children, which has been reflected in a massive spike in apprehensions. Between October and February, U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended 268,044 migrants - the fastest pace recorded by the agency since 2008 and more than double the rate seen two years ago. In a Sunday appearance on NBC News' "Meet the Press," White House counselor Kellyanne Conway accused an "unserious Congress" of not taking tougher action to stop migrants from crossing into the country. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday on Fox News that he is planning to introduce a new immigration package after the Senate returns from its two-week recess, although he did not give an exact date. The legislation, he said, "will deter people from Central America from continuing to come, change our asylum laws, make sure you have more than 20 days to deal with an unaccompanied minor, and you can send people back to Central America." Graham said Republicans were hoping to garner Democratic support for the legislation: "I'm going to try to find a compromise here." House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., speaking on ABC News' "This Week," said he was willing to sit down with Republicans to discuss legislation but laid the crisis squarely at Trump's feet. "Before Donald Trump took office, we had a situation that was manageable - we had spikes, but it also went down. But what we have now is a constant pushing of the system so that it doesn't work," Thompson said. "Rather than being punitive, the president has to step up and provide real leadership, which he's failed to do on immigration." On Capitol Hill, Democrats are eyeing Miller as the common thread in the many controversial immigration policies they are seeking to examine. "We don't see Stephen Miller as an expert," Thompson said. "He's a young man who has some novel ideas that most Democrats disagree with." Some are already in effect, such as Trump's recent national emergency declaration and the practice of "metering" asylum claims at border stations - leaving migrants to either wait weeks for entry or seek apprehension by entering the United States illegally between official ports of entry. Others are under consideration, such as a plan called "binary choice" that would give migrant families the option of remaining detained together or agreeing to a separation that would allow children to remain free from custody. "Every single one of those policies, I believe, is driven by Stephen Miller and proudly embraced by Trump, and they're illegal on some level and yet they're still trying to do it," Rice said. "We can do what we're meant to do, and we can have oversight." Rice said her panel will probably request emails and documents to determine to what extent Miller and other White House officials pressured agencies on these controversial policies. Democratic and Republican presidents have declined to make their executive aides available to congressional committees. In 2014, for instance, lawyers for President Barack Obama refused a request from the House Oversight Committee to allow David Simas, the president's director of political strategy, to testify regarding an investigation into White House political activity. Two years later, Obama foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes also refused to testify before the same committee, citing executive privilege. Karl Rove, the top political adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, was subpoenaed by congressional Democrats in 2007. He resigned and left the White House before the subpoena could be enforced. As a private citizen, he declined another subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee on the basis of executive privilege but later testified during an investigation into the politically motivated firings of U.S. attorneys. Nadler on Sunday conceded that Miller is likely to invoke executive privilege to avoid testimony, but he said that would be a "misuse" of the claim. "He seems to be making the decisions - not the Cabinet secretaries who come and go," Nadler said. Rice said Miller has "no legal or rational basis for him not to show up" before Congress. "You cannot have the architect for these illegal policies act with compute impunity and no accountability," she said. Istanbul police briefly detained Mustafa Sonmez, an economist known for opposing the government's policies, for allegedly insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on social media. Sonmez was taken from his home early on Sunday to a police station in Istanbul, state-run Anadolu Agency reported. The economist, known for his critiques of Erdogan's ruling AK Party who also works as a columnist and television commentator, was released after being questioned largely over his tweets following local elections two weeks ago, according to his lawyer, Husniye Aydin. "The police knocked on my door at about 3:50 a.m.," Sonmez said by phone on Monday. "They took my deposition at the police headquarters and then put me under custody. They had a file of about 20 of my recent tweets. I told them what I did constituted criticism, not insult." The freedom to publicly criticize Erdogan and his government was severely curtailed in Turkey after June 2013, when a small sit-in against the redevelopment of the Gezi Park in central Istanbul morphed into weeks of nationwide protests against the government. Restrictions against free speech grew more extensive after the attempted coup in July 2016. Since then, they've expanded into a crackdown on journalists, academics, artists and the military opposed to the concentration of vast executive powers in the presidency, a shift Although Sonmez was released after giving his deposition, "this doesn't mean there will not be a court case against him," Aydin said in an interview. In his latest posts on Twitter, Sonmez criticized authorities for not recognizing Ekrem Imamoglu as the winner of Istanbul's mayoral race after a March 31 election. The AKP, which has long ruled over Turkey's commercial hub, is demanding recounts and a new vote. "They could've invited me to testify, and I'd have obeyed," Sonmez said. "Sending police to my door is disgraceful. They're shooting themselves in the foot." PALMYRA Planes have held the interest of people, young and old, but being a part of the aviation world can seem intimidating. The Macoupin County Flyers, based out of the Zelmer Airport in Palmyra, hopes to change that. The group is hosting an Aviation Exploration Day on Saturday and has a full lineup of aerial professionals to promote and answer questions about the industry. Organizer Paul Settle says there is also going to be an RC Fly-In and expects a big crowd is expected for that. Settle, an Airframe and Powerplant Mechanic and Inspection Authorized Mechanic will share information about the maintenance of planes. He travels the region keeping personal planes in tip-top shape. Certified flight instructor Lyndell Hardt from Litchfield will be on hand to share the requirements to become a private pilot. U.S. Air Force pilot Rachel Clark will attend to discuss career opportunities in aviation. The Zelmer Airport is unique for a number of reasons. For starters, it is the only airport in Macoupin County. Settle points out, It is small, and receives no government money. These hole in the wall airports, theyre drying up fast. We are trying to keep interest in them. He hopes to pique the curiosity of youth in the area. Everybody and anybody is welcome, he said. We would like to get the young people interested in flying. Lloyd Meffert of Hettick is president of the Macoupin Flyers and said he is excited for the event and promoting community involvement. We want people to feel welcome at the airport. It used to be that there were always kids helping at airports. Now, many may have an interest but not know how to go about it, he said. The Macoupin Flyers is a nonprofit organization. Members collectively own a Cessna 172 that is housed at the Zelmer Airport. For those wishing to fly-in, Settle says the airport has both auto fuel and 100 low-lead. There will be different aircrafts on display and the event will begin at 10 a.m. The Zelmer Airport is south of Palmyra off Illinois Route 111 on Zelmer Airport Road. SOUTHLAKE, Texas - He was called a terrorist and a stealth jihadi out to impose a system of Islamic law on the naive and unsuspecting citizens of suburban Texas. Some days, Shahid Shafi thought about quitting, rather than enduring a campaign by ultra-right-wing conservatives to oust him from his Republican Party leadership post because he is a Muslim. But Shafi prevailed, retaining his position as vice chairman of the Tarrant County GOP and becoming a symbol of religious freedom. He's now a sought-after speaker and a rising star in the party, with Republicans Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. Ted Cruz among his high-profile supporters. "To grow our party, we need to add conservative Americans of all types, not subtract them," Shafi, 54, said at a recent fundraiser in Houston, where the well-heeled crowd of political elite gave a standing ovation to his message of inclusion . While GOP leaders' calls for unity have sought to bury what many viewed as an embarrassing moment for the party, not everyone is ready to move on. The fight over Shafi has exposed an enduring rift among Republicans and a battle for the heart of the party, one that some fear could help flip Texas from red to blue. The fight over Shafi's appointment comes as the historic election of two Muslim women - both Democrats - to Congress has become a political lighting rod stoked by President Donald Trump. Recent comments from one, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., about Israel and 9/11 have stirred controversy and prompted retaliatory tweets from the president, including a video this weekend that combined footage of Omar and the twin towers - highly charged images that many view as Islamaphobic and fear could endanger Omar's life. In Tarrant County, home to 2 million people just west of Dallas, Republicans have remained divided since the January vote on Shafi's future. Peacemaking attempts have faltered, donations have declined and each side plans to oust the other in precinct elections next year. The fissure has only deepened the ideological fault line between traditional "big tent" Republicans and the "America First" camp, at least in this part of North Texas. Tarrant County historically has been one of the most reliably red urban counties in Texas, but its voters went for charismatic Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke over Cruz in last year's U.S. Senate race. "It's a civil war," said James Scott Trimm, a conservative Jewish blogger who said he opposed Shafi because of his stance on Israel, not his religion. "We're going into an election year, and with a bunch of party leaders fighting, we risk losing House races, the Senate race and the presidency, for heaven's sake," Trimm said. "At the end of the day, we need to be worried about winning Republican elections, not fighting among ourselves." Shafi, a trauma surgeon and Pakistani immigrant, was a relatively unknown city council member here in the tony Fort Worth suburb of Southlake - where the median income is $189,432 - in July when he was appointed vice chairman of the Tarrant County Republican Party. The move outraged several of the party's more conservative precinct chairs who launched a contentious effort to remove him from his post. In addition to demonizing his religion, they suspected him of supporting gun control and argued that he did not go far enough in declaring support for Israel. In January, the precinct chairs met for a final vote on Shafi, gathering in a Pentecostal church where the windows were papered over to block the TV news cameras and protesters, including one woman who wore a burqa in a show of opposition to Shafi's appointment. They ultimately decided to allow Shafi to keep his leadership position by a vote of 139 to 49. A beaming Shafi told reporters that the vote reaffirmed his belief "in my party and my country." As part of the party leadership's peacemaking effort, Trimm - one of Shafi's most vocal opponents - was appointed to the recruitment committee, a move that ignited more furor among those who wanted to move on from the headline-grabbing incident. The committee chairman quit and the group was disbanded. Major donors avoided the county party's Lincoln Day dinner, which netted only$38,000, far less than the approximately $150,000 it made in other years, according to party officials. Now some of the Tarrant49ers, as Shafi's opponents call themselves after the 49 votes against him, seek retribution. They have set their sights on defeating Shafi's supporters, taking control of the party and shifting it to the right. Over iced tea at a suburban mall cafe, one of the group's leaders, Dorrie O'Brien, said the Tarrant49ers do not oppose Shafi only because he is Muslim, but for a whole host of reasons, including that he has not strongly voiced his support of Israel or the Second Amendment. O'Brien, a precinct chairwoman and an editor of romance and science-fiction novels, said she believes Shafi is part of a global conspiracy to impose Islam's moral code of sharia law on the United States and that he is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood - the transnational Islamist group long accused of extremist ties. Her primary piece of evidence, she says, is that Shafi once attended an interfaith Ramadan dinner in Dallas with others she presumes are members of the Brotherhood. "It's stealth jihad. It's soft jihad," she said. "He's never going to pull out a sword and cut my head off. He's not going to hurt anybody physically. He's an influencer. The damage he does is by normalizing this ideology, making it look good and safe, and it's not." Shafi smiles when asked about these allegations, which he has denied. "Listen, I'm an immigrant to this country, and I've faced far worse adversity," he said. "There was a time when I didn't have enough to eat. At the same time, I've found a lot of opportunities as well." Shafi arrived in the United States in 1990 as a newly minted doctor. After he was rejected by the first 100 surgery programs to which he applied, he pursued a master's degree in public health at Johns Hopkins University. During those lean years, he said, he found that he could stave off hunger with one small order of salty McDonald's french fries if he drank enough water. He underwent surgical training at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and the University of Pennsylvania before he and his wife, Ayesha, a radio executive, moved to Texas to start a family. They joined a tide of other immigrants who have made the Dallas-Fort Worth area the nation's fourth-largest enclave of Muslims. Shafi said he was inspired to join the Republican Party shortly after he became a U.S. citizen in 2009, drawn to its message of small government after a childhood spent in Karachi under a military rule. When he decided to run for city council in 2011, friends and family warned him that voters in Texas would never accept a Muslim in post-9/11 America, but "I never believed it," he said. "I've always been welcomed with open arms and warm hearts in the Republican Party." When he finally won the seat in 2014, bigotry trailed him, even in that first flush of victory. Shortly after the election, a school board member in a nearby community wrote on her Facebook page: "YOU NOW HAVE A 'MUSLIM' on the City Council!!! What A SHAME!!!!!" The woman later apologized. Analysts say the Texas Republican Party is at a critical juncture heading into the 2020 presidential election, with the possibility that an increasingly diverse population will make Texas a swing state. So far the risk is remote, but the number of people of color in Texas is rising. According to the Texas Demographic Center, people of color accounted for 58 percent of the state's population, up from 47 percent in 2000. November's dismal election results for Republicans were a wake-up call, party officials say. Cruz barely pulled off a victory over O'Rourke, and the party lost two state Senate seats and 12 state House seats to the Democrats. "I'm warning people: If we don't do the hard work that we must, we will not, nor would we, deserve to retain control of Texas," said James Dickey, chairman of the Republican Party of Texas. "We have to continue to earn the votes of rural Texas and increase the numbers in the major metro areas that are growing the fastest." As Texas Republicans attempt to widen their reach, they're grappling with the party's standard-bearer, Trump, whose anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rhetoric has emboldened some of the more extreme members of the party. "There is a tension here because President Trump has been very outspoken," said Matthew Wilson, an associate professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and an expert in religion and politics. "I think the statewide and broader Republican leadership wanted to powerfully send the message of religious tolerance, that Islam is not a disqualifier for patriotism. It's a bad look for the party to appear hostile to that. Shafi declined to say whether he voted for Trump - "that's between him and me" - or whether he supports the Trump administration's travel ban targeting Muslim-majority countries or the $5 billion for the border wall with Mexico. He would say only that he believes in "securing the border by any means necessary." Among the supporters that the Tarrant49ers have targeted for defeat is Lisa Grimaldi Abdulkareem, 42, a paralegal and a party precinct chairwoman. Abdulkareem is a Christian married to an Iraqi who served as a translator for American troops during the Iraq War. When Abdulkareem, 42, spoke up in support of Shafi, she became the victim of an online hate campaign, with her home address leaked. Despite years working for conservative candidates, Abdulkareem was targeted by the anti-Islam website UnderstandingTheThreat.com, which described her as "another jihadi-defending Muslim working inside the Republic [sic] party. Someone wake up the GOP in Texas!!!" Abdulkareem said she feels that the episode could become a point of change for mainstream Republicans in her state. "For a long time, they didn't think this small group of people would really affect the party. They have ignored them for years," Abdulkareem said of the local GOP leadership. "Now they've realized they've got to stop doing that because it's scaring people away." --- The Washington Post's Julie Tate contributed to this report. SPRINGFIELD Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Friday signed into law a bill that prohibits local governments from enacting so-called right-to-work laws that are aimed at weakening the power of labor unions. The Collective Bargaining Freedom Act makes it abundantly clear that we have turned the page here in Illinois, Pritzker said during a bill-signing ceremony in his Statehouse office. From the start, right-to-work was an idea cooked up to lower wages, slash benefits and hurt our working families. Right-to-work has always meant right to work for less money, and its wrong for Illinois. The first right-to-work laws in the United States were enacted in the 1940s, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, when soldiers were returning home and the U.S. economy was shifting from war production to civilian manufacturing. Marc Dixon, a sociologist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, said during an August 2018 interview that different arguments have been used over the years to campaign for them. The first states to adopt them were primarily in the South, he said, where the laws were used to weaken labor unions, especially the Congress of International Organizations, or CIO, which were actively supporting civil rights legislation for African-Americans. Later, in the 1950s, he said, they were supported by people who claimed certain labor unions embraced communist sympathies or had ties to organized crime. More recently, supporters have argued for right-to-work laws on the basis of free speech. As more and more blue-collar workers aligned with the Republican Party, supporters have argued that workers should not be forced to unions that, broadly speaking, tend to support Democrats. The bill that Pritzker signed Friday came in response to a local ordinance adopted in the village of Lincolnshire, in northern Illinois, in 2015. It provided that workers could not be compelled to join a labor organization as a condition of employment within the village. A U.S. District Court judge struck down that law in 2017, ruling that federal law allows only states to regulate collective bargaining. And in March 2018, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision. But other federal circuits have ruled that local governments may enact local right-to-work laws, making the issue ripe for a U.S. Supreme Court review. Asked about that during the bill-signing, Pritzker said he is confident the new Illinois law would be upheld. The law as it is does not allow a state to hand this responsibility down to local communities, he said. This bill actually just establishes what is the law today, so I believe that that would be moot, essentially, at the Supreme Court. A massive fire ripped through Notre Dame Cathedral in central Paris, toppling the spire on the 850-year-old Gothic monument and leaving France in shock over the extensive damage to one of the nation's most iconic landmarks. Flames jumped up the ornate spire before it collapsed onto the blaze-engulfed roof, sending smoke billowing out into the evening skyline of the French capital. Authorities said late Monday evening that they believed they had saved the two bell towers. The historic church, located on one of two islands in the middle of the Seine River, had been under renovation and scaffolding had covered much of the top structure. The blaze began around 7 p.m. local time. Live television images transfixed viewers around the world and French President Emmanuel Macron postponed a major speech as flames ravaged the cathedral that has towered over Paris for centuries. It had come through long-range German bombardment during World War I and was spared damage during World War II. After battling the blaze for hours, officials still weren't sure the monument could be saved. But a decision to focus on safeguarding the two towers forming its facade proved decisive, allowing the overall structure to remain and the fire to be brought under control. French Deputy Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said hours of cooling would be needed and it's too early to say what caused the fire. Paris prosecutors have opened an investigation. The Associated Press reported that the preliminary probe suggested it was an accident. Bystanders were cordoned off from the blaze, with many singing and praying, or standing by in silent disbelief. Thousands of people were evacuated from the building after the fire broke out and hundreds of onlookers remained on the scene as ashes fell onto surrounding streets. One fire fighter was seriously injured. "It is eight centuries of history going up in smoke," said Marion Lacroix, a 54-year-old Parisian. "It's the heart of the country. I think that in our generation, people won't see Notre Dame built again. It's over." The flames lapping the famous landmark is just the latest in a string of tragedies to strike the French capital. In 2015, Paris was the site of two of the worst terror attacks in the country's post-WWII history. Since last November, the city has also been under siege every Saturday as clashes between the so-called Yellow Vest protesters and police have turned violent. Notre Dame is a major tourist destination, with the number of visitors swelling to as many as 50,000 a day, especially during periods like holy week in the Christian calendar leading up to Easter. Some 400 firefighters were mobilized to the scene, according to the interior ministry. Extra help from outside the city was headed to the capital to try to contain the blaze and helicopters could be seen flying overhead, although weren't being used to drop water because of the risk the extra weight would lead to further structural collapse. Boats pumped water from the river to battle the blaze. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo wrote on Twitter she was at a loss for words "to express the pain I feel in the face of the ravaging flames. Tonight Parisians and the French mourn this symbol of our common history." Macron went to an administrative building near the site after postponing a much-anticipated speech on planned policy measures following the Yellow Vest movement that has rocked the capital. "Notre Dame is engulfed with flames," he said on Twitter. "Thoughts are with Catholics and all the French. Like all citizens, I am sad to see this part of us burn." Even President Donald Trump was following the fire. Construction got underway in the 12th century, though the current structures are mostly the result of renovations carried out in the 19th century following damage during the French Revolution. The cathedral was at one time in a state of total disrepair and close to the point of being demolished, but was later saved by Napoleon who himself was crowned Emperor in 1804 inside the cathedral. The interior of the cathedral is 427 by 157 feet, with its 115-foot-high roof. Two massive early Gothic towers crown the western facade, which is divided into three stories and has its doors adorned with early Gothic carvings and surmounted by a row of figures of Old Testament kings. "This is horrible," said Julien Ciprelli, a 19-year-old politics student living in Paris. "'I saw the smoke from the classroom. I had to come." --- Bloomberg's Gaspard Sebag, Vidya Root and Gregory Viscusi contributed to this report. Video: Fire Rages at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris A New Berlin man is now facing federal child pornography charges after originally being arrested in January on Macon County charges. Scott A. Gentry, 57, was arraigned in federal court Friday on charges of three counts of receipt of child pornography and two counts of possession of child pornography. According to the federal grand jury indictment, a computer or device was used in November and December 2016 and in April 2017 to receive images of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct. In January, the indictment charges, Gentry possessed images of child pornography in Sangamon and Macon counties. The indictment was handed down April 2. It was sealed until Gentrys arrest and the transfer of the case to federal court. He was first arrested January 24. The charges stem from an investigation by the Macon County Sheriffs Department, the Sangamon County Sheriffs Department and the Illinois Attorney Generals Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorneys office, in coordination with the states attorneys from Macon and Sangamon counties. If convicted, Gentry could face a sentence of five to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for each count of receipt of child pornography, and a sentence of up to 20 years and a fine of up to $250,000 for each count of possession of child pornography. Trial is set for June 18 in U.S. District Court in Urbana. Members of an online community stage a rally at Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul, Monday, urging the government to come up with measures against fine dust. / Yonhap By Kang Seung-woo Seoul City will help replace pollution-emitting delivery motorcycles and local buses with electric vehicles as part of its efforts to combat worsening air quality, the city government said Monday. In addition, it will restrict old diesel vehicles in the downtown area and impose a fine of 250,000 won ($220) on violators, while pushing ahead with a plan to renew conventional household boilers with eco-friendly condensing devices. The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced 10 actions to cope with fine dust air pollution. Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon and the city government have made aggressive efforts to tackle the newly emerging environmental problem, as evidenced by the National Assembly passing eight fine dust-related bills that were pushed by Seoul City. "A determined Seoul City will take all possible measures to prevent fine dust. We plan to cooperate on the issue with the central government as well as China," the mayor said in a press briefing. "However, the measures will not pay off without public cooperation. I am pleading with the people to actively participate in our efforts." According to the local government, motorcycles usually produce six times more nitrogen oxide emissions than small cars. Taking that fact into account, it aims to replace 100,000 two-wheeled vehicles in the capital with electric ones by 2025. Nitrogen oxide is a major source of fine dust. To this end, the city government has reached an agreement with franchise chains such as Pizza Hut and food delivery app operators like Baemin Riders and Vroong, under which they will introduce 1,000 electric motorbikes by the end of this year. It added the replacement work is expected to cost 50 billion won in subsidies. "Replacing 100,000 two-wheelers with electric vehicles will be equivalent to reducing traffic by 600,000 cars," said Goh Hong-seok, chief of Seoul City's urban transport division. In addition, 444 out of 1,581 local buses, which are mini buses operating on short routes, will be swapped for electric buses by 2020 at a cost of 44 billion won 22 billion won from the central government and 22 billion won from Seoul City. The city government is set to ban old diesel vehicles in its "green transportation promotion zone," a 16.7-square-kilometer downtown area. To avoid possible confusion, it will give motorists a grace period until the end of November. After that, a fine of 250,000 won will be slapped on violators. According to Seoul City, nearly 2.45 million vehicles registered nationwide will be subject to the ban and it is considering implementing it ban from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., although a final decision will be reached later. Given that conventional household boilers are a major culprit for the worsening air quality, the local government will financially support residents to switch their current boilers to eco-friendly condensing boilers, which is expected to reduce not only fine dust but also carbon emissions, a cause of greenhouse gases. When a colleague from Zuzana Caputova's little-known political party suggested she run for president last year, she thought the idea absurd. But then the murder of a journalist friend -- an act that launched Slovakia's biggest protests since the fall of communism -- made it personal. The former NGO lawyer ran and won by a landslide, and now she's hoping her victory can serve as an example for other political forces who are trying to beat back a wave of nationalism sweeping the European Union before the bloc holds parliamentary elections next month. "It wasn't a murder of some unknown journalist for me," Caputova, 45, said in an interview in her Progressive Slovakia party's office in Bratislava Friday. "It was clear to me from the moment that I saw the news that he was killed because of his work, because I knew what he was working on." The journalist was Jan Kuciak, and what he was working on was an investigation into ties between businessmen and politicians in the Smer party, which has ruled Slovakia for most of the past decade. In another coincidence, the businessman who's been charged with ordering the hit was also Caputova's adversary in a dispute over a planned landfill that she helped block, a role that propelled her to the political stage. Bracketed by Hungary, Poland, where ruling parties vowing to defend the EU's "Christian roots" are clashing with the EU over multi-cultural values and the rule of law, Slovakia's leadership has vowed to keep the country at the bloc's core and support deeper integration. But even then, some mainstream politicians, including former three-time Prime Minister Robert Fico, have joined a growing regional trend of animosity against gays and Muslims, and invoking conspiracy theories like the campaign that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government has launched against billionaire financier George Soros. As Kuciak's murder convulsed Slovakia, forcing Fico's resignation and drawing tens of thousands of Slovaks into the street, Caputova decided she could do more good as a politician than as a lawyer. She hopes she might inspire others to fight back against extremism, as leaders including Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini try to bring together like-minded nationalists to pool their power in the European Parliament vote. "The elections were won by a candidate who chose not to go the extremist path, a pro-European, liberal candidate," said the divorced mother of two teenage daughters. "This brings me hope that the call for a change, for decency and justice, has been reflected. And I wish very much that it will be reflected in European and parliamentary elections too." Caputova's victory over a field that included an anti-NATO judge and party leader who once wore Fascist-inspired uniforms and praised Slovakia's Nazi-puppet World War II government put a damper on euroskeptic forces that are seeking to overturn the EU status quo. Backed by the Slovak Progressive Party, which doesn't have seats in Parliament, her campaign path included a slog from eighth place to fifth and then a breakout in national debates that ignited a surge in popularity. After holding her own onstage with the frontrunners, and openly discussing her support of gay rights and deeper ties with the other 27 members of the EU, campaign donations surged, with almost half of the 500,000 euro ($566,000) she raised coming from people who donated 20 or 30 euros a piece, she said. She pins her success at least partly on the idea that, while voters may be tired of the political establishment, opinion surveys show they aren't tired of the benefits the EU brings. "Western democracies are coping with a crisis of trust," she said. "And this is what's at stake: whether democratic values and institutions will continue to be doubted or whether we manage to bring back belief in ideas and values. GLEN CARBON During World War II, the United States found itself in the middle of a crisis the collapse of the healthcare system was feared because the war had taken many experienced nurses overseas. In 1943, the Nurse Training Act was introduced and women ages 17-20 began to be recruited to become Cadet Nurses. Nurse Cadets are an organization that nobody even really knows about. They were initiated back in 1943 by President Roosevelt because at that time in World War II most of the experienced nurses were helping with war efforts, so we had a severe crisis in the States. We didnt have enough nurses to care for the people that were here stateside, Vickie Rodgers, professor of nursing at Lewis and Clark Community College, said. Between 1943-1948 thousands of young women saw the posters and stepped up to help the countrys healthcare system stay intact. 124,000 of them signed up and they were trained in a three-year period to become RNs, Rodgers said. Nurse Cadets made up a large majority of the nursing staff in the states during World War II. These nurses, they were 17 and 18 years old, and they were basically 80 percent of the nursing staff in hospitals stateside, she said. All over the country, nurse cadets who helped save lives in 1943 are looking for recognition of their service. Theyve tried before; theres a whole group of women across the country that are trying to help this effort to get these women the honorary veteran status that they deserve, Rodgers said. There are currently bills in the House and Senate, H.R. 2056 and S. 997, Nurse Cadets and their supporters are fighting to get approved. Meridian Village is home to one of the U.S. Cadet Nurses, Ruby Foster, who entered into the program in 1945. I think we did as much for the war effort as about everybody else, even though it was all right here, Foster said. We were such a patriotic nation, I mean, we all did whatever we could. I dont know of anybody that didnt fully support our military. At the age of 17, Foster began training to be a Nurse Cadet; she was part of the group that kept the healthcare system from collapsing during the war, according to her, the Nurse Cadets are a part of history that should be remembered. What does it mean to me? Well, I was part of it; part of the war effort, Foster said. I think we should be recognized. The training was not easy and many women decided being a Nurse Cadet was not in their future. We started out with probably a couple hundred but only 33 graduated, Foster said. The Nurse Cadets, their families and supporters are reaching out to the House and Senate to get the bills passed so that they can be remembered as being part of the war efforts. Theyre not asking for money, theyre asking for plaques for their graves and a flag. They want honorary veteran status and are not asking for healthcare benefits; theyre not asking for any kind of money for them, Rodgers said. Similar bills have been seen before without being passed because they have been pushed out of the way. It keeps taking low priority over everything else and it never gets voted on when its supposed to. Then, when it doesnt get voted on it just drops off and then they have to start all over again getting supporters and getting numbers and things like that, Rodgers said. According to nursingandpublichealth.org, bills for women who did serve in the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps is supported by Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Nurses Association, American Association of Colleges of Nursing, the American Organization of Nurse Executives and the American Association for the History of Nursing. Anyone who would like to support the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps WWII bills can email officials by filling out a form at https://p2a.co/tgAOtDD. Reach reporter Breanna Booker at bre.booker@edwpub.net WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump lashed out at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Sunday night and again on Monday morning on Twitter following a CBS "60 Minutes" interview during which she recounted standing up to him and reiterated her opinion that he is unfit for office and knows it. "There's nobody in the country who knows better that he should not be president of the United States than Donald Trump," Pelosi told CBS's Lesley Stahl in a roughly 14-minute segment that aired Sunday. In the wide-ranging interview, Pelosi touted Democrats' achievements in their first 100 days in control of the House of Representatives while also discussing last December's heated Oval Office showdown over funding for Trump's border wall, her now-famous State of the Union clap and the power she holds in her current position. Pelosi's comments did not appear to go over well with Trump. "Such a 'puff piece' on Nancy Pelosi by @60minutes, yet her leadership has passed no meaningful Legislation," he tweeted, accusing Democrats of only investigating "crimes that they instigated & committed." It is unclear exactly what "crimes" Trump was referring to, but in the past he has suggested Hillary Clinton and Democrats be investigated for colluding with Russia. "The Mueller No Collusion decision wasn't even discussed-and she was a disaster at W.H.," Trump added, referencing last year's fiery border wall spat. Trump took aim at Pelosi again on Monday morning, asserting that she had "lost all control of Congress" and that she is under the "control" of freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. Omar, who previously drew flak for tweets that many of her colleagues saw as anti-Semitic, is now at the center of another controversy, this time over a speech she gave to a Council on American-Islamic Relations banquet last month. Her talk drew little attention until a controversial Australian figure tweeted a clip of her using the phrase "some people did something" when describing the 9/11 attacks. "Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made," Trump wrote. "She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy!" Trump has sought to put a spotlight on Omar's comments in recent days, including a Friday tweet that included video of the twin towers falling on 9/11. His use of the visceral imagery brought widespread condemnation from Democrats concerned it could inspire more violence aimed at Omar, one of the first two Muslim women in Congress, and she has said she has seen an uptick in death threats. The scathing tweets directed at Pelosi are a departure for Trump, even though she has been among his most vocal critics. Despite his history of feuding with other high-ranking Democrats on Twitter, Trump has seldom directly taken aim at Pelosi. Just last month, she appeared to win favor with the president when she said in an interview with The Washington Post that she was "not for impeachment," adding "it divides the country. And he's just not worth it." A spokesman for Pelosi had no comment Sunday, but the speaker's team was quick to respond to the president on Twitter. "Thanks for watching!" the tweet said. During Sunday's interview, Stahl did press Pelosi about critics who have said "it seems like right now nothing is getting done" with her at the helm. "One of the complaints we've heard is that you don't reach across the aisle," Stahl said. "You pass things, whatever it is dies in the Senate." Pelosi pushed back, telling Stahl firmly, "Nothing's died," before shifting the focus to her power as speaker to set the agenda in the House, and how she has wielded it in the past 100 days. "We didn't have a speaker who would bring a gun bill to the floor," she said. "We didn't have a speaker who would bring a 'dreamers' issue to the floor. We do now, and that's a very big difference. The power of the speaker is awesome." When the conversation inevitably turned back to Trump, Pelosi did not shy away from criticizing the president or talking about the times she has stood her ground against him. The interview began with her once again pushing for the president's taxes and the full report from special counsel Robert Mueller on Russian interference in the 2016 election to be released. "You've said, 'If someone's ripping your face off. You rip their face off,'" Stahl said, after pointing out that Pelosi seems to be "one of the very, very few people who have stood up to [Trump] and won." "Oh yeah, I would do that," Pelosi responded. "Yeah, I probably said that . . . They just have to know, you throw a punch, you better take a punch." In recent months, Pelosi has made headlines for her public interactions with Trump, often going viral as a result. As The Post reported in December, she emerged from the White House meeting on border security "not some wilted flower, but a symbol of a woman who doesn't have time for male posturing." Then, at February's State of the Union, she sarcastically clapped at Trump after he called for rejecting "politics of revenge, resistance and retribution" and was crowned "Queen of Condescending Applause." "This is your new branding of Nancy Pelosi, kind of like a giant slayer almost," Stahl remarked. "I happen to be a manifestation of the women power that is coming forth now, but only one manifestation," Pelosi said. She continued: "As our founders said, when they declared independence and established a new nation, 'The times have found us.' . . . The times have found us, not because we're so great, but because of the urgency of the situation that our country faces because of the situation in the White House." When asked how she would describe Trump, Pelosi's answer was blunt. "I think that he describes himself on a daily basis," she said, noting that Trump is aware "he should not be president." "But I respect the office he holds and he's not worth the trouble of saying, 'You're so horrible we can't work together.' No, we need to work together." - - - The Washington Post's John Wagner contributed to this story. As President Donald Trump has faced withering blowback over a Friday tweet that used video of the twin towers falling on 9/11 to launch a broadside against Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., many have argued that the visceral imagery could inspire more violence aimed at one of the first two Muslim women in Congress. That's exactly what has happened, according to Omar. She said in a statement late Sunday that threats against her life have spiked, and she explicitly blamed Trump's tweet for the surge. "Since the President's tweet Friday evening, I have experienced an increase in direct threats on my life - many directly referencing or replying to the President's video," Omar said in the statement, which noted that she now receives death threats daily that often reference her faith. Omar's warning, which came hours after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., revealed she has asked the U.S. Capitol Police to increase protection for Omar, adds new urgency to the demands for calmer rhetoric from her critics, who have repeatedly charged her with anti-Semitism and now with downplaying the 2001 terrorist attacks. But her detractors on the right have shown little appetite for backing off. On ABC's "This Week," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders disputed on Sunday that Trump's words might endanger Omar and promised that he would continue "calling out the congresswoman." "Certainly the president is wishing no ill will, and certainly not violence toward anyone," said Sanders, who called Trump's criticism of Omar a "good thing." She added: "The president is absolutely and should be calling out the congresswoman for her, not only one time, but history of anti-Semitic comments. The question is why aren't Democrats doing the same thing?" The latest political firestorm around Omar centers on a speech she gave March 23 at a a Council on American-Islamic Relations banquet. As The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler reported, her talk drew little attention until a controversial Australian figure tweeted a clip of her using the phrase "some people did something" when describing the 9/11 attacks. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, then helped the video go viral by retweeting it last week, calling Omar's statement "Unbelievable." The uproar led one Fox News host to question whether the congresswoman, a former Somali refugee, was "an American first"; the New York Post on Thursday published a widely derided cover with a photo of a hijacked plane slamming into the World Trade Center alongside Omar's quote. More for you 'Mob violence': Police arrest one in potential hate crime after transgender woman beaten on video Trump escalated that rhetoric further with his Friday tweet, which declared "WE WILL NEVER FORGET!" over 43 seconds of Omar's comments interspersed with footage from Lower Manhattan during the attacks. Omar and her defenders have insisted that her quote, which came amid a longer speech decrying Islamophobia, was taken wholly out of context. They've noted that Omar was among the 213 co-sponsors of a bill to reauthorize the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund and suggested that the vitriol against her is actually rooted in prejudice against her religion. Democrats also argue that Trump's tweet, the New York Post's cover and similar messages can inspire real-world violence, citing a man who was charged earlier this month with threatening Omar by promising to "put a bullet in her . . . skull." "@IlhanMN's life is in danger. For our colleagues to be silent is to be complicit in the outright, dangerous targeting of a member of Congress," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., tweeted shortly after Trump's missive. By Sunday, she had been echoed by many of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. In her Sunday night statement, Omar said her colleagues are right to be concerned. Linking to recent studies suggesting that hate crimes and assaults rise in areas where Trump holds rallies, she accused the president of inflaming "extremists." "Violent crimes and other acts of hate by right-wing extremists and white nationalists are on the rise in this country and around the world. We can no longer ignore that they are being encouraged by the occupant of the highest office in the land," Omar said. She thanked Pelosi, the Capitol Police, the FBI and the House sergeant at arms for taking the threats against her seriously. The Democrat noted that Trump is planning a visit to her home state on Monday, which she said she found "concerning." "Violent rhetoric and all forms of hate speech have no place in our society, much less from our country's Commander in Chief," she said. "We are all Americans. This is endangering lives. It has to stop." RICHMOND, Va. - Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam has bowed out of plans to serve as commencement speaker at Virginia Military Institute, his alma mater, and will not participate in any other graduation ceremonies due to lingering controversy over a blackface scandal. The governor's spokeswoman confirmed the state's top politician will steer clear of graduation ceremonies throughout the commonwealth this commencement season. Her announcement Monday, first reported by The Roanoke Times, came one day after Northam abruptly backed out of an appearance at a Burke fundraiser for state Sen. David Marsden, D-Fairfax. Northam canceled on Marsden because the event had drawn protesters, including the Fairfax chapter of the NAACP as well as anti-abortion activists. Northam's spokeswoman said the governor opted to skip it out of "safety concerns". Northam all but disappeared from public view after Feb. 1, when a racist photo surfaced from his 1984 medical school yearbook. He initially apologized but then the next day said it wasn't him in the photo, although he did admit that he wore blackface to imitate Michael Jackson for a dance contest in that same year. In recent weeks, Northam had pushed ahead with some limited public events and wrangled some victories out of the General Assembly. Spokeswoman Ofirah Yheskel said the governor's decision to stay away from graduations was not a reversal of that trend. He decided weeks ago to skip those ceremonies "out of concern he would pull focus from the achievements of graduates and their families." Northam, a genial pediatrician and former state senator, had just marked the end of a successful first year in office when the yearbook photo came to light. It showed two people, one in blackface and another in Ku Klux Klan robes. National and state Democratic leaders swiftly demanded his resignation. But Northam has hung on, refusing to step down and saying that he will devote the remaining three years of his term to racial equity. John McGlennon, a professor of government at the College of William & Mary, said he thinks it makes sense for Northam to stay away from graduations for now. "I don't think it serves his purposes to become the focus of attention," he said. "Much better for him to come back [in future years] ... assuming he's been able to successfully demonstrate that he understands the nature of why people were offended, that we know the full story of what happened all those years ago, and that he's been able to restore his reputation with the electorate." But McGlennon sees the fundraiser episode as a sign that Democrats will not be able to count on his help in this year's legislative elections, which could prove pivotal. Virginia is one of just four states with elections in 2019 and the only one with a competitive race for control of both houses of the legislature. Republicans hold just a two-seat majority in the House of Delegates and in the Senate and all 140 seats are on the ballot in November. While the GOP is trying to hang onto control, Democrats are hoping to flip both chambers. "Obviously Democrats were hoping the governor was going to be a real asset in legislative elections this year. That's not gonna happen," he said. "I think this is an indication of the problems that will occur for candidates that would have him involved. That doesn't mean they don't want to work with him, doesn't mean he can't continue his rehabilitation ... . This kind of public party leadership is not something he's going to be able to do for the next several months." Northam's scandal erupted in concert with two others: Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat who admitted to wearing blackface to dress as a rapper as a college freshman; and Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, also a Democrat was accused of sexually assaulting two women in the early 2000s. Fairfax has denied the claims, saying that the sexual encounters were consensual. With the entire executive branch in turmoil, some Democrats decided they had been too hasty in calling for Northam's resignation. As he began doing more public events in recent weeks, Democratic delegates and state senators have been at his side, saying they are willing to work with him. Whether they would campaign with him has been more uncertain. Republicans have sought to keep the pressure on all three Democratic leaders, making the scandals a centerpiece of their election strategy this year. Northam's planned appearance at a fundraiser for Marsden might not have posed any risk the veteran legislator, who hails from a district where Hillary Clinton took 62 percent of the vote in 2016. He has no primary or general election opponent. The same might be said for Del. Betsy Carr, R-Richmond, who has not faced a Republican opponent since 2009. Northam appeared at a fundraiser for her last week, although it was not publicized and therefore drew no protests. Carr is running unopposed in a district where Clinton took 83 percent of the vote. "This is somebody who doesn't have a contest this November," said McGlennon. "They may have been just trying to test the waters to see if he could become active on the campaign trail. I think they got their answer." GODFREY Have you ever wondered what it takes to work for the FBI? If so, and youre an incoming high school junior or senior the 2019 Future Agents in Training (FAIT) Academy, to be held June 18-21 at Lewis and Clark Community College, is for you. The Federal Bureau of Investigation Springfield Division will conduct this free, interactive learning experience for students living in the L&C District. Back for its second year, the academy will take place over four days instead of two. The FAIT Academy is an outstanding opportunity to learn about the FBI and get an inside look at what we do on a daily basis, not to mention being introduced to potential careers, said Special Agent in Charge Sean Cox. We are, for the second year, inviting high school juniors and seniors to apply to participate in this eye-opening experience, which will increase your awareness about the FBI, our priorities, and activities or our Special Agents and professional staff. Participants will learn about career opportunities with the FBI through both classroom and hands-on activities, which will offer insight into many topics and specialties of the bureau, including criminal activity, cyber threats, terrorism and administrative functions, among others. Students will learn from special agents, intelligence analysts and a variety of professional staff about investigative tactics that include gathering evidence, interviewing witnesses and solving cases. After completing the academy, students will be more aware of the challenges their communities face, better understand how the FBI serves their region and be prepared to mentor their peers. Space is limited, so those interested must apply by May 10, 2019. The application process includes an application form, short essay and letter of recommendation to be submitted to fbi@lc.edu by the deadline. All forms and additional information are available online at www.lc.edu/FAITacademy. This is an incredible opportunity for students to gain insight into exciting careers with the FBI, said L&C Criminal Justice Associate Professor Tricia Martin. Anyone with questions can contact FBI Springfield Public Affairs Officer Brad Ware at (217) 757-3542 or wbware@fbi.gov, or Martin at 618-468-4520 or fbi@lc.edu. A model of an Airbus A380 airliner is displayed at Asiana Airlines headquarters in Gangseo-gu, Seoul, Monday, when its parent company Kumho Asiana Group announced it will sell the carrier to cope with a liquidity crisis. Yonhap Hanwha, SK, CJ mentioned as potential buyer of Korea's No. 2 carrier By Nam Hyun-woo Former Kumho Asiana Group Chairman Park Sam-koo The Sunday market, better known as Little Manila, is a favorite stop-over for Filipinos and anyone else who has bonds with the Southeast Asian country. Filipinos drop by the market after attending Sunday mass at hyehwa-dong Catholic Church. / Korea Times photo by Kim Kang-min Written By Lee Han-na Video By Lee Min-young, Kim Kang-min Every Sunday, from morning till afternoon, an exotic Southeast Asian market is open in Daehangno, a university district near central Seoul. About 15 vendors set up green tents along a 100-meter stretch of road between Hyehwa-Dong Catholic Church and Dongsung High School to welcome shoppers. The market, better known as "Little Manila" is an ethnic enclave where visitors can explore the "real Philippines." The Sunday market is a favorite stop-over for Filipinos and anyone else who has bonds with the Southeast Asian country. Filipinos drop by the market after attending Sunday mass nearby. According to Statistics Korea, nearly 60,000 guest workers from the Philippines live in Korea. The actual number of Filipinos could be much higher, because marriage migrants and students were not included in the data. There are no official documents that can confirm when and how Little Manila was created there. But the market is believed to have been held there for over 20 years. It is a popular place for everyone. The street is crowded with Filipinos of all age groups from children to adults. Little Manila provides several different Filipino products, foods and ingredients Filipinos crave, especially when they feel homesick. With plastic chairs and food trays, and a spoon and fork (without a knife although some prefer using hands), people enjoy dishes at makeshift eateries, including some well-known tourist-friendly snacks such as banana cue and turon. Meat and vegetables are available as well. Meat comes from the Majang Meat Market nearby, but is cut to serve the Filipino dishes. They also sell ampalayas, known as the "bitter melon or cucumber," one of Koreans' favorite healthy dishes from the country with its alleged medicinal benefits such as lowering blood sugar levels. The market is a venue for cultural exchanges between Koreans and Filipinos. Many Korean customers started visiting the market to explore Filipino culture and authentic food. For those who have been to the Philippines for travel, study or business, the market is a popular venue to taste authentic Filipino dishes. One of the best ways to explore this market is looking for similarities such as the glutinous rice cakes, "bibingkang malagkit," which resemble traditional Korean rice cakes. The Filipino version of a sticky rice cake with coconut flavor reminds Korean customers of "tteok." There is also "pancit bihon," a dish very similar to Korean "japchae" but with a stronger soybean sauce. The market was initially set up for homesick Filipinos who missed their traditional foods. So the supply hinges on how many Filipinos want that particular food or ingredient. There are many unique products like chicaron or fried pork skin, a delicious snack served with vinegar, and canned tropical fruit juices with flavors such as guava. Some might wonder about "balut," which ranks within the top 10 in the world's most notorious foods by Forbes . It is a normal street food of a fertilized duck egg only half matured and unhatched. The fetus with its little feathers is eaten. When asked if photos of the food can be taken, vendors were reluctant to share their products due to worries of possible negative reactions because of their unusual appearance and taste. Hesitantly, a vendor who asked for anonymity, said it became a "hated food" in Busan and vendors selling it were fined. "Please do not shoot this one. The food was once fined as a hated food in Busan so, we are scared to take photos or video of this product," he said, explaining how the product is meant for Filipinos who miss the food, not to cause any trouble or hatred. Various products from the Philippines, including coffee and meat, are available at the Sunday market. / Korea Times photo by Lee Han-na Several Democratic candidates for president have endorsed the idea of the government paying reparations to African Americans as compensation for the enslavement of their ancestors. How on earth did this once fringe idea move into the political mainstream? I write about this topic with a bit of trepidation. Whenever I write about the subject of race, I get angry emails from white folks who lack compassion for what black people have suffered in this country. Often, they make excuses for pretty bad conduct. That said, the idea of reparations is a non-starter. First, let me say a national conversation on matters of race and discrimination is long overdue particularly with the reemergence of white supremist groups. Discrimination didnt vanish a long time ago with the Civil War or with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. There are huge inequalities between blacks and whites, which are documented through a variety of economic and other measures. But the idea of writing checks to correct past wrongs is far more likely to divide the nation than heal it. Back in 2004, I had a nice lunch with Barack Obama where we discussed a variety of issues about race, religion and slave reparations. As we chowed down on meals from Bentohs, his favorite Springfield restaurant, Malia and Sasha played nearby in the corner of his campaign office. The then state senator said he opposed having the federal government cut checks to black people for the wrongs committed against their ancestors. Still, Obama said perhaps federal investment in impoverished black communities might be a way helping to right the scales of racial injustice. But now the political discussion has changed. Id like to say these presidential wannabes are motivated by a desire to right past wrongs. But Im cynical enough to believe that hard calculus of African American voters and winning Democratic primaries plays a role too. But havent slavery reparations already been paid? After all, more than 350,000 Americans died on battlefields across this nation to preserve the union and end slavery. Their blood was, at least in part, our nations reparations. As my friend Steven Greenhut noted recently in Reason magazine: Advocates for this proposal are far less persuasive at explaining how reparations would permanently level the playing field than they are at detailing some of the ugliest parts of our nations history. These folks rarely even tout a specific policy (What type of payment? Who is eligible? How much?). Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, a World War II veteran, wrote that any government effort to define racial classes is repugnant. He compared efforts to define race for affirmative action purposes to the infamous Nuremberg Race Laws of Nazi Germany in which eye color, facial structure and other physical factors were used to determine how Aryan a person was. So how would the U.S. government allocate out reparations? Would bureaucrats tucked away in cubicles weigh how many drops of blood prove a persons compensable lineage? Do recent immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean qualify? Think about the lawsuits over DNA, the bitter feelings and the anger that racists would exploit. White, Hispanic and Asian people whose families arrived after the slavery and segregation eras will wonder why they must pay for the sins of other peoples ancestors. I think of my own ancestor Seth Laughlin, who opposed slavery but nonetheless he was drafted into the Confederate Army. When he refused to fight, he was hung by his thumbs, horse whipped, and pierced with bayonets. Does my relationship to such a man make me more or less culpable? I dont know myself. He did serve in the Confederate Army but he refused to fight for slavery. So, who knows The fact of the matter is I dont believe in collective guilt. I dont believe all Muslims can be blamed for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, that all gun owners are to blame for violence in our cities or that all Americans are responsible for the injustice of slavery. This push by the Democratic White House hopefuls points to the further importance of race and identity issues within their party. While some say reparations are needed to address slavery and racist aspects of American history, I cant help but think the nation would spend billions, even trillions, of dollars without eliminating the underlying problem of racism. Scott Reeder is a veteran statehouse journalist and a freelance reporter. He can be reached at ScottReeder1965@gmail.com. Oxfam is aninternational confederation of 17 affiliates networked together in more than 90countries committed to ridding the world of poverty and injustice. To achievethis, we support local projects in developing countries, we lobby governmentsand companies to take into account the interests of the poorest people and wecampaign to involve citizens in our work. We implement our programs by workingwith local NGO partners and civil society organizations and engaging withprivate sector and governments. Oxfam employs over 6,000 people worldwide inmore than 90 countries. In Uganda, our program is anchored on three broadthemes deliberately focused on Womens Rights: Resilient Livelihoods,Governance and Accountability and Humanitarian Preparedness and Response. WADE HUSING, Chariho, Wrestling, Junior; Husing, finished unbeaten in the South County Invitational and placed first at 120 pounds. Three of Husings wins were pins. Chariho finished second as a team. DANTE WILK, Westerly, Boys Basketball, Senior; Wilk, scored 23 points and had eight assists as Westerly opened the season with a victory over longtime rival Chariho. Wilk also contributed five rebounds. Vote View Results Holiday prices have been slashed by travel companies yet again, new data has revealed, with holidaymakers able to get seven nights in the sun some 38 per cent cheaper than last year. Brexit uncertainty, alongside a more competitive holiday market and the aftermath of the slow end to last summer, has resulted in year-on-year package holiday price cuts to a number of European beach locations this summer, according to Travel Supermarket. Many package prices to these destinations have seen huge reductions with some locations costing just 123pp. Brexit uncertainty, as well as a competitive holiday market, have resulted in lower prices Emma Coulthurst, travel commentator for Travel Supermarket, said: 'It is a fact that Brexit is causing summer package holiday prices to Europe to drop. 'Some British holidaymakers say that they don't want to book until they know the outcome of Brexit, while others say they want to avoid Europe altogether. 'It is not all about Brexit, though, there are a few other factors at play when it comes to Brits' holiday choices. The return of British holidaymakers to Turkey and Tunisia has created a much more competitive holiday market compared with the last few years. 'In addition to this, the slow end to last summer for the travel industry, due to the UK's heatwave, is affecting how holidays are being priced. Companies don't want to be left with stock and are pricing to encourage people to book earlier.' Some of the lowest package prices are to the Spanish Costas, including Costa de La Luz which has seen a 38 per cent decrease in prices, the Costa Brava which has seen an 8 per cent reduction and the Costa Blanca which has seen a cut of 16 per cent. This is Money, with data from Travel Supermarket, can reveal the top ten European beach destinations that have the biggest year-on-year discounts. The price comparison site looked at over 1 million package holiday price enquiries for this summer compared with the same dates last year, with all seven night departures taking place between 1 May to 30 September 2019. The price drops are a comparison between searches made between March 1 and April 1 2019 compared to the same period in 2018 for seven night holidays between May 1 and September 30 2019 compared to in summer 2018. Percentages are based on the median price. All prices are based on two people travelling together, unless stated otherwise and are correct as of April 11 2019. The Costa de La Luz in Spain has seen the biggest decrease in price for package holidays 1) Costa de La Luz, Spain - 38 per cent reduction Traditionally a popular location with Spanish natives, in recent years the Costa de La Luz has welcomed more visitors from overseas. The coasts beach is an obvious attraction but there is also the Donana National Park, the Bay of Cadiz and the seaside cliffs at La Brena that keep tourists coming back. With a 38 per cent reduction compared to last year's prices, it is sure to attract even more holidaymakers. Where: Playacanela, Isla de Canela (4 star) B&B When: Depart Luton on 11 May How much: 183pp 2) Cote D'Azur, France - 32 per cent reduction The Cote D'Azur saw a huge reduction of 32 per cent year-on-year. The French Riviera includes a number of well known summer destinations, including Nice, Cannes, St Tropez and Antibes. Amongst the numerous sunny beaches, the Cote D'Azur also offers water sports, historical sites and fine dining. Where: Amarante, Cannes (4 star) B&B When: Stansted on 6 May How much: 298pp 3) Algarve, Portugal - 20 per cent reduction Tourism makes up the bulk of the Algarve's summer economy with the population tripling in the peak holiday season thanks to seasonal residents. Holiday goers flock to the Portugese coast for sun, sea and sand with a number of cave formations to explore, boat tours along the coast for visitors as well as many pretty beaches. Where: AtlanticSide, Armacao de Pera (3 star) self-catering When: Newcastle on 1 May How much: 123pp Zante, Greece has seen a reduction of 19% year-on-year with tourists able to stay from 165pp 4) Zante, Greece - 19 per cent reduction Zante is a popular Greek island that is home to popular beaches like Agios Nikolaos, Alykanas and Tsilivi, which all offer swimming and water sports. Known for its crystal blue water and numerous caves, there is plenty for holidaymakers to enjoy when staying here. Where: Petros, Tsilivi (3 star) B&B When: Bristol on 11 May How much: 165pp 5) Costa Blanca, Spain - 16 per cent reduction Costa Blanca has seen a massive annual reduction of 16 per cent with tourists traveling to the White Coast to soak in its beautiful beaches and a great nightlife. Benidorm and Alicante make up the two most popular destinations on the Coast. Where: Pueblo Acantilado Suites, Villajoyosa (4 star) self-catering When: East Midlands on 8 May How much: 199pp 6) Majorca, Spain - 15 per cent reduction Majorca, the largest island in the Balearic Islands, is known for its beach resorts, sheltered coves and stunning scenery. The Serra de Tramuntana, a mountain range which runs down the west of Majorca, has been made a World Heritage Site and is one of the most popular places to explore by foot or bike. Where: Hotel Mix Colombo, Sa Coma (3 star) all-inclusive When: Birmingham or East Midlands on 6 May How much: 219pp from Birmigham or 208pp from East Midlands Kefalonia, a Greek island, has seen reductions of 14% with visitors able to book from 294pp 7) Kefalonia, Greece - 14 per cent reduction Kefalonia is the largest of the Ionian islands in Greece which has grown in popularity in the last couple of decades. The fishing villages of Fiscardo and Assos, as well as other natural attractions, including Melissani, an underground lake, Drogarati cave and Myrtos beach, have made it a popular tourist destination. Where: Lygies Studios, Karavados (3 star) self-catering When: London Stansted on 29 July How much: 295pp 8) Sardinina, Italy - 13 per cent reduction Sardinia is a large Italian island that has seen a year-on-year reduction of 13 per cent. The area is filled with beautiful beaches and is home to miles of stunning coastline. Cagliari, Sassari and Alghero are three of the most popular towns whilst one of the most well known areas is Costa Smeralda, a small strip of coast that is home to upmarket hotels and and five-star beaches. Where: Badus, Isola Rossa (4 star) self-catering When: Manchester on 7 May How much: 134pp 9) Corfu, Greece - 12 per cent reduction Corfu is one of the most popular tourist destinations due to its hot weather and sunny beaches with the island seeing a 12 per cent reduction in costs since last year. The area is also rich with history and is home to a number of Greek ruins that are scattered across the island. Where: Ariti Apartments, Kassiopi (4 star) self-catering When: Manchester on 6 August How much: 334pp for a family of four Travellers can get 7 nights on the Greek island of Corfu for as little as 343pp this summer 10) Crete, Greece - 12 per cent reduction Crete is Greece's largest island and has a number of mountains, including Mount Ida which houses the Ideon Cave - the birthplace of Zeus, according to Greek mythology. Tourists can also visit the Heraklion Archaeological Museum which is most well known for its Minoan art. Where: Cretan Sun Hotel & Apartments, Tavronitis (3 star) self-catering When: Leeds Bradford on 7 May How much: 152pp The boss of shared-office business IWG may have been popping a few corks last night after agreeing the firm's first franchising deal in Japan. Worth 320million more than double the best-case estimates of analysts at Peel Hunt it comes as vindication for IWG's chief executive Mark Dixon. Last year he walked away from takeover talks with a number of private equity firms, slamming the bidders for 'totally mispricing' his business. Dixon's new franchising strategy, dubbed a 'Plan B' by several analysts after the failed takeover negotiations, will see it sell some of its office buildings and instead charge a fee to other firms for using its branding. Shares boost: Office IWG's chief executive Mark Dixon has agreed the firm's first franchising deal in Japan worth 320m Japan's TKP Corporation, a provider of conference rooms and banquet halls, will buy all of IWG's 130 office centres in the country and pay 320million in cash even though the branch generated only 20.6million of profit last year. Peel Hunt's Andrew Shepherd-Barron added: 'More sales will follow, which should further validate the new strategy, release substantial value and lead to a complete re-appraisal of the company. Special dividends or cash returns seem likely.' Shares shot up by 21.1 per cent, or 58.3p, to 334p. Indivior, the heroin addiction treatment manufacturer accused of fuelling America's deadly opioid epidemic, continued its roller-coaster ride on the stock market. Its shares tumbled more than 70 per cent last week after prosecutors in the US claimed the firm had used shaky evidence to promote a new version of its Suboxone treatment above rival products. Stock Watch - MX Oil Tiddler MX Oil shot up after announcing it had secured investment from a member of Dubai's ruling family. Shaikh Ahmed Bin Dalmook Al Maktoum bought 1.3m shares in the energy company, worth 534,000, as MX Oil raised a total of 680,000 from investors. MX, which has an oilfield in Nigeria, said the Shaikh owns a portfolio of oil assets and his knowledge should be valuable. He now owns 29.9 per cent of the company. Shares jumped 218.2 per cent, or 0.12p, to 0.17p. The US Department of Justice demanded at least 2.3billion in fines. But the shares were up 19.1 per cent, or 6.74p, to 41.97p yesterday, after analysts at Bernstein suggested the final sum of any fines is likely to be much lower. Suboxone film, the treatment at the heart of the legal claims, generated 2.2billion for Indivior in the investigated years of 2010 to 2014. Other drugs giants, such as Glaxosmithkline (down 0.1 per cent, or 1.2p, to 1550p) and Johnson & Johnson, which have found themselves in similar situations in recent years, were slapped with fines equivalent to just a fraction of the offending drug's sales. As for Reckitt Benckiser, which owned Indivior at the time of the alleged offences, analysts at Barclays said the US troubles would be 'a smaller banana skin than feared'. Reckitt is unlikely to face criminal charges, Barclays said, and will probably only have limited exposure to any civil law penalties. However, shares were still down by 1.4 per cent, or 82p, at 5823p. Mining heavyweight Rio Tinto was weighing on the FTSE 100, as it announced plans to plough 230million into its Resolution Copper project in Arizona. It will use the money to make sure it has done all of the relevant research, and completed all the surveys and assessments, to ensure it is granted permits to get the mine up and running. Rio claims the Resolution project could supply almost 25 per cent of the US's copper consumption, and it will now have spent more than 1.5billion on its development. Shares slipped by 1.4 per cent, or 69p, to 4702.5p, while the FTSE 100 ended the day flat, down a minimal 0.19 points, at 7436.87. Energean Oil & Gas joined IWG and Indivior among the FTSE 250's top climbers, after making a gas discovery at its Karish North field off the coast of Israel. Its shares soared by 8.5 per cent, or 66p, to 846p. Sanderson Group, which supplies technology to retailers and their wider supply chains, said results for the six months ending in March were ahead of expectations. Shares jumped 8 per cent, or 7.5p, to 101p. Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary James Brokenshire will launch a consultation on the proposal Landlords will no longer be able to evict tenants at short notice without good reason under a major housing shake-up to be announced today. Prime Minister Theresa May said the move would end the threat of so-called 'no-fault' evictions which give renters as little as eight weeks' notice to leave if their fixed-term contracts have ended. But landlords have warned that the move could create 'indefinite tenancies by the back door' leading to fewer homes being available in the rental sector. Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary James Brokenshire, who will today launch a consultation, said the Government was taking action because of evidence that the end of tenancies through the Section 21 process is one of the biggest causes of family homelessness. Mrs May said: 'Everyone renting in the private sector has the right to feel secure in their home, settled in their community and able to plan for the future with confidence. 'But millions of responsible tenants could still be uprooted by their landlord with little notice, and often little justification. This is wrong and today we're acting by preventing these unfair evictions.' At present landlords can evict tenants if they are still occupying their property after the fixed-term contract has come to an end without specifying a reason. Prime Minister Theresa May says new system would prevent unfair evictions and help protect vulnerable tenants in the private rental sector [File photo] The proposals would see landlords having to provide a 'concrete, evidenced reason already specified in law' for ending tenancies. Mr Brokenshire said that the move to abolish these particular kinds of evictions will be 'balanced by ensuring responsible landlords can get their property back where they have proper reason to do so.' But David Smith, from the Residential Landlords Association, warned there was a 'serious danger' the proposed reforms could lead to a reduction in the supply of rental properties. He said: 'With the demand for private rented homes continuing to increase, we need the majority of good landlords to have confidence to invest in new homes. 'This means ensuring they can swiftly repossess properties for legitimate reasons such as rent arrears, tenant anti-social behaviour or wanting to sell them. 'For all the talk of greater security for tenants, that will be nothing if the homes to rent are not there in the first place. We call on the Government to act with caution.' The plans come after buy-to-let landlords were hit by a rise in stamp duty for those buying a second home. Richard Lambert, from the National Landlords Association, said: 'Landlords currently have little choice but to use Section 21. 'They have no confidence in the ability or the capacity of the courts to deal with possession claims quickly and surely, regardless of the strength of the landlord's case. 'This change makes the fixed-term meaningless, and so creates a new system of indefinite tenancies by the back door.' A Ministry of Housing spokesman said: 'Court processes will be expedited so landlords are able to swiftly and smoothly regain their property in the rare event of tenants falling into rent arrears or damaging the property.' Shelter chief executive Polly Neate welcomed the plans as 'an outstanding victory for England's 11million private renters'. She said: 'This change will slam the brakes on unstable short-term tenancies and give tenants everywhere a massive boost in security, for which the Government will deserve great credit.' By Kaushik Basu NEW DELHI When wealthy people espouse leftwing causes, such as redistribution of wealth, those on the right often label them hypocrites. "If you are so concerned about equality, why don't you give up some of your own income first?" is the usual retort. This response can have a powerful dampening effect. Most people do not like to think of themselves as hypocrites. So the wealthy are faced with a choice: Either give away some of their assets and then campaign against inequality, or just keep quiet. Most prefer the second option. This is unfortunate, because global inequality is reaching intolerable levels. What's more, wealth tends to remain in families over time. Inequality is becoming dynastic, with some people born rich and vast numbers who are poor from the moment they appear on Earth. The injustice of this is so grotesque that just thinking and talking about it should prompt us to demand corrective action. But by stopping the most influential segment of society from expressing dissent, the right has stymied the first step in this process. We now have plenty of statistical evidence of inequality, thanks to research by Thomas Piketty, Francois Bourguignon, Branko Milanovic, Tony Atkinson, and others. For example, Oxfam's latest annual report estimates that the 26 richest people on earth own the same wealth, or have the same net worth, as the 3.8 billion people who comprise the bottom half of the world's wealth distribution. Moreover, according to Oxfam, the combined wealth of the world's billionaires grew by $900 billion last year, or nearly $2.5 billion per day. Inequality within countries is also spiking. The World Inequality Report 2018 estimates that the sharpest increases in wealth concentration at the top are occurring in the United States, China, Russia, and India. True, a certain amount of inequality is both inevitable and essential to drive the economy. But inequality today far exceeds this "Goldilocks" level. Regardless of the continuing debate about how exactly to measure wealth and income inequality, there can be little doubt that both are unconscionably high. Walking through big-city slums in developing countries, witnessing the squalor and misery of the poor and homeless in rich countries, and looking at the homes and lifestyles of the rich anywhere, the need to address the current situation becomes clear. Moreover, the right to call attention to that need must not be restricted to the poor. The rightwing response that silences rich people with left-leaning views may look reasonable at first, but it is a non-sequitur. You can be well-off, rich, or super-rich, and unwilling to give up your wealth unilaterally, yet still think the system that has allowed you to earn and accumulate so much is unfair. There is no contradiction or hypocrisy in such a stance. Some of the world's finest thinkers concur. The British philosopher Bertrand Russell famously argued (clearly with himself in mind) that smoking good cigars should not debar one from being a socialist. And American economist Paul Samuelson made a similar point in "My Life Philosophy," an essay he published in 1983. Samuelson became quite wealthy thanks to the phenomenal success of his textbook Economics, which was required reading for undergraduate students all over the world for decades. But he was clear about where he stood politically. "Mine is a simple ideology that favors the underdog and (other things equal) abhors inequality," he wrote. At the same time, Samuelson admitted that when his "income came to rise above the median, no guilt attached to that." And he wrote with striking frankness that, although he rejected giving up his wealth unilaterally, "I have generally voted against my own economic interests when questions of redistributive taxation have come up." Arguably the most famous historical example of a rich person striving for greater equality was Friedrich Engels, whose father owned large textile factories in the greater Manchester area of England and elsewhere. Young Friedrich became radicalized seeing child labor and the suffering of the working classes. Later in life, Engels returned to work for his inherited business so that he could support the efforts of his friend, Karl Marx, to put an end to that kind of profit. No matter what one thinks of the desirability or viability of Marx's precise proposal, the yearning to rectify gross social inequalities is surely admirable. There is hope today, too. Several of the super-rich, in the U.S. and elsewhere, openly support the broad left and its objective of curbing extreme inequalities. They are willing to endure allegations of hypocrisy for this larger goal, which makes their cause morally powerful. Progressive individuals who willingly give up their own income advantage are admirable. But, whether or not they take that step, they cannot be silent on the need for collective action to tackle extreme inequality, one of the most pressing global issues of our time. Kaushik Basu, former chief economist of the World Bank and former chief economic adviser to the government of India, is professor of economics at Cornell University and nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Copyright belongs to Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org). NEW YORK, APRIL 15, 2019 Reuters, the worlds largest multimedia news provider, was today awarded two 2019 Pulitzer Prizes from Columbia University. This marks the second consecutive year that Reuters has received two Pulitzer Prizes. Reuters journalists Wa Lone, Kyaw Soe Oo and their colleagues were recognized as co-winners, alongside the Associate Press, in the International Reporting category, for their series of investigations on the mass expulsion of the Rohingya from Myanmar. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested in the course of their reporting on a massacre of 10 Rohingya men and boys in Inn Din. They were sentenced to seven years in a Yangon prison in September, and have spent 490 days in jail. Awarding the prize to Reuters, the Pulitzer committee recognized the team for expertly exposing the military units and Buddhist villagers responsible for the systematic expulsion and murder of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, courageous coverage that landed its reporters in prison. Reuters photographers Mike Blake, Lucy Nicholson, Loren Elliott, Edgard Garrido, Adrees Latif, Goran Tomasevic, Kim Kyung Hoon, Alkis Konstantinidis, Carlos Garcia Rawlins, Carlos Barria and Ueslei Marcelino were recognized in the Breaking News Photography category, for their photos of the mass migration of Central and South Americans towards the U.S. border, and its aftermath. Awarding the prize to Reuters, the Pulitzer committee recognized the team for a vivid and startling visual narrative of the urgency, desperation and sadness of migrants as they journeyed to the U.S. from Central and South America. While it's gratifying to be recognized for the work, public attention should be focused more on the people about whom we report than on us: in this case, the Rohingya and the Central American migrants," said Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen J. Adler. "I'm thrilled that Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo and their colleagues have been recognized for their extraordinary, courageous coverage, and our photojournalists for their moving pictures that show humanity defying huge obstacles," said Adler. "I remain deeply distressed, however, that our brave reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are still behind bars just for reporting the truth. Reuters Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the worlds largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people every day. Reuters provides trusted business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktops, the world's media organizations and directly to consumers at Reuters.com and via Reuters TV. Follow news about Reuters at @ReutersPR. CONTACT Heather Carpenter Senior Director, Communications Reuters heather.carpenter@thomsonreuters.com 646-223-8551 The following companies are subsidiares of Bristol-Myers Squibb: 1096271 B.C. ULC, 345 Park LLC, A.G. 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Ltd., Zetec France, Zetec Inc., Zetec Korea Inc., Zetec Rental LLC, Zetec Services Inc., iPipeline, iPipeline (TCP) Limited, iPipeline Canada Inc, iPipeline Co. Ltd., iPipeline Holdings Inc, iPipeline Inc, iPipeline Limited, iSqFt Holdings Inc., iSqFt Parent Corporation, iSqFt Sub Inc., iTradeNetwork Inc., and mySBX Corporation. By John Burton U.S. President Donald Trump got into hot water in late February when he was asked at a press conference following his unsuccessful summit with Kim Jong-un in Hanoi whether he had discussed the treatment of Otto Warmbier with the North Korean leader. The case of Warmbier had become a cause celebre after the University of Virginia student had returned to the U.S. in June 2017 in a comatose state after being held in North Korea for 17 months for "hostile" actions against the state. He died days after his return. The widely accepted narrative in the U.S. was that Warmbier had fallen into a coma after he was tortured and mistreated in a North Korean jail. "I did speak about it, but I don't believe [Kim Jong-un] would have allowed that to happen. It just wasn't to his advantage to allow that to happen," said Trump in response to the question. Kim "felt badly about it. He knew the case very well, but he knew it later." Trump's remarks were taken as another example of how the president likes to cozy up to the autocratic leaders from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman. Nonetheless, Trump may have been close to the truth in speaking about Kim's role in the episode. There is no question that North Korea has routinely arrested visiting Americans on flimsy pretexts and used them as bargaining chips to gain concessions from Washington. But the case of Warmbier was different in one significant respect in that he appeared to have been physically mistreated by his captors. Other Americans who have been imprisoned by North Korea have been subject to solitary confinement, psychological abuse and hard labor. But none reported being tortured. Shortly after Warmbier's death, I spoke with Kenneth Bae, the Korean-American Christian pastor who was arrested in 2012 and held for two years in North Korea. I asked him whether he was surprised by the reports of Warmbier's mistreatment and he replied that he was. Although he and other American hostages were held under harsh conditions, North Korea realizes that if the detainees are harmed, they lose their propaganda value and lead to heightened tensions with the U.S. "I was never tortured," said Bae, "and I find it difficult to believe that they would torture Otto Warmbier." On the other hand, Warmbier's parents insisted that their son had been tortured. They claimed that Otto's arms and legs were "totally deformed" and "it looked like someone had taken a pair of pliers and rearranged his bottom teeth." These allegations appeared to fit in with a broader narrative that North Koreans are extremely cruel to all those they hold in captivity. No surgical autopsy was ever performed on Warmbier for religious reasons, which prevented doctors from reaching a firm conclusion on what caused his brain damage. But a local coroner did conduct an external examination of the body and concluded that there were no signs of beatings or torture. Otto's teeth were in good shape and there were no significant scars or bone fractures. One significant clue was that there were signs that both sides of Otto's brain had been starved simultaneously of oxygen, which would have led to his vegetative state. So what did happen? It has since been revealed that Warmbier was hospitalized a day after his court appearance for sentencing, when he appeared to be a state of extreme emotional distress. He could have suffered a heart attack, which could have quickly cut off oxygen to the brain. Another possibility is that Warmbier tried to commit suicide by hanging himself, which also would have resulted in brain damage. The circumstances surrounding Warmbier's injuries are important since they have since played a role in the state of U.S.-North Korean relations. The highly emotional allegations that he had been tortured contributed to the increased tensions between Washington and Pyongyang in 2017. The U.S. Congress cited Warmbier's case in tightening sanctions against North Korea and led the Trump administration to revive the designation of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. Last December, a U.S. federal court ruled that North Korea should pay the Warmbier family more than $500 million. But the decision by Trump to reverse course in 2018 and seek improved ties with North Korea has now led the administration to play down the Warmbier case, while the episode continues to be seized upon by critics of that reconciliation policy. While North Korea should be held fully responsible for the circumstances of Warmbier's death, the misrepresentation of the facts in the case should not be used to derail a possible diplomatic solution to end Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs. John Burton (johnburtonft@yahoo.com), a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is now a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and consultant. Soestu believed that the shape and texture of Korean pottery and even earthenware reflected Korea's inner strength and beauty. Courtesy of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library By Amanda Price As the ever-changing tension between Japan and South Korea tugs and pulls at opinions, there is a victim that few pay any attention to. That victim is history. In Japan's re-telling of the colonial and war years, history's gray areas have often been smudged, if not completely erased. Sanitized and made palatable for Japanese sensitivities, this less-offensive history minimized facts and maximized perceptions. Despite changes, Japanese history remains incomplete. It is little wonder that so many young Japanese express remorse for their country's past actions but cannot clearly articulate what those actions were. In contrast, South Korean history has largely become about absolutes. The black and white narrative that runs through discourses is that the Japanese were "evil colonizers" and the South Koreans the "powerless but impassioned victims." Of course, there is truth in this absolute, but that does not make the absolute entirely true. When history is remembered as either black or white or with watered down grays, truths are forgotten, stories fade and those at the center of them all but disappear. In those disappearances we not only lose parts of history, but parts of ourselves. Hidden among the lost pages of history are the Japanese who fought for Korean independence. It is hard to lay blame on the Korean educational system for these untold stories as the colonial Japanese government worked tirelessly to censor or simply silence these protests. The Japanese government, however, has no such excuse. Despite Korea's present lack of knowledge, these protests were known by Korean academics and the media during the colonial period. As the need to overcome the invaders grew, however, information referring to Japanese resistance appeared irrelevant, if not counter-productive. Some anti-Japanese freedom fighters also found it hard to accept that any Japanese citizen could be on their side, let alone actively fight for their independence. Since the 1950s, the journals, essays and news articles testifying to their efforts have been available for all to read. With the translation and digitization of historical records, they are now easily accessed by anyone who cares to look. What these records reveal is that, during the colonial era, a notable minority of Japanese citizens, predominantly academics and other critical thinkers, vehemently opposed their own government's policies and actions, fighting in whatever capacity they could for Korean independence. As Japanese soldiers carried alarming amounts of ammunition through The Independence Gates, Japanese dissents called Japan's colonial front "the mask of a ruthless regime." Courtesy of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library As early as the late 19th century, the Japanese government's expansionist ideologies drew sharp criticism from liberal Japanese leaders. Despite these criticisms coming from a small sector of society, they would sow the first seeds of opposition. The first voices of dissent arose from those who believed that Japan had a responsibility to pass on the advancements that she had made, but to do so through alliances built on trust, not assimilation based on Japanese supremacy. The most vocal of these dissenters were those who objected to colonialization on moral grounds. These protests were based on principles of justice and equality. Moral dissenters included Christian groups and pacifists who saw enforced colonialism as an assault on human dignity and individualism. These critics remained on the fringe, however, until 1910, when those with more influence were added to their number. The following individuals are but a selection of those who campaigned for Korean independence. Among prominent protesters was Yoshino Sakuzo (1878-1933), a professor of political science at Tokyo Imperial University. Yoshino's transformation was gradual and came from time spent listening to Korean students. Yoshino warmly invited Koreans to his classes, seminars and to his home, where young Koreans were encouraged to articulate the cause for independence. Having been affected by these students, Yoshino invited them to "the Dawn Society" (Reimeikai) meetings for academics and liberal thinkers such as Professor Fukuda Tokuzo. At these meetings Korean students found allies and supporters for Korea's independence. But as the news of increasing Japanese brutality reached the island of Japan, the Japanese government and wider media shrouded events in silence. Sakuzo and other academics faced dense political walls as they sought to make these events known to the public. Protesters, however, inspired new critical thinkers, who in turn became protesters. Though their voices would not prevail against the shouts of the military, they continued to speak. Yanagi Soestu (1989-1961), a well-known artist and philosopher, became aware of the colonial condition through visits to Korea and friendships with Koreans. Soestu decried not only Japan's inhuman treatment of Koreans, but also their attempts to destroy Korea's rich and unique cultural heritage. Soestu wrote: "If this is what is known as the way of 'assimilation,' it is terrifying." When the colonial rulers attempted to destroy the Kwanghwa Gate at Kyonbok Palace, Soestu was outraged on behalf of Koreans. Determined to change the minds of Japanese bureaucrats, he published a compelling essay in which the destruction of the wall symbolized the suffering of Korean citizens. His impassioned protest achieved a measure of success. Though oppressive imperial decisions were still imposed, the gate was dismantled and rebuilt rather than destroyed. Soestu repeatedly spoke of the kinship and affinity he felt with the citizens of Korea, who he viewed as brothers, equal in every sense. Breaking with common consensus, he believed that Japan was neither inferior to America in the West, nor superior to Korea in the East. Following in this vein was Yanaihara?Tadao, the youngest professor to become Chair of Colonial Studies at Tokyo Imperial University. Tadao publicly and repeatedly condemned Japan's occupation of Korea as a "despotic regime." But Tadao was far from alone. Records and journals have revealed that the majority of academics in the field of colonial studies held similar opinions, and these opinions were passed on to their students. Tadao was motivated by a strong sense of justice. He asserted that though Korean protesters in the March 1st Movement were horrifically slaughtered, the Korean people were still the victors, having won a war of conscience. The Japanese Imperialist Government was like an unmoveable mountain, but Japanese who were led by their conscience chose to fight against it regardless. Unsplash Because of Tadao's overtly hostile stance toward the government and the military, he was placed under a professional ban and dismissed from the university. When the massacres at Kanto began, academics from imperial universities publicly condemned the government and the police for their role, even writing to inform as many as possible that the pogroms had been incited by officials. Their protests reached cabinet members who then demanded an end to the violence. Despite the government's attempts to distance itself from the horrific mass murders, claiming they had sent in police, Japanese activists responded, accusing the police of having committed "repugnant" crimes. A Japanese student paper wrote an article condemning the massacres, mournfully concluding, "try as we may, we can never erase what happened." Though academics led the fray in arguing for Korea's independence, they were not the only ones outraged by their government's actions. Ishibashi Tanzan, the accomplished editor-in-chief of Japan's Far Eastern Economic Review, used his position as a one of Japan's foremost journalists and economic analysts to attack the government's "absurd" expansionist and colonizing ideology. He accused the government, which bizarrely consulted him on economic policy, of behaving with marauder-like aggression toward Korea and China. Tanzan argued that Japan had no right to lay claim to Korea and that Korean resistance was the "natural" response to a Japanese regime. "The Korean people are one people," he wrote. "They have their own language. They have a long independent history. Some may find it regrettable, but there is not one single Korean who is glad that his country has been annexed by Japan. Until Koreans finally regain their independence they will naturally and repeatedly resist Japanese rule." Tanzan's influence was considerable as he presented a dual argument that Korea's emancipation would not only be morally right, it would help Japan. Rather than being continually censored, Tanzan was able to pragmatically confront issues by offering solutions that came with benefits. Under the guise of economics, Tanzan's protests reached the elite in government. As mentioned earlier, though protests most often came from Japan's intellectual elite, they were never able to drown out the demands of those who justified their oppression with repressive expansionist policies. Some may say that their efforts were for naught, but the very existence of Japanese dissenters and protesters changes the way in which colonial history should be read. While the Imperial Japnese Government "assimilated with the sword", academics protested with their pens. Many of the atrocities perpetrated against Korean citizens would have been unknown to the wider world if not for these men. Unsplash One of the most fulfilling elements of membership in the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation Profiles of Courage board is examining the essays on political courage that high school students around the country and, increasingly, around the globe, prepare each year. This year, 2,515 students submitted essays, and the finalists we examined were stunningly eloquent and inspiring, making our choice unusually difficult. Nearly two decades ago, the committee was taken with an essay that took first place but that, in its insight and idealism, has special interest in our own time. So timely, in fact, was the essay that won in the year 2000 that it bears fresh examination as the country gears up for the 2020 presidential election. Here are some annotated excerpts from that winning essay: ** ** ** (O)ur future is at risk due to a troubling tendency towards cynicism among voters and elected officials. The successful resolution of every issue before us depends on the fundamental question of public integrity. Sadly, the cynicism that prevailed in the year 2000, just after the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, has only grown in the years since, when two wars, a devastating economic collapse and increased coarsening of our political rhetoric have rendered American politics toxic and have sent public dispirit to new, troubling heights. It is hard to imagine this high school essayist could have contemplated the depths to which American politics has sunk in the years since he sat down to write his essay. ** ** ** A new attitude has swept American politics. Candidates have discovered that it is easier to be elected by not offending anyone rather than by impressing the voters. Politicians are rushing for the center, careful not to stick their necks out on issues. We might quibble with whether the drive to political safety is a new phenomenon; for many years Congress was full of milquetoast characters who repeatedly drifted to safe harbors. But the flight from the sort of courage that Sen. Kennedy cited in his book a politicians willingness to risk the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow man is inescapable in our own time. ** ** ** (C)ynicism is perhaps the greatest threat to the continued success of the American political system. Cynical candidates have developed an ability to outgrow their convictions in order to win power. Cynical citizens have given up on the election process, going to the polls at one of the lowest rates in the democratic world. This barely needs comment. Public cynicism is rampant in contemporary America. And political figures have not hesitated to tailor their views for political gain. President Donald J. Trump once was an advocate of abortion rights; that view is anathema in the new GOP, and as a candidate he abandoned it. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, a 2020 presidential candidate, once had an A rating from the National Rifle Association, a profile that would be fatal in Democratic primaries. Now she has an F rating, more congenial to the constituencies she is courting. ** ** ** Such an atmosphere inevitably distances our society from its leadership and is thus a fundamental threat to the principles of democracy. For the first time in more than a decade, perhaps longer, some Americans now speak openly about threats to the principles of democracy. These worries first surfaced in the current century with the crackdown on civil liberties in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks. Now they are being voiced more broadly, as the political norms that served as buoys to our democracy are being moved. Republican lawmakers joined Democratic critics of the president in opposing his emergency order for a barrier on the Mexican border, for example. The congressional effort to overturn Trumps initiative passed both houses, a measure of concern among elected officials. The president vetoed the measure. ** ** ** Fortunately for the political process, there remain a number of committed individuals who are steadfast enough in their beliefs to run for office to benefit their fellow Americans. Such people are willing to eschew political and personal comfort and convenience because they believe they can make a difference. Thankfully, this has always been true, and indeed the Profiles in Courage committee has celebrated them since the inception of the award nearly three decades ago. Among the winners are President Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama. One of my favorite selections was Elizabeth Redenbaugh, the only white member of North Carolinas New Hanover County school board (and the only Republican) to oppose a redistricting plan increasing racial and socioeconomic segregation in the districts schools. ** ** ** (E)nergy, candor, conviction and ability to bring people together (can) stand against the current of opportunism, moral compromise and partisanship which runs rampant on the American political scene. There are precious few political figures today who base their appeals on unity rather than on the divisions that define us and that, when harnessed cynically but skillfully, propel so many to public office. Trump and the nearly two dozen Democrats seeking the White House would do well to read the passage above. ** ** ** (I am glad to have) an answer to those who say American young people see politics as a cesspool of corruption, beyond redemption. I have heard that no sensible young person today would want to give his or her life to public service. I can personally assure you this is untrue. So wrote the student who won the Profiles in Courage high school essay contest some 19 years ago. His essay represents the redemption of a passage in Sen. Kennedys book that I have consulted so many times that my 35-cent Cardinal Edition paperback opens automatically to that page: The stories of past courage can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul. As for the essay winners personal assurance that a young person would choose a life of public service, that, too, has been redeemed. The author of that essay which celebrated its subject as a reaction to the cynical climate which threatens the effectiveness of the democratic system went from St. Josephs High School in South Bend, Indiana, to Harvard, became a Rhodes Scholar, served in Afghanistan and was elected mayor of his hometown. Now Pete Buttigieg is running for president. One of his rivals is the subject of his winning entry, Sen. Bernie Sanders. (David M. Shribman is the former executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Follow him on Twitter at ShribmanPG.) Bethlehem Edward Deyoe never spoke much about his time in the Army during World War II. Deyoe, 97, enlisted in the Army in Albany in 1943. He was sent to boot camp in Indiana and then deployed into combat in Africa and Italy for two years. When Deyoe completed active duty, he went back to work at his family's trucking business in Waterford. When he retired at age 62, Deyoe spent his days camping, fishing and hunting, doing the things he loved. But one thing he avoided was talking about his wartime experience. That was until about a year ago. While sitting outside at the Stewart House in Athens, Deyoe started recalling his time in the war to his son John and his daughter-in-law Carol Carpenter for the first time in any detail. He was finally ready to unburden himself. "I know what hell is, and I've been to there and back," Deyoe said. On Sunday, Edward Deyoe was honored by the Bethlehem Grange No. 137 in Selkirk for his military service as one of three recipients of the Grange's annual Community Award. Deyoe's son John, who is a Vietnam-era Army veteran who served in West Germany, was also honored with the award along with Shaun Wagner of the Selkirk Fire Department. There is a family connection here with some of the award-winners: Carol Carpenter, John Deyoe's husband and Edward Deyoe's daughter-in-law is president of Bethlehem Grange No. 137. Edward and John Deyoe were also given an additional honor: The two men were given homemade quilts given to them by the Quilts of Valor Foundation. The Quilts of Valor given to the Deyoes were made by Kerry Barnes, who is the New York state coordinator for the Quilts of Honor Foundation and lives in Oswego. Normally Barnes will find a local volunteer to make the quilt, but in this case, she couldn't find one in the Capital Region. So, because of Edward Deyoe's age, she decided to just do it herself. The quilts normally take anywhere from two weeks to a month to complete, and Barnes made both of them for the Deyoes. She and her husband made the trip to Selkirk on Sunday for the Community Award ceremony after having awarded a quilt in Plattsburgh on Saturday to another veteran. "I made every effort to get here," said Barnes, who started volunteering for the organization 13 years ago. "My dad was in World War II, and on Memorial Day 15 years ago, I said to myself that would be a great way to honor my dad." John Deyoe, who is director of the Albany County Office of Weights and Measures, says he's not surprised that his father didn't like to talk about his war experiences. The public may view veterans as heroes who should share their stories of bravery, but those who go through war don't see it the same way, he said. "If you talk to any old veteran, nobody said anything," John Deyoe said. "It was a bad experience." Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. When he did talk about the war, Edward Deyoe would sometimes say that he was called "Shorty" by Gen. George Patton and had fought in Africa. When Carpenter obtained his war records, she said she found out that Deyoe had also fought under Patton in Sicily, as well as the battles of Naples-Foggia and Rome-Arno. Sometime during the fighting near the Arno River, Deyoe went missing for six months from his unit. No one knows for certain, but it's possible he was taken prisoner by enemy soldiers but then escaped because he later rejoined his unit. "He was then sent to the military hospital because he had a huge bump on his head," Carpenter said. After receiving his award Sunday, Edward Deyoe said he was so happy to have been recognized. His memories of battle still seem vivid to him. He said that because of his short stature his family says he is 5 feet, 3 inches tall he was often asked to go on dangerous assignments. "Take Shorty, he's hard to hit," Deyoe recalled hearing his supervisors say. "I'd occasionally say 'no' but you've got to do what they told you." Deyoe says he remembered Patton's strong personality. "Old Blood and Guts," Deyoe recalled, using Patton's nickname. "What a man. When he wanted it done, he wanted it done. He didn't care. He's a good man." Deyoe says he never takes life for granted after seeing so many of his fellow soldiers fall in battle. "What I've been through, you wouldn't believe," Deyoe said. "Never give up. I never thought I'd live this long. I'm alive. I'm not in the ground yet." Catskill Newly purchased by Australian investors, the nation's second-largest trash incineration firm wants to dump incinerator ash inside a former Greene County limestone quarry, drawing opposition from environmentalists over a potential threat to the nearby Hudson River. On Monday, former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator Judith Enck released a letter signed by 50 environmental and community groups urging Catskill town officials to reject the proposal for the Peckham Industries quarry off Route 9W just south of the village. Currently, state environmental officials are weighing an application from New-Hampshire-based Wheelabrator Technologies to use the deep quarry to hold millions of tons of ash created from garbage incineration at three company plants in New York Hudson Falls in Washington County, Poughkeepsie and Peekskill. Plans call for the company to dump abut 445,000 tons of ash a year at the Catskill facility, which has capacity for nearly five decades of such dumping, according to Enck. Catskills resident and geologist Paul Rubin said underground limestone formations near the quarry called karst can contain numerous channels and caves eroded by water, which could provide paths for water passing through ash to get into groundwater and then the nearby Hudson. "Putting massive amounts of incinerator ash in an old quarry so close to the Hudson River makes no sense,," said Enck. "This is one of the worst pollution projects I have seen in a long time in the Hudson Valley." She said the ash contains "high levels of heavy metals and dioxins," since fly ash captures contaminants that are filtered through air pollution equipment at the incinerators. Wheelabrator filed paperwork for the Catskills facility with the state Department of Environmental Conservation in August 2016. In a November 25, 2016 response, DEC officials also raised concerns over the presence of limestone karst formations in the vicinity. Such formations could affect whether the site could be monitored for potential leaks, or if such leaks could be contained if discovered, according to the DEC response. The agency advised Wheelabrator to conduct additional testing to determine whether karst is around the quarry. DEC has received applications from both Wheelabrator and Peckham, according to the agency. Currently, both applications are deemed to be incomplete, meaning a review for a potential decision has not yet begun. "If additional information is submitted, DEC will continue to rigorously evaluate these applications to protect public health and the environment and to ensure all applicable standards are met," according to a DEC statement. Catskill Supervisor Dorreen Davis said the town has received no applications for the project. Should an application be submitted, she said, it would "automatically trigger a series of regulatory and environmental reviews at federal, state and local levels, including the town planning and zoning boards." A presentation by Wheelabrator officials to Catskill village officials in January indicated that the quarry would be lined to protect against leaks, with collection pipes used to capture water that passes through ash. Called leachate, this water would be trucked for treatment at the village-owned wastewater treatment plant. Attempts to reach village Mayor Vincent Seeley for comment were not successful. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. "The proposed facility will operate in accordance with stringent state and federal environmental standards designed to protect public health and the environment while providing significant long-term economic and environmental benefits to the town and village," said Wheelabrator spokeswoman Michelle Nadeau. "We are at an early stage in our planning and would like to present our concept and listen to feedback from local people." She said incineration ash is "routinely found to pass the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency toxicity test for waste and, therefore, determined to be a non-hazardous waste according to DEC and EPA standards." A call to Peckham Industries for comment was not returned. Currently, Enck said, incineration ash from Hudson Falls is taken to a municipal landfill in Shrewsbury, Mass. Ash from the Poughkeepsie plant is taken to the Colonie town landfill in the Capital Region, while the ash from Peekskill is taken to a Wheelabrator-owned facility in Putnam, Conn. In February, Wheelabrator Technologies was acquired by an affiliate of the Macquarie Group, an Australian multinational investment bank, for an undisclosed price. Wheelabrator owns four ash landfills, as well as 19 trash incinerators, with three more under construction. Riverkeeper President Paul Gallay said, "There are many better alternatives for the site ... We're calling on the community to get active and engage their leaders so that, together, we can agree on a better plan for the old quarry than to fill it with toxic ash." He said the quarry could be allowed to fill with water, potentially forming an 80-acre lake as a recreational area. The site is near a 1.2-mile crest with sweeping views of the Hudson Valley, including the Olana historic site. In 2015, Peckham Industries donated a 76-acre conservation easement along the ridge to the conservation group Scenic Hudson. Opponents of the plan will hold a meeting 7 p.m. April 23 at the Catskill Community Center, 344 Main St. Washington Democratic presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand said Sunday that her campaign has raised more than $3 million in the first quarter. Nearly two-thirds of contributors to Gillibrand's campaign are women, communications director Meredith Kelly said. Advocacy for women and victims of assault and harassment have been early themes of the New York senator's campaign. Kelly said 92 percent of donations to Gillibrand's campaign were under $200 and that the average online donation was $25. The campaign now has about $10.2 million cash in hand, Kelly said. Aides to Gillibrand's campaign view her candidacy in two phases. The first "exploratory" phase began in January when Gillibrand revealed that she was considering a presidential run on during an appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." She then quickly made her first trip to the leadoff caucus state of Iowa and held 60 events across eight states. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. The second phase began with the formal launch of her campaign on March 17. Since then, her campaign says she doubled her total number of donors, though the campaign did not disclose the total number of donors or donations to her campaign. In a memo to supporters, Gillibrand's campaign also says that she received a fundraising boost from her recent appearance at a CNN town hall-type meeting. In that memo, Gillibrand's campaign says that of donations made within 48 hours of the April 9 town hall, 63 percent were new contributors. GLENMONT Two days before Christmas, Sohayla Mahmoud's parents were pulled off a plane as they were attempting to leave Egypt for medical treatment in Turkey and jailed. Her younger sister was also arrested outside the Cairo airport. For 22 days, Mahmoud didn't know whether her parents were alive. Finally, a lawyer met her father in the government's prosecution office and told another attorney, who posted on a Facebook page that helps find family members of prisoners and connected them. Mahmoud's sister was released, but her mother and father remain behind bars. Her parents Ahmed Abdelnaby Mahmoud and Raia Abdallah Hassan are being held without charges, awaiting trial and she still doesn't know why. "I'm not going to stop until I create that pressure that will help release my parents," said Mahmoud, a 29-year-old mother of three who works as a medical interpreter. "I wake up every day wondering if they're alive or dead." Mahmoud, who immigrated to marry an American a decade ago and became a U.S. citizen, said her parents served the community, feeding and giving clothes to the poor, in their Alexandria home. When citizens took to the streets in the Arab Spring in 2011, they volunteered with the Muslim Brotherhood to support the community and challenge corruption, but were never members. Now they're behind bars amid a crackdown on political opposition under the current government decried by human rights organizations. Mahmoud's two sisters who still live in Egypt can see their mother anytime, but are only able to visit their father every 15 days. She said they bribe officials around $115 to meet him along with the government prosecutor and his defense lawyer. Mahmoud's father told them he's been tortured by beating and electric shock. He's held handcuffed in the dark. He is only fed every few days and has lost half his body weight. He doesn't receive medication for his asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes and herniated disks. "The physical torture he's under is not humane," Mahmoud said. "It's been really tough. I myself can't sleep. Every time I have food in front of me, I feel like how can I eat when my father is starving all the time." Mahmoud's parents have tourist visas and visit the U.S. regularly; the last time she saw them was in Egypt in November. She still doesn't know why they're in jail. But after a 2013 military coup overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood and put current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in power, hundreds were rounded up based on their membership or perceived membership in the organization, human rights organization Amnesty International's country report says. Philippe Nassif, Amnesty U.S.'s advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa, told the Times Union he heard about the Mahmouds' case from human rights researchers, although he hasn't verified torture allegations. But the family's experience fits a pattern of abuse under Sisi, he said. "What he's done is used the Muslim Brotherhood connection to radicalized elements that are hell-bent on overthrowing his rule and used it as a pretext to crack down on everybody opposed to human rights and economic conditions. Any complaint you have about the state can get you thrown in jail," Nassif said. "This is much worse than it's ever been. Tens of thousands have been thrown in prison." Now, Nassif said, Sisi has plans to change Egypt's constitution to extend presidential term limits. "He's basically stamped out any opposition to his rule and this change is solidifying the political realities. It's a one-man show in Egypt," Nassif said. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. On April 8, a bipartisan group of 17 senators signed a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging the U.S. government to put pressure on Egypt against the detention of U.S. citizens, weapons purchases, and the constitutional change. Mahmoud lobbied in Washington D.C. with formerly detained Egyptians and their families ahead of Sisi's visit to President Donald Trump last week. When asked his opinion on the proposed change to Egypt's constitution, Trump replied he didn't know about it but said Sisi was "doing a great job." Mahmoud is pushing to see the U.S. wield its power as a military aid supplier to Egypt to make change. "I want to tell my President that you are hurting other American families working here," she said. She also reached out to U.S Rep. Paul Tonko, whose office said they would contact the Egyptian embassy in Washington D.C. and U.S. consulate in Cairo. Tonko's office did not respond to request for comment. A representative at the Cairo consulate Monday told the Times Union there was little they could do since the Mahmouds aren't U.S. citizens. The last time Mahmoud's sisters saw their father on April 7, they were told they wouldn't be able to meet him in 15 days because of the constitutional change. But she hasn't given up hope yet and will do everything she can to free her parents. "I don't want my kids to grow up knowing evil will win," she said. Follow the #FreeAhmedandRaia Facebook page for updates. ALBANY "Hands up stop beating us!" That's what community members chanted as they marched along Central Avenue, their palms raised in imitation of Armando Sanchez, the West Hill man shown in a body camera video that resulted in the arrest of an Albany police officer two weeks ago. Family members of Sanchez, activists and elected officials spoke Sunday afternoon before a crowd of 75 at Townsend Park during the second rally in a week. Expressing sorrow as well as outrage, they promised to keep protesting until their demands for justice were met. But activist Marlon Anderson told the Times Union change would be achieved not just through protests, but through politics. "This is all well and good, kumbaya," Anderson said, motioning to the rally. "But this needs to be moved down there" he pointed toward City Hall. Albany Police Officer Luke Deer was arrested on charges of felony assault and misdemeanor official misconduct on April 2. The criminal complaint accuses Deer of using a baton to beat Sanchez after a group of officers, responding to a noise complaint, kicked in the door of a First Street residence on March 16. Two other officers were suspended without pay. District Attorney David Soares' office has six months to present the case to a grand jury for a possible indictment. "My family is outraged," said Gloria Stanford, Sanchez's sister. "Police officers are supposed to carry themselves with integrity and keep us safe, and you come out and beat all those boys this way. You are the criminals, you are the thugs." "They need to be in their rightful place: behind bars," said Thelma Dutton, Sanchez's aunt. "They don't need to be free, walking through these streets, beating up on our babies. ... This is not right." Anderson said the incident was just the latest in a string of episodes that have eroded relations between the police and Albany's minority community. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. He referred to the shooting last August of 19-year-old Ellazar Williams, who was left paralyzed at the end of a foot chase with a veteran detective. Police said the shooting was justified because Williams had a knife; a grand jury brought no charges against the detective, who subsequently retired. Such incidents, Anderson said, are "undermining all the efforts the community put in from the police side and from city hall. It seems it's not coming down from up high and reaching the rank and file." He blamed ingrained police traditions and a lack of prioritization by politicians, but praised the response of Police Chief Eric Hawkins, who was hired last summer after a long career in Michigan. He started on the job in Albany just after the Williams shooting. Anderson said Hawkins' outsider perspective could be beneficial. The rally's speakers pushed for systemic change. "Who polices the police?" said Sanchez' mother, Sandra Thompson. "If we don't band together, it will happen again. It's not gonna be the last time; it wasn't the first time." ABC News(NEW YORK) -- The parents of a University of South Carolina student who mistook her alleged killer's car for an Uber spoke out Monday to recommend changes in the ride-sharing industry so no one else will have to endure the grief they are experiencing. "We've heard from strangers all over the country and so many people have told us it could have been our daughter, our son, ourselves," Marci Josephson, whose daughter, Samantha, was killed last month, told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America. "I think it's just become such a natural or new phenomenon using Uber. We trust people and you can't. You have to change the way that the laws are to make it safer because that's our nature. We automatically assume that we're safe," she continued. Samantha's father, Seymour, added, "We grow up teaching our kids not to get into cars with strangers. And what do we do? We get into cars with strangers." Samantha Josephson, a senior political science major, was out with friends in the Five Points neighborhood of Columbia, South Carolina when she ordered an Uber to take her home in the early hours of March 29. Security video showed her getting into a car around 2 a.m., which police believe she thought was her Uber. Police said after she got into the car, her alleged killer activated the child safety door locks, preventing her from escaping. Samantha's body was found in a wooded area near where suspected killer, Nathaniel Rowland, recently lived, police said, and the student's cellphone and blood were found in Rowland's car. Rowland was arrested and charged with murder and kidnapping. He is awaiting a bail hearing on April 22. "We just want you to know that she is a fabulous young woman," Marci Josephson said of her daughter. "Kind, a best friend to everyone, really determined, hard worker and a fun young woman." Seymour Josephson said he called her "sweet pea." "I called both of my children sweet pea. They are just, both of my kids, are phenomenal. They're our best friends," he said. During a vigil for Samantha earlier this month, Seymour Josephson launched a quest to make sure other students are made aware of the potential dangers of ride-sharing. South Carolina lawmakers introduced the "Samantha L. Josephson Ridesharing Safety Act," which would require ride-sharing vehicles to have an illuminated, company-provided sign with the company's "trademark or logo that is patently visible so as to be seen in darkness." While Seymour Josephson said the proposed law is a "great start," he wants to see more, including requiring ride-sharing operators to have license plates on the front of their cars. South Carolina is one of 19 states that don't require license plates on the front of cars. "When the car is pulling up, you can't see the front license plate," the father said. He also wants ride-sharing companies to place bar codes on the passenger and driver's side of vehicles. "You put your phone up to it and if turns green, that's my ride. If it's not your ride, it turns red," he said. "The technology is already out there. It's a very easy way to implement safety for the consumer as well as the driver." Marci Seymour said everyone who takes a ride-sharing vehicle should get into the habit of asking the driver if they know the name of the person they are picking up before getting into the car. "It has to be automatic, like putting on a seat-belt," she said. "You have to ask, 'What's my name?' because it can be anyone." Samantha Josephson was expected to graduate from the University of South Carolina this spring and was planning to go to law school at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Her parents plan to be at their daughter's graduation, where her diploma will be presented posthumously. "It will be the hardest thing for us to go, but we want to go," the mother said. "She wanted us to be there." Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. The Egyptian, Greek and Cypriot armed forces started on Monday the joint naval and air exercise Medusa-8 in Egypt's territorial waters in the Mediterranean, a statement by Egyptian military spokesperson Tamer El-Refai said. The drill, which will last for several days, aims to boost military cooperation between the three countries "in the framework of the annual plan for joint exercises by the [Egyptian] Armed Forces to promote and support military cooperation with brotherly and friendly countries," the statement said. Taking part in the exercise are the Egyptian Navy helicopter carrier ENS Anwar El-Sadat, a Type 209 submarine and a number of F-16 jets. In 2015, Egypt and Greece held their first joint exercise Medusa 5. The exercise is one of the most important drills in the Mediterranean, and reflects the level of cooperation among Egypt, Greece, and Cyprus. Search Keywords: Short link: By Jun Ji-hye SK Telecom will build a "smart" Korea Military Academy (KMA), featuring high-end fifth-generation (5G) networks, enabling cadets to conduct military exercises using virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technology, the nation's top mobile carrier said Monday. Under a business agreement, SK Telecom and the Army's elite school will cooperate in developing a smart KMA with 5G networks and other cutting-edge information and communications technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), AR, VR, the internet of things, cloud computing and big data. The two parties will also cooperate in carrying out studies on quantum cryptography and drone technologies. For the first task, SK Telecom plans to install 5G infrastructure throughout the KMA within the first half of the year. Once this is completed, the KMA will evolve into a smart military academy, in which advanced technologies based on 5G networks are implemented in all areas such as military exercises, fitness management, study and facility management. The most notable change will be the implementation of a military training system using VR and AR technology. The system will be composed of VR-based shooting and tactical training simulators, AR-based command and control simulators and training effect analysis systems. Technologies will also change cadets' fitness management and study environment. Cadets will wear devices and be offered their fitness data analyzed by AI and big data technology. This will provide them with consistent and systematic fitness information, the telecom firm said. Smart lecture rooms will also be built, offering varied programs such as lectures with VR and AR-based content. After lectures, an AI assistant will manage the study schedules of each cadet. SK Telecom and the KMA will continue to expand interchange of technology and jointly host industry-university seminars to create new cooperation models in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. "SK Telecom will join forces in leading the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the realm of defense," said Choi Il-gyu, who is in charge of SK Telecom's business-to-business services. KMA Superintendent Lt. Gen. Chung Jin-kyung said, "The KMA, which nurtures the most elite military officers, will become a first mover that leads the future of our military." WASHINGTON Even before Rensselaer County became Ground Zero for drinking water contamination from PFOA, the chemical industry developed what it insisted were safer compounds to replace Teflon and others found in common "nonstick" cookware and other consumer items. But scientists, environmental advocates and lawmakers argue that it's the industry's claims that don't stick. Nowhere is the science of fluoropolymers watched more closely than in Hoosick Falls, where the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics plant has been determined to be a prime source of PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) contamination in drinking water. A Hoosick Falls resident, Michael Hickey, famously Googled Teflon and cancer in 2014 after his father died of kidney cancer at age 68. As first reported in the Times Union, his research ultimately brought the negative health implications of PFOA to the surface. The village turned off its spigots and reverted to bottled water supplied by Saint-Gobain in December 2015, and Saint-Gobain funded a filtration system the following year. The Environmental Protection Agency in 2015 succeeded in getting Saint-Gobain's suppliers and other producers of non-stick plastics to phase out use of PFOA and similar compounds. In their place, Saint-Gobain and the rest of the industry turned to the use of so-called short-chain chemicals that they believed were safer because they do not accumulate in the human body as much as PFOA does. But multiple studies on mice and rats have shown the new products posed many of the same health threats as chemicals theyre replacing. The studies, cited by the federal Environmental Protection Agency last November, found liver and kidney toxicity, immune system compromise, delays in genital development and cancer. Saint-Gobain, headquartered in France, uses PFOA substitutes in its products though it is not entirely clear which ones. The primary substitute now on the market has been branded GenX. First produced by DuPont in 2009, GenX has become the chemical industrys go-to ingredient for the making of fluoropolymers like Teflon for non-stick cookware, as well as a host of other products. GenX, PFOA and many other chemicals are all categorized in the PFAS class (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl) of substances. Chemours, an offshoot of DuPont, entered into a consent decree last year with North Carolina environmental authorities and advocates after GenX was detected in the states Cape Fear River and nearby wells. The decree required Chemours to pay a $12 million fine plus $1 million in investigative costs, and curtail wastewater discharges until they can be demonstrated not to contain contaminants. Chemours committed to investing over $100 million to reduce discharges of GenX and all PFAS compounds by 99 percent or more by the end of this year. Much like the chemicals it was designed to replace, GenX is hard to eradicate once it gets into the environment, especially groundwater. But unlike PFOA and its sister chemical PFOS (perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, a key ingredient in the fabric protector Scotchgard), GenX does not last as long in the human body. Chemical industry representatives argue the new kinds of PFAS products are distinct from the older ones found not only in Hoosick Falls but nearby Petersburgh and in the Hudson Valley city of Newburgh. The large body of data that has been developed by universities, government agencies, independent laboratories, and industry scientists supports the conclusion that todays PFAS products do not present a significant risk to human health or the environment, said Robert Simon of the FluoroCouncil, a branch of the American Chemistry Council, a trade group that represents manufacturers of fluoropolymer products. The FluoroCouncils website states that one of its primary goals is to support a global transition toward short-chain chemistries that limit environmental impacts. Lawmakers and environmental advocates counter that like their more toxic precursors, GenX and other forms of PFAS pose significant risks even if they are not fully understood yet. Access to clean drinking water is a right, said U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand earlier this month at a hearing convened by the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, and protecting clean water must be central to the work we do all of us. Gillibrand, whose upstate home in Brunswick is about 20 miles from Hoosick Falls, is working on legislation that for the first time would place PFAS chemicals, including GenX, on the governments Toxic Release Inventory. Manufacturers using them would have to publicly report when the chemicals are released into the environment. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. These chemicals are such a huge class, and there are new ones emerging every day, said Maureen Cunningham, senior director for clean water for Environmental Advocates of New York. We react only when there is a problem; we have to adopt the precautionary principle. The short-chain effect passing more quickly through the human body may not make a major difference, said Alexis Temkin, toxicologist for the Environmental Working Group in Washington. There are no good studies on how they behave in humans, Temkin said. And whatever the speed of passing through humans, they definitely are very persistent in the environment. In Newburgh this past weekend, authorities were fighting a spill of fire-fighting foam into a local creek. The foam, which years ago would have contained PFOS, now relies on a short-chain compound. PFOA and PFOS have appeared on the EPAs Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule list, requiring water systems serving communities with populations of more than 10,000 to check for it. But GenX is not on the list, which is issued every five years and is not slated to be updated till the 2020s. And in any case, a municipal water system like the one in Hoosick Falls has fewer than 10,000 customers and would not be required to run the checks. Because we are not testing for GenX, we dont know if theres a problem, Cunningham said. Early in 2018, officials in the village of Hoosick Falls suspected GenX use and brought in an expert from North Carolina involved in GenX detection there to analyze its ground samples. Testers from New York state did the same. Neither detected GenX. But the testing did uncover amounts of PFBA (perfluorobutanoic acid), a short-chain compound comparable to GenX. Testing also revealed traces of PFPeA (perfluoropentanoic acid), yet another short-chain substance. Neither chemical was detected in drinking water, indicating the filtration systems are working as they should. A spokeswoman for Saint-Gobain declined to say which short-chain chemicals are in use in Hoosick Falls, stating such information is proprietary and business confidential. Albany Lawyers for the states Catholic schools, Jewish Yeshivas and independent schools have all mounted legal challenges to the state Education Departments latest plan for academic oversight. And all three were in court Monday seeking an injunction for an immediate halt to the new substantial equivalency rules that call for surveys by local school boards of non-public schools within their boundaries. Questions of bureaucratic protocol, whether this would harm the private schools, and separation of church and state all came into play as attorneys gave varying arguments about why the program should be halted. What is before the court today, in my opinion, is a kaleidoscope of issues, said Michael Costello, representing the states Catholic schools. Costello, along with Michael Verde representing independent schools and Avi Shick representing Yeshivas, were before State Supreme Court Justice Christina Ryba asking for the injunction. At issue are new rules, instituted in November by the state Education Department calling for checks on whether non-public schools offer an education that is substantially equivalent to public schools. The guidelines came after lawmakers last June called for broader oversight which stemmed from a lawsuit by a former Yeshiva student, Naftali Moster, who claimed that some of the most ultra-Orthodox Yeshivas spend so much time on religious teachings that students dont get adequate coursework in subjects like math, science or even English. Much of the Yeshiva instruction is in Yiddish. The guidelines were met with pushback almost as soon as they were laid out in November. Representatives of Catholic schools worried about potential conflicts since the reviews are supposed to be carried out by local school boards, who are in essence competing for students. These are our competitors with respect to enrollment, Costello said, referring to local public schools. And they argued that overly intrusive inspections could impinge on church-state separations, especially since Catholic schools are considered components of local churches. Independent schools, which include institutions like the Albany Academies, have operated for more than 100 years without complaints of substandard education, said their lawyer, Michael Verde. He also contended that the new oversight plan should have gone through the Legislature rather than the Education Department. There are standards and metrics that have never been imposed before, he said. Avi Shick, who noted that there are 440 Yeshivas in New York, said because the matter touches on constitutional issues, the injunction should be imposed before any harm is inflicted on the schools. Constitutional injury is de facto, irreparable injury, he said. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. C. Harris Dague, the special counsel in the Attorney Generals litigation bureau, countered that no injunction is needed since the new guidelines will play out over time. Theres no need for that, he said of an immediate halt that would stem from an injunction. There are no fast-moving trains, he said. This is a slow-moving freight train. He also argued that church-state separation doesnt void states oversight on education matters. State government interest in education is voluminous, Dague said. Education of children is so important to the states interest because education is fundamental to society. Ryba said she would consider the request for an injunction, although there was no firm timeline. rkarlin@timesunion.com 518 454 5758 PARIS Karen Bonventre and a group of Shenendehowa students began Monday afternoon eating lunch under the cherry blossom trees in front of Notre Dame Cathedral's flying buttresses. "It was magical," said Bonventre, a trip chaperon and teacher at Shenendehowa High School. "It's a moment we will always treasure." Just a few hours later, in the early evening, Bonventre, her fellow chaperons and their students joined Parisians and people across the world watching a devastating fire tear through the cathedral, leaving it with extensive damage. Finished in the 13th century, Notre Dame is one of the world's most famous and popular religious, cultural and historic landmarks. Bonventre, a few other chaperons and 18 students from the Shenendehowa Central School District toured the Notre Dame Cathedral on Monday afternoon after their lunch outside. They left the church in the mid-afternoon; the fire started around 6:30 p.m., according to news reports. "It's hard to even put what happened into words," Bonventre said. "It's overwhelming. It's almost too much to bear." When the fire began, the Shenendehowa students had already returned to their host families' homes. All the students and chaperons on the trip were contacted and are safe, school officials confirmed. A group of 29 Shenendehowa students and six faculty members were in France on Monday as part of the school district's PEACE Program, an exchange program. The remaining members of their group that didn't go on Monday were scheduled to visit the cathedral on Thursday, Bonventre said. Shenendehowa students have been participating in the PEACE Program for more than 20 years. During the 12-day visit, they tour attractions like the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, the Latin Quarter, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower. Notre Dame has always been a favorite, Bonventre said. "I thought Notre Dame was so beautiful," said Sarah Van der Veer, a senior who visited the cathedral Monday. "The amount of details with all of the gargoyles, statues and the stained glass on the inside was captivating, especially (given) the time it was built in." Bonventre said she has visited the cathedral a dozen times, but each time she continues to be in awe of its Gothic architecture, vibrant stained-glass windows and history. "You can't imagine Paris without imagining Notre Dame," Bonventre said. Van der Veer said that, as soon as news of the fire broke, people in Paris bombarded social media with videos and pictures. Many people went to witness the blaze, she said. "It's a monument they see always, and they thought it would be there forever, because it has been, so it's very shocking to see this happen," the 17-year-old said. Her host family worried that even if they rebuild the cathedral, the landmark "won't ever be the same." The structure, including its two frontal towers, had been "saved and preserved as a whole," but two-thirds of the roof had been destroyed, according to fire officials. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. As the blaze raged on for hours, the cathedral's iconic spire and parts of the roof collapsed. Bonventre said her host family turned off the television when they couldn't bear the site of the cathedral burning any longer. "They told me it was like a family member was being destroyed," Bonventre said. Victor Secco, a French exchange student who is studying at Siena College, echoed this sentiment. Secco, who is from the French Alps, said when he heard the news about Notre Dame he had to leave class when he became overwhelmed with emotion. "It was horrible watching it, because there was nothing I could do," Secco said. He said he has been in contact with his friends in France and is leaning on his fellow exchange students at Siena for support as news continues to break about the fire. "French people are really attached to our history and we all have memories there," Secco said. "I feel like a piece of my Frenchness is gone." The Irish Ambassador to the UK, Adrian O'Neill, who last week accused a British publication of anti-Irish bias has Tipperary links. Mr O'Neill had claimed that the weekly magazine, The Spectator, was publishing snide and hostile articles about Ireland. Mr O'Neill's late mother, Breda (nee Bourke), hailed from The Milestone outside Thurles. Breda left the Premier County in the 1940s for Dublin, where she married Longford man Tom O'Neill. Ambassador O'Neill's first cousins from the Ryan clan live throughout Tipperary in The Milestone, Hollyford, Curreeny, Annacarty, Drom and Inch, and Holycross. Mr O'Neill's cousin, Dr Michael Ryan, lectures in LIT-Thurles, and his cousin Liam Ryan, is owner of the Lower Deck pub in Portobello, Dublin. Ambassador O'Neill is also first cousin to author and poet Ann Haverty, originally of Holycross and Castlemeadows, Thurles. Adrian's grandparents, Dan and Mary Bourke, are buried in Ballycahill cemetery, as his grandfather was originally from Clareen, Ballycahill. Mr O'Neill told the Tipperary Star when he was appointed ambassador that he tried to get back to Tipperary as often as he can and visited his cousins ahead of taking up his role in London. In an open letter to the magazines editor Fraser Nelson, he said that the prevailing tone and tenor of articles about Ireland and Brexit have been with the occasional exception anti-Irish. His letter followed on from an article in The Spectator by the Daily Mails royal correspondent, Robert Hardman, which criticised Irelands decision to join the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, the French Commonwealth. Mr ONeill wrote that Mr Hardmans article was a particularly egregious example of The Spectators anti-Irish bias. He pointed out that 17 EU member states were either members or observers of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, but only Irelands affiliation incurs his scorn. Mr ONeill said he was not unduly thin-skinned, but he noticed an increasing anti-Irish sentiment which we all hoped had been consigned to the past which had resurrected itself over Brexit. Responding to Mr ONeills complaints, Mr Nelson said: The Spectator loves Ireland - but critiquing the Varadkar government is hardly the same as criticism of Ireland. If the UK ambassador wrote to The Irish Times every time Fintan OToole went for Theresa Mays government, the postage bill would be considerable. Mr O'Neill decision to write the letter was defended by Mr Varadkar, who described him as "an extremely professional ambassador. If he made a judgment to write to The Spectator I doubt that he did that without having carefully considered it and knowing the facts. Key executives of South Africa's mobile operator Rain try on LG Uplus' 5G services at U+ 5G Innovation Lab in Magok, western Seoul, April 10. / Courtesy of LG Uplus By Jun Ji-hye Telecommunications companies from various countries are visiting Korea to benchmark mobile carriers here that launched the world's first commercial fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks services on April 3, officials said Monday. On April 10, key executives of South Africa's newest mobile operator Rain, including Chairman Paul Harris and CEO Willem Roos, visited LG Uplus' office in Magok, western Seoul, to benchmark the Korean mobile carrier's 5G services, network construction and operation strategy. Rain is the only telecom company that possesses a 5G frequency in South Africa, according to LG Uplus. The visit from the South African company came after officials from Japan's telecom firm Softbank and the United Kingdom's British Telecommunications visited LG Uplus. Rain executives showed interest in particular in the Korean firm's virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) services as well as smart city and smart drone services. "We have received an increasing number of requests for a visit from telecommunications companies from other countries including Hong Kong," an official from LG Uplus said. The nation's top mobile carrier SK Telecom has also had an increasing number of visits from global telecom firms. Key executives from Singaporean telecommunications company Singtel including CEO Chua Sock Koong visited the head office of SK Telecom in Seoul on April 9 for a meeting with SK Telecom CEO Park Jung-ho on content business and 5G services. The meeting of the two CEOs came after the two companies signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for cooperation in esports business during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February. Officials from Germany's Deutsche Telekom are also scheduled to visit SK Telecom in June to check how Korea's top mobile carrier has constructed its 5G networks and what kinds of services it offers. During the MWC, SK Telecom signed an MOU with Deutsche Telekom to jointly develop a blockchain platform that will enable people to use digital identification. Board of directors and executives from Vietnam Post and Telecommunication (VNPT) visited KT on March 14 to benchmark the Korean telecom firm's major 5G sites, including 5G Open Lab in which KT collaborates with partners to develop 5G services, according to KT. "Officials from KT also gave a presentation on 5G networks and services during the ASEAN Conference on 5G, hosted by the Vietnamese government in Hanoi from March 21 to 22," a KT official said. Telecom firms and equipment companies from about 10 countries including Malaysia and Laos participated in the conference, showing an interest in KT's advanced technology. Korea's three mobile carriers launched the world's first commercial 5G mobile networks for a select group of customers April 3, just two hours before U.S. mobile carrier Verizon began its service. Then on April 5, the Korean firms started selling Samsung's Galaxy S10 5G, the world's first dedicated 5G smartphone. [April 15, 2019] Against a Backdrop of Volatile Markets and Poor Returns Canada's Full-Service Investment Firms See Investor Satisfaction Tumbling, J.D. Power Finds Following a rocky 2018 in capital markets and negative investment yields, investors in Canada who are edgy about their financial holdings have less satisfaction with their investment firm, according to the J.D. Power 2019 Canada Full Service Investor Satisfaction Study,SM released today. For the first time since the 2008 financial crisis, customer satisfaction has declined, dropping to 778 (on a 1,000-point scale) from 785 in 2018. "There's a belief in the industry that challenging market conditions are when financial advisors most demonstrate their value to clients," said Mike Foy, Senior Director of Wealth Intelligence at J.D. Power. "But what we see is that many advisors are not consistently having the sometimes difficult conversations necessary to manage client expectations and navigate through market volatility and downturns." According to the study, nearly one-third (32%) of investors say their advisor did not take the time to explain their portfolio performance during the past year. Investors not receiving an advisor explanation are almost twice as likely as those who receive an explanation (36% vs. 19%, respectively) to indicate their financial performance was "worse than expected" and were significantly less satisfied with both that performance and their advisor. The study also finds that the largest declines in performance satisfaction are among affluent investors (those with assets greater than $500,000), dropping 38 points year over year. More than one-fourth (28%) of affluent investors indicate performance was "worse than expected" and, among that group, 16% intend to decrease their investments during the next 12 months vs. just 4% among affluent investors who say performance was "as expected" or "better than expected." "Market conditions may be outside the control of investment firms and advisors, but they do have a significant ability to control how investors react to those conditions, and they need to be providing that transparency to help clients stay focused on long-term goals," Foy said. Following are some of the key findings of the 2019 study: Older investors much more concerned about financial wellness: About one in six (16%) of Pre-Boomers 1 and Boomers indicate they are "worse off" financially than they were a year ago, up from 9% in 2018. Among Millennials and Gen X, 8% perceive they are "worse off" in 2019 vs. 6% in 2018. About one in six (16%) of Pre-Boomers and Boomers indicate they are "worse off" financially than they were a year ago, up from 9% in 2018. Among Millennials and Gen X, 8% perceive they are "worse off" in 2019 vs. 6% in 2018. Fee understanding still elusive: Despite nearly half (48%) of investors indicating they have noticed changes in the information provided by their firm due to CRM2, the percentage of those who say they have "complete" understanding of fees remains stubbornly low at just 31%, down slightly from 32% last year and significantly trailing the 40% among U.S. full service investors, according to the J.D. Power 2019 Full Service Investor Satisfaction Study. SM Despite nearly half (48%) of investors indicating they have noticed changes in the information provided by their firm due to CRM2, the percentage of those who say they have "complete" understanding of fees remains stubbornly low at just 31%, down slightly from 32% last year and significantly trailing the 40% among U.S. full service investors, according to the J.D. Power 2019 Full Service Investor Satisfaction Study. Mobile matters: Among Boomers and Pre-Boomers, just 29% interacted with their investment firm via mobile, but that number jumps to 68% among Millennials and younger investors. Millennial mobile usage also skews much more toward phone usage than tablet usage, suggesting firms need to ensure their mobile apps are evolving to meet the different needs and expectations of younger-generation investors. Study Rankings Edward Jones (807) ranks highest in overall investor satisfaction for a seventh consecutive year and Assante (796) ranks second. BMO Nesbitt Burns, CIBC Wood Gundy and Raymond James rank third in a tie with 784. The Canada Full Service Investor Satisfaction Study measures overall investor satisfaction with full-service investment firms in eight factors (in order of importance): financial advisor; firm interaction; account information; information resources; product offerings; investment performance; commissions and fees; and problem resolution. The 2019 study is based on responses from 3,947 investors who make some or all of their investment decisions with a financial advisor regarding their primary investment account. It was fielded from November 2018 through January 2019. For more information about the 2019 Canada Full Service Investor Satisfaction Study, visit https://canada.jdpower.com/resource/canadian-full-service-investor-satisfaction-study. See the online press release at http://www.jdpower.com/pr-id/2019056. J.D. Power is a global leader in consumer insights, advisory services and data and analytics. These capabilities enable J.D. Power to help its clients drive customer satisfaction, growth and profitability. Established in 1968, J.D. Power has offices serving North America, South America, Asia Pacific and Europe. NOTE: One table follows. Study Ranking Overall Canadian Full Service Investor Satisfaction (Based on a 1,000-point scale) Edward Jones 807 Assante 796 BMO Nesbitt Burns 784 CIBC Wood Gundy 784 Raymond James 784 Desjardins 783 National Bank 783 RBC Dominion Securities 783 TD PIA 778 Industry Average 778 Scotia McLeod 770 Manulife 766 IG Wealth Management 760 Credential 758 Sun Life Financial 754 iA (HollisWealth) 751 Source (News - Alert): J.D. Power 2019 Canada Full Service Investor Satisfaction Study,SM Charts and graphs extracted from this press release for use by the media must be accompanied by a statement identifying J.D. Power as the publisher and the study from which it originated as the source. Rankings are based on numerical scores, and not necessarily on statistical significance. No Advertising or other promotional use can be made of the information in this release or J.D. Power survey results without the express prior written consent of J.D. Power. 1 J.D. Power defines the generational groups as Pre-Boomers (born before 1946); Boomers (1946-1964); Gen X (1965-1976); Gen Y (1977-1994); and Gen Z (1995-2004). Millennials (1982-1994) are a subset of Gen Y. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005060/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] A.I.-Based Photo Scanning and Sharing Platform Photomyne Wins HP's "Capture Your Life" Startup Challenge TEL AVIV, Israel, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Photomyne announced it has been selected as the winner of HP's "Capture Your Life" startup Challenge. The challenge, hosted by HP Tech Ventures in partnership with HP's Home Printing Solutions Business and held at SOSA TLV's offices earlier this month brought together five pre-selected startups to pitch their innovative concepts and technologies to the global technology company. After careful consideration, Photomyne was named the winner; the company will travel to Palo Alto, California to continue working with HP on its concept. "Naturally we're honored and thrilled to have won the challenge," said Photomyne CEO Nir Tzemah. "We are excited about what's ahead for us, and look forward to cultivating a mutually fruitful relationship." Photomyne's win is yet another significant achievement for the company this year: Photomyne has won the 2019 Red Herring Top 100 Europe award last month; it crossed the 100 million photos scanned with its photo scanner app; and it incorporated major product developments and offering into its service since the beginning of the year. About Photomyne Photomyne facilitates the way people around the world save, share, and enjoy their life memories, by harnessing the power of Machine Learning/AI technology to bridge between the past, present, and future of one's personal legacy. With its mobile application on iOS/Android and supporting cloud services, Photomyne aims to create the largest indexed photo collection of the pre-digital era through its easy to use photo scanning app. The app is offered in 15 languages including Western European languages, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Korean and Arabic, to name a few. The company's office is located in Bnei Brak, Israel. For more information please visit photomyne.com. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ai-based-photo-scanning-and-sharing-platform-photomyne-wins-hps-capture-your-life-startup-challenge-300831925.html SOURCE Photomyne [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Canada, France, UK launch research workshops exploring societal implications of Artificial Intelligence CIFAR, CNRS and UKRI to provide a total of CAD$400,00 to convene international, interdisciplinary and multi-sectoral working groups on responsible AI TORONTO, April 15, 2019 /CNW/ - CIFAR, in partnership with the the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), has launched a series of international AI & Society research workshops to examine the economic, ethical, policy and legal implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on society. As AI technologies become more integrated into daily life through digital assistants and self-driving vehicles, their responsible and ethical development is a pressing concern. The new workshops, set to take place from June 2019 to June 2020 across Canada, France and the UK, will build on international collaborations and bring together perspectives from the social sciences, humanities, law, engineering and computer science as well as policy, business and civil society. The interdisciplinary groups will explore how AI will impact different populations and sectors. Administered and managed by CIFAR with support from CNRS and UKRI, the workshops explore the global implications of AI on a range of topics - from future conflicts in the Arctic and societal trust in AI systems to how AI may impact the practice of medicine. Each workshop will also produce a non-technical publication with insights for policy-makers in the public and private sectors as well as the public. The eight workshops were carefully selected after a three-month adjudication process. Each workshop will receive up to CAD$50,000 for a total combined commitment of CAD$400,000 from all three organizations for this joint call. "The strength of these workshops is their interdisciplinary, international and cross-sectoral perspectives" says Dr. Alan Bernstein, President and CEO of CIFAR. "AI is being adopted around the world. It's critical that we develop new ways to understand what the implications are across populations, sectors and disciplines. CIFAR is thrilled to partner with France and the UK to advance understanding on AI in society." This new initiative is the second stream of workshops realized through CIFAR's AI & Society program, which was launched in 2017. The AI & Society proram is a key pillar of the CIFAR Pan-Canadian AI Strategy , a $125 million investment from the Government of Canada with the goal of supporting Canada's leadership in machine learning research and training. For Antoine Petit, Chairman and CEO of the CNRS, "it is essential to strive to analyse and better understand the potential ethical, social, legal or economic repercussions of artificial intelligence. The CNRS is happy to join forces with the CIFAR and UKRI to contribute to the reflection around these issues." "The potential of artificial intelligence is reaching all areas of society and business, so it is crucial that we give due consideration to the social and ethical implications of their greater use," says UK Research and Innovation Chief Executive, Professor Sir Mark Walport. "The workshops announced today, in partnership with CIFAR and CNRS, will make an important contribution to exploring the impact of artificial intelligence, and generate insights that will inform policy, business and the public." The full list of workshops and proposal teams is available here . About CIFAR CIFAR is a Canadian-based, global charitable organization that convenes extraordinary minds to address science and humanity's most important questions. By supporting long-term interdisciplinary collaboration, CIFAR provides researchers with an unparalleled environment of trust, transparency and knowledge sharing. Our time-tested model inspires new directions of inquiry, accelerates discovery and yields breakthroughs across borders and academic disciplines. Through knowledge mobilization, we are catalysts for change in industry, government and society. CIFAR's community of fellows includes 19 Nobel laureates and more than 400 researchers from 22 countries. In 2017, the Government of Canada appointed CIFAR to develop and lead the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy, the world's first national AI strategy. CIFAR is generously supported by the governments of Canada, British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, Canadian and international partners, as well as individuals, foundations and corporations. About CNRS Founded on October 19, 1939, the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) is among the world's leading research institutions. Its scientists explore the living world, matter, the Universe, and the functioning of human societies in order to meet the major challenges of today and tomorrow. Internationally recognised for the excellence of its scientific research, the CNRS is a reference in the world of research and development, as well as for the general public. www.cnrs.fr/en About UKRI UK Research and Innovation is a new body which works in partnership with universities, research organisations, businesses, charities, and government to create the best possible environment for research and innovation to flourish. We aim to maximise the contribution of each of our component parts, working individually and collectively. We work with our many partners to benefit everyone through knowledge, talent and ideas. Operating across the whole of the UK with a combined budget of more than 7 billion, UK Research and Innovation brings together the Arts and Humanities Research Council; Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council; Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council; Economic and Social Research Council; Innovate UK; Medical Research Council; Natural Environment Research Council; Research England; and Science and Technology Facilities Council. SOURCE CIFAR [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Canada Invests in Climate Change Adaptation in the Forest Sector FREDERICTON, April 15, 2019 /CNW/ - Climate change needs to be tackled head on in order to build a better future for Canadians. This is why the Government is investing in critical adaptation research, while creating good jobs and growing the economy. Matt DeCourcey, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, on behalf of the Honourable Amarjeet Sohi, Canada's Minister of Natural Resources, today announced an investment of $300,000 to University of New Brunswick (UNB) for a climate change adaptation project. Funded through Natural Resources Canada's Climate Change Adaptation Program, UNB's project will focus on the socio-economic costs and benefits of adapting to climate-induced changes, such as drought and wind, in Atlantic Canada's forests. Findings from this analysis will help those in the forest sector and communities, including Indigenous peoples, plan and adapt to the impacts of a changing climate. UNB will assess how adaptation, such as assisted species migration and other management practices, could help ensure our forests continue to support the economy and local communities. Today's announcement is part of the government's plan to cut polluion, grow the economy and build healthier communities for all Canadians. Quotes "The effects of climate change are being felt across the country, including in Atlantic Canada where forests are being affected by drought and wind conditions. This is why our Government is proud to support the University of New Brunswick as it navigates climate challenges facing the province's forests and explores solutions that will benefit the environment and local communities." Matt DeCourcey Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship "Funding from Natural Resources Canada provides UNB with the ability to assemble a team of experts to research the impacts of climate change on forests and the best way to adapt to ensure our forests will continue to provide the wide array of ecological goods and services that society depends on." Dr. Van Lantz, Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management, University of New Brunswick Related Information Climate Change: Impacts and Adaptation Simply Science: Climate Change Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change Follow us on Twitter: @NRCan (http://twitter.com/nrcan) SOURCE Natural Resources Canada [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Carrot Rewards Partners with The Lung Association - Ontario and Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd. to Join Fight Against COPD TORONTO, April 15, 2019 /CNW/ - Carrot Rewards, Canada's most popular wellness rewards app and AI-driven engagement platform announced today it will launch an innovative new campaign in collaboration with The Lung Association Ontario and Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd., to reach patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The program will educate Carrot users about the symptoms of COPD, and target Canadians on the platform who have been diagnosed with COPD; helping to inform them about how to mitigate symptoms through lifestyle changes and potential medical alternatives, as well as direct them to the best available resources. "Our research indicates that more awareness around COPD, including its risk factors and symptoms, is a gap that needs to be filled. Easy-to-use tools like Carrot Rewards can help patients and their caregivers close that awareness gap and lead to more meaningful conversations with their healthcare providers and that means better breathing" said George Habib, President & CEO, The Lung Association - Ontario. Carrot Rewards has already awarded Canadians two billion points from everyday reward programs like Aeroplan, SCENE, Petro-Points, More Rewards, Drop and RBC Rewards for participating in fun educational quizzes and meeting daily step goals. Now, Carrot users will be rewarded for learning about COPD and have access to resources in Ontario. "Giving patients a new and innovative tool to learn about COPD and how they can better manage their disease is helping to fill an educational gap in this area. This new partnership with Carrot Rewards will help empower those living with OPD to lead a healthy life and potentially minimize their symptoms like breathlessness" said Dr. Tony D'Urzo, Associate Director, Health Science Research Component, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto. This industry partnership is a first-of-its kind for Carrot Rewards, and another way the platform is helping to encourage the over one million Canadian users to make positive changes for themselves and their families. "We are committed to finding innovative solutions that will help patients live better lives," said Richard Mole, President and CEO, Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd. "This latest collaboration with the Lung Association and Carrot Rewards will not only help educate Canadians with COPD, but will give them a convenient way to manage their condition - right at their fingertips." About Carrot Rewards Carrot Rewards is an AI-driven wellness app and brand engagement platform that leverages behavioural economics and nudge theory to motivate and reward users for making better lifestyle choices. Carrot maximizes appeal and engagement by offering users a choice of rewards from the most popular consumer loyalty programs in Canada, users can earn Aeroplan Miles, SCENE points, Petro-Points, More Rewards points, Drop points or RBC Rewards each time they interact with the app. With well over one million users in this country, Carrot was recognized as Canadian App of the Year by MobileSyrup, ranked by Bond Brand Loyalty as a Top 10 Canadian Loyalty Program in The Loyalty Report 2018, named one of the Top Fastest Growing Companies by Canadian Business and Maclean's Magazine and was the most recent Global Innovation Award winner at the World Government Summit. The Carrot Rewards platform was created in collaboration with Canadian government agencies, health NGOs and the private sector. For more information, please visit: www.carrotapp.com Twitter & Instagram: @carrot_rewards Facebook: /carrotrewards About The Lung Association Ontario The Lung Association Ontario is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping all Ontarians breathe. Our community of donors, patients, researchers, volunteers and professional staff work to ensure Ontarians have healthy lungs, bodies and clean air necessary to breathe. We achieve this by promoting healthy breathing, supporting those living with lung disease and finding future solutions. All of this is done with the goal of delivering a future of better breathing for all. Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd. Improving the health and quality of life of patients is the goal of Boehringer Ingelheim, a research-driven pharmaceutical company. In doing so, the focus is on diseases for which no satisfactory treatment option exists to date. The company therefore concentrates on developing innovative therapies that can extend patients' lives. In animal health, Boehringer Ingelheim stands for advanced prevention. Family-owned since it was established in 1885, Boehringer Ingelheim is one of the top 20 companies in the pharmaceutical industry. Some 50,000 employees create value through innovation daily for the three business areas human pharmaceuticals, animal health and biopharmaceuticals. In 2017, Boehringer Ingelheim achieved net sales of nearly 18.1 billion euros. Research and development expenditure, exceeding three billion euros, corresponded to 17.0 per cent of net sales. As a family-owned company, Boehringer Ingelheim plans in generations and focuses on long-term success. The company therefore aims at organic growth from its own resources with simultaneous openness to partnerships and strategic alliances in research. In everything it does, Boehringer Ingelheim naturally adopts responsibility towards mankind and the environment. The Canadian headquarters of Boehringer Ingelheim was established in 1972 in Montreal, Quebec and is now located in Burlington, Ontario. Boehringer Ingelheim employs approximately 600 people across Canada. More information about Boehringer Ingelheim can be found at www.boehringer-ingelheim.ca or in our annual report: http://annualreport.boehringer-ingelheim.com. Available for Interviews: Andreas Souvaliotis, CEO and Founder, Carrot Rewards George Habib, President and CEO, The Lung Association - Ontario Richard Mole, President and CEO, Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd. SOURCE Carrot Rewards [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Consumer Energy Alliance Announces New Report on Impacts of Increased Production and Infrastructure in Colorado and Utah's Piceance and Uinta Basins Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), the leading consumer advocate for energy, today released a report on "Natural Gas Markets for the Western States and Tribal Nations," detailing how abundant natural gas resources in the Piceance and Uinta basins of Colorado and Utah can help regional and global communities thrive economically and environmentally - if more production and infrastructure expansion efforts are approved. "The Piceance-Uinta Basin has a unique advantage over other U.S. and Canadian conventional and shale production areas, which is its abundant and available pipeline export capacity throughout the western U.S.," Andrew Browning, Chief Operating Officer, Consumer Energy Alliance said. "Western States and Tribal Nations (WSTN), a newly formed advocacy group, is facilitating conversations between the natural gas industry, liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporters, conservation groups, tribes, outdoor recreation groups and other relevant participants - all of whom want to learn how more energy production and pipelines can benefit Colorado, Utah, the sovereign Ute Indian Tribe and neighboring states, regions, the nation and other countries - fiscally and environmentally," Browning added. Dr. Laura Nelson, Utah Governor's energy advisor and executive director of the Governor's Office of Energy Development, said, "Utah is committed to creating win-win outcomes for economies, locally and globally, by forging strategic partnerships to advance new pathways for the western states and tribal nations' abundant natural gas resources through key infrastructure development and greater market access abroad." She added: "As demand for LNG continues to increase in emerging markets throughout the Asia Pacific region, we're poised to play a pivotal role for providing energy solutions that drive greater economic and environmental results." Per the analysis, titled "Development nd Export of Natural Gas Resources from the Piceance-Uinta Basin," LNG exports produced from the basins could add as much as $92.7 billion in annual U.S. GDP through 2050 and as much as $3.26 trillion in cumulative benefits through 2050. LNG exports would also help sustain as many as 432,900 U.S. jobs annually through 2050. Local economies would benefit most. Using a formula outlined in a 2013 study by consulting firm ICF International (News - Alert) - a report which estimated the value of LNG exports for each state, including producing and manufacturing returns - Colorado can expect an estimated $6 billion in revenue and about 38,000 jobs. Utah could see $4 billion in revenue and approximately 15,000 jobs. The Ute Tribal Business Committee stated, "Through the construction of liquefied natural gas pipelines and a west coast export terminal, such as the proposed Jordan Cove LNG export terminal, Ute Energy can gain access to new energy markets that will alleviate the ongoing marketing and sales inefficiencies. This would also increase the Ute Indian Tribe's income and assist in its ongoing efforts of economic development and providing essential services for its tribal members." "Our counties are committed to marketing our natural gas resources to Asia and other countries, to help stabilize economies in western Colorado and aid in the geopolitical stabilization of America's allies abroad," said Rose Pugliese, Mesa County Commissioner. LNG - a cleaner-burning fuel source that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and produces negligible sulfur, mercury and particulate emissions - supports the integration of renewable energy resources. This is a primary reason why more countries are using LNG as a power generation fuel. Case in point: Strong, soaring demand for LNG in the Pacific Basin has resulted in new Asian markets for Piceance-Uinta Basin natural gas production, per CEA's report. By using more U.S.-produced LNG, consumers in the Asian markets are reducing industry-related emissions and lowering energy costs, a must in the fight against poverty. "What we do here in the Rockies, the decisions we make about energy development, don't just affect us; they reverberate around the world," Browning said. "This is an opportunity for us to help bring Rockies-made energy resources to countries across Asia who are eager for access and looking for energy markets to meet that need." The WSTN study, compiled by Colorado Mesa University's Unconventional Energy Center, was commissioned by the Colorado Energy Office under former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, the Utah Governor's Office of Energy Development, and the sovereign Ute Indian Tribe. These stakeholders have recently been joined by the following Colorado counties: Garfield, Mesa Moffat and Rio Blanco. To view the report, click here. About Consumer Energy Alliance Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA) is the leading consumer advocate for energy, bringing together families, farmers, small businesses, distributors, producers and manufacturers to support America's environmentally sustainable energy future. With more than 550,000 members nationwide, our mission is to help ensure stable prices and energy security for households and businesses across the country. CEA works daily to encourage people across the nation to seek sensible, realistic and environmentally responsible solutions to meeting our energy needs. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005577/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Frelii Discusses Medical Cannabis and Artificial Intelligence with Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Ian Jenkins, CEO of Frelii Inc. (OTCQB: FRLI) ("Frelii" or "The Company") met in an informal meeting with Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau to discuss how Frelii's artificial intelligence (AI) technology could be beneficial in advancing the safe and more effective use of medical cannabis products in Canada. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005618/en/ Frelii CEO, Ian Jenkins (Right) met Canada Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau (Left). Discussion included how AI and DNA analysis can advance the medical cannabis industry. (Photo: Business Wire) "This was our first opportunity to meet with the prime minister," said Ian Jenkins, CEO of Frelii Inc. "Frelii has been working with regulatory officials and physicians in Canada to prepare to deploy our AI technology there. It is designed to enable medical professionals and their patients to use cannabis products, such as CBD, more safely and effectively than the current, trial-and-error approach." The use of marijuana for medical purposes has been legal in Canada since 2001. In 2018, the country became the first major world economy to legalize recreational marijuana. Because of its national laws and relaxed regulations, the country is better suited at this time for use of this technology than other countries with more prohibitive laws. "It is my opinion that Canada would be an ideal epicenter of initial wide deployment of our technology," Jenkins said. "The environment is primed for expansion as the government was the first to deregulate the whole CBD space. We will be able to grow in an environment where the regulations support the expansion of a responsible approach for the safe consumption of cannabis products. Mr. Trudeau said he was encouraged that Frelii was going to deploy its technology there and opened the door for introductions to the miniser of innovation, science and economic development, Navdeep Bains." Jenkins added that the Prime Minister welcomed the opportunity for Frelii to look at Canada as a venue to expand into. About Frelii Inc. Frelii Inc. is a medical technology company that uses gene sequencing and artificial intelligence to determine risk and lifestyle modifications. Its technology analyzes the most comprehensive markers (60,000,000+) on the market to date. Frelii's technology generates accurate and profoundly valuable insight into DNA. It opens opportunities never before realized in health care, precision medicine, insurance, corporate wellness as well as personal health and risk identification. For more information, please visit www.frelii.com. Frelii (OTCQB: FRLI) trades on the #OTCQB Venture Market for early stage and developing U.S. and international companies. Companies are current in their reporting and undergo an annual verification and management certification process. Investors can find Real-Time quotes and market information for the company on www.otcmarkets.com. Follow Frelii online at: Frelii Facebook (News - Alert) Page https://www.facebook.com/livefrelii/ Frelii Twitter Feed @livefrelii Frelii Instagram Page @livefrelii Frelii LinkedIn (News - Alert) Page linkedin.com/company/frelii/ Safe Harbor Statement: This release contains certain "forward-looking statements" relating to the business of the Company. All statements, other than statements of historical fact included herein are "forward-looking statements" including statements regarding: the continued growth of the e-commerce segment and the ability of the Company to continue its expansion into that segment; the ability of the Company to attract customers and partners and generate revenues; the ability of the Company to successfully execute its business plan; the business strategy, plans, and objectives of the Company; and any other statements of non-historical information. These forward-looking statements are often identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "believes," "expects" or similar expressions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, they do involve assumptions, risks, and uncertainties, and these expectations may prove to be incorrect. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this news release. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those discussed in the Company's periodic reports that are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available on its website (http://www.sec.gov). All forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these factors. Other than as required under the securities laws, the Company does not assume any duty to update these forward-looking statements. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005618/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] The Governments of Canada and Quebec Support Forest Innovation and Job Retention in Mont-Laurier MONT-LAURIER, QC, April 15, 2019 /CNW/ - Investments in the forestry sector spur innovation, economic growth and job creation for our citizens. That is why the governments of Canada and Quebec are providing financial assistance totalling $8.4 million to Uniboard Canada Inc. The company, which has five plants in Quebec, operates the province's only medium- and high-density fibreboard plant, located in Mont-Laurier. The investment project, valued at more than $17 million, will enable the Mont-Laurier facilities to develop a system that will recover heat, currently dissipated into the atmosphere, and redirect it to the fibre drying system. This new process will significantly reduce the company's CO 2 emissions and increase the plant's production capacity, thereby improving competitiveness with foreign manufacturers. About 100 jobs will also be saved as a result of the project. For this project, Natural Resources Canada is allocating a non-repayable contribution of $4.9 million from the Investments in Forest Industry Transformation (IFIT) program, Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CED) is providing a repayable contribution of $1 million, and the Ministere des Forets de la Faune et des Parcs is granting $2.5 million through the Wood Innovation Program. Highlights Uniboard Canada employs 861 people in its five Quebec mills located in the Abitibi-Temiscamingue, Bas-Saint-Laurent and Laurentides regions, and in Laval . mills located in the Abitibi-Temiscamingue, Bas-Saint-Laurent and Laurentides regions, and in . The Wood Innovation Program is one of the key measures in the 20182023 Development Strategy for Quebec's Forest Products Industry to meet the various challenges facing the forest products industry. Forest Products Industry to meet the various challenges facing the forest products industry. The IFIT Program supports forest sector competitiveness by collaborating with forestry companies to eliminate the risks associated with new technologies, promote the deployment of new high-value products and optimize the use of underutilized wood fibre. It is a key factor for achieving the Forest Bioeconomy Framework for Canada . . CED's funding was provided through the Quebec Economic Development Program. Quotes "Innovative companies like Uniboard help position Quebec and Canada as leaders in the forstry sector, while creating good jobs in the region and protecting our environment. That is why our government is proud to contribute to the project that was announced today. This investment demonstrates once again our determination to support innovation in the forest industry in Quebec and Canada, for the benefit of future generations." David Graham, MP for LaurentidesLabelle "Uniboard Canada Inc.'s investments are fully consistent with the objectives of the 20182023 Development Strategy for the Quebec Forest Products Industry. The main objective of the Strategy is to support companies whose projects are synonymous with innovation and creativity, two qualities that ensure the kind of competitiveness that travels beyond borders in many cases." Pierre Dufour, Minister of Forests, Wildlife and Parks and Minister responsible for the Abitibi-Temiscamingue Region and the Nord-du-Quebec Region "As Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, my goal is to help businesses grow, innovate and export so that they can create good quality jobs and wealth for Canadians. Uniboard Canada has found innovative solutions for improving its processes, adapting to change and taking the necessary steps to ensure growth. By supporting this project, the Government of Canada is staying true to the commitments it has made to get results for Canadians." The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister responsible for CED "Uniboard Canada Inc. contributes significantly to improving the province's trade balance, with more than 60 percent of its production sold outside Quebec. The investments announced today will benefit not only Mont-Laurier but the entire region as well." Chantale Jeannotte, Member for Labelle "Innovation in our technological processes is one of the key elements of our operational excellence. This project builds on previous announcements of expansion and modernization in Val-d'Or and Sayabec, demonstrating that we are pursuing our commitment to growth." James N. Hogg, President and CEO of Uniboard Related links: To find out more about NRCan, visit https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/home or Twitter , LinkedIn , Facebook and YouTube , , Facebook and YouTube To find out more about CED and its priorities, see the 2018-19 Departmental Plan, visit the website www.dec-ced.gc.ca or follow CED on Twitter , LinkedIn and YouTube , and For information on the Ministere des Forets, de la Faune et des Parcs and to learn more about its activities and achievements, visit mffp.gouv.qc.ca and social media: https://www.facebook.com/ForetsFauneParcs https://twitter.com/MFFP_Quebec SOURCE Natural Resources Canada [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Homeland Security Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.8% Homeland security is an umbrella term for safeguarding the nation against any anti-social groups and threats by terrorist organizations. The market is chiefly driven by various government initiatives undertaken to prevent cross border insurgency and increasing terrorist threats around the world. The government initiatives are boosting the market for homeland security products. Some of the government initiatives include TECS Mod program undertaken by the U.S., Sisfron program undertaken by Brazil, and Project Cytoon undertaken by South Africa, among many others. Homeland security products consist of all equipment used for protecting threats, crime, or illegal activities worldwide. The report analyzes the homeland security market on a regional, as well as a global level, providing estimates in terms of revenue (USD Billion) from 2014 to 2020. It also covers in-depth details of the growth drivers and restraining factors affecting the industry, and evaluates the impact of these factors over the forecast period. For gaining a better approach on the homeland security market, the report is designed in the effort to give detailed analysis of the value chain segment, and identify significant opportunities for market growth in the near future. Moreover, with Porters five forces analysis and SWOT analysis it is easier to understand the degree of competition and recent developments in the market for homeland security. The study report also comprises market attractiveness analysis, where security equipment is benchmarked based on their growth rate, market scope, and general attractiveness. The research report on homeland security segments the market on the basis of geography into Asia-Pacific (APAC), North America, Europe, and Rest of the World (RoW). All these regional markets are estimated in terms of revenue (USD Billion). Overview of the Homeland Security Market In 2013, the global homeland security market was valued at USD 245.72 billion, however is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.6% during the forecast period, 2014 to 2020 to reach a market size of USD 364.44 billion by 2020. Brochure With Latest Advancements and Application @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=2546 Homeland security operations provide resilience in case of any threat or terrorist attack. Against this backdrop, the market witnesses an increasing demand for security equipment to avert sensitive national issues such as cross border insurgency, terrorist threats, human and drug trafficking, illegal immigration, and cyber threats, which in turn are fuelling the growth of this market. Apart from the fact that the homeland security market is primarily driven by government initiatives to prevent threats and crimes, rising incidences of drug smuggling, illegal immigrations, and human trafficking are compelling governments of different nations to invest considerably in procurement of homeland security products. On the basis of security type, the market can be categorized into eight major segments including maritime security, critical infrastructure security, aviation security, cyber security, border security, mass transit security, CBRN security, and others (C3I, public safety, and counter terror intelligence). The rise and risk of terrorist attack has boosted the aviation security spending. Similarly, the need to provide access control to critical infrastructure and effective identification and security checking in public and private network places has gained wide acceptance of security products across different sectors in the world. The cyber security segment amongst all other segments was the largest sector accounting for 39.31% of the global market in 2013. Owing to rising incidences for security solutions and products to counter cyber threats, the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.8% in the forecast period. Download Report TOC for in-depth analysis @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/report-toc/2546 North America and Asia Pacific are expected to maintain its leading position in the global market for homeland security. Asia-Pacific owing to its heavy investments in military technologies by emerging countries such as India and China are likely to remain as the top industry participants catering maximum growth to this sector. Europe and other countries in RoW such as, UAE, Brazil, and Turkey have shown a rapid inclining growth for homeland security products for averting terrorist threats. As a community-building service, TMCnet allows user submitted content which is not always proofed by TMCnet editors. If you feel this entry is of inferior quality or wish to report it for some reason, please forward the URL to "webedit [AT] tmcnet [DOT] com" with your comments. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] JASK Company Growth Accelerates from Confluence of SIEM Market Forces JASK, the provider of the industry's first cloud-native SIEM platform, today announced a record-breaking quarter (ending March 31, 2019). The company realized year-over-year (YoY) growth in annual contract value of 210 percent and YoY growth in total contract value of 234 percent. JASK also doubled employee headcount over the past year to nearly 100 employees, in conjunction with establishing its headquarters in Austin, Texas. "Our growth is due to a confluence of SIEM market forces creating a significant refresh cycle and opening the doors for next-generation companies like JASK to take on the market incumbents," said Greg Martin, JASK co-founder and CEO. "These include accelerating cloud adoption and the need for hybrid cloud solutions, demand for automation to address the talent shortage and a desire for predictable licensing pricing. This plays right into JASK's vision and position for continued growth and disruption in the SIEM market. I'd like to thank the entire JASK team for their hard work and commitment over the past year." JASK's customer base increased by over 150 percent year-over-year. The company is winning 70 percent of head-to-head sales campaigns against on-premises, cloud-adapted SIEM competitors. In one case, an international airline carrier chose JASK ASOC to replace its legacy SIEM after an evaluation of Splunk (News - Alert) ES. JASK's ability to demonstrate automation of level 1 and level 2 alerts, which provided immediate value and allowed for optimization of its SOC analyst team, focused the team on the threats that mattered most to their organization. Furthermore, the customer also recognized JASK as delivering lower total cost of ownership through its predictable licensing pricing. Q1 2019 Highlights Technology and Platform Innovation Ahead of RSA (News - Alert) Conference, JASK announced new dynamic multi-cloud visibility and workload monitoring features that extend its leadership position as the market's first cloud-native SIEM. The enhanced capabilities include advanced analytics expressly designed to process the constantly changing, high-volume data unique to AWS and Microsoft (News - Alert) Azure cloud environments. In February, JASK introduced new search and filtering capabilities that combine natural language processing, point-and-click interfaces and SQL-like experiences into an intuitive experience through which analysts can build a query one word at a time. Once the analyst creates a query, they can easily edit it without having to re-create the full query, allowing for easy data pivoting. JASK leverages a handful of open source tools to build the ASOC platform and is an active participant in the community. Led by UI engineer Austin McDaniel, the company released its data visualization framework as an open source project. Called reaviz - short for ReactJS Visualization library -- it is a ReactJS component library that leverages D3.js to draw complicated data visualizations. Channel and Alliances Expansion In January, the company unveiled its enhanced JASK Momentum global partner program, featuring resources and benefits unlike any other in the industry, offering unprecedented tools and protection for JASK partners. Designed to encourage more rapid expansion, the expanded program drove 45 new deal registrations in Q1. Now with 40 partners, the company projects more than 200 percent YoY growth in deal registrations. Overall, the channel drove two-thirds of JASK's business in Q1 2019, which in turn fueled greater inbound interest from resellers wanting to partner with JASK. CRN gave the JASK Momentum (News - Alert) program a 5-Star rating in its 2019 Partner Program Guide. This annual guide identifies the strongest and most successful partner programs in the channel today, offered by the top technology suppliers for IT products and services. The 5-Star rating recognizes an elite subset of companies that offer solution providers the best partnering elements in their channel programs. Industry Leadership and Recognition Last month, JASK announced the appointment of Kyle Derr as chief architect. In this new position, Derr drives the architecture behind the JASK ASOC platform improving the overall customer design experience and company strategic roadmap. Derr joined JASK in early 2018 as a principal platform architect playing a key role in the early development of the cloud-native SIEM. CB Insights named JASK to the third annual AI 100 ranking, showcasing the 100 most promising private artificial intelligence companies in the world. The achievement recognizes JASK's Adaptive Signal Clustering, which uses ensemble machine learning to normalize and cluster all attack data, alerts and anomalies into JASK Insights, automating repetitive tasks for SOC analysts. About JASK JASK is modernizing security operations by delivering an advanced SIEM platform that provides better visibility, better automation and a better architecture. Built on cloud-native technologies, the JASK ASOC platform streamlines security analyst workflows by automating many of the repetitive tasks that restrict productivity, freeing them for higher-value roles like threat hunting and vulnerability management, while addressing the escalating talent shortage. www.jask.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005175/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] By Kwak Yeon-soo Hyundai Motor will invest in tech startup CODE42.ai in its latest efforts to gain leadership in the smart mobility market, Korea's largest automaker said Monday. Financial terms were not disclosed. The strategic partnership will see two companies collaborate on developing fleet and mobility systems, connected services, artificial intelligence (AI) and self-driving cars. CODE42.ai was set up this year by Song Chang-hyun, a former chief technology officer of Naver, the nation's largest portal operator. The firm has attracted much attention from car companies, and has quickly grown to become a key player in the smart mobility business. With Song in the lead, CODE42.ai is comprised of a group of engineers with expertise in voice recognition, AI, mobility, self-driving vehicles, precision maps, robotics, computer vision and big data. Hyundai's Executive Vice Chairman Chung Eui-sun showed excitement about the strategic partnership, saying it will likely reinforce the group to become a "game changer" in the global mobility market. "CODE42.ai's insights on future mobility ecosystem and service platform can accelerate Hyundai's goal to transform into a smart mobility systems provider," Chung said in a statement. "Through our strategic partnership, we will be working on various projects together." CODE42.ai develops an urban mobility operating system (UMOS) that meets the needs for shopping, fast delivery and transportation. UMOS integrates self-driving cars, drones and automated delivery robots to provide mobility services. The partnership is the latest in Hyundai's series of aggressive investments in smart mobility services worldwide. Last year, Hyundai acquired a stake worth $275 million in Grab, a ride-hailing and logistics service in Singapore, followed by an investment in Revv, a self-driving car-sharing company in India. Earlier in March, the carmaker made a $300 million strategic investment in Ola, India's top ride-hailing platform, to develop fleet and mobility systems. Along with Ola, Grab and Revv, the group has invested in last-mile logistics platform Mesh Korea, U.S. mobility service provider Migo, China's e-scooter maker Immotor and Australia's peer-to-peer car-sharing firm Car Next Door. Hyundai Motor Group seeks to accelerate its transition from a car manufacturer into a smart mobility systems provider, strengthening partnerships to engage in all aspects across the entire mobility value chain including vehicle production, fleet operation and mobility services. [April 15, 2019] New Boundary Technologies to Host Workshop and Conference Session at IoT Fuse 2019 Attendees can visit New Boundary Technologies at the Mel Foster table to view demos of its RemoteAware IoT application service and Mel Fosters Barn Sentry barn monitoring solution Minneapolis, MN April 15, 2019 New Boundary Technologies, a leading provider of innovative Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) applications, announced today that CEO Kim Pearson is speaking at IoT Fuse 2019. IoT Fuse is the IoT industrys largest hands-on workshop. IoT Fuse 2019 takes place in Minneapolis, with workshops at the University of St. Thomas Minneapolis Campus April 23 and 24 and the conference taking place at the Minneapolis Convention Center on April 25. New Boundary Technologies will first host a two-hour workshop on April 23 at 1:15 pm titled Building Enterprise & Industrial IoT Web Applications without Coding at the University of St. Thomas. This session will provide attendees with practical tips to speed their connected products from concept to successful full-scale deployment. The session will address IoT security, enterprise application scalability, user experience requirements and preventing technical obsolescence. Integrating with Amazon AWS IoT and Microsoft Azure Iot Hub, data analytics, machine learning and back-office applications will also be covered. Attendees will learn how to build secure and scalable customer-facing applications that support wired and wireless sensors, PLCs and equipment communicating to the Internet using embedded and off the shelf cellular, LPWAN (LoRa, Sigfox), Ethernet and satellite communications hardware. Technical and non-technical leaders of OEMs, distributors, and IoT solution providers will build an end-to-end enterprise-scalable, responsive web IoT application with live sensor data using the RemoteAware IoT Application Service. No hardware or programming experience is required. Each attendee will receive an Amazon AWS IoT Button and a free 30-day RemoteAware demonstration account. On April 25 at 4:15 pm, Mr. Pearson will join Steve Riedel, regional trade manager of the Minnesota Trade Office in presenting a session titled Tools and Expertise for Solving Water Challenges with IoT in the Minneapolis Convention Center Room #201. They will discuss how water challenges such as leak detection, conservation and quality monitoring can be addressed with IoT technology. The duo will touch on how Minnesota is positioned to seize opportunities in international settings and the states plans for a 2019 water tech delegation to Israel, one of the most advanced water tech nations. Attendees can visit New Boundary Technologies at the Mel Foster Table #403 in Zone 3 at the IoT Fuse Conference on April 25 to view demonstrations of its RemoteAware IoT Application Service and Mel Fosters Barn Sentry barn monitoring solution. Barn Sentry uses the RemoteAware IoT Application Service and connects to the John Deere Operation Center through John Deeres API services New Boundary Technologies is thrilled to participate in IoT Fuse again this year, discussing the latest IoT applications for enterprise and industrial use, said New Boundary Technologies CEO Kim Pearson. Were excited to share our expertise and demonstrate our capabilities of RemoteAware and partnering solutions to technical and non-technical attendees alike. See the full IoT Fuse Conference workshop schedule at https://iotfuse.com/. About New Boundary Technologies New Boundary Technologies has been pioneering innovative Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) applications for more than 30 years. Its RemoteAware IoT application service (www.remoteaware.com) has provided private label branded solutions for Fortune 500 companies, solution providers and system integrators since 2001. RemoteAware applications are provided as a hosted service, so solution providers and customers dont need their own IT resources. A rich set of out-of-the-box capabilities delivers applications quickly requiring little or no software development. About RemoteAware RemoteAware is a hardware and communications independent IoT Application Service that provides real-time monitoring and control of remote sensors and equipment using a single pane-of-glass web dashboard. RemoteAware-powered applications can be private-label branded and integrate Amazon AWS IoT, Microsoft Azure, and third-party analytics and back-office applications. About IoT Fuse IoT Fuse (www.iotfuse.com) unites the brightest executives, investors, entrepreneurs and innovators focused on the Internet of Things space. The IoT Fuse Conference is the nation's most widely recognized, practitioner-run IoT event. ### As a community-building service, TMCnet allows user submitted content which is not always proofed by TMCnet editors. If you feel this entry is of inferior quality or wish to report it for some reason, please forward the URL to "webedit [AT] tmcnet [DOT] com" with your comments. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Plug and Play Launches in Italy MILAN, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Plug and Play today opened a new office in Italy together with their newest corporate partners Esselunga, Lavazza, Tetra Pak, and UniCredit. Plug and Play Italy will be based in Milan where it will launch its Food & Beverage accelerator. This office will also service key partners in the region such as UniCredit, which is also joining Plug and Play's Fintech Europe program in Frankfurt. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Plug and Play has created the world's largest innovation platform with over 10,000 startups and 280 official corporate partners. Plug and Play Italy plans on running two 3-month programs per year, accepting startups that are working on innovating the food and beverage space. Saeed Amidi, CEO & Founder of Plug and Play stated: "We are proud to open our first Food & Beverage Accelerator in the heart of Italy. Plug and Play was born twenty years ago in our Lucky Building, where Google, Paypal and Dropbox were born. We are especially excited to expand o Italy and connect leading Italian corporations with our international startups, while offering the country's talented entrepreneurs access to our global programs." Alexandre Carvalho, Tetra Pak's Global Director of Marketing and Customer Innovation Centers, commented: "We started the partnership with Plug and Play in 2017 after a visit with customers to their headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA. It had an enormous impact on the way we were looking at open innovation approaches and partnerships. Plug and Play has been instrumental in connecting relevant startups to well-established companies, We now have several projects with Plug and Play that will help us continue to drive our digital transformation." "Innovation plays a fundamental role in our history and is an important driver of the global diffusion of Italian coffee culture," said Sergio Cravero, Lavazza Chief Marketing Officer. "We are proud to be a founding partner of Plug and Play, the main player in the sector. We will be able to speed up the process of technological innovation, becoming a key player in the largest international ecosystem of startups." Roberto Selva, Esselunga's Head of Customer Relations, stated: "Since its inception, Esselunga has set innovation as one of its priorities: it was the first to introduce the bar code in the 1980s and the e-commerce service as early as 2000. This motivates our desire to partner with Plug and Play, an international leader in innovation. We look forward to this opportunity to engage with young startups and create a channel between our know-how and their new skills." Ranieri De Marchis, UniCredit's Co-Chief Operating Officer, commented: "UniCredit is a simple and successful pan-European Bank and we have been building strong relationships with our customers for years, continuously meeting their evolving needs with our full commercial offering. We know that our customers increasingly want simplicity and we recognize the crucial role technology plays in achieving this. We believe that Fintechs can help support us in finding new and relevant digital solutions that meet changing client needs and the partnership with Plug and Play provides us with an additional strategic avenue for doing this." Plug and Play Italy Contact Andrea Zorzetto [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/plug-and-play-launches-in-italy-300831798.html SOURCE Plug and Play [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Spirit MTA REIT Announces First Quarter 2019 Earnings Release Date Spirit MTA REIT (NYSE: SMTA) ("SMTA" or the "Company") announced today that the Company will release its first quarter 2019 financial and operating results in a press release on Thursday, May 9, 2019, after market close. Earnings Webcast The Company will provide pre-recorded comments from management. Interested parties can listen to the presentation via the following: INTERNET: The webcast link can be located on the investor relations page of the Company's website at www.spiritmastertrust.com. The webcast will be accessible fr three months. PHONE: Available through May 23, 2019 with access code 1134003. (844) 512-2921 (Domestic) / (412) 317-6671 (International) About Spirit MTA REIT Spirit MTA REIT (NYSE: SMTA) is a net-lease REIT headquartered in Dallas, Texas. SMTA owns one of the largest, most diversified and seasoned commercial real estate backed master funding vehicles. SMTA is managed by Spirit Realty, L.P., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Spirit (NYSE: SRC), one of the largest publicly traded triple net-lease REITs. As of December 31, 2018, our diversified portfolio was comprised of 876 properties, including properties securing mortgage loans made by the Company. Our properties, with an aggregate gross leasable area of approximately 19.8 million square feet, are leased to approximately 203 tenants across 45 states and 23 industries. More information about Spirit MTA REIT can be found on the investor relations page of the Company's website at www.spiritmastertrust.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005140/en/ [April 15, 2019] The Standard Promotes Joel Mee to Senior Director of Retirement Plans Sales and Hires Shelly Cheng as Retirement Plan Consultant The Standard announced that Joel Mee has been promoted to the new position of senior director, Retirement Plans Sales. Shelly Cheng has been hired to fill Joel's recent position as a retirement plan consultant serving advisors in Southern California, the Inland Empire, Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005075/en/ Joel Mee, Senior Director of Retirement Plans Sales, The Standard (Photo: Business Wire) Mee is a 29-year veteran of The Standard. As senior director, he will have responsibility for retirement plan business development, sales operations and communications. In his last four years with The Standard, Mee focused on selling and consulting. He has also previously served as director of Retirement Plans business development and director of Retirement Plans Sales Operations. Shelly Cheng is working closely with Mee and area advisors as she assumes retirement plan consultant responsibilities. Cheng has five years of financial services industry experience. In her recent role as a major account retirement specialist, she partnered with registered investment advisors, brokers, financial advisors, payroll teams and CPAs to generate recordkeeping business. Cheng received a Bachelor of Science degree from California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. She also holds FINRA Series 6, 63 and SIE licenses. About The Standard The Standard is a leading provider of financial products and services, including group and individual disability insurance, group life and accidental death and dismemberment insurance, group dental and vision insurance, absence management services, retirement plans products and services and individual annuities. For more information about The Standard, visit www.standard.com. The Standard is the marketing name for StanCorp Financial Group, Inc., and its subsidiaries. StanCorp Equities, Inc., member FINRA, wholesales a group annuity contract issued by Standard Insurance Company and a mutual fund trust platform for retirement plans. Third-party administrative services are provided by Standard Retirement Services, Inc. Investment advisory services are provided by StanCorp Investment Advisers, Inc., a registered investment advisor. StanCorp Equities, Inc., Standard Insurance Company, Standard Retirement Services, Inc., and StanCorp Investment Advisers, Inc., are subsidiaries of StanCorp Financial Group, Inc., and all are Oregon corporations. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005075/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Stonetrust Commercial Insurance Selects Insurity's Cloud-hosted 'Workers' CompXPress Suite' to Improve Operations and Customer Experience Insurity, Inc., a provider of a leading insurance platform that includes policy, billing, claims, data analytics and digital enablement, announces that Stonetrust Commercial Insurance Company will adopt the company's Workers' CompXPress Suite including policy, billing, claims, and agent and policyholder portals for a unified and streamlined employee and customer user experience. Stonetrust is a Louisiana-based monoline workers' compensation insurer writing business in ten states. The cloud-hosted solution increases operational flexibility and allows the insurer to scale products on demand without further investment in IT infrastructure. "Working with Insurity to completely digitize our internal and customer-facing operations was an easy decision, as it empowers us to provide a better experience for our agents, policyholders and their injured employees," says Mike Dileo, President and CEO of Stonetrust. "We completed a comprehensive vendor selection process involving several major technology providers and selected Insurity for their intuitive platform, stellar track record in successful implementations, as well as their leadership in cloud migration and data security." The Workers' CompXPress Suite equip Stonetrust's management team with a wealth of customizable dashboards and analytics tools to offer tailored role-based user interfaces for improved data-driven decision making, as well as enhanced reporting capabilities. Insurity's market-leading application programming interface (API) ecosystem connects the most third-party data and solutions in the market to allow Stonetrust complete control to build autonomous workflows and seamlessly integrate third-party systems in the future. "We're excited to work with Stonetrust to support their digital transformation, enabling better data capture and processing for quicker and more actionable decisions," says Michele Shepard, Chief Revenue Officer at Insurity. "Among the most important capabilities an insurance company can have in a technology-driven environment are the agility and flexibility to keep up with shifting market needs, and we're pleased to offer simple, accessible solutions to make that happen." The Workers' CompXPress Suite is purpose-built for monoline workers' compensation insurers and self-insurance groups of all sizes, based on Insurity's deep industry expertise. For more information on the Insurity platform and solutions, visit www.insurity.com. About Stonetrust Commercial Insurance Company At Stonetrust Commercial Insurance Company, it is our mission to be a professional and capable partner to our policyholders and producers while providing workers' compensation coverage at competitive rates. Stonetrust seeks to develop a working relationship with each policyholder and producer to achieve our mutual goal of workplace safety and claims cost containment. Stonetrust is a Nebraska domiciled insurance company headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, providing workers' compensation and employers' liability coverage to more than 4,500 policyholders. We have evolved from a workers' compensation self-insurance trust to a stock insurance company licensed in 10 states: Alabama, Nebraska, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas. About Insurity Insurity, Inc. offers innovative and flexible insurance technology that allows clients to meet their business goals and offer a simplified experience. With the market's most advanced cloud operations, Insurity's platform offers scalable, highly secure and reliable solutions that increase speed to value. Insurity's solutions and deep understanding of the insurance business address the needs of all carriers - from the Top 20 insurers to small or regional commercial, personal, or specialty lines writers, as well as MGAs. For more information, visit www.insurity.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005208/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] TAL Showcases Smart Education Solutions at Education Exhibition during China-CEEC '16+1' Business Forum DUBROVNIK, Croatia, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- TAL Education Group, a leading K-12 after-school tutoring services provider in China, today announced it has presented at the Exhibition of Educational Cooperation and Exchanges between China and Central and Eastern European Countries in Croatia. This is the first time that the 16+1 summit featured an educational exhibition. On the morning of April 12th, Premier Li Keqiang attended and addressed the Opening Ceremony of the 9th China-Central and Eastern European Countries Economic and Trade Forum in Dubrovnik that took place in conjunction with the 16+1 summit. The business forum was also attended by leaders of 16 Central and Eastern European Countries. After the opening ceremony, Premier Li Keqiang and other leaders visited the 16+1 Educational Cooperation and Exchanges Exhibition. At the exhibition, TAL showcased its technology and data driven education solutions including Smart Classroom, Artificial Intelligence AI) Teacher Language Learning System, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, Virtual Reality (VR) teaching products and won the praise of guests and visitors. Other Chinese companies invited to the exhibition included Huawei, Commsat, Yalong, etc. About 16+1 The 16+1 is an initiative by the People's Republic of China aimed at intensifying and expanding cooperation with 11 EU Member States and 5 Balkan countries in the fields of investments, transport, finance, science, education, and culture. The 16+1 summits take place annually and to date, they have been organized in Warsaw (2012), Bucharest (2013), Belgrade (2014), Suzhou (2015), Riga (2016), Budapest (2017) and Sofia (2018). It was held in Dubrovnik this year (2019). About TAL Tomorrow Advancing Life (NYSE: TAL) is an EdTech company that operates on the basis of smart education, that provides an open platform for quality education and extra-curricular tutoring. It serves public education, empowers private education, and explores new education models for the future, on a global scale. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tal-showcases-smart-education-solutions-at-education-exhibition-during-china-ceec-161-business-forum-300831873.html SOURCE TAL Education Group [April 15, 2019] Upcoming Webinars Highlight Benefits of Partnering with Hytera for Two-Way Communications Solutions MIRAMAR, Fla. and IRVINE, Calif., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Hytera, a leading global provider of innovative Land Mobile Radio communications solutions, is partnering with RadioResource Media Group to host a webinar focused on highlighting how dealers can succeed in a difficult competitive climate and the benefits of partnering with Hytera. All two-way radio professionals, including current Hytera dealers, are encouraged to attend the webinar, which will take place on May 2. RadioResource Media Group is the information leader on wireless communications for the mission-critical, critical infrastructure and industry markets. The May 2 webinar will discuss the real-world experience of Rachel Romero, co-owner of Service Communications in Lafayette, Louisiana, and how she was able to transform her business. Over a period of three years, she has more than doubled the company's revenue and increased their sales margins through their partnership with Hytera. The webinar will provide in-depth information about the benefits of workig with Hytera from a dealer's perspective and discuss the special programs that have driven Service Communications' growth, demonstrating how Hytera is different from other competitors in the market. Hytera actively supports the professionals in its dealer network and aims to assist them in meeting their customers' needs and operating a successful and sustainable business. To learn more about the webinar and to register, please visit this page. "Hytera appeals to dealers because of our ability to offer a diverse product portfolio to their customers and to their communities," said Steve Cragg, VP Sales, Hytera America, Inc. "The story of Service Communications is just one example of many where partnering with Hytera is helping to transform radio dealers and their businesses." Hytera is committed to providing its dealers and end-user customers with high-quality products, solutions and service. As one of the largest manufacturers of two-way radios in the world, Hytera radios can be found in the hands of radio users across the U.S., from Connecticut's Hockanum Valley to the Minneapolis metro to Levi's Stadium in San Francisco, on oil rigs, rail networks, casinos and conference centers, and construction sites. Hytera works closely with distributors, dealers, integrators, and application partners to understand the needs of customers and to create customized solutions for any situation, ensuring that solutions are cost-effective and the right fit. Hytera is focused on the future and looks forward to continuing to serve the U.S. market with innovative, cost-effective land mobile radio communications solutions. View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/upcoming-webinars-highlight-benefits-of-partnering-with-hytera-for-two-way-communications-solutions-300831991.html SOURCE Hytera [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 14, 2019] INVESTIGATION ALERT: The Schall Law Firm Announces It is Investigating Claims against Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. and Encourages Investors with Losses in Excess of $100,000 to Contact the Firm The Schall Law Firm, a national shareholder rights litigation firm, announces that it is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. ("Aerojet" or "the Company") (NYSE: AJRD) for violations of 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The investigation focuses on whether the Company issued false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose information pertinent to investors. Spruce Point Management published a report on April 9, 2019, containing multiple allegations, including that the Company "is facing fundamental pressures, masked by complicated and aggressie accounting, which gives investors a potentially misleading impression of stability and growth." The report also alleged, "~$900M of liabilities associated with the business [makes] the Company 5x more levered than it appears" and that "analysts blindly pencil in 4% revenue growth in the next two years, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue programs that are disappearing." Following the publication of the Spruce Point report, Aerojet's share price fell sharply in intraday trading on the same day. If you are a shareholder who suffered a loss, click here to participate. We also encourage you to contact Brian Schall, or Sherin Mahdavian, of the Schall Law Firm, 1880 Century Park East, Suite 404, Los Angeles, CA (News - Alert) 90067, at 424-303-1964, to discuss your rights free of charge. You can also reach us through the firm's website at www.schallfirm.com, or by email at [email protected]. The class in this case has not yet been certified, and until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. If you choose to take no action, you can remain an absent class member. The Schall Law Firm represents investors around the world and specializes in securities class action lawsuits and shareholder rights litigation. This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and rules of ethics. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190414005062/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] SciBite Launches CENtree to Revolutionise Ontology Management for Life Sciences Organisations CAMBRIDGE, England, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- SciBite, the award-winning semantic technology company, today announced the launch of CENtree, an innovative, collaborative platform which revolutionises the way Life Sciences organisations manage and release ontologies. Ontologies play a critical role in semantic enrichment, enabling unstructured scientific text to be transformed into clean, contextualised data which can be understood and exploited by computational approaches, such as machine learning. Historically, maintaining multiple, evolving ontologies from both public and proprietary sources, has been a complex undertaking, requiring significant ontology expertise. This presents a bottleneck for most organisations and undermines the concept that an ontology should represent a shared understanding between experts. CENtree provides a centralised resource for ontology management and transforms the experience of maintaining and releasing ontologies for research-led businesses. With an uncluttered user interface, CENtree makes ontology navigation and editing accessible to a wider audience. CENtree also leverages cuttingedge artificial intelligence techniques to help users enrich ontologies in a controlled way. For example, parent classes are suggested for a given term, helping users place the term in the ontology tree. Key capabilities include: Enterprise-ready, multi-user platform for ontology browsing and editing Easy-to-use, without the need for ontology expertise AI-assisted suggestions of relationship connections for a given class Maintains governance and provenance via 'suggestor' and 'editor' roles, with the ability to roll-back unwanted edits One-click loading of public and private ontologies without the need for custom parsers or web downloads Innovative versioning engine, empowering organisations to enrich the latest public releases with new internal content Flexible API to facilitate integration with existing systems "CENtree represents a transformational change in the way organisations maintain ontologies," says SciBite's CTO James Malone. "Combining ontology management with SciBite's semantic analytics capabilities, CENtree offers a unique approach to managing scientific information in the journey to clean data." SciBite will demonstrate Best of Show Award finalist CENtree at Bio-IT World this week in Boston at Booth #423. Learn more at https://www.scibite.com/centree or join the webinar on 22nd May: https://scibite.info/centree-webinar About SciBite SciBite is an award-winning semantic software company offering an ontology-led approach to transforming unstructured content into machine-readable clean data. Supporting the top 20 pharma with use cases across life sciences, SciBite empowers customers with a suite of fast, flexible, deployable API technologies, making it a critical component in scientific data-led strategies. (Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/617446/SciBite_Logo.jpg) Press contact: Lauren Barham, Marketing Manager [email protected] +44 (0)1223 786129 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Lightspeed Loyalty Designed for Independent Businesses Makes Its Debut Global POS leader launches a complete loyalty solution for retailers and restaurants LONDON, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Lightspeed, a powerful cloud point-of-sale system for independent retailers and restaurants, today introduces Lightspeed Loyalty. With its seamless integration of Lightspeed's existing suite of products, the new technology enables merchants to engage customers, reward repeat business and build a loyal following. Lightspeed Loyalty gives retailers and restaurants the ability to create a dialogue so that first-time guests become regulars and existing customers become more engaged, all from a single platform that creates true brand ambassadors. Going beyond point and reward systems, Lightspeed Loyalty provides businesses with the tools to better communicate and target their customers in a personalized way. "Retailers and restaurants have always aimed to offer customers a superior level of service, and Lightspeed Loyalty allows them to take that service to the next level," says Dax Dasilva, Founder and CEO of Lightspeed. "We're providing these businesses with the tools to break down barriers, thus fostering strong customer relationships, driving repeat visits and increasing revenues, no matter the seaon." Lightspeed Loyalty Key Features: Rewards Program: Easily set up a customized rewards program Easily set up a customized rewards program Automated Marketing: Create automated campaigns via SMS, mobile push notifications and a drag and drop email builder. Easily target customers with relevant offers based on auto-segmented customer habits and preset Smart Customer Groups Create automated campaigns via SMS, mobile push notifications and a drag and drop email builder. Easily target customers with relevant offers based on auto-segmented customer habits and preset Smart Customer Groups Customer Insights: View customer habits and interests in one place to enhance menu management or inventory selection, pricing, and promotional planning Existing Lightspeed Loyalty users have already begun to see how these key features have positively impacted their businesses. "Lightspeed Loyalty allows us to have our uniquely branded restaurants all under one Loyalty platform, so we can reach all our customers at the same time," says Josh Cottingham of L&B Restaurants. "We are very excited to use this system to build and expand our customer base and satisfaction," he adds. To date, more than 60,000,000 points have been awarded to over 200,000 customers. With this acquisition, Lightspeed now includes a robust integrated loyalty solution geared towards apparel boutiques, pet stores, quick service establishments and fine dining restaurants, just to name a few. About Lightspeed Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, Lightspeed provides an easy-to-use, omni-channel commerce-enabling platform. The Company's software platform provides its customers with the critical functionalities they need to engage with consumers, manage their operations, accept payments, and grow their business. Lightspeed operates globally in approximately 100 countries, empowering single- and multi-location small- and medium-sized businesses to compete successfully in an omni-channel market environment by engaging with consumers across online, mobile, social, and physical channels. Founded in 2005, the Company has grown to over 700 employees, with offices in Canada, the United States, Europe, and Australia. For more information, please visit: www.lightspeedhq.co.uk On social media: Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter Media Contact: Bradley Grill l Director of Public Relations l Lightspeed l [email protected] l +1-514.375.3155 x7980 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Kumho Asiana Group made a final decision Monday to sell its flagship airline unit as part of its self-rescue plan. The decision to sell Asiana Airlines Co., the country's second-largest carrier, was made at a board of directors meeting of Kumho Industrial Co., Ltd., according to the group. Kumho Industrial is the largest stakeholder of Asiana Airlines with 33.47 percent. Under the decision, the group will soon name a managing company to oversee the proposed sale, a group official said. "(The group) has been trying to come up with the best way to normalize Asiana Airlines," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It decided that selling Asiana Airlines will be the way for both the group and the airlines to regain market confidence." The group earlier proposed selling the airline company under its self-rescue plan to be submitted to its creditors but only after three years and if it fails to turn the company around. However, its nine creditors, led by the state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB), are said to have dismissed the proposal as insufficient to regain market trust. The airline swung to a net loss in 2018 from a 248 billion-won ($218 million) net profit the year earlier. The KDB, meanwhile, said in a press release that Kumho Asiana has submitted its self-rescue plan that includes the proposed sale of Asiana Airlines. (Yonhap) [April 15, 2019] GTA's retail arm joins forces with Bedsonline to establish the leading Korean platform for travel agents Consolidated under the newly refreshed Bedsonline brand, GTA retail customers in Korea will migrate onto Bedsonline's class-leading booking platform. Move combines GTA's retail product portfolio with Bedsonline to provide a significantly enlarged range of exclusively contracted content increasing from 55,000 to 180,000 the number of hotels available globally. Launch of new brand identity and website to present new '360 degree' proposition designed to support the growth of travel agent customers worldwide. SEOUL, South Korea, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Hotelbeds, the parent company of both GTA and Bedsonline has today announced that it will consolidate its retail product portfolio and offering in Korea under the newly refreshed Bedsonline brand and platform - establishing the world's leading provider of accommodation and complementary services designed exclusively for travel agents. Following extensive consultation with customers it has been decided that the GTA retail brand[1] in the Korean market will progressively rebrand under Bedsonline, the retail travel agency brand of parent group Hotelbeds. An extensive outreach programme is already underway to inform all existing clients of GTA's retail brand about the changes. Clients will have sufficient time to transition at their own pace and both workshops and technical support will be on hand to support a seamless migration. As part of this change the combination of the GTA retail brand's content with the existing Bedsonline hotel offering will increase from 55,000 to 180,000 the number of hotels available to customers. Carlos Munoz, Managing Director Bedbank at Hotelbeds, explains: "It makes strategic and practical sense for us to continue to develop our travel agent proposition under one integrated, global platform and brand. The benefits from this move will help all our partners boost revenues and profits through improved functionality, an enlarged portfolio of directly sourced and exclusive hotel content, and increased opportunities to upsell high-yielding complimentary travel services in addition to our accommodation offering." Tomeu Gili, Retail Travel Agents Director for Asia, The Middle East and Africa, comments: "Since GTA became a part of Hotelbeds back in late 2017 we have consulted extensively with our travel agent customers all around the globe. Time and again the feedback about the Bedsonline platform has made taking this decision easy - due to its superior functionality - but we're looking to continue to improve the experience still further, beyond the booking platform itself, by establishing a truly 360 degree proposition to fully support the growth of our travel agent partners. "Already we are speaking with our customers in Korea to explain to them how they will benefit from these changes. Shortly we'll be hosting a series of events and workshops locally to present the new enhanced offering following the integration of the GTA retail brand's product portfolio and know-how into Bedsonline's - leading to our travel agents benefiting from the expansion of our product portfolio to over 180,000 hotels and strengthened position to negotiate the best deals for our customers, along with all the additional improvements we have made by cherry-picking the best-of-class functionalities and know-how from across the different brands." This strategic milestone follows Tourico Holidays and GTA - along with its retail brands TravelBound and TravelCube - joining Hotelbeds Group in 2017. Following the consolidation of GTA's brand portfolio and offering into Bedsonline, the platform now offers to travel agents only globally the following benefits: Diverse and competitive product portfolio: 180,000 hotels available globally (with over 90,000 directly sourced, creating a highly competitive portfolio with unique offers), 24,000 transfer routes, 18,000 activities, and 140,000 cars available for hire - all sourced by an expert team of over 1,000 contractors around the world. Powerful and user-friendly technology: Best-in-class search engine designed specifically for the needs of travel agents allows users to filter and compare results in a flexible and practical way - 70% of existing customers cite the platform as a top factor in choosing the service. Bedsonline's parent company is the only travel trade wholesaler to operate its own cloud-based, open source data centre handling 1.5 billion searches per day. Local knowledge combined with a global offering: Our experienced local sales teams in every market provide significant knowledge and industry know-how adapted to the specific needs of each market. When put together, Bedsonline offers customers a 360 degree travel partner offering that is customer centric and helps partners compete by offering unrivalled technology, the most competitive commercial terms, swift problem resolution and expert team support. [1] Please note this change will only impact the retail brand offering of GTA: the brand name for the wholesale offering of GTA will not be changed. About Bedsonline Bedsonline is the leading global provider of accommodation and complementary travel products exclusively catering to travel agents. Through its online platform, it distributes accommodation, excursions, tickets and transfers to more than 50,000 travel agencies backed by local sales teams in over 30 countries covering over 100 markets globally. The company offers an extensive portfolio of over 180,000 hotels, 24,000 transfer routes and 18,000 activities in 185 destination countries worldwide, guaranteeing high availability, competitive prices and unique offers. Bedsonline is part of Hotelbeds, the world's leading bedbank and business-to-business provider of services to the travel industry globally, headquartered in Palma, Spain. Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20190411/2433531-1 SOURCE Bedsonline [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Court Affirms Privinvest Group's 1.2 Billion Arbitration Award against Greece The Athens Court of Appeal last week rejected the Greek government's request to set aside a 2017 arbitration award worth more than 1.2 billion to Privinvest Group for the government's default on payments to Privinvest and its subsidiary Hellenic Shipyards. Hellenic Shipyards in Skaramangas, Greece, builds and modernizes Greece's high-performance submarines and is one of the largest shipyards in the eastern Mediterranean. In 2010, Privinvest Group made substantial investments in Hellenic Shipyards, but the Hellenic Republic defaulted on its obligations. The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) found that the Greek government also mishandled a European Union state aid case. As a result, Hellenic Shipyards suffered severe losses and had to suspend its operations. Hellenic Shipyards and the Privinvest Group started arbitration proceedings against the Hellenic Republic in ICC. In September 2017, an arbitration tribunal issued an award in favour of Hellenic Shipyards and the Privinvest Group. In addition, since March 2018, a special administrator appointed by the Hellenic Republic has been in charge of Hellenic Shipyards, and Privinvest has had no control over the company or its operations. The special administrator is in the process of selling the shipyard, in effect executing the Hellenic Republic's goal of expropriating Privinvest. On 8 April 2019, the Athens Court of Appeal upheld the ICC' award worth more than 1.2 billion award to Privinvest. Privinvest commented: "In light of the decision by the Athens Court of Appeal, Privinvest calls on the Hellenic Republic to finally return to the path of legality. The Hellenic Republic must now respect its legal obligations and stop the expropriation. In the meantime, Privinvest will continue to pursue its rights before all available venues in Greece and internationally." Privinvest added: "If the Hellenic Republic had implemented the ICC award, it could have given new life to Hellenic Shipyards. With the income from submarine contracts, and freed from limitations on exports, Hellenic Shipyards could have become a highly profitable shipyard that would have benefited Hellenic Shipyard's 1,000 workers, the Skaramangas region and the Greek economy. Instead, the Hellenic Republic ignored its obligations under the award, as well as the pleas of Hellenic Shipyards to respect the award, and made no payment." The appeals court decision last week "fully confirmed the validity of the award, vindicated Privinvest and removed the Hellenic Republic's last excuse for not respecting the binding judgment of the ICC," Privinvest said. About Privinvest: Privinvest, headquartered in the Middle East, has facilities and shipyards in a number of countries including France, Germany and the Middle East. Its core areas of activities are the design and construction of naval and commercial vessels, the supply of integrated systems, support programs for naval fleets, the support and transfer of technology to countries wishing to develop their shipbuilding industry. Ancillary to its shipbuilding activities Privinvest is increasingly involved in the hydrokinetic and turbine industry. Privinvest's shipyards have delivered more than 2,000 vessels and its products are present in more than 40 navies around the world. Currently, besides a number of private customers, the Privinvest group is working for 6 major navies. Privinvest's shipbuilding entities have consistently enjoyed export success and a strong order book from the group's customers worldwide. https://www.privinvest.com/ View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005287/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Advanced Assembly Reveals New Brand Identity with Modernized Logo and Redesigned Website AURORA, Colo., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Advanced Assembly, the pioneer of quick-turn PCB assembly services, announced today the launch of its new corporate brand including an updated logo, a new website and an instant online ordering process. The new brand reflects the company's ongoing commitment to remain relevant in an industry of continual change, and illustrates Advanced Assembly's unique combination of experience, flexibility, quality and speed. The change will officially take place on April 9, 2019. "Over the last 15 years, Advanced Assembly has assembled more unique designs than anyone else in the industry, and that's not changing anytime soon," said Lawrence Davis, founder and chief executive officer at Advanced Assembly. "Our new brand is one of the many things we are doing as part of our steadfast promise to always better ourselves and evolve, ensuring we can meet our customers' PCB assembly needs today and well into the future. Just as technology never stops advancing, neither will we." Advanced Assembly's new logo still features a cheetah to convey the company's focus on speed and agility. However, the cheetah has been redesigned for simplicity and boldness. It also now stands on top of an RLC circuit as a nod to electrical engineers whose trust and support is critical to the company's success. The bright colors and smooth gradients help the mark stand out in theindustry. "By simplifying and modernizing our brand, while still paying homage to our roots, we have an opportunity to better represent who Advanced Assembly is and what we bring to market," commented Lisa Holmes, director of marketing at Advanced Assembly. "Our new identity is innovative, modern and bold just like the company. Leveraging our extensive experience and true flexibility, we continue to lead the market by delivering the best and fastest PCB assemblies in the industry." As part of the branding initiative, Advanced Assembly also redesigned its website, www.AAPCB.com, to provide quick and easy access to PCB assembly services. The new website now features an even faster way for visitors to quote and order PCB assembly services. It also has a comprehensive resource section, which includes an extensive library of resources to help design PCBs for quick and efficient manufacturing. Advanced Assembly was founded in 2004 to help engineers assemble their prototypes and low-volume PCBs in three days or less. Built from the ground up to serve this market, the company defined what has become known as quick-turn PCB assembly. Over the years, Advanced Assembly has remained true to this original vision. The new brand, website and online ordering solution are reflective of Advanced Assembly's commitment to assembling PCBs to perfection and delivering them as fast as a customer needs them. For more information on Advanced Assembly's new brand, visit: http://go.aapcb.com/new-brand About Advanced Assembly, LLC. Advanced Assembly is an Aurora, Colorado company specializing in quick-turn, SMT assembly for design engineers needing low to mid-volume printed circuit board assembly. The company has assembled more than 40,000 unique designs in the last decade. Due to advanced operational capacity and nearly limitless flexibility, Advanced Assembly takes on more types of projects, provides better personal service, and holds itself accountable to higher quality metrics than anyone else in the industry. For more information visit http://www.aapcb.com or call 1-800-838-5650. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/advanced-assembly-reveals-new-brand-identity-with-modernized-logo-and-redesigned-website-300831765.html SOURCE Advanced Assembly [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] DataStax Accelerate - 60+ Speakers Across 70 Sessions DataStax, the leading provider of the only active everywhere hybrid cloud database built on Apache Cassandra, today announced that DataStax Accelerate-being held May 21-23 in Washington D.C.-will feature more than 60 speakers from the world's top brands, including Conde Nast, DreamWorks, Facebook (News - Alert), Home Depot, Instagram, T-Mobile, Verizon, Walgreens, and Yelp, in addition to hands-on labs, an application bootcamp, free Apache Cassandra certifications, and a drone race. DataStax Accelerate will also have mainstage keynotes by: DataStax CEO Billy Bosworth ("Accelerating Development in a Cloud World") DataStax Co-founder and CTO Jonathan Ellis ("Five Ways DataStax Is Building a Better Cassandra") Apache Cassandra Project Chair Nate McCall ("Apache Cassandra - The Road to 4.0") Keren Elazari, an internationally recognized researcher, author and speaker on all matters cyber security and hacker culture, who has one of the highest ranked TED talks of all time. Click-to-Tweet: At #DataStaxAccelerate, learn how to build for #HybridCloud & hear from the world's biggest brands (ie, Facebook, Netflix, T-Mobile (News - Alert), and many more) using #DataStax to deliver always-on apps. You won't want to miss the world's premiere #ApacheCassandra conference https://bit.ly/2EJ5Mlq "From the hands-on bootcamp to the first-ever DataStax Certifications on Apache Cassandra, Accelerate is the best opportunity for developers to learn from each other and from the engineers that build Apache Cassandra and DataStax," said DataStax CMO Cate Lochead. "We have an unbeatable speaker line up that spans DBAs, architects and executives from global brands like Walgreens, DreamWorks, Netflix, T-Mobile and more. DataStax Accelerate is the place to be in May for anyone who is serious about endlessly scalable, game-changing applications in hybrid cloud." The world's top Apache Cassandra and distributed database engineers will be speaking across seven tracks: Deploying in the Cloud: Hybrid, Public, Private Innovating with Apache Cassandra Accelerating Transformation in the Public Sector Going Beyond Core Cassandra with Graph, Search, and Analytics Building Modern Applications Succeeding with Operations and Administration Exploring Transformational Use Cases DataStax Accelerate is also the only place where you can get free Cassandra certifications from DataStax, with Apache Cassandra 3.x Associate Certification available for developers and administrators. At-event certification sign-up is on a first-come, first-served basis. Exam sessions will be held throughout the day on Wednesday, May 22 and Thursday, May 23. There will be a limited number of seats available, so sign up as soon as you arrive at the event. At the Expo Hall, attendees will see booths from the Accelerate sponsors including Deloitte, Microsoft (News - Alert), Publicis Sapient, Intel, VMware, Hackolade, Oracle, Expero, Azul Systems, and CTO Boost. The Expo Hall will also feature an exhilarating indoor drone race with prizes for the fastest racer. Attendees can pilot drones through a race course and learn how the racing system is backed by DataStax. To attend, please visit www.datastax.com/accelerate or call 650-389-6000 and use code Accelerate20 for 20% off a conference pass. About DataStax DataStax delivers the always-on, active everywhere distributed hybrid cloud database built on Apache Cassandra. The foundation for personalized, real-time applications at scale, DataStax Enterprise makes it easy for enterprises to exploit hybrid and multi-cloud environments via a seamless data layer that eliminates the issues that typically come with deploying applications across multiple on-premises data centers and/or multiple public clouds. Our product also gives businesses full data visibility, portability, and control, allowing them to retain strategic ownership of their most valuable asset in a hybrid/multi cloud world. We help many of the world's leading brands across industries transform their businesses through an enterprise data layer that eliminates data silos and cloud vendor lock-in while powering modern, mission-critical applications. For more information, visit www.DataStax.com and follow us on Twitter (News - Alert) @DataStax. 2019 DataStax, All Rights Reserved. DataStax, Titan, and TitanDB are registered trademarks of DataStax, Inc. and its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries. Apache, Apache Cassandra, Cassandra, Apache Tomcat, Tomcat, Apache Lucene, Lucene, Apache Solr, Apache Hadoop, Hadoop, Apache Spark, Spark, Apache TinkerPop, TinkerPop, Apache Kafka, and Kafka are either registered trademarks or trademarks of the Apache Software Foundation or its subsidiaries in Canada, the United States, and/or other countries. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005164/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] One-in-Five Canadians Have Skipped a Meal, Because They Couldn't Afford to Buy Anything It's hard to swallow the fact that the majority (64%) of the one million monthly Canadian food bank users are individuals living on their own or single parents supporting a family alone1. In its commitment to help tackle food insecurity, Catelli pasta has launched Giving Feels Good, commissioning a survey to take a pulse on food bank users, perceptions and the struggle for single adults. "The 16 food banks we're supporting this year are doing incredible work in their communities to combat Canada's food crisis," says Alistair Senn, Senior Brand Manager at Catelli Food Corporation. "Food insecurity doesn't discriminate. The need in the spring and summer is high, which is why Catelli has pledged to donate one million portions of pasta to our food bank partners." Wholesome pasta is one of the top 10 items food banks need due to its nutritional value as a complex carb, and because it appeals to people with various cultural backgrounds. Henry Chiu, Director of Development and Marketing at North York Harvest Food bank, is at the forefront of the crisis and knows only too well the severity of the issue. "In the last decade alone, we've seen a 61% increase in food bank usage in the inner suburbs in Toronto," he comments. "What's more, 38% of our users have a post-secondary degree - a rising demographic, many would never associate with food insecurity." "The number of food bank users is on the rise in our community, particularly amongst children and seniors who are increasingly turning to us for support," adds Cynthia Boulter, Chief Development Officer at Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society. "While the cost of living rises, many people are having to choose a roof over their head over being able to purchase nutritious food." Canada's hunger crisis isn't going anywhere as an astounding number of Canadians admit to missing a meal in the last year alone, because they simply couldn't afford to buy anything. Catelli's Giving Feels Good research uncovered the reality many Canadians are facing when it comes to their daily struggle to put food on the table. The Catelli survey revealed: One-in-five Canadians have turned to a food bank at least once in their life. have turned to a food bank at least once in their life. In the last 12 months, one-in-five Canadians have skipped a meal, because they couldn't afford to buy anything. Additionally, millennials are more likely to have skipped a meal due to financial woes, with almost one-third of Canadians aged 18-34 admitting they have done so in the last year alone. have skipped a meal, because they couldn't afford to buy anything. Additionally, millennials are more likely to have skipped a meal due to financial woes, with admitting they have done so in the last year alone. Most Canadians (85%) are grateful to regularly have family or friends join them for meals, but when they are left to eat alone, half admit they turn to convenient, less healthy foods. are grateful to regularly have family or friends join them for meals, but when they are left to eat alone, admit they turn to convenient, less healthy foods. The majority (63%) of Canadians are upset one-third of food bank users are children, but admit they don't know how to make a real difference. are upset one-third of food bank users are children, but admit they don't know how to make a real difference. More than one-quarter of Canadians agree that if they were turning to a food bank when hey were hungry, social media would make them feel insecure about not having the money to feed themselves. The food struggle is real across the country In the west, the current economic climate is having a drastic affect with some food banks seeing 150-250 new families needing their services each month. 2 In Quebec there's a disproportionate number of singles turning to food banks, with more than 50% of requests coming from single adult households. This result means, more than 250,000 single adults/parents are turning to them each month. 3 In eastern Canada, almost one-in-five (18%) food bank users are employed, but still require assistance as they struggle to make ends meet.4 The growing reality of having nobody to turn to for support The notion of loneliness amongst food bank users is a harsh reality for 640,000 single Canadians5. While 76% admit they would get involved if someone they knew couldn't afford to feed themselves or their kids, one-third claim that if they needed help, they don't feel they could turn to their family or friends. This result demonstrates that Canadians are eager to help their neighbours, yet the stigma surrounding food insecurity may prevent people from raising their hand. From single, working parents to adults trying to make ends meet on their own, to seniors with a shrinking income, food bank users come from all walks of life and many were previously food secure. In fact, food banks are increasingly seeing those who are currently employed, have a post-secondary education or are highly skilled in their field, turn to them for support. Catelli's commitment to combating food insecurity in Canada Ignoring the food crisis in Canada won't make it go away, which is why, for the 11th year, Catelli has pledged to donate one million portions of pasta to those in need adding to the nine million portions donated since the program began in 2009. For every box of Catelli pasta purchased between April 15 and May 31, 2019, Catelli will donate a serving of pasta to local food banks across Canada. Pasta donations will be made to Catelli's longstanding local food bank partners: Calgary Food Bank, Edmonton's Food Bank, FEED Nova Scotia, The Food Bank of Waterloo Region, Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society, Greener Village Community Food Centre, Hamilton Food Share, London and Area Food Bank, Moisson Montreal, Moisson Quebec, North York Harvest Food Bank, Ottawa Food Bank, Project Share, Regina & District Food Bank Inc., Saskatoon Food Bank & Resource Centre and Winnipeg Harvest. Find out more about how Canadians can help make a difference by visiting Catelli.ca/givingfeelsgood and following #GivingFeelsGood on social media. About Catelli Foods Corporation Catelli Foods Corporation is the largest marketer and distributor of pasta and second largest marketer and distributor of rice in Canada. The company was founded in Montreal, QC in 1867 by Carlo Onorato Catelli, an Italian immigrant who began the business by making macaroni and vermicelli by hand. Now, 152 years later, Catelli pasta is ranked the #1 Canadian pasta brand and is the leader in the health and wellness pasta segment, while Catelli's Minute Rice brand is the leader in the instant rice segment. The operation has grown to include other well-known pasta and sauce brands such as, Lancia, No Yolks, Olivieri, Splendor, Giovani Panzani, Healthy Harvest and Ronzoni. Headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Catelli is part of the Ebro Foods, S.A. group, the leading company in the Spanish food processing sector, being the world's largest trader of rice and second biggest producer of pasta. The Research An online survey of 1539 Canadians was completed between March 8-11, 2019, using Leger's online panel. The margin of error for this study was +/-2.5% out of 20. 1 The Hunger Count Report | Food Banks Canada. (n.d.). Retrieved March 26, 2019, from https://hungercount.foodbankscanada.ca/national-overview/ 2 Data from Regina Food Bank (n.d.). Retrieved March 27, 2019 3 BILAN-FAIM Quebec 2018 (n.d.). Retrieved March 27, 2019, from https://www.banquesalimentaires.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Bilan-Faim-2018-LesBAQ.pdf 4 Data from Greener Village (formerly The Fredericton Food Bank) (n.d.). Retrieved April 1, 2019 5 The Hunger Count Report | Food Banks Canada. (n.d.). Retrieved March 26, 2019, from https://hungercount.foodbankscanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/HungerCount2018_p.pdf View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005130/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] EAWC Technologies Signs Agreement to Lease its Innovative Water Production Solution in South Africa MIAMI, FL, April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- EAWC Technologies (OTC: EAWD) (also known as Eurosport Active World Corp) announces that an agreement has been signed to lease its Atmospheric Water Generation technological solutions through lease programs in South Africa. EAWC Technologies announced in March the launching of The Blue Aqua Mission System; a state-of-the-art German engineered Atmosphere Water Generation (AWG) technology that is completely powered by renewable energy. The system is composed of a suite of intelligent software solutions for real-time optimization of process performance, and operates through its own innovative self-powered system. The agreement to lease The Blue Aqua Mission System is with the private South African Company His Will Innovations, and will be the first of several systems planned in the region. Mr. Willie Mangena, CEO of His Will Innovations, stated, "This system will be a game changer; it will enable us to old shows and invite government stakeholders to experience the systems ability to produce water for any area specially those where distance and infrastructure are the main challenges for water supply." Mr. Ralph Hofmeier, CEO of EAWC Technologies, added, "This is the beginning of the companys journey to become a leader for the commercialization of energy self sufficient water solutions as well as the path to ensure an increasing operating lease revenue for the Corporation." About EAWC Technologies: EAWC Technologies (www.eawctechnologies.com) (OTC: EAWD) operates under the public company Eurosport Active World Corp, a Florida Corporation. EAWC Technologies is an engineering services company in the green tech industry, formed as an outsourcing services green tech platform, which can provide an all-inclusive services package to assess the feasibility of the potential technological solutions for a project that seeks to achieve the close cycle of waste to energy and water generation by exploiting renewable technologies. The green tech industry is constantly evolving due to ongoing and increasing water scarcity, as well as increased energy need. EAWC is well positioned to offer engineering and technical consultancy to design the most accurate renewable technology solutions to these problems and to take advantage of this rapidly growing industry with many new markets. Contact Information: EAWC Technologies Ralph Hofmeier, CEO Email: [email protected] Phone: (305) 517-7330 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Waterton Sends Letter to Hudbay Shareholders Highlighting Entrenchment and Track Record of Poor Strategic Decision-Making of Hudbay's Board Waterton Precious Metals Fund II Cayman, LP ("Waterton Mining LP") and Waterton Mining Parallel Fund Offshore Master, LP ("Waterton Fund II"), each of which are managed by Waterton Global Resource Management, Inc. ("WGRM", and collectively with Waterton Mining LP and Waterton Fund II, "Waterton"), owning in the aggregate 12.09% of the issued and outstanding common shares (the "Shares") of Hudbay Minerals Inc. ("Hudbay" or the "Company") (TSX: HBM) (NYSE: HBM), today filed an information circular (the "Waterton Circular") and issued a letter to shareholders of the Company (the "Shareholders") in connection with its nomination of independent, highly-qualified director candidates for election to the Company's Board of Directors (the "Board") at the Annual and Special Meeting of Shareholders scheduled for Tuesday, May 7, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. (Eastern time) (the "Meeting"). Waterton's slate of director candidates now includes five individuals, who, if elected, would constitute a minority of the post- Meeting Board: A.E. Michael Anglin, Peter Kukielski, Richard Nesbitt, Daniel Muniz Quintanilla and David Smith (News - Alert). The full text of Waterton's open letter to Shareholders follows: April 15, 2019 Dear Hudbay Shareholders, Waterton Global Resource Management, Inc. on behalf of itself and each of Waterton Mining Parallel Fund Offshore Master, LP and Waterton Precious Metals Fund II Cayman, LP (collectively, "Waterton", "we" or "our"), owns 12.09% of the issued and outstanding common shares of Hudbay Minerals Inc. ("Hudbay" or the "Company") (TSX: HBM) (NYSE: HBM), making us the Company's second largest shareholder. Waterton is seeking your support to elect a minority slate of five highly-qualified and experienced independent director candidates (the "Waterton Nominees") to the Company's board of directors (the "Board") at the Company's Annual and Special Meeting of Shareholders to be held on Tuesday, May 7, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. (the "Meeting"). The Waterton Nominees are fully independent of Waterton, have impeccable credentials and possess the relevant, diverse and global experience to help fix the broken culture of Hudbay's current Board by providing much-needed oversight of strategy and capital allocation in order to create long-term shareholder value at the Company. Throughout our public engagement with Hudbay, Waterton has sought to keep the campaign focused on the facts. We have not made things personal. Consistently, we have backed up our assertions with data and clearly stated our intentions - which are to drive long-term share price appreciation for all Hudbay shareholders. In contrast, the approach taken by the Company in its recent Management Information Circular dated April 5, 2019 (the "Hudbay Circular") clearly falls short of even the most basic standards of professionalism. Waterton is shocked and disappointed that a Chairman and Board of a ~$2 billion market capitalization company would conduct themselves in such a childish manner, including by spending shareholder money on creating such a document. The approach taken by the Company in the Hudbay Circular confirms for us what we previously believed: adult supervision from serious professionals is required at Hudbay. Evidently, the Company is on the wrong side of the facts, and so certain factions of the Board have resorted to desperate measures, vitriol and scattershot arguments to maintain their entrenchment. We will continue to focus on the facts. Focus on the Facts: The Coverup is Always Worse than the Crime The manner in which Hudbay has elected to conduct itself in this proxy contest has been increasingly unprofessional and disappointing. However, there is a stark difference between running an aggressive campaign and running a deceitful one. It's a bright line. And it's a line that Hudbay has crossed. The Hudbay Circular and accompanying materials were rife with misleading statements, inaccuracies and blatant mistruths. But there was one accusation made against Waterton that stood out, both for its seriousness and the fact that it was such a galling lie. On page 32 of the investor presentation Hudbay released concurrently with the Hudbay Circular, the Company argues that Waterton has had a negative impact on Hudbay's share price. The page states that "WATERTON MADE ~60% OF ITS PURCHASES AFTER DRIVING HUDBAY'S SHARE PRICE DOWN." Hudbay then stated that a "Bloomberg (News - Alert) Article Seeded by Waterton" artificially manipulated Hudbay's share price in order for Waterton to purchase shares at a discount and increase Waterton's ownership position. The article in question was the October 4, 2018 Bloomberg article regarding Hudbay's deal talks with Mantos Copper. Just to summarize: Hudbay and its Board accused its second largest shareholder of market manipulation - a serious allegation against any institutional investor. Note that in our description we used the past tense of the word "accused." That is because at some point last week Hudbay surreptitiously updated its presentation. In the new version, the words "seeded by Waterton" have been removed from the sentence referring to the Bloomberg report. Even though this alleged action by Waterton had been positioned in the previous version as the smoking gun for the entire argument that Waterton had manipulated Hudbay's share price, the rest of the page remains unchanged. It is not surprising that investors would not have been aware of this highly significant alteration to Hudbay's materials, as there was no refiling, noted correction, or any other form of disclosure around the event. Clearly Hudbay lied. The fact that the Company and the Board then tried to sweep their baseless accusation under the rug without any public disclosure, well after virtually all its investors would have reviewed Hudbay's proxy materials, demonstrates an utter lack of integrity or regard for honest communication with shareholders. In our view, all of Hudbay's current directors are responsible for this error in judgement and the subsequent coverup. Waterton intends to immediately take the necessary legal steps to ensure that shareholders are given the truth. In addition to this surreptitious conduct, Hudbay also attempted to discredit Mr. Nesbitt, Mr. Kukielski and Mr. Muniz in their proxy materials through patently false and grossly misleading information. Focus on the Facts: Hibben, Stowe and Gonzales are requesting to be in the Boardroom, Waterton is not In the Hudbay Circular, the Company makes a number of irresponsible and misleading statements about Waterton's investment track record and specific investments. Waterton is a top performing private equity fund with an institutional, multi-disciplinary, platform and it is widely accepted in the market that we are one of the most successful investment firms in the mining sector. To be clear, we are a private investment firm and the Company does not have visibility into our complete investment portfolio. Hudbay seemingly spent copious amounts of time on Google gathering inaccurate, fragmented and largely irrelevant data points in an effort to mislead shareholders about our investment track record. Hudbay conveniently forgot to mention that our return on our Hudbay investment is 61% and that ~$750 million of value has been created for our fellow shareholders. While we are proud of this performance, we would once again like to reiterate that Waterton's track record is not relevant to this campaign. All of the Waterton Nominees are entirely independent of Waterton and Waterton will not be in the boardroom. Chairman Alan R. Hibben, Kenneth G. Stowe and Igor A. Gonzales, however, are requesting to be in the Boardroom and their judgement and track record is relevant. Let's consider each of their performance: Chairman Hibben and Mr. Stowe have served on the Board in conjunction with the current CEO, CFO and COO being in senior management roles for nearly a decade and Mr. Gonzales has done the same for more than half a decade, during which time an incredible amount of shareholder value has been destroyed. Total shareholder returns ("TSR (News - Alert)") relative to its peers ("Peers")1 during the tenures of Chairman Hibben, Mr. Stowe, and Mr. Gonzales, prior to our public involvement, were -131%, -88% and -75%, respectively. There is no hiding or explaining away this fact. For Board refreshment to be meaningful and effective, Hudbay's nomination of three new directors out of an 11-person Board slate is not enough in light of the level of entrenchment, poor judgement and value destruction that has occurred under this Board. Focus on the Facts: This Entrenched Board is Yet Again Ignoring the Views of Holders of Approximately 30% of Its Shares On the morning of April 3, 2019, Waterton submitted what was its second term sheet (the "April Term Sheet") to Chairman Hibben that set forth a settlement proposal supported by holders of approximately 30% of Hudbay's shares. Waterton and the Company had a meeting scheduled for April 4, 2019. Our intentions were to discuss the supported settlement proposal with Chairman Hibben and director Sarah Kavanaugh at the meeting and progress negotiations on the April Term Sheet in the days following, as the Company had until mid-April to issue its circular. During this meeting, once again, we found Chairman Hibben to be dismissive. Chairman Hibben conveyed that he would discuss the proposal with the remainder of the Board and revert with feedback. We took his words at face value. The very next day, Mr. Hibben requested a call with Waterton at 10:45 a.m. and on that call indicated that the Company would be rejecting the supported settlement. Mr. Hibben did not provide any feedback or a counter proposal. Less than two hours after the call ended, the Company issued the Hudbay Circular and other proxy-related materials. From Waterton's perspective, we believe the April 4 meeting was merely a charade on the part of Hudbay to create the optics of engagement. The fact that the Company had a press release, presentation, and its circular ready to go - replete with over the top attacks and false accusations against Waterton and our Waterton Nominees - in our minds demonstrates that they had no interest in a true negotiation. In fact, the Board's bad faith approach to negotiations has been a consistent theme. In November 2018, when Waterton first engaged in settlement discussions with the Company and owned approximately 8% of the Company, Chairman Hibben offered Waterton 2 of 10 Board seats. In April 2019, despite Waterton now owning approximately 12% of the Company and having ~30% Shareholder support for a settlement proposal, Chairman Hibben offered us 2 of 11 seats, a nonsensical downgrade from his original position. Ultimately, the Board, under the leadership of Chairman Hibben, has shown itself much more adept at entrenchment maneuvers and gamesmanship than at doing what's right for shareholders. Focus on the Facts: Hudbay is at a Critical Inflection Point Hudbay is at a strategic inflection point and the upcoming quarters for the Company will not be about picking low-hanging operational fruit - which is the extent of what the Company has done to date. In fact, we believe that the current Hudbay simply builds for the sake of building - without regard for the critical issue of how shareholder returns are impacted by its operational decisions. Put another way, the Company's focus on operational issues is tantamount to seeing only the tip of the iceberg. The Board does not have the experience or the skillset needed to see the issues which constitute the rest of the iceberg below the surface - issues which could sink the Company and destroy even more shareholder value, similar to the Company nearing insolvency and almost defaulting on debt covenants in 2016 after building Constancia. And this is the fundamental difference between the "strategy" of the incumbent Board and the meaningful strategy that the Waterton Nominees would implement: the incumbent Board just takes the next operational step because it's there, the Waterton Nominees would keenly consider long-term shareholder value before taking any step. At this critical moment, the Company must resolve key strategic issues and make transformational decisions. These include: The appropriate mix of assets from a portfolio construction perspective; The future of its Manitoba Business Unit; The construction of the Rosemont project which Hudbay estimates has a capex of $1.9 billion; The appropriate joint venture partner and ownership structure for Rosemont; The appropriate financing strategy for Rosemont; and Land and community matters at Constancia. Hudbay now requires a significant change at the Board level to ensure that once the pressure is off, the value that has been created since Waterton's involvement continues to grow over the long-term. We believe if meaningful change is not made immediately, Hudbay will revert to its characteristic myopic short-term thinking and poor capital allocation decision-making, something it can ill afford to do at this critical moment. The Company needs sufficient additional bench-strength in the Boardroom that will: Make strategic decisions with a view toward creating long-term shareholder value; Allocate capital based on predefined hurdles and as a part of a holistic strategy; and End the culture of entrenchment and introduce meaningful accountability. Lack of Strategic Thinking and Poor Capital Allocation: The Constancia Precedent The Company's current Board has a terrible track record when it comes to analyzing and executing on key strategic matters. Note that Constancia was built under the oversight of a significant proportion of the current Board. To this day, the Board and C-Suite repeatedly reference building Constancia as their biggest "win". Let's factually review what happened to this Company when Constancia was built under this Board's oversight. Yes, the Company built a mine. But, in the process the Board turned a company with a market capitalization of close to $2 billion into a $380 million dollar company, loaded its balance sheet with debt and took Hudbay to the brink of insolvency, as it was in jeopardy of breaching its debt covenants. As noted by sell-side analysts, "Hudbay [faced] potential debt covenant breaches"2 and they were "basically betting their market cap on one mine." 3 After Hudbay built Constancia, the Company's debt-to-equity ratio was approximately three times greater than its Peers.4 It was the Board's judgement on when to build, how to finance and other key strategic factors that took Hudbay to the brink of insolvency. We now have a strikingly similar situation to that of 2012. In recent months and weeks, Hudbay has made it abundantly clear to the market that its intention is to construct Rosemont, and it has initiated preliminary construction activities. But Hudbay today is in a far worse cash and debt position relative to April 2012, with a similar market capitalization and facing a greater capex requirement. It is time to rein in this Company's reckless behaviour. The reality is the Company is in "build for the sake of building" mode and there's little long-term strategic foresight dictating the decisions around Rosemont. Lack of Strategic Thinking and Poor Capital Allocation: The Mantos Deception On October 4, 2018, Bloomberg reported that Hudbay was in talks to buy Mantos Copper SA for ~$780 million, a project with a ~$990 million follow-on capital requirement, according to Bloomberg. Following the report, Hudbay's share price fell 7.9% intraday. Waterton vocally opposed the acquisition because of the Company's existing capital requirements, its then discounted valuation and its need to focus on its own operational issues. To put this into perspective, according to the Bloomberg article, Hudbay was pursuing a transaction that could have resulted in ~$4.2 billion of existing debt obligations and potential capital requirements, while the Company's market capitalization was only $1.25 billion. In the months following the Bloomberg article, Hudbay has been evasive with respect to its statements on Mantos and has not categorically denied that it was in the late stages of pursuing the transaction. Was it one of the last parties left in the process? Was it negotiating with the seller in late stage exclusive negotiations? Were purchase agreements going back and forth? Was the proposed purchase price ~$780 million? The Company will not say - and that is problematic in light of the alarming deterioration of Hudbay's share price resulting from this article and the chorus of Shareholder concern about the potential acquisition. Never mind the issue of dealing with the Company's shareholders truthfully and transparently, the issue of whether the Company was in the late stages of a Mantos deal is critical because it goes to a key question: does this Board have the strategic judgement to create long-term shareholder value? If the Company was indeed pursuing the Mantos transaction, a deal that would have massively destroyed shareholder value, shareholders should know that before they cast their vote at the Meeting. Focus on the Facts: More Change is Needed Hudbay is speaking out of both sides of its mouth. On the one hand it is impugning Waterton's motives, judgment and slate of nominees, while on the other hand effectively endorsing our judgment by selecting two of our nominees to add to its slate of director candidates. As we have stated all along, A.E. Michael Anglin and David Smith would be remarkable additions to the Hudbay Boardroom. The reality is, however, that changing over two director seats, mitigated by the expansion of the Board to 11 members and the addition of another Hudbay-selected director, does not constitute the level of change that is desperately needed. This amount of change is dangerously insufficient for three reasons: (1) the entrenchment in the Hudbay Boardroom and C-Suite goes back nearly a decade, (2) the Board would still be lacking key skills and expertise that are necessary to create long-term shareholder value, and (3) there is a systemic lack of accountability at the Board, as evidenced by, among other things, Hudbay's 2018 Corporate Scorecard where the Board awarded management a score of 93.5/100 despite Shareholders having lost 42% on their investment. Waterton believes that substantial changes must still be made to the Hudbay Board to give shareholders the comfort that the change and proper oversight needed at Hudbay can be effective. That is why we continue to advocate for the election of three additional director nominees, beyond Mr. Anglin and Mr. Smith. We believe that the addition - in total - of five of our nominees will effect a marked change in the dynamics in the Boardroom at the Company and help drive improvements in strategy and to end the current culture of entrenchment. By refreshing the Board with five Waterton Nominees, we believe the Company will have the necessary strategic oversight, capital allocation discipline, accountability to hold management to account and, importantly, institutional-grade professionalism. In these specific circumstances, we are willing to provide the current CEO with a full and fair opportunity to demonstrate his capabilities. We also note that five directors would constitute a minority of what will be an 11-member Board. To be clear, we are no longer asking for control of the Board. Hudbay's shareholders should not be deprived of this unique opportunity to materially upgrade its Boardroom with institutional-grade talent. In addition to our nominees A.E. Michael Anglin and David Smith who have been included on Hudbay's Board slate, our nominees Richard Nesbitt, Peter Kukielski and Daniel Muniz Quintanilla, on objective measure of merit and experience, are just that - a material upgrade. Why shouldn't our Company have the best of the best in the Boardroom, particularly now that each of these professionals are ready and willing to engage? Waterton's Highly-Qualified, Independent Nominees - Upgraded and Needed Oversight The Waterton Nominees have the required skills, fresh perspectives, and expertise the Company's Board and management team sorely need. As highlighted below, each Waterton Nominee fulfills the immediate experience sorely needed at the current, flawed and entrenched Board. The Waterton Nominees' backgrounds and credentials can be found in Waterton's information circular accompanying this letter under "Matters to be Acted Upon at the Meeting - Waterton Nominee Profiles" and on our website at www.NewHudbay.com. Director Proposed Role Expertise Requirement A.E. Michael Anglin Independent Director Construction & Operation of Large-Scale Copper Projects Peter Kukielski Independent Director Proven Leadership & Relevant Track Record with Strategic Partnerships Richard Nesbitt Independent Director Corporate Governance & Accountability Daniel Muniz Quintanilla Independent Director Board & C-Suite Experience at South America's largest mining projects David Smith Independent Director Capital Allocation & Project Finance Expertise The Waterton Nominees not only have the experience to move Hudbay forward, they also have a strategy to deliver long-term shareholder value. If elected, the Waterton Nominees are in a position to help execute this strategy starting immediately after the Meeting, including: Accountability : Ensure management is held to account and fully aligned with shareholders. : Ensure management is held to account and fully aligned with shareholders. Corporate Governance : Implement best governance standards and practices based on a culture of transparency and professionalism. : Implement best governance standards and practices based on a culture of transparency and professionalism. Portfolio Optimization : Require a holistic portfolio review and a strategic optimization plan for the assets to maximize long-term shareholder value. : Require a holistic portfolio review and a strategic optimization plan for the assets to maximize long-term shareholder value. Capital Allocation & Balance Sheet : Demand a comprehensive capital allocation strategy with a focus on return on invested capital. : Demand a comprehensive capital allocation strategy with a focus on return on invested capital. Performance : Ensure management delivers on transparent and value accretive performance objectives. A Simple Choice: We believe that stacking up the experience and expertise of the Waterton Nominees against those of Hudbay's incumbent directors paints an incredibly clear picture. Hudbay can grasp at straws all it wants to try to portray its directors as experienced leaders, but shareholders will not be fooled. The bottom line is that incumbent directors Alan R. Hibben, Kenneth G. Stowe and Igor A. Gonzales, have had their chance to exercise responsible oversight of Hudbay's governance and strategy - and they have not been effective in doing so. In contrast, our Waterton Nominees are better positioned on every count to push for the change that is desperately needed at the Company. We believe that shareholders should not be deprived of this rare opportunity to have Board members with such impressive and relevant experience and expertise. The facts speak for themselves: Waterton Nominees Hudbay Nominees Richard Nesbitt Seasoned Leader Has led some of Canada's largest and most important institutions and has executed some of the country's most seminal corporate transactions Track record of creating immense shareholder value, as demonstrated by his 487% TSR as President, CEO and board member of the TSX Group and his 122% TSR as COO of CIBC, and Chairman and CEO of CIBC World Markets During Mr. Nesbitt's tenure as COO of CIBC and Chairman and CEO of CIBC World Markets, CIBC's share price increased from $67 to $107, and the market capitalization increased by $12 billion Other leadership roles include President and CEO of HSBC Securities (Canada) Inc. and President and CEO of the Global Risk Institute Alan Hibben Track record of destroying shareholder value, as demonstrated by the abysmal TSRs at the majority of companies he's served on the board of, including Pinetree Capital -50%, DHX Media -53%, Discovery Air -81%, Peace Arch -92% and Home Capital 169% Since 2009, he has collected approximately C$2 million in compensation at Hudbay for his service on the Board, despite the Company's TSR of -131% relative to its Peers Primary board experience is serving on micro-cap and small-cap company boards Hudbay is the largest company board that Mr. Hibben has served on in his entire public company boardroom career, approximately seven times larger than the average company size in Mr. Hibben's board history Has not held a C-Suite role in a publicly traded company Peter Kukielski Superior Mining Experience Track record of creating immense shareholder value, as demonstrated by his 25% TSR while a board member of South32 (a ~$10 billion market capitalization mining company) and his 93% TSR at Nevsun (a diversified mid-tier mining company as at the end of his tenure) as the CEO and executive board member 30+ years of extensive global experience within the base metals, precious metals and bulk materials sectors Oversaw global operations for companies such as BHP Billiton, Teck Resources, ArcelorMittal, Falconbridge Named CEO of the Year at Mines and Money in 2018 As CEO of ArcelorMittal's mining division, grew that business unit so much that it began being reported separately and came to represent ~30% of the company's EBITDA Kenneth Stowe Track record of destroying shareholder value at the companies where he served as an independent board member, including Klondex -55%, Fire River -60%, Zenyatta Ventures-61%, Alamos -63% and Centenario -78% Has gained the majority of his boardroom experience serving on small-cap and micro-cap mining company boards Has not held a C-Suite position in a major mining company As a result of his limited experience serving on the Board of or holding C-Suite positions at major mining companies, Mr. Stowe brings a small company mentality to the Hudbay Boardroom Daniel Muniz Quintanilla Superior South American Experience Has a track record of creating immense long-term shareholder value, as demonstrated by his 376% TSR at Grupo Mexico (serving as CFO and executive board member for ten years) and his 86% TSR at Southern Copper (serving as Executive Vice President and executive board member for ten years). Southern Copper's operations are significantly more complex, and its market cap (~$32 billion) is significantly larger (>15x larger), than Hudbay's Was critical in establishing a capital allocation and execution strategy to increase production at Southern Copper and Grupo Mexico by 81% and 86%, respectively, and increasing the market capitalization by $3.3 billion and $11.0 billion, respectively Great addition to the Hudbay Board, bringing to bear his executive experience in South America, prudent approach to capital allocation, his focus on profitability and his knowledge and track-record of community engagement in Peru Igor Gonzales As CEO of Sierra Metals, a base metals company operating in South America, he is extremely distracted by the following factors: (i) Sierra Metals is undergoing an expansion at all three of its core operating mines in 2019, (ii) Sierra Metals' silver operation is projected to operate at a loss in 2019, (iii) as of December 31, 2018, Sierra Metals had a negative working capital balance, and (iv) Sierra Metals has significantly underperformed its peers year-to-date As CEO of Sierra Metals, Mr. Gonzales is subject to potential commercial conflicts, requiring recusal, further limiting his utility on the Board By his own admission, he was a key leader at Pascua-Lama, on which Barrick took a $5.1 billion write down which will go down in the mining sector as being one of the worst examples of capital allocation, having capex estimates increase from $1.2 billion to ~$8.5 billion We Need Your Support We encourage our fellow shareholders to consider the facts and remember Hudbay's consistent poor performance, ongoing flawed strategy, damaged credibility and entrenched culture. The Waterton Nominees are ready and willing to help create new Hudbay with a defined strategy and a focus on creating long-term shareholder value. Please read Waterton's information circular accompanying this letter and review the additional shareholder materials available, including the comprehensive investor presentation titled "Rebuilding Hudbay & Maximizing Shareholder Value" setting out a detailed path forward for Hudbay to recognize its potential and unlock shareholder value at www.NewHudbay.com. Your vote is critical to initiate much-needed change at the Board and management level at Hudbay and we encourage you to vote for the Waterton Nominees on the BLUE form of proxy and/or BLUE voting instruction form by 5:00 p.m. (Eastern time) on Thursday, May 2, 2019. Shareholders willing to express their support for the Waterton Nominees may contact Kingsdale Advisors, our strategic shareholder advisor and proxy solicitation agent, at 1-888-518-1563 toll-free in North America, or at 416-867-2272 outside of North America (collect calls accepted), or by email at [email protected]. Sincerely, Isser Elishis Chief Investment Officer About Waterton Waterton is an investment firm that manages capital for global institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds and endowments. The firm has ~US$2 billion in assets under management and focuses solely on the metals and mining sector. Waterton has a culture of thoroughness and a disciplined approach to capital allocation, and utilizes its significant industry expertise to produce out-sized risk-adjusted returns. Additional Information In its early warning report dated January 22, 2019 (the "January EWR"), Waterton had disclosed that it intended to nominate and solicit proxies for a slate of eight director candidates for election to the Board at the Meeting. As announced today, Waterton is now intending to solicit proxies for five individuals for election to the Board at the Meeting. Waterton owns and exercises control or direction over an aggregate of 31,583,117 Shares, representing approximately 12.09% of the issued and outstanding Shares. At the time of the January EWR, Waterton owned and exercised control or direction over 31,352,658 Shares, representing approximately 12.00% of the issued and outstanding Shares. The Shares were acquired for investment purposes and for other reasons detailed herein and in Item 5 of the January EWR and other early warning reports filed by Waterton under applicable Canadian securities laws. Waterton may, depending on market and other conditions, acquire additional Shares through market transactions, private agreements, treasury issuances, exercise of warrants, or otherwise, or may sell all or some portion of the Shares, or may continue to hold the Shares. For further information and to obtain a copy of the early warning reports filed by Waterton, please see Hudbay's profile on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com or contact Richard Wells, Chief Financial Officer of WGRM at 416-504-3505. The head office address of WGRM is Commerce Court West, 199 Bay Street, Suite 5050, Toronto, Ontario, M5L 1E2, Canada. The head office address of each of Waterton Mining LP and Waterton Fund II is Ugland House, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, KY1-1104. The head office address of Hudbay is 25 York Street, Suite 800, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5J 2V5. Legal Notices and Disclaimers The data, information and opinions contained or referenced herein (collectively, the "Information") is for general informational purposes only for the Shareholders in order to provide the views of Waterton regarding certain changes we are requesting to the composition of the Board, and other matters which Waterton believes to be of concern to Shareholders described herein. The Information is not tailored to specific investment objectives, the financial situation, suitability, or particular need of any specific person(s) who may receive the Information, and should not be taken as advice in considering the merits of any investment decision. The views expressed in the Information represent the views and opinions of Waterton, whose opinions may change at any time and which are based on analyses of Waterton and its advisors. Unless otherwise indicated, the Information has been derived or obtained from public disclosure and filings with respect to and/or made by Hudbay and other issuers that we consider to be comparable to Hudbay, and from other third party reports (see "Legal Notices and Disclaimers - Disclaimer Respecting Publicly Sourced Information" in the Waterton Circular, a copy of which is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com or on www.newhudbay.com). The Information contains forward-looking statements or forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws (collectively, "forward-looking statements"), including, without limitation, Waterton's and Hudbay's respective priorities, plans and strategies for Hudbay and certain members of Hudbay's operational, compensation and other noted peer groups' anticipated financial and operating performance and business prospects. All statements and information, other than statements of historical fact, included herein are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding activities, events or developments that Waterton expects or anticipates may occur in the future. Certain forward-looking statements contained herein may be considered to be future-oriented financial information or a financial outlook for the purposes of applicable Canadian securities laws. These forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as "will", "expect", "intend", "plan", "estimate", "anticipate", "believe" or "continue" or similar words and expressions or the negative thereof. There can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which these forward-looking statements are based will occur or, even if they do occur, will result in the performance, events or results expected. We caution readers not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements contained herein, which are not a guarantee of performance, events or results and are subject to a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to those set forth in the Waterton Circular under the heading "Legal Notices and Disclaimers - Forward-Looking Statements" and those risks and uncertainties detailed in the continuous disclosure and other filings of Hudbay and certain members of Hudbay's operational, compensation and other noted peer groups with applicable securities regulators, copies of which are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com or on the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval at www.sec.gov. We urge you to carefully consider those risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements contained herein are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Unless expressly stated otherwise, the forward-looking statements included herein are made as of April 15, 2019 and Waterton disclaims any obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable law. 109718806 v1 1 Peers include Antofagasta, Ero Copper, First Quantum (News - Alert), Freeport, Lundin, Oz Minerals, Southern Copper 2 Canaccord Genuity, January 14, 2016. 3 Quote by George Topping at Stifel Nicolaus, The Globe & Mail, "HudBay bets big with Constancia project as rivals pull back," March 7, 2013. 4 FactSet (News - Alert). As of December 31, 2015; debt defined as short-term debt and long-term debt; equity defined as market capitalization as of December 31, 2015. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005451/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Alpha Variance Solutions, LLC announces the Launch of its Wholly Owned Subsidiary StrategicStack Services, Private Limited in Bangalore, India. NEW YORK, April 15, 2019 /CNW/ -- Alpha Variance Solutions, LLC is pleased to announce the formation of StrategicStack Services, Private Limited, one more step towards extending our reach and capabilities for our clients and future prospects. The Indian market is a critical resource for US companies from a talent and resource perspective as well as a vibrant growing market to serve. We are proud to continue our expansion and growth within India. Yuanming Chu, President- StrategicStack Services is another step in the plan of our company to add value to the Microsoft Partner Eco-system. 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They help in reducing the total cost of ownership, protecting investments in assets, assisting asset inventory management, facilitating preventative maintenance in compliant with vehicles' Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) guidelines, and reducing repair costs by improvin fleet safety. Among services, the professional service provider segment to have a larger market size during the forecast period In the Fleet Management Market by service, the professional service provider segment is expected to have a larger market share during the forecast period. Currently, the Fleet Management Market is emerging and expected to grow during the forecast period. Professional service providers study the fleet operations of logistics companies, thereby comprehending business constraints, providing major insights that help these companies optimally utilize all available resources, and making the most of their technological investments. Ask for Report Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=1020 North America to hold the largest market size during the forecast period North America is expected to hold the largest market size in the global Fleet Management Market during the forecast period. The US has emerged as a larger country in terms of market size, due to the large scale implementation of fleet management solutions by the organizations and enterprises in the country. The pace of digital transformation in the US is high, high growth of telematics, and advent of the 4G technology in the region are the factors attribute to the fast growth of the Fleet Management Market in the US. The key and emerging market players in the Fleet Management Market include ARI Fleet Management (US), Azuga (US), Chevin Fleet Solutions (Australia), Ctrack (US), Donlen Corporation (US), Geotab (Canada), GPS Insight (US), Masternaut (UK), MiX Telematics (South Africa) , Nextraq (US), Teletrac Navman (US), Trimble (US), Verizon Connect (US), Wheels, Inc (US), and Fleetroot (UAE). These players have adopted various strategies to grow in the global Fleet Management Market. Browse Adjacent Markets: Smart Infrastructure Market Research Reports & Consulting About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 7500 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve. MarketsandMarkets's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "Knowledge Store" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. Contact: Mr. Shelly Singh MarketsandMarkets INC. 630 Dundee Road Suite 430 Northbrook, IL 60062 USA: +1-888-600-6441 Email: [email protected] Research Insight: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/fleet-management-systems-market.asp Visit Our Website: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/660509/MarketsandMarkets_Logo.jpg [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Star2Star Communications Offers Full Spectrum Communications Solution Through CenturyLink's Marketplace SARASOTA, Fla., April 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Star2Star Communications, provider of the worlds only Full Spectrum Communications Solution, today announced its participation in the CenturyLink Marketplace Provider Program . Inclusion in the program allows Star2Star to offer their Full Spectrum Communications Solution to businesses via the CenturyLink Marketplace. Known for its innovative approach to communications architecture, Star2Star created the Full Spectrum Communications Solution as a system that provides for every customers unique needs. The Full Spectrum portfolio includes multiple deployment options, customization features, and a complete suite of communications tools including voice, video, mobile, fax, presence management, and much more. Star2Star strives to provide the most comprehensive, end-user-friendly system available on the market. The CenturyLink Marketplace Provider Program allows participating technology companies to integrate their solutions with a range of services across the CenturyLink hybrid IT delivery platform. These business-ready solutions are available to CenturyLinks cloud, hosting, and network customers. Star2Star now offers their StarCloud solution to new and existing CenturyLink Marketplace customers, available to order 24/7 online. Customers will benefit from the Full Spectrum solution and world class, top tier UCaaS features and support, as well as streamlined hardwar and service ordering and billing processes via the Marketplace. We are excited to partner with CenturyLink and begin offering our Full Spectrum solutions via the CenturyLink Cloud Marketplace, said Michelle Accardi, President and Chief Revenue Officer at Star2Star. We are always looking for ways to provide more value to businesses through the Full Spectrum portfolio, and working with CenturyLink has greatly enhanced our channel strategies. In speaking with our enterprise customers, one of the most important aspects of their IT strategy is the ability to enable collaboration and unified communication across teams, said David Shacochis, Vice President of Product Management for IT solutions at CenturyLink. We are pleased to enable customers to try innovative solutions like StarCloud as part of their digital transformation. To learn more about the Full Spectrum Communications Solution in the CenturyLink Marketplace, visit https://www.ctl.io/marketplace/partner/ZMW3 . For more information about Star2Stars Full Spectrum Communications Solution, visit www.Star2Star.com . About Star2Star Communications Founded in 2006 in Sarasota, Florida, Star2Star Communications empowers global business success with a Full Spectrum Communications Solution. With options ranging from pure to on-premises cloud, Star2Star offers unparalleled value, reliability, quality, and scalability. Star2Star unifies business communications including voice, video, fax, mobile, chat, and presence management. Merged with Blueface, the leading pan-European UCaaS provider, Star2Star possesses a global influence and customer base. Blueface's proprietary cloud voice platform supports businesses of all sizes, ranging from small-to-medium to large enterprises and strategic wholesale customers. Star2Stars award-winning, patented Constellation Network overcomes the reliability and quality limitations of other communications technologies and enables companies to choose the deployment methodology that aligns best with their needs. Together with their unique cloud architecture, Star2Stars patented StarCloud+ platform offers unparalleled connectivity and site survivability. The pure cloud version, StarCloud, offers the same high-quality communications without any hardware for ultra-flexibility. With a customer retention rate of 99.85%, Star2Star has been recognized by a multitude of leading analysts. Over the past several years, Star2Star was named to the Forbes Most Promising Companies list, the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 five times, and the Inc. 500|5000 seven times. The company was also named by IHS as a Top 10 Hosted Business VoIP/UC Provider and has been in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for UCaaS, Worldwide for the last four years. Casey OLoughlin [email protected] [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] California Life Sciences Institute (CLSI) Names Winner of Bay Area BioGENEius Student Biotechnology Competition California Life Sciences Institute (CLSI) today named Las Lomas High School 10th grader Melanie Quan of Alamo the winner of the 2019 Amgen Bay Area BioGENEius Challenge, the premier competition for high school students that recognizes outstanding research and innovation in the biotechnology field. CLSI is the non-profit partner of the California Life Sciences Association (CLSA), and supports the foundations of innovation - workforce development, STEM education and entrepreneurship - that have made California home to the world's most prominent life sciences ecosystem. As the Bay Area BioGENEius finalist, Ms. Quan will attend the 2019 BIO International Convention in Philadelphia, the industry's trade conference, where she will engage with leading companies, scientists and innovators currently transforming the scientific landscape to gain invaluable insights into an industry making significant contributions to the world. While in Philadelphia, Melanie will compete against students from the U.S., Canada and Germany in the International BioGENEius Challenge. The projects presented will represent a range of biotechnology topics such as healthcare, agriculture and the environment. Shruti Sridhar and Shreya Garg, both from Notre Dame High School in San Jose, took home second and third place, resectively. "CLSI's Amgen Bay Area BioGENEius Challenge shines a light on some of the Bay Area's most remarkable high school student researchers. The caliber of the student projects is so impressive and holds great promise for the discoveries of tomorrow that will address our globe's most pressing challenges," said Lori Lindburg, President & CEO, California Life Sciences Institute (CLSI). "CLSI is so proud to have Melanie represent us in Philadelphia at the 2019 BIO International Convention, only one stop on what I'm sure will be a very successful career in science." For the fourth year in a row, Amgen in South San Francisco hosted the signature competition. In addition to the judging of student poster presentations, CLSI's Amgen Bay Area BioGENEius Challenge included a keynote address by Ms. Seema Kantak, Executive Director, Biotherapeutics at Exelixis, as well as a Career Panel, lunch with Amgen scientists, and a poster viewing and reception with Amgen employees. "Amgen is again pleased to partner with the California Life Sciences Institute (CLSI) to support the Amgen Bay Area BioGENEius Challenge at our South San Francisco site and to celebrate the Bay Area's outstanding student talent," said Dr. Saptarsi Haldar, VP of Research, Amgen South San Francisco. "We extend our congratulations to all of the student finalists and look forward to following their continued success." The International BioGENEius Challenge is organized by the Biotechnology Institute. "Our mission is to engage and excite student innovators by creating an environment that allows them to showcase their talents and help accelerate their development as the next generation of scientists. The BioGENEius Challenges encourage students to apply their scientific knowledge to solve some of society's most pressing issues through biotechnology, allowing them to see the tremendous potential they have to make change in the world," said Dr. Lawrence Mahan, President of Biotechnology Institute. "We bring students, mentors and industry leaders together to promote excellence in scientific research from the best and brightest minds in the next generation of biotechnology innovators." Winners will be announced during the Tuesday, June 4th, keynote at the 2019 BIO International Convention. Follow the BioGENEius Challenge: Throughout the challenge, @BiotechInstitute will be tweeting interviews, photos, and engaging with the biotechnology community by using the hashtag #BioGENEius. About California Life Sciences Institute (CLSI) California Life Sciences Institute (CLSI) supports the foundations of innovation that have made California home to the world's most prominent life sciences ecosystem. With a focus on the San Francisco Bay Area, CLSI's mission is to maintain California's leadership in life sciences innovation through support of entrepreneurship, education and career development. CLSI serves as the west coast accelerator for CARB-X, the world's largest public-private partnership devoted to combatting antimicrobial resistance. CLSI is an affiliate of the California Life Sciences Association (CLSA), which represents California's leading life sciences organization. The California Life Sciences Institute is a nonprofit 501(c)(3), and was established in 1990 as the BayBio Institute. Learn more at http://califesciencesinstitute.org. About the Biotechnology Institute The Biotechnology Institute is an independent, national nonprofit organization dedicated to education about the present and future impact of biotechnology. Its mission is to engage, excite and educate the public, particularly students and teachers, about biotechnology and its immense potential for solving human health, food and environmental problems. For more information, visit www.biotechinstitute.org. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005250/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Corporate Traveller Partners with BitPay to Accept Cryptocurrency Payments Corporate Traveller, the UK's leading specialist provider of business travel management services to SME companies, has partnered with BitPay, the largest global blockchain payment provider. The agreement means that Corporate Traveller can accept bitcoin and bitcoin cash payments from its SME customers for business travel bookings. Corporate Traveller, a division of Flight Centre Travel Group, one of the world's largest travel companies, has carved a niche in the market for providing travel management services to clients across the UK with an SME-size annual business travel spend of 50K to 2M. Corporate Traveller has offices in 20 locations nationwide and is the largest and only UK travel management company delivering online and offline services purely for this client sector. As a result of parent company Flight Centre Travel Group's 10 billion global negotiation strength, Corporate Traveller can give its clients access to unrivalled airfares, hotel rates and product options not normally available to companies with an SME business travel spend. Andy Hegley, UK General Manager, Corporate Traveller said: "We have been leading the way in terms of looking after the specific business travel needs of SME companies for the last 20 years. Our business is built around our customer and will only continue to be successful if we focus on the delivery of a customer service experience that clients will not receive anywhere else. That's why we continue to evolve and pioneer products and services that are tailored to our clients in order to retain existing customers as well as reach new clients. "We identified an increasing demand from our clients for the option to pay in bitcoin for business travel bookings made by our travel consultants. We chose BitPay to manage our merchant processing because they make it easy and handle the entire process of getting the Bitcoin or Bitcoin Cash from the customer and depositing cash into our account. The blockchai industry is growing exponentially and we are excited to be able to offer our clients the ability to pay in bitcoin, whilst having the reassurance of our settlement from BitPay being in pounds sterling. We believe Corporate Traveller is the first business travel management company to offer this payment option to SMEs in the UK." Using BitPay, payments received via bitcoin or bitcoin cash will settle directly in Corporate Traveller's bank account within two business days - denominated in GBP. There is no price volatility or risk to the company, and as a push transaction, the user sends the exact amount of Bitcoin or Bitcoin Cash needed to pay the bill. Unlike the high cost of credit cards, BitPay charges 1% to approve the bitcoin or bitcoin cash transaction and settlement. BitPay enables transactions from any computer or mobile device and invoices can be generated by an email invoice, or as an online eCommerce transactions, making it convenient and reliable for Corporate Traveller's customers. As of 2018, BitPay processes more than $1 billion annually from thousands of merchants and B2B customers globally. "We are excited that Corporate Traveller is committing to offering clients the ability to pay in bitcoin and bitcoin cash," said Sonny Singh, Chief Commercial Officer of BitPay. "We know blockchain payments provide a strong user case for travel, with customers now able to spend bitcoin on corporate travel bookings. We have seen big growth from airlines and travel agents who are tapping into the massive blockchain market." For more information on Corporate Traveller please visit https://www.corptraveller.co.uk/. And for more information on BitPay, please visit https://bitpay.com/. About BitPay Founded in 2011, BitPay is the pioneer and the most experienced company in bitcoin and blockchain payments. Its suite of products enables businesses to send and receive cross border payments, also enabling consumers to manage digital assets with the BitPay Wallet and turn digital assets into dollars with the BitPay Prepaid Visa Card. The company has offices in North America, Europe, and South America and has raised over $70 million from leading investors including Founders Fund, Index Ventures and Aquiline Technology Growth. For more information visit https://bitpay.com The BitPay Visa Prepaid Card is issued by Metropolitan Commercial Bank, member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa, U.S.A. Inc. "Metropolitan" and "Metropolitan Commercial Bank" are registered trademarks of Metropolitan Commercial Bank 2014. Use of the Card is subject to the terms and conditions of the applicable Cardholder Agreement and fee schedule, if any. About Corporate Traveller: First established in the UK in 1999 by parent company Flight Centre Travel Group, Corporate Traveller specialises in providing travel management services regionally to clients across the UK with an SME-size travel spend of 50K to 2M. We have offices in 20 city/town locations nationwide and are the largest and only UK TMC (News - Alert) delivering online and offline services purely for this client sector. Our travel consultants operate in small teams personally managing the travel needs of their locally-based clients. In addition to the UK, Corporate Traveller has offices around the world, including the USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and India www.corptraveller.co.uk. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005203/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Primary Voter Registration Deadline is April 22 HARRISBURG, Pa., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- With the deadline to register to vote for the May 21 municipal primary fast approaching on April 22, Acting Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar is reminding Pennsylvanians the Online Voter Registration (OVR) is the quickest and easiest way to register. "Voting makes our democracy work. And when you vote in municipal elections you are helping to make the decisions that will most affect your local community," Boockvar said. "Now, with OVR, registering to vote or updating your registration is more convenient than ever." On May 21, voters who are registered as Republican or Democrat will choose their parties' nominees for judicial and local government positions. In addition, all registered voters in the following four districts, regardless of party affiliation, will be voting in special elections to fill vacancies: 12 th Congressional District (in Bradford , Centre , Clinton , Juniata , Lycoming , Mifflin , Northumberland , Perry , Potter , Snyder , Sullivan , Susquehanna , Tioga , Union and Wyoming counties) Congressional District (in , , , , , , , , , , , , , and counties) 11 th House District (in Butler County ) House District (in ) 33 rd Senatorial District ( Adams , Cumberland , Franklin and York counties) and Senatorial District ( , , and counties) and 41st Senatorial District ( Armstrong , Butler, Indiana and Westmoreland counties) Boockvar encouraged eligible citizens to use the state's OVR site, whether they are registering for the first time or updating an existing registration with a change of name, address or party affiliation. "More than 1.3 million Pennsylvanians have registered to vote or updated an existing registration through OVR. It's more secure and accurate than a traditional paper form," Boockvar said. "The OVR system reduces the chance of error by ensuring that applications are complete when submitted." Even applicants who do not have a driver's license or PennDOT ID card may complete their registration online, thanks to a feature that allows users to easily upload a digital copy of their signature. Individuals wishing to register to vote in the May 21 primary must be: A citizen of the United States for at least one month before the primary. for at least one month before the primary. A resident of Pennsylvania and of the election district in which the individual plans to register and vote for at least 30 days before the primary. and of the election district in which the individual plans to register and vote for at least 30 days before the primary. At least 18 years of age on or before the date of the primary. Eligible voters also can register by mail or apply in person at a county voter registration office; county assistance offices; Women, Infants & Children (WIC) program offices; PennDOT photo and drivers' license centers; Armed Forces recruitment centers; county clerk of orphans' courts or marriage license offices; area agencies on aging; county mental health and intellectual disabilities offices; student disability services offices of the State System of Higher Education; offices of special education in high schools; and Americans with Disabilities Act-mandated complementary paratransit providers. Applications for new registration, change of address or change in party affiliation must be postmarked or received in county voter registration offices by April 22. Pennsylvania law requires a closed primary, meaning only voters registered as Democrats or Republicans will select nominees to represent their party in the general election on November 5. The Department of State's website, votesPA.com, available in English or Spanish, offers printable voter registration applications, a polling place locator and county boards of elections contact information. It also includes tips for first-time voters and members of the military. In addition, voters can familiarize themselves with the voting system they will use in their home county on Election Day. For more information on voter registration, call the Department of State's toll-free hotline at 1-877-VOTESPA (1-877-868-3772) or visit votesPA.com. MEDIA CONTACT: Wanda Murren (717) 783-1621 View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/primary-voter-registration-deadline-is-april-22-300832044.html SOURCE Pennsylvania Department of State [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] The American Journal of Managed Care Adds The Medical University of South Carolina to Its Strategic Alliance Partnership Program The American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC), the leading peer-reviewed journal dedicated to issues in managed care, announces the addition of The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) to its Strategic Alliance Partnership (SAP (News - Alert)) program. "We are so proud to welcome The Medical University of South Carolina to our SAP program," said Michael J. Hennessy Jr., president of MJH Associates Inc., parent company of AJMC. "MUSC strives to preserve and optimize human life as South Carolina's only comprehensive academic health science center." Founded in 1824, MUSC continues to carry on its tradition of excellence in education, research and patient care and has nearly 13,000 employees, including approximately 1,500 faculty members. Each year, MUSC educates and trains more than 3,000 students and 700 residents in six colleges. As South Carolina's only academic health science center and largest nonfederal employer in Charleston, the university and its affiliates have an annual economic impact of nearly $4 billion and annual research funding of more than $250 million. MUSC operates a 700-bed medical center, which includes a nationally recognized children's hospital; the National Cancer Institute-designated Hollings Cancer Center, a level I trauma center; its Institute of Psychiatry; more than 100 outreach locations across the state; and South Carolina's only transplant center. "As the only comprehensive, premier academic health sciences center in South Carolina, MUSC seeks to lead health innovation for all the lives we touch," said Heather Woolwine, MUSC Public Affairs and Media Relations director. "Through a combination of research, education, and high-quality patient care, we are changing what's possible and working to transform and grow in the 21st century. Our communities are demanding lower costs, better quality and more reliable care; to meet that demand, we feel it is our privilege and responsibility to share what we are learning with others." The MJH SAP program is constantly building a community of advocacy groups, medical associations and medical institutions to foster collaboration and an open exchange of information for the ultimate benefit of patients and their families and improving patient care. As part of this jint effort, AJMC and MUSC will share exclusive content with each other. For more information about AJMC's SAP program, click here. For more information about MUSC, click here. About The American Journal of Managed Care The American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC) is a peer-reviewed, Medline-indexed journal that keeps readers on the forefront of health policy by publishing research relevant to industry decision-makers as they work to promote the efficient delivery of high-quality care. AJMC.com is the essential website for managed care professionals, distributing industry updates daily to leading stakeholders. Other titles in the AJMC family include The American Journal of Accountable Care and two evidence-based series, Evidence-Based Oncology and Evidence-Based Diabetes Management. These comprehensive offerings bring together stakeholder views from payers, providers, policymakers and other industry leaders in managed care. To order reprints of articles appearing in AJMC publications, please contact Gil Hernandez at 609-716-7777. About MUSC Founded in 1824 in Charleston, MUSC is the oldest medical school in the South, as well as the state's only integrated, academic health sciences center with a unique charge to serve the state through education, research and patient care. Each year, MUSC educates and trains more than 3,000 students and 700 residents in six colleges: Dental Medicine, Graduate Studies, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy. The state's leader in obtaining biomedical research funds, in fiscal year 2018, MUSC set a new high, bringing in more than $276.5 million. For information on academic programs, visit http://musc.edu. As the clinical health system of the Medical University of South Carolina, MUSC Health is dedicated to delivering the highest quality patient care available, while training generations of competent, compassionate health care providers to serve the people of South Carolina and beyond. Comprising some 1,600 beds, more than 100 outreach sites, the MUSC College of Medicine, the physicians' practice plan, and nearly 275 telehealth locations, MUSC Health owns and operates eight hospitals situated in Charleston, Chester, Florence, Lancaster and Marion counties. In 2018, for the fourth consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named MUSC Health the number one hospital in South Carolina. To learn more about clinical patient services, visit http://muschealth.org. MUSC and its affiliates have collective annual budgets of $3 billion. The more than 17,000 MUSC team members include world-class faculty, physicians, specialty providers and scientists who deliver groundbreaking education, research, technology and patient care. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005505/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] STASH's Stock-Back Rewards Hits Half A Million Redemptions In 30 Days NEW YORK, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- STASH, one of the fastest growing financial platforms in the U.S., simplifying how millions of Americans save and invest, announced today it has fulfilled half a million Stock-Back1 rewards just one month post launch. "Only a few weeks in and Stock-Back is proving to be a powerful rewards program. By simply using their STASH debit card2 at their retailersChipotle, Walmart, Amazon, their local coffee shopcustomers have already earned half a million Stock-Back rewards," said Brandon Krieg, Co-Founder and CEO of STASH. "Giving every American the chance to be an investor has always been at the core of STASH's mission. With Stock-Back, we're upping the ante by offering a direct connection between spending and investing, providing unmatched value for millions of customersmaking them all investors. This is what banking should be." STASH is the only financial platform with an investment account and a debit card that work together to turn every American into an investor. Customers earn fractional shares of stock every time3 they use their STASH debit card. Customers automatically and instantly build investment portfolios that can reflect their spending habits by earning stock rewards directly in the companies they shop, eat, watch, listen and live with. For example, when customers buy a meal at a local restaurant, or pay their parking meter, they earn Stock-Back in a diversified ETF4. When customers buy a coffee at Dunkin, pay T-Mobile bills, or shop at Amazon or Walmart they earn a piece of each companies' publicly traded stock (i.e., DNKN, TMUS, AMZN, WMT). All Stock-Back rewards are invested in a customers' personal investment account with STASH. The program offers a rotating selection of up to 5% bonus Stock-Back on popular and high volume retailers like Netflix ad Spotify, and an unlimited base of 0.125% Stock-Back on all purchases everywhere. Upcoming Stock-Back bonus rewards include 3% for Walmart and Amazon. ABOUT STASH STASH , one of the fastest growing consumer investing apps in the U.S., simplifies the financial services experience, offering education and access to help improve the financial well-being of millions of people across the U.S. Through a curated selection of over 200 stocks and ETFs, STASH clients can build personalized portfolios that reflect their investing interests, beliefs, and goals. The platform's full suite of products includes personal investment accounts, Traditional and Roth IRA's, custodial investment accounts. Additionally, in partnership with Green Dot Bank, STASH offers banking services (including debit accounts and debit cards). Based in New York City, STASH launched in October 2015 by Wall Street veterans, Brandon Krieg and Ed Robinson. Stash Financial, Inc. is a digital financial services company offering financial products for U.S. based consumers. Advisory products and services are offered through Stash Investments LLC, an SEC registered investment advisor. Stash Capital LLC, an SEC registered broker-dealer and member FINRA / SIPC , serves as introducing broker for Stash Clients' advisory accounts. Apex Clearing Corporation , a third-party SEC registered broker-dealer and member FINRA / SIPC , provides clearing and execution services and serves as qualified custodian for advisory assets of Stash Clients. Products offered by Stash Investments LLC and Stash Capital LLC are Not FDIC Insured, Not Bank Guaranteed, and May Lose Value. See our disclosures page for more information. MEDIA CONTACT Ally Federbush 917-601-4367 [email protected] 1Stash Stock-Back is not sponsored or endorsed by Green Dot Bank, Green Dot Corporation, Visa U.S.A, or any of their respective affiliates, and none of the foregoing has any responsibility to fulfill any stock rewards earned by this promotion. Investment products and services are not offered by Green Dot Bank and are Not FDIC Insured, Not Bank Guaranteed, and May Lose Value. 2Debit Account Services are provided by Green Dot Bank, Member FDIC. 3Excludes cash, cash equivalents (including the funding of gift cards and prepaid cards), and transactions through Venmo, Square, Inc.'s Cash App, PayPal, or similar services. 4If publicly-traded stock of the merchant is not available or capable of being fulfilled for any reason, the stock reward arising from a qualifying transaction will be in shares of Vanguard Total World Stock ETF (VT), an ETF available on the Stash Platform. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/stashs-stock-back-rewards-hits-half-a-million-redemptions-in-30-days-300831937.html SOURCE STASH [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Wilshire Consulting Reports 72.2 Percent Funding Ratio for State-Sponsored Defined Benefit Retirement Systems The funding ratio of state pension plans rose 1.7 percentage points to 72.2 percent in fiscal year 2018, according to Wilshire Consulting, the institutional investment advisory and outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) business unit of Wilshire Associates Incorporated (Wilshire), a diversified global financial services firm. The funded ratio at the beginning of the year was 70.5 percent, and this year's rise marks two consecutive years of aggregate funded ratio increases. The 2019 Wilshire Consulting Report on State Retirement Systems: Funding Levels and Asset Allocation is based upon data gathered by Wilshire Consulting from the most recent financial and actuarial reports issued by 134 retirement systems sponsored by the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Of the 134 systems studied, 106 systems reported actuarial values on or after June 30, 2018 and the remaining 28 systems last reported prior to that date. It is Wilshire Consulting's 23rd report on the funding of state retirement systems. "Benefit accruals and interest cost decreased the funded ratio by nearly six percentage points, but this was more than offset by total contributions and asset returns, which increased the funded ratio by over nine percentage points," noted Ned McGuire, managing director and a member of the Pension Risk Solutions Group of Wilshire Consulting. "The biggest year-over-year change has been the increase in plans with funded ratios between 70 and 80 percent." Assets vs. Liabilities According to the report, pension assets grew by close to 6 percent to reach $3,088 billion from $2,918 billion in 2017, while the aggregate Total Pension Liability (TPL) increased more than 3 percent to $4,278 billion from $4,141 billion in 2017. Despite the increase in aggregate TPL, the aggregate shortfall is estimated to have decreased by $33 billion to $1,190 billion from $1,223. This decline in the aggregate shortfall is the result of the nearly six percentage point increase in aggregate assets to $3,088 billion from $2,918 billion. Discount Rates Discount rates have trended lower over the past several years. This trend continued this year as nearly half of the plans studied lowered their discount rate. The range for discount rates in 2018 was 3.95% to 8.00% with a median of 7.25%, which is the same as last year. Asset Allocation Asset allocation varies greatly by retirement system. In aggregate, state pension plans had allocations to equity, including private equity, equal to 57.8% in 2018. Allocations to fixed income were equal to 23.7%, with the remaining 18.5% allocated to real assets, alternatives and cash. Over the past ten years, the total allocation to equity has declined by nearly five percentage points. Interestingly, the allocation to private equity has increased by over four and a half percentage points with the allocation to U.S. Equity declining by nearly nine percentage points. The other significant change has been the increased allocation to total real assets such as real estate. Methodology Financial data on public retirement systems historically have lacked the timeliness and uniform disclosure governing pension plans sponsored by publicly traded companies, making it difficult to conclude a study with data that are both current and consistent across systems. For this reason, our study methodology involves collecting data during the first one and a half months of each calendar year with the objective of acquiring as many reports as possible with a June 30 valuation date from the previous year. Even for systems with the desire to report in a timely manner, it often takes six months to a year for actuaries to determine liability values. This study reports on the aggregate Total Pension Liability values used for financial reporting under the accounting and financial reporting standards for state and local governments: Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statements No. 67 and 68 (GASB 67/68). Through these Statements, GASB and the financial industry have taken major steps to increase transparency and comparability of pension plan accounting. GASB's Statement 67, "Financial Reporting for Pension Plans", impacts the annual pension reporting for plans as of June 2014; Statement 68, "Accounting and Financial Reporting for Pensions", impacts the annual pension reporting for the employers contributing into government agency-sponsored pensions, and applies to employers' financial reporting starting in June 2015. About Wilshire Consulting Through its investment consulting services to public and corporate clients, Wilshire Consulting assists in ensuring secure and safe retirements for millions of Americans including those participating in some of the nation's largest public and corporate retirement plans. Combined with its endowment, foundation and major insurance company clients, it consults on combined total assets of nearly $1 trillion. As the institutional investment advisory and outsourced chief investment officer business unit of Wilshire Associates, Wilshire Consulting has provided custom investment consulting solutions to plan sponsors for 35 years. Wilshire consultants provide strategic advice on critical strategic advice including asset allocation, risk management, investment policy development, asset class structuring, investment manager evaluation and monitoring, and actuarial services. Wilshire Consulting's OCIO practice offers clients a holistic option that is built on our culture of risk management and our expertise in all areas of investment strategy. Wilshire Consulting's customized OCIO services include full discretionary services or implemented services where plans outsource their back office. Built on Wilshire Associates' foundation in investment analytics, Wilshire Consulting offers clients access to and use of innovative and proprietary risk management consulting, which provides us a meaningful competitive advantage. Consulting clients can benefit from ex-ante, forwarding looking risk analysis at the manager, asset class and total fund levels. Wilshire's global footprint and firm wide expertise in hedge funds, alternative risk premia and private markets allows our clients to effectively consider adding, expanding or modifying an alternatives investment program. Follow Wilshire Consulting on Twitter (News - Alert): @WilshireConsult. About Wilshire Associates Wilshire Associates, a leading global financial services firm, provides consulting services, analytics solutions and customized investment solutions to plan sponsors, investment managers and financial intermediaries. Its business units include, Wilshire Analytics, Wilshire Consulting, Wilshire Funds Management and Wilshire Private Markets. The firm was founded in 1972, providing revolutionary technology and acting as an early innovator in the application of investment analytics and research to investment managers in the institutional marketplace. Wilshire also is credited with helping to develop the field of quantitative investment analysis that uses mathematical tools to analyze market risks. All other business units evolved from Wilshire's strong analytics foundation. Wilshire developed the Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index and became an early innovator in creating integrated asset/liability analysis/simulation models as well as practical models in risk budgeting through beta and active risk analysis. Wilshire has grown to a firm of approximately 275 employees serving the needs of investors around the world. Based in Santa Monica, California, Wilshire provides services to clients in more than 20 countries representing more than 500 organizations with assets totalling approximately US $8 trillion.* With ten offices worldwide, Wilshire Associates and its affiliates are dedicated to providing clients with the highest quality counsel, products and services. Wilshire and Wilshire 5000 are registered service marks of Wilshire Associates Incorporated. Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index? is a service mark of Wilshire Associates Incorporated. Please visit www.wilshire.com Twitter: @WilshireAssoc *Client assets are as represented by Pensions & Investments (P&I), detailed in P&I's "Largest Retirement Funds" and P&I's "Largest Money Managers (U.S. institutional tax-exempt assets)" as of 9/30/17 and 12/31/17, and published 2/5/18 and 5/28/18, respectively. The data in this release are copyrighted and owned by Wilshire Associates Incorporated. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005494/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Optical Wavelength Services Market Worth $4.9 Billion by 2023 - Exclusive Report by MarketsandMarkets CHICAGO, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new market research report "Optical Wavelength Services Market by Bandwidth (Less than 10 Gbps, 40 Gbps, 100 Gbps, and More than 100 Gbps), Application (SONET, Ethernet, and OTN), Interface (Short Haul, Metro, and Long Haul), Organization Size, and Region - Global Forecast to 2023", published by MarketsandMarkets, the global Optical Wavelength Services Market size is expected to grow from USD 3.3 billion in 2018 to USD 4.9 billion by 2023, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.5% during the forecast period. The adoption rate of OWS solutions is expected to grow, owing to the increasing demand for high-speed internet and bandwidth-intensive applications, and a need for minimizing capital expense and IT resource. Browse in-depth TOC on "Optical Wavelength Services Market" 43 Tables 34 Figures 109 Pages Ask for PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=81649158 Among interface areas, the Ethernet segment to hold the highest market share during the forecast period In OWS, Ethernet carries the highest market share as it is a cost-effective option for server connectivity. As compared to other interfaces, i.e. OTN and SONET, Ethernet has the highest number of installations and offers top cost performance among others. Gigabit Ethernet is the extended version of Ethernet which can offer tenfold speed than the traditional Ethernet. Wavelength services enable high banwidth gigabit Ethernet network connections to be deployed faster. Among application, the metro segment holds largest market share during the forecast period The increasing bandwidth demand and connectivity between Data Centers (DCs) along with adoption of consumer 4K and higher video content and services on n number of devices are major drivers for the adoption of metro applications. Most of the service providers are looking forward to increase the wavelength speed by moving to metro applications. Speak to Our Expert Analyst: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/speaktoanalystNew.asp?id=81649158 In terms of regions, North America to account for the largest market size during the forecast period North America is expected to be the main revenue contributor to the Optical Wavelength Services Market. The growth in this region is expected to be driven by the presence of prominent OWS providers, such as Zayo, Verizon, GTT, CenturyLink, and AT&T. Moreover, the presence of a large number of optical wavelength solution providers in the country creates a healthy competition, which would benefit the growth of OWS in the future. In the Optical Wavelength Services Market, the key and emerging market players include Zayo Group (US), Nokia (Finland), Verizon (US), GTT (US), CenturyLink (Louisiana), AT&T (US), Sprint (US), Comcast (US), Colt Technology Solution (UK), Crown Castle (US), Windstream Enterprises (US), Charter Communications (US), Cox Communications (US), Jaguar Network (France), and CarrierBid (US). Browse Adjacent Markets: Mobility and Telecom Market Research Reports & Consulting About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 7500 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve. MarketsandMarkets's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "Knowledge Store" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. Contact: Mr. Shelly Singh MarketsandMarkets INC. 630 Dundee Road Suite 430 Northbrook, IL 60062 USA: +1-888-600-6441 Email: [email protected] Research Insight: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/optical-wavelength-services-market.asp Visit Our Website: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/660509/MarketsandMarkets_Logo.jpg [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Synaptive Medical Reveals Automated White Matter Segmentation Feature for Modus Plan Surgical Planning Tool Currently under Development Synaptive Medical, a global pioneer in automation and robotics, today revealed an automated white matter segmentation feature to augment its ModusTM Plan surgical planning software tool that remains under development. Modus Plan, previously referred to as BrightMatterTM Plan, is named to align with the next generation of Synaptive products, including Modus V, and will be available for purchase this year. During neurosurgical procedures, it is critical for surgeons to minimize disruption of white matter, which is organized into bundles that may correspond to different brain functions and whose particular location differs on a per-patient basis. Access to tractography, an adjunct to a surgeon's anatomical knowledge, provides patient-specific and potentially life-saving information while planning and performing procedures. Synaptive has the only whole brain tractography tool that is fully automated, which eliminates the time-consuming, subjective process by which tractography is otherwise generated, and allows surgeons unprecedented access to tractography for every procedure they perform. With Modus Plan, surgeons will have the ability to viualize and highlight patient-specific bundles of interest instantly, which may allow surgeons to identify safer surgical approaches, optimizing their workflow. "Modus Plan's automated tractography technology already allows me to customize pre-operative plans for each of my patients and minimize the risk of complications," said Dr. Sebastian Koga MD, medical director, Neuroscience Institute, and chairman, Neurosurgery Division, Ochsner North Shore Region. "Tract segmentation takes our approach one step further, creating an easy process to illuminate or hide bundles of interest as needed. This ability enhances my ability to plan delicate surgical approaches for tumors or other pathology." "Surgical technology should adapt to the surgeon, not the other way around," said Cameron Piron, president and chief strategy officer of Synaptive. "In developing the segmented white matter tract feature to our Modus Plan, Synaptive aims to equip surgeons with the most comprehensive view of each patient's neuroanatomy so valuable energy spent in the planning phase may be reflected in patient outcomes." Modus Plan, including its new automated tract segmentation feature, represents Synaptive's commitment to automation and product integration. Modus Plan will be compatible with cranial implementations of Synaptive's suite of neurological and orthopedic care solutions. About Synaptive Medical Synaptive Medical Inc., a Toronto-based medical device and technology company, designs hardware and software technologies that cross traditional barriers in hospitals and improve patient care in and beyond the operating room. Synaptive's Modus V and integrated BrightMatter solutions-including surgical planning, navigation and visualization, and an informatics platform-give leading clinicians and healthcare systems the information they need to ensure the best possible outcomes for patients. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005642/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Dentons Appoints Mary Wilson as US Managing Partner Dentons, the leading law firm, announces the appointment of Chicago lawyer Mary G. Wilson to the key leadership role of US managing partner. The first woman US managing partner for Dentons, she joins US Chief Executive Officer Mike McNamara and the Firm's leadership team in guiding the US region of the world's largest law firm. As US Managing Partner, a longstanding position in Dentons US vacant since 2017 when McNamara was elected to his current role, Wilson will focus her leadership time on matters relating to the Firm's 1,100 lawyers and professionals across its 25 offices. This will include initial emphasis on supporting practice leadership in advancing with intensity practice plans, client service priorities and diversity and inclusion initiatives, and directing the rollout of new tools and resources to support clients. "Mary's enthusiasm for and commitment to our Firm and clients is ever present, and I am very proud to welcome her to this important leadership role," said McNamara. "I admire Mary's ability to build and strengthen relationships as she simultaneously accomplishes the key strategic goals entrusted to her at the absolute highest level with laser focus. Mary is a gifted lawyer and leader, and our Firm will be stronger because of her leadership in this role." Since joining Dentons as a health care partner 14 years ago, Wilson has served in numerous leadership roles, including co-chair of the Associates Development Committee, managing partner of the Chicago office for more than five years, and an active membe of the Firm's US Board. She represented Dentons in its industry-leading efforts at Diversity Lab's 2018 Diversity in Law Hackathon, and her team presented a strategy to enhance law firm and legal department policies, practices, and commitments relating to diversity and inclusion. "I'm honored to play an active role in guiding the US region," said Wilson. "When I joined Dentons, I knew the firm had a unique vision. I continue to be impressed and inspired by our global growth our talented people and the enthusiastic culture at Dentons to be at the forefront of change in the legal marketplace." Wilson will continue her robust legal practice, which focuses on national finance, health care law and tax-exempt organizations, in addition to the managing partner role. In her finance practice, she counsels and represents borrowers, underwriters, banks and issuers, and serves as bond counsel in tax-exempt bond issues and other finance transactions. She has led billions of dollars' worth of financings in many states. She also advises and represents hospitals and health systems in corporate transactions, and counsels all types of tax-exempt organizations in transactions, governance matters, tax-exemption issues and organizational issues. Profiled in legal media and recognized as one of Crain's Chicago Business' Who's Who is Chicago Business, Wilson is active in health-related charitable organizations as well. These include serving on the board, and as past chair, of Heartland Health Outreach, an organization dedicated to addressing the healthcare needs of the homeless, the board of KEEN Chicago, and as a board member of the American Diabetes Association Chicago Leadership Board. Wilson earned her JD, with honors, from the University of Chicago Law School, and her BA, cum laude, from Yale University. About Dentons Dentons is the world's largest law firm, delivering quality and value to clients around the globe. Dentons is a leader on the Acritas Global Elite Brand Index, a BTI Client Service 30 Award winner and recognized by prominent business and legal publications for its innovations in client service, including founding Nextlaw Labs and the Nextlaw Global Referral Network. Dentons' polycentric approach and world-class talent challenge the status quo to advance client interests in the communities in which we live and work. www.dentons.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005757/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] LIXIL Brands Win Multiple Awards From Distinguished International Design Competitions PISCATAWAY, N.J., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Standard, DXV, and GROHE brands, part of LIXIL Americas, maker of pioneering water and housing products, have been recognized with multiple honors from two prestigious design award programs. The Cayenne semi-pro kitchen faucet from American Standard and the AT200 LS SpaLet from DXV have both won 2019 Red Dot: Product Design Awards. The Red Dot Award is one of the world's largest design competitions, and in 2019, designers and manufacturers from 55 countries entered more than 5,500 products in the competition. Winners of the 2019 GREEN GOOD DESIGN Award include the GROHE Euphoria 260 multi-function shower head, the American Standard Spectra shower collection, and the DXV AT200 LS SpaLet. Presented by The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design, the GREEN GOOD DESIGN award distinguishes innovative industrial designs that display forward thinking and progress toward a healthier and more sustainable world. "Our talented team of designers is relentlessly pursuing unique, innovative new ways to drive kitchen and bath product innovation to improve daily life for consumers," said Katty Pien, chief marketing officer of LIXIL Americas. "Design is a part of everything we do, and it is a sincere honor to receive this meaningful acknowledgment from some of the most respected award competitions in the world for the American Standard, DXV, and GROHE brands." To learn more, visit americanstandard.com, dxv.com, or grohe.us. FOR MORE INFORMATION: Nora DePalma, Dialogue For LIXIL Americas - American Standard, DXV, GROHE 678.642.5075 [email protected] ABOUT LIXIL LIXIL makes pioneering water and housing products that solve everyday, real-life challenges, making better homes a reality for everyone, everywhere. Drawing on our Japanese heritage, we create world-leading technology and innovate to make high quality products that transform homes. But the LIXIL difference is how we do this; design, an entrepreneurial spirit, a dedication to improving accessibility for all, business growth. Our approach comes to life through industry leading brands, including LIXIL, GROHE, American Standard, INAX, and TOSTEM, as well as specialty brands such as DXV. Over 70,000 colleagues operating in 150 countries are proud to make products that touch the lives of more than a billion people every day. LIXIL of the LIXIL Group Corporation (TSE Code: 5938), the listed holding company for LIXIL's portfolio of businesses. Learn more at www.lixil.com, facebook.com/lixilgroup and www.linkedin.com/company/lixil-group. ABOUT THE RED DOT DESIGN AWARD In order to appraise the wide scope of design in a professional manner, the Red Dot Design Award is broken down into the three distinct disciplines: the Red Dot Award: Product Design, Red Dot Award: Brands & Communication Design and Red Dot Award: Design Concept. With more than 18,000 submissions, the Red Dot Award is one of the largest design competitions in the world. In 1955, a jury convened for the first time to assess the best designs of the day. The name and brand of the award were developed in the 1990s by Red Dot CEO, Professor Dr. Peter Zec. Since then, the sought-after Red Dot is the revered international seal of outstanding design quality. The winners are presented in yearbooks, museums and online. Further information: www.red-dot.org. ABOUT THE CHICAGO ATHENAEUM The Chicago Athenaeum (www.chi-athenaeum.org) is a global nonprofit education and research institute supported by its members. Its mission is to provide public education about the significance of architecture and design and how those disciplines can have a positive effect on the human environment. ABOUT THE EUROPEAN CENTRE FOR ARCHITECTURE ART DESIGN AND URBAN STUDIES The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies is dedicated to public education concerning all aspects of the built environment - from entire cities to individual buildings - including the philosophical issues of arts and culture that ultimately give the final shape to design. A high emphasis exists on contemporary values and aesthetics, conservation and sustainability, and the theoretical exploration and advancement of art and design as the highest expression of culture and urbanism. AT200, Cayenne, DXV, and SpaLet are registered trademarks of AS America, Inc. Spectra, Spectra eTouch, are trademarks of AS America, Inc. Euphoria and Smart Rain are registered trademarks of GROHE AG. WaterSense is a registered trademark of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The GOOD DESIGN is a trademark of The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies in the E.U. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lixil-brands-win-multiple-awards-from-distinguished-international-design-competitions-300832219.html SOURCE LIXIL Americas [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] REVIEW: The La Jolla Music Societys new $82 million performing arts center opened April 5, with a star-studded lineup and very big expectations. Hello, Conrad! Goodbye, Sherwood! Two years and 17 days after the La Jolla Music Society held its final concert at the now-defunct Sherwood Auditorium, a new era began Friday night, April 5 with the gala grand opening of the societys state-of-the-art Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center. The 49,000-square-foot center, otherwise known as The Conrad, was designed and built at a cost of $82 million, all but $700,000 of which had been paid for before its doors even opened. That is a formidable feat for any nonprofit arts organization. The fact that The Conrad was underwritten entirely by private donors, without a penny of public funding, is even more notable. Or as Katherine Chapin, the societys board chair told the sold-out audience Friday: Tonight, we are standing in the future we dreamed of. Elina Vandergrift, 6, standing next to her grandmother Brenda Baker, left, helps cut the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center opening ribbon on April 5. On the right, are donors Raffaella Belanich, Debbie Turner and Steve Baum, Elinas grandfather. (Cheryl Mitchell photo) Fellow board member Debra Turner spoke on behalf of her former partner, the late San Diego philanthropist Conrad Prebys, who prior to his death in 2016 gave $30 million to help make The Conrad a reality. Reading from notes that Prebys had written several years ago, Turner quoted him as saying: The journey has been exciting and, at times, frightening... I almost jumped up and down. Boy, did I hit a home run! I was like a teenager at a rock concert... I believe the best is yet to come. A few minutes later, San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer hailed The Conrad as a tremendous gift to the city, adding: The smiles and memories you create tonight will last for a generation. Art and culture are alive and well in San Diego. Jean-Yves Thibaudet performs at the gala opening concert of the La Jolla Music Societys new $82 million Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center. (Eduardo Contreras/San Diego Union-Tribune) At Fridays opening-night gala, the gown-and-tuxedo-attired audience responded with appropriate oohs and aahs before a single note of music had even been played. Their response was a testament to the excitement generated by the opening of a performing arts center that few could have imagined less than a decade ago. But the key issue under consideration here is not the visual appeal of the elegant Conrad which looks, in a word, fabulous but how it sounds. Friday nights performance in the centers 513-capacity Baker-Baum Concert Hall addressed that question, with some pomp and much circumstance. The 15 musical selections performed seemed designed to showcase the new venue as much as, if not more than, the music itself. Trio members (from right) Charles Lil Buck Riley (dancer), Joshua Gindele (cello), and Inon Barnatan (piano) perform The Swan from Camille Saint-Saens The Carnival of the Animals at the gala opening concert of the La Jolla Music Societys new $82 million Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center on Friday night, April 5 in La Jolla. (Eduardo Contreras/San Diego Union-Tribune) The lineup mixed such esteemed classical music artists as violinist Hilary Hahn, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and a stellar string quartet that featured four former music directors of the societys annual SummerFest with genre-blurring ukulele star Jake Shimabukuro, the phenomenal jook dancer Charles Lil Buck Riley and creative technologist Osman Koc. The various configurations of musicians showcased on The Conrads Alaskan yellow cedar wood stage included one trio, two string quartets, three duos and four solo performances. For the grand finale of Over the Rainbow, the evenings 12 featured performers were joined by 18 members of the San Diego Youth Symphony Chamber Orchestra, the Bravo! International Music Academy and the La Jolla Music Societys Community Music Center, its after-school music program in Logan Heights. Violinist Cho-Liang Lin performs Lalo Schifrins Letters from My Father against a backdrop by creative technologist Osman Koc at the gala opening concert of the La Jolla Music Societys new $82 million Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center on Friday night, April 5 in La Jolla. (Eduardo Contreras/San Diego Union-Tribune) Some of the performers soared, while others were merely pleasant. But, really, the star of the show was the venue, which is a collaboration between Epstein Joslin Architects Inc. and legendary acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota, whose many credits include Disney Hall and Berlins Pierre Boulez Saal. The Conrad also houses a cabaret-styled theater called The JAI, rehearsal rooms, a courtyard that can host performances, and more. Each component exudes a quiet elegance. But the Baker-Baum Concert Halls sleek lines, impeccable attention to detail and fuss-free aesthetics are especially impressive, underscoring Toyotas recent observation that: We are hearing the acoustics not only with our ears, but with our eyes. The sound in the Baker-Baum Friday was uniformly dry and crystal clear major attributes for the chamber music that the society built its name on. This held true even when the music was performed at a hush, as it was during violinist Hahns pin-drop-quiet rendition of Bachs Largo from Sonata No. 3 in C Major and Thibaudets similarly whisper-soft reading of Liszts Consolation No. 3. The grand finale at La Jolla Music Societys gala for the opening of The Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center on Friday, April 5. (Eduardo Contreras/San Diego Union-Tribune) Fridays unamplified acoustic solo performances projected immediately and extremely well throughout the hall. Also projecting immediately throughout the hall was virtually any sound the audience made, be it someone coughing or accidentally dropping an item on the floor. When one concertgoer in the balcony abruptly got up in the middle of the world premiere performance of the Lalo Schifrin-penned Letters for My Father, the sound of their wooden chair moving against the wood floor was jarringly loud and distracting. Adding carpeting in the balcony might be an astute move, assuming it wouldnt be detrimental to the acoustics. A bigger issue may arise Saturday night, April 6, when pop vocal star Seal performs singing through a microphone and accompanied by a large, amplified band in The Conrad. This is a venue that would appear to have little or no need for amplification (and, in fact, one in which amplification could prove detrimental, unless an especially skilled and sensitive audio engineer is at the controls). Shimabukuro, who on Friday performed solo versions of Schuberts Ave Maria and Queens Bohemian Rhapsody minus a replication of Brian Mays ecstatic guitar solo on the Queen original had an array of electronic foot pedals in front of him that seemed almost entirely unnecessary. The Hawaiian ukulele sensation fared much better when he teamed with Miro Quartet violinist William Fedkenheuer for a carefully calibrated and increasingly animated version of The Beatles While My Guitar Gently Weeps, during which the two traded bluesy lines and jazzy flourishes with infectious zeal. Quartet members (from left) Cho-Liang Lin (violin), Heiichiro Ohyama (viola), Wu Han (piano), and David Finckel (cello) take a bow after their performance of Brahms Rondo from Piano Quartet in G Minor at the gala opening concert of the La Jolla Music Societys new $82 million Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center on Friday night, April 5 in La Jolla. (Eduardo Contreras/San Diego Union-Tribune) Former SummerFest music director Cho-Liang Jimmy Lin teamed with creative technologist Koc, who is a member of the visual performance trio NOS Visuals. Lin performed with characteristic verve on Letters for My Father, which amusingly employed fleeting references to the high-pitched trill that opens composer Schifrins most widely known piece, the theme song to the 1960s TV series Mission Impossible. Koc controlled and manipulated a series of fast-edited images that were projected onto a large screen at the rear of the stage. The images did little to enhance the music, but did serve whether by design or not to demonstrate just how large The Conrads screen is and how it can be deployed in a conert setting. Lin provided one of the nights aural peaks when he teamed with three of his fellow former SummerFest music directors, violist Heiichiro Ohyama, pianist Wu Han and cellist David Finckel. Together, they expertly performed the Rondo from Brahms Piano Quartet in G Minor, Opus 25, which covered a broad range of moods, tonal ranges and tempos. That sense of expansiveness also applied to Lil Bucks elastic dancing to new SummerFest music director Inon Barnatans solo piano rendition of The Swan from Camille Saint-Saens The Carnival of the Animals. Drawing from ballet, hip-hop and jazz dance, Buck was a marvel of kinetic movement, who at the pieces conclusion assumed an improbably pretzel-like pose that perfectly emulated a swan about to sleep. Some of Fridays performers seemed a bit timid, as they tested out the unfamiliar new venue. Not so incoming SummerFest music director Barnatan, whose superlative delivery of Prokofievs Precipitato and Stravinskys Danse Russe were rousing tour de forces that showcased his musicianship and the Baker-Baums rich acoustics equally well. As with any new concert hall, it will take time for performers and audiences alike to grow accustomed to the sound in this new La Jolla venue. If Barnatans performance provided the best indication of what The Conrad can sound like, its musical future should be bright indeed. IF YOU GO: The Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center, 7600 Fay Ave., La Jolla. Box Office: (858) 459-3728. ljms.org/the-conrad/ [April 15, 2019] VP of Ecosystem of Onboard: Another Leap Forward for Ultrain NEW YORK, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- When asked what the most important component of any entrepreneurial project is, most people will answer with "the team." Ultrain is currently developing a prosperous community ecosystem, growing both at home and abroad. Ultrain's "dream team" is at the core of this growth, with numerous innovative theories, extensive engineering experience and a strong connection to global capital and businesses. Ultrain was founded at the end of 2017 by three all-star business and technology leaders. They are Guo Rui, the former technical director of Alibaba's security business group; Emma Liao Zhiyu, former managing director of Golden Brick Capital TMT; and Li Ning, head of IoT investment for Qihoo 360 and former head of Ant Financial's blockchain team. Other core members joined soon after, such as Ultrain's Chief Architect Shen Yufeng, who is the former senior technical expert of Alibaba's operating system "AliOS" and core architect of Google Canada ChromeOS. Husen Wang joined shortly after as chief cryptographer, thanks to his experience as the former lead cryptographer at Ant Financial Blockchain. Most recently, Samuel Xiao joined he dazzling team as Ultrain's vice president of ecosystem and business development. Samuel received his Master of Computer Science at Sun Yat-Sen University. He has been engaged in internet investment and consulting for over a decade, with extensive experience in digital transformation, business model design, IT planning, architecture design and system implementation. He served as senior consultant manager for IBM's Global Consulting Services, where he was responsible for end-to-end processes from IT strategic planning to complex system implementation. Samuel was responsible for clients such as SF Express, Yuantong Express, China Mobile, Huawei and other large enterprises. Samuel is also a former partner and CTO of Green Pine Dream Capital, responsible for investment and post-investment management of corporate SaaS, AI and big data projects. Ultrain is proud to announce that, as of today, Samuel has become a member of the Ultrain core team. His role is dedicated to onboarding commercial applications to Ultrain and building a collaborative ecosystem. Samuel will work closely with the other five members of the core team to create a new business ecosystem, reshaping the trust boundaries of the business community through technology and jointly realizing Ultrain's ultimate dream to create a programmable business society of the future. Media Contact: [email protected] Related Images image1.jpg View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/vp-of-ecosystem-of-onboard-another-leap-forward-for-ultrain-300832023.html SOURCE Ultrain [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Dahua Technology USA Adds Under Vehicle Surveillance System, Enterprise-Level DSS and EVS to Its Specialty Portfolios Dahua Technology, a world-leading, video-centric smart IoT solution provider, has announced the addition of targeted vertical market solutions in the North American market. Vehicle inspection is one area where contemporary technology is rising to address a critical need. Preventing restricted items from entering high-security environments has traditionally been limited to the use of mirrors and police dogs, where blind spots and human error put detection at risk. In order to combat this problem, Dahua Technology offers two models of its Under Vehicle Surveillance System (UVSS). The system can provide license plate capture using a compatible LPC camera. The large field of view (approximately 180) of the UVSS can capture the entire undercarriage of a vehicle in less than one second for immediate scrutiny. A portable version (DH-MV-VDM5021E-00) is built for ease of use, and an in-ground version is also available. Both options are well-suited for airports, prisons, and border control. Two high-performing partners to the UVSS are Dahua Technology's 2MP IR License Plate Capture (LPC) cameras. These cameras capture clear images of license plates from up to two lanes of traffic at once, providing 1080p resolution at 30 fps in order for users to discern plate numbers. Both LPC cameras have 1/2.8-in STARVIS CMOS sensors, dual-stream encoding, Ultra Wide Dynamic Range (140 dB) and True Day/Night (ICR). Model DHI-ITC237-PW1B-IRZ has a 2.7 mm to 12 mm motorized vari-focal lens and can capture images of license plates from vehicles traveling up to 12 MPH. Another model, DHI-ITC237-PU1B-IR, boasts a 5 mm to 50 mm vari-focal lens and can capture license plate images of vehicles traveling up to 25 MPH. Coupled with a Dahua NVR or Digital Surveillance Sotware (DSS) Video Management System (VMS), LPC cameras become a complete traffic management or parking solution. Dahua Technology's enterprise-level DSS takes VMS to the next level. The all-in-one platform is preloaded with powerful software to improve system scalability. It lets users remotely manage off-site NVRs and other Dahua devices with real-time monitoring and playback. With a unified Dahua solution, integration worries are eliminated and installation and configuration become simpler. DSS offers a broad range of advanced features, including POS integration, Video analytics (IVS) and system redundancy. The platform doesn't require channel licensing, which is hard to find on other VMS systems. The DSS7016DR-S2 model is perfect for medium to large systems, with a variant that supports mobile recorders for fleet vehicle management, while the DSS4004-S2 is perfect for smaller systems. Rounding out the latest additions to the Dahua portfolio is Enterprise Video Storage (EVS). Increasing the scale of storage, the high performance of EVS is ideal for medium-range to high-end IP video surveillance applications that demand flexibility, reliability, and centralized storage management. It is compatible with numerous third-party devices, making it the perfect solution for surveillance systems with or without a VMS. Its open architecture supports multi-user access and is compatible with ONVIF 2.4; it also uses Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) protocol for data transmission. It is available with 24 HDD (DHI-EVS7024S-R) and 16 HDD (DHI-EVS5016S-R) options: the former supports 768 IP camera channels with 1536 Mbps of incoming, recording, or forwarding bandwidth; the latter supports 512 IP camera channels with 1024 Mbps of bandwidth. "This expansion of our product portfolio demonstrates that Dahua Technology not only serves the general video surveillance market but also meets specific vertical requirements," commented Tim Shen, director of marketing at Dahua Technology USA. "Dahua Technology's capabilities are becoming wider-ranging in the US, especially when it comes to a complete end-to-end solution or vehicle-related security products." These solutions, along with Dahua Technology's other innovative video surveillance products, were featured last week at Dahua's booth at ISC West, April 10-12, in Las Vegas. About Dahua Technology USA Dahua Technology USA Inc. is a subsidiary of Dahua Technology, the world's second-largest manufacturer of video surveillance equipment by market share, according to a 2018 IHS (News - Alert) report. Dahua Technology USA brings high-value, total security solutions to the North American market by focusing on integrity and personal relationships to enhance the customer experience. Dahua Technology's surveillance solutions, from award-winning cameras to video management software, deliver unparalleled quality, reliability, and stability. Dahua Technology USA provides sales and support throughout the U.S. and Canada. The North American region is led by Tim Wang, president and CEO, and several industry-experienced executives. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005807/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] NASA Highlights Science on 17th SpaceX Resupply Mission to International Space Station WASHINGTON, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA will host a media teleconference at 11 a.m. EDT Monday, April 22, to discuss select science investigations launching on the next SpaceX commercial resupply flight to the International Space Station. Audio of the teleconference will stream live online at: https://www.nasa.gov/live SpaceX is targeting 5:55 a.m. Friday, April 26, for the launch of its Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Participants in the briefing will be: Annmarie Eldering , project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who will discuss how the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 (OCO-3), to be installed on the Japanese Experiment Module-Exposed Facility of the orbiting laboratory, observes the complex dyamics of the Earth's atmospheric carbon cycle. , project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who will discuss how the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 (OCO-3), to be installed on the Japanese Experiment Module-Exposed Facility of the orbiting laboratory, observes the complex dyamics of the Earth's atmospheric carbon cycle. Gisela Detrell , head of the Life Support System research group at the Institute of Space Systems - University of Stuttgart, Germany , who will talk about Photobioreactor, an investigation aimed at demonstrating the use of biological processes to create a hybrid life support system. On future long-duration missions, this approach could reduce the amount of food, water, and other essentials that crews have to bring from Earth. , head of the Life Support System research group at the Institute of Space Systems - University of , who will talk about Photobioreactor, an investigation aimed at demonstrating the use of biological processes to create a hybrid life support system. On future long-duration missions, this approach could reduce the amount of food, water, and other essentials that crews have to bring from Earth. Lucie Low of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the National Institutes of Health, who will discuss tissue chips, or organs-on-chips. Tissue chips model the detailed physical structure of human tissue using cells grown on an artificial scaffold, enabling higher-accuracy disease modeling and drug testing. of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the National Institutes of Health, who will discuss tissue chips, or organs-on-chips. Tissue chips model the detailed physical structure of human tissue using cells grown on an artificial scaffold, enabling higher-accuracy disease modeling and drug testing. Alan Grodzinsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , who will discuss his team's tissue chip investigation that will study the effects of spaceflight on musculoskeletal disease biology. The goal of this research is to treat the root cause of post-traumatic osteoarthritis disease and prevent permanent joint damage, rather than mask the symptoms with painkillers later in life. Joshua Finch at 202-358-1100 or [email protected] by 4 p.m. Friday, April 19 , for dial-in information. SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft also will carry crew supplies and hardware to the orbiting laboratory to support the Expedition 59 and 60 crews for the 17th mission under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract. The space station is a convergence of science, technology and human innovation that demonstrates new technologies and enables research not possible on Earth. The orbiting laboratory has been occupied continuously since November 2000. In that time, more than 230 people, and a variety of international and commercial spacecraft, have visited the orbiting laboratory. The space station remains the springboard to NASA's next great leap in exploration, including future missions to the Moon and eventually to Mars. For launch countdown coverage, NASA's launch blog, and more information about the mission, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/spacex View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nasa-highlights-science-on-17th-spacex-resupply-mission-to-international-space-station-300832312.html SOURCE NASA [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] ON24 Announces Webinar World 2019 Lineup in Sydney SAN FRANCISCO, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- With webinars seeing their highest viewing times and driving more leads than ever, there's no better time for marketers to invest in a comprehensive webinar program and strategy. That's why today ON24, the technology leader helping companies create live, always-on and personalized digital experiences, announced the full lineup and agenda for its Webinar World 2019 event in Sydney, Australia. The conference will bring marketers together to exchange best practices, gain the latest insights, and network with industry professionals. Centered around the theme "Engage for Action," the event will take place Thursday, May 2 at Pier One, Sydney Harbour, Walsh Bay. This is the third edition of the Sydney event, which is free for attendees and has grown exponentially in registrants every year. "Our goal for Webinar World Sydney is for attendees to come away understanding the insights they're able to gather, how they can translate those insights into action, and how that action drives meaningful results and revenue for their business," says Joe Hyland, CMO, ON24. "We're excited to bring our global series back down under to help marketers develop the best strategies to effectively engage throughout the customer life cycle. The conference will feature a jam-packed agenda and include distinguished keynote and panel speakers from Marketo, Schneider Electric, Oracle Digital, Salesforce, etSuite, and more. There will be three breakout track discussions in the afternoon and the event will be followed by the popular 'Webinerds in the Wild' after party. Marketing leaders from ON24 will also present, provide cutting-edge insights, and arm attendees with the latest expertise topics like ABM, customer marketing and building digital audiences. Last month, the company hosted its largest ever Webinar World event in San Francisco, where it announced a partnership with Marketo, the launch of the industry-first Webinerd Community, and unveiled its new Content Journeys features to help turn engagement into action. The flagship San Francisco event kicked off the 2019 global Webinar World series which will also feature events in London, Singapore and more throughout the year. Ready to take your engagement, marketing, and storytelling to the next level? Register for Webinar World 2019 Sydney at https://on24events.com/webinarworldsydney About ON24, Inc. ON24 is on a mission to redefine how organizations engage with their audiences, powering interactive, data-rich webinars and content experiences that help people connect on a more human level and make smarter business decisions. Through the ON24 Engagement Platform, marketers can create Live, On Demand and Personalized Engagement, turn it into actionable intelligence and integrate it across their operations. Informed by more than a billion engagement minutes including 12 million polls, 1.3 million surveys, 1.5 million conversations, and conversion of over 17 million resources marketers drive more revenue from ON24 Engagement than any other marketing channel. Headquartered in San Francisco, ON24 has a wide global footprint with eight offices in key regions, including London, Munich, Singapore, Stockholm and Sydney. For more information, visit https://www.on24.com. CONTACT: Keith Chapman, [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/on24-announces-webinar-world-2019-lineup-in-sydney-300832254.html SOURCE ON24 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Nearly $8.5M awarded to APG Neuros and DCM Group to increase their productivity and competitiveness Investment projects valued at nearly $17.5M in the Laurentides region BLAINVILLE, QC, April 15, 2019 /CNW Telbec/ - Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CED) The governments of Quebec and Canada and Investissement Quebec have awarded a total of $8,450,000 in financial assistance to APG Neuros and DCM Group to support the completion of projects representing investments worth $17,450,000. The announcement was made today by Mario Laframboise, MNA for Blainville, acting on behalf of Pierre Fitzgibbon, Minister of Economy and Innovation and Minister Responsible for the Lanaudiere Region; and Ramez Ayoub, Member of Parliament for Therese-De Blainville, acting on behalf of the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CED). APG Neuros Through the Creativite Quebec program, the Government of Quebec has awarded a $1,450,000 loan to APG Neuros to support the design and development of a natural gas-powered air turbine for wastewater treatment. Investissement Quebec has also extended a $2 million loan to the company from its own funds to support this project. The Government of Canada has provided APG Neuros with a repayable contribution of $650,000 under the Regional Economic Growth through Innovation program, in order to improve its competitiveness through the implementation of a marketing and export strategy. The strategy involves developing and acquiring two prototypes, participating in trade fairs and carrying out international prospecting missions. All of APG Neuros' projects represent a total investment of $12.5 million and will create 15 jobs over a three-year period. DCM Group Through the ESSOR program, the Government of Quebec has awarded a $3,650,000 loan to DCM Group to support the acquisition of digital production equipment and implement a resource management system (ERP). The Government of Canada has provided the company with $700,000 in repayable financial assistance through the Quebec Economic Development Program. DCM Group will be able to increase its competitiveness by acquiring digital production equipment. DCM Group's project represents an investment of $4,950,000 and will create about fifty jobs. Quotes "APG Neuros and DCM Group are among the manufacturing companies in the constituency of Blainville that are known for their expertise and ability to innovate. Therefore, it is with great enthusiasm that we are contributing today to the success of their initiatives, which will enhance the economic vitality of the Laurentides region and Quebec as a whole." Mario Laframboise, MNA for Blainville "To increase their productivity and remain internationally competitive, companies must focus on innovation, exports and new digital technologies. APG Neuros and DCM Group have clearly understood this. That is why the Government of Quebec is proud to spport them in completing their investment projects, which will no doubt help them take advantage of more business opportunities in Quebec and abroad." Pierre Fitzgibbon, Minister of Economy and Innovation and Minister Responsible for the Lanaudiere Region "By helping businesses invest in equipment and devices that will improve their performance and in marketing strategies that will assist their entry into new markets, the Government of Canada is standing by its commitments to drive expansion, innovation and exports." Ramez Ayoub, Member of Parliament for Therese-De Blainville "Our government is empowering Canadians to become more competitive and prosper in the global economy. The investments announced today in APG Neuros' and DCM Group's projects are consistent with Canada's competitive advantages through the use of digital technologies and will stimulate economic growth. They will also create good jobs for middle-class Canadians." The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and Minister responsible for CED "Investissement Quebec is proud to support APG Neuros in this important stage of its development. Owing to its expertise and enviable reputation in the high-efficiency turbo blower sector, we are convinced that the company will be able to continue to compete and grow rapidly in the coming years." Pierre Gabriel Cote, President and CEO, Investissement Quebec Quick facts APG Neuros specializes in the design, manufacture and marketing of technologies for wastewater treatment. DCM Group is a provider of integrated solutions and products for the aerospace industry. The Creativite Quebec program, which has been renamed the Programme innovation (site in French only), supports businesses in carrying out the steps required to develop or improve products or processes. It also aims to encourage a culture of innovation in Quebec and to foster partnerships between universities, research centres and businesses. and to foster partnerships between universities, research centres and businesses. The ESSOR program (site in French only) supports investment projects carried out in Quebec , with a view to enhancing competitiveness and productivity, creating jobs and ensuring sustainable development. , with a view to enhancing competitiveness and productivity, creating jobs and ensuring sustainable development. CED's Regional Economic Development through Innovation program targets entrepreneurs who leverage innovation to grow their businesses and make them more competitive, as well as regional economic stakeholders who help create an entrepreneurial environment conducive to innovation and inclusive growth in all regions. CED is one of the six regional development agencies under the responsibility of the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. For 50 years now, the Government of Canada has been actively participating in regional economic development in Quebec : half a century of concrete action dedicated to the development of the regions and local businesses. Related links To receive real-time news releases from the ministere de l'Economie et de l'Innovation, subscribe to the appropriate RSS news feed at www.economie.gouv.qc.ca/rss (site in French only). For more information on CED and its priorities, consult the 2018-2019 Departmental Plan or visit www.dec-ced.gc.ca. Stay connected Follow the Ministere de l'Economie et de l'Innovation on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube Follow CED on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube SOURCE Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Instituto Europeo de Inteligencias Eficientes and Ismael Cala to convene "School of Emotions: Experience" in Spain MIAMI, April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The European Institute of Efficient Intelligences (IEIE - Instituto Europeo de Inteligencias Eficientes) and Ismael Cala will be convening "School of Emotions: Experience," an intensive 6-day course from July 1 to 7, in Jerez de la Frontera (Spain). "In this course, attendees will learn to identify their emotions. They will be given tools by a group of experts to manage these emotions appropriately. Emotions are neither good nor bad, but the way they are interpreted and the way they affect us are very important. Through practical exercises, participants will be able to connect with their emotions, control their thoughts and generate feelings to improve their lives, their surroundings and their relationship to others," said IEIE President, Dra. Estrella Flores-Carretero. Noted business strategist, communicator and inspirational author, Ismael Cala, for his part, argued that "it's proven that successful people, in either personal or professional terms, are those who can achieve a good management of their emotions. This enables them to adapt to their surroundings efficiently and intelligently, even in situations of conflict." "Those who are able to recognize with certainty the emotions that govern their lives can take actions that will enable them to look for the causes that give rise to them, and use techniques to control them, preventing them from exercising control over us, and from our somatizing them as illness," Cala added. Register at: http://escuelaemociones.com/ "School of Emotions" has already held two theoretical sessions in Miami. Now, with a new format, the organizers of "The Experience" will help participants to perceive a positive impact on their self-esteem, self-image, assertiveness, self-control, social skills, conflict resolution and decision making. Registration at: http://escuelaemociones.com/ ABOUT IEIE The European Institute of Efficient Intelligences (IEIE - Instituto Europeo de Inteligencias Eficientes) offers programs of analysis, training and reinforcement in efficiency strategies for companies and individuals, ranging from children to adults, with more than 30 years of experience and research. It inspires creativity, talent, intelligence, the entrepreneurial spirit, reflection, knowledge, emotional skills, and as a result, personal and corporate success. Its headquarters are in Spain, and it has a branch office in Miami, USA. ABOUT ISMAEL CALA A life and business strategist, for five and a half years Ismael Cala was the host of CALA on CNN en Espanol. A businessman and social entrepreneur. Author of eight bestsellers on themes of leadership, entrepreneurship and personal development, including El poder de escuchar ('The power of listening'), and El analfabeto emocional ('The emotional illiterate'). Cala was born in Santiago de Cuba in 1969, and holds a degree in Art History from Oriente University. He graduated from the School of Communication at York University in Toronto. He is President and founder of the Cala Enterprises Corporation and the Ismael Cala Foundation View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/instituto-europeo-de-inteligencias-eficientes-and-ismael-cala-to-convene-school-of-emotions-experience-in-spain-300832413.html SOURCE Cala Enterprises [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [April 15, 2019] Sierra Metals Announces Automatic Share Purchase Plan Sierra Metals Inc. (TSX:SMT) (BVL:SMT) (NYSE AMERICAN:SMTS) ("Sierra Metals" or the "Company") announces that, in connection with its normal course issuer bid ("NCIB"), which was previously announced on December 11, 2018, it has entered into an automatic share purchase plan (the "Plan") with its designated broker. The Plan permits the Company's designated broker, CIBC Capital Markets ("CIBC"), to purchase common shares of the Company ("Common Shares") at times when Sierra Metals ordinarily would not be active in the market due to insider trading rules and its own internal trading blackout periods. Purchases will be made by CIBC based upon parameters set out by the Company prior to the commencement of any such blackout period and in accordance with the terms of the Plan. Outside of these blackout periods, Common Shares may continue to be purchased at the Company's discretion, subject to the rules of the TSX and applicable securities laws. The Company's NCIB commenced on December 17, 2018 and will remain active until December 16, 2019. About Sierra Metals Sierra Metals Inc. is Canadian based growing polymetallic mining company with production from its Yauricocha Mine in Peru, and its Bolivar and Cusi Mines in Mexico. The Company is focused on increasing production volume and growing mineral resources. Sierra Metals has recently had several new discoveries and still has additional brownfield exploration opportunities at all three Mines in Peru and Mexico that are within or close proximity to the existing Mines. Additionally, the Company has large land packages at all three Mines with several prospective regional targets providing longer term exploration upside and mineral resource growth potential. The Company's Common Shares trade on the Bolsa de Valores de Lima and on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "SMT" and on the NYSE American Exchange under the symbol "SMTS". Continue to Follow, Like and Watch our progress: Web: www.sierrametals.com | Twitter (News - Alert): sierrametals | Facebook (News - Alert): SierraMetalsInc | LinkedIn (News - Alert): Sierra Metals Inc Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian and U.S. securities laws related to the Company (collectively, "forward-looking information"). Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the Company's operations, including the anticipated developments in the Company's operations in future periods, the Company's planned exploration activities, the adequacy of the Company's financial resources, and other events or conditions that may occur in the future. Statements concerning mineral reserve and resource estimates may also be considered to constitute forward-looking statements to the extent that they involve estimates of the mineralization that will be encountered if and when the properties are developed or further developed. These statements relate to analyses and other information that are based on forecasts of future results, estimates of amounts not yet determinable and assumptions of management. Any statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance (often, but not always, using words or phrases such as "expects", "anticipates", "plans", "projects", "estimates", "assumes", "intends", "strategy", "goals", "objectives", "potential" or variations thereof, or stating that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved, or the negative of any of these terms and similar expressions) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual events or results to differ from those reflected in the forward-looking information, including, without limitation, risks inherent in the mining industry including environmental hazards, industrial accidents, unusual or unexpected geological formations, floods, labour disruptions, explosions, cave-ins, weather conditions and criminal activity; commodity price fluctuations; higher operating and/or capital costs; lack of available infrastructure; the possibility that future exploration, development or mining results will not be consistent with the Company's expectations; risks associated with the estimation of mineral resources and the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits and the inability to replace reserves; fluctuations in the price of commodities used in the Company's operations; risks related to foreign operations; changes in laws or policies, foreign taxation, delays or the inability to obtain necessary governmental permits; risks relating to outstanding borrowings; issues regarding title to the Company's properties; risks related to environmental regulation; litigation risks; risks related to uninsured hazards; the impact of competition; volatility in the price of the Company's securities; global financial risks; inability to attract or retain qualified employees; potential conflicts of interest; risks related to a controlling group of shareholders; dependence on third parties; differences in U.S. and Canadian reporting of mineral reserves and resources; potential dilutive transactions; foreign currency risks; risks related to business cycles; liquidity risks; reliance on internal control systems; credit risks, including risks related to the Company's compliance with covenants with respect to its BCP Facility; uncertainty of production and cost estimates for the Yauricocha Mine, the Bolivar Mine and the Cusi Mine; and other risks identified in the Company's filings with Canadian securities regulators and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC (News - Alert)"), which filings are available at www.sedar.com and www.sec.gov, respectively. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect any of the Company's forward-looking information. Forward-looking information includes statements about the future and are inherently uncertain, and the Company's actual achievements or other future events or conditions may differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking information due to a variety of risks, uncertainties and other factors. The Company's statements containing forward-looking information are based on the beliefs, expectations, and opinions of management on the date the statements are made, and the Company does not assume any obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's beliefs, expectations or opinions should change, other than as required by applicable law. For the reasons set forth above, one should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Note Regarding Reserve and Resource Estimates All reserve and resource estimates reported by the Company are calculated in accordance with the Canadian National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects and the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy Classification system. These standards differ significantly from the requirements of the SEC. The differences between these standards are discussed in our SEC filings. Mineral resources which are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190415005892/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Apples HomeKit is a smart home system simple enough for novices who just want to say, "Siri, I'm home," into their iPhone, before walking through their automatically unlocked door and entering a relaxing scene with just the right lighting, temperature and other best HomeKit devices operating as desired. But what is HomeKit? And how do you use it? This Apple HomeKit FAQ has answers to everything you'll want to know before getting started with this Siri-operated smart home platform. What is Apple HomeKit? Apple HomeKit is a system that lets you control all of the best smart home devices, so long as they're compatible. It gives you control over your smart thermostat, lights, locks and more in multiple rooms, creating comfortable environments and just the right ambiance with a tap on your smartphone. You can even use it to control your devices remotely. HomeKit isn't compatible with as many devices as Google Assistant or Amazon's Alexa, but the number is rising every day. With a solid base of supported locks, lights, plugs and more, HomeKit is an easy starting point for Apple fans who are just beginning to set up their smart homes. What can you do with Apple HomeKit? HomeKit lets you turn on and off and dim your lights, adjust your thermostat, turn on and off devices connected to outlets using one of the best smart plugs, lock and unlock your front door, see who's at your door and more. Apple's goal has been to make it easy for beginners to set up their smart homes, which can be a daunting task for novices. What is HomeKit on the iPhone? The Apple Home app for iOS lets you securely control any smart home device labeled as a "Works with Apple HomeKit accessory. In the app, you can organize your accessories by room, manage multiple accessories at the same time, control your home with Siri, and more. Think of it as an app that turns your phone into a universal remote control for smart home devices that you could potentially use from anywhere in the world. Does Apple HomeKit require a hub? While you're home, all you need is the Apple Home app to control your Bluetooth or Wi-Fi-enabled HomeKit-compatible smart devices. To turn those devices on or off in the app, you'll simply tap on them. (Image credit: Photo credit: Apple) To control your smart home devices when youre not home, you'll need a third- or fourth-generation Apple TV running tvOS 9 or later, a HomePod or an iPad running iOS 10 or later. For added features, including the ability to give other users permission to control your devices via HomeKit, you'll need a 4th-generation Apple TV with tvOS 10, a HomePod or an iPad running iOS 10 or later. You'll also be able to use the HomePod mini, a smaller and more affordable version of Apple's original HomePod. The same goes for users who want to set up home automation, such as programming a series of events based on certain circumstances, or turning on the lights, heat or air conditioning when you get home from work. How do I set up HomeKit? To set up HomeKit, simply open up the Home app on your iOS device. Tap the plus sign in the top right corner to connect a device or create a scene. How do I get HomeKit on my Apple TV? On your Apple TV, go to Settings and select Accounts. Sign into iCloud with the same Apple ID that's signed into your iOS device. Your Apple TV should be connected as your home hub from then on. How does HomeKit communicate? Some HomeKit devices are connected to your hub via your Wi-Fi connection. Others need to be in Bluetooth range of your hub, which can be tricky if you want to control devices that are more than 30 or so feet away. In that case, you may want to get a Bluetooth range extender, such as the Elgato Eve Extend or the ConnectSense Bluetooth Extender, which act as Bluetooth-to-Wi-Fi bridges to broaden your devices' Bluetooth range. What smart home devices work with Apple HomeKit? Here are a few highlights from Apple's full list of HomeKit-compatible devices: HomeKit works with a number of smart lighting devices, including those from Philips Hue, Eve, Lifx, Koogeek, Nanoleaf and Sylvania. To control temperature at home, try the Ecobee and Honeywell thermostats. To keep your home safe, HomeKit works with August Smart Locks; Schlage deadbolts; Elgato Eve Door & Window sensors; D-Link's Omna security camera; Fibaro door, window, motion and flood sensors and Netatmo's facial-recognition security system. Think of Apple Home as an app that turns your phone into a universal remote control for smart home devices that you could potentially use anywhere in the world. HomeKit can also control many of the best smart plugs such as those from iHome and Lutron, the Hunter Apache Wi-Fi Ceiling Fan, Netgear's Arlo baby monitor; Brilliant's full-home controller and even a Wi-Fi smoke and carbon monoxide alarm from First Alert. How much does HomeKit cost? The Apple Home app itself is free, but you'll need to pay for the smart devices you'll set up if you don't already own them. On the less expensive side, a single iHome iSP6X Control Smart Plug costs $27, and on the other end of the spectrum, a Brilliant home controller costs $299. Depending on how big your home is and whether you want to control your lights, temperature, locks, security cameras and other devices, you could easily break the $1,000 mark. Plus, you'll need an Apple TV, HomePod or iPad if you want to be able to control your smart home remotely or set up advanced automations. What are scenes, and how do you create them? HomeKit lets you create custom scenes that will trigger a number of devices at the same time. These scenes can be activated automatically at a set time, or when certain conditions are met. (Image credit: Apple) For instance, at bedtime, you can set HomeKit to lock your front door, turn off all of your lights and lower your thermostat to your ideal sleeping temperature. Or, if you have a motion sensor hooked up, you can also set lights or other connected devices to turn on or off when motion is detected in a certain area of your home. Can Siri control smart home devices? When you set up HomeKit, Siri knows what's connected, and without opening the Home app, you can ask the virtual assistant to turn devices on or off, adjust temperature, set scenes, check connected cameras and more if you have the right Apple TV, HomePod or iPad set up. Does HomeKit work with the Apple Watch? You can control some of your smart home accessories with an Apple Watch by setting them to show as favorites, or simply by asking Siri to perform specific actions from your Watch. Check out guide on how to use the Apple Watch for more on HomeKit features you can access from your wrist. What can the Apple HomePod do? The HomePod is a large smart speaker with Siri built in. It can function as a home hub, allowing you to create home automations with HomeKit. However, it also plays high-quality music with seven tweeters, a large woofer and a six-microphone array. You can ask Siri to send messages, set reminders, make and receive calls, and answer general-knowledge questions. Do I need Apple HomeKit? Like many smart home devices, HomeKit and all of the devices you can connect it with are luxuries. But if you travel frequently, like to keep an eye on what's going on at home when you're away, or just want to come home to a calm environment with a push of a button or a few words to Siri, HomeKit might be worth it for you, especially if you already have an Apple TV. An unfamiliar bill. A call from a bank asking about unknown charges. Being turned down for a loan or an apartment because of red flags in your credit check. All these are signs your identity may have been stolen. (Image credit: rangizzz/Shutterstock) Forms of identity theft include using stolen payment-card information to make a purchase; taking control of existing accounts with banks and online payments platforms such as PayPal; and opening new accounts with online sites such as eBay and Amazon, mobile carriers or utilities. Identity theft has been one of the top three consumer complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission for many years. More than 26 million people were victims of identity theft in 2016, according to the latest report from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. It's also big money for the thieves, with Javelin Strategy and Research estimating $16 billion in identity theft-related losses in the United States for 2016. MORE: Best Identity-Theft Protection Software "The situation around credit card and identity theft is getting worse, and shows no signs in the near or intermediate term of getting any better," said Christopher Budd, a senior manager of threat communications at Palo Alto networks in Santa Clara, California. Identity theft can happen to anyone there's no single group that is more or less susceptible to being victimized. "We're not so smart and careful that we can control everything," Budd warned. How identity theft happens Your identity can be stolen because a store's point-of-sale terminal was compromised, as happened in the massive Target data breach in 2013, or because someone cloned your credit card when you were paying a bill at a restaurant, or perhaps because a malware infection on your computer intercepted your financial details. Your identity can also be stolen by non-digital means. For example, someone could fish an old checkbook or credit card statement out of your trash. "We're at a point where people have to start taking active responsibility for protecting themselves, because no one else is going to do it for them," Budd said. Here are some tips that can help you protect your identity. Don't use your Social Security number as ID Eighty percent of the top 25 banks and 96 percent of top credit-card issuers will let you access your accounts with your Social Security number (SSN) instead of an account number, according to Javelin. Tell your bank you will never do this; that way, your bank will know anyone trying to access the account with the SSN isn't you. In general, don't blindly hand over your SSN when it's asked for. Instead, ask why such information is necessary, and if there is an alternative form of ID that can be used. Secure your personal data If you keep your financial records online, on a computer or on a mobile device, secure these records behind a strong password. Change passwords frequently on all accounts, use a password manager, and turn on two-factor authentication wherever possible. Check activity regularly for any account that involves money, not just bank and credit cards. For example, regularly check statements from your mobile carrier to make sure additional devices or services haven't been added. MORE: How to Turn On 2-Step Verification Be savvy about email Whenever a data breach makes headlines, scammers piggyback on the news by sending out fake emails to already jittery consumers, containing bogus fraud alerts and fake password-reset links. Treat every email you get about a potential data breach, or warning about potential fraud, with skepticism. Don't ever click on a link or open an attachment in a data-breach-notification email message. Protect your devices Make sure your computer and mobile devices are running the latest versions of their operating systems and software, as well as up-to-date versions of anti-virus software. Don't use Windows XP or Windows Vista systems for online shopping or banking, because Microsoft no longer supports those operating systems with security patches. (Patches for Windows 7 end in January 2020.) Consider using super-secure "hardened" browsers or virtual software when accessing sensitive accounts. MORE: Best Antivirus Software and Apps Buy a shredder and use it Identity theft doesn't always require a computer. Professional identity thieves know that garbage cans and company dumpsters are rich troves of financial documents, including canceled checks and credit card and bank statements. Don't toss out your identity with the trash instead, shred anything sensitive before you throw it away. Erase computer and smartphone hard drives Clean out your personal information before getting rid of old PCs, tablets and smartphones. It is surprisingly easy for someone to get access to personal data if the hard drive hasn't been totally reformatted and cleaned. Sign up for alerts and monitoring Ask your financial institution to email you whenever funds are transferred out of your account. If your credit card company offers an alert service for suspicious charges, take it. Consider instituting a credit alert with the three major credit bureaus to let you know about new accounts being opened in your name; you can do so for free every year. You can also institute a credit freeze for free, which means no one can look at your credit report without your say-so, although that could complicate things for you financially. Consider paying for a real-time identity-theft and credit-monitoring service, most of which now incorporate identity-monitoring services, which monitor thousands of black-market websites and notify you if your data ever shows up. MORE: Best Identity Protection Services Don't take calls from the IRS or Social Security Administration The Internal Revenue Service, or any organization authorized to act on behalf of the IRS, will not initiate contact via email, social media, text message or telephone. The government will use the good old postal service first. The same goes for the Social Security Administration, which is in charge of issuing Social Security numbers. If you get a call, text or email claiming you owe back taxes or exorbitant fines, or that your Social Security number has "expired" or been deemed invalid, it's fake. Don't hand over your credit card number. Hang up instead, and call the IRS or Social Security Administration directly if you have questions. Lock your mailbox Every day, millions of bank statements and credit card bills land in mailboxes. Passports and Social Security cards are also sent through the mail. If you have an old-style curbside mailbox, it's easy for anyone to steal your mail. Invest in a locking mailbox; many come with a slot into which mail can be deposited, while others have keys you can share with the mail carrier. MORE: What to do if your SSN is stolen Investigate yourself Get copies of your credit reports and check for any unusual account activity you don't recognize. Even a quick check of social-media sites and search engines can reveal if someone is impersonating you. When you find a problem, report it immediately. A quick response will reduce the amount of damage you will have to suffer. Take data-breach notifications seriously One-third of the people who received data-breach notification letters became identity-fraud victims in 2013, according to an older Javelin report. Forty-six percent of consumers with compromised debit cards in 2013 became fraud victims in the same year, compared to only 16 percent of consumers with a compromised Social Security number. If you receive a data-breach notification letter that includes an offer for a free monitoring service, take advantage of it. Take all the steps recommended in the notice, such as changing passwords and monitoring financial statements closely. MORE: How to Survive a Data Breach A Social Security number (SSN) may be the single most important piece of government-issued identification that U.S. resident can have. It's definitely the most valuable piece of ID that identity thieves can get their hands on, especially when the number is combined with the rightful bearer's name and address. Even just by itself, a valid SSN can be sold to undocumented workers or to people trying to hide their true identities. A stolen SSN lets the thief, or the person he or she sells it to, do almost everything a legitimate SSN holder can do and more. By assuming a real person's name and SSN, a thief can steal property and money from that person. If your name and SSN are used by criminals, the police will come looking for you, not the actual crooks. "You can close a credit card if it is compromised," said Adam Dolby, senior manager of Alkami Technology. "But the problem is, you can't close your SSN." If you discover your Social Security number has been stolen or otherwise misused by another person, there are several steps you'll need to take right away. To speak to Equifax, call its customer care number at 1-888-766-0008 or visit this web page to place a fraud alert. To start an Equifax credit freeze online, you'll have to create an Equifax account, but you can do so without creating an account by calling 1-800-349-9960. To contact Experian, call 1-888-397-3742 or go here for a fraud alert or here for a credit freeze. For TransUnion, the phone number is 1-800-680-7289; the fraud-alert link is here and the credit-freeze link is here. A credit freeze can be inconvenient, but it's the better option. With a freeze, no potential lender can access your credit file without your approval. That can be a bother if you plan to move, open a new bank account, buy a car or switch phone carriers, but you can easily "unfreeze" your credit and then freeze it again. (The freeze lasts indefinitely.) Thanks to a 2018 law, credit freezes are now free to implement, but you must contact each of the Big Three credit-reporting agencies separately to set them up. Fraud alerts are easier to place the agency you place one with will contact the other two but they aren't as useful. A fraud alert just requests that anyone pulling your credit file contact you first, but they don't actually have to. You can renew a fraud alert every year (it's free to do so). Contact the Social Security Administration only to get a replacement card or replacement number (see below). Tell each of the three agencies that your SSN has been stolen. They'll give you free copies of your current credit reports. Review those reports for unfamiliar accounts and unknown inquiries from companies. Report the theft of the Social Security number to the IRS at http://www.irs.gov/identity-theft-central. You can also call 1-800-908-4490. That will prevent tax-fraud thieves from filing tax returns in your name and collecting your tax refund. Report the identity theft to the Federal Trade Commission at http://www.identitytheft.gov. You can also call 1-877-IDTHEFT. File an identity-theft report with your local police. The police report will help clear your records and your name. The report is necessary to have if you want to apply for a new Social Security number. This will keep your credit as clean as possible. The only way to get a new SSN from the government is to prove without a doubt that someone has used the old number. Records of fraudulent accounts can provide that evidence. Report the theft of your Social Security number to the Internet Crime Complaint Center at http://www.ic3.gov/. The report will be distributed to the relevant federal, state and local authorities. The Federal Trade Commission offers a good resource on what to do in case of identity theft at http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/features/feature-0014-identity-theft. Whether and how to get a new Social Security number Many stolen Social Security numbers are used simply to gain employment, with no detrimental effect to the legitimate holders of the SSN. But others are used to defraud banks, retailers, the IRS and other government agencies, which could trash your credit. MORE: Identity Theft Victim? Here's 6 Things You Need to Do If several years pass after the theft of your Social Security number, and the problems arising from the theft have not gotten any better, then you may want to apply for a new SSN. But before you take that step, there are several things to consider. Getting a new Social Security number is not easy. You have to prove that the theft of your SSN has caused you serious hardship in the form of denied home mortgages, problems with law enforcement or the IRS, or bad credit that can't be cleaned up. A new Social Security number doesn't mean the identity-theft problem will go away. The old number will remain valid; you will have to keep monitoring it for future incidents, and government agencies or businesses will still link you to it. A new Social Security number will have a completely blank credit history. Getting credit will be difficult for a few years unless you link the new Social Security number to your old, tainted number. It's entirely up to the Social Security Administration to decide whether you can get a new number. If the agency doesn't think you need a new one, you won't get one. If you do decide to get a new Social Security number, the first step is as easy as filling out a standard SSN application form. You'll enter the old number on it. But be prepared to plead your case, and to have ample documentation to prove it. Don't forget that the old Social Security number never completely goes away, even if it goes dormant. The Social Security Administration never invalidates an SSN once it's been issued. Local events that don't really have a religious theme but offer a look at the enduring myth of the Downtown Kansas City resurrection that's mostly supported by taxpayer subsidy and a great deal of hype. Take a look: Messenger: The Missouri River is a 'mad elephant' that won't be tamed by 'bigger and better' levees Every time Missouri River flood season gets serious, I take out "the box." The sagging and slightly torn sides of the two-foot-long brown, cardboard container hold historic research that author and journalist Bill Lambrecht gathered in his many years writing about the eight-state river basin and its constant political battles over flooding, levees, navigation, agriculture, recreation and the environment. column on the topic of upcoming flooding threatening to devastate towns across the Show-Me State and the political solutions that never seem to work. Read more: No Court, No Conviction - How Jackson County Prosecutors Are Handling Some Felony Cases Late at night in February 2017, Samuel Gillis Jr. drove his SUV to Hope City, a community center at East 24th and Quincy that feeds the homeless and provides services for drug addicts. Gillis was drunk, so he doesn't remember what happened next. More insight into a somewhat controversial practice wherein locals give up legal recourse amid the realization that in many ways the court system has failed local residents . . . Read more: The Toyota Highlander is one of the Japanese automakers most successful nameplates, selling nearly 245,000 units just last year. No surprise then that Toyota is keen to keep it as fresh as possible, and with the current third-generation debuting way back in 2013, the Highlander is definitely overdue for a full update. As such, Toyota will introduce a new fourth-generation at the 2019 New York Auto Show next week, throwing in tweaked exterior styling, a new cabin, the latest infotainment and safety tech, and a few revisions to the powertrain to boot. There can be only one LISTEN 08:14 A Few Nips And Tucks While we have yet to see the 2020 Toyota Highlander in its full auto-show glory, we do have a rough idea what itll look like thanks to the above teaser video. Hit play, and youll see the Toyotas profile rendered through a hanging art piece. The piece was created by artist Michael Murphy over the course of two months and recreates the new SUV by overlaying image-slices in a back-to-back fashion, creating a composite image. Viewed from the right angle, the new SUV seems to come into focus. Generally speaking, the new model looks similar to the outgoing model, but there are a few styling updates to pick out. The first thing that jumps to our attention is the window line, which rises more sharply as it approaches the tail, giving the SUV a more rakish stance. The side character lines also appear more pronounced, complementing the new window line, while the roofline is now more sloped. The front overhang also appears to be shorter, while the rear overhang is a bit longer. 2019 Toyota Rav4 Up front, we expect the 2020 Highlander to take after the recently released 2020 RAV4, which rocks a Tacoma-esque front end that helps to underline the vehicles off-road aspirations. On the Highlander, that should translate as new headlight housings that are thicker and more angled than those on the outgoing model, as well as a new grille divided into a hexagonal upper intake and a slim lower intake. Also look for a set of boxy wheel arches in the corners, with dark black plastic undercladding to protect the paint. Dimensionally speaking, the 2020 Toyota Highlander will remain a mid-size model, but its likely the exact measurements will grow slightly with this latest update, which will help with both cargo room and passenger room. For your reference, weve listed the current third-generation Highlanders exterior dimensions below. Third-Generation Toyota Highlander Exterior Dimensions Overall Length 191.1 inches Overall Width 75.8 inches Overall Height 68.1 inches Wheebase 109.8 inches What Will the Cabin Look Like? Moving inside the cabin, we expect the new Highlander to once again pull from the latest RAV4 in terms of look and layout, which will not only keep it feeling fresh and modern, but also stay consistent with the rest of the Toyota brand. That should include a new dash, which will move the touchscreen higher to a standup position above the center console. The current Highlander is equipped with a 6.1-inch screen as standard and offers an 8.0-inch unit on the options list, but we could see a 7.0-inch touchscreen added as standard across the line, similar to the 2020 Toyota RAV4. Further infotainment upgrades will include Apple CarPlay support as standard. Although Toyota has resisted the inclusion of Apple CarPlay for years, it looks like the automaker is finally bending to consumer demand and adding it across its lineup. The 2020 Highlander will also come standard with Toyotas Safety Sense 2.0 suite, which the brand is throwing in as standard across the entirety of its lineup. Standout features will include: automatic braking with pedestrian detection lane departure alert steering assist automatic high-beam headlights full-range automatic cruise control road sign assist Additional features, like a blind-spot monitor with rear-cross traffic alert, will likely be optional. Toyota is a leader when it comes to standard safety tech, and this will surely continue with the latest 2020 Highlander. Behind the front seats, the 2020 Toyota Highlander will fulfill its promise of practicality with three-row seating and space for up to eight passengers. 2019 Toyota Highlander Note: 2019 Toyota Highlander pictured here. For now, the Highlander offers 61.7 cubic-feet, 52.8 cubic-feet, and 30.4 cubic-feet of passenger room for the first-, second-, and third-rows, respectively. Thanks to slightly larger exterior dimensions, we expect each of those volumes to grow accordingly. The same goes for the cargo volume, which is currently rated at 83.7 cubic-feet, 42.3 cubic-feet, and 13.8 cubic-feet behind the first-, second-, and third-row, respectively. For your reference, weve put together a table of capacities that compares the current 2019 Highlander with its main rivals below. Mid-Size SUV Capacity Comparison Model Passenger Room Cargo Room 2019 Toyota Highlander 142.2 cubic-feet 83.7 cubic-feet Honda Pilot 151.7 cubic-feet 83.8 cubic feet Chevrolet Traverse N/A 98.2 cubic-feet Buick Enclave N/A 97.6 cubic-feet Ford Explorer 151.7 cubic-feet 80.7 cubic-feet Subaru Ascent N/A 86 cubic-feet What About All The Oily Bits? 2019 Toyota Highlander Currently, the mid-range Toyota Highlander is equipped with a 3.5-liter V-6 that produces 295 horsepower and 263 pound-feet of torque. However, heading into the 2020 model year, we expect the six to get a small output boost up to 301 horsepower and 267 pound-feet of torque, just like the V-6 spec in the latest Toyota Camry. For those of you keeping score, thats a net gain of 6 more ponies and 4 pound-feet over the outgoing Highlander. Lower in the range, the Highlander comes with a 2.7-liter four-cylinder producing 185 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque. Once again, we expect a power boost for the 2020 model year, but something far more significant than that of the six. We can once again look to the Camry for clues here, specifically the sedans latest 2.5-liter four-cylinder, which produces as much as 206 horsepower and 186 pound-feet of torque. If this lump makes it into the Highlander unchanged, thatll be a net gain of 21 ponies and 1 pound-foot. Both gas engines will mate exclusively to an eight-speed automatic transmission. Toyota currently offers the base-level Highlander with a six-speed automatic, but that option will likely hit the dustbin with the outgoing 2.7-liter engine option. Toyota Hybrid Badge The 2020 Toyota Highlander will also return with a number of hybrid powertrain options, including both a traditional hybrid and a plug-in hybrid. For now, Toyota offers the Highlander with a 3.5-liter V-6 hybrid making 306 horsepower, and thats likely to remain unchanged going into the 2020 model year. However, Toyota might also add a complementary plug-in four-cylinder to the lineup for even greater efficiency. If that turns out to be the case, it wont be all that surprising - Toyota is determined to expand its electrified offerings over the next few decades, and that extends to its range of SUVs as well. However, if you prefer a little extra aggression over green sensibilities, Toyota will once again offer the Highlander in a sportier SE trim level, which will come with that 3.5-liter V-6, a more aggressive suspension tune, and a few performance-flavored bits and bobs for the interior and exterior. Across the line, front-wheel drive will be standard, while all-wheel drive will be an available option. Under the skin, the Highlander will be based on the latest Toyota New Global Architecture, offering up lower weight and greater torsional rigidity. When Will We See It? The 2020 Toyota Highlander is scheduled to make its formal debut at the 2019 New York Auto Show next week, at which time well get a full rundown on specs and features. If you want one for your garage, look for it in dealers by the end of the year. Pricing is so far unannounced, but we expect a small bump over the 2019 model years starting MSRP of $31,530. Are you excited for the new 2020 Toyota Highlander? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. Further Reading Read our full review on the 2017 Toyota Highlander. Read our full review on the 2019 Toyota 4Runner Nightshade Special Edition. It certainly looks like Jeep had a lot of fun building this concept. In fact, Jeep seems to have gone all bruh with the Flatbill concept. How often do you see an automaker relate so close to reality? Its not just about the vernacular here; Jeep has managed to induce the bro-ness into the Jeep with styling and design philosophy. The bright color combination and the loud styling cues make this one of the funkiest concepts of the 2019 Safari lot. Oh, and did we forget to tell you that the term Flatbill is derived from the popular style of baseball hats that the Jeep folks like to wear. No, we are not making this up, bro. Jeep has crowded the 53rd Easter Jeep Safari with six of its concepts. Knowing how competitive the market has gotten in this age, Jeep decided to make use of this much-anticipated event by basing five of its six concepts on the new Gladiator, you know, for maximum exposure. Jeep has also paid tribute to the 1968 M-715 for the sake of nostalgia. Jeep has invested all of its time and finances allotted for this Safari on the Gladiator-based concepts, and here is one that revolves around the theme of motocross lifestyle - Dirt bikes and bro codes. Monikerd the Flatbill concept, this truck has been designed while keeping the desert lifestyle in mind. Exterior White and Neon Green Color Combination Vented Carbon Fiber Hood 20-inch Gunmetal Alloys Wheel Ramps In The Truck Bed No Turn Indicators On The Side Jeep has based the Flatbill concept on the Gladiator Rubicon. The front looks identical, other than the miniaturized bumper that houses two auxiliary lights. The signature seven-slat grille has a honeycomb mesh behind that looks a lot more prominent than it does on the standard models. The Flatbill concept wears a vented carbon fiber scoop on the hood and resonates a lot with its motocross lifestyle aura. Thanks to the small front bumper and a skid plate, the Flatbill concept boasts of an excellent approach angle, thus making this a great Jeep to maneuver over the most unthinkable terrains without scraping the bottom. The high fender flares have vents, although we dont think they are functional, and they do look very funky. Either side of the hood wears Rubicon stickers. As is the case in dirt bikes, the Flatbill too does not have turn indicators on the side! The white-green color palette of the Flatbill does not affect the window sill, door handles, and the wing mirrors that are still finished in black. The rear door wears a 41 decal, while the back-end of the Jeep shows off the concepts moniker. The Jeep Flatbill concept rides on 20-inch wheels with gun-metal finished alloys. Contrasting? Well, tastefully. The rear is where all the action lies. But before we get to the truck bed, lets talk about the other things. The slim, C-shaped LED taillights look stunning with the reverse light housing in the center. The two neon-green tow hooks cannot be missed. The tube bumper at the bottom increases the trucks departure angle so that you can get adventurous without questioning this Jeeps capabilities. Now, since the truck has been dedicated to dirt bikes and motocross lifestyle, it is obvious that the automaker has paid major attention to this. The display Flatbill features a neon green shade truck bed with a pair of dirt bikes loaded in it. Wheel ramps have been installed in here, wherein once you flip down the tailgate, the dedicated wheel ramps slide out for easy access and unloading of the dirt bikes. Mopar has a lot of accessories in the pike for the Gladiator, but a lot of what you see here wont be offered from the accessory list. You will be able to pick up bed-mounted cross rails and a bed storage system, though. The roof rack and carrier that you see on this concept will also be offered, as will a Mopar-branded bed liner and a tonneau cover. Some exterior graphics kits will be available as well, but dont expect to see anything as wild as youve seen on this concept. As for wheels, we know that 17-inch wheels are on the list, but whether or not the 20-inch wheel seen here will make it into production remains to be seen. Interior Fun Quotes On Door Jam Seats Made Of Motocross Jacket Material Green Contrast Stitching On The Seats Pretty Much Bare-Bone Otherwise Step inside the cabin, and youll notice green Flatbill wordings embossed on the black seats. Talking about attention-to-detail, the seats are trimmed with motocross jacket material. Green contrast stitching complements the color combination of the truck outside. The seats offer sufficient bolstering to keep you in place when you swivel around criss-cross, uneven paths. Jeep has offered height-adjustable seatbelts on this truck concept. However, I would have preferred the five-point harness belt, that too in green color. Would have been more in line with the overall vibe of the Flatbill truck. Speaking about the Flatbills bro-code again, Jeep has pasted the words, Dont bro me if you dont know me on the door sill. How about that for the cool quotient? If you like any of the interior accessories that you see here seem appealing, you might get lucky. Since Mopar plans on offering more than 200 accessories made specifically for the Gladiator, you might get lucky. The thing is, however, that a lot of what you see here is built specifically for this concept. You cant have the motorcross jacket material, for instance, but Mopar will give you Katzkin leather with the Jeep logo in Tungsten stitching. Grab handles and all-weather floor mats are also on the list, however, dont expect them to rock any logo other than the classic Jeep logo. Drivetrain 3.6-liter, V-6 Pentastar Mill 40-inch Maxxis Tires Dynatrac Pro 60 Front and Rear Axles Large Rear Bypass Shocks Four-inch Lift Kit The Jeep Flatbill Concept is powered by a 3.6-liter, V-6 Pentastar engine that will most probably be offered with 285 horses and 260 pound-feet of twist. It comes with a Mopar cold-air intake that you will eventually be able to buy from Mopar. This system may help give you an extra pony or two, but the performance gains are typically negligible. This engine is paired to an eight-speed automatic gearbox. The Flatbill rides on 40-inch Maxxis tires that raise the stance of the truck considerably, and you can bet that Mopar will probably offer these as official accessories as well. Large rear bypass shocks have been added to make sure the Flatbill provides great traction in off-road conditions. What allows the Flatbill to transport these dirt bikes are the Dynatrac Pro-Rock 60 front and rear axles, and a custom four-inch lift kit. This lift kit, by the way, will be a premium Mopar offering that will be offered alongside a two-inch lift kit that weve seen on previous concepts. As far as other performance accessories, Mopar probably wont offer much more than that cold-air intake. For the Wrangler JL, you can get an $875 heavy-duty brake kit, and the two-inch lift kit will set you back $1,495. Theres also the 4:10 front and rear axles available that also mirror what Mopar will probably offer for the Gladiator as well. 2020 Jeep Gladiator specifications Engine 3.6-LITER PENTASTAR V-6 Type and Description 60-degree, V-type, liquid-cooled Displacement (cu. in. / cc) 220 cu. in. (3,604 cu. cm) Bore x Stroke 3.78 x 3.27 (96 x 83) Valve System Chain-driven DOHC, 24 valves and hydraulic end-pivot roller rockers Fuel Injection Sequential, multiport, electronic, returnless Construction Aluminum deep-skirt block, aluminum alloy heads Compression Ratio 11.3:1 Power 285 HP @ 6,400 RPM Torque 260 LB-FT @ 4,400 RPM Final Thoughts Jeep has always been smart with the way it has used the Easter Jeep Safari as a platform to showcase its out-of-the-box approaches. The cold-air intake, the lift kit, etc. are now added to the wish-list of the customers and, with Mopar planing 200+ accessories for the Gladiator, you can bet youll see a lot from the concepts go into production. The Flatbill is a fun truck that serves the purpose for which it has been designed. The idea behind it is intriguing, and Jeep smartly designed a truck keeping the desert lifestyle in mind. The 53rd Edition of the Easter Jeep Safari will be held in Moab, Utah, from April 13 to April 21, covering the Easter Sunday. Love it Looks loud, but not gaudy Rides on 40-inch tires! Wheel ramps for easy loading and unloading of dirt bikes Leave it Not a production-friendly concept like the Jeep Wayout Interior not as funky as the exterior Cannot stress on this enough, there is no Wrangler-based concept this year! Further reading Read our full review on the 2019 Jeep Gladiator Wayout Concept. Read our full review on the 2020 Jeep Gladiator. Jeep Gladiator concept Read our full review on the 2005 Jeep Gladiator Concept. Navigating Sub-Saharan Africas Recovery Amid Greater Uncertainty Sub-Saharan Africas economic recovery is set to continue, but along two tracks. Overall growth is set to pick up from 3 percent in 2018 to 3.5 percent in 2019, and stabilize at slightly below 4 percent over the medium term, the IMF said in its latest Regional Economic Outlook for sub-Saharan Africa. Some 21 countries, mainly the regions more diversified economies, are expected to grow at more than 5 percent and see income per capita rise faster than the rest of the world on average over the medium term. However, the remaining countries, comprising mostly resource intensive countries, including the largest (Nigeria and South Africa), are expected to see slower improvements in standards of living. External and domestic headwinds are weighing on growth prospects, said Abebe Aemro Selassie, Director of the IMFs African Department. The global expansion is losing steam, including in key trading partners such as China and the euro area; as we see trade tensions persisting; and volatile global financial conditions and commodity prices. Public debt vulnerabilities remain elevated in some countries and non-performing loans remain high, partly due to large public sector domestic arrears. Declining budgets and a less supportive external environment complicate the challenge of finding ways to address human and physical capital investment needs, and create enough jobs to absorb the 20 million new entrants to labor markets each year. Central to resolving this challenge is building up sufficient resources, enhancing resilience to shocks, and fostering an environment conducive to sustained, high, and inclusive growth, said Mr. Selassie. He pointed to two broad implications for policies. For the fast-growing economies, such as Benin, Ethiopia, and Senegal, there is need to hand over the reins of growth from the public to the private sector. In many of these countries, public investment had helped spur high growth, while also steadily increasing public debt levels. In the more resource-intensive and slower growing economies such as Angola, Nigeria, and South Africa there is an urgent need to press ahead with much-needed policies to adjust to lower commodity prices and facilitate economic diversification. Prompt action would also help address the policy uncertainties that are holding back growth. Overall, sub-Saharan African countries need to strike a delicate policy balance between containing public debt levels, investing in human and physical capital, and raising revenue. This calls for urgent action on the fiscal front to improve tax revenue collection, public financial management, and spending efficiency, and on the trade front to reduce non-tariff barriers and deepen intra-trade integration (including in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area AfCFTA). Reforms are also needed to facilitate greater private investment, raise productivity, including by promoting diversification and export competitiveness, and strengthen resilience to climatic shocks. The crippling effects of Cyclone Idai decimating physical infrastructure and farmland, and bringing enormous suffering for the 2.6 million people affected in Southeast Africa underscores the regions vulnerability to weather-related disasters. Chapter 3 Is the African Continental Free Trade Area a Game Changer for the Continent? In 2018, member countries of the African Union took a major step to boost regional trade and economic integration by establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). They agreed to eliminate tariffs on most goods, liberalize trade of key services, address nontariff obstacles to intraregional trade, and eventually create a continental single market with free movement of labor and capital. The AfCFTA has been ratified by 22 countries and is likely to take effect in 2019, although negotiations on specific features of the agreement are ongoing. Once operational, the AfCFTA will establish a market of 1.2 billion people with a combined GDP of US$2.5 trillion. This could be an economic game changer for the continent. Trade integration can help propel development and has prompted spectacular success stories on other continents. Trade integration allows countries to specialize in the production of goods and services for which they have comparative advantage and to exploit economies of scale, thereby improving productivity and growth. Trade integration can also foster structural transformation by spreading knowledge and technology and spurring the development of new products. A large free trade area in Africa will amplify the potential for economic transformation in the region. It will not only boost intraregional trade, it will also attract foreign direct investment and facilitate the development of regional supply chains, which have been key engines of economic transformation in other regions. However, while trade supports growth, it may also entail costs, and its benefits may not be evenly distributed across and within countries. Policymakers are often rightly concerned that further integrating their economies with those of other countries may benefit some industries and hurt others, negatively affect earnings and employment opportunities in certain sectors and for certain skill levels, and reduce fiscal revenue. This chapter examines the potential benefits and challenges of implementing the AfCFTA for African countries. It focuses on three questions: How has intraregional trade in Africa evolved over time and how does it differ from Africas international trade? What does the experience of the African subregional economic communities suggest about the continents potential to integrate further? What is the potential impact of the AfCFTA on intraregional trade, and what policies are needed to foster further regional trade integration? How will the AfCFTA affect welfare, income distribution, and the fiscal revenue of African countries? The analysis shows that: Intraregional trade in Africa has expanded rapidly, and a few regional hubs dominate relatively well diversified trade flows. Intraregional imports, as a share of total imports, almost tripled over the past two decades to 12-14 percent, or about US$100 billion, as several new subregional economic communities (RECs) boosted trade in the region. In 2017, three-quarters of African intraregional trade took place within the main subregional communities. In the process, regional trade hubs emerged, such as Cote dIvoire, Kenya, Senegal, and South Africa. Unlike exports to the rest of the world, intraregional trade flows are relatively diversified, contain higher value-added goods than exports to the rest of the world, and include a sizable share of manufactured products (for example, motor vehicles and clothing). Despite this expansion, significant opportunities for further regional trade integration lie ahead. After controlling for lower levels of income and economic size and generally longer distances compared with other regions, African countries particular features appear to limit their ability to trade (compared with countries in other regions). Some of these features are structural and would require a long-term commitment to change. Others are the result of policy, such as tariffs, trade regulations, and regulatory requirements, and their removal would boost regional integration. Opportunities to expand intraregional trade are particularly sizable for some agriculture-related commodities (for example, food products) and manufacturing industries, as well as in some African subregional economic communities that trade significantly less than their peers. Tariffs and, more important, non-tariff bottlenecks are currently limiting intraregional trade integration. The experience of the subregional economic communities suggests that reducing tariffs alone is not sufficient to boost intraregional trade. Poor trade logistics and, to a lesser extent, infrastructure are major obstacles to further trade integration in the region. These bottlenecks are particularly important for landlocked and low-income countries. Removing trade barriers to foster intraregional trade may unevenly affect countries in the region. Fiscal revenue losses from lower tariffs are likely to be limited, on average, but they may be significant in a few countries that still apply high export tariffs. Moreover, deeper trade integration can have adverse effects on countries income distribution, particularly in countries with more diversified economies and large shares of skilled labor. However, these effects are limited in size as large informality in the economy, while increasing overall inequality, isolates some segments of the population from the short-term effects of trade flows. Moreover, these effects tend to fade away over time. Finally, small countries, more diversified economies, and established regional trade hubs, already open to international competition, are likely to benefit more from deeper regional integration than economies dominated by agriculture and natural resources. The key findings in this chapter imply that the AfCFTA could significantly boost intraregional trade in Africa if both tariffs and non-tariff policy levers are used. Tariff reductions should be comprehensive in order to have significant effects on intraregional trade flows. Eliminating tariffs on 90 percent of existing intraregional trade flows the most ambitious target under the AfCFTA would increase regional trade by about 16 percent, or US$16 billion, over time. Tariff reductions should be complemented with policies addressing non-tariff bottlenecks. Even small improvements in addressing such bottlenecks are likely to have sizable effects. Improving trade logistics, such as customs services, and addressing poor infrastructure could be up to four times more effective in boosting trade than tariff reductions. Moreover, reducing non-tariff obstacles to trade would improve the effectiveness of tariff reductions in boosting trade, especially in landlocked and low-income countries. Therefore, policies to reduce non-tariff bottlenecks, particularly poor trade logistics and infrastructure, should be at the center of the effort to foster deeper trade integration in Africa. To ensure that the benefits of regional trade integration are shared by all, policies should be put in place to address the adjustment costs that integration may entail. For less-diversified and agriculture-based economies, trade policies should be combined with structural reforms to improve agricultural productivity and strengthen the competitive advantage of these economies. In some countries, measures to mobilize domestic revenues are needed to mitigate the expected revenue losses from tariff reductions. The temporary adverse effects of trade liberalization on income distribution need to be tempered particularly in countries with more diversified economies through targeted social (for example, income support) and training programs to ease worker mobility across firms and industries and promote employment. Two weeks of climate action are starting on April 15. You wouldn't know it in North America, but it's a big day for climate protests. It's the start of two weeks of direct action by Extinction Rebellion. "This is not a one-off march we will keep going for as long as we have to, shutting down cities day after day until our demands are met," the most significant being CARBON NET ZERO BY 2025 The Government must enact legally-binding policies to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2025 and take further action to remove the excess of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Its not too late to change course a better world is possible. We know how to get there the solutions exist, and we have the technology to take us to a better future. But governments are consistently failing to take the urgent and decisive action that will save us. If the system will not change, then we must change the system. It is our sacred duty to rebel in order to protect our homes, our future, and the future of all life on Earth. The editors of the Guardian then immediately discuss the implications of the road blockades for London traffic. If it is successful it will be costly for the demonstrators, some of whom plan to be arrested, burdensome for bus passengers who cant get to work, and vexing for car drivers who (unlike those in emergency vehicles) will be held up. And yet, should it fail, the long-term costs of climate change will be immense for almost everybody now alive and for all our descendants, too. They are not wrong to focus on cars; the convenience of drivers and the price of gasoline seems to be a powerful political force. "The gilets jaunes movement in France started off in part as a protest against price rises on petrol; the Blair government sustained its first big defeat at the hands of lorry drivers in the fuel protests of 2000, which destroyed a sensible and ecologically necessary plan to raise fuel taxes steadily over time to discourage the use of fossil fuels." Doug Ford got elected in Ontario, Canada by promising lower fuel prices. But unfortunately, "a future of less consumption and less convenience is inevitable." The protests are intended as the start of a global movement, as they must be. By themselves, they will accomplish little. Yet the longest journey begins with the first step even if this is the step taken by a driver who climbs out of their gridlocked car and tries to find some other way of continuing their journey. George Monbiot is even more radical, writing that Only rebellion will prevent an ecological apocalypse, and suggesting that our whole economic system must change. (Listen to him in the tweet, and watch everyone's jaws drop.) Our system characterised by perpetual economic growth on a planet that is not growing will inevitably implode. The only question is whether the transformation is planned or unplanned. Our task is to ensure it is planned, and fast. We need to conceive and build a new system based on the principle that every generation, everywhere has an equal right to enjoy natural wealth. He's a fan of the Extinction Rebellion, concluding: "The time for excuses is over. The struggle to overthrow our life-denying system has begun." It is so different in North America, where The New York Times devotes an entire magazine section to climate and cannot even get the very first sentence right: The worlds most difficult problem has a solution so simple that it can be expressed in four words: Stop burning greenhouse gases. Because they are either technically illiterate or they are simply afraid to say "stop burning fossil fuels." Then the most extreme statement they come up with is: The most fundamental question is whether a capitalistic society is capable of sharply reducing carbon emissions. Will a radical realignment of our economy require a radical realignment of our political system within the next few years? Even if the answer is no, we have some decisions to make. How, for instance, should the proceeds of a carbon tax be directed? Should they be used to finance clean energy projects, be paid out directly to taxpayers or accrue to the national budget? In a healthy democracy, you could expect a rigorous public debate on this question. But there is no rigorous public debate anywhere, carbon taxes are fought everywhere, and we get told that flying cars could help in the fight against climate change. Forgive me for sounding so depressed. Perhaps I have been doing this for too long, or have been reading too much Monbiot. But we need a little more Extinction Rebellion in North America, and we need it now. Hubble's image of Messier 3 reveals what astronomers say is one of the prettiest "globular clusters" in the universe. In 1758, the chief astronomer of the Marine Observatory in Paris, Charles Messier, was observing a comet when he became distracted by a cloudy something in the constellation Taurus. Messier made a note of the object to help other comet hunters avoid becoming distracted by it. Commonly known today as M1 (Messier 1) or the Crab Nebula, it became the first object in Messiers Catalog of Nebulae and Star Clusters, a listing of comet-like "objects to avoid." By the time of his death in 1817, Messier's list included 103 diffuse objects in the night sky that could be mistaken for comets. The catalog contains galaxies, planetary and other types of nebulae, and star clusters. Fast-forward two centuries and astronomers are working to make images of the catalog's objects with the help of the Hubble telescope. Why? Because as NASA notes, "the Messier catalog includes some of the most fascinating astronomical objects that can be observed from Earths Northern Hemisphere." Charles Messier, circa 1170/Public Domain The third such object on the list, Messier 3, is a globular cluster as can be seen in the Hubble image above. The European Space Agency (ESA) notes: Globular clusters are inherently beautiful objects, but the subject of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, Messier 3, is commonly acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful of them all. At 8 billion years old, this "cosmic bauble" includes an astonishing half-million stars, making it one of the largest and brightest globular clusters ever discovered. "However, what makes Messier 3 extra special is its unusually large population of variable stars," writes ESA, "stars that fluctuate in brightness over time. New variable stars continue to be discovered in this sparkling stellar nest to this day, but so far we know of 274, the highest number found in any globular cluster by far." Aside from the abundance of variable stars, Messier 3 also plays home to a relatively high number of "blue stragglers," which can be seen in the image. "These are blue main sequence stars that appear to be young because they are bluer and more luminous than other stars in the cluster," notes ESA. While it took Hubble to reveal the details of this virtual storm of gemstones, many of the other objects in the Messier catalog are bright enough to be seen through a small telescope, making the catalog's illustrious items popular targets for amateur astronomers of all levels. What Mother Nature provides on our home planet is magical enough; that we can look to the heavens and see such wonders is the icing on the cake ... as well as a great reminder not to lose the nighttime sky. You can see Hubble's images of other objects listed by Messier here. uttara@tribuneindia.com New Delhi, April 15 Samsung India, which is targeting $4 billion in revenues from its Galaxy A series of phones in 2019, is geared up to challenge its Chinese competitors with several new devices, including the Galaxy A70 smartphone next week and the Galaxy A80 in May, a top company official said on Monday. "We will launch the Galaxy A70 in India next week in the Rs 25,000-Rs 30,000 bracket and the Galaxy A80 in the Rs 45,000-Rs 50,000 bracket in May," Ranjivjit Singh, Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President, Samsung India, told IANS. Featuring a 6.7-inch Infinity-U display, the Galaxy A70 comes with 4,500mAh battery, super-charging technology and a triple camera system at the rear. Galaxy A80, which was announced globally on April 10, has a pop-up rotating triple-camera system and a full-screen display. The South Korean tech giant is facing stiff competition from Chinese smartphone makers, especially in the budget and mid-range segment. Samsung's increased focus on the 'A' series, which offers phones in the Rs 10,000-Rs 50,000 segment, shows that the company is ready to give its Chinese competitors a tough fight in the coming days. "We are targeting $4 billion from the Galaxy A series over the calendar year. Just in the first 40 days starting March 1, we have sold a total of two million units of three Galaxy 'A' models in India -- A50, A30 and A10. The revenue turnover from these three phones in 40 days is $500 million. I think this is a record for any brand in the industry," Singh added. "When the rest of the portfolio in the 'A' series becomes available we are sure of not only achieving, but exceeding our target," he said, adding that the A series phones will continue to be available across the channels - both online and offline. Samsung earlier announced that it would launch at least one phone every month from March to June this year. Earlier this month, it announced Galaxy A20, its fourth smartphone in the Galaxy A series this year. Galaxy A20 is available in India for Rs 12,490. In March, Samsung launched Galaxy A10 for Rs 8,490, A 30 for Rs 16,990 and A50 in two variantsone for Rs 19,990 and the other at Rs 22,990. Samsung now has a phone in the Galaxy A series in almost all price ranges in the Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000 bracket. "The portfolio is ever-evolving with the consumer. To hit $4 billion revenue I will have to look at every opportunity. We will come up with the right opportunity for the range you are referring to (the Rs 30,000-Rs 45,000 segment). Just because we have not announced "A" phone in this range in India, does not mean we are not working on it," Singh told IANS. Samsung India, which earned revenues of $5.5 billion from its smartphones business in the country in the 2018 financial year, is also launching other cheaper phoneslike the 'M' seriesto take on the Chinese smartphone makers. "We are going to ship out Galaxy A2 core this week at Rs 5,290. This is going to be a tremendous boost to people who want to switch from feature phones to smartphones. This is going to be huge in terms of volume," Singh added. IANS editorial@tribune.com Bhartesh Singh Thakur Tribune News Service Chandigarh, April 14 Justice Pritam Pal (retd)-led executive committee, mandated to monitor the pollution level in the Ghaggar, has raided seven water-polluting industries in industrial areas of Panchkula and Chandigarh and found their treatment plants non-functional. The raids at two places in Chandigarh were conducted on Friday and at five places in Panchkula on Saturday. None of the local officials was taken along. The treatment plants at all industries were found non-operational. The discharge from these industries goes into drains and ultimately into the Ghaggar. After the submission of the executive committees report tomorrow, action will be taken against the industries, which could include fine, sealing or even snapping the power and water supply connections. The National Green Tribunal (NGT), on August 7, 2018, had appointed Justice Pritam Pal, a former Haryana Lokayukta, as the chairman of the executive committee. Originating from the Shivaliks in Himachal Pradesh, the Ghaggar progresses from the east to the southward direction through several districts of Punjab and Haryana before moving towards Pakistan through Rajasthan. The NGT had ordered, The authorities concerned in the states of Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and the UT, Chandigarh, will cooperate and co-ordinate with the executive committee. The committee can seek any scientific and technical assistance as may be required from any relevant authority. The National Human Rights Commission had taken suo motu notice of a news item published in The Tribune on May 12, 2014, Stench grips Mansas sacred Ghaggar river. The Ghaggar had turned into a polluted water body on account of discharge of effluents, industrial as well as municipal. On the reference of the NHRC, the NGT took over the case in 2016. What the committee found During the raids in Chandigarh and Panchkula, it was found that pollution control board officials of both Chandigarh and Haryana were not checking water pollution. They appear to be hand in glove with the polluting industries. It is dereliction of duty, said Justice Pritam Pal. The water-polluting industries which were raided in Chandigarh and Panchkula related to electroplating. Besides carrying out surprise checks, Justice Pritam Pal also visited the Sukhna choe and the N choe on Saturday. It was found that sources of water pollution were plugged in the Sukhna choe but at the N choe, water appeared brackish. It was ordered that water samples would be taken from the N choe and the report would be submitted to the executive committee. Both the Sukhna choe and the N choe merge with the Ghaggar. vermaajay1968@gmail.com Tribune News Service Patiala, April 14 Punjabi University, Patiala, has become a favourite study destination for students of various countries, including Ghana, Uganda and Nigeria, among others. The university authorities held an event for foreign students on Saturday to boost their admission count in the new academic session and to ensure their safety. Dr BS Ghuman, Vice-Chancellor, Punjabi University said, It is an opportunity for the students to learn about Indian culture. You are not here to merely attain a degree. All possible measures will be taken to ensure the safety of the students, he said. The varsity authorities said they were devising strategies to improve enrolment of foreign students. The university has extended admission date till December to enrol more students. The university has decided to organise a course in academic writing to help the interantional students in capacity building. The course will be started in both English and Punjabi language. Professional training in academic writing is essential for students, said the university official. Sehdev Kumar Sehdev Kumar Professor Emeritus, University of Waterloo, Canada JOHN Kenneth Galbraith, American Ambassador to India in the 1960s, once observed: Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. An apology in matters of relations within and between states may be unpalatable to many, but for international reconciliation and peace, its power is immense. In 1997, on her visit to Jallianwala Bagh, the Queen, on behalf of Britain, seemed to find the word apology for the 1919 massacre a little unpalatable: It is no secret that there have been some difficult episodes in our past Jallianwala Bagh... is a distressing example. But history cannot be rewritten, however much we might sometimes wish otherwise. Yet, in the same year, Prime Minister Tony Blair, for the first time in British history, expressed apology for the death of over one million people in the great potato famine in Ireland in 1840s. The famine was a defining event in the history of Ireland and Britain, he acknowledged. It has left deep scars. That one million people should have died in what was then part of the richest and most powerful nation in the world is something that still causes pain as we reflect on it today. Those who governed in London at the time failed their people. Of course, history cannot be rewritten, but for history to have a future, it must be redeemed from its stings and wounds, and from its lies and denials, by acknowledgement and apologies. Now, perhaps more than ever before, because of the surge of forces of pluralism and globalisation, and the accompanying need to forge new ties within and between nations and states, sweeping away the webs of the past has become an unexpected new imperative of geo-politics, and of a modern liberal state. Today, all those who were once steeped in righteous arrogance or indifference kings, popes, military generals, emirs and who unleashed terror and destruction in the name of God or the empire are now feeling a little uncertain of their acts. To heal the wounds of history, as outlined extensively in Jennifer Linds Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics, an apology is becoming not only palatable but also essential. That is how, for instance, Canada as a liberal multicultural nation, has come to acknowledge, and express heartfelt apologies for historical wrongdoings against the Chinese for long years of head tax, against the Sikhs for the 1915 Komagata Maru incident, against more than 1,00,000 Home Children who were shipped to Canada from Britain from 1869 to 1932 as cheap domestic labour, and against the indigenous children for cultural genocide in residential schools over decades. On April 24, 1915, 800 Armenian scholars were executed by the Ottoman Empire; this was the beginning of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey in which over 1.5 million men, women and children were wiped out. To this day, Turkey has refused to acknowledge that such a genocide ever occurred. In our globalised world, lies, half-lies or half-truths, historical evasions and national grandstanding are now increasingly coming under public gaze. For over 50 years, for instance, all successive governments in Poland had persistently echoed the lies of their masters in Moscow about the 1940 massacre at Katyn where over 22,000 Polish officers were executed, supposedly by the Nazis. The truth was finally established only in 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when secret documents were delivered to former President Lech Walesa by the Russians that proved conclusively that Stalin had ordered the execution. The impact of this acknowledgement on Poland was enormous. Since the perpetrators had denied their guilt for so long and so persistently, a fierce bitterness had lain like a sword on Polish consciousness. Now, its public confirmation by the perpetrators had made this agony, if not entirely vanish, at least somewhat bearable. Could this be the great healing, or even redemptive, power of acknowledgement of the wounds of history? Yet, even as it was discovering one truth unequivocally, Poland itself was hiding another. In the summer of 1941, in a small town of Jedwabne, 1,600 Jews were huddled together in a barn and set on fire. For decades, it was said to have been done by the Nazis. But then it was revealed that the heinous act was committed not by strangers but by the anti-Semitic townspeople themselves. In a remarkable play, Our Class, by Tadeusz Slobodzianek, one sees how a group of men and women, who had grown up together and had studied together in the same school, stoop to betrayal and unspeakable barbarism. For so long, the truth was hidden and distorted, but now, as one character in the play says, you can never bury the truth. Everywhere in the world, people are asking how the wounds of history can be healed, if at all. Whether it is the gruesome institution of slavery or of indentured labour, or the expulsion of the Jews from France by the French themselves in 1942, or the atrocities by the Pakistani army in Bangladesh in 1971, and a thousand other cuts and scars over millennia, the first step must be acknowledgement. The second: Apology. And the third: Forgiveness. Without memory, there is no healing, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Chairman of South Africas Truth and Reconciliation Commission, observed. We remember, so we can forgive. Without forgiveness, there is no future. Mahesh Rangarajan Mahesh Rangarajan Professor of History & Environmental studies, Ashoka University The General Election is under way, but nobody knows what the results will be. The scale of the process is dwarfed by its inescapable outcome. When the results are declared, the losers will concede and the victorious party will lead the next government. Inured to all this, we rarely marvel at its significance. In his autobiographical novel, The Insider, Narasimha Rao, a former PM, points to a paradox of our democracy. The idea of democracy was predicated on the equality of the rich and poor, of men and women of the so-called high born and those once branded as lower social ranks. At the same time, this was a land with centuries, indeed, millennia of hierarchy. In many regions, the monarch was believed to be blessed by divine power. Democracy gave rise to a new kind of leader. This one would not wage war, but would seek support with visions of the future. Rao himself was witness to the fall of the princely state of the Nizam of Hyderabad and the crafting of democratic rule. The fragility of power in a democracy deserves appreciation. Eight of the 16 general elections have led to a change of government. All the instances of defeat have come in and after 1977. In March 1977, the Congress tally fell from 352 to 155 seats. We accept the verdict of the people, Indira Gandhi said in a statement. This was not a victory of a party, but a celebration of freedom. The denial of civil liberties and democratic rights from June to March was a central issue. In the past 32 years, only three PMs who led their party into campaigns brought it back to power. One was Rajiv Gandhi, but he was in office briefly. Victory came in the wake of Indira Gandhis assassination. Vajpayee won in 1999, but was in power only for 13 months. His was the first non-Congress government to serve a full term in office. These were milestones for democracy. Stability was assured by a large party at the core that accommodated the interests of smaller allies and partners in office. His successor took a leaf out of his book and went further. Manmohan Singh was the first PM to complete a full term as head of a coalition and secure re-election. He was the first Prime Minister since Nehru to be re-elected after a full five-year term. Indira does not share the distinction as the Lok Sabha in 1971 was dissolved a year early. Indians do not just vote. They often throw the rulers out. In 1977, the Congress had just two seats of 226 in the Hindi belt; and in 1980, the Janata Party could not even reach three digits. No PM who governs from South Block can take the office for granted. Yet, with all this, the 2019 elections are truly unusual. This is the first time a cohesive party, other than the Congress, has won a majority and completed five years in office. True, the Janata Party under Morarji Desai formed the first non-Congress government and had a majority, but it lasted less than two years. By contrast, the BJP, which was founded in Bombay in the summer of 1980, took 34 years to win a clear majority in the Lok Sabha. It is a political entity with a clear ideological focus and vision, and this goes back to the days of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, and even further to 1925 to the formation of the RSS. Whether it unites or divides Indians, and if it marks a new dawn or not, is one of the key issues in this election. Is a plural order better than a cultural nationalist one, and if so, for whom and why? Is diversity a strength or a weakness? The talk of 70 wasted years and a new India is a sign of a different set of traditions at the apex of the polity. In this, we also see a different style from the earlier coalition governments of the same party. Gujarat showed the way. Narendra Modi is by no means the first premier to have had experience of serving as Chief Minister. There have been instances of former chief ministers. Morarji Desai, Charan Singh and HD Deve Gowda had been chief ministers of Bombay state, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka, respectively. Desai had served as Union Finance Minister and presented as many as 10 budgets. Modi was projected as a prime ministerial candidate while serving as CM. His political approach was critical to his appeal five years ago, as the vote share of the NDA rose to 39 per cent. Whether or not this will mark a new kind of leadership at the mass level, as much as in terms of party structures, is too early to tell. But there is little doubt that he is the most influential Indian politician since Indira. There is one distinction she still has. She won two elections and then was defeated, and resoundingly, but was voted back into office. No one in the post-Nehru era has led her party to three victories. The rest of her record also matters. To this day, the negatives often put her considerable achievements (such as the 1971 war or deep awareness of science and ecology) in the shade. Her emasculation of the once vibrant Congress left deep scars on the body politic. So did her playing a deeply sectarian card in North India, with tragic consequences, most so in Punjab. The larger question for India and the ruling party is not who will win in 2019. It is whether the legacy of democracy will emerge stronger by the time the votes are counted. Praja hi raja hai as the saying goes. It is the people who are the true rulers. India will endure as its fabric of unity is interwoven in the lives of its millions. But will democratic values emerge stronger? Indians believe in democracy, but will rulers abide by it? 2019 will help show the way. rchopra@tribunemail.com Washington, April 15 Several US lawmakers greeted Sikhs on the occasion of Baisakhi and lauded their contributions in the economic development of the country. Today is a historically significant day for our Sikh neighbours across Texas, Senator John Cornyn said in a tweet, as Sikhs and Indian Americans celebrated Vaisakhi across the country. The top Republican Senator from Texas is Co-Chair of the Senate Indian Caucus. On this joyous spiritual day for members of the Sikh community, I wish American Sikhs a very happy Vaisakhi, said Senator Marco Rubio. Sikhs have been an integral part of Americas fabric for 125 plus years. Sikhs wear turbans as a pledge to uphold equality and justice, said Congressman Adriano Espaillat. We join our Sikh American neighbours in celebrating Vaisakhi, one of the most historically significant days for Sikhs all over the world, he said. On Vaisakhi, I am incredibly proud of the Sikh community and its tenets of equality, truth in speech, justice, and compassion in New Yorks 13th Congressional District and NYC. Wishing all of our Sikh American neighbours, friends, families and colleagues a joyous Vaisakhi, he said. Pennsylvania is home to several vibrant Sikh communities, said Senator Pat Toomey. To all that are celebrating, I wish you a joyous Vaisakhi, he said. I hope all of our Sikh American friends in Michigan had a happy Vaisakhi today, Senator Gary Peters said. On this historically significant day for Sikhs, Im wishing our Sikh American friends a happy Vaisakhi tweeted Senator Thom Tillis. On this historically significant day for Sikhs, Im wishing our Sikh American friends in Wisconsin, across the nation and around the world a happy Vaisakhi, said Senator Tammy Baldwin. Sikhs have been an integral part of the nations fabric for over 125 years, said Congressman Rob Woodwall. Today, we join our Sikh American neighbours in celebrating #Vaisakhi, one of the most historically significant days for Sikhs all over the world, he said. Wishing our Sikh American neighbours, classmates & colleagues a happy Vaisakhi Congressman Jason Crow tweeted. For generations, the Sikh community in Nevada and across the county, has made significant contributions to the United States of America, said Senator Cortez Masto. Wishing our Sikh American neighbours, classmates and colleagues a happy Vaisakhi, she said. Wishing the Indiana Sikh community, a very happy and safe Vaisakhi! I hope you enjoy a wonderful celebration with family and friends, said Congresswoman Susan Brooks. Wishing the Sikh community in San Diego a happy Vaisakhi and a joyous harvest festival, said Congressman Scott Peters. Vaisakhi is celebrated to commemorate the formation of the Khalsa Panth under Guru Gobind Singh. PTI vinaymishra188@gmail.com KALRAJ Mishra the sitting BJP MP from Deoria in Uttar Pradesh, who is incharge of the party affairs in Haryana, talks to The Tribune reporter Vibha Sharma on the selection of Lok Sabha candidates, why it chose to repeat most and other issues. Excerpts: In the eight seats the BJP has declared nominees so far, you have hardly made any changes, except in Karnal. Why so? Why should we have changed anyone? The seats were decided on two factors winnability and samajik samikaran. The sitting MPs were renominated on the basis of their performance in Parliament and other areas. I am sure they will emerge winners. The BJP had forged an alliance in Haryana during the 2014 elections. This time you have chosen to go it alone. Last time our organisational structure was nothing like it is today. We were able to win in 2014 with not too much parishram (effort) because of the Modi wave. Now too we are contesting in the name of Narendra Modi whose government has benefited all - farmers, poorer sections and middle class. The government functioning has been totally transparent.This time, our sangathan is effectively functioning right up to the booth level. The benefit of various schemes launched by the Centre and the Haryana Government are being communicated till the grassroots level. That's why I am sure we will win all seats. The BJP seems to be again depending on non-Jat candidates. Dont you think the Jats will be upset? There are candidates from all castes. Our effort has been to give representation to all sections so that there is no social imbalance. The BJP is getting Jat as well as non-Jat votes. Our aim is to not make it a Jat versus non-Jat contest. What about joblessness and farm distress? Considering the efforts made by the BJP government, I think the employment figure stands at more than two crore. In Haryana, people have been given jobs on merit. The selection process has been transparent. This has never happened before. Farmers have been given unprecedented benefits. Apart from providing government jobs, we have been preparing the youth for employment in the corporate sector. We are also generating self-employment by running skill development programmes. In my constituency in Deoria, I organised three job fairs which benefited 2,600-2,700 persons. In today's world, you have to be a job provider, not a job seeker. Our efforts have been successful in this direction. rchopra@tribunemail.com Sushil Manav Tribune News Service Chandigarh, April 15 With the general election in the state less than a month away, Ajay Chautala, the elder son of INLD patriarch Om Prakash Chautala, on Monday came out on a 21-day furlough from Tihar Jail to campaign for son Dushyant Chautalas Jannayak Janta Party (JJP). His release, however, has trigged a fresh row in the Chautala clan with younger brother Abhay Chautala accusing JJP leaders Dushyant and Digvijay of using their influence with their alliance partner AAPs government in Delhi to keep Chautala senior in jail and allowing Ajay to come out to campaign for the alliance. The JJP officially announced on Monday that party founder Ajay Chautala had come on a 21-day furlough and he would be among his family and supporters till May 6. The JJP clarified that no conditions had been put with the furlough, which meant that he would be able to campaign for the party. Abhay alleged, It shows in how biased a manner the AAP government led by Arvind Kejriwal is working under the influence of its alliance partner JJPs leader Dushyant Chautala. The day Kejriwal offered the AAP support to the JJP in the Jind bypoll on January 21, Chautala was refused furlough and he was put in jail at midnight from the LNJP hospital in Delhi where he was recuperating. When he gets furlough or parole, it has a condition that he will not address meetings or campaign for his party, but Ajay has been granted furlough unconditionally in the middle of parliamentary polls. Only on April 12, the Kejriwal government in Delhi had opposed Chautalas plea for parole to attend to his critically ill wife saying he was seeking parole for political reasons and should not be granted relief considering the general election. This also shows the true character of JJP leader Dushyant Chautala who doesnt have any respect for his grandfather and ailing grandmother, said Abhay. Terming the JJP-AAP alliance as a marriage of convenience, Abhay alleged that Dushyant did not hesitate in the tie-up with Kejriwal who once had said that Punjab could not give even a drop of SYL water to Haryana, and the latter, too, chose to ally with Ajay, who is convicted in a case of corruption, despite his tall claims of honesty. Responding to Abhays allegations, Dushyant said the parole issue of Chautala is to be decided by the Delhi High Court. On Abhay calling his elder brother Ajay as a convict in a corruption case, Dushyant said it meant his uncle was also keeping Om Prakash Chautala in the same bracket as both were convicted together in the same case. Both Chautala and his elder son Ajay are serving a 10-year imprisonment in the JBT recruitment case. editorial@tribune.com Ravinder Saini Tribune News Service Rewari, April 14 Incumbent Congress MP from Rohtak Deepender Hooda is focusing upon the Kosli Assembly segment from where BJP candidate OP Dhankar had taken a massive lead of 42,538 votes over him in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. On Saturday, Deepender visited 15 villages of Kosli tehsil, which is part of the Rohtak parliamentary constituency, and appealed to the villagers to vote in favour of the Congress this time. It was his second visit to the Kosli Assembly segment in the past one week. Earlier, he came here on April 7 and addressed public meetings in 14 villages. The Congress, which declared its nominees for the Lok Sabha election in Haryana on Saturday, cleared Deependers name for Rohtak seat. He will be seeking re-election for the fourth term. Though Deepender romped home in Rohtak consecutively for the third time in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Kosli, dominated by the Ahir community, was crucial in bringing down his winning margin considerably compared to the previous election. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, Deepender had created national record of any sitting MP to win his seat successively with a margin of 4,45,736 votes and also got lead in all nine Assembly segments, including Kosli, over his nearest rival. This was almost double the margin by which he had won in the 2005 byelection, when he was elected for the first time by defeating his rival BJP nominee Capt Abhimanyu. Deependers winning margin was reduced to 1.7 lakh in 2014 and his rival Dhankar managed to get a lead over him in two of the nine Assembly segments Kosli and Bahadurgarh. Thats why, Deepender this time is leaving no stone unturned to improve his poll prospects in this election, said a political analyst, adding that BJP nominee Dhankar polled 79,758 votes, while Deepender got 37,220 votes from Kosli in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. Addressing the public meetings, Deepender sought votes on the basis of the development works undertaken in Kosli during the previous Congress government. The BJP government has entirely failed to bring any new development project in Kosli, he said. In last poll, Ahir-dominated area reduced his winning margin editorial@tribune.com Shiv Kumar Sharma Tribune News Service Yamunanagar, April 14 The district authorities have swung into action to put a ban on the illegal mining in Tajewala village that has damaged a portion of the right lower down-stream embankment (RLDSE). The excessive and uncontrolled illegal mining has increased the threat of breach in RLDSE and damage to the Hathnikund barrage. Haridev Kamboj, executive engineer, Water Services Division, Dadupur, said he had directed Dharampal, sub-divisional officer (SDO) of his department, to lodge a complaint with the Pratap Nagar (Khizrabad) police for registration of a case against owners of 14 screening plants and one stone-crushing unit being run close to the RLDSE in Tajewala village. He said the SDO along with junior engineer Hemant Kumar had inspected the RLDSE on April 11 and found that illegal screening plants were operating there. The SDO and the JE found that no mining block was granted after auction to any firm by the state government in the Tajewala area. Several screening plants were promoting illegal mining in the area, said Kamboj. Sanjay Simberwal, assistant mining engineer, Yamunanagar, said a team of his department was keeping strict vigil in the Tajewala area and had impounded six vehicles found involved in illegal mining in this area yesterday. Meanwhile, the Haryana State Pollution Control Board, Yamunanagar, has recommended the closure of eight illegal and six legal screening plants to the higher authorities of the board. As soon as we get permission from the higher authorities, we will immediately close down the operation of all 14 screening plants, said Nirmal Kumar Kashyap, Regional Officer of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board, Yamunanagar. Haridev Kamboj said 14 screening plants and one stone crusher were installed violating rules as no mining was permissible in an area up to a width of 500 metres from the active edge of the Yamuna embankment. The excessive and uncontrolled illegal mining may cause a breach in the RLDSE, said Kamboj. Cong calls for CBI probe State Congress spokesman Satpal Kaushik said illegal mining in Tajewala had put at risk lives of people of the area. Illegal mining is a big scandal. In the past four years, the mining mafia committed theft of minerals worth more than Rs 3 lakh crore in Yamunanagar district, he alleged. He demanded a CBI probe into illegal mining in Yamunangar district. editorial@tribune.com Parveen Arora Tribune News Service Karnal, April 14 Sub-divisional Magistrate (SDM) Narender Kumar Malik on Sunday recorded the statements of Industrial Training Institute (ITI) principal Baldev Singh and staff members in connection with the April 12 incident, in which the police used batons and tear gas to disperse students who allegedly indulged in stone pelting to protest the death of am ITI student after coming under the wheels of a roadways bus. On the complaint by the ITI Principal and the ITI employees association, Deputy Commissioner Vinay Partap Singh had ordered a magisterial inquiry to ascertain the cause of the incident and fix responsibility. The inquiry committee will give recommendations and suggest measures so that such incidents are avoided. The inquiry started on Sunday and it has to be concluded in seven days. RP Sheokand, Additional Director, Skill Development and Industrial Training Department, and Jaswinder Sandhu from the ITI, Karnal, are also members of the inquiry committee. Baldev Singh reposed trust in the committee. He, however, condemned media reports that quoted him as saying that he did not want the SDM to initiate the inquiry. The principal denied issuing such statement. The Principal announced holidays for Monday and Tuesday in the ITI. He appealed to students to remain at home during the holidays. Superintendent of Police Surinder Singh Bhoria, meanwhile, shifted three policemen to the Police Lines on the basis of videos, which went viral on social media, reportedly showing them misbehaving with the Principal and staff members during the April 12 protest. The investigation by the ASP is going on. On the basis of videos, I have sent three head constables Rajesh Kumar, Satish Kumar and Sukhdev Singh to the Police Lines so that they cannot influence the inquiry, the SP said. The Sarv Karamchari Sangh condemned the lathicharge on staff members and students inside the ITI. They demanded judicial inquiry into the incident. Demand for judicial inquiry editorial@tribune.com Ravinder Sood Palampur, April 14 Residents of Karot village of Baijnath sub-division, 30 km from here, today announced to boycott the Lok Sabha elections in protest against the failure of the state government to construct a road and a health sub-centre. The villagers said they had met ministers, MLAs and senior officers, but to no avail. They called mediapersons at Baijnath and told them that they would not vote. They have already conveyed their decision to the SDM and the tehsildar. Because of the difficult topography, one has to cover a long distance to reach the village. In the absence of medical facilities, they had lost their loved ones as no ambulance could reach the village, they said. A pregnant woman died recently. A small track that connected the village had been blocked due to landslides. The authorities did not bother to clear the track. Schoolchildren were the worst-hit as they had to cover 10 to 15 km on foot every day. The power supply also remains erratic and faults are not rectified for days, the villagers said. Former MLA Kishori Lal as well as present MLA Mulakh Raj had promised to construct a road to the village, but they too failed to do so. Baijnath SDM Rameshwar Dass asked the villagers not to boycott the poll. He said he would visit the village soon and persuade the villagers to cast vote. editorial@tribune.com Our Correspondent Kangra, April 14 Congress nominee for Kangra Lok Sabha seat Pawan Kajal will file his nomination paper on April 29 at Dharamsala. He said he would hold a public meeting there. The Congress has decided to intensify door-to-door campaigning against the BJP in the constituency. Pawan Kajal addressed booth level workers and panchayat representatives of Kangra Assembly segment at his residence today. The meeting was held for chalking out poll strategy where the workers and panchayat representatives assured Kajal that they would fan out in other segments of the Lok Sabha constituency for campaigning, ensuring lead for him. Kajal said on the day of his nomination, at least 15000 workers from Kangra Assembly segment will join him in Dharamsala. He asked the panchayat representatives to move door to door and highlight the failures of the Kangra MP Shanta Kumar and the step-motherly attitude he adopted towards the Kangra Assembly constituency during the last five years. Kajal said, if elected to the Lok Sabha, he will raise relevant issues in Parliament. He would spend 20 days in a month in his Matour office to redress the problems of the people. He said that he had received tremendous response from different Assembly constituencies of Kangra Lok Sabhaconstituency that has left the BJP unnerved. He said that Birta panchayat pradan Ranjeet Singh and Kohala Pradhan Sunita Devi had joined the Congress after deserting the BJP. editorial@tribune.com Hamirpur, April 14 Former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh said today that the Congress would win all four seats in Himachal. Addressing a high- level meeting of leaders and workers here, he said the Congress would fight unitedly. The BJP had repeated its old manifesto and was misleading the people on patriotism and development. He said BJP candidate Anurag Thakur was a high-profile leader having no affection for people. State Congress president Kuldeep Rathore said all office-bearers of the party must ensure lead in their respective polling booths. Any anti-party activity by any worker or leader would not be ignored. He said the BJP had strangulated democracy and corruption had increased manifold. Former HPCC president Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu said the Congress had fielded a strong candidate from Hamirpur and all leaders were supporting him wholeheartedly. Thakur Ram Lal, Congress candidate from Hamirpur, said he believed in decency in politics and refrained from mudslinging. OC laxmi@tribune.com IN India, basmati rice has emerged as a significant commodity on the export list and become a good source of export earnings among agricultural commodities. Presently, India is the largest producer of basmati rice with about 70 per cent share in the global production. The Pusa-1121 variety contributes the largest share to the Indian export of basmati rice. During 2017-18, the share of Iran in the export of Indian basmati rice was about 22 per cent, followed by Saudi Arabia (19.53 per cent), Iraq (10.6 per cent), UAE (10.58 per cent), UK (4.45 per cent), Yemen Republic (4.13 per cent) and Kuwait (4.11 per cent). In 2008-09, the area under basmati in Punjab was 3.4 lakh hectares and the average post-harvest market price of basmati paddy was Rs 2,660 per quintal, which was a good price at that time. As a result, the area under the crop got a boost over the next three years (2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12), touching 5.58 lakh hectares in 2011-12. On the other hand, due to the increased supply of basmati, its post-harvest prices fell regularly during this period, touching a low of Rs 1,830 per quintal in 2011-12. The decline in prices adversely affected the returns from the crop. The area correction took place in 2012-13 and 1 lakh hectares less got planted. The export prices increased to Rs 5,621 per quintal in 2012-13. The domestic basmati paddy prices also gained significantly by about Rs 650 per quintal in the same year. From 2011-12 to 2013-14, basmati supply remained almost dormant while the exports were increasing. The export price increased from Rs 4,862 per quintal in 2011-12 to Rs 7,796 per quintal in 2013-14. The reduced production helped in the clearance of past stocks; due to the demand-supply factor, the basmati paddy prices in the domestic market increased to Rs 2,570 per quintal in 2012-13. The area shot up again by 1 lakh hectares and reached 5.59 lakh hectares in 2013-14; on the domestic front, the prices of basmati paddy rose to the all-time high of Rs 3,500 per quintal in the same period. Farmers became overenthusiastic and the acreage sowed touched the all-time high of 8.62 lakh hectares in 2014-15, which led to a tremendous increase in its production. Due to the increased supply, the basmati rice stocks in the country accumulated to a large extent in 2014-15, but its export remained almost the same as in the previous year. At the same time, the international prices of basmati rice also started declining. As a result, domestic prices of basmati paddy fell from Rs 3,500 per quintal in the previous year to Rs 2,700 per quintal in 2014-15. The domestic price of basmati paddy showed a positive correlation with the export prices. The latter went down further from Rs 7,459 per quintal in 2014-15 to Rs 5,615 in 2015-16. Because this commodity is amenable to storage, the effect of acreage beyond just the next year can be seen. Therefore, despite the area reduction by 1 lakh hectares in 2015-16, the basmati paddy prices in the domestic market crashed. Overproduction of basmati rice, accumulated stocks from last years production and decline in export prices jointly hit its prices in the domestic market. The prices touched the lowest point of Rs 1,725 per quintal, which drastically affected the profitability of its cultivation. Basmati cultivation in Punjab became unviable as compared to non-basmati paddy. Farmers started incurring losses, causing unrest among them. The changed basmati scenario led growers to reduce the area under basmati in the state by more than 34 per cent from 7.63 lakh hectares in 2014-15 to 5.02 lakh hectares in 2015-16, resulting in a drop in its production by 44 per cent. Consequently, the prices of basmati paddy increased by 39 per cent from Rs 1,725 to Rs 2,400 per quintal during the same period. In subsequent years (2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19), area under basmati in Punjab remained stable between 5 and 5.5 lakh hectares and the prices showed less volatility in these years. Decreased basmati rice production, along with clearance of its accumulated stocks, led to an increase in basmati paddy prices to Rs 2,400 per quintal, Rs 2,800 and Rs 3,250 in 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19, respectively. Past trends show that the global export of basmati from India may remain around 40 lakh tonnes in the near future. The tough norms set by the European Commission by bringing down the maximum residue limit (MRL) level for tricyclazole (a fungicide) in basmati rice may also affect its exports to Europe. Further, due to the low purchasing power of a majority of the Indian population, its domestic consumption is rising at a very slow rate. From the basmati and non-basmati seed sale reports as well as interaction with farmers, it seems that farmers may increase area under basmati during 2019-20 because they have got high prices for their produce during 2018-19, when the average price was Rs 3,250 per quintal. Under these circumstances, a big increase in area under basmati cultivation may cause the problem of market clearance and lead to downward pressure on its prices in the domestic market. It has been observed that acreage under basmati cultivation of 5 to 5.5 lakh hectares emerges as optimal for Punjab at present. This constitutes about 16 to 18 per cent of the total rice area in the state. The basmati footprint is fairly widely distributed in Punjab and most of the farmers grow basmati as well as non-basmati varieties. It would be a good rule of thumb to not increase the area under basmati paddy in a significant measure in 2019-20 over the previous year and maintain appropriate proportion of basmati and non-basmati paddy by individual farmers as a good buffer. Thus, in view of the past experience of basmati production and its market clearance as well as its national and international trade scenario, a check on the area under basmati cultivation during the current year may help the farmers in realising better prices. The authors are on the faculty of Department of Economics and Sociology, PAU, Ludhiana Please send your feedback to infocus@tribunemail.com An Egyptian criminal court sentenced a defendant to death on Monday for killing an Italian citizen in the city of Milano in 2013. The case dates back to November 2014, when Interpol requested the arrest of an Egyptian citizen over the robbery and murder of a carpet shop owner of Iranian descent in Milan. The defendant fled Italy after committing the crime in 2013 and was arrested months later at his residence in the Nile Delta governorate of Sharqiya. The defendant told authorities that he worked as a cleaner in the shop owned by the victim, and claimed that he was sexually assaulted by the shop owner. The defendant can appeal the verdict before the Court of Cassation. According to Egyptian law, an Egyptian citizen who commits a crime abroad can be arrested and tried within Egypt as long as the act is considered a crime in both Egypt and the country where the crime was committed. Search Keywords: Short link: Cars / Yachts Fairline Executive Chairman David Tydeman is focused on ramping up production as the British builder seeks to catch up with its strong order book Apr 15, 2019 | By John Higginson Fairline is firmly focused on production in 2019 as the British builder bids to catch up with a backlog of orders following its remarkable turnaround after entering administration in December 2015. David Tydeman, announced as Executive Director last September, said Fairline plans this year to build 90 units, almost as many as were built over the previous three years in its headquarters in Oundle, which is supported by a commissioning base in Ipswich. Tydeman has succeeded Russell Currie, who was Managing Director of the company formed in January 2016 until late last year when he returned to Spain to resume his role with the North Mallorca dealership. Currie had led a fairy-tale resurgence for almost three years, with annual revenues of 10m, 25m then 45m in 2018. The challenge for Fairline was that Russell and the team led a fantastic recovery, selling 140 boats in the first two years, up to about 180 after three years, but had only built 100, said Tydeman, now overseeing almost 500 staff at Fairline. The production investment was slower than the sales effort at the front, so my job is to strengthen production and get the run rate up. I think well build 90 boats this year. Tydemans task is complicated by the transition of Targa 63 and Squadron 64 construction from Oundle which currently has the mould for both models to the new 20,000sqm Fairline Marine Park in Hythe, Southampton, which will become the production site for all 60ft-plus models. Several hulls of the Targa 63 are being finished in Oundle, but all new ones will be trucked down to Southampton for completion. After the first Squadron 64 hull was transferred from the Midlands to the south coast last August for completion, all successive units have been moved down to Hythe. Its a huge investment to move all production of 60ft-plus boats to Hythe, but weve got a lot of customers waiting for 63s and 64s. The hull mould can produce 24-25 units a year, so thats one 63 or 64 every couple of weeks, but when we started the 64 line, the mould was still in Oundle, said Tydeman, the former CEO of Oyster Yachts in Southampton. Of the 63s in Oundle, the last one will be finished in July, so by August onwards, all 60ft-plus boats will be down south. Weve got 130 people working on boats above 60ft and 90 of them are in Oundle, but by November I need 150 people on the south coast. Its quite a transition to manage. The backlog has also delayed production of the new F//Line 33, which is now scheduled to premiere at Septembers Cannes Yachting Festival, having already sold over 20 units. However, much of the anticipation since the acquisition of the Hythe site has been around Fairlines potential construction of larger yachts. I need to stabilise the production recovery, move the 60-footers to the south coast and finish the order book this year before we plug in the bigger yachts, said Tydeman, whose management team has been by the appointment of Commercial Director Dennis de Roos, who attended the recent Singapore yacht Show. The bigger models are on the drawing board and we hope to start building the first one in Hythe in the summer or autumn of 2020. laxmi@tribune.com Vijay C Roy in Chandigarh FOR the second year in a row, basmati is going to occupy the top slot in the export of agri and processed food in 2018-19. Considering the estimates, the exports are projected to hit a record level of Rs 30,000 crore, mainly because of higher realisation. The previous high was Rs 29,300 crore in 2013-14. From April 2018 to February 2019, basmati contributed 25.24 per cent to the countrys agricultural and processed food products exports (value-wise), followed by buffalo meat (20.13 per cent). Buffalo meat has been the highest agri-related export item from India for three consecutive years 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17. In 2013-14, basmati was the top agri export item from India. According to provisional data of the Agricultural and Processed Food Exports Development Authority (APEDA), basmati exports (April 2018-February 2019) were 38.55 lakh tonnes, compared to 36.28 lakh tonnes during the corresponding period of the previous fiscal. The exports witnessed growth volume- wise despite challenges such as the pesticide residue issue leading to a fall in shipments to the European Union (EU); Saudi Arabia mulling adoption of stringent pesticide rules; and initial uncertainty due to the imposition of trade sanctions on Iran by the US Government. As per exporters, a record shipment to Iran in January and February boosted basmati exports from the country. During this period, exports grew by 20.20 per cent in rupee terms to Rs 28,599 crore as against Rs 23,793 crore in the same period the previous year. In dollar terms, the growth was to the tune of 11.12 per cent. The growth in rupee terms was higher than in dollar terms mainly because of a weaker rupee. The average realisation has been about 4.5 per cent higher at $1,065 per tonne during the period as against $1,019 per tonne in the previous year. Exporters say that despite a significant increase in exports because of Iran opening imports from India, the volume will be almost the same as compared to the last fiscal. According to the exporters, Irans annual basmati import market is pegged at around 1 million metric tonnes. If we consider last five years average, we perceive that the export volume will be around 40 lakh tonnes, which will be more or less the same compared to the last fiscal, says All India Rice Exporters Association president Vijay Setia. Basmati exports for FY 2017-18 were 40.5 lakh tonnes as compared to 39.85 lakh tonnes during the previous year. According to credit rating agency ICRA, over the next few quarters, the export market demand would remain steady, supported by resumption of import in the key market of Iran. Basmati is one of the major cash crops of Punjab and Haryana, which account for more than 70-75 per cent of the exports from the country. Other major basmati-growing states are Uttar Pradesh (western), Uttarakhand, J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi, which contribute 25-30 per cent. Setia says that higher realisation for farmers could translate into more area under basmati in the 2019-20 season. We believe that there will be an increase in area to the tune of 10-20 per cent in the basmati belts of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, says Setia. In the last fiscal, basmati production dropped by around 5 per cent as farmers shifted to non-basmati due to a considerable increase in its minimum support price, and loss of the standing crop due to untimely rain in some of the key basmati-growing states. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Srinagar, April 14 The National Conference (NC) president and the partys candidate for the Srinagar constituency, Farooq Abdullah, on Sunday described Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah as the biggest enemies of people. Farooq, while addressing a rally in the interiors of Dal Lake here, said the two leaders believed in dividing the nation on the basis of caste, creed and religion". These people want to change the framework of the Constitution of India, which grants equal rights and opportunities to everyone. It is the Constitution of India which grants rights to profess any faith, he said. The other day the BJP came out with its manifesto which explicitly reflects the hatred BJP has for the identity of our state. They have vowed to do away with the provisions of Articles 370 and 35A in the manifesto, he said. Farooq said the sole agenda of Modi and Shah was to change the demography of our state. However let me tell them that they are playing with fire. To meet this purpose, they have employed various henchmen in our state, such cronies can be seen holding ink pot and apple in their hands. The sole aim of the BJP and its cronies was to make non state subjects buy land and property in our state, he said. Meanwhile, National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah also accused the Prime Minister, who vowed to rid the state of its political families, of not walking the talk by forming a government with the Mufti family. editorial@tribune.com Tribune Reporters Kathua, April 14 Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday reiterated commitment of the BJP to implement the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill to give rights to religious minorities displaced from Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Prime Minister made this announcement while addressing a public meeting at Kathua in support of party candidate Jitendra Singh. As refugees from West Pakistan are deciding factor in the prestigious seat, Modi assured to grant citizenship rights to the displaced persons, a majority of whom belong to the the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and other backward classes (OBCs). After May 23, when the BJP retains power, the Bill will be introduced to grant citizenship rights to those who have come here from Pakistan during the Partition, he said. Victim of the 1947 holocaust, over 90 per cent of West Pakistan refugees are struggling to get constitutional and fundamental rights. In the 2014 parliamentary and Assembly elections also, the BJP had promised to grant citizenship to the refugees. It was first time in the political history of J&K that SCs and OBCs had voted in the favour of the BJP in the Jammu region and the party had won all seven Assembly seats reserved for the SCs due to the support of the weaker sections. The refugees are a deciding factor in the Udhampur-Doda seat, especially in the plains of Kathua district, hence the BJP is making efforts to placate the annoyed refugees. Modi also used the plight of displaced of Kashmiri Pandits to corner the Congress. It was all due to the policies of the Congress that Kashmiri Pandits had to flee from the Valley. Can the Congress give justice to Kashmiri Pandits? Can it give justice to 1984 riots victims? Congress' NYAY scheme is a big sham. Im committed to an honourable return and rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits, he said. amansharma@tribunemail.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 15 Aam Aadmi Partys South Delhi candidate Raghav Chadha has lodged a complaint with Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora demanding an inquiry after hundreds of voter ID cards were purportedly found dumped on streets of Badarpur in the parliamentary constituency. Chadha claimed that over 200 undelivered voter ID cards, which were retrieved from a garbage dump on the Badarpur-Tajpur-Pahadi road, happen to be those who were registered during voter registration camps organised by AAP. Can the EC explain why these voter cards were dumped, asked the AAP leader. Chadha said more than five voter registration camps were organised in Badarpur of South Delhi area where thousands of people visited. Even though the registration was successful and the voter ID cards were ready, these were not delivered, he added. In his complaint to the CEC, a copy of which has also been sent to the Delhi Chief Electoral Office, the AAPs South Delhi nominee said ... an ongoing massive electoral fraud is being perpetrated on the citizens of Delhi by the BJP whereby names of lakhs of voters were systematically deleted from the electoral rolls. amansharma@tribunemail.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 15 A Muslim couple from Maharashtra on Monday moved the Supreme Court seeking direction to the government to allow Muslim women to enter Mosques and offer namaz. Asserting Muslim womens right to equality, right to non-discrimination and right to religion, Yasmeen Zuber Ahmad Peerzade and her husband Zuber Ahmad Nazir Ahmad Peerzade -- who hail from Pune said Muslim women should be allowed to pray in the musalla without being separated by a barrier, including in the front and in mixed-gender congregational lines. They cited the example of Mecca, where "the faithful, both men and women, together circumambulate the Kaaba". Besides, most sacred mosques in the world equally embrace both -- men and women, the submitted. Citing the Supreme Courts verdict allowing entry of women of all age groups in Kerala's Sabarimala Temple, the petitioner couple said, The hon'ble court in the case of Sabraimala held that religion cannot be used as cover to deny rights of worship to women as it is against human dignity. Prohibition on women is due to non-religious reasons and it is a grim shadow of discrimination going on for centuries. They demanded that all fatwas restraining Muslim women to enter mosque should be quashed and purported customary tradition banning womens entry into mosques declared unconstitutional and violative of right to equality, right to non-discrimination, right to live with human dignity and right to religion. The petition has made the Centre, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, the Central Wakf Council, the Maharashtra State Board of Wakfs and All India Muslim Personal Law Board as parties to the case. Pointing out that there was no mention of gender segregation in either the Quran or Hadith, the couple contended that such practices were repugnant to basic dignity of women and violated their fundamental rights. There were no records stating that the Quran and Prophet Muhammad opposed women entering mosques and offering prayers, and in fact men and women have equal constitutional rights to worship, according to their beliefs, they submitted. Women were allowed to offer prayers at mosques under the Jamaat-e-Islami and Mujahid denominations but they were barred from mosques under the predominant Sunni faction, the petitioners said, adding, mosques where women were allowed, there were separate entrances and enclosures for worship for men and women. The petition said there should not be any gender discrimination at all, and that all Muslim women should be allowed to pray in all mosques, cutting across denominations. harinder@tribunemail.com Chandigarh, April 14 Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh today accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of playing dirty politics after the PM claimed that the Congress leader skipped an official event marking the Jallianwala Bagh massacres centenary as he was busy in Congress parivars bhakti. Capt Amarinder alleged that the Centre had deliberately chosen to hold a parallel event instead of supporting the programmes of the state government. The event, held in Amritsar on Saturday by the Centre, was attended by Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu. The CM claimed he had personally approached the PM several times over the last two years to seek support for ensuring that the occasion is commemorated in a befitting manner, but the Centre failed to respond suitably. Instead, the Modi government decided to hold its own event, quite evidently to score political brownie points in the backdrop of the elections, he alleged. This was truly shocking considering that the PM is the chairman of the Jallianwala Bagh Trust. Congress president Rahul Gandhi and the CM had on Saturday morning paid floral tributes at the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial in Amritsar. Shocked at your remarks. You used a sombre occasion to play dirty politics, conveniently ignoring your governments decision to hold a parallel event, he tweeted. The Congress leader said that while Modi was busy in his usual dirty political games, he (Captain) was at the memorial for the state-level event. A Cabinet minister (OP Soni) was present at the Centres function, he said. TNS harinder@tribunemail.com Tribune News Service Kathua, April 14 Prime Minister Narendra Modi today hit out at Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh for not attending a function in Amritsar presided over by Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu to pay tributes to those killed in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. There is a difference between rashtra bhakti (patriotism) and parivar bhakti (loyalty to family). I have known Captain for decades and never questioned his patriotism. But I can understand the pressure on him for this parivar bhakti. Captain too has had to bend before it, Modi claimed at an election rally here in support of Union minister Jitendra Singh, who has been renominated from Udhampur. This was the second election rally addressed by Modi in Jammu region in 18 days. Referring to the Punjab CMs absence at the commemoration ceremony organised by the Union Ministry of Culture in Amritsar, he said, Yesterday when the whole country was paying tributes to those killed in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, the Congress was busy playing politics, the PM alleged. Meanwhile, charging erstwhile coalition partners (NC and PDP) with destroying three generations in J&K, the PM said the departure of Abdullahs and Muftis was a must to ensure a bright future for the state. He attacked the NC and PDP leadership for questioning Indias accession. I want to tell these dynasts that they didnt get J&K from their parents. The state is an integral part of India, not their inherited property. Accusing these dynasts of working with anti-national forces, he said: The NC and PDP are threatening to secede and the Congress leadership is endorsing their threats by keeping mum. These dynasts can abuse Modi as much as they want, but they wont be able to divide India. I want to tell the Muftis and Abdullahs, Im Modi. I will not allow them to break the country. He dubbed the Congress, PDP and NC as opportunists. The statement by one of Congress allies asking for a separate PM for J&K reveals much about their alliance. On the Congress manifesto, he said, The Congress wants to hold talks with Pakistans proxies and dilute AFSPA. It is trying to demoralise our security forces. The party has lost the trust of the people. ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 14 Sikh groups from Delhi have demanded an apology for the Jallianwala massacre. Speaking at the Jallianwala Bagh Centenary Commemoration organised at the House of Lords in London last night, Vikramjit Sahney, patron of Jallianwala Bagh Centenary Commemoration Committee, said, An apology cannot undo what has been done, but it would be a befitting tribute. The very Punjabis, who had given up their lives fighting for the British Empire in World War-I (1914-18), faced the massacre. Sahney asked if Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could formally apologise for the Komagata Maru incident in 1914 in which hundreds of Indian passengers were denied entry into Canada and forced to return to an uncertain and ultimately violent fate in India, why couldnt the British Government apologise? Manjit Singh GK, a former president of Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, said the British wanted to suppress Indian masses but this tragedy was like proverbially waking up a sleeping lion. As a result, the freedom struggle got further intensified. The British must accept responsibility, said Manjit Singh GK. He posed a critical question: Was Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer acting on his own or was it a policy decision made in London? There is a school of thought that these actions were too serious to be carried out by Dyer on his own. After this event, British politicians carried out what is today known as crowd funding and raised 27,000 as a reward for Dyers actions. ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Washington, April 14 India has shortage of an estimated 6 lakh doctors and 20 lakh nurses, say scientists who found that lack of staff properly trained in administering antibiotics is preventing patients from accessing life-saving drugs. Even when antibiotics are available, patients are often unable to afford them. High out-of-pocket medical costs to the patient are compounded by limited government spending for health services, according to the report by the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP) in the US. In India, 65 per cent of health expenditure is out-of-pocket, and such expenditures push some 5.7 crore people into poverty each year. The majority of the worlds annual 57 lakh antibiotic-treatable deaths occur in low and middle-income countries where the mortality burden from treatable bacterial infections far exceeds the estimated annual 7 lakh deaths from antibiotic-resistant infections. Researchers at CDDEP in the US conducted stakeholder interviews in Uganda, India and Germany, and literature reviews to identify key access barriers to antibiotics in low, middle and high-income countries. Health facilities in many low and middle-income countries are substandard and lack staff who are properly trained in administering antibiotics. In India, there is one government doctor for every 10,189 persons (the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends a ratio of 1:1,000), or a deficit of 6 lakh doctors, and the nurse:patient ratio is 1:483, implying a shortage of 20 lakh nurses. PTI harinder@tribunemail.com Sandeep Dikshit Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 14 While ceasefire violations and absence of a closure on terrorist incidents bedevil India-Pakistan relations, both sides are keeping open diplomatic channels focussing on humanitarian issues in order to keep bilateral ties going. As part of this effort, both sides are close to firming up measures to end the agony of their prisoners in each others custody. An immediate measure is the release of Indian fishermen from Pakistani custody, which New Delhi is expected to reciprocate in due course, informed sources said here. The two sides are also nearing an agreement that would send doctors across the borders in an effort to end the biggest humanitarian trauma of assessing the state of mentally ill prisoners. While circumstantial evidence suggests that they are Indians or Pakistanis, the prisoners themselves are in no mental state to confirm their identities and have been languishing with minimal health care for decades. The move to send doctors is running in parallel with a plan for visits to both countries by a recently reconstituted joint judicial committee for the rights of prisoners and fishermen. In the past, the judicial committee comprising retired judges from both countries had played a yeomans role in alleviating some of the misery experienced by prisoners who have long served their sentences but the political bad blood has prevented their release. India had recently flagged these issues in a note verbale to Pakistan. The two countries are also working to implement an agreement that will release prisoners below the age of 18 and above the age of 60. Good tidings in this respect may, however, await the bi-annual exchange of list of prisoners, which is due on July 1. Simultaneously, Pakistan has displayed stirrings of acting on the UNSC resolution 1267 that enjoins all countries to crack down on terrorists it has blacklisted. While the case of Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Masood Azhar is still pending at the special UNSC committee on 1267, Pakistan held a workshop of its top law enforcement officers and diplomats to acquaint them with the guidelines for implementing resolution 1267 as well as the meeting the standards set by the Financial Action Task Force. Pakistan has said the guidelines will supplement action taken last month on a UNSC order for freezing and seizing assets of blacklisted terrorists. India, said sources, remains sceptical since Pakistan has walked down this path earlier as well only to develop cold feet and will await the last mile implementation of this promise made in the past. Regardless, both sides are maintaining contact such as regular conversations between the DGMOs, regular issuance of visas, permitting bilateral trade and reaffirmation of the 2003 ceasefire agreement. The expectation is that these continuing contacts will act as the ballast, if and when, both sides turn the corner on the core issues of Kashmir and cross-border terrorism. uttara@tribuneindia.com Lucknow, April 15 Even before dust settled on her vote-for-job statements for Muslims, Union Minister Maneka Gandhi has made another statementthis time classifying villages on the basis of votes she gets. Gandhi, who is the BJP candidate from Sultanpur, said at a meeting: "I will develop an ABCD system and prioritise development work on this basis. "For instance, villages that cast 80 per cent votes for Bharatiya Janata Party will be put in category A, those that cast 60 per cent votes will be in category B and so on and so forth." She further said that this would help in developing a framework for development. "Villages in A category will get priority in development and then will come the turn of other categories. It is up to you whether you make it to A, B, C or D. No one should fall in D category as we all come here to do well," she said. Gandhi said that the BJP has also implemented the same category system at Pilibhit, from where her son Varun Gandhi is now the BJP candidate. She is already facing a notice from the Election Commission for her earlier statement in which she said that if Muslims do not vote for her, they should not expect her to give them jobs. "My feelings get hurt. If Muslims then come to me asking for work, then I will think let it be, how does it matter? After all, a job is a deal," making it clear that Muslims should not expect jobs if they don't vote for her. Following her previous remarks, the Election Commission had issued a show-cause notice demanding an explanation. Maneka Gandhi is contesting from Sultanpur where she is pitted against Sanjay Sinh of Congress and Chandra Bhadra Singh of BSP. Sultanpur goes to polls in the sixth phase on May 12. IANS amansharma@tribunemail.com Shahira Naim Tribune News Service Lucknow, April 15 BSP national president Mayawati on Monday charged the Election Commission of India with becoming deaf and blind to the speeches of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah who were demanding votes on issues of national security and spreading hatred among communities. Speaking to reporters at the party office regarding the ECIs 48 hour ban on her Mayawati called the decision sudden, unfortunate and uncalled for amounting to the murder of democracy. She said it appears that the real motive was to prevent her from addressing the proposed joint opposition rally at Agra on Tuesday, the last day for campaigning for the second phase of polling on April 18. She said the ban on UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath would not affect the BJP as he is not the national president. The ECI has given a free hand to the PM Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah to seek votes on the issue of national security and by spreading hatred. The ECI has not reacted as it has covered its eyes and ears, she charged. According to her, the notice served by the ECI to her on April 11 did not mention that her speech was inflammatory meant to cause hatred between communities. She said it only mentioned that it has appealed for votes on the basis of religion. Charging that no CD of her speech was provided by the EC, Mayawati said she had satisfactorily responded to the notice and the decision today was a bolt from the blue and would be remembered as a black day. She appealed to her supporters to be present at the Agra rally in large numbers where SP president Akhilesh Yadav and RLD president Ajit Singh would be present. Some representative of the BSP would also speak on my behalf. Eventually ensure the victory of the SP-BSP-RLD mahagathbandhan to prove that the voice of the marginalised cannot be suppressed, declared Mayawati. Earlier in the evening, she had asked her party workers and office bearers to watch her press conference on news channels. rchopra@tribunemail.com Bijapur, April 15 A policeman was injured and his rifle snatched as Naxals attacked him with sharp-edged weapons in Chhattisgarhs Bijapur district on Monday, police said. The incident took place at 1.30 am when constable Venkat Rao Majji was on night patrol at a five-day Ram Navami fair in Madded town in the district, a local police official said. Some Naxals attacked the constable in the dark with sharp-edged weapons when he was talking on the phone. Before the other security personnel could react, the ultras snatched his self-loading rifle and fled, the official said. The injured constable was rushed to a local hospital and then shifted to Bijapur town for further treatment. Efforts are on to nab the attackers, he said. PTI ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 14 With just three days to go for Phase-II elections on April 18, leading Opposition parties today said they would approach the Supreme Court again to demand that at least 50 per cent paper trails be verified with EVMs. Following a meeting to discuss the issue of EVM malfunctioning, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said 21 political parties have demanded verification of paper trails of 50 per cent of the EVMs. The CM of Andhra Pradesh, which along with Telangana completed the polling process for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Phase-I on April 11, had on Saturday met Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora to raise the issue of EVM malfunctioning in his state, which simultaneously also held Assembly elections. Claiming that technology was misused during the Telangana elections and 25 lakh votes were removed, he questioned if the Election Commission would own responsibility for the wrongdoings. Nearly 25 lakh votes were deleted in Telangana which was later admitted to by the EC. They admitted and said sorry. Is it the price to pay? Naidu questioned. He said that around 20 to 30 per cent EVMs had not functioned during elections in Andhra Pradesh. Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi said they would approach the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the EC for counting of at least 50 per cent of the VVPAT slips with the EVMs in every Assembly segment. Opposition parties would carry out a nationwide campaign on the issue of discrepancies in EVMs, he said, alleging that we do not think the EC is doing enough to address issue of EVM malfunctioning. AAP leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took a jibe at the BJP saying that only one party is against the counting of VVPAT slips because EVM malfunctioning is clearly helping them. The machines have been tampered with. They have been designed in such a way that the vote goes only to the BJP, he claimed. The Supreme Court has directed the EC to increase random matching of VVPAT slips with EVMs to five polling booths per Assembly segment, from one at present, in the Lok Sabha poll, saying it would provide greater satisfaction not just to political parties but also the entire electorate. Invoking Babasaheb Ambedkar who said that vote is sharper than a knife and if it is rightly used, the voter will be king and if it is sold, he will remain a slave, Naidu said his agitation was aimed at protecting Indias democracy. Even developed countries like Germany prefer ballot for polling, he said. The Election Commission has lost credibility with the non-functioning of EVMs at majority of places in Andhra Pradesh. There is a chance that EVMs can be tampered with by managing micro-controller and chips, Naidu said. TDP tech adviser is whistle-blower, not thief: Naidu New Delhi: Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu on Sunday said his technology adviser Hari Prasad Vemuru, whose presence in TDPs delegation to the Election Commission was objected to by the poll panel, was a whistle-blower and not a thief. Yesterday, we met the Chief Election Commissioner and showed him how EVMs were not functioning properly. Vemuru was called for discussion in the fight for transparency. He is a whistle-blower. He has not committed theft, Naidu said. PTI ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Shiv Kumar Tribune News Service Mumbai, April 14 Having fielded candidates poached from the Congress and the NCP, the BJP in Maharashtra is now grappling with the problem of several of its leaders turning rebels and threatening the chances of NDAs official candidates in at least a dozen constituencies. In four seats, BJPs rebels have refused to withdraw from the fray despite the frantic attempts by party leaders to win them over. Anil Gote, BJP MLA from Dhule, is contesting against Union Minister of State for Defence Dr Subhash Bhamre from the Dhule-Malegaon Lok Sabha seat. In Nandurbar, where Dr Heena Gavit won the last election after defecting from the NCP, she faces a tough challenge from local BJP leader Dr Suhas Natavadkar, who rebelled against the party to contest as an Independent. More than winning the election for himself, Natavadkar has made it a prestige issue to defeat Dr Gavit. The BJPs decision to ally with the Shiv Sena on the eve of the elections did not go down well with BJP leader Manikrao Kokate, who was eyeing the partys ticket for the Nashik Lok Sabha seat. He is contesting against Shiv Senas sitting MP Hemant Godse. In Shirdi, BJP rebel leader Bhausaheb Wakchure is contesting against Shiv Senas official candidate Sadashiv Lokhande. Reports indicate that the core BJP and RSS workers are staying aloof from the election campaign of the imports, letting them fight their own battles. harinder@tribunemail.com Ajay Banerjee Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 14 For the past six weeks, each day as the sun is about to set, a solemn ceremony is conducted at the National War Memorial at India Gate. It leaves hundreds in attendance with moist eyes when the wife or mother of a dead military hero is invited to lay a wreath at the memorial. Minutes after the wreath-laying, the Tricolour and flags of the three armed forces are lowered amid full military regalia with the famous last post playing in the background, all timed to perfection as daylight disappears behind Raisina Hill. The Tribune witnessed two such ceremonies one on April 6 to honour Major Satish Dahiya, who laid down his life in counter-insurgency operations in February 2017, and the other on April 10 to honour Major CB Dwivedi, who laid down his life during the Kargil war on July 2, 1999. As this wreath-laying is being done, there is pin-drop silence at the memorial even as peak-hour Delhi traffic passes around India Gate some 150 yards away. Before the wreath-laying, the troops on duty announce to visitors mostly civilians the exploits of the martyr and talk about his family. Visitors are briefed on why they have to keep standing during the brief ceremony. A smartly-attired military man walks up to escort the family to the wreath-laying rostrum at the newly-minted memorial, which opened on February 26. Emotions flow, and standing in attention not with military precision visitors have moist eyes, as smartphones record every little detail. As the ceremony ends, the visitors book, which has comments from all those who have been invited so far, is offered to the family of the military hero. Major Dahiyas wife Sujata Dahiya described her experience: Satish, I felt your presence here. Maj Dwivedis wife Bhawna Dwivedi wrote: We are truly humbled. There have been 37 families who have been accorded the honour of laying a wreath at this solemn sunset ceremony. These include five officers of the Indian Army, two of the Navy, besides 32 other ranks. The memorial has 26,000 names of all those who have died in line of operational duty since 1947. This includes wars, insurgencies, and rescue operations. rchopra@tribunemail.com Satya Prakash Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 15 The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Election Commission to watch a biopic on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and inform it in a sealed cover if it could be screened during Lok Sabha polls. A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi asked the poll panel to watch the biopic, after senior advocate Mukul Rotatgi submitted that poll panel banned the film without even watching it. The top court asked the Commission to send a report to it in a sealed cover by Friday and posted the matter for hearing on April 22. Barely three days after the Supreme Court rejected a Congress activists petition seeking stay on the release of Vivek Oberoi-starrer biopic on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and left it to the Election Commission to decide if it violated Model Code of Conduct, the issue landed back in the top court on April 12. The producers of the biopic challenged the Election Commissions decision to ban the release of the biopic on Modi till the General Election was over. The Bench had earlier said too much of time of the court was wasted on these non-issues. The Election Commission had on Wednesday banned the screening of the biopic during the current poll period, saying any such film that subserves purpose of any political entity or individual should not be displayed in the electronic media. The Commission, in a separate order, had also directed the producers not to exhibit the film titled PM Narendra Modi till further orders. The Commissions order came on April 10, a day before it was to be released, coinciding with the first phase of Lok Sabha elections. Votes for all 543 seats will be counted on May 23 after the end of the seven-phase polling on May 19. Acting on the complaints of political parties, including the Congress, the poll panel had asserted that any biopic material with the potential to disturb the level-playing field should not be displayed in the area where the Model Code of Conduct was in force. The copy of the order was also sent to the Central Board of Film Certification Chairman and Secretary, Information and Broadcasting Ministry. It is claimed that such creative contents are kind of surrogate publicity by the candidate or the political party during the period of model code. Though the display materials claim to be part of creative content, it is contended that these have propensity and potentiality to affect the level-playing field which is not in consonance with the provisions of the model code of conduct, the EC had said. The order had specifically stated that in view of the admitted acts and material available on record, this film being a biopic on Narendra Modi, Prime Minister and a political leader and a prospective candidate in the current General Election, cannot be exhibited in view of Commissions order. The EC order came after the apex court on Tuesday disposed of the petition filed by a Congress activist seeking stay on the release of the biopic, saying the poll panel was the right forum to decide the issue. monicakchauhan@gmail.com Satya Prakash Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 15 In an embarrassment to Congress president Rahul Gandhi, the Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to him on a criminal contempt petition filed by Delhi BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi for allegedly making wrong statements about a recent verdict on admissibility of certain leaked documents in the Rafale case. We never said what has been attributed to us by Mr Gandhi, said a Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi. The Bench asked him to respond to Lekhis petition by April 22. We make it clear that the views or representation attributed to the court in the alleged address made by the respondent (Rahul Gandhi) to the media and public at large has been incorrectly attributed to this court. We had no such occasion to make such a comment during the hearing, it said. The Bench said the verdict was only about admissibility of certain documents filed by review petitioners. The notice was issued to Gandhi after senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing Lekhi, submitted that Gandhi had commented that the Supreme Court has said that chowkidar chor hai in its April 10 verdict on Rafale review petitions. BJP MP from Delhi and advocate Meenakshi Lekhi had on Friday filed a contempt petition in the Supreme Court against the Congress president for allegedly attributing his remarks on the recent Rafale verdict to the top court. Lekhi, who represents New Delhi in the Lok Sabha, accused Gandhi of attributing his personal remarks to the top court and creating prejudice. The Congress president had on April 10 claimed that the apex court had made it clear that Prime Minister Narendra Modi committed a theft. He had made the statement while interacting with journalists in Amethi after filing his nomination papers. He is contesting against BJP leader and union minister Smriti Irani. Gandhi had also recalled a recent interview by the Prime Minister, in which Modi had said that the Supreme Court had given a clean chit to his government on the Rafale deal. Now the SC has made it clear that chowkidarji; (watchman) has committed a theft, Gandhi had told reporters after filing his nomination papers from the Amethi Lok Sabha constituency. He had claimed that the apex court had accepted that there is some corruption in Rafale. The apex court, which had earlier cleared the Modi government of accusations of corruption over the Rafale deal with France, had said it would hear a review petition on the basis of the new documents, referred to by the petitioners. It had allowed the plea of petitioners relying on leaked documents for seeking review of its Rafale judgment and dismissed the governments preliminary objections claiming privilege over them. I am happy and I have been saying so for months that Hindustans PM has given the air force money to (industrialist) Anil Ambani, and the SC has accepted it. The SC is going to investigate it, Gandhi had said. I want to thank the SC. Its a very happy day. The SC has talked about justice. Justice has prevailed, he had added. pardeepdhull@gmail.com Satya Prakash Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 15 How much power the Election Commission does have to deal with hate speech during poll campaigns? Taking note of alleged hate speeches made by BSP supremo Mayawati and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath during Lok Sabha poll campaigns, the Supreme Court on Monday sought to know from the Election Commission the action initiated against them. Read: Yogi, Maya censured for communal remarks, barred from campaigning While Mayawati had asked Muslims to vote for SP-BSP alliance, Yogi Adityanath had made Ali-Bajrang Bali comment. The top court said it will examine the scope and ambit of the poll panels powers to take action against candidates violating the Model Code of Conduct. A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi asked a representative of the Commission to be present before it on Tuesday during the hearing. This direction came after the EC counsel said the poll panel was toothless and powerless against hate/religious election speeches by candidates and political party leaders in violation of Model Code of Conduct. When a violation of the Model Code of Conduct is reported, the EC first issues notice to the person person concerned and if there is no response, it issues an advisory. But in case of repeated violations, poll panel files a complaint with the police, EC counsel submitted. We dont have any powers beyond this...we cant disqualify a candidate..., the EC counsel told the Bench. The EC counsel said Mayawati was asked to respond to it by April 12 for her speeches seeking votes on the basis of religion but she has not responded. The Supreme Court had on April 8 issued notice to the Election Commission on a PIL seeking strict action against political parties for religion and caste-based remarks made by their spokespersons during the Lok Sabha polls. A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi had asked the poll panel to respond to the petition by Sharjah-based NRI Yoga teacher Harpreet Mansukhani. On Monday, senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, representing the petitioner, however, pointed out that the EC has ample powers under Article 324 of the Constitution to deal with hate speeches. Referring to religion and caste-based election speeches by political leaders, Mansukhani had said in his petition that he wanted secular environment to be maintained in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls. The undesirable development of appeals to religion, race, caste, community or language of politicians would hamper the objective of fundamental rights provided under the Constitution of India, this would affect the public at large, he submitted. The Election Commission should take strict actions against the political parties if their spokesperson or representative deliver speeches and make remark in media pertaining to the religion or caste, the petitioner said. He also demanded setting up of a committee under the chairmanship of a retired Supreme Court Judge to have close watch on entire election process and to check the loyalty of Election Commission. It has also sought a direction to the poll panel to take strict actions against media houses which hold debates on caste or religious lines. The plea has sought a report from the poll panel on the measures adopted by it in holding corruption free elections. Our Constitution ensures a Socialist, Secular State and equality, fraternity among its citizens. Our country has a democratic set-up which is by the people, for the people and of the people. A new trend of giving tickets to those who spread communal hatred and do caste or religion-based politics has grown very rapidly on media and social media platform more than that the situation appears to be more alarming when we find such persons being elected for the State Assembly or Parliament..., he submitted. rchopra@tribunemail.com Ajay Banerjee Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 15 Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa on Monday said India were better off in the recent air duel with Pakistan. He said the Rafale and S400 air defence missiles would restore the technological balance in favour of India, which existed at the time of the last stand-off, Operation Parakaram in 2002. Speaking at a seminar Aerospace Power in the 2040s: Impact of Technology, he said air power is more sensitive to technology than the other forces. He cited the Israel-Syria conflict of 1982 referred to as the Bekaa Valley clash saying Israel operating fourth-generation fighter jets had downed Syrias third-generation planes. Talking about the recent air duel with Pakistan, he said, We were better off as we had upgraded the MiG 21 Bison and also the Mirage. We had successfully hit a non-military target at Balakot (February 26). Did Pakistan achieve its military objective (attempting to hit military targets on February 27)? No. The IAF chief was categorical that a Pakistan Air Force (PAF) plane had been hit that day. We have electronic signatures of Pakistan having lost a plane. Arguing his point, the IAF chief said, The PAF often says that it had lost fewer planes than the IAF in the 1971 Indo-Pak war. You (Pak) lost half of your country. Almost in the same vein, the German Air Force of World War II could not say that it had won the war, he said. He said technology affected the IAF the most. Purchase of air-borne radars and intelligence gathering platforms would have to be fast-tracked, he said. In such short skirmishes we cannot bring out numbers to bare, hence the need for more surveillance platforms, he added. The development process of fighter jets and Light Combat Aircraft (LCH) had been slow, he said. He expected the soon-to-be implemented Strategic Partnership model to bring in technologies that would allow production of fifth-generation fighter jets and long-range missiles. The seminar was held to mark the 100th birth anniversary of Marshal of Indian Air Force Arjan Singh who would have turned 100 on Monday. pardeepdhull@gmail.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 15 The Election Commission on Monday censured Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, BSP supremo Mayawati, SP leader Azam Khan and Union Minister Maneka Gandhi for controversial remarks for the violation of Model Code of Conduct starting Tuesday. Read: SC to examine toothless ECs power to deal with hate speech during polls All leaders face a limited ban on holding any public meetings, processions, rallies, road shows, interviews and public utterances in media in the current elections. Read Election Commission's orders here and here While Adityanath was barred for 72 hours starting at 6.00 am on April 16, Mayawati has been barred for 48 hours starting on the same day and same time, separate EC orders said. The commission later barred Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan and Union minister Maneka Gandhi from campaigning for their controversial remarks Khan faces a 72-hour ban and Gandhi faces a 48-hour ban, both beginning at 10 am on Tuesday. Mayawati was issued the notice for her speech at Deoband on April 7 appealing to Muslims to not vote for a particular party. The BSP chief had prima facie violated the model code of conduct, the poll panel found. Adityanath was served the notice for his Ali and Bajrang Bali remarks while addressing a rally in Meerut. He compared the Lok Sabha elections to a contest between Ali, a revered figure in Islam, and Bajrang Bali, the Hindu god Hanuman. Khan was under the poll panel's lens for making derogatory remarks against BJP candidate from Rampur, Jaya Prada. She said when she was campaigning at Sultanpur that if Muslims do not vote for her, they should not expect her to give them jobs. "My feelings get hurt. If Muslims then come to me asking for work, then I will think let it be, how does it matter? After all, a job is a deal," making it clear that Muslims should not expect jobs if they don't vote for her. With agency inputs rchopra@tribunemail.com Tribune News service Chandigarh, April 15 Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Monday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of discrimination against the Congress government in Punjab in matters of religious importance, as part of his and his partys divisive agenda. Upping the ante against Modi, who on Sunday had targeted him in a speech at Kathua, Amarinder asked why the PM had not pointed fingers at the Akali leaders, including the Badals, for failing to attend the central government function on the centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Neither Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Badal nor Harsimrat Kaur Badal, who happened to be a minister in the Modi cabinet, deemed it fit to pay homage to the martyrs, the CM said. Yet Modi, who himself chose to keep away from this occasion of national importance, had criticised him even though he had been part of a series of events at the Jallianwala Bagh national memorial over the past two days, the Chief Minister said, slamming the PM for his selective and politically motivated attack. Why was Modi not present at this major event? Why did the Badals fail to turn up, and why did the Prime Minister choose to conveniently ignore their absence? the CM wondered. Interpreting Modis actions and words as part of his governments persistent discrimination against the Congress government in Punjab, Amarinder said that by holding a parallel event to mark the Jallianwala Bagh centenary, instead of supporting the state governments commemorative programmes, the PM had exposed his true intent. Amarinder said there was a clear pattern in Modis attack on him on the issue, which the central government had been brazenly and shamelessly trying to politicise to woo the Punjabi community and further his political ambitions. The community, however, was not likely to be taken in by such petty acts of omission and commission, he added, urging the PM to come out with a constructive agenda to garner votes in the state. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Chandigarh, April 14 Taking a dig at Akali leader Harsimrat Kaur Badals ignorance, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Sunday asked her to spend some time on learning history instead of expending all of it in launching Twitter tirades against him. After Harsimrat posted some pictures and video to question him on his grandfathers relations with General Dyer, the CM again asked her to explain her great grandfathers dinner for General Dyer. He said Harsimrat had no answer to his question on why she, her brother Bikram Majithia, husband Sukhbir Badal and her father-in-law Parkash Singh Badal had failed to apologise for the shameful act of her great grandfather. Harsimrat tweeted: And u @capt_amarinder proudly display these pictures in your lobby, or are you too ashamed of your grandfather? In response, the CM posted: Amazed at how dumb someone can be! Cant you see the difference @HarsimratBadal_ between General Dyer and Michael ODwyer, Punjabs Lieutenant Governor who had no role in #JallianwalaBaghMassacre and was assassinated by Udham Singh? Are you so desperate that youll spread any disinformation to win? He posted, Id seriously advise you to brush up your history. Read a lot as after these elections people will make you sit at home and you would have a lot of free time. Happy reading! editorial@tribune.com Aman Sood Tribune News Service Patiala, April 14 The role of senior officers is under the scanner after the police failed to trace two ASIs missing along with huge cash seized during a raid at a priests house in Jalandhar. The police have issued a lookout notice against the two cops Joginder Singh and Rajpreet Singh and suspended them. The SIT probing the matter has asked the crime branch to conduct raids and alert airports so that the cops cannot leave the country. Unconfirmed sources, however, claim that informer Surinder Singh has been apprehended and his arrest can be made official anytime. We will not spare anyone found guilty in this case, said an SIT member. Official sources said Khanna SSP Dhruv Dahiya was called by the SIT in Mohali on Saturday and was asked to explain his position. He was asked specific questions pertaining to his role in dealing with police cat Harinder Singh alias Babbu 12 bore, who was allegedly instrumental in getting the erring ASIs posted in Khanna. Dahiya claimed that he had stopped interacting with Babbu ever since he came to know about his criminal record. Dahiya told The Tribune that he had gone to Mohali to attend a meeting of the SIT, but claimed that he was not asked to join the investigation. SIT members, however, confirmed that the SSP was quizzed. Sources say that a Glock pistol issued to Babbu 12 bore was taken back after the Jalandhar raid, but he was never summoned. What is shocking is that a woman constable was provided to Babbu for security and he was made part of the CIA team that would raid criminals or grill them, the sources said, adding that the Khanna police used to get maximum allocation of secret funds, for which no account had to be maintained. The ASIs allegedly vanished with the money after the raid on the premises of Father Anthony Madassery in Jalandhar on March 29. The case brings to the fore the clout criminals-turned-cats-turned-informers enjoy in the department. The Khanna police are suspected to have been taken for a ride by two such informers. The sources say police cats Surinder and Harinder Singh Babbu, who were provided protection, used to hold meetings at the SSPs office and even issued directions to junior cops. Meanwhile, SAD leader Bikram Majithia questioned the silence of the Election Commission on the issue. The money is possibly with some Congress leader and could be misused during the elections. I am surprised that the state government and the EC are silent on the issue and no action has been taken against the SSP who continues to serve at the same station even as his handpicked officers are missing with the cash, he said. Punjabi Ekta Party (PEP) president Sukhpal Khaira blamed the police. The FIR against the two ASIs and the informer is a mere eye wash to protect certain senior officers, he alleged. Curious case of missing cash editorial@tribune.com Ruchika M Khanna Tribune News Service Chandigarh, April 14 Pressure from the Sikh diaspora as well as from his own party leaders today forced SAD (Taksali) president Ranjit Singh Brahmpura to withdraw former Army Chief Gen JJ Singh (retd) as the party candidate from Khadoor Sahib. He said his party would extend support to Punjabi Ekta Party (PEP) candidate Paramjit Kaur Khalra. We have withdrawn our candidate in favour of Bibi Khalra. We have also asked her not to contest merely as a PEP candidate, but of all parties opposed to the Akali Dal and the Congress, Brahmpura told The Tribune. This makes the election in this Panthic constituency a three-cornered fight between Khalra, Jagir Kaur (SAD) and Jasbir Singh Dimpa (Congress). Sources say though the entire Taksali leadership was in favour of withdrawing Gen JJ Singhs candidature, as much for unity as for the lukewarm response he was getting from electorate there, but Brahmpura remained adamant till some leaders from the diaspora intervened. I was convinced by their argument that Panthic votes would be divided and others (the Congress and the Akali Dal) would benefit, he said. Though both SAD (Taksali) and PEP leaders deny that talks of forging an alliance between the two sides have once again been initiated, sources say the alliance is being worked out by influential Sikh leaders settled abroad. Brahmpura told The Tribune, As of now the understanding is only for one seat. Let us see how things work out. In the larger interests of Punjab and the community, we are open to every possibility, he said. Sukhpal Singh Khaira, PEP president, when contacted, said he was appreciative of the magnanimity shown by the Taksalis by withdrawing their candidate and it would boost Bibi Khalras chances in the polls. This is a step towards forging 100 per cent unity in Punjab against the traditional parties, he added. Wont contest now Mohali: Talking to The Tribune, Gen JJ Singh (retd) said it was his call (to withdraw) as it was useless to fight among each other. He, however, said he would not contest from any other seat in Punjab as he was sure of his win from the Khadoor Sahib constituency. He said he had urged the party president that he would like to withdraw the candidature as Bibi Khalra was contesting the elections. He said Sukhpal Singh Khaira should have realised it earlier that it was of no use of fighting against each other and fielded a joint candidate to give a tough fight to the SAD and the Congress. TNS vinaymishra188@gmail.com NEW DELHI, April 14 (PTI, UNI)-The Union Defence Minister, Mr. Swaran Singh, while maintaining that the Centre is within its powers to order a judicial inquiry into the Cossipore firing incident, involving Central Government personnel in a Central Government-owned factory, has offered to discuss the matter with the West Bengal Government. Intervening in a special Lok Sabha debate, this evening on the April 8 firing and the Bengal Bandh on April 10, he made it clear that he was, however, not prepared for any discussion through proxy. The Minister said it was not for the State Government to demand that the Defence Security Force personnel involved in the firing should be handed over to the State police. Answering Communist charges that the Centre was obstructing the process of law by refusing to hand over the personnel to face a murder charge, he said the proper forum for airing the demand was a court of law. sanjiv@tribunemail.com Kathmandu, April 14 A small passenger plane veered off the runway while taking off and hit two parked helicopters at Lukla airport in Nepals Everest region on Sunday, killing a co-pilot and two policemen, officials said. The incident occurred as the plane a Twin Otter belonging to Summit Air skidded off the runway while preparing to take off and hit helicopters parked 30-50 metres from the runway, the Kathmandu Post reported. S Dhungana, co-pilot of the plane, and Assistant Sub-Inspector Ram Bahadur Khadka, who was stationed at the helipad, were killed in the incident, Tribhuvan International Airport spokesperson Pratap Babu Tiwari was quoted as saying. Assistant Sub-Inspector Rudra Bahadur Shrestha, who was injured in the crash and airlifted to Kathmandu, died while undergoing treatment. Captain RB Rokaya, who was flying the aircraft, and Captain Chet Gurung of Manang Air, who was in the helicopter, were injured in the incident. They are receiving treatment at Grande Hospital and are said to be out of danger, it said. The aircraft had hit the helicopters of Manang Air and Shree Air. Lukla airport, also known as Tenzing-Hillary airport, is often referred to as one of the most difficult and dangerous airports in the world because of a short runway (527 metres) and challenging terrain. PTI pardeepdhull@gmail.com London, April 15 Ecuadoran President Lenin Moreno on Sunday defended his decision to overturn Julian Assanges asylum status, claiming in an interview with the Guardian newspaper that the WikiLeaks founder had tried to set up a centre for spying in Ecuadors London embassy. It is unfortunate that, from our territory and with the permission of authorities of the previous government, facilities have been provided within the Ecuadoran embassy in London to interfere in processes of other states, Moreno said. We cannot allow our house, the house that opened its doors, to become a centre for spying, added Moreno, who was elected in 2017. Our decision is not arbitrary but is based on international law, he said. The WikiLeaks founder is in custody in London awaiting sentencing for breaching his British bail conditions in 2012 by seeking refuge in the Ecuadoran embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden. Earlier Sunday, Assanges lawyer said his client would cooperate with Swedish authorities if they reopen a rape case against him but would continue to resist any bid to extradite him to the United States. We are absolutely happy to answer those queries if and when they come up, Jennifer Robinson told Sky News television about the rape claims. The key issue at the moment is US extradition, which we have warned about for many years, she added. Assange was arrested at the embassy on Thursday after Ecuador gave him up, and is now also fighting a US extradition warrant relating to the release by WikiLeaks of a huge cache of official documents. The Australian has always denied the claims of sexual assault and rape in Sweden. The first expired in 2015 and the other was dropped in 2017, but the alleged rape victim has now asked for the case to be reopened. If Stockholm makes a formal extradition request, the British government will have to decide whether to consider it before or after that of the United States. Robinson said Assange would seek assurances from Sweden that he would not be sent on to America, saying: That is the same assurance we were seeking in 2010 and the refusal to give that is why he sought asylum. She added: Hes not above the law. Julian has never been concerned about facing British justice or indeed Swedish justice. This case is and has always been about his concern about being sent to face American injustice. The US indictment charges Assange with conspiracy, alleging that he worked with former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to crack a password stored on Department of Defence computers in March 2010. He faces up to five years in jail. Also Sunday, WikiLeaks said Australian Consul Clare West would visit the Ecuadoran embassy on Monday to request that the mission hand over Assanges belongings. West met with Assange in prison on Friday. Two left-wing German lawmakers, Heike Hansel and Sevim Dagdelen, along with Spanish MEP Ana Miranda were expected in London on Monday when they were originally set to meet Assange at the embassy. Instead, they will hold a news conference outside the Belmarsh prison where Assange is being held, the German party Die Linke and WikiLeaks said. Manning passed hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, exposing US military wrongdoing in the Iraq war and diplomatic secrets about scores of countries around the world. The conspiracy charge against Assange seems intended to sidestep limits on prosecution potentially arising from the US Constitutions First Amendment guarantee of press freedom. But Robinson insisted: This indictment clearly engages newsgathering activities and the kinds of communications that journalists have with sources all the time. The lawyer condemned as outrageous claims made by Ecuador about Assanges behaviour in the embassy, including that he smeared his faeces on the wall, saying: Thats not true. In the Guardian interview, Moreno charged that Assange mistreated our officials (and) started to make legal threats even against who was helping him. Assanges father, John Shipton, on Sunday urged Australia to bring his son home. AFP sanjiv@tribunemail.com Helsinki, April 14 Finns voted on Sunday in a general election where anti-austerity sentiment looked set to propel the Social Democratic Party to the head of the government after 16 years. The left-wing party leads Finlands two main opinion polls with about 19 per cent of the vote, having campaigned against the steep cost-cutting of Prime Minister Juha Sipila of the Centre Party and Finance Minister Petteri Orpo leader of the conservative National Coalition Party. But the far-right Finns Party, led by Member of European Parliament for Finalnd, Jussi Halla-aho, has seen a surge in support in the recent months during an anti-immigration dominated campaign, urging people to vote for some borders. The polls show the Finns Party ending up at the second or third place, meaning it could hold significant influence in the talks to form the next government, which in Finland is typically a coalition of three or four parties. The current governments cuts to Finlands prized education system and a tightening of unemployment benefit criteria provoked public opposition. Outside a polling station in central Helsinki on Sunday morning, a resident said, There have been a lot of cuts in areas they promised they wouldnt. Petteri Orpo, leader of the conservative National Coalition Party, has denounced the Social Democratic Partys anti-austerity plans as irresponsible. However, in a tacit acknowledgement that the public mood is against further belt-tightening, Orpo has insisted the economy is now strong enough to allow for some more generous public spending. The heated debate in the run-up to the vote led some analysts to predict that turnout will be high. A record 1.5 million Finns over a third of the electorate had already cast their vote. On Sunday, queues were reported at some polling stations in the capital. Around lunchtime, leaders of the main parties were seen casting their ballots in their constituencies Halla-aho in Helsinki, Rinne in the town of Mantsala in the south, and Petteri Orpo in the southwest city of Turku. Opinion polls suggest the Social Democrats lead has narrowed in recent weeks to as little as two points, ahead of the National Coalition and Finns Party which are battling it out for second place. The Finns Party, which is anti-immigration, decries the climate hysteria of other parties seeking action against global warming. The major parties have all expressed strong reservations about joining a government with the Finns Party, whose policies lurched to the right after Halla-aho became leader in 2017. However, the Social Democratic Party may face tough economic conditions in which to implement its anti-austerity promises: many economic forecasts suggest Finlands GDP growth will slow in the coming years. Immigration became a hot election topic following outrage in January over highly publicised reports of an alleged string of sexual assaults by immigrant men. AFP rchopra@tribunemail.com Kathmandu, April 15 A 69-year-old French national has been arrested here for allegedly sexually abusing two teenage boys by luring them on the pretext of offering money, police said. Acting on a tip-off, the police arrested Georges Igor Himansky with his victims, aged 14 and 15, from Kathmandus Thamel area on Friday. The police have filed a case of unnatural sex and child sex abuse against the French man at Kathmandu District Court, a statement issued by the Nepal police said. Himansky had been feeding his perverse fantasies involving young boys for years by presenting himself as a benevolent foreigner who helped children from the street and from poor economic backgrounds, an investigator was quoted as saying by the Kathmandu post. Investigation has revealed that Himansky had been arrested in his own country in 2000 for a paedophilia-related crime. Himansky is the third French paedophile arrested in Nepal this year. Police had arrested two French men for sexually abusing children from Kathmandu in July, the paper reported. PTI pardeepdhull@gmail.com Jakarta, April 15 Dipping their fingers in halal ink to prevent double voting, Indonesians cast their ballots on Wednesday in a bitterly contested presidential election, with the main rival to incumbent Joko Widodo already threatening to challenge the result over voter-fraud claims. The Muslim-majority nations biggest-ever pollswith more than 190 million voters and 245,000 candidates vying for the presidency, parliament and local positionsis largely a referendum on Widodos infrastructure-driven bid to rev up Southeast Asias largest economy. But, looming in the background, two decades of democratic gains are at risk of being eroded, analysts said, as the military creeps back into civilian life under Widodo, and his trailing rival Prabowo Subianto, a former general, eyes reforms that harken back to the Suharto dictatorship. If he loses, Subiantos camp has already warned it will challenge the results over voter-list irregularities. Its high stakes in this election, said Evan Laksmana, a senior researcher at the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies. We simply dont know what (Subianto) would do if he won and we dont know if the institutional constraints in place would contain him. Voting starts at 7:00 am local time Wednesday (2200 GMT Tuesday) in easternmost Papua and ends at 1:00 pm at the other end of the country in Sumatra. Ballots will be cast at more than 8,00,000 polling booths across the volcano-dotted country, from the tip of jungle-clad Sumatra and heavily populated Java island to beach paradise Bali and far-flung Sumbawa. Voters will punch holes in ballotsto make clear their candidate choiceand then dip a finger in Muslim-approved halal ink, a measure to prevent double-voting in a graft-riddled country where ballot buying is rife. A series of so-called quick counts are expected to give a reliable indication of the presidential winner later Wednesday. Official results are not expected until May. Most polls show the 57-year-old Widodo holding a double-digit lead over Subianto, 67, setting up a repeat of their 2014 contest, which Widodo won despite an unsuccessful court challenge over his narrow victory. The race has been punctuated by bitter mudslinging between the two camps, religion-driven identity politics and a slew of fake news online that threatens to sway millions of undecided voters. Widodo campaigned on his ambitious drive to build roads, airports and other infrastructure, including Jakartas first mass-rapid-transit system. But his rights record has been criticised owing to an uptick in discriminatory attacks on religious and other minorities, including a small LGBT community, as Islamic hardliners become more vocal in public life. (Widodo) has chosen pragmatism over principle on issues of Islamism and pluralism, said Dave McRae, a senior lecturer at the University of Melbournes Asia Institute. Widodo, a practising Muslim, blunted criticism that he was anti-Islam by appointing influential cleric Maruf Amin as his running mate. But victory for Widodo and Aminknown for his disparaging views towards minorities -- could be the latest knock to Indonesias reputation for moderate Islam. There is a longstanding track record of very conservative views, Kevin ORourke, an Indonesia-based political risk analyst, said of Amin. Its inevitable that will affect policy making. Subiantojoined by running mate Sandiaga Uno, a 49-year-old wealthy financierhas run on a fiery nationalist ticket. He courted Islamic hardliners, promised a boost to military and defence spending and, taking a page from US President Donald Trump, vowed to put Indonesia first as he pledged to review billions of dollars in Chinese investment. Subiantos presidential ambitions have long been dogged by strong ties to the Suharto family and a chequered past. He ordered the abduction of democracy activists as the authoritarian regime collapsed in 1998, and was accused of committing atrocities in East Timor. Widodos own cabinet is stuffed with Suharto-era figures, and he raised eyebrows by agreeing to give civilian government jobs to military brass. But there is no grand design for Jokowi to bring back military rule, Laksmana said. Subianto, however, is a military man keen to roll back reforms that ushered in direct presidential elections, analysts said. That has raised questions about what an upset victory for the retired general could mean for a system that is supported by most Indonesians. Democracy itself would be very much at stake, ORourke said. This is a low probability scenario, but one with very high impact. Many Indonesians just want a peaceful power transitionregardless of the winner. I hope theres no hostility, said 53-year-old Untung Sri Rejeki. No matter who becomes our next president. AFP sanjiv@tribunemail.com Jakarta, April 14 When Indonesian President Joko Widodo was elected five years ago, the former furniture salesman seemed to offer a clean break from the military and political elite that had clung to power since the fall of strongman ruler Suharto in 1998. Now, Widodo, 57, is running on his own record for a second term, with a comfortable lead in most opinion polls over his rival, former General Prabowo Subianto. With his easy smile and signature blusukan, or spur of the moment neighbourhood walkabouts, he came to power on a wave of popular support for the clean, can-do image he cultivated as a small-city mayor, and then as governor of the capital Jakarta. Still, during his political rise, Widodo, a moderate Muslim from Solo in Central Java, has had to fend off smear campaigns suggesting he is anti-Islam, a communist or in debt to China, all damaging accusations in the Muslim-majority country. As President he was saddled with high expectations that he could fix a host of enduring issues in the sprawling archipelago, from tackling past human rights abuses to rooting out pervasive graft. Jokowi, as he is popularly known among Indonesians, also inherited an economy coming off a commodities boom, and faced an obstructive parliament and vested interests opposed to reform and transparency. Still, he methodically stitched together a majority in parliament and while unable to deliver on an economic growth target of 7 per cent, he led a record infrastructure push to build ports, roads and airports. Niken Satyawati, a family friend who has co-written a book on the President, said Widodo had sought to extend the clean governance he pursued as mayor of Solo to the national stage. He was an ordinary person. And he still is, she said, describing his weakness as a desire to accommodate the wishes of too many people. Once President, as a political outsider, he faced accusations of being beholden to party backers, particularly those connected to the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, led by former President Megawati Sukarnoputri. Nevertheless, he focused on reviving the economy by cutting red tape and easing investment rules. At times, he faced cabinet infighting and policy flip-flops cast doubt on his ability to commandeer his own team, let alone a country of 260 million. On the foreign stage, he appeared more assertive, denying pleas for clemency in 2015 from foreign drug traffickers on death row, straining ties chiefly with neighbour Australia. He also held a cabinet meeting aboard a warship off the Natuna Islands after China stated its overlapping claim to nearby waters. The most bruising period of his presidency was from 2016, when huge rallies targeting Jakartas ethnic Chinese, Christian governor for alleged blasphemy pushed religious tension in Indonesia to its highest in years. Widodo was forced to distance himself from Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a one-time ally later jailed for insulting Islam. To the disappointment of some progressive supporters, Widodo picked Islamic cleric Maruf Amin as his running mate for the election, seeking to boost the tickets appeal to Muslims. If he is re-elected, analysts expect broadly the same economic policy focus, though they are divided whether he will quicken the pace. Reuters Humble beginnings sanjiv@tribunemail.com New York, April 14 Talk about being born with a silver spoon in your mouth: the royal baby of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will have a particularly glittery one. And US tax authorities will be keen to know how much that utensil is worth. Thats because the baby will have dual nationality: British because of his father and US from his American mother, whose official title is the Duchess of Sussex. When one of the parents is American and has resided in the US for five years with at least two after the age of 14, the baby is automatically a citizen, said David Treitel, founder of American Tax Returns, a consultancy for US expatriates living in Britain. This is the case with Meghan, said Treitel, noting this case is a first in the British royal family. US nationality comes with a bevy of restrictive conditions: like any American who is born, grows up and dies anywhere in the world, year after year Meghan and Harrys child will have to show the Internal Revenue Service that his or her tax status is clean. From the moment of birth, money deposited in banks by the royal parents eager to ensure a bright future for their progeny must be duly reported to the tax man. The same would apply to money that comes in if mom and dad decide, say, to have the child follow in the footsteps of his ex-actress mother to become a star on TV or in movies. Forget about privacy, said Treitel. The IRS will get to know a lot more about the couples wealth through the tax returns of the couple and their mother. A lot more information is gonna get to the US, he added. To wit: the IRS will demand that any valuable gifts from non-Americans to Harry and Meghans child and he will be feted, wont he? also be declared as assets. Imagine the Queen giving the baby some nice beautiful book of art from the royal collection, with paintings by Van Gogh or Miro. If this gift if worth more than USD 100,000, it is reportable, said Treitel. However, baby shower gifts that Markle received recently in New York will not have to be declared if they came from fellow Americans, the expert said. US tax authorities efforts to keep a close watch on American expatriates can have serious consequences for people whose sole link to America is that they were simply born there. Such is the case of so-called Accidental Americans such as thousands of people in France who automatically received US citizenship because they were born in the US but left America as little kids and no longer have any links whatsoever to the country. Since the adoption of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act in 2010, which replaced the criterion of nationality with that of tax domicile, these people are obliged to report their income to US tax authorities and in some cases actually cough up some money. To a lesser extent, the British royal family cannot dodge its US tax obligations either: a flawed tax return can trigger hefty fines. But there is a solution to avoid headaches for the royal couples accountants: Meghan can renounce her US citizenship. However, even if she does that, tax returns would still have to be filed for the child until age 18. AFP THE Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) says, after December 17 (tomorrow), it will no longe At a recent brunch preceding the Carolina Cup steeplechase race, the host gave me a gift of hometown recognition and, though we are friends, extended his right hand as I approached him. As the gathering looked on, I ignored his hand and gave him a warm hug, which he returned. It was a natural thing for me to do because Im an incorrigible hugger and I love the guy. We were among friends, though many politicos were in attendance. Thus far, no one has objected. Also recently, a high-ranking state official whom Ive known for 30 years greeted me with a handshake in his office, where several staffers were gathered. I accepted the handshake, though a hug under other circumstances might have been more natural given our long history and our Southern culture of social huggers and kissers. But an embrace wasnt appropriate to the situation. Two circumstances, two men, two very careful approaches. One was social, the other professional and therein lies all the difference. But to be clear, it fell to me the woman, in other words to determine ultimately how the greetings would go. And when in doubt, a handshake is always the better choice. These personal anecdotes are prompted by Joe Bidens sudden dunking in the #MeToo vat of public humiliation following two womens allegations of past inappropriate touching. Lucy Flores, a former Nevada state assemblywoman, wrote in New York magazines The Cut that, during a 2014 rally when she was running for lieutenant governor, Biden approached her from behind, placed his hands on her shoulders, smelled her hair and planted a big slow kiss on the back of her head. Recently, former congressional aide Amy Lappos told The Hartford Courant that in 2009, Biden rubbed noses with her at a fundraiser. Despite his, shall we say, warm personality, no one, including those he has touched, is accusing Biden of anything approaching a crime. Even #MeToo activist and actress Alyssa Milano tweeted in his defense. After paying the requisite respect for Flores story telling her truth, as it were she paid homage to Bidens work on behalf of women. Notably, as senator he introduced the 1994 Violence Against Women Act. In one of the dirty quirks of politics, some liberals apparently will tolerate repulsive and, in some cases, potentially criminal behavior by men as long as they check all the right boxes. So, too, some biblical conservatives will avert their gaze from a hush-money-paying, misogynist president with a history of philandering, just as long as the Supreme Court is properly packed. The Lord really does work in mysterious ways. Until now, Biden has been able to employ his flirtatious charm to great effect, in part because hes a good guy whose policies seem to flow from a genuine concern for women. Also, to be precise, he reliably carries water for feminists. But, let the man consider running for president in #MeToo nation, and hes practically a predator. Republicans couldnt be happier, but it would be wrong to conflate Bidens Eskimo kisses, as we used to call nose-rubbing, with Trumps recorded comments about sexually assaulting women. I confess to a high tolerance for male attentions. Oh, those dreadful decades of flattery and doors held open. How ever did I survive? Id clutch my pearls and swoon, but Im writing in my pajamas and airplane socks. That said, as one of just two or three female reporters in my first newsroom, I also can muster long-suppressed rage regarding the many times I felt minimized or reduced to just-a-girl by patronizing male bosses, politicians and assorted others, whose grandfatherly gestures were simply rude, condescending and sexist. If you sometimes wonder why women are so angry: Those guys. In politics, glad-handing, hugging, social kissing, and winking as occasions required have been time-honored and effective means of communication and communion, especially in the matriarchal South the truer story that outsiders have never heard. But times change and habits die hard. Biden, at 76, is caught between two ages and will have to adapt if he wants to survive. The sad irony is that Biden, considered by many to be the Democrat most capable of defeating Trump, could be taken down by his own party, thanks to the standard set by New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand in her take-down of former Senate colleague Al Franken. And Trump, who once bragged about force-kissing and grabbing women by their genitals, would get to pose as the better man. All things considered, whom would you rather hug? Kathleen Parkers email address is kathleenparker@washpost.com. The Supermarket Association says that it will neither be naming supermarkets safe zones nor The Ukrainian side welcomes the adoption of the Gas Directive amendments by the Council of the European Union. The relevant statement was published on Facebook account of the Mission of Ukraine to the EU. Mission of Ukraine welcomes the adoption of the Gas Directive amendments, which is of great importance for the trilateral Ukraine EU Russia negotiations on gas transit. The gas directive amendments aim at closing a legal gap in the EU's regulatory framework and boosting competition in the gas market. After the entry into force, the EU's internal gas market rules, such as ownership unbundling, third-party access, non-discriminatory tariffs and transparency requirements, shall apply to pipelines to and from third countries, including Nord Stream 2, reads the statement. The Ukrainian diplomats remind that the EU Member States will have 9 months from the Directives entry into force to transpose the new rules into national law. We count for in good faith, consistent and effective implementation of the EU Gas law provisions that is critical to ensure the equal treatment of Ukrainian Gas Transportation System and North Stream 2 project within the scope of EU law. Todays step proves that the EU Member States share responsibility and demonstrate solidarity on the key principles of the European gas market and the Energy Union, reads the commentary of the Mission of Ukraine to the EU. ol facebook like button Tweet tweet button for twitter Published April 15, 2019 A photo by Prajal Prasai, a 21-year-old junior in Communication at the University of Louisiana Monroe, earned a first place award at the Spring National College Media Association Convention in New York City. The annual conference is primarily for journalism students. Staff from ULM's student newspaper The Hawkeye, where Prasai is the co-managing editor for art, attended to learn techniques, share knowledge and connect with professionals and peers. Prasai said he is fascinated by NYC and thanked The Hawkeye for the opportunity to attend the convention in March, 2019. Prasai, from Lalitpur, Nepal, and fellow student photojournalists from universities across the country were challenged to roam the streets of NYC in an on-site photography competition held during the convention. Prasai's photograph "Free the Spirit" is a black and white scene in a crowded NYC subway. Prasai photographed a moment of mood and movement of the main people in the photo, and the action surrounding them. I wanted to capture something that reflects the life of people in a big city. For me, knowing and learning about people and their lifestyles is very critical in understanding this world we live in. Knowing other peoples lives and struggles (will) make you compassionate, caring, kind and tolerant. So, I was looking for stories that moved my heart. The guy, Eddie, gave his last remaining $3 to the guitarist, and I was just very surprised and moved. I had to tell his story, said Prasai. The ULM junior credits Srdjan Marjanovic, Creative Director, and Emerald McIntyre, Digital Media Editor, both with the Office of Marketing and Communications; Siddharth Gaulee, former Hawkeye Art Director and photographer; and Dr. Christopher Mapp, Director of Student Publications, for providing him with critiques, motivation and vast opportunities which he said have made him the photographer he is today. Prasai is also a student photographer with the Office of Marketing and Communications. They have always motivated me to push my limits, have constantly critiqued my work, and have imparted their priceless wisdom whenever I needed," Prasai said. Prasai started his photography journey in January 2017. He plans to attend graduate school in pursuit of a Master of Fine Arts in Photography. Hopefully, I will get to attend some good art schools. After that, its another adventure to the unknown he said. Abdi Mohamed Aden is one of the hardworking refugee farmers, he proudly shows off some of the fresh and green okra he harvested from his farm. Abdi is nicknamed Pilipili (pepper) because he is popular for supplying camp markets with pepper. Pilipili started farming out of his own initiative, using his previous experience as a farmer in Somalia. Despite restriction on their movement outside the camps, these refugee farmers are happy to have an income generating activity that supports their families. Abdi explains that farming has reduced their dependency on humanitarian assistance from UNHCR and other agencies. Since we are refugees with less opportunities and cannot move outside the refugee camps, these farms provide a source of income for us. We divided ourselves into groups and take turns supplying the three camps. Abdi says. At the end of every working day, we come together and split the little profit we make. I earn USD 430 after every three months. What the small-scale farmers have been harvesting shows that there is a huge potential for food production in Dadaab On average, the farmers produce 125 kilograms of tomatoes from 0.2 hectare of land, 90 kilograms of okra from 0.14 hectare of land and 212 kilograms of beans from 0.16 hectare of land. Nearly 77% are sold on the local markets while 23 per cent is consumed at home. Each farmer is earns an average of 433 USD per season from selling their produce. The farmers are trained on best farming practices and sensitized on planting trees and protecting the environment. We consume some of the harvest and sell the rest to buy clothes and farming inputs we need. With relevant support, I can grow different crops and earn even more. At the moment, I make between 5 and 10 USD a day. Kuusa Shafat, a female refugee farmer said. Communities living around Dadaab refugee camps depend largely on livestock keeping as a source of livelihood while refugees in the camps depend on UNHCR and other humanitarian agencies assistance. However, refugees and host community are changing their way of lives and engaging in farming to produce different varieties of vegetables, grains and fruits. The host community have been very hospitable and willingly share land for agriculture with refugees During the past years, dozens of small-scale farmers coming from both refugees and host community have been able to produce significant amounts of food in Dadaab using flood recession on land located near a seasonal water pool in Hagadera refugee camp with minimal support from agencies and sell their harvest in the camp markets. Refugees and host community farmers working together in an okra field in Hagadera camps of Dadaab. UNHCR/Assadullah Nasrullah A refugee woman trained by Danish Refugee Council (DRC) on agricultural farming in Dadaab. UNHCR/Assadullah Nasrullah Pawpaw tree heavily loaded in a farm in Hagadera, Dadaab camp UNHCR/Assadullah Nasrullah The host community have been very hospitable and willingly share land for agriculture with refugees. The initiative has enhanced food security for refugees and host community and equally strengthened collaboration and peaceful coexistence between the refugees and host communities surrounding the refugee camps. As a local farmer, I did not have a source of livelihood, but working together with the refugees has given us income. We are now able to support our families. Said Suleiman says. UNHCR supports the farmers with water for irrigation from a nearby borehole, drip irrigation kits and technical training with the aim of improving livelihoods and the well-being of both, the host community and refugee population. With an irrigation system in place, the farmers are able to utilize the land all year round instead of depending on rain fed agriculture. During her recent visit to Dadaab, UNHCR Kenya Representative, Fathiaa Abdalla said, Refugees and host communities farming together will enhance food security in Dadaab and its environs. Abdalla applauded the strategic partnerships that has made it possible for refugees to access water for irrigation, and enhancing livelihood and self-reliance. Currently the main irrigation water source in Dadaab is the boreholes supported by, solar system and other high-tech interventions. Plans are underway to adopt spate irrigation alongside surface water harvesting and drip irrigation to ensure efficiency in water resource management and sustainability. We can increase the yield if we get training and farming tools. In turn, these farms will provide employment opportunities for both refugees and host communities. In the past, we had to use donkey carts to transport water but UNHCR assisted us with irrigation water from the borehole. Suleiman explains. The farmers not only consume what they produce but have rented spaces in the local market where they sell their fresh produce for sale. With an irrigation system in place, the farmers are able to utilize the land all year round instead of depending on rain fed agriculture Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) is partnership with UNHCR has established fruit tree greenbelts to rehabilitate the environmental. The establishment of fruit tree greenbelts has demonstrated that Dadaab has a huge potential in agriculture that is yet to be fully explored. So far, more than a thousand guavas, avocado, lemon, mangoes, pawpaw and banana trees were planted. The orchard is already producing some of the sweetest bananas, papayas and watermelons in a project initiated in March 2018. In the new 25 hectare orchard, 10,000 fruit trees have been planted. The Dadaab refugee complex has a population of 210,724 refugees and asylum seekers, and consists of three camps, Hagadera, Ifo, and Dagahaley. 96 per cent of the refugees are from Somalia. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter A man rides a bicycle through the Juret al-Shayah section of Homs in March 2019. UNHCR/Christopher Reardon Dear Hani, I stopped by your house today, but you werent home. No one was home. Your parents werent there to join us for tea, and there was no sign of your brothers or sisters. Your neighbors were away too. I would have knocked, but your front door is missing. Not just the door, but also the hinges and the frame that once secured it to the wall. The floors were strewn with rubble. I hate to say it, but the place was a wreck. You realize, of course, that Im not talking about your familys new home in central Canada, eight time zones away. I mean the two-story house where you grew up in Syria, the one you were forced to flee six and a half years ago, when you became a refugee. Im here in Homs, your hometown. I remember you telling me about this place when I first met you in Lebanon, camped out with a thousand other Syrians in some farmers field. The war was raging here, and you spoke of how, before you fled, your mother would beg you not to go to school. She was afraid you might get shot, or get your throat slit just like your uncle, your aunt, your cousin. You told me about the friends you missed, the rap music you used to make together, the poems you used to write. You were desperate to continue your education, and my colleagues and I felt your story needed to be told. This is UNHCR's first piece about Hani. It was published in March 2014, as the war turned three years old. Now Im here to interview people who are slowly returning from other parts of the country after struggling for years to stay out of harms way. Mostly they are coming home to ruins. The epic scale of the destruction reminds me of West Mosul, where I encountered a similar mood last summer: people weary of war, scarred by all they have endured, and eager to start anew. One family I met today spoke of their struggle to find work and shelter the past few years. Returning to their apartment in the Al-Qusour district several months ago, they were crushed to see that everything they left behind had been looted, burnt or blown up. Debris filled the place from floor to ceiling. Slowly they are putting the pieces back together. With help from my colleagues, Jihad and his sons have installed windows and doors to keep the family warmer and safer. A blacksmith and handyman by vocation, hes itching to do more. Ill fix every one of these houses for you, he said, gesturing with his calloused hands at the crumbling facades up and down his street. Just give me the tools. Afterwards, he and his boys took me up to the roof to see their pigeons. Abdelmalek, whos 12, unlocked the cages and soon their flock of 40 was circling overhead, sweeping over the broken cityscape with enviable ease. Zahra Mackaoui made this award-winning documentary about Hani with support from UNHCR. It chronicles the family's time in Lebanon and resettlement to Canada. Earlier versions aired on Channel 4 and Al Jazeera. After watching the birds return to their roost, I got a ride to your neighborhood and walked down your street. There wasnt one parked car. It looks as if everyone has packed up and gone on holiday at the same time. But I know this has been no vacation for any of you. After eight years of conflict, half your nation has left home. You have been displaced, often multiple times. Today, 5.6 million Syrians are still living as refugees in neighboring countries. Millions more remain displaced inside Syria. Its a relatively small number who, like you, have gotten a second chance in another part of the world. On your street, there were no stray cats or dogs. Not even any birds. The only sound was the distant whirr of a saw cutting through metal. Your neighborhood, Hani, is a ghost town. The street where Hani lived (left). Hani's house (center). Hani's front doorway (right). UNHCR/Christopher Reardon When I got to your house, I stood at the entryway and gazed right in, like a superhero with X-ray vision. I thought of that nerdy old icebreaker: If you could choose a superpower, would you rather have the ability to see through walls, or to fly? After what Ive seen today the graceful arc of Abdelmaleks pigeons, the grim view into your empty living room I will always choose to fly. The interior doors are also gone, even the one to the bathroom with the blue and white tiles, which now faces right onto the street. The kitchen ceiling has collapsed, so I could see through to one of the bedrooms on the second floorperhaps the one where you used to make your music and write your poetry. Outside your living room window, with a pile of shattered glass at my feet, I stood and stared at the emptiness. This is what happens in a war zone. Any time the fighting ebbs, scavengers come and take whats left behind. Not just appliances and furniture and pots and pans. They strip the lighting fixtures, the electrical outlets, the wiring. They take the doors and windows, and the wood or metal frames that hold them in place. The wood they might burn for heat or as cooking fuel. The rest they barter or sell to the scrap man, who sells it to someone else who melts it down. Some of them, no doubt, seek to profit from other peoples misfortune. But most, I imagine, are as desperate as those who flee, just doing what they can to survive. UNHCR's Head of Communications and Spokesperson for the High Commissioner spoke in this TED Talk about Hani's passion for learning. Even in its current state, Hani, your house in Homs is a lot nicer than that place where you were living when we first met five winters ago. Remember that makeshift shelter in Lebanon, wrapped in plastic sheeting, with just the wood stove to keep you all warm? Your mother poured us tea, and later we stood outside and looked at Syria, that snowy ridge so close we could have walked there in an hour or two. I considered going inside your old house, thinking I might find something you left behind: an item you once treasured or an everyday object that I could give you as a memento. Then I recalled how you had made sure to grab the most important thing before you fled: your school certificates, which let you to continue your education in exile. In the end, I never stepped past the threshold. Ive done enough security training to know there might be structural damage or live explosives inside, like the mortar my colleagues and I came across a few hours earlier. Or maybe Id just step on a rusty nail. But mostly it felt wrong, like poking through the wreckage after a ghastly accident. Hani and his brother Ashraf horse around outside their shelter in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley in March 2014. UNHCR/Andrew McConnell Its that time of year again when the media remind us that the conflict in Syria began on March 15, 2011, but we both know that wars seldom start or stop with such precision. We also know that this date has another meaning for your family: its the day your youngest brother was born. Its amazing how fast these eight years have flown by, and how slowly. How much pain they have brought your family, and also some joy. Hani, please wish Ashraf a happy eighth birthday for me. And before he blows out his candles, remind him to make a wish of his own. The biggest wish he can imagine. Make one for yourself too. Christopher Reardon is chief of multimedia content at UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. He and his team have been following Hanis story since 2013. This open letter was also published on We the Peoples. Listen to an interview with Hani and Chris on CBCs The Current. When Darlys* fled Venezuela with her two children looking for safety, she never imagined she would end up sleeping on the streets of Maicao, a Colombian city near the northern border. Darlys had no option but to leave Venezuela because the life of her seven-year-old son, Luis, was at risk: His kidney disease was reaching a critical point, and treatment in her home country was not available. Like Darlys, thousands of families from Venezuela who reach Maicao do it with very few means to survive, if anything at all. Many of them have been living in the streets for months in parking lots, under the citys arcades or under self-made shelters because the citys shelter capacity is very limited. With a population of around 100,000, Maicao currently hosts 30,000 refugees and migrants. An assessment conducted by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, in February revealed that half of the 3,500 Venezuelans interviewed were living in the streets or in informal settlements in and around the city. Here I am not afraid of falling asleep at night. Here we feel safe. Darlys tried renting a small flat at first, but her money ran out within a few weeks. I had to choose between paying rent or feeding my children, she says. They went back to the streets. Every night, Darlys was afraid of falling asleep. She wanted to stay awake to protect her children, fearing that someone might take them away from her or hurt them. I had a knife, and some nights I was holding it while I was sleeping so that I could protect my kids and our belongings, she says. Many people were being robbed at night. Refugees and migrants living in the streets of Maicao have little access to drinking water, bathrooms, shelter and other basic needs. They are also exposed to serious risks like human trafficking, sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), labour exploitation and sexual exploitation. See also: Striving to protect vulnerable Venezuelan children At the end of 2018, Maicaos local authorities and the Colombian government asked UNHCR for support to set up a temporary reception centre to help address the lack of accommodation for so many people in need. The Integrated Assistance Centre, which opened its doors in early March, has an initial capacity to host 350 people. Women, children, elderly and other vulnerable people now have temporary access to shelter, food, water, basic medical care, and other services, such as legal orientation, psychosocial and child support. Venezuelan asylum-seeker Darlys and her children inside their tent at the newly-established Integrated Assistance Centre in Maicao, Colombia. UNHCR/Jorge Daniel Berdugo Siosi Venezuelan children arrive for meal time at the new reception centre in Maicao, Colombia. UNHCR/Jorge Daniel Berdugo Siosi Volunteers from local institutions and NGOs bring mattresses to the new reception centre in Maicao, Colombia. UNHCR/Jorge Daniel Berdugo Siosi Venezuelan children participate in fun activities at new reception centre in Maicao, Colombia. UNHCR/Jorge Daniel Berdugo Siosi Venezuelan asylum-seeker Darlys and her children register at the new reception centre in Maicao, Colombia. UNHCR/Jorge Daniel Berdugo Siosi Due to their vulnerability, Darlys family was among those selected to be sheltered in one of the 62 tents now available at the centre, three kilometres from Maicao. In the breezy dining room, the family took a break from the heavy sun and enjoyed a dish of beef stew and rice. Once inside the tent, Darlys children could not believe it when they saw a proper mattress with pillows. They are so relaxed now, and me too, she said. Government agencies, international and national non-governmental organizations, as well as UN agencies such as the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization, are involved in the centres operations. The centre opened due to the critical situation in Maicao, especially the high number of people living in the streets, says Federico Sersale, head of UNHCRs office in La Guajira department. It aims to address the extremely vulnerable conditions of Venezuelans for a limited period of time, helping them make a first step towards a more independent life and future community integration. Yarelis*, 35, arrived at the centre with her three kids her youngest is only 10 months old. She left Venezuela three months ago in shock: Jairo, her 17-year-old boy, was killed in Maracaibo when someone tried to rob him. "Now it feels like we are all neighbours." He had nothing of value with him, only his mobile phone, she says in tears. I was so afraid that my other kids would not survive the widespread violence that I decided to leave our house straight away. In the rush, Yarelis did not collect any official documents. But without a birth certificate, children are not able to register for school in Colombia. UNHCRs legal team at the centre is helping Yarelis to find a way to document her children so that Susana*, her 10-year-old daughter, can finish primary school. Yarelis and Darlys are two of the 60 families who have found temporary shelter and a brief respite from hunger, fear and desperation. The needs are still huge: over 3.4 million Venezuelans are living abroad, and Colombia is the country most affected by this outflow, with over 1.2 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants. The humanitarian needs have overwhelmed the Colombias reception capacity. UNHCR is working to strengthen shelter networks, provide legal counselling and facilitate access to food, water, education and health services to people in dire need. See also: Displaced Colombians open their doors to Venezuelan refugees and migrants At the centre, Darlys life transformed in a matter of days. When I came here, I only knew two or three people. Now it feels like we are all neighbours, she says. Under a big blue shade area, the families spend a lot of time together, especially at night: they play cards, chat and watch movies on mobile phones. Luis is feeling better now. At Maicaos hospital, Darlys was able to obtain the medicine he regularly needs for his kidney condition and the medical staff at the centre monitors Luis health. Both of her children, Luis and Adolfo, are much happier now. Every afternoon they attend fun activities organized by associations and they have made new friends. She is also saving money for their school fees. This is what I fight for every day, she adds. Their education is paramount. Here I am not afraid of falling asleep at night, she says. Here we feel safe. *Names have been changed for protection reasons. The president earlier instructed the SBU to report on further feasibility of Medvedchuk's participation in detainee swap talks. Former deputy chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lt Gen (Reserve) Ihor Romanenko has commented on the recent developments around, a Ukrainian politician with ties to Vladimir Putin, Viktor Medvedchuk, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The president earlier instructed the SBU security service to report on further feasibility of Medvedchuk's participation in the Minsk talks on the release of Ukrainian hostages from Donbas and political prisoners from Russia, as reported by the Ukrainian news outlet Glavred on April 15. "I think that such a belated reaction of the Ukrainian authorities is connected with Putin's demand for the Ukrainian side that Medvedchuk participate in the negotiation process. Ukraine was forced to comply with this condition, because, in fact, it was clearly stated: if Medvedchuk is part of the negotiations, Ukrainian prisoners will be freed, and if not, prisoners won't be swapped. They had been working by this scenario," the expert said. Read alsoBetter late than never: Poroshenko tells SBU to report on Medvedchuks effectiveness in Minsk talks According to Romanenko, Poroshenko's recent move is directly related to a changing political situation. "Recently, the prisoner exchange between Ukraine and the [Russia-backed] militants [in Donbas] has been suspended because Putin wasn't willing to play along and help President Poroshenko ahead of the elections. Since last summer, Medvedchuk has not participated in the humanitarian group within the Minsk negotiation process. But despite this fact, he enjoyed the right offlying charter from Kyiv to Moscow," Romanenko added. The first warships of the Black Sea Fleet could be repaired at the shipyard's docks within a year. Vladimir Bazhenov, CEO of Crimea-based Sevastopol Shipyard ("Sevmorzavod"), which previously belonged to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, says the shipyard located in the Russian-occupied peninsula should become the major base to repair vessels of Russia's Black Sea fleet. According to the CEO, experts from Sevastopol Shipyard have developed a program for modernization and technical re-equipment of the enterprise. The first warships of the Black Sea Fleet could be repaired at the shipyard's docks within a year, the Russian newspaper Vedomosti wrote on April 15. Sevastopol Shipyard is located on two sites: the main is called "South Ground" and the minor is "Inkerman Ground". Their total area is 53 hectares. The shipyard has two dry docks and specialized workshops for vessel hull repairs, manufacturing of ship equipment, systems, and pipelines. Read also"Crimea SOS" NGO says occupation could have "fatal consequences" for environment Bazhenov says the plant has conditions for overhauls, docking, retrofitting and upgrading various ships and vessels. Now two heavy floating cranes are being built at the shipyard, namely PK-400 Sevastopol and PK-700 Grigoriy Prosyankin. At the beginning of 2015, the enterprise was "nationalized" by the Russian occupiers of Crimea and transferred to the city of Sevastopol's ownership. In late 2015, the Sevastopol branch of the Zvezdochka ship repair center signed a lease agreement with Sevastopol Shipyard related to its main production facilities for a 49-year period. In February 2018, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ordered to transfer the shipyard to federal ownership. Today Ukraine could reach the Russian border, but the Kremlin will not take a wait and will give a decisive rebuff. Former deputy chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lt Gen (Reserve) Ihor Romanenko has said Ukraine needs a certain military-political situation to be established both in the country and beyond to go for the liberation of Donbas by force. "At the moment, the balance of power between Ukraine and Russia is not in favor of our state. The size of forces differs a lot, by magnitudes. Not to mention the fact that Russia has at is disposal nuclear weapons, as well as a powerful advantage in missile weapons, aircraft, and armored vehicles," he said, as reported by the Ukrainian news outlet Glavred on April 15. According to Romanenko, today Ukraine could with its offensive strike reach the Russian border, but the Kremlin would not maintain a waiting position and would rather provide a resolute rebuff. The expert said a similar situation had developed with the "Novorossiya" project, with Kyiv giving up on its nuclear potential, and the annexation of Crimea. "Russians had warned us that, if Ukraine tried to resist, every [weapon] would be used there, including air forces, and in the end, it would be a huge bloodbath. Meanwhile, our allies only assured they would resolve the issue, but later. Five years have passed, but nothing has changed," he said. Read alsoUkraine conducts large-scale air defense drills (Video) Romanenko emphasizes that the West is helping Ukraine, but this support is uncomparable with Russia's actions. "So, it is clear it's possible to wage war against Russia only when the appropriate military-political situation is favorable for Ukraine. First of all, inside Russia," he said. The expert added Ukraine needs to strengthen its defense potential, try to solve problems diplomatically, put pressure on Russia together with its allies, and be prepared for a complicated scenario. "But, I repeat, it is necessary that the relevant conditions be set up, because such actions can't be launched as some kind of adventure since there is a risk of losing independence. This would be the wrong path. Once, some hundred years ago, Ukraine had already made such a mistake," he said. The president says he is doing everything to achieve victory. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who is running for re-election, is committed to win the presidential election. "I have a firm intention to win the presidential election," he said at a meeting with businesses' envoys on April 15. The head of state added that he was doing everything to achieve victory. Read alsoPossible snap parliamentary elections to entail protracted political crisis Poroshenko As UNIAN reported earlier, on April 3, Zelensky declared his readiness to come to the debate with Poroshenko ahead of the runoff, however, he voiced a number of conditions. In particular, he said, the debates should be held at Kyivs Olimpiyskiy Stadium, "before the people of Ukraine", and with all TV channels being able to air the event live, while both candidates must undergo a medical exam and prove to the people that there are "no alcoholics or drug addicts" among them. Poroshenko agreed to hold the debate with Zelensky at the stadium. Although, the law provides for other conditions for holding debates, he said. On April 10, speaker of Poroshenko's election headquarters, Oleh Medvedev, said that Poroshenko would definitely arrive for the debate at the Public Broadcaster's TV studio at 20:00 on April 19. Moreover, he will arrive at Olimpiyskiy Stadium on the same day to hold debates with presidential candidate Zelensky provided there is no schedule overlap. Russian investigators want their arrest to be extended until the end of July. The Russian Federation has extended the so-called "investigation" into the case of 24 captive Ukrainian sailors until the end of August. "The FSB investigators have extended the period of the preliminary investigation into the case against the Ukrainian prisoners of war for three months, until the end of August," Russian lawyer and human rights activist Nikolay Polozov told UNIAN. Read alsoMoscow court to consider extension of captured Ukrainian sailors' arrest on April 17 Russian lawyer He also said the investigation had also submitted a motion to the court to extend the sailors' arrest until the end of July. UNIAN memo. On the morning of November 25, 2018, Russia blocked the passage to the Kerch Strait for the Ukrainian tugboat "Yany Kapu" and two armored naval boats "Berdyansk" and "Nikopol," which were on a scheduled re-deployment from the Black Sea port of Odesa to the Azov Sea port of Mariupol. The Ukraine Navy Command noted that the Russian side had been informed of the plans to re-deploy the vessels in advance in accordance with international standards to ensure the safety of navigation. The Russian coast guard ship "Don" rammed the Ukrainian tugboat, damaging the Ukrainian vessel. As the Ukrainian boats were heading back in the Odesa direction after being rejected passage via the Kerch Strait, Russian coast guards opened aimed fire on them. All 24 crew members on board were captured and later remanded in custody for two months, being charged with "illegal border crossing" (the sailors are facing up to six years in prison). Three crewmen were wounded in the attack. Russian-controlled "courts" in occupied Crimea ruled that all 24 detainees should be remanded in custody, after which they were transferred to the Moscow-based Lefortovo and Matrosskaya Tishina detention centers. Moscow's Lefortovo district court in the middle of January 2019 decided to keep the Ukrainian sailors in remand until the end of April 2019. On April 12, Polozov said Moscow's Lefortovo district court on April 17 would consider a motion from Russian investigators to extend the Ukrainian sailors' arrest. The detainee was charged with terrorism. A man who took part in Donbas hostilities under the leadership of the so-called commander of the "Somali" battalion of the "DPR" Mikhail Tolstykh, nom-de-guerre Givi, earlier killed in an elevator blast in the occupied Donetsk, was detained on the de-facto border with occupied Crimea on April 13. Speaker for the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine Oleh Slobodyan says the detainee worked as a driver of one of the "commandants" in Luhansk region for two months in 2014. He quit due to wage arrears and later found a job at a local commissariat. At a friend's offer, he joined the "Somali" assault battalion under the leadership of "Givi", who directly instructed the new arrivals. Read alsoExpert explains Russia's glorification of eliminated Donbas terrorists Having received a nom-de-guerre Chingiz, with the relevant experience at hand, he was assigned to train personnel for serving at checkpoints set up at the so-called "republics." After some time, he quit service and started working as a security guard in the town of Alchevsk. "Amid low salaries, he set off to Moscow looking for a better life. But the working conditions did not satisfy him, so he tried to get to Kyiv seeking a job, first crossing the Kerch Bridge, and then through the administrative border," Slobodyan said. The detainee was served with charge papers under Article 258-3 (creation of a terrorist group or terrorist organization) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Investigation is under way. There were no casualties among Ukrainian troops. Russia-led forces mounted 10 attacks on Ukrainian troops in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, in the past 24 hours. "No Ukrainian army casualties were reported in the past day. According to intelligence reports, four invaders were killed and another three were wounded," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation said in an update on Facebook as of 07:00 Kyiv time on April 15, 2019. Read alsoJFO: Ukraine reports six enemy attacks in Donbas April 13 During the period under review, Russian occupation forces opened fire from 82mm mortars, anti-tank missile systems, grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine guns, and small arms to attack the Ukrainian positions near the town of Avdiyivka, and the villages of Vodiane, Nevelske, Shyrokyne, Zolote-4, Krymske, Novotoshkivske, and Novoluhanske. "Since Monday midnight, Russian-led forces haven't attacked Ukrainian positions yet," the report said. Tallinn and Warsaw stood united in their moves to show support for Ukraine's territorial integrity. Russian barque Sedov was seen moored in Germany's Westermunde on Monday after Estonia and Poland earlier last week refused to let the Russian training vessel enter their waters because naval cadets were onboard from Crimea, the peninsula Russia had illegally annexed from Ukraine. Explaining Poland's decision, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ewa Suwara said: "The prime ministers decision has been negative," she said. "We believe that allowing the Russian tall ship enter Polands territorial waters would contradict its policy of respecting the territorial integrity of Ukraine," TASS reported. Earlier, Estonian authorities refused to let the Russian training ship enter Estonias territorial waters, saying that cadets from the Crimea-based Kerch State Maritime Technological University were onboard. On Wednesday, Russias embassy in Tallinn described the move as "an unfriendly step taken by the Estonian authorities in the run-up to the Estonian presidents upcoming visit to Moscow." On Monday morning, a Ukrainian diplomat, Ilya Kvas, posted on Twitter a snapshot from a "Vesselfinder" resource showing Sedov's location at Germany's Westermunde. "Following rejection of Estonia and Poland of a port call of RU Sedov bark, now she is comfortably moored at Westermunde. Any correlation with latest German efforts to bring Russia back to PACE?" he tweeted. Following rejection of Estonia and Poland of a port call of Sedov bark, now she is comfortably moored at Westermunde. Any correlation with latest German efforts to bring Russia back to PACE? #toxicshippic.twitter.com/QubjzpVtir Illya Kvas (@KvasIllya) April 15, 2019 The Sedov barque, originally named the Magdalene Vinnen II, was launched in Kiel in 1921 at Germanys Friedrich Krupp Germaniwrft. The barque is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the biggest training tall ship. Speculation has been mounting that a summit between Putin and Kim might be imminent with their senior officials recently seen traveling to each other's capital. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may hold his first-ever summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin next week when Putin travels to the Far East on his way to an international conference in China, sources said Monday. "Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to make a trip to the Far East region around April 24," a source told Yonhap News Agency. "Chances are fairly high that a summit between Russia and North Korea could take place around that time." Putin is likely to make a trip to the Far East region bordering the northeastern part of North Korea after attending a forum on China's "One Belt, One Road" infrastructure drive to be held in Beijing on April 26-27, the source added. Read alsoEx-CIA official says Kim Jong-un may visit Russia Another source said that a summit between Putin and Kim could take place before or after the Beijing forum, adding that there have been signals that North Koreans are making preparations for a summit. Moscow has yet to confirm when the summit talks place, but Russia's Tass news agency reported in early March, citing a Kremlin spokesperson, that Moscow and Pyongyang are discussing Kim's trip to Russia through "diplomatic channels," and that it will be decided "in the near future." Speculation has been mounting that a summit between Putin and Kim might be imminent with their senior officials recently seen traveling to each other's capital, suggesting they are making preparations for their leaders' meeting. Putin invited Kim to visit Russia last May. Kim was expected to visit Moscow before the end of last year, but it did not materialize. The U.S. destroyer is being monitored by the Vasily Bykov patrol ship and the Ivan Khurs reconnaissance ship of the Black Sea Fleet. The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ross has entered the Black Sea. At the same time, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation says the Russian ships "are continuously monitoring" the vessel. One of the four forward-deployed Arleigh Burke-class destroyers #USSRoss#DDG71 made northbound transit through Turkish Straits today and entered the Black Sea. This is her first Black Sea deployment in 2019. pic.twitter.com/WKrO2ibl68 Bosphorus Naval News (@Saturn5_) April 14, 2019 "The designated forces and assets of the Black Sea Fleet are continuously monitoring the USS Ross guided-missile destroyer, which entered the Black Sea on April 14," the ministry's press service told UNIAN. The U.S. ship was taken under constant surveillance by the coastal e-warfare equipment of the fleet when entering the Black Sea. In addition, the U.S. destroyer is being monitored by the Vasily Bykov patrol ship and the Ivan Khurs reconnaissance ship of the Black Sea Fleet. As UNIAN reported earlier, NATO Foreign Ministers agreed a package of measures to improve NATO's situational awareness in the Black Sea region and strengthen support for partners Georgia and Ukraine. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said the package of measures contained a number of classified provisions. The fire broke out on the evening of April 15. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has expressed words of support to President of France Emmanuel Macron and the French people amid an ongoing fire at Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral. "Notre-Dame de Paris is on fire. I pray to God that no one died," he said during the Freedom of Speech program on April 15, according to the Ukrainian president's press service. "I would like to express my support to President of France Emmanuel Macron, with whom we met two days ago, and to the French peoples." Read alsoNotre Dame Cathedral: Spire collapses in huge fire media (Photo, video) "This building is very important, including for us, for Ukrainians. Holodomor services took place there," he said. Poroshenko added he had participated in the ceremony of enthronement of Eparch of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Eparchy of Paris Borys Gudziak, which also took place at the Cathedral. The fire broke out on the evening of April 15. The cathedral was built in the 13th century, the medieval structure is considered a feat of architecture as much as a religious symbol. It is one of Paris' most popular attractions, drawing an estimated 13 million visitors a year. On the weekend of 22-24 March, Revolutionary Socialists (RS) the Danish section of the International Marxist Tendency held their annual congress. It was held at a Scout hut in the countryside of Sealand. In the months leading up to the event, all of the comrades had focused heavily on ensuring the political, as well as the practical success of the congress. This work ensured that the 2019 congress was the best in the history of the organisation. New forces There was a total attendance of 42 comrades, primarily members of RS and its delegates, but a few guests from other sections of IMT attended as well, including a representative from the International Secretariat. Many of the people who attended were very new to the organisation some having been involved for less than a year, and some only a few weeks. This reflects the fact that more and more young people are searching for radical answers to the increasingly urgent problems of society, and are ready to adopt revolutionary politics to take action against capitalism. The discussions reflected a high level of political awareness and the will to take RS forward. The congress showed that one does not have to be a veteran revolutionary to play a role in building an organisation. The congress also emphasised that, with the size that RS has reached, it is time to take steps towards further professionalising the organisation. Class warfare in everyday life The first day included a thorough discussion of the political situation, internationally as well as nationally. Every country is directly affected by the prolonged crisis of capitalism. The ruling class is desperately attempting to preserve the status quo, but in the process of doing so, they are further destabilising their countries. The bourgeoisie are losing control of their own system on a global scale. Every day, more and more workers and youth are questioning the system and becoming radicalised. This is happening at a time when a new crisis is threatening the system from the horizon. For the new movements that are entering the stage, including the gilets jaunes in France, the biggest issue is a lack of revolutionary leadership, which can give direction to the movements. Without a political party to direct the working class, these movements risk defeat. The same processes that were observing in the rest of the world are also playing out in Denmark, at a slower pace. These were analysed by the congress in a document entitled Big shifts will introduce a new period of class warfare, which concludes that the upcoming period (including the coming elections) is going to be influenced by a shift in the economic and political situation. No matter how fast this shift is influencing the situation in Denmark, there are signs that class warfare will soon be on the agenda in Denmark. The document was approved unanimously by the delegates will be published shortly. On Sunday, the congress discussed the organisational conclusions to be drawn from analysis of the political situation. 2019 is our year! If you look at the left-wing landscape in Denmark, youre met by a saddening sight, despite the extremely advantageous objective situation. Aside from their political bankruptcy, a big part of the Danish left is dependent on external financial support, often from the state, without a clear plan for becoming independent. This means that, when the support from the bourgeois state diminishes, the organisations will collapse one by one. The political vacuum on the left in Denmark creates a unique opportunity to build our revolutionary organisation / Image: Revolutionre Socialister The political vacuum on the left in Denmark creates a unique opportunity to build a revolutionary organisation. There are no external obstacles, and hence no excuses not to build. The enthusiasm of RS is huge, as was directly reflected in the most successful collection in the history of the organisation: more than 58,000 Danish kroner (almost 8,000). With the congress of 2019, RS has taken a crucial step forward towards growing to a new level. The internal structures have been strengthened and formalised to ensure that the organisation can absorb the huge growth that has already taken place, and is to be expected in the future. The organisation needs to ensure that all comrades have the opportunity to contribute as much as possible to the revolutionary work. This can only be a reality with a flexible organisation that helps new forces take steps forward. Marxist literature Marxist theory is the foundation of all revolutionary activity. Our small publishing house Forlaget Marx is an essential cornerstone in the revolutionary struggle and spread of Marxist ideas. Here, the competition is limited as well. There are no other publishing houses releasing Marxist literature on the same level, because all other organisations on the left have given up on theory altogether. But this doesnt mean that we have been resting on our laurels. This year the publishing house has released The Revolutionary Legacy of Rosa Luxemburg: a unique, Danish-language book about the great revolutionary, Rosa Luxemburg. This book is not just of historical interest, it has already led to important discussions on the left and is putting RS on the map and new releases are to come. Pushing forward While other organisations on the left-wing are collapsing and losing their grip, RS looks forward with optimism. Capitalism is an unsustainable system, ruining peoples lives, the planet itself and our future. This is a horrible truth, but that same crisis is the foundation for a revolutionary overthrow of the system. The internal contradictions of capitalism are prohibiting it from taking society forward. But even though capitalism has outplayed its historical role, a successful socialist revolution is not a given. There is a need for conscious action to change society. RS is building the foundations to play a decisive role in a revolutionary situation. The congress of 2019 marks the beginning of a new era for Revolutionre Socialister. On the basis of the congress, the organisation can push towards 100 members, as a first step in building the revolutionary organisation that is necessary in Denmark. Provincial elections in a small country such as the Netherlands would normally be considered a rather boring event and not worth mentioning. However, the recent elections of 20 March led to the rise of the right-wing Forum voor Democratie (FvD) party, and the Rutte government lost its majority in the senate. This represents a turning point after a few years of relative stability. On 20 March, the Netherlands held its provincial elections. During those elections, people voted for the provincial councils. Indirectly, these councils elect the senate, in which the government needs a majority in order to rule efficiently. The Senate approves laws on merely technical issues after they have been passed by parliament, but in practice, no government can rule without a majority in the senate. It was known from the start that these were no normal provincial elections, as politicians from all parties were nervously campaigning on national issues. These were basically by-elections for Mark Rutte's third government. This is already a four-party coalition, which has to overcome many hurdles to pass laws. But without a majority in the senate, matters would become more complicated, as they would have to make agreements with at least one additional party. The shooting in Utrecht Two days before the elections, on 18 March, there was a shooting in a tram in Utrecht. Three people were killed in this random act of violence. The Dutch state for the first time initiated threat level 5, which presupposes a terrorist attack. Strategic points were guarded, schools were closed, and residents of Utrecht were urged to stay indoors. The perpetrator was a lumpen type with a past of criminal acts, involved in the drug trade and sexual abuse of addicted women; a criminal psychopath who was essentially a result of the incompetence of the state bureaucracy and cuts to mental health services. According to the government, a note was found, which supposed to be proof that this shooting was a terrorist act, but this has not been made public as of now. As the shooter had a Turkish name, this was used by the right-wing FvD and PVV parties to step up their dirty campaign against multicultural society, targeting Muslims and immigrants in general, two days before the elections. The rise of the FvD The result of the elections was that the Rutte government indeed lost its majority in the 75-seat senate. The government parties now only have 31 seats together (41 percent). Another shock for Mark Rutte was that his party, the 'conservative liberal' VVD, lost its position as the biggest party in the senate. Until now, Rutte could state that, in spite of all the unpopular measures he has taken over the years, the economy seems to be booming and the VVD is still the biggest party (although in an extremely fragmented political landscape). The biggest party in the senate now is the FvD, a party that went from 0 to 13 seats (17 percent) at once. This is a reactionary, right-wing nationalist party, which managed to present itself as "anti-establishment". Its leader, Thierry Baudet, is a third-rate pseudo-intellectual who behaves as a flamboyant showman to provoke the public with attacks on 'the political elite', immigrants, climate scientists (he is a denier of man-made climate change), journalists, left-wing teachers and everybody else he does not like. The FvD's Thierry Baudet is a right-wing, climate change denying, anti-migrant demagogue / Image: Elekes Andor Baudet has a history of flirting with right-wing extremist ideas. It is known he visited Jean Marie Le Pen in the past, and last year he dined with American white supremacist Jared Taylor. However, that does not mean, as some on the left say, that his party is a fascist movement and that there is a rise of fascism in the Netherlands. This party is a demagogic bourgeois party with links to an adventurist section of the ruling class, which prefers the FvD as a more controllable party than Geert Wilders' PVV. It has attracted businesspeople, former politicians of other right-wing parties, and other adventurers. Yes, fascist 'alt-right' elements have been active in the party and its youth movement, and it's clear there is a certain layer that is ready for a confrontation with left-wing activists. But this is proportionally a very small layer that can easily be stopped when the labour movement uses its power to mobilise. The real reason for people voting for FvD was to vote against Mark Rutte's government. This was partially (about a third) by former Geert Wilders supporters who sought a new way out and partially by right-wing voters whose trust in the Rutte government has been broken. It is a reflection of these layers (mostly home-owning workers and middle-class people in the suburbs and countryside) looking for a way out of the general impasse. An important issue driving the vote has been the Climate Agreement. Presenting itself as going green and thinking about climate issues, the Rutte government has come up with a climate agreement, which is basically a big subsidy package for polluting multinational companies like Shell (which had a net profit of 20 million in 2018), paid for by households and small businesses through higher energy taxes. The net result is that big companies get a yearly 450 million of subsidies, while households and small businesses pay 1450 million extra on taxes. Baudet demagogically attacked this agreement as hurting the ordinary Dutch people, using climate change denial and conspiracy theories in his message against the climate lobby. This was a distraction from the rest of his pro-business programme, through which he wants to lower taxes on profits and make it easier to fire workers. On the left, however, there was no real working-class answer to this: none of the parties could link the climate issue to the class struggle and expose the reactionary demagogy of Baudet. After it became clear the FvD had become the biggest party in the senate, big shock waves were sent through society. From the youth, there was a radical anti-racist reaction. The yearly anti-racist march, held on 23 March in Amsterdam, normally counted 1,000-2,000 participants. This year the number was 10,000, with clear slogans against the system. This shows positively that the situation is not one of a shift to the right, but increasing polarisation and radicalisation. GroenLinks and the climate movement GroenLinks (the green left), with its base of mostly urban middle-class people, received a lot of votes of mostly young people who are ready to fight climate change. It went up from four to nine seats (12 percent) in the senate. It has become a first point of reference for a new generation of youth that is getting politically active. As it declined to join the Rutte III government in 2017, there is still a lot of enthusiasm for the party, enhanced by the recent climate movement. The international movement of school student strikes for the climate also touched the Netherlands. 10 March saw a massive Climate March in Amsterdam, with 40,000 people marching through the heavy rain. This important issue of climate change has become very important for the new generation. When GroenLinks joins the government or sells out through agreements with Rutte and/or other bourgeois politicians, this will lead to a radicalisation of these young layers. GroenLinks has become a point of reference for a new generation that is politicising / Image: Flickr. groenlinks030 The decline of the Socialist Party Groenlinks is the only party on the left that managed to grow. The Dutch Labour Party, after its historic defeat in 2017, managed to recover slightly (if we compare the results with the general elections of 2017), but still lost a seat in the senate (where it got 9 percent of the votes). Almost half of its voters were older than 65, which shows there is no real recovery in the long term. That's the result of decades of playing the left foot of the Dutch ruling class. The biggest loser of the elections, however, was the Socialist Party. It went down from nine to four seats (5 percent). In the early 2000s, this party was hailed as a great example for the European Left. It was a point of attraction for the advanced layers of the working class and the radical youth. But it has now become a shadow of its former self. Since 2006, the party has been moderating its tone, in order to show that it is a serious, responsible political party. It has been joining municipal and provincial coalitions, even with right-wing parties. In the meantime, many critical left-wing members have been driven out bureaucratically. The bureaucratic centralist structure of the ex-Stalinist party stifles debate and real discussion about political issues. In the 2017 general elections, the party lost a seat, despite having spent years in opposition to a very unpopular government. The party does not connect with the new generation of radicalised young people. During these elections, the leadership stated that the main issue was climate change, with GroenLinks and FvD occupying polarised positions, while the SP was nuanced on this. On this issue, the Socialist Party had a vague reformist programme of climate justice, which involves dividing the burden of averting climate change differently through some tax measures. Instead, it should have come out with a clear, radical programme of expropriating Shell without compensation (as the company has been subsidised and de facto pays no tax), and lowering the energy prices for working people and small companies. In this way, it could at least have presented a socialist alternative to the false dichotomy of green liberalism vs. right-wing demagogy. It is up to the critical membership to save the party. The party's chauvinistic position towards migrants (they are in favour of labour migration controls in Europe and humanitarian asylum application centres in North Africa for migrants that want to enter Europe) has led to a lot of internal friction. There are many members that see the party has been going downhill over the years, but with the excuse of maintaining party unity, the bureaucracy has managed to stop a real internal political debate from taking place. The time is now more ripe than ever to argue for a radical change in course. The next two years for Rutte Rutte's government coalition now has to rule with the support of at least one extra party in the Senate. This can be either FvD, GroenLinks or the PvdA (Labour). The first two options would bring trouble for the coalition government. Getting into an agreement with FvD (on the basis of cutting down the climate agreement and/or implementing more policies against immigrants) would lead to problems with the liberal D66 party and the Christian Union. Meanwhile, GroenLinks could profit from this situation in the next elections. If Rutte makes an agreement with GroenLinks (on the basis of some amendments to the climate agreement), this would be seen as a big sell-out. Rutte's party, VVD and coalition partner CDA (the Christian Democrats) would protest, and FvD would profit from this situation. At the same time, young politicised people would start to see the nature of GroenLinks and radicalise. This would lead to further polarisation. It is not excluded that Rutte manages to make a deal with the PvdA, which has a history of joining together with the right-wing parties, to 'save the day' for the ruling class. However, as the party is still recovering from the dramatic 2017 elections, it might not be too eager to join at this point. With the Rutte government in a weaker situation, the labour movement must step up its battles / Image: PoR If no scenario works out, Rutte has to make a separate, ad hoc deal for every law to pass through the senate. This was the situation for his previous government, but it consisted of two parties rather than four. This shows that no scenarios are really favourable for Rutte and that the first two good years of Rutte III will now be followed by two worse ones. While there has been an economic recovery and unemployment is historically low, the situation is very contradictory. The unemployment figure of 3.5 percent is bettered in Europe only the Czech Republic and Germany. However, the Netherlands has the highest number of precarious 'flex contracts' in Europe after Spain. There is also a huge gap between older workers and young workers. There is an enormous property bubble, with a rise in house prices of 42 percent between 2013 and 2018, while real wages remained stagnant. Getting affordable housing is a constant struggle for working people and youth. When the housing bubble bursts, there will be many victims. According to the OECD, in 2015, the poorest 60 percent of households had negative net wealth, because their mortgage debts were worth more than their property. During the crisis years, there has been a huge attack on wages and working conditions. Now, the labour movement is slowly awakening and fighting back. Since the FNV trade union's offensive for higher wages started last year, there is a lot of talk about a labour shortage, which shows that the situation is now favourable to win concessions from the bosses. It is an economic struggle, but also a political one. The Rutte government raised the lower tax rate from 6 percent to 9 percent at the start of 2019, and that now comes with higher energy taxes. It wants to reform the pension system by taking steps towards the possible privatisation of pension funds. With the Rutte government now in a weaker situation, it is the task of the labour movement to step up its battles. On 15 March there was a huge teachers strike, with 40,000 teachers, from primary schools to university level, demonstrating in the Hague. Big actions against the attack on pensions were held on 18 March, combining demonstrations with strikes in certain sectors all over the country. There is a mood to fight, which should not be betrayed by having illusions in GroenLinks or PvdA making a deal with Rutte. A general day of action of all sectors against Rutte III should be called by the FNV union federation as a first step to further actions. There is a situation of increasing polarisation, as the Netherlands is preparing to join the European mainstream in terms of crisis and political instability. In these conditions, it is necessary to join and help build the Dutch Marxist Tendency, so we can prepare for more turbulent events in the future. To help lower re-offending, UNODC and partners inaugurate two new prison rehabilitation facilities in Zambia 12 April 2019 - Prisoner rehabilitation efforts in Zambia were given a strong boost this week with the opening of two new facilities aimed at curbing recidivism in the country and promoting social reintegration. Initiated under the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's (UNODC) Global Programme for the Implementation of the Doha Declaration, and supported by the State of Qatar, the two centres offer a unique, inclusive approach to reducing reoffending through in-prison skills training and post-release support. At the Mwembeshi Maximum Correctional Facility outside of Lusaka, a Multi-Purpose Vocational Skills Training Centre was unveiled on Tuesday by the Minister of Home Affairs, Hon. Stephen Kampyongo; the Commissioner General of the Zambia Correctional Service, Dr. Chisela Chileshe; and UNODC Regional Representative for Southern Africa, Zhuldyz Akisheva. Speaking at the opening, Minister Kampyongo flagged how the Skills Centre perfectly reflects Zambia's nationwide prison move in recent years from a punitive approach to a rehabilitative one. "The transformation of the Zambia Prison Service into a Correction Service cannot be achieved by mere change of names and declarations. It is a process anchored on a complete paradigm shift in the management of people who come into conflict with the law, and end up being incarcerated." As part of this shift, Minister Kampyongo added that this Skills Centre will act as a lead model for other correctional facilities in Zambia - and hopefully beyond - to replicate. Addressing gathered inmates who will be the ultimate direct beneficiaries of this new centre, Dr. Chileshe meanwhile urged them to embrace the opportunities which are now in place: "You need to grab this with both hands," he encouraged prisoners at the opening who also showcased their multiple artistic skills during the event. He called for the inmates to "maximize their skills" in order for them to better their chances at life success once they leave. On her side, Ms. Akisheva noted that with high levels of re-offending not only in Zambia but across the globe, "the only effective way of curbing this is through rehabilitation programmes aimed at providing employable skills that will give prisoners new opportunities to contribute to society upon their release." Accordingly, she expressed her hope that the facility "will be used to impart much-needed knowledge and vocational skills to prisoners, that will bring about a new life upon release and a bright future for themselves, their families and society." The centre will provide training on a range of diverse skills to the near 600 inmates currently in Mwembeshi Maximum Security Prison. Among others, machinery housed here include those concerning carpentry, electrics, brickmaking and auto mechanics. Several of these machines were donated by UNODC to boost opportunities available to inmates. One such item allows prisoners to be trained on cooking oil production as an option for business and employment after their release. The day after this opening, a new post-release centre was officially opened in Lusaka to go hand-in-hand with the in-prison rehabilitation services being offered and complement those efforts at Mwembeshi. Through UNODC support, the new centre will be run by the Zambian Prisoner Reintegration & Empowerment Organization (PREO). Derrick Malumo, who founded the NGO after having been wrongly convicted and spending six years in prison himself, explained that "the idea for a registration centre was born out of the need to help ex-prisoners who inevitably face stigma and discrimination after their release." As Mr. Malumo elaborated, the centre will not only house an office for the organization to offer their services, it will also include an internet cafe and a coffee shop to generate additional funds to sustain activities. Also speaking at the launch of this post-release centre, the Deputy Commissioner General of the Zambia Correctional Service, Lloyd Chilundika, emphasized how important support is for prisoners once they are released. "There needs to be an organized way that assists people to approach life after their release," he stated. "And this is what is being offered today." He also drew on the late-Nelson Mandela, whose 27 years in prison for his beliefs have been lauded as an example of how anything is possible. The UN's own Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners is more commonly known as the Nelson Mandela Rules in recognition of his commitment to the plight of prisoners and their well-being. Ms. Akisheva also quoted President Mandela, reminding the audience of his oft-recalled remark in reference to prisoners that "a nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones." Reflecting on this, and building on her statement at the opening of the Mwembeshi Multi-Purpose Vocational Skills Centre the day prior, she highlighted that "when released from prison, ex-prisoners face many challenges and have various reintegration needs such as shelter, food, clothing, capital to initiate projects, educational sponsorship, access to health care, legal issues and others." In response to these, "this UNODC-supported registration centre, will provide the much-needed platform to identify needs of released prisoners and provide the required linkage services or opportunities in the community. Prisoner rehabilitation is one of the core elements of the Global Programme for the Implementation of the Doha Declaration that was established after the 13 th United Nations Crime Congress in Qatar. Through funding from the State of Qatar, the Global Programme works with countries across the world to build a culture of lawfulness through a range of mechanisms. Additional information Prisoner Rehabilitation The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners Roadmap for the Development of Prison-based Rehabilitation Programmes The Egyptian parliament's defence and security committee approved a draft law on Monday stipulating a 15 percent increase in military pensions, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported. The head of the defence and security committee Kamal Amer said that the decision will go into effect starting 1 July 2019. Amer said that the increase is an attempt by the state to alleviate the living conditions of both civilian and military employees. The increase in pensions for the army will be at least EGP 150 and the minimum pension will be raised to EGP 900. Egypts parliament must approve all draft laws before they are sent to the president for ratification. Military, police and judiciary members pensions have been increased several times in recent years in Egypt. The Egyptian cabinet approved on Wednesday a draft law increasing pensions and minimum wages for state employees, a statement by the cabinet said. The bill stipulates that pensions for state employees would be increased by 15 percent, with a minimum raise of EGP 150 (approx. $8.6). The bill also sets a minimum monthly pension of EGP 900 (approx. $52), including all increases and allowances. The bill has to be approved by parliament and ratified by the president before it goes into effect. Last March, President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi announced that the minimum monthly wage of state employees would increase from EGP 1,200 to 2,000, to go into effect on 30 June. The last a minimum wage increase for the public sector was introduced in January 2014 from EGP 700 to EGP 1,200. Search Keywords: Short link: Speakers at a workshop have urged the media to mobilise people and raise awareness about the use of vaccines to protect new generation against crippling diseases RAWALPINDI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 15th Apr, 2019 ) :Speakers at a workshop have urged the media to mobilise people and raise awareness about the use of vaccines to protect new generation against crippling diseases. Addressing a media workshop with theme of the year "Protected Together: Vaccines Work" organized by District Health Authority in collaboration with Punjab government and United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, here at a local hotel, Deputy Commissioner Chaudary Muhammad Ali Randhawa asked the media to support the campaign for diseases eradication to be started from April 24 to 30 across the country. Randhwa said media can bridge the gap between the government and public by educating and motivating parents and other segments of the society for vaccination of chronic diseases like Polio, Measles, Pertussis, Diphtheria, Tetanus, Hepatitis-B and Tuberculosis. The deputy commissioner said pro-active and dynamic working procedures have been put in place to improve coordination with the bordering areas of the twin cities and people coming from other areas to stop the transmission of the various viruses in the district. He said all the stakeholders should have to come together and devise an effective strategy to tackle the crippling disease. He said a healthy child is essential for a healthy society and this message should be conveyed at every nook and cranny of the district. Speaking on the occasion, Incharge Anti Polio Drive said no polio case has been detected in the district since 2010 but there is need to create awareness among the people and remove the misconception about anti-polio drops who refused to administer them to their children. He said the Punjab government is actively following Expanded Program on Immunization, a disease prevention programme to reduce illness, disability and mortality rate to achieve 100 per cent results set for the health sector under the millennium development goal. He requested the media to generate a demand from within communities for anti-polio and other vaccinations to safeguard their children against all crippling and deadly diseases. Journalist Tahir Gondal, who participated in the discussion, said media has played a significant role in developing a positive national narrative regarding the elimination of polio and other diseases. Another journalist suggested that the electronic media can play an even bigger role by giving more airtime to social and health issues. Chief Executive Officer Health Authority Dr Rashid Mehmood, Dr Fauzia,Dr Sarwat, Dr Zeeshan, representatives of WHO, UNICEF and senior journalists attended the workshop. (@ChaudhryMAli88) The idea that Montenegro and North Macedonia may count on a "pass" to the European Union thanks to their accession to NATO seems to be naive, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told Sputnik on Monday MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th April, 2019) The idea that Montenegro and North Macedonia may count on a "pass" to the European Union thanks to their accession to NATO seems to be naive, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told Sputnik on Monday. "What do these candidate countries count on? On getting 'more security for less money'? Such slogans were used by NATO in the early 2010s and it was called 'smart defense.' However, in the end, for the sake of the so called solidarity, they will be forced to pay a higher price as defense spending and security risks will increase. [Do they expect that] the 'pass' to the European Union will follow? It seems to be naive," Grushko said. According to the diplomat, the presence of foreign military and hardware in Montenegro and North Macedonia along with alarmist rhetoric cannot help promote a favorable investment climate in these countries. "Foreign investments in the infrastructure and the deployment of troops have a temporal rather then a long-term or a comprehensive effect on the economy. In addition, when joining the alliance, countries are forced to automatically join its generally unfriendly line in relation to our country, which will also cause serious damage to their economies," Grushko added. Macedonia and Greece struck a deal last June on changing the Balkan state's name to North Macedonia that ended a decades-long row between the countries and cleared a path for Skopje to join NATO. The accession protocol on North Macedonia's joining NATO was signed at the alliance's headquarters on February 6 shortly before Macedonia's name change took effect. In June 2017, Montenegro became the 29th member of NATO. A significant part of the population of this former Yugoslav republic opposed joining to the alliance, with protests taking place across the country. (@ChaudhryMAli88) CAIRO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th April, 2019) Nine potential candidates for the Algerian presidency informed the state's Interior Ministry about their plans to run for the election, the ministry said in a statement on Monday. According to the statement, all those who had expressed interest were given forms to collect signatures in their support in accordance with the law. The ministry did not provide the Names of the presidential hopefuls. On April 10, Abdelkader Bensalah, who is serving as the country's interim president, scheduled a new presidential election for July 4. Algeria has been suffering from a political crisis since February when then president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, announced he was going to once again run for re-election after 20 years of presidency. As a result of the protests, Bouteflika resigned on April 2. Bensalah, a long-time ally of Bouteflika, took over as interim president to organize an election in 90 days. However, the protesters demand that entire ruling elite steps down from key positions in the government. MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th April, 2019) Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States urged the Sudanese authorities in a joint statement to ensure that the dialogue on transition of power to civilian rule involves all stakeholders. The transitional council in Sudan was established on Thursday for a period of up to two years, after the Sudanese military removed President Omar Bashir, who had ruled the country for 30 years, from power amid months-long anti-government protests. "It is time for the Transitional Military Council and all other parties to enter into an inclusive dialogue to effect a transition to civilian rule. This must be done credibly and swiftly, with protest leaders, political opposition, civil society organizations, and all relevant elements of society, including women, who are willing to participate," the countries said in a statement, posted on Facebook by the US Embassy to Sudan late on Sunday. "The Troika" has also called on the Sudanese council to ensure humanitarian access to all areas in the country. "Sudan needs a political system that is inclusive, respectful of human rights and the rule of law, and supported by a sound constitutional basis. We call on the Transitional Military Council to take the steps necessary to build confidence with the people by adhering to its pledge to release all political prisoners," the statement read. Sudan has been engulfed by protests since December. The rallies were initially triggered by the rise in prices for bread and other consumer goods that greatly increased the vulnerability of Sudanese citizens. The protests then took on a new dimension as Sudanese citizens started calling for the resignation of Bashir, who has been in power for nearly 30 years. (@ChaudhryMAli88) BRUSSELS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th April, 2019) A young man was detained in the Belgian city of Wavre on suspicion of plotting a terror attack, local media reported Sunday citing the spokesman for the Federal prosecutor's office. A Belgian daily, La Derniere Heure, reported earlier that the young Muslim convert identified went to his grandmother's home on Saturday to say goodbye before carrying out an attack over the weekend. Spokesman Eric Van Der Sypt confirmed to the Belga news agency that a 22-year-old had been detained by anti-terror police and would face a judge soon who would decide whether he should stay in custody. A laptop and cell phones were seized in the operation. The prosecution's spokesman did not comment on what or when the suspect allegedly planned to target in the attack. Election material being transported to a remote village in East Java for the April 17 election. (AFP or licensors) The worlds most populous Muslim-majority nation goes to the polls on April 17, in which incumbent president Joko Widodo is pitched against his old rival, Prabowo Subianto. By Robin Gomes Ahead of this weeks general election in Indonesia, the countrys Catholic Church is urging for clean politics against corruption and violence. It is important to differentiate between clean politics in the highest sense of the word and the electoral race. In Indonesia, healthy politics is overshadowed by pervasive corruption that implicates politicians, officials, civil servants, and government bodies, Archbishop Ignatius Suharyo of Jakarta said ahead of the April 17 election. With a lack of moral conscience, the public has lost faith in its leaders, lamented Arch. Suharyo , the president of the Bishops Conference of Indonesia (KWI), while speaking to the Vaticans Fides news agency. With about 87% of an estimated 270 million people professing Islam, Indonesia is home to the worlds largest Muslim population. Christians together make up nearly 13%. Despite Catholics forming a mere 3.5%, the Church, with its vast network of educational institutions and social outreach programmes, is greatly respected and appreciated. In the presidential race, President Joko Widodo is seeking a second term against his challenger Prabowo Subianto. The two men also faced off in the 2014 election, when Widodo won the popular vote by a margin of about 6 per cent, getting 71 million more votes than Prabowo. Honesty and transparency Speaking on behalf of Indonesias Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Suharyo said clean politics means a clean race and an honest and transparent administration of power that benefits all citizens. When bad practices, such as violence and corruption, become commonplace, he said, a general moral crisis takes place. Citizens are no longer able to distinguish good from bad . Without a moral guide, people are unable to have a good social life. In this situation, he said, the Church should encourage Catholics, inspired by the values of upright politics, to participate in the government framework. Among the candidates running for election are 151 Catholics. Healthy nationalism Arch. Suharyo urged for a politics inspired by a sense of healthy nationalism, that is inclusive, understood as national interest rather than a nationalistic ideology that tries to exploit religious fanaticism to gain power, adversely affecting religious minorities. The 68-year old Archbishop of Jakarta argued that the nation belongs to every citizen and all religions. He recalled outstanding Catholics who contributed to the nation. The iconic missionary, Dutch Jesuit priest Father Franciscus Georgius Josephus van Lith, he said, supported the Javanese in their struggle against the Dutch colonizers. Indonesias first native priest, Fr. Albertus Soegijapranata, also a Jesuit, served as the Archbishop of Semarang. Even though Indonesia has a secular constitution that enshrines religious freedom and diversity, there is a growing threat of intolerance and Islamist extremism in the Muslim-majority nation. Most Indonesians are regarded as moderate but the political climate in south-east Asias largest economy gets highly polarized around election times along conservative and moderate lines. (Source: Fides) Munson posed for all these Panama-Pacific International Exhibition sculptures. The distinguished sculptor, Karl Bitter, working in his studio upon his famous statue Peace, with Miss Munson as his model. Memorial Fountain for Spencer Trask in Saratoga Springs, New York. Plaza Hotel Fountain: Pomona. Pomona was a 24 in (61 cm) plaster maquette at the time of Bitters April 9, 1915 death. Bitters widow asked Isidore Konti to complete the work, which was dedicated in May 1916. Munson was publicly credited as the model for Pomona as early as August 1916. Actress Doris Doscher later claimed to have been the model for Pomona. (Bitter may have used more than one model, or Konti may have used a different model.) USS Maine National Monument (detail), Columbus Circle, Manhattan, New York City. Civic Fame Statue, on the top of the Municipal Bulding, Manhattan, New York. Audrey Munson and Thomas A. Curran in Inspiration (1915). Audrey Munson as The Model, with Thomas A. Curran (left) as The Artist in Inspiration (1915). What becomes of the artists models? I am wondering if many of my readers have not stood before a masterpiece of lovely sculpture or a remarkable painting of a young girl, her very abandonment of draperies accentuating rather than diminishing her modesty and purity, and asked themselves the question, Where is she now, this model who was so beautiful? You may never have heard of Audrey Munson, but youve probably seen her face if youve spent any time in New York. Its similarity can be seen across the city, from Adolph Weinmans golden figure on top of the Manhattan Municipal Building to the New York Public Librarys carved stone facade on Fifth Avenue.Born in 1891, in Rochester, Audrey Munson is regarded as Americas First Supermodel. In her time, she was variously known as Miss Manhattan, the PanamaPacific Girl, the Exposition Girl and American Venus. She was the model or inspiration for more than twelve statues in New York City, and many others elsewhere. Munson was also the first American actress to appear fully nude in film, in(1915), the first of her four silent films.Munsons career as an artists muse began when she moved to New York with her recently divorced mother in 1909. She was 17 and enrolled in music school with the hope of becoming an actress, but Munson was spotted on the street by photographer Felix Benedict Herzog.Identifying her classic beauty and ease in front of the camera, the photographer introduced Munson to sculptor Isidore Conti who said he would only work with her if she posed in the altogether or, in other words, nude.It was this partnership that acted as the launchpad for Munsons career as she went on to meet more artists, sitting for them and gaining more popularity as a model from studio to studio. Gradually her likeness started appearing all around New York, earning her the status of Miss Manhattan.From sculpture to sculpture, her form differs; certain artists perceived Munson as slender whereas others reimagined her as a slightly fuller figure. What remains, however, is her apparent poise and identifiable facial expressions. Munson also could hold poses for hours at a time, and while doing so, would get to know the temperament and technique of each artist she modeled for.Despite having to stay still for most of the day, Munson was by no means passive in her approach to work, and she saw her role as collaborative taking an active interest in the previous creations of artists to inform the way she modeled. As Munson said: Every model who is a real success must study the work of the person she is with.Following the 1915 International Exposition in San Francisco, Munson decided to become an actress. Her on-screen career was short-lived, however: she was repeatedly cast as a still-life model and was even given an acting double in some films to ensure she remained in non-moving roles. Rather tellingly, and unfairly, she became best known for being the first actress to appear nude in a movie (1915s), rather than for her essential role in the creative process, and her work as an advocate for the rights of creative women.Her second film,(1916), made in Santa Barbara, California, is the only one of her films to survive, being rediscovered in 1993 in a pornography collection in France and acquired by the French national cinema archive. Her third film,, also made in Santa Barbara, was completed by the fall of 1916 and copyrighted on December 31, 1918, but appears never to have been released.Munson returned to the East Coast by train via Syracuse in December 1916 and became involved with high society in New York and Newport, Rhode Island. There are accounts her mother insisted she marry Comstock Lode silver heir Hermann Oelrichs Jr., then the richest bachelor in America, but there is no record of Audrey Munsons making this claim herself. On January 27, 1919, she wrote a rambling letter to the US State Department denouncing Oelrichs as part of a pro-German network that had driven her out of the movie business. She said she planned to abandon the United States to restart her movie career in England.In 1919 Audrey Munson was living with her mother in a boarding house at 164 West 65th Street, Manhattan, owned by Dr. Walter Wilkins. Wilkins fell in love with Munson, and on February 27 murdered his wife, Julia, so he could be available for marriage. Munson and her mother left New York, and the police sought them for questioning. After a nationwide hunt, they were located. They refused to return to New York, but were questioned by agents from the Burns Detective Agency in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The contents of the affidavits they supplied have never been revealed, but Audrey Munson strongly denied she had any romantic relationship with Dr. Wilkins. Wilkins was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to the electric chair. He hanged himself in his prison cell before the sentence could be carried out.As a direct consequence or not, the Wilkins killing marked the end of Munsons ten-year modeling career. She continued to seek regular newspaper coverage. By 1920 Munson, unable to find work anywhere, was reported as living in Syracuse, New York, supported by her mother, who sold kitchen utensils door to door. In November 1920 she was said to be working as a ticket-taker in a dime museum.From January through May 1921 a series of twenty serialized articles ran inin dozens of Sunday newspaper supplements, under Munsons name, the whole series entitled By the Queen of the Artists Studios. The twenty articles relate anecdotes from her career, with warnings about the fates of other models. In one she asked the reader to imagine her future:In February that year, agent-producer Allen Rock took out advertisements showing a $27,500 check he said he had paid Munson to star in a fourth film titledbased on these writings. She later said the $27,500 check was just a publicity stunt, and she filed suit against Allen Rock. Those proceedings revealed that the twenty articles had been ghostwritten by journalist Henry Leyford Gates.In the summer of 1921 Munson conducted a nationwide search, carried by the United Press, for the perfect man to marry. She ended the search in August claiming she didnt want to get married anyway. On October 3, 1921 she was arrested at the Royal Theater (later the Towne Theater) in St. Louis on a morals charge related to her personal appearance with the film, in which she had a leading role. She and her manager, independent film producer Ben Judell, were both acquitted. Weeks later she was still appearing in St. Louis, along with screenings of, enacting a series of new poses from famous paintings.On May 27, 1922, Munson attempted suicide by swallowing a solution of bichloride of mercury. On June 8, 1931, her mother petitioned a judge to commit her to a lunatic asylum. The Oswego County judge ordered Munson be admitted into a psychiatric facility for treatment. She remained in the St. Lawrence State Hospital for the Insane in Ogdensburg, where she was treated for depression and schizophrenia, for 65 years, until her death.For decades she had no visitors at the asylum, but she was rediscovered there by a half-niece, Darlene Bradley, in 1984, when Munson was 93. Munson died February 20, 1996, at the age of 104. She was buried without a gravestone of her own in the Munson family plot in New Haven Cemetery, New Haven, New York. In 2016, 20 years after her death, her family decided to add a simple tombstone for what would have been her 125th birthday. Several projects have been underway in raising Vietnamese cities towards smart status, and ABBs partnership with Danang joins the list Under a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between ABB and the Danang Department of Information and Communications signed last week, the multinational group will support Danang in the areas of clean water and leakage management, waste and wastewater management, data centre expansion, and help establish a marine operations centre. In its role as a technology partner, ABB will continue to invest into research and development, and support Danang to develop technological solutions to become more sustainable, competitive, and liveable. In addition, the group will help authorities approach international experts, and connect with other smart city models across the globe to access knowledge and expertise. Danang was ranked in the top 10 of cities worth living in, according to a survey last year by Live and Invest Overseas, the worlds source for information on international living and retiring abroad. The popular tourist destination was also recently ranked 15th among a list of 52 places to visit in 2019 by the New York Times. In recent years, Danang has actively made efforts to modernise its infrastructure, and has achieved a number of significant milestones, including being the leading city on the Vietnam ICT Index, which ranks the readiness for ICT development and applications, for 10 consecutive years, and being one of only two cities in Southeast Asia, alongside Singapore, to use chatbot app technology to promote tourism. Brian Hull, managing director of ABB in Vietnam, said, We are proud to partner with Danang in its journey to make improvements in sustainability, quality of life, and economic growth. ABB products and solutions are at the heart of a citys critical infrastructure, relied upon for everything from the supply of power, water, and heat, to the automation of the factories and buildings we work in. We will bring our wealth of experience in global deployment of similar smart city projects to support Danang in accomplishing its vision. The MoU signing ceremony was part of a workshop organised by the Danang Department of Information and Communications on the building of a smart city in Danang. At the event, ABB delivered a keynote speech titled building a smart city and the technologies required to bring about a liveable environment. ABB already has a track record in projects and smart city development in Vietnam. In particular, the Ho Chi Minh City water distribution capacity enhancement project enabled its customer, Saigon Water Supply Corporation (SAWACO), to monitor network conditions digitally through multiple data collection points and offer actionable insights to reduce non-revenue water. It is estimated that SAWACO will save 50 million cubic metres of water per year, equivalent to a cost saving of more than $10 million annually. Since 1993, ABB has been a pioneering technology leader in power grids, electrification products, industrial automation, and robotics and motion, serving customers globally in utilities, industry, transport, and infrastructure. ABB currently operates in more than 100 countries and employs 150,000 people. AkzoNobel has been promoting the preservation of historical heritages throughout Vietnam Phua joined AkzoNobel in 1999. Her initial role was in research and development (R&D). She undertook a position in the Southeast, South Asia, and Middle East region for 12 years before becoming director of the Global Exterior Wall Paints Expertise & Research Group for seven years. In 2018, Phua began her new role as the general director of AkzoNobel Vietnam. The morale of the Dutch inspires me a lot. The Netherlands is home to many multinational corporations such as AkzoNobel, Philips, ING, and Unilever, she said. These are global leaders in their respective fields, with numerous innovations and creations. The Dutch are also known for their efficiency, work ethics, and incorruptibility. It is not blessed with huge natural resources, however, through wisdom and creativity, the Netherlands has become the worlds most renowned water management expert. A second inspiration comes from the innovations and policies that strive to increase the sustainability of the country. Since Phua has a particular passion for sustainability, the Netherlands combined efforts in transportation, energy, and industry to reduce its carbon footprint has offered her a solid base to develop new products and guide AkzoNobels business. Phuas sR&D teams have unveiled numerous exciting brands, products, and innovations that are both environmentally friendly and sustainable, as well as commercially successful. Popular instances include Dulux Weathershield Powerflexx and Easyclean, both high-performance products made from ecological materials. Phua also actively participates in AkzoNobels promotion of equality and sustainability in local communities.It fills me with pride to have a chance to make changes both in the business environment and in society, she explained. At the United Nations Conference of Parties, she has represented AkzoNobel several times to advocate sustainability and renewable energy. Recently, the corporation launched AkzoNobel Cares, which includes the community programme Lets Colour, the Education Fund, and other activities the company is implementing all over the world to help create a better living space and environment for all. In Vietnam, AkzoNobel has been continuously hosting international events on sustainable development. On the theme of 2019 Heritage Preservation, the group successfully stirred up the architect and urban developer community with two international seminars. Phua emphasised that heritages, if properly restored, could also be turned into revenue generators through Vietnams already-blossoming tourism industry. She also committed to collaborate with international institutional partners as well as local government authorities to support the revitalisation of heritages. In addition, thousands of litres of paint and employee hours have been volunteered to repaint projects on islands, and in villages and schools throughout the country. In a high-profile example, the Dai Lanh lighthouse in the south-central province of Phu Yen was repainted entirely in 2018. As a result of its work, AkzoNobel Vietnam has been honoured by reputable awards across the country such as placing in the top 100 most sustainable enterprises in Vietnam for two consecutive years, and placing in the sustainable development category of the Golden Dragon Awards for the sixth consecutive year. Phua and AkzoNobel Vietnam are ambitious about further sustainability activities in the country, as a theme of global sustainability has been set for Dutch businesses by their government. The company already has a detailed plan featuring more events, scholarships, and repainting projects ready to promote sustainable development in cities, while also indirectly benefitting people in rural areas. Moreover, Phua wants to inspire people to carry out such activities themselves. Although I am new to this role, and despite the particular challenges of Vietnam, we have already reached beyond expectations thanks to steadfast leadership as well as the commitment, dedication, and hard work of my teams. This passion, resilience, and commitment I hold very close to my heart, and are what drive me and my teams. We hope that our success and passion will inspire young people to be passionate about what they do, be creative, and come up with good ideas and products to achieve a brighter and better future for all of us, said Phua. Through the initial investigation, relevant forces found 22,000 pills weighing 8.2kg of suspected meth and 18.4kg of suspected crystal meth. (Photo: VNA) According to Colonel Nguyen Thuong Le, Commander of the provincial Border Guard Command, at 16:00 on April 13, Du Quoc Cuong (born in 1990, residing in Nha Trang city, Khanh Hoa province) and Trinh Cong Nghia (born in 1978, residing in An Phu district, An Giang province), drove a car crossing the border from Cambodia into An Giang. The two were arrested when they had just gone past the Dong Ky ferry station in Quoc Thai commune, An Phu district. Through the initial investigation, relevant forces found 22,000 pills weighing 8.2kg of suspected meth and 18.4kg of suspected crystal meth. The same day evening, police conducted raids on houses of Nguyen Thanh Hai (born in 1978), Nguyen Thanh Phuong (born in 1967), and SLien Tuyen Khoa (born in 1986), all residing in Ho Chi Minh City, for suspicion of involving in the case. The police found 6,850 meth tablets, one kg of crystal meth, and some relevant objects. Hai, Cuong and Khoa were tested positive with methamphetamine. Further investigation into the case is underway. Dien Quang Lamp co-operates with foreign partners to develop laboratory On April 5, SMEQ and Dien Quang Lamp signed a co-operation agreement to select the laboratory of Dien Quang Lamp to implement measuring services for light products and electric equipment to certify that light products and electric equipment satisfy the standards of BoA. Dien Quang Lamp recently signed an agreement with TUV SUD ASEAN a global testing, certification, inspection, and training provider. Accordingly, TUV SUD ASEAN will support Dien Quang Lamp to develop its laboratory and improve cybersecurity solutions for smart homes and relevant products. According to a representative of TUV SUD ASEAN, Vietnam has large demand fortesting and verifying products, however, almost all light and electronic products made in Vietnam are taken aboard for certification. Thus, increasing the capacity of local laboratories will help to save costs and time for enterprises. Kitted out with modern equipment and machines imported from Europe, Dien Quang Lamps laboratory can check almost all safety indices. In the second quarter of this year, the company will take the Dien Quang hi-tech factory and R&D centre into operation. Located in Ho Chi Minh City, these facilities have a total investment capital of VND600 billion ($26.09 million), which will manufacture Vietnamese branded light and electronic products at international standards. The seminar on social dialogue was organised in the afternoon of April 10 The pilot project was officially kicked off in the garment industry in the northern city of Hung Yen, the southern city of Dong Nai, and Ho Chi Minh City. The project will focus on training representatives of employers and labourers about starting an effective social dialogue. According to the Dutch Trade Union, the project will provide models of multi-company social dialogue and collective bargaining that can be replicated or expanded to other industries. At the seminar titled Sharing experiences in social dialogue and collective bargaining in the Netherlands and practical application in Vietnam in the afternoon of April 10, Willem Jelle Berg, vice chairman of CNV International, shared experiences from the Dutch social dialogue project. Jelle highlighted that social dialogue in the Netherlands features not only employers and employees, but trade unions, the government, and other relevant (social) organisations, which is quite different from how things work in Vietnam. Social dialogue is a process which needs efforts and attention every day. It is fragile sometimes. Results which are achieved may be lost. In addition, social dialogue is a continuous process and is built on efforts from all parties involved, said Berg. Trade unions need to be up-to-date, well informed, and well-equipped to be able to put real issues on the table and to obtain results in negotiations. Berg also said that focusing on resolving difficulties related to gender-based violence and the minimum wage are very necessary for social dialogue between employers and employees. Gender-based violence and the living wage are also a major reason behind hundreds of strikes across the country. According to the VGCL, there were 217 strikes over the country last year, down 35 per cent on-year. The VGCL also stated that strikes in foreign-invested companies accounted for the majority. Nguyen Vinh Quang, head of the VGCLs Labour Relations Department said, Our survey showed that some companies still force employees to work overtime more than 1,000 hours per year, while the law stipulates the maximum of 200-300 hours per year. Regarding the issue, Catelene Passchier, vice chairman of the Netherlands Trade Union Confederation, told VIR that many types of research in the world pointed out that more working hours will have less productivity. Therefore, it is imperative to find ways to reduce corporations dependence on labour. In this situation, effective social dialogue plays an important role to help both sides jointly find solutions for their problems and ensuring mutual benefits. At the seminar, representatives of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), the Dutch Trade Union, and related members affirmed that effective social dialogue benefits the sides by reducing disputes and strikes, creating better attachment between skilled labourers and companies, stabilising the number of labourers at companies, and improving mutual understanding between employers and labourers. The benefits will help issue actual solutions to resolve corporations problems. Dutch aviation firms see a wide selection of opportunities in Vietnam Last week, a group of more than 70 enterprises from the Netherlands gathered at the Vietnam-Netherlands Business Forum to work with Vietnamese partners on the possibility of co-operating in a number of sectors of their expertise, including aviation. The gathering took place in the framework of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Ruttes Hanoi visit on April 9. I see a lot of opportunities for Dutch firms in the aviation sector, including airport development and infrastructure projects. Our company is seeking to work with VATM and ACV in increasing airspace capacity and air traffic control, while planning to seek for Vietnamese partners to join aviation projects under the public-private partnership model in the near future, with the Tan Son Nhat and Long Thanh international airport projects among many on our radar, MovingDot, a leading Dutch consultancy firm, told VIR. Together with MovingDot, its partners in the Dutch Aviation Cluster, including NACO, Van der Lande, Districon, and AviaVox are among the most interested. Not only the Tan Son Nhat and Long Thanh international airport projects, but also many others are offering numerous business and investment opportunities for Dutch firms. For example, the newly-inaugurated Van Don International Airport located in the northern province of Quang Ninh, which is the first private-invested airport, needs more infrastructure and services. We have developed all the core infrastructure of the airport, while other infrastructure elements are not in place yet, including hangars, airport maintenance, catering, and others. We are willing to welcome private investors, including foreign ones to join, said Pham Ngoc Sau, CEO of Van Don International Airport. Thus far, Vietnam and the Netherlands have been co-operating well in the aviation sector and now more opportunities are expected to come as the prime ministers of the two countries last week agreed in their joint statement to strengthen partnership in logistics and airports, as well as aviation in the coming time. With its double-digit annual growth in passenger number and cargo, the aviation sector now has the highest-ever demand for infrastructure development to ensure its stronger future growth. Thus, Vietnam is now opening its door wider to private domestic enterprises and foreign investors. In the latest move, Vietnam began working on the amendments of Decree No.92/2016/ND-CP, which governs the conditions for investment and business in the aviation industry. Yjr amended decree is expected to help loosen some restrictions in the sector, thus further liberalising the investment regime. According to the draft amendment, the foreign ownership limit in an aviation enterprise will be raised to 49 from the previous 30 per cent of the share capital. The largest shareholder will be required to be a Vietnamese company or individual. The new Vietnamese-to-foreign shareholder ownership ratio contemplated in the draft is generally in accordance with other Southeast Asian countries. For example, foreign ownership in Thai airlines is limited to 49 per cent. In both Indonesia and Malaysia, local investors must own more than 50 per cent. In the Philippines, foreign investors are limited to less than 40 per cent of ownership. Looking forward, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement will likely have a positive effect on the Vietnamese aviation sector. In the past several months, various European countries such as Spain and the Czech Republic have announced expanding co-operation with Vietnam to increase air travel. The various member countries acceding to the CPTPP have made heftier commitments to each other on air transport-related services than with previous FTAs. This can include activities such as flight training, design and operation of airports, and ground-handling services in various countries. Jetstar Pacific to open new routes for summer flight campaign Low-cost airline Jetstar Pacific announced opening three more domestic routes connecting Danang with Vinh, Thanh Hoa, and Phu Quoc by modern Airbus A320 aircraft to ... Vietnam Airlines adds wide-body planes to Singaporean and Thai routes From this April, Vietnam Airlines will use the latest generation of wide-body Airbus A350-900 and Boeing 797-9 aircraft for the routes from Vietnam to Singapore ... Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte What have been the most important achievements during your official visit to Vietnam? I had a meeting with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, my dear friend. While here, I have seen that Vietnams vibrancy and the level of sustainability are commendable and I am really impressed with that. Vietnamese people remain very nice and hard-working. We also had intensive discussions with Party General Secretary, State President Nguyen Phu Trong and National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, as well as very nice meetings with people from the business community. The visit was accompanied by a large Dutch business delegation, and many contracts have been signed in agriculture, water management, offshore wind energy, and logistics. We have been able to further our friendship with the Vietnamese prime minister, and of course between the two countries. What will be the focus for bilateral co-operation between Vietnam and the Netherlands going forward? Traditionally, co-operation was focussed on agriculture and horticulture. However, now we focus more on water management, offshore wind energy, logistics, and energy transition. We can bring to Vietnam modern technology in these potential sectors. The two countries bilateral relations are growing strongly, especially the economic relationship. My visit aims to further expand and deepen the strong bilateral ties between Vietnam and the Netherlands. I expect that after this visit, bilateral co-operation in economy, trade, and investment will be further enhanced. How do you assess both the current situation and future prospects for further Dutch investment in Vietnam? At the moment we are the biggest investor in Vietnam from the European Union with $9.55 billion in registered capital, and we are also the second-biggest trade partner from the EU, with $7.8 billion in two-way trade in 2018. We take pride that Dutch companies are performing well in Vietnam, such as FrieslandCampina, De Heus, Unilever, Philips, AkzoNobel, Shell, and Damen. They are operating in many localities, such as in Haiphong, successfully teaming up with Vietnamese partners. Now we have a trade commission of 70 companies coming to Vietnam. They operate in a wide range of sectors, such as agriculture and horticulture, water, logistics, and offshore wind energy. They are seeking opportunities to invest in Vietnam and also investment opportunities for Vietnamese companies in the Netherlands. More and more Dutch entrepreneurs are coming here to explore business opportunities, and I am confident that their numbers will continue to increase. Vietnam and the EU are expecting to sign the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) this year. How important is the deal to the trade and investment ties between our two countries? During my meeting with top Vietnamese leaders, we also talked about the EVFTA. I believe that the agreement is very important as it will help remove many types of import tariffs and other barriers for trading between Vietnam and the EU, including the Netherlands. I am a big fan of the agreement, and I believe that the EVFTA will become a new impetus for us to increase our co-operation. Sustainable development is one of many fields of expertise of the Netherlands. How has this trip helped to foster the knowledge and experience exchange in this field? In this regard, we can learn a lot from Vietnam as the country is confronted with many issues. For example, in the Mekong Delta, millions of people are living and being directly impacted by environmental and natural changes taking place. However, they seem to be adapting well to nature, instead of fighting against it. At the same time, we can offer support for the implementation of Vietnamese policies and the development of new ones. We discussed opportunities to improve water logistics, for example, with inland waterways in the Mekong Delta and the modernisation of seaports and airports. We can also share expertise on how to finance water management initiatives to prevent flooding. Special focus is given to private sector financing and the need for the government to give the right concessions to financiers to be able to earn back their investment in the future. Excerpts from joint statement between Vietnam and the Netherlands Both sides expressed satisfaction over successive steps forward in bilateral co-operation in a wide range of areas such as diplomacy, economy, development co-operation, transport, logistics, agriculture, climate change adaptation, management and use of natural resources, and education and training, and cultural exchange. Acknowledging the significance of co-operation, both sides agreed to upgrade the relationship to a comprehensive partnership, with a view to effectively harnessing their co-operation potentials, enabling bilateral ties to expand and deepen with greater dynamism in all dimensions in the years to come. Both sides emphasised their shared commitment to inclusive and sustainable development as reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda. Both sides reaffirm that this is the main pillar of the Comprehensive VietnamNetherlands Partnership, and welcome the contribution of responsible businesses, institutes, associations, non-governmental organisations, and the people of the two countries to the achievement of the SDGs. Both sides reaffirmed that the Vietnam-EU Free Trade Agreement and Investment Protection Agreement are important frameworks for further strengthening economic, trade, and investment relations in a sustainable and inclusive manner between Vietnam and the EU as well as those between Vietnam and the Netherlands, meeting the interests of all parties and contributing to promotion of international trade liberalisation and the SDGs. Both sides also expressed strong support for the ratification of the agreements in the coming months as well as their swift implementation in line with procedural requirements, for the materialisation of their benefits. ICC-Kajima is a joint venture between Indochina Capital, a leading real estate property developer in Vietnam, and Kajima Corporation, Japans most prolific overseas real estate developer. According to Peter Ryder, CEO of Indochina Capital and chairman of ICC-Kajima, this is a key milestone for the first ICC-Kajima project. After carrying out a thorough tender process, we are satisfied with the end result Newtecons has been appointed for basement superstructure and masonry works for this project, noted Ryder. They have worked on several notable projects in Vietnam and we strongly believe that Newtecons will add value to our development. Tran Kim Long, general director of Newtecons, shared that with its extensive experience and strong credentials in hospitality projects, Newtecons will do its best to ensure the highest aesthetical and technical standards for Wink 75 NBK. The project will set a solid foundation for our relationship with the developer and we hope to continue working with ICC-Kajima in its future projects, Long said. Located in a rapidly gentrifying area in District 1, Ho Chi Minh Citys central business district, Wink 75 NBK will appeal to young-at-heart business and leisure travellers. ICC-Kajima and Newtecons break ground on the very first Wink Hotel The 237-room hotel will offer modern design, a hip interactive lobby, a co-working space, innovative food and beverage concepts, cutting-edge technology, and beautifully appointed minimalist-style guestrooms. The Wink brand represents the power and tenacity of Vietnamese people, catering to their fast-paced lifestyle and their growing awareness and interaction with the world at large. Wink aims to champion the affordable luxury segment in Vietnam, with a prominent focus on delivering an exciting lifestyle experience. Newtecons have worked on a series of reputable projects in Vietnam, including Landmark 81, Masteri Thao Dien, Casino Nam Hoi An, and Forest in the Sky Residences at Flamingo Dai Lai. ICC-Kajima expects Newtecons to complete works in November 2019 and is currently tendering the MEPF (mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire) package for the project. I look forward to sharing additional updates with everyone as we move closer to the opening of our first Wink Hotel, said Ryder. With an investment mandate of $1 billion plus, spread over the next several years, ICC-Kajima is committed to developing innovative and high-quality projects throughout Vietnam. Apart from all real estate types of commercial, residential, hospitality and logistics properties, Wink Hotels is a key component of ICC-Kajimas development strategy. ICC-Kajima targets building as many as 20 Wink Hotels over the next five to seven years in Vietnams primary and secondary cities, with potential expansion into neighbouring markets like Cambodia and Laos. Wink 75 NBK is set to open in the second quarter of 2020, and shortly thereafter, will be followed with Wink Hotels in Hanoi, Danang, Haiphong, and other domestic markets. Nguyen Van Thoi Chairman of TNG Investment and Trading JSC Impressive growth Last year, the company posted impressive growth with a 45 and 57 per cent jump in revenue and post-tax profit on-year to VND3.61 trillion ($157 million) and VND181 billion ($7.87 million), respectively. This year, the Management Board set targets of reaching VND4.15 trillion ($180 million) in revenue and VND208 billion ($9 million) in profit. The group has signed contracts that assure their labourers work on a full schedule until at least September 2019. If no bumps in the road appear, Thoi believed they could rake in VND4.5 trillion ($195.6 million) in revenue this year. With or without foreign investment capital in our structure, TNG has always believed in transparency as a way to facilitate production and business activities. This principle is consistent in the companys entire trajectory towards short, medium, and long-term development, said Thoi. The words were delivered after he joined an event hosted by Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi bourses HSX and HNX, leading fund manager Dragon Capital, and the Vietnam Investment Review Group. At the event to honour listed firms, TNG was handed two awards, as a listed firm with the best corporate governance, and with the best annual report in 2018. Besides existing reputable foreign partners such as Zara, Mango, GAP, Decathlon, and The Childrens Place (TCP), TNG has recently gained new co-operation proposals. The company has broadened its customer base with new global brands such as G-III from the United States, Imperial from Canada, and the South Korean brand Chois. The TNG chairman said that the large order intake from foreign partners has provided them with opportunities to select the best to optimise their profit target. The groups current biggest customers, Decathlon and TCP, account for about 66.5 per cent of their total contract value, of which Frances Decathlon makes up 40 per cent. Decathlon is one of the top 20 global distributors and is very picky in selecting partners. To boost profits, TNG has taken the initiative in reducing orders from small partners with low profit margins and shifting towards shaking hands with larger partners. According to Vu Duc Giang, chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association, only TNG in the north and another business in the south are currently able to meet Decathlons strict requirements. Another encouraging factor is that TNG has been gradually shifting into free-on-board (FOB) form, meaning they directly seek input materials for production and deliver foreign client end-products which help to boost the profit margin by an estimated 25 per cent. Thoi said that the application of a modern enterprise resources planning system has allowed TNG to effectively control costs in production. From the beginning of the year, the company has carried out a smart job with cost control, gaining 5 per cent more in return on revenue ratio. TNG boasts partnerships with a whos who of world-famous brands such as Mango, Zara, Decathlon, and GAP A tricky journey The road for the group to reach todays success, however, has not been easy. Applying a new business mindset and cutting-edge management methods has been a mighty challenge with major turnaround in the working style. Transparency and inclusive technology application in production and business and in its finance-accounting system has allowed TNG to draw accurate reports about its production business activities on a monthly basis. The firm also superseded the supervisory board with the Internal Auditing Committee, belonging to the management board, which focusses on ensuring smooth production processes and mitigates risks. Significantly, TNG is one of a very limited number of firms having successfully applied the Whistleblowing misconduct-reporting system in order to improve transparency and allow effective cost control. Furthermore, through the application of new-generation free trade agreements (FTAs), Thoi and his colleagues are confident of taking advantage of the valued opportunities that will arise. At the 2019 annual general meeting later this month, the board will submit the shareholders ambitious business plans with an estimated 15 per cent jump a year in the revenue and profit targets in the upcoming five years, compared to the 10 per cent growth target per year set previously. It is only now that the acute vision of TNGs major foreign investors has been clearly seen. On the sidelines of the TNG bond distribution ceremony last September, Hubert Kim, CEO of fund managers Asam Vietnam, which bought TNG convertible bonds valued at VND200 billion ($8.7 million), said TNG could grow at least 20 per cent in the forthcoming year despite the company setting a modest 10 per cent annual growth target. When Asam Vietnam placed capital into TNG, the latters ticker hovered around VND12-13,000 ($0.54) apiece. Value now has reached VND22,000 ($0.96) apiece. Creating synergies to drive development TNG is one of the listed firms pioneering the complete removal of the cap on foreign ownership. In the context that many business executives not dare to make the move over fear of being controlled by outside investors, Thoi insisted, We are happy to team up with capable business partners to drive development. If the company posted high profits and was able to pay shareholders high dividend, that is our ultimate target. As of now, TNG possesses 11 garment branches and two branches on accessory production with a total of 220 production lines. The company aims to raise the number of garment production lines to 250 by next year, along with gradually reducing the proportion of manually-processed goods to FOB goods to boost profit margins. In addition, TNG has engaged in developing the self-design and manufacturing segment with the TNG Fashion brand reaching 30-40 per cent profit margin ratio. In Thois words, this year and in forthcoming years, TNG will continue applying a comprehensive suite of measures to optimise business results, such as outlining detailed business plans, hiring foreign experts, and inspiring labourers. The company also set aside huge resources to invest in state-of-the art equipment and machinery to boost production. In the northern province of Thai Nguyen, TNGs headquarters and its major production plant sit alongside the factories of a slew of domestic and foreign giants, creating fierce pressure on attracting talent. But the company, with a compelling work environment and attractive allowance policy for labourers, also excels in this arena. Last year TNG employed nearly 2,400 labourers and in 2019 envisages deploying new management tools to boost operational efficiencies. According to statistics from the General Department of Vietnam Customs, in the first quarter of 2019, the textile and garment sector posted $7.3 billion in export value, up13.3 per cent on-year. Although the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association has forecast brighter development prospects for the sector for this year and forthcoming years, chairman Thoi and his colleagues are concerned with availing of the myriad development opportunities in order to develop in a sustainable manner. Thoi said the 15 per cent annual growth target until 2024 presents big challenges to company leaders. They, therefore, wish to have more synergies from business partners to jointly realise the mission of launching TNG to a new high in development. Cambodia has sought to dismiss international criticism over its poor human rights record and democratic standards by highlighting its role in UN peacekeeping missions and other international contributions. In a speech in New York late last month, Cambodias defense minister, Tea Banh, said Cambodia was committed to internationalism, peace, and development. Despite our resources, capacity, and budget for the national defense being still limited and insufficient, Cambodia can still respond to the [UN] requests, he said. This shows our strong determination and commitment to fully contributing to peace, stability, and humanitarian work at the international level. For this reason, Cambodia should receive justice and more encouragement without hindrance to development. He added that Cambodia had a history of promoting human rights and democracy by holding regular elections, saying these commitments were a testament to Cambodias rights policy. Any excuse used to hinder this effort in the form of sanctions or criticism will surely hurt the growth and hard work, he said. Cambodia has contributed troops to UN peacekeeping missions since 2006, sending more than 5,000 officers with expertise in mine clearing and engineering to postings in Sudan, South Sudan, Lebanon, and Mali. But Eng Chhai Eang, vice president of the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party, said the issues of the countrys domestic human rights and democratic records and Cambodias international commitments should not be conflated. He said the Hun Sen government was killing democracy and that the international community should take measures to bring Cambodia back to democracy. Cambodia held elections in July 2018 after the Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP following two successful elections for the opposition. The CNRP has labeled the moves by the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party illegitimate and have called for the military to intervene. The European Union and the United States are examining the possibility of placing economic sanctions on Cambodia if the government does not meet its rights and democratic commitments, including the release of the CNRP president Kem Sokha, who was jailed before the party was dissolved. The EU is considering removing Cambodia from the Everything But Arms preferential trade scheme, while the US may also revoke Cambodias tariff-free access to US markets. But despite the criticism, Banh remains defiant. For the armed forces, if they [opposition officials] want to call for a toppling of the legitimate government, I consider that as a big mistake, he told VOA Khmer. We cant accept that. They are liable for punishment as well for attempting to topple the legitimate government. We cant allow that. For Khieu Him and Bun Kim Eng, orange trees provide hope. The ethnic Chorng and Por indigenous minority villagers maintain an orange tree orchard on their land in Pursat provinces Veal Veng district in western Cambodia. They hope for income from the oranges in the long-run, which can support them for the rest of their lives. But they have lost hope since plans were drawn up for a hydropower dam that will flood their land. The couple has grown about 1,000 orange trees for over the past three years and is expecting their first harvest after Khmer New Year, later in April. I grow these orange trees to support my living when I can no longer work, he told VOA Khmer in a recent interview at his home, a few hundred meters from Anlong Krouch river where the dam will be constructed. I cant grow like this anymore even though I have land, said Him, who now stays at a house with his wife and 15-year-old grandson. The Cambodian government last week announced an 80-megawatt hydropower dam on the Anlong Krouch river, which flows to the town of Pursat. The $230-million-dam will be constructed by SPHP Cambodia, a joint venture between Chinese and South Korean firms, under a build-operate-transfer agreement with the government. If built, this dam will be the latest controversial large hydropower project in the area after a 120-megawatt dam was built in Atai in Pursat provinces Osoam commune, which opened in March 2014. Hims family is among the more than 350 families which will be impacted by the dam, according to Pramouy commune chief, Sek Samath. The income from oranges can be over $10,000 per harvest, according to Him. He said the government should compensate him for lost future earnings. Several villagers told VOA that their land, houses, and crops have been studied and evaluated by the company, but they have no idea when compensation will be granted and what kind of compensation will be offered. I will not agree and not leave the land [if compensation is below $2,000], said another affected villager, Son Pros, a former soldier who lost his left leg when a landmine exploded. I cant use the money to buy any [land] for living, said Pros, who owns three hectares of land. Another villager, Chab Chenda, who lives near the river, said farming and fishing in the village were profitable. It will be difficult [if we move]. We live here and it is easy for growing crops and vegetables. We will buy those at the market when moving, said Chenda, 59. Here at the river, it is easy to catch fish for food as well whenever we need to, he said. Victor Jona, a spokesman of the Ministry of Mines and Energys department of energy, said the construction of the dam will take four years and begin later this year. I think this project helps build the national economy and we will pay suitable and acceptable compensation, he said. Development always has impacts but we try to make it low. Late last year, Cambodia opened the country's largest hydropower dam, producing 400 megawatts, which impacted over 800 families from the indigenous communities. They had protested but then they accepted the compensation offer, including resettlement. But dozens of families did not accept the compensation and remain near the flood zone. Mak Bunthoeurn, NGO Forum coordinator, said discussions on compensation related to hydropower dams are always not well conducted. There is no comprehensive discussion over the compensation with the affected community, he said. Only the company and government are involved. Cambodia hopes to become energy self-sufficient by 2020 and hydropower plays an important role in that plan, says Jona. Since mid-March, the government oversaw electricity cuts for six hours every day, claiming the country was experiencing power shortages. Sek Samath, the local commune chief, said villagers had been banned from building houses or planting crops to make way for the dam. Him and his wife urged the government to speed up the provision of compensation as soon as possible. Im not protesting, but I ask for financial compensation if my place will be submerged, she said. I will take the money to buy land, a house, or something else. Him said he is satisfied to see his oranges growing, but it makes him sad when he is reminded of the dam. But when thinking of the dam, I cant speak and it is even hard to breathe, he said. The United States and South Korea look to revive stalled talks with North Korea. Australia stays out of Assange case. China's President receives an African honor. U.S. farmers plant new seeds of hope amid trade dispute. Resurging measles outbreaks, a power shift comes to light. Deputy Chairman of Sudan's Transitional Military Council, Mohamed Hamdan Daqlu, met on Sunday with U.S. Charge d'Affaires in Khartoum Steven Koutsis. The council said in a statement that Daqlu acquainted the U.S. diplomat with the development of situations in the country, the reasons behind the formation of the transitional military council, and the steps made by the council to preserve security and stability in Sudan. VOA's Zlatica Hoke reports. Officials in eastern Afghanistan say a gunman opened fire at a wedding, killing five people and wounding 15, before he fled the scene. Authorities say they are not aware of a motive for the attack Sunday in Khost province. The Taliban and other militant groups are active in the area that borders Pakistan, but shooting attacks on weddings are rare. The area, however, is rife with tribal rivalries, officials say. Also Sunday, at least seven children were killed and 10 others wounded when an unexploded mortar shell detonated in the eastern province of Laghman. Officials said the victims were playing with the explosive near the provincial capital of Mehtarlam. A provincial government spokesman, Assadullah Dawlatzai, said an investigation was underway to determine how the children found the mortar and why it exploded. He said all the victims were under 15. Ivanka Trump met with religious leaders Monday in Addis Ababa at Holy Trinity Cathedral, an Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo church. The U.S. president's daughter also laid a wreath at the cathedral to honor the victims of last month's Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed all 157 people on board. Trump arrived in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, Sunday for a summit on African women's economic inclusion and empowerment. Trump, who is a senior advisor to her father, visited a coffee shop and textile company in the capital Sunday. She is in the East African country to promote a $50 million initiative enacted by her father in February that is aimed at encouraging women's employment in developing countries. The Women's Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative says it hopes to "reach 50 million women by 2025, through the work of the the United States Government and its partners." "Fundamentally, we believe that investing in women is a smart development policy and it is a smart business," Trump said after sampling coffee at a traditional Ethiopian ceremony. "It's also in our security interest, because women, when we're empowered, foster peace and stability." It was not immediately clear if the controversy that surrounds the U.S. president will follow his daughter to Africa. The president has not been kind in his remarks about Africa and its migrants. Trump is also scheduled to meet with Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed before going on to Ivory Coast, where she will attend a meeting on economic opportunities for women in West Africa. She is also scheduled to make an appearance at a World Bank policy summit. This story originated in VOA's Russian Service. WASHINGTON - At this year's International Arctic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russian leaders made the most peaceable statements to date about Moscow's long-term plans for the a rapidly melting Arctic. Answering questions during the forum's international plenary session, President Vladimir Putin extolled Moscow and Washington's common interests in the region, explaining that he doesn't sense any "special military tension" in the region. Not only does Russia forego military exercises in the Arctic, it's focused on helping neighbors dramatically increase cargo shipments across Arctic sea routes, he explained. "Our aviation activity in the Baltic Sea zone, the Arctic, is an order of magnitude lower than the activity of the NATO countries," he announced to those in attendance, which included the leaders of Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. "This is a realistic, well-calculated and concrete task. We need to make the Northern sea route safe and commercially feasible," Putin added. Some activities omitted But Putin's account of an ambitious commercial program to secure an Arctic foothold, which includes the planned construction of ports, infrastructure and even an expanded fleet of icebreakers, omitted the following activities. May 2017: At Moscow's annual Victory Day parade, Russia unveils new weapons system with missiles outfitted for use in the Arctic. October 2017: Arctic detachment of Russian Navy Northern Fleet combat ships practice live-fire missile drills. February 2018: Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, commander of the Northern Fleet, declares the strengthening of Russia's Arctic military presence with the placement of tactical unit outposts. "This is an Arctic-motorized rifle brigade, a tactical group of coastal troops, air defense units that maintain a watch on the islands of the Arctic Ocean, in the archipelagoes of Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, Severnaya Zemlya and the New Siberian Islands." March 2018: "Putin," a newly released campaign-trail film, shows the president boasting of Arctic-based, state-of-the-art missile-launch detection and tracking systems. "The Arctic region is extremely important for Russia," Putin is recorded saying, and that U.S. submarines "keep constant watch in the Norwegian Sea off the coast of Norway." April 2018: Rosgvardia, Russia's National Guard, conducts transport and assault exercises on the militarily inhabited Franz Josef Land. September 2018: Colonel General Oleg Salyukov, commander of the Russia's ground forces, announces a new generation "Tor-M2" air-defense missile system for use in the Arctic, and he says that the Bastion-P mobile anti-ship and surface-to-surface missile defense systems have already been placed on Kotelny Island. February 2019: Pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper reports on Russian plans for MiG-31 fighter jet patrols of the Arctic, with two squadrons based at the Murmansk region aerodrome and plans for a permanently stationed regiment. US voices: Arctic strategy needs update Some U.S. military officials and legislators have expressed concern that Washington isn't paying enough attention to Russia's military entrenchment in the region. They say the Department of Defense Arctic Strategy, last updated in 2017, largely got overlooked in the more all-encompassing National Defense Strategy, the main U.S. military strategy document signed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In August 2018, Congress passed a National Defense Authorization Act that approved unprecedented funds for the construction of six new polar class icebreakers by 2029. The U.S. Coast Guard has only two -- one of which is 10 years beyond its intended use -- compared to Russia's 46. The bill also calls for an updated Arctic strategy, including regularly updated summaries of regional foreign threats posed by Russia and China, along with specific roles and missions for each branch of the U.S. military. According to one expert, the asymmetry of U.S. and Russian assets in the Arctic may have to do with how Russia sees itself and the resources it needs for long-term planning. "The Arctic is extremely important for Russia, because it's really part of their national identity," said Robert Orttung of the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs. "In contrast to the United States, Russia really is an Arctic country. Much of the territory is in the Arctic, whereas in the U.S., it's simply Alaska, so we don't really think of ourselves as an Arctic country. "I think the most important question for Russia is the energy there, because they depend heavily on the resources," he added. "And going forward, that's going to be the main source of oil and gas for the country. Second, of course, is defense, and they see that as the main way to build up their Arctic resources and to protect themselves against what they see as a potential threat coming from the north." Orttung also says the melting ice has drained the region of its historically romantic mystique, and that easier access to natural resources may open up more possibilities for international trade and cooperation. "In the past, the Arctic was an area that people were extremely interested in, and there were these heroic explorers who really stirred the imagination in Russia and in the West," he said. "Of course, that's kind of changed now. Now the Arctic is seen more as a place of climate change and dramatic changes -- and possibilities -- in terms of trade and energy development." Military dominant situation But the ultimate Russian goal is to have a militarily dominant situation in the Arctic, "especially at a time when the U.S. is perceived as an adversary," he added. "And the U.S. has been spending less money on the Arctic, but I think we have to look at the difference between the rhetoric coming from the Kremlin and President Putin, and the actual development on the ground," he said. "I think [Putin] talks a better game than actually exists, and it's more about presenting the face of developing this military capacity, when in fact there aren't the funds in Russia to actually do that." Orttung also says he sees the Arctic as one of the last areas for prospective cooperation. "The Arctic for Russia and the U.S. in particular is one of the last areas of actual cooperation, where we can work together as a citizen, as scientists, as observers," he said. "So far, it hasn't been infected by the difficulty of Russia's invasion and occupation of Ukraine, for example. That's sort of been kept as a separate issue. So all this increased talk about militarization -- and of course, the U.S. is putting more airplanes and fighter planes in Alaska -- and it's just making it more and more difficult to see how the traditional cooperation that we've had in the Arctic can be preserved in the future." Retired Admiral Gary Roughead, former chief of U.S. Naval Operations, told VOA's Russian Service that Russia, like any country, has a primary interest in protecting and defending its coastal borders, and that it has a geopolitical interest in influencing how sea routes are developed and used. "To see the transpolar routes become more accessible and used ... I think that it adds stature to Russia, and particularly to Putin, to begin to identify as being the premier, most powerful Arctic nation by virtue of what it's doing from a military perspective," he said. While he's no longer directly engaged in U.S. military strategic investments, Roughead said U.S. and European allies should enhance communications and transnational infrastructure for cooperative naval and aerial patrols with conventional and unmanned vessels. "Something that we looked at was the ability to use unmanned aircraft to be able to patrol in the Arctic, because of their long endurance," he said. "And that's something that not only the United States should look at, but Canada and the some of the European Arctic nations to begin to put in place, some cooperatives, activities, perhaps cooperative investments, cooperative operations that allow us to operate up in the high north, routinely, reliably and safely. "For example, unmanned airplanes being able to take off in one country, conduct the patrol and then land in another country," he said. "Just having the infrastructure in place to do that -- that's something Arctic nations should strive toward." Twenty percent of Russia's gross domestic product is drawn from the Arctic via mining and shipping, whereas less than 1% of U.S. GDP is taken from the region. In 2013, the U.S. and Russian signed the Arctic Council's "Agreement on Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response in the Arctic," which aims to improve U.S.-Russia collaboration on research in the environmental sciences, biology, ecology and shipping in the region. Cameroon authorities have detained 30 Nigerians who crossed the border Saturday on suspicion of links to Boko Haram Islamist militants. Police say the group of mainly women and children did not have permission to cross the border or identification cards, and failed to answer their questions, as Cameroon security forces say they traced a bus transporting the detained suspects as it illegally crossed the border Saturday from Gamborou Ngala, a former stronghold of Boko Haram militants in Nigeria. Chetima Malla Abba, the highest-ranking police officer in Cameroons Far North Region, which borders with Nigeria, says when stopped by police, the 30 Nigerians, mainly women and children, raised further suspicions. He says they have been detained for not being able to present any identification papers, not being able to give the names of the people they claim they want to visit in Cameroon, and for entering the country from a Boko Haram alert zone without obtaining the necessary clearance. Abba gave no further evidence for the Nigerians alleged links to Boko Haram. But police say they take such suspicious crossings from Nigeria very seriously. Boko Haram militants, they say, have in the past disguised as commuters, merchants or even clerics to launch attacks in Cameroon. And the group has been known to use female suicide bombers. Police in Maroua say they are investigating the Nigerians identities and reasons for coming to Cameroon. When seen by a reporter, the detained 30 Nigerians, some in burqas, looked tired but in good health. Nigeria authorities had no immediate reaction to the detentions. The governor of the Far North Region, Midjiyawa Bakari, says Boko Haram attacks have diminished in recent months due to increased security measures. But he warned Boko Haram looks for opportunities to infiltrate when many people are travelling across the border for religious or national holidays. Bakari says he ordered the police and military to intensify checks around the border zone as Cameroon prepares for national and religious events. During the Muslim holy month of Ramadan that begins on May 5, international Labor Day on May 1, and National Day on May 20, Boko Haram tries to infiltrate and kill people as they gather around mosques and markets, he says. Bakari also credits efforts by the multinational joint task force of the Lake Chad Basin Commission, made up of troops from Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria for improved security. Boko Haram extended its attacks from inside Nigeria to Cameroon six years ago, after Cameroons troops began assisting the Nigerian military in fighting the extremists. Cameroon authorities say more than 1,500 Cameroonians have been killed in the attacks. Nigerian and regional troops have taken back most of the territory that Boko Haram once controlled, but the Islamist terrorists are still able to launch frequent attacks. The United Nations says Boko Haram killed 88 people in Niger in March, compared to a total of 107 deaths for all of 2018, and that a new pattern of targeting displaced people was emerging. It has been three decades since the death in 1989 of former prominent party official and Chinese liberal reformer Hu Yaobang triggered mass student demonstrations. Those rallies ultimately led to the bloody Tiananmen crackdown in June, known later as the June 4th massacre. Observers say that, while the Chinese Communist Party continues to honor Hu as a patriot, many of his reform initiatives, such as the two-term limit for Chinas president, have been overturned. And they expect social controls to be further tightened as China enters the most politically fraught period of the year in the lead-up to sensitive anniversaries including the 100th anniversary of the May 4th Movement and the 30th anniversary of June 4th massacre. Hus Legacy When I recalled [what] Hu Yaobang [had achieved] some 30 years ago, I deeply felt as if that was from another life. China has become a different country And by his example, you can tell how much this [communist] party has backtracked, said Wang Dan, one of the student leaders in the 1989 Tiananmen protests. "Hu Yaobang neither put his own, nor the Communist Party's grip of power before [the welfare] of the people. It was in his belief that people would live a better life should there be no intervention from country leaders and that the economy and society would revive itself should the party impose no social and economic controls, said Xia Ming, professor of political science and global affairs at The City University of New York. I'd say that no Chinese leaders before or after Hu have shared his vision or style of governance, Professor Xia added. Once the right-hand man to Deng Xiaoping, Hu a leader close to students and workers was sacked from his position as the partys general secretary in early 1987 for having tolerated bourgeois liberalization, or Western democratic influences. Late last year, the Chinese authorities finally unveiled a stature in honor of Hu in his home town of Liuyang, in Chinas southern province of Hunan, but have thus far done nothing to follow through on the legacy he left behind. Political Rehabilitation His biggest contribution [to China] is that he had helped restore order and right the wrongs, Hus youngest son, Hu Dehua, told VOA in an earlier interview, referring to the late leaders liberalization policies, including rehabilitation of members of the political elite who were persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. Among others, the late Hu helped redress the political fortunes of Xi Zhongxun, father to Chinese President Xi Jinping. By ending the elder Xis 16-year purge from the party, and restoring him to a party position in Guangdong, Hu Yaobang paved the way for the elder Xis continued power and influence, and for the younger Xis rise to ultimate power in China today, China watcher Bonnie Girard argued in an article published on The Diplomat magazine. During a private memorial last week at Hus home in Beijing, Du Daozheng, former head of Chinas press and publications administration, lauded Hu as a true practitioner of the spirits of May 4th movement, local media reported. The movement's calls for science and democracy still remain a long-term pursuit for many in China. Du was formerly the publisher of a Chinese reformist magazine, Yanhuang Chunqiu, where Hu Dehua served as his deputy before the publication was shut down two years ago amid President Xis tightening grip on power and aggressive ideological campaign. China organized no public memorials to mark the 30th anniversary of Hus death Monday. But supporters showed up with flowers in front of Hus tomb, which is located in Gongqing City of Jiangxi province. Silencing the Hus Despite his fathers fight for free speech, the junior Hu declined to talk to VOA again, according to one of his close friends. He has to hold his tongue in the wake of the controversy, which involves the authorities' recent demand for him to move out of his parents house in Beijing, his friend told VOA. Hu Dehua was recently pressured to move quickly out of his fathers house a state property the family is no longer entitled to after his mother passed away last March. Xia of The City University of New York argued that the move was meant to send a political message. [China] hopes that his residence won't be turned into a mecca for gatherings or [pro-democracy] activities. Meanwhile, I think, it gave the Hus a heads-up or warning that they are being watched at this sensitive period of time, Xia said. Hu Dehua and his elder brother Hu Deping, former deputy minister of the partys United Front Work under the Central committee, are both known to be outspoken individuals, who often comment on the countrys political reform. Remembering June 4th In addition to discarding Hus political vision, China is also trying to erase memory of the June 4th movement. Celebrating the movements 30th anniversary in June, Wang said it is important to refresh the worlds memory about the student movement and set the record right. It is the governments bloody crackdown, instead of student protests, that stalled Chinas political reforms, he said, rebutting some arguments that tried to discredit the movement. Key Democratic lawmakers on Monday accused the Trump administration of "a bizarre and unlawful attempt to score political points" with a possible plan to send undocumented immigrants detained at the U.S.-Mexican border to congressional districts represented by Democrats. Congressmen Jerrold Nadler, Elijah Cummings and Bennie Thompson, all chairmen of House of Representatives committees investigating President Donald Trump's administration, demanded documents and communications about the plan to move migrants from the border to hundreds of communities throughout the United States. Local officials in areas across the country have declared their jurisdictions are sanctuary cities for migrants, with policies limiting how much they cooperate with federal immigration enforcement and in some cases allowing undocumented immigrants to access city services and obtain identification cards. Federal law does not require local police to detain people based on their immigration status, and local law enforcement officials in sanctuary areas have said they would rather immigrant communities not fear interacting with police. Some states have gone the other direction, passing anti-sanctuary laws requiring cities to work with federal immigration authorities. Trump suggested again Monday he wants to move the immigrants detained at the border to the sanctuary cities and states after saying over the weekend he wants them "to take care of the Illegal Immigrants -- and this includes Gang Members, Drug Dealers, Human Traffickers, and Criminals of all shapes, sizes and kinds." The Democratic lawmakers said, "It is shocking that the president and senior administration officials are even considering manipulating release decisions for purely political reasons." The government's Department of Homeland Security has said that Congress has not appropriated any money to transport the migrants from the border to far-flung sanctuary cities, while the Immigration and Custom Enforcement agency has called the idea an "unnecessary operational burden." But Trump, who is often at odds with Democratic lawmakers over border security funding, revived the idea in recent days, claiming that opposition Democrats who favor what he calls "open borders" ought to approve of accepting the migrants into their communities. Some local Democratic officials have said the migrants, mostly from Central America, are welcome in their cities, while other party officials have claimed that Trump has no legal right to single out specific communities for an influx of migrants. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told the U.S. cable news program Fox News Sunday, "We certainly are looking at all options as long as Democrats refuse to acknowledge the crisis at the border." Trump, in one of several Twitter comments on border security in recent days, said, "The USA has the absolute legal right to have apprehended illegal immigrants transferred to Sanctuary Cities. We hereby demand that they be taken care of at the highest level, especially by the State of California, which is well known (for) its poor management & high taxes!" Washington state Governor Jay Inslee told NBC's Meet The Press that his state welcomes people who are awaiting their asylum hearings. "You can't threaten somebody with something they're not afraid of. And we are not afraid of diversity in the state of Washington," Inslee said. He criticized what he called immigration solutions based on "trolling on the internet" and instead promoted a system to process more asylum claims, a path to citizenship for those already living in the United States who came to the country illegally, and having an overall "acceptance of refugees because we're a humane nation." The United States now houses thousands of migrants at the border but is running out of beds and instead is releasing new arrivals into the country on their promise to appear at asylum hearings that might not occur for two years. Fighting between Chad soldiers and Boko Haram jihadists killed dozens, including 63 "terrorists", in an overnight attack on a military base, an army spokesman said Monday. Seven soldiers were killed and 15 wounded when "the terrorists attacked our forces at midnight in Bouhama... in the Lake Chad region," Colonel Azem Bermandoa told AFP. He added "63 terrorists were killed" and the search for other attackers continued. Chad's Defence Minister Daoud Yaya Brahim and army chief of staff Taher Erda were on their way to the scene of the fighting Monday to "evaluate the situation," said Azem. Last month, 23 soldiers were killed in the Lake Chad region in the deadliest attack yet on the Chadian army by Boko Haram, which launched an insurgency in Nigeria a decade ago. The unrest has spread to neighbouring Niger and Chad with the Boko Haram revolt claiming more than 27,000 lives and uprooting more than 1.7 million people. Troops from Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria have been grouped into a mixed, multi-national force to fight Boko Haram. Since June last year, Boko Haram has struck inside Chad at least seven times. European Union countries on Monday overruled France and gave the green light for Brussels to open trade talks with Washington as soon as possible and defuse trans-Atlantic tensions. The EU's 28 member states had struggled for months to agree on a mandate to open the talks, with some fearing the delay would restart a trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump. But EU ministers meeting in Luxembourg approved a mandate to negotiate "an agreement limited to the elimination of tariffs for industrial goods only" and another accord designed to remove non-tariff barriers. The ministers said the mandate would exclude agriculture products, which EU trade minister Cecilia Malmstrom said amounted to a "red line" for Europe. U.S. officials have pushed for farm products to be included. "I will now get in contact with our American partners with a view to organizing a date for the first round as soon as possible," Malmstrom told a press conference in Brussels. "If we agree to start, I think it can go quite quickly," the Swedish commissioner added. Malmstrom underlined the determination of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, to finish the talks before its five-year term ends on October 31. 'Climate chaos' EU sources said France voted against the mandate and Belgium abstained during the Luxembourg meeting. Pursuing a limited trade deal is a key element of a truce negotiated in July that came close earlier this month to imploding after the U.S. threatened $11 billion in fresh trade tariffs against Europe. Paris voted against the mandate over worries about domestic blowback just months ahead of European elections, set for May 23 to 26. French President Emmanuel Macron has insisted the U.S. first sign back up to the Paris climate accord after Trump dumped the pact in 2017, infuriating Macron. But only a qualified majority of EU members was needed to support the talks, meaning France's "non" remained largely symbolic. Greenpeace has called on the Commission and national governments not to enter into trade negotiations with any country that rejects the Paris climate pact. "EU-Trump trade talks would seriously call into question the EU's resolve on climate change," Greenpeace's Naomi Ages said, warning time was running out to prevent "climate chaos." In a bid to win France over, its EU partners agreed to insist on environmental guarantees during the talks with Washington. In another sop, they also made a specific mention that TTIP, a far more ambitious transatlantic trade plan that never materialized, be officially called "obsolete". The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Paratnership talks stalled following widespread protests in Germany, France and Austria over fears it would undermine EU standards on food and health. At France's demand, agricultural products are also off the table. 'Ease trade tensions' Berlin wants the limited deal in order to placate Trump and avoid U.S. auto tariffs that would punish Germany's cherished exports. The mandate from the EU stipulates that the talks would end if the U.S. pursued more levies against Europe, including on cars. It also says the EU cannot conclude the negotiations as long as the metal tariffs remain. The limited deal concerns only industrial goods, excluding the automotive sector. Fishing is also included, but not agriculture, services or public procurement. The U.S. however insists its wants to discuss agriculture, while Europeans would like to include cars. Both sides will have to bridge the gaps before the start of talks. At a meeting last July at the White House, Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker pledged no new tariffs following those on steel and aluminium. That peace was in danger earlier this month after the U.S. threatened to impose tariff counter-measures of up to $11.2 billion on a host of European products in response to subsidies received by aircraft maker Airbus. But Malmstrom said: "This is a welcome decision that will help ease trade tensions." A fire has caused massive damage to the famed Notre Dame Cathedral in central Paris, but firefighters say they have saved the building's two iconic towers and stone structure. Paris fire brigade chief Jean-Claude Gallet told reporters outside the cathedral Monday night that "the main structure of Notre Dame has been saved and preserved." He said one firefighter was seriously injured trying to put out the huge blaze in the French capital. The flames, which at one point burned upwards of 10 meters into the air, destroyed much of the cathedral's roof and caused its spire to collapse before firefighters brought the blaze under control. A cathedral spokesman, Andre Finot, told French media earlier Monday that the entire wooden interior of the cathedral is likely to be destroyed. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo thanked firefighters and police officers for helping to save holy objects and major works of art from the site of the 12th-century cathedral. "The worst has been avoided, even if the battle has not been totally won yet," French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters at the cathedral shortly before midnight local time. He said he would launch a national fundraising campaign to rebuild the cathedral, and called on the worlds greatest talents'' to help with the effort. Firefighters continued to work through the night to cool some of the cathedrals interior structures, which were still at risk of collapsing. Thousands of onlookers lined bridges over the River Seine late into the night to watch the scene and others gathered at the nearby Saint Julien Les Pauvres church to sing hymns and say prayers. It is not clear what caused the blaze, although French media reported that fire officials said the blaze could be "potentially linked" to renovation work being done at the building. Several sections of the building had been under scaffolding and officials say bronze statues were removed last week for the renovation. The Paris prosecutor's office said it had launched an inquiry into the fire and said it was treating the blaze as an "involuntary" fire. The Vatican released a statement expressing shock and sadness and called Notre Dame a "symbol of Christianity in France and in the world." The fire came during Catholic Holy Week commemorations, and less than a week before Easter. An Easter Mass had been planned at the cathedral on Sunday. Paris Archbishop Michel Aupetit invited priests across France to ring church bells in a call for prayers. Firefighters in Paris evacuated buildings nearby Notre Dame and cleared the area around the cathedral as ash fell over the surrounding blocks. Witnesses said firetrucks sped to the area after the fire broke out shortly before 7 p.m. local time. The medieval Catholic cathedral is one of the most visited historical monuments in Europe, welcoming millions of people each year. It dates to the 12th century and is famous for featuring in Victor Hugo's classic novel, "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame." Situated on the Ile de la Cite, an island in the River Seine, the building is known for its stone gargoyles, stained glass windows and the iconic flying buttresses that hold up its walls. The former general Prabowo Subianto desperately wants to be the next president of Indonesia. His failed bid five years ago hasnt deterred him and he is campaigning with a ruthless gusto, backed-by firebrand Islamic clerics and nationalists. Yet his strategy to oust the incumbent, President Joko Jokowi Widodo, is struggling, particularly in an electorate where mundane issues like transport and getting the kids off to school will hold far greater significance when ballots are cast on April 17. Writing in the South China Morning Post, Michael Vatikiotis, author of "Blood and Silk: Power and Conflict in Modern Southeast Asia," stirred the political pot by suggesting this election had divided Indonesians between the urban middle classes and conservative Muslims desiring a caliphate. "Over time I have noticed that competitive politics increasingly divides the country socially, though not so obviously along class lines, as in Europe. In Indonesia the electoral divide is, alarmingly, along religious lines between Muslims and non-Muslims, he wrote. Economic growth and development most important Reports on the rising number of jihadists, including the Center for Strategic and International Studies which says the number had quadrupled since 9/11 are worrying and there are concerns in Indonesia about ISIS fighters returning from Syria and the Middle East. Greg Barton, chair of Global Islamic Politics at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization Australia, said the number of jihadists in Indonesia had increased, particularly in the countryside where a harsher brand of Islam is often promoted. But he added their numbers were measured in the thousands and that they were not a threat in the current election climate, which in a population of 264 million people is being dictated by economic growth and development. Where Indonesia is tracking 20 years on into this democratic transition is that all the parties acknowledge Islam as being important, with the exception of a few very minor parties that probably wont meet the threshold to get into parliament, he said regarding parties that see Islam as an absolute. They include the Prosperous Justice Party or PKS and the Pembela Front Islam or FPI. Both are advocating a greater Islamic agenda eschewed by Jokowi and even Prabowo who noted during a recent nationally televised debate that his mother was a Christian. Barton said there was a big gap between identity politics the backbone of the PKS and FPI and advocating violence to support a caliphate, an enormous difference to the likes of Jemaah Islamiyah and the bombing campaigns it conducted across the archipelago in the 2000s. They are planning for the longer term to try and change legislation and try and get through some more agreeable Islamic legislation. Thats a real threat because it means that the principles of liberal democracy can be slowly eroded and die of a death of a thousand cuts. But the reality is on Wednesday is they wont be major players, he said. Changing election scene Bartons sentiments were echoed by Lin Neumann, Managing Director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Indonesia, who said the hallmarks of this election were peaceful political rallies and a type of free speech that was not prevalent two decades ago. Indonesia as you know is a much different to place to what it was in 1998 following the downfall of Suharto, he said. In those years we worried about the Balkanization of Indonesia, there were fears that the nation could fall apart, there were fears that the military could move against the civilian government and none of those things really came to pass. Indonesia since 1998 has actually become, I would argue, the most stable democracy in Southeast Asia, Neumann said. We dont have the kind of pent-up turmoil and anger that Malaysia has, we havent had the coups and the uncertainty that Thailand faces, we havent had the kind of unrest that periodically grips The Philippines. Its not a one party state. It is a democracy. President appears to be ahead in polls Barton said all the polls suggest Jokowi should win comfortably. I think as long as the margin in terms of the presidential election between Jokowi and Prabowo is say eight-10 percent the result will be accepted. If it got down to sort of three percent or less, then I think we could see some contestation, he said. Another concern was protest votes, particularly among the youth who dont see any major distinctions between the two main candidates. This was a major factor in the turnout at recent elections in Thailand, and in Cambodia last year where a ban on the main opposition party guaranteed its return to a one-party state, triggering potential sanctions and a loss of trade preferences in the United States and Europe. If he doesnt get re-elected it will be because of millennial voters and bear in mind that 60 million potential voters out of a potential of 190 or more million voters are under the age of 30, so its a fair chunk of the vote, he said. Julian Assange's supporters have assembled a powerful legal team to try to block the founder of the cyber-hacking site WikiLeaks from being extradited to the United States, following his arrest in London last week. Among them are lawyers who recently defeated U.S. efforts to extradite other hackers from Britain in prolonged legal hearings or who have defended clients in high-profile human rights cases. WikiLeaks, the secret-spilling website which has focused most of its attention on the U.S. and Western countries, has been preparing a war chest and is aiming to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend Assange, who is wanted in the U.S. on hacking offenses. The extradition request from the U.S. came last week after the 47-year-old Australian was stripped of his diplomatic protection by the Ecuadorian government and British police were invited into Ecuador's embassy, where he had been provided with sanctuary for the past seven years, to arrest him. Assange, who is seen by his supporters as a whistleblowing hero but by his critics as being at best a dupe of the Russian government and at worst an active agent of influence,' jumped bail in Britain in 2012 during court hearings to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted for questioning on rape and sexual assault allegations. His long drawn-out defense against the Swedish extradition request ended up going all the way to Britain's Supreme Court and is estimated to have cost about $20 million. Manning has been in jail since March 3, when a federal judge found her in contempt for refusing to testify in front of a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks. The grand jury has been probing WikiLeaks since 2010 when it started publishing hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and confidential information Manning leaked to Assange on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as diplomatic memos. Much of the material wasn't redacted and the lives of confidential sources have been imperiled by the en masse leaking, to the fury of U.S. intelligence officials. As British government lawyers and Assange's defense counsel started to draw up the legal battle lines Monday, security camera footage of Assange's behavior in the Ecuadorian embassy was published by Spanish newspaper El Pais. Assange's supporters say the Ecuadorian government's action of inviting the British police into the embassy to arrest him was unlawful and they dispute claims about anti-social behavior. Ecuadorian officials have accused Assange of bullying staff and security guards and of being unsanitary and slovenly, failing to flush the toilet, to clean up after himself and of leaving dirty laundry scattered about. One of his lawyers, Jennifer Robinson, said Sunday, "Ecuador has made these allegations to justify the unlawful and extraordinary act of letting police come inside the embassy." In the footage leaked to El Pais, which reveals the deteriorating relations between Assange and embassy workers, the hacker is seen skateboarding and angrily confronting one of the guards when the guard insists that Assange's late-night visitors leave the building. The guests only left in the early hours of the morning apparently when the ambassador arrived and demanded their departure. Assange was initially welcomed at the embassy when he skipped bail in 2012, but that changed when the Ecuadorian presidency changed from Rafael Correa to Lenin Moreno. The latter has moved away from his predecessor's populist leftism to adopt more social democratic and centrist policies. Ecuadorian officials, including Moreno, are continuing to insist they had no choice but to evict Assange as he had turned the embassy, they say, into a "center for spying." In an interview with Britain's The Guardian newspaper, Moreno said, "We cannot allow our house, the house that opened its doors, to become a center for spying." WikiLeaks document releases concerning the Vatican were among those thought to have angered Moreno. He was also upset when the WikiLeaks founder used his Twitter account to post messages of support for Catalan independence and accused the Spanish government of repression. Moreno told Assange he had no reason to interfere in the politics "of nations that are our friends." WikiLeaks also released documents purportedly showing Moreno had secret bank accounts and hidden wealth. Moreno has said Assange violated the terms of his asylum. More than four years after a brutal civil war in Yemen that has claimed thousands of lives and has pushed millions to the brink of starvation, Houthi rebels are ready to establish relations with the United States, an official responsible for the group's foreign affairs told VOA. The conflict in Yemen started in 2015 and escalated into a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia when a Saudi-led coalition intervened to help the internationally recognized government roll back Iran-aligned Houthi rebels. The United States also became involved by providing the Saudi-led campaign aircraft refueling and some intelligence support. In an exclusive interview with the Voice of America, Hisham Sharaf Abdullah, the foreign minister of the Houthis' self-proclaimed National Salvation Government, said the group wishes to build relations with the U.S. as the warring sides seek to find a solution in the U.N.-led peace talks. "Surely we are interested in having a good relationship with the United States. Everyone should know that," Abdullah told VOA Thursday in a phone interview from the capital Sanaa. US congressional resolution U.S. lawmakers last week voted on a resolution forcing an end to U.S. military support for the Saudi-led campaign. In turn, the White House condemned the measure and warned it would harm U.S. relations with its allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia. Abdullah criticized U.S. President Donald Trump's administration for supporting the Saudi-led coalition, blaming the Saudi government for lack of a peace resolution in Yemen. "When we speak about the U.S., we don't only speak about the administration. We speak about the big U.S., the big continent of a political system, and the people of the U.S., their Congress and their Senate," Abdullah said. Iranian support The Trump administration has been considering whether to designate Yemen's Houthi rebels a terrorist organization due to its close ties with Iran, according to a report by The Washington Post last year. Officials in Washington accuse Houthis of getting direct military and financial support from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran's elite force that will be labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S., effective Monday. But Houthi leaders are denying those allegations, maintaining that their relations with Tehran are diplomatic to gain humanitarian support for affected civilians in Yemen. "There is no military cooperation with Iran at all. Iran is trying to keep a good relationship with us for the sake of Yemeni people," said Abdullah, adding the Houthi group is depending on stockpiles of old weapons and rejecting claims that it is using Iranian-made missiles to reach the Saudi soil. The Houthi movement consists mostly of the Shiite sect known as the Zaidis, which account for nearly 35 percent of Yemen's nearly 30 million population. The group has accused the majority Sunni sect of marginalization in the past. Since the 2015 conflict, the Houthis have transformed themselves from an isolated group in northeastern governorate of Saada to a local de facto state ruling a bulk of Yemen's key areas in the north, including the capital Sanaa. Their control has come at a heavy cost, however, with tens of thousands killed on both sides of the conflict and has caused what the United Nations said is the world's most urgent humanitarian crisis. Pre-famine state The U.N. warns that two-thirds of all districts in the country are in a "pre-famine" state and an estimated 80 percent of the population are in need of some form of humanitarian assistance. A U.N.-sponsored initiative began in early December, when representatives from the warring sides came face-to-face in Sweden to discuss a peace process and agreed on a truce. But the effort has remained fragile as violence continues and each side blames the other for exploiting the process to prepare for war. Human right activists, meanwhile, are raising concerns over human rights violations by Houthis, including allegations of arbitrary detentions, torture and kidnapping. Baraa Shiban, a Middle East and North Africa case worker with Reprieve, a U.K.-based nonprofit organization, and an adviser to the Yemeni Coalition for Human Rights, told VOA that Houthis do so with the aim to spread fear to intimidate journalists and activists from protesting against them in the future. "Activists were detained and then released, but all of them were transferred to the hospital in Sanaa, we saw signs of literally torture and severe beating," Shiban said. "One of the activist died one day after being released." VOA could not independently verify Shiban's claims. Abdullah, of the Houthi movement, downplayed these allegations and claimed the group is working with rights organizations to address them. "We asked human rights organizations to write to us about all allegations against Yemenis, they are having some talks with us, and we are trying to resolve these issues," Abdullah said. Also, there are accusations that Houthis are blocking access to the delivery of much-needed food and medicine to civilians in Yemen. Abdullah stated that of all assistance coming to Yemen, his self-proclaimed government only gets 30% of the total assistance. "Everyone in America and in Europe should know that our government has only 30% of the assistance, the rest is being managed by the World Food Program (WFP) and nongovernmental organization and we don't know what the hell they are doing," Abdullah said. "When they have a problem, they throw it on us." Despite the setbacks in peace talks, Abdullah expressed optimism that a compromise could be reached. "There are many who are profiting from this conflict and don't want this war to end. I believe both faith and confidence between all parties to the conflict are crucial and can lead to a successful peace talk," he said. The White House on Sunday, echoing President Donald Trump, said sending undocumented migrants to sanctuary U.S. cities that have protected them from deportation remains a possibility even though government agencies have said it would be impractical and there is no money allocated to do it. "We certainly are looking at all options as long as (opposition) Democrats refuse to acknowledge the crisis at the border," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told the "Fox News Sunday" show. Trump said late Saturday on Twitter, "Democrats must change the Immigration Laws FAST. If not, Sanctuary Cities must immediately ACT to take care of the Illegal Immigrants - and this includes Gang Members, Drug Dealers, Human Traffickers, and Criminals of all shapes, sizes and kinds. CHANGE THE LAWS NOW!" Hundreds of U.S. cities, along with California, the country's most populous state, have declared themselves as havens for migrants who have illegally crossed the southern U.S. border with Mexico, refusing the help U.S. immigration officials to track down the immigrants so they can be deported. U.S. border authorities apprehended more than 100,000 undocumented migrants, mostly from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, at the border in March, nearly twice that in the same month in 2018. "The USA has the absolute legal right to have apprehended illegal immigrants transferred to Sanctuary Cities," Trump said. "We hereby demand that they be taken care of at the highest level, especially by the State of California, which is well known (for) its poor management & high taxes!" Washington state Governor Jay Inslee told NBC's "Meet The Press" that in his state he welcomes people who are awaiting their asylum hearings. "You can't threaten somebody with something they're not afraid of. And we are not afraid of diversity in the state of Washington," Inslee said. He criticized what he called immigration solutions based on "trolling on the internet" and instead promoted on based on adding capacity to process more asylum claims, a path to citizenship for those already living in the United States who came to the country illegally, and having an overall "acceptance of refugees because we're a humane nation." The U.S. now houses thousands of migrants at the border, but is running out of beds and instead is releasing new arrivals into the U.S. on their promise to appear at asylum hearings that might not occur for two years. The Department of Homeland Security has said that Congress has not appropriated any money to transport the migrants from the border to far-flung sanctuary cities across the U.S., while the Immigration and Custom Enforcement agency has called the idea an "unnecessary operational burden." Sanders said, "Nobody thinks this is the ideal solution," sending migrants to sanctuary cities. But she said mayors of cities "who want this ... should be looking to help" Trump resolve the crisis at the border. She accused Congress of wanting to spend "all of its time investigating the president" rather than dealing with the immigration turmoil at the border. Trump tweeted, "So interesting to see the Mayor of Oakland and other Sanctuary Cities NOT WANT our currently 'detained immigrants' after release due to the ridiculous court ordered 20 day rule. If they dont want to serve our Nation by taking care of them, why should other cities & towns?" Trump was referring to a court ruling prohibiting the U.S. from detaining migrant minors, those under 18 years old, for more than 20 days, before being required to release them to relatives in the U.S. or other care givers. Oakland Mayor Libby Shaaf responded to Trump with a tweet saying, "It's time to stop fanning hate and division." "I've been consistent and clear: Oakland welcome all, no matter where you came from or how you got here," she said. A key Republican lawmaker, Sen. Lindsey Graham, told another Fox News show, "Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo," that after the current two-week congressional recess ends, he would introduce legislation that would authorize the detention of children beyond 20 days, "toughen up our asylum standards," and allow migrant children to be returned to Central American countries, which is not now allowed once they have entered the United States. "We're never going to change this with troops and walls at the border," Graham said of the U.S. immigration crisis. "Doing what we're doing is not working." He added, "If you get one foot into the United States," migrants can seek asylum. "The word is out that if you come with a minor, you're never going to get deported. We need to change that narrative. We need troops at the border. We need a law. But these (U.S.) laws are insane." Analysts see this month's re-opening of an air link between Tehran and Caracas as the latest evidence of Iran's growing role alongside Russia and Cuba in bolstering the multilayered security apparatus keeping Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in power. Mahan Air, a private airline sanctioned by the United States for its links with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), initiated flights between Tehran and Caracas last week, according to Iranian civil aviation officials who announced the initiation of the air route when a Mahan airliner landed in Caracas on April 8. "Unless Iran has suddenly become a source of tourists, this is another reason why the regime of Maduro has become a threat to the security of the U.S.," tweeted Senator Marco Rubio, who has major input into the Trump administrations Latin American policy. Spokesmen for Irans civil aviation organization have told the official Mehr news agency that the Mahan airliner carried high-level foreign ministry officials and airline executives. IRGC Quds Force officers have worked with diplomatic cover at Irans large embassy in Caracas, providing intelligence and other assistance to the Venezuelan government, according to Pentagon reports. The United States imposed sanctions on Mahan Air in 2011, saying it provided financial and other support to Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guards, which the State Department designated as a terrorist organization last week. France and Germany banned the airlines flights earlier this year, accusing it of transporting military equipment and personnel to Syria and other regional war zones. Iran operated regular flights between Teheran and Caracas with stopovers in Syrias capital Damascus about 10 years ago, when the two governments were exchanging state visits and signing a series of cooperation agreements. The flights were suspended after the U.S. voiced suspicions about passengers and cargo being offloaded at a special VIP section of Venezuelas Simon Bolivar airport with no customs or immigration checks. Iran joined Russia, Cuba and Turkey in declaring support for Maduro after President Donald Trump withdrew U.S. recognition from his government and threw his weight behind parliamentary leader Juan Guaido in February. The U.S. administration has toughened sanctions and threatened to intervene militarily to topple the Maduro administration. Venezuela and Iran have joint military ventures including the manufacture of munitions and surveillance drones, according to Venezuelas ex-defense minister Raul Baduel. Opposition sources say Iran has also negotiated mining concessions to tap Venezuelan uranium deposits and that some samples were flown from Caracas to Teheran by way of Damascus in 2010. The administration of President George W. Bush formed a special unit to investigate Irans activities in Venezuela, according to its director David Asher, who told the U.S. Congress that President Barack Obama disbanded his team for fear that its findings could jeopardize negotiations to curtail Irans nuclear program. According to U.S. intelligence agencies, top officials of Maduros regime have close connections with Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and other countries. Hezbollah enjoys Iranian support and is fighting in Syrias civil war on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad. Maduros former vice president Tareck El Aissami is under U.S. indictment for funding Hezbollah with proceeds from a Venezuela-based drug trafficking ring. He met in Syria last week with Assad, according to Venezuelan state media, which quoted him as saying there were similarities between the conflicts in Syria and Venezuela. El Aissami played a key role in dismantling a coup plot against Maduro last year when he ordered the arrest of almost 100 army officers. He has also organized paramilitary colectivos to silence the opposition, arming them with Iranian-made 5.56-mm compact versions of the Russian AK-47. A Venezuelan colectivo leader of Lebanese origin, Ghazi Nasr al Din, ran a paramilitary training and recruitment center out of a gym in downtown Caracas. He is on the FBI terrorism watch list for facilitating the travel of Hezbollah members to and from Venezuela. He has also traveled as a diplomat to Syria and Iran. !ran is playing a far larger role in designing Venezuelas security structure than is commonly known, says James Humire, a Washington-based policy analyst and author who lectures on Latin America. At a recent U.S. Congressional hearing, Humire presented a list of over 2,000 Venezuelan passports issued to suspected members of Hezbollah, Hamas and other Iranian-supported Islamist groups Retired Venezuelan National Guard brigadier Marco Ferreira has told VOA that some of the passports were issued when he worked at the interior ministrys immigration office under the supervision of Cuban security advisors. He said one reason for establishing the Iranian air link was to facilitate the movement of suspect nationals from Middle Eastern countries. Rear Adm. Touraj Hassani Moghadam, Iran's deputy head of naval operations, told the Meher news agency in December that the navy wants to send a flotilla equipped with special helicopters on a five-month mission to Venezuela. Nicaragua's government said Monday it will implement a program to guarantee the safe return of exiles, a proposal the opposition dismissed as "absurd." Anyone who fled in the past year and does not have an open court case or formal accusation against them will be eligible to return, the foreign affairs ministry said in a statement. It said the International Organization for Migration will provide technical support. The government made the proposal to the opposition Civic Alliance on April 10, but said it didn't reach a consensus. Alliance director Azahalea Solis said the group rejected the proposal as "absurd." "It's ridiculous to act like the exiles would believe the same government that threatened them, persecuted them, killed their relatives and occupied their houses is now going to safeguard their lives and safety," Solis said. She said the proposal did not include any real mechanism for protecting those who return. According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, at least 325 people have been killed during the past year of unrest. The commission estimates there are more than 52,000 people who have fled the country, mostly to Costa Rica. The Civic Alliance believes there are at least 160 people who fled the country while facing an arrest order. Solis said the alliance had countered the government's idea with a plan for returns to be supervised by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, but said the government rejected that idea. The government has opposed the commission as a guarantor of the negotiations. She also criticized the government for not completing the release of political prisoners that authorities had promised. 'Tremendous joke' Jairo Bonilla, a student protest leader who went to Costa Rica last year, said he still receives daily threats from government supporters. "For us as exiles there is no guarantee that we could return and nothing would happen to us," said Bonilla, who maintained that he is accused falsely of violent acts during the protests. Bonilla also said President Daniel Ortega is trying to relieve international pressure on his government. "He wants to make it seem like everything is normal in Nicaragua, that Nicaragua is negotiating, when every day they are killing more people, they are arresting more people without the world realizing it," Bonilla said. Human rights activist Sara Henriquez, exiled in Italy, called the proposal a "tremendous joke." "We don't have any assurance that they aren't going to kill us," she said. "All of us who left for exile, it was because we were threatened with death or we have cases with the police." The submersible dropped from the oceans surface faster than I had expected. With a loud psssssss the air escaped from the ballast tanks and the small craft suddenly tilted forward. Within seconds, aquanaut Robert Carmichael and I were enveloped by a vibrant shade of blue, watching streaks of sunlight pierce the waters surface. Soon a large manta ray appeared from the darkness below, gently gliding toward our small craft before vanishing into the distance. The dive took place off a coral atoll called St. Joseph in the outer islands of Seychelles on a mission to explore the Indian Ocean. This body of water is poorly studied and few scientists have ever ventured deeper than the maximum scuba depth of 100 feet. For more than a month researchers from Nekton, a British-led scientific research charity, have been using submersibles to dive deep below the waves to document the oceans health. We arrived at St. Joseph Island in the early hours of the morning, and this was the first submersible dive at the new site. The sea bed suddenly appeared beneath our craft, a landscape no one had ever seen before. I quickly scribbled down in the mission report the depth and time at which we sighted the bottom: 165 feet, 1144 UTC. Carmichael, a veteran of the sea, relayed the information to the surface via an underwater telephone. Its loud static noise would be a constant of our dive. We moved across a seabed of rock and sand and scattered soft coral until a great darkness opened ahead. Carmichael lowered us over the side of an underwater cliff. Our target depth was 400 feet. Oceans cover over two-thirds of the Earths surface but remain, for the most part, unexplored. Their role in regulating our climate and the threats they face are underestimated by many people, so scientific missions are crucial to take stock of the health of underwater ecosystems. Able to operate down to 1,000 feet, these manned submersibles give scientists a unique understanding of changes in habitats as sunlight diminishes through the different layers of ocean. We glided with the current as six cameras mounted around the craft recorded its journey. In the months to come, researchers at Oxford will comb through the footage frame by frame, noting each species encountered. Suddenly a drop of cold water landed on my arm, triggering alarm. Water is best kept on the outside of a submersible. Carmichael quickly put me at ease: The difference in temperature between the water around us and our submersible had created a layer of condensation on the hatch. We quickly soaked it up with towels. It was curiosity that drew Carmichael to the ocean. I just wanted to know what was down here, he said. Its stunning in so many ways. This curiosity has attracted mankind for centuries. The human mind is naturally drawn to grandiose notions of supernatural beings, and the sea is the ideal medium for them, wrote Jules Verne, author of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, possibly the greatest submarine novel of all time, which opens with fears over a mysterious sea monster sinking ships and harvesting the lives of sailors. Thirty years after reading the novel as a child, Im sitting in a tiny glass bubble observing the underwater world like Captain Nemo on board the novels submarine, Nautilus. We are foreigners to this realm, objects of fascination for the reef shark that approaches us, as curious of us as we are of it. Even in the 19th century, Verne feared the extinction of numerous species of marine life. The fears have been proven true. A WWF report found that marine vertebrate populations have declined by almost half since the 1970s. Fishing is no longer the sole cause. Man-made pollution, global warming and the acidification of the oceans are new challenges. As the oceans slowly soak up heat from the atmosphere, marine species will be affected in different ways. Some will adapt. Some will migrate to cooler waters. Others will disappear, leaving a gap in ecosystems that have existed for millennia. I came into the Indian Ocean hoping Id see a giant Napoleon wrasse, Carmichael said of one of the worlds largest reef fish. Here we are, 35 days into the mission and I still havent seen one. Maybe were just not diving in the right places. Maybe the reality is bleaker. As the surveys ended and the currents became too strong to fight, the surface vessel ordered our submersible to return to the surface. With the lights off, we floated a few minutes in the semi-darkness before the sound of ballast tanks emptying marked our slow ascent. The dark blue water around us lightened. The oceans are all connected and important to the quality of life for all humans, Carmichael said. Its worth protecting because the air we breathe and the food we eat and the oceans we swim in really do have a meaningful impact on everyones life. U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar says she has experienced an increase in death threats in the days since President Donald Trump posted a video critical of her comments about the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. In a statement late Sunday, Omar said many of those threatening her life directly referenced Trump's post. She also cited a rise in violence and acts of hate by right wing extremists in the United States and elsewhere in the world, saying "we can no longer ignore that they are being encouraged" by Trump. "Violent rhetoric and all forms of hate speech have no place in our society, much less from our country's commander in chief," she wrote. "We are all Americans. This is endangering lives. It has to stop." Earlier in the day, the White House denied Trump is inciting violence and Islamophobia. "Certainly the president is wishing no ill will and certainly not violence towards anyone," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told Fox News Sunday. "But the president should be calling out the congresswoman for not only one time but a history of anti-Semitic comments," she added, accusing Omar's fellow Democrats of "looking the other way." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the memories of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on New York and Washington are "sacred ground and any discussion of it must be done with reverence." Pelosi called Trump's video "disrespectful and dangerous" and said it must be removed. Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler said on CNN Sunday he had no problem with Omar's comments. "I have had some problems with some of her other remarks, but not with that one," he said. In an emotional speech last month to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Omar spoke out against discrimination against and suspicions of Muslims. "CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something, that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties ... for far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I'm tired of it and every single Muslim in the country should be tired of it," she said. Trump's Friday tweet included Omar's brief line "somebody did something" followed by more than 40 seconds of September 11 terrorist attack news footage and a large graphic repeating the words "somebody did something." Other Omar critics have focused solely on that one single line, accusing her of trivializing the inhumanity of September 11 but not mentioning the rest of her speech. Some Democrats accuse Trump of stirring up the same kind of Islamophobia that Omar was decrying. Nadler said Trump has "no moral authority" for talking about September 11. He accuses Trump of "stealing" a $150,000 grant meant for small-business owners to rebuild their destroyed businesses after the attack and using that money for his own real estate holding. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders noted that then-President George W. Bush, a Republican, went to a mosque after 9/11 to assure Muslim Americans that they are not criminals and terrorists. The former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, said Monday that the U.S. wants the rest of the world to be more like Taiwan praise that will likely anger Beijing, which has long been sensitive to cooperation between the U.S. and the democratically governed island that China claims as its own. "Taiwan is a democratic success story, a reliable partner and a force for good in the world," Ryan said at a celebration for the 40th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act, which guides U.S. policy toward Taiwan. While the U.S. does not have formal diplomatic ties with the island, the act requires Washington to ensure that Taiwan can defend itself. "We want the rest of the world to be more like Taiwan," said Ryan, who led an American delegation to the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto U.S. embassy. He said both parties care deeply about the "critically important relationship" between the U.S. and Taiwan. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who also spoke at the event, praised the two parties' "enduring partnership" as one that has "withstood the test of time." Taiwan split from mainland China during a civil war in 1949, and only 17 mainly small, developing nations recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Over the past year, Beijing has employed increasingly strident rhetoric around "re-unifying" the island with Communist Party-ruled mainland China, declaring that it has not ruled out the use of force. Ryan said the U.S. "commitment to Taiwan's security remains rock-solid." Last month, Taiwan asked to purchase new fighter jets and tanks from the U.S., its main supplier of military weapons. American arms sales to Taiwan have long been a thorn in U.S. relations with China. Russia is demanding that the U.S. release a Russian citizen who was convicted of kidnapping for moving her children from the U.S. to Russia amid a divorce. Bogdana Alexandrovna Osipova, who is referred to by her married name of Mobley in court documents, was convicted in Kansas last month of one count of international parental kidnapping and two counts of attempting to extort money. Ospivoa, 38, faces up to 20 years in prison on each extortion count and up to three years on the kidnapping count at her May 20 sentencing hearing. The Russian Embassy said in a tweet Friday that U.S. authorities should "stop their lawless behaviour and release the Russian citizen Bogdana Osipova, thus returning the mother to her children." Her attorney, Craig Divine, didn't immediately return a phone message. A Russian court has found that the children should remain in Russia. U.S. prosecutors said Osipova, who has dual Russian and U.S. citizenship, left Wichita, Kansas, in April 2014 with one child from her first marriage and another child from a second marriage to Brian Mobley, an Air Force recruiter. She gave birth to a third child soon after returning to Russia. She was arrested in September 2017 after returning to the U.S. without her children to change child support arrangements. Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov previously rejected a plea from Kansas Republican Rep. Ron Estes that the younger children ages 6 and 4 be reunited with their father. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a briefing that the children are living with relatives in Kaliningrad, the Wichita Eagle reported. Osipova's oldest child is 16, and her first husband isn't seeking custody of him. Antonov told Estes that Osipova has been a victim of "discrimination and psychological pressure" in the U.S. criminal case. "We've attempted to work with Russian authorities to find a diplomatic solution to this situation on behalf of a constituent, but clearly Russia is not interested in adhering to court rulings or acting in good faith," Estes said Friday in a tweet. "I once again call on Russia to reunite this father with his children and will work with the State Department in solving this case." The U.S. State Department didn't immediately return an email from The Associated Press seeking comment Monday. Weeks before Osipova left for Russia, Mobley filed for divorce and was granted joint custody. The Russian court system granted the couple a divorce in July 2014. That December, a Kansas judge also granted the couple a divorce and ordered her to return the two youngest children. The Kansas judge awarded sole custody to her ex-husband because Osipova had left the U.S. without court approval or Mobley's knowledge. According to the U.S. criminal complaint, Mobley hasn't been able to see his children. His ex-wife in January 2015 showed up to a meeting in Poland without the children. She allowed him to talk to the children on the phone and on Skype until November 2016, when she said he needed to send money to communicate with them, the complaint said. Zakharova said the Russian court sees the situation differently. "Her claim to her ex-husband for alimony, which was supported by a Russian court, was qualified there as extortion," Zakharova said in the ministry's translation of a briefing. Demonstrators in Sudan's capital are defying attempts by the military to break up their ongoing protest, and are demanding civilian leadership instead of an army-led transitional government. Protesters on Monday said troops tried to clear their ongoing sit-in outside army headquarters in Khartoum. But the protesters, who have camped out since the military announced the removal of longtime president Omar al-Bashir last Thursday, refused to move. The protesters are demanding a quicker move to civilian rule in Sudan than the military's announced two-year transition to an elected government. Many, like Ala'a Salah, are skeptical that the military will hand over power. She says that when Bashir's regime came to power, it was under similar circumstances.They gave promises that they didn't fulfill, says Salah. We need proof, not only talks, she says, and we're staying until our demands are fulfilled. The military's transitional leadership has changed twice since it said Bashir had been placed under house arrest following four months of popular demonstrations. The military council on Monday appointed Hashem Abdel Muttalib as army chief of staff, and said the move was aimed at changing the military. Hashem was appointed by Bashir in February as vice-chief of army staff. Some protesters and analysts have questioned whether the military is being truthful when it says Bashir was toppled and arrested. But others, like political analyst Mutasim Ahmed, say the coup was real. He says trust in the military has won over trust in politics inside the armed forces.The military has considered the situation, says Ahmed, and that's what lead to the big sit-in and the success of it. The military council now in charge said Bashir had ordered troops to disperse the sit-in "at whatever cost," but the military refused. The protests were triggered in December by food and fuel shortages that saw the price of bread skyrocket.When security forces tried to disperse the protest at army headquarters, troops blocked them, an event that signaled Bashir had lost military support. But protesters remain unconvinced that the military is fully on their side. Monday, the main protest organizers, the Sudanese Professionals Association, called for more people to join the demonstrations and the demands for civilian rule. U.S. President Donald Trump took a new swipe Monday at Rep. Ilhan Omar for her comments about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for defending the Somali American lawmaker. On Twitter, Trump said, "Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made. She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy!" Omar, one of two Muslim women in the U.S. Congress, said Sunday she has experienced an increase in death threats in the days since Trump posted a video critical of her comments about the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. Trump's Friday tweet included Omar's brief line from a recent speech that "somebody did something" in the attack, followed by more than 40 seconds of Sept. 11 video footage and a large graphic repeating the words "somebody did something." Omar said many of those threatening her life directly referenced Trump's post. She also cited a rise in violence and acts of hate by right-wing extremists in the United States and elsewhere in the world, saying, "We can no longer ignore that they are being encouraged" by Trump. "Violent rhetoric and all forms of hate speech have no place in our society, much less from our country's commander in chief," she wrote. "We are all Americans. This is endangering lives. It has to stop." Earlier in the day, the White House denied Trump is inciting violence and Islamophobia. "Certainly the president is wishing no ill will and certainly not violence towards anyone," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said on the "Fox News Sunday" political issues program. "But the president should be calling out the congresswoman for not only one time but a history of anti-Semitic comments," she added, accusing Omar's fellow Democrats of "looking the other way." Pelosi, who oversees the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, said the memories of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington are "sacred ground, and any discussion of it must be done with reverence." She asked security officials to make sure Omar and her staff are protected at the Capitol and nearby congressional office buildings. Pelosi called Trump's video "disrespectful and dangerous," and said it must be removed. Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler said on CNN Sunday he had no problem with Omar's comments. "I have had some problems with some of her other remarks, but not with that one," he said. In an emotional speech last month to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Omar spoke out against discrimination against and suspicions of Muslims. "CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something, that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties. For far too long, we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen, and frankly, I'm tired of it. And every single Muslim in the country should be tired of it," she said. Other Omar critics have focused solely on that one single line, accusing her of trivializing the inhumanity of Sept. 11 but not mentioning the rest of her speech. Some Democrats accuse Trump of stirring up the same kind of Islamophobia that Omar was decrying. Nadler said Trump has "no moral authority" for talking about Sept. 11. He accused Trump of "stealing" a $150,000 grant meant for small business owners to rebuild their destroyed businesses after the attack and using that money for his own real estate holding. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders noted that then-President George W. Bush, a Republican, went to a mosque after 9/11 to assure Muslim Americans that they are not criminals and terrorists. The U.S. Justice Department says that it will release on Thursday a redacted version of the nearly 400-page report of special counsel Robert Mueller on Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election aimed at helping Donald Trump win the presidency. Trump claimed again Monday that he has already been exonerated of wrongdoing linked to the election, even as he and the American public await details of Mueller's 22-month investigation. The U.S. leader said on Twitter that Mueller and Attorney General William Barr, based on Mueller's findings, "have already ruled No Collusion, No Obstruction." Trump contended that "these crimes were committed" by his 2016 opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and "Dirty Cops," his derogatory term for former top U.S. law enforcement officials, "and others! INVESTIGATE THE INVESTIGATORS!" Mueller investigated Trump campaign contacts with Russia and whether Trump, as president, obstructed justice by trying to thwart the probe. Sparring over the report in advance of its release is rampant. Barr released a four-page summary of Mueller's findings three weeks ago, saying the prosecutor had concluded that Trump and his campaign did not collude with Russia to help him win but had reached no conclusion whether Trump obstructed justice. But with Mueller not reaching a decision on the obstruction issue, Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided no obstruction charges against Trump were warranted. Trump tweeted that Mueller's report "was written by 18 Angry Democrats who also happen to be Trump Haters (and Clinton Supporters), should have focused on the people who SPIED on my 2016 Campaign, and others who fabricated the whole Russia Hoax ... Since there was no Collusion, why was there an Investigation in the first place! Answer - Dirty Cops, Dems and Crooked Hillary!" Barr, a Trump appointee as the country's top law enforcement official, said last week he believes that top American intelligence agencies spied on the Trump campaign. He later amended his remarks, saying that while he is "not saying that improper surveillance occurred," he is "concerned about it and looking into it." Barr said he would examine the details of how the FBI's counterintelligence investigation began. As for the Mueller report, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told the U.S. cable news program Fox News Sunday, "I don't think it is going to be damaging to the president." Congressman Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee that is probing the election, told CNN on Sunday that Barr should release the full report and underlying investigatory evidence to his panel, but Barr has balked. "To deny the Judiciary Committee and the Congress the knowledge of what's in parts of the Mueller report is not proper," Nadler said. No one other than Barr and key officials in the Justice Department, Mueller and his team of prosecutors appear to know what the report says about the extent of Trump campaign links with Russia during his 2016 campaign or whether he took any actions as the U.S. leader aimed at inhibiting the investigation. Nadler said that even though Barr concluded no obstruction charges should be brought against Trump, his decision should not go without review. Nadler noted that Barr, before he became the country's top law enforcement official, wrote that Trump could not obstruct justice because the president "is the boss of the Justice Department and could order it around to institute an investigation, to eliminate an investigation or could not be questioned about that." "In other words, (Barr) thinks as a matter of law a president can't obstruct justice, which is a very wild theory to which most people do not agree," Nadler said. "The fact of the matter is we should see and judge for ourselves and Congress should judge whether the president obstructed justice or not, and the public ultimately." Nadler said it "may be that Mueller decided not to prosecute obstruction of justice for various reasons that there wasn't proof beyond a reasonable doubt on some things. But there still may have been proof of some very bad deeds and very bad motives. And we need to see them and the public needs to see them." Since the release of Barr's summary, Trump has claimed "total exoneration, no collusion, no obstruction." Trump for months derided Mueller's investigation, but said he believes Mueller acted honorably in clearing him of colluding with Russia. Opposition Democrats like Nadler have launched new investigations of Trump, a Republican, but the president is objecting. On Twitter, Trump said Saturday, "Why should Radical Left Democrats in Congress have a right to retry and examine the $35,000,000 (two years in the making) No Collusion Mueller Report...." Barr has said he will release as much of the Mueller report as possible, while excluding material Mueller included from secret grand jury testimony and confidential U.S. intelligence sources. The extent of his redactions is not known. Turkey's purchase of a Russian air defense missile system should not trigger U.S. sanctions because Ankara is not an adversary of Washington and remains committed to the NATO alliance, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Monday. Speaking at a U.S.-Turkey conference in Washington amid rising tensions between the two NATO allies over Ankara's plan to buy the Russian S-400 missile system, Akar adopted a relatively conciliatory tone and urged to resolve issues via dialogue. "Turkey is clearly not an adversary of the United States," Akar said and added that, therefore, its procurement of the S-400 system should not be considered within the scope of U.S. sanctions designed to target America's enemies. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that Washington had told Ankara it could face retribution for buying the S-400s under a sanctions law known as Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CATSAA). "This procurement decision does not signify a change in Turkey's course. I'd like to reiterate strongly that there is no change in Turkey's commitment to NATO," Akar said. The disagreement over the F-35 is the latest of a series of diplomatic disputes between the United States and Turkey including Turkish demands that the United States extradite Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, differences over Middle East policy and the war in Syria, and sanctions on Iran. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has refused to back down from Ankara's planned purchase of a Russian S-400 missile defense system that the United States has said would compromise the security of F-35 aircraft, made by Lockheed Martin. Turkey has said it will take delivery of the S-400s in July. In early April, the United States halted delivery of equipment related to the stealthy F-35 fighter aircraft to Turkey, marking the first concrete U.S. step to potentially blocking the delivery of the jet to the NATO ally. Akar said Turkey was puzzled by the move and expected U.S. and other partners in the program to fulfill their obligations. "We firmly believe that linking the S-400 to the F-35 project is unfortunate. ... We are one of the investors and partners and not just a buyer. We have invested over $1 billion ... and fulfilled all our obligations," he said. Akar repeated Turkey's offer to hold technical talks with the United States to address "technical concerns" over the S-400 purchase. Turkey is also assessing a renewed offer from the United States to buy Patriot missile defense systems, Akar added. "Recently, we received the restated offer for the Patriots. This offer is now on the table, we are studying it carefully," he said. The United Nations said Monday that the five-year-old conflict in Yemen has taken a "devastating toll" on the country's children, with thousands killed, maimed and recruited to fight since the war began. "The impact of this conflict on children is horrific," Virginia Gamba, U.N. special representative for children and armed conflict, told a meeting of the Security Council. "All parties to the conflict have acted and reacted militarily to events resulting in the use and abuse of children in multiple ways." Since monitoring began in Yemen in April 2013 (before the conflict fully erupted) until the end of the 2018, Gamba said more than 7,500 children have been killed or maimed and more than 3,000 have been verified as recruited or used, and there have been more than 800 documented cases of denial of humanitarian access to children. Gamba said children reportedly have been forcibly recruited from schools, orphanages and communities to fight on the front lines, man checkpoints, deliver supplies or gather intelligence. Last year, over half of the children recruited were under the age of 15. During that period, the U.N. says more than 200 were killed or maimed while being used by the warring parties. Gamba called out the Iranian-aligned Houthi rebels for recruiting the majority of the children, followed by the Popular Resistance, Yemen Armed Forces and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. "The numbers I present to you today represent a mere fraction of violations committed against children in Yemen," she told council members. In addition to harm to child soldiers, Gamba said of the more than 7,500 children killed or maimed between 2013 and 2018, nearly half of the casualties were caused by Saudi-coalition airstrikes. Another 40 percent of such casualties came in ground fighting, including shelling and mortars. Gamba said Houthi rebels were largely to blame, followed by Yemeni government forces, among others. It is not the first time the U.N. has called out the Saudi-led coalition or the Houthis for harming Yemeni children. But while both sides say they avoid harming civilians, the toll continues to rise. Redeployment of forces The U.N. has been working to end the conflict. On Monday, special envoy Martin Griffiths offered a glimmer of hope that the parties might be ready to take a first step away from the battlefield. He told council members that both the Saudi coalition-backed Yemeni government and the Houthis have accepted a detailed redeployment plan to begin moving their fighters away from the crucial Red Sea port city of Hodeida. "We will now move with all speed toward resolving the final outstanding issues related to the operational plans for phase two, redeployments and also the issue of the status of local security forces," Griffiths told the council in a video briefing from Amman, Jordan. The parties committed to the plan at talks in Stockholm in December, but efforts to implement the agreement have failed. Griffiths expressed some confidence that they would go forward now. "When and I hope it is when and not if these redeploys happen, they will be the first ones in this long conflict," he said. Griffiths acknowledged that the "the war in Yemen shows no sign of abating," and said there needs to be real progress on the military redeployments before the focus can shift back to the political track. U.S. Acting U.N. Ambassador Jonathan Cohen welcomed Houthi acceptance to phase one of the withdrawal plan and said Washington would be "watching closely to see if they make good on that agreement." Funds urgently needed Meanwhile, U.N. humanitarian operations in Yemen are at risk of running out of money in the coming weeks. In February, international donors pledged $2.6 billion for Yemen relief operations. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates who are prosecuting the war against the Houthis pledged an additional $1 billion. But U.N. aid chief Mark Lowcock said that nearly four months into 2019, the response plan has received only $267 million in actual funding. "U.N. agencies are rapidly running out of money for essential relief activities," he warned. The country, which is facing a cholera epidemic, could see 60% of its diarrhea treatment centers close in the coming weeks if money is not received. U.N. food programs, which provide emergency food assistance to more than 9 million people every month, would also be impacted. "Closing or scaling back such programs at a time when we are struggling to prevent widespread famine and roll back cholera and other killer diseases would be catastrophic," Lowcock said. He also warned that a potential environmental disaster is brewing off of Yemen's Red Sea coast. Lowcock said that an oil tanker used as a floating storage and offloading facility, and which is 8 kilometers off the coast at the Ras Isa terminal, is old and has not received any maintenance since 2015. It has about 1.1 million barrels of oil on board. "Without maintenance, we fear that it will rupture or even explode, unleashing an environmental disaster in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes," Lowcock said. A Saudi Arabian-led coalition began bombing Houthi rebels in support of Yemen's government in March 2015. Since then, the U.N. estimates more than 10,000 people have been killed, mostly due to coalition airstrikes. A U.S. government agency says it plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in businesses that empower women in Africa. President Donald Trumps daughter, Ivanka Trump, and the acting head of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), David Bohigian, announced the initiative Monday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where they are part of a U.S. government delegation. A statement from OPIC says the 2X Africa initiative aims to mobilize $1 billion and directly invest $350 million in companies and funds owned by women, led by women," or by "providing a good or service that intentionally empowers women on the continent. Later in the day, Ivanka Trump met with President Sahle-Work Zewde. They discussed a need for reform in Africa that would lead to improved opportunity and inclusivity for women. She also held discussions on women's empowerment with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, commending him for increasing the number of women in leadership positions in his government. On Sunday, Bohigian signed a letter of interest with an Ethiopian company called Muya to help support the company through OPIC financing. Muya, owned by fasion designer Sara Abera, produces household products and was the first Ethiopian company to obtain membership in the World Fair Trade Organization. Trump visited Muya on Sunday after she arrived in Addis Ababa for a summit on African women's economic inclusion and empowerment. She is in the East African country to promote a $50 million initiative enacted by her father in February that is aimed at encouraging women's employment in developing countries. "Fundamentally, we believe that investing in women is a smart development policy and it is a smart business," Trump said after sampling coffee at a traditional Ethiopian ceremony. "It's also in our security interest, because women, when we're empowered, foster peace and stability." Trump also laid a wreath at an Ethiopian Orthodox church to honor the victims of last months Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed all 157 people on board. It was not immediately clear if the controversy that surrounds the U.S. president will follow his daughter to Africa. The president has not been kind in his remarks about Africa and its migrants. Ivanka Trump is also scheduled to meet with Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed before going on to Ivory Coast, where she will attend a meeting on economic opportunities for women in West Africa. She is also scheduled to make an appearance at a World Bank policy summit. Harun Maruf contributed to this report. PENTAGON The U.S. military confirmed Monday that it carried out an airstrike that killed the deputy leader of Islamic State militants in Somalia. U.S. Africa Command said Sunday's airstrike near the village of Xiriiro in Somalia's Bari region killed Abdihakim Mohamed Ibrahim. AFRICOM says Ibrahim, also known as Dhoqob, "was responsible for the daily operations of the extremist group, attack planning and resource procurement. Abdisamad Mohamed Gallan, security minister of Somalia's Puntland region, told VOA's Somali Service that the airstrike hit the vehicle in which Dhoqob and another passenger were traveling. He said both men were killed, but the other person had not yet been identified. "The vehicle was burned," said a witness who did not want to be named. IS Somalia is led by Sheikh Abdulkadir Mumin, a former scholar for militant group al-Shabab. In October 2015, he defected from the group and pledged his allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Dhoqob was Mumin's right-hand man and had appeared in videos produced by the group. Mumin himself survived another airstrike in his mountainous hideout in Bari region in November 2017. "Killing one of their top leaders will speed up their eradication," Gallan said. The U.S. has carried out scores of military strikes in Somalia in recent years, mostly targeting al-Shabab. This year alone, the U.S. has carried out more than 30 airstrikes in the African country. IS has between 200 and 300 men in Somalia, according to experts. Al-Shabab and IS have recently been fighting in the eastern mountainous areas since December of last year. Al-Shabab has vowed to eliminate its rival IS, accusing it of "dividing the jihadists." Security officials told VOA Somali that IS has lost some of its territory to al-Shabab. The Philippines is edging further back into a once strained alliance with the United States as China, a friend of three years, keeps challenging Manilas maritime claims and offers less aid than many Filipinos had hoped. Philippine-U.S. cooperation has picked up over the past two months with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeos visit to Manila followed by a wide-reaching series of joint naval exercises. President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines sidelined his countrys U.S. alliance after taking office in 2016 to seek peace with China. Since then China has alarmed Manilas military as well as citizens by sending flotillas near a tiny Philippine-held island in a sea that they dispute and harassing Filipino fishermen near another islet. Every time one of these incidents happens, he faces an enormous domestic backlash and a whole bunch of criticism that hes being played for a fool by Beijing, said Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative under Washington, D.C.-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies. A swing back to the United States would position the Philippines where it was geopolitically before Duterte took office -- one in a chain of U.S. Western Pacific allies and put China on the defensive against growing U.S. influence in Asia. Firmer US ties Pompeo visited March 1 to reaffirm U.S. support for this critical treaty ally, the State Department said. Pompeo said on the ground that his government would back the Philippines militarily if China attacked its vessels or planes in the South China Sea, domestic news outlet Rappler.com said. Coinciding with the visit, Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin expressed opposition to reviewing the Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States a process that could overturn the 68-year-old document. During annual joint military exercises April 1-12, the U.S. Navy sent its USS Wasp amphibious assault ship and F-35B Lightning II aircraft operated by the U.S. Marines, Washingtons Indo-Pacific Command said. The Wasp was the largest U.S. ship ever sent for the exercises. The vessels simulated defense of the South China Sea, an exercise that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte cut in 2017 while he was building ties with Beijing. Duterte set aside the Sino-Philippine sovereignty dispute and began talks with China in 2016. Dutertes vociferous rejection of U.S. help at the time enchanted China, which has viewed Washington with suspicion since the Cold War. China disappoints China and the Philippines have generally avoided each others maritime holdings over the past three years without settling their sovereignty dispute. But since the start of the year, from 200 to 300 Chinese vessels have come in waves to surround Philippine-held Thitu Island, where construction of a beaching ramp is underway. The military outpost 500 kilometers from the main Philippine archipelago lies near three Chinese-held Spratly features. Following periodic reports of Filipino fishermen being harassed by Chinese vessels near the contested Scarborough Shoal, a presidential spokesman confirmed last year that Beijings Coast Guard had confiscated one boats catch. The government relayed the information to Chinese officials, and in turn China is taking steps to address the issue, the presidential office website said. China in 2016 pledged $24 billion in aid and investment for the Philippines to help build relations, but Filipinos say too little has come through or worry that dependence on Chinese loans would push their country into debt. Its quite clear that hes not going to get the enormous largesse that he hoped for, that the Chinese are not fundamentally shifting their South China Sea policy just because hes being nice, Poling said. Beijing claims about 90 percent of the sea. China, with the strongest armed forces in Asia, has angered Manila as well as four other governments over the past decade by building up small isles for military use. Public pressure Some 44 percent of Filipinos disagree that Chinas intentions are good for the Filipinos and 27 per cent agree, Metro Manila research organization Social Weather Stations found in late 2018. More trust the United States. Duterte said this month he would send troops on a suicide mission unless China backed off from Philippine maritime claims. The president has talked tough against China before when under public scrutiny but otherwise makes pro-China remarks. You wind up the Chinese and then he actually added something that sort of made the whole thing ridiculous, because he said that if China doesn't relent he'll be sending a suicide force," said Herman Kraft, political science professor at the University of the Philippines. "You're not really too sure what he meant by that." Duterte may be talking tougher against China now to grab votes for supporters in mid-term congressional elections in May, said Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. The Philippines is making an issue out of (Chinas maritime activities) I think for election purposes, he said. I think after the election they would revert back to being very friendly with China. American and Taliban officials have indicated their months-long peace dialogue remains on track, despite the intensification of hostilities in Afghanistan that came with the start of the insurgent group's spring offensive. U.S.-backed Afghan security forces and insurgents have both claimed they have inflicted heavy casualties on each other since Friday when the Taliban announced its annual spring offensive, which marks an increase in fighting, now in its 18th year. The insurgent offensive promptly drew strong condemnation from Zalmay Khalilzad, who is leading the American team of negotiators discussing a possible peace deal with the Taliban. He denounced the offensive as "reckless." In turn, the Taliban slammed Khalilzad's remarks and justified the offensive, citing the continued U.S. "occupation" of Afghanistan. The war of words raised questions about the fate of the ongoing U.S.-Taliban talks. But on Monday, both sides signaled they plan to move the process forward and expected to resume discussions in Qatar before the end of April. Khalilzad noted in a series of tweets that in discussions with Taliban interlocutors he had proposed ways to reduce the violence, and lamented that years of hostilities have killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians. "The quickest way to prevent casualties is to agree to a ceasefire. Taliban senior leadership should allow their representatives to come to the table and discuss. I will continue to press the case," said Khalilzad, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation. The Afghan-born American diplomat said the Afghan people deserve and want a comprehensive ceasefire and negotiations leading to a lasting peace in the country. Taliban committed to talks A senior Taliban official told VOA his group is committed to the ongoing dialogue process with Washington, saying Khalilzad's latest remarks indicate the other side is also willing to remain engaged. "So the dialogue possibly will take place after the intra-Afghan dialogue. But the date is not fixed yet," said the insurgent official. He spoke on condition of anonymity. The intra-Afghan dialogue the Taliban official referred to is a two-day informal meeting scheduled for Friday (April 19 ) in the Qatari capital of Doha, where politicians, tribal elders along with representatives of civil society, women and youth from the war-ravaged country will interact in their "personal capacity" with Taliban delegates on the current crisis facing Afghanistan. Envoys of the Kabul government are also expected to be part of the discussions but not in their official capacity. Qatar talks The U.S.-Taliban talks in Qatar have primarily focused on two issues: Washington agreement to a timetable for withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan in return for the Taliban preventing Transnational terrorist groups from again using Afghan soil as a sanctuary. Both sides announced after their last round of talks in early March they have drafted a preliminary agreement covering the two points. Washington-based analyst, Michael Kugelman, says he is unsure whether U.S. determination to push for a ceasefire will produce desired results. "The problem is that the Taliban, which enjoys ample leverage, is unlikely to take any interest in one until the two sides reach an understanding on a troop withdrawal plan," tweeted Kugelman, who is the deputy director of the Asia program and South Asia senior associate at the Wilson Center. Last week, the U.N. Security Council removed travel and financial restrictions on the 15 Qatar-based Taliban leaders holding peace talks with the U.S. team to allow the insurgent team to be able to travel to other countries to participate in Afghan peace-related consultations. Taliban officials acknowledge the U.S had played a role in seeking a nine-month suspension of the sanctions. Khalilzad, however, has made it clear that a final agreement will be linked to a comprehensive Taliban ceasefire and a sustainable intra-Afghan peace process to bring an end to years of bloodshed. Withdrawal first The Taliban is opposed to entering into formal Afghan negotiations until after the U.S. agrees and announces a troop withdrawal plan. Khalilzad has also indirectly criticized Afghan President Ashraf Ghani for taking months to appoint a negotiating team inclusive of all segments of the Afghan society for an eventual Afghan-only peace negotiations. Ghani has reportedly attempted to remain in charge of any peace deal with the Taliban. But internal political rivalries as well as divisions have apparently prevented his government from coming up with an authoritative Afghan team of negotiators. In the past few days, the Afghan leader has tried to assemble an inclusive negotiation team but the effort quickly has suffered setbacks. Afghan chief executive Abdullah Abdullah withdrew from the process, saying he was not consulted beforehand while key opposition leaders also have rejected it. President Donald Trump has said he wants to pull out American troops in Afghanistan but linked the move to progress in talks with the Taliban. A visiting Democratic lawmaker Monday reassured Afghans the United States does not want to pursue a "precipitous" troop withdrawal from the country. "What we've heard here [is] that whatever negotiated settlement ends the conflict, that it be done in a way that's very deliberate, that ensures a transition that all sides can participate in, and that there should not be a precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan," Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen told reporters at the U.S. embassy in Kabul. Shaheen also stressed that women must have a place at the table as the U.S. tries to negotiate with the Taliban. Any traveler to Vietnam will be familiar with the experience: A trip here is not complete until the traveler ventures to cross the intimidating roads that heave with motorbikes, only to find that drivers will weave around the pedestrian and that there is in fact some order in the seeming chaos of the street. Vietnam is the land of the motorbike. Google Maps even introduced a feature for two-wheel commuters in the country last year, giving them trip times and road tolls specific to motorbikes. So can Vietnams two biggest cities really ban the transport on which its 100 million people depend on a daily basis? Municipal authorities have proposed a motorbike ban in parts of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. This proposal has cropped up from time to time over the years, and now is one of those times. The idea has sparked a debate about pollution, traffic jams, urban planning, and the fairest way to get people where they need to go as the Vietnamese economy rapidly grows, industrializes, and urbanizes. Supporters of a no-go area for motorbikes say restrictions are needed to cut pollution and congestion. But opponents say the masses have no alternative, as cars are pricey and public transit is limited. Hanoi is just now in the process of developing the idea, the Ministry of Transport of Vietnams official newspaper quoted its minister, Nguyen Ngoc Dong, as saying recently. There are still a lot of issues that need to be researched, assessed, and analyzed before making a final plan. Congestion and pollution The idea is to prohibit motorbikes during the busiest parts of the day, or in the busiest parts of the city, most likely downtown. There is no arguing that the streets are getting cramped. Ho Chi Minh City has ballooned to as many as 13 million residents. And air quality is no doubt worsening. Pollution levels, as measured by particulate matter, occasionally surpass those of China's and Indias urban centers. So proponents of a ban argue that if Chinese cities could do it, so could they. Crowded metropolises from Beijing to Mexico City also have imposed partial curbs on cars, such as allowing only ones with odd-number license plates to drive on one day, even numbers on the next. Other places like Stockholm have been able to push vehicles out of pedestrian zones. But the difference is that, unlike those places, Vietnamese cities do not have enough public transit to replace the motorbike. Projects to build subway systems have been delayed repeatedly, and commuters do not want to take buses when motorbikes are faster, more convenient than transferring from one bus to another, and still cheap. Vespa maker Piaggio Vietnam said a motorbike ban could push people to use cars, which would not help solve the pollution and congestion problems. We believe that to meet those objectives, simply banning motorbikes is a radical and not effective solution, Enrico Bruni, the company's head of finance for Asia, said at a business conference last month. Traffic Sensors Better to focus on educating the public about these problems, and controlling vehicle quality by regulating emissions, he said. Others suggest that Vietnamese officials should try to experiment with ways to redistribute traffic, such as through staggered work times, or through smart sensors that detect when streets are getting jammed and reroute drivers accordingly. One ride hailing app maker said it could provide traffic data to help city planners. It would not be easy to curtail two-wheeled vehicles in a place where so many of the iconic images that identify Vietnam contain a motorbike or two. It is not uncommon to see a family of five pile on to the two wheels. Delivery people transport cargo on the back of their bikes, from giant hogs to dining tables. Tourists hop on behind driver guides for Vespa food tours. Middle age war veterans who cant find work turn their motorbikes into taxis. The vehicle is one example of how much the communist country has changed. Many locals are old enough to remember a time when they would have been lucky even to own a bicycle. But today nearly everyone can afford a motorbike, which costs as little as a few hundred dollars. Vietnam is the fourth biggest market for motorbikes in the world, after China, India, and Indonesia, all of which have at least double the population of Vietnam. Affordability is one reason that critics say a motorbike ban would more heavily burden the poor, who rely on motorbikes, in favor of the wealthy who have cars. This is a country where people will jump on a bike to drive one block. Limited sidewalks and temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius do not always make walking feasible. That is not to say partial restrictions do not work. Ho Chi Minh City started limiting vehicles on the downtown street of Nguyen Hue several years ago. Despite the initial inconvenience, residents have come to enjoy the pedestrian street, which has now become a popular public space. The number of measles cases worldwide nearly quadrupled in the first three months of the year compared to last year, the World Health Organization reported Monday. The United Nations agency, citing preliminary data, said that more than 112,000 cases of the preventable but highly contagious disease have been reported across the globe in the January-to-March period. WHO called for better vaccination coverage against measles, which can kill or leave a child disabled for life. Over recent months, WHO said spikes in the disease have occurred "in countries with high overall vaccination coverage, including the United States ... as well as Israel, Thailand, and Tunisia, as the disease has spread fast among clusters of unvaccinated people." "While this data is provisional and not yet complete, it indicates a clear trend," WHO said. "Many countries are in the midst of sizeable measles outbreaks, with all regions of the world experiencing sustained rises in cases." The agency said the reported number of cases often lags behind the number of actual cases, meaning that the number of documented cases likely does not reflect the actual severity of the measles outbreaks. For three weeks in a row, U.S. health authorities have added dozens of new reports of measles to its yearly total, now at 555, the biggest figure in five years. Twenty of the 50 U.S. states have now reported measles cases. More than half of the U.S. total 285 cases have been reported in New York City. Officials in the country's largest city last week ordered mandatory measles vaccinations to halt the outbreak that has been concentrated among ultra-Orthodox Jews in the city's Brooklyn borough. City health department officials blamed anti-vaccine propagandists for distributing misinformation in the community. The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. Some irate South Africans, claiming that foreigners are grabbing all local jobs, on Sunday attacked drivers from Zimbabwe and Zambia in Johannesburg said to be working for local companies. Similar incidents were reported recently in Durban. (Courtesy Video) U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that he was considering sending detained illegal migrants to so-called sanctuary cities, which oppose his tough immigration policies. Trump made the announcement hours after White House and Homeland Security officials insisted the idea had been rejected. He told reporters at the White House that his administration was "strongly looking at the possibly." Earlier Friday, he tweeted, "Due to the fact that Democrats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws, we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities." "The Radical Left always seems to have an Open Borders, Open Arms policy so this should make them very happy!" he added. Sanctuary cities are local jurisdictions often run by Democrats that have refused to hand over illegal immigrants to federal authorities for possible deportation. Offer of pardon? In another development Friday, CNN reported that Trump told the head of Customs and Border Protection, Kevin McAleenan, that he would pardon him if he were sent to jail for denying U.S. entry to migrants. CNN cited two unnamed officials who said Trump made the offer during a visit to the border town of Calexico, California. Trump has since named McAleenan the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, following the resignation of Kirstjen Nielsen. A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Friday: "At no time has the president indicated, asked, directed or pressured the acting secretary to do anything illegal. Nor would the Acting Secretary take actions that are not in accordance with our responsibility to enforce the law." Sending a message The White House proposal to send undocumented immigrants to sanctuary cities was first reported by The Washington Post. According to the Post, the White House told Immigration and Customs Enforcement that the plan would alleviate a shortage of detention space, as well as send a message to Democrats. The Post said a White House official and a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said the proposal was no longer under consideration. Revelation of the proposal drew criticism from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as other Democrats. In remarks to reporters Friday, Pelosi called the idea "unworthy of the presidency of the United States and disrespectful of the challenges that we face as a country, as a people, to address who we are a nation of immigrants." Pelosi's hometown of San Francisco is a sanctuary city. Mayors of several sanctuary cities said Friday they would accept undocumented migrants. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said in a statement, "While the Trump administration's proposal shows their disdain to basic human dignity, the City (Philadelphia) would be prepared to welcome these immigrants just as we have embraced our immigrant communities for decades." Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said, "We would welcome these migrants with open arms, just as we welcomed Syrian refugees, just as we welcomed Puerto Ricans displaced by Hurricane Maria and just as we welcome Rohingya refugees fleeing genocide in Myanmar." The Zimbabwe government will give priority to elderly white farmers when it starts compensating those who lost their properties during the controversial land reforms, the president said in an interview published Sunday. The finance and agriculture ministries last week said they had budgeted 53 million Zimbabwean dollars (US$18 million) in payments to white commercial farmers whose properties were seized nearly 20 years ago under Robert Mugabe. The government pledged to target those in "financial distress". In an interview with the state-owned Sunday Mail newspaper, Emmerson Mnangagwa said the estimated value of the improvements on the farms would be three billion Zimbabwe dollars ($1-billion) and that government was not under pressure to pay all farmers. "We are looking at old white farmers as we make payment," Mnangagwa told the paper ahead of Zimbabwe's 39th independence anniversary on Thursday. "We don't pay compensation to those who are fit. Our constitution bids us to pay for improvements on land. We do not pay for land because no one brought land to Zimbabwe. "When we feel we do not have resources, no one compels us to do anything," he said, adding that the government was also in talks with the British government to help "to contribute to this compensation". More than 4,000 of the country's 4,500 white farmers were stripped of their land under former president Mugabe's highly controversial land seizures. Mugabe justified the land grabs as a way to correct colonial-era land ownership disparities that had favoured whites and to stimulate economic growth for black Zimbabweans. Critics blame the evictions for a collapse in agricultural production that forced Africa's one-time bread basket to become dependent on imported food to feed its population. The organisation representing the farmers welcomed the government's move as "a huge step in acknowledging that compensating is owed by them". A former close ally of Mugabe, President Emmerson Mnangagwa has vowed to revive the country's economy by lifting agricultural production and attracting foreign investment. Mnangagwa also told the Sunday Mail that he was on good terms with Mugabe whom he succeeded after he was toppled following a brief military takeover in 2017. He said the former ruler was unwell and was flown Singapore two weeks ago for a month-long treatment. (AFP) Tekashi 6ix9ine This article was originally published in April 2019. Its being republished today as Tekashi 6ix9ine testifies against his former associates in court. Photo: Adam Tarana Sorry, I forgot, Yaksha tells me, in the Bratislava headquarters of his indie rap label FCK THEM. Behind us hangs a portrait of a samurai, rendered in neon, with a passing resemblance to Mikhail Gorbachev. In Slovakia, when some guests come, we invite them on a shot. You want a shot? I say yes and stemmed bubble glasses appear, as does a clear bottle of Slivovica. Traditional plum liquor. This particular batch was fermented at home, by the Slovak rap star Dalybs father. Its bracing stuff. Okay, its disgusting. But they seem to know that. They just want me to feel at home. Welcome! they shout as I drink. Ciao! Yaksha, 33, is, effectively, Bratislavas Sean Puffy Combs. Hes also the person who discovered the now-imprisoned Brooklyn rapper 6ix9ine, when 6ix9ine was still a mostly anonymous teenager posting on YouTube. Born and raised as Daniel Hernandez in Bushwick, Brooklyn, 6ix9ine became a streaming superstar in late 2017 on the back of a public persona carefully cultivated to, above all, engender reaction. Armed with shouty street rap and rainbow-colored hair and a Jigsaw Jesus piece, he was a trollish cartoon villain. It feels like 6ix9ine was dreamt up by an overheated viral hive mind. And its true hed never exist without the internet. But it didnt happen the way we think. In reality, on its way to making him huge, the internet first had to bring 6ix9ine to Bratislava. One of 6ix9ines earliest tracks was a guest appearance on Dalybs group Haha Crews Rolling Stones. Slovakia! he shouts on the track. Whats good! We out here! The first time he left New York was to come here. His first-ever live show was at the Bratislava club Babylon. William Asher, who co-directed a string of lo-fi provocatory music videos that shot 6ix9ine to viral infamy, says of FCK THEM, We would put all our YouTube videos on their page and build a core fan base over there; then we toured over there. They really introduced [6ix9ine] to what it is to be, like, a rapper and shit. Before that, we werent doing shit. He fell in love with it here. He said, Heres fresh air! This is not Bushwick! That a small outfit in Bratislava had a hand in launching 6ix9ines career is a strange story about how the internet functions. Its also a muted kind of tragedy. Yaksha and the FCK THEM crew describe a polite, humble genius they knew as Danny, who charged their plucky little scene with international relevance. Now, they watch as 6ix9ine negotiates not only federal charges but also serious accusations of extreme violence toward Sara Molina, the mother of his young daughter. And they are unable to square that reality with their own. He fell in love with it here, Adam, Yakshas right-hand man and semi-translator, tells me. The first time they picked him up from the airport, 6ix9ine insisted they stop on the side of the road so he could take photos of a sprawling field of yellow spring flowers. He said, Heres fresh air! This is not Bushwick! When he started to make really big money, our plan was to invest it in an apartment in Bratislava, Yaksha adds. It would be his European base. We must wait. But I believe this plan still will be. Photo: Aukay_35mm. Yaksha real name, Michal Novotny was born to a Vietnamese father and a Slovak mother in Martin, a small town on the north of the country then known as Czechoslovakia. He grew up skating with kids who loved NOFX. Hey, bro, you must listen to punk-rock music, they told him. I said, Fuck off! Wu-Tang is way better! His first foray into the industry was as a DJ in a rap crew, Dramatikz, who put out two albums via Sony Musics Slovakia department. Eventually, he realized he didnt actually want to be a performer. He went on to manage regionally famous names, but soon grew bored of their fealty to East Coast 90s rap. Every big artist here, its some classic shit, he says. You must be from the street and everything is hard. Yaksha had a personal revelation: I like more New Wave rap, yeah? New Wave is his term for what Americans might call SoundCloud rap. In U.S., its [accepted] when artists have the gold grills and face tattoos and make all songs with two words. He laughs. For everyone in Slovak and Czech Republic, to [hear] New Wave here? It was unimaginable. Then Yaksha discovered Haha Crew, a goofy trio from Kosice. In 2013, while they were still in high school, they dropped their first single, Rap & Moda, a nice chunk of luxury-brand nonsense. It was really controversial in Slovakia. A lot of people hated them. One group coming in with a song about Givenchy? Yaksha considers it the origin point for modern Slovak rap music. He feels that everyone now owes a debt to Haha Crew that nothing has been the same since. I heard it and I said, Oh fuck. Pause. Finally. With Haha Crew as his marquee act, he started building what would become FCK THEM. For a few years he made no money, funding the operation through marketing and streetwear side hustles. In 2016, he started flying to New York and connecting with young rappers who make New Wave; he became known as the man to find if you want to play Eastern Europe. Hes since put on shows for a number of fledgling rappers, including A$AP Nast, Black Dave, and Ken Rebel. Touching down in Bratislava, artists would be hesitant at first. Invariably, hed hear references to a certain torture-porn classic set in the Slovak capital. When I brought Nast from the airport, we cruising in the city, he told me, This is not so scary like the movie Hostel! Yaksha cracks up. I said, Bro, its a fucking movie! This is not from reality! And to the delight of the artists, the gigs themselves would often have the raw energy of your old-school hard-core matinee shows. In the U.S., its people chilling with phones. In Slovakia, people make really big mosh pits. Whole show, everybody fighting! Photo: Aukay_35mm. 6ix9ine found his way to Bratislava via YouTube analytics. In 2014, checking the numbers on one of his early videos, he noticed a big portion of the views (then just in the few thousands) had come from Slovakia. The reason: Dalyb had posted it on his Facebook page. As Yaksha remembers it, 6ix9ine then got on Instagram and wrote something to the effect of, Do you know some Slovakian rappers I can make music with? And a lot of people wrote him, You must make music only with Haha Crew. The resulting track, Rolling Stones, was cooked up with FCK THEM via email and dropped on Haha Crews debut, Vlna, which became a touchstone for the local scene. For a couple of years after Rolling Stones, FCK THEM and 6ix9ine retreated back into their own worlds. Then in 2016, on a long trip to New York, Yaksha met 6ix9ine for the first time. He [DMd] me every day about meeting, Yaksha says. He took the L train to Bushwick, where 6ix9ine met him at the subway steps and took him out for fried chicken. Right away, 6ix9ine told him, Hey, bro I will be the biggest artist from New York. Right away, 6ix9ine told him, Hey, bro I will be the biggest artist from New York. Yaksha had been skeptical of 6ix9ine and his clamoring. And at the time, he also had way more Instagram followers than 6ix9ine. But in person, Yaksha was impressed by the sheer audacity. I said, Okay! I trust you! They concocted an off-kilter marketing plan and named it From Europe Back to America: They would make 6ix9ine famous in Eastern Europe, help him pull in money doing shows there, and then use that to get big in the U.S. Because of a drug charge, 6ix9ine needed permission from a parole officer to travel. Yaksha wrote a letter requesting special exemption, and it did the trick. 6ix9ine did an appearance with the Russian rapper Pharaoh in Prague, followed by his debut gig in Bratislava. He bounced around Slovakia from there. In Bratislava, the FCK THEM crew opened up 6ix9ines palate with pho (hed never had it before) and fresh produce. Theres a legendary video on the internet, Yaksha tells me, pulling out his phone to show me a clip of 6ix9ine eating sliced fruit and saying, Every time I come back home, Yaksha makes me eat healthy. Yaksha does this a lot as we talk, nostalgically showing me old photos of the two of them hanging in Slovakian countryside cottages, or telling me anecdotes, like that one time he talked 6ix9ine out of getting a face tattoo of his own face. About a year after he started breaking big in Eastern Europe with FCK THEM, 6ix9ine found his Stateside success. In late 2017, the pop-leaning Poles1469 blew up, as did the screamy Gummo; both debuted on FCK THEMs YouTube page. (The videos are now, respectively, at over 100 million and over 300 million views.) From Barcelona to Paris to Kiev, FCK THEM continued to put on shows for 6ix9ine. On one of his trips to Bratislava after Gummo had broken out, Yaksha and Adam remember, 6ix9ine packed nothing but what he said was a million dollars of jewelry in his daughters princess-adorned backpack. Adam: He didnt have socks! He didnt have underwear! Yaksha: He come to my apartment and ask me, do you have some boxers I can wear? Adam: That night we went to the mall, just shopping for underwear. The crew remembers 6ix9ine FaceTiming his daughter three or four times a day. They insist he was a really good father, but maybe not a good partner. Of his 2015 charge for use of a child in a sexual performance, for an explicit video shot with a 13-year-old girl, Yaksha says, I ask him about it, and he told me, I dont have sex with this girl; we just shoot a video with her in a bra. And I understood it was normal. Repeatedly, they offer similarly unconvincing defenses, describing him as altogether different in private: respectful, low-key, polite. We know him as the guy sitting quietly, eating fruit, Adam says. Photo: Adam Tarana In January of this year, 6ix9ine pleaded guilty to a variety of charges stemming from his affiliation with the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods, including conspiracy to commit murder, drug trafficking, and racketeering. Hes currently in an undisclosed federal prison awaiting sentencing. His former manager, Kifano Shotti Jordan, was allegedly the link between 6ix9ine and the gang, and has also since pleaded guilty to gun charges stemming from the groups larger racketeering arrest. I didnt like this guy from day one, yeah? Yaksha says now. I told all crew around 6ix9ine, I dont believe this guy Shotti. Its really hard to believe those charges, he continues. Its kind of a whole different guy. I dont know if something changed in the U.S. Partially, it feels like theyre willfully ignoring the facts, or pining for some alternate-reality version of events. If only theyd managed to keep him in Bratislava, away from negative influence When he started making money and posting pictures with big money I told him, Hey, bro, maybe keep calm, Yaksha says. People like you like humble artist and genius. You changed into classic rapper. I was thinking that the people around him came with the fame. They will be for a few weeks, a few months, and theyll go away. Here in Europe, it was visible it had a good influence on him. He was acting differently. In a good way. He liked the attention of the people selling heroin, shooting people. He trolled his way into jail. The last time Yaksha and 6ix9ine saw each other was at a show in Vienna in the fall of 2018, just before 6ix9ine was arrested. Afterward, Yaksha says, a lot of people were writing me [on Instagram] saying I should have taken more care of him, I should have taken him back to Europe. His big mistake he liked the attention of the gang. He liked the attention of the people selling heroin, shooting people. He trolled his way into the jail. There is reason to believe that 6ix9ine did stumble into a pose as an affiliated gang member in order to boost his persona. Thats the position his lawyers have taken, arguing in court that 6ix9ine is an entertainer who portrays a gangster image to promote his music. Legally, though, it doesnt matter much if 6ix9ine was playacting. Meanwhile, the allegations of abuse are much harder to explain away. Sara Molina, the mother of 6ix9ines daughter, recently told the Daily Beast that 6ix9ine was violent throughout their seven-year relationship, regularly leaving her bloodied and bruised. (Ed. Note: 6ix9ine has since confessed to years of domestic violence, spanning from 2011 to 2018, in cooperation with the federal government. Per that agreement, allegations of domestic abuse cannot be brought up during his subsequent testimony at trial.) You know, its really difficult to talk about the private relationship of two people, Yaksha says of the abuse allegations, but my experience with Danny and Sara has never suggested that this could be true. What if you knew an artist had committed domestic abuse? I ask. Would you continue working with them? Yaksha doesnt directly answer the question. I am convinced that the accusations that are being carried on him are not exactly as they are referred to, he says. I also understand that he must reckon with the consequences. Of course I agree with this, and its the right thing. But then again, so far, Danny hasnt been found guilty for any crime for which I would have to end our friendship. Photo: Aukay_35mm. After a while, we leave the FCK THEM HQ for the FCK THEM studio. We take Yakshas Audi up to a ritzy neighborhood overlooking the city below. We pass a decadent mid-construction mansion allegedly owned by Robert Fico, the disgraced former Slovak prime minister, and pull up in front of a home a Bond villain would love. Its the former Korean embassy. Seeing me take it all in the floor-to-ceiling glass walls; the monstrous tripartite spiral staircase FCK THEM artist Gleb, a tall, endearingly goofy dude in a pink beanie and a skull-adorned tracksuit top, deadpans, This was all very modern in the 80s. Gleb is full of good lines. As the crew smokes thin cigarettes on a balcony overlooking a statue of a Red Army soldier smashing a swastika, Gleb shares his tips for spotting the ticket checkers on the Bratislava bus lines. They dont wear a uniform but theyre always the same: fat, with a stupid face. We pop into the studio, an unadorned side room with a bathtub full of unused soundproofing foam. Gleb, fueled on nothing but energy drinks and Horalky wafers, shouts, BPM up! Gleb is one of FCK THEMs biggest local stars. But while they cultivate their local talent, they also have eyes elsewhere. Fueled in part by their affiliation with 6ix9ine, the FCK THEM YouTube page now has over 1.3 million subscribers. Yakshas current high-priority focus is the New York rapper Snubbs. But Yaksha has even bigger international aspirations for FCK THEM. He wants to use it to build FCK THEM U.K. and FCK THEM ASIA. All day long, he says, he gets emails from artists hoping to get promoted on the YouTube page. Flipping through his in-box, he shows me a sampling: This is the first albino female to rap. Photo: Aukay_35mm. FCK THEMs current big project is a documentary feature on 6ix9ine. They have tons of footage from years bouncing around Europe together, and interest from a few new streaming platforms. I want to show people 6ix9ine like artist, Yaksha says, and how we know him the humble guy. And we want to show the genius part about him. But it should not be romantic, like, hes the good hero. We dont want to make a story that nobody believes. Everything should be true, in the good way we experienced it. The last time Yaksha spoke to 6ix9ine was in New York, a few months ago. He was in a studio with Dalyb and a big group of friends, and someone rang up 6ix9ines cell. Yaksha laughs. Okay, hes really rich, so hes in jail but he has a phone. It was a bunch of people all screaming at once, Yaksha says, so he couldnt really have an actual conversation with his old friend. 6ix9ine seemed okay, though, he recalls. Hes doing good, Yaksha says. Nobody know what actually is happening. We are waiting. Everybody waiting. Speaker Ali Abdel-Aal also said that parliament refused a proposal that would allow President Sisi to run for office until 2034 Egypt parliament speaker Ali Abdel-Aal said the proposed amendments to Egypts 2014 constitution, which will be put to a vote in parliament tomorrow, will not be the last. In fact, Egypt will need to write a new constitution within the coming 10 years in order to go in line with changing political and economic conditions, said Abdel-Aal. Abdel-Aal also indicated that he and a lot of MPs affiliated with parliaments constitutional and legislative affairs committee had rejected a proposal that would allow President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to run for office until 2034. There were a lot of divisions among MPs on this point, and we rejected the proposal of some that the sitting president be allowed an additional 12 years [in office] till 2034. We chose a middle-ground option that will allow the sitting president to remain in office until 2024, and then he will be allowed to run for another six years, said Abdel-Aal, indicating that this way, I can say that the amended constitution still does not lead to any kind of inheritance of power or perpetuation of rule. I mean that the constitution still maintains the two-term limit and prevents elected presidents from staying in power forever, said Abdel-Aal. In its meeting on Sunday evening, parliaments constitutional and legislative affairs committee voted in favour of amending 12 articles of Egypts 2014 constitution. The committee approved that the new parliament, which will be elected at the end of 2020, be composed of 450, and that women will be allocated 25 percent of seats (112) in this parliament. This goes in line with the international conventions which Egypt signed in this respect and which allow for women be allocated 30 percent of seats in parliament, said Abdel-Aal, but we said 30 percent is too much, and that 25 percent is a very logical quota. Parliament will vote Tuesday on the constitutional amendments, which will also reinstate the post of vice president and recreate a second house of parliament. Search Keywords: Short link: Alcohol restrictions in Rome areas associated with nightlife. Rome police caught a 35-year-old French tourist splashing around in the fountain of S. Maria in Trastevere in the early hours of 14 April. The fountain, believed to be the oldest fountain in Rome, with previous incarnations of the existing monument dating back to the eighth century. The arrest of the tourist, who was fined 450, was part of a crackdown by police in areas of Rome associated nightlife where alcohol restrictions are in place until 26 April. The outdoor consumption of booze is banned after 21.00 in the following areas: S. Lorenzo, Esquilino, the vicinity of Termini Station, Piazza Bologna, Viale Ippocrate and Piazzale delle Provincie. Off-licences, supermarkets and vending machines in these areas are also prohibited from selling take-away alcohol after 21.00. In addition, pubs are forbidden from serving alcohol indoors from 02.00 until 07.00. Friday night visits to the Vatican Museums from April to October. The Vatican Museums will be open every Friday evening, from 19.00-23.00, from 26 April until 25 October. Online booking is mandatory, with last admission at 21.30 and exit from the museums beginning 30 minutes prior to closing time. The visit includes the Pio-Clementine museum, the Egyptian museum, the upper galleries, the Raphael rooms, the Borgia apartment, the collection of modern religious art, and the Sistine Chapel. As in previous years, the popular Friday night initiative will be enriched with a special concert programme. For full details including ticket prices see Vatican Museums website. No details in that one. It was a strangely casual way to treat so grand a building. Matisse was acting with the heretical nonchalance of a radical painter, yes, but also with the nonchalance of a lover, of someone who knows something intimately and can treat it as a given, a birthright, without a tourists self-conscious reverence. Ive lived my life at the borders, between cultures, between disciplines, between musics, between generations. I feel like I need to make a statement today about three little things: The first thing is, a country is not a hotel, and its not full, Ma said, drawing enthusiastic applause. The second statement Id like to make is that in culture, we seek truth and understanding. And the last statement Id like to make is that in culture we build bridges, not walls. Prosecutors allege that interactions Craig had with the media to explain and publicize the report in 2012 triggered a requirement to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The government alleged that Craig did not want to register because he believed it could prevent him from returning to government service, and that it could force him to reveal that a wealthy Ukrainian businessman had mostly funded the $4 million report. The complaint affidavit is far more extensive than the indictment, sketching the origins of Mannings relationship with Assange as well as the impact of her decision to give hundreds of thousands of pages of State Department cables and Iraq and Afghanistan military documents to WikiLeaks. But there is no evidence in either document beyond chat logs first used to convict Manning of espionage and other crimes in 2013. From his home filled with early modernist sketches and books, Pregelj (pronounced pray-gull) recalled that his grand jury of 23 met more than 100 times its first 18 months of a two-year run, with two jurors losing their jobs as a result. Another member, a night-shift custodian at George Washington University, quit the panel, she later told a reporter, because it was too hard to be on the jury by day and the job at night and care for her 11 children. The marijuana activists have clearly gotten under his skin, said attorney Mark Goldstone, who has represented many of them including Donlan, who was charged with consumption of marijuana in a prohibited public space for the incident in the hallway. The case was dismissed after she agreed to stay away from the congressmans office for three months, according to Goldstone. Some colleagues suggest that one of his finest moments came late on Election Night in 2000, when it was clear that the presidential race between Texas Gov. George W. Bush (R) and Vice President Al Gore (D) had come down to the closely fought state of Florida. At 2:16 a.m. on Nov. 8, Fox News declared Bush the winner in Florida, and within minutes NBC, CBS, CNN and ABC did the same. The AP said the race was too close to name a winner. Conway stated that she was speaking with other individuals who were part of the party when she felt someone grab both of her shoulders from behind and shake her, Cpl. Joseph McNally wrote in court papers. Conway stated that at first she believed it was someone trying to get her attention for a hug before they left the party. When she turned around, she came face-to-face with the suspect who was screaming and making aggressive hand gestures towards her. On one corner in Silver Spring, there were the Hare Krishnas, drumming and chanting and giving lollipops to anyone who would stop and listen to the story of Swami Prabhupada. On another corner, there was an evening palm procession by a largely Latino church congregation. Across the street, two buskers from Hyattsville played their brass horns, a group of Asian American skaters did tricks, and I and another white mom from Capitol Hill waited for our kids and their multicultural group of friends to finish their movie. Obviously Democrats were hoping the governor was going to be a real asset in legislative elections this year. Thats not going to happen, McGlennon said. I think this is an indication of the problems that will occur for candidates that would have him involved. That doesnt mean they dont want to work with him, doesnt mean he cant continue his rehabilitation. . . . This kind of public party leadership is not something hes going to be able to do for the next several months. Since then, Northam has resisted calls from high-ranking Democrats to step down, and in recent weeks has begun appearing with members of his party at public appearances. Some Democrats also have since backed off their calls for him to leave office, saying they were too hasty in their calls for his resignation. While GOP leaders calls for unity have sought to bury what many viewed as an embarrassing moment for the party, not everyone is ready to move on. The fight over Shafi has exposed an enduring rift among Republicans and a battle for the heart of the party, one that some fear could help flip Texas from red to blue. The indictment filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida similarly makes no mention of any espionage elements, noting only that Zhang knowingly entered restricted grounds. It goes on to state that she told a Secret Service agent she was there to attend a United Nations Friendship Event, when in truth and in fact, and as the defendant then and there well knew, no such event was scheduled. Several companies have sued the state tax department, arguing that no one knows for sure the criteria officials use to award new licenses. They complain the state releases no information about who seeks and receives permission to sell cannabis to adults, many of them tourists, in the nearly two-year-old market. DNA tests confirm death of ISIS leader, Philippines says: U.S. DNA tests have confirmed the death of a militant who helped lead the 2017 siege of a city in the southern Philippines and was considered a key Islamic State leader in the region, officials said. Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano said the tests confirmed that Owaida Marohombsar, known as Abu Dar, was one of four militants killed in a March 14 gun battle that also left four soldiers dead. The military asked U.S. authorities to confirm Marohombsar's death through DNA tests. He helped lead the siege of Marawi, which troops quelled after five months of ground assaults and airstrikes that left more than 1,100 people, mostly militants, dead. We are firm believers in sunshine in public matters, but this legislation which seems to be taken from the national teachers union playbook on how to kneecap charter schools is not designed to benefit the public or help students. It ignores the fact that the D.C. Public Charter School Board, which oversees the citys 123 public charter schools, is already subject to both the open-meetings law and freedom-of-information requests. The board, which has earned national renown for the rigor of its standards, requires charters to disclose financial information, including how they use resources from the government and what they accomplish with those resources. Charters participate in state testing and federal accountability programs, and the charter board leads the way in providing comprehensive evaluations of charters and the job they do in educating students. Since then, successive U.S. administrations have sent Israel mixed messages. U.S. administrations cautioned that settlements undermined chances for peace, but U.S. leaders did little to indicate they meant it. Congress generally looked the other way. It is good that two members of Congress have spoken out clearly against Mr. Netanyahus actions. We should remember, however, that while Likud prime ministers have been especially aggressive toward the Palestinians, settlements were also begun and continued under Labor governments. The Republican question is easier to dispose of. The GOP has been working hard for half a century to become monocultural and mono-ideological. Trump has only accelerated the process. Most are happy to be bought off with judges and tax cuts. And please, no elitist alibis that this is all about those Trumpist blue-collar folks. As the Atlantics Ronald Brownstein pointed out, using Quinnipiac University polling from last year, 76 percent of white Republicans without a college degree supported Trumps wall but so did 71 percent of white Republicans who did graduate from college. And remember that more than 80 percent of Republicans are white. The protesters were not fooled, and they have continued their mass demonstrations despite warnings and curfews from Ibn Auf and conciliatory appeals from Burhan. Though Burhan has said the military council would name a civilian prime minister and cabinet, he has not committed to installing a civilian president. Allowing the army to oversee a transition to democracy, even in a more limited capacity, would be like having the foxes oversee improvements to the henhouse and could undermine efforts at rooting out corruption and state-sponsored violence, the twin hallmarks of three decades of military rule in Sudan. The crucial test of whether Netanyahu has changed will be whether he acts on his latest wild pre-election promise, which was for Israel to annex large portions of the West Bank. In an interview three days before the vote, he vowed to apply sovereignty not just to the large Jewish settlement blocs near the border with Israel but also to the isolated settlement points deep inside the Palestinian territory. That would, in a stroke, virtually foreclose the possibility of a deal on Palestinian statehood, plunge Israel into conflict with most of the rest of the world and, ultimately, force it to choose between giving up its Jewish identity and becoming an apartheid state. The White House was instantly criticized for that tweet as yet another attempt by Trump to incite hatred. Quickly, a good chunk of the flash mob that has materialized to seek the Democratic presidential nomination came to her defense without any of them suggesting that she think before she opens her mouth. She has, after all, said some doozies. Its all about the Benjamins baby, she tweeted back in February, implying that overwhelming congressional support for Israel is bought by Jewish money. She apologized for the tweet. But then she told a D.C. audience that American supporters for Israel are pushing for allegiance to a foreign country. The only potential reason for Mr. Trump not to release his returns is that there is damaging information in them, which makes it all the more imperative that his returns be seen by Congress at a minimum, if not the public writ large. All members of Congress, as well as the president, the vice president and Cabinet-level appointees, should, as public servants, release their returns. This has led to a frightening state of affairs. By all the evidence, Trump is an anti-Muslim bigot. At one campaign event in 2015, a member of the audience stated, We have a problem in this country, its called Muslims. And he went on to ask, When can we get rid of them? Trump responded: Were going to be looking at that and plenty of other things. Imagine a normal politician on the left or right being asked about the possibility of getting rid of all the Christians, or getting rid of all the Jews. They would likely use such a moment to clarify that they arent, in fact, insanely prejudiced monsters. Trump used such a moment to affirm the instinct of mass deportation and to promise a range of other anti-Muslim actions. Trump has said that the countries from which asylum seekers and economic migrants are fleeing are not sending their best people, and that entry should be based on merit, not on family connections. That would be a complete departure from the immigration policies that allowed Trumps and Millers forebears to come to this country, but it sounds debatable until you take into account Trumps other remarks. He has reportedly disparaged nonwhite countries with a vulgar epithet and expressed a preference for immigrants from places like Norway, which happens to be one of the whitest countries on the planet. In the context of immigration policy, he has regaled crowds with the story likely apocryphal of his friend Jim, who used to go to Paris all the time but doesnt anymore because Paris is no longer Paris. The 2018 returns show that Sanders and his wife, Jane, contributed about $19,000 to charity out of their income of $566,000, or 3.35 percent. The couple gave $36,300 to charity in 2017. The Sanders campaign said those rates do not reflect charitable proceeds given from one of his books, which he did not deduct from his taxes. The campaign did not say how much was given in that case. Hogan, 62, who in November became the second GOP governor in history to win reelection in liberal Maryland, is one of several names that have been floated by Trump critics over the past year. That list also includes former Ohio governor John Kasich, who has conceded that, at least in todays party, he could not beat Trump in a primary. The pressure on the accounting firm to resist the looming House subpoena comes after the Treasury Department missed an initial deadline to hand over Trumps tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee, which then set another deadline of April 23. Before her appearance Monday, Pelosi had issued a statement saying that any discussion of 9/11 must be done with reverence and that Trump shouldnt use the painful images of 9/11 for a political attack. She also asked the Capitol Police to conduct a security assessment to safeguard Omar amid increasing death threats. Islam is going to be a far more important player in the near future of Indonesian politics, said Alexander R. Arifianto, team leader of an Indonesia elections research project at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. The question is whether its going to be more gradual or subtle, which will happen if Jokowi gets reelected, or dramatic, in the event that his rival wins. Another possible road bump is Avigdor Liberman, who quit Netanyahus last government over the prime ministers Gaza policy. Libermans party, Yisrael Beytenu, holds five seats, and he is widely expected to demand reinstatement as defense minister, with greater leverage over policy, in exchange for his support. At the same time, though, his fierce secularism will cause friction with ultra-Orthodox parties in a coalition. When the reporter reiterated the intent of the question, Pompeo responded: The responsibility for these refugees lies squarely with Nicolas Maduro, not any policies that any democratic nation has taken with our deep intent to make lives better for the Venezuelan people. A hundred percent of the refugee challenge that is faced by Peru and Colombia is the direct result of the Russians, the Cubans and Nicolas Maduro. Former prime minister Kevin Rudd warned in 2011 that Australian companies needed to operate to high environmental and safety standards in their overseas operations after being alerted to Malaysian concerns about the radioactive waste produced by rare earths group Lynas Corp. This was around the same time that ASX-listed Lynas was being warned, in a confidential report it commissioned, that it had failed to engage with the Malaysian community, which could jeopardise its operations in the country. Former prime minister Kevin Rudd warned in 2011 that Australian companies needed to operate to high environmental and safety standards overseas. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen A letter obtained by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age details a response from Mr Rudd, who was foreign minister at the time, to Senator Doug Cameron, who had met with a delegation of Malaysian citizens expressing their concerns about Lynas' $1 billion operating plant in Kuantan. "The Australian government expects Australian companies to operate to high environmental and safety standards in their overseas operations, as they would in Australia," said the letter from Mr Rudd dated July 20, 2011. An Australian startup is looking to disrupt the booming solar industry with its locally designed and manufactured removable panels. The company, Solpod, has developed a new way of mounting solar panels on the roofs of commercial and industrial buildings that address some of the barriers businesses have faced in switching to solar photovoltaic power. James Larratt is the chief executive and founder of Solpod. The panels can be removed and relocated because they are assembled in a demountable frame and attached to the roof with adhesive foam, which means there is no need to drill holes in the roof to attach the panels and they are prefabricated in a factory, which reduces the amount of labour and disruption on site. Rather than individually assembling every panel, bolt, nut and cable on a customers roof over many weeks, Solpod assembles pods in a quality-controlled factory and minimises our time on site, chief executive James Larratt said. Childcare workers are worried about a huge drop in the number of vulnerable families claiming subsidies for the cost of care, fearing red tape and tougher eligibility criteria are forcing them to withdraw their kids. The childcare subsidy system changed in July last year, and in the year to September 2018, the number of children supported by the childcare safety net - now the additional subsidy - fell by more than 14,000 to around 21,000 according to data from the Federal Department of Education. Within that group, the biggest drops were among families with children classified as at risk, those from families in financial hardship, and the children of unemployed parents accessing support for the transition to work. The childcare sector is worried about the number of vulnerable families that have stopped claiming child care support Credit:Gabriele Charotte Meanwhile, the childcare sector also says only a third of the 70,000 low income families that were expected to access childcare safety net entitlements have actually ended up doing so, citing figures from recent Senate estimates hearings. Australians are paying more for healthcare than most other developed nations, forking out $34 billion a year on out-of-pocket health costs, an analysis of official data reveals. The latest data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that of the $181 billion spent annually on health, 19 per cent is paid directly from patients' pockets. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says Labor will help reduce out-of-pocket costs for cancer patients. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Those out of pocket costs equate to 3 per cent of Australian household spending, the third-highest in the OECD behind South Korea (5.7 per cent) and Sweden (3.8 per cent). The analysis comes as Opposition Leader Bill Shorten prepares to announce a $200 million pledge to keep pathology tests free for older Australians and those with cancer on Tuesday, after rejecting claims his bulk billing cancer plan could blow a $6 billion hole in the budget. These studies also show that the vaccine reduces the total number of colposcopies, biopsies and other procedures. And while it's still too early to say for sure, it looks like the HPV vaccine may protect this group of girls from developing cervical, oral and anal cancers, diseases that can appear several decades after initial HPV infection. Does the vaccine make sense for 'L' and 30 million other women under 46 who missed the opportunity to get the HPV shots as kids? (There is a consensus that giving the HPV vaccine to boys will also prevent HPV-related cancers, although males are not the focus of this report.) I also know the vaccine is safe; in the review of the HPV studies, severe adverse events were rare and were not significantly higher in vaccine recipients than in those who received a placebo injection. But L had a number of partners in her early 20s followed by many years of monogamy. Does the vaccine make sense for her and the roughly 30 million other women under 46 who missed the opportunity to get the HPV shots as kids? After all, studies show that most women get exposed to at least one strain of HPV within a couple of years after first having sex and that the likelihood of exposure increases with each sexual partner. While most women clear their infections within 12 to 24 months, a small percentage go on to develop cervical precancers or cancers which is why cervical cancer screening is important. To answer L's question, I looked up the guidelines for HPV vaccination put out by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP), a group of medical experts that determines which vaccines we should use in the United States. Despite the FDA's recent approval of the vaccine for women up to age 45, I saw no mention of women over age 26 in the ACIP guidelines. Loading Then I moved to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology website to see what it said about HPV vaccination for older women. ACOG's Practice Advisory encourages me to "welcome conversations" with women up to age 45 and that "any decision to be vaccinated should be individually based using shared decision making and clinical judgment based on those patients' circumstances, preferences, and concerns." To get some clarity on ACOG's recommendations, I called Lois Ramondetta, professor of gynecologic oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre. She is on the ACOG HPV immunisation expert working group. She said that the ACIP was doing a cost-benefit analysis and would soon decide whether to recommend the HPV vaccine up to age 45. But she agreed that, at the moment, there is plenty of confusion about which older women would benefit. "Perhaps it would be very useful for someone who hasn't been exposed, and who's intimacy situation has changed," she told me. Measuring exposure to HPV is tricky. The only option in my lab is to do a cervical swab to test for high-risk HPV genotypes including HPV 16 and 18 the two strains that cause more than 70 per cent of HPV-related cancers. This is a great test for diagnosing active infection with HPV but doesn't measure past exposure or latent HPV infections. (To measure these, I would need an antigen test, which is only available in research labs.) How is it that the vaccine can prevent infection in older women but does not seem to protect against cervical cancer? But combing through the data from VIVIANE, one of two big drug industry-funded studies to measure the effectiveness of HPV vaccine in older women, I realised that the vaccine was about 80 per cent effective at preventing infection with HPV 16 and 18 in women whose cervical swabs were negative for these strains, regardless of past exposure. That sounded pretty good to me. As long as L was HPV genotype 16 and 18 negative, maybe she should get the vaccine. Not so fast, cautioned Karen Smith-McCune, professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of California at San Francisco. She is a HPV researcher and works in the cervical dysplasia clinic taking care of women infected with HPV. "When you look at these studies, you have to ask: 'Effective for what?' If your goal is to prevent cancer, we have no proof the vaccine does that in the older age group," she said. Loading It was true that older women who received the HPV vaccine became infected with HPV 16 and 18 at a lower rate than the women who were unvaccinated. But the advanced precancers, the ones most likely to go on to become cancer, were rare in both the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups, and the difference was not statistically significant. How is it that the vaccine can prevent infection in older women but does not seem to protect against cervical cancer? Smith-McCune has a variety of explanations for this, including that new HPV infection in older women may simply be a reactivation of latent infection and less likely to progress to cancer. "The take-home message is that cervical cancer is really rare in older women who get regular screenings and [the HPV] vaccine adds little in terms of prevention," Smith-McCune said. And what about avoiding costly and uncomfortable colposcopies and biopsies, something that the vaccine did accomplish in younger women especially those who had never had sex. Well there were slightly fewer of these procedures in the older women who received the vaccine, but not an amount that was statistically significant. So what is the best choice for L? "If she is a 40-something-year-old virgin who decides to start dating, the vaccine will be 100 per cent effective," Smith-McCune said. "But beyond that, let's vaccinate adolescents, that is where you have the public health impact." Smith-McCune added that L should get the recommended cervical cancer screening up to age 65, which means getting a PAP plus HPV test every five years, or a PAP every three years. At this point, I was pretty sure what I would say to L and other women her age: "The HPV vaccine is unlikely to help but, aside from cost, there is no big downside to getting it." But then I learnt that there is a global shortage of HPV vaccine. According to the World Health Organisation, the two manufacturers, Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, are not producing enough. And while there are plans for other pharmaceutical companies in China and India to pick up the slack, right now only 20 per cent of countries with the highest rates of cervical cancer are able to immunise girls who are 9 to 14 years old, the age group where the vaccine is known to be most effective. If you are a woman in your mid-40s who is suddenly thrown back on the dating scene, the best strategy is use condoms. Given the limited supply and the lack of evidence that the vaccine protects older women from colposcopies or cervical cancer, I agree with Smith-McCune: Let's leave the vaccine for the teens and preteens. And if you are a woman in your mid-40s who is suddenly thrown back on the dating scene, the best strategy is use condoms (because they do protect against other sexually transmitted infections) and get regular cervical cancer screening. I called L to share what I had learnt. She had done some of her own research and came to pretty much the same conclusion. Geneva: The number of measles cases worldwide nearly quadrupled in the first quarter of 2019 to 112,163 against the same period last year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday, citing provisional data. The is no scientific evidence to support anti-vaccination claims that measles, mumps and rubella vaccines cause autism. Credit:AP Higher rates of the preventable but contagious disease which can kill or cause blindness, hearing loss and brain-damage have been recorded in all regions, the United Nations agency said in a statement, appealing for better vaccination coverage. Fresh outbreaks have hit the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Myanmar, the Philippines, Sudan, Thailand and Ukraine, "causing many deaths mostly among young children", the WHO said. It gave no figures for fatalities but noted it estimates that only one in 10 cases is reported globally. There are two forces in life pushing me to have another baby. The first is my three-year-old son. Hes in a kinder class full of children with newborn siblings or whose parents are expecting another child. After his valiant suggestion that my husband could be the one to have a baby this time around, Ive since bargained him down to a kitten and then, ultimately, a Transformer. Well played, Mum. Many Millennials say they can't afford another child. Credit:Stocksy The second set of expectations is coming at me direct from the federal government. Buried deep in the 2019-2020 budget papers is an assumption that Australias birth rate will rise to a whopping 1.9 babies per woman. Apparently, thats going to happen within just three short years. It isnt a new assumption. Every year since Joe Hockeys 2015 Intergenerational Report, budget modelling has assumed Australian women are going to embark on a breeding frenzy. Its a prediction thats proven patently false. Last weeks High Court decision to uphold Victorias safe access zones as well as protests by vegan activists that shut down parts of our city offer contrasting insights into the right to protest in our democracy. The High Courts decision was welcome. Women and families seeking to use medical services at a time of great distress and anxiety should not be compelled to physically negotiate their way around protesters opposed to the very services they are entitled under law to obtain. Illustration: Matt Davidson Credit: As a strong advocate of free speech, I have long maintained that safety and wellbeing must always prevail over the rights of protesters, to protect people from harm. Thats why I voted for the Safe Access Zones Bill in 2015. In fact, the concept of safe access zones can serve comparable purposes in other contexts where health and safety are at risk. Although I voted against the Assisted Dying Bill in 2017, I would for similar reasons support the introduction of a reasonable safe access zone around medical facilities where patients seek medical advice or services at their most harrowing time. The way cash is raised to run political campaigns is resulting in "shocking" levels of corruption, Australians are being warned, in a new push for drastic reforms to donation laws, including swift disclosure of big donors. The call for reform includes a warning about "war chest corruption" as the federal election campaign begins, with voters unable to discover who is paying the political parties at fundraising events in the weeks ahead. Former Victorian judge Stephen Charles. Credit:Arsineh Houspian Former Victorian Supreme Court judge Stephen Charles, a key adviser in the formation of the state's corruption watchdog, said Australia needed the stricter laws to curb "payments for access" to elected leaders. "Elections shouldn't be bought," Mr Charles said. "Einstein must be totally chuffed," said Priyamvada Natarajan, an astrophysicist at Yale. "His theory has just been stress-tested under conditions of extreme gravity, and looks to have held up." Kip Thorne, an astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology who shared a Nobel Prize in 2017 for the discovery of gravitational waves from colliding black holes, wrote in an email: "It is wonderful to see the nearly circular shadow of the black hole. There can be no doubt this really is a black hole at the centre of M87, with no signs of deviations from general relativity." Janna Levin, a cosmologist and professor at Barnard College in New York, said: "What a time to be alive." A telescope the size of Earth The image emerged from two years of computer analysis of observations from a network of radio antennas called the Event Horizon Telescope. In all, eight radio observatories on six mountains and four continents observed the galaxy in Virgo on and off for 10 days in April 2017. The network is named after the edge of a black hole, the point of no return; beyond the event horizon, not even light can escape the black hole's gravitational pull. The Large Millimetre Telescope in Puebla, Mexico, part of the Event Horizon Telescope which was used to "see" the Messier 87 black hole in the constellation of Virgo. Credit:New York Times The mystery of black holes has tantalised astronomers for more than half a century. In the 1950s, astronomers with radio telescopes discovered that pearly, seemingly peaceful galaxies were spewing radio energy from their cores - far more energy than would be produced by the ordinary thermonuclear engines that make stars shine. Perhaps, astrophysicists thought, the energy was being liberated by matter falling onto supermassive, dense objects - later called black holes. Since then, scientists have devised detailed models of how this would work. As hot, dense gas swirls around the black hole, like water headed down a drain, the intense pressures and magnetic fields cause energy to squirt from either side. As a paradoxical result, supermassive black holes can be the most luminous objects in the universe. Einstein's least favourite idea The unveiling took place almost exactly a century after images of stars askew in the heavens made Einstein famous and confirmed his theory of general relativity as the law of the cosmos. That theory ascribes gravity to the warping of space and time by matter and energy, much as a mattress sags under a sleeper. To Einstein's surprise, the equations indicated that when too much matter or energy was concentrated in one place, space-time could collapse, trapping matter and light in perpetuity. He disliked that idea, but the consensus today is that the universe is speckled with black holes furiously consuming everything around them. The Atacama Large Millimetre Array in the Chilean desert, part of the Event Horizon Telescope. Credit:New York Times Many are the gravitational tombstones of stars that burned up their fuel and collapsed. But others, hidden in the centres of nearly every galaxy, are millions or billions of times more massive than our sun. Loading Nobody knows how such behemoths of nothingness could have been assembled. Dense wrinkles in the primordial energies of the Big Bang? Monster runaway stars that collapsed and swallowed up their surroundings in the dawning years of the universe? Nor do scientists know what ultimately happens to whatever falls into a black hole, nor what forces reign at the centre, where, theoretically, the density approaches infinity and smoke pours from nature's computer. Zeroing in on cosmic monsters Any lingering doubts about the reality of black holes dissolved three years ago when the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, detected the collision of a pair of distant black holes, which sent a shiver through the fabric of space-time. Loading Still, questions about gravity and the universe abound. "We know there must be something more," Avery Broderick, a member of the Event Horizon team, told the audience in Washington. "Black holes are one of the places to look for answers." Proving that the monsters in Virgo and the centre of the Milky Way were really black holes required measuring the sizes of their shadows. That was no easy job. Both are exceedingly small, at this distance, and resolving their tiny details would be a challenge for even the biggest individual telescope. Moreover, the view is blurred by the charged particles such as electrons and protons that fill interstellar space. "It's like looking through frosted glass," said Doeleman. To see into the shadows, astronomers needed to be able to tune their radio telescope to shorter wavelengths. And they needed a bigger telescope. Loading Enter the Event Horizon Telescope, the dream-child of Doeleman. By combining data from radio telescopes as far apart as the South Pole, France, Chile and Hawaii, using a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry, Doeleman and his colleagues created a telescope as big as Earth itself, with the power to resolve details as small as an orange on the lunar surface. In April 2017, the network of eight telescopes, including the South Pole Telescope, synchronised by atomic clocks, stared at the two targets off and on for 10 days. For two years, the Event Horizon team reduced and collated the results. The data were too voluminous to transmit over the internet, so they were placed on hard disks and flown back to MIT's Haystack Observatory in Westford, Massachusetts, and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany. Last year the team divided into four groups to assemble images from the data dump. To stay objective and guard against bias, the teams had no contact with each other. They readied themselves for an inconclusive or ambiguous result - a blur, perhaps, that they couldn't quite read. 'It was a surprise how clear this image is' Doeleman grew optimistic last year at a dinner attended by some of the younger members of the team, who showed him the first data for M87. "There were clear signatures of a ringlike structure," he said. After dinner, he went to his office and made some crude calculations. "That was one of those great moments," he said. "It was a surprise how clear this image is." Astronomer Sheperd Doeleman, second from left, watches data being received inside the control room for Mexico's Large Millimetre Telescope. Credit:New York Times Cairo: Sudan's new ruling military council has announced it will name a civilian prime minister and cabinet but not a president to help govern the country following the coup that removed longtime leader Omar al-Bashir. An army spokesman, Lieutenant General Shamseldin Kibashi, also said in televised remarks on Sunday, local time, that the military had begun to overhaul security organisations and would not break up demonstrations that have continued outside the military headquarters since Thursday's coup. Sudanese demonstrators march with national flags as they gather during a rally demanding a civilian body to lead the transition to democracy, outside the army headquarters in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Saturday. Credit:AP The statement came after a second day of meetings between the army and organisers of the months of escalating street protests that led to Bashir's ouster. The announcement was unlikely to satisfy protesters, who have demanded full civilian rule. Protest organisers have urged the military to "immediately and unconditionally" hand power to a transitional civilian government that would rule for four years. Washington: A new YouTube tool for battling misinformation failed in a highly public way on Monday, wrongly linking video of the flaming collapse of the spire at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Notre-Dame Cathedral spire on the cusp of collapse. Credit:AP As images of the iconic tower falling to the streets played on newscasts around the world - and on the YouTube channels mirroring those newscasts - "information panels" appeared in boxes below the videos providing details about the collapses of New York's World Trade Centre after the terrorist attack, which killed thousands of people. The 9/11 tragedy is a frequent subject of hoaxes, and the information panels were posted automatically, likely because of visual similarities that computer algorithms detected between the two incidents. YouTube began rolling out the information panels providing factual information about the subjects of frequent hoaxes in the past few months. Egypts Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources and Mohamed Abdel-Ati said that negotiations on the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam (GERD) are continuing, although no new developments have been reached. The minister said that a meeting in Cairo of the irrigation ministers of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan has been postponed due to the recent events and changes in the government of Sudan. The minister's remarks came during a meeting of the African Affairs Committee of the Egyptian House of Representative on Monday to discuss the GERD issue, especially within the current developments in Sudan. It has been agreed to hold the meeting in the upcoming days but the date has not yet been decided," the minister said. For the past several years, Egypt and Ethiopia have been at odds over the construction of the $4 billion hydroelectric dam, which Cairo fears will threaten its Nile water supply. Ethiopia hopes to become Africas biggest exporter of electric power with the dam, which is set to be the continents largest. Addis Ababa denies that the structure will reduce Egypts access to water. The project manager said last December that the dam is expected to be completed in 2022. Construction was launched in April 2011 and was initially expected to be completed in 2017. However, the construction was delayed due to change in design to increase its generation capacity. Search Keywords: Short link: Pruyn Haskins, global head, equities, told WP: We are very excited about the opportunities and possibilities for investors with liquid alts. This is a great new investment product in Canada and we are thrilled to be supporting investment managers as they seek to grow this new asset class. We are proud to be the market leader in this space. This is the first alternative mutual fund index in Canada and we are proud to launch it with our partners." Haskins praised the CSA for putting the mutual fund framework together and believes that once awareness is raised among advisors, the asset class will go from strength to strength. In order for an advisor to build a successful portfolio for the client, there is a multitude of investments that they can look to, to create a well-balanced diversified portfolio. It is another product that has specific characteristics which may be able to mitigate certain risks, like downside risks in the market, so from that perspective it just becomes part of the overall shelf of products. The index tracked a return of 0.81% in March, meaning the universes year-to-date return is 3.13%. It consists of 22 funds from providers such as CIBC, Desjardins, Dynamic, EHP, Lawrence Park, Mackenzie, Marret, Munro, NBI, Vision and Picton Mahoney. Chief Education (Learning & Development), International Fixed Term Appointment, Addis Ababa Organization: UNICEF - United Nations Childrens Fund Country: Ethiopia City: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Office: UNICEF Addis Ababa Closing date: Sunday, 28 April 2019 Job no: 521380 Position type: Fixed Term Appointment Location: Ethiopia Division/Equivalent: Nairobi Regnl(ESARO) School/Unit: Ethiopia Department/Office: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Categories: Education, P-5, Senior Leadership Vacancies UNICEF works in some of the worlds toughest places, to reach the worlds most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential. Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. And we never give up. For every child, Quality Education UNICEF Ethiopia has been working in Ethiopia for the over 65 years supporting the national and regional efforts towards the progressive realization of the rights of children and women. We do this by supporting the achievements of the Growth and Transformation Plan II as well as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through our programmes in Health, Nutrition, WASH, Child Protection, Education and Social Policy and Evidence on Social Inclusion. In addition, UNICEF Ethiopia has been leading the support in humanitarian programmes relentlessly working towards responding to emergency needs. Ethiopia has made remarkable progress in education, with primary school net enrolment tripling between 2000 and 2016 to the current 100 per cent. As children and young people comprise 48 per cent of the population, Ethiopia can lift itself out of poverty by ensuring children have access to quality education. To invest in quality education, UNICEF starts early since the basis to a skilled society lies in the early years. UNICEF supports quality improvements to the Governments pre-primary classes and develops flexible ECE methods for more hard-to-reach populations. To address the pervasive out-of-school problem, UNICEF strengthens girls clubs and implements innovative programmes for pastoralist cultures that allow school to be flexible, while ensuring quality and relevancy to the cultures of each region. To improve the quality of primary education, UNICEF invests in teachers through Assessment-for-Learning, an initiative that gives teachers skills to continually assess the progress of individual students to inform their teaching. Given the considerable number of refugees and displaced communities in the country, investments are made in quality education to meet immediate humanitarian needs while seeking more sustainable solutions through integration with host communities. TORONTO - The federal government will end up with the power to regulate almost every facet of life such as when you can drive or where you can live if its law aimed at curbing harmful greenhouse gas emissions is allowed to stand, Ontario's top court heard Monday. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/4/2019 (976 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The steel mills in the Hamilton waterfront harbour are shown in Hamilton, Ont., on Tuesday, October 23, 2018. Ontario's battle against Ottawa's carbon tax gets underway in the province's top court today. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette TORONTO - The federal government will end up with the power to regulate almost every facet of life such as when you can drive or where you can live if its law aimed at curbing harmful greenhouse gas emissions is allowed to stand, Ontario's top court heard Monday. The law is so broad, a lawyer for the province said on Day 1 of a four-day Appeal Court hearing, that it would give the Ottawa powers that would destabilize Canada in the name of curbing the cumulative effects of global-warming emissions. "They could regulate where you live, how often you drive your car," Josh Hunter told the five-justice panel. "It would unbalance the federation." Hunter said Ontario's constitutional challenge to the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act was not intended as a debate on the realities or dangers of global warming. What's at stake, he said, is which level of government has the power to deal with the problem. "Which measure is the best measure the most efficient measure is best left for legislatures to decide," Hunter said. "Which legislature? That's what we're here to decide." The federal law that kicked in on April 1 imposes a charge on gasoline and other fossil fuels as well as on industrial polluters. The law applies only in provinces that have no carbon-pricing scheme that meets national standards Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick. The Liberal government, which is due to make submissions on Tuesday, insists its law is an appropriate response to the nationally important issue of climate change. The aim, the government says, is to cajole people into changing their behaviour. The justices repeatedly pressed Hunter to explain what Ottawa should do if a province doesn't want to tackle greenhouse gas emissions, thereby undermining other provinces. "When you think about air pollution, the word 'Ontario' sort of dissolves with the air," said Justice James MacPherson. "It's national and international." Hunter agreed cross-provincial solutions were needed, just not what Ottawa has put in place. "The effect is that you're regulating local industries, local land use, local heating," Hunter said. Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford has said Ontario can curb greenhouse gas emissions on its own and has already taken significant steps to do so. Those steps, Hunter told court, include shutting down coal-fired power plants a measure taken by the previous Liberal government which has sharply reduced the province's harmful emissions. "Ontario is further ahead than all the other provinces," Hunter said. "(But) none of those (steps) count toward determining whether Ontario has a stringent plan." In addition, he said, the province is developing a "made in Ontario environmental plan" that is still under consideration. Ready, Pet, Go! Leesa Dahl looks at everything to do with our furry, fuzzy, feathered, fishy (and more!) pet friends. Arrives in your inbox each Monday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. Hunter also argued the law slaps a "tax" on ordinary people every time they drive to work or heat their homes. In response, the justices pointed out that Ottawa is promising to return almost all the money it collects to people in the affected provinces. Hunter, however, said the rebates via the federal climate action incentive flow to everyone in the province regardless of whether they even drive, for example. "It's not just that you get back what you give," he said. Hunter's co-counsel Padraic Ryan said even if the justices accept the law as constitutional, the charge as levied on carbon is illegal. Giving everyone a tax does not help reduce greenhouse gases, he said. "We say it is a tax that has not been authorized," Ryan said. "The charges imposed under the act are unconstitutional taxes." Fourteen interveners, including provinces such as Saskatchewan and British Columbia, Alberta Conservatives, Indigenous organizations who point out they are acutely vulnerable to global warming, as well as business and environmental groups, will get their say over the course of the hearing, which continues on Tuesday. Simeoni Tatty has been feeling more like himself in recent weeks. And just as importantly, he is hopeful much more than he was a few months ago when he was told the cancer in his bladder had spread to his lungs, liver and lymph nodes. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/4/2019 (976 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Simeoni Tatty has been feeling more like himself in recent weeks. And just as importantly, he is hopeful much more than he was a few months ago when he was told the cancer in his bladder had spread to his lungs, liver and lymph nodes. "My doctor told me its usually about 12 months of life expectancy with the condition I have," says the 62-year-old Inuk grandfather and great-grandfather, who is from Rankin Inlet, Nunavut. Tatty had his bladder removed last spring but post-surgical complications cut his chemotherapy short. And the cancer spread. He felt awful because he had no energy and couldnt sleep. His quality of life was severely diminished, marked by anxiety and depression. It was made more difficult because Tatty had spent months in Winnipeg, 1,400 kilometres away from home. "I was willing to try anything to prolong life a little longer to be with my kids and grandkids," says the carpenter who, until falling ill, had a homebuilding company that provided affordable housing in his community. "So I asked, is there was anything else short of voodoo that my doctor could give me?" As it turns out, a second-line treatment had recently been approved to treat bladder cancer, involving a new class of medication, often referred to as immunotherapy. Tatty has been receiving the treatment for the last few months, and while its likely not a cure, it will likely extend and improve the quality of his life. Tatty was originally given a prognosis of having about 12 months to live. His family (from left), Wendy, Minnie, Adam, Emerson, himself and Marley, are hopeful his therapy can extend that. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS This may not seem revolutionary. But this relatively new class of therapies aimed at coaxing the immune system into attacking cancer cells is providing hope in cases that otherwise would have been hopeless a few years ago. Tattys story highlights the growing number of drug therapies available to patients at CancerCare Manitoba. It demonstrates the value of donations made in April, which is Cancer Awareness Month, to support research for new treatments to fight a disease that one in two Canadians will be diagnosed with in their lifetime. "What characterizes drug treatment for cancer right now is the incredibly fast evolution of new treatments," says Dr. Piotr Czaykowski, a medical oncologist at Manitoba CancerCare who is treating Tatty. The arsenal of new therapies is such that even experts are challenged to keep pace, he adds. Key among the innovative treatments are drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitors, which Tatty is receiving. "Traditional chemotherapy is a very indiscriminate treatment," Czaykowski says. "It kills anything (cells) that is actively dividing and thats largely why you get side-effects." Immunotherapy drugs specifically target cancer cells. "They work on the premise that your immune system should recognize the cancer as foreign, but cancer has a way of hiding itself from the immune system," he says. "So these drugs manage to expose the cancer to the immune system." Tatty had built a career as a homebuilder and carpeneter in his home of Rankin Inlet. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS To date, the particular drug Tatty has received, pembrolizumab, has shown to be effective against melanoma, which is a skin cancer thats difficult to treat with chemotherapy. But it has also been recently approved for use in bladder cancer as a second-line treatment, meaning when other therapies fail, immunotherapy may be used. "Its certainly not a treatment that is effective for everybody, but for patients for whom it works, it appears to potentially control the cancer." Czaykowski is quick to add that immunotherapy will not cure the disease. It has the potential extend the lives of some patients, but not all. Immunotherapy has fewer side-effects than chemotherapy. That means patients generally feel better, which often improves their quality of life. And that is profoundly meaningful for individuals whose lives are measured in days and months rather than years and decades. Yet these drugs are not without downsides. The treatment can have severe side-effects, in which the immune system mistakenly attacks organs. Czaykowski says these negative outcomes are rare, meaning the therapy is worth trying for patients who have few options left. "On average, its not like this will double peoples life expectancy and allows them to live another five years." Rather he says the treatment, on average, extends lives by about two to three months more than traditional chemotherapy. Dr. Piotr Czaykowski "But there are patients whose benefit is far greater than others." Tatty appears to be among them. After a few months, the cancer is in lymph nodes is mostly invisible in diagnostic scans and the spots of disease on his liver and lungs have shrunk. "Are we buying him time? Definitely. How much? I dont know," Czaykowski says. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. Tatty is pleased with the progress. "I dont really feel the side-effects that I felt with the other treatment, which really started wearing down my body," he says. "With the other treatment there was a really depressing feeling and a sense of putting everything in order before my life comes to an end." Tatty adds he has accepted that he will likely die from the disease. But each day he can spend among the living is a great one. Thats despite the stress associated with travelling every three weeks to Winnipeg for treatment, and economic challenge such as potentially losing his home from not being able to work. "At least there is now hope," Tatty says. "If Im going to die, Im going to die. Were all headed there... but I am happy I am able to spend more time with my grandkids, and watch them grow." joelschles@gmail.com Jets forward Kevin Hayes (right) is unable to score in this sequence in Game 3 but played one of his best games as a Jet. FRANKFURT - German prosecutors charged former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn and four others with fraud in the emissions cheating scandal that has helped turn many Europeans against diesel engines and accelerated the push toward electric cars. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/4/2019 (976 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. FRANKFURT - German prosecutors charged former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn and four others with fraud in the emissions cheating scandal that has helped turn many Europeans against diesel engines and accelerated the push toward electric cars. Prosecutors said Monday that Winterkorn knew about the scheme since at least May 2014 and failed to put a stop to it. FILE - In this Jan. 19, 2017 file photo Martin Winterkorn, former CEO of the German car manufacturer 'Volkswagen', arrives for a questioning at an investigation committee of the German federal parliament in Berlin, Germany. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, file) That contradicted his claim that he didn't learn about it until shortly before U.S. investigators announced it in September 2015. Winterkorn resigned as CEO five days later. VW has admitted installing software in its diesel cars that turned on pollution controls when vehicles were being tested and switched them off during everyday driving. That made it look as if the cars met tough U.S. limits on harmful pollutants known as nitrogen oxides. In all, some 11 million cars worldwide were equipped with the illegal software. Prosecutors said the defendants all top Volkswagen managers were part of a deception that started in 2006. The 71-year-old Winterkorn and the others, whose names were not released, face six months to 10 years in prison if convicted of aggravated fraud involving serious losses. Other charges include unfair competition and breach of trust. Prosecutors said the defendants could also be forced to forfeit sales bonuses ranging from around 300,000 euros to 11 million euros ($340,000 to $12.45 million). Winterkorn is already under indictment in the U.S. on charges of fraud and conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act and could get up to 20 years in prison. But he cannot be extradited from Germany to the U.S. Winterkorn's attorney, Felix Doerr, said that the defence could not comment on the German case because prosecutors had not provided adequate opportunity to review the case files. Doerr said prosecutors turned over seven DVDs with hundreds of file folders of material on April 5. The case, consisting of a 692-page indictment backed by 300 file volumes holding 75,000 pages, was filed in a local court in Braunschweig on Friday. The court will decide if the case will proceed to trial. Prosecutors said among other things that the defendants carried out a software update costing 23 million euros in 2014 to try to cover up the true reason for the elevated pollution during driving. The prosecutors said they are still investigating 36 more suspects. Volkswagen's corporate involvement in the Braunschweig investigation ended last year with a 1 billion euro fine. Volkswagen noted that the indictment was against individuals and had no further comment. The prosecutors' move is only one of the legal proceedings unleashed by the scandal. Volkswagen has paid more than 27 billion euros (currently $31 billion) in fines and civil settlements with authorities and car owners since getting caught. The automaker apologized and pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the United States, where two executives were sentenced to prison and six others charged, although they could not be extradited. And the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged the company and Winterkorn on March 15 with defrauding investors through misleading statements about vehicle quality and environmental compliance. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. Investors in Germany are also seeking damages. The scandal unleashed widespread scrutiny of diesel emissions across the industry. It soon turned out that many models from other companies also emitted far more pollution on the road than on the test stand, because of regulatory loopholes exploited by carmakers such as turning exhaust controls off at certain temperatures to reduce engine wear. Diesel sales, once half the European car market, have sagged. That in turn has undermined carmakers' plans to use diesels which get better mileage to help meet tougher European Union limits in 2021 on emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming. One result has been greater pressure to develop battery-powered cars to avoid heavy fines for breaching the new emissions limits. Volkswagen plans to spend 30 billion euros to develop electric vehicles by 2023. The company was able to weather the scandal well enough to take the top spot as the world's largest carmaker from Toyota. Last year, under CEO Herbert Diess, Volkswagen had record sales of 10.83 million vehicles, making an operating profit of 13.9 billion euros. NEW DELHI - India's ailing Jet Airways drastically cut back its operations on Monday amid talks with investors on purchasing a controlling stake in the debt-laden airline. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/4/2019 (976 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Jet Airways aircrafts are seen parked at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, Monday, April 15, 2019. India's ailing Jet Airways has drastically reduced operations amid talks with investors to purchase a controlling stake in the airline and help it reduce its mounting debt. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool) NEW DELHI - India's ailing Jet Airways drastically cut back its operations on Monday amid talks with investors on purchasing a controlling stake in the debt-laden airline. Once India's largest carrier, Jet Airways is currently operating only seven of its 14 aircraft, and is flying only domestic routes, according to spokesman Gaurav Sahni. A recovery plan led by government-owned State Bank of India and other creditors has so far been unable to staunch the bleeding at the airline, which had 119 aircraft on Dec. 31, when the company first defaulted on some of its $1.5 billion in debt. Also on Monday, Jet Airways pilots demonstrated in Mumbai after deciding against a strike, saying they had not been paid in four months and asking India's government for a lifeline. "The appeal is to the prime minister to save Jet Airways, to save 20,000-plus jobs which are at stake here, to pay our salaries," said Jet Airways captain Asim Valiani. Company Chairman Naresh Goyal, who founded the airline in 1992, resigned from the board last month but submitted an expression of interest on Friday to make a bid, Indian news media reported. Goyal built the airline into India's largest carrier by offering an alternative to the unreliable schedules of the country's state-owned airlines. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. But it has been struggling for more than a decade since it borrowed heavily to compete against a new crop of budget airlines. Jet Airways was pinched further last year when the government imposed a 5% import tax on jet fuel even as petroleum prices worldwide rose. Around the same time, the company announced it was low on working capital. Employee pay became irregular. Pilots and engineers began to jump ship, taking jobs at rival Indian airlines. Aircraft lessors began taking back leased planes in lieu of payment. Mark D. Martin, chief executive of aviation consultancy Martin Consulting, said by Monday evening, Jet Airways creditors should have a list of bids for a controlling stake in the airline. But Martin wasn't optimistic. "What are you buying into? You've lost your fleet, you've lost your pilots. How much of a value proposition is it to buy Jet?" he said. Sahni, the airline spokesman, said international flights were scheduled to resume on Tuesday. NEW YORK - The Latest on the Pulitzer Prizes (all times local): Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/4/2019 (975 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. NEW YORK - The Latest on the Pulitzer Prizes (all times local): 7 p.m. This cover image released by Simon & Schuster shows "Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom," by David W. Blight, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History. (Simon & Schuster via AP) Reuters' leaders say they're proud that the news service won Pulitzer Prizes for international reporting and breaking news photography, but they're dismayed that two reporters are in prison for their award-winning work. Thomson Reuters CEO Jim Smith says the news service "won't be truly celebrating until Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are free." The journalists are serving a seven-year sentence after being convicted of violating Myanmar's Official Secrets Act. They were reporting on a brutal crackdown on Rohingya Muslims by security forces in the Buddhist-majority country when they were arrested in December 2017. The prize-winning breaking news photographs depicted Central American migrants heading to the U.S. Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler says the recognition is gratifying, but in his words, "public attention should be focused more on the people about whom we report than on us." FILE - In this June 7, 2015 file photo, Aretha Franklin sings during a memorial service for her father and brother, Rev. C.L. and Rev. Cecil Franklin, at New Bethel Baptist Church where they were ministers, in Detroit. Franklin is still getting R.E.S.P.E.C.T. after death: The Queen of Soul received the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation honor Monday, April 15, 2019, becoming the first individual woman to earn a special citation prize since the honor was first awarded in 1930. Franklin, 76, died at her home in Detroit on Aug. 16, 2018. (Elizabeth Conley/The Detroit News via AP, File) ___ 4:55 p.m. The staff of The Advocate has won the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting for its series about Louisiana's conviction system, including a Jim Crow-era law that let as few as 10 jurors convict people in criminal cases. The award was announced Monday in New York. The Pulitzer committee called the series "a damning portrayal of the state's discriminatory conviction system." Seven months after the series was published, voters overturned the law. Editor Peter Kovacs says that "we put an issue on the radar screen and more than 900,000 people voted for it." The newspaper is based in Baton Rouge, but staffers at The New Orleans Advocate wrote the series, and Kovacs was in New Orleans for the announcement. The staff drank champagne from purple, green or gold plastic cups like those thrown from Mardi Gras floats. ___ This photo combination shows Associated Press journalists, from left, videographer Maad al-Zikry, reporter Maggie Michael and photographer Nariman El-Mofty. The team won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in international reporting for their work documenting torture, graft and starvation in Yemen's brutal civil war. (AP Photo) 4:35 p.m. St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Tony Messenger has won a Pulitzer Prize for his series of columns about debtors' prisons in Missouri. The Pulitzer winners were announced Monday. Messenger won in the category of commentary. Messenger found defendants across Missouri who owed thousands of dollars in "board bills" for time spent in jail even though they had fulfilled their sentences or served out parole. As a result of his work, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that judges can't use courts to threaten indigent defendants with jail time, nor can they collect debts as court costs. Post-Dispatch President and Publisher Ray Farris said Messenger's work "exemplifies the highest standards of our profession." The newspaper also won a Pulitzer Prize, U.S. journalism's highest honour, in 2015 for photographic coverage of the unrest in Ferguson after Michael Brown's death. ___ FILE- In this April 19, 2017, file photo, Aretha Franklin performs at the world premiere of "Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives" during the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival in New York. Franklin is still getting R.E.S.P.E.C.T. after death: The Queen of Soul received the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation honor Monday, April 15, 2019, becoming the first individual woman to earn a special citation prize since the honor was first awarded in 1930. Franklin, 76, died at her home in Detroit on Aug. 16, 2018. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File) 4:15 p.m. Three Los Angeles Times reporters have won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for their coverage of a gynecologist accused of abusing hundreds of students at the University of Southern California. Harriet Ryan, Matt Hamilton and Paul Pringle won the prize Monday for their stories about Dr. George Tyndall, which started with an anonymous tip Ryan received. In the wake of the stories, the university's president resigned, the Los Angeles Police Department launched an investigation and more than 650 women have sued USC, alleging the school failed to protect them from sexual abuse. Tyndall has denied the allegations. Videos posted by their colleagues show the newsroom erupting into cheers when Ryan, Hamilton and Pringle's win was announced live in New York. One reporter posted the newsroom was celebrating with champagne. ___ 3:55 p.m. FILE - In this Nov. 21, 2008 file photo, Aretha Franklin performs at the House of Blues in Los Angeles. Franklin is still getting R.E.S.P.E.C.T. after death: The Queen of Soul received the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation honor Monday, April 15, 2019, becoming the first individual woman to earn a special citation prize since the honor was first awarded in 1930. Franklin, 76, died at her home in Detroit on Aug. 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Shea Walsh, File) Jackie Sibblies Drury's play "Fairview," which skewers white people's obsession with African American stereotypes, has won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for drama. "Fairview" begins as a contemporary domestic comedy involving a well-off black family and ends with the invisible fourth wall destroyed and the audience pulled down a rabbit hole involving race and identity. The Pulitzer board called it a "hard-hitting drama that examines race in a highly conceptual, layered structure, ultimately bringing audiences into the actors' community to face deep-seated prejudices." The play was originally commissioned and produced by Soho Rep and Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Sibblies Drury is New York City-based playwright whose plays include "Really, "Social Creatures" and "We Are Proud to Present a Presentation." ___ 3:45 p.m. Three Pulitzer Prizes have been awarded to newspapers for their coverage of gun violence. The Pulitzer for public service was awarded Monday to the South Florida Sun Sentinel for its coverage of the mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018. Seventeen students and staff were killed in the shooting. This image released by Blake Zidell & Associates shows a performance of "Fairview" by Jackie Sibblies Drury, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. (Julieta Cervantes/Blake Zidell & Associates via AP) The prize for breaking news reporting went to went to the staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for coverage of the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh last October. That attack killed 11 people. The Capital Gazette was given a special citation for its coverage and courage in the face of a massacre in its own newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland. The newspaper published on schedule the day after the shooting claimed five staffers' lives. It was one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in U.S. history. The man charged in the attack had a longstanding grudge against the paper. ___ 3:40 p.m. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have been awarded Pulitzer Prizes for their reporting on President Donald Trump. The Journal won its Pulitzer in national reporting for its investigations of hush money payments orchestrated by the president's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to silence women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump. The New York Times was awarded a Pulitzer in explanatory reporting for investigation of Trump family tax schemes that helped the president's father pass on millions of dollars to his children while minimizing inheritance taxes. Trump has denied having affairs with the women. Dana Canedy, the new administrator of The Pulitzer Prizes, make announcement of winners Monday April 15, 2019, in New York. A team of Associated Press journalists has won a Pulitzer Prize in international reporting for their work documenting torture, graft and starvation in Yemen's brutal civil war. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) He has also denied that his family did anything improper regarding his taxes, calling the Times report a "hit piece." ___ 3:35 p.m. Aretha Franklin has been given an honorary Pulitzer Prize, cited posthumously for her extraordinary career. Pulitzer judges also awarded Richard Powers' innovative novel "The Overstory" the fiction prize and named David W. Blight's 900-page "Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom" the best work of history. On Monday, the biography prize went to Jeffrey C. Stewart's "The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke," and the drama award to "Fairview," by Jackie Sibblies Drury. Eliza Griswold's "Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America" won for general nonfiction, and Ellen Reid's opera "p r i s m" for music. The poetry award was given to Forrest Gander's elegiac "Be With." Franklin, who died last summer, is the first woman singled out for an honorary Pulitzer, which has been given to Bob Dylan and John Coltrane, among others. ___ 3:30 p.m. A team of Associated Press journalists has won a Pulitzer Prize in international reporting for their work documenting torture, graft and starvation in Yemen's brutal civil war. The prize was announced Monday in New York at Columbia University. Reporter Maggie Michael, photographer Nariman El-Mofty and videographer Maad al-Zikry spent a year uncovering atrocities and suffering in Yemen. In a series of stories, they told of how people in parts of Yemen were reduced to eating leaves while corrupt officials diverted international food aid. Reuters also won for international reporting for work that cost two of its staffers their liberty: shedding light on a brutal crackdown on Rohingya Muslims by security forces in Buddhist-majority Myanmar. Reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are serving a seven-year sentence after being convicted of violating the country's Official Secrets Act. Their supporters say the two were framed in retaliation for their reporting. ___ 9:10 a.m. The newest winners of the Pulitzer Prizes in journalism and the arts are set to be revealed. Ready, Pet, Go! Leesa Dahl looks at everything to do with our furry, fuzzy, feathered, fishy (and more!) pet friends. Arrives in your inbox each Monday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. This year's honorees will be announced Monday at Columbia University in New York. The journalism awards will recognize exceptional work in 2018 by U.S. newspapers, magazines and online outlets. There are 14 categories for reporting, photography, criticism, commentary and cartoons. Arts prizes are awarded in seven categories, including fiction, drama and music. The first journalism prizes were awarded in 1917, and they have come to be considered the field's most prestigious honour in the U.S. The contest was established by newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer. Winners of the public service award receive a gold medal. The other awards carry a prize of $15,000 each. Do you know the first thing I do when I roll out of bed in the morning? Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/4/2019 (976 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion Do you know the first thing I do when I roll out of bed in the morning? Well, I hope you dont, because if you do it would mean youve been climbing up a step-ladder to peer through my bedroom window, and thats creepy. WAYNE GLOWACKI / Winnipeg Free Press Files The Swiss government found that coffee isnt necessary for human survival. Technically, the first thing I do is hop into the bathtub for about an hour, but the second thing I do is even more important I brew a big pot of coffee and suck down several steaming cups before I carry on with a day of professional journalism. For the record, I dont just love a cup of coffee in the morning; I have a medical need for it in the sense I am incapable of higher brain functions until I have ingested sufficient quantities of caffeine. Science has proven that a good nights sleep is no replacement for a strong cup of java. Personally, without several cups of joe, I would not be able to keep my eyes open without propping up my eyelids with toothpicks. Imagine if I was, say, an airline pilot and attempted to perform my job without first pouring a pot of coffee down my throat. Flight attendant (walking into the cockpit): "Captain, would you like a hot cup of coffee?" Me (peering out the window): "No thanks. Im fine. Hey, why is that mountain getting bigger and bigger and bigger?" Flight attendant: "AIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!!!!" The medical point I am trying to make is that I have been thinking about this issue a latte since I read a news story on the BBC website last week that appeared under this alarming headline: "Coffee not essential for life, Swiss government says." Yes, according to this report, the Swiss government has come out and stated that a good cup of coffee is "not essential" for human survival, if you can imagine that. Q: "Not essential for human survival? Seriously, Doug? What is wrong with the (very bad word) Swiss government?" A: "I wish I knew. I suspect it has something to do with eating too much chocolate and goofing around with those Swiss Army Knives." According to the BBC where they no doubt prefer tea the Swiss started stockpiling emergency reserves of coffee between the First and Second World War to prepare for potential shortages of this life-sustaining brew. Theyre still doing it they have about 15,300 tonnes saved up, enough to last the country three months but the government wants to end its stockpiling practice by the year 2022. "Coffee contains almost no calories and therefore does not contribute, from the physiological perspective, to safeguarding nutrition," the Swiss Federal Office for National Economic Supply said in a statement. Fortunately, some sane people are rallying to coffees defence. Reservesuisse, which oversees Switzerlands food stockpiles, says 12 of 15 companies that stockpile coffee in the country want to continue doing so. In a letter obtained by the Reuters news agency, it says the "weighting of calories as the main criteria for a vital staple did not do justice to coffee." Questioning the value of coffee for human survival makes no sense in Switzerland, where caffeine-loving citizens consume about nine kilograms per person per year, according to the International Coffee Organization. Thats almost triple whats consumed in Britain, where 3.3 kg per person per year is sucked down. You will be consumed with national pride to hear that right-minded Canadians such as myself adore coffee even more than the fickle Swiss. In fact, we love our coffee more than almost every other country in the world. According to statistics compiled in 2015, out of 80 countries, Canada ranked No. 1 when tallying up how many litres of coffee per capita were gulped down at food service joints like cafes. It has something to do with our brisk winters. The stats from global marketing research firm Euromonitor also found Canada ranked No. 3 for the total amount of brewed coffee we consumed both inside and outside the home a stunning average of 152 litres per person. Only the Netherlands (No. 1) and Finland (No. 2) drank more java. Ready, Pet, Go! Leesa Dahl looks at everything to do with our furry, fuzzy, feathered, fishy (and more!) pet friends. Arrives in your inbox each Monday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. What Im trying to say today is that, as proudly over-caffeinated Canadians, we cant just sit around perspiring and wringing our hands while foreign governments dare to suggest that coffee is not essential to the survival of our species. Without coffee, not only would I never be able to write another word, I would never be able to (ahem) move the mail in the morning. Even if terrorists were pointing guns at my head, my finicky gastrointestinal system would refuse to function without first being primed by several cups of joe. Speaking of which, as a jittery Canuck, I am especially proud that a coffee shop in Toronto has been serving an exotic blend made from partly digested beans that have been eaten and pooped out by the civet cat in southeast Asia. News reports say the civets digestive tract is what gives "cat poop coffee" its distinctive taste "with notes of chocolate and caramel" and makes it highly prized. A 50-gram tin makes roughly eight cups and costs about $55. But thats not the point. The point is, before more countries follow Switzerlands lead, I think we should all get together for a nice, relaxing chat. Perhaps over a cup of Swiss mocha, because Im allergic to cats. doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca A Clearwater resident is being recognized with a special award for more than two decades of volunteerism at the nearby Rock Lake United Church Camp. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/4/2019 (976 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion A Clearwater resident is being recognized with a special award for more than two decades of volunteerism at the nearby Rock Lake United Church Camp. Neita Avery will receive the Canadian Camping Association Award of Excellence during a presentation on April 26 at the camps annual quilt, art and craft auction in Miami, Man. The award recognizes those who have made outstanding contributions in their province. Avery, 87, chuckles when asked how she feels about it. "Its sort of humbling," she says. "There are a lot of others that do a lot of work, because it takes more than one person. But its very nice to be recognized." Averys daughter attended the camp and then got involved as a counsellor, so Avery began volunteering each year as part of the group that gets the camp ready for summer. That involvement continued long after her daughter grew up. In 1998, Avery joined the camps board of directors. She has filled a variety of roles on the board since then, including a few years as chairwoman. Averys contributions dont end in the boardroom. As soon as the snow melts, she can be found doing anything she can to help. That includes mowing the lawn, washing windows, cleaning cabins, going into the crawl space to turn on the water, and baking and dropping off cookies. Avery keeps a handful of camp brochures in her purse, always ready to spread the word about a place that she has poured her heart and soul into, Kathryn Basso says. "Her contributions can be seen and felt all over the camp," says Basso, who serves on the camps board and nominated Avery for the award. "Nobody who has been to camp throughout the past 20-plus years has not been touched by her actions and that really shone through in the many letters we received in support of her nomination." The camp is more than 100 years old. About 250 to 300 young people attend it each summer. "It is a place where children and teens are safe to learn and explore in an open, welcoming environment," Basso says. "Campers are free to be disconnected from the pressures and influences of social media, and can become connected with themselves and their peers by spending time outdoors, canoeing, dancing and worshipping together." Avery is a firm believer in the camps mission. "I think its very good for the kids to get back to their roots sort of, and just see a different part of Gods world," she says. "They learn to mix with the other children and get to know other people. I think thats a good part of being at camp." Basso says the Canadian Camping Association award could not go to a more kind-hearted, generous or committed volunteer than Avery. "Shes incredible," Basso says. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. For Avery, who also helps out at her church, a seniors residence and local sporting events, volunteering is "just a part of life." "Its good for a person to give back," she says. "Thats how things keep moving along." If you know a special volunteer, please contact aaron.epp@gmail.com. The Manitoba government has announced the initial batch of projects to be funded under its $102-million Conservation Trust. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/4/2019 (975 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The Manitoba government has announced the initial batch of projects to be funded under its $102-million Conservation Trust. In an announcement Monday at Assiniboine Park, Premier Brian Pallister said $2.2 million would be earmarked this year for 41 projects. He said the trust, part of the government's Climate Change and Green Plan, will leave the province in better shape for future generations. "This plan we're moving forward with is not just a climate plan and a green plan, it's a legacy plan," he said. While the province is providing $2.2 million this year, participating organizations that range from conservation districts and groups such as Save our Seine to the Manitoba Forage and Grasslands Association are contributing $5.6 million in matching funds. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. The $102-million trust, announced in the 2018 provincial budget, is the government's most substantial investment under its Green Plan. The money is being managed by the Winnipeg Foundation, while the Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corp. selects project recipients and ensures that funds are being spent as planned. This year's funding is divided into four areas: watershed management; habitat and wildlife; projects that connect people to nature; and innovation and conservation planning. Because of the funding model, grants from the trust are expected to be made in perpetuity. The government's investment is expected to generate $5 million per year. Karla Guyn, CEO of Ducks Unlimited, congratulated the government for establishing the trust. "By putting funds into a permanent endowment, the province is supporting important conservation projects for generations to come," she said. "This is a visionary and enduring approach thats setting a positive example for other provinces to follow." larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca EMERSON The biggest flood since 2009 has not quite turned into the big yawn of 2019 yet, but its close. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/4/2019 (976 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. EMERSON The biggest flood since 2009 has not quite turned into the big yawn of 2019 yet, but its close. What was forecast to be a Red River flood matching that of 2009 has been downgraded to less than the 2011 flood. Thats a gap of two years but a difference of about five feet in water levels. "Thats a huge difference out here," said Jim Becker, out for a stroll on a beautiful sunny afternoon on Sunday. Becker had just detoured off a town street and was walking along the top of the dike protecting Emerson from waters that have not yet arrived. Signage closes a road at a dike in Emerson. JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS "This is the slowest melt I have ever seen," said Becker. The slow melt means the water doesnt all run off at once, which means a lower peak flow. A lot of the runoff will have departed by the time the peak surge arrives from North Dakota next week. The Red River is now forecast to crest at Emerson between April 20 and 22. Former flood forecasting guru Alf Warkentin has said it hasn't been since 1966 that such a slow melt has put the brakes on a seemingly serious flood. As well, the Pembina River has already delivered its maximum discharge into the Red and is now below flood stage. Theres always the danger of the Pembina River and the Red synchronizing their crests but not in 2019. "Mother Nature has been good to us this year," said Becker. Ste. Agathe has lined up sandbags in anticipation of high waters on the Red River. JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS In other flood news, the province put the floodway into action as of noon on Sunday. Its operation is not expected to raise water levels upstream of the floodway, the province said. The province said closing Highway 75 north of Morris next week may not be necessary now despite heavy snow and rain dumped on North Dakota last week. The biggest problem now for communities along the Red may be guarding against complacency. Water level forecasts can be wrong and weather can suddenly deliver a dollop of precipitation. So a skeleton crew from Manitoba Infrastructure was out Sunday in Emerson maintaining pumps and checking for any holes or cracks in the ring dike. Last fall was very dry and that produces a lot of cracks in the mud. Sandbags in Ste. Agathe await sealing after being filled Sunday. JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS "Were looking pretty good," said David Carlson of Dominion City, the first-time reeve for the RM of Emerson-Franklin elected last fall. He isnt sure how much overland flooding there will be this year. "Its expected to be above average (flooding) but nothing we havent seen before," he said. At the 2011 flood level, "its just going to be high water. Nuisance stuff." The town of Emerson has 3,500 sandbags filled for those residences at risk. The ring dike has also been closed at some trouble spots. Those are roads in low-lying areas. "Flooding comes with the territory here literally," said Kyle Hiebert, manager of the Emerson Duty Free Shop. "Were just taking it in stride." Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. Sandbags sit on a dike in Roseau River. JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS At the other end of the river in the RM of Ritchot, including Ste. Agathe, Manitoba Infrastructure has suspended sandbag work because of the improved flood outlook, said Ritchot Mayor Chris Ewen. What are called "super sandbags" sandbags the size of two filing cabinets standing side by side have already been laid along the river protecting part of Ste. Agathe but water isnt expected to reach the sandbag wall now, Ewen said. More super sandbags sit full or half-full at a nearby parking lot. However, the RM will be closing St. Marys Road that runs from Winnipeg to St. Adolphe. Called the "north dike" locally, it will have an overpass built on top of it and traffic lights installed to allow vehicles to still go through, Ewen said. "We do it whenever theres any water because its such a low spot," he said. In addition to Emerson, St. Jean Baptiste has also had a partial ring dike closure. Partial ring dike closures are also expected at Morris, Letellier, Ste. Agathe and St. Adolphe. bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca The Winnipeg Humane Society tried to do something new last week. It offered space for an animal rights group to host a public information night, and promoted the event on its Facebook page. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/4/2019 (976 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion The Winnipeg Humane Society tried to do something new last week. It offered space for an animal rights group to host a public information night, and promoted the event on its Facebook page. The group, Manitoba Animal Save (MAS), advocates for complete "animal liberation" from all forms of use and abuse, and ultimately hopes to "shut down slaughterhouses and turn them into sanctuaries." They often hold protests outside of local meat shops and abattoirs. For some humane society fans and followers, though, the groups mandate rubs the wrong way. This includes Dr. Keri Hudson Reykdal, better known as Dr. Keri: Prairie Vet on televisions Animal Planet, who shared the post on Facebook, along with harsh criticism of the society for accommodating the "extremist" group. Subsequently, the society and MAS were inundated with comments and debates (her post, and several others on the topic have since been deleted), leading to the animal rights group pulling the plug on the event at the last minute, citing exhaustion. The ordeal reveals a sad lack of progress in the Manitoba animal advocacy community, and signals an urgent need for new perspectives when it comes to the protection of animals all animals in this province. Following the online drama, humane society CEO Javier Schwersensky published a blog titled, More Humanity, Less Hatred: Can We Please Listen to Each Other? a fair request, particularly since the MAS information night was simply for that purpose, to inform and answer questions. In the post, Schwersensky explains, "the humane society is part of the humane movement," meaning they advocate for higher welfare standards of animals kept on farms and encourage their supporters to seek "humanely certified meat; to try as much as possible to buy from local small-scale producers who follow the most humane practices" (though offers no guidance on how to seek such assurances). He adds, "we also encourage everyone to try more plant-based foods and reduce meat consumption as much as each person is comfortable with." Schwersensky also recognizes that though animal rights groups may not agree with the humane societys support of "humane meat" how do you humanely kill someone who doesnt want to die? the society is open to their perspective and members. "Animal rights activists are not bad people, they are not terrorists or crazy. They have moral and ethical grounds to believe in what they do." Schwersensky goes on to state he also hears criticism from the other side: "I also met with those who believe animal-rights organizations should not have a place with the society. Stick to dogs and cats is a phrase I also hear." The society has intentionally placed itself in the middle of the animal-welfare versus animal-rights debate. And for Manitoba, a Prairie province with agriculture at its roots, its a brave and necessary position. As far as humane societies go, advocating for animal rights is not unusual. The Vancouver Humane Society (VHS) proudly promotes veganism, including via bus ads in 2018, showing a child petting a pig, with the text: "Friend, not food. When we were children, we knew." Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. "We think this is the best way to help farmed animals, as it means fewer animals being slaughtered or facing suffering on factory farms," says VHSs Peter Fricker, adding they also advocate for improved conditions for animals currently suffering on intensive animal farms. "We dont see these aims as mutually exclusive." All food served at VHS fundraising events is vegan. As is food served at events held by the Montreal SPCA. "It is our policy not to spend our donors dollars that are meant to help animals, on purchasing animal-based products," media relations co-ordinator Anita Kapuscinska says. At the Winnipeg Humane Societys annual Bow Wow Ball in October, the menu consisted of vegan, vegetarian, and a "free-run" chicken course, offering perhaps a perfect metaphor for the state of animal compassion in this province. But, as more information comes to light regarding the inherent cruelty suffered by animals on farms, in transport trucks and slaughterhouses; about the ethical dilemmas involved in eating animal products as plant-based alternatives become more and more abundant; and about the undeniably devastating effects of animal agriculture upon the environment; its time Manitoba animal lovers open our hearts and minds to more progressive ideas regarding our treatment of not only cats and dogs, but farmed animals, too. The Winnipeg Humane Society and its social-media platforms should be safe and welcoming spaces to share and discuss these varying perspectives, to ask questions, and to consider the actual characters at the centre of this: the animals all animals. Scott-Reid is a writer and animal advocate originally from Manitoba, currently based between Winnipeg and Montreal. WASHINGTON - The president isn't waiting. As Washington counts down the final hours until publication of the redacted special counsel report now expected Thursday Donald Trump stepped up his attacks Monday in an effort to undermine potential disclosures on Russia, his 2016 campaign and the aftermath. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/4/2019 (975 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Attorney General William Barr leaves his home in McLean, Va., on Monday, April 15, 2019. Barr told Congress last week he expects to release his redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's Trump-Russia investigation report "within a week." (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) WASHINGTON - The president isn't waiting. As Washington counts down the final hours until publication of the redacted special counsel report now expected Thursday Donald Trump stepped up his attacks Monday in an effort to undermine potential disclosures on Russia, his 2016 campaign and the aftermath. He unleashed a series of tweets focusing on the previously released summary of special counsel Robert Mueller's conclusions including a crucial one on obstruction of justice that Trump again misrepresented produced by Attorney General William Barr. "Mueller, and the A.G. based on Mueller findings (and great intelligence), have already ruled No Collusion, No Obstruction," Trump tweeted. "These were crimes committed by Crooked Hillary, the DNC, Dirty Cops and others! INVESTIGATE THE INVESTIGATORS!" Press Secretary Sarah Sanders repeatedly tried to make the same case on TV talk shows on Sunday. But the political battle is far from finished over the special counsel's investigation of Russian efforts to help Trump in 2016 and whether there was co-operation with his campaign. Democrats are calling for Mueller himself to testify before Congress and have expressed concern that Barr will order unnecessary censoring of the report to protect the president. The House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, is poised to try to compel Barr to turn over an unredacted copy as well as the report's underlying investigative files. The redacted, right, and the unredacted versions of the biographical intelligence file report on Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet from 1975 is photographed on April 15, 2019, in Washington. In 2003, the Defense Intelligence Agency declassified the documents that included a biographical sketch of Pinochet. Attorney General William BarrAos announcement that he would release a AuredactedAu version of MuellerAos findings will likely set off a long debate over whatAos behind the darkened patches. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick) The Justice Department announced Monday that it expects to release the redacted version Thursday morning, sending the findings of the nearly two-year probe to Congress and making them available to the public. Mueller officially concluded his investigation late last month and submitted the confidential report to Barr. Two days later, the attorney general sent Congress a four-page letter that detailed Mueller's "principal conclusions." In his letter, Barr said the special counsel did not find a criminal conspiracy between Russia and Trump associates during the campaign. However, contrary to Trump's false claim, Mueller did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice. Instead, Mueller presented evidence on both sides of that question. Barr said he did not believe the evidence was sufficient to prove that Trump had obstructed justice, but he noted that Mueller's team did not exonerate the president. Portions of the report being released by the Justice Department will be redacted to protect grand jury material, sensitive intelligence, matters that could affect ongoing investigations and damage to the privacy rights of third parties, the attorney general has said. The scores of outstanding questions about the investigation have not stopped the president and his allies from declaring victory. They have painted House Democrats' investigations as partisan overreach and have targeted news outlets and individual reporters they say have promoted the collusion story. The president himself seethed at a political rally that the whole thing was an attempt "to tear up the fabric of our great democracy." Attorney General William Barr leaves his home in McLean, Va., on Monday, April 15, 2019. Barr told Congress last week he expects to release his redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's Trump-Russia investigation report "within a week." (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) He has told confidants in recent days that he was certain the full report would back up his claims of vindication but was also convinced the media would manipulate the findings in an effort to damage him, according to two Republicans close to the White House not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations. In the waiting game's final days, the White House continued to try to shape the narrative. "There was no obstruction, which I don't how you can interpret that any other way than total exoneration," press secretary Sanders said on "Fox News Sunday." While the president unleashed his personal grievances, his team seized on any exculpatory information in Barr's letter, hoping to define the conversation in advance, according to White House officials and outside advisers who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss private deliberations. The victory lap was deliberately premature, they said. But Trump's inner circle knows there will likely be further releases of embarrassing or politically damaging information. Barr's letter, for instance, hinted that there would be at least one unknown action by the president that Mueller examined as a possible act of obstruction. A number of White House aides have privately said they are eager for all Russia stories, good or bad, to fade from the headlines. And there is fear among some presidential confidants that the rush to spike the football in celebration could backfire if bombshell new information emerges. Trump and his allies also continue to attack the origins of the Russia investigation, portraying it as an effort by Democrats and career officials in the Justice Department to bring him down. "The Mueller Report, which was written by 18 Angry Democrats who also happen to be Trump Haters (and Clinton Supporters), should have focused on the people who SPIED on my 2016 Campaign, and others who fabricated the whole Russia Hoaxe. That is, never forget, the crime." Trump tweeted Monday. His long-asserted accusation though not supported by evidence that his campaign was spied upon was given new life last week when Barr, testifying before Congress, said he thinks "spying did occur" in 2016. Barr may have been referring to a surveillance warrant the FBI obtained in the fall of 2016 to monitor the communications of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing. The warrant was obtained after Page had left the campaign and was renewed several times. Critics of the Russia investigation have seized on the fact that the warrant application cited Democratic-funded opposition research, done by a former British spy, into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. Barr later softened his tone to "I am not saying improper surveillance occurred." Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. The attorney general's comments have frustrated Democrats, already anxious for the release of the full, uncensored report and concerned that Barr may withhold pertinent information. The report could provide new information that could prompt further investigations or even consideration of impeachment proceedings, a tricky political calculation since Mueller did not conclude there was collusion or obstruction. The Russia probe began on July 31, 2016, when the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into Russia's efforts to influence the presidential campaign and whether anyone on the Trump campaign was involved. That probe was prompted by former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos' contacts with Russian intermediaries, including a Maltese professor who told the young aide that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton in the form of emails. ___ Lemire reported from New York. Associated Press writer Chad Day contributed. ___ Follow Lemire on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@JonLemire and Balsamo at http://twitter.com/@MikeBalsamo1 . PARIS - French President Emmanuel Macron pledged Tuesday to rebuild Paris' beloved Notre Dame Cathedral "even more beautifully" after a raging fire destroyed its spire and its roof but spared most of the structure, including the church's twin medieval bell towers. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/4/2019 (975 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. PARIS - French President Emmanuel Macron pledged Tuesday to rebuild Paris' beloved Notre Dame Cathedral "even more beautifully" after a raging fire destroyed its spire and its roof but spared most of the structure, including the church's twin medieval bell towers. Macron said he wanted to see the renovation of the beloved Roman Catholic architectural landmark completed within five years. "We have so much to rebuild," Macron said in a televised address to the nation. "We will rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral even more beautifully. We can do it, and once again, we will mobilize (to do so)." Authorities consider the fire an accident, possibly as a result of restoration work at the global architectural treasure that survived almost 900 years of tumultuous French history but was devastated in the blaze on the second day of Holy Week. Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said the inquiry into the fire would be "long and complex." Fifty investigators were working on it and would interview workers from five companies hired for the renovations to the cathedral's roof, where the flames first broke out. View from the top of the Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral with the Eiffel Tower in background as the religious statues descend to earth for the first time in over a century as part of a restoration, in Paris Thursday, April 11, 2019. The 16 greenish-gray copper statues, which represent the twelve apostles and four evangelists, are lowered by a 100 meter (105 yard) crane onto a truck to be taken for restoration in southwestern France. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) Heitz said an initial fire alert was sounded at 6:20 p.m. Monday but no fire was found. The second alert was sounded at 6:43 p.m., and the blaze was discovered on the roof. Investigators have already questioned nearly 30 people, said a Paris judicial police official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to comment on an ongoing probe. "Notre Dame has survived the revolutionary history of France, and this happened during building works," said influential former Culture Minister Jack Lang. Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo) News that the fire was probably accidental has done nothing to ease the national mourning for the symbol of national pride. Hundreds of people gathered for a vigil prayer across the Seine from the cathedral, singing and listening to music by a string quartet. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said there were still some risks to the structure and that it was "under permanent surveillance because it can still budge." A plan to safeguard the masterpieces and relics was quickly put into action after the fire broke out. Notre Dame cathedral is burning in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Lori Hinant) The Crown of Thorns, regarded as Notre Dame's most sacred relic, was among the treasures quickly transported after the fire broke out, said Deputy Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire. Brought to Paris by King Louis IX in the 13th century, it is purported to have been pressed onto Christ's head during the crucifixion. Also saved was the tunic of St. Louis, a long, shirt-like garment from the 13th century, said Culture Minister Franck Riester. The cathedral's famous 18th century organ that boasts more than 8,000 pipes also survived. "The works of art, the most precious treasures were secured last night," Riester told reporters, thanking teams from city hall, the culture ministry, firefighters and the bishopric who worked to save the items. Flames rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) Some of the works were being transferred from City Hall to the Louvre, where they will be dehumidified, protected and eventually restored. The minister said the cathedral's greatest paintings would be removed starting Friday. "We assume they have not been damaged by the fire but there will eventually be damage from the smoke," he added. The 3-meter-tall copper statues that looked over Paris from Notre Dame's 96-meter peak already had been removed from the roof days ago and sent to southwestern France as part of a 6 million-euro ($6.8 million) renovation on the spire and its 250 tons of lead. Much was saved in the interior too. The only major work damaged inside was the cathedral's high altar, installed in 1989 under Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger. It was hit when the spire collapsed, said Laurent Prades, heritage director for Notre Dame. Flames rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) "We have been able to salvage all the rest," said Prades, who watched the recovery overnight. "All the 18th century steles, the pietas, frescoes, chapels and the big organ are fine." The three large stained-glass rose windows, among the most famous parts of the cathedral, were not destroyed, but might have been damaged by the heat and will be assessed by an expert, he added. "The task is now the risk of fire has been put aside about the building, how the structure will resist," said Junior Interior Minister Laurent Nunez. People watch as flames and smoke rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said work must begin immediately to protect the remaining structure. The first 24-48 hours were crucial to protecting the stone and wood structure from water damage and assessing the next steps, she told The Associated Press, warning that parts of the cathedral remain "extremely fragile," notably hundreds of tons of scaffolding around the spire that collapsed. Notre Dame is part of a UNESCO heritage site and UNESCO has offered its expertise. Pope Francis offered his prayers that Notre Dame, the "architectural gem of a collective memory," will once again be a shrine to the Catholic faith, a symbol of the French nation and a spiritual and architectural gift to humanity. People watch as flames and smoke rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) In a condolence note to Paris Archbishop Michel Aupetit, Francis said the fire was particularly devastating given that it came during the sombre days leading up to Easter during which Christians commemorate the death and resurrection of Jesus. Repairing the cathedral, including the 800-year-old wooden beams that made up its roof, presents challenges. The roof cannot be rebuilt exactly as it was because "we don't, at the moment, have trees on our territory of the size that were cut in the 13th century," said Bertrand de Feydeau, vice-president of preservation group Fondation du Patrimoine, adding the roof restoration work would have to use new technology. Flames rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) Also of concern, Feydeau said, is the organ, "a very fragile instrument, especially its pipes." "It has not burnt, but no one can tell whether it has been damaged by water. Nobody knows if it is a functioning state or will need to be restored," he told AP. France's richest businessman, Bernard Arnault, and his luxury goods group LVMH pledged 200 million euros ($226 million) for the reconstruction. Billionaire Francois Pinault and his son, Francois-Henri Pinault, who is married to actress Salma Hayek, said they were giving 100 million euros from their company, Artemis, the holding company owning auction house Christie's and the main shareholder of luxury fashion houses including Gucci. French companies Total and L'Oreal each pledged 100 million euros. Locator Map for Notre Dame Fire.; Offers of assistance flowed in from around the world to help restore the 12th century tourist attraction to its former glory. Poland, the Czech Republic and Greece were among those offering to send experts from their own restoration projects, while major French businesses pledged financial assistance. In his speech, Macron thanked firefighters, police and those who pledged funds, although his goal of rebuilding the cathedral in five years seemed ambitious. Ready, Pet, Go! Leesa Dahl looks at everything to do with our furry, fuzzy, feathered, fishy (and more!) pet friends. Arrives in your inbox each Monday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. Flames and smoke rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) Peter Fuessenich, who oversees reconstruction for the Gothic cathedral in Cologne, Germany, said it could take decades to repair Notre Dame. Cologne Cathedral was heavily damaged during World War II and work to repair it is still ongoing more than 70 years later. "It will certainly take years, perhaps even decades, until the last damage caused by this terrible fire will be completely repaired," he told broadcaster RTL. "When the last stone was set in Notre Dame, the first one was laid here in Cologne, and in this respect it affects us all very much." ____ Associated Press writers Angela Charlton, John Leicester, Sylvie Corbet and Elaine Ganley in Paris, Nicole Winfield in Rome and Colleen Barry in Milan contributed. ____ Full AP coverage at https://apnews.com/NotreDameCathedral Gamal Essam El-Din reviews the final drafts of the proposed amendments to Egypt's 2014 constitution, which will be put to a final vote in parliament on Tuesday Egypt's parliament, the House of Representatives, will hold a plenary session on Tuesday to take a final vote on proposed amendments to Egypt's 2014 constitution. Parliament speaker Ali Abdel-Aal told MPs on Monday that they should be present as early as 10am. "We should be as early as possible to have enough time to review the amendments," said Abdel-Aal, adding that "three meetings will be held throughout the day to review, discuss and take a vote on the amendments." Ahram Online has obtained a copy of the final drafts of the proposed constitutional amendments, which aim to change 14 articles as well as introduce two new articles to Egypt's 2014 constitution. The following is a list of the 14 constitutional amendments proposed by the Support Egypt parliamentary majority bloc and the two new articles on the post of the vice president and the upper house of parliament. (1) Article 102 (first paragraph): The change aims to reduce the number of elected MPs in the House of Representatives (Egypts lower house of parliament) from 596 to 450 MPs, with at least 25 percent of the seats (112 seats) to be reserved for women representatives. (2) Article 102 (third paragraph): The law regulating the performance and election of the House of Representatives is to be changed to go in line with the above article. The law should observe the equitable distribution of population and governorates, and allows for either the individual candidacy or the party list, or a mix of the two, to be adopted. (3) Article 140 (first paragraph): The president of the republic shall be elected for six (instead of four) years, beginning on the day after the end of his predecessor's term, and he/she cannot remain in office for more than two consecutive terms. (4) Article 241: The term of the sitting president (Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi) will end following the date of declaring him an elected president of the republic, and he can be re-elected for another six-year term. (5) Article 160 (first paragraph): If a temporary obstacle makes the elected president unable to perform his duties, he will be replaced by a vice president or prime minister if there is no vice president. (6) Article 160 (last paragraph): If a caretaker president takes office, he shall not be entitled to amend the constitution, dissolve the House of Representatives or Senate, or dismiss the government. The caretaker president will also not be allowed to run for president. (7) Article 185: Each individual judicial authority shall take charge of running its own affairs, and it will be consulted on laws regulating its own business. The president of the republic shall appoint the heads of judicial authorities from among five who will be nominated by its higher councils, and their term of office will be four years. A higher council for judicial authorities will be created and the president of the republic will be its head. The council will take charge of discussing the affairs of judicial authorities. In case of the president's absence, a head of a judicial authority will be delegated by the president to consider the conditions of appointing members of judicial authorities and their promotion, and he will be consulted on laws regulating their business. Judicial authorities will also have their own independent budget. A law to be issued to regulate the roles of the Higher Council for Judicial Authorities and its decisions are to be taken by consensus of its members. (9) Article 189 (second paragraph): A prosecutor-general, who will be the head of the prosecution-general authority, will be named by the president of the republic from among three candidates to be nominated by the Higher Council for Judicial Authorities. The prosecutor general's term in office will be four years. (8) Article 190: The State Council will be exclusively authorised with settling administrative disputes, disciplinary cases and appeals, and revising draft laws and decrees. A law in this respect shall be issued to describe the roles of the State Council in detail. (9) Article 193 (third paragraph): The head of the Supreme Constitutional Court will be named by the president of the republic from among the court's most senior deputy heads. The panel of the court's commissioners will be also named by the president only upon a recommendation from the court's chairman and after taking the opinion of the court's general assembly, and in line with the law regulating this matter. (10) Article 200 (first paragraph): The Armed Forces is the people's arm, and its job is to protect the country, safeguard its security and the integrity of its land, preserve the constitution and democracy, maintain the basic pillars of the state and its civilian nature, and uphold the gains of the people, and the rights and freedoms of individuals. The state will be exclusively authorised to create such forces, and any other individuals, authorities, or groups will be banned from forming military or semi-military organisations and militias. (11) Article 204 (second paragraph): Civilians can face trial before military courts only in cases of assaulting military establishments, military camps, military zones and borders, military equipment, vehicles, weapons, ammunition, documents, secrets, funds, or army factories. Trials can also cover crimes related to recruitment and drafting, and assaulting officers and personnel affiliated with the Armed Forces while they are performing their duties. (12) Article 234: The minister of defence will be named upon the approval of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces. (13) Article 243: The state shall guarantee that workers and farmers are adequately represented and in line with the law regulating this respect. (14) Article 244: The state shall guarantee that youth, Christians, the physically challenged, and Egyptians abroad, are fairly represented in line with the law regulating this matter. New Articles The president of the republic shall be authorised to name one or more vice president, specify his/her roles, dismiss them from their post, and accept their resignation. The constitution's articles 141, 144, 145, 148, and 173 will govern this matter. The Senate shall be responsible for studying and proposing all that is necessary to uphold the principles of the two revolutions of 25 January and 30 June, support national unity and social peace; maintain the basic pillars of society, its higher values, rights, freedoms, and general duties; and take charge of deepening the democratic system and broadening its scope. The Senate will be consulted on proposed amendments to the constitution; laws stipulated by the constitution; five-year socio-economic development plans; peace and alliance and sovereignty agreements; and laws and all foreign issues to be referred by the president and related to the state's general policies and its foreign and Arab relations. The Senate shall comprise 180 members, and its term will be five years. A third of the Senate's members shall be elected in a secret ballot, and a third will be appointed by the president. A Senate member should be Egyptian, not less than 35 years old, have a university degree and legally allowed to exercise his/her civilian and political rights. The election of the members of the Senate will be governed by the law in this respect. The individual candidacy or the list system, or a mix of the two, can be used in electing the Senate's members. A Senate member cannot be a member of the House of Representatives at the same time. The prime minister, his deputies, cabinet ministers and other government members have no responsibility before the Senate. Workers who served with the defunct pre-2013 Shura Council will be used to serve and operate the Senate. Search Keywords: Short link: CoreLogic, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides property information, insight, analytics, and data-enabled solutions in North America, Western Europe, and the Asia Pacific. The company operates in two segments, Property Intelligence & Risk Management Solutions (PIRM) and Underwriting & Workflow Solutions (UWS). The PIRM segment combines property information, mortgage information, and consumer information to deliver housing market and property-level insights, predictive analytics, and risk management capabilities. It also offers proprietary technology and software platforms to access, automate, or track the information and assist its clients with decision-making and compliance tools in the real estate and insurance industries. This segment primarily serves commercial banks, mortgage lenders and brokers, investment banks, fixed-income investors, real estate agents, MLS companies, property and casualty insurance companies, title insurance companies, government agencies, and government-sponsored enterprises. The UWS segment combines property, mortgage, and consumer information to provide comprehensive mortgage origination and monitoring solutions, including underwriting-related solutions, and data-enabled valuations and appraisals. 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The company offers local calls; domestic and international long distance calls and roaming services; and value-added services, such as caller identity display, call waiting, conference calls, and others. It also provides wireless Internet service, as well as digital applications comprising music, video, reading, gaming, and animation; wireline broadband services; and wireline voice services. In addition, it offers dedicated line and IDC services to corporate customers in a range of industry sectors; and basic corporate communication products comprising corporate VPMN and SMS, and tailor made solutions. Further, the company provides international telecommunications services, which includes IDD, roaming, Internet, MNC, and value added business services. Additionally, it offers telecommunications network planning, design, and consulting services; roaming clearance, IT system operation, and technology support services; value-added platform development and maintenance services; mobile data, and system integration and development services; network construction and maintenance, network planning and optimizing, and training services; electronic communication products design and sale of related products; and non-banking financial services. It also provides mobile cloud research and development services; call center services; e-payment, e-commerce, and Internet finance services; and mobile Internet digital content services, as well as operates a network and business coordination center. The company serves 950 million mobile customers and 187 million wireline broadband customers. The company was formerly known as China Mobile (Hong Kong) Limited and changed its name to China Mobile Limited in May 2006. The company was incorporated in 1997 and is based in Central, Hong Kong. China Mobile Limited is a subsidiary of China Mobile Hong Kong (BVI) Limited. Read More iShares Global REIT ETF's stock was trading at $23.69 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, REET shares have increased by 24.7% and is now trading at $29.54. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. iShares Morningstar Small-Cap Value ETF's stock was trading at $102.7013 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, JKL stock has decreased by 43.8% and is now trading at $57.72. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. thyssenkrupp AG operates in the areas of automotive technology, industrial components, plant technology, marine systems, steel, and materials services in Germany, the United States, China, and internationally. The company's Automotive Technology segment develops and manufactures components and systems and automated production systems for the automotive industry. Its Industrial Components segment manufactures and sells forged components and system solutions for the resource, construction, and mobility sectors; and slewing rings, antifriction bearings, and seamless rolled rings for the wind energy and construction machinery sectors. The company's Plant Technology segment builds plants for the chemical, cement, and mining industries. Its Marine Systems segment provides systems in the submarine and surface ship building, as well as in the field of maritime electronics and security technology. The company's Materials Services segment distributes materials and offers technical services for the production and manufacturing sectors. Its Steel Europe segment provides flat carbon steel products, intelligent material solutions, and finished parts. thyssenkrupp AG was founded in 1811 and is headquartered in Essen, Germany. Read More Millrock Resources Inc. engages in the acquisition and exploration of mineral properties. It deposits for gold, copper, porphyry, silver, and other metals. The company holds an interest in the Liberty Bell property covering an area of approximately 6,151 hectares; 64North Gold project covering an area of approximately 1,860 hectares; Chisna DragonSlayer project; and Apex El Nido covering an area of approximately 315 hectares located in Alaska. It also holds an interest in the El Batamote project covering a surface area of 5,796 hectares situated in Mexico. Millrock Resources Inc. was founded in 1979 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Prudential Financial: 210-220 E. 22nd Street SSGA Owner LLC, AIG Edison, AIG Star, AREF Cayman Co Ltd., AREF GP II Pte. Ltd., AREF GP Ltd., ASPF II - Feeder Fund GmbH, ASPF II - Verwaltungs - GmbH & Co. KG, ASPF II Management GmbH, ASPF III (Scots) L.P., ASSURANCE, AST Investment Services Inc., Adlerwerke CB Investment LLC, Administradora de Fondos de Pensiones Habitat S.A., Administradora de Inversiones Previsionales SpA, Aoba Life Insurance Company, Asia Property Fund III GP S.a.r.l., Assurance IQ LLC, Assurance Intelligence LLC, BSC CP LP, Braeloch Holdings Inc., Braeloch Successor Corporation, Brazilian Capital Fund GP Limited, Broad Street Global Advisors LLC, Broome Street Holdings LLC, CB German Retail LLC, CLIS Co. Ltd., COLICO INC., Campus Drive LLC, Capital Agricultural Property Services Inc., Chadwick Boulevard Investment Holdings Co. LLC, Cibecue LLC, Coconino LLC, Colico II Inc., Columbus Drive Partners L.P., Commerce Street Holdings LLC, Commerce Street Investments LLC, Coolidge LLC, Coral Reef GP, Coral Reef L.P., Coral Reef Unit Trust, Cottage Street Investments LLC, Cottage Street Orbit Acquisition LLC, DHFL PRAMERICA LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED, DICKENS AVENUE HOLDINGS VI LLC, DICKENS AVENUE PARTNERS VI (Ireland) L.P., DICKENS AVENUE PARTNERS VI (US) L.P., Don Cesar Investor LLC, Dryden Arizona Reinsurance Term Company, Dryden Finance II LLC, EVP II GP S.a r.l., EVP II Sweden Resi I GP S.a r.l., Edison Place Senior Note LLC, Essex LLC, EuroCore GP S.a r.l., European Value Partners GP S.a.r.l., Everbright PGIM Fund Management Co. Ltd., Flagstaff LLC, GA 1600 Commons LLC, GA 333 Hennepin Investor LLC, GA BV LLC, GA Bay Area GP LLC, GA Bay Area Investor LLC, GA Belden LLC, GA CLARENDON LLC, GA Cal Crossings LLC, GA Collins LLC, GA E. 22nd Street Apartments Holdings LLC, GA East 86 Street LLC, GA JHCII LLC, GA MENLO PARK INVESTOR LLC, GA Manor at Harbour Island LLC, GA Metro LLC, GA Mission LLC, GA TRITON INVESTOR LLC, GA W Paces LLC, GA/MDI 333 Hennepin Associates LLC, GIBRALTAR BSN HOLDINGS SDN BHD, GIBRALTAR INDIA SOLUTIONS LLP, Gateway Holdings II LLC, Gateway Holdings LLC, German Retail Income CP LP, Gibraltar BSN Life Berhad, Gibraltar International Insurance Services Company Inc., Gibraltar International Service LLC, Gibraltar Reinsurance Company Ltd., Gibraltar Universal Life Reinsurance Company, Glenealy International Limited, Global Portfolio Strategies Inc., Gold GP Limited, Gold II L.P., Gold L.P., Graham Resources Inc., Graham Royalty Ltd., Green Tree GP, Green Tree L.P., Greenlee LLC, Halsey Street Investments LLC, Hirakata LLC, IVP Fund GP LLC, Impact Investments Bridges UK S.a.r.l, Inter-Atlantic G Fund L.P., Inversiones Previsionales Chile SpA, Inversiones Previsionales Dos SpA, Ironbound Fund LLC, Jennison Associates LLC, Kyarra S.a r.l., Kyoei Annuity Home Co. Ltd., LINEUP LLC, Lake Street Partners IV L.P., MC GA COLLINS HOLDINGS LLC, MC GA COLLINS REALTY LLC, MC Insurance Agency Services LLC, Manor at Harbour Island LLC, Marble Canyon LLC, Maricopa LLC, Market Street Holdings IV LLC, Morenci LLC, Mulberry Street Holdings LLC, Mulberry Street Investment L.P., Mulberry Street Partners LLC, Mullin TBG Insurance Agency Services LLC, MullinTBG Insurance Agency Services, National Family Assurance Group LLC, New Savanna, Orchard Street Acres Inc., PAI Bay Farm LLC, PAI Bayrock Groves LLC, PAI Belvidere Farms LLC, PAI Big Cypress Farm LLC, PAI Corcoran 640 Ranch LLC, PAI DeKalb Farm LLC, PAI Delano 1500 Ranches LLC, PAI Flicker Orchard LLC, PAI Good Hope Farm LLC, PAI Hawk Creek Ranch LLC, PAI Hills Valley Ranches LLC, PAI Holly Hill Groves LLC, PAI Hunt Farm LLC, PAI Jackson Bayou Farm LLC, PAI Lake Placid Groves LLC, PAI Wallula Gap Vineyard LLC, PCP V Cayman AIV GP L.P., PEREF II Co-Invest 1 GP S.a r.l., PEREF II GP S.a r.l., PEREF II PV S.r.l, PFI EM-Tech Fund I LLC, PG Business Service Co. Ltd, PG Collection Service Co. Ltd., PGA Asian Retail Limited, PGA European Limited, PGI Co. Ltd, PGIM (Australia) Pty Ltd, PGIM (Hong Kong) Ltd., PGIM (Scots) Limited, PGIM (Shanghai) Company Ltd., PGIM (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., PGIM AVP IV GP S.a r.l., PGIM Advisory (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., PGIM Agricultural Investments GP LLC, PGIM Agricultural Investors LP, PGIM Broad Market High Yield Bond Fund L.P., PGIM Broad Market High Yield Bond Partners LLC, PGIM Capital Partners Management (Feeder) VI LLC, PGIM Capital Partners Management Fund VI L.P., PGIM European Financing Limited, PGIM European Services Limited, PGIM Financial Limited, PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives Fund II L.P., PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives Fund L.P., PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives GP LLC, PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives II GP LLC, PGIM Foreign Investments Inc., PGIM Holding Company LLC, PGIM INDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT PRIVATE LIMITED, PGIM INDIA TRUSTEES PRIVATE LIMITED, PGIM Inc., PGIM International Financing Inc., PGIM Investments LLC, PGIM Japan Co. Ltd., PGIM Korea Inc., PGIM LTIF Berlin GP S.a r.l., PGIM LTIF Berlin MLP S.ar.l., PGIM LTIF GP S.a.r.l., PGIM Limited, PGIM Loan Originator Manager Limited, PGIM M Campus GP S.a r.l., PGIM Management Partner Limited, PGIM MetaProp Investor LP LLC, PGIM Netherlands B.V., PGIM Overseas Investment Fund Management (Shanghai) Company Ltd, PGIM Private Capital (Ireland) Limited, PGIM Private Capital Limited, PGIM Private Placement Investors Inc., PGIM Private Placement Investors L.P., PGIM REF EUROPE SCSp, PGIM REF Europe GP S.a r.l., PGIM REF Europe Member LLC, PGIM REF Intermediary Services Inc., PGIM Real Estate (Japan) Ltd., PGIM Real Estate (UK) Limited, PGIM Real Estate CD S.a.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Capital VII GP S.a r.l., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest GP S.a r.l., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest L.P., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest SCSp, PGIM Real Estate Co-Invest Holdings LLC, PGIM Real Estate Debt GmbH, PGIM Real Estate Finance Holding Company, PGIM Real Estate Finance LLC, PGIM Real Estate France SAS, PGIM Real Estate Germany AG, PGIM Real Estate Global Debt GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate Inmuebles S. de R.L. de C.V, PGIM Real Estate Italy S.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Loan Services Inc., PGIM Real Estate Luxembourg S.A., PGIM Real Estate MVP Administradora IV S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Administradora V S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Inmuebles IV S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Inmuebles V S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate Management Luxembourg S.a.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Mexico S.C., PGIM Real Estate S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate U.S. Debt Fund GP LLC, PGIM Senior Loan Opportunities Management (Feeder) I LLC, PGIM Senior Loan Opportunities Management Fund I L.P., PGIM Strategic Financing LLC, PGIM Strategic Investments Inc., PGIM USPF VI Manager LLC, PGIM Warehouse Inc., PGLH of Delaware Inc., PIFM Holdco LLC, PIIC Limited, PIISC Holdings (UK) Limited, PIM KF Blocker Holdings LLC, PIM KF Blocker V Holdings LLC, PIM USPF V Manager LLC, PLA Administradora Industrial SRL, PLA Administradora LLC, PLA Administradora S. de R.L. de C.V., PLA Asesoria Profesional II S. de R.L. de C.V., PLA Asesoria Profesional S.de R.L. de C.V., PLA Co-Investor LLC, PLA Mexico Industrial Manager I LLC, PLA Mexico Industrial Manager II LLC, PLA Mexico Residential Manager I LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Limited Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund IV Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund IV Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund I Blue LP, PLA Retail Fund I LP, PLA Retail Fund I Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund I Red LP, PLA Retail Fund II Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II LLC, PLA Retail Fund II LP, PLA Retail Fund II Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II U.S. Carry/Co-Invest LP, PLA Services Manager Mexico LLC, PLAI Limited, PMCF Holdings LLC, PMCF Properties LLC, PPPF General Partner LLP, PR GA SCP Apartments LLC, PRAMERICA PRECAP VI GP (SCOTS FEEDER) LLP, PRAMERICA PRECAP VI GP LLP, PRECO ACCOUNT III LLC, PRECO ACCOUNT PARTNERSHIP III LP, PRECO Account IV LLC, PRECO Account Partnership IV LP, PRECO III GP LLP, PREFG Hanwha Manager LLC, PREI Acquisition I Inc., PREI Acquisition II Inc., PREI Acquisition LLC, PREI HYDG LLC, PREI International Inc., PRIAC Property Acquisitions LLC, PRICOA Management Partner Limited, PRISA Fund Manager LLC, PRISA II Fund Manager LLC, PRISA II Pooled Manager LLC, PRISA III Fund GP LLC, PRISA III Fund PIM LLC, PRREF II Fund Manager LLC, PRU 3XSquare LLC, PRUCO LLC, PRUDENTIAL CAPITAL ENERGY PARTNERS MANAGEMENT (FEEDER) LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP MEMBER LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP REIT LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP VENTURE 2 LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP VENTURE LLC, PT PFI Mega Life Insurance, Passaic Fund LLC, Pine Tree GP, Pine Tree L.P., Platinum GP Limited, Platinum II L.P., Platinum L.P., Pramerica (Hong Kong) Holdings Limited, Pramerica (Luxembourg) CP GP S.a.r.l., Pramerica (Scots) CP GP LLP, Pramerica Business Consulting (Shanghai) Company Limited, Pramerica EVP CP LP, Pramerica Financial Asia Headquarters Pte. Ltd., Pramerica Financial Asia Limited, Pramerica Fixed Income Funds Management Limited, Pramerica Fosun Life Insurance Co. Ltd., Pramerica General Partner LLP, Pramerica Holdings Ltd, Pramerica Insurance Agency (China) Company Ltd., Pramerica PRECAP I GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP II GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP III GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP IV GP LLP, Pramerica Pan European Real Estate (Scots) LP, Pramerica Property Partners Fund (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital I (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital I GP (Scots Feeder) LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital II (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital III (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV GP (Scots Feeder) LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV GP Limited, Pramerica Real Estate Capital V (Netherlands) GP LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital V (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital VI (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica SGR S.p.A, Pramerica Systems Ireland Limited, Preco III (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pru 101 Wood LLC, Pru Alpha Partners I LLC, Pru Fixed Income Emerging Markets Partners I LLC, PruVen Capital Partners Fund I L.P., Pruco Assignment Corporation, Pruco Life Insurance Company, Pruco Life Insurance Company of New Jersey, Pruco Securities LLC, Prudential 900 Aviation Boulevard LLC, Prudential Affordable Mortgage Company LLC, Prudential Agricultural Property Holding Company LLC, Prudential Annuities Distributors Inc., Prudential Annuities Holding Company Inc., Prudential Annuities Inc., Prudential Annuities Information Services & Technology Corporation, Prudential Annuities Life Assurance Corporation, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Captive Company, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Term Company, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Universal Company, Prudential Bank & Trust FSB, Prudential Capital Energy Opportunity Fund L.P., Prudential Capital Energy Partners L.P., Prudential Capital Energy Partners Management Fund L.P., Prudential Capital Partners Management Fund IV L.P., Prudential Capital and Investment Services LLC, Prudential Chile II SpA, Prudential Chile SpA, Prudential Commercial Property Holding Company LLC, Prudential Customer Solutions LLC, Prudential Equity Group LLC, Prudential Financial Securities Investment Trust Enterprise, Prudential Fixed Income Global Liquidity Relative Value Partners LLC, Prudential Fixed Income U.S. Relative Value Partners LLC, Prudential Funding LLC, Prudential General Services of Japan Y.K., Prudential Gibraltar Agency Co. Ltd., Prudential Global Funding LLC, Prudential Holdings of Japan Inc., Prudential Huntoon Paige Associates LLC, Prudential IBH Holdco Inc., Prudential Impact Investments Mortgage Loans LLC, Prudential Impact Investments Private Debt LLC, Prudential Impact Investments Private Equity LLC, Prudential Industrial Properties LLC, Prudential Insurance Agency LLC, Prudential International Insurance Holdings Ltd., Prudential International Insurance Service Company L.L.C., Prudential International Investments Advisers LLC, Prudential International Investments Company LLC, Prudential International Investments LLC, Prudential Investment Management Services LLC, Prudential Japan Holdings LLC, Prudential Legacy Insurance Company of New Jersey, Prudential Life Insurance Company of Taiwan Inc., Prudential Mortgage Asset Holdings 1 Japan Investment Business Limited Partnership, Prudential Mortgage Asset Holdings 2 Japan Investment Business Limited Partnership, Prudential Mortgage Capital Asset Holding Company LLC, Prudential Mortgage Capital Funding LLC, Prudential Mortgage Capital Holdings LLC, Prudential Multifamily Mortgage LLC, Prudential Mutual Fund Services LLC, Prudential Newark Realty LLC, Prudential QOZ Investment Fund 1 LLC, Prudential Realty Securities Inc., Prudential Retirement Financial Services Holding LLC, Prudential Retirement Holdings LLC, Prudential Retirement Insurance and Annuity Company, Prudential Securities Secured Financing Corporation, Prudential Securities Structured Assets Inc., Prudential Seguros Mexico S.A. de C.V., Prudential Seguros S.A., Prudential Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Prudential Structured Settlement Company, Prudential Systems Japan Limited, Prudential Term Reinsurance Company, Prudential Trust Co. Ltd., Prudential Trust Company, Prudential Universal Reinsurance Company, Prudential Workplace Solutions Group Services LLC, Prudential do Brasil Seguros de Vida S.A., Prudential do Brasil Vida em Grupo S.A., Prudential/TMW Real Estate Group LLC, Pruservicos Participacoes Ltda., QMA JP EM All Cap Equity Partners LLC, QMA LLC, QMA Wadhwani LLP, Quartzsite LLC, Residential Services Corporation of America LLC, Rio CP LP, Rock European Real Estate Holdings S.ar.l., Rock Global Real Estate LLC, Rock Kensington Limited, Rock Marty GP S.a r.l., Rock Oxford S.a r.l., Rock UK Real Estate Holdings S.ar.l., Rock UK Real Estate II S.a.r.l., Rockstone Co. Ltd., Rosado Grande LLC, Ross Avenue Energy Fund Holdings LLC, Ross Avenue Minerals 2012 LLC, SCP Apartments LLC, SENIOR HOUSING PARTNERS VI GP LLC, SENIOR HOUSING PARTNERSHIP FUND VI GP LLC, SHP IV Carried Interest LP, SHP V Carried Interest L.P., SMP Holdings Inc., SVIIT Holdings Inc., Sanei Collection Service Co. Ltd. (Kabushiki Kaisha Sanei Shuuno Service), Senior Housing Partners IV L.L.C., Senior Housing Partners V LLC, Senior Housing Partnership Fund IV L.L.C., Senior Housing Partnership Fund V LLC, Sterling Private Placement Management LLP, Stetson Street Partners L.P., Strand Investments Limited, TBG Insurance Services Corporation, TENSATOR HOLDINGS LTD, TF Proveedora S.C., TMW ASPF I Verwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, TMW ASPF Management GmbH, TMW Management LLC, TMW Real Estate Group LLC, TMW Realty Advisors LLC, TMW USPF Verwaltungs GmbH, TRGOAG Company Inc., The Gibraltar Life Insurance Co. Ltd., The Keynes Dynamic Beta Strategy (US) Fund GP LLC, The Prudential Assigned Settlement Services Corp., The Prudential Brazilian Capital Fund LP, The Prudential Gibraltar Financial Life Insurance Co. Ltd., The Prudential Home Mortgage Company Inc., The Prudential Insurance Company of America, The Prudential Life Insurance Company Ltd., The Prudential Real Estate Financial Services of America Inc., The WMF Group, Thurloe Commercial Guernsey Limited, Times Square Center Associates, USPF V - Verwaltungs - GmbH & Co. KG, USPF V Carry LLC, USPF V Co-Invest LLC, USPF V Investment LP, United States Property Fund VI GP S.a r.l., Vailsburg Fund LLC, Vantage Casualty Insurance Company, Wabash Avenue Holdings V LLC, Wabash Avenue Partners V L.P., Wadhwani Capital Limited, Waveland Avenue Holdings I LLC, Waveland Avenue Partners I (Ireland) L.P., Waveland Avenue Partners I (US) L.P., Wellness Services Ecossistema De Bem Estar Ltda., Wellness Services SRL, Yamato Life, and Yavapai LLC. Wells Fargo & Co. is a diversified, community-based financial services company. It is engaged in the provision of banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance. It firm operates through the following segments: Community Banking, Wholesale Banking, Wealth & Investment Management, and Other. The Community Banking segment offers complete line of diversified financial products and services for consumers and small businesses including checking and savings accounts, credit and debit cards, and automobile, student, and small business lending. The Wholesale Banking segment provides financial solutions to businesses across the United States and globally. The Wealth and Investment Management segment includes personalized wealth management, investment and retirement products and services to clients across U.S. based businesses. The Other segment refers to the products of WIM customers served through community banking distribution channels. The company was founded by Henry Wells and William G. Fargo on March 18, 1852 and is headquartered in San Francisco, CA. Read More 11 Wall Street analysts have issued "buy," "hold," and "sell" ratings for Hugo Boss in the last twelve months. There are currently 6 hold ratings and 5 buy ratings for the stock. The consensus among Wall Street analysts is that investors should "hold" Hugo Boss stock. A hold rating indicates that analysts believe investors should maintain any existing positions they have in BOSS, but not buy additional shares or sell existing shares. View analyst ratings for Hugo Boss or view top-rated stocks. Clayville, N.Y. - It may have taken 42 years, but the family of Utica native Debra Clark will now sleep a lot easier each night for the rest of their lives. Clark, who grew up in the Cornhill area of Utica as Debra Pantola, moved to south Florida in 1975 after getting divorced from her husband, Phil Clark. She worked as a nurse at a hospital in the Miami suburb of Coral Gables. Two years later, on August 4, 1977, she was brutally murdered at the young age of 23 inside the condo she was living in. That condo was purchased by the man she was seeing, and whom her family says planned on marrying her. That man, then 36-year-old real estate agent Allen Bregman. Two days ago, on Friday, April 12, 2019, nearly 42 years after Debra Clarks murder, Bregman, now 77 years old, was found guilty by a Miami-Dade County jury of 2nd Degree Murder. A whole team of people seeking justice for Debra sat through every day of that nine day trial. That team has been dubbed Team Debbie. Team Debbie was led by Debra Clarks two siblings, her brother Brian Pantola, who now lives in Clayville, and her sister, Roxanne Eusin, who still lives in Utica. The two siblings met with NEWSChannel 2 Sunday morning at Pantolas Clayville Home, less than 48 hours after that historic verdict was read. The verdict is truly historic, as Pantola and Eusin say Debras case is now the oldest cold case ever solved in Miami-Dade County history. Brian Pantola says when the verdict was read, it was real, but it was surreal, She got her peace, she's at rest. Roxanne Eusin says she was fearful the verdict would go the other way, I can tell you I had my fingers crossed. I wasn't 100% sure that it was going to go our way. I was wondering right up until the very end." The family wants to thank the many others who played a role in finally attaining justice for Debra and that were also a part of Team Debbie. Those many people include Debras Florida friends from back then, as well as the prosecutors and detectives who put the cold case together, but most of all Pantola and Eusin want to thank Thomas Guilfoyle. Guilfoyle was the police officer who found Debras body. This case was Guilfoyles first homicide. Pantola says if it wasnt for the retired officers constant plea year after year these past 42 years for cold case detectives to reopen the case, this justice would have never been attained. Pantola says the trial was difficult, especially looking at the crime scene photos. He says he lost it, when the verdict was read Friday morning and says that moment felt like a ton of bricks have finally been lifted from his shoulders, I held it together really good through everything, but when that happened, when that happened, you hold your breath for a second because you never know. When the emotions let loose, 42 years, you took that load of bricks and you just slowly set them down." Eusin bought some Easter Lilies Sunday morning, I saw these this morning and I thought, the Easter Lily is a sign of peace and love, and Debbie is finally at peace and our father is at peace and we can go out and put these on her grave." The siblings father, Frank Pantola, sadly passed away last year and didnt get to be in Miami with Team Debbie, but Pantola and Eusin say he was there in spirit and has always been a big part of the team that finally found justice for Debra. Her mother, Gwendolyn Ventura is still alive, in her 80's and lives in Syracuse. Family members say she has found peace. UTICA, N.Y. -- David Gordon is running for Oneida County executive, and Monday he came out and said there's an issue that needs to be addressed in the Board of Elections before Election Day rolls around. Republican candidate Dave Gordon says there is a big issue with affidavit ballots in Oneida County He held a press conference Monday morning at Uticas Union Station, which is in the same building as the Oneida County Board of Elections. Gordon says when people went to a polling location in Oneida County on Election Day back on November 6, and they found out they were not on the list of registered voters, they could then fill out a provisional ballot, also known as an affidavit ballot in New York State. They are then supposed to fill out that ballot and give it back to the elections workers, who will then put in its envelope and it will then be put with all of the absentee ballots. In the event of a close race, where all of the absentee ballots and provisional ballots needed to be counted, those provisional ballots would be checked to make sure the person is actually a registered voter. What was happening is that people were taking those provisional affidavit ballots, they were filling it out. Some people filled out the envelope and gave them the empty envelope back to the workers, some went over and casted the ballot into the machine. Thats the true problem, because how many people did that? We don't know, said Gordon. He says this could mean the difference between winning and losing an election for any candidate. When Gordon showed up for his press conference, he was told by sheriff's deputies that he needed to fill out a permit to hold the press conference inside a county building, which is the law. Gordon argued that others have held similar events there and didn't fill out a permit, and he held the press conference without incident. Oneida County Sheriff Robert Maciol released the following statement to News Channel 2 Monday afternoon, For decades, any person wishing to utilize county property for events of various kinds have always followed the process of getting a permit beforehand. Members of the Sheriffs Office have always been available to explain the process to those that arent familiar with it, just as they did today with Dave Gordon. We did not stop his press conference and are currently reviewing whether or not a permit is required for this type of activity in a county owned building. Gordon says the affidavit ballots should be changed so they arent able to be scanned by the machine something he says is already being done by Madison County. NewsChannel 2s Gary Liberatore called Madison Countys Board of Elections, and they say they will be ordering affidavit ballots that are unscannable, so that will take care of the problem. But why isn't that the case in Oneida County? The Oneida County BOE said both commissioners have no comment on the issue. WKTV also contacted current Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente, whom Gordon is running against, and he says this is a Board of Elections issue and referred us to Oneida County Board of Elections Attorney Bob Pronteau. Pronteau says the county will now be looking into the possibility of having separate unscannable affidavit ballots. ILION- Starting Monday April 15, 2019 at 7 a.m. contractors with the New York State Department of Transportation will begin installing a detour that will prohibit northbound travel on Route 51 north of the Ilion Marina. Here are your detours: Route 51 north and Route 5 east/westbound travel will be detoured onto Route 5S eastbound then to Route 28 northbound onto Route 5. Route 5 westbound exiting onto Route 51 southbound along with Route 5 eastbound to exit onto Route 51 southbound. The contractor is scheduled to complete stage 1 in 90 days. FOUNTAIN/MONTGOMERY COUNTIES, Ind. (WLFI) A multi-county police chase ended with a man allegedly fighting with officers trying to arrest him, and it all happened with a child in the vehicle. It started around 10:50 p.m. Saturday in the eastbound lanes of Interstate 74 in Fountain County. Deputies there stopped a vehicle for traffic violations about two miles west of the State Road 25 exit. During the stop, two people got out and ran from the police. The driver then sped off. Police found the vehicle near U.S. 231 and U.S. 136 in Montgomery County. The driver ran over police stop sticks and crashed into parked cars. Police say the driver, Wyatt William Hunt of Springville, Iowa, tried to run away. Hunt resisted and officers had to use a taser to stop him. The 21-year-old was checked out a local hospital and taken to the Montgomery County Jail. He faces multiple felony charges including resisting law enforcement with a vehicle and criminal recklessness. Hunt also faces a charge of criminal confinement due to 9-year-old child in the car. LAFAYETTE, Ind (WLFI) Organizers from the 'Scouting 4 Eggs'event at Cary Camp are speaking out. As we previously reported, so many people showed up at the adult Easter egg hunt that many people were turned away. According to the Tippecanoe County Sheriff's Office, the event reached full capacity. Due to traffic congestion, no one else was allowed in after 8:15 p.m. Saturday. People took to social media complaining about being turned away. Organizer Ben Blumenberg said the overcrowding even came as a surprise to him. "The event exploded with popularity in the last 48 hours," said Blumenberg. "We sold about 800 tickets in 48 hours and had no idea that it was going to grow that much." Blumenberg said refunds are scheduled to go out Monday.He also said the Boy Scouts of America are planning a two night adult Easter egg hunt next year. Officially known as the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Afghanistan is a country in Asia. The landlocked country has an area of about 252,000 square miles and a population of about 31 million people. Several things drive the economy of Afghanistan such as the natural resources of the country. These natural resources include things like coal, copper, natural gas, petroleum, gold, lithium, uranium, gold, rare earth elements, and arable land. Mining and Petroleum Regulated by the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, mining in the country includes a wide array of mineral resources such as petroleum and natural gas. The value of untapped minerals is estimated to stand at $3 trillion. In total, the number of mineral fields containing different minerals is at least 1400. Estimates place the oil deposits in the country at around 3.8 billion barrels, mostly in the provinces of Jawzjan and Balkh. Further studies by the Afghan Ministry of Mines and Industry and the United States Geological Survey showed that the country has significant untapped resources in its northern region. The studies estimate that there are around 1,596 million barrels of undiscovered crude oil while undiscovered natural gas deposits stood at about 444 billion cubic meters. Most of these undiscovered deposits lie in two basins namely the Afghan-Tajik Basin and the Amu Darya Basin. Oil production in the country started back in October 2012 after the country signed an agreement with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). Copper Afghanistan has significant deposits of copper. Historically, copper exists in Afghan provinces such as Herat, Farah, Kandahar, Kapisa, and Zabul. However, there were no copper mines in operation in 2006 due to increased violence from the Taliban. After the period of violence, copper mining resumed in southeast Afghanistan in places like Aynak and Jawkhar. A Chinese firm known as the China Metallurgical Group won a public tender from the government in 2006 to spearhead the Aybak, Samangan copper project. The copper deposits in the Aybak area have an estimated value of around $88 billion. Out of all deposits in the world, the deposits at Aybak are believed to be the second largest. Other Minerals Similar to copper, gold mining started only in 2006. Gold deposits exist in places such as the Takhar Province and the Badakhshan Province. Additional deposits of gold and copper worth about $50 billion also exist in Ghazni province. Aside from gold, the country has some significant deposits of iron ore in places like Bamyan Province. Other minerals include lithium, marble (which brings in about $15 million through exports every year), rare-earth elements (whose value is not yet known), uranium, and others. Agriculture Traditionally, agriculture has been the main driver of the nations economy even though less than 15% of the countrys area is arable. Even more impressive is the fact that only 6% of the total cultivable land in the country is utilized. In 2014, the value of exports from nuts and fruits totaled about $500 million. Some of the fruits produced include pomegranates, melons, and grapes. Other agricultural products include pistachios and potatoes. Traditional crops in the country are wheat and cereals. In 2010, the country had an estimated wheat production of about 4.532 million tons. However, sustained periods of drought and instability have all been contributors to a decline in the nations agricultural production. Animal husbandry, which includes sedentary and nomadic husbandry, is also a critical part of the economy. Most of the farmers specialize in the rearing of sheep due to the traditional popularity of mutton. However, the number of livestock reduced drastically between 1997 and 2002, which is why USAID and the Afghan ministry of agriculture and livestock started working together after 2002 to restore the numbers. Fishing is also a favorite activity that is made possible by the high number of water bodies such as rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. Most of the fishing takes place in main river rivers such as the Kabul River and the Helmand River. Forestry Most of the nations forests are in the eastern region. Unfortunately, since the middle stages of the 1980s, the country has had to endure a depletion in its timber resources due to war. Other reasons for the destruction of forests include the need for more agricultural land, diseases and pests, illegal logging, and other things. Since then, only 2% of the total area of Afghanistan is forested. Midway Atoll is a 2.4 square mile atoll, which is a ring-shaped coral reef, located in the North Pacific Ocean. The unorganized, unincorporated US territory is the only atoll or island in the Hawaiian archipelago that is not part of the state of Hawaii. Midway Atoll observes the Samoa Time Zone, which is 11 hours behind Coordinated Universal Time, and 1 hour behind the time zone observed in Hawaii. The atoll is inhabited by approximately 60 individuals, which include employees of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a small number of contract workers. Midway Atoll has been closed to public visitation since 2012 due to budget cutbacks, but had 332 visitors during its final year. Location Midway Atoll is located in the North Pacific Ocean, roughly halfway between Asia and North America. The atoll is not considered part of the state of Hawaii as a result of the Hawaii Organic Act, which officially annexed Hawaii to the United States. The Hawaii Admissions Act, which identified all islands that Hawaii would inherit, excluded Midway Atoll, as well as Kingman Reef, Johnston Reef, and Palmyra Island. Midway Atoll is approximately 2,200 nautical miles east of Tokyo, 2,800 nautical miles west of San Francisco, and is situated in the northwestern part of the Hawaiian Islands. Geography Midway Atoll is part of the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain, an undersea mountain range that includes volcanic islands, seamounts, and atolls, and stretches from the Aleutian Islands to Hawaii. Midway Atoll consists of a ring-shaped coral reef and numerous sand isles. The two largest islands in the atoll, Sand Island and Eastern Island, are inhabited by numerous seabird species. Midway Atoll was created about 28 million years ago after lava flowing from a hotspot in the Earths crust created a volcanic island. Additionally, the islands were formed by shifting coral-sands inside the reef. History The atoll was discovered on July 5, 1859, by Captain N.C. Middlebrooks, of the sealing ship Gambia, who named it Middlebrook Island. Middlebrook claimed the atoll for the United States as part of the Guano Islands Act (1856), which allowed Americans to obtain guano from all uninhabited islands. Years later, Captain William Reynolds took formal possession of the atoll for the US on August 28, 1867, and its name was changed to Midway Atoll. Flora and Fauna The atoll is an important habitat in the region that serves as a breeding ground for about 17 seabird species. Numerous native seabird species live on Midway Atoll, including 39% of the black-footed albatross population, 70% of the Laysan albatross population, as well as a small number of short-tailed albatross. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also relocated 42 endangered Laysan ducks to the atoll in an attempt to conserve the species. There are approximately 250 species of marine animals in the 300,000 acres of surrounding and lagoon waters. Numerous invasive exotic plant species, such as ironwood trees, were introduced to Midway Atoll to act as windbreakers. In fact, 75% of the 200 plant species on the atoll are non-native. The Socialist Equality Party (Australia) held urgent rallies in Sydney and Melbourne last Friday, less than 24 hours after WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was illegally expelled from Ecuadors London embassy, and taken into British custody, to facilitate his extradition to the US. The protests were attended by a diverse range of workers, students, young people and long-time defenders of WikiLeaks and democratic rights. Speakers stressed the responsibility of Australian governments and the entire political establishment which has abandoned Assange, facilitating the US attempts to prosecute him for WikiLeaks exposures of war crimes, mass surveillance operations and illegal diplomatic intrigues. WSWS reporters spoke to some of the attendees. Amina and Halima In Sydney, Halima stated: This is an attack on all of our democratic rights. Where has our democracy gone? Did it die yesterday? I think it did. What is going to happen to freedom of speech now? There could be a lot of journalists going to jail unless we can get Julian free and stop them from setting this precedent. Otherwise it will limit what we know. We need to be able to know what is happening in the world. We have a right to know. How can we make informed decisions and look after our families if we are deprived of any real knowledge of what is taking place? The point of the Internet was to enable people to share ideas and to communicate with each other all over the world. What is going to happen now? What they are doing though wont stop us. We will find a way to free Julian and any other journalists who come under attack. We have to build a movement to stop this because the political system is not working. Were struggling, were poor, we need a change. Amina said: Assanges expulsion was disgusting. The response of the Australian government has been poor. They havent done anything to protect their own citizen. Its shameful. Rebecca, a midwife, said: A great injustice has been done to Julian. We need to fight for the right of free speech. We dont want to be shut up. All we want is a safe world to live in. The Australian government doesnt protect its citizens if they are attacked overseas. They dont care about us, the people. Its all about the US alliance. We are just little puppets. Governments follow the US. They like to be controlled by the big people and they like to control us. We need a new party. Oisin and Rebecca Her son, Oisin, a high school student, added: Its very similar to before the French Revolution. There is such a rigid class system. In the French Revolution there were the first and second estates which were the controlling power and who ruled over the third estate, more than 90 percent of the population. Ordinary people had no real power at all. Until eventually they said to the first and second estates, we dont need you, were the real people, and so they revolted and made a change. Thats similar to what we need to do here. Jay Jay, a university student, said he was extremely grateful for the work of Assange and WikiLeaks exposing the US-led interventions in Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq. It is for those reasons that Julian Assange has been hounded, harried and persecuted, he said. We should be very clear about that. They are not going to be extraditing Assange to Sweden. They are going to extradite him to the United States, where most likely he will be tried in secret, and he faces possible capital punishment. Sometime we lull ourselves into thinking that because we are supposed to be a democracy, we have civil liberties that will always be there and will always be protected. But actually its been the actions of working class people throughout history that have forwarded and advanced those rights. It isnt something thats been given to us. Every organisation must raise its voice at a time like this. We need a renewed sense of activism, where people think that its their duty to take back the political system in this country. Bring Assange home! Jemma, a post-graduate student, said: Its important to highlight the response of most of the left to the potential extradition of Julian Assange, because its been completely and utterly disgraceful. I find it unbelievable that they are raising this diversionary tactic that Assange should be facing charges in Sweden, because that was something that was never going to happen. Jemma condemned Australian governments for assisting the attack on Assange, stating: Its pretty clear that the Australian ruling class, whether its Labor or Liberal, it really doesnt make any difference, or even the Greens, have decided to side with their American imperial masters. They are even dragging us into a current trade and cold war with China. Marrieh, a casual retail worker, said: The work of Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and many others has revealed to the public globally what we should have the right to know. Unfortunately, they have had to bring this information to us in very difficult situations that have been created by countries that claim to be democratic. These countries have shown their real face. They are persecuting Assange because WikiLeaks has exposed their war crimes and their trade agreements that affect us so harmfully. Marrieh We need to do everything to stop this extradition process. It is going to be very nasty. We have seen whats happening to Chelsea Manning and weve seen what they do to whistleblowers around the world, especially in America. Danielle said, I was watching a livefeed video of the embassy when the arrest happened. I saw the 10 police arrive at the building and realized that was it. Then someone put their hand over the livefeed. It was disgusting. For someone who has been that long without any sunlight, he would have been suffering. He wouldnt have been able to see well. They were manhandling him. I cant believe they did it in that manner. These governments are monsters. The buck stops with Scott Morrison. The Australian government has to intervene to protect Julian. Julia Gillard did nothing, Kevin Rudd did nothing, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull did nothing. I support the continued mobilization of workers and youth against for the freedom of Assange; this needs to be a rallying cry. Part of the SEP Melbourne rally in defence of Assange Ally, a city worker passing the demonstration on her lunch break, said that when she saw the rally, she thought finally! Because no one else is talking about Assange. He is not a criminal. I think the Australian government should step in to bring him home. The Australian government hasnt done anything because they are scared of the US. Why else wouldnt they bring him home? Evan In Melbourne, Evan, a motorcycle mechanic, said: I believe this is downright wrong. When they went in and got Assange last night I just couldnt believe it. They definitely dont want this free media thing thats been developing to continue. They dont want the truth going out to the public. This is the first step to stop it. Im not surprised there isnt support for Assange from the Australian government. They are completely tied to the US. America has been bringing a lot of military forces to Australia. There are a lot of bases out there that are unknown to the public. I believe this is happening because theyre afraid of Chinas rise. Simon, an electrician in the construction industry, travelled several hours to attend the SEP demonstration. A lot of my fellow construction workers are not aware about the situation facing Assange, he said. Simon I encourage workers to do their own independent research. There is so much misinformation and propaganda out there. Workers need to look beyond the ABC, Channel 7, SBS and Channel 9 television. They should turn to independent media on the Internet. Everyone needs to dig into issues that are important to society. They need to follow what is going on and care. I have been following Wikileaks since 2010. I was really disturbed by the Afghan and Iraq war logs. I still remember seeing the Collateral Murder video where the US military helicopter blew away journalists and little children in Iraq. I have little children myself. I put myself in those families shoes. The public have the right to know what is going on. I dont agree with the wars that are going on in the Middle East. Come Anzac day and people will be proud with poppies on their chest. They will commemorate world war one and two. But we are still in wars now that are unnecessary. Why dont we question them? I think Assange and Manning are so terribly courageous. In the future we will have statues of them right here outside the Victorian State Library. They will be celebrated. Julia said: Government dont want to be held accountable for their actions. Its a question of free speech. That is going out the window. They are trying to quiet people down. Gerry Gerry said: I came here to oppose whats being done to Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning. Its shameful and disgusting. Because WikiLeaks exposed the war crimes of imperialism, the empire is after him. They want revenge. They want a show trial. They want him in court and thrown away for good unless they murder him first which is a distinct possibility. A lot more people need to stand up and say enough. A few hours ago, I left a message on Socialist Alliances website. I asked them why they and Socialist Alternative have been almost totally silent about Assange for years. They have ignored the attacks against him. Their role is beyond contempt. Labor and the Liberals are just two sides of the same coin. The same with the Greens. We need to build a real movement to free Assange. The decision by US authorities to deny entry to Omar Barghouti, the prominent Palestinian political figure and co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, is a flagrant attack on democratic rights and yet another illustration of the extraordinary close policy coordination between the ultra-right regimes of President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The BDS movement, founded in 2005, is a protest and lobbying campaign aimed at leveraging sympathy or support in academic, official and business circles into pressuring Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank, along with granting full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel and acknowledgment of the right of return of Palestinian refugees. Barghouti, who has permanent resident status in Israel, studied in the US during the 1980s. He was planning to speak at Harvard and New York University, as well as at meetings in Washington and Philadelphia. His denial of entry also means that he will be unable to attend the wedding of his daughter, who lives in the US. The action against Barghouti was particularly noteworthy because he holds a US visa that is valid through 2021. In the past he has encountered problems leaving Israel, but on this occasion the ban came from Washington. When he arrived at Ben-Gurion International Airport outside of Tel Aviv last Wednesday, he was informed that he could not board his flight because of an immigration matter, even though he had all necessary travel documents. Authorities in Washington had instructed the US Consulate in Tel Aviv to take this action. A State Department official answered a media inquiry by declaring, Visa records are confidential under US law; therefore, we cannot discuss the details of individual visa cases. Barghoutis trip was arranged through the Arab American Institute (AAI), based in Washington. The organizations president, James Zogby, declared in response to the ban, It is clear this arbitrary political decision is motivated by this administrations efforts to silence Palestinian voices. Speaking via Skype to a discussion in Washington on Thursday titled A Candid Conversation about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, moderated by US journalist Peter Beinart, Barghouti declared, as reported by Mondoweiss, that the travel ban was enforced by Israel directly or by proxy by the United States to silence human rights defenders in the BDS movement They are resorting to more McCarthyite, more repressive intimidation, bullying and violation of basic rights to silence us. By having US immigration ban me from entering the United States, this is really a blatant attempt to silence my voice and its taking the opposition to BDS in this right-wing, xenophobic administration to a higher level. Amnesty International had intervened in the past when Barghouti, who does not have Israeli citizenship, was denied travel documents by Tel Aviv. At one point the Israeli foreign minister had complained that Barghouti was using his resident status to travel all over the world in order to operate against Israel in the most serious manner. After an official complaint by Amnesty International a travel document was issued, only to be followed now by the travel ban imposed by the US. The latest ban may have been the result of a request by Netanyahu, or perhaps it was simply another favor granted to the Israeli Prime Minister, who emerged victorious in last weeks Israeli elections, the most right-wing in its history. The ban on Barghouti is one of a growing list of such actions. US authorities recently revoked the visa of the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, to which Washington does not belong. She has been attempting to investigate alleged war crimes in Afghanistan. The extraordinary attack on free speech rights in the case of Barghouti has been met with widespread outrage, but not a single leading Democratic politician has uttered a word. Although the Democratic leadership is facing some resistance to its all-out backing for Israel, the support for the Zionist occupation and the far-right policies of Netanyahu is thoroughly bipartisan, with such leading Democrats as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Congressman Eliot Engel, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, at least as ardent as their Republican colleagues in their slavish support for the Zionist regime. The BDS movement, despite its limited protest character, has driven the Zionist establishment into a frenzy. The Israeli regime is more and more regarded as a pariah state, including among broad layers of the population in the US and Western Europe, where it had previously enjoyed sympathy. A majority of young people in the US who identify as Jewish are clearly in opposition to Israeli policies. A growing number oppose the dogma of Israel as a Jewish state, officially enshrined by the Netanyahu government in the Nation-State Law adopted last July, which codifies the second-class citizenship of the one-fifth of the population that is Arab. The authorities in Israel have responded with a redoubled campaign to smear all of their critics as anti-Semites. The Ministry of Strategic Affairs has devoted enormous resources to its campaign against BDS and has found its strongest supporters within the Trump administration, the US Congress and state governments. The US government has opened the floodgates as far as fulfilling Netanyahus wish list of ultra-nationalist policies directed against the Palestinians and called for by the most extreme right-wing and outright fascist elements within Israel. Trump began by appointing his son-in-law Jared Kushner to come up with a peace plan for the region. He appointed David Friedman to be the US Ambassador to Israel. During the 2016 campaign, Friedman, who was one of Trumps advisers, wrote that members of the liberal Zionist J Street lobby were far worse than kaposJews who turned in their fellow Jews in the Nazi death campsThey are just smug advocates of Israels destruction delivered from the comfort of their secure American life. This was followed by the move of the US embassy to Jerusalem one year ago, in line with the Zionist claim to sovereignty over the entire city. More recently, Trump announced his support for Israel keeping the Syrian Golan Heights, captured more than 50 years ago in the Six-Day War of 1967. More blatant attacks on free speech and other democratic rights have been forthcoming in the form of state and federal legislation in the US that targets the BDS campaign for special attack. Twenty-seven states have passed laws forbidding employees and contractors from supporting boycotts against Israel. These include such blue states as California, Minnesota, Illinois and New York. Last February the US Senate passed the Combating BDS Act of 2019, granting state and local governments the power to stop doing business with those who boycott Israel. As Palestine Legal explains, some of the legislation prohibits state or local government from entering into contracts with any individuals, non-profits or companies that support Palestinian rights, meaning that a church could be prevented from running soup kitchens, homeless shelters or youth programs with the help of government funding. All of this legislation is blatantly unconstitutional, but the fate it will face in the courts is far from clear. The rationale for all of these policies was spelled out last week by Trumps new special envoy for combatting anti-Semitism. Elan Carr, a failed Republican candidate for Congress in 2014, represents a President who notoriously claimed that there were good people among the white supremacists who rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, a day that ended with the killing of a peaceful anti-racist protester who was run down by one of the fascist fanatics. As reported in the LA Times, Carr equated any organized boycott of Israel with anti-Semitism. When asked about the incident with Barghouti, Carr replied that BDS was anti-Semitic because it attempts to strangle Israel. We are going to focus relentlessly on eradicating this false distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, he said. This spells out the line of the most extreme Zionists, whose chauvinism more and more resembles that of classic fascist movements of the 20th century. The aim is to virtually criminalize criticism of Zionist crimes. Behind these moves, however, lies growing crisis and desperation, as the blind alley of the Zionist project becomes ever clearer. The author also recommends: Members and supporters of 20 groups banned from entering Israel [13 January 2018] Israeli premier demands German government stop funding Jewish Museum Berlin [27 December 2018] Democratic leaders step up witchhunt against Congresswoman Omar on phony anti-Semitism charges [6 March 2019] Dozens of people gathered outside Belmarsh prison in London Saturday to demand the release of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Assange was sent to Belmarsh after being seized by police from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. It is a Category A prison, previously described as the British version of Guantanamo Bay due to its use between 2001 and 2002 to detain several people indefinitely without charge or trial under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. The protest was supported by the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and WSWS. Among those protesting were supporters of the Julian Assange Defence Campaign (JADC), Ecuadorian and South American citizens, journalists, and other workers and youth. The JADC maintained a vigil outside the Ecuadorian embassy for the last seven years, after Assange was forced to take refuge there in 2012 in the face of plans hatched by the UK and Swedish governments to have him extradited to the United States. Protesters outside Belmarsh prison Protesters chanted slogans including, Free, Free, Free Assange! Many brought homemade banners with slogans including Dont shoot the messenger, Free Press-Free Assange and Secret Courts Equals No Justice. SEP placards included Free Chelsea ManningFree Julian Assange, British government must grant Assange free passage to Australia, No Internet Censorship and Defend Free Speech. Giving speeches were Emmy Butlin of the JADC, Robert Stevens, the UK editor of the World Socialist Web Site, Carolina Graterol, a foreign correspondent for BBC World Service (Spanish Section) and Juan Carlos Piedra, the director of the Ecuador Movement in the United Kingdom. Chanting slogans in Assanges defence, including Belmarsh, Belmarsh, Freedom for Assange!, UK, USAHands off Assange and No US Extradition protesters then marched to the front entrance of the prison. Emmy Butlin speaking at the protest Butlin explained, Wikileaks has published extremely important documents, authentic documents, opening our eyes as to how the world works, the world of politics, the world of diplomacy. And the backlash was an unrelenting persecution of the editor and founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange. We have seen him year after year being persecuted and embroiled in a made-up legalistic process that restricts his freedom, restricts his ability to build his organisation. The United Nations, an independent arbitrator of conflict, after 18 months of looking into his case said that he has been arbitrarily detained. Arbitrarily detained since the 10th of December 2010. Today we are standing outside Belmarsh prison, where a Western publisher has been detained. Arbitrarily detained all these years and now this. We witnessed bewildered on Thursday how seven undercover UK police dragged Assange and carried him outside the Embassy and he resisted arrest. He shouted out UK resist US extradition! This is the battle in front of us. Carolina Graterol He was dragged into Westminster Court and what happened there? Within 15 minutes a highly biased judge, Judge Snow, reached a verdict Is this justice?... a British judge called him a narcissist. Is this justice? Protesters answered No, no! There is one law for some and another law for others. The law that we decide to adhere to in order to live in a harmonious society is broken in front of our very eyes, in particular the law that protects human rights The mask has fallen. Graterol said, Assange has risked his life to give us the chance of knowing the truth. Of knowing all the lies around the war in Iraq and all the corruption that goes around the banks. We know that it exists and we had an inkling of it, but he showed us that it really is true. That is why we have to protect and to stand by him No more destruction of our democracy, no more destruction of human rights, no more destruction of international law. We cannot allow this anymore. Piedra said, We feel ashamed of the government of Ecuador. We worked for a socialist government and we have been betrayed. Today this selling of principles to the United States that [Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno] and his government has done shows his betrayal against us. They have broken Ecuadorian law and human rights law as well. It makes us ashamed. An important law has been broken, not just against Julian, but against all journalists in the world You are in danger! That is why we want to denounce [Moreno] and give solidarity to Julian Assange. We want to tell Julian Assange, You are not alone. We are going to stop extradition. Here we are, with you. The fight will continue! Robert Stevens speaking at the protest outside Belmarsh prison Stevens began by noting that when UK Prime Minister Theresa May told parliament that Assange would now be subject to the full force of UK law, MPs from all sides of the House cheered her. At that stage, Labour opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said nothing. Later, Home Secretary Sajid Javid made a statement on Assanges arrest. There were few MPs listening, including no more than 12 on the opposition benches. For all the attention they gave to this outrageous assault on democratic rights and breach of all norms of due process, they might just as well have been debating regulations about dog collars. Corbyn was nowhere to be seen when Javid spoke. Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott did make a statement opposing Assanges extradition to the US. Nobody supported her. Only later did Corbyn publish a single tweet stating that Assange should not be extradited to the United States. Labour would do nothing to win Assanges freedom, with dozens of its MPs and peers now allied with The Independent Group of Blairites, and with the Tories to demand he be sent to Sweden to answer trumped up allegations of sexual assault. This is why we have to step up our fight for Julians release He is a real journalist whose life and liberty is in imminent danger! We have to do everything to mobilise all supporters of free speech to prevent him from falling into the hands of the US government. Assange has no friends in the political establishment in Britain, only enemies. If a vote was held in parliament today for Assanges extradition to the Sweden or the US, it would be easily passed, and passed with the backing of a large part of the Labour Party. He has no friends in the mainstream mediathe Vichy journalists as John Pilger rightly describes them. Stevens asked, Just think about it. If Jeremy Corbyn had made defending Julian Assange an issue over all these years, do you think the police would have dared to turn up and drag Julian Assange, an ill man, out of the front door of the embassy in the centre of London, in broad daylight, and treat him like a criminal? Do you think that could have been done had a campaign been mobilised in Julian Assanges defence? In response protesters shouted, no, no and gross injustice! Throughout history the only social force that has defended democratic rights is the working class, Stevens concluded. Now is the time to act when these rights are under assault as never before. The fight to defend Julian Assange is your fight. Workers and youth must come forward and take an unequivocal stand in defence of Assange. The following speech was delivered by Yabu Bilyana on 17 November 1991 to the World Conference Against Imperialist War and Colonialism. Genocide is still practiced throughout Australia. The massacres of the past 200 years are the hidden history of the capitalist ruling class and its petty bourgeois agents. Capitalism cannot coexist with the struggle of the indigenous peoples. The petty-bourgeois radicals, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, bear responsibility for the repression, rather graphically portrayed by the following: The unemployment among Aboriginal workers now exceeds 35 percent, far higher than in 1971, when the recorded figure was 10 percent. In some rural areas, unemployment is as high as 90 percent. Due the destruction of the dignity of the Aboriginal people, there is a very high dependence on drugs and alcohol. And this results in a life expectancy 20 years below the national average. The cuts in health services are a reason why infant mortality is three times higher than the average. The capitalist nation state is involved in the cultural and physical genocide of Aborigines. Also, due to cuts in funding for basic health services, Aboriginal children are 20 times more likely to suffer from eye disease. As a result of poverty and victimisation, Aborigines are 29 times more likely to be in prison than non-Aborigines. The World Conference Against Imperialist War and Colonialism In the Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody, convened to investigate these legalised murders of 99 Aboriginal workers and youth in police and prison cells between January 1, 1980 and May 31, 1989, the final report declared that not a single policeman or prison officer was guilty of foul play. The report of the Royal Commission was nothing but a whitewash and fraud. Furthermore, the Royal Commissions blessing of the state killers exposed all the Labor lefts and petty-bourgeois Aboriginal leaders, Stalinists and middle-class radical groups, who hailed the Royal Commission as a victory for the Aboriginal people when it was established in 1987 under the Hawke Labor government. A working-class tribunal must be established to lay bare the truth about these state murders as part of the fight for a workers government to overthrow the capitalist state apparatus and establish socialism. We are reposting David Norths essay, first published over eight years ago, in defense of Julian Assange against efforts by the US media and government to discredit the WikiLeaks founder after the 2010 release of the Iraq War Logs. Floyd Abrams, who played a significant role nearly 40 years ago in the legal defense of the New York Times publication of the Pentagon Papers, has endorsed the governments campaign against WikiLeaks and its editor Julian Assange with an intellectually dishonest column in the Wall Street Journal. Entitled, Why WikiLeaks Is Unlike the Pentagon Papers, Abrams column, published Wednesday, claims that Assanges publication of leaked cables and exposure of government secrets bear no resemblance to the actions taken by Daniel Ellsberg in 1971. As drawn retrospectively by Abrams, Ellsberg was a paragon of political respectability, who took care that his exposure of 43 volumes of secret documents, which he had copied illegally while working as a RAND Corporation analyst, would not undermine US government diplomacy. Abrams backs this up by stressing that Ellsberg withheld four volumes that dealt with American diplomatic activity. Assange, in contrast, lacks such scruples. Can anyone doubt, writes Abrams, that he would have made those four volumes public on WikiLeaks regardless of their sensitivity? Or that he would have paid not even the slightest heed to the possibility that they might seriously compromise efforts to bring a speedier end to the war? Even before Abrams column appeared, Ellsberg, now 79, forthrightly denounced attempts to counterpose the good exposures of the Pentagon Papers to the bad material released by WikiLeaks. This false distinction, Ellsberg has stated, is just a cover for people who dont want to admit that they oppose any and all exposures of even the most misguided, secretive foreign policy. The truth is that EVERY attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time. Ellsbergs position is not only principled. It also correctly identifies the political motivations of those who are now attacking Assange and participating in the international campaign of persecution and defamation directed against him. Abrams reference to four volumes, out of 47, supposedly withheld by Ellsberg is a red herring that both falsifies and trivializes the legal and Constitutional issues that were fought out in June 1971. As Abrams certainly knows, the US government, in its efforts to block the publication of the Pentagon Papers by the New York Times and the Washington Post, repeatedly claimed that the exposure of these documents would gravely undermine the conduct of American diplomacy. Anticipating all the present-day arguments made by the Obama administration and the corporate media, the Nixon administration declared that the government cannot operate its foreign policy in the best interests of the American people if it cannot deal with foreign powers in a confidential way. As reported in the Times on June 20, 1971, White House press secretary Ronald L. Ziegler insisted that confidentiality is the very essence of the foreign policy process and that a government must be able to deal with other governments in a confidential way. The press secretary also said that Presidential advisers must not be inhibited from submitting candid appraisals of foreign policy options confronting the President. He asserted that officials would be reluctant to submit points of view if they thought the documents would be disclosed. In this lengthy article, the Times also noted the objections of Secretary of State William P. Rogers, who cited the inhibiting effects that he thought publication of top-secret materials might have on foreign governments dealing with the United States. The Times report included other denunciations of the publication of the Pentagon Papers. Senator Robert Dole, then a rising star in the Republican Party, declared that the Times had been irresponsible, perhaps dangerously and destructively, in making the Papers public. Governor Ronald Reagan of California also condemned the Times. Compared to present-day standards, their comments were relatively tame. But one politician quoted by the Times, Congressman Sam Stratton of New York, one of the arch-reactionaries of his day, struck a more modern-sounding note: The publication of these documents and the attendant denigration of American leaders past and present represents at a critical time a massive injunction of aid and comfort to the enemy. There are, however, no reports in the New York Times of any public figure calling for the assassination of either Ellsberg or the publisher of the newspaper. In manufacturing a significant distinction between the Pentagon Papers and WikiLeaks, Abrams is not only seeking to legitimize the persecution and criminalization of Assange. He is also repudiating the core First Amendment principles of Free Speech that the Times, and he himself, vigorously defended in 1971. As one reads the arguments made by the legal representatives of the New York Times before a New York district court and the Supreme Court in June of that year, as they argued against the demands of the Nixon administration for a restraining order to stop publication of the Pentagon Papers, one has the impression that this case was argued in another country, and even in another historical epoch. In its efforts to obtain a restraining order against the Times, the Nixon administration did not merely claim that the publication of the Pentagon Papers would cause embarrassment; rather, it insisted that publication would cause immense damage to the national security of the United States and place countless lives in danger. The case was first argued in a federal district court in New York on June 18, 1971, before Judge Murray Gurfein. He seemed receptive to the claims of the government. He asked why a patriotic press should not be willing to subject these papers not to censorship of any kind, except from a limited security point of view. I wish you would answer that because it is troubling me. Arguing on behalf of the Times, attorney Alexander Bickel took a position to which the newspaper adhered insistently as the legal battle unfolded. It was not sufficient for the government to assert a general danger to national security and the lives of citizens. It had to show, with extreme specificity, an obvious, immediate and unmistakable causal link between publication and the danger assertedsuch as, for example, the harm that might befall soldiers on a troop-carrying vessel if the date and location of its departure were published. The government countered with the claim that the danger to national security need not be obvious. As argued by US Attorney Whitney North Seymour, Although it may not be obvious to the layman, to the trained intelligence man there are already disclosures which are harmful to the interests of the United States; that the international relations of the United States have already been impaired; and that we are not dealing with matters of closed history but matters which have a very current vitality and significance. The Times defended its right to seek out and publish secrets. In a scathing affidavit submitted to the District Court, its chief Washington correspondent, Max Frankel, wrote: Without the use of secrets there could be no adequate diplomatic, military and political reporting of the kind our people take for granted, either abroad or in Washington In the field of foreign affairs, only rarely does our government give full public information to the press for the direct purpose of simply informing the people. For the most part, the press obtains significant information bearing on foreign policy only because it has managed to make itself a party to confidential materials, and of value in transmitting these materials from government to other branches and offices of government as well as to the public at large. This is why the press has been wisely and correctly called The Fourth Branch of Government. It is worth noting here that Frankel was defending freedom of the press from an essentially bourgeois standpoint. That it appears somewhat radical today testifies to the extreme degeneration of bourgeois democratic values within the ruling class and its institutions. Judge Gurfein refused the governments demand for a restraining order. The Nixon administration challenged this ruling in the Court of Appeals, which granted the injunction restraining the Times. But the case moved almost immediately to the US Supreme Court, which heard arguments on June 26. The US solicitor general, Erwin Griswold, stated that the publication of the Pentagon Papers will, as I have tried to argue here, materially affect the security of the United States. It will affect lives. It will affect the process of the termination of the war. It will affect the process of recovering prisoners of war. I cannot say that the termination of the war or recovery of prisoners of war is something which has an immediate effect on the security of the United States. I say that it has such an effect on the security of the United States that it ought to be the basis of an injunction in this case. Griswold added, for good measure, that it is perfectly obvious that the conduct of delicate negotiations now in process or contemplated for the future has an impact on the security of the United States. In his efforts to persuade the Supreme Court, Griswold was raising the possibility that the Pentagon Papers might somehow sabotage the Nixon administrations purported efforts to bring the Vietnam War to a conclusion. The clear implication of this argument was that the Times publication of the papers would cause unnecessary deaths. Without accepting this argument, it was far more substantial than any allegation hurled against the WikiLeaks revelations. Justice Harry Blackmun, at that time on the right wing of the Supreme Court, expressed concern that the Times did not accept the legitimacy of prior restraint in publishing material that might lead to the death of soldiers, the destruction of alliances, the greatly increased difficulty of negotiation with our enemies, the inability of our diplomats to negotiate, as honest brokers, between would-be belligerents. Bickel replied, bluntly, that he disagreed that impairment of diplomatic relations can be a case for prior restraint As to the possibility of the death of soldiers, Bickel would accept the legitimacy of prior restraint, provided that a clear and unequivocal link can be established between publication of papers and death. But no such connection had been shown by the government. At no point had it been shown that there is a link between the act of publication as the cause of that event [the death of soldiers] and the event that is feared. That link is always, I suggest, speculative, full of surmises, and a chain of causation that after its first one or two links gets involved with other causes operating in the same area, so that what finally caused the ultimate event becomes impossible to say which the effective cause was. The standard I would propose under the First Amendment would not be satisfied by such things. As is often the case with extemporaneous argument, it is not always easy to follow. But in response to a pointed question from Justice Potter Stewart, who asked whether the Times would accept prior restraint to avoid the death of 100 young soldiers, Bickel replied with a precise formulation, insisting that the chain of causation between the act of publication and the feared event, the death of these 100 young men, is obvious, direct, immediate. Stewart pressed his point: Suppose the information was sufficient that judges could be satisfied that the disclosure of the identity of a person engaged in delicate negotiations having to do with the possible release of prisoners of war, that the disclosure of this would delay the release of those prisoners for a substantial period of time. I am posing that so it is not immediate. Is that or is that not a matter that should stop the publication and therefore avoid the delay in the release of the prisoners? Bickel, in response, stuck to his guns. It had to be demonstrated that the single act of publishing specific information clearly and decisively determinedand not in combination with 17 causes feeding into themthe threatened event. Mr. Justice, Bickel stated, that is a risk that the First Amendment signifies a society is willing to make. That is part of the risk of freedom that I would certainly take. The Supreme Court, by a vote of 6 to 3, overturned the injunction that had been temporarily imposed on the Times by the Court of Appeals. The decision was hailed by the New York Times, which declared, The nations highest tribunal strongly reaffirmed the guarantee of the peoples right to know, implicit in the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The position of the Times reflected the position of broad sections of the press. The Wall Street Journal joined the Times in endorsing the Supreme Courts decision: In our view, it wrote, the nations security lies in a continuing willingness of its people to face unpleasant facts, to engage in full and earnest debate and to protect the free, democratic institutions that make these things possible. Hardly a trace of such sentiments is to be found in the media as it exists today. The owner of the Wall Street Journal is Rupert Murdoch, whose vast media outlets seek to whip up the atmosphere of a lynch mob around Assange. The executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller, has proclaimed that he considers the right not to publish as important as the right to publish. Were an authoritarian military-police dictatorship to come to power in the United States, it would not have to move Mr. Keller out of his office. As for Floyd Abrams, the erstwhile defender of the First Amendment devotes a substantial portion of his column to a discussion of the possibilities of a successful prosecution of Julian Assange. He offers suggestions as to how the Espionage Act of 1917 could be successfully employed against Assange. Abrams suggests that if Mr. Assange were found to have communicated and retained the secret information with the intent to harm the United Statessome of his statements can be so reada conviction might be obtained. Not satisfied with offering advice to potential federal prosecutors, Abrams concludes his column with an extraordinary accusation against the publisher of WikiLeaks. Mr. Assange, he writes, is no boon to American journalists. Why? His activities have already doomed proposed federal shield-law legislation protecting journalists use of confidential sources in the just-adjourned Congress. An indictment of him could be followed by the judicial articulation of far more speech-limiting legal principles than currently exist with respect to even the most responsible reporting about both diplomacy and defense. What contemptible cowardice! By exposing government lies, Assange is making life harder for those who willingly grovel before the power of the state. By exercising his democratic rights, Assange is provoking the wrath of the enemies of the First Amendment. The last 40 years has witnessed a dreadful putrefaction of bourgeois democracy. The economic decay of American capitalism has found its legal expression in an accelerating repudiation of core Constitutional principles. The Watergate crisis, in which the Nixon administration was implicated in criminal activity, unfolded in the immediate aftermath of the Pentagon Papers controversy. In fact, the anti-democratic conspiracies plotted inside the Nixon White Housewhich included the planning of illegal acts against Daniel Ellsbergdeveloped, in part, as a response to the Supreme Court ruling on the Pentagon Papers. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration engaged in clearly criminal activity related to its prosecution of a dirty war against the people of El Salvador and Nicaragua. In the 1990s, a cabal of right-wing Republicans in Congressin league with elements within the federal judiciarynearly succeeded in removing a president from office through a political conspiracy. In 2000, the outcome of the presidential election was falsified with the decisive intervention of the Supreme Court. In the aftermath of that political crime, the actions of the United States have assumed an ever-more openly criminal character. Wars have been launched on the basis of lies. People have been killed, imprisoned and tortured in flagrant violation of long-established constitutional principles. Within the ruling elite and its intellectual representatives, there has been a virtual collapse of any substantial politically-committed constituency for democratic rights. In this sense, the lining up of institutions such as the Times and past defenders of the First Amendment like Abrams behind the persecution of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks is a significant measure of the diseased state of American democracy at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. In March, the International Socialist Organization (ISO) voted to dissolve itself several weeks after restructuring its leadership with a faction dominated by people recruited on the basis of identity politics. The ISO was, historically, the product of an opportunist fusion of Pabloites and Shachtmanites in the aftermath of the breakdown of the anti-war and protest politics of the 1960s and 1970s. In the course of several decades, following the trajectory of middle-class politics, the ISO moved ever further to the right. Its political line combined support for the AFL-CIO bureaucracy, a general orientation to the Democratic Party, and support for human rights imperialism. The increasingly dominant theoretical influence on the ISO was exerted by various forms of identity politics, which developed into an obsessive, bordering on psychopathic, preoccupation with issues related to race and gender. On this reactionary basis, the ISO pandered to and recruited subjective middle-class nationalists and feminists, particularly among a slew of academics, for whom politics was largely a means of self-promotion and personal advancement. Whatever tenuous association the ISO retained with the working class was mediated through the AFL-CIO bureaucracy. The right-wing forces the ISO cultivated and elevated into leadership took over the party in February. Within a few weeks, allegations relating to an alleged incident of sexual assault, dating back to 2013, were revived to provide a pretext for the dissolution of the ISO. Those involved in instigating the dissolution are now publishing hysterical and self-fixated screeds on Socialistworker.org. For example, Socialistworker.org presently features an Open Letter to Some Ex-Leaders of the ISO, which includes the following account of the authors tortured path to self-awareness: Due to my familial guidance, I have inserted myself into emotionally intelligent therapeutic spaces when and where I felt they were applicable to me. Despite, of course, having some critiques, this was a stage of my own psychological journey that I would never minimize in regards to my own recovery and growth. By acceptingand rejecting where I found it aptthe emotional knowledge of therapeutic spaces and psychological theory, and fitting that into my political understanding of the emotional realities of capitalism, I gained a somewhat unconventional perspective in my criticisms of the left: namely, that without psychological and emotional understanding, we will be incapable of delivering socialism. The author continues: I have been granted a model of dealing with ones demonsI cannot fully express what a privilege that is. I have been granted the necessary tools to walk the difficult path of tackling ones very self. Its one of the foundational features of happiness, and one that, it seems apparent to me, none of you possess. You would not be acting this way if you did. While that may be an explanation for your abusive ways, it is not an excuse. Reading such deranged postings, the old adage about the inmates taking over the asylum comes to mind. But the adage needs to be amended. The inmates, having taken over the asylum, proceeded as quickly as possible to burn it down. The protracted right-wing degeneration of the ISO found expression not only in the composition of its membership, but also in its financial structure. A review of the tax filings of the nonprofit umbrella organization of the ISO and Haymarket Booksthe Center for Economic Research and Social Change (CERSC)reveals that the ISO was, to a great extent, funded by Democratic Party-led think tanks and nonprofits. The Big Three Democratic Party-linked foundations supporting the ISO A full 37 percent of CERSCs funding has been from grants by Democratic Party-aligned think tanks and nonprofits. Since 2007-08, CERSC has received $3,172,117 from foundations and think tanks. In large part through these grants, CERSCs revenue flow increased four-fold, from $1,055,100 in 2007-08 to $4,245,626 in 2016-17. Its cash-on-hand has increased by 1,175.6 percent, and its total assets have increased from $420,700 to $2,956,775 (603.1 percent) over the same period. A significant portion of the individual donations came from less than a dozen wealthy individuals who gave over $100,000 each. We refrain from giving their names to preserve their privacy, but several of these high-dollar donors also gave substantial sums to establishment Democratic candidates and national Democratic Party campaign committees. Of the revenue from nonprofit grants, roughly 85 percent$2,709,617comes from just three nonprofits: the Lannan Foundation, the Tides Foundation and the Wallace Fund. A review of these three organizations histories and qualifications for grant-making shows CERSC has developed close relationships with powerful institutional supporters and the Democratic Party executives who carefully control the funds purse strings. Decisions about granting such substantial portions of money are not made lightly. Well-connected networks of money managers, attorneys and philanthropists study grant requests and carefully determine which organizations meet the funds mission statement. Every dollar spent must meet the goal that powerful corporate donors had in mind when contributing to the fund. If an organizations activity controverted the interests of the funds contributors, it would not receive funding. The Tides Foundation, established by an R. J. Reynolds tobacco heiress, is currently heavily funded with millions of dollars from billionaire George Soros, who gave the Democratic Party $20,664,693 to support its candidates in the 2016 election, according to Opensecrets.org. Soros Fund Management was the sixth largest institutional backer of the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016, funding her campaign to the tune of an additional $10,556,763 million. The Tides Foundation funded the public relations campaign supporting Barack Obamas right-wing, pro-corporate Affordable Care Act in 2010 through the Health Care for America Now organization. According to Influencewatch.org, the Tides largest financial supporters include the Ford Foundation and commercial funds like the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund and the Schwab Charitable Fund. Other Tides funders include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the AT&T Foundation, the ChevronTexaco Foundation and the Verizon Foundation. The US Agency for International Development (USAID), a CIA-linked government organization, has also provided funding for the Tides Foundation. The Lannan Foundation is a nonprofit founded by J. Patrick Lannan, a financier who advised John F. Kennedy and served as director of the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation for 36 years. During the 1930s, before Lannans tenure, ITT funded Heinrich Himmler and, through its subsidiary, C. Lorenz AG, controlled 25 percent of the German company that manufactured parts for Luftwaffe jets during the Second World War. In 1972, the New York Times reported that ITT was actively involved in pressuring the Nixon administration to assassinate Chilean President Salvador Allendea task which was accomplished the following year with the coup that brought fascist military dictator Augusto Pinochet to power. Lannan was serving as ITT director at the time of ITTs involvement. The Times wrote in July 1972: The ITT plan called for extensive economic warfare against Chile to be directed by a special White House task force, assisted by the Central Intelligence Agency; the subversion of the Chilean armed forces; consultations with foreign governments on ways to put pressure on the Allende regime, and diplomatic sabotage. CIA documents published in 2000 showed ITT was actively involved in the coup itself. Today, the Lannan Foundations revenue and funding for CERSC derives from a corporate trust fund whose stockholdings include Amazon, AIG, American Express, Bank of America, Northrup Grumann, Citigroup, Halliburton, JPMorgan Chase, General Motors, Dow Chemical, Duke Energy, Boeing, Bombardier, and many other banks, oil companies and weapons manufacturers. The Lannan Foundation is presently run by J. Patrick Lannans son, J. Patrick Lannan, Jr., who sat on the board of directors of Federal Signal Corporation for 20 years. In the mid-70s, when Lannan, Jr. sat on the board, Federal Signal manufactured 70 percent of all civil defense warning systems in the US and later acquired a massive $47 million contract from the Air Force to manufacture military equipment. The Wallace Global Fund, named after Democratic Vice President Henry Wallace, also made major contributions to several Democratic Party organizations, including the Wellstone Action Fund. The Wallace Global Fund is co-chaired by Henry Wallaces grandson, Scott Wallace, who ran for Congress as a Democrat in Pennsylvanias 8th Congressional District in 2018 and lost by a narrow margin. According to its website: We at the Wallace Global Fund see ourselves as a funder and supporter of social movements; to do this, we are committed to using all of the tools at our disposal to advance new ideas and strategies to achieve change. One way we do this is by maximizing the impact from our investment dollars in addition to our grants. The Wallace Fund uses its endowment (overseen by RBC Wealth Management) to ensure strong democratic institutions. The [Wallace] foundation is doing fantastic work, Wallace told a local Pennsylvania newspaper after winning the Democratic nomination. We have it set on a good direction, and I can continue to do that kind of work in Congress. Instead of researching and studying problems and advising solutions, I will have the opportunity to write the solutions and work across the aisle to get them done. Wallace raised $14,172,465 in his congressional bid, including $144,467 from the finance and insurance industries, and campaigned on a pro-Israel platform, stating, Israel unequivocally has the right to defend itself and keep its people safe against threats from both military aggression and terrorism. His campaign website notes, I firmly oppose the BDS movement, which is hostile to Israel and incompatible with any balanced approach to a two-state solution. Wallace also called for implementing Malthusean methods for controlling population growth. Another major Wallace Fund recipient is Population Connected, whose website states, Irresponsible people who have more than two children should be taxed to the hilt for the privilege of irresponsible breeding. Additional foundation grants for the ISO Among the funds that support CERSC with tens of thousands of dollars are the New York Community Trust, which gave the organization $20,000 in 2015. The New York Community Trust is overseen by the Democratic Party government of New York City, and its board of directors includes executives from the Ford Foundation and various corporate and real estate firms. The pro-corporate Annenberg Foundation also gave CERSC $25,000 in 2016-17. Though not yet reported in public tax filings, the website for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, operated by the offspring of the Rockefeller fortune, notes that it provided a $40,000 grant to CERSC in 2018. The donation was part of the funds Peacebuilding Program, which the website describes as focus[ing] on conflicts that have a disproportionate influence on global insecurity and violence and in which the United States has a significant involvement. This recent grant is no doubt bound up with the open support given by the ISO to US imperialist interventions, exemplified by its support for the CIA-backed rebels in Syria. Grants from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund are selected by Peacebuilding program director Perry Cammack, who, the funds website explains, worked for more than a decade on Middle East diplomatic, security, democracy, and economic issues in the United States government. From 20032013, he worked as an advisor to then-Senators Joseph Biden and John Kerry on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He served as a member of the policy planning staff of Secretary of State John Kerry from 20132015. A 2011 document explaining the purpose of the Peacebuilding program makes clear its pro-imperialist character. Its aim is to encourage an effective US approach to conflicts in the context of a multipolar world. Further, the programs directors propose a program that aims to identify drivers of conflict and address them through enhanced diplomacy and support for constituencies for peace. Its approach would be to strengthen and align institutions and actors at the multilateral, regional, state, and local levels. Lastly, it would take into account an evolving role for the United States, encouraging it to address transnational threats through a new style of engagement in the context of our multipolar world. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund also receives its money from a wide array of banks and major corporations. CERSC obtained $67,500 from the Hassib Sabbagh Foundation. The funds namesake was the founder of the Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC), which, according to Wikipedia, was the regions largest multinational and one of the largest contractors worldwide. Sabbagh was a billionaire and ranked 16th on the worlds richest Arabs before dying in 2010. According to a 2010 obituary in the Washington Post, Sabbaghs company benefited from the economic construction boom of Dubai and provided offshore services to the oil and gas industries in the countries of the Persian Gulf. CCC constructed part of a 1,100-mile pipeline to the coast of Turkey for a group led by BP, Europes largest oil company. In addition, the Post obituary noted that Mr. Sabbagh was a donor to the Carter Center, which was founded in 1982 by former president Jimmy Carter Carter said in 2005 that Mr. Sabbagh was one of my earliest and strongest allies in pursuing peace in the Middle East. Carter also called Sabbagh a trusted adviser. CERSC has also received $25,000 from the UNZ Foundation, a right-wing organization led by Republican businessman and former California Senate candidate Ron Unz. Alongside support for the ISO, Unz has also supported neo-Nazi anti-immigrant groups like VDare. The Harvard Crimson reported in 2016: Over the course of his career as a conservative intellectual and political activist, Ron K. Unz 83now a candidate for Harvards Board of Overseers and US Senate in the state of Californiahas donated tens of thousands of dollars to an organization he describes as quasi-white nationalist. Unzs public tax filings connect the Silicon Valley multimillionaire with VDARE, a group the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as an anti-immigration hate website, in addition to several writers who have published articles arguing that white people are genetically superior and homosexuality is a transmittable disease, among other extreme views. CERSC is not obligated to report the content of its grant requests to the IRS as part of its tax filings. CERSCs grant requests would, however, make for interesting reading. How did CERSC pitch the ISO and Haymarket to the New York City government, the Obama administration official leading the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, or the managers of the fortunes of Democratic Party activists like George Soros and Scott Wallace? These powerful Democratic Party-linked nonprofits would not have given over $3 million in corporate money to CERSC if the organization had anything to do with socialist revolution or fighting for the interests of the working class. Haymarket Books Haymarket Books has become the chief vehicle through which CERSC deploys the funds it acquired through grant contributions. In 2015-16, CERSC reported $1,615,833 in contributions and grants, but just $1,157,602 in income, which came largely from book sales. In 2016-17, however, CERSCs contributions and grants fell by over half-a-million dollars to $1,067,688. However, CERSCs income rose to over $3 million despite this fall in contributions. The difference was to be found in the increased profitability of Haymarket. The high dollar nonprofit grants from prior years allowed CERSC to dramatically increase expenditures on book promotion, printing and distribution costs, travel associated with book sales and, critically, royalties to authors. From 2007-08 to 2016-17, CERSC spending on book sales increased more than any other expense. In 2007-08, the organization spent just $40,347 on travel, $66,190 on book promotion, $56,997 on book distribution and $46,419 on royalties to authors. By 2016-17, however, CERSC was spending $629,549 on travel (a 1,460 percent increase), $237,478 on book promotion (258 percent increase), $693,107 on book distribution costs (1,116 percent increase) and $533,223 on royalties (1,048 percent increase). The sharpest increase since 2012-13 was in spending on royalties, which skyrocketed by 501 percent from $88,707. The Haymarket expenditures on royalties, book distribution and book promotion are a key mechanism by which the ISO and other pseudo-left organizations expand their influence by gathering a network of academics through publishing contracts and book writing grants. In this way, powerful figures within the Democratic Party are cultivating an intellectual climate based on racial politics and academic anti-Marxism. A March 27, 2019 article in the Chicago Reader notes that Haymarket publishes 40 to 50 books a season and that many books have gone through several printings of up to 60,000 copies each. The Reader quotes Haymarket publicity director Jim Plank, who says Haymarkets readership has grown explosively in recent years. The article shows how Haymarket is seeking to cultivate a broader audience on issues of racial and identity politics: There are many, many people who are becoming politicized in new ways, Plank told the Reader, adding that Haymarkets audience includes anyone whos remotely on the left. Plank explained, For us, its obvious that theres people who read across all identities and political perspectives, who are looking for things that reflect themselves. Thats where we start from. The Reader explained that Haymarket does not force white editors on writers of color and that Haymarkets editors cultivate relationships with up-and-coming writers of color. The Reader notes, Following its commitment to publishing diverse voices, Haymarket hires more people of color than most publishers. Of its staff of 18, Plank says, about 66 percent are white, and 33 percent are people of color. Haymarkets increasing sales have also led to an increase in CERSC employee compensation, according to the organizations tax filings. Haymarket and CERSC issued a statement on Haymarkets Facebook page after the ISO crisis emerged in public that affirmed Haymarkets status as the flagship project of CERSC. The statement explained: When concerns about actions outside of the CERSC on the part of some members of the CERSC board came to our attention, we took immediate action. An entirely new board has since been constituted with individuals who have our full support and confidence. The break-up of the ISO has undoubtedly produced a vicious, back-room struggle over CERSCs resources. The intensity of the ISOs crisis was clearly heightened by the high stakes of taking control of the increasingly lucrative and influential Haymarket Books. Ultimately, the boosting of Haymarket as a purveyor of identity politics is inextricably linked with the ISOs rightward political direction and its increasingly affluent social composition. The millions of dollars CERSC received from Democratic Party-linked think tanks put wind in the sails of those upper-middle class forces within the ISO that took over the organization and immediately dissolved it. In public statements posted in the aftermath of the ISO dissolution, the organizations long-time former leaderseven those who voted for liquidationhave expressed regret that the crisis led to the destruction of the entire organization after over 40 years of existence. But the ISO has reaped what it had sown. In the end, it collapsed under the weight of the right-wing forces they themselves unleashed. Reading the comments of the German media on the arrest of Julian Assange, one can only conclude that democracy and press freedom in Germany are in a dire state. The founder of WikiLeaks was hauled from his refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London and is in danger of being extradited to the US for exposing the crimes of the American military in Afghanistan and Iraq, the conditions in the Guantanamo detention centre, the illegal cooperation of Germanys foreign intelligence agency with the American NSA, and many other state crimes. The illegal termination of Assanges asylum and his arrest mark a political turning point. The aim is to silence Assange forever and intimidate truthful journalists. Anyone who exposes war crimes, corruption or the illegal machinations of the intelligence services must expect persecution and heavy penalties in the future. Despite this, there is not a hint of protest in the German media and hardly a critical word. Reactions range from unconcealed rejoicing to cynical indifference and calculated neutrality. The hacks in the editorial offices obviously lack the backbone to oppose arbitrary state attacks. Worst of all is the tabloid Bild, the smear sheet of the Springer publishing empire, whose main shareholder, Friede Springer, is close friends with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. His arrest is legal and right, Bild writes, displaying a notion of freedom and democracy that would appeal to any dictator. Publishing stolen, secret, highly sensitive data was not a service to freedom, but a knife in its back, it declares in an editorial, adding, Assanges war against state structures has become a fight against Western freedom. Bild and many other newspapers are particularly angry with Assange for publishing internal documents about Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate in the 2016 US presidential election. The completely unsubstantiated assertion that WikiLeaks acted at Moscows behest is repeated as insistently as the claim that Assange was responsible for Donald Trumps election victory. Bild states that the publication of the Clinton emails was perfectly orchestrated to inflict the maximum damage on her and American democracy. It continues, The goal was not (only) the election victory of Donald Trump, but the erosion of American institutions. The pro-Green Party taz writes that Assange has lost much sympathy among the left-liberal public in recent years because of his more or less clear election assistance to Donald Trump. This reveals a very strange understanding of journalism, to say the least. No one disputes that the documents revealing Clintons close ties to Wall Street and the efforts of the Democratic National Committee to sabotage Bernie Sanders election campaign were authentic. But according to Assanges critics, the public has no right to know the truth if it stands in the way of their own political agenda. In fact, Trump did not win the election because of WikiLeaks revelations, but because former Secretary of State Clinton was deeply hated among workers for her war crimes and her close ties to Wall Street, the military and the secret services. The online edition of the Rheinische Post also rejoiced over the arrest of Assange. One could only welcome the decision of the Ecuadorean government to lift [his] asylum, it commented. Julian Assange now has to accept the consequences for his actions. That can only be right. A particularly hateful article was published in the online edition of the Suddeutsche Zeitung by Jannis Bruhl, a former Arthur F. Burns scholarship holder with close links to US media. He is outraged that Assange could also rock the world from his emergency shelter in London, could receive visitors, and had at least temporary access to the WikiLeaks Twitter account with 5.4 million followers. It is not enough that Assange was forced to spend seven years in intolerable circumstances in the Ecuadorean embassy because of the very real danger of being handed over to the US, most recently without any access to outside communications or the Internet. If it were down to Bruhl, he would have been held in solitary confinement. The next day, the Suddeutsche Zeitung had to admit that the now published indictment of the US Justice Department threatened the freedom of the press. This was a shockingly criminalizing description of absolutely appropriate journalistic procedures, the paper wrote. Among other things, Assange was being accused of protecting his source, of consulting with informants via an encrypted chat service, and of encouraging them to hand over information and documents from US government agencies. If this was not allowed, any kind of critical research journalism would be impossible. The Berlin daily Tagesspiegel denounced Assange as a star with guru status, whose pilgrims will now be upset. He was weird, grotesque, confused, extravagant, immature, irresponsible. A few decades ago, bourgeois journalists still exhibited a certain sense of democratic values. In 1962, Spiegel editor Rudolf Augstein went to jail for unveiling plans for rearming the Bundeswehr (German armed forces). Whistleblowers like Daniel Ellsberg, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who exposed the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate scandal, received support and were honoured. Today, the idea that the media can be more than a faithful mouthpiece of the authorities hardly exists. The main reason for this is the return of the class struggle. As social tensions mount and opposition to official politics grows, governments, establishment parties and the media move closer together and turn ever further to the right. In a shock announcement early this month, consumer products giant Kimberly-Clark said it will close its Ingleburn plant by the end of July and move production to its plants in Asia. The south-west Sydney facility, which manufactures Huggies nappies and employs around 220 people, has been in operation since 1988. A new $28 million production line was added in 2013. Kimberly-Clark is a US-owned corporation with plants in 35 countries including in Australia, New Zealand, the US, Mexico, Thailand, Taiwan, Brazil, Korea and South Africa. The company has said that its Ingleburn site will be sold off and the plants machinery stripped out and relocated to other Kimberly-Clarke production facilities, thereby ruling out any possibility of a future recommissioning. Distraught workers outside the Ingelburn plant explained to the media that they had not been given any forewarning or provided any kind of consultation. They were simply summoned to a meeting with management and told that the factory was closing and there was no chance of any reprieve. Some employees have more than 40 years of service with the company. There are people here who have just bought brand new houses and cars who dont know what they are going to do, one worker explained. Another said the loss of jobs will now make it hard for workers to put food on the table. A hypocritical media statement by Kimberly-Clark Australias managing director Doug Cunningham declared: At this time the company is focused on the wellbeing of employees and their families and providing them with the support they need now and in the months ahead. While the company claims it will continue to operate its plant in Millicent, South Australia, which manufactures Kleenex, VIVA and Kimberly-Clark Professional Products, there is no guarantee that it will not be axed as well. The Ingleburn closure is part the companys aggressive Global Restructuring Program initiated last year to drastically slash costs. Under this plan, the company will close 10 plants and eliminate 5,500 jobs13 percent of its entire global workforceto generate annual pre-tax cost savings of up to $550 million by the end of 2020. The company, working hand-in-glove with the unions, is using the threat of future closures to impose cost-cutting and extract additional multi-million dollar government handouts and concessions in host countries. Last December the company withdrew its plans to close its plant at Fox Crossing, Wisconsin, which employs around 400 people, in return for $25 million in government tax incentives. While the Fox Crossing plant was given a reprieve, the company will shutter its facility in Conway, Arkansas by 2021 at the cost of 350 jobs. In Australia, the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) has made clear it has no intention of mobilising its members to stop the closure of the Ingleburn plant or defending any of the jobs. The union called on Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who heads the pro-business federal Coalition government, to meet with the company and persuade it to change its decision. Commenting on closure, Morrison contemptuously declared that Ingleburn workers should have confidence opportunities will be there into the future. He added: What we see is that people are able to weather the disappointment and the impact I know that this can have on individuals when there are changes in these businesses. Far from the conditions existing to weather the disappointmenti.e., find alternate full-time workthe Ingleburn closure is occurring against a wave of job cuts across many sectors, including telecommunications, manufacturing and construction to retail and banking. According to figures released last month by the Roy Morgan group, 18.2 percent of the workforce, or around 2.5 million people, are either jobless or under-employed. In Ingleburn alone, even on the highly understated official figures, unemployment stands at around 7.5 percent or close to twice the national rate of 4.9 percent. The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has attempted to use the closure to drag workers behind its Change the Rules campaign, which is aimed at the election of yet another pro-market Labor government in the May 18 federal elections. ACTU secretary Sally McManus declared that working people deserve a leader who is in their corner. The record shows that neither Labor, nor its leader Bill Shorten, is in the workers corner. In fact, it was Hawke and Keating Labor governments from 1983 to 1996 and their Accord agreements with the unions that created the conditions for sweeping attacks on jobs, and the destruction of hard-won wages and working conditions. These assaults were followed by a massive expansion of labour hire and work casualisation under federal Labor governments from 2007 to 2013 that also introduced the draconian Fair Work industrial laws and anti-strike provisions, with the full support of the unions. These rules, which the ACTU now fraudulently claims to oppose, have been used by Labor and Liberal-National governments alike to straitjacket workers and block any fight against the employers onslaught. Far from defending workers interests, Shorten, when in the leadership of the Australian Workers Union (AWU), oversaw secret work agreements that stripped his union members of conditions and penalty rates, including low paid workers at Cleanevent in 1998. Along with promoting illusions in Labor, or that even Morrison could be persuaded to act in workers interests, the CFMEU continues to whip up nationalism. The CFMEUs NSW manufacturing divisional secretary Michael Aird declared that the federal and NSW Liberal state governments should stand up for Australian jobs and called for trade protection measures including the introduction of import tariffs. These appeals, which ultimately blame workers in cheap labour countries for the loss of jobs, are reactionary and aimed at preventing the development of a unified international campaign by Kimberly-Clark workers in defence of jobs. A fight to defend jobs requires a decisive break with the unions, which function as an industrial police force for the employers. Workers should establish an independent rank-and-file committee to reject the plant closure and occupy the facility to prevent the company from moving out machinery. Such an occupation would need to turn to workers in Australia and across Kimberly-Clark operations nationally and internationally who face similar attacks on their jobs and working conditions. Above all, the struggle must be guided by an international socialist perspective that rejects the dictates of the financial and corporate elite and fights for the establishment of a workers government that will reorganise society and production to meet needs of the majority and not the profits of a wealthy few. Sylv is from London and has been protesting outside the Ecuadorian embassy for several years in defence of Julian Assange. She said, It is a shame what happened and a real disgrace what the British government and Ecuadorian government are trying to do. They dont care about human rights and they are breaking the law. And [Assange] is not even breaking the law and he ends up in prison so this is a huge injustice. Sylv said she became interested in Julian Assange and WikiLeaks because of [w]hat they publish and why they publish it and because they uncover government secrets and we have the right know what is going on. We pay taxes and we have the right to know where the money goes. She thought the WikiLeaks publication of material from the US Democratic National Committee [DNC] was important because no one is questioning what was published and no one is questioning Hillary Clinton and the DNC itself. Everyone was saying straight away where did you get it from and who is the source? Straight away they are questioning the journalist. Why is no one paying attention to what was publishedthe criminal activities of Hillary Clinton and her gang. No one is questioning it and she is freely walking. Sylv Sylv made a homemade placard for the rally reading, The UK has no sovereignty. The UK must resist this attempt by the Trump administration!Free Assange! She explained that these were the words that Assange said when he was being dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy by police on Thursday. I found it very powerful when Julian was taken out and they were important words that he was saying. Even though he was being taken away, he was still fighting, and he was still strong. He has not given up, he is resilient and that is what we need to be. He has always been here for us and we have to be here for him. He has risked his life and for a person to do something like that is a beautiful thing to do. It is very sad about where he is now. Asked about the implications for democratic rights of Assanges seizure in the middle of London--the home of the Magna Carta and parliament--Sylv said, That is disgusting. You cannot trust your own government. You cannot really trust the Australian government because they took his passport away. Imagine if this happened to you or me or anyone? There is no democracy if you are doing this to a publisher or a journalist. They [the governments involved] are just hypocrites and liars and they are the ones breaking the law and they are the one who need to be behind bars. Asked her views on the importance of international solidarity in defence of Assange, she said, They [people internationally] definitely should be out there, at the US embassies, UK embassies, Australian Embassies. It can happen to any journalist. It happened in Malta with [investigative journalist] Daphne [Caruana Galizi]. She was killed because she uncovered the dirty government secrets, the same in Slovakia with Jan Kuciak, it can happen everywhere, it happened in Brazil. In relation to the role of the Labour Party refusing to demand Assanges freedom, Sylv said, They are not doing much either. They are trying to silence him, too. There is a power against us and there needs to be a massive change that needs to happen for humanity. I want everyone to fight for Julian Assange, I want everyone to be out there and to be vocal and not to hide. Dont trust the mainstream media and their propaganda. Carolina Graterol Carolina Graterol, a documentary filmmaker, is a foreign correspondent for BBC World Service (Spanish section) and Telesur. She said, I am here with all my friends and activists to complain and denounce the imprisoning of Julian Assange and the possibility that he is extradited to the United States. We are opposing this measure. We think this is an affront against freedom of expression. Freedom of the world depends on Assanges case. We know that the government of this country is colluding with [US President] Trump to send Julian Assange to United States, sadly. Seventy members of parliament were in favour of retention of Julian Assange and they are hoping that he gets extradited. We need to denounce and fight against the breaking of the international law. The human rights of Julian Assange have been violated. Our society needs to know the truth, how our governments work. Crimes have been committed by our government. Their credibility is seriously being damaged. Journalists around the world are in danger. Graterol noted that Labour Party Shadow Home Secretary Dianne Abbott made a passionate speech in the parliament in favour of Julian Assange, but added, We need to wonder about some MPs of the Labour Party, what kind of line they have Sadly, at this moment, the conservatives of the Labour Party [who have written a letter to Home Secretary Sajid Javid backing Assanges extradition to Sweden] have a united group. But I think the majority of the people believe in justice and they are on the side of Julian Assange. There are a lot of events happening around the world, not just in the UK, in defence of Assange. There are petitions going around social media, gathering lots of signatures against his extradition. We have been protesting for nearly nine years in front of the Ecuadorian Embassy and there are many more people campaigning for his freedom. Sadie Sadie, 25, from Matlock, is a jewelry design student. She had learned about Assanges courageous stand through designer Vivienne Westwood, a well-known supporter of the WikiLeaks founder. Julian Assange is a truth speaker and all he did was publish information about government corruption, war crimes, torture and its illegal to arrest him. Its against human rights. Its more of a dictatorship government. I was reading a magazine yesterday, the media just slurred him [Assange], they all make him out to be a horrible person. They said he was bullying people in the embassy, he was really dirty. I think its all b.s., its more like they bullied him. He was doing the right thing, standing up for people, and especially with those videos [Collateral Murder video] he was showing the Iraqi people their history, why their families have been killed, unlawfully just ploughing down civilians and children in the street when they were doing nothing wrong. If he goes to America he could get life imprisonment or the death penalty, and all hes trying to do is protect people and show them the truth of whats happening. All the media are against him. I think he thought England was the only country that was going to help him The US is after him and Ecuador helped him until it changed direction. Its a scary thought that the government is against you but we need everyone to open their eyes and realise there is a massive problem. Take climate change, its caused by capitalism. The people in Africa and the poorer countries, theyll be hit first. Dianne Abbott made a really good speech [after Assange was seized] and they slated her. All he did was speak the truth about government corruption and this is what happens when you stand up. The problems in this country are the same in every single country. Dominic, 19, is an economics student at Kingston upon Thames University. He attended the protest with his younger brother Matthew. He said, Ive spent the last few days outside the Ecuadorian embassy. Ive been outside the Westminster Magistrates Court and now here outside Belmarsh prison. Julian Assange has published the most important journalistic documents of the last few decades. We all remember the Collateral Murder video and the documents of the Iraq and Afghan wars that revealed how they [US and UK] killed hundreds of thousands of civilians unnecessarily. Were here to protest Assange being persecuted for that incredibly important journalistic work. Theyve come down on him hard because hes the most effective journalist in the last few decades. Hes published concrete documents, none of which have been refuted. Theyve published thousands of them and none of which have shown to be false. The UK government want to hand him over to the US to be tortured, abused and debased possibly for decades. The rule of law doesnt protect the people the state want to persecute, it doesnt protect independent journalists, the rule of law is only for the rich. The rich believe they can get away with taking all the money, and we have to get the rich scared again so theyll need to redistribute the wealth. The Socialist Equality Group (New Zealand) took part in a rally in Wellington on Sunday called by Free Assange NZ, a group of WikiLeaks supporters. Protesters gathered outside the US embassy and marched to the nearby British High Commission. About 25 people joined the rally, called to protest last weeks illegal arrest of the WikiLeaks editor. British police physically dragged him from the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he had been confined for nearly seven years. Ecuadors government of Lenin Moreno rescinded Assanges asylum, in violation of Ecuadors own laws, and handed him over for extradition to the US. The Trump administration wants to put Assange on trial for the crime of publishing leaked documents revealing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the horrific Collateral Murder video showing the gunning down of journalists and civilians in Iraq. Protesters outside the US embassy The rally was part of international protests, including in Britain, Germany and the US, demanding the release of Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who remains in prison for refusing to testify against the WikiLeaks publisher. In Australia, the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) held powerful rallies in Sydney and Melbourne last Friday. Central to the SEPs election campaign is the fight to mobilise the working class to force the Australian government to intervene to secure Assanges safe return to Australia. Leading SEG member Tom Peters addressed the Wellington protest, warning that the threat of extradition means Assanges life is in danger. No one should have any illusions about that. As soon as he gets to the US, he will undoubtedly face more charges including espionage charges which carry the death penalty. That is what the Obama and the Trump administrations have been preparing. Democrats and Republicans alike are out for blood, Peters said, denouncing the lie that Assange worked with Russia to manipulate the US election. The aim of the anti-Russia propaganda is to prepare for war and justify censoring the Internet, while covering up what WikiLeaks actually revealed: that Clinton is a stooge of the Wall Street banks and a war criminal who gloated about the destruction of Libya, and that the Democratic Party rigged the primaries in her favour. Peters explained that the New Zealand Labour Party-led government was complicit in the persecution of Assange. Last year the government refused to even discuss a petition presented by Free Assange NZ calling for him to be offered asylum in New Zealand. No one should believe the propaganda that Jacinda Arderns government is kind and compassionate, Peters said. Ardern is not anti-Trump as the media portrays her. Her government has dramatically strengthened the alliance with Washington. Tom Peters addressing the rally The SEG leader noted that the Labour-Greens-NZ First coalition had continued New Zealands participation in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and had further strengthened the alliance with US imperialism in preparation for future wars, including against China. Peters said the government was exploiting the March 15 Christchurch terrorist attack, in which fascist Brenton Tarrant killed 50 Muslim worshippers, to censor social media and increase surveillance. The real target of such measures was not fascismthe product of xenophobia and racism whipped up by the ruling elite to divide workersbut the working class. Freedom to publish, discuss and share information is vital for the working class as it seeks to fight back against austerity and imperialist war, Peters said, pointing to the eruption of strikes and mass protests by workers in the US, France, Mexico, India, Algeria and other countries over the past year. In New Zealand there have been nationwide strikes by doctors, nurses, teachers, and other workers shifting to the left as a result of poverty and inequality. The ruling class was responding to the threat from below with the methods of the 1930s: war, dictatorship and fascism, Peters said. He called for the fight to defend WikiLeaks and Assange to be taken up by the working class internationally as an essential part of the fight for socialism. Members and supporters of the Socialist Equality Group distributed the statement Free Julian Assange! and spoke to several people at the protest. Tom Tom, a student and organiser of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) at Victoria University of Wellington, said: Assange and Manning showed the world the brazen crimes and lies of the worlds elite. To the insiders and the powerful, letting people know the truth is unforgivable. If we want to preserve democratic freedoms and the right to know what our governments are doing in our names, we will have to fight for those rights. The powerful will not be reasoned with. Capitalist governments of all kinds are building their powers for a continued assault on the working class. Our only option is revolution. Ben, a tradesman, said the media had tried to assassinate the character of Assange in order to discount everything WikiLeaks had revealed. He said Trump was doing the same stuff, as previous US presidents but in a more belligerent fashion, without regard for international law. Ben added that Assange is an Australian, why are Australias government not going: Hold on, youve illegally detained one of our citizens! Why arent they doing anything about it? Heidi said WikiLeaks has just been doing journalism and theyve never had to retract any of their stories. Hes been imprisoned for doing journalism and telling the truth about what the US government is doing. She described the attacks on Assange for helping Russian interference as a conspiracy theory. Thats just the Democratic Party trying to put the blame for losing to Donald Trump on someone else: Its Russias fault! Annabelle Annabelle, a mother of four, originally from Britain, said she came to the protest after following WikiLeaks for years and being shocked by the video of Assange being manhandled out of the Ecuadorian embassy. The industrial murder machine is getting worse and worse, she said. Its a frightening world and I want some truth out there. The mainstream media want me to know things and I want to question that and find other sources. Annabelle praised Chelsea Manning, saying, Good on her for not talking. She went through hell for how many years? And she went back to prison and is still not talking. Shes brave. She said the cheers by UK Prime Minister Theresa May and other politicians over Assanges arrest sicken me, and continued: There isnt a parliament, there isnt a democracy It doesnt matter whos in power, theyre still working for wars, theyre still working for the money-holders. Annabelle said there were some things she liked about UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, but added that none of them can be trusted, and that Corbyn was backtracking on his support for Assange. Corbyn is calling for Assange to be extradited to answer allegations of rape in Swedena frame-up that has long been discreditedwhich would merely be a step towards his extradition to the US. With a tweet blasted out to 60 million people, linking Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, President Trump has joined a fascistic campaign inciting violence against Omar, one of the first two Muslim-American women to be elected to Congress. Trumps tweet followed a series of anti-Omar provocations in the ultra-right media, beginning with commentary by several Fox News hosts, then an incendiary cover for Thursdays edition of the New York Post pairing Omar with a giant photo of the burning World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Both Fox and the Post are owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch, one of Trumps chief political backers. The media and twitter attacks on Omar follow the arrest two weeks ago of a right-wing Trump supporter in New York for threatening physical violence against the Minnesota congresswoman. Federal prosecutors announced April 5 that Patrick Carlineo Jr. had been arrested after placing a call to her Capitol Hill office in which he threatened to shoot her. Carlineo gave his name and contact information to an Omar staffer, who turned the details over to the FBI. The ultra-right furor follows a series of media provocations against Omar based on bogus claims of anti-Semitism because of her criticisms of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians and the subservience of many US politicians to the Israel lobby. The latest provocation is even more transparently fraudulent than the previous efforts. Representative Omar was speaking March 23 at a dinner sponsored by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Los Angeles, one week after a fascist gunmen killed 50 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand. Noting the similarity between the gunmans views and those of anti-Muslim politicians in the United States like Trump, she cited the rising threats to mosques, schools and individual Muslims. I think that many of us knew that this was going to get worse, because we finally have a leader, a world, leader, in the White House, who publicly says Islam hates us, who fuels hate against Muslims, who thinks it is OK, it is OK to speak about a faith and a whole community in a way that is dehumanizing, Omar said. She went on to say, CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties. The four words some people did something were seized on weeks later, entirely out of context, first by a Fox News host, then by Republican Representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas, then by the New York Post for its inflammatory cover, and finally by President Trump, whose vicious provocations are rarely original, but simply copy and rebroadcast material packaged for him by the ultra-right and fascist media. The imagery of the Post cover and the Trump tweet is very similar to what appeared earlier this year on a poster displayed by Republican Party operatives inside the West Virginia state capitol in Charleston, which showed a photograph of Omar, in a hijab, above the burning Twin Towers, with language deploring the election of the Muslim-American congresswoman as proof that voters had forgotten the 9/11 attacks. One leading House Democrat, Assistant Speaker Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, joined in the attack on Omar, telling MSNBC, Those statements were not only hurtful to me, but extremely hurtful to everyone that was personally impacted by those terrorist attacks. Lujan announced last week that he would seek the Democratic nomination to fill the US Senate seat being vacated by Senator Tom Udall, who is retiring. While most Democratic presidential candidates publicly defended Omar and criticized Trumps tweet as an incitement to violence, the initial response of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was to downplay the immediacy of the threat and rebuke Trump not for his attack on Omar, but for using the image of the burning World Trade Center. Pelosi actually made no mention of Omar in a statement issued from Stuttgart, Germany, where she was visiting US troops and receiving a briefing on US-NATO military deployments against Russia. The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must be done with reverence, she said. The president shouldnt use the painful images of 9/11 for a political attack. Only after public comments noting that her statement made no mention of any threat to Omar did Pelosi issue a second statement, this time from London. She declared that she had spoken with her office in Washington to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff. Pelosi called on Trump to take down his video linking Omar and 9/11. Pelosis trip to Europe followed a two-day conference of the House Democratic Caucus at which she was at pains to maintain that the Democrats must continue to work with the Trump administration. While criticizing Trump for his threat to ship undocumented immigrants to sanctuary cities like San Franciscowhere Pelosis congressional district is locatedshe declared, Im not giving up on the president, as a possible partner on immigration policy. Omar, by contrast, had blasted Trumps top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, as a white nationalist. This produced bellows from the White House, reiterating claims that Omar was an anti-Semite, because Miller is Jewish. That background has not stopped Miller from consorting with fascists and neo-Nazis who make up much of the audience of Breitbart News and similar ultra-right media outlets. The attempt by the British, Ecuadorian and US governments to force the removal of journalist and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States is an antidemocratic conspiracy and a brazen violation of international law. While the US government presents the process against Assange as an extradition, the difference between an extradition and an extraordinary renditionin which a state carries out an extrajudicial abduction for the purpose of arbitrary detention, torture, and summary punishmentis being effectively obliterated. The US government is, in effect, applying a similar method to Assange as it used against those it has subjected to extraordinary rendition during the war on terror. Since 2001, the CIA has abducted hundreds of people, bound them up, flown them across the world to secret CIA black site dungeons and subjected them to harsh interrogation and torture. Once the government gets its hands on Assange, it is questionable whether he will ever be seen again. The process has been accompanied by a campaign of media vilification that seems to have no restraint. Its aim is to transform Assange into a monster so that he can be deprived of his rights. What the endless media reports ignore is that Assange has exposed imperialist crimes in wars that killed millions of civilians and thousands of US soldiers. He has brought to light horrific crimes that the government and corporate media conspired to keep secret. While watching the news personalities slander the persecuted journalist and late-night show hosts subject him to degraded and scatological mockery, one wishes to stick a bar of soap in each of their mouths. The US, British and Ecuadorian government claim that Assanges extradition is proper because the US is indicting the whistleblower only on a single charge of attempting to help Chelsea Manning bypass a password. But in the aftermath of Assanges arrest, the corporate press and politicians have contradicted the official explanation, letting slip the real reason the US wants custody over Assange. The Washington Post's editorial board wrote: Mr. Assanges transfer to US custody, followed possibly by additional Russia-related charges or his conversion into a cooperating witness, could be the key to learning more about Russian intelligences efforts to undermine democracy in the West. Certainly he is long overdue for personal accountability. The New York Times said, Once in the United States, moreover, he could become a useful source on how Russia orchestrated its attacks on the Clinton campaign. After British police dragged Assange out of the Ecuadorian embassy, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer tweeted, Now that Julian Assange has been arrested, I hope he will soon be held to account for his meddling in our elections on behalf of Putin and the Russian government. The Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Eliot Engel tweeted that Assange time after time compromised the national security of the United States and our allies by publicly releasing classified government documents and confidential materials related to our 2016 presidential election. These statements show that the extradition proceedings are being conducted under false pretenses. The single public charge is a cover. The government is planning to interrogate Assange, compel him to provide testimony and further prosecute him for exposing US war crimes. In the words of Democratic Senator Joe Manchin: He is our property and we can get the facts and the truth from him. Assange has no obligation to provide the government with any testimony because he has the Fifth Amendment right not to testify against himself. The media and politicians statements beg the question: How does the government plan to get the facts from him? What harsh measures, practiced in the prisons of Abu Gharaib and Bagram Air Force Base, will be brought to bear? The proceedings in the days since Assanges arrest show the type of treatment he will receive in any legal proceeding. The British government, on the invite of Ecuadorian President and imperialist lackey Lenin Moreno, blatantly violated the principle of consular sanctuary by dragging Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. This exposes the statements of the US and British governments admonishing the Saudi government for murdering Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, Turkey last year as thoroughly hypocritical. On Thursday, the British district judge who heard Assanges bail request mocked him and laughed when Assanges lawyers requested a fair hearing. His assertion that he has not had a fair hearing is laughable, said judge Michael Snow. And his behavior is that of a narcissist who cannot get beyond his own selfish interests. Assange has been sent to Belmarsh, a maximum security prison for terrorists and other high-risk detainees, where half of all prisoners are allowed to leave their cells for only two hours a week. There is no question that Assange will be denied the right to a fair trial in the US, where the entire political and media establishment has already pronounced his guilt. In whatever trial takes place, Assanges lawyers will be regularly denied the right to review evidence against their client on the grounds that it is classified for national security purposes. The conspiracy against Assange confirms the absence of any constituency for the defense of democratic rights in the ruling class. To the leaders of the democratic revolutions of the 18th century, the practices now called extraordinary rendition recalled the dark and crowded dungeons of Charles II and Louis XIV, filled with political prisoners. The bourgeois revolutions in France and the United States abolished arbitrary detention and torture as the hated method of political reaction, upholding the right of due process, habeas corpus, and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. Under international law today, extraordinary rendition is a crime against humanity according to the Nuremberg principles. If the ruling class can conduct this operation against Assange without any opposition from the political or media establishment, then any crime is possible. All the while, left figures like Jeremy Corbyn go along with the lie, absolving themselves of any responsibility. As for the British government, its brutal handling of Assange contrasts with its response to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who fought an extradition request after Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon attempted to prosecute Pinochet in Spain for mass murder. In 2000, the Labour government of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair refused to extradite Pinochet and ordered his release from house arrest at his mansion in Surrey. "The attempted trial of an accused in the condition diagnosed in Senator Pinochet on the charges which have been made against him in this case could not be a fair trial in any country and would violate Article Six of the European Convention on Human Rights," the Home Office wrote at the time. While the dictator Pinochet murdered and tortured thousands of workers and socialists after taking power in the September 11, 1973 coup, Julian Assange published evidence of US war crimes. He is hated by the international ruling class because he has done significant damage to the interests of imperialism. The seven years since Assange was forced to seek refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy have seen the reemergence of the class struggle on an international scale. It is this powerful social forcethe working classthat must be mobilized to defend democratic rights and secure the liberation of class-war prisoners like Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. At a campaign rally Saturday in Warren, Michigan, Bernie Sanders maintained his silence on the arrest of Julian Assange. To date, Sanders has not issued a single statement on Assange since the former WikiLeaks editor was dragged from the Ecuadorean embassy by British police on Thursday. The Trump administration is seeking his illegal transfer to the United States, where he faces imprisonment, torture or even execution. World Socialist Web Site reporter Andre Damon, together with this reporter, asked Sanders as he was leaving the suburban Detroit rally venue whether he supported the arrest and imprisonment of Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning. We received no reply. Sanders silence demonstrates his support for the rendition of Assange. In the days since the arrest, both the Democrats and Republicans have erupted in celebration. For the entire ruling class, the silencing of Assange has been a top priority. Politicians and military officials have for years called for Assange to be captured and killed in retaliation for his journalistic exposures of the crimes of American imperialism. Bernie Sanders Sanders has long supported the Democrats anti-Russia campaign, at the center of which is the slander that WikiLeaks collaborated with the Russian government and the Trump election campaign to publish leaked material damaging to Hillary Clintons presidential bid. Trump doesnt understand what Russia has done, not only to our elections, but through cyber-attacks against all parts of our infrastructure, Sanders said last July, adding, We have got to make sure that Russia does not interfere, not only in our elections, but in other aspects of our lives. In October 2015, Sanders also came out in support of prosecution for whistleblower Edward Snowden, who revealed illegal spying on a massive scale by the American intelligence agencies. He did break the law, and I think there should be a penalty to that, Sanders said, adding cynically that his sentence should be lenient. Sanders enters the crowded Democratic primary race as one of the presumptive frontrunners, as the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers have recently acknowledged. In the polls, Sanders leads all other candidates with the possible exception of Joe Biden, who has not officially announced and whose chances may have already been torpedoed by a #MeToo-style campaign against him. Sanders has also raised more money to date than any other candidate, mostly from small donations. However, the comparatively small turnout at Saturdays rally suggests much reduced enthusiasm from workers and young people since his 2016 campaign. Only a few hundred people, mostly drawn from middle-class layers, attended the rally, which was held in a small parking lot at Macomb County Community College. This is a far cry from 2016, when thousands of people turned out to hear Sanders speak at rallies throughout the country, and in the Midwest in particular, attracted by Sanders self-professed democratic socialism. The widespread support he received reflected deep opposition to social inequality and poverty, especially in economically devastated former industrial areas. There was evident frustration among Sanders own campaign volunteers over his failure to defend Julian Assange, indicating the fragile character of his popular support. This is one of a few things hes done that have disappointed me, one campaigner told this reporter. Amit Barua, an IT worker and the Sanders campaigns precinct organizer for Sterling Heights, said Sanders silence says a lot, adding, Sanders isnt concerned about Assange because he is a part of the government. He added that he thought the ruling class was afraid of Assange because they are afraid of what happens when people revolt. Sanders acknowledged at Saturdays rally that Trump had won the Midwestern states in the general election that he (Sanders) had carried in the primaries, adding that his 2020 campaign would ensure that mistake wont be repeated. In reality, a major factor behind Trumps victory in these states was Sanders own support for Hillary Clinton, widely hated by workers for her pro-war policies and ties to Wall Street. Within the narrow framework of the American political system, this left workers with no way to register their opposition to war and inequality except to abstain or vote for the right-wing populist Trump. Since then, Sanders has repeatedly declared his willingness to support Trumps protectionist and trade war measures, which are closely connected politically to Trumps attack on immigration and his promotion of extreme-right forces. On Saturday, Sanders called out Trump for not going far enough on this score. Seeking to attack Trump from the right and outdo the presidents appeal to chauvinism and xenophobia, the Vermont senator declared: The NAFTA treaty that Trump renegotiated with Mexico will still allow companies like General Motors to send our jobs to Mexico. So today, I challenge Donald Trump: For once in your life, keep your campaign promises. Go back to the drawing board on NAFTA. Do not send this treaty to Congress unless it includes strong and swift enforcement mechanisms to raise the wages of workers and to prevent corporations from outsourcing American jobs to Mexico. Sanders added that corporations which move production overseas should not expect to receive federal contracts. This nationalist appeal in Warren follows his remarks in Iowa last week, when Sanders declared his opposition to open borders, stating, You open the borders, theres a lot of poverty in this world, and youre gonna have people from all over the world. And I dont think that this is something that you can do at this point. Cant do it. Sanders was praised by the American neo-Nazi leader Richard Spencer for these remarks. In Warren, Sanders made only vague, perfunctory remarks on immigration, calling for comprehensive immigration reform and an unspecified path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. His support for nationalism is bound up with his support for the AFL-CIO, the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the rest of the official trade unions, which have promoted nationalism for decades as part of their effort to sabotage workers struggles against plant closures and layoffs. Speaking before Sanders at the rally, an ex-bureaucrat in the Teamsters union and the UAW pledged support for Sanders from these corrupt organizations, declaring, Labor will be behind Bernie. Sanders, no doubt, chose Michigan as the site for these remarks because of the recently announced GM plant closures, to which the UAW and its Canadian counterpart, Unifor, have responded with anti-Mexican chauvinism. The UAW, which has been exposed in an ongoing federal investigation for taking millions in bribes from Fiat Chrysler in return for forcing through pro-company contracts, is determined to prevent American workers from developing a joint struggle with Mexican autoworkers, who recently went on strike in Matamoros. Sanders silent support for the persecution of Assange and his promotion of nationalism arise from his pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist political orientation. These right-wing positions demonstrate that his real aim is not, as he claims, to lead a political revolution against the billionaire class, but to misdirect, disorient and suppress opposition among workers and young people by channeling it behind the corporate-controlled, pro-war Democratic Party. Below are the remarks made by Socialist Equality Party (UK) member Robert Stevens at Saturdays rally outside Belmarsh prison to demand the release of WikiLeaks editor, Julian Assange. My name is Robert Stevens and I am speaking on behalf of the Socialist Equality Party. Securing freedom for Julian Assange is not just essential for Julian, but for the defence of the democratic rights of working people in Britain and the world over. It is this social force that must be politically mobilised. If you want to know why, look at what happened in parliament on Thursday. Theresa May came back from Brussels to report to parliament on the latest in the Brexit crisis. This is the most deeply divided parliament in post-war history. But what May had to say when she addressed MPs at the start of her statement united the House of Commons. She announced that the Metropolitan Police had dragged Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy and that he would now be subject to the full force of UK law. MPs bayed their approval. Jeremy Corbyn, at that point, didnt say anything. Later, Home Secretary Sajid Javid made a statement on Assanges arrest. There were few MPs listening, including no more than 12 on the opposition benches. For all the attention they gave to this outrageous assault on democratic rights and breach of all norms of due process, they might just as well have been debating regulations about dog collars. Corbyn was nowhere to be seen when Javid spoke. Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott made a statement opposing Assanges extradition to the US. Nobody supported her. Only later did Corbyn publish a single tweet stating that Assange should not be extradited to the US. This is why we have to step up our fight for Julians release. Julian Assange is a hero. He is a real journalist, whose life and liberty is in imminent danger! We have to do everything to mobilise all supporters of free speech to prevent him from falling into the hands of the US government. The Socialist Equality Party and World Socialist Web Site make the broadest appeal today: Join the fight to defend Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. Workers and youth internationally must mobilise immediately to defend these class war prisoners. Their lives depend on it! The arrest of Julian is a vast political crime. It involves governments on four continentsNorth America, South America, Europe and Australiawho are seeking to silence a man whose only crime is that he told the worlds population the truth about what they do. He told us about their war crimes and their behind-the-scenes conspiracies against billions of people. No one can believe for a second claims that Assange will face just one charge in the US that carries a five-year sentence. The secret grand jury empowered under the Obama administration didnt spend over eight years to charge Assange with manipulating passwords. Once Assange is in their hands, he will confront a series of additional charges, including espionage. The grand jury indictment against him claims the release of the classified Iraq war file and US diplomatic cables reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security. This is almost word for word what the Espionage Act says which bars releasing information relating to the national defense. It criminalizes anyone who communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered or transmitted such information. The indictment makes clear the government is targeting Assange for political reasons. It states: The primary purpose of the conspiracy was to facilitate [Chelsea] Mannings acquisition and transmission of classified information related to the national defense of the United States so that WikiLeaks could publicly disseminate the information on its website. We know who supports Assange because of their record over the last 10 years. People like the Julian Assange Defence Campaign who are here today, some real journalists including John Pilger. All the parliamentary parties in the UK, including Labour under Corbyn, have done nothing to defend Assange since he was first arrested nine years ago and since he was forced to take refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy seven years ago. Theyve not released a single statement in opposition to his treatment or called a single protest. They have abandoned him. Corbyns tweet is his first comment on Assange in nearly four years since he became Labour leader. He decided that it was more important to maintain unity with the Blairites. Within a matter of hours of Julians arrest, these Blairite political criminals opened a campaign to insist Assange be extradited to Sweden to face allegations we all know are fabricated. Yesterday, more than 70 MPs and peers, from the Labour Party, from The Independent Group of Blairites, and the Tories, as well as Scottish National Party and Liberal Democrat MPs, wrote to the Home Secretary demanding he support the reopening of the Swedish investigations and that Assange be sent there instead. The Guardian has joined the chorus that he be sent to Sweden. So has the venal, disgusting Socialist Workers Party, which said today that Assange should face trial in Sweden if the Swedish authorities pursue their vendetta against him. They are all doing everything possible to continue the hounding of Assange and to see him locked up in prison for good. Sweden would only be an alternative route to the US, but the main thing they want to do is to tar Assange as a sexual predator and rapist to justify their refusal to defend him. Assange has no friends in the political establishment in Britain, only enemies. If a vote was held in parliament today for Assanges extradition to the Sweden or the US, it would be easily passed, and passed with the backing of a large part of the Labour Party. He has no friends in the mainstream mediathe Vichy journalists as John Pilger rightly describes them. Just think about it. If Corbyn had made defending Assange an issue over all these years, do you think the police would have dared to turn up and drag Assange, an ill man, out of the front door of the Embassy in the centre of London in broad daylight and treat him like a criminal? Do you think that could have been done had a campaign been mobilised in Julians Assanges defence? Throughout history the only social force who have defended democratic rights is the working class. Now is the time to act when these rights are under assault as never before. The fight to defend Julian Assange is your fight. Workers and youth must come forward and take an unequivocal stand in defence of Assange. We must continue to organize meetings, protests and solidarity demonstrations to demand Julians immediate release from Belmarsh prison and his safe return to Australia or any country where he chooses to live. We say to Julian Assange: You can count on the support of the Socialist Equality Party and the World Socialist Web Site. We have held protests in Sydney and Melbourne this week. We will organise more. We will work with the Defence Campaign to secure maximum attendance at every protest called in the UK and we call for attendance at the next public meeting called in London in defence of Julian, to be held on Friday April 26. Thank you very much. More than 31,000 supermarket workers in three southern New England states remained on strike for a fourth day on Sunday against the Stop & Shop supermarket chain. The strike is the largest in the retail industry since 2003, and the second-largest private-sector walkout since 2016. Workers have not been on strike at the grocery chain in 30 years. The strike comes on the heels of an upsurge of workers struggles both in the US and internationally, including a wave of teachers walkouts in the US over the past year, the strike of maquiladora workers in Matamoros, Mexico, and the ongoing nationwide walkout by over 300,000 teachers in Poland. The United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) was forced to call out the workers on Thursday, more than six weeks after five locals in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island voted overwhelmingly for strike action against proposals by management that attack workers wages, health insurance, and pension benefits. The workers contract expired February 23. The UFCW has been meeting with Stop & Shop management for the past several days, with a federal mediator present. Although the union has not reported on the progress of the negotiations, according to FAQs posted on the Stop & Shop website, the company is maintaining a hard line in their drive to reduce workers wages and benefits. Stop & Shop is owned by billion-dollar Dutch-owned retailer Royal Ahold Delhaize NV, which also owns Food Lion, Hannaford and other grocery chains. Ahold is seeking to drive down the wages and conditions of Stop & Shop workerswhich include cashiers, department heads, stock personnel, deli clerks, butchers and bakersto those of their rivals at nonunion grocers Market Basket, Trader Joes, Whole Foods and Walmart. Amazon is the latest entry into the competitive grocery market with its purchase of Whole Foods. After the acquisition, workers have reported that following owner Jeff Bezos raising starting wages at Whole Foods to $15 an hour, both part-time and full-time employees have seen their hours slashed, rendering the wage hike basically worthless. Stop & Shop stores reopened Friday with replacement workers, but management was forced to close some locations, as the strikebreakersincluding salaried personnel and workers recruited and bussed inwere not able to keep up with stocking the shelves and other tasks. At a location in Dorchester, Massachusetts, strikers reported that a food delivery to the store had not been made in three days. Nearly 1,000 truck drivers and warehouse workers, members of the Teamsters union, are reportedly honoring the picket lines. Ahold Delhaize generates about 60 percent of its sales in the US and Stop & Shop is its biggest brand. The strike has cut across the Dutch companys turnaround plan to revive the grocery chain after several years of slow performance. Ahold Delhaize shares fell 1.4 percent on news of the strike, erasing this years gains. Last year, the conglomerate reported profits of more than $2 billion to its shareholders. The retailer has pledged to invest up to $150 million annually in the 413-unit chainwhich also includes stores in New York and New Jersey, where the UFCW has not called out thousands of workers to striketo make the stores more attractive and keep shoppers from taking their business to online grocers and budget stores like Germanys Aldi, which will have nearly 2,000 US stores by years end. Stop & Shop is seeking to impose deep cuts to workers compensation and benefits in an effort to transform the company into a low-wage sweatshop. For workers, many of whom have worked at the company for decades and live in the neighborhoods where they work, the companys demands are unacceptable and have brought the conflict to the breaking point. The company is seeking to drive an even deeper wedge than already exists between full- and part-time workers. While workers laboring full-time for more than three years would continue to make yearly wage increases of about $20 per week over the next three years, part-time workers and full-time workers with less than three years seniority would not see raises until they reach the top of the full-time scale, but after this would only see yearly bonuses in the $1,000-1,250 range. Health care costs would nearly double over the three years of the contract, according to managements demands. The companys original proposal called for raising health care deductibles from an average of $200 per year to $1,500a 650 percent increase. Workers would also only be able to access health care for spouses who do not have a group health plan through their own employer. The WSWS spoke to pickets outside the Stop & Shop location at South Bay in Dorchester. Gus Cutone, a produce department head who has worked for Stop & Shop since 1984, said, Theyre trying to undercut all the new people. For most of the current full-time people, we would get our 50 cent raises. But if youve been made full-time in the last three-four years, no raise. Youre offered a $1,000 bonus each year for the next three years, which is not right. Thats why Im here, because its not right for the new people. What they want to do is take holidays away; they want to cut sick time. He said his store had been shut down by the strike and he had been asked to picket at this location. I dont know how many replacement workers they have in there, but theyre actually coming in by the vanload, he said. I dont know where they find them, but with this economy, theyre being bussed in. Al Peeples has been a Stop & Shop worker for 16 years. Its very sad about all the profits theyre making and theyre not giving back to the workers, he said. Sometimes the customers come in and theyve had a really bad day and you come and talk to them and help them out. A lot of Stop & Shop people are from the community and its their only income. And were not asking for much, we just want them to be fair. But they want to take away stuff like holidays and overtime. They want to increase healthcare costs by about $40 a month; basically, it would go up to $80 for some people. What I know about the pensions is they want to eventually erase that and get a 401(k). And they want to put a cap on our raises. Me being with Stop & Shop for 16 years, Im part-time so Im only making $15 an hour. Someone coming in now, they start at $11 an hour, and when they get up to $18 an hour, theyre going to put a cap on it. Some shoppers have not crossed the picket line. But for others, this is their local Stop & Shop and they really dont have anywhere else to go or cant get here. But at this store, nothings been delivered in three days, so nothing in there is fresh. As in other recent workers struggles, such as the six-month National Grid 2018-19 lockout of energy workers, Democratic Party politicians have feigned support for workers on the picket lines. Senator Elizabeth Warren visited the Somerville, Massachusetts, Stop & Shop location on Friday, bearing doughnuts and claiming to support workers demands. Democratic presidential hopefuls Senators Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Bernie Sanders have also made empty statements of support for the Stop & Shop workers. The fact is the Democrats, no less than Trump and the Republicans, support the relentless attack on workers living standards and working conditions in order to boost corporate profit. President Obama encouraged corporations to cut so-called Cadillac health care plans, and shift costs onto the backs of workers. And it should be remembered that during the union-busting decade of the 1980s, Democrats, like Minnesota Governor Rudy Perpich, sent out the National Guard to break the strike of the Hormel meatpackers, members of UFCW Local P-9, in 1986. For its part, the union seeks to reach a rotten compromise with Stop & Shop management that they can ram past the opposition of workers and accelerate the transformation of the workplace into a low-wage sweatshop. Anthony Perrone, the international president of the UFCW, made $341,398 last year, according to the unions report to the US Labor Department, nearly 20 times what an average cashier or clerk at Stop & Shop brings home every year. The UFCW International brought in $292 million in revenue last year, including $222 million in dues, and only paid out $60,000 in strike benefits. While securing the financial and business interests of the union apparatus, the UFCW has spent the last four decades isolating and betraying strikes, including the 1985-86 Hormel strike, and colluding in the lowering of the wages and living standards of grocery workers who once earned relatively higher pay. There is widespread support for a real struggle against the relentless attack on jobs, social services and living standards and the enormous growth of social inequality. To fight to rally this support, Stop & Shop workers should form rank-and-file strike committees, independent of the unions, to reach out and mobilize the support of the broadest section of the working class for mass demonstrations and joint strike action. A call should immediately be made for Stop & Shop workers in New Jersey and New York to join the strike and to prepare a nationwide strike of retail workers to fight poverty wages and the attack on health care and pension rights. At the same time, US workers should appeal to their brothers and sisters in the Netherlands and throughout Europe to coordinate international action against the giant transnational corporation. This must be combined with the development of a political counteroffensive of the working class against both corporate-controlled parties and the capitalist profit system they defend. The giant corporations and the great advances in technology, which are now used to destroy jobs and increase the exploitation of workers, must be put under the collective ownership of the working class as part of the socialist reorganization of the economy. Britains Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) is spearheading a political witch-hunt, smearing WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange as a rapist who must be extradited to Sweden. This filthy campaign has been abetted over the weekend by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. More than 100 MPs have signed a cross-party letter to Conservative Home Secretary Sajid Javid and Labours Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, demanding they champion action that will ensure that Julian Assange can be extradited to Sweden, where politically-manufactured rape and sexual molestation allegations were made in 2010. Blairite MPs Stella Creasy and Jess Phillips initiated the letter on Friday. Most signatories are fellow Blairites, but other signatories include Independent Group MPs Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger and Anna Soubry; Tory, Liberal-Democrat and Scottish National Party MPs; and several Labour peers. At present, this right-wing cabal complains, media attention has been on the decision made by the US authorities to seek extradition. We urge you to stand with the victims of sexual violence and seek to ensure the case against Mr Assange can now be properly investigated, they demand. This is the Blairites answer to global public outrage over Assanges brutal seizure from the Ecuadorian embassy in London on Thursday. UK police arrested Assange after Ecuador illegally terminated his political asylum, leaving him facing computer crime charges issued by US law enforcement agencies. The charges criminalise core journalistic activities around the protection of sources and are a legal trigger to effect Assanges extradition to the US where he will face additional charges under the 1917 Espionage Act. A coordinated state campaign is now underway to shift the political narrative, smearing Assange and diverting public attention from the grave threat to democratic rights posed by US extradition proceedings. This is the purpose served by the bogus Swedish rape allegations. Assanges onward extradition to the US can be fast-tracked under Temporary Surrender treaty arrangements in place between Sweden and the US. On Thursday, Swedens deputy director of public prosecution, Eva-Marie Persson, told Reuters she is reviewing the case against Assange. The Swedish playbook has been made clear. On Saturday, Labours Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry told BBC Radio 4 she was disgusted US extradition proceedings had been allowed to eclipse sexual assault allegations made by the two Swedish women against Assange. I think that what should happen is that he should be extradited to Sweden and then the Americans can make a further application to have him extradited from Sweden, she suggested. Gender politics is being deployed for nakedly pro-imperialist objectives. On Saturday, the Guardians front page headline insisted, Give priority to Assange rape victim, Javid urged with a prominent news article headlined, Failure to extradite Assange to Sweden would endorse rape culture, say womens groups. Editorials in Saturdays Guardian and Sundays Observer called for Assanges extradition to Sweden, with the Observer combining vindictiveness and slander in equal measure: Its not difficult to despise Julian Assange. For seven years, he has attempted to evade rape and sexual assault charges in Sweden by seeking asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London His excuse for refusing to face trial in Swedenthat he would then face extradition to the UShas always been hogwash. In fact, the warnings by Assange and his legal team over US extraditionlong denounced as conspiracy theoriesstand confirmed. Ecuador granted political asylum to Assange in 2012 because of his well-founded fears of persecution by the US, British and Australian governments, after revelations of a secret Grand Jury investigation into the WikiLeaks publisher. In relation to the rape allegations, Assange offered to travel to Sweden if authorities would guarantee against onward US extradition. He invited Swedish prosecutors to the Ecuadorian embassy so he could clear his name, but such offers were refused. Swedish prosecutors dropped preliminary investigations into rape and molestation allegations as early as August 2010, concluding that no crime at all had been committed. The investigation was only revived for political reasons. [I]t was the police who made up the charges wrote one of the women in a text message. Assanges accusers admitted they had consensual sex with him, boasting of it afterwards to friends. Anna Ardin, who arranged Assanges safe houses in Swedenone of which was her apartmentwas employed by leading Social-Democratic Party politicians. It was Ardin who introduced Assange to her co-accuser, Sofia Wilen. Assanges visit to Sweden took place amid mounting US intrigue following publication of the Iraq and Afghan war leaks. Labour is playing the central role in isolating Assange. When Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May announced his arrest to cheers from Tory and Labour MPs on Thursday, Corbyn was silent. Later, when Sajid Javid made a formal statement on the arrest and charges, he exited the chamber, leaving Abbott to speak on his partys behalf. It is whistleblowing into illegal wars, mass murder, murder of civilians and corruption on a grand scale that has put Julian Assange in the crosshairs of the US administration, she said. Abbotts speech was welcomed by WikiLeaks supporters, but a tweet later that day made clear the duplicitous character of her support: Assange skipping bail in UK, or any rape charge that may be brought by Swedish authorities shouldnt be ignored, she wrote. Abbotts speech in parliament had been carefully worded, making clear that any US extradition request was now in the hands of the British law courts and registering Labours utmost confidence in the British legal system. She made no undertaking that a future Labour government would block Assanges extradition to the US. Nonetheless, her statement met furious opposition, with Labour MP Diana Johnson telling parliament, I am concerned that a man suspected of rape, which is what in this case actually happened, was able to do what he did for several years to escape justice. (emphasis added) Within hours, leading Blairites, including Phillips, Creasy and Stephen Kinnock, had begun their counter-attack, with the cross-party letter on Friday, and a full media pile-on with Kinnock and other war-mongers denouncing Assange. Then came Corbyns ITV news interview on Saturday, in which he declared that Assanges possible extradition to the US was a matter for the courts in Britain, before noting that a case from Sweden which was dropped in 2017 is now possibly going to be reinstated. If it is reinstated, then obviously he must answer those questions and those demands about the accusations made against him by people in Sweden. There can be no hiding place from those kind of accusations. (emphasis added) On Sunday morning Julian Assanges mother, Christine, responded by tweeting, Weasel words from #Corbyn! NO to UK/US extradition but YES to recycled UK/SWEDEN extradition! He knows full well Swedish (no charge!) case was a political fit-up! Sweden/UK Bilateral Treaty allows fast track rendition to US under Temporary Surrender! Corbyn knows perfectly well that the Swedish allegations and extradition proceedings were only ever a step toward US extradition. In July 2015, just months before he became party leader, he explained to the New Statesman that Assange had taken himself into the embassy because he felt that, had he been taken back to Sweden, he would be taken forcibly to the US. He knows that Assange has been targeted for courageously exposing war crimes and state conspiracies against the public, but refuses to challenge the Blairites on anything, instead echoing their threats against Assange. Political conclusions must be drawn. Had Corbyn issued a call this week for mass demonstrations in defence of Assange, tens of thousands would have been mobilised and the Blairites and their supporters would have been exposed as an isolated cabal. It is not primarily the Blairites that Corbyn fears. His overriding concern is to prevent the independent intervention of the working class. It is to this social force that all defenders of Julian Assange and democratic rights must urgently turn. David North, national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party in the United States, sent the following message of condolence on the death of Yabu Bilyana. It was read at the funeral on April 10, 1999, by Nick Beams, the then national secretary of the SEP (Australia). It is with great sadness that the membership of the Socialist Equality Party has learned of the death of comrade Yabu Bilyana. Yabu was an exceptional comrade, worker and human being. He was that rare type of person who based his life on the ideals in which he passionately believedof justice, equality and human solidarity. When Yabu joined the Socialist Labour League in 1989, he was no longer a young man. His decision to take up the struggle for socialism was based on a lifetime of experience, as a worker and as an Aborigine. By the time he encountered the Socialist Labour League, he had already become deeply disillusioned with the two principal banes of the workers movementreformism and nationalism. Continually learning, he possessed the honesty and courage to draw the necessary conclusions from his discussions with the Australian Trotskyists and become a member of our movement. It is deeply significant that the events that marked the turning point in Yabus political development and led him to join our partythe Fourth Internationaloccurred not in Australia, but in Chinathe bloody suppression of students and workers by the Stalinist regime. The political impulses to which he responded were of an international, not merely national, character. I first met comrade Yabu in 1989. During the years that followed, I had the privilege to become better acquainted with Yabu in the course of an international conference and at various party gatherings and schools of the Australian section. A kind, gregarious and thoughtful man, he possessed a voracious interest in the history and practical work of the movement. Had he not been so tragically disabled by illness, Yabu undoubtedly would have played a major role in the expansion of the partys influence in the working class. But the memory of his life will continue to inspire a new generation. In closing, please convey to the family of Yabu Bilyana the heartfelt condolences of the entire membership of the Socialist Equality Party in the United States and the International Committee of the Fourth International. MERIDEN Art and architectural historian Amy Prescher recently talked about the historical significance of the citys stained glass windows at the public library. As a student (in New Haven), I was curious about the neighboring towns... so I came up to Meriden, Prescher said. ...I would walk around to see where I could find other views of the spires of the churches. Later as a professor at Middlesex Community Colleges Meriden branch, Prescher would frequently take students around Meriden to visit churches. This, she said, got her more interested in the architecture of the buildings. When Prescher studied the churches, she began to understand the historical significance of stained glass windows. The windows depicted stories important to the church. Those stories varied by denomination and ethnicity, she said. Congregational churches tended not to use stained glass, Prescher said. They usually have a more simple kind of aesthetic. Prescher explained to the audience of about 25 the meaning behind the stained glass windows at St. Rose of Lima Church, located at 35 Center St., along with other churches in Meriden and a few in Europe. St. Rose was built in 1856, Prescher said, to cater to the growing number of Irish immigrants. The church is home to a large rose window. The rose is important because it is the churchs namesake, but it also highlights the use of geometric shapes, colors and numbers to depict a story. Even in the Middle Ages, scholars and theologians, were fascinated by the idea of geometry because theres something inherently harmonious, Prescher said. God created the world, creation is based on geometry. Along with numbers. Prescher explained that the rose contains the four arms of the cross, eight blue circles, 16 yellow starbursts and 32 pointed rays. This multiplication is meant to show the miracle of creation within the religion. Designers of religious stained glass tend to include meaning into every aspect of the window, Prescher said. The April 9 event was part of the historical societys monthly lecture series and co-sponsored by the public library. mphilavong@record-journal.com 203-317-2208 Twitter: @MaxinePhilavong Across thousands of years of history, trade has linked the peoples of the world. The first city in the world is said to have been Uruk in ancient Sumer, which occupied the southern part of Mesopotamia. Uruk was located some 300 km SSE from modern Baghdad and was founded some seven millennia ago. In ancient Sumer, around 5000 years ago, cuneiform was impressed on small clay tablets, many of which, among other uses, recorded domestic commercial contracts. Some were intended, it is thought, for long distance communication to facilitate trade. Some scholars see trade as one reason writing on clay tablets was invented. Within a few hundred years, the first indications of law were found recorded on these tablets.(1) Around 1780 BC, the first collection of written laws regarding trade were incised on a black basalt stele. This was the Code of the Babylonian King Hammurabi.(2) Cross-border trade problems are not new. Around 1340 BC, Burna-buriash II, the king of Babylon, sent a letter to the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaton (Amenhotep IV)(3) to convey a complaint. Having exchanged a substantial amount of lapis lazuli and horses for gold, the Babylonian king politely asked the Pharaoh to personally inspect and seal future shipments of gold sent in return as the last shipment of gold he had received, when melted down, came up seriously short.(4) Fast forward about three millennia and there is now a broader more detailed effort at looking for certainty in trade, in meeting standards, and in trusting others to assess conformity with them.(5) In the history of trade, there were at least eight major routes, moving spices from East to West, incense from south to north, plus trading routes for trade in cloth, salt, tea, amber beads, gold, jade, and tin to make bronze - and also, regrettably, slaves. The most famous of all routes, of course, was the Silk Road, formally founded in the Han Dynasty around 207 BC. It began in west central China in Xi'an and crossed overland for 6400 kilometers to reach the Mediterranean. It created cities along the way. A month ago, I was in Samarkand, a remarkable place, which was a major trading center in Central Asia (in what is now Uzbekistan). It owes its existence to the Silk Road. The Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Greeks successively established trading settlements along the eastern and southern coast of what is now Spain. The first Greek colonies were founded along the northeast coast of Spain in the 9th century BC, leaving the south coast to the Phoenicians.(6) New technologies drove trading relationships further and faster. Sailing ships enabled regional trade to grow. For Northern Europe this gave rise to the Hanseatic League, dating back to 1267. Chinese exports of pottery starting in the 9th Century to Asia and Africa,(7) moved upscale to Chinese porcelain exported in copious quantities to Europe starting in the 16th Century. It gave rise to the first mass production in the world.(8) Trade drove exploration, but also in the 16th century, exploitation. The Dutch East India Company reached out into the Pacific. The British East India Company reached into South Asia. Slavers reached into Africa. Spanish treasure ships returned laden with precious metals from the Americas. A low point in the history of trade was marked by the Opium Wars with China(9). Colonization was not confined to the European powers. In the 20th century, Japan annexed Manchuria and sought raw materials through conquest in Southeast Asia. As the colonial era waned, trading arrangements, if entered into formally at all, were generally bilateral and nonreciprocal, as well as discriminating against non-parties. The Modern Era At the end of the First World War, the American President Woodrow Wilson envisaged a world characterized by equal trading arrangements from which all could benefit. It took two world wars, however, to sweep away empires and begin the process of unwinding prior discriminatory trading relationships. The conditions existed for the first time in human history to create a global trading system. Devastation, physical and economic, provided a largely blank slate upon which to create a multilateral trading system based on equal rights and equal access to markets. To support the hard-won peace, twenty-three countries joined together in 1947 to create a rules-based multilateral trading system, contained in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the GATT, the precursor to the WTO, the World Trade Organization which came into being in 1995.(10) Creation of a multilateral trading system was a remarkable achievement. It was the first time nations were united under one set of trading rules not imposed by an empire. The WTO is an international, not a supra-national organization made up of 164 members. It is whatever the Members, deciding by consensus, want it to be. It is distinguished from other international organizations by having enforceable rules. These rules promote the flow of trade. Thirty-six countries have joined since the WTO was founded in 1995, and another 22 countries are actively seeking to join the Organization. Their motivation is to improve the standard of living of their peoples through integration into the world economy. Increasingly, it is to promote stability as a foundation for peace. This was true of the last two countries to join Liberia and Afghanistan, and it is true of Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, East Timor, Iraq and others today. Trade is not a luxury for these countries. It is a means to secure their futures. The first rule of the WTO, the foundation of the trading system, is nondiscrimination (most-favored-nation treatment) in dealings with the goods and services of other countries. This means in principle (although there are exceptions, the most important one being regional free trade agreements) that, for example, the same tariffs will be applied to imports no matter what the source. Nondiscrimination in internal regulations is expressed in the requirement to give national treatment - treatment no less favorable than that extended to domestic interests. These foundational rules are accompanied by a number of key requirements, including: living up to contractually bound tariff commitments on imports of goods, not imposing quantitative limitations on imports, not subsidizing exports, limiting subsidies that are granted to agricultural production, notifying proposed standards and considering comments received from other Members, and implementing adverse findings of dispute settlement panels. Most of world trade is successfully carried on within these rules. Most of the work of the WTO takes place within its committees where Members discuss compliance with the rules and consider how the rules might be improved. The WTO Spring The multilateral trading system (MTS) is approaching its 75th birthday. It has been invented and re-invented now several times. The International Trade Organization (which never came into effect) succeeded by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT, which did come into effect). The seventh round of multilateral trade negotiations gave the trading world the first nontariff trade agreements, including the government procurement code and the standards agreement. Among other advances, these agreements began to open up government procurement markets of signatories and provided that product standards must not burden international trade beyond what is needed to provide public safety and quality. The Uruguay Round, which lasted from 1986 through 1994 gave the world sets of rules packaged in a new organization that would be charged with administering the rules, the World Trade Organization (WTO). This is where we are today. The WTO is now 23 years old. While there have been three new agreements reached in the last 23 years, no major changes were made to update the institution to enable it to deal with 21st century issues. This began to change in December 2017 at the WTO Ministerial Meeting in Buenos Aires. The U.S. Trade Representative took the floor to call for three major changes in the WTO: limiting the results of litigation so that litigation does not encroach on what is appropriately the subject of negotiation, enforcement of obligations to provide transparency through notifications, and an end to three-quarters of the members claiming special treatment as developing countries. While the statement appeared to be well-received at the time, this by no means marked a buy-in by Members to a reform agenda. At the same meeting, however, large numbers of Members, but not all, enlisted in new Joint Initiatives, five areas which I will outline in a moment. Three major Members the European Union, Japan and the United States, meeting in Buenos Aires at the same time as the conference issued a joint declaration calling for new rules to limit industrial subsidies and the build-up of excess industrial capacity, rules to provide disciplines on the conduct of state-owned enterprises, and new rules to curb forced technology transfer. The call for WTO reform was heard six months later from French President Macron, from Canada (looking at the functioning of WTO committees) which invited the EU and eleven other WTO Members to Ottawa to discuss the operation of the WTO, and eventually resulted in a call from the countries of the G20 for WTO reform. Much of the reform effort was stimulated by the crisis created by the United States in blocking appointments to the WTO's Appellate Body, but it has now grown to include potential improvements with respect to a much wider range of issues. The G20 mandate is in some respects similar to Ferdinand and Isabella commissioning Columbus to cross the Atlantic Ocean. In the case of the WTO the mandate given to the G20 trade Ministers, their Permanent Representatives and their Deputies to come up with a reformed WTO, perhaps a version 2.0. What they will achieve is not yet known, but there are major efforts underway and the proponents of reform have some clear ideas as to where they want to end up. Intensive work is underway by Members accounting for three-quarters of global economic activity who signed up at Buenos Aires 16 months ago to work together to establish rules on e-commerce. Similar groups are now working on investment facilitation for development (11) The Ottawa Group of 13 Members is reviewing how to improve the daily operations of the WTO. This could encompass, for example, a requirement that major changes in measures affecting imports, even those affecting a single country or a single commodity, would be notified promptly and not await periodic updates of tariff schedules, or a request for verification by the WTO Secretariat, or a counter-notification by another Member. Good ideas for reform would be welcomed not only from any WTO Member, but I suspect from academia or any other knowledgeable source. Making the WTO and therefore the multilateral trading system more effective requires a higher level of investment of effort by all of its Members, from the Secretariat, as well as from the business community and from NGOs. Any large organization needs to have three basic elements structures designed to achieve the executive functions of monitoring, proposing initiatives and assisting in enforcement, it needs a means to continue to adapt its rules to current circumstances and future needs (the legislative function) and it needs the means to settle disputes (a quasi-judicial function). Each of these fundamental requirements deserve a serious review. This is a time of serious risks, but even more of major opportunities, unparalleled in recent years. Disruption having created an opening, the possibilities for positive results, for far-reaching reforms, must not be lost. The Pig That Coughed Christopher Columbus is reported to have said: "For the execution of the voyage to the Indies, I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps." Well he in fact neither did he end up in the Indies. We must make use of intelligence, mathematics and maps. For rules to be honoured and for new rules to be crafted, information is needed. The WTO now collects an amazing amount of data in the form of notifications from its Members, for example, on environmental regulations and product standards. It seeks to collect information from Members with respect to subsidies and other trade measures. There is, however, much room for improvement. There is a growing consensus that Members must in fact live up to their obligations to provide timely notifications, within their capacity to do so. But beyond notified data, to understand world trade, it is necessary to know much more about how and why trade takes place. My father would often ask a truck driver stopped next to our car at a traffic light what his truck was carrying, where he was coming from and where he was going. An American newspaper which was in our home, the Journal of Commerce, had, on its front page, announcements of ship arrivals and what each ship carried. Governments have agreed in the Trade Facilitation Agreement to post on the web, insofar as they have the technical capacity to do so, contact points - websites where anyone interested in trade can find necessary information to buy and sell goods and services across borders. We are entering an era of big data and artificial intelligence. It will be increasingly possible to know much more about trade so that we can be sure that barriers to trade are understood, and mutually beneficial solutions can be found to lift those barriers. While, as noted, there is a very large amount of data notified to the WTO and made available to Members and the public on proposed product standards, sanitary and phyto sanitary (plant) standards, and national environmental regulations, what we do not know is the number and kind of regulations that are not being notified. We also do not know when trade is measured in a world now characterized by global value chains (GVCs), the actual origins of the trade by value and volume. This is more than a question of improving our knowledge base for analytical purposes, the role of technology in enabling traceability throughout the GVCs can improve food safety. The countries of Africa have agreed to establish a Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA). According to reports, once it comes into effect, the Agreement will cover a market of 1.2 billion people in 55 nations with a combined gross domestic product of $2.5 trillion. The African Union indicates that the agreement will reduce tariffs and boost intra-African trade dramatically after import duties are eliminated. The agreement is focused on diversifying exports away from commodities such as minerals just taken out of the ground and exported without adding further value. It also seeks to enhance the chances for small and medium enterprises to have access to more regional destinations. The world can do more to help African economic development. As one example, from an area in which I am involved, is that the WTO hosts efforts of donor countries to work with some of the poorest countries in the world, to increase their income from growing and using cotton. In June, at the suggestion of Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali, interested WTO members will bring together experts from around the world to determine how poor cotton producing countries can increase yields and make profitable use of cotton by-products including seeds (to yield oil and to make the seeds themselves edible), as well as leaves, stems and from what is often waste to make products such as fibre-board for construction. With more information, in short more data and the use perhaps of AI to support analyses, both assistance and trade rules could be tailored to better promote development, country-by-country, sector by sector. In addition, increasing availability of data will permit transparency with respect to foreign fishing vessels suspected of despoiling the environment by depleting fish stocks while depriving local fishing communities of their livelihoods, undermining food security, and fuelling piracy as alternative employment. Exploitation of these natural resources without fully sharing benefits with local peoples is all too reminiscent of some of the worst aspects of colonialism. The WTO Members and the WTO Secretariat are actively engaged in helping developing country Members fulfil the promise of the Trade Facilitation Agreement, which requires more than anything else the public availability of data (through national websites) to lower barriers to trade. Achieving this objective is estimated to lower costs of trade by as much as 14%. In addition, trade finance can be revived from its downturn after the 2008 financial crisis by the use of Big Data to re-build the trust of large financial institutions in smaller intermediaries that extend credit for trade. Technology now enables support for development that could not have existed just a few years ago. For example, there is a nongovernmental organization in London that advises farmers in East Africa through their cell phones when it is time to put lime on their crops. Another example is a company in Kenya that sells crop insurance to local farmers and makes pay-outs based not on claims but on satellite imaging that detects drought conditions. The world of trade is changing, and the multilateral trade rules, and their administration must change with them. The WTO is currently updating its document management system through outsourcing to a world-class Indian firm. India can be a leader in e-commerce in many areas. China is a leader in artificial intelligence. There was an article about the attempt in China to use facial recognition software and other forms of data collection to identify which pigs on large farms coughed, so that the sick could be segregated by farmers from the well, preventing the spread of swine flu. China is working on digitalization of agriculture to move crops from areas of production to distant customers to both raise the level of income of farmers and improve the lives of consumers. Advances in technology as well as changes in climate, demographic trends and a number of other major factors are going to keep trade patterns and the nature of trade changing. The WTO must adapt to the conditions that exist today and prepare for the future. We are now a bit like Columbus, without full knowledge of what we will find and what needs to be done, but we are headed for new areas to improve the world trading system, to work to create WTO Version 2.0. With the development of big data, the cloud and AI, the tools in the future will be vastly better than what we have today. These tools will be in your hands, the next generation. Trade has increased by nearly four times since the WTO was created. Much more progress can be made. You will be able to create a much better and prosperous world through trade, a fairer world, where even small enterprises have access to international markets, where opportunities are available regardless of gender, where income levels are higher, where there is adequate food, and where there is a better chance for peace. That is the challenge that I will leave you with today. Thank you. Notes: Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El Sisi received on Monday a telephone call from German Chancellor Angela Merkel where they discussed a number of regional issues including the situations in Libya and Sudan, according presidential spokesman Bassam Rady. President El-Sisi shed light on the unity and stability of Libya as well as Egypt's support for efforts to combat terror groups and extremist militias, which pose threats not only for Libya but also for the stability and security of the entire Middle East and European countries. Merkel expressed her country's keenness on reaching a political solution to the Libyan crisis with a dialogue between the Libyan parties and stressed the importance stepping up efforts to end the deterioration of conditions in the Arab country. President El-Sisi also asserted that Egypt is closely following up on the conditions in Sudan, pointing out that Egypt backs the choices of the Sudanese people without interference in the African country's internal affairs. Merkel expressed her keenness on developing cooperation with Egypt in various domains, while the president said he looks forward to continuing joint efforts to cement the two countries' relations. Search Keywords: Short link: MERIDEN Stop & Shop workers continued picketing on day five of their strike, bolstered by support from public officials and other unions. At the Stop & Shop on East Main Street, workers from the United Food and Commercial Workers Locals 371 and 919 wore and carried signs, while few customers went into the store. About 31,000 workers in three states, represented by five unions, are on strike. Chemical workers are part of the UFCW and chemical workers are not going to be going near any Stop & Shop, said Frank Cyphers, president of the International Chemical Workers Union Council of the UFCW. Stop & Shop has said offers to the union include wage increases while keeping health care costs below market rates. A spokesperson for the company couldnt be reached for comment Monday. On its labor negotiations webpage, Stop & Shop said it continues to bargain in good faith with the unions. The wages and benefits we provide for our full-time employees...are among the best among New England supermarkets and pay and benefits for part-time associates are very competitive, according to the statement. Stop & Shop is currently owned by Ahold Delhaize, a company based in Brussels, Belgium, which was formed in July 2016 from the merger of Ahold, which bought Stop & Shop in 1996, and the Delhaize Group. The grocery chain is headquartered in Quincy, Massachusetts. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, visited the Wallingford store on Monday. It is one of 15 he has visited since the strike began. You know about this company, Blumenthal told the 35 workers assembled outside the store. They made about $2 billion in profits last year. They increased their dividends by 11 percent to shareholders just a couple of weeks ago yielding $880 million in stock dividends. They can do the right thing for you. In a conversation with Stop & Shop President Mark McGowan early Monday, Blumenthal asked him to come to the table with a fair offer. McGowan told him they are waiting for the next union proposal. I told him, you need to do better, Blumenthal said. Former store manager Scott Germain, of Wallingford, came out to greet the workers. Germain had worked for Stop & Shop for 41 years, 11 at the Wallingford store. He retired January 1. These are all my employees, Germain said. I support all the people. I understand both sides of the story. As a corporate entity, they want the best contract they can get. When it comes to a strike, no one wins. The people I know here, all they want is a fair contract. Few customers Few customers were going to Stop & Shops across the three states, according to news reports. Inside the Wallingford store, there were few customers. The bakery, deli and seafood sections were empty, but thousands of fresh cut flowers sat in containers in front of the store in time for Easter. The Meriden store was open Monday. The missing workers were replaced by two managers and a security guard, the employees said. Over the weekend, Blumenthal and other Democratic lawmakers, including Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz and state Sen. Mary Abrams, D-Meriden, visited the workers and brought food and beverages. Contract negotiations between the five unions and Stop & Shop management have stalled over increased health care premiums, decreases in pension contributions, and an effort to cut higher pay rates for Sunday shifts for new hires. According to produce worker Bob Bugai, the change will mean only new employees will work Sundays because its cheaper. They are trying to eliminate as much as they can, Local 919 President Mark Espinosa said in a video message to workers. The company is already impacted. They are recognizing the lack of sales, the support from other unions, politicians, the publics reaction. Union officials told Stop & Shop workers the grocer lost $90 million in sales in the strikes first three days. The figure doesnt include Palm Sunday, a significant grocery shopping day. We have to upgrade production, said Kelly Moravsky of Southington, a floral manager and union steward for Local 919. The bakeshop, floral; theyre going to lose after were back. We all want to go back to work. This is harder than working a full shift. This is not fun but we do what we need to do. Carole Gibertoni, of Meriden, went into Stop & Shop to pick up her prescription but is buying her groceries elsewhere. Yes, I support them, because every worker in every line is getting a hard time, she said. But some shoppers were willing to cross the picket line to avoid traveling to other stores. Jorge Sanchez came out of Stop & Shop carrying a few bags and his baby daughter in an infant carrier. What can I do? Sanchez said. I still got to get my own stuff. I have to eat. I dont want to take a long drive to Wal-Mart. mgodin@record-journal.com 203-317-2255 Twitter: @Cconnbiz A group of state lawmakers is fighting back against discussions to possibly eliminate a religious exemption to the requirement that Connecticut schoolchildren be vaccinated, arguing it would be unconstitutional. The 44 senators and representatives, mostly Republicans, have sent a letter to Democratic Attorney General William Tong expressing their belief that ending the exemption would prevent parents from freely exercising their right to religion and violate their rights by essentially preventing their unvaccinated children from being allowed to attend public school. We hope you will join us in our firm conviction that Connecticut should never be a state that favors certain religious beliefs to the exclusion of others. Such action is, in fact, the very definition of discrimination, the lawmakers wrote. The letter is in response to Democratic House Majority Leader Matt Ritter of Hartford, who recently sought an opinion from Tong on the federal and state constitutionality of eliminating the exemption. Ritter said he believes the exemption is being abused and should be scrapped in light of the uptick in measles and other outbreaks across the U.S. A spokeswoman for Tong said the letter from the group of lawmakers, which includes members of the General Assemblys 14-member conservative caucus, will be addressed in his official opinion, likely to be released next month. Ritter angered a group of parents when he said last month the General Assembly should vote on whether to eliminate Connecticuts religious exemption within the next 12 months. Ritter has noted that three states California, Mississippi and West Virginia currently do not have a religious or philosophical exemption for required school immunizations. While he believes exempting Connecticuts exemption would be OK under federal law, he asked Tong to review the claim that it would violate Connecticuts constitution, which includes a provision for free and equitable education. If the exemption was eliminated, unvaccinated children would not be admitted to school, with the exception of those with medical exemptions. Republican Rep. Anne Dauphinais of Killingly, who helped to gather signatures for the group letter, said she believes theres strong support in the General Assembly for protecting the religious exemption, including from some legislators who didnt want to add their name for political reasons. She said they believe the religious exemption is one thing you just dont mess with. Dauphinais said theres also strong support for the exemption from members of the public, especially groups that have raised concerns about vaccine safety. They will certainly be challenged in Connecticut if they try to put that forth, she said. Theres a mighty group in this state and theres many legal attorneys involved as well. It wont go down easy, I can tell you that, if it becomes an issue. CHEYENNE An executive order from President Donald Trump that could help pave the way for coal exports garnered praise from Wyoming leadership this week. But critics see it as a way to lessen local control over issues of water quality in favor of industry's bottom line. One of the executive orders Trump signed Wednesday is aimed at preventing states from using the Clean Water Act to delay or kill energy projects. The most pertinent example for Wyoming is Washington state stopping the construction of a coal export terminal in 2017. Gov. Mark Gordon and the state Legislature have cited Washington's refusal to let that project move forward as a major disruption of Wyoming's economy. "I am delighted President Trump issued his Executive Order directing the Environmental Protection Agency to modernize guidance on the application of Section 401 of the Clean Water Act," Gordon said in a statement Wednesday. "I stand with governors across the land in asserting our states' rights to access markets foreign and domestic, as well as to protect the water, air and environment of our respective states." Gordon said Washington state has abused Section 401 to prevent Wyoming and other states from benefiting from global trade. "In issuing this executive order, President Trump sets the stage to help correct the misapplication of the Clean Water Act that has been used inappropriately by some states to stymie the industries and commerce of others, and I commend him for that," Gordon said. "Far from weakening environmental regulation, this executive order re-centers the application of the law on its original purpose as a tool to protect our water quality, not a platform for electioneering." The move was praised by Sens. Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, R-Wyo., as well. Both of Wyoming's senators are also currently sponsoring a bill in the Senate to review the Clean Water Act and prevent it from being used as a tool to fight energy development. "It is a welcome change to see the federal government taking steps to help encourage American energy development, instead of looking for more ways to throw up red tape to block it," Enzi said. "Projects like the Millennium Bulk Terminal in Washington would provide a boost not only for Wyoming's coal mines, but for America's economy as a whole." Wyoming has supported private companies' efforts to sue Washington to allow the coal export terminal to move forward. But Gordon recently vetoed House Bill 251, sponsored by state Rep. Chuck Gray, R-Casper, which authorized the Legislature to sue to allow Wyoming's coal to be exported through Washington state. While Gordon said he agreed with the goal of the bill, he didn't want to create redundant legal efforts that could cause confusion later on. The Western Governors Association, of which Wyoming is a member, expressed some reservations about the executive order. The group praised the executive order's direction to the EPA to work with states on developing new policies for water quality certification, but expressed worry about the potential ramifications on a state's right to administer its portion of the Clean Water Act. "Western governors are eager to work with the Administration to advance efficient environmental review, siting and permitting processes for energy infrastructure that do not shorten timelines for state input and consultation, or compromise natural resource, wildlife, environmental quality or cultural values," the group said in response to the executive order. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, whose state is also a member of the WGA, said in a joint statement with Washington's attorney general that he was vehemently opposed to the executive order. He promised to fight the order in court. Inslee is currently running for the Democratic nomination for president on a platform primarily focused on climate change. "The president's action (Wednesday) is an unprecedented assault on the right and obligation of every state to protect their waters and their communities," Inslee said. "No amount of politicking will change the facts - states have full authority under the Clean Water Act to protect our waters and ensure the health and safety of our people. "We stand with governors and attorneys general across the country in opposing this dangerous attack on our environment and our families' right to clean water. We intend to challenge any attempt by the administration to illegally constrain Washington's authority to protect our state's natural resources." Board of Medicine suspends physicians license GREYBULL (WNE) The Wyoming Board of Medicine has suspended the license of a Casper physician who spent nearly two decades of his career at South Big Horn County Hospital before his resignation in March of 2017. The order of summary suspension against Demar Dusty Hill alleges that he failed to comply with the terms of a monitoring agreement with the Wyoming Professional Assistance Program (WPAP) by returning to his job at Cedars Health in Casper before he was discharged from a treatment program for an opioid addiction at the Professional Renewal Center in Lawrence, Kansas. The suspension order, dated March 27, 2019, also sheds light on an investigation that began while Hill was employed by South Big Horn County Hospital, where hed worked since the summer of 1998. His resignation in March of 2017 sent shock waves through the community and hospital district. The suspension order's findings of fact states that the Board of Medicine received a written complaint against Hill from the executive director of the Wyoming Board of Pharmacy in August of 2016, advising that possible diversion of oxycodone was occurring in the Basin-Greybull area. The order states, It was alleged that Dr. Hill would prescribe oxycodone 15 mg or 30 mg to patients who were opiate naive, then when the patient called to report that the medication was making them sick, he would tell the patient to bring the remainder of the prescription back and he would trade it for another prescription that the patient could tolerate. The document also alleges that Hill would go into the patients home, give the lower dose of pills or a prescription for them, and retrieve the higher dose of pills. ---- Cody man charged with stabbing wife CODY (WNE) A Cody man is facing charges for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, accused of stabbing his wife in her back with a knife March 20. Police officers arrested Ryan Quinn, 34, after the incident. After Quinn slammed Kymberli Quinns head against a bathtub by her hair and punched her in the face, the victim said she was able to get out of the bathroom. During the physical altercation, Quinn allegedly made a comment about needing to kill her, according to Cody police officer Rick Tillery. As his wife was engaged in a 911 call placed from her cellphone while standing in the trailer home kitchen, Quinn grabbed a 13.25-inch knife with a serrated blade and stabbed her, the affidavit said. The victim fell to her back, staring back up at Quinn as he hovered over her and appeared to consider stabbing her again, she told officers. But as Quinn hesitated, she was able to grab the blade of the knife, ensuing in a short struggle for control of the weapon, ending in the knife blade being broken off at the handle, the affidavit said. She was then able to get away from Quinns grip and escape the residence. Quinn has pleaded not guilty to the felony, which carries up to 10 years in prison and $10,000 fine. He has also pleaded not guilty for two separate counts of domestic battery, interference with an emergency call and driving under the influence of alcohol, misdemeanor charges carrying a total of up to two years in prison and $3,000. Newcastle to test biochar at compost site NEWCASTLE (WNE) The city is testing a new program that turns wooded waste collected at the city compost site into biochar instead of grinding the waste into a wood chip product. On April 1, Travis Peterson, city arborist, told the Newcastle City Council that he had recently tested a process for turning the waste into biochar and that it was cheaper. According to Peterson, the city realized an annual net gain of $30,101.70. Biochar is a charcoal used as a valuable soil additive, according to biochar-international.org. Peterson said he has been kicking around the idea of turning collected waste at the compost site into biochar but had not acted on the idea until now. He said that he burned down the waste in two different pit kilns to provide a safe and clean controlled batch burn. The biochar conversion limits the volume of product the city has to deal with and saves the city money, Peterson said. According to Peterson, the wooded waste collected in 2017 was ground by contracting a company from Montana and total cost to the city was $13,591. The volume of the chips created was 675 cubic yards, enough to fill 18 school buses. Turning the 2018 collected waste into biochar, according to Peterson, cost the city a total of $1,378.30 and created 67 cubic yards of volume, enough to fill nearly two school buses. The value of the biochar from the 2019 pilot project is $17,889 at $267 a cubic yard, Peterson said. The annual net gain for the City of Newcastle is $30,101.70. Colorado men arrested for cocaine delivery SUNDANCE Two Colorado men face a lengthy list of felony charges after being caught with a sizeable amount of cocaine in the vehicle they claimed to be driving to visit a friend in North Dakota. On March 30, a Crook County Sheriffs Office deputy was patrolling I-90 when he observed a red SUV with Colorado plates traveling at 97 mph, above the posted 80 mph speed limit. The deputy initiated a traffic stop near the Wyoming border. The deputy made contact with two males in the front seats. He notes in his affidavit that, while speaking to the driver, later identified as Paul Williams, passenger Aaron Gonzales began speaking for him and speaking quickly when talking about the SUV. Williams gave consent for the vehicle to be searched. In the driver door storage area, the deputy allegedly observed a plastic container consistent with marijuana from a dispensary; inside, he observed a green leafy bud. In the rear compartment, the deputy located a paper sack with a receipt for 14.05 g of Colins OG marijuana. He also found a gift sack, inside of which was a vacuum-sealed package containing a white substance and a plastic bag. The seized items were weighed at the Sheriffs Office. The white substance in the vacuum-sealed package weighed more than 19 ounces. Testing of the white substance later revealed it to be cocaine. Gonzales and Williams face felony charges of possession of cocaine; possession of cocaine with intent to deliver; conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with intent to deliver; conspiracy to possess cocaine. Disputed Johnson County tax funds to be distributed BUFFALO (WNE) More than $130,000 in long-escrowed tax dollars will be distributed to Johnson County special districts after the settlement of the Concord Energy tax protest case. The biggest benefactor of the funds will be local schools, which will receive $86,997. Of this amount, $60,605 will go directly to the Johnson County School District, $1,955 will go to the Johnson County Recreation District and $978 will go to the Board of Cooperative Education Services or BOCES. The state school foundation will receive $23,460, which will be used to fund school construction throughout the state, according to County Treasurer Carla Bishop. Johnson County will receive $18,291 for general operations of the county. The Johnson County Board of Equalization composed of the county commissioners voted unanimously to settle the Concord Energy tax appeal on March 19. Concord first came before the county BOE in late September to appeal former County Assessor Cindy Barlow's assessment of its property for the 2018 tax year. The county board ultimately agreed with Eggers and voted unanimously to remand the assessment to Barlow for reconsideration. While Barlow had appealed the county's ruling to the Wyoming Board of Equalization, Eggers and Deputy County Attorney Barry Crago negotiated a settlement that would prevent the case from going to the state board. Eggers and Crago eventually agreed on an assessment of $17 million for Concords property in fiscal 2018. --- Competency review hearing held for murder suspect LOVELL (WNE) A trial involving a man who allegedly killed his ex-wife Carol Barnes more than a year ago will move forward after a hearing on April 2. A competency review hearing was held in Big Horn County Fifth Judicial District Court to go over the evaluation that was performed on Donald Joe Crouse at the Wyoming State Hospital. At his Dec. 18, 2018, arraignment, Crouse pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental illness. Due to the plea, Judge Bobbi Dean Overfield had ordered that an evaluation be done at the Wyoming State Hospital to determine whether he was competent to stand trial. Crouse appeared in person with his attorney, Timothy Blatt, at the hearing on Tuesday. The victims family was also present in the courtroom. Big Horn County Attorney Marcia Bean told Overfield that Crouse has been found competent to stand trial. She recommended proceeding to the trial that is tentatively set in June. Bean informed the court that she would have a decision on whether her office will seek the death penalty within 30 days. Department of Education, Microsoft partner for computer education CHEYENNE (WNE) School districts will have some help from Microsoft in their mandate to offer computer science to all students by the 2022-23 school year. The Wyoming Department of Education on Tuesday announced a new partnership with Microsoft and CSforALL, an organization with the mission of incorporating computer science into K-12 education. Microsofts TechSpark initiative is giving the state more than $95,000 to train school districts on implementing computer science curriculum. The training is called SCRIPT, or Strategic CSforALL Resource and Implementation Planning Tool. It was designed by CSforALL to train teams of district administrators and educators to create or expand computer science education in their districts. Students in every school district in Wyoming will have the option to take computer science courses by the 2022-23 school year, per legislation passed last year. Wyoming is the first state to require such education. Given the challenges in implementing an entirely new subject area, the training is needed, said Laurel Ballard, Student/Teacher Resources Team supervisor for the state Department of Education. There was a lot of confusion about whats going on, Ballard said. Shes been the liaison between the state and individual districts, focusing on addressing what districts say they need to meet computer science requirements. Ballard said districts have raised concerns about funding and teacher credentialing. She said once districts go through the training, the whole process will be less overwhelming, and districts may have an easier time facing their other challenges. UW proposes cutting a week from winter break LARAMIE (WNE) University of Wyoming administrators are proposing revisions to the schools academic calendar that would give students a full week off for Thanksgiving Break while shortening winter break from five weeks to four, with spring semester beginning the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The proposed calendar changes would go into effect in fall 2020 and run through spring 2023. The calendar committee that produced the proposal was chaired by Honors College Dean Donal Skinner and included numerous faculty and administrative representatives, as well as leaders from Staff Senate, the UW Alumni Association and ASUW the schools student government. From a student travel perspective, this was seen as advantageous, Skinner told trustees about the proposal for a full week off for Thanksgiving. Also, a lot of students (leave for a full week) anyways. This is kind of acknowledging the existing situation. In recent years, classes have begun on either a Monday or Wednesday, sometimes after Labor Day. The proposed calendars would have classes always start on a Monday, and always two weeks before Labor Day. The proposal would also build in a three-day weekend during the middle of both fall and spring semesters, while ensuring final exams in both semesters occur in a single week, and not two weeks, as was in the case in the last two fall semesters. In total, the calendars would mean six more instructional days each year. Northwest College faces budget Cuts POWELL (WNE) Community colleges across the state are struggling with falling enrollment figures, and Northwest College is not immune to the trend. The issue was on the agenda for Mondays Board of Trustees meeting and the declining numbers will most likely impact the schools budget for the coming school year. You all know our enrollment doesnt look good, NWC President Stefani Hicswa told the board. Fall 2018 enrollment numbers at NWC showed an unduplicated headcount of 1,524 students, a decline of 10 percent from the previous year. It was also the lowest headcount at Wyomings seven community colleges. Over the past five years, NWCs unduplicated enrollment has dropped nearly 23 percent, whereas the state as a whole saw a 13 percent drop. In the past decade, the drop was nearly 16 percent for NWC and 11 percent for the states community colleges overall. As for full-time equivalent enrollment which is the total credit hours taken by all students, divided by a full-time semester load of 12 credit hours NWC had the equivalent of 1,359 students last year. That was a 12.3 percent drop over the prior year, while Wyomings other community colleges saw decreases of a few percentage points. As NWC enrollment falls, so does revenue from tuition. State funding, meanwhile, is based on average enrollment numbers at all of Wyomings community colleges. We are, therefore, in the process of getting input from budget managers and doing analysis to determine what reductions will need to be made, Hicswa said. Unfortunately, a shrinking budget may also hurt enrollment in the future: Without the funding to maintain competitive compensation, Hicswa explained, the school might lose good faculty and staff. The Orban cabinet is preparing to regulate Facebook, as the social media network may wish to vet pro-government advertisements in the EU election campaign, according to HVG. The cabinet denies the claim. Until now Fidesz has profited from the fact that its sometimes false anti-refugee videos have reached millions of people, now it is expressing concerns about freedom of speech, the weekly adds. In most countries Facebook will introduce a so-called white list of safe media products, but not in Hungary, HVG reports in its latest print edition. The weekly says Facebook decided that it will allow news posted on its website to be disseminated only following preliminary checks and controls, in an effort to prevent the spread of fake news. No media outlet in Hungary has been exempted from preliminary checks because leading Facebook officials say that a significant part of the domestic media is not reliable enough. A Facebook employee privately explained the Hungarian situation at an international journalists festival in Perugia last week by saying the word Kesma, referring to the foundation that controls Fidesz press products. HVG said it is probably no coincidence that the pro-Fidesz Szazadveg institute came up with proposals to regulate Facebook at a conference on Monday. A declaration following the conference on censorship and free speech listed eight ways in which nation states should regulate social media, especially Facebook, including the punishment of Facebooks censors with the force of criminal law. The foundation of the Hungarian Museum of Trade and Tourism was preceded by a lot of experimenting. The museum, which is the only such museum in the world, has its exhibition material collected from the area of Hungary. The idea of creating gastronomy history museums can be traced back to the end of the 19th century. In addition to the private collection of Frigyes Gluck (1858-1931), who was an outstanding figure of the Hungarian hotel and catering trade, following WW1 a significant collection of catering industry equipment, menus, menu cards and photos have been retained by the Hotel and Catering Industry Association for a future museum. It was founded in 1966, and started its operation in the World Heritage Buda Castle, in the building of the former Fortuna Inn, after which the street was also named, where it was in operation until 2005. As of September, 2006, the museum opened its gates at a new location in District V, next to the Szent Istvan Bazilika, in a building designed by Bela Lajta (formerly housing the Hungarian Foreign Trade Bank). Now it is placed at Obuda, in the District III. Initially the collection of the museum contained only catering-industry relics, which was later extended with a collection of trade history relics. The institution has the functions of an industry history museum, and meets the requirements of specialized-museology. The trade history relics collection consists of signboards, name-boards, store furniture and equipment, tools and scales, as well as of tools of trade administration, merchandise samples, merchandise boxes and bottles, souvenirs and promotion materials, etc. The collection of documentations contains certificate- and archive type materials, account books, invoices, price lists. The advertisements prints (posters, bill slips, leaflets) arose the interests of both professionals and private individuals. The catering history relics collection include furniture, equipment and tools from restaurants and confectioners shops. Among the serving dishes and the eating and drinking utensils those with the emblem of a catering business (cafe house, confectioners shop, restaurant, etc.) are, from the aspect of trade history, of special value. The largest group of the documentation collection is the collection of menus and menu cards. The document and archives collection, as well as the small prints collection have less pieces, but they are of the same value. The historic collection of the museum is supplemented by a related fine art collection, numismatic and photo collection. The museum also has a specialized library. The museum preserves the past and it serves the future, therefore it is also at the disposal of cultural institutions and of the sectors and schools of the profession. With its special tools it supports programs which reach out to a large number of people and also inspire tourism. The many sided historical representation of the relationship between gastronomy, trade, tourism and culture is an important element of the scientific, educational and general educational activities. It is a special responsibility of the museum to effectively take part in teaching and in further education, as well as to help in career orientation. It supports the broadening of professional knowledge by guided tours, unusual school classes, lectures, contests, etc. In addition to the temporary exhibitions at Szent Istvan square the museum also has chamber exhibitions at the Pilvax Restaurant, the Corinthia Grand Hotel Royal, the Gundel restaurant, the Erzsebet Hotel, the Budapest Business School, and at the Bekescsaba and Mezotur High Schools of Trade. Address: 1036 Budapest, Korona ter 1. More: mkvm.com Marijuana is becoming more accepted both for medical use and, increasingly, for recreation. In the U.S., 33 states allow medical cannabis, and 10 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized pot for recreational use. Several others, including Connecticut, are considering doing so. For many states, legal marijuana is seen as a potentially lucrative business. According to New Frontier Data, a leading cannabis market research and data analysis firm, legal weed was a $10.4 billion industry in the U.S. in 2018. And this year, the combined North American market is expected to reach more than $16 billion. Here in Connecticut, lawmakers approved medical marijuana in 2012, and state legislators now appear more ready than ever to approve broad legalization. Seeing the potential to generate some serious tax revenue from the burgeoning marijuana industry, while potentially creating local jobs, Connecticut municipalities have been vying to house medical marijuana dispensaries. The state Department of Consumer Protection recently announced licenses for nine medical dispensaries, and one in Meriden made the list. Willow Brook Wellness, LLC, will soon open on East Main Street, becoming the first medical marijuana dispensary in the city. Willow Brook was one of 73 applicants after the DCP announced it was looking to add dispensaries in parts of the state with limited access to medical marijuana. Meanwhile, last week, the Meriden Planning Commission unanimously voted to approve an application filed by a medical marijuana production and research company looking to relocate from Portland to Research Parkway. Connecticut Pharmaceutical Solutions, one of four medical marijuana producers licensed by the DCP, received local approval to occupy space at the former 170,000-square-foot Canberra Industries building at 800 Research Parkway. Connecticut Pharmaceutical Solutions is looking to relocate because it has outgrown its current 20,000-square-foot facility in Portland. Meriden Planning Commission members expressed overwhelming support for the new business after questioning Connecticut Pharmaceutical Solutions CEO and the companys director of security. The relocation now requires approval from the DCP. It makes sense for Meriden to be taking advantage of the already legalized medical marijuana situation. How much further the state is willing to go remains to be seen, as state lawmakers continue to work through the ramifications of legalizing marijuana for recreational use. A Florida man was fatally injured Friday by a cassowary, an emu-like animal once dubbed the worlds most dangerous bird. Marvin Hajos, 75, was severely injured by the bird, which he owned, and later died at a local hospital, Alachua County Sheriffs Office spokesman Lt. Brett Rhodenizer told PEOPLE. Rhodenizer said that a medical examiners report has not yet been completed and that Hajos birds remain on private property as of Saturday. Alachua County Fire Rescue Deputy Chief Jeff Taylor told PEOPLE that there were two cassowaries on site and that Hajos had raised both of them. Cassowary | Education Images/UIG/Getty It appears that the gentleman who was killed raised the birds and was injured after falling in a path near the cassowary enclosure, Taylor said. Its unclear whether one or both birds took part in the attack. The incident is being investigated by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission and our local Sheriffs Department. Our crews worked very hard to give the victim the best chance possible at survival. Tragically, he did not survive. He was doing what he loved, a woman who said she was Hajos fiancee told the Gainesville Sun. Cassowaries are large, flightless birds known for a horn-like bump on the top of their heads, distinctive bright blue necks, and jet-black feathers. They are native to New Guinea and Australia. RELATED: Florida Man Survives Bear Attack in His Backyard: It Was the Hardest Punch Ive Ever Taken The birds have a 4-inch dagger-like claw on their inner toes that can easily slice a predator with one kick, according to the San Diego Zoo. Despite their large size females can weigh up to 167 pounds, and males 121 pounds cassowaries can jump nearly 7 feet in the air, run up to 31 miles per hour, and are excellent swimmers, according to the zoo. RELATED VIDEO: Bear Mauls and Kills Man in India, After Man Tries to Take Selfie with Injured Animal A 2016 article from the Smithsonian described them as the worlds most dangerous bird. Story continues On each three-toed foot, one nail is longer than the rest, the article explains of the cassowarys claw. At five inches, its probably the closest thing youll find in nature to a railway spike. It isnt particularly sharp, but it is deadly. RELATED: North Carolina High School Teacher, 77, Killed After Vicious and Mysterious Animal Attack Cassowaries are listed as a Class II species under the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commissions captive wildlife regulations and require a permit to own. Class II wildlife can also pose a danger to people, and require owners to have substantial experience and specific cage requirements. Other animals in the same class include alligators, clouded leopards, giraffes, wolves, coyotes and jackals. Rick Johnston was in a dark place after an injury left him unable to use the right side of his body but for World Art Day on Monday, Johnston looks back on how painting helped him work through his struggles. Johnston, 49, tells PEOPLE he was working as a manager at a Fortune 500 company in May 2015 when he began feeling sick. As he headed to see a nurse, Johnston blacked out. He describes his condition as a brain-related illness, noting that he was left barely able to walk and speak. My brain essentially shut off, says Johnston, of Putnam County, Indiana. Along the way, my speech was taken from me and my ability to walk was taken. I have been to every major medical facility and its still an anomaly as to what happened. My brain is telling my body that Ive had a stroke. The right side of my body is completely numb. With his speech impaired, Johnston was introduced to a speech pathologist, Shelly Hunt. He says their first sessions were tough. Rick Johnston | Courtesy Rick Johnston/The Bearded Painter I was hurt, I was bitter. I was very angry about my situation and she dug in and would not let me quit, he tells PEOPLE. I gave Shelly every opportunity to give up on me. The depression was real. It was Hunt a speech therapist at IU Health West Hospital in Avon who suggested that Johnston take up painting to exercise his brain. I told her she was silly. My exact words were, Youre crazy. I cant paint. Im not an artist by any stretch, he says, adding that he had never been good at painting or drawing during his school years. RELATED: California Artist with Autism Uses His Synesthesia to Paint Vivid Portraits: I See Beautiful Colors in My Dreams Still, he decided to try. Johnston began painting on small index cards and instantly the colors really started to make sense to me, he tells PEOPLE. I did it almost out of spite to show Shelly that she was silly, he recalls. But I started going through multiple index cards and I couldnt stop painting. I was driven. Along the way, it started to take off a lot of the tension and the anxiety I had. Story continues Rick Johnston | Courtesy Rick Johnston/The Bearded Painter Johnston then began painting on canvases, and his familys Coatesville home was soon filled with his creations. I paint every day. I have painted for three days straight. Within the last 27 hours, Ive painted five paintings. Sleep is not something I get a lot of. It is great joy when I paint, he says. Ive been given a gift, Johnston adds. I used to try to explain it, to put some validity behind it. But I dont do that anymore. I dont question it. I dont question why all of a sudden I can paint. Im just very thankful that I can. Johnston says he never intended to share his work with the public, but his 21-year-old daughter, Lauren Johnston, couldnt help but show the world her fathers talent. Rick Johnston | Courtesy Rick Johnston/The Bearded Painter She started a Facebook group called The Bearded Painter, where she shares her fathers work, some of which is even available for purchase. I have aligned myself with a couple of not-for-profit [organizations], and I give the funds that I make off paintings to those non-profits, he tells PEOPLE. Paying it forward is the greatest paycheck you will ever get in life. The joy from that is the best feeling in the world, he says through tears. What I hope comes out of this, if I have helped one person to not give up, if this journey that Im on helps one person to not quit, not let adversity push them down, says Rick, who connects with people facing similar illnesses via Facebook Messenger. Thats a pretty special thing to say that you were able to change somebodys life. Photo credit: Jenny Anderson - Getty Images From Esquire The next James Bond film, known (for now) as Bond 25, because it's the twenty-fifth 007 movie from Eon Productions, is scheduled for release one year from now. Production on the film is expected to start soon-pre-production in Norway, Italy, and Pinewood Studios in the U.K. has already begun-but the team behind the movie is still tinkering with the screenplay. And now the producers have reportedly enlisted an acclaimed writer, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, to punch up the script. Waller-Bridge was brought on at the request of Daniel Craig for her "wit and quirkiness," according to the Guardian, which broke the news over the weekend. She created, wrote, and starred in the beloved BBC show Fleabag, and developed Killing Eve for TV. For the past few weeks, Waller-Bridge has been in New York City for a stage version of Fleabag, the Guardian said. Craig lives in New York with his wife Rachel Weisz. Photo credit: Walter McBride - Getty Images "Sources close to the film in the U.S. said that while in the country she discussed with Craig how to improve the script of Bond 25, which the 007 actor felt needed some 'polishing,' by introducing more humor and the offbeat style of writing she is best known for," the Guardian reported. Bond 25 has been plagued with trouble since Danny Boyle, who was tapped to direct the film, parted ways with the film over creative differences in 2018. Cary Joji Fukunaga, best known for creating HBO's True Detective, was brought on as his replacement. Waller-Bridge is at least the fifth person to work on the script. Boyle worked with John Hodge, who adapted Trainspotting for the screen. Then Neil Purvis and Robert Wade, who have worked on previous Bond films, came aboard, followed earlier this year by Scott Z. Burns, who wrote the screenplay for The Bourne Ultimatum. Waller-Bridge is only the second woman known to have worked on a Bond script. Johanna Harwood, who was the Bond producer Harry Saltzman's secretary, helped on the first and second 007 films, Dr. No and From Russian With Love, according to the Guardian. ('You Might Also Like',) Kim Kardashian Slams People Who Say She Can Get a Law Degree Due to 'Privilege' and 'Money' Kim Kardashian West was well aware that her decision to become a lawyer would be met with a collective eyeroll but shes not letting that stop her. In a lengthy Instagram post Monday, the soon-to-be mother of four shut down trolls pointing out that she doesnt have a college degree. Last year I registered with the California State Bar to study law, she began. For the next 4 years, a minimum of 18 hours a week is required, I will take written and multiple choice tests monthly. As my first year is almost coming to an end I am preparing for the baby bar, a mini version of the bar, which is required when studying law this way. Kardashian West, 38, revealed her career aspirations in a recent interview with Vogue, announcing that she decided last summer to begin a four-year apprenticeship with a law firm in San Francisco, with the goal of taking the bar in 2022. Though she did attend Pierce College in Los Angeles for some time, she never graduated. However, California, as well as three other U.S. states, offer another path to passing the bar by reading the law, or apprenticing with a practicing lawyer or judge. If Kardashian West passes the baby bar this summer, she will be given the okay to continue for three more years of study. Ive seen some comments from people who are saying its my privilege or my money that got me here, but thats not the case, Kardashian West wrote on Instagram. One person actually said I should stay in my lane. I want people to understand that there is nothing that should limit your pursuit of your dreams, and the accomplishment of new goals. You can create your own lanes, just as I am. The state bar doesnt care who you are, she added. Everyone can take this route if you live in a state where this is allowed. RELATED: Kim Kardashian Is Studying for the Bar Exam Can She Become a Lawyer Without a College Degree? Story continues Its true I did not finish college, she acknowledged. You need 60 college credits (I had 75) to take part in reading the law, which is an in-office law school being apprenticed by lawyers. For anyone assuming this is the easy way out, its not. My weekends are spent away from my kids while I read and study. I work all day, put my kids to bed and spend my nights studying. Kardashian West admitted to feeling overwhelmed at times but said she gets the pep talks I need from the people around me supporting me. And as for anyone who doesnt believe shes truly committed to her goal? I changed my number last year and disconnected from everyone because I have made this strict commitment to follow a dream of mine, she said. Its never too late to follow your dreams. The Keeping Up with the Kardashians star also took a moment to thank author and CNN commentator Van Jones. She has been working with Jones and attorney Jessica Jackson, cofounders of #cut50, a national bipartisan advocacy group on criminal-justice reform, for months, visiting prisons, petitioning governors, and attending meetings at the White House. In addition to Jackson, Kardashian West is being mentored by Erin Haney, #cut50s policy director and a death-row attorney whose father was a psychologist and prison reformer. I want to thank Van Jones for believing in me and introducing me to Jessica Jackson, Kardashian West wrote. Jessica along with Erin Haney have taken on the role of my mentors and I am forever grateful to them both putting in so much time with me, believing in me and supporting me through this journey. This week I have a big torts essay due on negligence. Wish me luck. Kardashian Wests sisters showered her with support. I couldnt be more proud of you, sister, commented Kourtney Kardashian, 39. I am so proud of you Keeks, added Khloe Kardashian, 34. Speaking to Vogue, Kardashian West said in her first year of study, shes been covering three subjects: criminal law, torts, and contracts. To me, torts is the most confusing, contracts the most boring, and criminal law I can do in my sleep, she said. Took my first test, I got a 100. Super easy for me. The reading is what really gets me, she admitted. Its so time-consuming. The concepts I grasp in two seconds. She also said she doesnt pay attention to negative comments and actually loves to be underestimated. I love to be put in a situation where I can have a conversation with someone who might not be inclined to think much of me, she said. Because I can guarantee they will have a different opinion and understand whats important to me after theyve met me. Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett says he has a ton of material and is ready to go anytime for the bands next album. Hammett revealed to Mixdown (via Tone Deaf) that he overcompensated this time around and is sitting on enough material with which to enter the studio. This comes after bassist Rob Trujillo previously stated that the band hopes to release their next album in a shorter time than it took for them to release 2016s Hardwired to Self-Destruct. When I was 13 or 14 years old, bands put out albums every year, Hammett said in the interview with Mixdown. Seriously, Kiss put out an album every eight months none of this eight years between albums. He continued, None of us are very comfortable with the fact its been so long, because thats a long time. Were hoping to avoid that this time around. Were in our third year since Hardwired. Maybe we can get a bit more focus and go into the studio a bit sooner. He added, I have a ton of material. Ive over-compensated, so Im ready to go anytime. Its not the first time Hammett has stored up a stockpile of riffs before recording new songs. Prior to Hardwired, he tragically lost a phone with hundreds of ideas for new guitar parts, accidentally leaving it in a car in Denmark. His contributions to the album were more as a guitarist than writer, as he didnt put the riffs to memory. In the meantime, Metallica will make a run of European tour dates before cozying up the hometown crowd for a pair of symphonic S&M2 performances alongside the San Francisco Symphony in September at the Chase Center. Hammett himself also features prominently in the upcoming documentary about the Bay Area thrash metal scene, Murder in the Front Row. Metallica's Top 5 Songs Disturbed's David Draiman Discusses Vinnie Tour Stop: Limp Bizkit, Three Dream Theater Interview with Heavy Interview with Behemoth Part 2 Princess Sofia of Sweden is switching things up! After rocking dark brunette locks, the royal mom of two has recently stepped out with a much lighter hair color. Sofia, 34, is experimenting with blonder-than-ever highlights, adding a springtime glow to her look. The new do was on full display when Princess Sofia and Prince Carl Philip headed to the 100th anniversary celebration for the Sweden-America Foundation in Stockholm last week. Paired with a black dress with white polka dots, Sofias color change was accentuated by a wavy style with pieces pulled back and twisted together. Cant get enough of PEOPLEs Royals coverage? Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest updates on Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and more! Princess Sofia | IBL/REX/Shutterstock Princess Sofia | IBL/REX/Shutterstock Princess Sofia | IBL/REX/Shutterstock The Swedish royal, who joined the royal family after her 2015 wedding to Prince Carl Philip, was still sporting a dark hair color in a stunning portrait released in December in honor of her 34th birthday. In the solo shot by photographer Erika Gerdemark, Princess Sofia beams in a simple cream-colored top and black slacks, casually resting her hand on her knee. Sofia wears her layered hair straight and loose with a center part as she smiles for the camera while posing on what appears to be a windowsill. Today Princess Sofia fills 34 years. Happy Birthday! read the caption on the Swedish royal familys Instagram page. Princess Sofia's birthday portrait | Erika Gerdemark Kungl. Hovstaterna/The Royal Court of Sweden Sofia has gone back and forth between her brunette hair and highlighted locks, seeming to prefer lighter colors in the warm weather months. In a family portrait released last summer, the royals hair is brightened by natural-looking caramel-colored pieces as she poses with Prince Alexander, 2, adorably sitting on her lap. Prince Gabriel, who inherited his mothers blue eyes, looks straight at the camera while being held by his smiling father. Prince Carl-Philip, Prince Alexander, Princess Sofia and Prince Gabriel in summer 2018 | Anna-Lena Ahlstrom/Kungahuset.se Princess Sofia and Prince Carl Philip | Claudio Bresciani - Pool /Getty Princess Sofia, a former model and a reality TV contestant, stuck to a dark brunette color for her June 2015 wedding. She wore her hair in an elegant updo topped with a diamond and emerald tiara, a gift from the King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia. Russell Simmons said hes seeking spiritual enlightenment by spending a long sabbatical in Indonesia, but one of the women accusing him of sexual assault believes hes hiding out in a country that does not have any extradition treaty with the United States. According to documents obtained by The Blast, Jane Doe has been locked in [] Russell Simmons Russell Simmons said hes seeking spiritual enlightenment by spending a long sabbatical in Indonesia, but one of the women accusing him of sexual assault believes hes hiding out in a country that does not have any extradition treaty with the United States. According to documents obtained by The Blast, Jane Doe has been locked in a legal battle with the former Def Jam mogul after she accused him of raping her back in 1988. Simmons has been trying to get the case thrown out over unsubstantiated allegations, and also claims that the lawsuit was filed after the statute of limitations expired. Doe believes she has a legitimate case, and also claims Simmons fled to Indonesia which has no extradition treaty with the United States in an apparent attempt to protect himself. She had planned on sitting Simmons down for a deposition, but now claims, It is unlikely he will return to the United States to be deposed in this case and face arrest and imprisonment. Simmons has traveled to Bali many times over the years, but in the midst of multiple accusations last year, he left for the tropical paradise and has not yet returned. He also stepped down from his companies, including All Def Digital, Def Pictures, and his yoga lifestyle brand, Tantris. After leaving, Simmons said his companies would be handled by a diverse group of culture-moving executives while he works on personal growth, spiritual learning and above all to listening. The anonymous woman, who filed a lawsuit last year, claims Simmons raped her after attending a Def Jam concert with her son back in the 80s. Simmons has denied the womans story and accused her of filing a complaint only for purposes of publicity. Hes also accused her of extortion and tried to collect $36,000 in sanctions. Meanwhile, Simmons remains in Bali and continues to work on finding inner peace. Instagram Photo The post Russell Simmons Rape Accuser Claims He Fled to Indonesia to Avoid Prosecution appeared first on The Blast. Ryan Reynolds Cuddles Up with Blake Lively on Set and She Serves as Photographer! Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively Cozy Up in Instagram Picture Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively are finally giving people what they want: love! Reynolds posted a sweet shot of the two cozying up in Croatia while the actor filmed a new TV spot for his liquor company Aviation Gin. Both actors beamed in the snap as Lively sat on Reynolds lap and they held their arms around each other. The picture came in a post where Reynolds thanked the crew for their hard work on the commercial. He also had Lively to thank for the shots, as he credits her with being the photographer. Photo credit: Getty Images From Esquire To start the week, let's check out yet another way our unprecedented un-president* is cashing out his job like a third-rate carpet salesman in the Florida panhandle-which, come to think of it, is the kind of person that our unprecedented un-president* would stiff on a twenty-buck invoice. From the Guardian: The so-called foreign emoluments clause was intended to curb presidents and other government officials from accepting gifts and benefits from foreign governments unless Congress consents. But in a forthcoming article in the Indiana Law Journal, the Washington University Law professor Kathleen Clark reveals justice department filings have recently changed tack. The new interpretation, Clark says, is contained in justice filings responding to recent lawsuits lodged by attorneys generals and members of Congress. Clarks article notes that in more than 50 legal opinions over some 150 years justice department lawyers have interpreted the clause in a way that barred any foreign payments or gifts except for ones Congress approved. But filings by the department since June 2017 reveal a new interpretation that would permit the president and all federal officials to accept unlimited amounts of money from foreign governments, as long as the money comes through commercial transactions with an entity owned by the federal official, the professor writes. That this considerable barbering of the Constitution went almost completely unremarked is an indication of how far into the septic tank this administration has sunk the news cycle. There is no question that, right from the convention in Philadelphia, the Founders were worried about foreign money corrupting the office, one of the very few things that most of them agreed on. Edmund Randolph, Jefferson's fractious second cousin, told the Virginia ratifying convention: There is another provision against the danger... of the president receiving emoluments from foreign powers...I consider, therefore, that he is restrained from receiving any present or emoluments whatever. It is impossible to guard better against corruption. Story continues Edmund Randolph would have the president*'s guts for garters. The Justice Department stance now closely parallels arguments made in a January 2017 position paper by Trump Organization lawyer Sheri Dillon and several of her law partners. On 11 January 2017, just days before he was sworn in, Dillon said Trump isnt accepting any payments in his official capacity as president, as the income is only related to his private business. Paying for a hotel room is not a gift or a present, and it has nothing to do with an office, Dillon said. They don't even try very hard. For over a hundred years, the justice department has strictly interpreted the constitutions anti-corruption emoluments clause to prohibit federal officials from accepting anything of value from foreign governments, absent congressional consent, Clark told the Guardian. In 2017, the department reversed course, adopting arguments nearly identical to those put forward by Trumps private sector lawyers. Instead of defending the republic against foreign influence, the department is defending Trumps ability to receive money from foreign governments, Clark added. I, too, get a little impatient with Founderphilia but, Lord above, I'm not going to trade their ideas for those of the pet lawyers for a Manhattan real-estate griftorama. And neither should the rest of us. Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here. ('You Might Also Like',) Warner Bros is expanding in Burbank and has unveiled plans to move into two Frank Gehry-designed iceblock towers. The Hollywood studio is to buy a portion of The Burbank Studios and will be the sole and long-term tenant of the two buildings, which have been developed by Worthe Real Estate Group and Stockbridge Real Estate Fund. It will move into the new buildings in 2023, coinciding with the AT&T-owned studios 100th anniversary. Related stories Ken Jeong & Kiersey Clemons Toon Up For Warner Bros.' 'Scoob' Gehry is one of the worlds best-known architects and has designed buildings including the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, IACs New York HQ and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. The deal was unveiled by Kim Williams, Executive Vice President and CFO, Warner Bros., Jeff Worthe, President, Worthe Real Estate Group and Gehry. The 800,000-square-foot office building complex will consist of a seven-story building of approximately 355,000 square feet and a nine-story building of approximately 445,000 square feet with work set to start later this fall. Separately, Warner Bros will sell its 30-acre Warner Bros. Ranch located on Hollywood Way as well as three buildings the Triangle Building (4001 West Olive Avenue), Glass Building (3903 West Olive Avenue) and Wood Building (111 N. Hollywood Way) to Worthe Real Estate Group and Stockbridge but will lease back the space until the new offices are open. This is an opportunity to reimagine not only our workspace but our future, said Williams. Along with our historic lot, the newly expanded campus will fuel increased creativity, facilitate collaboration, and help us attract and retain the worlds best and most diverse talent. It will also better position our company for the future and provide for more production capacity. This is an investment in our employees, our creative and business partners, and the Burbank community that will continue to be our home for decades to come. Story continues Once upon a time, Hollywood Studios had an important architectural presence in the city they were like monuments to the movie-making process. With this project, I was trying to recapture that feeling of old Hollywood splendor, said Gehry. We wanted to create a 21st century version that would have a strong and unique identity for Jeff Worthe and for Warner Bros. in the center of Burbank. We created large open floorplates with the single goal of creating the highest quality office space. From the freeway, the buildings are composed as one long sculptural glass facade that creates a single identity like icebergs floating along the freeway. On the studio side, the metal punched facade is terraced to relate to the scale and character of the existing studio buildings. We are proud to continue our longstanding partnership with Warner Bros. which dates back over 30 years. We are thrilled to deliver these iconic buildings to Burbank and cant think of a better way to honor Warners past 100 years and celebrate their exciting future. We will add these buildings to our existing portfolio of outstanding office properties that covers over 4,000,000 square feet in the City of Burbank alone, said Worthe. Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. National Karnataka bans smart-phones inside polling booths Bengaluru, Apr 14 (IANS) | Publish Date: 4/14/2019 12:52:27 PM IST Electorate in Karnataka will not be allowed to carry smart-phones or mobile phones inside the polling booth while going to vote to prevent them from taking selfies or recording videos, an official said on Sunday. The Model Code of Conduct (MCC) prevents voters from carrying mobile phones or smart-phones and cameras inside the polling booth. In fact, no voter will be allowed to take his/her cellphone within 100 metres radius of the booth. They will have to leave it at home or deposit it with the police personnel before entering the booth, Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer Sanjiv Kumar told IANS. Another poll official admitted that though the MCC has had the ban provision since 2008, it was not enforced strictly during the previous elections for reasons such as manpower shortage and absence of internet-connected smart-phones with a camera. The provision to not allow mobile phones or smart-phones inside the booth was observed more in breach in the past, as not many voters had them a decade or five years ago or carried them while going to vote, recalled senior poll official Surya Sen. With most urban voters now using camera-wielding smart-phones, during the May 2018 Assembly elections many were caught taking selfies while casting their vote or making videos inside the booth as a proof of exercising their franchise. This year, the security personnel have been instructed to prevent voters from carrying a mobile or a smartphone inside the booth, said Kumar. If the security personnel are busy, the voters can leave their devices with party agents who sit outside the booths with the voter lists, Kumar added. Polling officials, security personnel and others manning booths, including presiding officers, their assistants and agents of candidates, however, will be allowed to carry and use smart-phones. Karnataka has 5.11 crore electorate, including 2.6 crore male and 2.5-crore female voters and 4,661 others. The number of polling booths in 28 seats across the state has increased 7 per cent from 54,265 in the 2014 elections to 58,186 this year. The states 14 Lok Sabha constituencies in the central and southern regions go to polls on April 18, while the remaining 14 parliamentary seats cast their vote on April 23. The 14 constituencies polling in the first phase are Udupi-Chikmagalur, Hassan, Dakshina Kannada, Chitradurga (SC), Tumkur, Mandya, Mysore, Chamarajnagar (SC), Bangalore Rural, Bangalore North, Bangalore Central, Bangalore South, Chikkaballapur and Kolar (SC). Those in the second phase are Chikkodi, Belgaum, Bagalkot, Bijapur (SC), Gulbarga (SC), Raichur (ST), Bidar, Koppal, Bellary (ST), Haveri, Dharwad, Uttara Kannada, Davanagere and Shimoga. The votes will be counted on May 23. Six people appeared in court on Monday morning in New Zealand on charges that they illegally shared video of last months mosque shooting, where 50 Muslims were slaughtered while worshipping.Christchurch District Judge Stephen ODriscoll representing the same community where the attack took place denied bail to 44-year-old Philip Arps and an 18-year-old suspect who have been in custody since last month, according to CBS News. The other four charged are not in custody.They face up to 14 years in prison if convicted of violating New Zealands law against sharing or supplying objectionable material.Also Read: Inside Facebook, YouTube and Twitter's Struggle to Purge Video of the New Zealand Mosque AttacksNew Zealands chief censor has banned sharing the livestream video of the attack, as well as the manifesto of suspect Brenton Harrison Tarrant.The attack was initially livestreamed on March 15 on Facebook. The livestream lasted about 20 minutes, with Facebook later saying it took the video down 12 minutes after the livestream ended. Facebook VP Guy Rosen said the video was viewed about 4,000 times. The social network has been criticized by some critics, including New Zealand Prime Minister Jacanda Arden, for not pulling the video down sooner. Arden said major tech companies bear responsibility for allowing the video to spread.Prosecutor Pip Currie opposed bail for the 18-year-old suspect for adding the caption target acquired to his resharing of the mosque being attacked, CBS News said. Hell appear in court in late July.Read original story New Zealand Mosque Attack Sparks Charges Against 6 People for Sharing Video At TheWrap Six people appeared in court on Monday morning in New Zealand on charges that they illegally shared video of last months mosque shooting, where 50 Muslims were slaughtered while worshipping. Christchurch District Judge Stephen ODriscoll representing the same community where the attack took place denied bail to 44-year-old Philip Arps and an 18-year-old suspect who have been in custody since last month, according to CBS News. The other four charged are not in custody. They face up to 14 years in prison if convicted of violating New Zealands law against sharing or supplying objectionable material. Also Read: Inside Facebook, YouTube and Twitter's Struggle to Purge Video of the New Zealand Mosque Attacks New Zealands chief censor has banned sharing the livestream video of the attack, as well as the manifesto of suspect Brenton Harrison Tarrant. The attack was initially livestreamed on March 15 on Facebook. The livestream lasted about 20 minutes, with Facebook later saying it took the video down 12 minutes after the livestream ended. Facebook VP Guy Rosen said the video was viewed about 4,000 times. The social network has been criticized by some critics, including New Zealand Prime Minister Jacanda Arden, for not pulling the video down sooner. Arden said major tech companies bear responsibility for allowing the video to spread. Prosecutor Pip Currie opposed bail for the 18-year-old suspect for adding the caption target acquired to his resharing of the mosque being attacked, CBS News said. Hell appear in court in late July. Read original story New Zealand Mosque Attack Sparks Charges Against 6 People for Sharing Video At TheWrap One mom tried 5 digital photo book services: Here's how they compared originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com Remember photo albums -- books with clear plastic pockets that held your favorite photos to keep track of memories and memorialize a year of your life? We dont do that much anymore. When was the last time you even printed a picture? But the joy of thumbing through a memory book of photos is still a thing, so services have sprung up online to turn your digital photos into bound books. While some have been around for decades, other newcomers have also come along. Prices and formats vary wildly, so how should you choose the right service for your images? (MORE: 7 ways to turn your job now into a career you'll still love later) "Good Morning America" asked mom Sheila Madrigal from Morgan Hill, California, to order photo books from 5 different services: Snapfish, Shutterfly, Mixbook, Amazon and Costco. She used the same 60 photos in all five books and tried to get the size and layouts of the books as similar as possible. The photos were taken with both her iPhone and DSLR camera. PHOTO: Sheila Madrigal ordered photo books from five different services. (ABC) After the books were created, ordered and arrived at Madrigal's house, we took them to Sam Hoffman of San Franciscos Lightsource, a fine art print lab. While they dont make print books at Lightsource, Hoffman evaluated the quality of the books. Best Image Quality: Costco & Shutterfly The primary factors Sam evaluated were contrast, warm skin tones, shadow detail, and saturation. One of Madrigals photos showed her family in a field of yellow flowers, her husband Israel is tossing their daughter in the air. Both the Shutterfly and Costco books impressed him with how they handled the image. In the Costco and Shutterfly books, the field had a rich golden color and skin tones were warm. PHOTO: Sheila Madrigal ordered a photo book from Costco. (ABC) I see the darkness of the blues. The separation of darkness and lighter colors, said Hoffman. He used that photo to judge two bottom performers in the image quality category, Snapfish and Amazon. Story continues There is a greyness in the flesh tones [Snapfish] and this one is the least vibrant of them all [Amazon], he said. Best Binding: Shutterfly According to Hoffman, all the books used semi-matte paper, but the production from each company varied. In some books there was no cover page while others had sophisticated stamped paper in the cover and back page positions. Another difference was the binding. Some had a simple stitched binding that was visible between the pages, while others had stitched and glued binding that looked more sophisticated. Shutterflys book had a luxe cover page made of stamped paper, stitched and glued binding, as well as a back cover that was in a different color and design. PHOTO: Sheila Madrigal ordered a photo book from Shutterfly. (ABC) Ease of Creation: Snapfish We let Sheila, who created the books, weigh in on this category. She said the Snapfish tool took her 20 minutes from start to finish to create the book. Uploads were fast, layout was simple and the user interface was intuitive. She ranked Mixbook, Shutterfly and Amazon slightly below Snapfish, but still easy to use. Sheila Madrigal from Morgan Hill, California, Sheila Madrigal ordered a photo book from Mixbook. (ABC) She gave the Costco the lowest ranking in this category, complaining that the upload of her images took twice as long as some other sites. She said that when she used the Costco tool, it arbitrarily populated her book with the pictures she uploaded, but she had a specific order in mind and had to go back through the tool removing all the pictures then adding them back into the layout where she wanted them. PHOTO: Sheila Madrigal ordered a photo book from Snapfish. (ABC) There was one more problem from the Costco book: it cut her baby's picture in half! The online tool showed a picture of her three kids fitting on the page but when the printed book was inspected, the baby was only half visible. Sam explained that the image was placed too far into the center of the page, an area printers call the gutter, and the babys face was obscured. Sheila said it did not look like that in the online tool. Costco declined ABC News' request for comment. (MORE: Want to move in with your partner? Ask each other these 5 questions first) Least expensive: Amazon The most expensive book was from Mixbook at $47.63. Shutterfly came in at $40.72 , Costco and Snapfish were a penny apart at $32.68 and $32.67, and Amazon had the least expensive book at $27.24. One thing to consider with pricing is that many of these services offer outrageous deals on photobooks with special seasonal codes, sometimes 50 to 60% off. PHOTO: Sheila Madrigal ordered a photo book from Amazon. (ABC) Heres a pro tip: keep a file of your favorite photos on your desktop, copy them in there as you take them each month, and when you see a killer deal come up, youll be able to create the book and nab a great keepsake at a fraction of the price. Overall top pick: Shutterfly Ranking ease of creation, image quality, price and the overall feel of the books production, Hoffman liked Shutterfly the best. Our mom Sheila also liked Shutterfly the best, and resolved to make a memory book every year from now on. Trump defiant amid backlash, security concerns over tweeted video of Rep. Ilhan Omar originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Just hours after Rep. Ilhan Omar released a statement reporting a surge of threats against her life following a tweeted attack from President Donald Trump, Trump again took aim at the freshman Muslim-American congresswoman on Monday by describing her as House Speaker Nancy Pelosis leader." (MORE: Freshman congresswoman Omar responds to President Trump's tweet) "Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made," Trump tweeted. "She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy!" Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made. She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019 PHOTO: Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, speaks during a press conference calling on Congress to cut funding for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and to defund border detention facilities, outside the US Capitol, Feb. 7, 2019. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images) The back-and-forth coincided with Trump's planned visit to the state Monday to talk about taxes in a district that neighbors Omar's own. The congresswoman commented on the president's visit on Twitter after he announced he was en route. "The Great State of Minnesota, where we dont only welcome immigrants, we send them to Washington," she said. Omar is a Somali-American refugee. The Great State of Minnesota, where we dont only welcome immigrants, we send them to Washington #NoBanAct https://t.co/c2BrPxT41n Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) April 15, 2019 Democrats have rushed to Omar's defense after Trump tweeted out a video Friday evening sequencing a clip of Omar speaking about 9/11 during a CAIR speech last month with disturbing footage from the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Story continues CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties, Omar said in the speech. Republicans have criticized the seemingly passive reference to the terrorists who carried out the attacks, while Omar's defenders have countered that the remarks were largely taken out of context and have been seized on in order to stoke anti-Islamic sentiment against the Muslim congresswoman. Since the Presidents tweet Friday evening, I have experienced an increase in direct threats on my lifemany directly referencing or replying to the Presidents video," Omar said in a statement Sunday evening. "I thank the Capitol Police, the FBI, the House Sergeant at Arms, and the Speaker of the House for their attention to these threats." Pelosi confirmed Sunday that she personally spoke with the House Sergeant-at-Arms in order to ensure the safety of Omar, as well as her family and staff. The Presidents words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger," Pelosi said. "President Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video. Asked about President Trump's attack on Rep. Ilhan Omar, Speaker Nancy Pelosi says, "I dont think any president of the United States should use the tragedy of 9/11 as a political tool. I think that is wrong, I think it's beneath the dignity of the office" https://t.co/I8Xii78jYQ pic.twitter.com/Nvovz22zYW ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) April 15, 2019 (MORE: President Trump criticizing Rep. Ilhan Omar for comments a 'good thing': Sarah Sanders) Asked about the president's tweet on Sunday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders stood by the president's decision to target Omar. "Certainly the president is wishing no ill will and certainly not violence towards anyone, but the president is absolutely and should be calling out the congresswoman for her not only one time but history of anti-Semitic comments," Sanders said on ABC's "This Week." Trump visits region near sanctuary city with high Muslim American and LGBTQ populations Trump visited Burnsville, Minnesota, on Monday 16 miles south of downtown Minneapolis to participate in a round table on his new tax legislation at a trucking company base. A crowd of protesters from CAIR, an advocacy group for Muslim-American civil rights, awaited the president's arrival at the company's base. Minnesota is home to a large number of Somali immigrants, many of them Muslim. Nearly one in three Somali-Americans live in the state, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and between 42,400 and 55,200 people -- about 1 percent of the population of the state -- is of Somali heritage, according to recent census data. The Minneapolis metro-area, in particular, is home to a number of these immigrants and their families. Rep. Karen Bass, the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, predicted Trump would use the venue to attack the Muslim congresswoman. We know that he is scheduled to go to Minnesota today, and I imagine that hes doing that to further whip up irrational outrage over her comments and in our opinion, this only furthers to put her life in danger, Bass, a Democrat from Califonia, told reporters on a conference call to defend Omar on Monday afternoon. Bass added that she is certainly hoping that when Trump goes to Minnesota, his purpose is not to rev up sentiment against Muslims [and] Islamophobia. Trump's visit will also garner attention from other groups who will be affected by recent policies, either floated or enacted, by his administration in recent days particularly those who support efforts in the Twin Cities to align with sanctuary city policies and those who oppose his administration's policy to limit transgender members' service in the military. Both Minneapolis and St. Paul maintain separation ordinances in their cities, and though they don't specifically describe themselves as sanctuary cities, the police departments are prevented from asking victims of or witnesses to a crime for their immigration status. Over the past few days, the president has attacked sanctuary cities with a proposed punishment that includes busing immigrants to those cities from the border. Additionally, Minneapolis elected the first two openly transgender representatives to its city council in the 2018 midterm elections. On Friday, the Pentagon's new policy limiting the military service of transgender individuals went into effect, nearly two years after Trump tweeted that he wanted to ban transgender individuals from serving in the U.S. military. Minneapolis city council member Andrea Jenkins took to social media, several days ahead of the president's visit and the day the Pentagon's new policy took effect, to express concern about the administration's policies. "Please America do something, Transgender people are under attack, women are under attack," she wrote on Twitter and on Facebook adding that she is concerned about Omar's safety in the wake of Trump's tweet. ABC News' John Parkinson contributed to this report. Hallmark fans, hold onto your horses. When we first heard that Christmas at Graceland, Hallmark Channels number one flick during "Countdown to Christmas" last year, was coming back with a sequel, Wedding at Graceland, we went ahead and canceled all of our Saturday night plans in June. You know, just in case. Co-stars Kellie Pickler and Wes Brown are back, and theyre tying the knot, yall. The highly anticipated sequel, airing June 1 as part of Hallmarks month-long June Weddings event, recently unleashed a few more surprises for us: A famed former Graceland occupant is making a very special guest cameo, and theres a fan celebration scheduled to go down at Graceland on May 18-19. That's right, Priscilla Presley is making her Hallmark Channel debut! Priscilla Presley, who married Elvis Presley in 1967 and is the mother of his only child, Lisa Marie, helped bring Graceland back to life in 1982 by opening it to the public as a tourist attraction. What started as a simple tour of the King of Rock and Rolls Tennessee mansion has now become an entire world showcasing Elvis vintage cars, airplanes, memorabilia, and more. We caught up with Presley to discuss her Wedding at Graceland guest appearance, her favorite memories at Graceland, and what she loves about the South. To me, putting Hallmark and Graceland together is the perfect marriage, Presley told us. And in the movie, I basically get to share advice on how to avoid getting caught up in all of the stress that comes along with getting married. From someone who got hitched to one of the biggest performers of all time (in Las Vegas, no less), thats advice worth taking. Youll also be able to catch Presley showing Gracelands charming Chapel in the Woods and her iconic wedding dress. 2019 Crown Media When asked her favorite thing about Graceland, the former actress turned sentimental: The memories. Theres a lot of love here, and every time I walk in, it feels like I never left. Story continues While the couple was married during the late 1960s and early 1970s, the duo lived at Graceland, and Ms. Presley remembers her time there fondly, citing memories like spending mornings horseback riding with her beau. Hed watch me ride my horse every morning around the grounds, and he decided he wanted to get a horse, too. Actually, he got more than just one horse! He loved to share his hobbies with everyone, Presley said. He would get up and come out to the stables with me, and wed go horseback riding and take care of the horses together. It was a special thing for us. WATCH: Here's Why Elvis Is Still The King Of Rock And Roll For Presley, it's safe to say that the South left memories worth revisiting. She went on to say, Southerners have a way of welcoming you into their home, which is something I noticed when I first moved to Memphis. And when I come back, nothing has changed. Theres always that Southern hospitality and warmth. The South will always hold a special place in my heart. Well there you have it, folks. If you want to attend Hallmark Channel's June Weddings Fan Celebration at Graceland on May 18-19, check out all the details here. You can tune into Hallmark Channels June Weddings event on June 1 to catch Wedding at Graceland. Before getting pregnant, we think we know what it's all about. Then when it happens, you wonder, "Why didn't anyone tell me about the leaky boobs/hip pain/crazy hormones?" Although nothing can fully prepare you for the actual experience of pregnancy, one woman is looking to broaden our understanding of the awkward and amazing transformation our bodies go through to create a new life. With her "Mom Body" comic, illustrator/cartoonist Rebecca Roher reveals the good, the bad and the downright ugly of the process. RELATED: Crazy Ways Your Body Changes During Pregnancy What inspired the story When her close friend got pregnant, Roher says she was intrigued about what was really going on in her body, and started talking in depth with her about it. "I asked her questions throughout about what her body was doing, what it felt like, what the books were telling her and how she related to their content," she told us. After the baby was born, "I was struck by the toll the birth took on her and how little I knew about what the body does after giving birth." She was inspired to create a comic about it, which was published in GUTS Canadian Feminist Magazine. The comic depicts all aspects of pregnancy, from morning sickness and physical exhaustion to a difficult hospital birth and postpartum hormones. But far from being scary, the story has actually helped reaffirm pregnant women's experiences. "I hoped the comic would be empowering and informative for moms-to-be, but I was afraid it would be upsetting," Roher says. "I've been surprised to hear from very pregnant women about how grounding it was." The horror stories every pregnant woman hears about giving birth, Roher says, are just frightening details taken out of context, whereas the narrative of her story helps readers understand it as a whole. Roher says the comic has also spurred more discussion on improving the birth experience in hospitals. The comic's main character, who was hoping for a home birth but then went into labor early, was treated roughly both physically and emotionally by doctors at the hospital. Story continues "The hospital environment tends to work against labor by inducing stress," Roher says. "I think these conversations are important as a way to advance birth practices in and out of the hospital by working with the body rather than against it." Little star Regina Hall talks the joy of playing mean characters and working with Issa Rae and Marsai Martin "Little" star Regina Hall talked to us about working with Issa Rae and Marsai Martin while portraying the horrible boss she would never want. Creating a character that an audience can simultaneously feel disdain, empathy, and amusement for is no easy feat, but thats what Regina Hall does as tech mogul Jordan Sanders in Little, the new comedy from Universal Pictures. In the Number 2 movie in America, Hall masterfully portrays the stylish yet monstrous CEO of Jordan Sanders Industries (JSI), an app development company where Jordan actually screams at employees who dare bring carbohydrates into the building, atrociously mocks young children who play in the parking lot, and regularly lets her exhausted staff know that she thinks theyre worthless idiots (especially her mistreated assistant April, played by Issa Rae). But Jordan wasnt always a heartless millionaire on the cover of tech magazines. In middle school and beyond, she was ruthlessly bullied by classmates, so little Jordan (Marsai Martin) made it her mission to one day be more powerful than all of them in a world where womenespecially Black womenare already demeaned in the workplace. Jordan succeeded, but evolved into a cold, disrespectful, and plain mean person in the process so that nobody could ever bully her again. Even if it meant refusing to uplift other women like her, including April. When a magical set of circumstances results in grownup Jordan waking up as childhood Jordan (Martin), she is forced to remember what it was like to be vulnerable, lonely, and powerless. In return, the audience is gifted a witty, moving story about redemption, female empowerment, friendship, and romance in a movie with all Black women leads that Marsai Martin pitched herself when she was only 10 years old (!). HelloGiggles spoke to Hall about the joy of playing cruel characters like Jordan and what she hopes the audience learns from the film. (Heads up: There are some slight spoilers in our conversation below). HelloGiggles (HG): You captured this horrible boss character perfectly. Did you think about horrible bosses from your past to prepare for the role? Story continues Regina Hall (RH): Well, Im very grateful that Ive never had a boss as horribleanywhere near as horribleas Jordan. So I thought about the kind of boss that I would not want. And then I wanted to make her obviously comedic, because people do need to like hereven though she isnt very nice. But you kind of do have to root for her. It was fun trying to find those nuances where you do like Jordan a little bit, even though she is difficult and uptight. (laughs) But it was really so much fun to play. Thats not a way that you would behave in real life, but to get to do that on camera as a characterIts such a departure from who you are in real life, which is whats so fun in storytelling. HG: You and Issa Rae have excellent chemistry and comedic timing with each other. What was your favorite moment together on set? RH: Playing with Issa is so much fun. Even a phone conversation is fun. But there was something about that scene [when Jordan is] going into the office, and Jordan is yelling about no carbs and handing Issa her pursetelling her that her biggest client is upstairs. It was fun to shoot all those portions. Every time we worked together, we got to laugh and play around, so i love working with Issa HG: You and Marsai dont share any scenes, but what it was like to create the Jordan character together? RH: That was really funcreating the mannerisms so we could connect grownup Jordan and young Jordan; we found stuff that wed remember to do that could be instinctive. Marsai is so great and so gifted. I love that she, at this time in her life, is really being so creative and using her talent and her efforts to create images for young girls to watch, and addressing some of the things she deals with in her own life. HG: I love how Jordan experiences obvious emotional growth by the end of the movie, but its not a complete transformationas we can tell from that minuscule and associates addition to her company sign that she thinks is so meaningful. RH: (laughs) Jordans not fully there yetthat sign was so small. When i saw it, I was like, Oh, poor Jordan. She tried. HG: I really liked how it addressed the fact that, no, it would still be impossible for anyones personality to completely transform overnight. RH: Yes! Change is incremental; she wasnt overnight a different person. But you saw that now she was having fun. The office had dressed-down Fridays and you could eat donuts. She at least put that and associates on the sign, even if it was small. Universal Pictures / www.youtube.com" /> HG: Fashion is important in the film, in terms of its role in the story and the distinctive look it gives its charactersespecially in the case of Jordan. When little Jordan puts on that pink pantsuit and takes her new friends on a shopping spree, when April excitedly raids Jordans closet, when Jordan dons her bold outfits throughout the whole movie, and so on. Did you have a favorite look for Jordan? RH: I had two moments that i really liked. I loved Jordans opening outfit. We see men wear red ties to have power, so I loved that Jordan had a red pant. I loved that her shirt was feminine in the back but kind of masculine in the front, like a button up. One of the things I wanted Jordan to haveTina [Gordon, director] wasnt sure but she ended up being really happy with itI wanted to play with color in Jordans hair. Which is why grownup Jordan has that bob with pink highlights. Im a big hair person. So for me, having your own company and looking professional is great, but one of the things about having your own company is that you can express what that looks like to you. I thought Jordan would love to play with hair color. And then I loved when grownup Jordan comes back and she has on that white dress with the orange sunrise pattern. HG: Little has a lot to say about bullying, about women and Black women in the workplace, about letting your guard down in relationships, and having second chances. Theres a lot therewhat do you hope the audience takes away from the movie after it ends? RH: I think, honestly, I dont have one thingits like what you said. For so many people, there are so many different things theyll be able to relate to. I think for young kids at school being bullied or bullying, hopefully theyll reexamine that and think about how things that they say or do can affect someones life. People who can remember a time in their life when they had a lot more trust and the importance of having friendships. People who resonate with Aprils character or resonate with grown up Jordan. The idea of not taking no for an answer and being tenacious about what you want. I think it will be different for every viewer, but I can certainly hope that there is something in the story that is magical for everyonethat we can all find something that resonates with us. Alessandro Micheles office at the Gucci Hub in Milan resembles one of the many iterations of Auntie Mames Beekman Place drawing room. Its a stylish retreat decorated in the tastemakers signature neo-Romantic style, with tapestry-seated Napoleon III chairs and lacquered furniture dotted over flowering rugs and terra-cotta tomette tiles, all of it embowered in a Chinese paper of flowers and the exotic birds that the designerin an echo of his hippie, shamanesque fathercalls his spirit animals. For me, its quite empty, Michele notes drily. Milan is more of a working place. The idiosyncratic sitting room nestles in a LEED Goldcertified complex carved from the workshops of the 1915 Caproni aeronautical factory into a 35,000-square-meter behemoth that is a testament not only to the brands strength and ambitionsGucci enjoyed 45 percent sales growth in 2017, with $7.1 billion in annual sales, and has doubled its revenue during the past four yearsbut to its creative directors singularly potent aesthetic. The staff canteen looks like a Belle Epoque cafe, with its ebonized mahogany bar, crimson sofas, and tall damask- and toile-covered screens, just as Gucci fragrance counters around the world resemble nineteenth-century apothecary shops. The Hubs cavernous reception areas, meanwhile, are decorated with tufted velvet bornes and more of Micheles beloved antique Aubusson rugs, which also manage to lend the brands international outposts the quirky look of the Roman antiquarian shops that the designer likes to scour for jewels and objects of curiosity to fill his ever-expanding portfolio of properties. Although Michele and his 90-something-strong design team are based in the designers native Rome in the splendid Palazzo Alberini (its design said to have been conceived by Raphael), many of them decamp to Milan in the weeks leading up to the collection. I would love to stay in one place, Michele says, but the studio is in your brain, its in your suitcase, because we are always traveling. Story continues In his days as a designer at Fendi and Gucci, Michele used to sketch so much that he says he now has pains in his back and neck from crouching over and drawing. Today he keeps endless lists in notebooks and works on the body, draping and taking pictures. I dont have the time to sketch accurately, he explains, because after four years I understood that I needed to be more concentrated on the creativity and the process: the stories that Im telling, the experience of the clients in the store, the collection, the showthe music, the atmosphere. I spend a lot of time working on it all. Im trying to be less obsessive, he adds, but that is really hard for a designerthere are a million pieces. In the beginning I was checking everything, but we are a huge company, and after two years I was dying and thinking I wanted to stop this job. Its a beautiful job, but its dangerous because its something that can take everything from you. You cant be just an imageyou really need to be here to fight every day. I was reflecting that if your job becomes your prosthetic to make your life better, when you take it off, you will die. I dont want that prosthetic. I want my life. Photographed by Tierney Gearon, Vogue, May 2019 Micheles partner, the elegantly reserved professor of urban planning Vanni Attili, who has joined us for tea in the sitting room, helps keep Michele grounded. Attili was really snobbish about fashion in the beginning, Michele admits. Now hes really in love. The couple constantly bounce high-concept ideas about the subject off each other. Hes a partner also in work, Michele adds in his idiosyncratic English. Sometimes people think that fashion is just a good dress, he continues, but its not. Its a bigger reflection of history and social change and very powerful things. If you want to produce something new, especially now, you need more languages. I dont want to die in the marketing. In the end you need to sell, but its like a big frescoand the fresco speaks to everybody. Soon the demands of the looming show draw us from this cozy aerie to the fitting room, where some 60 Gucci design assistantsposter children for Micheles eclectic-looking assemblages of pan-decade garmentshave been waiting. The cavernous space is filled with sunglasses boasting frames like twin 1950s TV screens (to gladden the heart of Micheles pal Elton John); visored 1960s felt helmet hats; flocked-velvet carnival masks, gilded raptors-head masks, and other menacingly spiked iterations (symbolic of Micheles thesis that fashion is a mask)and, of course, dozens and dozens of the bags that might not look out of place nestled in the crook of Queen Elizabeth IIs arm, were it not for the steampunk hardware and eye-popping colors: the bags that keep those eye-popping sales figures buoyant. Were surrounded by racks and racks of prototypes, and in the 78 hours between now and the show, more will be added. Nothing is forgotten or rejected or not used, says Michele, who notes that even this embarrassment of riches is not enough for the needs of Guccis global empire. Actually, all the things we create for the shows are not sufficient to cover all the activities we do. Michele pulled his debut fall 2015 Gucci menswear collection together in five days flat, a testament not only to his steely focus but to the powerful resources at his disposal at Gucci. Though he had been but an unknown assistant to former creative director Frida Giannini, in that single collection he reset the dial at the house, introducing a quirky runway cast wearing gender-neutral clothes that drew on his passion for eclectic vintage references and antique accoutrementsnotably the fistfuls of rings that he delights in himselfnot to mention a fur-lined slide shoe that became an instant must-have item. Micheles sustained ability to both create desire and change the conversation proved the prescience of Marco Bizzarri, Guccis president and CEOwho dropped by the fitting to salute the designer he addresses as Maestro. Michele, though, is focused on the fittings for the 87 looks as Kate Bush wails from the speakers. I dont need silence, he says. I work with a big confusion. Photographed by Tierney Gearon, Vogue, May 2019 Michele originally studied costume design, inspired by the legendary Visconti collaborator Piero Tosi, a friend of some of his professors, before deciding that fashion might be a more pragmatic career choice, and his runway shows and image-making still have a theatrical, cinematic quality. The designer asks his longtime collaborator the hairdresser Paul Hanlon to twist the long hair of one of the male models into a messy chignon like Virginia Woolf, while one girl gets a sculptural victory roll and another a Bowie mullet and eyebrows dyed lemon yellow to match. Makeup artist Thomas de Kluyver, meanwhile, proffers trays of silicon teardrops and disturbing contact lenses that he discovered in Japan to enhance the dystopian mood of those masks and spiked leather collars, which were inspired by fearsome eighteenth-century mastiff collars. (Michele bristles at the notion that they suggest fetish gear, insisting that theyre more about defending who you are.) In the nearby show space later that day, we listen to the eerie soundtrack of baying wolves and religious chants, beside a seizure-inducing wall of 120,000 LED lights that Michele has conceived himself. I try always to put something wrong in theresome contamination, he says of these touches. Perfection doesnt exist, so lets celebrate the things that are wrong in a good way. As a gilded ear is added or subtracted from a look, assistants enter new information in their laptops while others look on intently. Micheles design team includes young people from places as far-flung as New Zealand, China, Japan, Scotland, and South Korea. Its beautiful because when we are working all together on the project of the show, its like a nice party, he says. People are looking at the same thing with different eyes. Its fascinating. I feel young, but Im getting old, adds Michele, who turned 46 last November, with amused resignation. But Im learning a lot about music and artists and things that are very far from me. Maybe Im like Peter Panthe kind of person that wants to still feel themselves young. As the models walk up and down in sharp-shouldered, 1940s-inspired zoot-suit tailoring, Michele admits that there is something of his powerful mother and grandmother in these clothes. My granny was very chic, he says. She was always in blackshirtdresses, a black trench, or pied de poule and Prince of Wales check. I think I learned from her the love for jewels. His glamour-hungry grandmother encouraged her daughters to pursue careers in the movies at Romes Cinecitta. My mom was really obsessed with American movies and cinema, Michele says. For her it was like a religion. As the first assistant to a film executive, she regaled her son with the gossip of the period and with stories of brushing shoulders with Elizabeth Taylor at the local coffee shop. Micheles cinematic approach extends to his casting of pan-generational actresses, including Vanessa Redgrave and Faye Dunawayalong with such figures of Cinecitta glamour as the legendarily chic Italian socialite Marina Cicognain his campaigns. And he evoked a passion for the glory years of Tinseltowns kinetic, Technicolor musicals in Guccis spring 2019 campaign, shot by Glen Luchford at Universal Studios over ten long days. Afterward, Michele says, I understood why people lived for showbiz, because when the machine is movingwhen the dancer is doing the tap danceits so powerful. Im very attracted to mythology, and I think that Hollywood is the second chapter of Greek mythology. I love contemporary, he continues, but I want to always look to the past. You cant ignore it. Look at Lady Gagashe changed a million times, shes worn everything, but in the end she wanted to be Lana Turner because those old movie stars are the divas, the goddesses of beauty and power. Its always been the sameif you think about a seventeenth-century queen, they wanted to look like the goddess Diana. As Micheles own brand of nostalgia continues to resonate, he delights in the idea of Gucci being used as an adjective to describe the world he has created. Its much better than selling a lot of pieces, he says, because fashion is like pop music in the eightiessomething that is alive, not just in the boutique for rich people. Gucci Photographed by Tyler Mitchell, Vogue, 2018 Photographed by Jamie Hawkesworth, Vogue, 2015 Photographed by Zoe Ghertner, Vogue, 2018 Photographed by Zoe Ghertner, Vogue, 2017 In the four years since Michele took over the reins at Gucci, a lot of things changed, he says. You cant be closed inside your studioyou have to be connected to the world. Im learning a lot. Being in charge of a brand like Gucci is really an unbelievable position in terms of responsibilityso many people and expectations are invested in it. As Michele has discovered, though, those responsibilities extend beyond the livelihoods of the companys 18,000 employees. When he sent out his fall 2018 collection, one of the layered looks featured a wool balaclava that disquietingly echoed historically racist blackface stereotypes. The ire of the all-seeing internet was quickly ignited, and Gucci collaborator Dapper Dan, the iconic Harlem tailor, called the company out for getting it outrageously wrong. And though Michele explained at the time that his specific influence for the mask was the work of the anarchic eighties club guru, designer, and walking piece of art Leigh Bowery, he quickly began to take ownership of the wider issue of the lack of diversity in his immediate design teamand in the luxury-fashion industry as a whole. In a 25-year career working in design studios in Italy and France, Michele says with dismay, he can count on my fingers the designers of color that he worked with or who were sent to him for job interviews. At the end I see everything more clearly, but I ignored something that needed visibility. I dont want to say again that it was not consciousalthough it was notbut I was more shocked by the fact that we were so ignorant in terms of history. In the wake of the furor, Marco Bizzarri traveled to New York to meet with Dan and fellow community leaders in Harlem, and as a result, Gucci has initiated a comprehensive diversity initiative in hiring, along with company-wide education programs and international design-school scholarships. At the end, Michele says, you can just do better. His rapport with Bizzarri is palpable. Last fall, Michele called the Gucci chiefa strong advocate for sustainability in fashion in his previous role as CEO of Bottega Veneta as well as earlier at Guccito discuss a no-fur policy. A week later, it was implemented. Michele credits the relentless advocacy of his young teamand his friend Jared Letowith inspiring him to act. I love craftsmanship, says Michele, who earlier in his career absorbed the sophisticated techniques of the Fendi furriers. Im crazy for the beautiful things you can do with your hands, so I try to put all these things into other materialsnothing is just lost. For this collection, for instance, he used those skills on fake furs and with other fabrics to suggest the volume of real furs, inspired by the Italian craftspeople who had to be inventive with their homegrown resources when Mussolini closed Italy to some foreign imports. The absence of something for a creative person is really interesting, says Michele. When you look at 1940s Italian jewels, you see a lot of great solutions in terms of designtheyre very modern and contemporary pieces, even without stones. Michele himself has an evident passion for intriguing jewels. Today he is garlanded with earlynineteenth century necklaces and bracelets incorporating cameos or carved lava-stone portraits of Greek philosophers or exotic animals, and rings on every finger. Almost hidden by his shirt collar, meanwhile, is a Georgian cameo necklace, an element in an elaborate parure. My aesthetic philosophy is an uninterrupted flow: There is no distinction between old and new things, but there are only beautiful things, says Michele, who has been known to reuse beloved prints in several collections, challenging fashions built-in redundancy. His acquisitive streak, though, extends far beyond personal adornments: He once maintained a second apartment simply to contain the spoils of his passion for antique pictures and bibelotsthose funny chic things, like toys, as he once described them to meincluding a remarkable collection of historic shoes. And hell be maintaining his current apartmenta cabinet of curiosities under the eaves of an eighteenth-century town house on a romantic Roman squarefor much the same purpose when he finally moves into his new house in the city following an extensive restoration program. This magnificent placecarved from a storied Baroque palazzo literally built for a popewill feature a dedicated room for Micheles clothes that is just about the size of his present home. (To Micheles delight, the sensitive renovation has already unveiled historic frescoes hidden under centuries of subsequent paint jobs.) He has been on something of a real estate spree lately in a manner that evokes the glory days of such design taste-meisters as Saint Laurent, Valentino, and Lagerfeld. In Civita, the impossibly picturesque Renaissance hilltop village in Viterbo that Michele describes as a very eccentric place for very eccentric people, he and Attili maintain the charming, Lilliputian village house precariously perched atop a vertiginous cliff face where Michele mapped out his debut Gucci collectionsbut theyve acquired a second property there so that they can finally have friends to stay nearby. Perhaps it is here that Michele will retreat to seek his muse. Later, after the show, he waxes philosophical. Its something thats alive for 20 days, he says of the intensity of working on a collection. After that, its on to the next. But the process of creativity is a very mysterious voiceand its something that you cant stop. An Illinois mother was in tears after she was kicked out of a movie theater following complaints that her disabled son was making too much noise. Jennifer Daly posted on Facebook after taking her two sons to see Dumbo Friday night at AMC Lake in the Hills in a suburb of Chicago. One of her sons, Jonathan, has a rare form of dwarfism and Daly said it is a struggle to get him out for an excursion. Want daily pop culture news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here for Yahoos newsletter. Its not easy with Jonathans oxygen and feeding bag and just carrying him to be able to go and do this, she wrote. The mother said that, during the film, her 3-year-old son giggled twice no longer than 20 seconds each. But about 10 minutes later, a staff member told her somebody had complained about a crying baby. I looked at her and said he did not cry, he giggled twice, the shocked mother wrote. I was told I immediately have to pack up to leave. Jennifer Daly and her son Jonathan were kicked out of a movie over complaints her son was being disruptive. (Photo: Facebook/Jennifer Daly) Daly wrote that she was mortified by the incident. Never in my life have I ever been kicked out of anything, especially if I had done nothing wrong, she wrote. I was at the top back of the theater to try and stay out of anyones way. Daly added that she cried as the family left the theater. I dont understand why I am being kicked out, she continued. Someones cell phone was going off for over a minute, someone else was holding their phone up with their light on to video-record the movie, someone else was talking and I am being kicked out? Are you serious? After complaining to staff, the mother was told she could go back into the film and sit in the front row, but Daly explained that Jonathan can not turn his head due to cervical spine issues. She was then told she could sit over to the side, but the mother did not return to the movie and instead got a refund. The Facebook post said an apologetic staff member gave the mother her details so she could arrange another time to see a movie. AMC gave the mother a refund. (Photo: Google Maps) Jonathan is the sweetest child, does not have a mean bone in his body, she wrote. I am so sad and angry because somebody can be that cruel and get a child kicked out for something that was not warranted. Story continues Daly shared her story in the hopes that it would not happen to another family. I dont know if I will ever feel like I could go to the movies again because I wont be able to enjoy myself if my son laughs [knowing] that I might get kicked out, she said. Yahoo has contacted AMC for comment, but corporate communications director Ryan Noonan told Chicagos WGN 9 that the manager received a number of complaints about an ongoing disruption. To ensure a quality movie-going experience for everyone, disruptive behavior is not permitted during a movie, he said in a statement. Noonan said Daly was given a refund and staff also offered her the opportunity to watch the film in a private screening or during their sensory-friendly movie program. Read more from Yahoo! Lifestyle: Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. Algiers (AFP) - Algerian civil society groups warned Saturday of toughening police tactics and reaffirmed their commitment to peaceful pro-democracy rallies, a day after officers in riot gear clashed with protesters. Friday's initially calm protest in central Algiers deteriorated into the worst street violence seen so far since marches began in mid-February demanding an end to the 20-year-rule of president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who finally resigned on April 2, and his regime. Police used tear gas and water cannon and scuffled with demonstrators, who in turn hurled stones and bottles, set light to at least one police car and turned large dumpsters into barricades. Injuries were reported on both sides, and activists raised fears that the standoff has entered a new phase. "Friday's mobilisation was different because of the scale of the repression," according to Said Salhi, vice president of the Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights. It said several activists were arrested on Saturday as they prepared to return to the key protest site at the capital's main post office, condemning the action as "harassment". Demonstrators have vowed to push on with rallies against the interim government of Abdelkader Bensalah and its planned July 4 elections, arguing that leaders who emerged from the Bouteflika "system" cannot guarantee free and fair polls. Salhi noted that the mood was different Friday outside the post office that has become an emblematic protest site. "It usually starts joyfully at the post office, but there was a desire on the part of the authorities to clear the area," he said. Salhi said a turning point had come three days earlier when police had for the first time tried to disperse a student demonstration in Algiers with tear gas and water cannon. Political scientist Cherif Driss said that, while the demonstrations have continued unabated, "the police are trying to refocus, and are beginning to reduce the public space for expression". Story continues Driss added however that "the response remains moderate and professional, with mostly water cannons and tear gas. There is no brutal repression." - 'Delinquents and troublemakers' - Police put Friday's violence down to "delinquents" infiltrating the crowds, and said 108 people had been arrested, while some protesters also blamed "troublemakers" for the clashes. Driss said it was too early to tell whether Friday's clashes were the result of "a strategy to limit demonstrations or a reaction to groups infiltrating" the protests. The General Directorate of National Security reported that 83 police had suffered injuries. It denied having resorted to repressive tactics and said it was merely maintaining public order. Several protesters were also injured, and at least one was hit in the chest by what appeared to be a rubber bullet, said an AFP photographer. Activist groups stressed their commitment to non-violence, although some shops and properties were damaged after protests in the early days of the movement. "The protesters are very committed to the continuation of the movement in its peaceful form," said Abdelwahab Ferfaoui of civic group the Youth Action Rally (RAJ-Algeria). "It's the key to success." At Friday's clashes, AFP journalists saw some demonstrators placing themselves between rioters and police, raising their hands and chanting "silmiya" (peaceful) until the situation calmed. "People did not respond despite the repression, we saw citizens defending police officers," said Salhi. "But we want to move towards a political solution quickly to avoid desperation. Letting the situation deteriorate until the elections in three months is not a solution." Paris (AFP) - French weapons are being used by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in Yemen, according to a classified military note revealed on Monday which contradicts public statements from France's government. The note from the French military intelligence service, published by new investigative media outlet Disclose, concluded that the UAE and Saudi Arabia had deployed French weaponry from artillery to ships in their war against Huthi rebels. Under pressure for years by rights groups over the sales, the Paris government has always insisted that the arms are only used in defensive circumstances to deter attacks by the Huthis. France, the third-biggest arms exporter in the world, counts Saudi Arabia and the UAE as loyal clients in the Middle East and has resisted pressure to stop the arms trade -- unlike Germany, which has suspended sales. Rights groups have regularly accused Paris of being complicit in alleged war crimes committed in Yemen where around 10,000 have died and millions have been forced to the brink of starvation. "The government can no longer deny the risk of complicity in war crimes," the head of Human Rights Watch in France, Benedicte Jeannerod, wrote on Twitter in response to the revelations on Monday. - Artillery, tanks, ships, helicopters - The UAE and Saudi Arabia, which own billions of dollars' worth of weapons bought from the United States, France and Britain, intervened in 2015 to support the Yemeni government against Huthi rebels, which are backed by rival Iran. The UN calls the situation in the war-torn country the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Experts have concluded that all the warring parties have violated international humanitarian law. The classified French intelligence note -- provided to the government in October 2018, according to Disclose -- said that 48 CAESAR artillery guns manufactured by the Nexter group were being used along the Saudi-Yemen border. Leclerc tanks, sold in the 1990s to the UAE, have also been used, as have Mirage 2000-9 fighter jets, while French missile-guiding technology called DAMOCLES might have been deployed, according to the assessment. Story continues Cougar transport helicopters and the A330 MRTT refuelling plane have also seen action, and two French ships are serving in the blockade of Yemeni ports which has led to food and medical shortages, the DRM military intelligence agency concluded. The revelations risk causing embarrassment for French Armed Forces Minister Francoise Parly. She said during an interview on the France Inter radio station in January this year: "I'm not aware that any (French) arms are being used in this conflict." Asked for comment by AFP on Monday, the French government said that "to our knowledge, the French weapons owned by members of the coalition are for the most part in defensive positions, outside of Yemen or in military bases, not on the frontline." Disclose is a new investigative website working in partnership with established media companies including public broadcaster France Info, online brand Mediapart and Franco-German television channel Arte. Paris (AFP) - Playing the role of a riot cop dispersing a peaceful but illegal sit-in on the steps of France's National Assembly, Axel struggled to dislodge a woman whose arms and legs were enmeshed in a Gordian knot of activists. It was like trying to pull a limpet off a rock -- he couldn't get a grip. Welcome to Non-Violent Civil Disobedience 101, a one-day basic training for people who have decided they may need to break the law to further a good cause. For most of the 55 people attending a course in Paris on Saturday, the driving concern was climate change and the gathering pace at which Earth's species are disappearing. Since October, the world has seen a crescendo of grassroots protests around these issues, especially in western Europe and North America. High school students in a dozen countries have poured into the streets every Friday to raise the alarm about their climate-blighted futures, a movement inspired by 16-year-old Swedish wunderkind Greta Thunberg. On Monday, a loosely knit but well-organised group called Extinction Rebellion, born in Britain, launched a week-long campaign in major cities worldwide, vowing to "bring London to a standstill" by blocking traffic at Waterloo Bridge, Parliament Square and other iconic locations. XR, as the group is known, looked to historic examples of civil disobedience -- the US civil rights movement, the push for Indian independence -- for inspiration. What triggered the sudden uptick in climate activism is unclear, but several participants in the course mentioned a landmark UN science report last fall warning that only a deep change in the way humanity produces and consumes energy can minimise global warming devastation. - No tickling allowed - "I've been teaching several sessions a month for the last six or seven months," said Remi Filliau, the instructor in Paris and founding member of a small NGO called Les Desobeissants (The Disobedient Ones). Story continues "Before, it was a lot less." Back in class, Filliau gave Axel a tip on how to pry loose his quarry. Reaching from behind, Axel placed an index finger under the young woman's nose and pulled up sharply. Her arms instantly flew open and he yanked her free within seconds, dragging her across the floor into mock detention. "Police are allowed to use that technique," Filliau told the class. "But they are not allowed to tickle -- that is considered sexual harassment," he added. Seated in a large circle, the class began with an exercise designed to force participants to think about how far they are willing to go, and the risks they are willing to take. Filliau presented a scenario: friends propose slipping into a farmer's field at night while wearing masks to destroy a experimental crop of genetically modified corn. Commercial production of genetically modified crops has been effectively banned in France, and most people in the room were clearly anti-GMO. That was not the issue. What they didn't agree on was tactics. Everyone situated themselves in relation to four signs he had posted at compass points in the room, depending on how they answered two questions: Are you willing to do this? Do you consider this to be a violent act? Two thirds of the group clustered in the two "non-violent" quadrants, but were evenly divided on whether to carry out the raid. - Ready to face the music - As for those who considered it to be an act of violence, some balked at ransacking the crops while a few said they would do it anyhow. In the ensuing discussion, people moved around the room as their positions changed. Some said damaging property did not rise to the level of a violent act. Others countered that a struggling farmer might not see it that way. Still others pointed out that farmers have insurance. The group was at loggerheads. In a second scenario, the same action was to be done in broad daylight without masks. The media was to be alerted beforehand and the activists stayed to face the music, including arrest. This, it became clear, was the "correct" approach, and Filliau explained why. "We have to legitimise our actions in the eyes of the public," he told the group. "And we have to take responsibility for what we do." Successful campaigns in France over the last decade -- pressuring a bank into divesting from fossil fuel projects, getting the state ban a particular GMO crop -- were all done openly and non-violently, he said. "But if you're not ready to be arrested by the police, then you probably shouldn't come," he added, referring to a climate change action planned for the end of the week. Julie, a university student, said she was deeply worried about the threat of climate change. "Just marching in the streets is not enough anymore," she said. "But I'm not sure if I'm ready to go to jail." Paris (AFP) - The strong performance of the far-right in Finland's elections has shown the strength of anti-immigrant parties across the continent, just over a month before the European parliament elections. The Finns Party more than doubled its seats under the leadership of hardline nationalist Jussi Halla-aho in Sunday's vote. It took 17.5 percent of the ballots, just behind the Social Democrats who came in first with 17.7 percent -- which could make it tricky for Social Democrat leader Antti Rinne to form a government that excludes the far-right. The far-right has made new gains recently in EU countries ranging from Estonia to Spain, on top of its strong bases in nations like France, Germany and Italy. European voters are due to choose a new parliament in elections from May 23-26, and gains for the far right would be a new blow for the bloc's established leaders after the crisis caused by Brexit. - 'Motor force' - Identity and immigration are the "motor force" behind the populist vote in Europe, French researcher Jean-Yves Camus, a specialist on the far-right, told AFP. "There is a real crisis of representative democracy which is being challenged through direct democracy," he told AFP. He said Hallo-aho had driven his party in a much more radical direction than his predecessor Timo Soini, who conformed more to the model of a European national conservative. "There was radicalisation within the Finns Party," Camus said. Goran Djupsund, a professor of political science at the Abo Akademi University in Finland, noted that no party in the election had passed the 20 percent mark: a sign of growing fragmentation in politics. The party of outgoing prime minister Juha Sipila was relegated to fourth place. "It is a phenomenon that we are sharing with the rest of Europe," Djupsund said. After March's inconclusive elections in Estonia, prime minister Juri Ratas is in coalition talks with the far-right, anti-EU EKRE party and the Isamaa conservatives to cling to power. Story continues And the anti-immigrant Vox party stunned observers in Spain last year with a strong performance in regional elections in Andalusia, helping to push the Socialists from office in the region. - 'Confirmed the dynamic' - Halla-aho, a softly spoken figure whose calm public persona belies his written works harshly critical of Islam and migration, echoed his far-right counterparts across Europe during his campaign. He played up the importance of Finland's particular identity, railed against immigration and denounced "climate hysteria", saying the pressure to halt global warming was "destroying the economy and Finnish industry". Such themes are straight out of the book of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), which repeatedly denounces the price of halting global warming. The Finns Party could become close allies of Europe's best-known far-right leaders like Matteo Salvini in Italy and Marine Le Pen in France, potentially creating a powerful bloc in the new EU parliament. Le Pen's National Front (FN) was quick to hail the Finns Party's strong showing. "After the recent success of the patriotic parties in Estonia and in Spain, the very good results of the Finns Party have confirmed the dynamic on a continental level in favour of supporters of a Europe of free and proud nations," said Nicolas Bay, a National Front lawmaker in the European parliament. Dublin (Ireland) (AFP) - A former British soldier will be charged with the 1972 murder of a Northern Ireland teenager, the province's public prosecutor said on Monday. Fifteen year-old Daniel Hegarty was shot twice in the head in the city of Derry on 31 July 1972. He was killed by a British Army patrolman during an initiative to clear so-called "no-go" areas of the city at the height of the sectarian conflict known as "The Troubles". The veteran -- referred to officially only as "Soldier B" -- is also to be prosecuted for wounding Hegarty's 17-year-old cousin. "I have concluded that the evidence which can be presented at court is sufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction," said Stephen Herron, director of public prosecutions for Northern Ireland. In March, the prosecution service announced another former British soldier had been charged with murder over the "Bloody Sunday" killings in Derry -- which took place the same year. On January 30, 1972 British troops opened fire on a civil rights demonstration in the walled city, killing 13 people. A 14th victim later died of his wounds. An ex-paratrooper was charged with murdering two people and the attempted murder of four others during a day widely cited as one of the darkest chapters in the Northern Ireland conflict. The prosecution of historic crimes committed during "The Troubles" is controversial. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement brought an end to the conflict and paved the way for the release of some 500 republican and loyalist paramilitaries from prison after serving short sentences. But the British government recently indicated that they consider security forces veterans to be eligible for the same treatment -- meaning prosecutions may not yield lengthy sentences. Hundreds of bikers -- many of them ex-soldiers -- rode through central London on Friday in a show of solidarity with the ex-paratrooper charged in the "Bloody Sunday" case. By Guy Faulconbridge and Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) - British police dragged Julian Assange from the Ecuadorean embassy last Thursday after his asylum was revoked, ending his seven-year stay there and opening the way for his extradition to the United States. Assange's supporters, who cast him as a dissident facing the wrath of a superpower, fear the 47-year-old will end up on trial in the United States. The United States wants Assange for one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history. What happens now? WHO IS ASSANGE? Assange was born on July 3, 1971 in Australia. In his teens, he gained a reputation as a talented computer programmer and in the mid-1990s he was arrested and pleaded guilty to hacking. He founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He shot to fame in early 2010 when WikiLeaks published a classified U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff. WikiLeaks published hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables that laid bare often critical U.S. appraisals of world leaders, from Russian President Vladimir Putin to members of the Saudi royal family. WHY WAS HE IN THE ECUADOREAN EMBASSY? Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in June 2012 to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where authorities wanted to question him as part of a preliminary sexual assault investigation. That investigation was later dropped but because he had breached his British bail in 2012, he was arrested last week and found guilty of failing to surrender to Westminster Magistrates' Court. Following his arrest, U.S. prosecutors announced charges against him and Swedish prosecutors are considering reopening the rape investigation. JAIL IN THE UNITED KINGDOM? Westminster Magistrates' Court's Judge Michael Snow said Assange faces up to 12 months in jail when he is sentenced at a later date at Southwark Crown Court. The British criminal action against Assange will take precedence over extradition proceedings although Nick Vamos, lawyer at London-based firm Peters & Peters and former head of extradition at Britain's Crown Prosecution Service, said in practice it would make little difference. "Even if he gets a maximum 12-month sentence, that means he will serve six and it will take at least six months for his extradition proceedings to be resolved," Vamos told Reuters. So while he is in custody, the extradition hearings can proceed. The British judge gave the U.S. government a deadline of June 12 to outline its case against Assange. SO DOES ASSANGE END UP IN SWEDEN OR THE UNITED STATES? The courts will have to rule on any extradition request and Home Secretary Sajid Javid would decide which one takes precedence. Vamos said the home secretary would take into account the seriousness of the offence and which request was issued first, and expected a Swedish one would take supremacy. "Even though technically it would be a re-issued request, in effect it would be just a repeat of the request that was issued many years ago and therefore it would be treated as if it was the earliest one," he said. "The fact that his extradition had already been ordered on it once would be in the home secretary's mind. The U.S. government can wait a bit longer, they've taken quite a long time to sort out whether they were ever going to charge him or not ... "We don't know what happened in Sweden, we don't whether he committed that offense and there's a victim there who's been waiting for justice for many years and I think that should take priority." WHAT IS THE U.S. CASE? Just hours after Assange's arrest, U.S. prosecutors announced charges against him for conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to gain access to a government computer. The indictment, filed in March 2018 and unsealed on Thursday, said Assange in March 2010 engaged in a conspiracy to help Manning crack a password stored on Defense Department computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network (SIPRNet), a U.S. government network used for classified documents and communications. Manning, formerly Bradley Manning, was jailed on March 8 after being held in contempt by a judge in Virginia for refusing to testify before a grand jury in what is widely believed to be related to the Assange investigation. Manning was convicted by court-martial in 2013 of espionage and other offences for furnishing more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to WikiLeaks while she was an intelligence analyst in Iraq. Former President Barack Obama commuted the final 28 years of Manning's 35-year sentence. WHAT IS THE SWEDISH INVESTIGATION? Assange was accused by two Swedish women of sexual assault and rape in 2010. After opening an initial investigation, prosecutors dropped it, only to reopen it and issue an European arrest order for Assange, who had left the country for Britain. Assange, who denied the allegations, fought through the courts to get an extradition order and the preliminary investigation dropped. His lawyers said he feared that should he go to Sweden, authorities could hand him over to the United States. Prosecutors ended the preliminary investigation into allegations of sexual molestation and unlawful coercion in 2015 as the statute of limitations had already passed, but kept open the rape probe. In May 2017, then chief prosecutor Marianne Ny dropped the preliminary investigation into rape without filing any charges, saying that there was no prospect of Assange being handed over within a reasonable timeframe. Swedish prosecutors said on April 11 they had received a formal request to reopen the rape investigation from the legal counsel representing the alleged victim. The request was assigned to Deputy Chief Prosecutor Eva-Marie Persson, who said prosecutors would look into the matter and determine how to proceed. The statute of limitation for rape is 10 years, a deadline which would be reached in the mid-August next year. HOW COULD ASSANGE FIGHT EXTRADITION? "Everybody can challenge an extradition request on the basis it would be contrary to their human rights for them to be extradited," Vamos said. "So Assange could argue that it would be impossible for him to have a fair trial in the U.S. given what happened to Chelsea Manning, given the notoriety, the publicity about his case that effectively he's been tried in the media, public statements by U.S. officials (that) it's impossible for him to have a fair trial." He could also bring up potential conditions he would face in U.S. prisons. "He could argue the entire request is politically motivated that he is being prosecuted by reason of his political opinions or his political affiliations, that it's revenge, it's vindictive, it's a vendetta," Vamos said. "All of those arguments have legs." Sweden's original request for Assange's extradition went to Britain's Supreme Court which backed the request. If a lower court orders his extradition, then he could again appeal the decision to London's High Court and ultimately again to the Supreme Court if he can identify a challenge based on a point of law. For U.S. requests, the courts' decision has to be ratified by the Home Secretary but Vamos said in effect this was now just a rubber-stamping exercise. (Additional reporting by Niklas Pollard and Simon Johnson in STOCKHOLM and Mark Hosenball in WASHINGTON; editing by Robin Pomeroy) Frankfurt am Main (AFP) - German prosecutors said Monday they had charged former Volkswagen chief executive Martin Winterkorn and four other managers over the group's "dieselgate" emissions cheating scandal. They "are accused of multiple crimes realised in a single criminal action, especially a particularly serious case of fraud and an infraction of the law against unfair competition," the prosecutors said in a statement. It was not immediately clear whether the other accused -- who were not named -- still work at VW or have since left the company. Winterkorn has been singled out for his role as a "guarantor" to authorities and customers that the group was not selling cheating vehicles "even after he knew about the illegal manipulations" -- knowledge the prosecutors said he had "from May 25, 2014". That date was more than a year before VW publicly admitted to fitting 11 million vehicles with software to make them appear less polluting in the lab than in real driving conditions. "In the end, this resulted in the imposition of higher fines against Volkswagen AG in Germany as well as the USA," the prosecutors said. As well as failing to inform authorities of the cheating, VW "with the knowledge and approval of Winterkorn" issued a software update in November 2014 whose only purpose was to cover up the so-called "defeat devices" that enabled the cheating, said the statement. VW shares were little moved by the charges, gaining 0.4 percent to trade at 154 euros around 1:15pm in Frankfurt (1115 GMT), slightly outperforming the DAX blue-chip index. The Wolfsburg-based group has so far suffered costs of 29 billion euros ($32.8 billion) related to dieselgate, much of it in fines, compensation and buyback schemes in the United States. In Germany, the group has paid 1.8 billion euros spread over two fines. Aftershocks from the scandal have been serious enough to change the gigantic firm's course, with bosses now making a massive bet on electrification over the next decade. But the legacy of dieselgate is still clinging to VW, with hundreds of thousands of customers in Germany bringing cases demanding compensation for their manipulated vehicles. And investors have opened two court cases against VW and its holding company Porsche SE, saying bosses should have informed markets sooner about the likely financial impact of the cheating. Dubai (AFP) - As Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar's forces fight for control of Tripoli, his success depends more on his ability to win over local militias than on the prowess of his troops, analysts say. Less than two weeks after Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) launched an offensive to seize the Libyan capital -- home to the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) -- a rising death toll and slowed advance indicate his troops are facing resistance by loyalists of the GNA, headed by Haftar's arch-nemesis Fayez al-Sarraj. Libya has been gripped by political chaos for years, since the 2011 NATO-backed overthrow of dictator Moamer Kadhafi. And the North African country has also felt the ripple effect of the Gulf diplomatic crisis, and tensions between the UAE and Qatar, Karim Bitar, director of research at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs, told AFP. With regional dynamics increasingly at play in Libya, Haftar will have no choice but to woo local militias as he pushes westward, to take Tripoli. - Muslim Brotherhood - Haftar's ties to Saudi Arabia and the UAE are critical to his campaign to drive Sarraj from Tripoli and emerge as Libya's uncontested leader, analysts say. "Haftar's hatred for the Muslim Brotherhood, which maintains some influence in Tripoli and within pockets of the official government, has made him popular with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)," says a report by the Soufan Group published Monday. "Both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi view the Muslim Brotherhood as a considerable threat to their respective rule and both strongly support strongmen like Egypt's al-Sisi and Libya's Haftar precisely for their anti-Brotherhood stance." At the start of the offensive launched earlier this month, Haftar's press agency published images of long lines of brand new armoured vehicles in a show of force. The images came days after Haftar was in Saudi Arabia, where authorities are said to have pledged tens of millions of dollars to his troops, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Friday. Story continues Haftar was also in Cairo on Sunday, shortly after UAE Crown Prince Mohammed ben Zayed held talks with the Egyptian president. - 'Gangs, jihadists' - The offensive is likely also a result of the dispute between Saudi Arabia and its allies on the one hand, and Qatar and Turkey on the other. Doha and Ankara are strong supporters of Islamists in western Libya. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are not, and Haftar's LNA regularly accuses Doha and Ankara of supplying weapons to its Islamist rivals. And in the labyrinth of Libyan politics, the LNA may not be able to singlehandedly seize western Libya -- a complicated region home to not only Islamists, but militias and armed groups antagonistic to the Government of National Unity. The opacity of the Libyan political scene is rooted in the incontrovertible influence of "gangs, criminals, and jihadists switching sides in a complex patchwork of fleeting alliances," according to the Soufan Center. "Haftar can only succeed in his offensive if he succeeds in turning alliances around and winning the support of certain tribes in the west, where territory is dominated by local forces," said Mathieu Guidere, a professor at the University of Paris and specialist in Arab politics. "He must draw inspiration from the system set up by Kadhafi in his day to control territory in the long term," Guidere told AFP. "Otherwise he does not stand a chance of rebuilding the country's territorial unity under one government." - 'No Libyan Sisi' - At least 147 people have been killed and more than 600 wounded in 10 days of fighting, according to the World Health Organization. And some analysts fear the worst is yet to come. "I think Haftar has major difficulties on the ground in western Libya," said Andreas Krieg, a professor at King's College London. "He is now bogged down in an atrocious war between his loose band of militias, the Libyan National Army, and those militias that try to defend the Government of National Accord," Krieg told AFP. "They feel that they didn't make the sacrifices in 2011 to have another military rule by Haftar." And even should Haftar take Tripoli, his position may remain difficult. "Haftar's bet is risky, but he has benefited from the empathy, open or tacit, of many Arab and western countries," Bitar said. "It will be difficult for him to become the 'Libyan Sisi' as Libya lacks an army and central institutions as deeply rooted as those of Egypt," he added. "His power will thus remain shaky." Helsinki (AFP) - Jussi Halla-aho, who led his nationalist Finns Party to more than double its seats in parliament in Finland's election, is a former medieval language lecturer turned hardline MEP and vehement critic of immigration and Islam. Less than six months ago, the Finns Party languished in fifth place in the polls ahead of an election where health reform and austerity looked to be the key battlegrounds. But the 47-year-old Halla-aho's campaigning on a hardline anti-immigration stance, which also questioned the need for action on climate change, electrified the campaign and brought in new waves of supporters whom the pollsters believe would not otherwise have voted at all. The Finns Party won 39 seats in the election, up from 17 in 2015, finishing just one short of the largest party, the leftist Social Democrats. The European Parliament member -- whose hobbies include astronomy and shooting -- has been described by Finnish media as giving a "tense and even shy impression" when being centre stage on television, and is said to be uncomfortable in the limelight. "When I drafted my speech today, I didn't know what kind of results to expect," he told a joyous crowd of Finns Party supporters at the group's election after-party on Sunday. "I see now that this speech is dull, and that's of course partly because of my monotonously boring personality," he said, to rapturous applause. - Nationalist radical - Halla-aho, a softly spoken academic, cuts a stark contrast to his predecessor as head of the Finns Party, the more moderate and larger-than-life Timo Soini, who stepped down in 2017 and was known for his erratic and at times boisterous public appearances. While Halla-aho speaks gently, his writing is more inflammatory -- his star rose partly due to his explicit writings against immigration and Islam. Finland's highest court in 2012 upheld a conviction and fines against him for inciting ethnic hatred and blasphemy in 2008. Story continues In a blog post, he condemned Islam and described Somalis as living off taxpayers' money. Halla-aho had pleaded not guilty, arguing that he had merely used sarcastic examples to highlight a "double standard" for what is allowed to be published in Finland. Under Halla-aho, the Finns Party has shifted from a eurosceptic, populist movement that claims to look out for the working classes to a more nationalist, far-right organisation that wants to cut refugee intake to "almost zero". In 2017, he demanded that the European Commission penalise civic organisations rescuing migrants from drowning when their ships founder in the Mediterranean. - 'I've made mistakes' - Born in the southern town of Tampere on April 27, 1971, Halla-aho studied hotel and restaurant management after leaving high school. In 1995, he began studying Russian at the University of Helsinki where he also taught Old Church Slavonic before embarking on his political career. Halla-aho is a married father of four, but Finnish media revealed in 2017 that he has a fifth child out of wedlock. "I've made mistakes in my private life that I cannot undo," he said in a Facebook post. "I've asked forgiveness from those who are associated with the matter and I have lived with the consequences as best as I can." Kampala (AFP) - A US tourist and a safari guide kidnapped by gunmen in a Ugandan national park have been recovered safe and sound after a ransom was paid for their release, a safari firm said on Sunday. The pair were hauled from their safari vehicle by four gunmen around dusk on Tuesday as they drove through the Queen Elizabeth National Park. Mike Walker, manager of Wild Frontiers Safaris, said US tourist Kimberly Endicott and experienced guide Jean-Paul Mirenge, were "back safe". "Ransom paid and people exchanged," he told AFP by text, adding that he didn't know the "precise amount yet". US President Donald Trump, in a tweet, confirmed the news of Endicott's released. "Pleased to report that the American tourist and tour guide that were abducted in Uganda have been released. God bless them and their families!" Trump tweeted Police had said the kidnappers used Endicott's mobile telephone to demand a ransom of $500,000 (445,000 euros) for the release of the pair. Asked about the ransom, police spokeswoman Polly Namaye would not confirm directly but referred AFP to the tour company, saying it was "an authority on its own". She credited the safe recovery of the pair "to the untiring efforts" of the search teams who were drawn from the police, military and the wildlife authority. "The victims of last week's kidnapping have been recovered alive," Namaye said. - 'The kidnappers have escaped' - The Ugandan police's tourist protection force had deployed a special response unit working alongside soldiers and wildlife rangers in the hunt for the kidnapped pair. Queen Elizabeth National Park, one of the East African nation's most popular wildlife reserves, runs along the border with conflict-wracked regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It borders the famous Virunga national park, the oldest in Africa. Numerous militia groups and armed gangs roam eastern DR Congo. Virunga suspended all tourism activities last year after a ranger was killed and two British tourists kidnapped. Story continues The Britons and their driver were freed two days after the attack. The park reopened in February. Government spokesman Ofwono Opondo wrote on Twitter that Endicott and Mirenge, were rescued "by Uganda security forces in the DRC". He added that "the kidnappers have escaped and operations continue." Queen Elizabeth park is about 150 kilometres (90 miles) north of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, famous for gorilla trekking. Uganda is home to more than half of the world's endangered mountain gorillas. In 1999, Rwandan rebels killed eight foreign tourists and four Ugandans there, inflicting an enormous blow to Uganda's tourist industry. The rebels were part of a militia group that was involved in the 1994 Rwandan genocide before fleeing to the jungles of DR Congo. Tourism is a key industry for Uganda, as a major earner of foreign currency. Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit each year. Photo credit: Norwegian Navy From Popular Mechanics A guided missile frigate that sank last year after a collision with an oil tanker is floating on its own while the Royal Norwegian Navy assesses the damage. The Helge Ingstad spent more than three months submerged in the frigid Norwegian Sea before being raised again in March. Experts believe the warship, exposed to oxygen-rich salt water, is so badly damaged it will never sail again. The Helge Ingstad, one of the most capable guided missile frigates in NATO, collided with the civilian tanker TS Sola in the early morning hours of November 8, 2018. The warships captain steered the stricken ship onto the rocky Norwegian shoreline to prevent it from sinking, but the Helge Ingstad sank anyway as it was being towed off the rocks. The crew sustained only a handful of minor injuries. Photo credit: VIDAR RUUD - Getty Images The frigate spent more than three months underwater in corrosive salt water before finally being raised in early March. The Norwegian Navy ordered custom-built steel plating to make the ship watertight again. The plating was used extensively on the starboard side of the hull, where Ingstad sustained huge, twenty meter long gash just above the waterline. The ship was almost fully flooded when it went underwater, although there were a few sections that remained watertight and dry. Repair crews are currently inspecting the ship for leaks, all of which must be found before any work can be done. Many of the ships weapons, particularly the anti-submarine torpedoes, were offloaded before the ship was raised. The Norwegian Navy is still assessing whether or not the ship can return to service. Ingstad was one of just five frigates in the entire navy, so the loss represents a 20 percent reduction in the number of Norways large surface combatants. Photo credit: Norwegian Navy Still, maritime experts polled by the Norwegian media are doubtful the ship can return to operational status. The experts are surprisingly upbeat about fixing the steel hull, although there are concerns expressed about damage the hull might have sustained during the raising process. The real problem is that ships electronics, electrical equipment, fixtures and weapons systems are all ruined by saltwater contamination and would need replacing. Coupled with the costs of repairing the hull, bringing Helge Ingstad back into service may not be worth it. Story continues At the very least, according to one Norwegian defense official, Norway would like to salvage whatever it can for possible use in the navys other four Nansen-class guided missile frigates. ('You Might Also Like',) London (AFP) - US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday her Democratic Party must avoid the "menace" of liberal policies pushed by rising political stars if it wants to beat President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. The top congressional Democrat used an appearance at the London School of Economics to set out a centrist vision that could help woo Republican voters frustrated with Trump's approach. She followed standard US diplomatic protocol of senior officials not criticising the president while abroad. But she made explicitly clear that new Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez -- an emerging force in US politics who is often simply referred to as AOC -- and fellow young progressives elected in 2018 represented only the margins of American society. "When we won this election, it wasn't in districts like mine or Alexandria's," Pelosi said in reference to the November midterms in which the Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives. "Those are districts that are solidly Democratic -- this glass of whatever would win with a D next to its name in those districts," said the Speaker after picking up a glass off a coffee table. Pelosi touted her own liberal upbringing and accomplishments representing the deeply Democratic voters of San Francisco. "I can compare my liberal credentials across the board. I said to them: 'Anything you're about, I got that sign in my basement 20 years ago'," Pelosi said. But "what we are saying is, to have a message that appeals to people in a way that does not menace them," she said. "I share those values -- but we must win." - Anti-Semitism rows - Pelosi is officially in London to gauge progress in Britain's stalled efforts to withdraw from the European Union after 46 years. But her stay has coincided with an ugly war of words that has pitted Trump against the new breed of Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. Story continues Trump accused Omar -- the first black Muslim woman elected to Congress -- in a tweet Monday of making "anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements". Their latest spat concerns Omar's remarks about the treatment of American Muslims since the September 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington. Yet Omar's comments about US political backing for Israel being fuelled by money from a pro-Israel lobbying group led to criticism from both sides of the political aisle. Pelosi used a meeting with Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn on Sunday to speak out against anti-Semitism in politics. She tweeted after the meeting that she and Corbyn discussed the importance of "protecting human rights, and the necessity of forcefully confronting anti-Semitism & Islamophobia". Corbyn has been under pressure from Jewish groups to more thoroughly investigate and clamp down on anti-Semitic incidents involving Labour members. But Pelosi also stuck up for Omar in her current standoff with Trump. "I don't think any president of the United States should use the tragedy of 9/11 as a political tool," Pelosi said. It may be Holy Week, a season known for self-reflection and repentance, but it looks like the Philippine National Police (PNP) will remain relentless when it comes to its war on drugs. Thats what PNP chief General Oscar Albayalde assured during a press conference earlier today. We will not relent on our campaign against illegal drugs even if its Holy Week, he said. This, even though he said that they will deploy more than 91,000 personnel almost half the members of the force to public areas frequented by crowds during the holiday, such as big churches. Holy Week is observed by Catholics all over the world to remember the passion and death of Jesus Christ. This year, it started yesterday (Palm Sunday) and will culminate this coming Sunday, April 21, with the celebration of Easter. Albayalde said that they have police officers dedicated to the war on drugs who will continue to concentrate on it this week. They will not be deployed or be used in some other duties except for their work on anti-illegal drug operations, Albayalde said. As of the end of January, PNP data shows that the anti-narcotics crackdown has killed 5,176 people since it launched in July 2016. However, the Philippines Commission on Human Rights has said that the number could actually be as big as 27,000. Many died in summary executions or without the benefit of a full and fair trial not unlike Jesus crucifixion, a story that is is being honored by a majority of Filipinos this week. Even before, even two years back or last year, we did not stop [the drug war] even during Lenten season, the police chief said. He also said that theyll work even harder this year, referencing President Rodrigo Dutertes statement alleging that the supply of drugs in the country has been getting worse. However, the police chief clarified that officers can participate in religious activities as long as they dont interfere with their jobs. Story continues The Philippines usually has an almost week-long holiday during Holy Week and many observe it by attending special Lenten church services. This includes Visita Iglesia on Maundy Thursday, a pilgrimage that has participants visiting seven churches to pray to the Blessed Sacrament. Many also light candles and attend street processions throughout the week and celebrate Easter vigils on the evening of Black Saturday. Its also not uncommon for some devotees to recreate Jesus passion and resort to extreme activities like self-flagellation and even crucifixion. This article, Polices drug war to remain relentless throughout Holy Week, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company. Want more Coconuts? Sign up for our newsletters! Oakland Raiders receiver Antonio Brown has settled a lawsuit filed by a man who claimed his toddler was nearly hit by furniture Brown threw off a balcony last year, TMZ.com reported Monday. Ophir Sternberg said that his 22-month-old son was walking near the pool at a Florida apartment complex in April 2018 when "large objects started to fall from the building many floors above them." Sternberg's lawsuit claimed that items tossed by Brown, including vases and an ottoman, landed just feet from the child, who was allegedly traumatized by the event. According to TMZ.com, Brown and Sternberg agreed to a confidential settlement and the matter has been closed. Brown, traded to Oakland from Pittsburgh last month, was expected to report for the start of the Raiders' offseason workout program Monday. --Field Level Media Khartoum (AFP) - Sudanese protest organisers on Monday demanded the new military council be scrapped, as demonstrators kept up calls for a civilian government at a sit-in outside army headquarters. Thousands of demonstrators have continued to rally in support of demands for civilian rule, despite an apparent attempt to disperse them following the ouster last week of veteran president Omar al-Bashir. "We want the military council to be dissolved and be replaced by a civilian council having representatives of the army," said Mohamed Naji, a senior leader of the Sudanese Professionals Association. The organisation which spearheaded months of protests leading to Bashir's fall also demanded the sacking of the country's judiciary chief and prosecutor general. The SPA's latest demands came as the military council faced mounting public and diplomatic pressure to hand over power to a civilian administration. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for "a rapid transfer of power to a civilian transitional government," in a phone call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. "This must be followed by a credible, inclusive political process that meets the expectations of the Sudanese people with regard to economic and political reforms," her office said in a statement. Sisi meanwhile reiterated Egypt's support for "the brotherly Sudanese people's will" and said Cairo would "not interfere in its internal affairs", according to a presidential statement. And the 55-member African Union threatened to suspend Sudan if the military fails to hand power over to civilians within 15 days, saying "a military-led transition would be completely contrary to the aspirations of the people of Sudan". Their comments come a day after the Khartoum embassies of Britain, the United States and Norway issued a joint statement calling for "inclusive dialogue to effect a transition to civilian rule". Story continues - 'We are not moving' - Outside army headquarters crowds remained camped outside the complex, despite SPA warnings of "an attempt to disperse the sit-in". "We call on our people to come immediately to the sit-in area to protect our revolution," the SPA said in a statement, without saying who was responsible. Witnesses said several army vehicles had surrounded the area and that troops were seen removing the barricades which demonstrators had put up as a security measure. "I felt frustrated when they tried to break the sit-in, but I still trust the army because it's not possible that they would give up on protesters," said demonstrator Mohamed al-Fatih. Portraits of people killed in the months of rallies covered the facades of several buildings in the area. "Until we see tangible results, we are not moving from here," said protester Abdulhadi Hajj Ahmed. A 10-member delegation representing the protesters delivered a list of demands during talks with the council late Saturday, according to a statement by the Alliance for Freedom and Change umbrella group. But in a news conference, the council's spokesman did not respond to the protesters' demands. - Shake-up at the top - The military council however met with political parties on Sunday, urging them to agree on an "independent figure" to be prime minister, an AFP correspondent at the meeting said. "We want to set up a civilian state based on freedom, justice and democracy," a council member, Lieutenant General Yasser al-Ata, told members of several political parties. The foreign ministry said military council head General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan was "committed to having a complete civilian government" and urged other nations to back the council in order to achieve "the Sudanese goal of democratic transition". Burhan has pledged that individuals implicated in killing protesters would be held to account and that demonstrators detained under a state of emergency imposed by the president during his final weeks in power would be freed. The SPA says Bashir must also face justice, along with officials from his feared National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) whose chief Salih Ghosh resigned on Saturday. As part of the shake-up at the top, a new NISS head and army chief of staff have been appointed. Bashir ruled Sudan with an iron fist for 30 years before he was deposed last week following mass protests that have rocked the country since December. A member of the military council said Sudan's next civilian government would decide whether to hand Bashir over to the Hague-based International Criminal Court where he has been wanted since 2009 on war crimes charges over the long-running conflict in Darfur in western Sudan. "The decision whether to extradite (Bashir) to ICC will be made by a popularly elected government and not the transitional military council," Jalaluddin Sheikh told journalists on Monday during a visit to Ethiopia. Mogadishu (AFP) - The US military confirmed Monday that it had killed the second-ranking Islamic State leader in Somalia in an air strike. US Africa Command said that Abdulhakim Dhuqub was killed Sunday in the strike vicinity of Xiriiro in the Bari region. In the current assessment, the US military said the strike killed only Dhuqub and destroyed one vehicle. "Dhuqub was responsible for the daily operations of the extremist group, attack planning and resource procurement," AFRICOM said in a statement. The Islamic State group has a relatively small presence in Somalia, where Al-Shabaab fighters are more powerful and aligned with Al-Qaeda. "We continue to work with our Somali partners to keep pressure on the Al-Shabaab and ISIS-Somalia terror networks," said AFRICOM director of operations Marine Corps Major General Gregg Olson. "When it supports the strategy, we use precision air strikes to target those who plan and carry out the violent extremist activities that put Somalis at risk." In late 2018, the US military estimated that there were between 75 and 250 Islamic State fighters in Somalia, compared to 3,000 to 7,000 Shabaab fighters. Washington (AFP) - The United States on Monday imposed sanctions on financiers with bases in Belgium, Kenya and Turkey on charges they funneled money internationally for the Islamic State extremist group. The Treasury Department said it had pinpointed successors to Fawaz Muhammad Jubayr al-Rawi, who was killed in a US-led coalition air strike in Syria in 2017 after allegedly sending millions of dollars earmarked for the jihadists. The United States imposed sanctions on seven people including Mushtaq Talib Zughayr al-Rawi, who as of late 2018 was living with his family in Belgium, according to the Treasury Department. Forces seized evidence during a raid on the Islamic State group last year that showed Mushtaq was helping fund them by exploiting the Iraqi government's electronic payment machines designed to distribute payments to public employees and retirees, the Treasury Department said. "Treasury is dedicated to ensuring the enduring defeat of ISIS by cutting off all remaining sources of their terror funding around the globe," said Sigal Mandelker, the department's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. Rawi's network dates from the 1990s in Iraq, when it used the region's hawala system, the informal network of money transfers conducted through face-to-face guarantees, to evade biting international sanctions on the country then ruled by Saddam Hussein. The Treasury Department also sanctioned a money exchange company, Al-Ard Al-Jadidah, said to connect Iraq's hawalas with the northern Turkish city of Samsun. An Islamic State member in Iraq allegedly received $1 million through the exchange last year, it said. Also targeted in the latest sanctions was Kenya-based Halima Adan Ali, who the Treasury Department said was part of a network that moved more than $150,000 through the hawala system to Islamic State fighters in Syria, Libya and central Africa. She has been arrested twice by Kenyan authorities and also served as a recruiter for Somalia's Al-Shabaab militants, according to the Treasury Department. With the announcement, the United States will seize any assets it finds which belong to the sanctioned individuals and bar any Americans from financial dealings with them. After the final results of the general elections held last week were released , it became obvious that a national unity government could not be formed. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter There's no balance of power: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party - along with its spin-off, Kulanu - won some 40 Knesset seats, while Benny Gantz's Blue and White party has only 35 seats and no spin-off parties to help them. The only way Blue and White can enter the government is by joining forces with Netanyahu, where Gantz would serve as acting prime minister, with Yair Lapid as foreign minister. There is, however, no point and no interest in establishing such a government, because Israel is not currently facing the kind of challenges and crises that would require an urgent entry of an opposition into the coalition government. Benny Gantz and Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: EPA) We are not on the verge of economic collapse and were not in a midst of a war (like we were, for instance, in 1984, when a coalition government was established as part of an agreement between Likud leader Yitzhak Shamir and Labors Shimon Peres amid the First Lebanon War). The economy is stable, and the budget reforms the state has to carry out are moderate in scale. The security is also reasonably stable, and Israeli military is not currently waging a ground war on enemy territory. There are no deep political, social or ideological rifts to mend by forming a unity government. The 2019 elections campaign was conducted - quite surprisingly - without violence, without expression of hatred or ethnic and national incitement. This indicates our society is on the mend and theres no need to resort to a unity drug. And there is, of course, the issue of interests. Netanyahu's interest is to form a coalition that would protect his position as prime minister after an indictment is filed against him on multiple corruption charges (or even prevent the indictment from being filed altogether). The presence of Blue and White members in his government - especially Gantz and Lapid - would undoubtedly bother the prime minister. Gantz, on the other hand, wants to serve as prime minister instead of Netanyahu, and entering a coalition government would not only distance him further away form his goal, but also undermine his political and personal credibility. Is it possible that a unity government is required in light of what US President Donald Trump is preparing in his peace plan known as the "deal of the century?" The answer is clear: Trump's peace initiative will not bear any fruit. If, however, a miracle happens and Trump's advisers will come up with a viable plan that would result in some kind of agreement, the unity government will fall apart. The unity government is also unwanted when it comes to the two - maybe biggest - winners of the April 9 vote: Kulanu leader Moshe Kahlon and Moshe Ya'alon from Blue and White. Moshe Kahlon (Photo: Elad Gershgoren) Kahlon is expected to continue his tenure as finance minister, even though his party has won the trust of only some 3.5% of Israel's citizens, and it's in his interest to oppose the expansion of the coalition. Kahlon's achievement, however, pales in comparison to that of Ya'alon. His Telem Party didnt stand a chance of passing an electoral threshold, yet he still managed to be placed at the top of the Blue and White elections list, while also bringing along some of his friends, who are sure to be decent MKs in the next parliament. In anticipation for the long awaited release of President Donald Trump's Mideast "deal of the century," European politicians who had held high-ranking positions in their governments and in European institutions, published a letter calling for the rejection of the proposed plan. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The Washington Post is reporting the administration's plan does not include the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and will focus heavily on Israeli security concerns. Jared Kushner and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (: ") According to the report Jared Kushner and other US officials have linked peace and economic development to Arab recognition of Israel as well as to an acceptance of a Palestinian "autonomy," as opposed to "sovereignty." President Trump and Jared Kushner with MBS (: ) In a letter sent to the Guardian newspaper, former high-ranking European politicians call on Europe to reject the expected plan unless it is fair to the Palestinians. The letter that was signed by 25 former foreign ministers, six former prime ministers, and two former NATO secretary generals, calls for a two-state solution in which Israel and Palestinian states live side by side. The former leaders claim, the US has departed from long standing policies and has "demonstrated a disturbing indifference to Israeli settlement expansion." In an interview to Israeli Kan Radio, former Palestinian minister Ziad abu Ziad said this reported plan is a non-starter for Palestinians. President Reuven Rivlin has begun consultations with representatives of the new parliament's factions ahead of tapping the country's next prime minister. Rivlin started his series of meetings on Monday with officials from Likud. He'll then meet members of the 10 other elected factions, in order of largest to smallest, to hear their recommendations, before formally appointing the candidate he believes has the best chance of building a parliamentary majority. It's a drizzle that is turning a steady stream. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Anyone who can, is leaving the Gaza strip. Some in Israel may consider this a positive development but let there be no illusion. Gaza is losing its intellectuals, its professionals and it's wealthy and is left on the verge of chaos. Gaza residents during Israeli air raid (Photo: Reuters) The threat of another military conflict looms, with elections in Israel over and the long awaited 'deal of the century' about to be revealed. Hamas has already admitted it cannot administer the strip and has called for help from outside, perhaps the Arab league, to step in and assist. There will be Anarchy. Hamas leaders are keeping figures under wraps, but it is estimated over 20,000 residents have left since the 2014 armed conflict with Israel. Exact numbers are unknown, as many of those leaving; obtain false documents identifying them as Syrian refugees, so as to improve their chances of settling in Turkey, Greece and Belgium. A European study of asylum seekers, conducted in 2017, found 4,500 Palestinians from Gaza residing in Greece but Palestinian sources report as least 6,000 are in Athens alone, most of them, carrying false passports. Demonstrations on the Gaza border (Photo: EPA) Until recently, only very few people could leave Gaza. The Rafah crossing, into Egypt, was kept mostly closed so smuggling-tunnels and the sea were used. But the dangers were great. Smugglers, hired for the Sinai desert crossing, charged up to $12,000 per person exercising complete control over the refugees. When the 'March of return' demonstrations began along the Gaza - Israel border, in 2018, Egypt kept the Rafah crossing open for 187 days a year, six times longer than their previous average. 60,000 people took advantage of the opportunity and crossed into Egypt. Israel also allowed 8,000 residents of Gaza, mostly student, to leave via the Allenby bridge crossing, into Jordan, provided they committed to staying away for at least a year. Those who left with the Hamas authority's permission, number tens of thousands. But many more have applied and are required to pay Hamas upwards of $2000, a figure expected to grow three-fold by the time they reach Europe. So while organized demonstrations take place weekly, along the border with Israel, and exact a high price in dead and wounded demonstrators; thousands of others, every month, pay cash to leave the strip. The decision of 5 doctors to leave Gaza, despite the numbers of wounded demonstrators that continue to suffer serious injuries on the border, was condemned on social media. Poverty in Gaza following World Bank cuts to UNRWA (Photo: Reuters) Studies show that since 2014, a consistent 40% of young Gazans' say they would like to leave. Half say they would be happy never to return. The primary reason given is financial. In comparison, only 20% of Palestinians residing in the West Bank, say they would like to leave. The anarchy taking hold of the Gaza strip manifests in residents leaving in droves but not only that. Growing numbers of suicides and suicide attempts are reported as are drug abuse crime and prostitution. All of that could come crashing down on Israel's head. The mothers of the three Israeli teens who were abducted and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists five years ago, will be honored by lighting a ceremonial torch at this years Independence Day celebrations. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The three Israeli teens - Naftali Frenkel, Gil-Ad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah - disappeared June 12, 2014 only to be found dead three weeks later after a massive Israel Defense Forces search mission. A senior Hamas religious figure later admitted the terror group had carried out the kidnap. The mothers of the there - Rachel Frenkel, Bat Galim Shaer and Iris Yifrach - will be the first trio to light the ceremonial torch in unison, after the organizers made an exception to the standard procedures which allow only two people to light the torch at the same time. Iris Yifrach, Bat Galim Shaer and Rachel Frenkel (Photo: Yariv Katz, Motti Kimchi, Michal Giladi) The three women have been working for the past few years to promote national unity and - in cooperation with Jerusalem Municipality and the Jerusalem-based Gesher NGO (dedicated to closing social gaps in the Israeli society) - established the Jerusalem Unity Prize in memory of their sons, celebrating contributions to the solidarity of the Israeli nation. "We have mixed feelings, because the ones who truly deserve this honor is not us but rather the people who have worked so hard to create national solidarity," said Rachel Frenkel. I'm shocked and excited, said Iris Yifrach. Its been five years since the abduction and now all of a sudden weve been asked to light the torch. Although its painful, its also exciting that the entire nation will once again feel united. Eyal Yifrah, Gil-Ad Shaer, Naftali Frenkel (: ) Im overwhelmed with emotions, said Bat Galim Shaer. I see this as a continued expression of solidarity we first felt five years ago its what matters to the people of Israel and to the Jewish world in general, she said, adding that despite the time that has passed, the pain is still great its indescribable. The theme of Israel's 71st Independence Day celebrations on May 8, will be saluting the Israeli spirit. It was in 2001. Israel had not yet withdrawn from Gaza but a new reality was forming. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter At first they were short range mortar shells fired into Sderot and farming settlements close by. Most of them caused little or no damage. But as time went on, the frequency of the shelling increased and their accuracy improved claiming lives of civilians. Teens who have lived under fire their entire lives (Photo: Haim Horenstein) Israel embarked on three rounds of military operations including massive shelling and troop incursions against the Hamas controlled enclave. The Iron dome missile defense system was developed in response to the ongoing attacks but the rounds of fighting and intermittent shelling became routine. Iron dome (Photo: Associated Press) The rocket generation was born into a reality of shelling, sirens and frequent wars. Now, heading into adulthood, we heard nine of them speak out. Some say they will not raise their own kids under such conditions, others say they plan to stay in the area when they grow up. Most say the Israeli government does not do enough to deal with the ongoing security situation but all agree their lives close to the border, caused them to grow up too quickly. People leaving shelter after Code Red alert (Photo: EPA) Shaked wolk: 'We grew up differently. From a young age you have to look out for yourself, be aware of the nearest bomb shelter and how quickly you can take cover, this is character building'. Noya Primer: 'I doubt I will raise my children in this way. I wouldn't want them to have to run the shelter in the middle of the night'. There is not unanimous agreement about what should be done, some think Hamas must be destroyed, others hope for a political solution that will not include more fighting, but these nine teens share a sense of despair, saying: 'That's just the way it is' or 'nothing can be done'. Rockets fired from Gaza into Israel 2018 (Photo: AP) Lior Vinograd-Peled: 'It's all about politics. The government is just fine with us being here to take the heat. We here are suffering but no one cares. Emily Novachov: 'No one in Sderot believes the politicians. We are just used to things as they are. If things don't change, I will not stay here. Ofer Weiss who does not want to leave concludes: 'I guess until the missiles reach Tel Aviv, nothing will change'. Israel's president began post-election consultations on Monday with political parties that will lead to his appointment of a candidate to form a government. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nomination seemed virtually ensured after his Likud party won the largest number of parliamentary seats in Tuesday's ballot, and his closest rival, Benny Gantz of the centrist Blue and White party, conceded defeat. The president, Reuven Rivlin, said he would announce his choice on Wednesday after meeting with all of the parties that captured seats in the 120-member Knesset. Rivlin during consultations with party leaders (Photo: GPO) Under Israeli law, after consultations with the parties the president taps a legislator whom he believes has the best chance of forming a government, delegating 28 days, with a two-week extension if necessary, to complete the task. Netanyahu said he intends to build a coalition with five right-wing and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties that would give a Likud-led government 65 seats, four more than the outgoing administration he heads. Four of those parties have already said they would back Netanyahu, bringing his tally of seats to 60. Former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman of the Yisrael Beitenu party, which won five seats and meets Rivlin on Tuesday, has not formally declared he would join a Likud-led coalition. But political commentators, noting Lieberman's sharp differences with left-wing and Arab parties whose support Gantz would need to govern, predicted he would sign up with Netanyahu after pressing for concessions in coalition negotiations. Gantz, a former military chief whose party won 35 parliamentary seats, would likely be next in line to try to put together a government if Netanyahu fails. Reuven Rivlin (Photo: GPO) For the first time, Rivlin's consultations with the parties were being broadcast live as part of what he described as a display of transparency in what has historically been a closed-door process in Israel. At the meeting with Likud representatives, Culture Minister Miri Regev noted Netanyahu had won re-election despite Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit's announcement in February that he plans to charge the prime minister in three graft cases. Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing. He can still argue, at a pre-trial hearing with Mandelblit whose date has not been set, against the filing of bribery and fraud charges against him. The Israeli leader is under no legal obligation to resign if indicted. By ANI NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet on Monday gave ex-post facto approval to the MoUs between India and Bolivia on cooperation in geology and traditional systems of medicine. The meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi also approved the pact with Cambodia for cooperation in communications, according to an official statement. With Denmark, the Cabinet gave its approval for a cooperation agreement in renewable energy with focus on offshore wind energy. Prime Minister Modi was apprised about an MoU signed in May 2018 with Brazil to collaborate on innovation in science and technology besides biotechnology education, training and research. The Cabinet was apprised about an MoU under which the Department of Posts will issue postage stamps on Queen Hur Hwang-ok of South Korea by 2019-end. The prime minister has been at the center of Israel's foreign relations stage for the past decade. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter He gives a stellar show that attracts many, performs duets with heads of state, signs trade agreements and enjoys the production services of the master himself, President Donald Trump. Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu in Moscow (Photo: MCT) The language, the style, and self-confidence of our mega-ambassador, along with the doors opened to him, to world leaders, have made him a super diplomat whose methods will be studied in the prestigious Foreign Ministry cadet academy. That is if such an academy is opened this year. So far, none is planned. Foreign ministry workers protest lack of funds for diplomatic work Not because there is nothing to learn from the champion of all times. The wizard of policy, and the pied piper of foreign ministers. There will be no academy this year because there is no budget for one. That should come as no surprise to anyone who's read the state comptroller's report from 2016. The most prestigious course in the land was axed, the report finds, because alternative institutions and departments were created and budgeted, to deal with Israel's foreign policy, leaving 440 ministry staff: ambassador, consuls, and other employees of the service, in dire straits. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem (Photo: Gil Yohanan) The last time the ministry's voice was heard was during the 2017 visit of the newly elected US president. Then in an effort to draw attention to their plight, staff threatened to strike claiming cut wages and an ineffective ministry. Today even the few who still remain see Israeli diplomatic missions close and emissaries absent from their posts. Numbers don't lie. Israel has 103 missions in total around the world, less than countries such as Greece, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and Portugal - all small countries too, and none of which have a conflict with the Palestinains to worry about. Compared to Arab states, Israel's presence is dismal as well, especiually cvompared to Turkey's 223 missions, Egypt's 166, Iran's 142 and Pakistan's 118. We are losing the diplomatic and public relations battle by conceding our place and our standing in the world, to our enemies. As things stand now, the same person responsible for the demise of Israel's foreign service will sign the anticipated peace plan coming our way. GENEVA - The number of measles cases worldwide nearly quadrupled in the first quarter of 2019 to 112,163 against the same period last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday, citing provisional data. Higher rates of the preventable but highly contagious disease, which can kill a child or leave it disabled for life, have been recorded in all regions, the United Nations agency said in a statement, appealing for better vaccination coverage. "Over recent months, spikes in case numbers have also occurred in countries with high overall vaccination coverage, including the United States...as well as Israel, Thailand, and Tunisia, as the disease has spread fast among clusters of unvaccinated people," the WHO said in a report. A hunger strike by Hamas prisoners ended Monday after the strikers reached an agreement with the Prison Services. According to the agreement, prisoners will be provided with pay phones that can be eavesdropped on by authorities, but they will not be able to use cell phones. Requests for family visits were turned down. Yisrael Beytenu Party Chairman Avigdor Lieberman spoke to the press at an event held at the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem Monday evening. "The voters had their say, the election results are clear, the Right won 65-55. Tomorrow we will recommend Benjamin Netanyahu for prime minister," he said. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter "Unfortunately, the religious and ultra-Orthodox factions grew to 21 or 22 Knesset seats," he added. "I see this as a threat to the ideals of (Zionist revisionist leader Ze'ev) Jabotinsky. This is something I am concerned about, but I am taking it into account. The voter has made his decision." Avigdor Lieberman (Photo: Ohad Z) Netanyahu needs Lieberman in order to form a Right-wing coalition. He is expected to be a tough negotiating partner. Lieberman also touched upon the draft bill that the Haredim oppose. He said that he would not agree to any changes whatsoever, "It is not anti-Halacha or the Haredim, it is pro-IDF." He went on to list the Haredi demands that his party would refuse to submit to in any coalition agreement such as the demand to cancel all construction work on Shabbat or legislate a Basic Law for Torah study. MK Uri Maklev (Yahadut Hatorah) responded to Lieberman's comments on the draft bill: "He is trying hard to gain a negotiating advantage in order to receive a more lucrative portfolio. He is trying to be the bad boy of the coalition He wants to be defense minister." Uri Maklev Lieberman thanked his supporters saying that political pundits predicted the demise of his party and politicians from across the spectrum opposed it. "We fought the coalition that tried to eliminate us; total war, conducted by means I have never before witnessed online, fake surveys, bots I witnessed attempts from all directions; apparently we are an important political player," Lieberman said. Regarding the polls that predicted that he would not garner enough votes to cross the electoral threshold, he said that it raises questions regarding the use of polls to manipulate public opinion. He pledged to enact legislation to ensure full transparency with regards to online activity related to the elections. "I want to know who is funding the poll and who they are working with." He pondered, "how is it that all the polls gave the Zehut and New Right parties seven or six seats but Yisrael Beytenu zero?" He asserted that his opponents waged psychological warfare against his party. "Before the elections they said that we won't make the threshold and that the party is over. But now, Yisrael Beytenu holds the key to the coalition Even our political rivals respect us now," said party MK Oded Forer. Another delegate, Eli Avidar criticized the fact that the Knesset Finance Committee is headed by Haredim (Moshe Gafni) or Arab MKs as they "represent sectors of the population that pay less taxes." It was reported earlier that while on vacation in Europe, Lieberman met with Yair Lapid to discuss the possibility of forming a national unity government without the Haredi and far-Right parties and thus advance civil marriages, public transit on Shabbat and budgetary changes. But the report turned out to be false as Lapid was in Paris and Lieberman in Vienna. National Australia Bank (NAB) tempered its prediction for Sydney property prices, given that the decline of values surpassed its forecasts since 2018. "We now expect Sydney to decline by around 20% from peak to trough, while Melbourne is expected to fall around 15%," NAB Group Chief Economist Alan Oster said in a statement. NAB was expecting peak-to-trough drops of nearly 15% in Sydney and Melbourne in January, according to a report by The Sydney Morning Herald. Basing on CoreLogic data, real estate prices in Sydney have slid about 14% since their peak in 2017, while the downturn in Melbourne has averaged about 10%. "Overall, we expect some further price declines in 2019, before levelling out in 2020," Oster said in a statement. The weakness will be caused by ongoing declines in Sydney and Melbourne, according to the economist. Conditions in Perth are also expected to remain weak, while other capitals are likely to post better results. NAB analysts forecast Sydney unit prices to slide by 7.2% in 2019 and 2.5% in 2020. Melbourne unit prices, meanwhile, are expected to drop 4.3% in 2019 and 1% in 2020. "The key factors we see as having driven these declines include the early prudential tightening (particularly for investors), some tightening in credit conditions (on the expenses side), waning foreign investor demand as well as weaker price expectations themselves," Oster said in a statement. By Express News Service MUMBAI: The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has asked all insurance companies life, health and general to periodically inform the clients the status of processing claims settlement, in a circular issued on April 10. IRDAI has also asked insurers to send all communication about issuance, and servicing of policies through letter, e-mail, SMS or any other electronic form approved by it starting July. But, it has said that it shall be voluntary on part of the policyholder to provide mobile number and e-mail IDs and it shall not be mandatory. It has asked insurers to put in place procedures for collecting such data and be responsible for ensuring total confidentiality of policyholder information. Consent of the policyholders shall be specifically obtained for notifying the services rendered by the insurers and no other unsolicited information shall be sent to the policyholders, IRDAI said. The basic thrust, of course, is to let the policyholder know the process and stages of one of the most crucial elements of a policy the claims settlement. This is to ensure fair and transparent claim settlement procedures. Clear and transparent communications play a vital role in servicing of insurance policies and in ensuring that the benefits of insurance policies flow to the beneficiaries in a timely manner, the circular said. The most sensitive part in the lifecycle of a life insurance policy is when it comes up for claimsWe welcome this move by IRDAI, and are happy to add that most of these recommendations are part of our daily business routine in some form. We will refine the claims communication process and align them to the IRDAIs latest guidelines, said Kayzad Hiramanek, chief, customer service & operation, Bajaj Allianz Life Policyholders have to be made available a tracking mechanism to know the status of the policies. In case of health insurance, where TPAs (third-party administrators) are engaged for rendering claims services, the insurer has to take the responsibility to inform the status of claim to the claimant at every stage. At every stage of the claim, processing such as calling for further requirements or arranging for survey; communication of the final decision, i.e., admission or rejection or repudiation; payment details such as by cheque or bank credit etc, timely notifications shall be sent to policyholder or claimant, IRDAI said. It has also asked insurers to send policyholders brief alert, awareness messages to prevent them from falling prey to spurious offers, and also ensure that the messages are in simple, easy to understand language and wherever possible, in regional languages. Keeping it simple IRDAI has asked insurers to send awareness messages to keep policyholders from falling for spurious offers. These messages should be in simple, easy to understand language, it said. Latest News Washington, DC - Remarks by President Trump on United States 5G Deployment: THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much, everybody. Big day. Very important day. We have a lot of important days at our White House. And this is, to me, the future. I want to thank you all for being here to discuss a critical issue for our countrys future: winning the race to be the worlds leading provider of 5G cellular communications networks. Its all about 5G now. We were at 4G, and everybody was saying, We have to get 4G. And then they said, before that, We have to get 3G. And now we have to get 5G, and 5G is a big deal. And thats going to be there for a while. And I guess, at some point, well be talking to you about number 6. What do you think? (Laughter.) Do you think thats true, Ajit? But, right now, we want to be the leader in this. Were the leader in almost everything else. And were grateful to be joined by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, whos been doing a fantastic job, and Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Stephen Censky. Thank you very much, Stephen. Appreciate it. And tell Sonny hello. Hes doing a tremendous job. Really tremendous. Secure 5G networks will absolutely be a vital link to Americas prosperity and national security in the 21st century. 5G will be as much as 100 times faster than the current 4G cellular networks. It will transform the way our citizens work, learn, communicate, and travel. It will make American farms more productive, American manufacturing more competitive, and American healthcare better and more accessible. Basically, it covers almost everything, when you get right down to it. Pretty amazing. And just as 4G networks paved the way for smartphones and all of the exciting breakthroughs they made possible so many things this will be more secure and resilient. 5G networks will also create astonishing and really thrilling new opportunities for our people opportunities that weve never even thought we had a possibility of looking at. We cannot allow any other country to out-compete the United States in this powerful industry of the future. We are leading by so much in so many different industries of that type, and we just cant let that happen. The race to 5G is a race America must win, and its a race, frankly, that our great companies are now involved in. Weve given them the incentive they need. Its a race that we will win. In the United States, our approach is private-sector driven and private-sector led. The government doesnt have to spend lots of money. According to some estimates, the wireless industry plans to invest $275 billion in 5G networks, creating 3 million American jobs quickly very quickly and adding $500 billion to our economy. And, as you probably heard, we had another alternative of doing it; that would be through government investment. And leading through the government, we dont want to do that because it wont be nearly as good, nearly as fast. And especially in that business, I think that theyll be better doing the job than a lot of the folks who we know and love. To accelerate and incentivize these investments, my administration is focused on freeing up as much wireless spectrum as needed were going to free it up so theyll be able to get out there and get it done and removing regulatory barriers to the buildout of networks. As Chairman Pai will discuss with you in a moment, the FCC is taking very bold action probably bolder than theyve ever taken before; its a new frontier to make wireless spectrum available. By next year, the United States is on pace to have more 5G spectrum than any other country in the world. Thats a big statement because, as you know, some people got ahead of us. We should have been doing this a long time ago, as advanced as it may be. In addition, last October, I directed the Department of Commerce to develop a National Spectrum Strategy to free up even more spectrum for economic activity, including 5G. The FCC has also taken action to streamline the permitting process for 5G infrastructure with state and local governments. Thats a big deal. It takes too long to get permits. Were going to free that situation up, and were going to put limits and the local areas are going to listen to us very, very strongly. They have a big incentive to do that. They must now approve new physical infrastructure within 90 days, instead of many years. It can sometimes take three, four, and five years. Were going to put a limit of 90 days. And there is now a cap on the unreasonable fees local governments often charge. They get greedy. They think, Hey, we can really take advantage. And it ends up that everybody gets hurt. So were putting a cap on those fees. These changes will contribute greatly to building high-speed networks across America. And its going to happen very quickly. Very, very quickly. By the end of this year, the United States will have 92 5G deployments in markets nationwide. The next nearest country, South Korea, will have 48. So we have 92, compared to 48. And were going to accelerate that pace greatly. But we must not rest; the race is far from over. American companies must lead the world in cellular technology. 5G networks must be secure. They must be strong. They have to be guarded from the enemy we do have enemies out there and they will be. They must cover every community, and they must be deployed as soon as possible. As we are making great progress with 5G, were also focused on rural communities that do not have access to broadband at all. And we have a couple of people from the great farms that I love, that Im sure voted for me. I wont ask them, but they seem (laughter) I think they, for the most part yes? PARTICIPANT: Yeah. THE PRESIDENT: Good. I think, for the most part, they did. I think I know that almost automatically. Id be very surprised. But I have to say, Ive been talking about broadband for the for rural America the farmers and others. They have really been they just havent been treated properly. And now, what were doing is were making it a priority. Thats the areas we want to go to first, so theyre covered. Were working closely with federal agencies to get networks built in rural America faster and at much, much lower cost than it is even today. So now Id like to introduce a very special man whos really worked hard and gained the respect of the world, truly because they see what were doing in our country who will making two major announcements to accelerate our 5G future and extend broadband access to every American. No matter where you are, you will have access to 5G. And its going to be a different life. I dont know that its going to be better. Maybe youre happy the way it is right now (laughter) but I can say, technologically, it wont even be close. So, Chairman Pai, thank you very much. Please, say a few words. Thank you very much, Ajit. MR. PAI: Thank you, Mr. President. Appreciate you. (Applause.) Well, thank you, Mr. President, for you your compelling vision of U.S. leadership on 5G. I also want to thank Larry Kudlow, the Director of the National Economic Council, for your steadfast support of this vision. Mr. President, as you observed, America must win the race to 5G, the next generation of wireless connectivity. And this matters for two key reasons: The first is national competitiveness. We want the good-paying jobs that develop and deploy 5G technologies jobs that support some of the folks in this room to be created here, in America. We want these technologies to give our economy a leg up as we compete against the rest of the world. The second reason U.S. leadership matters is that 5G will improve Americans lives in so many ways, from precision agriculture, to smart transportation networks, to telemedicine, and more. We want Americans to be the first to benefit from this new digital revolution while protecting our innovators and our citizens. And as you pointed out, Mr. President, we dont want rural Americans to be left behind. And, Mr. President, thats why Im pleased to report that America is now well positioned to win the race to fast, secure, and reliable 5G. And dont just take my word for it. In February, ABI Research stated, and I quote, It is the United States who will win the 5G race in the short term. That same month, Cisco projected that, in three years, 5G would be more than twice as prevalent in North America as in Asia. Last week, CTIA reported that America leads the world with the most commercial 5G deployments of any nation. And just this past Tuesday, it was reported that 5G-related job listings here in the United States increased 12 percent in just the past three weeks according to data from an online job search service. Today, 5G is a success story an American success story. Well, how are we getting the job done? As the lead agency on 5G, the FCC is pursuing a three-part strategy called the 5G FAST Plan. First, were freeing up spectrum, the invisible airwaves that carry wireless traffic. We finished our first 5G spectrum auction in January, and were holding a second, right now, that has already generated almost $2 billion in bids. Second, were making it easier to install wireless infrastructure. 5G will rely heavily on a web of small antennas. But when I came into office, regulations designed for tall towers threatened to strangle our 5G future in red tape. We have eliminated these rules, because infrastructure the size of a pizza box shouldnt have to jump through the same regulatory hoops as a 200-foot cell tower. And third, weve taken action to encourage the deployment of optical fiber. That is because 5G isnt just about wireless. Well also need strong fiber networks to carry 5G traffic once it goes from the air to the ground. And weve done a lot to make that happen, including ending heavy-handed regulations imposed by the prior administration. And here, too, we are getting results. Last year, fiber was deployed to more new locations in the United States than in any year before. But in the race to 5G, our early success is still early. We still need to do more, and we will. And so today Im announcing two new steps the FCC will take to build on our momentum. First, the FCC intends to start its third 5G spectrum auction on December 10th of this year. This will be the largest spectrum auction in American history. We will be selling 3,400 megahertz in three different bands. And for those of you who arent wireless experts, that is a lot of spectrum. Second, to help build the infrastructure of the future, the FCC aims to create a $20.4 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund headed by the agency. This money will extend high-speed broadband to up to 4 million homes and small businesses in rural America. These next-generation networks will bring greater economic opportunity to Americas heartland, including some of the great jobs building infrastructure, and they will help support future 5G technologies. In closing, I want to thank you again, Mr. President, for your leadership on 5G. Your White House has advanced your vision in many ways, from international treaty negotiations to much-needed regulatory reforms. I appreciate all these efforts, and in the same spirit, this FCC will help build a great and lasting legacy of American success on 5G. Thank you, Mr. President. THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Ajit. Very good. (Applause.) Ivanka worked very hard on this. Maybe say a couple of words, Ivanka? Please. MS. TRUMP: Sure. Well, thank you. And thank you, everyone, for being here today. Obviously, American dominance in the industries of the future is predicated on connectivity and digital connectivity. And 5G is the future. And so I think everyone in this room feels very comfortable to know its in your very capable hands. And, President, we thank you for your leadership on this critical issue. And Im so glad that we were able to include in todays discussion our priorities on rural broadband. So that is something that, from the earliest days of the administration, weve sought to really deliver on. And with todays announcement, in addition to the milestones that have been achieved over the last two years, we can say that were bringing 5G and rural broadband across this country. So, really, thank you. THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, honey. (Applause.) Would you like to say something on behalf of the farmers and our great people? Please. MR. SMITH: Certainly. Mr. President, we really appreciate the fact that you have put this emphasis on rural America. THE PRESIDENT: Thats right. MR. SMITH: The things that you have done in office have been tremendous for us. We look forward to the next several years of you continuing to do that. The thing that you struck today, though, of deregulation, broadening it out, and letting the American business, letting the American farmers and ranchers fix the problems of this country, really rings hard with us. Thats what we try to do and thats what well take forward to build this nation. Thank you for your help. THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. (Applause.) MR. MILLER: Mr. President, Chairman Pai, on behalf of the National Association of Tower Erectors, our 900-member companies, we build, deploy, and maintain the wireless infrastructure of this nation. And you all are fixing to put us to work, and we appreciate it. (Laughter and applause.) THE PRESIDENT: And your people do an incredible job, Jimmy. Thank you very much. What a great job. And they go up high. How high do you go? MR. RAY: Ive been up 800-foot. THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. And somebody said 200 feet and sometimes more. Thats a long way up. And you feel very safe, right? Huh? Who said 200? (Laughter.) MR. MASSENGALE: A thousand. THE PRESIDENT: A thousand? Come here. Come here. PARTICIPANT: Thats a big tower. THE PRESIDENT: Come here. (Laughter and applause.) How high do you go? MR. MASSENGALE: Up to 1,000 feet. THE PRESIDENT: I dont want that job. (Laughter.) Thank you very much. Thank you all very much. I appreciate it. This is going to be a great, great thing. Q Mr. President Mr. President THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Q can you tell us your plans about sanctuary cities and illegal migrants? (Inaudible.) THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know, the people that are putting sanctuary cities where theyre not even wanted because as you know, in California and other places, a lot of communities want to get out of sanctuary cities; they dont want them. But they always seem to have open arms. So we thought rather than moving the illegal immigrants to other parts of the country first of all, were getting them and were doing the best we can with very bad laws. We have to change the laws. But were apprehending thousands and thousands of people a day, and the law only allows us to hold them, as you know, for 20 days because of the most ridiculous laws, probably, we have in this country. If Ajit had laws like that for 5G, you wouldnt have anything built. Youd never have the first cell put up. But we have horrible, old-fashioned laws that are put in by the Democrats. Were willing to change them. We can do it in I used to say 45 minutes; we can do it in 15 minutes whether its catch and release or chain migration or any of them. The asylum laws are absolutely insane. They come up. In many cases, theyre rough gang members. In many cases, theyre people with tremendous crime records and theyre given a statement to read by lawyers that stand there waiting for them, Read this statement. And it says, I have great fear for my life. I have great fear for being in my country. Even though, in some cases, some of these people are holding their countrys flags and waving their countrys flags. And then they talk about the fear they have of being in the country that the flag they were waving freely. So we are looking at the possibility strongly looking at it, to be honest with you. California, the governor wants to have a lot of people coming in, refugees coming in. A lot of sanctuary cities. So well give them to the sanctuary cities, maybe, to take care of, if thats the way they want it because we can only hold them, under the current law, for 20 days. So we apprehend them by the thousands and thousands a day. I have to say Border Patrol has been incredible. The job theyre doing is incredible. The wall is going up. Its going up fairly rapidly. Were doing another big section. We start another big section tomorrow. But were building miles and miles of wall. And were going to have I think well be close to 400 miles built by the end of next year. We need that. Just got back from Texas, and some of the ranchers told me you look at Brooks County, you look at other places some of the ranchers told me you have bodies lying all over the land of people where the coyotes give them a can of soda and they give them a sandwich and they say, Houston is 300 miles in that direction. And the people dont know what that means. That means they cant make it. That means they have no chance and they die. Its something I never heard. I never heard it to this extent. Many people die. And theyll say, Just head in that direction. And we are doing a lot about it. If we had the wall, we wouldnt have that. If we had the wall, people wouldnt be coming up. Mexico is now apprehending and bringing back to the various countries that were talking about Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador theyre bringing people back to those countries; Colombia, to a certain extent and theyre going back to those countries. But we could fix that and so fast if the Democrats would agree. But if they dont agree, we might as well do what they always say they want: Well bring the illegal really, you call them the illegals. I call them the illegals. They came across the border illegally. Well bring them to sanctuary city areas and let that particular area take care of it, whether its a state or whatever it might be. California certainly is always saying, Oh, we want more people. And they want more people in their sanctuary cities. Well, well give them more people. We can give them a lot. We can give them an unlimited supply. And lets see if theyre so happy. They say, We have open arms. Theyre always saying they have open arms. Lets see if they have open arms. The alternative is to change the laws, and we can do it very, very quickly, very easily. Okay? Okay? Q Are you asking for more troops on the border as well? THE PRESIDENT: Were going to put more troops on the border, yeah. Were going to. And, you know, the thing is, our country is doing so well economically. Were setting records that a lot of people are coming up for that reason. A lot of people are coming up for bad reasons too. We have a lot of very, very bad people with big criminal records trying to get through. And the Border Patrol has done an incredible job with them. Those are our focus. They really have done a really incredible job. And when they have been through, and when theyve been let through over the years ICE all over Long Island and they come and they get them and they take them back, and we get them the hell out of here. Thats happening all over our country. ICE. But the job that ICE and that, really, Border Patrol does is an incredible job. And law enforcement in this country is the job theyre doing is really incredible. You know, I dont know if you saw the crime stats, but the statistics are that crime is way down in our country over the last year. Way, way down. And so thats despite all of the problems we have at the border. And were straightening that out. So, on sanctuary cities, as per your question, we are giving very strong consideration to having people after a 20-day period because, again youre not allowed, legally, to hold them for more than that we will move them into sanctuary cities. Thank you very much everybody. Thank you. Our directory features more than 18 million business listings from across the entire US. However, if we're missing your business, add your business by clicking on Add Your Business. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has appealed for information on the fate of three employees abducted in Syria more than five years ago and last known to have been held by Islamic State. Breaking its silence on the case on Sunday, the independent aid agency identified the three as Louisa Akavi, a nurse from New Zealand, and Syrian drivers Alaa Rajab and Nabil Bakdounes. "Our latest credible information indicates that Louisa was alive in late 2018," it said. U.S.-backed forces proclaimed the capture of Islamic State's last territory in Syria last month, eliminating its rule over a caliphate it had proclaimed in Iraq and Syria in 2014. ICRC officials said Akavi might have been swept up among some 70,000 women and children who fled to al-Hol camp after the fall of Islamic State, many of them jihadist sympathisers. ICRC President Peter Maurer raised her case during a visit to the camp, run by Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in March, they added. "We call on anyone with information to please come forward. If our colleagues are still being held, we call for their immediate and unconditional release," the ICRC said in a statement providing a Syrian contact number: +963 953 555 745. It said it had not been able to learn more details about the two drivers, and their fate was not known. The three were travelling in a Red Cross convoy in October 2013, delivering supplies to medical facilities in Idlib, northwestern Syria, when it was stopped by armed men. Four other people abducted with them were released the next day. The Swiss-run agency has a policy of never paying ransoms. Akavi, now 62, joined the ICRC in 1988 and has worked in a number of hotspots. She has been held longer than anyone in ICRC's 156-year history, said Dominik Stillhart, ICRC director of operations worldwide. New Zealand's government said it was searching for Akavi. Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the government had deployed a non-combat team based in Iraq that included special operations personnel, "focused on locating ...and identifying opportunities to recover her." After being moved by IS forces to Raqqa in 2017, Akavi was seen in Al-Bukamal in late 2018, close to the Syrian-Iraqi border, the last concrete information on her whereabouts, Stillhart said. "What we actually know is that Louisa has been working as a nurse during her abduction which shows her dedication and commitment," he said. Search Keywords: Short link: By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Hours after bankrupt Jet Airlines pilots union decided to go on strike from Monday demanding unpaid wages, it deferred its no-fly call citing a critical meeting of lenders scheduled for the day. The clout of pilots has anyway diminished, as the number of Jet planes currently flying is down to single digits just seven out of its original fleet of 119. "It is come to our notice that there is a critical meeting planned tomorrow (Monday) morning with the airline management and SBI." "In light of the meeting, the members have requested, through their team leaders, that the call of 'No Pay No Work' be deferred to give the airline a chance of survival. Accordingly, as requested, the Committee would like to inform all that the decision stands deferred for the time being," the National Aviator's Guild (NAG) committee said in a late evening communication to its members. All pilots are still requested, however, to be present at Siroya Centre at 0930 hours on April 15 in their uniforms, it said. Siroya Centre is Jet Airways headquarters in Andheri suburb in Mumbai. According to NAG, it has also called upon other departments to join the gathering at the headquarters as a show of unity. An Open House will be called shortly as per the availability of the venue and the committee members, the communication added. The pilots, along with engineers and senior management, have not received salaries since January. The debt-ridden carrier has also not paid the March salary to employees of other categories as well. "As on today, we have not been paid for nearly three-and-a-half months and we do not know when we will be paid. So we have decided to go ahead with our call of no-flying from April 15. All 1,100 pilots of NAG will stop flying from 10 am Monday," a Guild source said earlier in the day. The NAG, which claims representation of around 1,100 pilots of the total 1,600 with the full-service carrier, had in late March called for no flying from April 1 over non-payment of salaries. However, on March 31, it deferred the agitation to April 15, saying it wanted to give more time to the new management. A lenders consortium, led by State Bank of India, will meet on Monday to consider a proposal for Rs 1,000 crore capital infusion. On Friday, at a meeting called by the Prime Ministers Office, sources said the grim message was Jet has money to run operations only till Monday. Earlier in the day, the carrier suspended operations to SAARC and ASEAN regions indefinitely and stopped accepting bookings to many Western destinations. Jet Airways has currently suspended operations to SAARC and ASEAN destinations, as well as to Toronto and Paris from Chennai and back, it said in a statement. It was in line with the Centres directive to inform passengers 48 hours in advance about flight cancellations. As a proactive measure, Jet Airways has restricted sales on certain routes for a few days, the airline added. (With inputs from PTI) New Delhi: People across Kerala and primarily south India celebrate their New Year on the first day of the month of Medam according to the Malayalam calendar. This is also celebrated as Puttandu in Tamil Nadu, Poila Boishakh in Bengal, Bohag Bihu in Assam and Baisakhi in Punjab. The elders and women in the family prepare the Vishu Kani a day before by using edible stuff like rice grains, cucumber, pumpkin, coconut, mangoes, betel leaves, supari, flowers, coins and fruits and a metal vessel called "urali"in front of a mirror that reflects the image of their deity. On the day of Vishu, people take Kani Darshanam soon after waking up. They also exchange gifts with their loved ones and wear new clothes. Women wear the traditional Kasavu saree (off white saree with golden border) andl jewellery while the men look dapper in white veshti (dhoti) and shirt. Then they visit a temple to seek blessings of the divine for an auspicious start. And like all festivals in India, Vishu is incomplete without an elaborate meal. On Vishu, people gorge on delicious meal Sadya - that consists of 26 different preparations. Bengaluru: Flying out from the Bengaluru airport will be costlier by a massive 120 per cent from Tuesday following the airport tariff regulator Aera allowing it to revise upwards the user development fee (UDF) for four months. The nation's third busiest airport after New Delhi and Mumbai, plans to use the additional fee to fund its expansion. "With the Aera order coming into effect from April 16, the UDF for domestic departures will be revised to Rs 306 from Rs 139 while for international departures it will be Rs 1,226 from Rs 558 earlier," Bangalore airport said in a statement Monday. The new charges for domestic and international travel translate into an increase of 120 per cent and 119 per cent, respectively, it added. The revised fee is applicable for tickets procured between April 16 and August 15, it said adding the increased fee will be rolled back from August 16. The Rs 13,000-crore second phase expansion entails construction of a new terminal, a second runway, access roads, and a multi-modal transport hub, company said, adding these work is scheduled to be completed by March 2021. "This incremental increase in charges will provide us with the much-needed relief as we are in the midst of a Rs 13,000-crore capacity expansion," said Hari Marar, the managing director and chief executive. As mandated by Aera (Airports Economic Regulatory Authority), the money generated from the incremental UDF hike during these four months, will be deposited in a separate bank account and will be used only to fund the ongoing expansion, he added. The Kempegowda International Airport began operations in May 2008 and is the second airport build on a PPP model after Kochi which was commissioned in the late 1990s. The airport handled 26.91 million passengers in FY18 and is one of the fastest growing in the world. Canadian NRI Prem Watsa-run Fairfax owns 54 per cent in the airport and Siemens Projects Ventures 20 hold per cent. Of the remaining 26 per cent, Karnataka government and the Airports Authority holds 13 per cent each, respectively. New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate sleuths on Monday attached four assets worth Rs 3.68 crores Haryana former chief minister Om Prakash Chautala under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The acquired properties include a flat, a plot, a house and land, located in Delhi and Sirsa in Haryana. The Enforcement Directorate's money laundering case is based on a CBI FIR against Chautala for possession of alleged disproportionate assets. "Chautala had acquired immovable properties at New Delhi, Panchkula and also constructed a residential house at Sirsa in Haryana out of the money received from undisclosed sources," the ED said in a statement. "Investigation also revealed that Chautala was directly involved in acquisition and projecting various tainted properties as his untainted properties. He had also disclosed properties so acquired in the affidavit filed before returning officer in the Haryana Assembly polls in 2005 and 2009, thereby, projecting publicly the tainted properties as untainted," it said. The Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday hear a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking permission for Muslim women to enter mosques for namaz. The petition will be heard by a bench of Justice SS Bobde and Justice Abdul Nazir. The plea was filed in the Supreme Court by a Muslim couple - Yasmeen Zubar Ahmad Pirzade and Jubair Ahmad Nazir Ahmed Pirzade - seeking directions for the All India Muslim Personal Law Board and the Central Waqf Council to end this practice. In the plea, the couple has demanded that the practice of barring women from entering mosque for namaz be declared unconstitutional and illegal for violating Articles 14, 15, 21, 25 and 29 of the Constitution. Women are prohibited from entering Sunni mosques for namaz prayers. The plea states that while women can offer prayers at mosques under Jamaat-e-Islami and Mujahid denominations, they are not allowed to do so in Sunni mosques. Even in the mosques where they are allowed to enter, they are allotted a different place to offer namaz. The petition also states that nowhere in the Quran and the Hadith is it mentioned that there should be a differentiation in the mosques on the basis of gender. The petition thus urges the Supreme Court to hear the matter and hold the practice of barring women in mosques as void and unconstitutional. Earlier in October 2018, a Hindu group had filed a PIL in the Kerala High Court seeking directive to the Centre for issuing an order enabling Muslim women to enter mosques for offering prayers. The petitioner submitted that after the Supreme Court order on Sabarimala temple which allowed entry of women of all age groups into the shrine, Muslim women should also be allowed to pray in mosques along with men. The plea had also asserted that barring women in mosques is an encroachment into the realm of personal liberty and social security. GIRIDIH: Three naxals were killed in Belbha Ghat forest area of Giridih in Jharkhand in an encounter on Monday morning, officials said, adding that one Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel also got martyred during the encounter. ANI reported that the CRPF recovered the bodies of three Naxals after the encounter, which broke out at 6:15 am, during special operations carried out by 7 Battalion of CRPF in Belbha Ghat forest area. The CRPF personnel, who died in the encounter, sustained bullet injuries after the naxals opened fire at the CRPF battalion. An AK-47 rifle, three magazines, and four pipe bombs were seized from the possession of the dead Naxals. Giridih: Bodies of 3 Naxals along with 1 AK-47 rifle, 3 magazines & 4 pipe bombs recovered after 7 battalion of CRPF carried out special operations in forest area in Belbha Ghat today wherein an encounter broke out with Naxals. One CRPF personnel lost his life. #Jharkhand pic.twitter.com/J9UK86ME2f ANI (@ANI) April 15, 2019 Giridih is located about 185 kms from Jharkhand capital Ranchi. CRPF sources said that a search is being conducted in the area as the force is looking for more recoveries. The polling in Jharkhand will take place in the final four phases of the seven-phase Lok Sabha election. (with ANI inputs) New Delhi: Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa said on Monday that while Pakistani jets were beaten back when they had entered Indian airspace on February 27, the favourable result could have been even more decisive had the Indian Air Force inducted Rafale jets in time. Highlighting how Pakistani jets, including the F-16s, were thwarted in their misadventure, the IAF chief said that Rafale jets could have been even more effective. "The results would have been further skewed in our favour had we inducted our Rafale aircraft in time," he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI while delivering the Arjan Singh memorial lecture here. Pakistani jets had crossed into Indian airspace after India had successfully targeted terror hubs in Balakot. The PAF jets, however, failed to hit their intended targets, thanks to a quick response from IAF jets. "Post our strike on terror training camp, to thwart impending strike on our soil, PAF launched a riposte on 27 Feb against Indian military targets. Did they succeed in their objective? Answer is clear No as attack was thwarted while we achieved our objective in Balakot," Dhanoa said. India had scrambled Mig-21 Bison and Mirage-2000 fighter jets against a PAF fighter contingent which also had F-16s. Dhanoa credited the success to the fact that both Mig-21 Bisons and the Mirage-2000 had been upgraded. He however said that Rafale could have made an even bigger impact in the dogfight. India's purchase of 36 Rafale jets in fly-away condition from France's Dassault Aviation has been under a shroud of controversy with Congress accusing the government of - among others - paying an inflated price. The government has maintained that it is a false accusation while also highlighting the need for the twin-engine Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA). Dhanoa, in the past, has also highlighted the potential Rafale jets have and has called these a 'game-changer.' Nalanda: A journalist's son was shot dead by some unidentified miscreants in Bihar's Nalanda on Sunday. The accused gouged out the eyes of the victim before killing him, ANI reported. The deceased was identified as Chunnu Kumar, whose father used to work with a reputed media organisation. An investigation has been launched. Bihar: Son of a journalist was shot dead by unidentified miscreants in Nalanda yesterday. Nilesh Kumar, SP Nalanda, says, Theres bleeding from his eyes. No injury visible on the body except near eyes. Cause of death will be known after post-mortem. Investigation is underway. pic.twitter.com/PAuVshotZo ANI (@ANI) April 14, 2019 His eyes were bleeding. No injury marks were visible on the body except near the eyes. The cause of death will be known after post-mortem. An investigation is underway, news agency ANI quoted Nalanda SP Nilesh Kumar as saying. (With ANI inputs) New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to Congress president Rahul Gandhi in connection to a contempt petition filed against him over his statements on Rafale verdict. In its notice issued to Rahul, SC has sought an explanation from him and he has been asked to file a reply in the court before Monday. The date for next hearing has been set for April 22. While making the observations, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said: "We make it clear that views, observations, findings attributed to this court in the alleged speeches, remarks made by Gandhi to media/public have been incorrectly attributed to this court. We also make it clear that this court had no occasion to make such observation in as much as it was deciding legal admissibility of certain documents which were objected by the attorney general." The petitioner, BJP's Meenakshi Lekhi, has claimed in her petition 'the words used and attributed by him to SC in the Rafale case has been made to appear something else. He is replacing his personal statement as Supreme Court's order and trying to create prejudice'. https://t.co/51eoZaeWio ANI (@ANI) April 15, 2019 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Meenakshi Lekhi had filed the petition against Rahul last week for his" chowkidar chor hai" comment against Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Rafale verdict. After the apex court dismissed preliminary objection raised by the Centre seeking review of the earlier judgment in the Rafale case, the Congress president remarked: "Supreme Court has said chowkidar chor hai in the verdict." Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had also criticised Rahul for his statement and said, "We all know Congress president probably doesn`t read even half a paragraph, but by saying that the court has accepted that there is some corruption in the deal, and by also saying that the court has said chowkidar chor hai`... These verge on contempt of court." New Delhi: The Delhi Police has arrested three persons, including a woman, who used to dupe job aspirants through fake websites of a well-known online job platform, officials said on Sunday. The arrested were identified as Raju Kumar (24) and Ravi Kumar (21) of Bihar's Arrah district, and Aamna (25), a resident of Delhi's Punjabi Bagh area, they said. A man lodged a complaint saying that he was in search of a job and visited an online portal. When he registered himself providing his details on the website, a lady called him and offered job opportunities in the banking sector, Monika Bharadwaj, Deputy Commissioner of Police (West), said. She further told the man that an amount of Rs 10 needs to be paid to sign up on the website. Aadhaar card and PAN card details of the complainant was also asked. The complainant made the payment of Rs 10 through his credit card, thereafter, he noticed that his credit card has been debited with about Rs 10,000, the officer said. The man enquired with the lady who said it was a technical glitch and the money will be refunded immediately by sending an OTP to him. The complainant gave the OTP to the woman and soon after, more money was deducted from his account, the officer said. During the investigation, technical surveillance was mounted, which led to the arrest of the trio. Raju and Ankit were the kingpins of the gang, while Aamna used to call and lure the victims. Raju and Ankit through a website developer, Mohnish Arora, created the fake job website. Raids are on to nab Arora, who is absconding, the officer said. New Delhi: Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Monday claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party is trying to create an insecurity among people and are planning to carry out another Balakot-like attack to garner votes. Speaking to the media on the sidelines of an election gathering in Anantnag district, Mehbooba said: "He is trying to incite communal violence to win votes. They saw defeat coming their way in the first phase and they are now creating insecurity everywhere. "The situation they have created suggests that they might stage another Balakot-like attack on Pakistan to get votes," she said while speaking to reporters at Anantnag. "Narendra Modi has failed in all his attempts. He tried to incite communal violence and create polarisation here. He also did drama of Balakot attack. Now they can see their defeat in the first phase of elections. He is creating a sense of insecurity among people and it seems that they are planning another attack on Pakistan so that they get votes in the other phases," Mehbooba said. The PDP chief claimed further that everything BJP is doing today is only for votes. "Be it attack on Pakistan or strictness in Kashmir, it is all vote politics and nothing else," she said. Mehbooba also demanded a probe into the February 14 Pulwama terror attack, claimed by Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terror group, in which 40 CRPF troopers were killed. On Sunday, Mehbooba said that those who are speaking against secularism should get a mental treatment. "BJP leaders are suffering from the disease of fear. Our country is secular. Those who are saying anything against secularism should get mental treatment," she had asserted. Express News Service NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: The crucial interim funding by lenders for cash-starved Jet Airways did not take place on Monday even as the Airline flew just 6-7 planes and suspended its international operations till April 19. Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube, in an internal communication to employees, said, Have been working with lenders to secure interim funding for operations. Interim funding has not been forthcoming thus far, & as a result of this we have extended cancellation of international operations through Thursday, April 19. Sources said that lenders delayed funding because they sought more collateral from the airlines promoter Naresh Goyal. Goyal has already pledged around 26 per cent of his stake with banks. Dube added that the current status of engagement with lenders will be placed before the board on Tuesday, when the management will seek guidance on the next steps forward.I. ALSO READ | Jet Airways pilots appeal to SBI for funds, also ask PM to save 20,000 jobs n an another development, industry sources said Jet Airways had time till Tuesday afternoon to pay fuel vendors, failing which it might have to ground its operational fleet, news agency IANS reported. It was expected that the lenders, led by the State Bank of India, in accordance with their debt restructuring plan, would infuse interim funds in the airline. The lenders have already closed the deadline for receiving expressions of interests for purchase of a stake in the airline. SBI said the prospective bidders will be shortlisted by SBI CAPs shortly. Earlier in the day, civil aviation minster Suresh Prabhu said that banks and lenders were working on the problems faced by Jet Airways and they would find a solution. We are already working with everybody who needs support and help, whether they are employees, customers or passengers. We are here to ensure the safety and convenience of passengers as well as the welfare of employees, he said.However, passengers from within and outside the country who had booked tickets with Jet Airways faced inconvenience and were left stranded at various airports. As for employees, they held a protest in Mumbai over non-payment of salaries. A Jet Airways pilots union on Sunday deferred a decision to strike from Monday, saying that it wanted to give more time to the airline ahead of the lenders meeting Srinagar: A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the Abdullahs and Muftis of trying to break the country, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah Monday retorted back, saying if his family wanted to break India, "there would have been no India". Addressing a poll rally in Kathua district on Sunday, the prime minister had slammed the Abdullahs and Muftis, saying the two families "ruined" three generations of Jammu and Kashmir and he will not allow them to "divide" India. The NC leader said it was Modi who was trying to break the country, but he will not succeed. "Our party fights for the rights of all the people ? be it Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians or Buddhists ? and we will continue to fight. Even if Modi tries his best, he will not be able to break India. I want to tell him from here today that you will break, but India will not. You accuse the Abdullahs of trying to break India, if we wanted to break India, there would have been no India then," he said. Addressing a workers' rally near the city centre here, the former chief minister said Modi should remember that it was him (Abdullah) who held the country's flag when no one wanted to fight elections in the state in 1996. "Modi should remember that in 1996 when no was ready (for elections), I was the one who went ahead even as my colleagues said we should not contest. But I wanted the people to get rid of the difficulties they were facing...I held this flag and went ahead at that difficult time. You (Modi) should never forget that. There was no one here then, but now you scream," he said. Referring to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's statement that the Centre would make a stronger sedition law, Abdullah said "we will see what you will do" but Modi and the BJP cannot win the hearts of Kashmiris. "You cannot win our hearts. Hearts cannot be won by (using) pellet guns or banning highway or by doing injustice. You say we are not loyal, par agar hum wafadar nahin, tum bhi toa dildar nahin (if we are not loyal, you are also not large-hearted). You say we are your atoot-ang (integral part), how are we the integral part? Where? This is a lie. If we are your integral part, then do justice with us," he said. The former Union minister said Modi and BJP president Amit Shah were "destroying" the country and challenged them to hold an election rally in Kashmir. "Where does he (Modi) address a rally? In Kathua, in Akhnoor. He does not address Muslims in Kashmir because he knows that he has betrayed them. You (Modi) did not raise your voice when the Indian Muslim, who did not go to Pakistan and accepted India, was attacked by your people. Were they not Indians? Had they not spilled their blood for India? "Which leader fought the British when General Dyer killed people at Jalianwala Bagh? He was Saifuddin Kitchloo ? a Kashmiri from Baramulla. And hundreds of those killed there were from Kashmir. Did you ever remember them or take Kitchloo's name? You only remember those who killed Mahatma Gandhi. (Nathuram) Ghodse's temple is built in India and you said nothing. Are Muslims not a part of India? We are not dividing the country, but you are, on religious lines. You and Amit Shah are destroying India. So, desist from accusing us," he said. Referring to the post-poll scenario of the 2014 assembly elections when no party got a majority in the state, Abdullah said some people from the BJP had visited him in a hospital where he was undergoing treatment and wanted the NC to ally with the saffron party. "But, I told them that I was in hospital and had nothing to do with it. I am happy that Omar Abdullah did not join those people whose hands are drenched with the blood of Muslims," he said. "I want to tell Modi that Farooq Abdullah will not support you till his death. Do whatever you want, but you cannot buy our faith", he added. The NC president asked people to be cautious as the BJP would try to lure them with money. "They will come to you with money. They have about Rs 30,000 crore from Rafale deal," he said, asking people to be united and vote for the NC. Addressing the rally, party's vice president Omar Abdullah said during this election, the people of Jammu and Kashmir have come to know about the challenges and conspiracies that the state faces. New Delhi: Three Maoists and a CRPF jawan were killed in a gunbattle in Jharkhand's Giridih district on Monday. According to officials, the encounter between the security personnel and Naxals took place on Monday evening in the forests of Belbha Ghat area of Ranchi when troops of the 7th battalion of the CRPF were undertaking an anti-Naxal operation. The bodies of all three Naxals along with an AK-47 rifle, three magazines and four pipe bombs have been recovered from the encounter site. The CRPF constable, who was killed in the operation, has been identified as Biswajit Chauhan and hailed from Assam's Udalguri district. Jharkhand: One CRPF personnel lost his life, three naxals killed in encounter between CRPF and naxals in Giridih, today. Search operation underway. pic.twitter.com/J5KxFYacs9 ANI (@ANI) April 15, 2019 The force is looking for more recoveries and a search is being conducted in the encounter area, PTI quoted officials as saying. Jharkhand, which goes to polls in four phases, has a total 14 Lok Sabha seats --- 8 general, 1 reserved for Scheduled Caste and five for Scheduled Tribe. New Delhi: Setting aside their political differences for the 'greater good of defeating Narendra Modi' seems to be a common theme between Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party. Both parties, however, have so far been unable to seal an alliance - accusing each other of creating roadblocks. A day after AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal said that he is willing to do all that it would take to defeat PM Modi in the ongoing Lok Sabha election 20919, Rahul Gandhi tweeted saying that an alliance with AAP would mean the end of BJP. He then accused Kejriwal of taking a U-turn. "An alliance between the Congress and AAP in Delhi would mean the rout of the BJP. The Congress is willing to give up 4 Delhi seats to the AAP to ensure this. But, Mr Kejriwal has done yet another U turn! Our doors are still open, but the clock is running out," he said. Kejriwal was quick to hit back and he too chose Twitter as the medium for his response. "What U-turn? The talks were still on. Your tweet shows that you are not interested in an alliance but only want to brag about it. It is unfortunate that in UP and other states, you are helping Modi by dividing the anti-Modi votes," he wrote. (Full report here) While Rahul may have said Congress is willing to give up four seats in Delhi, AAP has reportedly been keen on a joint fight elsewhere. Last week, AAP MP Sanjay Singh had said that the prospect of an alliance was over. "They don't have any MLA or MP in Delhi but are demanding three seats here," he had told news agency ANI on Wednesday. "In Punjab, we (AAP) have four MPs and 20 MLAs but Congress does not want to share seats there. Same is the situation in Haryana, Goa and Chandigarh. So, this alliance is not possible." (Full report here) While Kejriwal too said that he is confident AAP would win all seven seats in Delhi with or without Congress, he held out an olive branch. (Full report here) Many political analysts have regarded the talks - and the bickering - for an alliance between the two parties as an electoral tragedy that could benefit BJP. Meanwhile, several BJP leaders have highlighted how AAP and Congress are struggling to form an 'unholy alliance' just to challenge PM Modi. They say even that one agenda of both parties is not good enough for the two to let go off their political egos. Kolkata: In a major controversy, Bangladeshi actor Ferdous Ahmed was seen campaigning in favour of the Trinamool Congress candidate from Raigunj constituency - Kanhaiyalal Agarwal, on Sunday. Ahmed participated in a roadshow, accompanied by Tollywood actors Ankush and Payal from Karandighi to Islampur through the Bengal-to-Bengal road. After the roadshow, Ahmed took the stage for Trinamool Congress' election campaign and said, "All should vote for the Trinamool Congress. All should vote for didi." Meanwhile, the Bhartiya Janta Party has moved Election Commission and filed a complaint against the Trinamool Congress. BJP claimed that participation of a foreign national in an election campaign is a violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). BJP also claimed that the Trinamool Congress was trying to consolidate minority votes in the Raigunj seat by roping in the famous Bangladeshi actor. "This is illegal. This is a violation of the MCC. This proves Trinamool Congress' love for Bangladeshis. They want to consolidate minority votes in this constituency by inviting Bangladeshi actors to campaign for them. We have moved Election Commission demanding action against the Trinamool Congress," said BJP leader Pratap Banerjee. The Election Commission told Zee News that they have received a complaint and are looking into the matter. However, Trinamool Congress maintained that there was nothing wrong in roping in the Bangladeshi actor for the campaign. "Our contribution for Bangladesh in the 1971 Liberation War has been immense. And I do not feel that we have done anything wrong by inviting Ferdous to campaign for us here. We will not do anything that is anti-national, illegal or violates the Model of Conduct. If commission takes action against us, they must also take action against BJP candidates and leaders who were flashing arms and swords on Ramnavami during the election period," said former Trinamool Congress minister Madan Mitra. New Delhi: The Election Commission on Monday showed that it would come down heavily against anyone found guilty of violating the guidelines of the Moral Code of Conduct (MCC). At a time when some parties have charged the EC for being biased, it targeted leaders cutting across party lines and banned several from campaigning for a period ranging between 48 and 72 hours. In the evening, the EC announced that BJP's star campaigner and UP CM Yogi Adityanath is banned from campaigning for 72 hours starting 0600 hrs on Tuesday. BSP supremo and former UP CM Mayawati was also banned from campaigning starting at the same time but for 48 hours. Both political leaders - arch-rivals this Lok Sabha election 2019 season - were penalised for making statements on religious lines and for violating MCC. While Mayawati hit back by claiming that the EC was unfair and unjust, Adityanath had not reacted till the time of filing this report. A few hours later, by Tuesday night, the EC had also cracked the whip against Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan for his alleged - and extremely derogatory - remark against BJP's Jaya Prada. Azam Khan had been blasted for his derogatory comment which tried to draw a connection between Jaya Prada and RSS in a crass manner. Zeenews.com has intentionally opted to not mention the exact comment although Azam Khan himself said that he has been misquoted. He is facing off against Jaya Prada in the Rampur Lok Sabha constituency. He has now been banned from campaigning for 72 hours starting 1000hrs Tuesday. Almost around the same time as the announcement on a ban on Azam Khan, the EC also banned BJP's Maneka Gandhi for her comments in Sultanpur. "You (Muslims) have to recognise that this victory is sure without you and even with you, and you will have to spread the word," she had said. For it, she was banned from campaigning for 48 hours starting 1000hrs Tuesday. In a highly-charged electoral environment in the country currently, several leaders have shown a blatant disregard for MCC while taking the political discourse to pitiable lows. EC banning the four leaders from campaigning on Monday is being widely applauded as a step in the right direction and as a warning to other political leaders to check their words and their conduct. Coming down hard against Azam Khan over his alleged - and extremely derogatory - remarks against Jaya Prada, the Election Commission on Monday banned the Samajwadi Party leader from campaigning for 72 hours staring 1000hrs Tuesday. Facing flak from political leaders cutting across party line, Azam Khan has been in the eye of a storm since the derogatory manner in which he sought to link Jaya Prada with RSS. While the SP leader has said he has been misquoted, the EC charged him for violating the Model Code of Conduct. (Also read: EC bans Yogi Adityanath from campaigning for 72 hours, Mayawati for 48 over MCC violation) Azam Khan allegedly made the remark against Jaya Prada during a campaign in Rampur where the two are facing off for Lok Sabha election 2019. Party leader Akhilesh Yadav attempted to defend Azam Khan by putting the onus on the media but not many bought his argument in favour of his party colleague. Azam Khan and Jaya Prada too were party colleagues but had had a fall out long before Jaya Prada left SP. She is now contesting the election on a BJP ticket. (Note: Zeenews.com has intentionally edited out the alleged remark made by Azam Khan from the above copy) They may have been in talks for an alliance but Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal on Monday used Twitter to take potshots at one another. Trying to combine forces against BJP in Lok Sabha 2019 election, their two parties have been unable to find a mutually-agreeable solution. While Rahul said Congress is willing to give up four seats in Delhi for AAP, he also accused Kejriwal of taking a 'U-Turn.' Kejriwal almost immediately fired back from his own Twitter account and accused Congress of helping Narendra Modi by dividing anti-BJP votes in UP and elsewhere. "What U-turn? The talks were still on. Your tweet shows that you are not interested in an alliance but only want to brag about it. It is unfortunate that in UP and other states, you are helping Modi by dividing the anti-Modi votes," he wrote on the micro-blogging site. While leaders of both parties have openly argued and traded charges, hopes of somehow joining hands have lingered on for several weeks now. It is reported that while AAP is unwilling to give up seats in Delhi to Congress, Congress is unwilling to back off for AAP in Haryana, Chandigarh, Punjab and Goa. This is what AAP MP Sanjay Singh had said last week while accusing Congress of helping BJP. BJP, meanwhile, is making the most of the Congress-AAP struggle to come together with many of its leaders highlighting how both parties are guilty of betraying the trust of the people while hanging on to their respective political and electoral egos. New Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday accused the Congress of forming a nexus with BJP and CPI-M to defeat the Trinamool Congress in the Lok Sabha election in the state. She also accused the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of funding the Congress` Baharampur candidate and sitting MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and its Jangipur candidate and former President Pranab Mukherjee`s son Abhijit Mukherjee. Mamata, who was addressing an election rally in Murshidabad, said, "BJP, Congress and CPI-M have formed a nexus to defeat Trinamool. They fight together against the Trinamool. They fought together in the panchayat. Trinamool is powerful in Bengal." "Why are they trying to weaken our party to strengthen the BJP?" Mamata said at the rally, in an apparent reference to Congress and CPI-M. She added that many leaders and even she herself left the Congress and formed the Trinamool Congress because there were leaders who were maintaining relationships with the CPI-M. Banerjee said that some state Congress leaders of having formed an understanding with the BJP and that is why she said that the Central Bureau of Investigation did not harass them. "Ask Adhir, whether the CBI harasses him or not," she said. Warning Congress, Mamata said that the grand-old party should not feel that they are the only national party in the opposition grand alliance. "Trinamool is also a recognised as a national party," she quipped. Banerjee also accused the central forces -- the Border Security Force, Central Reserve Police Force and Central Industrial Security Force -- of threatening rural people to work in favour of the BJP. "I have respect for the central forces -- BSF, CRPF and CISF. I have got some information that you (central forces) are threatening people in some rural areas to work in favour of the BJP. Law and order is a state subject and if you have any issues, (you) discuss with the state," Banerjee said. PILIBHIT: Union Minister Maneka Gandhi on Monday raked up a fresh controversy by saying that she categorises different villages as per the votes registered in her favour and she then carry out the development initiatives accordingly. Addressing a public rally in Pilibhit, the parliamentary constituency which she currently represents, Maneka said, "We win in Pilibhit every time, so what is the parameter that we work more for one village and less for the other. The parameter is that we segregate all villages as A, B, C, and D. The village where we get 80 per cent votes is A, the village in which we get 60 per cent is B, the village in which we get 50 per cent is C and the village where we get less than 50 per cent is D. The development work first happens in all A category villages. After work at A category regions is done, then comes B and only after work in B is done, we start with C. So this is up to you whether you make it to A, B or C and no one should come in D because we all have come here to do good." Maneka courted controversy on Friday too when she was caught on camera asking Muslims in Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh to vote for her or else she would not fulfill their requests. "I am winning and I am winning with the love and support of people. However, if my victory is without Muslim votes, I won't feel good about it. Later, if a Muslims comes to me for work, I won't be inclined to be responsive and will let it be. However, a job is also a negotiation. After all, we are not Mahatma Gandhi's sons that we keep on giving and still lose elections," Maneka had said. She also asked the Muslim voters to understand that it is a give and take relation. "It is not that I will keep on giving without getting your support in return in elections. We are not children of Mahatma Gandhi," she said. She further added that she has already won the elections, but told the gathering that if they need her, then this is their chance to lay the foundation. "When the election comes and this booth throws up 100 votes or 50 votes, and then you come to me for work we will see. I don`t see any divide, I see only pain, sadness and love. So it is up to you...," she said. Maneka is fighting the upcoming Lok Sabha poll from Sultanpur, a seat won by her son Varun Gandhi in 2014. Varun, on the other hand, is contesting from his mother's seat Pilibhit. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Election Commission to watch PM Narendra Modi biopic and then submit their final decision over its release. The court asked EC to submit its decision by April 22 in a sealed cover. The makers of the film, headlined by Vivek Oberoi, who stars in and as Narendra Modi, had moved the SC after its screening was banned by the poll body last week. EC had passed the order citing the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The Commission, in a separate order, had also directed the producers "not to exhibit the film" till further orders. The film was set to release on April 11, coinciding with the first phase of Lok Sabha election. Congress and the Left had opposed the release of the film based on the life of PM Modi, saying it was in violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). "Any biopic material in the nature of biography/hagiography sub-serving the purposes of any political entity or any individual entity connected to it, which is intended to, or which has the potential to disturb the level playing field, timing the elections should not be displayed in electronic media including cinematograph during the operation of MCC," the EC ordered. The order specifically stated that in view of the admitted acts and material available on record, this film being a biopic on Narendra Modi, "prime minister and a political leader and a prospective candidate in the current general elections cannot be exhibited" in view of Commission's order. PM Narendra Modi is directed by Omung Kumar. The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) had given a U certificate to the film. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Expanding its international footprint, SpiceJet on Monday announced launching non-stop flights from Mumbai to Hong Kong, Jeddah, Dubai, Colombo, Dhaka, Riyadh, Bangkok and Kathmandu. The new international flights will commence from May-end. Mumbai is a key destination on SpiceJets network and the airline aims to further scale up its international and domestic connectivity from the city, the carrier said in a statement. The announcement by SpiceJet comes at a time when full-service carrier has suspended its international operations amid severe financial woes. NEW DELHI: Expanding its international footprint, SpiceJet on Monday announced the launch of non-stop flights from Mumbai to Hong Kong, Jeddah, Dubai, Colombo, Dhaka, Riyadh, Bangkok and Kathmandu. The new international flights will commence from May-end. Mumbai is a key destination on SpiceJets network, and the airline aims to further scale up its international and domestic connectivity from the city, the carrier said in a statement. The announcement by SpiceJet comes at a time when full-service carrier Jet Airways has suspended its international operations amid severe financial woes. SpiceJet said it will be the first and only Indian budget carrier to launch daily direct flights on the Mumbai-Colombo, Mumbai-Dhaka, Mumbai-Riyadh, Mumbai-Hong Kong and Mumbai-Kathmandu sectors. The airline will be deploying its Boeing 737 NG aircraft on the new routes. Ajay Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, SpiceJet, said, SpiceJet will be the only Indian budget carrier operating on a majority of routes that we have announced today, thus providing leisure and business travellers more options to choose from. Shares of SpiceJet on Monday were trading at `118, up 7.50 per cent, on BSE at 2.45 pm. SpiceJet had last week announced six new domestic flights connecting Mumbai with Kolkata, Chennai and Varanasi. While SpiceJets international flight to Bangkok will start from May 17, 2019, the domestic flights are effective from April 18, 2019.Trouble at Jet Airways is also helping carriers expand their fleets. SpiceJet, which had to ground its 12 Boeing MAX planes in March because of safety concerns, is to induct 16 Boeing 737-NG aircraft on dry lease in the next few days. It is reported that all the 16 737 planes were operating under Jet Airways a few weeks ago. Leaders of opposition parties are set to file a petition in the Supreme Court on Monday seeking verification of 50% of votes cast in the ongoing Lok Sabha election against the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips. A joint press conference was addressed by leaders of 21 opposition parties, including the Congress, Telugu Desam Party, Samajwadi Party, Communist Party of India and Communist Party of India (Marxist), in Delhi on Sunday to raise concerns over the lack of transparency in the election process. The leaders said that the rights of voters must be protected. We are raising doubts about the EVMs. The confidence of the voter can only be restored through paper trail machines, TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu said on Sunday. Naidu, who is a key interlocutor of the opposition parties, also gave examples of some European nations like Germany, The Netherlands and Ireland to buttress his point that India should go back to using paper ballots. On Saturday, Naidu had met Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora to hold discussions over the malfunctioning of electronic voting machines (EVMs) in Andhra Pradesh on April 11 during the first phase of poll. Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi also echoed similar feelings and remarked that there was a serious question mark on the election process. He said that the Congress will raise this issue both politically and legally. We are going to politely seek politically in the country, through a campaign, and legally in the court, that at least a 50% sample check is of vital importance, he said. According to Singhvi, who is also a well-known lawyer, the apex court had in principle accepted the argument put forward by the opposition parties. It may be recalled that on Tuesday, the SC had ordered that VVPAT slips of five randomly-selected EVMs must be counted in every constituency instead of just one EVM in Lok Sabha poll. The order was delivered after the top court heard a petition filed by the 21 opposition parties. Jaipur BJP MP Ramcharan Bohra, who surpassed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's record in getting the maximum number of votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, has failed to stand up to the expectations of the people of his adopted village - Bhapura in Sanganer district. He was the first MP to have received the highest number of votes across the country. Bhapura village was adopted by Bohra under the Adarsh Gram Yojana and an investigation by Zee Media reveals that no development work has been carried out there in the last five years. Despite being provided with land by the people, Bohra has failed to construct a hospital in the village. He had also laid the foundation stone of the hospital, but still, the people have to travel 40 kilometres if there is a medical emergency. Moreover, there is lack of a proper education institution and neither do the people get safe drinking water. The transport system too is in a state of shambles. The bus services which were earlier available has now been stopped. While speaking to Zee Media, the villagers alleged that though Bohra has adopted the village, he has never visited the place. When BJP released the list of the party's candidates for the 2019 national election, Bohra, who was retained by the party said, "The party once again showed faith in me and it was because of the works I did for the constituency and the party workers. My victory was with the highest number of votes last time and I hope the same win this time also." The Supreme Court on Monday expressed its displeasure over Election Commission's decision to not take action against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for his statement on Ali and Bajrang Bali and BSP chief Mayawati for appealing Muslims to vote for her party, by violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) A SC bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi ordered the representative of EC to appear before it on Tuesday. The top court also expressed displeasure with the poll panel 'having limited power to act against leaders like Mayawati and Yogi Adityanath making statement along religious lines and violating model code of conduct during elections'. The apex court made the observation while hearing a PIL seeking strict action against political parties if their leaders and spokespersons deliver speeches and make remarks along religion and caste lines. "You can't sleep over such issues. You have done nothing about such statements. You must act when these statements are issued," said the SC. On Thursday, the EC had issued show cause notices to Mayawati and UP CM Yogi Adityanath over their speeches violating Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The EC issued the notice to Mayawati over her speech in Deoband appealing to Muslims not to vote for the Congress, saying that prima facie the BSP chief had violated the model code of conduct. The EC had also issued the notice to Uttar Pradesh CM Adityanath for his "Ali" and "Bajrang Bali" remarks while addressing a rally in Meerut. The poll panel found him prima facie guilty of violating the MCC and sought a response from him within 24 hours. CM Adityanath had compared the Lok Sabha election to a contest between 'Ali', a revered figure in Islam, and Bajrang Bali, the Hindu god Hanuman. "Agar Congress, SP, BSP ko 'Ali' par vishwaas hai toh humein bhi 'Bajrang Bali' par vishwaas hai (If the Congress, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party have faith in Ali, we have faith in Hanuman)," the UP CM had said. NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court is set to hear a plea challenging the Election Commissions (EC) ban on the release of the film Narendra Modi biopic on Monday. The plea was filed by the producers of the biopic after the poll panel had passed an order on April 10 banning the screening of the Narendra Modi biopic during the ongoing Lok Sabha poll, citing the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The apex court on Friday agreed to hear the matter after the producers raised issues related to fundamental rights of freedom of speech and expression in their petition. The film stars Vivek Oberoi in lead role. The EC had said in its order that any such film that helps promote any political entity or individual should not be displayed on the electronic media. The poll body had also directed the producers of the film titled PM Narendra Modi to refrain from releasing the film until further orders. It is to be noted that the biopic was earlier scheduled to release on April 5 but its release was pushed to April 11. At that time Vivek Oberoi, who is a big fan of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that some powerful people did not want the film to release on April 5. Responding to the complaints against movies NTR Laxmi, PM Narendra Modi biopic and Udyama Simhan, the poll body had said, These have potential to affect level playing field which is in consonance with Model Code of Conduct and shouldnt be displayed in electronic media including cinematograph during MCC. TheCentral Board of Film Certification (CBFC) had given a U certificate to PM Narendra Modi biopic, which is directed by Omung Kumar. The film has been criticised by Congress and other opposition parties for giving undue advantage to the BJP in the polls as it was scheduled to hit the theatres during Lok Sabha poll. Meanwhile, Vivek Oberoi had said, We wanted to release the film on April 5 but some people put us in so many difficulties that we couldnt do it. We are working hard to get the film released on April 11, we have to go to the Supreme Court on Monday. The voting for seven-phase Lok Sabha poll is scheduled to take place on May 19 and counting will take place on May 23. Thiruvananthapuram: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor was on Monday injured while offering prayers at a temple in Thiruvananthapuram. He has suffered injuries on his head and has received six stitches. The incident took place while he was making a Thulabharam offering at a temple and the weighing scale on which he was sitting, broke and fell. He was rushed to the general hospital in Thiruvananthapuram for preliminary treatment. Doctors say that he is under no danger. Earlier in the morning, he had tweeted Vishu greetings to all. "For the first time in decades my sisters and I were blessed to have our eyes opened for Vishu Kani by our Mother. Such a joy to re-live our childhoods this Vishu! Vishu blessings to all and a wonderful year ahead!," he tweeted. For the first time in decades my sisters and I were blessed to have our eyes opened for Vishu Kani by our Mother. Such a joy to re-live our childhoods this Vishu! Vishu blessings to all and a wonderful year ahead! pic.twitter.com/NY88h1xDlA Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) April 15, 2019 "A Vishu break from the paryadanam circuit! Campaigning in the heat (46 degrees C ydy) comes straight out of a cookbook -- one is roasted in the morning, slow-baked in the afternoon & (esp in the coastal areas) steamed in the evening. Once the rains start, one will be poached too!," he added. Started my paryadanam of Kazhakoottam yesterday on a unique note - with a thulabharam of bananas! At least in temples I can claim to be a heavyweight politician! pic.twitter.com/vR4ytAsI4v Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) April 11, 2019 This is not the first time that Tharoor took part in Thulabharam during the election campaign. He performed the ritual earlier in the Kazhakkoottam constituency on April 11 before beginning his election campaign on a 'unique note'. "Started my paryadanam of Kazhakoottam yesterday on a unique note - with a thulabharam of bananas! At least in temples I can claim to be a heavyweight politician! he had tweeted. Srinagar: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader Mehbooba Mufti`s cavalcade was attacked on Monday by stone pelters in Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir. Mehbooba escaped unhurt, but her escort vehicle was damaged. Police sources said the former J&K chief minister was returning after paying obeisance at a dargah in Khiram village when some people pelted stones on her cavalcade. She was on her way to Bijbehara town in Anantnag district. Security forces immediately cordoned off the area to provide a safe passage to her. Mehbooba has now reached Bijbehara to address a party workers convention. Vatakara Lok Sabha constituency is one of the 20 Lok Sabha seats in the southern Indian state of Kerala. It is also known as Vadakara. The Vatakara Lok Sabha Constituency (constituency number 3) has a total of seven assembly segments. The Assembly Constituencies that fall in Vatakara parliamentary constituency are - Thalassery, Kuthuparamba, Vatakara, Kuttiadi, Nadapuram, Quilandy and Perambra. The election here will be conducted on April 23, 2019, as per the Phase III schedule announced by the ECI. Ramachandran Mullappally of INC is the incumbent Member of Parliament from this constituency. Vatakara Lok Sabha constituency of Kerala: Full list of candidates, polling dates Kerala Lok Sabha constituencies: All you need to know In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Ramachandran Mullappally received 416479 votes and defeated Advocate AN Shamseer of CPM who got 413,173 votes. This constituency in the state was long represented by one of its most renowned political leader, Congress MP KP Unnikrishnan. Unnikrishnan received the support of masses in Vatakara for two decades in a row, being elected as MP from 1971 to 1991. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has also won from this seat in the last few Lok Sabha elections. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Congress party strongman K Muraleedharan will take on LDF candidate P Jayarajan who is CPI (M)'s Kannur district secretary. Muraleedharan is the sitting MLA from the Vattiyoorkav constituency in Thiruvananthapuram. The Congress high command had to opt for Muraleedharan as KPCC President and sitting MP of Vatakara Mullappally Ramachandran did not want to contest this election. Ramachandran had won the Vatakara Lok Sabha constituency twice in a row. Ramachandran is currently the sitting MLA and Congress is hoping to cash on his works to return to power. In Vadakara, the main political tussle will be between the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) with BJP being the other major party. The BJP has re-nominated party State secretary VK Sajeevan to contest from here. The Lok Sabha elections 2019 will be held between April 11 and May 19. Of the seven phases, Kerala will vote during the third phase on April 23. The polling is scheduled to happen in 115 Lok Sabha constituencies of 14 states during the third phase. The counting of votes will be held and results will be declared on May 23. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday defended the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the government for discussing issues related to 'national security and terrorism' during the electoral debate. Hitting out at the opposition parties, Jaitley said that the issues concern to the sovereignty and security of the country hence must be discussed. "What is happening in the State of J&K and terrorism? Where does India stand on the issue of national security & terror? How such crucial issues are not real issues, for a stable India an early resolution of these issues is utmost. Thus the most important issue which, confronts India in the short, medium and even the long run, is how do we handle the State of Jammu & Kashmir and terrorism emanating from Pakistan and from within?," he asked. Holding Congress responsible for the current state of unrest in Jammu and Kashmir, he said a 'historical' blunder by the party was responsible for the same. "The Congress Party is identified with the creation of the problem itself. When Pakistan did not reconcile to Kashmir being a part of India, the Congress Party whisked the issue away. It was its historical blunder on account of which we lost one-third of our territory," he wrote in a blog titled 'Why Jammu and Kashmir, and New Approach to Terrorism will Remain a Key Political Issue'. Emphasising that only the BJP can find a solution to the unresolved issues in Jammu and Kashmir, he said that the challenge needs a fresh approach of a leadership which is uncompromising on terror and in its determination to enforce law. "Terror supported from across the border cant be fought either with velvet gloves or a policy of appeasement. The two regional parties have played a disappointing role. Of late, they are more strident in advocating secession of the State if firm measures are taken. The soft measures have not worked. The current leadership of the Opposition parties has hardly a roadmap except to tread on the path to disaster. This challenge can obviously be resolved with a fresh approach which is uncompromising on terror, uncompromising in its determination to enforce the rule of law and committed to total integration. A strong Government and a leader with clarity alone is capable of resolving the Kashmir issue. This will necessarily require reversal of the historical blunders of the past," he wrote. He added that the conventional election issues in India related to poverty alleviation, employment generation, improving growth rates, the quality of life of Indians, provision for quality healthcare and education, besides creating a world class infrastructure, and improving the quality of rural infrastructure. He added that there are also additional areas which related to the quality of leadership and probity in public life and preservation and strengthening of democratic institutions. However, he maintained that all these issues are all capable of resolution. RAMPUR: Senior Samajwadi leader Azam Khan on Monday tried to defend himself by claiming that he did not make any objectionable remarks against film actor and BJP candidate from Rampur Jaya Prada. It is to be noted that Azam is also fighting the Lok Sabha poll from Rampur. Khan issued the clarification after he allegedly made a below-the-belt remark against Jaya Prada, sparking a huge controversy. The SP leader made the 'derogatory' remark while addressing a public rally in Rampur. Talking to ANI, Azam Khan stressed that he did not take Jaya's name and he was ready to not contest the poll if proved guilty. "I have said that people took time to know real face in reference to a man once said that he brought 150 rifles with him and if he sees Azam, he would have shot him dead. My leaders also did a mistake. Now, it has been revealed that he has an RSS pant on his body. Short is worn by men," Khan told ANI. "I was a nine-time MLA from Rampur and been a minister. I know what to say. If anyone proves that I have named anyone and insulted anyone by name. If it is proved, I will step back from the elections," he added. Khan claimed that the media had misinterpreted his remarks because he is not liked by media. "I am disappointed. Media did not like me; I also did not like them. They have caused damage to the country," he said. Meanwhile, National Commission for Women Chairperson Rekha Sharma on Sunday said that Azam Khan's alleged below-the-belt remarks against Jaya Prada were "extremely disgraceful" and said the women panel will be sending a show cause notice to him. Rekha tweeted saying that the NCW would also request the Election Commission to bar him from contesting elections. "Aazam Khan is always abusive and disrespectful towards women. The NCW will take suo motu cognisance and will send a notice to him. Will request Election Commission to bar him from contesting elections," tweeted the NCW chairperson. Jaya Prada had won the Rampur Lok Sabha seat in 2004 and 2009 on SP ticket but she was expelled from the party in 2010 for her alleged involvement in anti-party activities. The actor-turned-politician had joined the BJP in March. last month. The voting for 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh is scheduled to be conducted in all seven phases with eight seats going to vote in the first phase on April 11. The counting of votes will take place on May 23. (Note: Zeenews.com has intentionally edited out the alleged remark made by Azam Khan from the above copy) Amroha/Aligarh: In an apparent dig at BSP supremo Mayawati, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday said those who did not have faith in Lord Ram and Lord Krishna were now taking refuge in 'Bajrang Bali'. Mayawati had on Saturday said her party wanted both Ali and Bajrang Bali -- particularly Bajrang Bali -- as the deity was "linked with my own Dalit caste". "Those who did not have faith in Shri Ram and Shri Krishna have now come to the refuge of Bajrang Bali," Adityanath said. He also paid homage to Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar on his birth anniversary. Hitting out at the Congress, the priest-turned-politician said the party had done politics on the basis of religion and caste in the country. "The BJP government led by Narendra Modi, on the other hand, has always worked on the policy of development of all. It gave a befitting reply to terrorism, Naxalism and separatism," Adityanath said. "Whether it was China's conspiracy in Doklam or terrorism funded by Pakistan, the Modi government has given a befitting reply to these countries. But the Congress does not like attacks on China and Pakistan, their manifesto has been prepared for anti-nationals," he alleged. The chief minister also hit out at the SP-BSP-RLD opposition alliance. "The flag of SP means the flag of goons, BSP's flag means the flag of corruption," he said. Adityanath also urged people to question RLD chief Ajit Singh on whose side his party took when the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots broke out in the state. By Express News Service CHENNAI: To clear the extra rush during summer season, Southern Railway will operate special trains between Chennai and Coimbatore in April, May and June. A release said the Chennai-Coimbatore weekly suvidha special will leave Puratchi Thalaivar Dr M G Ramachandran Central at 8.45 pm on April 19 and 26, May 03, 10, 17, 24 and 31 and June 7, 14, 21 and 28 and reach Coimbatore at 4.20 am the next day. Similarly, Coimbatore-Chennai weekly special fare special train will leave Coimbatore at 9.45 pm on April 20 and 27, May 4, 11, 18 and 25 June 1, 8 , 15, 22 and 29 and reach here at 5.30 am the next day. The trains will stop at Salem, Erode and Tirupur. Meanwhile, Chennai-Coimbatore bi-weekly special fare special train will leave Puratchi Thalaivar Dr M G Ramachandran Central at 10.30 pm on April 16 , 21 , 23, 28 and 30, May 5 ,7, 12, 14, 19, 21, 26 and 28 and June 2 , 4, 9, 11, 16, 18 , 23, 25 and 30 and reach Coimbatore at 6.50 am the next day. Similarly, in the return direction the train will leave Coimbatore at 11.30 pm on April 17, 22 , 24 and 29, May 1, 6, 8, 13, 15, 20, 22, 27 and 29, June 3, 5, 10, 12, 17, 19, 24 and 26 and July 1 and reach at 7.20 am the next day. The trains will stop at Salem, Erode and Tirupur. Advance reservation for all the trains is open, the release said. New Delhi: Bollywood actress Alia Bhatt, who is gearing up for the release of her upcoming film Kalank, revealed that she is cannot vote in Lok Sabha Elections 2019. During an interview with India Today, Varun Dhawan, Aditya Roy Kapur, Sonakshi and Alia were asked how can they impact elections. To which they replied, "By voting." However, Alia said that she cannot vote and cited her "passport" as the reason for not being able to vote. In an interview given to Hindustan Times in 2014, Alia had expressed her concerns. She had said, " Unfortunately, I cant vote because I have a British passport. I am past the date this time around, but I will try and get my voting card the next time (elections) once I get my dual citizenship. " On the work front, Alia has a lot of plump projects in the pipeline. Her film Kalank starring Varun, Sonakshi, Aditya will hit the screens on April 17, 2019. Post which her first film with boyfriend Ranbir Kapoor, Brahmastra helmed by Ayan Mukerji will release on December 25, 2019. Apart from this, Alia has signed Takht, a multi-starrer backed by Karan Johar. She will be seen in Inshallah helmed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali opposite Salman Khan. The actress has also signed a film with Rajamouli which is titled RRR. New Delhi: The first episode of Game of Thrones season 8 premiered in the wee hours of Monday. The fans stayed up all night to catch the premiere on time. Global icon Priyanka Chopra was among the legions of fans waiting with bated breath for the first episode. Just a few hours before the release, Priyanka posted a message on Instagram for her future sister-in-law Sophie Turner, who plays a key role in the Television show. PeeCee shared a picture of Turner sitting on the magnanimous GOT iron throne and wrote, "Good luck @sophiet you are a boss babe. And are very loved.. #jsister #gameofthrones tonight. Sophie's character in the series is called Sansa Stark, who will battle it out for the iron throne with many other characters. Priyanka, who is married to Nick Jonas, shares a great equation with Sophie, who is engaged to Nick's brother Joe Jonas. The girls often share pictures with each other and use the hashtag #jsisters to define their bond. They were recently holidaying in Miami and also danced on a few Bollywood numbers during the holidays. If reports are to be trusted, Sophie will tie the knot with Joe in France. A living legend, an unparalleled superstar and a man truly ahead of his time - Amitabh Bachchan is not just an actor but a phenomenon ruling the hearts of billions across the globe. With a career spanning close to five decades, the 'Angry Young Man's' journey into tinsel town is no less than a blockbuster movie! Who would've thought that a man, who was once rejected for his deep baritone voice on the radio, would one day become the 'Shahenshah' of Bollywood! At the grand finale of Starry Nights 2. Oh! on Zee Cafe, the actor opened up about the good-old days, the Bachchan house rules and anecdotes from his journey with Jaya Bachchan. Accompanied by his confidante and producer-director R. Balki, together they shared secrets from the sets of their films together and their unbreakable bond with the show's host Komal Nahta. Sharing a beautiful memory of how Jaya Bachchan and he got married, the actor revealed, "Jaya and I, were working in a film called Zanjeer and the whole team had decided that if the film succeeded, we would go on a holiday to London. I went and told my father who then enquired about who all I was going with. On hearing Jaya's name, he said that without marrying her I could not go to London with her. I said okay, let's get us married tomorrow and so we quickly got everything organised, got married the very next day and off we went!" When Komal Nahta asked R. Balki about his first impression of the mega-star he said, "He was sarcastic as hell. He didn't mean a thing he said, he just looked at you and pulled your leg!" Speaking about duo's star-wives, each gifted in their respective fields, Komal asked the two about the one thing that made the four a very strong and formidable team. Amitabh, being his sarcastic self, jokingly retorted, "I'll break that concept because his wife thinks that I'm the most terrible actor born on this side of the world and my wife thinks that the kind of films I'm doing are rubbish. His wife will come and say, 'Amit ji you were really bad at this film' and 'what is this kurta that you're wearing, it is rubbish.' So, if you think that this is a foursome that combines to make brilliant cinema, you're absolutely wrong." Sharing an interesting anecdote from their blockbuster movie together, R Balki revealed, "I remember when I went for his birthday, I didn't have a gift. I just thought to myself about what I could give him as a gift. I thought of an idea and I whispered into his ear. All I said was that this is the idea, it's going to be based on your voice and it's going to be on somebody's face." Hearing this story, one could easily guess as Komal Nahta prompted - 'Shamitabh'. A show revealing the inside scoop on your favourite Bollywood stars, Starry Nights 2. Oh! on Zee Cafe truly culminated on a legendary note! This year, parents of nearly 16,000 children in the US will hear these 4 words: "Your child has Cancer." St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is leading the way the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Treatments invented at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20 per cent when the hospital opened in 1962 to more than 80 per cent today but while there have been tremendous advances in science and survival odds, the need for support is greater than ever. Zee TV's "Desis for St. Jude Fundraising Gala" was held on Saturday, April 6, 2019, at The Gallery at Dream Downtown in New York, New York which was packed to its last capacity which included some of the most influential South Asians in attendance. The spectacular highlight of the evening was guest of honour R Madhavan's red carpet entry as he walked in with St. Jude patient, Smyrna. Just a day before the gala, R Madhavan visited the St. Jude Memphis, TN, campus facility. During his visit, he was able to experience firsthand the depths of St. Jude's current cancer research. Madhavan was deeply impressed by the state-of-the-art facility and its direct impact on children's lives and their families. During the gala, he was able to put into words a powerful 15-minute speech about this experience and about how critical St. Jude is to children's cancer research. It was definitely a pivotal point in the event. The young cancer patient entered the stage sharing her emotional story with the audience, who was riveted by her words and moved to tears. Perhaps the most surprising and delightful element for everyone in attendance was the most talented artist, Vilas Nayak. He made three live paintings of Lord Ganesha, Lord Krishna & Mahatma Gandhi, each in rapid five-minute succession. All the three paintings were the most contested items for the auction. Together, Zee TV & St. Jude have demonstrated what the power of collaboration & support can do. Families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food - because all a family should worry about is helping their child live. All proceeds & donations from this gala will be given to research for curing & ending pediatric cancer. Siliguri: Unidentified miscreants vandalised three booth offices of the Bharatiya Janata Party here on Monday. "After we closed the booths last night and went to our respective houses, several men on bikes vandalised booth number 1955, 1957 and 1958. We have registered an FIR against them," BJP party worker Vikram Gajay told ANI. He said that the miscreants could be Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers. "Their party workers attacked us because they are afraid that TMC would lose this time, as people are in favour of Modi-led BJP," he added. Siliguri: Three booth offices of BJP vandalised by unidentified miscreants last night. More details awaited. #WestBengal pic.twitter.com/8wOH13zf0u ANI (@ANI) April 15, 2019 Three Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal - Darjeeling, Raigunj and Jalpaiguri - will vote on April 18. Two seats in the state, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar, went to polls on April 11. KHARTOUM: Sudan`s main protest group on Sunday demanded the immediate handover of power to a civilian transitional government, saying it would keep up the street demonstrations which ousted former President Omar al-Bashir last week to achieve its aims. The Sudanese Professionals` Association (SPA) called for the establishment of a transitional council which would be protected by the armed forces, adding it would exert "all forms of peaceful pressure to achieve the objectives of the revolution". The military council that replaced Bashir, who was ousted on Thursday by the military after three decades in power, announced a raft of new decisions late on Sunday including the retirement of Defence Minister Awad Ibn Auf. Ibn Auf, and his deputy, resigned as head of the transition council after they assumed the positions following Bashir`s ouster. The council also appointed Lieutenant General Abu Bakr Mustafa as intelligence chief, succeeding Salah Abdallah Mohamed Saleh, commonly known as Salah Gosh, who resigned on Friday. It did not name a successor to Ibn Auf. The transitional council spokesman told a news conference in Khartoum on Sunday the military was ready to work with opposition groups to establish a new civilian government. "The ball is now in the political forces` court when it comes to the prime minister or a government," Shams El Din Kabbashi said. "If they are ready today to approve anything, we are ready to implement it," he added. Lieutenant General Omar Zain al-Abideen, another member of the council, said the opposition would have one week to submit their suggestions. The head of the military council, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, had earlier said the council had invited the main opposition parties and protest organisers for a meeting. But the SPA and other main opposition parties, which together make up a group known as the Forces for Freedom and Change, said they did not attend the meeting. "We were not invited to this meeting ... we will submit our suggestions for the government to the military council," a spokesman for SPA told Reuters. A Reuters witness said the meeting was largely attended by unknown politicians and parliamentarians who are known to be loyal to Bashir`s party. A sit-in in the Sudanese capital, which began on April 6, was the culmination of a protest movement that began nearly four months ago, triggered by a worsening economic crisis. Kabbashi said there had been orders by the former regime to disperse the sit-in "at whatever cost," but the military had refused to do so and will continue to protect protesters. "DEFEND THE REVOLUTION" Several thousand protesters continued a sit-in outside the Defence Ministry and for the first time state television showed footage of people marching and chanting in the streets, while a TV presenter congratulated their "revolution". SPA, which had demanded civilians be included on the transitional military council and for Bashir`s close associates to leave, called for the arrest of prominent National Intelligence and Security Service generals, including its former head Salah Gosh, and for the removal of the prosecutor general. It also called for the arrest of Bashir, whom the army has said it has already detained. Kabbashi said a committee would be formed to take over the former ruling party`s assets and that Sudan`s ambassadors to Washington, a former intelligence chief, and to Geneva, a former foreign minister, had been sacked. He also said the military council would release all the army and police officers who participated in demonstrations. Up to four thousand people were still camped out on Sunday, a Reuters witness said, slightly fewer than on previous days, with some people returning to work for the first time in days. After deadly clashes at the sit-in last week, the atmosphere was relaxed, with soldiers drinking tea and chatting with protesters. "We are at our sit-in until we hear the response from the army to the ... demands. We will defend the revolution from hijacking," Mouawiya Mubarak, a 21-year-old student, said. "Our demands are clear and have not yet been achieved, why would we go home? Our sit-in is the most powerful weapon in our hands," the SPA said in a tweet. By Online Desk Speaking for the first time on his party's attempt to forge a poll alliance with the AAP, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday said he is willing to give up four Delhi constituencies to Arvind Kejriwal's party. The Congress chief tweeted: "An alliance between the Congress & AAP in Delhi would mean the rout of the BJP. The Congress is willing to give up 4 Delhi seats to the AAP to ensure this. But, Mr Kejriwal has done yet another U-turn! Our doors are still open, but the clock is running out." An alliance between the Congress & AAP in Delhi would mean the rout of the BJP. The Congress is willing to give up 4 Delhi seats to the AAP to ensure this. But, Mr Kejriwal has done yet another U turn! Our doors are still open, but the clock is running out. #AbAAPkiBaari Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) April 15, 2019 Soon afterwards, the AAP chief hit back, saying that Rahul's tweet indicated that the Congress was not interested in an alliance but was merely indulging in posturing. Kejriwal added that it was unfortunate that Rahul was helping the BJP by dividing the opposition votes in other states. Amid the uncertainty over an alliance with the Congress in the Lok Sabha polls, Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal had earlier told reporters on Sunday that his party will do anything to "save the country" from Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE "The country is in danger. We will do anything to save it. Our effort to save the country from Narendra Modi and Amit Shah will continue," Kejriwal said. Congress leaders and senior advocate Kapil Sibal, however, dodged questions on an alliance with the AAP and threw the ball in Kejriwal's court saying, "He knows better". By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Four Muslim former MLAs from Delhi on Sunday wrote to Congress president Rahul Gandhi demanding at least one ticket for seats in the national capital keeping in mind the sizeable minority population. Demanding at least one ticket to a Muslim leader, former MLAs Shoaib Iqbal, Matin Ahmed, Hasan Ahmed and Asif Mohmmad Khan signed this letter and handed it over to Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee President (DPCC) Sheila Dikshit. Keeping in view the large number of Muslim voters and the contribution of these five senior Muslim leaders and their track record of winning elections, there must be one ticket given to any one of above mentioned leaders, says the letter, written by Iqbal and signed by the other three leaders. The letter also mentions the name of one of three DPCC working presidents, Haroon Yusuf, who has also served as a minister in the Dikshit government. However, he has not signed the letter. Yes we have written this letter to raise this genuine demand of ours with the party president. I met the DPCC president and gave the letter to her, and she said she will look into it. If a Muslim leader is given a ticket, then it will have an impact on prospects, said five-time MLA Ahmed. Similar were the views of Iqbal who said, Kejriwal is going around saying that minorities should vote for AAP [Aam, Aadmi Party], but everyone knows that in future, it is only the Congress party which can make a government. Hence, our demand. All India Congress Committees Delhi in-charge PC Chako said, I have not received any letter from the members but everyone has the right to convey their opinion. By ANI MUMBAI: The Nisarg Heaven Society has slapped a fine of Rs 3.60 lakh on a resident, who works as an advertising executive and is also an animal lover, for feeding stray dogs in the society premises in Kandivali. Talking to ANI, chairman of Nisarg Heaven Society (NHS) Mitesh Bora said: "Around 98 per cent of the society members had passed the resolution to levy fine for feeding dogs in the society premises. Being the society's chairman, it is my duty to make members to follow the rules framed by the majority of members." Bora said: "We have no problem if any society member feeds dogs outside the premises. We are also animal lovers. There is nothing against animal rights. It is a question of human rights too." "These dogs are aggressive and they bark at senior citizens, kids, and many others. There is a problem with hygiene too. The rule was made after receiving many complaints from the society members," Bora said. Neha Datwani said: "I had an outstanding maintenance bill of Rs 3.60 lakh till March, which also includes Rs 75,000 monthly fine for feeding dogs. They have charged me of Rs 2,500 per day for feeding dogs." Datwani said: "In July 2018, the society slapped a fine of Rs 2,500. It went up to Rs 75,000 per month in June. Another member of the society Ketan Shah was also fined for Rs 7,500 in July and thereafter Rs 75,000 per month." The society had stopped charging penalties in November 2018, after Neha approached the animal rights activists and informed them about these rules. But her request had fallen on deaf ears According to Neha, the dogs were born in the society premises and she has been taking care of them since their birth. The society recently formed a committee which made a rule of imposing fine on members for feeding dogs. "I am likely to move outside the city soon. I want to clear all dues of the society as my mother and sister will continue to stay here, but I won't pay the fine," she added. By PTI AHMEDABAD: Separate incidents of alleged inducement and threat to voters, purportedly involving leaders of the BJP and the Congress, have come to light in Gujarat in the run-up to Lok Sabha elections. An audiotape of BJP candidate from Rajkot Lok Sabha constituency Mohan Kundariya allegedly threatening a Congress member of the Rajkot district panchayat for votes has gone viral, whereas Congress' Panchmahals nominee V K Khant is purportedly seen distributing money to voters in a photo, which is also circulated on social media. Both the leaders have refuted allegations against them. Kundariya, a sitting MP, said the purported audio tape is a handiwork of the Congress, while Khant said he never distributed cash to voters. ALSO READ | Alpesh Thakor couldn't handle respect and power given by Congress: Hardik Patel In the audio clip, Kundariya can be purportedly heard telling Nanu Dodiya, a member of the Congress from Rajkot district panchayat, that if he doesn't ensure that 75 per cent votes from his Kothariya village are cast in favour of the MP, the latter will close down the milk union mandli in the village. Dodiya told reporters that he recorded Kundariya's "threat call" on his mobile phone. When contacted, Kundariya said, "The people of my constituency know that I have not used any threatening language. This clip is a handiwork of the Congress party," he claimed. Congress candidate from Rajkot Lalit Kagathara said the BJP was using threatening language because it does not believe in democracy. ALSO READ | After wife joining BJP, Ravindra Jadeja's father, sister join Congress Patidar quota spearhead and Congress leader Hardik Patel also slammed Kundariya, saying the BJP is using "abusive language" because they are sensing defeat in Gujarat. This is not the first incident wherein BJP leaders have allegedly threatened people in the run-up to elections. Earlier, BJP MLA from Vaghodiya constituency, Madhu Shrivastav had threatened voters in a public meeting that he would "take action" agains them if they failed to vote for the BJP candidate from Vadodara constituency. In another incident, state minister Kunvarji Bavaliya was filmed saying that as a village did not vote for him during bypolls, he may not make arrangement of water for them. Reacting to the purported photo of V K Khant, the BJP has alleged that the Congress candidate was distributing notes of Rs 500 to voters. "Congress candidate from Panchmahals, Khant was distributing notes of Rs 500 to voters ahead of the elections. He is a moneyed man who was trying to bribe voters," claimed Khant's challenger Ratanshinh Rathod of the BJP. However, Khant denied the allegations. "The photo shows some notes (money) in my hand, but I have never distributed those notes to voters with whom I was interacting. I was trying to take out a handkerchief and with it the notes might have come out," Khant told reporters. The alleged incident occurred on April 9. Reacting to the development, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said the Congress was "synonymous" with corruption which just wants to bribe their way to Lok Sabha. The BJP is planning to complain to the Election Commission against Khant. Harpreet Bajwa By Express News Service CHANDIGARH: Former Army Chief Gen JJ Singh's candidature will be withdrawn by the party in favour of Paramjit Kaur Khalra the candidate of Punjab Democratic Alliance (PDA). The retired general was fighting the upcoming elections from the panthic seat of Khadoor Sahib in Punjab on the ticket of Shiromani Akali Dal (Taksali). She is the candidate of PDA led by Sukhpal Singh Khaira the rebel AAP MLA and president of Punjab Ekta Party. Singhs candidature has been withdrawn by SAD (Taksali) a newly formed party by the breakaway leaders from the Shiromani Akali Dal on the pretext that the panthic votes will be divided between Khalra and Singh and she is a `winnable candidate. The former army chief had fought the 2017 assembly elections from Patiala on SAD ticket but lost to Capt Amarinder Singh and in December last year he resigned from SAD. Earlier SAD (Taksali) had said that the party will not withdraw its candidate Gen J J Singh from this seat as it had declared his candidature much before the name of Paramjit Kaur Khalsa was announced by the PDA, but today it took a U-turn and decided to withdraw his name. Confirming that the party has decided to withdraw Gen Singhs candidature from Khadoor Sahib seat, Sewa Singh of SAD (Taksali) said, "we taken this step as her husband Jaswant Singh Khalra had fought for the human right in the state and laid down his life and she had formed an NGO and is doing the same so we want that if she becomes MP she reached the parliament and raise her voice their for the cause. Taking a dig at SAD, he said," we are true taksali sand not like Akali dal that is why we have withdrawn our candidate. He appealed to Khaira of PDA to declare Khalra was the independent candidate so that she has no tag of any political party and she is everyones candidate. Also, he appealed to AAP to withdraw their candidate from this seat and support Khalra. On question of whether Gen JJ Singh will contest from any other seat, Sekhwan said this will be decided by the party later. Sekhwan said he will like that a third front is formed to take on the Congress and SAD-BJP alliance in the state and AAP should also be a part of that alliance besides PDA. For that Dharamvir Gandhi should be supported from Patiala, Bhagwant Mann from Sangrur, Simarjeet Bain from Ludhiana and Bir Devinder Singh from Anandpur Sahib and others should withdraw their candidates in their favour. By PTI NEW DELHI: Persisting with their doubts over the credibility of EVMs, several opposition parties Sunday said they will move the Supreme Court again to seek verification of at least 50 per cent of the polled votes against VVAPT slips. Opposition parties, including the Congress, Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Samajwadi Party, CPI and CPI(M), jointly addressed a press conference to highlight the issue of transparency in the election process and protection of voter rights and gave a call to "save democracy". Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of "programming" the electronic voting machines to win the Lok Sabha polls, while his Andhra Pradesh counterpart Chandrababu Naidu said 21 political parties have demanded matching of the VVPAT slips with at least 50 per cent of the votes cast through the EVMs. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE Naidu had met Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora Saturday to raise the issue of alleged malfunctioning of EVMs. The demand by the parties comes days before the 2nd phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections on April 18, when the a total of 97 constituencies across 13 states go to polls. The first of the seven-phase polls was held on April 11. The Supreme Court had on Monday asked the Election Commission to increase the random matching of VVPAT slips with votes cast through EVMs at five polling booths per assembly segment, from one at present, in the Lok Sabha polls. It had given the direction saying the measure would provide greater satisfaction not just to political parties but the entire electorate. The opposition parties, including the Congress, have been demanding that at least 50 per cent of all votes polled through EVMs be verified against the paper slips of the voters' verifiable paper audit trail (VVPATs) machines. A VVPAT is an auxiliary, independent device linked to an electronic voting machine to allow voters to see if the votes cast by them have gone to the right candidate. The VVPATs are also meant to help detect any possible "election fraud" or malfunction of EVMs. The Election Commission of India has decided to use VVAPTs with all the EVMs in the ongoing elections to impart greater transparency and credibility to the country's poll process. The BJP, meanwhile, termed the opposition parties' meet in Delhi an exercise "to find excuses for their impending massive defeat" in the Lok Sabha polls. In a separate press conference, BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao said, "The so-called all-party meeting convened in Delhi is nothing but a confession of defeat by the so-called Mahagathbandhan." "They are already trying to find excuses for their impending massive defeat. They have not only failed to mount a challenge against the BJP in this election but have also failed as an opposition in the last five years," he added. After the opposition parties' meet on EVMs, AAP supremo Kejriwal told reporters that the people were losing faith in EVMs and the election procedure. Congress leaders and senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Singhvi also attended the conference. Singhvi said the opposition parties will approach the Supreme Court for a direction to the EC for matching at least 50 per cent of the votes recorded in VVPAT slips with those registered by EVMs in every assembly segment. Sibal said, if the EC ignores this issue, we will take other measures. We will not sit quietly. We will approach the Supreme Court." Singhvi said the opposition parties would launch a nationwide campaign on the issue of "discrepancies" in EVMs and alleged the EC was not doing enough to address it. "Questions were raised after the first phase of elections, we don't think the EC is paying adequate attention. If you press the button before X party, vote goes to Y party. VVPAT displays (paper slips) only for 3 seconds, instead of 7 seconds," he claimed. "Why the EC does not want 50 per cent VVPAT slips to be counted. Today, 20 to 25 per cent EVMs are not working properly. People vote till 4 am and wait in queues. What does this mean?" asked Sibal, doubting the EC's intentions. It will be unfortunate if the EC supports voting machines instead of the voters, he added. Accusing the BJP of "programming the EVMs" to win the poll, Kejriwal claimed, "People don't believe in EVMs anymore." He said all opposition parties, except the BJP which is "benefitting out of this manipulation of machines", want the counting of at least 50 per cent of the VVPAT slips. "The loss of faith in the electoral procedure is raising a question mark on the country's democratic structure," he said. He also accused the poll panel of ignoring the complaints of manipulations of EVMs. "Why is the EC not listening or acting on the complaints? There is a serious manipulation of EVMs. Why is the EC ignoring this?" he asked. Claiming that all votes goes to the BJP irrespective of the buttons pressed on EVMs, Kejriwal asked why this discrepancy was not being investigated by the EC. Asserting that the EVMs are not reliable, the opposition parties' key interlocutor Naidu said they are not satisfied with the Supreme Court order to the EC to increase the number of EVM's to be randomly verified from one to only five per assembly constituency. He said a fresh petition will be filed in the matter. Sudanese protest organisers Monday called on their supporters to mobilise outside the army headquarters, saying there was an attempt to "disperse the sit-in" where thousands have camped out for 10 days. The Sudanese Professionals Association did not say who was attempting to break up the crowd, but witnesses said several army vehicles had surrounded the area. "There is an attempt to disperse the sit-in from the army headquarters area, they are trying to remove the barricades," the SPA said in a statement to AFP. "We call on our people to come immediately to the sit-in area to protect our revolution." Witnesses said troops were seen removing the barricades that demonstrators had put up as a security measure. "Protesters are chanting 'army is our army'," an onlooker told AFP from the site of the sit-in. Witnesses said the army displayed a banner on one of the walls of their building facing the protesters. "Our brothers and sisters, don't come close. You have been our guests under our protection. But now the emergency law governs all of us," the banner said. Before his ouster last week, veteran president Omar al-Bashir imposed a state of emergency under which rallies were banned. The SPA described the attempt to disperse the crowds as "an indication that the military council will not fulfil its committment given to the people," in a separate statement on its Facebook page. Protest organisers have given a list of demands to the country's new ruling military council that came to power after Bashir was removed from office. Their key demands include handing power to a transitional civilian government and bringing leaders of Bashir's regime to justice, including the deposed president. Search Keywords: Short link: By PTI BADAUN: Seeking to drive a wedge between alliance partners SP and BSP, Union minister Rajnath Singh Sunday said Samajwadi Party will have to bear the consequences of teaming up with the Mayawati-led party in the Lok Sabha elections. Addressing an election meeting at Dataganj here, he said, ".Samajwadi Party (SP) does not know what big mistake it has committed by forging an alliance with the BSP. It will have to bear the consequences." Earlier this year, BSP supremo Mayawati and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav announced that they will fight from 38 and 37 seats, respectively while leaving two for the Congress in Uttar Pradesh. The seats that were left out by the SP-BSP alliance included the Gandhi family's stronghold of Amethi and Raebareli. ALSO READ | Congress, Left will pay dearly for deceiving people on Sabarimala: Rajnath Singh in Kerala The Union home minister also said that barely 13 days after the Pulwama terror attack, 'revenge' was taken. Congress and other opposition parties started demanding proof as to how many terrorists were killed, how many camps were destroyed had it been one or two, we could have counted them. "But, they were so many, to what extent could have we counted? The job of IAF is not to count the bodies," he said. Singh was referring to the air strikes carried out by the Indian Air Force (IAF) on terror camps in Balakot. The senior BJP leader also underlined the Centre's resolve in providing best security apparatus to the armed forces. He said the soldiers had been demanding bulletproof jackets since 2009 but in vain. "As soon as Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to know about this, he immediately gave orders for providing bulletproof jackets to Army jawans. Such jackets have been given to 1.86 lakh soldiers," the minister added. By IANS NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: The 2019 summer holiday travel season is expected to be marred by high air fares as debt-ridden Jet Airways gradually truncates flight operations, experts said. Even though the airline, lenders and the government are still hopeful of a revival, the current trend might see Jet operating a bare minimum fleet, thus bumping up air fares. "The grounding of aircraft due to liquidity issues with Jet Airways and regulatory directive for the grounding of B737 Max aircraft have resulted in 15 per cent impact on the industry capacity," said Kinjal Shah, Vice President, Corporate Ratings, ICRA. ALSO READ: 1,100 unpaid Jet Airways pilots not to fly from Monday, says source "This has definitely resulted in passenger inconvenience. Furthermore, it has resulted in a significant increase in fares. With the industry capacity remaining constrained, the fares are expected to remain high in the near term." Jet's woes assume criticality as the airline which once operated around 120 aircraft is left with just 16 in its fleet. Last Friday it operated 11 aircraft. The airline has currently suspended international operations till the weekend. It has also cancelled domestic flights, leaving passengers stranded at various airports. This led even the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to assess Jet Airways' financial situation. ALSO READ: Jet pilots, engineers joining SpiceJet at 30-50 per cent pay cut "With Jet now cancelling international flights, the rising fare situation is set to get worse if capacity is not increased before peak summer travel season," said Aloke Bajpai, CEO and Co-founder, ixigo. "A comparative analysis of April 2019 fares and what the scenario was last year shows that fares for flights originating from Delhi have increased by 19 per cent and fares for flights from Mumbai are up by 36 per cent. Passengers who are planning their summer leisure travel will also be impacted due to availability of seats." According to Sharat Dhall, COO (B2C), Yatra.com said: "With the peak travel season having kicked off, we expect airlines to induct more aircrafts to tap into the increased demand on the key business and leisure routes." "This will also result in a rationalisation of air fares and we expect them to increase only marginally as compared to the same season last year." In addition, Dhall said: "We see other carriers adding capacity on a daily basis to fill the demand-supply gap and that is keeping fares under control." WATCH: Save our jobs! Jet Airways employees protest in New Delhi "It is only the last-minute fares that are seeing a jump. So it is unlikely to impact the summer vacation travel season as most leisure travellers book well in advance and will not be impacted." The trend of high air fares that was triggered due to Jet's truncation of its operations was amplified by oil marketing companies, as they increased the price of aviation turbine fuel (ATF). Since March 14, passengers had to shell out high fares as several more flights were cancelled due to grounding of Boeing 737-MAX aircraft. Culmination of these factors are expected to decelerate the growth of air passenger traffic in the country. In a recent note, ratings agency Fitch said that Indian aviation market has seen a sharp increase in air fares in the last few months due to tight supply, which has been worsened by the suspension of the 737 MAX aircraft. "Fitch expects the growth in revenue passenger kilometres (RPK), which decelerated to 12.4 per cent in January (2018: 19.9 per cent), to weaken further until supply increases," the rating agency said in a note. In addition, the note said that Jet Airways, which along with its subsidiary JetLite, had the second-largest share of the domestic market until January, has been steadily losing market share as it has been forced to shrink its operating fleet due to financial troubles. Harpreet Bajwa By Express News Service CHANDIGARH: A fresh row is brewing in the Chautala family after Ajay Chautala came out of jail on Monday on a 21-day furlough to campaign for the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) which has entered into an alliance with the AAP in Haryana. His father, the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) supremo and former Haryana chief minister OP Chautala, however, has been denied furlough by the AAP government in Delhi. The two are serving a ten-year sentence in Tihar Jail over the JBT recruitment case. Ajays sons, Dushyant Chautala, the MP from Hisar, and Digvijay Chautala had floated the JJP a few months ago after being shown the door from the INLD by their uncle Abhay Chautala. Now, their father Ajay is out of jail to campaign for the party in the upcoming elections till May 6 as no conditions have been put for the furlough. But OP Chautala, who had asked for parole to take care of his ailing wife, is still in jail and cannot come out to campaign for the INLD. INLD leaders allege that Ajay got the 21-day furlough after his sons exerted their influence on the AAP. INLD Haryana President Ashok Arora said, "The AAP government in Delhi took a call on this issue. You know they have an alliance with the JJP in Haryana. Last week, the AAP government in Delhi had opposed OP Chautalas plea for parole in the Delhi High Court, saying that although he claimed that he wanted to attend to his ailing wife, he was actually seeking to come out for political reasons. Sources said that earlier also during the Jind bypoll in January this year, OP Chautala was refused furlough. H Khogen Singh By Express News Service The talking point in political circles in the national Capital since the past one month has been the possible alliance between the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress for the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. When the idea was first mooted by the AAP, the coming together of the bitter political rivals was a near certainty. This made the Bharatiya Janata Party, which currently holds all the seven seats in Delhi, extremely nervous as an alliance between the two parties has the potential to upset their apple cart. But the talks between the Congress and the AAP started stalling after the ruling party in Delhi, apparently at the behest of the AAP leadership (read Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal), told the grand old party that any alliance in Delhi would also have to include a similar tie-up in Haryana, Punjab and Goa. The AAP wants a united fight against the BJP in 33 seats across Punjab (13), Haryana (10), Delhi (7), Goa (2) and Chandigarh (1). But the Congress is opposed to this proposal as, according to it, the AAP has hardly any base outside the national Capital. The Congress contention may not be off the mark. In the last Assembly elections in Haryana and Goa, the AAPs vote share was a mere 5% and 4% respectively. In the Assembly elections in Punjab in 2017, the party got 23.8% of the vote share, bagging 20 seats. But after that high, the party has been on a steady decline, perhaps terminally. Many of its leaders have since left the party while eight of its 20 MLAs have been suspended for alleged anti-party activities. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE All this is a clear sign that the AAP, which had promised much when it was founded in 2012, does not have a significant presence anywhere in the country except Delhi. Here too its appeal is on the decline, albeit slowly. Clearly, the AAP seems to be punching way above its weight by demanding from the Congress an alliance in the northern states, besides Goa. A senior AAP leader has admitted that the BJP is likely to win all the seats in Delhi unless his party and the Congress can agree to an alliance. It is for this reason that the AAP is more desperate for a tie-up with the Congress. Being in power in the state, an electoral defeat at the hands of the BJP will deal a huge blow to its image and could adversely affect its prospects in the Assembly elections next year. The AAP has been on the back foot ever since its historic Assembly election landslide victory in 2015, when the party won 67 of the 70 seats, a feat that perhaps no party in the future can match. In the three municipality elections of 2017, the party had hoped to win at least 220 of the 270 seats. But the party managed to bag a mere 48. The clear winner was the BJP, which won 181. This was a huge setback for Kejriwal and his party. The AAP has made full statehood for Delhi as the main election plank for the Lok Sabha elections. Its leaders are telling voters that their government would have delivered much more had the Central government not interfered with the functioning of the state government. But opinion is divided over whether the common man is convinced by this argument. While the AAPs core vote base comprising slum dwellers and auto rickshaw drivers appears to think there is merit in this argument, the others are not so sure. A lot of questions will be answered on May 23 when the election results will be known. H Khogen Singh Resident Editor, New Delhi Email: khogensingh@newindianexpress.com Harpreet Bajwa By Express News Service CHANDIGARH: A young social activist has come up with a novel way to honour the Pulwama martyrs on the 20th anniversary of the Kargil War. Sanjeev Rana, a young social activist, has done the hard yards, walking to collect soil from Pulwama and Kargil, which he wishes to install in glass commemoration containers within temples and gurdwaras across seven states, so that people can recall their supreme sacrifice for the motherland. He hopes to reach at least 20 lakh people with his message. Rana recalls, A few days ago, I went to pay my tributes to the 40 CRPF troopers killed in the militant attack at Pulwama, and I decided to take back the soil of that land for youngsters to use it to put a tilak on their forehead and pledge to safeguard their country. I collected 20 kg of soil, from both Pulwama and Kargil. Rana has formed nine teams of 20 volunteers each in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh to visit temples and gurdwaras, besides schools, colleges and residential societies, asking them to install the commemorative soil and involve youths in taking the pledge. That is just a way to honour the memory of our fallen braves and remember that we stand united for our country, says Rana. He said his mission started from the Bhadra Kali Mandir in Kurukshetra in Haryana. Rana said, when he paid his homage at the blast site near Srinagar, some locals were not happy and objected to it, but the security forces personnel defused the situation. Earlier, Rana had come up with another projectEk Eeint Shahid Ke Naam (One Brick In the name of Martyrs)to celebrate, honour and remember martyrs and heroes. On a patriotic mission Social activist Sanjeev Rana has collected 20 kg of soil from Kargil and Pulwama and wants to have it installed in temples and gurdwaras across seven states so that people can recall the supreme sacrifice made by security forces personnel for the country and take a pledge to safeguard the motherland. By Online Desk Union Minister Maneka Gandhi has once again stirred controversy when she announced a categorical approach to be followed after elections for rewarding the voters. As per an India Today report, Maneka Gandhi has come up with vote share wise distribution of categories for developmental work in villages. The villages where BJP receives 80 per cent of the votes to will come under A, those with 60 per cent will be placed under B. Similarly those with 50 per cent and 30 per cent come under C and D category. Based on the 'ABCD' category the priority of the developmental work will be decided. As per the category system, the villages will be prioritised for developmental work based on the category they belong to. The report quoted Maneka Gandhi saying that 80 per cent of the work will be done for category A villages, then 60 per cent for the rest of the people. The remarks comes just day after her video of telling muslim voters that they will not receive any help if they didn't vote for her went viral. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Hours after the Supreme Court came down on the Election Commission of India like a ton of bricks for dithering in its crackdown on communal speeches, the poll panel cracked the whip on UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and BSP supremo Mayawati, barring them from campaigning or making public speeches for 72 hours and 48 hours, respectively. ALSO READ | Azam Khan should not be allowed to contest polls: Jaya Prada Later, the EC reiterated the fact it had grown a new spine by stopping SP leader Azam Khan from campaigning for 72 hours for his underwear jibe against his BJP opponent Jaya Prada and barring BJP MP Maneka Gandhi from doing so for 48 hours after her remarks asking Muslims in UPs Sultanpur to vote for her if they wanted her to get their work done after she wins from the constituency. Earlier in the day, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, hearing a PIL, asked the EC about the action taken so far against Mayawatiwho made a direct appeal to Muslims to vote for the alliance in Deoband on April 7and Yogi, who in response to Mayawatis speech, had said, If they have faith in Ali, we have faith in Bajrang Bali. So what about Mayawati. She was supposed to reply to you (EC) by April 12. She has not replied till today. What does the law permit you to do. Answer us, the bench said. The EC counsel said: We can issue notice and seek reply but we cannot de-recognise a party or disqualify a candidate. Reacting sharply, the bench said, So you are basically saying you are toothless and powerless against hate speeches. The EC then cited Article 324 of the Constitution and took action against the leaders. It said Yogi, as CM, had added responsibility and added Mayawati, a senior leader, should not make statements that can polarise the electorate. During the 2014 LS polls, the EC had imposed state-specific bans on BJP leader Amit Shah and Azam Khan. The ban on Shah was lifted in a few days after he assured the poll body that he would not disturb public tranquillity. SC threatens to bring CEC to court in 30 mins The apex court, irked over not getting specific answers from the EC on its powers to deal with communal speeches, called the poll panel toothless and threatened to ensure the presence of the Chief Election Commissioner before it within 30 minutes. By PTI NEW DELHI: The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) is awaiting sanction to prosecute 79 corrupt central government employees, including an IAS officer, for over four months from different organisations. A total of 41 cases, involving these officers, are pending sanction of prosecution from government departments, according to the latest data by the CVC. Of the total cases, the highest of nine are pending with the Ministry of Personnel, that acts as a nodal department for anti-corruption matters and eight with the government of Uttar Pradesh. A total of four cases, involving 13 of its staff, are pending with the State Bank of India, Canara Bank, Corporation Bank and IDBI, the data said. Three such cases involving corrupt employees are pending with Union territories, two each with the Defence Ministry, Food and Supply Ministry, Health and Family Welfare Minister and the Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation, among others, it said. As per norms, sanction for prosecution has to be decided within four-month time. "These cases are pending sanction of prosecution for more than four months. We have reminded the government departments and the banks concerned to act fast on these requests," a senior CVC official said. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Seeking an explanation from Congress president Rahul Gandhi on his remark where he misquoted the Rafale order, the Supreme Court on Monday observed that his statement on the case verdict was incorrectly attributed to the top court. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi gave a categorical clarification that in its Rafale judgement there was no occasion for it to make a mention of the alleged contemptuous observation Chowkidar Narendra Modi chor hain as was attributed to it by the Congress president. We are making it clear this court never made such observation. We only decided on the admissibility of documents, the judges said. They sought Rahuls explanation by April 22 and scheduled the hearing a day later. In a two-page order, the judges said, We further observe that no views, observations or findings should be attributed to the court in a political address to the media and in public speeches, unless such views, observations are recorded by the Court. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE Responding to the Supreme Courts ruling last week that classified documents accessed by the media can be used as evidence to consider requests to review a verdict clearing the Rafale jet deal, Rahul said, I want to thank the Supreme Court. The entire country is saying that Chowkidar chor hai (Chowkidar has committed theft). It is a day of celebration that the Supreme Court has talked about justice, Rahul told a rally in his constituency, Amethi, in Uttar Pradesh. The BJP accused him of putting words in the mouth of the top court and a criminal contempt petition was filed by MP Meenakshi Lekhi against Gandhi for attributing to it some observations that were not in the Rafale judgement. According to the law of contempt, unless exempted by the court by way of a specific order, an alleged contemnor is supposed to remain present in such a matter. However, in this case, the bench made it clear that it was only seeking an explanation from Gandhi for the moment. Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal said, They (Supreme Court) have sought an explanation. We will give an explanation to them. Attack boomerangs The BJP accused the Congress president of putting words in the mouth of the top court by attributing to it some observations that were not in the Rafale judgment. By Online Desk The Election Commission on Monday ordered a 72-hour long prohibition against Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath for violation of model code of conduct for uttering communal remarks in their campaign speeches. The poll body has also censured BSP chief Mayawati for 48 hours, starting 6 am on April 16. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE Both the leaders have been barred from holding public meetings, road shows and give any interviews or public speeches. The two have been barred from using social media as well. Both the leaders were served to both the leaders on Thursday night and asked to reply within 24 hours. Adityanath made remarks on "Ali" and "Bajrang Bali," while addressing a rally in Meerut. The Chief Minister's statement came after Mayawati appealed to Muslims not to support the Congress, as they were the only party fighting the BJP. Mayawati appealed to the Muslims community to back the grand alliance candidate in Deoband, during a joint rally on April 7. Adityanath was previously warned by the EC as he was found violating the MCC, by saying ' Modiji ki sena,' while raking up the Balakot air strike during a Ghaziabad rally. The Supreme Court too took note of the alleged hate speeches made by the two leaders and asked the poll body about the action initiated in the whole matter. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi also summoned an EC representative for Tuesday while agreeing to examine the poll panel's contention that it has limited legal powers to deal with hate speeches of politicians during electioneering. The bench referred to submissions of the EC that they can issue a notice, then advisory and finally lodge a complaint against an errant politician for violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) by giving hate speeches based on caste and religion during the campaign. "The EC says they are toothless. They say that they first issue a notice, then advisory and then complain," the bench said, adding it would examine the aspect relating to poll panel's power to deal with hate speeches during the poll campaign. The counsel appearing for the poll panel said that it has already issued notices against the two politicians. "Tell us what actions you have taken against Mayawati and Yogi Adityanath," the bench asked and fixed the matter for Tuesday. (With UNI and PTI inputs) Turkey's purchase of Russian air defence missile systems should not trigger U.S. sanctions because Ankara is not an adversary of Washington and remains committed to the NATO alliance, Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said on Monday. Akar also said that Turkey expected to remain not just a buyer of F-35 stealth fighter jets but also a partner in its production, despite U.S. warnings that it would be shut out of the F-35 project if it buys the Russian S-400 defence system. "We firmly believe that linking the S-400 to the F-35 project is unfortunate," he told a conference in Washington. "We expect the United States and other project partners to honour their commitments". The United States says it will not allow F-35s to operate alongside the Russian defence system. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that Washington had told Ankara it could face retribution for buying the S-400s under a sanctions law known as CAATSA. Akar repeated Turkey's offer to hold technical talks with the United States to address "technical concerns" over the S-400 purchase. Turkey is also assessing a renewed offer from the United States to buy Patriot missile defence systems, Akar added. "Recently we received the restated offer for the Patriots. This offer is now on the table, we are studying it carefully." Search Keywords: Short link: By PTI MUMBAI: Civil liberties activist Gautam Navlakha Monday told the Bombay High Court that he was in contact with Naxals only for research and his books and asked how this contact can attract provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. Navlakha approached the high court seeking to quash the case lodged against him by the Pune Police after the Elgar Parishad held on December 31, 2017, that had allegedly triggered violence at Bhima Koregaon in Pune the next day. The police had accused Navlakha and four other activists of having Maoist links. Navlakha's counsel Yug Chaudhary on Monday told a division bench of Justices Ranjit More and Bharati Dangre that he (Navlakha) was an author and peace activist and was a specialist on conflict zones. "He was in the past appointed as a mediator by the government of India when Naxals had kidnapped six policemen. He is in contact with Naxals but that is only for his books and other fact-finding researches. How can this contact attract provisions of the UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act)," Chaudhary said. "Navlakha is being attacked by both sides (government and Naxal organisations). Both sides think he is being biased towards the other," he added. The bench has posted the petition for further hearing on April 26. The court also extended protection from arrest granted to Navlakha till the next date of hearing. Besides Navlakha, four others -- Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Sudha Bharadwaj, are accused in the case. By PTI AGARTALA: The opposition Left Front and the Congress on Sunday alleged "blatant rigging" during the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls in Tripura, and appealed to voters to resist any such attempt in the next phase on April 18. Around 77.6 per cent voter turnout was recorded in the election to the West Tripura Lok Sabha seat on April 11. "We have witnessed that the first phase of elections was blatantly rigged by the BJP and it is apprehended that the second phase would be no different," Left Front Convener and CPI(M) central committee member, Bijan Dahar told reporters. The BJP termed the charges as baseless, and instead, claimed its supporters are being attacked in different parts of the state by CPI(M) and Congress activists. "The opposition parties have failed to put up election agents. They have become alienated from the people. Their appeal to resist is actually an attempt to spread violence and a verbal tonic to estranged supporters," BJP spokesperson Nabendu Bhattacharya said. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE Meanwhile, a delegation of the Tripura Left Front Committee on Sunday met Chief Electoral Officer Sriram Taranikanti, and complained of gross violation of the model code of conduct during first phase of elections. The Left Front will organise a mass sit-in demonstration in Agartala on April 16 to protest against alleged attacks, violence and rigging in the Lok Sabha polls. Tripura Congress spokesperson Harekrishna Bhowmik said party representatives met Election Commission officials in New Delhi on Saturday, demanding central forces in all the 1,645 polling booths of East Tripura constituency on April 18. By PTI NEW DELHI: ED Monday opposed the bail plea of Sushen Mohan Gupta, alleged defence agent arrested in the AgustaWestland VVIP choppers scam, saying there was a likelihood of him fleeing the country like 36 businessmen who had criminal cases against them. The Enforcement Directorate told special judge Arvind Kumar that 36 businessmen, including Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi, have fled from the country in the recent past. ALSO READ | Vijay Mallyas appeal against extradition rejected by UK High court The probe agency's special public prosecutors D P Singh and N K Matta countered Sushen's claim that he had deep roots in the society, saying, "Mallya, Lalit Modi, Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Sandesara brothers (Sterling Biotech Ltd promoters) had deeper routes in the society yet they left the country. There are such 36 businessmen who fled from the country in the last few years." During the argument, ED's advocate Samvedna Verma told the court that the probe was at a crucial stage and the agency was trying to find out who was "RG" referred in the diaries of Sushen. Verma also accused Gupta of influencing the witnesses in the case and told the court that he also tried to destroy the evidence in the case. The court reserved order on Gupta's bail application for April 20. ALSO READ | From Rs 17 lakh to Rs 7 lakh per week: Broke Mallya to cut down expenses by 60 per cent Gupta has sought relief on the ground that the agency has already completed the investigation and filed a charge sheet in the case. In his bail application, the accused told the court that the ED's contention of the flight risk can be rejected considering his past activities, where he joined the investigation as and when summoned. Gupta was arrested by the agency under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). ALSO READ | PNB scam accused Nirav Modi intends to appeal for bail in UK High Court The ED officials said Gupta's role in the case came to light on the basis of disclosures made by Rajiv Saxena, who has turned approver in the case after he was deported from the UAE and arrested by the agency here. It is suspected that Gupta has in his possession some payment details in the Rs 3,600 crore purchase deal of AgustaWestland VVIP choppers and the link is to be unravelled, they said. By PTI NEW DELHI: A plea was filed in the Supreme Court on Monday seeking setting up of a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the alleged non-disclosure by Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the details of a plot allotted to him in Gandhi Nagar in his election affidavits. The petition filed by Maharashtra-based Saket Gokhale has alleged that in October 2002, when Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, he was allotted land in Gandhi Nagar by the state as per government policy. It said the state government had formulated a policy for allotment of land to public servants including MPs, MLAs and government servants without auction on nominal price. The plea alleged that in 2007 Modi had mentioned the plot allotted to him in Gandhi Nagar in the list of assets in his election affidavit filed for the state Assembly polls. "The allotted lands under the said government resolution cannot be sold or transferred or gifted without the permission of the district collector and from 2012, without the permission of the Gujarat High Court," it said. The plea alleged that in his election affidavits filed in 2012 and 2014, Modi did not mention the said plot in his list of assets. It sought direction to Gujarat government to produce all the records pertaining to ownership of the land and constitute a court-monitored SIT, headed by a retired Chief Justice of India, to probe the immovable assets of Modi, particularly with regard to plot in Gandhi Nagar. By PTI NEW DELHI: BJP MP Meenakashi Lekhi Monday latched onto the Supreme Court clarification in the Rafale fighter jet case to attack Congress President Rahul Gandhi, saying as to how the man who does not understand "Constitutional morality" and "democratic traditions" would represent Indians in Parliament. Lekhi, who filed a criminal contempt case against Gandhi, said he does not understand "Constitutional propriety" and was dragging institutions like the Supreme Court into "shabby politics". Her comments came after the apex court made it clear that remarks made by Gandhi in the media on the Rafale case verdict were "incorrectly attributed" to it and directed Gandhi to give the explanation by April 22. ALSO READ: Supreme Court has 'accepted' there was corruption in Rafale deal, claims Rahul Lekhi, sitting Lok Sabha MP from New Delhi Parliamentary constituency, said Gandhi was raking up the issue on India's Rafale fighter jet deal with France to hide their own corruption. "Out of four members of a family, three are on bail. Will they be giving lessons on honesty and integrity. To hide their own false, they are using these things," Lekhi said. She was apparently referring to the National Herald case and Enforcement Directorate case against Gandhi's brother-in-law Robert Vadra in money laundering case. The Congress President and his mother Sonia have been accused of cheating and misappropriating funds in the National Herald case. Upbeat over the Monday's order of the top court on her criminal contempt case against Gandhi, Lekhi said: "The apex court while clarifying its order today has said that this (what Gandhi attributed to the apex court) was not even discussed. ALSO READ: Did SC say chowkidaar chor hai? Court asks Rahul to explain by April 22 "That means he should come and explain to the court by next Monday, how did he get to say all this. Here is a person who does not understand constitutional propriety, democratic traditions and drags institutions like the Supreme Court into this kind of shabby politics." She further said: "The man who does not understand Constitutional morality and democratic traditions, should he be representing Indians in the Parliament? He has been yelling and shouting about Rafale deal time and again but you think people of this country do not understand what is going on to hide their own corruption." Lekhi, through senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, had submitted that Gandhi had come out in the public to make a remark that the "Supreme Court in its judgement (Rafale case) said, "Chowkidar Narendra Modi chor hain" The bench said, "You were right to the extent we never said what has been brought in the petition. We will seek clarification". Namita Bajpai By Express News Service LUCKNOW: Launching a joint attack on PM Narendra Modi on Monday, Gandhi siblings Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi accused him of spreading lies over development and betraying people by failing to fulfil promises made to countrymen five years back. Addressing the first joint public rally in UP at historical city of Fatehpur Sikri to seek support for UPCC chief and party candidate Raj Babbar, while Rahul Gandhi pushed NYAY, Congress flagship scheme guaranteeing minimum income to 20 per cent extremely poor, Priyanka suggested the PM talk about India instead of harping about Pakistan. If you are nationalist then tell us what have you done for India, she asserted. Congress chief commenced his speech with an attack on the PM saying he had betrayed people as he failed to keep any of the three major promises --- waving off farmers loan, 2 crore jobs to youth and transfer of Rs 15 lakh to the bank account of every Indian made at the time of 2014 Lok Sabha elections. FOLLOW OUR ELECTIONS COVERAGE HERE I got it worked out and could find a feasible amount of Rs 6000 per month which can be transferred to the account of 20 per cent extremely poor of this country. I mentioned it in Congresss manifesto. I wont promise Rs 15 lakh but we will transfer Rs 72000 per annum to poor, he said. Getting the people repeat his favourite Chowkidaar Chor Hai slogan thrice, the Congress chief claimed that the PM stole peoples money to extend favours to a few select capitalists close to him in the country. Vijay Mallya, Neerav Modi, Lalit Modi and Mehul Choksi are some of his favourites who duped the country and went away with crores of peoples hard earned money, he maintained. Rahul claimed that he, on the contrary, fulfilled the promise of farmers loan waiver within 10 days of forming government in MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. The Congress chief also raise question over the money BJP was splurging for the PMs publicity through media. He reiterated the promise made in Congress manifesto claiming that he was engaged in a fight of ideologies with BJPs politics of hatred on one side and Congresss ideology of love and amity on the other. Earlier, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra fired a salvo at ruling BJP for allegedly spreading lies through its poll campaign. She suggested the BJP and PM Modi to respect countrys martyrs who earned freedom thrugh their blood and sweat beyond considerations of religion. PM should respect all those who sacrificed their life for the nation be it a Hindu or a Muslim. He should also acknowledge the sacrifice of the father of leader of opposition, she said referring to their father and former PM late Rajiv Gandhi. Priyanka said the government was trying to silence those who were asking questions. Anybody raising questions is tagged as anti-national. If they are nationalists why didnt they meet farmers who had marched to Delhi to narrate their woes, she said adding that the BJP leaders never took pains to meet families of those who were lynched. She targeted the ruling party over development issue, saying the BJP government was spearheading a campaign on development which was visible nowhere. By PTI JAIPUR: Rajasthan BJP chief Madan Lal Saini Monday termed Congress president Rahul Gandhi's "why all thieves have surname Modi" remark undignified and claimed that it was an insult to a particular section of the society. Addressing a poll rally in Karnataka on April 13, Rahul Gandhi, in a blistering attack against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sought to know "why all thieves have surname Modi." "The statement of the Congress president is undignified and is also an insult to a particular section," Saini told reporters here. Referring to an incident of stones being lobbed at a procession in Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's home turf Jodhpur, he alleged that there is complete lawlessness in the state. Meanwhile, former Rajasthan women panel chairperson Suman Sharma slammed Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan for his alleged "underwear" jibe against his BJP rival from Rampur Lok Sabha seat Jaya Prada. She demanded that the Election Commission take strict action in the matter and restrict Khan from contesting the polls. By IANS NEW DELHI: Calling the issue of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir the biggest challenge before India, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said it cannot be solved until the "failed obsolete thought" of Article 370 as a "loose constitutional connect" between the state and the rest of the country is rejected. He said the challenge needs a fresh approach and only a strong government and a leader with clarity alone was capable of resolving the Kashmir issue. Referring to the past Congress governments, he said the challenge cannot be resolved by those who created the problem and who believe that a "loose constitutional connect" will lead to integration. He added that it could only be done through a fresh approach "which is uncompromising on terror" and "committed to total integration" and through "reversal of the historical blunders". Targeting the Congress, Jaitley said it was identified with the creation of the problem itself by "wishing the issue away" when Pakistan did not reconcile to Kashmir being a part of India. "Instead of working for total integration, the party wanted a loose and liberal constitutional connect between rest of the nation and the state under an erroneous impression that such an arrangement would further the cause of integration," he said in a Facebook post. "Article 370 was disastrously thought out as a constitutional connect between rest of the country and the state. Article 35A was surreptitiously introduced in 1954. It catered to a separatist psyche and legitimised discrimination," he added. Jaitley said terror supported from across the border "can't be fought either with velvet gloves or a policy of appeasement". "This challenge can obviously be resolved with a fresh approach which is uncompromising on terror, uncompromising in its determination to enforce the rule of law and committed to total integration. A strong government and a leader with clarity alone is capable of resolving the Kashmir issue," he said. Targeting National Conference (NC) and the People's Democratic Party (PDP), he said the two regional parties were, of late, more strident in advocating secession of the state if firm measures are taken. Development in the state has suffered due to terror and both democracy and secularism had been a casualty in the valley, he added. The BJP leader said the people of Jammu and Kashmir have to be at the centre point in India's strategy and they should get opportunities, peace and security of life, and freedom from terror. "A state free from terror itself will imply much lesser security presence." Jaitley also attacked the opposition on the issue of Pulwama suicide bombing and Balakot terror strike saying whenever the two issues were raised, the opposition parties were on the back-foot and questioned why national security and terrorism were being made into subject matters of electoral debates. "India's opposition argues that elections have to be fought on the 'real issues' and not on the issues of national security. It is my endeavour to argue that national security and terrorism are the most important issues which concern India in the long run. All other challenges are capable of early resolution," he said. Jaitley said that poverty was declining at a fast pace, urbanisation was increasing, the size of middle class was growing and the economy was expanding, which would result in creation of jobs. "These are all challenges that India is capable of capturing and resolving over the next decade or two," he said asking the question on where India stood on the issue of national security and terror. He said peace was established in Punjab, Northeast and in the South, and that the operation of Maoist terror was restricted and narrow. "As the economic profile of India move upwards, it will become extremely difficult for the Maoists to sustain their violent movement to overthrow democracy. The security 'might' of the State is far superior to handle this movement. The same, however, can't be said of what is happening in the state of Jammu and Kashmir and terrorism emanating from region," he added. Prasanta Mazumdar By Express News Service GUWAHATI: Three women were killed while scores others, including students and children, were injured in a devastating thunderstorm in Manipur on Monday. Two women were killed when a house collapsed at New Saiton in the hill district of Churachandpur. The third woman, hailing from Wari in Kakching district, was killed when a tree, which collapsed, fell on her. She ran a tea shop in the area. Chief Minister N Biren Singh, who visited some affected areas, said three people were confirmed dead two in Churachandpur and one in Kakching districts. In one incident in Bishnupur district, 17 students and some of their teachers were injured when a madrassa was damaged. The reports that I have received so far are that 400-500 houses were damaged and some 80 people were injured across the state, Singh told this newspaper. Nine of the states 16 districts were affected. The worst-hit districts were Jiribam, Churachandpur, Bishnupur and Kakching, Bidyarani Ayekpam, Deputy Secretary in the Department of Relief and Disaster Management, said. Damaged houses in Manipur. (Photo: EPS) She said while three people were confirmed dead, reports that many others died were being verified. The death toll is likely to go up further as reports are being awaited from interior areas of the nine districts. We should get a clearer picture by tomorrow (Tuesday) morning, Ayekpam said. She said a number of schools and houses were blown away. According to her, the whole of Kakching district was affected. Efforts are being made by the administration to set up relief camps in the affected districts. In Kakching, 40 families have been displaced and they were being sheltered in relief camps, she added. Chief Secretary Suresh Babu said the information was being collected from across the state. Rajesh Kumar By Express News Service CHENNAI: The New Indian Express' 'Every Vote Matters' Campaign came to an end on Monday after 10 days of urging people across the Chennai to cast their vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Around 100 employees of the Express group took out a rally in the Ambattur Industrial Estate to raise awareness about the importance of voting. Using placards and banners, Express employees caught the attention of blue collar workers of the industrial zone. Flyers emphasising how voting strengthens democracy were handed out to onlookers. "I am leaving to Madhya Pradesh with my husband tomorrow to vote in the parliamentary polls," said Prema Bai, a juice shop owner in the Estate. Prema has been living in the locality for the last three years. Stating that her family would continue to live in Chennai, she said she would soon register to vote in the city. "Next elections we will vote in Chennai," Prema Bai said. ALSO READ | TNIE campaign in Chennai nurtures Gen-Next on right to vote S Kalaiselvi, another shop owner in the locality, insisted on voting in her native constituency of Madurai despite living in Chennai for over 30 years. "We belong to Madurai. It is our native place. How can we vote here?" she argued. Some people, however, do not have the luxury of going to their native places to vote. "My company did not give me leave to go vote in Hyderabad," said M Prasad, an industrial worker in the Estate. Sixty-year-old Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who owns a pipe shop in Ambattur Industrial Estate, lauded the Express group for taking up the campaign. "I have voted in every election since I turned 18," he beamed with pride, claiming that youngsters should only be encouraged to vote the first time. "Then it will become an addiction," said an employee. The two Express campaign vans have covered the entire city over the last 10 days, even venturing into the suburbs to encourage first-time voters to take part in this dance of democracy. Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call(WASHINGTON) -- Just hours after Rep. Ilhan Omar released a statement reporting a surge of threats against her life following a tweeted attack from President Donald Trump, Trump again took aim at the freshman Muslim-American congresswoman on Monday by describing her as House Speaker Nancy Pelosis leader." "Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made," Trump tweeted. "She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy!" Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made. She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019 Democrats have rushed to Omar's defense after Trump tweeted out a video Friday evening sequencing a clip of Omar speaking about 9/11 during a CAIR speech last month with disturbing footage from the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties, Omar said in the speech. Republicans have criticized the seemingly passive reference to the terrorists who carried out the attacks, while Omar's defenders have countered that the remarks were largely taken out of context and have been seized on in order to stoke anti-Islamic sentiment against the Muslim congresswoman. Since the Presidents tweet Friday evening, I have experienced an increase in direct threats on my lifemany directly referencing or replying to the Presidents video," Omar said in a statement Sunday evening. "I thank the Capitol Police, the FBI, the House Sergeant at Arms, and the Speaker of the House for their attention to these threats." Pelosi confirmed Sunday that she personally spoke with the House Sergeant-at-Arms in order to ensure the safety of Omar, as well as her family and staff. The Presidents words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger," Pelosi said. "President Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video. Asked about the president's tweet on Sunday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders stood by the president's decision to target Omar. "Certainly the president is wishing no ill will and certainly not violence towards anyone, but the president is absolutely and should be calling out the congresswoman for her not only one time but history of anti-Semitic comments," Sanders said on ABC's This Week. Trump visits region near sanctuary city with high Muslim American and LGBTQ populations Trump will venture close to Omar's home district Monday when he travels to Burnsville, Minnesota 16 miles south of downtown Minneapolis for a Tax Day roundtable on the economy. Protests are expected from at least one Muslim civil rights organization, according to Minneapolis' Star Tribune. The Minnesota metro area is home to a large number of Somali immigrants, many of them Muslim. Between 42,400 and 55,200 people, about 1 percent of the population of the state, is of Somali heritage, according to recent census data. The Minneapolis metro-area, in particular, is home to a number of these immigrants and their families. Trump's visit will also garner attention from other groups who will be effected by recent policies, either floated or enacted, by his administration in recent days -- particularly those who support efforts in the Twin Cities to align with sanctuary city policies and those who oppose his administration's policy to limit transgender members' service in the military. Both Minneapolis and St. Paul maintain separation ordinances in their cities, and though they don't specifically describe themselves as sanctuary cities, the police departments are prevented from asking victims of or witnesses to a crime for their immigration status. Over the past few days, the president has attacked sanctuary cities with a proposed punishment that includes busing immigrants to those cities from the border. Additionally, Minneapolis elected the first two openly transgender representatives to its city council in the 2018 midterm elections. On Friday, the Pentagon's new policy limiting the military service of transgender individuals went into effect, nearly two years after Trump tweeted that he wanted to ban transgender individuals from serving in the U.S. military. Minneapolis city council member Andrea Jenkins took to social media, several days ahead of the president's visit and the day the Pentagon's new policy took effect, to express concern about the administration's policies. "Please America do something, Transgender people are under attack, women are under attack," she wrote on Twitter and on Facebook adding that she is concerned about Omar's safety in the wake of Trump's tweet. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. A number of Arab foreign ministers will meet next Sunday at the general secretariat of the Arab League to discuss the latest developments on Palestine, Egypt's state-run news agency MENA reported. According to a memorandum of which MENA obtained a copy, the meeting will take place based on a Palestinian request. Hossam Zaki, assistant secretary-general of the Arab League, announced that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will attend the meeting to inform the pan-Arab organisation about his vision and evaluation of the current status of the Palestinian cause, the Palestinian news agency Ma'an said. The meeting, according to Ma'an, will also tackle the latest political and economic developments of the Palestinians, especially in light of the results of the recent Israeli Knesset elections and the measures taken against the Palestinian people and economy. Express News Service Prime Minister Narendra Modi saw nothing wrong in the NDA government taking credit for the manner in which Pakistan was given a befitting answer for exporting terror, but refuted the charge that his party was using the armed forces for political benefits. In a wide-ranging interview with this publication at his residence after a day-long poll campaign, the Prime Minister questioned if his critics would have kept quiet had there been no response from the government after the Pulwama attack. If Wing Commander Abhinandan hadnt come back, would the Opposition have kept mum? Shouldnt the country be proud of the bravery displayed by the armed forces against sources of terrorism in Pakistan? Ghar mein ghus kar maara hai aur hisab chukta kiya hai (We went into their home and settled scores). The Congress, too, can take credit for the achievements of the armed forces, who is stopping them? the PM said. Modi disagreed with the view that the defence forces were being used to seek votes. "If a dam is constructed, will the ruling party not list it as an achievement? In the same way, if Pakistan has been given an effective answer for exporting terror, the ruling party will mention it as an achievement. I am pained at the double standards," he said. Read the interview here: Mr Prime Minister, youve been campaigning across the length and breadth of the country. How do you see the mood, particularly in comparison to 2014? The mood is quite evident for all to see. Every day, I attend an average of three rallies across the nation. Every rally is drawing huge crowds as if they are competing with the previous rallies. People usually rally behind political parties when they are voting against an opposite party. But we are witnessing an unprecedented reverse trend where people are rallying together to re-elect a government because they know it is transforming their lives and assuring a vibrant future. 2014 was about hope for change. 2019 is about the confidence that change has happened and the expectation that more good work will happen. Prior to 2014, people were fed up with corruption. There was hope that corruption would reduce. We showed a corruption-free government is possible. We have moved our nation from fragile five to the fastest-growing major economy. Now, from the fastest growing major economy, we want to be a 5 trillion-dollar economy by 2025. People have appreciated what we have achieved so far. They are with us. Is there a message in the partys decision to field almost all the ministers, including a few from the Rajya Sabha, in the elections? For the past five years, all the ministers have been working as Team India. We have delivered a corruption-free, efficient and effective government. Now, together as Team India we are going to the people, conveying to them the good work we have done and seeking their blessings. We were in the government as a team, we are accountable to the people as a team and we are facing the elections as a team. Will the recent election results in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh have any bearing on the BJPs seats tally? Yes, it will have a bearing. The Congress governments which came to power in these states by making many promises have got exposed before the people. None of the promises have been met properly. There are power cuts, corruption, crime, apathy and other issues, typical of Congress regimes. What happened to their loan waiver promise to farmers? In less than 3-4 months, Congress has turned some of these states into an ATM for their own party. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE It is shameful that the funds meant for the nutrition of young ones are being stolen for their party activities. They are playing with the future of the country by stealing the food meant for children. People of these states have already realised that Congress DNA will never change. This anger against the Congress will show up in the Lok Sabha polls where the people of these states will reject them. Your government has been focusing on Bengal and the Northeast. But two issues, NRC and the Citizenship Amendment Bill, have angered the people in the region. Our brothers and sisters in the Northeast understand the Citizenship Amendment Bill in letter and spirit. It is a propaganda that has been spread by the Congress but it will fail. I am shocked they have the audacity to speak about the Northeast. They discriminated against entire East India and especially the Northeast. Do you know that thousands of villages in the Northeast continued to be in darkness even 70 years after Independence? We electrified all of those villages in the last five years. Dont you realise the loss of trade and development due to the delay in the Bogibeel and Dhola-Sadiya bridges? We completed them. Do you know they laugh at the dress and culture of the people of the Northeast? But I love to wear them. Do you know they couldnt change a law that classified bamboo as a tree, making the cutting of bamboo unlawful? We changed the law and declared bamboo as grass, which made life easy for the people. Dont you realise the difference between insurgency during the UPA and the NDA? Insurgency is almost nonexistent. Coming to Bengal, what is happening is known to everyone. A leader who is fast losing the trust of the people is feeling insecure. I am getting overwhelming love and response from the people of West Bengal and the Northeast. These areas will script history on May 23. What we saw in Tripura will happen in West Bengal. The BJP has considered Karnataka to be the gateway to enter peninsular India. Your party has stitched up an alliance with the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu and is going all out to make the contest in Kerala a triangular affair. Be it the north, east, west or south, people today are aspirational and they want the government to deliver. There was a misinformation campaign against the BJP that ours is a party of one particular region. We have successfully countered that misinformation by winning the hearts of people across India and I would like to remind that ours is a party which has MPs from Jammu & Kashmir to Kanyakumari. People in the southern states have seen our commitment and ability to deliver. When there is an assault on the faith of the people of Kerala, we stand in support. In contrast, it is the Congress which has always insulted the local leadership. The Congress never built any memorials for leaders from southern India such as MGR or Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. For them forcing the name of family members across the nation has always remained a priority. On Sabarimala, people say the Congress and not the BJP will reap the electoral dividend. Do you agree? For us, Sabarimala is a matter of principle and not about the electoral dividend. We are committed to preserving the traditions and culture of Kerala. BJP activists continue to suffer as they are standing firm between the evil designs of the Left and the Congress and the traditions of Sabarimala. Congress has never cared about Indian traditions. They say one thing in Delhi and another in Kerala. They said one thing in Parliament and a completely different thing in Pathanamthitta. We all know how Sonia Gandhi prevented Congress MPs in Delhi from raising the Sabarimala issue. Wasnt that an insult to the culture of Kerala? Our stand is of respecting the traditions and culture of Kerala, irrespective of whether it results in electoral gains or not. This is going to be the first election without J Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi on the electoral scene in Tamil Nadu and alliances have been stitched up to make it a two-way fight. How confident are you? The choices available in Tamil Nadu are evident. By establishing an AIIMS, upgrading health facilities and making the state a hub for defence and aerospace industries, the Modi government and the AIADMK government have walked hand-in-hand to meet the aspirations of Tamil Nadu. We together helped the fishermen community and have put great focus on fisheries in our manifesto. There is a lot more good work happening. On the other hand, the DMK-Congress alliance is a combination of corruption and dynasty which has no development agenda. People have moved onto high-speed internet using 4G but the 2G scam under the UPA is still fresh in peoples memories. The Oppositions main poll plank is lack of job opportunities for the youth. What do you have to say? The same group of people who spread this false narrative against the (A B) Vajpayee government is trying to spread a fake narrative around jobs today. But remember their track record on this issue and how they tried to mislead the nation against Vajpayeeji, in whose era job creation was among the best. The only people whose jobs are being lost are political leaders whom the people have continuously rejected in the elections and are set to reject them again. It is these political parties and their friends who are saying there are no jobs. But what do the facts say? There are three facets: formal jobs, informal jobs and various indicators. Let us first look at formal jobs. The EPFO and ESIC data suggest that in the last one year we have been adding almost 10 lakh jobs a month, which is around 1.2 crore jobs a year. 55 lakh new subscribers have enrolled in the NPS in the last four years. Around 1 crore people have benefitted under the PM Rozgar Protsahan Yojana. A Nasscom report says IT sector jobs are increasing at a good pace. If crores of jobs are being created in a sector which only constitutes 15% of the total jobs, then imagine what the total number of jobs being created is. Employment opportunities in the informal sector have received a big boost through the PM Mudra Yojana and other initiatives. 17 crore Mudra loans have been given in the last four years out of which 4.25 crore loans were given to first-time entrepreneurs. This clearly shows that over 4 crore entrepreneurs started their business. A survey by the CII says that around 6 crore new jobs were created in the MSME sector in the last four years. The number of tourists and revenue from tourism has increased by around 50% in the last four years. Would this have not created more jobs in the tourism sector? Now let us look at the indicators. India has been the fastest growing large economy in the last few years. In fact, the average growth rate during our government has been the best since 1991. Is this possible without more jobs? International reports say that poverty is declining at a very fast pace in India. Is this possible without job creation? FDI inflows in India are at a record high. Is this possible without job creation? Roads, highways, railways and houses are being built at more than double the previous speed. Is it possible to create this infrastructure without jobs? India is one of the largest start-up hubs in the world. We have a booming start-up economy with various app-based businesses thriving. Would this be possible without jobs? West Bengal, Karnataka and Odisha are saying they are creating a good number of jobs. Is it possible that the states are creating jobs but the Centre is not? The Opposition is still trying to corner you on demonetisation. Do you think the decision was justified? It seems their loss was so severe that they are still stuck on demonetisation. What else explains the attachment with this issue despite losing UP and Gujarat even after making it their main poll plank. Coming to the merits of demonetisation, everyone knew that there is a problem of black money. Someone had to act and I did. We have achieved very good results in our fight against black money. The anti-black money measures taken by us during the last four-and-a-half years have brought the undisclosed income of Rs 1,30,000 crore on which tax and penalties have been applied. It has led to seizure and attachment of assets worth approximately Rs 50,000 crore. During this period, benami assets worth Rs 6,900 crore and foreign assets worth Rs 1,600 crore have been attached. As many as 3,38,000 shell companies have been detected and de-registered and their directors disqualified. The tax base has almost doubled and there is a large transition from an informal economy to a formal one. Defence deals have always been mired in controversies, Rafale is no exception. Shouldnt there be a consensus through the involvement of Parliament to make defence purchases free of controversies? Defence deals were previously mired not only in controversies but even corruption. This was due to the involvement of mamas. There is no controversy on Rafale. In order to remove any scope of corruption, Rafale saw a government-to-government deal. There are no third parties or mamas involved. The Congress president is trying his best to create an issue in order to clear the blot of Bofors in his fathers name. But the people of the country know it all. It is also the duty of the independent media to ask questions from those making baseless allegations when the Supreme Court and the CAG have cleared the deal. The media should have the guts to ask counter questions where they get such baseless numbers and conspiracy theories from. You have the courage to speak the truth to those in power but I wonder why that courage is lacking when it comes to speaking the truth to those, not in power? On relations with Pakistan, we insist on tackling cross-border terrorism first but they say resolve Kashmir first. I can tell you about Indias stand. The whole world is with India on terrorism. The world recognises terrorism as the biggest issue. India has stated that we are ready for talks on all issues but first Pakistan must stop exporting terrorism. Indias stand is crystal clear. Export of terrorism must stop forthwith. The factory of terrorism must be shut down in Pakistan. Despite a number of countries supporting our stand against terrorism, China keeps blocking the UNs efforts to list Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist. One must realise that there was a time when only Russia was with us. But today the whole world is with us and only China is with them (Pakistan). Recently, there was a summit of Islamic countries in which Sushmaji (Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj) was invited and she delivered a keynote address. We had no entry in this summit when the Congress was in power. The member-countries of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation didnt pay heed to Pakistans protests. Our achievements on foreign policy should be evaluated in this backdrop. NPAs (non-performing assets) are said to be the principal reason for the slump in private sector investment and consequently affecting job creation. The UPA government presided over the culture of phone banking. In eight years from 2006-14, the UPA government presided over reckless sanctioning of loans while disregarding all norms so much so that the quantum of loans disbursed by the banks exceeded the cumulative credit extended by them since independence till 2006. The economy bore the brunt of this phone banking culture. The banking sector suffered the most and we have taken steps to cure the ailing financial institutions by enacting strong laws. Its to the credit of our government that Rs 3 lakh crore of bad loans have been recovered and there will be more recovery in future. The Opposition often targets you on economic offenders running away from the country. How is it that such offenders have found safe haven abroad? I would like to ask the neutral people, is it a small story that (Christian) Michel mama has been brought back. Isnt it worthy to mention that Deepak Talwar and (Rajiv) Saxena have been brought to the country and face the laws of the land? They were fugitives from the UPA governments time. But we got them extradited. Even the fugitives who were able to run away are now in jails and are making rounds of courts in foreign countries. Were taking all legal steps to ensure that such fugitives are held accountable for their misdeeds. The BJP has expanded its base after 2014. Do you think it compromised by ceding space in Bihar and Maharashtra? First and foremost, its not proper to use the term compromise. Those who are drunk with arrogance in the Congress had passed a resolution in Pachmarhi that there would be no alliance with any party. We are of the view that India is a country of diversity. We have to strengthen and address the regional aspirations for a robust federal structure. This is our ideological commitment and role. We want to take along all our friends. It will be arrogant on our part if we dont cede space to allies and expect them to be part of the NDA. One of your first decisions was to phase out the Planning Commission and form the NITI Aayog. Do you think the new institution has lived up to your expectations? Even before me, people like Dr Manmohan Singh had stated that the Planning Commission had lost its relevance. State governments were full of complaints against the Planning Commission. I, too, as a chief minister had a similar experience. There was a sense that the Planning Commission had become a political tool. But it wouldnt be proper to compare five years of NITI Aayog with 60 years of the Planning Commission. What I can say is that there has been a good beginning. Theres a feeling that politics these days is more personalised while issues have taken a back seat. Why is this so? If you analyse my speeches, it will be evident that development is at the core when I speak. I would like neutral people to bring the truth out for the people. We have given houses to the poor. We have constructed the toilets. We made robust arrangements for the distribution of urea for the farmers. We are focusing on development-oriented subjects. Your government has allowed private sector specialists to enter the domain of policy-making through lateral entry. What impact will it have on governance and is there scope for more reforms in the bureaucracy? We do not believe that politicians and bureaucracy have a solution for all issues. We believe in harnessing the best talent to solve issues. We are a country where there is no dearth of talent. There is a big talent pool working in the vibrant private sector. Why shouldnt we tap that talent pool for the betterment of the country? The issue of lateral entry was being discussed for a long time, but no one wanted to let go of their monopoly on decision-making. There are bright and passionate individuals in the private sector who have ample experience. They should be given an opportunity to work for the government and bring ideas inspired by their outstanding careers. Remember that these people have not just domestic but also international exposure. Whats the one thing you would like to do most in the event of the NDA retaining power? For me each aspect of the Sankalp Patra (election agenda) is important. For me, one commitment is no less than the other. Besides, allow some secrecy for what we could be doing after May 23. After five years, do you have any regret at not being able to finish any work? There are some who do a few things and draw satisfaction from them. There are others who after doing work sow the seeds for new work. Naya, phir naya, aur naya (new, again new and more new). My strength is that I am not satisfied with anything. Aspirations remain alive all the time in me. I would like the energy to remain strong within me to complete my dream for the country. By PTI NEW DELHI: Former Kolkata Police commissioner Rajeev Kumar on Monday told the Supreme Court that he has been targetted by the CBI as part of the larger conspiracy between two BJP leaders in the Saradha chit fund case. Kumar in his affidavit named BJP leaders Mukul Roy and Kailash Vijyawargiya behind the larger conspiracy and told the apex court that an audio clip is available in public domain where they clearly heard of speaking "to target" few "senior police officers". "The sudden inexplicable turn by the petitioner/CBI in pointing out problems with the investigation and targeting the alleged contemnor seems to be borne out of a larger conspiracy between two senior leaders Mukul Roy and Kailash Vijaywargiya of the BJP, the ruling party at the centre," the affidavit said. ALSO READ | SC asks former Kolkata top cop Rajeev Kumar to reply to CBI plea for arrest Kumar claimed that he has been targetted due to political vendetta and "this apprehension is corroborated by the contents of an audio clip that was reported widely by the press and electronic media at the time where the said leaders clearly speak of 'targeting' a few 'senior police officers' of the state". Earlier in the day, Kumar told the apex court that he could not file his response on Saturday to the CBI's plea seeking his arrest in the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam and sought an adjournment of the hearing. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi took note of the submission of senior advocate Indira Jaising, appearing for Kumar, and postponed the hearing on the plea of the probe agency till April 22. "Indira Jaising, senior counsel, submits that the counter affidavit of the respondent No 3 (Kumar) was required to be filed on Saturday (April 13) but Saturday being a holiday for the Registry, she may be allowed to file the same today. The said affidavit may be brought on record during the course of the day. Rejoinder affidavit, if any, be filed on or before April 20. The matter will be listed on April 22," the bench, also comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna, said. The apex court had sought Kumar's response on April 8 on CBI's plea seeking his arrest in the chit fund scam. The apex court, on February 5, had granted protection from arrest to Kumar while directing him to appear before the CBI and "faithfully" cooperating into the investigation of cases arising out of the scam. The central probe agency has sought vacation of the order so that it can arrest and interrogate Kumar. "This is the interim application (IA) of the CBI seeking custodial interrogation of Rajeev Kumar. Issue notice. Let the matter be listed for hearing on April 15," the bench had said. The bench had also allowed CBI to file a fresh affidavit regarding its allegations that telecom operators -- Vodafone and Airtel -- were not cooperating with it in the probe. In its plea to the apex court, the agency has said the recall of the order granting Kumar interim protection from the arrest was necessary "to unravel the entire gamut of the larger conspiracy in the ponzi scam cases". The CBI also sought the court's directions to West Bengal authorities to comply with the court's earlier orders "in letter and spirit" and not to create any hurdle in the CBI probe or try to "intimidate, harass and scare the agency officials" probing the cases. "Recall the interim protection granted to Rajeev Kumar for no coercive steps, including arrest, granted by this court by order dated February 5, 2019 to enable the CBI to subject him to interrogation in accordance with the law to unravel the entire gamut of larger conspiracy in these ponzi scam cases and its subsequent investigation," the CBI's application said. The agency said it needs to examine Kumar and other police officials to recover the material evidence and to investigate into the acts of omission and commission on the part of Bidhan Nagar Police commissioner and SIT officials in causing concealment of the evidence collected by them during the investigation. Earlier, the apex court had termed as "very very serious" the revelations made by the CBI in its status report relating to the interrogation of Rajeev Kumar. By PTI NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has dismissed a review petition seeking various civil rights, such as same-sex marriage, adoption and surrogacy for the LGBTQ community. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi referred to the five-judge Constitution bench verdict of September 6 last year by which consensual gay sex was decriminalised and said that it was not inclined to entertain the review plea seeking other reliefs. "We are not inclined to entertain this petition after the decision of this Court in Navtej Singh Johar v Union of India decided on September 6, 2018," said the bench, also comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna. The plea had sought civil rights of the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer) community as part of the basic human rights and said that these rights were not addressed in the apex court's judgement on Section 377 of the IPC which had criminalised consensual gay sex. WATCH | Lok Sabha Elections 2019: Meet Tamil Nadu's first independent transgender candidate It had sought recognition of their rights to same-sex marriages, adoption, surrogacy, IVF and directions so that the community can serve openly in the army, navy and air force. "LGBTQ rights are not recognised as part of human rights. Non Recognition of same-sex marriages (Indian Special Marriages Act, 1954), availability of adoption, surrogacy, IVF (for LGBTQ only) is violative of Article 14, 15, 19, 21, 29. Discrimination solely on basis of sexual orientation violates Article 14, 15, 21 in relation to Army, Navy, Air force Act. "Other instances of indirect discrimination are not addressed in the Navtej Singh Johar case. People in the military are not allowed to serve openly. Heterosexual people end up marrying LGBT people, end up consummating marriage with them, which harms heterosexual people most. Gay women have it worst," the plea had said. The plea had said that the definition of marriage for LGBTQ had not been addressed in the apex court's judgement of September 6, 2018. "Navtej Singh Johar case said nothing on the following issues -- whether equality of status is part of right to equality, dignity related questions on marriage, its extent, privacy concerns regarding gay marriage," it had said. The plea had further said not mentioning about sexual orientation and transgender as third gender in a biological context (even in age-appropriate terms, sexually implicit and modest ways) in our textbooks has created a culture of treating them as abnormal which has been perpetuated via a government policy of omission. "No uniform or objective definition of 'carnal intercourse against the order of nature' exists; it's just people defining what they want i.e whim. The definition can be subjectively interpreted to exclude or include, it can (the classification) be fanciful or imaginary, oppressive in nature depending upon who argues the case, it's subjective," it said. The plea said both heterosexuals in an opposite-sex relationship and homosexuals in a same-sex relationship are similarly circumstanced as the general nature of the relationship is a romantic and sexual one, either at the time of marriage as in a love marriage or is sought or hoped to be as in the case of arranged marriage. "Both same-sex and opposite-sex relation are a consequence of people's private attractions or motivations. While they are similarly circumstanced, they are treated unequally i.e. marriage between heterosexuals in an opposite-sex relation is recognised while it is not recognised for homosexuals in a same-sex relationship," it said. The plea added that it was "immoral" to deny the gays in a same-sex relation the freedom to marry each other as their relationship was private, consensual, harmless. "Denying them causes psychological, societal and emotional harm to them, it's immoral. Compared with imaginary harm to societal norms that has no basis in a court of law. It was also against public health of a country that homosexuals are married to heterosexuals. It does violence to their dignity, gives other people excuse to ill-treat them, perpetuates social stigma," it said. Michael Tracey By Many of the journalists who pushed the Trump-Russia theory were also the ones responsible for the Iraq WMD fiasco. The scope of the American medias failures in recent yearsespecially with regard to the sprawling, sordid saga commonly referred to as Trump/Russiaare almost incomprehensibly vast. Central to the debacle was the running theory that US President Donald Trump had engaged in a long-term treasonous conspiracy with Russia, a premise finally debunked for good last month by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the much-heralded prosecutor tasked with investigating every conceivable aspect of this spectacular claim. Yet day after day for nearly three years, journalists employed all manner of dubious methodologies, slippery innuendos, and unethical tactics to force-feed down the publics throats the wildly outlandish notion that Trump had been compromised by a hostile foreign power. It was not atypical for media figures to outright proclaim that the office of the presidency had been literally subverted by Vladimir Putin. From the start, none of this ever made any sense. Yet the media egged it on with unrelenting vigor, and thats why their reputation with a huge portion of the country is currently in the gutter. Rather than focusing on Trumps actual misdeedshis newfound subservience to the Republican donor class, his brazen attempts to overthrow the government of Venezuela, his prolonging of the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen, just to name a fewelite journalists instead became transfixed on an international espionage melodrama that was predicated on a complete fiction. To understand the structural reasons for this calamity, its worth revisiting a previous media failure of epochal poroptions: that of Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction, wherein journalists played a central role in generating the hysteria seized upon by the George W Bush Administration to launch preemptive war. Many of the very same figures who were complicit in that fiasco were never held accountable, continued their disreputable conduct, and also contributed mightily to the Trump/Russia disgrace. Take, for instance, Jonathan Chait. One of the countrys preeminent liberal opinion writers, Chait rose to national notoriety when he wrote an October 2002 cover story in The New Republic magazine which made the case for why liberals should support Bushs war. Giving the Iraq misadventure the appearance of bipartisan credibility was crucial, and so its no overstatement to say that Chait was among the writers most personally responsible for fostering the political climate which created the conditions for invasion. Chait chastised liberals as being "blinded by their hatred of George W. Bush" and failing to recognize that "America's prospective war with Iraq isn't merely defensible. It's defensible on explicitly liberal grounds." Unsurprisingly, prominent Democrats ranging from Hillary Clinton to Joe Bidenthe latter of whom is currently leading polls for the partys 2020 presidential nominationultimately voted in favor of the war, invoking rationale similar to that outlined by Chait. Chait later admitted mistakes with respect to his pro-war boosterism, but this epic failure never impeded him from rising through the ranks of media respectability. Rather, his reach only grewthe perverse dynamic that characterizes all of elite US media, where the worst journalistic offenders are not only go unpunished, but are rewarded with greater power and influence. This came to its logical conclusion in July 2018 when Chait published another incendiary cover story, this time for New York magazine, which alleged that Donald Trump had been colluding with Russia since 1987. Yes, according to Chait, the conspiracy was so monumental in scale that it literally went back several decades. Chaits theory was laughable at the time, and looks even more so now. But because he has never been held accountable for any of his past grave offenses, Chait has had the audacity to double down and insist that he was actually proven right about his crackpot Trump fantasy. Its got to be one of the most shocking exercises in journalistic self-humiliation ever. That Chait is even in the position to be making such preposterous claims again speaks to the fundamental irrationality of the US journalism industry: the more catastrophic your wrongdoings, the more swiftly you ascend up the ladder of elite prestige. Another illustrative example is Jeffrey Goldberg, the writer who in 2002 published a long article in the New Yorker magazine charging that Saddam Hussein was in league with Al Qaeda, a falsehood that came to be believed by supermajorities of the American public on the eve of the invasion -- proving the cruel efficacy of the propaganda. (Dick Cheney himself touted Goldbergs debunked story.) But rather than atone for his grievous failings which contributed to one of the most cataclysmic actions the US government has ever undertaken, Goldberg also doubled downinsisting that he bore no responsibility, and eventually gained more and more power within the profession. He is now editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, the elite prestige magazine funded by Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of the Apple founder. Sure enough, Goldberg was one of the first to posit, in July 2016, that Trump was an agent of Russian President Vladimir Putina storyline that was then echoed across the rest of the respectable media, and formed the basis of the all-consuming three-year conspiracy narrative that would envelop the entirety of American politics. In addition to spouting this theory, Goldberg also elevated actual Bush Administration officials like current Atlantic senior editor David Frum, who helped coin the phrase Axis of Evil and contributed forcefully to the government PR initiatives which precipitated the 2003 invasion. Naturally, Frum has also been a leading proponent of the Trump/Russia conspiracy theoryagain highlighting the conspicuous overlap between these two discreditable categories. As is always the case when extreme failure goes unpunished, the lack of accountability ever imposed on these people for their malfeasance during the Bush years enabled them to commit yet another act of grand malfeasance during the Trump years. And they will almost certainly never be held accountable for this, either. So its only a matter of time, tragically, before the next catastrophe arrives. MICHAEL TRACEY New York-based journalist and writer Email: mtracey@protonmail.com Aarthi M By Express News Service BENGALURU: The Karnataka State Anti-Tobacco Cell, Department of Health and Family Welfare, is implementing a National Tobacco Control Programme in all 30 districts in the state, including Bengaluru Urban, to create awareness about the ill-effects of tobacco consumption. As part of the same, they have requested the election commission to ban the sale of tobacco within 100 yards of each polling booth. Offenders or shop owners who dont comply will be fined. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE The cells goal is to make all polling booths tobacco-free during the upcoming elections. We want people to understand the drawbacks of smoking tobacco. Since polling booths are set up in public spaces, we want to restrict passive smoking situations. Offenders will be levied a fine of Rs 200, whereas shop owners will be charged Rs 200 per offender caught near the shop, explained Dr Selvaraj, state nodal officer, anti-tobacco cell. The team will conduct surprise checks at polling booths to ensure strict enforcement of the initiative. Dr Selvaraj added that he wants to curb any situation where people can bribe voters by offering cigarettes to them. Chief election commissioner Sanjeev Kumar affirmed that the rules will be strictly followed and all polling booths will be tobacco-free during the election. As part of their attempt, the anti-tobacco cell also launched an application STOP TOBACCO in January. The app allows people to report violations and officers are hopeful that this will help them nab vendors and offenders. By Express News Service BENGALURU: A woman entrepreneur, who had made allegations against BJPs Tejasvi Surya on twitter, and withdrawn them later, threatened to sue Congress spokesperson Brijesh Kalappa, accusing him of violating her privacy and dignity. The woman, now settled in the United States, demanded an apology from the Congress leader for publishing private conversations without her knowledge or permission. The charges came minutes after Kalappa held a press conference, based on a call recording said to be a conversation between the woman and a journalist over her experiences with BJPs Bangalore South candidate Tejasvi Surya. Kalappa, referring to the audio clip that had been doing the rounds for three days, asked why no action had been taken against the 28-year-old MP-aspirant, despite allegations made by the woman. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE If allegations made by (name withheld) are to be believed, the entire facts were before both BJP and RSS leaders before the declaration of Suryas nomination. If so, under the Supreme Court-directed Vishaka guidelines, what steps did BJP/RSS take? Brijesh Kalappa had asked, pointing out that Mysuru-Kodagu MP Pratap Simha was apparently in the know of things. With the press conference, the Congress attempted to legitimise an audio clip that had gone viral. The woman in the conversation, however, took to Twitter to claim that the information being used was an invasion of her privacy, and was being manipulated for a political witch hunt. Stop this political witch hunt at my cost. I have already written to the womens commission, clearly stating that I am not involved in this matter and any cases initiated on my behalf is done without my will, she tweeted. Shame on Brijesh Kalappa for violating the dignity of a woman for political gains. I will soon initiate legal proceedings against him for outraging my modesty and violating my dignity. (sic), she tweeted, to which the Congress spokesperson was quick to respond. Youre welcome to initiate legal proceedings. Will be happy to face it. You will, however, find it an uphill task to prove how I have violated your dignity or that of any woman for that matter. My best wishes to all your endeavours including legal action against me!! (sic) Kalappa tweeted. What followed was a Twitter war, with the woman demanding an apology for outraging her modesty and the Congress spokesperson adamantly denying the charge. Dr (name withheld), you are obviously a woman of great eminence. I respect you. This conversation has been heard by millions, having gone viral over the last 2-3 days. I had a PC only this morning. If you think I had first-hand access to this conversation, you are mistaken, Kalappa insisted. By Express News Service MANGALURU: Actor-turned-politician and Congress candidate from Patna Sahib constituency Shatrughan Sinha on Sunday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has become arrogant after the NDA got full majority in the last election. Sinha recently left the BJP to join Congress. Sinha said he was victimised by the BJP leadership for opposing demonetisation and GST. He added that just when people were recuperating from the sufferings of demonetisation, the complicated GST was imposed and termed it Tuglaqi Farman. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE Addressing an election campaign at Mudipu for Dakshina Kannada Congress candidate Mithun Rai, Sinha slammed Modi for the way he treated BJPs tall leaders such as L K Advani, Murali Manohar Joshi, Yashwanth Sinha and Arun Shourie and attributed it to the shift in party principle from democracy to dictatorship. He also sought an explanation from Modi on Rafale deal, failing which he said the people will tell him Khamosh and send him home. We are not telling you (Modi) are wrong or consider you an accused. But you need to answer questions. Why the purchase of the number of jets was decreased from 126 to 36 and why HAL was not given the order to manufacture it? People have all right to know it.... Diverting attention and running away from real issues will not do. Else people will say Khamosh and send you home. He also said that AICC president Rahul Gandhi is dynamic, dashing and a visionary leader, somebody the country needs now. Anusha Ravi By Express News Service BENGALURU: BJPs Vokkaliga strongman R Ashoka is keen on mobilising his community with a series of roadshows under the name Vijaya Sankalp Yatra. While the target is to gather votes for Lok Sabha polls, his plans exceed much beyond May 23. Keen on establishing himself as a formidable force capable of galvanising a community to rally behind the saffron party, Ashok is looking to strengthen his wager to succeed B S Yeddyurappa as the state BJP president. Vijaya Sankalp Yatra a series of roadshows by Ashoka aims to strengthen the BJPs roots in Vokkaliga bastions of South Karnataka. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE We will hold roadshows under my leadership in Bengaluru, Chikballapur, Kolar, Tumkur, Bangalore Rural, Kanakpura, Mandya, Mysore and Chamarajnagar, said R Ashoka, convenor of BJPs state campaign management committee. He stopped short of calling the roadshow a community-driven agenda but sources in the BJP suggested that hitting the JD(S) strongholds and establishing the BJP as a possible alternative was the underlying idea of the yatra. With Yeddyurappa all set to step down as the state president, analysts believe that a Vokkaliga at the helm of affairs, is an apparent possibility. If Yeddyurappa is going to continue as the leader of opposition then the BJP cant have a Lingayat as party chief too. It has to possibly be a Vokkaliga. One Lingayat and one Vokkaliga leader at the helm had been the old Janata partys formula, said Prof Narendar Pani, political analyst and researcher. With the support of a mass Vokkaliga leader, the BJP is also hoping to make its presence felt better in districts of South Karnataka, where JD(S) and Congress have been conventional rivals. Grassroot-level workers of the JD(S) as well as the Congress are angry over being forced to work together. The BJP making in-roads into the belt will not provide an alternative just to the voters, but also to the workers and leaders, a BJP party leader said. Ashokas fight to emerge as a mass Vokkaliga leader is not limited within the party. With the rise of the likes of D K Shivakumar in the Congress, BJP has the need to project a community leader who can help the party retain its Vokkaliga vote share. If they (BJP) want a breakthrough in the Vokkaliga heartland, they need a Vokkaliga leader. It has to be Ashoka since other leaders are too limited, Prof Pani noted. Gopika Varrier By Express News Service Statistically speaking, Thrissur LS seat can be called a CPI pocket borough since it has sent Communists to the Lok Sabha not less than 10 times in the 16 Parliament polls held so far. But this time around with CPIs Rajaji Mathew Thomas pitted against DCC chief T N Prathapan and NDAs actor-turned- Rajya Sabha MP Suresh Gopi, the likely outcome can indeed defy prediction. Other than this, against the backdrop of the mid-August floods, which left a trail of death and destruction, with Thrissur being one of the worst hit, the hustings will be a tough call for the candidates seeking the mandate. Prathapan, though, is banking on the electorates desire for change while Suresh Gopi is seeking votes on the plank of being given the chance to serve the people. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE On Sunday, as Rajaji Thomas election campaign passed through the Nattika Assembly segment, Prasannan K B of Nedupuzha kole padavu told Express about the hardships encountered by paddy farmers in the district. Kole fields always yield a good harvest. But this time around, out of the 900 acre in Nedupuzha we managed to cultivate paddy on only 200 acre of land as we didnt get the support to replace or fix the damaged motor pumps, he said. Several motor pumps here were destroyed after the fields got inundated, but the issues faced by farmers remained unaddressed. We also have the traditional petti-para for dewatering kole lands, but it cannot be used since the KSEB stopped giving connection for it. Despite repeated applications, sitting MP C N Jayadevan failed to give the nod for getting new motor pumps, he said. But Rafeeq, who sells fish from a make shift outlet at Mulayam Junction in Mannuthy-Kuthiran on NH 544, sees things differently. According to him, Rajaji is sure to win and it will prove a game changer as it will resolve the impasse over the NH widening work. Sobha from Ollur, however, is not bothered about the poll outcome. Suresh Gopi is one of my favourite actors and I will vote for him, she said. By Express News Service CHENNAI: A total of 160 companies of paramilitary personnel will be deployed at polling booths which have been identified as sensitive. Elections for 39 Lok Sabha constituencies and by-poll for 18 vacant Assembly seats in the State will be held on April 18. Totally, 5,98,69,758 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise. To cast their votes, nearly 68,000 polling booths have been set up in the State. Of them, around 9,630 booths have been identified as sensitive based on the past record. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE Sathyabrata Sahoo, Chief Electoral Officer, told press persons on Sunday, We have requested 160 companies of paramilitary forces for security in the State on the polling date. Of them, 10 companies have already arrived. The remaining 150 companies will reach the State on Sunday evening. After arrival, they will be sent to various parts of the State. More paramilitary forces will be deployed in sensitive booths. By Express News Service SALEM/ KRISHNAGIRI: Replying to Stalins remark on chief ministers political life, Palaniswami said that his own political career would see a new beginning after this election. Addressing the gathering in Salem, he reiterated that the mega-alliance was formed to establish a stable government. Salem is a fort of AIADMK and PMK, DMDK, BJP, TMC alliance has made it stronger, he said. Replying to Stalins question at a meeting in Namakkal about what the AIADMK government has implemented, Palaniswami said that the bridges in Salem stood evidence for the achievements, referring to Stalins visit to the city few days back. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE In his campaign for AIADMK Krishnagiri Lok Sabha candidate K P Munusamy at Hosur, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami urged people to vote for BJP for a safe nation. Lashing out at Stalins statement that Rahul Gandhi will be the next prime minister, he mentioned that former union minister P Chidambaram of Congress himself did not jump the gun. Only talented persons will become the prime minister, he said. Attacking the Congress president, Palaniswami said that if a dam was built on Mekedatu, as per Rahuls promise, Tamil Nadu will turn into a desert and Hogenakkal drinking water project will be affected. He said that around 3,000 waterbodies have been desilted in the State and requested votes for son of the soil K P Munusamy. TN excels in higher edu After the AIADMK governance in 2011, the percentage of students enrolled in higher education increased to 46.8, Palaniswami said, while campaigning for Krishnagiri Lok Sabha candidate K P Munusamy Nirupama Viswanathan By Express News Service CHENNAI: With just a few days left for the Lok Sabha elections, State Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar speaks to Express about the partys chances and how a second Narendra Modi-led BJP term is beneficial for the State. Tamil Nadu Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar | Martin Louis Q: What percentage of votes, according to AIADMKs assessment, might be lost to TTV Dhinakarans rebel faction? We dont even consider TTV Dhinakaran as an influencing factor. The contest is between the DMK alliance and ours in which we will most certainly win. At most, around one or two per cent votes may be polled for AMMK (Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam). People will not accept that party as a substitute to ours; the reason for this is that we are the inheritors of Jayalalithaa and MGRs legacy. Q: How does the party plan to counter anti-incumbency and the seeming indecisiveness of the fishing community after Jayalalithaas death? There is no question of anti-incumbency in the State. A hand that voted for AIADMK will always vote for AIADMK. People realise that the AIADMK government is people-friendly. The State scores high on womans safety if a woman sets out from her home, she can be assured of her safety. There has been no caste or communal tension. On the other hand, during the DMK rule, it was never the case. Nobody was safe. In fact, Jayalalithaa Amma had to launch a crackdown on land grabbing specifically by DMK members.We have focussed specifically on street lights, roads, drainage and desilting. People are happy with our work Q: A new survey by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) states that employment opportunities, better hospitals and health care and access to drinking water are the top three voter priorities and in all of these, the incumbent government has scored a below average score of 2.25 out of 5. It is one thing when the State received heavy rain. But, now, since that is not the case, the circumstances under which the government is functioning to ensure access to drinking water, need to be considered. We have done our best, we have tapped all available resources, including groundwater. Fulfilling peoples expectations up to 100 per cent is only possible when there is good rain. As far as health care is concerned, ours is a role model to other States; people are getting treated here from world over. Our health department has won nearly a dozen awards from Delhi, we are excelling at it. Q: What does Tamil Nadu stand to gain from another term of a Modi-led government at the Centre? Our alliance has already struck fear in the hearts of our opponents. Some of the main issues that we intend to push is to stop Karnatakas move to build a dam across Cauvery in Mekedatu and well also ensure that funds from the Central pool reach the State. We will stick to what has been mentioned in our manifesto and fulfil it. Q: What are your son J Jayavardhans chances of winning the Chennai South parliamentary constituency a second time? Jayavardhan will sweep 60 per cent of votes this time. As far as weve seen on the field, the people are not happy with candidate fielded by opposition. Other than that, he has worked tirelessly for the constituency and has secured around 50,000- one lakh jobs for its people. He had also brought in Central funds for flood resistance. Also, he is a young man and has captured the hearts of people here. Wherever we go, people say We will vote for the boy. By Express News Service RAMANATHAPURAM: The mortal remains of actor-cum-politician JK Ritheesh was laid to rest in his native village Manakudi here on Saturday night. Born in Sri Lanka, Ritheeshs family members shifted to Ramanathapuram district when he was young. He started his acting career in Kollywood movies and later joined DMK and went on to become an MP from Ramanathapuram constituency in 2009. Though he was a loyalist of MK Alagiri, he joined AIADMK in 2014. On Saturday, after campaigning for AIADMK candidates in Ramanathapuram, he suffered a cardiac arrest while taking rest at his home. Though he was rushed to a private hospital he was declared brought dead. Following his sudden demise, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, DMK President MK Stalin and various film personalities condoled his death. The mortal remains of the former MP was kept for public viewing at his residence in Raja Sethupathi Nagar in Ramanathapuram on Saturday evening. Health Minister Vijayabaskar, Minister for Information and Technology M Manikandan, MP A Anwhar Raajhaa, actor Karthi, actor-director Manobala, comedian Chinni Jayanth, RJ Balaji, actor Priya Anandh among others paid their respects to the actor. By PTI WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Monday asked Boeing to "fix" its beleagured 737 Max plane, introduce new features and re-brand the aircraft after two deadly crashes involving the model led to grounding of the jets across the world, including by Indian carriers. Trump's latest comments on the Boeing aircraft came hours after American Airlines, the world's largest, extended flight cancellations into mid-August because of the Boeing 737 Max grounding. "What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!), but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name," Trump said on Twitter. "No product has suffered like this one. But again, what the hell do I know?," he said. Last month, 737 Max aircraft were grounded worldwide following fatal crashes involving Ethiopian Airlines and Indonesia's Lion Air, killing all 346 people aboard the two planes. Two days after the Ethiopian Airlines plane went down on March 10, Trump tweeted that modern jetliners are "becoming far too complex to fly". He added: "Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT. I see it all the time in many products. Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better." American Airlines decided to extend cancellations from early June through August 19, to help plan ahead for the busy summer travel season. Southwest Airlines last week also extended flight cancellations for 737 Max planes from June until August. "Based upon our ongoing work with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Boeing, we are highly confident that the MAX will be recertified prior to this time," American Chairman and CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom said Sunday in a message to airline staff. "But by extending our cancellations through the summer, we can plan more reliably for the peak travel season." Approximately 115 flights a day will be cancelled through August 19, representing about 1.5 per cent of the airline's total daily flights, they said. The airline has 24 737 Max jets in its fleet. American has previously said that all flights that were originally scheduled on a MAX plane will not be cancelled, with some being substituted with other aircraft. All Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft being operated by Indian carriers have been grounded since the Ethiopian Airlines crash. SpiceJet has been most affected by the grounding of 737 Max 8 aircraft as it has 12 of them in its fleet. Jet Airways has not been affected as its five 737 Max 8 aircraft have already been grounded - even before the grounding decision of the government -- due to non-payment of dues to lessors. The causes of the two crashes involving Boeing 737 Max are still being investigated, but the focus has been on an automatic safety feature that may have forced the nose of each plane lower when it incorrectly sensed the plane was in danger of going into a stall. Investigators are focusing on the plane's anti-stall software, the Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). Boeing and the FAA said they are working on an upgrade of the 737 Max software to deal with that safety feature. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said on Thursday the company is closing in on a fix for the software, and a majority of the 50 customers that have ordered 737 Max planes have had a chance to test it using a flight simulator. He added that the update will make the plane "even safer" because it will prevent "erroneous" sensor readings. "It's our responsibility to eliminate this risk," Muilenburg said. He did not say when 737 Max planes may begin flying again. Boeing announced earlier this month it was cutting the production rate for all of its 737 planes from 52 a month to 42 amid the worldwide grounding. By AFP LONDON: German and Spanish lawmakers protested against Julian Assange's detention on Monday, gathering outside a London prison to urge Britain and the EU to prevent his extradition to the United States. Two far-left German MPs, Heike Hansel and Sevim Dagdelen of Die Linke, and a Spanish Green member of the European Parliament, Ana Miranda, had been due to meet their "friend" Assange in London's Ecuadoran embassy later on Monday. Instead, following his expulsion and arrest last week, they protested outside the top-security Belmarsh prison in southeast London where he is being held, carrying placards demanding his release. "We are faced with a humanitarian imperative now that Assange is in UK custody and a US extradition request is out for him, after high ranking officials of the US - including President Donald Trump - have threatened the publisher with death," said Miranda. The WikiLeaks founder is in custody awaiting sentencing for breaching his British bail conditions in 2012 by seeking refuge in Ecuador's London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden. He was arrested at the embassy on Thursday after Ecuador revoked his asylum, and is now also fighting a US extradition warrant relating to the release by WikiLeaks of a huge cache of official documents. The US indictment charges Assange with "conspiracy" for working with former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to crack a password stored on Department of Defence computers in March 2010. Extradition to the United States would set "a dangerous precedent" for journalists worldwide, said Miranda, adding: "this threatens to criminalise journalism globally." Dagdelen urged Britain and the EU to block any extradition request. "We call on the British government not to extradite Julian Assange to the USA. The European Union must take action to protect a politically-persecuted publisher and journalist," said the German politician, calling on Spain and her home country to grant Assange asylum. The three women were trying to see Assange in prison, but their application was "still pending". "I'm a friend of Julian Assange. He's a son, a father, a brother and a good friend," said Dagdelen. "His whole life he sacrificed for the truth." They also accused the Ecuadoran government of "engaging in a disinformation and slander campaign against Assange" after a series of reports emerged detailing his increasingly disfunctional relationship with embassy staff. Belmarsh has frequently been used in high-profile national security cases, including that of former Finsbury Park Mosque hate preacher Abu Hamza, who now resides in a US "supermax" prison following extradition. Radical cleric Anjem Choudary, who was convicted in 2016 of encouraging support for the Islamic State group, spent some of his sentence there. Belmarsh earned the moniker "the UK's Guantanamo Bay" in the period following the 9/11 attacks after it was used to detain a number of people under anti-terror laws. By PTI DUBAI: There will be no online voting for the 2019 polls for Indian expatriates in the UAE, the Consul-General of India in Dubai has said, as he dismissed rumours that it was possible for non-resident Indians to vote online for the ongoing general elections. Indian expats have complained that social media platforms have been rife with forwards of misleading posts that suggest non-resident Indians (NRIs) can vote online for 2019 polls. There will be no e-voting for the 2019 elections, the Consul-General of India in Dubai, Vipul was quoted as saying in a media on Sunday. "One can register on the National Voters' Service Portal (NVSP), and ensure that their name has appeared in the electoral roll," he told Khaleej Times, adding that the only way people can vote is by personally visiting the polling booth in their respective constituency. According to many Indian expats, the posts have been making the rounds since January. While some of them believed the posts, others cross checked on the website of the Election Commission of India and social media handles to find that the forwards 'fake news'. "I've been receiving this message from several WhatsApp groups in the past week. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE I first saw the messages in January, and now the volume has increased," Lincy Monse, a government employee who has been working in the UAE for 15 years, was quoted as saying in the report. "My husband has already left for India and will be casting his vote on April 21 in Kottayam. When I saw the post, I was excited and thought he could vote here. Later, I realised the news is fake," she said, adding a lot of NRIs want to exercise their right to vote, so she assumed it a reality. Nihad Ahmed, a marketing professional from Kashmir, said: "I got a forward a few months ago. It was a misleading article in an English daily that caused me to believe that online voting is a reality." By PTI LONDON: Experts from the University of Birmingham have tied up with medical professionals in India to set up an innovative research centre that will help improve care for surgical patients. A team from the university's joint research team, involving the UK's National Institute for Health Research Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery (NIHR), travelled to Punjab recently to launch the first-ever surgical research hub in India at Christian Medical College and Hospital (CMC) in Ludhiana and deliver a training workshop. "Each year, 4.2 million people die within 30 days of an operation, half of these deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries such as India. Surgical Site Infection (SSI) is the most common surgical complication and this workshop represents an important step forward in reducing SSI in India and other countries," said NIHR's Clinical Research Fellow Dr Dmitri Nepogodiev. "SSI can have a catastrophic impact on patients in India, driving many people into poverty as they struggle to work and pay healthcare bills. Reducing SSI has huge benefits as patients suffer less and save money, whilst being able to return to work or school faster," he said. As part of the global initiative, patients would also need fewer and shorter courses of antibiotics, helping to reduce global antimicrobial resistance as well as for hospitals reducing costs by discharging patients earlier and preventing re-admissions. Dr Nepogodiev co-led the programme with Programme Manager Dr Sohini Chakrabortee, along with surgeons from India - Dr Dhruv Ghosh (CMC Ludhiana) and Dr Rohin Mittal (CMC Vellore). Hub Lead Dr Ghosh added: "There is a critical need to improve surgical infrastructure across India and beyond in order to improve patient care and reduce the devastating impact of a lack of surgical care. "We are delighted to link with our partners at the University of Birmingham in this latest stage of a global health research initiative that has the potential to save many thousands of lives in India." Among the first studies to be launched by the joint India-UK team is a surgical trial to look at interventions to reduce the impact of post-surgical infection. The team will also evaluate access to healthcare for patients requiring surgery. A two-day training workshop marked a key stage in establishing the independent and sustainable research hubs and trial centre - part of a major health research programme to help develop surgical research that will have the potential to improve the quality of surgery. Launched with partners from low- and middle-income countries and the Universities of Edinburgh and Warwick, the Global Health Research Unit aims to establish hubs and/or trial centres in India and other partner countries that will perform their own clinical research relevant to local populations, whilst serving global needs. The unit is based at the University of Birmingham and co-directed by Professor Dion Morton, Barling Chair of Surgery at the University's Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences, and Professor Peter Brocklehurst, Director of the Birmingham Clinical Trials Unit. Partners in the unit have also formed a Policy and Implementation Consortium to work with professional associations, NGOs and government organisations across the world, including the World Health Organisation (WHO). This consortium will use the results from the research generated by the unit as a tool to inform changes in clinical practice and provide evidence to drive policy changes across the globe. The NIHR, established by the UK government's Department of Health, had awarded 7 million pounds to the Birmingham, Edinburgh and Warwick universities to set up the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery at the University of Birmingham a few years ago. Over a period of four years, until March 2021, the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery will establish sustainable international research hubs across a range of low- and middle-income countries, including India. Egypt plans to sell a stake in Banque du Caire, one of the countrys biggest state-owned lenders, toward the end of this year, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Governor Tarek Amer said. The size is around 20 percent; might go up to 30 percent, Amer said in an interview with Bloomberg on Monday in Washington, where he attended the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings. The sale would be through the Egyptian Exchange, he added. Its not about money, Amer said. We have a plan to support the stock exchange with new issues. There is a lot of demand. He didnt give a value of the expected sale. Search Keywords: Short link: Champaign, IL (61820) Today Windy. Intermittent light rain this morning will give way to clearing and sunshine for the afternoon. Morning high of 58F with temps falling sharply to near 40. Winds W at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph.. Tonight Clear skies. Low near 25F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Institute of Construction Director Francis Wong says introducing new construction machines and techniques enhances productivity. Student Mok Wei-wu says his crane operating skills improved after practising on the simulator. Supervising Instructor (Welding) Chung Kai-man says the simulators provide newcomers with a safe environment to learn industry skills such as welding. Students can experience being knocked down by an iron bar or witness an explosion caused by volatile gases at the Hong Kong Institute of Constructions Safety Experience Training Centre. The first of its kind in Hong Kong, the 3,000 sq ft facility in Kwai Chung features eight training zones where students can interactively learn about the common hazards or causes of accidents at construction sites at its Virtual Reality Cave. At its Chemical & Electrical Safety Zone, students can also see how wires overheat and even feel a slight electric shock. The institute hopes the students can enhance their safety awareness through such simulation-based training. We do not want to see any casualties in the industry. Moreover, if the construction environment is not safe, parents are reluctant to let the young people join the industry. So we attach special importance to safety training, the institutes Director Francis Wong said. A step ahead The institute was established in October 2018 and offers more than 200 full-time and short courses. It aims to nurture a workforce with theoretical knowledge, professional skills, innovative ideas and safety awareness, and has been introducing innovative technological teaching elements, such as the use of simulators for welding courses. Supervising Instructor (Welding) Chung Kai-man said the simulators provide students with a safe learning environment. In the past, when students were learning to weld, the sparks held them back. But with this simulator they can practise their skills safely. They already know how to control the welding track and speed at the construction site. Enhanced skillset The institute said the courses aim to attract secondary students to the sector and help those in the field upgrade their skills. Chung Sze-ki learnt to install a billboard with a simulator during a 50-day crane operation course. When I looked at the models at home, I originally thought cranes are easy to control. In fact, the bricks and iron bars are huge and I was afraid of them bumping into me. The simulator helps me to control them better. Her coursemate Mok Wei-wu is a veteran with more than a decades experience in the construction industry. Wanting to upgrade his skills, Mr Mok recently resigned from his job to join the course. If I continue to move and lift heavy objects at a construction site, I will gradually suffer from strains and one day lose my strength, he said. I hope to become a crane operator so I will not be exposed to the sun and rain. Plus, my salary will be higher too. Cutting edge The institute is keeping in step with technological advancements in the construction industrys work equipment. Its Director Mr Wong said: The most expensive construction cost, in terms of per square metre, is New York. Hong Kong comes next. Introducing new construction machines and techniques will lower the construction costs, enhance the productivity as well as the working environment in terms of safety. The 2019-20 Budget allocated $200 million to expand the apprenticeship scheme for the construction industry. The institute expects to train 1,100 knowledge-based workers in the next one to two years, and increase allowances within five years to help 4,000 workers upgrade their skills. No narration or interviews or even music, only rich pictures and sound of the daily life tells the story of Danube Delta A different approach of telling a story through documentaries has been introduced by Ukrainian director Oleksandr Techynski by his 2018s 81-minute film; Delta. The film has been screened at the Ismailia Cultural Palace Friday as part of the 21st edition of the Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts, taking place between 10 and 16 April. A foggy picture dominated the most of the long-duration scenes, no use of narration or interviews or even music, but still; the story of the people of Danube Delta in the Bukovina region has been told efficiently. Its a very nice place I saw ten years before I decided to make a documentary about it. I went there in two successive winters and that was enough. The picture you saw in the film is almost 75% of the material I recorded, the 40-year-old cinematographer told Ahram Online after the screening. Delta Mostly known for his co-directing of of All Things Ablaze (2014), Techynski has received remarks about his long-duration shots; many critics agreed that his picture is artistically picture. About the foggy picture; this is how our winter looks like. I dont agree that my scenes are long. I am a man who has no questions, that is why I didnt interview or narrate, he defended his technique during a symposium held after the screening apologizing about some instability in some scenes and some random focuses of his camera. Scenes, filmed with only one camera, provides artistic pictures with the rich soundtrack full of texture and atmosphere, are for the people of the north-eastern Romania and western Ukraine forgotten city doing their main activities; wheat agriculture, fishing, making liquor, drinking and most of the time smoking and cursing. I am still young and learning. I hope in the future I produce a film that fulfills your standards, Techynski responded to Egyptian known film critic Magda Morris after her remarks during the talk. Delta Under helms of critic Essam Zakariya, lots of different activities are being held at the 21st edition of the festival, attended by tens of filmmakers and critics from across the globe, with dozens of film competing in the various categories while many others are being screened through parallel programs celebrating African, French and Polish cinemas in addition to honoring seven filmmakers and screening their work. For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture Search Keywords: Short link: The MDC successfully held its Provincial Congress in Manicaland despite a failed attempt to disrupt proceedings by the Zimbabwe Republic Police. Signs of desperation in Zanu PF and the military Government are now clear. They are running scared of the regeneration and strengthening agenda of the people's alternative. The people of Manicaland's resolve and determination is however a clear sign that the democratisation agenda cannot and will not be stopped. It is clear that the structures of the MDC will defend democracy through peaceful means. We commend the structures for exercising restraint when police invited themselves with the intention to disrupt, influence and corrupt our processes. The Constitution is clear that the Police Service must not prejudice the interests of another party. Yesterday, they violated the conduct provided in section 208 of the Constitution. This is why the MDC continues to demand the establishment of an independent complains mechanism provided in section 210 of the Constitution. Jacob Mafume I hold that there is no case established by the plaintiff upon which a burden has been cast on the defendants to respond. I accordingly grant defendants application for absolution from the instance, with plaintiff ordered to pay the costs, ruled the judge. Midlands State University (MSU) has applied for a licence to grow mbanje for medicinal purposes following Governments legalisation of marijuana farming last year. Addressing students at MSU during a public lecture in Gweru, Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira said Government was in the process of licensing the university to grow mbanje for medicinal purposes. Prof Murwira said there several other institutions that would also be growing mbanje. He said Government intends to reduce its import bill by having local pharmaceuticals producing medicines from local resources. We were told by our former colonial masters that mbanje is illegal and they even promulgated a law prohibiting the smoking of mbanje. However, it has medicinal properties. So our leadership had a closer look and realised that mbanje can be useful and then legalised the growing of mbanje for medicinal purposes. So we have started doing so. MSU itself has applied for a licence for growing mbanje, he said. Prof Murwira said universities should be innovative and incubate ideas in their innovation hubs. Resources are nothing but they become when we have the brains of using them. This is very important. We need to look inside. When we do physics, we need to be able to use it and apply it here in Zimbabwe. We probably have the same amount of resources but different levels of development. We always want people outside to make things for us. We want our biochemistry to work for us. Most of the medicines that we have come from trees, roots and other plants. These are the product of our environment. So what we want to do is that the medicines that we are going to be using in the country should come from our own pharmacies and resources found in the country. I cannot be treated by medicine that was made from an environment that I am not living in. This is why people die because they are not suitable for us, he said. Fairbanks, AK (99707) Today Cloudy. Snow showers developing in the afternoon. High -1F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 60%. Snow accumulations less than one inch.. Tonight Variable clouds with snow showers. Low -1F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 50%. About one inch of snow expected. The Daily News-Miner encourages residents to make themselves heard through the Opinion pages. Readers' letters and columns also appear online at newsminer.com. Contact the editor with questions at letters@newsminer.com or call 459-7574. Community Perspective Send Community Perspective submissions by mail (P.O. Box 70710, Fairbanks AK 99707) or via email (letters@newsminer.com). Submissions must be 500 to 750 words. Columns are welcome on a wide range of issues and should be well-written and well-researched with attribution of sources. Include a full name, email address, daytime telephone number and headshot photograph suitable for publication (email jpg or tiff files at 150 dpi.) You may also schedule a photo to be taken at the News-Miner office. The News-Miner reserves the right to edit submissions or to reject those of poor quality or taste without consulting the writer. Letters to the editor Send letters to the editor by mail (P.O. Box 70710, Fairbanks AK 99707), by fax (907-452-7917) or via email (letters@newsminer.com). Writers are limited to one letter every two weeks (14 days.) All letters must contain no more than 350 words and include a full name (no abbreviation), daytime and evening phone numbers and physical address. (If no phone, then provide a mailing address or email address.) The Daily News-Miner reserves the right to edit or reject letters without consulting the writer. The film is an exploration of historical, geographical, social and cultural facts about closed and excluded communities in Egypt Egyptian filmmaker Hassan Saleh Wanny was praised by many critics and cinema experts attending the premiere of his first film Miracle of Survival at the Ismailia Cultural Palace on Saturday. I am honoured to have the premier of my first film at Ismailia Festival in a hall full of experts and professors who taught me a lot, said the filmmaking graduate of the French University in Cairo during a talk held after the screening. Co-directed by Wannys partners Heba Elhoseny, the film was screened as part of the 21st edition of the Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts, taking place between 10 and 16 April. This is one of the best documentaries I have seen recently, enthusiastically commented Egyptian critic Walid Seif, thanking the filmmaker for his invitation of the festivals attendees to watch his premier. The 52-minute film is one of the longest competing in the Short Documentary contest of the festival, which is produced by Alghad TV channel; one of the 21st editions media sponsors. I know the film seems very newsy, as it was made for that purpose, but I hope I was able to present the topic efficiently, said Wanny. The film is an attempt to explore historical, geographical, social and cultural facts about closed excluded communities in Egypt. The film explores the lives of Gypsies, revealing many secrets about their different groups; Hungarania, Nawar, Halab, Salayeb, and others. I was sitting in a local cafe and saw a woman with very different appearance and accessories. I followed her and this led me to discover some things about these mysterious worlds, said Wanny, who is also the cinematographer and co-editor of the film. Despite the praise, critic argued that the topic of the film is too rich to be approached horizontally, with many stating that dozens of films could be made about these societies and focusing on one aspect or group would make it richer. Egyptian DOP Said El-Sheimy, who is one of the seven filmmakers honoured at the festival, praised the film but criticised the colouring and the soundtrack mix. The film was dedicated to late filmmaker Mohamed Hassaan Ashour, an interview with whom took a big part of the film, and Wanny revealed that his death came two weeks after the shooting. Under the helm of critic Essam Zakariya, lots of different activities are being held at the 21st edition of the festival, attended by dozens of filmmakers and critics from across the globe, with dozens of film competing in the various categories. Many other films are being screened through parallel programs celebrating African, French and Polish cinema in addition to honouring seven filmmakers and screening their work. For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture Search Keywords: Short link: Scientists investigating the origins of farming in Britain examined DNA from 47 Neolithic (New Stone Age) farmer skeletons dating from 6000 to 4500 years ago and six Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) hunter-gatherer skeletons from the preceding period (11,600-6000 years ago). The skeletons examined included that of Cheddar Man; the oldest near-complete human skeleton found in Britain Dr Selina Brace, ancient DNA researcher at the Natural History Museum and lead author of the study explained why the remains of Cheddar man have continued to provide exciting scientific information: 'After extracting DNA from Cheddar Mans inner ear bone, we were delighted at the preservation of his DNA. Its likely that the cool dry burial conditions in Goughs Cave were a key factor in keeping his DNA preserved.' Natural History Museum postdoctoral researcher Dr Tom Booth says: 'We looked at the genetic ancestry of human remains from both before and after 6,000 years ago - so some dating to the Mesolithic and some to the Neolithic - to see if we can characterise any changes, as soon as these Neolithic cultures start to arrive, we see a big change in the ancestry of the British population. It looks like the development of farming and these Neolithic cultures was mainly driven by the migration of people from mainland Europe.' From the DNA analysis the researchers were able to reveal that most of the hunter-gatherer population of Britain were replaced by those carrying ancestry originating in the Aegean, where farming cultures are thought to have spread from after beginning in the Near East. Professor Ian Barnes, ancient DNA expert at the Natural History Museum and co-author of the study, said: Because continental farmer populations had mixed to some extent with local hunter-gatherers as they expanded along both the Mediterranean and Rhine-Danube corridors, as well as later, we expected to see some mixing in Britain as well. Indeed it is now understood that populations of early Neolithic cultures would have travelled from the Aegean coast in Turkey bringing farming and the specific cultures that went with it, such as new funerary rites and pottery, and spread them across much of Western Europe along the two main corridors of the Mediterranean Sea and the Rhine-Danube axis of Central Europe. Whilst this new research has now confirmed that farming was brought to Britain by these continental farmers, it does not explain why it took another 1000 years to establish in Britain after they arrived in northwest continental Europe. The current leading theory suggests that hunter-gatherer people from Britain were making forays to the continent and gradually coming around to the idea of farming before taking it up wholesale 6,000 years ago, whilst another argues that there was a widespread influx of Neolithic farmers at this time. Tom explains that DNA analysis doesn't necessarily give the full picture: The best explanation now is that the hunter-gatherer Mesolithic population of Britain just wasn't very high. So the newly arrived farmers could have mixed entirely with the native population but because this was quite small, the hunter-gatherers left little genetic legacy overall.' Professor Mark Thomas (UCL Genetics, Evolution & Environment), an author of the study, added: The transition to farming marks one of the most important technological innovations in human evolution. It first appeared in Britain around 6000 years ago; prior to that people survived by hunting, fishing and gathering. For over 100 years archaeologists have debated if it was brought to Britain by immigrant continental farmers, or if was adopted by local hunter-gatherers. Our study strongly supports the view that immigrant farmers introduced agriculture into Britain and largely replaced the indigenous hunter-gatherers populations. The study Neolithic transition in Britain is published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. The All Progressives Congress (APC) says it has no objection to consultations of its members with opposition over the national assemb... The All Progressives Congress (APC) says it has no objection to consultations of its members with opposition over the national assembly leadership. Reacting to some reports that it is against its members consulting with the opposition over leadership of the ninth assembly, Lanre Issa-Onilu, APC publicity secretary, said it is normal democratic process to stretch hands across the divides. Let me state that our party has no objection to such consultations, he said. APC has comfortable majority in both chambers, therefore; we have the number to produce the leadership. But democracy recognises the importance of the opposition. Especially when you do not have two-third which would be required at some very critical situations. For us as a ruling party, we understand that a stable and peaceful National Assembly would enhance our capacity to deliver more for the people of Nigeria. So the party is not averse to negotiation by Senator Ahmed Lawan and our other senators-elect working to fulfil the position taken by our party. It is important to note that one of the key considerations for adopting him as the partys candidate for the Senate Presidency is his ability to carry everyone along. On top of that, the party has confidence in him not to compromise the progressive ideology of APC. So clearly, Senator Ahmed Lawan is capable of conducting his negotiations within the prism of APCs objectives. Issa-Onilu said the party would soon release zoning arrangements for the principal positions of the incoming assembly. Boko Haram militants, Sunday, invaded a village at Chibok in Borno state while members of the Abducted Chibok Girls Parents Movement... Boko Haram militants, Sunday, invaded a village at Chibok in Borno state while members of the Abducted Chibok Girls Parents Movement for Rescue were commemorating the fifth anniversary of their abducted daughters. One of the parents told newsmen that while the commemorative activities were still going on within the Chibok township, the story filtered into the community that Boko Haram insurgents stormed Kwarangullum village shooting sporadically. The village District Head, Mallam Bulama, who was outside of the community, also phoned and confirmed that insurgents invaded his village and were still there making destructions as of Sunday night. Details of the attack were still sketchy, neither number of the casualty nor level of destruction were ascertained from either the security agents or residents of the village. It would be recalled that on April 14, 2014, 276 schoolgirls were abducted by gunmen from Government Girls Secondary School (GGSC), Chibok. The Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) has fixed Thursday for judgement in the case against Walter Onnoghen, suspended chief justice of Ni... The Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) has fixed Thursday for judgement in the case against Walter Onnoghen, suspended chief justice of Nigeria (CJN). Umar Danladi, CCT chairman, gave the ruling on Monday after the prosecution and defence counsels adopted their written addresses. Onnoghen is standing trial for six-count charge bordering on false asset declaration. Umar Danladi, CCT chairman, gave the ruling on Monday after the prosecution and defence adopted their written addresses. Onnoghen is standing trial for six-count charge bordering on false assets declaration. Earlier, in his address to the tribunal, Okon Efut, counsel to Onnoghen, said the six counts levelled against his client were contradictory and mutually exclusive. The first is on failure to declare assets. Count two to six complain of false declaration. It [first count] presupposes the declaration, so false asset declaration cannot arise, Efut said. The counts are contradictory in terms and mutually exclusive. They cant go together. We urge your lordship to dismiss all six counts. On his part, Aliyu Umar, counsel to the federal government, argued that the declaration is false since the embattled justice admitted that he made an omission in his assets forms. It is his actions and omission that your lordship will consider if he is guilty of the offence, he said. We urge the tribunal to hold that the prosecution has proved its case beyond reasonable doubt. After listening to submissions of counsels, the CCT chairman fixed Thursday for judgement on the substantive matter. The Delta State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal has granted the gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) i... The Delta State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal has granted the gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Delta State, Chief Great Ogboru, leave to serve Governor Ifeanyi Okowa with his election petition through substituted service. The petitioner, Chief Ogboru dragged Okowa to the tribunal shortly after the March 9, 2019 governorship and Houses of Assembly elections were concluded, asking the court to cancel the election over irregularities and declare a fresh election within 90 days. Ogboru, first petitioner, and his party, second petitioner, in the petition, marked EPT/DT/GOV/01/2019, claimed that Okowa, the defendant, had been elusive, and therefore, prayed the court to grant alternative means to serve him. In the suit, dated March 25, 2019, filed on March 31, 2019, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were the 2nd and 3rd defendants, respectively. Ogboru cited a series of evasiveness by Governor Okowa to personally receive the petition. Chairman of the tribunal, Hon. Justice Suleiman Belgore granted the request for substituted service on the 1st defendant. Femi Falana, human rights lawyer, has written a letter to Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, demanding informati... Femi Falana, human rights lawyer, has written a letter to Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, demanding information on the loss of $60 billion oil revenue under the freedom of information (FOI) act. In the letter dated April 10, the human rights lawyer requested Kachikwu to provide details on how Nigeria lost $60 billion oil revenue from non-implementation of production sharing contract (PSC) terms between the federal government and international oil companies (IOCs). Falana also disclosed that he had previously alerted the minister, who was then the group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), of the non-implementation of the PSC terms. The PSC terms between government and IOCs clearly spell out the amount of money that the country receives in signature bonuses, taxes and royalties and how much oil or gas the companies must share with the government during production and contributes largely to government revenue. Giving more reasons for his request, Falana said even Kachikwu himself had confirmed the huge oil revenue loss, blaming it on public officials, with a more recent confirmation made by the acting chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission. The human rights lawyer gave the minister a seven-day ultimatum to provide the requested information, saying that he will be forced to seek a court order if Kachikwu fails to do so. The letter sent to TheCable Petrobarometer on Sunday, read in part: In my letter addressed to you in your capacity as the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), I called your attention to the refusal of the regulatory agencies in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources to enforce the Production Sharing Contracts signed with the International Oil Companies by the Federal government. In a public statement credited to you sometime in August 2017, you did disclose to the media that Nigeria had lost not less than $60 Billion due to the refusal of some public officials to implement the terms of the Production Sharing Contracts between the Federal Government and the International Oil Companies. In another public statement made on January 19, 2019 by the Acting Chairman of the Revenue, Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Mr. Shetima Bana confirmed the loss of oil revenue of $60 billion arising from the non-implementation of the said production sharing contracts. In view of the foregoing, I am compelled to request you to furnish me with information on the revenue of $60 billion which the Federal government has refused to collect from the International Oil Companies as at August 2017. As this request is made pursuant to section the provision of the Freedom of Information Act you are required to supply the requested information not later than 7 days from the date of the receipt of this letter. TAKE NOTICE that if you fail or refuse to accede to my request, I shall be compelled to apply to the Federal High Court to direct you to avail me with the information on the loss of the oil revenue of $60 billion. KACHIKWU RESPONDS Responding to Falana, a letter signed by Oge Modie, chief of staff of the petroleum ministry, acknowledged receipt of the FOI request on April 11. On behalf of the Honourable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, this is to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 10th April, 2019 and received 11th April, 2019 on the above subject matter, the letter read. Armed hoodlums have reportedly attacked a team of policemen who were on a stop-and-search duty in Asaba, Delta State capital, carting away... Armed hoodlums have reportedly attacked a team of policemen who were on a stop-and-search duty in Asaba, Delta State capital, carting away two service rifles in the encounter.It was gathered that two of the policemen were said to have sustained life-threatening injuries during the attack.It was gathered that the incident occurred around Interbua roundabout by ASCON Oil Filling Station, along the popular Nnebisi road on Saturday night.A source who witnessed the attack told our correspondents that the gunmen were driving a tricycle from the Anwai axis of the road when they suddenly disembarked to attack their victims.The source disclosed that the bandits who numbered four in the tricycle were armed with axes and cutlasses, adding that they successfully stole two guns from their targets.The leader of the Police team, an inspector, was said to have sustained severe cuts to the head and other parts of his body, while the other victim sustained cuts to the hands.Sources disclosed that the victims were presently receiving treatment at two different hospitals in Asaba.When contacted, the Acting Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Chuks Orisewezie, confirmed the attack, saying that some of their men sustained injuries.He promised that the assailants would be brought to book as the Police have swung into action to apprehend them. Nigerian cleric, Bishop Godday Okokporo has told the story of how 21 kidnappers went blind after abducting him in Delta. Bishop (Dr)... Nigerian cleric, Bishop Godday Okokporo has told the story of how 21 kidnappers went blind after abducting him in Delta. Bishop (Dr) Godday Iboyi Okokporo, JP, is the General Overseer, Promise Kingdom Ministry Inc. Worldwide, aka Overflow Chapel, with headquarters in Sapele, Delta State. Okokporo, who turns 43 today, in a recent chat with Vanguard narrated the incident thus: It is true that l was abducted on November 30, 2015, at about 9.25 pm, because they discovered that God is using me to reduce crime in the society. Some evil people decided to kidnap me after they discovered that occultists and native doctors in Sapele were coming to give their lives to Christ. I have used my hands to burn 340 shrines, we broke some building used for idol worship, and they met and decided to stop my activities. They tried physical and spiritual things, no way, so they finally decided to kidnap me. When the kidnappers came, they told me that their mission was to kill me. One of them said l was a big man, so let us take him away and demand a ransom of N100 million. They took me away to a forest. Six of them actually came to the house to abduct me but in the forest, I counted 21 of them. God showed that He is God. I prayed to Him that if it was Him, Jehovah, that called me, that all the kidnappers should go blind, while providing a way of escape for me. Even me that prayed the prayer was amazed. I was seeing them but they could no longer see me. They now started begging me to help them, saying, Man of God, we know you are a powerful man, please pray to God that our eyes should open. My king and others brought soldiers into the forest and they were shooting into the air to intimidate them to run away and leave me. I think what God did in response to my prayer was to prepare the way for my rescuers. They ran in different directions as they heard the overwhelming gunshots. I perceive that in the race for death and life, God opened their eyes, but they did not run in the direction the shots were coming from. Since they had run away, I started shouting for the search party to know the direction of where I was. When I came back and people heard the story of what happened, many gave their lives to Christ. I do not even know today whether the kidnappers were among those who gave their lives to Christ. If you do not know, God does his things in mysterious ways. Former National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Timi Frank, on Monday claimed that the presidency has be... Former National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Timi Frank, on Monday claimed that the presidency has been finally caught in what he described as Freudian slip, following the revelations by the Personal Assistant to the President on Social Media Lauretta Onochie and the Presidents campaign spokesman, Festus Keyamo, regarding their principal and the former Chief Justice of the Federation, CJN, Walter Onnoghen. Former National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Timi Frank, on Monday claimed that the presidency has been finally caught in what he described as Freudian slip, following the revelations by the Personal Assistant to the President on Social Media Lauretta Onochie and the Presidents campaign spokesman, Festus Keyamo, regarding their principal and the former Chief Justice of the Federation, CJN, Walter Onnoghen. Frank said that unconsciously, the statement credited to Onochie that the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, had a plan to annul the February 23, 2019, Presidential election and hand over a default victory to the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar, is an admission and a corroboration of what we have always known: That the persecution of Justice Walter Onnoghen was politically motivated and was not done in good faith, but was an attack on an innocent man by the Buhari administration in its plan to thwart the will of the Nigerian people. While reacting to both Kayamo and Onochies statements, Frank recalled that on Monday, April 15, 2019, that the former had said, The Atikus plan was for Justice Onnoghen to annul the results of 17 major states won by President Buhari, thereby giving victory to you guessed who, yes, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. But Justice Onnoghen confessed to crimes against our nation. In a statement he forwarded, Frank further said that the above statement was, prima facie evidence that the Buhari government never planned to hold credible elections and that they are using the state to sponsor an attack on the judiciary in order to cow the learned justices into giving a judgment favourable to President Buhari. Nigerians may recall that the petition used to suspend Justice Onnoghen was written by one Dennis Aghanya, who is a former spokesman to President Buhari and is presently one of his confidantes. Nigerians may further recall that the Code of Conduct Bureau received the petition on Saturday, January 12, 2019, which is normally a day that the judiciary does not function. It would further be recalled that the Code of Conduct Bureau acted on the matter on Monday, January 14, 2019 and that never in the history of the Code of Conduct Bureau has a petition been given such breathtaking accelerated speed to the extent that the Code of Conduct Tribunal admitted that it had not finished investigating the case before it charged Justice Onnoghen before the Code of Conduct Tribunal. While calling on the international community to quickly intervene, Frank said: Mr Dennis Aghanyas and Miss Onochies actions are enough evidence for the international community to intervene on the side of the Nigerian people and the judiciary lest the brinksmanship of the Buhari administration leads the nation to the precipice. Already, the desperation of this government has seen them advance a ridiculous defence to the petition of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to the Election Petition Tribunal, to the effect that Atiku Abubakar is not a Nigerian and that President Buhari does not need a West African Examinations Certificate (school leaving certificate) to contest for the Presidency. Yet, this same All Progressive Congress is challenging the competency of Senator Ademola Adeleke of Osun State on the grounds that he has no WAEC certificate. Gov. Kashim Shettima of Borno says former governors in the ninth National Assembly have endorsed the candidature of Sen. Ahmed Lawan for... Gov. Kashim Shettima of Borno says former governors in the ninth National Assembly have endorsed the candidature of Sen. Ahmed Lawan for the seat of Senate President. Shettima, who confirmed this development when he fielded questions from newsmen in NDjamena, Chad, said the affected senators-elect had also endorsed Rep. Femi Gbajabiamila for the position of Speaker of the House Representatives. The governor also revealed that all the Senators-elect and House of Representatives members-elect from Borno state have endorsed candidature of Lawan and Gbajabiamila. He, therefore, dismissed the insinuation in some quarters that former governors in the national assembly were against the election of Lawan and Gbajabiamila as leaders of the two chambers of the national assembly. According to Shettima, the only way APC governors can show appreciation to President Buhari is for them to support his programmes and political decisions. All our governors including those coming to the Senate are 100 per cent in support of our partys stance as far as the election of new leadership for the national assembly is concerned. As far as Borno is a concern, we are in alignment with the aspirations of Mr President and that of our party. Whoever the party endorses for any position, we will solely stand behind such a person because party discipline is absolutely essential for the sustainability of our democratic experiment. If everyone is to vote according to his own free will surely that would be a recipe for disaster or confusion. So, we have to align ourselves with the aspirations of the president, he said. The governor, who was part of President Buharis entourage to a meeting of member nations of the Community of Sahel Saharan States (CEN SAD) in NDjamena, expressed the hope that the body would come out with lasting solutions to the challenges of insecurity in the affected areas. Nigerian actress, Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde has been quite vocal in her criticism of the Nigerian government and the state of the country i... Nigerian actress, Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde has been quite vocal in her criticism of the Nigerian government and the state of the country in recent times. The mother of four has taken to social media once again to call out the current administration led by President Muhammadu Buhari and vice-president Yemi Osinbajo. The multiple award-winning star stated that Nigeria is hellish under the watch of both Buhari and Osinbajo. She lamented the continuous killings going on in the country as recently witnessed in Zamfara State. She also complained about the lack of circulation of money which is giving citizens a hard time. She tweeted: The country under your watch is hellish! @YOsibanjo @MBuhari @NGRPresident The lack of money in circulation, now coupled with the continuous assault and killings by uniformed men will make this country implode!!! It is unbearable! Do something! Insecurity! Fear and desperation everywhere. Rachael Daniel, one of the parents of the abducted students of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno state, has pleaded with Abub... Rachael Daniel, one of the parents of the abducted students of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno state, has pleaded with Abubakar Shekau, the factional leader of Boko Haram, to release Rose Daniel, her daughter, who has been in captivity since 2014. She made the appeal on Sunday when parents of the abducted schoolgirls converged on Maiduguri, Borno state capital, in company of other parents, whose children were abducted by Boko Haram. The abduction of my daughter has left so much pain in my heart. I lost my husband and I am left to carter for six other children, Racheal said. Hamsatu Allamin, executive director of Allamin foundation for peace and development, an NGO, said the campaign was to raise awareness on cases of abduction by Boko Haram. She said insurgents were targeting women and girls and destroying the society in the process. Allamin said abduction of girls in the north-east began years back after the arrest of the wives of the insurgents by the military. She narrated how the women were detained in Giwa barrack in Maiduguri. Allamin added that Shekau issued a number of statements where he threatened revenge on government officials. Since you are now holding our women, just wait and see what will happen to your own women. to your own wives according to Sharia law, she quoted Shekau to have said. On December 12, 2012, large number of women (in hundreds) converged on front of the Zenith Bank near the Government House and Diamond Bank along Baga road (they were said to collect their share of N10,000 economic empowerment grant. On their way back, one vehicle conveying such women was reported to have been taken away long Damboa Biu road, till date nobody accounted for them. Four days after, a small community behind Dalori quarters, Wadiya was attacked at night, women and youths were taken away. IDPs from the irrigation farming and fishing communities around Lake Alau, particularly those from kayamla and environs narrated how several girls were taken, telling them that since your parents do not want to marry you out, we are taking you as wives. On 17th September 2013, when gunmen in military uniforms blocked the highway leading to Damaturu (at Benishek), women and some young men were sorted out and taken away. A number of Fulani women and girls were taken away from their nomadic settlements around Buni Yadi in Yobe. The 276 schoolgirls abducted from the Government Secondary School, Chibok on April 14 was the first to be ever reported, and it drew international outrage. Meanwhile, Ayuba Alamson, another parent, said six members of his family were abducted by Boko Haram when they raided the school in April 2014. According to him, three girls were released by the group after a negotiation was reached with the government while the rest are still in captivity. He lamented that about 18 parents have died of frustration and heart attack following the kidnap of their daughters by the insurgents. He pleaded with the state, federal governments, United Nations and other relevant stakeholders not to relent in their efforts toward making sure that the girls are released. Secondary School, Dapchi, Yobe state. Alamson also appealed to the government not to also forget Leah Sharibu, the only Christian girl who was held back by Boko Haram after the abduction at Government GirlsSecondary School, Dapchi, Yobe state. They were long queues at the gas station such as NNPC Mega station, Total, Oando and A.A Rano among others. Some of the residents... They were long queues at the gas station such as NNPC Mega station, Total, Oando and A.A Rano among others. Some of the residents who spoke to the newsmen said it came upon them without any signal. A motorist Sani Ali said. We woke up this morning to discover the fuel scarcity without any sign. Many other petrol stations in the metropolis were not selling the commodity. A black marketer, Hassan said the Jerry can of petrol he hitherto bought at N4,500 rose to N5,200. The price of a small container of fuel called Litre Gaye which previously sold at N80 increased to N100, that of N100 went to N120 while the one that was N200 was sold at N250. Hassan noted, the fuel started getting scarce yesterday night and you can see the situation today. A commercial motorcyclists Adamu Musa said they had to increase the fares as they got the fuel from black marketers. I cannot wait in the queue to get fuel because it is a waste of time and since I bought the commodity at an increased rate, I had to hike my fare depending on the distance, for instance, a drop that was N100 went to N150, that of N50 rose between N60-N70. Ningbo economic and trade delegation warms up China-CEEC Expo in Slovakia Details Category: Governmental News Published: Monday, 15 April 2019 14:44 On April 9th, local time, Ningbo economic and trade delegation participated in the Slovak-Ningbo Economic and Trade Cooperation Fair held in Bratislava, Slovakia. More than 20 representatives of Chinese enterprises and more than 80 business representatives of Slovakia participated in the conference. It is reported that this is the first time that the economic and trade delegation of Ningbo visited Central and Eastern Europe after the China-CEEC Expo was upgraded to a national exhibition. This exchange will become an important part of the trade promotion work of Ningbo 16+1 economic and trade cooperation demonstration zone. As the first guest country of honor after the promotion of the Expo, Slovakia has deepened its cooperation with Ningbo in the areas of government exchanges, trade, education, culture and tourism in recent years. Slovakia is one of the fastest growing economies in the EU in recent years. It has a good investment environment and labor resources. It is also an important country along the Belt and Road and has a special appeal to Chinese investors. In 2018, the total import and export volume of Ningbo and Slovakia reached US$146 million, a year-on-year increase of 58.5%. The export value was US$108 million, a year-on-year increase of 36.9%; the import value was US$38 million, an increase of 184.9% year-on-year. At the meeting, the delegation introduced the first China-Central and Eastern European Countries Expo and International Consumer Goods Expo and the construction of the "16+1" economic and trade cooperation demonstration zone, and invited domestic and foreign enterprises to visit Ningbo, discuss cooperation, and invest in entrepreneurship